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  (CNN) -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson sharply disputed that he made any promises to Bill Clinton about presidential endorsements, as Clinton reportedly has claimed.

"I never did," Richardson said Wednesday on CNN's "The Situation Room." "I never saw [President Clinton] five times. I saw him when he watched the Super Bowl with me. We made it very clear to him that he shouldn't expect an endorsement after that meeting."

Bill Clinton made the remarks in a gathering with some California superdelegates, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Clinton became "red-faced" when the subject of Richardson's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama came up and said, "Five times to my face he said that he would never do that," the newspaper reported.

Shortly after Richardson's endorsement, former Clinton White House aide and political strategist James Carville, who is also a CNN political analyst, told The New York Times that Richardson's decision was an "act of betrayal."

The endorsement "came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," Carville said, referring to Easter weekend.

Clinton aides distanced themselves from those remarks, and Richardson said he wasn't going to "get in the gutter like that."

Richardson on Wednesday said he was "very close to endorsing" Sen. Hillary Clinton, but decided not to after the campaign became negative. Watch Richardson defend his endorsement »

"I held back. I waited. I felt the campaign got nasty. I heard Sen. Obama; he would talk to me continuously," Richardson said.

"The Clintons should get over this," he said.

Richardson endorsed Obama two weeks ago, saying his "affection for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver" but that "it is now time for a new generation of leadership."

Richardson was secretary of energy under the Clinton administration, a post that helped bring him to national prominence and win the governorship of New Mexico in 2002.

He said he called Clinton to tell her of his decision to endorse Obama and said while it was a "tough conversation," he thinks he's been "totally up front."

Richardson on Wednesday said he has not talked to Bill Clinton since the endorsement.

"He's probably upset, and I understand that, because this is a tough game. But we've got to get over it. We've got to get positive. We've got to start talking about the issues," he said.

Richardson said he thinks the party needs to decide on a nominee.

"I'm not suggesting Sen. Clinton get out of the race. She's run a good, strong race," he said.

"We should finish these primaries. There are 10 left. June 3 is the last one. But shortly thereafter, I think the party superdelegates, party leaders should come together and say ... this gulf between the top two candidates that have run two great races needs to end."

Former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday implied that he's also backing Obama, but did not make an official endorsement.

Speaking with a Nigerian newspaper journalist while in Abuja, Carter cited reasons he might be leaning toward the Illinois senator.

"Don't forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia," Carter said.

"My town, which is home to 625 people, is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama."

"As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for, but I leave you to make that guess," Carter added.

The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, confirmed to CNN the newspaper quoted Carter accurately.

Responding to the comments, Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Thursday, "Both Sen. Clinton and President Clinton have a great deal of respect for President Carter and have enjoyed their relationship with him over the years, and obviously he is free to make whatever decision he thinks is appropriate with regard to presidential choice."

Meanwhile, both Clinton and Obama are campaigning hard in Pennsylvania, their next battleground. There are 158 delegates at stake in the state's April 22 primary.

The Obama camp on Thursday announced it hauled in more than $40 million from more than 442,000 donors in March.

There were more than 218,000 first-time donors, and the average contribution level was $96. The figure is not official until the campaign submits paperwork with the Federal Election Commission.

Clinton raised $20 million dollars in March, Clinton campaign sources tell CNN.

The official deadline for March paperwork to be filed is April 20.

Wolfson said he expected Clinton's tax returns to be released soon.

Clinton pledged on March 25 that she would release her returns within a week. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Alex Mooney and Rebecca Sinderbrand contributed to this report.

All About Bill Richardson (Politician) • Bill Clinton  'Godfather' actor Carmine Caridi, the only AMPAS member to be expelled for sharing screeners, reflects on his Oscar infamy ("I was doing a guy a favor, and he screwed me") and a career that might have been.

"Let me tell you something," says Carmine Caridi, 83, an actor best known for small parts in the last two films in The Godfather trilogy, as he takes a seat at Vinoteca at The Four Seasons. "Everybody does it, OK?"

By "it," Caridi means lending out screeners sent by distributors to Academy voters for Oscar consideration. The problem for the long-divorced resident of West Hollywood: He loaned videos to a man who turned out to be one of the most notorious movie pirates in history.

Starting in the late '80s, distributors began sending VHS (and later DVD and Blu-ray) copies of awards hopefuls to Academy members. But with piracy issues mounting, then-MPAA chief Jack Valenti, acting on behalf of the studios, imposed a ban on all screeners. A month after his September 2003 edict and facing great pressure, Valenti agreed to exempt Academy members if they signed an agreement not to share the videos.

In January 2004, Caridi was busted for violating that agreement, becoming the first and only Academy member ever to be expelled. Says the actor in his thick New York accent, "I was doing a guy a favor and he screwed me."

Born in Manhattan and raised in a mobster-filled neighborhood, Caridi took up acting at the local Boys Club. It "saved my life," he says. "I'm lucky I'm here talking to you. All my friends went with the mob." He served in the U.S. Army for three years during the Korean War and, upon returning home at 21, decided to pursue acting as a career. "My father said, 'You want to be an actor? Fine. But if you turn into a fag, I'll kill you in your sleep.'"

Things started promisingly. On Broadway, he snagged a role in Man of La Mancha and an understudy part in That Championship Season. But then his big break turned into his biggest disappointment. Following a screen test alongside Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, he was cast by Francis Ford Coppola as Sonny in The Godfather — "They measured my wardrobe; I was all set to go," he says — but just before production was to begin, then-Paramount chief Robert Evans ordered Coppola to shuffle several actors into different parts, and Caridi was out. "I was kind of numb," he recalls. "All my relatives and friends were crying. I was going with a girl up in Hudson, and I went up there and just cried my eyes out."

Not long after, Caridi "had some trouble with the government," as he puts it. "I was a dope addict," he says, and he was arrested for selling cocaine to an undercover agent, which led to a stint in a federal penitentiary. Coppola tried to make things up to Caridi, casting him in different parts in the Godfather sequels. He also appeared in 1974's The Gambler (opposite James Caan, who got the part of Sonny) and for Sidney Lumet in 1981's Prince of the City, which he feels features his best work. In 1982, the strength of his career was recognized when he was invited to become a member of the acting branch of the Academy. "I loved it," he says.

Before long, screeners arrived — as did Russell Sprague. The Chicagoan was visiting L.A. when Nicky Blair, the restaurateur who also appeared in The Godfather: Part III, introduced him to Caridi, noting that Sprague was handy and could fix Caridi's broken VCR. The actor found Sprague to be a "nice kid," and Sprague was impressed to learn that Caridi received screeners and made copies for others. ("I sent screeners to people, besides my brother and sister, who couldn't afford them," Caridi admits. "I made a lot of people happy.")

Sprague returned to Chicago, and he and Caridi kept in touch. Eventually, Sprague asked Caridi if he would FedEx his screeners to him — at Sprague's expense — so that Sprague could make copies for himself. Caridi says he was happy to help out a fellow film buff. "I would send them to him before I even looked at them, and then he would copy them and send them back." All went smoothly — until it didn't.

Early in 2004, says Caridi, "a guy from the Academy called and says, 'Carmine, did somebody steal your screeners? Because they found them on the internet.' Then I called Sprague and said, 'Hey! What did you do? I'm in trouble here.' 'Well, don't use names, Carmine …' 'What do you mean, don't use names? I'm not gonna go to f—ing jail for you!' "

Soon thereafter, Caridi was summoned to the FBI's L.A. office. "I thought I was going to jail," he says, but the feds offered him immunity in return for naming Sprague. "If I didn't, they would have handcuffed me," he says.

On Feb. 3, 2004, the Academy's board of governors voted unanimously to expel Caridi. "They wrote me a letter: 'You're finished,' " he recalls, adding, "I was on television [news] 12 days in a row." (The Academy declined to comment.)

Before long, Caridi was sued by Columbia Pictures (Big Fish and Something's Gotta Give) and Warner Bros. (The Last Samurai and Mystic River), and a U.S. District Judge ordered him to pay the maximum penalty possible under federal law: $300,000, plus attorneys fees, to each studio. "I knew I was never gonna pay a dime," he says, "because I didn't have it."

In March 2004, Sprague pleaded guilty to one count of copyright infringement in U.S. District Court in L.A. and was allowed to return home to Illinois. But after his wife caught him smoking pot with their 17-year-old son, she informed the FBI that he had violated the terms of his release by continuing to copy movies. Agents found 130 homemade DVDs in his home. The following February, while awaiting trial (he faced up to three years in federal prison), he was found dead in his jail cell of an apparent heart attack.

"Who the hell knew he was gonna put 'em on the internet?" sighs Caridi, who admits he wasn't tech-savvy enough to appreciate this was possible. "I had no idea. I was duped." Still, he doesn't question his punishment. "I don't blame the Academy," he says. "I did violate their law." (While the Academy hasn't sanctioned any other members, piracy of Oscar screeners hasn't stopped: In 2015, a leaked copy of The Hateful Eight was traced back to an Alcon Entertainment exec, and last year, Warner Bros. sued Innovative Artists for sharing screeners that leaked on to the web.)

Caridi, who says the screener incident did not impact his social or professional life, still acts, most recently opposite Chazz Palminteri and Lainie Kazan in footage that they hope will lead to a TV pilot. Mostly, though, he leads a quiet existence, inhibited by swollen veins caused by lymphedema. He ventures out once a week for lunch with some old friends he calls "the Goombas." And he still tries to keep up with movies.

"I get screeners from SAG," he reveals. "Some, not as much as I got from the Academy." He nonchalantly adds, as his managers gasp, "I lend them to my neighbor."

This story first appeared in the Feb. 24 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.  What would you do if someone broke into your home? Luca Bridgman called the police. It’s what he had been taught to do when something bad happens.

Bridgman, 46, recalls the nightmare scenario: A man had been stalking his roommate, who is a transgender woman, in order to figure out where she lived. One evening, the man broke through their front gate and tried to bust down the front door while Bridgman was in the apartment. The intruder clearly planned to kill Luca’s roommate, who wasn’t home. Luckily, Bridgman was able to escape before the man entered their home.

The response from local law enforcement, Bridgman says, was surprising. Instead of trying to catch the culprit, he claims the police blamed his roommate. When their home was broken into a second time, he says that the police dismissed his account altogether.

“Before then I was an extremely anti-gun person,” Bridgman says, but the experience changed his mind. “At that point, I made a decision. I could continue to live this way, obey the law, and call the police—or I could protect myself.”

Following the incident, Bridgman went out and joined the Pink Pistols, a national LGBT group that promotes gun ownership and training. Formed in 2000 by Gwendolyn Patton, the organization operates over 40 chapters in cities around the country, but membership has increased dramatically following the deadly attack on Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

In the wake of the massacre, groups like the Pink Pistols are trying to change the conversation about gun control in the LGBT community. The group’s motto puts it succinctly: “Armed queers don’t get bashed.”

The group’s motto puts it succinctly: “Armed queers don’t get bashed.”

Pistols founder Patton has referred to Pulse as “the gay community’s 9/11.” Whether or not you agree with that particular comparison, Salt Lake City Pistols member Matt Schlentz stays that the horrific violence was a “reality check” for queer people.

“Places like gay clubs, that are traditionally seen as safe spaces, where people who aren’t out yet can feel loved and supported, aren’t as safe as we would like them to be,” said Schlentz. “Gay bashings and hate crimes are something that we see on a daily basis here in America and every other country in the world. In the wake of Orlando, a lot of people said, ‘I’m not willing to let this happen to me or my loved ones. We’re going to stand up, and we’re going to learn to defend ourselves as citizens.’”

On the Saturday before the Pulse shooting, the Pink Pistols counted 1,500 members nationwide, according to the group. The day following the attack, the group’s ranks more than doubled, they said, with membership skyrocketing to close to 4,000 individuals.

“At that point, I made a decision. I could continue to live this way, obey the law, and call the police—or I could protect myself.”

The Pistols were originally inspired by writer Jonathan Rauch, today a member of the Brookings Institute. In a 2000 column for Salon, Rauch detailed the case of Austin Fulk, who was nearly assaulted by a group of four men. The only reason Fulk survived the encounter, Rauch writes, is because “his companion reached into the truck and whipped out a pistol from under the seat, leveled it at the gay-bashers, and fired a single shot over their heads.”

The moral of this story, according to Rauch, is that “Homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely, and carry them… And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible.”

Today, the Pink Pistols provide firearm instruction, as well as teaching safety courses to its members. According to Craig Kamikawa of the Sacramento Pink Pistols, the group stresses four key rules when handling a gun:

1) Treat all guns as they’re loaded—always, all the time, no matter what kind of situation you’re in. 2) Point your gun in the safest direction possible. At a range, it’s down range. Depending on your environment, it’s either on the ground or away from other people. 3) Finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. 4) Know your target, your surroundings, and what’s beyond your targets.

The Pink Pistols not only teach their members how to fight back but also how to avert potential crisis situations.

This education serves a dual purpose. By advocating that its members be safe and prepared, the Pink Pistols not only teach their members how to fight back but also how to avert potential crisis situations. Although mass shootings like the one is Orlando are relatively rare, the LGBT community has long had reason to fear for their safety. According to a New York Times analysis of data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation: ”LGBT people are twice as likely to be targeted as African-Americans, and the rate of hate crimes against them has surpassed that of crimes against Jews.” Black and Hispanic transgender women are particularly at risk.

“There’s a thing I tell people when we’re training,” Schlentz said. “In society, there are three types of people: There are wolves, there are sheep, and there are sheepdogs. Wolves are like the shooter in Orlando. Their only purpose is to cause chaos and destruction, to kill and maim. There are sheep, people who are morally unable to carry a gun or are scared of guns and don’t want to learn about them. And then you have people who are sheepdogs—people who will put themselves in between the wolf and the sheep and say, ‘No, that’s not going to happen.’”

He continued, “I could not live with myself if I watched something I know I could have stopped.”

“I want to make it as hard as possible for any human being who wants to buy a gun to get one.”

In the wake of the Pulse shootings, California’s West Hollywood neighborhood was inundated with signs featuring a LGBT-friendly version of the infamous “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, along with the hashtag #ShootBack. But many other LGBT groups have used the tragedy as a call to action of a different sort.

Draped in white veils, Gays Against Guns marched in this year’s New York City Pride parade with a very different message. The group staged a silent die-in at the Stonewall Inn, the historic site of the 1969 riots that kickstarted the modern gay liberation movement. Holding signs like “NRA Sashay Away” and “Flowers Not Guns,” GAG estimates that 500 supporters stood in solidarity with the victims of Pulse.

The New York-based activist group, which also formed in the wake of the Orlando shooting, believes more gun control, not more guns, is the best way to curb America’s gun violence epidemic.

“It’s about looking them right in the face and saying, ‘How can you live with yourself? You are profiting in death.”

The group’s first meeting was held in June at the LGBT Community Center in New York City’s West Village. “The consensus was that we needed to call out, shame, and demonize the gun lobby in the same way that ACT Up drew attention to drug makers that were doing nothing during the AIDS epidemic,” says Tim Murphy, a principal organizer with GAG. “Our approach had to be very theatrical, very public, very confrontational, and very embarrassing—calling out the bad actors, the people who were making this mass shooting environment possible.”

In the weeks since, Gays Against Guns chapters have formed across the country—including branches in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, Chicago, and Columbus, Ohio. Draped in their signature white veils, members have protested outside places like the National Rifle Association booth at the New Jersey State Fair and BlackRock, an equity firm that invests portions of the mutual funds it manages in gun companies like Smith & Wesson.

“We want to go right to the heart of an institution,” Murphy explained. “It’s about looking them right in the face and saying, ‘How can you live with yourself? You are profiting in death. You are part of this death machine.’”

Author and publicist Joseph Papa, who marched with Everytown for Gun Safety following the Pulse shooting, was similarly blunt. “I want to make it as hard as possible for any human being who wants to buy a gun to get one,” he says.

For the LGBT community, it was clear that something needed to change after Orlando. While guns and gays might seem like unlikely bedfellows, Pink Pistol activists say they are fed up with feeling like the victim. It’s an understandable reaction, if a potentially misguided one, according to Papa.

Papa says he respects the rights of “responsible gun owners.” But he also believes it’s simply too easy for guns to fall into the wrong hands. “It’s astonishing to me that’s a problem we have. It’s a uniquely American problem.” In 2016 alone, the Washington Post reports that 23 people have been shot by toddlers.

For the LGBT community, it was clear that something needed to change after Orlando.

“When those guns fall into the hands of anti-LGBT or mentally ill Americans, the consequences are equally tragic. Forty-nine members of our community were murdered… because of a toxic combination of two things: a deranged, unstable individual who had been conditioned to hate LGBTQ people and easy access to military-style guns,” noted Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement.

The good news is that some of these efforts may be starting to pay off. In June, White House Democrats staged a sit-in to protest Congress’ inaction on gun control, and shortly after, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that domestic abusers could lawfully have their gun ownership privileges revoked.

“There does seem to be a change in the conversation,” says author Papa. “While I’m thrilled for that, I’m a little pissed that after Sandy Hook, the death of 26 children didn’t do it… But I think for the family members of the children and teachers who were killed in Connecticut, it has to feel like some small victory.”

And while he credits groups like the Pink Pistols for starting a conversation in the LGBT community on gun safety, Papa believes it’s much more crucial to educate people about the importance of expanding background checks, banning assault weapons, and keeping people on the no-fly list from buying firearms.

Owning a gun may make some people feel safer in the short-term, but research shows that more guns does not mean less crime. In fact, it’s the opposite. No one deserves to feel helpless in America, but as Papa suggests, even good guys with guns won’t fix America’s gun problem.

This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.  Police have released new video of Shia LaBeouf’s most recent arrest, in which the troubled actor and performance artist is heard violently berating and threatening to shoot the arresting officer.

TMZ published the bodycam video, recorded after the Transformers actor’s July 8 arrest for disorderly conduct, public drunkenness and obstruction in Savannah, Georgia, where the actor is filming the movie The Peanut Butter Falcon.

According to a Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police statement, after a bystander and a police officer denied LaBeouf’s request for a cigarette, the actor became belligerent and used profanity in front of a crowd of people, including children. Initially, he refused to leave the area as directed by the officer. He then ran away from officers trying to arrest him, ending up in a hotel lobby where he was finally detained.

The actor’s disorderly conduct did not cease after the arrest. In the newly released video, LaBeouf is heard spewing an expletive-laden, racist tirade against the arresting officer as he is transported in the police vehicle.

The 31-year-old LaBeouf repeatedly calls the officer a “b****” and “coward,” and reveals a shockingly racist attitude.

“You put your own kind in the f***ing pen for nothing,” he screams at the officer. “You put a white man in the pen for what?…for asking…a black man for a cigarette? That’s your own country…I pay my taxes, you dumb b****.”

In one of the most disturbing points in the video, LaBeouf tells the officer, “If I had my gun I’ll blow your s*** up.”

The actor’s meltdown veers from the profane to the absurd when he taunts the arresting officer as “a b**** for leagues,” and a “pirate b****.”

Bodycam video of the arrest released earlier showed LaBeouf screaming at officers: “I have rights!” and “I’m an American!”

He also threatened legal action with his “millionaire lawyers.”

The incident is the latest chapter in LaBeouf’s ongoing saga of legal woes and addiction. As CrimeOnline previously reported, he was sued in May by Los Angeles bartender David Bernstein in a $5 million lawsuit for defamation and assault. The lawsuit stems from an April 5 incident at Jerry’s Famous Deli, which was caught on camera.

LaBeouf is seen on video screaming at Bernstein, calling him a “f***ing racist b****.” The actor reportedly had wanted to sit in a section of the bar reserved for staff members of the restaurant, which draws a heavily African-American clientele.

As reported by CNN, the actor was arrested in January on assault and harassment charges stemming from an incident during an anti-Trump protest outside a New York City museum. The charges were later dropped.

LaBeouf contributed tales of his numerous run-ins with the law for the 2015 book Prison Ramen, revealing that his life of crime began at the age of nine.

In June 2014, LaBeouf was arrested for disorderly conduct, criminal trespassing and harassment at a New York performance of the musical Cabaret. As reported by CNN, the other two charges were dropped in a September 2014 agreement in which LaBeouf pled guilty to one count of disorderly conduct and was required to continue with his alcohol treatment program. The conviction was planned to be withdrawn as long as LaBeouf completed the program and avoided arrest for the next six months.

LaBeouf was released on $7,000 bail a few hours after his most recent arrest.

Feature photo: Associated Press  Last night, I was scared for my freedom because a girl couldn't handle 1 tab of acid! She started screaming and yelling at me that I was Satan and was stuck in an uncontrollable thought loop and I had no experience in bad trips (never had one). She tried to jump off my balcony at one point throughout the night, Her parent came to pick her up and death starred my friends and I. I was shitting myself and dropped the rest of acid tabs leaving 1 tab left, so it was a total of 5 tabs of acid that I had consumed. I was tripping hard for the next 24 hours It was a pretty unique experience I have to say.

Remember to have a safe and comfortable environment around you before you decide to drop a tab of LSD or psychedelics are even any drugs for that matter.

Links

Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/WeedWiki/

Twitter- https://twitter.com/CatOnChronic

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/catonchronic/  ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) — President Donald Trump appeared to give up trying to win Democratic support for the GOP tax overhaul plan Wednesday, as he took aim at a chief Republican target and repeatedly boosted her rival.

During a trip to Missouri to try to push the GOP tax plan across the finish line, Trump told the state’s voters that Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who has voted against the plan, “is doing you a tremendous disservice.”

“She wants your taxes to go up, she’s weak on crime, she’s weak on borders, she’s weak on illegal immigration and she’s weak on the military,” Trump said in a speech in the St. Louis suburbs. “Other than that, I think she’s doing a fantastic job.”

McCaskill, a top Republican target in the 2018 midterm elections, voted against the GOP proposal in committee earlier this month and is expected to vote against it when the full Senate takes up the measure in the coming days.

It was Trump’s second visit to the state to build support for the plan. In his speech at a local convention center, Trump made a populist appeal for the Republican tax package, saying it would “bring Main Street rolling back.”

“Our focus is on helping the folks who work in the mailrooms and the machine shops of America, the plumbers, the carpenters, the cops, the teachers, the truck drivers, the pipe fitters — the people that like me best,” Trump said in a meandering speech in St. Charles.

“It is not enough for the middle class to keep getting by. We want them to start getting way ahead,” he said.

But while the White House says the plan will be a boon to middle-income families by helping small-business owners and workers, sparking economic growth and simplifying the tax code, critics say both the House and Senate versions will disproportionately help the wealthy and corporations.

Trump used the speech to tout his own accomplishments in office — declaring “there has never been a 10-month president who has accomplished” as much — as well as boost Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is running for McCaskill’s seat.

“I said, ‘Josh when you’re ready, you have my word, I’m going to come here and campaign with you,’” Trump said. “We gotta get you in.”

The visit came a day after the Senate Finance Committee advanced a sweeping tax package to the full Senate, handing Republican leaders a victory as they try to pass the nation’s first tax overhaul in 31 years. But the bill still faces hurdles in the Senate, where Republicans have just two votes to spare in their 52-48 edge over Democrats. A separate version of the plan has already passed in the House.

McCaskill is among 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2018 in states won by Trump and is considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents. She was among 45 Senate Democrats who in August sent a letter to Republican leaders and Trump saying they wouldn’t support any GOP effort to overhaul the tax system that delivered cuts to the top 1 percent or added to the government’s $20 trillion debt.

Trump said in August that if McCaskill didn’t support his plan, voters should push her out of office.

“We must lower our taxes, and your senator, Claire McCaskill, she must do this for you. And if she doesn’t do it for you, you have got to vote her out of office,” Trump said then.

In a statement, McCaskill said she remains “eager to support real, bipartisan tax reform” and would “jump at the chance to support a plan” that would “deliver relief to Missouri’s working families, simplify the tax code, close loopholes exploited by the rich, and lower the corporate tax rate.”

“Unfortunately, this tax plan doesn’t live up the commitment I got from President Trump, when he told me he wouldn’t support tax reform that benefited the very rich at the expense of the little guy,” she said.

Several hundred Trump opponents and about 100 Trump supporters gathered outside the St. Charles convention center as the president spoke, holding competing signs and chanting slogans.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Washington and Jim Salter in St. Charles contributed to this report.  What do you think the prison sentence should be for a Muslim-American man who stood outside of a Christian church on Sunday during Mass and yelled at worshippers, “I’m going to kill you all!” Before you answer, let me add some more facts. Assume this same Muslim man, a short time before going to that church, had posted horribly anti-Christian statements on his Facebook profile and called for Christians to be eliminated from America. He even posted photos of a homemade bomb on his Facebook page.

Oh yeah, one more fact. The police went to that Muslim man’s house and found a device that police described as looking like “a possible homemade explosive device,” which they detonated.

So what would be the appropriate prison sentence to ensure that this man doesn’t actually carry out his threatened terrorist attack, as well as sending a clear message to others thinking of terrorizing Christian Americans?

Would you be OK with 90 days in jail? I doubt it. In fact, I bet many would be outraged. There would likely be headlines about this horrific injustice, and people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz would be using this incident to further scare Christians about Muslims. The hashtag #ChristianLivesMatter would fill social media.

Yet those exact facts happened in California, except that the man involved was not a Muslim. Rather it was William Celli, a Christian who days after the San Bernardino terror attack stood outside a mosque in Richmond, California, and yelled at worshippers leaving Friday prayer services, “I’m going to kill you all!”

Celli’s Facebook page was littered with hate-filled comments about Muslims. In one he demanded that all Muslims be sent “back to their country of origin whether or not they were born here.” Celli also posted a warning about Muslims to his fellow Christians, “Kiss your Christian asses good bye. And all other non-believers of the Koran.” You get it. Celli despised Muslims.

Even more alarming is that Celli posted only a few weeks before a photo of a pipe bomb on Facebook that he claimed to have constructed.

The threats of Celli, a self-proclaimed Trump supporter whose Facebook page reads like a Trump speech filled with anti-Muslim, anti-Latino, and anti-immigrant statements, truly terrorized the Muslims at this mosque. As Richmond police Capt. Mark Gagan stated at the time of the arrest, Celli “was threatening violence on them, and they were very shaken by it.”

The mosque’s Imam, Hamza Mehter, explained to me that many in the community were very alarmed by the incident. Mehter noted that numerous people called him expressing great concern for their families. And Mehter noted that many parents wouldn’t let their kids come to the mosque’s after-school and Sunday school classes because they feared for the safety of their children after Celli’s threats.

Celli was later arrested, although it wasn’t until about two weeks after the incident. A subsequent search of Celli’s apartment uncovered, per the police, “a possible homemade explosive device,” which was the device that they detonated. Later the police noted the device was not a functioning bomb because it was missing the “explosive elements.”

At this point the police, the district attorney and the judge all viewed Celli as a very dangerous man. He was charged with a felony count of making terroristic threats with a hate crime enhancement that carried up to seven-year prison sentence.

The prosecutor assigned to the case, Derek Butts, shortly after Celli’s arrest told the judge that “Mr. Celli has essentially threatened people’s lives… of the Muslim faith.” And at his arraignment, the judge imposed a bail far above $47,500 called for by the bail schedule for this charge. Instead she raised it over $500,000 noting that, “this is a hate crime.”

It would appear that Celli was going to be facing at least a few years in prison.

But then something happened. Members of the local Muslim community who didn’t want to go on record noted that the DA’s office appeared to not be that interested in prosecuting the case as time went on (although they all praised the police.) Next thing they heard were rumors was that Celli was about to be offered a plea deal of only 90 days in jail and three years probation. The leaders of the Muslim community targeted by Celli weren't even consulted in advance of that deal being formulated. Thereafter, Muslim community members did have meetings with the DA’s office, but they were told that the evidence wouldn’t support anything more than this deal.

Last week Celli pled guilty and in accordance with the plea deal was only sentenced to 90 days in jail. While many in the community are understandably unhappy with this very short prison sentence, they are also deeply disappointed with how the media has all but ignored this story. Over and over I heard: “How much more media coverage would it be if it were a Muslim man threatening Christians at a church?”

They are absolutely correct. Scary Muslims get ratings and are used as props by politicians to score points. But when Muslims are the victims, we garner little media coverage. We even hear Republicans claim that anti-Muslim hate crimes and bigotry are exaggerated. You get a sense that to many, Muslim lives simply don’t matter.

Mehter noted that a silver lining to this incident was that the mayor and council publicly declared that they stood with the Muslims and even attended a Muslim community event to show their solidarity. That’s great.

The downside is that Celli will likely only have to serve 46 days of the 90-day sentence. That means that in about six weeks, a man who traveled to a mosque to threaten to kill Muslims, who had posted hateful comments about Muslims as well as an image of a bomb, will be back on the street. Let’s just hope that the sentence given to Celli is enough to deter him and anyone else who may want to terrorize American Muslims from acting on their violent impulses. If not, the next articles we will sadly see will be about Muslim Americans being injured or even killed by the Cellis of this country.  Japan's famous cherry blossoms have come early this year, matching a 2002 record for the earliest blooms ever, according to Straits Times.

Japan's Meteorological Agency announced on March 16th that Somei Yoshino cherry flowers had begun to bloom in Tokyo, a full fifteen days earlier than the first blooms in 2012, the Daily Yomiuri reports.

CNN explains that just like autumn leaf peeping in New England, flower viewing or hanami is a popular seasonal pastime in Japan.

According to Asahi Shimbun, the early start to cherry blossom season was triggered by unusually high temperatures, which reached records of 51.8 degrees Fahrenheit in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture and 52.7 degrees in Nishi-Aizu, Fukushima Prefecture.

For advice about where to see cherry blossoms in Japan, check out this post by Huffington Post blogger Gail Nakada.

CNN advises all potential flower peepers that despite the early start, Japan's cherry flowers aren't "expected to be at their full glory" until next weekend. A map projecting when cherry blossoms will arrive in each of Japan's regions can be seen here.

Be sure to check out the beautiful photos of Tokyo's first flower blossoms below.  Wisconsin governor, a Republican who is expected to run for president in 2016, says he is prepared to sign into law a 20-week abortion ban without exceptions

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said he is prepared to sign into law a 20-week abortion ban without any exceptions for victims of rape or incest, arguing that women are concerned with those issues “in the initial months” of pregnancy.



Walker, a Republican who is expected to run for president in 2016, made the comments ahead of a public hearing in the Wisconsin legislature on proposed legislation that would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Local television station WKOW aired Walker’s claim that an exception for rape or incest is not necessarily needed in the bill.

“I mean, I think for most people who are concerned about that, it’s in the initial months where they’re most concerned about it,” Walker said. “In this case, again, it’s an unborn life, it’s an unborn child, and that’s why we feel strongly about it. I’m prepared to sign it either way that they send it to us.”

When running for re-election last year, Walker would not definitively say where he stood on a 20-week abortion ban. But earlier this year, he publicly backed such legislation – including at the federal level – along with nearly every other Republican presidential hopeful.

The bill under consideration in Wisconsin includes penalties of up to $10,000 and a prison sentence of 3 1/2 years for anyone convicted of performing an abortion after 20 weeks. Fourteen states have already enacted 20-week abortion bans, which have been criticized by pro-choice advocates as ignoring the rare circumstances under which women seek late-term abortions.

Abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy account for just 1.5% of all abortions performed in the US. Most cases involve women who discover fetal abnormalities at a later stage, women who do not learn they are pregnant until after the 20-week mark, or low-income women who cannot afford to pay for the procedure. Scientific studies have also disputed the notion that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks.

Emily’s List, a group that helps elect pro-choice Democratic women to public office, slammed Walker’s position as dangerous for both women in his state and all across the country.

“A woman’s right to choose is hers and hers alone. Scott Walker is the last person on earth who should be telling women how to make their deeply personal decisions,” Marcy Stech, a spokeswoman for the group, said in a statement. “Walker’s dangerous attempts to undermine women in Wisconsin tell us all we need to know about his agenda for women across the country – it’s extreme, outrageous and profoundly wrong.”

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, also condemned Walker’s comments.



“Scott Walker seems to be making crass and insulting remarks on a daily basis about abortion,” Richards said in a statement. “It’s impossible to understand why Scott Walker thinks that being pregnant as the result of rape or incest gets easier after a couple of months, but what’s crystal clear is that he has no regard or respect for women’s health.”

Lawmakers in Wisconsin are expected to vote on the abortion ban next week. It’s unclear if the exceptions for rape and incest will make it into the final text. Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the state assembly, has said he supports their inclusion.

Two years ago, Walker signed a bill into law that made women undergo mandatory ultrasounds before seeking an abortion. He defended the law last month, referring to ultrasounds as “just a cool thing”, during an interview with conservative host Dana Loesch.

“We defunded Planned Parenthood, we signed a law that requires an ultrasound – which, the thing about that, the media tried to make that sound like that was a crazy idea,” Walker said. “Most people I talk to, whether they’re pro-life or not, I find people all the time who’ll get out their iPhone and show me a picture of their grandkids’ ultrasound and how excited they are, so that’s a lovely thing. I think about my sons are 19 and 20, you know we still have their first ultrasound picture. It’s just a cool thing out there.”  Continuing my research, I am getting many suggestions. Hungary and Romania, places a cousin isthinking about emigrating to.

Eastern Europe really hadn’t been on the list, so I decided to take a look. Historically, they both would be amazing places to explore. Unfortunately, The law, especially about drugs, is still pretty Draconian(couldn’t help myself) in both Romania and Hungary.

I am not a junkie, mind you, I just smoke a little pot. I don’t even drink anymore. I just don’t want to go somewhere that my immigration status could be revoked, because of Marijuana. Decriminalization, doesn’t mean legal, and watching the Immigration struggles of Hispanics here in the U.S., I am worried even minor infractions could mean disaster for my family.

I know I spent most of my life smoking illegally, only in the last 10 years or so having a medical card. I just don’t want to go back to that constant fear of arrest. It isn’t a good way to live.

Alan Madden Rose

Want More Immigration Research? click here https://wildnwoollywordsmith.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/emigre-emigre/

Advertisements  So rather than Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, and Otis Young from Ashby’s film, we have: Bryan Cranston as Sal Nealon, a hard-charging veteran who now runs a dive bar; Steve Carell is Doc Shepherd, a far more taciturn member of his Vietnam unit; and Laurence Fishburne as Richard Mueller, a former wild man who is now a repentant, happily married reverend. Last Flag Flying is set in 2003, the first year of the Iraq War, and Doc visits Sal and Mueller to ask them to come to the funeral of his son, who was recently killed in combat.

Carell’s performance as Doc is muted to a fault—to be clear, this is a performance that lays it on just as thickly as his work as the preening billionaire sociopath in Foxcatcher or the grossly misogynistic Bobby Riggs in Battle of the Sexes. Only this time, Carell is entirely focused inward, barely able to say more than a sentence at a time, delivering every line as a mournful mumble. Carell is a naturally lovable performer, but here he seems to suffer a kind of extreme social anxiety that isn’t really addressed. Is he haunted by specific grief, or something bigger and unknowable? It’s hard to tell.

Cranston leaves no such room for ambiguity in his work. Sal is loud, brash, and foul-mouthed, a spark plug for a film that’s otherwise painfully quiet. But he begins to grate as well, seemingly unable to shift out of his high gear. Fishburne, playing someone who has tried to paper over the worst memories in his life, probably acquits himself best of the three, but Mueller is also afforded the least character work, with his transformation from one-time hellion to stately man of God mostly used as a punchline for Sal’s gags.

It takes a while for the trio to get together and hit the road (everything takes a while in this movie, which feels longer than its 125-minute running time). But once they do, Last Flag Flying doesn’t pick up any speed. There are conversations about the legacy of Vietnam, and the horrors they witnessed for a cause they still don’t fully understand. Then there’s some attempt to reckon with Iraq, though the verdict there is similar (that it’s a confusing mess of a war). And there’s an ongoing subplot about a dark incident in the friends’ past that they need to reckon with, which is never fully fleshed out.

Still, there are moments where it’s easy to see what drew Linklater to this story. A lengthy scene in which Carell’s character claims the body of his son, and asks to view his corpse in the sterile environment of a military air hangar, is played to quiet perfection. There, Linklater intuits exactly when to turn his camera away from the action and when to more directly confront the viewer. But for the majority of Last Flag Flying’s running time, the director doesn’t know whether to be angry, sad, or funny, instead drifting between tones. When the film finally builds to its conclusion (of sorts), it hasn’t achieved the kind of momentum needed to land a big political punch. The best Last Flag Flying can do is offer a subdued salute to a fallen veteran, and that’s better than nothing—but there’s a tremendous sense of greater potential wasted.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected].  A week ago, Politico called this the worst-case scenario for ObamaCare. The odds were slim, they assured us, but not quite zero that the magical combo of millions of cancellations, endless exchange “glitches,” and panicky half-assed logistical complications designed to “fix” the problem would mean fewer insured Americans at the end of 2013 than existed at the start of the year. It was unlikely, claimed Politico, because the four or five million whose plans have been canceled had alternate routes to enrollment that didn’t involve Healthcare.gov. They could enroll directly with their current insurer in a new plan (although not if they wanted a subsidy, which are available exclusively on the exchanges) or they might even be automatically enrolled in a plan by their insurer in the interest of preventing a lapse of coverage. But it was, in fact, possible that the first week of January would bring news that ObamaCare had actually made the problem it purported to solve worse. That’s the worst-case scenario. It’d be a PR catastrophe.

Via John McCormack, Bob Laszewski says it’s not so unlikely anymore.

Insurers privately tell Bob Laszewski that they think more people will have lost insurance by January 1 than the number who have signed up for Obamacare by January 1. “I was out making some client calls this week with a number of different carriers and they know exactly how many policies they canceled and how many who reupped. And they know how many people have come in through the exchange,” says Laszewski. “And I didn’t find one of them who thought they were going to be net ahead on January 1. They all think they’re going to net behind on January 1. That’s where it’s trending so far.” So far, at least 4.8 million Americans have received insurance cancellations notices, but Laszewski predicts that the total Obamacare enrollment will be less than half that number on January 1. “My guess is that we’ll have somewhere around a million and a half people signed up for Obamacare on January 1 in the states and in helathcare.gov,” he says. The big question then, he adds, is “why have we gone through this whole dislocation of the American health insurance system if only a million and a half to two million buy health insurance?”

Good question. Another question, via Guy Benson: How many people will be neither enrolled nor not enrolled come January 1? What I mean is, how many of them will be stuck in some sort of limbo where they tried to sign up but either got trapped in the Healthcare.gov Twilight Zone or tangled up in the endless red tape HHS has created for insurers? WaPo claims that the federal O-Care exchange is already looking at a backlog of 50-60,000 paper applications with the final 10-day enrollment crunch still to come. And that’s not all:

She and the other individual familiar with the system said that some of the 50,000 to 60,000 applications have not been completed because consumers did not provide all the required information, and workers from the outside company, Serco, have been unable to reach them by phone to fill in the blanks. In other instances, paper applications were placed on hold until last week because parts of the online system needed to answer eligibility questions were not working well enough. In still other cases, Serco workers ran into one of various computer errors when they tried to process a paper application, and that error has not been corrected. Besides the applications in the backlog, there are roughly 100,000 paper applications that have been processed, but the consumer was not told of the results until recently. The applicants are supposed to be mailed notification letters, but none went out until recently and the vast majority still have not.

So, to sum up: Not only is some significant portion of the backlog destined to go unprocessed due to uncorrectable errors, but even the status of the ones that have been processed are still a mystery to most of the consumers who filled them out. Some of these people expecting to receive a “you’re enrolled” letter are going to get a letter instead notifying them that their application’s incomplete or that there’s some outstanding issue. How many will get that in time to correct the error before December 23? How much extra work will that mean for already overwhelmed insurers before January 1?

As a gloss on all this, go read this Peter Suderman piece at Reason. Per this week’s WSJ/NBC poll, support for ObamaCare is now running at 24/50 — among the uninsured. Go figure that HHS is suddenly in jeopardy of having more people lose coverage this year than sign up for it.  A photo of a 12-year-old shot dead by police in 1976 travelled the globe. Now the family of the teenager who tried to save him reflect on South Africa then and now

The sky above was dark with smoke. At the railway station, as Ntsiki Makhubo and her mother returned from a day in Johannesburg, they were met by an anxious crowd.

As they stepped down from the train, they trod on shattered glass and heard the news. Your brother has been shot and killed, Makhubo was told.

'My activism started then': the Soweto uprising remembered Read more

When South African police opened fire on marching schoolchildren in the township of Soweto on 16 June 1976, Makhubo’s neighbours had seen her older brother, 18-year-old Mbuyisa Makhubo, drenched in blood and staggering to a clinic, carrying a limp boy in his arms. They assumed he had been gravely hurt.

In fact, it was the 12-year-old boy Mbuyisa had scooped up in the midst of the chaos who lost his life that day. His name was Hector Pieterson. A photograph of the two taken by a local journalist was printed first by a local newspaper, and then around the world.

It would go on to have a huge impact, prompting global outrage at the police’s brutality, becoming an iconic image of the struggle against a hated racist system and prompting a new wave of protest that would eventually lead to the end of apartheid.

Today, South Africa commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, as that day is now known. No one knows exactly how many people died – estimates range from 150 to 700 during the months of subsequent violence.

But the anniversary – like the famous photograph – will provoke a variety of reactions, not all of them easily reconciled.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Umbiswa Makhubo carries the body of Hector Pieterson, photographed by Sam Nzima. Photograph: Sam Nzima/Archive

“The uprising means different things for different people,” says Khwezi Gule, chief curator of the Hector Pieterson museum and memorial in Soweto. “There are different generations and varying constituencies. Even those who were there in 1976 were affected differently: parents, students, leaders, people just caught in the crossfire.”

Much attention has been focused on Pieterson and the screaming girl in the picture, his younger sister Antoinette. Both were pupils at local schools and were marching to protest against the introduction of compulsory tuition in Afrikaans, seen as just one more humiliation for students crammed into deliberately overcrowded, under-resourced schools designed to deny, rather than provide, education to South Africa’s black majority.

But if the Pieterson family were shattered by the events that day, the Makhubo family were soon to suffer too

There were deeper factors too. A new generation had lost faith in its political leaders, who were mostly in jail or exile, and many were contemptuous of parents who they thought had accepted apartheid’s humiliating restrictions.

Pieterson, although not particularly politically aware, had joined his school friends to march through the dirt streets of the sprawling township to a local stadium. Police blocked their way. A standoff followed. Stones began to fly. Teargas filled the air. Then the shooting started.

“There was confusion. I saw people hiding themselves and then I hid myself too. I was afraid because I didn’t know where Hector had gone to ... then I moved forward and I … saw Hector’s shoe,” Antoinette remembered 15 years later.

It was then that Mbuyisa Makhubo picked up the boy and began to run. There was little point – he was dead before he reached the nearest hospital.

But if the Pieterson family were shattered by the events that day, the Makhubo family were soon to suffer too for Umbiswa’s impulsive act of kindness.

The family had already paid a heavy price for their involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle. Key African National Congress (ANC) leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu had been family friends before being jailed, and the Makhubos were well known to authorities.

Mbuyisa, his other two brothers and sister Ntsiki were frequent visitors at Mandela’s Soweto home where Winnie, his second wife, sometimes cooked for them. “She also helped me register for college,” Ntsiki said. “We used to go over and eat there: spinach and pap [maize flour mash], or sometimes grilled meat.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ntsiki Makhubo at her home in Soweto, June 2016. Photograph: James Oatway/the Guardian

Mbuyisa’s father had joined the Umkhonto we Sizwe organisation (MK), which waged a campaign of sabotage and violence within South Africa in the early 1960s. Forced to flee to avoid prison, he lived in ANC camps in neighbouring countries before dying in 1973 in Kenya.

Within days of the Soweto uprising of 16 June, it became clear that Mbuyisa would follow his father into uncertain exile.

“I was very close to my brother. After that day, when he had carried the boy, he was disturbed, distressed. He was harassed all the time by police and journalists. Eventually he said, ‘I have to go’, and I packed him a small bag and he left for the border, to Botswana. He wrote for a while but after five years, the letters stopped. We never saw him again,” Ntsiki said.

Recently, there have been reports that Mbuyisa has been found in Canada, but no firm identification has been made and Ntsiki remains sceptical.

The family were to suffer more over the coming years as the government intensified its brutal efforts to maintain the apartheid system in the face of massive opposition, economic crisis and international opprobrium.

The memory of Hector Pieterson and my uncle means sacrifice and selflessness, but it also means change Zongezile Makhubo

In 1985, it was the turn of another Makhubo son to flee: Ntsiki’s second brother. He also joined MK and left South Africa for training as a guerrilla fighter. He remained in exile until the ANC took power and Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, but died of Aids five years after returning to his homeland.

Since then, the fortunes of the Makhubo family have steadily improved – like those of their nation. Though Ntsiki herself still lives in the rundown breeze-block house on Litabe Street – from which her brother set out 40 years ago to join a march – her own children have grown up knowing relative peace.

Two of them live in Cape Town, where one is a university student and the other is a supermarket manager. The third, Zongezile, a stylish 37-year-old, still lives in Soweto, where he runs a tourism start-up.

For Zongezile, the commemoration of 1976 sends an important message. “The memory of Hector Pieterson and my uncle means sacrifice and selflessness, but it also means change,” he said.

Soweto itself is certainly transforming. There are car dealerships, new roads and bus stations, and shopping malls with major western brands. An influx of tourists to the area around the site of Hector Pieterson’s killing – now marked with a signboard – has prompted a mini-boom of souvenir shops and restaurants serving “authentic” Soweto cuisine.

The Hector Pieterson museum opened in 2002 and now has 90,000 visitors a year. Many are schoolchildren and students, who smile and pose in front of the picture of Mbuyisa carrying the dying boy.

Few of these youngsters who visit know much of the uprising, nor are they particularly interested. “I’d say out of the 40 or 50 school kids I usually take round the museum in any one group, you’ll have three or four who either know something or engage,” said Liz Block, a lecturer and volunteer tour guide.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zongezile Makhubo on Vilakazi Street, close to where his uncle was photographed during the uprising. Photograph: James Oatway for the Guardian

Ntsiki is concerned by this lack of knowledge, and fears violence might return. She was horrified when dozens of protesting mineworkers were shot dead by police near Johannesburg in 2012, and by a series of recent brutal clearances of squatter camps.

“Was the sacrifice worth it? There are a lot of positive things no doubt. A lot has been done. I am proud to be a South African. But I am still saddened. There is much that is wrong. People are still being gunned down in squatter camps when they protest. We didn’t fight for that,” she said.

In parts of Soweto too, deep poverty remains. In some areas families are crammed into apartheid-era hostel housing. In others, poor immigrants from rural areas or neighbouring countries rent tin shacks for £25 a month. The contrast with the touristy areas of Orlando West, let alone the wealthy suburbs of Johannesburg only a 40-minute drive away, is striking.

Soweto: cradle of struggle against apartheid pays tribute to Mandela Read more

In Kliptown, on the south-eastern fringe of the township, 45,000 people live on dusty streets without access to schools or jobs. The area suffers from endemic drug abuse and violent crime. Angry community leaders talk of betrayal by their elected representatives.

“The government and politicians will come by for the celebration, do their campaign, host their events, but it has nothing to do with us,” said Bob Nameng, who runs a local community programme.

But Zongezile Makhubo insists that, despite all the problems facing South Africa and Soweto 40 years after the uprising, he is hopeful.

“Some here overlook the good we have achieved in the years of democracy and just look at the problems,” he said. “But we have shown that our country unites to face the challenges. Everyone comes together and says we must do what we can to help and that this is the country we love.”  Charles Lane on Social Security and the False Equivalence of Chris Christie and Elizabeth Warren

Like many other folks connected with the Washington Post, columnist Charles Lane wants to cut Social Security. He used his column today to argue that New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren want to address the shortfall in Social Security in essentially the same way, but progressives are too dumb to recognize this fact.

"The irony is that the progressive plan and Christie’s plan are equivalent, at least in their very broad financial strokes. Both claim to match Social Security resources and obligations over time, and to accomplish this progressively; that is, with upper-income folks bearing a relatively higher share of the adjustment costs."

While Lane may see Christie’s proposal to means-test Social Security benefits as being essentially the same as Warren’s plan to eliminate the cap on wage income subject to the Social Security tax, the numbers indicate otherwise. Christie has said that he would means-test benefits on people with income above $80,000 with the idea of phasing out all benefits for people with incomes over $200,000. If we assume that these people have benefits of roughly $30,000 a year (this is a bit less than the average benefit projected for a high income earner in 2025), this means that we would be phasing out $30,000 in benefits over an income span of $120,000 (the difference between the $200,000 end point and the $80,000 start point). That is equivalent to a 25 percentage point increase in the marginal tax rate for retirees whose income falls within this band.

Under the Christie plan, retirees with incomes above $200,000 would see no further cuts than those with incomes of $200,000 since they will have already lost all of their Social Security. This means that those with income of $2 million or even $20 million would face the same income loss as those with income of $200,000. Of course his plan also does not affect at all people who are still working and not collecting Social Security.

There is also the issue of taking away a benefit that workers have paid for. After all, we could means-test interest payments on government bonds, but that apparently does not bother either Christie or Lane. In addition, we are likely to see substantial distortions as upper income retirees find ways to hide income (e.g. buy a condo for winter vacations rather than use investment income to pay for a hotel). But such distortions apparently do not matter to Lane and Christie, even though they are likely to substantially reduce the savings from means-testing.

By contrast, the Warren proposal would tax people during their working careers. It would not be limited, so people who earned more would be paying more. Here’s how the two compare:

Loss of Income Loss of Income Christie Plan Warren Plan Retiree with $90,000 annual income $2,500 $0 Retiree with $100,000 annual income $5,000 $0 Retiree with $120,000 annual income $7,500 $0 Retiree with $200,000 annual income $30,000 $0 Retiree with $2,000,000 annual income $30,000 $0 Worker with $90,000 annual income $0 $0 Worker with $120,000 annual income $0 $186 Worker with $200,000 annual income $0 $10,106 Worker with $1,000,000 annual income $0 $109,306 Worker with $20,000,000 annual income $0 $2,465,306

To take a few notable examples, under the Christie plan, a retiree with an income of $90,000 would see a loss of benefits of $2,500 a year. This retiree would lose no benefits under the Warren plan. A retiree with an income of $120,000 would see a $7,500 loss of benefits under the Christie plan. Their benefits would not change in the Warren plan. At $200,000 the benefit loss would be $30,000 under the Christie plan, compared with zero under Warren's plan. Even very rich retirees would only see the same $30,000 loss in benefits and of course rich people who are not yet retired would lose nothing.

By contrast, under the Warren plan middle income wage earners would see little or no impact. A person earning $120,000 a year, just over the current $118,500 cap, would pay an additional $186 a year in taxes. This would rise to $10,100 in additional payment for a worker earning $200,000 a year. For a worker earning $1,000,000 a year (think of a successful medical specialist), the additional payments would be $109,300 a year. For a highly paid CEO or a fund manager (think of Mitt Romney) earning $20,000,000 a year the hit would be $2,465,300.

To those not affiliated with the Washington Post or the Christie campaign these impacts may not seem that similar.

There is another point worth noting about Lane's column. While he is concerned about the need for reducing budget deficits, the economy's main problem for the last six years has been deficits that are too small. Additional spending would have led to more growth and more jobs. This may change in the future, but there is certainly no guarantee that it will. And the people who have been raising concerns about deficits have a great track record of being tremendously wrong about the economy. This might be a good place to look to affect policy for those fixated on the problem of budget deficits.

It is also worth noting that our deficits will be in part a function of the Fed's actions. If the Fed maintains lower interest rates and allows the unemployment rate to continue to fall it can easily reduce the government deficit by more than $2 trillion over the next decade as a result of interest rate savings and more tax collections. And, more employment will mean stronger wage growth for those at the middle and bottom of the wage distribution.  Sarah Palin, political genius

Former Mayor Willie Brown poses for a portrait at his apartment in the St. Regis Hotel on Thursday July 31, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif. Former Mayor Willie Brown poses for a portrait at his apartment in the St. Regis Hotel on Thursday July 31, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Sarah Palin, political genius 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The pundits are wrong. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Sarah Palin's decision to step down as Alaska governor was a brilliant move.

Palin has some of the best political instincts I have ever seen. She became a pop-culture superstar overnight when John McCain made her his veep pick, and she's still second only to President Obama among politicians the public is interested in. Even in liberal San Francisco, she'd be front-page news if she ever came to town.

But that kind of celebrity comes at a high price. What a lot of people don't know is that Palin entered Alaska politics as a reformer attacking the corruption of the state's Republican establishment. As such, she was the darling of the Democrats - until she hooked up with McCain.

After the election, with Palin back home but positioning herself for a 2012 presidential run, it was clear she would catch nothing but ridicule from Alaska's Democrats. It was not going to be pretty.

If Palin wants to play on the national field, she has to be free to move around. She has to be able to drop into Indiana, Ohio or Tennessee and help Republican candidates raise money. She has to be available for radio and TV.

She has to be like Gavin Newsom, free to roam around the country, safe in the knowledge that things will pretty much take care of themselves back home.

Instead, Palin faced the prospect of being constantly pinned down in a state that is a day and a half away from the rest of America. She would have been totally isolated in every sense of the word.

Now she can study up on issues where she is lacking and become a full-time political celebrity.

The pundits call her a quitter, but let's be honest - the pundits never liked her to begin with. Better to take one hit for stepping down and move on than to stay in Alaska and die a death by a thousand cuts.

Governor or not, Palin is still the biggest star in the Republican galaxy. After all, who else have they got?

It's interesting - after decades of politicians preaching about family values, we actually have a president who practices them.

President Obama's decision to take his kids along with him to Russia and Italy completely stole the show. Nobody takes their kids on diplomatic missions. And it is so engaging and so authentic that you almost forgive him for not having the stimulus package working!

It was wall-to-wall people the other day at the Fillmore Street Fair. Everyone was lined up to buy hats from Ms. Ruth Dewson. They were out the door.

I took a look at what was taking so long for everyone to pay. It turns out Ms. Dewson has one of those old-timey registers - her bra.

And she was doing one heck of a business stuffing the money in. In the time I was there she went from a 38 to a 44.

Have you checked out the local music scene lately?

Down at the Burlingame Grill they have a different act every night. I went there to see Bud E. Luv, who was his usual great self.

Up in North Beach at Joey and Eddie's - which used to be Moose's - they have a Rat Pack tribute to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. that had everyone dancing.

We should really be more like Havana, where every club has free music early in the week.

It would help fill up the town on slow nights, and maybe lead to some gigs for all these talented people on the weekends.

I hopped in a cab to go to KPIX for the morning show the other day, and all the way there the cabdriver had the radio tuned to classical music.

I needed to know if anything was breaking, so I asked, "Do you ever put on the news?"

"No," he said. "Why ruin a good day?"

Hope I haven't ruined yours.  Google A new filing with the Federal Communications Commission reveals how seriously Google is focusing on its plans for a wireless version of Fiber, its high-speed internet service.

The company has been testing a new wireless-transmission technology using the 3.5-GHz band in Kansas City, but the heavily redacted FCC filing suggests that it wants to dramatically expand to testing "experimental transmitters" at up to 24 US locations, including Provo, Utah, Omaha, Nebraska, and Boulder, Colorado, for a period of 24 months.

Google is requesting authorization to operate between the 3.4 and 3.8 GHz band.

"We are working to test the viability of a wireless network that relies on newly available spectrum," a spokesperson tells Business Insider. "The project is in early stages today, but we hope this technology can one day help deliver more abundant Internet access to consumers."

Google Fiber's original plan to spread super-fast internet across the US involved running high-bandwidth fiber-optic cable directly to each home that its network would serve. That process has so far proved to be expensive and slow-moving.

Since it announced the acquisition of point-to-point wireless-internet company Webpass earlier this summer, the Fiber team has started turning more of its attention to a using a new approach that will pair existing fiber with its own wireless technology.

The company has even delayed its Fiber rollout plans in two Silicon Valley cities as it looks for cheaper, wireless alternatives, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Although several of the cities that Google wants to test are already Fiber cities, the tests will be non-commercial for now. All of the end-user devices used for testing will be in the hands of Google employees, contractors, and "'trusted testers' selected by Google on a volunteer basis without payment."  Fringe lives!

Fox has renewed the fan favorite for a fifth and final season.

As we’ve been predicting for a few weeks, Fox has ordered 13 concluding episodes of Fringe despite the show’s ratings being super modest on Friday nights. Though producers were optimistic about a pickup, they reportedly shot two endings of the upcoming fourth season finale just in case a deal didn’t come through. Fox has even released a season five teaser trailer (below).

Fringe averaged a mere 4 million viewers and a 1.6 rating in the adult demo, including DVR. Compare that to a first-year show that Fox cancelled — Terra Nova — which averaged 10.1 million viewers and a 3.6 adult demo rating. Likewise another Fox first-year series, Alcatraz, which like Fringe is also produced by J.J. Abrams, performed better than the Friday night show, yet is considered unlikely to receive a second year.

The key was studio Warner Bros. offering a good deal to Fox on the remaining episodes, while Terra Nova was a very costly special-effects-stuffed project. It just goes to show that renewals and cancellations are all about the numbers … but not necessarily all about the number of people who watch the show.

Want some quotes? We got quotes:

“Fringe is a remarkably creative series that has set the bar as one of television’s most imaginative dramas,” said Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly. “Bringing it back for a final 13 allows us to provide the climactic conclusion that its passionate and loyal fans deserve. The amazing work the producers, writers and the incredibly talented cast and crew have delivered the last four seasons has literally been out of this world. Although the end is bittersweet, it’s going to be a very exciting final chapter.”

“We are thrilled and beyond grateful that Fox – and our fans – have made the impossible possible: Fringe will continue into a fifth season that will allow the series to conclude in a wild and thrilling way,” said co-creator and executive producer J.J. Abrams. “All of us at Bad Robot are forever indebted to our viewers and the amazingly supportive Fox network for allowing the adventures of Fringe Division to not only continue, but to resolve in a way that perfectly fits the show.”

“This pickup means the world (both of them) to us, because we love sharing these stories with our enthusiastic fans,” added Fringe showrunners and executive producers Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman. “On behalf of the cast and crew, we applaud our fans and Fox for allowing us to imagine the impossibilities together for so long. Season Five is going to be a conclusive thrill ride for all of us.”

Season 5 teaser trailer! (Yes, already, must be some kind of record — a trailer 10 minutes after a pickup. Albeit no new footage, naturally.)  PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon woman whose inmate boyfriend died from a meth-laden kiss after a prison visit was sentenced to two years behind bars Tuesday on a drug conspiracy charge.

Melissa Ann Blair and Anthony Powell shared a long kiss at the end of a visit last year at the Oregon State Penitentiary and she passed seven tiny balloons filled with methamphetamine into his mouth. Two of the balloons ruptured in Powell’s stomach a short time later and he died of methamphetamine toxicity, prosecutors have said.

U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez said Blair’s actions were part of a scheme devised by Powell and others to get drugs inside the prison. There was a dispute as to whether Blair participated of her own free will, but Powell shared responsibility for his own death, Hernandez said.

“It was tragic and sad but he shares responsibility for what happened,” the judge said.

The 41-year-old was serving a life sentence for aggravated murder in the stabbing death of his mother-in-law, according to court records.

Besides two years in federal prison, the judge also ordered Blair, 46, to complete three years of post-release supervision and participate in drug treatment and mental health programs.

She did not make a statement in court. Her sister, who attended the hearing, declined to comment.

Blair felt coerced by Powell even though he was behind bars, her attorney, John Ransom, said outside court. She used methamphetamine but was not addicted, he said.

“It was a very Svengali-type situation where he had total control over her life,” Ransom said. “She had to do whatever he said.”

Powell’s close friend, Brandy Pokovich, attended the hearing and said she became pen pals with him after he wrote to her husband — a former inmate — and she replied to him instead. Over a dozen years, Pokovich said, they formed a deep bond through letters, phone calls and visits.

She called herself Powell’s “sister by choice” and believed he felt remorse for his crime, she told the judge.

“Now, because of the choices that were made, I no longer can pick up the phone and hear his voice, I can’t go on a visit and see his big cheesy smile and get the best hug in the world,” she said in a victim impact statement.

“He was not just an inmate. He was a very loved and cared-for person who had a family that would always be there no matter what,” she said.

Outside court, Pokovich said she helped Powell find girlfriends by using her social media accounts and introduced him to Blair.

Four other defendants in the case, like Blair, have pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge and will be sentenced in the coming weeks.

___

Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus .







  In an interview with an Iowa newspaper this week, Rep. Steve King suggested that gay people as well as those who are divorced and cohabiting will have unfavorable prospects in the afterlife, saying, “I’ll just say that what was a sin 2,000 years ago is a sin today, and people that were condemned to hell 2,000 years ago, I don’t expect to meet them should I make it to Heaven.”

The comment was quickly picked up by outlets like Talking Points Memo and Salon, so when King visited the “Steve Malzberg Show” today, Malzberg gave him the opportunity to clarify his comments.

In response, King simultaneously stood by what he said and claimed that the story was “false” and had been “fabricated.”

“What I said was it’s between them and God. And I said what was a sin 2,000 years ago is a sin today. That was what I said. And I stand on what I said, and they’ve manufactured this,” he insisted.

He added a dig at the people who had reported the story: “So maybe I won’t meet the people who distort the truth in the next life either, and I’m going to do my best to get to Heaven.”  A Santa Fe Springs man was sentenced Monday to two years in federal prison for his part in a marriage fraud scheme involving at least 87 mostly Chinese nationals, according to a U.S. Department of Justice spokesman.

Jason Shiao, also known as “Zheng Yi Xiao,” 67, was charged in 2015 for helping foreign nationals arrange fraudulent marriages with U.S. citizens so they could become permanent residents.

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in a statement said “Shiao falsely claimed to be an attorney, paid United States citizens thousands of dollars to participate in the scheme, introduced immigrants seeking benefits to American citizens to facilitate the sham marriages, instructed his clients to pose for wedding photographs, and told clients to lie to officials with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).”

Shia pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to commit visa and marriage fraud.

The Chinese nationals, according to court documents, paid up to $50,000 to enter into sham marriages in order to get lawful permanent resident cards, allowing them to legally reside in the U.S.

Shiao’s daughter, Lynn Leung, 45, of Pasadena, was sentenced last week to six months in prison after she pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, Mrozek said.

A third conspirator, Shannon Mendoza, 50, of Pacoima, is being prosecuted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for drug trafficking charges, according to the statement.

As part of the scheme, Mendoza allegedly recruited U.S. citizens willing to enter into sham marriages in exchange for payments of up to $15,000, Mrozek said.

According to court documents, the defendants “went to considerable lengths to make the fake marriages appear real.”

Shiao’s plea agreement said he and his daughter prepared documents filed with USCIS to make the marriages appear legitimate. They also filed immigration petitions and created fraudulent paper trails for the couples with phony apartment leases, posed wedding photos, joint bank statements and other documentation.

The investigation began in September 2012 based on information from an anonymous caller who contacted Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) within USCIS, Mrozek said.

An undercover investigation was conducted by the Los Angeles Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force, the U.S. State Departmnent, and USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security unit.  Buckle up for a potentially bumpy ride through the 2013 season across the college football landscape. That's because of a new directive based on the rule change that occurred just about a month ago, one that says "targeting a defenseless player" with a blow above the shoulders will carry an automatic ejection and not just the 15 yard penalty it used to.

Earlier today a few members of the media were in attendance at the Big Ten, MAC, and Missouri Valley officials meeting where they got his clarification on how the new rule will work:

"When in doubt, throw him out." Those are the marching orders of #B1G officials this fall when it comes to targeting defenseless players. — Tom Dienhart (@BTNTomDienhart) July 13, 2013

So, um, ya…. refs will now be charged with deciding intent to "target" and will be instructed to throw players out if they think there was a blow to the head. Don't worry though, once the flag has been thrown a replay official has the ability to overturn the ejection!! Ahh, but only if there is conclusive evidence showing no "targeting" occurred.

Nothing could possibly go wrong here, right? After all, we're talking about Big Ten officials and we all know how amazingly awesome these guys are regardless of football or basketball.

The other part of this rule chance is yet more proof that I would want nothing to do with being an official today. All that is in their hands is the power to affect the outcome of the game with one ejection of a player. Not a fun task, but luckily they will be getting support from the conference and the rest of the officials.

#B1G Officials have been told if they don't adjudicate targeting hits/suspensions on Saturdays, they aren't doing their job. — Tom Dienhart (@BTNTomDienhart) July 13, 2013

Let's just see how this works, but something tells this writer this rule change and it's on the field applicatioin is going to make this horrible call even worse in 2013:

Don't look for that call to change either…..

Officials are being shown a series of hard hits and asked to vote if hit is foul and targeting. I'll just say this: get ready for ejections. — Tom Dienhart (@BTNTomDienhart) July 13, 2013

According to some quick thinking and research only 99 players last season were flagged for this exact penalty, or about 1% of all players, but it remains to be seen how a 15 yard penalty turned into an ejection of said players changes the course of a game.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to protect against injury or potential for injuries, but the moment you make a player think twice on the field is the moment even worse things can happen. Could the law of unintended consequences rear its ugly head once again? Only time will tell, but a healthy does of skepticism is well within reason here, after all it is the NCAA and it's rule book we are talking about.

Follow CrystalBallRun on Twitter and Facebook.  Forza Horizon 2 developer Playground Games was founded back in 2009 in Leamington Spa, a quiet town tucked away in the UK’s West Midlands region. Despite Leamington’s modest size, it actually boasts one of the highest concentrations of games developers in the UK. FreeStyleGames, Supersonic Software, and Codemasters are just some of the teams based in Leamington and the surrounding area.

When Playground first squared away the deal with Microsoft and Turn 10 to develop the original Forza Horizon, there were less than 20 staff. Today the studio boasts over 100 employees, spread across three floors of the charismatic, Regency-style building the team has set up shop in. On the outside, things are still; there’s little activity on the leafy, tree-lined street upon which Playground’s office sits. Past the closely-cropped lawn and through the surprisingly grand doorway, however, and things are a lot more bustling.

The Power and the Passion

Forza Horizon 2 creative director Ralph Fulton.

Yet despite the busy build-up to E3, and with the release of Forza Horizon 2 steadily approaching later this year, creative director Ralph Fulton seems happy and relaxed.

Sitting in Playground’s modern lobby, surrounded on all sides by shelves full of die-cast cars of all manner of models and scales, Fulton explains how the idea of a complementary Forza franchise came about in the first place.

“I think it all has to come from a vision,” says Fulton. “Something that you’re passionate about. Something that you feel you just have to make.”

Check out the reflection in the water. Woah.

“We were really fortunate to get an opportunity to come into the Forza family, and Forza Motorsport has been one of the greatest racing franchises for the past decade. We felt we had to do something different, but we also felt we had to do something we believed in.

“We believed in giving players freedom. We believed in giving them a more fun experience, something action-packed, and that’s what Horizon is. And I think from Forza Horizon to Forza Horizon 2 we’ve really been able to take that to the next level.

“Part of that is about Xbox One. Part of it is about us really solidifying that vision, and understanding what it is we’re making, and I think also being able to deliver something our players really want.”

Holiday Road

The Southern European setting seems like such a logical choice; a no-brainer that really taps into the fantasy of threading absurdly-expensive supercars through the French and Italian countryside. It’s the sort of thing you might see the hosts of the BBC’s Top Gear doing every other week. Fulton confirms these parts of Europe could have formed the basis for the original Forza Horizon rather than Colorado but, in retrospect, he’s glad they waited until now.

“Going between these two countries gives you such diversity in terms of what you see.”

“You’ll see how that’s truly paid off, because going between these two countries gives you such diversity in terms of what you see, in terms of the roads you drive,” says Fulton. “But you’re absolutely right, I think we always went back to those YouTube videos you get – not necessarily the Top Gear ones, which are beautifully shot, beautifully filmed – but some of the Handycam stuff that people have done. Two guys, in Ferraris, just driving around the Amalfi Coast or something like that. You’re like, ‘I want to do that. That’s where I want to go.’”

Fulton explains Southern Europe won out over a wide range of possibilities considered, from California to Australia.

“We looked all over the world,” he says. “I think we auditioned more than 30 locations, in the US, in Europe, and farther flung places. We had a long list of criteria we wanted our perfect location to satisfy.”

Smashing, baby.

“Actually, we had a scoring system; we scored each of the locations based on their relative merits. Southern Europe ticked so many of the boxes we needed ticked. It’s such a beautiful part of the world. It’s unspoilt. It has fantastic driving roads, amazing environmental diversity, and just stunning vistas that you really want to explore.”

“We’ve been driving around North America in open-world games quite a lot over the 20 couple of years. Southern Europe just felt fresh.”

Basically, the team really wanted to go somewhere “fresh.”

“We wanted to go somewhere a little bit exotic, somewhere that felt like the greatest summer road trip,” says Fulton. “I think that necessitates coming away from America. Not because that it isn’t a very fertile place for games; I think because we just thought we’ve been driving around North America in open-world games quite a lot over the last couple of years. Southern Europe just felt fresh, it felt different, it felt new, and it was a gimme for us.”

It’s the world itself that has posed the biggest challenge for Playground Games, Fulton reveals.

“None of this stuff is easy,” he admits. “We spent a lot of time re-engineering our online system. We’ve spent a lot of time on our weather system; that took a lot of technology and art resources to build from the ground up. But I think building the world is the biggest challenge.”

“It’s a massive world, and the undertaking to build not just the roads, but everything off them on either side – farmland, crops, hills, mountains, forests – is a huge undertaking. I think that’s the thing that people will get long term value out of as they play the game. There are always new things to find [and] new places to explore.”  A follow-up with the witness helped clarify some of the details of the sighting.

"I asked the witness to provide further detail, if possible," wrote Strickler in his blog. "He did state that the image he provided was wrong, in reference to the chimney. The being was perched on the other side of the chimney, but the wing was so large that it extended back in front of the chimney and totally obscured the witness' view of the front of the structure."

"If this is a similar being, as seen in the Chicago area, then it may be originating at another location or flying across Lake Michigan," speculated the investigator.

Lansing, Michigan, is approximately 95 miles away from Lake Michigan, which makes this sighting the furthest away from the great lake of any of the possibly related sightings so far.

This is the latest in a string of flying humanoid sightings reported around Lake Michigan. Most of the sightings have taken place near Chicago's lakefront within a few miles of Lake Michigan, although there are some reports coming from the suburbs surrounding Chicago--and still others have come from further afield in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The sightings generally take place in the evening or at night, often in or near a park and around water, and witnesses consistently describe a large, bat or bird-like creature with humanoid features; although in one case the creature was reportedly "insect-like."

To report a sighting, contact Lon Strickler at [email protected] or call him directly at 410-241-5974; fill out UFO Clearinghouse's contact form to get in touch with Manuel Navarette; or reach out to us directly at The Singular Fortean Society through our contact page.

You can view a timeline of the sightings so far here, and an interactive map here.  More news releases

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Tumwater – Nine workers received $210,000 in back pay recently for work on 10 Western Washington schools after a Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) investigation.

The company, I&C Northwest of Bonney Lake, and owner Jim Lingnaw, were cited for the unpaid regular wages and overtime, and for false reporting. The company owes another $218,000 in fines and faces a prohibition from bidding on any public works projects.

Jim Christensen, Prevailing Wage Program manager for L&I, said the citations are based on I&C's continued violations of state law after the agency educated the firm on requirements for public contracts. The agency warned Lingnaw in January 2016 about receiving fines and disbarment after L&I uncovered the same violations on five other projects. Investigations involving the company go back to at least 2014.

"This case represents examples of repeated violations of the law," said Christensen, who has more than a decade of experience handling prevailing wage issues. "Our investigation showed I&C falsified pay documents and shorted the workers on each project — this goes beyond a simple, honest mistake."

L&I investigated the current complaints starting in February for work done on the schools in 2015 – 16. The school districts involved include Bellevue, Clover Park, Mercer Island, North Thurston, Tacoma, Tumwater, Seattle, and Snoqualmie. The work covered seven elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school.

I&C paid the wages and has also has appealed the citations to the Office of Administrative Hearings. A hearing has been scheduled for March 26 – April 6, 2018.

The citations represent L&I's continued enforcement against contractors who show a pattern of avoiding requirements under the law, Christensen said. He credited the work of the agency's industrial relations agents and the state Attorney General's Office on the case.

The state's prevailing wage law, triggered when construction uses public funds, covers workers on projects such as schools, roads, and buildings. L&I enforces the law, which protects employees by setting the wages for specific work. The law ensures contractors have a level playing field in bidding public projects.

###

For media information: Matthew Erlich, Public Affairs, 360-902-6508.

Connect with L&I: Facebook (facebook.com/laborandindustries) and Twitter (twitter.com/lniwa)  In a pun-rich turn of events, some Australian catfish have started eating mice.

A study published this month in the Journal of Arid Environments found that lesser salmon catfish in the Ashburton River had been eating Spinifex hopping mice in fairly large portions. Of the fish they sampled, 44 percent were found to have the mice in their stomachs, and of those, mice composed about 95 percent of their stomach content.

This is the first report of Spinifex hopping mice being eaten by any fish, as well as the first report of Australian catfish eating a land-based mammals at a high rate. Previous reports from studies conducted in 2010 and 2014 stated that similar mammals made up only 4 percent of this catfish’s diet.

Catfish will eat anything, but how are they getting these mice?

Scientists were surprised to find evidence that mammals might be much more crucial to the catfish as prey than previously believed, but it’s not in itself odd that a catfish would eat a mouse. One of the paper’s authors, David Morgan, director of the Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research at Murdoch University, clarified to The Verge that catfish are omnivorous and have very non-specific diets.

What is strange is that the scientists don’t know how the catfish are catching and killing these mice at such high rates. Because of their springy hind legs and tails, hopping mice are better than most mammals at avoiding water, and they don’t spend time in water on purpose. And though catfish are far from picky eaters, they’re usually opportunistic hunters — in most cases they eat whatever happens to be floating around.

One 2012 study found evidence that a much larger species of catfish, which had been displaced from its native habitat, had adapted to the situation by learning to beach itself and attack pigeons. Morgan told The Verge that his team hadn’t ruled this out as a possibility and noted that this species of catfish does look for prey that might have wandered into shallow waters at night and is known to eat grasshoppers and other bugs that fall onto the water's surface.

It’s possible that the catfish studied by Morgan and his team have learned some new skills, but right now, the researchers’ best guess is that odd weather in northern Australia at the time of the study (July of last year) gave the catfish a hunting helping hand. Hopping mice live in groups, in interlocking systems of underground burrows. Last year’s extreme summer rainfall may have flooded the burrows and pushed the mice into the river.

another story of ecosystem disruption

Climate projections for northern Australia say that the area is set to experience longer droughts and more dramatic periods of flooding in coming years. While this will make plenty of hopping mice available to the catfish during flood periods, it could also throw river ecosystems of balance and threaten biodiversity. For this reason, the researchers emphasize that further investigation into these seemingly minute changes is urgent.

This story is just one of the many weird ecosystem disruption tales we will undoubtedly hear more and more of as the effects of climate change make themselves felt.  Back-to-school time is once again right around the corner. Millions of recent high school graduates will be heading off to colleges and universities to fill their minds with knowledge and their bellies with ramen. New students are thinking about a lot of things — what friends they’ll make, what classes they’ll take, and what it’ll be like being away from home for the first time.

What they’re probably not thinking about, unfortunately, are the loans they’ve likely taken out to pay for the education and experience that awaits them. This aversion is understandable — the world of student loans is confusing, overwhelming, and seems disconnected from the present. It’s something you can worry about in 4-6 years, right?

Wrong. Taking the time right now to understand how student loans work will save you money and headaches down the road. So if you’re a young gent (or the parent of one) who’s heading off to college this year or next, we offer this accessible primer on the basics you should know about student loans.

If this info comes too late for you, as you’ve already graduated and are struggling with your student debt, later this week we’ll offer tips for paying it down.

Reduce the Amount You Need to Borrow

Before you consider taking out student loans, it’s financially prudent to find as many ways as possible to reduce the amount you need to borrow in the first place. The less debt you take on now, the less you have to pay back after college. It’s hard to overestimate how much you’ll appreciate even a small reduction in your total debt later on, but trust me, someday you will.

Know that about 2/3 of all college students graduate with student debt, and the average debt is about $30,000. It’s hard for a young man to put that into perspective, but when you’re repaying that loan, the average bill per month is about $320. When combined with other bills and debts, and especially when you get married, it will be a large chunk of your monthly budget. In fact, only about 60% of all student loans are being actively repaid at any given time; this means that just under half of all borrowers can’t afford that monthly payment (and failing to pay has dire consequences which we’ll discuss next time). These are just numbers, of course, but are sobering nonetheless, and hopefully give some credence to the reality of student loans and the necessity of reducing them as much as you can.

Save for college. Sure, you’re probably not going to be able to save enough money from your high school job to pay for the entirety of your college education, but every little bit helps. So get out there and get a job. Use some of that money for fun, but be sure to set aside a chunk for school.

If you’re a parent with young children, start thinking ahead by opening up a 529 account with your state to save money for your kid’s future education. Contribute a little bit each month. The money you contribute is taxable, but it grows interest-free. Also consider asking family members to contribute as Christmas and birthday gifts, especially early on when Junior won’t know the difference anyway.

Apply for scholarships. I wish I sought out more scholarships when I was applying for my undergraduate degree. I think I applied for like five, and I ended up getting one for a few hundred dollars. But I had only scratched the surface — there are literally thousands of opportunities out there. Don’t just apply for the scholarships that your school offers — a lot of organizations have scholarship funds available, and in many cases that money doesn’t even get dispersed because no one ever applies for it. Thanks to the internet, hunting for scholarships is a breeze. Search these sites for scholarship opportunities:

Once you put together a big list of scholarships, dedicate a few hours each weekend to submitting the applications. Sure, it’s tedious and boring, but if you can score a few thousand dollars to go towards your tuition, it’s completely worth it.

“Moneyball” your way through college. Last year AoM guest contributor Jay Cross published an article on how to use CLEP exams to reduce the amount you pay in college tuition. The tests cost just $80 each, but if you pass, you don’t have to take that class in college, saving yourself hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Coupling CLEP exams with taking AP classes (and passing the exam) in high school is another effective way to save big-time money and months of your time. Using a combination of AP exam credit and CLEP exams, I was able to shave off a whole year of college. It was awesome!

Go to a community college the first two years. If you can’t CLEP out of some of your general ed requirements, consider attending a local community college for the first two years of your schooling. Sure, you’re not getting the “full college experience,” but you’ll save a lot of money.

Live at home. My first semester of college I lived in the dorms at OU. It was a blast, but my grades suffered, and it cost me several thousand dollars. At the end of the semester, I decided to transfer to a college in my hometown and move back in with my folks. The tuition was much cheaper, plus I saved a ton of money on living expenses. And as a bonus, I had a 4.0 my second semester.

If it’s an option, consider living with your folks while you’re in college. Sure, they’ll cramp your style some, but you’ll be amazed at how much money you’ll save and how much more productive you’ll be.

Don’t take the full amount of student loans offered you. Before school starts, you’ll get a letter telling you how much in student loans you’ve been approved for. You don’t have to accept the full amount. Take a look at your whole financial situation and decide how much you need to make it through the college year. Many students take the full amount and use what’s left over after tuition and books as spending money. But if you work while you’re going to school, you won’t need to do that. Which brings me to my next point…

Work your way through college. Yes, school should be your top priority. But with efficient use of your time, you can make room for a part-time job. I waited tables and made smoothies throughout college. And most schools offer on-campus jobs that are pretty easy to get, and of course flexible with your class schedule.

Because I had money to pay for my living expenses, I didn’t have to take the full loan amount I was offered each semester. I typically just took enough to cover my tuition and books, and I saved thousands of dollars because of that.

Understand the Two Types of Student Loans

So you’ve done all you can to reduce the amount you need to borrow, but you still have to take on some loans.

Student loans will come in two broad categories: federal student loans and private loans. With federal student loans, the U.S. government is your lender. Thanks to various laws, money lent by the government comes with provisions to help you manage your student debt, such as fixed, relatively low-interest rates, grace periods, and flexible repayment plans.

With private loans, a bank or some other institution is your lender. The company you borrow the money from sets the rules on repayment and they’re not as generous as Uncle Sam.

To help you navigate the various types of student loans out there, we’ve created this handy-dandy chart:

Federal: With federal loans, the U.S. Department of Education is your lender Direct Subsidized Loans (a.k.a. subsidized loans) Direct subsidized loans are available to undergraduate students with a financial need (graduate students are not eligible for subsidized loans). Your school determines how much money you can borrow. The big benefit of subsidized loans is that the federal government pays the interest on them while you are enrolled at least half-time in school, during the six-month grace period after you graduate (during which you don’t have to make payments on your loan) and during deferment periods. (Note: If you received a Direct Subsidized Loan between July 1, 2012 and July 1, 2014, you are responsible for paying any interest that accrues during your grace period.) The interest rate is fixed, meaning that it can’t go up after you’ve taken the loan out. Direct Unsubsidized Loans (a.k.a. unsubsidized loans) Direct unsubsidized loans are available to any undergraduate or gradate student, regardless of financial need. Your school will determine how much you can borrow by taking into account the cost of attendance as well as other financial aid you’re receiving (including scholarships and grants). Unlike subsidized loans, you’re responsible for paying the interest on unsubsidized loans starting from the date you received the loan — whether it’s during your grace period, while you’re enrolled, or while it’s in deferment. If you decide not to pay the interest while you’re in school and during the grace periods, your interest will accrue and then be added to the principal amount of your loan. The interest rate is fixed, meaning that it can’t go up after you’ve taken the loan out. Direct PLUS Loans (a.k.a. PLUS loans) These loans are for graduate or professional degree students or for parents of dependent undergraduate students. To be eligible for a PLUS Loan, you can’t have an adverse credit history. Like unsubsidized loans, you are responsible for paying the interest on PLUS loans from the date you receive the loan, regardless of whether you’re in a grace period, enrolled, or have them in deferment. The interest rate is fixed, meaning that it can’t go up after you’ve taken the loan out. Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) The FFEL program no longer exists, but if you went to college before 2010, there’s a chance you could have this type of loan. FFEL loans were given by private lenders, but backed by the federal government, with the same repayment options and protections as federal loans. Federal Perkins Loan This is a loan that’s issued by the schools to students with exceptional financial need. While the school is the lender (and you’ll be paying them back), because the loans are subsidized by the federal government, you’re eligible for many of the protections and repayment options that you get from direct loans from the feds. Private Loans Private loans do not come from the federal government. These are loans you get from banks, schools, relatives, and non-profit institutions. There are no federal rules governing the terms of private loans, thus you’re not guaranteed a fixed interest rate and there aren’t any deferment options. With private loans, you may have to start paying back your loans while you’re still in school.

Determining Your Eligibility for Federal Student Loans

To be eligible for any federal student loan, you must meet a few baseline requirements. Most are what you’d expect: graduate high school, be enrolled or accepted to an accredited college, have a valid Social Security Card.

The one eligibility requirement that I didn’t know about and that is unique to men is that you have to be registered with the Selective Service if you’re between the ages of 18 and 25. Uncle Sam won’t give you any loans unless you’re willing to be drafted into World War III.

If you meet the above requirements, then you just need to fill out and submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). You can submit applications for the fall semester after January 1. The earlier you submit your FAFSA application, the better. It takes awhile to fill out, so look to set aside about an hour if you’re a first-time applicant.

When Do You Have to Start Paying Back Your Student Loans?

With both federal subsidized and unsubsidized student loans, you’re a given a six-month grace period before you’re required to start paying back your loan. The grace period starts after you gradate, leave school, or drop below half-time enrollment. Just remember, with unsubsidized student loans, you’ll be accruing interest during your grace period and the interest will be added to your total principal. With subsidized loans, the grace period is interest-free.

When it comes to student loans, a little knowledge goes a long way. Do what you can to reduce the amount you borrow, understand the nature of the loans you’re taking, and start thinking now about how you’ll pay them back after you get your sheepskin.

Make sure to read the follow-up: A Guide to Paying Back Your Student Loans  Iran’s media say the country has signed an agreement with an Austrian consortium to launch a special tourism train – the country’s first ever such project.

The project – dubbed Shokooh Pars Tourism Train – was awarded to the consortium by Iran's Railway Network and officials say the ultimate goal is to encourage tourism train trips by the Iranians.

Based on a €25-million deal that was signed to the same effect, three major Austrian tourism companies will provide basic training as well as the necessary basic logistics support for the service.

Many are already speculating that the project has been inspired by several visits to Iran by Western luxurious tourism trains.

The UK-based Golden Eagle Luxury Trains has managed to launch three tourism train tours to Iran since 2014.

The deal is a further sign of the growing economic relations between Iran and Austria. It also comes on the heels of a landmark visit to Tehran by the Austrian President Heinz Fischer earlier this week.

Fischer led a 230-strong delegation during his visit to the Islamic Republic that featured meetings with top Iranian officials for discussions on a series of issues of mutual interest.  A 19-year-old man who started the devastating Table Rock fire that burned 2,500 acres and destroyed a home has been ordered to pay $391,000 in restitution and will also spend at least four days in jail.

Taylor Kemp was sentenced Friday at the Ada County district court house.

Kemp was also sentenced to spend at least four days in jail, two years probation and community service.

The Ada County Sheriff's Office said last summer that Kemp admitted to shooting roman candles by the gate at about midnight June 29. The fire quickly spread and destroyed a home before firefighters were able to douse the fire.

Fourth District Magistrate James Cawthon described what Kemp did the night of June 29 as a “horribly reckless, thoughtless act,” and told Kemp the restitution bill of $319,000 was a bargain.

“There was nothing normal about what happened here,” Cawthon said. “You can’t live in Boise front one summer without knowing the ever present danger of fire the warnings are everywhere.”

Van Danielson, the owner of the home lost to the fire, asked Cawthon to sentence Kemp to 160 hours of sorting through the ashes of the home to see if anything remains.

“There is nothing left the only thing left is my memories, and you can’t take them away,” Danielson said, adding that Kemp’s stupidity could have cost him the lives of his family if they were home at the time. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.

“I don’t have any hatred for Mr. Kemp. I don’t understand where he was coming from. Maybe he can get things together for the rest of his life.”  Christians have become fearful of speaking about their religion in public, an MP has claimed. MP Fiona Bruce gave her comments during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, and highlighted a report from think tank ResPublica that warned religious freedoms in the UK are being eroded. In the report published last week, they said teachers, magistrates and other professionals have been disciplined and even sacked for living according to their beliefs. The Conservative MP, who is a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee, warned Christians have become "fearful" of mentioning their religion in public in case of a potential backlash.

Theresa May is the daughter of a vicar. Credit: Pool

She told the House of Commons: "Comments this week by the Equalities Commissioner, not to be worried about talking about Christmas at work were important because many Christians are now worried - even fearful - about mentioning their faith in public." The Congleton MP asked the Prime Minister to join her in "welcoming the recent Lawyers' Christian Fellowship publication Speak Up, which confirms in our country today, the legal right of freedom of religion and freedom of speech to speak about ones faith responsibly, respectfully and without fear are as strong today as ever?" Theresa May, who is the daughter of a vicar, said the matter was an "important issue, which matters to both her and me". She said Christians must be able to speak freely about their religion without fear.

Sorry, this content isn't available on your device.

She told the MPs: "I think the phrase that was used by the Christian fellowship was 'the jealously guarded principle' of that ability to speak freely. I'm happy to welcome the publication of this report and its findings. "Of course we're now in to the season of advent and we have a very strong tradition in this country of religious tolerance and freedom of speech. "Our Christian heritage is something we can all be proud of. "I'm sure we would all want to ensure that people at work do feel able to speak about their faith, and also feel able to speak quite freely about Christmas." The question and subsequent answer raised a mixed response on social media.

Charmingly Cynical @EarlGreyIsLife Follow Fiona Bruce Conservative MP is right. Christians should be allowed to express Christmas without the PC brigade shouting them down. #PMQs

Neil Halton @NeilHalton Follow #pmqs addressing the big issues of the day. Christians can't talk about Christmas. It's true you barely hear of that festival anymore.

Adam @adambadley31 Follow Who's afraid of speaking about Christmas? It's plastered everywhere, what drivel #PMQs  Out-of-control fires and deadly floods have hit Russia nearly every year this decade, and the emergency situations ministry in October conceded it has to come up with a new strategy. (AFP Photo/Natalia Kolesnikova)

Moscow (AFP) - Russia is warming more than twice as fast as the average for the rest of the world, the environment ministry said Friday, sounding an alarm on the rise in floods and wildfires nationwide.

A government report on environmental protection said temperatures in Russia had warmed by degrees Celsius per decade since 1976, or 2.5 times quicker than the global warming trend of degrees.

"Climate change leads to growth of dangerous meteorological phenomena," the ministry said in a comment to the report published Friday.

There were 569 such phenomena in Russia in 2014, "the most since monitoring began," the ministry said, specifically mentioning last year's ravaging floods and this year's "water deficit" east of Lake Baikal, which led to a "catastrophic rise in fires."

Fires around Lake Baikal, including the nearby Irkutsk and Buryatia regions, tore through hundreds of square miles in the pristine area, with locals and campers forced to dig ditches as state media at one point offered the theory that fires were fuelled by "self-igniting air" caused by ozone anomalies.

Climate change has contributed to unprecedented loss of water in the Baikal itself, dropping to minimal water levels allowed by the government several times this year, including this week.

"The level of Baikal has dropped to 456.1 metres (above sea level)," despite minimal water use by hydropower stations downstream on the Angara river, environment ministry spokesman Nikolai Gudkov told RIA-Novosti agency Friday.

- 'Earthquakes, landslides, flash floods' -

President Vladimir Putin rarely voices concerns about climate change, having famously said in the past that a little warming would not hurt the country and seeing it as a boon for Arctic development.

Experts however have cautioned that warming could hurt energy infrastructure on permafrost in Siberia and increase other risks.

The report states that while Russia is warming on the whole, some areas in the Far East and southern Siberia are experiencing harsh winters.

Out-of-control fires and deadly floods have hit Russia nearly every year this decade, and the emergency situations ministry in October conceded it has to come up with a new strategy.

"There are new threats in face of climate change," emergencies minister Vladimir Puchkov said at a conference in October, adding they require "new measures to protect infrastructure."

"Permafrost is receding, there are earthquakes where there weren't before, there are landslides, flash floods, blow-outs of gas condensate and so on," he said.

World nations earlier this month reached a climate accord in Paris which sets the goal of limiting global warming to "well below" two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, though experts warn that emissions-curbing pledges may be too little too late.

While the total emission of greenhouse gases in Russia has not grown over the past five years, car emissions are increasing.

Half of Russia's auto transport still consists of inefficient vehicles with polluting engines over a decade old, the report said.

Weather in Moscow and surrounding regions has been abnormally warm in recent days, with historic temperature records broken every day of the past week, the latest on Thursday with 8.5 degrees Celsius (47 degrees Fahrenheit) in Moscow.

The warmth led city hall to close the capital's ice rinks, while bees left their beehives and snowdrops suddenly bloomed in Moscow's parks.  Hi all, (tl;dr: Contiki finally moves to Github, fork the repository here: https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki, guidelines for how to contribute code here: https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/wiki/Code-Contributions) Contiki has always been an active open source project, but despite its activity it has always been difficult to contribute code to the project without being one of the project commiters. This has slowed down progress and has caused Contiki to miss out on important improvements. It is time for change. For the past few months we have been discussing various ways to fix this problem. Many were in favor of moving the Contiki project to Github, but at the time, it seemed to us like Github projects required that one dedicated person would be personally responsible for maintaining the official repository, which would not have scaled very well. We looked at other alternatives, like Gerrit/Jenkins, but they required an infrastructure with servers to be set up and maintained, which turned out to be prohibitive. So we took a second look at Github and found that the organization feature of Github looked almost exactly like what we needed. And we decided to go with Github! What this means for Contiki is that it now - finally - is possible to submit patches and improvements to Contiki, have them reviewed, and included into the mainline Contiki tree. We have set up an initial process for this, but we expect to be changing it continuously as we move forward. The general idea is this: to submit patches to Contiki, first fork the Contiki source code tree at Github. Then edit your fork, preferably by placing your changes in a separate branch. Make sure to follow the code style and naming guidelines. Submit a pull request for the branch through the Github website to have it reviewed for potential inclusion. If the patch is great, it gets merged into the Contiki tree! Read all about the process here: https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/wiki/Code-Contributions Today Contiki takes an important step into its future. Be a part of this future. Go to the Contiki Github page, create a Github user if you don't have one, and fork the Contiki code: https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki Best regards, /adam -- Adam Dunkels, PhD Thingsquare - http://www.thingsquare.com/  Qatar Airways wants to be the first airline to stream flight data from black boxes to operations centers on the ground in real-time, so that rescue crews won’t miss a beat in the event of a disturbance during flight.

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said a new flight tracking system was currently being tested in preparation for a fleet-wide deployment, Bloomberg reports.

The push for the new system comes in the wake of disappearances last year of Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia flights, which prompted frenzied searches for black box data, which can record vital clues about the plane’s location and flight conditions before it went down. Indonesian divers retrieved black boxes from missing Air Asia Flight QZ8501 Sunday, after the plane with 162 passengers crashed into the Java Sea.

Malaysia Airlines Ukraine Crash: Jerome Sessini Photographs Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum Jerome Sessini—Magnum 1 of 14 Advertisement

“Once this has been proven and all the bugs have been cleared then Qatar Airways will, I hope, be the first airliner to introduce this in all our planes,” Baker said.

Read more at Bloomberg.

Contact us at [email protected].  I've played Splatoon and Smash online with one of my friends for dozens of hours and I can tell you right now that having to use a second device is anything but natural. You're physically tethered to another device for no good reason. Not to mention those without smart devices are penalized. There is no reason why it can't all be on the Switch, and no reason why delegating a feature to a secondary device would be more intuitive than all on one. For a piece of kit that people love because of it's "all-in-one" functionality, you'd think they'd be annoyed that a basic feature goes against that philosophy.

I don't think it's fair to say, "you can't judge it yet". That's the information the company put out. If they don't want to be judged on that then either don't say anything until you're ready, do a better job communicating, or deliver on what people want. The fact that they've mentioned online several times and never once said "you can talk on the console with a headset or through our app" leads me to believe there's only the one option. Or that there's both, but the console version is severely hampered on purpose because they've put so much time/money into the app so it wasn't a waste of money.  Recently I had my yearly review at my job.

I had never had one of those before…mostly because I never stuck around long enough at a given job to get one. But in any case, I had finally gotten one and I cannot tell you how unexcited I was about this new development. I made some jokes to one of my lead managers about bribing them with food or otherwise suggesting I take shelter from their incoming barrage of professionalized insults.

Thankfully, it didn’t go like that.

The worst thing my manager said was that I needed to keep my book in my locker but good luck to her for enforcing that. My books are one of the few reasons I am still staying at the job. Being able to read books I might never be able to read otherwise (there are so many distractions at home) has been such a nice surprise for me.

I’ve finished everything from novels, to collections of writings and philosophical tomes (I recently finished 700+ pages over the course of a few months or so!). I’ve made the time to re-read some of my favorites like Dorian Gray and read interesting and challenging philosophical texts, such as The Foucault Reader, which I am currently reading.

Managers have a tough time actually enforcing this code of not reading for the person at the main register.

There are several reasons for this:

Perhaps most importantly there is a counter between the cashier and “the outside world” and thus perception is lessened. This also makes it rather easy to stow away your book of choice and not have it be found, while still being able to keep it near you at all times. I place mine in a box for single cigarettes that no one is using or under one of the shelves, besides a roll of paper towels. The way companies work, they have no real surveillance interest in having the camera go past the main part of the counter where transactions are made. So therefore it can never really be proved in any objective way by any of the managers that you’re slacking off. They have to rely on their eyes, which brings me to… Managers only have one pair of eyes and often these eyes are preoccupied with other tasks. They simply cannot manage everything in the store at once, least of all every single individual employee. Often I wait until a manager or two leaves so there’s only one or (at most) two managers. This heavily decreases the chances of me getting caught and often I don’t get caught at all. And if I do (which is rare at this point) then it’s sporadic.

But if 4. is correct then why is my manager noticing and calling for my book to be back in my locker? It’s likely because she knows I bring books with me everyday to work. I even showed her a few of my books a week ago (which was a huge tactical error, I now realize) just because I was so excited about what I was reading.

I also have been caught behind the counter before and it’s very much possible I am being caught more than my managers are explicitly saying. But of course that gets us into the territory of speculation and I couldn’t say for sure that managers are simply noticing me looking down for long periods of time or whatever it might be.

The fact of the matter is: I’m lazy when it comes to laziness.

Sure, I try to be vigilant about my laziness but it’s a lot of effort to avoid effort sometimes. Still, I did end up getting a 3/5 like I thought I deserved and earned. For me, it was funny, because according to my manager I undervalued myself on one set of scores, overvalued myself on another (only by a margin of 1 both times) and then got it just right.

So, in the end, my laziness has made me a complete role model…for an average employee.

I treat the customers with respect and try to figure out how to best meet their needs in a quick and friendly way (barf) but I also don’t push things like flu shots, optional surveys and I ask them if they want a bag or receipt because I think doing those things without asking is mildly rude. But my preferences don’t matter, only the company’s do.

I work well with my co-workers but sometimes I work a little too well and make jokes that maybe will be taken the wrong way. One time I yelled across the store to my favorite co-worker, “Nobody likes you!” It was obviously in jest but that’s also just obvious to me and her and perhaps our other co-workers. What about customers? That was the point my manager made and I understood it well enough…not that it stopped me from doing it later, just through whispers.

I don’t remember what the third quality was. It isn’t like it mattered. What mattered was that I passed and I assure you that I did everything I could to make sure I passed with the lowest amount of effort possible.

I “take on” busy work but very sparingly and only when it’s forced upon me. I never ask for work and when it is given to me I always try to find the quickest way to get it done. Most of the time I am taking care of customers (a necessary evil) or I am reading my book or I am (lovingly) making fun of my co-workers or getting made fun of by them.

I wish I could be as successful as David from The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail (which I just read in preparation for this) but mediocrity in retail suits me. It was really only in academia (high school, middle school, college, etc.) that I strove to be any sort of success and even then, it was largely for my own interests.

If you want another tale of success (though that’s subjective, I’m satisfied with mediocrity and being unnoticed, personally) through laziness, Robert Bell, a patent lawyer, has an interesting story here.

Thanks to the mess that was last month, I’ve understandably lost some patrons. If you still value my work and the statements I made, feel free to donate here.  The costs of ObamaCare are continuing to exceed original estimates (surprise!). The Hill reported earlier this week that the Department of Health and Human Services — a department run by someone who doesn’t understand the concept of insurance — is seeking more money for the health insurance exchanges that were a featured part of ObamaCare, which have more than doubled in cost:

The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said in budget documents Wednesday that it expects to spend $4.4 billion by the end of this year on grants to help states set up new insurance exchanges. HHS had estimated last year that the grants would cost $2 billion. The department also is asking Congress for another $1.5 billion to help set up federally run exchanges in states that do not establish their own.

The Congressional Budget Office recently revised up its ObamaCare cost estimate to $trillion from $945 billion — a 29% increase. So the news that DHHS is seeking more funding, which is going to be a tough sell in Congress, isn’t surprising. It does, however, show us once again that the law is much more costly than the Obama Administration said it would be. No wonder Americans have had buyer’s remorse over ObamaCare.

The exchanges became optional for states after last summer’s Supreme Court ruling and more than half have declined to set them up, leaving the federal government with the task of implementing exchanges on their own. In a recent Cato Institute paper, Michael Cannon explained that rejecting the exchanges is useful tool states have in protecting taxpayers and businesses from ObamaCare’s onerous mandates.  Flint was hit hard when his mother Flo passed away. He became withdrawn and stared into space. He also stopped eating and became weak. After a few days, Flint rested close to where his mother had lain, and died.

Flint was a chimpanzee living in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. His story was described by primatologist Jane Goodall in her 2010 book Through a Window. She contends that he was suffering from depression.

To our eyes, many animals seem to suffer from forms of mental illness. Whether they are pets, or animals kept in ill-managed zoos and circuses, they can become excessively sad, anxious, or even traumatised.

We have tended to think of psychological illnesses as a uniquely human trait. But that may be wrong. There is growing evidence that many animals can suffer from mental health disorders similar to those seen in humans. These unfortunate animals could help us understand how and why humans become mentally ill, and why these debilitating disorders ever evolved at all.

Many of us have seen or heard of pets that become sad after the loss of a companion. Sometimes, their loss is too deep to recover from, and they may even die – as Flint apparently did.

Scientists found signs of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in chimpanzees

But animal mental illness can take many forms. Some pet birds obsessively pluck their feathers, and some dogs obsessively lick their tails or paws, much as some humans obsessively clean their hands. Some animals are also known to self-harm, for instance pulling out their own hair.

It seems that animal mental illness can be triggered by many of the same factors that unleash mental illness in humans. That includes the loss of family or companions, loss of freedom, stress, trauma and abuse.

This is most easily seen in animals that are held in captivity.

In a 2011 study, scientists found signs of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in chimpanzees that had been used in laboratory research, orphaned, trapped by snares, or been part of illegal trade.

It seems that social deprivation is stressful for parrots, just as it is for humans

Stressful events can even leave marks on animals' genes. In 2014, researchers found that African grey parrots that were housed alone suffered more genetic damage than parrots that were housed in pairs.

The researchers examined the parrots' telomeres: caps on the ends of their chromosomes that slowly deteriorate with age or stress. 9-year-old parrots that were raised alone had telomeres as short as pair-housed birds that were 23 years older.

It seems that social deprivation is stressful for parrots, just as it is for humans. Other stressful events can also leave their mark on animals.

For example, many military dogs are thought to be suffering from a canine form of PTSD. They behave similarly to war-traumatised soldiers. Some of these dogs are being treated using drugs used to cure panic attacks and anxiety in humans.

Bekoff has seen an oddly behaving wild coyote pup, which he nicknamed Harry

Similar behaviours, such as shaking with fear, are often seen in civilian dogs that have been through a natural disaster or been abandoned by their owners.

So far, all these examples have come from captive mammals or pets. That probably reflects our own preferences for certain animals.

"It's the animals that we find very charismatic, like elephants or chimpanzees, or animals that we share our homes with, like dogs," that command our attention, says animal behaviour expert Marc Bekoff.

But this doesn't mean that animals in the wild cannot suffer from mental illnesses.

Bekoff has seen an oddly behaving wild coyote pup, which he nicknamed Harry, in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Spotting wild animals that are suffering from mental disorders has proved tricky

"He didn't quite get what it was to be a coyote," says Bekoff. "He was socially very maladaptive, and he didn't seem to understand what other coyotes were saying to him or doing. And he didn't seem to know how to play."

In his 2008 book The Emotional Lives of Animals, Bekoff suggested that "Harry suffered from coyote autism".

But that is only a suggestion. So far, spotting wild animals that are suffering from mental disorders has proved tricky.

There may be a simple reason for that: maybe animals with mental disorders don't make it in the wild. They do not necessarily get the care or support that mentally ill humans do, so if they can't perform critical tasks they may not survive long.

That's possible, but it could also be that people simply haven't looked, says Bekoff. Even if they see animals that seem sad or otherwise behaving oddly, they usually don't try to figure out what could be happening.

More profoundly, it is difficult to tell if a seemingly abnormal behaviour is a sign of illness, or just out of the ordinary. In many cases we don't know enough about what constitutes "normal behaviour" to decide.

Sometimes, "it's very clearly a disease and something is wrong with the animal," says Eric Vallender of the University of Mississippi in Jackson. But what if an animal has been through a stressful experience, yet seems unaffected?

Animals cannot tell us if they are sad or happy, or if they are hallucinating

"What's unclear then is whether this is because it doesn't look any different to me as an observer, a human watching the animal, but another animal would say that there is something different," says Vallender. "Or if there's truly no difference."

Doctors can ask human patients how they feel, but animals cannot tell us if they are sad or happy, or if they are hallucinating.

"All you can do with animals is to observe them," says Vallender. "Imagine if you could study mental disorders in humans only by observing them. It would be really hard to tell what's going on in their brain."

Faced with these obstacles, scientists have begun looking at animals' genes.

"A lot of mental disorders can be quite different. But what we do know is that they have a very, very strong genetic component to them," says Jess Nithianantharajah of the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia.

Synapses are involved in many cognitive processes

All mental disorders, from depression to schizophrenia, involve abnormal behaviours. Those behaviours are influenced by genes just like other behaviours.

So the idea is to identify genes that can cause abnormal behaviours in humans and other animals. By tracing the origins of these genes, we can trace the origins of mental disorders.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out that many of the genes implicated in mental illnesses are involved in brain function.

Some of the most important parts of our brains are the synapses: junctions between individual brain cells that allow them to transfer information. Synapses are involved in many cognitive processes, such as learning new facts and paying attention.

During the course of evolution, the original Dlg gene was duplicated twice

Many mental health disorders arise when something goes wrong with these aspects of the brain. For example, many children with autism have learning disabilities, and patients with schizophrenia find it difficult to form coherent thoughts.

A host of genes are involved in building synapses. These genes code for proteins that assemble into synaptic junctions, and Nithianantharajah says they are at the core of many cognitive processes.

In a 2012 study, Nithianantharajah and her colleagues reconstructed the history of one family of synapse genes, known as Dlg.

Invertebrates – animals like flies and squid that lack backbones – have only one Dlg gene. But all vertebrates – backboned animals like fish, birds and apes – have four.

The genetic duplication events gave vertebrates a wider range of genes

During the course of evolution, the original Dlg gene was duplicated twice, giving rise to the four copies found in vertebrates, says Nithianantharajah. These gene duplication events happened about 550 million years ago, possibly in a tiny worm living in the sea.

The four Dlg genes found in vertebrates are subtly different, and the team found that each one regulates distinct cognitive behaviours.

"What this means is that we have far more tools in our repertoire to be able to perform different types of complex behaviours, that many invertebrates don't necessarily do," says Nithianantharajah.

In invertebrates that only have one Dlg gene, the gene can only be turned on or off, like a light.

Mutations in these extra Dlg genes can give rise to many psychological disorders

But in vertebrates that have four copies of the genes, the genes act like a dimmer switch: they can be turned up and down in different combinations, allowing the animal to fine-tune behaviours.

In short, the genetic duplication events gave vertebrates a wider range of genes, enabling them to have more varied and complex behaviours.

But there was a cost. Mutations in these extra Dlg genes can give rise to many psychological disorders.

Nithianantharajah's team found that mice and humans with mutations in any of their Dlg genes had problems with various cognitive tests.

It is possible that invertebrates like honeybees and octopuses could also experience mental illness

They also found that the Dlg genes have not changed much over evolutionary time. Nithianantharajah says that is because they are so fundamentally important to animals' brains, so evolution has largely kept them as they were.

Her data suggests that Dlg had its origins in the simplest of animals. That would imply that both intelligence and psychological disorders also began early in animal evolution.

Based on that, Nithianantharajah says, it is possible that invertebrates like honeybees and octopuses could also experience mental illness.

"We know that mutations in certain brain genes, and particularly the synaptic genes, play a large role in disrupting behaviour," says Nithianantharajah. "That's the core of what a mental disorder is. So just like in vertebrates, if you mutate various synaptic genes in invertebrates, you could lead to abnormal behaviour."

Other mental illnesses like schizophrenia seem to affect more complex forms of thought

So far no such study has been published, but there is observational evidence that invertebrates really do suffer mental disorders.

A 2011 study subjected honeybees to violent shaking, and found that they seemingly became more pessimistic as a result. Faced with a smell they could not identify, they were more likely to behave as if it was unpleasant.

Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising. While we tend to think of invertebrates as "lower" animals, lots of them do have brains and many are far more intelligent than the stereotype would suggest.

That said, it is one thing to suggest that animals like dogs or even bees might suffer from emotional disorders like depression or anxiety. Other mental illnesses like schizophrenia seem to affect more complex forms of thought, so we might expect them to be exclusive to humans. But that may not be the case.

In a 2014 study, Vallender and his colleague Lisa Ogawa studied genes thought to be associated with schizophrenia and autism in 45 mammalian species.

All we know at this point is that the proteins seem to be changing

If these genes had changed more in humans than in other species, it would imply that the disorders were exclusively human.

But that was not the case. The genes had changed in humans, but also in Old World monkeys, apes, and even distantly-related mammals like dolphins.

So far it's not clear what this actually means for these animals' mental health, says Vallender. "All we know at this point is that the proteins seem to be changing."

There is a long way to go, but genetic studies like these do suggest that all animals with brains have the capacity to experience some form of mental illness.

The evolutionary history of mental disorders suggests that we have been looking at human mental illness wrong

From our point of view, this may actually be a good thing, because it offers hope for better treatments.

Many of the therapies and drugs that are being developed to treat human mental disorders are being tested on animals. That only makes sense if the animal in question has a brain that works similarly to ours.

"If a human breaks a leg, or if a cat or horse breaks a leg, a broken leg is a broken leg. The species does not matter much," Vallender says. "But mental health is really different. This is because the human brain is very different from other species, and we really need to understand the things that are the same about it and those that are different."

More profoundly, the evolutionary history of mental disorders suggests that we have been looking at human mental illness wrong.

Mental disorders seem to be the price animals pay for their intelligence

It's still common to see mental illness branded as a form of weakness. We struggle to understand that people with severe depression or anxiety cannot simply "get over it", any more than a person could will themselves to survive a heart attack.

But far from being something limited to pampered modern humans, mental illness can strike many kinds of animals and seems to have been around for hundreds of millions of years. Just like seemingly more physical disorders like cancer, it can be traced back to mechanical things such as genes and proteins within our cells.

Mental disorders seem to be the price animals pay for their intelligence. The same genes that made us smart also predisposed us to mental illness. There's nothing shameful in that.  

Ryan White, CTV Calgary





Calgary police are asking for public assistance in their investigation into a car prowling in the Crowfoot Crossing Shopping Centre which resulted in the removal of a police issued rifle and ammunition from a vehicle.

On Saturday evening, an off-duty member of the Calgary Police Service parked his Subaru outside of a restaurant on Crowfoot Terrace N.W. While the CPS member was inside the restaurant, an unidentified suspect gained access to the vehicle and removed a locked hard covered case containing:

A C-8 police issue patrol rifle

Two magazines containing 28 rounds each

According to police officials, the officer planned to clean the patrol rifle at home while off-duty. The officer, who has been a member of the force for three years, is in the process of being suspended with pay while an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident is conducted.

"There is no reason in my mind why an officer would take this firearm home," said CPS Superintendent Kevan Stuart.

"It's a semi-automatic police rifle," explains Stuart, adding the weapon is capable of inflicting significant damage if in the wrong hands.

Police are attempting to locate a surveillance camera recording of the incident.

Anyone who was the victim of a car prowling in the Crowfoot Crossing Shopping Centre, or has information about the theft, is asked to contact the Calgary Police Service, 403-266-1234, or Crime Stoppers.  Everyone likes to go out on a high. Perhaps that's what was playing on the mind of Justice Mahesh Chand Sharma on Wednesday, his last day as a Rajasthan High Court judge. While disposing off an inoccuous petition he first declared that the cow should be made India's national animal. Then he went on about how peacocks don't have sex. “Peahens just drink the tears of a pecock to get pregnant,” he said.

Social media of course cracked up and our national bird started trending, but Sharma isn't the first one to have given us such pearls of elolutionary wisdom.

A few months after taking over as prime minister, Narendra Modi had waxed eloquent about how India was scientifically advanced in the days of yore. Referring to the Mahabharata, he had said Karna's birth was a feat of genetic science as he was not born from his mother's womb.

He could have been inspired by Dina Nath Batra, whose book Tejomay Bharat had a customised message for Modi. Batra, who enjoys a handsome following among the Hindutva brigade, had argued that Gandhari giving birth to a 100 sons involved stem cell research.

Indian mythology is actually replete with such strange birth stories, which can now provide a happy grazing field for all those bhakts looking to 'revolutionise' biology. Take a look:

A saint and a bowl of pudding

Ramayana may hold a great sway over the subcontinent and beyond, but at the root of the great epic is such a story of a 'holy' birth.

When Dasharatha, the famed king of Ayodhya, remained childless for long he conducted a yagna with the help of Sage Rishyasringa. As the rituals progressed, Agni, the god of fire, lept up from the sacrificial fireplace and handed over a bowl of payasa (rice pudding) to the sage.

He asked Dasaratha's three wives – Kaushalya, Sumitra and Kaikeyi – to have the payasa. Once they did all three concieved and thus were born Rama, Bharat, Lakshmana and Shatrughna.

A plough and a furrow

Rama's wife Sita wasn't born naturally either. According to Valmiki's epic, Janaka, the king of Mithila, found her as a child in a furrow while ploughing a field as part of a yagna.

A drop of sweat

Some versions of the Ramayana tell the tale of how Hanuman wanted to cool off after burning Ravana's Lanka. He went to take a dip in the sea and a drop of his sweat fell into the mouth of a great fish-cum-reptile, which gave birth to Makardhwaja – part Makara (an aquatic animal) and part Vanara (an ape).

The son of sun

Much more than Ramayana, Mahabharata is a treasure trove of such stories. Kunti, the wife of Pandu, once received a boon from Sage Durvasa that she would be ale to invoke any god of her choice and bear their child. Her life was never the same again.

A curious Kunti wanted to try out the boon and ended up with the son of Surya, the sungod. He was named Karna, but an unwed Kunti decided to abandon him.

The five brothers

Kunti's divine power came in handy later, after her marriage to Pandu, the prince of Hastinapur. Pandu was cursed by Sage Kindama as he shot with arrows the sage and his wife while they – hold your breath – had taken the form of deer to mate! The curse meant Pandu couldn't have sex with his wives Kunti and Madri.

Eventually Kunti used her boon to get three sons:

* Yudhistira from Yama, the god of death and Dharma

* Bhima from Vayu, the god of wind

* Arjun from Indra, the king of the Devas

She also let Madri use the power, who invoked the Ashwini brothers and had two sons – Nakula and Sahadeva.

The 100 brothers and a sister

Unlike Kunti, Gandhari – the wife of Pandu's elder brother Dhritarashtra – conceived naturally, but gave birth to only a lump of flesh. Sage Veda Vyasa stepped in at this point to ensure Gandhari doesn't go childless. He divided the lump into 101 parts and incubated them in earthen pots. Thus came into being Duryodhana and his 99 brothers and their sister Dushala.

Twins out of fire

Draupadi, wife to the Pandavas, and her brother Dhristadyumna were born to Drupada, when the king of Panchala organised a yagna to get a son to defeat friend-turned-foe Drona.

A sage and a vessel

In Vicky Donor, Ayushman Khurrana would routinely be handed a container to “do the needful” by Annu Kapoor. Something similar happened to Sage Bharadwaja. He saw a beautiful apsara bathing and couldn't control himself. The sage then collected his reproductive fluid in a droona – a vessel made of leaves – and from that was born Drona, the teacher of the Kauravas and Pandavas, reverred till this day.

Another sage and some weed

Sage Shardwana, meanwhile, was busy doing penance to please the gods to become an unbeatabe archer. This psyched off Indra who sent Janapadi, again an apsara to lure the him. Sharadwana was distracted and dropped some semen on a bunch of weeds, from which were born a boy and a girl – Kripa and Kripi.

Kripa later became the chief priest of Hastinapur while Kripi married Drona.

A mango / 2

The king of Magadha took the penance route to get a son. When a sage gave him a magic mango to help him, the king divided the fruit into two and gave it his two queens. They each delivered half a baby, dead.

The king had given up hope, but a Rakshashi called Jara saw what was going on and joined the two halves , bringing the baby to life. He was named Jarasandha, in honour of Jara, and grew up to be a mighty king.

What next

India doesn't have a monopoly over such stories. The most well-known instance perhaps would be the 'virgin birth' of Jesus.

From Assyrians to the Aztecs, many ancient civilisations are replete with such tales. They have been passed on generation by generation to the modern times.

But in post-truth India, thanks to the likes of the honorable justice and PM, the line between fact and fiction is getting eerily blurred.  There is good news and bad news about entrepreneurship. The good news is that there is emerging global consensus that fostering entrepreneurship should be an integral part of every region’s economic policy. Entrepreneurship is a way to generate growth, with the associated outcomes of dignified employment creation, wealth generation, taxes and fiscal health, and in some cases, innovation and philanthropy. Numerous examples are abound.

But there is “bad news” as well. As I have written, policy surrounding entrepreneurship is extremely complex and confusion is rampant, in part because entrepreneurship is constantly conflated with self-employment, small business, micro-enterprise, innovation, startups and so on. Because of this, policy makers are confronted with a bewildering array of potential solutions—incubators, angel investment tax credits, small business loan guarantees, clusters, accelerators, micro-finance—that seem to work in some situations, yet fail miserably in others. Often, the costs of these programs dramatically outweigh the benefits of entrepreneurship. I wrote Worthless Impossible and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value partly to shed light on what entrepreneurship is and is not, in part to help dissipate some of the entrepreneurship policy fog so that the benefit-cost ration will be high, and greater than one.

Underlying the policy confusion is an implicit assumption that “the more entrepreneurship, the better” but that can only be true if entrepreneurship entails no social cost. Part of the bad news is that at a societal level, entrepreneurship is not “free”; there is a cost to the contrarian creation and capture of extraordinary value.

Income inequality. It is easy to show that in the short run, successful entrepreneurship creates income inequality in a specific region. Just imagine the impact of 1,000 multi-millionaires or billionaires from the Facebook IPO: increased housing prices, costs of some services, potential flight of children to private schools and so on (good things happen too). I think in very open societies this works itself out in the longer run so that a much broader base benefits, but in many less open societies it can contribute to chronic social stratification.

Social friction. The Singaporean government is disappointed at the strength of entrepreneurship in the country despite the great prosperity and innovation. One of the key reasons entrepreneurship in Singapore suffers is that the government and the culture discourage non-conformity and independent thinking. Years ago Guy Kawasaki said “Israel has 5 million people, 6 million entrepreneurs, and 15 million opinions. Singapore has 5 million people, 6 entrepreneurs, and 1 opinion.”

Challenge to authority. Closely related to nonconformity is challenge to authority and to autocratic systems. I have often said that the “role” of the entrepreneur is to look across the courtyard and determine the most effective path. That frequently means cutting across the lawn, despite the fact that some central authority has determined where the sidewalks should be. Entrepreneurs need to obey the law, but they generate value by challenging convention and questioning authorities’ often arbitrary or self-serving dictates.

Social mobility, up and down. Aspiring entrepreneurs in numerous countries believe that the deck is stacked against them because of their age or gender, their status, their race or ethnic background, or just because they were not born with the with the right connections. The doors of entrepreneurial opportunity are jammed shut for many. But for entrepreneurship to flourish, mobility has to be based on merit, not birth. The flip side of a move to meritocracy is that those who previously succeeded through family connections or royal entitlement will have to be susceptible to market forces and risk possible failure.

I have written and spoken extensively about the social and economic benefits of the contrarian creation and capture of extraordinary value, I began to wonder, if entrepreneurship is so good, then why isn’t it easy? There are several causes, but it has become clear to me that one of them is that we mistakenly believe that entrepreneurship is “free,” that it is without social costs. Until we recognize the price, it will be that much more difficult. More generally, one of the several major causes of the disappointment or outright failure of much of entrepreneurship policy and many buzz-heavy related programs is a confused and often naïve conception of entrepreneurship. If society and its leaders sincerely want to reap the benefits—employment, taxes, and wealth—and make sure they exceed the costs, we need to develop a more realistic view of both cost and benefit, both of which are significant when it comes to the creation and capture of extraordinary value.

This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.  Thoughts on GRC [003] – How the user experience could be improved (2)

Read the previous article of this series here.

The current newbie user experience regarding Gridcoin has been very interesting so far. I’m learning new things every week thanks to very informative and productive discussions on slack, IRC, etc. However, especially during my first week I had a lot of questions and while there were plenty posts on various platforms and many community members eager to help, there still was one question: did I set up everything correctly?

All the install guides have been updated recently, so it will be less confusing for newbies joining in the future. But I think it wouldn’t hurt to implement a more sophisticated feedback feature, either inside the GRC wallet client or using a website, that displays some sort of summary of the installation and configuration status.

Basically, there is only one thing a newbie GRC miner will need: patience. If the setup works out fine and people know what they are doing, they will be up and running within a few hours (probably faster). Actually, setting up BOINC, the wallet and start crunching is done rather quickly. However, if the setup isn’t as smooth and a few things are not working as expected, it will need more time to sort things out and understand what is going on and why – especially for less tech savvy people.

This is obviously a typical and very well known aspect of any software installation and configuration – not a GRC-only problem. Yet, implementing a feedback feature could help to calm down newbies and impatient users.

In my case, it took more than 48 hours after initial install until I received my first faucet transaction. For me, that was the final confirmation that everything was running as supposed to be. During that time I already used BOINC, but I did not know if the completed tasks even genereated GRC, if all the addresses, etc. were set up correctly – not to mention the information overload inside the wallet that added to the confusion.

Just to be clear: in hindsight everything was ok (except for a very nasty neural network issue). All the problem solving, reading and waiting wasn’t a big deal after all. Yet during the first two days it occupied my mind a lot. Which is why I would like to suggest the following changes to be discussed:

1) Visual install & config progress indicator

It would be a very useful quality of life upgrade (imho) to have a visual progress indicator. If it is part of the wallet or on an external website or any other solution doesn’t really matter as long as it is able to compare certain values on a machine with a database and tell the user if everything is set up correctly.

It could be just certain steps with checkmarks, it could be a graphical approach or just a text message, e.g. “You are currently at [this step] and it will take a while to verify, so just go about your day and check back in [x hours]” or something along the lines “You succesfully completed [this step], but [that step] is still missing. Make sure to check [a] or look for help [here]”.

Even if it is just some command line thing: some sort of easy to understand output that doesn’t require reading tons of posts and bothering other users with newbie questions would make a big difference regarding the newbie user experience.

2) First week progress indicator (auto-faucet)

This is an another quality of life upgrade suggestion for the first week after everything has been set up. It could be considered as a “motivational indicator” since it is basically paying newbies GRC during the first few days.

The idea is to have a faucet that auto-pays newbies for a few days. Just tiny amounts of GRC. I would suggest the total amount to be the beacon fee – so basically we are giving newbies GRC during the first few days so they can launch a beacon for free.

This would have a few advantages imho:

a) daily feedback that everything is working fine

b) don’t have to rely on faucets or donations to launch a beacon

c) “reducing” timespan between initial setup and very first payment

d) don’t have to purchase GRC right away

To expand on this a bit: a daily feedback via payment is not only an indicator for successful setup, it also helps from a psychological point of view – which is an important aspect. Currently, there are three external options (aside from console commands) to verify that everything works fine: faucets, donations or buying GRC. If these options are unknown and/or take too long, there is no direct feedback if the wallet works properly or not.

The auto-faucet sending out a small amount of GRC asap solves this verification issue. And many companies are actually using a similar concept to let their new customers know that everything is set up perfectly.

But another effect is also the perceived "reduced" timespan between initial setup and very first payment. Right now, after successful install and while running BOINC, people often ask “When will I get my first GRC? How much longer will it take?” etc.

It can take a while until the first payment is received and if someone is not aware of faucets or didn’t receive a donation, this will feel like forever. If an auto-faucet would send out even a tiny amount of GRC, the user will notice “Ok, nice, soon I can launch a beacon and then it’s just a couple more days of waiting!” – the positive psychological impact is huge imho.

Alternatively, it could be just one single auto-payment as soon as everything is set up properly. Whatever is easier to implement, respectively whatever makes more sense.

3) Gridcoin project with tasks for newbies

This is an alterative approach to the auto-faucet I would like to elaborate on as well. If an auto-faucet is not viable for whatever reason, we could implement a GRC project for newbies (running in the background similar to WUProp) that generates a really tiny amount of GRC during the first week, paying out GRC without any minimum requirements, such as a minimum balance of 1k GRC or a certain magnitude, etc. I’m aware this might be difficult to implement and probably might lead to exploits, but it certainly seems worth a discussion as it would approach the auto-payment-verification-process from a different angle.

The advantage of this approach would be that it additionally gives feedback on possible neural network issues that are not directly observable. For example, one can receive GRC from faucets and donations just fine, yet the beacon that has been sent off might be inactive for whatever reason.

If a user does not buy GRC to speed up payment (solo) or if it takes a lot of time to get the needed minimum balance to be payed (pool), there is currently no indicator (that I’m aware of) that tells people “Hey, you are crunching happily but you won’t receive any payment because something is still not working properly”. GRC project tasks with tiny GRC payout asap would be one way to solve this.

4) Better/improved test run feature

If suggestion 1-3 are not desired or impossible to implement, there should be at least a very basic automatic test run feature that analyzes everything and provides a summary that contains all relevant information in a easy to read format, that also allows less tech savvy people to understand what is going on.

Currently, a few things can be tested by using the console and I’m also aware there was a diagnostics option (which is not working atm so I can’t evaluate how helpful that feature was) – but the output needs to be more newbie friendly imho.

In general, I'd like to see a feature that tells me what still needs to be checked/verified or if there is something not working properly. A simple overview of all essential operations with red (error) and green (working as expected) dots would suffice to let me know what is wrong. It would speed up error analysis quite a bit and people would also be able to ask more detailed questions.

“What is wrong? My mag = 0?” does involve a lot of asking back and forth. “My mag = 0, this is a screenshot of my analysis tool” would provide more information for everyone involved, helping to solve issues faster.

Overall, I think we should try to reduce the complexity for installation, configuration and verification in order to have a much smoother initial experience. This would not only convince people to spontaneously give GRC a try on a Sunday night, but also keep them motivated during the first few days that seem to take forever until things finally get rolling.

These are tiny changes but imho it would not only help newbie miners through the first few days, but also veteran miners who would prefer a more visual “everything is set up perfectly, your system is good to go” indicator. Especially if someone wants to set up BOINC/GRC on several machines, a fully automated test run or one of the suggested feedback features would allow for a much easier process.

The positive effect it could have would be a valuable and major long-term investement into the GRC-side of (newbie) user experience, especially when people are avoiding GRC because it’s “too much” to even get started.

When comparing GRC user experience to other coins (their wallets and mining software), one might argue that it is a lot more complex to set up Decred via sgminer, downloading and installing all the different packages, etc. thus GRC has one of the better user experiences – and I agree. But just because our current user experience is somewhere above average, why should we not continue to optimize in order to have the best user experience out there?

While we can’t tell BOINC what to do, we could try to make the entire process as easy/comfortable as possible. The first step is to optimize the current newbie user experience. From there we can continue to improve everything step by step until one day we can proudly say that BOINC/GRC delivers the smoothest user experience among all coins.

I’d like to emphasize these are just my humble suggestions based on my first 6 weeks being part of the BOINC/GRC experience.

Feedback is always welcome and I’m really excited to have a constructive discussion :)  Just over a week ago, Hilal al-Assad was killed when Islamist rebels pushed into the coastal province of Latakia. As head of a local wing of the National Defense Forces (NDF), Syria’s main pro-government militia, he was given an official funeral in Latakia on March 24 before being transported to his final resting place in Qardaha, the Assad family’s ancestral village.

Hilal al-Assad’s father Anwar was a half-brother of the late president Hafez al-Assad—this was a death in the family, one of very few for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. There was of course the June 2012 death of General Assef Shawkat, the deputy minister of defense, former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, and husband of Bashar’s sister Bushra. But since then, the core elite of family members seems to have survived relatively unscathed by the war. That matters greatly to regime stability in a state where family name is far more important than official titles or constitutional prerogatives—at least if that name is Assad.

Not a Career Soldier

Hilal al-Assad’s own career is instructive in that regard. Virtually all other NDF commanders (there’s one per province) are career officers, typically at the rank of colonel or brigadier general. But despite commanding one of the most important NDF branches, that in Latakia, Hilal al-Assad was not a military figure at all.

Prior to his funeral, Hilal had mainly turned up in the media as president of the Syrian Arab Horse Association. And the state news agency, SANA, which will ritually rattle off the titles and decorations held by fallen commanders when reporting their deaths, could not come up with anything better for Hilal al-Assad than saying he had “a master’s degree in economics and planning.”

Before the uprising, Hilal ran the state-owned Military Housing Establishment’s office in Latakia. The company was created in the 1970s to organize housing and infrastructure for Syria’s rapidly growing army, but it soon outgrew its primary purpose and began to gobble up ever-larger chunks of the real estate market—much to the benefit of its directors, their relatives, and army allies, all of whom grew fat on bribes and kickbacks. At its peak in the mid-1980s, the Military Housing Establishment was a politico-military empire in its own right, and the author Patrick Seale dryly noted that “all it needed was a flag and an anthem.”

Still, a career in construction and corruption will not necessarily make you a skilled military commander. The real reason for Hilal al-Assad’s installment as NDF chief on the coast was of course his loyalty, his money, and his access to the halls of power in Damascus and Qardaha, rather than any sort of military expertise. It was, essentially, because he was an Assad.

From Office Manager to Militia Organizer

When the uprising began in March 2011, the Syrian government soon found it necessary to bolster the repressive apparatus by drafting civilian supporters, propping up Bashar al-Assad’s rule with a chaotic movement of pro-government vigilantes and militia factions. In Latakia, members of the ruling family were among the first to take up the task, drawing on their state connections and previous involvement with the criminal underworld.

Among them was Hilal al-Assad, who began to buy up unemployed youth to help suppress demonstrations, allegedly paying salaries of up to $200 a month to gangs of what the opposition termed “shabiha.” These groups later evolved into the NDF, with Hilal al-Assad slipping out of his suave executive suits and into a more suitable set of army fatigues. Some things stayed the same, though: according to reports from local activists, the Assads’ choice of location for a new detainment camp in Latakia fell on a former horse stable.

An Out-of-Control Son

Making Hilal al-Assad commander of the NDF in Latakia had consequences, however—such as unleashing his own immediate family on the province. Suleiman al-Assad, Hilal’s twenty-something son, has become infamous for his thuggish behavior during the uprising. Exploiting the fact that he is untouchable to local authorities because of his family, he stands accused of a variety of scandals and of harassing inhabitants of Latakia City.

The Lebanese paper al-Akhbar—which has an otherwise pro-Assad editorial line—refers to Suleiman as “an unending nightmare” for the city’s inhabitants and claims he was even briefly arrested in October 2013, allegedly on orders from the presidential palace in Damascus. But the arrest didn’t last long: soon after, Suleiman al-Assad was back in trouble, reportedly having pulled a gun on a cousin—who hails from another powerful, regime-connected Alawite clan—inside the Naval Academy of Sciences. The quarrel resulted in the cousin being shot in the foot and in yet another exasperated al-Akhbar article.

Rule by Blood Has Its Downsides

The personalization of power in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad rules through family more than he does through institutions, has been a source of strength for him. The blood ties that stretch out across Syria from Qardaha were easy to mobilize when the uprising began in 2011, and they have kept the president in power ever since, acting as a solid core of the regime and enforcing loyalty on less enthusiastic backers while helping to stave off the risks of an Egyptian-style internal coup.

But the Assad family isn’t much loved, even by regime supporters. Its long history of arrogance and corruption, and the regime’s consistent prioritizing of family interest over state interest, is what originally set off the Syrian uprising. And what the Assads have gained from family cohesion, they lack in institutional endurance. As one of many cousins of the president, Hilal al-Assad was perhaps on the outskirts of absolute power, but his death will still have come as a chilling reminder to the elite in Damascus of how precarious their position really is—because even if the Syrian regime is able to weather an insurgency of tens of thousands, a handful of well-aimed assassinations could still puncture it from within.  Sony Sneaks A Different PS3 Slim Past Everybody

Oh Sony. You’re so easy to see right through! Why, we here at PSLS just love breaking news wide open, even if it’s a bit earlier than originally planned. What’s this? You snuck one past us?

If you’ll take a look at this FCC document, you’ll notice that the Company Name is labeled as “Sand Dollar Enterprise,” yet that address turns out to be none other than Sony Computer Entertainment America‘s address! The device in question here is the 250 GB PS3 Slim. Why this wasn’t featured yet is unknown, perhaps it is due out when the older 160GB PS3 models sell out. At any rate, congrats to Sony for sneaking a device out without anyone noticing until now!

[Source/Via]  Last Man Standing might get back on its feet after all.

CMT is in preliminary talks to revive the cancelled ABC sitcom, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It’s far from a done deal, as CMT has to find a way to produce the network show on a cable budget. But it’s not unprecedented, either: CMT picked up the country-music soap Nashville last year after ABC cancelled it, and the Hayden Panettiere-led drama is now CMT’s highest-rated original scripted series.

ABC’s decision last month to axe Standing, which starred TV veteran Tim Allen as a conservative dad in a house full of women, was criticized by right-wing media as an attempt to silence conservative voices in a post-Trump world. Fans started online petitions to save the show and threatened to boycott ABC, and Allen himself tweeted that he was “stunned” and “blindsided” by ABC’s decision to pull the plug.

CMT does seem like a natural home for Last Man Standing: The channel already airs syndicated reruns of the show, and has since 2015.

Would you follow Last Man Standing from ABC to CMT? Drop your thoughts in a comment below.  President Donald Trump and his administration’s proposed travel ban and immigration policy are already having an effect on MLS.

One MLS team executive says that his team was pursuing a Designated Player-level signing from outside the U.S. in late January, but the player decided against the move in part because he’s Muslim and he said he didn’t feel safe in the United States right now. The player was not from one of the seven majority-Muslim countries on the travel ban list–Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen–which has been overruled for now by a federal court.

The MLS executive said the travel ban wasn’t the only reason the deal didn’t happen, but the player did tell him it was part of the reason.

It remains to be seen whether more players will follow suit and shy away from signing with the league for similar reasons.  Day 3 of the Ubuntu Developer Summit has kicked off, and one of this mornings sessions centred around the benefits of signing into Ubuntu using your Ubuntu Single Sign on (‘Ubuntu One’) account.

Now before you break out in a sweat over the idea bear in mind that the session centred around the idea and practicality of such a feature.

Don’t expect to see this cropping up in Ubuntu 12.04.

Cloud Log in: The Benefits

Ubuntu currently used ‘standard’ user accounts. These are created on the ‘local’ machine and stay there. Files and settings within that account can be ‘synced’ with Ubuntu One, allowing access of them from anywhere there is internet.

The ‘labour’ in the current approach is that users have to go through two steps: creating a user account, then pairing up their Ubuntu One account.

That’s two different usernames and, most likely, two different passwords.

Were Ubuntu to follow the Chrome OS/Windows 8 login method by making your login your Ubuntu SSO you’d have one less set of information to remember.

This coupled with the potential for having various application configurations auto-updated with your Ubuntu One files, ready to go after logging in to a fresh install makes a fantastic prospect.

Imagine: no more having to set up Empathy, Thunderbird, Gwibber, etc after every install. You sign in with your Ubuntu SSO and Bam! It’s all done, ready and waiting.

Better yet the SSO login idea plays into the hand �of Ubuntu’s planned ‘multi-device’ future almost perfectly: no matter what machine you log in to – be it TV, netbook or tablet – all of your settings, files and more are there with the same login information.

But, naturally,�there are issues with the idea that need to be solved.

Potential issues

Firstly: I might not want all of my 26GB files stored on Ubuntu One auto-synced on a public Ubuntu computer or 16GB SSD netbook HDD, so some form of ‘what is synced and where’ feature would need addressing.

What if I forget my Ubuntu One password?

How would I change my password?

How do I log in with no WiFi?

What happens if someone doesn’t have/want an Ubuntu SSO?

Approaching the idea

Putting a bunch of wiley developers and interested parties in one room to dicuss and issue typically results in practible solutions – and the UDS session that saw this idea debated was no exception

For example, the login screen would need to have some form of network access available for your first SSO login; a method is needed for ‘deauthorising’ Ubuntu One/User Account; changes to the way user passwords are edited and ‘synced’ with local keyrings/apps.

SSO = FTW

The Single SSO idea won’t be a hit with everyone, and for many still it won’t even be required.

But it is a forward looking idea that shows debate around Ubuntu, regardless of whether anything comes of it, continues to keep pace with the world around it.  Don't count out Sony Mobile. Sure, the Japanese giant's smartphone arm may be an irrelevance in the U.S. market right now, for reasons we won't get into here. But it's made steady progress in Europe and the UK, where it's now number two in Android market share behind Samsung. Admittedly, much of that has been down to Sony's numerous entry-level and mid-range devices like the Xperia Tipo and Xperia U, rather than its high-end stuff. That's because Sony has lacked a kick-ass flagship smartphone for far too long. Last year neither the Xperia S nor Xperia T thrilled us enough to recommend them over the Samsung and HTC competition. The former arrived running the dated Android 2.3 Gingerbread, while the latter suffered from dismal battery life and ran ICS in a Jelly Bean-aspiring world. So with a new year comes a new Sony phone, the Xperia Z. If nothing else, the manufacturer's rapid turnover of high-end handsets has allowed it to finally catch up in the spec war. This new Xperia is fitted with a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, a 1080p display and a 13-megapixel camera with Sony's fancy new Exmor RS sensor tech. Oh, and it's also fully water-resistant. But make no mistake, the Xperia Z is about to be born into a world of ferocious competition, with Samsung keen to hold onto its Android dominance, and HTC pulling no punches with its new HTC One. Once again Sony has the advantage of bringing a product to market first -- so can it deliver? Find out in our full review of the Xperia Z.

Pros Incredibly sharp and clear screen. Speedy performance and sleek UI. Solid build quality and attractive chassis design. Waterproof capabilities set it apart from other high-end phones. Great camera performance. Cons Plastic flaps will frustrate some users. Non-ergonomic design and large screen size make it a little unwieldy. Quick-launch camera bugs get in the way at crucial moments. No dedicated camera button. The Bottom Line



Xperia Z video walkthrough

Xperia Z hardwar​e review

In a break with its earlier handset designs, Sony has sandwiched the Xperia Z between two layers of glass, arranged around a soft-touch trim. That might sound familiar to anyone who's handled a Nexus 4, and the Xperia Z claims many of the benefits of that phone's design. The glass gives a shiny, attractive appearance, while the soft touch area is easier to grip. Unfortunately what it also means is the phone becomes a monstrous fingerprint and lint magnet. Sony's use of fixed screen protectors -- and a similar coating on the rear glass -- means that keeping both front and back clean is near impossible. And the hairline gap between the glass and the soft-touch trim is a breeding ground for dust and lint. Aside from those practical concerns, the Xperia Z is a sturdy, well-built handset. Gone is the creaky plastic of old, instead Sony's new flagship feels like it could withstand the occasional knock or scrape. (Although we'd be reluctant to conduct any drop tests on that glass-clad rear.) The small amount of plastic that is present feels of significantly higher quality than previous Sony offerings. It's a classy chunk of consumer electronics. Sony's designers have previously talked about simply wanting to place a screen in users' hands, and the Xperia Z is faithful to that design goal. There's absolutely no unnecessary noise around the phone's 5-inch display -- just a Sony logo up top, and tiny cutouts for the earpiece and microphone. And Sony's use of on-screen buttons means when it's powered down, there's nothing to see under the display. The screen itself looks as good as you'd expect from something packing more than 2 million pixels (at 1920x1080 resolution) into a 5-inch space. It's a sharp, bright LCD, and boasts noticeably improved color balance compared to Xperias S and T. We should also mention that retail Xperia Z models seem to have improved viewing angles compared to the prototypes we've handled on previous occasions. That said, the Xperia Z's screen still doesn't quite match the ridiculously wide angles offered by competing IPS and SuperLCD2/3 panels. Clearly, viewing angles remain an area of weakness for the manufacturer. Sony's Mobile Bravia Engine 2 technology is present on the Xperia Z, and kicks into action when viewing photos or video content unless you manually disable it via the 'display settings' menu. As on Sony TVs, this is intended to improve color quality, boost contrast and reduce visible noise. (Think of it as Beats Audio for your eyes.) On a 5-inch display this is more striking than ever, though the Bravia Engine's extreme saturation and tendency to shift grey areas in images towards the blue end of the spectrum results in some photos taking on a slightly surreal quality.

Left: Bravia Engine off; Right: Bravia Engine on The front of the Xperia Z is relatively featureless, but the same can't be said for the elaborate trim. Its bulk is soft touch plastic, punctuated by more reflective sections that match the glass back. On the right edge there's a volume rocker and a large, stylized silver power button. (No dedicated camera key this time around, unfortunately.) All the Xperia Z's ports and connectors are hidden behind plastic flaps, on account of the phone's water and dust resistance credentials, meaning you'll have to prise these out of the chassis whenever you want to charge or connect headphones. That's something extra to do whenever you need to connect stuff to the phone, but we weren't terribly bothered by this during our time with the Xperia Z. On the subject of water resistance, we found this worked just as advertised. The Xperia Z operated perfectly happily after being placed under running water, or dunked in a bowl of water. As for dust resistance, we'll take Sony's word that no dust is making its way inside the chassis. (The large quantities of lint that the outer trim picked up certainly didn't seem to be going anywhere.) So far we've almost glossed over the fact that this is a 5-inch phone. While it's true that the Xperia Z isn't the first 5-incher we've seen -- and it certainly won't be the last -- this could present usability problems when coupled with its unusually squared-off design. Other large form factor phones, like HTC's Droid DNA and Samsung's Galaxy Note 2, have tapered edges that make them an easier fit for human hands. That's not the case with the Xperia Z, and it's a bulkier handset for it, despite its mere 7.9mm thickness. We were able to adjust the way we held the phone fairly quickly, but if you have smaller hands this could be a deal-breaker. (Incidentally, if you're after a similar phone in a more hand-friendly design and shape, the Xperia ZL might be worth a look.) Internally, you're dealing with high-end smartphone guts -- a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU at 1.5GHz, with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD. That's more than enough enough horsepower for anyone, and we're not going to lose any sleep over the fact that it's using the few-months-old S4 Pro rather than the bleeding-edge Snapdragon 600. The Xperia Z's overall speed and responsiveness leaves little to be desired. But coming from the Nexus 4 we found it to be a tad slower in places, notably the home screen launcher. It's not a big difference... In fact, it's a very small difference. But it's there. (If you're into benchmarks, however, the Xperia Z annihilates the Nexus 4 on account of higher I/O speeds.)

Just as nature (and Google) intended, the Xperia Z's storage is arranged into a single partition, which can be used for apps or media storage. Around the back there's a 13-megapixel camera with Sony's Exmor RS stacked sensor tech and an f/2.4 lens. We'll go into more detail on camera performance later in this review, but for now let's just say that the Xperia Z boasts one of the best smartphone camera's we've tested. The usual connectivity options are included -- Wifi a/g/b/n, including 5GHz support, 42Mbps HSPA+ and support for European LTE bands depending on model number. Our review unit was model C6603, which includes European and Asian LTE support. There's also another HSPA-only version, C6602. And finally, you can use the Xperia Z to make phone calls, if you're so inclined. The phone supports the "HD voice" standard, so you'll get clearer voice calls if both yourself and the person you're calling are on a supporting network.

Sony Xperia Z specs

Xperia Z software and UI The Xperia Z runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean alongside Sony's Xperia UI. While technically an Android "skin," Sony's UI sticks pretty close to the Android design guidelines cooked up by Matias Duarte and his team. You get up to seven home screens, customized by a selection of widgets in a very traditional Android launcher experience. The lock screen has been redesigned, and now you've got a fancy 3D blinds effect to play with when you unlock the phone. Music and camera shortcuts can be found up top on the lock screen, and are activated by swiping left or right. Despite the bump up to Jelly Bean and the improvements in performance that's brought, Sony's UI hasn't changed much in the past year. It's a very minimalist, mostly grey and black, and if we were feeling particularly mean we might even call it boring. Where software is concerned, most of the excitement comes in the form of Sony's own app suite. There's a re-badged and rather pretty Walkman app for music, which ties into Sony's Music Unlimited service. It's a little easier to navigate than most, and also supports DLNA streaming and music sharing through Facebook. If you're inclined to tweak your audio output, you can choose between a traditional graphic equalizer with "ClearBass" or "ClearAudio+," which automatically adjusts settings to improve audio clarity. The gallery app has been redesigned, allowing and now supports a zoomable, time-based view of all photo content on the device, as well as Facebook, Picasa and PlayMemories integration. There's also an attractive globe view, which populates a world map with photos based on geotagged location data. In addition, the new Sony "Movies" app incorporates movie and TV downloads, Video Unlimited streaming services and DLNA sharing. Fairly deep Facebook integration comes as standard, as is the case with all modern Sony phones. Other social features include a terribly-named by functional social news aggregator called "Socalife." A cross between Flipboard and HTC's BlinkFeed, Socialife incorporates Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader content as well as news updates based upon predetermined topics. It's probably not going to drag anyone away from Flipboard, but it's a decent alternative. Finally, there's PlayStation Mobile, which isn't installed by default, but can be downloaded immediately via an app drawer shortcut. PSM is still lacking in big-name titles, and the added hurdle to view the range of PlayStation-certified games will do nothing to boost adoption rates. Nevertheless, it's another source of games you might not find on the Play Store, so it we suppose it doesn't hurt to have the option there. We just wish we'd see a more meaningful push from Sony to bring console-class games to this service. After all, it is PlayStation. Our Xperia Z review unit was an unlocked European device, and as such it was lacking any kind of carrier-mandated bloatware. However McAfee security is pre-loaded, and it has an unfortunate tendency to bug you to register it, even if you completely ignore its app drawer presence. Thankfully the app can be completely uninstalled via the app management menu, but we found the presence of "nagware" notifications to be rather obnoxious on an otherwise pristine handset. Other notables ... The "Smart Connect" automation app is back, but haven't changed much from earlier implementations. You can program basic macros like muting notifications when charging at night, but it's lacking the advanced functionality offered by Motorola's Smart Actions, let alone third-party offerings like Tasker.

The Google Now swipe shortcut works just fine on the Xperia Z, on account of its on-screen buttons.

There's a Media Remote app loaded on the Xperia Z, but it only works with Sony equipment, unlike the Peel-based TV apps on IR-equipped devices like the HTC One and Galaxy Note 8.

MobiSystems' File Commander is pre-loaded on the Xperia Z. It's a basic, functional file manager app, but it's jarringly ugly compared to the rest of Sony's UI.

The stock Android Movie Studio app is included for your video-editing needs.

The Xperia Z's notification bar and on-screen controls are actually dark grey and not black, which is why they appear noticeably lighter than the surrounding bezel.

For reasons unknown to us, we were unable to post Gallery images to Google+ over cellular data on the Xperia Z. We tried several SIMs in the device, and experienced the same issue each time. Over Wifi, things worked as expected.

Miracast display sharing is supported on the Xperia Z. We weren't able to test this on our own equipment, but we've seen it demo'd in Sony's offices. Xperia Z ​battery life and power management The Sony Xperia Z includes a 2330mAh internal battery which is non-removeable, and sealed within its chassis. We've reported battery life issues on earlier Sony handsets, but fortunately we experienced no such problems on the Xperia Z. With regular daily use consisting of hopping between Wifi, LTE and HSPA+ we managed to get through a full day with ease. As we've come to expect from modern 4G radios, using LTE on the Xperia Z didn't significantly impact battery life compared to HSPA+. And as is the case with most modern Android phones, we found the Xperia Z's standby performance to be excellent -- the phone used next to no juice while syncing Google account data in the background with the screen off.

With more intensive use, we were able to reduce the Xperia Z to the danger level of 15 percent in seven hours, with a little under two hours of screen-on time. That's with varied use consisting of browsing over Wifi, LTE and HSPA, a couple of voice calls, a few dozen still photos and around 90 minutes of music playback. The screen's brightness level was set at around 75 percent with 'auto-adjust brightness' switched on. The Xperia Z's software includes a new power management settings area featuring various tweaks to lengthen the phone's battery life. Up top a large display shows you the estimated remaining standby time (usually measured in days, unless you're running on fumes.) There are three main battery-saving options available, though we'd recommend leaving all three turned off for best performance. Stamina mode disables data when the screen is off. Low battery mode takes action to dim the screen and reduce background data when the battery is low. Finally, location-based Wifi automatically disables your Wifi radio when not in range of a saved network. Stamina mode in particular is worth a look if you're not the sort of person who needs to be constantly connected. But we can't help feeling that by restricting background data and processes to such a degree, we're missing out on many of the benefits of smartphone ownership. It is however possible to whitelist certain apps, allowing them to run even when Stamina mode is enabled. As an aside, the persistent battery percentage in the status bar can now be disabled through the same power management menu. On Sony's previous flagship, the Xperia T, we found this read-out to be a maddening reminder of that handset's woeful battery life, and so we welcome the option to embrace blissful battery ignorance on the Xperia Z. Overall, we felt confident in the Xperia Z's ability to get us through the day as well as the average Android smartphone. Though on particularly strenuous days you may want to think about a mid-day charge -- or head into that power menu and flip on Stamina mode. Xperia Z camera review

A great camera is to be expected when buying a flagship smartphone in 2013, and camera quality has historically been an area of strength for Sony Mobile, and before it Sony Ericsson. The Xperia Z is the first handset to ship with Sony's Exmor RS stacked image sensor tech. This new sensor design clears space around the light-sensitive layer by moving chips and other gubbins underneath it. This in turn allows the presence of a larger light-sensitive layer, which means more light can be picked up. And scooping up more photons means you can make better pictures. Like its predecessor the Xperia T, the Xperia Z outputs photos at up to 13 megapixels and shoots video at up to 1080p resolution with 30 frames per second. But the larger sensor results in subtlely improved image quality, evident when you examine images at full size. Shots from the new Exmor RS unit tend to have less visible noise, and low-light shots are visibly clearer, with less tendency to blur. The noise that was present didn't seem to affect the balance of colors too much. (Let's be honest, though, you're not going to be using phone camera shots at full resolution.) Stills are shot at up to 4128x3096 (13MP) in 4:3 orientation, or 9 megapixels (3920x2204)in 16:9 orientation. If you use the "Superior Auto" shooting mode, you're limited to a maximum of 12 megapixels (3920x2940). We found that the Xperia Z produced great-looking stills across the board. In daylight you'll be treated to clear images with bright yet accurate colors and plenty of fine detail, noise-reduction notwithstanding. The Xperia Z also produced more accurate colors in darker sections of images compared to many previous handsets, including the Xperia T. Image quality declines somewhat in lower light, as you'd expect. But the Xperia Z's night-time and indoor performance was significantly better than just about every phone camera we've tested. More fine detail was picked up, colors remained more-or-less accurate, and ISO speed rarely strayed above 800, even in the very darkest of conditions. It's also telling that it was much, much more difficult to produce blurry night shots on the Xperia Z than the crop of 2012 Android flagships.

If we were to nitpick one area of imaging weakness, we'd highlight macro photography. Generally speaking, the Z does a good job of capturing close-ups of small objects. But it lacks the insanely good macro performance of earlier Sony phone cameras, as well as the Samsung competition. Specifically, it'd fail to focus on smaller objects that the Xperia T would pick out with ease. The Xperia Z debuts a new Sony camera app, at the center of which lies the new "Superior Auto" mode, designed to intelligently switch between a variety of presets based on the type of image. Most of the time this worked well, correctly predicting the type of shot we were trying to take and admirably turning it into a JPEG. Occasionally, however, it became unpredictable, switching rapidly between preset modes and being indecisive about white balance levels, particularly in twilight shots. And while we're talking about software bugs, the quick camera shortcut on the lock screen has a tendency to freeze around a fifth of the time, resulting in delays of several seconds before the camera app finally loads. (Accompanied by a message indicating that the Camera app is not responding.) We'd expect this to be fixed in an upcoming firmware update, but it's unfortunate that the only way of quickly loading the camera app on this phone is so hit-and-miss. In fact, we missed more than one time-sensitive shot because the camera shortcut was so slow to respond.

We should also mention Sony's excellent sweep panorama mode, which captures and processes 4912 x 1080 panoramas extremely quickly, and with very little tearing or artifacting. And HDR video mode, though a niche capability, demonstrates the Xperia Z's imaging chops. This recording mode enables you to capture detail in both bright and dark areas in the same scene, though this is done with some increase in visible noise, which is unfortunate.

The Xperia Z excels at video capture duties across the board, producing footage with great dynamic range and and silky-smooth 30fps footage even in low light. Its lack of optical image stabilization puts it at a disadvantage compared to competitors like the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC One, but there is a software stabilization option built-in which helps out somewhat in this area. Shaky-cam issues aside, we were impressed by the Xperia Z's video performance. So overall you're looking at one of the best phone cameras currently available -- a stand-out feature for the Xperia Z. It also reestablishes Sony as a serious contender for the smartphone camera crown, though HTC and its new "Ultrapixel" camera loom large on the horizon.

Xperia Z camera samples and comparisons with Xperia T Xperia Z hackability If you buy a SIM-unlocked Xperia Z, you'll be able to unlock it via the Sony bootloader unlock program, as has been the case for the past couple of years. Though the phone has only just become commercially available, custom recovery images are already available, and there's even a very early build of CyanogenMod 10.1 for those who like to live dangerously. So SIM-unlocked folks can rest assured that they'll be able to root and ROM at will. What's more, the hardware similarities between the Xperia Z and the current Android reference phone point to a bright future for hacking on this device, as does Sony's track record of providing proprietary code to help with custom ROMs. As we always say, though, don't buy a phone with the intention of putting a ROM on it, buy it because you're happy with the out-of-box experience. The bottom line The Xperia Z arrives at an uncertain time in the Android world. We're awaiting the launch of two of the biggest devices of the year -- the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 -- and we're unable to directly compare those against Sony's latest at the time of writing. Regardless, the Xperia Z is a great high-ender in its own right. It's big, fast, sharp and bright in all the right ways, and it brings some impressive digital imaging credentials to the table. When it comes to hardware and feature sets, there are no glaring oversights or fatal flaws to report. The all-glass chassis, though not without its issues, is the best-looking smartphone design we've seen from the manufacturer. And the UI, though lacking some of the pizzazz of HTC Sense and TouchWiz, mirrors and compliments the phone's industrial design.  Tesla Inc.’s solar roof is off to a good start, and that bodes well for the sprawling solar panel factory that the company plans to open in Buffalo later this year.

Less than a month after the company started taking orders for their solar roof tiles, Tesla executives told analysts from investment firm RBC Capital Markets that the new product already is “sold out well into 2018.”

The solar roof is expected to be the flagship product for the Buffalo factory, a 1 million-square-foot facility on South Park Avenue that is being built with $750 million in state subsidies through Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion economic development initiative.

The company started taking orders for the solar roof last month from customers willing to put down a $1,000 deposit.

Tesla has not provided specific details about the demand for the solar roof, but the disclosure to the RBC analysts indicates that demand for the solar roofing tiles is comfortably in line with the company’s projections as it prepares to begin production of the roofing panels. The disclosure was made during a meeting with Deepak Ahuja, Tesla’s chief financial officer.

The company plans to start making the solar roof tiles on a pilot basis by the end of this month at its facility in Fremont, Calif. Once all the kinks are worked out there – a process that likely will take many weeks, or longer if unanticipated problems pop up – Tesla said it expects to shift production “shortly thereafter” to its Buffalo gigafactory.

Some of the job postings for high-ranking positions at the Buffalo factory indicate that candidates potentially will spend two to four months working at the pilot production site in California before production begins at the RiverBend facility.

The Buffalo factory, expected to employ 500 manufacturing workers, isn’t expected to reach full production until 2019, two years later than originally expected, as SolarCity’s deteriorating finances led to its acquisition last year by Tesla.

The company’s once-breakneck growth also has slowed, partly because of a decision to cut costs and try to stem swelling losses, and partly because of slowing growth in the residential market. The company also has been focused on the development of its new solar roofing product.

Tesla also brought in Panasonic as a partner that is investing $250 million to make solar cells that will go into the solar roofing tiles and conventional solar panels made at the Buffalo plant. Tesla, in all, has pledged to create 1,460 jobs in the Buffalo Niagara region and support the creation of 1,440 jobs at suppliers and service providers here.

Tesla estimates that the solar roof, despite a higher upfront cost of more than $38,000 for a typical home in the Buffalo Niagara region, would save homeowners $11,300 over 30 years after subsidies and incentives. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, however, has admitted on Twitter that the appeal of the solar roof is lower in areas where power costs and housing values are lower.

Musk has said that production of the solar roofing tiles is expected to ramp up “very slowly” as the company gradually rolls out its sleek new roofing tiles, which from the ground look much like a conventional roof, rather than traditional solar arrays that consist of clunky solar panels attached to the top of a roof.

Tesla has said it plans to start selling the solar roof only in California at first, and then roll it out in other markets. It also initially plans to offer only two of the four roof tile designs that it ultimately intends to sell. Tesla currently offers the roof only with smooth and textured glass tiles. It plans to offer tiles in Tuscan and slate glass designs next year.

The order backlog for Tesla’s roofing tiles is similar to what happened when the company began taking orders for its more affordable Model 3 electric vehicle, selling out roughly a year’s worth of production in a matter of weeks. Tesla is gearing up to begin production of the Model 3 later this year.

It also means that homeowners who have plunked down a deposit for a solar roof, like the prospective Model 3 buyers, will have to be patient, since it could be more than a year before they’re able to replace their roof with new solar tiles.

Tesla is counting on the solar roof to become a groundbreaking product that will help its solar energy business stand out from its competition at a time when the pace of growth within the residential solar market is slowing. Tesla’s SolarCity business installed about 30 percent less solar generating capacity during the first quarter of this year, compared with a year ago, partly because the company is trying to reduce its costs and scale back its growth to weed out less profitable installations.

But it’s not just Tesla. The U.S. residential solar market is forecast to grow by only 3 percent this year, compared with 60 percent in 2015 and 19 percent last year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The trade group also expects the residential market’s growth in 2018 to be at “a limited pace” as installers, including Tesla, look for ways to drive down their stubbornly high costs associated with signing up new customers.

One thing that is unlikely to affect Tesla’s solar energy markets in the near term is the Trump administration’s decision Thursday to pull out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord. That’s because residential solar market is largely driven by whether consumers – especially in places where electricity prices are high – can reduce their energy costs by installing solar panels, rather than a broad-based environmental policy.

“Regardless of what the president decides on the accord, we expect America’s solar industry to continue to thrive and create jobs, boost the economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the solar energy group said in a statement.

As a result, it is the 30 percent federal tax credit on new solar energy installations and mandates at the state level to encourage the development of renewable energy that have been spurring the growth of solar energy and other renewable power sources.

“We’re going a different way as the State of New York. We’re going to follow the accord,” Cuomo said Friday as he announced plans for the state to invest up to $1.6 billion in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects over the next five years.  Last week, a gossip blog based in the Dominican Republic called Remolacha published a disturbing video of what it said was a "self-parking car accident." A group of people stand in a garage watching and filming a grey Volvo XC60 that backs up, stops, and then accelerates toward the group. It smashes into two people, and causes the person filming the video with his phone to drop it and run. It is terrifying.

We reached out to Volvo for answers about what went wrong here, and the company's response was also a bit disturbing. Volvo spokesperson Johan Larsson explained that the video is mislabeled. He said the car is not attempting to self-park. "It seems they are trying to demonstrate pedestrian detection and auto-braking," said Larsson by email. "Unfortunately, there were some issues in the way the test was conducted."

The main issue, said Larsson, is that it appears that the people who bought this Volvo did not pay for the "Pedestrian detection functionality," which is a feature that costs more money.

"The Volvo XC60 comes with City Safety as a standard feature however this does not include the Pedestrian detection functionality," said Larsson. The "City Safety system" kicks in when someone is in stop-and-go traffic, helping the driver avoid rear ending another car while driving slowly, or under 30 mph.

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Keeping the car safe is included as a standard feature, but keeping pedestrians safe isn't. "It appears as if the car in this video is not equipped with Pedestrian detection," said Larsson. "This is sold as a separate package."

The pedestrian detection feature, which works using a radar in the car’s grill and a camera located behind the windshield. has been around since the mid 2000s, and even started detecting cyclists in 2011, but it costs approximately $3,000, according to IEEE.

But even if it did have the feature, Larsson says the driver would have interfered with it by the way they were driving and "accelerating heavily towards the people in the video." "The pedestrian detection would likely have been inactivated due to the driver inactivating it by intentionally and actively accelerating," said Larsson. "Hence, the auto braking function is overrided by the driver and deactivated."

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Meanwhile, the people in the video seem to ignore their instincts and trust that the car assumed to be endowed with artificial intelligence knows not to hurt them. It is a sign of our incredible faith in the power of technology, but also, it's a reminder that companies making AI-assisted vehicles need to make safety features standard and communicate clearly when they aren't. According to the Dominican blog, the "two men hit were bruised but are ok."

Even if you have paid for your car to detect and avoid hitting pedestrians, Larsson says, "Volvo Cars strongly recommends to never perform tests towards real humans."  Image caption Llynnon Mill

A working windmill, two Iron Age roundhouses and one of Britain's oldest courthouses could be sold by Anglesey council.

Concern has been voiced over the plans, with historians saying the authority is "selling off the family silver".

Beaumaris courthouse and Victorian jail and the Melin Llynnon windmill have been earmarked for possible sale.

The authority said it wanted to "safeguard the sites" set against its own "growing financial constraints".

Beaumaris mayor Jason Zalot said he was "very, very scared" about developers taking over the jail and courthouse, although the council has said it will listen to ideas from any interested party.

"We do not want to see them turned into a theme park or an amusement arcade. They are a very important part of the Beaumaris' history, and an important tourist attraction."

Mr Zalot said Beaumaris Town Council intended to create a group in order to run the sites.

"We do not know who we are up against. Our concern is that the council will just sell to the highest bidder," he added.

£3.5m saving

The sale has been announced as part of a £3.5m saving from next year's budget.

Dr Ken Roberts, of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society, said it was important the council found someone who had an interest in the history of Wales.

"What concerns me is that Anglesey county council is selling off the family silver when they should really hang on to them all."

Anglesey council's head of learning, Delyth Molyneux, explained: "All proposals which address the long-term financial sustainability of the sites while providing vibrant, dynamic visitor offers will be considered carefully.

"Our main aim is to develop a new and sustainable business model, or models, to safeguard the future of these sites, and protect and preserve the island's culture and heritage."

Proposals are being sought from town and community councils, social enterprises, businesses, trusts and other organisations.

The council said it will launch a consultation before any final decision is made.

Image copyright Anglesey Council Image caption Beaumaris courthouse

Beaumaris courthouse

Built in 1614, Beaumaris courthouse is one of the oldest courthouses in Britain. Although alterations were made in the 19th Century, its original character remains the same.

Throughout the centuries the courthouse has witnessed various cases from petty misdemeanours to murder. Visitors can walk through the large rectangular courtroom, stand in the original dock and view the grand jury room.

Image copyright Anglesey Council Image caption Beaumaris gaol

Beaumaris Gaol

This Victorian jail was built in 1829. The gaol apparently features the only original tread wheel in situ in Britain and a gibbet is still fixed to the outer wall.

Visitors can walk along the dimly lit corridors and explore the old cells and places of punishment. They can even visit the punishment cell and the condemned cell.

Image copyright Anglesey Council Image caption The roundhouses at Llynnon Mill

Llynnon

This is the only working windmill in Wales. Built in 1775, Melin Llynnon operates as an agricultural museum, and produces stone-ground wholemeal flour using organic wheat.

The site also has two Iron Age roundhouses providing an insight of the life of farmers more than 3,000 years ago.  The future will be hot, at least, hotter than the present. But temperature isn’t the only thing that will change with global warming — so will the water cycle. Some places will become drier, some wetter. In fact, some have already become wetter.



One of the “places” that’s already wetter is the atmosphere. It contains about 4% more water vapor worldwide than it did just a few decades ago, which has a profound effect on climate:

It’s a direct result of global warming: warmer air tends to hold more water vapor. It’s also one of the main feedbacks in global warming, since water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, so increased water vapor due to global warming will amplify global warming.

The global atmosphere is one thing — but most of us live on land, and in a single location. The GHCN doesn’t just store historical temperature data, it also offers historical precipitation data. There are about 2500 observing locations covering the continental U.S., and they’re located here:

I took the monthly precipitation and computed anomaly (its departure from the mean for the same month). Then I combined the anomaly data since 1900, for all stations in each very large grid, 5 deg. latitude tall and 10 deg. longitude wide, covering most of the continental U.S. Then I smoothed the combined precipitation anomaly data, to get an idea how precipitation may have trended over the last century-and-a-decade-and-a-year. This is certainly an imperfect procedure, since precipitation may not show the same degree of long-distance spatial correlation that temperature does (and for other reasons too). Nonetheless, it’s at least a first glance at what the data may be telling us — an exploratory analysis, but hardly a definitive one.

And here’s the result, graphing the smoothed time evolution for each grid on top of the map of station locations (click the graph for a larger, clearer view):

For each grid box, the bottom is an anomaly of -10 mm/month average, the top is an anomaly of +20 mm/month.

It surprised me that so many of the grid boxes show a recent upward trend. This is particular true for New England, and much of the Midwest.

It’s also worth noting that precipitation isn’t the only factor is how wet or dry a region is. As temperatures rise evaporation will increase, so some areas may become desertified even if their precipitation doesn’t decline. But precipitation is certainly a major factor! Some parts of the U.S. already show signs of change, and I regard that as trouble. I like the way weather has been distributed throughout my lifetime — we’re adapted to it. I expect that, unfortunately, both the places that get wetter and those that get drier will be ill prepared for the change.

And of course, changes in precipitation in one region can have a profound impact on other regions. Just ask those who live near the Mississippi River.

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At the 16th China International High-tech Expo which took place during May 21-26, 2013 in Beijing, AVIC Laser, a subsidiary of AVIC Heavy Machinery, showed off the world's largest titanium aircraft critical component produced using 3D Laser Direct Manufacturing technology.

AVIC Laser displayed, for the first time, a large 3D printed titanium part for J-20 or J-31 stealth fighter. According to AVIC Laser, their 3D Laser Direct Manufacturing technology has been used in producing 7 kinds of aircraft, including Y-20 Strategic Airlifter, J-15 carrier-borne fighter, C919 airliner and next generation stealth fighters. The J-15's chief designer confirmed in March that printable components are being used "in major load-bearing parts, including the [J-15's] front landing gear."

AVIC Laser was established in 2000. Funded by Chinese government, especially the military, the team has solved several technical difficulties during the first seven years' research and development of the technology, such as "inert gas protection system", "defect control", "metal lattice growth control" etc. On Jan.18, 2013 AVIC Laser won the national technology invention award in Beijing.

The 3D Laser Direct Manufacturing technology could lower the cost of titanium parts to only 5 percent of the original. It costs about 25 million yuan ($4m) to process one ton titanium alloy complex structural parts using traditional method, but with 3D Laser Direct Manufacturing it costs only 1.3 million ($212k).

Currently AVIC Laser's 3D Laser Direct Manufacturing technology can be used to make large structural parts using titanium alloy, high-strength steel, high temperature & high strength steel. Compared with conventional processes, this technology could save up to 90% of materials and costs. And if the forged titanium parts on an American F-22 were made using the Chinese 3D printing technology, around 40 percent of the weight can be reduced.

It's not only military planes that will benefit from this, the Northwestern Polytechnical University of China has also used the same technology to print out a five meter-long titanium wing beam for the C919 passenger plane which is expected to be put into commercial operation in 2016.

Posted in 3D Printing Applications

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Abrar Hassan wrote at 3/29/2015 9:13:43 PM:Dear Sir, Hope you are fine We have need Video Jet Printer cnf by sea Karachi-Pakistan Please refer to the attached file Video Jet printer Specification and other things Send us Net price.Paul wrote at 3/11/2015 3:11:15 PM:One can not take an existing part and use 3d printing on that same geometry and expect the same strength. However, it is perfectly valid to engineer the part knowing taking the different material properties and 3D print the result. They don't indicate which approach was taken.Griptite wrote at 11/13/2014 4:44:52 PM:3D powder costs 30 times more than qualified titanium. Takes much more time to produce than a hogged out parts. Provide total manugacturing time. Provide Tensile strength, compression strength for the finished part. Provide grain structure of part compaired to qualified titanium plate. Provide fatigue test results and test methods used also for the above tests. Also provide appropriate enviromental tests results and test methods. This information is needed just to begin the discussion on what appears to be a great achievement in this technology.Griptite wrote at 11/13/2014 2:55:22 AM:Lets compare The grain structure to milled plate of qualified titanium. Present tensile and compression strength. and test methods. Present fatigue test results and the test methods. Then we can make a judgement.Mihaita CARBUNARU wrote at 8/20/2014 2:11:04 PM:If you look closer at the picture the external surface of the part is have a texture specific for 3D printing (paralel lines from the layers separation) but the inside cavitys are done or finished with an CNC (spiraled texture).Kris wrote at 8/22/2013 4:05:59 PM:There's plenty of youtube videos on this proces. The Ti is layed up with a laser and then finish milled. This process basically reduces the roughing operations by laying up just enough material so there is minimul finishing on a CNC.Peter wrote at 6/4/2013 6:52:09 PM:@jd90, well you can choose to believe or not believe. You can believe they are faking it while they actually did some innovation. If they are faking it and publically declare such fakings to the world, eventually they will be found out and humiliated. So for you to make a more accurate statement, maybe you should research AVIC laser and its history first to see whether they are capable of creating new processes for better 3D printing first?Peter wrote at 6/4/2013 6:45:34 PM:AVIC laser claim they already solved the problem of fatigue using this process. If they really did solve it, it would be an innovationEric wrote at 6/4/2013 2:42:30 AM:I am not a 3d printing expert, but I am fairly familiar with material science and alloy's mechanical properties. Nowadays, profit-seeking business are twisted with science and engineering advancement, so don't believe these 3D printing miracles for something people have worked for decades. I bet the day that people can 3D printing a working titanium alloys is still decades away.jd90 wrote at 6/1/2013 2:53:41 AM:My point was that it wasn't very well described. It was clearly finish milled, but they didn't say that. It's possible they could have just milled it and claimed they printed it. It is possible to pass off that kind of stuff on journalists that generally wouldn't know better. roller, which counterpart to this part on the F-22 is made from two pieces? I've looked around and not found it.Vic wrote at 5/30/2013 3:00:56 PM:Guess Nick knows better than all the Chinese engineers. They probably didn't do any fatigue testing at all on these parts and just decided to bulk-produce them and use them, right? See someone do something innovative and great? Try to BS and talk down their achievement. What a champ.CLAZM wrote at 5/30/2013 11:19:50 AM:It is standard, for areas where you want a precise dimension or a given surface aspect to mill after 3D printing the part. Savings are huge and this technology will gain more and more momentum. In all areas. Boeing and Airbus are also heavily investing in this technology. In the same manner, plastic 3D printing with desktop printers will explode in the coming years -- including in households.Nick wrote at 5/30/2013 3:29:55 AM:The fatigue life for these parts are going to be terrible. 3d printing from metal powders leaves voids throughout the printed part. These voids will be the source of cracks that will eventually nucleate due to fatigue loading. The cracks will then coalesce and the part will fail causing the plane to fall out of the sky. Wrought metal on the other hand is almost completely free of voids in the microstructure making it much better for light weight aircraft structures where fatigue life is a high concern.GPaulsen wrote at 5/29/2013 11:12:24 PM:Sciaky Direct Manufacturing (EBDM) process deposits a titanium bead on plate which created a near-shape "3D printed" metal object. They can make titanium parts with a build area of 19ft x 4ft x 4ft (maybe larger/longer). I believe the Chinese part was made with a similar process which requires post machining. Still a marvel and practical example of using additive inside the aerospace realm. It definitely beats hogging out 90+% of material for an aerospace part from solid.alidan wrote at 5/29/2013 3:09:30 PM:@jd90 take a look at how 3d metal parts are made and how they look. the only way to make the precise enough is to print them with extra material, and than mill the material off. metal printing leaves a non clean finish to the parts, like they were sandblasted hard, if the core of that is as strong as traditional metalwork... this could be the advancement that 3d printing needs to really get its ass in gear in the industrial realm.kc wrote at 5/29/2013 3:03:46 PM:3d printed fighter jet at home... Mm... interestingtheone wrote at 5/29/2013 2:51:28 PM:you are right the part was printed then milled, however still reduced 90% mill task.CD wrote at 5/29/2013 1:57:30 PM:Milled!Observer wrote at 5/29/2013 1:39:18 PM:Why should jd90 thinks that the Chinese need to pass of a milled part as 3D printed. He should try to understand more about China own proprietary standard 3D Laser Direct Manufacturing technology before commenting after all this is probably the biggest piece of component manufactured using 3D printing technology in the world today. I doubt USA has similar machine installed yet.roller wrote at 5/29/2013 1:28:37 PM:jd90, Have you seen the same sections on an F-22? They have to be made in two separate parts not one whole piwrote at 5/29/2013 5:10:18 AM:The top part looks mill machined, it's not clear if they're trying to pass off a milled part as 3D printed, or if it was 3D printed, then finish milled.



  October 15th, 2013 by Derick Hutchinson

(Derick Hutchinson, M&GB)

As SuperFan of the Maize Rage student section at the University of Michigan, I have the opportunity to travel to all of the Michigan football away games and experience what football Saturday means in different parts of the country. This feature will run after each away game this season, detailing the gameday experience for Michigan games outside of Ann Arbor. Previously: UConn.

When Michigan fans travel to different schools to watch the Wolverines play on the road, they regularly have to get used to a much smaller stadium and quieter atmosphere. In Week 4, the Connecticut Huskies broke a Rentschler Field record by packing 42,000 people into the stadium; about 70,000 less than that of a typical Ann Arbor game day.

This weekend was a different story. As the few Wolverine fans trickled into Beaver Stadium they realized that the structure was possibly even more impressive than our very own Big House.

When I first arrived in State College, one of the first things I learned was that this was the biggest game of the season for the Nittany Lions. On Friday night before the game the students were happy to explain their hatred for both Michigan and Ohio State, but it was clear that the night game against the Maize and Blue would be Penn State’s bowl game this year.

Not having been to Penn State since the Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky scandal, I wasn’t sure how touchy of a subject it was among the students. Surprisingly, it was basically the butt of all the jokes. Though our little group in maize never brought the scandal up, we did end up discussing it multiple times throughout the weekend. Penn State students want to prove that they have moved on from the nightmare and won’t let it define them.

Instead, they just want to beat Michigan.

While tailgating before the game on Saturday, Penn State fans made it very clear that Michigan was their main target. An enormous homecoming crowd of almost 108,000 couldn’t have included more than a few thousand Michigan fans. It was easy to pick them out because of the famous Penn State white out.

The white out stands for what separates the Penn State game environment from that of Michigan. During a maize out, Michigan Stadium has one maize section where the students stand and a mixed bag of maize and blue throughout the rest of the bowl. Fans don’t put much stock in participating in the game atmosphere but simply want to watch their team win. It’s tradition.

But in Happy Valley every single fan is ready to cheer like crazy for Penn State from the opening kickoff. The white out was breathtaking. Over 100,000 strong were decked out in all white and shaking white pompoms as Bill O’Brien led his team onto the field. This scene was unlike anything our little group of Michigan students had ever experienced, but we had faith that our undefeated Wolverines would quiet things down.

For much of the second half, we were exactly right.

Michigan came out of halftime with a bang, returning a fumble for a touchdown on Penn State’s first offensive play. A quarter later, the Wolverines were ahead by 10 points with six minutes to go and we were enjoying the eerie silence in the enormous stadium.

Though it has a smaller capacity than the Big House, Beaver Stadium is built entirely above ground and is much more intimidating both inside and outside. Second and third decks keep all of the sound in while reaching up much higher than the final rows in Ann Arbor. If you’re wondering how a structure like this can be safe, you aren’t alone.

Penn State’s famous chant is the Zombie Nation cheer, which gets the entire audience involved in jumping and screaming along. Because it was one of the things I was really looking forward to, I asked our host, a senior at Penn State, about Zombie Nation.

“There’s a new rule that we can only do it two times each game,” he told me. “We were doing structural damage to the stadium so they had to limit us.”

At the suggestion of damaging a concrete structure like Beaver Stadium I was astonished, but when Penn State came back and tied the game with under a minute remaining in regulation, Zombie Nation blared and the back wall of the stadium was visibly wavering back and forth with the Nittany Lion faithful.

It was the most incredible atmosphere I’ve ever been a part of, and I wasn’t even in an appreciative mood. Four overtimes later Michigan had missed easy kicks and taken costly penalties and Penn State was celebrating an unbelievable win.

Following such an emotional win I expected to be mercilessly harassed by the Penn State students all night, but was surprised when they continued a trend set before the game. While migrating toward the stadium for the game, our little group of Michigan fans was welcomed to Happy Valley countless times. Students, alumni and others went out of their way to walk past us and say good luck.

It was extremely strange. We weren’t sure how we felt about the hospitality because it didn’t feel right, but it was much better than being harassed in Columbus or East Lansing. After the game there were fans that laughed and jeered at us, but the number that told us good game probably outnumbered them.

Even though they always seem to beat Michigan in recent years, and they ended our undefeated season, it’s hard to hate Penn State fans because of how cool they were; both when they were sure they would lose and after they had won.

I hope that Michigan fans can learn from the atmosphere that exists within Beaver Stadium. The students lead the charge, but alumni and casual fans set it apart by participating much more than those around other Big Ten schools. Even the younger fans are fully invested in Penn State football, as we found out when a couple of three-year old girls started the “we are” “Penn State” cheer all by themselves from atop an RV after the game.

While I wouldn’t trade game day in Ann Arbor for anything, I do think that Michigan fans can learn from the commitment in Beaver Stadium. Michigan’s tradition and history set it apart, but there is room to make the Big House even better.

Winning on the road is a great feeling, but losing is definitely the worst. Thankfully, the Penn State faithful were bearable after the game, but I still had a bad taste in my mouth after Michigan blew the 10 point lead.

The first loss is one of the hardest each year, but Michigan won’t have to deal with an atmosphere like Penn State’s for the rest of the season.

Losing is never fun, but witnessing a Penn State night game was an incredible sports experience. Hopefully Team 134 can tighten things up and send us home with more road wins in 2013.  The Santos Laguna defender left Major League Soccer on top just months ago but is happy to be back facing a familiar foe.

Jorge Villafana took the long road home.

The Southern California native had hardly finished celebrating helping the Portland Timbers win the MLS Cup when he flew to Mexico to join Santos Laguna. Now, he's back in the Los Angeles area, where he hopes to help the Liga MX side get its CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal off to a strong start in Wednesday's first leg.

"I’m really happy to go back to my hometown, LA. I want to see some family, some friends," Villafana told Goal USA.

His teammates have mined him for information about the Galaxy, who Villafana faced while playing for Chivas USA and the Timbers.

"They have asked me for some advice about the team," he said. "I know they’ve let go some of their key players, but they still have a core.

"They’re still a pretty good team and have some some new signings for the new season. They’re going to have a good team. But we’re already in the season, they’re in the preseason, so we’ll see if we can take advantage of that."

Villafana brings up one of the most discussed aspects of the current CCL format, which sees MLS teams enter the quarterfinals relatively cold while Mexican clubs are coming in after seven weeks of regular-season action. As the Montreal Impact showed last year with their run to the final, MLS teams still can succeed. And while the Galaxy could lack cohesion, the addition of former European stars Ashley Cole and Nigel de Jong to help replace Omar Gonzalez and Juninho - both of whom were sold to Liga MX clubs not in CCL - mean the team will be no pushover.

Santos will be cognizant of the Galaxy's potential, and though a Mexican team has won every edition of the tournament since the current format was adopted in 2008-09, Los Guerreros want to help continue that legacy.

"I think it’s a big rivalry always between the U.S. and Mexico, and I think in club it’s the same thing," Villafana said. "The rivalry, you know, no one wants to lose to the U.S., no one wants to lose to Mexico.

"I think for MLS it’s a big tournament because it’s the only international tournament that you can play in for MLS. So, yeah, it’s a big deal because we go there with the opportunity to play in the Club World Cup. It’s a pretty important tournament that we look forward to and we see it as a good opportunity."

The 26-year-old Villafana has mostly experienced disappointment in the CCL. Last tournament, he played two matches in Portland's disappointing group-stage exit. He also played in both legs of Chivas USA's 3-1 aggregate defeat to Panamanian side Tauro in 2008. Villafana and the tournament both have become much more polished as the years have progressed.

After locking down the left back spot, Villafana became one of MLS' best. When he moved to Santos, he became a near-immediate starter.

"It took a few weeks" to adjust, he said. "We just finished playing the final and then I flew a few days later to get some paperwork done because they already were in preseason, they’d already had a week of preseason. I had to jump in with the group already in training.

"It was different, in Mexico there are different techniques to adapt to new fields, new soccer ball. Yeah, it took a while, it took a few weeks, but at the end the coach gave me the confidence. I’ve been playing and I’m just trying to keep working."

So far, the work seems to be paying off. It would no doubt be sweetened by a win over the team that once was a crosstown menace and remains a rival of Villafana's team despite the distance.

Quickly taken:

D.C. United might have the best chance of any MLS side to get through to the semifinals. Queretaro has just two victories in the current Liga MX season, and both of those came against teams that have yet to get a victory after seven weeks of league play. Dorados and Verarcuz have been very poor this season, and D.C. United's defense can stifle the Gallos Blancos' weak attack. Ben Olsen has a strong side in Mexico, and with the second leg at home, his side has an excellent shot at moving on.



The Seattle Sounders had a bit of good luck and a bit of bad luck coming out of the weekend. Reigning CCL champion Club America saw goalkeeper Moises Munoz and forward Dario Benedetto suffer injuries in the first half of a wild 3-3 draw against Cruz Azul, but red cards to forward Oribe Peralta and Darwin Quintero mean manager Nacho Ambriz will have no reservations about playing the duo. They'll test the Sounders' newly arranged defense.  Swedish ministers have welcomed a proposal by Iranian President’s Chief of Staff Mohammad Nahavandian to open an account of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in Stockholm central bank.

Nahavandian made the proposal to the Swedish Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson and the Minister of EU Affairs and Trade Ann Linde in separating meetings in Stockholm on Saturday, Fars News Agency reported.

During the meetings, Nahavandian underlined the need to accelerate the trend of promoting Tehran-Stockholm relations through a comprehensive program.

He said the two countries should finalize the banking talks at the earliest to facilitate economic exchanges.

The Iranian government, he said, is resolved to attract optimum foreign investment.

For her part, Linde said that her country has planned for promoting economic relations with Iran.

Andersson also said in her meeting with Nahavandian that Stockholm attaches great importance to ties with Tehran.

Andersson further stressed that Sweden and Iran should resume cooperation as Tehran was once Sweden’s biggest trade partner before the sanctions’ era.

In relevant remarks in early June, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom in a meeting with her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Stockholm called for the expansion of relations between the two countries.

“There is a need for enhanced cooperation between Iran and Sweden under present conditions,” Wallstrom said.

The Swedish foreign minister reiterated that following the nuclear agreement between Iran the six world powers (the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) in July 2015, the time is ripe for Iran and Sweden to expand all-out relations.  See Slate’s complete coverage of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and arrest of Jared Lee Loughner.

Does the Tucson, Ariz., massacre justify tighter gun control? Don’t be silly. Second Amendment advocates never look at mass shootings that way. For every nut job wreaking mayhem with a semiautomatic weapon, there’s a citizen with a firearm who could have stopped him. Look at the 1991 slaughter in Killeen, Texas, where 23 people died in a restaurant while a patron’s handgun, thanks to a dumb law, was left outside in her car. Look at the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where 32 people died because under the university’s naïve policy, nobody in the invaded classrooms was allowed to carry a firearm. Guns save lives. So the argument goes.

Now comes the tragedy in Tucson. And what do gun advocates propose? More guns. Arizona already lets people carry concealed weapons without requiring permits. The legislature is considering two bills to expand this right, and as Slate’s David Weigel reports, the Arizona Citizens Defense League is preparing legislation that would require the state to offer firearms training to politicians and their staff. The bill is tentatively titled the Giffords-Zimmerman Act in honor of the wounded congresswoman and her slain aide. “When everyone is carrying a firearm, nobody is going to be a victim,” argues the state’s top pro-gun legislator. Beyond Arizona, at least two members of Congress say they’ll bring guns while traveling their districts.

The new poster boy for this agenda is Joe Zamudio, a hero in the Tucson incident. Zamudio was in a nearby drug store when the shooting began, and he was armed. He ran to the scene and helped subdue the killer. Television interviewers are celebrating his courage, and pro-gun blogs are touting his equipment. “Bystander Says Carrying Gun Prompted Him to Help,” says the headline in the Wall Street Journal.

But before we embrace Zamudio’s brave intervention as proof of the value of being armed, let’s hear the whole story. “I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready,” he explained on Fox and Friends. “I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this.” Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. “And that’s who I at first thought was the shooter,” Zamudio recalled. “I told him to ‘Drop it, drop it!’ “

But the man with the gun wasn’t the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. “Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess,” the interviewer pointed out.

Zamudio agreed:

I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky.

When Zamudio was asked what kind of weapons training he’d had, he answered: “My father raised me around guns … so I’m really comfortable with them. But I’ve never been in the military or had any professional training. I just reacted.”

The Arizona Daily Star, based on its interview with Zamudio, adds two details to the story. First, upon seeing the man with the gun, Zamudio “grabbed his arm and shoved him into a wall” before realizing he wasn’t the shooter. And second, one reason why Zamudio didn’t pull out his own weapon was that “he didn’t want to be confused as a second gunman.”

This is a much more dangerous picture than has generally been reported. Zamudio had released his safety and was poised to fire when he saw what he thought was the killer still holding his weapon. Zamudio had a split second to decide whether to shoot. He was sufficiently convinced of the killer’s identity to shove the man into a wall. But Zamudio didn’t use his gun. That’s how close he came to killing an innocent man. He was, as he acknowledges, “very lucky.”

That’s what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person—a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you’re dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater.

We’re enormously lucky that Zamudio, without formal training, made the right split-second decisions. We can’t count on that the next time some nut job starts shooting. I hope Arizona does train lawmakers and their aides in the proper use of firearms. I hope they remember this training if they bring guns to constituent meetings. But mostly, I hope they don’t bring them.

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Advisory: This story contains explicit language.

AFTER THE 2002 season, the Red Sox had a list of nine -- count 'em, nine -- candidates for time at first base and designated hitter. As former Red Sox beat writer Jeff Horrigan says, "The expectations were really, really low. That was clear just by the number of people they threw at the position." But Boston's new GM, Theo Epstein, and president/CEO Larry Lucchino -- with an assist from one of the greatest pitchers in team history -- saw a glimmer of something in a washout from the Twins named David Ortiz. This is the story of the months between November 2002 and May 2003, when a player nobody wanted, just one of nine, became a legend a city couldn't do without.

THEO EPSTEIN: Here's how I remember it: Going into the offseason, we knew we had a top-heavy offense and wanted to round out our roster with quality hitters to deepen the lineup. We also had to cut about $10 million from the payroll, so we were looking for inexpensive, underrated guys who had a chance to represent real value. We traded for Todd Walker early in the offseason [to play second] and had our eye on Bill Mueller to play third. We had first base and DH open, and we liked the idea of acquiring three good hitters for those two spots to let them battle it out for at-bats, deepen the lineup and improve the bench.

We had a meeting shortly after I took over [on Nov. 25] and sorted the available "value" options into tiers -- the targets and the fallbacks. The potential trade targets were David Ortiz, Kevin Millar, Erubiel Durazo and Jeremy Giambi. The potential free agents were Brad Fullmer and Lee Stevens. Ortiz was a target and high up the list but was just a guy in the mix we liked ... not a guy we felt we absolutely had to have.

"I said, 'Play me or I want out of here. Play me and I'll show you what's up.'" David Ortiz

EPSTEIN'S FALLBACK LIST included two Red Sox players who had been favored before his arrival: Cliff Floyd, a free agent who had been traded to the Red Sox in 2002 and who was owner John Henry's first choice for DH; and Shea Hillenbrand, who had been an All-Star at third in 2002 but who'd walked just 25 times in 676 plate appearances, a death sentence in a new world of on-base percentage.

CLIFF FLOYD, RED SOX OUTFIELDER/DH: I receive a call from John Henry, who tells me 2003 is going to be a big year, the Red Sox are ready to win and they need me. He says that I had a week to decide. A couple days later, I guess there were some reports that the Yankees were interested in me, and I get a call from John Henry, who now tells me I had three days. He was not going to get in a bidding war with the Yankees. I was like, "Yeah, but I still need to know what's out there." I never heard from the Red Sox again. Offer off the table. Gone. I wound up signing with the Mets.

EPSTEIN: My opinion from the beginning was that we should let Cliff sign elsewhere, take the draft picks and use the money to sign several hitters. We had to cut payroll, acquire several bats and strengthen the farm system, so it seemed like the best course.

MIKE PORT, INTERIM GENERAL MANAGER: Once Theo was named, he and his team took off at the speed of light, selling guys on what the Boston Red Sox wanted to be all about. ... I just don't feel like Shea Hillenbrand fit into the plan or gravitated into the philosophies Theo wanted to see. Between Shea and that administration, there wasn't good chemistry.

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WITH FLOYD'S OFFER off the table, Epstein began trying to trade Hillenbrand. He also started to consider his free agent options to fill spots at first base and DH. His first choice, Durazo, went to Billy Beane's A's in a four-team deal at the winter meetings. Later that day, Epstein made a trade with the Phillies for his second choice: Jeremy Giambi, kid brother of 2000 AL MVP Jason Giambi. The next day, Minnesota nontendered Ortiz.

DAVID ORTIZ: The Twins? They never said anything to me. When they released me, it was like, nothing. I heard it from my agent.

BILLY BEANE, OAKLAND A's GM: The Machiavellian answer would be to say, "Yeah, we had an idea the whole time what Ortiz would be. We tried to get him. We went after him hard, but Boston beat us to him." That would be the right answer, right? But that's not true. He wasn't in our plans. He wasn't on our radar.

Who did we get? Durazo? Oooh, yay! We got Durazo! Seriously, we knew of Ortiz, but we knew him as a player who may have had some potential but had some injuries, had some trouble getting on the field. I think we trusted the Twins organization. Terry Ryan and his group have always been known as a smart group. They didn't do reckless things. They didn't make big mistakes. If they were letting him go for free, I mean, just for nothing, by our way of thinking, there had to be a reason.

KEVIN MILLAR, MARLINS OUTFIELDER: This was the start of Moneyball, and guys were being looked at differently. Different numbers now meant different things. Now they could tell you which f---ing guy hit what with two strikes on the road between the hours of 8 and 9:30. Jeremy Giambi was one of those guys, and he was Jason Giambi's brother. The brother of the guy who won an MVP? Yeah, he definitely got a look.

Epstein says Ortiz "was just a guy in the mix we liked ... not a guy we felt we absolutely had to have." Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports

NEXT ON EPSTEIN'S list was Fullmer, a favorite of former GM Dan Duquette's. But he re-signed with the Angels after the winter meetings. Former Indian Stevens signed with the Devil Rays shortly after. By then, though, the Red Sox also had agreed to a deal with Julio Zuleta, a giant, 6-foot-6, 230-pound Panamanian who could hit a baseball into different time zones.

ORTIZ: Another f---ing guy everybody thought was better than me.

EPSTEIN: Zuleta, that name is a blast from the past! He was not really in the major league mix, just a flier as a minor league free agent who had serious pop.

JEFF HORRIGAN, RED SOX BEAT WRITER (BOSTON HERALD): Julio Zuleta! I remember him: big, scary guy. Shaved head. He looked like the guy from Major League. I even remember his stance, kind of a crouch. Huge power.

ORTIZ: So now you see all these guys signing, and I've got nothing. I didn't think I wasn't going to play, but I was preparing to just go to winter ball and hope something came up. So I went to winter ball and had a good winter, but I didn't have anything.

FERNANDO CUZA, AGENT TO DAVID ORTIZ: David was calling me five times a day. He was nervous as s---. I'll never forget being in that coffee shop with him at the Sheraton in Santo Domingo [capital of the Dominican Republic]. That face.

Every day that went by, you could see it. He was saying, "I'm young. I have no other skills but to play baseball, but nobody wants me. What am I going to do? How am I going to provide for my family?" I told him if you get the chance, you're gonna be a son of a bitch. You're gonna tear it up. I didn't think his career was over, because he was a great hitter.

Perhaps Pedro Martinez's greatest victory? Persuading the Red Sox to sign Ortiz. AL BEHRMAN/AP PHOTO

DESPITE HIS AGENT'S words, Ortiz was in a full panic by January. Spring training was six weeks away, and he had no job. There were no offers, no workouts, no invites. The Red Sox now had Jeremy Giambi, Zuleta and Hillenbrand on the roster. Then came an intervention from an unlikely source -- perhaps the greatest Sox pitcher of all time.

LARRY LUCCHINO: The biggest priority [of the offseason] was signing Pedro Martinez to a significant extension. We had an open dialogue with Pedro. When David was let go by Minnesota, Pedro called and told us that David was a great guy and he was someone we needed to take a look at. Now, you have to remember, Pedro was our No. 1 offseason priority, and he was asking us the favor of giving David Ortiz a look. It was just an invite to spring training, but if that was going to help us with the negotiations with Pedro, well, we saw that as an easy thing to do. It was a propitious call at a propitious moment. I think the influence of Pedro Martinez in bringing David Ortiz to Boston is one of the most overlooked and under-discussed elements of the whole story.

EPSTEIN: [After Ortiz was nontendered] I called Fern Cuza to express interest in David, and Fern and I stayed in touch the next month. We had Dave Jauss work out David at first base in the Dominican to see whether he was an option there or whether we should consider him a DH only. Meanwhile, David was getting antsy. He and Pedro Martinez were close, and Pedro called everyone -- me, Larry Lucchino, Jack McCormick [Red Sox traveling secretary] -- to lobby for David and talk about what a great guy he was.

ORTIZ: All I know is that one day right in front of me, Pedro called Larry and told him to sign me. Pedro made it happen.

CUZA, WHO WAS ALSO MARTINEZ'S AGENT: Larry and I were negotiating Pedro's extension. Pedro personally called Larry. I remember Larry saying regarding David, "We can do that." I don't know what happened behind closed doors, but Theo called me and we worked out a deal. You had the star player, the best player on a team approaching the last year of his contract, asking for a favor. Do the favor and what does that really cost you? There was zero economic risk to the Red Sox. If David doesn't make it, he gets released.

ESPN The Magazine The Podcast Deputy editor Ty Wenger, senior editor Neely Lohmann, senior writer Morty Ain and photo editor Kristin Geisler delve into the making of the Body Issue that features Cubs ace Jake Arrieta. Listen »

ON JAN. 22, 2003, the Red Sox signed David Ortiz to a one-year, $million deal.

ORTIZ: You know how many offers I got? One. From the Red Sox. That's the truth.

EPSTEIN: I was an Ortiz fan from my time with the Padres tracking the Twins farm system. Our numbers guys liked David's performance, as he had just hit 20 homers in a partial season with the Twins. Our scouts considered him a good hitter who could get better if he could close up a couple holes in and up. We all thought he was a great fit for Fenway, as he demonstrated a real ability to hit the ball the other way. The doubts centered on his health, his defense and why the Twins were making him available.

LUCCHINO: There was some disappointment about it, and as I remember, the pushback was coming from Theo. He believed our team was set. I remember him feeling that we already had our DH, and his name was Jeremy Giambi.

Says Millar: "Jeremy Giambi was taking ABs away from David Ortiz because he was the MVP's little brother." Rich Pilling/Getty Images

NOW ORTIZ HAD a spot on the roster, but the Red Sox weren't finished. Boston was engaged in side negotiations to acquire outfielder and first baseman Millar from the Marlins, even though Millar had agreed in principle to play in Japan with the Chunichi Dragons.

MILLAR: I had spoken to the Chunichi club, and we started to negotiate. They told me they were going to pay me two years, $6 million. Six million? And I'm like, "I'm rich, biiiiitch!" Then the Marlins put me through waivers and the Red Sox claim me -- but -- I've already agreed to play in Japan. So I call my agent. They told me no matter how it played out, I wasn't going to lose money, so hell yeah, I want to play with the Red Sox.

But now we have this international incident. Bud Selig's getting involved. The Sox have some juice to make this happen, but now I'm getting scared. I'm not Barry Bonds. I'm not Sammy Sosa. I'm this common-ass white boy playing right field. I'm hearing Larry Lucchino wants to pull out of the deal, you know, like they don't need the hassle. I'm glad they didn't. The only thing left was for me to talk to the rep from Chunichi. He told me he would be dishonoring his country if he didn't bring me back with him. For real! [In the end, Chunichi released its claim and Millar was free to sign with the Red Sox.]

BY SPRING TRAINING, the Red Sox had more assets than they could manage. "We were four deep at first base taking ground balls," Millar says: Giambi, Hillenbrand, Ortiz and Millar. "May the best man win." But by the start of the season, Millar had won the job at first, in part because he was more mobile than Ortiz, and Giambi was the full-time DH. Weeks earlier, Ortiz was worried that he would not have a job in baseball to start spring training, but this was nearly as bad: being on a roster behind Giambi, sitting on the bench. There was only one thing to do: Ask for a trade. Get out of Boston.

MILLAR: There's a story that's been going around for years that it was the Latin guys, Pedro and Manny [Ramirez], who went to Grady [Little, the manager] and told him to start playing David. That's bulls--t. It came from me talking to him. Look it up. It all happened in Anaheim. Getaway day, Papi goes deep. We win. I told David to go in there and tell them, "Play me or trade me. I want to start. Or I want out."

Listen, here's the bottom line: From day one, Jeremy Giambi couldn't hold David Ortiz's jock. He couldn't hit with him in spring training. Jeremy Giambi was taking ABs away from David Ortiz because he was the MVP's little brother and the Red Sox were committed to Moneyball, but he never could hit with Papi. Never. Period. End of story.

ORTIZ: I was never really Theo's guy. There were other guys he was paying more money to. If I had been his first choice, I really think I would have been playing since day one. ... So yeah, I sat and I sat, and I kept my mouth shut because you gotta keep it professional, you know?

EPSTEIN: David and I had a few quick conversations early in the year in which I encouraged him to be patient, told him that we believed in him, expressed some empathy for his situation and reassured him that things would work themselves out. He was frustrated early but handled himself really well, not wanting to make an issue in the clubhouse or drag his teammates down.

CUZA: David was lower than whale s---. He was saying, "Maybe I screwed around. Maybe I didn't work hard enough. Maybe I wasted my chance."

ORTIZ: Finally, I just said f--- it. I went to Grady. I went to Theo. They were asking me why I was mad, and I said, "I'm not mad, but I'm better than every f---ing guy you're running out there ahead of me." So I called [my agent] Fern. I told him, "If you're not here tomorrow, you're fired." He said, "What's wrong?" I said, "I'm better. Play me or I want out of here. Play me and I'll show you what's up."

EPSTEIN: The third week of May -- when he was hitting about .250 with one homer and coming off a stretch of sitting three times in four games -- he sent his agent, Fern Cuza, to see me. It was after a game in the player parking lot at Fenway. Fern said that while David loved Boston and loved his teammates, not playing was driving him crazy. He said David wanted him to deliver an ultimatum of sorts to me -- to play him every day or trade him.

We had been working really hard since the winter to trade Hillenbrand and felt we were finally getting close with the Diamondbacks. I told Fern to keep David patient for another week and that we'd find a way to get him his opportunity.

Ortiz has hit 465 homers since joining the Red Sox, ranking him second on the team's all-time home run list behind Ted Williams (521). JIM ROGASH/GETTY IMAGES

ON MAY 29, 2003, the Red Sox traded Hillenbrand to Arizona. A week later, Ortiz became the everyday DH with the Red Sox.

CUZA: This was the turning point of his career. Right then and there, he decided to put it up a notch. He was fighting for his life. People always ask, "Why is David Ortiz so great under pressure?" That's not pressure. Pressure is living in the Dominican with no income.

David was patient, and he took it all in -- the not playing, the guys playing ahead of him that he knew he was better than -- and he was close to losing it, but it's true: We were one click away from this not happening in Boston.

AFTER THE ALL-STAR break, Ortiz went on one of the great tears in baseball history, finishing the season with 31 home runs (27 of them in the final three months of the season) and 101 RBIs. His hot streak came too late for him to make the All-Star team that year -- though he did finish fifth in MVP voting -- but he made the AL roster in 10 of the next 13 seasons, starting as DH in five of them.

JED HOYER, FORMER ASSISTANT TO THE GENERAL MANAGER: David, in the second half of 2003, what he did, and who he did it against -- and by that I mean the Yankees so many times -- all you could do was watch it. You didn't believe it. But it was happening.

CUZA: When David got in the lineup, you could see the change. He played like he knew he was never going to be in that position of being so close again. I think every professional athlete has a turning point in their career. This was his.

ORTIZ: All in all, you go through a lot. But I think it was good because it brings the best out in me. That's what happened. In my career, nothing has been given. I had to earn. It doesn't make sense, I know. It doesn't happen. I know. But you can look at me as proof that it can happen.  Sign up for the Weekly and get this sent to you instead!

minimizing your reliance on global package installation

When you introduce a new contributor to a project — or just try to set up your new laptop — needing to run multiple global installations means plenty of opportunities for confusion or mistakes. Even the relatively straightforward process of locally building Angular.js still involves three separate shell commands and running “install” four times.

The good news is that npm scripting can help. The scripts section of a package.json can define all sorts of package-specific commands, like how to test the package and what runs after the application terminates, but as K.Adam at Bocoup points out,

commands used within npm script commands have direct access to locally-installed packages: this means that modules don’t have to be globally installed in order to be exposed to the user via npm scripts.

With npm package scripts, you can provide a common façade for your tools, simplify your libraries’ workflows, and get back to building great things with the best tools for the job.

Check out K.Adam’s thorough, excellent, explanation: A Façade for Tooling with NPM Package Scripts.

building a front-end workflow

We know from search and download counts in the npm registry, and the kinds of support requests we receive, that a good number of you use npm for front-end asset and dependency management — and we build our own website with npm (delicious, delicious dog food). Exactly how much of the workflow involved in building a website can you manage and automate with npm?

Just ask Youssef Kababe:

you can literally use npm to do everything and that’s what we will do now! We’ll create a simple website by managing everything using npm!

Go follow Youssef’s step-by-step tutorial: npm-based front-end workflow.

rebuilding after you update Node

Node is 4! but among the implications that carries is the need to recompile all of your C++ addons.

James Kyle reminds us to remind you: don’t forget about rebuild , which runs the npm build command on the folders for each package you specify.

meeting Isaac & checking out our digs

NewCo is a pretty cool idea:

Our mission is to identify, celebrate, and connect the engines of positive change in our society.

One of the unique features of their NewCo Festivals is that they introduce neat companies by literally bringing festivalgoers to the companies — “get out to get in” — in a sort of business conference - cum - open-studio format.

In two weeks, they’ll host the 4th Annual NewCo San Francisco and the very first NewCo Oakland Festival. We’re proud to be included. If you’re in the area, this Thursday, October 8 at 3pm, we hope you’ll stop by the new place. Isaac will speak on work/life balance, you can meet the team and pet Haggis, and there will be swag.

Tickets are here: NewCo Oakland. Use the discount code HC30OAK for 30% off.

sponsored [?]

getting a gig in Node

Hired connects Node developers with over 2,500 vetted tech companies in 13 major tech hubs, probably including yours. Developers on Hired receive an average of 5 interview requests within a week. Looking for a job? Check them out.  Welcome to week one of the 2016 Confectionery Stall Stat-vent Calendar. There will be a stat for each of the first 24 days of December. Ask a non-cricket-aware friend or family member to print them out, fold them up and hide them behind a little cardboard door with the appropriate date written on, for you to reveal each breakfast time before going to work/school/space/court/pub/jail/wherever else you spend your mornings. Build up the Christmas spirit by sharing the stats with everyone you meet or speak to, as loudly as possible.

December 1

In Mohali, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jayant Yadav each made a half-century and took four wickets in the match - the first occasion in Test history in which three team-mates have scored a fifty and taken four or more wickets in the game.

There had only been four previous instances of three players on the same side scoring a half-century and taking three wickets in the match, most recently when Malcolm Marshall (76), Roger Harper (60) and Michael Holding (73) all reached 50 in West Indies' first innings against England in Antigua in 1986, before going on to take five, four and three wickets respectively as England crumbled to their fifth defeat of the series. Viv Richards scored his famous 58-ball 110 in West Indies' second innings, so the match is sadly no longer remembered for being the first time that Nos. 7, 8 and 9 had all made half-centuries in the same Test innings against England (and the third time in all). The lack of stadium-demolishing batsmanship in Mohali means that the Indian spin trio's triple half-centuries have more chance of being fondly recalled by history as the second time that Nos. 7, 8 and 9 all made half-centuries in the same Test innings against England (and the seventh time in all).

December 2

The balance of England's team, with its unusual depth of batting and bowling, has thrown up some statistical quirks. Having six front-line bowlers has seldom been considered necessary in the history of Test cricket, and Gareth Batty duly had a deeply unremarkable match, through little fault of his own. The joy of stats, however, is that even the deeply unremarkable can be remarkable.

Batty was only the fourth player since 1976 to be the sixth bowler (or later) used in both innings, and to bat at least one innings at 10 or 11.

Had it not been for nightwatchman duty, and he had batted at 10 in the second innings, he would have become only the fifth player ever to bowl outside the first five and bat outside the top nine in both innings of a Test (after Ian Johnson, Lindsay Kline, Bapu Nadkarni, and Lance Gibbs).

Bapu Nadkarni: consistently miserly in his bowling and alternately inspiring confidence and hopelessness in his batting Getty Images

December 3

Nadkarni is one of the few cricketers, alive or dead, who might justifiably look at Ravi Jadeja's throwback remorseless water-drip left-arm spin and think: "That's a bit flamboyant." He might even look at the following stat and think: "This planet has become unbearably flippant."

Ravi Jadeja's Test economy rate of is the lowest of the 191 bowlers who have taken 50 wickets in the last 30 years.

The Saurashtran scoring-suffocator is narrowly ahead of his Indian slow-left-arm gradual-interrogation predecessor Venkatapathy Raju (2.25); New Zealand fill-in dobster Nathan Astle (2.26), whose batting was rather more interesting than his bowling; and 1990s South African seam metronome Craig Matthews (2.26), the parsimonious paceman who would reportedly cry uncontrollably for at least a week if he ever bowled a slightly overpitched delivery. (When I use the word "reportedly", I mean that I have reported this claim to myself.)

Nadkarni conceded per over in his 41-Test career, which ran from 1955 to 1968. The overall Test economy rate in that time was 2.33, so in terms of economy relative to contemporaries, Jadeja and Nadkarni are almost identical - the latter's economy was 71.7% of the overall figure, the former's is currently 71.8%. Even allowing for the propitious conditions in which Jadeja has played many of his Tests, his unhittability is impressive.

December 4

In India's first innings in Mohali, England's opening pair and first-change bowlers, James Anderson, Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali, between them took 0 for 167 in 58 overs.

This was only the fifth time that the first three bowlers England have used in the first innings of a Test have all gone wicketless, and only the second of those five in which all three have bowled at least eight overs each.

The only previous wicketless-first-three-England-bowlers first innings involving a significant number of overs was in the deeply harrowing Lord's Test of 1993, when Andy Caddick and Peter Such, in their second Tests, and the bafflingly recalled and about-to-retire-from-all-cricket Neil Foster, in his penultimate first-class match, combined for 0 for 304 in 104 overs against a grindingly dominant Australia.

Lord's 1993 was the only time that England's openers and first-change bowlers have bowled more fruitless overs in any Test innings than those sent down by Anderson, Woakes and Moeen in Mohali; and one of only two occasions in which they have conceded more wicket-free runs than Mohali's 167, the other being the Greenidge-inspired West Indian run chase at Lord's in 1984, when Willis, Botham and Pringle were splatterthrumped for 0 for 209 in 43.1 overs.

Mohali also provided:

a) Only the 18th time in any Test innings that the bowlers 1, 2 and 3 have each bowled 12 or more overs without a wicket between them;

Chris Woakes: Imran-esque, Hadlee-esque, Marshall-esque Associated Press

b) The tenth time that both England opening bowlers have pounded through at least 20 wicketless overs (Lord's 1993 was the most recent previous instance);

c) Anderson's second wicketless match in his last 75 Tests (after the Lord's Ashes Test in 2015).

Woakes has now had two wicketless innings in this series in which he has bowled at least 20 overs. Steven Finn also had two such innings in last summer's series against Pakistan. Before then, the last England bowler to have two wicketless 20-over innings in a series was Ashley Giles in the 2005 Ashes, and the last England pacer to do so was Chris Lewis, in 1996 against Pakistan. The only England pacers to suffer similar struggles against India were Fred Ridgway (twice) and Allan Martin (three times) in the 1951-52 series. Ridgway never played another Test, Martin had three more the following summer.

Woakes' long-term prospects are considerably rosier. He has bowled better than his series figures of 2 for 165 suggest. And by bowling two wicketless 20-over innings in a series, he joins an illustrious list of opening bowlers including Steyn, McGrath, Ambrose, Marshall, Hadlee, Kapil, Lillee, Imran, Trueman and many other all-time luminaries of pace.

December 5

Mohali was the 16th occasion in which a team has won a Test without anyone either scoring a century or taking four wickets in an innings, and the first such victory by India.

The two other occasions this decade both involved England, in their win over Pakistan at Edgbaston last summer, and their defeat to West Indies in Barbados in May 2015.

December 6

Before Pakistan's impressively catastrophic final-session implosion in Hamilton, Azhar Ali and Sami Aslam had patiently constructed Pakistan's first century opening stand outside Asia since 2010.

It was also Pakistan's highest first-wicket partnership outside Asia since Imran Nazir and Mohammad Wasim (two stalwart members of the Pakistan Players Younger Than Misbah-ul-Haq Who Have Not Played Test Cricket Since January 2003 XI) put on 219 against a West Indian attack led by Walsh and Ambrose, in May 2000.

December 7

The Sami-Azhar stand was also the highest fourth-innings opening stand by anyone for more than ten years, since Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga added 148 for West Indies against New Zealand in Auckland in March 2006.

Perhaps the disappointment of not seeing their team-mates bring up the first 150 first-wicket partnership since 1997 is what prompted the subsequent collapse.

More for your Stat-vent Calendar next week. No peeking. Be patient. Wait your turn. To help pass the aching void of time between now and then, more on Bapu Nadkarni.

Like Jadeja, Nadkarni was a useful lower-order batsman as well as a run-abhoring stifler with the ball, averaging 25, with a first-class batting average over 40. The match mentioned in the above stats in which Nadkarni "did a Batty" (allowing for the fact that Batty's nightwatchmanship precluded him from "doing a Batty" himself) illustrates that long-batting orders are not a modern development.

Nadkarni was the sixth Indian bowler used in both West Indies innings in the Trinidad Test of April 1962, but was rather more extensively utilised than Batty was in Mohali, frugalising his way through 63 overs in the Test, taking 2 for 103, and scored 1 and 23, adding 93 for the ninth wicket in the second innings with Polly Umrigar.

Ten of the India team ended with at least 12 first-class hundreds (and the exception, Rusi Surti, made six, and scored 99 in a Test, as well as eight other Test fifties). The only player who ended his Test career without scoring 99 or more, ironically, was the opener Vijay Mehra. The astonishing depth of batting did not help India - they lost by seven wickets, the fourth of the five heavy defeats they suffered in the series.

India's No. 11 in the Trinidad Test was wicketkeeper Budhi Kunderan, already a first-class double-centurion, who two years previously had made 71 as an opener, in Chennai against Australia, the best team in the world at the time, out of a total of 149 all out, against a high-class attack featuring Alan Davidson, Ian Meckiff, Richie Benaud and Lindsay Kline.

Quite how Kunderan found himself, five Tests later, batting at 11, is something of a mystery. He batted 10 in the following Test, and scored 2 and 1, prompting the Indian selectors to think: "We'd better promote this guy up to open in our next Test." This they duly did, and Kunderan scored 192 against England in January 1964, again in Chennai, and went on to make more than 500 runs in the series. Then, after one more Test as opener, he was shunted back down to No. 9. Then back up to open again. It must have been fun being a selector in those days. A lot of fun.  6.7k SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard

Courage is the quality of mind and spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, or personal sacrifice without fear, and it is typically applied to a warrior’s bravery in battle. In America, most people do not assign courage to politicians unless they take a principled stand to defend the Constitution from attack regardless the consequences. Most people expect courage from a man defending women, and it is difficult to imagine many American men turning their back on a woman being assaulted regardless it is under the aegis of the state. However, as Republicans blatantly assault women in state legislatures, Congress, and the courts, while most male politicians are silent as to the source of the attacks, one courageous Democrat took a stand for women and condemned the source of power Republicans use to deny women their rights.

Less than two weeks ago, former President Jimmy Carter courageously cited the source of violence against women and did what no other politician in America has the courage to do. The 39th President and devout Christian addressed a human rights event and lashed out at all religious doctrines that “contribute to political, social, and economic structure where political leaders passively accept violence against women,” and cited a laundry list of inequalities including conditions American women are subjected to. It was a courageous admission coming from a Christian man in America, but it is the first time a public figure admitted the source of attacks against women is religion. The former President did not cite the unconstitutionality of state-sanctioned religion to conduct the war on women, but it may have been too perilous to admit in a public forum that the bible is not the Constitution.

The former president acknowledged politicians’ cowardice and cited the “great aversion among men leaders and some women leaders to admit that this is something that exists, that it’s serious and that it’s troubling and should be addressed courageously.” Unfortunately, it is not being addressed at all regardless it is rampant in several states making no attempt to conceal the unconstitutional use of religion to attack women’s right to their own reproductive health. Although religion is the source of all attacks on women’s reproductive health, it is in Texas where the legislature openly advocated biblical prohibitions on women’s choice that no politician challenged on the grounds it was unconstitutional.

In preparation for the vote to shutter most abortion clinics in Texas, legislators were provided with pamphlets replete with biblical passages as justification to force women into becoming “brood mares” according to the young woman hauled out of the legislature while raging at Texas legislators supporting the unconstitutional measure. Governor Rick Perry framed lower house passing the measure as a blessing for women and said, “Now is not the time to waver, it’s important work in support of women’s health and protecting the lives of our most vulnerable Texans.” Perry’s “most vulnerable Texans” refers to zygotes that are not fetuses until well after the new 20-week ban, and certainly not “viable outside the womb” as ruled by the Supreme Court 40 years ago. However, basing the ban on religion makes any legislation affecting women’s reproductive health unconstitutional.

Women’s rights to decide absorbed another attack in Wisconsin where Scott Walker signed a law mandating women be physically assaulted with transvaginal ultrasounds, and one wonders why any man would allow the state to use religion to require doctors to physically violate women seeking abortion services. Likely it is due to the unspoken edict that speaking out against religion, even state-sanctioned religion, is forbidden and it informs the bravery former President Jimmy Carter displayed in admitting “that it’s serious and that it’s troubling and should be addressed courageously.”

It will take courageous addressing by Democrats because there is little standing in the way of Republican assaults on women and their Constitutional right to choose their own reproductive health. After sneaking an atrocious abortion ban in anti-Sharia legislation last week, yesterday North Carolina Republicans used a similar tactic by stealthily inserting sweeping abortion restrictions in a motorcycle safety bill unbeknownst to the public or legislators on the committee. Two weeks ago Ohio Governor John Kasich’s budget redefined pregnancy and effectively gave personhood rights to a zygote Republicans claim is a fetus at the moment of conception contrary to all known and empirical evidence in medical science.

According to a recent court decision, religion also gives retail outlet Hobby Lobby the right to dictate suitable prescriptions their employees’ insurance will cover because, according to the judge, they are entitled to their religious liberty to demand their employees adhere to Hobby Lobby’s owner’s religious beliefs. The company’s owner claimed their religious rights were violated because they “believe” hormonal contraception and IUDs are abortifacients in stark contrast to all known medical and biological science. In a related state-sanctioned religious law, Indiana Republicans revamped a 1997 law making it a felony for same-sex couples to apply for a marriage license that is punishable by up to 18 months in prison and a $10,000 fine. Like the fanatical opposition to women’s choice, opposition to same-sex marriage is wholly based in religion and yet no-one has the courage to cite the unconstitutionality of using the bible as basis for inequality.

It is pathetic that Republicans are attacking women’s rights under any circumstances, but that they are using a religious text as grounds for legislation is patently unconstitutional according to the 1st amendment and established legal precedents. It is true their outrageous religious laws will be challenged in courts, but no-one is brave enough to say out loud the recent spate of anti-women’s choice laws cannot stand because they are the state enforcing one specific religion’s dogmata. However, two weeks ago the most courageous man in the nation broke the silence and stated categorically “that it is religious doctrines that contribute to political, social, and economic structure where political leaders passively accept violence against women.” Sadly, America is not only a nation where political leaders accept violence against women based on religion, Republicans actively legislate against them and a crucial element to their success is, according to former President Carter, “voices demanding these circumstances change are few and far between” and it is precisely why the GOP proceeds with impunity.

If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:  2 California judges who had sex in their chambers disciplined

The state's judicial disciplinary commission censured two California judges Tuesday who had sex in their courthouse chambers - one with two of his former law students and the other with a court clerk.

The actions against Orange County Judge Scott Steiner, who had intimate relations with the former law students, and Kern County Judge Cory Woodward, who misled superiors about his 10-month relationship with a court clerk, are the strongest public reprimand the Commission on Judicial Performance can wield against a judge.

But the commission stopped short of its ultimate sanction, removal from the bench. The panel said it would have recommended removing Woodward for his sexual misconduct and deception, but decided against it because he had been cooperative and remorseful and is regarded by colleagues as "respected, hardworking intelligent and conscientious."

Having sex, even consensually, in one's court chambers is "the height of irresponsible and improper behavior by a judge," and shows "an utter disrespect for the dignity and decorum of the court," the commission said.

Woodward, appointed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 and elected to a six-year term in 2008, was unopposed for another six-year term this year.

Steiner was elected to a six-year term in 2010. Both he and Woodward are former county prosecutors.

Cooperation in probe

Attorney Paul S. Meyer, who represented both judges in separate proceedings, said both men had cooperated in the investigations and had apologized for their behavior.

The commission said Steiner had sex in his chambers in 2012 with one of his interns and with a local attorney, both of whom had been his students at Chapman University.

Around the same time, the commission said, he wrote a letter of recommendation for the intern, who was applying for a job with the district attorney's office. When she did not get called back for a second interview, Steiner telephoned a lawyer at the office and "sounded perplexed and irritated," the commission said.

Steiner disqualified himself from cases handled by the lawyer with whom he was having an affair, but violated other rules by reassigning those cases to specific judges, the commission said.

Notes and nickname

The panel said Woodward had a sexual relationship with his court clerk from approximately July 2012 through mid-May 2013, used the court computer to exchange personal messages with her, passed "notes of a sexual nature" to her during court proceedings, and allowed her to call him by a nickname in the presence of other court staff.

When the court's executive officer and supervising judge confronted Woodward in early 2013, after a complaint from the clerk's husband, the judge failed to disclose the relationship and told them there was no reason to transfer the clerk to another judge, the commission said.

She was transferred in April 2013, over Woodward's protests, and he finally revealed their relationship to the supervising judge a month later, the commission said.  New Hampshire is weighing a bill to exempt bitcoin traders from money transmission laws – and state officials are speaking out against the measure.

Their argument centers on whether the government of New Hampshire should take a proactive or reactive role in the regulation of money transmitters within the state that use digital currency. The bill, first proposed in mid-January, seeks to exempt “persons conducting business using transactions conducted in whole or in part in virtual currency” from money transmission statutes in the state.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the measure attracted broad support from grassroots stakeholders. And last month, the state’s House of Representatives cleared the bill by a 185-170 vote. From there, the proposal moved to the Senate for further deliberation, leading to last week’s hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee.

That hearing drew a number of supporters, including sponsors of the bill as well as activists from New Hampshire. Many of those who spoke before the panel pushed for its passage, arguing the measure would bring benefits to the state, according to a video published by the activist organization Free Keene.

Yet officials from both the New Hampshire Banking Department and Department of Justice spoke against it, appealing to committee members to either oppose the bill or create tighter controls.

Jerry Little, the states’s banking commissioner, argued that, if passed into law, the measure would inhibit state regulators from preventing potential financial fraud, comparing the process to plane safety.

Little asked the panel:

“I think the fundamental question here is, do you want the FAA examining the plane before it takes off, or do you want them looking for black boxes after the crash?”

Appearing later, James Boffetti, senior assistant attorney general for New Hampshire’s Justice Department, spoke in support of the Banking Department’s position, arguing that his agency wouldn’t be able to police activity as effectively.

“If you remove this from the jurisdiction of the Banking Department, it default falls to the Department of Justice,” he told the panel. “But we don’t have the same restitution capacities as the Banking Department. We don’t have the expertise.”

Image courtesy of Free Keene/YouTu  USA hockey announced their pre-Olympic orientation camp roster on Monday, looking ahead to the tournament in Sochi Russia. As we are now less than 8 months away from the 2014 Olympics, I thought it would be a good time to go through the USA roster and make my picks for the team to go to the Olympics. Team USA will head to Sochi looking to capitalize on recent success at the Under 18 and World Junior Championship levels, and win their first Olympic Gold since the 1980 Olympic Miracle on Ice, improving on the Silver Medal heartbreak of Vancouver 2010.

Note that the announcement has been made that teams can carry 25 man squads instead of the old 23 (but only 22 can dress for any game). With this format I have gone with 3 goalies, 8 defencemen, and 14 forwards. 1 goalie, 1 defenceman and 1 forward will find themselves in the press box in each game.

I looked at the team back in March, and I’ve made a few changes since that time.

Goaltending

Starter – Jonathan Quick

#2 – Craig Anderson

#3 – Ryan Miller

Winning teams are built from the net out, and team USA will have a great headstart in goal. They will have the deepest goaltending in this tournament as we have cut players like Jimmy Howard, and Cory Schneider as there is just too many quality American goaltenders right now for them to make the team. In the number 3 spot we have Ryan Miller, the starter from the Vancouver Olympic Games, and best player in that tournament. He’s been up and down since that time, but you can’t knock his talent or the Olympic experience. Miller has the potential to get hot this season, as he did in 2009-10 and steal the starting job by the time February rolls around. When he’s on his game, he’s that good. In the backup role, we have Craig Anderson, who arguably was the best goaltender in the NHL when he was healthy this past season. He also showed that he can play when it counts, and was a major reason why the Ottawa Senators upset the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the NHL playoffs. In the starter’s spot, I have selected Jonathan Quick who was marvelous in the 2012 season in leading LA to their first Stanley Cup and winning the Conn Smythe. He was very good in the LA net in the 2013 playoffs as well, taking them to the final four, despite LA’s inability to average more than 2 goals scored per game in the playoffs. Quick has been steadily improving every year in the NHL, and now its his time to shine.

Defence

Ryan Suter – Kevin Shattenkirk



Suter is undeniably the leader of this defence corps. Boasting a solid game in both ends of the rink, Suter will be used in all situations. Able to play close to 30 minutes a night come playoff time in the NHL, expect the same from Suter on the Olympic team even with the players surrounding him on defence. He’s the workhorse, the PP quarterback, and the number 1 penalty killer.

Now some might say that Kevin Shatenkirk is not the ideal first pairing guy at an Olympic tournament. Heck he’s a second pairing guy for the St. Louis Blues. However the USA is really lacking in right handed defencemen, and Shattenkirk who moves the puck extremely well and is known for his offensive skill scoring 43 points in each of his first two NHL seasons, is improving all the time in St. Louis, especially in the defensive end of the ice. I think that he’s ready to play with Suter who will carry this pair. His excellent skating and puck moving is a huge asset on international ice.

Ryan McDonagh – Erik Johnson



Ryan McDonagh has proven his worth playing on the New York Rangers’ shutdown pairing with Dan Girardi. He is very much like Ryan Suter-lite in that he is good in all aspects of the game, capable of providing top notch defensive skill, and penalty kill work, and also bring some offense with solid passing and shooting skills.

Erik Johnson is may not be an ideal top 4 defenceman, but it again comes down to the lack of quality right handed shots, and he’s amongst the best US defenders with that attribut. If there is one weakness in the US team it is that it lacks defenders who play on the right side (which is the opposite of the Canadian defence corps). Johnson’s a big man who skates well enough for his size and plays a two way game. My concerns are that he sometimes has a tendency to make bad decisions with the puck on his stick, and will need to improve his decision making or be hurt on the big ice. McDonagh will be the anchor on this pair to keep him grounded.

Paul Martin – Jack Johnson

Paul Martin got back to playing the solid two way game that made him a great NHL defender with Pittsburgh this year. His strong skating will come in huge on the Olympic ice and he’s back to playing at the level defensively that earned him the big contract with the Penguins. If he continues to play that way he should be on the Sochi team. Jack Johnson has really improved after being traded from Los Angeles to Columbus. While his defensive game still needs some work, he has improved his defensive coverage, and his first pass ability. His strength is still his very good skating ability, and offensive game. The skating and mobility on the big ice is a big reason he makes this team.

7th D – Matt Carle



Carle has developped into a strong defender over the last few years, and even finished 15th in the NHL in blocked shots last season. He’s always had a decent offensive game, and has now come into his own as a defender as well. He showed last season that he could do well at even-strength despite not having Chris Pronger beside him. He can play on both the powerplay and on the penalty kill units.

8th D (press box) – Keith Yandle

The Coyotes defender is another great skater. As you can see, I’m putting a huge premium on this ability, especially on defense, given the bigger ice surface. Yandle also has a booming slap shot and one timer. His defensive game is all about his great mobility, and a quick , active stick. Don’t expect Yandle to throw a lot of big hits, but on this squad, and in this tournament he won’t have to. Instead it will be that mobility, and quick puck moving ability that will be utilized if he’s pressed into service. If Yandle was a Right Handed defenceman, or capable of playing the same level of game on the right side (something we’ve never seen from him), he’d be in the lineup already. But being solely a guy used on the left, he unfortunately starts in the press box since he can’t replace one of the Johnsons.

Forwards

Zach Parise – Paul Stastny – Patrick Kane

Kane won the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy with the Chicago Blackhawks this season. The most purely talented offensive player on this squad, he’ll be expected to lead the offence, and will be an easy choice should any games go to a shootout. Zach Parise is a pure goal scorer who plays a strong two way game, and got a big contract in Minnesota because of that, along with his leadership ability. Expect Parise to be USA’s captain. Paul Stastny is a slick set up man, who can skate with the speedsters on either side, he’ll be looking to set up his linemates in the offensive zone. The speed of this line will be a key on the bigger ice.

Bobby Ryan – Joe Pavelski – Phil Kessel

Early in the year we saw Kessel (somewhat surprisingly) turning into more of an assist man. However with Kessels great shot and release he started doing the goal scoring again down the stretch and into the playoffs for the Leafs. He is just behind Kane as the premier offensive weapon for Team USA and should be a main man counted on to score on this second line. Pavelski has always been a versatile offensive player for the Sharks, and on Team USA, I’ve moved him back to his natural centre position to lead this line from the middle. Little Joe can be both a playmaker or a goal scorer, and I expect him to revert to a more playmaking role on this line. Bobby Ryan joins them, and he’s got a ton of pure skill and the size to help the line in the corners and in front of the net.

Max Pacioretty – David Backes – T.J. Oshie

Pacioretty has really blossomed as a goal scorer and as a power forward. He was USA’s best player in the 2012 Men’s IIHF World Championships after scoring 33 goals for the Montreal Canadiens that season. He added 15 this year and again led the Habs in points, and will be given a big role on this squad. He teams with St. Louis teammates and linemates Backes and Oshie on a line that combines both skill and grit. Backes is a rugged powerful centre, and Oshie might not be as big as his linemates, but he plays a gritty game and is a very good playmaker for these two goal scorers. They can all skate, and have good defensive ability as well. Team USA will not be scared to use this line in any situation.

Ryan Callahan – Ryan Kesler- Dustin Brown

This may be my “4th line” in terms of the listing, but they will play heavy, heavy minutes, as they will be Team USA’s shutdown line. Callahan, Kesler and Brown are alll excellent checkers, and have great two way ability. I know Kesler has had injury issues, but this tournament is far enough away that he will have plenty of time to solve those problems and find his game. He’s an elite checker in the NHL and a Selke winner. Brown showed off his ability to play a two way game in captaining the Kings to the Stanley Cup in 2012. He’s a powerful hitter who loves to play the body. In Callahan, the New York Rangers captain is a gritty heart and soul warrior who will do whatever it takes to help his team win. He can fill in killing penalties or getting to the front of the net on the Powerplay. He has the great versatility to fill in on a scoring or checking line, and while he’s playing out of position on this unit, I don’t think it will hurt him too much as he’s intelligent enough to adapt. Its funny to think of these three guys as a checking line, because they will also be a threat to put the puck in the net if the guys they are checking make a defensive mistake.

Extra: Derek Stepan

In looking at my first 12 forwards, I realize that this team will face more issues if there is an injury to a Centre, than they will if there is an injury to a winger. Team USA just does not have enough centres in the pipeline and it will be easier for them to replace an injured winger. As such, I took the next best American pivot and put him in as the 13th man. At this point that is Derek Stepan of the New York Rangers, a young player who continues to improve. However this spot is no sure thing, as continued improvements of a player like Alex Galchenyuk, who scored a big goal in a shootout at the world championships could see him pushing for a spot in Sochi.

Press Box: Alex Galchenyuk

There are a few ways Team USA could go with this final spot. USA has shown a real want to get the younger generation involved as we see John Gibson, Seth Jones, Jacob Trouba, and others invited to camp. I think management will continue this by bringing a player like Galchenyuk along for the Olympic experience figuring that he likely won’t be needed and want to get him ready for future World Cups, and the 2016 Olympics. If he is needed, he has the versatility to fill in at both centre or on the wing, and that versatility makes him a great pressbox option as well.

Leadership:

This team has plenty of NHL Captains, former NHL captains, and alternates. Certainly they won’t be short on leaders, but we need to choose a captain and two alternates. Give the important roles they will play I’ve choosen to give the Captain’s “C” to Zach Parise, with David Backes getting an alternate’s “A”, and Ryan Suter getting the other “A”.

So there it is, my picks for Team USA’s 2014 Olympic Team. Who would you have picked? How will they fare in Sochi? Feel free to leave your comments below.

Thanks for reading, as feel free to follow me on twitter @lastwordBKerr. Give the rest of the hockey department a follow while you’re at it – @BigMick99, @TheHockeyMitch, and @LastWordOnNHL, and follow the site @lastwordonsport.

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http://old.lastwordonsports.com/wp-admin/post-new.php  Denmark has become the latest European nation to apply for joining the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

China's finance ministry said that the government of Denmark has written to it, announcing its intention to join the AIIB as a founding member. The ministry also welcomed the country's decision in a statement on its website.

It added that Denmark would officially become a founding member on 12 April, if the decision is approved by other members of the AIIB.

Denmark is viewing the establishment of the AIIB as "a significant and exciting development in the world order", according to Mogens Jensen, minister of Trade and Development.

"Since many Danish trade interests as well as development cooperation interests will be at stake in AIIB, there are many reasons to engage in and influence AIIB's investment decisions from its beginning," Jensen said.

Earlier, Russia announced its decision to join the AIIB a day after Brazil accepted an invitation from China. The Netherlands and Australia also announced their intent to become members of the bank.

Meanwhile, Australia said its membership would be based on the fulfilment of certain conditions.

"Key matters to be resolved before Australia considers joining the AIIB include the Bank's Board of Directors having authority over key investment decisions, and that no one country control the bank," Prime Minister Tony Abbott and treasurer Joe Hockey said in a joint statement.

"Working with other key multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the AIIB has the potential to play a valuable role in addressing infrastructure needs and boosting economic growth in the region with potential benefits for Australia."

In October 2014, representatives of 21 Asian nations convened in Beijing to inaugurate the AIIB, which is focused on providing funding to infrastructure projects within Asia. The bank was initially capitalised with $50bn (£31bn, €39.5bn), half of which was funded by China. The authorised capital of the AIIB is $100bn.

Britain became the first major Western country to apply to become an AIIB founding member, and was followed by major European nations including France, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Austria.

The decision of the countries, most of which are close allies of the US, comes despite warnings from the US over the AIIB's governance and environmental standards.  In December, The Ashley broke the news that Teen Mom OG star Matt Baier really does have seven child support cases currently filed against him. On tonight’s episode, Matt’s litter of children will be addressed, and his fiance, ‘Teen Mom’ star Amber Portwood, will learn that at least seven women have filed child support cases against Matt. (The Ashley confirmed this and provided more information on each of Matt’s alleged children. You can read that report here.)

Amber has previously denied that The Ashley’s report was true. She later changed her story, stating that she would stay with him “even if he had 20 children!”

Well, according to Kelly Nunn, that number may not be too far from the truth. Kelly, who says she was once engaged to Matt, tells The Ashley that Matt is also the father of her eight-year-old daughter. Shockingly, that little girl (whom The Ashley will call “A” for privacy reasons) is not one of the seven children who Matt has support filings for already. She is an additional child, bringing the number of offspring allegedly fathered by Matt to (at least) eight!

In an exclusive interview with The Ashley, Kelly explains how she was shocked last year when she saw Matt appear on ‘Teen Mom OG,’ and even more surprised when she watched the episode in which he proposed to Amber.

“The speech he gave before proposing to Amber was almost verbatim to what he told me when he asked me to marry him,” says Kelly, who lives in Matt’s home state of Massachusetts.

Watching the proposal wasn’t the only thing that Kelly says gave her deja vu. In fact, she says, the rapid pace of Amber and Matt’s relationship is almost a mirror image of what happened with her and Matt.

Kelly says that she met Matt in June 2007, when they were both starting work for FritoLay.

“We worked in the warehouse together; he came to my house, brought me my favorite flowers, and we started dating. Within a month he had moved in,” Kelly said.

Just like Matt and Amber’s relationship, Kelly’s relationship with Matt progressed rapidly and she says they were soon engaged.

“I introduced him to my [older] daughter then, because I felt like we were going to be together and because we were engaged,” Kelly said. “We bought a dog together and soon after he was really pressing to have a baby. I wanted to wait until we were married, but he was very persistent.”

Kelly claims that she got pregnant soon after she and Matt started trying. However, that’s when things went sour, according to Kelli.

“I found out I was pregnant in September and by October, Matt was GONE!” Kelly claims, adding that she and Matt kept in touch somewhat and she figured that he would come back.

When she went into labor, Kelly says that she called Matt to let him know and ask him if he’d come to the hospital.

“I never heard from him,” she says, adding that she gave the baby girl her last name instead of Matt’s, but did give the baby Matt’s middle name of Lee, “just in case things ended up working out between us.”

Kelly says that when Matt finally did meet his daughter a month after she was born, “he introduced himself to her as ‘her sperm donor,'” Kelly says.

“Up until she was two I kind of thought we would still work things out,” Kelly said. “He gets into your head, he’s a good conman, I thought he was the one for me, that we belonged together. He has this way of making you think that everyone else is crazy, and that you belong with him.”

Kelly says that when her daughter was two (in 2009), Matt randomly came back into their lives. He apologized for what he had done, according to Kelly, and she gave him another chance. (She claims she had no idea he was involved with yet another woman–whom he ended up having a child with at the time.)

Kelly says she and Matt and their daughter took a trip to a local casino resort and during that trip, Matt allegedly revealed how he felt about their daughter.

“He told me that he knows that [A] is his but he just doesn’t feel anything for her,” Kelly says, adding that she left right then and there with her daughter.

Years went by and Kelly never heard from Matt. She is currently married and says she was lying in bed with her husband watching ‘Teen Mom OG’ when a familiar face showed up on screen.

“I hadn’t talked to him in years,” Kelly says. “It was a surreal. ‘Teen Mom’ is my guilty pleasure, so when I saw him on there I almost died.”

Kelli says she started tweeting to Matt after the episode aired, but he soon blocked her. Soon after, though, Matt emailed her and asked to talk .

“Somehow, he managed to make me feel bad and crazy for being mad at him,” she says. “He’s very good at turning things around on you.”

This time, however, Kelly says she saw through it and continued to try to get more information. A friend somehow was able to locate the phone number for ‘Teen Mom’ executive producer Morgan J. Freeman, and Kelly says she called him.

“This summer, I called him and left a message,” Kelly says. [A Teen Mom producer] called me back. I told her the story of who I was. [Later] the producers called me back with a team of people from the show all on the line. They left it that they would mention on air to Amber that they were contacted by me and see what she wanted to do.”

Kelly says that she recently spoke to one of the show’s producers who told her that her child support filing for “A” would be added to the growing list of other cases against Matt.

“She told me that while Matt is not yet getting paid for being on the show, he will start getting paid soon, and they will be garnishing his wages for the support cases,” Kelly said.

Kelly says she’s not even concerned about the money at this point, since he allegedly owes her over $10,000 in unpaid child support. Watching Amber with Matt does concern her, though.

“He knows just what to say. He didn’t do the shady stuff all at once, this is trickling in for her,” Kelly says. “He has this way of making you feel like he’s legit and everyone else is lying. He loves you like no one else.”

When Kelly and Matt spoke via email, Kelly says that Matt told her that no one would believe her.

“Then I realized this is coming from a man with at least eight kids,” she said. “In 2008, the number I knew of was eight. That was eight years ago though, so who knows what has happened since that?!”

Kelly stated that there is at least one other child that she knows of– a little girl who is a bit younger than her daughter. That child was also not included in the original seven children either. (The Ashley can’t confirm this child is Matt’s, as she was not able to find any court records to back it up.)

Kelly claims that she has spoken to several of the other women whom Matt has children with (and have filed support cases against him).

“They didn’t appreciate me blasting him on Twitter that night,” Kelly said. “I said, ‘He has all these kids that he’s not paying for and doesn’t see, yet he’s off attending the MTV Movie Awards. How could that not bother them?”

Although Amber has stated that she will stand by her man no matter what, Kelly says that doing so will cause Amber a world of pain.

“My advice to Amber would be to RUN!” she says. “Don’t get pregnant, that’s the big thing. She doesn’t even know the half of it. When you’re with him, you don’t see the red flags. It wasn’t until afterward that I saw everything and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen it before. He just crushes people. He even told me that he was going to break my heart when we were dating, but I thought he was just being dramatic.”

During the interview, Kelly provided some interesting little-known-facts about Matt. While she claims that he is “perpetually unemployed,” he was once a DJ at a Montana radio station! His on-air name? “The Big Mattress!” (That name is quite fitting, considering that’s apparently where Matt’s spent a lot of his time making babies!)

Unfortunately, Matt’s career as an on-air DJ was short-lived. According to this article, he was fired in 2004, just six months after he began his job. Soon after, he disappeared.

Kelly also claims that Matt has used the alias “Grey Baker” in previous years. In fact, he once wrote a book under that pen name. (Yes, it was hard to believe that Matt is an author, but here’s hard proof, with Matt’s photo alongside the byline “Grey Baker.”) The book he wrote was about child abuse, and, according to Kelli, it came during a time where he was hanging around a woman who ran a non-profit that dealt with child abuse.

With the big ‘Teen Mom OG’ episode regarding Matt’s paternity cases airing tonight, Kelly said she’s anxious to see what happens.

“I hadn’t thought of him in so long before this,” she says. “His life is seriously like one giant episode of The Jerry Springer Show. Amber needs to get as far as she can from all of that!”

On January 21, Matt received a summons to appear in court to answer for the original seven child support cases that had been moved from all the other states. (Kelly’s is not part of that group.) He is scheduled to appear in an Indiana courtroom on March 22 for a hearing to enforce/modify his support orders.

UPDATE (Feb 2, 2016): Another woman has come forward, claiming that Matt scammed her out of a lot of money. The Ashley is working to investigate these claims.

Amber has responded to The Ashley’s story.While she first claimed that Matt only had two children, last night after The Ashley’s story posted, she claimed that we “don’t have a clue” and that Matt’s kids “are in their twenties.”

Just last night, however, Amber and Matt admitted to MTV News that Matt actually has five kids, three of whom are grown with their own families. (If you’re doing the math, that leaves two recognized kids underage, which contradicts the statements she made on Twitter last night about all of Matt’s kids being in his twenties!)

While Matt is now admitting to have five kids, he has still not acknowledged two of the children who he’s being sued for child support for, or Kelly’s daughter.

(Photos: MTV)  It has been reported that Kim Hyun Joong‘s ex-girlfriend has filed a massive lawsuit against netizens for slander.

According to legal representatives of Choi on May 4th from law firm “A,” she had requested the cyber police in Yongsan, Seoul to investigate over 100 netizens for slander and spreading hate comments.

Media who requested a comment from the police did not receive any, with the police saying that they currently “cannot say anything in details,” however, did not deny the fact they have indeed received such a case.

The police have already gone over the data submitted to them, and it is being reported that they will soon gather the subjects of this case for questioning.

Choi is the same ex-girlfriend who had filed a suit on assault on the singer-actor in August 2014, which was later dropped after she received an apology from Kim Hyun Joong. She is also the same ex-girlfriend who then revealed she was pregnant with his child in January 2015. These events, no doubt is the focus of all the hate comments she is receiving online.

She has also made a statement saying, “I’m going to take care of the baby, but there will be no marriage with Kim Hyun Joong.”

According to Korean law, sharing of information publicly to defame someone is subject to up to three years or 30,000,000 won fine. If the information is false or fabricated, the person is accountable from seven to 10 years in prison or 50,000,000 won fine.

Source: Star Today  In 2013, Celestica's solar lab at the Toronto facility had received TÜV Rheinland PTL approval to provide testing services required for the certification of solar modules. Image: Celestica

Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider Celestica said it was winding down solar module assembly operations at its Toronto, Ontario, Canada production plant in the first quarter of 2017.

Celestica management said in its earnings call late last week to discuss full-year financial results that recent module overcapacity and plummeting prices had led to much lower demand from contract customers. A decision to exit solar module production for customers was said to have been made in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Darren Myers, CFO of Celestica said in the earnings call, “The recent oversupply of solar panels in the market and unprecedented declines in market pricing have, slowed demand. Although we can’t predict the duration of the market instability we expect the downturn to be prolonged and that the changes in the market will negatively impact the future profitability of our solar panel manufacturing business. As a result we made a decision to exit this business in the fourth quarter which resulted in restructuring charges of US$21 million.”

Celestica management noted that revenue from its module assembly operations amounted to around 1% of fourth quarter 2016 total revenue of US$billion or around US$16.2 million and around US$60 million in 2016.

Manufacturing operations were established in 2011 and had employed approximately 400 people. In 2013, Celestica's solar lab at the Toronto facility had received TÜV Rheinland PTL approval to provide testing services required for the certification of solar modules.  BUSIA, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - In this sunny part of Kenya, solar cookers – which trap sunlight to heat food – have surged in popularity in recent years. But a big problem remains: How to cook when the sun doesn’t shine?

Communities are now starting to sort out solutions, from insulated baskets that hold onto heat after the sun disappears to use of back-up fuel-efficient charcoal and firewood stoves.

“Fluctuations in sunshine can hinder cooking using the solar (system) but with the basket we nowadays prepare tea during the day and can drink it after sunset,” said Peter Wanga, whose family has been using a solar cooking system since last year.

The insulated basket “conserves enough heat to cook food even when there is no sunshine” – and is affordable and easy to use, he said.

In Busia County, in western Kenya, as many as 1,500 households have turned to solar cooking, mostly over the last four years, according to county Ministry of Energy figures. Other families have adopted more efficient charcoal or firewood stoves.

The changes in large part have been driven by Farmers with a Vision (FWA), a local community organization based in Bumala Township.

Over the last four years, “we have sold thousands of solar cookers and energy saving charcoal and wood stoves, and also found a platform to promote use of solar energy appliances such as lighting equipment” said Didacus Odhiambo, the organization’s chief executive officer.

He said the clean energy effort has faced significant challenges, including as many as 60 percent of buyers defaulting on loans for equipment –a problem the organization is still trying to sort out. Many households struggle to find the upfront money to buy the more efficient cooking technology, he said.

FASTER COOKING, MORE TREES

The switch to more efficient cooking aims to cut deforestation in Kenya, and health problems related to cooking over smoky fires. Those who have bought the new systems say another attraction is that they require only about a third of the usual time to cook food or heat water – a big savings of women’s time.

Julius Magero, an official in the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum in Busia County, said that besides protecting increasingly scarce forests, the stoves also are helping women spend less time searching for fuelwood.

Lilian Nyapola, a member of Farmers with a Vision, said the new technologies – most of which cost on average $25 to $60 – have led to a decline in use of firewood and paraffin, which are costly and emit smoke.

“The uptake of solar cookers and energy saving wood stoves and thermos baskets is high,” she said. She sells around 14 clean cooking devices a month, she said – enough that now virtually all of the homes in her neighborhood now use them.

Nyapola said her 32-member organization has worked in schools, churches and homes to train community members on the new technologies, and that men have backed women switching to new cooking technology, not least because food can be cooked faster and rarely burns, and children aren’t injured in fires.

To afford the equipment buyers can access credit from Farmers With a Vision, or local microcredit agencies, Nyapola said, with loans often paid back over half a year or more.

Odhiambo said the group is in talks with M-Kopa, a money lending scheme owned by Kenya’s leading mobile telephone company, Safaricom, to allow buyers to make payments for equipment via their mobile phones.

BATTLING CLOUDY DAYS

Originally the group focused only on selling solar cookers, Odhiambo said, but after complaints about problems using them on rainy or cloudy days, or at night, members broadened their approach.

Now the group offers a range of different solar cooking boxes, parabolic reflector cookers, solar thermos systems and other devices, including clean cookstoves.

Box cookers – designed with help from the Free University of Amsterdam - trap sunlight that shines through the box’s glass top, using it to heat food placed inside. The device “can cook when the sunshine is low and when not much light is available. It retains heat and can cook for additional three hours,” Odhiambo said.

He said his organization also has partnered with EcoZoom, , a company that builds cast iron improved wood and charcoal stoves.

Daniel Maneno, an official with the national Ministry of Energy and Petroleum in Busia County, called the initiative useful, particularly as training on renewable energy technology is provided free of charge.

He said the ministry is also promoting tree planting efforts in collaboration with the Kenya Forestry Research Institute as part of a broader effort to protect trees and reduce deforestation.  WASHINGTON - Throughout the past year -- perhaps even longer -- the Obama administration and the Pentagon have made a point of showing their eagerness to cut excess fat off the defense budget. One of the primary targets of their fiscal rectitude has been funding for an alternate-engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has advocated killing the program, calling it wasteful and unnecessary. President Obama has threatened to veto it. And at various stages, lawmakers on the Hill have defied them both. In July, for example, the House defense appropriations subcommittee included $485 million in an appropriations bill to keep the engine alive.

This week, the showdown came to a dramatic pitch, but it seems likely that only one side has shown up for the fight. The omnibus spending bill, as Hill aides confirm, now being considered by Congress includes $450 million to keep the alternate-engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter -- a defiance, as has been noted, of the White House's and Pentagon's long-standing objectives.

And yet, instead of registering indignation, the Pentagon has formally endorsed the final package. On Wednesday, Gates put out a statement "strongly" urging Congress to approve the omnibus "rather than requiring that the Department of Defense operate under a year-long continuing resolution."

"To do otherwise would leave the Department without the resources and flexibility needed to meet vital military requirements," Gates said.

The Obama administration has also reportedly told Congress to pass the bill.

Asked for further clarification about the department's position on the F-35 alternate engine, a Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell replied, "Secretary Gates' position on the extra engine is well known and unchanged: the department does not need it and cannot afford it. Opposition to the extra engine and support for an omnibus spending bill need not be mutually exclusive."

A White House spokesman referred back to the Pentagon's comment.

The budget hawks were quick to pounce.

"By stuffing this wasteful project into the omnibus lawmakers are daring the President to follow through on his veto promise," said Stephen Ellis, Vice President for Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It just so shows how, too often, parochial politics trumps sound fiscal policy."

"The silence from the White House on the F-35 funding, not to mention the 6,714 other earmarks, is telling," said Mattie Corrao, Executive Director of the Center for Fiscal Accountability, an affiliate of Americans for Tax Reform. "Last year, the President decried the massive omnibus approach to funding the government. This is another example of how the Administration fails to deliver when its feet are held to the fire on fiscal responsibility."

Criticism of the F-35 funding falls, naturally, under the umbrella of both ATR and Taxpayers for Common Sense's organizational dictums. And lawmakers who support the project would contend that there is value to the spending -- jobs, after all, are created in building those engines, and it seems quite likely that both General Electric and Rolls Royce (the companies who build the engine) have noted the number of plants in the various congressional district that would benefit.

The more noteworthy and compelling criticism being leveled against the inclusion of the F-35 funding is, rather, the political one. The administration, as a prominent Democratic operative reasoned in an email to The Huffington Post, had been cornered (badly) into a awful place with regards to spending priorities.

"Next year we will be told that we have to make cuts in programs we care a great deal about, that help the people who aren't celebrating Christmas this year because they can't afford it... We will be looking at republican proposals for 2008 levels in discretionary spending, which to most of the world means cutting Pell Grants, student loans, food stamps, job training, etc. But we will be paying to protect a $450 million earmark in this year's omnibus ($3 billion over the next few years) to go to one of the world's richest corporations - oh yes, the one that it was recently disclosed got all those billions from the Fed in 2008."  OAKLAND — Making lemonade of California’s failed fight to regulate violent video games, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday celebrated a pilot education program bankrolled by the same industry that defeated the state at the U.S. Supreme Court.

California had to fork over nearly $1 million to the video game industry for attorney fees after the nation’s highest court in 2011 sided with game makers in striking down a state law banning the sale of violent games to minors. Now the Entertainment Software Association is using some of that money to teach game design to Oakland students hoping to join the lucrative field.

“We had a good litigation. They won. They got lots of money. Let’s pour it into our schools and kids and particularly kids of color and kids of low income,” Brown said Monday afternoon on a visit to the Oakland School for the Arts.

“We want to be at the forefront of the electronic world,” he said.

The two-year “Project A-Game” program is teaching Oakland and Sacramento students how to code and create their own games and learn more about how they can find a career in the growing technical arts field. The industry is contributing $150,000. The nonprofit California Endowment is contributing another $300,000 with aims to expand the program, said Kathlyn Mead, the endowment’s vice president. Local game creators such as Zynga are also lending a hand.

The initiative has its roots in a failed bill to keep children away from violent video games. It was introduced by then-Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, signed in 2005 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and defended by Brown when he was attorney general. In a 7-2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 declared it unconstitutional because it violated free speech.

Oakland young people ranging from their teens to early 20s are taking video game classes at Youth UpRising. The organization’s director, Olis Simmons, said she hopes the program will propel underserved kids into an industry that does not presently reflect the diversity of California’s population.

The classes will not likely lead directly to a job but “expose you to a whole labor market,” she said.

Speaking in front of boxing rings set up for a school play at the downtown Oakland charter school, several local students participating in the video game classes spoke with Brown about their projects.

Kordel Estep, 19, of Oakland, said he designed a game called “Kill Bears” through the program.

“I won’t ask what that’s about,” Brown said.

Contact Matt O’Brien at 510-208-6429 or follow him at Twitter.com/Mattoyeah.  Google has opened a service for European users to request deletion of their data from search engines if they consider their content irrelevant or outdated, a move that followed the ruling of the European court calling for the "right to be forgotten."

Read more on the court decision to delete Google users’ data from searches

“Certain users can ask search engines to remove results for queries that include their name where those results are inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed,” says the form on a Web page that Google opened late on Thursday for European users.

Google says that when evaluating users’ request, the company checks “whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information.” The later includes information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials.

“In implementing this decision, we will assess each individual request and attempt to balance the privacy rights of the individual with the public’s right to know and distribute information,” says the form on the website.

To remove their name, the user also needs to “provide the URL for each link appearing in a Google search for his name” and explain why this data is irrelevant or outdated. An individual must also submit a digital copy of an ID to verify that impersonators aren’t using the form.

Meanwhile, the internet giant didn’t say when exactly it would remove links that meet the criteria for being taken down, adding only that it is "working to finalize the implementation of removal requests … as soon as possible.”

The decision to allow users to have their data be erased follows the May-13 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which said they have the right to make Google delete information about them from their search results.

According to Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, there were “many open questions” after the ruling which went too far in favor of privacy at the cost of the right to know.

“A simple way of understanding what happened here is that you have a collision between a right to be forgotten and a right to know. From Google’s perspective that’s a balance,” said Schmidt. “Google believes, having looked at the decision which is binding, that the balance that was struck was wrong.”

Google is currently launching a special advisory committee of senior Google executives and independent experts to establish some guidelines around the right to be forgotten.

Among the members of the group will be Schmidt and David Drummond, the company's chief legal officer as well as Jimmy Wales, co-founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Luciano Floridi, Oxford Internet Institute ethics professor and Frank La Rue, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression.

"I'm delighted to join the international advisory committee established by Google to evaluate the ethical and legal challenges posed by the internet," Floridi said in a written statement to AFP. "It is an exciting initiative which will probably require some hard and rather philosophical thinking."

After the ruling, googling the same person in Europe and in other non –European other countries will differ as the internet giant will only delete the data of the users from 32 European countries (28 countries in the EU + Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland).

The new Google service indicates Europe’s raising concern about the censorship affecting everything from elections to the safety of children. Some critics say that the information about pedophiles’ convictions may also be deleted.

According to Larry Page, the Google chief executive officer, the “right to be forgotten” ruling against Google in Europe may damage the next generation of internet start-ups and strengthen the hand of repressive governments, which want to limit online communications.

“…As a whole, as we regulate the internet, I think we’re not going to see the kind of innovation we’ve seen,” he added in an interview to Financial Times.

However, advocates of the court decision say that the ruling will help people to delete data about youthful indiscretions, financial mistakes and arrests that never resulted in convictions.  Hostesd by Marti Oakley

Tamir Sukkary joins me this evening to discuss his experience in the family court system. False allegations were only the beginning. We will be discussing the trial Tamir endured and what it cost him both emotionally and financially, and most importantly the impact it has had on his relationship with his two young daughters.

Tamir was faced with a controversial family court commissioner with a history of judicial misconduct. His attempts to get justice and judicial accountability only highlighted the lack of transparency and accountability in this system and the secrecy under which this system operates.

Also, we will be discussing possible changes and reforms in family law and how access to justice adversely affects low and middle income Americans.

Mr. Tamir Sukkary, M.A.

Adjunct Professor of Political Science

American River College, Sacramento City College, San Joaquin Delta College, and Sierra College

http://www.gofundme.com/justicematters  WHO made these remarks in a recent speech? “Inclusive capitalism is fundamentally about delivering a basic social contract comprised of relative equality of outcomes.” Or: “Capitalism loses its sense of moderation when the belief in the power of the market enters the realm of faith.” Or this: “Market fundamentalism…contributed directly to the financial crisis and the associated erosion of social capital.” Was it François Hollande? Ed Miliband? Thomas Piketty?

No, all these leftish-sounding quotes came from Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, at a conference* on inclusive capitalism on May 27th. Nor did Mr Carney’s apparent heresy stop there. He also remarked that banks operated “in a privileged heads-I-win-tails-you-lose bubble” and observed that “there was widespread rigging of benchmarks for personal gain.” And he implicitly backed Michael Lewis’s criticisms of high-frequency trading (in his book “Flash Boys”), stating that equity markets blatantly favoured “the technologically empowered over the retail investor”.

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In some respects Mr Carney is repeating the iconoclasm of his predecessor, Sir Mervyn King, who was also sceptical about some of the finance sector’s practices. Given that central banks act as prudential regulators, their governors should have a detached attitude towards the finance industry. They should definitely not act as cheerleaders for the banks.

Back in 2008, central bankers realised that the finance sector bore a significant proportion of the blame for the economic crisis. But despite that, they felt they had no choice but to bail out the banks, in order to avoid an even greater economic calamity. As Mr Carney’s tone shows, they are not that happy about it.

A similar sense of frustration helps explain some of Mr Carney’s other remarks. Central banks have played their part in redistributing wealth, most obviously through lower interest rates which penalise savers and reward borrowers. In addition, quantitative easing (the creation of money to buy assets) pushed up asset prices and thus benefits the rich more than the poor. By so doing, it may have contributed to a recent rise in inequality, which Mr Piketty has highlighted (see Free exchange, page 74) and Mr Carney laments.

But Mr Carney’s defence is that the central banks had no choice. Without monetary stimulus, the recession would have been deeper. Many more young people would have been unemployed, something that would have affected their earning power for the rest of their lives. By itself, that would have exacerbated inequality.

In the longer run, Mr Carney’s argument is that regulatory reforms—planned or already put in place—will serve to balance free-market capitalism with the needs of society. “A sense of self must be accompanied by a sense of the systemic”, was his pithy phrase. First, the authorities have attempted to eliminate the problem of banks that are “too big to fail” by introducing resolution plans that impose losses on the private sector. However, work on dealing with cross-border institutions needs to be completed later this year.

Pay has also been reformed, with bankers receiving bonuses in the form of deferred compensation which can be withdrawn if profits turned out to be illusory, or if evidence of misconduct emerges. Here, Mr Carney might also have mentioned the requirement for banks to hold more capital. In the long run, by reducing the return on equity of the banking system, these rules seem likely to reduce bonuses; they have also caused banks to cast a more sceptical eye on some of their operations, as shown by Barclays’ retreat from some areas of investment banking.

His other points, alas, display a degree of woolly optimism. He hopes that the boards and senior management of banks will promote “a culture of ethical business” throughout their organisations, while individual employees “must recognise that their actions do not merely affect their personal rewards, but also the legitimacy of the system in which they operate.” Good luck with that.

Though financiers may choke on their champagne at Mr Carney’s remarks, he is surely right to say that “financial capitalism is not an end in itself, but a means to promote investment, innovation, growth and prosperity.” Where it does not, regulators like Mr Carney should be more willing to step in than they have been in the past; not after a crash has occurred, but while the boom is in full swing.  Rising up from closing down: Surviving and thriving after a store shuts its doors

Updated

When you've found a gem of a local business in your neighbourhood — be it a funky clothing boutique, a bookstore, or a hand-crafted furniture studio — it can be pretty devastating to see them close down.

Think of that one shop where you'd always find something original and distinctive, and where you felt good knowing your hard-earned cash was supporting someone in your community and contributing to the overall energy, look and feel of your suburb.

But then it closed, replaced with a chain store or perhaps staying vacant for months. Your go-to shop was gone and your suburb seemed poorer for it.

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, nearly half of all retail businesses open in June 2012 had closed by June 2016. So how do you shop local if your local shop shuts down?

For some small business owners, going 100 per cent online is a way to sidestep rising costs and stay alive.

Chris Smalley opened jewellery design shop Etelage on King Street, a popular shopping strip in Sydney's inner-west, in 2005.

"The traditional bricks-and-mortar store worked really well for us because the product that we sell is such a touchy-feely product," Ms Smalley said.

The shop sold beads and hosted workshops where customers learned to make their own accessories. But the killer location came at a cost.

"People die when I tell them how much I spent on rents over the years. You do pay a premium to be in a destination strip shopping kind of area. I've spent well in excess of $1 million in the time I've been in business," Ms Smalley said.

Ms Smalley shut the shop three years ago.

"Our profits were going down quite significantly for a few years, but what I did notice in the year before we decided to close was that our online sales had trebled," she said.

Those sorts of crippling rents and expensive overheads also convinced custom footwear maker Shoes of Prey to launch its business solely online eight years ago.

The website prompts customers to choose the design and material for their shoes, which are then manufactured and delivered within two weeks.

Within two years, the business was earning millions of dollars.

Shoes of Prey opened a concept store within David Jones in Sydney in 2013, then expanded into the upmarket US retailer Nordstrom in 2014.

But late last year, co-founder Jodie Fox decided to close the bricks-and-mortar stores and return Shoes of Prey to its online roots, recognising e-commerce is the company's best opportunity for global growth.

"Less and less and less do we ever hear these days 'I want to know what it looks like in real life', which was one of the key insights that drew us into opening a store," Ms Fox said.

"So that's a big indication for me that there is definitely a level of comfort now around shopping online that wasn't there before."

Ms Fox said the lessons learned were invaluable. All Shoes of Prey staff would do shifts in the bricks-and-mortar Sydney store to learn first-hand from real customers.

"All of a sudden [an] engineer is standing in front of someone who's been clicking around on the site, and they're hearing them explain what they need and helping them to find it. The education that we got from it was extraordinary," she said.

That personal interaction with customers is what Ms Smalley misses most about her Newtown store, but she said she had found other ways to connect with people.

"We hold pop-up events, we still have workshops and we have 'meet the maker' nights where we hold events in the stores of the stockists of our jewellery," she said.

"We've also had workshops in gallery spaces, and people love that because there's something very intimate and special about being with the designer and learning from them, as they're creating their art in a gallery."

Ms Smalley said that in order to survive, many businesses just needed to acknowledge that times and habits were changing.

"I think more and more people are choosing to spend their money online and my observation is now we kind of stay home and shop and we go out and eat, which when I grew up it was the complete opposite," she said.

"Once you've had … a great online experience, I think you're quickly converted to 'well it's easy, I'm time-poor', it just makes sense to the average consumer today."

And for a business owner struggling to stay afloat, Ms Fox had some advice:

"Sometimes you just have to decide which corner you're going to stand in and really put your bet on."

Even if the corner you choose is no longer a corner store.

Topics: retail, small-business, community-and-society, australia, sydney-2000

First post  This has got to be a test. It can’t possibly be anything else. The way this president and government overall is blowing it so royally on an everyday basis staggers the human mind, or at least the ones that are working properly.

I suppose in a pinch we could look at it as a comedy cocktail that would be produced if Lenny Bruce, Sam Kinison, Richard Pryor, Rod Serling, Alfred Hitchcock and Alfred E. Neuman all got together to see how much horror the American people could stomach before we stopped laughing. This Twilight Zone Psycho definitely Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest one too many times.

I’m done laughing.

With the tsunami of bizarre, truly insane moves by this president and his clear and present dangerous America haters surrounding him and writing his speeches, more and more caring, thinking, “we the people” Americans are waking up from their apathetic slumber every day, rising up, re-engaging this sacred experiment in self-government, demanding accountability and adherence to the U.S. Constitution – and making clear that we will not put up with much more of this nonsense.

The GOP suckerpunch in November is a powerful sign to this end, I hope.

Our hearts are broken by the constant abandonment of common sense and the blatant runaway criminal violations by Barack Obama. Everybody knows the list of outrages, but tragically, his blind sheepy followers continue to deny, lie, obfuscate and scam themselves.

Fortunately for the rest of us, our spirits are not broken, and I see renewed vigor and strength from good people everywhere I go. If we can halt or at least slow down this engineered ruination of America by these goons, there is hope that we can return to the common sense, goodwill, decency and rule of law that made America the last best place on earth.

Constantly catching our breath following one blow to the guts after another has become the new American mantra, but nothing could have prepared us for the president’s recent appointment of what may very well be the worst racist in the world today – his Reverend Al “not so” Sharpton.

Are you kidding me? This guy as some kind of race relations czar? Seriously?

And Al Gore is the expert on global warming, Michael “make stuff up as you go along” Moore will film the documentary, and I will edit the Lawrence Welk box set as soon as I hone up on my harpsichord jams.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Only to these off the cliff denial cultists does “Hands up, don’t shoot” make any sense, even though no one can site an instance where a black man had his hands up and got shot by a white cop.

In the world of the racist race-baiting industry, no one will ever let facts get in the way of their scam.

Of course, based on glaring crime statistics we are all painfully aware of, just since the few moments ago as I began to write this little ditty, I am bewildered yet confident that a black life ended at the hands of another black man on the not so mean streets of Chicago. It’s a way of life.

Experience more of Ted Nugent’s no-holds-barred passion and patriotism in his books and WND’s “Ted Nugent for President!” bumper sticker

And though each and every black life indeed matters to everyone I know, clearly they don’t merit a protest, an inquisition, a grand jury probe or the time of day for his “not so” Sharptonness.

Barak Obama’s cultists/sheep have cited ad nauseum how brilliant the man is. And on some considerations, they are correct. He is smart enough to know which buttons to push to continue his Saul Alinsky and Cloward-Piven destructo march of America into the pits of hell – or at the very least, something far removed from the original concept of America.

This man and his minions know no bounds on how to destroy America.

I thought the whole world already knew that the redistribution of earnings is social/cultural suicide.

I thought for sure everybody knew a dismantled, weak military was an invitation to our enemies to have at it.

I know for a fact that race relations in America in 2008 were the best they had been in 50 years.

I also know for a fact that race relations in America in 2014 are the worst they have been in my lifetime.

Blacks kill and maim more blacks in any given month that the Klan has in the last 25 years. God help us all.

Brainwashed dependency is the worse curse man can cause to another man.

Creating a world where rewards and luxury are provided instead of earned is spiritual murder.

Providing excuses for rioting, looting, vandalism and crime is as bad as the rioting, looting, vandalism and crime themselves.

You can’t possibly expect anyone to believe you are out to help the middle class when you remove a country’s borders, rewarding illegal invaders to come and take millions of jobs at non-competitive wages.

What kind of idiot believes no security at Benghazi was adequate security?

Show me a human that stands upright who sees the IRS crimes as indicative of “the most transparent administration ever.”

What does accountability for Brian Terry’s death look like?

I dare you to explain with a straight face how the Allahu Akbar terrorist attack at Fort Hood was “workplace violence.”

Who doesn’t know that siding with Al Sharpton is the worse message anyone could possibly send to society, any society, black, white or other?

Media wishing to interview Ted Nugent, please contact [email protected].

  Can we get any details on the types of systems the PoE pen & paper RPG will feature? I'm excited to run a game for my friends and already brainstorming ideas.

Sure. My goals with the system are to create something that captures the the spirit of the setting and is a more flexible and simulative than something like D&D. Because I know some people will complain about this, let me restate something I earnestly believe:

It is within the power of any DM out there to run an A/D&D game in Eora with minimal work.

If you want to play A/D&D in the setting of Pillars of Eternity, you don’t have do a whole lot to the core mechanics of most editions to make that viable and fun for your group. So, personally, I’m not interested in making an A/D&D adaptation of the PoE ruleset. Instead, I’m going to make something I think combines a lot of gameplay elements I think are cool and fit the world well.

The game will use standard RPG/AD&D dice. All of them. If you buy a standard set of RPG dice at any ol’ RPG shop, you have what you’ll need: d4, d6, d8, d10/100, d12, d20. Most checks will use 2d10 and add modifiers.

One of the first things I decided about the TTRPG is that groups should decide on a cause. The cause is the common rallying point for the campaign’s players. It may be a home, a person (a superior, wealthy patron, the young heir to a noble house, etc.), a society, or an accomplishment. The group defines the cause so their characters and stories can have focus.

Backgrounds are a large part of character creation: defining the character’s childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and beyond. Backgrounds form the foundational narrative elements and stats that you build up over time. Backgrounds will not be quite as wild and varied as in Burning Wheel, but I’m taking inspiration from both Burning Wheel and Darklands for them.

The system is classless and puts a heavy emphasis on a wide variety of skills, from Astronomy and Glazing to Intrigue and Quarterstaff. Skill tests can be obstacle-based, versus, investigative, or seasonal. Obstacle and versus tests are pretty familiar to most people who have played RPGs and focus on static challenges and actively opposed checks. These tests can typically benefit from assistance, which comes in the form of d4s or d6s handed to the player by the assistant (similar to Burning Wheel).

Investigative tests give clues and information to the character with the highest relevant test. It’s most useful for mystery scenarios where the focus is not on whether or not you find a clue (often resulting in dead ends in a lot of RPGs), but how you reason out the significance of the clues you find. Most of the inspiration from this comes from the Gumshoe series.

Seasonal tests are for downtime activity like research and practice. If you’ve played through Pendragon or Torchbearer’s Winter Phase or Ars Magica’s seasonal activities, that’s what this is like. Characters are intended to grow and change with time, both in personality and mechanically, so downtime is a big element of how a character develops.

Advancement happens primarily through experience that characters earn through either adventure sessions or downtime sessions. Adventure experience is spent directly on skills that were used during the session and downtime experience is earned through seasonal activities (reading books, training, studying a magical phenomenon, communing with an adra pillar, etc.). Most of these mechanics come from Ars Magica.

Abilities, powers, spells, etc. in the book form the foundation of special tools the players have at their disposal, but I want each power source to have its own guidelines for improvisation, experimentation, and long-term breakthroughs. All of this heavily inspired by Ars Magica.

I’m still thinking through the combat mechanics. In a TTRPG, combat pacing is a serious concern, so I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons of various approaches. The math involved will be addition, subtraction, halving/rounding, and doubling. There won’t be Pillars CRPG-style percentages to deal with. Damage is less likely to be about wearing down hit point pools, more about fatigue and discrete wounds that wear characters down.

Well, that’s what I have so far, which is insane and way out of scope, but there you have it.  Controversial manager Steve Evans could face further sanctions as the fall-out from City’s explosive Valley Parade clash with Crawley continues two months on.

Both clubs were hit with Football Association fines for failing to control their players in the March game after five were sent off following a post-match brawl.

Now Evans, who quit Crawley a fortnight later to become Rotherham boss, is set to be investigated for alleged indecent behaviour in front of a female City official.

The Telegraph & Argus understands the alleged incident took place outside the dressing-room area. It happened after referee Iain Williamson had gone in to see both teams and show the red card to the players involved in the melee, including City trio Jon McLaughlin, Andrew Davies and Luke Oliver.

It is also believed that there were other employees from the club nearby who would have seen it take place.

City contacted the Football League, who have since passed on the details to the FA. They are waiting to find out if the matter will be taken further.

Director Roger Owen said: “The football club can confirm that a complaint has been made to the appropriate authorities following an incident at Valley Parade after the game with Crawley Town on March 27.

“We understand that the authorities will determine what action, if any, they are going to take.

“The matter is now out of the hands of Bradford City and we have no further comment to make.” Should the FA decide to take action, Evans could be left facing an uncertain future.

The 49-year-old Glaswegian has a chequered past in the game and was suspended for 20 months in 2003 following an investigation into alleged irregularities in player contracts when he was manager of Boston United.

Then in 2006 he was handed a 12-month suspended jail sentence after admitting tax evasion. Evans has also been fined by the FA because of his behaviour at games.

He took Crawley into the Football League and then steered them towards immediate promotion. But despite his success, Evans was not thought to be a popular character at the club.

A video was released on Youtube shortly after he had left for Rotherham showing a group of players, led by former Bantams winger Scott Neilson, doing a celebration dance.

Several at City pointed the finger at Evans’ touchline antics at Valley Parade for stirring up the situation which led to the fracas in the centre circle.

City were later fined £9,000 by an FA disciplinary panel at Wembley while Crawley’s punishment was doubled because it was their second offence in the space of 12 months.

When contacted yesterday, Crawley said they would not be making any comment. The FA confirmed they are aware of the incident and are looking into it.

Rotherham have also declined to say anything.  Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

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The battle over Sofia Vergara’s embryos took an extraordinary turn Tuesday — when a right-to-live lawsuit was filed on behalf of the fertilized eggs against their mom.

The female embryos are listed as plaintiffs “Emma’’ and “Isabella” in Louisiana court papers, which come amid Vergara’s knock-down, drag-out legal battle with former fiancé Nick Loeb, sources told The Post.

Loeb had already sued the “Modern Family” star in California for custody of the embryos, which the couple ­created when they were still together in 2013.

The potentially landmark new case in Louisiana — a traditionally pro-life state that offers special legal protections for frozen embryos — also lists the embryos’ “trustee,’’ James Charbonnet, as a plaintiff, sources said.

The lawsuit contends that Emma and Isabella, by not being born, have been deprived of an inheritance from a trust that has been ­created for them in Louisiana, ­according to sources.

It asks that the frozen embryos be given to Loeb so that they can live and receive the trust set up for them, which would fund, among other things, their health care and education, the sources said.

The suit accuses Vergara of refusing “to allow her daughters Emma and Isabella to continue their development, so they remain frozen in a tank,’’ sources said.

It also contends that a contract that Vergara and Loeb previously signed at the ART Reproductive Center in Beverly Hills should be voided since it violated California code and Louisiana law, according to sources.

The contract said neither party could use the embryos without the consent of the other. But the lawsuit argues that it didn’t say what should happen if Loeb and Vergara were to split.

Vergara also bullied Loeb into signing one part of the agreement saying that if either or both of them died, the embryos were to be “thawed with no further action taken,’’ according to sources, citing the suit.

Loeb, a 41-year-old businessman, spends his time between New York and Florida but has ties to Louisiana. He graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans and still serves as a reserve police officer in the state, ­according to sources.

In 2013, the then-happy couple first turned to in vitro fertilization to have a child of their own.

The new court filing says that on March 4, 2013, Loeb and Vergara exchanged messages about the embryos after learning they had created five, sources said.

“You can’t keep 4 frozen lives forever or kill them, we will go to hell,” Loeb wrote to her, sources said.

“We r going to hell regardless,” Vergara responded, according to sources. During the same conversation, the actress told him, “I’m doing it ­because I want you to have a baby,” sources said, citing the lawsuit.

Two rounds of IVF failed, and they created two more embryos later that year.

But then Loeb and Vergara split on May 13, 2014, while he was at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, sources said.

After they broke up, Loeb sent texts to Vergara — including one that said, “We still have those 2 frozen babys,’’ sources said.

The new court papers insist that Vergara was adamant during her relationship with Loeb that, as a Catholic, she believed the embryos should never be destroyed — and she has since broken their oral agreement, according to sources.

Vergara’s refusal to allow the eggs to be implanted in a surrogate has left them “in suspended animation,’’ the suit says, according to sources.

Loeb filed to protect the embryos in California just a few months after they split.

But the court documents say he dropped that lawsuit Tuesday, after a California judge ruled in favor of Vergara, 44, in her quest to force Loeb to identify two previous lovers who underwent abortions after he ­impregnated them, according to sources.

He had appealed the decision but was turned down by an appellate court.

Loeb previously told Page Six, “I would rather go to jail than reveal the names.

The new lawsuit says Loeb should have full custody over the embryos and “authority to release them for transfer, continued development, and birth,” the sources said.

It also insists that the actress should pay for any of the fees Loeb has incurred to keep Emma and ­Isabella frozen, sources said.

Vergara — who last year married “Magic Mike” actor Joe Manganiello, 39 — has previously said children should be the product of a loving relationship. She has a son from another relationship.

Her lawyer, Fred Silberberg, has said the actress wants to keep the embryos “frozen indefinitely.”

“I wouldn’t want to bring kids to the world where it’s already set against them,” ­Vergara has explained.

The actress has said the contract that both she and Loeb signed should be the end of the story.

In an April 2015 Op-Ed in The New York Times, Loeb outlined why he wants to protect the embryos.

“A woman is entitled to bring a pregnancy to term even if the man objects,” Loeb wrote. “Shouldn’t a man who is willing to take on all parental responsibilities be similarly entitled to bring his embryos to term even if the woman objects?”

Vergara’s rep couldn’t immediately be reached. Loeb didn’t respond to a request for comment.  Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has married his girlfriend Sally Humphreys. The couple have been together for six months and have an age gap of 31 years between them with Wood is 65 to Humphreys’ 34.

Sky News (UK) says that the rocker tied the knot with theatre producer Humphreys in a penthouse at London’s Dorchester Hotel yesterday (December 21) in a low-key civil ceremony, with Rod Stewart serving as best man.

The bride wore her mother’s simple wedding dress. For the groom, the only nod to his wild side was his bright pink socks.

Sally looked every inch the blushing bride as she arrived at her wedding reception at The Dorchester on Friday in a traditional white gown with new husband Ronnie grinning in his navy suit clutching a packet of cigarettes.

The bride accessorised her three-quarter length sleeved off-white dress with a ruby red heart necklace and bright lipstick.

Her layered taffeta gown complimented her slim figure while Ronnie looked dapper in his tailored suit with checked detail.

The low-key ceremony was attended by close family and friends and in a secret location.

According to the Daily Mirror newspaper, the couple was spotted leaving the ceremony looking blissfully happy together.

Previously, Humphreys revealed that Wood had proposed after asking her father’s permission at the premiere of the Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane. “There’s no problem with the age difference,” she had said. “I can understand why people would have a problem with it but it doesn’t seem to cause any problems. We get on very well.”

“He’s very funny and very talented,” she added. “There’s the Ronnie that everyone thinks that they know and the very talented artist and musician.”

Ronnie Wood first married in 1971 to Krissy Findlay before splitting in 1978. The guitarist then remarried in 1985 to Jo Wood from whom he separated in 2008 after an alleged affair with 21-year-old Ekaterina Ivanova. Previously, it was reported that Wood’s Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards had said he was “sick” of buying the guitarist wedding gifts.

~ Pictures from Google

Tags: marri  The Scottish Co-operative Party is delighted that our nominee for Scottish Labour Party leader, Richard Leonard MSP, was successful. Richard is a long-standing member of the Co-operative Party and we look forward to working with him in the years ahead.

In his time in the Scottish Parliament Richard has been at the forefront of arguing for a more democratic economy. Richard supports massively expanding the co-operative sector and he is looking to expand the role of Co-operative Development Scotland to achieve that. He has led debates in the Scottish Parliament on that very topic.

Richard has committed to promoting a Scottish version of the Marcora Law from Italy which gives workers first refusal to buy their company when it is put up for sale or facing closure

Richard is also campaigning for ‘Mary Barbour Law’ to fix the broken private rented system in housing. He is looking to our history to find ways of applying the radicalism that took Mary Barbour from the Co-operative Women’s Guild to running a rent strike in Glasgow during the First World War to being one of the first women elected to Glasgow’s City Chambers and finding ways of applying that radicalism to twenty-first century problems.

Richard is a proud co-operator and the Scottish Co-operative Party will be looking to work with him to deliver a more co-operative and a more democratic economy for Scotland.  In the early days of Netflix, Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, wanted Patty McCord to help write out the company’s core values. At first, they considered something standard — words like “excellence” and “respect.” Instead, McCord suggested they “write down the things we expect in people.” This simple idea led to an infamous document and philosophy now known as, “Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility.” Sheryl Sandberg even called it “the most important document ever to come out of the Valley.” It’s a living set of “behaviors and skills” that the Netflix management team updated continuously and fastidiously. And it drives toward a single point: a company is like a pro sports team, where good managers are good coaches, and the goal is to field stars in every position.

This is how McCord runs things, with a built-in expectation of high performance, radical honesty, and the motto ‘we’re not family.’ As she explains in her First Round Capital CEO Summit talk, maintaining a “high performance” team is all about instilling people with a sense of both freedom and responsibility. But when you do, you might also need to have some tough conversations.

Saying Goodbye

There’s no tougher conversation than one that begins with “You’re fired.” Especially if the person on the other side of the table is one of that core, band-of-brothers team you started out with. In 2001, the dot-com bust pulled the rug out from under Netflix, dashing IPO dreams and forcing McCord to axe one third of the only 120 people on staff. It was brutal.

"I said goodbye to everyone who wasn’t a classically trained engineer and anyone who wanted to do anything other than DVD by mail at that point," says McCord.

I said goodbye to the whiners and the babies and the people who didn’t believe. If they didn’t believe then we had no chance at all.

But this isn’t the only type of situation that calls for rethinking your team. In fact, that should be a constant process that occurs throughout a startup’s growth.

When it comes to who should stay and who should go, McCord says founders should start by projecting six months into the future. What do you want to have happen with your business in six months? What do you want to be doing in six months that you aren’t doing now? When you think about the skills and talents you’ll need to reach these goals, it’s likely that “you’ll see the delta,” McCord says. In other words, you’ll see the people who don’t have what it takes to get you to where you want to be.

The good news is, letting these people go doesn’t have to be a tragic drama. In fact, McCord says, the people in this “delta zone” usually know it before you do, and haven’t been happy at the company for a while.

McCord advises a constant, six-month, optimistic projection. What could you be doing then that you’re not doing now? “If things are going to be amazing in six months, what does that look like? Who’s talking to who in what meetings? Is everyone excited? Is this person standing up and winning and is that person writing an algorithm that no one else could have put together?” You have to look at the kind of skills and experience it would take for someone to accomplish what you set out to do, and compare that to who you’ve got. “You’ll see the delta,” McCord says. You’ll see that delta person who hasn’t caught up in the last six months and is unlikely to accelerate in the next six.

“The thing to know is this person probably isn’t very happy, and unhappy employees act like it,” says McCord. “You can ask them what’s on your mind? What’s bugging you? And they’ll say, ‘I don’t think people realize how talented I am.’ And the answer is, well yeah, we haven’t realized it because you’re late to everything, and everything you said was going to happen didn’t.” This is where some managers can get sentimental, handing out extra chances, but the basic premise remains that people do work and their companies pay them for it. Leniency shouldn’t be the go-to.

Humans hate two things: being lied to and being spun.

Both are manifested in the popularization of ‘performance improvement plans,’ an HR tool for blocking lawsuits and documenting bad behavior, not actually raising work standards. In McCord’s opinion, too many managers offer performance improvement plans to employees who they know will fail — either because they think it’s the law or they simply don’t want to be mean.

“I tell an employee I’m going to put you on a performance improvement plan, but the truth is they don’t actually know how to do what I need someone in their job to do,” says McCord. “I did my six months out thing and realized she wasn’t qualified, and I put her on a plan even though it’s not an issue of performance, it’s an issue of skillset.” The manager in this situation continues to meet with the employee every Thursday to tell her how bad she is. She cries and feels terrible about herself, and the manager wastes time and energy feeling bad about it too. When the employee is finally fired with no useful feedback, she leaves with a burning resentment, feeling deceived that she ever had a shot.

Here’s how it could have gone down, in McCord’s words: “Instead, I could have told the employee, ‘here’s what I’m going to need six months from now, and here’s the talent and skills I’ll need.’ Then you tell her, ‘It’s not you. I don’t want you to fail. I don’t want to publicly humiliate you.’” With that out in the open, a good manager can offer something generous: 60 to 90 days pay to find a new job, a glowing reference, and hearty thanks for making everything up to that point possible. “She may not like it,” McCord says. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than the other way. People can take it if it’s the truth.”

The Compensation Dance

Startups have three forms of compensation at their disposal: title, equity, pay — a lot to juggle when you’re growing fast. To manage this, McCord suggests leaders bank one of them. “I suggest you bank early on title, because you’ll be wrong. If you have a company of 15 and you make six of them VPs with a director reporting to each, trust me, those will not be your six VPs at 300 people.”

Success will always mean more people, but not everyone will scale with company, and a lot of people will end up with ill-fitting titles. When this happens, offering them more food and beer and simply working harder won’t do the trick. This is why McCord’s made Netflix as flat as possible — every engineer was a senior software engineer.

Not that this didn’t ruffle some feathers. McCord recalls a conversation with a Microsoft engineer turned Netflix candidate. He had worked his way up through his department’s ranks and had the puffed-up title to match. Contemplating the move, one of his top questions was how could he go from being a grandmaster level engineer to a simple senior software engineer? When he moved on, what would the next company think of the step down?

McCord handles these talks with a just-the-facts attitude. “I say, ‘Well if you come to Netflix, we’re going to pay you $350,000 a year to work on something no one else on the planet has ever done. And should you accomplish that, when you go on to your next company and they ask you why you went from this title to that one, you say because they paid me $350,000 a year and I got to accomplish all of this. They’ll get it.”

With title out of the way, that leaves salary and equity. McCord advises, “Spend that equity. You’re hiring risk takers, and that’s often the way to tell if someone is willing to do that.” In the same way, a lack of performance bonuses qualifies who should be there and who shouldn’t. Not only are they difficult to manage in a rapidly changing startup environment — you never know what you’ll be able to budget — it’s never a good idea to shell out early promises.

“I don’t do bonuses because they’re too hard to tag and to be realistic. If you try to do it, there’ll be that one geek on the team who makes a complicated process up to figure out why and how we give bonuses,” says McCord. “But didn’t I say we have a high performance culture? Do we need to incent people to perform? If you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t make a bonus, then we don’t want you. The performance bonus is you’re employed or not.”

General pay talks are also contentious in one way or another, but McCord has a formula to guide her decision making:

If an employee leaves, how much will it cost to replace them?

If an employee says they are leaving, would you beg them to stay?

What would people somewhere else pay them?

In the end, the answers to these three questions can be used in everything from salary negotiations to raise requests. Asking how hard you would fight to keep someone may even determine whether they’re worth paying at all.

‘We’re Broke’

All this tough love isn’t just one-sided though — something McCord knows only too well. Rewinding to the early millennium, when Netflix had just let 30% of its staff go, there was no way the leadership could have predicted a turnaround within the year. Digital media was still in its infancy, DVD players remained expensive, and 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax scare had made opening the mail especially unappealing. The company’s foundation was cracking, and McCord came close to missing payroll. “We were on borrowed money and time was running out,” she says.

What followed was a series of tough conversations — with the employees who were let go, with investors who ended up kicking in a last round of funding and, most importantly, with the employees who remained with no certain futures and a winnowing set of perks.

“The thing is, when we were broke, everyone knew it. And when we got small after the layoff, we had a meeting every week in the parking lot. We called it the metrics meeting, and we’d hand out a piece of paper with nine charts showing exactly how much money we had in the bank, how many customers we had, you know like a basic P&L,” shares McCord. “We taught everyone the fundamentals. They could see payroll versus revenue.”

It was all about setting the right context, rather than controlling people’s actions. Making objectives, metrics and roles clear will always yield better results than top-down micro-management and decision by committee. When a project or employee fails, your first question should be, “Where did the context fail?” High performance people will do better work if they understand the context and are turned loose to work within it. In the early 2000s, Netflix’s context was simply, “we’re broke,” and everyone acted accordingly.

Of course, this strategy can have its downsides. People panic easily over numbers, but McCord holds that the right people will stick with you, especially if you’re straight with them about the situation. How to find these people? “Ask them in the interview, what’s the riskiest thing they’ve ever done? What’s the scariest thing they’ve ever done? Ask them personally and you’ll get a better answer.”

Freedom & Responsibility

Trusting employees to make the best decisions for themselves and the company is a huge part of building a great team. This means you have to give them the rope to be creative and work on their own terms. But you also need to make sure everyone has a built-in commitment to your company’s success above all.

A prime example of this dichotomy is Netflix’s vacation policy. That’s to say, it’s lack of one. The fact that the company lets employees decide when and how much vacation to take has gotten a lot of news coverage and is now commonplace in Silicon Valley, but when McCord proposed the idea, it was groundbreaking. “You rely on everybody to understand the rhythms of how they work, not just with their manager but with all of their co-workers, and make sure everything gets covered.” When asked if employees exploit the policy’s absence, McCord shakes her head. “If you want to take six months off, then you actually want to quit."

Sometimes you just have to use your reptile brain. If something sounds stupid, it is stupid.

The same goes for Netflix’s non-existent travel policy. There’s no documentation outlining sanctioned hotels, or corporate rates, or appropriate per diems. Traveling employees are trusted to use common sense. “You can ask for adult behavior from almost everybody, really,” McCord says. “You just have to call them on it.” Employees should know that their traveling expenses end up on the company’s tab and that it’s money is their money. Those who want the best for the whole will be more prudent.

When it comes to these decisions, McCord says it all boils down to belief — how much do people believe in the business. That’s how invested they will be in its success.

“Here’s what you want in your first 100 employees: the best talent you can afford, who work hard and believe,” she says. “The belief part can actually outdo the other two. It’s more than passion. Passion is such an interpretive statement. People need to believe.”  Sometimes you’re going to miss one of your goals, overeat, not have time for an exercise session, or otherwise screw up. Once you hit one of these failures to your fitness routine you may as well just give up, right? Cry yourself to sleep, shake your fist at the sky, and lose any hope of ever being in good shape. It’s over.

Or…

You could just shrug it off, go for a walk, and eat better next time. Everyone has a favorite unhealthy food – their own personal kryptonite. For me, it’s hamburgers, beer, Chinese food, pizza, and other savory, often fried, things. My wife is really into noodles. You may have a sweet tooth for ice cream, or like salty snacks like potato chips and pretzels. Maybe it’s all of the above. Whatever your vice, let’s say you ate some of it and now you’re feeling bad about yourself.

Embrace the Process

When you eat too many calories at a single meal, you’re not failing at the process. Occasional slipping is part of the process. So don’t despair and think of it as a setback or problem. You’re not on a diet, you’re making better choices for the rest of your life. Depriving yourself of any enjoyment of food is only going to last so long. Rather than eliminate everything you enjoy eating, you just want to cut back on the unhealthy things. Then eat them sometimes. It’s okay.

How well you’ll fare with your healthier lifestyle in the long-term is largely dependent on how you handle failure in the short-term. The good news is that unlike most things in this world, how you think and feel about things is entirely within your own power (although it doesn’t always feel that way). Seriously, you’re in complete control of your own attitude. So you can either choose to despair and gain weight again or shrug it off, do the right thing most of the time, and succeed. You fall down. You get up. And so it goes.

Bruce Wayne: I wanted to save Gotham. I’ve failed.

Alfred: Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.

Bruce: You still haven’t given up on me?

Alfred: Never. – Batman Begins

Hair of the Dog

So, you had a few drinks, appetizers, dinner, and dessert out with friends last night and now it’s the sober light of day and you’re beating yourself up about it. You’ve totally blown it, right?

Maybe not totally. While your body is still processing all of those extra calories you can force it to burn those first by exercising the next morning. So don’t wallow in guilt, get out there and walk, run, or lift heavy things. That extra energy hasn’t yet been stored as fat, so you can burn it off by exercising your muscles which will consume those calories rather than make you fatter.

Even if it’s too late, it’s never really too late. Just eat better next time. One meal’s not going to hurt you. The worst part about restaurant food is all of the salt anyway, so give yourself a day or two to recover from the excess sodium that makes your body retain fluid.

Finding Inspiration

My wife and I went to the Chicago Botanic Garden on Saturday to walk around, look at flowers, and take pictures on a gorgeous Chicago summer day (sunny, clear, a little breezy, low 70s). As we were exiting the vegetable garden I saw a giant pumpkin and remembered having my picture taken with it the last time I was at the Botanic Garden back in April 2007. I remember being shocked and ashamed to discover just how fat I’d gotten when I first saw the photo.

Here’s that photo from 2007 and another one that was taken on Saturday. Sure, that was five years ago, and I actually gained more weight between April 2007 and when I started my Clean Livin’ in June 2008, but I’m still probably over 150 pounds lighter now than I was when that first photo was taken.

It’s helpful to consider how far you’ve come whenever you slip a little. One meal isn’t the end of the world, and you can usually make it up or at least try harder later. Give yourself a pass now and again so you don’t have to feel like a failure.

Like this: Like Loading...  FAIRFAX, Calif. -- Three people have been arrested in the killing of a California yoga teacher who was shot on a trail in what appeared to be a random crime while walking his dog, authorities said Wednesday.

CBS San Francisco reported the two men and one woman were arrested at 2:15 Wednesday afternoon outside a community dining hall in Portland, Oregon. Marin County sheriff's Capt. Dave Augustus described the three people taken into custody as drifters and said a motive was unknown.

The body of Steve Carter, 67, was found Monday in Marin County, where he was living and caring for his cancer-stricken wife Lokita Carter.

The three unidentified suspects were in the Carters' car, a Volkswagon Jetta wagon, when they were arrested, said Marin County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Doug Pittman, according to CBS SF.

Surveillance video from a Marin gas station convenience store captured 30 minutes after the homicide helped track the suspects, said Pittman, along with a large number of tips from the public. GPS technology also helped Portland authorities track the car, he said.

The video captured two of the suspects and a photo of the third was taken by an alert citizen, according to the sheriff's office.

Authorities previously said they were seeking three people whose images were captured on a nearby surveillance camera at a nearby convenience store.

Marin County Sheriff says these are the 3 murder suspects with the victim's car outside a gas station pic.twitter.com/iU96KliSPc — Joe Vazquez (@joenewsman) October 7, 2015

Authorities believe Carter drove to the trail near Fairfax in his 2003 Volkswagen that was missing after the attack.

Followers credited Carter with improving their romantic relationships by teaching tantra, a philosophy of meditation, yoga and sexuality famously embraced by the rock star Sting.

Stunned students and supporters mourned their beloved teacher who was still holding the leash of his wounded Doberman pinscher when he was found. The dog is expected to recover.

The Carters launched the Ecstatic Living Institute in rural Middletown, California, about 16 years ago to teach tantra to couples around the world. They held workshops nearby at the clothing-optional Harbin Hot Springs, which was destroyed last month in a wildfire.

"He was my mentor," said Greg Whitmore, 37, a firefighter who attended several weeklong retreats led by the Carters. "It was intoxicating. People wanted to be around him."

Last year, the couple turned the institute over to a former student, Logan Rose, and moved to Costa Rica in semi-retirement, teaching an occasional class. But soon after moving, Lokita was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"It has been a very traumatic season for us with Lokita's cancer, then the Valley Fire that destroyed our beloved Harbin Hot Springs," Rose said.

"This is the most devastating blow," Rose said of the homicide. "We are heartbroken."

Lokita Carter didn't respond to requests for comment.

Followers, students and friends have been pledging money and offering sympathy.

Steve's widow Lokita Carter just updated the memorial to Steve along the Marin Co. trail where he was killed. pic.twitter.com/Mw8e1Ciq3Q — Joe Vazquez (@joenewsman) October 7, 2015

Joya Petra Gallasch said in an interview that Carter was responsible for adding her new first name during a training session at Harbin Hot Springs. Gallasch said she was depressed at the time and Carter led her to adopt the new first name of Joya.

"I've always been a super joyous person," Gallasch said. "He knew intuitively that it was time to get a new name. He exuded a form of brilliance."

A hiker found Carter's body. Sheriff's deputies responding to a report of shots fired 45 minutes earlier in the area didn't see anything suspicious.

Carter's brother, Michael Carter, said he knew of no one who disliked his brother.

"I can't imagine that it's anything other than a random thing," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "All of it seems very random and unbelievable. Nothing makes any sense."

A GoFundMe page set up in June to help pay for Lokita's cancer treatment featured an update Wednesday morning with the news of Steve's death.  Despite negative news coverage and criticism from his own party, a poll released Friday shows nearly half of Americans agree with President Donald Trump on the causes of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

President Trump has maintained that “both sides” were responsible for violence surrounding a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. He also called out “troublemakers” among the counter protesters that came “with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats.”

Trump’s statements outraged former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who write Friday that Trump must apologize for his response.

However, a SurveyMonkey poll conducted Thursday found a combined 49 percent of American adults believe that both groups of protesters were “most responsible for the violence in Charlottesville.”

The poll found that 46 percent believe far-right groups were most responsible, 40 percent pointed the finger at both groups, and 9 percent believe counter-protesters were the most guilty.

Among Republican voters, 64 percent believe both groups were guilty, 18 percent think the white nationalist protesters were, and 17 percent think counter-protesters were most responsible for the violence.

Trump’s reaction to the violence found some agreement among independent Americans. A total of 46 percent of independents think both groups and counter-protesters were most responsible, while 51 percent believe the white nationalists caused the violence.

Sixty-six percent of Democrats polled believe the far-right groups were most responsible for the violence. 24 percent said both groups were responsible, and just six percent said the counter-protesters caused most of the violence.  Toronto’s housing market just capped off a second straight record year of sales. Total purchases across the Greater Toronto Area rose 11.8 per cent to 113,133 in 2016, with the dollar value of those transactions hitting $82,578,210,100.

But the president of the regional real estate board isn’t pointing his finger at foreign buyers. Survey data released on Thursday by the Toronto Real Estate Board suggests those international homebuyers account for five per cent of sales in Toronto.

“It is important to point out that the strong demand that we experienced in 2016 was very much domestic in nature,” said Toronto Real Estate Board President Larry Cerqua in a statement; adding a strong local economy, low unemployment and “very low” borrowing costs also contributed to the demand.

The average selling price across the GTA rose 20 per cent in December on a year-over-year basis to $730,472 amid a dearth of inventory as total active listings plunged 48.1 per cent.

And that market dynamic prompted a warning from TREB that prices will keep rising unless policymakers step in to unlock supply.

“If we continue to see record or near-record levels of demand up against very constrained supply, then I think you’re still going to see a lot of upward pressure on pricing,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s director of market analysis, in an interview with BNN. “And that’s why we’re urging, when we’re talking about policies pointed at the housing market, that you have to look at both sides of that price equation. We’ve looked a lot at demand, not very much at supply. I think that has to change for this year.”

WEIGH IN: What’s the most important driver for Toronto’s housing market? https://t.co/JarqEj0Sk0 — BusinessNewsNetwork (@BNN) January 5, 2017

Toronto Mayor John Tory recently told BNN he’s watching the real estate market “very carefully”, and acknowledged surging prices could be “scary” for young people looking to enter the market. But he balked at the idea of intervening hastily in an attempt to cool prices.

“The worst thing we could do for the marketplace and its long-term health is to act in a hasty manner, to do something that’s politically sexy, but that is actually not going to be effective and may even be less than responsible.”  As a New Jersey Devils fan, I’d have a hard time booing Zach Parise upon his return to The Rock on Thursday night.

He took the money and went home. Not to the Rangers, like Gomez.

Yeah, we booed Scott Niedermayer, who was without question a more accomplished player during his time in Jersey than Parise, but he did essentially what Parise did: Chose family over franchise, opting to sign with the Anaheim Ducks with brother Rob than return to the Devils. But the context was different: Niedermayer left the Devils at a time when they needed to build around him, post-Scott Stevens; Parise left for the Minnesota Wild when the Devils had decided to build around Ilya Kovalchuk.

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And we know how that worked out.

Parise considered the Devils down to the wire. He made a decision that, while financially sound, wasn’t a slam-dunk from a competitive standpoint. Parise and Ryan Suter could have been, in theory, closer to a Cup with the Detroit Red Wings or Pittsburgh Penguins. They chose the Wild, and the early returns suggest they chose wisely.

Besides, all Parise was for the Devils was one of their best homegrown forwards in franchise history; a rink rat that embodied the work ethic the Devils preach. Were there quibbles? Of course. If he doesn’t post one goal in six games, maybe the Devils find a way to win one of those close contests with the Los Angeles Kings in the 2012 Stanley Cup Final. But clearly, he had some other things on his mind.

So as Parise returns to New Jersey, the discussion returns to why he left in the first place, which led to some interesting comments from Martin Brodeur to Fire & Ice about the former captain leaving as a free agent.

Story continues

Please recall that the Devils have the opportunity from July 1, 2010 until Parise went UFA to re-sign him to a long-term deal. They didn’t engage him in the 2010 offseason to talk contract; instead, they signed Ilya Kovalchuk to that absurd contract, a player from outside the organization that played the same position as Parise and had to be arm-twisted into staying in New Jersey.

By the time Lou Lamoriello got serious on Parise, it was too late, according to Brodeur:

Brodeur noted how other teams did not make that mistake of waiting to take care of players of similar stature and made sure to get they were locked up well ahead of time while they had the chance. “When you know you have an athlete that is going to be a game breaker and he’s going to be one of the top players (available) and the rules are free agency comes a lot younger than it used to, you have to make commitments,” Brodeur said. “You see around the league some of the guys, the (Steven) Stamkos and etc., they don’t wait. They get them done. And we let him walk to free agency. That’s a decision of the organization, regardless of it was financial at the time with the ownership that we had, but he was our property for a long time and we lost him.”

(Brodeur going after a managerial decision from the Devils, after Lamoriello didn’t move him at the deadline, is a rather interesting thing, no?)

Tom Gulitti got reaction from Parise on that theory:

“That’s too hard to say,” Parise said. “I know Lou has his policies and his way of doing things. It’s not as if Lou waited until June 29th or 30th to pick up the phone. We had talked for a long time before then. We had talked even the summer before that. So, I don’t think it’s fair to say Lou waited until the last minute because that wasn’t the case.”

But it was the case that Lamoriello, and his current ownership, threw $100 million at Kovalchuk before opening talks with Parise.

What will Devils fans do tonight for Parise?

Probably boo. He’s still the enemy now, a guy who chose something else over the team that drafted him and made him the captain. But it’s going to be jeering out of function, out of tradition. Because Brodeur’s right: Parise ultimately made the decision to go home, after the Devils made him less welcome in theirs.  Here's what I can see:

1-2 order of magnitude cost reduction in cost/ton of payload to orbit: this is axiomatic. ITS won't be commercially viable for Musk's proposed Mars colonization bid if the per-launch cost of this big-ass fully reusable rocket significantly exceeds that of the big-ass but not fully reusable (the second stage is disposable) Falcon Heavy that flies later this year. So let's posit a cap of $100M on flight costs, or maybe $400M for a disposable shot (which would only really be necessary for a single monolithic payload that can't be broken down into sub-elements massing less than 300 tons—candidates for which, see below). (Here are SpaceX's cost estimates.)

Big, dumb, comsats: Currently the mass of a geosynchronous comsat is constrained by the payload of the available boosters, which are tailored to fit the perceived requirements of the comsat market. About half the mass of a comsat in GEO is fuel, used for positioning (satellites in geosynchronous orbit drift, very gradually, away from their parking longitude). Their power output is constrained by the solar panels they can carry and the size of their emitters. So a big GEO comsat today is on the order of 5-8 tons. A current advanced geosynchronous comsat such as Inmarsat-4A F4 has a 12 kW electrical system; this obviously puts a ceiling on its broadcast power; but ITS raises the bar so high that it effectively disappears. The first post-ITS generation of comsats could have power outputs in the megawatt range if necessary. So I'm going to guess that 1-2 decades after ITS flies, we're going to see satellite phones converge with regular cellphones in terms of size, convenience, and bandwidth capacity (although they're going to cost more). Upshot: terrestrial 5G and hypothetical 6G high bandwidth service will look more like municipal-area gigabit wifi, and your phone will cut over to satellite bandwidth if you roam into rural areas (or even suburban areas, by the US definition). But you won't notice anything except a slight increase in latency. It's as if your cell tower just moved into orbit.

No more Kessler syndrome nightmares: the launch stack is fully reusable. Anyone not aiming to operate a reusable launch stack by 2030 at this point is a buggy whip manufacturer. So that's one source of debris gone. And another source of the problem is the number of objects in space. A few giant satellites are less likely to shed debris or risk a collision hazard than a large number of small satellites. And we'll have so much spare lift capacity that cleanup becomes a practical possibility, paid for by the insurance underwriting industry: sending up a fleet of cubesats to hunt down, grapple with, and de-orbit 1960s paint chips is cheap compared to the payout if said paint chip holes your orbital Hilton.

Space tourism, for realz: the Bigelow BA-2100 spacehab only needs a 70-90 ton LEO launch capacity and has half the volume of the entire ISS. We can conservatively estimate that a space hotel with a ~300 ton mass fabricated using Bigelow's expandable tech and flown on the ITS would have 3-4 times the habitable space of the ISS, so room for 20-40 tourists and staff. (The inflatable hab tech isn't vapourware either: there's one docked to the ISS right now.) A week in space won't be a cheap vacation, but Virgin Galactic think people will pay $25K for 10 minutes in free fall; I reckon $250,000 for a honeymoon in orbit will find some takers among the 1%. (Passengers would travel as a sub-cargo aboard an ITS which would be mostly carrying other types of paying cargo.)

Return to the Moon, this time for good: a huge problem with proposals to build a permanent base on the Moon is that the Moon is short on volatiles that you can turn into fuel, and has no atmosphere worth mentioning for aerobraking purposes. (Lithobraking is not recommended. Or should I say lithobreaking.) One serious proposal for a long-term Lunar presence requires the construction of a Lunar space elevator. This would not run from surface to geosynchronous orbit—the moon, being tidally locked, has no GEO—but instead to the L1 (near-side) or L2 (far-side) Earth-Moon libration points, 56,000 and 67,000 kilometers from the surface (points where the effect of the Moon's gravity and the effect of the centrifugal force resulting from the elevator system's synchronous, rigid body rotation cancel each other out and an elevator could be stable). Unlike a terrestrial space elevator sufficiently high tensile strength materials for such a tether already exist. There is, however, the slight problem of fabricating and shipping a 120,000 kilometer long cable out to near-Lunar orbit (and capturing a near-Earth asteroid to act as a counterweight). This is just a wild-ass Charlie guess, but I suspect shipping up 500 tonne cable drums will work out cheaper in the end than trying to build a carbon fiber factory in space (at least, until space industries are sufficiently developed to go the whole eat-your-own-dogfood distance). (Upshot: ITS probably makes the folks at LiftPort Group very, very happy.

Stupidly enormous space telescopes: Because there is a budget and a booster that can lift primary mirrors 17 meters in diameter is going to make the astronomical community need a change of underwear when the implications sink in. (Put it this way: one part of the value proposition is "maps of continent-sized features on terrestrial exoplanets" by 2040.)  HARRISBURG, Pa. — The amendment came to the floor of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives almost two decades ago as distracted lawmakers — wearied from a long day of floor debate and votes — got a jolt from the House speaker.

“This is an amendment that in some quarters might be considered controversial,” then-Speaker Matt Ryan, R-Delaware, warned House members on June 28, 1996. “You had better listen.”

It’s even more controversial today, especially after civil rights lawyers asked a federal judge in Harrisburg on Tuesday to overturn what is now a 17-year-old state law that bans same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania and prevents the state from recognizing same-sex marriages from states where they are legal.

Back then, no state had legalized same-sex marriage. Currently, 13 states and Washington, D.C., have laws supporting it — and Pennsylvania is the only northeastern state that doesn’t allow same sex marriage or civil unions.

The proposal met vehement opposition from a few lawmakers who spoke on the floor, but ultimately just 34 out of 253 lawmakers in the House and Senate voted to stop the provision.

Of the state lawmakers who are still sitting, 42 supported it and 10 opposed the amendment at least once. Three members of the U.S. House — Republicans Charles Dent, Jim Gerlach and Joseph Pitts — were state lawmakers when they voted for the provision, while one — Democrat Allyson Schwartz — voted against it. Mike Fisher, now a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, voted for it as a Republican state senator.

Today, a handful of lawmakers who voted for that law belong to the Legislature’s 60-member lesbian- and gay-rights caucus, which supports same-sex marriage. One of them, Rep. Michael McGeehan, D-Philadelphia, said he regrets that vote and struggled with it at the time.

“If it was 1996 again, I wish I would have made another decision,” McGeehan said.

The Republican governor who signed the law, Tom Ridge, has also had an apparent change of heart. In February, he signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down California’s Proposition 8, which had banned gay marriage.

During floor comments, the writer of the amendment, then-Rep. Allan Egolf, R-Perry, told colleagues that he wanted Pennsylvania to avoid higher costs that would result from providing insurance and pension benefits to same-sex partners and to enshrine into law the state’s “traditional and longstanding policy of moral opposition to same-sex marriages.”

Egolf cited a Gallup poll from March 1996 that showed that 68 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage and just 27 percent approved of it. Late last year, Gallup found that 46 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, versus 53 percent who support it.

Acceptance of same-sex marriage seems sure to grow more: 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed in the more recent Gallup poll supported it 73 percent to 26 percent.

On Thursday, Attorney General Kathleen Kane, a Democrat, called the law unconstitutional and said she refuses to defend it. That likely leaves its defense to Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican who lines up with the national party platform that supports a constitutional amendment “defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” Corbett has been silent on whether he will fight the lawsuit.

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The House approved Egolf’s amendment, 177-16, after an effort to deem it unconstitutional failed, 171-29. The Senate took it up Oct. 1, 1996, and passed it, 43-5.

During floor debates, opponents — all Democrats but one — knew they were outnumbered.

“I know the vote today will probably be overwhelming, the same way the vote in a southern legislature years ago would have been overwhelming in discriminating against black minorities,” then-Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Philadelphia, told colleagues. “That does not make the vote right. It is still wrong.”

Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, warned that passage of the measure would speed up federal court scrutiny, and that an eventual U.S. Supreme Court review would be influenced by what he predicted would be rejections by a Pennsylvania district court and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Supporters were undaunted.

“I think that we need to say to ourselves, ‘If not now, when?'” argued then-Rep. David King, R-Mercer. “I would say to you that it is time for us now to speak out for those values that have brought us to this great commonwealth through the past, … that today’s values will be tomorrow’s future here in Pennsylvania.”

© 2013, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.





This Story Filed Under  Is it possible that using secure email services can be construed as an indicator of being a terrorist? Although it’s a ridiculous notion that using secure email implies criminal activities, a judge cited that reason to partially justify arrests in Spain.

In December, as part of “an anti-terrorist initiative” Operation Pandora, over 400 cops raided 14 houses and social centers in Spain. They seized computers, books, and leaflets and arrested 11 people. Four were released under surveillance, but seven were “accused of undefined terrorism” and held in a Madrid prison. This led to “tens of thousands” participating in protests. As terrorism is alleged “without specifying concrete criminal acts,” the attorney for those seven “anarchists” denounced the lack of transparency.

The case grabbed my attention thanks to this EFF tweet. It is unacceptable for privacy and security measures to get people flagged as potential terrorists.

The EFF points toward a quote from a Riseup blog post titled “Security is not a crime.” Reasons given by the judge to hold seven people in jail “include the possession of certain books, ‘the production of publications and forms of communication’, and the fact that the defendants ‘used emails with extreme security measures, such as the RISE UP server’.

“We reject this Kafka-esque criminalization of social movements, and the ludicrous and extremely alarming implication that protecting one’s internet privacy is tantamount to terrorism,” wrote Riseup.

In case you don’t know, Riseup provides secure email services and online communication tools popular among activists and people opposed to "full pipe monitoring" in the U.S. “Riseup like any other email provider, has an obligation to protect the privacy of its users,” the blog post states.

Many of the “extreme security measures” used by Riseup are common best practices for online security and are also used by providers such as hotmail, GMail or Facebook. However, unlike these providers, Riseup is not willing to allow illegal backdoors or sell our users’ data to third parties.

In the same way that visiting the Tor Project’s (The Onion Router) website, viewing the TAILs (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) website or documentation, or even surfing to the Linux Journal can mean the NSA has “fingerprinted” your IP to track and watch you, it’s an exceedingly dangerous precedent to cite the use of secure email as a potential indicator of involvement in terrorist activities.

But using secure email is not the only reason the judge mentioned for holding the seven in a Spanish prison. Just as possession of the FBI-hated (pdf) Anarchist Cookbook (pdf) has been cited in terrorism cases, reading the book Against Democracy (Contra la democràcia [pdf]) was also cited as partial justification for the arrests.

As explained on Rabble:

According to the prosecutor, the evidence against them includes finding numerous copies of a book called “Against Democracy”, written by the “Grupos Anarquistas Coordinados” (“Coordinated Anarchist Groups”, GAC), in the raided buildings. The GAC is an anarchist organization, active since 2012, which the Spanish state is trying to paint as a “terrorist” network.

325 provides more about Against Democracy, while anarchist news reprinted a Spanish flyer that states:

The coordination between the police force and the media during Operation Pandora was immediately apparent. Together, they created panic and justified the repressive operation in terms of “criminal groups”, “terrorists” and “violent ones”. These police raids happened one day after the enactment of the “Ley Mordaza”, a very restrictive law that criminalizes disobedience and protest.

There may be other reasons and possibly other evidence instead of unproven accusations, such as destroying ATMs with homemade bombs during 2012 and 2013, but Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez cited a book and the use of secure email as “evidence” to apply the anti-terrorism law. The judge, according to Directa, said he is not investigating the possible attacks, but is investigating the organization based on possible danger it might pose in the future. Put another way, “not judging what one has done but what you could do in the future.”

This is not the first time Riseup services have been targeted by law enforcement; in 2012, the FBI seized a Riseup server in a facility it shared with May First/People Link. The EFF got involved because the FBI’s investigation led them to an anonymous remailer program called MixMaster, which “should have been the end of the story.” Eventually, the seized server was returned.

Regarding Riseup email services being cited in the Spanish terrorism case, as if protecting online privacy is a crime, Riseup wrote:

The European Parliament’s report on the US NSA surveillance program states that “privacy is not a luxury right, but the foundation stone of a free and democratic society.” Recent revelations about the extent to which States violate everyone’s right to privacy show that everything that can be spied upon will be spied upon. Furthermore, we know that criminalizing people for using privacy tools also has a chilling effect on everybody, and human-rights defenders, journalists, and activists, in particular. Giving up your basic right to privacy for fear of being flagged as a terrorist is unacceptable.

More will surely come out about the case, but it’s not looking good right now as it seems to ridiculously indicate that maintaining online security and privacy is a bad criminal-like thing.  The Leaf's Naruto by Morta's Priest

Chapter 1 - Kunai to the Throat

"No, wait! What are you doing? I'll pay you twice as much as whoever hired you! No-"

The panicked man's cries were cut off abruptly as a kunai severed his carotid artery; blood spatters rained across the sign behind his chair, of which only the letters 'Shi' were visible. The man had only a few moments to look in disbelief at his killer, before he slumped to the ground, a pool of blood slowly spreading outwards. Casually wiping away the blood on his blade, his killer stepped back, looking on sadly as his victim expired. He'd never even know exactly why he'd been targeted - and probably wouldn't have believed the answer anyway.

He didn't like killing. In fact, he generally avoided the practice entirely; this was different. Slipping his kunai back in its sheath, the shinobi quickly made his way up the wall, departing the house through one of the windows on the second floor - different to the one he'd entered through. It would take only minutes for guards to track down the man's screaming, and discover the body, but that was quite enough. Still, he needed to hurry: he couldn't afford to be seen anywhere nearby.

Wrapping his dark clothes closely around himself, he quickly made his way across two roofs and onto the rather unimpressive wall that surrounded the compound; it was certainly not as remarkable as Konoha's and the guard detail took minutes to make a full sweep. That was a lethal mistake when dealing with shinobi, who took advantage of even second-long periods of inattention. Drawing two kunai, he tossed himself over the wall, impaling the sharp implements into the wall and riding them down to the ground, setting down right next to the small stream that served as the compound's water supply. There was a certain irony to it: Kunai like these were first used to dig holes into walls not unlike this one, not as weapons.

There was a sudden clamour up above which meant the murder had been discovered. Quicker than he'd anticipated, but not nearly fast enough. Tossing his overcoat and hood aside, the shinobi dived headfirst into the stream, forcing his way through the current. The coursing water would wash away any traces that tracking ninja or dogs might follow. Raised voices slowly receded in the distance as he forced himself to keep going. When the lights were finally out of sight, and the night was silent once more, he got back onto land. He wrung out his clothes and inspected his kunai; they weren't made of iron, but keeping them clean was paramount for their effectiveness, he knew.

"Mission complete," The shinobi whispered to himself, smiling wryly as he gazed back, the wall he'd just descended barely visible on the horizon. For a moment, he enjoyed the slight drizzle – fitting weather, for such a dreary act. Technically, what he'd just done had been a crime – a pretty severe one, actually. Assassination of civilians was always questionable, but without even the authorization of a Kage or Daimyo, he would probably have to face the death penalty if anyone found out. Not that anyone would. He was good enough to escape attention, especially when there were no shinobi involved. Still, it was the principle of the thing.

Not that he felt terribly guilty about what he'd done. He was a shinobi; assassination and stealth were all too common in missions. Besides, he did have a little information that others didn't: his victim hadn't been innocent. Not at all. Things would take a turn for the better, around here. Nobody would know who to thank, but that was alright. Perhaps the Land of Waves would attribute the sudden boon to their lost hero, Kaiza; he could definitely live with that, if it gave Inari some much-needed closure. It didn't really matter, since Gatō's grip on them was at an end now, and far sooner than the last time.

He let out a curse as he suddenly realized he'd probably just nixed his chance a having a bridge named after him. Damn it. Uzumaki Naruto shook his head tiredly, beginning the long run back to Konoha with a muttered curse. He had a Genin exam to get to.

"Why do you think that idiot's not here?" Kiba wondered, glancing around the class. Everyone else was already present, and Iruka tapped his foot impatiently. "He's almost out of time..."

"Who cares?" Sakura piped in. "Can't we just get started, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka frowned, rubbing his forehead tiredly. It figured that his most problematic student would be late again. "We'll just give him a few more minutes. I am still organizing things, anyway." He grumbled as he sorted through a pile of test scores.

"Where's Mizuki-sensei?" Chōji wondered, snacking on a potato chip. "You said he'd be testing us too, didn't you, sensei?"

Iruka frowned, looking away. For a few long moments he remained silent. Then he turned back, and he sighed. "Ah... I'm afraid to tell you, that Mizuki-sensei is no longer with us." He sat down on his chair, hard, and shook his head.

Shikamaru blinked and sat up. "He's dead?"

Iruka nodded darkly. "I'm afraid he was found in his bed, a few days ago – the Hokage chose to keep it largely silent until yesterday, as it might've been an assassination." He slumped a little. "The medical-nin said it was natural, though... I suppose that's sometimes what happens."

"So troublesome," Shikamaru muttered as he sat back in his chair. Quite a few of the other students looked a little pale, though he couldn't quite figure out whether or not it was fear at the thought of death, or just expiring in bed. (He was sure which one it was where Sasuke was concerned, though.)

"I'm here!" Naruto exclaimed suddenly, crashing through the door and almost toppling over his feet. The boy skidded to a halt and tried to smile. "Sorry, I had to go back home real quick, to put on some new clothes!"

"...You're not wearing orange," Shikamaru observed.

Naruto turned and smiled brightly. "Actually, I kind of ruined that one on an assassination mission, so I had to get a new set of clothes from home!" He laughed as Shikamaru shook his head in disbelief, and scratched the back of his head nervously. "Okay, you got me; I was climbing on the roofs and..."

"Naruto!"

Naruto turned, his eyes wide. "Iruka-sensei – sorry I'm late, but I'm sure you just heard why, I had a totally legit-, I mean, good reason!"

Iruka sighed wearily. "Naruto – just get in line." He turned to the others and gestured behind him. "For the graduation exam, you'll do the Bunshin no Jutsu – the Clone Technique. I'll be in the next room – when you're called, just come out, and you'll know if you pass right away." He rifled through his papers, and gave up. "I'll just go by order of your papers, here, so get ready to be called any time."

"What a drag," Shikamaru commented, as one by one different students left through the door to take he test, until only a handful were left. He turned to the blond. "So, Naruto, why did you really ditch the orange? The black's cool, but I figured you didn't like it."

Naruto smiled nervously. "I totally told the truth about that - I was going up on the roofs, and one of those masked guys almost caught me. He hooked a kunai into my suit, so when I escaped it got all torn up! Besides, this was the only other colour I had..."

"Masked guys? ANBU?" Shino muttered, drawing attention. He adjusted his glasses and nodded to Naruto. "They were after you?"

"...I sort of painted the monument," Naruto said, smiling broadly. "They'll take forever to figure out how to get it back to normal! Hah!"

"You're such an idiot," Shikamaru said. "Now... the truth, Naruto?"

"Uzumaki Naruto!" Iruka called. For a split second relief flashed across Naruto's face, before he got to his feet and smirked to Shikamaru. "Good luck at your own exam!"

"You'll have to do the Bunshin, Naruto..." Iruka said apologetically, worriedly looking at the blond. He'd failed twice before, and his chances didn't look much better, now. "I know it's not your greatest strength, but..."

"Hah! That's what you think!" Naruto stuck out his tongue, flashing through hand signs. "Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Five clones popped into existence surrounding Naruto in puffs of smoke, each of them smiling broadly. For a few moments, there was absolute silence. Then one of them crumpled to the floor. Naruto glanced at it and shook his head in disappointment. Still, the four others were intact.

"Very well done, Naruto!" Iruka commented, blinking. "I didn't think you'd mastered that jutsu – the last time I saw you try it, they all looked like the sickly one, there..."

"Ah... I can't make just one, Iruka-sensei," Naruto admitted sheepishly. "You never said how many there had to be, though... But it's good, right? I pass, right?" He leaned forward eagerly.

Iruka frowned. Jutsu being easier with more chakra wasn't really how it usually worked. The only reason that more clones would work better was if... He sighed, rubbing his forehead. It figured that Naruto of all people would have an overabundance of chakra, considering his burden. "Naruto – how many Bunshin can you make?"

"I never actually tried that..." Naruto admitted. "I could try, but I'm sure it'd be LOTS!"

"I'm sure it would be," Iruka answered, frowning. He forced a smile, picking one of the hitai-ate from a side-table and looking over it briefly, glancing up at the grinning blond. "You successfully performed the technique – that means you pass. Congratulations, third time's the charm, after all!"

Naruto accepted the forehead-protector, and immediately replaced his goggles with his new acquisition. "Iruka-sensei, will you come eat at Ichiraku's later? To celebrate?"

Iruka hesitated, and then nodded. "Of course. I'm sure that Teuchi-san will have a great big bowl for you, for becoming a ninja. Now, there are a few others that still need to be tested, so go out to the others, and see who might be on your team." He smiled. "I wonder if they'll be surprised that you passed?"

Naruto was out of the room and whooping at the top of his lungs, and Iruka shook his head in amusement at the boy's antics. It was still hard, sometimes, looking at the boy and forgetting about all the misery that he was a reminder of. Still, the blond had never been cruel or malevolent: Quite the opposite, actually. He pitied the team that would end up with that ball of energy. He turned back to his papers and groaned. Nara Shikamaru was next; how would he convince him that taking this test was worth his time?

"The Dead-Last passed?" Ino wondered, glaring at Naruto as he entered the courtyard, shiny hitai-ate on his forehead. "Who'd have guessed?"

"Well, after three tries," Sakura said, glancing the other way, to a dark-haired boy leaning against the wall. "Sasuke-kun passed as well – I'm sure I'll be on his team! It'll be amazing!" She grinned at Ino and prodded her in the side. "Can you imagine being on one team with him?"

Ino grumbled. "I still say I'll be on his team, not you. You don't even have any special skills, unless supreme bitchiness is one!"

"Ino-pig!" Sakura growled, raising her fist.

"Hey, Sakura, Ino!" Naruto interrupted their impending fight, and both turned their glares on him. He shuddered nervously, though his grin wouldn't go away. "Ah... you both passed as well, then?"

"...Naruto, go bother someone else," Sakura said, scowling. "Even if you have a forehead protector, you're still the Dead-Last. Maybe you should go hang out with Chōji, or something."

"Hey, there's no need to insult Chōji," Naruto muttered. "Sakura-chan, you know that you could get on a team with anyone, right? We could even get on one team, and then we need to get along anyway. You could also be with Chōji, for that matter." He looked towards Ino. "You too. There's no guarantee that you'll be with Sasuke."

"Since when did you get all logical?" Ino said, sighing. "I can do that too, you know. There's only a few girls here – of course one of us will be with Sasuke-kun. Do you think they'd put him with Hyūga Hinata? She can't even look you in the eye without stuttering!"

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," Naruto noted, turning away. At the last moment, he turned back and winked. "Sakura-chan, want to go out, now that we're shinobi?"

"Naruto, you idiot!"

"I'll take that as a maybe…"

Sakura muttered in annoyance as Naruto wandered off towards Shikamaru and Shino, both of whom were attaching their own hitai-ate to their clothing. Sakura sighed. "He can be such a pain, sometimes…"

"Where were we?" Ino wondered, glancing back at her rival. "Oh, right. Forehead girl, I will be on Sasuke-kun's team!"

Naruto exhaled wearily as he made his way back to his home, skipping from roof to roof with the ease of a Chūnin. It was exhausting, getting back into his childhood role – he'd not been a Genin for such a long time, it was quite a novel experience to be one again. It was strange to see all the familiar faces of his later friends and allies at such a young age again – especially the ones he worked the most with.

Sakura – she was exactly how he remembered her, precisely how she'd been until at least the original Chūnin Exams, perhaps longer. She didn't even show a hint of the medical ninja she'd grown up to be, but that wasn't a surprise. She'd probably get back to that at some point in the future, though right now Naruto wasn't sure if she'd even end up on the same team as before. That was the trouble with changing things.

Shikamaru hadn't changed a bit. Still the lazy genius, Shikamaru was already putting question marks behind something as comparatively minor as his change of clothes: As expected from the future Jōnin-Commander. Honestly, Naruto had simply chosen the new clothes because he was used to them, and he hadn't had time to change after returning from the Land of Waves – assassination missions being what they were, the dark colours didn't show blood as much, and they served as a good camouflage. Technically it was dark blue, though in the bright light that was hard to make out, It was a horrible job, trying to clean these clothes; thankfully they'd remained unsoiled, this time.

The rest of the class was pretty much as he expected; there were hints of their future careers and specialties, but not much more. Hinata was still the recluse – he'd have to fix that – and Sasuke was the elitist Uchiha he'd always been. He didn't show much of the insanity that marked the boy's later life and death, so there was perhaps a chance to change fate, there. It depended on the teams, now that he'd upset events by taking out a number of dangers before they could really become such. Probably there wouldn't be too much of a difference, but it was a probability game.

He'd started fixing things with Mizuki. Sneaking in and using medical jutsu against him was effective enough – and the wounds of a butchered chakra scalpel technique were easy enough to hide, if you knew how. Granted, Naruto didn't have the sort of chakra control he'd really need to fix something, but that had hardly been his goal; imprecise use of medical techniques was a pretty effective way of nigh-invisible kills. He'd briefly felt bad about resorting to such a brutal method of solving his problems, but he was hardly squeamish about that kind of violence anymore, and it was a far better choice than leaving him alive to terrorize the village again.

Next, of course, had been Gatō. Successful as the mission might have been according to the Hokage, the first time he'd gone out there, the Wave mission had resulted in the deaths of both Zabuza and Haku. Those two people could make an actual difference in future events, especially where Kiri was concerned, so keeping them alive was a good idea. Solving Tazuna's problem with his bridge before it even arrived, and taking out an awful person, thereby undercutting the entire mission? Naruto hadn't thought twice about it.

These two had been the easy targets. Naruto jumped into his apartment through one of the windows, dropping onto his bed immediately, and letting out a deep sigh. He frowned as he thought about all the things he still had to do. Kabuto was still out there, somewhere. Unlike the others, the medical ninja frequently slept with numerous other shinobi close by in the same building, and Naruto didn't have the poisons at his disposal that would've made it a cinch, assuming Orochimaru hadn't given him the means to become immune to those yet. The Snake Sannin was on his list as well; he'd have to figure something out, as that particular shinobi was rather beyond his skills in this smaller body. Having superior chakra control and knowledge could help with a lot, even boosting his speed and strength beyond usual Genin limits, but he still had his weak-ass body to deal with.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," Naruto murmured, and three solid clones popped into existence; two immediately used Henge to turn themselves into rather nondescript villagers, and left. The last of the clones shrugged and sprawled out on the bed.

The real Naruto smirked, snatching a hood from his closet and quickly putting it on. "I'll be back before team announcements."

"Of course you will be, Boss. Remember the dinner with Iruka-sensei, okay? Also, keep an eye out for Kakashi - If he's going to be our sensei again, he might be watching. Don't want to let him in on this whole game before it's necessary, right?"

"I'm not stupid. Well, not that stupid," Naruto answered indignantly. "I think it's time I sent a letter to an old friend. Shouldn't take too long."

The clone chuckled. "Good luck with that. I think we'll just have to smack some sense into him again, you know. It worked before."

Naruto shrugged, turning back with sharp eyes. "Maybe I'll consider fetching some new reading material, the other stuff's getting rather stale. If the old man comes by, don't be an asshole."

"I'm you, I can't be!"

"As you're well aware, I can be an asshole." Naruto paused. "I just insulted myself; fantastic." He sighed, jumping out the window and leaving a bemused clone to count sheep and act as an alibi. It didn't take long for loud snoring to break the silence of the apartment.

Author's Note: A little plot bunny running around in my head. A play on the Naruto timetraveller genre in which he has actually learned to be an assassin and silent killer (when he needs to be) and is cutting the legs out from under canon events in a most straight-forward fashion. No 'trying to keep everything the same and thus following the usual storyline' nonsense.

Title's based on the Itachi quote, yes - doing anything for the village, even the unsightly stuff. ;)

May continue this - both his means of returning and his particular skills are fairly well-defined as is a potential plot, but I just wanted to get some feedback about the concept. ^^  Trump’s OSHA Has Stopped Telling the Public About Corporate Safety Violations

Trump has both muzzled and tied the hands of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in his service of big business at the expense of worker safety.

Since Trump took office, the agency has all but stopped issuing news releases disclosing the safety violations of companies. The agency continues to police companies with safety compliance violations, but the fines are mostly chump change. The most effective tool under previous presidents for keeping workers safe and companies compliant was OSHA’s public shaming of negligent companies through public announcements.

Jordan Barab, a deputy assistant secretary in the Obama administration, inflicted the pain of the pen on negligent companies until Trump’s inauguration. He’s still publicizing the penalties against companies for unsafe working conditions as a private citizen with his blog, Confined Space.

ACTION BOX / What you can do about it Contact OSHA and ask it to reinstate the press releases naming companies violating workplace safety. Call the White House and tell Trump how dangerous his regulatory repeals are. The White House numbers: 202-456-111 or 202-456-1414. Contact your representative and senators to take action. Help DCReport.org keep watch on the Trump Administration and Congress.

There’s more bad news for workers. Trump and Congress repealed the Volks Rule. What that means for the industry is that though companies are still required to keep accurate records of workplace accidents resulting in injuries and illnesses for up to five years, OSHA’s lost the power to enforce any violations older than six months from the time a citation is issued.

And that’s where it gets complicated. If a citation is issued four months after an inspection, which is not uncommon, according to Barab, OSHA would only be able to go back two months. And if it took six months to issue a citation, OSHA would not be able to cite any recordkeeping violations at all.

“Altogether, this means no big recordkeeping cases—cases which, in the past, have resulted in major citations and significant industry changes,” Barab told DCReport. “And in fact, since the 2012 Volks decision, OSHA recordkeeping citations have dropped 75%.”

Adding insult to literal injury, the states that overwhelmingly went to Trump in the election have the highest workplace injuries and fatalities. North Dakota and Wyoming lead the pack, with 12.5 and 12 deaths per 100,000 workers respectively, according to FairWarning.org in a report on a grim pattern of workers voting against their own safety on the job. The North Dakota and Wyoming death rates are more than four times the fatality rate for most states that voted for Hillary Clinton.

Professor Thomas A. Kochan, co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told FairWarning, “Workers and citizens in states in which a majority voted for Trump have much to lose if the Trump Administration weakens enforcement or reduces support for health, safety and employment standards.”  - Vodka with a cannabis twist? A Northern California distillery has done it, infusing pot into its vodka.

The product called Humboldt's Finest was released last week.

It is being distributed by Humboldt Distillery, which calls itself the first micro-distillery on the North Coast.

The company describes the specialty spirit as having a unique botanical character, a smooth finish, and an aroma reminiscent of fresh cannabis.

But don't expect it to deliver a marijuana high.

In order to be legal, the weed infused vodka contains less than 0.3 percent THC, the active chemical in marjuana that leads to a high.

“Humboldt's Finest doesn't have the THC that you'd find in marijuana, so it's not going to get anyone in trouble with the law,” explains owner and head distiller, Abe Stevens.

“It does, however, retain an herbal and aromatic quality reminiscent of fresh cannabis, and we've found it works very well in place of gin, giving classic cocktails a fresh new spin,” Stevens said.

And with 40 percent alcohol by volume, you can expect a pretty strong drink.

Stevens says he launched his company about 2 1/2 years ago. Born and raised in Humboldt County, he is a fifth generation native of the North Coast. He is also a scientist with degrees in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Chicago.

“As the vodka has grown in popularity I've found more and more consumers asking us to add some of the 'local flavor' to our alcohol. That obviously wouldn't be legal for us to do, but I couldn't ignore the consumer demand," Stevens explains.

He said his solution was to come up with a product that captures a bit of the character of the Humboldt area "without breaking any laws.”  Lithium is a metal frequently used in advanced batteries commonly found in portable computers, cell phones, GPS receivers, electric and hybrid cars, iPads and even hearing aids. Lithium batteries have a Moore’s law of approximately 8% per year, meaning that as technology progresses we are seeing battery capacity increase by about 8% year on year.

• Lithium is extremely common and exists in almost all Igneous rock, which itself makes up almost 95% of the Earths upper crust. It is most commonly found in high concentrations in salt flats and mineral springs.

• Lithium is the lightest metal, it’s so light it floats on water.

• Interestingly automotive lithium-ion batteries can account for only a few pounds of their weight with lithium, the rest is made up of the batteries other elements.

• It is currently thought that either Bolivia or Afghanistan have the largest lithium deposits but the largest exporters of lithium are Chile, Australia, China and Argentina (in that order).

• All living things contain traces of lithium, including you, although it is not currently thought to support any vital-to-life functions.

• Lithium was discovered in 1817 by Johan August Arfwedson and was named after the Greek word “lithos” meaning “stone”.

• The first Lithium-ion battery was produced by Bell Labs in 1981, making it a relatively new technology and implying it has significant potential for further development.

• Lithium-ion batteries are far superior to any other mass produced battery technology including lead-acid and NiMH, they have no “memory” and can survive many hundreds of charges/re-charges.

• Lithium-ion batteries are non-toxic, they do not poison landfills and they are recyclable.

• It is estimated that there are about 35 million tonnes of lithium in extractable locations worldwide, this is enough for over 4 billion electric cars.

-To stay in the loop join our Facebook page grab the RSS feed or join us on Twitter @ElectroVelocity –  Your web browser must have JavaScript enabled in order for the fraction calculator to function.

Visual Roman Numeral Converter

Salve! You can enter a Roman Numeral here and this converter will give you the corresponding Arabic Numeral...

Of course, you can do the opposite as well... Just plug a number in here and you'll get the Roman Numeral back.

Best of all, this diagram shows you how that Roman Numeral is built from individual Roman Digits! Roman Numerals have never been this easy to understand!

Enter a Number... Roman Numeral Number Share this Conversion: Use this URL to share this Roman Numeral conversion Previous More Online Calculators! Next

Welcome to the Roman Numeral Converter

This Roman Numeral Converter allows you to enter either a Roman numeral or a number in conventional Arabic form and it will convert it instantly to the other. It also shows a complete parsing of each Roman numeral, a decomposition by place value and showing how it relates to a base-10 version of the number.

What are the Roman Numerals?

The Roman numeral system is a numbering system that probably developed as a more formal version of the kind of tally mark systems we still use today. If you’ve ever counted something using a system like this…

...then Roman numerals will probably start to make a little more sense. Either that, or you’ll be especially thankful for the Roman Numeral converter on this page! This numbering system was originally used in ancient Rome by merchants, mariners, shepherds and others to keep track of goods and services in commerce. It's use today continues in a varient of unexpected places, and being able to decipher Roman numerals continues to be one of the skills comprising a well-rounded education.

The symbols used for Roman numerals likely evolved from the same sort of tally marks or hash marks we use today for simple counting exercises.

What Symbols are used for Roman Numerals?

1 in Roman Numerals is I

5 in Roman Numerals is V

10 in Roman Numerals is X

50 in Roman Numerals is L

100 in Roman Numerals is C

500 in Roman Numerals is D

1000 in Roman Numerals is M

You’ll notice a pattern... Roman Numerals have values that correspond to place value units of ones and fives, so there are two Roman numeral symbols in what corresponds to our one’s place numbers (I and the V, for 1 and 5 respectively), two for the ten’s place (X and L for 10 and 50) and two for the hundred’s place (C and D for 100 and 500).

Like any other list of seemingly random information, you can use a mnemonic to try to remember the symbols and values. If you memorize the sentence, “I Value Xylophones Like Cows Dig Milk” the first letter of each word will corresponds to the value of each Roman numeral symbol in order ( I=1, V=5, X=10, L=50, C=100, D=500, M=1000).

How to Read Roman Numerals

Memorize the basic Roman numeral symbols and their values. ( I=1, V=5, X=10, L=50, C=100, D=500, M=1000) Start reading the symbols from left to right, adding the value of the current symbol to the total, except… If the value of the current symbol is less than the next one, subtract the current symbol’s value from the next symbol’s value and add the result to the total.

The third step is what makes reading Roman numerals confusing at times. Look at this example showing how roman numeral 4 (IV) is broken down by the Roman Numeral converter...

What the the converter is showing is how the number 4 (IV) is expressed in Roman numerals as 5 minus 1, even though the ordering seems at first counterintuitive. The value of the 'I' preceding the 'V' is what triggers that last rule, where when you read the symbols from left-to-right, if you encounter a symbol with a larger value you need to subtract. Looking for these patterns where you see place values based on 4 (IV = 4, XL = 40 and CD = 400) or 9 (IX = 9, XC = 90 and CM = 900). Here's another example of the Roman Numeral converter's visual representation of the number 44...

Using the Roman Numeral Converter

You can see how useful the Roman Numeral Converter might be, and it's also very easy to use. If you enter a Roman numeral, it will convert it to Arabic numerals and show you the visual representation. By decomposing Roman numerals into their parts, it is easier to see how the digits making up the Roman numeral are added and subtracted to create the more conventional number we deal with on a daily basis.

Invalid Roman numerals are rejected, but the converter will attempt to convert it to a “best guess” and supply both Roman and Arabic versions. For example, the Roman numeral “IIII” is an invalid representation for the number four (the correct Roman numeral is “IV”) but the converter will take this input and correct it, and show you the corresponding visualization. You’ll notice the Roman numeral field will flash red briefly when this happens.

Similarly, entering an Arabic number will instantly convert to the corresponding Roman numeral. Unlike with Roman numerals, it’s a little harder to enter an invalid number in the Arabic system, but the converter does only support values up to 3999, so any value you enter above this will be reduce by one thousand until it falls below this number.

This is all fascinating, but if even after playing with this converter you may still ask yourself, “Why do we need to know Roman numerals?” It’s worth understanding where Roman numerals came from and why they’re still a part of everyday life.

Where are Roman Numerals Used Today?

You might encounter Roman numerals in a variety of locations today, not just in Rome! You’ll see Roman numerals often where someone is trying to make something look more formal or official. It is not uncommon to see Roman numerals appear in copyright dates, chapter or section titles in documents or for big events like the Olympics or the Super Bowl.

If someone has the same name as their ancestor’s, Roman numerals will get used as a suffix to distinguish that person from their parents, allowing a name to get carried down generation to generation. So you’ll see people who have a “III” or “IV” on their end of their name to indicate who they are. I had a friend who was “George IV” and we used to tease him that his parents just couldn’t come up with a unique name.

Roman numerals still appear frequently in science applications, including identifying periods on the periodic table of elements and for identifying the oxidation number of ions.

It’s also very common to see Roman numerals on the faces of analog clocks, especially on the large clocks on older buildings. This can be a great opportunity for learning Roman numerals and telling time!

A recent trend is also for people to use dates to make Roman numeral tattoos. I hope you’ll think very carefully before undertaking something like this, and if you proceed, be quite confident in whatever Roman numeral conversion you've made.

Regardless of where you find Roman numerals in the wild, you can always use this Roman numeral converter to figure out what number they mean. But that’s no excuse for learning to read Roman numerals yourself.

Roman Numerals, Common Core and other Standards

While the official Common Core standards are silent on the topic Roman Numerals, it is a topic taught commonly in public schools because Roman numerals still show up in so many everyday applications. Because of this, alternative instructional standards such as Core Knowledge continue to incorporate Roman numerals as part of the student curriculum, typically as a math topic first introduced in 3rd grade and mastered in 4th grade.

Roman Numerals 1-20 (I-XX)

Here's a quick table of Roman numerals from 1 through 20. If you need to convert larger values, try a Roman numeral converter like the one at the top of this page!

Roman Numeral Conversion Arabic Number I 1 1 II 1 + 1 2 III 1 + 1 + 1 3 IV (-1) + 5 4 V 5 5 VI 5 + 1 6 VII 5 + 1 + 1 7 VIII 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 8 IX (-1) + 10 9 X 10 10 XI 10 + 1 11 XII 10 + 1 + 1 12 XIII 10 + 1 + 1 13 XIV 10 + (-1) + 5 14 XV 10 + 5 15 XVI 10 + 5 + 1 16 XVII 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 17 XVIII 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 18 XIX 10 + (-1) + 10 19 XX 10 + 10 20 Roman Digit = Arabic Number Roman Numeral I = 1 Roman Numeral V = 5 Roman Numeral X = 10 Roman Numeral L = 50 Roman Numeral C = 100 Roman Numeral D = 500 Roman Numeral M = 1000

Need More Help Translating Roman Numerals?

This converter is a great start for seeing how to translate Roman numerals, but sometimes you just need a simple Roman Numeral Chart for translating between Roman and Arabic numbers. Some of the charts include quick tips for converting Roman numerals, and you'll find chart variations for small numbers, years and even Super Bowl numbers.

Converter Updates  Yesterday's news from Czech Republic is unbelievable, and it raises questions about whether there might just be light at the end of the tunnel. It is impossible not to be tantalized by the potential of these events to change the course of Czech Republic's history. What's important, however, is that we focus on what this means on the street. The media seems too caught up in spinning the facts to pay attention to how their people are doing. Just call it missing the tables for the wood.

When thinking about the recent turmoil, it's important to remember three things: One, people don't behave like billiard balls, so attempts to treat them as such are going to come across as foreign. Billiard balls never suddenly blow themselves up. Two, Czech Republic has spent decades being batted back and forth between colonial powers, so a mindset of peace and stability will seem foreign and strange. And three, hope is an extraordinarily powerful idea: If ethnic conflict is Czech Republic's glass ceiling, then hope is certainly its alarm clock.

When I was in Czech Republic last Summer, I was amazed by the level of Westernization for such a closed society, and that tells me two things. It tells me that the citizens of Czech Republic have no shortage of human capital, and that is a good beginning to grow from. Second, it tells me that people in Czech Republic are just like people anywhere else on this flat earth of ours.

So what should we do about the chaos in Czech Republic? Well, it's easier to start with what we should not do. We should not lob a handful of cruise missiles and hope that some explosions will snap Czech Republic's leaders to attention. Beyond that, we need to be careful to nurture these first inklings of a moderate, modern society. The opportunity is there, but I worry that the path to moderation is so narrow that Czech Republic will have to move down it very slowly. And of course Prague needs to cooperate.

Speaking with a up-and-coming violinist from the large Catholic community here, I asked him if there was any message that he wanted me to carry back home with me. He pondered for a second, and then smiled and said, respre austee, which is a local saying that means roughly, "A gift given in secret soothes anger, and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath."

I don't know what Czech Republic will be like a few years from now, but I do know that it will remain true to its cultural heritage, even if it looks very different from the country we see now. I know this because, through all the disorder, the people still haven't lost sight of their dreams.  You may know Korea as one of the most wired countries on the planet, but did you know hackers have compromised more than 100 million user accounts from the country over the past five years?

Operator KT suffered a breach that endangered the records of nearly 9 million customers last year, while online games firm Nexon had more than 13 million user records compromised in 2011. The largest breach in recent times came from SK, the firm behind Facebook-forerunner Cyworld, which is estimated to have had 35 million records nabbed in 2011.

Experts are claiming that Korean IT policy — which has made the country reliant on Microsoft’s Internet Explore browser and ActiveX software — a lack of spending of cyber security, excessive collection of user data and other factors have enabled these attacks and others in recent years.

An article from the Korea Herald explores the issue in detail, and includes the graphic below to illustrate Korea’s security vulnerabilities.

Korea may boast the world’s speediest mobile Internet — thanks to the planet’s first and second LTE-Advanced networks — but it is overly reliant on Internet Explorer and, in particular, ActiveX, which is used to power a key certificate system that verifies Internet users in the country for transactions.

Google Chrome is widely considered to the Web’s most popular browser — analytics site Statcounter pegs it at a dominant 40 percent market share — but many Korean websites run on Internet Explorer only. That’s because ActiveX, which is not supported by Chrome, Opera or other browsers, is used as the identification platform to enable transactions over 300,000 won ($268).

Korea’s use of ActiveX isn’t down to an infatuation with Microsoft, the software protects personal data and make it almost impossible for fraudulent transactions to take place.

The issue with ActiveX, however, aside from limiting the browser choice in Korea, is that it makes PCs and storage systems attractive and susceptible to hacking because it is storing valuable details. Each user’s online ‘key’ is typically filed on their PC, motivating hackers to get their hands on the information.

Statcounter data illustrates Korea’s reliance on Internet Explorer.

“By allowing only the public key certificate to be used, the entire nation suffers inconvenience,” Korea University Kim Kee-chang told the Herald. “On top of that, countless online service providers are stuck on a single platform, blocking the broader IT industry from moving forward.”

The widespread use of ActiveX provides a target for hackers by storing information on networks and PCs, but it seems that a lack of preventative measures from companies is an equally significant factor.

The Herald cites data from KISA (Korea Internet Security Center) which says that some 73 percent of domestic companies spend no money on data protection because “there’s no immediate return” on their investment.

Korea eased up on some of its online regulations last August when it ended a law that required websites to authenticate visitors by collecting their national ID numbers — something which provided even more ‘hackable’ data — while a law requiring the use of real names online was deemed unconstitutional just days later.

A new bill aims to end the use of online certifications for Web-based purchases, but it isn’t for certain that it will become law.

While the abundance of digital records and lack of investment in security attracts hackers, the Korean government is not likely to transform the system until it finds another that keeps transactions as safe. The Herald says several companies are using ActiveX-free payment systems already, suggesting that change is possible for the future.

Headline image via Thinkstock

Read next: Asia-focused HotelQuickly now lets travellers make multiple-night hotel bookings  Bizarrely, yes; it was a flat in London’s Mayfair district owned by their mutual friend, singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. Since Nilsson was only in London half the year, he would loan it to pals while he was out of town. “It was just a typical London flat,” Nilsson said, “but it was in a great neighborhood. It was across from the Playboy Club, diagonally. From one balcony you could read the time from Big Ben, and from the other balcony you could watch the Bunnies go up and down.”

“Mama” Cass Elliott, best-known as one of the Mamas and the Papas, was in town for a live performance when she died on July 29, 1974. Although it was widely reported that she had choked on a ham sandwich, the autopsy revealed that she actually died of a heart attack. Her cardiac condition may have been exacerbated by an extreme yo-yo diet, where she would alternate week-long fasts with massive weight gain.

Four years later, Keith Moon, the Who drummer legendary for his excess, was borrowing the apartment from Nilsson. On September 6, 1978, he attended a screening of the movie The Buddy Holly Story hosted by Paul McCartney. At 4:30 am, he came home and swallowed a handful of Heminevrin sleeping pills while watching the Vincent Price horror movie The Abominable Dr. Phibes. A few hours later, he woke up, cooked himself a steak, and swallowed it down, along with some champagne and more pills. He then passed out again, dying sometime that day of an accidental overdose. The autopsy revealed he had taken fully 32 Heminevrin pills. Understandably spooked, Nilsson never returned to his apartment; Pete Townshend, who had been renting it for him on Moon’s behalf, bought it from him so he wouldn’t have to ever see it again. In 2002, when Townshend was asked what he would say to Keith Moon in the afterlife, his joking answer was “You owe me five thousand pounds back rent.”

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)  ACT For America, a pro-Trump, anti-Muslim hate group, has canceled in-person rallies across 37 locations and moved them online, citing “recent violence in American and in Europe” for its venue changes. While it’s unknown what the group’s online “day of action” will entail, people can still sign up for information on attending the IRL events.

However, an investigation from Gizmodo shows that the group’s pro-Trump “America First” rallies, scheduled for Sept. 9, projected low interest via Facebook events, with as few as two people marked as “going” to events in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Sebring, Florida.

While the RSVP numbers Gizmodo reports don’t surpass eight attendees, 69 people are currently marked as “going” for the rally in Houston, with 25 for Lincoln, Nebraska, and 30 in Boston (though a different event verifies Gizmodo’s reporting that Boston only had eight people RSVP’d as of reporting time).

In a statement posted to right wing publication Breitbart, ACT For America appeared to group counterprotesters with white supremacists and denounced “Neo-Nazis, Antifa, the KKK, and ISIS inspired individuals and groups:”

“In recent weeks, extremist and radical organizations in the United States and abroad have overrun peaceful events in order to advance their own agendas, and in many cases, violence has been the result. Given the security issues of organizing public events, the responsible decision is to deny this opportunity to Neo-Nazis, Antifa, the KKK, and ISIS inspired individuals and groups. ACT for America’s membership is patriotic citizens whose only goal is to celebrate America’s values and peacefully express their views regarding national security.”

Gizmodo cited this past weekend’s demonstrations in Boston, during which 40,000 counterprotesters visually overpowered the 100 people attending the planned “free speech” rally, as evidence of ACT For America’s decision to pull the plug on even showing up. Additionally, mayors across the U.S. have denounced the planned pro-Trump demonstrations and denied the group permits to assemble.

But sure—the cancellation has much to do with violence (that saw a neo-Nazi kill Heather Heyer and injure 19 others with his car in Charlottesville) and nothing to do with this waning interest in publicly protesting for Trump.

H/T Gizmodo  CLOSE Eighteen students at Arizona State University are enrolled in a new, controversial English class about "The Problem of Whiteness."

Arizona State University's Tempe campus. (Photo: The Republic) Story Highlights ASU is offering a new English class this semester titled "U.S. Race Theory & the Problem of Whiteness"

Eighteen students are enrolled in the class, which is getting attention for its name and apparent subject

Eighteen students at Arizona State University are enrolled in a new, controversial English class about "the problem of Whiteness."

Five books are listed as required for the upper-division class, called "U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness." The texts include "Playing in the Dark" by Toni Morrison, an acclaimed novelist who has won a Pulitzer Prize, a Nobel Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

MONTINI: Problem isn't 'whiteness' but ignorance

The other required books are "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" by Richard Delgado, "Everyday Language of White Racism" by Jane Hill, "Alchemy of Race & Rights" by Patricia Williams, and "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness" by George Lipsitz.

ASU issued a statement about the class:

"This course uses literature and rhetoric to look at how stories shape people's understandings and experiences of race. It encourages students to examine how people talk about – or avoid talking about – race in the contemporary United States. This is an interdisciplinary course, so students will draw on history, literature, speeches and cultural changes – from scholarly texts to humor. The class is designed to empower students to confront the difficult and often thorny issues that surround us today and reach thoughtful conclusions rather than display gut reactions. A university is an academic environment where we discuss and debate a wide array of viewpoints."

The idea of "Whiteness" as a concept, rather than just skin color, has been a popular topic for research and academic classes since the late '90s. The study of "Whiteness" typically examines

Fox News correspondent Elisabeth Hasselbeck called the course "quite unfair, and wrong and pointed" on "Fox & Friends" Friday morning.

Lauren Clark, an ASU student who is not in the class, said on the show that she is disappointed that the university is offering the course.

"Clearly we have a lot of work to go as a society in terms of racial tensions, but having a class that suggests an entire race is the problem is inappropriate, wrong and quite frankly, counterproductive," she said on the show.

Assistant professor Lee Bebout teaches the class. He identifies as White.

Bebout declined to comment Friday, writing in an e-mail that "the last 24 hours have been stressful with some of the vitriolic hate-mail that I have received."

Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1BSACAX  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a victory for advocates of private property rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that governments may owe compensation to property owners who are denied permits to develop their land.

A television news producer sprints down the steps from the U.S. Supreme Court building with their printed rulings in cases heard earlier this year in Washington, June 24, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Critics said the 5-4 decision, with the conservative justices comprising the majority, will make it more difficult and costly for governments to promote development or enact environmental changes designed to help the public generally.

The court sided with Coy Koontz, a Florida man who said limits imposed by the St. Johns River Water Management District on how he used his land were a “taking” subject to compensation under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

He was supported by conservative legal groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business group, while the U.S. government, 19 states and wetlands conservation activists backed St. Johns.

“The decision is a very serious loss for local governments,” said John Echeverria, a Vermont Law School professor specializing in land use and property rights who filed a brief for state and local government associations on St. Johns’ behalf.

“It means requirements to pay fees or other payments as a condition of permit approvals will be subject to heightened scrutiny. That is a revolutionary change in the law,” he added.

Koontz prevailed after a battle lasting more than 18 years that he and his late father waged over the development of their nearly 15-acre (six-hectare) parcel of land east of Orlando.

After Florida declared much of the parcel as protected wetlands, Koontz proposed to develop about a quarter of it and dedicate the rest for conservation, only to have local officials insist that he pay money to protect wetlands elsewhere.

Koontz said no, and a trial court awarded him $327,500 for being unable to use his property. Florida’s highest court then threw this award out, saying that because St. Johns never issued a permit and Koontz never spent money, “nothing was ever taken.”

Writing for the Supreme Court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said governments may not condition land-use permits on owners giving up the use of some property absent a “nexus” and “rough proportionality” between the demand and the effect of the proposed land use.

Alito said this rule applied even if the permit were denied, and the demand was for money.

“So long as the building permit is more valuable than any just compensation the owner could hope to receive for the right-of-way, the owner is likely to accede to the government’s demand, no matter how unreasonable,” Alito wrote.

“Extortionate demands of this sort frustrate the Fifth Amendment right to just compensation, and the unconstitutional conditions doctrine prohibits them,” he added.

Joining Alito’s opinion were Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

NO CARTE BLANCHE

Paul Beard, principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, who argued Koontz’s appeal, said the decision raises the bar for governments to extract money from owners of land, homes or businesses, even if it may be to serve the public good.

“This case reaffirms the principle that government must show a connection between what it asks for and what the property owner wants to do,” Beard said in an interview. “Governments don’t have carte blanche any more to say, ‘Give us $100,000 and we’ll give you a permit.’”

The decision came two weeks after the Supreme Court cleared the way for California raisin growers to challenge, as an improper taking, a 1930s-era law requiring them to keep part of their crop off the market.

Justice Elena Kagan dissented from Tuesday’s decision, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Kagan elaborated on the idea that nothing had been taken from Koontz - a point that Scalia also made during January’s oral argument.

“In what legal universe could a law authorizing damages only for a ‘taking’ also provide damages when (as all agree) no taking has occurred?” Kagan wrote. “I doubt that inside-out, upside-down universe is the state of Florida.”

Kagan also said the decision “threatens to subject a vast array of land-use regulations, applied daily in states and localities throughout the country, to heightened constitutional scrutiny. I would not embark on so unwise an adventure.”

The case is Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 1447.  The Real Madrid star has overtaken Gerard Pique's spouse Shakira as the most popular star on Facebook, racing well ahead of Lionel Messi and Neymar

Despite going through a rough patch on the field at Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo remains a much-loved figure all over the world and has now become the most 'liked' person on Facebook.

The Real Madrid star's stature as one of the best footballers of all-time has grown recently as he won a second consecutive Fifa Ballon d'Or for 2014, which was his third overall.

And while Madrid have dropped to second in La Liga and were almost eliminated from the Champions League in midweek, the 30-year-old remains No.1 to the global audience.

The attacker surpassed 100 million Facebook likes in October, but his stature on the social network site has grown since then as he currently has over 107 million fans.

That means he has surpassed Shakira as the most popular account on the website, having attracted over 16,000 more fans than the pop star and spouse of Barcelona defender Gerard Pique.

Unsurprisingly, Lionel Messi is the second-most popular footballer in the world on Facebook, with 78 million likes.

Real Madrid themselves have gathered over 82.9 million fans - marginally less than Barca's 83.6 million.

David Beckham comes third in the list of most popular current and former football players with just over 52 million, though Neymar is fast approaching the same figure.  Too many Americans aren’t paid enough to enjoy a decent standard of living. That is unacceptable in a country as rich as the US. California and New York plan to phase in a $15-per-hour minimum wage over the next few years, amid a push for $15 to also be set as the national minimum wage, from $today.

This is the wrong way to solve the problem. It’s not just that a wage increase that large risks job losses, but if the goal is a fairer distribution of income between rich and poor, then the minimum wage is a lousy way to achieve it.

Sadly, the money to pay low-wage workers more has to come from somewhere. It can either come from the savings that result from cutting jobs or hours, from dipping into profits, or by raising prices. Even pro-minimum wage economists worry that $15-per-hour goes too far and risks job losses.

What about profits? Some, like White House economist Jason Furman, believe minimum-wage employers pay their workers less than they are worth, so higher wages can come from lower profits. But according to official statistics, about one-third of minimum-wage workers are employed by small businesses (employing fewer than 50 people), mostly in the retail and food sector. Many others work for independently owned franchises of big brands, like McDonald’s or 7-11. These sorts of firms earn small profits—a survey of food-franchise owners found that half of them make $50,000 or less in annual earnings.

That leaves prices. A study of a large minimum-wage hike in Hungary (pdf) concluded that the higher wages mostly resulted in higher prices. Research in America (pdf) suggests that every 1% increase in the minimum wage boosts prices by 0.04% to 0.40%.

Higher prices impact everyone, rich and poor alike. For this reason, Stanford economist Thomas MaCurdy argues that a minimum-wage hike is similar to a rise in the sales tax rate. He studied a US minimum-wage hike in 1996—an increase from $to $per hour—and concluded that the resulting rise in prices amounted to a 0.59% tax on all low earners. The effective tax was lower for high earners, because the extra money they had to spend accounted for a lower share of their wallets. So it’s not just a higher sales tax, but a regressive one as well.

These may not sound like large increases, but MaCurdy’s study considered a relatively modest increase during a booming economy; the equivalent today would boost the minimum wage to $8.8o per hour. Pushing the minimum wage to $15 is a much bigger increase amidst a weaker economy—presumably, the accompanying price increases and additional burden on low earners would be larger too.

It is possible to take money from high earners and give it to minimum-wage earners more directly, without making the lower and middle classes pay too. Most economists champion the Earned Income Tax Credit, which reduces or refunds taxes owed by low-earning families. Not only does this avoid putting jobs at risk, it targets the families most in need and shifts tax revenue (collected from a progressive tax system) to those who need it most.

In many ways, it is ironic that both free college tuition and a $15 minimum wage are key parts of progressive presidential hopeful Bernie Sander’s economic policy prescriptions. Neither are very effective at redistributing from the rich to the poor—quite the opposite.  James T. Costa is Executive Director of Highlands Biological Station and Professor of Biology at Western Carolina University.

Bert Hölldobler is now Foundation Professor of Biology at Arizona State University; formerly Chair of Behavioral Physiology and Sociology at the Theodor Boveri Institute, University of WÃ1⁄4rzburg. He is also the recipient of the U.S. Senior Scientist Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German government. Until 1990, he was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University.

He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1929. He is currently Pellegrino University Research Professor & Honorary Curator in Entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. He is on the Board of Directors of the Nature Conservancy, Conservation International & the American Museum of Natural History. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Edward O. Wilson is Pellegrino University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. In addition to two Pulitzer Prizes (one of which he shares with Bert Hölldobler), Wilson has won many scientific awards, including the National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.  Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator Newcomer Kum Haehyun Gets New Screenshots

By Sato . January 20, 2016 . 7:30am

Arc System Works recently revealed a new character for Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator with Kum Haehyun, and Famitsu has updated with a first look at some screenshots for the newcomer.

Kum Haehyun is a descendant of “Tuners,” and also the head of the Kum family. While Kum Haehyun is actually a girl, she rides inside a cyborg. The Kum family have the ability to control the flow of energy, and they’re the only people in the world with this ability.

The cyborg, called “Jonryoku Kum,” does the fighting, and has the appearance of an old martial arts master. It isn’t all about appearances, as it can back up with some legit martial art moves… but you still get to see a look at Kum Haehyun inside whenever she gets hit.

By using the parameter, she’s able to pull off the some special moves, and they’re looking pretty smashing so far. The Dust Attack shown on te right looks like it has quite the range.

Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator will release in Japan for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 on May 26, 2016.  Korean family reunions: could you wait 67 years to see your family again?

Updated

More than 60,000 families torn apart by the Korean War have loved ones in North Korea. With 85 per cent of them over the age of 70 and no family reunions in sight, their time is fast running out.

"To my mother I miss dearly, time has slipped away from us, and it's now been 67 years since I left your warm embrace."

As Oh Myung-jin reads the first lines of a letter he has written to the mother he will never see again, the deep creases on his forehead soften and his eyes flicker.

He was 15 when he last saw his mother and nine-year-old brother.

Today Oh is 82 and he's still waiting. He is among the 60,000 South Koreans on the list of families wishing to reconnect with loved ones in the North.

Running from the war

It was 1950 and war had broken out on the Korean peninsula.

Oh lived in a small town deep in the mountains with his parents and two brothers. They were just 4 kilometres above the now Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) in North Korea.

"We could hear gunshots and bombings getting louder from the mountains," he recalls.

"We started panicking because we were scared of being taken away by communist soldiers and conscripted into the army."

Oh, his father and older brother had followed their usual drill of going into hiding until the bombings subsided.

He remembers standing by the edge of a rickety wooden bridge above a swollen creek, as he casually waved goodbye to his mother and young brother.

"I can never forget the look on my little brother's face. He walked away from us with his head down, upset that he couldn't come with us.

"I reassured him that we would be back the next morning."

But Oh never returned home. The persistent bombings drove the two sons and their father further south, away from home. Five days later, they sought refuge in the city of Seoul.

As the war raged on, he never heard from his mother and younger brother again.

A permanent divide

What was meant to be a war to reunite the two Koreas instead permanently divided the nation.

In July 1953, the Korean War was brought to a halt with an armistice agreement between the United Nations Command, led by the US, North Korea and China. It established a Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which pushed each side back 2 kilometres, creating the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).

And with it, hundreds of thousands of families were torn apart — husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers.

Their only hope now of meeting is through state-arranged family reunions, hosted by the Red Cross, as all forms of communication, including mail and phone, are strictly prohibited.

There have been 21 face-to-face family reunions since 1985, with the last one in October 2015.

About 100 participants from each side are selected randomly by a computerised system, with priority given to the eldest and those wishing to connect with immediate family members.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Families reunited for the first time since Korean War (ABC News)

Time is running out

The head of the Red Cross' Inter-Korean Cooperation's department, Woo Kwang-ho, says those on the waiting list for reunions don't have much time left.

Now, 85 per cent of those still on the list are older than 70.

"For these people, every single day counts," he says.

"Statistics show at least 10 people [on the list] on average die each day — that's nearly 3,700 people passing away every year."

Yet the prospect of a family reunion in the near future appears unlikely.

All communication with North Korea's Red Cross has been cut for nearly two years.

Its operations have inevitably been affected by the ongoing political and military tensions on the Korean peninsula.

"The Red Cross is a humanitarian organisation, and it shouldn't be affected by political events," Woo says.

"But realistically, North Korea's ongoing nuclear and missile issue is escalating tensions on the peninsula, and we haven't been able to hold any talks with the North."

The 'lucky' ones

Lee Soon-kyu was one of the lucky ones. In 2015, the then 85-year-old and her adult son met her husband for the first time in 65 years.

Separated when she was 20, Lee was three months pregnant and had been married for just half a year.

Her husband, Oh In-se, had been lured by an undercover communist sympathiser in the South to complete 10 days of military training in the North.

"I cried a lot. He was leaving me and I didn't know what would happen to him. But he promised me he would be home in 10 days."

But days soon turned into months, and months into years and decades.

"I really can't express in words how I felt back then. I waited every single day for 10 years, hoping that he would come home ... and it was only after then that I stopped waiting and hoping."

A bittersweet reunion

The meeting with her husband in North Korea's Mount Kumgung resort was bitter sweet.

They were given four two-hour sessions over three days, under the watchful eye of North and South Korean officials and media.

"When I saw him walking over [to my table], I knew it was him," she says.

"I could see his old self in him … he looked exactly like my son."

Her son Oh Jang-kyun says his first meeting with his father was overwhelming.

"The moment we met as father and son... I couldn't have been happier. I told him I would live with pride knowing that I too have a father."

Lee Soon-kyu and Oh In-se shared photos of old and new, trying to catch up on the 65-years that they had missed.

Oh had remarried and had five children.

As he showed a picture of his family in the North, he patted Lee's shoulder and pleaded for her understanding.

"It is the war that has done this to us," he says.

Negotiations continue

South Korea's President, Moon Jae-in has urged North Korea to return to the negotiating table to discuss denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula.

He has also called on the North to resume Red Cross talks for family reunions to help ease tensions between the two countries.

In a statement, South Korea's Ministry of Unification says the separated family issue is an urgent matter they are working on as a top priority.

"For those who have applied to participate in the reunions, we are trying to confirm whether they are still alive," it says.

"We would like to hold reunions more regularly and will aim to expand the pool of participants at the next reunion.

"We are trying to systemise the practice of exchanging letters between the separated families."

Oh's final wish

As for Oh Myung-jin, he says he is confident current events will not lead to a point of no return.

"If a nuclear war breaks out, everyone will die. What would be the point of reunification if we're all wiped out?"

He says he trusts in his government and will hold onto hope until his last breath.

"My younger brother is 76 now and that is considered old in North Korean standards. But I believe he is still alive.

"I don't know when I will see him but it's my only wish that he stays alive until the day we meet again."

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Messages to the North (ABC News)

Credits

Words and photos: Susan Kim

Producer: Annika Blau

Editor: Leigh Tonkin

Topics: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, family, missing-person, korea-republic-of, korea-democratic-peoples-republic-of

First post  Netanyahu’s Evolving Dystopia

This a work of speculative fiction. It is an attempt to describe a future where the current Israeli trend of embracing right-wing politics, and valuing nationalism over democracy, continues unchecked. The purpose behind this stark portrait is not to predict it as an inevitable future, but to illustrate how bad things could get if we are not successful in containing Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman. Following Mya Guarnieri’s Imagining Israel’s Future, this article is the second in a series postulating potential outcomes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

****

The May 25, 2020 story in the New York Jewish Week merited only a link in the lower right-hand corner of the web page.

The headline read “Attendance at AIPAC Conference Hits All-Time Low At 1000.” The reporter went on to say that she believed even that number was inflated.

The crowd was described as “overwhelmingly older and religious,” a mix of Orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians, with very few exceptions.

It was an election year, and Israel was at the center of controversy. But ever since AIPAC lost the battle to renew American military aid to Israel, the organization was gasping its last breath.

The American Jewish peace movement, with such groups as J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace and Americans for Peace Now had completely disappeared, buried by the disillusionment and disconnect of the new generation of Jewish leaders with Israel.

Some of those groups merged with broader American peace and justice groups, others just faded away. Everyone wants to know: how did this happen?

Most of us trace the cause back to the beginning of the 21st century. Pollsters were finding that Israel, while still important to most Jews who felt affiliated with some sort of Jewish community, was becoming less of a day-to-day interest.

Younger Jews were split over trying to reconcile their liberal idealism with Israeli policies. Some just didn’t try, backing Israel blindly despite the inherent contradiction. But more and more either wanted Israel to change its behavior, or found the moral mess of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict too complex to deal with.

The massive destruction Israel wrought in Lebanon in 2006, and again in Gaza in 2009 deeply disturbed American Jews. Many tried to accept Israeli government excuses that disproportionate force was necessary because of the kind of enemy it had to fight. However, it was getting harder to square Israeli government policy with American Jewish values.

And then Israel began moving farther and farther to the right. At first, this manifested itself in greater hostility towards non-Jewish Israelis. It did not take long before it was also directed at Jews opposed to the Occupation, and in favor of such typically ‘western’ things as equality for migrant workers and Arab Israelis.

Meanwhile, progressive Israeli organizations found more and more of their sources of funding barred by the government, while leftwing activists faced increasingly heavy fines and longer jail time.

As Palestinian citizens of Israel faced growing discrimination in the cities where they lived, Jews increasingly began moving to exclusively Arab towns such as Sakhnin and Umm-al-Fahmm. As the movement within Israel to avoid doing any business with or buy from Arabs, such municipalities became increasingly poverty-stricken, and susceptible to “good offers” on local properties.

By 2017, Israel’s brain drain reached a critical mass. Secular Israelis departed in droves as the influx of new immigrants came to consist overwhelmingly of Orthodox Jews. The Likud party became the symbol of the moderate center as the right raised an increasingly popular call to ignore American Jewish sensibilities, as Israel had done with the rest of the international community. The Americans, as far as the Israeli right were concerned, had become just as bad as the Europeans.

Israel’s increasingly religious Jewish population saw the country’s economy decline precipitously, as the technology and finance whiz kids who had become the backbone of the country’s private sector left for Europe, the US, and even some parts of the Muslim world, which had embarked on a program to welcome back Jews of Arab descent, whose families had been forced out after the 1948 war. Even Turkey’s Jewish population was growing, for the first time since the Spanish Inquisition.

The Arab world’s increasing moderation, coupled with its much stronger opposition to the Occupation was seen in Israel as the “reconciliation threat.” Jews could remain in the Middle East, and enjoy its cultural familiarity and good climate without the stress of being isolated in Israel. This wasn’t something that Jews returning to Muslim countries bragged about. They just did it, much as the Israeli grandchildren of Holocaust victims obtained second, European passports, and moved en masse to German cities like Berlin.

In 2018, Israel’s international isolation became complete when it formally annexed the West Bank settlements, the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea region. In order to maintain what Israelis saw as a “Jewish democracy,” Israel didn’t formally annex the rest of the West Bank, but the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority forced Israel to take control of the rest of territory there. It granted only residency rights, not citizenship, to the Arabs of the West Bank.

For most of the Jews outside of Israel, including the swelling number of Israeli expatriates living in the Diaspora, this was the last straw. Even among mainstream Jews, the phrase “Zionist apartheid” became the only way to refer to the Israeli system of government. And the organized Jewish community, fearful of anti-Semitism if they should continue to be associated with Israel, appalled at what the Zionist dream had devolved into, began to undertake projects to formally separate themselves from Israel.

In 2019, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2948 condemning “Zionist apartheid,” calling for immediate citizenship for all “residents of Israel,” opening Jerusalem to all worshippers of all faiths and providing for stern international sanctions if Israel failed to comply.

In a measure of how much things had changed, two-thirds of the US House of Representatives and ninety percent of the Senate voted for concurrent resolutions supporting the Security Council decision. Only those Congressmen heavily supported by the Christian Right voted against it.

Gobal support for Israel is relegated to a small sliver of the Jewish and Christian religious right. Israel itself remains secure from outside attack, due to its nuclear arsenal. It continues to contain the spreading riots of Palestinians, in the “administered territories” as well as within Israel.

But biting sanctions have crippled the Israeli economy. While some Evangelical and Jewish groups have been able to funnel enough money to Israel to stave off mass starvation, everyone knows it is only a matter of time before Israel must comply with the UNSC resolutions or starve to death

The Arab towns in Israel have become impoverished ghettos. The primary line of work for Arabs, as well as many poor Jews, was in the police force, which was the only public sector whose funding was not cut as Israel’s budget shrank.

Administrative detentions were expanded from the West Bank areas and began being applied in Israel, affecting Arabs and Jews from all sides of the political spectrum if they were perceived to be acting against “the interests of the state.” The governing coalition of nationalist and religious political parties compromised to enact laws expanding the role of Jewish law in the legal system as well as more and more “loyalty regulation,” violations of which sometimes carried jail time, but more often simply made it impossible to find work or do business in Israel.

In Europe and the United States, Jews simply turned their backs in disgust.

Jewish history will go on. But without a homeland, Jews everywhere will be left to wonder what might have been if only they could have shared their Zionist dreams with the Palestinians who were already there.

This article is licensed to Souciant courtesy of Babylon Times.  Patent Troll's Frivolous Attack On Startup Forces Startup To Sell Out To Another Patent Troll

from the fix-patents dept

Despite Jump Rope’s warnings that its application did not meet the limitations of claim 1, however, Smart Options did not purchase a Jump or ensure that the basis for its claims was not “factually inaccurate” before continuing to pursue its infringement claims.... Smart Options’ failure to avail itself of the easy, inexpensive opportunity to actually test and analyze Jump Rope’s product, particularly after it received Jump Rope’s initial Rule 11 motion, is unreasonable....



Moreover, even if Baker had purchased a Jump or had sufficient information about Jump Rope’s application to compare its functionality to the ‘539 patent, Smart Options failed to reasonably construe the claim terms in order to allow for such a comparison....



[....]



Smart Options also could not have sufficiently compared its patent with Jump Rope’s product, not only because it did not have familiarity with its functionality, but because it did not construe the claim terms. Smart Options, therefore, did not conduct a reasonable pre-filing investigation and had no reasonable factual basis to file its complaint, or to refuse to withdraw the complaint during the safe harbor period after Jump Rope served its original Rule 11 motion and letter.....



For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants Jump Rope’s motion for sanctions. Specifically, the Court awards Jump Rope all of the reasonable attorney’s fees directly resulting from Smart Options’ frivolous complaint, including attorney’s fees incurred during the filing of the present Rule 11 motion.

This is the first time that I met the plaintiff, after a year and a half of litigation. He waived confidentiality and he said: "Look, I'm going to make this real easy for you. This isn't a mediation. This isn't arbitration. This is what you're going to do. You're going to settle the lawsuit. We're not going to pay you any Rule 11 capital. We may or may not win this case," they said, "but what we are going to do when this case is over. We're going to sue you with another patent in our portfolio of patents and you're going to start this process all over again.

"OK, maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"

A free consultation quickly became the beginnings of a negotiation. Mr. Spangenberg offered to take an equity position worth $500,000, in exchange for solving all of Jump Rope’s legal problems.



“I’m going to invest as well,” Mr. Spangenberg said. “Peter, what do you need to get this back up while we raise money from people with lots of money?”



“About half a million bucks,” he said.



“That’s what I figured,” Mr. Spangenberg replied. “So we’d fund that.”

“Look, I’ll get $500,000 in equity for taking the legal piece off his plate,” he said. “It’ll cost me $100,000 to make the lawsuit go away.” He promised to locate “pressure points” on either Smart Options or Hugh McNally, its C.E.O.



“I get to make a great investment on great terms,” he said. “Then I let Citadel” — a large hedge fund that had expressed interest in funding Jump Rope — “put a big chunk of money into it and I go off and do something else.”

The folks over at the App Developer's Alliance (a trade group for app developers) recently posted the following video of Peter Braxton discussing his run in with a patent troll In short: Braxton started a company called Jump Rope Inc., which made an app that would let you pay a fee to skip a line (first use case: pay your way to get into a popular bar ahead of the line). No matter what you might think of that kind of app, Braxton was quickly threatened and then sued by a patent trolling operation called Smart Options which has a patent ( US Patent 7,313,539 ) on a "method and system for reserving future purchases of goods or services." In short, it's a patent on electronic options buying -- which should never be patentable in the first place. It's "take something that happens in the offline world (options buying) and put it on a computer" which isn't supposed to be patentable. Either way, the idea that line jumping violates a patent for options buying seems doubly ridiculous.And, Braxton actually went to court to fight it, spending his own money to do so after returning his investors' money. As he noted, his investors had bought into a startup, not a lawsuit. Eventually, he not only won the case , but Smart Options was ordered to pay attorneys' fees under Rule 11 for filing a frivolous lawsuit (including never actually using the Jump Rope app and falsely describing its functionality in the lawsuit):Braxton discusses some of this in the video, but adds in another tidbit that is absolutely crazy. After that ruling above, Smart Options appealed and both sides went to mediation to try to resolve it (Braxton noted he had no money to continue the lawsuit). Here's how Braxton describes how that went in the video:This kind of story is not that unusual. For years, we've pointed to the similar story of how IBM tried to shake down Sun Microsystems in its early years, threatening over seven patents. Sun's engineers and lawyers went through all seven showing how they didn't infringe and were then told:Originally, after seeing that video, I was going to just focus on that threat to sue again with this post, but as I continued investigating the story, it turns out that itand more ridiculous. For what it's worth, Smart Options' lawyers claims he never made such a threat... but also in the next breath does claim that the company has other patents that Jump Rope violates.But, the crazier part is in a NY Times article that tried to follow up on this story. The reporter, Daivd Segal, heard Braxton's story, and called up Erich Spangenberg , one of the world's most notorious patent trolls, who definitely has experience with situations like the one above. In fact, Spangenberg once got hit with a ruling saying he had to pay $4 million for suing the same company with the same patent twice, despite an earlier settlement promising not to do so.Spangenberg's response to the questions about Braxton's situation? He smelled blood in the water and agreed to invest in Braxton's company -- basically buying low, with a promise that he could then strong arm Smart Options into going away. Really:And Spangenberg knows that he's buying distressed assets here:The article notes that Spangenberg has now invested in about 25 similarly "distressed" companies -- distressed by other patent trolls playing the same game that Spangenberg perfected. And, even the terms mentioned above weren't good enough. In the end, the article reports, Spangenberg's IP Nav bought 40% of Braxton's company for merely $200,000.The story tries to play this out like a "patent troll done good," but it's horrifying. It's one patent troll beating up on a startup, and then allowing a second one to come in and vulture up the leftovers. It's certainly not good for innovation in any way.People fighting against the patent reform bill that's currently making its way through Congress keep insisting that the bill is designed by big tech companies to harm startups. But that's ridiculous. The bill would have significantly helped Braxton, allowing him to get out of the lawsuit faster and for less money, and likely awarding attorneys' fees in a simpler and faster process. In fact, it's more likely that Smart Options never would have sued in the first place if the PATENT Act were law at the time.

Filed Under: erich spangenberg, line jumping, options, patent act, patent trolling, patents, peter braxton, shakedown

Companies: ip nav, jump rope, smart options  By Milo Yiannopoulos on May 2nd, 2014

Imagine, for a moment, a broadband utopia where “buffering” screens are a thing of the past and every movie you watch loads instantly, presented in crisp sound and sharp detail, for just a few dollars more than you currently spend.

This glimmering prospect is closer to reality now that Internet service providers (ISPs)—the people you pay your $30 a month to—are able to provide a “fast lane” for premium content. You pay a bit more, you get faster Netflix and YouTube.

Sounds simple enough. Yet some people are upset—very upset—that providers are allowed to prioritise certain kinds of traffic. They believe in “net neutrality,” a dorky term that means your provider should treat every website equally and shouldn’t analyse traffic to work out what you should get at higher speeds.

Net neutrality is held as an inviolable dogma by some communities on the Internet, who treat it as if it were an 11th commandment. Dissidents are looked upon as morally defective. These ideologues say that prioritising some kinds of websites violates a fundamental principle of the Internet.

But their claims do not bear scrutiny. The web is already being used in ways its creators never intended, to such extent that it is barely fit for purpose. The recent Heartbleed debacle happened precisely because the Internet was not designed for the sort of secure transactions it handles today.

More to the point, “traffic shaping,” as it is known, has been going on for years. ISPs have always done it—to fight copyright infringement, to combat viruses and to cope with oversold bandwidth. (Unlike airlines, ISPs do not boot people off the plane when they sell too many tickets; they just spread the service more thinly.)

Incidentally, that’s another reason to rejoice in the death of net neutrality: If you’re a movie buff paying for the extra speeds, your Internet connection won’t be affected by your neighbours’ pirating habits any more. This is the revenge of the non-nerds: ordinary people protected from the basement-dwelling gamers and movie thieves up the street.

That’s especially important in countries where broadband performance can be spotty, i.e. most of the United States.

The Internet community is generally pretty good at overturning received wisdom—except its own, of course. But in any case, by losing this fight, net neutrality advocates have dodged a bullet. Because the alternative to traffic shaping, say ISPs, is usage-based pricing—as with mobile phone contracts—where bandwidth hogs pay more. Needless to say, it’s precisely the “free love” movie pirates furiously arguing for neutrality who would get stung with the biggest bills.

On closer inspection, keyboard warriors may decide to have their torrents take 30 minutes longer than pay $300 a month to stay online.

To be honest, usage-based home broadband bills, with punitive bolt-ons for those who go over their allowance, are probably coming anyway. But allowing ISPs to introduce premium packages now for heavy users will delay their arrival—perhaps by years. That’s good news for everyone.

I have been invited by the European Commission to help assess applications for a new €80 billion grant fund for technology startups, called Horizon 2020. This puts me in a bind. On the one hand, I, like every right-thinking person, loathe everything the European project stands for and want no part in its taxpayer-funded largesse.

On the other, it seems morally incumbent upon me to accept, to ensure your money is spent as wisely as possible and not given to dating apps for dogs. (Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with obscure social networks, but they should not be subsidised by the taxpayer.) And there is the added complication of a generous honorarium—a temptation to which I am not entirely immune.

After careful consideration, I have resolved to follow what British readers will recognise as “the Farage method.” That is, trouser the cash, do the best you can in the time available, then get the bloody hell out of there.

Today in nerds ruin everything: Even your afternoon dump is subject to analysis. Actually, I think it’s just bleeding the lizard for now (and, I learn around press time, an elaborate hoax). How my credulousness speaks to the snoopiness of data dorks, who were purported to have built a “quantified toilet” that scanned your effluvium for alcohol, drugs, diseases, and even pregnancy.

Sorry folks! The website, which pretends to list findings anonymously but publicly, is just good fun. Sooner or later, of course, the joke will become reality and the subpoenas will start flying. What a brave new world.

Amusing to discover that Sajid Javid, the U.K.’s new secretary of state for culture, media and sport, is a Trekkie. I wrote to him on Tuesday to ask whether he’s a Voyager or a Deep Space Nine man, whether he’s been to a convention, if he owns any costumes, whether he speaks Klingon, and which alien race he most identifies with.

Perhaps he thought I was mocking him (I wasn’t), because Javid declined to answer. A pity, because idle minds are prone to speculation. Given his financial cunning, polished pate and oily charm, I’m guessing the answer to that last question would have been Ferengi.

This week marked the 10th anniversary of the best movie ever made. I speak of course of Mean Girls, which among many deserved accolades boasts the distinction of being Mariah Carey’s favourite film.

Watching the ups and downs of Cady Heron 10 years later reveals just one anachronism in this otherwise timeless masterpiece, and that’s Regina George’s burn book photocopying spree. Can you imagine such a thing in the era of Ask.fm?

This strikes me as a bit of a shame. Now that everyone’s got Facebook, I mean, and the bar for bullying is set so low. Even as a 15-year-old, I recognised that there was something wonderfully romantic about the effort it took to stick posters up around school about people you didn’t like.

It showed a sort of perverse affection for the victim—nothing like today’s throwaway LEANNE U R A SLUT LOL. Yet another quotidian art form the Internet has killed off.

Someone on anonymous gossip app Secret says that Apple is planning to put heart rate sensors in its next pair of headphones. No doubt this will come in handy when they release the price of the iWatch.

A year ago this week, Kevin Morris of this parish reported that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had not paid two winners of his “Wikipedian of the Year” award the $5,000 to which they were entitled.

Shortly after publication, one of those debts was finally paid off. “There were complications around Western Union rules and nothing to report about other than that the banking system makes it hard to do what people would like to do,” Wales told me via email on Tuesday.

Yet the second debt, which is now three years old, remains unsettled. Wales says “it has always been agreed that the grant would come upon my making a trip to Kazakhstan, which has proven difficult to arrange.”

Mr. Wales should be applauded for his ingenuity. Indeed, I am thinking of using the same excuse when my next cellphone bill arrives: “I’m terribly sorry, T-Mobile, but did we not agree that I would pay you the next time I visit Kazakhstan?”

Milo Yiannopoulos is the founder and former Editor-in-Chief of The Kernel. His first book, The Sociopaths of Silicon Valley, will be published in   On April 22, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued a sweeping executive order that changed the lives of 200,000 ex-felons in Virginia, instantly restoring their right to vote. This order leaves only Kentucky, Florida and Iowa with blanket lifetime disenfranchisement policies for ex-felons. In these three states, no citizens convicted of a felony are allowed to vote, regardless of the crime committed, absent government-granted exceptions to the policy.

Governor McAuliffe’s act is a reminder that public support for giving ex-felons the right to vote after prison is significant, and growing—but this type of order doesn’t go far enough. Ex-felons should be able to vote, yes. But so should prisoners themselves.

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To some, the idea may seem risky, unnecessary or even unconscionable. But in fact, there are good reasons to embrace it. For one, our constitutional ideals support the right of prisoners to vote, and denying it violates the concept of self-government that the founders cherished. Granting this right also makes sense for the country in terms of politics and policy. As prisons have grappled with the explosion in their populations in the past 20 years, allegations of prisoner maltreatment multiply, and criminal justice reform moves to the fore of our political debate, we should consider that one of the best ways to solve these intractable and expensive problems would be to listen to those currently incarcerated—and to allow them to represent themselves in our national political conversation.

In the United States, the debate about prison voting rights is virtually nonexistent. Only two states, Maine and Vermont, allow the practice. If anything, the movement has gone backward: Massachusetts and Utah both revoked this right in the past two decades. In Massachusetts, this occurred via state referendum after some state inmates organized a political action committee, setting off a harsh rebuke from the state’s governor, who stated, “Criminals behind bars have no business deciding who should govern the law-abiding citizens of the Commonwealth.”

Telling prisoners they cannot vote is premised on the idea that convicts undergo a sort of temporary “civic death”—a suspension of normal rights as citizens while they are behind bars. And indeed that was once true of prisoners in this country. But the federal government has made strides away from the notion of civic death over the past century. In recent years, the Supreme Court and Congress have affirmed a variety of constitutional rights for prisoners. They have rights of religious freedom under a 2000 federal law. Prisoners also retain some First Amendment free speech rights to hold and express political opinions. Most important, the Supreme Court decided that prisoners cannot have their citizenship stripped as a punishment for a crime. As Justice Earl Warren wrote in the 1958 case Trop v. Dulles: “Citizenship is not a right that expires upon misbehavior.”

Although he did not acknowledge this, Warren’s insight shows us why ex-felons deserve the right to vote: If prisoners remain citizens and retain their civic status throughout their sentences, then it follows that prisoners should enjoy the most basic of their civil rights, the right to cast a ballot. Disenfranchising them creates a class of people still subject to the laws of the United States (they were, after all, punished under that law) but without a voice in the way they’re governed—not unlike taxation without representation.

This also creates a kind of caste system, one that’s eerily similar to a dark chapter in our past. The vast majority of states prisoners cannot vote, yet they’re often counted in the population for the legislative district of their prison, the main factor that determines a state’s number of representatives and its presidential electoral votes. It’s a practice the NAACP calls “prison-based gerrymandering.” If that sounds familiar, it should: Such a policy resembles the Constitution’s notorious three-fifths clause, which denied slaves the right to vote but counted them in the Census for the purposes of amassing more pro-slavery representatives. (In some states, prisoners are counted in their home districts, which evens out the representation. But still, those prisoners are not voting for those representatives.)

Other advanced democracies are now recognizing the right of prisoners to vote. The European Court of Human Rights held in 2005 that Britain’s blanket ban on prisoner voting violated the democratic rights of its prisoners. The court reasoned that the government could punish citizens by revoking their liberty—but could not uniformly revoke the most central right of that citizenship, the vote.

American critics who scoff at Europe’s treatment of prisoners say that allowing prisoners to vote would literally be letting the inmates run the asylum. Far from it: Perhaps the most important reason to allow prisoner voting is that prisons, not just prisoners, would benefit. Prisoners need the vote to serve as the “natural defenders” of their own interests. But in defending their own interests, prisoners could substantially improve the prison system itself.

We can start with the issue of prisoner abuse. We already know that prisoners are subject to abusive and inhumane conditions. In a 2011 ruling that held overcrowded California prisons in violation of the Eighth Amendment, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that in California alone, an inmate “needlessly dies every six or seven days.” Plenty of other prison practices, such as solitary confinement, are just now receiving public scrutiny, and there are likely more troubling conditions we don’t know about. Under the current system, ending abusive practices requires years of expensive litigation as prisoners sue over maltreatment and prisons adjust to the rulings. We could improve prisons much more quickly and cheaply by creating a political constituency of prison voters.

How would that work? Obama’s historical 2015 visit to a federal prison was noteworthy because politicians rarely listen to those incarcerated. A prison and jail constituency, numbering roughly 2 million across 50 states, would make it routine for politicians to hold town halls and seek ways to improve prison and jail conditions from those who are subjected to them. This is not coddling prisoners. More and more politicians are looking to reform our criminal justice system, and this would be a common sense way to help them identify needed changes.

Of course, granting the right to vote is not enough to create a robust prison constituency. Prisoners will also need to be granted the right to speak freely and receive information, both of which are rights that are often limited for prisoners currently. Superstar litigator and former Solicitor General Paul Clement has already filed a lawsuit defending the right of prisoners to gain access to news about public life. Indeed, government can be held accountable only when citizens have information about the actions of their representatives.

Many will resist the idea of a prison constituency. The point of prisons, they say, is to inflict punishment, not to allow organizing. But this is shortsighted. Prison is itself already severe punishment. The deprivation of liberty and the loss of control over everyday interaction, including the ability to see one’s loved ones on a daily basis, are all severe constraints imposed by incarceration. One can be punished without being subjected to civic exile.

Some will argue that it is enough to allow prisoners to regain their right to vote after release. But we cannot expect prisoners to be deprived of all rights and then emerge from prison ready to use them well. The new consensus around post-release enfranchisement demands a smarter way to think about prisoners’ political rights behind bars. A prison constituency with rights to vote and related rights of free speech can engage in civic activism that will continue after release. Although voters in Massachusetts saw prisoner political participation as a kind of insurrection, it is nothing like the violent insurrections that marked prisons of the 1970s. As Joe Labriola, chairman of a Massachusetts civic prison organization called the Norfolk Lifers Group, put it, “In the ’70s, we thought we could make change with violence. Our whole point now is to make prisoners understand that we can make changes by using the vote. We have the ability to move prisons in a new direction.”

Research by Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell and Maya Sen suggests another reason to care about voting in prison: They show that even temporary gaps in voting will have a long-term impact on participation. If we really care about felons’ post-release political participation, it is important that they be able to participate while they are in prison.

An additional counterargument might come from the left rather than the right wing of the political spectrum. Those on the left might charge that the creation of a prison constituency might take focus off the problems with mass incarceration itself, including the racial and other injustices of our current criminal justice system. But arguments for empowering a prison constituency are a structural way of addressing the concern that we imprison too many people. A prison constituency will not revoke unjust laws overnight, but it can allow those who are most affected by them and their sometimes unjust application to speak out against them.

The impact of prisoner voting is potentially transformative. Over 2 million Americans are in prison or jail, more than the population of Rhode Island. A sensible approach would be to count prisoners as part of their home districts and to allow them to vote there. This would respect the appropriate democratic parity between the right to vote and the weight of representation.

The creation of a prison constituency is not yet on the national agenda. But the increasing end to post-felony disenfranchisement makes this a good time to think about deeper changes to the way we treat the incarcerated. In the meantime, alternative measures could move things in the right direction: We should affirm nationally and, if need be, litigate for the right of prisoners to form PACs on the model of the Massachusetts group. Although legitimate concerns exist about the impact of PAC money on politics, these committees do provide a way to further a group’s policy interests. We can no longer grant that right to non-incarcerated citizens as a matter of free speech and deny it to prisoners, who are, according to the Supreme Court, citizens no less. The backlash from Massachusetts’ citizens was from an era in which mass incarceration was lauded and prison organizing was anathema in national politics. But today, citizens from both political parties are mobilizing against the harsh prison policies of the 1990s. Giving prisoners the right to free political speech is a sensible corrective to our misguided practice of mass incarceration.

In the end, restoring these basic rights is not only the right thing to do constitutionally; it could also present positive solutions to a major national political problem. The prison system would be more effective if it were accountable to its constituents. Prisoners have often committed heinous crimes. But they remain a part of our democratic polity, and we can learn from what they have to say.  After decades working on sports and strategy games, Michael de Plater is leading the effort to put players in to the land of Mordor. As the director of design, de Plater is pulling from his experience focusing on gameplay systems to create the ultimate sandbox world for fans of Middle-earth. While visiting Monolith Productions for our December cover story, I spoke with de Plater about how his love of Tolkien's world led him to the studio and the gaming industry's increasing focus on player freedom.

Watch the video below to get a better idea of the gameplay in Monolith Production's upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

To learn more about Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, stay tuned to our exclusive coverage hub by click on the banner below.

To stay up to the minute with our Shadow of Mordor updates, follow Game Informer on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. And, to keep up to date with Shadow of Mordor's official feeds, check the game's official site, Facebook, or Twitter.  Please enable Javascript to watch this video

UFC veteran Joe ‘Daddy’ Stevenson stopped by the studio for the latest episode of ‘The Brutally Honest Show’ and talked to hosts Aaron Tru, Jonathan M. King and Adrian Gallegos about the time he witness a huge bar brawl, in which MMA legend Tito Ortiz got sucker punched.

He told the guys it was during an event he went to back when he was 18 years old, in England, and ended up witnessing a huge brawl break out.

Not wanting to get arrested in a different country, Joe Daddy said he stepped away and went back to the hotel, where everyone then followed including Ortiz who started yelling that he had been sucker punched by Lee Murray.

Check it out!

“So much happened at that show,” said Stevenson. “I was an open bar, everyone’s fighting I think Pat Miletich ended up wrestling with Matt, just wrestling, nothing bad. And then a big bar fight breaks out. I believe that was the night Tito was sucker punched by Lee Murry. Yeah I was there, I was drinking because I was 18 years old. [It was in London]”

“I remember watching the big melee and backing up thinking man I don’t want to get arrested in another country. So I turned back and I walked, I go to the hotel room bar. Everybody’s running in, Tito’s running in saying ‘man, he sucker punched me, he sucker punched me.'”

You can watch the full interview with Stevenson and the full episode right HERE!

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iTunes:  Marilyn Monroe, c. 1950, off Malibu Beach. Photo from the Herald-Examiner Collection. Photo courtesy the Los Angeles Public Library

The Laws That Shaped L.A. spotlights regulations that have played a significant role in the development of contemporary Los Angeles. These laws - as nominated and explained each week by a locally-based expert - may be civil or criminal, and they may have been put into practice by city, county, state, federal or even international authority

This Week's Law That Shaped L.A."¨

Law: California Coastal Act (and Proposition 20)

Year: 1976 (and 1972)

Jurisdiction: California

Nominated by: Molly Selvin

I n 1968, construction began on the nuclear Diablo Canyon Power Plant located seaside up in San Louis Obispo County.

The following year, the infamous Santa Barbara oil spill fouled an estimated 800 square miles of ocean and thirty-five miles of coastline. Oil spewed out of control for more than eleven consecutive days.

Catalyzed by the above -- and informed by historic European land use philosophies as well as a contemporaneous flowering of the American environmental movement -- California voters in 1972 passed Proposition 20, also known as the California Coastal Commission Initiative.

The ballot measure called for the temporary creation of the California Coastal Commission, a politically appointed body tasked in part with protecting and preserving the 1,100 miles that make up the Golden State's coast and guaranteeing the public's access to that sea and shore. In 1976, the state legislature passed the California Coastal Act, basically making Prop 20 permanent.



"These two laws were really instrumental in changing the way Los Angeles, Southern California and the whole state's coastline looks and the ability of people in California to enjoy those resources," says Molly Selvin, associate dean for interdisciplinary programs at Southwestern Law School.

Selvin, who previously worked at RAND and then as a reporter and editorial writer at the Los Angeles Times, wrote her doctoral thesis about the public trust doctrine. This is the legal, political and communal underpinning of both Prop 20 and the subsequent Coastal Act.

"This doctrine," Selvin says, "is the reason that beaches in California are held 'in trust' for public use, the source of the battles over Broad Beach in Malibu and one of the major tools the Coastal Commission has wielded in its decades long effort to keep beach and shoreline resources open and accessible to the public."

The Coastal Act is beloved by many and loathed by some. "Some of that, obviously," Selvin points out, "depends on where you sit." Selvin didn't necessarily mean the above in the following context, but that 'where you sit' perspective can be as simple as whether a beach visitor has his or her feet on wet or dry sand.

"The public trust doctrine," Selvin says, "holds that the sand below the mean high tide line is held for the public." Meaning, more or less: All of have the right to be on sand that's wet or damp, but not necessarily so where the sand is dry.

Everyone from The Los Angeles Urban Rangers to LAT columnist Steve Lopez

to Land of Sunshine colleague Robert Garcia have well-documented occasions -- if not larger patterns -- where the public's rights to the coast are assailed or denied.

Stories throughout the years abound of private security guards working for beachfront residents demanding that protected beach visitors leave; of public parking spaces being turned instead into landscaped gardens; of gates or stairs being impenetrable; and, believe it or not, even of the public's sand being removed by skip loader.

Just keeping up with all the above might seem like plenty for the Coastal Commission to handle. But the Commission's purview includes not just the waterfront, but on occasion, property up to five miles away.

In addition to insuring public access and sightlines, the Commission also reviews development requests, liaisons with the federal government and local governments, and reviews water quality matters such as coastal wastewater treatment plants and oil spill prevention and emergency response.

An 1853 map of the Southern California coastline. The cartographer was Lieutenant R.S. Williams. Image courtesy USC Digital Archives

Advocates of limited or no government regulation complain about an unelected body -- or perhaps any body -- holding so much perceived power. On the other far end of the spectrum, the Commission is sometimes labeled as too bureaucratic, toothless, and perhaps as a tool of the big money political structure.

(The Commissions' members are appointed, in equal measure, by the speaker of the state assembly, the rules committee of the state senate and the Governor.)

How does Selvin assess the group's overall performance? "The Coastal Commission has been underfunded and understaffed and clearly could be better" she says. "But I think the egregious behavior of folks in Malibu and other places has given momentum to the commission's efforts to secure access."

As mentioned earlier, Selvin points out that Coastal Act rests on the foundations of centuries' worth of (mostly) European laws and land use philosophy. Examples range from Roman civil -- or, Justinian -- law to English common law, and French law to the Spanish crown's Laws of The Indies [Read about why L.A. Isn't A Beach Town]

and from Spain via Mexico, the Pueblo Land Grants. [Read this.]

"These antecedents protected tidelands, swamplands and navigable waters," Selvin says. "Basically, they meant that the sovereign had the inalienable right to protect those resources on behalf of the people. You couldn't grant those rights away, you couldn't grant the land away."

Santa Barbara oil wells, c. 1920. Photo courtesy USC Digital Archives

So, did California's 1972 and 1976 actions ebb the flow of private seaside development?

Peter Douglas, at least, would say yes. Douglas co-wrote Prop 20 and then spent much of the rest of his life helming the Coastal Commission. His death last April was met by waves of adoring eulogies. Just prior to his passing, a lush and moving short film featuring Douglas was produced by the Oprah Winfrey Network -- who knew, right?

As sea lions cavort on shore, waves strike craggy rocks and a pelican flies by, Douglas discussed the Act's accomplishments the way an artist sees the negative space between more visible objects.

"It's the public access that hasn't been lost, the subdivisions that weren't approved, it's the wetlands that weren't filled, it's the scenic vistas that weren't destroyed," Douglas said. "It's what we don't see that is our major accomplishment."

Or, as Molly Selvin says: "Given the construction that already exists along the coast, you can imagine what it would look like without this kind of really strong body."

**Jeremy Rosenberg used to work there as well.  In the UK You Can Now Only Buy Heirloom Seeds if You Are Part of a Private Members Club

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by Lizzie Bennett



The way we are being pushed and squeezed by regulations that govern every facet of our life, we will soon only be able to defecate when our allotted time slot comes around.

The European Commission is currently drawing up a new law to regulate the sale of all seeds, plants and plant material. The latest draft of the law is even more restrictive than the regulations that we have at the moment.

Every single variety of vegetable will have to be registered on an EU list, otherwise it will be illegal to sell it. To be registered on the list, seed varieties have to pass a series of tests demonstrating what is called DUS ‘Distinctiveness, Uniformity and Stability’. It costs nearly £3000 to test & register just one single variety of seed for sale.

Although we have had a system like this for many years, there have been much simpler and cheaper options for what are considered ‘amateur varieties’ for home gardeners, and the rules have never been strictly enforced in the UK.

The EU wants to get rid of these simpler and cheaper rules for ‘amateur’ seed, and make sure that every country enforces the rules 100%.

Although they say there will be exceptions, in current drafts of the law these are very, very limited.

The effect of this new legislation will be to massively limit the choice of vegetable varieties available to home gardeners.

This is because if you are selling seed to farmers, you can expect to sell hundreds of tonnes of seed every year, so it is worth the cost of registering the variety. But if you are selling to gardeners, even the biggest seed companies will be selling a few kilos of seed at most, sometimes just a few hundred grammes of more unusual varieties. It just doesn’t work if they have to pay thousands of pounds to register that variety! So only seed designed for farmers will get registered and be legally sellable.

Unfortunately, varieties suitable for farmers often aren’t appropriate for home gardeners and allotment growers. For example: farmers usually want all of their produce to come ready at the same time, so that they can harvest and sell a whole fields worth. Home gardeners usually want their crops to mature over a longer period – we don’t want to eat all our vegetables on one day!

Another example: farmers generally don’t want to grow climbing peas, as they need supports and can’t be harvested mechanically. Lots of home gardeners prefer tall pea varieties, as they are more productive in a small space. There are hundreds of examples like this – the needs of gardeners and farmers are very different.

The problem is very simple: If these new laws are passed, there will be fewer and fewer varieties developed for gardeners and small growers. Everybody will have to grow varieties that have been designed for commercial large-scale farming, whether they like it or not.

Happily, for the time being at least there is a way around this. You start a seed club, and that way a seed company cannot be prosecuted for selling to the public…they are not they are selling to their members only!

Real Seeds, a non-profit heirloom seed company in the UK have started their own seed club. For the princely sum of one penny a year, which is deducted from your first order, you are a member of the club and can therefore buy your seeds without them getting prosecuted. I say them because it is not illegal to buy heirloom seeds for veggies not on the approved list, but it is illegal for anyone to sell them commercially to the public at large.

This will change of course as soon as the New World Order Thugs in Brussels realise what’s gong on. You can read about the seed club here.

For those interesting in seed saving click here for a very good explanation of how to get started.

I should just point out that I have no connection with The Real Seed Company, other than as a customer, sorry, club member…

I am told by a friend that Heirloom Organics is a reputable US company that sell genuine heirloom seeds, I can’t say one way or the other as I have never brought seed from them, but I do trust my informant.

Get together with friends and start a seed swap circle to increase the varieties of seeds that you hold. Diversity will become a very important aspect of future food growing and the more diverse your seed stocks the better.

Take care

Liz  A Fox News Poll of Colorado registered voters finds Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump by 10 points in the race for the White House.

Clinton’s up 44-34 percent in a head-to-head matchup. Her lead is outside the poll’s margin of sampling error.

The Democrat maintains her advantage in a hypothetical four-way race: Clinton garners 37 percent, Trump 28 percent, the Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson receives 13 percent, and the Green Party candidate Jill Stein gets 6 percent.

Eighty-one percent of those backing Clinton in the two-way race stick with her in the four-way, six percent defect to Johnson, and four percent to Stein.

For Trump, 79 percent stay with him, while 11 percent go to Johnson and 2 percent to Stein.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL POLL RESULTS

Independents prefer Clinton over Trump in the two-way matchup (36-28 percent). However in the four-way ballot, Johnson moves ahead of Trump: Clinton is the choice of 29 percent, Johnson receives 22 percent, Trump 20 percent, and Stein 10 percent.

In the head-to-head matchup, some of Clinton’s best groups include women (52-29 percent), Hispanics (60-15 percent), whites with a college degree (47-30 percent), and voters who are “extremely” interested in the election (50-43 percent).

Groups most likely to back Trump include whites without a college degree (50-34 percent), rural voters (46-36 percent), and white evangelical Christians (58-22 percent).

There’s less party unity for Trump, as just 75 percent of Republicans back him compared to Clinton’s 81 percent among Democrats.

President Barack Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 by just over five percentage points in Colorado, while Gary Johnson received about one percent of the vote. In 2008, Obama won the state by nearly nine points over Republican John McCain. In the three presidential elections before that, the state voted for the Republican candidate.

Voters say Clinton is better described as having the right temperament, being qualified to be president, and being a strong leader. Fifty-five percent think the phrase “has the temperament to serve effectively as president” applies to Clinton. That’s more than twice as many as say the same about Trump (22 percent).

By a 50-24 percent spread, Clinton rather than Trump is seen as qualified to be commander-in-chief. Plus, voters also say “strong leader” (43-34 percent) and “cares about people like me” (40-29 percent) are traits that better describe her.

Roughly equal numbers say “honest and trustworthy” better describes Trump (28 percent) as feel that way about Clinton (27 percent). The largest number however, 41 percent, says that phrase applies to neither candidate.

Overall, more voters say the economy (80 percent) will be extremely or very important to their presidential vote than say the same about nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court (66 percent), terrorism (66 percent), government spending (64 percent), a new direction for the country (59 percent), or illegal immigration (46 percent).

Colorado voters think Clinton would do a better job than Trump on the priority issues.

She’s preferred on Supreme Court nominations by a wide 17-point margin (51-34 percent). Clinton’s also narrowly the choice on terrorism (45-41 percent), illegal immigration (45-44 percent), and the economy (44-43 percent).

"These results are obviously good news for Clinton and ought to give the Trump campaign pause," says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson.

"It's not just that he’s down in the trial ballot. She also beats him across all relevant issue and trait evaluations. He needs to significantly improve his image and substantive impressions of where he wants to lead the country."

Trump tops Clinton by 12 points on taking the country in a new direction (46-34 percent) and by one point on government spending (42-41 percent).

Meanwhile, Colorado voters dislike both major party candidates: 58 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Clinton, and 68 percent feel negatively about Trump.

By a 55-32 percent margin, they have a positive opinion of Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. Seventy-three percent of Democrats view him favorably.

Hickenlooper met with Clinton July 6 in Denver and confirmed the two spoke about the presumptive nominee’s search for a vice presidential running mate.

Colorado voters also like Obama: 54 percent favorable vs. 44 percent unfavorable.

The Senate Race

In the Colorado Senate race, incumbent Michael Bennet leads his Republican opponent Darryl Glenn by 51-36 percent.

Bennet’s strongest support comes from women (55-29 percent), suburban voters (60-30 percent), and independents (49-32 percent).

Glenn does best among rural voters (46-37 percent), white evangelical Christians (61-26 percent), and those who say terrorism is extremely important (51-30 percent).

Bennet was appointed to the seat in 2009, and won re-election in 2010 by two points.

Eighty-six percent of Clinton supporters back Bennet, while just 73 percent of Trump backers go for Glenn.

The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The poll was conducted July 9-12, 2016, by telephone (landline and cellphone) with live interviewers among a sample of 600 Colorado registered voters selected from a statewide voter file. Bilingual interviewers were used. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points for the total sample.  Former Texas Governor and 2016 presidential candidate Rick Perry’s campaign team in Iowa has dwindled to one paid staffer.

The sole survivor of the reduction in Perry’s paid staff is Jamie Johnson, who had supervised organizing conservatives for Perry in the early primary states. Iowa strategist Bob Haus, who is repeating his 2012 role as an unpaid adviser, insisted to The Des Moines Register, “We are continuing our Iowa campaign, with several September dates planned and other dates under consideration.”

On August 3, Sam Clovis, Perry’s Iowa campaign chairman, told the Register that Perry’s Iowa campaign staff’s pay had been suspended, said Perry’s Iowa strategist Bob Haus, who remains on board in an unpaid advisory role, as he did for the former Texas governor in the 2012 election cycle.

Perry’s Iowa staff has been plagued by defections; Karen Fesler, Perry’s Iowa co-chair, returned to the staff of Rick Santorum, whom she supported in 2012; Clovis himself left Perry’s staff to join Donald Trump’s campaign last week.

Haus stubbornly fought the notion that Perry’s Iowa campaign was over, stating, “We are in the middle of a large fundraising push. We won’t know the results of that for a while, and will continue campaigning.” He added that Perry’s Iowa team will rely on volunteers, the same strategy as his staff in South Carolina. He concluded, “If we can rehire staff after the 15th, our Iowa team will get first consideration. They are a talented team, and loyal. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, we’ve seen it, and we’ll emerge.”

A new Monmouth poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers found Perry polling at 1%, behind eleven other candidates.  Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email

Renfrewshire is in line for a jobs bonanza after council chiefs approved plans for a £200million extension at Braehead.

Around 5,000 posts will be created at the Renfrew shopping centre when the massive development is unveiled.

Proposals given the green light by Renfrewshire Council include a new public square, surrounded by a state-of-the-art sports arena and hotel, with work likely to start next year.

A department store, shops, cafes and restaurants will also be built, served by a dedicated transport hub, connecting the mall with Paisley and Glasgow by Fastlink bus. There will also be improved cycling and walking routes.

The plans have been hailed by Renfrewshire Council leader Mark Macmillan and comes only weeks after the site was granted town centre status.

He told the Paisley Daily Express: “One of the key priorities of this council is to create employment opportunities for local residents.

“This is why Braehead was given town centre status, as that has helped the area to attract this multi-million-pound investment and create jobs on this scale.”

“The change of land designation means the local authority has greater freedom over what type of developments can be erected at the site and when.

“This allows planners to quickly draw up blueprints to entice new firms to invest in the area and housebuilders to erect new estates.”

Council chiefs believe the work will further regenerate the area, which has been transformed from an industrial wasteland since the centre opened 15 years ago.

More than 1,000 homes have been built in the shadow of the intu Braehead mall in that time, with thousands of jobs created at dozens of businesses.

Councillor Macmillan added: “Braehead has already driven a transformation of the Clyde waterfront and we expect this development will strengthen that regeneration process further, with substantial benefits for the wider Renfrewshire economy.

“Of course, when considering an application like this we have to carefully weigh up the impact on other town centres around the area — but their role has evolved.

“Braehead is now Renfrewshire’s primary retail centre and our other towns are not in direct competition.

“Instead, they have other assets that can be used to bring people in and we are doing a lot to promote that, with major projects ongoing in Paisley, Renfrew and Johnstone.

“For example, Paisley has an internationally-significant heritage and cultural appeal and the council is already working on ambitious plans to use that transform the town over the next decade, leading to a bid for UK City of Culture in 2021.”

Mall bosses expect an influx of shoppers when the work is completed.

A bridge connecting Yoker and Renfrew, to be built as part of the £1.1billion Clyde Valley City Deal, will allow families greater access to the Kings Inch Road complex from across the River Clyde.

Peter Beagley, intu’s regional centre director with responsibility for Braehead, said: “Members of Renfrewshire Council’s planning board have taken a major step towards creating 5,000 new jobs, with £200m of private investment at Braehead.

“Without this planning permission, the vital jobs, along with the investment in Renfrewshire, could not be delivered.

“We look forward to working with the council to now bring forward detailed planning applications.”

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Click here to read more stories from the Paisley Daily Express  Contents] Copyright © 2005 jsd

Turbid User’s Guide



John S. Denker

ABSTRACT: We discuss how to configure and use turbid, which is a Hardware Random Number Generator (HRNG), also called a True Random Generator (TRNG). It is suitable for a wide range of applications, from the simplest benign applications to the most demanding high-stakes adversarial applications, including cryptography and gaming. It relies on a combination of physical process and cryptological algorithms, rather than either of those separately. It harvests randomness from physical processes, and uses that randomness efficiently. The hash saturation principle is used to distill the data, so that the output is virtually 100% random for all practical purposes. This is calculated based on physical properties of the inputs, not merely estimated by looking at the statistics of the outputs. In contrast to a Pseudo-Random Generator, it has no internal state to worry about. In particular, we describe a low-cost high-performance implementation, using the computer’s audio I/O system.

Other keywords: TRNG, HRNG, hardware random number generator, uniform hash, unbiased coin flip.

1 Emergency Operations

If you need some randomness right away, take a look at the suggestions at the beginning of reference 1.

2 Turbid: Goals and Non-Goals

The basic objective of turbid is to provide a supply of randomly-generated numbers, with quality and quantity suitable for a wide range of applications, including some very demanding applications. Some specific applications are discussed in reference 2. Quality requires, among other things, defending against various possible attacks. Some well-known attacks are discussed in reference 2. Some background and theoretical ideas are outlined in section 5 and developed more fully in reference 2.

Right now, in this section, we give a broad outline of what is possible and what is not possible.

So far, we have analyzed the HRNG mainly in terms of the density of adamance, denoted by ρ. We choose a criterion ρ min very close to 100%, and then build a generator that produces ρ > ρ min . We are not pretending to achieve ρ = 100% exactly.

Here are some of the criteria on which a random generator can be judged:

High-quality outputs, exceedingly resistant to outside attack, i.e. cryptanalytic attack. Efficient use of the randomness coming from the raw inputs. Efficient use of CPU cycles. Ability to meet short-term peak demand. Rapid recovery from compromise, including inside attack, i.e. capture of the internal state.

These criteria conflict in complex ways:

A truly ideal TRNG does not exist, but if it did, it would be invulnerable to cryptanalytic attack. The output distribution would be as random as it possibly could be. In reality, no RNG is perfect.

The turbid motto is: You can do more with a combination

of hardware and algorithms

than you can with either one separately. Hardware is fundamentally the origin of all true randomness. We then rely on algorithms to put the randomness into a very highly concentrated form. We use a cryptographic one-way function to make it infeasible for any adversary to exploit the infinitesimal remaining non-randomness.

Our RNG has no long-term internal state, and very little internal state of any kind, so it recovers more-or-less immediately from compromise. On the other hand, the lack of state limits its ability to respond to peak demand.

Adding a fifo buffer to the output of the TRNG greatly improves its response to peak demand, but now there is considerable internal state that can be captured by an inside attack. On the other hand, its not clear how much we should worry about this, because an attacker who can capture the RNG internal state can probably capture your private keys and passphrases directly, so trying to harden the RNG quickly reaches a point of diminishing returns.

Re-seeding a PRNG every so often limits the time over which long-term state must be stored. This may greatly accelerate the recovery from compromise. However, it imposes a cost during normal (non-compromised) operation, in terms of extra consumption of CPU cycles, and in terms of extra consumption of random seed material

These conflicts and tradeoffs leave us with more questions than answers. There are as-yet unanswered questions about the threat model, the cost of CPU cycles, the cost of obtaining raw randomness from physical processes, et cetera. The answers will vary wildly from platform to platform.

3 Installing the Ingredients

A typical Linux distribution comes with ALSA. It is usually pre-installed, but if not, installation is easy. Install ALSA, including the drivers, utilities, and development libraries ( libasound2-dev ). See reference 3 for details on what ALSA provides. The current turbid code is compiled against version 1.of the libraries. Slightly older versions should be satisfactory; much older versions are not. If you are compiling from source, you might want to apply the patch in turbid/src/excl.patch, so that the mixer device can be opened in “exclusive” mode. To do that, cd to the directory in which you unpacked the turbid and alsa packages, and then incant something like patch -p1 < turbid/src/excl.patch. Then configure, make, and install the ALSA stuff (drivers, libraries, utilities). If you have never run ALSA on your system, you will need to run snddevices once. It may take some fussing to get the proper entries to describe your soundcard in /etc/modules.conf. Install the utils/alsasound script in /etc/rc.d/init.d/. Test the sound system. Verify that you can play a generic .wav file using aplay . Then verify that you can record a signal and play it back. This step is especially helpful if you are having problems, because it tells you whether the problems are specific to turbid or not. :; sox -r 48000 -b 32 -t alsa hw:0 -c 1 noise.wav trim .1 3 or :; arecord -D hw:0 --disable-softvol -f S32_LE -r 48000 -V mono -d 3 noise.wav then :; aplay noise.wav :; od -t x4 noise.wav Compile turbid . This should require nothing more than untarring the distribution and typing make in the turbid/src directory. You don’t need to be root in order to compile and test turbid . If you want to run turbid as non-root, make dirs to create the needed directories, as follows: If turbid runs as non-root, it will open its output FIFOs in your $HOME/dev/ directory, look for its control files in your $HOME/etc/turbid/ directory, and scribble a .pid file in your $HOME/var/run/ directory. In contrast, if turbid runs as root, it will use the system /dev/ and /etc/turbid/ /var/run/ directories. Test and calibrate the audio hardware as discussed in the next section. Send me <[email protected]> the results of the configuration, including alsamixer’s .ctl file, and turbid ’s values for Rout , Rin , gVout , gVin , and bandwidth . I will add it to the distribution, so that others may use that brand of cards without having fuss with calibration. You can (if you want) become root and do a make install . If you want turbid to be started and stopped automatically according to the system runlevel, you need to install a few things by hand. There is a file turbid/src/init.d/turbid which you can use as a model for something to put in to /etc/rc.d/init.d/ (but don’t forget to edit the options, according to the calibration, as described below). This is not installed automatically; you have to do it by hand. Similarly you need to install by hand the symlinks in /etc/rc.d/rc?.d/ .

4 Configuration and Calibration

Note: You can skip this section if you’ve been given a suitable turbid.tbd configuration file and mixer configuration (.ctl) file.

Configuration is important. It is remarkably easy to mis-configure a soundcard in such a way that it produces much less randomness than it otherwise would. This section outlines the general procedure; see appendix B for details on specific soundcards.

Terminology: we use the term soundcard loosely, to apply not just to card-shaped objects per se, but also to audio I/O subsystems embedded on the mainboard, USB dongles, external pods, et cetera.

4.1 Configuring Audio Output

4.2 Choosing an Input Port

18. More sensitivity is good, more bandwidth is good, and multiple channels is also good. Alas there is sometimes a tradeoff between sensitivity and multiplicity, as discussed below. Microphone inputs are sometimes more sensitive than line-level inputs. Microphone inputs are often mono. Beware of the following: On a mono Mic port, the tip is the actual input. In a stereo situation this would be the left channel, but here it is the only channel. Beware that very commonly the ring is an output, namely a bias voltage for powering electret microphones. It is not an input at all. The typical “soundblaster” product supplies a +5V bias voltage through a 2.2kΩ resistor. However, you can’t count on this; I’ve seen some laptops where the open-circuit voltage is only 2.5 volts (again with a 2.2kΩ output impedance). This is scary, because if you try to monitor the input in such a way that the microphone bias voltage gets routed to a real stereo input, it is entirely possible for the DC on the right channel to blow out your speaker.

Some soundcards allow you to make a “stereo” recording from a mono Mic input. Hypothetically, it is conceivable that sometimes the two channels have uncorrelated noise. However we have no way of proving this, and no way of calibrating how much independent noise there is. Therefore, in such a situation, it is safest to assume that only one channel is usable as our source of unpredictability. I’ve seen some machines where the input port was configurable, such that it was optionally mono Mic-in and optionally some sort of stereo input. At the chip level, most audio hardware these days is extremely configurable. This includes low-level details such as the number of input and output channels on each port. However, on most machines it’s not obvious how make changes to the low-level configuration. It may be that the hardware doesn’t support it, or the ALSA drivers don’t support it, or I’m not smart enough to figure it out. If anybody has good information on this, please let me know. See also section H. If there is a tradeoff between more channels (stereo line-in) and more sensitivity (mono Mic-in), then: Sometimes the line-level input is so insensitive as to be essentially useless. In this case, the mono Mic input is the correct choice.

If the line-level input has some reasonable sensitivity, it is unlikely that the Mic input is twice as good. In this case, the stereo input is your best choice. It may not be entirely obvious a priori what is your best is. You may have to go through the calibration process on each input to decide which provides the most randomness per unit time.

4.3 Configuring Full-Duplex Audio

Take a moment to think about the following issue: We want to set up full-duplex audio. Full duplex means that the input signal is independent of the output signal. Most likely, you will have to fiddle with mixer settings (using alsamixer) to get this to work. Presumably you already have the output working (section 4.1), so now we need to get the input working without messing up the output.

This is trickier than it might seem, because recording engineers very commonly want to monitor the signal that is being recorded, there is sometimes a path within the mixer whereby the input signal can be looped back to some output. This kind of loopback interferes with what we are trying to do. This kind of mixer mis-configuration is sometimes hard to detect. Note the contrast:

Recording engineers want to do input, with immediate re-output via the mixer (hairpin). We want to do output, with immediate re-input via the calibration resistor network (loopback).

Therefore, when configuring the input subsystem, the safest procedure is to use a signal that comes from a second, separate system.

The computer being configured to run turbid ; call this the turbid system. Something to produce a well-behaved test signal; call this the signal generator system, or simply the player system. Your options for this include: For some people, the simplest thing is to use a smartphone or a portable music player. Download the audio file ( sine.wav ), or create one from scratch using the mkwav program (which is bundled with turbid). Download it into your player. Set up the player app so it plays the file over and over, since it would be very confusing if it stopped playing and you didn’t notice.

), or create one from scratch using the program (which is bundled with turbid). Download it into your player. Set up the player app so it plays the file over and over, since it would be very confusing if it stopped playing and you didn’t notice. Another option is to find a laptop (not the turbid system you are configuring) and use that as a signal generator. You can either run turbid sine .2 to generate a signal, or play the aforementioned audio file using aplay sine.wav .

So ... here’s the plan:

19. Note: Do not leave the headphones plugged in during the measurements that follow, when the player output is connected to the turbid input. In other words, do not use a “Y” splitter. That’s for two reasons: First of all, you run the risk of blowing out the right channel of your speakers, if you bridge output to microphone-input to speaker-input. As discussed in item 18, keep in mind that the right channel of the microphone jack is not an input at all, it’s a power output.

Secondly, the headphones or speaker present an ill-characterized load to the system, interfering with any attempt to make quantitative measurements; see step 11. 20. turbid system. 21. turbid sine .00001 and look at the Magnitude box on the gui. If necessary, use alsamixer to configure the recording-mode properties of the mixer so that turbid is receiving a reasonable input signal. You don’t need to worry about exact signal levels at this stage, but the following qualitative criteria should be satisfied: Turbid should get a good-sized Magnitude reading when the signal is connected. The reading should drop to a low level when the signal is removed, e.g. by pausing the player, or by disconnecting the audio cable at the player end (not at the turbid end). Clip the headphones to the output port, and verify that no vestige of the signal is heard. That is to say, we want i.e. no “record monitor” behavior. Use the Sine Ampl box to increase the turbid output to a sbstantial level. This should result in no change on the input, as observed in the Magnitude box. The concept here is that turbid needs to do input as well as output, and the two things need to be independent. 22. alsactl store -f ... to save the mixer configuration. See item 10 for a discussion of filenames. 23. section 4.1, to make sure the output side is correctly calibrated. 24.

4.4 Calibrating the Audio Input

25.

Figure 8 : Resistor Network, Presenting a Low Impedance to the Input All the contacts in the yellow-shaded region are connected together by the matrix board, internally. Choose R top to be approximately 10 kΩ and R bot to be approximately 100 Ω. Measure the actual resistor values with the multimeter, and record them as lo.Rtop and lo.Rbot directives in your turbid.tbd file. Ignore the third resistor in the diagram. The green clip carries the signal from the computer output. The red clip carries the low-impedance signal from the voltage divider to the computer input. The black clip is the ground connection. This color-code is based on the standard color-coding of computer audio ports: The output port is normally green, while the mic-in port is normally pink, as in figure 9 for example.

Figure 9 : Audio Jacks, with Color Code Where the wires are coiled up, they are carefully coiled with an even number of turns, with an equal number of clockwise and counterclockwise turns, so that they do not act like pickup coils. 26. section 4.3. Make sure your turbid .tbd file contains the appropriate gVout, Rout, lo.Rtop and lo.Rbot directives, so that turbid knows about the values you have already determined. Now we want to calibrate the input impedance and gain, quantitatively. Fire up turbid sine .01. Choose sine amplitude that is about 10 times less than what was previously considered normal. That’s because we expect the input to be several hundreds of times more sensitive than the output, and the voltage divider gives us “only” a factor of 100 attenuation. Select the Low Z tab on the turbid gui. Verify that the Rtop and Rbot numbers are correct. If not, correct them on the turbid gui (for now) and in the turbid.tbd file (for next time). The Rtap number should be zero. Leave it that way, but click on that entry box and hit <Return>. Every time you hit <Return>, turbid should send to standard output an oripoint line, plus some comments. Repeat the measurement to see whether the results are reproducible. Change the Sine Ampl to see whether you get the same result. If increasing the Sine Ampl causes the ordinate of the oripoint to increase (more inverse gain, less gain) then the Sine Ampl is too high. Also look at the Y value in the comments. It should be around 0.1, certainly less than 1, but not insanely much smaller than 0.1. 27. A lightweight metal cookie tin will do. If you don’t have a cookie tin, an ordinary cooking pot will do. You can obtain even better results using a small box covered with aluminum foil, as in figure 10, although that’s more work than most people are willing to do. For consistency and concision, we will call this the “shield box”, no matter what it is made of. You can use the following command :; arecord -D hw:0 --disable-softvol -f S32_LE -r 48000 -V mono /dev/null to display a VUmeter that gives a qualitative indication of what’s going on. Without the shield, the signal is affected by all sorts of strange things, such as how close you are sitting to the circuit. With the shield in place, the signal should be much better behaved.

Figure 10 : Shield Box : Four Sides Covered with Aluminum Foil Clip the grounding wire to a piece of scrap metal, so you can set it on top of the shield box and make contact that way. That’s more convenient than repeatedly clipping it to the box and then unclipping. The same logic applies underneath: If the matrix board is not already attached to a metal backplane, find a suitable piece of metal and bolt the matrix board to it. In an emergency, a layer of aluminum foil suffices. Make arrangements for grounding the backplane. 28. R tap . Measure the actual value, and add appropriate hi.Rtop, hi.Rbot, and hi.Rtap directives in your turbid .tbd file. Hook up the circuit shown in figure 11. It’s analogous to the previous figure, except that now the red clip is connected to R tap . Cover the circuit with the shield box.

Figure 11 : Resistor Network, Presenting a High Impedance to the Input

Select the High Z tab on the turbid gui. Verify that the Rtop, Rbot, and Rtap numbers are correct. If not, correct them on the turbid gui (for now) and in the turbid.tbd file (for next time). Click on the Rtap entry box and hit <Return>.

Every time you hit <Return>, turbid should send to standard output an oripoint line, an Rin line, a bVin line, and some comments.

Repeat the measurement to see whether the results are reproducible. Some typical results are shown in figure 12. You can see that turbid, when used with some skill, is capable of measuring the input impedance to high accuracy.

lo.oripoint: 97.3, # lo ladder v_eff: r_eff: 97.3 # Y: lockin_mag/\muV: sine_ampl: hi.oripoint: 98197.3, # hi ladder v_eff: r_eff: 98197.3 # Y: lockin_mag/\muV: sine_ampl: # slope: 2.512340e-08 intercept: 0.001191, Rin: 47395.4 # ohms bVin: # volts per hin hi.oripoint: 31997.3, # hi ladder v_eff: r_eff: 31997.3 # Y: lockin_mag/\muV: sine_ampl: # slope: 2.514615e-08 intercept: 0.001191, Rin: 47352.4 # ohms bVin: # volts per hin hi.oripoint: 98197.3, # hi ladder v_eff: r_eff: 98197.3 # Y: lockin_mag/\muV: sine_ampl: # slope: 2.513894e-08 intercept: 0.001191, Rin: 47358.5 # ohms bVin: # volts per hin Figure 12 : Typical Oripoints

5 Background: Basic Notions

5.1 Turbid: Basic Features

Turbid is meant to be easy to use, yet robust enough to handle a wide range of applications, including high-stakes adversarial applications. It is a Hardware Randomness Generator (HRNG). Sometimes people call it a True Randomness Generator (TRNG) which means the same thing. In any case, perfect randomness is not possible.

This stands in contrast to garden-variety “Random Number Generators” that may be good for non-demanding applications, but fail miserably if attacked. See reference 2 for a discussion of the range of applications, and of some of the things that can go wrong.

We now explain some theoretical ideas that will be important:

We start with a raw input, typically the electrical noise produced by a good-quality sound card. This noise is generated entirely by the components on the card, in accordance with the immutable laws of thermodynamics. It is not acoustical noise, and no microphone is involved.

We ascertain a reliable lower bound on the amount of randomness in the raw input. We quantify this in terms of adamance, as explained in reference 2. This is calculated from basic physics principles plus a few easily-measured macroscopic properties of the sound card. (This stands in stark contrast to other approaches, which obtain a loose upper bound based on statistical tests on the data.)

We collect and concentrate the randomness. Concentration allows us to produce an output that is random enough for all practical purposes. This is provably correct under mild assumptions.

We use no long-term internal secret state and therefore require no seed.

No noise source is perfect. Therefore we use a cryptographic hash function to concentrate the available randomness. The turbid motto is: You can do more with physics and algorithms together

than you can with either one separately.

We have implemented a generator using these principles. Salient engineering features include:

It costs next to nothing. It uses the thermal fluctuations intrinsic to the computer’s audio I/O system. Most computers nowadays come with an audio chip built into the mainboard, whether you want it or not. In the rare cases where the built-in audio system is absent, or is needed for other purposes, a USB dongle can be used to provide turbid with the necessary raw data, at a cost of only a few dollars.

with the necessary raw data, at a cost of only a few dollars. It emphatically does not depend on imperfections in the audio I/O system. Indeed, high-quality sound cards are much more suitable than low-quality ones. It relies on fundamental physics, plus the most basic, well-characterized properties of the audio system: gain and bandwidth.

It can produce thousands of bytes per second of output.

Remarkably little CPU time is required.

Best performance and maximally-trustworthy results depend on proper calibration of the hardware. This needs to be done only once for each make and model of hardware, but it really ought to be done. Turbid provides extensive calibration features. Indeed virtually all all of the complexity is devoted to calibration.

provides extensive calibration features. Indeed virtually all all of the complexity is devoted to calibration. The package includes optional integrity-monitoring and tamper-resistance capabilities.

5.2 How to Define Randomness, or Not

If you ask three different people, you might get six or seven different definitions of “random”.

At a minimum, we need to consider the following ideas:

At one extreme there is perfect randomness. The output is completely and unconditionally unpredictable. There is also pseudo-randomness, which means that there is a pattern, but it is computationally infeasible for the adversary to discover the pattern, so long as we keep secret the pattern and the method we used for generating the pattern. For a wide range of purposes, the adversary finds this to be just as unpredictable perfect randomness. At the opposite extreme, there is perfect determinism, i.e. no randomness at all, such as a source that produces an endless string of bytes all the same, or perhaps successive digits of π, or some other easily-recognizable pattern. There is also something I call squish, which is neither reliably predictable nor reliably unpredictable. See figure 13. For example: Once upon a time I was working on a project that required a random generator. The pointy-haired boss directed me to get rid of my LFSR and instead use the value of the program counter (PC) as saved by the last interrupt, because that was «unpredictable». I kid thee not. In fact the PC was a terrible RNG. Successive calls tended to return the same value, and even if you got two different values, one of them was likely to be the PC of the null job (which was hardly surprising, since it was an event-driven system). I tried to explain to him that even though the PC was not reliably predicatable, it was not reliably unpredictable. In other words, it was squish, with no useful lower bound on the amount of randomness. Combinations of the above. For example, there could be a distribution over 32-bit words having a few bits of randomness in each word, with the other bits being deterministic and/or squish. Figure 13 shows a simplified view of the space of possibilities. Note that randomness and pseudorandomness are not the same thing, but this diagram assumes they are more-or-less equally unpredictable, from the adversary’s point of view.

The terminology is not well settled. I have heard intelligent experts call items 1, 2, 4, and 5 on the previous list “random”. I have also heard them call items 3, 4, and 5 “non-random” or “not really random”. Sometimes even item 2 is included in the catagory of “not really random”.

We consider the terms “random” and “non-random” to be vague, clumsy, and prone to misunderstanding. If a precise meaning is intended, careful clarification is necessary. This remains something of an unsolved problem, especially when talking about PRNGs.

Beware that in the cryptology community, the word «entropy» is rather widely abused. Sometimes it is thrown around as an all-purpose synonym for randomness, even in situations where the signal contains absolutely no real physics entropy. This is a bummer, because in physics, entropy has an agreed-upon, specific, and exceedingly useful meaning.

On the other hand, in the long run it’s not much of a problem, because it turns out that the physics entropy was almost certainly never what you wanted anyway. There exist distributions where the entropy is infinite but the adamance is only two bits. An adversary would have a rather easy time guessing some outputs of such a distribution, even though the entropy is infinite.

The essential concept here is probability distribution. The entropy is only one property of the distribution. See reference 2 for more discussion of this point.

In this document, and in reference 2, we use the word “entropy” in the strictest sense: “entropy” means physics entropy. The terms entropy and adamance are assigned very formal, specific meanings.

Black-versus-white extremism is unhelpful. As you can see in figure 13, there is a large and important gray area.

Something that is “random enough” for one application might be not nearly random enough for another application.

5.3 TRNG versus PRNG

The contrast between a TRNG and a PRNG can be understood as follows:

A Pseudo-Random Generator (PRNG) depends on an internal state variable. That means that if I wanted to, I could give my friend a copy of my PRNG (including the internal state) and then his PRNG would produce the same outputs as my PRNG. A True Random Generator (TRNG) such as a Hardware Random Generator (HRNG) has the property that the outputs are unpredictable in principle. It does not have any internal state. If I give a copy to my friend, not only can he not predict the output of my TRNG, I cannot even predict the output of my own TRNG.

A high-quality PRNG depends on the assumption that it is computationally infeasible for any adversary to infer the internal state by observing the outputs. More generally, the assumption is that the adversary will find it not worthwhile to infer the internal state. This is a moving target, depending to some degree on the value of whatever the pseudo-random distribution is protecting. A proper TRNG does not have any internal state. It does not need to be initialized.

Every PRNG depends on some crucial assumptions, namely the existence of a one-way function that is resistant to cryptanalytic attack. To a lesser extent, the same is true for every practical HRNG that I know of.

This is probably not a serious limitation for a well-implemented PRNG. That’s because all of modern cryptography relies on similar assumptions. If these assumptions were to break down, the RNG would be the least of your problems. Still, one should always keep in mind that these assumptions are unproven. This is even less of a problem for a HRNG, because any attack will be much more difficult to carry out. It is a known-codetext attack, with vastly less codetext available.

6 Randomness in the Raw Data

6.1 Users and Analysts

Note the contrast:

The goal is to make using turbid as easy as possible, so that a wide range of ordinary folks can use it without hassle. By way of analogy, there are a lot of people who can play a piano who wouldn’t want to build one from scratch, or even tune one.

as easy as possible, so that a wide range of ordinary folks can use it without hassle. By way of analogy, there are a lot of people who can play a piano who wouldn’t want to build one from scratch, or even tune one. We also need a few specialists who know how to tune a piano. Similarly, we need a few specialists who understand in detail how turbid works. Security requires attention to detail. It requires double-checking and triple-checking. Understanding turbid requires some interdisciplinary skills. It requires physics, analog electronics, and cryptography. If you are weak in one of those areas, it could take you a year to catch up.

6.2 Principles versus Intution

This section exists mainly to dispel some misconceptions. Sometimes people decide that the the laws of physics do not apply to electronics, or decide on the basis of “intuition” that the noise in their audio system is negligible. If you do not suffer from these particular misconceptions, feel free to skip to section 6.3.

For many decades, ever since the dawn of the computer age, mathematicians and algorithm designers have tried and failed to find an algorithm for generating randomness. There is a solution to this problem, but the solution requires thinking outside the “mathematical algorithm” box: It requires physics, especially thermodynamics and the classical theory of fields. It is beyond the scope of this document to explain such things. A good place to start is reference 4.

It requires analog electrical engineering. A fine introduction can be found in reference 5. An survey of electronic noise processes can be found in reference 6.

It requires conventional cryptologic algorithms such as hash functions. Intuition based on digital electronics can be misleading when extended to analog electronics. A digital logic gate has considerable noise immunity. Noise, if it is not too large, is eliminated at every step. This requires both nonlinearity and power dissipation. A linear analog system cannot eliminate noise in the same way. The fundamental equations of motion do not allow it. Humans often do not pay much attention to noise. In an ordinary home situation, there is a considerable amount of background noise coming from household appliances, air conditioning, the wind in the trees outside, et cetera. In a concert hall, there is noise from audience members fidgeting in their seats. There is also noise from your own breathing and heartbeat. People learn to ignore these things. It may be that you have never noticed the thermal noise that is present in audio systems, but it is there nevertheless. In a typical audio system, the input impedance is considerably greater than the output impedance. The noise level is proportional to the resistance, as has been well observed and well explained since 1928 (reference 7 and reference 8). When line-out is connected to line-in, the input impedance is largely shorted out ... but if the same line-in port is open-circuited, we see the full input impedance, so there is two or three orders of magnitude more noise than you might have expected. Consumer-grade microphones tend to have high impedance and/or low signal levels. Therefore it is fairly common to find audio systems that can apply additional analog gain to the mic-in signal, upstream of the analog-to-digital converter. This can increase the amount of observable noise by another two orders of magnitude.

6.3 Choice of Input Device

In principle, there are many physical devices that could be used as the source of raw randomness. We prefer the audio system (the “soundcard”) because such things are cheap, widely available, and easy to calibrate. We have a provable lower bound on the rate at which they produce randomness, and this rate in sufficient for a wide range of applications. This provides a way to make typical hosts very much more secure than they are now.

In contrast, a video frame-grabber card would produce randomness more copiously, but would be much more costly. Calibration and quality-assurance monitoring would be much more difficult.

There are many other sources that “might” produce usable randomness, but for which a provable nonzero lower bound is not available.

6.4 Lower Bounds are Necessary

As mentioned before, we need a lower bound on the amount of randomness per sample. This is needed to ensure that the hash function’s buffer contains “enough” randomness, as discussed in reference 2.

Let us briefly explore the consequences of mis-estimating the amount of randomness in the raw data:

1a) If we make a slight overestimate, it means that the hash function, rather than putting out 2160 different outputs, will put out some rather smaller ensemble. In mild cases this may not be noticeable in practice. 1b) A major overestimate may allow an adversary to focus an attack on the few output-words being produced. 2a) If we modestly underestimate the amount of randomness in the raw data, there is no serious harm done. 2b) A major underestimate will reduce the total randomness production capability of the machine. This means the processes that consume random symbols may block, waiting for the HRNG to produce a usable output.

6.5 Other Contributions to the Audio Signal

We looked at the power spectrum of the signal produced by a number of different sound cards. Based on these observations, and on general engineering principles, we can list various hypotheses as to what physical processes could be at work, namely:

Johnson noise, due to thermal fluctuations in the front-end input resistor. Johnson noise in other resistors and dissipative elements later in the processing chain. Shot noise and generation/recombination noise, arising in small structures because electrons are not infinitely small. 1/f noise. Hum at powerline frequency and harmonics thereof. Interference from other subsystems such as video cards and switching power supplies. Sums of the above. Intermodulation. For example, intermodulation occurs when we digitize a superposition of fairly-low-amplitude hum plus very-low-amplitude high-frequency noise. That’s because the digitizer is sensitive to the high-frequency noise component only when the hum component is near one of the digitizer steps. Various filter functions applied to the above. Deceptive signals injected by an adversary.

Some of these are undoubtedly fine sources of randomness. The only problem is that except for item #1, we cannot calculate their magnitude without a great deal more engineering knowledge about the innards of the card. Using these sources might produce a HRNG that is correct, but not provably correct. Since we want something that is provably correct, we simply ignore these other contributions. They can’t hurt, and almost certainly provide a huge margin of safety.

That is: We need randomness in the raw data, and we need to know a provable lower bound on the amount of randomness. Turbid consistently applies the principle that having extra randomness is OK, and underestimating the amount of randomness is OK. This may give us less-than-optimally efficient use of the available randomness, but it guarantees correctness. Turbid consistently chooses correctness over efficiency.

6.6 Examples of Soundcard Properties

Just to help you get the lay of the land, here are the key characteristics of a few soundcards. The older cards are of historical interest only. More recent cards perform better.

Card Q / µV R In / Ω K out B N σ / µV s / bits R Out / Ω Deskpro onboard 6.6 8800 .154 18500 48000 0.3 Delta-1010 (pro) 3020 .223 36500 96000 192 Delta-1010 (con) 11000 36500 96000 1005 Thinkpad cs4239 (Line) 19.6 7900 .037 9000 44100 0 Thinkpad cs4239 (Mike) 10100 .038 7300 44100 Extigy (Line) 22.5 20200 .327 18000 48000 2.4 7e-5 Extigy (Mike) 12.4 6100 .332 12000 48000 1.1 3e-7

Note that the CT4700 reports itself as “ENS1370” so it uses the ens1370.ctl control file.

7 The Role of Measurement and Testing

7.1 Issues of Principle; Cat and Mouse

By way of analogy, let us consider the relationship between code-breakers and code-makers. This is a complex ever-changing contest. The code-breakers make progress now and then, but the code-makers make progress, too. It is like an “arms race” but much less symmetric, so we prefer the term cat-and-mouse game.

At present, by all accounts, cryptographers enjoy a very lopsided advantage in this game.

There is an analogous relationship between those who make PRNGs and those who offer tools to test for randomness. The PRNG has a hidden pattern. Supposedly the tester “wants” the pattern to be found, while the PRNG-maker doesn’t.

We remark that in addition to the various programs that bill themselves as randomness-testers, any off-the-shelf compression routine can be used as a test: If the data is compressible, it isn’t random.

To deepen our understanding of the testing issue, let’s consider the following scenario: Suppose I establish a web server that puts out pseudo-random bytes. The underlying PRNG is very simple, namely a counter strongly encrypted with a key of my choosing. Each weekend, I choose a new key and reveal the old key.

The funny thing about this scenario is the difference between last week’s PRNG and this week’s PRNG. Specifically: this week’s PRNG will pass any empirical tests for randomness that my adversary cares to run, while last week’s PRNG can easily be shown to be highly non-random, by means of a simple test involving the now-known key.

As a modification of the previous scenario, suppose that each weekend I release a set of one billion keys, such that the key to last week’s PRNG is somewhere in that set. In this scenario, last week’s PRNG can still be shown to be highly non-random, but the test will be very laborious, involving on the order of a billion decryptions.

Note that to be effective against this PRNG, the randomness-testing program will need to release a new version each week. Each version will need to contain the billions of keys needed for checking whether my PRNG-server is “random” or not. This makes a mockery of the idea that there could ever be an all-purpose randomness tester. Even a tester that claims to be “universal” cannot be universal in any practical sense.2 An all-purpose randomness tester would be tantamount to an automatic all-purpose encryption-breaking machine.

7.2 Necessary but Not Sufficient

To paraphrase Dijkstra: Measurement can prove the absence of randomness, but it cannot prove the presence of randomness. More specifically, any attempt to apply statistical tests to the output of the RNG will give an upper bound on the amount of randomness, but what we need is a lower bound, which is something else entirely.

As described in reference 2, we can calculate the amount of randomness in a physica process, based on a few macroscopic physical properties of the hardware. It is entirely appropriate to measure these macroscopic properties, and to remeasure them occasionally to verify that the hardware hasn’t failed. This provides a lower bound on the randomness, which is vastly more valuable than a statistically-measured upper bound.

As discussed in reference 2, tests such as Diehard (reference 9) and Maurer’s Universal Statistical Test (reference 10) are far from sufficient to prove the correctess of turbid. They provide upper bounds, whereas we need a lower bound.

When applied to the raw data (at the input to the hash function) such tests report nothing more than the obvious fact that the raw data is not 100% random. When applied to the output of the hash function, they are unable to find patterns, even when the density of randomness is 0%, a far cry from the standard (100%) we have set for ourselves.

A related point: Suppose you suspect a hitherto-undetected weakness in turbid. There are only a few possibilities:

If you think there is a problem with SHA-1, it would make more sense to attack SHA-1 by conventional means, including artfully chosen inputs, as opposed to haphazardly probing it with whatever raw data is coming off the data-acquisition system.

If you think the problem is upstream of SHA-1, you should instrument the code and look there, at the input to SHA-1. Running the allegedly problematic data through SHA-1 and looking at the output is like looking through the wrong end of a really long telescope; it greatly reduces your ability to see anything of interest.

Probably the best chance of getting a non-null result from a “randomness test” is if there is a gross bug in the control logic, such as forgetting to write the result to the output. For this to work, you need to turn off (or bypass) the error concealment as discussed in section 8.

The foregoing is a special case of a more general rule: it is hard to discover a pattern unless you have a pretty good idea what you’re looking for. Anything that could automatically discover general patterns would be a universal automatic code-breaker, and there is no reason to believe such a thing will exist anytime soon.

There are some tests that make sense. For instance:

The program checks the supposed LSB (Least Significant Bit) of the raw data to make sure it is in fact significant – not stuck or easily predictable from the higher bits.

If you don’t believe the theoretical arguments, you could test the theory by (temporarily!) substituting a crippled hash function (producing, say, 8-bit hashcodes rather than 160-bit hashcodes). Then the statistical tests might have a chance of detecting problems upstream of the hash function, e.g. a miscalculation of the density of randomness in the raw data.

On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with making measurements, if you know what you’re doing. On the other hand, people have gotten into trouble, again and again, by measuring an upper bound on the randomness and mistaking it for a lower bound.

The raison d’etre of turbid is that it provides a reliable lower bound on the density of randomness, relying on physics, not relying on empirical upper bounds.

7.3 Actual Measurement Results

We ran Maurer’s Universal Statistical Test (reference 10) a few times on the output of turbid. We also ran Diehard. No problems were detected. This is totally unsurprising, and it must be emphasized that we are not touting this a serious selling point for turbid; we hold turbid to an incomparably higher standard. As discussed in section 7.2, for a RNG to be considered high quality, we consider it necessary but nowhere near sufficient for it to pass statistical tests.

To summarize this subsection: At runtime, turbid makes specific checks for common failures. As discussed in section 7.3 occasionally but not routinely apply general-purpose tests to the output.

We believe non-specific tests are very unlikely to detect deficiencies in the raw data (except the grossest of deficiencies), because the hash function conceals a multitude of sins. You, the user, are welcome to apply whatever additional tests you like; who knows, you might catch an error.

8 Error Detection versus Error Concealment

We must consider the possibility that something might go wrong with our randomness generator. For example, the front-end transistor in the sound card might get damaged, losing its gain (partially or completely). Or there could be a hardware or software bug in the computer that performs that hashing and control functions. We start by considering the case where the failure is detected. (The other case is considered in section 8.2.)

At this point, there are two major options:

Throtting: We can make the appropriate (partial or complete) reduction the rate at which turbid emits symbols, so that whatever symbols are emitted continue to have the advertised high density of randomness.

We can make the appropriate (partial or complete) reduction the rate at which emits symbols, so that whatever symbols are emitted continue to have the advertised high density of randomness. Concealment: We can conceal the error and continue to emit symbols at the same old rate. This means that turbid has been degraded from a high-quality randomness generator to some kind of PRNG.

We can ornament either of those options by printing an error message somewhere, but experience indicates that such error messages tend to be ignored.

If the throttling option is selected, you might want to have multiple independent generators, so that if one is down, you can rely on the other(s).

The choice of throttling versus concealment depends on the application. There are plenty of high-grade applications where concealment would not be appropriate, since it is tantamount to hoping that your adversary won’t notice the degradation of your random generator.

In any case, there needs to be an option for turning off – or bypassing – error concealment, since it interferes with measurement and testing as described in section 7.

8.2 Combining Generators

We can also try to defend against undetected flaws in the system. Someone could make a cryptanalytic breakthrough, revealing a flaw in the hash algorithm. Or there could be a hardware failure that is undetected by our quality-assurance system.

One option would be to build two independent instances of the generator (using different hardware and different hash algorithms) and combine the outputs. The combining function could be yet another hash function, or something simple like XOR.

9 Context, History and Acknowledgments

For a discussion of the Fortuna class of random generators, and how that contrasts with turbid, see reference 11.

For a discussion of the Linux device driver for /dev/random and /dev/urandom, see reference 12.

There is a vast literature on hash functions in general. Reference 13 is a starting point. Reference 14 is a useful literature survey. Reference 15 was an influential early program for harvesting randomness from the audio system; it differs from turbid in not having calibration features. Reference 16 uses the physics of a spinning disk as a source of randomness.

Methods for removing bias from a coin-toss go back to von Neuman; see reference 17 and references therein; also reference 18.

Reference 19 suggests hashing 308 bits (biased 99% toward zero) and taking the low-order 5 bits of the hash to produce an unbiased result. This is correct as far as it goes, but it is inefficient, wasting 80% of the input adamance. Presumably that reflects an incomplete understanding of the hash-saturation principle, in particular the homogeneity property discussed in reference 2, which would have led immediately to consideration of wider hashcodes. There is also no attempt to quantify how closely the results come to being unbiased.

Thanks to Steve Bellovin, Paul Honig, and David Wagner for encouragement, incisive questions, and valuable suggestions.

10 Conclusions

Practical sources of randomness can be characterized in terms of the adamance density. The raw sources have an adamance density greater than zero and less than 100%. The methods disclosed here make it possible to produce an output that approaches 100% adamance density as closely as you wish, producing symbols that are random enough for any practical purpose. It is important to have a calculated lower bound on the adamance density. In contrast, statistical tests provide only an upper bound, which is not what we need.

It is possible to generate industrial-strength randomness at very low cost, for example by distilling the randomness that is present in ordinary audio interfaces.

A The Definition of Randomness and Surprisal

A.1 Introduction and Intuitive Examples

In order to refine our notions of what is random and what is not, consider the following million-character strings. We start with

Example E1 : “xxxxxxxx...xx” (a million copies of “x”)

That seems distinctly non-random, very predictable, not very complex. Next, consider the string

Example E2 : “xyxyxyxy...xy” (half a million copies of “xy”)

That seems also non-random, very predictable, not very complex.

Example E3 : “31415926...99” (the first million decimal digits of π/10)

That is somewhat more interesting. The digits pass all known tests for randomness with one narrow exception (namely tests that check for digits of π). However, they must still be considered completely predictable. Finally, consider the two strings

Example E4 : “AukA1sVA...A5”

Example E5 : “Aukq1sVN...G5”

The million-character string represented by example E5 is, as far as anybody knows, completely random and unpredictable. Example E4 is very similar, except that the letter “A” appears more often than it would by chance. This string is mostly unpredictable, but contains a small element of nonrandomness and predictability.

Following Solomonoff (reference 20 and reference 21) and Chaitin (reference 22) we quantify the surprisal of a string of symbols as follows:

Let z be a string of symbols. The elements of z are denoted z k and are drawn from some alphabet Z. The number of symbols in the alphabet is denoted #Z.

Let P C (z) be the probability that computer programs, when run on a given computer C, will print z and then halt. The surprisal is defined to be the negative logarithm of this probability, denoted $ C (z) := − logP C (z). In this paper we choose to use base-2 logarithms, so that surprisal is measured in bits. Surprisal is also known as the surprise value or equivalently the unexpectedness. It is intimately related to entropy, as discussed below.

Note that we are using one probability distribution (the probability of choosing a computer program) to derive another (the probability P C (z) of a symbol string). To get this process started, we need to specify a method for choosing the programs. Better yet, using the notions of measure theory, we realize that probability need not involve choosing at all; instead all we really need is a method for assigning weight (i.e. measure) to each of the possible programs. Here is a simple method:3 Consider all possible programs of length exactly L* (measured in bits, since we are representing all programs as bit-strings). Assign each such program equal measure, namely 2−L*. Then test each one and count how many of them produce the desired output string z and then halt, when run on the given computer C. The measure of a string is the total measure of the set of programs that produce it. A string that can be produced by many different programs accumulates a large probability.

In this construction, a short program X (i.e. one which has a length L(X) less than L*) is not represented directly, but instead is represented by its children, i.e. programs formed from X by padding it with comments to reach the required length L*. There are at least 2L*−L(X) ways of doing the padding, and each way contributes 2−L* to the total measure. This means that a string z that can be produced by a short programs X will have a probability at least 2−L(X), no matter how large L* is. We take the limit as L* becomes very large and use this in the definition of P C (z).

Usually the probability P C (z) is dominated by (the children of) the shortest program that produces z. Therefore some people like to use the length of this shortest program as an estimate of the surprisal. This is often a good estimate, but it should not be taken as the definition.

The explicit dependence of P C (z) on the choice of computer C calls attention to an element of arbitrariness that is inherent in any definition of surprisal. Different people will assign different values to “the” surprisal, depending on what resources they have, and on what a priori information they have about the situation.

In an adversarial situation such as cryptography, we suggest that probabilities be defined in terms of the adversary’s computer. If you have multiple adversaries, they can be treated as a single adversary with a parallel computer.

A.3 Properties of the Surprisal

In this section, for conciseness, we drop the subscript C ... but you should remember that the probabilities and related quantities are still implicitly dependent on the choice of C.

Upper bound: If z is a string of bits, the surprisal $( z ) can never exceed the length L ( z ) by more than a small amount, because we can write a program that contains z and just prints it verbatim. More generally, if z is a string of symbols, $( z ) can never exceed L ( z ) log(# Z ) by more than a small amount. Again, that’s because we can write a program that contains a literal representation of z and just prints it verbatim. Tighter Upper Bound: The surprisal cannot exceed the length of the compressed representation4 of z by more than a bounded amount, because we can write a program that contains the compressed representation and calls the uncompress utility. Lower Bound: With very few exceptions, the surprisal $( z ) of any string z cannot be not much less than L ( z ) log(# Z ). You can see why this must be so, using a simple pigeon-hole argument: Consider all bit-strings of length 500, and suppose that a certain subset contains 1% of the strings but still has 490 bits of entropy. Well, then we are talking about 1% of 2500 strings, each having probability 2−490 — which adds up to more than 100% probability. Oops.

A relatively minor objection to this definition of surprisal is that P C (z) includes contributions from arbitrarily-long programs. That is a problem in theory, but in practice the sum is dominated by relatively short programs, and the limit converges quickly.

A much more serious objection is that even for modest-sized programs, the definition runs afoul of the halting problem. That is, there may well be programs that run for a million years without halting, and we don’t know whether they would eventually produce string z and then halt. This means the surprisal, as defined here, is a formally uncomputable quantity.

We will duck both these issues, except for the following remarks.

Any compressed representation that you happen to find for z puts a lower bound on P C ( z ) and an upper bound on the surprisal $( z ).

puts a lower bound on ( ) and an upper bound on the surprisal $( ). There do exist compression algorithms that are computable (indeed efficiently computable) and are effective on certain types of signal. These algorithms, as a rule, make use of specialized knowledge about the type of signal (text, voice, music, video, et cetera).

A.5 Surprise Density

In this section we shift attention from the unpredictability of strings to the unpredictability of the individual symbols making up the string.

Let us re-examine the examples given at the beginning of this section. Example E5 has surprisal $(z) very close to L(z) log(#Z). We classify strings of this sort as absolutely-random, by which we mean algorithmically-random.

Examples E1, E2, and E3 all have surprisal much less than their length. These strings are clearly not absolutely-random.

The interesting case is example E4. Intuitively, we think of this as “somewhat unpredictable” but more predictable than E5. To make this notion quantitative, we introduce the notion of surprise density. The following quantity tells us the surprise density of the string z in the region from i to j:

σ j | i ( z ) := $(Front( z , j )) − $(Front( z , i )) j − i (1)

where Front(z,i) is the substring formed by taking the first i symbols of the string z.

The surprise density for examples E1, E2, and E3 is zero for any region not too near the beginning. The surprise density for example E5 is as large as it possibly could be, namely 100% of log(#Z). Example E4 illustrates the interesting case where the surprise density is quite a bit greater than zero, but not quite 100% of log(#Z).

As mentioned in section 5.2, we consider the unadorned term “random” to be ambiguous, because it means different things to different people. Some people think “random” should denote 100% surprise density, and anything less than that is “non-random” even if it contains a great deal of unpredictability. Other folks think that “random” refers to anything with an surprisal density greater than zero, and “non-random” means completely predictable. Yet other folks extend “random” to include pseudo-random strings, as long as they are “random enough” for some application of interest. Even some professionals in the field use the word this way; reference 23 and the more recent reference 24 speak of “deterministic random number generators”, although it could be argued that it is impossible in principle for a process to be both deterministic and random. The randomness of a PRNG comes from the seed. Calling a PRNG “deterministic” seriously understates the importance of the seed.

In the space of all possible strings, almost all strings are absolutely-random, i.e. are algorithmically-random, i.e. contain 100% surprise density. However, the strings we find in nature, and the strings we can easily describe, all have very little surprise density. We can summarize this by saying: “All strings are absolutely-random, except for the ones we know about”.

We can use similar ideas to describe PRNGs and contrast them with HRNGs.

Most of modern cryptography revolves around notions of computational intractability. (I’m not saying that’s good or bad; it is what it is. In contrast, there is another set of notions, including adamance, entropy, and the related notion of unicity distance, that have got nothing to do with computational intractability.

The long strings produced by a good PRNG are conditionally compressible in the sense that we know there exists a shorter representation, but at the same time we believe them to be conditionally incompressible in the sense that the adversary has no feasible way of finding a shorter representation. The long strings produced by a HRNG are unconditionally, absolutely incompressible. Specifically, the set of strings collectively cannot be compressed at all. As for each string individually, it is not compressible either, except possibly for trivially rare cases and/or trivial amounts of compression.

B Soundcard Quirks

B.1 General Observations

This section is a collection of details about certain soundcards. (You can refer back to table 2 for a summary of the performance of a few soundcards. Also, section 4 provides step-by-step procedures that apply to “generic” soundcards.)

Soundcards generally include mixer functions. You have to initialize the mixer, to set the sliders on the features you want and/or to set the switches to bypass the features you don’t want. This is a bit of a black art, because the soundcards typically don’t come with any “principles of operation” documentation.

Graphical user interface (GUI) programs such as alsamixer may help you make some settings, but may not suffice to fully configure the mixer. All too often, the card has “routing switches” and other features that the GUI doesn’t know about. A reasonable procedure that gives complete control is to invoke “alsactl -f record.ctl store”, edit record.ctl, then “alsactl -f record.ctl restore”. Or you can use amixer to fiddle one setting without disturbing others.

B.2 Intel High-Definition Audio

The Intel High-Definition Audio spec (reference 25) describes the codec but says remarkably little about mixer functions.

This is yet another example of hype and deception from Creative Labs. The device itself, the box it comes in, and the advertising all prominently mention USB, 24-bit audio, and 96 kHz sampling rates. However, according to all available evidence, the device will not transmit 24-bit audio via USB to the DACs or from the ADCs (no matter what the data rate). It also will not transmit 96 kHz samples via USB to the DACs or from the ADCs (no matter what the word size).

Apparently the only way in which the Extigy can deal with 24 bits or 96 kHz is by shipping it digitally (e.g. via S/PDIF) to/from some other device.

It also has astonishingly poor input sensitivity. It’s about 5 times worse than a typical cheap sound card, and about 100 times worse than a decent 24-bit soundcard, as you can see from table 2.

The Extigy is no good for present purposes. I recommend you do not buy this product. Many other Creative Labs products have problems, too, so in fact I recommend that you never buy anything made by them.

B.4 M-Audio Delta 1010

This is a high-end system, with eight analog inputs, eight analog outputs, 96000 frames per second, and 24 bits of resolution. M-Audio was previously known as Midiman.

Each of the eight analog input and each of the eight analog outputs has a pushbutton that I call the “pro/con” switch. Professional studio equipment (pro) runs at lower impedances and lower signal levels than consumer-grade home audio equipment (con). That is, the pro setting (switch pushed in) means lower impedance and lower open-circuit voltage on output, and lower impedance and greater voltage-sensitivity on input. Whether you care about the lower impedance depends on the impedance of whatever the card is hooked to.

The card does not have an 8×8 or 10×10 mixer board. It is apparently 10×2. We bypass it, as discussed below.

The alsa driver always expects 10 channels of output: 8 analog plus 2 S/PDIF. If you are only interested in a subset thereof, you have to pad things so the buffer has 10 samples per frame anyway. Similarly, the alsa driver always produces 12 samples per frame on input: 8 analog plus 2 S/PDIF plus 2 from the mixer. For present purposes we use the 8 analog inputs and ignore the others, since they contain no additional randomness. Therefore you must pass the --channel-mask 255 option to turbid; otherwise the program will have less randomness than it thinks it has, by a factor of 8/12ths.

Each of the eight analog inputs is always routed directly to its own DAC, so the PCM input functionality is always unaffected by the sliders and switches on the mixer.

The routing can be set so that each of the eight analog outputs is fed directly from the PCM data. This is recommended. This makes the PCM output functionality independent of the sliders on the mixer.

B.5 Thinkpad 600

Getting this to work requires the following tricks:

Make sure “quick boot” is turned off. (If it is turned on, it tells the BIOS to skip configuration of PnP devices – not good.) Press and hold F1 during boot-up to get to the BIOS setup.

After you’ve done that, run IBM’s DOS-mode Thinkpad utilities to enable the sound system and find out what resources it is using (registers, IRQs, and DMA channels). It is (just barely) possible to make a bootable 1.44MB floppy containing the DOS operating system plus the IBM utilities. The utilities come from IBM as a self-extracting executable, which you will have to unpack on a Windows machine and then move to the floppy.

Beware that the ALSA drivers may have a reversed notion of what is DMA0 and what is DMA1. If it almost works, try reversing their settings in /etc/modules.conf.

As usual, you will need the .ctl file (included in the turbid bundle) plus the settings in table 2.

The same jack doubles as a Line-In port and Mike-In port, depending on software settings. Unlike the typical Mike-In port as described in section 4.3, this Mike-In port is stereo and does not provide power to the microphone. This would be bad if you wanted to connect a microphone that needed power, but it’s ideal for our purposes. Basically it’s like an ordinary Line-In port, with higher sensitivity.

C Bandwidth Measurement

For reasons discussed in reference 8, the Johnson noise in any Ohmic resistor is nice white noise. Voltage samples are independent and identically distributed (IID), according to a Gaussian normal distribution with zero mean and variance given by

d⟨ V 2⟩ = 4 kT R d f (2)

where k is Boltzmann’s constant, T is the temperature (300 K), B is the bandwidth, and the brackets ⟨⋯⟩ denote the ensemble average.

The bandwidth is essentially the average of gain squared, averaged over all frequencies. We care about the square of the gain, because in equation 2 we care about the square of the voltage.

The principle of the bandwidth measurement is as follows: Equation 2 tells us the variance of the voltage right at the resistor. The quantity we actually measure has been amplified, according to some gain function G which depends on frequency. So a more complete description is

σ o 2 = ∫ f max



0 4 k T R | G ( f )|2 d f (3)

where the subscript o on σ o indicates this is the quantity we observe, and f max is some “large enough” frequency; the real, relevant bandwidth B is hidden in G, which goes to zero at large frequencies. Since G is presumably an even function of frequency, we can rewrite this as

σ o 2 = ∫ f max



− f max 2 k T R | G ( f )|2 d f (4)

and in a discrete (sampled) system this becomes

σ o 2 = M −1 ∑ k =0 2 k T R | G ( k Δ f )|2 Δ f (5)

where we identify the sampling frequency N = MΔf = 2 f max , covering the whole range of positive and negative frequencies. We can write this in the suggestive form

σ o 2 = 4 k T R G * 2 B (6)

where G * 2 is some nominal mid-band power gain, if we identify

B = ½ G * 2 M −1 ∑ k =0 | G ( k Δ f )|2 Δ f (7)

and we call B the power-averaged bandwidth.

By definition the gain G is V o / V r , where V r is the voltage right at the resistor, and V o is what we observe.

B = ½ G * 2 M −1 ∑ k =0 | V o ( k Δ f )|2 | V r ( k Δ f )|2 Δ f (8)

This expression applies to any V o /V r ratio, whether V r comes from thermal noise or from any other source.

We choose to inject a non-thermal probe signal V r . It is constructed to be “white” – i.e. it has constant magnitude independent of frequency. That allows us to pull it outside the summation:

B = ½ G * 2 | V r |2 M −1 ∑ k =0 | V o ( k Δ f )|2 Δ f = ½ M Δ f G * 2 ∑ | V r |2 Δ f M −1 ∑ k =0 | V o ( k Δ f )|2 Δ f (9)

and by Parseval’s theorem we can rewrite that frequency-domain expression as a time-domain expression

B = ½ M Δ f G * 2 ∑ | V r |2 Δ t M −1 ∑ k =0 | V o ( k Δ t )|2 Δ t = N 2 1 G * 2 ⟨ V o 2⟩ ⟨ V r 2⟩ (10)

It is easy to get a good lower bound on B. At compile time, we know the root-mean-square (RMS) magnitude of the internal representation of the probe signal; by construction it is -15dBFS. Then given K and R (and Z ref ) we know ⟨V r 2⟩ in the passband. At frequencies outside the passband this voltage will roll off a little, because of the anti-aliasing filter in the soundcard output stage. This will cause us to under-estimate B by a little, which is harmless. Finally we determine ⟨V o 2⟩ by summing the squares of the observed voltage samples and multiplying by the appropriate calibration factors (involving Q).

You might have thought based on the form of equation 3 that we would need to take a Fourier transform, but we don’t, because of Parseval’s theorem.

D Units: IBU and dBx

In the turbid software, whenever possible, voltages are measured in SI volts.

If that is not possible, e.g. when representing raw readings as they come from the hardware, before calibration, anything that is linear in voltage is measured in input buffer units such that 1.0 ibu is full scale i.e. the largest thing that can be represented.

Meanwhile, anything that is measured in dBx is measured relative to a reference level that is 15 dB below full scale. This means that a rail-to-rail square wave (such as might result from extreme clipping) peaks at 1.0 ibu, has an RMS of 1.0 ibu, and a power level of +15 dBx. Similarly a sine wave that peaks at exactly 1.0 ibu has an RMS of ibu, and a power level of +12 dBx.

As always, a dB is a power measurement. This includes dBx. It does not depend directly on the peak voltage. As a corollary, the peak voltage of a zero-dBx sine wave √2 higher than the top of a zero-dBx square wave.

E Calculating Impedances

Suppose the computer’s audio output circuit has some gain g and some Thévenin equivalent series resistance R out , both of which we want to determine. We connect some external load resistance and measure the voltage. Then we connect some different load, and measure the voltage again. If one of the loads has infinite resistance, that gives us a direct measure of the open-circuit voltage.

During this process, the turbid output is represented in the output buffer by a sine wave of amplitude X (RMS), measured in hins. Therefore the open-circuit voltage is V oc = gX, which defines what we mean by g.

On the ith measurement, the voltage observed on the meter is:

V m, i = R load, i R load, i + R out gX (11)

hence

1 V m, i = (1 + R out R load, i ) 1 gX X V m, i = 1 g + R out g 1 R load, i (12)

So if we plot the inverse voltage gain (X/V m, i ) as a function of the inverse resistance (1/R load, i ), we should get a straight line with slope R out /g and intercept 1/g.

In the turbid code, we speak of oropoints. Each oropoint is an ordered pair, (1/R load , X/V m ). The gain g is represented in turbid by the variable gVout, which has dimensions of hins per volt.

Now let’s feed the computer’s audio output circuit into an external resistor network. The combination forms a linear circuit with some effective Thévenin equivalent open-circuit voltage V eff and effective series resistance R eff , both of which we can calculate from the known properties of the circuit. These properties include the computer’s output impedance, R out , which is considered known, since it was determined in section E.1. Similarly the driving voltage V oc = gX is known, since we control X and we calibrated g in section E.1.

We connect the output of this network to the audio input. The input port has some input impedance R in and some gain b, both of which we need to determine. We can observe the digitized input signal Y j as it appears in the input buffer, measured in hins.

Y j = (1/ b ) R in R in + R eff, j V eff (13)

hence

V eff Y j = b (1 + R eff, j R in ) = b + b R in R eff, j (14)

So if we plot the observed inverse gain V eff /Y j as a function of the calibration network equivalent resistance R eff, j , we should get a straight line with slope b/R in and intercept b. You can easily check this formula in the limiting cases R eff = 0 and R eff → ∞.

In the turbid code, we speak of oripoints. Each oripoint is an ordered pair (R eff , V eff /Y). The inverse gain b is represented by the variable bVin, and has units of volts per hin.

F Noise in Voltage Dividers

For some perspectives on Johnson noise and the Nyquist formula, including what happens when there is a frequency-dependent gain, see reference 26.

This has some interesting implications and ramifications for our randomness generator. There are a couple of regimes to consider:

Suppose you have a sound card where the input impedance consists of a nice small capacitance (high Z ) and a not-so-nice smallish resistance (low Z ), such that the corner frequency 1/(2π RC ) is high compared to your digitizer’s usable bandwidth. In this regime you don’t care about the capacitance value; the impedance of the input is real (i.e. non-reactive) across the relevant part of the spectrum. The amount of noise on the input is determined by the resistance. The noise is not large (because the resistance is small), but at least it’s nice and white, i.e. independent of frequency. In this regime, assuming the goal is to collect noise samples, you don’t want to add any additional resistance in parallel with what’s already there. That would just move the flat part of the curve to a lower voltage. (It would also push the corner frequency out to a higher frequency, but that doesn’t do any good if the digitizer doesn’t go that high.)

) and a not-so-nice smallish resistance (low ), such that the corner frequency 1/(2π ) is high compared to your digitizer’s usable bandwidth. In this regime you don’t care about the capacitance value; the impedance of the input is real (i.e. non-reactive) across the relevant part of the spectrum. The amount of noise on the input is determined by the resistance. The noise is not large (because the resistance is small), but at least it’s nice and white, i.e. independent of frequency. In contrast, now suppose you have a sound card where the input impedance consists of a significant capacitance (low Z ) and a relatively high resistance (high Z ), such that corner frequency is low compared to your digitizer’s usable bandwidth. (I’ve seen examples of this.) The impedance is reactive across a big part of the relevant spectrum. This is tricky, because the noise is not white. It is pink. Successive samples of the voltage will be somewhat correlated. There are various ways of dealing with this. One possibility is to decorrelate the signal by postprocessing it. You could do a deconvolution using Fourier methods, or you could build a digital filter that implements the inverse of the RC filter. Another possibility is to accept the signal as-is, and use its conditional randomness as our source of randomness. That is, recognize that each sample has some conditional probability distribution – conditioned on all of history – and as long as that distribution has enough spread, we can use it. In this regime it makes sense to add some resistance. This whitens the noise. It lowers the peak noise per unit bandwidth. However, remember that the area under the curve is independent of the resistance. So as long as the corner frequency is not large compared to what your digitizer can handle, you’re not losing anything by lowering the resistance. If the added external resistance dominates the internal resistance, that provides a nice convenience: It means you know what the resistance value is. This simplifies the calibration.

) and a relatively high resistance (high ), such that corner frequency is low compared to your digitizer’s usable bandwidth. (I’ve seen examples of this.) The impedance is reactive across a big part of the relevant spectrum. This is tricky, because the noise is not white. It is pink. Successive samples of the voltage will be somewhat correlated.

G ALSA Timing

Three concepts:

The ALSA period is the interval between interrupts. The driver catches interrupts from the hardware. For example, for the capture direction, the driver has no idea that data is available until the interrupt arrives. Reference: http://alsa.opensrc.org/Period

Turbid defines an iblock and an oblock. These refer to the amount of stuff transferred between the userland program and the driver. Normally such things are called i/o buffers, but I call them blocks, to avoid confusion with the following item. The block size can plausibly be as small as the period, and as large as the buffer. On input, a small block size seems to have little or no effect on efficiency. In contrast, output block size seems to have a significant effect on efficiency. Larger blocks are more efficient. I have no clue how to explain the contrast.

The ALSA buffer is internal to the driver. It is typically a few times larger than the ALSA period. The buffer allows the capture hardware to get a bit ahead of the userland program, without causing an overrun. In the other direction, the buffer allows the playback program to get a somewhat ahead of the game, if it can.

Some observations:

I’ve got it set up so that FrAppBuf is less than the ALSA buffer size.

I’ve got it set up so that appbuf__fr is greater than the period. It makes no sense at all.

is greater than the period. It makes no sense at all. The first readi blocks for .02 seconds. At this point the state transitions from 2 (prepared) to 3 (running).

The first writei does not block at all. At this point the state transitions from 2 (prepared) to 3 (running).

Some ALSA timing is shown in figure 14. This is peculiar in a couple of ways. For one thing, the capture i/o buffer is a different size from the playback i/o buffer. Also, the first readi has been artificially delayed by 10 milliseconds relative to the first writei, just to clarify the relationship between the two streams.

Each rectangle represents an i/o call. The bottom of the rectangle is the number of frames (input or output) before the call, and the top is the number of frames (input or output) after the call. Similarly the left edge is the time at the start of the call, and the right edge is the time upon return from the call.

In figure 14 the command was turbid show timing comb 0 freq 1000 ochan 0. You can see that the playback process has a lot of work to do, so the corner of one red rectangle does not meet the corner of the next. In contrast, the capture process has very little work to do, so the rectangles very nearly meet corner-to-corner.

Now consider what happens when we use snd_pcm_link(...) to synchronize the two streams. At the time of the first write to the playback device, the playback stream starts running (obviously) ... and the capture stream also starts running (because it is linked). The artificial 10 ms delay is still there, but it affects only the left edge of the first rectangle, not the right edge.

H ALSA Hacking

Figure 16 comes from reference 27. As you can see, the audio circuitry «supposed» to be independent of the plug-sense circuits. However, the observed fact is that not all computer manufacturers play by these rules. There are machines from reputable companies where the Mic-In audio signal gets shorted to ground when the jack is removed.

The elegant behavior suggested by figure 16 stands in contrast to the old but not venerable AC’97 standard, as shown in figure 17. It called for grounding the audio signals when the plug was removed. However, 1997 was a lot of dog years ago. In an HD Audio system, grounding is nonstandard. From the turbid point of view, it is undesirable. It means you have to physically plug something into the jack in order to harvest high-quality noise.

Reconfig requires that the sound card not be in use. That means you have to shut down all of the following processes:

turbid

alsamixer

sox or arecord (which you might be using as a VU meter)

You might need to shut down some others also:

pulseaudio

timidity daemon

To find who’s using the audio system, you might use the command

:; lsof | grep /dev/snd

H.1 Unloading/Reloading the Driver

To exercise the early-patch features, such as hints, you do not need to unload the entire sound-driver stack. Unloading and reloading the snd_hda_intel is sufficient.

:; modprobe -r snd_hda_intel :; modprobe -a snd_hda_intel

H.2 Configuring the Firmware

The “early patch” firmware file requires vendor_id, subsystem_id, and card address. For any given card, you can get this information from:

:; head /proc/asound/card0/codec#0

Note that “codec” number is the same as “device” number, so that /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 corresponds to /dev/snd/hwC0D2.

Name the files after the vendor_id and subsystem_id, such as

/lib/firmware/alsa-early-patch-0x14f15051-0x17aa2100.fw /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-early-patch-0x14f15051-0x17aa2100.conf

The latter contains a single line, namely:

options snd-hda-intel patch=alsa-early-patch-0x14f15051-0x17aa2100.fw

The .fw file itself looks like:

[codec] 0x14f15051 0x17aa2100 0 [hint] jack_detect = false add_jack_modes = true

If you think jack_detect=false is too drastic, it suffices to use the milder alternative, namely auto_mic=false.

H.3 ALSA Controls Exist in Software

Key concept: The HDA chip has a bunch of widgets. In contrast, the ALSA system presents a bunch of controls. There is not a one-to-one relation between them. For example, the Master volume control is implemented by monkeying with the gain on multiple different audio widgets. To say the same thing the other way, the gain on the widget for a particular channel is likely to be the set according to the product of the per-channel volume control and the master volume control.

Similarly, what alsamixer calls a “recording switch” bears little resemblance to how it is implemented on the hardware. The kernel implements it by fiddling with the digital “stream” and analog “connection” properties of the various widgets.

H.4 More Hacking Notes

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt or equivalently file:///usrsrc/linux-4.8.12/Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt Note the section on HD-Audio Reconfiguration, including the "user hints" especially auto_mic and jack_detect. echo auto_mic=false > /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/hints echo jack_detect=no > /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/hints echo asdf > /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/reconfig This is an “experimental” feature and makes a big mess, but it may be useful for experimenting. On the other hand, writing a firmware file and unloading/reloading the drivers makes less of a mess. kernel.org cites broken link: http://www.intel.com/standards/hdaudio/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_High_Definition_Audio Reference 27 suggests stereo mic support is possible, at least sometimes. Reference 25 is super-important. It says: “The High Definition Audio Specification defines a complete codec architecture that is fully discoverable and configurable so as to allow a software driver to control all typical operations of any codec.” “Every Pin Widget must contain a Configuration Default Register as defined in Section 7.3.3.31. In order to save parameter space in a function group incorporating several Pin Widgets, the function group node may optionally contain defau lts for the amplifier parameters; however, these defaults may be overridden with local parameters if necessary.” grep -i auto.mic /usr/src/linux/sound/pci/hda/hda_generic.c There is a list of hints in the aforementioned HD-Audio.txt file, or you could go directly to the source: grep ’get_.*_hint[()]’ /usr/src/linux/sound/pci/hda/hda_generic.c Informative enumeration of codec nodes and their properties, plus the operating system’s interpretation thereof: :; cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 This helps, but you still can’t necessarily get by with unfilled jack: :; echo auto_mic=false > /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/hints :; echo asdf > /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/reconfig There is a simple tool from https://github.com/cmatsuoka/hda-emu that will decode pin configs. It’s doesn’t do nearly everything you need, but it will do this: cat /sys/class/sound/hwC0D0/init_pin_configs | while read a b ; do echo echo -n "$a: " ~/turbid/src/hda-emu/hda-decode-pincfg $b done package alsa-tools contains /usr/bin/hda-verb which is very powerful, but very low-level. :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x16 GET_PIN_SENSE 0 nid = 0x16, verb = 0xf09, param = 0x0 value = 0xffffffff # plugged :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x16 GET_PIN_SENSE 0 nid = 0x16, verb = 0xf09, param = 0x0 value = 0x7fffffff # unplugged :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x18 GET_PIN_SENSE 0 nid = 0x18, verb = 0xf09, param = 0x0 value = 0xffffffff # plugged :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x18 GET_PIN_SENSE 0 nid = 0x18, verb = 0xf09, param = 0x0 value = 0x7fffffff # unplugged For example: # color blue, cannot sense pin detect, i.e. no presence detect: :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x18 SET_CONFIG_DEFAULT_BYTES_1 0x31 # default pink, can do sense pin detect, i.e. no presence detect: :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x18 SET_CONFIG_DEFAULT_BYTES_1 0x90 The effect is cosmetic only: ./scan-hda shows the pin complex as having the noPD property, but it still notices the plug coming and going, and still mutes the input when unplugged. It takes effect immediately; there is no need to reconfigure the kernel software. Part of the problem is that the kernel looks at the PD indicators, even if the chip tells it not to. The only way to get the kernel to play along is via hints, as discussed above. :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x18 SET_CONFIG_DEFAULT_BYTES_3 0x42 # default, connected to 1/8th inch jack: :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x18 SET_CONFIG_DEFAULT_BYTES_3 0x02 # Similar story: Immediate cosmetic effect, but no change in # performance. # zap the built-in microphone; was 0x10 :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x14 SET_CHANNEL_STREAMID 0x00 # turn on front microphone; was 0x00 :; hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x15 SET_CHANNEL_STREAMID 0x10 You cannot set pin_sense. The corresponding verb tells the device to measure the impedance of left versus right channel, in accordance with the spec, reference 25. During system shutdown, the init scripts try to save the soundcard state in /var/lib/alsa/asound.state . During system startup, the init scripts try to initialize the soundcard state from that file. The tool (alsactl) is very brittle, so if anything has changed initialization will fail. All the ALSA utilities such as arecord and alsamixer are linked against the ALSA library. A great many other program are as well, including turbid . At runtime, the library gets initialized from file:///usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf which is essentially a script written in a peculiar language. It in turn tries to pull in everything from file:///usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d and the card-specific file from file:///usr/share/alsa/cards/ . The latter is where it gets the functionality (and the names) it assigns to the various controls you see in e.g. alsamixer. It also reads /etc/pulse/client.conf and other strange stuff. Then it tries to read file:///etc/asound.conf and finally file: /.asoundrc (in the user’s home directory). A good tutorial on alsa control devices: http://www.sabi.co.uk/Notes/linuxSoundALSA.html which mentions https://linux.die.net/man/1/amixer (not to be confused with https://linux.die.net/man/1/alsamixer ) amixer gives a decent look at the ALSA “controls”. It is complimentary to cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 which gives a good look at the audio widgets on the chip.

I Typical Magnitudes

The following may put things in perspective:

The input impedance is on the order of 47 kΩ.

The protection circuits include a 220 pF capacitor, as indicated in figure 16.

That gives an RC time constant on the order of 10 microseconds. That corresponds to a corner frequency of 100,000 radians per second [1/(RC)], or about 15 kHz [1/(2πRC)].

If you actually do the integral, you find that the effective noise bandwidth is bigger than the corner frequency by a factor of π/2. This means there is a modest contribution (about 50% extra) from the wings of the distribution, above the corner frequency. In symbols, that gives us a noise bandwidth of 1/(4RC). Plugging into equation 2 give us:

∫ d⟨ V 2⟩ = ∫ 4 kT R d f = 4 kT R 4 RC = kT / C ½ C ⟨ V 2⟩ = ½ kT (15)

The last line tells us the average energy in the capacitor is exactly what we would expect from the most fundamental notions of thermodynamics, i.e. equipartition.

We assume the operating temperature is 15 centigrade or above. That gives us an absolute temperature of kelvin.

That gives a RMS voltage of microvolts across the 220 pF protection capacitor. That is the σ i.e. the standard deviation of the voltage distribution.

A typical input sensitivity is volts per hin.

There are hins per bath, so we can write the sensitivity as volts per bath, i.e. volts full scale, or volts peak-to-peak.

For 16-bit digitizer, that gives us microvolts per code.

That means we have about 13 codes per σ.

The maximum probability of a Gaussian is 1/√(2π) 1/σ which in this scenario comes to 0.0308.

That means we get about 5 bits of adamance per sample.

J References

1.

“Security Recommendations for Any Device

that Depends on Randomly-Generated Numbers”

https://www.av8n.com/computer/htm/secure-random.htm 2.

“Generating a Random Distribution”

www.av8n.com/turbid/paper/rng-intro.htm 3.

http://alsa-project.org 4.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics

Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA (1963). All of Volume I is available online:

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_41.html 5.

The Art of Electronics 6.

“Network Noise and Intermodulation Distortion”

Chapter 3 of Lecture Notes,

http://www.eie.polyu.edu.hk/~ensurya/lect_notes/commun_cir/Ch3/Chapter3.htm 7.

“Thermal Agitation of Electricity in Conductors”

Phys. Rev. 32 , 97 (1928) http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v32/i1/p97_1 8.

“Thermal Agitation of Electric Charge in Conductors”

Phys. Rev. 32 , 110 (1928) http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v32/i1/p110_1 9.

http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html 10.

“A Universal Statistical Test for Random Bit Generators”.

Advances in Cryptology - CRYPTO ’90,

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, 537 , pp. 409-420 (1990).



Final version in J. of Cryptology (1992).

Abstract: http://www.crypto.ethz.ch/cgi-bin/show?what=abstractlabel=Maurer90b

Code: http://matrix.irb.hr/~mario/ftp/pub/random/utest.tgz 11.

“Discussion of the Fortuna Randomness Generator”

www.av8n.com/turbid/paper/fortuna.htm 12.

“random.c – A strong random number generator”

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/rnd/linux-rand 13.

Handbook of Applied Cryptography ,

CRC Press (1996). http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/

(The strict avalanche property is discussed on page 277.) 14.

“Random Number Machines: A Literature Survey”

http://www.ciphersbyritter.com/RES/RNGMACH.HTM 15.

“Software Generation of Practically Strong Random Numbers”,

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/random.pdf 16.

“Cryptographic Randomness from Air Turbulence in Disk Drives”,

in Proceedings of Crypto 94 , Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science, No. 839 (1994). 17.

“Iterating von Neumann’s Procedure for Extracting Random Bits”

The Annals of Statistics pp 590-597 (1992).

http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~peres/mine/vn.pdf 18.

“Tossing a Biased Coin”

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~libcs124/CS/coinflip3.pdf 19.

“Randomness Recommendations for Security” (1994)

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1750.txt 20.

“A Preliminary Report on a General Theory of Inductive Inference”,

Report V-131, Zator Co., Cambridge, Mass (4 Feb 1960). 21.

“A Formal Theory of Inductive Inference I and II”,

Information and Control 7, 1-22 & 224-254. 22.

Algorithmic Information Theory ,

Cambridge University Press (1987). http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/cup.pdf 23.

http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/fip140-1.htm 24.

NIST Special Publication: “Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators”

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-90A/SP800-90A.pdf 25.

“High Definition Audio Specification” Revision 1.0a (17 June 2010)

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-specifications/high-definition-audio-specification.pdf 26.

“Perspectives on Johnson Noise”

27.

“Front Panel I/O Connectivity Design Guide”

Version 1.3 (February 2005)

http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/A2928604-005.pdf 28.

“Differential collisions in SHA-0”

in CRYPTO’98 , H. Krawczyk ed., LNCS 1462, pp 56–71, (1998)

http://fchabaud.free.fr/English/Publications/sha.pdf 29.

“Is SHA-1 conceptually sound?”

Cryptology ePrint (2005).

http://eprint.iacr.org/2005/350.ps 30.

Physical Review A - General Physics, 3rd Series 29, 1419–1437 (March 1984)

http://pra.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v29/i3/p1419_1

http://www.brooklynquantumworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/yurke-and-denker-1984.pdf 31.

“Randomness and the Netscape Browser”

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/ddj-netscape.html

(Break of Netscape SSL PRNG.) 32.

http://www.nsa.gov/docs/venona/index.html

especially http://www.nsa.gov/docs/venona/venona_remember.html 33.

“OpenSSL 0.9.8c-1 up to versions before 0.9.8g-9 on Debian-based operating systems uses a random number generator that generates predictable numbers, which makes it easier for remote attackers to conduct brute force guessing attacks against cryptographic keys.”

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-0166 34.

“Misplaced Trust: Kerberos 4 Session Keys”

in The Proceedings of the 1997 Symposium on Network and Distributed Systems Security

https://www.cerias.purdue.edu/tools_and_resources/bibtex_archive/archive/97-01.pdf 35.

“Fatal crypto flaw in some government-certified smartcards makes forgery a snap”

Ars Technica (16 Sept 2013)

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/fatal-crypto-flaw-in-some-government-certified-smartcards-makes-forgery-a-snap/ 36.

Building Secure Software , Addison-Wesley (2001).

See especially the section “How to cheat in online gambling” in chapter 10. 37.

“Google confirms critical Android crypto flaw used in $5,700 Bitcoin heist”

Ars Technica (14 Aug 2013)

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/08/google-confirms-critical-android-crypto-flaw-used-in-5700-bitcoin-heist/ 38.

“Cryptanalytic Attacks on Pseudorandom Number Generators”

https://www.schneier.com/paper-prngs.pdf 39.

“Yarrow-160: Notes on the Design and Analysis of the Yarrow Cryptographic Pseudorandom Number Generator”,

in Sixth Annual Workshop on Selected Areas in Cryptography , Springer Verlag, August (1999).

http://www.schneier.com/paper-yarrow.pdf 40.

“TEMPEST Fundamentals”.

http://cryptome.org/nacsim-5000.htm  Mansfield, UK – Wednesday, February 26th, 2014

They are called Urban Projections, a collective of Multimedia Experimentalists, based in the Midlands, U.K. From lo-tech pieces of string and cardboard to the latest audio-visual applications and hardware; they specialize in combining hands-on creative activities with cutting edge multimedia application, to deliver eye-catching, illuminating, mixed media products.

Projections have the ability to take city facades, and turn them into a movie screen. They love to take their work to the streets, calling it street art or guerrilla projections, it’s one of the most effective and immediate ways of reaching audiences and catching them by surprise, without leaving the permanency of spray paint. Essentially, they can create a temporary mural that actually moves.

Urban Projections have numerous mobile projection units including bikes and wheel-able devices which have been specially converted to create the ultimate, self-sufficient projection mobiles.

The power of projection is in the simplicity of its medium, and when using the street as a canvas, the possibilities are endless.

It could be the simplicity of a slogan, a living moving mural, digitally drawn by a graffiti artist or the interactivity of social networking feeds – There are limitless possibilities to how you can reach your audience, and how they can feedback to you.

They create projection mapped performances which are carefully wrapped around objects, buildings stage design, people, architectural features, tin cans. Projection Mapping is a recent development in projection technology, in which an image can be specifically ‘placed’ onto the features and contours of an object. Paired with careful pre-production, it is possible to achieve stunning results.

At Urban Projections, they been on the forefront of the video mapping scene. From small scale stage set, to 8-storey tower block, they have used projection mapping to develop eye-popping mixed media performances, that seemingly push the realms of possibility.

Often when groups like this merge audio and visual technology, the viewer’s senses are synched up; they see what they hear, and they hear what they see, much like in the following video. The rhythm of a song matches the changes in image frames.

When audiences go to a music show, they are now expecting to see visuals to assist the experience of the sound. Some people are more tuned into their visuals than their audio senses, and groups such as Urban Projections is accommodating to this shift towards a a more advanced visual culture. Project mapping and new projection technology may revolutionize the art world, and the visual world of urban centers. Music scenes are changing for the better to create a multi-sensory experience, and our apathy towards culture will be left behind, as we brace for new engaging media to engulf us in its presence.

When I asked the creative director, Rebecca Smith, about her project, she responded with the following information:

A bit of Background

Urban projections is run by myself (Rebecca Smith). My background is actually in audio production. I began work when i was a teenager (I’m now 32) in recording studios as a sound engineer, and progressed into electronic music production.

I always had a strong passion for contemporary / visual arts, and would tinker with all forms of graphic design, contemporary art etc when i was young. I toured for a while as a turntablist (scratch DJ) in early 2000…. there seemed a natural progression with the way that technology was moving to start to incorporate audio and visual forms together.As time moved on, the edges of art forms kind of melted away, and they all seemed to merge into one…. video, animation, 3d design, projection, sound, live performance….. whatever.

If you have the fundamental skills and an eye, then they are all just tools for expression.My actual education is in audio engineering which i have a BSc Hons, though to be honest, audio production is probably the least used skill in my day to day work.

I collaborate with all different artists and bring them in on a project-to-project basis, dependent on what type of skill set is needed for the project, and the direction that we are interested in moving in.

Where does inspiration come from for our work?  

The Associated Press





MEXICO CITY - A second former vigilante leader was released late Tuesday after being held on murder charges in a Dec. 16 clash that left 11 dead in the western state of Michoacan.

A state supreme court judge ordered the release of Luis Antonio Torres, “El Americano,” after ruling that his group of rural police were acting in self-defence and within their legal authority when they came under fire in the clash.

The former vigilante leader of the rival group in the confrontation, Hipolito Mora, was released on Monday along with about two dozen followers for the same reason. On Tuesday he said he may run for Congress.

Mora has said that his group came under fire by Torres' group, something Torres had denied.

Both were founders of vigilante groups that emerged in 2013, as farmers and ranchers took up arms to fight extortion demands from the Knights Templar cartel, which controlled the violence-wracked state.

Both groups had converted into the Rural Forces, a new police force created by the federal government last year to get the vigilantes to register and put down illegal arms.

Mora's son was among those who died.

Mora told local media Tuesday he is negotiating with a small opposition party to run for Congress in June elections.  ANTALYA, TURKEY—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Canada remains firm that Moscow must end its “interference” in Ukraine. Trudeau described the encounter here at the G20 summit as “brief” but one with a pointed message.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chinese President Xi Jinping said they were committed to exploring a free trade agreement between the two nations, at a bilateral meeting at the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey on Monday. ( Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS )

“I pointed out that although Canada has shifted its approach on a broad range of multilateral and international issues, we remain committed to the fact that Russia’s interference in Ukraine must cease, that we stand with the Ukrainian people and expect the president engage fully in the . . . peace process,” Trudeau told reporters Monday. Stephen Harper also had a blunt encounter with the Russian president at last year’s G20 summit in Australia, where he told Putin, “You need to get out of Ukraine.” Trudeau’s brief chat is in contrast with the lengthy discussion that unfolded here between Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama on the crisis in Syria.

Article Continued Below

His meeting with Putin was one in a series of chats as Trudeau made the rounds to meet several leaders. Monday morning, he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping here Monday, saying Canada looks forward to establishing a “fresh approach” in relations. The two leaders had a bilateral meeting here, where the leaders of the globe’s 20 major economies have gathered for their annual summit. Trudeau and Xi shook hands in the front of the flags of their respective countries before moving to two long parallel facing tables in a large meeting room. There were 11 on the Canadians’ side and 13 on the Chinese side. Xi noted that it was Trudeau’s father who had established relations with China 45 years ago.

“That was an extraordinary political vision,” Xi said. “China will always remember that.” Trudeau praised the more than four decades of “strong relations.

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“I’m well aware we have an opportunity to set a fresh approach in our relationship right now. I know that there are many opportunities for us to work together on economic political and cultural ties and I look forward to a very productive engagement in the coming years,” Trudeau said. After the meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office said the two leaders discussed the “substantial and comprehensive relationship between the two countries.” When prompted, a Trudeau spokesperson said the issue of human rights was discussed. “On human rights, the prime minister did say that they would not always agree, but part of having a strong ‎relationship involves expressing concerns and disagreements in a respectful way,” said Cameron Ahmad. Relations between Canada and China had cooled during Stephen Harper’s time as prime minister. David Mulroney, former ambassador to China, has been critical of Harper’s approach to China, saying the Conservatives were inconsistent. Xi and Trudeau also said they remained committed to exploring the potential for a free trade agreement between China and Canada. “I look forward to a productive relationship in which Canada will benefit from trade but also continue to express its concerns and issues around governance and human rights,” the prime minister said. Trudeau also met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The prime minister also met with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is attending the summit in the place of French President François Hollande, who remained in France to deal with the aftermath of Friday’s deadly terror attacks. World leaders discussed that attack as part of a broader talk on security and refugees during a working dinner Sunday night. In that session, Trudeau called the Islamic State a “scourge on the world” and condemned the terror attack in France and recent bombings in Turkey, according a summary provided by spokesperson Cameron Ahmad. ‎ Canadian CF-18s were also in action in Iraq, striking an ISIL fighting position southeast of Haditha.

Read more about:  Giancarlo Stanton Celebrates His New Contract at FDR at Delano Nightlife Photography by Seth Browarnik on November 20th, 2014 in Celebrity

Giancarlo Stanton

Miami Beach, FL – November 17, 2014 – How do you celebrate signing the richest contract in the history of American sports? With lots, and lots of Champagne, that’s how. Earlier in the day, MLB star Giancarlo Stanton signed the largest contract in the history of American sports as he inked an incredible $325 million, 13-year contract with The Miami Marlins. Last night, he celebrated the momentous occasion by partying it up in style at South Beach hotspot, FDR at Delano. The celebration included a special edition bottle of Moët Nectar Impérial Rosé Leopard Luxury Edition Methuselah bottle that was given to him as a gift from Miami party queen Julieanna Goddard, aka Julz. The madness continued on until the wee hours of the morning with endless bubbly, dancing and beats.

Giancarlo Stanton & Julz

Julz

Giancarlo Stanton & Julz

Giancarlo Stanton

Matt Werner, Giancarlo Stanton, & Julz

Purple, Giancarlo Stanton, & Matt Werner

Giancarlo Stanton  Bitcoin EBTM Moves Antwerp’s Bitcoin ATM To A New Location

Belgian Bitcoin enthusiasts rejoiced at the news about the first ATM being installed in the country over a year ago. Ever since that time, however, a lot of things have changed. After the Coffeelabs owners had decided to remove the device, EBTM had to provide a new home for the ATM. That new home is known as Pizzeria Leonardo da Vinci.

Also read: US Banking Regulators Warn About Imminent Swift Breaches

Operating a Bitcoin ATM is often underestimated by most cryptocurrency enthusiasts. When the location owners decide to remove the device from their premises, a new set of challenges arises. In the case of the former Coffeelabs ATM, that challenge came in the form of finding a new place to run the device from.

EBTM Bitcoin ATM Finds A New Home

After searching around for some time, EBTM managed to come to an agreement with pizzeria Leonardo da Vinci in Antwerp. But there is more to this partnership between EBTM and the pizzeria, as customers will soon be able to pay for their meals with Bitcoin as well. Additional use cases for Bitcoin as a currency are always a positive thing.

Both parties are collaborating on a way to accept Bitcoin payments at the Leonardo da Vinci pizzeria as we speak. Setting up a Bitcoin merchant account has become relatively easy, but there is a decision to make on whether or not funds is kept in BTC or converted to Euro.

Despite the hardship EBTM faced, the Belgian company remains a firm believer in the future success of Bitcoin in the country. Having to move away from the original Bitcoin ATM location is a setback, but Arnaud Kodeck has been working tirelessly on ensuring the device would find a new home.

The city of Antwerp remains a prominent place for Bitcoin enthusiasts, albeit the adoption rate of cryptocurrency throughout Belgium remains relatively small. That being said, the Bitcoin ATM in Antwerp, combined with efforts such as Ghent Bitcoincity and Ieper Bitcoinstad, show there is a demand for cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

Readers who are interested in checking out the new location of the EBTM Bitcoin ATM can head over to Breydelstraat 28 in 2018 Antwerpen.The EBTM machine was brought back to life on the evening of June 9, 2016, and lets users exchange Euro to Bitcoin at a 5% fee.

What are your thoughts on EBTM and the Belgian Bitcoin market? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: News Tip Via Email

Images courtesy of EBTM, Shutterstock  Apple has scored its second legal victory of the week with a court ruling on Friday that effectively bans sales of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone in the US.

Fresh from her ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier in the week, US District Judge Lucy Koh has issued a pre-trial injunction against Samsung over the Android smartphone to stop sales until the ongoing patent dispute with Apple is settled. Koh appears to have decided Apple has a case and allowing sales would cause the world's most valuable company to lose future income.

"Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products," Judge Koh said in Friday's ruling, Reuters reports.

The move is a heavy blow to the Korean manufacturer, since it effectively kills sales of its top touch mobile hardware in one of the most important markets in the world and, while no trial date has been set, it is effectively locked out of the lucrative Christmas sales period. With RIM out of the running too it's looking like a good holiday season for Apple.

Google too aren't going to be happy with the ruling either. It had high hopes for the handset and handed out 6,000 of them at this week's I/O developer's conference as a platform for people to design applications around. ®  



Matthias Meyer, Graus Wasser, 2014. Oil on canvas, 31 1/2 × 31 1/2 in, 80 × 80 cm. © Matthias Meyer. , 2014. Oil on canvas, 31 1/2 × 31 1/2 in, 80 × 80 cm. © Matthias Meyer.

On the way home from the doctor, after the initial diagnosis, Fernando asked me if I was okay. I wasn’t. I wanted him to stay home with me, but instead he dropped me off at the house, where I tried to grade papers while he went back to work. Later, as we were falling asleep, he said that all afternoon, when a customer would say, “Thank you,” or “Have a nice day,” he’d think, “I have cancer.”

As a girl, I learned from my mother, who had lost her first husband in the Korean War, to encyst sorrow and bury it deep within, so this is not an essay about grief. It is an essay about water.

In 1977, when Fernando and I had been married for almost four years, we bought a house on the north side of Tucson near the freeway and train tracks. It rained so hard the first winter we lived there that the water rose and began spilling in under the doors. The suddenly lush ivy on the front of our house crawled into the gaps between the window frames and the burnt-adobe bricks. The roof began to leak. Fernando used an ice pick to poke holes in each room’s ceiling, so the water would drain into the hole. Then he used duct tape to fasten a plastic bowl over each leak to catch the rainwater. Bowls were hanging from nearly every ceiling; it was easier than moving all the furniture. In the kitchen, we just let the water drip into a five-gallon paint bucket. All day, while taking care of our two children, I heard the water’s rhythmic drip. But sometimes I’d forget to empty and refasten a bowl to the ceiling. One night, the bowl over our bed got so swollen with rain that it tipped over, soaking us, and our baby, and waking her up.

The neighborhood was called Flowing Wells but we came to call it Seeping Sewers because, when the wind shifted, we could smell the fumes from the ponds at the sewage treatment plant. In the middle of the night, we could hear the trains and, maybe because we had small children, I would wake up worrying about derailments and toxic spills. I was not religious but I had an apocalyptic imagination. I grew a garden in the backyard because I wanted to be able to feed my family when civilization ended.

One-fourth of the yard was planted with corn and pinto beans, the wire fence secured by rebar with upside-down Coors cans glinting in the sun to keep the birds at bay. The grapes tumbled down from the arbor over the vegetable plot, the tomatoes sometimes boiled in their skins before I could pick them, and the neighbors shuttered their windows when they saw me approaching with yet more gigantic zucchinis in my arms. We had peach trees, their limbs so heavy with fruit that they sometimes broke in the summer storms. Because our backyard had once been part of a dairy farm, the soil was dark and loamy, and when the children dug to China, as children do, they found old glass milk bottles.

I wasn’t very clear on logistics in my apocalyptic imaginings: How would I keep neighbors out of my gardens, especially since I’d already shared my zucchini and chard? How would I be able to deny them food for their hungry children? And where did I think the water to keep the garden growing would come from? This was the desert. I was the daughter of a geologist. I knew the water was pumped from artesian wells deep beneath the surface of the earth.

“To say that the desert has no water,” writes Craig Childs in one of Fernando’s favorite books, The Secret Knowledge of Water, “is a tantalizing misstatement. It is believable. But to look over this raven land and know the truth—that there is immeasurable water tucked and hidden and cared for by bowls of rock, by sudden storms, by artwork chiseled hundreds and hundreds of years ago—is by far a greater pleasure and mystery than to think of it as dry and senseless as wadded newspaper. It is not only drought that makes this a desert; it is all the water that cannot be seen.”

I had the idea, back then, that the world would end in fire or water. Now, in the summer of 2015, two years after Fernando’s death, the Catalina Mountains, which rise above the house where we moved twenty years ago, are on fire.

From all of Tucson, you can see the fire at night. The ridge above us glows red, just as it did that first summer, when Fernando told me not to worry because the houses between our place and the ridge were worth more than ours. He said, The firemen won’t let the rich people’s houses burn. They’ll put it out before it gets to us. That summer, we watched as helicopters dropped an orange fire retardant that contains fertilizers to help the vegetation grow back. This summer they’re letting it burn, 150 acres so far, practically nothing when you consider that 1.1 million acres of the American West are on fire and that 5 million acres have already burned in Alaska and 7.2 million in Canada.

I called my daughter and asked her: “If I have to evacuate, what should I save from the house?”

Dad’s ashes, she replied. The copper urn was my first choice, too, though it struck me as odd. Not only was Fernando already ashes, but where else would he want his ashes to stay but here, on this small plot of desert near the mountains?

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

For love is strong as death, says the Song of Solomon.

When Fernando talked about TCE, or trichloroethylene, I imagined dark plumes spreading underneath the ground. On maps, TCE looks like a big purple feather.

“When we got water from the tap, it effervesced in the glass,” Fernando told me. He was talking about the water at his parents’ house in Mission Manor, a new subdivision on Tucson’s south side where his family moved in 1972. “And sometimes there would be a rainbow lying on the surface of the water. When we called the builder, he told us it was because it was a new house. He told us to keep the water running, to clear out the pipes.”

When Fernando talked about TCE, or trichloroethylene, I imagined dark plumes spreading underneath the ground. On maps, TCE looks like a big purple feather. From 1952 until the early eighties, workers at Hughes Aircraft and Tucson International Airport used TCE, an industrial solvent, to clean greasy metal parts of airplanes; they later disposed of the spent solvent by pouring it into open pits, directly on the ground or into culverts, where it eventually percolated into the area’s artesian wells.

My father had told me that the Tucson basin was like a big bathtub filled with gravel and surrounded by mountains. When it rained, he said, the water seeped through the gravel to the bottom of the bathtub where it stayed for eons—ancient water from the runoff of ancient rains. If you tasted it, it would probably seem brackish.

I was fourteen when my family first moved to Tucson from Colorado in 1968, and I remember standing at the living room window in my parents’ house, watching the rain. No one else was home. It was the first time I’d seen the monsoons, the heavy summer rains. The winds were hurricane force, I heard on the radio. The lightning was spectacular and the water was pounding down from the sky, sheeting across the windows. I couldn’t see even to the middle of the driveway. I didn’t know where my parents and my younger sister were.

If they drop a bomb, I thought, the electricity would disappear and the pumps would stop pumping, and suddenly we’d all be out of water. They warned us in school that Tucson was, after all, a town ringed by missiles, number ten on the list of the top targets of our enemies. The desert, back then, seemed to me an apocalyptic landscape, full of plants with thorns and spikes, cacti that resembled swords. I felt I had landed on an inhospitable planet, one where it could easily hit over 100 degrees, day after day, for months on end. If there was no water, I knew, we’d all be dead in three days.

After his family had lived there for a decade or so, people in the neighborhood started dying.

In 1972, just before Fernando and I started dating, his family moved into the tract house in Mission Manor. It lay smack in the middle of the TCE plume, along the flight path to the airport. He had eight younger brothers and sisters. I remember playing ball with the youngest of them in the front yard. We could hear the planes before we saw them emerge above the roofline. They flew so low that they rattled the windows. Then we saw their white-shark underbellies—so enormous, the landing gear, their wide wings. It seemed as if they barely cleared the house, as if we should duck. When we were first married, and I moved in with his family, I often dreamed of planes.

After his family had lived there for a decade or so, people in the neighborhood started dying. Clear patterns didn’t emerge, but sometimes several people in one family would die. Finally, the city tested the water. Some estimates showed TCE contamination at 1,000 times the federal health standards. They closed wells. There were court cases. Red lines were drawn around the housing developments, housing developments where 75 percent of the residents were Hispanic and low-income; once the developments were red-lined, it was impossible to sell those houses, so people stayed where they were. The cleanup began, but it was already too late. On Evelina Street alone, near the school Fernando’s siblings attended, near Mission Manor Park where they played, and near the swimming pool where they swam in the summers, thirty-four cancer cases were documented. Several families now have only one surviving member.

My beloved spake, and said unto me,

Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,

and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell.

You don’t have to drink TCE or ingest it. TCE can enter your system through your skin when you bathe. When Fernando’s brother Eugene first saw a doctor for hemochromatosis, a rare liver condition that can be caused by exposure to chemicals, he told the doctor that he had lived in the area of Tucson that was affected by TCE. The doctor said he’d have to have complete exposure, like falling into a vat of chemicals, for that to be responsible for his condition. I did have complete exposure, Eugene said. I bathed in it for decades.

Eventually, they found a tumor growing on Eugene’s liver. He had a liver transplant.

TCE is a volatile organic compound, my friend, an environmental engineer, tells me. TCE wants to rise, it wants to be in the air instead of the water. It enters your body when you breathe its vapors in the air or when you drink water contaminated with it. TCE also enters your body through your skin, especially if you have cracks or abrasions or cuts. The first exposure to TCE, and the first drink of that water, initiates a metabolic process that can result in lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, and kidney and liver cancers. TCE is thought to act as a metabolic trigger. In other words, if you have a predisposition to a form of cancer, let’s say liver cancer, TCE increases your likelihood of developing that cancer, although it may not manifest for decades.

The permissible level of TCE contamination is less than the equivalent of 2.5 teaspoons poured into an Olympic-sized pool.

“In the word ‘ecology,’ the root ‘eco’ is the Greek word for home. It’s really about how we manage our home,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in an interview with Grist in 2004. Responding to a question about environmental justice, he asserted, “In terms of the conventional way that we think of civil rights, the burden of environmental injury always falls on the backs of the poorest people…. So the poor are shouldering the burden for pollution-based prosperity by large corporations who have control of the political process.”

Fernando used to describe how his grandmother grew rows of corn and hollyhocks in her garden. He and his brothers would chase one another up and down the rows. She’d hang the laundry in the garden, and had a wood stove under a ramada and a pot of beans on the stove. She made tortillas there, under the ramada, on summer mornings, when it was still cool but before the afternoon rains came. Her tortillas were the big ones, so thin they were almost translucent. There, in the trees, she’d hang terra-cotta pots filled with water. The water was always cool, he said, and tasted of the clay.

My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices,

to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.

I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.

When the kids were young, Fernando and I used to take them to the air shows out at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base or drive them out to the Boneyard so we could look at all the old planes that had been retired there. There were thousands of them, with sleek or fat bodies and wings stretched like tails behind them. Some had eyes and mouths painted on them. Some were named after Native Americans: Seminole, Iroquois, Sioux. Others were called Skydancer and Starship. There were Avenger, Voodoo, Banshe, and Demon, as if the names could give them a magical invincibility. There were also the innocuously named C-123s, which had dropped Agents Orange, Blue, Purple, Pink, Green, and White over Vietnam, Laos, and parts of Cambodia during the Vietnam War in order to defoliate the jungle and destroy crops. From 1962 to 1971, during Operation Ranch Hand, the US dropped 12 million gallons of herbicides and defoliates and other dioxins, destroying 5 million acres. The US aircrew even produced its own Smoky the Bear poster that said Only You Can Prevent Forests! “I can’t believe that,” Fernando had said when we read about it: “Only You Can Prevent Forests!”

Still, Fernando loved the Phantom II, its sleek, supersonic lines, its technological beauty. He had always fantasized about space travel. I think he wanted to defy gravity and go out into space, an astronaut far above the dear blue sphere of home.

Fitting, I now think, that it is called the Boneyard. On acres and acres of dirt fields, planes bake in the sun like bones in the desert. Resting there are planes that strafed tree lines and planes that sprayed clouds of rainbow herbicides. Before being retired to the Boneyard, those planes had been washed clean with solvents, and those solvents had seeped into the earth.

When the contamination of the wells on the south side of Tucson hit the news, the Pima County director of health and a few Pima County supervisors, including Ed Moore, told residents that they were getting sick because of the chilies and beans they ate.

Fernando’s sister-in-law, who grew up on the south side of town, died of lymphoma when she was only forty years old. She had been tired, but she attributed that to working outside in the summer heat, where she supervised juveniles sentenced to community service like cleaning up the parks or roadways. One day she woke up at 2 a.m., worried that she was late for work. She was delirious. Her family took her to the hospital, where doctors sedated her, to find out what was wrong. The cancer had already leached the calcium from her bones; the calcium had gone to her brain and given her dementia. Whenever she woke up, she would yank at the tubes in her arms and say, “Home.” They would put her under again. Fernando thought she knew she was dying. For a few years, she had been telling him that she wanted to join the procession to San Xavier Mission at Easter as a manda, or a ritual petition, to ask God for a cure for his hepatitis. He told her she should worry about her own health. Maybe he suspected she was ill. She died in 2005, and only seven years later, he would be dying, and her brother would be diagnosed with tumors in his intestines.

When the contamination of the wells on the south side of Tucson hit the news, the Pima County director of health and a few Pima County supervisors, including Ed Moore, told residents that they were getting sick because of the chilies and beans they ate, and because they drank too much beer and didn’t exercise enough.

Because TCE did not cause a cluster of like cancers, like childhood leukemia, it was difficult to prove fault, and to hold Hughes Aircraft and Tucson International Airport liable. Attorneys settled with the insurance companies. If a person was part of the original lawsuit, and sick with cancer when the suit was filed, then he or she might have been among the 1,600 residents of a possible 47,000 included in the settlement. On their website, the law firm Baron and Budd touts this lawsuit as “among the most important litigation in U.S. history involving personal injuries caused by water pollution.” They say that they hired scientists who proved that TCE caused “several unusual forms of cancer,” especially in children, but the results of those studies about cancer, found “at almost epidemic levels” on the south side of Tucson, cannot be revealed because, according to the terms of the settlement, the records of the lawsuit are sealed. This means that none of this evidence can be used to establish precedence in future lawsuits.

The lawsuits, therefore, excluded thousands of potential claimants since such cancers typically do not appear until ten to twenty years after exposure and health problems may not be limited to one generation. The progressive online magazine AlterNet estimated that by 2006, 20,000 had died, become ill, or had been born with birth defects because of their exposure to TCE on Tucson’s south side. Yolanda Herrera, who has been involved with the Unified Community Advisory Board (UCAB), a local organization in Tucson that has fought for citizen’s rights on issues of TCE for more than twenty years, says it’s impossible to know exact numbers since there’s been no systematic tracking of the health of those who lived in the area at the time. And the Air Force, which contracted with Hughes Aircraft, the company that operated the site in the 1950s through the 1980s, is still in litigation with the city of Tucson. They want to cut a deal with the city and “wash their hands of us,” says Herrera, but UCAB is fighting them. If they had their way, they’d hand the city a check and Tucson would have to continue the cleanup of the Superfund site itself.

Nationally, groundwater accounts for 95 percent of our freshwater resources. The state of Wyoming, assuming it will never need the water from its deep reservoirs, is allowing a uranium mine to inject more than 200,000 gallons of toxic and radioactive waste every day into those reservoirs. In North Dakota alone, fracking produces seventy-five tons of radioactive waste per day and one option for its disposal is to inject the wastewater sludge into wells about 6,000 to 8,500 feet below ground. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), different contaminants behave differently in groundwater and can move quickly, often polluting water several miles from the source. Yet the EPA has issued more than 1,500 permits for companies to pollute such aquifers in some of the driest regions of the United States.

The liver is a very tender and porous organ. Like a sieve, it filters all the toxins from the blood. Any doctor will tell you that although the liver is the one organ that can regenerate itself, you cannot live without it. When you get a virus like hepatitis C or you drink too much alcohol or you’re exposed to too many toxins, the liver becomes scarred or fibrous. The sieve gets clogged and so it can no longer filter the blood effectively. Eventually you might get cirrhosis or liver cancer. If the tumors from the cancer are in the lobes of the liver, they can often be ablated or removed. If the liver still starts to fail, you could be eligible for a transplant. But if, like in Fernando’s case, the tumor is in your portal vein, the vein that carries 75 percent of your blood to your liver, none of those treatments will work and a transplant is out of the question.

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone:

my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him;

I called him, but he gave me no answer.

One of the first dreams I had about Fernando after he died was about water. I dreamed that I was washing his body. I had the huge aluminum bowl, the one that I used to mix masa in for tamales. It was the same bowl that we put near the bedside when someone felt sick. I had filled it with warm soapy water and dipped the cloth in the water, then rang it out. I washed his face first, just like I had done in the hospital after his surgery. When he closed his eyes, I washed his forehead and eyelids, and then the rest of his face and his mouth and his neck. I ran the cloth down over his arms, which were still strong in the dream, and his wrists, which had always been as thin as mine. I washed his hands, then his chest, still firm from all that hard work, and his stomach, which had more hair than I remembered but not much at all. I washed his penis, and his thighs, which were so white and which also hardly had any hair on them. Finally, I ran the cloth over his calves, which had so much hair that it looked like he had black socks on, and last, his feet. In the dream, it was Fernando’s bony feet that I saw most clearly: he had black hairs on his knobby toes. His little sisters used to joke that his feet looked like Jesus’s feet and even in the dream I remembered that and knew there was some kind of Christian symbolism going on. But what struck me was that I had not paid more attention to his body while he was alive, for it was his body, his physical presence, I missed most.

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair

When Fernando’s liver started to fail, his abdomen swelled, a condition called ascites. This made him uncomfortable. It was difficult for him to sit without almost arching his back. When they drained this fluid from his abdomen, he said it was the color of coffee. When he ate, he always had indigestion. He felt weak, he was always tired. He said the chemo pills burned the palm of his hand as soon as they touched it. His skin was dry and papery; the whites of his eyes started to turn yellow. Once I start to turn yellow, he told me, I’ll have only a few days, a week, ten days at the most. That was when we called his brothers and sisters to say good-bye. They couldn’t believe the change. Some had seen him months earlier, some weeks, but he had looked fine. Soon, he began to drift, and fall asleep. He could no longer talk, though he seemed largely aware of what was going on. Because his liver could no longer remove toxins from this blood, the ammonia level was rising and would eventually go to his brain. Perhaps that was why he could no longer talk, why he drifted. The possibility of dementia from the ammonia scared me more than anything, and I knew it scared him, too. He no longer remembered how to move his legs. The simplest of things eluded him: how to eat, how to swallow. His legs were as solid as tree trunks, so full of fluid. His kidneys were failing, there was fluid in his lungs. It was hard for him to breathe. I could tell he knew what was happening, but I hoped he was dreaming anyway, seeing the faces of the people he loved most, and would have to leave. There were things he wanted to say. He raised his arms, trying to breathe.

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, but I found him not.

I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets,

and in the roadways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth.

Fernando wanted the doctors to document the exposure to TCE for his children, who drank the water when they visited their relatives, for me, for our relatives who still live on that side of town. Cancer is no longer unusual in families who have lived on the south side of Tucson, even families like Fernando’s, with no history of cancer in previous generations. Everyone knows the stories. Still, whenever Fernando would mention TCE to his doctors, they didn’t understand what he was talking about. They dismissed his questions. After all, they had their diagnosis: hepatitis C. Exposure to TCE would not change the treatment or prognosis. Fernando understood this. But, he reasoned, because they were scientists, shouldn’t they also consider other variables? Weren’t they even curious? But you can’t document that which you refuse to see. Or, as they say in Spanish: No hay nadie tan sordo que él que no escucha. There is no one so deaf as he who will not listen.

Fernando admired Craig Childs’s book so much that he kept buying it and giving it to others as a gift. He was born in the desert, and knew that water was sacred. When he met Childs at a reading and asked him to sign a copy, Childs wrote: “For Fernando. Keep this one. I’m serious. Hold it up in the rain. Drink out of it. It is yours.”

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.

Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vines flourish,

whether the tender grapes appear, and the pomegranates bud forth:

there will I give thee my love.

  What a way to start a season: with an among-the-all-time-greats fantasy performance.

Peyton Manning's 46-point fantasy effort in the 2013 season-opening game not only gave his owners an outstanding chance of opening-week victory, but also put him, statistically speaking, among the greatest individual-game performers in NFL history. (According to ESPN's standard scoring.)

Peyton Manning's 46 fantasy points were the second-best by a quarterback since 2000 and the top opening-week outing among all players since 1960. AP Photo/Jack Dempsey

Manning's seven passing touchdowns tied the league's single-game record, but most importantly by our standards, it gave him the second-best fantasy day by a quarterback since 2000, the 11th-best fantasy day overall during that span, and the No. 5 fantasy day by a quarterback since 1960. It was also the greatest opening-week fantasy performance since 1960 … and that's among all positions.

As we've done for several other historic fantasy performances in recent seasons -- Doug Martin's 51-pointer during Week 9 last year is the most recent one to crack this list -- let's update the list of greatest fantasy days since 2000. Here is the updated top 14:

1. Clinton Portis, 2003 Week 14, 54 fantasy points: This one meant about as much to his Denver Broncos as it did to his fantasy owners; without this win versus the eventual division-winning Kansas City Chiefs, the Broncos probably wouldn't have reached the playoffs in 2003. It was his fifth 100-yard rushing effort in a streak of six to conclude the season, and in the process, he upstaged an even bigger (at the time) fantasy stud, the Chiefs' Priest Holmes (44 rushing yards, two touchdowns).

2. Shaun Alexander, 2002 Week 4, 52: Ah, a Sunday night football classic. Surely you remember this one? In only the second game at Qwest Field (then Seahawks Stadium), Alexander set an NFL record with five touchdowns in the first half, establishing his reputation as a premier prime-time performer. He played 14 night games in his career, totaling 13 touchdowns.

3. Doug Martin, 2012 Week 9, 51: Though he had placed himself firmly in the class of fantasy studs with a 32-point breakout outing a week earlier against the stingy Minnesota Vikings defense, the "Muscle Hamster" affirmed himself as 2012's top rookie rusher thanks primarily to this game, during which he became the first player in NFL history to score three rushing touchdowns of 45 yards or longer (per ESPN Stats & Information). And if you're looking to toss cold water on the effort due to an "easy matchup," know this: There were actually four defenses that allowed more fantasy points per game to opposing running backs than the Oakland Raiders in 2012.

4. (tie) Mike Anderson, 2000 Week 14, 49: Huh? Who? You might remember this name as another product of the Mike Shanahan running back juggernaut; each season, it seemed the theme was "new back, same stats." Anderson snuck in there with one monster season sandwiched between the best from Terrell Davis and the aforementioned Portis, and on this day, Anderson was a record setter -- a rookie rushing record with 251 yards versus the New Orleans Saints.

4. (tie) Michael Vick, 2010 Week 10, 49: On the day that then-Washington Redskins quarterback Donovan McNabb celebrated signing a five-year contract extension, it was the opposing quarterback, Vick, who lit up the fantasy scoreboard. Vick had three passing and two rushing touchdowns in the first half, becoming the first player to do that, routinely lighting up the Redskins' secondary en route to the NFL's first-ever performance of at least 300 passing yards, 50 rushing yards, four passing and two rushing scores. Vick would finish the 2010 season as fantasy's leading scorer.

6. (tie) Priest Holmes, 2002 Week 12, 48: Holmes went for more than 100 yards both rushing (197) and receiving (110), making him one of only eight players in the past 20 years to do that. Sadly, Holmes' Chiefs lost 39-32 to the Seattle Seahawks as Matt Hasselbeck starred for the Seahawks (362 passing yards, three touchdowns).

6. (tie) Fred Taylor, 2000 Week 12, 48: Boy, he was lucky to manage that many fantasy points all last season. Still, flash back nearly a decade, before Taylor had truly earned the label "injury-prone player," and he was a productive running back. On this date, he carved up the Pittsburgh Steelers' run defense -- as you know, historically one of the game's best almost every season -- for 234 yards, the most that franchise has ever allowed to a single player in a single game.

8. (tie) Marshall Faulk, 2002 Week 7, 47: So many Seahawks games from 2002 on this list … this, Alexander's and Holmes' entries all involved the team from Seattle, and this was the second in which the damage was done to the Seahawks' bottom-ranked run defense. Faulk beat up on the Seahawks for 235 total yards and four scores in this one, serving as a fitting preview for the team that a week later would allow Emmitt Smith to break the all-time NFL rushing record.

8. (tie) Jerome Harrison, 2009 Week 15, 47: Hard to believe, right? In a late-season cameo as the featured running back for the Browns, Harrison carried 34 times for 286 yards and three touchdowns, plus two catches for 12 yards, against the helpless Chiefs. Apparently the Browns weren't too impressed; just a few games into the 2010 season, they dealt Harrison to Vick's Eagles.

8. (tie) Jimmy Smith, 2000 Week 2, 47: He caught 15 passes for 291 yards and three touchdowns, and his Jacksonville Jaguars raced to a 17-0 first-quarter lead over the Baltimore Ravens … a lead the Jaguars would promptly blow in the second half. It's the most receiving yards for any player in a game since 1989, and what's most amazing about the feat is that the Ravens in that season allowed the fewest points of any NFL team (165) en route to a Super Bowl championship.

11. (tie) Peyton Manning, 2013 Week 1, 46.

11. (tie) Adrian Peterson (the Viking), 2007 Week 9, 46: You might remember this one ... ADP's big performance from his rookie season might linger in your brain because in this game versus the San Diego Chargers, he set the NFL's single-game rushing record with 296 yards. He stole the headlines from fellow record setter and Chargers cornerback Antonio Cromartie, who returned a missed field goal 109 yards for a touchdown, the longest play in NFL history, as time expired at the half. From that point forward, Peterson scampered for 253 yards and two of his three scores.

13. (tie) Chris Johnson, 2009 Week 2, 45: Johnson became the first player in NFL history to record a 90-plus-yard rushing touchdown (91 yards), 50-plus-yard rushing touchdown (57) and 60-plus-yard receiving touchdown (69) in a game, ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky reports. Johnson finished with 284 total yards and three touchdowns.

13. (tie) Aaron Rodgers, 2011 Week 4, 45: It was games like this one that earned Rodgers a place atop the all-time, single-season fantasy leaderboard; his 385 points in 2011 set a new standard for quarterbacks. In this contest, he became only the fifth quarterback since 1960 to throw for four or more touchdowns while rushing for two or more.

13. (tie) LaDainian Tomlinson, 2002 Week 13, 45: Hey, he had to be on this list somewhere, right? Overtime helped Tomlinson pad his stats in a division game versus the Denver Broncos, but to be fair, he did the bulk of his damage with three touchdowns in an 11-minute span in the second quarter. Most impressive about LT2's outing: He had totaled only 262 yards in his first three career games against the Broncos, but in this meeting alone he had 271.

Since you might be curious about some of the older standout outings in fantasy football (and NFL) history, the chart below highlights the 32 players since 1960 (who managed a total 33 instances) who have amassed at least as many as 45 fantasy points (ESPN standard scoring).

* Sayers also had a return touchdown. # Blanda had seven extra points and missed one field goal. @ Peterson and Rice each lost a fumble.  “Dalit students were placed on the school’s verandah at a distance from both caste Hindu classmates and the classroom, to fulfill the colonial mission of educational access.”

“is not a case of social separation, a mere stoppage of social intercourse for a temporary period. It is a case of territorial segregation and of a cordon sanitaire putting the impure people inside a barbed wire into a sort of cage.”

On Tuesday, the State of Rajasthan enacted two laws guaranteeing reservations to Economically Backward Classes among the forward castes, and Special Backward Classes, such as Gujjars. In defending the law, the State Home Minister argued that decades of reservation for the “backward classes” had largely succeeded in bringing them into the mainstream, but that in the process, economically weaker sections of the unreserved classes had “fallen behind”.The laws have been swiftly decried as unconstitutional, both for their selection of beneficiary groups, and for taking the percentage of reservation beyond the Supreme Court-stipulated 50% threshold. Rajasthan’s move, however, can hardly be understood in isolation. It comes upon the heels of Hardik Patel’s violent agitation in Gujarat, which blew open yet again the always-unfinished debate over reservations in India.Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s call for affirmative action for Muslims, coming on the heels of the Patel protests, created a firestorm of its own. Scholars have begun to discuss once more whether we are doing affirmative action right, or whether there are other, better ways to go about achieving social justice.By now, reservations seem to have become the focal point from which issues of social justice are examined in India. Nonetheless, we reduce the discrimination problem to only reservations at our peril. Discrimination affects society more broadly and more deeply than simply unequal representation in institutions, and its solutions must correspondingly be broader and more creative than compromises over whom to provide reservations to, and how much to provide.Consider history. Let us take three events, separated by almost a span of a century.On March 19, 1927, three thousand people gathered in the town of Mahad (now in Western Maharashtra), demanding access to the local water tank, which had been historically off-limits to Untouchables. On September 24, 1990, a student died of burns suffered from self-immolation, in protest against the implementation of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations. On July 23, 2015, a Muslim woman used Youtube to inform Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, that she had been denied entry into a flat that she had rented, because of her religion.These three events reveal that the intertwined issues of discrimination, social and economic exclusion, and access to resources, have been at the forefront of the Indian polity. From the time of Jyotirao Phule and BR Ambedkar, they have engaged the attention of some of the country’s finest thinkers, activists and politicians. The complexity of these questions ensures that any possible resolution cannot simply be about reservations and quotas. And the recent publication of two books has provided us with a rich set of resources to continue thinking about these issues, whose salience promises to only increase with time.Anupama Rao’s Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (University of California Press, 2009), is a work of historical scholarship. In the first part of her book, Rao examines pre-Independence (West) India through the lens of its anti-caste civil rights movements. In Rao’s historical analysis, these movements were framed as responses to the specific forms of social and economic discrimination that were most prevalent at the time. For instance, in 1856, a Christian Mahar convert was denied admission into a government school. His petition to the Bombay government was rejected, on the grounds of respect for the religious sentiments of the majority. Civic inclusion, therefore, was an early political battleground. After a spate of petitions, the Bombay Education Department hit upon a “novel resolution”:This, Rao points out, only intensified the experience of stigma faced by the untouchable students.Through this early example, Rao demonstrates that discrimination (and, consequently, the responses to them) took two concrete forms: exclusion (i.e., denial of access to public facilities), and segregation (with its associated stigmatisation of the segregated groups).Exclusion and segregation were at the heart of Dalit civil rights movements of the early 20th century, culminating in the famous “Mahad water satyagraha” of 1927, headed by Ambedkar. The vocabulary employed by the leaders of the Satyagraha was one of civic rights and non-discriminatory access to public facilities. While the water tank was one locus of the struggle, Rao notes that it extended to streets, schools, and temples as well. As Ambedkar stated, “public facilities should be open to untouchables like other Hindus.” While the movement met with little legal success in the colonial courts, and little political success within the dominant Congress party, access to public facilities would ultimately be enshrined as a fundamental right in the Constitution.As Rao explains, however, access was only one side of the coin. The other form of discriminatory violence, stemming from the principle of segregation, was that of the “boycott”: the boycott, according to Ambedkar,The boycott – and resistance to it – was complementary to the struggles around access, because it operated in the private domain of contract, social interactions, and economic transactions. And it was the boycott that Ambedkar had in mind when, in the Constituent Assembly debates, he vehemently insisted that Article 15(2), which guaranteed non-discriminatory access to shops, was meant to include any commercial service, including that of doctors and barbers.While Rao’s book provides us with the historical tool to understand the struggles around discrimination in India, Tarunabh Khaitan’s A Theory of Discrimination Law (Oxford University Press) is a work of legal scholarship, that can help translate historical understanding into a concrete legal framework.A Theory of Discrimination Law is a detailed comparative study of the approach towards discrimination law taken by five countries: England, the United States, Canada, South Africa, and India. Central to Khaitan’s book is the thesis that even though discrimination law is framed with reference to “groups” (Article 15(1) of the Indian Constitution, for example, prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex, race, caste, religion etc.), its primary concern is with the individual. Historically, individuals have been subjected to various limitations and disabilities, and their freedom has been constrained, because of their identification with certain groups. Therefore, any attempt to redress this must take groups as its locus. However, Khaitan argues that we must not lose sight of the fact that our ultimate objective is not to bring groups on par with one another, but to ensure that the liberty and dignity of individuals is not compromised because of the groups they associate, or are associated with.How do we choose the “groups” that are the subjects of discrimination law? Khaitan takes us back to our primary intuitions about human choice and responsibility. Nobody, he argues, should suffer harm for something that is beyond their control (i.e., something they are not responsible for), or for something that represents a valuable personal choice. On this basis, he posits two criteria for identifying groups: “immutability” (e.g., one’s place of birth) and “personal choice” (e.g., one’s religion). While this makes sense, does it not prove too much? After all, eye colour is an immutable characteristic, and dress sense is a personal choice. It is here that history must enter: Khaitan argues that we must not only look at immutability and personal choice, but also whether group affiliation is likely to contribute to “abiding, pervasive, and substantial disadvantage.” This enquiry, of course, cannot avoid questions of history: what, in the past, and in the continuing present, have been the sites of discrimination, exclusion and violence? Khaitan tells us what questions we must ask, while Rao points us to the tools we need to answer them.The questions of what discrimination law ought to do, and how it ought to do it, are important ones. The question of what its limits are is equally important. We would not, after all, be justified in imposing the requirements of non-discrimination upon a person’s choice of friends, or intimate partners. Here, Khaitan’s philosophical argument tracks Rao’s historical enquiry. There are two situations, he argues, where the law should certainly apply: first, where there is an element of “public-ness” to the activity in question (i.e., wherever the State is involved, or where a private body performs a public function); and secondly, where exclusion or discrimination can have a direct impact upon an individual’s ability to access the good or resources that are essential for a life of freedom and dignity. Thus, relationships between employers and employees, landlords and tenants, and shopkeepers and customers lie closer to the “private” end of the spectrum than the “public”; but the impact of collective exclusion from employment, housing and shops is akin to exclusion from the economic and social life of the community. And this, as Ambedkar pointed out, was exactly the purpose of the “boycott”.Over the last few years, there have been repeated calls for a comprehensive anti-discrimination law in India. With the recent amendments to the Prevention of Atrocities Act, the debate is bound to escalate. Going forward, Rao and Khaitan’s books deserve to be read and engaged with, in order to develop a nuanced understanding of the problems and their potential solutions.Caste Question, University of California Press, 2009.A Theory of Discrimination Law, Oxford University Press ,2015.  Khe San Combat Base, Vietnam

In early 1968, U.S. Marines at a small, remote combat base at Khe San, just south of the Demilitarized Zone, held off a North Vietnamese siege for 75 days. The siege marked one of the opening moves in the Tet Offensive. Coffee fields now grow over the former battlefield, and only a handful of abandoned helicopters, a few restored bunkers, an overgrown airstrip, and a small museum mark the place where 500 Marines and 10,000 North Vietnamese troops fought and died.

The U.S. abandoned the base at Khe San in April 1971. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces rebuilt the airstrip and used it to fly to points further south. Today, plants have begun to reclaim the old dirt airstrip, though patches of the runway show through.

Khe San is now a regular stop for bus tours of the area. Amuseum, whose relatively new construction contrasts with the base, displays photographs and weapons from the Vietnam War. Outside, visitors can walk among American helicopters in varying states of disrepair and explore restored bunkers from the former base.  It’s not hard to find stories of headaches — and heartache — when it comes to the VA. What makes this one different is it has pictures to go with it.

Marine veteran Stephen McMenamin and his wife, Hanna, moved to Raleigh from their home in Milwaukee a few months ago and already have amassed an armload of personal stories about long wait times at the Durham VA hospital — both to get appointments in the first place and in the waiting room once at the hospital.

But they said it was what they saw Friday that moved them to take pictures and post them to Facebook.

“It was very upsetting,” Stephen McMenamin said. He and his wife said they saw a handful of older veterans mistreated and ignored during the seven hours they were at the hospital, including an aged-veteran in a wheelchair.

Read mor  The report by police in Sweden contains interview summaries and transcripts from two women who claim that Mr Assange sexually assaulted them during a 10-day period in Stockholm in August last year. The report also contains interviews with nine witnesses as well as with Mr Assange.

According to the report, one of the women, who accused Mr Assange of rape, joked after having unprotected sex with him that he should pay the child support if she got pregnant, and that they should name their child “Afghanistan”. This is thought to be a reference to leaks about the US’s war effort in Afghanistan made public by WikiLeaks.

The report also shows apparent evidence that after Mr Assange had allegedly raped the other woman, she had been reluctant for him to leave her bedsit. Mr Assange continued to stay in her room for several more days. The extradition case against him will resume in London on Monday.

He faces four accusations of sexual criminal behaviour – one of “sexual coercion” and two misconduct charges for unwanted advances by a woman, known as Miss A, and one of “minor rape” by Miss W. They arise from a trip to Stockholm where Mr Assange was giving a public lecture. The papers show he had separate sexual encounters with both women, who went to the police together a week later.

The case against Mr Assange was dropped by a first prosecutor due to a lack of evidence, but was later revived – evidence, say his supporters, of a wider conspiracy against him.

According to the Swedish prosecution, Miss A complained that Mr Assange prevented her applying a condom while they had intercourse. Other reports have suggested she said she did not feel safe with him, and that he refused to move out of her flat.

But the police report tells a more complex story, with Miss A apparently ordering Mr Assange to wear a condom, which he then did.

The next day, after giving his lecture, Mr Assange began a short affair with Miss W, a part-time curator and student, who had joined a lunch being held for Mr Assange by Miss A and friends from Stockholm’s young Left political elite.

Miss W took Mr Assange to a film at the art cinema where she worked. Two days later, Mr Assange stayed overnight at Miss W’s flat in Enkoping, 35 miles from Stockholm, where they had sex with a condom.

The next morning, according to the police report, Mr Assange had unprotected sexual intercourse with her. After, they joked about pregnancy.

That day Mr Assange returned to Miss A’s flat in Sweden. Miss A says that after further sexual advances, she asked Mr Assange to leave.

However, one witness recalls earlier offering Mr Assange alternative accommodation, but that Miss A rejected the offer.

The files suggest that Miss A had already told friends she did not feel threatened or unsafe with Mr Assange.

Mr Assange faces extradition to Sweden on a European Arrest Warrant. He has not been charged but is wanted for further questioning.

Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s lawyer, said yesterday: “This is the third time people have sought to prejudice the outcome of Julian Assange’s case by leaking information.”

Kirsty Brimelow, a barrister asked by Mr Stephens to independently review the evidence against Mr Assange, said: “I do not consider that the evidence would reach the charge threshold in this country; let alone sustain a prosecution.”  Are we too materialistic? Are we willfully trashing the planet in our pursuit of things? And what's the source of all this frenetic consumer energy and desire anyway? In a fast-paced tour of the ecological and psychological terrain of American consumer culture, Shop 'Til You Drop challenges us to confront these questions...

Are we too materialistic? Are we willfully trashing the planet in our pursuit of things? And what's the source of all this frenetic consumer energy and desire anyway? In a fast-paced tour of the ecological and psychological terrain of American consumer culture, Shop 'Til You Drop challenges us to confront these questions head-on. Taking aim at the high-stress, high-octane pace of fast-lane materialism, the film moves beneath the seductive surfaces of the commercial world to show how the flip side of accumulation is depletion -- the slow, steady erosion of both natural resources and basic human values. In the end, Shop 'Til You Drop helps us make sense of the economic turbulence of the moment, providing an unflinching, riveting look at the relationship between the limits of consumerism and our never-ending pursuit of happiness.  “

The subterranean Chamber of Secrets was created by Salazar Slytherin without the knowledge of his three fellow founders of Hogwarts. The Chamber was, for many centuries, believed to be a myth; however, the fact that rumours of its existence persisted for so long reveals that Slytherin spoke of its creation and that others believed him, or else had been permitted, by him, to enter. There is no doubt that each of the four founders sought to stamp their own mark upon the school of witchcraft and wizardry that they intended would be the finest in the world. It was agreed that each would construct their own houses, for example, choosing the location of common rooms and dormitories. However, only Slytherin went further, and built what was in effect a personal, secret headquarters within the school, accessible only by himself or by those he allowed to enter. Perhaps, when he first constructed the Chamber, Slytherin wanted no more than a place in which to instruct his students in spells of which the other three founders may have disapproved (disagreements sprung up early around the teaching of the Dark Arts). However, it is clear by the very decoration of the Chamber that by the time Slytherin finished it he had developed grandiose ideas of his own importance to the school. No other founder left behind them a gigantic statue of themselves or draped the school in emblems of their own personal powers (the snakes carved around the Chamber of Secrets being a reference to Slytherin’s powers as a Parselmouth). What is certain is that by the time Slytherin was forced out of the school by the other three founders, he had decided that henceforth, the Chamber he had built would be the lair of a monster that he alone – or his descendants – would be able to control: a Basilisk. Moreover, only a Parselmouth would be able to enter the Chamber. This, he knew, would keep out all three founders and every other member of staff. The existence of the Chamber was known to Slytherin’s descendants and those with whom they chose to share the information. Thus the rumour stayed alive through the centuries. There is clear evidence that the Chamber was opened more than once between the death of Slytherin and the entrance of Tom Riddle in the twentieth century. When first created, the Chamber was accessed through a concealed trapdoor and a series of magical tunnels. However, when Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence), the entrance to the Chamber was threatened, being located on the site of a proposed bathroom. The presence in school at the time of a student called Corvinus Gaunt – direct descendant of Slytherin, and antecedent of Tom Riddle – explains how the simple trapdoor was secretly protected, so that those who knew how could still access the entrance to the Chamber even after newfangled plumbing had been placed on top of it. Whispers that a monster lived in the depths of the castle were also prevalent for centuries. Again, this is because those who could hear and speak to it were not always as discreet as they might have been: the Gaunt family could not resist boasting of their knowledge. As nobody else could hear the creature sliding beneath floorboards or, latterly, through the plumbing, they did not have many believers, and none, until Riddle, dared unleash the monster on the castle. Successive headmasters and mistresses, not to mention a number of historians, searched the castle thoroughly many times over the centuries, each time concluding that the chamber was a myth. The reason for their failure was simple: none of them was a Parselmouth.

”  Fox News personality Glenn Beck has lost a battle for a Web domain which jokingly asked whether he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.

Isaac Eiland-Hall, the satirist behind glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, thanked the pundit for his “assistance” in helping spread the rhetorical meme. Beck had filed a dispute with the World Intellectual Property Organization to gain control of the domain.

Following his victory, the Web site’s creator voluntarily turned the domain over to Beck and published an open letter publicly shaming the host for assaulting the First Amendment.

The Web site, which has now been taken offline, was a mockery of the right-wing entertainer’s now-famous rhetorical style, asking questions and making hazy connections between many times unrelated people or events, then wondering why he has not gotten a denial of his often loosely-defined allegations.

A copy of the Web site now resides on GB1990.com. In addition to garnering widespread media coverage due to Beck’s complaint, the site has also spawned a chain of copycat parodies.

Beck’s lawyers had argued their client’s name was in fact a trademark, leaving Eiland-Hall in breach of intellectual property laws by using it in a domain. They also argued that the site, which is clearly labeled as satire, somehow led users to believe its information was factual.





The WIPO ruled against Beck on Friday.

National Public Radio added: “‘Even a ‘moron in a hurry,’ read the decision, quoting Eiland-Hall’s attorney, ‘would not likely conclude that Complainant sponsored, endorsed or was affiliated with the website addressed by the disputed domain name.'”

In a letter to Beck that concluded with the username and password to access the domain, Eiland-Hall said:

It bears observing that by bringing the WIPO complaint, you took what was merely one small critique meme, in a sea of internet memes, and turned it into a super-meme. Then, in pressing forward (by not withdrawing the complaint and instead filing additional briefs), you turned the super-meme into an object lesson in First Amendment principles. It also bears noting, in this matter and for the future, that you are entirely in control of whether or not you are the subject of this kind of criticism. I chose to criticize you using the well-tested method of satire because of its effectiveness. But, humor aside, your rhetorical style is no laughing matter. In this context of the WIPO case, you denigrated the letter of First Amendment law. In the context of your television show and your notoriety, you routinely and shamelessly denigrate the spirit of the First Amendment. The purpose of the expressive freedoms embodied in the First Amendment is not to simply permit the greatest possible scope of expression, but also, in doing so, to also strive for excellence in the conveyance of ideas. Rather than choosing to strive for excellence and civic contribution, you simply pander to the fears and insecurities of your audience. And in the process, you do them, and all of us, a great deal of harm. Shame on you Mr. Beck.



The WIPO clearly agreed in its ruling, calling the site a “satirical critique” of the public figure and “strongly protected” under long standing law safeguarding free speech.

“The panel [also] found that the URL is, in fact, confusingly similar to Beck’s trademark and that people searching for legitimate information on Beck might stumble upon this site,” PC Magazine noted.

Tech reporter Chloe Albanesius continued: “On the second point, however, the panel found that Eiland-Hall had an interest in the URL for political purposes, and that he did not benefit financially from Beck’s name.”

“Why won’t Glenn Beck deny these allegations?” the site reads. “We’re not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990 – in fact, we think he didn’t! But we can’t help but wonder, since he has failed to deny these horrible allegations.”

The joke was originally created by comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who once performed a bit about fellow comedian Bob Saget raping and murdering a young girl.

“The idea is to force someone to explain away completely baseless charges made by insinuation alone; since Beck already has a reputation for doing this, the joke was supposed to give Beck a taste of his own medicine,” explained Nate Anderson at Ars Technica.

“I imagine [the ruling] may further open a floodgate for the creation of similarly extreme sites should Beck remain as zeitgeisty and controversial as he has been these last few months,” Mediaite writer Glynnis MacNicol suggested.

Glenn Beck did not actually rape or murder a young girl in 1990.  Each week, In Theory takes on a big idea in the news and explores it from a range of perspectives. This week we’re talking about drug pricing. Need a primer? Catch up here.

David R. Henderson, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution and an economics professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, was the senior economist for health policy with President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. Charles L. Hooper is president of Objective Insights, a company that consults for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Why are pharmaceutical prices so high while the prices of so many other items we buy are low and even falling? The difference is competition. Drug companies typically have a monopoly on the drugs they sell, and monopolists charge high prices. So to get lower drug prices, we need more competition.

Patent law gives drug companies a legal monopoly for 20 years on the drugs they create, which is an effective way of encouraging innovation. But we can get both more drug development and lower drug prices without disturbing patent law. How so? Curb the Food and Drug Administration’s power to keep drugs off the market.

[How do we break open the black box of drug pricing?]

The FDA has monopoly power over new drugs. It keeps new drugs off the market for years, not months. Ask people why the FDA should have such power and they will likely say they’re worried about whether drugs are safe. But the biggest holdup in getting drugs to market is not how long it takes to show that they’re safe, but rather the time and expense needed to show they are efficacious for particular uses.

Economists have shown that the cost to get one drug to market successfully is now more than $2.8 billion. Most of this cost is due to FDA regulation. Some potentially helpful drugs don’t ever make it to market because the cost the company must bear is too high. Drug companies reguarly “kill” drugs that could be effective because the potential profits, multiplied by the probability of collecting them, are less than the anticipated costs. Imagine a drug for melanoma that never got on the market due to FDA regulation. In a sense, its price is infinite because it can’t even be purchased. Reduce FDA regulation so that it gets on the market, and the price falls from “infinite” to merely “high.”

If we simply went back to pre-1962 law, the FDA could still require proof of safety, but would not be able to require evidence on efficacy. This one change would allow drugs to be developed a full 10 years faster. Market success would establish efficacy — or not. If the drugs didn’t work, usage would fall. Could there be ineffective drugs? Sure. But as doctors and patients learn, such drugs would disappear over time.

When faced with the thought of more pharmaceuticals on the market, people begin to talk disdainfully about “me-too drugs” — that is, drugs that compete with existing drugs. But Chevrolet is a “me-too Ford.” And, after Chevrolet entered the automobile market, the price of a given quality Ford fell. With more me-too drugs, prices would be lower. Far lower.

There are a few ways to go about cutting the FDA’s power. The most extreme would be to have the FDA serve as an information agency rather than a gatekeeper. Companies that wanted to sell drugs without FDA approval could do so if the label said clearly, in big letters, “This drug has not been approved by the FDA.” Then those patients and doctors who insist on only FDA-approved drugs would be no worse off and those of us who trust other information sources would, by our own standards, be better off.

Another way to cut the FDA’s power would be to end its power to require efficacy for particular uses. This would cut a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars off the development process. We could also require the FDA to approve any drug that has already been approved by one of its counterparts in developed countries.

Another way to get lower prices is to allow more over-the-counter sales. OTC drugs are typically cheaper — over-the-counter proton pump inhibitors and H2 antagonists are priced at about 10 percent of their prescription versions — because consumers are more price-conscious than health insurers.

We could also learn from other countries where pharmacists, who typically know as much about drugs as doctors do, are able to prescribe drugs. That way, even if drug prices didn’t fall, the cost of getting a drug would fall substantially, because the patient would not have to take a detour to the doctor’s office, saving time and money.

But the message should be clear: Monopoly is the problem. Competition is the solution.

Read more:

How do we break open the black box of drug pricing?  ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account

Londoners took to their bikes in massive numbers during the Olympics to escape packed Tubes and buses, figures reveal today.

As the Tube carried the greatest number of passengers in its history, the number of cyclists on the capital’s streets was 19 per cent higher than the same two-week period last year.

There was an even bigger rise during the Paralympics — which coincided with the end of the school holidays — when 32 per cent more Londoners travelled by bike.

During the Games, there was a 43 per cent rise in the use of Boris bikes, with an average 40,575 hires a day, said the Transport for London research.

Its annual Travel in London report said more than 700,000 people a day cycled during the summer, underlining a nine per cent shift from cars to public transport, walking and cycling since 2000. On the Tube, more than 62 million journeys were made during the Olympics, 35 per cent higher than normal summer levels. Tuesday, August 7 was the busiest day in the history of the Underground, when it carried 4.7 million passengers.

The figures reveal the number of cyclists being killed or seriously injured in 2011 rose 22 per cent — more than four times the 5.2 per cent increase in people cycling. Sixteen cyclists were killed and 555 seriously injured.

The London Cycling Campaign said the statistics supported its call for “Dutch-style” segregated cycle lanes. “A real legacy for the Olympics would be if Boris Johnson stood by his 2012 election promises to redesign our streets and junctions to make cycling and walking in London safe and inviting for everyone,” said a spokesman.

The number of road deaths in 2011 rose by 26 per cent, from 126 to 159. Of these, 77 were pedestrians, 19 more than in 2010. A total of 24,443 collisions resulting in injury were reported to the police — up one per cent.  The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), build 8443, is now available on the Microsoft Download Center. This update requires the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 10, version 1607, available on the Microsoft Hardware Dev Center (adksetup.exe file version 10.1.14393.0).

You may notice that we are not tagging this release with a year or update version. To better align with the current branches of Windows 10 and Configuration Manager, and to simplify the branding and release process, we are now just referring to it as the "Microsoft Deployment Toolkit", using the build number to distinguish each release. This is not necessarily a "current branch" of MDT; we are committed to updating MDT as needed with revisions to Windows, the Windows ADK, and Configuration Manager.

Here is a summary of the significant changes in this build of MDT:

Supported configuration updates Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1607 Windows 10, version 1607 Windows Server 2016 Configuration Manager, version 1606

Quality updates Deployment Wizard scaling on high DPI devices Johan's "uber bug" for computer replace scenario Multiple fixes for the Windows 10 in-place upgrade scenario Several fixes to Configure ADDS step Removed imagex/ocsetup dependencies, rely solely on DISM Includes the latest Configuration Manager task sequence binaries (version 1606)



See the following post on How to get help with MDT.



Frequently Asked Questions

In anticipation of some questions that you may have about this release (or MDT in general):

Q: Should I expect a release of MDT with every new Windows 10 and/or Configuration Manager release?

Not necessarily. We will revise MDT as needed when there are new releases of Windows 10, the Windows 10 ADK, and/or Configuration Manager, and take opportunistic quality updates at the same time.

Q: What branches of Windows 10 does MDT support?

MDT supports both the current branch of Windows 10 as well as the long-term servicing branch.

Q: What branches of Configuration Manager does MDT support?

For ZTI and UDI scenarios, MDT supports the current branch of Configuration Manager for an integrated solution for deploying Windows 10 current branch as well as prior Windows versions.

Q: When is the next planned release of MDT?

We do not currently have a timeframe. We will release any tactical changes as needed which may be required to support new builds of Windows 10 or Configuration Manager.

Q: Is this the last release of MDT?

No, we will continue to iterate and invest in the product.

If you have any other questions about this release, the comments will be open for a week or so. You can always hit me up on Twitter @AaronCzechowski. And let me reiterate the following post on How to get help with MDT.

— Aaron Czechowski, Senior Program Manager  Drexel University in Philadelphia has placed associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher on leave due to security threats ever since he blamed “Trumpism” and the “narrative of white victimization” for the mass shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1.

Mr. Ciccariello-Maher came under fire last week after he fired off a series of tweets criticizing white men less than 24 hours after Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring 489 others who were attending a country music festival.

“Yesterday was a morbid symptom of what happens when those who believe they deserve to own the world also think it is being stolen from them,” Mr. Ciccariello-Maher wrote. “It is the spinal column of Trumpism, and most extreme form is the white genocide myth. The narrative of white victimization has been gradually built over the past 40 years. White people and men are told that they are entitled to everything. This is what happens when they don’t get what they want.”

Drexel University initially tried to distance itself from the instructor’s comments, saying his opinions do not represent the university’s views. However, the school issued a statement on Tuesday saying he had been placed on leave after numerous threats were made against him and the campus community, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Mr. Ciccariello-Maher said news reports on his tweets by websites like Breitbart News, The Daily Caller and Fox News have led to threats. In an op-ed published Tuesday by The Washington Post, titled “Conservatives are the real campus thought police squashing academic freedom,” Mr. Ciccariello-Maher said he had become the target of a smear campaign by conservative media.

“As a scholar and teacher, giving context and depth to contemporary debates is an important part of what I do, and it’s a calling I take seriously,” he wrote. “But more and more, professors like me are being targeted by a coordinated right-wing campaign to undermine our academic freedom — one that relies on misrepresentation and sometimes outright lying, and often puts us and our students in danger.”

Mr. Ciccariello-Maher said he disagreed with Drexel’s decision to place him on leave and that he was prepared to take legal action.

“By bowing to pressure from racist internet trolls, Drexel has sent the wrong signal: That you can control a university’s curriculum with anonymous threats of violence,” he wrote. “Such cowardice notwithstanding, I am prepared to take all necessary legal action to protect my academic freedom, tenure rights and most importantly, the rights of my students to learn in a safe environment where threats don’t hold sway over intellectual debate. Alongside organizations like the Campus Antifascist Network, I will continue to challenge white supremacists in an effort to make Drexel and all universities safe space for an intellectual debate among equals.”

This isn’t the first time Drexel University has had to address Mr. Ciccariello-Maher’s tweets. On Christmas Eve, he wrote, “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide,” prompting a response by Drexel calling his comment “utterly reprehensible” and “deeply disturbing.”

Mr. Ciccariello-Maher made headlines again in March when he tweeted that he wanted to “vomit” when an airline passenger gave up his first-class seat for a uniformed soldier.

Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.  Indian educational institutes do not lack in merit and can be among the best in the world, President Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday.

He congratulated the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore for figuring in the top ten institutions in the ‘Best Small Universities’ category of the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings 2017.

Congratulations to IISc, Bangalore on entering list of top 10 institutions in 'Best Small Universities' category #PresidentMukherjee — President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) March 8, 2017

“Kindly convey my sincere compliments to the entire faculty, staff and students of your esteemed institute for having responded to my repeated calls to strive to be amongst the top institutions of higher learning in the world.

“This achievement reiterates my firm belief that Indian institutions are not lacking in merit and can be amongst the best in the world,” the President said in a message to IISc director Anurag Kumar.

The institute has achieved the eighth rank.

“I’m confident your institution will continue to strive and achieve greater and greater heights in the future,” Mukherjee said.

First Published: Mar 08, 2017 14:28 IST  Update: Another listing just popped up on Nintendo’s website. Looks like we’re getting Sin & Punishment: Star Success tomorrow as well. Pricing is set at $19.99.

And here’s the overview:

Take aim, and blast your way through a postapocalyptic world packed with nonstop arcade-shooter action in Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, the sequel to a Japanese Nintendo 64 cult classic. As Isa or Kachi, you’ll go on the run and on the defensive, shooting everything in sight as you’re bombarded with foes determined to hunt you down. This intense, adrenaline-soaked thrill ride never lets up from start to finish. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor delivers one-of-a-kind shooter gameplay created by true masters of the genre. Lock and load.

Sin & Punishment is launching on the North American Wii U Virtual Console tomorrow, Nintendo’s website confirms. You’ll be able to purchase the classic N64 game for $11.99.

Here’s an overview from Nintendo’s listing:

The legendary studio Treasure delivers a high-energy thrill ride gamers recognize as one of the finest Nintendo 64 titles. On a future Earth starved for resources, a new species engineered for consumption has mutated into monsters. Run, gun, and slash your energy sword through level after level of nonstop destruction to end their reign of terror. Not to be outdone by the action, however, the story line lends the game its soul and draws you even further into the mix. Uncover the intriguing mystery of teenagers Saki and Airan as they go head-to-head with rival groups claiming to protect the Earth. A variety of options and a number of different skill levels are all you’ll have to prepare yourself for the full-blown challenge of Turbo Hard mode. Take a deep breath, gather your energy, and feast your senses on this unforgettable high-speed roller coaster of Sin and Punishment.

Sin & Punishment, along with its sequel Star Successor, were rated by the ESRB yesterday. It’s unclear when the latter title will be available in North America.

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  A company possessed by President Vladimir Putin`s internet advisor is currently planning to raise the cryptocurrency counterpart to as much as $100 million in a bid to help Russian magnates to challenge china in bitcoin mining.

As reported Russian Miner Coin is holding an initial coin offering(ico), where investors will use units of bitcoin or ethereum to buy new RMC tokens. These new tokens will have rights to 18 percent of the revenue earned with the company’s mining equipment, according to the whitepaper.

Putin`s internet adviser Dmitry Marinichev says that RMC plans to use semiconductor chips designed in Russia for use in satellites to minimize power consumption in computers for crypto-mining.

Marinichez stated that

“Russia has the potential to reach up to 30 percent share in global cryptocurrency mining in the future”

also adding that $10 million from the proceeds of the ICO may be spent developing the processors.

Mining bitcoins requires special computers and core equipment , which can be bought from the China bitmain Technology platform.

Russia has 20 gigawatts of excess power capacity, with consumer electricity prices as low as 80 kopeks (1.3 cents) per kilowatt hour, which is less than in China, RMC said in the presentation. The company initially plans to locate mining computers based on Bitfury chips in individual Russian households to challenge Bitmain by using Russia’s lower power prices.

From the look of things it might be a perceived threat in terms of integration, the united states and some other nations might start migrating and pushing to their own digital side of the world 🙂  by

I’ve been using rosehip seed oil practically daily for close to a decade now—I love it! I originally published this post in 2014 and have updated it since completing my Aromatherapy certification. I’m going to go over some of the benefits of rosehip seed oil and then I’ll share the ways in which I incorporate it into my skincare routine.

Rosehip seed oil is extracted from the seeds of the fruit of a rose bush (Rosa mosqueta or Rosa rubiginosa) that grows wild in the southern Andes. It’s considered a carrier oil (not an essential oil). That means you can apply it directly to the skin without diluting it, unlike essential oils. In fact, if you were to make an essential oil blend to apply to your skin, you might want to use rosehip seed oil as the carrier for said blend.

This oil quickly became one of my favorites because the consistency works well with my skin type and it’s particularly great for repairing sun damage and discoloration, which is a major concern of mine seeing as I grew up on a beach, lifeguarded throughout college, and still am an admitted sun worshipper in the summer (I wear sunscreen, don’t yell at me! lol).

Health & Skincare Benefits of Rosehip Seed Oil

Rosehip seed oil is great for any type of regenerative skin care. So think burns, scars, wrinkles, sun damage, fine lines, stretch marks and hyperpigmentation. This is due to rosehip seed oil’s high levels of linoleic (47.4%) and linolenic (33%) fatty acids. It also contains retin A (retinoic acid) which further contributes to regenerative skin care. Let’s break it down without getting too technical:

Rosehip seed oil is:

A rich source of polyunsaturated fatty acids, linoleic and linolenic acid

High in vitamins and antioxidants, especially Vitamin C and Vitamin A (retinol)

This means it is great for:

Speeding up the wound-healing process.

Reducing wrinkles, fine lines and signs of premature aging.

Correcting UV damage and countering the drying effects of the sun, like crow’s feet around the eyes and mouth.

Scar tissue repair. It can help with reducing redness and hyperpigmentation of scars and loosening up fibrous cords.

Reducing the appearance of burns and stretch marks.

Hydrating dry skin.

Evening skin tone in cases of hyperpigmentation, age spots and other minor skin discolorations.

How I Use Rosehip Seed Oil in My Skincare Routine

As a makeup remover. I put a bit on a cotton pad and rub it over my eyelids to remove my eye makeup before washing my face at night. It works just as good as any makeup remover I’ve bought in stores.

In a toner spray. For years I used Rosehip Tonique by Eminence as my toner, after it was recommended for balancing oily skin. They actually don’t make it anymore, but they have a similar Rose Petal Tonique. Due to some recent skin changes (aka rosacea), I’ve now switched to a really simple, gentle floral water for sensitive skin, but I still love the Eminence brand and would recommend it. They also have a Rosehip Whip Moisturizer that I loved. Again, my skin has since changed so I don’t use it today, but when I did, I liked that it’s light enough to apply before putting on makeup, but still leaves your skin feeling hydrated.

In a facial oil. I’ve used different facial oils over the years as my skin needs have changed, but rosehip seed oil as a carrier has been a constant. This is currently the facial oil blend I’m using for my rosacea.

As a moisturizer on its own. I apply rosehip seed oil directly onto my face, neck and chest as a moisturizer. A little goes a long way! A few drops is all it takes, and then I gently press and smooth it into my skin with my fingertips. It can leave a bit of an oily residue, so I don’t do this to my face if I’m going to apply makeup afterwards.

For cuts and scar prevention. I made the fatal mistake of wearing a new pair of heels out one night (dancing + alcohol + new heels = foot homicide) and the result was not pretty. I had a scab on the back of my ankle that was literally like 4 inches thick. Rosehip seed oil can help prevent the formation of scar tissue so I applied it several times a day to my battle wound. The discoloration faded quickly and no scar formed.

Where to Buy Rosehip Seed Oil

There are lots of great brands that sell quality rosehip seed oil. In choosing a supplier, look for oil that’s cold-pressed and organic. Here are three brands I’ve personally used and would recommend:

Radha Rosehip Seed Oil via Amazon – Organic, cold-pressed and the convenience of Amazon Prime.

Plant Therapy Rosehip Seed Oil (also available on Amazon) – I love Plant Therapy! Their website is super informative and you can get cashback if you use Ebates. They also have most of their products available on Amazon.

Mountain Rose Herbs Rosehip Seed Oil – I love MRH but the shipping is costly and slow compared to the convenience of the other two options.

When purchasing, keep in mind that rosehip seed oil has a fairly short shelf life of about 6-9 months. Don’t buy a huge bottle if you’re not going to use it within that time frame! Refrigerating after opening is recommended to extend the shelf life.

Do you use rosehip seed oil? What are some of your other favorite oils for skincare?

xo Nicole

The statements and blends referenced in this post have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Products and/or information are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are pregnant, nursing, have a medical condition or are taking any medication, consult with your physician before using any essential oil or blend.

I’m a Certified Holistic Aromatherapist through the Institute of Integrative Aromatherapy and only share blends with you that I’ve personally used and from which I’ve benefited. I stand behind them 100%! That being said, essential oil blends are most effective when made with individual needs, goals and personality in mind.

Links to some essential oils and products are affiliate.

(Visited 355,726 time, 22 visit today)  The unexpected yet totally expected departure of Chevy Chase from Community spurred many questions regarding how the writers would now be forced to address his absence in the two episodes he'd skipped, whether his character would ever get a proper farewell or simply die on the way back to his home planet, and if this Old Navy commercial is now even sadder in the context of Chase deciding Community was creatively beneath him. Now it seems TV Line is getting answers to all of the less obvious questions: According to their show sources, the crew may already have "devised a way to include Pierce" in those two remaining episodes, with TV Line cryptically reminding everyone that "this is a show that has turned its actors into everything from cartoons to giant pillowmen." So perhaps they'll repurpose some of Chase's leftover dialogue, making it sound as though Pierce has been drafted into a pedophile cult before being gruesomely murdered.

Or, maybe something less definitive than that, as reportedly the crew already rather wisely shot the season finale out of sequence, ensuring Chase would still be there through the end. And as to what might happen beyond that, should Community pull off the miracle of getting a fifth season? Hey, don't worry, because the fourth season ends in "a cliffhanger that leaves the fate of several characters up in the air—including Pierce," making it that much easier to write him off should the show manage to return. And if it doesn't, well, what do Community fans love more than being left to dangle anxiously, wondering forever about the fate of things?  Buy Photo IndyCar driver Simon Pagenaud. (Photo: Bob Goshert / The Star )Buy Photo

With or without Simon Pagenaud, Andretti Autosport is hoping to expand to five full-time IndyCar Series cars next year, team owner Michael Andretti said Sunday.

The Indianapolis-based team is three-fifths of the way there with Sunday's formal signing of Indianapolis 500 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay.

The programs of Marco Andretti and Carlos Munoz are set, Andretti said, and James Hinchcliffe's could be soon.

"It's not on Hinch's side," Andretti said of the work. "It's on the sponsor's side.

"The goal is five cars, and we're still working on it."

Pagenaud told The Star he will pick among his options, which include a return to Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports, after the season ends Aug. 30.

Andretti said his team on Zionsville Road has shop space for the fifth IndyCar ride in part because its two-car Indy Lights program appears to be dissolving, and work on a new Tudor United SportsCar Championship entry has ended. Andretti said the latter "fell through," and investing in new Indy Lights equipment isn't in the budget.

"The only way I could do (Indy Lights) is if I find a kid that can afford to pay for the car," Andretti said. "I won't be able to afford going out and buying a new chassis. I'm not saying (the program) is dead — it's still possible — but at this time we don't have anything yet."

Andretti said the candidates for that fifth IndyCar ride do not include current Indy Lights drivers Zach Veach and Matthew Brabham. He suggested Brabham, 20, stay in Indy Lights another season so "he can shine."

Veach passed Brabham on the outside during a restart with four laps left to win Sunday's Milwaukee Mile 100. Brabham had an 8.4-second lead when the shootout-creating caution came out.

As for races promoted by Andretti Sports Marketing, Andretti said the Milwaukee IndyFest will continue for at least for one more year, and a proposed new event at NOLA Motorsports Park in Avondale, La., is close to being finalized for next season.

"We'll be announcing something soon," Andretti said of the New Orleans-area plans. "We're extremely excited about that event. I think it's going to be way bigger than anybody thinks it will be."

The date hasn't been revealed, but Andretti said "we're going to be happy."

NEWSLETTERS Get the IndyStar Motor Sports newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong The latest news in IndyCar and the world of motor sports. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-888-357-7827. Delivery: Sun - Fri Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for IndyStar Motor Sports Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters

Andretti estimated Sunday's Milwaukee attendance would be slightly higher than last year's 28,000 people, but sponsorship was "way up," he said.

Andretti said it's too early to say if his company will seek to continue the event after the contract expires after next year's race.

"We still have to get (attendance) up to really go beyond next year," he said.

Kevin Healy, the event's managing director, said the 2015 race is expected to remain in this time slot, a week after the Wisconsin State Fair (Aug. 6-16). That likely makes the race weekend Aug. 22-23.

Andretti's group rescued racing at the historic Milwaukee Mile in 2012, hosting IndyCar in mid-June the first two years. Healy said the switch to a weekend after the fair allowed for significant promotion during the event that drew more than 1 million people.

Wheldons attend race

Sebastian Wheldon, 5, attended this weekend's IndyCar event with his mother, Susie. He left with at least one souvenir and maybe a new favorite IndyCar Series driver.

Marco Andretti gave him a yellow hat at dinner Friday night, and Dan Wheldon's oldest son wore it at the track.

Andretti said he "better be" Sebastian's new favorite driver.

"I said, 'No more (Scott) Dixon hats,' " he said.

Like Dixon, Andretti was a Wheldon teammate.

Call Star reporter Curt Cavin at (317) 444-6409.  The working group at Internet Corporation for Assignment of Names and Number (ICANN) that has been tasked with designing a new domain registration database can’t seem to wrap its head around why privacy matters when it comes to domain registration services. ICANN’s Expert Working Group on gTLD Registration Directory Services (EWG) issued a Preliminary Issue Report on Next-Generation gTLD Registration Directory Services to Replace WHOIS in July, and EFF has submitted comments. Our bottom line is this:

ICANN must make user privacy a central tenet of any new registration data system. To achieve that goal, any new system should collect the minimum amount of data required for legitimate purposes, and make such data available only as needed to fulfill such purposes.

The WHOIS system is used for querying databases of information about Internet domain names—including the name and address of a domain name's owner. When it was first designed in the early 1980s, there were no limits placed on who could make queries, for what purpose, or what they could do with the information. The design of the system hasn’t changed much since, and it creates an easy way to target domain name owners for shakedowns or other abuses. The need to redesign the system to include robust privacy protections has became obvious.

Although this report is still in its preliminary stages, we think it’s important to let ICANN and the EWG know what we think now, because the existing WHOIS system itself is fundamentally flawed, and it's important that its replacement doesn't repeat the same mistakes. Earlier in the year, in another ICANN working group, some entertainment industry, law enforcement, and major brand interests went so far as proposing a complete ban on privacy services for websites that are used for a “commercial purpose.” Commercial services in the proposal were broadly defined to include any sites that “handl[e] online financial transactions for commercial purpose.”

EFF joined dozens of organizations and individuals to oppose that proposal. We’re hoping that weighing in at this early stage will prevent a flawed proposal for a replacement registration data system for gTLDs from moving forward as well.

Specifically, we looked at five questions derived from the report, and answered them with privacy—and practicality—in mind. Here’s the tl;dr:

1. Should gTLD registration data continue to be accessible for any purpose, or should data be accessible only for specific purposes?

[P]ersonal data should only be processed for specific, explicit, and legitimate purposes….registration data that is personal data should be collected and used for specific purposes only.

ICANN also needs to take a critical look at what those purposes are, since, as a rich seam of data, “registration data has accumulated more and more [use] justifications over time” from various parties—including using the data for copyright and trademark enforcement without the safeguards of court supervision.

2. Should gTLD registration data continue to be entirely public, or should access to some data be limited to a subset of all users?

The answer to this question is quite simple: “gTLD registration data should not continue to be entirely public.”

3. Is gTLD registration data sufficiently complete and accurate, or further steps should be taken to overcome barriers to accuracy?

We think one of the main barriers to accuracy is privacy. Many people put false information in the WHOIS database in order to protect their privacy. This should be addressed first, because “[a]ny accuracy problems remaining in a system designed with privacy in mind will be narrower and more easily addressed.”

4. Are existing registration data elements sufficient for each stated purpose, or is a new purpose-driven policy framework needed to guide the collection, storage, and disclosure of data elements?

The legitimate purposes for accessing registration data require no new registration data elements. We agree that the data accessible to each class of requesting user should be determined by the legitimate purposes of the use.

5. Is a new policy framework needed to meet gTLD registration data requirements for each purpose in a manner that enables compliance with applicable data protection, privacy, and free speech laws and addresses the overall privacy needs of registrants?

“Absolutely, yes...ICANN should base its new policy framework on the core concept of no disclosure of personal information without opt-in consent” for each purpose registrant data might be used for.

We look forward to seeing the final report on registration services, and delivering our further comments in person during the next ICANN meeting in October. In the meantime, if you want to help ICANN get the message that the privacy of domain registrants is important, sign our petition telling ICANN “to pursue with greater urgency the comprehensive improvement of the legacy WHOIS service, to build in privacy and security by design.”  Craig Wrolstad is the referee for the Thursday night AFC West game between the Chiefs and Raiders. In addition, Gene Steratore is working the Super Bowl LI rematch in Foxborough, Mass., and Brad Allen is working the third London game of the season between the Cardinals and Rams.

The Lions and Texans have a bye with the crews of Pete Morelli and John Parry off this week.

Thursday, Oct. 19

Chiefs at Raiders CBS NFLN — Craig Wrolstad

Sunday, Oct. 22

Cardinals vs. Rams (London) — Brad Allen

Buccaneers at Bills — Clete Blakeman

Panthers at Bears — Walt Anderson

Titans at Browns — Terry McAulay

Saints at Packers — Jerome Boger

Jaguars at Colts — Jeff Triplette

Jets at Dolphins — Walt Coleman

Ravens at Vikings — Carl Cheffers

Bengals at Steelers — Bill Vinovich

Cowboys at 49ers — Ron Torbert

Broncos at Chargers — John Hussey

Seahawks at Giants — Tony Corrente

Falcons at Patriots NBC — Gene Steratore

Monday, Oct.   It’s the 114th minute. It's 1-1. Penalties loom. The prize on offer is $200,000 and the players know it; nervous, jittery... just making sure they don’t make one solitary mistake. But now Lionel Messi is on the ball. He moves towards goal. Defenders panic. The tension! Oh! Oh, the tension.

This particular passage of play is from the Barcelona vs Barcelona match in the final of the PES League World Finals, held in the prestigious North London stadium… sorry, Emirates Stadium, home of real life Arsenal. From the 16 competitors to have made it to this stage, these are the last - and best - two. They are also the youngest.

Players from Chile, Serbia, Germany, Peru, Argentina, Japan, Brazil, Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands all won Regional Finals (and significant prize money - around $20,000) to get here and a livestream on Twitch and YouTube is broadcasting the whole thing around the world. Lots of people are watching other people playing video games.

On the face of it, the whole situation is really odd but eSports are a real thing now. More will watch this tournament than many sporting events shown on subscription sports TV channels, and - crucially - the viewing demographic is the one that advertisers desperately want to to appeal to. Young men and women, 18-24, with a little bit of money in their pocket. Just because Feyenoord vs FC Utrecht, or any golf, is on TV doesn’t mean anyone’s watching.  It’s not just people who enjoy a leisurely stroll on a bright green golf course – some bears do too.

A video sent to Global News by the Waterton Lakes Golf Course in southern Alberta shows two cubs playing with a pin on one of the greens before mama bear puts a stop to their shenanigans.

Employee Darby Bertsch said she recorded the video on Aug. 5.

“I was driving the beer cart when I came across them,” Bertsch said. “It was the weekend of the Waterton Open tournament.”

READ MORE: Bear safety tips – what to do if you spot a bear

Waterton Lakes is one of four Alberta golf courses travel writer Debbie Olsen has labeled as a hidden gem.

Also on the list: Crowsnest Pass Golf and Country Club, River Bend Golf Club in Red Deer and Pheasantback Golf Club near Stettler, Alta.

WATCH: Travel writer and golfer Debbie Olsen joins Global Calgary with details on which Alberta golf courses she considers to be hidden gems  Qualcomm today reported its fourth quarter earnings for 2017 and the numbers aren’t pretty. The company announced a nearly 90 percent drop in profits, while revenue fell 4.5 percent. While the company still beat expectations, it noted that numbers were plagued by its ongoing legal case with Apple…

Sylvania HomeKit Light Strip

As noted by CNBC, the company beat Wall Street estimates on both earnings per share and revenue:

Earnings per share of 92 cents vs. 81 cents expected, according to Thomson Reuters

Revenue of $billion vs. $5.8 billion expected, according to Thomson Reuters

Compared to the year-ago quarter, however, those numbers are down. In Q4 2016, Qualcomm reported revenues of $6.2 billion on earnings per share of $1.07.

In terms of profit, however, things aren’t as positive. The chipmaker reported an 89.5 percent drop in quarterly profit, down to $168 million.

Qualcomm stated in its press release that its earnings this quarter were “negatively impacted as a result of actions taken by Apple and its contract manufactures.”

Qualcomm’s stock is holding steady in after-hours trading, though it plunged earlier this week and has yet to recover following a Wall Street Journal report claiming that Apple is investigating building iPhones and iPads that exclusively use Intel and MediaTek modems.

Such a move would be a huge loss for Qualcomm, who has regularly supplied chips for Apple.

The beef between Apple and Qualcomm began earlier this year following a complaint from the FTC that claimed Qualcomm was forcing Apple to use its baseband chips at higher royalties. Following the FTC complaint, Apple filed its own $1 billion lawsuit against Qualcomm.

Qualcomm has attempted to gain an import ban on iPhones in the United States, while it also filed to block iPhone sales and manufacturing in China.

Oddly, both Qualcomm’s CEO and Tim Cook have noted that they would be open to settling this ongoing battle, but no progress has been made there, and if this week’s report rings true, Apple is seemingly trying to cut Qualcomm out of the picture altogether.

Apple reports its Q4 2017 earnings tomorrow – but don’t expect the battle with Qualcomm to affect its numbers in the slightest.

Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:  

Here is how you reach Jharkhand's State Crime Investigation Department (CID) office: You walk through the huge corridors of Nepal House in Ranchi. You pass the revenue, agriculture, animal husbandry and state employment offices in this colonial building in the state's secretarial campus. Eventually, you reach another historic building known as Raja Rani Kothi.



Sub-Inspector Renu Gupta, CID Branch, Jharkhand, has given me clear directions over the phone and is waiting to wave me into her office. Government files - bundles of papers tied with red fabric - are stacked from floor to ceiling; the furniture includes four desks and a single computer terminal. This is the main working chamber of the state's CID police officers. Renu introduces me to the two other officers working at their desks: Sub-Inspector Sushma Kumari and Sub-Inspector Indumati, both currently posted in the CID department along with Renu.



Sushma sends a note to her colleague Poonam Lata sitting in a nearby room and then tells me, "We have one more female police officer here right now. And she is a CID Inspector. Let her arrive and then you can speak to all four of us together." While I wait quietly, they continue working. Unlike regular police stations, the CID office has no lock-ups, no khakhi wardi; only stacks of files and people investigating documents. Dressed in blue jeans and a black jacket, Sushma is on the phone, while Indumati writes in a register.



When I started reporting on policewomen five months ago, a number of policemen told me that their female colleagues deliberately chose CID postings. A senior police officer told me, "CID offices always have a large number of women. That's because female police officers prefer CID postings. It is a 9 to 5 job and they can manage their children and homes better if they work in the CID. At regular police stations, there are no fixed working hours."



Inspector Poonam Lata arrives in a maroon salwar kameez and black cardigan. (It's a pleasant but brisk February day, and most of the women police officers I meet wear black cardigans over their clothing.) We make space in the cramped room and settle down for a conversation. Renu's colleagues, like her, are all in their forties and have all lived in Ranchi for over two decades. I ask them what they think of the notion that women deliberately pick posts in the CID. Immediately there is a categorical denial. To them, this sounds like an accusation, as if they've picked an easy life. They frown at each other, "Women prefer work in the CID?"



Indumati, dressed in a blue salwaar-kameez and a shawl, says, "Being in the police is a transferable job. I have been posted at a number of regular police stations, women's police stations, courts, and now I am here in the CID. I've dealt with all kinds of cases from robberies to murders to raids to counseling traumatized girls in women's police stations. We don't know when we will be transferred next. We just get the transfer order and move to our next posting. Saying that we choose the CID because this is comfortable for us is completely false. We have worked and proved ourselves too much to respond to these silly prejudiced arguments."



Why did they join the police force? Each of them had different reasons, but one story overlaps and surprises me.



Renu says, "We are all '94 batch recruits. The television show Udaan was an inspiration for most of us. Kalyani was this brave IPS officer who made her way through immense odds. I still remember the scene when she tells her father for the first time that she wants to become an IPS officer. Her father tells her that the sky is her limit. She never looks back. She was so determined to make a place for herself in the police and to do good for society. She inspired our whole generation."



Like Renu, the others talk of how Kalyani in Udaan inspired them. Udaan aired from 1989 to 1991 on Doordarshan and was publicized as the first Indian television show with a women's empowerment theme. Unlike the fictional Kalyani (played by Kavita Choudhary, who was also the iconic Lalitaji in the Surf ads), this group of recruits had a tough time with their families. They don't say so in the beginning, though. Half an hour into the conversation, Renu says, 'There was a lot of resistance from my family as the job requires going out during 'un-social' hours and I had a lot of odd working hours. My parents and in-laws weren't happy initially. But I was lucky to have a supportive husband. Had he not been there, I would not have been able to carry on'.



Sushma just nods in agreement with what her colleagues are saying. Sitting in front of Sushma's desk, Indumati looks down to her register and raises her head every now and then to listen keenly to what Renu is saying. Eventually she breaks in to tell her own story.



Indumati had a very tough time convincing her family to let her join the police force. She has two children, her in-laws and her husband as her 'immediate' responsibility besides her job as a policewoman. She says that she is able to continue only because she manages both home and work well. She sums up by adding, "My identity as a woman does not leave me despite my being a police officer. I have to manage both at home and at work. At the very least I have to take good care of my in-laws, cook all the meals, buy vegetables, look after the children and also go on regular patrols. Somehow, I could never evade being a woman first and a cop second. Or may be I was not allowed to."



Over the course of the conversation, I bring up the gang rape of Neetu Kumar, a police constable in Latehar, 110 km from Ranchi, and what I had discovered there. While policewomen face violence and discrimination across India, the story of Neetu and her female colleagues in Latehar Police Station is particularly troubling. Far from being empowered by their jobs, they are forced into highly infantilizing roles at the workplace. In fact, being untrained for their work smack in the middle of a conflict zone makes their lives more vulnerable than that of other women in the region.



Here in this crowded office in the state capital, all four of the CID policewomen denied facing physical abuse themselves. But they say they all have women friends in the force who have been abused at home and 'eve-teased' on the streets when not in uniform.



From the window of our limited interactions, Sushma appears to be the toughest - emotionally - of the group. It isn't surprising to learn that her family was supportive of her decision to become a police officer and that she grew up in a very encouraging environment. It's quite a while into the conversation when she opens up. At first, she expresses her frustration over the brutal gang-rape of the Latehar policewoman, saying, "I read about her in papers and I was really angry and sad at the same time for her."



She adds, "I know some policewomen who are beaten in their own homes. I never suffered like this, but I know many who just couldn't gather the courage to say no. Even the police uniform couldn't instill in them the confidence and faith to fight for themselves. I think that we are so deeply socially conditioned to suffer that it will take many more years even for policewomen to gather complete control of their own lives."



Sushma says, "It rarely happens if I go out in uniform, but there have been times when I went out in civilian clothes and was eve-teased. But I don't take it now. I fight back every time somebody passes a comment or tries to touch me on the streets. I confront them by facing them, ridiculing them publicly, maybe slapping them or making an official complaint at the police station if they continue with their indecent and unwanted acts. I never felt the need to file an FIR. In most cases, just telling eve-teasers that I am from the police and that I am going to report them is enough. They start pleading and apologizing after that."



What about gender bias or prejudices they've faced within the police station? All of them fall silent for a moment.



I persist by politely asking them if a woman cop's looks are given more importance than the tough investigations she does. They look at each other's faces. Initially they stick with politically correct answers such as "nothing like this happens in our office". A few male colleagues pass through the room and warn them sternly and quite angrily to speak less, and "cautiously", to the media. The women ignore these interventions.



When I start citing some general examples of gender bias I've witnessed inside police departments over months of reporting for this story, they gather confidence and nod their heads in agreement. Yes, there are incidents they could talk about.



Poonam Lata says she wants to share her story. She was originally a state football player and was directly recruited into the police under the sports quota. Over the years she has served (unusually enough) as a station in-charge at numerous police stations and has investigated every variety of serious crime including murder, rape, kidnapping and narcotics rings. She has been quiet through most of the conversation, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, lost in thought or nodding to what everyone has to say. As the question of gender bias inside the police department floats around in the room, she is suddenly more alert and interested.



Adjusting her spectacles, she says, "While we generally never faced any kind of explicit bias, I'd like to mention one thing. No matter how hard we work, senior officers don't have that much faith in us. For bigger responsibilities, politically crucial investigations or cases that involve pursuing, investigating and arresting notorious criminals, they prefer having a male team leader. Inside the department there are strong doubts about the competence of female police officers."



Renu nods vigorously and breaks in to add, "When the question of becoming a police station in-charge comes, we are held back. No matter how competent we are, seniors think 'Ladies hai. pata nahi kar payegi ya nahi!'. Even if our male counterpart is not serious about work, even if he is a habitual drunkard, he will be made station-in-charge. Not us."



* * *



In March 2013, the Home Ministry released the latest figures on the participation of women in the police force. Only 5.33% of India's police force is female. Moreover, of the 15,000 police stations in the country, only 499 are all-women police stations. Despite the galloping rate of crime against women in India and the persistent demand to increase the participation of women in the police force to at least 33 percent, the gender ratio flags miserably.



In 1933, an 18-year-old woman named C. Kamalamma put on the khaki uniform and joined the Travancore Royal Police (in what is now the state of Kerala) to become the first Indian woman to join the police force. In a television interview a few years ago, Kamalamma spoke at length about her work (acting as bodyguard to female members of the royal family, escorting women prisoners) and her difficulty in finding landlords who would rent to her. When she fell in love with a colleague, she was asked to leave because newly minted rules did not permit women police officers to marry. A decade and six children later, she rejoined the police force in independent India and worked for three more decades.



Eighty years later it seems to still take a leap of faith for young women to choose to join the police. Retired Additional Superintendent of Police (undivided Bihar), Baithnath Tiwari certainly thinks so. He was a young sub-inspector when the first major mass recruitment of women in undivided Bihar took place in the 1970s. He says, "In those days, exams were not taken. Women who came into the police were generally relatives of policemen and were limited to clerical office work. Whenever there was a need for a woman officer (for a raid or arrest which involved women) the station inspectors would write request letters to the headquarters. Women officers were escorted to the spot and were then dropped back. But I must say, even then, women officers were very sincere, dutiful and punctual about whatever work they were assigned. With time, policewomen really grew and came out with flying colors. But unfortunately, the police department has not matched their pace in this change."



In February 2014 some of the changes are apparent. Far from being stuck in a Latehar-like zenana, at 9 pm Inspector Shiela Toppo is still on duty, patrolling in a police jeep through a busy street of Ranchi, when I meet her. This is a routine evening patrol, part of her everyday schedule. In Toppo's career, she has investigated all kinds of crime. She has worked as a police inspector for over 25 years in different police stations across Jharkhand, including a posting as the station in-charge of Ranchi's women's police station and at the district courts.



"When I came in around 25 years ago, things were very tough," Toppo says. "There was stiff resistance to female cops. Nobody was ready to accept a woman working as a police officer. Young girls who are joining now are seeing an improved environment, whatever little it has improved. Maybe it's just that our male colleagues are now slowly becoming used to seeing women working with them and so the resistance has diluted a bit. But we are still not accepted. Men and society in general can't digest the idea of me standing by the side of a busy road in pant-shirt, with a wooden stick in my hand, walking with other male officers. They are still uncomfortable with this sight."



While reporting from Jharkhand, I came across a number of cases involving compensatory appointments of women constables, like those of Neetu Kumar and some of her colleagues. Their situations were nearly always startling, but Ranchi-based journalist Sushil Kumar Singh had one of the strangest bits of news I'd heard.



Sushil's father was in the Bihar police force when he died in an accident. Sushil's mother was 26 and had four small children to bring up. She got a job as a police constable 'on compensatory grounds'. Every year for thirty years, she filled a form called a 'living certificate' in order to retain her job and get her husband's pension. Sushil's mother didn't know how to read or write, so Sushil's elder brother filled the form on her behalf every year. Sushil says, "This year, I filled it in for the first time and was shocked. The living certificate stated that she was alive, not married and was taking care of her deceased husband's family. Women can keep their husband's pension and compensatory job only if they don't remarry for the rest of their lives. I was outraged at this medieval policy depriving women of their basic right to start a new life."



Today, Sushil remembers his mother getting dressed and going to work every morning after finishing daily chores at home and cooking meals for the children. He can't help the bitterness that shadows these memories, especially because he is convinced that the work destroyed her health. She's been ill for years now. Sushil is particularly concerned, therefore, about the condition of widows in the police force. He says, "The fact that widows can't marry again makes widowed women constables the most vulnerable species at any police station. Policemen know these women have heavy compensation, get pension and a salary every month. Besides, they are young. The men fight amongst themselves to emotionally and physically control these women. Once they come 'under' one of these policemen, they are eternally emotionally, physically and financially exploited. This regressive policy has destructive impacts on the lives of women constables."



We still don't have exact figures for the number of women constables in India appointed to the police in place of their husbands who died on the job. But every year, in Jharkhand and Bihar, all of these invisible officers sign 'living certificates' promising that they are unmarried and taking care of their in-laws, in return for a miserable existence.



After Latehar, I was keen to meet senior officers, like the four women in Jharkhand CID, and understand their working conditions.



Several people told me that I should meet Nisha Murmu, Deputy Superintendent of Police at Hatia in Ranchi district. She is well-known, and not just because she is one of the first women to be directly recruited as DSP after Jharkhand was formed in 2000.



I miss her at her office. She has just left for lunch. On the phone, she asks me to come to her home in Jagganathpur Chauk.



As Nisha eats lunch, I wait in the drawing room of the bungalow browsing through the trophies she won during police training, and some literature on the Jharkhand government lying on the center table. In a few minutes, a smiling Nisha appears in a black tracksuit. Over the course of the afternoon, she speaks at length about how her father, Salkhan Murmu, was determined to educate her despite financial constraints. Born in an Adivasi family in Sahibganj district of Jharkhand, and educated in Ranchi, Nisha was recruited in October 2011. Today, the only thing that worries her father is the extreme amount of hard work that she puts into her job. She says that her father is constantly worried about her shifts and not being able to take any rest.



Nisha has been making headlines since the time she was going through training. As part of Ranchi's squad to curb 'eve-teasing', she achieved remarkable success in curbing crimes against women by active patrolling, sensitively addressing complaints and by laying traps to catch men who were harassing women with unwanted obscene calls.



Nisha has the high achiever's classic and muddled response to questions of structural bias. "I never faced any straight bias," she says, adding without seeing any contradiction, "But I work more than 18 hours a day as I do not want to give anyone a chance to question my work or capabilities. I think all women officers are equal to men cops, if not more. I once solved a murder case within 22 hours of filing the FIR. I worked hard and pushed my way through. If you repeatedly prove yourself, no bias can stop you."



* * *



While researching the working conditions of policewomen, I meet DN Gautam, former Director General of Police, at his residence in Patna. He starts the conversation by narrating anecdotes about the perennial lack of toilets for women in the police machinery of Bihar. He adds, "When I was AIG-intelligence, I used to see that all women constables and officers would go to a building down the street every evening. They would go in groups, all together. I asked other male officers about where these women go. Some of them laughed and others said they didn't know. I later found that they used to go to the washroom there because our Patna Police headquarters had no toilets for women. A few years ago, when the whole office was being renovated, I gave instructions to make toilets for women on every floor. This (lack of toilets) was shocking to me, because if this was happening in Patna, you can imagine the situation in other far-away districts."



One of the first women officers I speak to in Patna is Mridula Kumari. In 2013, she became the first woman to be put in charge of the first women's police station in Patna, which opened in 2012. The police station had male in-charges before Mridula, and the Bihar government faced criticism for appointing male in-charges in an 'all-women' police station. Mridula has been very busy since she took over. She says, smiling, "When I took charge, we were flooded with cases. Every morning, there would be lines of women standing in front of the station. Some wanted counseling. Some had complaints. They were very comfortable now, as for the first time they could tell their problems to women officers."



When Mridula sat for the Sub-Inspector exam in 1984, she was terrified someone would find out. She says, "In those days it was considered a bad job for women. I filled the form without telling anyone and went to the exam center hiding my face with my dupatta. I was the only girl selected from North Bihar. All hell broke loose back in my village. I still remember, the elders saying, 'Gaon ke ladke to daroga bane nahi abhi tak, is ladki ko kaise ban jane den? Badi badnami hogi. (The boys in our village have still not become cops. How can we let this girl become one? This will bring us great shame.) I had to fight a lot at home to take up this job. But I wanted to become a police officer. I was also inspired by Kalyani from Udaan."



Mridula says, "I wanted to teach a lesson to those men who abuse women and think of them as lesser beings. So I worked hard. I was hugely detested, hugely resisted by my colleagues and peers. But luckily, my seniors encouraged me. Looking back, I think my fellow male officers disliked me because I was the only woman riding a Rajdoot bike and chasing criminals like them. They detested the sight of a woman cop working - and then seeing one working efficiently!"



Patna is also home to another path-breaking police officer. In Bihar's Economic Offences Wing (EOW), I meet Inspector Gauri Kumari. The DSP of the EOW, Sushil Kumar, describes her as one of the bravest officers in Bihar. He says, "I am a '99 batch officer. After '94, the first woman candidate was selected in my batch. So the process is slow because the thinking of men has not changed. They treat women in the police like they treat women in their own home. But officers like Gauri Kumari are strong examples of what a woman police officer can do."



Gauri Kumari was posted as a sub-inspector in the Aandar Police Station of Siwan district of Bihar when she was selected by the then Inspector-General (Intelligence) Rajwinder Singh Bhatti to trap the biggest don in north India, Mohammad Shahabuddin. Within a month of laying the trap, Gauri Kumari arrested Shahabuddin from his residence in Delhi in 2005. This was a daunting task that top-notch officials in Bihar had not been able to execute after trying for two years. At the time of his arrest, Shahabuddin was facing charges in more than 30 criminal cases including eight murders and twenty attempts to murder, rioting, extortions and kidnappings. He also had non-bailable warrants issued against him in relation to the seizure and recovery of foreign firearms, ammunition and unaccounted-for foreign currency from his house in Siwan in April 2005.



I meet Gauri at DSP Sushil Kumar's chamber on the ground floor of the EOW. Recalling the arrest of Shahabuddin, Gauri says, "I was not afraid. I did not think about any threats. We are trained to steel our minds to achieve our goals. I just had one target and that was to arrest him." Gauri was chosen for the task because of her background - she had made a record number of arrests during her time at the Siwan Police Station, and her work had involved investigating tough criminal cases such as murders, robberies, land issues and rapes.



Unconsciously having a Lean In moment, Gauri says, "Women should work harder to carve their niche in the police department. When I use to run [for practice] on the roads of either Sivan Police Station campus or while chasing criminals, people would say to each other: look out, that police officer is coming. Policewomen should bring that high level of professionalism to their work so that no one can take them lightly."



* * *



Back in the Ranchi-based CID Office, officers like Renu, Poonam, Sushma and Indumati are trying to make their mark, working hard and still struggling with the subtle but deep-seated gender bias in their homes and inside the police department. Before leaving, I thank them and ask if they'd mind being photographed. The Good Samaritans from next door who had earlier instructed them on how to handle reporters now return. They now try their best to tell the four officers that they shouldn't get their pictures clicked. "She might upload them on Facebook" is the dire threat that they issue.



But Renu and her three colleagues are quite happy to be photographed. One of them retorts, "What is your problem? That she is talking to us and taking our photograph?'



But even this rude reply doesn't stop their male colleagues from standing in the doorway and staring while I click away.



This is the second story in a three-part series on policewomen in India. Read Part I: Why No One Wants Policewomen in Latehar here.



Priyanka Dubey is an independent journalist. Visit http://www.priyankadubey.in or write to her at [email protected].

















































































































































































































  I feel great sympathy for Dong Nguyen, the Toronto man who pleaded guilty this week to a charge of cruelty to animals for hitting several raccoons with a shovel as they foraged in his backyard. That’s because I know exactly how frustrated and angry Nguyen must have felt when he attacked the nasty pests.

There are an estimated 100,000 raccoons living in Toronto alone. (Aug. 8, 2009) ( Jim Rankin / Toronto Star )

By pleading guilty, he was given a conditional discharge that includes 100 hours of community service at a humane society shelter. He must also pay $1,365 to a wildlife centre where one of the raccoons he hit was treated for a broken leg. Over the years, I’ve chased raccoons off my front porch and back deck with a broom, buckets of water and cleaning sprays. I’ve waved towels at them, yelled at them, charged at them, turned garden hoses on them and shone flashlights in their faces. Nothing stops them.

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At night, they try to rip their way into my secured garbage and green bins. In summer, they tear up my tiny front and back lawns almost nightly in search of grubs. And for the past week, two fat raccoons have tried every evening — unsuccessfully — to pry open the sliding glass door into my kitchen. I’ve never actually hit a raccoon, but I’ve sure felt like it. Indeed, it seems everyone in Toronto and the 905 region has a bitter raccoon story to tell. Next to real estate prices, raccoon war stories are a major topic whenever neighbours get together, with vivid tales of raccoons getting into garbage bins, ruining gardens, camping out in garages, nesting between walls and crawl spaces and setting up house under porches. In fact, they’ve become urban pests like rats and mice. Their numbers are growing rapidly, with rough estimates ranging up to nearly 100,000 in Toronto alone. They can carry diseases such as rabies and parasites such as ringworm. Their babies may be cute with their bandit-mask faces, but their feces, which they leave on decks and patios, can be noxious and a mess to clean.

So why don’t Toronto and the 905 municipalities launch programs to cull the pests? Are they waiting for raccoons to be officially declared a public health hazard? Diehard animal lovers may oppose killing raccoons, but we permit the killing of rats and mice and allow the humane euthanizing of thousands of stray and unwanted cats and dogs every year.

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Why not the humane killing of raccoons? Toronto was dubbed the “raccoon capital of the world” in a David Suzuki CBC documentary on the critters. Pest control experts say the population has exploded in Toronto since the city introduced green recycling bins, which became one-stop feeding stations for raccoons. If you want to deal with raccoons yourself, there’s not much that works. The official City of Toronto website, though, offers a few tips on how to control raccoons. “Try sprinkling naptha flakes around the area, hanging ammonia-soaked rags, playing a loud radio tuned to an all-talk station, keeping the area brightly lit,” it suggests. Good luck, I say. Toronto Animal Control won’t deal with raccoons unless they are injured or sick. Instead, it advises you to hire a private pest control company. These can cost $300 just to show up at your door. They will trap the raccoons and “safely” remove them, which basically means they will transport them to a nearby neighbourhood and release them. That’s not controlling the raccoons. That’s merely moving them around. Sadly, raccoon experts admit it’s impossible for residents to get rid of the pests. Even Toronto’s own official website virtually gives up, saying cheerily that we’d better get used to raccoons. “By learning how to share the environment with them and reducing conflict by eliminating sources of food and shelter on our properties,” it says, “we can be entertained by catching sight of these visitors as they make their way to a more suitable home.” There’s no reason why Toronto can’t launch its own raccoon-cull program. The province did just that in 1999 when it reduced the raccoon problem in eastern Ontario. In 1997, Mississauga tackled its overpopulation troubles with Canada geese by shipping 2,000 of them to New Brunswick. If municipalities can control rats, mice, cats and dogs by euthanasia, they should be able to do the same for raccoons, which arguably are more of a pest and potential health issue than stray cats. Mayor Rob Ford should seriously consider making the war on raccoons a priority. In my neighbourhood at least, he’d surely win huge support for the program — and maybe even a few votes. Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.  Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.

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It took just over two hours for a suburban St. Louis, Missouri, jury to recommend Michael L. Johnson serve more than 60 years in prison on May 15.* If Johnson serves that full time, it could become a life sentence for the 23-year-old former student and star wrestler at Lindenwood University in St. Charles. Johnson was convicted of “recklessly infecting” one male sexual partner with HIV and exposing four others to the virus. Ad Policy

Johnson has been HIV positive since at least early 2013 and possibly as early as 2011, according to documentation disclosed at the trial, and prosecutors say he did not reveal his serostatus to sexual partners. That meant Johnson was liable for prosecution under Missouri’s draconian HIV criminalization statute, which essentially categorizes each new infection in the state as attempted murder. “What we have here is a perfect storm of malice,” Assistant Prosecutor Phil Groenweghe told the jurors in closing arguments.

Not exactly. A more nuanced analysis of Johnson’s case reveals instead the “perfect storm” of homophobia, racism and criminal justice that shapes the health of so many black gay men.

Missouri is one of at least 32 states and two territories that criminalize exposure or transmission of HIV, according to the Center for HIV Law and Policy. Some laws penalize having sex even after revealing serostatus to a partner—and regardless if a condom was used. The United States has led the world with “thousands” of such prosecutions, according to the United Nations-backed Global Commission on HIV and the Law.

Most of these laws were enacted at the height of the epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s—before life-saving antiretrovirals were introduced—and as such they do not reflect modern science, which has made an HIV diagnosis a chronic but manageable condition. For example: The goal of aggressive antiretroviral therapy is to suppress a viral load—the amount of HIV in a sample of blood—to become “undetectable.” Once a positive person has achieved viral suppression, that person is extremely unlikely to transmit HIV to a sex partner. But criminalization laws do not take this into account.

Nor do these laws make sense as a deterrent from supposedly “reckless” behavior. The overwhelming body of research, going back more than a decade, has established that the vast majority of new infections each year are contracted from someone who does not know that they are HIV positive. “Nearly 92 percent” of new infections “likely occur after contact with people who don’t know they carry HIV or do not receive treatment,” according to a February 2015 report by the Centers for Disease Contol and Prevention.

People who are unaware of their serostatus cannot take steps to prevent transmission. Thus the enormous push, from the federal government down to community-based organizations, to create greater access to testing, and to decrease the fear and considerable stigma associated with a positive diagnosis. Less fear means more testing. Criminalization laws—and the headline-grabbing, racially loaded prosecutions such as the one faced by Michael Johnson—directly undermine this effort in the same communities where the epidemic remains most acute. Those communities are disproportionately African American.

Race, Sex and Media

Johnson used online hookup apps and social networking sites—such as Grindr and Adam4Adam—to meet several men in early 2013. He and his partners engaged in sex without condoms. One partner eventually seroconverted—that is, he turned HIV positive—and accused Johnson of transmitting the infection. Johnson was arrested and his name was publicized widely. Other men came forward and claimed they had sex with him, too. Johnson says he told them that he was positive. The men claim he did not.

Everything about these interactions seems to have been racialized. Johnson had the physique to match his college-jock status, and his muscular and ripped frame appears to have been a hit on gay social media. He used the nickname “Tiger Mandingo” and reportedly four of the six accusers are white gay men. Once the case broke into the news, the same body that had been revered for its athletic and sexual prowess was instead the subject of racial caricature across the Internet. “Overtly racist blogs, like Chimpmania.com, labeled him an ‘HIV Positive Buck’,” wrote Buzzfeed’s Steven Thrasher in his July 2014 investigation, “How College Wrestling Star ‘Tiger Mandingo’ Became an HIV Scapegoat.”

“The dominant media narrative presented him as a monster,” says Charles Stephens, an Atlanta-based writer, activist and executive director of the Counter Narrative Project, which amplifies the voices of black gay men. “It’s impossible to ignore the racial lens in the Michael Johnson trial,” adds Preston D. Mitchum, a professor of legal writing at Georgetown University. “A black man who is muscular and attractive is accused of not disclosing his status to mostly white accusers. The trial is being heard by an almost entirely white jury. The constant repetition of the name ‘Tiger Mandingo.’ It is a deliberate strategy to say, ‘This is a brutal black man who did this intentionally to these precious, young, white accusers.’ ”

Sensational media depictions of black men as so-called “HIV predators” are sadly familiar. NuShawn Williams was accused of having sex with dozens of women after testing positive in 1996, in a case that led to a New York law requiring doctors to report the names of people who test HIV-positive. Other states followed suit. College basketball player Nikko Briteramos received international attention in 2002 when he became the first person arrested under a South Dakota law requiring that HIV-positive persons disclose their serostatus to prospective sexual partners.

The media coverage leading up to the Johnson trial was so racially charged that a group of black gay men—thought leaders, academics, HIV policy experts, writers and more—published an open letter to Michael Johnson. The letter was ultimately signed by 115 men, led in part by Stephens, and published at Mused Magazine on May 7. It’s worth quoting at length,

HIV criminalization laws unfairly impact Black people and stigmatize people living with HIV. HIV criminalization laws push people living with HIV further and further away from HIV treatment and care and make HIV prevention efforts more difficult. As Black gay men, we are deeply impacted by HIV; and these laws harm us and damage our relationships and communities. …HIV should be treated as a public health issue not as a criminal one. Legally requiring disclosure privileges the lives of White people not living with HIV over Black people who are living with HIV. These laws feed into stereotypes that assume Black gay men are irresponsible and hypersexual. For you, your accusers saw your Black and masculine body as a site of ultimate sexual pleasure, until they had to deal with you as a whole person. At that moment you became a problem and were disposable to them. … We care about you—your life matters. HIV is not a crime and you should not be in prison.

“Part of the desire was to humanize Michael Johnson,” Stephens explains. “That is very important because so many black gay men experience a significant amount of disconnection and isolation which contributes to despair. That speaks to how homophobia and racism converge in our lives.”

Stephens adds that Johnson represents the kind of person too often left out of LGBT politics, with its modern focus on marriage rights. “We [must] resist a certain kind of ‘respectability activism’ and get involved with black gay men who do not have perfect stories.”

“Clinic to Prison Pipeline”

African-American and other black communities represent only 14 percent of the nation’s population but account for nearly half—some 44 percent—of all new HIV infections. And for many years, new infections have been increasing the fastest among black gay and bisexual men. The trend is particularly sharp among young men and in the South.

Black men and women also appear to be more likely to be prosecuted under HIV criminalization statutes. Race-specific analyses in each state are not available, but some research demonstrates the trend. Michigan’s HIV criminalization laws produced “an overrepresentation” of black men “and an underrepresentation of White men with male partners among those convicted,” according to a study conducted by Trevor Hoppe, a University of California at Irvine sociologist. HIV-exposure cases often feature the same kind of racial disparities and overly aggressive prosecution—such as harsher charges, penalties and sentences—that critics have noted in other elements of the criminal justice system. For instance, in 2009, a black, HIV-positive gay man in Michigan faced bio-terrorism charges after he allegedly bit another man during a fight. Biting and spitting cases pose very little threat of HIV transmission. That case was eventually dismissed.

“These laws exacerbate stigma against HIV-positive people,” said Hoppe. “They are not decreasing new infections. They are not incentivizing disclosure. It could be just the opposite, and many people fear that it encourages not disclosing.”

Michael Johnson’s trial was held in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, which is more than 90 percent white. Johnson was tried and convicted before an almost all-white jury that included jurors who believed that “homosexuality is a sin,” reported Buzzfeed’s Steven Thrasher.

The trial also took place less than 10 miles from another town that has symbolized racial oppression in recent months: Ferguson. Johnson’s defenders have drawn a line back to the Black Lives Matter movement that gained national attention there. “HIV criminalization is anti-Black violence. Period,” Charles Stephens told Mic.com senior editor Darnell L. Moore. “You can’t be against the ‘prison industrial complex’ without being against HIV criminalization. You can’t ignore the fact that the communities most vulnerable to HIV are also the communities most vulnerable to criminalization. We must fight the clinic to prison pipeline.”

“HIV criminalization is part of the larger story around how the prison industrial complex incarcerates black people,” adds Kenneth M. Pass, a graduate student in public health at the University of Michigan who has organized online around Johnson’s case and was another lead signor of the open letter. “Instead of leading [people with HIV] into care, we would rather lead them into a prison.”

Editor's note: A previous version of this article stated incorrectly that the jury sentenced Michael Johnson on May 15. Rather, the jury recommended a sentence; the judge will ultimately decide Johnson's sentence.  Image copyright Kevin Bowen

Kirby Delauter would probably not approve of this blog post.

The Frederick County, Maryland, council member recently threatened his local paper, the News-Post, with a lawsuit if it printed his name without permission. The dispute was the result of what Mr Delauter says was unfair coverage by Bethany Rodgers, one of the paper's reporters.

"Shame on Bethany Rodgers for an unauthorised use of my name and my reference in her article today," he wrote on his Facebook page.

"Bethany, please understand, when you do a hit piece, you need to know who you're dealing with," he continued.

Ms Rodgers responded, in part: "It is not just our right but our responsibility to report on people like you, who occupy positions of trust in our government, and I make no apologies for doing that." At which point, Mr Delauter replied that if her paper used his name again, "you'll be paying for an attorney. Your rights stop where mine start."

Mr Delauter received the paper's answer shortly after midnight on Tuesday, when the News-Post published an editorial titled "Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter" on its website.

Over the course of 13 paragraphs, the editors printed the politician's name - and variations on it - dozens of times. And the first letter of every paragraph spelled out "KIRBY DELAUTER".

Image copyright Andrew Langer

"Kirby Delauter's ignorance of what journalism is and does is no joke, and illustrates one disturbing aspect too prevalent in conservatives' beliefs: That the media are all liberal stooges hell-bent on pursuing some fictional left-wing agenda," they write.

Meanwhile, thanks in part to coverage from the national press, including the Washington Post, the Huffington Post and the Chicago Sun-Times, #kirbydelauter became a Twitter trend and a fake Twitter account, @KirbyDelauter, was born.

"Today is the day the Internet put its foot on Kirby Delauter's neck," tweets media critic Jack Shafer.

The Cincinnati Enquirer's Amber Hunt says she "might add #KirbyDelauter to every tweet today, no matter the subject, in Fourth Estate solidarity."

Others took a more pessimistic view. Slate writer Alec MacGillis tweets: "The #KirbyDelauter story's hilarious, but in all seriousness, this is what comes of decline of local press: pols think coverage is optional."

Perhaps Steve Earley summed it up best, however: "If you don't want journalists to use your name, don't tell them they can't."

You can say that again - and so can Kirby Delauter.

Blog by Anthony Zurcher

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending

All our stories are at bbc.com/trending  So much fun seeing the #SockBrothers playing together in #BBTAtlantaOpen A post shared by Katrina Adams (@katadams68) on Jul 26, 2017 at 5:34pm PDT

In Atlanta, Jack Sock chose an unexpected partner for doubles. Often teaming up with fellow American standouts or Nick Kyrgios, the 2014 Wimbledon doubles champion opted instead for his big brother, Eric. The two Socks have come a long, long way.

.@JackSock playing doubles in #Atlanta with brother Eric. That's fun and special. — Will Corby (@willcorbySTJ) July 26, 2017

In January 2015, after having a sore throat, Eric Sock unexpectedly landed in the hospital. It turned into bilateral pneumonia in both of his lungs, and the infection spread to his liver, kidney and heart.

praying hard for my brother today as he goes in for a thoracotomy procedure. first step to getting him off life support. stay strong man I love you. A post shared by Jack Sock (@jack.sock) on Jan 21, 2015 at 9:48am PST

He would make a complete recovery, and has since often been spotted on tour alongside his brother. But the experience changed Jack Sock's outlook forever.

“When I think I’m not playing great today, something I might usually get upset over, I think back to this guy doctors said was one day away from dying,” he said in 2015. “So I think any struggle I think I have on the court is very small compared to actual reality.”

he's finally home! thank you to everyone for the support and prayers the last few weeks. incredibly proud of this guy for being so strong through such a tough time. happy to have you back bro. love you. @eric_sock A post shared by Jack Sock (@jack.sock) on Feb 3, 2015 at 6:35pm PST

For Jack Sock to be able to play doubles with his big brother, just over two years removed from the near-fatal ordeal, is an impressive feat, even though they would lost in the first round.

The doubles duo of brothers Jack and Eric Sock fall in their match today on the AJC Grandstand Court. #cornhuskers #BBTAO #ATP pic.twitter.com/WZlKczijyQ — BB&T Atlanta Open (@BBTatlantaopen) July 26, 2017

It'll be a memory for a lifetime for the brothers and the entire family.

thanks for the once in a lifetime experience @BBTatlantaopen https://t.co/lgOillloOT — Eric Sock (@eric_sock) July 27, 2017

Follow Nina on Twitter: @ninapanti  Why does my sister in law expect us to leave our children with a stranger, in order to attend her wedding?

My sister in law is getting married to a really nice guy. She and her fiance want a child free wedding and reception. The wedding is taking place in her fiance's hometown. My sister in law wants us to leave our kids with someone that we don't know. My husband and I don't trust a lot of people with our... show more My sister in law is getting married to a really nice guy. She and her fiance want a child free wedding and reception. The wedding is taking place in her fiance's hometown. My sister in law wants us to leave our kids with someone that we don't know. My husband and I don't trust a lot of people with our children, and we're NOT about to leave our kids with a complete stranger.



We've told my sister in law, that if our kids aren't invited, we're not attending her wedding. We want her to make an exception for her nephews and niece, after all they are a part of her family. She says that she can't afford to have our children in attendance. We've offered to pay for their plates, but she says that if she allows our children, she will have to allow other people to bring their children. My husband and I won't travel 1,200 miles, to attend her wedding, and not be able to have our children with us. Our children are very well behaved, and I don't understand why we can't bring them with us.



Seriously, what would you do if you we're in my shoes?

Update: So some of you are saying that I'm being a complete b*tch, because I EXPECT her to include HER family, even after we've offered to pay for their plates? I think that's completely ridiculous. The wedding is in a state and town, that we've NEVER been to. My sister in law wants us to leave our... show more So some of you are saying that I'm being a complete b*tch, because I EXPECT her to include HER family, even after we've offered to pay for their plates? I think that's completely ridiculous.



The wedding is in a state and town, that we've NEVER been to. My sister in law wants us to leave our vulnerable children with a complete stranger. Sorry, I'm NOT leaving my kids with someone that I don't know. Plus the only other family that will be there will be my mother in law. I guess my sister in law won't have my husband walk her down the aisle either. She ruined my wedding 11 years ago, and I have forgiven her for it.



Grow up huh? I guess some of you aren't a parent. I guess some leave your children with random strangers. Yeah really responsible of me to not want my kids being left with someone that I don't know.

Update 2: There was one thing that I did forget to mention, is that my oldest son has autism. It's extremely difficult to find childcare for a child with special needs. My sister in law has NOT found childcare for us and she expects me to do this on my own. I don't know anyone in the state & town where the wedding is... show more There was one thing that I did forget to mention, is that my oldest son has autism. It's extremely difficult to find childcare for a child with special needs. My sister in law has NOT found childcare for us and she expects me to do this on my own. I don't know anyone in the state & town where the wedding is being held, and I will be damned if I'm leaving my kids with some random stranger. Obviously she doesn't give a sh*t about our kids.



Yeah my sister in law used to hate me, because I stood up to her, and defended myself. She completely ruined my wedding, and I did forgive her. She's an excellent aunt to our children, but this no kids at the wedding is pissing me off.

Update 3: 1: I think I should clarify a few things. We do have two respite childcare providers through the Planning Council, but both of our providers have full time jobs. We can't afford to pay them to come to Kansas for my sister in law's wedding. 2: My husband is in the Navy, and we are stationed in Norfolk, VA.... show more 1: I think I should clarify a few things. We do have two respite childcare providers through the Planning Council, but both of our providers have full time jobs. We can't afford to pay them to come to Kansas for my sister in law's wedding.

2: My husband is in the Navy, and we are stationed in Norfolk, VA. My husband is from Ohio, and the wedding is taking place in Kansas. We don't have any family here in VA or in Kansas. My family lives in AZ, CA, and UT. None of them can come and take care of our children.

3: My oldest son has AUTISM=SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD! I guess some of you don't know what it's like to parent a SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD! He's very particular, and I won't leave him with someone neither of us are comfortable with.

4: YES I expect her to make an exception for our kids. They are a part of her family too.

3:  Sunday in Orchard Park the 1-0 Buffalo Bills host the 1-0 New England Patriots. The marquee matchup in that game will be the 16th meeting between a Rex Ryan defense and a Tom Brady led offense. While Brady’s Patriots have won 11 of the previous 15 meetings, the QB’s statistics against Ryan’s defenses are lower than his average numbers. I do not hide my feelings for Rex: I consider him an evil genius.

So, what has he done to Brady in the past and can he duplicate that success in Buffalo?

Under Pressure

The main element Ryan uses against Brady is pressure. Many pundits believe that the way to slow down the Patriots’ quarterback is to attack the A Gaps, getting pressure in the signal-caller’s face quickly. While this has worked against Brady, it tends to work against all quarterbacks. Therefore, interior pressure is just one element Ryan uses. There are three core concepts that the coach uses to attack TB12: A Gap pressure, overloads, and late shifts.

A Gap Pressure

In the first meeting between the Jets and Patriots in 2014, Ryan’s defense attacks Brady through the interior. The Patriots are clinging to a one-point lead early in the fourth quarter, and facing 2nd and 10 at the New York 46-yard line. Brady is in the shotgun with 11 offensive personnel on the field against the Jets’ base 3-4 defense. Notice the width of the defensive front ‒ this is something we will address shortly:

Defensive ends Sheldon Richardson (#91) and Muhammad Wilkerson (#96) each line up in a 5 technique on the outside shoulder of the offensive tackles. Both outside linebackers, Calvin Pace (#97) and Jason Babin (#58) also line up on the line of scrimmage, well outside the tackle box. Inside linebacker David Harris (#52) is stacked behind the nose tackle, while fellow ILB Demario Davis (#56) lines up behind Wilkerson, staggered to the outside.

Davis is coming on the blitz, right through the A-Gap:

Left guard Jordan Devey (#65) is so preoccupied with the width of the defense ‒ you can see him gesturing to the outside pre-snap ‒ that he ignores the ILB and his A-Gap responsibility. Both he and left tackle Nate Solder widen at the snap, and Davis has a free shot at the quarterback. Brady is forced to dump the ball quickly to Rob Gronkowski, and the play goes for just a five-yard gain.

Last week in Buffalo, Ryan’s Bills defense also attacked Andrew Luck through the A Gap. Early in the second quarter the Colts face a 2nd and 7 on their own 22-yard line. Luck stands in the shotgun and sees Buffalo’s 4-2-5 nickel across from him, and they are indicating double A Gap Blitz:

Inside linebackers Preston Brown (#52) and Nigel Bradham (#53) line up in the A Gaps, while defensive tackles Stefan Charles (#96) and Corbin Bryant (#97) are positioned in the B Gaps, using 3 technique. On the edges, both defensive ends, Jerry Hughes (#55) and Mario Williams (#94), use a wide-9 alignment.

Again, the defense uses width to create the illusion of danger on the edges. But the A Gap is the point of attack, and both Brown and Bradham are gonna blitz ‒ but they aren’t coming alone. Lurking just behind the six defenders is strong safety Aaron Williams. He’s gonna join this A Gap party too:

With this build-up, a sack seems inevitable:

Williams times his blitz perfectly, forming a trio with Bradham and Bryant that overloads the center and right guard. Two lineman cannot account for three rushing defenders, and the pocket quickly collapses in Luck’s face. The QB tries to climb the pocket, but Bryant and Bradham scrape off the mass of bodies to share in the bounty.

Bait And Width

Having touched on how Ryan uses width ‒ or the illusion of width ‒ to help create traffic in the A Gap, it is time to look at how the defensive genius has used wide defensive fronts and creative looks to generate pressure on the edges.

In Week 16 of 2014 the Patriots traveled to MetLife Stadium and again were given fits by the Jets and their defense. New England faces 3rd and 14, with Brady in the shotgun and 11 personnel in the game. The Jets have their 4-2-5 nickel defense on the field showing Cover 4 in the secondary:

Notice the width of the two defensive ends. At the top of the screen Pace is in a wide-9 alignment, far outside the right tackle, Sebastian Vollmer. On the opposite side, Babin is stationed beyond not only left tackle Nate Solder, but also tight end Rob Gronkowski, in a wing alignment. In addition the DT, Wilkerson is standing up in a two point stance, lined up on Vollmer’s inside shoulder:

Here’s what the defense does on this snap with the front six defenders:

Both Wilkerson and Pace drop into coverage, as well as ILB Harris. Babin and inside linebacker Davis run a cross stunt on the left side of the offense, meaning that out of the front six defenders, only three come after the QB.

But there’s a fourth who is coming:

Antonio Allen (#39) blitzes from his cornerback position, and he ties Davis in the race for who gets to hit Brady:

You can see from this angle that the Patriots slide their protection to the right before the snap. With Wilkerson and Pace both lingering on the outside, the offensive line is making sure to account for all the obvious threats. But because both defenders drop into coverage ‒ as does the linebacker on that side ‒ the Patriots end up with their center, right guard and right tackle blocking one defender while everything goes Armageddon on the other side: Here’s Buffalo last week, using the same concept to come after Luck. Early in the fourth quarter the Colts face 3rd and 10 in their own territory, and the Bills have their 3-2-6 dime defense in the game. This is the pre-snap defensive alignment:

Bradham lines up in wide-9 on the left edge, well outside both the LT and the TE. Mario Williams slides inside on this play, using a 4i technique to the inside shoulder of the LT. Brown is stationed in the A Gap between the C and RG.

And, well, look at that right side. DT Kyle Williams (#95) is in 9 technique outside the RT, while both Hughes and CB Ron Brooks (#33) are on the line of scrimmage, just to the outside of the huge defensive tackle.

Similar to the previous example, both Brown and Bradham drop into coverage, with only defensive back Nickell Robey (#37) blitzing from that edge. But Williams and the trio on the outside all attack the right side of the offensive line:

This time it’s Kyle WIlliams who forces Luck from the pocket. The QB tries to scramble but is pursued and brought down a sack. This still probably sums up how the pre-snap alignment and scheme impacted the OT ‒ check out LT Anthony Castonzo looking for someone to block:

Lining Up Late, Causing Chaos

Finally, Ryan likes his defenses to get into their alignment late in the play clock, delaying and/or preventing the OL from making the correct protection line calls. Disguising their intentions as long as possible breeds confusion when overloads and gap blitzes can come from anywhere.

Here is an example from the Week 16 meeting between the Jets and the Patriots. Brady and the offense face 3rd and 3 just inside New York territory, and the QB stands in shotgun with 11 personnel on the field. The Jets have their 4-2-5 defense on the field. Watch how the defense waits to get lined up until just before the snap, which leads to a sack of Brady from the outside off the edge:

Here are the Bills from last week against Luck and the Colts:

The defense continues to move and shift until just before the snap, and both Bryant and Mario Williams get pressure off the edge. The defenders both turnstile the left tackle, Costanzo. Luck is forced to get rid of the football quickly as Williams crashes in, and the pass falls incomplete.

When Brady and Ryan meet for the 16th time this Sunday, the quarterback and his team might very well emerge victorious. But as he has shown in the past, the defensive evil genius Rex Ryan has schemes to generate pressure on Brady. And as he showed last week, he’s got the same playbook in upstate New York as he did in the Big Apple.

Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkSchofield.

All video and images courtesy NFL Game Pass.

About the author

Mark Schofield Mark is a reformed lawyer who is excited to work on something more important than two insurance companies fighting over money: Football. He graduated from Wesleyan University where he was a four-year letter winner as a quarterback and situational wide receiver. He lives in Maryland with his wife and two children.  The Espanyol president, Joan Collet, has admitted that a deal is in place for Lucas Vázquez to return to Real Madrid.

"We have a verbal agreement with Real Madrid for Lucas, one which is positive for the club", Collet told reporters.

The 'Pericos' supremo did not volunteer the financial details of the transfer, but did say that the board believes it is a "good" deal for Espanyol considering "we could also lose him next year".

What Collet did reveal is a sell-on clause meaning that Espanyol will pocket 25% of any fee if Vázquez is subsequently bought by another club.

Real Madrid loaned Lucas to the Catalan outfit last summer in a deal including a purchase option, which Espanyol triggered at the beginning of June following a season in which the winger established himself as a key player at the Power8 Stadium. However, another clause allowed 'Los Blancos' to buy their academy graduate back; the decision to do so was taken with Rafa Benítez's approval and with one eye on the Champions League home-grown quota.  Every weekend, we pick a movie you can stream that dovetails with current events. Old, new, blockbuster, arthouse: They’re all fair game. What you can count on is a weekend watch that sheds new light on the week that was. The movie of the week for September 24 through 30 is Paris, Texas (1984), which is available to digitally rent on Amazon and iTunes.

Movie lovers have spent the week mourning Harry Dean Stanton, who died last weekend at the age of 91 after a long, fruitful career working with some of the world’s best directors. Many had finished watching him reprise the role of trailer park owner Carl Rodd in Showtime’s Twin Peaks: The Return. Many more are now anticipating the Friday, September 29, release of Lucky with a poignant sense of urgency; Vanity Fair has called the upcoming film — which boasts Stanton in the lead as a 90-year-old atheist experiencing a sort of reverse crisis of faith — “a thinly veiled glimpse into what is essentially Stanton’s own life.”

For the first few decades of his career, Stanton was always cast as a supporting character. But that all changed when he was 58, and Sam Shepard discovered Stanton in a crowded bar and gave him the lead role in the 1984 film Paris, Texas, one of the greatest American road movies ever made, written by Shepard and directed by Wim Wenders.

Paris, Texas is the sort of film you can’t shake after you watch it. Reviewing the film after its 1984 release, Roger Ebert called it a “story of loss upon loss” and referred to the “miracle” of Stanton’s performance, a standout among strong showings from his co-stars Nastassja Kinski and Hunter Carson. In the Guardian in 2015, Guy Lodge described Stanton’s turn as “permanently, ever-retrievably embedded in my sense memory.”

Stanton was exactly the right choice for the lead role, a man named Travis Henderson who up and wanders out of the desert one day after having been missing for years. The movie isn’t about the mystery of his reappearance, though — or at least not exactly. After being revived from his travels and examined by a doctor, Travis is reunited with his brother and sister-in-law, who adopted his son Hunter after the boy’s mother Jane (Kinski) also went missing.

Travis and Hunter eventually set off for Texas on a quest to find Jane, having lots of conversations along the way about both their own family and the bigger meaning of family and life. That makes Paris, Texas a road movie, the most quintessentially American genre of filmmaking and one that almost always concerns characters who are on the hunt for some version of paradise, whether it’s real or imagined. The genre is rooted deep in our national psyche, echoing decades of Westward expansion and the belief that the good life lies “out there,” somewhere. For Travis, that paradise is all Jane, a much younger and beautiful woman with whom he was, and still is, fantastically in love.

But like most road movies, Paris, Texas both is and isn’t a tragedy. Paradise is never what we’re expecting it to be, and the resulting disappointment inevitably changes those who embark on the quest to find it. Yet there remains a measure of goodness in how the trip, and its end, affects those who undertake it. In his aforementioned review of the film, Ebert wrote that Paris, Texas was “not for the desert and against the city,” like a Western might be, but “about a journey which leads from one to the other and ends in a form of happiness.”

And as its star, Stanton — with his long face and heartbreaking delivery — embodies that longing. He is a man who has loved and lost and lost again, a journeyer whose fate doesn’t ever really involve rest. It’s not a performance that tears up the screen, but rather sucks you in: You are Travis, and his journey is yours. At the end of that journey is something wonderful you can’t recapture, but that got you where you are today — something that simultaneously inspires both bitterness and joy.

Watch the trailer for Paris, Texas:  WARSAW (Reuters) - The Polish parliament gave preliminary approval on Friday to one-off payments of more than $1,000 for women who give birth to a disabled child, as part of a drive by the conservative government to cut the number of abortions.

The move follows mass protests that forced lawmakers of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party to withdraw their initial support in October for draft legislation that would have banned abortion in almost all cases.

Government representatives said the new benefit of 4,000 zlotys ($1,030) was intended to help families that decided to have an disabled child, and the first part of a wider program to be approved by the end of the year.

“This 4,000 zlotys is the first aid, the first step,” said Elzbieta Witek, head of the prime minister’s office.

“So far, no government has ever prepared a comprehensive package of support ... for women with pregnancies with complications.”

Many opposition lawmakers criticized the bill, arguing it was an ideologically-driven policy to reduce the number of abortions, and the planned payment very small in relation to the needs of families with disabled children.

Four thousand zlotys is roughly the average monthly wage in Poland.

“This is a kind of moral bribery for those families that have a dilemma, families who have a moral problem,” Lidia Gadek, a lawmaker from the centrist Civic Platform, told parliament.

During the parliamentary debate on the bill, PiS lawmaker

Piotr Uscinski lobbied for the $1,030 benefit to be extended to cases of children conceived from rape, but his proposal was not approved.

Traditionally Catholic Poland, where the church remains powerful, already has one of the most restrictive laws on abortion in the European Union.

Under a 1993 law that ended the liberal approach of the communist era, abortion is allowed in cases of rape, incest, danger to the mother’s health or when prenatal tests show serious and irreversible damage to the fetus.

That stands in sharp contrast with laws in Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, where a significant number of pregnancies end in abortions.  Comparison chart

Example 8k footage from the International Space Station (select "WebM source" from the menu to view).

8K resolution refers to any screen or display with around 8000 pixels width. 8K UHD, also known as Full UHD, FUHD, or Full Ultra HD is the current highest ultra high definition television (UHDTV) resolution in digital television, digital cinematography and digital signage. 8K in 8K UHD refers to the horizontal resolution of 7,680 pixels, forming the total image dimensions of (7680×4320), also known as 4320p, which refers to the vertical resolution.[1]

8K UHD has twice as many horizontal and twice as many vertical pixels as 4K UHD, as well as four times the linear resolution of 1080p (Full HD), and six times the linear resolution of 720p. 8K displays are able to produce images with such smooth gradients and high levels of sharpness that objects shown can appear even more realistic than in real world. This phenomenon is referred to as hyperrealism.[2]

High-resolution displays such as 8K allow for each pixel to be indistinguishable to the human eye when viewed at a typical distance from the screen.[citation needed] 8K resolution can also be used for the purpose of creating enhanced lower resolution videos through a combination of cropping techniques and/or with downsampling[3] techniques used in video and film editing. Resolutions such as 8K allows filmmakers to shoot in a high resolution with a wide lens or at a further distance, in the case of potentially dangerous subjects (such as in wildlife documentaries), by being able to zoom and crop digitally in post-production. The technique involves taking a portion of the original 8K image and cropping it to match a smaller resolution such as the current industry standard for high-definition televisions (4K, 1080p, and 720p).[4]

8K display resolution is the successor to 4K resolution. TV manufacturers pushed to make 4K a new standard by 2017.[5] The feasibility of a fast transition to this new standard is questionable in view of the absence of broadcasting resources.[6] It is predicted that 8K-ready devices will still only account for 3% of UHD TVs by 2023 with global sales of 11 million units a year.[7] However, TV manufacturers remain optimistic as the 4K market grew much faster than expected, with actual sales exceeding projections nearly 6-fold in 2016.[8]

As of 2018 , few cameras had the capability to shoot video in 8K, with NHK being one of the only companies to have created a small broadcasting camera with an 8K image sensor.[3] By 2018 Red Digital Cinema camera company had delivered three 8K cameras in both a Full Frame sensor and Super 35 sensor.[9] Until major content sources are available, 8K is speculated to become a mainstream consumer display resolution around 2023 as mentioned in UHD forum Phase-B recommendations.[citation needed] Despite this, filmmakers are pushing demand for 8K cameras due to their ability to capture better 4K footage.

History [ edit ]

Astro Design 8K camera being displayed at the 2013 NAB Show

Japan's public broadcaster NHK was the first to start research and development of 4320p resolution in 1995. The format was standardized by SMPTE in October 2007, Interface standardized by SMPTE in August 2010 and Recommended as the international standard for television by lTU-R in 2012. Followed by public displays at electronics shows and screenings of 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and public viewings in February 2014 and the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in June 2014 using HEVC with partners AstroDesign and Ikegami Electronics.[10][11][12]

On January 6, 2015, the MHL Consortium announced the release of the superMHL specification which will support 8K resolution at 120 fps, 48-bit video, the Rec. 2020 color space, high dynamic range support, a 32-pin reversible superMHL connector, and power charging of up to 40 watts.[13][14][15]

On March 1, 2016, The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) unveiled DisplayPort 1.4, a new format that lets the use of 8K resolution (7680×4320) at 60 Hz with HDRR and 32 audio channels through USB-C.[16]

On January 4, 2017, the HDMI Forum announced HDMI 2.1 featuring support for 8k video with HDR, will be "released early in Q2 2017".[17]

First cameras [ edit ]

On April 6, 2013, Astrodesign Inc. announced the AH-4800, capable of recording 8K resolution. In April 2015 it was announced by Red that their newly unveiled Red Weapon VV is also capable of recording 8K footage. In October 2016 they announced two additional 8K cameras, Red Weapon 8K S35 and Red Epic-W 8K S35.[18] The Red Weapon Dragon VV has been discontinued as of October 7, 2017 , when Red unveiled the Red Weapon Monstro VV, their fourth camera capable of shooting 8K, with additional improvements in dynamic range and noise reduction, among other features.

Productions [ edit ]

In 2007, the original 65 mm negative of the 1992 film Baraka was re-scanned at 8K with a film scanner built specifically for the job at FotoKem Laboratories, and used to remaster the 2008 Blu-ray release. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert described the Blu-ray release as "the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined."[19] A similar 8K scan/4K intermediate digital restoration of Lawrence of Arabia was made for Blu-ray and theatrical re-release during 2012 by Sony Pictures to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary.[20][21] According to Grover Crisp, executive VP of restoration at Sony Pictures, the new 8K scan has such high resolution that when examined, showed a series of fine concentric lines in a pattern "reminiscent of a fingerprint" near the top of the frame. This was caused by the film emulsion melting and cracking in the desert heat during production. Sony had to hire a third party to minimise or eliminate the rippling artifacts in the new restored version.[20]

On May 17, 2013, the Franklin Institute premiered To Space and Back, an 8K×8K, 60 fps, 3D video running approximately 25 minutes. During its first run at the Fels Planetarium it was played at 4K, 60 fps.[22]

In November 2013, NHK screened the experimental-drama short film "The Chorus" at Tokyo Film Festival which was filmed in 8k and 22.2 sound format.[23]

On May 1, 2015, an 8K abstract computer animation was screened at the Filmatic Festival at the University of California, San Diego. The work was created as an assignment in the VIS 40/ICAM 40 Introduction to Computing in the Arts class taught at UCSD by Associate Teaching Professor Brett Stalbaum during the winter quarter of 2015, with each student producing 300 8192×4800 pixel frames. The work's music soundtrack was composed by Mark Matamoros.[24][25]

On January 6, 2016, director James Gunn stated that the 2017 film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 would be the first (feature) film to be shot in 8K, using the Red Weapon 8K VV.[26] Villain (2017) is the first Indian film to be shot completely in 8K resolution.

Broadcasting [ edit ]

Japanese public broadcaster NHK began research and development on 8K in 1995, having spent over $1 billion on R & D since then.[27] Codenamed Super Hi-Vision (named after its old Hi-Vision analog HDTV system), NHK also was simultaneously working on the development of 22.2 channel surround sound audio. The world's first 8K television was unveiled by Sharp at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2012.[28] Experimental transmissions of the resolution were tested with the 2012 Summer Olympics, and at the Cannes Film Festival showcasing Beauties À La Carte, a 27-minute short showcased publicly on a 220" screen, with a three-year roadmap that entails the launch of 8K test broadcasting in 2016, with plans to roll out full 8K services by 2018, and in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics.[29] On December 1, 2018, NHK launched BS8K, a broadcast channel with 8K capability.[30][31]

Resolutions [ edit ]

comparison of 8K resolutions Resolution Display aspect ratio Megapixels 7680 × 2160 3. 55 :1 (32:9) 7680 × 3200 2.40:1 (24:10) 7680 × 3240 2. 370 :1 (64:27) 7680 × 4320 1. 77 :1 (16:9) 8192 × 4320 ≈1.90∶1 (256∶135) 8192 × 5120 1.60:1 (16:10) 8192 × 8192 1.00:1 (1:1) 67.11

comparison of 4320p resolutions Resolution Display aspect ratio Megapixels 15360 × 4320 3. 55 :1 (32:9) 10368 × 4320 2.40:1 (24:10) 10240 × 4320 2. 370 :1 (64:27) 8640 × 4320 2.00:1 (18:9) 8192 × 4320 ≈1.90∶1 (256∶135) 7680 × 4320 1. 77 :1 (16:9) 6912 × 4320 1.60:1 (16:10) 29.86

8K UHD is a resolution of 7680 × 4320 (33.2 megapixels) and is one of the two resolutions of ultra high definition television, the other being 4K UHD.[32] In 2013, a transmission network's capability to carry HDTV resolution was limited by internet speeds and relied on satellite broadcast to transmit the high data rates. The demand is expected to drive the adoption of video compression standards and to place significant pressure on physical communication networks in the near future.[33]

8K UHD has four times the horizontal and vertical resolution of the 1080p HDTV format, with sixteen times as many pixels overall.

8K fulldome [ edit ]

This chart shows the proportional scale differences from 1080p (1920×1080 pixels) to 8K×8K fulldome video.

8K fulldome is a resolution of 8192×8192 (67.1 megapixels) and is the resolution of top-end modern projection for hemispherical fulldome theatres often seen in planetaria.[citation needed]

Devices [ edit ]

TVs and monitors [ edit ]

Cameras [ edit ]

Sony CineAlta F65, Unveiled on September 7, 2011

Astrodesign AH-4800, 1.7-inch CMOS camera capable of recording in 8K resolution. Unveiled by on April 6, 2013.

RED Weapon Vista Vision 35MM 8K (8192×4320) at 60 fps in full-sensor mode, or up to 75 fps in a scope (2.40:1) frame format. The camera has a x 21.6mm sensor based on the previous generation Dragon sensor. Unveiled at NAB 2015, released end of 2015.

RED DSMC2 Helium with an S35MM 8K 29.9 × 15.77mm (Diagonal: mm) 35.4 Megapixel CMOS sensor—up to 60 fps at 8K Full Format (8192 × 4320) & 75 fps at 8K 2.4:1 (8192 x 3456) with a dynamic range of 16.5+ stops; limited release July 2016, general release October 2016.

RED Epic-W with an S35MM 8K 29.9 × 15.77mm 35.4 Megapixel CMOS Helium sensor—up to 30 fps at 8K Full Format (8192 × 4320) with a dynamic range of 16.5+ stops; release date: October 2016.

RED DSMC2 Monstro 8K VV [44] mm x mm (Diagonal: mm) 35.4 Megapixel CMOS "wider than full frame" Monstro sensor—up to 60 fps at 8K Full Format (8192 × 4320) & 75 fps at 8K 2.4:1 (8192 x 3456) with a dynamic range of 17+ stops; release date: October 2017.

mm x mm (Diagonal: mm) 35.4 Megapixel CMOS "wider than full frame" Monstro sensor—up to 60 fps at 8K Full Format (8192 × 4320) & 75 fps at 8K 2.4:1 (8192 x 3456) with a dynamic range of 17+ stops; release date: October 2017. Ikegami S35MM SHK-810 8K broadcast camera. Unveiled at NAB 2015.

Hitachi S35MM SK-UHD8060 broadcast camera Unveiled at NAB 2015.

Canon Cinema EOS System S35MM 8K camera. Unveiled September, 2015.

Panavision DXL 35MM 8K 60fps and HDR Digital Cinematography Camera (Vista Vision Sensor). May 2016

Sharp S35MM 8C-B60A 8K Professional broadcast Camcorder [45] Nov 2017

Nov 2017 Cinemartin Fran 8K VV Global Shutter, announced on 8 May 2018, starting sales in fall 2018.

Fulldome [ edit ]

Definiti 8K theaters, 8192×8192 resolution (apu)

See also [ edit ]

4K resolution – digital video formats with a horizontal resolution of around 4000 pixels

5K resolution – digital video formats with a horizontal resolution of around 5000 pixels, aimed at non-television computer monitor usage

10K resolution – digital video formats with a horizontal resolution of around 10,000 pixels, aimed at non-television computer monitor usage

16K resolution – experimental VR format

Ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) – digital video formats with resolutions of 4K (3840×2160) and 8K (7680×4320)

Rec. 2020 – ITU-R Recommendation for UHDTV

References [ edit ]  Did he or didn't he mean it? The debate that has gripped Premier League fans is over, as it's been revealed by Charlie Adam that his Stoke City team-mate, Xherdan Shaqiri, fluked his lob over Tim Howard.

Sportsmail's columnists Jamie Redknapp and Martin Keown have both had their say on the incident, with neither able to agree.

Redknapp doesn't feel Shaqiri meant it and described the finish as 'lucky,' while Keown believes it was a 'sublime piece of skill.'

Stoke City Xherdan Shaqiri lobbed Tim Howard on Saturday but it's been revealed as a fluke

Shaqiri struck an effort on the half-volley that cleared Howard's head and dropped under the cross bar

Charlie Adam spoke to talkSPORT and admitted to them that the Switzerland international didn't mean it

The 24-year-old was played through by Bojan during the first half at Goodison Park and left the Toffees goalkeeper stranded in no man's land as he looped the ball into net with a first-time finish from a tough angle.

Many have debated if the Switzerland international meant to do it or whether he was trying to find Marko Arnautovic in the box.

But Adam, who is known for a spectacular goal, confirmed Shaqiri spoke to him after the game, and admitted he was trying to pass.

He told talkSPORT: 'No, no way he meant it, I asked him after the game and he said he was trying to cross it for Marko in the middle and it was lucky.

'It looks a great finish but I'm delighted for him because over the last few weeks he's been playing well but just needing the goals and he got two there at the weekend.

Spaniard Bojan found the run of his team-mate with a 40-yard ball over the top of the Everton defence

Shaqiri struck the ball first time on the half-volley and watched the ball sail over Howard's head

While it was an excellent finish, it has been revealed that Shaqiri was trying to pass to Arnautovic

'So that'll settle him down now and he'll look forward to the rest of the season and hopefully he'll get a few more and a few assists.'

Stoke manager Mark Hughes waded into the debate and joked that the club's record-signing should have kept quiet about the reveal but still praised the quality of his finish.

'I'd like to think he meant it - although unfortunately I heard Charlie Adam on the radio saying Shaq told him he didn't! I would have kept quiet myself,' Hughes told reporters.

'Irrespective of whether he meant it or not, it was still a fantastic goal. But you shouldn't really doubt Shaq because he has the ability to do something like that.'  Avalanche captain Adam Foote will be staying around for at least one more season.

The Avs will announce later today that Foote has agreed to a new, one-year contract for the 2010-11 season.

Foote, who turns 39 in July, would play his 19th NHL season.

“Adam’s veteran leadership has been, and will continue to be, a big part of our success,” Avs general manager Greg Sherman said in. “He provided stability last season and set an example for our young players right from the start of training camp. We are pleased to have our captain back for another year.”

He had a solid 2009-10 season, and said he wished to return.

Foote will receive a base salary of $1 million, but will have a number of incentives as part of the deal that could at least double that amount. He made $million with Colorado in 2009-10.

He was a plus-8 in 67 games for the Avs, with no goals and nine assists.

Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360 or [email protected] and twitter.com/adater  With the Super Bowl behind us, the offseason's well and truly begun. Joel Corry went into some of the most important dates this offseason for CBS Sports, and I picked out a few that are particularly relevant for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

February 10

$million of Drew Brees' $million becomes guaranteed, as well as Jairus Byrd's $7.4 million salary and Dannell Ellerbe's $4.1 million salary. Those are massive cap hits for the New Orleans Saints -- and that could prompt them to release Byrd, who might actually be a decent fit for the Bucs to add depth at free safety, and Ellerbe.

February 16

Teams can start using the franchise tag to retain players. This will likely take most of the top free agents off the market, including Alshon Jeffery, Von Miller, Josh Norman and Muhammad Wilkerson. The Bucs might use the tag on Doug Martin, but are more likely to re-sign him to a long-term contract.

February 23-29

The NFL scouting combine. The most public aspect is athletic testing, but the most relevant parts are the interviews, medical tests and contract meetings between teams and agents.

March 1

Franchise tag deadline.

March 4

Chiefs edge rusher Tamba Hali becomes a free agent, unless the Chiefs sign him to an extension. Browns center Alex Mack can also void the final three years of his contract allowing him to hit free agency, and possibly join his old offensive line coach in Tampa.

March 7-9

Negotiating period for free agents until 4:00 p.m. ET on March 9. No contracts can be signed, but agreements can be reached with agents.

March 9

Start of the new league year at 4:00 p.m. ET, which also comes with the official start of free agency as well as the opening of the trading window.

March 10-13

A lot of contracts feature the guaranteeing of salaries on these dates, forcing teams to decide on their players at the start of free agency. Some samples: Dolphins tight end Jordan Cameron's 2016 salary, Bucs defensive tackle Gerald McCoy's 2017 salary, Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib's 2016 salary, Jets receiver Brandon Marshall's 2016 salary, Dolphins center Mike Pouncey's 2016 salary, Bucs linebacker Lavonte David's 2016 salary.

April 28-30

2016 NFL Draft!  With the draft just one day away and with a major trade going down, ESPN's draft gurus Mel Kiper & Todd McShay have both released updated versions of their mock drafts.

2013 NFL mock draft central For tons more mock drafts from the NFL's best experts be sure to check out our mock draft central

For the Eagles, Kiper has a bit of a surprise with QB Geno Smith going at #4. However, he notes that he's projecting the player to the team moreso than where it actually happens.

"More inclined to believe they'll trade up from their Round 2 pick to get him later in Round 1, but can't reflect that here," he wrote.

McShay did not provide explanations this time around but he's clearly got a run on offensive tackles at the top with Joeckel & Fisher going 1-2 and the Eagles grabbing Lane Johnson with the #4. While I wouldn't be shocked to see the Eagles grab Johnson in that spot, I would think a trade down would be the most likely scenario should the draft fall like this. With the two top guys off the board, OT hungry teams like Arizona, Miami & San DIego could start a bidding war for the right to take Johnson at #4 and the Eagles could benefit.

Pick Team Mel Kiper Todd McShay 1 Kansas City Chiefs Luke Joeckel, OT, Texas A&M Luke Joeckel, OT, Texas A&M 2 Jacksonville Jaguars Ezekiel Ansah, DE, BYU Eric Fisher, OT, Central Michigan 3 Oakland Raiders Sharrif Floyd, DT, Florida Sharrif Floyd, DT, Florida 4 Philadelphia Eagles Geno Smith, QB, West Virginia Lane Johnson, LT, Oklahoma 5 Detroit Lions Dee Milliner, CB, Alabama Ezekiel Ansah, DE, BYU 6 Cleveland Browns Dion Jordan, OLB/DE, Oregon Tyler Eifert, TE, Notre Dame 7 Arizona Cardinals Eric Fisher, OT, Central Michigan Dion Jordan, OLB/DE, Oregon 8 Buffalo Bills Johnathan Cooper, G, North Carolina Ryan Nassib, QB, Syracuse 9 New York Jets Barkevious Mingo, OLB/DE, LSU Barkevious Mingo, OLB/DE, LSU 10 Tennessee Titans Star Lotulelei, DT, Utah Dee Milliner, CB, Alabama 11 San Diego Chargers Lane Johnson, LT, Oklahoma Johnathan Cooper, G, North Carolina 12 Miami Dolphins D.J. Fluker, OT, Alabama Chance Warmack, G, Alabama 13 New York Jets (from TB) Chance Warmack, G, Alabama Tavon Austin, WR, West Virginia 14 Carolina Panthers Sheldon Richardson, DT, Missouri Star Lotulelei, DT, Utah 15 New Orleans Saints Jarvis Jones, OLB, Georgia D.J. Fluker, OT, Alabama 16 St. Louis Rams Tavon Austin, WR, West Virginia Kenny Vaccaro, S, Texas 17 Pittsburgh Steelers Tyler Eifert, TE, Notre Dame Jarvis Jones, OLB, Georgia 18 Dallas Cowboys Sylvester Williams, DT, North Carolina Sheldon Richardson, DT, Missouri 19 New York Giants Desmond Trufant, CB, Washington D.J. Hayden, CB, Houston 20 Chicago Bears Manti Te'o, MLB, Notre Dame Alec Ogletree, LB, Georgia 21 Cincinnati Bengals Alec Ogletree, LB, Georgia Cordarrelle Patterson, WR, Tennessee 22 St Louis Rams (from WAS) Kenny Vaccaro, S, Texas Eddie Lacy, RB, Alabama 23 Minnesota Vikings Cordarrelle Patterson, WR, Tennessee Sylvester Williams, DT, North Carolina 24 Indianapolis Colts Xavier Rhodes, CB, Florida State Xavier Rhodes, CB, Florida State 25 Minnesota Vikings (from SEA) Kevin Minter, MLB, LSU Manti Te'o, MLB, Notre Dame 26 Green Bay Packers Eddie Lacy, RB, Alabama Matt Elam, S, Florida 27 Houston Texans Robert Woods, WR, USC Justin Hunter, WR, Tennessee 28 Denver Broncos D.J. Hayden, CB, Houston Bjoern Werner, DE, Florida State 29 New England Patriots Justin Hunter, WR, Tennessee Datone Jones, DE, UCLA 30 Atlanta Falcons Kyle Long, OL, Oregon Justin Pugh, OT, Syracuse 31 San Francisco 49ers Margus Hunt, DE, SMU Zach Ertz, TE, Stanford 32 Baltimore Ravens Johnathan Cyprien, S, Florida International Eric Reid, S, LSU

More from Bleeding Green Nation

Fearless predictions for the 2013 NFL draft

E.J. Manuel says Eagles "Want me bad"

Rumor: Eagles looking to move down and target Austin or Mingo

Final 7 round mock draft

Chip Kelly likes Nick Foles more than Geno Smith  One week after traveling to Mississippi to do his utmost to help Senator Thad Cochran (R) beat Tea Party rival Chris McDaniel, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) talked about the strengths he saw in Cochran’s approach to campaigning.

According to AZ Central, McCain dismissed criticism over the tactics the Republican Establishment used to get black Democrats to cross over and vote for Cochran.

Said McCain, “There are some people complaining that African-American voters voted. [But] I thought one of the major priorities of the Republican Party was to get all minority and ethnic voters out to vote for Republicans.”

He described Cochran’s “get-out-the-vote campaign” as “excellent,” then talked about how he will face similar circumstances in Arizona and needs to work equally as hard if he runs again. “The key is you’d better pay attention, you’d better work hard, you’d better organize.” He added, “And you’d better understand that there’s a strong anti-Washington/anti-incumbency sentiment out there, which is justified and you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at [email protected].  It was over a year ago that the lights went out at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The embattled government department was buried in the newly formed Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, raising fears within the low-carbon economy that green growth would slide off the agenda under the Conservative Government, according to The Telegraph.

Instead, the energy industry’s position at the center of the department neatly reflects its central role in the Government’s plans to boost industrial productivity.

In the coming week, the Government’s clean growth plan will bring together a kaleidoscope of closely inter-related sectors through the prism of economic productivity. And the pattern that emerges will be decidedly green. The plan will have its roots in low-carbon power, but its boughs will extend into the wider economy and the Government’s industrial strategy.

The far-reaching ambitions are immediately necessary to avoid falling short of legally-binding pledges enshrined in the 2008 Climate Change Act. But they are also strategic in the long term: by keeping green growth at the heart of an industrial strategy, ministers believe the benefit will ripple across the economy and clear the way for a sustainable future.

The aim of the industrial strategy is to rebalance the economy by driving growth in the areas where the UK has potential to become a world-leading exporter of skills and technology.

Claire Perry, the Climate Change Minister, was tight-lipped at the Tory party conference about what to expect when the strategy paper is published in the coming weeks. But unlike the industrial strategy of the Seventies, it’s not about picking winners, she said. Instead it will align industries with the power to boost Britain’s flagging earning power. These areas will need to build on government funding and bring in private investment. They will also need to “outlast the vagaries of the political cycle”.

She none the less hinted at a potential return for carbon capture and storage (CCS) — technology that fell from favor two years ago as the Government scrapped its £1 billion competition for developers able to trap and store the carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The Government is reimagining the technology in an industrial context with far broader implications for industry and energy. A clean, green British industry is vital for the UK’s plans to meet its carbon reduction objectives. By clustering CCS projects in areas, such as Teesside in the North East of England, factories will be able to work together to strip harmful carbon dioxide from their emissions, which can then be piped into permanent storage under the seabed.

The aim of the industrial strategy is to drive growth in areas where the UK could be a world-leading exporter

CCS also presents one of the more affordable means of tackling another major area of carbon emissions for the UK: its heating. Switching the gas grid to run on hydrogen rather than carbon-rich methane could slash emissions from heating with minimal investment needed to upgrade the country’s existing pipeline network.  RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The young athlete, now competing at the Rio Games, always considered herself to be a girl just like the others, a girl who loved to run. Then the governing body of track and field told her she was different, so different that her track career could be over.

Marked "confidential" and signed "best sporting regards," the letter outlined a choice for the athlete: Open herself up to a panel of medical experts who could recommend surgery or chemical treatment to reduce her testosterone levels, or stop competing.

She had fallen foul of the International Association of Athletics Federations' rules aimed at providing a fair playing field for women by keeping out athletes with high testosterone, a naturally occurring strength-building hormone.

Writing to the man who ran track and field in the athlete's country, the IAAF's medical director at the time explained that blood and urine tests detected testosterone levels that were "abnormally high" for a woman. The suspected cause, wrote Dr. Gabriel Dolle, wasn't doping but another hot-button issue in athletics that is likely to flare in this final week of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics: hyperandrogenism.

Had the athlete not been a runner, she might never have known of her condition. It was flagged by the IAAF's tests that look for banned drugs. She was stunned and uncomprehending when told that her testosterone pointed to hyperandrogenism, her then-coach told The Associated Press.

"She couldn't understand. It was shock," the coach said. "I said, 'You're not alone. There are others.'"

Thus started a months-long process of medical scrutiny, trips to foreign clinics for batteries of tests, and potentially life-changing choices shrouded in medical secrecy that makes it hard to investigate the IAAF's treatment of hyperandrogenic women.

The AP will not name the athlete, the country she is competing for or give details, including racing achievements, that could help identify her. In messages with the AP, she said she is focusing on competition and that her story is "personal and private."

The IAAF letter and the exclusive AP interview with her former coach, who was intimately involved in her eventual decision to agree to testosterone-curbing treatment, shed unprecedented light on the inner workings of the IAAF process that at least 14 women have gone through.

Another athlete has become the unwilling face of this complex and excruciatingly sensitive issue. Caster Semenya will race in Rio and likely win gold in the 800 meters. Believed to be hyperandrogenic, outed as physiologically different without her consent when she won the world championship 800 in 2009, the South African's dominance has again pushed to the fore divisive questions about whether allowing women to compete with testosterone levels far above the female norm is fair and whether the hormone's attributed performance-enhancing effects are significantly greater than other natural gifts, like height for basketball players or big feet for swimmers.

Semenya first races Wednesday.

It is not publicly known how many hyperandrogenic women are competing in Rio. But a study published in 2014 by Dolle and other medical experts calculated that seven out of 1,000 elite female athletes may be hyperandrogenic, 140 times higher than expected among the general population. Hyperandrogenism is a medical condition which causes a person to produce high levels of hormones and can be caused by differences in sexual development.

Having not withstood a legal challenge brought by another female athlete at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the IAAF regulations are now on hold, suspended by the CAS since July 2015. That means hyperandrogenic women can compete in Rio without having to artificially control their testosterone levels.

The CAS case was brought by Dutee Chand, an Indian sprinter who challenged the rules after she was suspended, and who, like Semenya, saw intimate medical details become fodder for public debate.

"God wanted to bring a change (in the rules) through me," Chand told AP before competing in 100-meter qualifying on Friday. Speaking as fast as she runs, her nails painted red and black studs in her ears, the petite sprinter said she has put her ordeal behind her, is relishing the Olympic experience and longs to meet Usain Bolt.

"By the time I came to know about my problems, the issue already was out in the open," the 20-year-old said. "Everyone supported me. I don't worry about what has happened in the past."

The coach who spoke to AP praised Chand's resistance against the IAAF rules, saying: "Thank goodness that there were courageous people who protested."

The AP will not identify the coach to avoid identifying the athlete. As her confidant during the process, the coach was involved in her decision-making, including choosing hormone therapy instead of surgery to lower her testosterone. The IAAF letter says the coach was present during a meeting with a federation representative when a follow-up sample was taken from the athlete to confirm the diagnosis of hyperandrogenism.

The IAAF letter explaining the medical process facing the athlete was provided to AP by a former federation representative who was involved in the implementation of the hyperandrogenism regulations. The governing body introduced them in 2011 after the furor that followed Semenya's world title in Berlin. There was widespread criticism of track officials' handling of her case, including leaking without her consent that she had undergone sex testing. "I have been subjected to unwarranted and invasive scrutiny of the most intimate and private details of my being," Semenya subsequently complained.

The AP's source said the IAAF regulations were ensnaring athletes from developing countries with little education or the financial means to contest the rules, and forcing them to either accept medical treatment or stop competing. The AP is not naming the former federation official because he wasn't authorized to release the letter.

During the IAAF process, the athlete could not compete. The coach explained her absence by lying that she was injured.

The first IAAF-requested tests to determine the exact nature of her condition required a trip to another nation's capital, where she was met by Dolle. That was followed by two trips to a clinic in Nice, France, all paid for by the IAAF, the coach said.

The first Nice trip was accompanied but the second, lasting over a week, was not because the IAAF did not want to pay for someone to go with her, said the coach.  A tentative three-year area standards agreement has been reached between The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts (IATSE), and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), IATSE announced May 5. The agreement will last from August 1, 2015, through July 31, 2018. Full details are not being publicly disclosed at this time.

The contract, which “addresses a number of matters and provides stability and certainty for the producers, as well as important terms and conditions for IATSE members” will cover most of the United States outside of LA and New York. Of note, the agreement includes the first ever contributions to the IATSE Entertainment and Exhibition Industries Training Trust Fund. All of the more than 100,000 workers covered by the contract will receive safety training funded by the trust.

This agreement follows a recent deal reached between IATSE and AMPTP governing pay standards for Hollywood locals. That agreement was reported to be roughly in line with deals negotiated earlier with the DGA, WGA and SAG-AFTRA.  Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina delivered a personal and revealing speech from the Senate floor Wednesday — saying he has personally faced racial discrimination from police, including being pulled over seven times in one year by cops.

“I want to go to a time in my life when I was an elected official and share just a couple of stories as an elected official. But please remember that in the course of one year, I’ve been stopped seven times by law enforcement officers. Not four, not five, not six, but seven times in one year as an elected official,” said Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate.

“Was I speeding sometimes? Sure. But the vast majority of the time, I was pulled over for nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or some other reason just as trivial.”

Scott explained that he has been pulled over by cops who believe he’s driving a stolen car and by a cop who trailed him for several turns, only to pull him over and claim he failed to use his turn signal on one of the turns.

Even as a member of Congress, he’s been singled out by law enforcement.

“I recall walking into an office building just last year after being here for five years on the Capitol. And the officer looked at me with a little attitude and said, ‘The pin I know, you I don’t, show me your ID,'” Scott said, referring to a pin that members of Congress wear to allow them to skip screening when entering the US Capitol complex.

That night Scott received a call from Capitol Police.

“Mr. President, that is at least the third phone call that I’ve received from a supervisor or the chief of police since I’ve been in the Senate,” he said.

Scott said his experience is not unique to him — far from it. “I do not know many African-American men who do not have a very similar story to tell — no matter their profession, no matter their income, no matter their disposition in life,” he said.

“Imagine the frustration, the irritation, the sense of a loss of dignity that accompanies each of those stops,” he said.

Scott’s stunning speech comes amid a national outcry over violence directed at police officers — and violence perpetrated by officers.  Three Nutrition and Food Science students will take to a major international stage in July, showcasing their ingenious recipe for a gelato made from pulses.The team of Austen Neil, Chandre Van De Merwe and Nicolle Mah placed second at the national competition for Mission ImPULSEible in February, with a scrumptious yet nutritious treat called BiotaGelata. Made with fermented white beans and kidney beans as its milky base, it dazzles the taste buds in four different flavours — maple walnut, passion fruit, dark chocolate and cassis.Only the first place winners were scheduled to get an all-expenses-paid trip to Chicago for the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo to showcase their innovative food product, courtesy of the competition sponsor Pulse Canada as it marks the International Year of Pulses with this extra benefit for 2016.But the judges were so impressed by the flavours, textures and novel concept behind the students’ gelato that the provincial industry body, Alberta Pulse , decided to provide support for this team to attend, too.“This is the students’ chance to make contacts in the industry as well as potentially find a company or food processor who might be interested in their innovative pulse product,” Debra McLennan, food and nutrition coordinator at Alberta Pulse.Indeed, the event is one of the largest food expos in the world, where more than 20,000 attendees from the food industry can view and taste new products, including this unusual product — which is officially titled a “gelata” because gelatos contain real milk.The ALES students were intent on creating something that didn’t just add pulses to existing food but actually used them in a manner not tackled before, said Neil.The team also took to heart the advice of Lech Ozimeck , its academic advisor, who told them that sometimes the best idea is to simply replace a singular ingredient and do it well.They decided to replace regular milk with beans fermented for several hours as the gelato’s base.“The fermentation process worked to break down the volatile beany compounds and turned the bean milk into a liquid that tasted like yogurt,” said Neil.In addition to being packed with the nutrients of pulses (which include fibre and protein, high levels of iron, zinc and phosphorus, and B-vitamins such as folate) the gelato has the potential to appeal to a whole new customer segment — those seeking dairy-free foods.It also met the challenge set for this year’s competition, which was to create a delicious and healthy food product using pulses (whole dry peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas) that exhibits an innovation in traditional foods, in order to celebrate the International Year of Pulses.Recently, ALES food science students have had a terrific track record with the Mission IMPULSEible competition that’s now in its ninth year.In 2014, a team from ALES won the $2,500 national prize with Pulse Pops, a frozen treat consisting of chickpeas, peanut butter and soy nuts, wrapped with black bean and cacoa and rolled in chocolate and coconut. In 2011, another nationally winning team from the faculty developed gluten-free pulse chips.  Wilt Chamberlain famously claimed to have slept with 20,000 women throughout his life … but that ain’t nothing to Scott Steiner, because Big Poppa Pump claims to have slept with 15K in one year.

Steiner took part in a media conference call on Wednesday to promote Impact Wrestling‘s upcoming Slammiversary PPV and the 54-year-old covered a whole host of topics.

Editor-in-Chief Ryan Satin was on the call and chose to speak with Scott about one of the approved topics, “Freaks Around the World” — asking how many Steiner possesses.

That’s when the wrestler made a bold claim.

“Back in 1998-1999, I broke Wilt Chamberlain’s record with 15,000 women.” Adding, “I always thought that even though it’s not listed in the Book of World Records, I was a fan of Wilt Chamberlain and that was one world record I tried to break. In 1999, I broke it.”

For those doing the math, that would mean Steiner slept with about 41 women a day.

The full audio is available via WrestleZone’s channel on Eric Bischoff’s IRWNetwork.com as part of the latest episode of WZ Daily. For now though, check out the clip below.  Introduction

Sometimes we like to watch cool starting and ends of videos (like the heart touching ending), but after a time those could become repetitive and boring. Also, if you are just starting to watch a series recommended by others, those extra 5 minutes could be saved to watch next video and progress quickly. In this tutorial, I wish to tackle that problem. Since I love mplayer/smplayer for playing most videos, I am not going to deviate from those lines. Therefore, I am going to use mpv (mpv is a fork of mplayer2 and MPlayer) for our purpose.

Commands

a. Start at a specific time

$ mpv --start=80 <file-name>

Here we skipped 80 seconds of the video. Similarly there are options like 01:10:00 to seek 1 hour 10 minutes, 50% to start playing at middle.

b. If you know the length you can use

$ mpv --start=3:20 --length=10 <file-name>

This seeks to 3 minutes 20 seconds and only plays 10 seconds of the video. You can see all of these examples in mpv manual (man mpv).

c. Specifying end

$ mpv --start=30 --end=40 <file-name>

In this case video seeks to 30 seconds and ends at 40 seconds. i.e plays for 10 seconds.

d. Specifying end from end

$ mpv --start=80 --end=-90 <file-name>

In this case video seeks to 80 seconds at the beginning and ends 1 minutes 30 seconds from end. In my opinion this use case is suitable for our purpose. If we can figure out roughly when the videos in the series start and roughly when the videos end, we can specify the section, in the middle which we are going to watch (i.e waste least amount of time for those starting and endings).

Playing a series

One file does not make a series. i.e we need to play a lot of files. Thankfully in most cases most of our videos are listed sequentially in a directory. We can just use wild card character (*) with our extension to play all the videos.

$ mpv --start=80 --end=-90 *.mp4

Or we can also use this command (we are listing each file in this case, but the end result is same)

find . -name "*.mkv" -exec mpv --start=80 --end=-90 {} \;

This command will play all the files in current directory with our start and end time specified on each. However, not always we sit and watch the whole series. Let’s say you have already watched first 20 videos on this directory and you want to watch the rest. In that case, we need to create a playlist and delete the part we have already watched (or don’t want to watch). To create a playlist using files in current directory use this command.

$ find -maxdepth 1 -type f -name \*.\* | sort > playlist.pls

Open up the “playlist.pls” file in your favorite text editor and delete the lines you don’t want to watch. If your use case is little complex (nested directories), search how to create playlist for mplayer (they are just one file name with path per line).

Now to play the files

$ mpv --start=80 --end=-90 --playlist=playlist.pls

Note: If it starts playing at random number (this might be the error only in my case), use the mpv interface to set to the first file. Also make sure to comment save-position-on-quit=”yes” option in ~/.mpv/config file (if you had set one and if videos are not playing at specific time). If it still does not work, make sure to delete all the files inside ~/.mpv/watch_later directory.

Conclusion

I hope you will find these commands useful for watching your favorite shows (of course if you have legal offline copies) 🙂

References

Advertisements  Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at the White House. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Ivanka Trump, the president's eldest daughter, and her husband, Jared Kushner, both top advisers to the president, are reportedly attempting to limit their responsibilities in the White House amid legal and logistical concerns about their expansive, sometimes undefined roles.

Associates of the couple, both of whom were heavily involved in President Donald Trump's campaign and the early months of the administration, are narrowing their focus to their official portfolios, which remain significant, Axios reported Monday.

For Ivanka, this includes efforts related to boosting employment, passing paid family leave legislation and a child-care tax credit, STEM education, and a World Bank fund for women entrepreneurs in developing countries. She told the Financial Times in September that she has been advised to remain "laser-focused" on her policy goals, and said that she "will not be distracted by the noise" of politics.

Kushner is tasked with helping lead the Middle East peace process, policy related to NAFTA, and the White House Office of American Innovation, among other projects.

One colleague told Axios that the couple is deferring more to White House chief of staff John Kelly, who took over from Reince Priebus in August. Kelly has reportedly expressed frustrations about Kushner's relatively undefined role and is implementing more discipline in the West Wing.

"They understand now that they don't have to take on those responsibilities," the source said. "Now there are proper channels, and they're just doing what they're supposed to be doing."

While the pair remains two of the president's closest confidantes, sources say the couple never planned to stay in Washington for the entirety of Trump's first term, and have faced intense scrutiny from Democrats and the media.

Kushner was questioned by Congress about his contacts with Russian officials during the presidential campaign and is a subject of special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Trump has repeatedly lamented the criticism his daughter faces, telling her, "Baby, you're getting killed, this is a bad deal," Politico reported last week.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in the habit of referring to the couple as the "royal family," Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, told clients following the UN General Assembly. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon reportedly referred to the couple as "Javanka."

Some White House aides reportedly refer to Ivanka as "princess royal," according to an August Vanity Fair report.  This article is about the novel. For the film loosely based off the novel, see Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Censored Roger Rabbit? is a mystery novel written by Gary K. Wolf in 1981. It was later adapted by Disney and Amblin Entertainment into the critically acclaimed 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Plot [ edit ]

Eddie Valiant is a hardboiled private eye, and Roger Rabbit is a second banana comic strip character. The rabbit hires Valiant to find out why his employers, the DeGreasy Brothers (Rocco and Dominic) who are owners of a cartoon syndicate, have reneged on a promise to give Roger his own strip and potentially sell his contract to a mystery buyer. Evidence shows that there was no mystery buyer and the reason Roger Rabbit remained in a secondary role was because of his lack of talent. Soon after, Roger is mysteriously murdered in his home. His speech balloon, found on the crime scene, indicates his murder was a way of "censoring" the star, who apparently had just heard someone explain the source of his success. Valiant's search for the killer takes him to a variety of suspects which includes: Roger's widow Jessica Rabbit; Roger's former co-star Baby Herman and Roger's photographer Carol Masters. Eddie Valiant then meets a doppelgänger of Roger's and promises to solve the mystery of his death. At the same time, his former boss Rocco DeGreasy was also murdered and witnesses point out Roger as the killer, as he was allegedly seen fleeing the scene of the crime.

While Eddie Valiant investigates, the key suspects ask him to be on the lookout for a certain kettle in exchange for a reward. He eventually finds the kettle which was in Roger's possession and gives it to Dominic, only to find it was actually a magic lamp with a Genie, who then kills Dominic. After the Genie explains its origins (as well as the reasons for its actions) and confesses to being the one who shot Roger (he granted the unwitting Roger his first two wishes — marriage to Jessica and a comic-strip contract — but made sure both wishes fell apart within a year, out of sheer nastiness. When Roger accidentally activated the lantern a third time, the Genie killed him), Eddie Valiant defeats the Genie before holding the Genie hostage over a salt-water fish tank; salt water being its weakness. The Genie is then forced to grant a wish made by Eddie for proof of Roger's innocence which is provided in the form of a suicide letter from Dominic confessing to both Roger and Rocco DeGreasy's murders along with his own suicide. Not trusting the Genie to keep its word of letting him go and also knowing that no one would believe him about the Genie, Eddie drops the Genie's lamp into the fish tank as the salt water dissolves the Genie to nothing.

With the murderer gone now, there is but one issue left to solve: Who really killed Rocco DeGreasy? Eddie Valiant finally concludes that the murderer was the original Roger Rabbit himself, who created the doppelganger to create an alibi and murdered Rocco for stealing Jessica. He intended to plant the murder weapon at Eddie Valiant's office to make him the fall guy but was shot by the Genie when he accidentally summoned it. The doppelganger confirms the truth and confesses that he "had it planned for days". However, for clearing his name and befriending him despite what he did and tried to do afterwards, he praises Eddie for his morals (calling him "a real stand-up guy"). Roger gives Eddie a final heartfelt goodbye before disappearing.

Edition differences [ edit ]

The different covers used for the book give different impressions. The first is darker in tone and only shows a shadowed Roger from the back, while Valiant's face is unshaven. It focused on the two in a close-up with a black background. A later edition showed a cleanshaven Valiant while Roger's face was brightly shown. It was panned out and showed the city during day in the background. It also showed a speech bubble coming from Roger saying "Help! I'm stuck in a mystery of double-crossers, steamy broads, and killer cream pies." Both show author Gary K. Wolf modeling as Valiant.

Comparison to the film adaptation [ edit ]

Although the book features many of the same characters used in the film, some of their characteristics, as well as the basic plot, are significantly different. The novel is set in the present day and in a strange universe in which real humans and cartoon characters co-exist. The cartoons of the novel are primarily comic strip characters, as opposed to animated cartoon stars, with famous strip characters making cameos, such as Dick Tracy, Snoopy, Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead, Beetle Bailey, and Hägar the Horrible.[3] Strips are produced by photographing cartoon characters. In this version, "toon" characters speak in word balloons which appear above their heads as they talk.[4] Although some characters have learned to suppress this and speak vocally, the use of word balloons forms several important plot points.

In the book, the toons have the power to create duplicates of themselves as stunt doubles for risky shots. They crumble to dust in a few minutes, though Roger does create one that can last three days. When Roger is shot and killed by an unknown assailant, his doppelgänger works with the detective to solve his murder before he goes to dust. In the film, toons are more or less unkillable — except by "dip" — and, with a few exceptions, shrug off even the worst injuries.

The only lines of dialogue from the book that were re-used in the film were spoken by Baby Herman and Jessica Rabbit with Baby Herman saying "I've got a 50-year-old lust and a 3-year-old dinky" and Jessica Rabbit saying "I'm not bad, Mr. Valiant. I'm just drawn that way", though in the book, Baby Herman's actual age is given as 36.

Comparison to the spin-off [ edit ]

In 1991, Wolf wrote another Roger Rabbit book, Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?, but (in the form of a memo from Valiant) the book says that Roger Rabbit "and his screwball buddies play fast and loose with historical accuracy", which means that the stories do not have much continuity between each other.[4] There is no connection between this novel and the first one, with the exception of Jessica mentioning having a dream containing the events of the first novel, retconning such as just a dream. In fact, the second book attempts to connect itself more with the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit than to the first book.[need quotation to verify]  DETROIT -- Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said Saturday night that he has no knowledge of defenseman Andreas Lilja returning next week from a concussion that has idled him since Feb. 28 of last year.



Red Wings TV analyst Mickey Redmond said during Saturday's telecast on Fox Sports Net that Lilja could return next week. This was news to Holland, who last spoke to Lilja on Tuesday and was told nothing had changed. Lilja also said Thursday in Minnesota that he was not close to returning.



"Nothing has changed,'' Holland said. "I'm not aware of that (Redmond's comment). He (Lilja) has good days and bad days. Nobody has said anything to me that he's getting close.''



Lilja has been practicing with the team for months but continues to experience headaches. He must be symptom-free for an extended period of time before being cleared to play, Holland said.



  On the 29th of November, atop the stage of the OGN eStadium, the quarterfinals of the '2017 LoL KeSPA Cup Round 2' took place. Against the Griffins, SKT T1 took the victory with a score of 2-1.



On the very first set, SKT demonstrated plays that were superior to the Griffins. However, on the 2nd set, the Griffins took the win after a 62-minute game. And on the 3rd and final set, after exchanging brutal blows with each other, SKT slowly closed out the series.



After the match, at the stadium, our team ran into an opportunity to speak with someone very special, a former SKT player that had returned to the organization as a coach.

SKT T1's coach, Bengi



How do you feel after your first victory as a coach?



I knew ahead of time that the Griffins were a strong team. They, however, were even stronger than that I have imagined. The series became a long one as a result of it.





Before the match, what kind of advice did you give the players?



I'm still an inexperienced coach, so I couldn't give them any special advice.





What triggered your decision to return to Korea as a coach?



I was taking a break after returning from China. Then, kkOma called for me, and I responded. That's how I became a coach.





Along with the coaching staff, the player roster also saw a change. How will it affect the team's playstyle?



I don't think there will be a big change in playstyle. We made a couple of mistakes during today's series, but if we work towards fixing those issues, I believe that we'll become far stronger.





As a former champion, what were your thoughts when watching SKT T1 during the 2017 World Championship?



I was impressed by SSG when I saw how strong they were while watching the Finals. I'm especially impressed by Ambition... he's older than I am, but he's still showing fantastic performance...





You experienced the LPL first hand. What's the difference between the LPL and LCK?



There really isn't a big difference.



The meta shifts a lot faster in the LPL and the other regions when compared to Korea.





Please tell us your goals as a coach.



I will be with SKT for a year. I will make sure to put in the effort to do my best during that period. Please cheer for me.





Any final words for the fans?



Initially, I didn't have any plans to become a coach. But somehow, I ended up becoming one. I also feel sorry for the fans that were rooting for me to return as a player. I'm really disappointed that I let them down.  "The arrested persons are suspected of being involved in the clandestine smuggling of a large number of irregular migrants into and within the European Union," Europe-wide police agency Europol said Wednesday from its headquarters in The Hague.

The smuggling network specialized in bringing in migrants from the Middle East, especially Libya, Iraq and Syria, mainly through Turkey and the western Balkans, Europol added.

"They were often smuggled in inhuman and dangerous conditions, such as in very small hidden compartments in the floors of buses and trucks, in freight trains or in boats," the agency said.

According to police, migrants sometimes died en route, including one incident when 16 drowned in the river Tisza near the Hungarian-Serbian border in 2009.

Organization 'significantly disrupted'

More than 1,200 police searched 117 houses simultaneously, with officials confiscating a large number of mobile phones, laptops, and bank statements, as well as a semi-automatic rifle with a large amount of ammunition and over 176,500 euros ($240,000) in cash.

Police in Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and Kosovo made the early-morning arrests.

"We significantly disrupted this main organization," said Nicholas Dove, the head of the organized crime unit of the European Union's Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo.

"This is not a cash on delivery business, this is a cash up front business," said Dove. "Some people who were let down ended up in places where they didn't intend to be."

"Then there's the knock-on effect of people being illegally in countries in Western Europe with no status here. How do they exist? They get involved in street crime. This is hugely damaging to human beings but also to society and the economy," added Dove.

Officials said about 20 members of the organization remained unknown, but pledged to track them down as well.

dr/kms (Reuters, AFP)  Ecological Debt Day (or Earth Overshoot Day), is the day of the year when our consumption of the Earth’s finite resources exceeds the planet’s ability to regenerate those resources in a given year. We just hit it on August 20th. So for the rest of the year we will be operating in the red – borrowing against our future ability to provide for our basic needs.

This, by the way, is the earliest Ecological Debt Day on record. The trend is clear:

Year Overshoot Date 1987 December 19 1990 December 7 1995 November 21 2000 November 1 2005 October 20 2008 September 23 2010 August 21 2013 August 20

The date is calculated by the following formula:

(World Biocapacity/World Ecological Footprint) x 365 = Ecological Debt Day

This trend shows exactly how disharmonious civilization on Earth has become (and how quickly). It only takes the simplest of common senses to see that we can’t keep this up and survive for long as a species.

Our civilization as we know it is propped up and maintained by a systematic education that trains us to serve it at all costs. To turn this trend around, we need a massive movement of grass roots re-education. Modern technology has enabled us to do this with unprecedented efficiency.

The (re)focus must be on the basic ethic that guides the way we design our systems. It is our critical responsibility to design these systems to serve the well-being of future generations.

Current education largely promotes a two-dimensional concept of human evolution. Growth is a line on a chart. So we press for more and more, a higher number and an upward arrow. It is a very basic tenet of our upbringing in the ‘developed’ world.

Nature, however, does not evolve two-dimensionally. It is a system not driven by quantity, but of quality. Its value system is based on energy efficiency. A species that cannot adapt its efficiency is simply replaced.

Our re-education must regard Nature as the great Teacher. It does not operate as a large linear system, but rather as an infinite number of small, cyclical systems that function interdependently. Survival is rooted in an ability to create mutually beneficial relationships. There are no exceptions to this basic law of Nature.

Up to now, humanity has clearly not created this mutually beneficial relationship required by nature to survive. If we fail to do so, the outcome is unquestionable.

We use a lot of resources trying to reform large systems – trying to turn a big lines into big circles. This does not produce the desired effect because it is inefficient. True energy efficiency is achieved by following nature – evolving small, circular and interdependent systems that one by one shrink that giant line into nonexistence.

TVP

Advertisements  A Peshmerga guard scans the horizon at one of the frontlines. Photo: Rudaw



In the space of a few months Amnesty International has issued two reports condemning the conduct of Kurds in both Syria and Iraq in their war against the Islamic State (ISIS). Both of which accuse the Kurds of essentially displacing Arab populations in order to shift the demographics in their favour under the fog of war against ISIS.



The first took aim at the Syrian Kurds accusing them of purposely displacing Arabs in a bid to consolidate their own autonomy at their expense. This followed Ankara’s accusations in the summer of 2015 that Syrian Kurds were committing a form of ethnic cleansing in Gire Spi (Tal Abyad) when they displaced approximately 20,000 of the town’s residents when they ousted ISIS from there. However it’s important to remember that the Kurds themselves were essentially ethnically cleansed from that town a mere two years beforehand by Jabhat al-Nusra who put out a fatwa against them and encouraged people to steal their property and enslave their women and children. The Syrian Kurds can no doubt be forgiven for being paranoid that in the Arab towns they may come under attack from either sleeper cells or sympathizers of the group. This hasn’t, however, stopped them from cooperating with and assisting Arab, Assyrian or Turkmen groups in the areas where their forces are fighting against ISIS nor have they sought to fundamentally shift the demographics by forcing out minorities. If anything they have striven to showcase the fact that they are building up their area to be a safe haven for minorities who face either displacement or death were ISIS to prevail over the Syrian Kurds on the battle-field.



This certainly doesn’t mean that the Syrian Kurds are perfect. But considering the circumstances and nature of this struggle they have performed admirably well. As have the armed force of the Kurdistan Region, the Peshmerga.



The Kurdistan Region is swollen with internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled violence from elsewhere in Iraq since the rise of ISIS. The region has sheltered an enormous 1.8 million of them and the Peshmerga are the only force who is guaranteeing their safety. The destruction of some empty previously ISIS-occupied Arab villages on the front-lines has self-evidently been borne out of necessity and prudence more than anything else.



“Back in September I embedded with the Peshmerga during a battle around Kirkuk,” journalist Benedetta Argentieri told Rudaw, “ISIS decided not to fight the Kurds, instead they put IEDs [improvised explosive device] on all the roads around and booby-trapped each house in the several villages that Peshmerga were trying to get back from the jihadi. As I was told by several sources ISIS employs this military technique very often.”



“Instead of sending EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] teams to clear the area,” she continued, “the Peshmerga decided to tear down the houses. It was primarily a security concern, since you can’t be a hundred percent sure the area has been cleared. Also with little resources, Peshmerga are trying to preserve men as much as possible.”



“I was very surprised to read the Amnesty report on this issue, since it seems it didn’t really take into account the obvious security concerns about repopulation certain areas,” she concluded.



The depopulated IED-laden villages bulldozed by the Peshmerga are along the front-lines, where incidentally it’s estimated the majority of Peshmerga’s casualties were caused by the lethal IED’s ISIS has strewn across the landscape. A protracted effort to defuse all the IEDs with limited equipment and resources and risk losing more military personnel while not holding onto those villages (many of which are in areas Iraq also claims sovereignty over) would be wholly untenable for obvious reasons. This has proven to be the unfortunate price that has to be paid by this costly war of attrition.



Amnesty’s reports and more general investigations into the conduct of the Kurds engaged in this war are certainly necessary as it’s important to assess the conduct of an armed force in a time of war, even if they are engaged against a reprehensible enemy which takes pride in showcasing its many war crimes and crimes against humanity. However the absence of any suggestion of an alternative course of action for the Kurds to take in their war against ISIS is disheartening and does little more than place an unnecessarily large blot on the Peshmerga’s earnest efforts to fight this dirty war as cleanly as they feasibly can.



Paul Iddon is a Rudaw reporter based in Erbil, Kurdistan Region.



The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.  Earlier this week, America watched transfixed as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read a letter from a little boy who called himself Pickle:

She then tweeted a pic of the letter:

Dylan aka Pickle thank you for your letter and hope to meet you soon! pic.twitter.com/XZlJARZ9cs — Sarah Huckabee (@SarahHuckabee) July 26, 2017

Cute. Seems like a nice kid. Not everything has to be awful all the time, right?

But then, because it’s 2017, we began to hear from Pickle Truthers. “Who is this kid? Does he even exist? How can this letter be real? Can any handwriting experts verify that this wasn’t written by Trump himself? How could anybody actually like him?” Etc.

Democracy Dies in Darkness, which is why Monica Hesse at the Washington Post felt duty bound to shine a light on this matter of utmost import. And she has uncovered the startling truth: Pickle Lives!

SueAnn Harbin’s younger son had come home from school during the presidential race last year and announced that he liked Trump. His third-grade class in Stockton, Calif., was holding a mock election, so they were learning about the candidates. He liked that Trump had the same name as his friend Donald. He liked the candidate’s suits. He Googled “Donald Trump” and learned about all the hotels he owned around the world, and that seemed exciting to him.

His name was Dylan. When he was a baby, his older brother started calling him Dyl-Pickle, and eventually the Dyl dropped away.

So, we found Pickle. He is real, definitely real. He likes watching baseball and playing on his scooter and Donald Trump.

Whew!

Jeff Bezos just overtook Bill Gates as the richest man in the whole wide world, and this is one of the benefits of such staggering wealth. He’s got so much dough, he can afford to pay people to track down little kids who write letters to the President of the United States, just in case it’s all some sort of trick.

That’s what the pros call journalism.

Glad we got that sorted out. But is it really such a shock that a lot of little kids like Trump? He’s a walking cartoon character. This new Stephen Colbert animated Trump series is redundant.  Spread the love











Sorrento, Louisiana police chief Earl Theriot pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting an unconscious woman and then lying about it to the FBI.

Sadly, the court seemed more concerned about his lying to the FBI, than the actual assault that took place.

Theriot managed to escape jail time, while taking just a $2,500 fine and 2 years probation. This sentence is more lenient than a small marijuana possession charge in most states.

Theriot believes that the “embarrassment” that him and his family have faced as a result of the scandal, and the loss of his job, is fair punishment for the crimes that he committed.

“It’s a matter that cost me my law enforcement career and brought embarrassment to my family and town of Sorrento,” Theriot said in court after the sentencing, according to WAFB9.

In court, Theriot apologized to his family and to the city, but did not apologize to the victim.

While on duty last November, Theriot received a call about an unresponsive woman who was passed out at a gas station. Theriot responded to the call, placed the woman in the passenger seat of his patrol car and took her to his office.

On the way to his office, Theriot stopped at a liquor store and picked up a bottle of vodka, which he intended to share with the woman. While in his car, he admitted to groping the woman and violating her while she was unconscious.

When they arrived at the police station, Theriot carried the woman into his office and tied her to a chair with a belt. He then admits to removing he clothes and forcing her to perform sexual acts while she was barely conscious. Theriot then left the woman tied to the chair in his office while he attended a meeting in another part of the building.

While locked in the room, the woman was able to call her boyfriend for help. When her boyfriend arrived at the police department, Theriot casually handed the man a half empty bottle of vodka and allowed his girlfriend to walk out of the office disheveled with her clothes torn off.

After the encounter, Theriot continued to call the woman to harass her, and ask her to get together with him again. Theriot has only faced criminal charges for later lying to the FBI about the encounter, so the victim is currently pursuing a civil lawsuit against him.

John Vibes is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war. In addition to his writing and activist work he is also the owner of a successful music promotion company. In 2013, he became one of the organizers of the Free Your Mind Conference, which features top caliber speakers and whistle-blowers from all over the world. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. You can find his 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” at bookpatch.com.  0 Olympic gold medal stolen while family eats dinner in Atlanta

ATLANTA - An Olympic athlete whose gold medal was stolen in a car break-in Monday night is asking the thief to do the right thing and return the medal.



Joe Jacobi and his family were having dinner at La Fonda on Howell Mill Road.

When he returned to his car, he saw the window had been broken and quickly discovered something close to him had been taken -- the gold medal he won for white water canoe slalom in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

The thief also took Jacobi’s laptop, journal and other possessions. Those were later found in a bag near a dumpster at an apartment complex in downtown Atlanta, but the medal was not with them.

“When I won the medal 24 years ago, I knew it didn't belong in a safety deposit box,” Jacobi said. “It belonged out with me sharing with people. It belongs to people to touch, hold and formulate their own Olympic dream."



Jacobi travels with his Olympic medal and a DVD of the event in which he earned the achievement.



Channel 2 employee Kimberly Richardson was at the scene and spoke to witnesses who said they saw the robbery and took a picture of the car in which the robbers were driving, along with the car's license plate.

Molly Edwards was another smash-and-grab victim at the La Fonda.

She told Richardson that someone stole items from her Jeep that belonged to her friend, Michael Warner.

Jacobi said he was humbled and grateful for the many messages he received from both friends and strangers after they learned the medal was taken.



"To see all the messages that came back out way and to see how many people felt it was very special -- you instantly saw the goodness and kindness of the Olympic spirit that we remember so well,” Jacobi said.



An Olympic gold medal is of course worth much more than its weight in gold, but the amount of gold in the medal is not very much.



Jacobi says whoever took the medal should return it and show their Olympic spirit.



“In the midst of this bad choice, there's an opportunity to make a good one,” Jacobi said. “Someone has this medal they can return not to me but to us.”

Jacobi says whoever took the medal can return it in the mail to Nantahala Outdoor Center where he works.

More information can be found at noc.com.

© 2019 Cox Media Group.  Body of Irish worker killed in hit and run tossed in New York Medical Examiner's van along with bags of TRASH



Kevin Bell, 26, from Newry, County Down, was found early on Sunday

He was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital



Eyewitness: He lay down down in road before being hit by at least one car

Killed: Kevin Bell, 26, from Ireland died on Sunday morning

The body of an Irish worker killed in a hit and run accident in New York was tossed in to the city's Medical Examiner’s Office van next to bags of recyclable bottles.

Kevin Bell, 26, from Newry, County Down, was found in the Bronx district early on Sunday morning and was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital.

A photo emerged of Mr Bell's body being put in the van next to the recycling has compounded his family and friends' distress.

'I can’t begin to think of how the suffering must be for his parents at the moment,' friend Joe Crilly, 55 told the New York Post.



Marielly Ramos, 33, who was driving on East 233rd near Oneida Avenue saw Bell being killed after she pulled over to try and help him.



She was horrified at how his body was being treated: 'They throw him in a car full of garbage? It’s upsetting. He’s somebody’s child. You wouldn’t even do that to an animal.’'

She told the website that she saw Mr Bell, who was in American to do summer work, stumbling across the road.

He then lay down down in the middle of the road before being hit by at least one car, she claimed.



His friends have now organised a quiz to help raise funds to bring his body home.

Dominic Bradley MLA told the BBC : 'Kevin's parents, brothers, sisters, family circle and friends are devastated and heartbroken at the news of his death in a hit and run incident in New York.



'Kevin was an exceptional young man who brought joy and happiness to his family and to all who knew him. He had a great sense of fun and it was a pleasure to be in his company as anyone who knew him will testify,' he said.



Efforts: His friends have now organised a quiz to help raise funds to bring his body home











  No-deposit home loans hit election campaign trail

Updated

The Northern Territory Government has partnered with lender TIO to allow people to borrow up to $750,000 dollars to buy a home without paying a deposit or mortgage insurance.

The My New Home scheme is one of two new programs unveiled in the lead-up to next month's election to help people buy property.

The other, Homestart Extra, allows low-income earners to borrow more money from the Government in exchange for a share of equity in their property.

Treasurer Delia Lawrie says the schemes are designed to reduce rental pressure in the Top End and increase the number of properties on the market.

"These products are deliberately designed to be stimulus," she said.

"My New Home is for new construction, for buildings that haven't been occupied or sold."

Ms Lawrie says it will help people buy a home if they can't save for a deposit.

"This will give them a way through to home ownership," she said.

"This is a product that backs the Territorian to benefit out of the strong Territory economy."

Opposition spokesman John Elferink says a lack of land releases is what has kept people out of the housing market.

"Now we have a Labor Government pretending that they have the solution when in actual fact they were the problem," he said.

"It is a scheme designed not to get people into the housing market, it is a scheme designed to get a Labor government elected."

TIO says it expects a 15 per cent increase in construction loans linked to the schemes.

Chief executive officer Richard Harding says default rates in the Territory are very low and he does not expect that to change because of the new programs.

Master Builders Association executive director Graeme Kemp says the new programs will help developers by giving people easier access to housing finance.

"We have got a market in the Territory of around about 1000, give or take, new starts every year," he said.

"We have currently got a log-jam where people can't get off the rental merry-go-round.

"What this is going to do is free up that log-jam."

The Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory has called on the Government to release more land to make its new scheme work.

Chief executive officer Quentin Kilian says the initiative will encourage people to get into the housing market.

"The Government then must play its role and ensure that there is adequate supply," he said.

"We are not just talking about greenfields development; keep it going further out.

"We need to come back and also look at inner city developments, and say to developers, let's cut the red tape, let's allow for inner-city development."



Topics: elections, housing, housing-industry, darwin-0800, nt

First post  NVIDIA has had some solid Black Friday deals in past years, and this one is no different. Later this week, you'll be able to get $50 off the price of the SHIELD Android TV, plus a free remote worth $50. The catch? The first round of deals is only available if you brave the crowds.

Starting on Thanksgiving, the $50 discount and free remote deal will be live at Best Buy, Fry's GameStop, and Micro Center. Of course, most stores won't be open until late that day or early the next for the shopping rush, but the deal will run through Saturday. NVIDIA tells us that this is an in-store only deal, but the landing page doesn't mention it. Weird. So that's phase one. Starting on Cyber Monday, the same deal will be available online via NVIDIA's store, Amazon, NCIX, and Newegg.

This deal is valid on the regular and Pro versions of the device. So, that's $150 for the 16GB SHIELD and $250 for the SHIELD Pro. They already come with a controller by default, so you'll have everything you need.  A protester outside an October hearing supports Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

On Friday, Brandon Ambrosino penned a thoughtful essay in the Atlantic contending that opposition to gay marriage doesn’t necessarily signify homophobia. Ambrosino’s argument runs in a few different directions, but it’s essentially a riff on the old saw “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Ambrosino claims that “gayness is not the most fundamental aspect of my identity” and that opponents of gay marriage can still make a good-hearted “distinction between Brandon and Gay Brandon,” loving the former while disapproving of the latter. This is an interesting point. It is also incorrect.

The primary problem with this kind of argument is that as easily as it can be trussed up in calls for tolerance, patience, and humanism, it can also be ripped to shreds by one simple question: Can a person oppose equal rights for gay people and not be, in some fundamental way, a homophobe? The answer seems to me to be a pretty obvious no. Opposition to gay marriage isn’t just some abstract principle with little practical effect. It’s a harmful belief with real-world consequences, and it has contributed immeasurable pain, sorrow, and suffering to the lives of gay people throughout history. To oppose gay marriage is to help prevent loving couples from visiting each other in the hospital, from raising a child together, from enjoying the most basic facets of a fulfilling life. And just as perniciously, in the words of the Supreme Court, opposition to marriage equality “humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples” by telling them their parents don’t deserve the dignity and respect afforded to straight couples. Those who oppose gay marriage drive the laws that inflict this daily humiliation unto gay couples and their children. That, put simply, is homophobia.

A classic analog will throw this point into even sharper relief. It would be odd, even risible, to argue that opposition to interracial marriage didn’t hinge on racism. Imagine Ambrosino’s arguments transposed to that context: Would anyone in 2013 seriously argue that we should separate one’s race from one’s broader self? That because race “is not the most fundamental aspect” of one’s identity, opposing legal recognition of interracial marriages is somehow not malicious? Of course not; such an argument is clearly intellectually untenable. The only reason the argument holds any water in the gay marriage context is because on some level, most gay marriage opponents refuse to see homosexuality as an intrinsic aspect of one’s identity. Rather than view homosexuality as something you are, these people view it as something you do—a disordered behavior, perhaps one that can be cured. Such warped logic can make Ambrosino’s argument seem airtight, so long as one accepts that deeply homophobic premise at the outset.

Yet it’s worth stripping away the fallacies from Ambrosino’s claim to examine what I take to be his broader point: that name-calling and vilification do no good for the gay rights movement. Calling a gay marriage opponent a bigot with hateful beliefs only provides his side with more fodder to claim that equality proponents are the true intolerant bullies. After years of traumatic victimization, the impulse to be brutally frank with equality opponents is certainly tempting. But the path to change is through understanding and equanimity, not animus and anger. Just because somebody is a homophobe doesn’t mean you have to call him that. And doing so will only spur him to dig in his heels.

Ambrosino, whose father is a devout Christian pastor, grasps this fact—which is good, because it’s the only issue that matters in the whole debate. Rounding someone up to a homophobe is just a matter of labeling; convincing him to change his mind is a matter of vital importance to the gay rights movement. (Just ask Rob Portman.) Proponents of equality reached 2013’s dizzying heights only after years of painstaking patience and calm perseverance, and that is the only strategy that will win over the remaining holdouts. We don’t need to prove to gay marriage opponents that their beliefs are hateful. We need only prove that their beliefs are wrong.  Podiatry in Sports: Warriors’ Harrison Barnes sidelined with high ankle sprain

Golden State Warriors starting forward Harrison Barnes could potentially be out of the lineup for an extended period of time after sustaining a high ankle sprain in the third quarter of a 135-116 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Nov. 27.

“He’s being evaluated today. We haven’t gotten the results back yet,” interim head coach Luke Walton told the San Jose Mercury News before Saturday’s game against the Sacramento Kings. “It’s all speculation. It could be a few weeks. It could be a week.

“We’re not going to rush him back because we want to be healthy for later in the season and we don’t want lingering injures, so we’ll have him take his time.”

Barnes, 23, is Golden State’s third-leading scorer and is averaging 13.4 points and 5.0 rebounds in 17 games this season.

At Delray Beach Podiatry, Dr. Ian S. Goldbaum, a podiatric physician and surgeon with over 30 years of experience, has studied the workings of the ankle throughout his lengthy tenure in medicine and believes that Barnes could be sidelined for multiple weeks based on the information currently available.

According to Dr. Goldbaum, when a high ankle sprain occur there is the potential for several structures to be damaged. These include the syndesmotic ligaments that connect the tibia to the fibula, as well as a tissue known as the interosseous membrane.

High ankle sprains are described as high because they are located above the ankle. They are caused by an outward twisting of the foot and ankle and comprise approximately 15% of all ankle sprains.

The severity of this injury often depends on how many of these structures are damaged and recovery times can vary from a few weeks to a few months.

High ankle sprains are graded on a scale of 1–3 based on their severity:

Grade 1 (Mild): In mild cases, the ligaments are somewhat stretched, resulting in joint stiffness, muscle weakness or tightness with reduced balance and joint awareness. It takes approximately six weeks for ligaments to heal from a Grade 1 sprain.

Grade 2 (Moderate): In moderate cases, there is significant ligament stretching and sometimes partial tearing. It is far more painful than a mild sprain and can make it difficult to walk. A recovery time of 6 to 12 weeks can be expected.

Grade 3 (Severe): In severe cases, the ligament can completely rupture. There is severe swelling, extensive bruising, and immense pain felt with a Grade 3 sprain. In most cases, a patient will need a screw inserted into their ankle to stabilize the area while it heals. A recovery time of 3 to 6 months can be expected.

As of right now, the San Francisco Gate is reporting that the Warriors plan to re-evaluate Barnes’ ankle Sunday, meaning he’s guaranteed to miss at least Wednesday’s game at Charlotte and Saturday’s at Toronto.

The question is, however, how much longer will he be out beyond that?

Given that Barnes’ initial x-rays came back negative, it’s more than likely that he is suffering from a Grade 1 sprain, which means it could take as much as six weeks for the damaged ligaments to fully heal.

While six weeks may seem like a long time to sit out with an ankle sprain, it’s worth noting that New Orleans Pelicans backup point guard Norris Cole suffered a high ankle sprain on Oct. 11 during a routine practice and didn’t return to action until Dec. 1.

—

Follow Delray Beach Podiatry on Twitter @Delray_Podiatry

The content on this website is for informational purposes only. Do not rely or act upon information from www.DelrayBeachPodiatry.com without seeking professional medical advice. If you live in South Florida and would like a consultation with Dr. Ian Goldbaum, a podiatric physician and surgeon with over 30 years of experience, please see our contact information below:

BOCA/DELRAY

16244 S. Military Trail #290, Delray Beach, FL 33445

561-499-0033

BOYNTON BEACH

8198 Jog Road #100, Boynton Beach, FL 33472

  There's another report to consider when it comes to the never-ending debate over how to fund public transit in Toronto.

A new report by the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario suggests charging transit users based on how far they ride.

It's not a new idea — the TTC used to charge extra for riders who crossed old city boundaries — but the authors of the report say it's one idea that could help finance transit improvements.

"Drivers can't pick up all of the share. Transit riders have to dig a little deeper into their pockets," said Andy Manahan, executive director of the alliance.

The report also outlines a number of other revenue tools that could be used: new parking charges, tolls and a regional fuel tax.

Incoming Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said Tuesday a change will be coming, at some point.

"I have said it's not whether we are going to create a revenue stream, I have said it's which of those tools we will use."

But the subject of additional taxes of any kind to pay for Toronto's transit system is seldom a political vote-getter.

Both driver and transit users seemed united on Tuesday that increasing taxes, or fares, would be unpopular political moves.

Karen Stintz, chair of the TTC, says the commission will look at the idea of charging riders based on distances travelled, but only on future expansion projects.

"If there is any discussion of zoned fares it's separate and apart form funding transit. Expansion needs to be funded by all three levels of government, not by the riders," she said.  High-stakes blackjack player Don Johnson recently walked away from Atlantic City casinos $15 million richer over a five month period. Before taxes, that is. A resident of Pennsylvania, he’s now well-aware how the Garden State’s jock tax leaves a large chunk of those winnings in the state’s coffers:

[Johnson] said the state’s reaction to his winning spree could put a chill on high-roller betting in New Jersey. He said he’s being told to pay New Jersey income taxes on his winnings even though he has never lived, owned property or done business there.

“That would be a precedent that might just kill off New Jersey gaming,” he said. “I can’t imagine any big player going there knowing that if he does hit them big, he might have a tax liability to them even though he’s paying taxes in his home state.”

He said he was being asked to pay under a provision tied to the introduction of gambling in New Jersey in the 1970s.

“It made sense when you had no other states surrounding New Jersey that had gaming,” he said. “Now you have all these competitors involved. It becomes a nightmare for a player who wins big and plays in multiple states. He has to figure out what his P&L is in every state. It’s ridiculous.”

Johnson explained further.

“Let’s say you won $1 million in New Jersey for the year, but you lost $2 million between Pennsylvania and Vegas. You had an overall net loss of $1 million. You lost money for the year, but the state of New Jersey may still come after you to try to require you to pay for what you won from them. That’s where this doesn’t work. The math doesn’t work on that.”  You’re looking at it. The Fiesta ST200. The name reflects its power output in PS. It has 10 percent more power and 20 percent more torque than the regular ST.True, but this one also has more overboost, 15 seconds of it. That’s 215PS (212bhp) and 236lb ft when it has its dander up. Try to imagine a circumstance when you have the throttle pinned for 15 uninterrupted seconds except on an autobahn. If you lift for so much as a gearshift, the clock starts again. So it’s a 212bhp engine, end of.It is, but the ST200 has another trick. The final drive is shorter. That’s equivalent to another six percent punch in each gear. Though you have to shift up sooner.Lively. Second gear is pretty hectic, and by 55mph you’ve hit the strict 6500 limiter and shifted to third. Now that’s a useful gear, short enough to really punch this lightweight through a series of bends or an overtake. Even at low revs, lag isn’t irksome. Ford says acceleration to 62mph is 0.2 seconds quicker than the standard ST, at 6.7 seconds. That feels realistic. Flooring the throttle at even fairly gentle speed is confirmed by a chesty roar. That’s because noise from the induction (front) side of the engine is piped back to the bulkhead. It sounds a bit louder versus the ST because the ST200 engine is passing more air. It’s worth saying that the extra power isn’t just from a chip change. There’s an extra intake pipe from the front grille to the filter, so it can gulp the air it needs for more combustion. And since you’ll be using the gearbox a bit more, we can happily report it’s a quick, short-throw little shift.A slightly strange one, this. The ST200 does have a different set-up than the ST when it was launched. The rear springs and anti-roll bar are softer, but the torsion beam stiffer to bring back the roll stiffness. The dampers and front anti-roll bar are adjusted to suit. And front roll stiffness too. Plus slight electronic recalibration of the electric power steering, But when the engineers went to the factory last year and said ‘build this for the ST200’ the factory told them they could stick their stiffer torsion beam where the sun don’t shine. Too much logistical complexity for a short run of cars. The engineers’ answer was to give all STs the set-up designed for the ST200, so if you have an ST built since late summer 2015, that’s what you’ll have.Brilliant. Maybe a little more precise and controllable than the original, which was already at the top of the little-hatch pile. I reckon there’s more steering feel too. Always welcome. It’s a fabulously biddable little thing. Towards the end of a tight bend you get a little kiss as the inside rear wheel drops back onto the road after a brief mid-air dangle. The front tyres will have been digging hard, urging you around the arc, thanks in part to torque vectoring. You can trim the angle with the throttle, lifting to bring the nose in and nudge the tail out. Chuck it, tuck it, adjust it, trust it. It’s always on your side, always talking to you. Remarkably free of torque-steer too, despite the extra twist coming down the driveshafts. On poor roads or quick bumpy corners, you also realise Ford is masterful at damping, checking the motions promptly but comfortably.Cosmetics. Old Henry himself comes to mind: any colour you like as long as it’s ‘storm grey’. It sits on machined black wheels cradling red brake calipers. You also get a grey-themed rather than red-upholstered cabin. Meaning grey for the Recaros, with silver stitching. They’re still mounted too high, by the way. Still, we like the exterior-interior colour combo very much. Plus you get illuminated scuff plates and two-tone silver/black seatbelts, which must be worth half a second a lap. The spec is at ST-3 level: navigation and so on.Nope. But you’ll need to be quick because this generation of Fiesta dies next year. We’ve been assured there’ll be an ST version of the next gen, by the way, so that’s all good. Why wouldn’t they replace it when the ST has sold so well? They’ve shifted over 30,000 in Europe. Two-thirds of those have been in Britain.Er, no. And so we come to the question of whether it’s worth it. It’s £22,745. That’s £3k above an ST-3. It’s only a fiver below a Focus ST. Now, we’re never ones to say no to extra performance, and the ST200’s third-gear poke is really quite A Thing. But everything else is cosmetic. It just serves to highlight what a brilliant car, and extraordinary bargain, the standard ST is. More than ever in fact because it has the ST200’s chassis mods. So anyone who buys the ST should certainly be grateful the ST200 exists.  21

3000 E Thousand Oaks Blvd

Thousand Oaks , CA 91362



(805) 496-5035

You could not ask for a better mechanic. I have been coming to Ernie at CARS for the last 10 years. He is the most honest mechanic I have ever worked with. He kept my old jalopy running for much longer than it should have, and when it was time for a new car, he told me the truth rather than keep having me put money in to a lost cause. He always gets the job done in the same day, usually under budget. I have referred dozens of people to him, and will continue to do so as long as he is in business. Nestled in between Sherwin Williams and the Cigar shop, you'll find this hidden gem. You won't find a better mechanic than Ernie. I dare you to try!

Ernie is honest and a mechanic you can trust ! I took my fire"chicken" and was very happy ! he took of me upfront how much and am very happy with the results!! I feel safe and my brakes are working great and he found the right tires for my classic ! Thank you!!!

If your really lucky you find a guy like Ernie and wish everything you needed fixed was done like he takes care of his business. Thank you Ernie!

Ernie is hands down the best mechanic! Always gets things done fast and never gauges you on the price. My husband is a "hot rodder" and knows a thing or two about cars so if he's pleased it's saying something! Wether new or old cars, Ernie always know what to do to get it running. The shop is located behind Sherman Williams paint store in TO Blvd. I highly recommend Cars Etc!

Ernie is a straight up great mechanic and the only guy I could find to work on a carburated engine in Thousand Oaks. Unfortunately, I was having some problems with an older model engine and no one else would look at it locally. Ernie had the problem sorted out within hours and the car running better than I ever remember for a fair price and quick turn around. What more could you ask for? Well, I will tell you! He also helped me find a great interior guy to finish out my project and the work was better than I could have hoped for. His shop is a hole in the wall and like something you would find in a one horse town (in fact it is behind the tobacco shop) but the service was great and he is an honest guy who knows his stuff and spends time to talk to his customers. I will most definitely be back! Update: 06/29/16 Not only does Ernie do great work on classic cars he knows his stuff when it comes to newer models. My S2000 a had check engine light on due to a failed oxygen sensor. The dealer wanted to charge me $150 just to diagnose the problem (Hook the car up to their machine for 5min of work). Long story short they misdiagnosed the problem on their own car and still wanted to charge me. I will never be returning to Honda of TO service department. Ernie on the other hand, figured the problem out immediately without charging me to diagnose the issue. The catalytic converters are known to break apart in the S2000 and destroy the secondary oxygen sensor. Ernie did the job of a REAL mechanic and solved the issue right by taking the system apart vs the dealer that just wanted to replace the sensor which would have inevitably failed again after only hooking the car up to a machine. Bottom line. Get a real mechanic for your vehicle repair needs and see Ernie ar CARS!

`Ernie is an amazing guy! Very honest and extremely efficient. I got an estimate from here to New York from Firestone, where I brought my car for an oil change. According to them it would cost me close to $1.5K to do the repairs. Being in a medical profession (hence, being a suspicious type) decided to seek a second opinion. Came to Ernie. He inspected my car immediately, showed me where the problem was, fixed it within an hour (!) and it costed me only slightly over $400. I highly recommend Ernie and his shop. P.S. His place is a bit hard to find, as it's not that visible from the T.O. Blvd. But the garage is right behind Tobacco Shop and Sherwin Williams paint.

Ernie at CARS ETC is building my fifth car right now. Definitely the best car builder and mechanic in the West coast. I got the trophies to prove it.

I had an old C20 Chevy that needed a full engine swap. I dropped the truck off on a Wednesday, and by Friday afternoon it was finished and ready to go. I'll continue coming to Ernie's place, he knows his trade better than most, and knows how to make a customer pleased.

AMAZING! We are over the moon with the service we received from Ernie. On a road trip from out of town our 70' mustang started acting up and we need someone to look at it quick. After calling multiple locations (10-15) Cars was able to get us in ASAP and after two hours with Ernie she ran better than she had in years. He fixed an issue we would have never caught without him. We wish Ernie and Cars was closer to us we would love to use him as our main mechanic. If you are in need of a mechanic... This is the place to go!!!

Ernie is a great mechanic! He knows anything and and everything about cars, both new and old. We trust him completely with all our cars! We highly recommend going to CARS etc. for your car repairs!

Don't be suspicious of all the 5-star ratings; they're deserved! As the kind of automotively-clueless customer that most garages are likely thrilled to up-charge, I generally walk away from car repairs feeling slighted and confused. Ernie, on the other hand, went above and beyond to fairly assess the damage to my car after an accident and to advocate for me to the insurance company. He was incredibly easy to reach, made me feel absolutely comfortable, and even made some significant repairs to previous damage that the insurance company did not cover-- for free! Know that you are in good hands at C.A.R.S, one of those old school, customer-first kinda businesses with an owner who takes pride in his work.

As a young adult that has only ever owned one car, Ernie was the first person I took my car to. Needless to say, he's the only person I've taken my car to since, and believe me, I have had a lot of problems recently. He's as honest as they come, very professional, and quite a funny dude on top of it. I've had service that kept me waiting an hour or two, which is simply fantastic!

Ernies the best. Take your car here- you won't be taken advantage of! (Which is huge- coming from a girl)

It takes a lot of searching to find a good honest mechanic who knows his business. I was recommended by a friend 4 years ago to Ernie's shop and have been a loyal customer ever since. I am also happy to recommend my friends to his shop every chance I get.

my check engine light was on for a couple weeks and since i work during the week, it was tough to get my car into a shop. I called about 5 places and nobody was open this Saturday except Cars Etc. so I figured I would try them out and pay $35 to find out what's wrong. I was terrified that I had a blown gasket or worse and was looking at a $600 or $1000+ repair About an hour after I dropped my car off I got the call; all I needed was a $15 part and 99% chance everything will be solved. He even showed me what part to replace (PCV valve) if I wanted to do it myself.

Cars Etc was able to repair my car after many other mechanics were unable to explain the problem. They fixed it for a very reasonable rate and my car runs like new! I've referred many friends to this company, and they've referred more friends. If you need a dependable mechanic, I couldn't recommend anyone better than Ernie.

Ernie has been a trusted mechanic of mine for many years... he is honest and good at what he does. He is a nice guy too who I do not hesitate to refer people to.

I've taken my vehicles to Ernie for 10 plus years and I refer everybody to him. Honesty is one of the most important qualities in a mechanic and this guy is as honest as they get. When he tells me I need to fix something, I know I need to fix it. He's a one stop shop from oil changes and tires to serious engine builds and he's extremely efficient. Anytime I call him he gets me in and out right away. He also takes the time to educate me so that I can be a better, more informed car owner. Seriously, I can't say enough great things. All these amazing reviews are genuine... Ernie is the absolute best. I wish there was more than 5 stars, he's the real deal!

I have been bringing my cars to Cars Etc for 15 years and will continue to do so as long as I live in the Conejo Valley area. Top notch service along with real automotive knowledge is what you get from the owner and lead mechanic Ernie Nunes. I travel frequently and on occasion my wife's vehicle has broke down when I'm out of town. I have her car towed to Cars Etc. Ernie takes care of the repair and makes sure my wife has a ride home if the vehicle needs to be in the shop for repair. You can't beat that kind of service, support and trust no matter where you look these days. My wife always comments on how professional and courteous her experience was with Ernie. Do yourself a solid and take your car to Cars Etc before you go anywhere else. You will be glad you did.  The Toronto Maple Leafs put the C on defenceman Dion Phaneuf on Monday.

The 25-year-old Phaneuf was acquired last January in a blockbuster deal with the Calgary Flames and had 10 points in 26 games with the Leafs last season.

For the full season, he notched 12 goals and 20 assists in 81 games, with 83 penalty minutes.

Head coach Ron Wilson has said the blue-liner had a major influence on the team's young locker-room after his arrival, although it wasn't enough to prevent Toronto from finishing last in the Eastern Conference with 74 points.

Several current Leafs were on hand for the announcement, including Phil Kessel and Luke Schenn, as well as former captain Wendel Clark.

Phaneuf said he learned a lot from Flames captain Jarome Iginla when they were teammates. He added he hopes to follow the example set by Iginla and former NHL captains Mark Messier, Scott Stevens and Clark.

"You look at how they play the game and how they lead," Phaneuf said. "I think the best way to lead is you don't have to be the loudest guy but you definitely want to be the guy who's working the hardest day in and day out."

Toronto hasn't had a captain since Mats Sundin left the team in the summer of 2008. Phaneuf becomes the 17th captain in franchise history.

The Leafs also unveiled its new home and road sweaters.

The two stripes on the arm and the 11-point Leafs' front crest remain unchanged but the team has brought back the two horizontal stripes around the waist. The veined Leaf logo with no interior lettering will return on the sweater as a shoulder patch as it did from 1992 to 2000.

In addition, a string lace collar will replace the V-shaped colla