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September 2024 Agdar and Idunn stared in anticipation as their doctor scowled at the computer before him. A couple of aggressive swipes later and the program was ready to run again. The doctor switched to another window, furiously sifting through some documents to ensure all the data he'd been given was valid. Seeing no error, he returned and smashed the 'Analyze' button. After an agonizing wait, the computer gave up and yielded an error: "Analysis failed - invalid input signal." "What does that mean?" Idunn demanded. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and unclenched her fists. "Is my baby going to be okay?" Dr. Albert Mueller, the Arendelle family's trusted medical expert, did his best to placate."Well... the ultrasounds in the records all indicate healthy morphology. Furthermore, today's vitals are steady and consistent. She should live, but beyond that is uncertain. Aside from that, we can't run any real analysis on her." All of the pre-natal evaluation and extrapolation programs had failed. The neuro-mapping, the genetic profile, Everything. Baby Elsa was a complete medical mystery. This invoked a particularly disturbing realization within Agdar. It gnawed at him, compelling him to ask: "So she'll be completely un-augmented... At the mercy of nature?" Idunn cringed at her husband's words, the social and political implications crashing into her with overwhelming force. No matter what the context, Elsa would always be in last place; weak, vulnerable, and dependent upon others. Sensing the pain in the young couple, Dr. Mueller replied with cautious optimism. "I wouldn't write her off just yet. After delivery we should have better access to her biological systems. We might even get lucky and be able to implant some synaptic co-processors and neural filters." Idunn's demeanor softened ever so slightly at the doctor's hopeful words. Exhaling sharply, she took a moment to collect herself, but the environment wasn't helping. Sterile white walls with brushed steel trim towered over everyone in the room, casting a desolate tint over the meeting. Ever a man of persistence and tenacity, Agdar pressed the issue. He straightened himself in his chair and put on the collected air of authority for which he was known. "Are you sure there isn't anything else you can do? I know it isn't a trivial request but her future is at stake..." That calm, bold assertiveness never failed to light a fire in Idunn's heart. It had always been her favorite part of her husband's character, unwavering through the years. Basking in her heart's subtle throbbing, she scooped his arm in hers and gently rested her head on his shoulder. The desolate tinge of the environment faded into the background with him by her side. Never one to give up on a challenge, Albert took stock of his options and relayed them. "I suppose I can go over all of the data again. If there's any change, I'll let you know." "You're the best." Agdar replied with a confident smile. "Oh... before we go. That neurological implant we've been discussing... how far along is it?" Whenever a perceptive individual also has the gift of love, they tend to learn their partner very quickly. Agdar was just such a man, ever in-tune with his beloved. Her anxious fidgeting, the wringing of her hands and the occasional chewing of her cheeks did not go unnoticed. The fog of distraction clouding Idunn's mind didn't dissipate all at once. Her eyes glazed over, the image of passing streetlights and scenery bounced off the mind meaninglessly. The clearing was a slow, labored process that didn't solidify until she made a critical realization. 'This isn't the way home...' Within moments, the telltale allure of curiosity had her in its grasp. Peeking over at Agdar revealed exactly what she'd suspected. He was planning something for sure. That determined expression of his stirred up far too many memories to be anything else. She shot her eyes upwards in momentary contemplation, pondering how effective it would be to pry the surprise out. 'Nah... he's up to something sweet. I'll let him do it his way.' The ultimate destination of the evening finally lay before them. Idunn gave the building a once-over, finding a sleek, skewed, and asymmetrical glass-coated affair. From within, soft red lights diffused through dark black furnishings where they finally hit the frosted glass. Dead leaves briskly blew across the sidewalk along a breeze that kissed her skin. The sensation juxtaposed against the tantalizing warmth within, drawing her towards the door. A familiar hand clasped her own. "I noticed you were feeling a bit edgy. Hungry, dear?" "Oh Agdar..." She replied, gazing back at him with wide, wistful eyes. Inside, the ambiance was saturated with the scent of lush delicacies and the sound of bavardage from patrons. Unlike typical babble, this chatter was soft, diffuse; every inch of the interior's design had been meticulously engineered to massage the harsh sounds of business into a gentle, relaxing serenade. Soon the amorous duo were munching on exquisite Maine lobster, slathered far past the saturation limit with oodles of dripping butter. Idunn felt her anxiety melt away faster than the scrumptious chunks of crustacean flesh in her mouth. "You know sweetheart, I'm actually starting to feel really good about things." Agdar began, his tone steeped in optimism. "Hmm?" Idunn hummed through a mouth full of succulence. "Well, most of it's just a general good feeling... but Albert has arranged for me to get one of Evotech's newest brain implants. It'll tell me exactly how someone is feeling, and give suggestions of what they might be thinking. That's immediate feedback on if I'm being a good manager or not." The prospect did sound tantalizing. Having that kind of insight into someone's mind would bring you intimately close to their world. On the other hand... It would be trivial to manipulate them. Mulling over the idea, Idunn's face contorted with concern. "I know I have my creative augment..." She started, eyes darting around as she pulled her thoughts out. "But this is different. This is leadership and control. How do I know I won't lose my husband to this thing?" At this, Agdar's face lit up. He'd spent hours discussing the subject with Dr. Mueller, and they'd come to a solution that he thought was quite ingenious. "Let me put your fears to rest dear. In the implant, there's an onboard computer with a learning algorithm. It keeps track of dopamine levels, and if I get a little too excited, it will provoke a controlled oxytocin release. I requested the feature myself, and Albert designed it." "At the first sign of trouble..." She started, letting out a weary sigh. "I'm making you get it removed. But... if it works the way it's supposed to..." Idun softened, gazing at him with contentment. "It'll be nice to see you doing so much good." Fall in New England is always a most chromatic affair. Spatterings of of crimson and yellow disrupted the patches of faded grass underneath, all while spires of evergreen pushed upwards through masses of leaves below. Winter was coming to be sure, but for the moment, the vibrant grace of autumn cradled the home of Agdar and Idunn Arendelle. The house came alive at their presence, garage door fading out of existence as the car approached. Lights ignited in sequence as Agdar and Idunn retreated into their home. The living room awaited; it was a somber place, but not bereft of elegance. Luxurious, wispy floral trim adorned nearly every major feature in unique contrast to the rest of the house. The design hearkened to a simpler time, before technology had permeated every facet of life. As her husband peered thoughtfully out the window, Idunn gently interjected "What shall we do dear?" "About what, sweetheart?" He queried. Idunn in her persistent grace, strode over to the plush couch where he was sitting. Soft folds of her dress fluttered daintily as she moved. Gently laying herself down the length of it, she gingerly cradled her head in his lap. "Elsa. What if she really can't accept augments?" Agdar nervously dragged his hand over his lips and down his chin. "There aren't many things we can do. We can hope, but that's hardly effective. There are a few safe havens, and even in this hostile world some naturals flourish..." He trailed off, his voice faltering. Painful memories reminded him that all the luck in the world could only go so far. Not even months before, a story had broken about a teenage natural boy who had been kidnapped and abandoned in an area of the city that only responded to neural inputs. The thought of being trapped in an inhospitable, seemingly empty place with no food, water or restroom and no promise of rescue sent an insidious chill cascading down Agdar's spine. Still though, there was always reason to be hopeful. After all, they were a fairly well-off family with burgeoning social influence. They had the best biotech engineers at their fingertips, and favors that could be called in all across the North American continent. "It's too early to start worrying. We'll just whip ourselves into a panic that way." Miffed, Idunn's face slid into a scowl. "It's never too early for foresight Agdar. There's gotta be at least something we can consider." "You're right of course. I'll figure something out." The months passed far more quickly than anyone could have prepared for. A fire burned in the living room - it wasn't actual combustion, but rather a sophisticated emulation emitting both heat and light with none of the risk of a conflagration. "... I do remember that! You had just gotten hired as a aerodynamics tester, and right when your new manager showed up to ask you how things were doing..." Agdar jumped in and finished the story on his own: "Ted had plugged a wireless keyboard into the back of my machine and started KSP while I wasn't looking. The first thing my new boss saw was a squad of kerbinauts screaming their heads off as they incinerated in the atmosphere. I thought I'd have to find a new job, but they heard him sniggering behind us." Swept away in the cheerful air, a smile burst across Idunn's face. "I'd only known you a few weeks." she started. "We had just finished working on a short film fo... Oh. OH!" Her expression morphed from jovial to concerned. "I think we've got company!" Bolting into action, Agdar grabbed his beloved and in one deft motion swept her out of the house. He hopped into the driver's seat of their car and registered a medical emergency into the route planner. The vehicle's turbines hummed to life and jettisoned off into the night. Idunn interrupted the silence of the journey with a deceptively calm tone. "Agdar, sweetheart... I feel. Cold. Freezing, even." Unsure how to proceed on such little information, he did his best to soothe. "We're almost there, everything will be fine." Moments later, their craft gracefully glided into the hospital lot. Medical staff hurriedly emerged from the building to tend to their newest patient. Twelve hours and one utterly exhausting struggle later, Elsa Arendelle joined the world. With the last vestiges of her waking energy Idunn cradled her new daughter tenderly. Agdar stood by stoically and admired the scene before him. He flashed them both an endearing smile and remarked "All I see here is perfection." A ferocious burst of frigidity completely blindsided Idunn. In a matter of milliseconds, newborn Elsa plunged to icy temperatures. A ghastly look possessed her mother's face; muscles tensed spastically as she unleashed a lung-shredding scream. "DOCTOR! NURSE, PLEASE ANYONE!" The staff, who had only recently started conferring with each other over the minutiae of the delivery operation, spun around at the disturbance. Elsa was encased in ice. Thick, faceted volumes of it. Before anyone could react, the ice receded. Shock and despair gave way to confusion. Surely, the infant's body temperature was back to normal. All that remained of the former ice sheets were wet puddles on the bedding. "I swear, just a moment ago there we..." Agdar cut her off "It was nothing sweetie, just some extra body fluids flying around in all the turmoil." He gave her a look, doing his best to convey wariness of calling attention to the debacle. Drawing ever nearer, he whispered "I think we should consult Dr. Mueller before making any of this public. Who knows what this could be?" She faced him with grim agreement and nodded. Agdar then turned and faced the staff, who still hadn't quite figured out what to make of the situation. Without a word, his assertive demeanor said all that needed to be said. He escorted them all out of the room with an utter lack of protestation from those being evicted. The new father poised to speak but found himself disarmed by the sight before him. There it was - his world, his reason for existing, all in one place. It was pure, unadulterated bliss. Seeing the depleted look on his wife's face, he took their daughter from her and let her rest. Two weeks later, it was finally time to have the fledgling girl fitted with her first round of upgrades. One of the greatest gifts a parent could give their children is the gift of technological enhancement. Diseases obliterated, morphological errors corrected, as well as receiving a framework that would allow the child's future self to have near total control over their destiny. Elsa's parents were hopeful that today would be the day their fears were laid to rest. Several hours into the visit, the doors finally flew open to reveal Dr. Mueller. Agdar squeezed Idunn's hand gently and whispered: "Don't forget, I love you." Agdar sprang to his feet at Albert's arrival. The look on the doctor's face said everything, yet he still grew ever impatient with Albert's silence. "I know it isn't good news. I promise I won't bite. Please, just tell us." "I'm sorry... we contacted every department in Evotech, I even personally exhausted my network of colleagues. All of the brain implants freeze and are attacked by her immune system. Every time we try to map her spinal cord, our instruments go dead. We couldn't get the MedulNode implanted, and I doubt we'll be able to install anything else either." "It's the ice, isn't it?" Idunn asked Dr. Mueller nodded in the affirmative. "It sure is, it's interfering with everything. This wasn't exactly a research operation, so I didn't get much insight, but it's something neurological. Her nervous system lights up like a christmas tree when it happens." Tremendous dread loomed over Agdar. If Elsa was truly incompatible with not just augments, but the entirety of modern medicine, her life would be even more perilous. "On the plus side, her immuno-response is significantly stronger than normal, she's completely impervious to freezing temperatures, and who knows what else. She should be a pretty tough girl. I've never seen anything like it." Impatience lapped at both parents as it always does when separated from such a young child. Eager to have their daughter once again in their custody, they pushed the issue with . He assured them that she was, in fact, ready to be taken home. The February storm raged with furious intensity, pelting the house of Arendelle. Inside, Idunn paced nervously. Fear about the future weighed in on her from all sides, escalating to intolerable levels. Lips quivering, she screamed "WE CAN'T DO THIS! It isn't fair to Elsa!" The outburst didn't register with her husband at first - he wasn't being used to such an overwhelming outburst, especially not from his dearest. "I- I can't think of a better idea! The... other life we lead is dangerous and that's without even considering how naturals are treated here. All the money in the world would be useless; there's no protecting her here.." Maternal instincts on fire, Idunn jumped to counter. As soon as her mouth opened, realization gripepd her and, stopped her short. Her dissent was entirely irrational, saturated in her undying love for her daughter. It wasn't a perfect solution, not by a long shot. But it was the best one they had. Tearfully, she conceded. Seeing her despair and being acutely affected by it himself, Agdar embraced her, gingerly stroking her arm with as much reassurance as the gesture could deliver. For several long minutes they mourned together. With a heavy heart and sluggish manner, Agdar sulked over to his desk. Lifelessly, plopped into the chair, confidence sinking into its cushioning. Upon the desk, a display flickered on. A few interface commands later and a face appeared onscreen. A grin came across the distant face, and its owner asked "Agdar! What can I do for you old friend?". Everything within Adgar's conscience kicked, protested, and dissented vehemently at what he was about to do. In the end, however, logic won the titanic struggle. "Kai... I have a favor to ask of you. You remember all those years ago when I saved your life?" Kai immediately sobered, and replied "I could never forget. What do you need?" Idunn collapsed onto the bed nearby. Her resolve worn thin and her heart stressed to its breaking point, she wept ceaselessly into the night.

It should come as no surprise your optical mouse contains a very tiny, very low resolution camera. [Franci] decided to take apart one of his old mice and turn that tiny optical sensor into a webcam. Inside [Franci]’s Logitech RX 250 is an ADNS-5020 optical sensor. This three wire SPI device stuffed into an 8-pin package is a 15×15 pixel grayscale image sensor. [Franci] started this project by bringing out the Arduino and Ethernet shield. After soldering a pull-up resistor to the image sensor’s reset pin, connecting the rest of the circuit was as simple as soldering a few wires to the Arduino. The Arduino sketch sends the image data for each pixel to a computer over a serial connection. A bit of javascript and a touch of HTML takes this pixel data and turns it into a webpage with a live view of whatever is directly under [Franci]’s mouse. Video of the mousewebcam in action below.

Google blew a lot of minds with its Android Wear announcement yesterday. The ambitious project, which aims to put a specialized version of Android on as many wearables (for now watches) as possible, has been talked about, analyzed, and previewed heavily for the past 24 hours, but there's still more to discuss. Today, we've got the Android Wear launcher (extracted from the emulator) as it currently exists. This is an early version of the home launcher that you'll see on the Moto 360 and likely other wearable devices coming in the near future. The good news is we've quickly disassembled the APK to see if there are any interesting tidbits (there are), and the great news is you can download it below. First up, the eye candy. We saw many of these in yesterday's coverage but here's the full set of icons included in the launcher. Inside the actual code, there are a few more exciting tidbits. First off, it appears Wear will support daydreams. The presumed application for this would be watch faces, which are also mentioned in the code. <service android:exported="true" android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" android:name="com.google.android.clockwork.home.AmbientMode"> <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.service.dreams.DreamService"/> Elsewhere, we get a more complete look at some of the things Wear will probably be able to do. Besides the functionality we've already seen in official materials, there's evidence for Google Ears (audio identification) functionality as well as TV control and product offer/pricing info. There is also a timer function that will actually count down (instead of setting an alarm). Enrico Ros (Google+) played with the app on the emulator, pointing out in his post developer mode, the timer interface, speech, and phone call interface. Image: Enrico Ros In total, there's not a ton to see here that we don't already know. It makes sense that Google wouldn't put all the secret sauce in a preview, but future updates are sure to hold more goodies. In the meantime, you can install and check out the launcher for yourself. I've personally tested it on the Nexus 5 and while it isn't really a reasonable replacement for your primary device's launcher, it runs fluidly and as we saw in our close look at the preview SDK, it doesn't look half bad. Download There are a couple of caveats to the Android Wear launcher as it exists right now - to install it successfully, you'll need to uninstall the helper app Google distributed as part of the developer preview, and of course for now there are no voice actions available. Also, if you're playing music on your device, controls won't show up in the launcher. If you're still on board, hit one of the links below. File Name: com.google.android.wearablepreview.app-KKWT-1077241.apk (Android 4.4+) File Size: 3.79MB (3,980,878 bytes) MD5: 6C07260C4D7D14524873A7B8C73F96E0 Thanks, Michael, Sebastian, and Zhuowei!

Kevin Feige continues to make his rounds on the “Marvel Studios Tease Tour,” where he gives us just enough information to contemplate and discuss for months, but nothing too specific. Except that today, he did give us a brief glimpse into the future of the Phase 3 movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While talking with SlashFilm, Feige said that with their formula of releasing two movies each year, they’re going to try to follow the pattern of releasing one movie based on an existing character and another based off new ones. I think it’s important, in an ideal world, that we have an additional story on a pre-existing character and then introduce a new character. So next year is The Winter Solider, Guardians…Year after that, Age of Ultron, Ant-Man. That’s a nice rhythm. It might not always be like that. I mean [this year was] Iron Man 3 and The Dark World, so it won’t always be like that necessarily, but that’s certainly something to aim for. So we have additional stories of the existing characters in development and the new ones, all of which you’ve heard before. Feige also confirmed that there will be a Thor 3, although it’s only in the idea phase right now, and reiterated that any official announcements regarding Phase 3 films would be made right before Comic-Con 2014 at the earliest. I’m not too surprised by Marvel’s decision to alternate between existing characters and new ones. Although this year’s movies had us watching the exploits of Iron Man and Thor, next year begins the trend by reuniting with Captain America and being introduced to the Guardians of the Galaxy. 2015 will have Avengers: Age of Ultron and Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man. Sure, we’ll probably not get any Captain America or Thor movies past a third entry, but one of the main reasons for the Marvel Cinematic Universe it to introduce non-comic reader audiences to characters who haven’t been represented on the screen yet. My only suggestion is for Marvel think outside the box with the characters they pick for their next movies. While I do like the cosmic-scale and SHIELD-related stories, there other aspects of Marvel that have yet to be explored. Doctor Strange has been suggested as a possible movie: he would be a good way to explore the mysticism of the MCU. Plus, not every threat is going to be from aliens or maniacal government and business officials. Street crime is still a problem, and introducing Moon Knight or Luke Cage would allow us to get a look at the gritty side of Marvel. Honestly, all I can say is to keep being innovative, Marvel. You’ve done great so far, I don’t want you to start screwing up now. SOURCE: ScreenRant

The Grimae Awards has announced this year’s winners! Annually held by the Korean Directors of Photography Society since 1993, the Grimae Awards gives a grand prize to a camera director with excellent cinematography and experimental work. Programs are awarded based on judges’ score, and actors are awarded based on votes by camera directors. The top excellence awards for actors went to Ji Sung from SBS’s “Defendant” and Seo Hyun Jin from SBS’s “Degree of Love.” The new actor award went to SHINee’s Key from MBC’s “Lookout.” The winners will be awarded at the ceremony on November 8 at 7 p.m. KST. Check out the full list of recipients below: Grand Prize: Director Hong Eui Kwon – EBS “Strategy of Life – Breeding” (documentary) Drama Top Excellence Award: Directors Jung Min Gyun and Song Yo Hoon – SBS “Defendant” Documentary Top Excellence Award: Director Hong Sung Joon – KBS “Journey on Foot – Tears of God” Drama Excellence Award: Directors Hong Sung Wook and Park Chang Soo – MBC “Lookout” Directors Kim Hong Jae and Choi Jae Rak – SBS “Degree of Love” Documentary Excellence Award: Director Baek Woo Jung – KBS “Knowing” Director Kim Yong Sang – EBS “Immortal Qin Shi Huang” Actor Top Excellence Award: Ji Sung – SBS “Defendant” Actress Top Excellence Award: Seo Hyun Jin – SBS “Degree of Love” Best New Actor Award: Kim Ki Bum (SHINee’s Key) – MBC “Lookout” Congratulations to all the winners! Source (1)

Courtesy of Ron Belgau Ron Belgau has the distinction of being the only openly gay person invited to speak about homosexuality during the World Meeting of Families, which leads up to the grand finale of the papal visit in Philadelphia. (RNS) Of all the delicate issues that Pope Francis will face when he makes his first visit to the U.S. this month, none may pose as many risks to his enduring popular appeal as the question of the Catholic Church’s approach to gays and lesbians. And no one knows the perils better than Ron Belgau. That’s because Belgau has the distinction of being the only openly gay person invited to speak about homosexuality during a Vatican-approved convention, the World Meeting of Families, which leads up to the grand finale of the papal visit in Philadelphia. The meeting, held every three years in a different city around the world, is in fact the underlying reason Francis is making his Sept. 22-27 trip. His predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, pledged to attend before he resigned. U.S. laws and American attitudes — especially those of Catholics — are rapidly growing more accommodating to gays and gay rights, and Francis has repeatedly signaled that he wants the church to be more inclusive of LGBT people, even if he is not changing any doctrines. But many Catholics leaders are upset at the legal changes and uneasy with the pope’s approach. Their statements, plus repeated stories of gays and lesbians getting fired from church jobs — including the recent example of a teacher dismissed from a Catholic school in suburban Philadelphia over her marriage to her partner — have ramped up demands for Francis to meet with gay Catholics in the U.S. or to speak more extensively about his own approach. Enter Belgau, 40, who will have the chance — and challenge — of leading a session on homosexuality at the World Meeting of Families on Sept. 24, two days before Francis arrives in Philadelphia. “This is a very, very large issue to try to tackle in one hourlong panel discussion,” Belgau said with a laugh, and a bit of understatement, during a phone interview from his home in Washington state. Belgau, a writer and lecturer, will be presenting, together with his mother, a panel on “Homosexuality in the Family,” one of dozens of workshops and panels — most focused on safer and more orthodox topics — that will draw some 18,000 attendees and volunteers to the four-day event. (The papal visit itself is expected to draw as many as 1.5 million pilgrims and tourists to the city.) Belgau admitted that “there’s a lot of pressure” in trying to address the many aspects of such a contentious issue, but he says that he is determined that his remarks not be “a speech just to Catholics who agree with me.” That shouldn’t be a problem, given that Catholics on both right and left have frequently criticized him. Many liberals are uncomfortable with Belgau’s commitment to being celibate, which he sees as the ideal for gays who, like himself, follow a “traditional Christian sexual ethic” that says homosexual activity is sinful. Belgau curates a blog, “Spiritual Friendship,” along with New Testament professor Wesley Hill, that focuses on how gay Christians can live chaste and celibate lives, especially through strong friendships that focus on spiritual growth. While Belgau readily acknowledges that his path is not one every gay Catholic could follow — “I’m not banging people over the head with that” — some gays and lesbians go further and say his ideal denies LGBT believers a central aspect of human experience. They argue the church has to find ways to accept sexually active LGBT members, and the World Meeting of Families ought to allow Catholics whose views differ from Belgau’s to offer their voices. As evidence, they point to the fact that LGBT-friendly Catholic groups were denied applications to purchase exhibit space or offer presentations. And a leading ministry to gay Catholics was barred by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput from running a workshop at a local parish. The New Ways Ministry will instead hold the seminar at a Methodist church. When asked about the rejections, Chaput, a leader of the U.S. hierarchy’s conservative wing, said “we don’t want to provide a platform at the meeting for people to lobby for a position contrary to the life of our church.” Chaput also backed the recent firing of Margie Winters from a Catholic school run by nuns, saying the move “showed character and common sense.” Many conservatives, on the other hand, aren’t happy with Belgau because they actually think he is too squishy on church teaching on homosexuality. They don’t like the fact that he accepts his sexual orientation as part of his identity (Belgau calls the practice of conversion therapy “appalling”), or that he is even talking openly about being gay and Catholic. There are “certain people who say we shouldn’t talk about this but who almost can’t stop” talking about it, Belgau said. They insist on giving their own views on homosexuality, he said, “but then if I try to talk about my own experience they say, ‘We shouldn’t be talking about this.’” Belgau insisted that there is no way the church, or the World Meeting of Families, can avoid the topic. It’s a huge issue in the U.S., and if the Philadelphia meeting had not included anything “that itself would have been a major source of news coverage.” Also, while he says he understood the enormous demands on the organizers of the World Meeting of Families, he does wish other gays and lesbians with other viewpoints could have been heard. (Equally Blessed, a ministry for LGBT Catholics, says 14 of its member families had signed up as participants at the World Meeting of Families.) And Belgau is among those who hope that Francis will talk about gay and lesbian Catholics when he visits. For his part, Belgau will try to echo and elaborate what the pope has already said about being more welcoming and inclusive. The title of his talk, “Always Consider the Person,” is a quote from the pope. “My biggest theme would simply be moving away from the culture wars’ focus on ‘us versus them,’ and saying, respond to people as people,” Belgau said. Too often, he said, gay Catholics are treated differently from others in the church. He said, for example, he wants to encourage parents “to respond to their (gay) children as people rather than as an extension of the culture wars.” “There’s way more focus on gays and lesbians who fall short of the ideal than there is on straight Catholics who fall short of the ideal,” he said. “I have heard of cases of women being dismissed for having a child out of wedlock, but as far as I can recall I’ve never heard of a case of a male teacher being dismissed for having had a child out of wedlock,” he added. Likewise, he said, there is a lot of attention on a gay teacher “but there’s no public outrage about a teacher who doesn’t go to Mass.” “It’s a concern to me that the reasoning is protecting the Catholic identity of a school,” he said. “But it seems to shake out that single women who get pregnant and gays and lesbians tend to bear the brunt of this maintaining Catholic identity.” Belgau acknowledged that the audience at the World Meeting of Families will be “more orthodox Catholics” who may be uncomfortable with some of his views. But, he added, “I think in some ways those who have been hurt by the church, those alienated by the church or in some way outside the church, are a more important audience.” Also on HuffPost:

The good news is that Garfield and Stone give this superficial complexity every ounce of energy they’ve got. But they can’t out-act bad writing, and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers, Star Trek) give them nothing but soapy angst to explore. Still, that’s more dimensionality than the supporting characters get, who as a whole resemble the sort of over-the-top cartoonish villains the genre has spent decades trying to live down. The problem with Electro isn’t that he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze, but that he was conceived like Jim Carrey’s Riddler: a "brilliant," socially awkward doormat who perceives every compliment or slight as if it’s a life-changing event. Dane DeHaan throws himself into playing Harry Osborn with abandon, regurgitating exposition with sincerity and transforming Harry’s parental neglect into an almost believable sense of rage. But if James Franco’s portrayal in the first Spider-Man movies lacked enough internal torment, DeHaan exudes too much, never once seeming like the young man he’s supposed to be — even one coming to terms with the responsibility of a billion-dollar company and a potentially terminal disease. That said, the over-the-top characters do complement the enormous technical ambition of the action scenes. The film’s centerpiece takes place in Times Square, cleverly using its 360-degree video screens as the eyes of the world that Electro so desperately wants to impress, and the eventual showdown is genuinely impressive. Notwithstanding the fact that his powers make him feel like a junior version of Watchmen’s Dr. Manhattan, Electro gives Spider-Man a challenge that is genuinely exciting and even dangerous.

Yes, lots of excitement is going on inside the convention center, but here are 10 free things you can do in San Diego during Comic-Con when you leave the building – and some of them don’t even involve comics! The Futurism & Tech Pavilion at the Omni San Diego Hotel (Wear your Comic Con badge to get in): Head up to the Grand Ballroom on the 4th floor, and prepare to be dazzled by 9,000 square feet of the future staring at you, with augmented reality and more. Sponsored by VRCON, this is immersive entertainment. Kong: Skull Island (Wear your Comic Con badge to get in): Also at the Omni hotel, outdoors on MLK Promenade, check out this “Monarch Containment Zone” where you might even get to meet Kong, as well as experience Skull Island, its temple and more. Blade Runner 2049 Experience (Wear your Comic Con badge to get in): And, while you’re on the Martin Luther King Promenade, stop by and sample the virtual reality version of the future in the sci-fi movie soon to be released, including costumes, props, vehicles and more. You can take a test to find out if you’re human or not. The Tick Takeover by Amazon Prime (Wear your Comic Con badge to get in): Check out the Tick universe at the corner of 1st Avenue & Martin Luther King Promenade. It’s an interactive experience. Photo opportunities, a place to charge your phone, an animatronic tick head, hey how can you miss? Viking Funeral at Embarcadero Marina Park South: This event takes place only on Friday, July 21. If you’re a fan of the History Channel show, “Vikings,” or even if you’re not, check it out. It’s not every day you see Vikings in armor carrying the body of a dead warrior, and even more seldom when there’s a funeral pyre in the bay. Yes, they will be burning up a 45-foot-long Viking ship. Wonder what the AQMD has to say about that one. Lightsaber Battle at Balboa Park: Wear your costume and head over to Balboa Park by 8 p.m. Saturday to engage in the “Largest Lightsaber Battle in the Country.” This is sponsored by the Underground Lightsaber Fighters of San Diego, and it’s for all ages. Meet up at the Bea Evenson fountain, (Next to the Fleet Science Center) 1549 El Prado, San Diego. You don’t need a Comic Con badge to join in this fun. ulfsandiego.com AMC’s Deadquarters, across from the Convention Center. MLK Promenade in front of the Gaslamp Hotel: If you’re a zombie lover, don’t miss this official fan stop for “The Walking Dead” and “Fear the Walking Dead.” It will be open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday, July 20-Saturday, July 22 and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, July 23. They promise you can take a swing at Negan Batting Cages and you might even see cast members. Spreckels Organ Pavilion, Balboa Park: When you’ve just had enough fantasy for one weekend, head on over to the lush, beautiful and free Balboa Park, where every Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. you can hear a free concert on their historic pipe organ, in their beautiful outdoor pavilion. It’s near the visitor’s center, and parking is free, too. spreckelsorgan.org Picnic at Mission Bay Park: The city offers free parking lots all around the bay, and there are no shortage of picnic tables and nice places to relax. Go early in the day, to swim. If you’re lucky, you might even score a fire ring. sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation The Netflix Experience, Hilton Gaslamp Hotel (Wear your Comic Con badge to get in.): Stop by and take a sneak peek at Netflix films and new seasons of popular series, visit a virtual reality Upside Down with Stranger Things, maybe get exclusive giveaways. Go to the mean streets of New York with Marvel’s “The Defenders,” which premieres Aug. 18. Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Virtues of Folding "She crumbled," ace detective Phillip Marlowe observed in one of the greatest lines in Raymond Chandler’s classic 1939 novel The Big Sleep, "like a new bride’s pie crust." And so, come to think of it, has the Obama administration’s approach to Arab-Israeli peacemaking. Thirty months in, a self-styled transformative president with big ideas and ambitions as a peacemaker finds himself with no negotiations, no peace process, no relationship with an Israeli prime minister, no traction with Palestinians, and no strategy to achieve a breakthrough. Indeed, in the wake of the publicly orchestrated extravaganza also known as the Benjamin Netanyahu visit last week, we seem to have speechified ourselves farther away than ever from serious peacemaking. Israelis and Palestinians are running in the opposite direction: Mahmoud Abbas to virtual statehood at the United Nations in September; Netanyahu to the belief that Israel doesn’t need a credible strategy to cope with what’s coming. There’s great temptation in all of this to saddle the Obama administration with the lion’s share of responsibility for this unhappy state of affairs. But that would be wrong, inaccurate, and decidedly unfair. The president, to be sure — perhaps with the best intentions and the worst analysis — has made a complex situation more complicated. But the preponderance of blame surely rests with the locals’ incapacity and unwillingness to get real and serious about what it would take to reach an agreement. Let’s be clear: The chance of a conflict-ending agreement (and I choose my words carefully here) that allows Israelis and Palestinians to resolve the four core issues — borders, Jerusalem, security, and refugees — appears to be slim to none. Anything short of that (borders first; an interim agreement, etc.) seems beyond the interest or will of the two sides to consider or take seriously. "Been there, done that," seems to govern Palestinian thinking. "I don’t want to do that," seems to shape Israel’s. The reasons for this impasse aren’t hard to identify. There are big gaps on the big issues, even on territory (the least hopeless one) as evidenced by the brouhaha over Obama’s mention of the June 1967 borders with mutually agreed swaps. The meaningless but oft-repeated line — that everyone knows what the solution will be — only serves to inspire false confidence and trivializes how hard it will be to get there. Weak leaders, or at least leaders who are prisoners of their political constituencies (not masters of them), compound the problem. Bibi may want to be great, but coalition politics, ideology, and his own fears constrain him. Abbas too wants legacy; but he’s presiding over a national movement that despite newfound virtual unity with Hamas still looks like Noah’s Ark: there are two of everything — security services, charters, visions for Palestine, and patrons. It’s a long way from the one gun, one authority, one negotiating position that is the essence of sovereignty — and indispensable for a conflict-ending accord on the Palestinian side. Nor is the regional situation all that conducive for a breakthrough. (Or at least let’s agree that it’s an arguable proposition.) Some believe that the transformative changes now loose in the Arab world have increased the incentives and the pressure for a deal. On one hand, democratic reforms and movements seem to be breaking out all over and the Arabs appear focused more on internal matters than wanting this issue resolved. On the other, Arab public opinion will now be more influential and could become more radicalized. So, let’s hurry up and make a deal. Some, like President Obama, think the situation calls for risk-readiness; others, like Prime Minister Netanyahu, see uncertainty and danger and are risk averse. Even Abbas isn’t quite sure. One of the factors behind agreeing to unity with Hamas was the fear that Palestinian leaders who don’t deliver will be swept away by their own public. The Obama administration — with the best of motives (Arab-Israeli peace is really important to U.S. interests) but lacking a real strategy — made this situation worse, at least for America. First came the elusive search for a comprehensive settlements freeze and confidence builders from the Arabs, veritable Missions Impossible. Failure here damaged the president’s credibility because Arabs and Israelis said "no" without any cost or consequence. Next came the Sept. 2010 effort to launch actual negotiations and the follow-on attempt to bribe Netanyahu into accepting a 90-day freeze. More damaged credibility. And now, driven by hope and desire for change against the backdrop of the Arab spring and by the fear of a Palestinian U.N. initiative in the fall, President Obama gives a speech designed to recommit himself as peacemaker and to persuade the Europeans (on the eve of his G-8 trip) not to sign on the Palestinian U.N. gambit. Well, no good (or ill-advised) deed goes unpunished. You pick a fight with Bibi, a guy you need but with whom you have no relationship; you send a message to Palestinians that you’re worried about their U.N. plan and encourage them to hang tough in hopes you’ll give them more; you make public (and insufficiently explain) an important tactic in the negotiations when there are no negotiations; you upset the pro-Israeli community at home with no purpose; you give the Republicans an issue on which to hammer you; and you annoy members of your own party. And for what? Neither the Palestinians nor the Europeans show much sign of backing away from the U.N. gambit. That said, having offered up even more bad ideas than the Obama administration has in my 20-plus years of working on this issue, I can’t be too hard on the president without practicing a galactic hypocrisy. Government is about remedy and what’s possible; not sitting around telling yourself why you can’t make something happen. My colleagues and I convinced then Secretary of State James Baker to chase an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in 1989 when the chances of success were near zero. He wasn’t happy about it until Saddam invaded Kuwait, scrambling the region and providing him with real leverage over Arabs and Israelis to finally get serious. The Madrid Conference was the result. Maybe that’s the point. I hate the notion of "ripeness" as it pertains to conflict resolution; it turns Washington into a potted plant waiting for the right moment to act. But it’s also pretty compelling metaphor. And right now the options either green or spoiled. Here are some of them: 1. Try quiet diplomacy between now and September. Shop the president’s idea on borders with Netanyahu and Abbas; see whether you can’t get some traction to preempt a loud and noisy fall at the United Nations. Prospects for success: near zero. Netanyahu’s and Abbas’s bottom line on swaps don’t reconcile, not to mention Jerusalem and refugees. 2. Work with the Palestinians and Israelis on a reasonable U.N. resolution and try to trade it for beginning Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Prospects for success: near zero. The gaps are just too big on core issues. 3. Oppose and veto any U.N. resolution that purports to create a Palestinian state outside of negotiations or one that sanctions Israel — and try to get the Europeans to buy on. Prospects for success: pretty high (minus getting Europe on board). But this will lead to U.S. and Israeli isolation and predictable unhappiness just about everywhere. 4. Park the issue until 2012. Admit to yourself that barring some major move by one of the two sides or a crisis that forces an urgency, this dog just won’t bark now. Try to contain the damage and forestall the violence that may come in the fall. Prospects for success:not great the Israeli-Palestinian issue won’t stand still; no progress will likely mean a shaky status quo and deterioration. 5. Vote for the U.N. initiative on Palestinian statehood. Prospects for success: Hard to imagine, unless the text was so reasonably anodyne and had no operational impact. Even then it would be hard politically to leave the Israelis isolated as a result of a U.N. General Assembly resolution. 6. Put out the Obama plan on all the issues; persuade Arab foreign ministers to appear with the president in the Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council to promote it, along with raising billions of dollars to fund the two-state solution. Prospects for success: Near zero. You’d need a president with big balls for this one; it’s an extremely high-risk enterprise designed to change the longer-term psychological climate of the conflict, with little expectation of early negotiations and agreement. But what’s the alternative? An imposed solution? another lecture to the Israelis about how the status quo is unsustainable; a US plan which the Israelis and Palestinians are asked to take or leave or else? In the end, probably the best thing Obama can do now is not beat himself up and try to keep the game alive. There are things in life that America just can’t fix; for now, this may be one of them. That he doesn’t have a plan or strategy that can work is no reason to embrace ones that won’t and that could make matters even worse. And something may turn up. The idea that to try and fail is somehow better than not trying at all is quintessentially American. It’s one of our most endearing qualities. But it’s a good slogan for a high-school football team — and it’s not a substitute for the foreign policy of the most consequential nation on earth.

Dan Connolly Jimenez needed Wednesday’s win, but it was just one game By Photo credit: Joy R. Absalon Ubaldo Jimenez needed Wednesday night’s performance, no doubt. And the Orioles – and their fans — needed to see it. Jimenez pitched six innings, allowed just two runs and four hits as the Orioles beat the San Diego Padres 7-2. It was his second win in his last eight starts. It was his first quality start since May 7 versus Oakland. And it was his first start, period, since the $50 million man was removed from the rotation last week. “I just wanted to get the job done, for sure. There’s no more pressure than that,” Jimenez said. “As a pitcher, I know how I was throwing before I got sent down to the bullpen. I was just trying to find a way to survive and get back on my feet.” There was a sense that things could line up well for Jimenez and this could be a good start for him – but he had to prove it. “I couldn’t be happier (for Jimenez),” Orioles center fielder Adam Jones said. “He went out there and competed. That’s all we ask.” Before we give Jimenez the AL Cy Young Award, let’s understand some things: He did walk four batters in six innings – though he also fanned seven. He did throw 104 pitches, and that’s not particularly efficient. And the San Diego Padres, though they have been hitting better of late and scored 10 runs Tuesday night, are not typically a good offensive team. Orioles manager Buck Showalter didn’t gush over Jimenez’s performance, noting the number of walks and the times he was slow to the plate – he actually almost overthrew Matt Wieters on a pitchout – to allow Travis Jankowski to steal two bases. “He had better command of his fastball. He got some counts in his favor — he went from 0-2 to 3-2 with some guys, which you don’t like to see,” Showalter said about Jimenez. “He didn’t execute the pitchout. Between the four walks and the hits, that’s almost like it’s 90 feet we could have kept from happening. But I’ll take the end product. I would have signed up for that and hopefully he can take it and build on it.” That’s the bottom line here. There’s nothing in Jimenez’s performance Wednesday to suggest he has turned the corner and is about to go on a roll. But he also pitched adequately and gave the Orioles a chance to win. He even struck out the side in the sixth to leave on a tremendous note. That’s got to be what is taken away from this game. There were some good moments that show that he can be effective. But there were also times when he was on shaky ground. Unfortunately, being adequate is a victory for Jimenez and the Orioles right now. And the fans, who have been upfront with their displeasure of Jimenez’s performances this season, seemed to get that. They gave Jimenez a nice ovation after the sixth inning. “I’ve been in the majors for almost nine years, so I know how things go,” he said of the fans’ cheers. “If you do good, they are going to be there for you.”

Whether in Manchester, Ireland or in some other global conflict zone all hurt, suffering and grief is the same and warrants acknowledgement with sincere remorse. THE BBC NEWS on Wednesday night broadcast a report on victims of the Manchester bombing. The reporter concluded his piece with the following poignant words: “Look into these faces, and youth and optimism beam back at you.” That sentence captures the full impact and the human devastation caused at Manchester with the killing and injury of so many children, teenagers and young adult people. What happened in Manchester was mass murder. It occurred at a time of apparently growing numbers of indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians across mainland Europe. These actions seem to be designed to provoke mass hysteria and repressive reactions from the states which have been targeted. This is an era of unprecedented global instability, particularly within the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The divide between rich and poor, and inequality is growing in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Children are dying everyday as a result of malnutrition, drought, hunger and poverty. Global extremism in the form of violent fundamentalist sectarianism, and right-wing populism and xenophobia has been on the rise. The so-called Islamic State or ISIS is one example of this trend. Mass murders of innocent children in Europe are mirrored by similar atrocities taking place continually in places like Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many people will draw inevitable parallels between the recent attack upon children in Manchester and the indiscriminate killing of children in Gaza. The terrible events taking place in the Middle East and elsewhere are the consequence of historic and present day Western powers’ imperial and colonial expansionism and interference. The phenomenon of ISIS personifies a total violation of human dignity and democratic norms. Its claim of responsibility for the Manchester massacre has been rightly condemned from across the political spectrum. Perversely some in Ireland have tried to cynically exploit this tragedy to mount gratuitous political attacks against Sinn Féin. There is no justification for what happened in Manchester. This atrocity must refocus our collective responsibility to develop a better world, based on global peace and solidarity; free from poverty and injustice; and, in which young people can thrive and prosper on the basis of equality and inclusion. There is no distinction between the carnage and suffering which results from all wars. Acts of war can never be romanticised regardless of the wider context in which these occur. The battles of the Somme, and Messines, the massacres at Auschwitz and carpet bombing of Dresden, the use of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and, the invasion of Iraq were all horrific events caused by the decision of governments. In the Irish context no right-thinking republican has ever glamorised war, or indeed the actions of the IRA, in this or any previous generation. There was never a ‘good old IRA’ as some of the Irish revisionists purport to suggest. To assert that a political context forced the use of armed struggle as a last resort, cannot disguise the massive human suffering caused by IRA actions. The IRA leadership said that publicly in 2002. Expressing remorse and regret for death and injury during the political conflict could move us all close to a healing process. That should not be confused or devalued with attempts to seek repudiation of political responsibility or allegiance. There were different sides in the Irish conflict and there are multiple narratives. There are issues about our past upon which we will have to agree to disagree. Demanding republican repudiation of the IRA is just as futile and counterproductive as seeking unionist repudiation of British state forces and the RUC. The reality for republicans is that armed struggle became the only option to oppose the repression and injustices of the unionist state and reintroduction of British direct rule. So I and other republican leaders will not hypocritically try to distance ourselves from the consequences of the armed struggle. Whilst we might wish it could be otherwise, the past cannot now be undone or disowned by republicans. Myself, Gerry Adams and the late Martin McGuinness have said so in specifically addressing tragic events, such as the Shankill bomb, Kingsmill, Tullyvallen or Darkley. Martin McGuinness stated in a visit to Warrington in 2013 that he could and would not attempt to excuse the human loss and death of young Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball who were killed in an IRA bomb in that city in 1993. In August 2015 I expressed sorrow for the pain experienced by the RUC family during the conflict; the human tragedy caused to the unionist section of our community; and equally for the pain of the families of IRA volunteers killed; as well as many nationalist civilians killed and injured during our conflict. In Ireland, hurt was caused on all sides. There was and is no hierarchy of victimhood or humanity. That is the actual context within which the heartfelt sympathies extended by Michelle O’Neill for the victims of the Manchester bomb needs to be heard and understood. Those who attempt to score cheap political and publicity points in Ireland on the back of the Manchester atrocity disgrace and diminish themselves. Regrettably, there are those in both the British and Irish governments and state agencies, political parties, combatant groups, media, churches (and some who have occupied several of these roles) that promote a single narrative based upon duplicity. They have their share of uncomfortable conversations to reflect upon. The war in Ireland is over, even though its legacy casts a long shadow. But the absence of war is not enough. Unless we make reconciliation, healing and forgiveness our future, then society and politics in Ireland will remain trapped in the pain and resentment of the past. Some within political unionism and the British state have deliberately sought to weaponise the past and to turn it into a new battlefield. It is ironic that members of the British royal family seem to embrace a more advanced view about the direction of our peace process than elements of the British state and some unionist leaders. Reconciliation in Ireland or anywhere else in the globe will not be built upon resentment, recrimination, or cynical opportunism. The current political crisis within our peace process demonstrates the urgent need to move it towards a new phase based upon reconciliation and healing. Sinn Féin is absolutely committed to bringing that about and creating a new context within which we can develop new human and political relationships in the North, throughout Ireland, and between Ireland and Britain. In spite of the naysayers and rejectionists the Irish Peace Process is the most important political project in Ireland. It personifies hope in the face of adversity and is a conflict resolution model which many caught in seemingly intractable conflict across the globe look towards for inspiration. Our peace process is proof that another world is possible. The Manchester bombing is a brutal reminder that a better, safer, world of solidarity must not only be an aspiration but also a concrete political and social objective.

India and its dreams can be fulfilled only by strengthening university research. This is where we need grand reforms. “Three of the five sockets in my office are not working. Do you really think we can build world’s most sensitive detector?” – Director of a Research Institute Why I chose to lecture on this topic? Exactly a year ago, on September 14, 2015, one of the grandest scientific instruments ever built, LIGO, whose team I am a part of, detected a signal that came from collision of black holes some 150 crore years ago. It took us about six months to be sure that this signal was exactly a phenomenon Albert Einstein had predicted 100 years – gravitational waves or in more trippy words, ‘ripples in the four dimensional spacetime fabric’ on which resides stars, galaxies and everything we call “our universe”. This is hailed as the discovery of the century, and a new chapter has since opened in mankind’s quest to understand the universe and its origins. When we announced this discovery in February 2016, the first world leader to congratulate us was our Honorable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. In a series of tweets, he also announced what scientists in my field were eagerly waiting for – the LIGO-India project. A 16 sq. km. gravitational wave detector, and only third such in the world, this project was stuck in bureaucracy for years, and within days after Prime Minister’s tweets, the project got Union Cabinet approval. In what can be regarded by future historians as the largest science outreach by any government since moon-landing, the Prime Minister in his Mann Ki Baat discussed at length about the discovery of gravitational waves and India’s plans to invest in this new scientific field. For a young scientist, this was a fairy tale moment! One of the most abstract scientific theories – Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, one of the most complicated instrument on earth – LIGO, and this was capturing interest of the top office of my country! When Prime Minister visited Washington DC in March 2016, India and the United States signed an MoU, and the LIGO-India project is now ranked as the highest S&T priority between the two nations. During the signing of MoU, the Prime Minister interacted with four of us LIGO scientist who were part of this discovery, and it was his suggestion that young scientists like us should visit more often the universities in India and inspire students to be part of such mega-science investment of our country. A Bharat Bhraman For Gravitational Waves My original plan was to hold a two-week long summer school at a national university, so we can invite about few hundred interested bachelors-masters students from across the country and the experts can give them mini-projects with them on astrophysics and experiment related to gravitational wave. But sitting here in the US, I simply could not find funds or convince any Indian university to take a lead on this. So I decided to visit as many national universities, colleges, research institutes and high schools I possibly can in ~four weeks in India. In this way, not only I reached out to almost 5000 students, and hopefully got them curious about gravitational waves, but also got to closely observe the scientific research environment and curriculum at all levels of universities (private, state, national), and every major research institute of the country. And being at this very grassroots level, discussing with students from canteens to pubs, with professors to deans to vice-chancellors to industry honchos, I am so convinced that the innovative solutions that India demands from her 65% youth populations, so that we can resolve our incredibly complex issues and make the world say Jai Hind, can happen only and only by strengthening research in colleges and universities (and not just national labs and institutes). Think Beyond IITs & ISROs When I mean colleges and universities, I mean the one next door in your hometown. IITs, IIMs, IISERs are doing great. But that is not representative of entire India. This year, like every other year, ~88% of total JEE qualifiers were male, and with coaching fees for entrance exams soaring lakhs of rupees, it should not surprise your ‘elite’ institutes are really catering to only urban-centric folks. So we can’t be expecting them to solve water crisis in the villages. While in the universities – be it local, state or national – enrolls your 65% population of India under age of 35. One of the senior professors at Delhi University mentioned to me, “In early 90s, the M.Sc students would be the English speaking youth from Stephen’s, Xavier’s or kids of bureaucrats. Today 75% of the entering class is from small towns and humble roots.” This to me seemed the proudest outcome of our democratic economic development. Now provide them with research opportunities, give them the chance to innovate during their Bachelors/Masters, and they will come up with solutions to problems that affected their day to day life, and of countless Indians (one day, this may help limit the ever increasing flux of funds spent on social welfare schemes). On the other hand, the research institutes and national labs in India are profoundly disconnected with higher education. At one of country’s most elite research institute, I inquired why they don’t collaborate with the local state university. The answer was quite typical, “Haan toh humney kab naa bola?”. Yea sure, but you have an army at your main gate! Barely anyone in that city knew what research goes inside this facility. It infact took me 15 minutes to convince the guards that I was invited here to speak and not ‘just a curious citizen’. And such security beefing was purely bureaucratic than for national security! This to my surprise was rather common for every research institute. The public cannot easily enter the facility. We spent thousand of crores making Express Highways and metro trains, but not a single R&D outcome is gained from it if our national labs don’t open its doors to the interested youth. While national research labs and institutes are supposed to work on priorities set by the government departments, the universities have the flexibility to foster more creative approach. And it’s not that our universities don’t do research. But, (a) it is not a norm beyond central universities, (b) university research resources are focused only for PhD students (c) heavy lack of facilities compared to research institutes (d) don’t have many collaborators (e) professors have insane teaching load (f) unnecessarily heavy coursework for graduate students! This is a preliminary list of issues, each of which has a history and justifications behind it. Though if you keep going on with status quo or incremental policy changes, our universities are going to become irrelevant in few decades. The massive online course moment has the world’s leading experts teaching semester long courses on every possible topic out there. With internet streaming now at its peak, and admission cut-offs reaching quantum limits, we will end up catering our youth resources to private online courses. The only way to keep universities relevant is by strengthening its research and innovation facilities. Need for Grand Reforms In Research & Outreach One of the questions I asked to every emeritus professor and higher ups in science bureaucracy that I had opportunity to interact, “Why couldn’t we predict importance of such megascience years ago, and in fact decades back when the a prototype of this detector was proposed?” This question is particularly important for young researchers like us who have to plan the career and also build human resources from this very instance to prepare for the next big scientific breakthrough. And if we don’t have a system in place, like the US has National Science Foundation, which funded LIGO research since 1980s, we will end up producing one more generation of frustrated Indian scientists whose very hard work is not seeing light for absolutely petty reasons. For the long term visionmap of making India the next science leader, we need to think beyond relying on wisdom of few eminent academic personalities and elite institutes. Only then research groups in universities will be able to take lead in initiating exciting new science in India. During the interactions with the science bureaucracies, I learnt about so many other megascience projects of the scale comparable or beyond LIGO-India that our taxpayers funds are being invested in. But only if the students in the 10th grade social science class were aware of the experiments our scientists are conducting from the Indian Ocean to Ladakh that will help understand origin of earth, so many of these students will go on to enroll in undergraduate geology programs in colleges across the country! After the Independence Day parade in my school in Vadodara, I asked the NCC cadets how many of them will like to one day join DRDO. To my jaw dropping surprise *they didn’t know what DRDO was!* And on a diametrically opposite instance, a farmer from a village with a population of just 450, travelled with his son for 3 hours one way to attend my public lecture. His son, Rahul, currently in 12th grade, mentioned that he first heard about LIGO-India project on All India Radio from the Prime Minister’s Mann Ki Baat, and plans to join B.Sc Physics program. Our discovery was on the front page of New York Times to most national dailies, every major news channel reported it, every big university and city had public lectures on it, but none of that could have reached this Rahul. What reached to him was the very sincere attempt to convey a highly complex science, in a language that was familiar to the citizens, and by a leader whose stature vouched for the authenticity of this information. This should be a motivation in every single government department that invests in R&D to form a framework where students and their parents become aware of national opportunities beyond enrollment in typical engineering/medical colleges. And some other important learning … Out of the 20 academic institutions that I visited, not even dozen students from the ones I interacted were on Twitter! So probably a lot of us should reanalyze the amount of time being spent on trends and twitter wars, and may be just go out and concretely solve a real life issue. Also, for love of god, there is no intolerance anywhere in the Indian academia! If asked, I was always vocal about my positions on pseudoscience to ancient science, and everywhere the students and public at-large enjoyed the ‘orders of magnitude calculations’ to disapprove astrology. Everyone in my country can appreciate scientific temperament, you just have to present examples they can connect with. While I was driving from Shantiniketan to Kolkata, there was suddenly a burst of rainfall. In the middle of the fields next to the highway, there was a woman worker who was holding a small plastic to protect herself from the rain. The rain must have went on for an hour. What must be going on in her mind at that instance, holding a plastic and seeing a puddle being formed around her? We cannot stand even few minutes of idleness without checking phone. She must be looking at the cars passing by too, dreaming that one day her children be traveling in that. There are billion dreams, of billion Indians, some want to detect black holes from India, while some simply desire basic human necessities. And there is one man whose every breath goes in making those billion dreams a reality. We live in truly blessed times. —————- Karan Jani is a co-recipient of the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, a Senator Nunn Fellow on National Security and the Student Vice-President at the Georgia Institute of Technology. You can contact him on twitter @AstroKPJ.

Nuno's Porto were knocked out of this season's Champions League at the last-16 stage by eventual finalists Juventus Wolves have named former Porto and Valencia boss Nuno Espirito Santo as their head coach to succeed Paul Lambert, who left Molineux on Tuesday. Nuno, 43, is the seventh man to take charge of the Championship club since February 2012 and the fourth boss in 10 months under Chinese owners Fosun. "I first got to know Nuno two years ago," said Wolves director Jeff Shi. "At that time, we hadn't taken over Wolves. But, when talking to him, I was impressed by his football tactics." Former Porto, Dynamo Moscow and Desportivo das Aves goalkeeper Nuno has signed what is understood to be a three-year contract. He has brought in a new backroom team - Rui Pedro Silva as assistant head coach, Rui Barbosa as goalkeeping coach and Antonio Dias as fitness coach. "Since the very beginning of the Wolves project, Fosun has been very clear on our strategic thinking and philosophy, and has huge ambition and confidence to achieve our goals," added Shi. "In a sense, we are very glad to find Nuno with a football philosophy that is similar to ours. He has an impressive track record in the top divisions in Spain and Portugal." Wolves, who began last season under former Italy goalkeeper Walter Zenga, finished 15th in the second tier in 2016-17. Zenga lasted just three months before Lambert took charge and, seven months later, Wolves "parted company" with Lambert following an end-of-season football review. Who is Nuno Espirito Santo? Born on the African island of Sao Tome and Principe, Nuno played for Vitoria Guimaraes, Sport Clube Vila Real, Deportivo La Coruna, Merida, Osasuna, Porto, where he played under Jose Mourinho, Dynamo Moscow and Clube Desportivo das Aves in an 18-year playing career. Having become the very first client of agent Jorge Mendes in his playing days, Wolves will be Nuno's fourth club as manager. He began with Rio Ave in Portugal's top division, before 16 months in Spain at Valencia, who he took to fourth in La Liga, before leaving the following November, when he was succeeded by Gary Neville. Nuno was appointed Porto head coach in June 2016 on a two-year deal, but he left in May having led his team to second in the Portuguese Primeira Liga, six points behind champions Benfica. Porto also reached the last 16 of the Champions League, losing 3-0 on aggregate to eventual finalists Juventus. Five of the top six clubs in the Championship in 2016-17 had foreign managers, including three - Newcastle's Rafael Benitez, Huddersfield's David Wagner and Reading's Jaap Stam - who had not experienced a full season in the division before. Analysis BBC WM's Mike Taylor There are no surprises in Wolves' announcement. The arrival of Nuno Espirito Santo had been well trailed, and he brings with him a three-man coaching staff, replacing all of Lambert's assistants, whose dismissals were announced 24 hours earlier. It is understood that he has signed a three-year contract, a luxury not afforded to his predecessor. Wolves' main director Jeff Shi is quoted as saying that Nuno has a similar football philosophy to that of the club's owners Fosun. Nuno also has a long-term association with the so-called super agent Jorge Mendes, with whom Fosun work very closely. A raft of potential new signings - many of them from Portugal, although not all - are already being linked with moves to Molineux. While Norwich's Ryan Bennett is the first to arrive, Ghanaian international Phil Ofosu-Ayeh is reported by newspapers in his own country to be another about to sign up.

We were talking about something unrelated, so when Joey Votto slipped this quote in, I laughed out loud. You?! Joey Votto? You did what? Listening back to it even made me giggle again. “I tried to do a lot of pull hitting early in the season and it was an error,” he said, but my mind could barely comprehend in real time. “It was a mistake,” he admitted before I could point out that it was completely out of character. So why did he try it? “It was me trying to hit more homers. I thought I’d get easy homers.” After the laughter came a sort of stunned silence. The idea that Votto, who has preached going up the middle to himself and the games’ biggest stars for as long as he’s been great, tried to pull a few cheapies into the seats last year was a bit stunning. But it’s clear he was right. Last May, Votto had the highest pull percentage on balls in play since 2010 started. Look at the blue bar. It wasn’t about being rusty. Even though he admitted that it sometimes took a bit to get his ‘A’ swing back, and that “I’ve noticed in the past that it’s taken me until May and sometimes June to really get right,” that dot represents May 2015. Plus, we have his words that say he did it on purpose. It’s an extreme thing that happened. Minimum 100 balls in play since 2013, Joe Mauer is number one in the percentage of his fly balls to the opposite field, and Joey Votto is number two. Flip it on it’s head and it’s the same thing: Joe Mauer has pulled 2.5% of his fly balls and Joey Votto has pulled 8.2% of his fly balls over his career. One day soon Christian Yelich will qualify in order to create a new definition of the Oppo Taco between the two veterans. You can’t blame Votto for trying. Even one of his up the middle disciples, Bryce Harper, gained a great deal from pulling fly balls for power. Only seven stadiums are shorter down the right field line than Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati (325 feet). It also seems like a reaction to the way pitchers have chosen to pitch him. When asked at the SABR Analytics panel how he would pitch Joey Votto, Dallas Braden immediately responded: “I’d crowd him.” Take a look at how the Reds lefty was pitched in 2007, and then how he was pitched last year. So it wasn’t just a lark, even if Votto sort of framed it that way. There was a bit of a reaction to the pitchers in the attempt to pull. But why didn’t it work? There’s a mechanical reason: “It just doesn’t work with my swing,” Votto said. Mostly because it’s very difficult to ‘aim’ the ball in play. “If I set my targets on center field, that’s a little different than actually executing to center. Often times I’ll set my targets on certain locations, and it never really works out, but it offers a lot of room for error.” Setting his sites on the right field fence didn’t work, and the swing wasn’t the safe one that Votto likes to use more often. There’s also a numbers reason: those pulled balls were not fly balls. In May 2015, the month in which he pulled the most balls of his career in the thirty-foot vector starting at first base, Joey Votto pulled two fly balls. Two! He’s done that, or more, in nine other months since 2011 began. If you try pull the ball more for home runs and they all end up on the ground, it’s not working. What ends up happening is that you become more susceptible to the shift. Votto saw a three-year high in shifts in 2015, probably due to that increase in pulled grounders. And so the first baseman will once again try something completely different — he told C. Trent Rosecrans that he’s working on bunting against the shift this spring. “It’s something I’m giving it a try, and now is the best time to try it. Until I get proven otherwise, I’m going to keep going with it,” he said to the Enquirer reporter. Joey Votto is seeing more pitches on the inside, his swing is suited for low and away, and he’s trying to figure out what to do with those pitches in. Taking it over the shortstop’s head was one thing he found. Pulling the ball didn’t work, and he seems pessimistic about bunting (“It only matters if you execute, and we’ve been pretty inconsistent thus far,” he told Rosecrans). What else can he do with pitches inside? “I can take them,” Votto said with a wry smile.

Does Young Thug have his petty wap turned up? Yesterday, Young Thug announced he’s releasing a collaborative mixtape with producer London On The Track. A few hours after the announcement, the Barter 6 rapper revealed that Slime Season will drop on the 4th of July, which is the same day Lil Wayne was planning to unveil the Free Weezy Album. Shady? Possibly. This awkward rivalry started when Young Thug announced he’d be titling his release Tha Carter VI after Lil Wayne’s classic Tha Carter series. Obviously, Lil Wayne wasn’t happy and called out the Rich Gang rapper for his nonsense. Receiving pressure from the public and Wayne, Thugger decided to change the title of his album to the Barter 6. With global album release dates moving to Friday, Thugga could’ve chosen the eve of America’s Independence Day, but he didn’t. On purpose? Tell us what you think below. PHOTO CREDIT: Instagram

No Man’s Sky in The New Yorker . The New Yorker published a major new article about No Man’s Sky, written by Raffi Khatchadourian. Featured in the magazine that’s out this week, and online right here, it’s a super detailed account of how we work, and how the game works. Murray played for a few minutes, dogfighting with enemy ships. “This is so much more enjoyable than it was on Sunday,” he said. But he was worried that excessive realism would confuse players who were unaccustomed to the frictionless quality of motion in space. He suggested some tweaks. During the testing, Murray noticed that his ship had exited a planet’s atmosphere too rapidly, without the drama it had in the E3 build. “We’re missing something that used to be there,” he said. “It was a surprise to be suddenly in space.” Hazel McKendrick walked over and said, “The atmosphere isn’t as thick.” She had adjusted formulas to provide a more natural effect of sunlight passing through it, and a better view of nearby planets. To re-create the old feel, she suggested, the atmosphere’s depth could be artificially increased as the ship passes through. “So, annoyingly, by doing it wrong you get a nicer effect,” Ream said. It was fantastic to get to spend extended time with Raffi, talking with him about the game and seeing it through his eyes, and we’re incredibly proud of what he produced. Thank you so much. Don’t miss the accompanying video, too, which has Raffi talking against a lovely soundtrack and visuals from the game.

Henrico Schools first in state to install seat belts on buses Copyright by WRIC - All rights reserved Video HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- A local school district is taking student safety to a new level. Henrico County Public Schools has become the first school district in the state to install seat belts on school buses. Next month, the district is putting 24 new buses on the road, all of them equipped with three-point shoulder and lap seat belts. Copyright by WRIC - All rights reserved County leaders told 8News that this was the right time to improve student safety. "Occasionally you see an accident across the country where a bus is t-boned or rolled over, and some of those types of accidents we will have enhanced safety with students in a three-point seat belt as opposed to no restraint at all," HCPS' Director of Pupil Transportation Josh Davis told 8News Reporter Kristin Smith. Copyright by WRIC - All rights reserved Some parents say they excited about the safety upgrade. "We put our kids in booster seats and car seats, and the fact that we put all of our children on buses and they go around the city without any restrains...I think it's fabulous," Mindy Cloyes said. Copyright by WRIC - All rights reserved "If there's any accidents, the kids are the ones being pushed out of their seats, so I think that would be great," said parent Jennie Balagot. One mother said she likes the idea, but wonders if children will be able to safely strap themselves in. "I could see it would be a logistical nightmare to undo all the buckles, especially for little ones like kindergartners. Can they even undo the buckles?" asked Tammy Leopold. Copyright by WRIC - All rights reserved The district says wearing the seatbelt will be voluntary and that it will train all students to buckle themselves up. Experts like Martha Meade from AAA say Henrico is leading the way for other school districts. "This will certainly prompt additional conversations and will take us where we need to go eventually," Meade said. With a total of 600 operating buses, Henrico Schools says it has a way to go before all of its fleet is equipped with the safety belts, but there is money budgeted to buy additional buses over the next several years. Never miss another Facebook post from 8News Find 8News on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram; send your news tips to iReport8@wric.com.

Play Facebook Twitter Embed Trump Jr.'s controversial comment attacking media 1:53 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog Donald Trump Jr. defended remarks about the media “warming up the gas chamber” on Thursday, clarifying to NBC News that he was referring to capital punishment and not the gas chambers used by Nazis to murder Jews. "Without the media, this wouldn't even be a contest, but the media has built her up, they've let her slide on every indiscrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game, trying to get Bernie Sanders out of the thing,” the Republican nominee’s son said in a radio interview on 1210 WPHT in Philadelphia Thursday. "If Republicans were doing that, they'd be warming up the gas chamber right now.” The remark drew sharp criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, which advocates against hate speech. “We hope you understand the sensitivity and hurt of making Holocaust jokes,” the organization tweeted at Trump from its official account. “We hope you retract.” .@DonaldJTrumpJr: We hope you understand the sensitivity and hurt of making Holocaust jokes. We hope you retract.https://t.co/jL2ZC9Z8pH — ADL (@ADL_National) September 15, 2016 Trump Jr. told NBC News’ Katy Tur that he stood by his point, but that he meant to refer to executions rather than the Holocaust. He said he normally uses the phrase “electric chair” to make the same point. The campaign followed up as well with a statement blaming the press for misinterpreting his remarks. "The liberal, dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement. "Don Jr. was clearly referring to capital punishment to make the case that the media continues to take words out of context in order to serve as the propaganda arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign — something that's only gotten worse as Trump's poll numbers have improved." In a statement provided by the Democratic National Committee, Pennsylvania Democratic Party chair Marcel L. Groen implied Trump's "gas chamber" remark was a dogwhistle to anti-Semitic supporters, some of whom have used Holocaust imagery to harass Jewish journalists on social media. Related: Donald Trump's 'Star of David' Tweet About Hillary Clinton Posted Weeks Earlier on Racist Feed "It is horrifying that Donald Trump Jr. thinks it is appropriate to casually joke about the Holocaust — and even worse, he is defending it, saying it isn't anti-Semitic," Groen said. "My grandparents died in Auschwitz, as did some of my aunts and uncles. They died in gas chambers. As a naturalized American citizen whose parents came to this country after World War II, I ask Trump to stop trying to reach out to the worst of us; the bigots and the anti-Semites." Trump Jr. and his father have retweeted extremist users at various pointsin the campaign, including an incident in which the senior Trump tweeted an image of Clinton, a Star of David, and a pile of money, that reportedly originated on a racist Twitter account. Despite its apparent source, Trump claimed the image was a "sheriff's star." Play Facebook Twitter Embed Trump Hits Back Against Allegations of Using Anti-Semitic Imagery 2:20 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog The comment came on a busy day for Trump Jr., who also drew attention for contradicting his father’s excuses on not releasing his tax returns. Donald Trump has said repeatedly that he won’t release any tax returns for himself or his business — which breaks from four decades of precedent and could keep potential conflicts in the dark — because of an ongoing audit. But his son contradicted him on Thursday, instead seeming to imply that the campaign feared the public might find politically damaging information. "Because he's got a 12,000-page tax return that would create … financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from (his father's) main message,” Trump Jr. told the Pittsburg Tribune-Review in an interview published Thursday. Topping off the day, Trump Jr. also tweeted that “the new aristocrats are in DC” and taking from “hardworking Americans,” a reference that struck some observers as odd coming from the son of a billionaire whose father was also wealthy. Critics passed around a 2012 tweet by Trump Jr. that had gone viral earlier thanking his family “greenskeeper” for skipping his own sister’s wedding to work for them. “Luv loyalty 2 us,” he added. It was not clear whether it was intended as a joke.

Every age has its evil. The last century gave us Nazism and Communism, the century before that gave us colonial genocides, the centuries before that gave us horrific religious persecutions and mass murders. This essay looks at the totalitarianism of the early 21st century: SJW culture. Totalitarianism is defined by a striving to regulate every aspect of both public and private life wherever possible. It’s the antithesis of freedom. Benito Mussolini, one of history’s most infamous totalitarians, declared that even the spiritual life of the citizenry is to be controlled to the finest detail. According to Hannah Arendt, the appeal of totalitarianism lies in its ideology, which, like religions, provide “a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future.” Theocracies achieve this with an ideology about the nature of God and the inevitable triumph of the followers of that God. Nazism achieved this with an ideology about race struggle and the inevitable triumph of the Aryan race, and Communism achieved this with an ideology about class struggle and the inevitable triumph of the proletariat. The essential point that distinguishes these ideologies from free thought is that an ideology offers an easy, pre-packaged answer to any question that might arise. Because of this it is never necessary to actually think about anything, much less discuss anything with another person – all answers derive directly from reference to the ideology. Much like a religious scripture does for a religious fanatic, an ideology forms the basis of reality for political fanatics. If a person has a powerful desire to remake the world in their image for political reasons, there will be an ideology at the bottom of it. Social Justice Warrior culture is a form of Communism, in that it is explicitly horizontalist. Like all other horizontalist ideologies, anyone who distinguishes themselves, for any reason, is assumed to have done so by immoral means. The logic behind this lies in the ideological assumption that all are equal. Because the belief in the equality of all people is fundamental to SJW culture, a natural corollary is that anyone who has achieved an outcome that elevates them above the masses must have necessarily done so by immoral means. And so, the higher standard of living in the West, when compared to the Middle East and Africa, cannot be explained outside of the template of colonial oppression. All Western wealth is considered stolen; a crime that needs to be redressed by horizontalist action. There is no room in Social Justice Warrior culture for anyone to put effort into bettering themselves – everything that betters a person is considered to be the result of unfair privilege. As this column has previously pointed out, this ideology is what Nietzsche would have called a slave morality, in that it is fundamentally based in resentment and a desire to rip everyone down to the lowest level. Where this ideology really goes wrong – and where it is in danger of becoming a totalitarianism akin to Nazism and Communism – is its utter failure to accept that certain mentalities and cultures create poverty among their victims of their own accord. And so, the sorry state of the Middle East cannot be explained by the legendary unwillingness of Middle Easterners to live in peace, and neither can it be explained by the extremely high rates of religious fundamentalism, nor the appalling human rights record of their rulers, nor the cultural indifference to education and free thought, nor the widespread practice of infant genital mutilation. It’s all the fault of colonialism, or America bombing them. Likewise, the near-infinite hatred that some disadvantaged groups have for other disadvantaged groups is all blamed on influence from the West. The utter contempt that Muslims have for homosexuals cannot be blamed on Muslims themselves, because to do so would be to imply that a disadvantaged group can be less moral than an advantaged one – and this is in direct opposition to SJW ideology. All of this would be just another half-arsed theory were it not for the demonstrated ability and willingness of this ideology to destroy the lives of anyone who opposes it. The most striking recent example was the sacking of a Google employee for questioning the social engineering practices of his company. James Demore wrote a manifesto that made the assumption that biology trumps SJW ideology, and this was decreed to be wrongthink punishable by the destruction of his career. Believing that biology is real is a thoughtcrime when it is considered to advance “harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace” – in other words, biology is what we tell you it is, and any disagreement is grounds for retaliation. The firing of one engineer is not comparable to the historical crimes of 20th century totalitarian states, true, but this example shows how far SJWs will go to deny reality where it conflicts with their ideology, and this bodes poorly for a peaceful 21st century. The simmering powderkeg is the tens of millions of Muslims who now live in the West, and who can never integrate. The mass resettlement of Muslims into the West was never carried out with the consent of Westerners, and it was never carried out with reference to any study that demonstrated improved social or economic outcomes for Westerners. This social engineering was, and continues to be, forced on Westerners by people who have adopted SJW ideology. If it leads to a civil war in Europe, then this ideology will be justifiably ranked alongside Nazism and Communism as one of humanity’s greatest mistakes.

I love flying Southwest – and I do whenever I have the chance. On June 4th they launced nonstop flights from Baltimore and Chicago to Cincinnati. To celebrate this milestone, Southwest invited me and a few other bloggers from Baltimore and Chicago to Cincy for the day to take a tour of what the city has to offer. We ate so much great food – the Cincy food scene is legit. But, the snack and beer scene is where it’s at. Our first snack stop of the day was at Holtman’s Donuts (1332 Vine Street | Cincinnati, OH 45202). These fluffy beauties were calling our name. The group got two dozen donuts to share and that was a blessing. I didn’t get to try them all but I can’t resist anything with sprinkles. This airy donut was a great mid-morning treat. Instead of eating the donuts in the shop, we got them to go and enjoyed them at the Rhinegeist Brewery (1910 Elm St | Cincinnati, OH 45202). The name, Rhinegeist, translates to “Ghost of the Rhine” and refers to their place in the historic Over-the-Rhine Brewery District in Cincinnati. The brewery is built within the skeleton of the old Moerlein bottling plant. The space was amazing, the taproom was a huge open space with some games like ping pong and corn hole. There was also a rooftop deck and I was really digging that vibe. The weather was in the upper 80’s – outside was the place to be! In order to get the most out of our brewery visit, we each opted to get a flight of beer. We tried Bubbles – a rose ale, Puma – a pilsner, Hustle- a red lager, and Truth – an IPA. My favorite of the beers was Bubbles. It was sweet and lightly fruity, perfect for a warm summer day. Hey, Rhinegeist – can you ship some of these to Baltimore? Last on our dessert tour of Cincy was Graeter’s Ice Cream (2939 Terminal Drive | Hebron, KY 41048). This ice cream spot handcrafts their treats in 2 1/2 gallon batches at a time. They sell their ice cream at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport so we picked up a little bit to go before our flight. Hello plane snacks! I tried the vanilla bean and the chocolate, chocolate chunk. Both were amazing but I was really digging the vanilla bean. It turns out, I can get Graeter’s in the Baltimore region so I will be picking up pints at my local grocery store to give all of their flavors a fair chance. You can see where else my travels take me, here. Interested in visiting Cincy for yourself? Act fast! Southwest is offering a fare sale to there and other select destinations until June 9th! Be sure to subscribe to my blog to catch the rest of the Cincy travel tips! Drooling for more? Check me out on Facebook and Instagram. While this trip was paid for by Southwest Airlines, all views stated here are my own.

Kerem Demirbay posted for pictures with the junior girls team after the match A Fortuna Dusseldorf midfielder was made to referee a junior league girls' game as punishment for insulting a female referee. Kerem Demirbay was given a second yellow card in his side's Bundesliga 2 match against FSV Frankfurt last week. Demirbay reportedly told female referee Bibi Steinhaus women have no place in football while leaving the pitch. "This is what happens when young players make mistakes," Fortuna said on Facebook. Turkish youth international Demirbay, who was made to referee the girls' game by his club, is still awaiting sanction by the German FA for his comments but has repeatedly apologised. "I am extremely sorry for having said what I did to Ms Steinhaus," Demirbay said earlier this week. "I should never have said this sentence and it does not reflect my image of women."

Every Sunday morning millions of Christians confess from the Apostles’ Creed that Christ “was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead.” Have you ever wondered what it means to say that Christ “descended into hell”? Earlier this year at the 2015 Los Angeles Theology Conference, Matt Emerson delivered a helpful paper on this topic, “He Descended to the Dead: The Burial of Christ and the Eschatological Character of the Atonement.” I corresponded with Emerson, assistant professor of Christian ministries at California Baptist University, about how Christians should think about this part of the early creeds. Where does the phrase “he descended into hell” occur? Should it be “into hell” or “to the dead”? The phrase occurs in both the Apostles’ Creed, which many churches recite every Sunday, and in the Athanasian Creed. In the Apostles’ Creed, the phrase was originally “descended to the dead” in Latin (descendit ad inferos) but was later changed to “descended into hell” (descendit ad inferna). Why can’t we just ignore this phrase, since it occurs in creeds rather than Scripture? As a Protestant and an evangelical, I believe the creeds are secondary to Scripture in their authority. But this does not mean that they have no authority at all in Protestant churches. It means, rather, that Scripture and its authority is the ground for the creeds’ language and secondary authority. As long as the creeds exhibit a biblical foundation and fidelity to what Scripture says, then they function authoritatively for us. What are the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic views on this phrase? What problems do you see with them? The Eastern Orthodox view, which comes out of the Patristic view, emphasizes Christ’s defeat of Hades and his liberation of Adam and all his race from sin’s penalty, death. There is a strong emphasis on victory, as well as on liberation. In the Orthodox view, when Jesus defeats death through his own death, he heals Adam and Eve of their sin. Because Adam stands as the head of the human race, by healing him Jesus also heals and liberates all humanity from Hades. In the Roman Catholic view, sometimes referred to as the Harrowing of Hell, Jesus descends only to the supposed “first level” of hell, the limbo of the fathers, preaches the gospel to its inhabitants (virtuous Jews and pagans who lived and died before Christ), and takes out all who repent and believe. One other recent development along both of these lines comes from Hans Urs von Balthasar, a 20th-century Roman Catholic theologian, who believed that Jesus descended into hell and was thereby separated from the Father not only in his humanity but also in his divinity. In doing so the love of the Father and Son expressed in the Spirit swallowed up death and destroyed it. There are a number of issues with each of these views. For Protestants, the idea that Old Testament saints were consigned to some form of hell prior to Christ’s death and resurrection, present in both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic views, is not acceptable. Neither is the Roman Catholic view of different levels of hell. Perhaps most problematic for Protestants is the implied universalism of both of these views. Neither one explicitly states that Jesus’s death saves all humanity without distinction, but, especially in the Orthodox view, it is hard to escape that implication. What are Calvin and Luther’s views on this phrase? What are the strengths and weaknesses you see in them? Calvin believed that the phrase referred to Jesus’s vicarious suffering of the Father’s wrath on the cross for those who repent and believe. Unlike the Orthodox and Roman Catholic views, Calvin saw Jesus’s descent occurring on the cross instead of in his burial. Luther, like the early church, emphasized Jesus’s victory on Holy Saturday over death and Hades, but he departed from the subsequent Orthodox tradition by ignoring the liberating element. In other words, he did not discuss Jesus liberating Adam and all of humanity from Hades and leading them out. While Calvin’s view is probably a popular pick for Protestants, I don’t see how placing the descent on Good Friday makes sense of the creeds’ narrative structure. Both the Apostles’ and the Athanasian Creeds structure their statements on the incarnation of Jesus in a chronological, narrative order. Each clause follows on the previous one, so to make a chronological leap backward from “died and buried” to Christ still alive on the cross in “he descended to the dead” doesn’t make much sense. Some evangelicals think this clause should be excised from the creed. What would you say in response? By and large, evangelicals such as Wayne Grudem and John Feinberg reject this clause because many of its proponents point to 1 Peter 3:18-22 as the biblical support. Grudem and others don’t see the exegetical warrant from that passage. There are at least two ways to respond to this critique. First, the biblical warrant for this doctrine does not stand or fall with 1 Peter 3:18-22. Perhaps the Roman Catholic view, where Jesus preaches to the dead, is compromised, but Protestants are not bound to this interpretation of the phrase anyway. Biblical references to Jesus’s time in the tomb abound in the New Testament, and they are filled with theological significance. In Matthew 12:40, Jesus compares his burial to Jonah in the belly of the whale (which is, in Jonah 2, also a reference to the abyss, the place of the dead). In Acts 2:24-28, Peter speaks of Christ in the grave and God’s power and victory over death. In Ephesians 4:9-10 and Romans 10:7, Paul makes theological use of Christ’s descent to the place of dead. All of this suggests that Christ’s burial has theological significance. After all, if the only thing that matters is Jesus’s death, then why have a burial at all? Further, why the burial for three days? These passages and others indicate that Jesus’s prolonged state of death is vicarious, in that by it Jesus experiences and defeats death for us. Second, and derivative from the biblical language about Jesus’s death, are the authority of the creeds and the importance of the history of doctrine. Two of the three ecumenical creeds affirm this doctrine, and the early church theologians all discuss Jesus’s descent to the dead and see great importance in it. We cannot simply throw out creedal language and ignore the history of doctrine. That is our heritage and, to the extent that it is faithful to the biblical witness, it is authoritative for us. In my judgment “he descended to the dead” recognizes an important biblical teaching, namely that in his death, and specifically in his prolonged state of death, Jesus gains victory and frees those united with him from death’s grip. What would you encourage evangelicals to think of when they hear or recite this phrase in worship services? Jesus defeats all of God’s enemies, including the last enemy, death, in his death, burial, and resurrection. By taking on death for us, he defeats it for us. Death has been swallowed up in death, because the one who died for us is life. There is no indication here of a Harrowing of Hell or an emptying of Hades, as in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox views, but instead a simple affirmation that Jesus has taken away death’s sting by experiencing it for us and thereby conquering it.

From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. I. THE BIG COUNTRY There is a stretch of I-64 West between St. Louis and Iowa City, Iowa. It measures 255 miles from spot to spot on a map and takes eight years to cross in a vehicle traveling at any speed. Moving north out of St. Louis you pass out of the city and into farms and a landscape of shaved patches of farmland. It resembles a collection of long burial plots for recently murdered giants. At some point it breaks away from the interstate and becomes US 61 and you ride through Iowa and there is just jack shit in all directions, long farmy blights dotted with aluminum sheds and places to buy aluminum sheds. You can't drive fast enough through it and go any faster: the landscape sucks away at the wheels of your car, and the air dulls the grip of tires on the pavement. A burst of trees around the interstate means a river is approaching. Every one of them has the ominous beauty of a place you would find a body floating in the water while fishing one morning. This is where my brother's in-laws live. They are nice and religious and normal and eat together and pray before meals. When the in-laws asked my nephew what he was thankful to God for, he squeezed up his face into a confused expression and told them: pffft, there isn't a God. The conclusion, looking out the window at the plains, would be absolute either way: either he exists, or he doesn't, and there's not much in between. Highway 61 was so boring and endless it made its own time dilation bubble. I had to listen to a jumbo-sized Howard Stern interview with Billy Joel to get halfway to Iowa City. I hate Billy Joel, but I swear it was the only option on the radio that didn't crackle and die after an hour, and it was just him somewhere in a studio in the crowded rat warren of the New York metropolitan area moaning on and on about how he couldn't write, and would rather be working on motorcycles in the vanity repair shop he opened for the expressed purpose of losing money and working on motorcycles, and how Howard would just play snippets of "Vienna" and go oh why aren't you making music, and...this. A three hour interview of Billy Joel talking to Howard Stern about how bored he is of life and living it is total fucking horror, and it was still preferable to the silence. After seventeen hours of driving, Iowa City decided to appear. A hundred thousand people had assembled in the middle of the country for Ohio State/Iowa that day in the middle of the country where there is nothing on the radio to hear but echoes of what someone is mumbling one thousand miles away. The first college football game involved 23 male college students playing a game that looked a lot like rugby. It was really, really long ago-- longer than you even think. It was four years after Appomattox. Jesse James wouldn't even commit his first robbery until December in Gallatin, Missouri later that year. 1869 was so long ago that the ceremony honoring the ancient Rutgers players who played in the first college football game took place in 1921. The last survivor of the game died in 1939. He was named, appropriately enough, George H. Large. If one of the players fell on the field and onto a stray nail, they might die a horrendous death from tetanus. If a rabid stray dog ran onto the field in the middle of the game and attacked a player, that player stood a very good chance of dying. Broken bones killed. Medicine itself could do the same, and often stumbled to diagnoses of football fatalities like "[he] was tackled, and when he fell a weed entered his nostril and penetrated the brain, causing death a few hours later" with a straight face. "Unknown cause" accounted for 17% of all deaths in the United States in 1900. Murder, in all likelihood, was much easier to get away with in the 19th century.* *Animal attacks seem deeply undercounted here. Railroad accidents are their own category. Rutgers' players wore no special uniforms. In order to distinguish themselves from the Princetonians they wore scarlet scarves on their heads. Try to figure out what they were doing from the descriptions on field, and you will lose save for the vague inclination that a.) the players instinctively formed the flying wedge, not so much out of any real strategy but out of a survival instinct unchanged since the days of the Roman Phalanx b.) Rutgers was smaller, but better organized, and won against a larger, more talented Princeton team. The 2003 BCS Title Game, but played with syphilis and consumption and in the freezing cold of New Jersey rather than the balmy breezes of Miami. c.) Jim Tressel would have been a hell of a prehistoric football coach. Rutgers won 6-4. A Rutgers professor, upon seeing the carnage of the game, screamed at the participants: You will come to no Christian end! Some friends of mine once drove the whole length of I-10 between Florida and Arizona just to watch Florida lose. They stayed up drinking coffee like idiots who did not drink coffee, because they were 18 and too broke for cocaine but not desperate enough for methamphetamine. They ordered it black from McDonald's and drove at 90 miles per hour through the wastes of West Texas and Arizona to go scalp tickets with food money, rent money, money meant for other things. That money flew from their pockets like so many bugs speeding towards the buzzing purple light of a football game. When they got there Nebraska annihilated Florida 62-24. I was there and heard Jacquez Green's hip pop out of joint with a noise like that of deboning a chicken. I flew back with the band. My friend and his friends drove back the whole length of the country, measuring their gas to the ounce and having a lovely conversation with a Texas State Trooper about how fast one should speed through Cormac McCarthy country. Their proposition was somewhere around 94 miles per hour; his counterargument, one enforced by local law, was one significantly lower. There are others. A Florida fan once crashed his plane in a tree outside Starkville and still made the game--for a loss. Another friend flew from Russia to watch Georgia Tech play, and lose, and then flew straight back to Russia. During the Depression people who barely had the money for basic amenities piled onto flatbeds and bumped down despicable roads to make the Red River Rivalry in Dallas, where they ate fried whatever and scalped tickets they had no business buying just to sit in the stadium beneath the boiling sun and the erector set spotlights of the Cotton Bowl. Recessions never seem to cut into the ticket budget; depressions just become an opportunity to carpool and meet new people. Sense has never made a dent in how people fuck, drink, or watch football. They are inelastic ghosts with tin ears and large, bellowing mouths. It is a huge game, and it is played along the long distances of strange historical songlines. You have to go 394 miles and drive for six hours to get from Austin to Lubbock along US 84, a road partially based on the old El Camino Real, the corridor to Mexico based on old Native American trails. To get to the Rose Bowl from downtown L.A. you follow an old cattle trail now paved over with a highway, and Florida State plays football in Tallahassee, a town constructed at a spot simply because that's where two surveyors met to form the capital of the territory of Florida. When the Colorado/Nebraska rivalry resumes in 2018, it will happen along I-80, a road built along the still-visible traces of the Oregon Trail running parallel to to the highway. Take any of the highways over the Rockies to get to a game, feel the wind kick your car around the ice just before they close the passes, and think to yourself: some insane motherfucker with a gun on a mule did this without a cellphone or rest stop in sight. The last reasonable man in the history of college football was Andrew Dickson White, the Cornell president who forbade a group of 40 students to travel to Michigan, saying "I refuse to let 40 of our boys travel 400 miles merely to agitate a bag of wind." Everyone else, from that point forward, forgot all sense and let people cross whatever irrational distance they wanted to in the name of football. And even if you cheat and skip the highway and fly over the long sprawl of irrigation circles, subdivisions, and the quilty pixeled landscape of college football, you still have to get there. And there, by definition, can be odd, quaint, small, rural, or flat hillbilly, depending on where you are, and what your standards of oddity are. Kansas State has cows within line of sight of the stadium. Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech looks and feels like stumbling onto a lost set from a Peter Jackson film: gray limestone piled into a turreted fortress teeming with hunting gear-clad bear-men slamming turkey legs into their mouths. Notre Dame Stadium is as alien a landscape as there is in college football, a party in a mausoleum with wooden benches surrounded by what reasonably feels like a seminary. Baton Rouge is everything that haunted John Kennedy Toole's worst nightmares. Leave your laptop in a bag in Stillwater, and someone has already chased you three blocks up the street to give it back to you. Go to Boulder and realize you have done something very wrong to not be there all the time, and to not look like the people there, and do the healthy, fit, virtuous and cheerful things they do.* *Going to Boulder is realizing you are now, by making all the choices you have made in your life, part of the problem forever. Football started in the incubator of the northeast, went feral, and ran until it hit the West Coast, fanned back, and filled whatever lay in between. It became the sport of the in-between parts of the country. By 1926 its axes had already shifted to different, strange coordinates thousands of miles from New Jersey. Alabama plays under the symbol of a set of luggage they took across the country in 1926 in the Rose Bowl. They would play strange Californians from Stanford in a 7-7 tie. The trip was 2,000 miles by train to Pasadena. The symbol on their luggage: a red elephant from Rosenberger's Birmingham Trunk, Inc. It is a big country, and the very language of college football comes from moving across it. II. RUN You may have grown up somewhere. I did not. I never had that feeling, even when I did grow up in a definite somewhere. This isn't anyone's fault: there is a default switch somewhere in the human brain that makes people feel at home, like there is safety. It's pressed into the "on" position at birth for most people, and turned off and on at will by people who can move around in life without much trauma. Mine is broken. It would be so very, very cool if epigenetics worked like I wanted it to, and this was a video game, and in that video game I was a lowly office worker with the genes of an ancient race of loyal assassins. My switches are set to one setting: run. On one side of the family, for generations back, there are no me. There are bootleggers and horse trainers and people whose name in the family tree is spelled with a question mark. Once I asked my grandmother about her father, and her father's father. Contrary to what you might hear, you can outrun history. Both my great-grandfather and his father sprinted off the page completely, and into oblivion before my grandmother could make a single print of their faces. Every house feels like a coffin to me, but at least I came by that feeling honestly. My father did well enough. After a childhood spent in barns and racetracks and driving cars he had no license for through the streets of Miami when he was fourteen, he got married, had children, and kept them safe and fed and mostly schooled. He stuck around until all the kids got out of the house, but still moved us every two years or so. The company wanted him to move, he'd say, but he was always willing to shuffle back and forth between the same cities, buying houses so quickly that we once bought the same house twice to just save the time of home-shopping. Even after he'd gotten to be an executive, he kept the family moving: he once moved the family between three houses in six years at one point, all while never leaving the same town. I always ask where he is now. This is not to make small talk. This is so I know where he is, because it is very, very easy to lose track of him, and because one day someone's going to have to send a search party out to his last known location in order to find him. (I hope you are reading this, Dad, because I have the hounds and am ready.) So if I ended up at one point in life incapacitated in a Chinese hospital in Kunming, China, it came to me honestly. I fell asleep watching Chinese state television, and dreamed I was walking up a road like the one leading up to a monastery outside Zhongdian. Walking up the road took dream-time: impossibly long, cinematic, and into a spitting sunshower like you get in high, dry places with random, infuriating weather. The dream was entirely POV; I remember distinctly looking down at my hands like I was sitting in a first-person shooter. The monastery has a central temple, the white wedding cake of a Tibetan monastery with steps cut into its sides. The golden roof curves against the sky. Monks carry baskets up the stairs, walking in a zigzag across and up the steps to alleviate the load on their legs. The rain stops, then starts again, and then chokes out completely as a cloud blows off and unveils the sun like a curtain blown off a searchlight. At the top of the stairs stands Steve Spurrier, wearing the yellow hat and red robes of a Tibetan lama, grinning like he'd just called Mills for an eighty yard TD. Then I woke up, and saw my wife sitting next to me reading. You are not your genes but sometimes there is this thing that makes me want to put my head to the wall of the world's engine and listen to the live current whirring around inside it. The need to move, to feel everything as something as alien as I feel all the time, to go as far as I can away from the concept of home and thus feel something like a normality. To make a fact of the imaginary world where you are something comfortable, and something content. This would rule everything I've ever done if it weren't for the nagging complication of being someone to someone else, someone more human. I'm told that person exists, even though I barely talk to him. He is the one who doesn't drive alone in rental cars through the American West for fun, the one badgered into making doctor's appointments for himself after years of procrastination. He is the one who only occasionally catches the house on fire while making coffee in the morning, and turning on Octonauts for the kids while making breakfast. He is the one who watches football on the couch in a somewhere, a definite somewhere with definite someones, somewhere that could definitely be construed as a home. For a long time I used to run. It's not something healthy people do, really, since most runners are channeling something else away from their lives into motion: addiction, compulsion, loss. You might not, and that's great. Either you're lying to yourself or you're the only human being who ever ran for the right reasons. I ran because I was convinced I was damned, and running from the long arm of doom itself. I ran because it was cheaper and easier to manage than drinking yourself into the same state. The idea is to get the same result: washed up in the middle of nowhere, blasted and hopeless and blank on beach with nothing more than the tattered shards of your brain in your hands. I swear, if you are the kind of person who wakes up with a hole in your chest every morning, there is nothing, absolutely nothing better than this feeling. It is glorious. It's not just that you've killed yourself and gotten away with it. It's the notion that you've destroyed even the ability to separate from yourself and the environment, and dismantled the entire apparatus of observation. If the Mars Rover took itself apart spontaneously, I would understand. It would just be doing what it wanted most of all: not to watch the sunrise over a Martian plain, but to be that sunrise. I'd understand, Mars Rover. I would so understand what you were trying to do. Last night Georgia State won their first game since October 13th, 2012. Be clear about this: Georgia State is a very bad football team. They deserved and earned every single loss, and very nearly deserved one last night. Abilene Christian is a better put-together football team, but suffers from the usual problems of being smaller, not quite as fast, and slightly less huge than their opponent. That's another place where the long arm of doom will, in most cases, happily steal away what it by natural right can: bigger crushes smaller, and heavy rolls downhill over the shanties of the world without pity or mercy. Georgia State, like the majority of football programs in a lopsided sport, is doomed to walk the earth and lose. They will lose so many games, in so many places, and in such grotesque, uneven fashion. But last night they won, and their kicker fell prostrate on the logo at the fifty under the stretched fabric of a dome that will, in all likelihood, be rubble in a few years. It is not a stretch to say that every gleeful moment from last night will literally be demolished by bulldozers, time, and the invisible hands of mustachioed billionaires. And then, after that, I got to go home. This morning the other guy--the one who doesn't want to run-- woke up and found the same woman from the hospital in his kitchen holding a cup of coffee with a toddler clinging to her leg. The lama from the dream coaches a football team tonight. I do not think he will be wearing the hat, but you never know. I honestly don't know at what point the two people in my head meet. The older I get the less division there is between dream and reality, less of a huge divide between waking and sleep, and less concern about reconciling the two. I still love to drive into the middle of nowhere and see the desert that sits somewhere in my chest reflected in my eyes in the landscape around me. I also know that in the middle of all that nothing there is something waiting with floodlights and deafening noise, thousands of people huddling in the spaces in between in snow, rain, howling winds, heat, sun, and cold. I know that there are two people writing this at all times, and both have something they call home. I know that I live somewhere between the two spaces. I know that it is a big country, and its sport is played out in the ceaseless damned wandering across it in so many different definitions of the phrase. I hope you know it is an unfair game with no Christian end. I hope that even with knowing that, you don't care. I hope it still takes you home somewhere. I hope you get to wander the big country, and I hope it still stops something in your heart when you see it. I hope it still makes you want to run. Thanks to Luke Zimmermann for the GIFs

Technological advancements in the last six years means that an unmanned re-entry to the Pike River mine is possible, Prime Minister Bill English says. Photo: Supplied Mr English said the government is committed to exploring the possibility of an unmanned re-entry to the Pike River mine. "We all recognise the technology has improved significantly in the last six years so there's an opportunity to get a better look than you would get from the cameras coming down through the shaft or from the robots - I mean even that technology's improved a lot," he said. Mr English said the government would provide the families with as much information as possible without an "unsafe" entry and risking the lives of more people. "You either come out safely, or you come out dead". But he is refusing to engage in any talk about post election deals, including over re-entry to the Pike River mine. NZ First leader Winston Peters has reiterated his statement a manned re-entry into the mine would be a bottom line if National needs his party's support to form a government after the September election. "Well, we're not doing coalition negotiations five months out from an election, we've go to deal with the concerns of the families right now," Mr English said. The police had told him all the video will again be made available to the families by the end of the week, he said. "It is important that all the families have the opportunity to sit down, see the whole lot, decide if there's anything there they think is relevant." Families insist they have never seen the footage Families of some of the men killed in the Pike River disaster insist they've never seen newly-leaked video footage from a robot inside the mine. The footage - initially released by Newshub and also obtained by RNZ - was taken about three months after the November 2010 explosions. Mr English, has rejected claims of a cover-up, saying the families had been shown parts of the footage six years ago. He said all of the video was then passed on to the Pike River Royal Commission. But a spokesperson for the families, Bernie Monk, said none of them or their lawyers ever saw that section of the tape. "I've been in contact with all the other lawyers, and I've got Colin, my brother-in-law who is one of the lawyers, with me at the moment, and that is not true, we did not see this... "I am saying that to the country." Mr Monk said that part of the video proved the mine had been safe to enter. Families now wary of other undisclosed evidence The lawyer who acted for the Pike River families during the Royal Commission said the newly-leaked video footage would have been important for the commission and families to see six years ago. Richard Raymond told Morning Report he had not seen the footage and he has spoken to others who are confident it was not shown to the families. He said all robotic video footage was offered at the time to be shown to the families by the police, but the families were advised that the footage did not show anything new that had not already been shown in selected extracts. "On that basis it wasn't viewed because they trusted the judgement of others that it didn't show anything significant." He said the families were now even more wary because a number of other pieces of evidence were also not disclosed in 2011. "With this relevant extract popping up six years later, it makes the families very wary, very cautious, and obviously sceptical about the quality and extent of what has been disclosed previously." Mr Raymond said the experts should have had the opportunity to consider the information in the videos in 2011. He said while it is uncertain where the footage was taken from, it would have been important for the commission to see. "The integrity of the tunnel, at 1.9kms is an electrical substation, a lot of equipment, bits of machinery were in the drift, which of course the commission would have been interested in seeing. So any good footage which helped with that would have been of assistance." Previously unseen footage 'significant' for families Sonya Rockhouse's son Benjamin died in the explosions and another son, Daniel, was one of just two survivors. She told Morning Report the footage was "significant" and it was not something they would forget seeing. "What irks me the most is that that footage had to be leaked to us. This is important stuff that we should have seen at the time. "Who knows what difference it might have made, I'm not sure. But for us, it clearly shows the damage that we were told [was there], simply isn't there." She said police needed to give the familes all the video footage they have. Journalist Rebecca Macfie wrote the definitive account of the disaster, Tragedy at Pike River Mine. She said the key issue highlighted by the video was the lack of transparency by the police. Two key pieces of evidence were leaked to the families and the police have not been open about their process, she said. "I think we're at risk of getting bogged down in the detail of what this particilar video shows. It's the patterns of disclosure... and the big broader context in which the families are left to interpret everything that happens." She said there was no excuse for all of the footage not being handed over to the families.

NBA's Rudy Gay Pulls Hot Chicks from Club After Game-Winning Shot NBA's Rudy Gay -- Pulls Hot Chicks from Club ... After Game-Winning Shot EXCLUSIVE To the victor go the spoils ... in this case, the spoils being a bunch of hot chicks who left a nightclub with NBA star Rudy Gay ... hours after he put a dagger in the Utah Jazz. Earlier in the night, Gay hit the game-winning shot that led the Kings over Utah -- and to celebrate the 29-year-old hit up 1 OAK nightclub on the Sunset Strip with some friends. But the real score was on the way out ... when Rudy and his pals loaded up the car with a bunch of attractive ladies -- bound for the obligatory after-party. #HelluvaNight

Nearly a full five years ago, the world was introduced to Batman: Arkham Asylum, the titular hero’s return to fame in video games. It was heralded by many critics at the time as the greatest super hero game ever made, which to be honest, isn’t a magnificent feat considering the track record of most super hero games. Arkham Asylum garnered a metacritic rating of 91/100 and has sold roughly 4 million units as of today. For Rocksteady Studios, a developer whose only previous game included Urban Chaos: Riot Suspense in 2006, it was a massive success and their first true foray into video game stardom. Anyone that completed Batman: Arkham Asylum knew of the cliff-hanger ending and for them, the inevitable sequel became a waiting game. Batman: Arkham City released two years later to even higher critical acclaim, reaching a lofty 96 metascore and selling even more, though I can’t find recent accurate sales figures. So far so good, right? Unfortunately, Rocksteady seems to have painted themselves into a corner with the Batman Arkham franchise. Making only one other game before moving onto Batman means they’re only known as “those guys that make Batman”. Five years later and Rocksteady is still working on the Batman Arkham series with Batman: Arkham Knight set for a 2015 release after being delayed from its initial 2014 date. Batman: Arkham Origins was released this past fall, though not being developed by Rocksteady, it is unanimously considered the weakest entry. There is no denying the quality of the series and the impact it has left on the industry. With games like Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, The Amazing Spiderman, and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor borrowing from the free flow combat of Arkham, it’s easy to see why the it has become so prolific. Unfortunately though, I fear publishers may get in the way of the genius and push for more games than we need. Had Arkham Knight not been delayed, we would have had four games in the same series in a span of just five years, which is dangerously close to the yearly franchise model seen with Call of Duty. Nowadays, Call of Duty is working on a rotation of three developers. Surely, it is better than having one developer make a new game every year, allowing more time to make a game. However, that does not undermine the reason for this strategy: Money. Activision wants money and so they have three developers releasing a new Call of Duty every three years. Unfortunately, Call of Duty grew stale long ago and the Batman Arkham franchise might meet a similar fate. We’ve already seen the publisher, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, experiment with this by making Warner Bros. Games Montreal take the helm for Arkham Origins with its Rocksteady successor originally expected to be released the following year. I hope the release of Batman: Arkham Knight will signal the end of the franchise so the publisher and the developer can focus on new things. A series like this can only go on for so long without reaching fatigue and its inching ever closer to that. Sometimes, money hungry developers and publishers need to learn when enough is enough or they may end up making Batman Arkham into the next Madden of gaming. After all, do we as gamers want to support this if it ends up being stretched as widely as Assassin’s Creed? Can’t we let a lying dog rest and move forward?

Editor's Note: This video contains graphic content. A seven year old girl, her baby sister and her grandmother are killed by an angry mob in Pakistan over a "blasphemous" Facebook posting by a man from the same religious sect. (Reuters) When the outcome is as terrible as this, it seems almost unfair to the dead to begin their story not with their demise, but at the beginning. Especially when the beginning involves something as trivial as a Facebook post. Sometime on Sunday, an image of a semi-nude woman atop a holy monument in Mecca materialized on the Facebook page of an 18-year-old man belonging to an Islamic religious minority, the Ahmadi. News quickly filtered through the majority community, the New York Times reports. The marauders first numbered in the hundreds, but soon swelled to encompass about 1,000 members who looted, threw stones and set multiple houses ablaze in the eastern Pakistani city of Gujranwala. The Facebook post, they said, was “blasphemous” — and someone was going to pay. But ultimately, it wouldn’t be the young man, Aqib Saleem, who was left unharmed in in the riots. It would be the women. It would be one Ahmadi grandmother. It would be her two Ahmadi granddaughters — one age 7, the other just 8 months old. They had been trapped inside one of the burning buildings and died there of smoke inhalation, according to the New York Times. And it would be the unborn child of another Ahmadi woman, who had been pregnant seven months and miscarried during the riots. Pedestrians walks past the smoke-charred house of an Ahmadi Muslim resident following an attack by an angry mob in the low-income Arafat Colony in the city of Gujranwala. (Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images) In a religiously intolerant Muslim country, where an accusation of blasphemy can ignite riots against religious minorities, it was unclear Tuesday morning whether the mob had its facts right. Observers suspected the teen’s password had been stolen and someone had surreptitiously planted the “blasphemous” picture. “The people who were killed were not even indirectly accuse of blasphemy charges,” explained the chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in an interview with the Times. “Their only fault was that they were Ahmadis. Torching women and children in their house simply because of their faith represents brutalization and barbarianism stooping to new levels.” But there’s nothing necessarily new about such “brutalization.” Accusations of blasphemy play a dark role in Pakistani society, abetted by a politically popular law that can prescribe death for insulting Islam. Often manipulated to suppress religious minorities and settle scores, human rights groups say accusations of blasphemy can lead to lengthy prison terms, a death sentence, and vigilante killings — regardless of evidence. Human Rights Watch reports that “thousands” have been charged under the blasphemy law since its implementation, and 18 people are on Pakistani death row for it. Others, however, never make it to court. “There is a fanaticism and intolerance in society, and such people never consider whether their accusation is right or wrong,” Rashid Rehman, an attorney who has defended those accused of blasphemy, told the BBC earlier this year. Rehman, who was shot dead at his office in May for apparently taking blasphemy cases, said it was like “walking into the jaws of death. … People kill for 50 rupees. So why should anyone hesitate to kill in a blasphemy case?” Some will also not hesitate to kill to protect the blasphemy laws themselves, which General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq passed in the 1980s in an effort to unify the country under one religious banner. In 2010, an outspoken secular politician named Salman Taseer denounced blasphemy laws after one Christian woman was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad. “I was under huge pressure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy,” he would later tweet. “Refused. Even I’m the last man standing.” In early January of 2011, his bodyguard pumped several bullets into Taseer in daylight at close range as he climbed out of his car, killing him. Afterward, his bodyguard explained he did it because of Taseer’s opposition to the blasphemy law. Days later, Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani reaffirmed his support of the blasphemy law and said there would be no changes to it. Pakistani civil society activists light candles in front of a portrait of the slain governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, during a candlelight vigil in commemoration of his life in Lahore on Jan. 7, 2011. Taseer, an outspoken voice against religious extremism, was shot dead by a member of his own security detail outside an Islamabad cafe in broad daylight three days earlier. (Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images) In the years since, rights groups say, the number of blasphemy accusations have skyrocketed. According to Reuters, there was only one accusation of blasphemy in 2011, but in 2013, there were at least 68. Already this year, around 100 people have been accused of blasphemy. In that time, a Christian neighborhood in Lahore in northeast Pakistan was attacked by a mob following an allegation of blasphemy, according to the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. “Houses were set on fire and household goods looted and burnt,” the group reported. Then something strange happened that allegedly recurred again in Sunday’s tragedy. The police did nothing. “Police admitted that it had failed to assess the gravity of the situation, but said that as a precautionary measure it had evacuated the locality,” the group said. “When the aggressive mob moved toward the police officials they had to take refuge. … With police running for their lives, the mob had an open field to create havoc.” On Sunday, some residents said the police did little to quell the riots that would ultimately claim the lives of one woman and two girls. “A lot of policeman arrived but they stayed on the sidelines and didn’t intervene,” one resident told Reuters, but police dispute that. Police told the New York Times that they had registered cases against the 400 attackers, though it was unclear Tuesday morning what the next step would be. “As things stand, even an accusation of blasphemy can mean prison, death or exile,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, once said in a statement. “… Killers remain free while those engaged in peaceful expression are targeted by the state and extremists.”

London's Natural History Museum is a monument to science and nature. Holding one of the most extensive collections of all things animal, vegetable, and mineral, as well as home to some of the world’s best scientists, who have dedicated their lives to studying them. So it’s not every day that such a fine institute makes a mistake, and even less so when it’s a 10-year-old who corrects it. For one paleontology-obsessed boy named Charlie, however, this is exactly what happened. After realizing that the museum had made a mistake on one of the signs informing visitors about the different dinosaurs, Charlie let the museum know. And now, the Natural History Museum has admitted that Charlie was indeed right, and they’ll be changing the information accordingly. Charlie, from Essex, was attending the museum on one of their evening events known as “"Dino Snores", in which kids get to spend the night in the museum and do some fun activities during the night. It was during one of these activities that he told his mum about the error. The incorrectly labeled sign that Charlie spotted. YouTube/BBC It turned out that Charlie had noticed a sign that was meant to depict a side-by-side comparison of a human with an Oviraptor actually showed a comparison with a completely unrelated Protoceratops. And despite millions of people having passed by the display every year, it took Charlie to point this out. “When he told us, we said, ‘OK, we know you’re good, but this is the Natural History Museum,’” Charlie’s mum told the BBC. “But he told us ‘no, give me your phone and I’ll show you’. So he googled it and I could see quite clearly it was a completely different shaped dinosaur.” His mum explained that the fact Charlie has Asperger syndrome means that when he likes a subject, he will “find out everything about it”, and that while the other kids at the museum were busy looking at the displays, Charlie was more interested in reading about them instead.

Police Seek Assistance to Identify Possible Fraud Suspect (pictures included) Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 August 2014 08:47 PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 13, 2011 Gary Jenkins, Chief of Police Pullman Police Department (509) 334-0802 PUBLIC ASSISTANCE REQUESTED TO IDENTIFY POSSIBLE FRAUD SUSPECT Pullman Police are seeking the public’s assistance in identifying a female who recently used a stolen credit card at several businesses in Pullman as well as online purchases. The female appears to be a white female with dark brown hair and a distinct “widows peak.” It is believed that this female is a college aged WSU student. If you have any information on this subject or can identify her please contact Detective Mike Crow at the Pullman Police Department, (509) 334-0802. # # # #

After his dominating victory over Josh Barnett this past Sat., night (May 19, 2012), Daniel Cormier won the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix title and in the process, staked his claim as a very dangerous fighter that all heavyweights in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) ranks will have to contend with very soon. In the interim, Cormier, who is undefeated at 10-0, still has business outside the Octagon to tend to. That's because even though he won the grand prix title and there are basically no more heavies in Strikeforce to contend with, the former Olympic wrestle tells The MMA Hour that he still has to compete once more with the San Jose-based promotion before he can make his eventual jump to the UFC. But who can possibly fit the bill to face off against the current tournament champion? "I think if there is a plus one and Zuffa's going to send someone over it is going to have to be someone that is very good you know? Maybe Carwin, as he's coming back. He's a guy with a lot of name value and I don't necessarily know if that's a step up (from Josh Barnett) but that is somebody with name value. Or, if one of the guys loses from the card this weekend. But then it really limits because if Frank Mir loses I'm pretty sure he is not going to want to come to Strikeforce to fight me where if he loses he has everything to lose. When Cain beats Bigfoot Silva, what are they going to do, send him (Silva) back to Strikeforce to fight me again? Nothing really adds up right now, I don't know, I don't know how to guess what they are going to do. There just is not that many step ups out there better than Josh Barnett. Especially that Josh Barnett. That Josh Barnett was 248 pounds, was in shape, was going hard, we had every intention on getting it down Saturday night, but that dude Saturday night came to fight. There are not too many guys that are a step up from that Josh Barnett that showed up on Saturday." There are essentially no more heavyweights remaining with the Strikeforce organization and any big man that has any relevance in mixed martial arts (MMA) today, all fight for the UFC. So to say the options are limited is an understatement. Perhaps the UFC can bring in one of their own big men to contend with Cormier, or they can try to convince Showtime to scratch the whole "plus one" fight stipulation and bring him over and have him fight the winner of this weekend's (May 26, 2012) UFC 146 main event between Junior dos Santos and Frank Mir to unify the titles once and for all. Anyone have any other ideas?

While much of the nation looked on in horror as President Donald Trump delivered a speech ripped "out of a psychopathology textbook" on Tuesday night in Arizona, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) headlined a town hall-style event in Detroit, Michigan on racial and economic justice that served as a marked contrast to Trump's "unhinged" performance. "I want Democrats to be the party not of corporate interests, but of the working class." —Sen. Bernie SandersBefore Sanders approached the podium, Rev. Wendell Anthony of the Detroit Fellowship Chapel Church delivered a remarkable introduction that was quickly spread on social media. Sanders is "trying to take down the tributes to racism and division" while also "trying to stand up for universal healthcare, stand up for jobs for everybody, stand up for income equality, stand up for tuition-free education, stand up for fair treatment and respect from law enforcement across the nation," Anthony said. "If you spent two minutes watching Trump tonight, spend two watching this," a pro-Sanders group wrote on Twitter, referring to Anthony's speech. Watch: Speaking to an audience of more than 2,000 people, Conyers and Sanders slammed Trump while also outlining a positive vision, one that included Medicare for All, a higher federal minimum wage, and full employment. Pointing to Trump's insistence that "many sides" were to blame for the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Sanders said: "We have a president who was equivocal—nice people on both sides! No! There are no nice Nazis!" SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts Watch: Sanders—who, according to a new poll, would handily defeat Trump in a hypothetical 2020 match-up—went on to express the urgent need to fundamentally alter America's for-profit healthcare status quo. "If every other major country guarantees healthcare to every man, woman, and child in their nations, by God we can do it in the United States," Sanders said. Conyers added to Sanders's Medicare for All pitch a call for full employment. A decent-paying job, Conyers said, should be a "fundamental" right in the wealthiest nation on earth. "We need jobs, justice, and peace," Conyers said. "We need political justice and economic justice." "We need jobs, justice, and peace. We need political justice and economic justice." —Rep. John ConyersConyers and Sanders have both introduced ambitious legislation taking aim at America's healthcare crisis and, more recently, youth unemployment. "Youth unemployment is one of the great crises facing our country, impacting millions of young people and their families, but it is one we rarely discuss in Washington," Sanders wrote shortly after introducing the Employ Young Americans Now Act. Conyers introduced the same bill in the House of Representatives. Sanders ended the Detroit town hall by acknowledging that while "there are divisions in this country on a number of issues," most Americans are united in their desire for a government that works for the public good, not for the interests of the wealthy. "I want Democrats to be the party not of corporate interests, but of the working class," Sanders said. "On major issue after major issue, the American people are united in wanting a government that represents all of us and not the one percent."

During her career as a Massachusetts lab chemist, Annie Dookhan has admitted to making up drug test results and tampering with samples, in the process helping send scores of people to prison. Her work may have touched some 24,000 cases. On April 18, nearly five years after Dookhan’s confession, prosecutors submitted lists of about 21,587 tainted cases with flawed convictions that they have agreed to overturn. The state’s highest court must still formally dismiss the convictions. Once that happens, many of the cleared defendants will be freed from the collateral consequences that can result from drug convictions, including loss of access to government benefits, public housing, driver’s licenses and federal financial aid for college. Convicted green card holders can also become eligible for deportation, and employers might deny someone a job due to a drug conviction on their record. “The bad news is, it took a lot of time and litigation to get to this point. But the good news is, the courts are working really hard to make sure this relief is meaningful,” said Matthew Segal, the legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, who helped represent some of the Dookhan defendants. The state’s public defender agency has opened a telephone hotline (888-999-2881) to field questions that defendants may have about their convictions and whether they were dismissed. Prosecutors have until mid-May to send notice to those whose convictions were not overturned — in about 320 cases — so that those defendants can decide whether to request a new trial. Those cases involve what prosecutors considered to be the most serious offenders, and prosecutors believe that they have enough clean evidence to defend the original convictions. The earliest Dookhan cases go back to 2003, which means that some individuals have been living with a flawed drug conviction for nearly a decade and a half. Lawyers for defendants, prosecutors and the state’s top court are also grappling with the question of how to find and contact defendants who may have been deported from the U.S. due to their now-overturned convictions, Segal said. As a result, the effects of having an illegitimate drug conviction wiped away may not be immediately felt by many defendants. “The longer that these tainted convictions remained on the books, the more power they’ve had and the more sway they’ve had over people’s lives,” said Luke Ryan, a criminal defense lawyer who has been following the Dookhan fallout and is also representing clients harmed by another Massachusetts drug lab scandal. “They’ve made choices around where they live, whether they can apply for public housing. They’ve foregone educational opportunities because they didn’t think they would be able to take advantage of them, they haven’t pursued job opportunities that maybe they could have gotten.” The prosecutors’ move to dismiss thousands of cases follows a January decision from Massachusetts’ highest court, which required them to decide which Dookhan convictions they would maintain and which ones they would dismiss. For years, prosecutors opposed any wholesale review of Dookhan-involved cases and at one point argued that they had no duty to send notice to convicted defendants of the possibly tainted evidence. Thousands of Potentially Wrongful Convictions; Years of Delayed Action Four years after a Massachusetts crime lab chemist confessed to tainting evidence, more than 20,000 defendants still don’t know if their drug convictions will stand. In September, prosecutors finally mailed out thousands of notices, but the letters lacked key information and were accompanied by an inadequate Spanish translation, according to the court. As of November, fewer than 2,000 Dookhan defendants had sought or gained relief from their convictions. The most affected cases — nearly 8,000 — came from Suffolk County, which includes Boston. All of the convictions were based on “reliable, admissible evidence” in addition to Dookhan’s tainted test results, and many of the defendants have criminal records that extend beyond the Dookhan cases, according to a statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. The county’s mass dismissal “represents a good faith effort to meet the high court’s goal of winnowing the number of Dookhan defendants down to a manageable number,” the statement said. The hundreds of defendants whose Dookhan convictions were not overturned could still decide to challenge them by requesting a new trial. If they cannot afford their own lawyer, the state public defender agency is required to provide them one for free. “It will be a challenge. But it’s certainly a whole lot more manageable than the prospect of 20,000,” said Nancy Caplan, the attorney leading the agency’s Dookhan response. “It’s within the realm of possibility.”

Tokyo, Japan - "Abe colour" is an expression occasionally used in Japan's domestic media. It means those government policies that reflect Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's personal views, and the term relates to his hawkish security policies. Critics claim the secrecy bill passed into law in December 2013 is said to be one such example of "Abe colour", and it will go into effect this December. Proper safeguards and oversight bodies were supposed to be included, but critics say that this secrecy law is still far from adequate. One of the strongest critics of the new law comes from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which has asked the government to completely reconsider the law. Yoichi Eto, its representative, told Al Jazeera: "This law simply provides new powers to the government officials. It says that they are authorised to do this or that. But it has nothing to say at all about what officials must not do. "There are no limits on the scope of this law, and that is its biggest problem," Eto said. Almost every critic of the law points to the vagueness of its language; the manner in which the line between what is allowed and what is forbidden is not clearly specified. "If we don't have clarity in the regulations, if we don't have clarity in the law, then we don't know what is the extent of the government's power," said Lawrence Repeta, a law professor at Meiji University in Tokyo. "We don't know how government agencies will use that power, to what degree, to what extent, what range of information may be covered." Professor Repeta goes on to note that the law makes no distinction about whether or not information is properly designated as a secret, or if release of the information will actually have any negative effect on national security, or if it is demonstrably in the public interest: All that the new law says is that if someone reveals something designated (for whatever reason) as a special secret, then they have committed a crime for which they may spend up to 10 years in prison. The new Japanese secrecy law also specifically targets journalists. While there is language in the text that supposedly guarantees "normal" journalistic practice, it also says that reporters and others who utilise "inappropriate means" to learn a special secret may be subject to prosecution and up to five years in prison. What exactly constitutes "inappropriate means" to gather the news? The law is silent on this point, suggesting once again that the government and police will decide for themselves what the law mandates, once they are faced with a specific case. Journalists at risk Japan's freelance investigative journalists are at particular risk, as the government may not even recognise their status as being part of a legitimate news media. The present government has an unusually large number of things that it wants to hide. - Yu Terasawa, reporter Yu Terasawa, recently cited by Reporters Without Borders as one of the world's "100 Information Heroes" - the only person in Japan given such an honour - sees the main purpose of the law as preventing the media from revealing embarrassing information to the public. "The present government has an unusually large number of things that it wants to hide," Terasawa said. "This includes issues surrounding the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as well as, looking forward, possible conflicts with China, Russia, or North Korea." Terasawa is part of a group of 43 freelance journalists and other writers who have launched a lawsuit against the new secrecy law. Michiyoshi Hatakeyama, another freelance journalist who is a plaintiff in the case, explains: "What is a secret? The line where these special secrets begin will not be clear. Even if one is arrested and you ask them why you've been arrested, that too may be a secret under this law." For its part, the Abe administration has been very reluctant to publicly defend the secrecy law since its passage last December. The minister put in charge of handling the issue, Masako Mori, is the most junior member of the Abe Cabinet, whose portfolio is Minister of State for Gender Equality, the Declining Birth rate, and Consumer Affairs. She declined repeated requests from Al Jazeera to explain the government's position on the secrecy law, and at a press conference this month at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, the minister indicated that she only wanted to address the issue of gender equality. Still, one journalist managed to challenge the minister on the secrecy law, and her defence of it consisted of denying that it posed any particular problems for the public good. She asserted that all necessary protections for journalists and for the public's right to know had been properly legislated. She also claimed that whistleblowers are fully protected under Japanese law. The only problem she acknowledged was that the government may have made insufficient efforts to inform the public about the responsible and entirely appropriate nature of this particular law. "The secrets protection law was written after exhaustive research on similar legislation of other countries," Mori said. No oversight Outside Japan's government, independent observers directly contest these claims. In the summer of 2013, the Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information, better known as the Tshwane Principles, were issued after a study involving more than five hundred experts from more than 70 countries at 14 meetings held around the world. The Tshwane Principles calls on governments to protect and uphold freedom of information. Professor Repeta, for example, states: "One of my biggest complaints about Japan's parliamentary procedure was they didn't consider the Tshwane Principles at all. It was as if they did not exist." It is hard to imagine a country that less needs a secrecy law than Japan. - Morton Halperin, Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department One of the world's top experts on secrecy and declassification procedures, the former Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department, Morton Halperin, agrees with Repeta that the Japanese secrecy law in no way conforms with the Tshwane Principles and reflects an extremely alarming approach to secrecy legislation. Among the problems cited by Halperin are that in the new Japanese law there is no credible third party oversight of the secrecy designation and its declassification systems, no concept that the public interest might sometimes override the need of the government to keep secrets, and no provision in the law that bureaucrats must explain why a particular document should be designated as a special secret. The Abe administration has asserted repeatedly that fears about its new secrecy law are overblown. They say that the government will be restrained and responsible in the way that it applies the law to specific cases. The problem, however, is that there is nothing in the law that actually obligates the government to act with restraint, and even if the Abe administration is sincere in its promises to act responsibly, it has handed an alarmingly broad power to future Japanese governments whose practices are far from certain. Even in the absence of the new secrecy law, the Japanese government's actual operations are often guarded from public view. Almost every major study of Japan's mainstream media notes its tendency to shy away from investigative political reporting and to "reveal" to the Japanese public that information simply handed to them by the public relations officials of the various ministries and other government agencies. In this context, Morton Halperin observed: "It is hard to imagine a country that less needs a secrecy law than Japan." Follow Michael Penn on Twitter: @ShingetsuNews

1. Vault Boy Isn't Giving a Thumbs Up - He's Checking Whether Or Not He's About To Die Source: Reddit The chipper, cheery mascot of the Fallout series has always been Vault Boy, the blonde-haired, bright-smiled lad giving a big thumbs up and a delightful wink, in stark contrast to the horrible post-nuclear war dystopian future the game plops you in. But WHY exactly is he giving you a thumbs up? And is there an explanation for what he's doing that makes more sense than a jokey contrast between retro-optimism vs. current misery? As you can probably tell from the tone of the article so far, there totally is. There's an old rule in Nuclear Bomb Safety Instructions that says, essentially: "If you see a nuclear explosion on the horizon, stick out your thumb at arms length. If your thumb covers the explosion completely, you're at a safe distance from the explosion. If your thumb does not cover the explosion, run like hell." Realistically, if you see a nuclear explosion, run like hell no matter what because holy shit THERE'S A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION OVER THERE. But, back to the matter at hand - yes, that is totally what Vault Boy is doing. He's not winking - he has his left eye closed so that he can accurately judge what's behind his thumb. And there's even light shining at him from the right angle. And he's smiling because he knows he's seconds away from death and has gone mad with despair. War never changes, but your perception of videogame mascots sure does. 2. Spock Is a Descendant of Sherlock Holmes (or Arthur Conan Doyle) Source: Tumblr Spock (known to modern audiences as "Sylar But With His Hair Cut By a 10 Year Old") is, like most Vulcans, a pretty cold, calculating dude, with just a bit of humanity that shines through every now and then. Sound similar to any famous fictional British detectives you know? Well, if you read the title of this item, you're probably way ahead of me here - it's Sherlock Holmes. But the similarities between the two go much deeper than their obvious personality parallels (and the fact that Spock and Sherlock-portrayer Benedict Cumberbritish faced off in Star Trek Into Khanness). In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (known as "Trying To Make Up For The Final Fronter, Which Was The Worst - Until 'Air Bud Into Barkness' Came Out") includes a very telling line - Spock says, "An ancestor of mine maintained that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The quote is famously attributed to Sherlock Holmes, he of the opium pipe and inspiration for TV's House - which would make Spock his descendant. Of course, Sherlock Holmes isn't actually real, so the possibilities are either Star Trek takes place in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes universe, or Spock was referring to Arthur Conan Doyle as the ancestor, which would probably make more sense (but would be a shame that he didn't inherit those dreamy cheekbones). 3. Galadriel Gave Gimli 3 Hairs When He Asked for Only One To Spite The Most Powerful Elf of All-Time Source: Tumblr Upon leaving the Elf Treehouse Funzone, each member of the Fellowship of the Ring gets a parting gift from Galadriel (except Gandalf, who was too busy plummet-fighting a Balrog at the time). They get some bread, some belts, and a few other odds and ends - but Gimli, of all things, gets three strands of hair. He was so struck by Galadriel's beauty (apparently Frodo didn't tell him about Galadriel's Creepy Demonic Moment) that all he wanted was a single strand of hair (he didn't say where he wanted the hair from, to be fair, so there's still room for it to have been a real creepy request). But why three exactly? Turns out, there's a reason...just not in Lord of the Rings. In Tolkien's The Silmarillion, there's someone called Fëanor. Fëanor is a huge piece of shit, but he managed quite a few extraordinary feats: he may or may not have forged a palantir, created the written language of Tengwar, and created the Silmarils (some fancy gems) that are obviously pretttttty important in the Silmarillion. But one thing he never was able to get was a hair from Galadriel, since she knew he was an asshole. He even asked her (you guessed it) three times. So when Gimli, son of Groin-Injury [Ed. Note: This is correct. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.], made the same request, she saw he was pure of heart and valiant (basically an opposite-Feanor). And despite the fact that dwarves and elf-folk don't get along, she gave him what she never gave one of the most powerful elves of all-time: some hair. Although it's a good thing she didn't know about Gimli stealing some of her panties right before.

German industrial power and quality levels became a national symbol in the latter part of the 20th century, and to some extent the lifeboat of post-war reconstruction. Even throughout the industrial rise of Asia at the end of the century, the German island remained sanctuarize from the competitive attacks of Eastern developing countries. But several German industries have been increasingly struggling in the past decade and gasping for air. Is Germany at the end of its prosperity cycle, for having rested on its laurels? Germany, along with its wartime Japanese ally, impressed the world with its rise from its ashes in the latter half of the 20th century. Starting with the Marshall plan quickly followed by self-standing growth, Germany speedily re-built its industrial capacity, and its reputation for top-notch quality. As soon as in the 1960s, German brands invaded the global market with their sturdy reputation preceding them: if the product said “Made in Germany” then the customer could feel sure there was nothing better on the market. At the end of the century, a large share of the top global engineering segment was German: BMW, Bosch, Rheinmetall, Merck, the list is endless. Economic historian Werner Abelshauer describes [1] how the label “made in Germany” became a symbol of quality: “The label “Made in Germany” ultimately developed into a sign of quality, though it took a while.” But the era during which Germany levitated above the rest of the industrial world is coming to an end. While Germany remained unharmed by Asian competition for longer than its neighbors, it is now fighting on a level field with all other manufacturers in the field, and worse: it’s not doing all that well. Economic reporter Chris Papadopoullos placed [2] the start of the decline during the year 2015: “Total production, which includes construction, manufacturing and mining, dipped 1.2 per cent in August compared with July, German statistical office Destatis said. The production of capital goods fell 2.1 per cent while consumer goods dipped 0.4 per cent. Construction and energy output also posted declines “. Of course, the Volkswagen scandal caused a major dent in the image of industrial Germany. Consulting group ALVA published an extensive study of the post-scandal consequences on the image of Volkswagen and German quality altogether, and wrote [3]: “After the emissions scandal revelations, we can see a very different picture, with all Advocacy drivers having moved into negative territory to a greater or lesser extent. This is indicative of a reverse halo effect in which a negative emotional response to a company due to an erosion of trust spills over and clouds rational judgement of all of its traits.” Until then, German car manufacturers had been above suspicion, thanks to their reputation for industrial quality and business performance: when one is the best, there is no need to cheat. Through the fraudulent emissions revelations, Volkswagen, one of Germany’s flagships, showed that “Made in Germany” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and that they had flown too high on borrowed wings. The scandal shed doubt over other German flagships in its wake, as reported [4] by automotive journalist James Mills: “German media allege that US authorities have discovered that Daimler, parent of Mercedes, developed software for its diesel-powered vehicles that would shut down vital emissions equipment after driving just a short distance. Daimler is reported to have come up with programs that would shut down certain functions of the selective catalytic reduction filter after just 16g/km of NOx is admitted.” And the damage extended beyond the automobile world, into the whole industry. Of course, if the problem were limited to the automobile world, Germany could survive on the others. But the slipping in industrial standards, the resulting loss of performance, and finally the need to resort to unsavory business practices to survive, seems to have contaminated all fields of the German industrial apparatus. German shipbuilder TKMS recently illustrated the downfall: after decades of occupying high grounds on the submarine market, the engineering firm is facing such a severe string of problems that it is facing being sold off entirely and scrapped from the national heritage. After losing a major submarine contract in Australia, it delivered a few corvettes to the German Navy, which simply refused them on the dock, due to quality standards being overstepped. Wall Street Journal William Wilkes reported [5]: “Germany’s naval brass in 2005 dreamed up a warship that could ferry marines into combat anywhere in the world, go up against enemy ships and stay away from home ports for two years with a crew half the size of its predecessor’s. First delivered for sea trials in 2016 after a series of delays, the 7,000-ton Baden-Württemberg F125 frigate was determined last month to have an unexpected design flaw: It doesn’t really work.” Germany’s submarine fleet, also built by the same shipbuilder, is currently completely out of order [6]. In desperate need for new contracts, it resorted to bribing officials, resulting in a political and economic quagmire in Israel. In an attempt to secure a submarine purchasing contract in Tel-Aviv, TKMS allegedly transferred over 10 million dollars through shell companies to a top government Israeli official. News Site Haaretz [7] reports: “At least ten high-powered individuals have been identified as involved in the scandal, including very close associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A multimillion dollar submarine deal with German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp is the focus of a police investigation, which is probing possible wrongdoing involving Netanyahu’s personal lawyer and German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp’s local representative.” For weathered investors, this time in which German manufacturers need to resort to cheating to make up for their slipping industrial standards is something completely new, and in some ways an earthquake. As a result, investments are scarce for start-ups [8], as well as for established businesses [9]. Germany’s downfall in the industrial world isn’t taken lightly by political forces, and the economic problem is turning into a political one, with worker unions stepping up their criticism of management, and politicians scrambling to stop the nosedive. Angela Merkel has been urgently addressing the problem, but so far too little or no avail. “Angela Merkel champions Industry 4.0, urging investment in new technology. German business isn’t heeding the call”, says Politico [10]. Unlike Angela Merkel, many in the country haven’t figured out that Germany had slipped from one industrial model to another: initially known for the superb quality of its products, it was caught up quickly by its direct competitors: United Kingdom, France, Japan and the United States in particular. The core of German’s added value today lies mainly in the machine-tools and high-tech subsystems of German equipment-makers. But as a whole, Germany no longer has the capacity to integrate large and complex systems such as aircrafts, frigates or new-generation submarines. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/125-years-of-made-in-germany/a-16188583 [2] http://www.cityam.com/226018/german-industrial-production-sees-steep-decline [3] http://www.alva-group.com/en/reputation-damage-vw-emissions-scandal/ [4] https://www.driving.co.uk/news/emissions-scandal-vw-mercedes-cheat-diesel-tests/ [5] https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-engineering-yields-new-warship-that-isnt-fit-for-sea-1515753000 [6] https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2017/10/20/all-of-germanys-submarines-are-currently-down/ [7] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/LIVE-the-israeli-submarine-scandal-what-we-know-1.5626626 [8] https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies/german-startups-drying-up-without-risk-ready-investors-863686 [9]https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-investment/big-investors-cautious-on-german-public-private-partnership-plan-idUSL5N0XK45Q20150423 [10]https://www.politico.eu/article/why-europes-largest-economy-resists-new-industrial-revolution-factories-of-the-future-special-report/

Because Ms. Merkel agreed to breach this rule, Germany’s taxpayers feared that they were on the hook for Southern Europe’s debts. Ms. Merkel therefore demanded greater control over other countries’ budgetary decisions — and the European Commission was only too delighted to grab new powers. Countries that share a currency and an interest rate need greater fiscal flexibility, not less, but the commission now applies a fiscal straitjacket — including the right to demand that a government rewrite its budget before presenting it to parliament. This centralization of fiscal powers is not just economically dangerous; it is also politically poisonous. When voters in a member country have turfed out their government, as they have done at almost every election since the crisis, Olli Rehn, the commission’s vice president and fiscal enforcer (currently on temporary leave), has popped up on television to insist that the incoming government stick to the old one’s failed policies. That a remote, unelected and scarcely accountable official in Brussels should deny voters legitimate choices about tax and spending decisions is undemocratic and alienates people from the European Union. A crisis that could have united Europe in a joint effort to curb the mighty banks has instead divided the euro zone into creditor nations and debtor ones, with banks’ bad loans becoming intergovernmental obligations. European Union institutions have become instruments for creditors to impose their will on debtors, subordinating Europe’s southern “periphery” to the northern “core” in a quasi-colonial relationship. Berlin and Brussels now have a vested interest to entrench this system rather than cede power and admit to mistakes. To get out of this mess, the euro zone needs a change of policies and institutions. Banks need to be restructured and unbearable debts written down. More investment is needed, along with bold reforms to boost productivity. The “no bailout” rule should also be restored. Elected national governments must have much greater flexibility to tax and spend as they please, constrained by markets’ willingness to lend to them and ultimately by the possibility of default. A mechanism for the orderly restructuring of sovereign debt should be established for that purpose. To avoid future panics, the European Central Bank’s role as a lender of last resort to solvent governments should be enshrined. The mechanism for restructuring failed banks also needs to be properly independent. In the long term, a euro zone treasury accountable to both European and national legislators should be created, with limited tax-raising and borrowing powers. To persist with current policies and institutions will corrode support for the European Union and risks destroying it. We need a European Spring of economic and political renewal. Philippe Legrain, a former economic adviser to the European Commission president, is the author of “European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess — and How to Put Them Right.”

ORLANDO, Fla. (January 10, 2017) - Orlando City SC midfielder Will Johnson has been called up to the 28-man Canada national team training camp in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., from Jan. 12-18, Canada Soccer announced today. Of the 28 players invited to the camp, 18 will be selected to travel to Bermuda for a friendly match on January 22. “We want to give our players an early advantage heading into their pre-seasons, but also give our staff an opportunity to observe, evaluate, and educate a larger group of players,” said Michael Findlay, Canada Soccer’s Men’s National Team Interim Head Coach. “This project also provides an internal competition within the larger group as only 18 will be selected for travel to the match.” Johnson, who joined the Lions on Dec. 28, 2016, has earned 41 international caps since making his senior debut in 2005. The Toronto native has started 36 international matches, scoring four goals and seven assists. Johnson has represented Canada in two FIFA World Cup qualifying cycles and three CONCACAF Gold Cups. Additionally, Orlando City All-Star striker Cyle Larin was not called into the squad due to injury. Larin has five goals in 19 senior international appearances.

Former South Africa coach Jake White was confirmed as director of rugby at Durban-based Sharks on Monday and will reunite with his captain from the 2007 World Cup winning campaign John Smit. Sharks CEO Smit, who skippered the Springboks to their World Cup win under White six years ago, confirmed the appointment in a statement, ending speculation of where the 50-year-old would continue his career having surprisingly quit his role as Brumbies coach last month. "We are immensely happy to confirm the appointment of Jake White as our new director of rugby," Smit said. "We formed a formidable relationship during my playing career and I am delighted to re-establish that partnership, which is in line with our vision to take the Sharks to the next level. "Jake is an experienced coach whose track record speaks volumes about his ability to rally his team and get the best out of them. We are pleased that he has decided to join the Sharks." White takes over from Brendan Venter, who was appointed in June this year following the axing of New Zealand-born coach John Plumtree after a disappointing Super Rugby campaign. Venter remains director of rugby at English side Saracens having performed a dual role, though Smit hopes to keep him involved in some capacity with the Sharks. "Brendan Venter's commitment to me was to drastically change our players' environment which we think he has done with extreme success," Smit continued. "Brendan has no written contract with the Sharks, which is a testament to his character and his positive motives in coaching us and we will do whatever we can to keep him involved with us for as long as possible, in any capacity." White led the Canberra-based Brumbies to the Super Rugby final in 2013, where they lost 27-22 to New Zealand's Chiefs, but quit last month citing the need to be closer to his family based in South Africa.

WALTHAM, MA - The voice behind two of the most iconic children's television characters was born in Waltham the day after Christmas in 1933. Caroll Spinney developed a passion for puppeteering after his mother, a British native, took him to a Punch and Judy show in Blackpool, England. Spinney met Jim Henson at a puppeteering festival, where legend has it Jim Henson asked if Spinney wanted to "talk about the Muppets." Failing to interpret the question as a job opportunity, Spinney never had the conversation with Henson. In 1969 Spinney and Henson crossed paths again; this time, when Henson asked if he wanted to "talk about the Muppets" Spinney was mentally prepared (seeing as he had seven years to agonize over his blown opportunity). Spinney joined Sesame Street as a full-time cast member in its inaugural season that year. He has lent his voice to several characters on the show, but his most famous are Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird. Did you know? During the 1980s there was talk of sending Big Bird into space to teach children about the space program. However, the costume was too large to fit on a shuttle, so NASA sent a schoolteacher into space instead. This led to Christa McAuliffe being selected for the doomed Challenger flight in lieu of Spinney.

Civil War baseball: Beavers respond with 9-0 rout of Ducks in game 2 View the Slideshow >> (Gallery by Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian) EUGENE – How fitting that the player most responsible for ending Oregon State's Eugene jinx is none other than Eugene native Andrew Moore. Moore's two-hitter and some awakening OSU bats turned the ultimate regular-season pressure cooker into a laugher Saturday as the Beavers beat Oregon 9-0 at the previously haunted PK Park. For the sixth-ranked Beavers, it answered a shutout loss from the night before, it broke the Civil War streak of 10 straight wins by the home team in conference play, it put them back atop the Pac-12 standings and it set up Sunday's rubber game with the 10th-ranked Ducks. And it could not have come at a better time. "We knew we would get a good start out of (Moore),'' OSU coach Pat Casey said. "We didn't know if we would be able to score a run in this ballpark.'' When Moore took the mound Saturday, he was throwing in front of friends, family and scouts, just 10 minutes away from where he was pitching a year ago, at North Eugene High School – and he was facing the team he grew up rooting for. If that weren't enough to distract an 18-year-old, how about this: The Beavers (42-9, 21-5 Pac-12) had gone 24 consecutive innings in this ballpark without scoring a run in conference play. "Everybody was kind of burying us a little bit, talking about this being a house of horrors, how we can't score runs here,'' Casey said. They couldn't. The streak grew to 29 innings, but Moore didn't seem to feel any weight on his shoulders as he cruised through a 1-2-3 fifth in what was still a scoreless tie. In the top of the sixth, Tyler Smith hit a ball sharply up the box only to be thrown out. Then Andy Peterson hit what appeared to be a sure single toward the hole, but UO shortstop J.J. Altobelli made an outstanding play to rob him of a hit, too. So when Michael Conforto strode to the plate, there were two outs and quite a few people in the OSU dugout no doubt wondering what the Beavers had to do to get on that green and yellow scoreboard. Then Conforto, who had hit just one home run in the past two months, hit a ball to left field that seemed to lift all that tension and carry it all out of the ballpark. Conforto exorcised with a home run trot after the ball landed in the OSU bullpen, and the Beavers dugout spilled out. An inning later, Ryan Barnes – less than a day after getting beaned by a 92 mph fastball from UO closer Jimmie Sherfy – homered to give the Beavers a 2-0 lead, which seemed strangely comfortable with the freshman Moore on the mound. "He was spectacular as always,'' said Peterson, who had four hits (even though he was robbed of a fifth) of Moore. "It's not even interesting to watch anymore, he does it all the time.'' In doing it on this day, Moore (11-1) became the Pac-12's first 11-game winner, preventing fellow freshman Cole Irvin (10-3) of UO from doing so. After Barnes' homer, Moore retired the Ducks (43-12, 20-6) in order again in the bottom of the seventh and watched all of OSU's bats come to life. Peterson's single to center scored Smith for the first of four runs in the eighth. That's twice as many runs as they had scored in the past four games here. Peterson knocked Smith in again in the ninth and came home on a sacrifice fly by Dylan Davis to make it 9-0 and set up – what else – a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth for Moore. Moore threw 92 pitches, struck out two and walked one. It was a leadoff walk in the first inning. "I just needed to take a deep breath and compose myself a little bit,'' said Moore, who admitted to being a little amped up. "After that, it was back to business, doing the same stuff I've done all year.'' The Beavers, with the demons gone from PK Park, hope for much of the same stuff out of lefty Ben Wetzler in the Civil War series finale at noon Sunday against Oregon right-hander Jake Reed. Peterson said it was a long bus ride back to Corvallis on Friday night. The ride Saturday no doubt went about as quickly as a 1-2-3 inning. "It was a big day for us,'' Casey said. "We needed it.''

Communistic persistences in the course of human history Bourgeois society is the most advanced and complex historical organisation of production. The categories which express its relations, and an understanding of its structure, therefore, provide an insight into the structure and the relations of production of all formerly existing social formations the ruins and component elements of which were used in the creation of bourgeois society. Some of these unassimilated remains are still carried on within bourgeois society, others, however, which previously existed. only in rudimentary form, have been further developed and have attained their full significance, etc. (Marx, Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1957) What allows a tribe of paleolithic farmer-shepherds, Campanella's City of Sun, a jewish sect at the time of Tiberius, a commune of californian hippies, an urban structure of 6000 years ago, a buddhist community of the IVth century BC, a benedictine coenobium of the VIth century AD, a cistercence abbey of the XIIth century, a big factory of the XXIth and the future society to form a coherent set ? Is it possible, beyond huge differences of history, culture, geographic zones and of our knowledge of them, to draw a schema joining them together with at least one common element which furnishes us with an explanation of social transitions? We can answer that they share much more than one element. All of them, for instance, do without money, property, family, value-accountability, exploitation of others' labour, class division, careerism, cult of the ego etc. Saint Benedict's rule reads: "No one shall dare either give or receive, or else have anything of one's own whatsoever. Because by now monks are not any longer the masters of their own bodies and wills. 'Everything shall be common to all', as it is written. And no one shall say and deem a thing as of one own. And if some will be found inclined to this very wicked vice, they shall be subjected to punishment. As it is written 'it was distributed to each of them according to their needs'". And in Campanella's City of Sun: "All property arises from making private home and sons and wife one's own. Hence egoism arises, which aims at raising one's own son into wealth and dignity, or bequeathing them to him. Everyone becomes publicly rapacious if one fears nothing, when being powerful or greedy; insidious or hypocrital, when being powerless. Once egoism is given up, there remain common things alone". Or in an article of the Washington Post of 1998: "Twin Oaks is one of thousands of communes which sprouted up throughout a restless America emblems of hope and pride. Most of them vanished unnoticed. But Twin Oaks was different, it managed to flourish, growing from eight people to almost one hundred, becoming not only self-sufficient, but managing to cultivate 450 acres of land efficiently, manufacture hammocks and casual furniture and form what is certainly one of the last rampart of pure communism in modern world. From each person according to his capacity, to each person according to his needs. No one is hungry or bears hardships. All have a job. Children are joyful. Competition, hedonism and waste are rare. Violence is avoided; ambition is tamed; remarkable results have been accomplished". Or in Capital: "What characterizes the manufacturing division of labour? The fact that a partial worker doesn't produce any commodities; that only the partial workers' common product becomes commodities". Marx asks and then answers the question himself, after pointing out what differs between a single producer of goods and a worker placed in a complex cycle. In a society where all workers are "partial workers" of a global organism and, at the same time, full individuals helping the general and common cycle of production, there won't be any commodities, any money, any value, or capitalism. So it would be senseless to speak of family, property and the state. We could go on with such instances for many pages. Obviously, we're not going to praise sterile monastic communities; nor classical utopian anachronisms; nor modern existential escapes of small human groups, which were successful only as the exception; nor the capitalist factory, which, altough having one of the keys for freeing the future society, is a jail for today's workers. We only wish to stress this fact: Humanity – since we can call it thus by its difference from other animal species – lived in a communist manner for a couple of million years, and certainly will live likewise in a society developing from modern communism for ensuing millions of years. The few thousands of years in-between, during which humanity leaped from its primitive stage to modern industry, is but its passage from being submitted to an untamed nature to the "reign of freedom", its harmony with nature being accomplished through being able to project and plan its future by a full reversal of praxis. In all class societies until capitalism, this reversal has been very partial, just inside production, but absolutely kept in check by private appropriation of the values produced, which has obscured its visibility. Marx, while studying the law of natural evolution, noted that Darwin had revealed the mechanisms of evolution of the organic world and, at the same time, those "natural" and equally wild, that regulated english society, the capitalist society par excellence of his time, that is, the foremost limit that the reversal of praxis had so far reached. Labour is, therefore, already reversal of praxis, but in class societies human nature is submitted to the law of jungle, and can't fully express itself. Just as in capitalism there is already all the socialization of production required in the future society, except that it is submerged in a mercantile sea enforcing the law of value. This socialization of production for the future society to use, characterizing irreversibly and more and more decisively modern society, strongly drives humanity to fully accomplish its project for life, even if individuals don't realize it. On the other hand, in all its millenary path, humanity has never forgotten its communistic origins, apparently having it stamped in its genetic code; in the course of history humanity has always felt the need to realize some communistic variant of society, and has never been able to do without it. We opened this article by having recourse to a quotation from the Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1857, with a point where Marx exposes more clearly than elsewhere the principle of invariance, when applied to the becoming of social facts. A postumous publication, Kautsky welcomed it as a fundamental text, when the manuscript was found, but few people today have truly grasped it. A couple of instances: Maurice Dobb, in his preface to the edition by Editori Riuniti (where the Introduction is meaningfully relegated to the appendix as secondary, instead of in the front matter as fundamental), just hints to its presence, without any comment. Bruno Acciarino, who write an entire book to analyze it, leads his readers about in a philosophical maze, fashioned with cryptic and exoteric statements having nothing to do with Marx's text. The Communist Left, which we follow, instead considers it as a basic text for an understanding of Marx's method, in that the structure of Capital is determined from logico-dialectical statements drawn from history, it's true, but not by any single category that can be found throughout history, but rather by following the genetic process of the categories we find in the superior form historically reached (The method of Capital and its structure). Brushing up on the principle of invariance In 1857 the principle of invariance hadn't yet received its mathematical formulation, which was achieved late in the century. Afterwards our current recognised the strict relation between Marx's descriptive analysis and the mathematical formalizations of invariance. That's why we've given our review this title (n+1), which can be briefly explained as follows: if the present society is the number n, the future communist society will be the successor of n, that is n+1. On the whole, in a given moment of history, social forms are N (the sum of all past n societies). Communism too, therefore, will represent an N summation of all human history, capitalism included. The more developed society, in conclusion, contains the characteristics and memory of those less developed in at least 3 forms: 1) more or less altered remnants of old societies (like remnants of feudalism and slavery in capitalism); 2) fully transformed invariants (money, for instance, which has been existing since it was introduced 2500 years ago, but which has turned from the general equivalent metal into impersonal capital, which is quite another thing); 3) "symmetrical" or denied invariants, when there is transition towards the more developed society (for instance, the non-value, non-state, non-democracy, which the future society will surely achieve, but which can be described only as denial of the symmetrical categories at present. Using words perhaps alittle more difficult to digest, but suitable to a scientific description of social becoming, the last society N is but the integral of all the previous differential invariants (Bordiga). Since marxism is an experimental science in the full sense which this term was given by Galileo, perhaps we can't fully describe the future society today, unless we indulge in utopianism, that is in a political reverie, whereas we presently have the tools to see, touch and analyze the transformed (anticipated) invariants of communism already in the present society. We made the instance of agriculture (in number 5 of our review), by now outside the capitalistic cycle as a firm producing surplus-value, to which it belongs only as a service for nourishment, which is paid for with surplus-value produced elsewhere. But many other sectors by now operate without any immediate exchange of value. Naturally, it didn't pass unnoticed by Marx to what degree social transformations were complicated and difficult to be fitted in formal schemas, so, in the same Introduction of 1857 he added accurately: If, therefore, it is true that the categories of bourgeois economy possess a truth for all other forms of societies, this is to be taken cum grano salis. For they may contain these forms as developed, atrophized, disguised, but always as substantially different. The importance of an understanding of social transitions Therefore, besides invariants, transformations too must be taken into consideration: the peasant revolt in Germany was a revolution against the feudal system, while today a peasant revolt in the same geo-historical area wouldn't represent anything other than what's left of the unrest of a parasitic class outside history, trying to grab as much surplus-value as it can from the proletariat by means of its lobbies, or mafias, in the government. Another instance: in Italy, the wars for unifying the country against the foreign States sharing its territory, or else, in Africa, the wars against various imperialisms, were in both cases national revolutionary wars; today's "anti-imperialistic" wars are substantially partisan wars used by capitalist countries against one another (Americans, very expert in the matter, call them "proxy wars"). Herein we're dealing particularly with transition from primitive communism to the first urban societies, but the method we're going to use applies to every period of transition, whether ancient or modern or still to come. That is to say that in a given society we' ll see always old forms in action, so disguised as to be not often recognized, or anticipatory forms, still harder to discern. We'll also see the gnawings of ideology acting in the heads of representatives of the dominant form of production, operating so deeply as to blur their understanding of both (transformed) past invariants and (transforming) forms in becoming. The latter are visible only to those already siding with the destruction of existing relations. We have a magnificent instance of this in the implicit and explicit hymn that the revolutionary bourgeois raised to industry in the Enciclopédie, although it was written within French feudal society, whose power rested in servile agriculture and handcraftsmanship. Resuming our proposition: the ripe categories expressed in (from) the relations of modern bourgeois society also inform us about ancient societies. But at the same time these categories are today substantially different from what they were yesterday. However paradoxical it may seem, it is exactly the property of invariance that allows us to have a deep insight into the same category, even after it has passed through a lot of transformations. Let's take labour: as an invariant, it is human energy supplied for an end. But, from a social viewpoint, it can be either the means of achieving social metabolism by a community not knowing value, or human activity provided exclusively for a slave master, or servile work for a feudal master, or labour-time of a free possessor of labour-power supplied to a most recent capitalist. That's why we can understand "labour" only from its different determinations throughout many modes of production. We can't exactly describe the system of feudal labour if we stay inside the categories belonging to its historical age. The feudal Quesnay, although he preceeded Marx in making a dynamic model of economy (his famous Tableau), deemed industrial labour as unproductive, and we know he was wrong from the vantage point of capitalism, but he was approaching the right position from the superior vantage point of communism: in fact, in the organic conception of the relation man-nature, industrial transformation is but the part owing to man of the general transformation of sun energy in the biosphere (see Never will goods satisfy man's hunger, chap. 1). This is the way to proceed "scientifically" towards a better knowledge of the world, and Marx was concerned about this in particular: the property of invariance, in fact, makes up the basis of science, because it allows us to go beyond superficial changes. Beneath what seems to be a creation out of nothing, there is concealed a deep continuity both regarding what preceedes and what follows. Marx himself reminds us that "every science would be superfluous, if the phenomenical form of things and their essence coincided" (Capital, book III, chap. XLVIII. 3). Excange without the intermediation of value In the last number of our review we published an article regarding Caral, an ancient proto-urban social form discovered in Peru, rebuking the bourgeois fixation on seeing mercantile exchange, classes and State in every ancient society which reached a certain degree of complexity. Caral, as it is demonstrated by the archeological excavations and discoveries more than by what archaeologists are saying, was built by men who hadn't yet left their communistic stage, even if they were exchanging their products, having a rude division of labour and, thereby, a relative centralization of authority. We might commit the opposite error to that of the bourgeois and declare communism something no longer so, as some actually did regarding the civilization of Indus. One might happen to make this error because, in a transition society from primitive communist, the same categories look so much different than they do in capitalism and even in the first class societies, that they seem not to have any common item. That's why you need to go in depth into the questions, without answering yes/no like a manichean, but like Marx in the Introduction: "ça depend". Let's start with mercantile exchange. It represents a classical case: categories now dominant in a social form, in previous social forms are quite marginal. Bourgeois society is founded on mercantilism, as Capital's incipit reminds us: "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as 'an immense accumulation of goods', and a single commodity presents itself as its elementary form". In Caral instead commodities don't appear, whatever the bourgeois say, those who even viewed dry fish as currency, the money the habitants of the ancient peruvian city supposedly used. Yet our statement can't be comprehensive taken alone, it has to be backed up by other considerations: commodities don't appear inside the caralian society, where production wasn't for the sake of exchange, but exchange could exist, whether of manufactured objects or surplus agricultural production, with other communities having their surplus as well. The same happened in many other cases, as in the Incas, Maya, Atzec peoples, just to remain on the same continent. But exchange took place on the basis of use value only, at least initially, precisely because exchange was marginal in archaic societies. At the beginning the quantitative relation of exchange between the products of two different societies was quite random, as a result of the fact that each society exchanged only objects they had in surplus because of the low time required on average to produce them (due to plenty of raw materials, special know-how, etc). On the other hand, the other society, with opposite conditions, needed much more time to produce the same objects, so were inclined to "buy them" above their value. In the antropological studies it's not rare to meet with descriptions of primitive "trade systems" where a tribe exchanged with another objects of unmatched "values", as the "buyer" is unaware of their nature and the time required to produce them. Pottery bowls, for instance, are considered in the same light as rare shells by those in a stage preceeding pottery, so they can be exchanged without any equivalence (see Economy in the age of stone, chap 6). Only when the relations of two societies are becoming tighter and closer, is the measure of exchange going to coincide with exchange value. "Meantime the need for foreign objects of utility gradually establishes itself. The constant repetition of exchange makes it a normal social act. In the course of time, therefore, some portion at least of the products of labour must be produced with a special view to exchange. From that moment the distinction becomes firmly established between the utility of an object for the purposes of consumption, and its utility for the purposes of exchange. Its use-value becomes distinguished from its exchange-value. On the other hand, the quantitative proportion in which the articles are exchangeable, becomes dependent on their production itself. Custom stamps them as values with definite magnitudes" (Capital, book I chap II). Here is a classical instance of the dialectic transformation of quantity into quality. Fundamentally the products of a community, nearly all coming out of the land and of labour applied to it, couldn't have value inside the same community, because the land had not come yet within the category of property but was a collective possession. ("men refer to the land as property of the community", Marx writes in the Grundrisse). At a certain point of social development, an entire community presents itself as "owner" of the land and its products, but only in relation to other communities. In fact, it's only on the basis of the difference among communities and their production that the first exchages can take place causing the first "market" to arise. Neither exchange nor the first forms of money arise "spontaneously" inside communities as a natural fact, as the"original constitutive element. On the contrary, they appear at first rather in the relations of the different communities among themselves than in the relations among members of a same community" (Introduction of 1857). The process is very long. Money developed as the general equivalent appeared only much later, when communities get larger and more complex and exchange is carried on internally, as well as when they come in contact with faraway communities, separated by a no man's land devoid of production and exchange. This is where the real trade with caravans etc. starts. Invariance and Symmetry Ancient trade has been, therefore, exchange for thousands of years, but its social meaning was immensely distant from the modern one. According to Marx, some peoples devoted themselves to exchange, and mostly they were those more urbanized, independent and developed than (their) surrounding peoples, so that they could act as intermediaries among the producer peoples still immersed in savagery (Capital, book III, chap. XX). Although new finds have made the social scenery much more complex in the different geo-historical areas, the general features of the first societies engaging in exchange and developing along with it hasn't undergone variations. We've seen that, if we want to give up any utopianism whatever, we have to accept a continuous conception of historical process, where there is no creation out of nothing but transformation of invariant categories. Obviously, this has nothing to do with a gradualistic, counter-revolutionary conception of historical passages between societies: "periodization", that is division into ages, modes of productions, class-dominations is a political fact, marked by a class' seizure of power, which has to be inscribed in a phase-scheme, each phase being separated by deep historical break-offs. On the contrary, the general becoming of new forms is simply a metamorphosis, the word Marx uses, well illustrated in nature by the continuous biologic process producing the discontinuous effect of a larval state passing to the developed ("the development of the antagonisms of an historical form of production is the one historical way that is possible to its dissolution and metamorphosis", The Capital, book I, chap. XIII.9). The market cult, that today is dominant, hasn't arisen out of nothing, it has its own material basis. The developed world market is in reality the direct continuation of that relation of exchange which at birth was quite marginal, but showed itself very early, even since man gave up being a mere gatherer of natural food and started providing it for himself with the first tools, and, inevitably, since together with language, there appeared the first form of social organization. Marx stresses that in analyzing human history from this point of development onward, one has to be very careful when using terms referring to invariant but transformed categories or, all the more so, when putting them in a determinate scale of values. Obviously the bourgeoisie ranks first money as capital, then in succession market, production, labour, family etc., and projects this order in completely different societies, whose analysis requires reversing the order or even deleting some elements as denied, as we saw previously. If this applies to past societies, it all the more so applies when trying to understand the forms in succession and therefore the new future form. A new order has to be characterized and the method must come out of the historical connection of forms based on their determinism: "Their succession is exactly the opposite of what it appears", that is to say: if money in the capitalist society is fundamental, it probably was, and will be, either marginal or denied ; if family is superfluous, it must has been, and will be, either fundamental or denied; if classes are the pivot everything is levered on, they must have been, and will be, either embryonic or non-existent (see Introduction of 1857). This reversed relation, a reflective, specular one, brings us to interesting considerations about the factors of preservation-revolution, which are powerful both for stabilizing revolutionized societies and blowing them up when they must again be revolutionized. Evidently, if ancient society was able to contain communistic relationships within itself it also had to be able to defend its common interests and protect itself from outer enemies. It must therefore has been conservative towards its original relations, not allowing mercantile exchange earlier, and money later, to dissolve it. Here we recognize another invariant we often deal with in regard to revolutionary processes: counter-revolution works for revolution, that is counter-revolution exists only if an actual revolution exists to defend itself from (law of symmetry). If applied to our case, this invariance of symmetry tell us, as we'll soon see, that it's primitive communism itself, while dying out, that brought into existence the tools which would be peculiar to future class-societies, first of all the State. Organic centralization under the guidance of wisdom and knowledge, which was necessarily personified by the best members of community (wise men, shamans, warriors), became another thing under the stimulus of the ripening social form, of the new mode of production. In Antiduhring Engels holds that, with the birth of classes, "The State, at which natural groups of communities of one stock had arrived at a first time only aiming at guarding their common interest (in the Orient, for instance, irrigation) and defending themselves from the outside, henceforward take on, at the same measure, the goal of keeping by force the conditions of life and domination of the dominant class against the dominated class". Therefore the most ancient origins of State have to be searched in the nature of the institutions peculiar to primitive communism. If one understands that the present State as a tool of domination of a class upon other classes arose from an ancient tool of self-preservation of communistic societies, projected into a new mode of production, one should also better understand that the present State, projected into the new society, will become one of the tools destroying the old one. And above all it will be extinguished, replaced by a new organism summing up in itself all the needs of the whole of the species. The millenary arc within which everything is contained The categories of bourgeois society, and above all their theoretical denial , therefore are useful for analysing ancient forms of transition, of which one of the most important is that of the first urban societies preserving communistic features. These, in turn, are useful to us for understanding the invariant categories which bring us to understand the future society in a non-utopian manner. What matters most, continually linking the past, present and future together allows us to spot the typical items of transition, which is the main aim of our work now. Otherwise, it's impossible to even imagine any revolutionary activity having some practical effects. In every ripe society we can find the material conditions which the new society will spring from to be hidden, together with new relations that already relate to the needs of the new society. It's inside bourgeois society itself that such material relations are begotten as to be useful to the revolutionary class for overthrowing the existing relations. Were it not so, adds Marx, every practical attempt would be quixotic, like "tilting at windmills". (see Grundrisse, chapter on money). Actually, in capitalistic society at its culmination, the most dynamic, advancing mode of production isn't represented by the most modern countries, but by communism which is already expressing itself in them. On the other hand, the Dynamics of the numeric sequence, where each n is necessarily followed by an n+1, tells us that communism can't be yet dominant. This is the way the statement "communism is necessary" has to be interpreted, not in a philosophical, utopian or worse than either, a moralistic fashion. At this point we can state that we not only know the categories of bourgeois economy, but also those of communist economy, and therefore we can use the latter for comprehending the whole multi-millenial cycle encompassing the primitive social forms up to developed communism through the first, still communistic, urban societies, the traces of communism in every kind of society and the anticipations of future communism expressed by the present one. Thus we will find that the social becoming is but a sequence of social and political ruptures along a continuous transition of material production and reproduction. We will no longer see material historical process as a discrete succession of absolute and abstract forms, but as a continuous succession of relative and concrete ones. Language itself can confirm our propositions: "absolute" comes from "absolvere", that is "loosening from" any ties with the context, with what comes before and what comes after, while "abstract" comes from "abstrahere", that is "taking out", "detaching" from the context. Conversely, "concrete" comes from "concrescere", that is "growing with" the context, "as a function of". Material historical progress is therefore an invariant continuum (in the mathematic sense of the word), where every form can be read "as a function of". A discrete conception of history is bound to fall into a metaphysical interpretation of reality; a continuous conception instead gives us the chance of initiating a dialectics of knowledge. This said, we in no way wish to undervalue the cognitive power of abstraction, whose use our current often stressed as belonging to the marxist method. In Capital there is represented an abstract pattern of capitalism, but one of actual reality, not one of an idea of reality. In Marx's abstract pattern there is the real dynamics of a society in becoming, made up with factories and a net of communications, workers and capitalists, in a complex of reactions all leading necessarily to non-capitalism, non-value, etc. Capitalism neither is photographed as a static image nor is it interpreted, but instead shown as moving from its early rise until its dissolution into the future communist society. For Marx, whom we follow, abstracting doesn't mean "to detach from the context" and then to absolutize, like the bourgeois do (which is a way of eternalizing, after all), yet it means to strip off what's accidental and unnecessary. For an idealist nothing is less necessary than the becoming, for a marxist here is the riddle which it is necessary to solve in every social form. We've seen earlier how the proto-urban forms may be read by the bourgeois through the ideological filter of modern capitalist society, that have transposed into communist societies like Caral the dominant categories of bourgeois society, and whose features are fully applied to phenomena which at the time were quite marginal, such as exchange, hierarchy, division of labour etc. Here it is evident their inability to use our – so to say – realistic abstraction: it is not mistaken to compare social categories belonging to different ages; we too do so, when, for instance, we analyze marginal phenomena within primitive communist society as anticipations of the following economic-social form. The blunder is made when matching simple analogies, after "snapping" them separately, as if they were motionless through history, whereas social reality is dynamic, and is to be analyzed as a flowing whole. Now, another operation has to be made, to try to see how the categories of our future society, that of developed communism, rank in the first urban forms. It could seem daring, maybe superfluous and this objection could be raised: "What? It was said that mercantile exchange represents an invariant belonging also to the societies where primitive communism was prevailing, and now do you want to prove that even non-mercantile exchange, typical of superior communism, is an invariant you can find in archaic societies?". Just so. In every social form modes of production opposing each other are superimposed. We've already made this work of interpretation on the nature of societies throughout thousands of years, when, for instance, we dealt with urbanism and architecture in the numbers 8 and 9 of our review. We've drawn the future forms from those primitive and, conversely, we've better understood the past societies because we've reached the limits of possibilities of the present one, which is constrained to anticipate forms or to resume those of the past. In the above-mentioned articles, the first urban forms were examined not independently at all, without relations with today's city, and, above all, tomorrow's city, but as a part that can't be detached from the whole of historical continuity. In this way the term communism, which eighty years of counter-revolution have reduced to something of an insult by now, can recover the breath proper to it: Infact the invariant categories which will prevail in tomorrow's social life are the same as dominated in early mankind, even if they will undergo a metamorphosis and will act on a universal scale, rather than in a tribal circle. A demostration of what we're saying is the recent exhibition on the discoveries, excavations and restorations of the magnificent Pompeian frescos of Moregine. We've read everything: it was a "five star hotel" (on the top of the "hit parade"), a "residence", a "wealthy men's club". Probably being unsatisfied with a simple definition an imaginative journalist compared that so-called hotel with an ancestor of the most modern Club Med. We don't rule out at once that this is, although unawere, the least stupid definition of the trivialities we've quoted above. It is certainly possible to describe an ancient building in comparison with something modern, not unlike money, labour and so on, but one would be laughed at, if one compared an ancient cubiculum hospitale, that is the part of the house destined to the hospitality which was sacred for the ancient peoples, with a hotel just because they have the same etymology, or else because they are somehow "places for guests". It would be like comparing an ancient cult place with a modern church just because they're both temples. However law does not prohibit daring links between buildings that maybe can have a common invariant you can't see at the first blush. The resort-villages of Club Med on the one hand are trivial containers of the futile holidays of this decaying capitalism, but on the other hand they resemble, even if under metamorphosis, the pattern of some ancient structures for a communitarian life. For instance, their common spaces for meals, rituals, study and games extended quite further than their private ones, so making them unsuitable for a modern nuclear family. The same can be said about certain bogus time share country villages with centralized services and so on. If effectively they rise as a result of the capitalist rent law pervading every pore of the present society, they can still be viewed as a metamorphosis of communistic structures of an ancient abbey, where monks were going and coming, but where the centralized organization and collective way of life was stricly held together by the social body linked to the "regula". Communitarian life in the stateless societies The main common feature between the early urban forms and tomorrow's city is their functional structure for a communitarian life. Contrary to the anacronistic individualism dominating modern bourgeois society – although it is the society which has reached the highest level of socialization in regard to the productive process – tomorrow's life will be fully organic. As we saw in regard to the non-mercantile primitive societies, mercantile exchange played a role, however extremely marginal, so right now, if we're not going to fall into a utopianism of yesteryear, the items of tomorrow's social life can't but exist in today"s. It's an aspect we found even on the question of the tools – that have to be suitable – of revolution that mostly is too easily dismissed as a simple "seizure of power". Already in this bourgeois society we can see flows, operations, even exchanges of a non-mercantile kind, like for instance in the production process inside a factory. That's why, as late as in Marx's time (and Lenin's and of the Communist Left) the apologists of the future society which they understood to be a result of a progressive improvement of the capitalist one or even of its rebuilding through men's good will, have attributed to our historical current the theory of the society-factory. Today their latter-day co-thinkers, after a biased reading of our article on housing, couldn't keep back the urge of attributing to us a theory of the society-hotel, of the society-refectory, or, as said Rosa Luxemburg, as great as she was, to Lenin, of a society-barracks. If the eagle Luxemburg sometimes indulged in fluttering as low as chickens do, today's criticians of a neither utopian nor reformist communism do not even touch the "heights" of our domestic sham of a bird. They're quite uneasy at digesting the concept of invariance, though it belongs to man's heritage of knowledge (Hegel: "the true stays in the whole"), and continually confuse invariant categories and transformations by taking them separately, and so end up miserably failing to grasp what differentiates Saint Peter's cathedral from Karnak's great temple, G. W. Bush from Cheope, Mount Palomar from Stonehenge. Non-mercantile exchange will show itself, in the future society, not like it does today inside a factory, where there is always the rigid despotism of production under bourgeois control, and where every productive cycle is as an island in a mercantile sea, but rather like a spreading of what now is only embryonic: in the whole society there won't be any exchange on a value-base, but a flow of things and activities, counted on the base of their quantity and enjoyed on the base of their quality. Just like in the first still communistic urban communities, of which we have archeologic testimony and often even written documentation (on papyri, tables, etc) of their movements of things and persons without markets based on exchange-value. To the defamers of communism (to whom even some self-proclaimed communists belong) tomorrow's society as it is described since Marx's time is viewed as a society of levelling, while it will be quite the opposite: a society of the positive differences, just like in the first communistic societies. They cast the society-factory in the future by extending what little superficial they can see in the present factory, so failing to seize the deep meaning of the total revolutionary and irreversible rupture industry brought into the productive processes. Likewise, to the archeaologists and historians the ancient societies brought back into the light by excavations can't but be societies-temple, societies-palace or later societies-State. Factory, hotel, refectory, temple and palace represent certainly some invariants, but the transformations they undergo over time detect something much deeper than superficial analogies. A place can be dedicated to religious practices, and this is a common feature to many societies, but it differs a lot, for instance, between the neolitic dwellings of 7000 years ago found in Catal Hüyük in Turkey, and the huge Egyptian compounds of the IInd millennium B.C. The former is a built up area fully mirroring primitive communism, where in all the buildings religious rites were had, walls painted, altars raised, the dead buried under the floor; the latter are enormous architectural works, where much the same happened, but in an ambience of extended and enlarged social practices, with more established liturgies due to the commencing division into classes, in a society already shaped by a mass production that was centralized and submitted to a rather developed united plan, even providing for a public stockpile for distribution. Let's dwell on an historical case particularly suited to our study inasmuch as it is typical of the phases of revolutionary transition. This is the social structure the architects refer to the so-called "city-palace", that is, the civilization of Crete at the time of the Minoan communities since the IIIth millennium B.C. (but even in the Middle East there are such places). The "palacial" compounds of Minos have peculiar features when compared with the buildings that in a class-divided society the dominant classes use for living and "reigning" with its court. They are very different from the later Micenian buildings on the mainland, with their cyclopic walls (those, to be clear, described by Homer). Here is expressed an architecture of a class-divided society by then, able to express a form of central power, as rough as it was, and to obtain an early formation of the classic Greece's city-State. The Minoan palaces haven't walls, are open; they extend with their ramifications, avenues, porticos into the surroundings, to the point of integration with the environment. They are also linked to smaller units, sometimes habitations for one family, as if the territory were as one with the "house" under every respect. Rather complex buildings, raised with a clear unitary plan, even if throughout thousands of years several rebuildings have followed one another. The use of some rooms (stores, bathrooms, laboratories) is easy to guess, other rooms are a hard riddle to solve, like those supposed to be dedicated to cult, play, theatre, meetings and to the manifestations of its own power by a centre which just had to be there. The set shows a rather evolute and complex social life, nearer to primitive communism than the life descibed by the later homerian writings, even if in the Iliad and Odyssey there are many traces going back to the world preceedind the age of the tales. Therefore, the Minoan compounds aren't the expression of a State power or a clerical theocracy, but of a society, where life, production, science and religion are shared by all; and that's what is strongly reflected by its architecture, evidently. But here again archeologists haven't been able to consider the categories as invariants undergoing transformations, scattering light-heartedly fancy names among the rooms, and fixing them over decades by a scholarly tradition. Areas which are supposed to have cult objects are straightforwardly named "temple", a great room with a little seat made out of the wall become the "hall of the throne"; a greater area is obviously the "king's hall", if a little bit smaller is the "queen's hall"; a precious thing, who knows if it was hidden there during a ransacking, cause the room where it was found to be named the "treasure room"; a little lumber-room standing aside will be the "customs office"; a great place with tiers will be undoubtedly the "theatre"; a paved road leading to the palace will be the "sacred way"; a little molded statue will be a "goddess" or else a "queen" by the whim of its finder; a store of clay tables burnt by a fire will be the "accounting centre" (and why not "database" for the set of shelves?). Such pieces of information as to be certain and reliable are few, when using a method of survey providing us scenarios spoiled by ideology. On the whole, however, we can draw enough information for an understanding of the social dynamics. We can, for instance, unmistakably notice a real State power to be absent, at least in the classical sense of Engels' work about the origin of family and property and then State. In the Minoan society (and likewise in many other societies of transition) there is no State. Caring about the common interests and defence against the outside had not yet moved away from the collective body, and didn't stand in front of it as a dominance. As a result, even the conception of divinity had not yet moved away from the everyday life, had not yet become "State religion". The obstacle of "religion" Some hold that the alternative to the "city-palace" would be the "city-sanctuary", but this is a "bourgeoisization" of ancient society as well: the same as we were speaking of Lourdes. Religion, like State, is certainly itself an invariant category over thousands of years, but it is to be dealt with like all the rest. We find it already in primitive man, or at least we call some manifestations of his life this, but it shows itself in forms substantially different as compared with what religion is in patriarchal societies, where real theocracies can be found, governing in one god-father's name, a heavenly projection, easily recognized, of the dominant class. The "religion" characterizing the wide historical arc of primitive communism is a fantasy of both bourgeois archeaologists and paleontologists. But some of them have already rebutted their conformism. For instance, Leroi-Gourhan says this about religion in the prehistoric age: "It's abusive to try to apply to the men of the early times the multisecular conclusions of the intellectualistic thinking of a scholarly minority and search for offerings, sacrifices and cults… Sufficiently certain data are (just) enough to establish that before the homo sapiens there were practices… let's call them, if you like, religious, testifying a behaviour that transcends vegetative life". For the last phases of prehistory this author admits there are more data, but sharply rebukes those who, while attempting to find any explanation to unknown phenomena, have ended up building a stereotyped image of paleolithic man by way of transforming simple conjectures into undisputed truths, which authors pass on to one another unverified and uncriticized. We can safely transfer his tough stand not only to prehistory but also to all the historical span outside the bourgeois age. We want to recall that today without having a strong background of knowledge about greek-roman, esoteric and social symbology, no one is able to "read" the meaning of a Mantegna or Piero della Francesca's picture, despite it being a renaissance work, that is of an art only some century old, which is widely studied and is the fruit of civilizations writing of themselves for thousands of years. Let alone read about a few discoveries concerning the transition between primitive communism and the first class civilizations. All the more so the "religious" fact regarding the early phases of passage, although it is more well known than the paleolitic one Leroy-Gourhan analized, can't be read putting on the greek-jewish-christian glasses that the present civilization provide us with. It's not about a liturgical practice, as ancient as it is, based on a patriarchal god who is put above the men meeting him in monumental temples built to the purpose. It's about a practice of life, based on the cult of the goddess-mother, donor of fertility, whose roots go as deep as the prehistoric "venuses". This goddess-mother manifests herself in every aspect of the everyday life, so can't cause any difference between profane and holy time, profane and holy places. In the age of the female "divinity", still linked to the natural cycle, real temples didn't exist, so it is a mistake to see in the protostoric buildings the same as sanctuaries where supposedly a caste of priests resided, exerting their theocratic power in places built to the purpose. That also apply to the hypothesis of the Minoan compounds being compared to "sanctuaries". It also applies to the assyro-babylonian goddess Ishtar, who, although she is an evolved divinity of a proto-classist age, and therefore a personalized goddess, is still a donor of love and fecundity, coupling with men and animals and letting herself be honoured with the sacred "prostitution" (there is not even a name to define this holy practice): no one could compare her to the Madonna. In our article about Caral we had quoted the archaeologist supervisor to the escavations of the peruvian city, as saying: "The life of the inhabitants in Caral was going on among complex ceremonies and rituals. Religion conditioned the behaviour of everyone, indoor and outdoor, thus marking the whole of the social and political organization". It's obvious that, in an organic society, what is now interpreted as its "religion" couldn't be separated from the everyday life of the collective body. Therefore we can't speak – neither for the minoic society nor for Caral, but not even for the ancient Egipt, for the first urban forms in the Middle East and in the Indo valley – of "priest government" or "theocracy". The forms of cult, that is the remnants transformed over time of practices meant to put man in harmony with nature, were one with life, production and science, which in turn were the heritage and praxis of the whole community. These practices, surviving in the proto-urban forms still intertwined with primitive communism, must not be confused with the late characters of the great religions surviving until now, which passed through the forge of the classes following one another in the power. Defining them as "religion" is like defining as "capital" the golden piece on which first the Lydian king impressed his seal. We insist on the religious aspect because the modern conception of ancient societies is soaked with biases owing to the fact that their remnants are mostly architectures and materials concerning religion and power, which often are more or less arbitrarily connected. For most scholars religion is a concept drawn not even from christianism, but from the medieval patristic, which re-shaped a christianism suitable to the new social reality as it was taking its own shape. Religion is therefore applied from the outside to the protohistoric society as an abstract idea, detached from any reference to the concrete reality. Instead of the religions following one another in material reality, we are given an Absolute Religion resting quietly in the world of ideas. Thus every difference among the concrete religions is blurred by way of a frustrating lack of dialectics. Especially concerning ancient society, very few so far are the scholars who have managed to escape the trap of "bourgeoisizing" their social phenomena. But even some historical descriptions going along with certain projects of ambiental recovery such as the arsenal of Venice or much more recent sites of "industrial archaeology", when we read them, gave us goose flesh. Communism never suppressed What we've so far said, though it is to be developed by further works, should allow a sufficient understanding that communism can't be suppressed because it is a part of human becoming, apart from any force which seems prepared to prevent it. Actually, no one can counter it without, at the same time, helping its becoming. When the pressing advance of US capitalism disintegrated the big Soviet shed, passed off as communism, that impressive happening wasn't a victory of capitalism at all, but of the advancing communism. Our current had predicted it for years. "Communism's death", as said the apologists of the bourgeois world, which is really the one dying, was nothing other than a clean sweep of all the scum left obstructing the way to revolution. What the USA did, shall not need to be re-done by the communist movement. This applies also to the many events occuring when capitalism has swept away old things, as already described in the first chapters of the Manifesto. Away with the big Russian bear, away with the stalinist parties, away with the corporative trade-unions, away with the old questions connected to the past revolutionary cycle. What do you want anymore as a demonstration that capitalism is the only dead thing? By making subjective the issue of communism (employers against workers, communists against bourgeois) a bad turn is done to the theoretical heritage of human revolution, which is, as we said, the millenary arc between primitive communism and developed communism. It's simply nonsense to think that the revolutionary movement should entail at any time a physical struggle between supporters of a certain system without value, money, atc. and supporters of the system of money, property and exploitation. It's true the economical struggle is nothing but an everyday civil micro-war, as Marx says, but the point to seize is that the class struggle never dies, communism never dies, not because some want this to be so, but because communism is part of our species' nature, and our species has never renounced communism, not even in the short time of the class-divided societies. In the course of decades of thousands of years communist experiences has never been absent, on the contrary, in the darkest moments of history they have been the main tool for re-launching social productive forces, like, for instance, in all the forms of asian and european monarchism, the combatant orders as well. The occasions when communism has manifested and still manifests itself are more numerous than we recalled at the beginning of our article, and even than it is usually imagined; they can be grouped in "sets" encompassing the primitive societies, utopias, survivals/anticipations, realizations of the future, etc. Our current showed how impoverished "vulgar communism" is in its having not even a faint idea of these grandiose concepts; as a result, it can in no way reach the totalitarian marxist vision denying every existing form. It can't help stopping at the "transfer of property", meant as a reformation expropriating the capitalists to the advantage of a "common" property, that is "widespread" to all the proletariat. This is the conception, for instance, which at most can be reached by the movement made up with millions of persons feeling vaguely a sense of commercial equity and justice and favourable to anti-globilization positions. The same "movement" that most of the anarchists and self-proclaimed communists tailed. This society has nothing to be saved, it's more than enough to pick up its ripe fruits. To do that, you need to be equipped with programmes, men and means suitable to it. Hence comes our criticism to those thinking that bourgeoisie is "guilty" with their lack of success. Thus they "personalize" it and feel they are being oppressed by it, whose actions supposedly are just "employer attacks on proletariat" to lay upon the latter any crises. And these guys, in return, would like the proletariat to counter-attack, once "sensitized" and guided by themselves, of course. But the great revolutionary ruptures separating the ages doesn't depend on wills, recipes, expedients and pre-established organizational forms due to individuals or groups. It takes a great material movement to arouse all the individuals who, in the end, are the tools revolution uses to "make" history. Thus only then will they be driven to feel like a part of an immense and millenary span linking primitive communism to a developed one; to become in tune with the anticipations effectively breaching into the adversary framework with a huge destructive potential; to gather together their forces by joining the real movement until, at last, forming the historical organism of the class, which can lead and address it towards this aim.To let oneself to be dragged on in a Darwinian sense by the "concrete situations" isn't proper to a communist. To put it brutally, with Marx and Engels, it isn't proper even to a man. It is proper to an animal.

On this day in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. On June 28, 1919, five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand’s death, Germany and the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Versailles, officially marking the end of World War I. The archduke traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The annexation had angered Serbian nationalists, who believed the territories should be part of Serbia. A group of young nationalists hatched a plot to kill the archduke during his visit to Sarajevo, and after some missteps, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip was able to shoot the royal couple at point-blank range, while they traveled in their official procession, killing both almost instantly. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website The assassination set off a rapid chain of events, as Austria-Hungary immediately blamed the Serbian government for the attack. As large and powerful Russia supported Serbia, Austria asked for assurances that Germany would step in on its side against Russia and its allies, including France and possibly Great Britain. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the fragile peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed, beginning the devastating conflict now known as the First World War. After more than four years of bloodshed, the Great War ended on November 11, 1918, after Germany, the last of the Central Powers, surrendered to the Allies. At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that was safe from future wars of such enormous scale. The Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, tragically failed to achieve this objective. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s grand dreams of an international peace-keeping organization faltered when put into practice as the League of Nations. Even worse, the harsh terms imposed on Germany, the war’s biggest loser, led to widespread resentment of the treaty and its authors in that country–a resentment that would culminate in the outbreak of the Second World War two decades later. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website

The New Jersey Assembly has passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriages, setting the stage for an expected veto by Gov. Chris Christie. The 41-33 vote Thursday sends the bill to Christie. The Republican governor who opposes same-sex marriage has already promised to veto the bill. Christie and most Republican lawmakers want to make gay marriage a referendum question this November. Democrats argue that gay marriage is a civil right protected by the Constitution and should not be subject to referendum. Six states and Washington, D.C. recognize gay marriages. Washington State’s new gay marriage law takes effect in June. The day began with a long line to get into the Assembly Chamber. Just as long were the speeches that preceded the vote. Democratic Assembly leaders including Reed Gusciora, Sheila Oliver and Lou Greenwald spoke passionately about the historic nature of the bill. Republican Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz made a motion to amend the bill. She said public opinion is high on this issue and polls show it would pass if left up to the voters. Reporting from the State House, Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron reports on the day’s events. WATCH VIDEO:

Did John McCain cheat by cribbing questions in advance at the rightwing megachurch forum Saturday night? UPDATE McCain operative Nicole Wallace vehemently denied claims that McCain heard Barack Obama being questioned, even though McCain was not sequestered in a “cone of silence,” as Rick Warren, the multimillionaire evangelist and moderator of the forum, had asserted to the live audience. What’s bizarre here is that Wallace cited McCain’s status as POW 40 years ago as evidence that he did not cheat Saturday night: “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said. [Emphasis added.] Here’s how Warren described the “rules” he established for the forum in his introductory remarks to the audience Saturday night: RICK WARREN, PASTOR, SADDLEBACK CHURCH: Now, what I decided is to allow for proper comparison, I’m going to ask identical questions to each of these candidates. So you can compare apples to apples. Now, Senator Obama is going to go first. We flipped a coin, and we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence. During his session, Obama gave what post-game analysts have called “thoughtful” and “nuanced” answers, which is a coded way to say he overthought the questions and his answers were too wordy. However, when it was McCain’s turn, he gave very short answers — you know, like bumperstickers — and often interrupted Warren to start answering before the question was complete. Was McCain in the “cone of silence” while Obama was questioned? According to Rick Warren, in an interview on CNN on Sunday, he was not: SANCHEZ: Let me ask you about this. Last night I heard you say that McCain would be in a cone of silence. Then half-hour into the event I hear our guys here at our political desk announce McCain has just arrived at the worship center. I’m thinking, hey, if he just arrived at the worship center, he couldn’t have been in the cone of silence. Right? WARREN: Well, that’s true. He was in a cone of — a secret service motorcade. That’s exactly for sure. SANCHEZ: But … “We flipped a coin,” you said, “and we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence.” That’s what you said. Did you think at the time — when you said that, did you think he was in the cone of silence — did you think he was in the building? WARREN: Actually, yes, I did. There was actually a question I got to Senator Obama in advance that I didn’t get to Senator McCain because he wasn’t there. I actually wrote down on a piece of paper the very first question, because I wanted them both to be relaxed. I said here’s the very first question. I gave it to both of them. But I also told Senator Obama, since there was one question where I was going to ask for a commitment, it was a commitment later about would you allow a president’s emergency plan for orphans. I thought if I was going to ask for a public commitment, I ought to let him know in advance. I got to tell Barack Obama that in advance. I did not get to tell John McCain that in advance. It caught him by surprise, I’m sure. SANCHEZ: Just out of fairness. Look, this is CNN, we try to be as exact as we possibly can. I just wanted it on the record. Of course, there will be people out there who will say, well, if he wasn’t there, like a half-hour before the event started, what would have stopped him from watching an event that was on all three channels, on the radio, there’s Blackberries, the Internet. There’s everything else. I guess you don’t know and I don’t know whether he had the questions or not. WARREN: You know what? In the first place, we asked them. We flat- out asked him, did you hear any of the debate — I mean any of the discussion. And I trust the integrity of both John McCain and Barack Obama that they said they would abide by the rules. They knew the rules way in advance, that I would not give them the questions. I did tell them all of the themes, and went through all of the themes, said here’s the kind of question, the themes that I’m going to deal with. I’m going to probably throw out a question about the economy. I’m going to probably throw out a question about climate change, which by the way I never got to, and a number of other issues. But I would not give them the wording of what specifically — like for instance, it is one thing to say I may ask a question about the courts. It is another thing to say, which of the existing Supreme Court would you not appoint. SANCHEZ: Well, yes. Let’s be fair, we called Senator McCain’s office and they said that, no, we did not listen; we did not know. So what you’re saying is part of that, we’re just going to have to go on the honor system. We certainly respect that. But the McCain campaign is going after NBC — not CNN, where Warren himself said McCain did not follow the rules — for daring to report that McCain had an opportunity to cheat. [The McCain] campaign is objecting to a statement by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on “Meet the Press” questioning whether McCain might have gotten a heads-up on some of the questions that were asked of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who was the first candidate to be interviewed Saturday night by Pastor Rick Warren at a presidential forum on faith… Mitchell reported that some “Obama people” were suggesting “that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well prepared.” A McCain aide said that is not the case: “Senator McCain was in a motorcade led by the United States Secret Service and held in a green room with no broadcast feed.” Of course, it was not the responsibility of the Secret Service to ensure that McCain did not cheat on the debate rules. And while there may not have been a “live feed” in the green room where McCain was “held,” there were any number of other ways McCain could have been fed the questions — by staffers monitoring the forum via Blackberry or laptops, for example. The McCain campaign is in a bind. Under different circumstance, Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager and a Karl Rove acolyte, might attempt to suggest “Pastor Rick” Warren was clueless or being untruthful when he said McCain was not in the cone of silence. But calling a popular evangelical leader a liar is out of the question. So what do they do? They play the POW card. It smacks of desperation. But there’s an even bigger risk for McCain here. If he continues to use his POW status as a shield against criticism, he could embolden conservative critics like former Rep. Bob Dornan (R-Calif.) and former Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), to bring up their unsubstantiated claims that McCain was a “Songbird,” who collaborated with the communists and spoke out against the United States while he was held by the Vietnamese.

In order to create a semblance of objectivity and fairness, the American policymakers and analysts are always willing to accept the blame for the mistakes of the distant past that have no bearing on the present, however, any fact that impinges on their present policy is conveniently brushed aside. In the case of the creation of Islamic State, for instance, the United States’ policy analysts are willing to concede that invading Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society, exacerbated the sectarian divisions and gave birth to an unrelenting Sunni insurgency against the heavy handed and discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi government; similarly, the war on terror era political commentators also “generously” accept that the Cold War era policy of nurturing the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” against the erstwhile Soviet Union was a mistake, because all those fait accompli have no bearing on their present policy. The corporate media’s spin-doctors conveniently forget, however, that the creation of Islamic State and myriads of other Sunni Arab jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has as much to do with the unilateral invasion of Iraq back in 2003 under the previous Bush Administration as it has been the consequence of the present policy of Obama Administration in Syria of training and arming the Sunni militants against the Syrian regime since 2011-onward, in fact, the proximate cause behind the rise of Islamic State, al Nusra Front and myriads of Sunni jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has been Obama Administration’s policy of intervention through proxies in Syria. Leaving the funding, training and arming aspects of the insurgencies aside, but especially pertaining to conferring international legitimacy to an armed insurgency, like the Afghan so-called “freedom struggle” during the Cold War, or the supposedly “moderate and democratic” Libyan and Syrian insurgencies of today, it is simply beyond the power of minor regional players and their nascent media, that has a geographically and linguistically limited audience, to cast such heavily armed and brutal insurrections in a positive light in order to internationally legitimize them; only the Western mainstream media, that has a global audience and which serves as the mouthpiece of the Western political establishments, has perfected this game of legitimizing the absurd and selling the Satans as saviors. It is very easy to mislead the people merely by changing the labels while the content remains the same – call the Syrian opposition moderate and nationalist rebels or insurgents and they would become legitimate in the eyes of the Western audience, and call the same armed militants “jihadists or terrorists” and they would become illegitimate. How do people expect from the armed thugs, whether they are Islamic jihadists or supposedly “moderate” and nationalist rebels, to bring about democratic reform in Syria or Libya? For the whole of the last five years of the Syrian civil war the focal point of the Western policy has been that “Assad must go!” But what difference would it make to the lives of the Syrians even if the regime is replaced now when the whole country has been reduced to rubble? Qaddafi and his regime were ousted from power in September 2011; five years later Tripoli is ruled by the Misrata militia, Benghazi is under the control of Khalifa Haftar who is supported by Egypt and UAE and a battle is being fought in Sirte between the Islamic State-affiliate in Libya and the so-called Government of National Accord. It will now take decades, not years, to restore even a semblance of stability in Libya and Syria; remember that the proxy war in Afghanistan was originally fought in the ‘80s and even 35 years later Afghanistan is still in the midst of perpetual anarchy, lawlessness and an unrelenting Taliban insurgency. The only difference between the Soviet-Afghan jihad back in the ‘80s, that spawned the Islamic jihadists like the Taliban and al Qaeda for the first time in history, and the Libyan and Syrian jihads 2011-onward is that the Afghan Jihad was an overt jihad – back then the Western political establishments and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media, used to openly brag that CIA provides all those AK-47s, RPGs and stingers to the Pakistani ISI which then forwards such weapons to the Afghan mujahideen (freedom fighters) to combat Soviet Union’s troops in Afghanistan. After the 9/11 tragedy, however, the Western political establishments and corporate media have become a lot more circumspect, therefore, this time around they have waged covert jihads against the “unfriendly” Qaddafi regime in Libya and the anti-Israel Assad regime in Syria, in which the Islamic jihadists (terrorists) have been sold as “moderate rebels” to the Western audience. It’s an incontrovertible fact that more than 90% of militants operating in Syria are either the Islamic jihadists or the armed tribesmen, and less than 10% are those who have defected from the Syrian army or otherwise have secular and nationalist goals. Notwithstanding, unlike al Qaeda, which is a terrorist organization that generally employs anticolonial and anti-Zionist rhetoric to draw funds and followers, Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front, both, are basically anti-Shi’a sectarian outfits. By the designation “terrorism” it is generally implied and understood that an organization which has the intentions and capability of carrying out acts of terrorism on the Western soil. Though, Islamic State has carried out a few acts of terrorism against the Western countries, such as the high profile November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings, but if we look at the pattern of its subversive activities, especially in the Middle East, it generally targets the Shi’a Muslims in Syria and Iraq. A few acts of terrorism that Islamic State has carried out in the Gulf Arab States were also directed against the Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and Shi’a mosques in Yemen and Kuwait. Moreover, al Qaeda Central is only a small band of Arab militants whose strength is numbered in several hundreds, while Islamic State is a mass insurgency whose strength is numbered in tens of thousands, especially in Syria and Iraq. Additionally, Syria’s pro-Assad militias are comprised of local militiamen as well as Shi’a foreign fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and even Hazara Shi’as from Afghanistan. And Sunni jihadists from all over the region have also been flocking to the Syrian battlefield for the past five years. A full-scale Sunni-Shi’a war has been going on in Syria, Iraq and Yemen which will obviously have its repercussions all over the Middle East region where Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have coexisted in peace for centuries. Regardless, it should be kept in mind here that the Western interest in the Syrian civil war has mainly been about ensuring Israel’s regional security. The Shi’a resistance axis in the Middle East, comprised of Iran, the Syrian regime and their Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah, posed an existential threat to Israel; a fact which the Israel’s defense community realized for the first time during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. When protests broke out against the Qaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria, respectively, in early 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, under pressure from the Zionist lobbies, the Western powers took advantage of the opportunity provided to them and militarized those protests with the help of their regional allies: Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Arab States. All of the aforementioned states belong to the Sunni denomination and they have been vying for influence in the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in August 2011 to June 2014, when Islamic State occupied Mosul, an informal pact existed between the Western powers, their regional allies and the Sunni jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a resistance axis. In accordance with this pact, Sunni militants were trained and armed in the training camps located in border regions of Turkey and Jordan. This arrangement of an informal pact between the Western powers and the Sunni jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis worked well up to August 2014, when Obama Administration made a volte-face on its previous regime change policy in Syria and started conducting air strikes against one group of Sunni jihadists battling against the Syrian regime, i.e. the Islamic State, after the latter transgressed its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and threatened the capital of another steadfast American ally: Masoud Barzani’s Erbil in the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan. After that reversal of policy in Syria by the Western powers and the subsequent Russian military intervention on the side of the Shi’a regime, the momentum of Sunni Arab jihadists’ expansion in Syria has stalled and they now feel that their Western allies have committed a treachery against the Sunni jihadists’ cause; that’s why, they feel enraged and they are once again up in arms to exact revenge for this betrayal. If we look at the chain of events, the timing of the Paris and Brussels attacks has been critical: Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014, Obama Administration started bombing Islamic State’s targets in Iraq and Syria in August 2014 and after a long time first such incident of terrorism took place on the Western soil at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and then the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings. Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and MENA regions, neocolonialism and petroimperialism.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) did not mince words during their joint- appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday night in berating President Obama’s strategy for defeating ISIS and other terrorist threats in the Middle East. In a bruising assessment of Obama’s State of the Union address last Tuesday, Boehner complained to CBS’s Scott Pelley, “The president didn’t spend but a few seconds talking about the terrorist threat that we as Americans face. This problem is growing all over the world, and the president is trying to act like it’s not there. It’s going to be a threat to our homeland if we don’t address it in a bigger way,” he added, pointing to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere. Related: Republicans Rip Obama for Misleading Americans on ISIS McConnell seconded Boehner’s contention that the U.S. and its allies will ultimately fail unless they break out of the current Obama approach – which amounts to strategic air strikes against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria and efforts to recruit and train friendly “moderate” rebels in Syria to take the fight directly to ISIS forces on the ground. The U.S. currently has about 2,300 troops in Iraq, but they are primarily providing security and advice to the Iraqi government while staying far away from the fighting. Obama has vowed repeatedly that he will not send in more U.S. ground troops to engage ISIS on the battlefield. GOP leaders say that is a misguided approach that will simply embolden the jihadist terrorists to persist in their rampage and killing across a major swath of Iraq and civil war-torn Syria in a drive to establish a new Islamic Caliphate. “As John indicated, it will require boots on the ground,” McConnell said. “The question is whose boots? I think it’d be very foolish mistake for us to say in advance what we won’t do. Nobody’s advocating a use of American ground troops there at this point. But why in the world would we want to send a message to our enemies what we will or won’t do in the future?” Related: The New U.S. Price Tag for the War Against ISIS: $40 Billion a Year Few question that the U.S. effort to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS got off to a rocky start, and the president has cautioned that it may take years for the U.S. and its dozens of allies to achieve their goal. More recently, however, the U.S. military has made some important gains by altering its tactics to first support Iraqi efforts to dislodge ISIS from strongholds in western and northern Iraq, while using air strikes as a holding action in Syria. The new strategy seems to be paying off as Iraqi forces with U.S. and allied backing have retaken much of the territory ISIS had seized in Iraq. The Fiscal Times reported last week that ISIS suffered serious setbacks and lost its momentum in Iraq since the start of the U.S. air campaign last year. U.S. diplomatic officials said last week that the allied effort has now killed more than 6,000 ISIS fighters – including half of the top command. Separately, Kurdish Peshmerga forces are making progress against ISIS in Kobani, near the Turkish border in Syria. Reports range from 70 to 90 percent in the hands of the Kurds, supported by allied airstrikes. Still, ISIS controls the provincial capitals Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq as well as the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad. And GOP leaders are highly skeptical that the overall U.S. approach will be adequate to drive out or destroy ISIS forces, as they continue to attract new fighters from around the globe. Until recently, Republicans have offered only sketch indications of how they would prosecute the war if they were in charge. That has begun to change, as Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain – the chief spokesperson for the Republicans on military affairs and strategy – has aired his ideas in a series of interviews and television interviews. Related: The War Against ISIS Will Explode Our Nation’s Debt In an appearance last weekend on the CBS News program Face the Nation, McCain offered a blistering critique of Obama’s handling of the crises in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, saying the president and his top advisers have “lost touch with reality” – including the role being played by Iran in fomenting terrorism throughout the Middle East. “So there is no strategy,” he said. “It is delusional for them to think that what they're doing is succeeding. And we need more boots on the ground. I know that is a tough thing to say and a tough thing for Americans to swallow, but it doesn't mean the 82nd Airborne. It means forward air controllers. It means Special Forces. It means intelligence and it means other capabilities. McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, was a major supporter of President George W. Bush’s troop surge during the first U.S. war in Iraq. He contends that Obama’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 created a power vacuum that paved the way for Islamic State militants to take over much of the country in 2014. Related: How the U.S. Allowed ISIS to Form a Terrorist Army The three key components of McCain’s approach are these: Expand the U.S. force in Iraq from the current 2,300 troops to 10,000 to assist Iraqis troops. Rather than keeping U.S. service members confined to bases and headquarters, many of them would be dispatched to the front lines to direct or call in air strikes and take other steps to assist the Iraqis. Establish safe zones or no-fly zones in neighboring Syria. McCain initially was reacting to news reports last year that ISIS was attempting to assemble a modest air force with pilots trained by Iraqi military defectors. While that threat has yet to materialize, McCain and administration officials have considered establishing a Syrian no-fly zone to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government. Expand aid and military assistance to moderate Syrian rebels to help them fight back against ISIS and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. As The Washington Post noted, Assad appears to be buoyed by months of U.S. and allied air strikes against ISIS that have taken enormous pressure off of him while he continues to destroy rebel forces seeking to topple him. McCain said it’s an outrage that the Obama administration has pulled back and is no longer insisting that Assad step aside, although his regime is responsible for the deaths of over 200,000 Syrian civilians. “In the Middle East, we have got to have boots on the ground,” McCain said over the weekend. “We have got to have training capability. We can't train young people in Syria and send them back into Syria to be barrel-bombed by Bashar Assad. That is also immoral.” Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:

You know the image of the Katie Holmes we always see on the red carpet: hair over one eye, tall and slim, wearing couture and looking very Posh Spice? Well, scratch that. The Katie Holmes who bounds into the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel looks more Dawson's Creek than Fashion Week. Not a smidge of makeup, short hair tucked behind her ears, gray cardigan over white blouse, fitted black trousers. Not to say she's the same Joey Potter we fell in love with more than 10 years ago. Having effortlessly morphed from a girl from a big Ohio family into the globe-hopping wife of the planet's hugest star, Tom Cruise, she's on a tear workwise: The actress recently finished a Broadway run of Arthur Miller's All My Sons—never missing a performance, scoring good reviews—and is about to start filming the comedy The Extra Man, with Kevin Kline. Quickly, Katie is on her way to becoming an American icon, for her gracious working-mom flair—and, OK, for her clothes (she stars in a Miu Miu campaign and is trying her hand at designing, too). When we meet, the lounge is bustling with deal makers (it's Grammys week). But despite the distractions and BlackBerry texts from Tom as he flies back from Mexico ("He's still on the plane," says Katie), the usually very private half of arguably America's most-tabloided-to-death couple settles right in and opens up. GLAMOUR: So Katie, this is Glamour's seventieth- anniversary issue, and we're celebrating important American women. But I'd like to know, who are your icons? KATIE HOLMES: Growing up, I always had my dreams set on being an actor, so I looked up to Julia Roberts, Audrey Hepburn. I also look up to Kate Winslet and Renée [Zellweger] and Cate Blanchett…and Diane Keaton—she's a genius. I think it's very inspiring to see these women attack such complex roles. GLAMOUR: What about friends and family? KATIE HOLMES: I don't know how my mom did it, raising all five of us. I have three sisters and three sisters-in-law; I have learned from them. I'm inspired by them. GLAMOUR: You once said that your mother told you, of her life as a mom, "I didn't sleep for 15 years." KATIE HOLMES: I don't know if she's even getting any sleep now! My sisters and brother and I call her: "Mom, what do you think of this?" "Mom, what do I do?" GLAMOUR: Still, you've come into your own. In a recent interview you said, "I'm a bit wiser." How? KATIE HOLMES: Well, becoming a mother has been the most amazing experience—in an instant you become strong. You have to be a little bit wiser; it's the most important job in the world. GLAMOUR: Did it scare you at all? The responsibility? KATIE HOLMES: Of course. During the first couple of days [with Suri], we would just sleep right next to her to make sure she was breathing. And I was constantly learning on the job, but Tom was very helpful and supportive. GLAMOUR: You are very protective of your family. You've said a couple of times [in response to various rumors about her relationship with Cruise, a practicing Scientologist, and speculation that Suri didn't exist] that all of the gossip is "not OK." KATIE HOLMES: Some of the stuff [people said] was such absolutely horrible things to say about a child. It was so uncalled for and so disgusting. Enough is enough. GLAMOUR: Did Tom ever say, "Don't worry about it" [since he was more used to media scrutiny]?

The Canadian Press OTTAWA - The increase in gang violence on the streets of Vancouver and other Canadian cities has direct ties to the grisly drug-cartel wars that have terrorized Mexico and some American border towns, say Canadian and U.S. police. Violence has reached a fever pitch in parts of Mexico where the government of President Felipe Calderon has sent in 45,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police to try to curb cartel activity. More than 7,000 have died in the last two years, with 1,000 deaths this January alone. The United States has felt the impact, with the cartels sending assassins across the border and more and more cells springing up across the country to distribute cocaine from the south. Those distribution lines ultimately lead to Canada, making this country far from immune to what's going on in Mexico, says Superintendent Pat Fogarty with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit. Recent gang-related violence in British Columbia and elsewhere is "directly related to this Mexican war," he said in an interview Tuesday. Almost all cocaine in Canada comes via Mexico, the hub for South American producers. Canadian-based organized crime groups buy the drug either directly from the cartels in Mexico, or from middlemen in Los Angeles and other American cities. When the supply of cocaine is hampered by crackdowns in Mexico or in the United States and the price goes up, says Fogarty, competition for the remaining kilos gets tense in Canada. The bigger players with good lines into the south prevail, leaving the smaller ones scrambling. "People are running around trying to find other sources of cocaine. The price goes up and the guns come out," said Fogarty. "It's really about power. The people up here want the nice car, the money and the flashy girl beside them, and if they lose that they lose that status and the power." Canada came up several times at a high-profile U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration news conference last week. The agency announced it had arrested 750 people linked to the notorious Sinaloa cartel, and had seized more than 23 tonnes of drugs. "From Washington to Maine, we have disrupted this cartel's domestic operations - arresting U.S. cell heads ... and seriously impacting their Canadian drug operations as well," acting administrator Michele Leonhart told reporters. The U.S. drug agency wouldn't point to a specific case where Canadian police assisted with so-called Operation Xcellerator, although Fogarty says the RCMP is constantly collaborating with American colleagues on trafficking cases. Special Agent Jeffrey Wagner of the agency's global enforcement unit says the cartels have established cells or distribution points close to the Canadian border. Those cells will help funnel the cocaine to points north. They use flatbed trucks covered with commercial merchandise, or even cars. Although Mexicans aren't generally at the helm of Canadian gangs, organized crime here does have contact with the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels in Mexico. "I don't think it's a stretch to see there might be emissaries or people associated with those organizations, making trips for negotiations or to see operations or to be treated by the people they're selling to," said Wagner. "It's a business, you have people coming from one sector of the world to see what's going on in another sector." The gangs don't always deal with cash. Often, the Canadians will trade the coke for readily available ecstasy or pot. Said Wagner: "What happens is the organizations, instead of smuggling currency over the border to pay for cocaine to bring up and then again smuggling ecstasy or marijuana over the border, they look at it as a way to pay their debt." The U.S. drug agency is trying to raise awareness of the cartel situation in Mexico and its impact on the United States, with some success. Major American newspapers have splashed details of the cartel wars on their front pages. The Washington Times quoted senior U.S . military officials Tuesday who warned that if Mexico's two main cartels joined forces, they would have the equivalent power of an army of 100,000. Other senior figures in Washington have named Mexico as one of the top domestic security threats, just behind Pakistan and Iran. Violence around the cartels has been characterized by the most gruesome kinds of killings. Victims have been decapitated and even disposed of in vats of acid. Civilians have been caught in the crossfire - at a recent festival in Morelia, drug figures threw a grenade into a crowded marketplace. Canada's Foreign Affairs Department last week revised its travel report for Mexico, warning Canadian tourists to avoid areas around the U.S. border, especially Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. Popular tourist destinations such as Puerto Vallarta, the Mayan Riviera and Hualtuco have not been singled out, although the resort towns of Cabo San Lucas and Acapulco are located the affected states of Baja California and Guerrero. Peter Kent, Minister of State for the Americas, said the Canadian government is collaborating with Mexico on several levels to help it tackle the drug problem, including cooperation at political, military and police levels. He said the issue of security throughout the region will be a dominant issue at the upcoming Summit of the Americas. "Canada recognizes and encourages Mexico's crackdown on drug gangs and organized crime, but the side effect of success has been the displacement of some of that to Guatemala and (other countries)," Kent said in an interview.

About a month ago, when Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson announced a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first new episodes of the series in more than 15 years, we got excited simply because one of our favorite shows was coming back. At the time, because Hodgson noted a desire to merge the old and new -- which would include a new host and new Mads to torment the Satellite of Love -- we really didn't know what this new show would look like, even if we were just itching to see it. In the weeks since, Hodgson has dropped several announcements about his new MST3K cast, which now includes new host Jonah Ray and new Mads Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt (as TV's Son of TV's Frank). Clearly, Hodgson knows what we nerds like in front of the camera, but what about behind the camera? Well, today a new wave of announcements proved that the show's writers will be just as nerdy as the onscreen talent. The Wrap reports that Hodgson has brought on a team of new "guest writers" for his revival that includes Community creator Dan Harmon, The Kingkiller Chronicle author Patrick Rothfuss, Ready Player One author Ernest Cline, and more. Other names joining the staff include Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, Harmon's Monster House and Community collaborator Rob Schrab, Sabrina the Teenage Witch creator Nell Scovell, comedian Dana Gould, nerdy musical wizards Paul & Storm, and EGOT winner Robert Lopez, who co-wrote the songs for the Disney blockbuster Frozen. That's a hell of a lineup. Right now, the Kickstarter campaign for the project sits at just over $4 million, guaranteeing at least nine new episodes of the series. Hodgson's ultimate goal is $5.5 million, which would fund 12 episodes, and the campaign has until Friday to raise the extra cash. No doubt the news of this writing staff will give the project a boost, but if you still haven't helped push the project over the funding edge, you can head to the Kickstarter page HERE. (Via The Wrap)

(Reuters) - An after-school fight that left two police officers hurt and eight students under arrest was stopped by a man who stepped out of his suburban Philadelphia home carrying a handgun and ordered everyone to "back up," police said. The melee erupted on Friday in an outdoor corridor used by about 4,000 high school and middle school students. It is patrolled by eight officers during the school year. An officer was called to break up a fight between two teens and after taking one into custody another jumped on his back, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said on Wednesday. The officer was next rushed by about 40 onlookers. Just then, a 35-year-old man with a permit to carry a concealed weapon stepped into the fray. "He just told them, 'Back up.' They froze. More police came, and we were able to get it under control," Chitwood said. "I think in this particular case, this Good Samaritan probably saved the officer from significant injury and, God forbid, one of the students from getting hurt by police," Chitwood said. Eight teens between the ages of 13 and 17 were charged with rioting, disorderly conduct and aggravated assault. The officers sustained hand and leg injuries. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York)

NEW YORK -- NBA owners voted unanimously Wednesday to change the Finals format to 2-2-1-1-1 after nearly 30 years of a 2-3-2 format. The change will take place effective for the 2014 Finals in the spring. Commissioner David Stern called it an "easy sell" to owners to help add competitive balance and align the Finals schedule with the rest of the playoffs. To ease the transition, an extra day off will be added between Games 6 and 7. LeBron James and the Heat won their second straight title after rallying in Game 6 to force a decisive Game 7, both on their home court -- a scenario that won't be taking place again thanks to the owners' vote. Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images "There's been a sense among our teams that in a 2-2 series, it's not fair for a team with the better record to be away [for Game 5]," Stern said after the league's board of governors annual preseason meeting. "It's not fair for the better team in terms of record to spend as many as eight days away from home." Stern said that one of the first conversations he had as commissioner in 1984 was with then-Boston Celtics president Red Auerbach, who complained about the demands of travel after several Finals between his team and the Los Angeles Lakers. Stern led the change to the 2-3-2 by 1985, which was also done to encourage more media coverage of the Finals. As a bit of symbolism of the changing arc of the league during his tenure, Stern oversaw the change back to the 2-2-1-1-1 in his last owners meeting as commissioner. Stern is set to hand over the reins to deputy commissioner Adam Silver on Feb. 1, 30 years to the day he became commissioner. "It made sense to do it now," Silver said. "Events came together over many years, and it reached a crescendo. The basketball people thought it was important, and the business people stood down and said it was no longer necessary." After several years of tense proceedings with collective bargaining that led to a lockout and a protracted struggle for the future of the Sacramento Kings that dominated league business last year, this owners meeting was generally lighthearted and used largely as an ode to Stern.

A former state judge joined activists in their federal lawsuit against Jacksonville Chief Judge Mark Mahon. John Merrett, who served as a circuit judge in Jacksonville from 2007 until 2013, said he wants to see the chief judge remove his ban against some photography. Mahon wrote an administrative order July 1 that banned protests that questioned the integrity of the court and banned photography of judges' garages and of all courthouse security features. A week later, two First Amendment activists sued Mahon and Sheriff Mike Williams. The same day, Mahon issued a new order modifying his ban against protests but keeping the photography prohibition in place. "I'm sure the order came from a sincere concern for the safety and welfare of the judges," Merrett said. "The right of the public to see the people who work for them trumps a public servant's concern for safety. Certainly if there's a genuine credible threat, steps can be taken that couldn't be taken under ordinary circumstance." Judges, he said, have to make decisions based on the intimate details of others' lives, and often those lives look very different from the judges'. "I don't think it's a good idea for judges to live in isolation from the people. It is very easy to allow yourself to be isolated, particularly in the new courthouse." Attorney Andrew Bonderud will continue to act as the lawsuit's lead counsel. Merrett and two other attorneys will assist him. None of them will be paid, Bonderud and Merrett said, unless they win attorney's fees in a settlement or in a final judgment. Merrett said he expects the lawsuit will end in a settlement with the order withdrawn. He likes Mahon, he said, and this isn't personal. "He's a great chief judge," Merrett said. "He's got a great attitude. He's always asking people, how are things going? Is this going right? Are you getting what you need? He's very active for the benefit of the people that he serves." He said this lawsuit is about protecting the First Amendment. "Our liberties are not without cost. The cost of security sometimes. The cost of privacy sometimes." When he was a circuit judge, Merrett sparked controversy several times. He pulled a gun in the courtroom one time when a victim's father punched a defendant. He once presided over a defendant's marriage in court before sentencing him to 18 months in prison. When a former doctor pleaded guilty to soliciting a child on the Internet and after he had insulted American women, Merrett pronounced him a degenerate, hypocrite and bigot and added, "On behalf of my countrywomen, I join you in thanking God that you did not marry an American woman." He lost re-election in late 2012. Bonderud said he has no concerns about Merrett's past controversies. He's just glad to have someone with such legal expertise join his team. Andrew Pantazi: (904) 359-4310

Image caption Renault family members had their original application rejected in 1959 A French court has rejected a bid by heirs of the founder of Renault for compensation for the loss of the car firm, nationalised in 1945. The French state took control of Louis Renault's firm after World War II, when, under German control, it was used to make equipment for German forces. The company is now one of France's largest car-makers and the state remains the single biggest shareholder. The Paris court said it was not competent to rule on the matter. Analysis Renault designed his first car in 1898. With financial support from his brothers, he set up a factory in Boulogne-Billancourt quickly becoming one of the largest car manufacturers in France. During World War I, he was awarded the Legion of Honour for his services to the war effort, designing and manufacturing tanks that would turn the course of battle. But the hero of World War I quickly became a villain of the second, and the British RAF bombed his factories on several occasions. The seven grandchildren had argued in court their grandfather was given no choice but to collaborate with the Wehrmacht producing over 30,000 cars and trucks. His actions, they said, had saved 40,000 workers from being forcibly relocated to Daimler-Benz in Germany. In 1945 - several months after Louis Renault's death in prison - Charles de Gaulle denounced the car-maker and signed a decree nationalising his company without a single cent in compensation for the family. In 1956, his widow, Christiane, claimed Renault had been murdered in prison. The battle for compensation has sparked outrage in France with both the Communist Party and Holocaust survivors accusing the family of "trying to rewrite history". 'Rights violation' The seven grandchildren of Louis Renault, who died in jail before he could be tried for alleged collaboration with the Nazis, said they would appeal against the court's decision. They were able to take the French state to court after a new judicial procedure was introduced, allowing plaintiffs to challenge the constitutionality of legislation. Their lawyer, Thierry Levy, had argued that the firm's nationalisation was a "violation of fundamental legal and property rights". Renault's grandchildren, who previously tried to obtain redress in 1959, say their grandfather was never brought to trial over the allegations against him. They also say that there has been no other case of a firm being nationalised without a ruling or compensation. But a lawyer for a union that as a civil party is asking for the request to be quashed had asked the court to reject what he said was a "revisionist" move. "I am stunned by the audacity of the Renault heirs," Jean-Paul Teissonniere said. He added that during the war "a very large majority of Renault's production went to the enemy," adding that the company did not assist the French Resistance or did it "ask its workers to sabotage" production. Mr Levy said the accusation that the family were revisionist was "outrageous". The French state remains the largest shareholder in Renault, which was founded in 1898, with a 15% stake.

Allison Tai is a dedicated runner and triathlete who has recently found a passion for obstacle course racing. “Running is my background. It’s my passion, it’s my love. But it just gets a little boring after a while,” Tai said. “For obstacle course racing, you’re running along and just never know what’s going to be around the corner.” Tai recently opened Vancity OCR, Metro Vancouver’s first obstacle course gym. Obstacle course racing has been around for decades and its popularity has exploded in recent years. More than six-million people took part in obstacle race event – like Tough Mudder or Spartan Race – in North America last year. The popularity of the U.S. TV program American Ninja Warrior, which sees competitors race through a seemingly impossible obstacle course, hasn’t hurt. The Port Coquitlam gym offers so-called “ninja training” for adults and kids. “We’re super family-oriented,” Tai said. “We have classes from when kids are one [year old] and just learning how to walk. We have a custom-made toddler ring. There are all these fundamental skills for physical literacy.” One of the toughest challenges are the warped walls, which force competitors to scale a steep incline. The highest warped wall at Vancity OCR stands more than four metres tall, a height few adults can reach. That didn’t stop this 14-year-old Carsen Hallgren, who managed to make it to the top. “I just went for it and got up there, it was a big relief,” he said. Tai said the goal of the gym is to turn fitness into play. “You get a full workout and you don’t even feel like you’re exercising,” she said. – With files from Lynn Colliar

$\begingroup$ The part of this question that raises red flags for me is the line: However, many timesit [sic] is good to have a wide spread of grades. Why? This seems backward reasoning to me wherein you know the distribution of grades that you want to give and are figuring out how to design the test to fit that distribution. Your assessment should be criterion based. Look at your learning objectives for the course and design the assessment accordingly. For example, here is my scheme of work for one course. Note in the introduction how the skills are knit to the grades. In designing the exam, the question that I have always before me is: "What competence can I use this question as evidence for?" I also imagine the following scenario. Suppose that a year later, another lecturer storms in to my office and demands to know why I gave a particular student a particular grade. What will I answer? That they scored 52 points? That they hit a particular number of standard deviations away from the mean? Or that in their exam then they demonstrated that they met the criteria for the given grade? So when I have complete freedom to set the exam and the assessment criteria, then I design my exam by these principles. Each indecomposable unit on the test will be used as evidence for their grade, but each such unit comes with a maximum grade that it can be used for. So when assessing for an E, I ask "Has this student shown sufficient evidence that they deserve an E?" meaning that I count the number of answers rated "E" or above. If this is sufficient, they have secured an E. Next, I look at the "C" grade. Any answers rated only E are now dropped. Note that some answers could only get an E so these are automatically dropped. I do the same at the "A" grade. For "B" and "D", I take these to mean "almost the grade above". So a "B" is a "low A", not a "high C". As an example, here's an exam designed on these principles. I don't say that it is perfect. Note the first question only asks about definitions and statements. So the answers to this question can only count for an E, but I give them lots of opportunities to show that they have achieved that level. The other questions basically allow for Cs and As (one part of each question can be given an A, I'll leave it as an exercise to work out which part). In short, if you are worrying about the distribution of grades then you are worrying about the wrong thing. If you are worrying that the grades are not knit to the desired competencies of the course, then you are worrying about the right thing and the solution is obvious: test for the desired competencies, not for anything else. And never grade by just adding up points.

Consta­ble Nighat Hubbar­d is also claimi­ng she was a victim of sexism while servin­g in the force An Asian Muslim detective, who was awarded an honour by the British Queen Elizabeth II, is suing the Metropolitan Police over claims of racism. Detective Constable Nighat Hubbard is also claiming she was a victim of sexism while serving in the force. She alleges that she was held back while white colleagues were allowed to work more complex investigations, according to The Sunday Times. The serving officer also says in her claims, which date between 2013 and 2014, that male colleague made discriminatory comments to her and other women officers, the paper reported. Pakistani honoured with highest youth award in Australia Hubbard was presented with an award in 2014 for her charity work, making her the first Muslim policewoman to be honoured by the Queen. Scotland Yard said: “We are aware of an employment tribunal claim brought by Hubbard against the Metropolitan Police Service alleging race and sex discrimination.We are unable to discuss further while proceedings are ongoing.” The article originally appeared on The Telegraph Read full story

Ft. McClellan Alabama no longer exists as an Army base, at least not officially. In 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency shut down the base, labeling it a hazardous site. The area is so toxic that it is illegal to sink a well in the surrounding communities. Even though the base no longer houses military personnel, portions of the site are still used as a training facility and as a depot. The training conducted there is by various entities, including local, state and federal agencies. I wonder if they issue warnings about the site before candidates or employees are sent there, or if they, like the tens of thousands of veterans who once called Ft. McClellan home, get to find out about the contamination through word of mouth. Next to Ft. McClellan is a small town called Anniston, Alabama. Even if you never heard of the base, the name of the community may ring a bell. In 2003, chemical giant Monsanto settled a case with more than 20,000 residents of the town for $700 million dollars. The suit alleged the company, now operating locally as Solutia, contaminated the water, soil and air so thoroughly and so recklessly with PCB’s and other toxins for decades, 60 Minutes and others have called the area the most toxic place on the planet. One of the others making that claim is the EPA, which has listed the community at the top of its Superfund Sites in need of cleanup. The settlement has been good for the people of Anniston, but realistically it is small recompense for the sicknesses and deaths this community has suffered. There has also been a dark side to this settlement as well. The terms of the specifically exclude military personnel who were stationed at Ft. McClellan. The thinking behind this intentional omission, at least publicly, had been that the military and the VA would take care of it’s own. The less public but acknowledged answer is that Monsanto was and is responsible for the PCB contamination, but not for the plethora of other toxins to which the base personnel were exposed. In Monsanto’s defense, they are right. Sadly, our military does not have the best track record when it comes to protecting the health of it’s personnel. Agent Orange comes to mind. Interestingly, that substance plays a role here as well. Through the decades of it’s existence Ft. McClellan served many purposes. At the end of the Spanish-American War, it was called Camp Shipp and the mountainous area was viewed as an ideal backdrop for an artillery range, though those hostilities ended before the site was fully utilized. In 1917, Ft. McClellan was formally established as a mobilization center for quickly training men for WWl. The base was best known, however, for four functions through the years. It was one of the Army’s primary weapons depots and disposal sites from the 1930’s on, a function it still serves today, and as the base to which you were sent if you joined the Military Police. If you had signed up or agreed to enter the Army’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Corps, you also spent time at Ft. McClellan. Sadly Ft. Mac, as it is colloquially known was also home to the WAC, the Women’s Army Corp, until that unit was officially disbanded and absorbed into the regular Army in 1978. It is last of these four uses that are most significant when discussing the catastrophic long term effects on personnel who were exposed to the toxic soup that was and is Ft. McClellan. At the end of WWl the world became aware of the horrors of using chemical weapons, but it took decades for the most commonly known agent, Mustard Gas to be eliminated. Since the end of the War to End All Wars, ever more deadly and dangerous chemicals have been developed, stockpiled, used and sometimes destroyed. One of the places these later generations of chemical weapons as well as that old standby Mustard Gas was stored was Ft. McClellan. That particular toxin, along with Agent Orange, the less well-known but even more toxic Agent Blue, Sarin, VX and a host of other man-made chemical killers were all stored at Ft. McClellan while they awaited their turn in the incinerator. Most spent their time sitting patiently in their containers waiting for destruction, but many of these substances foiled attempts at containment and leaked into the soil, creeks, streams and ultimately the aquifers that fed the wells of Ft. McClellan. Now add in the depleted uranium that is the shell of warheads and missiles and our old friend PCB’s from neighboring Monsanto and a fuller picture of the contents of the toxic soup that comprise the ground and water in and surrounding Ft. McClellan begins to take shape. The devastating effects on the human body of these chemicals are well known. These effects were the purpose of their development. But, not even the maddest scientists operating in the darkest days of Nazi death camps ever conceived of exposing the human body to all of these toxins at once. Happily, or sadly, depending on how you view it, such experiments if conceived would not need to be carried out as there are tens of thousands of United States soldiers who have been so exposed. Ironically though, the effects aren’t officially known. Because the Army and the VA have denied these soldiers diagnoses or even treatment for the diseases from which they suffer, claiming their illnesses are not service related. Each of these toxins produce known diseases and reactions, even with the most minimal exposure to just a portion of their constituent chemical compounds. Many of these disorders are chromosomal, meaning future generations are effected. That is, if a human being after exposure to some of these agents is left capable of reproducing. For the past several months, I have been in contact with hundreds of veterans of Ft. McClellan. In every case, they are horrified to find out the illnesses they have been suffering with, often for decades, could have been predicted based on their time at Fort Mac. The majority of the women veterans suffered a mind numbing, soul crushing six, eight, ten or more miscarriages. The children they were able to bear full term, or at least to a live birth, more often than not suffer a horrifying, yet predictable range of abnormalities, disabilities and medical conditions. Because many of these toxins work on the chromosomal level, nearly as many men fathered children who went on to bear children of their own with abnormalities, disabilities and medical conditions known to be caused by exposure to these chemical agents. Exactly how many service men and women, much less their offspring, have been affected remains unknown. This is due to the current policy of not informing those who served at this base of their exposure. Word of mouth, veteran to veteran, has been the primary source of information. Many have banded together on social media, started webpages and even put up videos on YouTube, in an effort to advise their fellow Ft. Mac survivors. “I had just thought I had drawn an unlucky hand in health”, is a common response of those veterans that have been reached. “I had a radical hysterectomy at 28 years old, after more miscarriages than I can count.” “I’ve always wondered if I had been exposed to something, ‘cause it made no sense that all my teeth just fell out by the time I was 35.” “The doctors can’t tell me what is wrong. They call it peripheral neuropathy, but I don’t have diabetes. All I know is there are no drugs that can counter the pain, and it is getting worse.” “I’ve been fit and active, eating right my whole life. I’m not overweight and no one in my family has ever had diabetes, but suddenly, I have it.” “I’ve had two different cancers. Now, there is something weird with my bones, they seem to be just dissolving. The doctors said this is not a reaction to the chemo. In fact, they discovered the issue with my bones when they first started me on chemo and radiation.” “I have something called spinal stenosis.” “I have every sign and symptom of Agent Orange, but I never went to ‘Nam.” These are just some of the more common ailments reported in these online groups. Each time someone posts, there are dozens of “me, too” responses, followed up with references to all sorts of documents so each person can be their own healthcare advocate. Suggestions of how best to talk to your doctor are always followed by “I hope you have other than a VA doctor.” It is really sad that these veterans, as soon as they tell their VA caseworker they are a Ft. McClellan vet, are routinely told that their medical issues will not be covered or treated by the VA. Despite mountains of data proving a direct correlation between these toxins and the diseases for which they are seeking treatment, the VA denies case after case. This is the part of the story that makes the least sense. The United States Army closed the base because it was declared a toxic site by the EPA. The Department of Defense, the VA and every other government entity acknowledges exposure to these toxins have detrimental effects on the human body. Yet, soldiers who were stationed at this base cannot get the care they need. The story gets worse. For the past three years, there has been a bill in one form or another called the “Ft. McClellan Health Registry Act” (current incarnation is HR411) sitting in the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Basically, this bill calls for the VA to grant what is known as ‘presumptive status’ for those who are seeking treatment and had served at Ft. McClellan. The all-important ‘presumptive status’ these veterans seek and which is required to receive treatment simply means that because of their time at Ft. McClellan, it is acknowledged they may have, or develop a range of illness, diseases and disorders. This is the same status that Viet Nam Era veterans fought for decades to get in regard to Agent Orange exposure. It is also what was just granted to the hundreds of thousands who were exposed to the open-air burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan and at bases around the world. That is all these veterans are asking for, to be treated for the illnesses they now suffer as a direct result of their service to our country. “They’re just waiting for us to die. We are dying. Not even aging and dying, just dying before our time. You hear about how overburdened the VA is, so I guess this is their solution. Just wait for us all to die off so they don’t have to take care of us.” Note – all of the remarks in quotations are things I have been told or seen written by members of the various Ft. McClellan social media groups. With rare exception, these vets have asked not to be named, in fear that the few services they have been able to get, the claims they have been allowed to file will be denied. That is the saddest part of all. After months of research and scores of calls and emails to the members of the subcommittee, there are still very basic questions unanswered. Party politics and posturing are definitely playing a role, and both sides of the aisle are guilty. Some have told me that because the chair is Republican and the original sponsor of the bill is a Democrat, unless or until a Republican member of the committee cosponsors the bill, it will not even be put on the agenda. Others have told me that unless one of the cosponsors submits a cost analysis and identifies an offset, the bill will not be put on the agenda. I’d like to remind both sides that the oath these service members took, and indeed, the Constitution they swore to uphold and defend is neither Republican nor Democrat. These are veterans of the United States of America, not pawns in the ever-running game of chess these politicians seem to love to play. Click the links below for more information, or to contact the members of the committee. Ask them why. If you get an answer, please post it here so we can all know. HR 411 - Ft. McClellan Health Registry Act Ft. McClellan Toxic Exposure Dan Benishek – Chair David Roe Jeff Dunham Tim Huelskamp Jackie Walorski Brad Wenstrup Julia Brownley - Ranking Minority Member Corrine Brown Raul Ruiz Gloria Negrete-McLeod Ann Kuster Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

It’s safe to say that Hillary Clinton is no luddite. But the 2016 US presidential hopeful acknowledged this week that new technology is transforming the world of work and warned that we need to wake up to the consequences. She was right to do so. In a major speech on the economy, Clinton talked about the threat to middle-class jobs posed by the so-called “gig economy”. The internet has enabled millions of people to make money by renting out a room or using their own cars to become part-time minicab drivers. That, said Hillary, is “creating exciting opportunities and unleashing innovation but it’s also raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future”. Technology will become as potent a force as globalisation in the coming decades The digital and technological revolution that created companies like Amazon and Facebook is making life easier, more entertaining and cheaper for many of us. But it also places secure jobs at risk and threatens to lay entire industries to waste. A Labour party whose founding mission was to make sure work pays needs to find its own answers to some of the hard questions Clinton identified. Ask any taxi driver, self-employed accountant or small hotelier and they will tell you the disruptive force of new technology is turning their world upside down. The arrival of Uber in the UK has reduced the cost of taxi fares for consumers, for example. But cabbies who are more heavily regulated in our cities see their incomes plummet as a result. Tourists and travellers pay less for accommodation by using websites like Airbnb; but hotels suffer – along with their employees – because they have to pay business taxes that Airbnb is exempt from. New accountancy software makes it easier for people to do their own finances (and enriches its inventors) but threatens the employment prospects of accountants – a white-collar profession traditionally regarded as one of the most secure. As someone who loves new technical innovation – whether it’s a new game, a new phone or new music service – I think we should do more to celebrate technical innovation in Britain. But we also need to ensure the wealth created by the digital revolution doesn’t produce a “winner takes all” economy in which a tiny number of dotcom billionaires displace millions of workers in formerly secure jobs. We need to protect the interests of professionals and blue-collar workers even as we seek to reap the rewards generated by the new digital economy. It is a difficult balance to strike. I don’t have all the answers. But I do know that technology will become as potent a force as globalisation in the coming decades. In fact, most economists already agree that it is technological change, rather than globalisation, that does most to explain wage stagnation and rising inequality in advanced democracies. Airbnb and Uber’s sharing economy is one route to dotcommunism Read more It took Labour too long to acknowledge that many voters felt immigration, one of the defining features of globalisation, was the most important issue facing the country. It would be wrong to make the same mistake twice by underestimating the impact the digital revolution will have on wages and jobs. I am a huge enthusiast for new technology. I served as the country’s first digital minister under Gordon Brown. I even review video games for the New Statesman. Over time, technology could mean we all spend less on everything from the weekly shop to cars, clothing end energy. It will give millions of people the chance to do more creative and fulfilling work. But the effect the digital revolution could have on middle-class jobs could be as dramatic as that experienced by the working classes in the industrial age, as machines began to take on the jobs they’d done for centuries. Reforming socialists have always believed change can be harnessed so that it produces better outcomes for everyone. So it is absolutely crucial that we continue to close the digital divide, so that all our workforce has the skills and training it needs so to claim a share of the enormous wealth the digital age is creating. It is too easy to pretend everyone has superfast broadband or a laptop. They don’t. We need to ensure everyone benefits – whether they’re from a country estate, or a council estate.

Welcome to DCX! The best virtual drum corps XPERIENCE on the planet. Celebrating , Honoring and Preserving the history of the drum and bugle corps activity around the world. This virtual museum features information on thousands of drum corps from all eras. Scores, repertoire, photos, historical narrative, and a wide range of collectibles from uniforms to bobbleheads. Pick a gallery below and start browsing. You can JOIN DCX? If you create an account on DCX and login, then you can make a member profile and link in the corps/years you marched or taught. Then when anyone goes to the Member tab when viewing a corps or Goes to People / Member Profiles, they will see your name listed. Anyone who is logged in can see your profile. The profile includes things like your favorite drum corps memory or something about your first experience. Get started by clicking the Login or Register button at the top right of the page.

ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT BENGALURU: India's largest lender State Bank of India will roll out beta launches of blockchain-enabled smart contracts by next month, according to Sudin Baraokar, head of innovation, SBI. Blockchain-enabled Know Your Customer (KYC) will soon follow suit. These applications are part of BankChain , a community of 27 banks, which have joined hands to explore and build blockchain solutions for banking.“By next month, we should have two beta production solutions ready for use by the 27 banks. We will also invite further participation. The beta production that will be ready are smart contracts and second is KYC,” said Baraokar.BankChain was formed in February with State Bank of India being the first member. It now has 22 Indian banks, including ICICI Bank, DCB Bank and Axis Bank , and five Middle East-based banks. BankChain has tied up with Pune-based startup Primechain Technologies to create these solutions.“BankChain is a big move. It is getting all banks together and collaborating. It is also de-risking our investment in emerging tech, so that all banks can come and invest at once...we can also share knowledge and reduce the cost. We can also use each other's technical teams to take this forward. We focused on solutions that the bank does not have...things like smart contracts, which is not regulatory heavy. We focused on those solutions,” said Baraokar, in a chat with ET, at the recently concluded Bengaluru Tech Summit.Smart contracts are basically contracts which use blockchain, a distributed and decentralised ledger, to maintain contracts between parties. The code and agreements are public, hence traceable and irreversible and thereby do not need any enforcement agency.“Smart contracts can be used for simple things like non-disclosure agreement... rather than signing forms. A lot of internal processes can be contracted. We do a lot of IT procurement, a lot of it can be implemented using blockchain,” said Baraokar.SBI is also in the design phase of setting up an innovation centre in Navi Mumbai which will explore how emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), predictive analytics, etc., can help in easing various processes in banking. The centre, which is expected to be completed by mid next year, will house selected startups.“We are building an innovation centre (to explore) AI, ML, blockchain, RPA, visualisation, predictive analytics, etc. We will be having zones for these. We can start collaborating and developing these solutions. It is a physical innovation centre at our IT headquarters in Navi Mumbai. We are in the design phase. We have allocated a dedicated innovation fund. We expect to see this up by middle of next year,” said Baraokar. The centre will host hackathons, incubate startups and will also bring in vendors and internal talent to guide selected startups.World over, banks are looking into blockchain to come up with easy and secure solutions for processes such as peer-to-peer payments, loans syndication, KYC, cross-border payments and virtual currencies.

Covenant Seminary reminds us that thirty years ago today Francis Schaeffer died. I was living far away in Scotland at the time, immersed in doctoral work, so that I was unaware of his death. But when I read the notice in TIME magazine, I felt it was the end of an era and a personal loss. Here are three reasons — for starters — why I am grateful for the life and ministry of Francis Schaeffer. I never knew him personally. I had only one brief conversation with him while walking across the campus of Wheaton College in 1968. Our paths crossed on the sidewalk. I asked him, “How are you today?” He answered, “I am very tired.” And we went our separate ways. So my appreciation of Schaeffer comes from his books and preaching. As each book came out, it landed on me as nothing less than a life event. I heard him preach a number of times too. He was a different kind of preacher, and very compelling. But that leads me to my three reasons for gratitude. One, Francis Schaeffer pioneered a new way of advancing the gospel. All my life I’d been exposed to conventional people using conventional methods, and I don’t mean that in a condescending way. I had the privilege of knowing men of true greatness, like my dad. But Schaeffer was just different. He located the gospel within a total Christian worldview. He talked about modern art and films and books. He spoke with prophetic insight about cultural trends. He worked out fresh ways to articulate old truths, even coining new expressions like “true truth.” He had a beard and long hair and dressed like a European. He had Christian radicalism all over him, called for by those radical times. I found him non-ignorable. To this day, I dislike conventionality, partly because I saw in Francis Schaeffer a man who made an impact not by conforming and fitting in but by standing out as the man God made him to be, the man the world needed him to be. Two, Francis Schaeffer united in a coherent and even beautiful whole theological conviction with personal humaneness. I remember his saying once that, in a conversation with a liberal theologian, he would try to conduct himself so that the liberal would gain two clear and equal impressions. One, Schaeffer disagreed with him theologically. Two, Schaeffer cared about him personally. Moreover, Schaeffer pointed out that, in ourselves, we are unable to demonstrate simultaneously the truth and holiness of God, on the one hand, and the love and mercy of God, on the other hand. In our own strength, we will slide off toward one emphasis or the other. But as we look to the Lord moment by moment, we can hold together both theological conviction and human beauty. But only by both together can we bear living witness to the magnitude of who Jesus really is. And if we fail to show the fullness of Christ, we actually bear false witness to him, we make him ugly in human eyes, and we set his cause back, however sincere we may be. Three, Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith, leading L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, exemplified compelling Christian community. They welcomed all kinds of people. They attracted all kinds of people. They demonstrated a gentleness, openness and tolerance that created space for many diverse people who wouldn’t have found a home in our more typical churches. They sacrificed personally to create this rare kind of community. Their wedding gifts were wrecked, people threw up on their carpets, and so forth. The Schaeffers flung open their lives, their hearts, their space, and it cost them. But they gained many people for Christ. This bold commitment is real Christianity. Anything less is bluff and hypocrisy. I thank the Lord for Francis Schaeffer.

Rashaan Evans at The Opening Rashaan Evans is the top remaining uncommitted player in the state of Alabama. (Photo courtesy of 247Sports) Auburn High School outside linebacker has been at the center of one of the most intense recruiting battles in the nation in the 2014 cycle and with just a few days remaining to make their case, coaches from Evans' three finalist schools are spending plenty of quality time with the 5-star prospect. On Thursday, Evans was visited by UCLA defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich with the Bruins' assistant making one last attempt to sell the 6-foot-3, 220-pound star on the idea of playing on the West Coast. Evans was originally scheduled to visit UCLA unofficially this weekend but scrapped those plans in favor of spending more time with his family as he prepares to choose a college. "Coach Ulbrich basically laid out his plan for how Rashaan would be utilized at UCLA," said Evans' father Alan Evans. "They have everything mapped out and it's clear they think Rashaan could help them in a lot of ways from day one. UCLA has done a great job throughout this entire process of really showing Rashaan how important he is to them and I think they've also really done a great job of selling the attraction of playing out West where Rashaan can go create his own identity." Shortly after Ulbrich's visit, Evans and his family made their way to Auburn Arena where they took in Auburn's basketball victory over Alabama as personal guests of Gus Malzahn. "We met Coach Malzahn over at the football building and he drove us over to the arena in his truck. It was something I'll remember for a long time, for sure. Walking into that arena, everyone around us was either whispering as we walked by or shouting Rashaan's name or yelling 'War Eagle' at Coach Malzahn. It was pretty surreal." Malzahn will have one last chance to meet with Evans and his family on Saturday when he attends a birthday party at the Evans' home that will include hundreds of friends and family members. It will also feature another guest: Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart. "They both wanted to be there for the party and we wanted to be able to spend time with both coaches so, I guess they are both going to be there," Alan Evans said. "It might be a little awkward I guess but that's recruiting. We are glad to welcome them both and it should be a great party." Alan said the family will sit down on Sunday to discuss their options, which could include a change of plans for their scheduled Signing Day announcement. "Right now, the plan is to make the announcement of ESPN on Signing Day at the high school but the more we've thought about it, the more we think the pressure from being here in Auburn might be something we'd like to avoid. We haven't canceled that plan but it's on the table for discussion. If Rashaan ends up picking Alabama, it could obviously lead to some reactions from the folks from this part of the state and we don't want him to feel any anxiety about that, especially if it could affect his decision." Stay tuned to AL.com for the latest updates on Evans' recruitment throughout the weekend leading up to full coverage of his college decision.

The Ontario Minor Hockey Association is facing a deluge of criticism for slapping a coach who protested a racial slur with a full-season suspension. “Greg Walsh was dealt with too harshly, and his suspension should be minimized,” said MPP Paul Miller, NDP sports critic and a former OMHA referee. On Thursday, the association suspended Walsh until April 2011 over his decision to take his Peterborough midget house league team off the ice when an opposing player levelled a racist barb at one of his teenaged team members and no one apologized. Miller said the association should revisit its punishments for using discriminatory language. The opposing player and two of his coaches received three-game suspensions and are back on the ice. The decision has also prompted threats of a boycott of the OMHA’s three major corporate sponsors: Maple Lodge Farms, Pizza Pizza and Chrysler’s Dodge Caravan Kids.

It was dropping before Katrina, but it dropped off a cliff after. It’s hard to rebuild when you’re missing 29% of the recent population. Figures released this week show that there are 343,839 residents of New Orleans, down 29% from the previous count of 485,000 in 2000. The current population is also substantially depleted from the 455,000 people believed to have been living in the city just before hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. The powerful storm overpowered the city’s levees and caused flooding that forced about 200,000 residents to flee. Families relocated to makeshift camps elsewhere in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. No one knows what has happened to those people — the census records current location but does not show the movement of individuals between counts — but it is evident that many have never returned.

Oct. 5, 2013 MADISON, Wis. -- With a nod to Wisconsin-Eau Claire's 2013 NCAA Division III Men's Ice Hockey championship, as well as the hometown of current Badger assistant captains in senior forward Jefferson Dahl and junior defenseman Jake McCabe, the third-ranked Wisconsin Badgers open their first official day of practice for the 2013-14 season with their Red-White scrimmage in Eau Claire, Wis. Skating at Hobbs Ice Center on Saturday, Oct. 5 at 1 p.m., the Badgers will start with 30 minutes of practice, then follow with two officiated 20-minute periods. An autograph session with the men's hockey team will follow. The 2013-14 Wisconsin men's hockey season marks the first year of Big Ten hockey. UW enters the season after a four-month surge that culminated in the program's 12th and final WCHA playoff championship. Pre-sale tickets were available for $15, however tickets will cost $20 at the door. A total of 1,500 tickets are available. All proceeds will benefit the UW-Eau Claire men's hockey program. Pre-sale tickets were available through the UW-Eau Claire Service Center in Davies Center, over the phone at 715-836-3727 or online at http://www.uwec.edu/Servicecenter/tickets/index.htm.

Not to be morbid, but with Jimmy Carter having been diagnosed with cancer, this might be an appropriate time to look back at his term as president. We're not suggesting he's going to die. After all, people beat cancer every day. But Carter is 90 years of age, his cancer has been described as "advanced," and should the worst happen, his presidential accomplishments and failures are bound to be reviewed. Call it historical perspective or simple nostalgia, but it's worth noting how many things tend to look better in the rearview mirror. Take the hapless Carter administration for example. Arguably, among the (many) negative things Carter will be remembered for are runaway inflation, the Iran hostage debacle, and the deregulation of the transportation, communication, and financial industries, moves that, arguably, hurt us as much as they helped. Vilified by the Republicans and mocked by the Democrats, Carter reached the point where he was regarded by his own party as such a political liability, they (in the person of Ted Kennedy) tried to torpedo him in the 1980 primary. Not something that happens to a successful incumbent. But despite the bad memories, a closer look shows that Carter accomplished some fairly important things during his single term in office -- things that, given the near-paralytic gridlock that defines today's politics, seem all the more impressive in hindsight. Here are ten of them. 1. Created the Department of Energy. The DOE provided the administration with the bureaucratic chops to formulate and implement what could have been a comprehensive, long-term national energy strategy. Had Carter's aggressive gas mileage standards continued to be pursued by subsequent administrations, we would today -- 30-odd years later - not be dependent on Saudi oil. 2. Created the Department of Education. Despite howls from anti-government groups who opposed yet another federal agency, the decision to carve out Education from the already over-burdened Department. of Health, Education and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services) was a bold and necessary one. 3. Supported SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks). It sounds trivial today, but in the 1970s a nuclear non-proliferation pact, even a flawed one, was seen as an important step in forging a lasting peace with the USSR. A generation ago, people were genuinely frightened of a nuclear holocaust. Although Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the agreement, the U.S. Congress, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, refused to ratify it. 4. Brokered the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. By initiating the Camp David Accords between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (which led directly to the landmark treaty), Carter laid the groundwork for improved Israeli-Arab relations. That good relations in the region never materialized wasn't Carter's fault. 5. Installed solar panels in the White House. This was not only a practical gesture, but a symbolic one as well, demonstrating to the world that America was serious about conserving energy, and that conservation does, indeed, begin at home. Alas, Ronald Reagan believed solar panels made the United States look pathetic and needy, and had them removed. 6. Boycotted the 1980 Olympics. In response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter boycotted the Moscow games, a decision that earned him ridicule and scorn, even though Japan, West Germany, China, Canada, et al, supported his decision. Boycotts are unpredictable. Some work, most don't. Still, who knows what would have happened if the world had boycotted the 2004 Olympics to protest of the U.S. invasion of Iraq? It might have made a difference. 7. Granted amnesty to Vietnam draft-dodgers. Even though Carter issued these unconditional pardons on January 21, 1977 (his first day in office), the political fallout was severe enough to cost him votes in the 1980 election. Reagan's people showcased it. Controversial as it was, his gutsy call helped move the country forward, providing closure to one of the most divisive chapters in American history. 8. Established diplomatic relations with China. Officially transferring U.S. diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to mainland China seems like a no-brainer today, but in the year 1979 it was a singularly progressive move. 9. Pushed for comprehensive health care reform. Carter's plan was bigger, better, cheaper and -- right out of the blocks -- had a greater chance of passing in its original form than either Clinton's or Obama's plan, but inertia, timidity, and old-fashioned politics (both Democratic and Republican) ultimately killed it. 10. Returned the Panama Canal to Panama. Another gutsy move that surely cost him votes. By ceding the canal to tiny (and deserving) Panama, the mighty U.S. looked confident and magnanimous....rather than paranoid and petty. Although Carter was able to secure bipartisan support, of the 20 senators who voted in favor of the treaty, and were up for re-election, only 7 were re-elected.

The discovery of a nearly complete mammoth skeleton last week in Michigan raises the question of not only this animal's fate, but also what happened to the rest of the woolly mammoths. Did humans drive the Ice Age’s great beasts to extinction? In news reports, University of Michigan paleontologist Dan Fisher proposed that prehistoric people killed and butchered the newly found mammoth, refrigerating what they didn’t immediately eat by sinking the rest of the carcass in a frigid lake. Other scientists say we can't be certain what killed the creature until the bones are examined for cut marks and other clues. As for the rest of the woolly mammoths, whether humans are to blame for their disappearance, as well that of 36 other North American mammal species that went extinct at the end of the Ice Age, remains hotly disputed. The other leading contender: a changing climate. Rare Find Farmers digging a soy field near Chelsea, Michigan, were surprised to uncover the bones of a woolly mammoth that trod the region about 12,000 years ago. Fisher excavated the bones, including a skull complete with tusks. While woolly mammoths have been found from Europe through Asia and North America, only about ten woolly mammoth skeletons have been dug up in Michigan, compared with around 300 of their more primitive cousin, the American mastodon. Mammoths were probably rare in Michigan, Illinois State Museum paleontologist Chris Widga says, because of the waxing and waning of the glaciers there. “Michigan was under ice when mammoths were the only elephants on the landscape,” Widga says, the elephants grazing the cold grasslands south of the great ice sheets. “By the time the ice melted, mastodons were out-competing mammoths.” The occurrence of even one more mammoth is reason to celebrate. “Even though this is just one site on the landscape, we’ve gotten better about eking out as much information as we can about individual animals,” Widga says, citing Fisher’s work on figuring out the life histories of particular mammoths through details preserves in their tusks. What Killed the Mammoth? Other experts are urging caution before chalking the new mammoth up as an Ice Age kill site. “It is fairly common to find mastodons and less commonly, mammoths, in lake or bog sediments dating to this time period,” Widga says. In the absence of other lines of evidence such as cut marks on bones, there are other explanations for scattered elephant skeletons in the remnants of ancient lakes and bogs throughout the Midwest, such as the way bodies “blot and float” before gradually falling apart. “We can’t truly evaluate it until it is adequately investigated and published,” he adds. View Images Farmers recently uncovered the remains of a woolly mammoth in a Chelsea, Michigan, soy field. Here, the skull is lifted onto a trailer for transport, with straps and ties to secure to cracks in the tusks. Photograph by Melanie Maxwell, The Ann Arbor News, Associated Press Definitive evidence that humans hunted or scavenged mammoths is fairly rare, says University of Washington zooarchaeologist Donald Grayson. In a paper released earlier this year with Southern Methodist University colleague David Meltzer, Grayson notes that of 76 proposed Ice Age mammal kill sites, only 12 in the whole of North America suggest human hunting. That, the authors write, suggests that humans were not the primary drivers of North America’s Ice Age extinctions. Climate may have been key to the recent catastrophe. At the same time humans were moving onto the continent, the global climate was rapidly changing, moving from cold and dry to warm and wet. This changing climate rapidly winnowed away the cool, arid grasslands that woolly mammoths preferred. Combined with other ecological changes, such as the arrival of bison from Eurasia and forests springing up where “mammoth steppe” once spread, mammoths were squeezed out of their former range. The very last of the woolly mammoths, isolated on Wrangel Island off northern Siberia, perished about 4,000 years ago. Extinction is rarely the outcome of a single cause, however, and the reason the last member of a species went extinct may not be the same reason that it became vulnerable in the first place. Perhaps, as the Chelsea mammoth slowly yields its secrets, it will add a little more to the continuing discussion over life and death at the edge of the Ice Age.

DRINK-DRIVERS have been banished from Victorian roads at a rate of almost 50 a day during a major police blitz. Acting Chief Commissioner Kieran Walshe said he was disappointed 2610 people lost their licences for exceeding their alcohol limit during operation Summer Stay. “The behaviour of each one of these drivers could have resulted in a tragedy,” Mr Walshe said. More than 1.1 million people were breath-tested during Summer Stay, which ran for 52 days until midnight Sunday. The highest number of drink-drivers was caught on the Mornington Peninsula, where 88 people lost their licences. A Victoria Police spokeswoman said there had for a long time been a “cultural” problem with drink-driving in the area. The next worst places were Yarra Ranges with 85, Dandenong with 62 and Stonnington with 61. Mr Walshe said the drink-drive test rate of one positive per 432 motorists was poor but an improvement on the one in 332 from last year. “This shows that even more motorists are becoming well and truly aware of the dangers of drink driving and are making the right choice by not risking their lives and the lives of others,” he said. Summer Stay also detected 397 drug-drivers, 4510 disqualified and unlicensed drivers, 3584 seatbelt breaches, 23050 speeding offences and 5734 breaches of mobile phone laws. Police said 433 cars were impounded. Transport Accident Commission chief executive officer Janet Dore said the rate of speeding detected during Summer Stay was a “disgrace”. “These people should really count themselves lucky that they have only been handed a fine and haven’t killed someone,” Ms Dore said. Ninety Victorians died in road accidents linked to speeding last year. “To learn that more than 23,000 drivers have put their lives and their passengers’ lives at risk by driving too fast was incredibly disappointing, and something that our community should be ashamed of,” Ms Dore said. Mr Walshe said he found the seat-belt figure astounding. “There is nothing more frustrating for police than attending a fatal collision where we know that a person would have sustained only minor injuries should they have been wearing their seatbelt,” he said. Originally published as 50 drink-drivers lose licences a day

Link to Soundcloud Info & tracklist Tunnel [Webuildmachines – Chicago, US] https://soundcloud.com/tun-nel www.facebook.com/tunnel.into.mind www.facebook.com/webuildmachines Tunnel has been honing and crafting his own unique sound since 2006. With an emphasis on broken rhythms and unconventional sound design, Tunnel is best described as a sound sculptor. His compositional forms and structure combine elements of ambient, idm, drone, sub bass, and techno into a sonic tapestry, resting somewhere between fervor and séance, chaos and artistry. First Hour: DJ Shiva 01. John Heckle – Collective Intelligence [Lunar Disko] 02. Bjarki – Revolution [Trip] 03. TWR72 – Acrylic [Planet Rhythm] 04. Insolate – Werk [Deeply Rooted] 05. Exium – True Forces [Detroit Underground] 06. Ixel – Octan [Wall] 07. Mr. Jones – Continuous Sounds [The Public Stand] 08. XVX – XVX1 [MFM] 09. Progression – Omnipotent 3 [Blueprint LTD] 10. Niereich – Sq#7 Babylon [nonlinear systems] 11. Callum Plant & Carlo Ribeiro – Demand [DEADCERT] 12. Luis Flores – Negative Pressure [Droid] 13. Doka – Ask (Aiken Remix) [Wolfskuil] 14. Markus Suckut – Watching The Sunset I [Be As One] Second Hour: Tunnel 01. Tunnel – Following Her Lead – Unreleased 02. Tunnel – Personal Truths – Unreleased 03. Tunnel – Heads Down, Hands Up – Unreleased 04. Tunnel – Ascender – Webuildmachines 05. Tunnel – Silence is Our Canvas – Unreleased 06. Dorian Gray – Sci 3.0 – Webuildmachines 07. Dorian Gray – Serenity Journey – Webuildmachines 08. Tunnel – Searching to Find – Coum Records 09. Tunnel – Seance Two – Rheostatus 10. Tunnel – Aven – Webuildmachines 11. Tunnel – The Cure (Dez Remix) – Webuildmachines 12. Tunnel – The Fever (Henneke Remix) – Webuildmachines 13. Andreas Florin – Trip to Chicago – Webuildmachines 14. Dorian Gray – Temporal Transmission – Webuildmachines 15. Tunnel – Discovery of Unknown Origin – Coum Records

A leadership and corporate culture change project in the new year will be aimed at making City of Nanaimo staff feel more comfortable and empowered in the workplace. (NEWS BULLETIN file) The City of Nanaimo wants to transform a virulent workplace culture into a positive environment. Last week, the city issued a request for proposal seeking a private firm to provide 60 senior managers with training and coaching services as part of a leadership and corporate culture change project, a new initiative aimed at making staff feel more comfortable and empowered in the workplace. Tracy Samra, the city’s chief administrative officer, said there is a “culture of fear” that exists among senior managers and attributes some of it to ongoing conflict between council and staff, adding that it needs to change. She said she’s focused a lot of her time and energy on council and city operations and not enough time on senior management. “I need to do more to support my senior management and to demonstrate that I support the people that work for this city,” she said. “I haven’t done enough of that and I heard that message loud and clear.” Samra said she’s made a commitment to keep senior managers updated more often about decisions through regular communication. She said she wants to create a safe place for all senior managers to be able to come forward and address issues and concerns with her, adding that the recent boycott of the city’s Christmas luncheon by CUPE workers completely caught her off-guard. “I was blind to the boycott,” she said. “All of my effort and energy has been on council and on dealing with operations [and] I have not spent the time that I should have spent getting to know my leadership team, let alone management and the rest of staff.” The leadership and culture project will be rolled out in three phases over a 12-month period beginning in late January and is anticipated to cost around $75,000, according to Samra, who said the goal is to eliminate fear, foster a healthier work environment, provide management with the training needed to be able to take on greater leadership roles and improve communication. The RFP comes after the city issued a press release in October indicating that it was going ahead with a new professional development initiative after receiving approval from council. Samra said she had found someone from Vancouver Island University to carry out the initiative, but later decided to open the bidding up to everyone. Samra explained that it’s her understanding that city employees are fearful of communicating with her or disagreeing with her on operational decisions, adding that she doesn’t want that to be the case. “Staff have to be able to feel comfortable to come to me and say, ‘Tracy, I don’t agree with your approach you are taking here and you need to consider these things,’” she said. Samra said it’s important to create an environment where council can question staff members, who, in turn, must be able to feel comfortable enough to explain their decisions and rationale without being criticized. She said staff have also been negatively impacted by years of power struggles between various factions of council and senior management and that staff are afraid of what they perceive to be public criticism from councillors. “Part of the situation that we find ourselves in is that lack of leadership … within council and that conflict has absolutely impacted my ability to be CAO and we see two years down the road that it has spilled out negatively and impacted staff,” she said. Nanaimo Mayor Bill McKay told the News Bulletin that he welcomes leadership coaching at all levels and that criticism of city staff members by councillors shouldn’t happen, adding that understands if staff members feel like they’re being cross-examined by council at times. “Council should never be going after staff for anything,” he said. McKay says there is absolutely no doubt in his mind that the ongoing rift between certain members of council has had a negative impact on city staff. “When members of staff don’t want to bring things in front of council, that is not a good place to be and I would sure like to change that, but it takes all nine members to do that,” he said. Samra said she believes the leadership and culture change project will produce results. She said staff members will be able to come up with their own ideas throughout the project to improve the working environment. “I think that this program will help city staff be empowered and feel safe to take leadership roles that will make a difference to our organization and our community,” she said. nicholas.pescod@nanaimobulletin.com Like us on Facebook or follow Nicholas Pescod on Twitter

When the first Air Jordan pack was released it was not warmly welcomed by some, rather critics were busy throwing negative things against it. Well that was some two decades ago and that attitude was overwhelmed when the next pair was introduced, and today the Air Jordan 1 is still making a business with people who are open-minded. And while in the subject of being open-minded, a big commendation should be awarded to Jordan Brand for reinventing its premier pack into something that jives with the latest trend. As the 2012 London Olympic Games is fast approaching, so is the quick reply of JB to all Olympic Games-inspired sneakers using the Air Jordan1 High. This pack is loaded with two color-ups ““ one is made up of navy canvas upper with white Swoosh, tonal ankle strap with red stripe, Jordan Wings logo, red laces, and white/red sole unit. On the other hand, the white pair wears patent upper sporting navy and white hints. This Air Jordan 1 High dubbed as “Premier Pack”™ is a true representation of the upcoming 2012 London Olympic Games. Get your size now at Rock City Kicks. Purchase your own pair now! Buy now!

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here. This is Janice, co-founder of 5 Minutes for Mom, with tips on studying and how to take notes from a textbook. This post is part of a sponsored campaign with Post-it Brand, but my enthusiasm, opinions, and decades of dependence on Post-it Notes are my own. Quick — what is the last thing you remember reading in a textbook? Exactly. Recalling what we read in textbooks is not easy, especially when the pressure is on. But for students, textbooks are a necessary evil. How To Take Notes From A Textbook So how can students most effectively and efficiently consume, understand, and remember the information they need from their textbooks? Here are seven tips to help students tackle their textbooks: 1. Read Actively Whatever you do, do not curl up with your textbook on a cozy couch next to a roaring fire. You may have a comfortable afternoon, (and very likely a lovely nap) but you won’t remember much from your reading. The key to reading your textbooks is to read ACTIVELY. You need to DIGEST the material, with your mind engaged and processing what you are reading. Not only do you need to stay awake while you read, but you need to be ready to learn. Keep your energy up — get up and walk, run, dance every couple hours or whenever you start to feel sleepy. Keep a pen in your hand — keep your brain engaged and your body in an active position while you read Keep Post-it Notes ready — have Post-it Notes available for marking pages and highlighting passages 2. Write as you Read The most important part of reading actively is writing. Taking notes while reading textbooks is not only important for creating study notes, but it increases memorization and information retention. Focus on key concepts, definitions, outlines, etc. Don’t copy entire sentences and ensure that you truly understand what you are writing down. 3. Highlight Key Sections For textbooks that you will be able to return to for studying or preparing papers, you do not want to write down full passages. Instead, mark them for future reference. If you can’t mark up or write in the book, make sure you have Post-it Notes handy so you can highlight or mark key facts or passages without damaging the book. The new line of Notes, Notebook Kits, Flags, and Tabs all work together to help you stay organized on the go, find the important stuff fast and review key information. You can use Post-it Study Arrow Flags to point out important facts, Post-it Study Message Flags to remind you of things to study, to do, and things on the test, and Post-it Study Notes, Study Note Tabs, or Study Grid Notes to write notes, graphs, or reminders directly in your textbook. 4. Mark Pages with Tabs When I was a student, a couple of decades ago, we used to tear up Post-it Notes to make smaller pagemarkers and flags and our books would be covered in our torn up pieces of Post-it Notes. Fortunately, nowadays, Post-it Brand has a huge variety of Post-it Study Pagemakers, Tabs, and Flags. You can write directly on them and color code to your heart’s content. Get crazy. Go bright. Have fun. And most of all, find your page! 5. Keep a Running List of Questions While you are reading, keep a list of questions you need answered. You may want to keep one list of questions to ask your teacher or professor and another for questions you want to research on your own. Post-it Study Super Sticky Notes and Full Adhesive Notes are perfect for those critical lists you need to stay put and not lose. The Post-it Study Note Tabs are great for both marking a page and adding notes and questions within the textbook. 6. Make a Cheat Sheet In addition to your full set of study notes, it is usually a good idea to create a cheat sheet of key definitions, equations, dates, etc. This “make or break it” list is perfect for that last minute brain refresher before test time, but more importantly, writing down these key facts will cement them in your memory. 7. Jot Down a To Do List Having random to-do items bouncing around in your head while you are studying is not only distracting, but chances are you won’t remember them after you finish studying. Keep Post-it Study Super Sticky Notes or Full Adhesive Notes on your textbook or notebook so when a thought passes through your mind, you can quickly write it down and stay focused on your studying. I hope these tips help and your study time is active, productive, and colorful too. More Study Tips Get more study tips in our previous post, How to Organize School Binders. Written by Janice Croze, co-founder of 5 Minutes for Mom Talk with me: @5minutesformom and Facebook.com/5minutesformom Pin with me at http://pinterest.com/5minutesformom/

China has refuted claims that troops in the country’s south are preparing for war over a territorial dispute with the Philippines. However growing warmongering rhetoric in the Chinese media is heightening tensions in the region. The row centers on tiny islands in the South China Sea which are believed to sit on massive oil and gas reserves. "The reports alleging that the PLA Guangzhou Military Area Command and the Navy's South China Sea Fleet have entered combat readiness are not true,"the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on its website on Friday. Despite the government statement there have been online reports that China ordered troops in the Guangzhou region to the second highest level of combat readiness. The long-standing maritime dispute over the Scarborough Shoal came to a counterpoint when Filipino authorities attempted to arrest the crew of Chinese fishing vessels in the area. The Chinese government has accused the Philippines of wantonly escalating the situation, Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying branding the government’s stance as a “serious mistake.” Chinese media have emphasized the government’s readiness to respond to anything the Filipino side does on the issue. An article written by Zhou Erquan, an associate professor at the College of the Air Force Command published in China Economy called on the government to attack the Philippines “otherwise they will not awaken.” China claims sovereignty over what it calls Huangyan Island as its historical right, and accuses the Philippines of consistently rattling the saber. Manila insists the island falls under its jurisdiction as it lies within its exclusive economic zone. Over 300 protesters rallied in front of the Beijing consulate in Manila on Friday, drawing the Chinese government’s ire. Activists waved flags and banners, protesting what they called Chinese intrusions into the Philippines’ territory. Protesters holding placards and shouting anti-China slogans march towards the Chinese consulate at a rally in the financial district of Manila on May 11, 2012 (AFP Photo / Ted Aljibe) Protesters holding placards and shouting anti-China slogans march towards the Chinese consulate at a rally in the financial district of Manila on May 11, 2012 (AFP Photo / Ted Aljibe) The protests were immediately condemned by the Chinese government that labeled them provocations, accusing the Filipino government of encouraging anti-Chinese sentiment. The Filipino authorities refuted this, saying the protest was down “to private citizens who feel out of patriotism that they have to speak on the issue.” China has also pointed the finger at the US, claiming that the country’s increased presence in the region has given the Philippines the confidence to confront Beijing. “The US’ shift in strategic focus to the east and its entry into the South China Sea issue has provided the Philippines with room for strategic maneuver, and to a certain extent increased the Philippines’ chips to play against us, emboldening them to take a risky course,” said state media outlet Liberation Army Daily. The US began military drills in conjunction with the Filipino army in April in what has been interpreted by many analysts as a direct provocation to Chinese sovereignty. Rival claims on regions of the South China Sea from Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia have made the territory a major flashpoint in Asia. Beijing claims sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea and is likely to take decisive action so as not to lose face.

Heavy snow and high winds have created blizzard conditions in northwest Indiana. Lake County, Indiana declared a state of emergency with only emergency and law enforcement vehicles allowed on the roads. Heavy snow continues in northwest parts of the state where snowfall has exceeded one foot in many location. Near blizzard conditions are occurring in many areas with low visibility and much blowing and drifting snow due to the strong winds. Some motorists attempted to navigate through unplowed roads in near-whiteout conditions. Still, others were helping neighbors and strangers with shovels. The Indiana Dept of Transportation and the Indiana State Police have determined the following interstates are impassable the result of the ongoing winter snow storm: • I-65 north and southbound from State Road 26 (172 mile marker) to U.S. 30 (253 mile marker); and • I-80/94 east and westbound from U.S. 421 (34 mile marker) to the Illinois State Line (0 mile marker) Governor Mike Pence has authorized all state government offices to remain closed on Monday. Essential personnel will report to work to ensure public safety and critical services are available. “We want to ensure that our employees are safe and that Hoosiers have access to critical public services,” said Governor Pence said in a statement. “I am limiting the number of employees who must report to work on Monday to help keep people off the roads and out of the extreme cold, even while we make sure that Hoosiers have access to necessary government services.” WEATHER UPDATES AT CHICAGO WEATHER CENTER BLOG

Robots greet Westfield mall shoppers in San Francisco, San Jose Video: Robot at Westfield mall video Robots have invaded two Bay Area shopping malls just in time for the holidays. But they’re friendly robots programmed to dance, play games, take selfies and teach six languages. No, the human-like robots — all named Pepper — won’t be replacing flesh-and-blood sales clerks any time soon. But the Westfield shopping center chain is using its San Francisco Centre and Valley Fair malls to test whether the robots can make shopping more enjoyable. In fact, Pepper, created by the robotics arm of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, will conduct brief surveys about whether shoppers are having a good or bad experience. “Pepper is kind of a unique way of getting some of that information,” said Steve Carlin, vice president and general manager for SoftBank Robotics America. Paul Bartholomew interacts with the robot Pepper at the Westfield SF Centre on Tuesday in San Francisco. Paul Bartholomew interacts with the robot Pepper at the Westfield SF Centre on Tuesday in San Francisco. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Robots greet Westfield mall shoppers in San Francisco, San Jose 1 / 10 Back to Gallery Widely incorporated into industrial and manufacturing plants, robots are making their way into retail settings to interact with customers. The Lowe’s home improvement chain, for example, is using its LoweBot customer service robot in Bay Area outlets. Suitable Technologies of Palo Alto has abandoned the idea of having human clerks on site altogether; instead the 2-year-old store, which sells robots that display a human face on their monitor, is staffed remotely by clerks whose faces appear on their robots’ screens. Westfield is leasing three Peppers for its downtown San Francisco Centre and two more for its Valley Fair mall in San Jose. ”Welcome to Westfield,” one Pepper said in an electronic robot voice as shoppers walked under the San Francisco mall’s historic dome. Shawn Pauli, senior vice president of Westfield Property Group, said that if the test proves to be a success, he wants to use permanent Peppers in the World Trade Center mall in New York City and the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J. SoftBank introduced Pepper in 2014 in Japan, and has been utilizing the robots as brand ambassadors in hotels and retailers in that country and in Europe, as well as on the Costa cruise ship line. But this is Pepper’s first major long-term engagement in North America, Carlin said. Pepper looks somewhat like a love child between C-3PO from “Star Wars” and cartoon star Casper the Friendly Ghost. The all-white, 4-foot tall robot has a round head and child-like electronic eyes, with arms that gesture as its speaks. On its chest is a tablet-size video screen that displays a menu of options, such as a card-matching game, how to say hello in six languages and that customer service survey. By later this week, Pepper will be programmed to show customers how to find individual stores. “It’s approachable, not intimidating, with a humanoid face but not too human, engaging but not off-putting,” Carlin said. Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny

Welcome back to another exciting chapter of The Fate In Our Starsze. Last chapter was focused on our founder’s first date with Mya Ricci. All I have to say is, she’s lucky Logan seems to like her so much because I was not at all impressed by her public snubbary at the library on his very first day in town. I suppose her red hair also makes it a bit more easy for me to overlook. Her dance skills however cannot be overlooked. I kid you not…….she is dancing. Logan, being a gentleman, just smiles and plays along trying to copy her moves like they are actually real moves or something. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase dance like no one is watching! All jokes aside they had such a good time on their date Logan decided to ask Mya to meet him back at his place later that evening. It was about now that I started wondering why I didn’t get any pop ups letting me know if I earned any medals for the dates they have been on. While I plan to wait for a popularity Sim to try earning gold medals for all party types I went through a lot of effort on these dates and wanted gold medals to go toward my score. Finally, I realized that my notification wall was full. I falsely assumed that hitting x cleared them out but it couldn’t be that easy now could it? Lesson of the day folks, pay attention to your notification wall. Mya arrived later that evening as planned and things started heating up before she ever stepped foot on our still very bare lot. With no one else around but a half empty chip bowl Logan decided to show his new beloved how deeply he had fallen for her. Half Empty Chip Bowl “Bow chicka wow wow!” A good time was had by all 🙂 The following morning Logan woke up bright and early to work on his dream of becoming Chief of Mischief. The requirements to get to the second set of goals were rather high in my opinion. He had to do 20 mischievous or mean interactions, be disliked by 3 Sims, and earn some skill points in mischief. He was so excited to get started he didn’t even bother changing out of his jammies. Jenny from the gym was the perfect victim and as luck would have it, she happened to be strolling right past the legacy lot. Logan “Oh hey there Jenny, fancy meeting you out here!” Jenny “Ugh, what do you want?” Logan “Well, I just wanted to let you know you won’t be seeing me for a while on account of me blasting off into space today and all.” Jenny “YOU are an astronaut?” Logan “No, but if I told you about my real job as a criminal mastermind I would then have to plot your untimely death and I do hate to get my hands dirty before breakfast.” Jenny “You’re crazy, you know that?” Logan “Oh yeah?” Jenny “Yeah!” Logan “Well at least my mother wasn’t a llama! That’s right! Your mother is nothing but a big, ugly, hairy llama with a big fat butt all traits she passed right down to you!” Jenny “I am SO out of here!” Logan “So sorry about your wife mister.” Elderly Cowboy Townie (who isn’t important so I forgot his name) “You know my Bessie?” Logan “No sir I don’t but it looks like Don Lothario sure does! I’ve seen her sneaking in his bedroom window every morning this week right after Ms. Caliente leaves for work.” Elderly Cowboy Townie “Sob!” The fake look of concern is just the icing on the cake. Let’s just leave this guy be before you give the poor man a heart attack. After a fun day of mischief and mayhem sprinkled with another promotion (which explains the new desk) Mya stops by for a visit. I am finding the chemistry between these two to be rather unique. They really aren’t one of those couples that you look at and just think lust and sex appeal. They are really quite different in personality and traits but I think that is what makes them work. When Mya is around, Logan can’t wipe that boyish grin off his face and Mya always has that look in her eye that says is he going to kiss me or attack me with the hand buzzer? He keeps her guessing, she never knows what to expect and that intrigues her. Logan could probably fit in with a classroom full of four year olds which is a stark contrast to Mya’s smart and sophisticated persona. After watching them interact over the span of several sim days I just can’t see my Logan founding his legacy with anyone else. We all know the life of a Legacy wife is not for the feint of heart, and both Logan and his almighty watcher think she’s up for the challenge. (Please ignore the white mini plumbob thing ruining one of the biggest moments in my Legacy. As if the regular plumbobs are not annoying enough to work around they go and add in another.) Logan “Knock Knock!” Mya “Who’s there?” Logan “Marry.” Mya “Marry Who?” Logan “Marry me?” Growing up Mya had always fantasized about this moment. A whirlwind romance ending in the perfect proposal. Her dreams had never included being asked for her hand in the form of a knock knock joke but the reality was greater than all of her fantasies combined. Of course she said yes! In true Legacy fashion they chose to wed immediately. Building a home was much more important than spending what little funds they had on a lavish ceremony. Logan wears his heart on his sleeve, the love and adoration for his bride are written all over his face. Mya is hoping the ring was paid for and not gained by nefarious deeds. By the power vested in me I now pronounce you husband and wife! Welcome to the family Mya! Mya “Ricci” Starsze is a snobby bookworm (who knew?) who will not stand for an untidy home. She aspires to be a freelance botanist which means she will be spending a lot of time gardening. I was also really excited to see that she and Logan are the exact same age! They will get to celebrate their adult and elderly birthdays at the same time! Tell me that isn’t fate! Following Pinstar’s new rules Mya did not bring in any money to the household so it will be a little bit longer before we have walls but with two breadwinners in the family we should be able to start something small soon. I now present to you Mya’s first official act as a Legacy Foundress! Don’t think I don’t see those shifty eyes missy! And then……this But all is forgiven because of this 🙂 Will the first child of the Legacy (and my 1st ever TS4 baby) be a boy or a girl? Which career will Mya choose? Will there be walls? All very important questions and they will be answered very soon but until then Happy Simming! Advertisements

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A Charlotte couple has a message for the nearly dozen passersby who stopped to help them while stranded on the side of Park Road: Thank you. Eddie and Mina Bell told NBC Charlotte they were on their way to church Sunday morning when their car's front right tire went flat. “Low and behold neither one of us had our cellphones. I stopped bringing my cellphone because sometimes in church it goes off, you know your Pandora or something. So I started leaving it at home,” said Eddie Bell. Eddie says that’s when a guy out walking his dog stopped to help. “And I asked him, 'can I use your cellphone?' You know, we wanted to call AAA. And he waited patiently because you know when you call AAA you have to tell them where you are and whatnot,” said Eddie. As Eddie and his wife stood on the sidewalk near their car, he said the kind acts of others kept pouring in. “A couple came up to us, they were on their way to church and the woman said, 'Well you want to come in, our church is right up the street. You want to come to church with us?' We said, 'Well, we’re waiting on AAA.'" But Eddie says the kindness didn’t stop there, estimating eight to 10 more cars had individually pulled over to make sure he and his wife were okay. Bell says even a man doing yard work at a home across the street stopped to help, not once-- but twice. “He came back and he said, 'Are you sure you don’t want any water? You want to get out of the sun? You can come in get out of the hot sun. We said, 'No we’re okay.'” Eddie says he and Mina were blown away by the kindness they were shown by strangers and wanted to share their story in hopes those strangers will know how much their gestures were appreciated. The Bells moved to Charlotte in 2013 from Upstate New York and say at first they were hesitant. “I’ve never lived in the South before,” said Eddie. He went to college at Tennessee State in the late-1950s during the height of segregation. Monday, Mina said she was grateful all of the strangers stopped to help their fellow man, regardless of color. “No matter where you live there are good people in the world, regardless of what color you are and this reinforced that living in the South is not as bad as some people might think it might be,” said Mina. Copyright 2016 WCNC

Update: It's been a long, leak-filled wait, but Apple finally took the wraps off its 3G iPhone. Thinner edges, full plastic back, flush headphone jack, and the iPhone 2.0 firmware -- Apple's taking a lot of the criticisms to heart from the first time around. Obviously 3G is at the forefront, but they're also making sure it's available all over internationally, works with enterprises, runs 3rd party apps... and does it all for cheaper. Apple claims its 3G speeds trounce the competition, with pageloads 36% faster than the N95 and Treo 750 -- and of course it completely trounces the old EDGE data speeds.Battery life isn't getting put out to pasture though, with 300 hours of standby, 8-10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 7 hours of video and 24 hours of audio. GPS is also a go. Apple is using A-GPS, which supplements regular satellite GPS data with info from cellular towers for faster location. (WiFi data is also worked into the mix, which should give users a pretty solid lock on where the heck they are on this planet.) Unfortunately, as expected there's no front-facing cam, and while its edges are thinner than before it's still about a millimeter thicker at the center (12.3mm over 11.6mm before). Apple hopes to launch in 70 countries this year, with the black 8GB going for $199 and 16GB for $299 in black or white. (Both price points require a contract, of course.) Apple will be hitting the 22 biggest markets , including the US, on July 11th. More info after the break.Just bought an iPhone? Listen up: "Customers who purchased a 2.5G iPhone on or after May 27 and want to swap it out for a new iPhone will be able to do so without incurring an additional handset charge for the new device. They will of course need to turn in their 2.5G iPhone." And for the rest of you, AT&T says there's no way to buy it without agreeing to a contract. So sorry. More details here We've got our hands-on impressions right here Our full iPhone 3G review can be found here!

Pearls on a String Volume 2 Chapter 24: Vigilantes Somewhere Over Atlas Monday Night Unlike their flight from Beacon, the trip from the Schnee Manor to Malachite's base was fairly short. Their new ally, Frost Schnee, wasn't in much of a talkative mood, which was understandable considering the revelation she'd just received. "So, her brother actually murdered their grandfather, just to take over the company early?" Beryl murmured to her girlfriend sitting next to her. Evie nodded somberly. "Seems that way, sweetie." "That's just so… awful. How could someone do that?" "Oh, Beryl," the Cat Faunus sighed affectionately. "Even with everything going on, it's hard for you to see the bad in people, isn't it?" The blue-haired girl shrugged slightly as she snuggled tighter into Evie's embrace. "I dunno… it's just hard to wrap my head around. Malachite, sure, he's away from the public eye and everything. But this Damian guy? He was running the whole company, right out in the open after what he did!" She sighed softly. "I just don't get it." Evie leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. "There's a lot of bad people out there," she whispered. "Not all monsters are Grimm. But that's why we're training to do what we do, right?" "Yeah... You know I love you, right?" "And I you, sweetie. More than anything on the face of Remnant." They glanced up as Pip moved from the cockpit and into the flight deck, sealing the door behind her. "Okay, listen up everyone. They're gonna have to go refuel in Atlas after they drop us off. It's possible that they might get word about our… indiscretion while there and won't be coming back for us for awhile." "Indiscretion?" Frost asked curiously. Pip gave her a sheepish grin, touching the tips of her forefingers together. "Welllll… We might have kinda sorta skipped over the fact that we never got permission for this little outing…" The white-haired huntress blinked her eyes slowly. "So… this is an unauthorized mission?" "Um, yeah. Pretty much." She turned to gaze briefly out of the window before turning back with a firm nod of her head. "Not any longer. I'm authorizing it. One moment, please." She stood up and opened the door to the cockpit again, speaking intently with the pilot. "Can I just say again, I'm so glad Lustre talked to her before Pip went all primal on her ass?" Evie quipped. Pip rolled her eyes humorously. "Yeah, yeah, rub it in… But yes, thank you Lustre." The silver-haired girl in question inclined her head gracefully. "Of course. Always happy to be the voice of calm reason within the team." Pip glanced at the others wryly. "Why does it vaguely feel like the rest of us were just insulted?" "You are imagining things, dear," Lustre smirked. Frost poked her head back out. "Alright, let's get ready. Almost to the drop-off point." The four team members nodded and stood, strapping on their gear. "Why do I feel as if we've been doing this an awful lot lately?" the lanky blonde quipped. "Probably because we have," Evie laughed. "This will be our third drop in two days. Oh, and our fourth battle." "Yep," Beryl grinned. "We're badasses." "Undoubtedly," Lustre added. "Pity we can't get extra credit for any of this." "Babe," their team leader laughed. "We'll be lucky if we don't all get suspended after this is over with…" Frost looked at the four girls, somewhat baffled at their easygoing demeanor before dropping into a combat situation, but shook her head and turned back to open the side door. "We are coming in quite low," she yelled over the wind. "Yeah, that's so that Pip doesn't hurt herself," Beryl yelled back. "She's such a delicate flower and all." Pip rolled her eyes. Fortunately they'd had a brief moment on the way to the Bulldog to explain her current situation, so that Frost was aware of her reduced combat capabilities. And then they were soaring in over a clearing much like the others they'd infiltrated, though this one had a much larger steel door set into a small building, camouflaged from above by netting. Wordlessly, the five of them dropped out of the transport and hit the ground running. The double-wide doors were unlocked, and revealed a deserted room that had only a single platform with a control unit on it. "Cargo elevator," Frost confirmed. "Let's get on and get inside. It won't be long before we're discovered." They assumed defensive positions while the huntress began lowering the platform down. It moved through the darkness at a languid pace, made all the more nerve-wracking by the lack of any other sound aside from the machinery. "Whelp," Beryl joked. "At least there's no elevator music." "Thank Oum for small favors," Pip muttered. The elevator came to rest in another room, this one wide and cavernous, almost like a warehouse. Crates and boxes were scattered about, with only another double-wide door to the far side exiting the chamber. The five of them headed forward steadily, looking around for threats in the dark recesses and shadows of the room. Beryl paused halfway, her eyes straining as she peered back the way they had come. "Sweetie?" Evie whispered, stopping by her side. "I think… I saw something move," the blue-haired girl whispered, hefting Dahl in her hand. The others had reached the door and stopped, looking back at the other two. "Coming?" Pip whispered harshly. "Yeah, I…" Suddenly Beryl rammed her shoulder into Evie, knocking her sideways as a blur of darkness, tinged on the edges by a white nimbus, flashed by where the Cat Faunus had stood. She caught the claws on her shield, managing to deflect the enhanced Beowolf as it sped back off into the darkness. Pip and Lustre had their guns to their shoulders, searching for targets. "Where'd it go?" the blonde asked worriedly. "Not sure," Beryl murmured. "Dammit. We can't leave it behind us to hit our backs…" "We should keep moving," Frost stated levelly. "It won't be long before more guardians are called down on our heads." "Go on," Beryl replied over her shoulder. "Evie and I got this, we'll catch up with you." "Beryl, are you sure?" "Go, Pip!" With a growl of frustration, Pip slammed the door open and hurtled herself through. The handful of unfortunate android guards there were quickly disposed of, thanks to Lustre's staff, her sword, and Frost's rapier. The sounds of their departure soon faded, leaving the couple alone in the dim cavernous room. "How long do we wait?" Evie whispered. "Until we give up and follow? I say another minute," Beryl explained. "That Beowolf won't stay hidden for much-" She cut off as the double doors slammed shut with a loud boom. "Yeah, okay," the small girl muttered. "Suddenly not looking like such a great idea after all." "What was your first clue?" a light, mocking voice called out from the darkness. "Who's there?" Evie demanded, Dao held out in readiness as she spun around. "Really? That's your first question? How cliche." The melodic giggling might have been considered charming were it not coming from seemingly everywhere, echoing off of the rafters and walls. "Oookaaayyy…" Beryl drawled. "Creepy girl is creepy." "You think I'm creepy?" the voice sounded again, the pout coming through audibly. "I'm hurt. Just for that, you get to play with my pets now." "Pets?" Beryl asked, glancing over at Evie. "Um, yep." The Cat Faunus gestured around them with her scimitar in a wide sweeping pattern. "Pets." All around them, subtly glowing shadows formed. Many, many figures as they crowded in at the edge of light. "That is a whole lot of pets," Beryl murmured. The pair readied their weapons, faces set determinedly. "Got my back, beautiful?" the blue-haired girl quipped. "Always, gorgeous," Evie snarked back. o o o "I don't like leaving them behind," Pip panted as they raced along the corridor. "Neither do I," Lustre replied calmly. "But they can handle themselves. And our mission is of import." "Yeah, but-" "I understand, dear," the silver-haired girl interrupted gently. "I worry for them too. But we must stop this madman." "Right." The blonde sighed, clutching her sword tighter in her grip. "Frost, where do those plans say to go next?" They'd come across a small security station where they quickly overcame several sentient and android guards. The huntress had deftly interfaced with the console there and pulled up the floor plans for the facility. Unfortunately, she was also able to determine that the entire complex was already aware of their presence. "Straight down this corridor, then the first door on the right. In that room, the door just to the left will lead to another very long hallway, which after a couple of turns will take us to the main control room." Frost glanced over her shoulder, Myrtenaster held firmly in her grip. "No sign of pursuit so far." "Alright," the blond mumbled to herself. "First door on the… Aha! On the right!" Barely hesitating, she slammed her shoulder into the door and rolled into the room, both Lustre and Frost on her heels, only to come up short and stare incredulously. "Oh, are you serious right now?" Pip exclaimed. Standing calmly in the middle of the large open room, the size of a basketball court, was Leech, regarding the trio with barely restrained eagerness in his stance. "Just… Argh!" the blonde screamed in frustration, stomping around in a circle. "Fucking… Fuck! Fuckity fuck fuck! Fuck!" "That," Lustre murmured, "was an inordinate amount of 'fucks'." "I take it the two of you have already faced Leech?" Frost asked calmly, her ice-blue eyes never leaving the gangly man. "Yes, we have," Lustre replied over the sound of continued cursing from her leader. "It did not end well, and that was with the four of us." "I see." Frost inclined her head towards Leech, who returned it in kind. "Very well. You two proceed. I will deal with him." Pip stopped in her ranting to regard the huntress skeptically. "Are you sure? He's, like, freaky-fast, and with that aura draining of his…" "I am aware of his capabilities," the white-haired woman replied with a small smirk. "In my duties as a bodyguard, I made sure to assemble profiles on all of Malachite's henchmen." "Oh. Well, then." Pip and Lustre shared a helpless glance. "Just go," Frost repeated. "Take care of things and I shall follow once I am done." "Alright. Good luck, Frost," Pip murmured. "Try not to die, okay?" Frost shot her a tight grin as she held her rapier up in a guard position. "I shall do my best not to." With that, the other pair raced through the door and down the hallway towards where they hoped to find Malachite. Frost turned back towards Leech. "Shall we?" she invited courteously. o o o They'd gotten turned around a few times, and ran into more than their fair share of android guards, but soon enough Pip and Lustre entered into a large, circular chamber that was a good twelve feet high. Across the walls were several large monitors, all showing scenes from around Remnant of Grimm attacking villages and towns, of hunters fighting and dying to defend the people. Curiously most of the video feeds seemed to be from the perspective of the Grimm themselves. To the side of the room was a long glass window that showed an attached room. It seemed to contain controls and communications and the like, with a small door adjacent to the window. And then, set into the back of the main room, was a single heavy metal door that seemed fairly familiar to the pair. "That look like the door to his study, back in Vacuo?" Pip murmured. "It does indeed," Lustre replied just as quietly. "Do we enter, or wait here?" At that, the door opened on noiseless hinges to reveal the broad-shouldered, bearded man they'd come to find. His black three-piece suit was immaculate, and he tapped his cane at his feet as he came to a halt just outside of the door. "Whelp, that answers that," the blonde breathed, trying not to show her nervousness. "Back so soon?" Malachite asked, his pale green eyes glittering dangerously. "I would think you'd still be running, child." "Well, yeah, I've always been a slow learner," Pip snarked. "Glutton for punishment and all that." "I see. And you brought your friend with you, how marvelous." The suited man leered at Lustre. "I look forward to seeing what the procedure will do with you." "I shall pass," Lustre replied grimly. "We are here to stop you." "Stop me?" Malachite laughed heartedly. "Really? Oh, how very cute. Don't you know who I am?" Pip snorted, gripping Odachi Dahlia tighter. "Just another asshole with delusions of grandeur." "And a psychotic one, at that," Lustre added. "Psychotic?" Malachite grinned widely, showing entirely too many teeth. "That is a three syllable word for any thought too big for little minds. What I am… is a visionary. I will bend this entire world to my knees. Starting right here, right now, this will become my legacy. My dynasty!" "Yep," Pip intoned. "Crazy as fuck-all." Chuckling, the man leaned his cane against the wall behind him. "I don't expect you to understand." He removed his jacket, carefully folded it and set it on the floor. "Small minds never do." He began to roll his sleeves up, one at a time, all the while looking at the pair of girls with a manic glint to his eyes. "You lack vision. You lack clarity." He picked up his cane once more and faced them. "I must confess, it's been awhile since I've gotten my hands dirty, but I'm feeling positively effervescent today, my plans have gone so well. And so, you are in for a treat." He flicked the cane to the side, and it quickly transformed into a rather large, daunting obsidian greatsword larger than Pip's. "Before you die, of course." "Well, Grimmshit," Pip breathed. Lustre gave a wry nod. "Indeed." o o o Beryl and Evie had started out back to back, fending off the unending waves of speed-enhanced Beowolves, but eventually the shorter girl convinced her girlfriend to go on the offensive. "Use your mobility," she grunted, flinging another Grimm away with her shield. "It's the only way we're gonna whittle their numbers down." As an added bonus, by using her semblance to flicker around the room, Evie had managed to catch a glimpse of a petite figure, perhaps even shorter than Beryl and wearing dark colors. A flash of purple hair tied back in a ponytail was all she could catch as she tried to get close to the elusive girl before she'd have to dodge another attack from one or more of the Beowolves. "Oh come now," the lilting voice mocked from the darkness. "Surely you can do better than that, little lost huntresses?" Evie blinked to Beryl's side momentarily, breathing heavily. "She's really starting to piss me off," the Faunus growled quietly. "Don't let her get to you," Beryl advised, switching Dahl over to a carbine to snap a few quick shots off before reverting to a sword again. She thrust into the flank of a charging Grimm just as Evie slashed out and eviscerated another. "Concentrate on the Grimm, not her." Several bodies of the creatures were piled around them, disintegrating rapidly. "Also, I think these Beowolves work kinda like Lustre's semblance, quick bursts of speed, so try and catch them in between charges." "Giving up already little kitty cat?" the voice giggled. Evie let out an angry shout as she blasted a wave of concussive force out, knocking a few of the Beowolves sprawling. "I think she's controlling them somehow," she mentioned. "Yay, give the wannabe a prize!" "I'll give you a prize, you annoying little bitch," Evie growled. "Evie…" Beryl warned, but the Cat Faunus was already off, blinking across the room in a blur of motion. She leapt from the back of a Grimm after plunging her scimitar into its skull, dropping into a roll and coming up swinging, slicing through the legs of another. Before she could get pinned in place, the Faunus girl sent herself up and into the rafters to try for another glimpse of her irritating tormenter. She took a second to make sure Beryl was still holding her own, though just barely from what she could tell. The blue-haired girl was swinging around wildly, fending off attacks from all quarters with both her shield and sword. And then another Beowolf came soaring up at Evie, claws extended and mouth opened in a snarl. She leapt off of the rafter, springing straight at the Grimm to neatly bisect it before spinning around feet-first. A quick teleport took her onto the back of another Beowolf, slicing its head off. Evie landed in a roll, coming back to her feet and barely avoiding the blur of one of the beasts as it sped by. She felt the breeze of the claws as they passed overhead. "Evie, how're you doing, love?" "Getting tired," she admitted, starting to sprint back to her girlfriend. "Lemme guard your back and rest for a-" She was cut off as something grabbed hold of her foot, sending her sprawling face-down on the hard concrete floor. Flipping around, she angrily regarded what looked to be a whip that had encircled her ankle, Holding the other end was the smirking girl, her amethyst eyes twinkling viciously. "Why you little-" Once again her words were bit off, but this time by the yellow jolt of electricity that arced down the length of the whip, shocking her almost senseless. Still, she managed to kick the end of the whip off of her and stumble back to her feet. Just as she regained her footing, another dark blur raced by, but this time she was in no shape to avoid it. Evie was spun about, a spray of blood trailing from the gash now down the side of her face as a scream was torn from her throat. She landed hard on her side, unmoving. The tableau froze as if the entire room had paused to take its breath, but then the silence was shattered by a single anguished scream. "EVIE!" o o o Frost had to give Leech credit. He was quite the nimble opponent. She'd sparred with a number of hunters who were primarily hand-to-hand focused, but none had come close to the mastery that this man had. His armguards easily blocked even the strongest of her hits, also managing to absorb the ice shards she'd throw his way. The huntress flung her glyphs about with abandon, some to entangle him, some to bounce him around. He'd managed to avoid most of them, though she did toss up a pair that sent him into the air and then her spinning through the room to slice into his flank. Unfortunately, he managed to land a painful kick into her side at the same time, one which her aura just barely blocked but still left her ribs sore. She stood apart from him, clutching her side and panting lightly as he paced on the other side of the room. "Interesting arm guards of yours," she mentioned, stalling for time to build her aura back up. "Indeed, Aegis is the culmination of my life's work," the gaunt man replied. "You aren't spent already, are you?" "Of course not. Merely catching my breath." "Well, we can't have that now, can we?" With that he spun back onto the offensive, his limbs a whirl as tried to pin her down. Frost ducked and slid to the side, whipping Myrtenaster out to keep the dextrous man at bay, but her strike was easily caught by one of his armguards. The other hand came close enough to brush the sleeve of her jacket. "I must say," he continued while backing her up further with vicious kicks and palm strikes that she just barely managed to stay ahead of. "I'm pleased to finally have a worthy single opponent. Of course, you will still lose." "Don't count me out just yet," she growled, flinging another ice shard his way which he contemptuously batted aside. "Oh, I've killed far more skilled hunters than yourself, my dear Frost." He spun in place, one hand batting aside her rapier while he landed a solid kick against her sternum, sending her flying back. As she landed, he charged forward to press his advantage. Frost quickly threw a black glyph down right in his path to immobilise him, but he dismissed it with a simple swipe of an armguard. The shock of seeing one of her glyphs actually be broken caused her to hesitate, which allowed him to spin in close once more, this time kicking her rapier out of her grasp. Myrtenaster skidded across the floor as he loomed over her prone form with an arm outstretched. "And now," he grinned, the skin on his skeletal face pulling back hideously, "it's time to sleep, young one. Forever." o o o Only a few seconds into their fight, Pip and Lustre came to the realization that they were far outclassed. They had been able to land a number of hits against the burly man, but each one seemed to be effortlessly absorbed by him, shrugged off as no more than irritants. And then, as if he were building up that kinetic energy, he would pause in his own attacks to slam his giant sword into the ground, causing a shock wave that would send the two girls sprawling backwards. The first time that happened, Lustre was saved from certain decapitation only by her semblance, which allowed her to dart out of the way at literally the last second. After that they learned to quickly regain their equilibrium before he would be upon them again, swinging that massive sword with an agility that belied its size. Pip had, unfortunately, taken the brunt of his attacks as she was the slower target. Lustre would dash in with her staff spinning to deflect what she could, but even so she was feeling battered and bruised, her aura certainly approaching the red. The blonde gamely kept up her attacks, parrying what she could of the onslaught, but she was cognizant that this was a losing battle unless something changed. "This isn't working!" the blonde team leader called out to her teammate across the room. "I am open to suggestions!" Lustre replied heatedly before racing in once more to land another series of strikes against their imperturbable opponent. None of this is fazing him in the slightest! If only… If only I could access my semblance, maybe I could damage him with a strike from my sword when it's heated! It was no use, however. She'd taken her aura blocker earlier that morning, but still it was keeping her from her semblance. She was too tired and worn down from the lack of sleep and constant battling to even muster up the little heat she was able to with Damian Schnee. As she wracked her brain for a solution, she desperately ran in towards Malachite once more, only to be met by an unexpected slam of the man's sword. That close, she bore the brunt of it, and while Odachi Dahlia was sent careening towards the other side of the room, she sailed through the window in a flurry of shattered glass to slam into a console in the attached office. As the tinkling of falling glass subsided, Lustre circled Malachite warily, who let out a dark, soft chuckle as she did so, turning to keep her within his view. "You have no hope at all of defeating me, my dear child. I am a God." "No," she retorted levelly. "Merely a man. And I shall prove it." She moved in a blur, trying to knock his feet out from under him, but he was evidently expecting the attack and slammed his sword down once more. Lustre barely registered the shock of the unexpected blast, belatedly realizing that even though he had paced out the ground strikes that didn't mean that he needed to do so. The silver-haired girl flew backwards to slam into the concrete wall next to the entrance, stunned. Malachite chuckled wickedly as she slid to the ground, barely clinging to consciousness. "And now, dear child, I have such exquisite plans for you and my Subject Two Dash Two…" A/N: And yes, I leave you with not one, not two, but three cliffhangers! Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh… And all the more evil for only updating once a week or so now. I am sorry about that last bit, though. Just having too much fun with A Thorny Tangled Triangle… I'll see if I can't work on the next chapter over the weekend to keep you from too much suspense. (Who lives? Who dies? How will our heroines get out of this? Did anyone notice the badass weapon I gave Whisper?) Combat will wrap up the next chapter, after that a pair of aftermath-style chapters to tie things up to end Volume 2. And then, following a brief hiatus, we'll take the plunge into Volume 3! (Which, by the way, will be alluded to in Chapter 27.) Martin Hooper1: I read your PM about history repeating itself, and hoping for no loss of limbs… then I looked at what I had planned for Evie… and I just couldn't bring myself to answer you. So, sorry about that. And please don't hurt me. (Also, what is it with you people getting ahold of my story notes before I post the chapters?) I do hope Frost's appearance satisfies. And as far as the continuation of this story goes - by no means does it end after the next few chapters, just Volume 2 drawing to a close. I still have Volume 3 and Volume 4 planned out, so it's gonna be going for some time still… DustGremlin: Age of Ultron would be a good reference for a decent robot-scrapping. And yeah, I kinda planned on this being a non-issue with Frost, once she could see the error of her ways. Despite Pip's best efforts. Stay shiny!

Stan Kroenke remains steadfast in his belief that Arsène Wenger is the man to lead Arsenal into a new era of success and is ready to entrust his manager with the largest transfer budget in the club’s history. Wenger’s position has been the subject of renewed debate after a run of two points in three games has allowed Everton back into the race for a top-four finish but, ahead of Sunday’s pivotal trip to Goodison Park, Kroenke’s analysis of Arsenal is utterly unmoved. Kroenke, the majority owner, is convinced that the club have made very definite progress this season and is sympathetic to how Wenger has been forced to navigate this past month without as many as five of his usual starting team. There will be no pressure from Kroenke to overhaul a young squad that was top until February and is in the FA Cup semi-finals, but he will make transfer funds of around £100 million available for key signings, notably a striker and holding midfielder. Kroenke also remains relaxed about Wenger’s own future and, although some contingency thinking has been done, every plan is being made on the basis that Wenger will extend a contract that expires at the end of the season. Winning the FA Cup and securing another top-four finish would obviously make that decision more acceptable to fans but, at the level of the owner, there has been no wobble in his belief either in Wenger or the club’s wider strategy. With a series of new commercial deals adding around £40 million in yearly revenue from this summer, there is also confidence that Arsenal are now well-placed to challenge regularly to win the Premier League. Wenger himself had said that he would not break his word to stay although he did also add in that caveat that the situation was definite “unless I decide otherwise”. It all suggests that Wenger himself is likely to review the situation if Arsenal failed either to win a trophy or qualify for the Champions League. At dressing-room level, there is also little doubt about Wenger’s future, something that is underlined by how a series of key players have committed themselves to new contracts over recent months. “I don’t have any doubts about his future,” said goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny. “You have better days and you have worse days in this game. “The boss has been around for so long, had so much experience, I’m sure he’s been through times much worse than this and got through them. We believe in him, he believes in us and I’m sure he will work for a long time.” Planning is also being put into the summer transfer window, with 21-year-old Nuremberg striker Josip Drmic among the strikers now being regularly watched. Diego Costa, who is also a Chelsea target, Mario Mandzukic, Julian Draxler and Jackson Martinez have also been on Wenger’s radar. Drmic has joined Draxler in publicly outlining his high regard for Arsenal. “Any boy dreams about playing for Arsenal,” he said.

Taipei, Oct. 31 (CNA) The Taiwan government said Saturday that it does not recognize or accept a ruling by an international arbitration panel that it could hear a case brought by the Philippines against China over disputed territory in the South China Sea. The Philippines has not invited the Republic of China (Taiwan) to participate in its arbitration with China, and the arbitration tribunal has not solicited the ROC's views, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. "Therefore, the arbitration does not affect the ROC in any way, and the ROC neither recognizes nor accepts related awards," it said. The ministry's statement came after the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Netherlands ruled Thursday that it has jurisdiction to hear the case, in which the Philippines argues that China's "nine-dash line" territorial claim over South China Sea waters is unlawful under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The statement seemed to indicate the ministry's stronger stance than its initial response a day earlier, when it said that the ROC's determination to defend its sovereignty over four island chains in the South China Sea is not open to question and that it is closely following the developments in the case and will take measures as necessary. The Philippines filed the case before the tribunal in The Hague in 2013 to seek a ruling on its right to exploit the South China Sea waters within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as allowed under the U.N. convention. Taiwan is taking an interest in the case because it is one of the countries that claim all or parts of the South China Sea. Other claimants are Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, China and Vietnam. Taiwan controls one of the Pratas Islands and one of the largest of the Spratly Islands -- Taiping Island. In a seven-point statement, the ministry reiterated Taiwan's stance on the South China Sea, saying that from the perspective of history, geography, and international law, the Nansha (Spratly) Islands, Shisha (Paracel) Islands, Chungsha Islands (Macclesfield Bank), and Tungsha (Pratas) Islands in the region, as well as their surrounding waters, "are an inherent part of ROC territory and waters." "As the ROC enjoys all rights to these islands and their surrounding waters in accordance with international law, the ROC government does not recognize any claim to sovereignty over, or occupation of, these areas by other countries, irrespective of the reasons put forward or methods used for such claim or occupation," it said. Also, the South China Sea islands were first discovered, named, and used, as well as incorporated into national territory, by the Chinese, the ministry said. The San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1952 and the Treaty of Peace between the ROC and Japan, which was signed in the same year, as well as other international legal instruments, reconfirm that the islands and reefs in the South China Sea occupied by Japan should be returned to the ROC, it added. The ROC moved its seat of government to Taipei after Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek were defeated by the communists in the Chinese civil war in 1949. Another point the ministry made in the statement was that Taiping Island is the largest (about 0.5 square km) of the naturally formed Spratly Islands. It began to be garrisoned by ROC forces in 1956, it said. Taiwan's coast guard took over the task of defending the island in 2000. "From legal, economic, and geographic perspectives, Taiping Island indisputably qualifies as an 'island,' according to the specifications of Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and can sustain human habitation and economic life of its own; it is thus categorically not a 'rock' under the same article," it said. "Any claims by other countries which aim to deny this fact will not impair the legal status of Taiping Island and its maritime rights based on UNCLOS," it said. Meanwhile, the ROC has consistently adhered to the principles of peaceful settlement of international disputes and freedom of navigation and overflight as stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations and other relevant international laws and regulations, the ministry said. It added that the ROC has defended Taiping and other islands without ever getting into military conflict with other countries, and has not interfered with other countries' freedom of navigation or overflight in the South China Sea. Although Taiwan is not a contracting party to UNCLOS, the ministry urged countries involved in the South China Sea dispute to respect the provisions and spirit of the U.N. Charter and UNCLOS, and to exercise restraint, safeguard peace and stability in the region, uphold the freedom of navigation and overflight through the region, refrain from taking any action that might escalate tension, and resolve disputes peacefully. Other points mentioned in the statement was the South China Sea peace initiative proposed by the ROC government in May, which is based on "the principles of safeguarding sovereignty, shelving disputes, pursuing peace and reciprocity, and promoting joint development." "Based on consultations conducted on a basis of equality and reciprocity, the ROC is willing to work with other parties concerned to jointly ensure peace and stability in the South China Sea, as well as conserve and develop resources in the region," the ministry said. (By Elaine Hou) ENDITEM/J

The Moto Z Play is due to get the update to Android 7.0 Nougat in March, however the company is already testing the update with members of the Motorola Feedback Network in a soak test. This type of testing is very common at Motorola, even before they were bought by Lenovo and Google before that. It allows Motorola to send out the update to a limited group of people to use the update and see if there are any issues before sending it out to the masses. Typically, the update will arrive about a week or so after the soak test begins. So if all goes well, Moto Z Play users could see the Android Nougat update well before March's timeframe. The update to Android Nougat for the Moto Z Play is expected to land on both the unlocked GSM version and the Verizon variant at about the same time. This isn't and wasn't the case for the Moto Z, as the Verizon variant got it a few months ahead of the unlocked Moto Z. Part of this is due to the fact that Verizon had the exclusive availability of the Moto Z for a few months, and there are also two teams working on updates for the device. However, the Moto Z Play launched unlocked and at Verizon at the same time, so updates are a bit more consistent with the two variants. Back in September, Lenovo unveiled the third Moto Z smartphone, the Moto Z Play. It's a more mid-range smartphone, but it has a larger battery which means longer battery life. Thanks to it's lower-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 625, and the lower-resolution display, the 3510mAh battery lasts quite a bit longer than the 3500mAh battery in the Moto Z Force (which is exclusive to Verizon as a "Droid Edition"). Making it a great smartphone for those that are looking to pick up a device that sports incredible battery life. While some already have the Android Nougat update, it shouldn't be long before everyone else sees it. That is as long as there are no major issues with the update, and Lenovo is able to roll it out (after being certified by the proper entities).

Jake Kuehl and Peter Matter never met before July 20th, but they'll always remember each other. On July 20th, Jake Kuehl and his family went to the mall after work. Kuehl said he noticed a man looking at a shoe store for a long time. That man was 53-year-old Peter Matter. Matter is an athlete with Special Olympics. On their way to leave, Kuehl and his family walked past the shoe store. Kuehl said he noticed Matter's shoes were beat up. Without thinking, he asked Matter if he wanted to get a new pair of shoes. Matter, though, was worried about the cost saying he couldn't afford the shoes. "It was kind of cool he didn't realize right away I was going to buy them for him. Once I told him I'm buying these for you, his face lit up, and he was just the happiest guy," said Jake Kuehl. "Nobody did this for me, buy me shoes like that," said Peter Matter. Peter Matter loves bright colors, so he chose a bright green pair. He said he's very excited to wear his new shoes to play softball, which is one of his favorite Special Olympic sports. Jake Kuehl hopes this inspires other people to help out a stranger with a random act of kindness.

A young father and Air Force veteran was the man shot and killed outside an IHOP restaurant Sunday morning. Police said he was murdered while breaking up a domestic violence incident. Family confirmed that 27-year old Devin Wilson was killed. Devin Wilson died while defending a woman who was a complete stranger. She was allegedly being choked and beaten by her ex-boyfriend. Wilson stopped that attack, but he was shot by the ex-boyfriend. EUGENE PALMER CASE: MURDER FUGITIVE HIDING UNDER ALIAS, POLICE SAY The Air Force veteran died a hero. "He had a big heart, and it was his big heart that unfortunately led him to his death bed," Katina Rounds, Devin's mother, said. "I wasn't surprised when they said just trying to help somebody. A woman being attacked." Click for more from Fox 13.

by Gail, November 8, 2012 www.stankovuniversallaw.com Dear Georgi and PAT, I hope you are all feeling better since the recent battle. I am still very tired, but more peaceful. Thank you all for your messages. Keeps me sane…honestly!! I love Jerry’s article, Ascension as a Personal Endeavour. ‘Other than PAT members and a few others, no one thinks, there is a physical price to be paid for personal ascending.’ I agree that there is indeed a price to be paid for ascension….everything 3-d!!! The deterioration (leading to total disintegration) of the 3-d human body is inevitable if one is to ascend to higher dimensions, where the 3-d human body cannot exist. Also true for the 3-d mind and the 3-d emotions. All must disintegrate and be restructured to create the new human structure which will flourish in higher dimensions. I have been aware of this for years, as most of PAT have, and have deliberately reduced my connections and dependencies upon the 3-d matrix to an utter minimum over the years. How the new agers cannot see that living ‘comfortable’ lives is a dependent engagement with 3-d, I don’t know. These fluffy-wuffy types are the same as the family of Henry (described recently) who are fully complacent that they live a comfortable and satisfying life simply because they have made the right decisions in life, and other people are where they are at because of their own decisions, good or bad. The fluffy-wuffies believe that their level of comfort and satisfaction is due to their spiritual decisions, when it actually comes from their material decisions. But in new age circles it’s worse than that too, because the fluffy-wuffies actually believe that if you have things ‘wrong’ with your body and circumstances, it is your own fault, as it is a direct reflection of your mental and emotional unsolved issues and therefore your insufficiency. Those starseeds who are making the ‘right’ spiritual decisions and therefore suffering physically and otherwise, are generally too embarrassed to admit it, as they know they will be judged by other lightshirkers as ‘getting it wrong’ as proven by their non-perfect lives. Hence, from the fluffy-wuffy point of view, we PAT and some other similar humans are lumped in with those who are fully asleep. I would put it that it is the direct reflection of the processing of the fears and issues of the whole of humanity (which they have not themselves been able to address and overcome) that people with no fears and no issues (PAT and some others) are riddled with pain. It reminds me of a quote I made previously of Raymond Chandler….“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” They argue that they are applying 5-d techniques to their 3-d environment, but they do not realise that this is not the purpose of 5th dimensional energies. Their purpose is to raise the overall frequency quotient in order to ascend Gaia and Humanity, not to be wasted in creating comfortable material lives, in which they can complacently sit thinking that this is evidence that they are doing their bit towards the greatest project ever undertaken. They are intuiting their future existence and trying to apply it to their 3-d lives. I quote myself from an earlier letter regarding the lightshirkers and the CA fiasco…‘They (the lightshirkers) are quite right in believing that they are leaders and teachers, it’s just that they are trying to fulfil their roles too soon, erroneously seeing it as a 3-d purpose in this toxic environment, rather than realising it as their imminent 5-d purpose. Their 3-d purpose is to connect with, understand and overcome the 3-d illusion to support the planetary rescue and they have taken their eyes off that ball.’ Again they argue that the universe gives them the opportunities to do well (as a result, they believe, of their spiritual opening/techniques) but never consider that these very opportunities are mired in 3rd dimensional obsolete patterns and operate from various 3-d premises. They also fail to realise that they also have the opportunity to dare to reject the tempting material success and comfort. It is just a matter of seeing through the illusion and then one will not even want to engage in these aspects of 3-d and will see the risks of entrapment and also the pointlessness of engaging with and thereby empowering the continuation of these structures and patterns. They are consistently veering away from their evolution. It is as though they have an inbuilt aversion to facing the truth of our world and how it works and desperately kid themselves that they exist in the higher dimensional way of living, which is NOT EVEN HERE YET. It is this disintegration and abandonment of everything 3-d that unconsciously terrifies the masses and that fear can only be relieved by seeing the living proof that the restructured human is immortal and powerful and loving (Us after reappearance) and worth giving up the 3-d existence for. This is why I believe we have to ascend soon, from a logical point of view. From a physical point of view also, my body is at breaking point and soon is the only option. As did Daniel recently, my HS and I, in a waking and conscious state, attacked and diminished that fear of loss of 3-d greatly for the masses. I actually physically felt it and was aware of the gooeyness afterwards, the same as April spoke of. We also annihilated other archons, most notably, in my case, disappointment. I also displayed my pure-white core energy that emitted ‘DON’T fuck with me.’ I am sure other PATs know what they have been involved with. As Daniel said, the HS is now so much a part of our everyday-ness, it is no longer separate and it becomes clearer. I resonate with Daniel’s model of the awakening of humanity. Whether the numbers are accurate is irrelevant, but the concept resonates. ‘With their removal (the archons) the dark thought patterns of humanity are no longer constantly refilled, so it is absolutely certain that they will disappear.’ I fully agree. The on-the-ground reality of this will be that it now takes far fewer exposures to revelations to make an impact on peoples’ belief patterns. When people reject something, fact or concept, it is because their worldview cannot accept it. Now that the foundation stones of their worldview have gone, new ideas and facts that are introduced will be more acceptable because the strength/power of the rejection will be habit only, and therefore less and less impacting with each new exposure to revelations (both of the old matrix and of the new one.) I suppose this will be the advantageous environment on Earth A/B for those in transition to Earth A. It seems that now we have achieved this environment, the next logical step is the ID split. Anna said today that she also feels, from both bodily and conscious experiences of living in this 3-d environment, that the ID split is the next obvious event. Hang on in there, everyone.

This article is over 4 years old Rojo in Manchester to complete move from Sporting LisbonInjury casts doubt over Marouane Fellaini’s Napoli move Marcos Rojo is in Manchester to undergo a medical before completing his £16m move to Manchester United from Sporting Lisbon. The 24-year-old arrived late on Tuesday night, and the examination and the agreement of personal terms is expected to be a formality. Nani is joining Sporting on a season-long loan as part of the transfer. With Luke Shaw injured, Rojo may slot straight into Louis van Gaal’s team for Sunday’s trip to Sunderland, as he is a left-sided player who can play at left-back or as a central defender. Van Gaal’s injury crisis – he had nine players unavailable due to injury or a lack of match fitness for the 2-1 defeat to Swansea at Old Trafford – shows little sign of easing as Marouane Fellaini has a suspected foot injury. This throws doubt on his prospective move to Napoli, with the midfielder pictured wearing a protective cast on his left foot having suffered the problem in training. With Michael Carrick out for at least two months due to an ankle issue, Fellaini’s potential unavailability would leave Van Gaal with Tom Cleverley, Ander Herrera and Darren Fletcher as his only three senior central midfielders.

The UK’s bookshops pay 11 times what Amazon does in corporation tax, according to a report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The Bookselling Britain report was unveiled at the Booksellers Association’s annual conference in Birmingham on Tuesday, revealing that bookshops contribute an estimated £540m to the UK economy, and pay an estimated £131m in tax, including £12m in corporation tax. This equates to 91p per £100 of turnover, the report said, which is 11 times the 8p rate that Amazon pays, according to the CEBR. Amazon’s most recent accounts show that Amazon UK Services saw turnover rise to almost £1.5bn in 2016, while corporation tax payments dropped from £15.8m to £7.4m year on year. Booksellers Association calls for end to Amazon's 'deeply unfair' tax advantages Read more The discrepancy was condemned by the Booksellers Association’s Giles Clifton, head of corporate affairs. “The BA has already highlighted the unequal treatment meted out by the business-rates system to British booksellers, the staggering 17 times differential between what the Waterstones on Bedford High Street pays in comparison with the Amazon business unit a short distance away,” said Clifton. “However, this report helps the BA take this to the next level and to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt [that] an enormous financial gap exists between what UK booksellers put into the UK, and what Amazon does. At a time when the UK needs to be making the most of her own talents, and utilising all her resources, both cultural, economic, and other, why on earth are we persisting with a policy that is an act of gross self-harm? This stupidity must end.” The association’s chief executive Tim Godfray added that bookshops were “making an incredible contribution to the UK despite the many obstacles that they currently, and increasingly, face”. But the contribution was “not sustainable unless decisive action is taken by the government to protect them from closure”, he said. Godfray added: “Bookshops are currently closing at a rate of 3% per year, and 275 towns across the UK can expect to lose their bookshop completely due to changes to business rates if nothing is done. We hope that CEBR’s report encourages our government to act to protect the nation’s bookshops, and enable them to flourish.” Figures from the BA show that there are currently 867 independent booksellers in the UK, almost half the number that existed 11 years ago. According to the CEBR report, bookshops support 24,400 jobs in the UK, and pay £416m in wages. But they are facing an “increasingly challenging trading environment”, said the report, citing Amazon’s market power and advantages, business rates and corporate taxation as issues that threaten the very existence of Britain’s local and national booksellers. Speaking at the BA conference, CEBR director Oliver Hogan said that bricks-and-mortar bookshops had a range of advantages that Amazon did not offer, from involvement “with more reluctant readers, helping them to find books they might enjoy”, to the events they put on and the “physical interface” that “can trigger different and unpredictable exploration of themes and topics beyond what was intended”. Hogan continued: “The Bookselling Britain report highlights the significant direct and multiplier impacts that bookshops have on the UK economy, despite facing numerous challenges. But the benefits to UK communities of local booksellers stretch beyond these monetary impacts, encompassing education, literacy and the provision of an informational and cultural conduit to society at large. All of this feeds technological progress and innovation, the key ingredients in achieving long-term economic growth.” Clifton added: “It is high time the policymakers in this country woke up and smelt the coffee.”

Michiana is still praying for justice 27 years after an 11-year-old girl was murdered. On Dec. 11, 1986, Brandie Peltz stayed home sick from school. She was found strangled in her bathtub, and her farmhouse was set on fire to cover the crime. The murder case changed small-town Argos forever. Author Thomas Crowell wrote a book about the crime called A Passerby. His research pointed the finger at the passerby who reported the crime. No arrest was ever made, but Crowell was credited for giving the cold case a new look. In 2009, Indiana State Police Detective Thomas Littlefield began pouring over the evidence once again. At the time, he hoped new information and witnesses would come forward and bring justice for Brandie's murder—and he says that's still what they need. “What kind of information do you need to get justice for Brandie?” he asked. “Cooperation, by that, I mean unsensational, truthful accounts of what's happened, involving the day of what happened December 11.” On Wednesday night, a group gathered to remember Brandie during a candlelight vigil in front of the Marshall County Courthouse. None of them knew the girl, but say they've heard her story told in the community over the years. "We're celebrating Christmas soon and, here's this family that hasn't celebrated with their loved one in 27 years," said Joey Garcia, who wrote a song for the vigil. "So, it's just hard for everybody it seems like." Several people in the small town have their own theories about what happened the day of Brandie's death. Anyone with information is should call Indiana State Police at 1-800-552-2959. Police say even details from Dec. 11, 1986 that seem insignificant could help solve the crime.

The video above gave a great overview and summary of Bitcoin and a basic Mining Guide. Almost all alternative coins follow the path of Bitcoin mining, but there are several technological advancements. With those come more sophistication and more complexity to mining. Even though mining is an essential part of most digital coins, some coins can’t be mined at all! In this guide, we will cover a basic overview of mining and where digital coins stand (as of today) when it comes to this essential part of how they work. Mining is the most fundamental aspect of digital coins. It’s what differentiates them from fiat cash, in that no central person or government can control them. Instead, people can participate in mining. Miners are the foundation for digital coins and yet mining remains one of the most misunderstood aspects. Technical Review | Hashing In the mining process, your computer or other hardware runs a cryptographic hashing function on what is called a block header. For every new hash, the mining software will use a different ordered number for the header in a random order. This number is called the nonce. A hash is a really long, complex number (hexadecimal). Hashes are essentially the backbone; the security of the mining network. 1 hash is generally very small for a A hash is a really long, complex number (hexadecimal). Hashes are essentially the backbone; the security of the mining network. 1 hash is generally very small for a miner. On average, miners have rates that are based on megahashes per second (MH/s), or millions of hashes and on the other spectrum, some miners have hundreds of millions (GH/s and TH/s) per second. Example of a hash: 93ef6f358fbb998c60802496863052290d4c63735b7fe5bdaac821de96a53a9a What is Digital Currency Or Cryptocurrency? or What is Bitcoin mining? Mining is the use of computers to solve complex math problems and, when solved, the miner gets awarded with digital coins to compensate them for their work. There are several different variations of mining. The most common terminology for mining is Proof of Work. Proof of Work essentially means you are physically mining with a computer. You processors or computer machines are “working” to compute math problems for the digital network. There are several algorithm variations of Proof of Work; each variation is brought in to keep the hashing power in check, secure the network, process transactions quick and handle a bunch of other different features that may be implemented. What Do Miners Get? The ultimate goal for miners is to mine a block. A block is an imaginary segment in the network that requires a correct math answer to solve. When miners mine, they are trying to solve the block’s math problem with their computers. When a miner’s computer solves the answer, he or she is then awarded the block reward into their wallet. A block reward is the distribution of digital coins. Each block contains a set amount of coins (plus any transaction fees that were paid by transaction senders for inclusion in the block) and the rewards from each block decrease over time to increase the value of the coin and will eventually lead to the coin’s hard cap in number. The Block The more miners there are solving blocks for coin rewards, the more secure a network becomes. When a miner solves a block for the reward, he or she is also confirming transactions that other users of the coins have sent to the network. With more miners, the network also becomes more secured due to the increased amount of hashing power. A lot of computing power trying to solve blocks essentially makes the coin then more valuable and harder to obtain. Difficulty Targeting Difficulty Targeting is about making mining more difficult. The reason mining would become more difficult is because more power from more sources is entered into the network. When a network increases in difficulty, it is essentially becoming more difficult for miners to mine. Only the highest and most technically advanced machines will be able to mine at the highest of difficulties. To create a valid block, a miner has to find a number below the targeted block. For example: take the number 1,000,000. Any number below (and not) 1,000,000 would be considered a targeted value and the miner would be rewarded with the block. Generally, target numbers are much larger than this, including numbers like: 1 million, 1 billion, 1 trillion or even 1 quadrillion. Target numbers are enormous! Because the target is such an insane number with a whole lot of digits, people generally use a much more simple number to express the current target. This number is called the mining difficulty. Mining difficulty expresses how much harder the current block is to generate compared to the first block. When someone expresses, “The mining difficulty is 20,” that means it is 20 times harder to mine in the present than the first miner to mine the first block. Difficult targets change a lot; especially with new algorithms such as Kimoto’s Gravity Well (KGW). KGW basically changes the difficulty targets with each block. It is smart in the sense it knows how many miners are mining with hashes at any given moment. Mining Hardware CPUs: The most basic and least powerful ways to mine. A few years ago, mining with a CPU was a very common occurrence. Anyone and everyone was able to participate by mining with their computers. Times have changed, and now just a few types of digital coins are mined by CPUs. But there are a few coins that have changed the foundation and can only be mined with CPUs. This is to resurrect “the golden age” of mining. GPUs: It was discovered that high-end graphics cards were much more efficient at mining; specifically Bitcoin mining. The power of GPUs allowed for a 50X to 100X increase in Bitcoin mining power, while using far less power per unit of work. But soon after, GPUs became outdated for Bitcoin mining and the world moved onto something bigger and better. With the emergence of the algorithm Scrypt, CPUs and GPUs were reused and once again had a viable place in Cryptocurrency mining. GPUs remain the most common and popular method to mine alternative coins today. FPGAs: The beginning step between GPU and ASIC mining. FPGAs did not last long but they were used to mine mainly Bitcoin and ASIC-specific alternative coins. As you would think, FPGAs increased performance in mining just like GPUs did over CPUs. ASICs: The launch of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) launched a new era for Bitcoin. Generally, most alternative coins are resistant and completely work to avoid ASIC mining. But some coins accept ASICs with an open heart. An ASIC is a chip designed specifically to do one thing and one thing only, and that’s to calculate and solve math problems, increase hashing power. ASIC mining units offer a 100X increase in hashing power while reducing power consumption compared to all the previous technologies. Summary of Hardware CPUs and GPUs are mainly for mining alternative coins but have technically superior alternatives such as FPGA and ASIC. For bitcoin mining GPUs replaced CPUs, FPGAs replaced GPUs and ASICs replaced FPGAs. Now you may be thinking, I’ll just buy the next machine to replace ASICs. There is nothing to replace ASICs now or even in the immediate future. There will be a stepwise refinement of the ASIC products and increases in efficiency, but nothing will offer the 50X – 100X increase in hashing power that was seen in the past, nor will there be a major reduction in energy efficiency. No new technological advancements will ever replace an ASIC unit. The reason is that ASIC have one task only and that’s to compute and mine. Mining Alone or in a Group? There are two basic ways to mine: on your own or as part of a pool. Due to the difficulty and a large number of miners, it is almost impossible to mine a block without spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on hardware. A pool is a collection of miners that are mining a network together. A network of miners consists of several miners combining their machines and hashing power into a single powerhouse pool. This powerhouse is generally very successful in mining blocks and thus it becomes more profitable to mine in a pool. Miners then have the block rewards split amongst all miners who participated. The more power someone contributed towards solving a block, the greater the share of the block rewards they will receive when the pool solves one. This, in turn, gives all pool miners a steady and frequent payout for their mining efforts, without the massive amount of variability that would otherwise be present. To mine solo is like being a lone ranger. Mining the network head-on generally gives more infrequent but larger payouts than mining as part of a pool. Algorithms An algorithm is a specific way in which a miner’s hardware mines. Advancements in restrictions, improvements, and security are happening at an alarming rate; mostly within alternative coins. Bitcoin’s founding algorithm was called SHA-256, which is a secured hashing function. With Bitcoin’s open-source code, several developers and entrepreneurs have modified the original algorithm to profit and restrict certain mining hardware. Algorithms such as Litecoin’s Scrypt or Peercoin’s Proof of Stake algorithm has significantly improved and have created mass variety in alternative coins. Scrypt – This is another method of Proof of Work mining, much like Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm. The majority of alternative coins use a Scrypt algorithm because it restricts the almighty powerful ASIC units. ASICs can’t mine Scrypt coins with the same efficiency as SHA-256, thus alternative coin network s are open to more casual miners. Several modifications have been made to the Scrypt algorithm to help improve efficiency and security, as well as increase profitability for miners. Proof of Stake – This is one of the alternatives to the conventional mining Proof of Work scheme. Proof of Stake requires no mining from miners whatsoever. The network in Proof of Stake coins is secured by the users who have their wallets open, and those wallets help confirm network transactions. So essentially there is a hidden mining capability behind Proof of Stake, but it creates a position where it’s much simpler to the user and allows for the inclusion of many more people. Proof of Stake owners get awarded interest on all the coins they have earned. PoS is usually inflationary, while Proof of Work is generally deflationary. Proof of Burn – Proof of Burn is a unique concept where you “burn” or send coins (generally bitcoins) back to the blocks in which they were mined from. Proof of Burn incorporates several new features that are built on top of the blockchain. 100% decentralized distribution is possible with Proof of Burn, because it’s up to the user to burn bitcoins; not the developers of the coin who pre-mine. Countparty (XCP) is one of the first and most successful digital coins to introduce this feature. Human Mineable – This is what you would expect; people doing active work to mine coins digitally. Human mineable coins generally involve some type of game or task for the user and award coins based on that work. Huntercoin is one of the first to incorporate a human mining aspect, with an MMO-type gathering game. Pre-mining – Pre-mining is when developers increase the block reward for the first block and mine the coin before they release it to the public. They gather a few percentage of the total supply by pre-mining. This helps developers promote and reward users for doing tasks for their coin. Instant Mining – This is when developers claim there is no pre-mine (due to negative stigmas about pre-mining). The first few block rewards are generally on par with a pre-mined block, but the client is fully released to the public a few minutes after the developers have mined the coin. This gives them the advantage of mining and gathering their coin while users lag in setting up their miners. No Trespassing Miners! A lot of efforts have been put towards creating coins that require no Proof of Work mining. These types of coins are generally 100% Proof of Stake coins or are 100% pre-mined and distributed to the community. The advantage of not requiring mining is the eco-friendly aspect, because mining requires huge amounts of electricity. Some coins have a 100% pre-mine but still require miners to secure the network with Proof of Work. Other coins have a 100% pre-mine with Proof of Stake features, where users are granted rewards for keeping their wallets or clients open. Lastly, some coins feed off of another coin’s network, such as Bitcoin’s network. These types of coins rely solely on Bitcoin’s miners to keep their coin secured and functioning. Ultimately, Bitcoin ushered in a revolution of digital miners. The ideas that are stemming from the Satoshi Nakamoto’s Proof of Work idea are limitless.

Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish festival of lights that begins this year on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 12, commemorates the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem that had been defiled after the Maccabean Revolt, a biblical story that — while it has a few different versions — celebrates the miracle of triumph against overwhelming odds. One part of the miracle, perhaps the part most familiar to today’s celebrants, is the story of how one night’s worth of oil miraculously lasted for eight. That element has inspired many foods eaten to mark Hanukkah, just one of the ways in which the holiday’s traditions have deep origins. Though the true historical origins of the holiday may be a mystery — there aren’t many reliable sources from that period — it is possible to see how some of Hanukkah’s best-known traditions have evolved over time, particularly as the holiday has taken on more importance in the American Jewish calendar. Here’s a glimpse at what we do know about the holiday’s beloved modern-day rituals: Candles Though the candles might seem to be the most important part of any Hanukkah observance, the holiday’s original celebrants wouldn’t have used them. Rather, they would have lit oil lamps like the lights in the Hanukkah story. “In the Hebrew Bible, in the Old Testament in several places it speaks of pure-beaten olive oil for the light,” Israeli archaeologist Rafael Frankel told NPR, noting that it also was a common cosmetic and had ritual uses. “Olive oil was the main oil of this region and very little other oil was ever used.” The tradition of using candles instead dates to 18th century Eastern Europe, when “candles became cleaner and cheaper, and people couldn’t get olive oil in the middle of the winter because it’s expensive,” historian Steven Fine, author of The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel and founding Director of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies, tells TIME. Most menorahs didn’t have branches before that time either, he says, until wealthy Germans started using them, and synagogues followed suit. The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now Latkes and jelly donuts Speaking of oil, eating food fried during Hanukkah is considered a symbol of the oil used to light the menorah. Hence, jelly donuts. Known in Hebrew as sufganiyot (the singular is sufganiyah), Hanukkah donuts were the brainchild of the Israeli labor group Histradut in the ’20s, in what was then British-run Palestine. As food history expert Emelyn Rude wrote for TIME, the end of the High Holy Day season in autumn “often brought a lull in work in Jewish quarters. By pushing the sufganiyot as a symbol of the Festival of Lights, as opposed to the DIY-friendly latke, the Histradut could encourage the creation of more jobs for Jewish workers.” And latkes (fried potato pancakes), probably the best-known example of traditional Hanukkah food, are also a relatively modern part of Hanukkah celebrations, at least as we know them today. The potatoes only became part of the recipe — and a big part of the Eastern European Jewish diet in general — in the mid-19th century, when a lot of potatoes got planted after “a series of crop failures in Ukraine and Poland in 1839 and 1840,” according to Gil Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. German immigrants then brought the tradition to America. Potatoes were also a cheaper option than wheat flour and cheese. That’s right: the version of latkes served in the Middle Ages were actually made of cheese, usually from goats or sheep. Which leads us to… Cheese blintzes or other dairy foods It’s not a common Hanukkah tradition, but if you end up at a table with dairy foods, it’s probably a reflection of a misinterpretation of the book of Judith, according to Marks. “The text, composed around 115 BCE, tells of [how] Judith, a young widow from a town besieged by the Babylonians, infiltrated the enemy camp, fed the commanding general salty cheese to induce thirst, plied him with wine to slack his thirst until the general fell into a drunken stupor, then cut off his head with his own sword,” he wrote for The Daily Meal. “In response to the loss of their leader, the enemy army panicked and fled.” But, as Marks points out, the story actually takes place about 400 years before the rule of the Syrian-Greek empire that took on the Maccabees. The confusion dates to the Middle Ages, Marks writes, when the written version of the Judith story had been lost and the oral version began to meld with that other story of victory by an underdog Jewish force. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter Chocolate gelt These foil-wrapped chocolate coins you get may have evolved from a bunch of different traditions. One possibility is an 18th-century Eastern European tradition around Hanukkah, in which rabbis went from village to village giving Hebrew School-style lessons. They were rewarded by villagers with some kind of edible tokens of appreciation that may have included whiskey, grain, vegetables or honey, writes Eliezer Segal, author of Holidays, History, and Halakhah, who’s taught Religious Studies at the University of Calgary. He adds that in Yemen, Jewish mothers would give their children a small coin on each day of Hanukkah that they could use to buy sugar powder and red coloring that they’d make into a kid-friendly “Hanukkah wine.” Dreidel The exact origins of this spinning top game are also unknown, but it’s thought to have derived from a 16th century game played in Ireland that made its way to Germany. As such, though the four letters on the four sides of the top are now said to stand for the words in the Hebrew sentence “a great miracle happened there” (or, in Israel, “happened here”), that meaning probably showed up later. “By 1720, the game was called T- totum or teetotum, and by 1801 the four letters already represented four words in English: T = Take all; H = Half; P = Put down; and N = Nothing,” Rabbi David Golinkin, President Emeritus of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, once wrote. “Our Eastern European game of dreidel (including the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin) is directly based on the German equivalent of the totum game: N = Nichts = nothing; G = Ganz = all; H = Halb = half; and S = Stell ein = put in.” The word “dreidel” comes from Yiddish, but the top itself also had other names, including a “varfl,” meaning “something thrown.” Its incorporation into the holiday is somewhat ironic, Golinkin argues. “In order to celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah,” he wrote, “which celebrates our victory over cultural assimilation, we play the dreidel game, which is an excellent example of cultural assimilation!” Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com.

Fans are celebrating a supercut revealing the Starfleet officer sat in chairs in an unusual way. No. 1 knows how to take a seat. A rather mesmerizing supercut of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) reveals that the officer favored sitting down by swinging his leg over the back of his chair. It always was apparent Riker was an alpha male, but this facet of his masculinity had gone uncelebrated until now. On Twitter, a number of TNG fans expressed disbelief they’d never realized this before. PHOTOS: 30 Groundbreaking Sci-Fi Films “Why have I never noticed that Commander Riker sits down like this before!?!?!” tweeted one, while another wrote, "I've seen every TNG ep, but must admit I never comprehended the true extent of @jonathansfrakes' chair domination." Colin Hanks tweeted “Hell yes, @jonathansfrakes. Now THIS is how you sit down in futuristic chair! http://youtu.be/lVIGhYMwRgs So far, no tweets or subspace communiques from Frakes in response to the video. We'll update if he takes notice.

I’ve always been fascinated by street art. And before the likes of Banksy and the stencil revolution there was graffiti. And there was one artist that always stood out to me — Mirko Reisser, better known as DAIM. There was something about his style that captivated me. His lettering was so intricate and his perspectives were so wild; it was beyond me how someone could create such dimension on a flat surface, with a spray can no less! Below you will find a small selection of his incredible work. Littered amongst his art you will find quotes culled from various interviews available on his site. Witness the insanity with four simple letters: “I started in 1989. I was 17 and I started with some friends of mine. I didn’t know any graffiti writers at that time, so I just started going out and doing stuff. After three months, we got caught, and I had to pay my fine. I had to work the whole summer holidays just to pay it off.” On Influences: “My influence comes form the early Hamburg kings like Skener and Jase, but also Loomit and the FBI Crew” “I was also really influenced by Dali, MC Escher and Van Gogh” “I have absolutely no influence from comics so I wasn’t used to making a fat black line around everything. I always came from the direction to make everything with light and shade. And after awhile I thought I could apply that to letters. But it took some time. I started to go in this direction in ’91.” On Legacy: “I think that instead of taking pieces of history, artists have to just go off on their own and make their own history” On Drawing: “I draw everything by hand. I only use a pencil and Copic art markers for my sketches.” “Working with broad brushstrokes is much more interesting to me, especially as a counterpoint to the world of computers, where everything is getting more perfect and clean every day.” “Doing everything by hand has the advantage that you understand every step. It takes longer, but it gives you the feeling that you understand what you’re doing. A computer relieves you of a lot of the work, but it often takes away the possibility to trace each and every step.” Mirko’s Musings: “A lot of people think that when you are young you do your graffiti and then you should become an ‘artist’; I think that’s stupid.” “I believe all inspiration begins in nature. There are all shapes, colors, patterns etc. In nature, you just have to keep your eyes open.” Photograph by Tiexano What looks like paint is actually just tape! Check the closeup below Photograph by Tiexano On Graffiti: “When you do graffiti, you have to start with typography. You can make a lot strange things with your letters, but a D still has to be a D.” “I believe that someone who writes only legally cannot grasp the whole spirit of graffiti” “Show respect, be true to yourself, and always wear a mask when painting.” “Graffiti is a worldwide language of youth” – DAIM CHECK OUT THE OFFICIAL DAIM GALLERY FOR MORE IMAGES AND INFORMATION The Legendary Mirko Reisser aka DAIM MRpro has Created an Incredible Map of Daim’s Graffiti All Over the Globe. Check Out This Custom Google Map of Locations and Images of Daim’s Work – CLICK HERE If you enjoyed this article, the Sifter highly recommends: Stencil Skateboarders by TR853-1

A coroner review panel looking at deaths of First Nations young people has found they are dying at nearly twice the rate of their peers who are not Indigenous. The report, co-authored by the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) and BC Coroners Service (BCCS) looked at the deaths of British Columbians aged 15 to 24 between 2010 and 2015. READ MORE: Paige’s story: In search of a name It found First Nations youth accounted for more than a third of the deaths in that period, 95 out of 276 in total. Sixty per cent of the First Nations youth deaths were attributed to preventable accidents, while 32 per cent were suicides. “These aren’t just statistics. These are children. They are children of families and children of communities,” said Shannon McDonald, Deputy Chief Medical Officer with the FNHA. The report also found a gender imbalance in the data, showing that young First Nations women are dying at three-times the rate of their non-Indigenous peers. “Many of these young people had had contact with systems that could have potentially supported them through difficult times,” McDonald said. Even more devastating, McDonald added, was that nearly one in four of the youth who died were parents themselves. READ MORE: First Nations students from remote B.C. community find voice through music While the numbers are startling, McDonald added that they likely don’t show the true scale of the problem because they were collected before the peak of the overdose crisis. The panel has made several recommendations to address the alarming trend, including improving access to services for First Nations youth. The panel has also recommended finding ways to better connect First Nations youth with their peers, family, community and culture and promoting cultural safety and trauma-informed care.

An off-duty New York City correction officer was shot to death in her car Sunday night in Brooklyn, police said. Wale Aliyu reports. (Published Monday, Dec. 5, 2016) What to Know An off-duty New York City correction officer was shot to death while sitting in a car in Brooklyn on Sunday night, police confirmed Alastasia Bryan, 25, was identified as the correction officer; a union said she was "one of the youngest members" A police investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made in the shooting as of Monday morning An off-duty New York City correction officer was shot to death in her car Sunday night in Brooklyn, police said. Alastasia Bryan, 25, was behind the wheel of her car at Avenue L and 73rd Street in the Flatlands around 9:15 p.m. when someone came up and fired into the vehicle. Bryan suffered gunshot wounds to her head and torso. She died at the scene, police said. It's unclear if she was intentionally targeted or if the shooting was random, but police said Monday morning that detectives had obtained surveillance video showing a man getting out of a vehicle and walking up to Bryan's car. The video shows the man opening fire and then getting back into his vehicle before taking off, police said. 25-Year-Old City Correction Officer Fatally Shot in Brooklyn Police are hunting for the gunman who killed a New York City correction officer. The 25-year-old was shot while sitting in her car in Brooklyn, investigators say. Katherine Creag reports. (Published Monday, Dec. 5, 2016) On Sunday night, investigators were seen examining the gray sedan, which had several bullet holes in its driver’s side window. A crowd gathered at the scene and several people were seen hugging and crying as police stood nearby. The Correction Officers Benevolent Association, a union, confirmed that Bryan was a city correction officer in a Facebook post early Monday morning. "Tonight our correction family and the entire City of New York is shocked and grieving the horrific murder of one of the youngest members of New York City's Boldest, who was shot and killed by an unknown assailant while sitting in her car in Brooklyn," COBA President Elias Husamudeen wrote in the post. It's unclear where Bryan worked. COBA represents members working in more than 26 different jail facilities throughout the city, including Rikers Island. A police investigation is ongoing, but police haven't named any suspects. Just last Sunday, two men forced their way into a home in Jamaica, Queens, and shot a state corrections officer and his wife, according to police. The corrections officer was taken to a hospital in critical condition. His wife was taken in serious condition. Off-Duty Correction Officer Shot to Death in Brooklyn: Police

In the 1930's Monsanto bought the company that invented PCBs and became the source of all PCBs in the United States. [1] (PCBs) is the acronym for Polychlorinated biphenyls which are complex chlorinated compounds [2]. In the Washington Post article (Jan 1, 2002) "Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution PCBs Drenched Ala. Town, But No One Was Ever Told" a grim story of Monsanto's treacherous behavior in Anniston Alabama was revealed. It is summed up in this chilling paragraph: "They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew." [3] [4] Anniston, Alabama "On the west side of Anniston, the poor side of Anniston, the people ate dirt. They called it "Alabama clay" and cooked it for extra flavor. They also grew berries in their gardens, raised hogs in their back yards, caught bass in the murky streams where their children swam and played and were baptized. They didn't know their dirt and yards and bass and kids -- along with the acrid air they breathed -- were all contaminated with chemicals. They didn't know they lived in one of the most polluted patches of America." "In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they found fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided "there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges."" "Sylvester Harris, 63, an undertaker who lived across the street from the plant, said he always thought he was burying too many young children. 'I knew something was wrong around here,' he said." The article must have been a severe blow to Monsanto PR since it had previously stated in response to a 1994 Sierra magazine article [5] that "Monsanto has never concealed any hazard of PCBs" and "Claims of 'cover-ups' and 'sacrificing "life itself" to corporate profits' are untrue and out of touch with Monsanto's way of doing business" [6]. This comment makes sense in light of a 1969 Monsanto directive to "a committee the company formed to address controversies about PCBs", it was to have "only two formal objectives: 'Permit continued sales and profits' and 'protect image of . . . the corporation'" [7] (1). "We can't afford to lose one dollar of business" an internal memo concluded [8]. The next year Monsanto secretly agreed that "any written effluent level reports [on PCBs] would be held confidential by the Technical Staff and would not be available to the public until or unless Monsanto released it" [9]. And that was apparently the final word because nothing changed for decades. According to the WP article the public did not become fully aware of the problem until 1993 when, "after a local angler caught deformed largemouth bass [in a local creek] ... the first advisories against eating fish from the area" were issued. This was "27 years after Monsanto learned about those bluegills sliding out of their skins". Monsanto's PCB monopoly had been netting them $22 million dollars a year. "Today, parts of Anniston are so contaminated that residents have been told not to grow vegetables in the soil, kick up dirt, eat food, chew gum or smoke cigarettes while working in their yards. 'Our children have to play in the streets, on the sidewalks, because they can't play in the grass because it's contaminated,' says resident David Baker. 'We have to wear masks if we cut our grass. Where else in the United States of America are people doing that?'" "In my judgment, there's no question this is the most contaminated site in the U.S.," says Dr. David Carpenter, a professor of environmental health at the State University of New York in Albany. [10]. Over twenty thousand Anniston residents were part of the suit which resulted in a $700 million fine. On February 22, 2002, Monsanto was found guilty of "negligence, wantonness, suppression of truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage." Under Alabama law, the rare claim of outrage requires conduct "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society". The settlement of the case, however, included "no admissions of wrongdoing" by Monsanto [11]. By the way, Monsanto also callously dumped 40 to 50 tons of mercury, and possibly also lead, down company storm sewers the Anniston Star investigative reporting found [12] [13]. Anniston, Alabama Update: The federal government is seeking Medicare reimbursement from lawyers, manufacturers, and insurers that were involved in a $300 million settlement over widespread PCB contamination in Anniston, Alabama [14]. A lawsuit filed in December 2009 by the Justice Department against 18 attorneys, law firms and companies (including Monsanto) seeks repayment for payments made on behalf of 907 Medicare beneficiaries who were part of the massive agreement [15]. The United States Government used the Medicare Secondary Payer Statute (MSP) as a basis for filing a complaint against both sides of settlement agreement reached [16]. The government lawsuit involves a $300 million portion of the settlement that included 3500 people who live in and around Anniston. Of the $300 million, $129 million went to lawyers and $171 million went to plaintiffs [17]. Medicare paid for some of the people involved in the lawsuit and should have been reimbursed, according to the lawsuit, but no one involved in the settlement notified the government of the agreement or made reimbursement payments [18]. The government said in a complaint filed December 1, 2009: “Monsanto, Solutia and Pharmacia are required to reimburse the United States for conditional Medicare payments made on behalf of settlement claimants” [19]. The case provides valuable insight about how the federal government plans to enforce a law concerning Medicare secondary payers. The Department of Justice plans to seek double the amount at issue for unreimbursed Medicare payments in cases (including U.S. v. Stricker) in which the government is not properly notified that a case has settled [20]. In response to the suit, Monsanto Company spokesman Bob Peirce stated in an e-mail: “We believe that if Medicare is owed anything, it would be from the plaintiffs’ attorneys who were empowered to distribute the settlement funds and their clients who received the money.” Pollution Déjà Vu Anniston wasn't the only place where toxics were dumped for years by Monsanto; Sauget, Illinois near the banks of the Mississippi river is another notable case (2) [21] [22]. In fact Greenpeace alleges that "Monsanto has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being the 'potentially responsible party' for no fewer than 93 contaminated sites (Superfund Sites) in the U.S" [23]. See also Chemical giant ignored in pollution scandal about the case of a Missouri town, Times Beach, evacuated in 1983 due to dioxin and pcb contamination. Also see The Little Town That Whipped Monsanto. It's also recently been revealed that Monsanto followed a similar pollution path in the UK's south Wales. "Evidence has emerged that the Monsanto chemical company paid contractors to dump thousands of tonnes of highly toxic waste [PCBs] in British landfill sites, knowing that their chemicals were liable to contaminate wildlife and people." A secret Monsanto report on the subject which has emerged in court said that, in response to the prospect of revelation, "'The alternatives are [to] say and do nothing; create a smokescreen; immediately discontinue the manufacture of Aroclors; respond responsibly, admitting growing evidence of environmental contamination ...' A scrawled note at the end of the document says: 'The Big Question! What do we tell our customers ... try to stay in business or help customer's clean up their use?'". Additionally, "Monsanto stopped producing PCBs in the US in 1971, but the UK government, which knew of the dangers of PCBs in the environment in the 1960s, allowed their production in Wales until 1977". However "complete cessation did not occur until 1986" [24] (Note: although Monsanto ceased production of liquid aroclor (PCBs) at its Anniston plant in 1971 and solid aroclor in 1972 it continued production at its Sauget, Ill. plant until 1977 for use in electrical systems such as capacitors and transformers [25]). "'This is one of the most contaminated sites in Wales and it is a priority to remediate because it is so close to habitations,' said John Harrison [Environment Agency Wales'] manager of the Taff/Ely region." [26]. Like Anniston in the U.S. Monsanto's Brofiscin is "the most contaminated place in Britain" [27]. The amount of PCBs dumped into two "unlined and unsealed" quarries, the Brofiscin Quarry and the Maendy Quarry, is more than 120,000 tonnes according to this article in The Ecologist. An additional five quarries were also used. Additionally the "Brofiscin stands above an underground reservoir that might well in the future be used as a public water supply." "A previously unseen government report read by the Guardian shows that 67 chemicals, including Agent Orange derivatives, dioxins and PCBs which could have been made only by Monsanto, are leaking from one unlined porous quarry that was not authorised to take chemical wastes" [28]. A major witness to the events, Douglas Gowan, who is questioning why the government Environment Agency is about to let Monsanto off the hook states that "I have been personally threatened, and my home invaded, necessitating police protection. All I have tried to do is to provide the evidence I have in the best public interest. Instead of that happening a seeming cover up is occurring, involving obstruction of justice, and the question begged is, why?" [29]. For background information see Burying The Truth. PCB Ubiquity and Toxicity But PCBs are now found everywhere and in everyone [30] and are virtually indestructible. They travel freely on wind and water and right on up the food chain (note: although "From 1929-1977 [when PCB manufacture was banned], Monsanto Company, [was] the sole manufacturer of PCBs in the United States, [and] produced 700,000 tons of PCBs" [31] they are not solely responsible for their worldwide distribution. Monsanto PCB customers like General Electric and Westinghouse also released massive amounts into the environment - a timeline [32]). Indeed in Our Stolen Future, Dr. Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers note that PCBs "might be found virtually anywhere imaginable: in the sperm of a man tested at a fertility clinic in upstate New York, in the finest caviar, in the fat of a newborn baby in Michigan, in penguins in Antarctica, in the bluefin tuna served in a sushi bar in Tokyo, in the monsoon rains falling in Calcutta, in the milk of a nursing mother in France, in the blubber of a sperm whale cruising in the South Pacific, in a wheel of ripe brie cheese, in a handsome striped bass landed off Martha’s Vineyard on a summer weekend. Like most persistent synthetic chemicals, PCB’s are world travelers." (Page 91-92). In fact along with other environmental threats like climate change (global warming) they may even lead to the extinction of polar bears [33] [34]. PCBs have also been implicated in the beachings of whales, dolphins and seals. Eric Montie, a University of South Florida scientist, has published a study in the journal Environmental Pollution detailing his finding of high levels of PCBs in particular, but also PBDEs (a class of flame retardant) and DDT in the brains and cerebrospinal fluid of stranded marine mammals. "The results revealed that concentration of one contaminant was surprisingly high. According to Montie, 'The biggest wakeup was that we found parts per million concentrations of hydroxylated PCBs in the cerebrospinal fluid of a gray seal. That is so worrisome for me. You rarely find parts per million levels of anything in the brain" [35]. In humans they cause or are a precursor to a wide range of severe ailments including chloracne [36] (warning: a strong stomach is needed to click here). In fact "PCB exposure increases the risk of almost all major diseases, including heart disease and diabetes," says Carpenter. And although Monsanto publically downplays the toxicity of PCBs (though the record shows that privately Monsanto Knew about PCB Toxicity for Decades) "within the objective scientific community and within the government bodies, there is no debate at all'" [37]. See Mortality among workers exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) for a list of serious ailments related to capacitor manufacture using PCBs at an Indiana plant. For more including charts see IPCS - WHO Environmental Levels and Human Exposure. Alarm is being raised about the effects of PCBs and other Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) on native peoples in Russia, Greenland and Canada. Though normally boys slightly outnumber girls, evidence has been emerging that families that survive on the traditional indigenous diet of sea food are changing. It turns out that the hormone mimicking effects of these industrial pollutants are causing a radical suppression of male births. "In the north of Greenland, near the Thule American airbase, only girl babies are being born to Inuit families" [38]. See also this supporting study Women Exposed To High Levels of Pollutant PCB More Likely To Give Birth To Female Children. Furthermore their ban was not the end of PCBs, "Due to the long service life of this equipment [electrical transformers], considerable amounts of PCBs are likely to remain in use for many years". For other continuing sources of exposure see section "History of PCBs" here. See PCBs for more details. The Solutia Solution Monsanto's response is to claim that since it spun off a smaller affiliate, Solutia (in 1997), then merged with Pharmacia (in 2000) and then two years later sort of de-merged, it is not the same company that is responsible for Anniston [39]. Says the Farm Industry News, "Monsanto, which has long resided in the crosshairs of public scorn and scrutiny, appears to have dodged at least one bullet by spinning off its industrial chemical business into a separate entity called Solutia a couple of years ago. Solutia has since been hammered by lawsuits regarding PCB contamination from what were once called Monsanto chemical plants in Alabama and other states" [40]. "Solutia inherited Monsanto's liabilities as a result of 'one-sided negotiations' with Monsanto, according to a court document filed by Jeffrey Quinn, Solutia's general counsel and chief restructuring officer. Monsanto spun off its chemical business, naming it Solutia in 1997, when it decided to focus on its agricultural products. As part of the spinoff, Monsanto put all the liabilities both known and unknown that it had obtained for its nearly 100 years doing business into Solutia, which then became a publicly traded company" [41]. "Some cynically say the company got its name because it was the solution to many of old Monsanto's problems" [42], argues Solutia's Glenn Ruskin, "its spinoff from Monsanto Co. unjustly saddled it with hundreds of millions of dollars in environmental cleanup costs and other liabilities.... '(Monsanto) sort of cherry picked what they wanted and threw in all kinds of cats and dogs as part of a going-away present,' including $1 billion in debt and environmental and litigation costs accrued by Monsanto and Pharmacia over a century of manufacturing" [43]. In addition to PCBs the article mentions two Texas asbestos lawsuits inherited from Monsanto involving "about 570 asbestos actions involving 3,500 to 4,500 plaintiffs." "'Solutia has spent approximately $100 million each year to service legacy liabilities that it was required to accept at the time of the spin-off from Monsanto,' says Solutia chairman, president and CEO John Hunter" [44]. In 2003 Solutia filed for bankruptcy. Monsanto's three shell game hasn't fooled everyone though, "despite this self-induced identity crisis surrounding the company name Monsanto, a quick look at the people involved reveals that essentially the same cast of characters has been with the (chemical) company since it was (old) Monsanto" [45]. Additionally "the new Monsanto states in its 2001 proxy statement that the new Monsanto (not Pharmacia) is responsible for the liabilities of Solutia, Inc.(old Monsanto's subsidiary) in the event Solutia, Inc. cannot meet its obligations." Update: In August on 2007 an agreement was tentatively reached wherein Monsanto's financial stake in Solutia would be reduced from 20% to 17% in exchange for Solutia's dropping of its claims against Monsanto. However "Equity holders said in court documents filed Aug. 7 that the settlement 'repeats the same theme that propelled Solutia into bankruptcy in the first place: a sweetheart deal that benefits Monsanto while permanently burdening Solutia with hundreds of millions of dollars in legacy liabilities, which it played no role in creating ... 'Monsanto created Solutia as a vehicle to dump massive environmental liabilities generated decades before the spinoff" [46]. Asks the Environmental Working Group "If Monsanto hid what it knew about its toxic pollution for decades, what is the company hiding from the public now? This question seems particularly important to us as this powerful company asks the world to trust it with a worldwide, high-stakes gamble with the environmental and human health consequences of its genetically modified foods" [47]. (1) Here one can see another example of Monsanto's concern with damage control and managing its image with regard to increasingly negative PR resulting from its PCB operations in general. With the Toxic Substances Act due to become law the following year and with political and public pressure mounting, Monsanto wrote in 1975: "Principally, Monsanto must not be viewed as being forced into a decision to withdraw from PCB manufacture by either government action or public pressure. Rather, key audiences must perceive Monsanto as having initiated responsible action in a manner consistent with its past reputation and practices." Well yes, it was consistant. (2) Scott McMurray, "Denying Paternity: Monsanto Case Shows How Hard It Is to Tie Pollution to a Source; PCBs Taint Site Where Firm Used to Produce Them, But it Doesn't See a Link," Wall Street Journal June 17, 1992, pg. A1. "Stark denials in the face of documented evidence to the contrary have been corporate policy at Monsanto and GE for decades." Eric Francis author of Conspiracy of Silence [48] "For years, these guys said PCBs were safe, too. But there's obviously a corporate culture of deceiving the public." Mike Casey of the Environmental Working Group Other SourceWatch resources Chemical Industry Archives The PCB Documents A Risk Management Strategy for PCB-Contaminated Sediments downloadable book from the National Academy of Sciences Books and Videos

The Samsung Veyron has been dropping clues about itself for months now. Whether named for the car or the Grand Prix driver that inspired it, the Veyron is the Galaxy S7 reborn in clamshell form. Last year Samsung unveiled the S6-based SM-W2016 and now the SM-W2017 is coming to conquer that niche market of people who want an old-fashioned flip phone and modern features. The Veyron passed through Geekbench which recorded a Snapdragon 820 chipset with 4GB of RAM running Android 6.0.1. Earlier the phone was rumored to have an Exynos 8890 chipset, but considering China (the primary market for such a flip phone) got a Snapdragon-powered S7 this year, our money is on that chipset over the Exynos. Last year's Samsung W2016 Anyway, through Zauba import info we know the phone will have a 4.2" Super AMOLED screen (inside and out). The phone will likely keep S7's camera, that is 12MP with OIS and 5MP on the front (though, with this factor you can just snap selfies with the main camera). Source | Via

Like this? Share it. 3D Printing Materials: What You Can Make This is a guest post by Kyle Hurst, whose bio is at the end of the article. If you look up 3D printing on the internet you’re likely to run into a variety of objects ranging from decorative knick-knacks to full blown prototype models of new inventions. While there’s a lot of emphasis on all of the cool ideas that concept designers have come up with, there is relatively little hype about the development of the various materials and techniques being developed and that are now floating around in the 3D printing community. Here is quick look at the variety of different materials available on the market today. Hard Plastics This is the most common material and you can find it all over the internet, or even make your own out of garbage plastic using a home extrusion machine. “Hard” is usually a relative term and depends heavily on the number of layers in your model. Being the first and most prolific material it’s used for lots of different ideas from sculptures, to graphic design, to mechanical models. Sometimes they’re even used to make functional parts and tools. Flexible Plastics This is a very significant advancement in printing technology because it allows people to print objects with flexible parts in them to build composite structures. That means that printed items don’t have to be stiff, greatly broadening the variety of functional objects that can be effectively produced. Because it’s a lot more rubbery in consistency it’s very useful not only for making flexible objects, but for any number of practical applications such as shoe soles, handgrips, or grips on the undersides of objects to prevent them from sliding around. Metals Selective Laser Sintering has been around for decades, but it hasn’t ever been put to this type of use, and it definitely hasn’t been affordable for a private person. The incorporation of laser sintering into 3D printing allows people to build much more durable and heavy objects. While that means producing machine parts that typically have to be cast or ground by machine tools, it could also be applied to make less glamorous everyday objects like a hammer, or a screwdriver. Chocolate While some people were out chasing the dream of home manufacturing, others got a bit more creative. Considering that at the end of the day we’re using a robot to dab droplets of sticky things strategically into predetermined shapes, it was only a matter of time before someone thought to use chocolate. Perhaps in the future we won’t be so lazy as to buy a box of chocolate hearts for valentines day, but instead design and customize chocolate sculptures as gifts? The idea might be a bit too romantic, but at least it’s tasty. Wood Composite Designed to appeal on aesthetically as well as economically, a German company found a way to create printable wood. It’s made of wood fibers and a lignin based polymer that behaves similarly to plastic. Depending on temperature it will print with different colors, allowing for the addition of artificial “tree-rings” in printed items. The material looks and feels essentially like wood, but more important is that it’s actually made of wood and natural ingredients. That means that we don’t need to rely on artificial non-renewable plastics for 3d printing purposes. 3D printing is becoming increasingly ready to make the jump from fun design toy to essential home-manufacturing tool. If we’re lucky then in 10 years we’ll be sitting in our homes with our own 3D printers building many of the items that we buy at the store today. About the author: Kyle Hurst has a background in 3D modeling and B2B marketing. He’s currently pursuing his education further and writing about 3D plastic printing in his free time. Have something to say? Submit your own guest post to On 3D Printing! Shapeways Materials Sample Kit photo by Shapeways used under Creative Commons license.

Aug 12 (Reuters) - The bankrupt city of Stockton, California, on Friday submitted a revised plan to exit Chapter 9 that reflects the judge’s ruling over the value of a holdout creditor’s collateral, but a larger question still looms over whether public pensions will be cut. The Northern California city, which entered bankruptcy in 2012 and hopes to exit Chapter 9 protection later this year, promised it would pay a secured claim of $4 million, according to court documents. The city initially had valued the collateral as worthless. The value of the collateral, which includes two golf courses, a community center and a park, was a remaining point of contention in Stockton’s case. In July, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Klein ruled that the collateral with which Stockton could pay holdout creditor Franklin Templeton was worth $4.052 million. In early proceedings, Franklin had argued the value was between $6.12 million to $17.34 million. But the question of the city’s long-term structural health is still weighing on Klein, who asked in July for the case’s parties to explain why the city could not make cuts to its public pensions, the city’s largest creditor, as it has to bondholders. On Monday, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, filed a brief stating that the court should leave the pensions of city workers and retirees untouched, as the city had proposed in its bankruptcy “exit plan,” or plan of adjustment. There is “no controversy on these issues,” Calpers wrote, because the city and Calpers were in agreement, and “the Court does not need to address impairment of the City’s pension obligations.” From Detroit, which last year filed the biggest ever U.S. municipal bankruptcy, to San Bernardino, California, the question of whether public employee pensions can be cut during municipal bankruptcy has been closely followed by pension funds, public officials, local governments and investors in the $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal bond market. In the Stockton case, the judge has kept the question in the foreground, stating in July that his understanding of California law suggests that Calpers itself could not be challenged in bankruptcy but employees’ pensions could be. In court documents submitted Monday, Calpers said that “the hypothetical question” of whether pensions could be reduced “is of little significance because it is highly unlikely that a Chapter 9 debtor in California will ever wish to travel that path.” (Reporting b y Robin Respaut; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Officers Feloniously Killed Download Printable Document The following information concerns duly sworn city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement officers who died in 2013 as a result of felonious incidents in the line of duty. The law enforcement officers included in this report also met additional criteria (e.g., they had full arrest powers; they ordinarily wore/carried a badge and a firearm). Overview In 2013, 27 law enforcement officers died from injuries incurred in the line of duty during felonious incidents. Of the officers feloniously killed, 16 were employed by city police departments, including 4 who were members of law enforcement agencies in cities with 250,000 or more inhabitants. Line-of-duty deaths occurred in 16 states. By region, 15 officers were feloniously killed in the South, 6 officers in the West, 4 officers in the Midwest, and 2 officers in the Northeast. More information about these topics is provided in Tables 1, 2, 15, 16, 21, 22, 28, 29, and 30. Victim profile The average age of the officers who died in 2013 was 39 years old. The slain officers’ average length of law enforcement service was 13 years. Of the officers who died due to felonious incidents in 2013, 25 were male and 2 were female. By race, 25 of the victim officers were white and 2 were black. More information about this topic is provided in Tables 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. Circumstances 6 officers died as a result of arrest situations. 5 officers were involved in ambush situations. 5 officers died as a result of investigating suspicious persons or circumstances. 4 officers who died had responded to disturbance calls. 4 officers were killed as a result of tactical situations (barricaded offender, hostage taking, high-risk entry, etc.). 2 officers were fatally injured during traffic pursuits or stops. 1 officer was conducting investigative activity (surveillance, search, interview, etc.). More information about this topic is provided in Tables 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 32, 33, and 34. Assignments 16 officers were on assigned vehicle patrol when the felonious incidents occurred. 9 officers were assigned to other duties, such as detectives, officers on special assignments, undercover officers, or officers on other types of assignments not listed. 2 of the slain officers were off duty, but acting in an official capacity, at the times of the incidents. 16 on-duty officers who died in 2013 were assisted at the time of the attacks. 9 on-duty officers were alone and unassisted at the time of the attacks. More information about this topic is provided in Tables 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, and 26. Weapons Of the officers killed in 2013, most (26) were killed with firearms. Of these, 18 were killed with handguns. (A breakdown of the types of weapons used in these slayings is provided in Table 27.) 2 officers had their weapons stolen. 6 officers fired their weapons; 3 officers attempted to use their weapons. 9 officers were slain with firearms when they were 0-5 feet from the offenders. More information about this topic is provided in Tables 12, 13, 14, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, and 41. Body armor In 2013, 19 of the officers feloniously killed were wearing body armor at the time of the incidents. Of these officers, 18 were killed with firearms, incurring the following wounds: 5 were wounded in the side of the head. 5 were shot in the front upper torso/chest. 4 suffered wounds to the front of the head. 3 were shot in the neck/throat. 1 was shot in the rear lower torso/back. More information about this topic is provided in Tables 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41. Months, days, and times of incidents More officers (5 in each month) died from felonious assaults that occurred in February and December than in any other month in 2013. More officers (6) were involved in fatal assaults that occurred on Thursdays than on any other day of the week. 13 officers were fatally injured in assaults that happened between 12:01 a.m. and noon. 14 officers were fatally injured in assaults that happened between 12:01 p.m. and midnight. More information about these topics is provided in Tables 3, 4, 5, 17, and 18. Profile of alleged known assailants In 2013, 28 alleged offenders were identified in connection with the 27 law enforcement officers feloniously killed. Of those offenders, the following characteristics are known: The average age of the alleged offenders was 30 years old. The average height was 5 feet 9 inches tall, and the average weight was 177 pounds. 26 of the alleged offenders were male, 1 was female, and gender was not reported for 1 offender. 15 of the alleged offenders were white, 11 were black, and race was not reported for 2 offenders. 20 of the alleged offenders had prior criminal arrests. 6 of the alleged offenders were under judicial supervision at the time of the incidents. 1 of the alleged offenders was under the influence of a controlled substance at the time of the fatal incident. 3 of the alleged offenders were under the influence of alcohol or were intoxicated at the time of the fatal incidents. More information about this topic is provided in Tables 42, 43, 44, 45, and 46.

A Love Letter To Literature: Reading Gabo In 'The Paris Review' Enlarge this image toggle caption Paco Junquera/Getty Images Paco Junquera/Getty Images Everyone has a favorite Gabriel Garcia Marquez book, and mine is Love in the Time of Cholera. It's the story of a romance that lasts decades, unwinding through the pages of the book. It's verbose, vibrant and full of love. But that libro isn't my favorite section of the Garcia Marquez canon. My favorite is actually something he didn't even write: It's an interview he did for the winter 1981 issue of The Paris Review, as thrilling a work of literature as Gabo ever penned — and wholly his. Garcia Marquez was at a perfect time to sit down and reflect. He was a year away from becoming a Nobel laureate, old enough to look back but vigorously pushing off any talk of being an elder statesman. In the Paris Review piece, we see the author at his finest: witty, profound, demanding, transparent, simultaneously of the pueblo and the world. Garcia Marquez talked about his life, his books and how journalism influenced him. On the latter point, he joked, "I've always been convinced that my true profession is that of a journalist. What I didn't like about journalism before were the working conditions." Preach, hermano. He bashes critics, praises Hemingway and Faulkner and admits to loving gossip mags. This is not the imperious giant of legend, but a blood-and-flesh hombre who'll answer to no one's tastes but his own. Asked to conclude with what his next project would be, he said, "I'm absolutely convinced that I'm going to write the greatest book of my life, but I don't know which one it will be or when. When I feel something like this — which I have been feeling now for a while — I stay very quiet, so that if it passes by I can capture it." Fans of Garcia Marquez should read this masterpiece. And if you've never bothered with him? You're in for a treat: It's a love letter to literature, and the perfect gateway to the magic that is the prose of el maestro, Gabo. Gustavo Arellano is the editor of O.C. Weekly and the author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.