text
stringlengths 433
6.31k
|
|---|
A man shown in a viral video getting punched and kicked as a crowd yells, "Don't vote Trump" acknowledges he supports Donald Trump but said Thursday that's not what started the beating on the West Side the day after the presidential election.
David Wilcox, 49, said he was about to turn left from Kedzie Avenue to Roosevelt Road around 1 p.m. Wednesday when a black sedan pulled up and scraped the right side of his Pontiac Bonneville.
"I stopped and parked. And I asked if they had insurance, and the next thing that I knew they were beating the s--- out of me," Wilcox said Thursday.
A phone video shot from a bus stop at the intersection shows Wilcox being knocked to the pavement as five people gather around him. A man in the group straddles his back and punches Wilcox with both hands.
As the fight picks up, people on the sidewalk away from the struggle yell taunts that include "You voted Trump," "Beat his ass" and "Don't vote Trump."
There's laughter as Wilcox rolls on his back and covers his face. Two people hit and kick him. Wilcox gets up and tries to get back in his car, but someone repeatedly punches him until he slumps by the side of the vehicle.
Posted By Ghost
|
Diana Mehta, The Canadian Press
TORONTO -- A Toronto police officer found guilty of assaulting a protester during the G20 summit four years ago will not serve any jail time, an Ontario judge ruled Thursday as he upheld the man's conviction.
Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani -- who sat silently in court as the decision was delivered -- was convicted in September 2013 of assault with a weapon for using excessive force during the arrest of a protester on June 26, 2010.
He was sentenced to 45 days behind bars, though he was almost immediately granted bail pending an appeal.
In that appeal, Andalib-Goortani had asked for an acquittal or a new trial, but also requested if his conviction couldn't be quashed that his sentence be changed to a discharge, suspended or that any custodial sentence be served intermittently.
His lawyer had argued the officer was acting in accordance with his training during a highly stressful and fluid situation.
Meanwhile, the Crown prosecutor had countered there was no basis for the suggestion that the trial judge had held Andalib-Goortani to a standard of perfection.
In his ruling on the appeal, Superior Court Justice Brian O'Marra upheld Andalib-Goortani's conviction, but changed his sentence to one year of probation and 75 hours of community service.
He did not provide reasons for his judgment.
Neither Andalib-Goortani nor his lawyer offered comment on the decision.
The officer has been suspended without pay while his case worked its way through the courts. That status is now under review, said Toronto police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray.
Andalib-Goortani is one of only two officers who were criminally charged in relation to Toronto's violence-marred G20 summit in June 2010 in which a few dozen vandals rampaged through the downtown and police made unprecedented mass arrests that drew widespread condemnation.
The judge who presided over Andalib-Goortani's trial had found the officer hit protester Adam Nobody several times with his baton while the man was already on the ground, surrounded by other officers who were in the process of arresting him.
Nobody was offering minimal resistance and several other police officers were piled on top of him, trial judge Louise Botham found.
Botham also said Andalib-Goortani had shown no remorse and noted his name tag and badge weren't visible during the arrest.
Nobody, who said he suffered a broken nose, a facial fracture and bruised ribs during his arrest, was in court Thursday to hear the latest decision in Andalib-Goortani's case.
"The conviction stays, which is a great thing because now we have two judges saying he's guilty," he said outside court. "The probation -- I would have hoped for more, I would have hoped to see him in jail. I think he deserves jail time."
Andalib-Goortani has been acquitted in a second case related to the G20 summit because the evidence against him had been ruled inadmissible. In that case he was charged with using a weapon to assault a blogger at the Ontario legislature.
The only other officer criminally charged in relation to the G20, Const. Glenn Weddell, was previously acquitted.
Andalib-Goortani still faces an internal police disciplinary process, which is set to begin next week. He faces one count of discreditable conduct, two counts of insubordination and one count of unlawful or unnecessary exercise of authority.
|
http://www.rockislandauction.com/viewitem/aid/68/lid/1658
After getting his Model 1941 machine gun purchased in small numbers by the US military, Melvin Johnson continued to press for more sales and a general adoption. Following testing results and recommendations from soldiers in the field, he made a number of modifications to the gun and developed the M1944, which was quickly tweaked to become the M1944E1, also called the M1945. This new version included several improvements including:
Replacing the bipod with a monopod less prone to interfering with barrel removal Improved stronger bolt anti-bounce latch Metal dual-tube buttstock in place of wood and most significantly, a gas-boosted hybrid recoil operating system
This new model of the Johnson was in testing at the end of WWII, and weapons development budget cuts at the conclusion of the war prevented it from replacing the BAR as Johnson and many in the Marine Corps had hoped.
This particular M1945 Johnson is fully transferrable, as came out of the Winchester Museum Collection (now the Cody Firearms Museum) back many years ago when curators would occasionally sell items from the collection to raise money.
Johnson M1941 LMG: https://www.full30.com/video/4d5d2d57784bd73ccda793c407fad5e8
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
|
Digital DNA, the 7-foot-tall egg-shaped sculpture made of computer circuit boards installed in Lytton Plaza, will be removed from the city's public-art collection, the Public Art Commission voted unanimously Thursday night, after a report from city staff made the case that the piece is damaged, made of materials unsuitable for outdoor installation and too costly to keep restoring.
Artist Adriana Varella, who's started a crowdfunding campaign to fund restoration and possible rehoming of the piece, counters that the city is actually set on getting rid of the sculpture because of the way the piece encourages reflection upon the darker side of technology.
Varella's attorney requested that the vote be rescheduled for a time when Varella could be present, while two members of the Raging Grannies, a social-justice and activism group, spoke in favor of keeping Digital DNA, including Ruth Robertson, who read a statement on behalf of the artist and the recently formed Friends of Digital DNA group. The statement was written from the point of view of the sculpture itself, and in particular accuses the commission of purposely scheduling the deaccession vote on a date in which Varella was unable to attend, and of censoring art for political reasons.
"The real reason there is a push to remove me is not my state, but instead my content — the political message embedded in me which talks about how our modern technology can enslave us," according to the statement. "When a Public Art Commission starts using tricks of process and bureaucracy to facilitate removal of art for political reasons, it stops being an art commission, and becomes a censorship committee."
Robertson handed out printed photos of a new piece Varella is currently exhibiting in New York that includes photos and biographies of members of the art commission and identifies them as the "Censorship Committee of Palo Alto."
According to the statement, "I was designed to be in the heart of Palo Alto from its conception. I inspired the Twitter egg, and have become a focal point for gatherings in Lytton Plaza. Removing me from this location will rob my message of contextual meaning and be a desecration."
The statement also accuses the city of not allowing enough time for public awareness and comment about the deaccession, although Palo Alto Public Art Director Elise deMarzo noted that it had been a topic of discussion at numerous previous meetings.
"The city of Palo Alto has really tried to find a solution. I do believe the piece is deteriorating and we aren't able to maintain it in a good state for the public to be around it," Commissioner Loren Gordon said.
The big egg is not the only maternity-symbol-sculpture on the chopping block. Marta Thoma's Go Mama, currently located on California Avenue, will likely soon be gone, as the commission voted on deaccession for it as well. The piece, a figure with a doll-like head and a baby's face in its midsection, was originally commissioned at a time when "public art didn't have to go through so strenuous a process as it does now," deMarzo said, noting that the piece has become unstable and structurally unsound, and damaged by years of people climbing and spilling food on it, especially after the California Avenue streetscape redesign. The city, she said, "cannot guarantee the safety of the piece."
Deaccessioned artwork may be returned to the artist at the artist's expense, sold or donated by the city, or destroyed.
---
Follow the Palo Alto Weekly/Palo Alto Online on Twitter @PaloAltoWeekly and Facebook for breaking news, local events, photos, videos and more.
|
Looking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
Here’s some good news: David Duke is not going to be a United States senator from Louisiana next year.
The former Ku Klux Klan leader and onetime Louisiana state representative was hoping the rise of Donald Trump could help him resurrect his political career and return to relevance. Instead, more than two decades after his quick rise and steep fall within the Republican party, he was little more than a punching bag. With 77 percent of precincts reporting, he had received 3.4 percent of the vote in a 24-candidate field, falling well short of the threshold to advance to the December runoff. State treasurer John Kennedy and Rep. Charles Boustany, both Republicans, were leading the field although the race had not yet been called.
Duke, a perennial candidate who had launched bids for the House, Senate, and presidency in the 1990s, was attempting to ride the coattails of Trump to new heights when he entered the crowded “jungle primary” last summer. It didn’t happen—although he did, in a fluke, clear the five-percent threshold to appear at the one televised debate, at the historically black Dillard University, prompting massive student protests. (Duke used his brief moment in the spotlight to talk about “CNN Jews.”) But maybe the most important thing about Duke’s candidacy was that it happened at all. He had been humiliated in his final run for office in 1999, and eventually sent to prison for stealing money from his supporters. For much of the last decade he’s been in a self-imposed exile, at one point taking up birding in Austria.
But in 2016, as Trump rode a wave of ethno-nationalism to the Republican nomination, Duke finally felt like it was safe to get back into politics. A lot of his fellow travelers felt the same way. As my colleagues have reported, Trump’s campaign was backed forcefully by a contingent of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists who saw the Republican nominee as a vehicle for their worldview. The campaign avoided denouncing almost any of them. (Trump’s refusal to disavow Duke, whom he had once criticized, would haunt him for the rest of the campaign.)
So Duke got crushed in Louisiana. But the zombies of the Republican Party’s past came back to life in 2016, and Duke and his ilk may not go away any time soon.
|
Google has updated its website that guides iPhone owners through the process of making the change to Android. But more importantly, the company is also adding a new feature to its Google Drive app on iOS: the ability to instantly back up your contacts, calendar, and camera roll and store it in the cloud. That way, whenever you buy a Pixel or some other Android phone, all your stuff will be waiting in Google’s various apps. It’s all automatic when done this way, as opposed to before when you’d have to upload this stuff from several different apps.
The new option is found in the settings menu under “backup.” Also it’s probably not very instant if you’ve got a lot of stuff on your iPhone; Google says it can take several hours in some cases, so you’ll want to have your phone plugged in and on reliable Wi-Fi during the process. The app must stay open and on screen, as well.
This is basically Google’s iOS answer to Apple’s Android app that similarly tries to ease the switching process. But Google Drive does a lot of other useful stuff, so the new backup utility is just a new addition to the list. Unfortunately, Google Drive won’t back up your texts or music library. For that, you’ll have to actually plug your iPhone directly into the Pixel or whatever Android phone you’re replacing it with. If that really seems like the right choice for you. The Google Drive update doesn’t seem to be out just yet. At least, I’m not seeing the backup feature in settings. But it shouldn’t be long.
|
Often inspired by personal experiences to enter medicine, physicians -- regardless of professional challenges -- remain motivated by desire to help people
CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - March 30, 2017) - Today, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced new survey findings that explore the experiences, perceptions, and challenges facing physicians in the rapidly changing health care environment. The survey of 1,200 physicians, residents, and medical students asked when respondents knew they would become physicians, who encouraged them down that path, what challenges they face professionally, and whether they are satisfied with their career choice.
According to the survey, nine in 10 physicians are satisfied with their career choice, despite challenges common to each career stage. Three quarters of medical students, residents, and physicians said that helping people is a top motivator for pursuing their career and sixty-one percent of all respondents said they would encourage others to enter the field of medicine. Personal experiences as a patient, volunteer, and with family members played a role -- across career stages -- in realizing one's calling to practice medicine. Additionally, 73 percent of respondents knew before they reached the age of 20 that they wanted to be physicians, and nearly a third knew before becoming a teenager.
"Physicians may be discouraged at times, but almost every single one of us remains confident in our decision to enter medicine and continues to be driven by our desire to help our patients," said Andrew W. Gurman, M.D., AMA president. "As an organization, the AMA is constantly striving to deliver resources that empower physicians to maximize time with their patients and help them succeed at every stage of their medical lives. Understanding the challenges physicians face, as well as their motivations for continuing on, is critical to fulfilling that mission."
Conducted in February 2017, the AMA survey found administrative burden, stress, and lack of time were among the top three challenges of respondents; however, among residents, a larger proportion indicated long hours and on-call schedule among their top challenges.
These survey findings are released as the AMA launches a comprehensive brand initiative that strives to demonstrate to physicians, residents and medical students the many ways the AMA listens, supports and empowers them to succeed throughout their unique journeys with timely and relevant resources. The brand initiative features individual stories such as:
The brand initiative will reach physicians through print, digital and social media platforms. It is intended to recognize and celebrate the core reasons that physicians choose the profession while also highlighting the broad array of initiatives and resources the AMA provides in support of physicians.
Additional information on the survey findings and methodology is available upon request.
About the American Medical Association
The American Medical Association is the premier national organization providing timely, essential resources to empower physicians, residents and medical students to succeed at every phase of their medical lives. Physicians have entrusted the AMA to advance the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health on behalf of patients for more than 170 years. For more information, visit ama-assn.org.
|
John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios and DisneyToon Studios, made the announcement with Bob Iger. According to reports. Lasseter said that the team " had so much fun making the short 'Frozen Fever' that it was excited to make a sequel ." Josh Gad, who voiced Olaf in the first film, also joined the meeting.
The sequel doesn't have a release date or a plot line just yet, but the news comes a few months after directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee insisted that a second film was not yet in development. Earlier this month, Buck told The Huffington Post that they would take a breather from "Frozen" projects. "It was really nice to do a short and just get back with these characters who we love without the pressure of having to do a huge sequel," he said about working on the short film, "Frozen Fever." "We're going to take a little bit of a break from the 'Frozen' stuff before diving into anything else."
|
So if Mike Leach isn’t the next football coach at Washington State, where will the collective emotional crash fall on the Jeff-Tuel’s-shoulder/Connor-Halliday’s-liver scale? We got a taste of it Tuesday, when all the go-to media for preposterous rumor – Twitter, Facebook, iPhone and the backyard fence – had Paul Wulff’s firing augmented by arrival via private jet of Cougar fandom’s most wanted, the charismatic litigant late of Texas Tech. Yes! Bill Moos is going to announce the new coach – Leach – as he dismisses the old one! Raise the flag! Make those 2013 Rose Bowl reservations now! And a private plane from points east did indeed land at Pullman-Moscow Regional shortly after noon. Open swung the cabin door. Out came … well, a couple with more ties to the AARP than the NCAA. Good thing no one made banners and sent out the marching band/John Blanchette, SR. More here. (AP file photo of former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach)
Question: Do you think WSU can attract a big dog to take over football coaching duties?
|
While Jodie Foster can still clearly “open” a movie, her drawing power – not helped by some mixed reviews for Neil Jordan’s latest – isn’t exactly in full force as The Brave One opened to a relatively meagre $14 million, her lowest since Anna And The King.
Still, it was enough to force 3:10 To Yuma into second place, which dropped softly (just 35%) to bring its current total up to $28.5 million, no small feat for a movie saddled (har har) with the low expectations of Western box office. And talking of feats, New Line’s comedy Mr Woodcock (starring Seann William Scott and Billy Bob Thornton), managed to overcome more than a year on the shelf, some caustic reviews and a slot in comedy dumpsville to make $9.1 million.
Despite opening in a few more cinemas than Woodcock, fantasy reptile pic Dragon Wars rustled up less cash. The tale of giant, scaly beasts battling it out for control of the world made $5.4 million. That meant Superbad headed down to fifth place, snapping up $5.2 million, for an impressive running total of $111 million so far, and staying in the top five after five weeks in the charts.
Halloween took a dive from second into sixth place, making $5 million and taking in $51.3 million so far. That put it just ahead of The Bourne Identity, which dropped to seventh with $4.1 million. Halloween will have to go some to match Bourne’s total though – it has already made $216.1 million. In eighth, meanwhile, Balls Of Fury slinks down to near the bottom, taking in $3.3 million.
Finally, the bottom two – Rush Hour 3 skids into ninth having made $133.1 million so far and Mr Bean’s Holiday bumbles at 10th, with $28.4 so far.
|
The Vancouver Police Department’s Gang Unit has apologized for a series of inaccurate tweets on Sunday warning about overdoses in connection with the drug “shatter.”
2/2: "Shatter" can cause temporary psychosis. Looks like toffee. This was seized in a traffic stop tonight. BEWARE. pic.twitter.com/H12OyhmvUc — VPDGangUnit (@VPDGangUnit) November 21, 2015
Shatter is a potent pot product that is made by extracting THC from the plant, then making a concentrate of up to 90 per cent THC that users then smoke or vape.
Shatter is sold in several commercial dispensaries around Vancouver, and has spread in popularity across North American in recent months.
READ MORE: What is shatter? Experts warn of dangers of new trend
The VPD Gang Unit originally tweeted: “Parents!!!! Please educate your children on the dangers of ‘Shatter’. We cannot lose any more young people to senseless overdoses.”
However, they issued an apology on Monday.
While well-intentioned, our tweets about #Shatter weren’t accurate & have been deleted. Our apologies. We will do better in future. — VPDGangUnit (@VPDGangUnit) November 23, 2015
British Columbia’s top doctor says THC is not a direct cause of fatal overdoses.
“If you had enough of it, it could cause anxiety attacks, it could make you very stoned, some people get paranoid, it’s been associated with psychosis, but I don’t think it’s been associated with a fatal overdose,” said Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall.
Dana Larsen, director of the marijuana reform organization Sensible BC, said making shatter is more dangerous than using it, as it’s often concocted in home labs using solvents and butane.
“These kind of products that are very potent should not be the first way you enter into cannabis use, but parents do not have to be worried about children dying from marijuana overdose. That is not a legitimate concern at all,” he said.
“Shatter or dabs or wax or butter, or whatever you want to call it, these products are very pure and very potent, but they don’t cause anybody to die.”
|
Here’s an article by Daniella Peled in Haaretz saying that Israel has been rebranded as the occupation nation, and BDS is gaining traction. By the way,
Forget ‘Startup Nation,’ Israel’s brand identity is occupation Israel’s efforts to market itself as a gay-friendly, villa-in-the-jungle, startup nation cannot blot out the occupation, BDS or the crushing symbolic force of the EU guidelines.
Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions, BDS, is already working. Not to devastate Israel’s economy – that’s still a remote prospect – but to do something just as effective: Destroy its global standing…
There’s a reason why the Israeli government is so exercised about BDS: It works. Whether you agree with its philosophy or not or not, or find its proponents objectionable – like all activist movements, it attracts an extremist political fringe – BDS is non-violent and legal, a classic example of civil society action to which there is no possible military response.
But the Israeli establishment, doggedly militaristic, doesn’t understand the use of soft power, and it’s going to take much more than an Israeli Mr Gay International winner to change that.
|
LeEco growth, globalization outpaces resources: CEO
In an internal letter LeEco CEO Jia Yueting sent to his employees on Sunday, he reflected for the first time on what he said has been the overly rapid growth of the Beijing-based technology and entertainment company.
"There is a problem with non-listed LeEco's growth pace and organizational capacities," Jia said in the letter obtained by the Global Times. He noted that the company's globalization had gone too far despite limited capital and resources, resulting in "an apparent lack of momentum" in various businesses.
The internal letter came in response to growing concerns plaguing the Chinese tech group, which has expanded into smartphones, smart TVs and self-driving vehicles. One of the concerns is the falling share price of LeEco's Shenzhen-listed arm, regardless of dramatic announcements from the company that include the unveiling of a self-driving electric car, new smartphones and TVs in San Francisco last month.
Management should be held responsible, Jia said in the internal letter. He volunteered to receive an annual salary of only 1 yuan (15 cents) from the company forever.
Shares of LeEco's listed arm closed down 2.26 percent to 39.71 yuan on Friday.
|
I honestly believe we are on the cusp of some big happenings. Trump supporters need to use this time to push back against efforts to impede Trump and progress in America. The Russia hoax is absolutely dead and those who continue to push this admittedly fabricated nonsense story must be met with strong, yet polite rebuttal. The time to end the partisan divides created by elitist media outlets is now.
There is no longer a need to fear vocally supporting the president. The coordinated counteroffensive against fake news launched by Trump and his allies is a signal to his supporters to step out from the shadows. Project Veritas hammered CNN with hidden camera footage, Sarah Palin took on The New York Times with a defamation lawsuit and the President himself used Twitter to highlight the problematic relationship Amazon and Washington Post share. It is our job to reinforce the fact that these OLD AND DYING relics of a long begotten age are no longer the gatekeepers of information.
Americans loyal to the president must have a real dialogue with those on the other side about the credibility of these “news orgs," which have spent the past six months falsely dragging the president through the mud with thinly sourced stories and implied accusations of high treason. As I said before, there is no evidence to support these claims. There is an investigation underway, but as it stands now, I'd be more inclined to believe that investigation will hurt Democrats more than help in their crusade to impeach Donald Trump.
|
With the exception of pre-order bonus character Eliza, the list of playable characters for ‘Ultimate Tekken Bowl’ DLC is limited to the base roster of Tekken 7.
Shared on Twitter by Wonkey of Avoiding the Puddle, the game’s Japanese website states that guest characters from the second and third DLC packs will not be playable in ‘Ultimate Tekken Bowl’. Apparently, the news came after fans expressed interest in hearing guest character Howard Geese’s “predictabo” signature line changed to “predictabowl” for the minigame.
The Tekken 7 JP website for DLC Pack 1 says you can't use the guest characters (DLC 2 & 3) in the bowling mode.https://t.co/wVk3H2TkFA pic.twitter.com/p9e3DUl9x6 — Wonkey (@Flying_Wonkey) August 25, 2017
‘Tekken Bowl’ was first introduced in Tekken Tag Tournament. Aside from gracing Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, Tekken Bowl was released as a free mobile app in 2011. The game mode features regular bowling mechanics, but with quirks of the Tekken series such as characters diving into the bowling pins and unique special abilities for some characters.
The first paid Tekken 7 DLC pack launches on August 31 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Alongside ‘Ultimate Tekken Bowl’ are new costume additions: Blood Vengeance School Uniforms (Xioayu & Alisa), Swimsuits and Vintage 1920s bathing suits (female fighters), Idol Master themed outfits (all female fighters), and traditional Japanese Fundoshi (all male fighters). New character profiles and a customized Tekken Bowl spark effect can also be seen on the official website.
The second DLC pack scheduled for Winter 2017 will include Howard Geese from SNK’s Fatal Fury and King of Fighter series as well as costumes and a new stage dedicated to Geese. The final Tekken 7 DLC pack scheduled for Spring 2018 will add another currently unannounced character, alongside costumes and a special stage dedicated to the fighter.
Tekken 7 is currently available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Check OnlySP for the latest on single-player games and follow our Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr for more news.
|
fcmatt
Offline
Activity: 1582
Merit: 1001
LegendaryActivity: 1582Merit: 1001
Re: S.DICE - Want a piece of SatoshiDICE? IPO this week before new site launch! August 20, 2012, 05:47:40 AM #19 Quote from: mem on August 20, 2012, 05:40:44 AM Quote from: MPOE-PR on August 20, 2012, 05:30:58 AM
Quote No Resources, No Skills, No Talent, No Ability... I'm not a tech, but I would guess the same thing is stopping someone today that stopped someone up until today. And also the same thing that stopped all the groupon clones from becoming groupon and all the facebook/twitter clones from becoming facebook/twitter. In the words of the once-famous Jerry Seinfeld,
A very good point, SD did get its name out there and established
Care to elaborate what mistake was made with the maths.
A very good point, SD did get its name out there and establishedCare to elaborate what mistake was made with the maths.
First, I am not knocking the website/business. I think it was clever, well executed, and they deserve credit.
Comparing them to facebook is ludicrous when trying to infer they have a wide moat around their business model
that is impenetrable from others looking to take a piece of the pie.
As soon as a clone is polished up, offers better payouts for the same exact bet, SD will have to match it
(thus reducing profits) or admit they cannot control the market for this type of gambling. Word of mouth is
strong in bitcoin land and most users know where to get the best bang for their btc. A simple add on this website
and a few others would reach many users over a one week period getting the clone's name out there immediately. First, I am not knocking the website/business. I think it was clever, well executed, and they deserve credit.Comparing them to facebook is ludicrous when trying to infer they have a wide moat around their business modelthat is impenetrable from others looking to take a piece of the pie.As soon as a clone is polished up, offers better payouts for the same exact bet, SD will have to match it(thus reducing profits) or admit they cannot control the market for this type of gambling. Word of mouth isstrong in bitcoin land and most users know where to get the best bang for their btc. A simple add on this websiteand a few others would reach many users over a one week period getting the clone's name out there immediately.
|
Image copyright Getty Images
Barclays has confirmed it is closing its mortgage centre in Cardiff with the loss of 180 jobs in the city.
144 of the posts are being moved to other Barclays sites in Liverpool and Leeds.
Sixty jobs will be completely cut, however 20 of these posts have already been lost voluntarily in recent months.
The workers' union Unite has condemned the closure and called for the bank to reconsider.
Staff at the centre in Llanishen were told about the changes on Wednesday morning and are being given the option of redundancy or applying for relocation.
The move is part of a major restructuring at the bank to cut costs.
Rob Harris, managing director for Barclays UK Home Solutions said: "Barclays is working hard to meet customer needs. Part of this work is ensuring that our contact centre site processes are working efficiently to enable our teams to work together more effectively.
"Unfortunately this means that our contact centre in Cardiff will be closing in 2018.
'Think again'
"We are being open and transparent by sharing this proposal with our colleagues at the earliest possible opportunity and we will provide full support to them throughout the process."
Unite regional officer Steve Pantak said the union was "angry".
"The union is completely opposed to the decision to close this workplace with no alternative employment offered to the 180 loyal and hardworking staff in this centre.
"Unite will continue to press for Barclays to work to mitigate these job losses but the fact is that this highly skilled and dedicated workforce will be made redundant and we call on Barclays to think again and reverse this decision."
Barclays - along with other UK banks - has been closing branches, cutting jobs and selling unwanted assets as it seeks to become more profitable.
Chief Executive Jes Staley said on 23 February that the bank would close its "non-core" division of unwanted assets in June - six months ahead of schedule.
|
The Flying Hotel – Manned Cloud
This is an alternative project around leisure and traveling in all its form, economic and experimental, still with the idea of lightness, human experience and life scenarios as the guiding principles. The spiral of Archimedes is the driving force of this airship in the form of a whale that glides through the air.
The airship is a floating hotel called the Manned Cloud, and according to its designers, it will be capable of circling the globe in a few days.
The 20 bedrooms will provide the ultimate room with a view as the airship cruises at a height of 18,000ft, a capacity of 40 passengers and staffed with 15 persons, that on a 3-day cruise in 170 km/h permits man to explore the world.
It has a restaurant, a library, a lounge and a gym on the first deck.
On the second level there will be 20 passenger rooms, terraces with panoramic windows, a spa and a bar room. The airship is powered by a giant rear propeller and also has two further engines pointing downwards for vertical take-off.
The whale-shaped airship, developed with French national aerospace research body ONERA. However, if you’re thinking of checking in, you will have to wait until its expected launch date of 2020.
|
Politicans on both sides have pressed the military to explore options taking direct action against al-Assad. W.H. in political bind over Syria
President Barack Obama has talked tough in trying to dissuade Syrian President Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons against the rebels in Syria’s civil war, warning it would be a “red line” and a “game changer.”
Now, Assad has called his bluff, and Obama wants time and space to decide what comes next.
Story Continued Below
The White House said in a letter to Congress on Thursday that U.S. intelligence officials believe “with varying degrees of confidence” that Assad has used the nerve agent sarin, based on the results of “physiological samples.” But the administration did not place the U.S. on the brink of military action. Instead, it called for a “comprehensive United Nations investigation” and the need to “establish all the facts” before Washington decides how to proceed.
( Also on POLITICO: Senators say 'red line' crossed)
A White House official told reporters that “all options are on the table in terms of our response,” but did not want to “get into hypotheticals at this juncture.” The official stressed the need for “a strong, firm, evidentiary basis to inform the way we consult our friends and allies.”
Without mentioning it by name, the official invoked the run-up to the invasion of Iraq as a reason to be absolutely certain that Assad has actually used the sarin gas.
“Given our own history of intelligence assessments, especially given intelligence assessments related to weapons of mass destruction, it’s very important we are presenting the public with information that is airtight, presented in a public and credible fashion.” The “red line” threshold demands it, the official said, “given how serious this issue is. Nobody should have any mistake about what our red line is.”
Skeptics in Washington, however, worried that not acting or acting too slowly might not only embarrass the U.S. if it backs away from its earlier rhetoric, but lead to more atrocities by Assad.
“I am deeply concerned with reports that further confirmation of use may be outsourced to the United Nations,” said House Speaker John Boehner. “If Assad sees any equivocation on the red line, it will embolden his regime.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, earlier voiced the same worry.
The “red line” had clearly been crossed and “action must be taken to prevent larger scale use,” she said. “Syria has the ability to kill tens of thousands with its chemical weapons. The world must come together to prevent this by unified action which results in the secure containment of Syria’s significant stockpile of chemical weapons.”
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), who called Assad’s attack “an astounding violation of human rights,” asked why Obama had given warnings to Syria if the U.S. isn’t prepared to enforce them.
"I do question the utility of red lines if they lack clearly delineated boundaries and meaningful consequences,” McKeon said. “I am confident the president does not wish for America's resolve to be called into question.”
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters traveling with him in the Middle East that he would be prepared to give Obama military options “at such time as the president requires options,” but he also stressed the obligation for the U.S., “including with all key partners and allies,” to investigate.
|
Orioles manager Buck Showalter is included among the finalists named tonight for the annual Baseball Writers Association of America awards. The candidates were revealed on MLB Network.
Showalter joins the Angels’ Mike Scioscia and the Royals’ Ned Yost as the three American League finalists after leading the Orioles to 96 wins in the regular season and their first division title and appearance in the Championship Series since 1997. He won the award with the Yankees in 1994 and the Rangers in 2004.
If the 10-year BBWAA pattern holds, he’s going to win it again in 2014.
Ballots were submitted prior to the playoffs.
Showalter guided the Orioles to their first winning record and playoff berth in 15 years in 2012, but he finished second to the Athletics’ Bob Melvin in the BBWAA voting.
An Oriole hasn’t been named Manager of the Year since Davey Johnson in 1997.
In case you need a reminder, the BBWAA award winners will be announced as follows:
Nov. 10 - AL and NL Rookie of the Year Award
Nov. 11 - AL and NL Manager of the Year Award
Nov. 12 - AL and NL Cy Young Award
Nov. 13 - AL and NL Most Valuable Player Award
Showalter finished as runner-up to Scioscia last month for the Sporting News Manager of the Year award. He received five votes, one fewer than Scioscia. Showalter won it in 2012.
Ballots were submitted by managers in both leagues prior to the postseason.
Update: Nelson Cruz and Adam Jones weren’t included among the finalists for AL MVP, though they figure to have received votes.
AL Rookie of the Year: Jose Abreu, Dellin Betances, Matt Shoemaker
NL Rookie of the Year: Jacob deGrom, Billy Hamilton, Kolten Wong
AL Manager of the Year: Buck Showalter, Mike Scioscia, Ned Yost
NL Manager of the Year: Bruce Bochy, Clint Hurdle, Matt Williams
AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez, Corey Kluber, Chris Sale
NL Cy Young: Johnny Cuerto, Clayton Kershaw, Adam Wainwright
AL MVP: Michael Brantley, Victor Martinez, Mike Trout
NL MVP: Clayton Kershaw, Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton
|
About
The Padillak
We are water sport junkies.
We live for the water. Whether it's an ocean, lake or river, we love being able to explore and cruise on these bodies of water in all kinds of different and exciting ways. We created the Padillak to change up the way we spend our days on the water by instantly transforming any stand-up paddle board into a kayak. And now, we want to share the Padillak with you!
The Padillak is equipped with an easily adjustable module base and securely Velcros onto your board. Once put in place, you can take a seat on our comfortable and sturdy nylon seat cushion that doubles as a personal flotation device and enjoy a relaxing kayak ride. The Padillak fits on all paddle boards without compromising the original use the board was designed for.
Our goal is to start mass producing the Padillak and making it available to the public as soon as possible. We need your support to make our goal a reality and bring the Padillak to other water sport junkies like ourselves.
Features
PADILLAK STANDARD (retail value: $489)
1 seat
10 dunlock modules
10 feet of velcro
1 cargo net
1 carry bag
1 PFD
1 whistle
2 balance handles
1 koozie
1 bumper sticker
PADILLAK DELUXE (retail value: $639)
Everything included in the Padillak Standard plus:
2 paddle clips
1 drink holder
1 bluetooth speaker
4 paddle lights
1 Padillak T-shirt
1 Padillak baseball hat
1 Padillak coffee mug
1 waterproof phone case
Additional Attachments:
|
A collection of 50 super creative banner ads from across the globe. Includes all-time classics, Cannes winners and banners that make you ask yourself – “Now why didn’t I think of that?” This is online advertising at its creative best.
Note Click images to view complete animated creatives. Flash browser plug-in required. Disclaimer: All logos and banners are properties of their respective brands and organizations.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
Via BannerBlog. Hope you enjoyed this compilation. Visit our advertising section for more great ads. Which one’s your favorite of the lot? Is there a banner you think should be on this list? Share this post and your feedback in the comments below.
|
IBM Asks Women In Tech To Hack Hair Dryers, Women Tweet Back To Tell IBM It’s Not The 1950s
Looks like IBM needs to reengineer what it thinks about women. A tweet went out on IBM’s official Twitter feed asking women in tech to, I kid you not, “Join the # HackAHairDryer experiment.”
Not hack computer software, math problems or something of social impact – a beauty product. According to IBM’s Twitter account, that’s “what matters in science” to women.
But do something dumb on social media and ye shall receive a proper thwacking.
https://twitter.com/cinnamaldehyde/status/673718946353168384
Hundreds of Twitter users immediately began responding to IBM’s tweet with some great retorts to the sexist suggestion that women with their lady brains are most interested in switching up the hair dryer, instead of anything else that is not about their looks.
https://twitter.com/joalabaster/status/673737520920662016
https://twitter.com/kav_p/status/673737708410310656
Not even the accompanying video does a good job of involving women. Instead it stars the mighty hair dryer, barely showing half the heads of women, hair flowing while the dryer blows at their faces.
We’re sure IBM’s marketing team thought this was a great way to get the ladies involved. Big Blue launched a campaign earlier this year to highlight more women in STEM. But the tone-deaf campaign backfired in a big way, with some hilarious results.
How did something like this slip through marketing? A source told us there weren’t enough women on the team. IBM told TechCrunch, “The videos were part of a larger campaign to promote STEM careers. It missed the mark for some and we apologize. It is being discontinued.”
Perhaps the company will realize how important lady brains are for more than just a hair dryer next time.
|
Veterans Affairs underspent its budget by $200-million last year, raising questions about the Liberal government's plan to pump even more cash into a system that seems perpetually unable to get money out the door.
The figures are contained in the latest plans and priority report for the federal budget year that ended last March, which shows many of the federal government's marquee disability and entitlement programs had surpluses of tens of millions of dollars.
Janice Summerby, a Veteran Affairs spokeswoman, says it is the largest difference between planned and actual spending at the department in the last decade.
Story continues below advertisement
The Conservatives, while they were in power, were accused by the Liberals and New Democrats of deliberately underspending at the same department – to the tune of $1.13-billion over seven years – in an attempt to balance the budget on the backs on veterans, an assertion the Harper government denied.
The last election campaign saw the Liberals promise to spend an additional $300-million a year to improve benefits and support, including a return to lifelong pensions, as opposed to lump-sum injury compensation payments.
The department's report says the current pot of unspent funds is the result of veterans not taking advantage of available benefits, and adds it's difficult to forecast how many will actually apply.
Ms. Summerby added the difference between planned and actual spending has no impact on the level of care and support.
All of the lapsed funds were returned to the federal treasury.
Andrew Bernardo, who served as a policy adviser under the Conservatives, said one of the most frustrating aspects of that party's tenure was an absence of data to make informed decisions within Veterans Affairs, particularly on rehabilitation programs.
The minister's office was often "as blind as a bat" when it came to being able to assess and benchmark programs, he said.
Story continues below advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
"This isn't just a systemic issue with Veterans Affairs, but it is across the board," said Mr. Bernardo, who emphasized his comments are not intended to be partisan. He said he takes the Liberals at their word that they're looking for good ideas from across the political spectrum.
"Government is getting better at it, but yeah, it is surprising and what it means is the minister of veterans affairs and the defence minister, no matter how well intentioned – if you don't have those figures, it is very difficult."
Writing a blank cheque for veterans is not going to guarantee improved services, warned Mr. Bernardo, adding that he doesn't believe the Liberals fully appreciate how difficult it's going to be to push an extra $300-million through the system, nor its impact on the bottom line.
Under the government's accrual accounting system, the full cost of some of the programs – particularly pensions – will have to be booked up front in the year they are announced.
That, said Mr. Bernardo, will drive up the federal deficit.
He said he believes there are several common-sense things the government can do that will make the lives of veterans better without breaking the bank.
Story continues below advertisement
Among the ideas is a proposal to combine the offices of the veterans and Canadian Forces ombudsman.
Mr. Bernardo says Guy Parent and Gary Walbourne should be locked in a room together until they come up with a plan to combine their functions and mandates because they essentially serve the same constituency.
Another proposal involves allowing the Canadian Forces surgeon-general to decide whether a soldier's injury is attributable to service – a hugely controversial issue within the veterans community.
At the moment, both National Defence and Veterans Affairs have their own systems. Ex-soldiers have, in some cases, been denied benefits for injuries that got them kicked out of the military in the first place.
Mr. Bernardo says giving the surgeon-general the last word would conceivably eliminate a whole bureaucracy that has been geared to handling appeals, smoothing the way for veterans to get their benefits faster.
|
Michael Goodman (right) apologised to his victim Claude Soffel (Picture: Facebook)
A man has apologised to a person he mugged more than 30 years ago after finding him on Facebook.
Michael Goodman was looking at a post about a bagel shop in New York when he recognised Claude Soffel’s name.
He had taken a bus pass from him outside the city’s Museum of Natural History in the 1970s.
Michael Goodman (left) stole a bus pass from Claude Soffel in their younger days (Picture: Facebook)
Goodman, now in his 50s, was arrested immediately after the incident but has felt guilty ever since.
‘I have never forgotten the incident or your name (it has sort of haunted me a bit throughout my life),’ he wrote in a message to Mr Soffel on the Facebook thread.
‘Then here I am on [Facebook] reading about my favorite bagel store in the world closing down…. my brain was blown!
Better late than never: The apology was posted on an open Facebook thread (Picture: Facebook)
‘Finally I can say ~ I’M VERY SORRY that you had to go through that crap that day long ago, I wish it had never happened but it did.’
Advertisement
Advertisement
Mr Goodman faced an intense ten-hour wait for a reply, but the man he had mugged more than three decades ago did eventually get back to him.
‘Michael A. Goodman, clearly your [sic] a “bigger man” today. wow. Memory is a funny thing, I recognize your name now, as well. So, apology accepted,’ Mr Soffel wrote.
|
Utah is known for many things: the Great Salt Lake, its high Mormon population, hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics and, now, being the ultimate nerd capital of the United States, apparently.
Real estate website Estately published a list of the nerdiest states in America this week and the Beehive State came out on top, followed closely by Alaska, Wyoming and Idaho. On the other end, Washington, D.C., Mississippi and New Jersey were named the least nerdy.
Estately created the list by calculating the percentage of users in each state, plus the District of Columbia, who listed one of the following as an interest on Facebook: cosplay, anime movies, fantasy lit, comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, LARPing, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Magic: The Gathering, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The data revealed a few trends: Nerds prefer less-populated, more rural states over places like California, New York, Texas and Florida, and they also seem to avoid the South like the plague.
The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now
There are some issues with the list, however. For starters, anyone who thinks Washington, D.C. is the least nerdy place in the country has clearly not spent much time in the land where people openly identify as “policy wonks.”
Second, because the list is determined by Facebook interests, it only charts the openly nerdy among us — Mississippi may not seem like a nerd paradise, but for all we know, it could have the largest secret network of social media-averse Dungeons & Dragons players meeting up in the dead of night to roll their polyhedral dice in peace.
Write to Nolan Feeney at [email protected].
|
WASHINGTON: Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Jammu and Kashmir Mushahid Hussain Syed, on a visit to the United States, said US-India relations are the reason for Pakistan's burgeoning ties with Russia.
In a program organised by the think tank Atlantic Council, Hussain said, "We [Pakistan] are observing a change in US diplomatic policy".
Hussain said every action has a reaction, and Pakistan felt the need to develop close ties with Russia after President Obama’s two visits to India.
“This was the start of a new chapter in Pakistan-Russia ties.”
The senator added that Russia is in favour of building a working relationship with countries of the region and it has also started a dialogue process with Afghan Taliban through back-door channels.
He said the US State Department had refused to give visa to then Gujrat Chief Minister Narinder Modi in 2006, but when Modi was elected as Indian Prime Minister, US changed its policy for political gains.
"This U-turn of US policy can be traced back to the time of Bush administration, when the US-India nuclear deal was signed which was against the law of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons," said Hussain.
"Stability of Afghanistan and eradication of terrorism is a top priority of the US, which needs Pakistan to play a role in the peace-process. Pakistan is not only providing its assistance in the peace process but also facing damages," stated the senator while addressing the audience.
Violating Indus Waters Treaty will be an act of war
The senator stated India can not violate the Indus Waters Treaty, as that will constitute as an act of war.
"Apart from Pakistan and India, the World Bank is also a stakeholder in the treaty," said Hussain.
Commenting on the Uri attack in India-held Kashmir, Husain said, "UN military observer group for India and Pakistan should investigate the Uri attack. Crossing the Line of Control to attack any target in India is not possible for any militant."
He added that if India has any evidence or intelligence regarding the attack, it should be shared with Pakistan.
A contingent of Russian ground forces arrived in Pakistan earlier in September for the first ever joint Pak-Russian military exercise.
The two-week-long exercise is expected to continue until Oct 10. The exercises with Russian ground forces come at a time when tensions between Pakistan and India are running high following an attack on the Uri military camp in India-held Kashmir.
Around 200 military personnel of both countries will participate in the drills.
|
Ever wonder how that wish list you make every year gets to Santa or whether or not he'll get it time for Christmas? Well thanks to the Sandestin golf and beach resort telling the big man upstairs, at the north pole that is, can be done right from where you're sitting thanks to Skype.
"The Sandestin Skype program started because we wanted to touch and positively impact children from around the world” said Laurie Hobbs.
Speaking of Kris Kringle, when the program started two years ago he was little nervous no one would want to speak with him.
"The day that we launched it we didn't have any calls and i went home and i got a call and next thing i know we're flooded with calls. Well we forgot to mention that we were from four to five central time" said Santa.
You heard him right, from four p-m to five p-m(central time of course)you can actually speak to Santa Claus. Skyping with Santa has become such a big tradition for the Sandestin resort that children and their parents are setting up their web cams every night to meet the big man in red. However it isn't just kids in America who want to give Santa their wish list.
"Well last year the majority was Europe. A lot of calls from England, Ireland, a few French, we had some Scandinavian countries Finland, Sweden” said Santa.
Santa says being able to touch the lives of so many people around the world at the click of a button makes his job that much more gratifying.
"Well the biggest benefit is knowing that, that I’m an outlet. That someone might be having a bad time or a bad spot in their life and they're reaching out to me to bring a glimpse of joy and that's what i can offer" said Santa.
The free Santa Skype program takes place Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 4-to-5 pm central time.
The Skype location name is "sandestinresort".
|
A vehicle believed to have been the one that struck and killed an 81-year-old man crossing the street in Glendale has been located by investigators, police stated Wednesday.
Martiros Arutyunyan was crossing Broadway and Belmont Street about 8 p.m. Saturday when he was hit by a white sedan, according to the Glendale Police Department. The driver sped off without rendering aid to the dying man.
Arutyunyan, who sustained head injuries, was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
On Tuesday, the city of Glendale announced a $50,000 reward in the case. Surveillance video showing the crash and the vehicle involved was also released to the public.
The suspect vehicle was impounded and was being forensically processed for evidence, including DNA, according to a statement from police.
It was not clear where the vehicle was found.
Investigators said they had also identified a person of interest in the crash, although no arrest had been made as of Wednesday evening.
Anyone with information was asked to call Glendale police 818-548-4911. Witnesses may provide tips anonymously.
|
Salvia Ingredient Studied As Medical Treatment
There's a long history of trying to turn mind altering drugs like LSD into something that would be useful for therapies. Scientists are trying to do that with the latest popular hallucinogen. It's called Salvia Divinorin. It's been in the news lately because teen idol Mylie Cyrus was apparently caught on video smoking it.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Joe Palca reports.
JOE PALCA: Salvia divinorum is a plant. It's a member of the mint family. Smoking it sends users on an otherworldly voyage.
MATTHEW JOHNSON: Some people would speculate that it's another dimension. Others would describe it as the spirit world.
PALCA: For example, people on the drug psilocybin - what makes magic mushrooms hallucinogenic - are aware of the real world around them and can function in it. During the brief-but-potent high, people on salvia can barely move, and they feel as if they've left planet Earth.
JOHNSON: A completely different reality where they're interacting with things they're either calling entities or angels or figures that have even given themselves names in this otherworldly experience.
PALCA: Johnson wanted to see if there were any physical side effects to this mental trip. So he invited people who had used other hallucinogens to try salvia and looked to see if there were any potentially harmful spikes in heart rate or blood pressure.
JOHNSON: Under the conditions of the study, it did appear to be a physiologically safe drug.
PALCA: At least for the things Johnson measured. But he says while the drug may not be harmful physically, it can be mentally.
JOHNSON: There's the psychological toxicity. That is to say, this is a strong drug and people can do strange, potentially dangerous things when they're on it.
PALCA: Salvia belongs to a class of drugs that activate something called the kappa opioid receptor. Heroin and morphine also activate opioid receptors, but they activate the mu opioid receptor.
ELENA CHARTOFF: When you activate the mu receptor, like you do with heroin or morphine, you get a euphoric - you get a rush, a high.
PALCA: Elena Chartoff studies opioid receptors at McLean Hospital in Boston.
CHARTOFF: But when you activate the kappa receptor with a drug, you get kind of the opposite effect, that depressive-like effect.
PALCA: Salvinorin A, the active ingredient in salvia, has a powerful effect on the kappa opioid receptors. Chartoff says scientists are looking at ways to take molecules like Salvinorin A...
CHARTOFF: And altering them using a chemistry to develop compounds that have all the beneficial properties, but don't have the disadvantages.
PALCA: Hallucinations are generally considered an unwanted side effect in drug therapies. But pharmacologist Bryan Roth of the University of North Carolina says those properties may be useful for neuroscientists.
BRYAN ROTH: One of the things to me that's interesting about drugs that are hallucinogens is they alter the way we see reality.
PALCA: Roth is trying to figure out which brain circuits Salvinorin A acts on - where in the brain we decide what's real and what's not.
ROTH: You know, what could be more important than how we view reality, right?
PALCA: Joe Palca, NPR News, Washington.
Copyright © 2011 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
|
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Hywel Williams warns of the cost of quitting the European customs union
Theresa May has been warned her Brexit plan will cause "calamitous self-harm" to Welsh exporters.
Hywel Williams, Plaid Cymru's leader in Parliament, said leaving the European customs union would risk more than Welsh 200,000 jobs.
He told the House of Commons the union took 68% of Welsh exports, and 90% of its food and drink exports.
The prime minister responded saying she wanted to negotiate deals and open up new markets for Welsh businesses.
In her speech on Tuesday announcing the UK should pull out of the European single market, Mrs May had warned EU leaders it would be a "calamitous act of self-harm" to punish Britain with harsh terms for Brexit.
Arfon MP Mr Williams echoed that phrase when he tackled her on the issue during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.
"How can abandoning membership of the customs union that takes 68% of Wales's exports, including 90% of our food and drink exports, and which supports 200,000 jobs cause anything other than calamitous self-harm?" he asked.
The prime minister replied: "What we will be doing is negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union to get the best possible access for trade with the European Union.
"But we also want to be able to negotiate deals, trade agreements with other countries around the world. A number of countries have already expressed interest in doing that with us.
"We want to do that to open up and see new export markets being delivered for businesses here in the United Kingdom, including for the sort of trade he's talking about in Wales."
|
Get the biggest Manchester City FC 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
Manchester City and Roma officials will meet ahead of the teams' clash in Melbourne on Tuesday in an attempt to thrash out a deal for Edin Dzeko.
The Blues and the Italian giants go head to head at the MCG in the International Champions Cup.
But it is the off-field showdown that will determine striker Dzeko's future.
The Blues are willing to sell the Bosnian hitman but want around £20m for a player that cost them £27m from Wolfsburg in 2011.
Roma are though to be willing to pay around £12m.
Those two valuations will have to get closer together for Dzeko, who has helped to City two titles, to leave the Etihad.
Roma are keen, though - as they have been all summer.
Sporting director Walter Sabatini flew to Manchester last week to try to push a deal through and club legend Francesco Totti expressed his admiration.
More on City
“I hope he is among the new signings, because he is a top player,” he said. “He is formidable in front of goal and could help us improve on last year.”
As it stands, Dzeko - who has also been linked with a move to Arsenal - will be part of the City squad that faces Roma at the MCG on Tuesday, 11am.
|
Tempted by the idea of modular synthesis but not sure where to start? Don’t have the space for a giant large-format modular?
Eurorack systems are the most popular format for modular synthesis, because they’re more portable than traditional large-format 5U systems, and because there’s a huge variety of modules available.
This video takes a look at getting started with Eurorack modulars. In the video, Eurorack synth guru DivKid shares his take on what you’ll need to get started, covering case considerations, power, patching, modules and more.
Whether your preference is a large-format modular or a Eurorack system, a good starter system will include: an oscillator (VCO) or other sound generator; a filter (VCF); an amplifier (VCA); and some modules that can be used for modulating controlling or automating the settings on your synth (keyboard, sequencer, LFOs, envelopes, etc).
What modules would you put in your starter modular? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!
via FM
|
We’ll have more when the hearing actually starts, but Yellen’s testimony is out and it’s as expected.
The key graf
The Committee continues to expect that the evolution of the economy will warrant gradual increases in the federal funds rate over time to achieve and maintain maximum employment and stable prices. That expectation is based on our view that the federal funds rate remains somewhat below its neutral level–that is, the level of the federal funds rate that is neither expansionary nor contractionary and keeps the economy operating on an even keel. Because the neutral rate is currently quite low by historical standards, the federal funds rate would not have to rise all that much further to get to a neutral policy stance. But because we also anticipate that the factors that are currently holding down the neutral rate will diminish somewhat over time, additional gradual rate hikes are likely to be appropriate over the next few years to sustain the economic expansion and return inflation to our 2 percent goal. Even so, the Committee continues to anticipate that the longer-run neutral level of the federal funds rate is likely to remain below levels that prevailed in previous decades.
|
Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Feb. 11, 2016, 12:18 AM GMT / Updated Feb. 11, 2016, 12:18 AM GMT By Tom Costello
Federal transportation regulators and the country's main pilot union are all warning against shipping large quantities of lithium ion batteries as cargo.
The National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday said it’s time to ban bulk battery shipments on all passenger planes. The Federal Aviation Administration put out a safety alert last month warning carriers that when transported as cargo the batteries pose “potential risk for a catastrophic hull loss.”
While most U.S. airlines already ban bulk shipments of batteries, nearly every cell phone, laptop, tablet and gaming device on a plane comes with lithium batteries that can overheat.
"We're seeing regular events world-wide where lithium batteries are over-heating, causing on-board fires and that causes me concern," Capt. John Cox, an aviation analyst told NBC News.
Already small fires have forced several passenger planes to make emergency landings. A top pilots union is calling for tough new international standards.
Related: FAA Backs Ban on Shipping Lithium Batteries on Commercial Airlines
After the House of Representatives introduced its FAA reauthorization bill last week, the Air Line Pilots Association quickly voiced opposition to several aspects of the draft legislation, including what the organization said it sees as the failure to properly and appropriately regulate the transportation and packaging of lithium batteries by air.
In one FAA test, an airline cargo container packed with 5,000 batteries suddenly caught fire.
Just such a fire was blamed on the 2010 crash of a UPS cargo plane carrying 80,000 batteries. Two pilots were killed in the crash.
In 2006 another UPS cargo plane barely made it to Philadelphia after a fire erupted on board. Both pilots managed to escape.
UPS, FedEx and JetBlue are adding E-Vas oxygen systems to their planes so pilots can breathe and see through the smoke in a fast-moving fire.
"There are billions of these lithium-ion batteries being carried and they all have the potential to catch fire," Greg Feith a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator and aviation analyst told NBC News.
|
The Miami Dolphins' climb from their place as one of four winless teams just became a whole lot more interesting: Quarterback Chad Henne will require surgery to repair a shoulder separation and miss the rest of the season, multiple team sources said Thursday.
Veteran quarterback Sage Rosenfels has signed a terms sheet with the Dolphins and is taking a physical Thursday, a league source told NFL Network insider Jason La Canfora. Rosenfels, a former Dolphins quarterback, was placed on injured reserve by the New York Giants in August with a blood illness, but he ultimately was released with no injury settlement.
Rosenfels also has played for the Washington Redskins, Houston Texans and Minnesota Vikings. He has a 62.5 career completion percentage with 30 touchdowns and 29 interceptions in 10 NFL seasons.
Negotiations with several other quarterbacks were unsuccessful Tuesday and Wednesday, as the Dolphins looked to land a veteran to compete with Matt Moore, who was the only other available quarterback on the roster.
The Dolphins currently are in their bye week, but they have practiced each of the last two days and will practice again Thursday.
They play their next game one week from Monday -- Oct. 17 -- against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.
It seems reasonable to anticipate Moore's experience in Miami's current offense will earn him the start in that game. During his duties as Henne's replacement Sunday, Moore completed 17 of 26 passes for 167 yards with an interception. He also took the starting repetitions during Tuesday's practice, although he was the only healthy quarterback at the time.
"He looked good," Sparano said of Moore's first practice Tuesday. "He did a good job out there. It's the most reps he's taken in a while. He did a good job and had good recall, good control of the offense. There's no install (Tuesday), just old playbook stuff."
Moore, to this point, hadn't been vying for the starting position, which clearly belonged to Henne throughout training camp and into the season.
Listen to the 2011 NFL season LIVE -- hear all the action online in premium sound quality with NFL Audio Pass. Listen to the 2011 NFL season LIVE -- hear all the action online in premium sound quality with NFL Audio Pass. Sign up now!
Henne has been among the team's brighter spots this season, looking more impressive with his decisions, leadership and throws than many anticipated. He suffered the shoulder injury during a botched handoff in the first quarter Sunday.
Henne ends his season after completing 64 of 112 passes (57.1 percent) for 868 yards and four touchdowns with four interceptions. He'd already been sacked 11 times through just four games.
Adding an interesting dynamic to the situation, Henne is scheduled to become a free agent after this season, which will leave the Dolphins in an odd situation. Henne and the team will both need to decide at some point whether to continue their union after an improved but limited body of work this season.
For now, though, the Dolphins simply will be focused on something else: Getting this team turned around.
|
In a chat with Vulture , the hip-hop superstar talks romance with the interviewer, and apparently, he’s been meeting people via dating apps. It’s a bit surprising that somebody as famous as Eminem would resort to the same mobile applications everyday people use, but what’s even more shocking is which ones he’s chosen to download. According to the rapper himself, he’s met people via Tinder...and Grindr.
Just a few days ago, Eminem dropped highly-anticipated his new album Revival, which fans have been waiting years for. As is typically the case before and immediately surrounding the release of a new record, the musician has been doing a handful of interviews to promote his latest full-length, and in one, he's dropped something of a bomb that suggests he’s exploring his sexuality in a way nobody could have predicted...or maybe not.
Do you date? It’s tough. Since my divorce I’ve had a few dates and nothing’s panned out in a way that I wanted to make it public. Dating’s just not where I’m at lately. When you were dating, how’d you meet people? Tinder? I mean, yeah. Are you being serious? Yeah, Tinder. Really? [Laughs] And Grindr. I also used to go to strip clubs.
For those not in the know, Grindr is a dating and hookup app that describes itself as "the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people," and while it did recently adapt to include people across the gender and sexuality spectrum, it is still known primarily as a dating app for men in the LGBT community.
The rapper and journalist quickly move on from dating and discuss other important topics like the news and race relations in the U.S. Surprisingly, the interviewer doesn’t make any further mention of Em’s Grindr revelation, which seems like something that could have used some clarification, if only for the reader.
While the audio recording of the interview wasn’t published alongside the write-up, it's certainly possible that Em might have been joking. The interviewer and the rapper quickly make a joke about meeting people in strip clubs (where "a lot of long-term relationships start"), which seems hardly serious.
It’s unclear what the "Walk on Water" star meant by his Grindr comment, but if this was his way of coming out as gay, bisexual, or perhaps just queer or questioning, congrats to him on being open and honest with himself! If it was all just for a laugh, congrats on the new album anyway.
Next, watch the hip-hop powerhouse talk about fellow superstar Lady Gaga back at Bonnaroo in 2011.
|
US officials Monday extended a ban on air cargo from Yemen to include Somalia and slapped new restrictions on passenger goods on US-bound international flights after a foiled parcel bomb plot.
From Monday, “no high risk cargo will be allowed on passenger aircraft,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement, adding that international mail would also be screened individually.
A ban on all cargo flights from Yemen, imposed after last month’s plot was narrowly averted, will be extended and imposed on Somalia as well, she said.
“Toner and ink cartridges over 16 ounces will be prohibited on passenger aircraft in both carry-on bags and checked bags on domestic and international flights in-bound to the United States,” Napolitano added.
Canada announced similar measures several hours later.
Transport Minister Chuck Strahl said that over the next 14 days Canada would accept no air cargo or mail from Yemen and Somalia as Ottawa conducts a “further risk assessment.”
Two packages addressed to Chicago synagogues containing the hard-to-detect explosive PETN hidden in printer ink cartridges were uncovered in Dubai and Britain’s East Midlands Airport on October 28, sparking a global scare.
Al-Qaeda’s wing in Yemen on Friday claimed responsibility for the parcel bomb threat, and also said it downed an airliner from the cargo carrier UPS in Dubai in September.
French officials have said one of the bombs was only 17 minutes from exploding, although that account has not been confirmed by other governments.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has ordered airlines to begin implementing the new measures, which also mean that all cargo identified as high risk will be subjected to extra and enhanced screening at airports.
These measures will also effect “inbound international mail packages, which must be screened individually and certified to have come from an established postal shipper,” Napolitano added.
“The administration is also working closely with industry and our international partners to expedite the receipt of cargo manifests for international flights to the United States prior to departure in order to identify and screen items based on risk and current intelligence.”
TSA head John Pistole visited Yemen last week to discuss with the government how to carry out the security improvements needed before the ban can be lifted.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Kurbi Abu Bakr al-Kurbi told the Abu Dhabi daily The National on Monday that Yemen had imposed measures of its own.
“Yemen has now of course put additional curbs on sending cargo,” he said. “For cargo, they used to rely on companies that are in charge of sending this cargo because they are responsible for inspecting them for safety.
“The government has now had to intervene directly to place restrictions.”
|
PARIS — On the final day of the U.N. Climate Conference in Paris, activists associated with the group Friends of the Earth disbursed around the city and used their cell phones to spell out "Climate Justice" as well as "Peace," using geolocation tagging.
The demonstration was designed to skirt around the ban on protests that French authorities had put in place ahead of the climate summit and in the wake of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks.
Friends of the Earth claims that about 3,000 people participated in the campaign, with about 1,200 points on the map.
The action was one of several protests throughout Paris, involving more than 10,000 activists, according to figures from the group 350.org. Activists with 350.org and other organizations laid a red line from the Arc de Triomphe, along Avenue de la Grande Armée toward the business district La Défense, where oil company Total is headquartered.
This is what thousands of people who want real solutions look like. #COP21, the world is watching. #d12 pic.twitter.com/BgPGQKiBFl — 350 dot org (@350) December 12, 2015
Payal Parekh, 350.org global managing director, said in a statement: “Our communities, our climate, our survival: those are our red lines, and we’re mobilizing to defend them. Paris has never been an end point for us, but a chance to get an agreement that will help us continue with our fight for climate justice. If politicians won’t keep fossil fuels in the ground, we will. Our survival depends on it.”
|
Three months after winning his fifth Super Bowl ring, Tom Brady just won an offseason title too. The New England Patriots quarterback was selected to be on the cover of "Madden NFL 18," becoming the oldest player to appear on the cover of the popular EA Sports game.
Brady, who will turn 40 in August, grew up a few miles away from where Electronic Arts opened in his hometown of San Mateo, California. As a kid, he would work out in the EA gym, in part because the company employed a family friend who lived across the street from him.
"When this all came about," Brady told ESPN's Ian O'Connor, "I thought, 'How cool is that to do this, knowing when I was a kid in high school I was tagging along down there, working out where it all started?' It's been such a great game over a long period of time. I played it so much when I was younger, a little less now. ... My son Jack loves beating up on me."
Brady follows last year's Madden cover player, teammate Rob Gronkowski, who missed the postseason after landing on injured reserve -- adding credence to the notion of the so-called Madden Curse that started in 1999, when the first player to appear on the cover, San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst, broke his ankle in a playoff loss to Atlanta.
"I don't think Gronk's ever been cursed by anything," Brady countered. "He's in pretty good shape."
But Brady acknowledged that in accepting the EA honor, he might have added an opponent to the 2017 schedule.
"I suppose there's been some reality to that curse over the years," Brady conceded. "Hopefully I can break it. That would be pretty cool."
Tom Brady, who will turn 40 in August, will become the oldest player to grace the cover of the popular Madden NFL video game. Courtesy of EA Sports
When he does play Madden, Brady said he usually finds himself overmatched by the oldest of his three children, 9-year-old Jack, who often chooses the Patriots as his team, forcing his father to compete against his own franchise.
"I don't like doing it," Brady said. "It does feel weird. I feel like I'm going up against my own guys that I love. Julian [Edelman] catches a pass, and I've got to tackle him. I've been Green Bay, because I like that offense. And I've been Seattle, because I love being that defense.
"But to be the one to represent our team on the cover, I never thought I'd have the opportunity to do it. Personally, I think it's very cool. When it comes out, that's a topic of conversation in our locker room for weeks and weeks, even as we go into the season. ... I think I represent a lot of people when I do something like this. And only one person gets to do it every year."
|
Rumor: Red Dead Redemption HD is Coming to the PS4, Xbox One and PC
Red Dead Redemption HD is reportedly coming to the PS4, Xbox One and PC, according to a rumor from a source in Korea.
According to Korean site Game Focus, the HD remaster of Red Dead Redemption is being pushed through the Asian localization process, leading to speculation that it will be announced during the PlayStation Meeting on September 7th. According to the source, the game is expected to launch within the first half of 2017, though this is subject to change.
There has been talk of a potential Red Dead Redemption sequel for years now, with many believing that Rockstar was set to unveil Red Dead Redemption 2 at this year’s E3. While that wasn’t the case, on previous investors calls Rockstar’s parent company Take Two have still listed RDR as one of the developer’s most notable franchises, meaning that there is obviously plans for a sequel to eventually see the light of day.
Red Dead Redemption HD may not present fans of the original game with the follow-up they’ve been waiting for, but if a sequel is planned it will at least provide a stop-gap for players to reintroduce themselves to the story of John Marston. It is hoped that the remaster will share the same graphics engine as Grand Theft Auto V, which ran on a finely tuned version of Rockstar’s RAGE engine.
|
Looking through the LSA treasures with the London boroughs in mind, has reminded me about how important these units of local government are to Londoners. Invented in 1965, the London Boroughs are now 50 years old.
At 50 they are now firmly bedded down into London: always present in the urban landscape, 7 days a week, a bit like the weather. And like the weather, the boroughs can be changeable; going through the odd stormy period but generally being benign and enabling things to grow. The boroughs are, after all, the agents of the people, working for the people. And how better to celebrate their 50 years of public service than through film.
Here are some films that have caught my eye as saying something about the splendid, but often unsung work the boroughs have done over the past 50 years.
|
For those who survived For those who survived Gamergate , a 2014 dustup over the place of women in the video-gaming world, the 2016 election is instilling a deep and unpleasant sense of déjà vu. It’s not just that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his acolytes are playing to the same grievance about “social justice warriors” who dare to think that white men should share power with women and people of color. It’s that Trump and his men are using the same tools as the Gamergaters: gaslighting, projection working the refs and leaning heavily on often subconscious double standards that allow white men to have more benefit of the doubt than others.
What’s really terrifying is that for a surprisingly long time Gamergate worked: For months, anti-feminists in the tech world were extremely effective at undermining feminists and creating the illusion that a bunch of bullies might have legitimate grievances. Eventually, most witnesses to Gamergate woke up and saw it for what it was. I have no doubt the same will happen with the Trump campaign. Even if many people don’t get it right now, history will remember the campaign as a black mark on our democracy, forged in bigotry.
But there’s a real chance now that the grand awakening won’t happen until after the election, and if that happens there’s a very good chance Trump will win and we will be screwed. Which is why it’s useful to revisit Gamergate and think long and hard about how it is that bigots manage to manipulate large crowds and even the media into minimizing the dangers that bigots represent.
While there had been already been some harassment of feminist gaming critics, Gamergate really took off in 2014, when a young man named While there had been already been some harassment of feminist gaming critics, Gamergate really took off in 2014, when a young man named Eron Gjoni was dumped by his girlfriend: video-game developer Zoe Quinn . Rather than gracefully accept the end of the relationship, Gjoni wrote a nearly 10,000-word screed in which he painted Quinn as a slut and accused her of trying to manipulate men with her sexuality.
The strategy worked. With her success in the industry and her willingness to reject a man, Quinn tickled misogynist anxieties about ambitious, disobedient women. Soon she was awash in thousands of harassing messages and forced to leave her home out of concerns for her safety.
Bigots and reactionaries rarely admit their unsavory motivations. So as the harassment campaign grew in size, with more ambitious and outspoken women added as targets, a justification was needed to distract critics. Gamergaters seized on Gjoni’s insinuations that Quinn had exchanged sex for positive game reviews.
There was no evidence of such a thing, of course, but by raising questions, the bigots had their cover story. This was about “ethics in journalism” not misogyny. Targets seemed to be chosen strictly on the basis of feminist views, not any evidence of unethical behavior. But the hand-wringing about “ethics” and “corruption” and demands about “raising questions” worked. Many media representatives and other gatekeepers were cowed into trying to treat Gamergaters as people with legitimate concerns about corruption, instead of participants in a misogynist witch hunt.
|
Lancia D50 Cutaway Wallpaper Reading time: about 1 minute. Cars
Engineering
Ferrari
Formula 1
Racing
The Lancia D50 was a revolutionary Formula 1 car first introduced in 1954, it was a design far ahead of its time and when it was running on form, it was almost unbeatable. It was designed by Vittorio Jano for Lancia in 1954 and it incorporated a series of unusual and highly effective features – the engine was mounted off-centre to allow the driveshaft to pass to the left side of the driver – this helped lower the height of the vehicle and improve centre of gravity.
The engine is also utilised as a stressed chassis member to reduce weight, this fastidious attention to weight and balance was carried forward into the fuel cell design – the side pods on the left and right side of the vehicle contain the fuel which assists with weight distribution and aerodynamics.
Although the Lancia D50 was advanced it suffered from reliability problems and encountered more than its fair share of bad luck. After Lancia was sold off to investors in 1955 (one of whom was Ferrari), a modified version of the D50 was raced by Scuderia Ferrari in 1956 and 1957, this derivative car was called the Ferrari 801 and it was piloted by Juan Manuel Fangio amongst others.
Over the course of its life at Lancia and Ferrari the D50 (and 801) would take 5 wins, 8 pole positions and set 5 fastest laps. It’s thought that only 2 still remain, both owned by Italian museums and still occasionally used at vintage motoring events in Europe.
If you’d like to download the above image of the D50 you can click the button below, I’ve also added an old showreel of Juan Manuel Fangio driving the Ferrari 801 around Monaco – which comes highly recommended.
Download Here
|
(File photo) A vendor sells spices on a street in Srinagar. REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli
Washington - Indian food, with its spicy ingredients and intoxicating aromas, is coveted around the world. The labour-intensive cuisine and its mix of spices is more often than not a revelation for those who eat it for the first time. Heavy doses of cardamom, cayenne, tamarind and other flavours can overwhelm an unsuspecting palate. Together, they help form the pillars of what tastes so good to so many people.
But behind the appeal of Indian food – what makes it so novel and so delicious – is also a stranger and subtler truth. In an extensive new analysis of more than 2 000 popular recipes, scientists have discovered perhaps the reason why Indian food tastes so unique: it does something radical with flavours, something very different from what we tend to do in Western culture. And it does it at the molecular level.
Let’s take a step back and consider what flavours are and how they interact. If you were to hold a microscope to most Western dishes, you would find an interesting but not too surprising trend. Popular food pairings combine ingredients that share like flavours, which food chemists have broken down into their molecular parts – precise chemical compounds that, when combined, give off a distinct taste.
Most of the compounds have scientific names, though one of the simpler ones is acetal, which, as the food chemist George Burdock has written, is “refreshing, pleasant, and (has a) fruity-green odour”, and can be found in whisky, apple juice and raw beet and orange juice. On average, there are just over 50 flavour compounds in each food ingredient.
A chart published by Scientific American in 2013 shows which foods share the most flavour compounds with others and which food pairings have the most flavour compounds in common. Peanut butter and roasted peanuts have one of the most significant overlaps (no surprise there). But there are connections that are more difficult to predict: strawberries, for instance, have more in common with white wine than they do with apples, oranges or honey.
Chefs in the West like to make dishes with ingredients that have overlapping flavours. But many Asian cuisines have been shown to buck that trend by favouring dishes with ingredients that don’t overlap in flavour. And Indian food, in particular, is one of the most powerful counterexamples.
Researchers at the Indian Institute for Technology in Jodhpur crunched data on several thousand recipes. They broke each dish down to its ingredients, and compared how often and heavily ingredients share flavour compounds. The answer? Not too often.
The researchers examined several thousand recipes, which used a total of 200 ingredients. They looked at how much the underlying flavour compounds overlapped in single dishes and discovered something very different from Western cuisines. Indian cuisine tended to mix ingredients whose flavours don’t overlap at all.
“We found that average flavour sharing in Indian cuisine was significantly less than expected,” researchers wrote. In other words, the more overlap two ingredients have in flavour, the less likely they are to appear in the same dish.
More specifically, many Indian recipes contain cayenne, the basis of curry powder that is in dishes like red curry, green curry, or massaman curry. And when a dish contains cayenne, it’s unlikely to have other ingredients that share similar flavours.
The same can be said of green bell pepper, coriander and garam masala, which are nearly as ubiquitous in Indian cuisine.
“Each of the spices is uniquely placed in its recipe to shape the flavour-sharing pattern with rest of the ingredients,” the researchers noted.
Milk, butter, bread and rice, meanwhile – all of which are hallmarks of Western cuisine – were found to be associated with just the opposite: flavour pairings that match. When any of those ingredients appeared in an Indian dish, there was a good chance there would be a lot of flavour overlap.
Part of what makes Indian food unique is the way flavours rub up against each other. The cuisine is complicated, no doubt: the average Indian dish contains at least seven ingredients. But all the ingredients are important because in any single dish, each one brings its own flavour.
* Ferdman is a reporter for Wonkblog covering food, economics, immigration and other things.
Washington Post
|
Jan 03, 2013
What happened to the ring of dust circling TYC 8241 2652 in the constellation Centaurus?
A recent press release expresses surprise and confusion about the absence of a stellar dust ring that seems to have vanished without a trace. What is most surprising to astronomers is that the ring performed this disappearance in a way contrary to any expectations. If dust clouds are to go missing from observations, they should do so in an orderly fashion.
A dusty ring around the relatively nondescript star was observed for the first time in 1983 by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). IRAS looked at the sky in infrared wavelengths of 12, 25, 60, and 100 microns. This means that it was sensitive to both mid and far-infrared frequencies. As the temperature of an object cools, it glows in longer infrared wavelengths, so some infrared wavelengths are better suited for seeing certain objects.
At the 5 to 40 micron range (mid-infrared) planets, asteroids, comets, and dust “warmed by starlight” is visible. Those light frequencies correspond to temperatures of minus 173 Celsius to approximately 460 Celsius. In the case of TYC 8241 2652, the dust was measured to be about 180 Celsius.
What is puzzling the astronomers is that observations by other instruments can now detect no dust around the star. Ben Zuckerman of UCLA said: “The dust disappearance at TYC 8241 2652 was so bizarre and so quick, initially I figured that our observations must simply be wrong in some strange way.”
What is wrong is not the observations.
There are major assumptions involving observational data. In order for observations to make sense, they must exist within the framework of a theory. A “theory” is simply an assumption or a presupposition. In the Electric Universe, for example, there is an assumption that electricity flows through space, and that plasma is the dominant form of matter.
In the case of the missing dust, the assumption is that the material was heated by thermal energy transmitted from the stellar atmosphere, as well as by collisions between some putative proto-planets. Since the glow from that heated dust is now invisible to infrared detectors, the ring structure must have vanished.
As the press release states, the two solutions proposed by astronomers are not satisfying, even to them. One is that the dust was drawn into the star. Another is that the dust was battered into such small pieces that it became transparent to the detectors on NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Both scenarios should take much longer than the reported two year timespan.
In an Electric Universe, stars are not the thermonuclear fusion engines that consensus theories assume. Rather, plasma and magnetic fields form electric stars through enormous, diffuse Birkeland currents. Such structures prevent plasma from dispersing inside their light-years long helical coils. When the electric current density inside the filaments gets high enough, the plasma that carries the current begins to glow and to “pinch” into plasmoids that eventually become stars.
This means that what occurs near stars must be considered electrically, and not simply on the basis of heat, light, and kinetic events, alone.
When plasma moves through a dust or gas, the cloud becomes ionized and electric charges flow. The currents generate magnetic fields that confine themselves into coherent filaments. Charged particles that compose the currents spiral along the magnetic fields, appearing as electrical vortices.
Around the loci of stellar z-pinches, toroidal plasmoids can get “pumped” with energy. Excess input power might push them into a “glow mode” discharge. In other words, the dusty plasma ring around TYC 8241 2652 was probably electrically energized, and not just heated up by stellar radiation.
Electric stars aren’t begotten in nebular clouds, their progenitor is charge separation. Everything we see in the Universe is ionized to some degree, therefore it is plasma. According to Electric Universe theory, the definition of “plasma” is not the conventional one of “ionized gas.” It is that confused apprehension of plasma that falls back on ideas about gas behavior and thermal effects. Gravity, density, compression, and mechanical phenomena give way to plasma physics.
It is the capacitive, resistive, and inductive electrical environment in and around stars that causes the materials to change in brightness. Therefore, the plasma torus generated by TYC 8241 2652 is most likely no longer energetic enough to be visible to our instruments. It is possible that the falloff of electric power caused the ring to switch off.
Stephen Smith
Hat tip to Tiffany Dombrowski
|
The students — Romen, Michel and Daljith, all aged around 20 and studying computer application and animation at private colleges in Bangalore — have been booked under Section 428 of the Indian Penal Code .
Three students from Manipur have been arrested for allegedly killing their pet dog and cooking it at their rented accommodation in Subhash Nagar area here.
Advertising
The students — Romen, Michel and Daljith, all aged around 20 and studying computer application and animation at private colleges in Bangalore — have been booked under Section 428 of the Indian Penal Code (mischief by killing or maiming animal of value of Rs 10 or upwards) on the basis of a complaint lodged by their neighbour Chandrashekar, an animal rights activist, and other members of the Animal Welfare Association, the police said.
According to the complaint, Chandrashekar said he grew suspicious over an odd smell emanating from the room of the students and went to verify the source of the smell.
[related-post]
He found that the students had skinned their pet dog and were cooking it for a meal, the police said.
The neighbour reported the matter to the Animal Welfare Association and later he and other activists from the association filed a complaint.
Preliminary investigations had revealed that the students bought a puppy six-months ago and raised it at their home. They allegedly killed it on Wednesday for a meal.
Advertising
All three students were produced before a court and were remanded to judicial custody. Section 428 of the IPC entails a maximum punishment of two years imprisonment.
|
iTunes 10.5 is officially available to the public ahead of Wednesday's launch of iCloud and iOS 5. The release is required for users who want to make use of iOS 5 features like iTunes in the Cloud and wireless syncing via WiFi, and is available via Software Update for both Windows and Mac users.
According to Apple's release notes, there are only a few major features that come with iTunes 10.5. The first is iTunes in the Cloud support, which not only allows you to re-download previous music, TV, movie, and book purchases on your iOS devices, but also allows your other devices to automatically download that media when you buy it.
This, plus the wireless WiFi syncing for iOS devices, makes up the bulk of the 10.5 update (Update: As noted by MacRumors, Apple has seeded a new developer version of iTunes that continues to test iTunes Match), though users who don't plan to make use of those features will still want to upgrade if they want to update their devices to iOS 5 when it becomes available. It's also worth noting that the iTunes 10.5 update for Windows 7, Vista, and XP SP2 also comes with a handful of security updates, so it's likely worth upgrading if only for improved security protections, too.
|
Comcast tries to censor pro-net neutrality website calling for investigation of fake FCC comments potentially funded by cable lobby
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, May 23, 2017
Contact: Evan Greer, 978-852-6457, [email protected]
Fight for the Future received a cease and desist order from Comcast’s attorneys for our site Comcastroturf.com. Without net neutrality rules, Comcast could have censored the site outright.
Digital rights group Fight for the Future has received a cease and desist order from Comcast’s lawyers, claiming that Comcastroturf.com - a pro-net neutrality site encouraging Internet users to investigate an astroturfing campaign likely funded by the cable lobby - violates Comcast’s “valuable intellectual property.” The letter threatens legal action if the domain is not transferred to Comcast’s control.
“This is exactly why we need Title II net neutrality protections that ban blocking, throttling, and censorship,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, “If Ajit Pai’s plan is enacted, there would be nothing preventing Comcast from simply blocking sites like Comcastroturf.com that are critical of their corporate policies,” she added. “It also makes you wonder what Comcast is so afraid of? Are their lobbying dollars funding the astroturfing effort flooding the FCC with fake comments that we are encouraging Internet users to investigate?”
The legal notice can be viewed here. It claims that Comcastroturf.com violates the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and infringes on Comcast’s trademarks. Of course, these claims are legally baseless, since the site is clearly a form of First Amendment protected political speech and makes no attempt to impersonate Comcast.
(See the case “Bosley Medical Institute vs. Kremer” which held that sites critical of a company’s practices could not be considered trademark infringement.)
Comcastroturf.com encourages Internet users to search the Federal Communication Commission (FCC)’s docket to check if a fake comment was submitted using their name and address to attack Title II based net neutrality protections. It has been widely reported that more than 450,000 of these comments have been submitted to the FCC – and as a result of the site at Comcastroturf.com, Fight for the Future has heard from dozens of people who say that anti-net neutrality comments were submitted using their personal information without their permission. We have connected individuals with Attorneys Generals and have called for the FCC act immediately to investigate this potential fraud.
“Companies like Comcast have a long history of funding shady astroturfing operations like the one we are trying to expose with Comcastroturf.com, and also a long history of engaging in censorship,” said Greer, “this is a perfect example of why we need bright line net neutrality rules that protect our free speech online, and why we can’t just trust Internet Service Providers to behave when they’ve abused their power time and time again.”
Fight for the Future has no intention of taking down Comcastroturf.com, and would be happy to discuss the matter with Comcast in court.
###
|
On the morning of March 3, 2016, The Summit at University City, an American Campus Communities property announced in a Facebook post that a Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant will be opening in the building.
The post, published at 10:03 a.m., reads “It’s official – CHIPOTLE IS COMING TO THE SUMMIT! #ChipotleIsMyLife.” It was accompanied by a humorous YouTube clip of a young boy exclaiming his love for the popular Mexican food chain. Within the first three hours of posting, the Facebook update had already been “liked” over 35 times and “shared” by more than 25 readers.
Located at 3400 Lancaster Avenue, the apartment complex is directly across the street from the freshmen dormitories, and is only about three blocks from the center of Drexel’s campus, making it a popular new location for housing as well as dining.
The Summit has been open and housing residents since Aug. 2015, and is a popular housing location for upperclassmen at Drexel.
The Summit is currently home to both a Starbucks, located on the ground floor, and Drexel University’s newest dining center, The Urban Eatery.
The Triangle will update this article as more information about the new restaurant becomes available.
|
It is believed that the SSTV PocketQube WREN is currently in a mode where it beacons on 437.405 MHz for 1.6 seconds then listens for 6 minutes on that frequency for any commands. If none are received it goes to sleep for 2 minutes before transmitting the beacon again.
The WREN team have released the following information on their Facebook page to enable radio amateurs to activate the WREN SSTV transmitter.
BASIC COMMANDS
Commands to WREN are sent by toggling the carrier [of a FM transmitter]:
Carrier on/off: 1=long, 0=short, leave a noticeable silence between the bits.
• Activate/HK: 110011
• wait until answer [should be within 2 seconds]
• Camera ON: 11111
• wait until answer
• Snapshot & Thumbnail receive: 110
• decoder should display thumbnail picture 12*14 pixel can repeat this command until something useable appears
• SSTV send: 110100
• martin-1 SSTV picture comes… in 320×240 pixels color
Wren should answer to the commands within two seconds.
Wait always at least two seconds after having received data before sending to WREN
Notice:
Send the Activate/HK command first, else WREN won´t react to other commands.
When camera is OFF, a snapshot or SSTV command will send WREN into sleep mode. ALWAYS SWITCH CAMERA ON FIRST BEFORE SENDING CAMERA COMMANDS.
WREN´s housekeeping data will show the status of camera power (ON or OFF).
PS: A preliminary commanding software will come soon.
Special wishes for PTT control? VOX, RS232-RTS Pin etc ?
The Telemetry Decoder and an Audio File of the beacon are available at http://we.tl/TkWEuhIlnF
Hope you can catch WREN and have fun commanding it.
Cheers, Paul
WREN on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/StaDoKo
WREN a Ham Radio Slow Scan TV PocketQube Satellite
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/10/24/wren-a-ham-radio-sstv-pocketqube/
Dnepr Yasny launch https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/dnepr-november-2013/
|
Top searchers at the Dutch company leading the underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 say they believe the plane may have glided down rather than dived in the final moments, meaning they have been scouring the wrong patch of ocean for two years.
Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew onboard en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. Searchers led by engineering group Fugro have been combing an area roughly the size of Greece for two years.
That search, over 120,000 square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia, is expected to end in three months and could be called off after that following a meeting of key countries Malaysia, China and Australia on Friday. So far, nothing has been found.
"If it's not there, it means it's somewhere else," Fugro project director Paul Kennedy told Reuters.
|
Last October, during the heat of the election, we looked at a survey of federal employees which claimed that 35% of them were actively considering leaving their jobs if Donald J. Trump were to be elected president. At the time I had reservations about how serious this trend was because partisans tend to say all sorts of things during a contentious race. (Just recall all the celebrities who were supposedly fleeing the country during that same period and yet we’re still stuck with every last one of them.) But now the deed has been done and it’s time for everyone to put their resignation letter where their mouth is.
Have things changed? According to the latest rendition of the same survey, not very much. There are still more than a quarter of current federal workers who claim they’re looking toward the exits. And the primary reason given is that they object to Donald Trump’s declared plans to implement a federal hiring freeze and reduce the workforce. (Government Executive)
Less than two-thirds of the federal workforce is firmly committed to staying on the job following the election of Donald Trump as president, according to a new survey. More than one in four federal workers, or 28 percent, will definitely or possibly consider leaving their jobs after Jan. 20 when Trump is sworn into office and becomes leader of the executive branch, according to a new Government Business Council/GovExec.com poll. Sixty-five percent of feds say they will not consider ending their federal service… For those who opt to leave government, their jobs could remain vacant for an extended period of time as Trump has vowed to freeze hiring across agencies immediately upon taking office. Just 15 percent of feds said they hold a positive view of that proposed policy, while 67 percent expressed a negative view.
So let me get this straight. You object to Donald Trump’s plan to reduce the federal workforce, so you’re going to protest that policy by… reducing the federal workforce for him?
Well, okay then. Thanks for your service, I guess…
Before we get too carried away here, I would bring up the same thing I noted after the October survey was published. The wording of the questions leaves these workers with even more wiggle room than Lena Dunham and her cancelled plans to relocate to Toronto. The unhappy workers were indicating that they would “definitely or possibly consider leaving their jobs” after the inauguration. When you’re looking at the stack of bills to be paid in the coming months, there’s a pretty long stretch between possibly considering quitting and actually marching in to tell the boss that he or she can stick his or her job where the sun don’t shine.
Also, among the ones sounding most likely to actually leave, the majority are already eligible for retirement and are currently hanging around longer than they had to anyway. That’s not exactly the hallmark of a grand gesture if you ask me. If you truly wanted to voice your displeasure and make a powerful statement you could walk out the door and tell them that you’ll refuse to accept any retirement benefits from a government which would peacefully transition power to a person you didn’t vote for.
We’ll try to stay on top of this story over the course of 2017. It will be interesting to learn how many people actually turn in their notice as compared to how many are shown the door when the new broom sweeps clean. I’m guessing it won’t be many.
|
Damage to the skulls of some prehistoric Europeans has been linked experimentally to a specific type of weapon: the wooden club.
Numerous human skeletons from the European Neolithic period, which lasted from about 7000 to 2000 bc, bear fractures indicative of violence. Meaghan Dyer and Linda Fibiger at the University of Edinburgh, UK, sought to determine the kind of weapon that could have inflicted the injuries. They had a male assistant wield a replica of the ‘Thames Beater’ — a wooden club from the fourth century bc that was found in London’s River Thames — against multi-layered synthetic spheres designed to replicate the human head.
The cracks made by the 1.2-kilogram club closely matched those on Neolithic skulls that had evidently been crushed by human blows. The researchers say that their results are the first to link Neolithic blunt-force injuries — trauma inflicted with a non-bladed implement — to a specific weapon.
|
Brewers Ted Rice, Jeff Jinnett, and John Gozigian are huge fans of the TV show Breaking Bad. After all, the AMC series is filmed in Albuquerque, N.M., where the trio has run Marble Brewery since 2008. Several Marble beers have made cameos on the show, and cast members have found themselves relaxing after a shoot in the Marble tap rooms.
Next week, on August 8, the brewery will release two commemorative beers in honor of the fifth and final season of Breaking Bad, the second half of which premieres on August 11. The first, named Heisenberg’s Dark after main character Walter White’s alter ego, is a black IPA, according to the craftbeer.com. The second is a white IPA called Walt’s White Lie — a reference obvious to anyone familiar with the show’s premise (a school teacher turned meth dealer to support his family).
Breaking Bad fans outside New Mexico are out of luck when it comes to sampling these brews, as Marble doesn’t yet distribute out of state. The beers will be available on draft at all three Marble tap rooms (two in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe), as well as select local draft accounts. Perhaps a trip to the Southwest is in order?
— Danya Henninger, The Drink Nation
More from The Drink Nation:
Two Breaking Bad IPAs Coming From Marble Brewery
Whiskey Wisdom: 4 Whiskey Myths Debunked
Top 6 West Coast IPAs for IPA Day
|
If you are not following Mauricio Fernandez's blog then please do yourself a favor and subscribe to it. Mauricio's writings are very interesting and informative. In one of his posts Mauricio gives a record of re-implementing his blog in OCaml using the OCsigen (webserver + framework) library. Mauricio did some benchmarking for the OCsigen environment against Rails and even a C fastcgi implementation. Naturally one would expect that OCaml will be orders of magnitude faster than Ruby. But the benchmark showed really abysmal performance for Rail vs. OCsigen. We are talking 260 request per second vs. 4500 requests per second for a single process test! That's north of 20X difference! I decided that Ruby can do better.Looking at what OCsigen offers revealed that Rails is an overkill in comparison. I thought that for Ruby a nice alternative can be the mystery webserver + framework called unicycle (never heard of it? you don't know what you're missing). Since OCsigen offers LWt (a light weight cooperative threading library) at its core for concurrency I added a fiber wrapper to Unicycle's request processing path so that we get a similar overhead (the testing was done using Ruby 1.9.1).Here are my results:Please note that this is running on my Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHZ processor vs. the 3GHZ desktop AMD Athlon64 that was used for the original tests (it should be roughly 50% faster than my mobile core2).I decided to take it further still. Mauricio mentioned that he was able to get performance above 2000 req/s from OCsigen when benchmarking the blog page that we are discussing here. So I created a sqlite database (he mentioned somewhere that he is using sqlite) and inserted the same blog entry (with very little modifications) in a structured manner. I didn't bother with comments though (out of being lazy). Sequel was used to connect and fetch the record from the database and an rhtml template that is rendered using Erubis. The result was a page very similar to the original blog post. ApacheBench was used to benchmark the page.During the time of testing the Unicycle process was between 13MB and 21MB (that's 3x to 4x the size of the OCsigen process)Considering that the components found in any laptop are usually inferior to their desktop counter parts I believe this at least equals the figure reported for OCsigen's performance.How can Ruby achieve such performance? By careful selection of components:First off, Ruby 1.9.1, everybody should start using it for their next project. It is much faster and much easier on memoryUnicycle is built atop EventMachine and the EventMachine HTTP Server. Both are C based speed demons. Unicycle itself is a minimal framework that doesn't attempt to be so smart.Erubis is a nice surprise. Pure Ruby and decently fast are not commonly found together but kudos to the authors of Erubis, they somehow did it.Ruby is faster the OCaml. Wrong! OCaml is a lot faster than Ruby. But thanks to hard work by some prominent Rubyists you can have a Ruby setup that performs decently enough to make you proud.
|
Coup
iOS Android
Free
A card-game offshoot of a highly popular deduction game, Coup sees two to four players face off to out-bluff and out-smart one another in a merciless melee of deceit and assassination. The game begins as each player is randomly dealt two face-down character cards from a deck of 15 cards that contains five different characters. Play moves clockwise as players collect money, pay that money to kill their opponents, or take the special ability of one of their face-down cards (for example, the Duke lets you snatch extra money).
Here's the catch: any player can lie and claim the ability of a card they don't actually have. But be careful—getting caught in a lie will 'kill' one of your cards, forcing you to flip it face up. The free iOS and Android port holds up wonderfully—if you can stand waiting for your online opponents to make their choices.
|
This "new" Overwatch experience has barely been live and active for a fortnight, and Competitive Play season 3 only kicked off last week, but...
Pin 0 Shares
Overwatch has seen some pretty significant changes over the past month. A new character, some Quick Play changes, and a new Arcade Mode compliment the start of Competitive Play season 3, itself bringing in a hoard of changes.
This “new” Overwatch experience has barely been live and active for a fortnight, and Competitive Play season 3 only kicked off last week, but one player has already mastered what is undeniably the game’s most ruthlessly competitive and skill-driven mode.
Koo ‘EVERMORE’ Kyo Min, a professional Overwatch player from Korea, has topped the charts on his way to becoming the first player to hit the illusive 5,000 Skill Rating in a little under a week of play. Outrageous!
His quick blast to the top of the charts comes after game director, Jeff Kaplan, revealed plans to improve the Skill Rating. The general consensus coming out of Season 2 was that it was just far too hard to climb up the ranks.
Blizzard had admittedly placed a large percentage of players into the platinum bracket that didn’t belong there, meaning the MMR averaged out to being far too low for the tier. This made for a constant game of catch-up, and players found their skill ratings getting massive hits while the MMR tried to balance out.
“In a Nostradamus moment, I’m going to predict the massive amount of rage that will come when we move all of these players from Platninum into Gold and Silver,” Kaplan said at BlizzCon 2016.
“The attitude of Platninum players is that they all belong there – everyone else is really a gold, silver or bronze player – not them.”‘
Now it appears that it might be too easy to climb the ranks, although no one’s doubting EVERMORE’s skills.
He needed only 45 games to reach the 5000 skill rating benchmark, using Roadhog as his main.
If you want to see his skills put to the test on the competitive circuit, he plays for Team KongDoo Panthera, so expect to see him on the circuit in the Overwatch APEX Season 2 tournament in the near future.
In the mean time, check out his crazy skills in the video below.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/Td-0Uv7nYkQ[/youtube]
|
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden’s Prime Minister said on Monday the country would never yield to terrorism, as he led a minute’s silence for those killed and injured when a truck driver mowed down pedestrians on a Stockholm shopping street.
Four people died and 15 were hurt in Friday’s attack, the first of its kind in the country.
“We will never surrender to terror,” Lofven said in his speech outside Stockholm’s city hall, as flags flew at half mast across the capital and church bells chimed while shoppers and tourists thronged the city center.
Lofven was flanked by the royal family dressed in black, government ministers, and members of the emergency services.
Related Coverage Swedish prosecutor asks to extend custody for Stockholm truck attack suspect
Police are holding a 39 year-old Uzbek man who they believe was the driver of the hijacked beer truck that crashed into a department store, leaving death in its wake.
The suspect had been denied permanent residency in Sweden and expressed sympathy for Islamic State.
The attack shattered any sense Swedes had of being insulated from the militant violence that has hit other parts of Europe, raising questions about whether - in a society that takes pride in tolerance and liberal values - the police and security services could have done more to prevent it.
“I am not afraid to go to the city. But you never know, you never know (what can happen),” said Sankar Ramasuppu, a bank worker living in Stockholm.
Slideshow (5 Images)
Many Swedes were back at work for the first time since the attack, while the department store into which the truck slammed had already reopened.
Standing outside the building with tears in her eyes Parima Khazai, who runs a skin therapy company in the city, recalled a lucky escape.
“I was supposed to be here at the time (of the attack) because I had to return something. But a friend wanted to take a coffee so that meant that both of us didn’t end up here on the street,” she said.
|
The Societas Magica is an organization dedicated to furthering communication and exchange among scholars interested in the study of magic, both in the positive contexts of its expression as an area of necessary knowledge or religious practice (as in early modern occultism and contemporary paganism), and in its negative contexts as the substance of an accusation or condemnation (as in sorcery trials, and many philosophical and theological accounts, both early and late). The interests of our membership include, but are not limited to, the history and sociology of magic; theological, and intellectual apprehensions of magic; practices and theories of magic; and objects, artifacts and texts either qualified as magical by their creators, or forming the substance of an accusation of magic by others.
Established in 1994 by Richard Kieckhefer, Claire Fanger and Robert Mathiesen, the Societas originally had the purpose of sponsoring sessions on the history of magic in the middle ages at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan. However the activities of the Societas have expanded with its increasingly diverse membership, and our interests are not limited to the medieval period. We continue to sponsor sessions both at the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo and also at other academic conferences as proposed and organized by members. In the past these have included sessions at the Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society, the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, and a full conference organized at the University of Waterloo in 2008. From 1995 to 2017 we published a newsletter twice yearly, lately discontinued due to lack of time. Anyone interested in volunteering to start the newsletter up again is welcome to contact the executive officers. Meanwhile readers are invited to read (and contribute to) our blog, and other affiliated publications. An email list is available to members who wish to join.
|
Batman on April 2 set aside the cares of Gotham City and descended on Yerevan to help guard democracy amidst a parliamentary election that could prove a turning point for Armenia. With his cape flying behind him, the Dark Knight sashayed about the Armenian capital of one-plus million, keeping an eye out for any would-be Jokers.
Sighted standing guard outside polling stations and engaging with voters, the superhero quickly overshadowed more mundane international election watchdogs such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
But this was no ordinary election -- it marked an historic switchover to a new, parliamentary system of governance – and, as such, it called for extraordinary observers. So, Batman made his way into an unspecified number of Yerevan polling stations to “deter fraud,” dismissing objections from startled election officials. He was also seen making phone calls and taking photos with tourists from India and Dubai.
The Armenian Batman eventually revealed himself as comedian Narek Margaryan of ArmComedy, a satirical show that makes its job “to restore sanity and embarrass bad governance in Armenia.” Margaryan’s co-host and a potential Robin, Sergey Sargsyan, is positive that Batman’s mission was a success. “We believe that he did scare the hell out of some evil-minded provocateurs,” Sargsyan told Tamada Tales.
“Generally, Batman was received well and was even urged to [formally] register as an observer, which he did,” Sargsyan happily reported. That said, he was reluctant to reveal the Armenian Batman’s personal preferences in the vote, in which the incumbent Republican Party appears to have prevailed with about 49 percent of voter support, according to early results.
International observers said that the overall election was in the democratic ballpark, but tainted by cases of vote-buying and intimidation, and also by a lack of public trust in the electoral process. The OSCE observation mission called on the authorities to “help transform the country’s political culture” as it transitions from a presidential mode of governance.
In a pre-vote chat with the OSCE, President Serzh Sargsyan gave the nod to building voter trust, and called on observers to keep their findings “unbiased.”
Batman has not called a press-conference to provide details of his own observations – and certainly has had no meeting with the president -- but ArmComedy said that more superheroes will appear soon to fight for the democratic cause in Armenia.
The big question about Armenian democracy is if shifting power away from the president to the parliament and prime minister is President Sargsyan’s way to extend his political life. With his Republican Party set to retain sway over the 101-seat-minimum legislature, Sargsyan could prolong his hold on power by becoming prime minister after his presidential term expires in 2018. Regional leaders, such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have all engaged in such games.
President Sargsyan, however, claims the change is only about building a European-style democracy.
If, in fact, that proves not to be the case, citizens can always send a bat-signal into the sky over Armenia.
|
EARTH CITY, Mo. -- There's still no definitive timetable for St. Louis Rams running back Todd Gurley's return to the football field. But there has been progress in his rehabilitation from a torn left anterior cruciate ligament.
In fact, Gurley says there's been enough progress that he now has his eye on being able to participate in at least a portion of practice when training camp opens at the end of July.
"I'm coming up on seven months and a couple weeks," Gurley said. "I'm just going to keep progressing. I'll be here in July. I hope so for training camp, I hope I at least get to go do some individual stuff. So that's the next goal right there."
Todd Gurley suffered a torn left anterior cruciate ligament during his final season at Georgia but thinks that he can be ready to participate in training camp. AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
Whether Gurley is able to reach that goal remains to be seen but the past few weeks at least offered glimmers of hope. During the team's organized team activities, Gurley was regularly seen working on the side with athletic trainer Byron Cunningham. As the weeks went on, Gurley was able to do more and more.
After one practice, Gurley spent some time with running backs coach Ben Sirmans going through plays. Then, after one of the final OTAs, Gurley actually stayed with the rookies after a practice and went through some team walk-throughs.
"Things have been going pretty good," Gurley said. "I'm just doing whatever they tell me to do and just picking up on our offense more and more. That was my first time doing that little walk-through after. I usually do walk-through reps at the beginning of practice, too."
When Gurley hasn't been working out on the side or after practice, he's been spending the practice reps doing everything he can to sharpen his knowledge of the playbook. He was a regular visitor to the offensive huddle during OTAs, listening in on the play call and then going through what his role would be mentally as it happened.
For his part, Rams coach Jeff Fisher said the team will monitor Gurley's progress over the next month before deciding what he'll do at the outset of camp.
“It's hard to say right now," Fisher said. "I can't predict that. I know he's doing well. He'll rehab with us during the break. We're also going to give him his time off because he's entitled to his time off to go home for a few days. We're just going to see how he progresses. We have options, which are the PUP things and we just have to see where he is. If he's not PUP-ed then I think you could probably assume that he's going to play sooner than you think.”
Gurley and his rookie teammates participate in the NFL's rookie symposium this week and then have some down time, but Gurley said he plans to spend most of his "off time" in St. Louis continuing to work out and get healthy. He's hoping if he can make the necessary progress in that time then he will have a chance to get back into some individual drills upon the start of training camp. Rookies are set to report for the start of camp on July 27.
"I'll be back here and rehabbing and be out here on the field," Gurley said. "I think the coaches will still be here so I'll still be able to meet with my coach every now and then."
|
Immediately after its release in 2003 The Room was rightfully mocked and ridiculed as one of the worst movies since Plan 9 from Outer Space, and cult audiences have loved hating it ever since. In the spirit of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, fans have organized showings to share their love and tear the movie to shreds. It’s never been so much fun to hate a movie.
From the Guardian- “A movie whose transcendent awfulness has made it a cult phenomenon.”
Members of Makers Local 256 are hosting a screening of The Room at Huntsville’s Flying Monkey Arts Center on Friday, December 3rd. The movie starts at 9pm, tickets are $10 at the door of the Monkey’s second floor theater and concessions will be available. There will be audience participation throughout the screening. Bring spoons!
If you’d like to learn more about the audience participation, the Onion’s AV Club has an excellent write-up.
Flying Monkey Arts Center
2211 Seminole Dr SW # 501
Huntsville, AL 35805-7805
http://www.flyingmonkeyarts.org
|
Iran has just released footage that proves it has, if not literally decoded, at least accessed some of the data stored inside the U.S. stealthy RQ-170 drone captured in December 2011.
The video, that was aired by an Iranian TV, as part of an interview in which Sardar Hajizadeh, the Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Forces, tells how the drone was captured and how its technology was successfully accessed and decoded, is the first evidence Iran has found something interesting in the unmanned aircraft’s intelligence gathering sensors and internal hard disks.
So far, Iran claims were never backed by evidences: some blurry details about its activity in California and Afghanistan and some unrelevant information; data that could be retrieved with a little of OSINT (Open Source INTelligence) and some spying.
Now, the new video clearly shows footage recorded by the drone underbelly camera: the area surrounding Kandahar airfield (KAF) as the RQ-170 is about to land, a small building (possibly being spied), a C-130 and at least one Reaper drone among shelters at KAF.
Nothing really special, still something that clearly shows Iranians did find something inside the Sentinel and were able to extract and decode it.
Hence, the drone’s internal memories still contained some useful information and were not fully automatically erased as a consequence of the loss of control procedure. To such an extent data, including video recordings from the drone’s FLIR turret, was recovered.
Noteworthy, some still images (that you can find in the longer video here below) show the drone immediately after being recovered in the desert and, later, moved with a helicopter sling load.
How the “Beast of Kandahar” crash landed in Iran remains a mystery: Tehran claims it was hacked, but the stealth drone, undetected by any radar, might have crash landed for a failure somewhere in eastern Iran where it was found (possibly by accident). And where the U.S. could not blow it up.
Related articles
Salva
|
During the Temporal Agent event, new Temporal Agents will have the chance to unlock rewards for everyone on the server!
Completing each Weekly Goal will kick off a Special Event on the subsequent week. These may include increased XP Gain, Dilithium earnings, and other similar bonuses.
Additionally, each Weekly Goal comes in multiple tiers. Completing the first goal should be relatively simple, and reliably reward all players with an extra mini-event for this easy completion. Completing Tiers 2 and 3 of the same Weekly Goal will require a concerted effort on the behalf of Temporal Agents, but the rewards are also greatly increased.
Only Temporal Agents can contribute to these Weekly Goals, but all characters can reap the benefits they unlock.
Week 5 – August 3-August 9
Temporal Agent Task: Complete Admiralty Assignments
Server-wide Bonus: Dilithium
During the fifth week, completing Admiralty Assignments will provide progress for the server-wide bonus. Also during this week, all characters will earn bonus Energy Credits based on progression earned in week 4.
|
Four women captured in the Iraqi city of Mosul, thought to be fighting for ISIS have been confirmed as German nationals.
One is 16-year old Linda Wenzel from east Germany. She had been reported as missing a year ago after being groomed online to join the jihadi group.
1. German ISIS girl Linda W. (16 y/o) was apparently captured in Mosul by Iraqi security forces: https://t.co/mkrbo0yfV1pic.twitter.com/AcmqQtVSrF — Björn Stritzel (@bjoernstritzel) July 17, 2017
German public prosecutor Lorenz Haase confirmed that they are not currently attempting to extradite the girl.
“We as the public prosecutor’s office Dresden have not applied for an arrest warrant and will therefore not be able to request extradition. There is the possibility that Linda might be put on trial in Iraq, she might as a foreigner be expelled or, because she is a minor reported missing in Germany, she could be handed over to Germany.”
If the girl is returned to Germany she could only be charged as a young offender, with appropriate sentencing, but if tried in Iraq, all of the women captured could face the death penalty.
Intelligence agencies estimate that over 900 people have left Germany in recent years to join Islamic State, with almost 50 thought to have been minors, half of whom were female.
|
We began hearing grumblings of delayed Surface deliveries in the very early hours of this morning, and it seems it's not an unlucky few that are suffering, but an unlucky many. There were reports of delays to shipments in the UK and Canada less than a week ago, but Microsoft was quick to dismiss the claims as an error and put minds at rest. Now, it seems, the white flag has been waved and blame acknowledged. Eager to appease disgruntled customers, the company is offering a £50 or $50 Canadian coupon (depending on your accent) to spend in the Windows Store as recompense. While it provides little relief to those who had a shut-in weekend planned, at least you can trick out your new toy when it finally arrives, at Microsoft's expense. And, if you've received neither a Surface nor a coupon, we suggest you reach out for the freebie -- if your fingers aren't hitting tiles, they might as well be hitting keys instead.
[Thanks to Daniel and all others who sent this in]
|
ALERT: Trump Says Iranians Could Be Blown Out Of The Water – Shots Just FIRED Off
We’ve been saying it for a long time: Iran isn’t our ally. During his campaign, Trump made it clear that if he were President, he would build up the American military and take a hard stance against nations like Iran who doesn’t want our friendship.
They just proved it when they moved their attack ships too close to the USS Mahan and forced the American vessel to fire off warning shots. The Iranian ships failed to respond to radio comms, which prompted the action.
This kind of action is only possible because we have a spineless leader who refuses to stand up for America and our values. He wants so badly for them to be our ally, but they have their eyes set on nuclear capabilities that rival the United States.
Trending: The 15 Best Conservative News Sites On The Internet
Trump commented on a similar incident that occurred in September 2016 and let us know what he plans to do if Iran pulls these shenanigans under his watch.
“And by the way, with Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures that our people — that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water,” Trump said at a rally, CNN reported.
It’s unbelievable that this is a controversial statement among certain groups. These people are playing games and attempting to intimidate a country that they know to have a weak President. While we don’t want anymore conflict, we do need to stand up for ourselves and reassert America as a powerful nation who won’t take any crap.
Here’s hoping that Donald Trump is more than just a tough talker.
You Might Like
|
The North Korean regime has distributed a song to troops warbling of absolute loyalty to leader Kim Jong-un.
The campaign is reportedly spearheaded by vice marshal Hwang Pyong-so.
Lee Soo-seok of the Institute for National Security Strategy said Wednesday the North Korean army has re-introduced the song which dates from the time of nation founder Kim Il-sung.
He said North Korean soldiers have been ordered to sing the song on every march to create an atmosphere of loyalty to Kim junior, who is trying to bring the unruly military under control.
Meanwhile, the institute said around 100 high-ranking officials have been purged since Kim rose to power, including more than one-third of senior officials in the Workers Party.
"Unlike his father Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un has tended to purge officials for angering him rather than due to political reasons," Lee claimed. "His rule of terror has been effective temporarily, but a prolonged atmosphere of fear has hurt the sense of solidarity between Kim and high-level officials."
|
Sony has announced a new $20 million, three-year investment plan that will see more PlayStation Network exclusive games released from both first-party studios and independent developers.
The financial support will, in part, be put into the company's Pub Fund program, first announced back at the Game Developers Conference in 2009, that strives to help independent developers publish their games via the PlayStation Network.
As part of the fund, developers keep the game's IP and choose the pricing, while SCEA helps with the game design and marketing plans for the title.
Several upcoming titles are set to benefit from the new investment plan, including Eufloria, Okabu, Payday: The Heist and Papo & Yo.
Brandon Stander, director of PlayStation Network marketing at SCEA, noted, "PlayStation Network is poised to deliver an enviable line-up of exclusive and imaginative games this year, with highly anticipated first-party titles like thatgamecompany�s Journey and PixelJunk Sidescroller."
"We�re doubling down on PlayStation Network software, and under this additional investment over the next three years, we anticipate a steady flow of high-quality titles that can�t be found anywhere else."
|
PARIS (Reuters) - A man armed with a hammer shouted “this is for Syria” and wounded a policeman before being shot and wounded by other officers on Tuesday outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one of France’s most famous tourist sites.
The Paris prosecutor’s office swiftly launched a counter-terrorism investigation into the attack, the first since President Emmanuel Macron won power last month and days before the first round of a parliamentary election in France.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the attacker was carrying the identification card of an Algerian student and that preliminary information indicated he had acted alone.
Dozens of armed police sealed off the area and put the Gothic cathedral into lockdown with nearly 1,000 tourists and worshippers inside.
The incident came three days after militants drove a van at high speed into pedestrians in London before stabbing revelers on the street and in nearby bars, killing seven people and wounding dozens. That followed a suicide bombing in the northern English city of Manchester that killed 22 people.
“This happens nearly every week now. I just hope it has nothing to do with the election,” David Stoklo, an American visitor to Paris, told Reuters TV.
Tuesday’s attack will put a renewed focus on France and Europe’s struggle to deal with unsophisticated, low-tech attacks in the countdown to the first round of the parliamentary election on Sunday. A second round will be held on June 18.
Macron’s rivals portrayed him as weak on security during the presidential election campaign. Collomb said fighting terrorism was the president’s “number one” priority.
French police and gendarmes stand at the scene of a shooting incident near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
It was too early to tell if the attack would have any impact on the outcome of the two-round parliamentary election. A poll published earlier on Tuesday showed Macron’s new Republic on the Move party heading for a landslide win.
COPYCAT ATTACKS
Anna Levy, an American tourist, said she had been about to enter the cathedral when she heard gunshots.
“It was just scary because you didn’t know what was happening. People were just running,” she said.
Inside the cathedral when the attacker struck were about 900 holidaymakers and worshippers. One of them, Dean Blair, posted on Twitter: “Not the holiday experience wanted. Trapped in Notre Dame Cathedral after police shoot a man. We are with our 2 terrified children.”
Macron wants to extend a state of emergency that has been in place since jihadi gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in coordinated attacks on entertainment venues in Paris in late 2015.
In total, more than 230 people have died in attacks across France in the past two-and-a-half years, most of them claimed by Islamic State.
Tuesday’s attack had parallels with one in April when a militant shot dead one police officer and wounded two others on Paris’ Champs-Elysees boulevard. Other attacks have targeted the security forces and have been noticeable for their simplicity.
Slideshow (7 Images)
“We have moved on from sophisticated terrorism to a form of terrorism where any object can be used to attack,” Collomb told reporters.
He echoed British Prime Minister Theresa May who in the wake of the London Bridge attack said Britain was facing a new trend where militants are inspired by “copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack”.
|
98% of customers would recommend this product to a friend (534 out of 544)
Synopsis
As a young woman, Lara Croft is in search of adventure — and herself. She embarks on an exploratory quest when her hunt for adventure comes looking for her. Now, stranded away from civilization and equipped with only her instincts and the ability to push herself beyond the threshold of human endurance, Lara must look inside and find what she needs to fight for her survival.
Re-experience the origin story of Lara Croft in this Definitive Edition of the critically acclaimed action-adventure on your Xbox One. Re-built to take advantage of your next-generation console's power, this Definitive Edition lets you experience the raw ferocity, brutal environments and unforgiving terrain as an all-new Lara Croft. Utilizing TRESS FX technology, Lara now features realistic hair that allows each strand to move on its own and blow in the wind — plus, you can see every bead of sweat and clothing stitch as she fights for survival on this harsh island. Battle terrifying enemies, unforgiving storms and more as you fight to survive and uncover the island's deadly secret. With this Definitive Edition, you'll also receive all of the DLC, including the Tomb of the Lost Adventurer, six outfits for Lara, a digital mini artbook and The Beginning digital comic. Will you become a survivor?
|
Not a lotta effort put into this one since it's so late.In the season 2 episode "Luna Eclipsed," I was a little disappointed to find out no one guessed Twilight was dressed as The Great and Powerful Trixie. Out of all the guesses they made, I thought Trixie would be the most obvious.So, as a joke, I dressed Trixie (pony on the left. Yes, that's her.) up in what I thought she thought an appropriate Twilight Sparkle costume would be, in hopes of making Twilight look ridiculous. Little did she know Twilight had done the same thing for her (not really, but she didn't know that.And I tell you all this so that maybe you will get the joke....Which probably means it wasn't the best joke to begin with...
|
Guild Software Inc. has today announced plans to launch Vendetta Online for multiple virtual reality (VR) platforms during the first half of 2016. Supported devices will include the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on Windows, and the Samsung Gear VR on Android. A prototype of Vendetta Online for the Samsung Gear VR will be showing with Oculus and ARM on the show floor of the 2016 Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), San Francisco, next week.
Featuring existing, non-VR support for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS, all platforms, the VR iteration will see all players participating in the same unified galaxy. Promising a seamless transition between platforms, Vendetta Online‘s persistent massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) gameplay could potentially be the first in the genre to bring non-VR and VR players together.
“We’re incredibly excited to show our players the galaxy of Vendetta Online in this immersive medium,” said John Bergman, CEO of Guild Software. “Back in 2013, our game was widely reported as the first MMORPG to officially release support for the nascent Oculus Rift, and we’re thrilled to see that vision coming to fruition, across both PC and mobile devices.”
According to Guild Software Inc., VR support for additional platforms, such as Mac and Linux, will also be considered, but may not be available at the same launch time. VRFocus will be present at GDC next week and will continue to bring you all the latest details on Vendetta Online.
|
A lot of people don’t like broccoli.
The cruciferous, tree-like vegetable has been maligned by kids all over the world in everything from Disney movies to YouTube clips.
But one of America’s most famous broccoli haters—former President George H. W. Bush— is still being forced to defend his stance against the veggie, over 25 years after declaring “no more broccoli!”
On Saturday, Bush tweeted a picture of a handwritten note from a 5-year-old named Cooper.
“Last night, when we ate, we had meat, sweet potatoes and broccoli!” Cooper says.
“My grandma told me that you do not like broccoli and never want it served. I just want you to know that I love broccoli!”
Cooper goes on to say that he finished all of his veggies and ends with a simple hope for the former president, “Mr. President, broccoli is really good for you. I wish you liked broccoli like I do.”
Broccoli may be good for you but Bush, 92, who celebrated his 90th birthday by skydiving, must be doing something right when it comes to a healthful diet.
Cooper’s well-meaning note still wasn’t able to convince the lifelong broccoli hater that he should take up eating the vegetable in his later years.
“Proud of young Cooper's interest in healthy eating,” the former President Tweeted.
“His declared love of broccoli is genuine, if also unpersuasive.”
|
The CW has set its midseason premiere dates for new drama Riverdale, the returns of The 100, iZombie, Reign, and The Originals, as well as the series finale date for The Vampire Diaries.
Archie drama Riverdale will debut Thursday, Jan. 26 at 9 p.m. ET, pushing Supernatural to Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, meanwhile, will move to Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET starting Jan. 24. Once Legends of Tomorrow airs its season finale on March 28, iZombie will debut with a two-hour premiere on Tuesday, April 4 at 8 p.m. ET before moving to its regular time period at 9 p.m following new episodes of The Flash.
The 100 will return on Wednesday, Feb. 1 at 9 p.m. ET following Arrow, while Reign returns for its fourth season on Friday, Feb. 10 at 9 p.m. ET. The Vampire Diaries series finale will air Friday, March 10, with The Originals returning the following week on Friday, March 17 at 8 p.m. ET. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will wrap its second season on Friday, Feb. 3 at 9 p.m.
The season finale of No Tomorrow will air Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 9 p.m. ET, with the season finale of Frequency slated for Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 9 p.m. CW declined to order additional episodes for both freshman dramas, but no decisions have yet been made about their futures.
|
It took about five minutes after President Obama made his historic announcement of support for gay marriage for the snark to begin. Some people pointed out that he’d simply reverted to the position he held in 1996, when, in response to a questionnaire from a gay newspaper in Chicago, he wrote, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriage, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” Others noted that he still believes the matter should be left to the states, suggesting acquiescence to North Carolina’s egregious Amendment 1 and other gay-marriage bans. The Log Cabin Republicans, straining to minimize the importance of the president’s statement, attacked him for only belatedly coming “in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue.”
None of this should obscure the fact that when Obama told ABC News, “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” it was, to quote Joe Biden, “a big fucking deal.”
Our last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed the antigay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), saying then, “I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages, and this legislation is consistent with that position.” Eight years ago, George W. Bush’s vehement opposition to gay marriage helped carry him to reelection against liberal John Kerry. If Obama’s pro-gay-rights supporters tolerated his nominal opposition to equal marriage rights, it was largely because, until very recently, many assumed that any candidate with a different position would be unelectable on a national scale. It’s hard to think of any other civil-rights issue where so much progress was made so fast.
To criticize Obama for following that progress rather than leading it is to misunderstand the nature of political change. No president forces major social advancements by himself. FDR understood that when he responded to entreaties from the labor leader A. Philip Randolph by agreeing and then saying, “Now go out and make me do it.” Lyndon Johnson didn’t pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act until the civil-rights movement changed public opinion and the shock of John F. Kennedy’s assassination altered political dynamics. Presidents have to balance strategic political concerns with moral ones. They can encourage and ratify progress, but they can’t create it.
The fact that Obama’s gay-marriage evolution was motivated as much by practical concerns as by idealism doesn’t make it any less remarkable. Rather, it’s a sign of how successful the gay rights movement has been in organizing and demonstrating the justice of its cause, turning what was once a wedge issue for the right into a potential wedge issue for the left. It’s also a sign of how much progress on gay rights had already been made during Obama’s presidency. Gay marriage wouldn’t have been thrown into such sharp focus if he hadn’t already ended "don’t ask, don’t tell" and refused to enforce DOMA. It made sense for Obama to end the charade of opposing gay marriage because nobody on either side believed his position was sincere. If the rest of his record hadn’t been so pro-gay, though, they might have.
While certainly politically calculated, Obama’s announcement is not without risk. After all, North Carolina, a state the president hopes to win in November, just voted overwhelmingly to strip gay unions of any recognition whatsoever. A majority of Democrats and a smaller majority of independents are on Obama’s side, but he has just energized social conservatives in a way that Mitt Romney alone never could. His move required a bit of audacity as well as practicality.
Still, it will probably help him much more than it hurts him, by thrilling many of his supporters, throwing Romney’s reaction into higher relief, and ending the painful linguistic contortions necessary to justify his previous untenable position. That should take nothing away from his statement’s importance. Real change happens when social movements convince leaders that doing the right thing needn’t conflict with doing the smart thing. Today, Obama did both.
|
LAST MONTH, REPORTS circulated that over 1,700 guns had been stolen since 2010.
The reports noted that among the items stolen were 852 shotguns and other legally-held firearms.
However, they did not include details of what a firearm is in Ireland or what the rest of the breakdown contains.
Included in the statistics are air rifles, toy guns and safes.
Here is the full list:
Cartridges /Rounds of Ammo. 266
Shotgun (Single Barrel) 242
Shotgun Total 852
Rifle (Bolt Action) 178
Imitation Gun 62
Shotgun 60
Air Rifle 45
Shotgun (Semi Automatic) 45
Air Pistol 44
Rifle (Pump Action) 43
Rifle 37
Replica (Blank Firing) 30
Gun safe 29
Shotgun (Side By Side) 27
Shotgun (Pump Action) 25
Replica (Non Firing) 24
Telescopic Sight 18
Pistol 12
Toy Gun 12
Gas Gun 9
Rifle (Lever Action) 8
Humane Killer 7
Paintball Gun 4
Prohibited Weapon 4
Starting Pistol 4
Unknown 4
Musket 3
Revolver 3
Cross Bow 2
Flare Pistol 2
Shotgun (Bolt Action) 2
Stun Gun 2
Grenade 1
Rifles 5
Gardaí say that toy guns and imitations are included if they have been used in the committal of a crime and that any component of a gun, including scopes and safes, are counted.
There is a scientific method employed in this process and this is presented as evidence in court by an expert and is accepted by the court. This process involves establishing if the force of a projectile could in reality take life.In the case of an imitation firearm used in a robbery for example, this is deemed a firearm due to the threatening manner in which it is used in a particular incident. If the imitation firearm is subsequently seized it is deemed a firearm as subject to the Firearm Act.
But the gun community in Ireland feels that these statistics are being used to strengthen controls on sporting firearms, especially as the gardaí have not said how many of the stolen guns have been used in crimes.
A delegation representing gun owners spoke at the Oireachtas Justice Committee in January, with all saying that the Irish gun community is safe. Senior gardaí have recommended to Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald that licencing be tightened and a number of guns be banned completely.
Kealan Symes of the National Target Shooting Association told the committee:
“This issue of public safety is addressed in the Firearms Acts many times. The current licensing system has many failings, but ease of access to firearms is not one of them.”
He was echoed by Damien Hannigan, secretary of the Wild Deer Association of Ireland who said that guns in Ireland have not been linked to criminality.
“There is no evidence of a link between legally held firearms and criminal activity.”
|
For the first time in 24 years, the UBC Writing Centre tutoring services will potentially be shutting down. Since its inception, the UBC Writing Centre has strived to help all enrolled students-undergraduates and graduates alike- to improve their writing skills and their ability to express and develop their ideas as a free tutoring service. Writing well is a key skill for success at academic, professional, and social levels, and the Writing Centre has always been proud to provide this service.
However, all this is set to change, now that the Writing Centre is currently facing financial problems. If this issue is not resolved within the next few months, its tutoring services will cease to exist. This is a cause for concern because even though other faculties offer specialized writing services, this is the only one which encompasses the entire spectrum of UBC’s student body. This is a campus of 50,000 full-time and part-time students, some of whom are unfamiliar or need assistance with the rigors of university writing. The Writing Centre has been able to help many concerned or struggling students over the years with a variety of issues ranging from cover letters and resumes to Master’s theses and laboratory reports with a staff of tutors from various academic disciplines. In addition, approximately 10,000 of UBC’s students are international, many of whom do not speak English as their first language and struggle with language tests such as the LPI and TOEFL. The Writing Centre has been able to offer support to them over the years, and with UBC planning to aggressively enroll more overseas students, they will need support from the writing centre more than ever. Additionally, UBC is almost doubling international tuition over the next 3 years, and the Writing Centre is the only free writing tutoring service at UBC that is not department-specific. Without the Writing Centre’s free tutoring services, the university’s reputation for academic excellence and educational accessibility will no longer be secure-and that is why we, as concerned students and Writing Centre tutors, have put forth this petition as a call for action. We need to save the Writing Centre's tutoring services.
The University of British Columbia is the largest Canadian university on the West Coast, and it will soon lack the resources to offer support for student writing. This is a much-needed service that is available at other British Columbia post-secondary institutions, regardless of their size. Although the Okanagan campus will retain its writing support, students at the Vancouver campus will need to look for other options. When the Writing Centre eventually changes its services this April, UBC will miss the impact of a vital service. Petition to keep the Writing Centre's tutoring services open-without it UBC can no longer be a place of mind.
|
(KUTV) Salt Lake City Police used a Taser to stop a man who was running naked in the streets, through traffic, and pounding on cars Monday in Salt Lake City.
The man took off his clothes and ran through traffic around 400 South and 300 West forcing cars to stop and in sight of a 2News crew. Police were unable to stop him and eventually employed a Taser to bring him down, stopping the streaking episode.
Police said it is believed to be a mental health issue and they are sending the man to a hospital for physical and mental evaluation.
Police said they took multiple reports about his streaking and hitting cars but found only with with damage. The Taser was used, according to police, because he was a danger to himself.
The man's identity is not yet known.
|
Sammy Sosa says a cosmetic cream he uses to soften his skin is the reason for his lighter skin tone.
The former Chicago Cubs slugger was photographed at the Latin Grammy awards in Las Vegas last week with a noticeably whiter face.
Sosa says he has been using the cream for a long time, and combined with bright TV lights, it made his face look whiter than it really is. Sosa says he is not trying to look like late pop star Michael Jackson and is not suffering from any skin illness.
Sosa made his remarks on the Univision Spanish network. He declined to identify the cream.
Sosa, who turns 41 on Thursday, hit 609 homers over 18 seasons in the majors with the Cubs, White Sox, Rangers and Orioles. He hasn't appeared in a big league game since 2007.
|
Atlanta Braves left fielder Mallex Smith suffered a fractured left thumb after he was hit by a pitch thrown by New York Mets reliever Antonio Bastardo in the top of the seventh inning Sunday.
X-rays revealed the extent of the injury. Smith ran the bases and then was replaced by Jeff Francoeur in the field to start the bottom of the seventh inning.
Braves outfielder Mallex Smith will be evaluated Monday after suffering a fractured thumb. Todd Kirkland/Getty Images
The Braves said Smith will travel on Sunday night to Atlanta, where he will be further evaluated on Monday.
Smith was 0-for-3 with a run scored Sunday in the Braves' 6-0 victory over the Mets. Julio Teheran pitched a one-hit shutout, allowing just a Michael Conforto single to lead off the third inning, as the Braves won their fifth straight game.
Smith, a 23-year-old rookie, is hitting .241 with three home runs and 21 RBIs in 166 at-bats this season. He leads the Braves with 14 stolen bases.
|
Published online 23 August 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.499
News
Plan tightens regulations but waters down proposal to publicly disclose financial conflicts.
NIH director Francis Collins says tighter financial conflict rules will strengthen public trust. Elie Dolgin
After more than two years of deliberations, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) today issued a financial conflict-of-interest policy that would create more substantial reporting requirements for federally funded investigators and their institutions.
But the policy also takes a step back from a proposed requirement that institutions post such conflicts on publicly accessible websites. Under the final rule, institutions can opt out of maintaining a public website if they make the information available upon request within five business days of receiving an inquiry.
The updated regulations are intended to tighten conflict-of-interest oversight and to preserve public trust in the face of growing relationships between academia and industry, NIH director Francis Collins said today in a press briefing. "We're confident that the results will further add to the public sense of confidence in the scientific process and the results that come out of NIH-funded research," he said.
The NIH has been under pressure to crack down on financial conflicts of interest since investigations spearheaded by Senator Charles Grassley (Republican, Iowa) uncovered researchers who had neglected to report millions of dollars of income from companies with a stake in their research.
In keeping with draft regulations proposed in May 2010, the final policy lowers the threshold at which an investigator's financial interest must be declared from $10,000 to $5,000. Previous guidelines, set in 1995, required that institutions merely reported an investigator's financial conflict of interest and whether it was being managed, decreased or eliminated. Now institutions must also provide some detail as to how they are dealing with the conflict. Those management plans, however, still do not have to be made public.
Seeking public trust
To boost transparency, the draft guidelines released last May also proposed a requirement that institutions post financial conflicts on a publicly accessible website. Earlier this month, Nature News reported that the NIH had dropped that requirement after coming under pressure from the White House Office of Management and Budget (see Conflict disclosure plan dropped). In January, President Barack Obama tasked that office with evaluating and minimizing the cost of new regulations. The NIH estimates that, overall, the new policy will cost 25% more than the 1995 regulations, and that the cost of implementing the public disclosure requirements across 2,000 institutions would be $350,000.
Without the website requirement, however, public trust could be damaged, argues Ned Feder, a staff scientist at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington DC. Requiring a request in order to retrieve the information is a "barrier", he says. "It really is a shame."
But the added flexibility will come as a relief to universities, says Carrie Wolinetz, associate vice president for federal relations at the Association of American Universities in Washington DC. Many universities expressed concern about the added financial burden of establishing and maintaining the websites, she says, and questioned whether it would benefit the public.
ADVERTISEMENT
"It would just be information up on the website, without any sort of context or education about what the information really meant," she says. "I think the flexibility in the new rule is a good middle ground."
Meanwhile, Sheldon Krimsky, an ethicist at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, is most concerned with how the regulations allow institutions to designate an official to determine whether an investigator's financial interests pose a conflict. "That designated official may be thinking, 'Well I know this person, and he's not going to let money affect the outcome of his research'," says Krimsky. "It's setting the bar too high."
|
A home for sale sign hangs in front of a house in Oakton, Virginia IN this March 27, 2014 file photo. New U.S. single-family home sales fell to near a one-year low in September after two straight months of gains, but a jump in prices suggested that housing remained on solid ground. REUTERS/Larry Downing/Files (Larry Downing/Reuters)
Long & Foster, one of the biggest residential real estate companies in the country by sales volume, was acquired by HomeServices of America on Thursday. The acquisition also includes Long & Foster’s business lines in mortgage, settlement services, insurance and property management. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“What the family wanted, what our intent was, was to make sure our legacy, the Long & Foster brand and its agents were protected and secure for the long term,” said Larry “Boomer” A. Foster Jr., president of general brokerage and nephew of founder P. Wesley Foster Jr.
HomeServices of America, a residential real estate brokerage based in Minneapolis, is an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway, the Warren Buffett conglomerate with subsidiaries including utilities, insurance and railroads. HomeServices of America also owns Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Prudential Real Estate and Real Living Real Estate, positioning it to become the country’s largest residential real estate brokerage company.
“This deal is big,” said David Charron, chief strategy officer of Bright MLS, the area’s multiple listing service. “This is yet another data point that suggests that real estate drives the economy.”
[Fixed mortgage rates keep falling, sinking to yearly lows]
Long & Foster was founded in 1968 by Wes Foster and Henry Long. Foster bought out Long in 1979. It became one of the largest privately held companies in the Washington region with approximately 11,000 agents in more than 230 offices serving home buyers in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey. In 2016, Long & Foster had nearly $29 billion in sales volume and more than 81,000 home sale transactions.
“They’ve instilled a sense of regimen and discipline and accountability borne out of the decline of [2007 and 2008],” Charron said. “Long & Foster has become much more corporate. As a privately held company, I think it’s going to benefit them in the merger.”
[Want to know what your home’s worth? Realtor.com introduces new valuation tool.]
Wes Foster will remain with the company as chairman emeritus. Jeff Detwiler, Long & Foster’s president and chief operating officer, will become chief executive. In a memo sent to Long & Foster real estate agents, Wes Foster wrote: “We’ll continue to operate under our current Long & Foster brand names, and other than our ownership, it will be business as usual.”
Boomer Foster echoed his uncle’s message that the company would carry on as before the sale and that no jobs would be lost because of it. The company will remain at its Chantilly headquarters.
“Nothing is changing at all,” he said. “If we didn’t tell anybody this has happened, no one would know it happened.”
Boomer Foster said recent sales of some of Long & Foster’s office buildings had nothing to do with the sale of the company. He also declined to discuss how long the sale had been in the works.
|
A woman who set off the security sensors at the Walmart in Blackman Township, MI in the wee hours of Monday morning wanted to show employees that she had nothing to hide. Police say that’s why she pulled her shirt up and her pants down to show that she had no merchandise concealed under her clothing. However, there was the matter of the cart full of merchandise that she pushed into the foyer.
When the store’s loss prevention staff accused her of theft and pulling her clothes partway off didn’t convince them otherwise, she resorted to violence. According to police, she hit one of the employees trying to detain her in the face, then bit his arm. She left “visible injuries” in the attack, but nothing bad enough that the employee needed medical attention.
Once police arrived, she was charged with indecent exposure, malicious destruction of property, assault, and unarmed robbery. Since she’s accused of assaulting a person while stealing, that’s considered “unarmed robbery.”
Shoplifter who struck, bit Walmart employee arrested on multiple charges [MLive]
|
MONTREAL — In addition to enduring sanctions at Saputo Stadium, some Toronto FC fans who travelled to Montreal for Thursday’s MLS knockout-round playoff game against the Impact say they came in for some rough treatment before and after the game.
Star TFC striker Sebastian Giovinco, meanwhile, had to be escorted to the team bus after an apparent run-in with a fan behind a barrier. Video posted on Twitter showed a security guard and teammate leading Giovinco away as a fan cursed him.
The Impact banned flags, banners and instruments and implemented a no-bag policy for travelling TFC supporters as “a result of their illegal and dangerous actions” in the season finale last Sunday. That game saw the visiting supporters fire off flares.
“The club and Stade Saputo encourage supporter groups but we insist on providing a safe environment while abiding by stadium regulations and the law,” the Impact said in levying the sanctions.
Montreal fans lit up their own flares during Thursday’s game, won 3-0 by the Impact. Meanwhile, stadium officials went into the partially filled Toronto section during the game to remove a banner that, complete with F-bomb, decried the sanctions.
A TFC supporter said he was bloodied after being hit with an metal expandable bar by someone from a rival group of fans as they headed to Thursday’s game.
“The girl with us tried to stop it, and she got closed first punched in the face,” said the fan, who asked not to identified.
He said he saw another altercation after the game.
“They went at our supporters and they went at our star player post game. You won’t get away with this,” tweeted another TFC supporter.
The Montreal Impact did not respond to a query about fan violence. Toronto FC said it had not been made aware of any complaints.
Montreal police said no arrests were made around the game.
|
Designed to take over from the company's DS112j, the DS115j retains much of its predecessors design. The single bay supports a single 3.5" SATA hard drive inside its plastic casing, with an optional 2.5" drive caddy available at additional cost. Where its predecessor used the Marvell Kirkwood ARM system-on-chip processor and had just 128MB of memory, however, the DS115j features the newer Armada 370 and 256MB of RAM - albeit with the processor running at a slower 800MHz clockspeed to the former's 1GHz.As well as certified support for the latest 6TB hard drives - up from the 5TB of its predecessor - the DS115j includes two USB 2.0 ports for additional storage, a single gigabit Ethernet port and cooling from a single 60mm fan. A lower power draw from the Marvell Armada system-on-chip (SoC) processor drops the idle power consumption from 4.4W to 3.85W, although oddly the power draw during drive access has increased from 12.1W to 12.6W. Fan noise, too, has increased in the new model, from a claimed 17.1dBA to 18.1dBA.The DiskStation Manager (DMS) software supplied comes with the same restrictions in both models, limiting the Cloud Station system to 64 concurrent file transfers and the Download Station to 20. The biggest change comes in performance: the new processor can transfer data from a gigabit network at speeds of up to 103MB/s - a 28 per cent increase over the DS112j - while its hardware floating-point unit provides a performance boost to multimedia applications.The real headline, however, is the price: where the DS112j launched at £114, its successor arrives on the market at £78 - an indication that Synology is not blind to the growing popularity of lower-cost alternatives in the market. The DS115j is available to purchase now, with more details available on the Synology website
|
Walking the privacy tightrope across the Atlantic
Privacy International Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 31, 2017
This piece was written by PI Legal Officer Tomaso Falchetta.
This week the United States Congress voted to strip away one of the country’s few safeguards of the right to privacy by repealing rules which would have limited internet service provider’s ability to use or share customers’ data without customers’ approval.
Meanwhile, last week, 6,500 kilometers away in Geneva, the United Nations Human Rights Council called on states to strengthen customers’ control over their data and develop legislation to address harm from the sale or corporate sharing of personal data without the individual’s free, explicit, and informed consent. All 47 members of the Human Rights Council, including the US, agreed on the resolution, which was adopted by consensus.
So, was this a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing? Probably not. The US delegation at the UN explained that “in many commercial contexts, meaningful consent could be drawn from the behaviour of consumers”. This “meaningful” consent falls far short of the standard of free, explicit, and informed consent that is so central to modern data protection standards. In fact, in the US there is currently no data protection regime, meaning that companies are virtually free to use, retain, sell, analyse, and profit from customer data. Oftentimes customer data is used to create detailed customer profiles, which can lead to services being unduly restricted or costs increasing. In contrast, data protection standards in Europe and elsewhere require that individuals give explicit consent to their data being used, and that the consent is free and informed, meaning that it is not sufficient to assume consent by interpreting the behavior of the consumer who is using a service.
In its resolution, the UN Human Rights Council seeks to address the consequences of data mining and profiling. The resolution notes that metadata (the ‘who, what, where’ of a message*) “can reveal personal information that can be no less sensitive than the actual content of communications”, including giving an insight into an individual’s behaviour, social relationships, private preferences, and identity.
The Council joins the conclusion of many privacy experts and courts, including the Court of Justice of the European Union which last December confirmed that metadata, when aggregated, is able to reach very precise conclusions about the private lives of individuals, including their everyday habits and activities, places of residence and daily movements, and their social relationships.
Privacy experts have long noted how metadata can be used to profile individuals, and the Council’s resolution singles out profiling to be of particular concern. It further seeks to address the increasing capacity of companies and governments to mine data, to find links between patterns of behaviour, and to predict behaviour. Specifically, it says that automated processing of personal data “may lead to discrimination as well as negatively impact individual’s economic, social and cultural rights”. The use of profiling is being used in a variety of contexts, from basic consumer profiling, to predictive policing, and social profiling. Such profiling can negatively affect access to credit, to heath, to work, and more including restricting basic fundamental rights such as liberty, freedom of expression, and peaceful assembly.
The resolution also encourages companies to use encryption and calls upon states not to interfere with the use of encryption, which is central to protecting confidentiality of digital communications. And the debate over encryption is once again heating up in the United Kingdom. Barley three days after the resolution’s adoption, the UK’s Home Secretary called on companies to collaborate with the government by giving intelligence services and police backdoor access to encrypted messages on Whatsapp.
What these examples show is how the UN remains a key voice in the right to privacy debate, and it will continue to be so. Last week the Council called for an expert workshop and a new study by the High Commissioner on the Human Rights to clarify principles, standards and best practices against which to assess states’ (and companies’) compliance with the right to privacy.
While this resolution alone will not change the practices of states (or of companies), it reminds us what is at stake: threats to privacy and security increase when hard-fought and meaningful privacy protections are irresponsibly stripped away. The UN plays a global role in advocating for the respect of the right to privacy. At a time when human rights are being squeezed between ballooning state surveillance powers and companies’ increasing appetite for customer data, such a role is much needed.
*For more information on metadata, please see below video.
|
On most Android sites, when you read or hear someone referring to "stock" Android, it's usually with Google's idea of Android in mind: clean home screen, light color scheme, and the bare minimum of accoutrements. Stock Android is also considered by many in the know to be the Platonic ideal of what Android should be, and it's the standard bearer for all comparisons to Android skins from third-party manufacturers. In recent years, whether through an overt campaign by Google itself or just a flattening and maturing of Material Design guidelines, most manufacturers have come to terms with differentiation as a selling point; from Samsung to Huawei, distinctiveness is looking considerably more familiar these days.
That being said, when I and many of my colleagues review a device, such as the upcoming Galaxy Note 8, we often talk about how, while the default launcher is tolerable, it's easy to change. And if you don't like the keyboard, here's an alternative. The default messaging app? It sucks, here's another one. These tend to be throwaway comments from people who don't tend to consider the other side of the coin — again, myself included — that the vast majority of Android phone buyers (the vast majority of whom are Samsung phone buyers) don't change any of these settings. Given that it's the waning days of summer, I've been attending baseball games, fairs, and plenty of other gatherings where it's easy to glance at a person's phone and the way he or she uses it. When I see an Android user, I try to make time to ask what goes into that setup process; Android is, after all, a supremely customizable operating system. Almost all of them say a variation of the same thing: "I don't touch it." That's the real "stock" Android; if you're looking at it from the perspective of the most common shared experience, we should be referring to stock Android as that of the default Samsung experience which, while it changes from year to year and generation to generation, is generally quite different from what you'd find on the Google Pixel or devices whose skins try to mimic it.
Samsung and many other companies have tried really hard to get on the right side of Android design. When I received my demo Note 8, I decided to follow this idea to its logical conclusion. I resisted changing the launcher to my go-to alternative, Nova Launcher, and did not download Gboard as my keyboard or Android Messages as my SMS client. In other words, I kept Google's influence over my Samsung experience as far away as possible while trying to respect and appreciate Samsung's decisions as much as possible. I don't purport to think this is any sort of drastic action, but it has helped, over the last few days, understand some of the ongoing criticisms and compliments Samsung has received on its way to the most successful and influential smartphone brand in the Android space.
|
In the Giro, the Crostis climb was taken out at the last moment. The reason was not the safety of the riders, as more than 300 trees were cut and barricades were put up to ensure that. Nope, the reason was that the team cars can’t go up that climb and that having just one support motorcycle per team was considered too little. Hence the concept was introduced that “the sporting value of the race was in danger” because a mechanical could have a big impact on the race.
Tell that to the guys who had to weld and forge their own parts back together if something broke in the formative years of cycling. Apparently in retrospect, there is no sporting value in those early races!
When you watch cycling nowadays, there are hundreds of cars driving like crazy to let 200 guys ride around. This is nuts. I see four major problems with all these cars:
It endangers the sporting value of the race (ha!) when you have the sprinters hang on the cars for dear life as they did up Etna. It endangers the sporting value of the race (ha! ha!) when the combination of team cars, VIP cars, motorcycles and assorted other transportation regularly hinders the riders, especially on the bad roads of the classics and in the mountains. Many a breakaway attempt is foiled not by the other competitors but by a vehicle that is supposed to be a inert part of the race. It’s plain dangerous as sports directors often drive like idiots. Most countries have passed laws that make it illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving. Many sports directors do that while at the same time talking into the team radio AND watching television. They seem to think they’re such great drivers and invincible, which makes matters only worse. It kills any notion that cycling is an environmentally conscious sport (and cutting 300 trees for nothing doesn’t help).
Tomorrow I’ll share a proposal to bring some sanity back into the sport and bring it down to a human level. Do you have any ideas, please share them in the comments section! To receive my proposal and other future blogs automatically, you can sign up for my blog via email, twitter, skype, or instant messaging here.
|
Last week, my pregnant wife and I decided to have a kind of “last hurrah” camping trip before kids come. We live in Utah valley and fortunately, we’ve had a pretty heavy winter so far. As much as we love the snow, it’s great to get some sun throughout the generally overcast winter. Moab is only 3 hours away, so we left on Friday morning to warm up on some nice red rock.
Moab is an amazing getaway during the winter because the hot red rock makes the 60 degree weather feel like 75. With two of Utah’s Mighty 5 National Parks in Moab’s backyard, the town is a great family destination. Moab’s easy access to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dead Horse Point State Park, the Colorado River, and thousands of square miles of awe inspiring red rock landscapes has made it one of the most popular spots in the Southwest.
We had camped in Moab 6 times before, but always in a tent, and never with our camper Betty-Jean. Our favorite spot is no secret. Sand Flats Recreation Area in loop C has some of the best “non-primitive” camping spots in my opinion. They are right up against red rock, have huge sandy areas in each campsite, and are still close enough to the city for convenience. Not to mention that the famous Slickrock bike/hike trail is literally 1 minute away. Luckily, a small trailer will also fit into any of these sites. It’s especially worth checking out the sand flats area if you plan on doing any biking or 4×4 in Moab.
Our Go-to Moab Hikes:
Corona Arch (2 miles one-way)
Fisher Towers Trail (2.2 miles one-way)
Negro Bill Canyon (2 miles one-way)
Hunter Canyon (2 miles one-way)
Double Arch (0.5 miles round trip)
Delicate Arch (3 miles round trip)
Landscape Arch (1.9 miles round trip)
Slickrock Trail (Varies)
Our Go-to Moab Bike Trails:
Bar M Loop (Varies)
Slickrock Practice Loop (1.6 miles round trip)
Slickrock Full Loop (10.7 miles round trip)
Porcupine Rim (14.7 miles)
Some of these trails are harder than others, but other than Porcupine Rim, all of the hiking/biking trails can be completed by any “in-shape” adult, and many by younger kids. Some of the easiest and most accessible hikes that I listed are located in Arches National Park. If you are new to Moab, Arches is the #1 place I would recommend.
Hopefully this list helps someone out there try something new in Moab. Enjoy!
Like this: Like Loading...
|
More Americans Opt For Risky Long-Term Car Loans
Enlarge this image toggle caption iStockphoto iStockphoto
There comes a day in every car owner's life when she knows, it's time. For Carolyn Ballard of Atlanta, that was on a hot day last July, while driving her SUV with misfiring cylinders.
"I drove to the dealership with the car literally chugging along," she says. "I mean, in traffic on the interstate. I was just sweating, thinking I've just got to get to the dealership so I can get rid of this, before I put any more money into it."
Ballard wanted a late-model Honda Accord that she'd seen on the dealership's website. By the time she got there, it was gone. But there were plenty of new Accords.
"I don't know what the average marriage lasts in the U.S. today. Might be less than the average car loan."
"I said, 'If you can get my payments under $250 a month I will consider taking this car,' " she says.
No problem. Ballard got a loan from Wells Fargo at a rate of 2.5 percent. But for 74 months. That's six years.
Six-year car loans used to be in the minority. They're now the norm, and loans of seven or eight years are even becoming popular. New-car sales in the U.S. are booming, and longer car loans are playing a role. Nearly a third of new loans are now 74 months or longer.
But some worry the trend will hurt the auto industry in the future. Others worry it's hurting consumers right now. Ed Kim, an analyst with AutoPacific, says one thing driving the trend is the cars themselves.
"Consumers are demanding a lot more technology in their vehicles, infotainment technologies," he says. "There's also a lot more safety features that are in vehicles right now. Emissions and efficiency technology that are in vehicles right now, that are making vehicles cost a lot more."
But Kim says the main reason is many consumers haven't recovered from the recession. So that new car payment has to be stretched out over more years.
Melinda Zabritski isn't too worried for consumers. She's with Experian Automotive, a subsidiary of the credit rating agency Experian, and says longer car loans often make sense, especially for people on a tight budget.
"Well, if we all had the luxury to take a 36- or 48-month term, but the bottom line is you know the average consumer just can't afford that," she says.
That reasoning drives consumer advocate Mike Sante nuts. He's with Interest.com and says people on a budget are precisely the ones who shouldn't be taking out long loans.
"They're a way to get people into cars that are more expensive than they should really be buying," he says. "It's these kinds of decisions that you make, that will truly determine how much money you have later in life."
Sante argues that people should pay off their cars within four years, which can mean buying a less expensive or used car.
While it's relatively easy to get a long loan at certain automakers, Honda is trying to buck that trend. After all, the equity that owners still have in their vehicles come trade-in time is a big selling point for Honda. Long loans destroy that equity.
Honda Executive Vice President John Mendel says loans beyond five years are just too long to pay off a car.
"I don't know what the average marriage lasts in the U.S. today," he says. "[It] might be less than the average car loan."
Mendel hopes his competitors start using more discipline. But that may be wishful thinking. When interest rates go up, a new car will become even more expensive, which is likely to push more consumers into longer loans.
|
This fall's hit anime Yuri!!! on Ice and Saga Prefecture's Sagaprise! project announced on Monday that they are collaborating to promote Yūri Katsuki's home prefecture. The project will kick off with events in Tokyo, and it aims to establish Yūri's hometown as an anime pilgrimage site. The collaboration will offer regional products and special themed merchandise.
Yūri's anime hometown of Hasetsu is based on the real-life city of Karatsu in Saga Prefecture. Saga Prefecture sits in the northwestern part of the island of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's main islands. Due to its proximity to Korea and China, Karatsu was an important ancient trading port. The city's most prominent feature is Karatsu Castle, and Karatsu holds the popular Karatsu Kunchi festival every year.
Karatsu's official website offers side-by-side comparison images of Hasetsu in the anime and Karatsu in the real world:
Karatsu Station
Karatsu Castle
Maizuru Bridge
Kyōmachi Shopping Arcade
Check out Karatsu's website for even more comparison images.
The 12th and final episode of Yuri!!! on Ice aired last Thursday and hinted at the possibility of a sequel with the message "See You NEXT LEVEL." If the anime returns, fans will probably get more glimpses of beautiful Hasetsu/Karatsu, and a new wave of anime pilgrims will continue to support the city.
Source: Comic Natalie
|
Box Score | Box Score (pdf)
CHICAGO -- The Marquette University volleyball team wrapped up the 2017 regular season with a swift 3-0 (25-23, 25-23, 25-19) victory at DePaul on Saturday afternoon at McGrath-Phillips Arena.
The Golden Eagles (21-8, 15-3) were led by redshirt junior Jenna Rosenthal and sophomore Allie Barber with 10 kills each. Junior Anna Haak added eight kills with a team-best 16 digs.
Sophomore Lauren Speckman and freshman Sarah Rose shared setting duties, dishing out 18 and 13 assists, respectively.
"I thought this was a total team win," head coach Ryan Theis said. "Everyone chipped in and we had some strong contributions off of the bench. We are excited for the post season and hosting the BIG EAST Tournament. We consider postseason to be third phase in our season and we are excited to move forward."
Marquette trailed by 19-12 in the first set and was able to close out the frame with a 13-4 run, including five straight points for a 25-23 victory. The Golden Eagles had a slow start in the second frame, down 5-1, but regrouped a put pressure on the Blue Demons (8-22, 2-16) to take a 25-23 win and go up 2-0 in the match.
An ace from junior Madeline Mosher wrapped up the third set, 25-19 to complete the sweep.
DePaul was led by Brittany Maxwell with a match-high 16 kills and .294 hitting percentage. The Golden Eagles did not have their most efficient hitting of the season, combining for just .188 in the match, though the Blue Demons totaled just .172.
MU's 15 wins in BIG EAST action is the best mark for the squad since the 2013 campaign when the Golden Eagles also tallied 15 victories.
Marquette has clinched the No. 2 seed in the BIG EAST Tournament, hosted by the Golden Eagles. MU will face No. 3 Butler on Friday, Nov. 24 at 2:30 p.m. CT, live on the BIG EAST Digital Network presented by SoFi.
|
Bitch - is a slang pejorative for a person, commonly a woman, who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, a control freak, rudely intrusive or aggressive. (Wikipedia)
Over the weekend I took my 15 year old daughter to a basketball tournament. Her team was made up of 9 girls aged from 13 to 15. They are not olympic basketballers - it's kids sport in the country, an under 16 competition.
Before our game on Sunday evening the coach called a pre game team meeting which involved a white board. During this meeting she constantly referred to the other team as bitches and the exceptionally tall young woman as a big dodo and a big dumb bitch.
Not surprisingly I took offence at this but I waited until we were home and spoke to the coach. Her comments (yes the coach is a woman) were that she will use whatever language she likes if it gets the job done and I was the only parent who has an issue with it, therefore it's my problem not hers. And she's right it is my problem that I find it offensive but I also think it's societies problem.
Language has power, otherwise why would we even use these derogatory terms? As a parent I find this behaviour by another adult towards children abhorrent and incredibly disrespectful. As a woman, I found this behaviour of encouraging our young women to demean other young women disappointing and discouraging.
It's often been said that the greatest enemy of the feminist movement are women themselves. How can we expect the next generation to support each other when they are taught to disrespect other women in this manner? It just reinforces stereotypes about how women cannot get along, that we are "bitchy". To achieve equality we have to show that we respect and support each other, that we encourage all women to succeed.
Attitudes such as this need to be rooted out of junior sport. It is no longer an acceptable training and motivation technique, not to mention that it is in breach of the child safe standards.
Our young people need role models that encourage them to succeed on their merits, not by tearing down other human beings.
Kathryn Harris is a Fellow of CPA Australia, a Chartered Tax Advisor and a graduate of the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW.
A partner in a rural accountancy practice she champions woman in their business and leadership roles.
Twitter: @HarrisBusSol Facebook: TrustOne Partners Web: trust1.com.au Amazon: Kathryn Harris, Author
*Please note these views and opinions expressed in this article are my own.
|
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “I’m a nerd and have absolutely no use for Star Wars condoms aside from collecting them and displaying them next to my carded action figures.” Well, nerdlings, you never know. You may meet a girl one day who loves Star Wars as much as you. And if you do, it’s good to be safe. You don’t want a bunch of little padawans in the house before you are ready.
These Star Wars condom designs by Benedetto Papi will help keep your lightsaber out of trouble, even during human-cyborg relations according to C-3PO.
Sadly you can’t buy these, but you can admire the design and wonder what it would be like to use these with an actual woman. And no, it won’t be Leia or Padme. Though if you’re lucky, you might just land a Twi’lek dancer.
[via Obvious Winner]
|
Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Publisher CD Projekt, parent company of Witcher developer CD Projekt Red, announced today that most PC players play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on CD Projekt's distribution platform, GOG.com. This is surprising because Steam is the most used platform by a large amount.
In a press release, the company revealed that over 690,000 people play the game through GOG, a substantial number considering it sold 4 million copies total across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. In fact, GOG didn't just edge out Steam--more copies are activated on GOG than on all other PC distribution platforms combined.
Most likely, people flocked to GOG for the discount deals, which included up to 20 percent off of pre-order purchases. GOG also appealed to players for its insistence on keeping the Witcher 3 DRM-free. Green Man Gaming, another distribution platform, also sold GOG keys for the game at a discount, which could have helped drive people to GOG.
The company also released some other stats about player usage through GOG. According to the statement, the sales account for "more than 21.5 petabytes of game and bonus content delivered, 3.5 million achievements unlocked, and 1,770 combined years of game time spread over 190+ countries."
CD Projekt Red is still coming out with free weekly content for the game, and will continue to do so through July. This week's DLC includes new cards for Gwent and a quest about a town run by pigs.
|
Despite a white-hot presale market that has driven new condo inventory to record lows, mandatory registration of new Vancouver condominiums have fallen 28% as starts have plunged.
Registrations of new homes with the BC Homeowner Protection Office (HPO) are seen as a harbinger of new home construction, since the warranty registrations are required before building permit applications, according to BC Housing.
As of the first half of this year, HPO had received registrations for 1,788 new Vancouver condos, down from 2,488 units at the same time in 2016.
Industry officials say the lower registrations may just reflect a pause in a booming cycle.
“No one I’m talking to is slowing down – it’s crazy busy out there,” said Bob de Wit, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association.
“There are some very large projects underway that will complete in the fall that are taking up productive capacity and limiting new starts and delaying warranty purchases for subsequent projects,” de Wit said.
“Construction costs are exploding and even developers who have projects pre-sold are scrambling to sharpen their pencils and retender, causing delays in starts,” he added.
Western Investor
|
hi guys it was my new years resolution to make it to the end of this fanfic but to be honest i am very upster by the small reiview numbers. :( i want to try to write my entire story that i have mapped out but i feel unsucuessful
also happy new year to all my people!
i am really sick wth a flu so i am tired and awake at 4 in the morning. i am staying home from school so i will update again today! this is a short one though. chapter 12 will be moe meaningful
...
i sobbed sadly as i sat over dream eridans corpse.
"my baby... i am so sorry you are dead"" i sobbed "this is my fault!"
the goo monster sighed impatiently and was crossing his arms "satacia that is not important right now"
i looked up at him with eyes like knifes glaring into his soul. "YOU SHUT UP! YOU DONT KNOW WHAT IS IPORTANT! YOU DONT KNOW WHAT MY LIFE IS! YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT E OR HOW I LIVE OR WHAT I DO! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE YOU FUCKING GOO MONSTER I HATE YOU!"
"i am not a goo monster" he said "i am your father!"
...
two shadowy figures met
"i fear we lost the war before the war even started" said one guy
the other nodded 'we may be doomed"
...
dave and john were making out fiercely and heavily on daves bed. dave sighned.
"i cant do this john"
john looked at him adorably sad "why?" he could tell dave was serious because he was his boyfriend and knew him well but also daves sunglasses didnt twinkle
he sighed "i am super in love"
"awwww" said john
"but not with you"
"WHAT" said john
"i love stacia" he said "i want her to be my one and only"
jade and terezi were also in the room and started crying
"please we can work this out" jade begged "she can be in your quardrants to!"
he shook his head and said "i love mogonogamy now because that is the right thing"
terezi who was in the middle of scooping watermelon into a bowl sobbed harder "now you insulted me as both a girlfriend and a troll!" he yelled and dumped the watermelon onto his head. this annoye dave because he cared a lot about his hair
terezi and jade both flipped him off and left crying but john got on his knees
""please dave we can all be togehter" he said with big blue eyes that were full of tears and
"no" dave said "this is how it has to be"
"how do you know" said john
"because i dreamed and a shadowy figure came to me and told me" he said
|
Human rights protections in Scotland are likely to be reduced as a result of Brexit, a Holyrood report has found.
The UK's departure from the Brussels bloc is likely to mean that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is no longer binding when it comes to making domestic laws.
This covers a broad range of civil, economic, social and cultural rights, according to a report by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICE) today.
"Brexit is likely to mean that the Charter no longer applies to the UK or Scotland and therefore a reduction in current and future human rights protections in areas within the scope of EU law," it states.
The charter also takes in rights which have been developed in light of scientific changes and technological developments, such as data protection.
READ MORE: Sturgeon calls for a united Scotland to fight hard Brexit
The Scottish Human Rights Commission has previously voiced concerns over the impact on anti-discrimination, environmental protections and consumer rights.
Workers rights, as well as social security and healthcare are among the other areas which could suffer.
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which the UK has signed up to, won't be directly affected by the Brexit because it is not part of EU law.
The Westminster Government wants to introduce a UK Bill of Rights, in line with Germany’s and America’s judicial systems, which would include a new Constitutional Court.
But this would mean the repeal of the current Human Rights Act at UK level and Nicola Sturgeon has pledged to block this at Holyrood.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.