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The official website for the Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry anime film announced on Wednesday that the film will open in at least 16 countries besides Japan in May. As of April 26, the countries will be the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, nine countries in Central America and South America, Thailand, and France. The film will open in Japan on May 6. The cast includes: Tetsuya Kakihara as Natsu Dragneel Aya Hirano as Lucy Heartfilia Rie Kugimiya as Happy Yūichi Nakamura as Gray Fullbuster Sayaka Ohara as Erza Scarlet Satomi Satou as Wendy Yui Horie as Charles Makoto Furukawa as King Animus, the king of Stella kingdom. Aoi Yūki as Sonya, an aide to King Animus Jiro Saito as Zash Caine, the minister of state of Stella Kingdom Tatsuma Minamikawa (episode director for Aldnoah.Zero, Attack on Titan, Haganai NEXT) is directing the film at A-1 Pictures. Shoji Yonemura is returning from the previous two television anime series to write the script, Yuuko Yamada (chief animation director for Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East, Persona 3 the Movie #3 Falling Down) is the character designer and chief animation director, and Yasuharu Takanashi is returning from the previous anime series and Fairy Tail Zero to compose the music. GAGA is distributing the film. The two-member unit Polka Dots (pictured right) is performing the film's theme song "What You Are." The duo is composed of i☆Ris member Himika Akaneya and Mimi Meme MIMI member Yuki Takao. Polka Dots previously performed an insert song for the Trinity Seven: Eternal Library & Alchemic Girl anime film. Those who purchase advance tickets for the film in Japan will receive clear files with Mashima's special illustration of Natsu. Theaters showing the film will give viewers a free booklet while supplies last. The booklet contains the rough storyboards for the film that original manga creator Hiro Mashima drew. Mashima drew 193 pages of storyboard for the film, and is also serving as executive producer. Mashima also drew rough sketches for the characters and the key visuals for the film. Starting in the movie's second week in Japan on May 13, each filmgoer will receive one of three randomly distributed character bromide photos of Natsu, Lucy, or Sonya, complete with a reproduced signature of the respective character's voice cast member. Sources: Oricon, Anime Now!

IQ and the Wealth of Nations is a 2002 book by psychologist Richard Lynn and political scientist Tatu Vanhanen.[1] The authors argue that differences in national income (in the form of per capita gross domestic product) are correlated with differences in the average national intelligence quotient (IQ). They further argue that differences in average national IQs constitute one important factor, but not the only one, contributing to differences in national wealth and rates of economic growth. The book has drawn widespread criticism from other academics. Critiques have included questioning of the methodology used, the incompleteness of the data, and the conclusions drawn from the analysis.[2][3] The 2006 book IQ and Global Inequality is a follow-up to IQ and the Wealth of Nations by the same authors. Outline [ edit ] The book includes the authors' calculation of average IQ scores for 60 countries, based on their analysis of published reports. It reports their observation that national IQ correlates with gross domestic product per capita at 0.82, and with the rate of economic growth from 1950–1990 at 0.64. The authors believe that average IQ differences between nations are due to both genetic and environmental factors. They also believe that low GDP can cause low IQ, just as low IQ can cause low GDP. (See Positive feedback). The authors write that it is the ethical responsibility of rich, high-IQ nations to assist poor, low-IQ nations financially, as it is the responsibility of rich citizens to assist the poor. National IQ estimates [ edit ] The result claims that Hong Kong has the highest national IQ estimate with 107, followed by South Korea with 106.[1] Central to the book's thesis is a tabulation of what Lynn and Vanhanen believe to be the average IQs of the world's nations. Rather than do their own IQ studies, the authors average and adjust existing studies and use other methods to create estimates. For 104 of the 185 nations, no studies were available. In those cases, the authors have used an estimated value by taking averages of the IQs of neighboring or comparable nations. For example, the authors arrived at a figure of 84 for El Salvador by averaging their calculations of 79 for Guatemala and 88 for Colombia. Including those estimated IQs, the correlation of IQ and GDP is 0.62. To obtain a figure for South Africa, the authors averaged IQ studies done on different ethnic groups, resulting in a figure of 72. The figures for Colombia, Peru, and Singapore were arrived at in a similar manner. In some cases, the IQ of a country is estimated by averaging the IQs of countries that are not actually neighbors of the country in question. For example, Kyrgyzstan's IQ is estimated by averaging the IQs of Iran and Turkey, neither of which is close to Kyrgyzstan—China, which is a geographic neighbor, is not counted as such by Lynn and Vanhanen. This is because ethnic background is assumed to be more important than proximity to other nations when determining national IQ. To account for the Flynn effect (an increase in IQ scores over time), the authors adjusted the results of older studies upward by a number of points. Scores that do not support the theory [ edit ] In several cases the actual GDP did not correspond with that predicted by IQ. In these cases, the authors argued that differences in GDP were caused by differences in natural resources and whether the nation used a planned or market economy. One example of this was Qatar, whose IQ was estimated by Lynn and Vanhanen to be about 78, yet had a disproportionately high per capita GDP of roughly USD $17,000. The authors explain Qatar's disproportionately high GDP by its high petroleum resources. Similarly, the authors think that large resources of diamonds explain the economic growth of the African nation Botswana, the fastest in the world for several decades. The authors argued that the People's Republic of China's per capita GDP of at the time roughly USD $4,500 could be explained by its use of a communist economic system for much of its recent history. The authors also predicted that communist nations whom they believe have comparatively higher IQs, including China and North Korea, can be expected to rapidly gain GDP growth by moving from centrally planned economies to more capitalist based economic systems, while predicting continued poverty for sub-Saharan African nations no matter what economic systems are used. Reception and impact [ edit ] Map depicting average IQ values as presented in the follow-up scientific study, 'Intelligence and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations'. Several negative reviews of the book have been published in the scholarly literature. Susan Barnett and Wendy Williams wrote that "we see an edifice built on layer upon layer of arbitrary assumptions and selective data manipulation. The data on which the entire book is based are of questionable validity and are used in ways that cannot be justified." They also wrote that cross country comparisons are "virtually meaningless."[4] Richardson (2004) argued, citing the Flynn effect as the best evidence, that Lynn has the causal connection backwards and suggested that "the average IQ of a population is simply an index of the size of its middle class, both of which are results of industrial development". The review concludes that "This is not so much science, then, as a social crusade."[3] A review by Michael Palairet criticized the book's methodology, particularly the imprecise estimates of GDP and the fact that IQ data were only available for 81 of the 185 countries studied. However, the review concluded that the book was "a powerful challenge to economic historians and development economists who prefer not to use IQ as an analytical input", but that it's likely those scholars will deliberately ignore this work instead of improving it.[5] By economists [ edit ] In a book review for the Journal of Economic Literature, Thomas Nechyba wrote that "such sweeping conclusions based on relatively weak statistical evidence and dubious presumptions seem misguided at best and quite dangerous if taken seriously. It is therefore difficult to find much to recommend in this book."[6] Writing in the Economic Journal, Astrid Oline Ervik said that the book may be "thought provoking", but there is nothing that economists can learn from it. She criticized the book's authors for not establishing cross country comparability and reliability of IQ scores, for relying on simple bivariate correlations, for not considering or controlling for other hypotheses, and for confusing correlation with causation. Ervik stated, "The arguments put forward in the book to justify such comparisons [between the average IQ in different countries and their GDP] seem at best vague and unconvincing. At worst, passages in the book appear to be biased and unscientific...The authors fail to present convincing evidence and appear to jump to conclusions."[7] Edward Miller, an economics professor who has published many controversial papers on race and intelligence, gave the book positive reviews in two different white nationalist publications, the Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies and The Occidental Quarterly.[8][9] Criticism of data sets [ edit ] Some criticisms have focused on the limited number of studies upon which the book is based. The IQ figures are based on 3 different studies, one study in 34 nations, and two studies in 30 nations. There were actual tests for IQ in 81 nations. For 104 nations there were no IQ studies at all and IQ was estimated based on IQ in surrounding nations.[2] The limited number of participants in some studies has also been criticized. A test of 108 9- to 15-year-olds in Barbados, of 50 13- to 16-year-olds in Colombia, of 104 5- to 17-year-olds in Ecuador, of 129 6- to 12-year-olds in Egypt, and of 48 10- to 14-year-olds in Equatorial Guinea, all were taken as measures of national IQ.[3] Denny Borsboom argued that mainstream contemporary test analysis does not reflect substantial recent developments in the field and "bears an uncanny resemblance to the psychometric state of the art as it existed in the 1950s". For example, he argued that IQ and the Wealth of Nations, in order to show that the tests are unbiased, uses outdated methodology – if anything, indicative that test bias exists.[10] Girma Berhanu, in an essay review of the book, concentrated on the discussion of Ethiopian Jews. The review criticized the principal assertion of the authors that differences in intelligence, attributed to genetics, account for the gap between rich and poor countries. Berhanu criticized the book as being based in a "racist, sexist, and antihuman" research tradition and alleged that "the low standards of scholarship evident in the book render it largely irrelevant for modern science".[11] In addition, some people have argued that Lynn deliberately ignored samples or studies that found higher IQs in sub-Saharan Africa, and only used data that provided especially low IQs. For example, in one study from Nigeria that involved seven samples, Lynn only used results from the two lowest scoring samples. Lynn did not provide an explanation about why the 5 highest scoring samples were ignored.[12] Impact on psychology [ edit ] In 2006, Lynn and Vanhanen followed IQ and the Wealth of Nations with their book IQ and Global Inequality, which contained additional data and analyses, but the same general conclusions as the earlier book. Discussing both books, Earl Hunt writes that although Lynn and Vanhanen's methodology and conclusions are questionable, they deserve credit for raising important questions about international IQ comparisons. Hunt writes that Lynn and Vanhanen are correct that national IQs correlate strongly with measures of social well-being, but they are unjustified in their rejection of the idea that national IQs could change as a result of improved education.[13] See also [ edit ]

Wales's four regions will join Premiership Rugby and create an Anglo-Welsh league for a minimum of five years if agreement on the future of the Heineken Cup is not reached by the end of January. The regions met in Cardiff on Tuesday morning having been given a deadline of midnight by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) to continue a participation agreement that would tie them to the governing body for the next five seasons without an increase in funding in real terms. The regions said that, as there will be no Heineken Cup next season as things stand while Italy has yet to commit to remaining in the RaboDirect Pro 12, they faced losing 10 fixtures and more than half the income they receive from tournaments. The unanimous decision was that continuing the agreement would bankrupt them. "The WRU do not and could not run their business in such circumstances and neither can the regions," said the four in a statement that was issued shortly after office hours at 5pm, having waited to see if the union would make a late approach for talks. "The WRU hold full responsibility under the participation agreement for the competition platform and television rights of the regions and it is astonishing that they have put the four businesses in this position as a result of failing to fulfil their obligations under the agreement, despite having almost two years to resolve the issues." The regions said they remained committed to working with the WRU to secure a sustainable and competitive future for professional rugby in Wales, pointing out that clubs in England and France are increasing their spending after securing lucrative deals. "We have had no choice but to consider every alternative to secure a truly sustainable future for regional rugby in Wales," the statement continued. "Therefore we reaffirm our commitment to the Rugby Champions Cup under the aegis of Six Nations, which will generate a guaranteed £12m additional funding across the four regions over the next three years and help reduce the funding gap with the French, English, Irish and Scottish clubs. "A solution must be reached by the end of January 2014. Should this not be possible, the regions will have no choice but to pursue further competition options immediately." The Rugby Champions Cup was the tournament announced by the English and French clubs in the autumn as a replacement for the Heineken Cup. It was to be run by clubs but the French sides pulled out under pressure fromtheir union, whose plan for a five-nation tournament without the English next season collapsed at an acrimonious meeting in Dublin. The meeting was held under the auspices of the current tournament organisers, European Rugby Cup Ltd (ERC). The president of the French Rugby Federation, Pierre Camou, walked out when he failed to persuade a majority of the other unions that the Heineken Cup should be controlled by Fira, the organisation that represents the smaller unions in Europe. The WRU protested when ERC's independent mediator, Graeme Mew, revealed he had spoken to the Welsh regions the day before the meeting and it will take a remarkable swing to achieve consensus about governance within a month. Telephone conversations continued over the holiday period, but if the Celtic unions maintain their opposition to clubs running the commercial side of the tournament, talks between the Welsh regions and English clubs over a 16-team Anglo-Welsh league are so far advanced it would take little more time to set up. The WRU issued a statement that said it was confident professional teams from Wales would take part in "sanctioned" league and cup competitions, that it envisaged the Heineken Cup continuing under ERC's banner and that it supported the International Rugby Board's regulation that stipulated cross-border tournaments could only take place with the consent of the relevant unions. The WRU's board meets on Thursday when it will consider its options, including offering central contracts to players such as Leigh Halfpenny, whose regional deal ends this summer, and creating new professional teams to take the place of the regions. The statement pointed out that the regions had chosen, from next season, not to maintain their contractual right to be the WRU's nominated teams in sanctioned competitions and the battle looks destined for court.

The rich who bought poverty: Wealthy parents and officials face action after Mail Today exposes fake certificates being used for school admissions Ramesh Kumar (name changed) stays with his family in a plush apartment in upscale Gulmohar Park. He sends his daughter to one of the best schools in the city in his luxury car, but does not spend a penny towards her school fees. Meet the poor rich beneficiaries of the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in the National Capital. They have all the comforts and luxuries in the world besides a government certificate endorsing their 'poor status'. Touts usually approach prospective clients at shops such as these that provide typed affidavits and help finish legal formalities An internal probe being carried out by the Delhi government has revealed several 'glaring cases' where persons, not even remotely disadvantaged, have procured the EWS certificates and are using them to avail subsidised education for their children in some of the top public schools in the city. Two separate Delhi government departments – education and revenue – are now ascertaining the exact number of such students and the veracity of these 'prima facie howlers'. While it is clear that the government officials who approved the 'undeserving' candidates for EWS certificates will face criminal prosecution, it is also being examined if the parents, who actually procured the document, can be prosecuted. As for the students admitted to schools on the basis of such false EWS certificates, the most 'prevalent' view among senior government officials is that they should be allowed to continue if their guardians pay the general category fee for the entire duration of their schooling as an EWS student. Most of the false EWS certificates were used by parents to admit their children in the academic session 2011-12 and 2012-13. The schools which admitted such students, however, will not face any action as they accepted a genuine certificate provided by the state government. Mail Today managed to access some of the EWS certificates and the attached verification reports that are now being probed. The EWS or income certificates are meant for families with less than Rs 1 lakh annual earning. It allows the beneficiaries In Ramesh Kumar's case, the surveyor found him to be staying in Gulmohar Park for over 20 years and recommended rejection of his application. Despite this, the applicant was issued the certificate by the authorities. In another case, the verification official went to F-block in Lado Sarai, south Delhi, and rejected the case. He cautioned: 'Applicant has given Lado Sarai address only for admission purpose.' The story is no different in another case in Lajpat Nagar II where the verification official observed that the applicant was staying in an 'upper middleclass locality and the standard of living was good'. He wrote in his report that the applicant pretended to belong to the lower income group, but the ground reality was totally different. Delhi's divisional commissioner Vijay Dev admitted that such irregularities had come to light and promised prompt and severe action. 'All these glaring cases came to our notice only recently and a probe is on to identify the culprits,' Dev said. He questioned the logic behind issuing EWS certificates to candidates who 'didn't even get a favourable verification report'. 'In all such cases, prima facie, it seems that action can be taken against the local administrative staff for issuing such certificates. Given the importance of the issue, it was recently raised at a meeting with the education department and we will jointly address it in a few days,' Dev said. According to sources, the education department too has made a tentative list of students with an 'iffy' EWS background. 'The list was made after schools and others noticed certain EWS candidates coming to school in private cars,' a senior education department official said. Senior government officials said before any action is taken or announced, the suspects would be given a 'fair hearing and a chance to explain'. If they fail, they would face action. Delhi chief secretary P.K. Tripathi, too, accepted that it was a serious issue and assured strict action in all such cases that came to the government's notice. 'In future, we can also examine the possibility of making the process of issuing EWS certificates a bit stricter through involvement of gazetted officers to ensure that such government facilities are availed of by the right candidates,' Tripathi said. Mail Today had recently exposed how the EWS certificates could be bought for just Rs 5,000. In order to get these certificates, one would have to go through an extensive network of touts that is forever present around the offices of the subdivisional magistrate and district collector in the city. access to several government schemes and benefits. An underprivileged family can apply for the EWS certificates at the local sub-divisional magistrate's office on a plain paper, accompanied by an affidavit and Delhi residence proof. Each of these applications is verified by the local office staff who make a visit to the address to ascertain the claim of the applicant.

The pie list swelled; the richer puddings had vanished; the sausage, with his drapery wrapped about him, barely lingered in a pleasant thanatopsis with the buckwheats and the sweet but doomed maple. 1) In Gopher Prairie there is Thanatopsis Club ( thanatopsis = Greek "vision of death"; a name that was probably suggested by the poem which William Cullen Bryant, aged sixteen, wrote after reading Robert Blair's The Grave and William Cowper's The Task): this is the main cultural force of the city, led by the most eminent ladies, who attend conferences on the English poets. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, Thanatopsis , in THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 21, 21 (D. 9) John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, Dark Tourism: the Attraction of Death and Disaster (London: Continuum, 2000); Valene Smith, "War and Tourism: an American Ethnography," Annals of Tourism Research 25 (1998): 202-227; Anthony Seaton, "From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism: Guided by the Dark," Journal of International Heritage Studies 2 (1996): 234-244. The term derives from the ancient Greek, thanatopsis , which means 'contemplation of death'. The capsule held more than 50 items, including a piece of wood from Independence Hall, a copy of Thanatopsis , an 1818 poem by William Cullen Bryant said to be the first to contain the word Oregon, and a souvenir badge welcoming the President to Portland. Ishmael experiences other tropes or turnings from his thanatopsis mood, as when in the Spouter Inn he is terrified by the prospect of a cannibalistic, harpoon-toting savage for his bedmate, only to find a bosom friend who indirectly saves his life; as when in the chapel, staring at signs of his seemingly foreordained death in the black-bordered tablets commemorating sailors lost at sea, he finds unaccountably that his "Faith, like a jackal, [that] feeds among the tombs, [. And finally, it means to give oneself back to the place, as the speaker affirms in the opening lines; elsewhere Berry expresses this ecological thanatopsis as "slowly falling / into the fund of things .

BBC Sport football expert Mark Lawrenson is predicting the outcome of every game at the 2016 European Championship. Lawro correctly forecast that France, his pre-tournament pick to win the tournament, would beat Germany in their semi-final, but wrongly thought Wales would beat Portugal and make Sunday's final. He picked the winner in two of the four quarter-finals, six of the eight last-16 ties and enjoyed a 42% success rate in the group stage, correctly guessing the outcome of 15 of the 36 games. The only group he failed to get a single result in was Group F, which saw Hungary and Iceland spring a surprise by finishing first and second. Before the tournament Lawro chose 11 of the 16 teams that went through to the first knockout stage. Along with more than 375,000 of you, Lawro is taking part in the new BBC Sport Predictor game. He is going head-to-head with pundits, presenters and commentators from across BBC Sport. He's doing well, but he is only in the running for a podium place - with a maximum of 40 points still to be won, commentator Alistair Bruce-Ball is certain of victory with one game to go. BBC Sport Predictor: The pundits league - how it stands at the top Position Name Score 1 Alistair Bruce-Ball 570 = 2 Dan Walker 520 = 2 Ian Dennis 520 4 Phil McNulty 510 5 Mark Lawrenson 490 You can make your own prediction for the final and take on your friends and other fans using the BBC's Euros Predictor. Lawro's final prediction - and selected others Portugal v France Lawro 0-3 Ian Dennis 0-2 Kevin Kilbane 1-2 Phil McNulty 1-2 Danny Mills 1-3 Alan Shearer 1-3 Dan Walker 0-2 Steve Wilson 1-0 Sunday, 10 July Portugal v France (20:00 BST, Stade de France) Portugal have got to the final without playing well in any of their six matches in the tournament so far. Other than putting a lot of crosses into the area for Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani, I am not sure what they offer going forward other than sitting back and waiting and waiting for the the opposition to make a mistake. Their problem with doing that in this game is that they have not played a team as dangerous as France before. They have got so many players who will hurt Portugal if they give them time and space on the ball. When you look at how France have got their goals, and who has got them, then they have got a lot of options on the field and on the bench in terms of who can do the damage. I know it has been said that France are vulnerable at the back but they dealt pretty well with Germany in their semi-final. Samuel Umtiti has come in and been outstanding in defence and, behind them, they have one of the best goalkeepers in the world in Hugo Lloris. France will be fine even if they fall behind Media playback is not supported on this device Highlights: Germany 0-2 France Euro 2016 has not been a great tournament in terms of brilliant matches, but in terms of a spectacle, I just hope that France score early in the final. Even if they go behind, I do not think they will be in trouble in the same way Wales were in their semi-final. France have got more attacking weapons than any other team in the tournament and on top of that they have got momentum and home advantage. Many of the best players over the past month have been French and in Antoine Griezmann they have the player of the tournament. He is an outstanding number 10 but what I love about him is that he is perfectly happy to track back and work when he is asked to as well. I am convinced France will win but it is difficult to say whether this will be the start of a period of dominance for Les Bleus. Most of their talented attacking players are young, but it is hard to know how they will shape up as a team by the time the next World Cup comes round in 2018. Lawro's prediction: 0-3 Lawro was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan. Lawro's semi-final predictions Games Score Lawro's prediction Wednesday, 6 July Portugal v Wales 2-0 1-1 (Wales to win on penalties) Thursday, 7 July Germany v France 0-2 0-2 Lawro's quarter-final predictions Games Score Lawro's prediction Thursday, 30 June Poland v Portugal 1-1 (3-5 pens) 2-0 Friday, 1 July Wales v Belgium 3-1 0-2 Saturday, 2 July Germany v Italy 1-1 (6-5 pens) 2-0 Sunday, 3 July France v Iceland 5-2 2-0 Lawro's last-16 predictions

A study by scientists from Peking University and University College London has provided an outline of the development of rice cultivation in central China between the seventh and first millennium BCE. Zhenhua Deng, Ling Qin and Yu Gao, from the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University, and Alison Ruth Weisskopf and Dorian Q. Fuller from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, focused on the Baligang site in Nanyang Basin, in what is now Central China. A Neolithic site on the Northern tributary of the Yangtze River, Baligang provides a long arhaeobotanical sequence from the seventh to the first millennium BCE, offering insight into the development of rice and millet agriculture in the region. Published in the open access journal Plos One, the study has the potential to clear up some long held ambiguities about the origins of farming practices in the region which is now China. Archaeologists generally agree that the prehistoric agricultural history of the region can be divided into two traditions: a northern one based on the cultivation of millet, and one centred around the Middle and Lower Yangtze basin based on rice. The relationship between these two agricultural traditions is less transparent however, as the study explains, “Some have argued for a single origin, with either rice agriculture spreading north and encouraging millet domestication, or early millet farming in the north spreading south and kick-starting millet cultivation. Others have argued for more than (one) independent center of millet domestication across north China, unconnected to Middle and Lower Yangtze basin rice domestication episodes.” For their study, the scientists collected flotation samples from pits and cultural layers during excavation seasons in 2004 and 2007. In total, 1700 litres of soil from 123 samples were floated in a flotation tank at the site, before plant remains were collected through sieves with 0.3 mm mesh. Following drying, samples from the 2004 study were sent for analysis at UCL’s facilities, while the 2007 samples were analysed at Peking University. Selected seed and crop specimens were then chosen for direct radio carbon dating using Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS), which was combined with other data to form a chronology for the history of rice cultivation in the Baligang region. “Over the course of excavations, the chronology was initially based on material cultural affiliation. Fifteen dates were carried out on wood charcoal in support of this. In addition 18 radiocarbon dates were direct AMS dates on identified seed remains recovered from the archaeobotanical samples described in this paper.” Thanks to the broad chronological scope of the data extracted from Baligang, the authors of the study have been able to construct a detailed picture of subsistence farming strategies in the region. They have confirmed, based on morphological characteristics of the rice, that rice had been domesticated in the region before 6300 BCE, although a lack of evolution in grain shape suggests that the people there were still a long way off from forming an agricultural economy. The researchers have put together a broad overview of rice cultivation in the region around Baligang during the Neolithic period and beyond. “Baligang provides a long sequence that registers many of the key trends in the Neolithic agriculture of central China.” The effects of cultural factors have been charted, showing how the development of agricultural economies progressed in China. “As a response to cultural changes, crop assemblages varied in different periods along with the interaction between north and south China, with more millets grown in periods under the cultural influence of the north.” Nevertheless, as is so often the case and as the authors of the study confirm, their results still leave a host of questions unanswered. “The tantalizing new evidence for domestication of rice at Baligang site before 6300 BC require data from other sites and periods to be put into an evolutionary trajectory from rice gathering to domestication.” For more information: www.journals.plos.org Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Jialiang Gao

The video will start in 8 Cancel Get the biggest politics 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 Ken Livingstone has claimed the Venezuelan crisis is "propaganda" that may be "engineered" by the United States in a fiery radio interview. The ex-London mayor also called for Britain to ape Venezuela's sweeping reforms and suggested it's in crisis because its former leader didn't "kill all the oligarchs". Socialist President Nicolas Maduro has been branded a "dictator" by Britain and the US after winning sweeping powers in an election on Sunday. Smartmatic, the firm which created Venezuela's electronic voting system, claimed the official turnout was "manipulated" by at least a million votes. Violent clashes have also killed more than 100 people and two opposition leaders were seized from their homes at night and jailed. But Mr Livingstone, who remains suspended from the Labour Party more than a year after saying Hitler supported Zionism, claimed Venezuela is "not a dictatorship" and we won't know "for decades" if the election was hit by fraud. (Image: Getty Images Europe) (Image: REUTERS) (Image: REUTERS) The veteran left-winger clashed with right-wing TalkRadio host Julia Hartley-Brewer over details of the unrest in the South American country. “Give me the evidence," he told her. "You’ve given me the propaganda that’s circulating round the world. “The simple fact is, people are trying to overthrow [Maduro's] government who have armed people on the streets from the opposition killing people. You’ve got people blockading the import of food and medicines and so on. “If there’s any evidence that Maduro wants to create a one-party state, I would immediately oppose that.” (Image: REUTERS) Asked if the election was proof of that, Mr Livingstone said: "It’s quite clear their governmental system isn’t working. "You’ve got a lockdown between the parliament and the president, both of whom have been elected. He’s created a constitut- I mean, I’d like to see us do that here in Britain. "It’s time we had a real look at our constitution because we’re the most centralised of all the western countries. Local councils are just little rubber-stamps." Mr Livingstone said former President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, brought people out of poverty and created a "fair system". “Now there are real problems and Maduro’s got to tackle them," he said. “But one of the things when that Chavez did when he came to power, he didn’t kill all the oligarchs. (Image: EPA/MIGUEL GUTIERREZ) (Image: EPA/MIGUEL GUTIERREZ) "There were about 200 families who controlled about 80% of the wealth in Venezuela. He allowed them to live to carry on. "And I suspect a lot of them are using their power, their control over imports and exports, medicines and food, to make it difficult and undermine Maduro." Later Mr Livingstone clarified: "I didn't advise him to kill the oligarchs. I advised him to invest in infrastructure. I’m not in favour of killing anyone”. But he repeated his claim that other forces, namely the US, could be behind the current unrest. "Nothing undemocratic is justifiable, but I want to wait and see the truth," he said. “In 30 years when I’m 102, have me on the programme and we’ll examine the American government documents that have been released by them from the CIA. “And I suspect we’ll discover a lot of this crisis has been engineered, as it was in Brazil in ’64, in Argentina and in Chile." (Image: Getty) It comes as Jeremy Corbyn , a previous ardent supporter of Venezuela who is on holiday in Croatia, is facing pressure to condemn Maduro from Tory chiefs and two Labour MPs. Labour raised concerns over the worsening situation in Venezuela on Monday in a statement by Shadow Foreign Office Minister Liz McInnes. She raised concerns over Maduro's "authoritarian" rule, condemned "repression, division, and violence" and said "human rights, free speech and the rule of law" must be protected. A spokeswoman for the Labour leader said yesterday: "The Labour Party 's statement on Monday made clear our position on the importance of the respect for the rule of law and human rights. "We're watching the situation and developments in Venezuela closely."

Children’s books are a very high-demand and lucrative industry. Bright, strong, and high-personality visuals combine with inventive and inspiring stories to capture the imaginations of children of all ages and origins. Dr. Seuss may be one of the most prolific authors, with his iconic visual style and hilarious rhymes, but I have strong memories of all kinds of children’s books from when I was younger. Many of them being pop-up books. Peronio is, according to press release communication, “a game that tells the story of a boy who cannot decide what he wants to be when he grows up.” It tells this story through an innovative combination of technologies. Through the use of augmented reality, it can display holographic images on a table to interact with, you can use it on a tablet simply as a virtual pop-up book, and you can also even check it out in VR with both Google Cardboard and Gear VR versions through your phone’s camera. You get to actually interact with Peronio on the pages with your hands and gaze. That flexibility is a big reason why the application is so interesting. You can just use the touchscreen of a tablet to see the digital version, or you can lay out an actual piece of physical paper and point your headset or tablet at it to watch it spring to life on the table itself. Skylanders recently experimented with a similar type of AR implementation with mostly positive results and we will likely see more examples of this going forward. Modern Polaxis is a great example of how similar technology is being use in the comic industry. The video directly above shows some VR-specific footage of what it looks like inside a virtual reality headset to play Peronio, whereas the video at the top of this article shows footage of the tablet mode, AR mode, and VR modes all together to give you an idea of the differences in presentation. We hope to see more entries in this series from Ovni Studios. Tagged with: children

When President Obama ventured to Capitol Hill to meet with House Republicans shortly after Inauguration, he was met by a barrage of questions about the deficit and out of control spending. Obama's response reached back to the Great Depression. According to several Republicans in the room, Obama raised the specter of 1937, the year President Franklin Roosevelt succumbed to conservative pressure and cut spending, leading, economists insist, to a renewal of the economic collapse that has been dubbed the "recession within the Depression." Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress also take the long view, sharing Obama's concern that pressure from the GOP to cut spending could reverse any economic gains made. "We have to understand what took place during the Great Depression. There was deficit spending throughout the Great Depression and they stopped it a little too soon," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) the day after Obama addressed a joint session of Congress. "President Obama has said he's going to look every place he can to save money, but we also recognize that we're going to have to spend some money to get out of this hole. Government is the only party that has any money," Reid said. The Huffington Post asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) about FDR's decision to cut spending. "We're not going to let it happen again. In the middle '30s -- '36, etc. -- they were concerned about what was happening so they tightened their belts in terms of spending," she said, "and that caused a recession within the Depression, instead of keeping the momentum going." Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said that Democrats will be vigilant about cutting spending too soon. "The Keynesian view of the Depression and the way to deal with it is to make up for the lack of private spending by bringing in public spending. And whenever you try to balance the budget, you withdraw public spending. So there are people that speculated the downturn in 1937" was a result of cutbacks, said Waxman. FDR was inaugurated in March 1933. Following a banking sector rescue, a devaluation of the dollar and massive government spending, the economy grew briskly in 1934, '35 and '36. He was reelected in a landslide of historic proportions. In 1937, under intense pressure to shave the deficit, he sought to balance the budget by cutting spending and raising taxes. The economy turned back around. "That's a lesson learned," said Pelosi. "Not that we would do that, but for those who might think that [cutting spending is] a good idea. When you have to stimulate, you have to stimulate. And that's what we have to do." Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, have called for a "spending freeze." "The President's budget is an anti-stimulus," said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio.) "By taxing too much, spending too much, and borrowing too much, it will kill jobs, slow the economy even further, and hurt middle-class families and small businesses." Christina Romer, the head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, warned in a speech this week at the Brookings Institution of a "lesson from the Great Depression: beware of cutting back on stimulus too soon." "Growth was very rapid in the mid-1930s," said Romer. "Real GDP increased 11 percent in 1934, nine percent in 1935 and 13 percent in 1936...Industrial production finally surpassed its July 1929 peak in December 1936." Roosevelt succeeded in reducing the deficit by roughly 2.5 percent of GDP. But at a steep price: In 1937, GDP still grew, but only by five percent. It turned south in 1938, falling by three percent. "[T]aking the wrong turn in 1937 effectively added two years to the Depression. The 1937 episode is an important cautionary tale for modern policymakers," said Romer, who extensively studied the period during her academic career. The private sector will recover eventually, she said, but "we will need to monitor the economy closely to be sure that the private sector is back in the saddle before government takes away its crucial lifeline." Republicans don't join in the praise of deficit spending. In analyzing the Great Depression, the GOP blames protectionist trade policies for the reversal in economic growth. "No, it's what he did all along," said Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) of Roosevelt, rejecting the notion that the '37 cutback hurt the recovery effort. "The Smoot-Hawley Tarriff, raising taxes--that's what kept us in the Depression so long." Economists agree that tax hikes - done for the purpose of cutting the deficit -- were a big part of the '37 downturn. The federal government began collecting Social Security taxes that year, taking a big bite out of consumers' ability to spend. Smoot-Hawley was passed in 1930 and is derided by free traders as the epitome of counter-productive protectionism. (Many Democrats also agree that the provision had negative implications for economic growth, but reject the idea that it played a major roll in the '37 reversal.) "I think one of the major factors was protectionism and raising tariffs," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "I think Smoot-Hawley, in the view of most historians...contributed to the worldwide Depression and basically caused a reduction in world trade that was dramatic." McCain said that by 1937, wasteful spending caught up with the economy. "I also think that some of the quote stimulus that was used at that time was ineffective. They were basically make-work jobs that didn't have a permanent effect," he said. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, said that there are key differences between today and the 1930s. "You should not forget history, but you shouldn't slavishly follow it," he said. "We are not worried that Obama is going to do that" - cut spending prematurely - "at this point." Frank said that once the spending kicks in, the pressure to cut it will diminish. "The anti-spending argument is at its strongest right now, because we've got the criticism without the benefits," he said. "At some point we've got to reduce the deficit, but I don't think some version of right-wingism is coming back in fashion. If we're right, that spending is going to be more popular three and four and five months from now, because the economy starts to turn around, maybe at the end of the year, and there are police working and there are schools built. I expect to be taking credit for that all year." Learning from past errors is one thing, said Waxman, but his parents wouldn't countenance referring to FDR's decision as a mistake. "My parents would never tolerate anyone criticizing Franklin Roosevelt. They probably would be angry at Obama," said Waxman, had they heard his remarks to House Republicans. "No one had a road map at that time. When I feel discouraged about where we are right now, the thing that gives me hope is that we've had people who've thought through depressions."

Deportes Redacción SDPnoticias.com jue 09 feb 2017 21:59 El Atlético de Madrid y el Atlético San Luis llegarían un acuerdo en los próximos días Foto propiedad de: Tomada de AS.com Una delegación ‘colchonera’ llegará a México para afinar los detalles La alianza entre el Atlético de Madrid, el Gobierno del Estado y el Atlético San Luis por fin se hará oficial en días próximos. El Consejero delegado del Atlético, Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, junto con el Director de Gestión Deportiva, José Manuel Díaz, así como los dueños del San Luis, se reunirán en las oficinas de la Federación Mexicana de Futbol para platicar del proyecto que regresará a San Luis a la segunda división. De hacerse una realidad el proyecto, los involucrados se trasladarían a San Luis Potosí para firmar el convenio y hacerlo oficial. El ‘Atleti’ desarrollará en San Luis un gran proyecto deportivo como ya lo ha hecho en China, India y Francia. Con información de AS.

"Fair, effective, sex assault investigations take time and cannot be handled by investigators under pressure to rush to a particular conclusion due to financial pressures on the university," writes Boulder DA Stan Garnett. (Matthew Jonas / Staff Photographer) As a person who deals with the issue of sex assault on campus , it seems appropriate for me to offer some opinions in the context of Congressman Polis's remarks and the discussion they have engendered. First, it is important that we be clear what is being discussed. Sex assault is a very serious crime. Most sex assaults in Colorado are at least class 4 felonies, potentially punishable by many years in prison, mandatory registration as a sex offender, court-ordered sex offender treatment and large fines, as well as the life-changing consequences of a felony conviction. Our criminal justice system has developed effective protections and strategies to assure fair and honorable investigation, charging and prosecution of sex offenses, carefully balancing the rights of the accused with the rights of a victim. Though law enforcement sometimes fails to act quickly and appropriately (some cite the recent reported problems in Jon Krakauer's book, "Missoula"), a well-run district attorney's office is fully capable of reviewing, investigating, filing and prosecuting cases when a conviction is appropriate. Failure of law enforcement to handle these cases appropriately is normally due to one (or both) of two common problems: Advertisement 1. Lack of commitment to sex assault prosecution by a district attorney's office (a problem most often solved through the political process of electing a different DA), or, 2. Lack of expert training in sex assault on the part of investigators and prosecutors. In Boulder's 20th Judicial District, we have some of the best expert sex assault prosecutors in the USA, led by nationally-recognized Chief Trial Deputy Katharina Booth. Our lawyers, investigators and victim advocates not only receive regular training but help to train others around the country. Their trial record on tough sex assault prosecutions is second to none. Although universities adjudicate student discipline, it is a serious mistake to equate investigation and resolution of felony sex assault with cheating on a test or drinking or smoking in a dorm room or the other normal fodder of the university discipline process, where due process on some level is important, but of an entirely different quality than the criminal justice system provides. We should never tolerate the adjudication of serious felony behavior outside the criminal justice system. There are many reasons: 1. The risk of wrongful conviction is too great. The rigorous due process of the criminal justice system exists for mainly one reason: to make sure society can have confidence that one who is found guilty is, in fact, guilty. Relaxing due process, or having investigations not handled by well-trained professionals can lead to wrongful conviction. 2. The risk of traumatizing victims of sex assault. Interview and handling of victims and witnesses in sex crimes requires skill, sensitivity and time. Clumsy or repeated interviews can be traumatic for victims. 3. Those guilty of serious felony behavior present a societal risk, not just a campus risk. To suggest that sex assault on campus is primarily a campus problem is just plain wrong: it is a societal problem and deserves a societal response through the criminal justice system. 4. The criminal justice system is public and the public can observe, evaluate and criticize the proceedings. University conduct investigations carry the inherent secrecy of the discipline process, which can leave the public questioning the fairness of an investigation and the accuracy of the determinations. The federal government's decision to tie campus funding to a one size fits all investigative approach can interfere with criminal investigations. Fair, effective, sex assault investigations take time and cannot be handled by investigators under pressure to rush to a particular conclusion due to financial pressures on the university. Also, "warning letters" or warning bulletins, or campus-based "stay away from each other" orders can, if issued prematurely, prevent law enforcement from determining the truth of alleged criminal behavior. Because campus-based sex assaults are a serious problem, communities should demand that their criminal justice systems be up to the task of investigating and prosecuting these cases. It is no solution to put in place a secret, "shadow" adjudication system under the guise of student conduct investigations that does not have the protections and reliability of the American justice system. Stan Garnett is district attorney of Colorado's 20th Judicial District, headquartered in Boulder.

The MMA world is one where Lord Chaos reigns supreme and Saturday afternoon before UFC 213 saw the mystical one's hand at work.The sport's passionate fan base was shaken up to learn of UFC women's bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes being forced out of her championship tilt with Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 213 due to illness.FloCombat confirmed the initial reports, then received word from sources close to the situation that Nunes experienced difficulty regaining weight after a difficult cut down to the bantamweight limit.Yet, while the jeers and disappointment hit social media platforms, there came a stir from the back, as UFC President Dana White announced women's strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk had offered to step up and take the fight in Nunes' absence."Joanna Champion" later doubled down on the notion with a social media post of her own, which served to spawn a heroic narrative of how the scrappy Polish champion was doing her damndest to step up and save the day.[instagram url="https://www.instagram.com/p/BWTEG3AF8rM/?taken-by=joannajedrzejczyk&hl=en" hide_caption="0"][tweet url="https://twitter.com/Patrick_Wyman/status/883778114467135488" hide_media="0" hide_thread="1"][tweet url="https://twitter.com/BitaNick/status/883770386198007808" hide_media="0" hide_thread="1"]The notion was awesome and easy to buy into. A dominant champion only in Las Vegas to do promotional work decides to strap on the gloves and fight up two weight classes against a woman who already owns three victories over her outside the UFC.That's storybook sports fantasy shit right there folks. In fact...that's all it is--fantasy.The tweets by White and Jedrzejczyk Saturday afternoon with the clock ticking down gave us a glimpse of the promotional game operating at its slickest. There were myriadreasons why the Nevada State Athletic Commission would never allow the strawweight champion to step in on less than 24 hours notice, but those were details that didn't seem to stick with most fight fans.Furthermore, FloCombat confirmed with NSAC Chief Bob Bennett the UFC never even attempted to get a bout between Jedrzejczyk and Shevchenko pushed through. They knew plenty well this wouldn't happen, but throwing out the social media bits they did served a greater purpose in the larger game.In the entire lemons-to-lemonade scenario, pushing the Jedrzejczyk-stepping-up narrative only served to further the gangster reputation the Polish fighter has earned with fists, blood, elbows, knees and sweat.Furthermore, there's no doubt in this writer's mind Jedrzejczyk could have very well been serious about agreeing to fight Shevchenko, but there was no way that bout was taking place on Saturday night in Las Vegas, and it's hard to imagine the women's 115-pound champion wasn't aware of that fact.But she played the game, and why not? There is no downside to this for "Joanna Violence" and the move could very well set up a pivotal showdown down the road if she makes the jump to the 125-pound weight class the UFC has been rumored to open in the coming year.Pushing the "save the day" narrative only helps to further her mystique, and that should absolutely be applauded.And for fans who jumped on the excitement of the moment they hoped would unfold...it's good on your part as well. Fight fans pay money, tune in, operate on Twitter to watch, love and stay connected to the fight game. No one can blame the eager masses for wanting some flatout badassery when a dumptruck of bad news was dropped moments before.It's the passion that makes fight fans special. And to that, I say never relent.That said, watching those who should damn well know better push a fake story is troublesome.MMAFighting.com's Marc Raimondi put out a tweet from NSAC killing that idea, just as our own Elias Cepeda got quotes from Mr. Bennett echoing the same notion, but new headlines kicked up, and more tweets fired out crediting Joanna Jedrzejczyk for attempting to save the day.And for this I'll once again quote NSAC's Bob Bennett, "The UFC did not request a replacement for Nunes."There you go. That's a look behind the Wizard's curtain. The great game continues.Play on.

In the last couple of years, private markets in the state have earned around Rs 4,200 crore in terms of revenue while direct marketing licences earned some Rs 4,800 crore worth revenue in the same period. The Maharashtra government’s move to relax norms and deregulate agriculture markets seems to have paid off. In the last couple of years, private markets in the state have earned around Rs 4,200 crore in terms of revenue while direct marketing licences earned some Rs 4,800 crore worth revenue in the same period. Until now in the traditional system, farmers sold produce to Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs,) whereas the government’s move to deregulate markets was meant to boost direct retail sales of fruits and vegetables to ensure stronger farm-to-fork linkages and in the process ensure better prices for producers and lower rates for consumers as well. The state government, through the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) (Amendment) Act, 2005, began the liberalisation process by providing for the creation of private markets, farmer-producer markets, direct marketing and contract farming. Sunil Pawar, director, marketing, Maharashtra had earlier said that the government has begun direct marketing licences, private marketing licences and single licences with the aim of encouraging multiple channels for marketing agri-produce and inviting bids through an online system. Such a move is directed towards allowing companies to purchase directly from farmers, bypassing intermediaries. The government is offering direct marketing licences, private marketing licences and single licences to encourage multiple channels for marketing agri-produce and inviting bids through an online system. According to officials, there is no plan to dismantle APMCs that have been created over the years but alternative solutions are being encouraged to ensure ease of doing business. Maharashtra currently has some 42 private markets, 533 direct marketing licences, 94 weekly markets and 40 single trader licences. The state has some 305 principal and 603 secondary APMC market yards. The APMC Act mandates that these markets must have facilities like auction halls, warehouses, weigh bridges, shops for retailers, police station, post office, bore-wells, farmer amenity centres and a soil-testing laboratory. However, most APMC markets offer very few of these facilities and the system to buy produce from farmers, auction it and sell to wholesalers and retailers through traders is very opaque, leaving enormous scope for malpractices. Until now, direct marketing licences have been issued to corporates including Reliance, Aditya Birla, ITC Foods and Tata Chemicals, among others. The government is offering such licences to traders, exporters and private players to sell either within or outside the state. Maharashtra has private markets in Nashik (pomegranate), Vani in Yavatmal, Nanded, Washim and Buldhana (cotton).

In this file photo, piles of coal are shown at a power plant in Thompsons, Texas. The plant, which operates natural gas and coal-fired units, is one of the largest power plants in the United States. The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide emitted from power plants and other industrial activities around the world is a vast source of untapped energy, according to new research that describes a proof-of-concept technique to harvest it. Akin to harvesting energy from the wind, this combination of chemistry and mechanics would generate electricity from the carbon dioxide (CO2) already flowing out of plants. While it wouldn't destroy the CO2, it would pull far more energy from existing waste gas. It could arguably even enable plants to resist scaling up and becoming more wasteful, just to keep up with demand. "The energy is there," Bert Hamelers, a program director at Wetsus, the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology in the Netherlands, who led the research, told NBC News. "Only you need a turbine to get it." The system he and colleagues devised to get energy from CO2 involves alternately mixing water or another liquid solution with combustion gas containing a high concentration of CO2 such as that from a power plant and air with a low concentration of the gas. These liquids are pumped between specialized membranes to produce an electric current. The current comes from the concentration gradient between the combustion gas and air, Hamelers explained. The process is described in detail in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters. Other teams are working on a similar mixing approach to exploit the chemical differences between seawater and freshwater. But, until now, no one has tried to mix a combustion gas with air, Hamelers noted. Like wringing energy from the wind, harvesting energy from CO2 does not increase greenhouse gas emissions. "For the same CO2 emissions," he said," you get more energy." The approach, he emphasized, does not get rid of the CO2. "You use the energy that is now wasted. You bring it in and get the extra energy out, but you cannot sequester it." The CO2 released from power plants and other activities around the world could produce 1,570 billion kilowatt hours, or the equivalent of about 400 times the annual electrical output of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona, Hamelers and colleagues noted in their paper. For the proof-of-concept, the researchers used a well-known technique to bubble the gas and air through the liquid solution. That process uses more energy than the energy it produces, "but there are alternatives like membrane-based processes that use less energy," Hamelers said. "The objective for us was to show that, yes, there is this source of energy and, yes, you can harvest it," he added. "Of course you need a lot more technological development before this is a system that can be practiced." John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, visit his website.

It looks like we’ll have one fewer present to open come Christmas Day. Open Road has pushed Oliver Stone‘s Snowden off its year-end release calendar and into 2016. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the controversial NSA whistleblower. More on the Snowden release date delay after the jump. Open Road has not yet announced a new release date for Snowden. THR‘s sources indicate the film isn’t done yet, so the delay should give Stone more time to finish up. Unfortunately, the release date change also takes Snowden out of the running for this year’s Oscar race. (Gordon-Levitt might remain part of the Oscar conversation, though, as he’s also got Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk due out later this year.) On the other hand, it’ll spare Snowden the challenge of competing on the crowded holiday weekend. Under its old December 25 release date, Snowden would have been up against Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, Daddy’s Home, Point Break, Concussion, Joy, The Hateful Eight, and The Revenant, as well as the second week of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald wrote the Snowden screenplay, based on Luke Harding‘s The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena. The latter is a novel by Snowden’s Russian lawyer, about an American whistleblower awaiting asylum in a Russian airport. Snowden is still a figure of controversy, and if you’re wondering where Stone stands, he’s made his position pretty clear in the past. He’s gone on the record calling Snowden a “hero” for exposing the details of NSA’s global surveillance program, and President Barack Obama a “disgrace” for prioritizing the hunt for Snowden over the reformation of “George Bush-style eavesdropping techniques.” Besides Gordon-Levitt, Snowden stars Shailene Woodley as Snowden’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills; Melissa Leo as Citizenfour director Laura Poitras; Zachary Quinto as journalist Glenn Greenwald; Tom Wilkinson as political reporter Ewen MacAskill; Timothy Olyphant as a CIA agent who befriends Snowden; and Nicolas Cage as a former intelligence official.

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. June 5, 2014, 3:16 PM GMT / Updated June 5, 2014, 3:58 PM GMT A senior politician from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has been quoted saying that sometimes rape is "right," sparking renewed outrage about rampant sexual assault in that country. "This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong," Babulal Gaur, home minister of Madhya Pradesh state, was quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times. "Until there's a complaint, nothing can happen." Gaur is from Prime Minister Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Modi has so far been silent about the May 26 gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in the north of the country. Three men later confessed to the attacks, which ended with the girls being hung from a mango tree. The 14- and 15-year-old cousins were from a poor family without operating toilets in their home and disappeared after going into fields to relieve themselves.

The first scrimmage of Oregon's preseason camp was marred by "a lot of penalties," coach Willie Taggart said, but he considered it "a good scrimmage we all can learn from." The scrimmage, held Saturday and featuring officials, capped the first two weeks of preseason camp, and was followed by a team barbecue in north Eugene. "I saw some good things and bad things," Taggart told reporters Monday in Eugene. "With it being the first scrimmage you expect some penalties. We had a lot of penalties. I thought overall it was a good scrimmage. I thought it was a good scrimmage we all can learn from." "... Again those penalties just drive you crazy. I was also excited how we bounced back from those penalties. We didn't let it just kill us. Some of those penalties could be drive-stopping penalties but our guys stayed focused and was able to bounce back and make plays afterward, so I thought that was a good thing." Oregon averaged 8.2 penalties per game last season, the 126th-highest average in the 128-team Football Bowl Subdivision. Oregon also ranked 126th by racking up 75.8 yards tied to penalties per game. Taggart's South Florida team averaged 6.4 penalties per game last season, ranking 79th, and 58.7 yards from them, which ranked 89th. "Today we're going to go back and watch that film some more and learn from a lot of our mistakes and also learn from some of the good things we did be cause we did some good things, as well," Taggart said. Here are today's links:

A feasibility study on adopting a land-based Aegis missile defense system to deal with North Korea’s missiles will be expedited, government sources said. The idea to add the Aegis Ashore system to the nation’s multi-tiered ballistic missile defenses is aimed at dealing with what Tokyo calls the “new level of threat” posed by North Korea’s weapons programs. Deployment could take place several years from now, the sources said Friday. The government has also considered adopting the state-of-the-art Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile shield system but decided to focus on Aegis Ashore, which is less expensive and has a broader defense range. Still, the government has not yet completely rejected introducing THAAD, which South Korea has allowed the United States to deploy on its territory. According to the sources, THAAD costs about ¥125 billion ($1.1 billion) for each unit, and Japan would need around six units to protect the whole country. An Aegis Ashore unit costs about ¥80 billion and only two would be needed to cover the same amount of area. Japan’s ballistic missile defense system has two layers. The first is the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s Aegis destroyers, which are equipped with Standard Missile-3 interceptor missiles that can stop enemy projectiles in the outer atmosphere. If those fail, the Air Self-Defense Force’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 surface-to-air guided interceptor missiles are the next line of defense. Aegis Ashore uses the same components as those on the Aegis destroyers, but because the system is land-based and permanently installed, it will be easier for the Self-Defense Forces to gear up for missile interceptions. A large amount of land would be required to host the system, and the government is looking for candidate sites that include areas along the Sea of Japan, which faces North Korea, the sources said. The move comes after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposed in March that the government consider developing the ability to strike enemy bases. The LDP also floated the idea of introducing a new missile shield system. The proposal was based on concern that Japan may not be able to sufficiently defend itself using its current defenses if North Korea simultaneously launches multiple ballistic missiles toward the country. On March 6, North Korea tested four ballistic missiles that fell into the Sea of Japan around 300 to 350 km east of Akita Prefecture. According to the Defense Ministry, three fell within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, which reaches some 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coastline.

Hearts of Iron IV Review American general William Tecumseh Sherman once said that “war is hell” and that its glory “is all moonshine”. Sherman, however, never single-handedly turned France into a communist paradise and then won the Second World War by 1941. Well I did in Hearts of Iron IV and I can tell you that it’s pretty bloody glorious. A sequel to the hard-as-nails Hearts of Iron III, this new instalment has seen developers Paradox Interactive go all-out to try and make an accessible successor that still retains the series’ lauded depth and detail. The masters of grand strategy have certainly made large strides towards that goal, but does it pass muster? Hearts of Iron IV places you in control of a nation during the build-up to the greatest conflict mankind has ever seen. At release there are two scenarios available - 1936 and 1939. The latter drops you right into the thick of it at the outbreak of war while the former allows you to prepare your chosen nation for a number of years in advance. There are seven major factions: America, Japan, Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia and Germany, each with their own special traits, bonuses and penalties. Players who like to root for the underdog will be pleased to know that Paradox have lifted the restriction on what minor nation you can play as. From Liberia and Albania to Brazil and Portugal - every nation on Earth is playable (though whether they’ll survive long is another matter altogether). The running of your nation is done by your representative political party, which can be moderated by governmental decrees. Your choice of political representative is by no means static - put the right policies into place and you can overthrow it with a stance of your choice. I’ve played as a communist France and a fascist Great Britain and even almost managed to create a democratic Germany (thus negating the entire war). What surprised me is that each of these eventualities has its own tailor-made notifications, events and consequences. I’ve gone through multiple campaigns turning countries into communist or fascist states just to see their flags change (pro tip: check out the badass communist America flag when you can). To further these crazy ambitions, Paradox allows the player to uncheck a ‘historical reality’ box on start-up that lifts the restrictions on the AI as to what decisions it makes, giving it free reign to create a true sandbox of ‘what if?’ questions. To further your nation’s goals a number of initiatives can be undertaken through research and development, as well as a new feature named ‘National Focus’. Similar to a skill tree, National Focus lines are a way to quickly develop your nation and take on policies. You can’t choose them all, though, and some parts of the tree are mutually exclusive. All the major factions have a bespoke tree and some minor ones have unique options too, such as Poland, Finland, China and Spain. There is no real currency in play in Hearts of Iron IV. Instead there are a number of resources that are needed to produce units, supply your forces and ensure that trade is maintained. These come in the shape of civilian factories, military factories, naval dockyards and manpower. The first three can be built upon as you go, the latter is affected by population figures, national unity and your type of government. Without manpower your front-line units will dwindle and be poorly reinforced, too, so it’s a figure that always needs watching. Your industry and production can all be bumped up by research and government policy, meaning that a careful balance can even redress some factions deficiencies at the start of play. The campaign map is split into three main views, each assigned to one of the three wings of your armed forces: army, navy and air force. While the army view splits the map into real-life provinces, regions and countries, the latter two create sweeping zones of coverage to better manage wide-scale operations. It’s a welcome change, as co-ordinating your three forces was a challenging task in the game’s predecessor. Navies and air wings can be moved between air bases and docks and then assigned to zones in turn. Once they’re assigned you can then give them a type of mission to undertake, like interception or convoy raiding. A small marker will indicate how successful these missions are via a percentage readout. Veterans of Hearts of Iron III will know that a poor start in 1936 in that game would lose you the entire campaign - you just wouldn’t know it until war started in 1939. It took me a good hour or so of Wikipedia-reading to fully understand how armies, industry and infrastructure worked, as well as how to properly set up my supply lines. A lot of this has been trimmed down by Paradox for the sequel and while some stalwarts of the series might prefer the hierarchical army system from the third installment, it’s now FAR easier to organise armies and get them moving to where you need them to act. The game really breaks down into two main stages: the build up from 1936 to 1939 and the crescendo when war is finally declared on (or by) your nation. The former is fast-paced and lively as you go through organising and renaming fleets and armies, building infrastructure and waiting for research and National Focus timers to drop. It’s a flurry of activity that is blistering compared to when you’re deep into the war. Once it’s in full swing it becomes a matter of days, not years. Tactics are tweaked, units maneuvered and enemy movement watched with a hawkish eye. I finished my France campaign by 1941 yet felt mentally exhausted at having to control three separate fronts at once (in Italy, Germany and Spain). That exhaustion was by no means unwelcome, it was accompanied by an exhilaration that I had come out on top against a cunning AI that had tried to exploit my every weakness. At each war’s conclusion (for there can be many, not just one global conflict), your nation is invited to a peace conference where it can make demands based on its contribution. It’s a great touch to proceedings and is a fantastic way to bookend a successful campaign. There were some cases in which this didn’t trigger, leaving me to spend years waiting for pockets of resistance to be mopped up and wonder “what now”?. Hopefully that particular bug will be sorted by release. Trade and diplomacy has also been given the slimming treatment. In older iterations in the series the multitude of screens could become confusing and a little overwhelming to the newcomer, now the process has been simplified to exchanging your civilian factories’ capacity for resources. It makes gathering resources when you’re time-short a lot easier. Diplomacy, however, still feels slightly tacked-on and light on features. Gone are the spies and espionage of Hearts of Iron III, replaced by a list of options that are ruled by their opinion of you and your political power (another resource, accumulated by your government). For much of the game it was I who reached out to other factions for trade and negotiations, I barely received any notices from the AI until war broke out. In some ways this may be a blessing in disguise, as being bombarded by trade messages in Hearts of Iron III was something I personally found highly frustrating. Army management has become a far more streamlined process. Groups of units can be selected and then assigned a commander - either a general who can control 24 divisions or a field marshall who can control 72 or more. Once assigned, orders can be made to the commander who will carry them out to the best of his ability. Players no longer have to issue unit-by-unit commands, though the option is still available if needed. Orders to your commander take the shape of visualised front-lines on the world map, with attractively-drawn advance and fallback indicators and helpful highlights of just where your troops will attack. Grand strategy is now something far more doable in Hearts of Iron, and drawing countless arrows for flanking maneuvers and lightening strikes makes you feel far more connected to what your troops are doing. When battle is joined on land, a small indicator will appear between two forces, a ticking number in the centre showing how close the clash is to its finish. If it’s green you're winning and if it's red you're losing. Clicking on the indicator brings up a more detailed panel showing you the tactics your generals are employing, what units are involved and what factors and terrain features are dictating their combat effectiveness. Combat in the air is measured in percentages too, but on the existing ‘mission efficiency’ icons. Naval battle occurs in a similar way, though their engagements are often short and sharp, and can sometimes come and go before you notice. Visually, Hearts of Iron IV comes with the quintessential Paradox grand strategy feel - one of a living Risk board at your fingertips. The world in which you play is lit up in appealing colours and hues which switch pleasingly when filters are changed. The names of countries above their landmass hover like titanic credits scrolling across the globe, while rain, blizzards and storms flash and burst out in myriad provinces and ocean zones. Divisions (when zoomed in) are represented by soldiers standing at attention, tanks with engines humming along or cavalrymen sat restlessly atop their mounts. These 3D models can be switched off so that the units are simply reflected by their markers, but unlike Hearts of Iron III these can be hard to spot properly on the map. The game’s musical scores wouldn’t be out of place on some HBO epic about the Second World War - it’s all rising string crescendos and sweeping orchestral movements designed to swell the heart. They certainly go some way to preparing the player for the upcoming conflict. The game is equipped with an effective, if not outstanding, array of sounds for each of the units, as well as era-specific touches on events like telegrams and communiques. Hearts of Iron IV is furnished with a feature-rich multiplayer experience that doesn’t remove any of the main game’s mechanics to simplify things. Despite this, when a number of players are involved it could become a slightly confusing playthrough - Hearts of Iron usually has a larger number of moving parts than Paradox’s other series like Crusader Kings. I tested the multiplayer out against my (admittedly reluctant) flatmate, and can confirm it feels just as good to completely obliterate your friends as it does the AI. Hearts of Iron IV is a fantastic entry into what is already acknowledged as one of the best Second World War strategy series in gaming. Mixing just the right amount of detail, depth and accessibility, the developers have crafted a formula that will please returning veterans and allow new players to enter the series without having to read an encyclopaedia of rules and stratagems first. Sandbox possibilities and endless ‘what-if’ questions only bump up what is already an impressive level of replayability. Paradox Interactive have created a game that strategy gamers and history buffs should get on their shelves as soon as possible.

Early interviews mentioning The Blue Album and Pinkerton. Check. A lead single that promised we’d be rocking out like it was '94. Check. It was clear what Weezer were trying to tell us: Honestly, we mean it, for real this time, this one’s going to be the one you’re waiting for. But put aside all of that and Everything Will Be Alright In the End is pretty much what you expect it to be: a record which, while sharing similarities with records from their earlier periods, is another predictably uneven entry in the Weezer discography. It’s not actually anywhere near as much of a return to the sound of the Nineties that they’ve made it out to be. Within bars of the opener ‘Ain’t Got Nobody’, it’s clear that there’s just as much overlap with the crunch and flex of Maladroit as with the chugging fuzz of Blue. It’s a dense sound with glamorous guitar runs and, by blending the strengths of their career high points, they hit on some of the greatest moments of their recent output. The hooks of the opening track are genuinely reminiscent of Rivers’ golden age of song writing: ‘The British Are Coming’ sees a lilting turn of Rivers Cuomo’s falsetto morph into a solo which wanders from the main melody in the soulful, colourful way of Blue’s instrumental breaks. But sadly these moments of inspiration are fleeting. One of the oddest problems with Weezer’s recent output is how blindly contradictory Cuomo can be on record nowadays in comparison to the robust character portraits he painted on his earliest records. Everything… is no different, and finds him sounding as oddly insincere as he has since on every record since 2005. After coming back on hands and knees to the audiences of the mid-nineties, he spends ‘I’ve Had It Up To Here’ rallying against those who want him to compromise some odd notion of integrity (“I’M NOT A HAPPY MEAL”, he proudly announces us in the album’s best wincer of a Cuomoism). How he squares this circle is unclear, but it totally undermines the seriousness of something like ‘Foolish Father’. Does he even mean this? Is he talking about himself? Is it all made up? But beyond the continuation of Cuomo’s increasing incoherence, what’s perhaps most damaging is the general sense of low ambition across the record, despite gimmickry like the album’s title recurring through the lyrics, and suites of songs in trilogies. The chorus of ‘Eulogy For A Rock Band’ is lifted – almost completely intact – from Hurley’s lead single ‘Memories’. The 2D hooks of ‘Lonely Girl’ and ‘Go Away’ circle for a while, wandering out of your head immediately. Sure, it escapes outright disgrace. But that’s a pretty low benchmark for the band that wrote ‘Say It Ain’t So’, on an album based on a publicity cycle promising a return to that era to boot. In spite of its moments of charm, it’s a far cry from being either a fun retreat into 20 years ago, nor is it any indication that Weezer's reputation will be in better health 20 years from now. 

The most important under-investigated story of the presidential campaign could ultimately become the greatest political scandal in U.S. history: how the Trump administration may have conspired with top Russian intelligence officials, and perhaps Vladimir Putin himself, to interfere in the election, get Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE elected President, and undermine U.S. foreign policy. As revelations about these Russian contacts slowly leak out, some legal scholars are beginning to suggest that Trump campaign officials might have broken the law or even committed treason. That sounds like partisan hyperbole, but it may eventually become an inescapable legal conclusion that Democrats and Republicans alike will need to face. Consider what we now know. According to The New York Times, phone records and intercepted calls show that senior members of the Trump campaign, his transition team, and his associates were in regular contact with Russian intelligence officials throughout 2016. This should not surprise anyone, given that National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is actually the third top Trump staffer who has had to resign because of ties to Russia, following former campaign manager Paul Manafort and campaign advisor Carter Page. ADVERTISEMENT Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence agencies definitively concluded weeks ago that the same Russian intelligence operation that was communicating with the Trump campaign deliberately hacked the emails of the Democratic National Committee and senior members of the Clinton campaign and leaked those emails to the public. Moreover, according to our intelligence agencies, this effort was ordered by Putin himself with the explicit aim of helping Trump win the election. We also now know that Flynn continued speaking with Russian officials after the election, providing back-channel information to the Russians in order to undermine then-President Obama’s sanctions on Russia for the very same hacking that was orchestrated on Trump’s behalf. To be sure, there is, so far, no proof that any of these communications happened under Trump’s orders or with his knowledge. Yet, it is hard to believe that so many interactions by such high-level members of Trump’s campaign or his administration could possibly have occurred without Trump’s knowledge or his tacit or explicit consent. In addition, we now know that when Acting Attorney General Sally Yates reported on Flynn’s illegal conversations, Trump not only did not fire Flynn, he instead fired Yates, four days later. And even now, the White House states that Flynn was fired for being untrustworthy with his superiors, not for breaking the law by conspiring with the Russians in the first place. These ongoing Russia connections might also help explain other mysteries of the past year. For example, why has Trump continued to refuse to release his financial records? Would those records, as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) suggested on Wednesday, provide evidence of deep financial ties to Russia, or even direct payments? And why has Trump himself been so strangely unwilling to criticize Putin despite being given many easy opportunities to do so? We don’t have the answers to these questions. But they clearly require bipartisan investigation and an independent counsel with no ties to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report Ex-Trump aide: Can’t imagine Mueller not giving House a ‘roadmap’ to impeachment Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE or the administration. After all, if the Trump campaign used back channels to secretly conspire with the Russians to impact the election and undermine the sitting president of the United States, it is not only improper, it is the definition of treason. Moreover, it suggests that this administration might now owe more allegiance to Putin than to the U.S. Constitution it is sworn to protect and defend. Such an allegation is chilling, particularly at a time when Russia is deploying missiles in violation of its treaty obligations, leaving a compromised Trump administration without a credible response. Indeed, any allegation of treason seems almost unfathomable. Yet, that is the unfortunate state we are in. The fall of Michael Flynn is only the beginning of the slow unraveling. Paul Schiff Berman is the Walter S. Cox Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School and the author of Global Legal Pluralism, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012. The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

(CNN) -- The toilet is broken -- and not because it won't flush. This unsightly piece of technology, which everyone uses but no one seems to think much about, is in desperate need of an overhaul, according to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which launched a challenge to "reinvent the toilet." The foundation announced $41.5 million worth of grants on Tuesday aimed at getting someone to reengineer the flushing porcelain pot, which has been in use since the 1700s. "No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet," Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the foundation's global development program, said in a statement. "But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need are new approaches. New ideas. In short, we need to reinvent the toilet." So what exactly is wrong with the current commode? It's too expensive for people in the developing world; it requires water and a sewer-system hook-up, which aren't always available; and it does nothing to actually treat human waste, said Frank Rijsberman, the foundation's director of water sanitation and hygiene. "We like the toilet. It was invented in 1775, saved millions of lives," he said. "At the same time, it didn't reach two-thirds of the world's population." So it's high time for an update, he said. About 2.5 billion people don't have access to toilets as we've currently imagined them, and this lack of toilet access encourages the spread of diarrheal diseases, which are blamed for the deaths of 1.5 million children each year, according to the World Health Organization. "We want to look at waste as a resource and recycle it," Rijsberman said. "We think we can recycle the energy, the minerals and also the water. We want to reinvent the toilet that is cheap, that doesn't cost more than a few pennies, that poor people want to use and that will recycle minerals, energy and water." The Gates Foundation has given out eight grants (here's the list as a PDF) to universities that are trying to dream up a toilet 2.0. Here are a few of the most striking ideas from those grantees: • M. Sohail, from Loughborough University in the UK, is making a toilet that will "recover water and salt from feces and urine." • Georgios Stefanidis, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, is working on a toilet that will generate electricity from waste, which will be "gasified into plasma" using microwaves. That gas can be used to generate electricity, according to the proposal. • Yu-Ling Cheng, from the University of Toronto, is trying to make a toilet that will "sanitize feces within 24 hours" so human waste doesn't transmit disease through a community. Chen plans to use a process of dehydration, filtration and smoldering to render the waste harmless. • Michael Hoffmann, from the California Institute of Technology, plans to develop a solar-powered toilet. Solar cells generate enough power to process waste and turn it into fuel for electricity. The Gates Foundation warns that none of these efforts constitutes a "silver bullet" that would solve the world's sanitation problems and says new toilet designs must be pursued in tandem with better wastewater treatment and sanitation systems. Some efforts to remake the toilet have gone down the tubes. "There have been a lot of toilet projects out there and a lot of failures," Marla Smith-Nilson, executive director of Water 1st International, told The Seattle Times. But the Gates Foundation remains hopeful that "radical innovation" can help. The universities that received funding are expected to have working prototypes within a year, and the foundation expects some of the projects to be ready for rollout in three or four years, Rijsberman said. Although these redesigned toilets are targeted at third-world countries, some of these ideas would be helpful in United States and Europe, too, Rijsberman said, especially in addressing water shortages. "How much sense does it make to clean up water to drinking water standards and then flush it down with sewage in an expensive pipe system?" he said. "We think modern science and technology can produce something that is more like the cell phone of sanitation."

Donald Trump’s poll numbers in the Philly suburbs have gone from bad to worse. The latest poll shows his trouble might be even bigger than anticipated, and because respondents in the crucial ring around the city have a big problem with the “Access Hollywood” tape. According to a poll released this morning from Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton now leads Trump in the Philly ‘burbs by 28 points. Her overall lead in the state among likely voters is 48-39. This is the first major poll of Pennsylvania since an audio recording of Trump saying, among other comments, “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” The difference between the rest of Pennsylvania and Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware and Chester counties is stark. All of Pennsylvania, for instance, is pretty lukewarm on Trump. Forty percent of Bloomberg respondents said they had a favorable rating of him. But people in the Philly suburbs really can’t stand him. Only 28 percent of respondents said they had a favorable rating of him. The lack of love for Trump is obvious when compared to how the ‘burbs voted in 2012. Then, Barack Obama still beat Mitt Romney handily, but his margin was 10 percent. This poll shows Clinton 18 points ahead of that. It also shows Clinton eight points ahead of a late September poll that showed her with a 20-point lead in the Philly suburbs. Why such a huge margin for Clinton? The growth in Clinton’s lead may have a little to do with the “Access Hollywood” tape. In the suburbs, 83 percent of respondents said they were bothered either a little or a lot by Trump’s comments. But the rest of the state was angered, too, with 78 percent of Pennsylvania respondents overall saying they were bothered. Like many other pieces of this election, Clinton’s huge advantage in the suburbs in some ways defies explanation. While she expectedly leads by huge margins among women and college graduates in the suburbs, she’s also tied with Trump among whites and leading him by one point among men in the combined area of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Chester counties, according to the Bloomberg poll. In the rest of the state, Trump is dominating these categories and catering to them with his message. Bloomberg noted that in the rest of Pennsylvania Trump has an 11-point lead. The problem for Trump — and the positive for Clinton — is the rest of Pennsylvania doesn’t matter if you’re failing in the ‘burbs, which accounted for 22 percent of the state’s voters in 2012. “I don’t know how you win if you lose the suburbs by a certain percentage,” said Terry Madonna, a Franklin and Marshall pollster. “You can’t lose by 20 points.”

A couple became a victim of road rage while on their way to Matunga on Sunday afternoon and were assaulted by a group of 15 to 20 men reportedly from the Nagpada Police Lines.Bilal Khan, 31 and his wife Zara, were on a bike at the traffic signal on Shepherd Road on their way to a friend's place in Matunga for a party when a speeding Santro bruised Zara's leg, who was riding pillion.“I stopped the bike and told the car driver not to drive at such a high speed and that it could have been dangerous. The driver stepped out and started abusing me, while his co-passenger ran inside Saboo Siddiqui lane. Suddenly, there were around 15 to 20 men surrounding me. I rushed inside the nearby petrol pump for help,“ said Khan.He added, “I told Zara to stay away while I took hold of the petrol dispensing nozzle and threatened my attackers in a bid to fend them off. During this, a man who introduced himself as a cop from Nagpada police station approached and asked me to turn the nozzle off and took it away from me.“Khan said the moment he gave the nozzle to the cop, the men waiting behind him pounced on him and started assaulting him with whatever they could lay their hands on. “One of them hit me with the cash box of the petrol pump, and I fell to the ground unconscious. They kept hitting me. Zara pleaded with the locals who had gathered to help me, but no one did. After some time, I got up and went to JJ Hospital for treatment,“ he added.Khan, who underwent x-ray scans, suffered internal bleeding in his stomach and back. He had also suffered contusions and an injury to his head. After the medical check-up, the couple approached Nagapada police station.The Nagpada police registered an FIR against 18-20 people. The prime accused is the duo in the car, booked for assault, mischief, causing damage and molestation under IPC sections 324, 427, 354. Police also picked up some of the accused late Sunday night, and some were identified by the complainant.

Comedian Sarah Silverman told Bernie Sanders supporters who refuse to back Hillary Clinton that they are "being ridiculous" during her speech at the Democratic National Convention July 25. (The Washington Post) After a day full of tensions between Bernie Sanders supporters and the Democratic Party, the first few hours of the party's convention on Monday featured plenty of distractions, and things seemed to be moving forward. Then Sarah Silverman showed up. The comedian was a Sanders supporter in the primaries, and she came to the stage with Clinton supporter and fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). It was a good idea in theory: two comedians trying to bring some levity to the situation and defuse it with humor. But feelings were still raw. Silverman argued for unity and gave a generally well-received speech, but Sanders supporters weren't happy, and they began making their voices heard. Silverman tried to make jokes. She noted that Clinton, who was most recently secretary of state, "was a secretary, and now she's going to be president." The crowd got louder. Silverman added, "I will vote for Hillary with gusto." She concluded her speech by saying, "As I continue to be inspired and moved to action by the ideals set for by Bernie, who will never stop fighting for us, I am proud to be a part of Bernie's movement, and a vital part of that movement is making absolutely sure that Hillary Clinton is the next president of the United States." The crowd got louder. By that point, though, Franken and Silverman had also run out of material and were being asked to stretch their segment due to a problem with musical guest Paul Simon's organ. It got a little awkward as they stalled and people chanted. And then Silverman said this: "To the Bernie-or-bust people, let me just tell you: You’re being ridiculous." Franken gamely tried to argue Silverman had just done a good thing. "This is a comedian," he said, gesturing to the "Hillary, Hillary" chants. "This is the power of comedy." Silverman then alluded either to the awkwardness of them still standing there or to the fact that the crowd was still arguing. "Thank God they can fix this in post[-production]," she said, referring to the editing process in movies and TV shows. Needless to say, "you're being ridiculous" is not the message the party would have scripted for Silverman or anybody else onstage Monday night. Given it was delivered by Silverman and not a party official, though, perhaps it will blow over. It could even be remembered as a key moment — in a good way. The Clinton supporters in the crowd surely appreciated the moment, and they cheered loudly, as Franken noted. But it also stands to reason that it could inflame Sanders backers going forward — which was the opposite of the point in sending Silverman out there, after all. At a time when things appeared to be moving past the drama of the day, it might not have been the best time to put an ad-libbing comedian on the stage to make an appeal for unity. Or maybe it was genius. We'll see how it plays going forward. Here is Silverman's full speech:

Roughly ten days before worlds I built a strange deck that I nearly decided to run for worlds. Ultimately, I decided to go ahead and play the light side deck I had been playing for over a month (write up about that deck here). Since worlds though, I’ve been playing the ‘experimental’ deck. I thought my only regret from worlds was not running a second Falcon objective set in the deck I took to worlds… but man, now I have two regrets! Not only do I have a whole lot more fun with this deck, it actually seems to be working much more consistently against the ‘good decks’ that I expected to see at worlds. I would think it was a fluke, but it’s been doing well against players I consider to be top level players. The more I play the Star Wars LCG though, the more I’m learning to ‘unlearn what I have learned’ about card games. In particular, the way I value a card is drastically different in this game. If the structure of objective sets wasn’t enough, add in the fact that you can draw four or five cards just about every turn and card value is drastically different. So, what does all of this have to do with this strange deck I built before worlds? Everything, of course! The deck I built isn’t necessarily seeking a particular advantage, but has a lot of cards that play well with each other. I often have turns where I have to sit for a few minutes just to figure out what I want to do, primarily because there are so many ways to use the cards in my hand. This is very unlike my Jedi deck, where the right move is generally obvious. This makes using the deck a lot more fun and playing against it all the more maddening. When you do so much with so little, it can really catch your opponent off guard. This deck is honestly the combination of several cards I’ve been looking at for quite some time. It all started with everyones favorite stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder, in the guise of a rebel card: Han Solo. Aren’t You a Little Short for a Stormtrooper? Searching through your deck for a card is, arguably, the most powerful effect in any card game. Well, maybe outside of a free resource that generates three resources instantly… So, for the first time in the Star Wars LCG we get a search effect and it comes on a Rebel Han Solo with solid stats. Since you don’t need to win an edge battle, you can often force your opponent into a situation where if they block and win the edge battle, you get to search your deck for a card and they had to focus down a defender. Or, you can also just win the edge battle and clean up most defenders. Of course, searching your deck is only as important as the cards you can go get, so when I first saw the Rebel Han Solo my brain immediately starting thinking of Rebel cards I could want to get on command. My list looked something like this: – Rebel Assault (Defense of Yavin 4 or Mobilize the Squadron) – Home One (The Rebel Fleet) – Princess Leia (Fleeing the Empire) – A New Hope (Decoy at Dantooine) This list has two of my favorite cards that I rarely use: Princess Leia and A New Hope. This is when things began to really start working as far as the deck concept. I didn’t like the idea of basing the deck around Han alone, as I might never even see him. However, if I also have Princess Leia. who becomes insanely better when you can control when she leaves play, now I have four characters I can draw into that all my leave play effects work well with. Add in Bright Hope that comes with the Rebel Han that removes a token of any type from itself when another friendly unit leaves play, and you have lots of reasons to have characters leaving play. This is not to mention Sith damage decks that find ways of removing lots of units just about every turn! Where things really took off though, was the fact that these two objectives (Fleeing the Empire and Decoy at Dantooine) really solved my problem of consistently getting these characters to leave play through You’re My Only Hope, A New Hope, and Fall Back. Han’s objective, Evacuation Procedure, also packs a removal effect. So at this point, the core of the deck is: 2 x Evacuation Procedure 2 x Fleeing the Empire 1 x Decoy at Dantooine Now, on to the junk. Hunk of Junk The rest of the deck really fell together after this. In any deck that has a decent number of characters in it, Asteroid Sanctuary has to be considered. The thought of attacking with the Falcon, triggering the ability to drop in Han, and then attacking with Han just seemed way too good to pass up. The Falcon also interacts fantastically with Bright Hope, forcing a leave play with the Falcon each turn can make Bright Hope do some serious work. I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least a single Rebel Assault in a deck that let’s me search for Rebel cards, so Defense of Yavin 4 is at minimum a one of. Considering I’ve already got two Falcon and two Bright Hope in the deck, the objective itself has become a huge part of this deck. Playing the Millenium Falcon for 2 or 3 resources can just ruin your opponent. This also gives me two of each Y-Wing, Red 2, Rebel Assault, Hidden Outpost, and Astromech Droid Upgrade (wonderful with Bright Hope). So now the deck is shaping up and looks like this: Affiliation: Smugglers and Spies 2 x Asteroid Sanctuary 2 x Defense of Yavin 4 2 x Fleeing the Empire 2 x Evacuation Procedure 1 x Decoy at Dantooine With one objective slot left to get to ten objective, the final slot could easily go to any Smuggler or Rebel Objective. To be honest, this final slot is anything but decided at this point. There are several options here. On my consideration list is: Renegade Squadron Mobilization – This objective seems too good for the deck to not include. For starters, the objective itself pairs with A New Hope amazingly. I’ve had games where I draw 4-5 cards off of playing A New Hope. It also features Renegade Squadron, which is a great card. It’s especially great with Princess Leia being captured so often in this deck and it likely that Defense of Yavin 4 is on the board. The other really amazing synergy here is Echo Caverns. A great card in it’s own right, when Evacuation Procedure is out it becomes insane. Being able to use it on you and your opponents turn is just sick. Raise the Stakes – The objective and the Blockade Runner give the deck quite a bit of added punch. I could live without the Bothan Spy and the Smuggling Compartment, but an additional Cloud City Operative and Swindled are fantastic. The Swindled is a great option for getting Leia to leave play when you need her to and for triggering Bright Hope if necessary. Of course, bouncing a Royal Guard isn’t ever awful either! Trust Me – I think any time I start Smugglers, this objective is on my list. The objective itself is great against Sith and Lando in a Falcon deck can bring the pain. It has a few cards you don’t want however, so it’s certainly not at the top of the list. At the moment, I think there are just too many synergies not to use Renegade Squadron Mobilization in this deck. So, on to the deck list: Affiliation: Smugglers and Spies 2 x Asteroid Sanctuary 2 x Defense of Yavin 4 2 x Fleeing the Empire 2 x Evacuation Procedure 1 x Decoy at Dantooine 1 x Renegade Squadron The deck might not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts. Cards Are Cards While the list may not look like much, I dare you to try the deck a few times. I can literally have nothing on the board and generate an unimaginable amount of damage. You have to know the various options of the deck to really see it’s beauty, so I recommend trying it when you have time to take the game slow and consider your options. It’s really quite insane just how many options the deck presents each turn. In the end, what I continue to learn about Star Wars is that the value of each card is drastically lower than in most other games. This has a lot to do with the draw mechanic, but also because so much more of this game happens outside of the stats that what is on a card. How you attack, with which units, and in which order makes all the difference. The player skill involved in using the tools at your disposal appropriately is immense. Even if a card doesn’t seem all that great at first, give it a try. It may not be tall enough to be a stormtrooper, but it might end up being quite a bit better than you think. I’ve seen quite a bit of ‘conventional’ wisdom being developed in this game and I think Star Wars is way too young to be developing hard and fast rules for decks and what is viable. If you play this game, I implore you to not settle for conventional wisdom, to experiment with objectives people aren’t using, and to push the limits of what is possible in this game. Don’t believe the all powerful they. We’ve got several months until Store Championships and regionals roll around, so this is a fantastic time to give objectives a try that don’t look that great on paper. Until next time, I’ll be seeing if I can’t find a way to make a viable Scum deck… As always, may the Force be with you. Zach

Two preschoolers who wanted to visit their grandma stole the keys to their mom's SUV, according to police in Washington state. However, this is no modern day fairy tale and this story does not have a happy ending.The five-year-old and three-year-old are not old enough to see over the steering wheel and their feet cannot even reach the pedals. But they somehow managed to start the engine and drive the car into a nearby intersection where they T-boned a second vehicle.The Federal Way Police Department posted photos of the damage on their Facebook page.Neighbors heard the crash and ran outside to see what happened."(It sounded) like and explosion went off -- something, we really don't know. So I ran out and I saw it," neighbor Annemarie Warren told KOMO-TV . "I knew it was our neighbor's car, but I did not know she wasn't in the car. Only the two little ones."The children were uninjured, witnesses said. The driver of the second car had cuts and bruises."I held the kids both in their hands and I said, 'where's your mom?' (They said,) 'sleeping. I want to go to my grandma's house,'" said Warren. "I was waiting for the mother to come out, too, you know?"Authorities did not say whether the parents could face any charges.

On an overcast day in November, 2014, just before Thanksgiving, two men dug a rather large hole in a lawn in Central Park. They started at seven-thirty in the morning, and by midday the hole was big enough for them both to stand in. As they dug, they filtered excavated soil through a screen. They found eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese porcelain, blue earthenware fragments, and the rim of a pearlware teacup, as well as the stem of a clay pipe and brown, olive, aqua, and purple glass shards. And they unearthed a roughly three-foot-tall, nine-inch-square white stone, two sides of which were inscribed with numbers. The ceramic and glass remnants were unexceptional, but the white stone was anything but. It was a discovery akin to finding a marble statue submerged in a remote lake or a lamppost in the wild woods of Narnia. Hundreds of stones like this one were fastidiously implanted across the island two centuries ago, but not a single one seemed to have survived, in its original position, amid the construction and endless reconstruction of New York City. The stones were set at the intersection of every street and avenue to chart the bold nineteenth-century plan that gave Manhattan its great grid. The carved marble sign in Central Park marks an intersection that never came to be, one of many spliced out of the grand plan when city residents demanded an antidote to the grid. Central Park has long kept its grid memory secret. But in little more than a year since that November morning, three more marble street monuments have been discovered in the curvaceous green core of the island. A map of the City of New York, from 1811. Photograph by The New-York Historical Society / Getty Photograph by The New-York Historical Society / Getty In 1807 the Common Council asked the state to appoint three commissioners to plan the city’s development. (The aldermen were hoping to avoid the disagreements and political reversals that occurred at the local level; and they did maintain some say by recommending three men who should serve as the commissioners.) They hired a young Albany native named John Randel, Jr., to survey the island and draft the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan, an eight-foot-long blueprint for the grid, which was to run from North (now Houston) Street to 155th Street. After Randel handed it in, the Common Council hired the exacting surveyor to inscribe the grid in the rural landscape. Randel resurveyed the island with instruments of his own invention, placing wooden stakes or pegs at every one of the more than fifteen hundred planned intersections. Once done with that task, he and the bane of his meticulous existence—his unruly, ever-shifting, drink-loving crew—set about replacing the pegs with less easily vandalized or purloined markers. At some fifteen hundred and fifty intersections, according to Randel’s notes, the men set “monumental stones”; at nearly a hundred others, where they encountered bedrock or boulder, they placed iron bolts. The process took until 1817, with the men carrying or carting monuments to intersections, often working up one avenue and then down another. Sometimes they tried to avoid lugging the heavy stones: “This delay has much the appearance of a determination to get here too late to carry monuments,” Randel wrote in one of his field books. He, too, found the monuments, which were much more expensive to buy, carve, and install than he had anticipated, to be a burden. And although the hefty, largely interred stones were challenging to remove, landowners still occasionally uprooted them. As the city extended up the island, the monuments and bolts seem to have become rubble, dug up and discarded as the terrain was transformed. The sole documented marble monument, for more than a century, from a corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, survives in the collection of the New-York Historical Society. Construction workers unearthed it in 1890 and it was, for a time, on view in Madison Square Garden. Not too long ago, the Historical Society discovered a second monument in its collection, from Second Avenue and Ninety-second Street. For many years it lay partially buried in the Society’s garden. It was excavated in 2006, mistakenly catalogued as a milestone, and transferred to a warehouse in New Jersey. One well-known bolt endures, embedded in a low rise of gray schist in the park’s southern section. It was discovered and confirmed to be in the right location, in 2004, by Reuben Rose-Redwood, a geographer at the University of Victoria, and Lemuel Morrison, then of Mercator Land Surveying, who hunted for Randel bolts throughout Central Park when Rose-Redwood was conducting research on the 1811 plan for his master’s thesis. “We never looked for monuments,” Morrison said. “We just presumed they were all gone.” As have most people who search for, or are intrigued by, survey markers and a landscape view of New York City history. The archeologists who excavated the monumental stone that November morning—James Lee of Hunter Research, a Trenton, New Jersey-based company, and Matthew Pihokker, formerly of the same—had been hired the year before by the Central Park Conservancy to study the northern stretch of Central Park following the restoration of the six-acre Fort Landscape, rocky heights where Fort Fish, Fort Clinton, and Nutter’s Battery once stood. They excavated a gatehouse at McGowan’s Pass and found evidence of other defenses hastily built during the War of 1812. They uncovered traces of the Kingsbridge Road, which wound north up the island on its way toward Albany and Boston. One spring day during that project, the president and principal archeologist of the company, Richard Hunter, was strolling to meet his team in the field when he saw a flat white stone embedded in a lawn. The team had with them printouts of several of Randel’s farm maps—a set of ninety-two beautiful, topographically accurate, large-scale maps that the surveyor drafted for the city between 1818 and 1820—which they frequently consulted. One showed the notation “mon,” Randel’s shorthand for marble monument, seemingly near where the flat white stone sat. Although intrigued, the crew was focussed on the Fort Landscape, not on the grid, and returned to their investigation of the northern park. And perhaps the flat white stone Hunter saw that May day would have remained unrevealed, were it not for Richard Garland, a retired software engineer and history maven who regularly runs and walks in Central Park, scanning the landscape with the hawk eyes of a surveyor. After hearing a talk at the Museum of the City of New York, in September, 2014, about the archeological finds in the Fort Landscape, Garland e-mailed Hunter asking if the crew had seen anything resembling a bolt or monument. Hunter recalled the flat white stone, although in his memory it was two to three inches on a side. Garland quickly visited the stone. It seemed to be eight-and-a-half inches to a side, which he identified as the dimension of the monument in the Historical Society’s collection. Garland contacted Morrison—the two had sought Randel survey markers before, in Highbridge Park and Riverside Park—and Morrison toted his G.P.S. equipment to the spot, took readings, and checked them against maps in his office. The stone’s coördinates were within one foot of the expected position: a match for a Randel marker. Garland then catalyzed the official quest by letting Hunter know about Morrison’s measures. Hunter contacted the Central Park Conservancy. A month later, the archeological excavation revealed the flat white stone to be the city’s only known in situ grid monument. A new archeological mission arose for the Conservancy. “We needed to be thorough and look for other ones,” Marie Warsh, director of preservation planning, said. Warsh requested high-resolution copies of the Randel farm maps from the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, where the colorful maps are kept, and had them overlaid on a high-resolution map of Central Park. Last July, she led a small expedition to hunt for more monuments, starting in the northern end of the park. Warsh, a historian with a wonderful wry sense of humor, can read the park’s design history in its rocks and slopes, its soils and vegetation. She reasoned that the area in and around the North Woods had been less highly engineered, partly because the park commissioners had largely run out of money by the time that work there began, in 1863, and partly because surveyors’ notes show that they admired the wild natural topography. “My theory is that they were really enchanted with the northern part of the park,” Warsh said. “It was a kind of template of what they wanted the park to be.” Within minutes of checking their first invisible intersection of the day, Warsh, James Lee, and Evan Mydlowski, also of Hunter Research, found another monument, this one of brownish stone. A feeling of glee seized the group, which I joined on the excursion: the park must be filled with Randel monuments! After several hours hunting on slopes, in thorny thickets, and in beds of poison ivy, the team lost some conviction. (Their woes were those of many who have surveyed the park: “Trouble was experienced with the poisonous ivy, which occurs abundantly in the brush; one member of the party was so badly poisoned with it, as to be confined to his room for a fortnight,” a Central Park surveyor wrote, in 1857.) The summer foliage was too thick to permit accurate G.P.S. readings. “Maybe we should come back in the fall, when the leaves are down?” Lee suggested. The group set aside four days in December to walk from one invisible intersection to another—there were eleven they wanted to check—and I accompanied them most of the days. “I have the sense of city blocks being much shorter when I walk in the park,” Warsh remarked, as they searched along the streets and avenues held at bay by the park’s wall. Just feet from a spot they had searched in July—in an area that seems so “untouched it feels old world,” Lee said—they found another monument under a thick coat of leaves, bringing the total to three. A few hours later, they caught sight of a fourth. The following day, an iron bolt, partially destroyed, but clearly set in a bed of lead, as Randel’s bolts were, surfaced in The Ramble, where, just up a nearby hill, a great horned owl had settled in the barren trees.

0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard Donald Trump has some serious issues that are absolutely getting in the way of his ability to function on any kind of expected, adult level. This was never cute. But now President Trump is whining about the media not covering his “enthusiastic supporters” while Russian smokes threatens to bring this country down thanks to him and his administration. This is more than pathetic. It’s deeply troubling. Just leaving Florida. Big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road that the FAKE NEWS media refuses to mention. Very dishonest! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017 Donald Trump’s National Security adviser was busted Thursday and Friday for having talks with the Russian ambassador about the sanctions imposed in retaliation for Russia interfering with our election. He had some of these talks before the election. Before Donald Trump won the election. On Friday, a top aide to Trump’s NSA was denied security clearance. Friday and Saturday, Democrats called for Trump to fire his National Security adviser. Friday evening, Trump pretended he knew nothing of the explosive report that his NSA was talking to Russia even before the election. Sunday, Trump adviser Stephen Miller refused to comment on this matter saying the White House hadn’t given him anything to say on it. On Sunday, a former national security expert quoted a Senior Pentagon intelligence official as saying, “Since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the Situation Room… There’s not much the Russians don’t know at this point.” On Sunday evening, Michael Flynn was on Air Force One with President Trump, returning to D.C. So basically D.C. is on fire with Russian flames encroaching our most vital national security and Donald Trump is whining about crowds and the media. Senator Al Franken said today that a few Republicans are worried about Trump’s mental health. Just a few? That says a lot. 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:

'Lion King' director Rob Minkoff is producing the animated feature inspired by Brooks' comedy classic 'Blazing Saddles.' Michael Cera, Samuel L. Jackson and Michelle Yeoh have joined the voice cast of Blazing Samurai, an animated feature inspired by Mel Brooks' comedy classic Blazing Saddles. Rob Minkoff, director of The Lion King and Stuart Little, will produce the animated comedy together with Yair Landau and Susan Purcell. Landau's Mass Animation shingle is producing with Huayi Brothers Media Corporation, Flying Tigers Entertainment and GFM Films, which is handling international sales at AFM. George Takei, Gabriel Iglesias, Djimon Hounsou, Aasif Mandvi, Sandra Tsing Loh and former Spice Girl Mel B. are also among the voice cast. Open Road Films has picked up U.S. rights to Blazing Samurai and plans a domestic bow on August 4, 2017. Sony Pictures International Releasing has picked up several territories and Huayi Brothers is distributing the film in Greater China. GFM Films is selling worldwide rights to buyers at AFM. Cera will play Hank, a dog who dreams of becoming a great warrior and saving the town of Kakamucho from becoming the litter box of a nefarious feline warlord. Jackson will voice Jimbo, a once-great cat samurai who has been hitting the catnip too hard for too long. He takes Hank under his wing and teaches him the way of the samurai. Brooks will voice Shogun, a misguided but benevolent leader. Helmers Mark Koetsier (Kung Fu Panda) and Chris Bailey (Alvin and the Chipmunks) will direct from a screenplay by Ed Stone and Nate Hopper. “There is no business like Shogun business,” quipped Brooks. The comedy legend will attend AFM Nov. 4 to showcase footage from Blazing Samurai to buyers, along with Minkoff and Landau. “Throughout the recording sessions from Mel Brooks to Mel B, this cast has not only met the humor, but raised the level of comedy and heart in this unique homage to Blazing Saddles,” said Landau. “Ed and Nate delivered a first-rate script in Blazing Samurai, a story about cats and dogs getting along that will appeal to everyone whether they’ve seen the original comedy classic or not.” Brooks is executive producing Blazing Samurai along with Reginald Hudlin and Pietro Ventani.

Mormon Church Opens in Ozark as Mormon Faith Grows Video OZARK, Mo. -- A new Mormon church has opened its doors in Ozark. It's the new home for the Ozark and Nixa congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. The growth of the Mormon faith has created a need for the new church in our area. The LDS church in Ozark has had its doors open for about two weeks now. Between the Nixa and Ozark wards, there are about 800 people who have already joined. "It's a worldwide congregation of about 15 million people and growing," said Ozark Ward Bishop Robert Guison. And the growth has been proven here in the Ozarks with a need for the brand new church. "When i was young growing up in Monett, we had to come to Springfield," said Bishop Guison. "There are now seven stakes and each stake is approximately six to seven congregations-- so that's how much it's grown in my lifetime-- just in this area-- so there's been a tremendous amount of growth." "It's been exciting to see the growth and people moving to the area," said Nixa Ward Bishop Michael Barker. "But also the natural growth from families -- and also those that choose to join the Mormon faith-- those that choose to investigate and join themselves to the church-- it's been fun." Before, those of the Mormon faith in Nixa and Ozark had to drive to Springfield. "Then, as the need grew, we were too crowded in that building," said Bishop Guison. "So the next choice was what would be the most benefit to members and the community? That's why this location was chosen." "It gives a foundation to our faith, a sense of permanence," said Bishop Barker. "There's a lot of excitement to have our own building here in the Nixa-Ozark region." The building includes classrooms, offices and a kitchen adjacent to the multi-purpose cultural hall that doubles as in indoor basketball court. "There's a great sense of ownership and presence to have a building and a place we call home," said Bishop Barker. "Where we come together to worship and can invite people to come share our faith with us." But, of course, for them-- it goes beyond that. "The building is wonderful and represents progress and growth," said Bishop Barker. "But, more importantly, it represents our faith and the savior Jesus Christ and not only to serve him and our families, but to serve the community as Christians." The chapel seats about 250 people. The church serves both the Nixa and Ozark communities.

Like our Page SHARE ON FACEBOOK Embed: Song List Show Review The first thing worth noting is the fact that Polica do not front with a line-up we've ever seen in this interesting little indie-pop universe we bounce around in. There are no guitars, no keyboards...only two drummers, a bass player, and a singer. That's it...though we have read legend of a powerful sonic wizard hiding somewhere behind the curtain, triggering sounds and beats and mist and light. That of course is something we cannot confirm. All we know is, this inventive, somewhat mysterious Minneapolis collective is a self-described, "test-tube group", surgically put together by producer Ryan Olson to achieve a very specific vision. That vision is dark and stormy. That vision is often sleek and sexy. That vision is dancy. That vision is also ripe with tension, as singer Channy Leaneagh recently told us. "We have this conflict between soft and smooth with obviously very harsh and intense sounds from two drummers and kind of some aggressive tones musically fighting with softer tones, sweeter sounding stuff". That vision is complex. Back in June we had the chance to witness this cacophonous force when Polica invited us to capture a trio of tracks during a soundcheck held before a sold out performance at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg. In session, the dichotomy Leaneagh describes is easy to hear. The heavy filling, drum and bass are jagged, as Leaneagh's vocals dive bomb in and out like some beautiful attack. Balancing things out are the band's futuristic swells of synth...the man who may or may not be lurking behind the curtain, it seems. Under a haze of red, blue, and violet shadows, Polica bring a unique world of sound to life. Inhabit it for a moment in this, our mystical new session with the group. Photos Transcript That, that, that, that season I want, want only see him He say no, no he be teasing Then he call back to come and see him I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone Are you ready to die alone That, that, that, that reason Don't go, go, go and see him But I know, know that I need him And me, you guarantee it I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone Are you ready to die alone When you finally make it home I'll be ready to freak and moan coming off of the x and o's crawling out of your skin and bones When you finally make it home I'll be ready to freak and moan coming off of the x and o's crawling out of your skin and bones Slay me That, that, that, that season I want, want only see him Barely touch, touch and now it's steaming Think it's dead cold but now it's beating I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone Are you ready to die alone That that, that, that reason Don't go, go, go and see him Don't talk, talk about cheating It's a hard fall and let me leave it I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone I was ready to die alone Are you ready to die alone When you finally make it home I'll be ready to freak and moan coming off of the x and o's crawling out of your skin and bones When you finally make it home I'll be ready to freak and moan coming off of the x and o's crawling out of your skin and bones Slay me, darling, darling, I believe that I, yeah darling yeah, darling yeah, darling yeah I believe that I am, yeah darling oh, darling yeah, darling oh, I believe that I am, yeah darling oh, darling yeah, darling oh, I believe that I'm in love When you finally make it home I'll be ready to freak and moan When you finally make it home I'll be ready to freak and moan coming off of the x and o's crawling out of your skin and bones Slay me yeah, slay me aggravated in a positive way, just by the amount of sound coming out of our band, like, two drummers and bass are very stimulating to me as a performer and will get me excited. We play off of each other and kind of go back and forth. I also come from... before I sang, I did theater, and I like theater. We all enjoy thinking about the performance as creating a world on stage and kind of making our music come alive is important to all of us and to have fun on stage and to make it worth our time as well. You know, to get something out of it personally. Polica's music kind of marries that as well, because we have this conflict between sort of soft and smooth with obviously, very harsh, intense sounds from two drummers and kind of some aggressive tones fighting, musically fighting, with softer tones, sweeter kind of sounding stuff. - The record, the title of the record and the subject matter of the record is coming from this perspective of, or coming from being a woman or like, the brutality, the kind of gruesomeness of being a woman, the dichotomy between beautification and blood and that carries through a woman's life until she dies, and kind of the conflict between those two. How my lips been tightly sealed How my hands and feet been bound Must have liked all your reprimands Look at me cowering now See I meet a lot of women And they tell me that I'm strong When I leave the stage to find you Why you make me think they're wrong Believe me gonna find a man who loves me like I do, like I did to you Gonna find a man, who loves me like I do, like I did to you See I want a friend to be with Well, I like a soul that's true Sweet words to fill the days and darkness Loving kindness, loving kindness How my lips been tightly sealed How my hands and feet been bound Must have liked all your reprimands Look at me cowering now See I meet a lot of women And they tell me that I'm strong When I leave the stage to find you Why you make me think they're wrong Believe me gonna find a man who loves me like I do, like I did to you Gonna find a man, who loves me like I do, like I did to you Like a man to make me do And I like a friend to be with And I like a soul that's true Sweet words to fill the days and darkness, inner weakness Loving kindness, loving kindness, yeah We were kind of put together by our producer, Ryan Olson, him and Channy were writing tracks together and they wanted to get a heavy-hitting rhythm team behind them, so they asked me to play bass and Ben and Drew to play the double drum kits. - He is kind of like the leader, in the sense that he builds the sounds that the rest of us react to. We're all influenced by, I think, really different music and then we're also very much influenced by each other. Chris and I play off of each other a lot. If I lay down a vocal line onto a track and then Chris lays bass over it, it'll often happen that I will re-record vocals based on what the bass and drums do on top of my vocals and I'm kind of reacting back to them. So we are greatly inspired, I think, or largely inspired by each other and by kind of this assembly line of reaction and kind of a collaging off of each other. - I think Polica is a band that is a good representation of what goes on in the scene in Minneapolis. - We all played music in Minneapolis in different bands and saw each other playing in those bands and small scene. - Because everyone's kind of interested in what everyone else is doing and very supportive really and we like to collaborate, you know, I know so many people who are in four or five bands and so, I mean, when you're kind of spreading yourself out across a bunch of different genres, really exciting things can happen. I grew out of a noise punk band and now I'm playing electronic double-drum synth stuff. You hold me like this you hold me like this Leave the night to the sky Darling, what do you miss You hold me like this you hold me like this Darkness, hold me Lightness, fight this Darkness, hold me Lightness, fight this Mine's a heart you can't keep Oh no heart can't keep Mine's a time you can't find All your ways are cheap You hustled on the wrong street Now we know your true love's greed Too fine to forget, too fine to forget Too fine to forget me Too fine to forget, too fine to forget Too fine to forget me Take hold like you Take hold like you Take hold like you Like you want this Darkness, hold me Lightness, fight this Darkness, won't you hold me Lightness, won't you fight this Take hold like you Take hold like you Take hold like you Like you want this Artist Bio Minnesota natives Ryan Olson and Channy Leaneagh play dreamy electronica with a penchant for autotune. Founded in 2011, they have released one album, Give Up The Ghost, which was met with critical acclaim. Editorial

Cumbria police confirmed today that Derrick Bird, who went on the rampage in the UK's worst shooting incident since the Dunblane massacre, had been a licensed gun holder for 20 years. Twelve people were confirmed dead and three were fighting for their lives after the taxi driver went on the apparently indiscriminate shooting spree across a swath of Cumbrian countryside. Bird, 52, shot dead his twin brother and at least one colleague before driving through rural west Cumbria firing seemingly at random at people in towns, villages and on country roads and then killing himself. More than 100 detectives are beginning to piece together the full sequence of events and trying to establish the gunman's motive. Eleven people were injured, three critically, during the three-and-a-half hour shooting spree which paralysed the county as police, hunting him on the ground and by air, ordered a lockdown. Cumbria police said they might never completely uncover the reason for what they described as the "most exceptional and challenging incident" the small force had ever dealt with. Last night, they were examining 30 crime scenes. The alarm was raised in the harbour town of Whitehaven at 10.30am. By then, it is believed, Bird's twin brother, David, and the family solicitor, Kevin Commons, were already dead. It ended only when the gunman's body was found in a copse outside the hamlet of Boot at 1.40pm. Two guns were recovered by police, a .22 rifle with a telescopic sight and a shotgun. The deputy chief constable of Cumbria constabulary, Stuart Hyde, confirmed this morning that Bird was licensed to carry weapons. Speaking in Whitehaven, Hyde said: "He had a shotgun certificate and a firearms licence for weapons, but we do not know at this stage whether the weapons that we recovered are those he was licensed for. A detailed ballistic examination is being undertaken to confirm this." He confirmed that a local solicitor, Kevin Commons, aged 60, who worked for KJ Common solicitors, was among the 12 victims. The home secretary, Theresa May, is due to make a statement on the killings in the House of Commons later today. There were unconfirmed reports that Bird, from Rowrah, near Frizington, who was divorced with two sons and had recently become a grandfather, had argued with colleagues on the taxi rank the previous night. One friend, Peter Leder, told CNN Bird had said to him: "You won't see me again." According to one woman in Whitehaven, Bird "shook them [his colleagues] by the hands one by one and said there's going to be a rampage in this town tomorrow and it's going to start with my mother ... They just laughed and didn't take him seriously". Others spoke of a reported family row over the will of Bird's seriously ill mother, involving Commons. Commons's home was last night cordoned off by police, and letters from his law firm were visible on a windowsill of Bird's home. It is thought that after killing his brother and Commons, Bird headed to Whitehaven and shot a fellow taxi driver named locally as Darren Rewcastle. Witnesses said Bird then drove through the town with a gun hanging out of his car window. Police released a map showing Bird's progress south to Egremont, Gosforth and Seascale, where the killings continued. One witness, Barrie Moss, said he was cycling through Egremont when he came face to face with the killer, who had just got out of his car. Bird, carrying "this absolutely huge sniper rifle", stared at him before driving away, Moss said. He then saw that an older woman carrying bags of shopping had been shot. Moss described how he and another man cradled the woman as she died: "He must have seen her, stopped, got out and shot her point blank in the back of the head. I don't think anybody could have done anything." Further south, in Seascale, another witness, John Reeves, said he was loading his car when he heard two gunshots and ran out of his house. "As I turned the corner there was this poor chap on a bike and he had been shot, he was turned to the wall and this car had sped off. A few of us tried to help this poor man, but he was gone." As the shootings progressed a police lockdown of the area saw shops, offices and even the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant close their doors. Helicopters and armed officers from other police forces were brought in to help in the hunt. Cumbria's deputy chief constable, Stuart Hyde, said police had yet to establish whether it was a premeditated or random attack. "This has shocked the people of Cumbria and around the country to the core," he said. It was a "terrifying and horrific incident", he said. "Our thoughts go out to all the family and friends and colleagues of those killed or injured in this tragedy." Jamie Reed, the Copeland MP, said: "We will be doing everything we can now as a community, coming together to help the families of the victims, to help everyone that has been affected by this. That is our priority." The Queen said she was "deeply shocked by the appalling news" and expressed sympathy to those affected. David Cameron pledged to assist communities "shattered" by the killings. "The government will do everything it possibly can to help the local community and those affected," he told MPs. Theresa May said the events were "very serious and tragic". "Our thoughts are with the families and friends of the victims of these shootings. "It's a terrible incident that has taken place in Cumbria today, but I would like to pay tribute to the way in which the police and emergency services have worked very closely together to deal with this incident. It is the third tragedy to hit west Cumbria in six months, following the devastating floods last year and the deaths of three people, including two schoolchildren, in a coach crash on the A66 last week." Many among the injured were taken to West Cumberland hospital in Whitehaven, where a major incident was declared and routine operations cancelled, and to hospitals in Carlisle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Bird's spree is the biggest mass shooting since Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and an adult at Dunblane primary school in March 1996, before killing himself.

Last May, Dr. Kathleen Levinstein, a professor of social work at the University of Michigan, wrote a heartbreaking piece about her autistic daughter, a teenaged girl who became convinced that she was really a man trapped inside a woman’s body. With encouragement from transgender activists at the local organization of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the vulnerable young woman took sex-altering hormones and cut off her breasts. Dr. Levinstein now grieves the mutilation of her daughter’s body and the increased psychological confusion her daughter is experiencing as a result of the hormones. She states, “She has been taken advantage of. Healthy organs were amputated…. It is a crime not just against women, but particularly against disabled women. So many of these young women who are ‘transitioning’ are also autistic.” Some contemporary studies have made a connection between gender “dysphoria” and autism. A recent article in The Atlantic uses these studies to push the idea that “transitioning” is a healthy, even necessary, option for those on the spectrum who want it. The author asserts that any effort to discourage such “medical care” to those with special needs is callous. In this way, The Atlantic interweaves natural sympathy for the growing autism awareness movement with transgender ideology. The Atlantic has it backwards. To help and protect individuals on the spectrum, there needs to be greater awareness of transgenderism’s lies and why those on the spectrum could be susceptible to its manipulation. Encouraging sex-change or an alternate gender identity is destructive to individuals with autism or Asperger’s (previously in a separate diagnostic category), only furthering their private pain. Why would those who are neurobiologically different also come to see themselves as a different biological sex with the rising influence of the transgender movement? Neurologically atypical individuals spend much of their childhood and adolescence quietly struggling with how others misunderstand them and how they understand themselves. It is critical to understand this struggle in order to push back against the encroachment of transgender ideology into the gifted and special needs community. With boys, the struggle may be outwardly noticeable. With young girls, the struggle is often more hidden (and undiagnosed). I can offer some insight into this struggle through my own childhood experience as an undiagnosed girl with Asperger’s. As a child, I flapped my hands and engaged in what it called “stimming.” My particular type of stimming involved opening my mouth wide in a self-stimulatory manner. My jaw dropped and my hands shook repetitively while my voice sounded as if it was out-of-breath (I wasn’t struggling for breath at all). Most clinicians in the 1970s and 1980s did not even know what “stimming” was. Autism was not fully on the cultural radar yet and the groundbreaking writings of Hans Asperger had only been recently translated from the original German. I loved stimming and still do. It felt relaxing: a kind of natural, harmless high in the brain that others around me would never know and could not attain. Nonetheless, I learned at a young age to only stimmy in private so as to avoid ridicule. From a young age, I always knew I was different in some way. Females with Asperger’s often go unrecognized because young girls are better able to “fake it until they make it” in the neurotypical world. They are better at it up to a point. That point is usually adolescence. During adolescence, the stresses of holding all the quirks and idiosyncrasies in check can be too much to bear in the face of increased social expectations. As a result, Asperger’s girls growing up often prefer the company of boys and generally find it far easier to relate with males. As psychiatrist Martin L. Kutscher writes in The Syndrome Mix, “Many women who have Asperger’s syndrome have described to psychologists and in autobiographies how they sometimes think they have a male rather than a female brain, having a greater understanding and appreciation of the interests, thinking, and humor of boys during their early school years.” Sound familiar? This aspect of their cerebral wiring—the conflict between what they feel, how they perceive the world and how the world perceives them—existed long before the neo-Gnosticism of transgender ideology came into vogue. Their thinking is often highly literal. Their mothers struggle to understand them and they find it easier to relate to their fathers. Due to their unusual traits, they are also prime targets for bullying by “mean girls” during adolescence, further alienating them. I can attest to that from personal experience having ended up with a concussion and blood streaming down my face in middle school. These girls are not “boys trapped in a girl’s body.” These are girls who think differently and are often misunderstood by the other young girls around them. They don’t need to be encouraged to become males. Others need to be encouraged to better understand them as unique young women. Boys on the spectrum face other sets of struggles. Sensory-seeking little boys may like to touch the ruffles, tutus or lace on girls’ clothes for comfort. They often have delayed gross motor skills, making it difficult for them to engage in the contact sports through which boys generally bond. Boys who toe-walk due to problems with their vestibular system may be mocked for “walking like a girl” or “acting girly.” Boys on the spectrum are routinely bullied or rejected by other boys, leading them to question their very identity as boys. You could explain to parents and teachers that boys touching girls’ clothes need greater sensory input. You could encourage parents to help their children improve gross motor skills through physical therapy or individualized sports such as gymnastics or martial arts. You could have an occupational therapist work with them on their vestibular system. You could help them develop the friendships with other boys that they desperately crave, such as by finding parents or groups who have children with shared interests or needs. Or you could play into false and shallow stereotypes of the sexes and tell parents that their child is really a “girl trapped in a boy’s body.” Sadly, you can see this is already happening just by perusing internet forums for moms of children with Asperger’s. Some mothers of Aspies now refer to their sons as “male-assigned” rather than boys. These parents do not need to be told to accept that their child is really a “male trapped in a woman’s body” or “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” They need to be further educated on special needs and taught ways to relate to their quirky and gifted son or daughter with Asperger’s. A new campaign has sprung up on social media with the hashtag #AutisticTransPride. A movement telling young people on the spectrum that the identity issues they will struggle with as they grow-up can be solved through sex change or “gender questioning” is cruel. Surface changes in clothes and pronouns will solve nothing and only exacerbate their suffering. What they need is not biological alteration, but greater acceptance and understanding of their neurobiological differences. For a pseudo-religious movement to target this vulnerable population of youths for their own ideological ends is nothing less than child abuse. The latest Atlantic piece is just another shot across the bow. If we do not remain vigilant in speaking the truth, young people with special needs will just be the latest victims in the left-wing cultural assault against human biology. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)

By Messes are intimate, secret, somewhat shameful. Mess is supposed to be kept backstage. Posting this picture of my messy workspace is almost as embarrassing and inappropriate as posting nudes, but it’s necessary aesthetic background: All the new thinking about mess is apologetics: what if mess is good? Perhaps mess makes us more creative. Messiness is a sign of intelligence. All that. As a pathologically messy person, I cannot concur with this glorification of mess. Being in a messy environment is stressful and discouraging. There is an unease that remains even when you block out the conscious awareness of mess. This is not say that mess is a pure bad. Mess is not even necessarily ugly. The famous photograph of Albert Einstein’s desk, taken on the day he died, is a particularly picturesque mess. This is recognizably a mess, but it is calming to look at, and deeply touches our personal feelings. It has mono no aware. Most mess is not pleasing to look at, especially when experienced raw, without the benefit of a photographer imposing an overall order on the mess through composition and a monochrome palette. Alan Watts is, as far as I know, the premier ordinary language philosopher of mess. He enters the problem with an observation: clouds are not a mess. When you look at the clouds they are not symmetrical. They do not form fours and they do not come along in cubes, but you know at once that they are not a mess. A dirty old ashtray full of junk may be a mess but clouds do not look like that. When you look at the patterns of foam on water they never make an artistic mistake and they are not a mess. They are wiggly but in a way, orderly, although it is difficult for us to describe that kind of order. Alan Watts, The Tao of Philosophy, p. 27. Watts observes that elements of the natural world – clouds, foam on water, the stars, human beings – are not messes, though the nature of their order remains inscrutable, and Watts doesn’t try to pin down its precise nature. Mess seems to be somehow a property perceptible only in the presence of human artifacts. Is this the result of some kind of aesthetic original sin on the part of humans, uncanny beings severed from the holiness of Nature? I hope not. “Humans are bad” is a boring answer. We can learn something about order from the mystery of mess. We start here: a cloud is not a mess, but an ashtray full of cigarette butts is a mess. In tracking down why this is so, we will find, through the lens of the mess and the non-mess, a clue to the hidden orders in our minds. Mess Is Not Shannon Entropy What is salient about mess is disorder. At the outset, we might be tempted to think of mess and disorder as the mere absence of order. But we will see that mess cannot be present without the visual implication of a legible order. In the abstract language of information theory, the kind of disorder called entropy is the lack of structure or compressibility in data. Consider a rectangular field of pixels which can be either black or white. A field of pure black or pure white has maximum order in the sense of Shannon entropy: you hardly need any bits to explain how to recreate the image. This is not a mess. On the other hand, consider a rectangle of pixels specified by a random process, with black and white equally likely. There is no way to compress this data: each pixel must be specified separately. It has maximum entropy (within this monochrome, rectangular, pixelated problem space). But it is not a mess. Finally, consider this rectangle of black and white pixels: This rectangle takes fewer bits to specify than the randomly pixelated rectangle. There are repeated letter forms, geometric forms, patches of black and white. There is much more order and compressibility here. And it’s a mess. Consider also the clouds. When Alan Watts notes that they are not symmetrical and do not come along in cubes, this is a way of saying that the number of bits necessary to specify a picture of the clouds is quite high. They have high entropy, they contain a lot of information, yet they are not mess. Is it possible for any fluffy white thing in the sky to be a mess? Imagine a skywriter convention, with many planes writing words in different fonts (some in single lines, some in dot matrix style) across the sky. Gradually the wind obscures the legibility of some letters. This seems like a mess. But, again, this sky requires fewer bits to specify: patterns of letters and dots are repeated and may be specified as mathematical shapes rather than pixel by pixel. It seems that human artifacts made from natural materials do not decay into mess, while human artifacts made from highly ordered artificial materials (sheet rock, plastic) decay into mess. Compare this rough stone ruin overgrown with moss with the ruins of a rectilinear room made from highly ordered materials: The stone ruin is not a mess, but the rectilinear green ruin is clearly a mess. And again, it would take us more bits to specify the mossy stone ruin than the crumbling painted interior, with its straight lines and even flat surfaces interrupted by corruption and decay. So here is a mystery: why are tableaux that are apparently more orderly (in the sense of compressibility in the data required to specify them) also more messy? Let me offer a few more hints, in the form of definitions supplied by my friends, before I reveal the answer. Sam Burnstein notes a connection to intentionality: “Messes are low-intentionality as a whole but high-intentionality in their component pieces.” “A mess is a decaying purpose,” says @allgebrah. Chris Beiser deconstructs the experience of mess: “Mess is an incomplete aesthetic experience composed of a surplus of objects that produce aesthetic experiences (often themselves incomplete) of vastly different types and durations, without a canonical ordering.” And Daniel Klein hints at the implied user interface of mess in conceiving of “mess as matter deficient in side-effect-free interfaces.” And here is the answer: in order for mess to appear, there must be in the component parts of the mess an implication of extreme order, the kind of highly regular order generally associated with human intention. Flat uniform surfaces and printed text imply, promise, or encode a particular kind of order. In mess, this promise is not kept. The implied order is subverted. Often, as in my mess of text and logos above, the implied order is subverted by other, competing orders. The information theory equivalent of a mess might be a chunk of data, pieces of which have been encoded using different symbolic systems, according to no particular order. If we discover the correct encoding for a part of the message, this seems to promise that it will work for the whole thing; but this promise is not kept. Mess is only perceptible because it produces in our minds an imaginary order that is missing. It is as if objects and artifacts send out invisible tendrils into space, saying, “the matter around me should be ordered in some particular way.” The stronger the claim, and the more the claims of component pieces conflict, the more there is mess. It is these invisible, tangled tendrils of incompatible orders that we are “seeing” when we see mess. They are cryptosalient: at once invisible and obvious. Every object and building implies a particular order, rendering some objects incompatible. If these incompatible objects are present, they are “mess.” Some buildings are more “exclusive” than others, aesthetically excluding large classes of objects. These highly ordered buildings are, for this reason, prone to mess. Stewart Brand, in How Buildings Learn (at around 14:50, h/t Graham Johnson), interviews the residents of an austere, rectilinear, highly-ordered Le Corbusier house. They note that they have had to get rid of “inessentials” in order to live there, forgoing ornate antique furniture and comfortable armchairs. A maison Corbu strongly projects a particular order onto its space, such that the vast majority of human furnishings are aesthetically excluded, rendered mess. Living within these constraints is a discipline, and “purifies the soul” in the sense of requiring you to live like you’re on a camping trip all the time. Houses with less austere order place more relaxed demands on their contents, including their occupants. That which is “garbage” is aesthetically excluded from almost every visible order. Garbage is mess by its very nature, even if it is not the kind that rots. It must be taken away to where no one will look at it, because the decaying imprints of order it bears interfere with the aesthetic demands of all human spaces. Artists have been interested in garbage for precisely this reason. One of the few examples I have seen of garbage being incorporated into an order that is not “mess” is the nest of a bowerbird that has been decorated with bright blue plastic bottle caps and bright blue plastic straws. Do non-human animals perceive mess? A bowerbird must. In order for the male to build and tidy up the bower (whose only purpose is for display), and for the female to judge it, they must have cognitive access to an imaginary order – a kind of ideal bower – to compare it to. Like humans, some non-human animals exert effort to keep their feces away from their living spaces. (Sociologists call this the “fecal habitus,” in their manner of rendering the familiar alien.) Feces are aesthetically incompatible with human spaces; “mess” is used euphemistically for feces produced in ordered spaces and contexts that exclude them. Presumably, feces exclusion originated in a pathogen avoidance strategy. We keep feces, urine, vomit, and blood away from social contexts (to the extent possible) because they could be sources of highly ordered entities (bacteria, viruses) that will disrupt and conflict with our bodies’ own order. The hygienic function of keeping incompatible orders separate extends into the objects of the mental world. Mess is stressful and uncomfortable; politeness demands that we cover, hide, or mask indications of orders incompatible with our mutually projected social order. At minimum, we must cover our nakedness outside of the intimate sphere. In masking parts of reality, we need not become less ourselves; what is masked forms the background against which the form of what is not masked is clear and salient. Masking When enough snow falls on a city to make everything look soft and white on top, it looks less messy. Limiting the color palette and softening sharp lines renders the underlying order more harmonious. The snow masks the conflicting orders implied by billboards, cars, dumpsters, and concrete sidewalks. A mess photographed in black and white (masking color) looks less messy. Strong composition of a photograph can mask messiness, foregrounding a certain subset of forms that interact harmoniously. In my above example of the “mess” rectangle with overlapped text and logos, if either layer were masked, it would not be a mess. Covering certain aspects of reality is necessary to leave other aspects perceptible. We mask incompatible things from each other in order to prevent mess, and politely mask mess itself. Mess is intimate. How can houses allow for the existence of mess without being a mess? Christopher Alexander’s ALCOVE pattern (in The Timeless Way of building) is a solution to the conflicting forces of intimate mess and social interaction, using a sort of mask. People want to be together, but they also like to do their own hobbies and activities. The person doing the hobby (say, me knitting) is absorbed in an imaginary order of the future, and only vaguely aware of the visual appearance of tools, materials, books. To observers who are not presently absorbed in this hobby, it looks like a mess. Knitting, for instance, requires not only knitting needles, but scissors, a tape measurer, a crochet hook, a yarn needle, and stitch markers. Loose ends are clipped off and accumulate, together with the unused remains of balls of yarn. Garments in progress have loose strands hanging off of them. Stitch books must sometimes be consulted. (This is not just my problem: producing containers for organizing hobby supplies of all kinds is a major industry.) An alcove offers a little place to do a hobby that masks the distasteful appearance of mess and allows the hobbyist to be together with others without annoying them. If they all sat in one big room around a big table, the mess would distract and irritate. Multiple hobbyists’ incompatible messes might even flood together into a supermess, and swallow everyone. Clothing in general, and costumes of particular social roles (business suits, priest collars), are like alcoves for our bodies. We take them with us and can interact with others safely within social orders, without getting distracted by the intimate order of the body. Orders of Strands What is likely to be a mess? I think one of the most common messes is your hair. We should be suspicious of our hair for several reasons: first, humans grow the longest hair of any mammal. Second, no other mammal has our hair pattern of unlimited-length head hair growth and limited-length body hair growth. Third, Donald E. Brown included “hairstyles” on the list of human universals. Long strands, whether curly or straight, are difficult to keep organized. Thread is wound on a spool; rope is looped; electronic cables are intricately braided; yarn is organized in skeins and balls; hair is brushed, braided, waxed, shaved, dreaded, wrapped around hair donuts, trimmed, dyed, and pinned up. Incidentally, another of Brown’s human universals is the production and use of string, yarn, or a tying material. Humans quickly became virtuosos at organizing fibers. Hair is “a mess” if it has not been ordered according to the standards of one’s culture and situation. To have hair is to have a black hole of ordering effort: merely existing (sleeping, running, wearing a hat, going outside, etc.) disrupts the order of hair. The quality of being “a mess” is perhaps more perceptible in hair that has been carefully pinned up into a complicated style and slept in, than in hair that is merely unstyled and unbrushed. The tattered remains of a hairstyle imply an order incompatible with having hairs sticking out everywhere and being kind of smushed on one side. Merely unbrushed hair only suggests the alternate order of brushed hair. Human hair, then, is a locus for the display of order. Its “natural” state is mess, implying that hair comes with an order deficit, requiring organizational effort to come up to the level of acceptable human. Our minds and personalities are similar. The Order of Clouds Alan Watts said that there is a way to turn any mess into not-mess: add symmetry. The example he gives is a kaleidoscope, in which a mess of incompatible things is turned into a shifting geometric pattern. The kaleidoscope, transformer of messes, adds a particular kind of symmetry. It is not mere bilateral symmetry; Rorschach blots can still be messes. The kaleidoscope produces what Christopher Alexander calls local symmetries: the property of being composed of many overlapping sub-pieces that display symmetry. Watts says that clouds are not symmetrical, and they are not, precisely, but in their forms we can often detect local symmetries (particularly in stratoculumulus clouds). Here is the earlier picture of basement clutter transformed with a kaleidoscope filter: This no longer looks like mess. Shape and form at different levels of scale pop out. Deformed, fragmented, and reflected upon themselves, the components of the mess no longer conflict with each other as much. Conceptually, they are masked; whatever they were, whatever reality they implied, is lost in the new order of geometric forms. “Local symmetries” is the most objective of Christopher Alexander’s Fifteen Fundamental Properties, described in The Nature of Order (see my The Quality Without a Name at the Betsy Ross Museum” and The Fifteen Fundamental Properties). “Alternating repetition” is also a rather objective property, and the kaleidoscope imposes that too (see the alternating arms). In this image, strong centers (perceptible, thing-ish subsets) are formed and support each other. The arms form thick borders. The kaleidoscope transforms mess into non-mess by viewing the mess through a (literal) lens of many of the Fifteen Fundamental Properties. It imposes an organization so strong that it cancels out the whining from whatever garbage or mess you put into it. These are the properties that are found throughout Nature, as well as in beautiful architecture and objects – beautiful not in the sense that they are striking, but in the sense that they produce a sense of inner calm and the ability to recognize one’s self in them. Are there truly no messes in Nature? That it “never makes an aesthetic mistake”? On short time scales, at least, there seem to be natural messes. When a tornado destroyed most of Cathedral Pines in Connecticut, the result looked to residents like a mess. People even cleaned it up, removing fallen trees from the newly-bare ground. The perception of the flattened forest, with trees scattered and dead, conflicted with the remembered order, the ideal, ordinary forest with trees mostly alive and pointing up. An enormous force disrupted the everyday order of the forest; this order repairs itself, but only slowly. The underlying natural order of clouds and stars, Alan Watts says, is difficult to describe. It is a special order formed of many regular mathematical laws operating on an irregular world. Life exploits mathematical elegance, while making local adjustments everywhere according to the systems it interacts with – wind, water, sun, other life. The Fifteen Fundamental Properties are an attempt to describe, if not explain, the order of nature, which somehow never seems like a mess. Clouds are an image of the interaction between air currents, water, and geography. Each element is a reflection of the others. Animals and plants are reflections of their environments, which change to become reflections of them. Being constantly rebuilt by independent entities and forces at all scales of time and space, constrained by each other, is how the order of nature never looks like a mess (except during tornado season). An irregular world struggling to be regular always achieves a certain level of regularity which is interrupted by unusual configurations created by the very forces that produce the regularity as they act against a framework of three-dimensional constraints inherent in space. Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order Vol. 1, p. 279 The properties predict several things about mess. A building or object that displays these properties is likely to retain them as it decays (see the mossy stone ruin), whereas things lacking the properties are likely to decay into mess. And a mess will be more pleasant if it is ordered by the fundamental properties. Alexander gives the example of a typical car repair shop: it appears rugged and even grimy, but it has the kind of “‘messy’ order that has been created by the real everyday needs of the people who work there.” He contrasts this with the superficially orderly, but shallow and sterile, storefront of a restaurant (id. at p. 337). Just as the bowerbird has some kind of cognitive access to the imaginary way a bower should look, we seem to have access to a mental order hinted at by the fifteen fundamental properties, intuitively if not consciously. Imaginary Orders A great deal of our reality is made from imaginary orders we carry around in our heads. We use these imaginary orders to rebuild, navigate, and judge our world. A mess is a visceral clue to the existence of these invisible orders. Perhaps we can braid some threads. A mess is a juxtaposition of components, one or more of which implies an order that conflicts with the orders implied by the other components. In other words, two or more components create incompatible mental projections. A joke (or humor in general) is the surreptitious introduction of a mental projection that is later shown to be mistaken. Incompatible mental projections quickly switch places in time. (See On Some Possibilities for Life as a Joke.) A self is constructed from first-person experience and from mental projections of how others see oneself; these are often in conflict. (See The Essence of Peopling.) A story or narrative is a mental projection of characters and events embedded in a particular causal logic. Listening to a story seems passive, but in order to process the narrative, the listener must construct a coherent mental world out of the details provided. Unconscious predictions are made, and then winnowed and changes as more evidence is presented and conflicts resolved. The experience bears a strong resemblance to the game, says Nick Lowe (in The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative, text from which is mangled with logos in an image above): I would suggest that these homologies between the two different kinds of model universe [game and narrative] may be more than coincidental: that narrative universes and games are different cultural artifacts of a common underlying cognitive apparatus, originally evolved to interpret real-world experience to an intelligible system of mental representations. As human beings, “projecting and sharing stylized model worlds in mental space” is both our ancestral job and our favorite hobby. The world that we interact in is mostly imaginary, constructed by all of us out of fantasies and guesses. As we get more intelligent, we will get more imaginary.

Written by Stefanie Fogel The Walking Dead Season Two is almost here. Telltale's Dennis Lenart, director of the Season Two premiere, and writer/season designer Mark Darin recently spoke to us about the series and its new pre-teen protagonist, fan-favorite Clementine. PC Gamer: Child protagonists are not all that common in video games. Why did you guys decide to make Clementine the lead for season two? Mark Darin, writer/designer, Telltale Games: I think choosing Clementine as a protagonist let us really experiment in the way that the gameplay plays out. It lets you experience--like you said, child protagonists are not generally used that often--but it provides us a unique perspective on a world that you've already seen. You spent a lot of Season One playing as Lee bringing up Clementine in a way that you think is going to be best for her. Now, putting you in her shoes and seeing how that plays out, that's something that really resonated with us. For me, one of the things that is really special about it is that she is not special. She's just a little girl dealing in this world of paranoid and intense people with zombies running around, and she has only herself to get through it. She isn't special. She's not running around with guns. She doesn't have any magic powers. She's just doing everything she can to survive, as any one of us would. Clem's a normal child, but she did learn how to shoot in Season One. So, are we going to see some of that same kind of action gameplay in Season Two, and how is that going to work with a child character? Dennis Lenart, director, Telltale Games: You're going to see action sequences at the start of the game, but it's not the same as Lee was. Lee was a full-grown man. The way he deals with people and the way he deals with zombies is very, very different from Clementine. She can shoot a gun, but she's not running around the world with a bunch of guns just taking out zombies right and left. She's got to use her environment. She's got to use everything she has to her advantage. So, the way we're approaching action sequences in Season Two is a little bit different. It's focused on her vulnerabilities and the different strengths that she has, which is very, very different from what Lee brought to Season One. Does that mean Season Two will include more puzzles? Lenart: Not necessarily, no. Darin: I think a lot of Clementine's biggest struggles are not going to come from the action sequences, but it's going to come from the ways the world treats her, and the way you have to interact with people, and that space that you have as a young girl dealing with new people that you're meeting. How do they trust you? Do you trust them? What level of manipulation is going on, and how do you perceive those things? These are all the really dramatic and intense things that are going to be happening across the season. Writing believable and interesting child characters can be a bit of a challenge. We've even seen this in AMC's The Walking Dead show with Carl in Season Two, who was not exactly a favorite amongst viewers. How are you guys approaching that challenge with Clementine? Darin: A lot of shows and games fall into the pitfall of using a child character's inexperience to cause problems, and that makes you not like the character at all, because they're just causing problems. We try to be mindful of that when we're writing our stories, and that's one of the things I think that made Clementine not a hated character in Season One, made her a beloved character. She was not just causing problems through her inexperience, and we're carrying that through Season Two as well. How much time has passed between the final scene of Season One and Season Two? Where is Clementine when we catch up with her again? Lenart: That would be a spoiler. We're trying to leave some stuff for the excitement of playing the game for the first time. She's still not a teenager, we'll say that. The Walking Dead is known for its tough moral choices. In Season One, it was an adult making them. Now, you have this child who could potentially decide who lives and who dies, or who might have to chop somebody's leg off with an axe to save them from the walkers. How is that going to work with Clem, and how will that affect her character? Lenart: Well, one of the really interesting things you touch upon there is that in Season One, a lot of times, people made good decisions with Clementine around, based on wanting to show her this is how the world is. “You need to learn how to survive,” or “You don't need to see this, I'm trying to keep you, retain a sense of your humanity as much as possible.” There's things you can do that she didn't know about, but now … you're the one who's going to be making Clementine have to go through these terrible times and make these tough decisions. So, there's a lot more of the feeling of ownership, but also, at the same time, I think it really puts you in an interesting head space, where you really feel like the world is just all hits, pressing down around you. It's “The Walking Dead,” so no one's safe at any time. You know that everything you do has repercussions. So, I think the fact that it is Clementine that you're playing as, it makes every little thing a lot harder. How will some of the choices players made in Season One affect Clementine? Darin: Basically, we're always looking for little places to call back to things. The choices you made in Season One and the things you did with Clementine color who she is in Season Two. That's an important thing for us. We're trying not to be super heavy-handed with it, but we're really retaining that sense of feeling like the Clementine you helped raise in Season One, this is the logical progression of that arc that you went through with her. Earlier this week, you guys teased a screenshot of Omid from Season One. What role does he play in Clementine's life at this point? Lenart: That would be probably spoiler territory, actually. What about the 400 Days DLC? How does that figure into everything? Lenart: We did make the promise that 400 Days, and Season One, those choices are going to carry over. A thing that happens in both Season One and in 400 Days, those events, those choices that you made, they will figure into the story in possibly unexpected ways. How much of Clementine's success as a character do you credit to Melissa Hutchinson and her performance? Lenart: She's awesome, so a lot of it. Definitely. Melissa's performance is fantastic. She brings this innocence to [Clementine] and this need to want to protect her as well, and her performance--she's an amazing actress. It's funny. I feel like even in the booth with her recording lines, you feel oddly protective of her as she's recording. It's really weird to be able to, you're sitting there focusing on a line, and you hear Clementine, and you just want to save her. Then you look over and it's Melissa sitting there with headphones. “Oh, yeah, everything's fine.” Darin: I try not to look at her in the booth. It's just weird. You're sitting there looking at your paper, looking at the script and hearing the line, but you're picturing Clementine in the other room. You look up and it's Melissa. She's so good. When you made the decision to cast Clementine as the playable character, were you at all concerned about how it'd be received by an audience that's used to playing beefy space Marines and sexy adventurers? Lenart: Not at all. For me, that was the draw to it, and so maybe it's not as much of a concern. To me, it was more excitement, I guess. Darin: It's great being in the creative world, that you can jump into and have these meaningful relationships with characters and enjoy that and still be able to, when you're done with this episode, go back and shoot some aliens and have fun with that. There's so many different kinds of games, and you don't have to be limited to one kind. You don't need to stereotype people and say, “This is what gamers want, they just want to run around and shoot things.” They want a perspective. There's room for all these kind of games to exist, and people want to play a variety of things and they're offering that to people. I think part of the core of this whole game, too, is making her the opposite of a space Marine. So, she doesn't have different guns. She doesn't have special powers. She's not super-oddly strong for a young girl. We really try to make you feel like you are a young girl in the zombie apocalypse, and you have all the same limitations that she would have. I think that's what we're really excited about with Season Two. It's a challenge that you get personally involved in. That's what makes it fun to play, is you put yourself into unique situations and you have to make the decisions, and you have to try to roleplay them in a variety of different ways. That's what's fun about it. Thanks, guys.

In a previously unpublicized incident, councillor Linda Mosher hit a cyclist last May. It’s been a bad month for those who share the road with automobiles, given the spate of car-versus-pedestrian accidents. The non-motorized public is so freaked out, that this week the police department took the unprecedented step of releasing a report looking at the 74 times walkers have been hit this year (read about it here). But the report doesn’t have all the incidents. The day after it came out, for example, another pedestrian was hit. Add to this any car-bicycle crashes. And the incidents that aren’t included in the police record, for whatever reason. Is it possible for a driver to hit a pedestrian or cyclist, and that information not be made public by the police? Absolutely. The Coast has learned that Armdale city councillor Linda Mosher struck a bicyclist earlier in the year, and it’s only coming to light now. The incident happened May 7 at the corner of Robie and North Streets. As Halifax Regional Police spokesperson Pierre Bourdages describes it, Mosher hit the cyclist with her white SUV, causing “minor injuries,” and left the scene without stopping, driving north on Robie Street. Another driver, who had witnessed the incident, followed Mosher until she "pulled into a garage," says Bourdages. The witness informed Mosher that she had struck a bicyclist. At that point, Bourdages says Mosher drove to the police station on Gottingen Street. She was given a ticket for a motor vehicle infraction for “Changing Lanes Unsafely,” which comes with a fine of $222.41. Mosher was not charged with leaving the scene, because she said she did not know she had hit the bicyclist, says Bourdages. Despite an injured bicyclist, and at least the appearance of a hit-and-run, police did not publicize the incident when it happened. Mosher sits on the Board of Police Commissioners, the body that oversees the Halifax Regional Police Department, but Bourdages says the May 7 incident was not treated any differently than any other similar “summary offence” tickets. A summary offence is an infraction, not a criminal charge, and those receiving them can simply pay the fine without going to court. Reached for comment, Mosher says she is contesting the ticket, therefore won’t discuss it further because the matter is before the courts. Police policy has been to not make public the names of people---including police officers---charged for summary offences. However, as a result of this article, that policy has changed. When The Coast began investigating the May 7 incident, police declined to make Mosher’s name public, but we asked for the legal justification for withholding the name, and the department could find none. From now on, says Bourdages, police will make public the names of those issued summary offence tickets “when asked.”

The overwhelming majority of Israel’s political, military and intelligence leadership reportedly believes the time is not ripe for an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and shares the assessment that an Israeli strike would, at best, merely set back rather than destroy the Iranian program. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that a decision on striking Iran will be made in the next few months, and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak said last week that it was time to gear up to put the Iranian program to “a decisive end,” this assessment is not shared by President Shimon Peres, the chief of staff of the Israeli army and his predecessor, the head of the Mossad intelligence service and his predecessor, at least five of the most senior ministers in the government and the leader of the opposition, Kadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz, respected Israeli media analysts said Saturday night. The issue is headline news because the former head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service, Yuval Diskin, on Friday publicly branded Netanyahu and Barak as “unfit” to lead the country in confronting the Iranian nuclear threat, and wrong in their approach to the danger, sparking a political firestorm. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up Diskin served for six years as Shin Bet chief until a year ago, and so worked closely with the two leaders in whom he said he has “no faith.” Working alongside him, as head of the Mossad, was Meir Dagan, a lifelong intelligence veteran who has repeatedly warned against the “stupid” notion of Israeli military intervention at this stage. According to Emmanuel Rosen, a respected analyst for Channel 10 news, Gabi Ashkenazi, the IDF’s chief of staff until last year, “essentially shares” Diskin’s assessment. Peres, Netanyahu’s deputy prime ministers Moshe Yaalon, Silvan Shalom and Eli Yishai, as well as other top ministers Dan Meridor and Benny Begin, also feel this is not the time to strike at Iran, Rosen said on Saturday night, adding that the consequence would be merely to set the Iranians back a little, while ostensibly legitimizing a subsequent accelerated push by Tehran to the bomb. Alon Ben-David, the TV station’s military analyst, who has been given wide access of late to the Israeli Air Force’s training for a possible attack, said Saturday night that the current chief of staff, Benny Gantz, also opposes an attack at this juncture, as does the current Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo. “No decision has been taken to attack Iran,” Ben-David said. But he added that the “window of opportunity” was this summer — after the next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers, at which Iran, he said, would presumably give “an unsatisfactory response” to Western demands for the guarantees and openness necessary to ensure that it was not pursuing, and would not pursue, a nuclear weapons program.

A music critic once argued that Vladimir Putin-inspired songs are the worst thing Russia’s president has done to Russia. As a matter of fact, Putin songs could be regarded as an entire genre of music in their own right. From belligerent war tunes to maudlin love ballads to lavishly produced videos to amateur clips on YouTube, music of all permutations has been created to heap praise to the butch power of the Kremlin leader. Some Putin song warblers are motivated by political or financial incentives, others by sincere passion for the president. Here is a selection of your correspondent’s seven favorite Putin songs. A point of order: by no means is the list comprehensive and it omits some classics, such as electronic disco hit A Man Like Putin. 7. When We Are Together, Masha Rasputina You’re browser does not support HTML5 video. You may download this video instead. Rasputina performs her hit at a concert in 2015. All the power and pain of the Russian state is packed in this jingoistic tour de force performed by Masha Rasputina, a pop diva better known for her raunchy, erotic oeuvre. Famous songwriters Ilya Reznik and Kay Metov wrote this one in the best traditions of World War II-era Russian crowd rousers. Rasputina, brimming with patriotism and collagen, strikes a feisty pose on stage and belts out in her husky voice: “In this historic moment of worries, hopes and trials, our friend/president, please accept the gratitude of the nation.” Russia’s tricolor flags wave across giant screens behind her. Putin appears signing decrees, dispensing awards, stealing a peninsula from Ukraine, hanging out with senior citizens and hockey players. Rasputina goes on to proclaim that God sent Putin to Russia to help reclaim its destiny as a great nation. A choir of children, mostly girls in bleach-white dresses and bows, kicks in at the chorus: “Russia is praying for you and you pray for Russia.” 6. My Best Friend, Sasha Chest ft. Timati You’re browser does not support HTML5 video. You may download this video instead. Since it premiered in October 2015, the music video was viewed more than 11 million times on Youtube. Putin is a total bro, according to Sasha Chest and Timati. In this sleek video, the pair of hip-hop artists take a smooth, groovy beat to Red Square to profess their respect for the president. “My best friend is President Putin,” Timati chants rhythmically in a sonorous, doubled-tracked vocal. Through flashes, Putin’s graffiti portrait menacingly appears on a black wall. Sasha goes on to spell out the many feats of his homeboy Putin, as a fast medley of images shows skateboarders, cyclists, water scooter riders and a DJ all wearing Putin masks. “He is a cool superhero and you know it… girls go crazy about him.” The party hits the roof in a club. Babes shake in slo-mo. The performers take a moment to do a little patriotic product placement: “Russian make is back in demand: Lada sedan, salute Avtovaz!” The song does get you in a dance mood, but there something particularly off about rap, a genre largely devoted to dissing the system, being used to glorify a national leader that Sasha calls “the White Lord.” 5. Come on Girls, Let’s Help Putin!, Yuliya Vinokurova You’re browser does not support HTML5 video. You may download this video instead. At one point the music video compares images of a shirtless Putin and Obama. Everyone out there spoiling for a fight with Putin will have to go through Yuliya Vinokurova, an obscure singer from Samara. In 2015 she produced a folksy, ebullient march calling for Russian women — fellow “babas” as she puts it — to rise-up for Putin. She holds a vigil with her arms akimbo, snapping her fingers at Putin’s ill-wishers out there in the West. “Enemies are ganging up on Russia again. Once more, they have surrounded the homeland,” Vinokurova goes in her zesty, piercing voice. “Come on babas, let’s help Putin or else Obama will peck him to death,” she sings as both presidents are shown with or without their shirts on in the YouTube video. But don’t turn away. Stick with the song, it gets better: “Countries of NATO are marching on us. They want to disturb our peace. Their babas have no breasts and have beards, while our babas have, oh, what great breasts.” This last bit is refrained twice. Then, after a key change, she continues: “Come on babas, let’s give the enemy some whooping our baba-way. Come on babas, let’s help Putin. He is the one muzhik [real man] left in all of the world.” 4. Song about Putin, Alexey Smirnov ft. Putin You’re browser does not support HTML5 video. You may download this video instead. “A great song about Putin for a simple nation,” reads the caption below Smirnov’s video on Youtube. In this DYI-Putin song, a certain Alexey Smirnov is pretty much jamming in duo with his favorite president. Smirnov, a concerned citizen apparently, could not take any more Putin-bashing and recorded a homemade response to remind an ungrateful nation of the great things Putin has done for Russia. The president’s words are taken from public statements and inserted in the parts of the song where they fit musically and thematically. “Many are not content with our country, with the constitution, lives, jobs, fate. ‘Change the laws,’ they go brandishing posters,” Smirnov sings. Putin appears responding: “You need to change your brains.” And so the president and the citizen go offering rhyme and reason together: Smirnov: “Of course it is easier to blame the state for everything. We don’t want to work, we rather pour some vodka,” which is poison. Putin: “And you have got to know that.” Smirnov: “Why accomplish anything yourself? Let the state provide us with everything. Putin: “You are angry and that means you are wrong.” Smirnov: “They say we chose a wrong path.” Putin: “I disagree.” The video is punctuated by a montage of footage showing Russia’s military and industrial might. It ends with Putin saying, “thank you for your attention.” 3. Attaboy, Vladimir Putin!, Oleg Likhachev You’re browser does not support HTML5 video. You may download this video instead. Ordinary Russians young and old appear throughout Likhachev’s Youtube music video, reminding viewers that Putin is a fine fellow. The 80s are alive and well in these four minutes of syncopated bootlicking for the Russian leader. This and many of his other pro-Kremlin music videos have failed, somehow, to deliver the bush-league singer and actor Oleg Likhachev to the stardom that he aspires, but he sure keeps trying. The video opens with Putin making his inaugural walk through clapping crowds and grand halls of the Kremlin on his way to his latest, third term as president. After a synthesizer pop-style intro, the video takes you down memory lane, rehashing Russia’s recent history. After mentioning how the USSR crumbled around Russia and a “bloodthirsty bird” flew into the country (a star-spangled American eagle appears for those slow on the pick up) amid economic turmoil, Likhachev gets on with his cheery, feel-good refrain. “Vladimir Putin is a fine fellow — a politician, leader and fighter. Our president has put the county on its feet.” 2. VVP (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin), Tolinjon Kurbanhanov. You’re browser does not support HTML5 video. You may download this video instead. VVP reached over a million and a half views on Youtube alone. An ode to Putin by a man from Tajikistan is the biggest non-sequitur of the genre. This internet video sensation was found to be so bizarrely bad that Kremlin critics have called it the best anti-Putin video ever. But Tolinjon Kurbanhanov was serious about his unsolicited attempt in 2012 to help get Putin re-elected, where he gushes about his idol in accented Russian: “The country was in crisis, people were suffering and then God sent him to us. Did you notice how he happened to come to power in the beginning of a century and a millennium?” Kurbanhanov’s phlegmatic expression hardly changes as he elaborates in tedious detail about the Russian economy. The chorus: VVP saved the nation VVP is protecting VVP lifted up Russia and is developing it more and more. One of many unfortunate things about the video is that it exposed Tajiks — often targets of intolerance and derision in Russia — to even more mockery. But this was just a beginning for Kurbanhanov. He has since made two more Putin music videos. 1. My Putin, Mashany You’re browser does not support HTML5 video. You may download this video instead. Mashany leafs through a scrapbook of Putin portraits in her viral music video. Here, we have a love song that in 2015 pretty much broke the Russian internet. Mariya Osintseva, a Siberian woman who goes by the name Mashany, sings an ecstatic valentine for the Russian leader. Many viewers watched the fiercely tacky production in disbelief as the young performer, variably dressed in the colors of the Russian or Ukrainian flags, declared her love for Putin and relished in his annexation of Crimea. “I’m smitten, I am under your spell, can’t get you out of my head,” Mashany warbles as she traipses through a sun-drenched field. She then appears to portray Ukraine locked in a dungeon, waiting for its saviour. “Who that might be?” a voice asks and she bursts into the refrain: You are Putin, you are so Putin. I want to be with you. I’m screaming after you. Putin, my dear Putin. Take me away with you, I want to be with you. Internet users on either side of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation roasted Mashany but she could not be stopped and has since dropped more musical bombs online. She even offered fiscal advice to Putin in her Dollar-Ruble song to help curb depreciation of Russian currency. “After discussing this with colleagues we came up with a proposal about [pegging the exchange rate at] one dollar for one ruble,” She sings in front of approving hay stacks. The rest of the song is an enthusiastic gibberish evincing little regard for rhyme, grammar and sound monetary policy. No mention of Crimea this time, but she does remind Putin that reclaiming Alaska from the United States is long overdue.

In a recent post, I tackled guns- so I thought heck, why not talk religion?! Though, it’s really not religion I want to talk about- as someone who doesn’t believe in a “god”, I may not have much to say. What I’d really like to talk about is church and its role in a community. A few weeks back, I attended a friend’s choral concert- it was held on a Sunday evening in a pretty little church a few miles away. As you can imagine, being a “humanist”, (I don’t like the word atheist- it sounds too aggressive with a lot of negative associations), I don’t have a lot of opportunities to be in churches anymore. As I child I went regularly for a time, and in my travels, I have had the privilege of visiting some of the most magnificent in Europe and some of the most humble in rural Africa. I have enjoyed them all. Beyond that, it’s just weddings and funerals that bring me to these sacred spaces. Frankly, I miss church. Now, returning to my friend’s choral performance- as I entered the white clapboard church, with its open, light-filled nave made of varnished wood planks, I felt a sense of peace and reverence well up in me. Now, make no mistake- it was not God, but the physical space I was responding to. I feel that same sense of peace when coming upon a vista in the mountains or staring out across the ocean. Further, as I slipped into a pew and greeted people joining me in the row and settling in around me, I felt a wonderful sense of community- that again, was not God, but the anticipation of a shared experience and purpose- we were there to hear friends or family sing beautiful music together. The concert was lovely, lasting about 45 minutes, and afterward I felt refreshed and happy to have spent my time just sitting, not checking my phone, or thinking about running to a meeting, or what I was going to do for dinner. Instead, I was still– present in the moment, together with my fellow audience members, in this beautiful place that opened us to reflection, and the sights and music surrounding us. I have often felt like there is a void in the secular world, that we humanists, have foolishly ceded to the religious community. Greeks and Romans had forums and basilicas for just this type of gathering- in fact, the term basilica evolved over time to mean an important church, but its origin was far more humble. As religions developed, their leadership recognized and adopted the intrinsic power that shared experiences, the sense of belonging, and even specific architecture, have to inspire and strengthen their message. Over time, there has become a sense that the message itself is the progenitor of these feelings and the value that they generate. Similar to how the Christmas tree was adopted from an older cultural tradition, until it overshadowed and subsumed the long history of the symbol. I don’t begrudge religion for doing this. Rather, I think humanists need to get back into the game. Now, the closest modern manifestation that I can find- is TED talks, a sort of gathering for people of any affiliation to listen, talk, share, and be inspired. But these events are exclusive and limited- despite being available online for anyone to watch- the act of watching them alone, on a monitor or a phone, denies the viewer the transformative power of experiencing them as part of group. Church provides a tremendous value and service to a community. Beyond providing a regular opportunity for reflecting, listening, and learning about the existential issues that we human beings grapple with, they provide innumerable benefits to the community: food banks, meeting space, care for people through grief, crisis, or transition; just to name a few. As part of a church, a person is encouraged and inspired to think about their place within their community- what we can do for our fellow humans, our neighbors, and those less fortunate than we are. The message is often, “How do we lift each other up?”, “How do we behave better as parents, friends, colleagues, partners?”, “How do we listen to our hearts?” These noble messages deserve to be heard and spread amongst everyone- they are an integral part of a strong community and connect us. It’s my belief, and I feel confident that science and history back me up here- that these impulses are part of who we are as humans, not who we are as worshippers of a specific god. I want to reclaim my access to these shared experiences and a shared community, without needing to subjugate myself to a dogma that I don’t believe in. I want a secular humanist church for my community. I want to maintain the concept of church, but peel away the veneer of religion- I refuse to believe that I have accept that as part of participating in a community that wants to congregate, learn, help each other, and grow. This Humanist congregation should be a patchwork of people from the community that are interested in exploring questions of philosophy, science, morality, service, charity, and growth- both spiritual and emotional. I want a place to bring my family on Sundays, a place where we can listen to lectures on philosophy, the nature of good and evil, compassion, kindness, perseverance, the mysteries of our universe and human nature; and then afterwards, gather to eat slightly stale cookies, drink coffee and lemonade, discuss the lecture of the day, and enjoy the fellowship of people interested in the same things. I want a place where my children can learn these lessons amongst their peers, in their own Sunday School, where they are encouraged to think about these questions in a supportive, fun environment. I don’t want to continue to do this as a one or two person show. It’s been my experience that Atheists often sound as ugly and obnoxious as any proselytizing bible-thumper that they are so derisive of. I have many, many friends- whether Christian, Muslim, or any other religious group- that have been subject to hateful or condescending comments from “enlightened” nonbelievers. That is not a community that I want to be part of either. That kind of intolerance is just as unacceptable to me as someone telling my children that they are headed for Hell. It’s true, I’m not losing any sleep over that threat, but I am committed to acting with the grace and courtesy that I expect of others. There is nothing as universally well regarded as the golden rule- “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” Amen! Rejecting god does not mean rejecting the beauty of the universe, or marginalizing the awe we feel for our incredible good fortune to be residents of this amazing planet and community called humanity. It is a great disservice to those of us who don’t believe in a god or gods, to allow ourselves to be marginalized by accepting the status quo of “no god, no church”. I am saying, “Enough!” I do not accept the status quo! It’s time to join together as humans, as humanists, as humble seekers of truth, as lovers of peace, harmony, nature, and beauty. It’s time to redefine ourselves and claim our due as people who want to be better in our daily lives, who want to leave a better world for our children, who believe in compassion, acceptance, service, charity- these values are not the property of religion, they are\the tenets of humanity that have a duty to live by, pass on to our children, and hold others accountable to. I want to embrace our church going neighbors and say, “thank you” for evolving and keeping this tradition alive! We may not attend the same church, but we can embrace many of the same values- and in the process learn that we are more similar than we are different. What a wonderful contribution to this planet it would be for each of us to see ourselves reflected in the eyes of people we think of as so different. As Shakespeare wrote, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” There is more that connects us than separates us. Let’s go! Who will join me? Who wants to come watch a TED talk next Sunday? I’ll bring the cookies.

New Datamined Patch - Class Changes, Passive Effects, Rift Keystones, Item Set Names, Bounty Scrolls, New Banners, Warlords of Draenor Buff, Lots of Graphics Warning - all things below should NOT be considered as a confirmation or anything close to it. This is datamining and not everything is a representation of what would be in the game. Update 4: Added Set Item bonuses. There are quite some changes! Update 3: Added portraits. Faces are as follows: Enchanted Soul Fragment, Lord Wynton, Spirit Barbarian, Spirit Crusader, Spirit Crusader Male, Westmarch Boy, Adria Boss, Cow King, Zayl, Common Angel, BSmith Apprentice, Sophia. Looks like this might be it for the patch! Update 2: Added buff icons from items, Warlords of Draenor "flag" buff, new Bounty target Health Bar and Legendary Reagents. Fixed incorrect Pool of Reflection string. Update: Added a lot more pictures. Made Warlords of Draenor Buff more obvious in the notes below. New Graphics - Icons, Items, Portraits, UI Set Item Bonuses DiabloFans Quote: Krelm's Buff Bulwark (New) 2 pieces: [+500 Vitality] Chantodo's Resolve 2 pieces: [Your shields heal for 25% of their remaining amount when they expire.] (New) Legacy of Nightmares 2 pieces: [This ring sometimes summons a Skeleton when you attack.] (Seems like it was missing from the tooltip the last few builds) Born's Command 2 pieces: [+15% Life] (Down from 20%) 3 pieces: [Increases experience rewarded per kill by 20%] (Moved from 2 pieces) 3 pieces: [Reduces cooldown of all skills by [{VALUE1}*100|1|]%.] (New) Cain's Destiny 3 pieces: [50% Better Chance of Finding Magical Items] (Down from 100%) Captain Crimson's Trimmings 2 pieces: [Reduces cooldown of all skills by [{VALUE1}*100|1|]%.] (New) 2 pieces: [Regenerates 2000 Life per Second] (Up from 1945) 3 pieces: [Reduces all resource costs by 10%.] (New) 3 pieces: [+50 Resistance to all elements] (Down from 100) Aughild's Authority 2 pieces: [Reduces damage from ranged attacks by 0.07%] (Moved from 3 pieces) 3 pieces: [Reduces damage from Elites by 15%] [Increases damage versus Elites by 15%] (New) Asheara's Vestments 3 pieces: [Melee attackers take 3498 Holy Damage per hit] (Removed) Guardian's Jeopardy 2 pieces: [+250 Vitality] (Down from 975 2 pieces: [Regenerates 2000 Life per Second] (Up from 1945) 3 pieces: [+15% Movement Speed] (New) Demon's Hide 2 pieces: [Melee attackers take 6000 Fire Damage per hit] (Up from 3498) 3 pieces: [Chance to Deal 25% Splash Damage on Hit.] (Changed from 5.1% chance to Fear on Hit) Sage's Journey 2 pieces: [+250 Intelligence] [+250 Strength] [+250 Dexterity] [+250 Vitality] (All values down from 975) Hallowed Protectors 2 pieces: [Attack Speed increased by 10%] (Up from 8%) The Shadow's Mantle (Ninja Set) 2 pieces: [Automatically cast Smoke Screen when you fall below 25% Life. This effect may occur once every 30 seconds.] (Moved from 4 pieces. Replaces: Your Spike Traps lure enemies to them) 4 pieces: [Reduce all cooldowns by 1 second every time you kill a demon.] (New) Helltooth Harness (Witch_Doctor_Set_x1) 4 pieces: [ Reduces cooldown of Wall of Zombies by 2 seconds. ] (Previously 500 Intelligence) 6 pieces: [NYI] (Previously 500 Intelligence) Item Passive Effects DiabloFans Quote: New ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_739_x1 - Elemental skills have a chance to trigger a powerful attack that deals [{VALUE1}*100]% weapon damage: *Cold skills trigger Freezing Skull *Poison skills trigger Poison Nova *Lightning skills trigger Charged Bolt ItemPassive_Unique_Bow_008_x1 - Ravens flock to your side. ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_586_x1 - Wall of Zombies spews acid, dealing [{VALUE1}*100]% weapon damage every second for its entire duration. (Was NYI till now) ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_587_x1 - All damage taken is split between wearers of this item. (Was NYI till now) Changed ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_533_x1 - Strafe gains the effect of the Drifting Shadow rune. (Previously removed Hatred cost) ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_602_x1 - Your Spike Traps lure enemies to them. Enemies may be taunted once every {VALUE1} seconds. (Added taunt mechanic description) ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_600_x1 - Summons shadow clones to your aid when you Stun an enemy. This effect may occur once every {VALUE1} seconds. (Added occurrence limitation) ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_615_x1 - Healing wells replenish all resources and reduce all cooldowns by {VALUE1} seconds. (Now also reduces cooldowns) ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_621_x1 - Fan of Knives gains the effect of the Fan of Daggers rune. (Changed from having a knock back effect) ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_626_x1 - Grasp of the Dead gains the effect of the Rain of Corpses rune. (Changed from having no cooldown) ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_643_x1 - Blocks have a chance of summoning a charging wolf that deals [{VALUE1}*100]% weapon damage to all enemies it passes through. (Added creature details, changed from hell hound) ItemPassive_Unique_Mighty_1H_011_x1 - Chance on attack to Whirlwind furiously for 325% weapon damage as Physical every second for 6 seconds. (Finally added actual numbers!) Warlords of Draenor Buff NOTE that Blizzard uses QUAD DAMAGE as a placeholder for CE stuff. DiabloFans Quote: WoDFlagBuff_name - Collectors Edition Buff WoDFlagBuff_desc - QUAD DAMAGE Rift Keystones, Item Set Names, Bounty Scrolls, New Banners DiabloFans Quote: Bnet_EscapeMenu.txt RaiseDifficulty - Raise Difficulty Errors.txt NephalemRiftWarning_PlayerNeedsKey - Five Rift Keystone Fragments are needed to conjure a Nephalem Rift. PowerUnusableInDifficulty - You can't do that in this difficulty level. DifficultyTooLow - You must be in a higher game difficulty for that. ItemCannotBeEnchantedLegacy - The mystic cannot enchant legacy items. ItemCannotBeEnchantedMysticLevelRequired - The mystic needs to be level {s1} to enchant this item type. General.txt LootRunClosesWarning - Nephalem Rift closes in: QuestUpdateNewBountyChatMessage - {s1}, {s2} StatAbbr - {s1}k HeroDetails.txt SplashDamage - Area Damage (Renamed from Splash Damage) ItemSets.txt Ninja_Set_x1 - The Shadow’s Mantle Thorns_Set_x1 - Thorns of the Invoker Earthquake_Set_x1 - Might of the Earth Golden_Oxen_Set_x1 - The Legacy of Raekor Dot_Set_x1 - Raiment of the Jade Harvester Monkey_King_Set_x1 - Monkey King's Garb Arcane_Wraps_Set_x1 - Vyr's Amazing Arcana Witch_Doctor_Set_x1 - Helltooth Harness War_Harness_Set_x1 - Krelm’s Buff Bulwark BuffTooltips.txt X1_Passive_BountyScroll_DemonDamage_0 - Bounty Scroll X1_Passive_BountyScroll_DemonDamage_0_desc - 25% increased damage to Demons. X1_Passive_BountyScroll_UndeadDamage_0 - Bounty Scroll X1_Passive_BountyScroll_UndeadDamage_0_desc - 25% increased damage to Undead. X1_Passive_BountyScroll_BeastDamage_0 - Bounty Scroll X1_Passive_BountyScroll_BeastDamage_0_desc - 25% increased damage to Beasts. X1_Passive_BountyScroll_TeddyBear_0 - Cuddle Bear! X1_Passive_BountyScroll_TeddyBear_0_desc - You feel more cuddly. X1_Passive_BountyScroll_RunSpeed_0 - Bounty Scroll X1_Passive_BountyScroll_RunSpeed_0_desc - 30% increased movement speed. Powers.txt X1_Passive_BountyScroll_DemonDamage_name - Bounty Scroll X1_Passive_BountyScroll_UndeadDamage_name - Bounty Scroll X1_Passive_BountyScroll_BeastDamage_name - Bounty Scroll X1_Passive_BountyScroll_RunSpeed_name - Bounty Scroll Tutorials.txt X1_PoolsOfreflection_2 - You now have a pool of bonus experience which will persist between games. Dying will remove this bonus. X1_PoolsOfreflection_2_title - Pools of Reflection Bonus X1_RiftKeystone_title - Rift Keystone Fragments X1_RiftKeystoneInventory - Use 5 Rift Keystone Fragments to open a Nephalem Rift at the Nephalem Obelisk in town. X1_RiftKeystoneInventory_title - Rift Keystone Fragments X1_RiftKeystoneComplete - You now have 5 Rift Keystone Fragments. You can go back to the Nephalem Obelisk in town and open a Nephalem Rift. X1_RiftKeystoneComplete_title - Rift Keystone Fragments X1_LoadscreenTips.txt TIP056 - Primary or secondary properties proceeded by an orange bullet icon {icon:bullet2} are not factored into item comparisons. TIP057 - Shift-click on player names to link them. TIP058 - Holding down the SHIFT key while assigning paragon points will speed up the process by assigning them ten at a time. BannerAccents.txt banner_basic_sigilAccent_BatWings_01 - Wings banner_basic_sigilAccent_Goblet_01 - Goblet banner_basic_sigilAccent_MoonStar_01 - Moon & Sun banner_basic_sigilAccent_Orb_01 - Orb banner_basic_sigilAccent_Rose_01 - Roses banner_basic_sigilAccent_Serpent_01 - Serpent banner_basic_sigilAccent_Snakes_01 - Snakes banner_basic_sigilAccent_Leaves_02 - Vines banner_basic_sigilAccent_Rays_01 - Rays banner_basic_sigilAccent_Sun_01 - Evenstar BannerPatterns.txt banner_basic_pattern_wave_04 - Wind banner_basic_pattern_cross_05 - Cruces banner_basic_pattern_cross_06 - Crucifix banner_basic_pattern_drip_03 - Scalloped banner_basic_pattern_fire_02 - Flares banner_basic_pattern_fire_03 - Fire banner_basic_pattern_starburst_01 - Infinity banner_basic_pattern_starburst_02 - Starburst banner_basic_pattern_starburst_03 - Sunburst BannerShapes.txt banner_basic_shape_chevron004 - Highborn banner_basic_shape_chevron005 - Royal banner_basic_shape_chevron006 - Imperial banner_basic_shape_goth004 - Exultant banner_basic_shape_point006 - Hallowed banner_basic_shape_point007 - Glorious banner_basic_shape_point008 - Westmarch banner_basic_shape_rectangle002 - Reserved banner_basic_shape_rectangle003 - August BannerSigils.txt banner_basic_sigilMain_Axe_01 - Axe banner_basic_sigilMain_Bird_01 - Ascendance banner_basic_sigilMain_Crus_01 - Crusader banner_basic_sigilMain_Hood_01 - Malthael's Hood banner_basic_sigilMain_Orb_01 - Crucible banner_basic_sigilMain_Rose_01 - Thorny Rose banner_basic_sigilMain_Scythe_02 - Scythes banner_basic_sigilMain_Shield_03 - Crusader Shield banner_basic_sigilMain_Sickle_01 - Sickles banner_basic_sigilMain_Soulstone_01 - Black Soulstone banner_basic_sigilMain_Malskull_01 - Reaper banner_basic_sigilMain_Axe_01_alt_01 - Axe banner_basic_sigilMain_Bird_01_alt_01 - Ascendance banner_basic_sigilMain_Crus_01_alt_01 - Crusader banner_basic_sigilMain_Flail_01 - Flails banner_basic_sigilMain_Flail_01_alt_01 - Flails banner_basic_sigilMain_Hood_01_alt_01 - Malthael's Hood banner_basic_sigilMain_Malskull_01_Alt_01 - Reaper banner_basic_sigilMain_Orb_01_alt_01 - Crucible banner_basic_sigilMain_Rose_01_alt_01 - Thorny Rose banner_basic_sigilMain_Scythe_02_alt_01 - Scythes banner_basic_sigilMain_Shield_03_alt_01 - Crusader Shield banner_basic_sigilMain_Sickle_01_alt_01 - Sickles banner_basic_sigilMain_Soulstone_01_alt_01 - Black Soulstone Class Changes

Don't be expecting Oculus Rift support for the PS4 or Xbox One any time soon. The Oculus Rift is making waves in the world of PC gaming as of late, trying it's best to provide gamers with the VR device we have been dreaming of since Tron. Even in the prototype stage, support for the device is constantly growing among PC developers, but Sony and Microsoft have seemingly shown very little interest. Talking to Tech Radar, creator Palmer Luckey says that's fine, explaining that the next-gen consoles are still too limited for his vision anyway. "Consoles are too limited for what we want to do. We're trying to make the best virtual reality device in the world and we want to continue to innovate and upgrade every year - continue making progress internally - and whenever we make big jumps we want to push that to the public." He says that his main problem with consoles is that after they are released, they are locked into a certain spec for a very long time. "Look at the PCs that existed eight years ago. There have been so many huge advances since then. Now look at the VR hardware of today. I think the jump we're going to see in the next four or five years is going to be massive, and already VR is a very intensive thing, it requires rendering at high resolutions at over 60 frames a second in 3D." "We're seeing games that are already saying they're gonna run in 720p on next gen so they can barely hit 60 in 2D," he continues, no doubt referencing the "resolutiongate" controversy. "It's hard to imagine them running a VR experience that's on par with PC." When asked if Luckey lumped Valve's upcoming "Steam Machines," (AKA, the Steam Box) in with his "consoles" statement, he is a bit more optimistic. "We're good friends with Valve," laughs Luckey, "We're great friends with them." Source: Tech Radar

2014 Red Bull Global Rallycross champion Joni Wiman finally won his maiden Red Bull GRC Supercars final in Las Vegas as Scott Speed won his first championship crown. Horrendous weather conditions effected the event with much of the field involved in incidents in the early heat races, notably Ken Block – who was looking for his third straight Las Vegas win. He had a heavy wreck in the first heat race, and although he managed to continue in the event, the early shunt appeared to end any hopes of a Vegas hat trick. Steve Arpin and Speed shared the early heat wins. Speed’s victory in Heat 1B came in an event blighted by an early crash that wiped out Austin Dyne, Tanner Foust and David Higgins, who was unable to rejoin the race – a race which was eventually red flagged early due to heavy rain. When the racing resumed, Nelson Piquet Jr. took first in heat 2A with the Olsbergs pairing of Sebastian Eriksson and Joni Wiman sweeping 2B. Piquet looked set to back up his heat win with a victory in Semi Final A after holding off a charging Patrik Sandell at the start. However, it wasn’t Sandell which would snatch victory from the Brazilian, Joni Wiman moved up to first place with a move on the last lap of the race. Sandell eventually missed out on a top three and automatic transfer spot in the final as he ceded third to Steve Arpin, who battled back from a stop/go penalty, on the final lap. Another driver who missed out on a chance to advance to the final despite being in a position to do so was Sverre Isachsen. The Subaru driver was running in third position until he made heavy contact with an outside wall. In Semi Final B, Scott Speed used his front row start to his advantage to take an early lead. He was never troubled, taking the semi final win, giving himself pole position for the final. Sebastian Eriksson finished in second place with Foust clinging onto his slim championship hopes with a third place finish. The Last Chance Qualifier saw Brian Deegan, Austin Dyne, Bucky Lasek and Ken Block advance to the final after an early race red flag which was the result of a first lap incident involving Pat Moro and David Higgins as well as Dyne and Block. In the final, Scott Speed only needed a top eight finish to clinch the title. Despite that, the former F1 driver launched into an early lead, although he didn’t keep it for long. Joni Wiman and Sebastian Eriksson soon got by Speed, who looked to be playing the conservative game with the championship on his mind. Wiman and Eriksson held onto their 1-2 finish, Wiman taking the win by just under eight seconds at the checkered flag. Speed held onto third which was more than enough to secure the championship. Steve Arpin finished the final in fourth place, ahead of Brian Deegan and Nelson Piquet Jr. Austin Dyne and Bucky Lasek were the last two drivers to finish on the lead lap. Speed’s championship rival and Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross team mate Foust had his title hopes ended on lap one as he was forced into the wall at the first turn. He eventually finished in ninth, two laps down, ahead of only Ken Block who retired. The final points standings see Scott Speed at the top of the table, 56 points ahead of Sebastian Eriksson who took fellow Daytona winner Foust’s runner-up spot thanks to his Vegas podium. Foust did manage finish in the top three however, 68 points back from Speed, with Nelson Piquet Jr. and Joni Wiman completing the top five. In GRC Lites it was 16-year-old Oliver Eriksson who continued Olsberg’s domination of the category by taking the championship crown in his first season. He went in the final GRC Lites race second in the standings to team mate Austin Cindric but the American was involved in a first lap incident that took him out of the race, handing the title to Eriksson. The race win went to Alex Keyes.

Indonesia rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for the establishment of official diplomatic relations and vowed to uphold its support for the creation of a Palestinian state, the local media said Thursday, quoting a Foreign Ministry official. “We want to assert that Indonesia’s support and efforts to push for the independence of Palestine will not change,” the Jakarta Times quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir as saying. Nasir also expressed disappointment at the decision by a delegation of Indonesian journalists to accept an invitation to visit Israel. Netanyahu made the call for normalized ties during a meeting with the delegation in Jerusalem on Monday. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up “We regret that such activities are politicized by Israel,” Nasir reportedly said. With Israel increasingly looking to the East for security and trade cooperation, Netanyahu said Monday that “it’s time for there to be official relations between Indonesia and Israel. We have many opportunities for bilateral cooperation, especially in the fields of water technology and high-tech.” The brokering of ties with Indonesia and its population of some 250 million Muslims would be a major coup for Netanyahu and his bid to foster deeper ties with moderate Arab states and Asian economic powerhouses. The prime minister said the fostering of ties would come as part of shifting allegiances driven by anti-terror efforts and economic factors, hailing growing yet secret ties between Israel and the Arab world. “It’s time to change our relationship, because the reasons preventing it are no longer relevant,” he said, adding that Jerusalem and Jakarta were “allies” against the common threat of terrorism. “I have quite a few Facebook friends who are Indonesian,” the prime minister told the delegation of journalists. Earlier this month, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Knesset members that Israel had secret ties with Jakarta, while defending Jerusalem’s decision to block Indonesia’s foreign minister from entering the West Bank because she did not plan to visit Jerusalem during her visit to the region. Retno Lestari Priansari Marsudi had been slated to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki to inaugurate an honorary consulate in Ramallah, but was forced to move the meeting to Amman. Marsudi’s unsuccessful visit to Ramallah came a week after Indonesia held the 5th Extraordinary Organization of Islamic Cooperation Summit on Palestine and Al-Quds Al-Sharif, which discussed the possibility of boycotting Israeli products made in the West Bank. Hotovely told Knesset members that a senior Israeli official traveled to Indonesia ahead of the visit in an attempt to coordinate the trip and avert a public row. Despite the dearth of official diplomatic ties, Hotovely revealed the two countries maintain covert bilateral ties “on a range of issues. “There have been secret contacts with Indonesia, with which we don’t have diplomatic relations, and there were understandings that were rudely broken and so we blocked her entry,” Hotovely said. “This was a breach of diplomatic protocol, and the most honorable thing to do is to respect the protocols, so when you break them don’t be surprised that you bar yourself from visiting the [Palestinian Authority].” In recent years, Indonesia and Israel have signed a number of trade agreements aimed at encouraging the flow of goods between the two countries. Indonesia exported over $100 million (NIS 387 million) worth of goods to Israel in 2015 and imported nearly $80 million (NIS 310 million) in goods from Israel, according to the Jakarta Post. According to a 2014 BBC poll, approximately 75 percent of Indonesians hold a negative view of Israel.

As the Content Designer and User Researcher working on the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) service - a benefit for people affected by a disability or long-term condition - we discovered early on that users want to tell their own story. Answering 'yes or no' questions wasn’t enough - they felt pigeonholed into a fixed idea of a certain condition. We designed early prototypes based on this insight - it was a simple place to start. We asked people to use a free-text box to tell us in their own words how and why their condition affected them. The 12 activities they were asked to think about included washing themselves, getting dressed and mixing with people. What we learned It didn’t work. The blank space was intimidating and frustrating. People thought we were trying to catch them out and were reluctant to write much in case they wrote the wrong thing. When they did write, their response didn't give enough detail for government to make a decision. Although people told us they wanted to 'tell their story', when we gave them an open opportunity to do so, they couldn’t. We learned that what users want isn't always what they need. We needed to do more to guide them through their story. What we tried We included help text - an additional sentence or two under the question to prompt users to think about the activity in detail. But this created problems of its own. Eye-tracking software confirmed that people scanned the page to find an ‘action’, or whatever they had to do to get through the form as quickly as possible. They bypassed any content that got in their way, including the help text. So, working with case managers who make decisions about applications for PIP, we’ve made the help text more comprehensive and meaningful. We’ve broken each activity down into steps and added them to the page as tick boxes. Then we offer people the chance to give more detail about the things that they’ve ticked. Research shows this is working We’ve seen that people can use it, understand it and give more thorough answers as a result. The check boxes give clarification about how government defines each activity. The design prompts people to think about the different parts of an activity in detail. It encourages them to think about any difficulties they deal with at each stage before they write their story in their own words. The structure of the page and the breakdown of the questions make the free text boxes less intimidating and guide people into giving more thoughtful answers. What’s next We’re going to use this design to take a small amount of real claims for PIP. We know it’s not perfect, and we’re continuing to research variations of the design with real users to make it simpler, clearer and faster for them to use.

The dust had to settle first. Wesley Matthews wanted to give Rudy Gay space before reaching out to him after Gay ruptured his left Achilles tendon in January. It was the same injury Matthews suffered in 2015 while with the Portland Trail Blazers. If anyone could relate to what Gay was feeling after that injury ended his season, Matthews could. “Respect the process,” Matthews told Gay. “Respect it. Let every emotion out that comes across you because you’re going to get the whole gambit of them. Attack the rehab. Don’t push it.” It was those words of encouragement from Matthews, as well as Kobe Bryant, who Gay admitted “motivated the hell out of me,” that assisted in his recovery. But there was also another source that played a role: Music. Gay, a recent acquisition by the Spurs, is a big music fan. Hip-hop, R&B, old school soul. Rick Ross, Dru Hill, The O’Jays. Gay listens to it all. He embraces it. Gay uses it as ammunition to combat the cynics. It was no different when he suffered the scariest injury of his career, one that threatened to derail him forever. Music was Gay’s deliverance. “People don’t understand. Music to athletes is like an everyday thing,” Gay said. “We’re on buses, planes, back to buses and then to our cars. The weight room. Music enhances our mood.” Days before Gay made his return to the court, to play his first regular season game in 272 days, he recapped the musical journey that assisted him during his recovery. It was a journey filled with a wide range of emotions, from hate to motivation, perspective and a feeling of renewal. It was this musical exploration that assisted in the rebuilding of Gay. Early days “When it first happened, I was on some slow, R&B stuff,” Gay said. The usual musical selections were suspended from his playlist. He had no desire to hear anything upbeat, which is what he would normally listen to before a game. Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” and Drake’s “Fake Love” were at the top of the billboard charts when Gay underwent surgery at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. But those songs were too fast. “I could be in an (upbeat mood), but to do what?” he said. Gay couldn’t dance to the music. There was nothing to celebrate at the time, either. Why listen to music that promoted such things? Unable to fly following his surgery, Gay sat in his room at the London Hotel in Midtown, attempting to unleash what he was feeling, just as Matthews advised. But what could he listen to that supported his reality? “I’m sitting in a boot,” Gay said, describing his time at the hotel. “I couldn’t get up and go anywhere. I was chilling. It was one of those things where I was relieving stress. Get that stress off of me and focus on healing.” Enter Stevie Wonder — “My dad is a big fan,” Gay said — and Teddy Pendergrass’ Love T.K.O. The soundtrack from the 1973 Blaxploitation film entitled “The Mack,” featuring the classic song “I choose you,” by Willie Hutch. The first verse: You were there When no one else Would be in my corner Girl and it’s you that I’ve learned to love And I place no one above Oh, how can I ever thank you Except take you home and make you my loving wife So we can always be together Oh ain’t that nice “I’m into old school music,” Gay said. “Every day it was something different when you’re going through something.” More artists were added to his list. Miguel, Musiq Soulchild, Jagged Edge, Ricardo Valentine, who goes by the name “6LACK,” but pronounced “black.” They all had Gay’s attention. D’Angleo’s Brown Sugar. The end of first verse: Brown Sugar babe, I gets high off your love I don’t know how to behave The lyrics reinforced Gay during his transition from a stage of depression to stability. He went from being stuck in New York to finally being able to fly to a new destination in Miami. Slow music selections would suffice. The type of music Gay could play, nod his head slowly, and visualize better days, when he could finally walk, and bounce a ball standing on his two legs. The difficult part of the rehab was in progress. Time to attack “When I was getting back into it, training and rehabbing, it was more inspirational, upbeat stuff,” Gay said. On April 17, a video appeared on Gay’s Instagram timeline. The future Spurs forward was shown moving side to side, passing a ball in what appeared to be a private office space with equipment used for cardio exercises. Gay executed the drill without a walking boot. It was the first time Gay posted on social media without the protective device. Under the video, a caption read: “Attacking the rehab.” At this point, the slow music began to subside. Gay could move again, so there was no reason to forgo listening to songs like “Bad and Boujee” by Migos, the number one hip-hop song on the charts at the time. “It was back to upbeat stuff,” Gay said. “That’s when Playboi Carti came out. That makes you want to jump around. I had my little nephews in there, they’re dancing. It was just to keep my mind off of what I can’t do and just try to focus on trying to get myself back. “It wasn’t about making shots or anything. It was just about listening to the music, having it move me, instead of moving to the music.” Gay spent time rehabbing at Legacy Fit Gym in Miami, under the watchful eye of owner Manning Sumner, who trained Gay since 2015. They worked on belt squats which were designed to give Gay’s hips comfort while working on his legs. Romanian deadlifts and weight sleds helped Gay’s explosiveness and power. Sumner told Gay he was ahead of schedule. It was the right message to send as free agency was ready to begin. Gay declined a $14.3 million player option with the Sacramento Kings. The search for a new team was ready to commence. Back in New York City, ads started to appear around Manhattan. The message was simple: “4:44.” After days of mystery and speculation, one of Gay’s favorite artists released his 13th album. Jay Z was back on the music scene, and Gay was thrilled, using his Instagram once again to show his approval and support. “4:44 came out and now I’m trying to accomplish more things in my life and career so it motivated me,” Gay said. Shawn Carter’s new project was different. The lyrics on 4:44 gave Gay additional perspective the way the Brooklyn born hip-hop mogul always has. Gay started to reminisce about his favorite Jay Z song, “Some People Hate,” off the Blueprint 2 album. The middle of the second verse: I roll with the punches so I survive I bob and weave, move my feet from side to side I’m back, stronger than ever surprise surprise They try to take me out the game but I’s alive “That’s like one of my favorite songs,” Gay explained. “He took a couple of Tupac lines and flipped them. It was crazy.” And then Gay introduced another track he used during his rehab. It’s from Rather You Than Me, the ninth studio album from Ross. Santorini, Greece While former Longhorns star Kevin Durant was in the middle of the Western Conference Finals, as the Golden State Warriors were in San Antonio to play the Spurs, it was requested he select a song that described his first season with his new team. Durant picked Ross’ Santorini Greece “The intro,” Durant said, “when (Rick Ross) is talking, that reminds me of my year. It’s just soulful.” Gay could relate. He listened to Santorini Greece for clarity. When Gay needed to relax, this was the perfect song. The drums, the piano, that sample of Judy Bailey’s voice from Colours of My Dreams, the saxophone that played throughout. “That beat was crazy,” Gay said. “That song to me, it makes you want to go to Santorini, Greece. You have to be able to walk there, so I’m like, ‘Man I got to get in this gym. I got to do this.” A more detailed reason why Gay admired the track was the message Ross communicated. “People probably didn’t know that place existed before that song,” Gay said. “He’s just talking about being in Greece, jogging on the beach, Versace (underwear). It was stuff like that. I mean, people day-to-day, you don’t think about stuff like. I feel like rap right now is so obvious. They want this. They want that. But that’s minuscule compared to what’s out there in life. “It’s just a really good song,” Gay continued. “It’s a motivational song. Rap right now is about how much drugs you do. How many foreign cars you drive. How many watches you have. … (There’s) more to life than that.” On June 29, Gay released another video on his Instagram account. The first message that appeared: “I’M READY.” Gay welcomed a new chapter in his career. The Spurs did their homework and made it known to Gay they were interested. When free agency started on July 1, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich called Gay to inquire about his services. A few days later, team officials made the trip to Austin, where Gay relocated his rehab, to speak with the veteran forward. On July 6, Gay posted a photo of a Spurs jersey, No. 22. He had agreed to a two-year, $17 million deal with the team. “He was our priority,” said Spurs general manager M R.C. Buford. “The more we got to know him and the more he got to know us, he felt like this was a good place for him.” Said Gay, who is now 31, of why he picked the Spurs when teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder also showed interest: “I think it was a do-or-die point in my career. I wanted to be with an organization that was known for winning and can help me raise my game to the next level.” The Nas effect Weeks before the start of training camp, Gay was introduced to local media in San Antonio. He was bombarded with questions about his health. Is he the same player? How long will it take before he’s 100 percent? Is he cleared to return with no restriction on minutes? The Spurs are known for their patience. It’s not about November, December or January. Popovich and company prepare for the long haul. April is the time the Spurs want to be playing their best basketball. There was no need to rush Gay back and risk another injury. “He’ll need to be patient,” Buford said in September. “It’s not important for us right now. It’s important for us as we go through the season and to be ready at the end of the season.” But Gay is too competitive. He wants to play. He has put in too much work over the course of his rehab, with the objective to make a return at the start of the regular season. He thought about the last few months, from the time he was holding his left leg in Sacramento, to being stranded in his hotel room after surgery in New York, to the rehab process in Miami and Austin. Gay summed it all up, referencing Hate Me Now by Nas. “That song motivated the hell out of me,” he said before offering what verse had the biggest effect. (People) fear what they don’t understand Hate what they can’t conquer, guess it’s just the theory of man Became a monster, on top of the world, never fallin’ I’m as real as they come, from day one, forever ballin’ “I was young when I heard that,” Gay explained. “I was like, ‘Damn, what does that mean?’ But when you go through life, sometimes you get past that fear. You can’t think about what you can’t do. It’s all about what you want to do.” And what Gay wanted to do was prove the naysayers wrong. He wanted to get back to playing the sport he loved, but this time as a better version of himself. Days before the Spurs opened the 2017-18 season against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the team got their first glimpse of confirmation. Behind closed doors at the practice facility, Gay threw down a ferocious dunk over a teammate. There was no fear. Gay went up and made a statement. Then came the public display: Late in the first quarter of the season opener, Gay found Manu Ginobili racing down the court on a fastbreak. Ginobili passed it back to a cutting Gay, who converted a massive dunk for his first points of the season. “I got emotional earlier in that game because I’ve been through so much these past couple of months,” said Gay, who finished with 14 points and five rebounds, after that game. “I got a text from someone that said, ‘Five months ago, you couldn’t walk. Now you’re out there playing.’” Gay’s mind returned to the song Hate Me Now. His mission was complete. “People told me that I couldn’t start the season (in time),” he said, then paused for a few seconds. “And now, here I am. I’m motivated off people telling me what I can’t do. I’m weird like that. … I don’t like people telling me what I can’t do.” Moving forward The questions have been answered. Now Gay can focus on the possibilities. He started the season by scoring in double figures in the first five games, including a season-high 22 points in the win over the Miami Heat. The basketball world has already taken notice, commending Gay on his return. “I think he might be way further along than I was at the start of the season,” Matthews said. Gay will admit he’s still not where he wants to be. Very few players are. Gay plans to get in better shape, and continue to build his endurance throughout the season. But he’s back. That was the goal, and he achieved it with the help of music. “People just think we (athletes) want to rap and live that life,” Gay said. “No. Music moves us. Music is big for us.” And music helped rebuild Rudy Gay. [email protected]

While Germany’s Rekordmeister have traditionally rolled on when first choice players were out, the absence of Bastian Schweinsteiger in the middle of the park could well prove to be devastating. Philipp Lahm may be the captain; Manuel Neuer may be the best in the world protecting the ol’ onion bag; „Robbery“ may be the globe’s most electrifying duo with the ball at their feet; Mario Gómez may be a chance converting god amongst men; and Thomas Müller may be the team’s great hope for the future, but Bastian Schweinsteiger is the heart of Bayern München. And with him out of the lineup until 2012, Bayern could find themselves in dire straits. For proof, look no further than the game in which Schweinsteiger’s absence had the biggest impact. In the first half of November 2nd’s Champions League clash, Bayern bossed Napoli in the Allianz Arena, retaining possession with ease, spraying passes all around the pitch and seeing chances created at will—culminating in a first half hat trick for the opportunistic Gómez. The Bavarians went into the break up 3-1, the only blemish coming via a free kick and the head of Federico Fernández. Shortly after the restart however Schweinsteiger went down and the proverbial wheels came off. Schweinsteiger’s central midfield partner, Luiz Gustavo and—his replacement—Anatoliy Tymoschuk could not sustain their club’s dominance of the middle of the park. They had trouble retaining possession; their passing was far from crisp, far from tidy; and the pair lost 50-50 balls with alarming regularity. The connection between the defence and the attack was severed and Bayern, seemingly impenetrable in the first half, were finally vulnerable. Napoli sensed the lack of cohesion and pressed. While Bayern’s defenders held, they often resorted to fouls to keep the Italians at bay, leading to another set piece goal courtesy of Fernández’s aerial prowess in the 79th minute. Bayern kept the chances from the run of play to a minimum though, and closed out the game for a shaky 3-2 result. Similar symptoms ailed Bayern four days later, this time in a visit to Bundesliga minnows and Bavarian neighbors FC Augsburg. Despite finding themselves with a 2-0 lead in the 28th minute owing to a converted corner kick and a dash of Ribéry’s class, Bayern did not boss the game as clear superiors should from there on out. Tymoschuk and Schweinsteiger replacement du jour, David Alaba kept up the disjointed midfield performance of post-injury Napoli. The defence was again isolated from the attack; passing was far from precise; 50-50 balls largely went the way of the hosts; and little fouls again became a go-to defensive tactic after Augsburg grabbed a goal back in the 59th. Bayern would hand Augsburg a golden opportunity to tie late on, but Manuel Neuer took charge and preserved the 2-1 score line, saving his club all three points. While Bayern perhaps could be excused for performing unconvincingly after the sudden disappearance of their midfield anchor against Napoli, the chasm in talent between them and Augsburg is immeasurably vast—even without their iconic No.31, Bayern should have wiped the proverbial floor with their regional neighbors. So far, the Schweini-less Bayern looks a far cry from the high flying side that took to Bundesliga and Europe like gangbusters to start the campaign. No combination of Alaba, Gustavo and Tymoschuk has looked the part. And let’s be honest, Augsburg is no worry for even mid table German sides. If manager Jupp Heynckes hasn’t found a cure over the international break, with the attack and defence operating on completely different wavelengths, the closeout to the year may be catastrophic. In Germany, Bayern face Bundesliga challengers Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen, not to mention the quality, but streaky VfB Stuttgart and Köln. All four have the ability to make Bayern pay for midfield miscues on their day. Hell, if they put on the same show as screened in Augsburg, even the other side standing between Bayern and the holiday break, Mainz, can give the München men something to worry about. With four teams within six points of Bayern atop the standings, these next four games without the stability Schweinsteiger brings to midfield can have huge implications in the title race. And if that wasn’t enough, Bayern still need to snatch a point from their remaining two Champions League group stage games against Villareal and Manchester City before we all hang new calendars. Like the high caliber domestic competition that awaits, the Spanish and English challengers, too can pose a threat to Bayern’s championship hopes—these being the chance to hoist the hallowed Champions League trophy at their own Allianz Arena come May. While we’re at it—and why not, really—there is also the matter of a DFB-Pokal date with VfL Bochum on the last match day of the year. Lose there, and another prize falls out of reach. While betting the mortgage on it would be grounds for institutionalization, if Heynckes’ troops don’t get their act together in midfield, this year ending stretch of eight games has the potential see three separate championship dreams dissipate into the München air along with 2011. Heynckes is confident club ambitions remain on track. Bayern faithful and interested observers, not so much. If only the steady presence of Bastian Schweinsteiger could keep Bayern and its hopes alive…

Traditional bush medicine finds new life as Gulbarn tea Updated In the remote Roper region of the Northern Territory, the chance snapping of a branch has had incredible ripple effects for the community who live there. It was 2013, and Samara Billy was showing off her community to representatives from Indigenous business facilitator Enterprise Learning Projects (ELP). The community of Minyerri was keen to start an arts centre, but in doing so, stumbled upon an opportunity to bring one of their traditions to the tea market. "I took them out bush, and we picked a bit of Gulbarn and I told them how we use it," Ms Billy said, outside the now up-and-running arts centre. "You have to just boil it up and wait for it to cool, or you can just have a shower with it. "It's good to relax your body, if you're feeling a bit stressed." Gulbarn grows wild in and around Minyerri, about 580 kilometres south-east of Darwin. For generations, Gulbarn has been primarily used as a comforting drink to soothe coughs and colds. It does not contain caffeine, but with the same kinds of properties and flavonoids as green tea, it is now taking on new life as a drink for any time of day, and is attracting interest from buyers across Australia, China and Taiwan. "I think Gulbarn is a really good example of the intersection of western market knowledge, and traditional Aboriginal knowledge, and the possibilities that come about when people from different walks of life have the chance to explore enterprise opportunities," Laura Egan, founder of ELP said. "There's demand from across Australia, from existing tea companies and tea entrepreneurs that let us know that this is gold really, and it's just a matter of how they want to grow the business." - Laura Egan, Founder ELP Ms Billy said she initially did not think anyone would be interested in a little bush plant. Now, her sights are set on growing the business, little by little. "I mean it's been there the whole time, but nobody wanted to use it," she said. "I'm hoping that we can sell more, but I want to start small first - then we can build it up little by little." The tea is picked, dried and packaged in Minyerri with the help of the community. Packing days are an all-in community endeavour, and Ms Billy laughed that many could not wait until packing day on Thursdays. "When it's Monday they come in and say 'oh when are we going to do Gulbarn packaging?'" The business is not without its challenges though. Internet access is an ongoing issue, and at this stage the online sales are managed by ELP from Katherine. "Internet access in the community is a challenge, and the business would be really well supported by having access to internet services which would enable us then to Skype, and maintain regular contact from our base here in Katherine," Ms Egan said. ELP enterprise facilitator Lillian Tait, said that while Gulbarn tea had exceeded expectations, it was also moving at a pace that was directed by the community. "So if people don't want to package, then there's no tea, and that's fine too," she said. The business is not exclusively run by women, but it is being spearheaded by the women in the community. "Samara is hugely inspirational, she's a real trailblazer within Minyerri community and she's showing all of the qualities of a brilliant entrepreneur and is a real role model for the young women in Minyerri," Ms Egan said. The success is also giving others in the community the motivation and confidence to come forward with other business ideas. "Gulbarn is just one of their many bush plants that's delicious as tea, and so lots of people have been coming out of the woodwork saying 'have you tasted this?' So that's really exciting - we're hoping to explore the other options soon," Ms Tait said. "Gulbarn is a great example, but it's really just scratching the surface of what's possible in terms of grass-roots Aboriginal enterprise." Topics: small-business, environmentally-sustainable-business, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, mataranka-0852 First posted

On Sept. 22, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will make a close approach to Earth, using the planet’s gravity to slingshot itself toward the asteroid Bennu. Over the course of several days, observatories and amateur astronomers with specialized equipment will be able to see OSIRIS-REx as the spacecraft approaches and retreats from its closest position over Earth, approximately 11,000 miles (17,000 km) above the planet’s surface. The mission will collect images of OSIRIS-REx taken by observatories and other ground-based telescopes around the world during this period – approximately Sept. 10-23, depending on location and local conditions. Observers from the OSIRIS-REx Target Asteroids! citizen science program, who regularly volunteer their time to help scientists study near-Earth asteroids, will be among those who train their telescopes on the spacecraft’s path. “The opportunity to capture images of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft as it approaches Earth provides a unique challenge for observers to hone their skills during this historic flyby,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “As the spacecraft approaches Earth for its own imaging campaign, ground-based observers will also be looking up and taking photos from the opposite perspective.” Individuals and groups may submit images of the spacecraft via the mission’s website, where instructions to locate the spacecraft in the sky are also available. “The team is eager and ready to execute the Earth Gravity Assist,” said Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greeenbelt, Maryland. “Not only will it be a significant change in trajectory putting OSIRIS-REx on track for rendezvous with Bennu, it also represents a unique opportunity for the OSIRIS-REx instruments to observe our home planet. It is fantastic that ground based observers are also taking the opportunity to image OSIRIS-REx.” The images collected during the Earth gravity assist represent the last opportunity for Earth-based observers to see the spacecraft — until it returns to Earth in 2023 carrying a sample from asteroid Bennu. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the home institution of several OSIRIS-REx science team members, will also work with the Japan Public Observatory Society and the Planetary Society of Japan to collect imagery from vantage points in Japan. Shortly before OSIRIS-REx reaches its closest distance from Earth, the spacecraft will fly over the eastern half of Australia, giving observers there some of the best opportunities to see and photograph the spacecraft. The Desert Fireball Network — an organization based at Curtin University, Perth, that studies meteorites, fireballs and their pre-Earth orbits—will deploy observers to locations around Australia to track OSIRIS-REx across the sky. Members of the public without telescopes can still celebrate the Earth Gravity Assist by joining the “Wave to OSIRIS-REx” social media campaign. Individuals and groups from anywhere in the world are encouraged to take photos of themselves waving to OSIRIS-REx, share them using the hashtag #HelloOSIRISREx and tag the mission account in their posts on Twitter (@OSIRISREx) or Instagram (@OSIRIS_REx). Participants may begin taking and sharing photos at any time — or wait until the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft makes its closest approach to Earth at 12:52 p.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 22. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission’s observation planning and processing. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the agency’s New Frontiers Program for its Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

In the third post of this blog series on the problems associated within the activated sludge process and how to control them Oliver Grievson is going to look at the Return Activated Sludge system. So what problems are seen and how can they be fixed? A particular one that I have seen and this especially on smaller activated sludge plants where there is little or no control there has been an issue with settlement. Now you can query the fact that what on earth has the amount that you re-circulate solids around the system got to do with the way in which the sludge settles and the answer is of course the floc loading within the start of the process especially in plants that do not tend to have an anoxic zone (particular the case with oxidation ditches). It is the variation from very high floc loading to very low floc loading that causes problems in sludge settlement The civil engineering solution would be too install an anoxic zone or in an oxidation ditch control aeration to create anoxic zones within the ditch (again an alternative method of control). The way of controlling this with instrumentation and control is to install a method of RAS pumping control. The second “problem” is that of energy consumption, not really a problem but after aeration pumping is the next highest energy consumer on activated sludge plant. The problems that I have seen regard on treatment works is on small treatment works where the rate of return is controlled by the level that a bellmouth is manually set at so as flow into the works varies so does the return rate. The tendency being to set the RAS too high (the bellmouth at a lower setting) as the settlement is poor (due to the lack of RAS control) and if flow rates increase (due to inclement weather) then solids will be lost to the environment. The other problem that I have seen is fixed speed return pumping, something that can be managed if the rate of flow to the pumping station managed but causes a problem if it isn’t This is particular the case on larger treatment works that have Archimedes screw pumps. Fortunately control systems can resolve both of these problems depending upon on what RAS system is in place on the treatment works and whether sludge is removed from the final tanks by pump or by bellmouth and how the sludge is returned to the treatment works but the general principle is the same. To define the problem and solve the first problem, that of inconsistent RAS causing settlement problems is relatively simple. In the UK at least if a treatment works has a permit to discharge to the environment it must have a flow meter measuring the flow, for control purposes of the treatment works the best position of this meter is measuring the treatment flow to the works (for a single secondary process works serial secondary process works). For the sake of this blog I am going to assume that the incoming flow is that received by the Activated Sludge Process. If not then the flow measured into the process needs to be measured. The flow measured by the flow meter can be used to ensure that the rate of return to the RAS return point or points (if the Eckenfelder floc loading is being used) is proportional to the incoming flow into the process. This gives the ability to stabilize the floc loading into the process and thus stabilize the process as a whole. In order to do this all that is needed is the incoming flow rate that should be there anyway and the measurement of the RAS flow. If these flow rates are stabilized so that they follow each other then the first problem can be resolved. This is not say that the flow rates have to equal each other, just be proportional to each. This is where the second problem, that of energy consumption, can be addressed but this also increases the amount of risk to the wastewater operator. If you have a system in place as described above so that the incoming flow and RAS flow are both measured then the simple way to control the process is to divide the RAS flow by the incoming flow and calculate the RAS ratio. As the ratio decreases the amount of RAS that is returned is lower and power savings are made. However as the RAS ratio decreases sludge blankets get thicker and deeper and as such it is advisable to measure the RAS solids and the sludge blanket level to mitigate the operational risk. These two instruments can also be used in other control systems, RAS solids in sludge wastage control (part I of this blog) and sludge blanket level in protecting the permit (part IV of this blog, next week). As the solids get thicker then there is also a risk that bellmouths will block so an alert limit on the thickness of the RAS. So what are the benefits, using the two examples I used earlier. The smaller treatment works which was an oxidation ditch the benefit of installing a control system was more for compliance purposes only. The treatment works had SSVI 3.5 concentrations of 220mL/g upon installation of the control system and stabilizing the floc loading the SSVI 3.5 concentrations dropped to 80mL/g and an extreme case and an extreme decrease but shows the benefits of installing a control system. The second case is a much larger treatment works where three screw pumps were returning the RAS to the activated sludge process. Examination of the flows and loads showed that only 1 of the screw pumps needed to be running for 16 hours of the day with the second pump running for the remaining 8 hours. The third screw pump was only needed as a standby pump. Considering that these pumps were rated at 80kW each the overall saving on a monthly basis for this particular case was about 440MW per month, a significant operational saving. In the next in the blog series I will examine what can be done on activated sludge plants to resolve some of the compliance issues that activated sludge plants cause and I will also attempt to sum up this series of blogs. Advertisements

Straight line out from Reorte to Riedquat takes you out past Heart and Soul Nebulae on the left and NGC 281 to the right and below you.Hypoae Aim sector is the outer edge of the Perseus Arm.Pha Aeb and Hypo Aeb sectors are slam bang middle of the rift between the Perseus and Outer Arms.Dryeae Aeb sector is the far side of the Outer Arm.I'm going to say Pha Aeb / Hypo Aeb sectors in the rift between Perseus and Outer Arms.Bear in mind a sector is a huge cube 1280ly on a side, subdivided into 512 smaller cubes of 160ly on a side.In fact I've had a look around and there is a system that would act like a lighthouse in that dark space...Hypo Aeb AA-A h0It's about 13059ly from Riedquat (yeah, I calculated it) and is a load of O0 and B0 stars. Once you reach the edge of the Perseus Arm, it will shine there like a siren out in the darkness.You will need an Anaconda rigged for exploration to get the maximum 40ly jump range.... In fact, you've probably given me my next expedition once I get back from the core.

A gift in three parts, my Scottish 'Santa is quite the sleuth! The two biggest themes were video games and delicious food. She even made sure my adorkable mutt Pochi got in on the action! The first to arrive was a really cool poster with colored silhouettes of Nintendo's best-known characters. That will be getting framed and hung in the basement that I've recently converted into a retro gaming den. In fact, it would be there now if I'd had two seconds to sit down and gather myself since December began. =p The next day, a box arrived that was clearly for Pochi. In fact, he must have been able to smell it, because he started losing his mind as soon as I brought it inside. Upon opening, he found a squeaky toy (that is mercifully ultrasonic, so I can't hear it), two bags of natural treats, a large crunchy bone (which he absolutely demolished in minutes), and a rawhide twist! About this time, I logged into Reddit to discover that she'd given me three months of Reddit Gold! Whee! =) The grand finale finally made it to me on Christmas Eve! It was a large, hand-packed box of assorted goodness, with an envelope labelled "Open First". Not one to ignore directions, I opened it to discover her delightfully creative rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with Zelda-themed substitutions! (Side note: Seriously... How often does a guy get serenaded with The Legend of Zelda? A girl after my own heart!) The card also mentions the hope that I have a sweet tooth. Eeeeyes ma'am. I certainly do. Anywho, this box contained dozens of little packages, and each of these things was individually wrapped. This must have taken her hours! I started taking pictures of everything as I unwrapped it, before I realized that would be a ridiculous quantity of pictures. Among the deluge of candy and confections (like, legit: I'm about to celebrate the first coming of Christ, and I already have enough sweets to last until the second) were three pairs of cute/funny printed socks (zombie, sneaker, and sandal), a bamboo puzzle game that looks like it will wreck my brain in short order, and a cool fish-shaped toy that curls up in your hand when exposed to your body heat. Finally, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, at the bottom was an incredible hand-drawn portrait of Link from Windwaker! I know that on the card she said she couldn't draw, but she's clearly just being modest. If I had attempted such a sketch, it would be a stick figure done with green crayon. =p Thank you, Littleone23! You made my first exchange amazing! =)

The concept of a Ren & Stimpy experience without the visuals initially seems pretty strange -- not to mention no new input from the insanely wonderful genius of the show's creator, John Kricfalusi, whose expulsion from the series was one of the worst artistic crimes of its time. But You Eediot!, named after the catch phrase that Ren would so often deliver to his slobbering sidekick Stimpy, is in its own way the reasonable equivalent to a good post-Krisfaluci episode, more competent than deranged and funny but still worth a few smiles. There are thankfully a few dollops of the original songs that Krisfaluci helped co-write, both with lyrics and with music, though with Billy West doing the voices of both Ren and Stimpy in these re-recordings, it's not quite the originals, alas. When it comes to the other random performances, however, there's plenty to love, dipping into everything from sci-fi soundtracks to strange country music from the back of beyond. The Screamin' Lederhosen, who provided some of the most memorable incidental music, get to show off their post-bop/lounge/whatever chops with "Dog Pound Hop" and "Space Madness," while the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles add just the right stirring note to "Kilted Yaksmen Anthem." The varied contributors throughout the album -- a slew of different musicians worked on the show -- make for a bit of an up-and-down listen, but the prime moments are pretty close to genius, such as the deeply tongue-in-cheek swinging advice record "Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence," the multicultural experience of "Log Blues/Log Theme," and in particular the most legendary song of all: "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" -- allegedly sung by Stinky Wizzleteats -- remains the most demented mock theme song ever, more intentionally goofy and annoying than anything the Barney crowd could come up with.

Sometimes bad things happen, and you must recover your desktop or server from an error. For this delicate work there are some specialised Linux Live Distributions that once booted allow you to make a lot of tasks, like mounting and repairing disk partitions and file system, for this it’s important that the live Distro has support for many different File System type and LVM, it should also have a good support for the network, it’s possible that you need to download or move something on the computer, and so it’s also important to have a wide range of network support, wi-fi too maybe. I’ve know Finnix because it’s the recovery solution choosed by my the hosting company that i use, Linode. Finnix is a self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution (“LiveCD”) for system administrators, based on Debian. You can mount and manipulate hard drives and partitions, monitor networks, rebuild boot records, install other operating systems, and much more. Finnix includes the latest technology for system administrators, with Linux kernel 3.0, x86 and PowerPC support, hundreds of sysadmin-geared packages, and much more. And above all, Finnix is small; currently the entire distribution is over 300MiB, but is dynamically compressed into a small bootable image. Finnix is not intended for the average desktop user, and does not include any desktops, productivity tools, or sound support, in order to keep distribution size low. New versions of Finnix are released every 3 months on average, with updated software from the Debian “testing” tree, along with new Finnix-specific functionality, the latest release it’s version 102 released on 23 July 2011. Features This is a list of packages and features available on release 102 Linux 3.0 as kernel Based on Debian testing (2011-07-21) Support to many file systems: ext3/4, btrfs, Macintosh HFS, cifs, JFS, NTFS, NTFS-3G and XFS Support to LVM and EVMS A lot of network tools: tcpdump, ethtool, snmp tools, wirelesstools A lot of other tools like wipe (to delete securely files) And if you need for a specific tool or program you can check the online package list GRML Grml is a bootable live system (Live-CD) based on Debian. Grml includes a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for system administrators and users of texttools. Grml provides automatic hardware detection. You can use Grml (for example) as a rescue system, for analyzing systems/networks or as a working environment. It is not necessary to install anything to a harddisk; you don’t even need a harddisk to run it. Due to on-the-fly decompression Grml includes about 2.1 GB of software and documentation on the CD. It includes an X server along with a few minimalist window managers such as wmii, fluxbox, and openbox in order to use the graphical programs like Mozilla Firefox which are included in the distribution. Grml provides several scripts and utils which make life easier. The default interactive shell is Zsh and is configured with a very powerful setup, including a nifty completion mechanism. grml-x is a wrapper for configuring and using the X window system. grml2usb is a tool for installing grml ISO(s) on a usb device for booting. grml-crypt is a program that provides an easy wrapper arround cryptsetup, mkfs, losetup and mount. grml-live is a build framework based on FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) for generating a grml and Debian based Linux Live system (CD/ISO). The latest release of GRML it’s the version 2011.05 released on 29 May 2011, and the new features are available here Details about shipped packages and their versions on Grml are available at the Debian section. Visit dpkg_get_selections for a main package listing and dpkg_list for a detailed list of packages shipped with Grml 2011.05. systemrescuecd SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. SystemRescueCD is not intended to be used as a permanent operating system. It was designed by a team led by François Dupoux, and is based on the Gentoo Linux distribution. SystemRescueCD is capable of graphics using the Linux framebuffer option for tools such as GParted. It uses version 2.6.38.8 (or 3 as alternative) of the Linux kernel and has options such as connecting to the Internet through an ADSL modem or Ethernet and graphical web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox. The latest version it’s the 2.3.1 released on 23 August 2011, this page tells you more about the linux software which comes with this system rescue Conclusions I like all 3 of these distributions, and if you ever will have some problem I’m sure you’ll love them too. Like I wrote Finnix it’s the default tool used by my hosting company, it’s the smaller of the 3, but it’s updated often (it’s only one to have as default Linux 3.0 as kernel) and still has a lot of tools that can help you in recovering your system. In the middle i place systemrescuecd there is more software available in this distribution, and a graphic environment, that can be useful if you need to browse the net for a solution or to copy and paste some files/configurations from internet websites. In the past I’ve used this distribution and I’ve been satisfied of it. The bigger, as size of the image, of the 3 it’s GRML that it’s the one with a lot more of software and graphical options. This can be useul if you don’t know the exact problem and need more tools to analyse, check and repairs different things. Popular Posts: None Found

The Democratic sweep in Tuesday’s elections has raised the pressure on Republicans to make good on their campaign promises. Republican senators downplayed any setback to their tax-reform push from the elections, but said the results drove home the need to deliver legislative wins before votes are cast in 2018. “I do think, however, that it does speak to the need for us to get accomplishments. ... I think right now there's a general frustration in the country that even though we've gotten some things done on our agenda, that some of the big ticket items remain incomplete,” Sen. John Thune John Randolph ThunePolls: Hiking estate tax less popular than taxing mega wealth, income Will Trump sign the border deal? Here's what we know Key GOP senator pitches Trump: Funding deal a 'down payment' on wall MORE (R-S.D.), the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, told reporters. Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainGOP lobbyists worry Trump lags in K Street fundraising Mark Kelly kicks off Senate bid: ‘A mission to lift up hardworking Arizonans’ Gabbard hits back at Meghan McCain after fight over Assad MORE (R-Ariz.) said he “predicted” the rough election night and that the party needs to make changes quickly before the midterms arrive. "Unless we get our act together, we're going to lose heavily," he said. Asked if Tuesday's elections showed the need for a "course correction," Sen. Bob Corker Robert (Bob) Phillips CorkerBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Sasse’s jabs at Trump spark talk of primary challenger RNC votes to give Trump 'undivided support' ahead of 2020 MORE (R-Tenn.), who has emerged as one of Trump's loudest critics, smirked before adding, "maybe that's potentially self-evident." "I've certainly made some observations, but I'll keep them to myself," he said. Democrats won victories up and down the ballot on Tuesday night, their first major election wins since the devastating results of 2016. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerBrennan fires back at 'selfish' Trump over Harry Reid criticism Trump rips Harry Reid for 'failed career' after ex-Dem leader slams him in interview Harry Reid: 'I don't see anything' Trump is doing right MORE (D-N.Y.) and Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine Timothy (Tim) Michael KaineTrump claims Democrats ‘don’t mind executing babies after birth’ after blocked abortion bill Democrats block abortion bill in Senate Trump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 MORE (Va.) and Mark Warner Mark Robert WarnerHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Addressing repair backlog at national parks can give Congress a big win MORE (Va.) took a victory lap on Wednesday, holding a press conference with reporters to talk about the election and tax reform. “The combination of the embrace of policies that are so far away from where America is … the fact that President Trump is not leading but tweeting, and the fact that our Republican colleagues … are afraid to change course, when you put that all together, a wave, where Democrats are going to do really well in the House and Senate, is shaping up,” Schumer said. Schumer added that when he took over the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2005 he was “smelling a wave” for 2006 and “I’m getting the same feelings now.” Democrats on Tuesday held onto the Virginia governor’s mansion and made significant gains at the state legislature, with control of the House of Delegates still up for grabs, pending recounts. Taking stock of the results, Republicans broadly agreed that voters are dissatisfied with what they’ve accomplished in Congress this year. “We’ve got to be RINOs — Republicans in Need of Outcomes,” Sen. Thom Tillis Thomas (Thom) Roland TillisGOP Sen. Tillis to vote for resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump Don’t look for House GOP to defy Trump on border wall MORE (R-N.C.) told reporters, asked about Tuesday night’s elections. Sen. Susan Collins Susan Margaret CollinsHouse to push back at Trump on border Hillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators GOP Sen. Tillis to vote for resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration MORE (R-Maine), appearing to point to exit polling, said it was “significant” that so many voters in Virginia named health care as a key issue. "I think that it shows that Republicans need to put forth constructive legislation ... when it comes to health care. Rather than trying to completely repeal the [Affordable Care Act], we should be focusing on trying to fix its flaws,” Collins said. Collins was one of three GOP senators who opposed the ObamaCare effort in July. She also helped sink legislation from GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamHouse to push back at Trump on border Trump pressures GOP senators ahead of emergency declaration vote: 'Be strong and smart' This week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration MORE (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy William (Bill) Morgan CassidyCongress must step up to protect Medicare home health care Ivanka Trump to meet with GOP senators to discuss paid family leave legislation Bipartisan senators ask industry for information on surprise medical bills MORE (La.) that would have turned ObamaCare’s mandates and exchanges into block grants to the states. NBC News exit polling showed that 37 percent of voters in Virginia — more than one in every three — said health care was the most important issue to them. Sen. Jerry Moran Gerald (Jerry) MoranThe Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times The 10 GOP senators who may break with Trump on emergency MORE (R-Kan.) said the message to his colleagues is “more than just tax reform, more than just repeal and replace. We need to be working on issues that affect American citizens day in and day out." "We ought to be paying attention to what transpired in Virginia. It’s nothing that Republicans can say, it’s irrelevant, it didn’t matter. There is a message out there and we need to take some time and discern what that is,” Moran told CNN. Republicans have struggled to make good on their years-long campaign pledges despite having the first unified GOP government in a decade. But not every senator appeared convinced that Tuesday's election results should be cause for alarm. Sen. Mike Rounds Marion (Mike) Michael RoundsGOP senator: Trump thinks funding deal is 'thin gruel' Lawmakers put Pentagon's cyber in their sights Endorsing Trump isn’t the easiest decision for some Republicans MORE (R-S.D.) said that he didn't think there were a lot of "big surprises." "Virginia has always been sort of a blue state to begin with," he said. "Traditionally, after you have a change in the White House, it’s been very difficult for the elections after that to follow with the president’s party necessarily winning.” Sen. John Cornyn John CornynHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Senate plots to avoid fall shutdown brawl MORE (R-Texas) said that Republicans were already feeling "significant pressure" on taxes and "midterm elections are always tough for the party in power." "Certainly not in the 10 states that he carried that [Senate] Democrats are running for reelection in," Cornyn said when asked if he was worried about a broad Trump backlash. "He's still enormously popular in some of those places and that's how the Senate outcome is going to be determined."

SANTA CLARA — Thursday was the 49ers players’ scheduled day off. There was no way to gauge their reaction after the team’s morning announcement that it had signed Seneca Wallace to the position of — essentially — the fourth No. 2 quarterback. But let me take a wild stab at what the players’ reaction was to the Wallace signing: “Huh? Another one?” No one doubts the motivational skills of 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh. His guys show up every week in the regular season ready to play mentally. Only two of his nine losses as the team’s coach have been by more than 11 points. Thus, as screwy as it sounded last season when Harbaugh kept saying that Alex Smith was the 49ers’ starting quarterback even though Colin Kaepernick had clearly replaced Smith … well, if that sort of spin kept the locker room in the proper groove for a Super Bowl mission, fair enough. But this season, there’s a different challenge for Harbaugh in the quarterbacking-attitudinal-spin department. And it will be tougher than last year’s delicate Smith-Kaepernick dance. Here’s why: By bringing in the 33-year-old Wallace as yet another potential backup, the team and Harbaugh continued their summer camp theme of practically screaming to the world that if Kaepernick gets hurt, the 49ers are doomed. Now, it’s fine if the rest of us believe that. But the 49er players can’t be permitted to believe that. Otherwise, if Kaepernick does indeed suffer an injury and be sidelined for a few games or even longer, it would provide a ready-made excuse to shrug off a defeat or let intensity slip a bit. And in the NFL, if the intensity slips an inch, it’s the same as it slipping a mile. The margin between winning and losing is too thin. So, pretend for a moment that you are a 49ers player. And tell me what you’d think if you saw: 1. Kaepernick barely being allowed to break a sweat in the first two exhibition games, then being ordered quickly to the bench because Harbaugh says he doesn’t want anything “freakish” to happen — which means, what, Kaepernick might be supernaturally transformed into a spineless protoplasmic zombie as if he were in a Stephen King novel? 2. Kaepernick being asked in practice to switch from his normal red jersey to a black one, a signal for defenders to not touch him, or create too harsh a breeze while running past him, or criticize his choice of lunchtime salad bar items. 3. No real clarity in the matter of who will be the No. 2 quarterback. Presumptive top backup Colt McCoy has struggled in the first two exhibition games (25.3 passer rating). Presumptive No. 3 Scott Tolzien has failed to raise any eyebrows. A raw rookie, B.J. Daniels, was moderately impressive last week in Kansas City. But he is still, yes, a raw rookie. 4. The curious move of signing Wallace, who, after starting just 21 games in seven NFL seasons with Seattle and Cleveland, couldn’t catch on with any team in 2012 and was recently released by the New Orleans Saints. Is the 49ers quarterbacking roster truly that distressed? I can imagine what some players must be thinking as they ponder all of the above, even if they won’t talk about it publicly: We must be pretty depth-chart fragile at the most important position on the field. And heaven help us if Kaepernick gets banged up. That’s not ideal, although it’s not necessarily a disastrous mindset. The Saints players probably feel the same way about Drew Brees. But it surely helped the Saints’ confidence to see Brees on the field last week, looking invincible as he led five scoring drives in the first half against the Raiders. Kaepernick has not yet had that sort of preseason opportunity. He might Sunday against the Vikings. Or he might not. It would seem to be a good idea for Kaepernick to go out and flex his muscles longer this weekend — and then have one of the four backups look solid and capable. This would send an excellent message to the team and the league. But Harbaugh isn’t tipping his hand about how he will allot playing time. Perhaps he has the Zen of this all figured out in a way that the rest of us can’t comprehend. For now, the 49er quarterbacking situation behind Kaepernick is a definite issue. The team faces a telling decision. Does it go with Wallace and Daniels, two players whose athletic skills more match Kaepernick’s in terms of running a read-option offense? Or should the nod go to McCoy and Tolzien, more conventional drop-back types? Whichever way it sorts out, the 49ers would do well to retain Daniels in some capacity. The kid has upside. During a brief discussion with him earlier in training camp, I discovered that before the 49ers picked him in the NFL draft, he interviewed for a job with the F.B.I. after earning his criminology degree at South Florida. “I always wanted to get into that kind of stuff,” Daniels told me. “As a kid, I watched C.S.I. with my mom every week.” I predict Daniels will be excellent at dissecting opponents, if he gets a chance. I just know in these next two weeks before the Sept. 8 opener against Green Bay, the most important thing for the 49ers is to gain more clarity and sureness with their overall quarterbacking mojo. That alone will make this Sunday’s exhibition worth watching. Contact Mark Purdy at [email protected].

That is the same thinking that got Europe into such deep trouble—the idea that one must welcome hordes of diversity in order to, what? still have enough people to buy cars or rent apartments, or require teachers—to fuel the economy. And, they pretty much say it in this article at a small town newspaper in Maine, to wipe our old white butts in nursing homes! Watch, I’ll be accused of being a white nationalist (oh wait! I already am labeled as such!) just for writing about this story. But, it isn’t me saying this, it is an immigration lawyer whose livelihood depends on more immigration just as a used car salesman looking for refugees to sell to (not disparaging used car salesmen!) does, or a nursing home owner who is trying to get workers at the cheapest hourly wage he can get! Here is the story from Maine. ‘Lawyer, employer encourage hiring more refugees‘ which reports that refugees are now being spread out further from the normal resettlement sites in Maine (thanks to Catholic Charities). “Why are we so old?” immigration attorney Jennifer Atkinson asked a small crowd gathered Nov. 16 for a talk about her work, hosted by the Camden Conference at Rockport Opera House. “Look around…” she said. “We’re white. We’re so old because we’re so white.” She put the area’s demographics bluntly, calling the Midcoast “a bastion of whiteness” within the oldest and whitest state in the country. [….] While some residents might be content with this, Atkinson said it doesn’t bode well for Maine’s economy or its future. When you read these next lines consider this: I’m white and old enough to remember when the pressure on all of us college grads was to have ONLY two children or risk killing the planet. Guess who didn’t listen to that—the rest of the brown world didn’t listen! Heck we have 9/11 mastermind KSM telling interrogators that they are going to take us over by outbreeding us! Statistically speaking, there is a correlation between whiteness, oldness and slow population growth. [….] Maine’s aging and decreasing population (the state had a net loss of 928 people last year) leads to cascading problems: low school enrollment, pressures on budgets, strains on services — especially health care — and declines in the working-age labor force. [928 doesn’t sound like a lot to me!—ed] [….] “To grow we have to be willing to become more racially diverse,” Atkinson said, “because that’s where the growth is, in non-white communities. “There’s always the option to reach out to refugees and asylum-seekers,” she added, fully disclosing that doing so would be good for her Friendship-based practice, but also would benefit employers and the community as a whole. Who is taking care of the old white people in nursing homes? I don’t have time to discuss the next section, but you should read it, here. It is about a nursing home owner who has figured out that he can hire refugee labor probably much cheaper than a Mainer. When making arguments about why they hire refugees they NEVER admit it is about the hourly wage. They could probably find Americans for this work if they paid a decent wage! But, that would mess up their bottomlines! (Your tax dollars subsidize the family’s needs when wages are too low.) LOL! Big business owners are always pretending they are doing God’s work by hiring refugees! Having had some experience with nursing homes in recent years, any one of you considering finding one for your elderly family member, especially one with some form of dementia, make sure that all those caring for your loved one (no matter their skin color) SPEAK ENGLISH WELL. It is hard enough for the mentally impaired as it is, and they need to be able to communicate well with a nursing aid. Something as benign seeming as a urinary tract infection can kill if not detected in time. Questions I want answered: Why is that Leftwingers are always pushing for more population growth (to fuel the economy) when they must know that growth of that sort will necessarily bring some degradation of the environment—more cars, more roads, more houses, more school construction, less open space, etc? I don’t get it! If there is some Open Borders Leftwinger who would like to explain it to me and our readers, I would very much welcome a guest column. And this too? Why all the yammering at whites to have only 2 kids, I don’t see any of you nagging the Arabs or the Africans to do the same thing. See our Maine archive by clicking here.

'Twitter is a playground and the website is the office," says Reverend Stuart Campbell, when asked whether he is a wind-up merchant. Campbell is the founder of Wings Over Scotland, a controversial pro-independence site that gets an astonishing 4.5 million page views a month. Born in Stirling, he moved to Bath in 1991 for a job at a computer magazine and became a notorious reviewer of video games. He has lived in Somerset ever since. The 46-year-old is also a long-term supporter of Scottish independence, but the issue only became pressing for him when the SNP's landslide Holyrood victory in 2011 made a referendum a certainty. Wings, known for its abrasive take on Scottish politics - one Tory MSP was described as "fat troughing scum" - was started six months after Alex Salmond's historic victory. "I was looking around for Scottish politics websites to follow ... and they weren't doing the job," he explains, sitting in a friend's house in Keynsham, outside Bath. "It became fairly rapidly obvious that nobody was doing the thing that I thought needed to be done." Other than giving readers what he describes as the "facts" about independence, Wings also attempts to shine a light on newspapers' alleged bias. In a podcast interview last year, Campbell said he wanted to "shame" the mainstream press and ensure newspapers did their job in a "more even-handed way". Does he think newspapers have a duty to be even-handed? "No is the short answer. They don't have a duty to. I think they should be." Newspaper stories, I say, are required to be accurate, not even-handed. Surely you are asking something of newspapers that they were never set up to deliver? "They are perfectly at liberty to do that [not being even-handed] but if they're going to do that then they should expect that we will highlight that." Would he be sad if the Daily Mail closed? "No." How about The Scotsman? "No." Like Guido Fawkes and the US-based Drudge report, Wings is an internet phenomenon: on top of 4.5 million page views, 250,000 unique users visit the site every month. Campbell works around 14 hours a day on the site and is the poster boy for a certain type of online independence campaigner. And yet, Yes Scotland - the official campaign group for independence -won't touch Wings with a barge pole. Yes recently ordered a local group to stop distributing leaflets that endorsed the website. A senior Yes figure told the Sunday Herald that the reason for this distance can be summed up in one word: Hillsborough. In September 2012, an independent panel confirmed that policing failures, not Liverpool fans, were to blame for a crush that led to the deaths of 96 people. But on the day after the panel issued its findings, Campbell wrote a piece that pointed the finger squarely at Liverpool fans: "The police's mendacious attempts to blame the fans for being drunk, late or ticketless were red herrings. The reality is much simpler, and required no lying - the fans were to blame because they, alone, were the ones who pushed and thereby caused the crush." Campbell now says of the article: "Some people are upset at some of my personal views. I struggle to see what conceivable relevance they [his views] are. I stand absolutely by the stuff that I've written about Hillsborough." But the panel said a lack of police control was to blame, not Liverpool fans. "The inquiry has a very specific definition of blame. Listen, this isn't something that I particularly want to get into here. As I say, it's nothing to do with Scottish politics." It's the reason people in Yes won't deal with him: "The bottom line is I don't particularly care if people don't want to be associated with us." Does he regret publishing it? "No. As far as I am concerned, it is true." However, it would be wrong to say that Yes Scotland has had absolutely no contact with Campbell. Asked whether he had ever spoken to Yes chief executive Blair Jenkins, Campbell said: "I have spoken to Blair on a number of occasions." When was the last time? "I'm not particularly sure I want to reveal that." Wings has also attracted money, with fundraisers reeling in nearly £150,000 from supporters. As a result, Wings registered as a referendum campaigner, which means the source of donations over £7500 has to be declared. The website received a £10,000 donation from a supporter, but this has not shown up on the register. He says the £10,000 will be spent after the referendum, which falls outwith the rules. So who is the donor? "It was somebody who did appear on the Electoral Commission's list of donors that was published the other week," he says. Campbell declines to name the donor, but he rules out tycoon Brian Souter and lottery winners Colin and Chris Weir. Looking ahead to September 18, the Wings founder says he has "no idea" what the result will be. However, he worries about the effect of a No vote: "The psychological damage to Scotland as a whole will be enormous." One remaining mystery is Campbell's use of the word "Rev" before his name. He does not have a university qualification, but he says he became a reverend in the 1990s. Does he do weddings? "I have not done weddings." Funerals? "No." Does he believe in God? "Things evolve." He says he uses Rev because a stalker used to edit his Wikipedia page in a way that directed people to a different Stuart Campbell who was a murderer. Campbell is an IT-literate troublemaker who has a long history of winding people up. A combination of the referendum, the internet and an edgy electorate has given him the perfect canvas.

There is an unfortunate tendency for articles nowadays to have sensationalist “click-bait” headlines, but by any standards the aggressive spin put on Michael Chessum’s latest piece in the New Statesman is highly unfortunate. The headline screams “It’s time for Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters to take on the trade union leadership”. Nothing could be more counterproductive than seeking to mobilize supporters of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party to intervene in internal union politics. Trade unions are organizations that have their own rule books, decision making structures and autonomous interests. The lay activists who participate in the decision making processes, and who are elected and delegated to conferences and to sit on committees, are the same lay activists who represent their work colleagues in disciplinary and grievance hearings, who negotiate with management, who recruit to the union on a daily basis, who hold the participatory branch, sectional and regional structures together, and campaign on industrial and political issues. Many thousands of these lay member activist in trade unions also support Jeremy Corbyn, and it is highly mischievous and irresponsible for Michael to misrepresent such activists as potential agents of disruption within their own unions. From my experience the deliberations on policy issues within trade unions are serious and well informed, based upon the expert opinions of those with experience in the industries or sectors whose interests are at stake, and informed by other expert opinion commissioned by or researched by the unions themselves. Michael Cheesum seems to be suggesting that pressure should be applied to unions from outside to subvert the outcomes of such democratic decision making. This is a fundamental breach of the well established protocols whereby the political and industrial wings of the party operate in a spirit of mutual restraint. As Lewis Minkin describes in his magnum opus The Contentious Alliance – Trade Unions and the Labour Party the development of unwritten “rules” governing the relationship between the unions and the party have arisen over many years, and effectively derived “from fundamental values of trade unionism”. Trade unionism is inherently based upon collectivism, and preserving the autonomy of collective organisation from constraint. It is collective organisation which counterbalances the disparity of wealth and power between employers and individual workers. As Minkin describes: Through their collective capacity, the liberty of the individual worker was enhanced via-a-vis the employer. Through the collective, workers increased their control over the work environment. Through the collective, workers advanced living standards without which a simple “absence of restraint” was often the freedom to go without, to grow sick or starve. This view of collective capacity involved minimizing impediments to the operation of the industrial collective, whether they were external or internal to the organisation. By its nature, this involved restricting individual rights in relation to the collective (albeit a democratic collective). Whatever libertarian views trade unionists might hold about individual rights in a wide social and political sphere, they recognized the necessity in industrial life to accept some diminution of choice in one relationship in order to enhance it in another This concept of liberty as being a mediated one through respect for the collective is one that dovetails with the moral underpinnings of labourism as associated with thinkers as diverse as R H Tawney and Tony Benn. For example, the astute observation of RH Tawney is that liberty is related to equality. If freedom is defined as absence of restraint, then liberty promotes inequality, because the more powerful in our society have less constraints upon them, and the majority of the population will always be unfree. For Tawney, true liberty is the freedom to act positively for the benefit of the community, and being empowered to resist the tyrannical demands of the rich and powerful. Trade unionism is therefore inherently virtuous through being founded upon collectivity and mutual support, rather than individualism and personal acquisitiveness. It is worth looking at Michael’s views in more detail. He writes The logic that drives unions to support projects like Heathrow expansion – and which drives the GMB union to support fracking and Trident renewal – is grounded in a model of trade unionism which focuses not on transforming the workplace, but on the narrowly-defined interests of workers – job creation, economic growth and a larger share of the pie. It views the trade union movement not as merely antagonistic to employers, but as a responsible lobbying partner for business and industry, and as a means of mediating workers’ demands in a way that is steady and acceptable to the state and the economic system. This model, and the politics that accompanied it, is why, historically, trade unions were a conservative influence on Labour’s internal politics. The description of the unions as a “conservative influence” is spookily close to that of Tony Blair, who used to rail against unions as the forces of conservatism because unions resolutely advocated economic growth and good, well paid, high skilled jobs, and resisted his deregulation and privatization. Of course Michael Chessum has different objectives to Blair, but in his case he considers unions to be conservative because they advocate economic growth and good, well paid, high skilled jobs in the face of sometimes ill-considered and knee-jerk policies from parts of the fashionable left. It is hard to know what Michael means by “transforming the workplace”, which he thinks trade unions don’t currently do. Let us look at the premium that workers in organized workplaces enjoy. According to a 2014 booklet by the TUC: In the public sector, for every £10,000 that a non-member earns, a union member on average earns around £1,690 more; in the private sector it’s around £580 more. Over the period 2001–2013 union members were on average a third more likely to have received training than nonunionised employees. Union membership brings the greatest financial benefits for young workers: 16- to 24-year-old union members earn 38 per cent more than their non-union counterparts. Union members also have more paid holidays, with 3.8 days more paid holiday than non-members (25.5 days compared with 21.7 days). Workplaces with unions have far fewer accidents, according to a 2007 study. To take two examples over the last couple of weeks, the solicitors Leigh Day won the first stage of a legal campaign to force ASDA to give equal pay to the mainly female retail workforce compared to mainly male workers doing similar work in distribution. With the same employer, GMB national negotiators recently gained agreement from ASDA that they would cease the individual monitoring of scanning rates in stores, which colleagues were finding oppressive and demeaning. These are both examples of trade union organization making a real difference. The workplace is transformed when workers have a strong independent organization which allows employees to redress injustice, and gain greater respect. Michael seems to believe that unions are failing their members if we are not involved in ceaseless class warfare. However, while recognizing that in the final analysis employers may have potentially antagonistic interests to their workforce, it is also true that employees do have a material interest in their employer’s business prospering: there is no point is advocating higher wages if employers don’t have the means to pay them. Where an employer treats their workforce with respect and dignity, then trade unions do have a legitimate interest in advancing the business prospects of such good employers, thus benefiting their members. Currently, with perhaps the exceptions of Community and USDAW, every British trade union has a leadership that historically could be regarded on the centre left; and the claim by Michael that trade unions mediate “workers’ demands in a way that is steady and acceptable to the state and the economic system” is nonsense. The constraint on militant industrial trade unionism in the modern world is due not to timid nor bureaucratic leadership, but deep seated difficulties of organizing workers in workplaces blighted by casualization, bogus self employment, low union densities and not enough experienced lay activists. Indeed it is worth reflecting, as Gregor Gall did in his recent Huffington Post article, that far from being unimaginative, unions – especially Unite and GMB – have been very innovative in combining political, legal and media pressure on employers, such as Uber, Asos and Sports Direct. The challenge for such campaigning tactics is ensuring that they are financially sustainable for the unions in the longer terms by both recruiting and maintaining paid membership. Ultimately, however innovative trade unions may be at using our political and campaigning leverage, the foundation of union power is industrial strength. This is why Michael Chessum’s article is so disappointing. Whereas the locus of purely political campaigning is constantly pulled towards Westminster, and a schedule of elections that is dis-empowering for activists, trade unionism is geographically dispersed and workplace injustice happens every day, giving activists an opportunity to make real change for the better. The biggest opportunity for building a powerful campaigning left is not to encourage Corbyn’s supporters to challenge the leadership of the unions, as Michael rather foolishly does, it is to encourage activists to join and recruit to the unions where they live and work, and to help us all together to build the strong industrial organization that can empower working people to improve their own lives.

The third round of Revelation Online’s closed beta is almost upon us: It opens up tomorrow and runs through February 2nd, complete with a level bump to 69, three new dungeons, three new missions, the new Faerie Funland map, two new events, badges, updates to scour dungeons, and six new PvP modes. Old freebie beta keys won’t get you in, but new ones will. Guess what we’ve got? Yep, courtesy of My.com. Click the Mo button below (and prove you’re not a robot) to grab one of these keys! No keys left! Sorry. To redeem your code, you’ll need to create an account on the official site, log into it, head to your profile page, and enter your key in the “redeem a promo code” area (and make sure your copypasta is free of any extra spaces). While we are not aware of any hard restrictions on the test, do note that the test is for the English-localized, western-focused audience. Do note that if you already own a founder pack on your account, you’re already in the beta and don’t need a freebie key. Standard giveaway notes: If there’s no captcha or Mo button and all it says is “No keys left! Sorry” in big letters, then we’re out of keys. If we get another batch from the studio, we’ll send out a note on social media. Having problems with the captcha not working? Try an alt browser or clear your cache. Keys are locked to IP, so if you’re on a shared IP with other people claiming keys (like in a library or college), you’re probably going to be beaten to the punch. And finally, hang on to your code! If you lose it after all of our keys are given out, we cannot retrieve it for you. If you miss out on a key this round, stay tuned for MJ’s upcoming beta 3 stream — we’ve held a few back for her to hand out to our viewers. Good luck and have fun!

Winter 1996 Chris Beck was never one of your gargantuan-type Navy SEALs. There are those types, of course, men chiseled from granite at 120 percent human scale, men who seem to drain several drams of testosterone from everyone else when they walk into a room. But you’d be surprised at the body types you find in the SEAL teams. Your smaller fellows, your stringy fellows, the guy with almost literally zero percent body fat who had to eat two Papa John’s pizzas every day through SEAL training just so he wouldn’t die of hypothermia in the water. Chris himself was on the smaller side, more like an undersized walk-on linebacker who lacked the size and pedigree of some of his more highly recruited peers but played with an intensity and pain tolerance that endeared him to coaches and TV commentators. And yet, as he slipped on a pair of panty hose in his sailboat on this night in 1996, Chris couldn’t help wishing he were more petite, more womanly. He always wanted that when he wore women’s clothing. To be just a little bit prettier. It felt good even to wish that. Chris finished putting on his outfit and walked barefoot up the ladder and onto the deck of his boat. Dusk was fast disappearing in San Diego Bay, the red lights of the Coronado Bridge blinked on, the weaponized beachhead of the naval station loomed cloud-colored to the west. Chris was 30 years old then, living on a 48-foot wooden William Garden ketch that he’d bought in a state of disrepair for $12,000 and fixed himself. He opened a Sam Adams, the beer of patriots, and had a seat. He was wearing a wig, and the way it felt in the wind called up a pleasant feeling of longing. Chris loved the deck of his boat at night. He could feel the inhuman mass of the ocean shifting beneath him and hear the clanking of the rigging and the water against the timber hull, which just sounded better than it does on fiberglass. But otherwise he was erased from the world. “Being invisible,” he thought, “is a relief.” He’d flown back from a training deployment in Thailand earlier in the week. He’d taken a taxi from the base to a garage he rented, picked up his motorcycle, and ridden it down to Fiddler’s Cove. He’d undressed to his shorts, stuffed his clothes in a plastic bag, and swam the half mile to the sailboat he lived on—it was cheaper than sharing a house, like most of the other, younger SEALs stationed in Coronado did. He’d found his boat, as always, sealed up tight. He would leave it spotless, because he never knew when fate would dictate that he wouldn’t be the one opening it up. It was part of the process of shipping out, a ritualized preparation for death that would always have a kind of dreadful power over him. The washing of bedclothes, the bleaching of sinks, the removal of any speck of organic matter, the rewriting of his “dead letters” to be distributed to his friends and relatives should he not return, all of them signed with that quote from the end of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “Thanks for all the fish.” Of course, Chris also had to purge all his panty hose and dresses and wigs and shoes—“I want to have honor in death” was how he thought about it. Over the course of his 20-year career, Chris would serve in the Balkans during the civil war there. He would serve during the first Gulf War; fight pirates across the Horn of Africa; drive into Iraq in 2003 ahead of the invasion. He would spend years on small firebases in Afghanistan, snatching Taliban leaders; operate alone in the tribal belt along the Pakistan border, wearing a long beard and Pashtun garb, convening with Taliban agents and tribal warlords. Though it’s certain he’s killed people, I’m not privy to the details, because I know that to ask such questions is to reveal something truly base in myself. But I know Chris would be awarded the Bronze Star with valor, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, and about 50 other ribbons and medals. He would dislocate a shoulder, shatter a kneecap, be hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on his fortieth birthday, break two vertebrae in his back on a boat near Somalia and complete the mission anyway, and fly home sleeping among the flag-draped coffins of 19 of his brothers. But even coming back from a training deployment in Thailand, it would usually take Chris a few days to find the release valve on his psyche. And by tonight he’d gotten the boat all opened up and aired out—made a run to get beer and another to a vintage store where he bought his dresses and shoes. And now, sitting there on the deck, he finally felt relaxed.

Shanghai, China – Since four-fifth of the Chinese students wear glasses. An Asian dad beat up his son for having perfect 6/6 vision. He was convinced that wearing glasses would mean an increase in his sons grades. A boy named Wang Wei, a 15 year old student from Shanghai was badly beaten up by his dad Fang Wei. He then took him to a doctor and forced him to prescribe glasses for his son. Wang was just an average student who would pass all his exams. This want enough as his father’s expectations were very high of him. He attributed this on him having a perfect 6/6 vision and proceeded to beat up his child. The doctor tried convincing his father that corrective glasses are not required with no results. He said he wouldn’t leave until the doctor gave his son glasses. Hence the doctor was left with no choice and prescribed him a Rayban aviator sunglasses. China and many other East Asian countries do not prize time outdoors. Being outdoors and exposure to daylight helps the retina to release a chemical that slows down an increase in the eye’s axial length. Schoolchildren in China are often made to take a nap after lunch rather than play outside; they then go home to do far more homework than anywhere outside East Asia. The older children in China have poor eyesights, as they stay indoors and not because of the country’s notorious pollution. Like this: Like Loading...

ROME (AP) — Police in Italy have shut down a mozzarella factory and arrested 13 people after finding that prized local buffalo milk was being cut with cheaper imported cow milk. Authorities also found that the cheese, produced near the southern town of Caserta, contained as much as 20 times permissible levels of bacteria, said Carabinieri Police Maj. Alfonso Pannone. Police on Monday also shut down seven stores selling the cheese in the Campania region which includes Naples. Milky white buffalo mozzarella is prized by Italians and tourists. It carries a special label supposed to guarantee quality and protect its reputation. Among those arrested were two public health service veterinarians who allegedly tipped the factory to upcoming inspections. The probe began after a worker lost some of his fingers because of safety flaws.

Gen. John Nicholson Jr. is the 17th commander of the US occupation of Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. It’s not exactly a plum job, as the war is going poorly, and he appears to be falling out of favor quickly with President Trump, after having inherited the position back in March of last year. Officials are now revealing details of a tense, multi-hour meeting on July 19, during which President Trump complained that the US is losing the war in Afghanistan, and expressed frustration with his advisers, who have been urging an escalation in the protracted war to try to slow the rate of loss. Trump has been resistant to the escalation calls, skeptical that they’ll do anything to change the tide of the war, but also appears to be increasingly frustrated with Gen. Nicholson in particular, repeatedly suggesting during the meeting that Nicholson should be fired “because he is not winning” the conflict. That’s about par for the course for commanders in Afghanistan, as more than a few have been relieved of command because the war was going more poorly than the president at the time was satisfied with. Trump’s suggestions of sacking him are a bit more frank than the public comments ahead of the dismissal of past commanders, but Nicholson’s slightly over one year time as commander is roughly the norm. Whether this is just the latest shuffling of the leadership to give the illusion of forward motion remains to be seen, put some reports have suggested that some in the White House are pushing for an outright withdrawal from Afghanistan instead of continuing to drag out the failed conflict. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz

Johnson involves a passing child in his act David Johnson, also known as the World Famous Bushman, is a busker who scares passers-by along Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, active since 1980. [1] Johnson hides motionless behind some eucalyptus branches and waits for unsuspecting people to wander by. When they approach, he shakes the bush towards the unsuspecting tourists and startles them, sometimes making gruff "oogah-boogah" noises, while in-the-know observers giggle. Crowds gather to watch him work,[2] often including those he has previously scared.[1] The Bushman typically operates toward the western end of the Wharf (at Jefferson and Hyde Streets or thereabouts), well to the west of the Grotto. Johnson used to work with or, at different points in time, as a rival to a second Bushman, Gregory Jacobs, until the death of Jacobs in 2014.[3] Crowds usually watch Johnson across the street from where he usually sits,[4] to see him entertain people. In a "good year", Johnson claims to earn $60,000.[5] However, he cited the same figure to one of his victims (after said victim chided him) in 1992. At one point, he employed a bodyguard to protect himself against attacks by the unamused, distract his targets, and to alert him to the approach of elderly people so he could avoid scaring them.[1] The police have received a number of complaints about the Bushman, and Fisherman's Wharf merchants have tried to shut him down.[6] In 2004, he was charged with four misdemeanors, but a jury cleared him. The District Attorney subsequently dropped several remaining public nuisance complaints.[2] Although engaging in his street performance utilizing the bush as a prop, as of the mid 1990s, Johnson did not formally refer to himself as "The Bushman" until he was befriended by then Alameda residents John and daughter Alison Nowakowski, who would refer to him as such. Eventually, the name stuck and Johnson adopted the name as his formal street performing moniker. Two Bushmen [ edit ] While it is clear that from the 1990s until the death of Gregory Jacobs in 2014, two World Famous Bushmen operated on Fisherman's Wharf both as a team and as separate acts, sources differ as to whether Jacobs or Johnson was first to come up with the act. A 2009 article in SFSU's Xpress Magazine says: Many people are unaware that there are, in fact, two Bushmen. When Gregory Jacobs first came up with this gig, he recruited David Johnson, a man he met at Fisherman's Wharf. As they worked together they developed a close friendship. Johnson's deep voice scares those who unknowingly pass by the man-made bush. Back then, Johnson would hold the bush and Jacobs would tell the jokes, entertain those watching the action, and collect the tips. It has been about fifteen years, and now they are complete enemies. Jacobs accuses Johnson of running off with their money. Jacobs tries to avoid any conflicts with Johnson by not working where and when he is."[7] However, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Johnson was the original Bushman, joined by Jacobs in the 1990s. An article from 1999 suggests that Jacobs joined Johnson in a bodyguard role as well as to help with the act: "'I look after him,' says Gregory Jacobs, who recently joined the act as a full partner. 'I watch his back.' [1] Greg Jacobs was featured in the video "Act (Diogenes)" by the artist Whitney Lynn.[8] Jacobs is also the subject of a short film, The Bush Man.[9] Gregory Jacobs died February 23, 2014 due to heart failure at the age of 60 years old, whilst Johnson remains active.[3] Bushman Holiday Video [ edit ] The Bushman was also featured in a holiday video[10] for HEAT, an advertising agency in San Francisco, CA. See also [ edit ]

After a successful revival earlier this year, the new Robot Wars is gearing up for two festive specials this holiday season called Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars. Advertisement Prepare to deck the halls with robot bodies as Angela Scanlon and Dara Ó Briain return as hosts, presiding over two hour-long episodes that will see teams of celebrities (rather than the usual enthusiastic amateur roboteers) compete to build their infernal devices and battle it out in the arena. What time is the Robot Wars Christmas Special on TV? The first hour-long part of the Christmas “Battle of the Stars” will air at 8pm on Wednesday 28th December on BBC2, while the second part will be shown on Thursday 29th December at 8pm on BBC2. Who’s in it? As noted hosts Angela Scanlon and Dara Ó Briain are back in the arena to preside over the battles, and you can expect the usual presence of House Robots Sir Killalot, Matilda, Shunt and Dead Metal. Sir Killalot, Matilda and Shunt The celebrity guests (who will team up with an experienced roboteer from the series to build and battle some ‘bots) will include Radio 1 DJs Scott Mills and Chris Stark, with more celebrities revealed over the coming months. Are any other robots coming back? Outside the House Robots it’s a bit unclear, but we’d imagine the experienced contestants teaming up with the celebrity guests will be familiar faces from the most recent series, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to have cameos for their robot creations. What are the best shows to watch on TV this Christmas? Advertisement And what time are they on?

Grace VanderWaal rides the GoldieBlox float in the Macy's 90th Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, NY on Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. (Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran/The Record of North Jersey) Grace VanderWaal is going black tie. The tiny songstress who just performed at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will sing the national anthem at the Rockland County Executive Ball, Jan 29. VanderWaal will be a highlight of the annual Day campaign fundraiser, which kicks off at 5 p.m. at the Pearl River Hilton. The theme is "Celebrating Success To Shape The Future." Tickets start at $250. Rockland County Executive Ed Day presented VanderWaal with a "key to Rockland" during her homecoming parade on Oct.1. During that event Day said of the singer: "Suffern knew she had talent. Rockland knew she had talent. Now America knows she has talent. It's rare to have someone so special to bring us all together." It's been a busy year for the now internationally-known singer, who captured hearts when she first appeared on "America's Got Talent' in June, ultimately winning the coveted grand prize of $1 million and landing a record deal with Simon Cowell's Syco label. RELATED: Grace album available for pre-order RELATED: Grace in studio recording first album Her first album, "Perfectly Imperfect," will be released Dec. 2 and she is set to appear on the "America's Got Talent Holiday Spectacular," airing 8 p.m. Dec. 19 on NBC. Grace VanderWaal rides the GoldieBlox float in the Macy's 90th Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, NY on Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. (Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran/The Record of North Jersey) Twitter: @krhudsonvalley Read or Share this story: http://lohud.us/2gleevk

One student's fight for mental health awareness inspires a movement Sarah Spitz arrived at Emory University in 2009 eager to find out what the next four years had in store. But as the readings piled up and her first test approached, the self-proclaimed perfectionist couldn’t handle the pressure. Spitz struggled with depression and anxiety in high school and was hesitant to leave Emory to get help. When she did go home, she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. For Spitz, this marked the start of a battle to transform mental health awareness on college campuses nationwide. “A lot of people feel like the diagnosis is a death sentence,” Spitz says. “I never really felt like that. Getting that diagnosis was kind of reassuring, knowing that there were other people like me and that I’m not the only one.” Sarah Spitz with Active Minds founder and Executive Director Alison Malmon. (Photo11: Photo courtesy Spitz) And Spitz is not alone. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in every four young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 have a diagnosable mental illness, which includes depression, anxiety, eating disorders and addictive behaviors among others. This statistic inspired Spitz to share her story in an effort to diminish stigmas surrounding mental health issues. And she has inspired the country. Just last week Spitz was named one of CNN’s “Nine Mental Health Warriors,” honoring those who are making a difference in the fight for mental wellness. Spitz says it wasn’t easy to open up and share her experiences at first. When she returned to Emory in the fall of 2011, she had many awkward conversations and was hesitant to tell people where she had been for the past two years. Related: Viewpoint: Don't be afraid to seek help for mental health issues during college But once she discovered Active Minds, a non-profit student mental health advocacy organization, her disorder became an experience she used to help others. “I really do believe that Active Minds has helped me get through school,” says Spitz. “I began sharing my story with people and I found that by starting to talk about it, we can get other people to talk about it and really get people the help that they need and deserve.” “We all think that if we’re struggling it’s our fault and we’re the only ones." This is exactly what Alison Malmon had in mind when she founded Active Minds in 2003 at the University of Pennsylvania after her brother took his own life at the age of 22. The organization is now on 400 high school and college campuses nationwide “I started Active Minds with the goal to get students talking about mental health issues--to share their experiences, to learn from others, to know that there is help and to feel comfortable getting that help as soon as they need it,” Malmon says. She says Active Minds is fortunate to have members like Spitz. “She’s a tremendous advocate who uses her experiences to help others,” says Malmon. To open up about what she’s experienced and use it to help and support others, it just speaks volumes for her character.” Dr. Mark McLeod, the director of Emory’s Student Counseling Center and Emory’s Active Minds adviser calls Spitz a “force of nature.” He says Active Mind’s presence at Emory has been instrumental in sparking important conversations on campus. McLeod points to one event called “Speak Out,” where students to submit and read stories about their own mental health challenges, that has proved tremendously successful over the past three years. “As a mental health professional, for students to just come to an event like that, and then to speak at an event like that, or even have their story read anonymously-- it’s just mind blowing,” says McLeod. “Four years ago you would have had nobody there.” Related: 55 universities join Jed and Clinton health program to address mental health, student safety McLeod hopes that in the upcoming years, Spitz’s work will prompt students to view mental and physical health issues in a similar light. “There’s no logical reason in my mind why it should be harder to tell somebody, ‘I’m anxious,’ ‘I’m depressed,’ as opposed to ‘I have a sore throat,’ My arm is hurting,’” says Spitz. “Active Minds is going to change that and to be a part of that, which is an amazing thing.” While Emory and other campuses have come a long way, Malmon says there’s still more to be done. “Not quite everyone yet has that knowledge of the real nature of mental health issues -- that mental health issues are real health issues, and there are resources available for seeking out help,” Malmon says. She hopes Active Minds will reach every U.S. college campus so students like Spitz can inspire others to get help. “We all think that if we’re struggling it’s our fault and we’re the only ones,” says Malmon. “(Sarah) reminds everybody that it’s not always sunshine and roses throughout a young adult life – that challenges can happen and you have reason to hope.” And Spitz is eager to continue sharing her story and giving advice “Do your best, and accept that your best might not be the same as someone else’s best and that’s OK,” says Spitz. “There are a lot of people, offices and professionals in the university system that are there to help. So just know you’re not alone.” While Spitz never expected that her initial struggle would become a life-long mental health advocacy fight, she has big plans for the future. “I want to show that it’s possible to get through college even if you struggle,” says Spitz. “Know that it’s OK if your path doesn’t look the same as everyone else’s.” Rachel Rosenbaum is a student at Emory University and a spring 2015 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017. Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2was8GC

Sound principles and practices of statecraft It is an unflattering commentary on our times and on our narrative-manufacturers that it falls to an outsider - a former American President ---to remind us of our collective obligation to involve and include the Muslims in our national story. Our mainstream media industry has since May 2014 unfortunately bought into a new story-line in which the minorities are either demonised as friends and promoters of inimical forces and terror groups or subjected to an elaborate rituals of benign neglect. We are content to write the grammar of a "new India," which ipso facto rejects the old India's accent on plurality, inclusiveness, participation and partnership. It no longer bothers our conscience that even in popular cultural narratives the minorities, particularly the Muslims, are denied a place of respect and appreciation. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is entitled to its political and electoral calculus of majoritarianism. The sober fringe in the ruling conglomerate finds itself completely marginalised after the grand success of Hindu vote bank politics in Uttar Pradesh, especially after the anointment of so-obvious a Hindu face as Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister. The majoritarianism is recognised to have a momentum of popular acceptance behind it. An otherwise sensible political leader like Nitish Kumar too has found it cost-effective to make his peace with the hard-line Hindutva forces. So much so, even the Congress mascot, Rahul Gandhi, deems it necessary to position himself as a 'janudhari Hindu' and feels constrained to visit every big or small temple in Gujarat. And, ludicrously enough, Rahul Gandhi's temple-hopping has prompted the BJP to field its most modern face, Arun Jaitley, to remind everyone that it is the ruling party that had the or intellectual property rights to “Hindutva” platform. President Obama's observations should jolt us out of our internal preoccupations. We need to keep in mind that the outside world judges us differently by exacting global good practices in governance, geopolitics and economics. Obama was not being preachy; he was simply reminding us of sound principles of statecraft observed, recognised and practised statesman-wisely by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.

An 'immigrant hating' Frenchman who planned 15 mass attacks on the Euro 2016 football championship was today facing a range of terrorist charges after being arrested in Ukraine. Police announced the arrest of the 25-year-old, identified as Gregoire Moutaux, on the day the England team flew into Paris ready for the tournament's kick off on Friday. 'Gregoire was armed to the teeth and ready to strike,' said a source close to the investigation, who said details of targets emerged during questioning. Scroll down for video An 'immigrant hating' Frenchman who planned 15 mass attacks on the Euro 2016 football championship was today facing a range of terrorist charges after being arrested in Ukraine (pictured) Ukraine police said he had massed a 'vast arsenal' including five Kalashnikov assault rifles, two anti-tank grenade launchers, 5000 rounds of ammunition and 125kg of TNT explosives A source close to the investigation said the 25-year-old suspect was 'armed to the teeth and ready to strike' Police announced the arrest of the 25-year-old, identified as Gregoire Moutaux, on the day the England team flew into Paris ready for the tournament's kick off on Friday The 'far-right nationalist', who originally comes from Bar-le-Duc, near Reims, in northeast France, was arrested on Ukraine's border with Poland on May 21st. Ukraine police said he had massed a 'vast arsenal' including five Kalashnikov assault rifles, two anti-tank grenade launchers, 5000 rounds of ammunition and 125kg of TNT explosives. 'He could have caused carnage,' said the source, who also described Moutaux as 'a farm worker from the Lorraine district of France, who objected to his country being taken over by immigrants.' Moutaux was a confirmed Islamophobe and anti-Semite, and specifically wanted to targets mosques, synagogues, and 'large crowds building up around Euro 2016.' Vasyl Grytsak, of the SBU Ukrainian security service, said: 'We were able to prevent fifteen terrorist acts that were planned in France on the eve of and during the European Championship football.' The suspect had allegedly bought a series of weapons including machine guns, explosives and grenade launchers Ukraine police said he had massed a 'vast arsenal' including five Kalashnikov assault rifles, two anti-tank grenade launchers, 5000 rounds of ammunition and 125kg of TNT explosives The Frenchman arrived in eastern Ukraine last year and was 'trying to establish ties with Ukrainian troops under the guise of volunteering,' the Ukrainian agency said He confirmed Moutaux aimed 'to blow up a Muslim mosque, a Jewish synagogue, tax collection organisations, police patrol units and numerous other locations'. Mr Grytsak added: 'He obtained five Kalashnikov rifles, more than 5,000 bullets, two anti-tank grenade launchers, 125 kilogrammes (275 pounds) of TNT, 100 detonators, 20 balaclavas and other things.' Moutaux was particularly opposed to France's policy of allowing in migrants, the spread of Islam and globalisation, said Mr Grytsak. Soon after Moutaux's arrest in Ukraine, a raid was carried out at his home in France. There officers found Neo-Nazi t-shirts, as well as chemicals used to produce explosives and five balacalvas. He had no criminal record. He is believed to have travelled to Ukraine, one of the most unstable states in the world at the moment, because it is so easy to pick up arms and explosives. Ukrainian agents had been following the man since December, and allowed him to buy a series of weapons The Paris prosecutor's office, which handles terrorism cases at a national level, said no investigation had been opened yet Moutaux was particularly opposed to France's policy of allowing in migrants, the spread of Islam and globalisation, said Ukraine authorities Despite this, locals in Nant-le-Petit, which has a population of just 80 people, described Moutaux as a 'polite and pleasant lad'.. Mayor Dominique Pensalfini-Demorise said: 'He was a kid who was pleasant to his neighbours, intelligent and kind.He was always ready to help people.' British football fans will risk an unprecedented security threat when they travel to France for Euro 2016 this week. It follows warnings from a range of security agencies, ranging from the U.S.. State Department to French police that Islamic State terrorists are planning to strike. Marseille commander Laurent Nunez said the Three Lions 'opening match against Russia on Saturday in in the Mediterranean port city was 'a particularly high risk'. Suggestions that the city will be attacked emerged on a computer belonging to Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the ISIS death squad that hit Paris last November. The 'far-right nationalist', who originally comes from Bar-le-Duc, near Reims, in northeast France, was arrested on Ukraine's border with Poland on May 21st Ukraine authorities said Moutaux 'aimed to blow up a Muslim mosque, a Jewish synagogue, tax collection organisations, police patrol units and numerous other locations' French regional newspaper L'Est Republicain identified the man as Gregoire Moutaux and said investigators raided his home (pictured) in Nant-le-Petit near the eastern city of Nancy in late May. It managed to murder 130 people, with suicide bombers exploding their devices around the Stade de France during a football friendly between France and Germany. Abdeslam is currently on remand in a high-security prison in Paris, and has confirmed that ISIS want to attack again, while the eyes of the world are on France during Euro 2016. France remains under a State of Emergency following last November's attack, with thousands of soldiers joining police on the streets. SOUTH AFRICA INSISTS 'NO IMMEDIATE DANGER' DESPITE TERROR WARNING South Africa has moved to allayed fears after Washington warned Americans of a possibly imminent terror attack by Islamic extremists in the country's major cities. 'We remain a strong and stable democratic country and there is no immediate danger,' State Security Minister David Mahlobo said in a statement. The United States on Saturday said it had received information that terrorist groups were planning to carry out attacks in South Africa during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The warning said attacks may target sites frequented by US citizens, including high-end shopping areas and malls in the economic hub of Johannesburg and Cape Town, which is popular with tourists. It came against the background of ISIS' 'public call for its adherents to carry out terrorist attacks globally during the upcoming month of Ramadan,' the US embassy in South Africa said. But the South African government played down the threat. State security ministry spokesman Brian Dube said authorities have not stepped up security following the alert. He said: 'Our information has not necessarily confirmed what has been raised by the Americans.' This is the second alert the US has issued for South Africa in under a year and was followed by British government travel advice, cautioning against a 'high threat from terrorism' in South Africa. 'Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners such as shopping areas in Johannesburg and Cape Town,' said the online foreign travel advice. South Africa has so far escaped the jihadist attacks seen in several other African countries. But according to Robert Besseling, Executive Director at Ex Africa Business Risk Intelligence, a threat of Islamist terrorism in South Africa was real. 'A successful terrorist attack in South Africa is feasible, given police ineffectiveness, serious weaknesses within the intelligence apparatus, and the lack of a counter-terrorism strategy,' he said in a statement. However, a local analyst said South Africa's neutral foreign policy did not place it at risk. 'We don't have a history of terrorism here, we have got a foreign policy that's quite neutral, we don't engage in any counter-insurgency operations either on the continent or elsewhere that would place us in at risk of retaliatory attacks,' said Ryan Cummings, an analyst with Cape Town-based Signal Risk think tank. Elite special forces will be on hand to deal with possible terrorist incidents, scrambling to danger zones in a matter of minutes. French authorities have extended a state of emergency until the end of the tournament, as well as the Tour de France cycling race, which will be held from July 2 to July 24. Some 2.5 million football fans are expected in stadiums, including 1.5 million foreign visitors. Yesterday, French President Francois Hollande said that the threat of extremism won't stop the European Championships from being successful. Elite special forces will be on hand to deal with possible terrorist incidents, scrambling to danger zones in a matter of minutes. Police are pictured outside the Stade de France in Paris in March A French citizen arrested on the Ukrainian-Polish border with 125kg of explosives was planning a string of attacks in France to coincide with Euro 2016, it has emerged. French forensic officers take part in a mock terror attack drill outside the Stade des Lumieres, near Lyon earlier this week Hollande said in an interview on Sunday with France Inter radio that precautionary measures throughout the matches, including a 90,000-strong security force, will ensure the matches scattered in 10 French cities are safe. Hollande said France decided to go ahead with Euro 2016 despite two waves of attacks last year, and make it a 'festival for people and for sports.' But he said that spectators at the month-long tournament must accept security checks as they enter stadiums and fan zones.

As he made clear in his announcement speech, Donald Trump has taken an interest in crimes happening along the U.S.-Mexico border. Making the case for the construction of a “great wall” between the two countries, he complained that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs” and “crime” to the United States as a part of the ongoing Mexican Drug War, a conflict which is largely the result of the War on Drugs waged in the United States. Despite this, Donald Trump continues to support drug war policies at home and oppose reforms that could attenuate the conflict in the area. Donald Trump knows the War on Drugs doesn’t work. In 1990, he spoke boldly about what needed to be done to put an end to drug-related crime: Billionaire New York developer Donald Trump says that legalizing drugs is the only way to win the war against what he considers one of America’s most serious problems. Trump blamed the country’s drug problems on politicians who “don’t have any guts” and enforcement efforts that are “a joke.” “We’re losing badly the war on drugs,” Trump told 700 people at a luncheon Friday. “You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.” “What I’d like to do maybe by bringing it up is cause enough controversy that you get into a dialogue on the issue of drugs so people will start to realize that this is the only answer; there is no other answer,” Trump said. (via Herald Journal) Since the 1990s, our prohibitionist policies have remained in place and violence related to the illegal drug trade has skyrocketed. The Mexican Drug War alone has claimed the lives of over 100,000 people in eight years and displaced over a million people as a result of the cartel violence. As Donald Trump surely knows, many of those displaced from their homes in Mexico migrate north to the United States. Meanwhile, drug cartels reap huge profits from the illegal drug trade, which fuels the lawlessness that Trump is calling attention to. As Anthony Johnson points out, Donald Trump was right when he said legalization is the answer to these problems. On top of raising tax revenue and saving millions on law enforcement, marijuana legalization has shown to be an effective policy to reduce the profits of drug cartels: “Is it hurting the cartels? Yes. The cartels are criminal organizations that were making as much as 35-40 percent of their income from marijuana,” [retired federal agent] Nelson said, “They aren’t able to move as much cannabis inside the US now.” In 2012, a study by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute found that US state legalization would cut into cartel business and take over about 30 percent of their market. (via Vice News) Despite knowing that legalization is, in his own words, “the only way to win” the War on Drugs, Trump no longer favors this position, arguing instead that marijuana legalization is causing problems in states like Colorado. “I think it’s bad, and I feel strongly about that,” he said this year. While he suggests he would allow states to enforce their own marijuana laws should they choose to legalize, Donald Trump stated multiple times that he does not support ending marijuana prohibition “unless it’s medical marijuana.” According to Donald Trump, the United States needs a president “who thinks like a winner;” but while he knows that the War on Drugs can only be won with legalization, he opposes this position and provides no viable alternative. In this way, Trump has come to resemble the gutless politicians he denounced earlier in his career. Rather than leading the way towards peace in the Mexican Drug War, Trump seems satisfied merely complaining about it, and that’s about as far as one can get from thinking like a “winner.”

United's last match at Anfield was overshadowed by the Suarez-Evra row Manchester United are likely to be given more than 6,000 tickets for the FA Cup fourth-round tie with Liverpool at Anfield this month. United received a reduced allocation for October's league fixture because of fans blocking gangways at fixtures. But Liverpool City Council has said its objections have now been lifted. United may get the bottom tier of the Anfield Road stand, holding just under 6,400, but two seats at the end of each row, around 300, will not be sold. "We have taken into account the improvement of the Manchester United supporters at the most recent Premier League fixture relating to the blocking of gangways and aisles," said Stephen Clare, Liverpool City Council's principal licensing officer. "Liverpool FC will be responsible for determining the actual numbers that this will result in." The fourth-round match takes place on the weekend of 28/29 January. It will be the first time the teams have met since the 1-1 draw at Anfield on 15 October in which Liverpool striker Luis Suarez clashed with United's Patrice Evra. Suarez was subsequently banned for eight matches and fined £40,000 after being found guilty of racially abusing Evra. Additional security will be in place for the tie and it is expected the front row of the top tier of the Anfield Road stand will not be sold for the game, the first between the sides in the FA Cup at Anfield since 2006. Suarez will still be suspended for the match, a date for which should be confirmed by the Football Association this week. However, the Uruguay international would be available for any replay, and for the Premier League game between the teams at Old Trafford on 11 February.

* Euro lifted on reports ECB to give Greece liquidity aid * U.S. jobs data to shift focus on greenback for a while * Commodity currencies supported by rebound in crude oil By Shinichi Saoshiro TOKYO, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The euro on Friday held onto gains made during the latest swing back to optimism in the Greek debt saga, while the market awaited U.S. non-farm payrolls later in the day for further cues. The euro was little changed at $1.1469 after surging 1.2 percent overnight in a short covering rally, helped by reports that the European Central Bank agreed to fund up to 60 billion euros in emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to Greece. Views that the Swiss National Bank was buying euros to weaken the franc also supported the common currency. The euro has experienced wide swings this week, as hopes that Greece could win swift relief from its creditors alternated with worries a deal cannot be reached, which raised the prospect the country might exit the euro zone bloc. The European Central Bank stunned investors midweek by taking a hard-line stance, saying it would not accept Greek bonds as collateral. That caused the euro to tumble. Greece’s aid deadline with the European Union, the ECB and International Monetary Fund “troika” expires on Feb. 28. “The Greek situation will remain a key factor at least until the Feb. 28 aid deadline. The development is likely to peak next week, giving time for at least one more round of upsets for the market,” said Junichi Ishikawa, market analyst at IG Securities in Tokyo. “For now we can turn away from Greece and focus on U.S. jobs data, which may provide an opportunity to slow the unwinding of dollar long positions that has been taking place,” Ishikawa said. Another solid U.S. payroll reading, coupled with a possible rebound in wage growth, may revive recently-flagging views that the Federal Reserve might consider raising interest rates as early as mid-year and favour the dollar. The dollar index moved sideways at 93.587 after shedding nearly 1 percent overnight. The greenback was little changed at 117.48 yen. Its commodities-linked Canadian counterpart remained under support after marching higher overnight as volatile crude oil rebounded from the previous session’s plunge. The Canadian dollar was steady at C$1.2450 from Thursday’s low of C$1.2585. The Australian dollar, also aided by the crude oil bounce, rose 0.5 percent to $0.7836 after a statement from the Reserve Bank of Australia did not sound as dovish as some had expected. (Editing by Richard Borsuk)

Just a few years ago the common perception was that we were in an AI winter. Although there were lots of narrow AI applications running in the background of our daily lives, there wasn’t much enthusiasm. But quietly in the background, a revolution was building thanks to progress across a few key areas. These areas would soon converge to produce breakthrough after breakthrough and put us on the verge of what many believe to be the most important event in human history. Key Advance 1) More Data Andrew Ng of Baidu explains that a massive amount of data is needed. If you put 10x the data in many of these algorithms they work, put 1/10th in and they don’t. Previously it was very difficult to get hold of the massive amounts of data required to feed the AI systems, but thanks to the internet researchers have tonnes of data to train their neural nets. Key Advance 2) More Computing Power If you only have the computational power to build a small neural network it doesn’t work. But computer power has continued to increase and prices have dropped. Moore’s Law may be stalling, but the Law of Accelerating Returns is not. The Law of Accelerating Returns. What Steve Jurvetson calls “the most important graph ever”. GPUs are much better for training neural networks than CPUs and have provided the computer power needed for these algorithms to function. Infrastructure has also improved. Today it’s possible for anyone to rent a massive amount of GPU power on cloud computing platforms (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud). Key Advance 3) Better Algorithms Neural networks have been known about for decades, but most researchers had given up on them Geoffrey Hinton of Google is one of the few who stuck with it. Despite his peers calling it a dead end, he believed that it was the right approach. It turned out he was right. Hinton learned how to stack neural networks dozens of layers deep (deep learning) which enabled vastly more calculations and now he is considered “the godfather of neural networks”. With these 3 breakthroughs in place neural networks finally began to work. And they worked better than almost anyone expected. The Tipping Point: ImageNet 2012 The ImageNet project was created in 2009 to judge how well computers can see. In 2011 computers had a 26% error rate when trying to label images. Humans only had a 5% error rate. But in 2012, Hinton’s team made a breakthrough and reduced the error rate to 16% using deep learning. This made everyone sit up and take notice. Massive research began in deep learning, and just a few years later in 2015 computers actually beat humans with an error rate of just 4%. Today, just 5 years after Hinton’s breakthrough, the error rate for AI is 3%. The portion of evolution in which animals developed eyes was a big development. Now computers have eyes. – Jeff Dean, Google Brain Governments, the academic world, big corporations, and startups became obsessed with neural networks and AI in general. Tech companies began spending billions to make progress as fast as possible and a massive recruiting war began for anybody with relevant skills. As everybody raced to develop these deep neural networks breakthrough after breakthrough occurred and it was clear that something very special was happening. Self-Driving cars became a reality Computers became as good as or better than humans at many types of medical diagnosis Voice recognition accuracy skyrocketed High accuracy language translation (for text and audio) became accessible Autonomous drones were built A Computer beat humans at Go, a milestone thought to be decades away. Today the pace of funding and development of AI is faster than ever and we are still in the very early stages of exploring what these neural nets and AI systems can help us do. The Next Decade (2017 – 2020s) The Dream Is Finally Arriving. This Is What It Was All Leading Up To. – Bill Gates WIDESPREAD OPTIMIZATION Better optimized logistics, supply chain management, back office processes, and communication will speed up many of our daily processes. Productivity gains and reduced friction will occur across all industries. These behind the scenes advances might be incremental and seemingly boring, but when combined and compounded will free up so much wealth and resources. A lot of experts are going to be surprised at how inefficient their best efforts have been. Google Turns on DeepMind AI, Cuts Cooling Energy Bill by 40% We used a similar system to AlphaGo, but instead of playing Go we applied it to the cooling systems in the data centers to try and increase their energy efficiency. We managed to save 40% of the energy that was used by the cooling systems. The whole data center now has 15% less power usage. That’s worth tens of millions of dollars per year. What we’re thinking now is, why don’t we optimize something like the energy grid at national scale? There’s no need to just think about data centers, there must be huge inefficiencies even at grid scale. – Demis Hassibis, Google DeepMind This alone probably pays for the Deepmind acquisition. Shows how far below Pareto optimal limits even Google was. – Balaji S. Srinivasan I don’t think most grasp the significance of this. Oil companies have similar systems they pay billions trying to optimize. – iandanforth It’s all about optimization. It can be used in supply logistics, shipping logistics and dynamic pricing in addition to keeping an industrial area at the right temperature. We’ll be seeing AI being applied to a lot more areas. – Dave Schubmehl Honestly, I’m skeptical a generalized AI will go fully conscious in my lifetime. But these specialized AI? These things are going to start changing our lives over the next ten years in unimaginable ways. The energy savings alone is incredible. – tendimensions ENERGY AND COMMODITIES WILL GET CHEAPER Long term Industrial commodity price decline AI is very effective at figuring out where resources might be and where to drill. It can also optimize business processes, design better equipment, and suggest better techniques. This will drive the oil price down even further, making it cheaper for all of us to power our businesses and lives. Travel will become cheaper. Airline ticket prices will fall. As more efficient production methods are discovered productivity will rise, pushing costs down and enabling prices to fall. This will occur across a range of commodities from food to energy. MASSIVE DEFLATIONARY PRESSURES The event horizon of a coming economic singularity where all prices drop down an asymptote toward zero as technology advances exponentially. – James C. Townsend Optimization and cheaper commodity prices will produce tremendous deflationary pressures. Productivity gains should be higher than the rate of money printing. This means that prices will fall. As things get easier to produce they become less scarce. Lower costs for producers means they can cut prices to gain more customers and sell to a larger market. We’ve already seen this with electronics such as smartphones. The components of the phones keep reducing in price, and supply chains and operations get more efficient, allowing the companies to expand their market to billions of people instead of a much smaller market of wealthy people. Hundreds of years ago, light was very expensive. Clean water was very expensive. As those things became easier to produce and deliver to people (electricity and modern plumbing systems) the price dropped down an asymptote towards zero. Nowadays those things are so cheap and easy to obtain that most people take them completely for granted. The internet revolution has already delivered this in many ways. Entertainment is practically free now with youtube videos, file sharing, and the ability to access any song, movie, book or picture instantly. Every industry will have costs lowered by AI bringing more efficient systems and production methods. The path we are on is to use our knowledge and tools to drive costs down and make systems and processes more efficient. This will result in things that were previously scarce becoming abundant. Deflation is the reward we get for improving our methods. SMART MANUFACTURING Fortunes will be made acquiring analogue manufacturers and digitizing them. Comparable to Russian privatization. – Pierre Rochard The global manufacturing sector generates about $12 trillion in annual revenue. Industrial robotics equipped with better than human image recognition will use data from sensors to optimize how they function. Imagine the cost savings with even just small incremental productivity gains. TRANSPORT WILL BECOME SAFER, CHEAPER, AND LESS TIME CONSUMING This is already well underway. Transport costs will continue to be driven down as ride sharing companies offer self-driving rides. Car ownership rates will plummet. Vehicles will be massively more utilized (at the moment they’re idle 95% of the time). City streets will open up to be used in different ways. It will save millions of lives and free up an uncountable number of hours. I never thought I’d see autonomous automobiles driving on the freeways. It wasn’t many years ago [they] put out a request to see who could build a car that could go across the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas from a place in Southern California, and several engineering teams across the country set out to do this. Nobody got more than about 300 yards before there was a problem. Two years later, they made the full 25-mile trip across this desert track, which I thought was a huge achievement, and from that it was just a blink before they were driving on the freeways.” – Gordon Moore LANUAGE BARRIERS WILL FALL Language, even more than religion, is humanity’s central point of division. Finally technology is overcoming this. – Jeffrey Tucker I used to believe that it would take a couple of decades to get a babel fish type of device. I now believe we will have languages solved within 10 years at most. Google Translate is amazing. The recent conversion to an AI system resulted in huge improvements. I’m in awe at how accurate it can instantly translate foreign text. Google also have a new feature to use your phone’s camera to translate text in the world around you (like on signs or on a menu). Skype translator converts instant messages with a very low error rate. This has been available for a while and now audio translation is being rolled out. I recently tried French – English which was flawed but good enough if you talk clearly. It’s obviously going to improve exponentially with more training. Breaking these language barriers will reduce friction and speed up processes all over the world. It will allow much greater integration of the 7 billion minds on the planet. WE’LL HAVE EVEN BETTER ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE Personal assistants can finally understand you and start to do useful things. That’s a watershed moment. – David Hanson, Jan 2017 Speech Recognition for under $1 in every product. That’s coming within 2 years. Imagine what we see today with Amazon Alexa, that can be in every Roomba, every little consumer product, and it’s cheaper than putting buttons on a product. That’s obvious. – Steve Jurvetson, 2016 Personal AI assistants similar to what is portrayed in the movie Her will be increasingly prominent on our desktops and smartphones (and devices beyond that like virtual and augmented reality glasses and lenses). Siri – Apple Viv, Bixby – Samsung Google Now – Google Amazon Echo – Amazon Cortana – Microsoft M – Facebook Personal assistants, along with household robots, will be one of the first things that triggers a realization among the general public that a major transition is happening. WE’LL LIVE LONGER I think AI’s effect on healthcare will be far more pervasive and far quicker than anyone anticipates. Even today, AI/Machine Learning is being used in oncology to identify optimal treatment patterns. – Stephen Gold, IBM Watson Diagnosis AI is already diagnosing people better than humans and saving lives. We think that its no longer necessary for humans to spend time reviewing text reports to determine if cancer is present or not. We have come to the point in time that technology can handle this. A human’s time is better spent helping other humans by providing them with better clinical care. Everything — physician practices, health care systems, health information exchanges, insurers, as well as public health departments — are awash in oceans of data. How can we hope to make sense of this deluge of data? Humans can’t do it — but computers can.” This is a major infrastructure advance — we have the technology, we have the data, we have the software from which we saw accurate, rapid review of vast amounts of data without human oversight or supervision. – Shaun Grannis Genomics Deep learning is helping us to make sense of the human genome and know what to do with it. It’s just too complicated for us to make fast progress without AI. Life Extension Ben Goertzel of Hanson Robotics and OpenCog says it’s inevitable that we will learn enough through AI systems to be able to indefinitely extend our lifespan. OUR ENGINEERING CAPABILITIES WILL IMPROVE The greatest achievement of our technology may well be the creation of tools that allow us to go beyond engineering – that allow us to create more than we can understand. – Danny Hillis, 1998 An area I find particularly interesting is evolutionary/iterative algorithms. Deep Learning is part of a larger family of these type of algorithms (where the AI system does something over and over again in an evolutionary manner and somehow get the best result). These designs often end up looking completely alien and counter-intuitive. Example 1 – Satellite Antennas NASA has no idea why their satellite antennas are best shaped like this. Example 2 = Jet Engines A jet engine is far too complicated for an unaided human to design so General Electric use evolutionary algorithms. Example 3 – Structural Nodes 3 structural nodes to hold cables. On the left is a human design, the right is a machine learning design. The AI design results in a 40% overall weight reduction of the total structure. Example 4 – Producing Entangled Photons Melvin, an algorithm designed at the University of Vienna, works by taking the building blocks of a quantum experiment (lasers and mirrors) and the quantum state desired as an outcome and running through different setups at random. If the random setup results in the desired outcome, Melvin will simplify it. It can also learn from experience, remembering which configurations result in which outcomes, so it can use those and build on them as needed. So far, the team says, it has devised experiments that humans were unlikely to have conceived. Some that work in ways that are difficult to understand. They look very different from human-devised experiments. “I still find it quite difficult to understand intuitively what exactly is going on,” said team member Mario Krenn – Physics.org AlphaGo is a similar example of how AI makes decisions that are completely different to what a human would come up with. This was best displayed in the legendary game 37 when AlphaGo made a move that humans had unanimously dismissed as stupid for 3,000 year, yet turned out to be brilliant. After humanity spent thousands of years improving our tactics, computers tell us that humans are completely wrong. I would go as far as to say not a single human has touched the edge of the truth of Go. – Ke Jie, Go World Champion Colonizing mars, mining asteroids, and building a space economy in the decades ahead will need much better engineering than we’ve so far come up with so far, but these algorithms will help us design it. At some point AI may take us over the threshold of knowledge required to build some of the other most important paradigm shifting technologies speculated about such as large-scale quantum computers or Drexlerian Molecular Assemblers. HUMANITY’S SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE BASE WILL INCREASE Deep neural nets will process the big data that we don’t know what to do with. This will provide insights in fields such as physics, biology, and chemistry. Research breakthroughs at CERN’s particle collider or with the James Webb Space telescope project would give us a better ontological understanding of the nature of reality. GLOBAL WEALTH WILL KEEP INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY World GDP in Trillions $ We are already in the Singularity. At this scale we can see it began sometime around the Scientific Revolution in the 1600s and really took off in the industrial revolution of the 1800s. What those eras brought will pale in comparison to what comes next. COMPANIES BRINGING AI TO THE WORLD PUBLIC COMPANIES These companies trade on the stock market so are available for the public to become owners of them. I’ve listed them in order of market cap so it’s easier to get some perspective over who are the most valued companies and who has more room to grow relative to their competitors. 1) Apple Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $711 Billion Personal assistant – Siri Self-driving cars Massive proprietary data to feed into AI training sets and improve systems 2) Google Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $582 Billion DeepMind AlphaGo RankBrain – AI Search Personal assistant – Google Now Optimization Services (DeepMind in energy) Google Cloud Computing (Google Cloud Platform) Hardware –TPUs new deep learning chips (Tensor Processing Chips) DeepMind Wavenet –The best text to speech system in the world (50% better than traditional systems) Owns D-Wave “quantum computers” for quantum machine learning The Google Quantum AI Lab (Quantum Machine Learning – Hartmut Neven, John Martinis) Massive proprietary data to feed into AI training sets and improve systems Self-Driving Cars – Waymo Robotics – Boston Dynamics Google Brain Project Google Translate Google Inbox Smart Reply Google Home (Competitor to Amazon Alexa) Nest (Home automation) Wearables – Smart contact lens (long-term project) Languages: “In few years time we will put it on a chip that fits into someone’s ear and have an English-decoding chip that’s just like a real Babel fish.” – Geoffrey Hinton Key Talent – Geoffrey Hinton, Jeff Dean, Ray Kurzweil, John Martinis, Demis Hassibis, Mustafa Suleyman (DeepMind) 3) Microsoft Seattle, USA Market Cap = $499 Billion Languages – Skype Translator AI Personal Assistant – Cortana Search – Bing Speech Recognition Cloud computing provider (Microsoft Azure) Researching deep learning with FPGAs. Possibly better result than GPUs Researching quantum computers Massive proprietary data to feed into AI training sets and improve systems Key Talent – Jian Sun, Li Deng, Matthias Troyer. 4) Amazon Seattle, USA Market Cap = $404 Billion Cloud computing provider (AWS) Amazon AI Services Open sourced their Deep Scalable Sparse Tensor Network Engine (DSSTNE) Personal Assistant – Amazon Alexa Autonomous Drones Investing significantly in robotics to improve their processes, reduce costs and increase profits. Massive amounts of difficult to obtain proprietary data. 5) Facebook Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $387 Billion Big data – Training AI on it. AI Personal Assistant – M Oculus – Integrating AI into this. (Long term) Acquired voice-recognition AI startup Wit.ai Key Talent – Yann LeCun 6) General Electric Fairfield, USA Market Cap = $270 Billion Using AI to improve engineering 7) Samsung Seoul, South Korea Market Cap = $259 Billion Acquired much hyped AI assistant Viv Labs (Siri cofounders new company) The next Samsung phone will come with a digital assistant called Bixby. Wearables – Smart contact lens (long term) Part of a $3 billion public/private research centre with, LG, telecom giant KT, SK Telecom, Hyundai Motor, and internet portal Naver. Pumping Millions into Artificial Intelligence startups Deep learning to detect cancer – Samsung Medison 8) Alibaba Hangzhou, China Market Cap = $253 Billion Cloud Computing AI Platform 9) Intel Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $175 Billion Nervana Systems is a deep learning chip set company recently bought by Intel for around $400 mill which accelerates algorithms. Intel FPGAs Break Record for Deep Learning Facial Recognition 10) Oracle Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $172 Billion Lots of data AI Cloud Apps 11) IBM New York, USA Market Cap = $171 Billion Cloud computing provider (IBM Cloud) IBM Watson – a tool for doctors, business people, and scientists. IBM Watson making inroads into the $3.8 trillion healthcare industry IBM Watson -Diagnosis greatly in demand FPGA – Neuromorphic Chips 12) SAP Walldorf, Germany Market Cap = $106 Billion Access to lots of data Cloud computing platform Sells AI services SAP believes the next technology adoption phase for businesses will be around how they can use intelligent applications to assist them with their operations. 13) Qualcomm San Diego, USA Market Cap = $84 Billion Competes with Nvidia in the GPU market Neuromorphic Chips The Internet of Things 14) Softbank Tokyo, Japan Market Cap = $82 Billion $32 billion acquisition of ARM (makes GPUs) Robotics Pepper, customer service robot “Nao,” a customer service robot that answers basic questions and is designed to speak 19 languages Masayoshi Son (Chairman) – “ARM will play a key role in bringing about advanced artificial intelligence. I have unfinished business with the Singularity.” 15) Daimler AG Stuttgart, Germany Market Cap = $72 Billion Mercedes-Benz, one of the leaders in self-driving cars Mercedes and Uber plan network of self-driving cars 16) Baidu Beijing, China Market Cap = $65 Billion Baidu AI Lab AI Cloud Services 2 nd largest search engine in the world. largest search engine in the world. 4 th most visited website in the world (behind Google, Youtube, and Facebook) most visited website in the world (behind Google, Youtube, and Facebook) Baidu’s AI Supercomputer Beats Google at Image Recognition Key Talent – Andrew Ng 17) Nvidia Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $56 Billion Nvidia have 70% of the GPU market and will try to defend that. They have a huge head start over their competitors by investing in a $2 billion R&D program before anyone else. 18) Salesforce Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $56 Billion Salesforce Einstein is artificial intelligence (AI) built into the core of the Salesforce Platform Bought deep learning startup Metamind 19) General Motors Detroit, USA Market Cap = $54 Billion Self-Driving Cars 20) ABB Group Market Cap = $50 Billion Zurich, Switzerland Industrial robots and robot software. 21) Ford Detroit, USA Market Cap = $50 Billion Putting $1 billion into an AI startup, Detroit’s biggest investment yet in self-driving car tech 22) Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd Taipei, Taiwan Market Cap = $50 Billion Apple’s Supplier Industrial Robotics Already had a fully automated factory that can run 24 hours a day with the lights off 23) Keyence Corp Osaka, Japan Market Cap = $48 Billion Develops and manufactures automation sensors, vision systems, barcode readers, laser markers, measuring instruments 24) Tesla Inc Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $42 Billion Self-Driving cars Plans be able to add your self-driving car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you’re at work or on vacation. 25) Fanuc Corp Oshino-mura, Japan Market Cap = $41 Billion One of the largest makers of industrial robots in the world 26) Hyundai Motor Co Seoul, South Korea Market Cap = $32 Billion Part of a $3 billion public/private AI research centre. Self-Driving Cars. 27) Mitsubishi Electric Corp Tokyo, Japan Market Cap = $32 Billion Self-Driving Cars 28) HP Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $28 Billion Venture Fund that invests in AI 29) Nidec Corp Kyoto, Japan Market Cap = $27 Billion Manufactures electric motors 30) Intuitive Surgical Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $27 Billion The Da Vinci, a flagship robot performs surgical operations 31) Illumnia Inc San Diego, USA Market Cap = $24 Billion Applying Deep learning to healthcare 32) Naver Corp Seoul, South Korea Market Cap = $22 Billion Korea’s biggest search engine Lots of data 33) Delphi Automotive Gillingham, England Market Cap = $20 Billion Built 1st driverless car to travel across the USA 34) SMC Corp Tokyo, Japan Market Cap = $19 Billion Industrial robotics 35) SK Telecom Seoul, South Korea Market Cap = $16 Billion Part of a $3 billion public/private AI research centre. 36) Tencent Shenzhen, China Market Cap = $15 Billion Tencent AI Lab 37) Twitter Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $14 Billion Lots of data 38) AMD Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $12 Billion Competes with Nvidia in the GPU industry. Investing heavily in AI markets 39) Mobileye Jerusalem, Israel Market Cap = $10 Billion Self-Driving Cars 40) LG Electronics Seoul, South Korea Market Cap = $9 Billion Part of a $3 billion public/private research centre with, Samsung, telecom giant KT, SK Telecom, Hyundai Motor, and internet portal Naver. 41) Omron Corp Kyoto, Japan Market Cap = $9 Billion Japanese electronics company. Bought Adept technologies which focuses on industrial automation and robotics in 2015 42) Toshiba Corp Tokyo, Japan Market Cap = $9 Billion Robotics Toshiba receives bid as high as $3.6 billion for chip business stake Toshiba gets on the starting blocks for its latest NAND fab 43) Trimble Navigation Silicon Valley, USA Market Cap = $8 Billion Makes Global Positioning System receivers, laser rangefinders, unmanned aerial vehicles, inertial navigation systems and a variety of software processing tools 44) KT Corp Seoul, South Korea Market Cap = $7 Billion Part of a $3 billion public/private research centre with, Samsung, LG, SK Telecom, Hyundai Motor, and internet portal Naver. 45) NEC Tokyo, Japan Market Cap = $6 Billion Internet of Things 46) Nuance Communications Boston, USA Market Cap = $5 Billion Provides speech and imaging applications 47) Yaskawa Electric Corp Kitakyushu, Japan Market Cap = $5 Billion Industrial robots 48) Cyberdyne Inc Tsukuba, Japan Market Cap = $3 Billion Robotics company Introducing ‘service’ robots with artificial intelligence 49) iRobot Boston, USA Market Cap = $1.7 Billion The Roomba, the floor cleaning robot from my previous company, iRobot, is perhaps the robot with the most volition and intention of any robots out there in the world. Most others are working in completely repetitive environments, or have a human operator providing the second by second volition for what they should do next – Rodney A. Brooks, 2014 50) Pacific Industrial Co Nagoya, Japan Market Cap = $0.7 Billion Robotics 51) Nippon Cermaic Co Tottori, Japan Market Cap = $0.5 Billion Robotics Sells various types of sensors 52) Kawada Technologies Inc Tokyo, Japan Market Cap = $0.4 Billion Industrial Robotics Its robot is designed to work alongside humans, and can be taught new tasks without the need for programming expertise. NOTABLE PRIVATE COMPANIES At the moment the public cannot buy stock in these companies. Some might IPO soon or be bought up by one of the large public companies. 1) Uber Acquired self-driving truck company Otto. Uber AI Research Labs AI Labs at Uber, which is using AI in everything from self-driving cars to dynamic ride scheduling Transitioning to self-driving ride shares Massive amounts of proprietary data. 2) Human Longevity Inc Creating the largest database of human genotypic phenotypic and microbiology data ever assembled and using machine learning to analyze it 3) Hanson Robotics Create life-like robots. These robots are infused with OpenCog’s opensource artificial intelligence to “think”. 4) Rethink Robotics Sells “Baxter” Industrial robot. 5) Kernel Building advanced neural interfaces to treat disease and extend cognition. 6) Vicarious Working on artificial intelligence; replicating the human visual cortex and creating machines with human-level intelligence in vision, language and motor control. Funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Jeff Bezos 7) Berg Pharmaceutical Uses machine learning, to learn the various health associations and correlations. This led to the development of Berg’s first drug, BPM 31510, which is in clinical trials. RECOMMENDATIONS It’s probably smart to be an owner of Artificial Intelligence. The large public companies are spending billions. Private companies and startups getting involved. Lots of theoretical research is taking place in academia (especially in Canada). Governments and militaries are inevitably involved. Some of these projects are public knowledge, for example the Chinese government have pledged to invest $15 billion by 2018 and South Korea has a $3 billion project. Most likely there are classified projects already well underway. There are several opensource AI projects such as OpenCog and OpenAI. Maybe some mindblowing unforeseeable opportunity to invest in AI will emerge from a project similar to these the same way Bitcoin came out of nowhere and changed everything. Some random kid in the middle China could come up with something amazing. History shows that no matter how impressive a big company’s projects look, it’s nothing compared to the guys working out of their garage. At this stage though, the easiest way to become an owner is to buy shares on the stock market of the companies most prominently involved and likely to succeed. I laugh when people say tech is a bubble. The establishment is the bubble. Who’s around in 2025 – Google or the EU? – Balaji S. Srinivasan Of the public companies heavily involved, the one that stands out head and shoulders above the others is Google. Google snaps up every machine-learning or robotics company it likes the look of. They have supposedly the greatest Artificial Intelligence Lab in the world. They even managed to convince the neural network godfather Geoffrey Hinton to join them. Google never pays a dividend or does stock buybacks because they aggressively reinvest cash into long-term projects such as DeepMind who they bought for $400mill (a bargain in hindsight). Founder Demis Hassibis describes it as “the Manhattan Project of AI” with hundreds of the best minds working on it. The scope of their focus is breathtaking and they are clearly the front-runners to make major breakthroughs or even develop General AI. Kevin Kelly tells the story below of when he realized Google have knowingly been building an AI from day one: Around 2002 I attended a small party for Google—before its IPO, when it only focused on search. I struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s brilliant co-founder, who became the company’s CEO in 2011. “Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?” My unimaginative blindness is solid evidence that predicting is hard, especially about the future, but in my defense this was before Google had ramped up its ad-auction scheme to generate real income, long before YouTube or any other major acquisitions. I was not the only avid user of its search site who thought it would not last long. But Page’s reply has always stuck with me: “Oh, we’re really making an AI.” I’ve thought a lot about that conversation over the past few years as Google has bought 14 AI and robotics companies. At first glance, you might think that Google is beefing up its AI portfolio to improve its search capabilities, since search contributes 80 percent of its revenue. But I think that’s backward. Rather than use AI to make its search better, Google is using search to make its AI better. Every time you type a query, click on a search-generated link, or create a link on the web, you are training the Google AI. When you type “Easter Bunny” into the image search bar and then click on the most Easter Bunny-looking image, you are teaching the AI what an Easter bunny looks like. Each of the 12.1 billion queries that Google’s 1.2 billion searchers conduct each day tutor the deep-learning AI over and over again. With another 10 years of steady improvements to its AI algorithms, plus a thousand-fold more data and 100 times more computing resources, Google will have an unrivaled AI. My prediction: By 2024, Google’s main product will not be search but AI Nvidia are also a very exciting company with massive demand for their products. The shares are worth picking up because if they do hold on to their position as the best chips to use for AI over the next few years their sales and opportunities to expand into other interesting areas are going to be staggering. If We Were a Hedge Fund We’d Put All Our Money Into Nvidia – Marc Andreessen For somebody who wants general exposure to AI, but doesn’t want to pick a winner, investing across a basket of shares by building a portfolio of the best stocks is a good idea. The Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Thematic ETF is an actively managed AI fund with a management fee of 0.68%. It trades under the stock symbol “BOTZ”. The 10 biggest positions in this portfolio are: Mitsubishi Electic Corp Fanuc Corp ABB Keyence Corp SMC Corp Intuitive Surgical Yaskawa Electric Corp Omron Corp Trimble Navigation Ltd Mobileye. Personally, I think the 10 stocks below would make a better AI fund. Google (GOOGL:NASDAQ) – $846 per share – $582 billion marketcap Nvidia (NVDA:NASDAQ) – $107 – $56 bill Tesla (TSLA:NASDAQ) – $272 – $42 bill IBM (IBM:US) – $181 – $171 bill Microsoft (MSFT:US) – $65 – $499 bill Samsung (005930:KS) – 1.9 million KRW – $259 bill Amazon (AMZN:NASDAQ) – $845 – $404 bill AMD (AMD:US) – $13 – $12 bill Facebook (FB:NASDAQ) $134 – $387 bill Baidu (BIDU:NASDAQ) – $185 – $65 bill OTHER INVESTMENT IDEAS Short WTI Crude Oil (Currently $53 per barrel) Short the Bloomberg Commodity Index (Currently at 88) Short the First Trust NASDAQ Global Auto Index Fund (Currently at 36) OUTLOOK FOR THE MEDIUM TO LONG TERM The hard part was getting the neural nets to work. This took decades but now we’re there we will see years of easy gains as different industries and people roll them out into every product and service they can think of. Is there a risk of another AI winter and we’ll be disappointed again? It’s unlikely at this stage. Computer Science just overtook Economics as the most popular class at Harvard and more and more people are going into machine learning, so better talent is going to be coming through over the next few years. Companies are spending billions of dollars, and there’s so much low hanging fruit just from applying the current deep learning techniques we already have. Key Area 1) Data The amount of data is growing at an exponential rate, doubling every two years. While a lot of data remains proprietary (which gives companies like Google their edge) there are more and more public data sets becoming available for anyone to use and train their neural nets on. With more sensors, the internet of things, and more companies willing to launch services which actually lose money just to get data for training AI, this area is going to keep growing exponentially. Key Area 2) Computing Power and Infrastructure We’ll soon see the power of computing increase way more than any other period. There will be trillions of products with tiny neural networks inside. – Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of NVIDIA Hardware is something we have a very good track record on. It’s extremely unlikely that this will be a limiting factor in the decades ahead. Ray Kurzweil says there’s general agreement that we’re close to the hardware requirements of strong AI. He believes that we’ll be at the human brain of 10^14 calculations per second for $1,000 in the early 2020s. Hardware costs are coming down as competition increases and chip companies are racing to compete with Nvida in the GPU area. Every company is thinking about how to run AI faster to enable larger neural nets. Similar to the bitcoin hardware race, there’s a range of hardware, from GPUs to FPGAs to ASICS. Deep learning ASICs are a very interesting area with some huge engineering efforts going on in the space of neuromorphic chips, Google’s TPUs, and quantum computers. FPGAs Microsoft has done research to show you can do better than GPUs with these. Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) Google are building their own machine learning ASICS known as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Quantum Deep Learning I would predict that in 10 years there’s nothing but quantum machine learning–you don’t do the conventional way anymore – Google’s Hartmut Neven We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics – Google The Google Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab was set up to investigate how quantum computing might help with machine learning Hartmut Neven leads the team and is known for developing the first image recognition system based on quantum algorithms using a D-Wave quantum computer. Google have bought every model D-Wave has ever produced (at around $15mill each) and has signed a contract to buy all of their machines for the next 5 years. Lockheed Martin also bought a D-Wave quantum computer to help train a deep neural network. Google just keeps saying breathless things about D-Wave. I don’t know why Google’s competitors don’t wake up and say “God, what if Google’s right?… What if this is actually gonna knock the socks off everything else.. Maybe we’d want to buy one. Strangely it’s only Google who’s actually buying them, at least to date in this category. Microsoft or Apple haven’t bought one, but we’ll see. – Steve Jurvetson, 2016 Google’s Quantum AI Lab also has John Martinis who is regarded as one of the leading experts. Martinis is part of Google’s effort to build a quantum computer and his qubits are widely regarded as way higher quality than D-Waves. Building a quantum computer is a massively ambitious goal, although progress appears to be going much better than most expected. Martinis is confident that Google can demonstrate “quantum supremacy” within the next 1-3 years. They are definitely the world leaders now, there is no doubt about it. It’s Google’s to lose. If Google’s not the group that does it, then something has gone wrong. – Simon Devitt, 2016 Other Efforts in Quantum Deep Learning IBM and Microsoft are also investing massive resources to develop their own quantum computers that can be applied to AI. In 2014 a team of Chinese physicists demonstrated ‘quantum artificial intelligence” by training a quantum computer to recognize handwritten characters. There are still massive challenges, but even if quantum machine learning turns out to to be too difficult to scale and fully implement over the next couple of decades it’s inevitable we’re going to get exponentially better hardware for machine learning which will allow much deeper neural nets. Key Area 3) Better Platforms and Algorithms This is an unprecedented time in openness. All of the big companies are openly publishing their work, although they keep their data-sets proprietary and build better systems than their competitors by exploiting their data edge. It’s easier than ever to build machine learning systems, especially with opensource platforms like OpenAI’s Universe and Google’s Tensorflow. Start ups can use these to create an AI product that solves a business problem. As more money and talent comes into the space, better ways of building AI will inevitably emerge. Most exciting is AI systems working on better ways to build AI systems. This is already happening. 1) AI Designing deep neural nets 2) Machine learning system writes machine learning software. Building Stronger More General AI The big moment is when AIs become general in their abilities and have an almost human-like level ability to generally figure things out, to switch from context to context and remember skills applied in different areas. General AI is hard, and we’re not there yet. Most of the magic produced by AI today comes from a surprisingly simple technique called supervised learning. Most researchers believe the next big breakthrough will come from unsupervised learning. Unsupervised learning involves learning from unlabeled data. We’ll probably need a lot more progress in unsupervised learning to get to General AI. In the brain, synapses adjust themselves but we don’t have a clear picture for what the algorithm of the cortex is. We know the ultimate answer is unsupervised learning, but we don’t have the answer yet. – Yann LeCun, Facebook AI Research In 2013, hundreds of experts were asked when they thought AGI may arrive. The median prediction was 2040. In “Future Progress in Artificial Intelligence: A Poll Among Experts” by Bostrom and Vincent C. Müller, the authors come to this conclusion: AI systems will probably (over 50%) reach overall human ability by 2040-50, and very likely (with 90% probability) by 2075. As AI matches the range of tasks a human can do and switch between them, improvements will take it far beyond a current humans capabilities in similar situations. How long would it take for a general AI to go from unenhanced human level abilities to superintelligence? Nick Bostrom has a great slide showing how long it took AlphaGo to progress from a beginner human level of Go to crushing one of the world’s best players. Lee Sedol v AlphaGO October 2015: “Based on its level seen in the match (against Fan), I think I will win the game by a near landslide” February 2016: “I have heard that Google DeepMind’s AI is surprisingly strong and getting stronger, but I am confident that I can win at least this time” March 9th 2016: “I was very surprised because I didn’t think I would lose” March 10th 2016: “I’m quite speechless… I am in shock. I can admit that… the third game is not going to be easy for me” Mar 12th 2016: “I kind of felt powerless.” Consciousness A general AI doesn’t have to be self-aware, or conscious. There’s a big debate over what consciousness even means. An AI could have general abilities even if the lights aren’t on. It is a huge leap to go from something as unalive as a microwave or iphone to something which has the ability to be self-aware and have subjective experiences. In a report to the Pentagon, JASON claim that current neural network architecture is completely unrelated to consciousness and not even close to the right path to replicating human like self-awareness. Andrew Ng of Baidu agrees and says “there is no clear path to how AI can become sentient. Part of me hopes there will be a technological breakthrough that enables AI to become sentient, but I just don’t see it happening. That breakthrough might happen in decades, hundreds, or thousands of year from now. I really don’t know.” We know creating consciousness is possible because we have it, so there must be a way, but how to do it we still don’t know. David Deutsche feels that current models are a dead end to creating consciousness but “it is plausible that just a single idea stands between us and the breakthrough. But it will have to be one of the best ideas ever.” INTEGRATING AI Smartphones and the internet gives us so much opportunity for more knowledge, more intelligence. I’m really looking forward to AI giving us more of that in 10 years or so when everyone is wearing augmented reality glasses with deep learning built into it. Then beyond that somehow integrating AI into my brain processes. – David Chalmers A common theme is us against the AI but I think this is about us and the AI. We are not facing an invasion of intelligent machines from Alpha Centauri. These are our tools, an extension of us. Our devices will get smaller and more embedded into us through wearables, VR/AR glasses, VR/AR contact lenses. Once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in the human brain (this has already started with computerized neural implants), the machine intelligence in our brains will grow exponentially – Ray Kurzweil Obviously there are massive dangers involved, but that’s where this is leading. It will be a very incremental process. Bit by bit the technology will become more and more a physical part of us rather than an extension. This seems ridiculously science fiction, but breakthroughs are becoming common in neuroprosthetics and implantable electronics. Can we inject electronic circuits into the brain, then connect & monitor it? Yes,we can, & that’s where we are today Charles Lieber’s team at Harvard is making good progress by implanting electronics in mice. Lieber commented by saying “In science, I’ve been disappointed at times, and this is a case where we’ve been more than pleasantly surprised,” Elon Musk has spoken at length how a “neural lace” is essential. Neuroprosthetic startup Kernel is employing top neuroscientists to build an implantable chip in the hope that eventually it will be able to enhance intelligence. THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY The road ahead might seem outrageous, or too dangerous and difficult from where we sit today. But in all likelihood, when the time passes and we get to that stage, many will take the accomplishments for granted. The goalposts always move on what seems impressive. An often repeated quote is “AI will be the last invention we ever make”. But what seems to us today like the hardest challenge possible might seem relatively trivial compared to what we will face after this. Who knows what kind of journeys, adventures, and problems we’ll be enabled to overcome when there is no distinction between us and our most advanced technology. Follow me on Twitter @leebanfield1 Bitcoin: 1Jwh6nZiASJf4d3hNytjxqiimWBmEJvJ4S Bitmessage: BM-2cXjeAykLT7gbjzNHZFnCxdawvyryyb4Nf Advertisements

Dragon Priests are powerful dungeon bosses who wield some of the best collectible unique items in Skyrim - the Dragon Priest Masks. They are unique and there are only 10 of them in Skyrim (not including DLCs). Unfortunately, vanilla Skyrim used the same texture for all of them and they all looked uninteresting -it doesn't give justice to the power and uniqueness of these collectible artifacts. So, I created these new textures to truly show that each of them isone-of-a-kind with a sinister BAD-ASS look! These new textures now represent the true EVIL nature of the masks.Version 2.0 - This is a high resolution texture replacer for the 10 Dragon Priest Masks:Konahrik, Hevnoraak, Krosis, Morokei, Nahkriin, Otar, Rahgot, Vokun, Volsung and Wooden Mask.Version 2.1 - This is the stand-alone (non-replacer) version of the Unique Dragon Priest Masks.They are craftable and enchantable. Compatible with any replacer mod for the Dragon Priest Masks.- Extract the archive contents into your Skyrim data folder. Enjoy!- Extract the archive contents into your Skyrim data folder and activate the included ".esp" file in your load order.Credits & Permissions:Most of these textures are hand-made by me, so please endorse if you like it andgive credits and ask permission if you want to use it in your own mods.SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING FOR THE COLLABORATIVE EFFORT: MaidenUSA - for the development of the standalone version and assistance with normal maps skunky123 & the "Mystery Modder" - for helping improve the new normal maps EbrithilUmaroth - for the NMM installer ScriptVERSION UPDATE LOG:VERSION 2.2 - All-in-one NMM installer package releasedVERSION 2.1 - Stand-alone Edition releasedVERSION 2.0 - Unique Hoods & Enhanced Normal MapsVERSION 1.2a/b - Konahrik Mask releasedVERSION 1.2 - Uploaded the correct default mask version for Otar & Wooden maskVERSION 1.1 - Updated Masks for Morokei and OtarVERSION 1.0 - INITIAL RELEASE[size=15]Version 2.0[/size] - Unique Masks with Unique Hoods HD and Enhanced Normal MapsLatest Video showing the Version 2.0 Masks with Hoods[size=15]Version 1.2[/size] - Mask only with Vanilla Hood & Normal Map

ABOUT THAT BALANCED-BUDGET PROMISE…. The notion that John McCain can inherit a half-trillion dollar deficit, cut taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars, respond to a massive financial crisis, keep two wars going, and eliminate the entire budget shortfall in four years is utterly ridiculous. This week, the McCain campaign walked the senator’s promise back a bit. The financial crisis has “thrown a wrench” in the plan of U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain to balance the budget in his first term, his economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said on Monday. McCain has pledged to reduce government spending and balance the federal budget by 2013 and has insisted that the current financial crisis will not alter his campaign promises. “The events of the past few months have completely thrown a wrench into that, there’s no way round it. He would still like to balance it. It’s going to be harder, take longer,” said Holtz-Eakin at a debate with his Democratic counterpart at Columbia University in New York. I think the word the kids use is “duh.” Of course it’s going to be “harder” and will “take longer” to balance the biggest deficits in American history. What bugs me, though, is the constant claims to the contrary. McCain and aides started the campaign vowing to balance the budget in four years. Then they changed their mind, and said McCain wouldn’t balance the budget in four years. Then they changed their mind again, and said McCain would. A week later they changed their mind again, and said McCain wouldn’t. At the third presidential debate, McCain changed his mind again, and said he would. Less than a week later, they’ve changed their mind yet again, and said he wouldn’t. So, for those keeping score at home, McCain does, doesn’t, does, doesn’t, does, and doesn’t promise voters to eliminate the deficit by 2013. Remember when McCain considered his straight-talking consistency one of his selling points?

Pol Lt Gen Suthipong Wongpin, acting Immigration Bureau chief, shows a police suspects' board of an Indian and two Nigerian men detained for involvement in an online romance scam based in Bangkok. (Photo by Pawat Laopaisarntaksin) The Immigration Bureau (IB) has nabbed two Nigerian nationals and an Indian man in Bangkok for allegedly running romance scams. The IB on Thursday announced that two Nigerians -- Lawrence Osita Nwaenyi, 32, and Peter Stanley Chukwuebuka, 33 -- were arrested at a condominium in Prawet district. The duo allegedly used social media and chat programmes to trick unsuspecting women into wiring money to them, according to IB acting commissioner Suthipong Wongpin. Pol Lt Gen Suthipong said the suspects had opened Facebook pages using false identities. They posed as rich Europeans and approached and befriended female Facebook users. If the women agreed to a chat, the suspects would make romantic overtures and express interest in investing in businesses with the victims. In most cases, the IB acting commissioner said, the suspects told the victims they had gifts for them, sending them photoshopped pictures to make the scam look believable. Other gang members would then call the victims, pretending to be either customs or embassy officials, to seek a fee for the delivery of gifts. Many victims fell for the trick and wired money to the suspects' accounts. The gang ceased contact with victims who became suspicious and would move on to find other people to hoodwink online. Pol Lt Gen Suthipong said the two Nigerians spent most of their day working on the computer in their rented condo. Police raided the room and caught the men red-handed as they were communicating with their victims, using chatting apps. Police have charged Mr Osita with staying illegally in the kingdom and Mr Chukwuebuka with overstaying his visa. They are reviewing evidence gathered from the condo to identify the victims, who will be interviewed later. In a separate incident, the IB has arrested an Indian man, Vinay Mishra, 29, and charged him with theft. The suspect allegedly used dating websites to lure women and asked to stay over at their houses, claiming he had been robbed and had no money. He allegedly brought valuables stolen from his unsuspecting hosts to his hotel in Sukhumvit Soi 50.

The Claim And Criticisms In October 2016, molecular geneticist Jan Vijg published a paper claiming that the human lifespan was limited to 115 years. This kindled a vigorous controversy among scientists, and on June 28 of this year, five groups of scientists published formal rebuttals to the claim. Vijg’s work analyzed demographic data from the 20th century, taken all over the world, and demonstrated that peak age plateaued at about 115 years starting in the mid-1990s. Based on their results, the authors concluded that the natural human age limit is 115 years old and that there is the probability of less than 1 in 10,000 of living to be more than 125 years old. You could probably guess, not everyone in the scientific community agrees. Most criticisms arise from the way the Vijg team handled their data, and their process for drawing conclusions. First, the Vijg team tested their data to prove whether or not the plateau they felt they observed after 1995 was in fact present. In other words, they generated a hypothesis and then tested it using the same dataset, which is typically unacceptable, as it causes inaccurate results due to severe overfitting, a fit based on error or noise, not a real relationship. Second, the team’s actual data set was very small because in each year they counted only the oldest person who died. They then subjected this inordinately small sample to standard linear regression techniques, which was not appropriate based both on the small sample size, and the additional fact that the individuals being counted were outliers who should have been subject to extreme event analysis. In fact, the decline suggested in the 2016 conclusions appears to be suggested by a single death in the data set.

I once had a long and involved argument with a friend about whether there was any difference between sorbet and sherbet. We couldn't even agree on whether there was a difference in the pronunciation of the words let alone whether they were used to reference two different desserts or the same one. I would like to say that I was the one who knew that there was a difference between sorbet and sherbet and that I won the argument, but when we delved into personal research to come up with our answer, we discovered that she was right. There was a difference between sorbet and sherbet. At least we had a lot of fun going around buying different sorbet / sherbet combinations trying to come up with the answer! Of course, it makes sense that she would know the subtle difference between the two. She's far more health-conscious than I am now and definitely more health-conscious than I was at the time. So she knew that although both sorbet and sherbet are considered an ice-cream-like treat, they are not as similar as some of us might think. The main difference is that sorbet is a fruit-based dessert and sherbet is more dairy-based, which is a significant difference for people who are leaning towards fruit sugars or leaning away from dairy. People who prefer sorbet are those people who want the fruit-based dessert. Sorbet uses fruit juice as its main liquid base. It doesn't have any sort of dairy in it, so it's preferred by people who are either allergic to dairy or opting not to eat dairy for health or other reasons. However, since sorbet doesn't have dairy products in it, it also doesn't have the texture of ice cream that people may be looking for when they go to buy this type of dessert. Those people who prefer sorbet because of the taste tend to like fruitier, tarter flavors and a texture that is more icy than creamy. In contrast, those people who really want ice cream but who are opting for something else because they want to cut back on the "bad for you" foods will probably be people who lean towards sherbet. Sherbet has a milk base (and it may also contain eggs) which gives it the creamy consistency of ice cream. People who like less intense fruit flavors may prefer fruity sherbet to fruit sorbet. And those who like the texture of their ice cream will definitely want to go with a sherbet. Whether you opt to go for a sherbet or a sorbet depends a lot on why you aren't just eating plain old ice cream. Maybe ice cream is too rich for your taste so you want something less creamy. Either will do but the sorbet will be the one you'll probably prefer. That's also the one you're probably going to want if you're looking to cut down on the fats on your diet. However, if it's sugars that you're trying to cut out, you might want sherbet. The best thing to do is probably to do what my friend and I did - eat as many different sorbet and sherbet types and flavors that you can and find the one that's right for you!

Washington (CNN) -- Frank Buckles, the last living U.S. World War I veteran, has died, a spokesman for his family said Sunday. He was 110. Lawmakers Monday began to move ahead with proposed resolutions that would allow his casket to be displayed at the Capitol Rotunda, and plans were already in the works for his burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Buckles "died peacefully in his home of natural causes" early Sunday morning, the family said in a statement sent to CNN late Sunday by spokesman David DeJonge. Buckles marked his 110th birthday on February 1, but his family had earlier told CNN he had slowed considerably since last fall, according his daughter Susannah Buckles Flanagan, who lives at the family home near Charles Town, West Virginia. Buckles, who served as a U.S. Army ambulance driver in Europe during what was then known as the "Great War," rose to the rank of corporal before the war ended. His assignments included that of an escort for German prisoners of war. Little did he know he would someday become a prisoner of war during World War II. He came to prominence in recent years, in part because of the work of DeJonge, a Michigan portrait photographer who had undertaken a project to document the last surviving veterans of that war. As the years continued, all but Buckles had passed away, leaving him the "last man standing" among U.S. troops who were called "The Doughboys." His death leaves only two verified surviving WWI veterans in the world, both of whom are British. President Obama issued a statement Monday on Buckles' passing, saying he and first lady Michelle Obama were "inspired" by Buckles' story. Frank Buckles lived the American Century," Obama's statement said. "Like so many veterans, he returned home, continued his education, began a career, and along with his late wife Audrey, raised their daughter Susannah. ... We join Susannah and all those who knew and loved her father in celebrating a remarkable life that reminds us of the true meaning of patriotism and our obligations to each other as Americans." Buckles told CNN in 2007 he accepted the responsibility of honoring those who had gone before him, and to be their voice for permanent, national recognition after he was gone. DeJonge found himself the spokesman and advocate for Buckles in his mission to see to it that his comrades were honored with a monument on the National Mall, pushing for improvements to a neglected, obscure city memorial nearly in the shadow of the elaborate World War II memorial. Buckles wanted national status granted to the D.C. War Memorial, a marble gazebo built in the 1930s that, for now, honors only his comrades from the District of Columbia. His call was to elevate the designation of the site to join U.S. honors accorded to those who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. "We have come to the end of a chapter in history," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a House sponsor of legislation to upgrade the DC War Memorial. "Frank was the last American Doughboy -- a national treasure," Poe said in a statement provided to CNN. The "Frank Buckles WWI Memorial Act" passed the House but had not cleared the Senate before Congress adjourned. Poe on Monday restated his support for a House resolution that would allow a public display for Buckles in the Capitol Rotunda. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia is a co-sponsor of the Senate proposal. Buckles, at the age of 108, came to Capitol Hill from West Virginia in 2009 to testify before a Senate panel on behalf of the D.C. War Memorial bill. He sat alongside Rockefeller and fellow proponent Sens. John Thune, R-South Dakota, and Jim Webb, D-Virginia. "I have to," he told CNN when he came to Washington, as part of what he considered his responsibility to honor the memory of fellow veterans. Rockefeller praised Buckles in a statement Monday, calling him "a unique American, a wonderfully plain-spoken man, and an icon for the World War I generation." "His life was full and varied and an inspiration for his unbridled patriotism and enthusiam for life," the statement said. Buckles, after World War I ended, took up a career as a ship's officer on merchant vessels. He was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II and held prisoner of war for more than three years before he was freed by U.S. troops. Never saying much about his POW experience, Buckles instead wanted attention drawn to the plight of the D.C. War Memorial. During a visit to the run-down, neglected site a few years ago, he went past the nearby World War II memorial without stopping, even as younger veterans stopped and saluted the old soldier in his wheelchair as he went by. Renovations to the structure began last fall, but Buckles, with his health already failing, could not make a trip to Washington to review the improvements. The National Park Service is overseeing efforts that include replacing a neglected walkway and dressing up a deteriorated dome and marble columns. Details for services and arrangements will be announced in the days ahead, the family statement said. Flanagan, his daughter, said preliminary plans began weeks ago, with the Military District of Washington expressing its support for an honors burial at Arlington, including an escort platoon, a horse-drawn casket arrival, a band and a firing party. "It has long been my father's wish to be buried in Arlington, in the same cemetery that holds his beloved General (John) Pershing," Flanagan wrote as she began to prepare for the inevitable in a letter she sent to home-state U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia. "I feel confident that the right thing will come to pass," she said. Manchin issued a statement Monday that read, in part, "He lived a long and rich life as a true American patriot, and I hope that his family's loss is lightened with the knowledge that he was loved and will be missed by so many." Buckles in 2008 attended Veterans Day ceremonies at the grave of Pershing, the commander of U.S. troops during World War I. He also met with then-President George W. Bush at the White House, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon. "The First World War is not well understood or remembered in the United States," Gates said at the time. "There is no big memorial on the National Mall. Hollywood has not turned its gaze in this direction for decades. Yet few events have so markedly shaped the world we live in." Buckles' family asks that donations be made to the National World War I Legacy Project to honor Frank Buckles and the 4,734,991 Americans with whom he served. More than 116,000 Americans were killed, and more than 204,000 wounded, in the 19 months of U.S. involvement in the war, according to the Congressional Research Service. The overall death toll of the 1914-18 conflict was more than 16.5 million, including nearly 7 million civilians, and more than 20 million wounded. Details can be found at: www.frankbuckles.org.

Highway Map by Ir0n byIr0n Description: Features: Installation: Steam\Steamapps\Common\ArmA 3\@your_mod_folder_name\addons\ -mod=@mod_name;@mod_name2;@mod_name3;@mod_name4;@mod_name5 Note: Included files: Media: https://www.youtube.com/user/DasIron/videos Armaholic.com has its own Youtube channel where we will cover the Community made releases. Subscribe to the Armaholic.com Youtube channel Armaholic.com has its own Youtube channel where we will cover the Community made releases. Known issues: Future plans: Notes: Credits & Thanks: License / Disclaimer: Changelog: Forum topic: You are using our website as a guest. Guest have the lowest downloadspeeds and will download from our public file servers. If you would like to know how you can download with higher speeds and have to wait less while downloading check out the Armaholic subscription system. When you have already subscribed and your account is not upgraded within 24 hours it means you probably forgot to include your username. If that is the case please contact us as soon as possible! What is two plus two? Type : Size : 238 MB Downloaded : 1181 times Report archive: Troubles downloading from Armaholic? Enable javascript to be able to download from Armaholic please! Highway is a 400km² map which is placed in north Sweden. It´s a fictional map on the idea of the Wargame map "Highway to Hell". But only the name is the same. I´m aiming to replace all those Arma 2 objects, so A3MP/AiA will no longer be a requirement. But this is a long way, but I hope you have fun with the map at the current stage :) ir0nIt´s not a map of Bohemia Interactive, IceBreakr, M1lkm8n, SmokeDog3 or one of these other awesome mapmaker. But I hope you like it.- 20x20km Map = 400km²- Cellsize of 10 (Guide On Installing Mods highway.pbombg_buildings_3.pboMore images can be found here: http://www.ir0n.de/hwpics.html This is a WIP never forget that!- There a at the moment only 10 "citys"Please report bugs here:v0.1: create Terrian & Satmap/Masklayerv0.2: Forest, Citys, Villagesv0.3: Private Testing and more Detailsv0.4: Powernet & better streetsv0.5: Public Release (BETA)v0.6-v0.9: Community wishes and more detailsv1.0: Finish the mapv1.1-v1.5: start to replace the Arma 2 objectsv1.6: replace the MBG BuildingsI dont recommend playing the map at the moment, but you can play missions in some parts of the map! If you hate using WIP work just dont use it!Highway is Alpha at the moment and it will take quiet a time, when it will be finished.Bak0, Barandur, MiLC0RE, Greenman and mondkalb.Also big thank to: Bohemia Interactive, PlaywithSix, Foxhound (Armaholic) and all those great people on the BI & Armaholic Forums.I take no responsibility for (im)possible damage to your game/system that may be causedby installation of this Addon. This Addon is also prohibited to be used in any commercial product.This addon is not related with BIS or BISim in any way!v0.3 alpha- first public releasev0.2.11 alpha- internal release MBG Buildings 3 - European Theatre (included)

A new, 2015 Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet has leaked ahead of the stylus-packing device’s official unveiling. Although Samsung has yet to shed any formal light on the existence of such a device, the 2015 Note 10.1 has popped up on the company’s official website. Spotted by the folks over at TechTastic, the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2015) has been prematurely referenced in a services and app descriptions page. It was listed as one of a number of devices compatible with a range of Samsung services. Name teasing aside, the leak has offered up no further insight into the capabilities of the 2015 Galaxy Note 10.1. The timing, however, could be particularly telling. With the 2014 Galaxy Note 10.1 having been unveiled last October, annual refresh patterns would suggest that the 2015 Galaxy Note 10.1 could be with us in the very near future. With the tablet’s name having leaked, new Galaxy Note 10.1 rumours have started to surface. One such report has suggested the device could be held off until November so as to hit retailers running Android 5.0 Lollipop direct from the box. Last year’s Note 10.1 packed a 2560 x 1600 pixel display alongside a Snapdragon 800 processor and Samsung’s S-Pen stylus. With the Galaxy Note 4 smartphone having recently jumped to a QHD panel, Snapdragon 805 chipset and a stylus with twice the sensitivity of its predecessors, we would expect any new Note tablets to follow suit. Next, read everything you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy S6

It's not just Microsoft that enjoyed a record-breaking holiday season. Sony on Tuesday announced that it sold more than 5.7 million PlayStation 4 systems during the holiday season, bringing the platforms' new sales tally to 35.9 million units globally as of January 3, 2016. This is up from 30.2 million at the end of November. The holiday season is defined by Sony as November 22, 2015 through January 2, 2016 for North America, Latin America, and Europe. In Japan and Asia, it's November 23, 2015 through January 3, 2016. PS4 game sales were also strong during the holiday season, with more than 35 million copies sold at brick-and-mortar stores and through the PlayStation Store. Sales numbers for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita games were not divulged, nor did Sony name a top-selling PS4 holiday game. Sony also today announced that PlayStation Plus subscriptions rose by 60 percent compared to the same period last year, though no specific figures were shared. "We are absolutely delighted that so many customers have selected PS4 as the best place to play throughout this holiday season and that the PS4 community is growing more than ever," Sony Computer Entertainment president and CEO Andrew House said in a statement. "We remain steadfast in our commitment to deliver innovative entertainment experiences." House went on to say that Sony aims to deliver an "unprecedented games portfolio" to the PS4 in 2016. He called out titles like Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, a new Hot Shots Golf, and The Last Guardian in the press release. Other big exclusives or timed exclusives for PS4 in 2016 include Street Fighter V, No Man's Sky, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Gran Turismo Sport. 2016 also marks the release of PlayStation VR. In December, PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida said the PS4 is getting an "unprecedented rush" of big games in 2016. "It's the year PS4 users, and those who are on the fence on whether to buy it will absolutely think, 'It's good to have a PS4.' Please look forward to it," he said at the time. For its part, Microsoft is also claiming that 2016 will be a huge year for Xbox games. Microsoft has not announced any new Xbox One sales numbers (and doesn't plan to), while executive Phil Spencer previously said Sony's lead is so large that Microsoft may never be able to catch up.

The fifth most popular website in the world, Wikipedia is an almost daily part of our modern lives. It has become one of the main sources of knowledge and is often the first website that Google (#1 in popular websites) shows when you search for a term you want to be explained. It can be a scientific theory or historical fact that your friends are discussing for three hours in social media, even a celebrity, soccer player, or movie character you heard about on the news, you name it. The idea behind Wikipedia is explicit in its slogan: The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. While the slogan is accurate, it is incomplete. On Wikipedia, anyone can edit pages and be a content creator. However, that also means that anyone is able to correct mistakes. Wikipedia’s secret is that its role is to provide simple guidelines that generate efficiency and accuracy, like demanding sources for the info written on the website, and to manage disputes in controversial topics. The attempt to centralize decision-making would invariably lead to inefficiency. Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia, said that the creation of the website was partially inspired by the ideas of the economist and Nobel Laureate, Friedrich A. Hayek and his famous paper The Use of Knowledge in Society. In this paper, Hayek talks about how knowledge is dispersed in society and the attempt to centralize decision-making would invariably lead to inefficiency and, in public policy, bad results due to the lack of information of the central planner. On the other hand, Bitcoin's recent record is also impressive. In May 2017, it surpassed the price of an ounce of gold and then reached $2,000, both for the first time. Japan has also declared Bitcoin as a legitimate payment method. We might be witnessing a technology that can transform the way we use the money. According to Wikipedia: It is interesting to note that Bitcoin, likewise for Wikipedia, is based on decentralization. Nobody can control its emission or its value. That means the currency is not susceptible to monetary inflation and the relative price of Bitcoin, unlike the dollar and other currencies, is defined by the market forces of supply and demand. Wikipedia and Bitcoin both have a system in which individuals make decisions independently from each other and are able to learn, adjust mutually, and improve. It resembles the definition of a polycentric system of governance, as explored by another economist and Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom. In her work, Ostrom shows how systems can be efficient without government command and control or an individual private ownage. May the successful stories of Wikipedia and Bitcoin serve as inspiration for entrepreneurs to innovate and for governments to stop failed centralized planning in public policy.

UK citizens born in the 1960s and ’70s will be the first pensioners since WWII to be worse off than their parents, a study has shown. The next generation of retirees will have to subsidize their pensions with inheritance to achieve the same quality of life. The survey carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) comes off the back of their yearly report which documented the falling standard of living in the UK this year. One of the predominant factors behinds the drop in the quality of retired life is stagnancy of wages following the financial crisis, the study reports. “The incomes and wealth of those born in the 1960s and ’70s look no higher than the cohorts who came before them. As a result, younger cohorts are likely to have to rely on inheritances to be better off in retirement than their predecessors,” Andrew Hood, one of the authors of the report, told The Guardian. In addition, those born in the ’60s and ’70s are less likely to own property and will have smaller pensions. They also saw their salaries plateau when their predecessors received large pay increases. In this way, the study predicts that inheritances are likely to be “unevenly distributed,” favoring the wealthy and increasing the class gap. “Among those born in the mid-1970s, 35 percent of the wealthiest third expect to receive an inheritance worth at least £100,000, compared with just 12 percent of the least wealthy third,” writes the study. The less wealthy are likely to see their inheritance curtailed by rising care home costs, which can exceed tens of thousands of pounds a year. “If you have two parents who spend a number of years needing intensive care home support, that can consume a very significant inheritance before it ever reaches you,” said Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown to The Daily Telegraph. Pointing the finger The study’s findings mark an end to the steady increase in quality of life of British citizens since the end of WWII. The IFS’ yearly analysis of the cost of living in the UK revealed that incomes had fallen by $2,600 in real terms since May 2000. The UK’s two main rival parties both pointed the finger at each other following the publication of the annual document. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said the drop was hardly surprising after “the biggest recession in 100 years” which he blamed on the “mess” left by the previous Labour government. However, Labour leader Ed Miliband has attacked the Conservatives, accusing them of upholding the interests of “the privileged few.”

If the international spread of SlutWalk means anything, it means this: You should never underestimate the power of a simple idea. Nor should you expect that idea to remain simple for very long. SlutWalk has become massive; its website lists completed or planned events in several dozen American and Canadian cities, with still more marches occurring in Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK. But it’s worth noting that its inspiration was relatively small and local. This January, at Osgoode Hall Law School, a Toronto policeman giving a lecture on campus safety told students that, although he’d been “told not to say it,” he thought women should stop dressing like “sluts” so as to avoid being sexually assaulted. Which, of course, is one of the oldest and worst lines in the book, when it comes to excusing rape. The fact is, anyone can be sexually assaulted; young or old, of any gender, of any race, conventionally attractive or not. The only common denominator in any rape or sexual assault is the presence of a sexual assailant. But the fact that a police officer, someone to whom a victim would be expected to turn to after an assault, could include victim-blaming in his “safety tips”: Well. It was a small incident. But it spoke volumes. Hence, SlutWalk: Women and men taking to the streets to demand accountability from the Toronto police. Its goals were small and local focused; its message was equally simple and unequivocal. Its branding, however, stood out. “Whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word [‘slut’] is always to wound,” said the organizers, “so we’re taking it back. ‘Slut’ is being re-appropriated.” And so they did. The SlutWalk movement said — indeed, implicitly demanded — that those who participated in the march should be willing to identify as “sluts or allies.” It was an incredibly catchy, implicitly theatrical premise. Many of the protesters played that up, dressing in the sorts of revealing and provocative outfits that the Toronto policeman had condemned. The cameras tended to find those protesters first. For some of those who joined, it was a simple way to identify. Some were sex workers, used to hearing that their impermissible sexuality was an excuse for police brutality, legal oppression, and violent assault or even murder. Others were women who enjoyed casual sex, or people who had sex in non-vanilla ways. For others, the label came less naturally; still, since any given woman can be labeled a “slut,” even the most monogamous or virginal among us, it made sense to march in solidarity. The simplicity of the message — no matter who you are, or how anyone else views your sexuality, you deserve safety — made it possible for the movement to gain ground anywhere that message rang true, until the outrage was not so much about anything that one man had done, but about the rage and pain that come with being sexual in a rape culture. And so, SlutWalk transcended Toronto, and the offending police officer, and became an international movement. And yet. Several women of color have written that the event is based in white culture, white problems, and white assumptions — for example, the idea that one can expect “safety” when dealing with law enforcement in the first place. “This event will not stop the criminalization of black women in New Orleans,” wrote Aura Blogando, “nor will it stop one woman from being potentially deported after she calls the police subsequent to being raped. SlutWalk completely ignores the way institutional violence is leveled against women of color. The event highlights its origins from a privileged position of relative power, replete with an entitlement of assumed safety that women of color would never even dream of.” Still others have pointed out that the mere fact of wearing a “slutty” outfit does not always signify freedom, and feeling pressured to do so, or to reclaim the “slut” label, can in fact intensify and re-iterate their oppression: “In the post 9/11 climate,” wrote Harsha Walia, “the focus on a particular version of sex(y)-positive feminism runs the risk of further marginalizing Muslim women’s movements who are hugely impacted by the racist ‘reasonable accommodation’ debate and state policies against the niqab.” Simply telling women that they “can” or “should” be more sexually open or dress more scantily does not make sense, if those women are routinely persecuted for a seeming lack of sexual availability, or for wearing clothes that cover “too much” of their bodies. In a virgin-whore dichotomy, women are of course assaulted on both ends of the spectrum; anyone who plays the game will lose. That’s how rigged games work. This matters. Because these are the dangers of making an international movement out of a simple, local protest. “SlutWalk” made sense, as an immediate reaction to the events in Toronto: When the police officer blames rape on revealing outfits, you wear a revealing outfit. When the police officer uses the term “slut” in a derogatory way, you use it in a positive one. But once it was exported, its flaws became apparent. It did not, and could not, speak to the needs of every woman; nor could it adequately sum up and address every facet of rape culture. And so, removed from its original context, it stopped being simple, and became simplistic. Simple ideas are great for attracting crowds, especially when they come with camera-ready spectacle. But there is no way that SlutWalk can be made to bear the entire weight of anti-rape activism; relying solely on SlutWalk as our means of protesting anything — rape, sexism, even something as specific as slut-shaming — will invariably reveal that it does not measure up. No one protest or movement, not even one as widespread and as great at calling attention to itself as SlutWalk, can do that. Feminism cannot live on SlutWalks alone. The fact that the movement has been so widely embraced does not mean that we should turn to it exclusively. What it means is that other protests can and should be happening; in addition to making the SlutWalk movement itself more inclusive and responsive, it’s essential that its organizers turn the mic over to other organizers, with ideas about protesting rape culture that extend beyond the “reclaiming slut” banner. The best thing for SlutWalkers now is to listen to the people who feel left out, and help them. The Sluts can and should keep Walking. But they should also recognize when to follow someone else’s lead.

By the time Paul Morphy was felled by a stroke on July 10, 1884, he had become an odd and familiar presence on Canal Street in New Orleans: a trim little man in sack suit and monocle, muttering to himself, smiling at his own conceits, swinging his cane at most who dared approach. Sometimes he would take a fancy to a passing woman and following her for hours at a distance. He lived in fear of being poisoned, eating only food prepared by his mother or sister, and he believed that neighborhood barbers were conspiring to slit his throat. His family tried to have him committed to an asylum, but he argued his sanity so convincingly that the authorities declined to admit him. It had been a quarter-century since he became a world-renowned chess champion, and for the last decade of his life he was loath to discuss the game at all. No one could say with certainty what prompted Morphy’s slow decline, but the discovery of his genius in 1846 remained legendary. Morphy, at age 9, was sitting on his family’s back porch as his uncle and father, a justice on the Louisiana State Supreme Court, played chess. After several hours, the men declared the match a draw and moved to sweep away the pieces. Morphy stopped them. “Uncle,” he said, “you should have won that game.” He maneuvered the pieces and explained: “Here it is: check with the rook, now the king has to take it, and the rest is easy.” And he was right. Soon afterward, Major General Winfield Scott, who had a reputation as a skilled player, stayed in New Orleans for five days while he was en route to the Mexican War. He asked an acquaintance at the chess club on Royal Street to find him a worthy opponent, and at eight o’clock that evening Scott found himself sitting across from Morphy, who wore a lace shirt and velvet knickerbockers. Scott, believing he was the victim of a prank, arose in protest, but his friends assured him that Morphy was no joke. He checkmated Scott in ten moves. Morphy had an astounding memory, capable of recording every factor he deemed pertinent to his play—openings, defenses, even entire games—but he also had an intuitive grasp of the possibilities. He could visualize the board several plays deep, anticipating and capitalizing on even the slightest misstep. “The child had never opened a work on chess,” wrote Morphy’s uncle, Ernest Morphy, to the editor of chess magazine La Régence, which published one of Morphy’s early games. “In the openings he makes the right moves as if by inspiration, and it is astonishing to note the precision of his calculations in the middle and end game. When seated before the chessboard, his face betrays no agitation even in the most critical positions; in such cases he generally whistles an air through his teeth and patiently seeks for the combination to get him out of trouble.” The prodigy next took on Johann J. Lowenthal, a political refugee from Hungary who was well known in European chess circles. Morphy, in his French vernacular, described Lowenthal’s reaction at losing to him in one word: “comique.” In 1850, Morphy registered at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. He was elected president of the Thespian Society during his freshman year and played Portia in The Merchant of Venice. He abhorred sports and tried to compensate for his slight, 5-foot-4 frame by briefly studying fencing. He played no chess in his college years, other than a few games with classmates in the summer of 1853. For his thesis he chose to write about war, a subject that, according to one acquaintance, “he brought within very narrow limits the conditions that make it justifiable. The logic of his argument would exclude forcible secession, and whether in play or in life Morphy was severely logical, even to a fault. But such a course brought consequences that preyed upon his mind.” After graduation he returned to New Orleans and enrolled at the University of Louisiana. He earned a law degree in 1857 but was legally obliged to wait until his 21st birthday to begin his career as an attorney. In the meantime he returned to chess, a decision that had less to do with any great passion for the game than with a fervent ambition to defeat the best players of the United States and Europe. “He felt his enormous strength,” said Charles Maurian, a childhood friend, “and never for a moment doubted the outcome.” Morphy entered the First American Chess Congress, held on October 5, 1857 at the New York Chess Club. He won his first game in 21 moves, almost in a matter of minutes—and this in an era with no time limit, when players pondered for hours and games lasted for days. His only true competitor was a German immigrant named Louis Paulsen, who exasperated Morphy by taking as long as 75 minutes on a move and beating him at their third game. Before the sixth game, Morphy dined with fellow player William James Appleton Fuller. “His patience was worn out by the great length of time Paulsen took for each move,” Fuller recalled. “His usually equable temper was so disturbed that he clenched his fist and said, ‘Paulsen shall never win another game from me while he lives.’” Morphy beat him five times and won the competition, then spent the next month in New York being feted like a king. He set his sights on Howard Staunton, an Englishman and arguably the most respected player in Europe. On Morphy’s behalf, the New Orleans Chess Club raised a purse of $5,000 and invited Staunton to visit the city for a match, promising him $1,000 for expenses if he lost. He declined, on the ground that New Orleans was too far away. Morphy planned a trip to England, intending to enter a tournament in Birmingham and challenge Staunton on his own turf, where he couldn’t refuse. But when he reached the city he learned that the tournament had been postponed for two months. He stayed anyway and joined forces with Frederick Milnes Edge, a flamboyant newspaperman who began acting as Morphy’s publicity agent. Edge stirred up controversy by accusing Staunton of cowardice in the press. Staunton, who was the chess editor of the Illustrated London News, responded by suggesting that Morphy was an adventurer without the financial backing he claimed and, worse, that he was a professional, not a gentleman. Morphy tried for three months to arrange a match with Staunton but gave up in October 1858. “Permit me to repeat,” Morphy wrote in his last letter to him, “that I am not a professional player; that I never wished to make any skill I possess the means of pecuniary advancement, and that my earnest wish is never to play for any sake but honor.” Morphy set sail for Paris, where he won a “blindfold” tournament: He sat in one room of the Café de la Regence while his eight opponents sat in another. The opponents had the chess boards, along with several other players who could give them advice; Morphy simply faced a bare wall and called out his moves in loud, clear, flawless French. He played for 10 hours, with no food or drink, and beat them all. “He was shaken by the hand and complimented till he hung down his head in confusion,” the New York Times reported. “Such a mind never did exist, and, perhaps, never will again.” Morphy returned to New Orleans an international celebrity but settled into a strangely subdued mood; he said he hadn’t done as well as he should have. He finally embarked on a law career, but interrupted it at the outbreak of the Civil War. He opposed secession, and felt torn between his loyalties to the Union and to Louisiana, but he journeyed to Richmond to see Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, a family friend, about the possibility of securing a diplomatic position. Some accounts suggest that he served as a volunteer aid to Beauregard (even gathering intelligence for the Confederates during the First Battle of Manassas), but others say the general deemed Morphy unqualified to serve, on or off the battlefield. He spent the next few years traveling, first to Havana and then to Europe, staying in Cadiz and Paris and declining numerous invitations from chess clubs. To his friend Daniel Willard Fiske he confessed “intense anxiety” about the war raging back home. “I am more strongly confirmed than ever in the belief that the time devoted to chess is literally frittered away,” Morphy wrote. “I have, for my own part, resolved not to be moved from my purpose of not engaging in chess hereafter.” He returned to New Orleans in November 1864 and opened a law office, only to close it after a few months—prospective clients seemed more interested in talking about chess than about their cases. He tried again several years later and had the same frustration. He began seeing evil intentions where there were none. As late as 1878 he continued to receive invitations to compete, but he played chess very rarely and never publicly, and usually out of some imagined desperation. Once Morphy entered the office of a prominent resident of New Orleans and said he needed $200 to ward off impending disaster. The man, an old friend, decided to test the strength of both Morphy’s delusion and his aversion to chess. “You want this money very much, it seems,” he said. “Yes,” Morphy replied. “I must have it—it is absolutely necessary.” “Well, I’ll tell you what I will do: if you will play a game of chess with me, I will make it two hundred and fifty dollars.” Morphy thought about it, exhibiting a “disdainful curl of the lip and manifest repugnance.” Finally he agreed, and a chessboard was set upon the desk. Morphy allowed his friend to beat him in a few moves. “There!” the former champion exclaimed. “I have done what you require, but the next time I play chess with you, I will give you the queen!” He turned to leave. His friend called out, reminding him that he was forgetting his reward. “I will come for it tomorrow!” Morphy promised. But he never did. Sources Books: David Lawson, Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess. New York: McKay, 1976; William Ewart Napier, Paul Morphy and the Golden Age of Chess. New York: McKay, 1957; C.A. Buck, Paul Morphy: His Later Life. Newport, KY: Will. H. Lyons, 1902; Frederick Milnes, Paul Morphy, the Chess Champion. New York: Appleton, 1859. Articles: “Paul Morphy Dead: The Great Chess Player Insane.” New York Times, July 11, 1884; “Letter from Paul Morphy to Mr. Staunton, of England.” New York Times, November 1, 1858; “Our Foreign Correspondence: Paris.” New York Times, October 19, 1858.

Another Perfect Media Center Companion There is more... This is the first affordable Raspberry Pi case made out of aluminum. We wanted to ensure we didn’t sacrifice form over function, so we used the aluminum housing of the case to provide a built in heat sink. Supplied with the case is a thermal pad and 4 screws for the simplest Raspberry Pi case assembly on the market. It only takes seconds to drop your Raspberry Pi into it’s amazing new home and show it off on your counter top. We included rubber feet to raise the enclosure so it just hovers underneath your television. In addition to the built in heat sink, small ventilation slots on the bottom help keep the Raspberry Pi cool. GPIO pins are accessible through the slot on the bottom of the case and there is no need for disassembly to get to the SD card. We know you will love the attention to detail we put in throughout the case.

Barcelona "If Barcelona want to make history, we'll have to come back" Iniesta calls on cules to believe comeback is possible Luis Enrique: It was a disastrous night As difficult to swallow as the 4-0 defeat was, Luis Suarez is not giving up on the tie, Luis Enrique or the season as there is still plenty left to fight for Barcelona. Andres Iniesta too has called on cules and the team to believe a comeback is possible, and the Uruguayan striker will be hoping that is the case as he won't be able to feature in the Copa del Rey final. "If Barcelona want to make history, we'll have to come back," he said. "We are all guilty, same when we win as when we lose. "The team has to convince itself it is possible - we won the treble so we must believe in ourselves." Suarez didn't want to dwell on his two yellow cards that mean he'll miss the Copa del Rey final vs. Alaves, with the Appeals Committee rejecting his appeal. "What is said is done," the striker stated. "Few times do players get two yellows back to back in just a few minutes, and one of my cards was for a foul in midfield, of which there are many like it." Finally, Suarez was asked about whether Luis Enrique should continue as coach and whether the club should sign a right-back, two of the most pressing issues for the Catalans. "If we need a right back is for the coach to decide," Suarez said. "Not at all have we lost faith in Luis Enrique. "We've enjoyed ourselves thanks to him and now we suffer altogether as a team. "We aren't listening to those that are saying there are internal problems. "It isn't surprising that people are calling it the end of an era. We are the best team in the world. We get criticised win or lose so this isn't new and we shouldn't pay it too much attention."

A group of top tech and finance companies including IBM, Wells Fargo and the London Stock Exchange Group, are joining forces to develop a new open source blockchain separated from the Bitcoin blockchain, Bloomberg Business reports. The group will work with the Linux Foundation to create a public network that lets blockchain applications built on top of it communicate with each other. The open-source software will enable others to transform the way business transactions are conducted, according to a statement released by the Linux Foundation. The statement, not yet available in the open at the time of writing, has been shared on the Pastebin social sharing site. The group also includes Accenture, ANZ Bank, Cisco, CLS, Credits, Deutsche Börse, Digital Asset Holdings, DTCC, Fujitsu, IC3, Intel, J.P. Morgan, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MFUG), R3, State Street, SWIFT, VMware. “Distributed ledgers are poised to transform a wide range of industries from banking and shipping to the Internet of Things, among others,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “As with any early-stage, highly-complex technology that demonstrates the ability to change the way we live our lives and conduct business, blockchain demands a cross-industry, open source collaboration to advance the technology for all.” Digital Asset Holdings is contributing the Hyperledger mark, which will be used as the project name, as well as enterprise grade code and developer resources. Digital Asset Holdings bought San Francisco-based Hyperledger in June. The hyperledger.com URL now redirects to blockchain.linuxfoundation.org. “The blockchain for business is ready in 2016,” states the brand new website. “Linux Foundation has united industry leaders to advance blockchain technology with a new open ledger project to transform the way business transactions are conducted around the world.” “We are delighted that The Linux Foundation is providing a broadly-supported vehicle through which we can contribute the Hyperledger brand and enterprise grade blockchain solutions to the open source community,” said financial superstar Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings. “The resulting impetus will benefit our clients and the entire global financial services industry who are seeking to build business applications on a trusted foundation." IBM intends to contribute tens of thousands of lines of its existing codebase and its corresponding intellectual property to the open source project. R3 intends to contribute a new financial transaction architectural framework designed to specifically meet the requirements of its global bank members and other financial institutions. “These technical contributions, among others from a variety of companies, will be reviewed in detail in the weeks ahead by the formation and Technical Steering Committees,” notes the statement. "Deutsche Börse group sees great potential in blockchain technology, and is delighted to join this initiative,” said Jeffrey Tessler, a member of the executive board of Deutsche Börse AG. “As a market infrastructure covering the entire value chain, we believe that the true value of the blockchain will only materialise as part of industry initiatives such as Hyperledger project.” It seems plausible that the global payments innovation initiative recently announced by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) could be related to the Hyperledger project. “The current blockchain is a great design pattern,” said IBM Vice President Jerry Cuomo, CTO of IBM’s software group, as reported by Wired. “Now, how do we make that real for business? What are the key attributes needed to make that happen? That’s what this organization is about.” Cuomo added that the group intends to create something that is like the blockchain but separate. “We are very excited about blockchain, less as a once-and-only-once implementation of an idea, but as an idea that can be implemented and extended in ways that are consistent but enhanced,” he said. Wired notes that, by backing a new project separated from the Bitcoin blockchain, the group can exert more control over blockchain technology.

NFL teams set their 53-man rosters by Saturday's deadline and now look to fill their practice squads. Here are the latest additions to practice squads, which, for the first time, can have a maximum of 10 players. Arizona Cardinals LB Jonathan Brown, WR Brittan Golden, TE Andre Hardy, CB Jimmy Legree, T Kelvin Palmer, OL Anthony Steen, DT Christian Tupou, WR Kevin Cone, RB Dominique Williams Atlanta Falcons CB Ricardo Allen, S Sean Baker, G Harland Gunn, T Terren Jones, WR Freddie Martino, TE Kyle Miller, WR Bernard Reedy, DT Travian Robertson, LB Jacques Smith, RB Jerome Smith Baltimore Ravens CB Tramain Jacobs, OL Ryan Jensen, T Marcel Jones, DT Jamie Meder, CB Deji Olatoye, DT A.J. Pataiali'i, OLB John Simon, TE Phillip Supernaw, RB Fitzgerald Toussaint, QB Keith Wenning Buffalo Bills DB Deon Broomfield, LB Jimmy Gaines, WR Caleb Holley, DE Ikponmwosa Igbinosun, DE Bryan Johnson, DB Kenny Ladler, G D.J. Morrell, RB Lonnie Pryor, QB Jeff Tuel, TE D.J. Tialavea Carolina Panthers CB Carrington Byndom, LB Adarius Glanton, WR Tavarres King, S Robert Lester, WR Marcus Lucas, T Andrew McDonald, RB Darrin Reaves, DT Micanor Regis, DT Casey Walker, WR Stephen Hill Chicago Bears WR Josh Bellamy, C Taylor Boggs, DT Brandon Dunn, CB Isaiah Frey, G Ryan Groy, LB DeDe Lattimore, CB Al Louis-Jean, CB Terrance Mitchell, DT Roy Philon, WR Rashad Ross Cincinnati Bengals T Dan France, TE Kevin Greene, DT David King, WR Colin Lockett, CB Onterio McCalebb, DE Sam Montgomery, C Trevor Robinson, DT Devon Still, HB James Wilder Jr. Cleveland Browns OL Karim Barton, OL James Brown, WR Charles Johnson, DL Jacobbi McDaniel, TE Emmanuel Ogbuehi, LB Keith Pough, LB Justin Staples, QB Connor Shaw Dallas Cowboys WR Tim Benford, DE Kenneth Boatright, C Ronald Patrick, S Micah Pellerin, LB Keith Smith, LB Will Smith, RB Ryan Williams, FB Nikita Whitlock, T John Wetzel, DB Jemea Thomas Denver Broncos LB Shaquil Barrett, RB Kapri Bibbs, S John Boyett, QB Zac Dysert, WR Bennie Fowler, G Vinston Painter, WR Nathan Palmer, C Matt Paradis, TE Gerell Robinson, DE Zach Thompson Detroit Lions G Rodney Austin, TE Michael Egnew, FB Emil Igwenagu, S Nate Ness, WR Andrew Peacock, DT Xavier Proctor, CB Mohammed Seisay, LB Julian Stanford, T Michael Williams, RB George Winn Green Bay Packers S Chris Banjo, WR Kevin Dorsey, C Garth Gerhart, RB Michael Hill, LB Adrian Hubbard, TE Justin Perillo, DE Luther Robinson, CB Jumal Rolle, T Jeremy Vujnovich, WR Myles White Houston Texans DE Keith Browner, LB Max Bullough, TE Anthony Denham, T Matt Feiler, C James Ferentz, G Alex Kupper, WR Travis Labhart, WR EZ Nwachukwu, FB Toben Opurum, CB Marcus Williams Indianapolis Colts T Tyler Hoover, ILB Andrew Jackson, WR Ryan Lankford, WR Josh Lenz, QB Jeff Mathews, S Dewey McDonald, DT Nnamdi Obukwelu, CB Sheldon Price, TE Erik Swoope, G Josh Walker Jacksonville Jaguars T Cody Booth, DT Deandre Coleman, RB Henry Josey, S Craig Loston, QB Stephen Morris, WR Kerry Taylor, CB Peyton Thompson, WR Tony Washington, LB Marcus Whitfield, TE Marcel Johnson Kansas City Chiefs FB Jordan Campbell, C Ben Gottschalk, G Ricky Henry, LB Nico Johnson, DL Kona Schwenke, WR Darryl Surgent, RB Charcandrick West, WR Fred Williams, LB Jerry Franklin, DT Hebron Fangupo Miami Dolphins C Sam Brenner, WR Matt Hazel, T Tony Hills, LB David Hinds, QB Seth Lobato, TE Jacob Maxwell, DE D'Aundre Reed, CB Lowell Rose, DT Garrison Smith, WR Tommy Streeter Minnesota Vikings RB Joe Banyard, WR Kain Colter, DT Isame Faciane, TE Chase Ford, WR Donte Foster, CB Chris Greenwood, CB Kendall James, C Zac Kerin, T Mike Remmers, DE Justin Trattou New England Patriots DL Jake Bequette, QB McLeod Bethel-Thompson, WR Josh Boyce, LB Ja'Gared Davis, S Kanorris Davis, RB Jonas Gray, DL Charley Hughlett, OL Chris Martin, DL Deontae Skinner, DB Dax Swanson New Orleans Saints WR Brandon Coleman, LB Todd Davis, CB Terrence Frederick, TE Nic Jacobs, WR Seantavius Jones, G Antoine McClain, T Tavon Rooks, DT Lawrence Virgil, CB Trevin Wade, S Pierre Warren New York Giants T Nick Becton, RB Michael Cox, CB Bennett Jackson, CB Chandler Fenner, LB Dan Fox, DE Jordan Stanton, WR Julian Talley New York Jets DT Tevita Finau, DL Kerry Hyder, S Rontez Miles, TE Chris Pantale, T Brent Qvale, RB Daryl Richardson, QB Matt Simms, LB Jeremiah George, WR Quincy Enunwa Oakland Raiders RB George Atkinson, DE Denico Autry, CB Ras-I Dowling, LB Bojay Filimoeatu, LB Spencer Hadley, T Danny Kistler, DT Ricky Lumpkin, G Lamar Mady, WR Seth Roberts, TE Scott Simonson Philadelphia Eagles LB Emmanuel Acho, OL Josh Andrews, T Kevin Graf, DT Wade Keliikipi, QB G.J. Kinne, S Ed Reynolds, WR Will Murphy, WR Quron Pratt, RB Matthew Tucker Pittsburgh Steelers TE Rob Blanchflower, WR C.J. Goodwin, RB Josh Harris, LB Howard Jones, DL Josh Mauro, WR Derek Moye, DB Shaquille Richardson, DB Ross Ventrone, OL Alejandro Villanueva, DL Nick Williams San Diego Chargers DL Chas Alecxih, WR Torrence Allen, CB Greg Ducre, WR Javontee Herndon, OLB Cordarro Law, QB Ryan Lindley, S Adrian Phillips, T Jeremiah Sirles, G Craig Watts, RB Marion Grice San Francisco 49ers T Carter Bykowski, TE Asante Cleveland, RB Kendall Gaskins, WR Lance Lewis, DL Lawrence Okoye, NT Mike Purcell, LB, Shayne Skov, LB Chase Thomas, CB Chance Casey, T John Fullington Seattle Seahawks TE Rashaun Allen, DB Josh Aubrey, RB Demitrius Bronson, QB B.J. Daniels, T Nate Isles, WR Chris Matthews, S Terrance Parks, DT Jimmy Staten, S Steven Terrell, DE Julius Warmsley St. Louis Rams LB Denicos Allen, WR Emory Blake, S Christian Bryant, DT Matt Conrath, S Matt Daniels, QB Garrett Gilbert, T Sean Hooey, LB Kevin Reddick, WR Justin Veltung, G Brandon Washington Tampa Bay Buccaneers TE Cameron Brate, RB Jeff Demps, QB Mike Kafka, LB Brandon Magee, DT Matthew Masifilo, WR Solomon Patton, CB Derrius Brooks, CB Brandon Dixon, LB Carlos Fields, S Kimario McFadden Tennessee Titans OL Justin McCray, T William Poehls, DL Chigbo Anunoby, LB Brandon Copeland, RB Antonio Andrews, WR Rico Richardson, CB Ri'Shard Anderson, LB Dontay Moch, TE Orson Charles Washington Redskins TE Ted Bolser, CB Richard Crawford, CB Chase Minnifield, OL Tevita Stevens, S Phillip Thomas, NT Robert Thomas, RB Chris Thompson, WR Nick Williams, S Akeem Davis, LB Chaz Sutton

When Vanishing Inc. Magic set out to design its first deck of signature brand playing cards, we had one specific goal in mind: to create the most fashion-forward, subtle, and sophisticated "look" for a deck of cards yet devised. The result is the Dapper Deck Deluxe Package, which is an attractive deck of cards crafted from the finest stock and finish, along with a matching silk tie and a 1000 thread count pocket square. Everything is packaged in a hand-painted wooden lacquer box complete with lock, practice mirror, and Dapper Deck insignia. Each package comes with a numbered, signed certificate by creators Joshua Jay and Andi Gladwin. Strictly limited to 400 units. We consulted with two fashion industry experts to help us hone a design that would match fine suits that the stylish magicians we create for would wear. The dapper base colors are navy blue or, for more of a punch, Jerry's Nugget Orange. The details are in pastel shades of green, yellow, red, and grey, and each back design is designed to bring out the colors of your wardrobe, and accent the tie or pocket square in your ensemble. The idea here is not to look over-matched or branded. Instead, our hope is that early in your performance, perhaps as the cards are being shuffled, your most astute spectators will notice that the attractive print on the back of your cards is matched to your pocket square and tie. This is the kind of detail we strive for in the quality of our magic. It should be the detail we strive for in our appearance as well. The Dapper Deck Deluxe is comprised of a heavy wooden box that previews the Dapper Deck design. Inside you are supplied with a deck of each color--navy and orange--as well as the pocket square (made of the finest quality silk available to us) and a thin, silk tie. A practice mirror is provided on the lid of the box for a quick check to make sure your hands are nimble and your tie is on straight. And an ornamental lock and key are provided to keep unsuspecting eyes away from the secrets of the Dapper Deck. ADD ONS - If you would like to pledge for a add on here is how it works. Here's what you can add on. Here's how add ons work.

Archived Abstract of Former PSC Researcher Anderson, Kermyt G. 2006. "How well does paternity confidence match actual paternity? Evidence from worldwide nonpaternity rates." Current Anthropology, 48(3): 511-518. Little is known about how accurately men’s confidence of paternity reflects actual paternity. Are men with high paternity confidence more likely to be fathers than men with low paternity confidence? A sample of 67 worldwide nonpaternity rates is divided into three categories: high paternity confidence (N = 22, mostly from genetic studies), low paternity confidence (N = 31, containing men who contested paternity through paternity tests), and unknown paternity confidence (N = 14, mostly unpublished studies). The results show that men with high paternity confidence have very low rates of nonpaternity (median = 1.7%), while men with low paternity confidence have much higher levels of nonpaternity (median = 29.8%). When men with low and unknown paternity confidence levels are combined, the median nonpaternity rate is 3.3%. These levels are all significantly different from one another (Wilcoxon sign-rank test), confirming that men with high paternity confidence are more accurate in their assessment of paternity than men with low paternity confidence. These differences in nonpaternity between these groups remain when compared by geographical region (U.S., Europe, and elsewhere).

Insignia is the in-house Best Buy brand. I bought this monitor to replace an old CRT monitor. It's not flashy but so far its getting the job done. I had bought a Dell monitor similar to it and found that this Insignia was better in the fact that it has ports for DVI, HDMI, VGA and a headphone jack (all located at the bottom and behind the monitor). *Remember DVI cables carry audio if you want to use the head phone jack. There are no speakers (that I know of on the monitor and no place to mount a speaker bar). The Dell monitor had left off the DVI port while Insignia got this right. Boo on Dell for that! The Dell monitor's base was a little more solid than the Insignia. The Insignia does wiggle around a little if your desk is not solid enough and you bump the desk. The image quality shows the colors are off a little if you are not looking directly right at it. The max resolution on this monitor is about average for an economical purchased. I will be using it for Microsoft office, web surfing and watching some Netflix. I have this hooked up to two computers using a KVM switch. Each of the PCs are Windows 7 and 8.1. There was no software CD to install drivers, I just used the drivers that Microsoft installed during installation. Buttons are directly on the front. Actually scratch the word button it is just a touch to the area the buttons would be at. The power light at the front does go off when you shut it down. The Insignia logo comes up for a second or two on the screen before you can use the monitor. I've had this up and running for a couple of weeks now since this review. So... so far I am satisfied with my buy. Read more

Welcome, Friends, to the 2017 releases table. This is an effort to keep a finger on the pulse of the world of psychedelic downtempo / psychill / psybient music and its many facets, and is meant to not only be an archive but also a news source for the latest releases. Updates are made at the end of every month. Mostly downtempo ambient and dub styles are presented here. If you know of any release that isn’t listed here, fill out the form at the bottom of this page and it will get added to the next month’s update, as long as it’s psychedelic and has at least some downtempo elements. Bandcamp links are preferred, soundcloud links will be ignored unless they have a download link. We hope you will find something new and magic for your taste. Please support the artists and buy their music. You can also visit these pages: – a list of upcoming Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2019 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2018 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2017 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2016 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2015 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2014 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2013 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2012 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) – a list of 2011 Releases (Psychill, Ambient, Downtempo, IDM) 2017 Psychill , Ambient and Downtempo music catalog Table Filtering / Sorting Instructions This table uses a filtering plug-in that creates drop down menus of unique values for specified table columns, and allows the table to be filtered by one or more of those values. Select a value from a menu to add a filter, and the filter tag will appear below the menu. Click the tag to remove the filter again. You can use multiple combinations of filters to help you find what you’re looking for. For example, you could filter the table to only show the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place poll winners from the month of August in the genres of psybient, psybass and psydub. Or make it only show the Name Your Price compilations. To see the latest releases, you can either filter the table by the most recent month or click the Release Date column header twice to sort the table by newest to oldest releases. Also you can always just search for any term by typing in the search box above the table. Return to top Please let us know about any missing releases using contact form

A new class of recruits starts working its way through the Madison Police Department Training Academy on Monday at a time when public confidence in American law enforcement is the lowest it's been in more than 20 years, according to a recent Gallup poll. Before the academy starts, the Madison department selects a class of recruits. In addition to events it holds in Madison, MPD makes recruiting visits to colleges and universities across the upper Midwest. This year, recruiters will go to 31 campuses. Madison police Sgt. Brian Chaney-Austin remembers the first time he heard of the department. It was at a college job fair in Illinois where he met Madison police Chief Mike Koval, who was a sergeant and training supervisor at the time. "(Koval) stopped me dead in my tracks and said, 'Hey you, what are you doing? I see that you're a criminal justice major,'" Chaney-Austin recalled. He went back to the job fair the next year and again met with Koval. "I shared with him my philosophy and a little bit more about my upbringing and some of the negative encounters I've had with police in Chicago but also some of the good experiences I've had," Chaney-Austin said. Chaney-Austin was hired by the MPD shortly after he graduated with a criminal justice degree. But recruiting coordinator Sgt. Tim Patton said the department looks for people with a wide variety of education and experiences, not just criminal justice majors. "People who have strong communication skills, people who have demonstrated commitment to our city or whatever city they're living in," Patton said. "Service-oriented coaches, teachers are great cops." The application process to become an officer in Madison takes almost a year, with applications due in November. After several rounds of testing and interviews, job offers were made to 23 recruits for this year's class. On the first day, recruits are sworn in. The first day is both "anxious" and "exciting," Capt.Tom Snyder, who oversees hiring and training, said. The bulk of what this year's recruits will learn comes from 720 hours of training the state Department of Justice requires for all certified law enforcement officers. The academy requires an additional 144 hours to allow the future officers to dive deep into topics like cultural competence and ethics, Snyder said. "We bring in experts from the (Wisconsin) Innocence Project, we take the Harvard implicit bias test, we have outside instructors come in," Snyder said. "We are able to do things and spend more time on these respective areas than they do in the technical colleges for the most part." The Madison Police Department is one of four departments in the state with an employer-based training academy, meaning it hires and trains its own employees. This year's class will be in the academy through the end of February. "We're able to put the Madison twist, we're able to talk about Madison geography, Madison demographics, the neighborhoods," Snyder said. "We take officers out into the field and show the neighborhoods they will be policing and they will be serving." Recruits are beginning their training at a time when police are facing increased scrutiny, Snyder said. What that could mean for those beginning their law enforcement careers remains to be seen. At the police academy, the recruits will cover topics like bias and de-escalation. "We don't shy away from that because we represent the community, we're a part of the community, we're not some occupying force that comes in and takes charge," Snyder said. But, concerns about policing have affected recruitment, Snyder said. "We had less applications last year, and I really believe a lot of that had to do with some of the tensions that were happening throughout the country," Snyder said. The department received 681 applications for this year's class, down 22 percent from the year before. Snyder said they’re back on track with the number of applications for next year. This story is part of an ongoing WPR News series looking at people who are beginning their law enforcement careers. Reporter Bridgit Bowden is spending the next few months following a class of recruits through the Madison Police Department Training Academy. The stories can be heard on Morning Edition, the Ideas Network and online at wpr.org.

Militants in Afghanistan have launched an attack on a government delegation visiting the site where a US soldier killed 16 civilians. Two of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brothers and several top security officials were in the delegation in Panjwai in Kandahar province. One Afghan soldier and three of the militants were killed, police said. The delegation is heading back to Kandahar. The US soldier said to have carried out Sunday's attacks is under arrest. A US military official said that "probable cause" had been found, meaning they could continue to hold the soldier. The unnamed 38-year-old staff sergeant is being held at an undisclosed location. 'No rush to exits' A senior Afghan official confirmed to the BBC that an attack "from several directions" had taken place on the delegation, which was there to meet villagers and tribal elders. Afghan forces returned fire. The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says officials reported a 10-minute gun battle during which Taliban fighters fired from a distance at a mosque where the delegation and civilians were taking part in a prayer service. Analysis President Karzai is personally involved in Kandahar - it is his home province and he has close relations with tribal elders. He, his friends and his brothers have all been working around the clock to say the soldier will be brought to justice and that taking to the streets in violent protest is not in the interests of the Afghan people or the Afghan government. Afghanistan will push for a US trial of the soldier which one aide said should be "in open court, in the presence of the media in weeks or months, but not years". If guilty, Kabul would demand the death penalty. It also wants those in charge at the base to be held responsible for not preventing the soldier's attack. On the issue of Nato, senior members of the Afghan government say any premature withdrawal will undermine the entire mission and the only people to benefit would be the Taliban. Panjwai police said that in addition to the soldier killed, two other people, including an intelligence officer, were wounded. One of Mr Karzai's brothers, Qayum, told the Associated Press news agency it appeared initially that the attack was not serious and the delegation "assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air". He said the delegation, which included Kandahar's governor and the minister of border and tribal affairs, was safe and returning to Kandahar city. A member of the delegation, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, told AP the governor was trying to explain to locals that the shooting was an isolated incident. "But the people were just shouting and they were very angry. They didn't listen to the governor. They accused him of defending the Americans instead of defending the Kandahari people," Mr Ayubi said. Anti-US sentiment is already high in Afghanistan after soldiers burned some copies of the Koran at a Nato base in Kabul last month, sparking deadly riots across the country. On Tuesday morning, some 600 students took part in a rally in the eastern city of Jalalabad, condemning the Kandahar attack and chanting "Death to America! Death to Obama!". In Washington, US President Barack Obama said America was "heartbroken over the loss of innocent life", and promised no effort would be spared in investigating the shooting and bringing the culprit to justice. "We will follow the facts wherever they lead us," he said, "and we will make sure that anybody who was involved is held fully accountable with the full force of law." He also insisted that the US will "responsibly" withdraw its forces between now and the end of 2014, the date he set with allies to close out the war, dismissing media speculation that he might speed up the process. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the soldier who has been detained in connection with the Kandahar shootings could face the death penalty if found guilty. The Taliban has renewed threats of revenge attacks, saying it would behead "sadistic" American soldiers. 'Cowered in fear' Details about Sunday's shootings are still unclear. The American soldier left his base in Kandahar in the early hours and went on a rampage in nearby villages. Previous tension points February 2012: Deadly protests after US troops inadvertently burn Koran Deadly protests after US troops inadvertently burn Koran January 2012: Video shows US marines urinating on dead Afghans Video shows US marines urinating on dead Afghans March 2011: Radical US pastor burns Koran, triggering deadly protests Radical US pastor burns Koran, triggering deadly protests April 2008:Protests against cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers Locals told reporters how they cowered in fear as the man made his way from door to door, trying to get into their houses. "I saw a man, he dragged a woman by her hair and banged her head repeatedly against the wall. She didn't say a word," one witness said. He broke into three houses and killed 16 people, most of them women and children. He then burned their bodies, according to reports. The US defence secretary said the soldier "came back to the forward operating base and basically turned himself in, told individuals what had happened". Pentagon officials said they would not release his name while the investigation was going on. Reports said the soldier, who has three children, had been deployed to Afghanistan in December for his first tour of duty there after serving three times in Iraq.

CTV London Fanshawe College is in the process of purchasing the Market Tower from Farhi Holdings to add more students and programs in the downtown core, CTV News has learned. Pending some inspections, the college has confirmed it has settled on a price and is planning a purchase. The tower on the southwest corner of Dundas Street and Richmond Street currently houses a number of offices occupied by city staff, including Ontario Works. There has long been a call to revitalize the iconic building and surrounding areas and draw more people into the city. Dr. Howard Rundle, Fanshawe College president, says “If everything goes to plan, we would like to buy the building.” He says the price tag is in the $10-15 million range, but will be much higher when renovations are factored in. Though he is on the verge of retiring, Rundle says he’s been very close to the project and the college will utilize millions from the city to make it a showpiece. “We want it to look good. So, if that means a few more millions dollars, as long as we can afford it, I want it to be a spectacular presence downtown.” The expansion comes even before the completion of the college’s newest downtown campus location on Dundas Street just to the west of the Market Tower. The first phase of Fanshawe’s Centre for Digital and Performance Arts was slated to open in September, but construction delays mean it likely won’t be ready until at least the middle of October. Some 400 students will instead start their digital studies at the college’s main campus. The phase is just part of a planned $40 million downtown campus that included plans to purchase additional buildings in the core. Hospitality and Food Services are among the programs that could have a new headquarters in the core. As for the city services currently housed in the building, London Mayor Joe Fontana says “Now, in order to facilitate Fanshawe moving to Market Tower, we’ve had to re-negotiate a lease - a very good lease - to move that personnel to the Bell Canada building.” Bob Usher, general manager at the Covent Garden Market and a member of the Business Improvement Association, says the decision is great news for the downtown core. “It will change the type of individual that is here. It will change the outlook of Londoners on the downtown and I think it’s all very, very positive.” Rundle hopes the deal is finalized as soon as possible, and says the college will consider building residences for students downtown as well if demand increases. It’s still unclear how many students will attend full-time classes at the Market Tower, but it is possible some unused space in the 200,000 square foot building could be leased to other community partners in the early stages.

This post will have a lot of UPG. Take it for what you will. Hiraeth, a Welsh word with no exact English definition. There are a few variations of the meaning scattered on the internet. But there are two definitions that really make sense to me. The first one is from Wikipedia, “It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past[1],” and the second from a Welshwoman studying abroad, “A longing to be where your spirit lives[2].” Ever since discovering this word and the multiple layers behind it, it has stuck with me. But it is not until today that I truly understood the word. To be able to feel what the word means, not just to know the definition. It was a very surreal and fundamental moment for me. I spent the afternoon with my Great-Uncle Ian at a small garden shop and tea room. It’s called The Secret Garden and it is truly a fitting name. A 400 year old building Just off of the A4042 you can easily blink and drive past it. We perused the grounds and looking at flora that he knew of far better than I. But even though I don’t know the specifics of each flower, I could still appreciate the place. After a while we do what any self-respecting Brit does when possible, we drink some tea. Their tearoom overlooks the stereotypical Welsh countryside. A field of sheep with accompanying donkeys, and striking green hills. The best part of the entire view was that in the distance nestled in the valleys was my childhood hometown and Folly Tower, a local landmark that was originally built around 1765 or so. We sat there until closing time and talked about life and nature, with him sharing his countless tales of past experiences I will never forget. But towards the end of the conversation right before we had to leave, I experienced hiraeth for the first time in a moment similar to the Eureka Effect. The cold wind nipped at my face, laughter was tangible in the air, and Sól ignited the sky in an amber blaze before He ended His journey. At this moment I saw Cymru in all of its primal beauty. I saw my home. Not just the place I currently reside, but the place where my spirit lives. I saw the Green, Green Grass of Home. The fields and valleys that have sustained my People and ancestors for centuries. I saw the pride of Y Ddraig Goch that all Welshmen and Welshwoman share. But even then, there was something deeper still. My spirit dwells not only with the people and lands of Wales, and all of Britain, but with the Gods and wihta of this island as well. While I was once content with refusing religion or believing in some form of Other, there was always something missing. A subtle void that always kept me pondering the possibilities. This island has worshipped many gods and goddesses; from Brigid to Vesta to Þunor, they are all a part of my past and they all influence my future. I would at a time attempt to limit myself to only one Way. Though I have come to find that the Old Ways are not as simple as a solitary road leading from one place to the next. The Ways are more akin to a complex system of roads that may combine in places, diverge in others, or even run parallel within view of each other. And yet, all of these various roads have the possibility to find themselves at the same destination: To reach the Other, in whatever variety it may be in. Where I used to be worried about only taking a specific road, to never diverge for the fear of finding myself lost. Now I have no such trepidation. I am content with weaving through the various roads, albeit with healthy caution. For to travel many is to have a far more complete and authentic view of the world; and in this instance, a more authentic view of the Old Ways my spirit has chosen to reside with. Hiraeth is now a constant low ache in my heart. An addiction not dissimilar to that of an addict. For I experienced if only for a moment, the world that my ancestors lived. Where there was nothing but your inner-yard, the land to support you, and the Gods to watch over it all. A simpler time but perhaps a more fulfilling one. To have some semblance of that again is something to crave. The closest place I experience anything close to it when I’m with the Other. When life becomes an ephemerally simple matter of honouring the Other. Something that has happened since the beginning of time and will continue to do until the very end. But I allow myself to divert on tangents. It is a habit that leads to attempting many conversations at once which often becomes a veritable mess of things. So I will return to the story at hand. Once the moment had passed and Sól escaped behind the mountains, we had to leave. But now the Garden was possessed by a new feeling entirely. The air was heavier and our movement sluggish. We sauntered around the premises once more but all the while followed by a white Labrador. He has lived in the Gardens for years, dutifully guarding the place. I believe he protected the place in more ways than one. For my family has said multiple times that they believe dogs live in two places at once. I see no reason to disagree with that opinion. There were many statues of gnomes scattered around. Whether this means that hobs lived around or not I do not know for sure, but the dog made sure to sniff each and every statue. I took that as a sign, for all we can do when it comes to Others is look for signs and omens. With the experiences in both the tearoom and leaving the Gardens, I left that day with a certainty that I was home in every sense of the word. I am in the land of my ancestors once more, and following gods that once had power in the people’s hearts. And this, in all of its simplicity, is enough for me. Most of these pictures were taken from The Secret Garden website. I did intend for this post to have a more direct intent when first writing it, as I had every intention of finishing it when I got back from the Gardens. However, life happens and it has been almost a month since the visit so the post has lost some of its intended meaning through the delay of my writing. But I had far too much written down already to just abandon the writing and seeing a draft every time I opened WordPress was slowly destroying my sanity. Advertisements