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In the late nineties a duo that called itself Ghazal issued an album that, out of the blue, got the high critics of the American media singing. For several years, at irregular intervals the little group issued more records that continued to win hearts that otherwise would have had no interest in eastern music. Now disbanded, Ghazal’s contribution to that unwieldy commercial genre of “world music” is but a footnote. But for those handful of years when they were active, Ghazal made some truly enchanting music. The critics, in their rave-ups about the records, often commented on “two very different musical traditions” coming together to produce this unique sound. Kayhan Kalhor, Iran’s best-known musician in the West brought his virtuosity on the kamancheh (Persian violin) together with the equally splendid sitar work of Shujaat Husain Khan (the son of grand master Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan). But for listeners from India, the music of Ghazal was nowhere as odd as mixing Hindustani classical and jazz or African rhythms with tablas. Rather it was somehow organic, with roots that burrowed deeply into the consciousness of South Asians from the northern parts of the subcontinent. The sound Ghazal created, like the best of all “fused” traditions, was new yet powerfully familiar. Ghazal at first glance might seem a rather bold name for the group, given the almost commonplace nature of the popular genre. Yet, the vision of Kalhor and Khan was grand ‒ to create a glorious sonic ambience. They tried to construct a true mahaul-e-mausiqi that evoked a time when the Silk Road was the main connector of cultures and when Safavid Persia and Mughal India were the dominant forces of the Orient. The poetic ghazal form, of course, is one that is beloved in Iran as well as Pakistan/India/Bangladesh and has always blended subcontinental sensibilities with Persianised vocabulary and adornments. So all in all, these guys knew what they were about. Yes, Ghazal was indeed, an expansive, ambitious project but in these clips it is hard to argue that they didn’t succeed. The Rain (Live) Play The kamancheh, which is related to the rubab and the hoary Indian instrument saaz-i-kashmir, is among the most beautiful instruments that is played in all those countries influenced heavily by Persian culture (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Kurdistan). Traditionally the instrument had three strings made of silk but modern ones employ four steel strings, which give it a bold clear sound. It is played with a bow (hence its reference to being a violin of sorts). Kayhan Kalhor is a Kurdish Iranian who began playing the kamancheh at the age of seven. Formally trained in the radif tradition (loosely similar to the Indian raga-based system of musical organisation), he also learned European classical music in Italy and Canada. An artist with an inquisitive nature and collaborative mentality he has performed not only with giants of Iran like Shahjarian, but with cellist Yo Yo Ma and the Kronos Quartet. Traces of the Beloved Play Shujaat Khan imbibed the sounds of the sitar from one of the very greatest Indian sitarists, Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan. He met Kalhor in New York and was instantly drawn to the idea of blending the musics of the two great traditions. In this track, in addition to some spectacular playing, Shujaat adds vocalisations that are almost scat-like. But rather than being non-intelligible sounds, they bring out the main event, which in this case is the instrumental music. Khan sahib sings in a languid way, not bothering to enunciate with great clarity (a key success factor of commercial ghazal singers) but rather to enhance the mood. As you listen to his singing, you can’t help but conjure up a dark room somewhere along the Silk Road, where merchants and pilgrims have gathered to listen to a passing troupe of troubadours and Sufis. Like the dark kohl that accentuates the eyes, this singing brings the beauty of the music into high and intense relief. You are My Moon Play From Ghazal’s debut album, which put them on the map of the musical pundits of New York. This column was first published in September 2014

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah political party on Tuesday opened its first congress since 2009 in a bid to direct the party's future. As one of the first moves at the convention, Abbas was unanimously re-elected as party leader for a new five-year term. The five-day meeting in Ramallah is also expected to see the election of members of Fatah's parliament and its central committee, which will largely signal the direction the party is expected to take. "The system from the 1960s no longer works in 2016," former intelligence chief and Fatah central committee member Jibril Rajoub told AFP news agency. "We have to take into account the current circumstances. The current system was created when we were in the diaspora, and we are now on national soil. It was put in place at a revolutionary stage. Now we have a state," he added. Abbas succession in question While steering the vision of the party is up for discussion during the convention, questions of who will succeed Abbas are expected to be sidelined. The 81-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority, which runs the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has not signaled that he will be stepping aside. However, a deputy - and potential successor - may be named during the congress. Abbas is due to speak to some 1,400 delegates on Tuesday evening. Fatah was created in 1964 in Jerusalem, bringing together the principal Palestinian nationalist movements as the main component of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Watch video 26:02 Share Naftali Bennett on Conflict Zone Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/1H0K3 Israel's Naftali Bennett \| Conflict Zone ls/tj (AFP, AP, dpa)

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Pentagon plans to carry out more training with European allies The Pentagon is to propose quadrupling its budget for European defence in 2017 in the light of "Russian aggression", US Defence Secretary Ash Carter says. He described Russia as a growing challenge for the US. Relations between Russia and the West have plummeted since Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. The Pentagon will also propose a 50% increase in spending on the campaign against so-called Islamic State (IS). Mr Carter said US forces engaged in an air campaign against IS in Iraq and Syria were "starting to run low" on laser-guided missiles and "smart bombs". Moving closer to a new Cold War Nato bolsters Eastern Europe "So we're investing $1.8bn (£1.2bn) in 2017 to buy over 45,000 more of them," he said in a speech to the Economic Club of Washington. On Europe, Mr Carter said increased funds would allow greater numbers of troops to be deployed to European bases, as well as more training and exercises with allies. "We're taking a strong and balanced approach to deter Russian aggression," he said. "We haven't had to worry about this for 25 years, and while I wish it were otherwise, now we do." Image copyright AP Image caption Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 caused alarm in Eastern Europe The Pentagon's proposed 2017 defence budget will include $3.4bn for its European Reassurance Initiative - up from $789m for the current budget year. The initiative is to demonstrate US commitment to its Nato allies in Europe amid increasing concern about Russia's intentions after its military involvement in Ukraine. On a trip to Eastern Europe last year, Mr Carter announced that the US would position 250 tanks, armoured vehicles and other military equipment across six former Soviet bloc nations. Image copyright Reuters Image caption US warplanes are among those targeting IS in Syria and Iraq He also pledged more weapons, aircraft and troops for Nato's new rapid reaction force. As well as Russia, Mr Carter highlighted Chinese assertiveness over disputed islands in the South China Sea as a growing concern for the US. "Key to our approach is being able to deter our most advanced competitors," he said. "We must have - and be seen to have - the ability to impose unacceptable costs on an advanced aggressor that will either dissuade them from taking provocative action or make them deeply regret it if they do." Mr Carter also said the Pentagon aimed to spend $8.1bn on undersea warfare systems in 2017 and more than $40bn over the next five years. He was speaking a week ahead of the formal rollout of the Pentagon's 2017 budget. Overall, the administration is to seek $582.7bn for the next financial year, compared with $585bn for the current year.

Donald Trump Jr. at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 19, 2016. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images In the tradition of the Clintonometer and the Trump Apocalypse Watch, the Impeach-O-Meter is a wildly subjective and speculative daily estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump leaves office before his term ends, whether by being impeached (and convicted) or by resigning under threat of same. Here’s what I wrote in this space yesterday: I can’t keep raising the likelihood of Trump’s impeachment every time some piece of damaging news about his campaign’s conduct and/or dishonesty comes out, because pretty soon the meter would be at like 700 percent. So, in the spirit of Zeno’s Paradox, I am declaring a semi-arbitrary rule that the meter can’t go over 60 until 1) rank-and-file Republican politicians start admitting that the Trump campaign may have engaged in collusion or 2) any official investigative body (special counsel, congressional committees) issues a report that says as much. Until that point, each scandalous news item will only get us halfway there. It turns out that the official investigative body that ended up issuing evidence of collusion … was Donald Trump’s son. Sixty percent it is!

CONTACT: Jade Boyd PHONE: 713-348-6778 E-MAIL: jadeboyd@rice.edu Mother of all humans lived 200,000 years ago Rice statisticians confirm date of ‘mitochondrial Eve’ with new method The most robust statistical examination to date of our species’ genetic links to “mitochondrial Eve” — the maternal ancestor of all living humans — confirms that she lived about 200,000 years ago. The Rice University study was based on a side-by-side comparison of 10 human genetic models that each aim to determine when Eve lived using a very different set of assumptions about the way humans migrated, expanded and spread across Earth. The research is available online in the journal Theoretical Population Biology. “Our findings underscore the importance of taking into account the random nature of population processes like growth and extinction,” said study co-author Marek Kimmel, professor of statistics at Rice. “Classical, deterministic models, including several that have previously been applied to the dating of mitochondrial Eve, do not fully account for these random processes.” The quest to date mitochondrial Eve (mtEve) is an example of the way scientists probe the genetic past to learn more about mutation, selection and other genetic processes that play key roles in disease. “This is why we are interested in patterns of genetic variability in general,” Kimmel said. “They are very important for medicine.” For example, the way scientists attempt to date mtEve relies on modern genetic techniques. Genetic profiles of random blood donors are compared, and based upon the likenesses and differences between particular genes, scientists can assign a number that describes the degree to which any two donors are related to one another. Using mitochondrial genomes to gauge relatedness is a way for geneticists to simplify the task of finding common ancestors that lived long ago. That is because the entire human genome contains more than 20,000 genes, and comparing the differences among so many genes for distant relatives is problematic, even with today’s largest and fastest supercomputers. But mitochondria — the tiny organelles that serve as energy factories inside all human cells — have their own genome. Besides containing 37 genes that rarely change, they contain a “hypervariable” region, which changes fast enough to provide a molecular clock calibrated to times comparable to the age of modern humanity. Because each person’s mitochondrial genome is inherited from his or her mother, all mitochondrial lineages are maternal. To infer mtEve’s age, scientists must convert the measures of relatedness between random blood donors into a measure of time. “You have to translate the differences between gene sequences into how they evolved in time,” said co-author Krzysztof Cyran, vice head of the Institute of Informatics at Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland. “And how they evolved in time depends upon the model of evolution that you use. So, for instance, what is the rate of genetic mutation, and is that rate of change uniform in time? And what about the process of random loss of genetic variants, which we call genetic drift?” Within each model, the answers to these questions take the form of coefficients — numeric constants that are plugged into the equation that returns the answer for when mtEve lived. Each model has its own assumptions, and each assumption has mathematical implications. To further complicate matters, some of the assumptions are not valid for human populations. For example, some models assume that population size never changes. That is not true for humans, whose population has grown exponentially for at least several thousand generations. Other models assume perfect mixing of genes, meaning that any two humans anywhere in the world have an equal chance of producing offspring. Cyran said human genetic models have become more complex over the past couple of decades as theorists have tried to correct for invalid assumptions. But some of the corrections — like adding branching processes that attempt to capture the dynamics of population growth in early human migrations — are extremely complex. Which raises the question of whether less complex models might do equally well in capturing what’s occurring. “We wanted to see how sensitive the estimates were to the assumptions of the models,” Kimmel said. “We found that all of the models that accounted for random population size — such as different branching processes — gave similar estimates. This is reassuring, because it shows that refining the assumptions of the model, beyond a certain point, may not be that important in the big picture.” The research was supported by grants from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. It has resulted from a standing collaboration between Rice University and Silesian University of Technology.

As if to further cement his mockery of Christian voters, Trump met with Christian leaders in Orlando, Florida and basically equated worldly power as the price of admission to Heaven. “For evangelicals, for the Christians, for the everybody, for everybody of religion, this will be, may be, the most important election that our country has ever had,” Trump told a “Pastors in the Pews” meeting of evangelical leaders in Orlando. “And once I get in, I will do my thing that I do very well. And I figure it is probably, maybe the only way I’m going to get to heaven. So I better do a good job.” Trump told the assembled evangelicals that he desperately needed their help in order to win the White House in November, calling on the pastors to get out the vote in their congregation. He said he needed the help especially in swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Trump said religious voters could swing the entire election his way. “…I will do my thing that I do very well.” – I have no idea what that means. Is he talking about adultery? Bankruptcy? Cheating the little man and creditors out of their pay? Either way, those won’t get him to Heaven, and if those Christian leaders who were witness to this talk in Orlando didn’t feel uneasy after listening to his word salad, then I don’t know if it’s a case of a dulled heart and discernment, or if they just don’t care. In pandering to the religious right, Trump has repeatedly promised to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which keeps pastors from promoting candidates from the pulpit. This meeting was no different, as he spent the first 40 minutes or so, doing just that. He also mentioned his difficulty breaking through in Utah and with Mormons, who rightly view him with suspicion. He pointed a finger at Christians who did not turn out to vote for Mitt Romney in 2012. “Honestly, you did not vote for Romney. Had you voted for Romney, it would have been much closer,” he said. “You did not vote for Romney. Evangelicals, religion, did not get out and vote. And I don’t know why. Whatever the reason, I’m not sure why.” If I’m decoding his bizarre speech patterns correctly, he’s asking why Christians didn’t get out and vote for Romney (for some, it was because they don’t trust Mormons, and for others, it was because Romney is, at best, a moderate squish). He does have a point, however. Romney would have been a far-sight better than Obama, and those same Christians that wouldn’t vote for a Mormon are flocking to vote for a foul-mouthed, abusive con man, who is neither Mormon or Christian, and displays nothing resembling Christian faith or principles. “You have to get the people in your churches. You have to get them to go out and vote. Whether you have bus drives, do whatever you have to do,” Trump said. “You have a chance to do something that will be Earth shaking. I literally mean it. Earth shaking. You’ve got to get your people out to vote.” Literally Earth shaking. Again, he may have a point, as I am just about convinced that if Christians betray their faith and vote for this man, the earth may very well open up and swallow them all.

UPDATED 12/12/16: Just to underline the extraordinary implausibility of Blaine Alan Gibson’s finds, I’ve taken the extra step of putting in bold the three (3) separate occasions when Gibson hit the jackpot with a one-in-a-million stroke of luck. See if you can spot them below. My personal favorite is the one with the ATV. On December 8, 2016, the Twitter account voice370 (@cryfortruth) Tweeted the following: Another piece of potential debris washed up the shore and found by B.A. Gibson on the same beach where NOK Jiang found a piece yesterday. pic.twitter.com/PdXCkYX4oI — voice370 (@cryfortruth) December 9, 2016 In a Facebook post the same day, Grace Subathirai Nathan (one of the NOK on the current debris-finding expedition to Madagascar) posted about the same find: Another piece of debris found earlier today. This time by private citizen Blaine Alan Gibson while he was with two French journalists Pierre Chabert and Renaud Fessaguet. He walked past the spot on the beach where next of kin Jiang Hui found a piece yesterday and nothing was there then 30 mins later on the way back the waves washed the piece on debris to the shore. This just goes to show that debris can be there one minute and gone the next and vice versa. She included some of the images that were also in the Tweet, among them this one: I’ve already written in the comment section of the preceding post that I find it quite extraordinary that a purported piece of MH370 apparently washed up on the shore within half an hour of Blaine’s passing by the spot. The ocean is vast, the number of pieces of MH370 necessarily limited. The odds of finding a piece of the plane on any given stretch of sand is very small; the odds of finding something that washed ashore within the last half hour must be infinitesmal. One would also would not expect a newly washed-ashore piece of debris to be free of biofouling, as I’ve discussed before. Something that just came out of the ocean, if free of biofouling, must have spent time ashore, gotten picked clean, then washed back out to sea, only to come ashore again within a few days. Truly miraculous. I’ve voiced suspicions in the past about Gibson’s self-financed investigation. He said that he found his first piece of MH370 debris, so-called “No Step,” 20 minutes after starting his first beach search. Though it was found on a sand bar that is awash at high tide, it, too, was remarkably free of biofouling. Since then, he has found more than half of the pieces of suspected debris. All have have been completely innocent of marine life. His finds have excited remarkably little enthusiasm among the authorities; the Malaysians waited six months to retrieve one batch, and then only made that effort after their inaction was the subject of unflattering news stories. Gibson is clearly an eccentric; before he found “No Step” he was bouncing around the Indian Ocean littoral, investigating crackpot theories and making himself known to the authorities and next-of-kin. In the past he has, he says, tried to find the Ark of the Covenant. A recent article in the Guardian had this bit: Blaine Gibson, a lawyer turned investigator who arrived on Madagascar six months ago, said he has seen debris from the plane used to fan a kitchen fire by a nine-year-old girl on the island. “It was light and it was solid and it was part of the plane,” said Gibson, 59. “When I put the word out around the village, another guy turned up with another piece he had been using as a washing board for clothes.” Are we to believe that he walked up on a girl fanning a fire and, lo and behold, she happened to be fanning it with a piece of MH370? Instead of any of a billion suitable small, light, flat objects that exist in the world? What’s more, I am troubled by Gibson’s suggestion that the residents of this region are so materially impoverished that they would eagerly size on any scrap of material that comes their way and put it to immediate use—to incorporate into a shelter, to burn for fuel, to fan a fire with, or to use as a washboard. In fact I find this idea rather bonkers. Some people feel that it is unacceptable to question Blaine Alan Gibson; they say that he has inspired and given hope to the next-of-kin. As I’ve said before, I feel that if we are going to solve this mystery, we have to put every piece of evidence under intense scrutiny, regardless of however someone may or may not feel emotionally about that scrutiny. Indeed, I find the fact that Gibson and his associates try to aggressively silence questions about his finds even more arousing of suspicion. UPDATE 12/11/16: A couple of points I’d like to add to the above: — In September, Gibson enlisted the aid of Australian aviation journalist Geoffrey Thomas in claiming that two pieces of debris that he’d found likely came from the electronics bay, showed evidence of fire damage, and therefore supported the hypothesis that the plane had come to grief due to an accidental fire. This theory, while favored by some, is very much at odds with other evidence in the case. Australian authorities responded by saying that “contrary to speculation there is no evidence the item was exposed to heat or fire.” — More on Gibson’s background from SeattleMet: For the next 25 years, Gibson lived a life that could be described as unconventionally adventurous. After a short stint at Seafirst, he moved to Olympia and worked for three years in the office of Washington state senator Ray Moore. Then he joined the U.S. Department of State. But he didn’t last long there either; in the late ’80s he could see that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and decided to capitalize on it. For 10 years he lived off and on in the newly capitalist Russia, serving as a consultant to new business owners and fattening a bank account that would later fund his globe-trotting. When I interviewed him after the “No Step” find, he told me that he speaks fluent Russian. — Based on the total quantity of debris found in the last year and a half, one observes that the pieces turn up quite infrequently. Yet Gibson has now twice found debris with a camera crew present. In June he found three pieces while accompanied by a crew from the France 2 TV show “Complément d’enquête.” From the same SeattleMet piece: In the first week of June he did, in fact, go to Madagascar. And on June 6 he led a French television news crew to a thin strip of land off the island’s east coast. They rode quads along the beach, and at the north end he signaled for the party to stop. The camera crew had a good reason to follow him: He is, to this day, still the only person to find a piece of Flight 370 while actually looking for it. And he’d done enough research to have a good idea where he might find more. But come on, it was still a one-in-a-million find. There’s no way he’d actually uncover another. Right? With the cameras trained on him, Gibson dismounted and started walking. And as he got closer to the object that had caught his eye, he could see that it was gray fiberglass. It was almost a clone of No Step. Later, he found a handful of other pieces, one of which looked exactly like the housing for a seat-back TV monitor. He couldn’t be sure, but he had a pretty good idea they came from Flight 370. To recap, Blaine and a TV crew rode in ATVs along the beach until he signaled them to stop, got out, and pointed to a piece of MH370 debris. Holy. Shit. — This is the piece that NOK Jiang Hui found the day before Blaine discovered his on the same beach. Again, pretty clean: — Note: I’ve take out a paragraph in the original in which I said that the location of the debris in the sand appears to be way too far from the water to have washed up there within the last half hour. Several commenters pointed out that the piece appears to straddle the wet/dry line demarcating the high water mark, and I concede that point. UPDATE 12/12/16: There’s a story in Der Spiegel today about a tree trunk that washed up in New Zealand. The remarkable size and density of these organisms is so striking that this entirely natural phenomenon struck those who came upon it as something fantastical and alien. I bring this up to emphasize how extraordinary it is that all the debris recovered by Blaine Alan Gibson, and indeed all of the suspected pieces of MH370 debris save two, have been recovered in a nearly pristine state. Yes, objects which spend some time ashore can become picked clean in time. But many of the pieces of debris recovered so far have been found within hours of being deposited. As I’ve previously written in some detail, such pieces would be expected to be colonized by a variety of marine organisms. If you look at galleries of objects which have washed ashore after having spent a similar amount of time at sea, such as tsunami debris collected in the US Northwest and Hawaii, it collectively looks very, very different from MH370 debris. Don’t take my word for it; there are links to such image galleries at the end of the piece linked above.

In humans and other primates, the prefrontal cortex is the seat of high-level functions such as learning, decision making, and planning. Neuroscientists have long wondered whether neurons in that part of the brain are specialized for one type of task or if they are “generalists” — that is, able to participate in many functions. A new study from MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory comes down in favor of the generalist theory. MIT professor Earl Miller and others in his lab showed that when they trained monkeys to perform two different categorization tasks, about half of the neurons involved could switch between the two. The findings, reported in the June 10 issue of the journal Neuron, suggest that neurons of the prefrontal cortex have a much greater ability to adapt to different cognitive demands than neurons in other parts of the brain. These results support ideas about the malleability of neurons — nervous-system cells that process and transmit information — that Miller first proposed a decade ago. Miller, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, says he’s not surprised by the findings. “We have a lot of mental flexibility,” he says. “We can change our topic of conversation, we can change what we’re thinking about. Some part of the brain has to have that flexibility on a neural level.” Listening to single neurons Most neuroscientists who study brain activity in monkeys train the animals on only one task, so until now it had been impossible to reveal whether single neurons in the prefrontal cortex could be involved in more than one job. In previous studies, Miller has shown that when monkeys are trained to categorize animals by distinguishing cats from dogs, some neurons in the prefrontal cortex become tuned to the concept of “cat” while others respond to the idea of “dog.” This time, Miller, postdoctoral fellow Jason Cromer, and research scientist Jefferson Roy trained the monkeys to perform two different categorization tasks — distinguishing cats from dogs and sedans from sports cars. They recorded activity from about 500 neurons in the monkeys’ prefrontal cortex as the animals switched back and forth between the tasks. Although they found that some neurons were more attuned to car images and others to animal images, they also identified many neurons that were active during both tasks. In fact, these “multitasking” neurons were best at making correct identifications in both categories. The findings suggest that neurons in the prefrontal cortex have a unique ability to adapt to different tasks, says Miller. In other parts of the brain, earlier research has shown, most neurons are highly specialized. Neurons in the visual cortex, for example, are programmed to respond to very specific inputs, such as a vertical line or a certain color. Some have even been shown to fire only in response to one particular face. “Our results suggest that the prefrontal cortex is different from the sensory cortex and the motor cortex. It’s highly plastic,” says Miller. “That’s important, because it means the human brain has the capacity to absorb a lot of information.” The Neuron study focused on two categorization tasks, but Miller hopes to run another study in which the monkeys learn a third task involving some other cognitive function. That could give another hint about how much information our brains can handle, says David Freedman, an assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago. “We’re very good at learning dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of categories,” he says. “You wonder if there is some limit, or would these neurons be as flexible as we are as observers?” Freedman says he would also be interested to see whether the same prefrontal-cortex neurons can multitask between activities that involve different kinds of sensory inputs — for example, a visual task and an auditory task. Overstimulation Meanwhile, Miller has a study under way that he believes could demonstrate a biological basis for the impaired categorization ability often seen in people with autism. Autistic children often have a hard time understanding that two slightly different objects — for example, a red toothbrush and a blue toothbrush — both belong to the same category. Miller theorizes that an evolutionarily older part of the brain, known as the basal ganglia, gathers information about new objects, and the prefrontal cortex learns how to categorize them. “The basal ganglia learn the pieces of the puzzle, and the prefrontal cortex puts the pieces together,” he says. In his current study, Miller is monitoring brain activity in monkeys as they learn a categorization task. He expects to find a sharp peak in prefrontal-cortex activity at the moment when the monkeys learn that certain objects belong to the same category. Eventually, he hopes to show that in autism, the balance between those two brain regions is thrown off: there is either too much activity in the basal ganglia or not enough in the prefrontal cortex.

^ Forrest J. Ackerman; Brad Linaweaver (2004). Worlds of Tomorrow: The Amazing Universe of Science-fiction Art. Collectors Press, Inc. p. 12. ISBN 9781888054934. He was Uncle Forry. He made a career out of understanding that the eye is the window to the soul. He was the atheist with a sense of wonder and a love of childhood. He felt the same emotions as deeply religious and sentimental people, which was an unusual quality for the true materialist. ^ "I am a radical Atheist..." Adams in an interview by American Atheists [1] ^ Spirituality, Halo or Hoax - Javedakhtar.com, Spirituality, Halo or Hoax, 26 February 2005. "There are certain things that I would like to make very clear at the very outset. Don’t get carried away by my name – Javed Akhtar. I am not revealing a secret, I am saying something that I have said many times, in writing or on TV, in public...I am an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And obviously I don’t believe in spirituality of some kind. Some kind. "NDIA TODAY CONCLAVE - Saturday, February 26, 2005", retrieved April 4, 2012" ^ "Ben Allah'a inanmam, ben öldüğümde cesedimi yakın, küllerimi savurun. (Eng. I don't believe in God, when I die, burn my remains and scatter my ashes.) ^ Socialist Review November 2006 (accessed April 22, 2008). "It is well known that I am not a religious person, I grew up and remain an atheist [...]". Tariq Ali, Interview: Tariq Ali November 2006 (accessed April 22, 2008). ^ Here Lies, 208). A confirmed atheist, he heard himself saying, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit.' " Michael Barber: 'Ambler, Eric Clifford (1909–1998)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, January 2007 "Once, filming in Italy with the American director John Huston and a US army crew, Ambler and his colleagues were shelled so fiercely that his unconscious 'played a nasty trick on him' (Ambler,, 208). A confirmed atheist, he heard himself saying, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit.' " Michael Barber: 'Ambler, Eric Clifford (1909–1998)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, January 2007 [2] (accessed April 29, 2008). ^ "His son Martin, who led the ceremony, said: "His relationship with the Christian God was not entirely frictionless. In 1962 (the Russian poet) Yevtushenko asked him 'Are you an atheist?'. He replied: 'Well, yes - but it's more that I hate Him'." " John Ezard, 'Secular send-off for an 'old devil' who did not wans too much fuss over his funeral', The Guardian (London), October 23, 1996, p. 8. ^ Moyers and Company, 6 July 2012, Appleman described himself as "not just an atheist but a humanist." On, 6 July 2012, Appleman described himself as "not just an atheist but a humanist." ^ Dismemberment in Drama/Dismemberment of Drama - Chapter Two - The Dismembered Body in Antonin Artaud’s Surrealist Plays. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. "Archived copy" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-01-01 . [3] "Artaud’s theories are phrased in a strongly poetical language that betrays an acute awareness of modernity’s disenchanted life-world, but, at the same time, is obsessed with reviving the supernatural. His profoundly atheist religiosity (if we may call it so) obviously presents great problems to scholarship." Thomas Crombez:. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ^ "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it... I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." Isaac Asimov in "Free Inquiry", Spring 1982, vol.2 no.2, p. 9 ( See Wikiquote .) ^ "Last week, looking through a book about 15th-century painting in Italy, I began to wonder why I loved these paintings so much. Almost all of them are illustrations of religious subjects, and I have been an atheist almost since the day I was confirmed in the Christian faith by the Bishop of Norwich in 1931. To describe the atheism first: it originated in a certainty that I was going to start breaking the rules as laid down by the god I'd been taught about, followed by a suspicion that if his rules were so easy to break he couldn't be all that he was cracked up to be. Then came its firmer base: the observation that many of the most hideous things done to each other by human beings have been done in his name. It can be argued that this is our fault, not God's. But the god we Europeans are supposed to believe in a) created us as well as everything else that is; b) is omnipotent; c) is Love. In which case, one must assume from the evidence rammed down our throats for century after century that he is liable to fits of serious derangement during which he is Not Himself." Diana Athill, 'I'm a believer - but only in a good story', The Guardian, January 21, 2004, Features Pages, Pg. 5. ^ "Rather than tackle Baldwin's atheist stance, Malcolm found a point of departure on the question of identity, stating that he was "proud to be a black man."" Herb Boyd, Baldwin's Harlem: a biography of James Baldwin (2008), page 75. ^ Welch, Frances. "All Praise and Glory to the Mind of Man". Ballard confesses to being an atheist, but adds: "that said, I'm extremely interested in religion... I see religion as a key to all sorts of mysteries that surround the human consciousness." ^ "I'm an evangelical atheist so I'm not into supernatural effects - I hated The Exorcist - but John Carpenter's remake of The Thing is different." 'I was a brain-eating zombie... As the scary season descends [...] famous horror experts choose their most terrifying screen experiences', The Daily Telegraph, October 30, 2004, Arts Pg. 04. ^ "Maclean's interview: Julian Barnes". Maclean. October 29, 2008. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012 . Writer Julian Barnes talks to Kenneth Whyte about his atheism and saints, his parents and what makes for a best death. ^ Huberman, Jack (2007). The Quotable Atheist. Nation Books. p. 31. ISBN 9781560259695. ^ "Evil and Me", Benford; in 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, ed. Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 157-60. ^ The Comfortable Pew, in which as a lifelong atheist he attacked status quo religiosity, outraged churchgoers. But the wider public came to expect to be challenged by Berton's views." Cathryn Atkinson, 'Obituary: Pierre Berton', The Guardian, December 7, 2004, p. 27. "Berton's book,, in which as a lifelong atheist he attacked status quo religiosity, outraged churchgoers. But the wider public came to expect to be challenged by Berton's views." Cathryn Atkinson, 'Obituary: Pierre Berton',, December 7, 2004, p. 27. ^ "Wilfred Scawen Blunt was notorious as an atheist, a libertine, an adventurer and a poet. Somehow he also found time to be a diplomat - one of the earliest in this country to make a real attempt to understand Islam - and an anti-imperialist, becoming the first British-born person to go to jail for Irish independence." Phil Daoust, The Guardian, March 11, 2008, G2: Radio: Pick of the day, p. 32. ^ " "What song would you like played at your funeral?" "We'll Meet Again. I'd like the congregation to join in. As a devout atheist, I should make it clear there are no religious connotations." " Rosanna Greenstreet, 'Q&A: William Boyd', The Guardian, February 3, 2007, Weekend Pages, Pg. 8. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online (accessed August 1, 2008). "Passionate and enthusiastic, Lily was converted to atheism, pacifism, and feminism by Georg von Gizycki, whom she married in 1893." ' Braun, Lily ',(accessed August 1, 2008). ^ James K. Lyon; Hans-Peter Breuer, eds. (1995). Brecht Unbound. University of Delaware Press. p. 120. ISBN 9780874135374. With Stravinsky and Brecht we are juxtaposing an avowedly apolitical artist, rather reactionary in most phases of his life, and a practicing Russian Orthodox with a Marxist and atheist. ^ Reviewing a production of The Romans in Britain, Charles Spencer wrote: "It strikes me as an exceptionally powerful study of the human need for belief in a higher power, notwithstanding the fact that Brenton himself is an atheist. And the dramatist examines the nature of Paul's faith with both sympathy and insight." 'A powerful and thrilling act of heresy', The Daily Telegraph, November 10, 2005, Reviews, Pg. 30. ^ Reviewing Mark Polizzotti's Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton Douglas F. Smith called him, "[a] cynical atheist, the poet, critic, and artist harbored an irrepressible streak of romanticism." ^ Surrealism and Painting. Quotations by the poet: Andre Breton "To speak of God, to think of God, is in every respect to show what one is made of.... I have always wagered against God and I regard the little that I have won in this world as simply the outcome of this bet. However paltry may have been the stake (my life) I am conscious of having won to the full. Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, vile, polluted and grotesque is summoned up for me in that one word: God!" - André Breton, taking from a footnote from his book, ^ Gilson, Étienne (1988). Linguistics and philosophy: an essay on the philosophical constants of language. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-268-01284-7. Breton professed to be an atheist... ^ Browder, Clifford (1967). André Breton: Arbiter of Surrealism. Droz. p. 133. Again, the atheist Breton's predilection for ideas of blasphemy and profanation, as well as for the " demonic " word noir, contained a hint of Satanism and alliance with infernal powers. ^ Black Ship to Hell (1962)] endeavoured to formulate a morality based on reason rather than religion—Brophy described herself as 'a natural, logical and happy atheist' (King of a Rainy Country, afterword, 276)." Peter Parker: 'Brophy, Brigid Antonia [married name Brigid Antonia Levey, Lady Levey] (1929–1995)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2006 "It [her non-fiction book(1962)] endeavoured to formulate a morality based on reason rather than religion—Brophy described herself as 'a natural, logical and happy atheist' (, afterword, 276)." Peter Parker: 'Brophy, Brigid Antonia [married name Brigid Antonia Levey, Lady Levey] (1929–1995)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2006 [4] (accessed April 29, 2008). ^ Reviewing Brownjohn's Collected Poems, Anthony Thwaite wrote: "Brownjohn is 75 at the moment of publication. He has been on the literary scene - publishing, reviewing, judging, chairing, tutoring, giving readings - since the 1950s. He has also been a London borough councillor, a Labour parliamentary candidate (Richmond, Surrey, 1964), very much what I think of as decent, persistent, dogged "Old Labour" - sensitive but solid, inclining towards the puritan (though a self-confessed atheist in matters of religion) - and a strenuous campaigner for serious radio and television, anti-muzak, anti-destruction of libraries, for the proper traditional cultural concerns of the British Council, et al." 'Poetry: The vodka in the verse', The Guardian, October 7, 2006, Review Pages, Pg. 18 ^ "For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our education system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."--Charles Bukowski, Life (magazine) , December 1988, quoted from James A. Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief. ^ Dan Barker (2011). The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God. Ulysses Press. p. 170. ISBN 9781569758465. An essayist who popularized the American romantic view of nature, Burroughs wrote, “When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God.'" In his 1910 journal, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all-that has been my religion." ^ New Jersey Jewish News, September 20, 2007 (accessed 21 April 2008). Bush describes himself as "an atheist who has nevertheless worked intimately in Jewish religious institutions as a writer and editor for much of my adult life." The rabbi and the atheist , September 20, 2007 (accessed 21 April 2008). ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 "By this time she had become an atheist and socialist." Nathalie Blondel: 'Butts , Mary Franeis (1890–1937)',, Oxford University Press, 2004 [5] (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ "Though an atheist, Cabral had a deep, atavistic fear of the devil. When his wife died in 1986, he placed an emblem of Our Lady of Carmen around her neck, saying, in his mocking way, that this would make sure that she went directly to heaven, without being stopped at customs." 'Joao Cabral: His poetry voiced the sufferings of Brazil's poor', The Guardian, October 18, 1999, Leader Pages; p. 18. ^ He stated in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School students: "Most students ... wish to know whether I believe in the existence of God or in immortality, and if so why. They regard it impossible to leave these matters unsettled – or at least extremely detrimental to religion not to have the basis of such conviction. Now for my part I do not find it impossible to leave them open.... I can describe myself as no ardent theist or atheist." - Henry Cadbury, "My Personal Religion" , republished on the Quaker Universalist Fellowship website. ^ Cf. "Political Autobiography of a Young Man" and "Objective Biographical Notice" in Hermit in Paris, 133, 162 ^ Paul Malmont (2011). The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown: A Novel. Simon and Schuster. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-4391-6893-6. For, even though John W. Campbell was an avowed atheist, when the most powerful ed at Street & Smith lost his temper, he put the fear of God into others. ^ David Simpson writes that Camus affirmed "a defiantly atheistic creed." Albert Camus (1913–1960) , The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006, (Accessed June 14, 2007). a b Haught, James A. (1996). 2,000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt. Prometheus Books. pp. 261–262. ISBN 1-57392-067-3. ^ Biagini, Mario, Giosuè Carducci, Mursia, 1976, p. 208. ^ "All the mythic versions of women, from the myth of the redeeming purity of the virgin to that of the healing, reconciling mother, are consolatory nonsenses; and consolatory nonsense seems to me a fair definition of myth, anyway. Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives women emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place." Angela Carter, The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography (1978) p. 5 ^ Anton Pavlovich Chekhov; Simon Karlinsky; Michael Henry Heim (1997). Simon Karlinsky, ed. Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary. Northwestern University Press. p. 13. ISBN 9780810114609. While Anton did not turn into the kind of militant atheist that his older brother Alexander eventually became, there is no doubt that he was a nonbeliever in the last decades of his life. ^ Tabachnikova, Olga (2010). Anton Chekhov Through the Eyes of Russian Thinkers: Vasilii Rozanov, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii and Lev Shestov. Anthem Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-84331-841-5. For Rozanov, Chekhov represents a concluding stage of classical Russian literature at the turn of the centuries, caused by the 'fading' of a thousand' years old Christian tradition which was spiritually feeding this literature. On the one hand, Rozanov regards Chekhov's positivism and atheism as his shortcomings, naming them amongst the reasons of Chekhov's popularity in society. ^ Richard Pevear (2009). Selected Stories of Anton Chekov. Random House Digital, Inc. pp. xxii. ISBN 9780307568281. “In his revelation of those evangelical elements," writes Leonid Grossman, “the atheist Chekhov is unquestionably one of the most Christian poets of world literature." ^ Kirin Narayan (2012). Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226567921. Though Chekhov considered himself an atheist -partly in response to his tyrannically religious father—his childhood familiarity with the rituals and stories of the Russian Orthodox Church pervades many of his stories. ^ "...Stanley [Kubrick] is a Jew and I'm an atheist". Clarke quoted in Jeromy Agel (Ed.) (1970). The Making of Kubrick's 2001: p. 306 ^ "We can only guess what Clodd would have thought of having an evangelical preacher owning his old house: he was a noted atheist, who rejected his parents' ambition for him to become a Baptist minister in favour of becoming chairman of the Rationalist Press Association. His contribution to literature was in popularising the work of Charles Darwin and other evolutionary scientists in the face of opposition from the church. "The story of creation," wrote Clodd, " is the story of gas into genius"." Rose Gibbs, 'A religious conversion', The Sunday Telegraph, August 14, 2005, Section: House & Home, Pg. 004. ^ Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997), J.M. Coatzee writes of himself: "Though he himself is an atheist and has always been one, he feels he understands Jesus better" than his religious teacher does. The Nation, vol. 304, no. 18 (June 19/26, 2017), p. 38. The whole review article: pp. 37–38, 40. In his fictionalized autobiography(1997), J.M. Coatzee writes of himself: "Though he himself is an atheist and has always been one, he feels he understands Jesus better" than his religious teacher does. Adam Kirsch , "With Fear and Trembling: The essential Prostestantism of J.M. Coatzee's late fiction",, vol. 304, no. 18 (June 19/26, 2017), p. 38. The whole review article: pp. 37–38, 40. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2006 "For one whose life had been so full of ironies, it was fitting that five priests celebrated a requiem mass for him in Youghal, although he had been a committed atheist." Richard Ingrams: 'Cockburn, (Francis) Claud (1904–1981), rev., Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2006 [6] (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 2, 2008). "An unlikely friendship developed between Reckitt and G. D. H. Cole. Although an unapproachable cold atheist, and at root an anarchist, Cole joined forces with Reckitt, the clubbable, romantic medievalist, archetypal bourgeois, and unswerving Anglican with a dogmatic faith, to found the National Guilds League in 1915." J. S. Peart-Binns, 'Reckitt, Maurice Benington (1888–1980)' , rev.,, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 "Like Margaret Jourdain, and most of her characters who are not fools or knaves, Ivy Compton-Burnett was a firm atheist, dismissing religion because ‘No good can come of it’ (Spurling, Ivy when Young, 77)." Patrick Lyons: 'Burnett, Dame Ivy Compton- (1884–1969)',, Oxford University Press, 2004 [7] (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ " 'Don't stand any nonsense from the Astors,' Sitwell concluded: prophetic advice, for within a short time of his arrival, Lord Astor was writing to the new literary editor to say that reviewers must combine 'ability and character and high ideals': he was especially worried in case A.L. Rowse proved a 'militant atheist', for 'I am convinced that our great influence in the world is because this country has given a definite place to religion and to free religion, ie Protestantism at that.' Undaunted, Connolly made it plain in his reply that he would not put up with such nonsense: he himself was an atheist, and discerned no difference in behaviour between an English Protestant and an English atheist." Jeremy Lewis, 'Wine, Women, £800 a Year: Nice One, Cyril', The Observer, April 13, 1997, The Observer Review Pages, p. 1. ^ Joseph Conrad: a Biography, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991, ISBN "Like [Joseph] Conrad, [his wife] Jessie was nominally a Catholic but actually an atheist." Jeffrey Meyers,, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991, 0-684-19230-6 , p. 139. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, January 2006 (accessed May 1, 2008). 'Cooper' was the pen name of Harry Hoff. "As a militant atheist he was especially on his guard in churches, and at the wedding of a much younger friend had to be restrained from heckling the bride's clerical uncle, who was delivering an address." D. J. Taylor, 'Hoff, Harry Summerfield (1910–2002)' , online edn, Oxford University Press, January 2006 (accessed May 1, 2008). ^ Quarantine. At the end of writing that book, I was no less of an atheist than I was before, yet it did make me think about my atheism. Thinking about the bleakness of my own atheism, and the inadequacy of the old fashioned kind of atheism when the big events of life-- especially death—came along, made me want to see whether I could come up with a narrative of comfort, a false narrative of comfort, but one that could match the narratives of comfort religions come up with to get you through death and bereavement." Jim Crace, "The impulse of this book came when I was writing. At the end of writing that book, I was no less of an atheist than I was before, yet it did make me think about my atheism. Thinking about the bleakness of my own atheism, and the inadequacy of the old fashioned kind of atheism when the big events of life-- especially death—came along, made me want to see whether I could come up with a narrative of comfort, a false narrative of comfort, but one that could match the narratives of comfort religions come up with to get you through death and bereavement." Jim Crace, Beatrice Interview: Jim Crace , c. 1999 (accessed April 28, 2008). ^ Breaking the Spell], they advance no argument that I, the village atheist, could not have made by the age of 14 (Saint Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence gave me the greatest difficulty, but I had taken Hume to heart on the weakness of the argument from design)." City Journal, Autumn 2007 (accessed April 24, 2008). Criticising the 'New Atheists' (Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, Onfray, Grayling and co.), Dalrymple wrote: "Yet with the possible exception of Dennett's [book], they advance no argument that I, the village atheist, could not have made by the age of 14 (Saint Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence gave me the greatest difficulty, but I had taken Hume to heart on the weakness of the argument from design)." What the New Atheists Don't See , Autumn 2007 (accessed April 24, 2008). ^ Debiprasad Chattopadhyay (1994). "FOUR CALCUTTANS IN DEFENCE OF SCIENTIFIC TEMPER" (PDF) . Indian Journal of History of Science. p. 112 . As contrasted with Bacon, however, Datta's enthusiasm for natural science ultimately led him to become a stark atheist going to the extent of disproving the efficacy of prayer with an ingenious arguments,... permanent dead link ] ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 "As a boy he attended a nonconformist chapel, and later an Anglican church, but in later life was to declare himself an atheist." Meic Stephens: 'Davies, Rhys (1901–1978)',, Oxford University Press, 2004 [8] (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition (accessed July 16, 2008). "Davison died on May 24, 1970 at Greensborough, Melbourne; a lifelong atheist, he was cremated after a secular funeral." Robert Darby, ' Davison, Frank Dalby (1893 - 1970) ',Online Edition (accessed July 16, 2008). ^ D'Souza, Dinesh, What's so great about Christianity, Regnery Publishing, 2007, p. 22. ^ Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond (Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man), in which he declared himself an atheist." 'Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online (accessed August 1, 2008). "De Sade overcame his boredom and anger in prison by writing sexually graphic novels and plays. In July 1782 he finished his), in which he declared himself an atheist." ' Sade, Marquis de. , 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online (accessed August 1, 2008). ^ Non-Jewish Jew, ed. Deutscher)." John McIlroy: 'Deutscher, Isaac (1907–1967)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 "He rejected his father's ambition to make him a rabbi. Instead he became an atheist and, following in the footsteps of Marx, Trotsky, and his countrywoman Rosa Luxemburg, a lifelong 'non-Jewish Jew' (, ed. Deutscher)." John McIlroy: 'Deutscher, Isaac (1907–1967)',, Oxford University Press, 2004 [9] (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ "Friends said Disch had been despondent over ill health and Naylor's death in 2005. Yet he seemed in good humor for a brief Publishers Weekly interview last spring about his most recent book, The Word of God. An outspoken atheist, Disch adopted the deity's perspective to score points on the absurdity of hell and similar numinous postulates. 'One of the wonderful things about being God is you can say such nonsense and it's all true,' he said." Stephen Miller, "Thomas M. Disch, 68, Eclectic Writer of Science Fiction", The New York Sun, July 8, 2008, Obituaries, p. 6. ^ "He does appreciate the new and confident pluralism that has loosened the grip of the Roman Catholic hierarchy on education. His three children attend secular state schools, and he welcomes the widening "rift between Church and state. It has happened, it is happening, and for me that's a great thing. As an atheist, I feel very comfortable in Ireland now." " Boyd Tonkin interviewing Doyle, The Independent (London), September 17, 2004, Features, Pg. 20-21. ^ "But the 21st century has done nothing to prevent two others from the Manchester area from reshaping and modernising the Christmas story -the poet Carol Ann Duffy and the composer Sasha Johnson Manning, who have written 16 new carols. Duffy, brought up a Catholic, pronounces herself an atheist; Johnson Manning is a committed Christian." Geoff Brown, 'O great big town of Manchester', The Times, December 7, 2007, Times2; Pg. 15. ^ "It was also a sign that, though Eagleton is now an atheist, he has not entirely shaken off his religious upbringing. "I attacked Dawkins's book on God because I think he is theologically illiterate. I value my Catholic background very much. It taught me not to be afraid of rigorous thought, for one thing." But it is also because, he insists, Marxism offers the blueprint for a moral society." Paul Vallely, 'Class warrior; The Saturday Profile: Terry Eagleton', The Independent (London), October 13, 2007, Pg. 42. ^ "A Resounding Eco", Time, June 13, 2005, His new book touches on politics, but also on faith. Raised Catholic, Eco has long since left the church. ‘Even though I'm still in love with that world, I stopped believing in God in my 20s after my doctoral studies on St. Thomas Aquinas. You could say he miraculously cured me of my faith,…’ ^ "Tariq likes permanent revolution, whereas I am a libertarian conservative. True, we are both atheists, but Tariq is evangelical while I am benign about religion and think the Throne should be occupied by a member of the Church of England." Ruth Dudley-Edwards, 'Will half of Ireland really back Cameroon? How will a win affect public sentiment? Or a defeat?', The Daily Telegraph, June 1, 2002, Pg. 24. ^ Eidolon 11, pp. 18–30, January 1993 (accessed April 28, 2008) "I was raised as a Christian, and I still retain a lot of the values of Christianity. The trouble with basing values on religions, though, is that the premises of most of them are pure wishful thinking; you either have to refuse to scrutinise those premises - take them on faith, declare that they "transcend logic" - or reject them. As Paul Davies has said, most Christian theologians have retreated from all the things that their religion supposedly asserts; they take a much more "modern" view than the average believer. But by the time you've "modernised" something like Christianity - starting off with "Genesis was all just poetry" and ending up with "Well, of course there's no such thing as a personal God" - there's not much point pretending that there's anything religious left. You might as well come clean and admit that you're an atheist with certain values, which are historical, cultural, biological, and personal in origin, and have nothing to do with anything called God." Greg Egan, An Interview With Greg Egan 11, pp. 18–30, January 1993 (accessed April 28, 2008) ^ The Age (Australia), February 17, 2005 (accessed April 28, 2008) "When I discussed my own atheism and Peter his own belief, he wrote that he needed God as a "friend of loneliness, who does not speak, does not laugh, does not cry"." Greg Egan, Letters from the forgotten (Australia), February 17, 2005 (accessed April 28, 2008) ^ Q: "Are you a religious man?" Eggers: "Most of my siblings and I stopped believing when we were around 14. I'm somewhere between an atheist and an agnostic - I'd be an atheist if I could muster the energy." 'You Ask The Questions: Dave Eggers', The Independent (London), September 30, 2004, Features, Pg. 5. ^ Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich, Henry Holt and Company, 2001, (p. 66-67) ISBN 0-8050-6389-7 "Saturday, my last night at the [Motel] 6, and I refuse to spend it crushed in my room. But what is a person of limited means and no taste for "carousing" to do? Several times during the week, I have driven past the "Deliverance" church downtown, and the name alone exerts a scary attraction... The marquee in front of the church is advertising a Saturday night "tent revival," which sounds like the perfect entertainment for an atheist out on her own.", Barbara Ehrenreich, Henry Holt and Company, 2001, (p. 66-67) ^ Fresh Air on 8 April 2014 in connection with Ehrenreich's just published book, Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything, Ehrenreich confirmed that she had been an avowed atheist since childhood. Interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR 'son 8 April 2014 in connection with Ehrenreich's just published book,, Ehrenreich confirmed that she had been an avowed atheist since childhood. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2007). The Portable Atheist. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo. ISBN 978-0-306-81608-6. Reprinted in ^ I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream( "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-01-11 . .) "Look, I'm an atheist. People say to me, do you believe in God? No, I don't believe in God." Harlan Ellison in clue book for the computer version of.) ^ Esfandiary, F.M. Upwingers: A Futurist Manifesto. p. 185. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, May 2006 "He died of prostate cancer in Trinity Hospice, in Clapham, south London, on October 23, 1995. He was a declared atheist and a member of the Humanist Society and he was cremated on October 30 at Putney Vale crematorium, south London." Paul Vaughan: 'Ewart, Gavin Buchanan (1916–1995)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, May 2006 [10] (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ "Baptised at 11 ("Did I feel transfigured or just wet?"), Faber lost his faith early. "I left my parents a letter explaining that I didn't believe in God. The more I read, the more I felt that we were dealing with myths: human attempts to come to terms with the big challenges of life. My parents were very upset. My mother said: 'This means we won't meet you in heaven.' For years I was quite a militant atheist. I wanted to burn down all the churches or turn them into second-hand record emporiums." He softened in his thirties. "I don't have any faith myself, but I think that religion is here to stay. When you go to buy a paper you have to accept that the newsagent believes he'll go to a paradise after he dies where there are virgins running around, or he believes the world was created in seven days... there will be some belief that doesn't make any scientific sense. That doesn't mean you can't buy a newspaper from him or ask how his kids are." Faber recently attended an art exhibition at his local church and was moved when the rector told him: 'If you see anybody else out there who looks hungry, just bring them in.' "It is sinful to be too cynical about that," he says. "My feelings are a bit schizophrenic. I get increasingly respectful of people who have faith and increasingly creeped out by them." " Helen Brown interviewing Faber, 'Faith in forgiveness', The Daily Telegraph (London), 15 November 2008, Art, p. 10. ^ The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2005 (accessed April 10, 2008). "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion." Prophet of Decline: An interview with Oriana Fallaci , June 23, 2005 (accessed April 10, 2008). ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-06-15 . American Atheists article on Fisher ^ "I've been doing media appearances as a secular humanist activist for fifteen years now. I perennially underwent this exchange: REPORTER/HOST: Are you an atheist? ME: I call myself a secular humanist. Secular humanists disbelieve in the supernatural and prefer to use reason, compassion, and the methods of science to build the good life in this life. REPORTER/HOST: But you're an atheist, aren't you? I couldn't sidestep the "A" word. When I tried, it was all I'd get to talk about. Today, I handle this question differently: REPORTER/HOST: Are you an atheist? ME: Yes, but that's only the beginning." Tom Flynn, Why The "A" Word Won't Go Away , Council for Secular Humanism op-ed article (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ "Follett, who is 58, was born in Cardiff, the son of a tax inspector. His family belonged to the puritanical Plymouth Brethren, so he was barred from watching films and television and even visiting other churches. Sounds like a strict upbringing. Perhaps too strict, given that he is now an atheist. 'Yeah, as soon as I reached the age of reason - about 16 - I stopped going to church. But I also have a sybaritic streak and could never have been happy in any puritanical religion. Self-denial is not my thing." Nigel Farndale, 'Damn Right I Got The Talent', The Sunday Telegraph, October 7, 2007, Section 7 (Books), p. 22. ^ "Some time in his middle teens, he had announced that he had become an atheist, and this had led to a violent flurry in the family, various clerical friends being called in, in vain, to shepherd him back to orthodoxy. [...] Despite his churchy friends, Forster was very ready to be parted from his faith, which did not go very deep. [...] Within a short time, under Meredith's ministrations, he had lost his faith completely." Extract from P. N. Furbank's E. M. Forster: A Life, the Growth of the Novelist 1879-1914, "which E. M. Forster invited P. N. Furbank to write", 'Saturday Review: Forster at Kings', The Times, July 23, 1977; p. 7; Issue 60063; col A. ^ "In 1989 a stroke slightly impaired his memory. But the death of Elizabeth, who had been in all his novels, was an incomparably worse blow. "As an atheist, it made me very angry with someone - He, She or It - who doesn't exist," he said. It was the paradox his books had been written to solve." John Ezard, 'Obituary: John Fowles', The Guardian, November 8, 2005, Pg. 36. ^ "Hijuelos has a way of making even the most uninspiring life unique, the ugliest scene beautiful. This devout atheist was moved and at moments even transported." Maureen Freely, reviewing Mr Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos, The Guardian (London), December 17, 1995, The Observer Review Page, Pg. 15 ^ "I don't believe in God or a higher power. I believe that you shouldn't be allowed to impose morality on people because a book written several thousand years ago says so." James Frey, 'This Much I Know', The Observer (England), 14 September 2008, Observer Magazine, Pg. 10. ^ Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). "Frederick Furnivall was a man of diverse causes, all based on passionately held beliefs: vegetarianism, sculling, spelling reform, atheism (in his later years), socialism, egalitarianism, teetotalism, and above all the supreme importance of editing historic and literary texts that could shed light on the cultural and social life of England's past." William S. Peterson, 'Furnivall, Frederick James (1825–1910)' , Oxford, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ In his introduction to the Sunshine screenplay (Faber and Faber 2007), Garland writes: "Aside from being a love letter to its antecedents, I wrote Sunshine as a film about atheism. A crew is en route to a God-like entity: the Sun. The Sun is larger and more powerful than we can imagine. The Sun gave us life, and can take it away. It is nurturing, in that it provides the means of our survival, but also terrifying and hostile [...] Ultimately, even the most rational crew member is overwhelmed by his sense of wonder and, as he falls into the star, he believes he is touching the face of God. But he isn't. The Sun is God-like, but not God. Not a conscious being. Not a divine architect. And the crew member is only doing what man has always done: making an awestruck category error when confronted with our small place within the vast and neutral scheme of things. The director, Danny Boyle, who is not atheistic in the way that I am, felt differently. He believed that the crew actually were meeting God. I didn't see this as a major problem, because the difference in our approach wasn't in conflict with the way in which the story would be told." ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2007 "Constance became a lifelong sceptic and atheist." Patrick Waddington: 'Garnett, Constance Clara (1861–1946)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2007 [11] (accessed May 1, 2008). ^ "I am an atheist who married in a register office, but I can sympathise with those who don't want the clerkish atmosphere of the civic ceremony, the threadbare, legalistic words." Nicci Gerrard, 'Beyond belief', The Observer, January 2, 2000, Observer Review Pages; p. 1. ^ Salon magazine: "Spinoza certainly dismissed the religion he'd been exposed to. Do both of you consider yourselves atheists? [pause] Goldstein: Yes. Pinker: Yes. Goldstein: Proud atheists. Pinker: There, we said it. [Laughs.] [Paulson:] So you have to hesitate for a moment before you use that dirty word? PINKER: Atheists are the most reviled minority in the United States, so it's no small matter to come out and say it." ' From an interview with Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein by Steve Paulson formagazine: "Spinoza certainly dismissed the religion he'd been exposed to. Do both of you consider yourselves atheists? [pause] Goldstein: Yes. Pinker: Yes. Goldstein: Proud atheists. Pinker: There, we said it. [Laughs.] [Paulson:] So you have to hesitate for a moment before you use that dirty word? PINKER: Atheists are the most reviled minority in the United States, so it's no small matter to come out and say it." ' Proud Atheists Archived 2008-07-25 at the Wayback Machine ', Salon.com, October 15, 2007 (accessed August 5, 2008). ^ Evgeniĭ Aleksandrovich Dobrenko (2007). Political Economy of Socialist Realism. Yale University Press. p. 76. ISBN 9780300122800. Gorky hated religion with all the passion of a former God-builder. Probably no other Russian writer (unless one considers Dem'ian Bednyi a writer) expressed so many angry words about God, religion, and the church. But Gorky's atheism always fed on that same hatred of nature. He wrote about God and about nature in the very same terms. ^ Steve Jones (2006). Antonio Gramsci. Taylor & Francis. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-415-31947-8. Yet, despite his own atheism, Gramsci did not see the Church as automatically reactionary. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, October 2006 "In addition, between 1919 and 1924 Nancy gave birth to four children in under five years; while Graves (now an atheist like his wife) suffered from recurring bouts of shell-shock." Richard Perceval Graves, 'Graves, Robert von Ranke (1895–1985)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, October 2006 [12] (accessed May 1, 2008). ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, January 2006 "Though Greene later objected to being called a 'Catholic novelist', he became celebrated for employing religious themes in his works, praised by Catholic critics during his lifetime for the powerful way in which his novels explore the subjects of sin, damnation, evil, and divine forgiveness. But Greene's relationship with the church was never easy, and he was often critical of the religion. In his last years he began referring to himself as a 'Catholic atheist' (Shelden, 6)." Michael Shelden: 'Greene, (Henry) Graham (1904–1991)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, January 2006 [13] (accessed May 1, 2008). ^ "I don't like conventional religious piety. I'm more at ease with the Catholicism of Catholic countries. I've always found it difficult to believe in God. I suppose I'd now call myself a Catholic atheist." Graham Greene, interviewed by VS Pritchett, Saturday Review: Graham Greene into the light', The Times, March 18, 1978; p. 6; Issue 60260; col A. ^ The Guardian. Accessed February 12, 2008. "I am still a Catholic, I just don't believe in God. I am an atheist Catholic - there are a lot of them around. One thing lapsed Catholics do not do is go in for an "inferior" religion with less in the way of tradition and intellectual content."—Greer, Germaine (November 27, 2003), The habit of a lifetime . Accessed February 12, 2008. ^ "Sitting in his home in Jerusalem, Grossman says he can see nothing in his own 'banal' upbringing to explain the path he took. His father emigrated from Poland to Palestine in 1933, working as a bus driver and raising his family along traditional lines. Grossman describes himself as 'very secular, an atheist and very, very Jewish.'" Sarah Helm, 'The moral guardian, writing to create an emotional bridge', The Independent (London), May 29, 1993, Weekend section, p. 29. ^ (in Swedish) Translation: "I am [an] atheist, but Ann-Marie and I light a candle anyway. I have dedicated "Madame Terror" to her. Since she has helped me much with [my] books, not least with this one, the latest. Much talk on and forth, I've had a lot yellings." "Det ska mycket till för att reta upp mig". Expressen. 2006-12-03 . "I am [an] atheist, but Ann-Marie and I light a candle anyway. I have dedicated "Madame Terror" to her. Since she has helped me much with [my] books, not least with this one, the latest. Much talk on and forth, I've had a lot yellings." ^ "Although Hansberry was an atheist — that is, she did not believe in God — she strongly disagreed with the absurdist philosophy and its logical conclusion, hopelessness." Janet Tripp, Janet Tripp, Lorraine Hansberry (1997), p. 56. ^ "Poems". Yip Harburg Foundation. ^ "Harry Harrison is a self-confessed atheist" per official website HarryHarrison.com ^ "Although his parents never saw the poems he wrote about them, they are still included in his audience. "I'm a total atheist but I do write things for them." " The Guardian Profile: Tony Harrison , April 1, 2000 (accessed April 15, 2008) ^ "I am not a believer. In fact, on religious matters, I am inclined to take the Christopher Hitchens line - not only am I atheist, I am anti-theist. (If God did exist, I would be against him on any number of grounds, not least of which is that He is always behaving in such an unreasonable, autocratic manner.)" Zoë Heller, 'God doesn't have the best tunes New York', The Daily Telegraph, March 27, 2004, Features, Comment Pg. 22. ^ David S. New (2013). Holy War. McFarland. ISBN 9781476603919. Herzl, for example, was an atheist. ^ Standish, David (2007). Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface. Da Capo Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-306-81533-1. Various biographers have pointed out that his publisher, Hetzel, an atheist, routinely urged Verne to insert more family values–style Christianity into his stories to make them more commercially viable among mainstream readers. ^ "She was educated at home, by correspondence and at Perth College. This was run by Anglican nuns who, she said, informed her she would never enter the kingdom of heaven. Since she was already an atheist - which she remained all her life - she greeted this news with a certain nonchalance. She was amused when, in later life, she was designated as a patron saint of Australian writers." Philip Jones, 'Obituary: Dorothy Hewett', The Guardian, September 5, 2002, Pg. 26. ^ "Hind became a socialist and an atheist, and at 14 left Riverside high school, Carntyne, and became a process clerk at Britain's largest engineering firm, Beardmore." Jackie Kemp, 'Obituary: Archie Hind: Author of a novel of Glasgow working-class life which won the Guardian award', The Guardian, February 29, 2008, Pg. 41. ^ "Secularism is not just a smug attitude. It is a possible way of democratic and pluralistic life that only became thinkable after several wars and revolutions had ruthlessly smashed the hold of the clergy on the state. ... I have spent all my life on the atheist side of this argument..." Hitchens in Slate.com article, "Bush's Secularist Triumph" ^ "Grimly atheist, he appreciated Nietzsche's attempt to establish a philosophy that was simultaneously nihilist and life-affirming. He understood Nietzsche's keen wit, and was very funny in his own fashion, cracking many a joke, often at his own expense. ("A drink? Oh alright, just a large one!")" Carol Diethe, 'Obituary: RJ Hollingdale', The Guardian, October 10, 2001, Pg. 24. ^ Jim Page, the chairman of the Housman Society, said: [...] "He writes about church bells in his poems and his ashes are buried at the church in Ludlow. He was an atheist but retained an affection for churches and the sound of the bells." Richard Savill, 'Housman's bells ring again at Bredon', The Daily Telegraph, June 28, 2004, p. 08. ^ American National Biography Online, February 2000 (accessed April 28, 2008) "Hyman blatantly proclaimed his biases: for example, he vigorously opposed any critical approach that took organized religion seriously (he often described himself as a "militant atheist"), and his dismissal of Eliot and Winters was based in part on their religious sympathies." Ann T. Keene: "Hyman, Stanley Edgar",, February 2000 (accessed April 28, 2008) [14] ^ Kenneth McLeish; Stephen Mulrine (2005). Ibsen: Three Plays. Nick Hern Books. p. xxvi. ISBN 9781854598462. Sternly atheist, unswervingly rationalist, he allows religion no part in the events of Hedda Gabler. When characters do invoke God (Tesman; Mrs Elvsted; Miss Tesman) it is a superficial, conventional way of talking, to add emphasis to otherwise bland remarks - and Ibsen the ironist takes it one step further when he makes Brack invoke, for the same purpose, not the deity but the devil. ^ "But what had religion to do with it? I am not remotely religious. What brought out the venom of my attack - in so far as that's a fair description, which it isn't - was the complacency of Dawkins' prose, his inability, which he mistakes for a virtue, to imagine how another living soul imagines the universe. All of which I could have said exactly as I said it and still been more of an atheist than he is." Howard Jacobson, The Independent (London), September 15, 2007, Comment, Pg. 52. ^ "Despite his interest in theology, Jacobson is not much of a believer, but whatever you do, don't call him an atheist. "I don't believe in God in the way believers believe in God, but I suddenly don't want to call myself an atheist, because atheists talk with such certainty. I don't know where you get this certainty from. There are things we don't know." " Luiza Sauma, 'Howard Jacobson', The New Review, 11 January 2009, Pg. 41. ^ "As an atheist and an ex-Catholic, I cannot claim to be displeased at the spectacle of the Roman Catholic Church continuing to shoot itself in the foot by refusing to ordain women or to allow priests to marry." Susan Jacoby, 'Priestly celibacy: The Vatican's self-inflicted wound', The Herald-Sun (Durham, NC), May 18, 2009, Pg. a7. ^ "I really do think religions are just advertising agencies for a product that doesn't exist." [15] retrieved September 16, 2008 ^ Reviewing Jenkins's The Missionaries, Paul Binding wrote: "In addition to registering as a pacifist Jenkins became a member of the Independent Labour Party and was a declared atheist." Paul Binding, 'Saints and sinners', The Guardian, November 5, 2005, Review Pages, Pg. 17. ^ "Born near the Greek border in Gjirokaster in 1936, of two Muslim parents, Kadare claims to be an atheist. However, much of his language, especially when he talks of forgiving the old Stalinist order rather than seeking revenge, is Christian. The paradox, then, is that Kadare is a humanist who claims that the greatest riches of Albanian culture derive from its Christian tradition." John Murray, 'The Orphan's Voice', The Independent (London), January 25, 1998, Page 25. ^ Sander L. Gilman (2005). Franz Kafka. Reaktion Books. p. 31. ISBN 9781861892546. Through his consumption of such books Kafka rejected both capitalism and religion as a teenager - declaring himself to be a socialist and an atheist. ^ "K". Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia Of Literature. Merriam-Webster. 1995. p. 617. ISBN 9780877790426. As an adolescent, he declared himself a socialist as well as an atheist. As a Jew, Kafka was isolated from the German community in Prague, but as a modern intellectual he was also alienated from his own Jewish heritage. ^ J. E. Luebering, ed. (2009). "Franz Kafka". The 100 Most Influential Writers of All Time. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 272. ISBN 9781615300969. Kafka's opposition to established society became apparent when, as an adolescent, he declared himself a socialist as well as an atheist. ^ Golgotha Press (2012). The Life and Times of Franz Kafka. BookCaps Study Guides. ISBN 9781621071518. In time Kafka would become an atheist. ^ Leavitt, June (2011). The Mystical Life of Franz Kafka: Theosophy, Cabala, and the Modern Spiritual Revival. Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-19-982783-1. Undoubtedly, synagogue life appalled Kafka, but not because he was an atheist. It appalled him because, in his words, he was trying to “build his faith,” and the conventional forms were not adequate. ^ Benjamin Lazarus (July 16, 2012). "Israel must relinquish ownership over Kafka". The Jewish Chronicle Online . Whilst Kafka had a brief interest in Kabbalah, mysticism, and Yiddish theatre, he rarely attended synagogue and considered himself an atheist. ^ C.D. Merriman (2005). "Franz Kafka". Jalic Inc . Kafka eventually declared himself a socialist atheist, Spinoza, Darwin and Nietzsche some of his influences. ^ Si. En Rāmacandran (2001). K. Shivarama Karanth. Sahitya Akademi. p. 15. ISBN 978-81-260-1071-4. "I remember now that mother also, like our father, was an atheist; and she used to read and explain Bertrand Russel for us", writes Ullas Karanth, her second son, after the death of both Karanth and Leela. ^ "It should be clear from the above, and is made explicit in an essay on 'The Importance of Glasgow In My Work', that Kelman's strengths as a writer and thinker have nothing inherent to do with his being (as he likes to put it) "a white middle-aged Glaswegian atheist Protestant-bred male writer and father of two mature daughters who spent his early years in Govan, Drumchapel, Partick and Maryhill"." Jenny Turner, 'Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural and Political', The Guardian (London), November 17, 1992, Features, Pg. 9. ^ "Now I'm a pretty hardened atheist - not to mention something of a metropolitan sceptic - but I do appreciate the human need to believe that, behind life's important happenstantial events, there is a larger meaning. And even if we don't buy the "controlling hand of God", we often try to console ourselves with the "to everything a purpose" theory of chance. This is especially true in instances of random calamity." Douglas Kennedy, 'The Hand of Fate', The Independent (London), April 28, 2001, Features, p. 30-33. ^ "Keyes remains "totally unapologetic" for her happy endings. "I get criticised for it, but I just think life is hard enough. At the risk of sounding like a smug wagon, my life was horrible and now it's not. I hate this attitude that we are all ricocheting around in despair. Hope is not my default position, but we have to work for it. I don't believe in God - I wish I did - so the only way for me is through other people: a connection with other people is what makes us whole. Misery is optional." " Aine O'Connor interviewing Keyes, 'Passing the character test', Sunday Times (London), 11 September 2005, Features, Eire Culture, p. 10. ^ Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion (The Disinformation Company 2007, ISBN Krassner contributed a piece entitled 'Confessions of an Atheist' to the anthology(The Disinformation Company 2007, 1-932857-59-1 ). Excerpt: "I had developed that habit of communicating with my imaginary friend when I was a kid who actually believed in an all-knowing, all-powerful Being. [...] My faith disappeared when I was thirteen. [...] On the day after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, I would read that headline over and over and over and over again. That afternoon, I told God I couldn't believe in him any more because he had allowed such devastation to happen. "Allowed? Why do you think I gave humans free will?" "Okay, well, I'm exercising my free will to believe that you don't exist." "All right, it's your loss!" So at least we would remain on speaking terms." ^ The Death of Ahasuerus, February 23, 1962. Retrieved July 24, 2007. "...Lagerkvist... wrote of himself that he was 'a believer without a belief, a religious atheist.'" The Religious Atheist , Time Magazine review of Lagerkvist's book, February 23, 1962. Retrieved July 24, 2007. ^ "Larkin, a typical moody 20th-century atheist, thought religion was "that vast moth-eaten musical brocade / Created to pretend we never die". A.N. Wilson, 'Give me that old-time religion', The Daily Telegraph, April 17, 2006, News section, End column, Pg. 19. ^ "It is a curious fact, but if I want a poet who will get me in an Easter frame of mind, I turn not to these orthodox followers of the Creed, but to that out-and-out atheist and self-confessed nihilist Philip Larkin." A.N. Wilson, 'This is the time when Larkin comes into his own', The Daily Telegraph, April 21, 2003, World of Books section, p. 21. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-07-19 . Larsson specifically requested that no religious ceremonies should be held at his funeral. "I was an atheist and won't feel any better because of religious ceremonies". ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 (accessed May 1, 2008). "In view of the enduring influence of Moses Gaster it is a mark of Marghanita Laski's true independence of mind that, while remaining proud of her Jewishness, she renounced her faith even before she went up to Oxford and declared herself to be an atheist." R. W. Burchfield, 'Laski, Marghanita (1915–1988)' , rev., Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 (accessed May 1, 2008). ^ Laskier wrote: "The little faith I used to have has been completely shattered. If God existed, He would have certainly not permitted that human beings be thrown alive into furnaces, and the heads of little toddlers be smashed with gun butts or shoved into sacks and gassed to death." Aron Heller, "New Pages of Past Horror: Writings depict the innocence of a Jewish teen coming of age—and Nazi brutality", Associated Press, June 6, 2006. ^ Ursula K. Le Guin (1980). Susan Wood, ed. The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ultramarine Publishing. p. 158. ISBN 9780399504822. I talk about the gods, I an atheist. ^ Howard Freedman, Carl, ed. (2008). Conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 54. ISBN 9781604730944. I am an atheist and I always have been; I have a great deal of trouble with C. S. Lewis, with the way his mind works. ^ In his posthumously published Zibaldone, Leopardi writes, among other such arguments: "In sum, the foundation of everything, and of God himself, is nothing. Since nothing is absolutely necessary, there is no absolute reason why something could not be, or not be in a certain way...And everything is possible, that is there is no absolute reason why some arbitrary thing can not exist, or exist in a certain manner....And there is no absolute distinction between all these possibilities, nor absolute difference between all the possible perfections and so on....It is certain that since the Platonic forms that preexist all things have been destroyed, God is destroyed." (Zib. 1341-42, July 18, 1821) —trans. Francesco Franco ^ Kauffman, Bill. America First!: Its History, Culture, and Politics. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1995. Print. "Sinclair Lewis was...town atheist..." Pg. 118 ^ Waste Books E 252, 1765-1770 ^ "Religion was to her but the go-kart of the infant race; to be cast aside so soon as it could walk alone." Bio ^ Stewart Gabel (2012). Jack London: a Man in Search of Meaning: A Jungian Perspective. AuthorHouse. p. 14. ISBN 9781477283332. When he was tramping, arrested and jailed for one month for vagrancy at about 19 years of age, he listed “atheist” as his religion on the necessary forms (Kershaw, 1997). ^ Alex Kershaw (2013). Jack London: A Life. HarperCollins UK. ISBN 9780007496631. 'On June 29, 1894,' his prison record read, ' one John London, age 18: Single: Father & Mother Living, Occupation — Sailor; Religion — Atheist; — was received at the Erie County Penitentiary, for a term of 30 Days, charge of Tramp,... ^ Pierre Loti - Travels with the Legendary Romantic. Repeatedly mentioned in Lesley Blanch 's biography of him: ^ Joshi, The Scriptorium, "H. P. Lovecraft", section II. ^ "A convinced atheist, he had discussed the possibility of suicide with his friend Fruttero in the past, at one time contemplating driving his car into a canal with his companion, Simone Bennes Darses, at his side. On this occasion he rose early, leaving her sleeping undisturbed in bed." Philip Willan, 'Obituary: Franco Lucentini', The Guardian, August 9, 2002, Pg. 18. ^ Matthew W. Dickie, "Lucian's Gods: Lucian's Understanding of the Divine," in The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations (Edinburgh University Press, 2010), pp. 348–361. Dickie emphasizes that Lucian wrote in a sometimes self-contradictory range of first-person personae that make it difficult to assess his own beliefs. ^ Lieutinent- Hime (2004). "Lucian's Philosophy and Religion". Lucian the Syrian Satirist. Kessinger Publishing. p. 43. ISBN 9781417927746. Both of them struck at a great religion, but they had very different objects in view. Voltaire, a theist, tried to level the obstacles that barred the way into the temple of Theism ; Lucian, an atheist, tried to raze the temple itself. ^ concilium, the inner circle, of the [atheos], let alone as atheistical in the modern understanding of the word." Dickie, "Lucian's Gods," p. 352: "Lucian's appointment to a position of high authority in the, the inner circle, of the praefectus of Egypt suggests a man not viewed as dangerously irreligious, in ancient terms, an ἄθεος, let alone as atheistical in the modern understanding of the word." ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). "During the Second World War McCaig was a conscientious objector, though not on religious grounds for, as he asserted in an interview, 'I was born an atheist' (Murray, 88)." Hilda D. Spear, 'MacCaig , Norman Alexander (1910–1996)' , Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ "There was grim humour in such careful planning. Perhaps Mackay, also, was serious about sainthood. Amongst the allusions and quotations in his memoir, the King James Bible and Bunyan's wonderful Pilgrim's Progress are predominant. He was an atheist, he reiterated, but his disappointment with the world - with failed and brutal Communism, with crass capitalist consumerism - moved him towards "prophecy" in the Judaeo-Christian tradition." Obituary: Colin Mackay, The Independent (London), August 9, 2003, Pg. 20. ^ "He was a robust atheist whose Jewishness oozed from every pore." Marcus's wife Ita Daly in his obituary, 'Sarah and I were his pride and joy – as he was ours', Irish Independent, 16 May 2009. ^ André Gide: A Life in the Present by The Observer, November 15, 1998, The Observer Review Page; p. 15. "Gide's campaign of liberation extended to religion and politics. His friend Roger Martin du Gard saw disbelief as a modern responsibility, and claimed that 'my atheism was formed at the same time as my mind'." Peter Conrad, reviewingby Alan Sheridan , November 15, 1998, The Observer Review Page; p. 15. ^ Fast Forward Weekly, March 5, 2009 (accessed 30 April 2009). "I thought the world would be colder when I became an atheist, but afterwards, I felt more wonder about everything, because all this was made without God," says Massicotte. "Love is just a biological function of our evolution. It sounds cold, but at the same time, it's important to remember how wonderful that is. So, I guess I’m still a romantic." Alan Cho interviewing Massicotte, ' Massicotte thinks your religion is stupid Archived 2009-03-15 at the Wayback Machine ',, March 5, 2009 (accessed 30 April 2009). ^ "So why should Maugham, self-declared atheist, "continental" more than English, choose so inappropriate a burial place?" Shona Crawford Poole, 'Pilgrimage to the heart of England', The Times, January 26, 1985; p. 12; Issue 62046; col D. ^ The Summing Up (1938) and A Writer's Notebook (1949) Maugham explains his philosophy of life as a resigned atheism and a certain skepticism about the extent of man's innate goodness and intelligence; it is this that gives his work its astringent cynicism." Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed May 8, 2008. "In(1938) and(1949) Maugham explains his philosophy of life as a resigned atheism and a certain skepticism about the extent of man's innate goodness and intelligence; it is this that gives his work its astringent cynicism." 'Maugham, W. Somerset' , accessed May 8, 2008. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-05-07 . Multiple quotes from McCabe substantiating his atheist view ^ American National Biography Online, February 2000 (accessed April 28, 2008) "Throughout her childhood, McCarthy took refuge in Catholicism, but, although she was schooled in convents and considered herself a devout Catholic, she tried to call attention to herself as a teenager by pretending to have lost her faith. Questioned about her claim, she found that she had in fact done so. She remained an atheist." Kathy D. Hadley: "McCarthy, Mary",, February 2000 (accessed April 28, 2008) [17] ^ " I am certainly an atheist, but prefer the description rationalist or even better, normal" The Times (London), June 25, 1986, page 15 ^ Solomon, Deborah (December 2, 2007). "A Sinner's Tale: Questions for Ian McEwan". The New York Times . "Yes, I am an atheist, and probably Briony is, too. Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious conviction, and they still have the same problem of how they reconcile themselves to a bad deed in the past. It’s a little easier if you’ve got a god to forgive you." ^ "My distaste for Lewis and Tolkien as writers does not stem from the fact that, as an atheist, I disagree with their religious beliefs or think that religious concerns cannot make great literature." – Reinvigorating the Fantastic , Accessed February 12, 2007. ^ Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, Arthur Miller said: "Well I tried to be a religious person when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, it lasted about two years. And then it simply vanished. I simply lay down one evening to go to sleep and woke up the next day and it wasn't there anymore. [...] Of course, I could no longer believe. I quickly, at some point in my late teens, began reading and surmising that the idea of religion was a creation of man's longing to be a permanent part of the universe. [...] But myself, personally, I don't have the talent to believe. [...] It just seems to me so patent that what man has done is to project himself into the heavens, where he can be all-powerful as he's not here, and moral, and decent, and vengeful, and all the things he's not allowed to do on the earth, and to don that white garment and the beard and be what he wished in his dreams he could be... and I just can't get past that." The Atheism Tapes: Arthur Miller, 3.25–6.14, BBC television, first broadcast October 2004. Interviewed in 2004 by Jonathan Miller for his television series, Arthur Miller said: "Well I tried to be a religious person when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, it lasted about two years. And then it simply vanished. I simply lay down one evening to go to sleep and woke up the next day and it wasn't there anymore. [...] Of course, I could no longer believe. I quickly, at some point in my late teens, began reading and surmising that the idea of religion was a creation of man's longing to be a permanent part of the universe. [...] But myself, personally, I don't have the talent to believe. [...] It just seems to me so patent that what man has done is to project himself into the heavens, where he can be all-powerful as he's not here, and moral, and decent, and vengeful, and all the things he's not allowed to do on the earth, and to don that white garment and the beard and be what he wished in his dreams he could be... and I just can't get past that.", 3.25–6.14, BBC television, first broadcast October 2004. ^ "The books live on. But in real life Toad is dead; Alice is dead; Peter Pan and Wendy are long flown; and now Christopher Robin, a 'sweet and decent' man who overcame a childhood in which he was haunted by Pooh and taunted by peers, has left without saying his prayers - he was a dedicated atheist - aged 75." Euan Ferguson, Robin's gone, but swallows linger on', The Observer, April 28, 1996, News, Pg. 14. ^ Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism.[18] ^ "At the close of the Franco regime, he was already advocating personal liberation on every front - he was atheist, homosexual, anti-bourgeois and a leading figure of the early "Movida" led by artists and film-makers with provocative zest typical of what became called "the divine left-wing"." James Kirkup, 'Obituary: Terenci Moix', The Independent (London), April 7, 2003, Pg. 19. ^ " Themes of guilt, sin and religion have always preoccupied him. "I'm interested in them as themes - I'm not obsessed. I'm interested in people who struggle with these things. But I have never suffered from them myself. I was never personally convinced by religion." With the calmness of a man discussing his favourite TV show, he said "There is no such thing as heaven. I've never believed in God. I still don't. But I am certainly fascinated by those who do." " Eileen Battersby, 'Brian Moore 1921 - 1999', The Irish Times, 13 January 1999, Home News, p. 11. ^ "I'm also obsessed by religion, being an atheist myself. There's something eternally fascinating about respectability gone wrong." Quoted in Sheridan Morley, 'Mortimer on Heaven and Hell', The Times, May 27, 1976; p. 7; issue 59714; col. E. ^ The Daily Telegraph, 17 February 2009 (accessed 6 March 2009). "Mr Motion said that generations of teachers with less and less knowledge of the Bible had left even the brightest students with a "sketchy" understanding of once familiar stories. The poet, who describes himself as an atheist, called for an overhaul of the school curriculum to reverse the "depressing" trend which threatened to leave future generations unable to fully understand the works of Milton and Shakespeare or even more recent writers such as TS Eliot." John Bingham, ' Poet Laureate Andrew Motion calls for all children to be taught the Bible ',, 17 February 2009 (accessed 6 March 2009). ^ "Iris was a rare being in the modern world - a dispassionate scholar who understood passion, an atheist who, with a sense of the sacred understood faith, a moral philosopher who was truly unjudgmental towards individuals. She was devoted yet never demanding, serious yet never solemn, a lover of all living things yet never a preacher, and in laughter never jeering but always joyful." Natasha Spender, 'Books: Nothing like a dame', The Observer, February 14, 1999, The Observer Review Page; Pg. 16. ^ Adam Feinstein (2005). Pablo Neruda: A Passion For Life. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 97. ISBN 9781582345949. Despite their political differences and the fact that she was religious and Neruda was an atheist, Pablo had far more in common with Bombal than with Maruca. ^ "He [Salman Rushdie] emphasised that the direct cause of the riot seemed to be a speech by Nesin, rather than The Satanic Verses. "I'm damned if I'm going to carry the can for this one," he said. Versions of the speech that Nesin delivered differ, but all agree that he said he was an atheist, that religion should be adapted to modern times and that there was no reason to obey books written hundreds of years ago, including the Koran." Hugh Pope, 'Turks say publisher provoked 35 deaths', The Independent (London), July 4, 1993, Pg 15. ^ Interview with Michael Nugent permanent dead link ] Sunday Business Post, 28 June 2009: ”As far back as I can remember, I have been an atheist. I probably stopped believing in God around the same time - and for the same reasons - as I stopped believing in Santa Claus. It seemed to me to be just another fictional story.” , 28 June 2009: ”As far back as I can remember, I have been an atheist. I probably stopped believing in God around the same time - and for the same reasons - as I stopped believing in Santa Claus. It seemed to me to be just another fictional story.” ^ I'm not averse to acknowledging it, but as a novelist and a writer, I really don't want to confront and be antagonistic toward people. As soon as you declare that you are an atheist, it's like somebody declaring that he is the son of God; it arouses a lot antagonism. I'm wondering whether it might be better to avoid arousing this antagonism in order to find—not compromise—some common ground." Joyce Carol Oates, The Humanist, November/December 2007 (accessed June 9, 2008). "Q: I noticed that nobody uses the "A-word" – atheist – for you. Perhaps it is a step beyond nontheist or humanist. Do you identify as an atheist? Oates: That's a good question. I have met Christopher Hitchens once or twice, and he has a book that I'm sure you've either read or are aware of titled God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He is very adversarial, very eloquent, and very funny in his interviews. And, of course, he is very much a self-declared atheist.I'm not averse to acknowledging it, but as a novelist and a writer, I really don't want to confront and be antagonistic toward people. As soon as you declare that you are an atheist, it's like somebody declaring that he is the son of God; it arouses a lot antagonism. I'm wondering whether it might be better to avoid arousing this antagonism in order to find—not compromise—some common ground." Joyce Carol Oates, Humanism and Its Discontents Archived 2012-11-24 at the Wayback Machine , November/December 2007 (accessed June 9, 2008). ^ " He had been very religious as a boy — 'You have to be to survive being brought up in a vicarage' — but he became, on discovering Darwin at 14, not merely an agnostic, but a militant atheist, much to his father's distress. They still don't talk about it. His mother, he says, is also very religious but in an emotional way: 'She believes that in heaven she will be reunited with every spaniel she has ever owned.' While O'Hanlon was away in Africa, his older brother, a book rep, took Belinda and the children to communion. O'Hanlon was shocked, but 'I decided not to be angry about it. A real atheist, you see, is not exercised about it.' " Lynn Barber interviewing O'Hanlon, 'Carry On Up the Congo', The Observer, October 13, 1996, The Observer Review Page, Pg. 7. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2006 (accessed May 2, 2008). "Oswald, a vegetarian and atheist, used the pseudonyms Ignotus (in the Political Herald, 1785–7), Sylvester Otway (London newspapers 1788–9), and H. K." T. F. Henderson 'Oswald, John (c.1760–1793)' , rev. Ralph A. Manogue,, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2006 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ "Frances Partidge was a pacifist long before she met Ralph. She says she cannot pinpoint the day with the same clarity with which she can remember discovering herself an atheist—at the age of 11 in an Isle of Wight boarding house—but hearing about the outbreak of World War I in the company of bellicose friends, and a feminist cousin who supported conscientious objectors, put her on the path." Caroline Moorehead, 'Love and laughter on the fringe of the Bloomsbury set', The Times, August 12, 1978; p. 12; Issue 60378; col A. ^ The Gospel According to St. Matthew that stunned people. It was the discovery that a director who was both a communist and an atheist could bring such fervor and insight to a religious subject. [...] There are times when Pasolini sounds remarkably religious for a self-acknowledged atheist. "I suffer from the nostalgia of a peasant-type religion, and that is why I am on the side of the servant," he says. "But I do not believe in a metaphysical god. I am religious because I have a natural identification between reality and God. Reality is divine. That is why my films are never naturalistic. The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance." Guy Flatley, "Not since 1964 had Pasolini created such a stir, and even then it was not the content of histhat stunned people. It was the discovery that a director who was both a communist and an atheist could bring such fervor and insight to a religious subject. [...] There are times when Pasolini sounds remarkably religious for a self-acknowledged atheist. "I suffer from the nostalgia of a peasant-type religion, and that is why I am on the side of the servant," he says. "But I do not believe in a metaphysical god. I am religious because I have a natural identification between reality and God. Reality is divine. That is why my films are never naturalistic. The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance." Guy Flatley, The Atheist who was Obsessed with God , 1969, located at Moviecrazed.com (accessed April 25, 2008). ^ Paloni, Piermassimo, Il giornalismo di Cesare Pavese, Landoni, 1977, p. 11. ^ "Penning-Rowsell and his sister were born Roman Catholic, but he was, if anything, an atheist. He was at Marlborough at the same time as John Betjeman, where his disposition to dissent first showed itself when he was the only boy to refuse to join the Corps." Paul Levy, 'Penning-Rowsell: surely the most conservative Communist ever', The Independent (London), March 7, 2002, Obituaries, Pg. 6. ^ BBC.co.uk, 26 August 2002. "The Meeting is a about the afterlife, despite Pinter being well known as an atheist. He admitted it was a "strange" piece for him to have written." Pinter 'on road to recovery' , 26 August 2002. ^ "As a child she was very religious, and planned to become the first woman vicar. But she lost her faith when she discovered snogging because she couldn't bring herself to believe that it was sinful. She now describes herself as an atheist, but with "a penchant for the pagan gods"." Lynn Barber interviewing Pitt-Kethley, The Independent (London), June 2, 1991, The Sunday Review Page, p. 9. ^ In response to the question 'Is there a God?', Pollack replied: "God does not exist, unless you are my mother-in-law and are reading this, in which case I definitely do believe that He exists, and will raise my children accordingly. But if you're not my mother-in-law, and she's not reading this, then He does not exist." AV Club 9 October 2002 (accessed 6 March 2009). ^ "Marcel Proust was the son of a Christian father and a Jewish mother. He himself was baptized (on August 5, 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d'Antin) and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never practiced that faith and as an adult could best be described as a mystical atheist, someone imbued with spirituality who nonetheless did not believe in a personal God, much less in a savior." Edmund White, Marcel Proust: A Life (2009). ^ Proust, Marcel (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford University Press. p. 594. ISBN 978-0-19-860173-9. ...the highest praise of God consists in the denial of him by the atheist who finds creation so perfect that it can dispense with a creator. ^ "Spanish churches are dark and gloomy, fitting locations for a Christianity that often seems completely demented to an appreciative atheist like myself." Kate Pullinger, 'Extremadura's Moorish tendency', The Independent, November 18, 1989, Weekend Travel, Pg. 49. ^ Miller, Laura. " ' Far From Narnia ' " (Life and Letters article) . The New Yorker . he is one of England’s most outspoken atheists. ... He added, “Although I call myself an atheist, I am a Church of England atheist, and a 1662 Book of Common Prayer atheist, because that’s the tradition I was brought up in and I cannot escape those early influences.” ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon. "Beyond Babel" in Davis & Hampton, "Rabelais and His Critics". Occasional Papers Series, University of California Press. ^ The Cambridge Companion to Rabelais (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Renaissance and Reformation (Marshall Cavendish, 2007), p. 1176; "Rabelais, Françoise,", in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Taylor & Francis, 1988), pp. 15–16; Max Gauna, The Rabelaisian Mythologies (Associated University Press, 1996), p. 32. "Most are agreed on Rabelais as a Christian humanist," as stated by Richard Cooper, ""Reading and Unraveling Rabelais through the Ages," in(Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 150. See also Max von Habsburg, "Rabelais, Françoise," in(Marshall Cavendish, 2007), p. 1176; "Rabelais, Françoise,", in(Taylor & Francis, 1988), pp. 15–16; Max Gauna,(Associated University Press, 1996), p. 32. ^ Reviewing Raine's collection In Defence of T. S. Eliot, Charles Osborne and Sally Cousins wrote: "Raine, a fine poet, is also an entertaining and thought-provoking critic, and his subjects range widely from the Bible, which as an atheist he appreciates for its short stories, "some of the greatest ever written", to Bruce Chatwin, whom he sensibly does not take too seriously." The Sunday Telegraph, October 14, 2001, Paperbacks, Pg. 14. ^ Letters of Ayn Rand: March 20, 1965 "I am an intransigent atheist, but not a militant one." Rand quoted in Michael S. Berliner (1995).: March 20, 1965 [20] ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 Derek Raymond was the pen name of Robert Cook. "Cook was an atheist, but he described his probes into abjection and despair with almost religious intensity." Phil Baker: 'Cook, Robert William Arthur (1931–1994)',, Oxford University Press, 2004 [21] (accessed April 30, 2008). ^ Reviewing Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, Matt Thorne noted: "In a long author's note, Rice explains how she experienced an old-fashioned, strict Roman Catholic childhood in the 1940s and 1950s, before leaving the Church at 18 due to sexual pressure and her desire to read authors she considered forbidden to her, such as Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus. Two years later she married a passionate atheist, the poet and artist Stan Rice, and in 1974, began a literary career that she now retrospectively views as representing her 'quest for meaning in a world without God'." The Sunday Telegraph, December 18, 2005, Section 7, Pg. 43. ^ Tristram Stuart, The Bloodless Revolution, pp. 361–171; Joseph Ritson, Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food ^ "Monica asked my parents if they minded if I said grace (my family are Jewish), they said not at all. Apparently, though, I wouldn't close my eyes, put my hands together or say the prayer but would only shout 'No thank you, God!' I am an atheist now." Michael Rosen interviewed by Emily Moore, The Guardian (London), June 6, 1995, Education Page, Pg. 2. ^ The Wit and Blasphemy of Atheists: 500 Greatest Quips and Quotes from Freethinkers, Non-Believers and the Happily Damned. Ulysses Press. 2011. p. 190. ISBN 9781569759707. "When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place." - Philip Roth ^ "Here I am, a rationalist, atheist person..." Salman Rushdie, interviewed on National Public Radio , 22 September 2015. ^ Newsweek, December 27, 2010 / January 3, 2011, special edition, p. 74. "The Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese novelist was an atheist and a communist." "–2010: José Saramago , 87,", December 27, 2010 / January 3, 2011, special edition, p. 74. ^ "If Osama bin Laden were in charge, he would slit my throat; my God, I'm an atheist, a hedonist, and a faggot." Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America, Dan Savage, Plume, 2002, p. 258. ^ Fresh Air, aired 2003 and 2011 interviews she had conducted with Sendak. In September 2011 she said, "You're very secular, you don't believe in God." Sendak replied, "I don't," and elaborated. Among other things, he remarked, "It [religion, and belief in God] must have made life much easier [for some religious friends of his]. It's harder for us nonbelievers." On Maurice Sendak 's death (8 May 2012), Terry Gross , host of National Public Radio 's, aired 2003 and 2011 interviews she had conducted with Sendak. In September 2011 she said, "You're very secular, you don't believe in God." Sendak replied, "I don't," and elaborated. Among other things, he remarked, "It [religion, and belief in God] must have made life much easier [for some religious friends of his]. It's harder for us nonbelievers." ^ Archibald Henderson (2004). George Bernard Shaw: His Life And Works, a Critical Biography. Kessinger Publishing. p. 135. ISBN 9781417961771. It was at the Shelley Society's first large meeting that Shaw startled London by announcing himself as, " like Shelley, a Socialist, an atheist, and a vegetarian." ^ Dayananda Pathak (1985). George Bernard Shaw, His Religion & Values. Mittal Publications. p. 19. Shaw explains what atheism really meant in his time. Belief in God in his time meant belief in the old tribal idol "I preferred to call myself an atheist", writes Shaw, "because belief in God then meant belief in the old tribal idol called Jehovah. "I preferred to call myself an atheist", writes Shaw, "because belief in God then meant belief in the old tribal idol called Jehovah, and I would not, by calling myself an agnostic, pretend that I did not know whether it existed or not." He also adds: "I still, when I am dealing with old fashioned Fundamentalists, tell them that as I do not believe in this idol of theirs they may as well write me off as, for their purpose, I am an atheist." ^ G. K. Chesterton (2008). George Bernard Shaw. Echo Library. p. 21. ISBN 9781406890204. I was," he writes, "wholly unmoved by their eloquence; and felt bound to inform the public that I was, on the whole, an atheist. ^ Leah Levenson; Jerry H. Nattersand (1989). Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington: Irish Feminist. Syracuse University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-8156-2480-6. Though Francis was always referred to as an atheist, Hanna, for reasons that remain uncertain, was usually labeled an agnostic. ^ "I am an atheist. There, I said it. Are you happy, all you atheists out there who have remonstrated with me for adopting the agnostic moniker? If "atheist" means someone who does not believe in God, then an atheist is what I am. But I detest all such labels. Call me what you like — humanist, secular humanist, agnostic, nonbeliever, nontheist, freethinker, heretic, or even bright. I prefer skeptic." Why I Am An Atheist , Michael Shermer, June 2005 (accessed March 31, 2008). ^ Jean H. Duffy; Alastair B. Duncan (2002). Claude Simon: A Retrospective. Liverpool University Press. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-85323-857-7. While it is true that Simon's earlier fiction provides considerable evidence both of his atheism and his fascination for religious iconography, it is in Le Jardin des Plantes that one finds his most sustained meditation upon religion,... ^ "Like most atheists, I don't mind in the least being insulted for my beliefs, as long as I am not prevented from expressing them." Joan Smith, 'None of us has the right not to be offended', Independent on Sunday, October 21, 2001, Comment, p. 30. ^ "I already had certain agnostic tendencies—which would later develop into outright atheistic convictions—so it was not that I believed in any kind of divine protection." Wole Soyinka, Climate Of Fear: The Quest for Dignity in a Dehumanized World, p. 119. ^ Reviewing Steele's book, Victor J Stenger called it "A clear, concise, complete, and convincing presentation of the case for atheism." ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). "By early 1890 Steevens had broken with his family's Brethrenism, and he described himself as 'a discontented atheist' (Steevens to Browning; Oscar Browning MSS)." Sidney Lee, 'Steevens, George Warrington (1869–1900)' , rev. Roger T. Stearn,, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ permanent dead link ] In response to the question "What do you think about Umberto Ecco's words that "libraries are the houses of God", and since you are doing that Dead Media project - I kinda connected you two in my head?", Sterling said "I don't believe in God. I read Umberto Eco, though." Interview with Bruce Sterling ^ "A decadent dandy who envied the manly Victorian achievements of his family, a professed atheist haunted by religious terrors, a generous and loving man who fell out with many of his friends - the Robert Louis Stevenson of Claire Harman's biography is all of these and, of course, a bed-ridden invalid who wrote some of the finest adventure stories in the language. [...] Worse still, he affected a Bohemian style, haunted the seedier parts of the Old Town, read Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and declared himself an atheist. This caused a painful rift with his father, who damned him as a "careless infidel". Theo Tait, review of Robert Louis Stevenson: a Biography by Claire Harman, The Daily Telegraph, January 29, 2005, Books Pg.3 ^ Pierre Klossowski (2007). Such a Deathly Desire. SUNY Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780791471968. Andre Suares (1868–1948) was a French poet and essayist famous for his atheism. ^ Casoli, Giovanni, Vangelo e letteratura, Città Nuova, 2008, p. 90. ^ Commenting on Tendryakov's obituary in the Times, Professor Geoffrey A. Hosking wrote: "Perhaps because of his concern for the human personality, Tendryakov was the first writer in the post-Stalin period to raise religious questions seriously in fiction. Though an atheist himself, he understood the intrinsic importance of religion, and did not treat it merely satirically or condescendingly." 'Vladimir Tendryakov', The Times, August 17, 1984; p. 10; Issue 61912; col G. ^ American National Biography Online, February 2000 (accessed April 28, 2008) "Characterizing himself as an atheist, an anarchist, and a skeptic, he enjoyed his image of impudent prurience, though he revealed little to the public of his personal life." Dennis Wepman: "Thayer, Tiffany",, February 2000 (accessed April 28, 2008) [22] ^ Michael LeBuffe (2010). "Paul-Henri Thiry (Baron) d'Holbach". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . "Many of these men were, like Holbach, avowed atheists and many also pushed radical, even revolutionary political agendas." ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 6, 2008). "His beliefs moved from pantheism to an atheism which causes less of a frisson now than it did in his own day, and his apocalyptic vision of the megalopolis in 'The City of Dreadful Night' continues to have resonance." Ann Margaret Ridler, 'Thomson , James (1834–1882)' , Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 6, 2008). ^ "His education in Jesuit seminaries made of him a lifelong atheist, though he sometimes used the less sadistic imagery of Christianity." James Kirkup, 'Obituary: Miguel Torga', The Independent (London), January 20, 1995, p. 16. ^ "A republican, atheist and socialist, she is married, has four children and five grandchildren, and lives in Leicester." 'You Ask the Questions', The Independent (London), April 24, 2003, Features, p. 6. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 2, 2008). "Her parents were radicals in their outlook and they educated their daughter in a rationalist and humanist mode. As an atheist she saw religion only as the shield of tyranny, intolerance, and cruelty." D. A. Farnie, 'Utley, Winifred (1899–1978)' , Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ Simona Cigliana, Roberto Fedi, Giovanni Verga, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 2002, p. 287. ^ "She was educated partly at Cranborne Chase, a free-thinking school where there was no religious education, and was a committed atheist." Caroline Brandenburger, 'Obituary: Frances Vernon', The Independent (London), July 20, 1991, Pg 42. ^ David Mills (2006). Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism. Ulysses Press. p. 255. ISBN 9781569755679. “I'm a born-again atheist.” - Gore Vidal, writer. ^ In response to the question 'Is there a God?', Vowell replied simply: "Absolutely not." AV Club 9 October 2002 (accessed 6 March 2009). ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, October 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). "She returned to England an atheist and radical, eager to view nihilism in Russia." Patrick Waddington, 'Voynich , Ethel Lilian (1864–1960)' , Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, October 2007 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ Interviewer: "When you left the, the field of faith, you gave up these very, very clear beliefs in God, Jesus, Mary, the saints, the Church. Did you feel that you'd walked into a wilderness?" Warner: "Well as, actually I didn't, em, I felt a kind of, I did miss the solace. I did miss the sense of being held in the merciful hands of God, certainly I felt that. But actually I felt liberated into a kind of, y'know a world where people had thought many things and invented many things, and they were there to be discovered and there in a sense to be retrieved or selected from. [...] I have absolutely lost my faith, I'm afraid, absolutely lost it. I mean I lost it quite a long time ago. And when my mother was dying earlier this year [2008] I wished for her to have the faith of her childhood sufficiently to help her. But I couldn't have it for her, I couldn't pray for her." Transcript: "... I don't literally believe in miracles. But I think one has to be a, a little bit careful of that, that there are sudden reversals that can happen in people's lives, sudden epiphanies. And one might say that they have no rational explanation, and therefore they can be categorised with the miraculous. But I don't now believe in the superstructure of God dispensing em any wonders in the world. I don't, that's not something I believe in. [...]: "When you left the, the field of faith, you gave up these very, very clear beliefs in God, Jesus, Mary, the saints, the Church. Did you feel that you'd walked into a wilderness?": "Well as, actually I didn't, em, I felt a kind of, I did miss the solace. I did miss the sense of being held in the merciful hands of God, certainly I felt that. But actually I felt liberated into a kind of, y'know a world where people had thought many things and invented many things, and they were there to be discovered and there in a sense to be retrieved or selected from. [...] I have absolutely lost my faith, I'm afraid, absolutely lost it. I mean I lost it quite a long time ago. And when my mother was dying earlier this year [2008] I wished for her to have the faith of her childhood sufficiently to help her. But I couldn't have it for her, I couldn't pray for her." Transcript: Belief interview with Marina Warner , BBC Radio 3, 24 December 2008 (accessed 23 March 2009). ^ "Warraq, 60, describes himself now as an agnostic..." Dissident voices , World Magazine, June 16, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 22. ^ Anticipations (among other things, he predicted the formation, by the year 2000, of a "Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought, 1901; Mineola, New York, Dover Publications edition, 1999, p. ix. In his prophetic 1901 non-fiction book(among other things, he predicted the formation, by the year 2000, of a " European Union "), according to Martin Gardner , "Wells proposes a finite God, unrelated to any established faith.... Later he would repudiate the concept... and declare himself an honest atheist." Martin Gardner , introduction to the Dover edition of H.G. Wells , 1901; Mineola, New York, Dover Publications edition, 1999, p. ix. ^ "If I were a believer, perhaps I'd have some answers. As an atheist, I can't even imagine that I was spared so that I wouldn't die a fool or a sinner. Of course the values we're left with are all the residue of Christianity, though shorn of system and stripped of finality. An atheist lives in the present, since there will be no eternity ('They were shut up in days,' John McGahern says with strangely beautiful concision in Amongst Women.) Perhaps that's why I was given so much of the present to work with, since it's all I'll be getting." Edmund White, 'Thinking positive', The Observer, November 29, 1998, The Observer Review Page; Pg. 1. ^ "Creation myths tap into the same kind of issues as post-human SF, albeit sometimes turned upside-down: "Where are we going?" instead of "Where did we come from?" "What does it mean to be human or to play god?" I find these kind of questions perpetually interesting, so will probably keep coming back to them forever. The solo space opera books are certainly tapping into the same vein, perhaps more overtly than ever. This is what comes of being an atheist, perhaps: we think about these things more than most people. Obsess about them, probably." Interview with Sean Williams , SFFWorld.com, 19 November 2006 (accessed 9 March 2009)). ^ "An interview with author Simon Winchester is presented. He states that the book "Science and Civilization," by Joseph Needham is focused on every issues linked to China's relationship with water. Winchester admits that he is an atheist in a nonpolemical way." Abstract of the article 'An Eclectic Writer Takes on an Eccentric One', The Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition; 5/6/2008, Vol. 251 Issue 106, pD7. (Located via EBSCOhost August 6, 2008; full text not available). ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 2, 2008). "He was brought up in Reform Judaism, became an atheist in his teens, and remained sceptical about the religious temperament." S. P. Rosenbaum, 'Woolf, Leonard Sidney (1880–1969)' , Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 2, 2008). ^ "However, approaching moments of being as a version of theological mysticism is complicated by Woolf's atheism: in 'A Sketch of the Past', she declares that 'certainly and emphatically there is no God' (MB,72)." Lorraine Sim, Virginia Woolf: the patterns of ordinary experience (2010), page 148. ^ The Herald, "Why did this "saint" fail to act on sinners within his flock?", Anne Simpson, May 26, 2007 ^ Times Online, March 25, 2008 (Accessed March 26, 2008) "Like most of the Godless (or Godfree), I have no desire to proselytise for atheism or to persuade people out of religions that may offer them comfort and companionship." Wicked untruths from the Church , David Aaronovitch,, March 25, 2008 (Accessed March 26, 2008) ^ Times Online, March 31, 2008 (Accessed March 31, 2008) "What makes me think I "can reduce the function of religion to the provision of 'comfort and companionship'" instead of seeing it as a "public truth"? Being an atheist, I suppose. I see religion as a cultural and psychological construct, which fulfils certain almost universal needs and which, as a consequence, I am disinclined to condemn." Who wants to kill the elderly? , David Aaronovitch,, March 31, 2008 (Accessed March 31, 2008) ^ "Come on, somebody tell me I can't possibly have morals because I'm an atheist." Amy Alkon/Advice Goddess Blog, Awww, How Sweet! , May 25, 2008 (accessed June 9, 2008). ^ "But you don't have to believe in the supernatural to have morals: many atheists, myself included, have the habit of examining their consciences. "Of course you do," he says soothingly, "and I think for people who have been well brought up and educated and so on, this does apply. But for a great many people who don't have those advantages a religious framework is very important." Lynn Barber interviewing Paul Johnson, The Independent (London), August 25, 1991, Pg. 23. ^ "What was I doing here, I wondered, as I sat holding a little candle at the carol service in the local church? I am, in fact, an atheist. Yet here I was, listening to the readings, and singing several verses of the occasional carol I sort-of-knew." Paul Barker, 'Even an atheist can't resist the lure of Christmas', The Independent (London), December 27, 2003, Comment, Pg. 21. ^ "It is surely not only born- again atheists such as myself who start the day by fuming at the idiocies of Radio 4's Thought for the Day and Prayer for the Day. Famine, earthquakes, plane crashes, unemployment figures, plagues, wars all are grist to the Panglossean mill. Nothing is too horrible for it not to be used as evidence of the mysterious way in which God is working His purpose out. Nothing is too ghastly for it not to be further proof of His infinite love. On the media God-slots, they pray for anything from better weather to the release of hostages. To me the logic is incomprehensible. If this omnipotent God is in control of the climate then in His infinite wisdom he must have sent the floods and hurricanes and droughts, and if he is capabl

(CNN) A judge has decided that a sorority sister who uses a service dog can return to live in the Chi Omega house at The Ohio State University for now, even though another sister claims that she's allergic to the dog and it's making medical conditions she suffers from even worse. "The panic attacks restrict her breathing" Madeleine Entine, a sophomore, sued the school's ADA coordinator for forcing her and her service dog to move. She says the school violated the Americans with Disability Act and the Fair Housing Act in making its decision. Entine says she suffers from panic attacks, ones so severe they interfere with her daily activities. "The panic attacks restrict her breathing ability and cause her to hyperventilate. They also cause her muscles to lock up and prevent her from walking on her own," court documents said. So Entine gets relief from Cory, a service dog. Cory is trained to climb on her stomach and apply pressure. That helps bring her relief so she can restore her ability to breathe and move, court documents say. He also helps her have less frequent attacks. JUST WATCHED Figo to the rescue: Service dog saves owner Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Figo to the rescue: Service dog saves owner 01:48 "The two individuals are at odds" At the start of the school year, Entine and Cory moved into the Chi Omega house. Just a few weeks later, another sister in the house began complaining about Cory, saying she was allergic to dogs. Freshman and sophomore students are required to live either on-campus or in Greek housing. Since she's the Chi Omega chapter vice president, she lives in her sorority house. Court documents say Cory exacerbates the other sister's "allergies and asthma, which, in turn, causes a flare-up of Housemate's Crohn's disease." According to court filings, the dog is regularly played with by others throughout the house. The lawsuit does not name the other sorority sister. The situation made its way to the university's Americans with Disabilities Act Coordinator, Scott Lissner, to intervene. Lissner determined that, "...over time, continued exposure to dog dander would ultimately be untenable and unsafe for Housemate." Because of this conundrum, Lissner based his course of action on who signed the lease first: in this case, the sister with the allergy. OSU says they've used this same parameter in other cases. So Entine was forced to decide: either move out of the sorority house or stay in it without Cory. "Physcial parameters" would allow separation Entine claimed that the proposed solutions violated the Americans with Disabilites Act and asked if she could remain at the house, but with "physical parameters" that would allow separation between Cory and the other sorority sister, the complaint says. In a letter to Entine's attorney Bart Keyes, OSU said that "Due to room configuration and house mechanical systems, it was determined that restricting the dog to a certain area or assigning the students to different living locations or rooms within the house would not accommodate the disabilities of both students." OSU said it provided Entine an "offer of assistance from the University to make alternative housing arrangements, which she declined." Ultimately, the university stood by Lissner's assessment, and Entine was given two weeks to make a decision. JUST WATCHED Inmates train service dogs for children Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Inmates train service dogs for children 01:46 Allergies "are not valid reasons for denying access" In the federal suit filed by Entine, she maintains that this is a clear violation of the ADA, and quotes the federal regulations. "Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals." But Ohio State says the situation is difficult to manage. The "case is not about whether plaintiff can have her assistance animal as a reasonable accommodation. She can. Instead, this is about how OSU, specifically Lissner, must accommodate two students with disabilities whose accommodations are in conflict." Entine's lawsuit claims Lissner violated the ADA, the Fair Housing Act and other Ohio codes. US District Judge Algenon L. Marbley heard the case and issued a preliminary injunction, allowing Entine to remain in the sorority house with her dog until a verdict is handed down after trial. A trial date has not been assigned yet, Keyes told CNN. The judge's decision was based on the fact that "Lissner did not perform the inquiry required under the ADA before disallowing the use of a service animal. In fact, Lissner did not even establish that it was Cory who aggravated the symptoms of (the other sister's) disability," according to the court documents. CNN reached out to OSU, but officials said the university does "not comment on pending litigation." Calls to the Chi Omega sorority have not been returned.

Apparently some people aren't happy with a new ad campaign targeting Metro Detroit atheists. , the Detroit chapter of the United Coalition of Reason purchased pro-atheist banner ads on the sides of Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation buses. Against a sky background, they read "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." the group says the word "Don't" was either scratched out or torn off some the ads. "Acts like this give a striking reminder that our message is necessary," said Ruthe Milan, coordinator of Detroit CoR. "Without a doubt, prejudice against atheists and agnostics is still very real in American life." The group also says SMART replaced the ads free of charge, which originally cost $5,250. "Because this has happened, we stand even more resolved in our goal of being outspoken about our ideas," Milan added. "And we expect that this vandalism will convince even more nontheistic Detroiters that getting organized is important for the cause of religious liberty."

I love furry friends, but sadly just don't have the time to commit to one to give it the time it deserves. I volunteered a bunch in school and asked that my Santa pay a visit to their local animal shelter and provide them with some supplies to help ease the burden they face (food, treats, cleaning supplies). I told Santa that they were not required to fall in love with any of the animals. Santa saw kitty. Santa fell in love. Santa took kitty home. Kitty fell in love. <3 According to Santa, he's much cuter in person, if you can believe that?! I think he's certainly cute. He also, "runs non stop and purrs constantly. He also loves taking baths!" It seems this was a kill shelter too, so I'm just so overjoyed this little guy will have a wonderful life. Santa, you really did so so much more than was asked of you! I hope he proves to be a great addition to the family. Also, I hope you do decide to help volunteer at the shelter, it seems like something well suited to you. (Just don't adopt the rest of the animals too). :) Also, seems kitty is just responding to Kitty for now and is still in need of a proper name. Any suggestions folks?

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee overwhelmingly approved a bill to eliminate the requirement for certain pesticide uses to have a Clean Water Act (CWA) permit. H.R. 872, the “Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2011,” is bipartisan legislation that was introduced in the House by Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Gibbs, R-Ohio, Transportation Committee Member and Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Nutrition and Horticulture Schmidt, R-Ohio, and other members. The Committee approved the legislation by a vote of 46 to 8. The bill reverses a 2009 decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in National Cotton Council v. EPA. This decision vacated a 2006 EPA rule and long-standing interpretation that the application of a pesticide for its intended purpose and in compliance with the requirements of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) does not also require a separate permit under the CWA. The court-ordered deadline for EPA to promulgate the new permitting process for pesticides is April 9, 2011. EPA has estimated that approximately 365,000 pesticide users, including state agencies, cities, counties, mosquito control districts, water districts, pesticide applicators, farmers, ranchers, forest managers, and scientists that perform 5.6 million pesticide applications annually will be affected by the court’s ruling. This mandate virtually would double the number of entities currently subject to National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting under the CWA. H.R. 872 exempts from the NPDES permitting process a discharge to waters involving the application of a pesticide authorized for sale, distribution, or use under FIFRA, where the pesticide is used for its intended purpose and the use is in compliance with pesticide label requirements. The legislation would amend FIFRA and the CWA to clarify Congressional intent and eliminate the duplicative NPDES requirement. The bill was reported unanimously out of the House Agriculture Committee last week. Currently, 23 Democrats and 70 Republicans are official cosponsors. Bill proponents would like to see it pass the House within the next two weeks. The NCC issued an Action Alert for members to contact their Representatives to urge them to co-sponsor the bill if they already are not a co-sponsor. The alert and current list of cosponsors are available on the NCC’s website at www.cotton.org.

FCC Will Tackle Broadband Privacy Issues 'In Months' Back in 2008 Verizon argued that the broadband industry didn't need additional privacy protections (or opt in requirements) because "public shame" would keep the company honest. Seven years later and Verizon found itself at the center of a massive privacy scandal for injecting user-tracking headers into wireless customer traffic, a practice that existed for two years before security researchers noticed it, and almost another half a year before the company let consumers fully opt out. With the FCC recently ruling that ISPs are common carriers under Title II, the agency is beginning to explore whether it should use its newly-established authority to impose new consumer privacy protections. In an interview with Charlie Rose last week, Wheeler stated that the FCC will be tackling broadband privacy issues in the "next several months." Specifically, Wheeler said the focus will be on transparency surrounding data collection and monetization. “In other words, do I know what information is being collected?” he said. “Do I have a voice in whether or not that is going to be used one way or another? And those are two very important baseline rights that individuals ought to have.” The FCC previously stated it decided to forbear from requiring broadband companies adhere to rules requiring phone companies protect customer proprietary network information (CPNI), and wants to examine rules better suited for broadband and wireless networks. Of course such a move will only likely result in ISPs -- already suing over net neutrality rules -- taking an even more adversarial position against the FCC to ensure serious broadband privacy protections won't come to pass.

President Obama’s request for express congressional authorization for a limited aerial invasion of Syria raises profound legal and constitutional questions. For starters, there is simply no legal basis in international law to support an American invasion of Syria. Yet, notwithstanding that, federal law permits the president to commit U.S. military forces anywhere he wants for up to 90 days, without express authorization from Congress. So, why did Obama ask for the authorization he surely knows he already has? Since March 2011, Syria has been in the throes of a civil war. Those seeking to oust the government of President Bashar al-Assad are a mixture of his domestic political opponents, disgruntled former Syrian military officers and dangerous radical foreign Islamist fighters affiliated with Al Qaeda. International organizations monitoring the war have put the dead from both sides at more than 100,000 persons. [pullquote] Until last week, the U.S. had steadfastly stayed out of this war, as its outcome is unlikely to affect American national security. Though Assad is a former friend who once famously dined with then Sen. John Kerry, he is now a monster willing to go to extremes to stay in power. On the other hand, our allies in the region surely would prefer that the Syrian government not be run by or under the influence of Al Qaeda, and federal law prohibits Americans and the U.S. government from aiding Al Qaeda. Hence, our neutrality -- until Obama made a thoughtless and bravado-driven comment during his re-election campaign in August 2012, and now fears that his bluff has been called. In his comment, the president, sounding like an international policeman -- a position he condemned when President George W. Bush sounded that way -- declared that if the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its adversaries, the very use of which is prohibited by all civilized norms, America would revisit its neutrality. In reliance upon what he now claims is sound intelligence showing government use of chemical weapons on innocent Syrian civilians, Obama last week stated an intention to engage in a limited military invasion of Syria so as to weaken its resolve and ability to fight the rebels further. Never mind that the photos shown by Obama’s folks of aid workers ministering to the supposed victims of government gassing show the workers without gas masks or gloves, and never mind that the Assad regime has permitted U.N. weapons inspectors unfettered access to its materiel, and never mind that the president wants to invade Syria before the weapons inspectors issue their report. The president wants us to believe that the Assad regime intentionally gassed a thousand Syrian innocents who were of no military value to the rebels or threat to the regime -- and among whom were, according to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-Calif.), “hundreds of children.” Even if all this took place as Obama claims, can he lawfully bomb Syria to punish its government for violating international norms or to deter it from doing so again? In a word: No. International law recognizes only three lawful routes to the use of military force. It recognizes the right of every country to launch military force in order to prevent its own borders from being invaded or to subdue those who commenced an invasion. It also recognizes the ability of any U.N. member state to come to the aid of any other U.N. member state when one of them has been invaded. And treaties to which the U.S. and Syria are parties permit limited purpose invasions when approved by the U.N. None of these lawful scenarios applies to Syria. Can Obama just launch an invasion of Syria even if it would be unlawful and even if Congress says no? Because of the vicissitudes of history, the personalities of presidents and the myopic compromises of past Congresses, the area of presidential war-making has different legal and constitutional ramifications. Under the Constitution, only Congress can authorize the offensive use of military force. James Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention in 1787 make it obvious that the Framers were nearly unanimous in their resolve to keep the war-making power away from the president and repose it exclusively with Congress. They did this clearly and unambiguously in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Notwithstanding the precise language of the Constitution and the history of the nation's birth, the War Powers Resolution (WPR), a federal statute enacted in 1973 over President Nixon's veto, does permit the president on his own to use the military for offensive wars for a maximum of 90 days. Thus, under current federal law, Obama may lawfully bomb Syria even if Congress declines to authorize him to do so and even though such an act would violate international law. But the WPR is profoundly unconstitutional because it cedes Congress’ constitutional war-making power to the president. The WPR was an ill-conceived political compromise effectuated by a Watergate-weakened president, congressional hawks who approved of Nixon’s unilateral invasion of Cambodia and sober congressional heads more faithful to the separation of powers. Yet, the Supreme Court has ruled consistently that the transfer of constitutional powers among the branches of the federal government is unconstitutional, even if popular and consensual, unless brought about by an amendment to the Constitution. Thus, Congress can no more let the president start wars than the president can let Congress appoint federal judges, lest the Constitution have no meaning or force of law. So why does Obama want Congress’ approval to do that which international law prohibits and federal law permits? Obama knows that war is the health of the state: It unites political adversaries around common patriotic-sounding goals and often generates support for those in harm’s way and resources for the government officials who sent them there. But, will another war enhance our freedoms or our safety? Will it add to our debt? Will it trash the law? Can we bomb and kill for bragging rights? The answers are obvious, and they don’t justify war.

A Colorado voter told Denver7 that someone forged her signature on a petition to place Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser on the ballot for the June primary election. Pamela Niemczyk of Littleton told Denver7's Marshall Zelinger on Tuesday that she had signed a petition for Jack Graham, another Republican U.S. Senate candidate. She said the signature on the Keyser petition was not hers, calling it a "fraud." "It's fraud, it's definitely fraud. I'm not happy with it," said Niemczyk. "It looks like they put an 'R' on the end. And it looks like they didn't even, when they spelled it out, didn't spell it right." ProgressNow Colorado said in a news conference on Tuesday that it initially discovered "several invalid petition signatures" -- including two signatures attributed to Niemczyk on different candidates' petitions -- while conducting a "cursory investigation of the Secretary of State’s own data" on campaign petitions. The left-leaning advocacy group said this "revealed several invalid petition signatures that evidently slipped through the cracks, and at least one wrongly accepted duplicate signature that appears to be fraudulent." "Our review of just a sample of Jon Keyser’s petitions in one congressional district has found enough uncaught invalid signatures to raise serious questions about whether Jon Keyser has in fact qualified for the Republican primary ballot," said ProgressNow Colorado political director Alan Franklin. "The Secretary of State must immediately rescind their statement of sufficiency for Jon Keyser, and request an extension of the temporary injunction now in place to revisit errors and potential fraud in the signature validation process. 'Close enough' isn’t good enough for Colorado voters." Secretary of State spokeswoman Lynn Bartels said her agency was checking to see how the bogus signature got past officials and if they have identified any other fraudulent signatures. Several of the candidates hired professional signature-gathering firms, which is a routine practice in politics. The Keyser campaign issued a statement blasting U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, the Democratic incumbent whom he and other Republican candidates are vying to challenge in the November general election. "Senator Michael Bennet’s liberal friends, ProgressNow Colorado, embarrassed his campaign yet again today with a flailing stunt that clearly telegraphs to the entire political world how scared Michael Bennet is to face Jon Keyser in November," Keyser spokesman Matt Connelly said in the statement. "…The entire political world knows Jon Keyser will be on the ballot and we appreciate Progress Now's invitation to highlight for conservatives across the country that Jon Keyser is Senator Bennet's worst nightmare." Whether or not it was political stunt, Denver7 confirmed that the Littleton voter said someone forged her signature on the Keyser petition. "I don't think this is a liberal stunt, I think it's backpedalling by the Keyser group to cover their tracks. They got caught and they're trying to cover it now," said Niemczyk. "I don't know how anyone could trust you after this." The controversy comes after several Republican U.S. Senate candidates' have struggled to get their names on the ballot because the Secretary of State's Office found some of their petition signatures were invalid. Last month, Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a fellow Republican, said that Keyser had fallen 86 signatures short in Congressional District Three, in western and southern Colorado. Williams disqualified 186 signatures collected by Tyler Gonzalez. The Secretary of State could not confirm the address Gonzalez was listed as a registered Republican, with the address that he was currently living. But a Denver district court judge ruled last week that Keyser can be on the primary ballot . "Mr. Gonzalez’s failure to update his voter registration data with his new address is de minimus, especially given the fact that his move occurred just days before he started gathering signatures for Mr. Keyser," District Judge Elizabeth Starrs wrote in her ruling. "In assessing Mr. Gonzalez’s credibility and the evidence in this case, the Court finds that Mr. Gonzalez did not have an improper motive in failing to update his voter registration address. The Colorado Election Laws are designed, in part, to eliminate fraud. No fraud was present here." On Tuesday, the Secretary of State's spokeswoman said the fraudulent petition signature would not impact Keyser's placement on the ballot. "We have a court ruling that says we must put Jon Keyser on the ballot. Jon Keyser is on the ballot," Bartels said. Two other Republican U.S. Senate candidates, Robert Blaha and Ryan Frazier, were in Denver court Tuesday, challenging the Secretary of State's decision that they did not collect enough voter signatures to place their names on the ballot for the June 28 primary. All the Republican candidates are hoping for a chance to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the November general election.

There have been hints that Sonic could still work as a character, such as the 2D games that were released on the Nintendo DS system, but everyone's favorite hedgehog has been in trouble for longer than he's been a viable mascot. We kept hearing that this next game would be the good one, and that we had nothing to worry about. We kept crawling back to the same disappointment, hoping against hope that the latest game would be more like the classic releases and wouldn't feature any goofy sidekicks or weird relationships with human girls. Sonic Generations is out now on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, and it is not a perfect game—we'll go over some of the areas where things fall apart—but it comes the closest to bringing back everything we loved about Sonic, while getting rid of the things that continued to annoy us. I was impressed with Sonic 4: Episode 1, but this is even better. Why is this all happening? There is the skeleton of a story that involves a scary, smokey-black monster that brings the old and new Sonic together, and this means that each level must be played twice. Once as a classical 2D level; the kind we remember from our days with the Sega Genesis. Then you must repeat the level as a 3D action-fest that's more scripted and features Sonic's homing lock-on attack and other tricks he picked up in later games. The 2D levels are more fun to play overall, but the 3D sections are more cinematic and feature some very impressive moments. The same tension from past games can be found here; in order for Sonic to take part in the cool, scripted moments, the game has to take control from the player. There will be sections where you're simply holding the forward button while asking your friends if they saw that great thing that just happened. Each level is a tunnel that funnels you from point A to point B, but there are different paths to take and different surprises to discover. While you can scream through most of the sections on your first or second chance, it will take you many more times before you see everything there is to see. Each level is a newly designed take on the areas we're used to, and there are references to games, characters, and even bad guys from past games. The game assumes you know a good amount of Sonic lore, although you won't miss anything by simply ignoring the references and playing. To move forward you need to finish each section in both the 2D and 3D views—and it's neat how the two paths often intersect and criss-cross each other, so you can see hints of what's to come on your first time through—and then you'll need to finish a selection of discrete challenges to grab keys to open the door to the boss battles. The bosses themselves are pretty standard affairs, even though the graphics are a step above what we're used to from Sonic games. If you're good at pattern recognition, you won't have any problem with the bad guys. If anything, I found myself wishing for more boss battles. Still, the addition of numerous challenge levels that mix in the secondary characters and give you different ways to interact with the levels are a welcome way to mix up the action, and they'll test your abilities to the fullest. While those who need to finish everything may be frustrated, the game gives you a choice of different challenges to tackle to move ahead, so things never become too frustrating. Heck, you can even gain points to buy skills that augment your abilities in the game, and you can save different loadouts for your character in order to do better on certain levels. Having just finished a few hours of Battlefield 3 before playing this game, that was a fairly surreal thing to discover. Sonic has perks! I did have a few quibbles with level design, as sometimes things can fly at you a little too quickly and some of the stages felt more like memorization than skill. The game also stutters to a halt whenever you find yourself outside of the expected path, and it can be a boring and frustrating job to get back to where you need to be. These are problems that have always plagued Sonic, however, and in a counterintuitive way these frustrations are comforting. They're the right problems for the game to have, and they don't involve a big fishing cat. If anything, the game is too reliant on the past, and it trusts that you already love the character and are willing to overlook the problems that come with creating a game that's this fast. If you grew up with a Sega Genesis, this is a fine game that will remind you of the best parts of the series, with a few modern twists and unexpected challenges. The bar may have been set low, but this is a fun and exciting entry in the Sonic universe. This was the first Sonic title my son sat down and played for an extended amount of time, and it makes me very happy that he came to the series on a such a fine return to form.

A fake selfie showing Palestinian being chased by IDF forces went viral on Twitter Tuesday. The selfie, which was staged and does not depict real IDF soldiers, was taken by Palestinian rap group DAM and shared by unwitting internet users who took it to be real. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter According to Buzzfeed , an associate of the DAM rap group confirmed that the photo was staged but did not want to be quoted on record because he and his band mates have enjoyed watching the reaction to the picture online. A selfie while the Israeli military running after me. pic.twitter.com/bdgO7xURd2 — DAM (@DAMRAP) February 2, 2015 When closely examined, there are several hints the picture is a fake – from the sneakers the two "IDF soldiers" are wearing (not part of official IDF uniforms) to the posing of the two soldiers. However, for those unfamiliar with the IDF, the picture seemed real and it was shared on the internet as an act of defiance by the Palestinian man. The three people in the photo are DAM members Tamar Nafar, Suhell Nafar and Mahmoud Jreri, according to Buzfeed. According to the group's website, DAM is the first Palestinian hip hop group, it was formed in the '90s after the three Palestinian men were struck by the resemblance of the reality of the streets in a Tupac video that look similar to the streets in their neighborhood of Lyd. One of their best hits is a song called "Min Irhabi" ("Who's the terrorist) and was downloaded over a million times after its internet release in 2001. Rolling Stone in France distributed the song for free in one of their issues, according to the DAM website.

As it was too difficult to narrow down the list to just 10, I created two lists of the ten most significant deaths of 2013. The list below includes those in the fields of sports and entertainment while the one to follow contains people that excelled in the categories of politics, science, journalism, and business. Both are arguable in terms of order as well as omissions; feel free to point those out. I also admit its US centric and excludes hockey players. Plus, I’ve no doubt that Gary Coleman exclaimed, “What you talkin’ ‘bout Willis,” when his former co-star Todd Bridges told him that I excluded Different Strokes dad Conrad Bain, who died in January at the age of 89. #10 VAN CLIBURN #9 ESTER WILLIAMS #8 EARL WEAVER #7 KEN NORTON #6 PAT SUMMERALL #5 STAN MUSIAL #4 ELMORE LEONARD #3 DEACON JONES #2 JAMES GANDOLFINI With many hits yet to make when he died at age 51, Gandolfini’s anti-hero ushered in the golden age of American TV drama. #1 LOU REED Like this: Like Loading...

There were a variety of reactions when news broke that the Houston Astros would be moving from the National League Central to the American League West in time for the 2013 regular season. Most generally, a lot of people were pleased Major League Baseball would finally achieve league and divisional balance after years of being weird. Many other people worried about the potential consequences of regular interleague play. Astros fans were annoyed, since their team would have to make a big change from decades of franchise history. Fans of other teams in the AL West licked their chops, since — at least in the short-term — the Astros were supposed to be terrible. And fans of other American League teams in the were annoyed, like Astros fans, since the league shift and unbalanced schedule would give the West an advantage. The presence of the Astros in the West stood to give that division a leg up in the race for wild cards. Sometimes, the projections are way off. This year’s Washington Nationals were supposed to be a potential juggernaut, and right now they’re fighting to remain a .500 team. But sometimes the projections are right on. This year’s Astros have been dreadful, even more so as they’ve trimmed salary and reduced payroll. By FIP, Astros pitchers have collectively been a little below replacement-level. As a team, the team has a lower WAR than Marlon Byrd. The Astros have been more or less as bad as people thought, so, to what extent have they actually influenced the American League playoff race? Have they played a meaningful part? Yes. Yes, they have played a meaningful part in shaping the current AL playoff race. It’s pretty easy to see how. The Houston, so far, has played 16 games against the Rangers, and they’ve gone 2-14. The Astros played 15 games against the A’s, and they’ve gone 3-12. The Rangers and A’s are tied atop the AL West, meaning they’re also tied for one of the two wild-card slots. Incidentally, the Astros have gone 9-7 in 16 games against the Angels, and the Angels were supposed to be a big-time contender. Just about half the gap between the Angels and the Rangers is explained by head-to-head success against the worst team in baseball. Even when baseball is predictable, it isn’t. Anyway, the Astros have played some games against every contender in the American League, and here’s how those standings shake out: Shown are the contenders, their wins against the Astros, their losses against the Astros and the resulting standings. You’re free to apply these numbers to the overall league standings should that interest you. AL contenders vs. Astros, 2013 Team W L GB Rangers 14 2 – A’s 12 3 1.5 Red Sox 6 1 3.5 Tigers 6 1 3.5 Rays 5 2 4.5 Orioles 4 2 5 Royals 4 2 5 Indians 2 1 5.5 Yankees 2 1 5.5 One thing the Astros have done is boost the Oakland’s and Texas’ odds of getting home-field advantage in the first round. The two clubs are still behind both the Red Sox and the Tigers, but the gaps are closer than they might be otherwise. But, mostly, this is about the wild cards, and it’s evident how the Astros have mattered. Because the Rangers and A’s have both beat up on the Astros, they’ve pulled well in front of the wild-card competition. Before the season’s start, it appeared the Astros could give teams in the West a boost by a game or two or three. That’s what we see now, Angels excepted, as the Rays would actually have the best wild-card winning percentage if you leave the games against the Astros out. All of the trailing teams would have more of a fighting chance, with even the Royals’ situation being a little less desperate. Of course, we can’t nail things down specifically, because we haven’t agreed to an alternative scenario. If it weren’t for the Astros, against whom would those games have been played? And how would those games work out? It’s worth noting that the Rangers and A’s have both taken care of business. They’ve lost five of a combined 31 games against the Astros, while the rest of the contenders have lost 10 of a combined 39. So while Texas and Oakland have been given an advantage by the Astros’ league switch, they’ve also taken more advantage of the new bad team. The Orioles and the Royals have lost to the Astros twice out of six games. The Rangers have lost twice out of 16. Opportunities like this aren’t common, and Texas and Oakland have seized their chances. Depending on how things shake out, one might be able to say that the Astros changed the wild-card picture. Of course, things will depend on much more than that — after all, the Astros are just one team out of plenty — but it was anticipated Houston would make things easier for the West. Sure enough, that’s what we see. One should consider, though, the Blue Jays have been much worse than expected. The White Sox, too, so it’s not like the Astros have been the AL’s only bad team. If anything, maybe the playing field has been a little more even than it could’ve been. Probably not, on account of the Angels, but, I tried. One could try to advance the argument that this is unfair, that things are lopsided in the West’s favor. That’s absolutely true — in 2013. Every year, the unbalanced schedules make things lopsided. All divisions are different. Because team success tends to be cyclical — given a long enough period of time — the divisions should get just about the same number of pushovers. This year, the American League West has the Astros. Last year, the National League Central had the Astros. In 2003, the AL Central had the Tigers. In 2010, the NL Central had the Pirates. Things are never going to be fair until the schedules are balanced. And even then, the balance will be approximate. But if you’re a fan whose life has been made more difficult by the Astros moving to the AL West, take solace in their organizational intelligence and direction. They’ll be tough soon, and then this will all be forgotten. Things aren’t even, but they’re never even. Things are just baseball, and those weird flaws are part of the fun.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. After three years of development, NVIDIA has released new major version of PhysX physics engine – PhysX SDK 3.0. Currently, free binary version of PhysX SDK 3.0 is available for PC only (32-bit and 64-bit, Mac and Linux versions are promised to be delivered later). SDK 3.0 can be downloaded from Developer Support Center. Follow the path: [Online Support] -> [Downloads] -> [PhysX SDK 3.0] If you are experiencing trouble with registration of PhysX Developer account, please refer to our registration guide. Update [04.10.2011] PhysX SDK 3.1 released Update [01.06.2011] PhysX SDK 3.0.1 available Update [13.05.2011] Physx SDK 3.0 for Mac OSX available Update [17.05.2011] Physx SDK 3.0 for Linux available (Ubuntu based, 64-bit) Now, while your download is undergoing, let’s take a look on PhysX SDK 3.0 features: PhysX SDK 2.x was originally developed as a PC only physics engine, which was subsequently ported to support gaming consoles being developed by Sony (PS3) and Microsoft (Xbox 360). The PS3 port was developed independently and has been maintained in a separate code base since its development, as have later ports to Linux and Mac OSX. The unwieldy growth during the SDK lifetime and separate code bases have added to the considerable complexity of maintaining and updating succeeding versions of the PhysX SDK at a time when faster and more compact engines are required to effectively support phones and tablets. PhysX SDK 3.0 represents a significant rewrite of the PhysX engine. This rewrite involved extensive changes to the API that effectively results in a new PhysX engine rather than a chart of changes based on its predecessor version. The various platforms versions are generated from a unified code base, further differentiating it from version 2.x. In addition to a new modular design, considerable legacy clutter has been removed. Collectively these changes have resulted in a physics SDK designed to facilitate easier ongoing maintenance, enable simpler ports to emerging gaming platforms, and the addition of new features and capabilities. Focus on consoles and emerging gaming platforms. PhysX SDK 3.0 was designed to be competitive on current-gen consoles and anticipates devices with even less system resources. These architectural changes include but are not limited to better overall memory management, improvements to cache efficiency, cross-platform SIMD implementations, intelligent SPU usage on PS3, multi-threading across multiple cores, and AltiVec/VMX optimizations on Xbox 360. Improved Threading. PhysX SDK 3.0 features new Task Manager feature that supports two Dispatchers (for PC both CPU and GPU Dispatchers are available) that are responsible for managing task dependencies and distributing tasks across as many worker threads as the developer defines. This feature allows the developer to balance the proper mix of resources to achieve the desired performance level. PhysX SDK 3.0 also incorporates a SolverBatch that supports multiple threads for Rigid Bodies and Deformables that are using different solver islands. Additionally, narrow phase computation can use this feature to run multiple threads. The particles and particle fluids pipeline currently provides tasks to run the following in parallel (PC/Xbox 360): Multiple particle system instances (for collision and SPH phases) Multiple work units for collision per particle system instance Multiple work units for SPH per particle fluid instance For PS3 there is additional parallelization available for shape generation, which isn’t implemented yet for PC/Xbox 360. However, it doesn’t provide the parallelization across multiple particle system instances. PC plus GPU provides more but overall differently structured parallelization. Vehicles. A reworked vehicle model now includes components such as engine, clutch, gears, autobox, differential, wheels, tyres, suspensions and chassis, in comparison to simplified suspension/wheel/tire NXWheelShape class in PhysX SDK 2.x. One of the interesting aspects of the new model is the ability to create tire types, drivable surface types, and specify the friction used in the vehicle simulator to combine different tire and drivable surface types. Like PhysX SDK 2.x, the vehicle model exists outside of the PhysX Core and so it does not have to be compiled into a game, to reduce executable size, if not needed. Source code is provided to facilitate developer customization. New Serialization API. Serialization (the process by which SDK objects are saved from memory to disk) in SDK 3.0 is much more powerful and much more efficient than in previous SDK versions. It supports all SDK objects, and desterilizes them “in place” – without any data copy or extra memory allocation, allowing them to be loaded as fast as possible. Serialization and cooking are not mutually exclusive though. The cooking library is still available – and mandatory – in the PhysX SDK 3.0. In fact, one cannot serialize a convex or triangle mesh without cooking it first. Aggregates & Broadphase Clustering. In PhysX SDK 2.x each NxShape was represented by a separate AABB in the broadphase. This caused a significant performance issue in large scenes, particularly when adding and removing shapes from the scene. In PhysX SDK 3.0, developers can combine a collection of actors into an aggregate that can be managed as single entity in a broadphase data structure, purely as an optimization feature. For example, assigning the various body parts of a ragdoll to a single aggregate will result in decreased number of overlap tests (while joint limits are already preventing most body parts from penetrating each-other). Thus, in PhysX SDK 3.0, aggregates can be collectively represented by a single AABB in the broadphase, which improves overall efficiency. Double Buffering. This allows the client application to read and write to actors and the scene while the simulation is running on another thread. Articulations. An articulation is a single actor representing an acyclic system of jointed actors. Only an anatomical joint (similar to the spherical joint with swing and twist limits) is currently available for articulations. Articulations use solver techniques similar to Featherstone; although, they are more robust than sets of jointed actors and have drive models, which are easier to combine with procedurally generated motion. They’re also much more expensive in terms of CPU processing time. Deformables and Force Fields. Cloth and soft bodies were re-organized under one experimental Deformables actor. Force fields are no longer needed. They were provided in PhysX SDK 2.x primarily because the architecture prevented efficient implementation of user-defined callbacks for force fields. In the PhysX SDK 3.0 implementation, because of the extra freedom allowed by double buffering and other architecture changes, users can efficiently apply forces directly to the rigid bodies and there is no longer a need for the force field mechanism. This approach provides greater flexibility and freedom for developers. Distance based collision detection. In PhysX SDK 3.0, collision routines can generate contacts when the shapes are a small distance apart but not quite yet touching. The benefit is that bodies can now come to rest without concern for a tiny overlap between them. PhysX Visual Debugger Support (PVD). Event profiling for all platforms and thread utilization graphing within PVD. Mesh Scaling. It is now possible to create different non-uniformly scaled instances of your meshes and convexes without duplicating the memory. Non-Simulation Objects. Allows developers to create a staging area outside of the simulation from where they can add things into the simulation at high speed. Driverless. SDK 3.0 does not require installation of PhysX System Software on client or developer machine – it is fully driverless, like SDK 2.8.4. Character Controller has not changed much from that of 2.8.4. It is planned however, to improve it in a future releases. GPU hardware acceleration in SDK 3.0 is only available for particles/fluids.

The route will be announced on January 25, 2104. This page will be updated after the route is announced. This information below is for 2013 (or last year’s RAGBRAI). Click to download RAGBRAI XLI Daily Maps and a Map Key. Please note that these are large files and may take some time to download. Sunday, July 21 Council Bluffs to Harlan (pdf file) Monday, July 22 Harlan to Perry (pdf file) Tuesday, July 23 Perry to Des Moines (pdf file) Wednesday, July 24 Des Moines to Knoxville (pdf file) Thursday, July 25 Knoxville to Oskaloosa (pdf file) Friday, July 26 Oskaloosa to Fairfield (pdf file) Saturday, July 27 Fairfield to Fort Madison (pdf file) Map Key RAGBRAI Map Key 2013 (pdf file) Elevations RAGBRAI Elevations 2013 (pdf file) Support Vehicles RAGBRAI Support Vehicles 2013 (pdf file) Click here to download a PDF of the RAGBRAI XLI Route Map Click on the photo to zoom in or download the PDF. Here’s a day-to-day breakdown of the RAGBRAI XLI Overnight Host Communities: Council Bluffs, Saturday July 20 Harlan, Sunday July 21 Perry, Monday July 22 Des Moines, Tuesday July 23 Knoxville, Wednesday July 24 Oskaloosa, Thursday July 25 Fairfield, Friday July 26 Fort Madison, Saturday July 27 Support Vehicle Maps will available around July 3 (Adobe required) * You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader® to view and print the maps. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader® click the image below and follow the instructions to download and install it.

LAS VEGAS - "Knockout Night at the D," the boxing fight card to feature headliners Zab Judah vs. Josh Torres at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center (DLVEC), has been cancelled for Saturday, March 12. Derek Stevens, CEO of the D Las Vegas and DLVEC, said, "Last night, I received multiple calls from the Nevada Athletic Commission regarding eligibility concerns. After our discussions, it became apparent the fight card could not move forward. Although I'm disappointed with the situation, I appreciate the phone calls and look forward to working with the Nevada Athletic Commission on future boxing events at the DLVEC." Last year, DLVEC launched several successful boxing events, with Stevens leading the charge to bring outdoor boxing back to Las Vegas. All ticket purchases will be reimbursed. Credit card transactions will be automatically refunded and cash refunds will be issued at their point of purchase. About Downtown Las Vegas Events Center - Located at the corner of Third St. and Carson Ave. across from the D Las Vegas, the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center can accommodate up to 11,000 guests and features state-of-the-art stage, sound and lighting. The open-air design is inviting to both tourists and locals and offers the perfect spot for concerts, conventions and other large-scale events. Embracing the uninhibited spirit of Downtown Las Vegas, the new venue plays host to a line-up of curated events including premier concerts, food festivals and more. The venue is also the first entertainment arena in Las Vegas to accept Bitcoin as currency. For more information, visit www.dlvec.com or follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @DLVEC.

The other day I requested from the Florida State Boxing Commission some information regarding the UFC on FOX 11 event that was held in Orlando on April 19. The first item I asked for and receive was the letters of agreement between the fighters and promoter, which includes the agreed upon number of rounds, weight limit, name of the opponent, and pay for the services rendered. The complete list of fighter payouts they provided me is as follows: In addition to fighters' pay, which is the California and Nevada State Athletic Commissions also releases when requested by the public, I received a form that detailed the gross amount of sales at the event for "souvenirs, programs & concessions, less state and federal taxes." This amount was $522,383.35 for which the UFC was required to pay a tax of $26,119.17 to the Florida State Boxing Commission. Another document given to me by the commission revealed that the UFC sold $1,553,737.50 worth of tickets at the Amway Center. (Again less any state or federal taxes.) From those sales the UFC was required to make a tax payment of $77,686.88 to the commission. They also had to pay a tax of $6,152.40 on the value of complimentary tickets that were issued. This same doc also revealed that the UFC had listed a "broadcast, television or motion rights" payment of $2,272,000. The tax for this is also at 5% percent of the total gross receipts exclusive of any federal taxes, but since it is not to exceed $40,000 for a single event, that is the amount the UFC had to pay. Since the UFC has only visited Florida one other time in the last five years, and because other commissions either do not collect this information or share it with the public, what the Florida State Boxing Commission provided me represents one of the few glimpses fans and even fighters get into the UFC's business. The question is though, will Florida provide it in the future? The Orlando Sentinel reported that Zuffa has contributed to the Republican Governor's Association, (RGA) which in turn wrote a $2.5 million check to current Florida Gov. Rick Scott's campaign. Several of those contributors regularly interact with Scott's administration or are hoping for the Republican governor's help in the future. Among them: -- Zuffa LLC, the parent company of Ultimate Fighting Championship, which gave $100,000 to the RGA on Jan. 10. Zuffa is currently lobbying the Florida Legislature this spring to rewrite boxing and mixed-martial art regulations and to exempt some of its fight records from the state's public-records law. If they pass, Scott will have to decide whether to sign or veto them. The Orlando Sentinel also mentioned that the Fertittas' Station Casinos likewise donated $100,000 on January 10. Jason Floyd at the MMA Report posted an article last week detailing Zuffa's lobbying efforts in the state of Florida, where State Senator Bill Galvano has sponsored senate bill 808 that would change the current regulations and limit the amount of information that boxing and MMA promoters would have to disclose. So what exactly is this bill 808 that Zuffa seems so interested in not only seeing passed but signed into law by Gov. Scott? You can find the full text of the bill on the Florida Senate website but I've excerpted a portion here: 47 Section 2. The Legislature finds that it is a public 48 necessity that proprietary confidential business information be 49 protected from disclosure. The disclosure of proprietary 50 confidential business information could injure a promoter in the 51 marketplace by giving the promoter's competitors insights into 52 its financial status and business plan, thereby putting the 53 promoter at a competitive disadvantage. The Legislature also 54 finds that the harm to a promoter in disclosing proprietary 55 confidential business information significantly outweighs any 56 public benefit derived from disclosure of the information. For 57 these reasons, the Legislature declares that any proprietary 58 confidential business information provided in the written report An ammendment to the bill would also allow a promoter to issue more than five percent of seats in the house as complimentary tickets and not have them included in gross receipts for taxation purposes. While obviously Zuffa will benefit if it does not have to pay taxes on additional complimentary tickets, I suspect the main reason behind their support is that it prevents the disclosure of "proprietary confidential business information," which the bill defines as "information controlled by the promoter, which a promoter intends to be private in that the disclosure of the information would cause harm to the promoter or its business operations." A bill analysis lists what would be covered under "proprietary confidential business information": (a) The number of ticket sales for a match. (b) The amount of gross receipts after a match. (c) Trade secrets as defined by s. 688.002, F.S. (d) Business plans. (e) Internal auditing controls and reports of internal auditors (f) External auditors' reports. Included amongst these internal audits are television license fees and pay-per-view sales. Finally, the bill removes the reporting requirements for the sale or lease of broadcasting, television, and pay-per-view rights of any match held in Florida, if the promoter pays the maximum tax of $40,000 for a single event. The Muhammed Ali Boxing Reform Act mandates that promoters "advise the boxer of the revenues gained by the promoter from the event." The reasoning behind this is not insignificant. The disclosure of the total revenue a promoter has amassed for a particular bout is an important provision because it removes a significant portion of the promoter's power during future negotiations by allowing the boxer to know exactly how much a bout is worth to the promoter, thus enabling a boxer to negotiate larger purses for himself. Currently Florida statutes are in compliance with the Ali Act, but this new bill, in including both promoters of boxing and MMA, would seemingly come in conflict with it. Perhaps the thinking is that since boxing is covered by Federal law boxing promoters would still have to comply, in which case what is really being passed is an exemption for MMA promoters only in the state of Florida. (I also received documents from the Florida State Boxing Commission regarding the UFC's June 8th, 2012 show. The docs are linked below.) UFC 06-08-12 Tax Contracts

Claim: A ‘Dear Abby’ advice column was pulled because it included a letter taken from an episode of The Simpsons. TRUE Origins: One attribute we here at snopes.com have in common with advice columnists is that we both receive a fair amount of rather bizarre mail — most of it sent in earnest, but some of it sent by pranksters trying to see if they can trick someone into publishing their bits of inventive fiction. We probably have a bit of an advantage over the advice columnists in that the false and the apocryphal are as much our stock in trade as the true and genuine — we deal with the kinds of things people believe to be true; whether or not folkloric tales are actually true is usually irrelevant. Columnists, on the other hand, generally prefer not to be doling out advice to readers seeking answers to phony, contrived problems. The bogus biographical bug bit advice columnist “Dear Abby” in March 2004, when Universal Press Syndicate pulled her upcoming 15 March column after a newspaper editor who read it in advance noticed that one of the letters she had answered sounded a bit too . . . familiar. (Despite Universal Press Syndicate’s having rescinded the column, a few newspapers chose to run it anyway.) In a column titled “Wife meets perfect match after husband strikes out,” Abby proffered advice to a woman who signed her letter “Stuck in a Love Triangle.” Mrs. “Stuck” described herself as a 34-year-old woman with three children who had been married for 10 years to Gene, her “greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and rude” husband. So inconsiderate was Gene that his birthday present to his wife was a bowling ball — one drilled to fit his own fingers, with his name embossed on it (and presented, of course, to a woman who didn’t even know how to bowl). But “Stuck” decided to spite her selfish husband by keeping the ball and learning how to bowl, leading to her meeting Franco — a man who was “kind, considerate and loving” — at the local lanes. One thing led to another, they fell in love, and Franco proposed, putting “Stuck” in a quandary: “I no longer love Gene. I want to divorce him and marry Franco. At the same time, I’m worried that Gene won’t be able to move on with his life. I also think our kids would be devastated. What should I do?” Abby’s solution was for “Stuck” to admit her infidelity to her husband: “To save the marriage, he might be willing to change back to the man who bowled you over in the first place.” “Stuck”‘s dilemma may sound so familiar to some readers — it was taken directly from the plot of a first-season episode of the animated TV series The Simpsons (“Life on the Fast Lane,” also known as “Jacques to Be Wild,” first aired 18 March 1990), synopsized by TV Guide thusly: “Homer’s birthday present ‘for Marge’ is a bowling ball, prompting Marge to teach him a lesson by taking up the sport — and maybe also a handsome instructor.” This wasn’t the first time a prominent advice columnist had been tripped up with a recycled plot. In 1994, a mischievous reader (all right, I’ll confess — it was me) sent Abby’s sister, Ann Landers, a letter based upon a well traveled urban legend to see if she’d fall for it. She did, printing and answering the letter in her 1 May column. Last updated: 1 May 2014 Sources:

THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS: Convocation Meeting Committee of Social Affairs and Employment about the note of initiative of Norbert Klein: “Certainly Flexible: about thinking differently about work and social security with an unconditional basic income” (Sep 19) [Hilde Latour] For the first time in the nation’s history, a debate on unconditional basic income will be held in the Dutch Parliament this month. This debate, which will take place in the meeting of the Committee of Social Affairs and Employment, will be crucial in determining the direction and timeline for the future of unconditional basic income in the Netherlands. The country’s upcoming experiments will focus only on a selection of the population of those dependent on social welfare; thus, what they are testing is more like a reform of the welfare system, incorporating some aspects of basic income, than a full-fledged universal basic income. In January this year, Member of Parliament Norbert Klein of the Cultural Liberal Party (Vrijzinnige Partij) wrote a ‘note of initiative’ (“initiatiefnota”) to the Dutch Parliament, asking for a serious and open debate about the idea of a basic income for all above 18 years of age (who have lived in The Netherlands for more than 10 years). He also asked Parliament for further research on the topic and a reaction to his letter by the government, a coalition between the left-wing Labour Party (PvdA) and the right-wing People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). The latter request was fulfilled in May of this year. The Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Lodewijk Assher (PvdA) answered in writing: “The introduction of an unconditional basic income is not a realistic and economic achievable goal.” However, there might still be a chance to further investigate the option of an unconditional basic income. This is one topic to be discussed and debated during the Committee meeting on September 19th. To be continued… Info and links If you want to witness this discussion, you are welcome to do so, as the meeting is open to public. It will take place on September 19th from 13:00-18:00 (GMT+2), during the meeting of the Committee of Social Affairs and Employment in the Thorbeckezaal of the Dutch Houses of Parliament, Lange Poten 2511, The Hague (bring your passport). The meeting can also be followed via livestreaming. Both letters (Klein’s’ memorandum of initiative and Assher’s’ response) can be found here (in Dutch). A Basic Income News article written by Florie Barnhoorn addressing a public debate on this topic can be found here. Special thanks to Josh Martin and Kate McFarland for reviewing this article. Cover photo: Dutch Parliament Buildings CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Pieter Musterd

This post was contributed by a community member. In a lecture presented at the , Hannah N. Geffert described how the promise of expanded rights for African Americans motivated many to join the Union forces. She proposed that there is a direct line among the willingness of Africans in America to use violence, their service in the military, and the achievement of liberty and citizens' rights for African Americans. Geffert gave her lecture, entitled "African Americans in the Civil War: Men, Soldiers, Citizens," at the library on Sunday, October 16, to an audience of about a dozen history enthusiasts. A member of the Political Science faculty at Shepherd University, Geffert gave a brief history of Africans in America, both free and enslaved, and described how African Americans throughout history have entered military service in hopes of gaining freedom and equal rights. She noted that since the first Africans arrived in Colonial America until the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, their legal status was less than that of a citizen. Whether free or enslaved, Africans in America recognized that if they were to be free, it would require their assertive action, she said. Some were convinced this could be accomplished through petitions, legal cases, and convincing white Americans that slavery was an evil the country could no longer tolerate. Others believed it would require the shedding of blood to gain freedom and that it was necessary for Africans to take up arms if they if they were ever to gain citizenship, Geffert said. "You can only have political solutions without violence if there is a path to do so," she said in response to a question about white abolitionist John Brown. "The Dred Scott Decision ended that path," she said, referring to the 1857 Supreme Court ruling that enslaved African Americans and their descendants were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens. She suggested that the court decision led inevitably to violent acts such as Brown's 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, which is considered one of the key events leading to the Civil War. Geffert said that at least 5,000 African Americans joined forces with the revolutionaries during the Revolutionary War, and many also fought in the War of 1812. Many hoped that their military service would help bring them full rights as citizens. This sentiment was also a factor during and after the Civil War. During a question and answer discussion after the lecture, Geffert and some of the attendees noted that this pattern continued through both World Wars and even the Vietnam War, when many African American soldiers returned home to find that they were still subject to racial discrimination. The lecture was sponsored by the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library.

Roadside Attraction Turk's Head Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 14, 2016 “But we agreed on a hundred.” Becky rolled over and pulled the sheet up over her body, which felt like a weird bit of modesty after… after. But it also felt vaguely like she was denying him something, some after-sex body comfort. And it felt powerless to be in conflict naked. “You said a hundred,” he said, laying there with his hands folded behind his head. He was looking at her speculatively, like he was trying to gauge just how much trouble she was going to make about this. “I said a hundred because that’s the price,” she said. “It’s not a, an opening bid. And besides, if you wanted to make a counter offer, the time to do it is before we fuck.” “That seems like the worst time to make a counter offer,” he said. “Now seems like…” “I’ll blacklist you.” It sounded as desperate as she felt. “You won’t be able to use…” He made a rude noise. “That might have been true twenty years ago,” he said. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the whole organized sisterhood of truck stop whores thing has sort of dried up. It’s not like there’s thousands and thousands of you anymore, roaming the highways in their winnebagos.” He looked at her up and down. “I think you should take the sixty before it turns into forty,” he said. “Forty my ass,” she said, loudly, and then regretted it, because she knew he was going to say something like, “Yes, forty for your ass.” Fuck. “Yes,” he said, grinning slyly. “Forty for your ass.” “Fuck you, you lying sack of…” She was out and out yelling now. Not like it mattered; they were in the sleeper-bed in the back of the cab of the only truck currently pulled into the truck stop. NNM was still driving trucks, for reasons best known to them; almost everybody else had gone over to robotic trucks, and she was lucky if she got one good customer a night; which was why it was important to get fucking paid for that one. “Just take your money and get the fuck out,” he was saying, over and over, a little louder each time. “Get… out.” There was a noise from somewhere in the back of the truck. She stopped, still, and looked over at it, blinking; it was some sort of deep “CLUNK,” metal on metal. It sounded ominous and old-fashioned. “What the fuck…” But the dude she’d been yelling at was scrambling for his trousers, suddenly trying to get them on. A door she hadn’t even really been aware of opened, along the wall between the cabin and the trailer. It was obvious that it was a door, in retrospect, but somehow she hadn’t noticed it before it swung out, and there was suddenly an older guy sticking his head into the cabin. “What the fuck is going on, up here?” The older man glanced at her, and then locked his eyes on her troublesome client. Looking past the older guy, she could see into the back of the truck; it looked like some sort of command center, crossed with an electronics lab. Becky had had two years of junior college in computer repair before she and the school mutually decided that maybe something less… indoorsy would be a better fit for her; just enough to recognize soldering irons and lab equipment, as well as stations just looking at some screens above a bunch of audio-looking gear. There were a couple of what looked like 3d printers bolted to the back wall. “Fucking whore won’t take her money and leave,” her john was saying. “Just started freaking out.” He was looking pleading eyes at her. “Maybe I misunderstood, then,” she said, looking from the older man to the younger man. “Hundred bucks, right?” The younger man opened his mouth to deliver another hot objection. He was now sitting upright against the other bulkhead, and had the sheet pulled over himself as well. He looked at the older man, and then at her, and dropped his eyes. “Ain’t got a hundred,” he mumbled. “You…” She stopped, gathering her breath to start yelling again, but the older man looked at her in a way that made her want to shut up for a minute. “You don’t have a hundred bucks,” the older man said slowly. The younger man shook his head. “Well, then, Jacobso…” he glanced over at Becky, then back at his victim, “Josh,” he finished, “I’m going to have to make up the difference, aren’t I? And you’re going to have to pay me back at payday, right?” He fished his wallet out of his pocket, took the money Josh had been offering her, and added two twenties to it. Josh was nodding miserably. “And in the mean time, you’re going to be driving doubles.” “But…” The older man clenched his jaw, and Josh shut up. “Hard enough running a… a trucking company, without stiffing mistreating the whores so they don’t come around our trucks anymore.” He smiled a leathery smile at Becky, and passed her over the hundred. “Maybe in the future,” he said, “Get Josh here to pay you in advance.” Then the door that now obviously looked like a door swung shut, leaving her to pretend that the fuming Josh wasn’t there while she got dressed.

"Oles Buzyna has just been killed... Right in the yard near the house. Everyone heard the shots," Demid said. At the same time, the Department of Public Relations Research Affairs of Ukraine in Kyiv told an UNIAN correspondent that the journalist was killed at about 1320 in the Shevchenko district of Kyiv on Dehtiarivska Street, near the house where he lived. According to witnesses, Buzyna was shot by one of two unknown men from a car. An investigative team is working at the crime scene. The killing of the journalist was also confirmed by advisor to the Interior Ministry Anton Herashchenko on his Facebook page. "The famous journalist Oles Buzyna has just been killed on Dehtiarivska Street near the house No. 58 from a dark blue Ford Focus car. The license plates on the car were Latvian or Belarussian, but not Ukrainian," he said.

Derrick Jones Jr., $543,471 (Photo: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports) PHILADELPHIA -- The Phoenix Suns recalled rookie forward Derrick Jones Jr. from D-League affiliate Northern Arizona with T.J. Warren ruled out for Saturday night's game at Philadelphia against the 76ers. Jones, a 6-foot-7 small forward, joined the team in Philadelphia and will be on the active roster on Saturday night after Warren left the Suns' win at Indiana with illness and was treated at a hospital. P.J. Tucker played small forward for the entire second half of the Suns' 116-96 win. Suns guard Devin Booker will play after being doubtful to play Saturday night. He sprained his left ankle on an early third-quarter drive against Indiana. Booker left the game and quickly returned, but he continued to favor it as he missed four shots before leaving the game for good. Warren left Friday after the first nine minutes of play due to illness that he began to feel before the game. He did not return, and he was taken to a hospital for treatment. GET THE SUNS APP: iPhone \| Android Jones helped the Northern Arizona Suns to a 2-0 start on his nine-day assignment, averaging 14.5 points and 6.0 rebounds with 58.8 percent shooting from the field. He played Friday night in Salt Lake City and arrived Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia. Already without Tyson Chandler for his mother's funeral, this Suns road trip also has games at Washington on Monday and Orlando on Wednesday. Jones, 19, went undrafted from Nevada-Las Vegas and earned a Suns opening-night roster spot with the potential he showed during training camp and the preseason. Jones had 12 points and nine rebounds in 38 minutes of Friday's NAZ win at Salt Lake City and posted a 20-point, six-rebound game in the home opener against Iowa. Reach Paul Coro at paul.coro@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-2470. Follow him at www.twitter.com/paulcoro.

Investigations into two suspected foreign terrorists are progressing swiftly as one of the men admitted to a planned attack on Israeli tourists in Khao San Road during Songkran, according to an investigator. The source announced progress in the probe after Thai media yesterday reported the suspected terrorists have been held for questioning since the beginning of Songkran. They were arrested on suspicion of links to militant Islamist group, Hezbollah. Top: Youssef Ayad is described as a Lebanese-Filipino Shia and Hezbollah ESO operative. Daoud Farhat (bottom left) is said to be a French-Lebanese national, while Bilal Bahsoun, whereabouts currently unknown, is also reportedly of Lebanese origin. (Photos from Stop910.com) The men have been identified as French-Lebanese national Daoud Farhat and Lebanese-Filipino national Youssef Ayad. The source said Mr Farhat held a French passport and Mr Ayad carried a Philippines passport. According to their passports, both were born in Lebanon, though authorities have yet to confirm if the travel documents are genuine. Mr Farhat is visiting Thailand for the first time, while this is Mr Ayad's 17th visit to the country. Both arrived several days before the Songkran festival started on April 13. Assistant national police chief Winai Thongsong said the men were arrested at different locations in Bangkok after Thai police received intelligence from Israel about a planned attack on Israeli tourists during Passover, the Jewish festival which coincided with Songkran. The source said investigators believe at least nine suspected foreign terrorists connected to Hezbollah are somewhere in Thailand. Authorities are attempting to track them down, he said. The source also said Mr Ayad had given useful information to police. He admitted his group entered Thailand to carry out a bomb attack against Israeli tourists and other Israeli groups on Khao San Road during Songkran. "Now we can seize materials, such as nails and bolts, used in making bombs from their homes in Bangkok. "We are taking the holder of the Philippines passport to Rayong province to search for more bomb-making material kept there," the source said. The location of the stash in Rayong has not been revealed as the suspect did not know the name of the place, but told investigators he could remember where it was. "If we had been unable to arrest the men during Songkran, a bomb attack would certainly have taken place somewhere on Khao San Road," he said. Khao San Road is a popular destination among Israeli tourists. Pol Lt Gen Winai said the two suspected foreign terrorists will be deported back to the last countries they travelled from immediately after Thai police finish questioning them. He did not name the countries. "They are still being questioned thoroughly. We have not yet pressed any charges against them. "Once we finish questioning them, we will deport them," Pol Lt Gen Winai said. Meanwhile, National Security Council chief Lt Gen Paradorn Pattanatabut confirmed Thai authorities are focusing on the capture of another foreign terrorist. Both Mr Farhat and Mr Ayad are listed on the website Stop910.com, which collects information on suspected terrorist cells operating in Asia, and carries notices of financial rewards for information. According to immigration police, the third suspect, Bilal Bahsoun, may not have entered Thailand.

It’s Giro d’Italia time again! Some of the world’s best riders will fight it out over the next three weeks to see who will win overall and who will become a hero for a day. The Giro has a long history and expect to become acquainted with the smaller Italian teams like Bardiani and Androni over its course. A mixed first week followed by an easier second week leads into a third week showdown between the key contenders and we will see who wins the pink jersey. Giro d’Italia Stages Stage 1 – San Lorenzo › Mare Sanremo (17.6k) Stage 2 – Albenga › Genova (177k) Stage 3 – Rapallo › Sestri Levante (136k) Stage 4 – Chiavari › La Spezia (150k) Stage 5 – La Spezia › Abetone (152k) Stage 6 – Montecatini Terme › Castiglione della Pescaia (183k) Stage 7 – Grosseto › Fiuggi (264k) Stage 8 – Fiuggi › Campitello Matese (186k) Stage 9 – Benevento › San Giorgio del Sannio (215k) Rest day Stage 10 – Civitanova Marche › Forlì (200k) Stage 11 – Forlì › Imola (153k) Stage 12 – Imola › Vicenza (Monte Berico) (190k) Stage 13 – Montecchio Maggiore › Lido di Jesolo (147k) Stage 14 – Treviso › Valdobbiadene (59.4k) Time Trial Stage 15 – Marostica › Madonna di Campiglio (165k) Rest day Stage 16 – Pinzolo › Aprica (177k) Stage 17 – Tirano › Lugano (134k) Stage 18 – Melide › Verbania (170k) Stage 19 – Gravellona Toce › Cervinia (236k) Stage 20 – Sint Vincent › Sestriere (196k) Stage 21 – Torino › Milano (185k) Giro d’Italia Contenders GC Lets be honest, there’s only three genuine GC contenders from the off. Previous winner Alberto Contador is looking to do a Giro d’Italia/Tour de France double this year and has a strong team to back him up here with Basso, Kreuziger and Rogers to look after him. Team Sky have decided to back Australian Richie Porte and again it is a strong lineup. Konig and Nieve are the mountain stage lieutenants with Kiryienka and Eisel the powerful flat stage guardians. The issue is whether or not he can limit losses on the one bad day he seems to have in a grand tour. Rigoberto Uran is the other option, in good form during the Tour de Romandie he can climb well and time trial well. The team behind him isn’t as strong with less big hitters to look after him and it’s this that may make him lose time at the worst moments. Honourable mentions go to Domenico Pozzovivo, Fabio Aru, Jurgen Van den Broeck, Ryder Hesjedal and Benat Intxausti. I would expect these riders to make up the rest of the top ten (barring injury/crashes) but there should be some daylight between them and the top 3. Stage Wins There is an interesting mix of sprinters at this year’s Giro d’Italia, with many being powerful hill stage sprinters capable of winning Stages 3 and 7 in particular. Michael Matthews has previous at the Giro with his breakout performance and spell in the pink jersey last year. I’d expect at least one stage win and potentially a repeat with Orica-Greenedge looking well set up for the team time trial. Andre Greipel is always in the mix with the flatter sprints but is capable of getting over some of the hills – He’s not been at the Giro d’Italia since 2010 but does have two stage wins. Sky’s Elia Viviani won’t have much of a sprint train around him but will be relishing the chance to go for stage wins. His track pedigree means he generates a lot of power and will be in contention. The combination of Gianni Meersman and Tom Boonen will be looking for stage wins for Etixx-Quickstep. I’d expect Meersman to focus on the hillier stages such as possibly stages 4 and 9 with Boonen maybe going on his own on the pure sprint stages. With Boonen coming back from injury a lot is in the air. Giacomo Nizzolo‘s first Giro d’Italia will hopefully act as a breakthrough. He has a few good results this season from Paris – Nice but has a habit of going missing in big sprints. Riders such as Sonny Colbrelli, Roberto Ferrari, Heinrich Haussler, Alessandro Petacchi, Moreno Hofland, and Juan Jose Lobato will also be fighting it out in the sprints. I don’t expect all of them to be up there each day but any of them stand a chance of a stage win if they get everything right on the day. Giro d’Italia Outsiders FDJ’s Jussi Veikkanen is potentially a highlight of an otherwise weak team. I’m expecting a breakaway attempt or a decent TT result, a definite wildcard on a stage during the three weeks. Bardiani normally light up the race and I expect 2013 Giro d’Italia KoM winner Stefano Pirazzi to go on the attack on a few stages and if the leaders let him go, could get a stage win. On the same theme, Enrico Battaglin will attack on the smaller hill finishes. Cannondale’s David Formolo is a decent shout for the Youth Jersey with good performances over the season so far. He’s definitely capable of a top 25 overall. Giro d’Italia Prediction 1 – Contador 2 – Uran 3 – Porte 4 – Aru 5 – Pozzovivo 6 – Hesjedal 7 – Van den Broeck 8 – Intxausti 9 – Pellizotti 10- Ulissi KoM – Franco Pellizotti Sprint – Michael Matthews

W ould traditional Diné teachings steer troubled young men into a more positive direction? "From what we understand by a lot of the researches done, yes," said coordinator of the 2013 Youth Culture Festival, Lucy Laughter-Begay. "It builds resiliency, meaning if they know where they are coming from, the strong identity will help them face the challenges they have." Using traditional teachings to address issues such drug addiction, bullying and suicide among youth was among the topics discussed during the event, which was sponsored by the Tséhootsooí Medical Center's Methamphetamine Suicide Prevention Initiative and held last week. "Since school was out for summer we thought we would have this event for the community to promote the use of traditional teachings," said Begay, who is also the project director for the Initiative. "… We can encourage our people, especially our youth, (about) the concept of their identity to give them confidence and strength as Dine' people, and using that information for their own protective factor." According to Begay, though the event was targeted at the youth, parents were also encouraged to attend, as there were workshops on parenthood and the importance of setting a solid foundation. Among the speakers was traditional consultant Rex Harvey, whose presentation was titled "Traditional Roles of Navajo Males." "For young men, I just want them to take care of themselves and to be proper with themselves," he said. "To have respect for themselves and grow individually, internally and externally so they are able to have a brighter future for themselves..." Currently living in Montezuma Creek, Utah, Harvey works for the Utah Navajo Health System's Behavior Health Department as a traditional consultant, working with troubled adolescent males, using his traditional teachings and lessons in his practice. "I believe the Navajo youth is where we have to get the traditional teachings embedded in," he said, "so down the road they can learn how to be better parents and people." Unlike the other speakers presenting, one thing that set Harvey apart from the others was his use of humor. "I just want to make it fun for the youth because I find that humor is the key to get them to listen and to understand," Harvey said. With many cheers and laughter from his audience, it seemed Harvey's humor was indeed working as he drew the attention of everyone in the audience. "I love it when a kid laughs, I like it when they're smiling," he said. "I like it when a kid is receiving something good and they walk away saying, 'Hey that was really good, I'm going to share it with my dad and my grandma.'" Another expert who presented was John Tsosie Jr., a traditional counselor for the Tséhootsooí Medical Center. "The Navajo youth have issues with substance abuse, frustration, (and) depression …" he said. "As long as they understand where they're coming from, it helps." Tsosie said some of the young people he works with using his philosophy has helped many graduate and to prevent high school dropout. "In that way, I do believe it is effective," he said. Of next year, Begay said she hopes to make the youth festival an annual event. "If our funding and donations keep coming we want to have this event annually," she said. "Since our funding comes directly from Congress, they're asking 'what is it? What is the secret to the Navajo still being recognized as a people?' "And the secret," she said, "is the use of our tradition, our own teachings, our own language, we're saying it's a strong, sacred thing." Back to top ^

In Conception II, Your Child Can Grow Up To Be A Singer Or A Mercenary By Sunjun . July 31, 2013 . 1:00pm Conception II is an RPG with dating sim elements that lets you make Star Children who are born to fight monsters. Like in a normal RPG, these Star Children come in thirty different classes, such as swordsmen, magicians, thieves, and gamblers(!). Now, Famitsu has revealed some more classes that are new to this sequel. Dark Knight The Dark Knight relinquishes all feelings of love and affection in order to become a powerful warrior. The Dark Knight is as solid as the Paladin, further empowered by an aggressive nature that allows no room for mistakes. Diva Endowed with a heavenly voice, the Diva is a girls-only class that supports her other party members with her vocal skills. Mercenary The Mercenary is a boy-only class and an adept warrior who manipulates his sword skills to destroy enemies without fail. To fight enemies in Conception II, you must form three teams of three Star Children. When you put certain classes in a team, they can combine forces to execute a special team skill. For example, when you have a Diva and a Minstrel in the same team, they can join their musical prowesses perform the skill Lucky March, which restores HP and increases the luck of their allies. The Dark Knight and Mercenary can execute the team skill Guard Chain which simultaneously delivers a powerful blow, creates a defensive barrier, and increases the Over Chain Gauge, which speeds up all of your teams’ moves when it’s filled. Conception II will be released for the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS on August 22. A demo is available now for the Vita, whereas the 3DS will receive one on August 8.

NOTE: The search doesn't appear to work; no idea how long it's been broken, but until I can fix it, click here to search the Book of Concord Daily Readings from the Book of Concord Today is Wednesday of week 09; that reading has been highlighted below. Use this chart to catch up on readings that you have missed. Note that each of the items below are links to locations within the Book of Concord; click on the links to go to the reading for that day. Now, remember to only read what is shown for the day! You will read ahead otherwise! The links provided just put you at the start of the reading, they don't stop at the end of the reading for the day. You may of course use this guide to read from your copy of the Book of Concord. To receive the Book of Concord daily readings each day, M-F, subscribe by email to the following group: Subscribe to Daily Book of Concord Readings Email: Visit this group To receive these readings by twitter on your web-enabled phone, click here. Please report any typos or formatting problems you see with this text. Did you know that you can link to any paragraph within most documents on this site? See the Citation page for more information. Please contact us if there is a location that you can't figure out how to link to.

The most important question about Iceland these days (after “How come Iceland is green and Greenland is icy?”) is what we can learn from its economic recovery. In 2008, the tiny island nation in the North Atlantic became a byword for both boom-time excess and recessionary disaster. After inflating its financial service sector with a pile of foreign-currency debt and risky combinations of short-term debt instruments with long-term loans, Iceland, which is not a member of the European Union, endured one of the most unpleasant recessions in recent memory. The country’s three largest banks, whose total assets were 11 times larger than Iceland’s GDP, proved too big to fail and then too big to rescue, bankrupting the central bank that took them over and leaving foreign creditors empty-handed. Inflation in the import-heavy economy reached 18 percent, while the stock market plunged by 90 percent. Between 2007 and 2009, according to the World Bank, GDP dropped by 40 percent. The Icelandic króna turned into a pariah currency, and even the country’s durable fishing and aluminum businesses were crippled by heavy leverage. A collapse of this size needs a villain, and it will surprise nobody to learn that libertarians, who exert an iron grip on political and economic practice throughout the world, took the blame. In a 2008 story for Fortune, Peter Gumble blamed deregulation and putatively free market reforms for destroying the banking system. New York Times economic poetaster Paul Krugman said the small nation had been “hijacked by a combination of free-market ideology and crony capitalism.” Huffington Post columnist Iris Erlingsdottir blamed the late Milton Friedman (who had once praised 10th-century Iceland’s approach to government) for failing to “take into account the predictably irrational character of human nature,” and concluded, “It is time for the grownups to take over again.” As always, we had to look to the legendary Icelandic songstress Björk for real wisdom. In a London Times essay blasting the country’s ruling conservatives, Björk lamented the way the boom/bust cycle had wiped out small entrepreneurs as big money pursued an oversupply of aluminum smelters—which was not an excrescence of the free market but a product of public industrial policy. Former Reykjavik mayor and Prime Minister Davíð Oddsson did indeed pepper his tenure as head of Iceland’s central bank with free market rhetoric. But that’s about as far as it went. In their new study of the crisis, Deep Freeze: Iceland’s Economic Collapse, economists Philipp Bagus and David Howden illustrate how thoroughly Iceland’s financial boom combined a Scandinavian nanny state—which consumes 41.1 percent of GDP and features unemployment insurance that provides three years of benefits—with the worst practices of boom-happy central bankers and government agencies everywhere. For every government-driven bad improvement you can find in the west, you’ll find boom-era Iceland taking it to the next level. Where the U.S. Federal Reserve’s promise to backstop financial institutions was merely implicit, the Central Bank of Iceland in 2001 gave an explicit guarantee to big banks, making it inevitable that they would become bloated with risky and ultimately toxic assets. Our own government-sponsored—and as of 2008, government-owned—entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made a hash of responsible lending by buying mortgages in the secondary market (and as we now know, lying about the poor quality of debt on their books). But Iceland’s government-run Housing Financing Fund managed to do even worse, lending directly to borrowers and competing with private lenders on both interest rates and loan quality. By mid-decade 90 percent of Icelandic households had government loans, and no-money-down home purchases were as common in Iceland as they were in Florida. When the predictable emergency hit, neither the government nor the private financial institutions had cash to redeem the large number of foreign-denominated loans. While the International Monetary Fund eventually cobbled together a small bailout package, for the most part Iceland was alone. U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown invoked anti-terrorism legislation against the charter member of NATO, trying to force Icelandic banks to repay British lenders. Russia promised a bailout but failed to deliver. The E.U. was, and remains, too preoccupied with its own profligate states to give attention to remote Iceland. This international neglect turned out to be Iceland’s saving grace. The crisis ended almost as quickly as it had begun. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development expects Iceland’s economy to grow by 2 percent this year and next. That’s not enough to replace the post-2007 loss, but it’s more than enough to return to the pre-boom trend line, and it’s much stronger than the performance of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, affectionately know as the PIIGS economies. Iceland’s long-term interest rate, a not-inconsiderable 8 percent, compares well with a rate of over 13 percent for Greece, which is astounding when you consider that Iceland endured a default that Greece, in name at least, has so far avoided. The difference in unemployment—5.8 percent for Iceland against 16 percent for Greece—is even more striking. Iceland expects to have a balanced budget in 2013. Paul Krugman naturally draws the wrong conclusion, contending that Iceland saved itself through rapid inflation and capital controls. This is like saying the March tsunami gave the people of Tohoku a nice chance to go swimming: Iceland’s central bank tried desperately to control the króna’s collapse before giving up. Nevertheless, Erlingsdottir is right: The “grownups”—a center-left coalition led by Social Democrat Johanna Sigurdardottir—are back in charge and have done their best to double down on the bad policies of the past, including reducing fish quotas when local fishermen most need to be producing and selling. The government is also, in the face of strong popular opposition, moving toward E.U. membership, which has worked out so beautifully for other troubled European economies. So what’s causing the recovery? The plain-sight answer is the one nobody will consider. Iceland is coming back specifically because its banks went out of business. That happened in spite of strenuous public efforts, but the removal of the tiny nation’s colossally bloated financial sector turns out not to have eliminated all that much value. It bears repeating that banks are not creators of wealth. They are places where you store the surplus value generated by productive enterprise. In very narrow circumstances that surplus value can be loaned out at a profit, but a financial sector is the icing, not the cake. This should be common sense, but apparently it is wisdom so rare it can only be learned in countries small and remote enough to avoid the deadly medicine of the global financial markets. Tim Cavanaugh is a senior editor at reason.

As we head towards the expiration of the CBA this winter, there seem to be three pretty common discussion points or narratives making the rounds in MLB right now. 1. The problems with the qualifying offer system, highlighted by Howie Kendrick’s contract with the Dodgers and the lingering free agency of Dexter Fowler, Ian Desmond, and Yovani Gallardo. 2. The unhappiness of some owners in regards to their view that some teams are “tanking” in an attempt to stockpile high draft choices and the bonus pool allotments that go along with those picks. 3. The continued silliness of the international signing rules, and the perverse incentives created by the system for signing players from other countries. Yeah, there’s some talk about the DH and the luxury tax threshold, but those haven’t been as pervasive over the last month or so as the conversations about the qualifying offer, tanking, and the Dodgers decision to spend almost $100 million on international teenagers in the last six months. And, interestingly, those three things all have one thread in common: the draft. The qualifying offer is contentious because teams are putting higher-than-ever values on draft picks, and teams that would have otherwise spent money on veteran free agents have decided to opt for alternative paths in order to retain their top selections. Kendrick settling for 2/$20M, after turning down 1/$16M, is another reminder of the impact that draft pick compensation can have on mid-level free agents. On the so-called tanking issue, some executives (and Scott Boras, of course) are using the media to publicize their dissatisfaction with the draft, and what they’re claiming are incentives to lose on purpose. Of course, any league with a draft that assigns picks based on ascending record will provide a larger benefit to teams that lose than teams that win, and that’s by design. The questioning of whether or not there should be a reward for losing should call into question the value of the draft itself, which I’ve been calling to abolish for years, but for different reasons. And finally, there’s the disaster of the international signing system, which is probably the most broken thing about MLB right now. The soft-cap system — originally intended to mimic an international draft without actually setting one up — setup a reward structure where teams are high-revenue teams are incentivized to keep on spending well beyond their bonus pool allotment, getting as much value in one spending period as they can before the signing restrictions kick in. This system has resulted in some teams spending up to 100 times what other teams spending during the international signing period, and has widened the gap in international talent acquisition rather than narrowing it as intended. In each of these cases, the cause of the issue appears to be the draft, or in the international case, the lack of one. At least, that seems to be MLB’s position; Commissioner Manfred has repeatedly stated that he’s in favor of a “single method of entry” system that pushes all players coming into MLB through one portal. The logistics of a universal draft are problematic, so the single-method-of-entry comment allows the flexibility for the league to push for two drafts, retaining the one for domestic players and adding a second draft for international talents. This seems to be pretty likely to be a significant point of emphasis for the league in the upcoming CBA negotiations. But while I’m no big fan of the draft — it is, really, just a way to reallocate money from young players to veterans — I think there may be an underlying issue that can’t be can’t be collectively bargained away. The driving force behind all three of these issues appears to be the changing relative values that teams are putting on young talent compared to older talent; teams are clinging to draft picks — and, according to some, attempting to set themselves up in better draft positions by losing on purpose — because of a huge demographic shift in MLB. In 2015, players 30-and-older combined for just +266 WAR; in 1998, that number was +470. The primary effect of the PED-era can be seen rather easily in the huge mid-90s spike on that graph, and the recession of that spike since the league took action to curb chemically-aided longevity. While most of the talk about the change in the game has revolved around the decrease in run scoring, the bigger change has been in the demographic shift, with ineffective veterans being swapped out en masse in favor of better, younger talent. The only year on the above chart with fewer WAR from 30+ players is 1994, when the season ended in mid-August. The game is now younger than ever, and teams are indeed responding to this reality. Without being able to count on veterans to age well, money is moving towards acquiring and retaining young players. The relative value of young talent — which draft picks represent — has as much to do with the decline of veteran performance as it does with the shift towards analytical decision-making. When teams look at charts like this, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that the guys being hit hardest by the qualifying offer system are non-elite players in their 30s. I wrote about this issue a couple of years ago, and the trend has only escalated since; in the post-PED era, the allocation of money has shifted dramatically towards players in their twenties. Here is the chart I included in that post two years ago. You can see that, right around 2008, money that used to go to players in the 31-35 group started being given to players in the 26-30 group instead. Instead of betting on good players leaving their primes, teams started betting on lesser talents still in their peak years, believing that the effects of aging were going to be more dramatic in a time where PEDs were not as easily taken. And, probably not coincidentally, this is exactly what Jeff Zimmerman found when he updated his research on aging curves to focus on more recent seasons; age-related decline was beginning sooner than it used to. MLB can — and should — work on rectifying the processes that are in place, especially ones that serve to produce unintended consequences. The qualifying offer system wasn’t designed with the intent of being disproportionately harmful to mid-tier veteran free agents, and the international slotting system wasn’t setup to allow the Dodgers to sign every interesting teenager with an accent. But making changes to those systems isn’t going to touch the fact that the game has shifted dramatically, and teams are going to continue to emphasize the acquisition and retention of young talent over the pursuit of aging veterans. And this is something that the MLBPA might have to consider in their decision of which priorities to fight for. Historically, they’ve used the draft as a bargaining chip to strengthen their position on getting more money for union members, allowing the league to implement cost-savings techniques to hold down the pay of those not yet in the union. But the shift towards a younger game means that those are exactly the areas where teams find the best return on investment for their dollar, and so they’re going to attempt to spend as many of their dollars acquiring those kinds of players as possible. Fighting for more money for older players, at a time when teams are moving their money away from older players, seems like a losing proposition. Likewise, the league will need to consider this shift before attempting to implement any of the “anti-tanking” proposals being bandied about at the moment. With the game skewing younger, and internal development being the primary way to acquire the kinds of players who are producing a vast majority of the value in the game at this point, it’s going to be difficult to create a system where bad teams with veteran players aren’t highly incentivized to trade them for young talent, rather than trying to build back up around those players. 10 years ago, maybe you could have argued for keeping your 30 year old franchise player and hoping he’d have retained enough productivity to still have value when the rebuild was complete, but in this day and age, players on the wrong side of 30 are being rightfully treated like an opened avocado; if you can’t use them now, you sell them to someone who can. The shift towards young talent is changing the game, and changing how the market values draft picks, prospects, and veterans. Altering the systems that allocate draft picks or get prospects into minor league systems isn’t going to deter teams from putting an increasing value on young talent; they’ll simply find new ways to use their financial resources to buy up young talent, because that’s what the incentives of the game are pushing them to do. It’s a young man’s game now, and this isn’t a trend that looks like it’s going to change any time soon. The league can tweak the draft rules and change the qualifying offer system, but money is going to keep following productivity, and in this day and age, productivity is coming from youth.

Bernie Sanders has long referred to himself as a socialist rather than a member of the Democratic Party, which has naturally led to a lot of questions about what socialism means to him. He consistently references the social models of the Nordic states — especially Denmark — as his idea of what democratic socialism is all about. But in a speech Friday evening at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that while he's flattered to see Denmark discussed in a widely watched US presidential debate he doesn't think the socialist shoe fits. "I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism," he said. "Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy." In Rasmussen's view, "The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security to its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish." Watch it here: This is not especially different, as a substantive matter, from what Sanders is saying. His platform calls for higher taxes, a lot more social welfare spending, but — with the important exception of health insurance — not the nationalization of whole industries. And Denmark has, as Rasmussen goes on to say a bit later in the talk, exactly the kind of single-payer health system that Sanders favors. But in Rasmussen's view, this doesn't amount to socialism at all. Another interesting point the prime minister raises is that the level of disagreement between the main Danish political parties simply isn't all that high. He leads a right-of-center party, but he says that four years ago when he visited a US political convention he went to the Democratic convention, and so did his main opponent on the center left.

Yesterday, a student spat tobacco juice on the American Atheists bench in front of the Bradford County Courthouse in Florida, took a picture of it, and sent it to AA: He added on Facebook: AA said they would file a police report. Today, that student has apologized: Whether he was sincere or pressured into it doesn’t matter — hopefully, he learned a lesson from all this. That’s pretty much all we can ask for. American Atheists has accepted his apology and urges people not to harass the student: We appreciate everyone’s support and completely understand and agree with your feelings about this — what he did was hurtful to our community and just reinforces the untrue idea that atheists are second-class citizens, worthy of contempt and ridicule, just because we do not believe in gods. The vandal is just a teenager and he made a mistake. We ask people NOT to call or text him (his phone number has been leaked); two wrongs don’t make a right and this is not appropriate, either. Thank you for understanding. We have asked him to clean up the monument and send us another picture of him with it to show us that he holds no ill-will against us. We’ll let you know when we hear back. Thank you again for your support. – American Atheists Perfect response from them. It would be nice if this is the worst thing that ever happens to that bench… but I’m not holding my breath.

If you don’t know—it’s hard to imagine you don’t—Fallout 4 is really good, bugs notwithstanding. However, there might be some things going on in the game world the player might find … problematic. It is possible to bring progressive authoritarian orthodoxy to the heathens of the Commonwealth. Never mind the people living in the Commonwealth are just trying to survive; truly, what is survival without living the “correct” life of the Social Justice Warrior? Never fear, because Tech Raptor is your hookup. Here’s a comprehensive guide to bringing the ideological purity of the SJW to the Commonwealth. Character Build How does one build an SJW for the Commonwealth? The character doing things for herself, in general, is beneath her; consequently, she prefers to be able to talk other people in to doing them for her. So the first stop in terms of SPECIAL is Charisma. Charisma is not just a measure of how easily the character interacts with others in the Commonwealth. Charisma is also a measure of moxie and chutzpah. She needs to have the chutzpah to, say, stand in front of the UN with a straight face and state being told, “You suck,” on the Internet is identical to being beheaded for witchcraft in Riyadh. In order to ensure the character can get people to act appropriately (i.e. exactly how she tells them they should) AND have the chutzpah to make such a claim, the character must have maxed out Charisma. When the character does choose to lower herself to actually do something, she needs to maximize the reward for doing it, as well as maximize the resources she has at any given moment to do whatever it is she’s lowered herself to do. Whether the things she does, or makes, actually work or provide value to her or the people around her is irrelevant, so long as she gets the credit for building it in the first place. The Luck stat provides both the additional resources and the additional reward she needs. The character will have maxed out Luck as well. The SJW character prefers to talk over expending real effort to affect change in the Commonwealth, so the SJW character has low Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, and Agility—all stats involved with the actual doing of things. The lack of survivability SPECIAL stats make the character really squishy when it comes to combat, but our plan is to slink around or talk our way out of most combat situations. When we do need to be in combat, we’ll need the critical hits we have stored up to end combats quickly, but more on that in a second. The last SPECIAL stat, Perception, can be higher, but not at the expense of Charisma and Luck. In terms of Introductory SPECIAL stats, the character looks something like this: Strength: 2 Perception: 2 Endurance: 2 Charisma: 10 Intelligence: 1 Agility: 2 Luck: 9 Note: The SPECIAL book in Sanctuary is used to give the SJW character the tenth point in Luck. SPECIAL stats are only half the story. We also need to fill out the perks for our character as she levels up in the Commonwealth. Here are some of the key perks for the SJW character braving the Commonwealth. Intimidation: The best tactic for an SJW in the Commonwealth is Intimidation. At Rank 1, pointing a gun at a human has a chance of pacifying them. At higher ranks, Intimidation can create a White Knight, a useful idiot who does the attacking for the player. This is our go-to weapon, so max it out as soon as possible. Black Widow: The Commonwealth is a construct of the patriarchy, so the character wants to take advantage of all the men who built it. Rank 1 provides a 5% bonus to damage against men, as well as making men easier to persuade. As more points are put in Black Widow, men become even easier to persuade, and the damage bonus against men in combat continues to increase. Another go-to perk she’ll max out ASAP. Bloody Mess, Better Criticals, and Critical Banker: The Luck stat contributions to the build provide bonuses in case we can’t talk or intimidate our way out of action. Bloody Mess is a straight increase in damage, combined with more gory finishers when the SJW is forced to Chu someone. Better Criticals increases the amount of bonus damage for critical hits, and Critical Banker allows for storage of up to 3 critical hits at max ranks, so we can dump them all into a man who isn’t affected by intimidation tactics. Idiot Savant: Life in the Commonwealth is hard. In that way, it’s the antithesis of the American university. Because of the harshness of life in the Commonwealth, the SJW character is going to have to do things at some point. To maximize the effectiveness of doing things when doing things isn’t beneath her, we need a 3x experience point multiplier that has a chance to occur, or proc, any time experience is earned. That’s just Rank 1; at Rank 2, the multiplier increases to 5x. Pay attention to the sound that played when Idiot Savant procs; you’ll be glad you did. Mysterious Stranger: Sometimes just creating White Knights isn’t enough for the SJW in the Commonwealth. Sometimes more is needed, like an overweight intellectual and emotional infant that reviews movies, to come and fight our battles for us. Let’s call him Bob. Rank 1 of Mysterious Stranger provides a chance for Bob to show up anytime the SJW uses VATS in combat. At increased ranks, Bob shows up more often, and has a chance to refill the critical meter when he kills in combat. Fortune Finder and Scrounger: I mentioned above the character needs resources in order to build things. Fortune Finder increases the amount of caps found in containers around the Commonwealth, and Scrounger increases the amount of ammunition found in containers. Adding up the cost saving provided by Scrounger with the additional caps from Fortune Finder, and the SJW can dump caps on shipments of Screws and Gears, instead of 5.56 ammo. Faction Alignment There’s only one faction in the Commonwealth the SJW character can be a part of, and that’s the Brotherhood of Steel. In an attempt to minimize the number of spoilers for the Brotherhood storyline, I won’t belabor the details of the storyline. Instead, I’ll make a list of things the Brotherhood does that’s in keeping with the feelings and tactics of Social Justice Warriors. Absolute hatred of everything not them? Check. Require total subjugation of the individual to the orthodoxy? Check. Willingness to use any and all means to achieve their goals? Check. Capability to destroy one of their own the instant he/she becomes ideologically non-compliant? Check. Misplaced sense of being the “good guys”? Check. Hide behind technology instead of engaging in earnest conflict/debate? Check. Everything one could want as an SJW is here for the taking. The character can hide behind the orthodoxy of the BoS, while self-deluding into believing they are going to “save” the people of the Commonwealth. Go forth to cleanse or convert, Paladin. Ad Victoriam! Gear and Playstyle Obviously, the character is going to deviate slightly from current time SJWs, as all the blogs to whine about patriarchy or Skinny Malone’s suit have been destroyed. The character will want to equip gear that increases her inferior stats (STR, AGI, END, and INT). In general, these are pretty common and easy to acquire. There’s one other piece of gear the SJW character absolutely must have, though. In the basement of D.B. Technical High School is a character with a unique piece of headgear. Kill the character wearing it as soon as it is feasible—possibly right after finishing ArcJet Systems. I won’t spoil what the headgear is other than to say, if the character does get caught doing something untoward to the children of Diamond City, the character can always say they were just being edgy on a Robo Co. terminal. In terms of combat, the most important thing is acknowledging how paper thin the character is. A stern look from a decently equipped Raider is enough to kill the character if Intimidation doesn’t work, and the SJW is out of banked criticals. With a full bank of criticals and a decent rifle class weapon, the SJW character can take down a legendary man, or a man that cons with a skull. Banking those criticals requires a hefty dose of VATS, so keeping an eye out for armor upgrades that decrease VATS cost might be helpful. In the broadest sense, things that work for other Fallout 4 sniper or rifle character archetypes works for the SJW archetype, though there’s increased importance on crippling legs so the character can maintain distance from enemies. Having a combat shotgun around for ghoul infested areas is nice, too. When not fighting, the character should be building or modifying as much stuff as possible. The stuff doesn’t need to be useful, nor does it actually need to work—the stuff just needs to be built. Every time something is built, the player earns EXPs, which in turn is an opportunity for Idiot Savant to proc. Does a settlement need a 5 story tower in the middle of it? Of course not, but think about all the credit, in the form of free EXPs, the character will receive for building it in the first place. Sure, all the beds are on the first floor and there’s no door, but the tower doesn’t need to be functional to proc Idiot Savant. Companion Since INT and PER are low, getting Locksmith and Hacker perks is going to be nearly impossible. The care and feeding of the character in the Commonwealth will be significantly easier if she has the capability to hack terminals or pick locks. Nick Valentine can hack terminals, and Cait can pick locks. Cait also has a double barrel shotgun, for those of the militant SJW mindset. Giving either of these characters a high damage, close range weapon option, like a flamethrower, certainly helps, but realistically, it’s almost a certainty the SJW character will have to fight at some point. The SJW fighting in the Commonwealth should be looked at as even more chances for more credit from Idiot Savant procs. Most Important, Have Fun in Fallout 4! I had been having a ton of fun already playing Fallout 4 before trying this archetype, and credit where it is due, I saw the basic archetype in PC Gamer first and molded it into the SJW archetype. This character archetype, if you can stomach a few hours of running away from skull mobs, legendary mobs, and picking your spots in terms of quest completions, is amazing and fun. Getting Idiot Savant procs after patiently waiting for someone to get into better position for a sniper rifle headshot makes my day every time I hear it. To say nothing of the ridiculous things that come to mind to build in search of still more free EXP. So, give smooth talking and blind luck a shot when next you venture into the Commonwealth, and you too can bring intersectional theory to the heathens. Share Have a tip for us? Awesome! Shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll take a look!

After two weeks in first place, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice could possibly lose that position to The Boss or Hardcore Henry this weekend. Realistically, however, best case scenario for both of those films is high teens, while Dawn of Justice should be able to top $20M once again. The Boss is the latest in a series of Melissa McCarthy R rated comedies, following Identity Thief, The Heat, Spy and Tammy. Of those four, only Tammy was given very poor reviews and a mediocre box office reception. Unfortunately, The Boss is from the same director as Tammy, and seems to hit many similar notes in the advertising. This will likely wind up on the lower end of the spectrum, with a debut in the $20M range seeming likely. Hardcore Henry is the latest festival acquisition to get a wide release, this time thanks to distributor STX Entertainment. This is a practice that’s become popular with A24, who have found big success with films like The Witch and Spring Breakers. Surprisingly, the film is getting released in over 3,000 theaters. Considering its a very niche indie film that was shot entirely with GoPros, that’s a pretty shockingly high number. Typically, a film like this would get released in 1,000-2,000 theaters and get a small marketing push, but STX seems to have gone all out with marketing and release, but it still doesn’t seem like something that can really pull in a huge audience. A 90 minute, first person action sequence definitely sounds interesting, but isn’t something that a ton of people are going to drop $12 to watch in a theater. Considering the films very unique premise, it seems like it would have garnered more attention on social media, but overall it has been fairly quiet. The film originally went on the festival circuit as Hardcore, but was changed a few months ago when it was acquired. STX got the rights to the film for $10M with the condition that it would get a nationwide release, which seems like a reasonable amount of money for a film that will likely do much better in the home video market. Unfortunately, reviews haven’t been great, as the film currently has a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, which could certainly hinder its potential. Also opening is Demolition, a new drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Fox Searchlight is releasing the film into 854 theaters, which is a surpsingly large opening for a film of this kind. While it does seem as though it could be appealing to a general audience, it also doesn’t seem to have a ton of attention and is being released amidst quite a bit of competition. With a mediocre 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, Demolition is going to have a hard time finding much attention this weekend. Midnight Special is also getting a considerable expansion this weekend, though without much marketing it probably won’t top $3 or $4 million. Overall, it should be a fairly quiet weekend before The Jungle Book comes swinging in with a very strong debut. Bar for Success The Boss should be able to hit $20M this weekend to be considered a success, while Hardcore Henry is fine at $10M. Weekend Predictions Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice – $21.5M The Boss – $16.5M Zootopia – $13.5M Hardcore Henry – $7M My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 – $6.5M Advertisements

So now the penny drops, and we all know why GCHQ has long refused to allow government departments to store information classified at "Restricted" or above in US cloud computing services. But what about the private sector? Well, Edward Snowden's revelations are now causing something of a crisis in the IT industry as its international customers start thinking through the implications. In the past week I've heard of big firms reconsidering plans to spend hundreds of millions on services that would have been hosted in the US, as they start to realise that US agencies might snoop on their data and use it to tip off their competitors. US service firms now fear this will harm their growth, and it's not just Microsoft and Google; many other companies such as Amazon, Salesforce and Rackspace could lose out. But how will the Prism affair affect ordinary middle-class people in Britain, like doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers? Surely we're of no interest to the analysts at the NSA? Yet some of our patients and clients surely will be. As well as being an academic, I also do occasional expert-witness work, mostly in computer forensics. A few years ago I had a defendant in a terrorism trial as a client. I cannot use a US webmail service if it will leak attorney-client conversations straight to the prosecution. Perhaps for such cases I'd better get on a train to London for a conference at the defence barrister's chambers, as we all did years ago. But as the Legal Services Commission is reluctant to pay for that any more, perhaps I'll have to have a separate email service for sensitive cases. But you can't always tell in advance which cases might be sensitive. A client I recently helped to get acquitted of a rather dubious fraud charge turned out to be a refugee from a South Asian country whose secret police work closely with the Americans. This emerged only after I'd accepted instructions. So I'd better have a non-US service for all client work. But how can I tell which service to use? For years, BTinternet was outsourced to Yahoo. Where can I find a service that will guarantee to keep my confidential data in the UK? The information commissioner can't help: data-protection law has "safe harbour" loopholes designed to allow US service companies to pretend that they follow European law, even when their own government won't let them. The third problem is that, even if a client is completely innocent of any wrongdoing, machine-learning algorithms can tar him with guilt by association. If a system just uses Bayesian probability, without paying attention to social context or legal rights, then it may well stigmatise any service that's had anything to do with terrorists in the past. The implications for NGOs like Liberty or law firms like Bindmans are clear. If we don't want to risk innocent clients ending up on no-fly lists and watch lists (or ending up on a list ourselves) then we shouldn't use communications that the NSA's search engines can devour. Bang goes your beloved BlackBerry, Shami Chakrabarti! The fourth problem is that many people will fear they're at risk from the US intelligence community even if they're not. Last week I heard from a Greek colleague that a friend of his in Athens was raided by a local security agency, who told him that the Americans had tipped them off after reading his Gmail. That was surely nonsense. But if you're a Greek secret policeman, and a suspect's ex has tipped you off, then blaming the NSA is the perfect cover story. The world's spies and secret policemen treasure their aura of mysterious power, and the paranoia this generates; it helps them to get information out of suspects, and money out of treasuries. Expect this meme to run and run. Web services are leading us to put all our eggs in one basket, and governments everywhere are grabbing for the basket. Visitors to Russia can be forced to disclose laptop passwords at customs; while even less competent governments (like Syria's) simply beat citizens' Facebook and Gmail passwords out of them. And dear Theresa May wants to revive her communications data bill, to grant MI5 and the police the same access we now know GCHQ has via the NSA. (She doesn't explain why the Americans won't just share what they have with MI5 too, or whether they'll really let Google and Facebook give foreign governments direct access to systems that can be used to spy on Americans.) What next? It's time for the British Medical Association, Law Society, Bar Council and other professional bodies to start thinking about the ethics of using cloud-based services for confidential client information. If Europe's professions draw the line at making our client or patient data available freely to the US intelligence community, perhaps that might help create a market for online services that operate under European laws, that enable us to work ethically, and that serve small firms and individuals rather than just big firms and governments.

Description Satisfaction Guarantee Installation Instructions OnePlus One Share your experience with this product. Please write a customer review. * Full Body protector. Limit 1 Free kit per order. Additional install kits can be purchased Free install kit included with the purchase of a qualifyingprotector. Limit 1 Free kit per order. Additional install kits can be purchased here OnePlus One Tips and Tricks Double-Tap to Wake One feature being added to more and more phones is the ability to wake your phone by just tapping on the screen. The OnePlus One has this feature as well. To turn this on, go to Settings, Display & lights and tap on Double-tap to wake. Change Themes Other than the great price, the biggest selling point for the OnePlus One is having CyanogenMod 11 preinstalled. This makes for tons of customizations. One way to do so is by changing the theme. There is an app preinstalled called Theme Showcase which lets you search for and download different themes for the phone. On-Screen or Capacitive Buttons Another big customizations feature is being able to choose between on-screen buttons or off-screen capacitive buttons.Go into Settings, Buttons and here you can choose between the two options. If you do have the on-screen buttons, you can change the layout. Go into Settings, Interface, Buttons and layout. Here you can add and move what buttons are on the on-screen navigation bar. Blacklist/ Block callers OnePlus is giving you the ability to block specific phone numbers from being able to contact you whether by calling or text. This could come in handy if you have someone that just won’t stop bugging you about something. To set this up, go into Settings, Privacy, Blacklist and there you can set specific numbers you want blocked. You can also have settings for private or unknown numbers as well. Customize Quick Settings Quick Settings menus are very nice to have and easy to use. On the OnePlus One, it just got better with the ability to customize it just how you want. To do this open the Quick Settings menu, tap on the big + at the top of the screen. You will then be able to rearrange, remove, or add different settings shortcuts. contact customer service If you have any questions pleasefor assistance. How to install XtremeGuard Screen Protector Items needed for best results: Clean Work Area Lint Free Cloth (Microfiber) Water Liquid Soap Bowl or container for the soap/water solution Squeegee or Credit Card NOTE: IT WILL TAKE THE PROTECTOR 1-2 DAYS FOR HAZINESS AND ANY BUBBLES FROM THE INSTALL TO GO AWAY. DO NOT REMOVE THE PROTECTOR DURING THIS PERIOD. STEP 1: Remove battery from device if possible. If you have a device that does not have a removable battery (iPhone/iPod) turn off the device. Add a large drop of liquid soap to approximately one cup of water and stir. Water will be used to wet and then position the protector(s). Clean surfaces to be covered. STEP 2: Wash your hands and then soak all of your fingers in the soapy water solution so you do not leave fingerprints. With wet fingers, peel off the backing from the guard, then re-dip your fingers in the solution and completely wet the protector. STEP 3: Apply and align the guard to your device; softly squeegee out any extra water and use a cloth to soak up excess moisture if necessary. Important Note: As you squeegee out the water the skin will begin to adhere to the phone and will no longer move freely. If the skin is not aligned correctly and has become too sticky to readjust, remove it and start over. For best results, re-apply coverings as few times as possible. Important Note: When applying a covering over a rounded surface, you will have to let the over-hanging portion of the protector air dry until proper adhesion can occur. Start by getting the protector correctly positioned on the device. Once the positioning is acceptable, wait while the overhanging edges dry. Impatiently trying to force the edges down prematurely can cause the protector to move out of alignment. Patience is a key factor when covering rounded surfaces. Feel free to set the device down for a few minutes and come back to it later. This entire process could take up to 45 minutes. CAUTION: Even though drying is generally sufficient after only 8 hours, as a precaution, allow the device a full 24 hours of dry time before replacing the battery and powering on.

Black Religious Leaders: Gun Control Is All About Controlling People On September 28, 1868, a mob of Democrats massacred nearly 300 African-American Republicans in Opelousas, Louisiana. The savagery began when racist Democrats attacked a newspaper editor, a white Republican and schoolteacher for ex-slaves. Several African-Americans rushed to the assistance of their friend, and in response, Democrats went on a “Negro hunt,” killing every African-American (all of whom were Republicans) in the area they could find. (Via Grand Old Partisan) The NRA actually helped blacks defend themselves from violent KKK Democrats in the south, not the other way around. So it is refreshing that there are a few black leaders today who still understand the correlation and history between gun control and people control. CNS News reported: The gun control laws that banned or put restrictions on African Americans from owning firearms are documented on a timeline from 1640 to 1995 by the National Rifle Association’s Institute of Legislative Action and can be found here. Ken “The Hutch” Hutcherson, former linebacker with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and pastor of the Antioch Bible Church, told CNSNews.com “gun control is about controlling people.” CNSNews.com asked: From what was said today, it seems in fact that gun control hurts the African American community. “It absolutely does, there’s no doubt about it,” Hutcherson said. “It began that way with history. You see why there was so much gun control earlier in life – in American life – because it controlled African Americans. “Gun control is about controlling people,” he said. “We need to understand that those who need to be trained, who need to be armed is the African American community, and I don’t understand why any African American that is there in Congress right now would have the slightest thought about taking guns away from African Americans. We need them.”

Scoreboard ABC CBS FOX UNI NBC CW Adults 18-49: Rating/Share 2.4/7 2.4/6 1.8/5 1.3/3 1.1/3 0.4/1 Adults 18-34: Rating/Share 2.2/7 1.5/5 1.1/4 0.7/2 0.7/2 0.3/1 Total Viewers (million) 8.799 8.773 6.077 3.803 3.803 1.017 ABC and CBS tied for number one among adults 18-49 while ABC was on top with total viewers. On CBS, How I Met Your Mother earned a 3.3 down 13 percent from last week’s season high 3.8 adults 18-49 rating. 2 Broke Girls matched last week’s season high 3.0 adults 18-49 rating. Mike & Molly matched last week’s season high 2.6 adults 18-49 rating. Mom notched a 2.3 down 4 percent from last week’s 2.4 adults 18-49 rating. Intelligence matched last week’s 1.5 adults 18-49 rating. On ABC, The Bachelor notched a 2.6 up 4 percent from last week’s 2.5 adults 18-49 rating. Castle garnered a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating up 5 percent from a 2.0 for its most recent episode. On NBC, Hollywood Game Night matched last week’s 1.5 adults 18-49 rating. The special Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful garnered a 0.9 adults 18-49 rating. On FOX, Almost Human earned a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating down 10 percent from a 2.0 for its most recent episode. The Following scored a series low 1.9 adults 18-49 rating, down 5 percent from last week’s 2.0. Your predictions were too optimistic. On The CW, Hart of Dixie matched last week’s 0.4 adults 18-49 rating adults 18-49 rating. Beauty and the Beast matched last week’s 0.3 adults 18-49 rating. Broadcast primetime ratings for Monday, February 3, 2014: Time Net Show 18-49 Rtg/Shr Viewers (millions) 8:00 CBS How I Met Your Mother 3.3/9 9.26 ABC The Bachelor (8-10PM) 2.6/7 8.24 FOX Almost Human 1.8/5 6.35 NBC Hollywood Game Night 1.5/4 4.95 CW Hart of Dixie 0.4/1 1.15 8:30 CBS 2 Broke Girls 3.0/8 9.20 9:00 CBS Mike & Molly 2.6/7 10.18 FOX The Following 1.9/5 5.799 NBC Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful (9-11PM) 0.9/2 3.231 CW Beauty & the Beast 0.3/1 0.881 9:30 CBS Mom 2.3/6 8.99 10:00 ABC Castle 2.1/6 9.92 CBS Intelligence 1.5/4 7.50 < – – via NBC press note: In Late-Night Metered Markets Monday night: Last night’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” equaled its highest overnight rating in 15 months. For both Leno and Jimmy Fallon, it was their top Mondays in metered-market household rating in nearly four years, since the night Jay returned to the “Tonight Show” desk. Leno scored a 3.9 rating, 10 share in metered-market households, matching last Friday’s rating as “Tonight’s” strongest since Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012 (the night of a guest appearance by President Barack Obama, 4.0/10). It was the highest Monday “Tonight” rating since March 1, 2010 (5.4). Fallon delivered a 2.0/7 in households, his highest rating for a Monday since that same date, March 1, 2010 (2.1). Guests on “Tonight” Monday night included Jimmy Fallon, Betty White with musical guest Bonnie Raitt. The Feb. 3 edition of “Late Night” presented “The Best of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon: Musical Sketches.” In Nielsen’s 56 metered markets, household results were: “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” 3.9/10; CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman,” 2.3/6 with an encore; and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” 2.2/6. In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, adult 18-49 results were: “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” 1.0/4; “Late Show,” 0.6/3 with an encore; and “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” 0.7/3. From 12:35-1:05 a.m. ET, ABC’s “Nightline” averaged a 1.4/5 in metered-market households and a 0.4/3 in 18-49 in the Local People Meters. From 12:35-1:35 a.m. ET, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” (2.0/7 in metered-market households) beat CBS’s “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” (1.1/4). In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, “Late Night” (0.5/3 in 18-49) topped “Late Late Show” (0.3/2). At 1:35 a.m., “Last Call with Carson Daly” averaged a 1.0/4 in metered-market households and a 0.3/3 in adults 18-49 in the 25 markets with local people meters. Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports. Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent. Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.) Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast. For more information see Numbers 101 and Numbers 102.

At Intel's (NASDAQ:INTC) financial analyst day back in February of this year, company executives refused to commit to a long-term operating profit percentage target. The reasoning behind that, in Intel CEO Brian Krzanich's own words, was as follows: When you think about putting a profitability versus a growth or a margin in an existing business, you run the risk of limiting investment. And I believe that Intel needs to make -- there's big transitions going on in the industry right now. If we don't hit 5G now -- I believe, actually, over the next 18 months -- we'll not be in a leadership position, for example. And we need to invest in 5G. Our rack-scale design architecture -- we have an opportunity to really transition how the data center is architected, and how it's operated on a day-to-day basis. If we put out operational margin aspirational goals, I worry, will we take away from those investments that are going to be long-term growth? So, I'm more about top and bottom line growth than just necessarily targeting the operating margin. Krzanich's commentary seems reasonable enough, but now look at what Intel told investors a couple months after this, "We are establishing a spending target of 30% of revenue, which we expect to reach no later than 2020." The company didn't explicitly set an operating margin target (operating margin also depends on the company's gross profit margins), but it is essentially putting a cap on its operating expenses over the next several years (since that spending as a percentage of revenue target naturally includes some assumptions around revenue). In other words, Intel did exactly what management had indicated just a couple of months ago that it didn't want to do. In this column, I'd like to offer my thoughts on the following two things: Why Intel caved in and set such a target; and Why setting such a target might be a serious mistake for the company. Here's why Intel caved I think Intel came out and publicly announced this operating expense target because of investor pressure. Management teams of publicly traded companies have incentives to try to increase their respective companies' stock price. For example, many companies tie executives' compensation plans to the total shareholder return (or TSR) that their stocks deliver (this includes share price appreciation, as well as dividends). The higher a company's TSR is relative to what other comparable companies (and/or relevant market indices) deliver to their stockholders, the fatter those executives' bonuses/compensation packages can be. I suspect that when Intel told shareholders in February that it's not going to set a near-to-medium term operating expense as a percentage of revenue goal, some of Intel's major stockholders weren't too pleased with that. So, to try to keep investors onboard and to buoy the stock price, I suspect that Intel decided to "cave in" to investor demands. Here's why this might be a problem Intel spends a lot on marketing and research and development -- you'd be hard pressed to find a chip company that spends anywhere close to what Intel does on either front. However, while Intel spends far more than most of its peers in the chip industry, Intel invests in a much broader set of products, technologies, and markets than most of its peers in the chip industry. For some context, here are just some of the obvious "big picture" areas in which Intel invests: Leading-edge chip manufacturing technology CPU cores Graphics processors and related software Cellular modems Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity Chip designs integrating the company's core technologies aimed at a wide range of markets and product categories Software compilers Data center connectivity technologies (Ethernet, Omni-Path, etc.) FPGAs Memory technology (NAND flash, 3D XPoint, etc.) Personal computer reference designs Data center system designs There's bound to be quite a lot of stuff that I've missed, but the point is that Intel works on a lot of stuff and it also invests heavily in marketing these products, supporting a wide range of customers, and so on. The point is this: not only does Intel choose to invest in all of these technologies and products, but the markets for those technologies are competitive and are set to only get more competitive in the coming years. If Intel wants to maintain or attain leadership positions across these different areas, then it needs to invest heavily. Now, that's not to say that Intel should be wasteful in its spending; the company should continually strive to be as efficient as possible across its businesses. But artificially capping potentially necessary spending to hit some operating expense target communicated to the investment community isn't an example of efficiency -- it's an example of shortsightedness.

At CES 2017 we had the chance to stop by EVGA, which had a huge lineup of new products including the all-new iCX cooled GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards, Intel Z270 motherboards, a brand new lineup of budget-minded B3 power supplies, and the finished version of the quick disconnect CLC coolers we saw back at Computex last year. EVGA Shows off all-new iCX Cooled GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 FTW2 and SC2 Starting off our tour we had the chance to take a look EVGA’s brand new “iCX” cooled graphics cards which are set to replace the ACX 3.0 cooled cards which make up the majority of their current GeForce 10-series lineup. The new rebuilt coolers will offer improved performance across the board with a redesigned heatsink and PCB in addition to some enhancements EVGA is keeping close to the chest until they’re ready for launch. Aside from the redesigned cooler, aesthetically the front of the cards are exactly the same as their ACX counterparts. The fans also appear to be the same as the previous cards. These new cards will be dubbed FTW2 and SC2 and should be available sometime in Q1. Of course, we’ll update as we have more information. EVGA Z270 Classified K, FTW K, and Stinger Series Motherboards In addition to graphics cards, EVGA also gave us a look at their new lineup of Z270 motherboards. The new lineup includes three motherboards which follow EVGA’s traditional naming scheme. First up we have the top-of-the-line Z270 Classified K, this motherboard features an eATX form-factor and is geared toward extreme overclocking with a 13-phase power design and a 6-layer PCB. Unlike previous EVGA motherboards, this one only supports 2-way SLI, but that decision is due to NVIDIA’s lack of support for configurations going past that for gaming. That said, there is a third slot available for PhysX cards, if you’re into that sort of thing. In addition to that, it also features a plethora of storage options including 2x native SATA Express ports, 4x native SATA 6Gb/s ports, 4x Marvell SATA 6Gb/s ports and 1x U.2 port, as well as 2x M.2 Key M slots (110mm and 80mm) and 1x M.2 Key E (32mm). Of course being a Z270 motherboard is also comes equipped with Intel Optane support. On top of that, we’ve got 4x rear USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C as well as 1x USB 3.1 Type-A ports. Networking wise, we’ve got dual-Gigabit ethernet ports, one of which is supplied natively by the Intel chipset and the other is a Killer E2500 NIC. The Classified K also features upgraded audio, with the Creative Core3D quad-core audio processor. Price is set at $299.99. More information can be found at EVGA’s website here. Next up is the EVGA Z270 K, which features the same 6 layer PCB, but in a smaller ATX form-factor. Power design is dropped to just 11-phases, but that shouldn’t be an issue for most overclocks. We also get the same 2-way SLI support, with the option for a third PhysX card. Storage wise, we’re looking at a slight step down here too. It features 2x native SATA Express ports, 6x native SATA 6Gb/s ports, 1x U.2 ports and 2x M.2 Key M (110mm) as well as 1x Key E (40mm) slots. 6x rear USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C and 1x USB 3.1 Type-A ports. It features the same dual-Gigabit ethernet setup as the Classified K. In terms of audio, the Creative Core3D has been replaced with a standard Realtek HD audio setup. Price is set at $239.99. More information can be found at EVGA’s website here. Finally, we have the Z270 Stinger, which takes everything from the larger FTW K model and puts it into a compact mini-ITX form-factor. It features a 10-layer PCB with a 6-phase PWM power design. Storage options include 3x native SATA 6Gb/s ports, 1x U.2 ports, 1x M.2 Key M (80mm) and 1x Key E (32mm) slots located around back of the motherboard. 6x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB USB 3.1 Type-C and 1x USB 3.1 Type-A ports. Networking options include Gigabit ethernet (Intel) or 802.11AC dual-band WiFi+Bluetooth. Price is set at $169.99. More information can be found at EVGA’s website here. EVGA QRC/ORG System Typically, if you want to cool a CPU and GPU in a single cooling loop, you’d have to go with a custom solution. However, lately that has been changing with the introduction of expandable CLCs (closed-loop coolers). AT CES 2017 EVGA showed off their finalized QRC/QRG system which stands for Quick Release CPU and Quick Release GPU. The system, which is designed in partnership with Asetek, uses basically the same parts we see in almost all standard all-in-one coolers. The key difference here is that each part has two quick-disconnect fittings which allow for expansion of radiators and CPU/GPU blocks which have their own built in pumps. The system can be expanded to support up to four graphics cards and as many radiators as you’d like. EVGA will be making radiators in the 140mm, 280mm and 360mm variants. EVGA SuperNOVA B3 Series PSUs EVGA also announced their all-new B3 series power supplies, which will succeed the B2 series as the budget-friendly options from EVGA and will sit somewhere between their BQ and GQ lines. The platform is designed by Super Flower, just as the higher-end EVGA lines, however it is unclear if they are manufactured in Super Flower’s facilities or elsewhere. All B3 models come equipped with an 80 PLUS Bronze certification, and capacities will range from 450W all the way up to 850W. Pricing should start at $40 for the 450 B3, and up to $85 for the 850 B3. A key feature for the B3 line is that it is fully modular, which is very rare for a budget power supply. On top of that, since both the B3 and G3 lines are made by Super Flower, the modular cables are completely interchangeable between the two lines.

The abuse North Korea inflicted on Otto Warmbier, the American student who died this week after returning home to the U.S. following more than a year of imprisonment, is something up to 120,000 North Koreans – and three Americans -- regularly experience in the country’s concentration camps, according to defectors and analysts. Jun Heo, who was just a teenager when he was sent to one of the country’s concentration camps, said to Fox News that being beaten black and blue and tortured within an inch of your life was routine. There were about 20 people stuffed into each small cell, he said. The men and women were separated, unless a woman had a baby son. Everyone over the age of 17 was forced to work hard labor in farms from 6:30 a.m. until at least 8 p.m. Cries and screams became the soundtrack of life, but it was after nightfall when the most excruciating howls could be heard, Heo said. Hapless prisoners, trying to sleep, would wail in pain as their bony bodies broke down from starvation, while at midnight the “secret police” came to take women to be raped. “We could hear them screaming,” Heo said. “What you can only imagine as the cruelest of things is normal in there.” His crime? He had fled to China for a chance at a better life. It was November 2005 and Heo -- plus 12 other defectors -- crossed into China and was staying in a “broker’s house” in Beijing. The broker ordered the North Koreans to not leave the house, citing safety reasons. But on Dec. 6, the day before he turned 14, a barrage of Chinese policemen -- armed with guns and electric batons -- knocked down the door and rounded up the terrified defectors. “The broker also had a gun and an electric bat. He was a spy,” Heo remembered. “I was two days in a Chinese jail and then sent back to the Sinuiju concentration camp in North Korea.” After several months, he was let go. But in 2008, at the age of 17, a determined Heo defected again – this time for good. Now a 26-year-old political science major at Seoul National University and studying English at the Teach North Korean Refugees center, he wakes up every day with a self-inflicted pinch. “It is like heaven,” Heo said. “I don’t believe I live here.” For the vast majority of the 25 million North Koreans, life outside a concentration camp is far from heaven, even if slightly better than what Heo experienced. From forced abortion and extermination to enslavement, to the sudden disappearance of people in what is termed the “forcible transfer of populations,” life is grim. These forcible transfers can happen to anyone at any time. Soldiers have been known to enter homes and extract entire families, who are never heard from again. Food is scarce. The United Nations reports that 70 percent of the population -- around 18 million -- goes hungry, with the stunting of children’s growth a “rampant phenomenon” due to the lack of nutrition. Almost 9 million have no health care, and more than 5 million live in squalor because they lack clean running water. While food may be scarce, distrust is not. From childhood, North Koreans are instructed to report anyone being even mildly nonconformist or speaking of their leadership without over-the-top praise, even in private conversation. Tom Fowdy, founder of the analysis group Young DPRK Watchers, noted that compulsory community meetings are held for singing songs about their leaders and to goad each other into confessing minor crimes. “There are no decisions people can make by themselves. From the moment you are born, everything about your life is determined,” Heo said. “Every scene, every speech, even the songs of the birds around you, are controlled.” NORTH KOREA TRAVEL RULE BOOK: HOW TO BE AN OBEDIENT TOURIST IN THE HOSTILE NATION OTTO WARMBIER'S DEATH PROMPTS US TO WEIGH OPTIONS VS. NORTH KOREA A caste system means North Koreans often remain in the social rank into which they were born, something determined by a family’s reputation. Sometimes a citizen can move up the ladder to a more privileged caste, depending on one’s perceived support of the leadership, or move down the ladder, depending on one’s links to criminals, defectors or South Koreans. “Those with a poor songbun (caste ranking) will have poor prospects. But those with good songbun, and especially from families with excellent political and military connections, can expect access to far more privilege and opportunity,” said Chad O’Carroll, managing director of Korea Risk Group, which produces analyses on North Korea. “But regardless of one’s background, most young North Koreans should never expect to leave their country, officially consume foreign-produced information unapproved by the government or show respect to anyone beyond a leader to the Kim family tree.” A North Korean is required to hang in their homes portraits of Kim il Sung and Kim Jong-il, the grandfather and father, respectively, of the current leader. There are routine checks by authorities to ensure these are kept immaculately clean. It is mostly prohibited for one to communicate with others in the world outside. The haircuts are state sanctioned. Pirated modern movies and music occasionally make their way into homes but, if caught, violators can be punished with death. When it comes to education, the most important subjects are the “Revolutionary History of Kim Il Sung,” the “Revolutionary History of Kim Jong Il” and the “Revolutionary History of Kim Jong Un.” From a young age, North Koreans are indoctrinated that America is the “cruel enemy that interrupted North and South Korean unification.”

Late last year we posted our roundup of ‘9 Lesbian Web Series You Should Have Watched by Now’. It was a fantastic list but an entire year has passed and so many more shows have cropped up on the web since, gracing our lives with their presences and frankly, there were plenty of shows that last year’s list could have been included but, for whatever reason, didn’t make it (e.g Carmilla). So, to bring you all up to speed on which lesbian web series you should snuggle up with as the weather gets that bit cooler, we’ve put together a brand new list with even more great picks. Let us know what you think of the shows on the list and as always, we’d love to hear your suggestions for any other web series so leave a comment and maybe we’ll feature it on the next one! When the last list was published, many of you asked ‘where the heck is Carmilla on this thing?’ and rightfully so. Doing away with all of the gross heteronormative junk that was the Twilight series, Carmilla is all about a vampire (named Carmilla) and a woman (named Laura) who fall in love. But, although you’ll start watching for the complicated romance for the two, you’ll stay for the antics that the two girls and their ragtag bunch of pals get up to. In the first season, they went on a quest to discover why girls were going missing at their college campus, after Laura’s first roommate (the one before Carmilla moved in) went missing. With that mystery solved, season two follows the friends as they keep the college from falling into bad guys’ control. The second season has just ended, though it’s worth noting that something called ‘season 0’ is also set to air later this month. 2. Plus One Plus One is easily one of the funniest web series that you’ll see all year, and we said as much in our review of it. Plus One follows stereotypical lesbian Alex who trips and falls in love with a woman named Holly. The Big Problem is that Holly is dating Alex’s best friend, Ben. Indeed, although Holly falls head over heels right back, how Alex and Holly deal with The Ben Issue becomes a key issue for them. Despite this, though, Plus One is a barrel of laughs thanks to both the comedic performances of the entire cast (they all have their moments) and the fab writing of Mo Welch (who plays Alex) and Everyone Is Gay’s Dannielle-Owens Reid (who plays Kate, who is Alex’s wingwoman and BFF). 3. Anyone But Me / The Lost Scenes Right up there with The L Word, Anyone But Me is considered key viewing for anyone who is just coming out, especially if they’re young and are still in high school. That’s as Anyone But Me – which aired three seasons between 2008 and 2012 – follows the story of two high school girlfriends, Vivian and Aster as they handle Vivian’s big move away from New York City and how their relationship will (or won’t) survive the distance. Massively popular and highly praised, Anyone But Me was briefly revived in September with The Lost Scenes. Rather than being a direct continuation of Vivian and Aster’s story, The Lost Scenes was designed to fit in with the original three seasons, so, whether you watched through all three as soon as they came out or are only finding ABM now, The Lost Scenes should appeal to you. Sadly, J.K Rowling never threw queer women a bone with Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer has long been off air, it looks like it’s up to web series Last Life to pick up the slack. Complexly, Last Life features a woman called Sloan who has been possessed by the spirit of a man named Rick, who died three years ago. Sloan is on a mission to find Taylor, with Taylor having been Rick’s girlfriend before he kicked the bucket. Taylor’s in some serious danger from Sloan’s clan and from her own psychiatrist so don’t expect this one to be all sitting around donning witches hats and making moonshine in cauldrons. (Also, the show’s creator has note that despite the supernatural antics of Rick possessing Sloan, “it’s about the connection two souls have” and this is still a girl meets girl story!) Described by one critic as the “anti-rom-com rom-com”, Easy Abby touches on one subject that affects lesbian and bi women disproportionately more than it affects heterosexual people: mental health. One of Abby’s biggest struggles in this web series is that she has anxiety and the show follows Abby as she navigates that along with the rest of the troubles in her life (e.g family and money issues). As for the things going right in Abby’s life, the show creators explain that “finding [women] to sleep with” is the only thing that comes easy to our protagonist. Plus, her friends also have her back, pushing her to “expand her idea of freedom”. It’s the relatively honest portrayal of a queer woman’s life that has led Easy Abby to be viewed by millions of people online so you can’t really go wrong here. Comedy Central show Broad City is already pretty queer as it is, with one of the show’s lead characters, Ilana having slept with a woman and having a big gay crush on her BFF. But despite this, we very often find ourselves wondering ‘what if it was gayer?’ If it was gayer then it would probably be called Be Here Nowish, as the web series aims to depict the lives of “two sexually progressive New York gals who ditch their down-and-out lives for LA in search of a spiritual awakening.” They do ditch NYC for LA, mind you, but the way that they try and acclimatise to the West Coast is one of the best (and the funniest) things about it. As for the gay side of things, Nina makes her living as a drug dealer but in her personal life she’s pretty atrocious at committing to girlfriends. Though, in general, Be Here Nowish is pretty queer(-ish) as it aims to show a real world where “people choose their personal pronouns, girls look like boys, boys look like girls, sexuality is fluid, sex is complicated” and, of course, where “laughter is abundant”. Hailing from Brazil, Red is the South American country’s very first lesbian-themed web series and the show was originally created in order to address the fact that Brazil has an incredibly low amount of LGBT representation in its media in comparison to other major countries. The show, which has aired two seasons and is about to release its third, features two women named Mel and Liz who are co-stars on a film. Mel is a starlet on the rise and she has a pretty good thing going with her husband, Henrique, but when she and Liz, a woman who is rarely without female suitors, grow closer, all of the “stability” in Mel’s life starts to slip out of her grasp. The creators hope that Red portrays the relationship between the two in a “frank and genuine” way and the majority of viewers agree that it does exactly that, so you can watch its first two seasons (for free) on Vimeo, with Spanish or English subtitles available. 8. Out With Dad Like Anyone But Me, Out With Dad is one that’s ideal for teens who are coming to terms with (or have just come out) and are looking for a way to reconcile their feelings about their identity and how their families will accept it (though arguably it’s cute and soppy enough for all ages). It features a girl named Rose who, coming to terms with her sexuality and navigates those first few steps of realising that she’s gay. Across four seasons, Out With Dad has tackled things like homophobia, Rose’s first girlfriend, Rose’s first heartbreak and, of course, how she learns to handle it all. First debuting in 2010, Out With Dad has gained plenty of awards from all sorts of institutions, including Best Web Series, Best Actress and even Outstanding Use of Music so you’ll quickly fall in love with this one. While all of the shows on this list are fairly modern (even Carmilla – despite that featuring a centuries old vampire), The Chanticleer is set all the way back in 1955. It stars a woman named Edie Chaucer as she hotfoots it back to upstate New York in order to start running the bar that previously belonged to her (now-dead) father. Edie’s bar, in addition to being staffed by queer folk (including Val, who dresses in both men’s and women’s clothing) it’s also frequented by many too, becoming somewhat of the go-to hotspot. It’s that that sees Edie, Val and co. having to defend the place from corrupt cops who want the place closed down and across The Chanticleer‘s episodes six episodes, you see the characters navigate that, love, friendship and more.

In 1999, Miguel Valdes was arrested in Florida for beating, stabbing and slitting the throat of Rolando Pastor, with the help of his friend David Gomez Millan. Valdes and Millan were members of the well-known gang, the Latin Kings. They had carved the gang’s symbol—a crown—into Pastor’s forehead. Valdes was 15 at the time. After making a plea deal, Valdes was sentenced to 12 years behind bars, a year of house arrest and nine years of probation. In 2010, at the age of 27, Valdes was released from prison and put on probation. Now, Valdes is once more making headlines after a Miami judge decided to permit the now 34-year-old probationer to use medical marijuana. Typically, marijuana use is a violation of probation in Florida that could result in fines or extra jail time. But now, as marijuana gains acceptance as a medicine and recreational drug analogous to alcohol, opinions are quickly changing. Florida legalized medical marijuana in 2014 and continues to make strides towards recreational legalization. Many hope the legalization of recreational marijuana will be put on a state ballot next year. Currently, only medical marijuana patients in Florida are allowed to consume the plant, using just about every method other than smoking. But many are still torn about whether convicts on probation should be permitted to use marijuana, medical or not. Adding to the controversy is the fact that Valdes was high when he committed the murder. “If the doctor is prescribing this and I’m not going to go past his doctor,” said Judge Teresa Mary Pooler, who oversaw the case, according to a transcript. In other words, medical marijuana is—to point out the obvious—a medicine, no different than the pills Valdes was prescribed for his schizophrenia. More and more states, this case suggests, are beginning to accept this. Valdes now uses medical marijuana to treat his schizophrenia. “It keeps me mellow,” Valdes told the Miami Herald. “I really need it for my sleeping. When I’m not taking it, I wasn’t sleeping and I’d wake up in a bad mood. I feel better now.” But at the time of his conviction, a doctor concluded that Valdes’ schizophrenia was made worse from his use of marijuana and cocaine. As the Miami Herald points out, these are not necessarily conflicting facts. While research shows that marijuana increases the risk of schizophrenia among teens, experts have yet to reach a consensus about its impact on patients who already have schizophrenia. The broader question of whether or not to allow convicts to use medical marijuana is contentious, drawing criticisms from many law enforcement officials who point to marijuana’s federal status as a Schedule I drug. But each state—there are now 29 that have legalized medical marijuana—will ultimately make their own decision. Some states, like Colorado and California, are fairly relaxed when it comes to allowing those on probation to use medical marijuana. But others states, like Massachusetts, are less forgiving. Valdes’ case shows that Florida has, for the most part, made up its mind on this point. “If an offender under supervision provides a valid medical marijuana card issued by the Department of Health, he/she will not be drug tested for marijuana use as long as the medical marijuana card remains active,” the Florida Department of Corrections told the Miami Herald.

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