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President Donald Trump’s tweets accounted for plenty of news cycles. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo Trump After Dark: Back to the Future edition Official Washington is in holiday mode — and President Donald Trump is soaking up rays in Florida. So it’s a good time to look back at what Year One of a Trump presidency has meant. Story Continued Below POLITICO’s Annie Karni explores one unique feature of Trump’s presidency: The Twitter feud. Never before has a Commander in Chief taken the digitial bully pulpit to the levels of President Trump and the effects — on celebrities, a deputy FBI director and politicians among others — has been something to behold. “The personal attacks from the leader of the free world, blasted out to his 45 million followers, have no real precedent in American politics. They’ve energized the president and his base, outraged his opponents and driven entire news cycles — but also shocked and traumatized those individuals on the receiving end.” Trump’s tweets accounted for plenty of news cycles. But it’s hard to say what will drive to 2018. There were plenty of bad predictions about what would happen in 2017. As POLITICO’s Zack Stanton and Derek Robertson explain , 2017 was many things — among them a year for generally pretty terrible political prognosticating. The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. Among the worst? Trump resigning before year’s end; Jared Kushner exerting a moderating influence on the White House and one, from Trump himself, that his inauguration would be a record-breaker. Elsewhere in President Trump’s orbit: OBAMA WINS*: President Trump and President Barack Obama never ran against each other but the latter edged the former out in Gallup’s most admired man survey. Hillary Clinton topped the list of women. OUT LIKE FLYNN: The Trump team’s plan is to paint Michael Flynn as a liar and dissembler should he turn on any of President Trump’s inner circle in the ongoing investigation of Russian election interference. EMPTY CABINET: President Trump’s Cabinet has been executing his priorities largely in secret, often shielding their public schedules and other details from the press. LVIV AND LET LVIV: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked Moscow to reduce the level of violence in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops have been siding with separatists in skirmishes against the Ukrainian government. CHARGES FILED: Joy Villa, the pro-Trump singer considering a congressional bid, filed sexual assault charges against former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he reportedly slapped her butt hard, twice, after being told not to do so. There you have it. You’re caught up on the Trump administration. Happy Wednesday.

Injured Carter out of All Blacks for third test TOBY ROBSON Dan Carter is out with a hamstring injury in a dramatic turn of events that has turned the All Blacks' third test against Ireland into anything but a dead rubber. All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has fearlessly made six changes to the side that started the 22-19 win in Christchurch, with lock Luke Romano to make his debut in place of Brodie Retallick in a revamped pack. In a new-look loose trio, Richie McCaw takes over at No 8 from Kieran Read, who has been ruled out due to concussion, with Liam Messam at blindside and Sam Cane on the openside in what will be his first test start. In the backs, Aaron Cruden will wear the No 10 jersey after Carter pulled up lame after training on Tuesday, while Hosea Gear and Ben Smith go on to the wings. Retallick and loose forward Adam Thomson drop to a new-look reserves bench that includes Taranaki rookie Beauden Barrett, Highlanders utility back Tamati Ellison and veteran hooker Keven Mealamu. Wings Zac Guildford and Julian Savea drop out of the squad altogether. Hansen indicated the changes were in part because his side had not performed to expectation in Christchurch. The All Blacks by their own admission weren't happy with the way they performed on Saturday and in part this was a credit to the way the Irish played, he said. "They have laid down the challenge and the key will be now how we respond." Of most significance is the absence of Carter, who will undergo further tests in the next few days to determine how long he will be out of rugby. Cruden makes his fourth test start and first since the World Cup final, and where such a selection might previously have sent the nation into panic attacks it is unlikely to cause more than a flutter. Cruden, 23, is a readymade replacement on a ground he has made his own this season for the Chiefs and will reunite his successful combination with second five-eighth Sonny Bill Williams. The selection of Romano, 26, may be greeted with less ease. It suggests an effort to add grunt to a scrum that struggled badly last time out, but it's unclear why Thomson, who broke his nose in Christchurch, has been relegated to the bench. It may be to add some energy and ball-carrying finesse with Messam champing at the bit in what will be his first test since he started at No 8 against South Africa during last year's Tri-Nations. That was also the last time Gear wore the black jersey. Playing his 10th test, it will be only the third time Messam has started at blindside. And it will mean McCaw wears the All Blacks' No 8 jersey in what will be his 100th test start of his career, a feat achieved by only two other forwards, South Africa's Victor Matfield and England's Jason Leonard. Mealamu returns for the first time since injuring his calf playing for the Blues in early April, then missing the first two tests as a precaution. ALL BLACKS: Israel Dagg, Ben Smith, Conrad Smith, Sonny Bill Williams, Hosea Gear, Aaron Cruden, Aaron Smith, Richie McCaw (capt), Sam Cane, Liam Messam, Sam Whitelock, Luke Romano, Owen Franks, Andrew Hore, Tony Woodcock. Reserves: Keven Mealamu, Ben Franks, Brodie Retallick, Adam Thomson, Piri Weepu, Beauden Barrett, Tamati Ellison. - The Dominion Post

Fireproof pouch Money valuable Document safe bag Fire Resistant material RC LiPo Battery Safe Guard Bag Charging Sack Save Pack 18cm X 23 cm (7''x9'') Description: Fire proof pouch Money cash Important documents RC LiPo Battery Safe Guard Bag Charging Sack Save Pack 18cm x 23cm (7'' x 9'') This is a fireproof bag, designed to protect imprortant documents money cash from fire or stop and contain any fire caused by incorrectly charging or poorly functioning lipo packs. Please flap side down and on the lowest level of your house (best place is in your cellar, but not in a wet place) that will be best to protect your improtant goods. Features: - Fire proof puch is made of waterproof surface material and Fire resistant inside material - Protect your Important documents / cash / card from fire - The safest way to charge and store your lipos battery - Color: black - Size: 18cm x 23cm (7'' x 9'') Remark: The inside fire resistant material will not catch fire, but please pay attention that the long time high temperature will cause the paper in the fire proof puch to carbide. So please flap side down and on the lowest level of your house (best place is in your cellar, but not in a wet place) that will be better to protect your improtant goods. Also please pay attention to the fire and keep away from the fire is the best way to protect eveything.

Thijs: the meta in tournaments is really open now Article: LiquidHearth Thijs "ThijsNL" Molendijk Team: Gamers2 Qualification: EU Champion EU HWC Points Finish: Top 8 Run: 3-1 Greensheep 3-2 Xixo 3-1 Lifecoach 3-1 Maverick 3-1 Ostkaka 3-0 Lifecoach 3-1 Neirea Decks used in Regional Qualifiers: Druid, Handlock, Patron Decks used in Regional Championship: Druid, Handlock, Patron Gamers2EU ChampionTop 83-1 Greensheep3-2 Xixo3-1 Lifecoach3-1 Maverick3-1 Ostkaka3-0 Lifecoach3-1 NeireaDruid,Handlock,WarriorDruid,Handlock,Warrior Interview Hey Thijs, how's life? Feeling pretty good! Yea you should be. You've been doing pretty well lately in Hearthstone, European Champion, 2nd place at Starladder. To what do you attribute this success? I have been working to improve myself from the start I played Hearthstone. It feels that it is paying off now and things are going my way too. Your beginning of 2015 was relatively uneventful but you've been on an extremely hot streak lately, what changed? Have you been pushing yourself especially hard lately or is it just variance? That's true. I had a rough start and it was hard on me. I'm sometimes too hard on myself and even when I win I look for something I could do better. I think it's a good mindset if you want to be or stay at the top. You didn't answer the question... Haha, ye mostly the pushing myself thing It might also be some variance over the last two months where everything for some time comes together. There were no major changes recently but it was hard for me to make the change from Last Hero Standing to Conquest. You mentioned in previous interviews that the Druid/Patron/Handlock metagame at the EU qualifiers was extremely favorable for you. Can you give your insights on what the metagame will be like at Blizzcon and whether it'll be equally as favorable? Now with the Warsong Patron I'm not as confident in the new meta. In the old meta all my favorite classes where top tier, that might have changed a bit now. Patron "Druid was already strong and Paladin is probably the most consistent class overall withgone." I want to talk a bit about your EU lineup. In particular, the tech changes you made to Handlock. You took out all copies of Shadowflame Darkbomb Shadowflame When two good Handlock players face off, the one playing proactively has an edge, especially when your deck is teched with big swing cards (Owl/BGH). Cutting a Darkbomb Shadowflame Shadowflame Shadowflame Feeling pretty good!I have been working to improve myself from the start I played Hearthstone. It feels that it is paying off now and things are going my way too.That's true. I had a rough start and it was hard on me. I'm sometimes too hard on myself and even when I win I look for something I could do better. I think it's a good mindset if you want to be or stay at the top.Haha, ye mostly the pushing myself thingIt might also be some variance over the last two months where everything for some time comes together. There were no major changes recently but it was hard for me to make the change from Last Hero Standing to Conquest.Now with thebeing removed from the game, I expect many Paladins and Druids. Druid was already strong and Paladin is probably the most consistent class overall withgone. I think the meta in tournaments is really open now, I wouldn't be surprised to see almost all the classes.I'm not as confident in the new meta. In the old meta all my favorite classes where top tier, that might have changed a bit now.When two good Handlock players face off, the one playing proactively has an edge, especially when your deck is teched with big swing cards (Owl/BGH). Cutting a, Healbot andmakes sure you have no dead cards in the first eight turns. Yesis really good in the mirror but only when your opponent plays into it. The good thing about cutting these cards are that players will still play around them. Nobody expects a Handlock deck without Speaking of the EU finals, can you rank the regions for me in terms of the strength of players who qualified? Really hard for me to say since I don't know much about the players from SEA and China. I think we in EU have some really good players representing the region and the same goes for NA. SEA with Kranich and Pinpingho having some known players too. It will be a close call between regions, I believe in Europe! "It will be a close call between regions, I believe in Europe!" Well then who are some players you'd like to single out as your strongest competition? Purpledrank, Hotform, Kranich, Lifecoach and Ostkaka are players I really respect. I know your brother is also into Hearthstone. With your more recent success, do you think he's more considering following the same path? He's is different than me, but I hope so. He loves Hearthstone and I even play with him to prepare for tournaments. He is really good. I will take him to future events for sure. If he can manage to find more time for Hearthstone, who knows. Cool, that's all I have for you for now. Any final words? Thanks to G2, my teammates and the fans cheering for me, it means a lot to me! Other Interviews Americas: JAB, Nias, Purple, Hotform Really hard for me to say since I don't know much about the players from SEA and China. I think we in EU have some really good players representing the region and the same goes for NA. SEA with Kranich and Pinpingho having some known players too. It will be a close call between regions, I believe in Europe!Purpledrank, Hotform, Kranich, Lifecoach and Ostkaka are players I really respect.He's is different than me, but I hope so. He loves Hearthstone and I even play with him to prepare for tournaments. He is really good. I will take him to future events for sure. If he can manage to find more time for Hearthstone, who knows.Thanks to G2, my teammates and the fans cheering for me, it means a lot to me! Europe: Neirea, ThijsNL, Lifecoach, Ostkaka China: Zoro, LoveCX, Zihao, NoTomorrow Asia-Pacific: Pinpingho, Kno, Kranich, Neilyo Asia-Pacific: Pinpingho, Kno, Kranich, Neilyo Interviewer // Photo // Graphics // Editor // // monk // Blizzard // shiroiusagi // Hayl

While internet users in Australia are generally free to access and distribute materials online, free speech is limited by a number of legal obstacles, such as broadly applied defamation laws and a lack of codified free speech rights. Additionally, recent amendments have significantly increased the government’s capacity for surveillance of ICTs, including an amendment broadening the definition of “computer” to include entire networks, and a provision allowing law enforcement and intelligence agencies warrantless access to metadata. Legal Environment Australians’ rights to access online content and freely engage in online discussions are based less in law and more in the shared understanding of a fair and free society. Legal protection for free speech is limited to the constitutionally-implied freedom of political communication, which only extends to the limited context of political discourse during an election.[44] There is no bill of rights or similar legislative instrument that protects the full range of human rights in Australia, and the courts have less ground to strike down legislation that infringes on civil liberties. Nonetheless, Australians benefit greatly from a culture of freedom of expression and freedom of information, further protected by an independent judiciary. The country is also a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Australian defamation law has been interpreted liberally and is governed by legislation passed by the states as well as common law principles.[45] Civil actions over defamation are common and form the main impetus for self-censorship, though a number of cases have established a constitutional defense when the publication of defamatory material involves political discussion.[46] Court costs and the stress associated with defending against suits under Australia’s expansive defamation laws have caused organizations to leave the country and blogs to shut down.[47] Under Australian law, a person may bring a defamation case to court based on information posted online by someone in another country, providing that the material is accessible in Australia and that the defamed person enjoys a reputation in Australia. In some cases, this law allows for the possibility of libel tourism, which allows individuals from any country to take up legal cases in Australia because of the more favorable legal environment regarding defamation suits. The right to reputation is generally afforded greater protection in countries like Australia and the United Kingdom than the right of freedom of expression. In Australia this is especially so as freedom of expression is limited to political speech. While the United States and the United Kingdom have recently enacted laws to restrict libel tourism, Australia is not currently considering any such legislation. Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities In January 2015, a Western Australian court ordered estranged wife Robyn Greeuw to pay $12,500 in damages for her defamatory Facebook postings where she alleged that her former husband Miro Dabrowski had emotionally and physically abused her for over 18 years.[48] The defence of truth was not proven. This follows the widely publicized earlier decision in the case of Mickle v Farley,[49] where a young man in New South Wales was fined AUD 105,000 plus costs for posting defamatory statements on Twitter and Facebook about his music teacher. The case was novel for the amount of damages incurred on the defendant and for being the first Australian decision where a tweet was held to be defamatory.[50] In the case Judge Elkaim stated that “when defamatory publications are made on social media it is common knowledge that they spread. They are spread easily by the simple manipulation of mobile phones and computer. Their evil lies in the grapevine effect that stems from the use of this type of communication.”[51] There have been several cases in the states of New South Wales and Victoria of individuals being sentenced to jail terms for publishing explicit photos of women, typically former girlfriends or boyfriends. By way of example, in 2012 Australian citizen Ravshan Usmanov pled guilty to publishing an indecent article and was originally sentenced to six months of home detention after he posted nude photographs of an ex-girlfriend on Facebook.[52] The sentence was appealed and the court commuted the original sentence in favor of a suspended sentence. Surveillance, Privacy and Anonymity Over the past few years, revelations regarding global surveillance and retention of communications data by the NSA and other intelligence agencies have raised concerns regarding users’ right to privacy and freedom of expression. However, the Australian government has taken few steps to remedy these concerns, and has instead moved to expand the government’s surveillance capabilities. In October 2014, the parliament passed amendments to the national security legislation that increase penalties for whistleblowers and could potentially allow intelligence agents to monitor an entire network with a single warrant. Further, data retention amendments passed in March 2015 require telecommunication companies to store customers’ metadata for two years, allowing agencies to access that metadata without a warrant. Law enforcement agencies may search and seize computers and compel an ISP to intercept and store data from those suspected of committing a crime. Such actions require a lawful warrant. As will be discussed below, law enforcement no longer requires a warrant to access, review, and store metadata. The collection and monitoring of the content of communication falls within the purview of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (TIAA). Call-charge records, however, are regulated by the Telecommunications Act 1997 (TA).[53] It is prohibited for ISPs and similar entities, acting on their own, to monitor and disclose the content of communications without the customer’s consent.[54] Unlawful collection and disclosure of the content of a communication can draw both civil and criminal sanctions.[55] The TIAA and TA explicitly authorize a range of disclosures, including to specified law enforcement and tax agencies, all of which require a warrant. ISPs are currently able to monitor their networks without a warrant for “network protection duties,” such as curtailing malicious software and spam.[56] The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015 (Bill) is potentially the greatest legislative threat to Australian online freedom. The bill amends the TIAA and TA while introducing a statutory obligation for telecommunication service providers to retain telecommunications data (metadata) for two years. The bill became law on April 13, 2015 and is now referred to as the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015 (the Act). Telecommunications providers have an 18 month grace period before the applicable provisions enter into force. The metadata of all Australians will be stored for two years. There is no longer the requirement of restricting metadata access and use only in the course of an investigation. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies will no longer require a warrant to access and review metadata. However, law enforcement will still need a warrant to access stored communications, as well as any metadata associated with journalists or their sources. While other countries have implemented data retention frameworks, the Australian Attorney-General has failed to discuss the significant differences between the EU, American, and Australian legal environments. In other countries, citizens’ rights are protected under a Bill of Rights or a Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Like the U.S. courts, European courts can and have struck down data retention laws or directives that offend these guarantees of fundamental human rights and civil liberties. There is no Bill of Rights or Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in Australia. As such, the courts have no effective means to strike down proposals that violate civil liberties. Once a proposal is enacted, the only way to have it changed is through legislation, which often requires a change of government. Following the leaks of U.S. National Security Agency documents by former contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013, it was reported that Australian law enforcement has received information from the NSA surveillance programs. It is further believed that the attorney general’s department is seeking the power to “break into anonymization and encryption software like Tor.”[57] Additionally, in April 2015, new revisions to the Defense Trade Controls Act introduced restrictions on encryption software that could discourage the use of these tools. The new revisions have been criticized for being overly broad, with the potential to criminalize the use of encryption for teaching and research purposes, in addition to everyday use for privacy and security.[58] The NSA surveillance revelations have further impacted the way in which Australia views its obligations around classified data. On October 1, 2014, the parliament enacted amendments to the National Security Legislation Amendment Act, including provisions that threaten journalists and whistleblowers with a ten year prison term if they publish classified information.[59] These provisions have entered into force. Other worrying provisions that will come into force in 2015 include changes to the scope of warrants. The definition of a “computer” has been broadened to allow law enforcement to access data to multiple computers connected to a network with a single warrant. Users do not need to register to use the internet, nor are there restrictions placed on anonymous communications. The same cannot be said of mobile phone users, as verified identification information is required to purchase any prepaid mobile service. Additional personal information must be provided to the service provider before a phone may be activated. All purchase information is stored while the service remains activated, and it may be accessed by law enforcement and emergency agencies provided there is a valid warrant.[60] Intimidation and Violence There were no reported acts of intimidation or violence resulting from online activities during the reporting period. Technical Attacks Cyberattacks and hacking incidents remain a common concern in Australia. Several businesses and universities sustained denial-of-service (DoS) attacks lasting close to a week, disrupting all facets of online university research, teaching, and administration. Private corporations such as those in the mining industry continue to be attacked on a regular basis. The overall rate of cyberattacks has remained steady over the past few years.

Image copyright Rui Vieira Image caption The youngest person to have a Taser drawn on them was 11, while the youngest person fired on was 14, figures showed More than 400 children have had tasers drawn on them by police in England and Wales in 2013, figures obtained by the BBC show. The Home Office Taser database, seen by BBC Radio 5 live, shows a 38% increase on 2012 in the number of children who had a taser aimed at them. Tasers were fired 37 times at 10 to 17-year-olds. Ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett, who introduced Tasers, called for a review. The Home Office said Theresa May has asked for a review of their usage. The figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request show the youngest person to have a Taser aimed at them was 11, while the youngest person fired on was 14. The oldest person to have one pointed at them was 85 and the oldest person actually fired on was 82. The Home Office has not released Taser statistics broken down by age before, and warns that they are not wholly reliable because the age figures may be police estimates. Tasers fire dart-like electrodes into a person's body and are used to incapacitate suspects. Training urged Speaking to 5 live, Mr Blunkett called for chief constables and police and crime commissioners in England and Wales to look at who was authorised to use Tasers and whether there were alternatives. "I think it's time for a review that incorporates the use of Tasers with advice and support on how to deal with difficult situations," he said. "For a youngster, 11 years old, a Taser is not in my view an appropriate way of dealing with a situation which clearly must have been out of hand, but where we need to train people to use much more traditional alternatives." Image caption Note: The Home Office has not released Taser statistics broken down by age before and warns that they are not wholly reliable because some recorded ages may be police estimates The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says under-18s are involved in a lot of violent crime, and that any use has to be justifiable in court. Commander Neil Basu said he did not want to comment on individual cases but it was important to understand the circumstances surrounding the use of a Taser. "We have to remember that children can commit violent crime too. The police are paid to intervene in those situations and Taser can be an appropriate use of force," he said. "If that 14-year-old is committing a violent act towards a member of the public or to an officer, or if they are self-harming, then our job is to make sure that that stops in the safest way possible. "And in certain circumstances, Taser is that option." What's it like to be tasered? Daniel Dove was 22 when he was tasered in a police cell in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. He says it was for flicking his underpants at a police officer during a strip search. He had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly and assault, but the case was later dropped. "I'd say it's like being shocked by a cattle fence, but 50,000 times stronger," he said. "I felt like I was paralysed… I couldn't move my hand or my body. "It wasn't a very nice experience to have." The officer involved was later charged with assault and misconduct, but cleared by a jury at Bristol Crown Court. Iain Gould, a solicitor at DPP Law, who has been involved in a number of cases involving claims of inappropriate use of Tasers, said his concern was "mission creep" as they become more commonly used. "Several years ago, Tasers were deployed to certain trained firearms officers," he said. "We now have a situation where routine rank-and-file officers are being given Tasers to use. "My concern is that it has got out of hand and what we are seeing is effectively militarisation by stealth." 'Emotional subject' That is not a description Commander Neil Basu said he recognised. "I disagree with that entirely, but I do know it is a concern," he said. "This is a very emotional subject but police forces, police officers using force, that is one of our absolute key responsibilities that the public have chosen to give us. "And if we choose to abuse that then we would lose the power. "There are no people more accountable than firearms and Taser-trained officers. So if an officer uses that power inappropriately, absolutely they should be held accountable to the law." Most likely to shoot, 2013 Police force Number of incidents involving Tasers Percentage of times Taser was fired Lancashire 145 29.7 North Wales 41 29.3 Greater Manchester 621 27.8 Merseyside 69 27.5 Devon and Cornwall 287 26.8 Note: data is for all ages rather than just under-18s, and excludes areas with fewer than 10 incidents According to Home Office guidance, only authorised firearms officers and specially trained units can use Tasers. Officers trained in the use of Tasers must consider the vulnerability of the individual and factors such as age and stature form part of this assessment. A Home Office spokesman said: "The home secretary has been clear that the use of sensitive police powers, such as stop and search, mental health and the use of force, warrant proper accountability and transparency to ensure that they are being used appropriately. "Taser is an important tactical option to help specially trained police officers resolve potentially violent situations safely, but it is right that its use is subject to the same level of scrutiny." In an ideal world, you try to engage the subject and talk the situation down, however... that is not always possible Taser-carrying officer He said a review by Chief Constable David Shaw would look at how Taser is being used, who it is being used on and what the outcomes are. In January, the Police Federation voted for all front-line police in England and Wales to be offered Tasers in light of the increased terrorism threat. Head of the federation, Steve White, said the devices would help protect against "dangerous people" who could be preparing to attack officers. However some critics, including Christopher Salmon, a Welsh police and crime commissioner, said the move would be a mistake. One serving police officer who carries a Taser told the BBC that while the headline figures looked disturbing, in reality "traditional methods" did not always work. "You only have to go to kids' football matches on a weekend to see just how tall and well-built some of these youngsters are. Just imagine being in a situation where someone of that size is going crazy with a weapon, or in some instances a knife," he said. "As a police officer who often arrives at the location as a single-crewed officer, what are you going to do? "In an ideal world, you try to engage the subject and talk the situation down, however, where there are other people in imminent danger that is not always possible, or where the subject is self-harming and a delay may cause more harm."

Over the weekend, the Democratic Unity Reform Commission issued recommendations aimed at giving power back to the party’s “grass-roots.” The recommendations would cut back the number of so-called superdelegates by 60 percent, in an effort to loosen elite control over the presidential nomination process and make the party more democratic. These recommendations illustrate the types of reforms we often see connected to democracy within parties. But these reforms are actually difficult to define and implement across many states. Part of the reason it’s difficult to make a party internally democratic is that this is the wrong way to think about parties. The concept of democracy within a political party is tricky. As with many other institutions, parties have become more democratically run over time. Important decisions like nominations and platform stances used to be made by bosses and convention delegates; now they’re largely determined by rank-and-file voters in primaries and caucuses. The logic of running things more democratically is that people tend to have more faith in the resulting decisions — those choices are more legitimate. Like just about any other institution, a party requires legitimacy to operate. It makes many decisions on behalf of its members and operates the complex caucuses, primaries, conventions and other machinery that boil down dozens of candidates into just one nominee. Similarly, it tries to weigh the many wide-ranging views of its members into a coherent platform. For it to do these things and still get roughly half the votes of the American electorate, people have to have some faith that its actions are done in good faith.

Port Blair: Acknowledging the strategic importance of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, the central government plans to invest Rs150 billion for various developmental projects on the islands, it was announced on Saturday. Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that out of the total outlay, projects worth Rs100 billion have already commenced. The announcement came after Gadkari and Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday laid the foundation stones for a series of projects on the islands, a statement from the Shipping Ministry said. During the event, Rajnath Singh said the government was developing the islands while acknowledging their “strategic importance”. He added that India was emerging as a powerful nation in terms of economy and security, and that no nation could destabilise it “as the government was strengthening the security on all fronts”. The Home Minister added that, out of the 1,382 islands in the country, 10 have been selected for infrastructure development, out of which five were located in the Andamans. Singh added that an Island Development Agency (IDA) has been created for taking care of the development and security of these islands. “A&N islands may be far from New Delhi geographically, but are close to New Delhi emotionally,” the statement quoted him as saying. Gadkari added that tourism sector had good prospects in the islands and that better roads, round-the-clock power and good hotels were needed to boost tourism, which will also generate employment for the youth. Among the projects for which the foundation stones were laid included rehabilitation and upgradation of NH-4 to two-lanes from Austin Creek to Kalara at Diglipur, and Beodnabad-Ferrargunj section of the NH-4 at Baratang. The ministers also laid the foundation stone of major bridges over Humphrey Strait Creek and Middle Strait Creek at Baratang, the statement added.

Aquarius Horoscope for week of February 28, 2019 The first edition of Action Comics, which launched the story of the fictional character Superman, cost ten cents in 1938. Nowadays it's worth three million dollars. I'll make a bold prediction that you, too, will be worth considerably more on December 31, 2019 than you are right now. The increase won't be as dramatic as that of the Superman comic, but still: I expect a significant boost. And what you do in the next four weeks could have a lot to do with making my prediction come true. * I've gathered together the Free Will Astrology horoscopes that address the far-reaching themes of your destiny in the coming months. Read a compendium of your written horoscopes for 2019: Your Glorious Story 2019 In addition to my written reports, I have created three-part, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES about Your Long-Range Future. They go further in exploring your long-range prospects and challenges. What are your plans for the coming year? Could you use some more help mapping out your dreams and schemes in 2019? To access the EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, register and/or sign in on the main page, and then click on the link "Long Range Prediction." Choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two. The cost is $6 per horoscope, but there are discounts if you buy multiple tokens. Each Long-Range, Big-Picture Audio Forecast is 7 to 9 minutes long. (P.S. You can also listen to a short-term audio horoscope for the coming week! "This week (Feb 26, 2019)")

In the event it all passed off quite peacefully. The demonstration against the staging of The Death of Klinghoffer that had been predicted in some sections of the press appeared to be limited to one person standing outside the Coliseum and brandishing a rather small poster, and at the final curtain the composer, his work and English National Opera's production were all warmly received. Twenty-one years after it was first seen in Brussels, John Adams's second opera has finally reached the London stage. This a fine, intelligent treatment of it, though some aspects inevitably underline the work's fundamental problems, which have nothing to do with its political agenda, whether real or imagined, and everything to do with the way in which the work is conceived dramatically, and the language in which Alice Goodman's libretto is couched. For in many ways The Death of Klinghoffer is more a reflection on the infamous Palestinian hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean in 1985, and the subsequent death of one of its passengers, the Jewish, wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, than a depiction of the event itself. It's the absence of that narrative element in the text, and the effect that has on the music which Adams composed, that robs the work of a real dramatic spine. For the first act at least the score seems much closer to oratorio than opera, with much more meditation and recollection than real-time action, and the overwrought imagery and sheer opacity of Goodman's text only exacerbate it. The pace quickens in the second half – a narrative thread more or less runs through it – and the dramatic focus is sharper, but the final impression is blurred. Tom Morris's production (designed by Tom Pye) works hard to compensate for the opera's failure to tell its own story. Significant dates are flashed up on the set, explanatory captions supply historical context, and if the effect is to make the piece seem more of a documentary than Adams and Goodman ever intended, then it's an unfortunate necessity. The stage pictures are economical, carefully managed and effective – the chorus unfurl green flags as Palestinians, carry olive trees as Israelis. Little is stylised, though some episodes are choreographed (by Arthur Pita) and enough grainy realism remains to make the true nature of the tragedy vivid. What emerges clearly too from the performance under Baldur Brönnimann is the sheer beauty of so much of Adams's score, with its dark-hued sonorities, chromatically inflected harmonies and keening instrumental lines. The great choruses that provide the opera's structural pillars are superbly sung by the ENO Chorus, though it's a real shame that the ravishing one that opens the second act has been cut here. All of the solo roles are taken memorably too, whether it's the cameos from Kathryn Harries as the Austrian woman, Lucy Schaufer as the Swiss grandmother, and Kate Miller-Heidke as the British dancing girl, or the major contributions from Christopher Magiera as the Captain, Richard Burkhard as the hijacker Mamoud, Michaela Martens as Marilyn Klinghoffer and especially Alan Opie as Leon Klinghoffer himself, who sings his final number, the Aria of the Falling Body, which Adams calls a gymnopédie, with devastating simplicity. While the place in the repertory for The Death of Klinghoffer remains unclear – does it belong in the opera house or, perhaps slightly modified, in the concert hall? – ENO's production does underline its musical worth, and its timeless seriousness. It's a major achievement.

In a survey that, on its face, may make some undergraduates scamper back to their “safe spaces,” Pew Research Center finds a majority of Americans think too many people are easily offended by mere words. According to the poll, 59 percent of Americans say “too many people are easily offended these days over the language that others use.” Another 39 percent, however, say “people need to be more careful about the language they use to avoid offending people with different backgrounds.” While overall more Americans are tired of knee-jerk sensitivity to language, Democrats are more likely than Republicans and Independents to believe people should watch what they say. According to Pew while 78 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Independents say people are too easily offended, just 37 percent of Democrats agree, instead 61 percent of Democrats say people need to be more careful with their words. “The partisan gap is reflected in starkly divergent views among Trump and Clinton supporters,” Pew notes. “By a ratio of about five-to-one (83% to 16%), more Trump supporters say too many people are easily offended. Among Clinton supporters, 59% think people need to exercise caution in speaking to avoid offending others, while 39% think too many are easily offended.” The offense question breaks down demographically as well. Although majorities of both men and women say people are too easily offended, more men (68 percent) held that view than did women (51 percent). Black Americans were the group most likely to believe people need to be aware of their language. As Pew’s survey reveals, while 67 percent of blacks say people need to watch what they say to avoid offending people, just 32 percent of white and 49 percent of blacks agree. Interestingly, while majorities in every age group say people are too easily offended older Americans — 65 years and older — were more likely than younger people to say people should be more careful with their language to avoid offending people. Additionally, majorities across all education levels say people are too easily offended. Pew, however, found a quirk in the results — namely that Republicans with less education are more likely to say people should be more careful with their language than Republicans with more education. On the other side of the equation, Democrats with more education were more likely to hold that opinion than were Democrats with less education. “Among Republicans, 28% of those with no more than a high school education say people need to be more careful with language, double the share of Republican college graduates (14%) who say this,” Pew reports. It added, “Seven-in-ten Democratic college graduates say people need to be more careful with language, compared with 57% of those who have not completed college.” The Pew survey of 4,602 adults was conducted from June 7 to July 5.

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Questions and Answers IMF Gold Sales Last Updated: July 28, 2017 On September 18, 2009, the IMF's Executive Board approved gold sales strictly limited to 403.3 metric tons, representing one eighth of the Fund's total holdings at that time. The gold sales program was completed in late December 2010. Q. How much gold was sold? • The Executive Board approved sales strictly limited to the gold the IMF had acquired after the Second Amendment of the Articles of Agreement in April 1978. This amounted to 12,965,649 fine troy ounces or 403.3 metric tons, which represented one-eighth of the Fund's total holdings at the time of approval. • The volume of gold sales approved by the Executive Board was unchanged from the proposed sales in the new income model endorsed by the Executive Board in April 2008, which was also the same volume as recommended by the Crockett Committee in its January 2007 report on the sustainable long-term financing of the IMF. • The IMF announced in February 2010 that phased sales of gold on the market would be initiated shortly. At that time, a total of 191.3 tons of gold remained to be sold, following the sale of a total of 212 tons to three central banks during October and November 2009. Q. How was the gold sold? • According to the modalities for the gold sales adopted by the Executive Board, the Fund initially stood ready to sell gold off-market directly to central banks and other official sector holders at market prices. During October and November 2009, the Fund sold a total of 212 tons in this manner to the Reserve Bank of India, the Bank of Mauritius, and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. On September 7, 2010, the Fund sold 10 metric tons to the Bangladesh Bank. • Second, the gold sales were conducted on-market in a phased manner over time, following the approach adopted successfully by the central banks participating in the Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA). • Participants in the CBGA renewed in 2009 announced ceilings on sales of 400 tons annually, and 2,000 tons in total during the five years starting on September 27, 2009, and noted that the Fund's sales could be accommodated under these ceilings. • As one of the elements of transparency in the sales, the Fund informed markets that on‑market gold sales were about to commence on February 17, 2010 (See Press Release No. 10/44). The IMF provided regular updates on progress with the gold sales through its normal reporting channels. Q. Why has the IMF decided to sell gold? • The strictly limited sales of Fund gold approved by the Executive Board will help put the financing of the IMF on a sound long-term footing, and also help to boost the Fund's capacity to provide concessional loans to low income countries. • New income model: an endowment funded with the profits from gold sales is a central component of the new income model that the Board endorsed in April 2008. The new income model would provide more diverse income sources that are better aligned with the variety of functions performed by the Fund. • Concessional lending: Resources linked to the gold sales will also be used indirectly to increase the Fund's capacity to provide concessional loans to low income countries. Q. How will the resources from gold sales help with lending to low-income countries? • Back in 2009, the IMF agreed on a financing package aimed at raising its concessional lending capacity to SDR 11.3 billion (US$17 billion) over 2009–2014 through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) (See Press Release No. 09/268). Contributions linked to the windfall gold profits will count towards that package's target of raising an additional SDR 1.5 billion (US$2.3 billion) to subsidize the PRGT's low-interest concessional lending, which currently carries a zero interest rate, with the balance coming from other sources, including additional bilateral contributions from member countries. • In February 2012, the Executive Board approved the distribution to all IMF members of SDR 700 million (about US$1.1 billion) from the general reserve attributed to a portion of the windfall profits from recent IMF gold sales, with the expectation that members would transfer their share or otherwise make a new contribution of an equivalent amount to support concessional lending to low-income countries. The distribution will be effected only after the Fund has received satisfactory assurances from members of PRGT subsidy contributions equivalent to at least 90 percent of the amount distributed—i.e. SDR 630 million (about US$1 billion). Q. Why can't the IMF use the gold sales profits for low-income country lending directly instead of making a distribution to member countries and then asking them to transfer their share or contribute equivalent amounts? • The Fund does not have the authority to use resources in the General Resources Account (GRA), including profits from the sale of post-Second Amendment gold, directly to provide subsidies for concessional lending to low-income countries, as the use of GRA resources for the benefit of only low-income countries would not be consistent with the requirement of uniformity of treatment of all IMF member countries. Making profits linked to gold sales available for the PRGT therefore requires an indirect approach involving: A distribution of reserves attributed to a part of gold windfall profits to all IMF member countries in proportion to their quota shares, and Voluntary transfers by members of their share directly to the PRGT or otherwise new subsidy contributions to the PRGT. Q. What were the proceeds from the sales? • The Fund's gold sales program generated total proceeds of SDR 9.5 billion (about $15 billion). As required under the Articles of Agreement, all sales were conducted at market prices, including direct sales to official holders. Q. How was disruption of the gold market avoided? • The IMF's Executive Board reaffirmed the long-standing principle that the Fund has a systemic responsibility to avoid causing disruptions that would adversely affect gold holders and gold producers, as well as the functioning of the gold market. Hence, the Executive Board adopted modalities for the gold sales consistent with guidelines it endorsed in February 2008 to safeguard against market disruption: Sales should be strictly limited to the amount of gold that the Fund had acquired since the Second Amendment of the Articles of Agreement (12,965,649 fine troy ounces or 403.3 metric tons, which represented one-eighth of the Fund's total holdings). The Fund's gold sales should not add to the announced volume of sales from official sources. (Participants in the Central Bank Gold Agreement renewed in 2009 noted that the Fund's sales could be accommodated under the announced ceilings, ensuring that on-market gold sales by the Fund would not add to the announced volume of sales from official sources.) The scope for sales of gold to one or more official holders should be explored. This would be advantageous because such transactions would redistribute official gold holdings without changing total official holdings. There would also be the practical advantage that the Fund could receive sales proceeds earlier, thereby beginning to generate income from an endowment sooner. Absent sufficient interest from other official holders to purchase gold directly from the Fund, phased on-market sales would represent the most appropriate modality for potential gold sales. This would follow the approach adopted successfully over a number of years by current Central Bank Gold Agreement participants. A strong governance and control framework, together with a high degree of transparency, would be essential for gold sales conducted by the Fund. A clear, transparent communications strategy, including regular external reporting on sales, should be adopted, in order to assure markets that the gold sales are being conducted in a responsible manner. Q. How did the on-market sales occur? • To avoid any risk of disruption to the gold market, the on-market sales were conducted in a phased manner over time, an approach successfully adopted by central banks participating in the Central Bank Gold Agreement. • The initiation of on‑market sales did not preclude further off-market gold sales directly to interested central banks or other official holders. Such sales reduced the amount of gold that was subsequently placed on the market. • The IMF provided regular updates on progress with the gold sales through its normal reporting channels. Q. Where can more information about the IMF gold be obtained? Read more about the IMF's gold in the factsheet Gold in the IMF.

Mario Chalmers is a human with a cell phone so I sent him some text messages. Me: Hey, man. Mario: Hi. Me: what’s up? How are you? Mario: good Me: I saw the game the other night Mario: which one? Me: come on Mario: I’m in the NBA. I play a lot of games. Me: you know the one Mario: against the Celtics? Me: dude Mario: against the bucks? Me: the who? Me: don’t run from this Me: it’s fine Me: we can talk about it Me: the Indiana game Mario: oh Me: it wasn’t that cool for LeBron to yell at you Mario: well Me: were you scared? Mario: what? Me: because he’s big Mario: so Me: I mean, he’s BIG. He’s like if a stegosaurus was yelling at you. Me: OH MAN IMAGINE A STEGOSAURUS IN A HEADBAND SHOOTING A 3-POINTER THAT’S THE BEST THING Me: what kind of defense would you play against a stegosaurus??? Mario: wtf are you even talking about? Me: I remember I was playing basketball in middle school at a game or whatever and the coach started yelling at me and I for real just started crying and went and sat down Mario: dude Me: do you know what I did when I got home? Mario: cried more Me: bingo Me: did you cry? Afterward, I mean. After LeBron yelled at you? Mario: no Me: did it hurt your feelings? Mario: dude Me: did you talk to him about it? You should’ve just gone up to him like, “hey, man. I didn’t think it was that cool for you to yell at me like that in front of everyone and also all of America.” Mario: right Me: Then he’d have been like, “RRRRAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHHH” Me: BECAUSE HE’S A STEGOSAURUS Me: GET IT? HAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAA THAT’S A LITTLE THING CALLED A CALLBACK [No response.] Me: Hello? [No response.] Me: :( man, that was probably the best stegosaurus joke I ever told Mario: it wasn’t very good [No response.] Mario: yo [No response.] Mario: hello? [No response.] Mario: jesus christ are you crying again? Me: MAYBE I AM, MARIO, AND MAYBE I’M NOT, MARIO, IT’S NOT YOUR PROBLEM Mario: you gotta chill, man Me: I HAVE A LITTLE THING CALLED FEELINGS, MARIO. MAYBE YOU HEARD OF THEM? I KNOW YOU HAVE BECAUSE I WAS JUST TALKING TO YOU ABOUT THEM, MARIO. THAT’S A LITTLE THING CALLED BEING CAUGHT IN A SNARE TRAP. Mario: the joke was fine [No response.] Mario: it was good [No response.] Mario: it was funny. Real funny. Me: you really think so? Mario: … yes Me: that’s nice of you to say, Mario Me: you’re a nice guy Me: I feel kind of bad for all the bad stuff I said about you after your rap video came out Mario: :/ Me: what a weird thing that was Me: it was funny that you were like, “you know what would really be dope? You know what would really set this video off? If I was dribbling a ball while wearing slacks! BOOM! SOMEBODY CALL THE GOVERNMENT AND LET THEM KNOW THAT I JUST CRASHED THE STOCK MARKET BECAUSE I AM SO MONEY!!!!” Mario: I didn’t say any of that Me: I mean, but you basically did [No response.] Me: OK, I have to go, man Mario: bye Me: stay easy. Tell LeBron I said what’s up Mario: I’m not gonna do that Me: OK. Well at least tell Wade then Mario: no Me: Ray? Mario: nope Me: Joel Anthony? Mario: … all right.

THE BROCHURE FOR the Bahamas cruise couldn't be more inviting. It promises four days at sea, including a visit to a private island paradise where guests can "soak up the sun on a white sand beach" and thrill seek on a "powerboat adventure." Matt Sanderson sees this pamphlet as more than an invitation. He sees it as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the college football postseason because the June 2010 cruise was run by the Orange Bowl. Reading down the guest list for the "Summer Splash," Sanderson stabs his forefinger beside the names of the 40 Football Bowl Subdivision athletic directors and six conference executives who attended the complimentary cruise for two. (ESPN, which owns seven non-BCS bowl games and the BCS broadcast rights through 2014, declined an invitation to the trip.)

The first recent foray back into the serialized television for CBS has been an undeniable success. Based on the epic bestselling novel by Stephen King, Under the Dome has not only been a ratings superstar for the network, but it’s also gained a massive legion of dedicated fans picking apart every single episode for another clue to the what’s really happening inside that mysterious dome. With Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and Brian K. Vaughn on set, Executive Producer Neal Baer has one of television’s dream teams at the helm, which has certainly helped to make Under the Dome a monster hit. Parade sat down with Baer to discuss the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release of season one (in stores November 5), secrets of season two, and how they already have their series ending in mind. There are a lot of mystery and sci-fi elements to Under the Dome. Do you worry about how much mystery, or how many questions, to give the audience? No, I think that we try to always answer some mysteries in each episode and then establish new ones so that there’s a constant flow of new things happening and old things being answered. That way it’s satisfying and tantalizing. Do you already have an ending in mind? We do have an ending in mind, which is nice. Thinking about that, we’re able to devise all kinds of mysteries that will lead to the final mystery. One of the few issues that some people had with Stephen King’s book was the ending. Does having the ability to extend the series beyond the world of the novel allow you to tackle it in a different way? Absolutely, and we never were slavishly adapting the book. It is liberating to have the great foundation that the book provides and then move beyond that to create new stories. The book itself is only about a week in length so, in order to make our show a longer-term story, we’ve had to diverge from the book. At the end of season one, there are a few unanswered questions dangling. How do you balance how many answers to give your audience at the end of the season while still making them come back for more in season two? I don’t think there’s any formula, per se. You want to give the audience some satisfaction, so we answered what was behind this big mystery of the dome, but still we ended with some questions about what’s going to happen to Barbie. Just like in any Stephen King story, you have a lot of characters to deal with. Was there one character that you, in casting, that you felt you just had to get right? I just feel that every single character is important, so we really spent a lot of time on every single one. We always thought of Rachelle [Lefevre] as Julia because I had worked with her on A Gifted Man, but we went through all kinds of discussions for all the other characters. When Alex Koch was cast as Junior, he had never auditioned before. He had just come out of college in the theater program. That never happens. We brought him to the network three times. I think Rachelle is great in that part and, between Under the Dome and Hannibal, you’re bringing redheads back to the small screen. [Laughs] Yes! She had blonde hair on A Gifted Man only because Jennifer Ehle had red hair. She really is a redhead so she said, “I’m not going to dye my hair blonde again!” I told her, “No, no, no. You don’t have to.” [Laughs] Do you think Dean Norris felt excited to play a character so against what people know of him from Breaking Bad? Oh, he loved it. He really adores that character. And what we like about it is that he’s not just an evil guy. He also loves his son. He loves his community. He really wants the people to succeed in living under the dome, but he’s also a kind of megalomaniac. An egomaniac too, so his best intentions get away from him. How does the balance of power play out behind the scenes with you, Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and Brian K. Vaughn, and how involved are those guys in the day to day? Brian and I are in the trenches and the two Stephens are there for support, so they see everything. They read everything. They see all the cuts, but they’re not involved in the day to day. They couldn’t be because Stephen King is writing novels still (he just released Doctor Sleep) and Steven Spielberg is directing movies. So they’re there as really great sounding boards for us. In one of the Blu-ray special features, Brian mentions that you asked all the potential writers, “What would you do if your town was suddenly sealed off by this impenetrable dome?” So now I ask you: What would Neal Baer do? Well, I’m certainly more prepared now than I was! [Laughs] We have some writers who are expert survivalists so I know all the gizmos and gadgets. What would I do? I’m a physician so I’d probably be out there trying to take care of people who were cut in half by the dome or injured in some way. That’s probably the first thing I would do because I always turn to my medical roots. I hope I’d be out there trying to do what I could using those skills that I have. What kind of hints, however small, can you give us about what’s to come in season two when the show returns in June? Some new characters, certainly. They’re going to turn things upside down. We’ll find out where they were, because it’s only been two weeks since the dome came down. And we’ll maybe meet someone that’s related to Junior and Big Jim. Do you have a favorite memory, on screen or off, from working on Under the Dome so far? I think my favorite memory is seeing the cut of episode seven. Watching the whole episode and going, “Oh my gosh. That is really, really powerful.” That took me through so many emotions and so many feelings that it was almost like I was just an audience member. I was so separated from having done it that I was able to watch it for the first time, and it really hit me like, “Wow. This is intense! This is sad! This is moving! This is really, really great.” That’s my favorite moment. My second favorite is in episode five when the bomb hits and Norrie and Joe are kissing and the music is playing Skeeter Davis’s “End of the World.” I love that. I was on YouTube when that happened and people were commenting on the video of her singing the song from 1965 and saying, “The dome brought me here. The dome brought me here.” That was really gratifying. Under the Dome: The Complete First Season arrives on Blu-ray & DVD on November 5.

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

Music Meet the Hands (and the Man) that Bring Chance the Rapper to the Deaf No one has more fun at a Chance the Rapper show than Chance himself. But a close second, at stage left, is Matt Maxey—who, along with his company, DEAFinitely Dope, is translating the magic of Chance shows for deaf concertgoers. Ashley Fetters hung out with Maxey at Lollapalooza to find out how this hip-hop fan became “the deaf Kanye West.” Like any second language, American Sign Language gets a little easier to communicate in when you're drunk. Or, more accurately, when you're a little drunk—as any undergrad minoring in Spanish or Italian or Mandarin can attest, get a certain number of drinks in you and the fluency bell curve nosedives right back down. Which is why, two hours before he does sign-language interpretation for Chance the Rapper's headlining Lollapalooza show in Chicago's Grant Park, 29-year-old Matt Maxey has capped off his last recycled soft-drink bottle of the day, stashed it in his backpack, and switched to water before he heads backstage. "I'm probably at about a six-and-a-half now," he says, laughing. Earlier in the day, out among the sunburned Lolla revelers, "I was probably at about a nine." Maxey's certainly not the first Lollapalooza performer whose pre-show regimen consists of cognac and Jazz-flavor Black & Milds; we've all seen those leaked celebrity tour riders. And after all, the Atlanta-born Maxey is a bit of a celebrity himself. Even before he started attracting attention signing at Chance the Rapper's shows in July, deaf and hard-of-hearing hip-hop fans had already begun referring to him as "the deaf Kanye West." Later on in this unseasonably mild August night, on Lolla's towering Grant Park stage, Chance the Rapper will pause during his anti-record-label anthem "No Problem" and let the audience finish his signature line: "Countin' Benjis while we meetin', make 'em shake my other hand." At that precise moment, though, Maxey's hands will be signing the phrases "counting money" and "meeting," then miming a left-handed handshake followed by an emphatic middle finger. Maxey's ASL interpretation is an explosive, code-switching mishmash of textbook American Sign Language, pantomime, and makeshift signs he's cobbled together for slang words native to hip-hop ("molly," for example, combines gestures for "pill" and "sex"); the way he signs is as worldly and wry and improvisational as he is. And there's a reason for that: Although he's had profound hearing loss his whole life ("Whatever hearing is still left right before you're completely deaf, that's severely profound hearing loss," he explains) and is now one of the most visible people in his profession, Maxey didn't learn sign language until he was 18. Matt Maxey was outfitted with hearing aids at the age of two, after his occupational-therapist grandmother noticed his hearing seemed off. Maxey learned to speak with the help of speech therapists, and at school, his teachers simply spoke into a microphone that transmitted directly into his two hearing aids. ("What they didn't know is that I was turning mine off," he says with a laugh.) So Maxey didn't begin learning to sign until he enrolled at Washington, D.C.'s, Gallaudet University, the world's only university for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Which wasn't a positive experience at first. "I never really knew about deaf culture," Maxey says. "All I knew was talking. I never signed. And they would always get mad at me; I could talk and they couldn't. It became kind of a hostile environment." Growing up in Atlanta, Maxey was exposed from an early age to hip-hop. So at night in his dorm room, Maxey practiced his sign language along with the lyrics of his favorite musicians—like J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar—and in 2010, at the urging of a friend, he uploaded to YouTube a video of himself signing along to Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz's "One Night Stand." ("One-night stand," for what it's worth, comes out to something more like "one-night fuck" in sign language. "Signing 'stand' doesn't make sense. You're not standing up," Maxey explains, then chuckles. "Well, you may be standing up.") Maxey later dropped out of Gallaudet. Over the next few years, he worked as a pizza-delivery driver, a mobile-car detailer, and a UPS unloader in Jacksonville, Florida, and attended a few classes at a community college. But his sink-or-swim immersion in deaf culture continued out of necessity: Around 2013, his hearing aids stopped working, and he remembers with a laugh that at the time he was too broke to fix them. He kept making videos, though, learning new song lyrics by turning the volume all the way up in his earbuds—and last summer, his ASL video for DMX's "How's It Goin' Down" went viral after it surfaced on Reddit. Around the same time, Maxey reached out to Kelly Kurdi—a Houston-based hearing sign-language interpreter who'd also released some music-translation videos on YouTube—to ask if she'd like to do a music video together. Several videos and one new friendship later, Kurdi and Maxey founded DEAFinitely Dope, a performance group dedicated to helping deaf and hard-of-hearing fans enjoy live shows. The Starkey Hearing Foundation contacted Maxey shortly afterward and outfitted him with Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids that connect to his iPhone and iPad and can play music right into his ear like an earbud. "What's amazing about Matt is he's not only bilingual, he's bicultural," says Kurdi, 35. "At first he felt too deaf to be hearing and too hearing to be deaf. But now it's a huge benefit; he's able to, for example, talk to Chance, and there's no lull in the conversation. He's able to talk about different hip-hop artists. He's able to talk about whatever basketball game. And then he can go into the deaf culture, and he can connect with all of them and sign." Maxey moved to Houston, and the team expanded to include a videographer, a manager, and Amber Galloway Gallego, another hearing ASL interpreter. Earlier this summer, they hosted an ASL hip-hop camp for adults and kids, then booked their first festival gig at Bonnaroo—where their work alongside D.R.A.M. caught the eye of Chance the Rapper. Maxey’s passion and his obvious love of music are the first things Chance remembers noticing at that Bonnaroo show. “He conveyed so much emotion through signing,” Chance writes in an e-mail. “It was incredible to watch.” And then a lot happened, very quickly. "He called the Access Department, the Sign Language Department, and he was like, 'Yo, I want to meet that dude interpreter you have,'" Maxey remembers. "Because I'm the only black young guy interpreter over there, they knew it was me. It was early in the morning when I heard, and I thought, 'Okay, y'all playing. It's too early in the morning. I just woke up. You know I had a good night last night. Don't tell me this first thing in the morning.'" Chance invited Maxey and DEAFinitely Dope to join him onstage for two shows in Miami and Tampa—where Maxey's friends from the Florida deaf community turned up in force. Then DEAFinitely Dope tagged along to Wisconsin and Delaware for shows before becoming the official ASL interpreters of the rest of Chance the Rapper's 2017 tour. At every show he can, Chance gives away free tickets to deaf and hard-of-hearing fans. “It's a great feeling to know we're including people who are often left out when it comes to live shows,” Chance writes. “Which is also why we're advocating for more artists to link up with DEAFinitely Dope and figure out how to bring music ASL interpreters into their spaces.” These days, Chance himself sometimes busts out the ASL sign for "blessing" onstage when he performs "Blessings," and has been known to offer a sign-language "thank you" to his deaf and hard-of-hearing fans. "Every time we see him, he asks for a few signs," Kurdi says. Chance’s other favorite sign he’s learned from the DEAFinitely Dope team is “miracle.” Meanwhile, Kurdi says, Chance's manager, Pat, loves to sign "too much sauce." "He'll learn funny lines like that," Kurdi remarks. "He's always like, 'I'm Pat. I've got too much sauce.'" There's a line in Chance the Rapper's "Favorite Song" that Maxey still puzzles over sometimes, and it goes like this: "Dang dang dang, skeet skeet skeet / She do that thing for three retweets." It's not the "dang" or the "skeet" that presents the issue (yes, "skeet" is what you think it is in sign language); it's the retweets. Sometimes, Maxey simply fingerspells "RT." Other times, he makes a tiny beak with his fingers and then signs "phone"—"Twitter." "It depends on the audience," Maxey says. "If their English is strong, I spell. If their ASL is strong, I sign: Bird on phone. Social media." It’s challenging in 2017 to be a good sign-language interpreter of hip-hop music, and it's only partly because the genre finds itself in a lyrically experimental phase lately. A few months back, for example, a video of a sign-language interpreter at a Waka Flocka show went viral. According to Maxey, this particular interpreter abbreviates too much, boiling down the sentiment "I go hard in the paint" to something more like "I'm great." "To me, 'going hard in the paint' is like, I'm driving down the lane, about to slam-dunk it," Maxey says. "If it were me interpreting, I'd be like, 'He's driving,' or 'He's going into the paint.'" Maxey ran into a similar problem trying to sign through Migos's "T-Shirt." "I got to 'neck water faucet' and was like, What the fuck does that mean?" Maxey says. Eventually, it dawned on him: "Water is like diamond. He's got so many diamonds on his neck, he's running like a faucet." Other translators, though, get too literal, Maxey says; he's seen interpreters use the "campfire" ASL sign when, say, a pair of sneakers is fire, or you're smoking fire next to your window at night to relax. But come to think of it, Chance's songs have a few potential landmines themselves: In Chance's "Smoke Break," "you wouldn't say you're smoking a bowl," Maxey says, with his hands out cupping the air in front of him. "No. You're smoking a bowl," Maxey repeats, this time with one hand holding an imaginary pipe and the other cocked at a lighterly angle above it. And then, of course, sometimes a rapper says the N-word, and the cross-cultural can of worms springs open. When he can, Maxey skips it to avoid controversy: "If it makes sense in context, sometimes I just replace it with 'homie,'" Maxey says. "Even I never really get used to seeing that word signed." But when there's no reasonably clean substitution, all three interpreters sign the ASL term for that particular slur onstage, and it's usually Kurdi and Gallego, who are white, who catch flak on social media for using it. Which is why Maxey—who, as a deaf black man, is a demographic rarity among ASL interpreters—is such a crucial figure. "A lot of interpreters want to interpret hip-hop music, but they don't know the culture. They don't know the slang," Kurdi explains. "Matt wants to change the game for interpreters." Sometimes, though, ASL interpretation is hard just for plain old technical reasons. For example, Maxey says, "I love listening to the music, but I would hate to interpret Busta Rhymes." How come? "Fast as fuck," he laughs. The deaf and hard-of-hearing access section of Lollapalooza's Grant Park stage is stationed right between the performers and the general-admission audience, at the forefront of the crowd—the logic being, presumably, that this way deaf concertgoers have a better view of the ASL interpreter, plus most of the people standing flush in front of the megastage are already deaf. So as Matt Maxey dutifully sobers up before he performs for the largest crowd of his career, he also provides mesmerizing up-close entertainment for the immobilized front row of regular-admission festival-goers. Girls in lace bralettes wave him over to teach them how to sign "Hi, my name is" and "Nice to meet you," while guys in Anthony Rizzo jerseys with the sleeves cut off reach across a low metal fence to bump shoulders in a bro-hug. But it's the folks starting to gather inside the Deaf/HOH access zone who are really Maxey's people. These are the fans he and Kurdi have texted with over the past few days, helping them make sure they've gotten the accommodations they need from the festival, and it's these people who ensure that every morning Maxey wakes up to an avalanche of social-media push notifications on his phone, sometimes a hundred strong. "Can I visit them? Can I come perform for them? They have a deaf brother. They have a deaf sister. They feel inspired. They just learned sign language. They want to learn more," Maxey says. Patrick Petty, a fan who came to see Maxey and DEAFinitely Dope perform at Chance's Lolla show, says his deaf sister, Annie, "looks at Matt like I look at Jay-Z." A lifelong hip-hop fan and a new friend of Maxey's, Petty says he and his sister can finally lose their shit over music together thanks to Maxey and the videos they watch of him on Instagram, and though she couldn't make it to Lolla, he can't wait to bring her to a show. "We're gonna cry tears of joy over this shit," he says. Chance himself recognizes there’s an opportunity—a need, even—to connect with people like Annie. “One of the most important things I can do on tour is give access to all people, to all fans,” Chance writes. “No one should feel excluded from my show. So it was a blessing to meet Matt and DEAFinitely Dope, to help welcome the deaf community.” Eventually, a tall young woman in a baseball cap and a Deaf/HOH Access wristband engages Maxey in what looks unmistakably like some lively sign-language banter. They exchange phones for a moment and then exchange them back. Then, all at once, Maxey has to be backstage; for the next two hours, he and Kurdi and Gallego make the communication gap between Chance and the 50 or so deaf fans gathered in the Deaf/HOH section feel ever smaller. The fans sway and sign to each other, and occasionally sign Chance the Rapper's "sign name"—two fingers and a thumb on the right hand, raised up toward the right temple. After the show, the three interpreters pose for a photo with all the deaf fans; Maxey puts the official setlist between his teeth, and everyone throws up the "I love you" sign. "I think a lot of hearing people don't appreciate how much we get out of music," Kurdi says. "We listen to a song, it takes us back to childhood or it puts us in a good mood or it makes us want to party or it makes us connect. That's why there's, say, a graduation song—we all recognize it and we all connect to it. "Deaf people miss out on all that, and they shouldn't have to," she says. "So to have an artist say, 'I want interpreters on my show, at every show, and I want deaf people to come in and join us for free' has been just so amazing. To feel like someone cares about them, for one, and for two, to hire a company that is owned by a deaf person? There's a million others out there that are owned by hearing people."

There’s nothing wrong with killing a few trout every now and then. They’re delicious — and taking out a few smaller trout might actually help the stream. As of Saturday, April 16, keeping trout is legal in Minnesota trout streams; Wisconsin’s inland harvest season starts May 7. (Lake trout remain closed in Minnesota until May 14.) Anglers already have been fishing stream trout in both states for months during lengthy catch-and-release seasons. From my own time on the water to posts on message boards to reports from biologists, anglers in both southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin will enjoy trickles, streams and rivers with ample fish populations this year. In many, if not most, designated trout streams, the populations are healthy enough to handle some harvest. That’s why regulations allow it. In fact, trout populations in some streams might be more balanced with some human predatory influence. In streams with high densities of trout under 12 inches, those growing throngs can limit the food needed for a trout to grow large. And many of the small trout will die anyway. Rule of thumb: About half of each generation of young fish die each year from natural causes. “If somebody’s thinking about harvesting fish from these high-density streams, harvest,” said Brian Nerbonne, stream habitat consultant for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “We can have them taken home by anglers, or a portion of the fish will die anyway from natural mortality on the highest density streams.” Two things need to be said here: First, catch-and-release must remain the default. That ethic, along with conservation land-use programs, are to thank for the streams and fish we have. Second, some will regard this whole topic as blasphemy. “I could never kill a trout,” a friend of mine once told me once after releasing a rainbow trout from a western stream. Regulations actually demanded the rainbow be killed because they threaten native cutthroat populations. The catch-and-release mindset can be taken too far. I know plenty of conservation-minded anglers who occasionally take a few trout home for dinner, although they know it can be touchy to talk about in some circles. Whether to kill a driftless-area stream trout is a personal decision, Here’s how I make mine. Related Articles 4 missing after blizzard conditions strand dozens of anglers on Lake of the Woods DNR confirms Jordan man’s sturgeon catch as biggest in state records After systems crash, Forest Service to relaunch BWCA permit reservations March 4 After three years, anglers will be able to keep some Mille Lacs walleye Sturgeon caught in the St. Croix near Bayport could be largest MN fish on record Trout I keep are generally: Small. 6 to 10 inches. They have small bones, supple flesh and are a beauty to serve skin-on, especially poached. Only when they’re abundant. I know this either from DNR data or because I’ve already caught a bunch. Generally from larger streams, or at least big holes. I want to leave plenty for the next angler. Generally browns or stocked rainbows. Brook trout are usually less common. Trout I throw back are generally: Most trout I catch. Two to three is plenty. These are fresh delicacies, not for the freezer or a big fish fry. From streams I can jump across. It’s just hard to imagine that those little spring creeks can handle much harvest. Those handsome 14 to 16 inchers that everyone loves to catch — unless there’s a ton of them. Lunkers. I’ll never say never. And I know that the big ones are often past their reproductive peak. But I want to know they’re still there when I leave. Know the regulations of the stream you’re fishing. They sometimes change to reflect a change in the fish population. Savor every bite.

The idea of coming together in common cause is woven into Washington’s social fabric, especially into its union history. But labor has suffered reversals before, and it suffered a large one on Jan. 3, when the Machinists union voted by a narrow margin to abandon the Boeing pension plan. At stake was a key production line. Now union members and leaders are asking themselves – how can the labor movement recover when one of the strongest unions in the country buckled under the pressure? Among them was Billy Cox, who went to the Machinists’ Hall in South Seattle to find answers for himself and his colleagues. “I want to not only be looking at short term – what’s happening now – but I want to know what we are going to be doing and what we’re going to look like as a union ten years from now,” he said in an interview. Cox said he and his colleagues are concerned about the future. “We’re looking for information to see how we can come back together as a complete, whole union. Because the union was split.” Seattle’s roots in the labor movement are deep. This was the site of the nation’s first city-wide general strike in 1919. The old Labor Temple in Belltown, with its mid-century features and famous neon sign, is still the central place where the labor movement comes together.

Dr. Thorsten Kramp, research staff member and co-developer of Mote Runner at IBM Research - Zurich, holds a mote programmed with Mote Runner to detect movement and light. In IBM's planned future, everything will communicate with everything. The company has now announced a new software development kit, Mote Runner, that will allow programmers to put anything from coffee makers to environmental monitoring systems on the "Internet of things." Mote Runner -- nicknamed for motes, wireless sensor nodes that gather information and refer it back to a network -- can interlink any hardware equipped with wirelessly connected sensors. The extremely lightweight software is made to run on sensor chips tiny enough to be built into almost anything. IBM Research, which built Mote Runner, aims to increase adoption of such wireless sensor networks by making them easier to program and use. Mote Runner apps can live in a tiny 64K of memory, and be written in standard languages like Java or C#. The apps can be debugged and deployed on simulated motes that run on a host computer. In theory, motes can be connected across large or remote areas like agricultural fields, multi-story buildings, rainforests or glaciers, IBM says. Eventually, using chips that can connect any gadget, you could "talk" to all your home appliances from afar. Mote Runner uses an 8-bit processor, 8 KB of RAM and a tiny 64 KB of flash memory storage. Its minimalist needs will allow it to run on small, inexpensive chips, which can be integrated into practically any device. With the right app, Mote Runner could check on the status of elderly people at home, monitor agricultural processes, check building maintenance and security, and a host of other functions, Fast Company notes. MEMSIC, a micro-electromechanical systems and sensor manufacturer, plans to offer Mote Runner on its popular IRIS sensor. [IBM Research via Fast Company]

'I found out I was the lowest paid at the table': Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski reveals she almost quit over gender pay gap Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski has revealed she almost quit the show after just a year because she was earning far less than her male colleagues. The 44-year-old said she discovered she took home 14 times less than co-host Joe Scarborough - so little she struggled to make ends meet. Ms Brzezinski makes the revelations in her new book, 'Knowing Your Value', in which she discusses how women can negotiate the salary they're worth. Scroll down for video Unfair pay: Mika Brzezinski has revealed she almost quit MSNBC's Morning Joe because she earned far less than her male colleagues The revelations come as her former CBS colleague, Katie Couric, is rumoured to be negotiating a $20million deal to move to ABC - despite complaining about sexism holding back her pay in the past. In an interview about her book on Morning Joe, Ms Brzezinski revealed she planned to resign in 2008, after only 12 months on the show. She said: 'I had found out I was the lowest paid at the table and sometimes by far. 'I didn't think I should be making more than any of you guys, but I thought I should have been a lot closer. Pay gap: Mika Brzezinski has revealed she used to earn 14 times less than her co-host, Joe Scarborough. It took her five attempts to negotiate a pay-rise 'Joe's the creator of the show, and so there's some obvious differences that can be built in, but these were vast.' Ms Brzezinski joined MSNBC as a freelance reporter in 2007, after she was fired from CBS in a 'pretty ugly' dismissal. She said she came 'crawling back into the business' and took a huge pay cut - but then her money failed to go up when she became Morning Joe co-host a few months later. She said: 'I realised instead of blaming it on MSNBC, it was me, that I didn't understand my value, and this was a common problem I'd had throughout my career... feeling like I was at the bottom of the barrel inside because of the deal I had cut for myself.' Negotiation: Ms Brzezinski said she continually undervalued herself. Former colleague Katie Couric, right, is rumoured to be negotiating a $20m deal with ABC In fact Ms Brzezinski discovered she was earning 14 times less than her co-host, Mr Scarborough. TOP-PAID NEWS ANCHORS Matt Lauer (Today) $17million Katie Couric (CBS) $15million Brian Williams (NBC) $12.5 million Diane Sawyer (ABC) $12million Meredith Vieira (Today) $11million Bill O'Reilly (Fox News) $10million George Stephanopoulos (ABC) $8million Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) $7million Shepard Smith (Fox News) $7million Wolf Blitzer (CNN) $3 million Source: TV Choice (2010) She said: 'While he was coming from prime time, and he was worth a lot more, he's also the creator of the show, I was certainly not worth 14 less than him.' In the book, she writes: 'Despite my professional experience, the fifteen-hour workdays, and a successful new show that I had helped build, MSNBC was still refusing to pay me what I was worth. 'Not only was my salary lower than my colleagues’, each month was a financial scramble to make ends meet. 'After child care, on-air wardrobe, makeup, travel, and the other ridiculous expenses that women in this business end up taking on, the job was actually costing me more than I was being paid.' When present Willie Geist asked her why she didn't walk away, she replied simply: 'We fixed it.' It took Ms Brzezinski several tries to negotiate a better deal with her boss, Phil Griffin. Pay struggle: Mika Brzezinski highlights how women find it hard to negotiate higher salaries in her new book In an interview earlier this year, she told Marie Claire: 'My salary situation at Morning Joe wasn't right. 'I made five attempts to fix it, then realized I'd made the same mistake every time: I apologised for asking.' Just three out of the top ten best-paid news anchors in America are women. Speaking to panellists Nora Ephron and Norah O'Donnell - who she interviewed for her book - Ms Brzezinski said women find it difficult to negotiate a higher pay deal because they get 'embarrassed'. It's not something her former colleague, Katie Couric, seems to have struggled with. In 2008, she complained that sexism was holding back her salary as a CBS anchor, despite earning $15million a year. Ms Couric confirmed she was leaving the channel last month, and is rumoured to be negotiating a $20million deal with ABC. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Extraction: the one word that can sum up every coffee-making process in existence. You add a solid (coffee grounds) into a solvent (water), and voilà, you can enjoy an infused liquid (coffee). Unfortunately, extraction’s not always easy—or quick! The process can take seconds, minutes, or even days, depending on how it’s done. While investing time into getting the perfect coffee is commendable, I happen to have a ridiculously short attention span and am incredibly impatient—I’m not waiting 12 hours for a drink! So I turned to science, which helped me make cold brew in a fraction of the time it usually needs. Rapid Extraction The key to extracting espresso in mere seconds is manipulating the pressure. So how do you do that? Well, I rely on one piece of kitchen equipment: the chamber vacuum machine. Standard vacuum chamber machine Credit: Dapper Coffee What the Heck Does a Chamber Vacuum Machine Do? The chamber vac, typically used to seal bags, can do a lot more than that. Importantly for us impatient coffee-lovers, it: 1. Decreases pressure to extreme levels, and then decompresses to return to atmospheric pressure. 2. Forces surrounding liquid into a porous solid, and then sucks the liquid back out. Not sure what that has to do with extracting coffee? Well, let’s explore that now. Making the 60 Second Cold Brew “The Cold Fashioned”—vacuum infused cold brew served at Dapper Coffee Credit: Dapper Coffee It’s time to look at the method of making a rapidly infused cold brew coffee. The jargon may sound a bit complex, but trust me, the process is actually simple. Step 1: get a regular plastic container—any kind will do, so long as it fits in the machine—and put your grounds in it. I prefer to use a pretty fine grind with a 1:9 ratio of coffee to water. Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 2: add water. Any temperature and any kind of water is okay; I often use tap water at room temperature. Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 3: cling wrap the top of the container to prevent spillage. Ran out of cling wrap? I’m afraid you need to go out and buy some. Don’t be tempted to use the plastic lid that came with the tub instead; cling wrap is better because it allows more room for stretching during the vacuuming. Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 4: it’s time to set your machine. I normally set it to 60 seconds, which gives me a great syrupy tasting brew. Alternatively, 35 seconds gives me a cleaner liquid, almost like I’ve used a Chemex. However, different vacuum machines have different settings so feel free to tweak with yours. Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 5: close the lid and listen to the sweet vacuum action Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 6: for the first 15 seconds, it won’t look like anything is really happening. Don’t panic—that’s normal. Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 7: Bloop bloop bloop bloop! Suddenly, your liquid will come to a rolling boil. This is because the pressure has been lowered so much that room temperature has become the boiling point for the liquid—kind of like how water boils at a lower temperature up in the mountains because of lower atmospheric pressure. Cool, right? Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 8: Pssscchhhtttt! Decompression just happened. This step is handy because it takes all the air out of the liquid at once. The cling wrap has been completely sucked in Credit: Dapper Coffee Step 9: your coffee has been extracted. Remove the cling film and then filter the coffee with a strainer. If you wanted to remove all the sediments, you could even pass it through Chemex or V60 paper. And once you’ve done that, it’s time to enjoy your refreshing cold brew. Credit: Dapper Coffee For the Home Barista While chamber vacuums are super cool, they are also pretty pricey. Don’t worry, because a hoover actually works just as well. All you need is one of those vacuum bags with one-way valves—the kind you pack your clothes in when travelling. As seen on Heston Blumenthal’s Blackforest Gateau episode on “In Search of Perfection” BBC Food Channel – YouTube Aerated chocolate – the result of vacuum action! Don’t Limit Yourself to Coffee While we all love coffee, there’s also plenty of other things you can make with vacuum infusion. The process works with any porous solid and any solvent. At my bar, we whip up a deliciously fresh tasting strawberry syrup, which retains the juicy acidity of the fruit (as no heat is involved), and also a spiced rum using white rum, dried oranges and a variety of sweet spices. And of course, all of it is done in a minute or less. Too Good to Be True? So aside from the brevity, why is vacuum infusion so good? Well, it doesn’t compromise the flavours of the coffee, unlike the nitro-method (which I find makes the coffee taste really metallic). All the pure, beautiful flavours and aromas stay true. It’s easy, it’s quick, and it produces delicious coffee. What’s not to like? Next week, check in to learn how to filter coffee to crystal-clarity without using a single piece of filter paper! Written by Christine Seah. Perfect Daily Grind

He rose on the political sky like a new star of hope. In the run up to the election, he was euphemistically called the man of the masses, the ‘taqdeer’ of the nation. During the campaign, he claimed to have details of the Swiss bank accounts of the high and mighty in his diary and promised to eradicate corruption from the roots. The minorities flocked to him; the middle-class loved him; the youth dreamt of a revolution when he spoke and the poor believed he was their messiah. Riding on the euphoria, the promise of a new dawn, the two-year-old party decimated its rivals and formed the next government in Delhi. It was meant to be a new beginning. But it turned out to be the beginning of the end. Soon, the government turned into a never-ending drama full of conspiracies, betrayals, back-stabbing, ego clashes, damning revelations and ugly wars among its top leaders. Sounds like the story of Arvind Kejriwal and his ugly circus? Yes, it does. But this is a story of VP Singh and his government; the saga of yet another politician who flattered India only to deceive it later. Had former Prime Minister Singh been still alive, he would have seen striking similarities between himself and Kejriwal—from the beginning to the unfolding end. Had this not been real, Singh may have even been led to believe that his own biopic is now being played out in Kejriwal’s theatre of the absurd. A recurring theme of Indian politics has been that every few years a new politician catches the fancy of the nation. He rails against the establishment, promises to fight against the corrupt and dynastic Congress, packages himself as honest and holier-than-thou, sells dreams of better days, makes promises that sound sincere, coins catchy slogans— Raja (VP Singh) Nahin Fakir Hai, Desh ki Taqdeer Hai, for instance — and then walks away with the trust and hopes of the voters. And just when, after having invested heavily in the new neta on the block and as people wait for him to deliver, the bubble bursts. Either the politicians start fighting with each other—VP Singh vs Devi Lal vs Chandrashekhar vs Arun Nehru was a recurring theme during the Janata Dal government— or their mask comes off and they are revealed to be frauds and power-grabbers masquerading as fakir or aam aadmi for power. Like VP Singh, and before him the Janata Party and Rajiv Gandhi, Kejriwal and his entourage have yet again proved that hope in Indian politics is transient. In the end, as people are fond of saying, all of them are the same. The biggest difference between VP Singh and Kejriwal is that the former prime minister became a victim of his own circumstances. He suffered not only because of the friction within his own party but also due to the various forces pulling him in different directions from outside. Within the party, Chandrashekhar never liked Singh— he was deceived into believing that Devi Lal would become the PM instead of Raja Manda at the first meeting of the victorious MPs - the Haryanvi leader saw himself almost as an equal and was always conniving to dethrone Singh. Outside, the BJP was raising the temperature on Ram Mandir much to the discomfort of the ‘secular’ PM and his communist allies. On the sidelines, the Congress—the single -largest party in spite of the loss— was stoking internal differences and widening the rifts between allies of the ruling coalition to re-launch its bid for power. From the very beginning, Singh found himself in a snake-pit, with pythons waiting at the exit. In a desperate bid to save his chair, Singh, who had packaged himself as a mendicant who would readily sacrifice power, unleashed the Mandal Commission, sacked Devi Lal and some other colleagues and then clung on to the job even after the BJP withdrew support to his government. In the end, people never forgave Singh for his greed for power and the havoc he unleashed in its pursuit. Perhaps Singh would have acted differently if he had, like Kejriwal, got a brute majority and the politics of his time had not come under strain because of the Ram Mandir agitation. In the end, the attenuating circumstances contributed to his downfall. But Kejriwal had it made. There were no external pressures on him, no social or communal divisions threatened to test his acumen and his deputy — unlike an ambitious and egoistic Devi Lal— appeared to be his yes man. Yet, Kejriwal and his party are on the brink of implosion; their goodwill has disappeared and the mask has slipped off. There is just one person to be blamed for this slide: Kejriwal. Shazia Ilmi says the Delhi chief minister is insecure, power-hungry and thinks only about himself. Till a few days ago, nobody would have believed Shazia, but now the evidence, including allegations of Kejriwal’s efforts to divide the Congress to rule Delhi, is compelling especially given the latest allegations by a former Aam Aadmi Party legislator accusing Kejriwal of trying to poach six Congress MLAs to form the government and former Congress legislator Asif Mohammad Khan alleging that senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh had offered him a ministerial berth in return for support. Kejriwal seems to have several fatal flaws. His insistence on retaining the AAP convener’s post (even Sonia Gandhi and Narendra Modi never enjoyed two positions), his inability to act like an unbiased leader and instead play petty power games like a faction leader or restrain his colleagues from fighting puerile battles in public are as serious as his intransigence to adhere to principles of internal democracy, and his predilection for sycophants and impatience. He seems to be in a hurry to do everything: form the government, quit, contest polls, and oust colleagues all at the same time. And these have all combined to bring about his precipitous decline. Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.

The three fastest growing airports in Europe are all in Romania, led by the little-known city of Oradea in the north-west of the country, which experienced nearly 500 per cent growth in 2016. Following in its wake is Iasi, with 131 per cent growth, and Bucharest’s second airport, Aurel Vlaicu, which saw a 122 per cent rise in passenger numbers last year. The Romanian trio spearheaded a surge in arrivals across the continent, according to new statistics released by ACI Europe, with European airports recording two billion passengers for the first time, a five per cent rise on 2015 and a figure that represents more than half of the total number of global fliers. The top 5 fastest growing airports Oradea, Romania - 488 per cent growth in 2016 Iasi, Romania - 131 per cent Bucharest BBU, Romania - 122 per cent Ostend, Belgium - 65 per cent Palanga, Lithuania - 60 per cent Of the continent’s larger airports - taking nothing away from Romania, Belgium and Lithuania - Dublin saw the greatest increase in passenger numbers, with its figure rising 11.5 per cent, followed by Barcelona (11.2 per cent) and Amsterdam (nine per cent). London Heathrow was the busiest airport of the year, according to ACI, with a one per cent growth taking its passenger number to 75.7 million. The top 5 busiest airports London Heathrow - 75.7m (one per cent growth) Paris Charles de Gaulle - 65.9m (0.3 per cent) Amsterdam - 63.6m (9.2 per cent) Frankfurt - 60.8m (-0.4 per cent) Istanbul - 60m (-2.1 per cent) ACI’s figures highlight how Turkey, plagued by instability, has suffered a decrease in arrivals, sending Istanbul’s Ataturk airport from third most busiest to fifth. Across the continent EU countries saw a 6.7 per cent rise in arrivals, while non-EU nations posted an average drop of 0.9, mainly due to falling traffic in Turkey. The country to register the largest increase for the year was Iceland, which boasted a 40 per cent rise in passenger numbers. The countries with the largest passenger growth Iceland - 40 per cent Romania - 24 per cent Ukraine - 23 per cent Bulgaria - 22 per cent Cyprus - 18 per cent How European countries grew their passenger numbers in 2016 Credit: ACI Europe Of Western Europe, Portugal registered the largest increase as holidaymakers sought alternatives to Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. Its passenger numbers rose 14 per cent. The UK saw a six per cent rise, while Spain posted a 11 per cent rise and France just a three per cent rise. “Europe’s airports broke the two billion passengers mark last year - an absolute record,” said Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe. “While geopolitics and terrorism in particular played an increasing role in shaping the fortunes and misfortunes of many airports, the underlying story is one of continued growth and expansion - with passenger volumes growing in excess of five per cent for the third consecutive year.” Amsterdam Schiphol took third spot in the rankings Credit: Credit: frans lemmens / Alamy Stock Photo/frans lemmens / Alamy Stock Photo He added that Europe’s airports had welcomed an additional 300 million passengers since 2013, citing improving economic conditions, low oil prices and airline capacity expansions as reasons for the rise. ACI Europe’s survey of full 2016 traffic included 216 airports which, it said, accounted for 88 per cent of the continent’s traffic. Away from the likes of Heathrow, Amsterdam and Paris, was Arad International Airport in Western Romania, which welcomed just 375 passengers, according to ACI - a 96 per cent drop. The aforementioned Aurel Vlaicu in Bucharest had the second lowest passenger numbers, but its growth was 121.8 per cent, while Oradea welcomed just 41,723 travellers. The five smallest European airports Arad, Romania - 375 passengers Bucharest BBU, Romania - 4,898 Oradea, Romania - 41,723 Monaco, - 80,836 Mosjoen, Norway - 83,518 Looking ahead at 2017, Mr Jankovec predicted similar growth: “This current growth dynamic is likely to hold up in the coming months, possibly until early spring. “Short-term downside risks related to the price of oil - which is forecasted this year to be almost 30 per cent above its 2016 average - and airlines exerting capacity discipline. “Beyond that, our trading environment is becoming more unpredictable and prone to disruptions, due to mounting geopolitical risks. “These include the permanence of terrorism threats, increasing political instability, both within and outside Europe and Brexit.” The UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) believes the “global air transport network” doubles in size every 15 years, and that it’s expected to do so again by 2030. Global passenger numbers, registered at 3.77 billion for 2016, have grown at a rapid rate since 2009, following a two-year, post-recession plateau.

The Albany Project: Now we get to see and hear "Shotgun" Randy Kuhl (R-Hair Club for Men) say on camera that he "firmly believes" that Democrats want the American People to suffer and to hurt." No, really. Here's the exact quote: I firmly believe the Democratic majority wants the American public to suffer and to hurt so that they can make some political gains at election time, and I think that's wrong. Excuse me, Randy? Did you really just say that? The tape doesn't lie, I guess. I have just about enough of this crap from GOP dweebs nationwide, but this addition to their 2008 Hall of Shame is simply beyond the pale. I understand that Randy is polling well behind progressive Eric Massa and that desperate times call for desperate measures and all, but this is ridiculous. Another day, another McCarthyite. The hate and vitriol pouring through this election is bone chilling to me. I'm trying to understand how we can ever go back to being an United States of America. Kuhl is polling behind his Democratic rival, Blue America candidate Eric Massa. (See the ad we ran in that district here) It will be a happy day to see a progressive not insane with hate representing the 29th District of NY.

WASHINGTON - Next time you go to toss that flushable wipe in the toilet, you might want to consider a request from your sewer utility: Don't. Sewer agencies across the country say the rapidly growing use of pre-moistened "personal wipes" - used most often by potty-training toddlers and people seeking what's advertised as a more "thorough" cleaning than toilet paper - are clogging pipes and jamming pumps. WASHINGTON - Next time you go to toss that flushable wipe in the toilet, you might want to consider a request from your sewer utility: Don't. Sewer agencies across the country say the rapidly growing use of pre-moistened "personal wipes" - used most often by potty-training toddlers and people seeking what's advertised as a more "thorough" cleaning than toilet paper - are clogging pipes and jamming pumps. Utilities struggling with aging infrastructure have wrestled for years with the problem of "ragging" - when baby wipes, dental floss, paper towels and other items entangle sewer pumps. The latest menace, officials say, is wipes and other products, including pop-off scrubbers on toilet-cleaning wands, that are marketed as "flushable." Even ever-thickening, super-soft toilet paper is worrisome because it takes longer to disintegrate, some say. "Just because you can flush it doesn't mean you should," said I.J. Hudson, a spokesman for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which handles sewage for 1.8 million Maryland residents. The result: Utility officials say crews needed for less-preventable sewer maintenance and repairs are being deployed instead to wipes patrol. The suburban Washington sewer agency has spent more than $1 million to install heavy-duty grinders to shred wipes and other debris before they reach pumps on the way to the treatment plant, Hudson said. Officials with the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority say that more than 500 man-hours have been devoted in the past 12 months to removing stuck wipes and repairing broken equipment. The wipes also contribute to blockages that cause sewage to overflow into streams and back up into basements.

Initial purchase of cleaner running buses could come in next few years TriMet may add a new, more environmentally friendly type of bus to its fleet that’s different from a hybrid – it would run off compressed natural gas (CNG). Next week, the TriMet Board will consider a resolution authorizing a multi-year bus purchase contract that includes the option to buy up to 120 40-foot CNG buses. The new contract is part of TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane’s accelerated bus purchase program and would provide for future-year bus deliveries in 2015 through 2019. “TriMet has been exploring numerous green transit options and is currently analyzing the costs and benefits of adding CNG buses to the fleet,” said TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane. “The option to buy CNG buses is part of TriMet’s ongoing effort to increase our sustainability and improve air quality throughout the region.” The CNG buses would join TriMet’s clean diesel buses that by the end of October will make up more than 20.5 percent of the existing bus fleet. The clean diesel buses have reduced TriMet’s emissions, both smog and smoke. CNG is cleaner than diesel, although modern clean diesel technology puts it close to CNG vehicles. Despite the higher initial purchase costs – the agency pays close to $420,000 for a diesel bus now, and a CNG bus would cost roughly $55,000 more – CNG buses offer the potential to save money in the long run. Natural gas is currently 30 percent less expensive than diesel. Lower and more stable fuel prices mean that their initial expense could be recovered within the first few years of operation. However, CNG buses have somewhat lower fuel economy (10-20%) and higher maintenance costs (10-15%) than diesel buses, which would offset some of the fuel cost savings. There are also other costs associated with the logistics and infrastructure of switching to CNG fuel. This will influence the project’s overall cost effectiveness which is currently being analyzed. Should TriMet decide to pursue the CNG bus technology it will require converting one of TriMet’s bus maintenance facilities to accommodate the CNG vehicles. TriMet’s Merlo garage is currently under consideration. CNG is kept under high pressure, so it will require implementing a new fueling system with associated safety and maintenance requirements in the shop. TriMet is considering a number of different options for how to fund this conversion. If we move forward with the CNG project, the TriMet Board will be asked to activate the option for purchasing the CNG buses. Bus purchases under the proposed contract will be funded from a combination of federal and state grants, available operating resources and bond proceeds. The funding mix for each bus order will vary and be part of the budget process for that year. Earlier this year, TriMet introduced four hybrid buses to the fleet and will be adding four super-hybrid (all electric-powered) buses in the next year. Bus innovations – keeping us green Burning less fuel Burning less fuel means fewer emissions and a more sustainable transit system. We are one of the most fuel-efficient transit providers in the country, thanks to our creative operators and mechanics who keep finding new ways to conserve fuel. TriMet is the nation’s first transit agency to test and operate buses cooled by a NASCAR-inspired electrified cooling system. Traditional systems draw up to 50 horsepower off the engine, draining power and consuming fuel. The electrified cooling system uses less engine power, resulting in approximately 5 percent better fuel economy. The system also significantly cuts maintenance time and costs and is safer to maintain. Additionally, a drivetrain computer in the engine compartment of each bus saves fuel and improves driving safety. It monitors the engine, transmission and braking system, and uses the data to adjust acceleration, braking, traction control and fuel injection. Using improved fuel Our buses use a cleaner burning biodiesel fuel blend and TriMet is the largest biodiesel user in Oregon. The blend, including the petroleum-based share of the fuel, meets new federal standards for ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD). It reduces emissions, especially carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and smoke. Solar powered bus shelter lighting TriMet has installed Solar-powered lighting systems at bus stops to harness the sun’s energy, providing greater visibility and safety at dark bus stops. They reduce both the initial costs and the ongoing expense of providing power to shelters and are environmentally friendly. We have installed more than 200 such systems at well-used sheltered stops where direct power connections are impractical. Bus purchase background The agency delayed new bus purchases for a few years due to the recession. However, in 2012 McFarlane accelerated the bus replacement schedule to address TriMet’s aging bus fleet that had become more expensive to maintain and less reliable. Some buses in the fleet are more than 18 years old. In 2012 the agency purchased 51 diesel and 4 new hybrid buses. This year the agency purchased 70 40-foot diesel buses, the largest order in the accelerated bus purchase. During the next three years, TriMet will add another 184 buses. By 2016, the average age of our fleet will be the industry-recommended standard of eight years. By 2017, TriMet will have replaced all of the remaining high-floor buses (those with steps at the door) in the fleet.

Photo: AMC During season six of Mad Men last year, theories linking Megan Draper to the infamous Manson murders spread quickly after an episode in which Don’s wife wears a star T-shirt identical to one Sharon Tate was photographed in for a 1967 Esquire spread. Along with Megan’s short-lived pregnancy, the image of Peggy stabbing Abe, the Draper children being held hostage by an intruder, and later episodic references to Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, obsessive viewers saw that wardrobe choice as evidence that Megan was totally going to die — something creator Matthew Weiner did his best to quash, while also leaving open the possibility of her demise in the show’s final season. The action has moved forward in time to late January 1969, roughly six months ahead of the date of the grisly murders that capped off the era of peace and love, and Megan Draper is now living all alone in an insecure home overlooking Hollywood. Given those similarities and a few other loose parallels we’ve noticed (e.g., Megan and Don hear a coyote howling outside her house; Tate’s last meal was at a restaurant named El Coyote Cafe), we thought we’d circle back and see if that theory about the Manson murders will figure prominently into season seven, after all. To help us in our quest, Vulture spoke with Katherine Ramsland, professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University and the author of The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation. Topics discussed: Megan’s continued Tate-like wardrobe choices, Folgers coffee, and whether a production logo involving tarot cards means anything. I combed over the episode to look for anything that might possibly reference the Manson murders. Megan’s still dressing like Sharon Tate, for starters. That dress, absolutely. That was the first thing I thought. And whatever canyon Megan lives in — Don makes that reference to Megan that she’s isolated, that he’s disturbed by that, and that he’s not sure that she’s safe there. I’m not sure they’re setting her up to be murdered, but she certainly might hear the shots in the night. And then there’s Megan’s career. The pilot she was auditioning for, Bracken’s World, was a real show about starlets trying to make it in Hollywood. You could link that back to Valley of the Dolls, which Sharon Tate was in. And that was sort of that lifestyle. Though Megan hasn’t started taking drugs yet. [Editor’s note: Bracken’s World was created by Dorothy Kingsley, who co-wrote the Valley of the Dolls screenplay. Eerie!] Okay, here’s the big one: Folgers coffee. Peggy and Ted have this big conversation about coffee while Peggy is holding a Folgers can, and then Stan walks in and says something like, “That was not about coffee.” And Abigail Folger was one of Charles Manson’s victims. She was the heiress to the Folgers coffee fortune and was a friend of Roman Polanski, so she was staying at the house. I think that’s probably a good catch on your part. Because why would they have that coffee room debate? Last season, the show made pointed references to Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby: Sally was reading the novel, four of the characters saw a screening of the film, and Peggy and Ted pitched an ad campaign based on it. I guess that ties into the general theme of innocence being corrupted in the late 1960s? Not just corrupted — invaded. And also, advertising is about mind control, and Rosemary’s Baby was all about mind control. If only someone was living at the Dakota! [Laughs.] But advertising, everything they do is about manipulating people through subliminal imagery, and getting them to behave in a certain way. At the beginning of Mad Men, the characters were approaching the ad business like, “We’re doing good things for people, bringing these products into their lives.” But now it’s getting darker and darker, as they realize, this is really just manipulating people and making them do what we want them to do. You used the word invaded. There was also that strange woman who invaded Don’s home last year and held Sally hostage. And Peggy stabbed Abe because she thought he was a burglar. Yes, you have a lot of imagery of invasion on Mad Men. There’s a line that Betty had last year, when Sally was suspended from school; she told Don, “The good isn’t beating out the bad.” For the first time she realizes, no matter how hard we try, the bad is winning. And I thought, Oh, is that ever a Manson-esque reference. Because that was the feeling after Manson: How do we protect ourselves against the deranged people who will invade our homes and take our lives? Where’s the protection? It was only when Manson and his group did the home invasions that the whole hippie thing became very dark. And that was right around Woodstock time, which was supposedly about all this peace and love and everybody getting it on. And then Manson happened, and then the concert at Altamont. So really, there’s this whole sense after the Beatles landed, from the mid-’60s on, that things are getting unsafe. And you see that in all the relationships on Mad Men unraveling, that everybody is trying to connect and the connections aren’t working. And that was really the feeling of, how do we put this back together? And nobody has an answer. You’ve written a lot about the psychology of psychopaths. One of the traits is living a double life — but that applies to everyone on Mad Men! There are all kinds of themes about doubles. Megan played twins on the soap opera; Don is referred to as bicoastal constantly. And so he and Megan could be doubles for Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, because Polanski was much older than her, he was cheating on her, there she was trying to be an actress and to be who she wanted to be, but at the same time she’s also trying to be the good wife to this philanderer, essentially. So you have kind of the doubles imagery between the two couples. Does anyone on Mad Men have the potential to be a psychopath? Is there a character who sets off alarm bells for you? Oh, Bob Benson. [Laughs.] He’s such an odd duck in terms of his obsequiousness, and his inserting himself into everything — kind of being under the radar, but always present, you know? And Pete Campbell is the one who figured him out — of all people to spot him. Pete Campbell, with all his deviances and deceptions! I used to think Pete had the potential to be violent, but now I think he’s just sad. He’s so sad and pathetic. And even with his whole thing in California, there’s this kind of nervous quality about him, and I don’t think it’s just because he’s around Don. I think he’s a misfit. And in this episode, you saw everybody kind of realizing that the lives they’ve been leading have brought them into paralysis. Like that image of Don at the end where he’s sitting outside in the cold, alone; I think he and then Peggy and Pete and Roger, they’re all butting up against their own lives all of a sudden, and finding that what had been working and moving them along has brought them to a standstill, and they don’t really know how to make this work. And that was definitely the feeling after Manson — and again, Manson didn’t happen until August, so they’re a ways away from that — but this feeling of, how did we arrive at the juncture? What we’ve always thought works, doesn’t. And that is, in essence, the feeling after Manson. Things don’t work. Which is different than, say, Betty shaking out all her trash at the picnic in season one and leaving it in the park. The attitude in the early sixties was that somebody would always come around and make it all better. There’s one other thing that I saw, right as the show was ending — and maybe this is on every episode, but it’s the first time I noticed it: There was a tarot card. Oh, yeah, it’s one of the production company logos. Why is that important? Okay, because there was the tarot card massacre in 1970 in California, during the time when Manson’s trial was going on. So when I saw the tarot card, I went, whoa! But no, I think they would have used a different tarot card, because that one looks like The Sun — not dark enough.

Rand Paul. (AP Photo) Raising government spending beyond the levels set by sequestration would be a nonstarter in a deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, three Republican senators said on Sunday. "If you break the spending caps, you're not going to get any Republicans in the Senate," Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.) said on ABC News's "This Week." When asked whether there were any terms he couldn't accept in a compromise, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also cited spending increases. "I think the one thing I cannot accept and the one thing that I think is really not even a compromise at all is the Democrats want to exceed the sequester caps,” Paul said on CNN's "State of the Union." "It's funny they're all about Obamacare being the law of the land, but so is the sequester." Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) also said on "Fox News Sunday" that his party would be unlikely to accept any deal that included increasing spending beyond the levels set under sequestration, a slate of across-the-board reductions in spending intended to be so bad that both parties would be forced to compromise on a budget "grand bargain." Such a deal was never brokered, so sequestration went into effect earlier this year.

We recently collaborated with Arizona Wilderness Brewing Company to brew Transmission, a Citrus Saison. The beer was packaged in 750mL bottles and will be released September 29th in our brewery Tasting Room. After meeting the amazing people from Arizona Wilderness, we quickly came to find that our two breweries both value local community and frequently source ingredients from local farms whenever possible. Transmission was brewed with honey from Booger Hill Bee Company in Danielsville, GA, as well as Lisbon Lemons and Arizona Sweet Oranges from The Farm at Agritopia in Gilbert, AZ. The beer contains both zest and juice from the fruit. “We both really aligned on our philosophies and values in making beer and working with our local communities,” says Blake Tyers, our Wood Cellar and Specialty Brand Manager. “Front to back we figured out how we could express citrus in a Saison using local ingredients.” Transmission was bottle conditioned for four months with our house‐mixed culture of yeast and bacteria and comes in at 5.6% abv. The tart and funky beer was brewed with Mandarina Bavaria and Lemondrop hops in order to complement the citrus flavor and aroma. “Transmission is the result of two breweries who have the same vision in mind: to represent craft beer on a local level, using artists’ passion and to be completely dedicated to the craft,” said Arizona Wilderness Founder Jon Buford. “Oh, and to have a ton of fun while doing it.” Athens illustrator and Creature Comforts tour staff member, Melissa Merrill, designed the label artwork. Merrill derived the watercolor medium from the fruit used in brewing the beer for the original artwork. The name of the beer is a nod to a bus with a broken transmission the two breweries shared on the way to a beer dinner while Arizona Wilderness was visiting us here in Athens, GA, which made for a very fun and memorable evening!

The Golden State Warriors faced a young Minnesota Timberwolves squad for the second night in a row in the 2017 Las Vegas Summer League tournament. After a dramatic sudden death overtime finish to Tuesday night’s game that sent the Warriors to an 0-3 record, tonight’s contest ended very differently with the Warriors winning 77-69 (in regulation). Patrick McCaw continued to come up big as a scorer with 26 points and 9 assists. Jordan Bell had a summer league record 16 rebounds. Warriors beat the Wolves in summer league -Pat McCaw: 26 pts, 10/16 FG, 5 asts -Jordan Bell: 16 rebounds, 3 blocks — Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) July 13, 2017 But the biggest — or at least most surprising — moment of the night was this play by Bryce Alford. With the win, the Warriors will advance in the tournament to face the Boston Celtics, who are the sixth seed. It will be the Warriors' fourth game in four nights, which is certainly a grueling path through summer league. To find out more information about the tournament structure, please click here.

FAISALABAD: A large number of people from villages around Khurrianwala town vented their anger against power outages on Tuesday and attacked a grid station and offices of the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (Fesco). They blocked traffic on the Sheikhupura-Faisalabad road for about 10 hours and pelted police and vehicles with stones, causing injuries to four constables. Police chased the protesters, entered a number of houses by scaling the walls or breaking open the gates and thrashed anyone they found there. Policemen are reported to have abused and dragged women when they objected to their conduct. A number of women and children who had not joined the protests were also mistreated. More than 10 people were arrested from the houses. The industrial city of Faisalabad saw a number of violent protests over outages during the PPP government. At that time, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had backed their protests, but asked them not to damage public property. PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had also supported the agitation by industrial workers. Protests were also reported on Tuesday from Dera Ghazi Khan, Sheikhupura and Bahawalpur, but they were largely peaceful. Hundreds of people started gathering in the morning and blocked the Khurrianwala Road. They raised slogans against Fesco and an independent power producer supplying electricity to their villages. The protesters attacked the Fesco sub-divisional office in Bundala, ransacked the building and put it on fire. Police did not intervene because of having been outnumbered by the protesters. They also attacked a grid station near Ada Johal and tried to enter it, but were stopped by police. A mill where police had been deployed also came under attack. Two ambulances remained stuck in the traffic for some time but were later allowed by agitators to proceed. Police used batons and teargas to disperse the protesters but they refused to leave till restoration of power supply. Police chased the protesters in streets and bazaar and also entered some houses to arrest them. The protesters also hurled stones at Faisalabad DCO Najam Shah and CPO Raja Riffat Mukhtar when they tried to negotiate with them. They said both the officers were unable to resolve the issue, adding that the district coordination officer had assured their delegation a couple of days ago that the problem would be solved, but nothing had been done so far. Similar protests had been held on June 3 when demonstrators blocked the Khurrianwala Road for over five hours, damaged some vehicles and pelted police and some buildings with stones. They raised slogans against 10 hours of loadshedding schedule planned by Fesco. Police fired into the air to disperse the protesters and pursued them to the Ada Johal area. The road was later cleared. Our Sheikhupura correspondent adds: A large number of factory workers and residents of Ferozewattwan and adjoining localities gathered on the Faisalabad Road and blocked traffic for about three hours in protest against 20 hours of power outages. KASUR: A demonstration was held by people of Basti Kambovan against up to 20 hours of loadshedding.

MURRIETA — Demonstrators opposed to illegal immigration stood their ground again at the Murrieta Border Patrol station on Monday, where U.S. Border Patrol had been scheduled to transfer a third round of buses, with approximately 140 illegal aliens aboard in total, transferred from overcrowded Texas detention facilities. For a third time, the buses were rerouted to the San Ysidro, California Border Patrol station, near the U.S.-Mexico border, for processing. The demonstrators gathered in areas to the north and south of the Murrieta station after law enforcement blocked off the road near the station itself. Many told Breitbart News they considered their stand a success, since buses scheduled for Murrieta are avoiding it as long as demonstrators remain. The anti-illegal immigration protests Monday brought out new, first-time demonstrators and onlookers from many different backgrounds–from young enlisted Marines to legal immigrants from Germany, Mexico, and Central America. Karen Siegemund of Rage Against the Media, comedian and author Evan Sayet, and radio host Kender Macgowan made it out as well. Despite the news of buses being re-routed for the second time since a standoff with three buses in Murrieta July 1, anti-illegal immigration demonstrators plan to continue to monitor and be at the ready should any transfers of illegal aliens to the Murrieta station resume. The general sentiment is that the moment that demonstrators leave, transfers to the station will continue.

Statements mark first time Aaron Persky has addressed effort to unseat him over his light sentencing of Brock Turner, who was convicted of sexual assault The judge in the Stanford sexual assault case has launched a campaign to fight the high-profile effort to unseat him, declaring that he has a “reputation for being fair to both sides” in his first public comments on the controversy. Judge Aaron Persky, who received widespread backlash for his sentencing of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, is campaigning to stay in office and has launched the website RetainJudgePersky.com where he states that he is a strong advocate for “judicial independence”. “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to appease politicians or ideologues. When your own rights and property are at stake, you want the judge to make a fair and lawful decision, free from political influence,” he wrote on the site. The northern California judge’s statements mark the first time he has directly addressed the well-funded initiative to recall him from office over his light sentencing of Turner, who was convicted of multiple felony counts of sexual assault. Persky is also soliciting donations on the site. Judge in Stanford sexual assault case faces recall effort over light sentence Read more Persky sentenced the 20-year-old athlete to six months in county jail, which is lighter than the minimum of two years in state prison prescribed by law. Turner was caught sexually assaulting an unconscious woman by a dumpster outside an on-campus fraternity party, but throughout the trial, he argued that the encounter was consensual. Turner, who went to jail in June, is scheduled to be released on Friday after serving only half of his sentence. In California, inmates with good behavior are often released early. The case made headlines across the globe after the victim released a powerful impact statement detailing the trauma of the trial. Michele Landis Dauber, a Stanford law professor and family friend of the victim, subsequently organized a formal initiative to remove Persky from office, arguing that the Santa Clara County judge failed to treat assault as a serious crime. Prosecutors later removed Persky from a new sexual assault case, saying they lacked confidence in him. Last week, the judge took the unusual step of removing himself from all criminal cases and transferring to civil court, but Dauber said the recall campaign would continue. The judge’s opponents have argued that he has repeatedly been too lenient towards men convicted of sex crimes and violence against women, including when he presided over a sexual assault case in civil court. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Activists hold a rally before delivering more than a million signatures to the California commission on judicial performance calling for the removal of Judge Aaron Persky from the bench. Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP But Persky’s supporters, including public defenders, former judges and law school professors, have argued that the recall is misguided and that judges should not be removed from office for a single decision. His defenders further fear that the push for harsher sentencing could lead to more severe punishments for low-income defendants and people of color disproportionately caught up in the criminal justice system. On Monday, lawmakers approved legislation inspired by the Turner trial that seeks to make prison a mandatory punishment in cases of sexual assault involving unconscious victims. On his website, Persky notes that he has served in public office for nearly 20 years, first as a criminal prosecutor. “I prosecuted hate crimes and sexually violent predators,” he said. “As a judge, I have heard thousands of cases. I have a reputation for being fair to both sides.” Persky, who has served as a judge for the past 12 years, noted that he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford and that he is married with two children. The site also features links about judicial independence, including one letter from retired judges defending Persky, which says judges may be recalled for illegal or unethical conduct, but that “the essence of judicial independence is that judges must be able to make decisions without fear of political repercussions”. Dauber said on Tuesday said Persky’s pattern of unjust sentencing warranted the recall. “Judicial independence is really important … but in order to be exercised freely and appropriately, it has to be exercised without bias.” Persky has raised $3,600 in contributions for his campaign, according to the Mercury News. Dauber said the recall campaign has raised more than $250,000 in pledged funds and cash.

Notre Dame and Under Armour announced Tuesday that they have agreed to the most valuable shoe and apparel contract in college sports history. The private school did not reveal the value of the 10-year deal, which will begin when its contract with adidas expires at the end of June, but sources told ESPN.com that the value of the deal, in cash and merchandise combined, is worth about $90 million. That would make the deal worth more than the $82 million adidas is paying in cash and product to Michigan over 10 years. Notre Dame and Under Armour have agreed to a 10-year deal worth $90 million in cash and merchandise combined, according to sources, that makes it the richest shoe and apparel deal in college sports. AP Photo/Joe Raymond The deal could eventually be worth even more to the Fighting Irish, as Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick noted that it allows the school to take some of the cash in company stock. As of 12:30 p.m. ET Tuesday, shares of Under Armour were up more than 3 percent on the day and up more than 80 percent over last year. Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank said he first set foot on the Notre Dame campus in 1997, coincidentally the year that adidas' first deal with the school began. That year, Plank said Under Armour's revenues were $110,000. In 2013, Under Armour projects sales of $2.25 billion. "We love the company we are partnering with, and we can't wait to grow with them," Swarbrick said. "We don't believe we're partnering with a $2 billion company. We're partnering with a $20 billion company." Swarbrick said that while fans' focus might be on the uniforms, this deal is as much about working with Under Armour to share information that will improve technology. "We're in a very competitive business where the margins between a 12-win season and an eight-win season are so small," he said. "Mining the data is one of the next frontiers, and given that this deal is 10 years, we better be focused on those things." Under Armour currently has schoolwide deals with 12 other schools: Auburn, Hawaii, Maryland, Texas Tech, Boston College, Utah, Northwestern, St. John's, Navy, Colorado State, South Florida and South Carolina. Despite a history of pushing the envelope, Plank said he understands what Notre Dame means and says his company will treat the school as a unique entity. "Texas Tech is different from Maryland is different from Notre Dame," Plank said. "We don't have to invent any new history. We don't have to tell any new stories. Notre Dame is quite simply Notre Dame." In a statement that noted its 17-year partnership would come to an end after this school year, adidas said, "As with every business decision, we weigh our investment against the value to our brand." One point in the talks that was not negotiable was Under Armour getting any signage in Notre Dame Stadium. "It's just one of those things that is just so central to our identity," Swarbrick said. "We want to be Augusta-like in that way, and that's why after we discussed it one time it was never brought up in conversation again. "Instead, I agreed to let them put their logo on the athletic director."

As the world braced for a possible core meltdown in Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the U.S. Navy kept its helicopters flying to provide earthquake and tsunami relief. The Navy's Pacific-based 7th Fleet announced on its Facebook page that the aircraft carrier in position, the USS Ronald Reagan, had been moved slightly away from the Fukushima Daiichi plant after finding low-level radioactive contamination "in the air and on its aircraft operating in the area." But the Navy said that operations to provide disaster relief had already resumed north of Sendai. Most important to those relief efforts: helicopters. As depicted in the video above, released by the Navy on Sunday, Navy helicopters like the Reagan's SH-60 Seahawks are delivering "water, blankets and food" and scouring the stricken areas for survivors. Ten operations already launched today, despite the repositioning. And it was the copter crews that flew into the "low-level" radiation areas. According to The New York Times, the helicopters were 60 miles from the plant, "suggesting widening environmental contamination." The contamination may be spreading. But so is the Navy's assistance role in the relief effort. The 7th Fleet said it expects the USS Tortuga to arrive on Tuesday at the eastern coast of Hokkaido, carrying two heavy-lift MH-53 helicopters. It'll pick up Japanese troops and vehicles and send them on to Aomori, in northern Honshu. Four more ships are expected to arrive starting on Wednesday: the Blue Ridge, the Essex, the Harpers Ferry and the Germantown. Retired Capt. Jan van Tol, who commanded the Essex during the 2005 tsunami relief missions in Indonesia, explained that heavy-lift helicopters are needed "given the likely damage to coastal transportation infrastructure and the rugged Japanese terrain." He told Politico, "Essex is on her way up from Malaysia (means a week away...), and other big decks will no doubt be assigned. They're the real assets for this given their heavy helo lift capacity, though the carriers will no doubt get the headlines with their SH-60s. Remember that operating the heavy helos is not merely a matter of the deck space (of which the CVNs obviously have a lot more), but also of the aircraft maintenance capability needed to keep the helos operating (and I expect they'll be worked very heavily)." The enormous human and environmental damage of Friday's quake and tsunami have yet to be fully tallied. But as of Monday, the Japan Meteorological Agency registered at least three aftershocks greater than magnitude 7.0 and some 44 aftershocks greater than 6.0. See Also:- Haiti Relief’s Secret Weapon: Google Earth

What collection of Star Trek resources would be complete without a list of the Rules of Acquisition? Found in this list are the 85 canon and official rules, plus a handful of other quotes that could have been rules. (This list does not include the complete reference including the 47 commentaries, 900 major and minor rulings, and 10,000 considered opinions, which is published by the Ferengi Commerce Authority.) The Official Seal of the Ferengi Alliance Rules of Acquisition Official Rules Once you have their money, you never give it back. (“The Nagus” [DS9]) Never pay more for an acquisition than you have to. (“The Maquis, Part II” [DS9]) Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity. (“The Nagus” [DS9], “Acquisition” [ENT]) Keep your ears open. (“In the Hands of the Prophets” [DS9]) Small print leads to large risk. (Legends of the Ferengi) Opportunity plus instinct equals profit. (“The Storyteller” [DS9]) Greed is eternal. (“Prophet Motive” [DS9], “False Profits” [VGR]) Anything worth doing is worth doing for money. (Legends of the Ferengi) A deal is a deal... until a better one comes along. (“Melora” [DS9], Legends of the Ferengi) A contract is a contract is a contract... but only between Ferengi. (“Body Parts” [DS9]) A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all. (“Heart of Stone” [DS9]) Satisfaction is not guaranteed. (“Meridian” [DS9], Legends of the Ferengi) Never place friendship above profit. (“Rules of Acquisition” [DS9]) A wise man can hear profit in the wind. (“Rules of Acquisition” [DS9], “False Profits” [VGR]) Nothing is more important than your health... except for your money. (“Acquisition” [ENT]) There is nothing more dangerous than an honest businessman. (Legends of the Ferengi) Whisper your way to success. (“Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” [DS9]) Never insult a Ferengi’s mother. Insult something he cares about instead. (“The Siege” [DS9], Legends of the Ferengi) It never hurts to suck up to the boss. (“Rules of Acquisition” [DS9]) War is good for business. (“Destiny” [DS9], “The Siege of AR-558” [DS9]) Peace is good for business. (“Destiny” [DS9], “The Perfect Mate” [TNG]) She can touch your lobes, but never your latinum. (Legends of the Ferengi) Profit is its own reward. (Legends of the Ferengi) Never confuse wisdom with luck. (Legends of the Ferengi) Don’t trust a man wearing a better suit than yours. (“Rivals” [DS9]) The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife. (“Rules of Acquisition” [DS9]) Never ask when you can take. (Legends of the Ferengi, “Babel” [DS9]) Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure them. (“Armageddon Game” [DS9]) There is no substitute for success. (Legends of the Ferengi) Free advice is seldom cheap. (“Rules of Acquisition” [DS9]) Keep your lies consistent. (Legends of the Ferengi) The riskier the road, the greater the profit. (“Rules of Acquisition” [DS9], “Little Green Men” [DS9], “Business as Usual” [DS9]) Win or lose, there’s always Huyperian beetle snuff. (Legends of the Ferengi) Knowledge equals profit. (“Inside Man” [VGR]) Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of latinum. (“Civil Defense” [DS9]) Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies. (“The Homecoming” [DS9]) Beware of the Vulcan greed for knowledge. (Legends of the Ferengi) The flimsier the product, the higher the price. (Legends of the Ferengi) Never let the competition know what you’re thinking. (Legends of the Ferengi) Ask not what your profits can do for you, but what you can do for your profits. (Legends of the Ferengi) Females and finances don’t mix. (“Ferengi Love Songs” [DS9], “Profit and Lace” [DS9]) Expand or die. (“False Profits” [DS9], “Acquisition” [ENT]*) Enough... is never enough. (Legends of the Ferengi) Every man has his price. (“In the Pale Moonlight” [DS9]) Trust is the biggest liability of all. (Legends of the Ferengi) Nature decays, but latinum lasts forever. (“The Jem’Hadar” [DS9]) Sleep can interfere with your lust for latinum. (“Rules of Acquisition” [DS9], Legends of the Ferengi) Faith moves mountains... of inventory. (Legends of the Ferengi) There is no honor in poverty. (Legends of the Ferengi) Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack. (“Rivals” [DS9]) Treat people in your debt like family... exploit them. (“Past Tense, Part I” [DS9], “The Darkness and the Light” [DS9]) Never have sex with the boss’s sister. (“Playing God” [DS9]) Always have sex with the boss. (Legends of the Ferengi) Everything is for sale, even friendship. (Legends of the Ferengi) Even a blind man can recognize the glow of latinum. (Legends of the Ferengi) You can’t make a deal if you’re dead. (“The Siege of AR-558” [DS9], Legends of the Ferengi) Wives serve, brothers inherit. (“Necessary Evil” [DS9]) Only fools pay retail. (Legends of the Ferengi) There’s nothing wrong with charity... as long as it winds up in your pocket. (Legends of the Ferengi) Even in the worst of times, someone turns a profit. (Legends of the Ferengi) Whisper your way to success. (“Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” [DS9], Legends of the Ferengi) Know your enemies... but do business with them always. (Legends of the Ferengi) Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shine of profit. (Legends of the Ferengi) Let others keep their reputation. You keep their money. (Legends of the Ferengi) Hear all, trust nothing. (“Call to Arms” [DS9]) Never cheat a Klingon... unless you’re sure you can get away with it. (Legends of the Ferengi) It’s always good to know about new customers before they walk in your door. (“Whispers” [DS9]) The justification for profit is profit. (Legends of the Ferengi) New customers are like razor-toothed gree worms. They can be succulent, but sometimes they bite back. (“Little Green Men” [DS9]) Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer. (“Ferengi Love Songs” [DS9]) Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don’t hesitate to step on them. (“Bar Association” [DS9]) Never begin a negotiation on an empty stomach. (“The Maquis, Part I” [DS9]) You can’t free a fish from water. (“Past Tense, Part I” [DS9]) Always know what you’re buying. (Legends of the Ferengi, “The Abandoned” [DS9]) Beware the man who doesn’t make time for oo-mox. (Legends of the Ferengi, “Profit and Loss” [DS9]) Latinum lasts longer than lust. (“Ferengi Love Songs” [DS9]) You can’t buy fate. (Legends of the Ferengi) Never be afraid to mislabel a product. (“Body Parts” [DS9]) More is good. All is better. (Legends of the Ferengi) A wife is a luxury. A smart accountant is a necessity. (Legends of the Ferengi) A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience. (Legends of the Ferengi) Don’t let doubt interfere with your lust for latinum. (“Bar Association” [DS9]) When in doubt, lie. (Legends of the Ferengi) Deep down, everyone’s a Ferengi. (Legends of the Ferengi) No good deed ever goes unpunished. (“The Collaborator” [DS9], “The Sound of Her Voice” [DS9]) Unofficial or Uncertain Rules The unofficial Rules have been quoted on screen, but either were not given a number, not explicitly stated to be a Rule, or were not part of the generally-accepted canon by the Ferengi Commerce Authority. Rule 142: Only fools sell wholesale. (See Rule #141) Rule 286: When Morn leaves, it’s all over. (“The House of Quark” [DS9]) Rule 299: After you’ve exploited someone, it never hurts to thank them. That way, it’s easier to exploit them next time. (“False Profits” [VGR]) Unknown: Exploitation begins at home. (“False Profits” [VGR]) Unknown: Time, like latinum, is a highly limited commodity. (“Bar Association” [DS9]) Unknown: If that’s what’s written, that’s what’s written. (“Favor the Bold” [DS9]) Unknown: A good lie is easier to believe than the truth. (“Shattered” [VGR]) Unknown: A man is only worth the sum of his possessions. (“Acquisition” [ENT]) Bibliography

Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Masked gunmen have been caught on camera patrolling the streets of North Belfast. The sinister gang - one of whom is believed to have been clutching an RPG launcher - was filmed in the Ardoyne area. The video was circulated on social media on Monday but it is unsure when it was taken. The so-called show of strength was caught on camera close to where father-of-four Michael McGibbon was murdered by a New IRA gang earlier this year. The PSNI confirmed an investigation is under way into the video. North Belfast Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly said those in the film need to "wise up". He added: "This is the same organisation that has been involved in extorting, intimidating, assaulting, facilitating drug dealers and murdering people in this community, including local taxi driver and father, Michael McGibbon. "Their only war is with the people of Ardoyne. No one will be taken in by their appearance in fancy dress. "They need to wind up, wise up and go away." Earlier today, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said the threat posed by terrorists in Northern Ireland remains severe. Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP Tom Elliott said: “Today’s statement from the Secretary of State makes abundantly clear that the terrorist threat in Northern Ireland is not just a thing of the past, but unfortunately is alive and well in the present. “The terrorist threat level in Northern Ireland remains ‘severe’, meaning that an attack is considered highly likely. “The murder of prison officer Adrian Ismay back in March, demonstrated the lethal intent of dissident republican groups, who have been completely rejected by all sections of society in Northern Ireland, though continue to cause mayhem and destruction in our communities. “The PSNI and our intelligence services must be commended for the work they do facing down terrorism at every turn, and it is noted in the Secretary of State’s statement that numerous dissident attacks have been prevented in the last six months. “We must however be vigilant, and continue to do everything we can to put these terrorist groups out of business.” PSNI Superintendent Darrin Jones said: "Police are aware of a video having been posted on a social media site. Enquiries are ongoing."

Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) won’t seek reelection in 2018, several news outlets reported Wednesday. LoBiondo, who oversees two subcommittees in the lower chamber, including the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee’s Aviation Subcommittee and the House Intelligence Committee’s CIA subcommittee, will become the latest Republican lawmaker whose retirement opens a seat in a potential swing district. The longtime lawmaker has split with his party on Donald Trump’s agenda, including the current tax-reform proposal and the Republican effort to repeal ObamaCare earlier this year. LoBiondo joins a number of Republican lawmakers who have announced they will not run for reelection. According to The Hill, he is expected to formally announce his retirement from New Jersey’s 2nd District as early as Wednesday, reported Harry Hurley, the radio talk show host for South Jersey’s “Hurley in the Morning.” Democrats are counting on retirements to help them win the 24 seats they need to retake the House majority. A spokesman for LoBiondo’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration may have expressed a desire to improve relations with Russia, but Mike Pence has spent the last few days sticking a thumb in Vladimir Putin’s eye. Just days after Russia announced a wholesale expulsion of US diplomatic personnel, the vice president visited the former Soviet republic of Georgia, where Russian troops still occupy areas seized in 2008. Pence pledged to stand by Georgia and declared the Trump administration’s support for Georgia’s bid to join NATO. If this sounds familiar, it should: Vice President Mike Pence said the U.S. “strongly” supports Georgia’s ambition of joining NATO, even as Russia remains hostile to the military alliance expanding its influence in Moscow’s former Soviet backyard. “We see Georgia as a key strategic partner and stand by your territorial integrity and your aspirations to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” Pence said at talks with Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on Tuesday. U.S. President Donald Trump “asked me to extend greetings to you this morning and to say we are with you,” Pence said. The vice president is also attending joint military exercises involving as many as 800 Georgian and 1,600 U.S. troops during his visit. The Noble Partner 2017 drills, which also include German, U.K., Turkish, Slovenian, Ukrainian and Armenian forces, are the largest in the Caucasus republic since Georgia fought a brief war with Russia in 2008 over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Pence visited the Baltic states previous to his arrival in Tbilisi, where he emphasized US support against Russian aggression. His message in Tbilisi is only slightly more subtle, and it’s going to be heard loud and clear in Moscow. That’s not the reason it should sound familiar, though. The Russian incursion into Abkhazia and South Ossetia came after the Bush administration made overtures to bring Georgia into NATO, too, as Vladimir Putin responded by going to war with Georgia to seize the two provinces before Georgia had access to an Article V intervention. The Bush administration got tough with Putin at that point, but Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reversed that policy with their infamous “reset button” in March 2009, leaving the occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a fait accompli. Their efforts to appease Putin failed spectacularly in Ukraine five years later, when a push from European nations to get Ukraine to realign both politically and economically to the West triggered the same kind of response. Pence wants to indicate that the Trump administration plans to get tougher with Putin than Barack Obama did, which isn’t hard to do. Georgia will certainly be happy to get back on the US nat-sec radar screen, but this ploy has considerable risk for both Georgia and NATO. Putin has already demonstrated that he’s willing to roll troops over the border to keep the West from setting up camp on Russia’s borders, at least more than they already do in Poland. Putin just got slapped in Montenegro on NATO expansion, but that was a lower-stakes standoff as the Adriatic nation is far from Russian borders. On the other hand, it might serve notice to Putin that his attempts at provocations in the Baltic will get answered in the always-fractious Caucasus, and that the US will not sit still again for Putin’s claims of championing ethnic Russian enclaves elsewhere. In another signal to Putin, Pence declared that Trump will soon sign the sanctions bill that passed with veto-proof majorities: Pence’s European trip comes several days after the U.S. Senate voted last week to approve the new financial sanctions against Moscow. The legislation bars U.S. President Donald Trump from easing or waiving the penalties on Russia unless Congress agrees. Pence told reporters on Tuesday that Trump would sign a bill on a new package of U.S. sanctions against Russia, adding the package was “improved significantly.” The bill underwent revisions to address concerns voiced by American oil and natural gas companies that sanctions specific to Russia’s energy sector could backfire on them to Moscow’s benefit. U.S. lawmakers said they also made adjustments so the sanctions on Russia’s energy sector didn’t undercut the ability of U.S. allies in Europe to get access to oil and gas resources outside of Russia. If Putin interfered with the 2016 election with its specific outcome in mind, it’s not exactly paying off. Update: Let’s discuss another aspect of this idea. NATO is a fairly contiguous group of countries which are relatively easy to defend, in terms of lines of communication and supply. The toughest member to support would probably be Turkey, although some troop movements could be possible through Greece and Bulgaria if needed, and the Mediterranean Sea gives the West broad access if northern Africa doesn’t become too hostile. Note, however, where Georgia is on the map — all the way on the other side of Turkey, who has become a lot less reliable over the last few years as an ally, with Iran close by. If called to respond to a Russian incursion under Article V, NATO would have no easy task in getting to the front with any force, while the Russians could roll across Georgia rather quickly. This looks like a bad idea, even if it’s just a tit-for-tat provocation in answer to the Russians’ activities near the Baltic states …. maybe especially bad for that purpose.

Michael Vernon Townley (born December 5, 1942) is a former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional[1] currently living under terms of the US federal witness protection program. An operative of the Chilean secret police, Townley confessed, was convicted, and served 62 months in prison in the United States for the 1976 Washington, D.C., assassination of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the United States.[2] As part of his plea bargain, Townley received immunity from further prosecution; he was not extradited to Argentina to stand trial for the 1974 assassination of Chilean general Carlos Prats and his wife.[2] In 1993, Townley was also convicted, in absentia, by an Italian court for carrying out the 1975 Rome murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton.[3] Townley worked in producing chemical weapons for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's use against political opponents along with Colonel Gerardo Huber[4] and the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos.[5] Early life [ edit ] Townley was born in Waterloo, Iowa. 1974 assassination of Carlos Prats [ edit ] According to head of DINA Manuel Contreras, Townley returned to Chile at the end of 1973, working for the CIA, with the intent of receiving from the "Highest National Authority, in agreement with what had already been planned by the CIA ... the order to act in direct, personal and exclusive form, without intermediaries, against General Prats in Buenos Aires".[6][page needed] Prats and his wife were killed with a car bomb in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1974. Contreras also said that Townley traveled with a false passport provided by the CIA under the name of Kenneth Enyart.[6][page needed] Contreras stated Townley was aided by CIA agents, as well as Argentine and Chilean agents, and paramilitary groups such as the Triple A and the Grupo Milicias. Contreras said he thought the CIA planned the assassination because it feared Prats would try to overthrow Pinochet's dictatorship with the help of the Argentine Army, thus leading to a war between Chile and Argentina which would constitute "a difficult problem for the United States in the Cold War era".[7] 1975 Bernardo Leighton assassination attempt [ edit ] He was convicted and sentenced in absentia in Italy to 15 years of jail over his role as an intermediary between the Chilean DINA and Italian neo-fascists.[8] Michael Townley also stated that Enrique Arancibia had traveled to California in the autumn of 1977 on banking business for ALFA, alias Stefano Delle Chiaie.[9] Enrique Arancibia is a former DINA agent who resided in unofficial exile in Buenos Aires after the assassination of Chilean Army Chief of Staff René Schneider on October 25, 1970. Arancibia was arrested by Argentine intelligence officers shortly after the extradition of Townley to the US and charged with espionage.[10] Convicted for Orlando Letelier's murder [ edit ] Townley was convicted in the United States for the 1976 murder of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. During his trial, he said that Augusto Pinochet was responsible for planning the murder. Head of DINA Manuel Contreras also stated that Pinochet planned the assassination of both Prats and Letelier.[7] Townley served 62 months in prison for the murder.[11] Michael Townley confessed that he had hired five anti-Castrist Cuban exiles to booby-trap Letelier's car. According to Jean-Guy Allard, after consultations with the leadership of the anti-Castro Cuban organization CORU, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, those elected to carry out the murder were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz, and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll.[12] According to the Miami Herald, Luis Posada Carriles was also at this meeting, which decided on Letelier's death and also about the Cubana Flight 455 bombing. Townley was the prosecution's chief witness at the trial for Ross and the Novo brothers.[13] In 1978, Chile agreed to extradite him to the USA, in order to reduce the tension resulting from Orlando Letelier's murder. He made an agreement with the US government on April 17, 1978, which required that he only provide information relevant to violations of US law or offenses committed in US jurisdiction. Based on that argument, he refused to provide any information concerning DINA during the trial of the three Cuban defendants in Washington DC in early 1979 concerning Letelier's assassination. Michael Townley was then freed under the federal Witness Protection Program. The United States is still waiting for Pedro Espinoza Bravo to be extradited. Contreras died in 2015, in Santiago, without having been extradited. In an interview with authorities on October 20, 1981, Townley declared that Castro opponent Virgilio Paz Romero brought with him a Colt .45 caliber automatic pistol when he visited Chile in the spring of 1976. According to Townley, Romero said that the weapon had recently been used in a "hit" by the Cuban Nationalist Movement and that his purpose in Chile was to use it again. Townley then said that Romero had broken the weapon in pieces and scattered the pieces throughout Santiago. In 2005, DINA chief Manuel Contreras also told the Chilean judge responsible for trying the case that Townley had been supported for Letelier's assassination by CIA agents, as well as the Cuban Nationalist Movement and members of the DISIP (for which Luis Posada Carriles worked). CIA deputy director from 1972 to 1976, General Vernon Walters, informed Pinochet that Letelier represented a threat for the US and was preparing a Chilean government in exile, according to Contreras. Contreras wrote in the document that "the Chilean President disposed in personal, exclusive and direct manner of the action of CIA agent Michael Townley against Mr. Orlando Letelier". Contreras also stated that the CNI handed out monthly payments between 1978 and 1990 to the persons who had worked with Townley in Chile, all members of Patria y Libertad: Mariana Callejas (Townley's wife), Francisco Oyarzún, Gustavo Etchepare and Eugenio Berríos.[7] Assassinated in 1995, Berríos worked with drug traffickers and DEA agents.[14] Ongoing investigations [ edit ] In 2003, Argentine Federal Judge María Servini de Cubría asked Chile for the extradition of Mariana Callejas, who was accused of Carlos Prats' murder. But, in July 2005, Chilean Judge Nibaldo Segura of the Court of Appeals stated that the case cannot proceed, arguing that Callejas was already being tried in Chile. Questioned in March 2005 by Judge Alejandro Madrid about ex-Chilean Christian Democrat President Eduardo Frei Montalva's death, Michael Townley acknowledged links between Colonia Dignidad, led by ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer and DINA on one side and the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica del Ejército (Bacteriological War Army Laboratory) on the other. It is suspected the toxin that killed Frei Montalva in a Santa Maria clinic in 1982 was created there. This new laboratory in Colonia Dignidad would have been, according to him, the continuation of the laboratory the DINA had in Via Naranja de lo Curro where he worked with DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos. Townley would also have testified on biological experiments made upon prisoners in Colonia Dignidad with the help of the two above mentioned laboratories.[5] In 1992, Townley testified that the Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, assassinated in 1976, had been detained at his home on Via Naranja in the sector of Lo Curro.[15] There he was tortured and, since he did not speak, subjected to sarin gas (which had been re-invented by Berríos).[dubious – discuss] [16] Soria was then detained and tortured again in the Villa Grimaldi and his case was included in Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon's indictment of Pinochet.[17] In May 2016, Chile's Supreme Court asked the United States to extradite Chilean Armando Fernandez Larios, Townley and Cuban Virgilio Paz, all three of whom were linked to the September 21, 1976, car-boming murders in Washington, D.C. In November 2002, Soria's widow, Laura Gonzalez-Vera, along with the personal representative of Soria's estate, sued Townley seeking damages for Soria's torture and killing. When Townley defaulted, the district court entered a $7 million judgment against him.[18] The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the foreign ministry of Chile should file an extradition request to the United States for Michael Townley and Armando Fernandez Larios.[19] All three are wanted in Chile for the detention, torture, and killing of Spanish-Chilean citizen Carmelo Soria on July 14, 1976.[20] Alleged role in Pablo Neruda's death [ edit ] In 2011, an investigation was launched into the death of Pablo Neruda, partially on the strength of a statement from his driver that he was injected with a poison by a Dr. Price. Price's description matched that of Townley, and police examined this link while Neruda's body was exhumed and tested for possible toxins.[21] On 8 November 2013, the test results were released, with head of Chile's medical legal service Patricio Bustos stating that "No relevant chemical substances have been found that could be linked to Mr. Neruda's death".[22] However, Carroza said that he is waiting for the results of the last scientific test conducted in May (2015), which found that Neruda was infected with the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, which can be highly toxic and result in death if modified.[23]

If you’ve been following SpaceSector’s coverage of StarDrive, you probably already know that StarDrive is a game I’ve been writing about for quite awhile now. I admit that I’ve been rather enthusiastic and excited about it, even since its early days, as I really liked the concepts and mechanics it was introducing. I have been waiting patiently for a 4X game that ticked all the boxes on its way to success. This past Friday, StarDrive’s status was officially changed from beta product to released product. Has it managed to meet my expectations? Let’s find out. Background Info I’ve spent over 40 hours with StarDrive since it’s Steam open beta release, and dozens more prior to that during the closed Steam and Desura betas, which I have been a part of since nearly the beginning. Typically, I prefer to play on an above average difficulty in a small to medium size galaxy. I know that some players prefer to play with an epic size galaxy, and I felt it was very important that I test the game’s capabilities under those settings as well. Therefore, in preparation for this review, I have also played a game on the epic map size with an AI difficulty of brutal, which is the highest difficulty mode available. Obviously, this not only tests the AI’s capabilities, but also gave me some insight into how well performance held up under the most extreme conditions the game has on offer. For that reason, I also played the game on both my desktop and my laptop. Overall Gameplay StarDrive is a 4X game about conquering the galaxy. The only game mode currently present in StarDrive is sandbox, so those looking for a story centered mode or alternative game modes won’t find them here as of now. StarDrive at one point in its past had a few different alternative modes in the game, but these are not present currently. StarDrive features 8 different races each with their own unique diplomatic videos/avatars, their own ship designs, their own fully customizable traits, and in the case of AI controlled races, their own somewhat randomized personalities. After selecting and designing your race, setting up your galaxy settings like size, planet abundance, and overall pacing, you’ll be ready to start playing the game. Gameplay consists of the core 4X features we all know and love. You’ll be exploring the galaxy for planets and artifacts, colonizing worlds, researching technologies, designing ships, conducting diplomacy, and participating in offensive and defensive actions throughout the game. Victory is achieved by wiping out either all other races, or wiping out some and absorbing the others into a player-led federation. There is neither a science or wonder type victory condition in the game, so in all cases you’ll be forced to take an active part in the ways of war if you hope to win the game. Thankfully, ship design and combat are a lot of fun in StarDrive. Each race has aesthetically different and technically different ships, each of which contains different module layouts inside. I’ve discussed this before, but it is worth mentioning again, that StarDrive’s ship design system, combined with its combat, are truly it’s most worthwhile attributes. Even though it’s not turn-based but a real-time (pausable) game, it still delivers a very strong “one more turn” sensation due to its design system. Once I’ve designed a brand new ship, there’s just no way I can step away from the PC until I’ve built it and seen it in action. There is no greater glory then watching your newly minted ship pulverize the hulls of your enemy into space dust. Watching them beg for peace when you’ve just finished bombarding several of their planets is a close second though. To fully show how versatile the ship design system is, I tried designing some corvette class ships that were heavily armored on one side, and then placed my unprotected and vulnerable weapons on the other. I then assigned them the attack pattern that forced them to always try to circle their enemy while keeping the protected side facing them. The nice thing about this is that weapon projectiles and direction actually matter, so by keeping my armored side against the enemy, I could protect the reactors and weapons that I placed unprotected behind them. This worked fairly well, although not perfectly, as sometimes my ships would inexplicably either change targets or fly directly towards an opponent, leaving themselves exposed. It was good to see that some creative use of these advanced attack patterns could be made, even if it wasn’t a perfect experiment. Squeezing every last bit of efficiency out of a ship is a tough thing to do, and I expect we’ll see people debating potential best in class designs for each hull for some time to come. Exploration is enjoyable, although not as intense as it could be, as in reality there are only a handful of surprises to discover and these will be revealed after only your first playthrough of the game. You won’t find an any space monsters or pirates in the current game. The closest thing to space monsters is the Remnant, a grouping of ships that orbits some of the best planets in the game, but they seem like more of a “gear check” to see if you are powerful enough to take them rather than a viable or exciting threat to deal with. They do offer a few surprises, but even these are limited in scope. Technically, pirates do also exist, but they feel more like the start of a good idea rather than a fully fleshed out feature. They also seem to be biased against the human player, which is a mechanic that I find a bit cheap and unfair. In terms of planet exploration, StarDrive does have a few planetary surprises to discover. These are certainly worth collecting, as each will provide a somewhat significant bonus to the player of some kind. Every race in the game can benefit from these items, so grabbing them as quickly as possible is important. Every race also prefers the same exact climate, richness, and production except for the Opteris, so exploration is also very much a race to the best planets all around. I’d have preferred to see some races that preferred and thrived on swamp, desert, or ice worlds, rather than each race preferring Rich Terran ones. The tech tree and research options are of debatable quality and quantity. Having researched and played with every tech in the trees, I feel like the number of techs is generally sufficient without having too many unnecessary options. There are some that are of only situational use, such as things like EMP weapons and missile defense systems that may not fit your current goals, but most will be useful to just about everyone. Tech progress may still be a bit fast for some, and with no “end game” endless technologies, the player is left with an empty research queue once everything has been discovered. There are ways to slow the pace of tech during initial game setup, should you find this is the case for you. I’d have loved to see a mechanic whereby existing weapons could be miniaturized or improved, so as to keep even early stage weapons somewhat useful ala MoO II. One nice thing about StarDrive that may redeem it in this area is its openness to modding. There are already several tech mods available, and I’m sure we will see even more additional techs from the community in the future. Whether or not these will suit your taste, be balanced properly, or will be used by AI effectively, is a different matter. Aside from ship design, exploration, and research, a lot of other mechanics are quite similar to 4X games of the past. I’ll discuss diplomacy and espionage a bit more in the AI section, as these are a little different than other games. Freighters and trade routes can be manually controlled, and in StarDrive each and every one of these ships is an actual ship flying about the galaxy. Like most things that don’t have to do with combat, these can be automated, and I would recommend doing so as it does a great job moving your goods around for you. Colony building is limited, with only a few building choices to worry about. You will change your queue when you research a new technology to incorporate the new structure. Beyond that, you will generally leave it empty, build ships or stations, or since troops currently have an insignificant cost associated with them, you’ll be smart and just train troops during any planetary downtime. Even with planetary governors managing your colony, I feel that a large number of buildings could become somewhat tedious to manage, so the limited selection is acceptable in my opinion. StarDrive’s primary gameplay focus is on ship design and combat, not colony or trade management, and the limited options and automation available help keep things that way. If you’re looking for Civilization in space, you’re in the wrong place. If you’re looking for epic battles between hundreds of ships with lasers, cannons, fighters, and missiles flying everywhere, then StarDrive has exactly what you are looking for. Multiplayer is not present in StarDrive currently. While I myself am not an avid multiplayer gamer when it comes to these types of strategy games, I know a lot of people are disappointed that they can’t test their ship designs out against each other at the present time. One very important thing to note, however, is that the game somewhat compensates for this through he use of its own adaptable AI. I’ll discuss this further below, in the AI section of my review. AI In any single player 4X game, the capability and competency of its AI controlled opponents is of the utmost importance. Can the AI manage its holdings effectively? Can it defend itself from external threats, yet continue to expand and take offensive actions against others? Will it have rapid personality swings and make seemingly schizophrenic diplomatic decisions? I know there are players who are going to be concerned with whether or not the AI cheats or receives unfair advantages in any way whatsoever. The answer is, yes, StarDrive’s AI does receive unfair advantages at higher difficulties. I’m not 100% sure how many they receive, but it is fairly obvious based on the diplomatic/espionage screen that their advantages are quite extreme, at least on the highest difficulty level (brutal). Does it matter in the long run? That’s ultimately up to the individual player, but in my opinion, as long as the AI is competitive, this is a forgivable sin. In most playthroughs I am far and above my opponents in all categories, but against 7 opponents on brutal difficulty, I found myself in close to last place in each category for a significant length of time, meaning I was going to have to work very hard and effectively to survive. This, in my case, makes me feel comfortable with their advantages. This is pretty common in 4X games anyway, but I did want to point this fact out to those that may have been wondering. Offense and Defense are two important areas and StarDrive’s AI has gotten a bit better about handling them. For both offense and defense, the AI builds quite a few different fleets and assigns them different purposes. While their individual ship designs are not always the best, they tend to be rather effective at building workable fleets. For example, they tend to leave their troop transports in the rear and send their battleships in first to clear a path. Should they sense the tides have turned against them, they also aren’t afraid to cut their losses and retreat as quickly as possible. In addition to troop focused fleets, the AI will also equip many of its ships with bombs, and will assist the war effort by bombing your planets into oblivion if given the chance. Offensively, the AI has surprised me a few times with its ferocity. The AI spares no expense in its fleets, and will often send more ships then you’d been expecting. I was also surprised to see it execute a few multi-pronged attacks, even at one time hitting three of my systems simultaneously. What I did not witness was the AI using specialty weapons or boarding techniques, even in circumstances where they could have clearly dominated me had they used some ingenuity. Defensively, the AI will respond to threats throughout their empire pretty quickly in my experience, but it does not always handle very focused attacks from the player all that effectively. Players using vast quantities of troops to attack enemy planet’s by bypassing defensive ships, as well as fleets built primarily of bombers, have proven difficult for them to overcome. AI ship designs are somewhat lacking, but one of the best features of StarDrive is the AI’s ability to steal a player’s designs. Did you wipe the galaxy with your epic Draylok designs last time you played? Don’t be surprised to see them used against you the next time you play as a different race. This is a feature that often catches players off guard, and one you truly can’t appreciate until you’ve played a few games with different races. Combined with the AI’s offensive capabilities, this can create a very tough challenge for those caught unaware. From a diplomatic perspective, the AI has been relatively consistent in its actions. Relationships rely on several factors including whether or not you have planets they desire, whether or not they feel you are a threat to them, whether or not they feel they could easily conquer you, the length of your relationship with them, how you have treated others diplomatically, and so on. Each AI is also assigned a personality at game creation, and this can and will impact their willingness to negotiate with you and with others. Establishing a relationship early, typically with a non-aggression pact, can reap long term dividends as it can later lead to a trade treaty, an alliance, and perhaps, even a willingness to join a player led federation. As an example, I was able to form an alliance after some time with several races and maintained them without issue. Even though I denied a request to declare war against their rival, and this did hurt our relations, they still remained my ally and did not act irrationally. Another time I accepted their request to declare war, and shortly after that they signed a peace deal that left me at war alone against their former rival. Not very nice, but it shows that using caution when dealing with your ally’s requests is rather important. I’m also pleased to report that your allies will often agree to your requests to declare war against another race, although whether or not they decide to do anything other then make a declaration is difficult to tell. There isn’t a direct request like “send me help now”, or “go attack target X” that I could find, so it seems war is more a state of what could happen rather than what will happen. The AI also participates actively in the espionage world. If you don’t build some spies, even for defensive purposes, you can fully expect the AI to steal things from you at every chance they can. Your income will go down at times mysteriously, you may notice the AI has some new technologies they didn’t have before, and so on. Spies are dual purpose, so training a spy up and leaving him “unassigned” will provide you with defense against enemy spies, while leveling him up and sending him out to steal from others will of course provide advantages as well. Should you be caught spying on the enemy, expect them to react as they should, with anger and resentment towards your attempts. In this aspect, the AI handles itself quite well. Stability and Performance Throughout the beta and now the release, I have been fortunate enough to have both a desktop and a laptop to experience the game with. I spend the vast majority of my time on the desktop, but after spending some type on my desktop experiencing the game so I could write this review, I decided to let my laptop take a crack at my ongoing sandbox game by transferring all my save files and designs over to it. I am glad I did this, as it wasn’t really until I played StarDrive on my laptop that I truly began to understand some of the frustrations others have expressed with its stability. Sound has been an issue throughout the open beta for some players, but I have not experienced any sound issues on my desktop in StarDrive’s release version. Also, I had not played StarDrive on my laptop in a few months prior to this review, and had not experienced any sound related issues at that time. It wasn’t until a few Opteris attack fleets showed up on my doorstep that I experienced a complete loss of all sound and music in-game while playing on my laptop. I tried to turn sound and music options on and off, but nothing beyond a complete exit and restart of the game would bring the sound back. In addition, the sound would cut out shortly after re-loading once the Opteris showed up again. I think that beam weapons may have been a factor in the sound loss, but it is hard to say. I soldiered on through the sound issues as I was really interested in seeing my fleet clash with the Opteris space and ground forces. Unfortunately, I was unable to proceed with my defensive strategy ultimately because of a far worse opponent. StarDrive completely locked up and I was unable to exit without using task manager to end the application. I restarted and reloaded a prior save and all seemed fine, even sound returned, but the sound dropped off and shortly after that the game seemed to lock up again as the Opteris attacked, even without my attempts at boarding. After three attempts to restart and reload the game only to have it lock up shortly thereafter, I had no choice but to exit the game until I could get back to my desktop to see if it could do any better. Returning to my desktop did allow me to proceed, so your experience may vary. I experienced good performance with the game overall, at least until the later stages. Playing StarDrive on its epic size setting with brutal AI is a very demanding task. There are a substantial number of things going on, and tons of ships flying around. I did notice in the later stages, several hours into the game, that this combined with some intense combat situations did introduce some lag on my desktop. This was particularly noticeable when my beam and missile ships clashed with some Ralyeh missile ships, and projectiles began flying everywhere around the screen. It wasn’t a drastic difference, but it was certainly noticeable. Aside from this, the only other time I experienced lag was when I increased the game speed to 2x, 3x, or 4x, and only again in these later stages. In these modes the game must process everything going on in the galaxy at an increased speed, so for that reason I feel like some lag is not unreasonable. Returning to 1x cleared up the lag as long I was outside of intense battle situations. Mods One of StarDrive’s best added value features is its mod support. Even if development itself some day halts, it has left the door open for aspiring designers to add and contort mechanics to their whim. I’ve seen in the past how mods can truly transform titles that were good ones into great ones, so the importance of a good mod or modding team can not be easily dismissed. Bugs, Exploits, and Room for Improvement Troops are one of my biggest pet peeves right now, and one that I believe are going to see attention very soon. They are very cheap to build, free to maintain, and are the most versatile units in the game. They can of course defend your planet and attack enemy planets. One issue many people have expressed concern over is that they can assault other planets often unescorted since they can typically bypass enemy ships completely. StarDrive does have some optional gravity wells and in-system warp speed settings that can be changed upon game setup to prevent this exploit, but these didn’t seem like suitable fixes for the core problem. In addition, this is not even the biggest issue I have with troops. Troops can also directly assault enemy ships. In my recent playthrough, I discovered that nearly every enemy ship I encountered, from the smallest fighter up to cruisers, could not only be defeated, but could also become one of my ships, if only I sent one or two troop ships to capture them. Imagine stealing 6 or 7 600+ value cruisers with only 7 or 8 troops which took only 50 production to create. That’s a huge swing, and a much better alternative to destroying them, and also, it is completely broken. Playing around with troops highlighted another issue with ship assault and boarding. I noticed that enemy ships that have been captured still belong to the enemy fleet. Even though I try to assign them new orders, they will continually start flying off into enemy territory without my instruction. It was only awhile later that I realized that they were obeying instructions that their former master was giving to the remainder of his fleet. This became rather frustrating as I captured more and more of the enemies ships. In addition to the two issues above, there were numerous other bugs I noticed while playing. These bugs were generally annoying rather than game-breaking though. I received a blank message, that appeared to be a declaration of war, after destroying a Ralyeh colonizer. I noticed a lone Federation marine on one of my planet’s that was filled with troops, and received no notification that he had arrived. My troops also had to be manually ordered to destroy him, even though we were at war at the time. A couple of the titan class ship designs are not in the game yet. Filling a planet up entirely with troops prevents any enemy troops from landing. Furthermore, there are some features that I hope see some refinement and I will briefly list a few of them here. Pirates are currently in game, but consist of only a couple of ships that are either paid off or destroyed, and they seem to only target the player. There is one minor race in the game that has relatively little impact. There aren’t any space monsters or neutral threats to deal with aside from some creatures that will spawn when investigating anomalies. Random events are quite limited, consisting primarily of a few planet quality changes and hyperspace flux. It isn’t possible to see a race’s diplomatic stance when it comes to other races, so making informed decisions is nearly impossible currently. Speaking of features you may feel are missing, and if you are someone who values community interaction, I feel it is worth mentioning that StarDrive’s developer currently has over 2600 posts on his forum, which is an average of over 7 posts a day. If you’ve ever been frustrated by the silent treatment some developers present you with, or have felt like your voice hasn’t been heard, then StarDrive may make you feel differently. I have personally witnessed numerous ideas and balance changes presented by the community that have been implemented throughout the beta period. Final Words In my opinion, I do feel StarDrive’s release is a bit premature. While bugs and balancing issues are expected post-release, some of the issues I have described experiencing with this release version are a bit more serious than that, especially when playing on my laptop. Since the game was already available to anyone interested in playing as a beta, I’m not sure why the game’s release wasn’t pushed to allow more time for features to be finalized and for bugs to be squashed. As such, those who are easily frustrated by technical and gameplay issues and who don’t like to participate in beta versions because of them, may want to wait a bit longer for these things to be patched out. For a game designed and developed primarily by only one man, the range and scope of StarDrive’s design has had to have been a monumental undertaking. To succeed where entire teams of 4X designers have failed, is simply remarkable in my opinion. While I’ve listed my fair share of shortcomings with the game as it is, it is important to realize that the game itself is still a good game that is fun to play as long as you aren’t experiencing some of the actual technical issues that I experienced on my laptop. StarDrive is a solid title that is enjoyable but not infallible, and much like every other title in the genre, has its own shortcomings that may prevent some players from enjoying the game. The Good: – Ship design is fantastic and allows the player to feel responsible for ship effectiveness – Enemy AI will use prior player designs to its own advantage – AI races behave reliably in diplomatic matters rather then erratically – Espionage offers an alternative form of combat and advancement – The AI offers a significant challenge, especially for inexperienced players – Developer is very active with the community and patches frequently – Supportive of the modding community The Bad: – A lack of variety in random events and non-race threats like space monsters – Numerous features, like pirates and minor races, feel like concepts rather then full features – Stability and performance are issues for some players and hardware configurations, especially in the late game – Limited victory conditions – Game still feels unpolished in several areas and is in need of bug hunting and refinement Keith Turner, also known as aReclusiveMind here on SpaceSector, has been an avid gamer ever since he first laid his hands on a Commodore 128 in the mid 1980s. He enjoys multiple computer game genres, but his primary interests are in deep strategy games, 4x games, rpgs, and action rpgs. He enjoys writing and hopes to contribute with additional reviews, previews, and informative AARs to the community. See all Keith’s posts here. Subscribe RSS Related Articles: Post category: Game Reviews

THE world is joining Australia to mourn the death of cricketer Phillip Hughes in the most remarkable of ways. As the news of Hughes’ death spread across the internet, Sydney father Paul Taylor placed his cricket bat at his front door as a “mark of respect” and tweeted the image using the hashtag #putoutyourbats. RELATED: BRETT LEE:‘NO ONE CAN DESCRIBE THE LOSS’ RELATED: HUGHES’ RARE CONDITION EXPLAINED RELATED: TEAM DOCTOR REMAINED WITH HUGHES media_camera The world has joined Australia to mourn the death of Australian cricketer Phil Hughes. Picture: Robert Cianflone media_camera Australian flags are lowered to half mast at Cricket NSW and the SCG. Picture: Adam Taylor media_camera Bats are placed at Adelaide Oval in the wake of the passing of Phil Hughes. Photo Sarah Reed. media_camera An Australian and English flag at Cricket NSW to pay respects. Picture: Adam Taylor The commemoration has since gone global, and now grieving fans from Tamworth to London are joining in. @CricketAus @WWOS9 An act of respect to a courageous young man taken to soon R.I.P Hughesy #Putoutyourbats pic.twitter.com/CEuLml23wa — Daniel friend (@27Frendy) November 27, 2014 #putoutyourbats #RIPPhillipHughes Australians know how to do mate ship.Love to the Hughes family.Love to Sean Abbott pic.twitter.com/WwKqCBln5g — Rachel (@rach_thistleton) November 27, 2014 #putoutyourbats Tribute to the little champ Phil Hughes. RIP legend. pic.twitter.com/317DvnSJis — Nick Rainey (@Nick_Rainey1) November 27, 2014 Australia get this trending in respect to the late Phil Hughes #RIPPhilHughes #putoutyourbats pic.twitter.com/cIlaWgMqAZ — james williams (@jamesw82) November 27, 2014

As one of our loyal readers, we ask you to be our partner. Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ deputy political bureau chief in Gaza, said on Friday that the "Al-Aksa intifada has been revived and we intend to join," according to Channel 10. In a sermon delivered on Friday, the Hamas leader said that "Jews are trying to take over the Al-Aksa mosque but they will not succeed." The assailant approached the guard, stationed at the entrance of the bus terminal, armed with a knife. She was shot and neutralized on the spot, and is being treated for moderate wounds. Reuters contributed to this article The claim that Jews are attempting to take control of the Temple Mount where the Al-Aksa mosque sits has been a common refrain that has stoked tensions in Israel and the West Bank.Haniyeh added that his terrorist organization intends to join the so called Palestinian uprising taking place that has seen a string of escalating violence over the past several days, Channel 10 added."We will liberate Al-Aksa and we as Gazans intend to join" the current upheaval, Haniyeh declared."We call for escalating and deepening the intifada... We are proud of you, the heroes of knives," Haniyeh added at Friday prayers. Friday alone has seen four terror attacks throughout Israel, with one coming at the hands of a Jewish extremist in Dimona.Three Palestinians were stabbed in the incident, with one in critical condition. Two remain in moderate condition, MDA reported Friday morning.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "strongly condemned" the attack in Dimona Friday morning."Israel is a state of law and order," he said, pledging to "bring justice to anyone using violence and breaking the law from any side."Shortly thereafter, 16-year-old was lightly injured in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem. The stabber was neutralized following the incident.Not long after, a police officer in Kiryat Arba was lightly injured after being stabbed by a terrorist who attempted to steal his weapon. The suspect was subsequently shot and killed.And the latest attack was carried out by a female terrorist who attempted to stab a security guard at the Afula central bus station. Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices resumed their downward path on Tuesday after rallying the previous session, while stocks climbed as investors snapped up beaten-down energy shares. A Wall Street sign is pictured outside the New York Stock Exchange in New York, October 28, 2013. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri Brent and U.S. crude oil dropped more than 2 percent each following a deal that will add more Iraqi crude to markets and gains in the dollar. Brent crude oil is down more than 30 percent since June. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high, boosted by gains in energy shares as investors searched for bargains in the sector. The S&P energy index .SPNY, which is down 14 percent since June, jumped 1.3 percent. “The market is sniffing out a bottom in the underlying commodity and we are seeing a bounce in energy stocks from having been oversold in the last month or so,” said John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in New York. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 102.75 points, or 0.58 percent, to 17,879.55, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 13.11 points, or 0.64 percent, to 2,066.55 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 28.46 points, or 0.6 percent, to 4,755.81. MSCI's global share index .MIWD00000PUS was up 0.3 percent, while European shares .FTEU3 ended up 0.5 percent. Emerging market shares tracked by MSCI .MSCIEF lost 0.1 percent, with Brazil's Bovespa index .BVSP down 1.3 percent. Giving the Nasdaq its biggest boost, shares of Biogen Idec (BIIB.O) jumped 6.4 percent to $328.27 after favorable data from the Phase III trial of its Alzheimer’s drug. The Nasdaq biotech index .NBI jumped 2.1 percent. In the energy market, benchmark Brent crude oil LCOc1 fell $2.00, or 2.8 percent, to settle at $70.54 a barrel, while U.S. crude CLc1 fell $2.12, or 3.1 percent, to settle at $66.88. On Monday, the market had its biggest rally in two years. Beyond the plunge in oil is a deeper debate about whether some developed economies are slipping into a prolonged period of stagnation, or just coming out of the financial crises of the past five years more slowly than previously hoped. DOLLAR GAINS The dollar rebounded, reaching a 4-1/2-year high following the decline in oil, which has helped to lift the dollar against commodity-linked currencies. Comments from two Federal Reserve officials who stressed the positive impact on the U.S. economy from a decline in oil prices helped to boost the greenback. The dollar index .DXY was up 0.8 percent at 88.634. Gains in the dollar pressured gold, however, with spot gold XAU= dipping 1 percent to $1,198.77 an ounce. U.S. Treasuries prices fell, pressured by Wall Street’s rally and institutional investors readying for a $6 billion corporate bond deal from Amazon (AMZN.O). The 10-year Treasury US10YT=RR was last off 15/32 to yield 2.296 percent.

× A decision to upgrade ERP cannot be made lightly. Deloitte practitioners present some practical advice for navigating the hazards. Upgrading or enhancing ERP systems can be a sensitive topic in many organizations, and for good reason. Organizations have spent significant financial and political capital to reach their current state with ERP; careers have been made (and lost) based on the outcomes. ERP comprises a sizable percentage of IT spending and has an even larger influence on business operations. A decision to make changes to ERP will likely attract intense scrutiny from business leaders and should be approached with caution. But that doesn’t mean CIOs should hold back. Vendors are getting ready to roll out the next potentially disruptive wave—one that offers transparent and competitive costs and widespread access. How can you position your organization to benefit from vendor enhancements to ERP while navigating the potential hazards? Here are some suggestions: Experiment at the edge. Explore opportunities to adopt revamped ERP engines in areas that surround your core transactional layer—in business intelligence or analytics, for example. Additionally, use the adoption of the revamped engine to introduce new disciplines that may have immediate business impact—for example, creating new capabilities around big data to improve customer sentiment or salesforce effectiveness. Experiment at the core. Explore opportunities to run core workloads more affordably and on much less gear. Similarly, performance leaps in run times offer opportunities to rethink traditional limits on batch windows, run-book sequencing, and even business cycles. Catch up with technical upgrades. If you’ve hedged against technical upgrades and are generations behind the latest versions, now’s the time to get compliant, before you're asked to support a business agenda that requires an ERP engine with more horse power. Understand vendors’ competing approaches. Today’s leading vendors are placing different bets. SAP focuses on extensibility and ubiquity, while Oracle emphasizes convergence and integration. The various cloud players seek to create disruptions on the edge that will bleed into the core. The burden is on each organization to understand vendors’ plans and articulate their own business vision in similar terms. They can then invest where the plans and visions are clearly aligned, and make intelligent bets where there is uncertainty. Evangelize. Become a change agent by asking what the business can do differently and how the organization’s mission can be better served. Understand the implications of the “what” and “how” so you don’t oversimplify the migration effort or promise too much. Vendors and partners can provide benchmarks and scenarios for use cases to help you understand the potential business impact of making foundational changes. Examples from competitors and other industries are helpful, but use cases for your own business are even better. ***** While technology considerations are clearly central to pursing ERP enhancements, more important questions relate to business performance. What would you do differently if you could close your books in seven seconds instead of seven days? How would your sales strategy change if thousands of store managers could each execute daily sales forecasts? What could you learn from real-time monitoring of the social sphere around your industry? A new ERP engine can give you the tools to answer these questions and more. —by Bill Allison, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and Richard Kupcunas, director, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Stage managers are a phlegmatic breed and, if the house style of their nightly show reports at the National Theatre is anything to go by, their sense of humour is bone-dry. Since 1963, NT actors have given tens of thousands of performances at the Old Vic and on the South Bank, but, with just one performance per run audio or video recorded for archive purposes, only a tiny fraction of these shows endure. For all the rest, the most tangible records are the reports typed up by the stage manager soon after curtain-down, and stored in the NT Archive. These pro-forma, A4 sheets give basic information, including start and finish times for each act, length of interval, details of any absentees and who covered their roles. Sometimes a performance is momentarily brought to life by the section headed "Remarks" or, latterly, "Comments". Here, stage managers always hope to write "Full house. Clean show. Standing ovation", and, far more often than not, no problems are noted. But in live theatre it will never be all right every night… Join Independent Minds For exclusive articles, events and an advertising-free read for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent With an Independent Minds subscription for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent Without the ads – for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Jumpers (Old Vic, 1972–73) Stage manager: Jackie Harvey. Cast included Diana Rigg, and a mechanical prop tortoise Wednesday 23 February 1972 "Fluff from Miss Rigg's gown caught in her throat early in Act 1 and remained until interval: very painful; affected her voice." Tuesday 29 February 1972 "Tortoise head fell off during Act 1. This is the third time that this has happened. Please could the design be changed." Saturday 24 March 1973 "An [unsecured loud] speaker attacked a prop man during the first scene change, resulting in water spilt over Secretary's desk and no carafe or (full) glass set in study. The latter were set one scene later. The former has now been secured with stage weights (the speaker, not the prop man)." Macbeth (Old Vic, 1972) Stage manager: Jackie Harvey Saturday 18 November "The collapsible dummy in the second witches scene: more often than not the wig does not fall off: this appears to be a design problem rather than a handling one… is the removal of a broomstick the swiftest way to effect the collapse that we can think of? It is a beautiful dummy, of course, but is not quite 'hitting the spot', therefore does require further thought." Plunder (Lyttelton, 1976) Stage manager: John Rothenberg Saturday 10 April "Towards the end of Act 1 there was a disturbance caused by a latecomer who wanted to get into the stalls but was stopped by a security guard. There was a slight tussle in which the gentleman fainted. He was taken, or rather carried, to the stage door where it was discovered that he was a diabetic who had eaten the wrong food. Hence the collapse. His friends finally took him away. But not before he threatened litigation." Tuesday 27 April "[Curtain-up] held from front of house [for eight minutes], owing to the presence of HRH Princess Margaret on an informal visit. We were very close to getting a slow hand clap." Weapons of Happiness (Lyttelton, 1976) Stage manager: John Rothenberg Wednesday 14 July "The cricket ball [was accidentally hit] into the front row of the stalls and was well fielded and returned by the woman in whose lap it landed. The champagne bottle took it unto itself to pop one scene too early. What you might call a premature ejaculation." Julius Caesar (Olivier Theatre, 1977) Stage manager: John Rothenberg. Cast included John Gielgud as Julius Caesar Friday 1 April "Sir John off for his first entrance. Was sitting in his dressing room with the show relay [speaker] tuned into [Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce in] the Lyttelton. A rather long, but not pregnant, pause whilst he was collected. The Company filled in the time chatting amongst themselves and listening to the Augurers chanting." Illuminatus! (Cottesloe, 1977) Stage manager: Terry Bird Saturday 21 May "Four curtain calls, but some fooling about in Act 1: saxophonist played the Steptoe [theme] instead of tear-jerker; toy robot crossed the stage on the line: 'Martians'. This was stopped and those concerned spoken with. The replacement goat [is] very large, and took one or two actors off upstage during the black mass; no one injured." Amadeus (Olivier Theatre, 1979–81) Stage manager: John Rothenberg. Cast included Paul Scofield as Mozart's nemesis, Salieri Saturday 3 May 1980 "Mr Scofield received a tumultuous round on his entrance for Act 2, which seemed to throw him a bit, but he soon rallied." Saturday 17 May 1980 "The brakes went on the wheelchair and Mr Scofield nearly finished up in the stalls." Way Upstream (Lyttelton, 1982–83) Stage manager: Ernest Hall. Alan Ayckbourn's comedy, set on a riverboat which moved through a large, on-stage water tank, brought a series of mishaps unprecedented – and unrepeated – in the National's history. Cast included Jim Norton and Tony Haygarth Friday 27 August 1982 "Boat movements erratic throughout because work on the [river] bank [earlier in the day] prevented a new boat operator… getting any technical rehearsal… Long interval – the bank once again jammed on its last move in Act 1… Boat pivot problems… made it necessary to interrupt the performance twice in Act 2 by bringing in the iron [safety] curtain and replacing a slipped cable on [the winch] wheel… There was a new loudspeaker in the boat and…the first music cue in Act 1 was so loud in the boat that neither actors nor operators could hear what was happening in the play and the speaker had to be turned off… The feeling of the company… was that they could not face the prospect of every having to live through such a traumatic performance again." Monday 13 December "First performance without water [in the tank]… Because the boat rocks more easily without water, the gangplank was thrown off into the tank at the beginning of the play. Retrieved most ingeniously by Mr Norton. It all felt very odd!" Wednesday 23 February 1983 "The water was back for this evening's performance, which was just as well because at least there was something for Mr Haygarth to fall into when he slipped off the boat during Act 1. He wasn't hurt, just wet, and the audience was appreciative!" Tuesday 8 March 1983 "Unexpected sound effect: shrieking birds (part of the 'atmosphere' tape). They were taken out quite quickly, but for a moment the atmosphere was more Hitchcock than Ayckbourn." Hamlet (Olivier, 1989) Stage manager: Ernest Hall. Cast included Daniel Day-Lewis (Hamlet), Judi Dench (Gertrude) and Jeremy Northam (Laertes) Thursday 1 June "Very loud talking (men's voices) heard onstage during Act 4, Scene 5… A stage technician mentioned that he had heard men in the bottom of the drum revolve sawing and shouting to each other and had told them to be quiet. At lights down (5.14pm) I was unable to contact anyone who could have told me who they were or what they were doing in the drum during a matinee. We do need to find out so that we can a) avoid a repetition and b) so that the four actors [including] Dame Judi…who suffered from this noise… receive the detailed explanation they deserve." Thursday 5 September "On the Ghost's exit in Act 1, Scene 5, Mr Day-Lewis left the stage and told me that he could not continue the performance. An announcement was made and the audience invited to take an extra interval. The announcement only specified technical problems. After 32 minutes the performance resumed with Mr Northam as Hamlet. Mr Bedford played Osric and Mr Nicholas a Switzer. Mr Northam coped brilliantly (not an exaggeration) and received an outstanding reception from the audience." Sunday in the Park with George (Lyttelton, 1990) Stage manager: Alison Rankin. Cast included Philip Quast as George Seurat Monday 11 June "The stage left charcoal tree came in several inches before it flew out during the bathing change, consequently it was swinging about violently and caught on the ceiling. Needless to say the actors were very frightened… The large scene changes were extremely noisy – no doubt due to the fact that everyone [on the crew] wanted to return to the England match being shown on TV. Mr Quast was most distressed." The Madness of George III (Lyttelton 1991–92) Stage manager: Courtney Bryant Wednesday 19 February 1992 "When Mr Byrne removed Mr Villiers' Chancellor's wig he also removed the wig Mr Villiers wears underneath. This left Mr Villers with the said wig in his hand. He walked behind the curtain stage right to get rid of it and at this moment Mr Hammond turned to address him and found him gone. This threw Mr Hammond who lost track of his words and on Mr Villiers reappearing needed a prompt which was given him by Mr Villiers." Skylight (Cottesloe, 1995) Stage manager: Trish Montemuro. Cast included Michael Gambon as a recently widowed businessman and Lia Williams as his former mistress, a schoolteacher Wednesday 3 May "[After curtain down] the company greeted Princess Margaret. She appeared to have enjoyed the performance very much and when Mr Gambon asked if she'd found it depressing, she said 'It was a bit like one's own life.'" The History Boys (Lyttelton, 2004) Stage manager: Trish Montemuro Saturday 8 May (first preview) The company and crew all worked very hard and dedicatedly to get the play up and running. Huge thanks are due to the crews. The company were ready for an audience, and the laughs. It was a truly extraordinary evening and the curtain call could have gone on and on. 'The National Theatre Story' by Daniel Rosenthal is published by Oberon Books, in hardback and in ebook

OREGON'S OLDEST AMA CHARTERED ROAD CLUB ROSE CITY OREGON 500 Saturday, May 11, 2019 The Rose City Oregon "500" is a tour rally for motorcycles of approximately 500 miles in length. Now in its 46th year, the "500" is a great way to spend your day in a long tour through beautiful Oregon. Here is an ENTRY FORM that you can print. Just fill out the form and include a check that covers $19.00 for each person pre-entry, and mail it to: Rose City Motorcycle Club Oregon 500 P.O. Box 91339 Portland, OR 97291-1339 NO PRE-ENTRIES ACCEPTED AFTER May 4th EVENT SCHEDULE: Sign-in will be between 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. at the Beaverton Motorcycles located at 10380 S.W. Cascade Blvd., Tigard, Oregon . The starting time will be between 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. Want directions to the Beaverton Motorcycles ? Here is a MAP The finish cut-off time is 8:00 p.m. and awards will be presented between 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. The winning time and mileage will be established by averaging all the times and mileages of all the finishing motorcycles. The entrant finishing nearest the official average time and mileage, plus or minus, will be declared the winner of each class. Unclaimed awards will not be forwarded. Participation Classes for Time and Mileage are: 4 places AMA, non-AMA rider; 4 places AMA, non-AMA passenger; 2 place AMA, non-AMA sidecar/trike. In addition there are awards for Youngest and Oldest Passenger on a motorcycle, Oldest Motorcycle, Smallest Motorcycle, Sweepstakes. Entrants will receive the ROSE CITY OREGON 500 tour pin and/or year bar, official route instructions and route card. The checkpoints on the course will be manned. All participants are urged to strictly observe all State and Local traffic laws. THIS IS NOT A RACE SUGGESTIONS FOR ENJOYING THE TOUR . . . DON'T RIDE ALONE Ride in groups of two to four motorcycles. A large group will slow you down at gas stops, rest stops and checkpionts. STAY DRY WITH RAIN GEAR. This is Oregon in May. Dress WARMLY. You can always take it off, but you can't put it on if you don't have it with you. Rose City Motorcycle Club believes that motorcycling is a family sport and we welcome children and young adults at our events. For this reason, we will provide a Notary Public for your convenience. A NOTARY PUBLIC WILL BE PRESENT AT SIGN-IN. Page was last updated on :

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

With all the chaos surrounding the President-elect this week (see Donald Trump Body Slams BuzzFeed, CNN For Fake Russian ‘Report’ and Trump Campaign BLASTS Unsourced, Unsubstantiated Russian ‘Intelligence’ Report), people were caught off guard by this tweet about L.L. Bean: Thank you to Linda Bean of L.L.Bean for your great support and courage. People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean. @LBPerfectMaine — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2017 Seems Trump might have referred to the wrong Bean by his phrasing. @LBPerfectMaine is indeed Linda Bean, but it isn’t L.L. Bean’s Twitter account*. Regardless, I’m now in the mood for some Maine lobster. What happened, apparently, is that L.L. Bean was added to a list of stores to boycott over “the store’s support of Trump.” The rub is it wasn’t the company as a whole as much as one member of the family being a vocal Trump supporter. This is usually the part of the story where the company caves, bans that family member from Christmas dinner and cuts a check to Planned Parenthood or Al Sharpton. All while promoting “love, diversity, and tolerance.” Hugs and gay kisses. Instead, L.L. Bean pushed back… So to “Grab Out Wallet,” the store basically says this… Seriously, what a breath of all organically sourced, free range fresh air for a company to stand up to the bitter left. The bitter left, which is now going plaid over Trump’s tweet about L.L. Bean. I’d totally shop there on principle now if I liked their clothes at all. This is one step forward. Here’s the thing, what L.L. Bean did by defending their own (in contrast to places like FireFox), saying their board, their team, their employees have different opinions, and we stay out of politics, is only going to buoy their reputation and their sales. It was smart. There will even be some intellectually honest liberals who will agree with L.L. Bean here, and “Grab Your Wallet” will lose. Bad form. Yes, there are intellectually honest liberals. Be sensible. Have you seen Donald Trump thug life? The next four years hold some fun… *Correction made about Linda Bean’s Twitter account. NOT SUBSCRIBED TO THE PODCAST? FIX THAT! IT’S COMPLETELY FREE ON BOTH ITUNES HERE AND SOUNDCLOUD HERE.

The House approved legislation on Tuesday that would block a pay increase for federal workers and members of Congress scheduled to take place in March. ADVERTISEMENT Members voted 287-129 in favor of the bill from Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.). Just two Republicans opposed the legislation, and 55 Democrats supported it. Republicans brought the bill up under a suspension of the rules in order to allow for quicker consideration, although that move also required a two-thirds majority vote. The bill is a response to an executive order last Friday from President Obama that would end the two-year federal worker pay freeze, and increase congressional pay by about $1,000 for each member of the House and Senate. Both parties agree on keeping congressional salaries from rising, and the Senate's "fiscal cliff" bill approved early Tuesday morning included language blocking the congressional pay hike. But the fate of that bill in the House is somewhat uncertain, as House Republicans are considering amendments to it that the Senate seemed likely to reject. In addition, Republicans said during Tuesday debate that pay should also remain frozen for federal workers in light of the ongoing debt crisis. "Unbelievably, in the middle of talks this week on tax rates and sequestration revision, in the midst of high deficits and a growing national debt, the president has proposed pay increases for members of Congress, and has done so by executive order dated Dec. 28," Fitzpatrick said during Tuesday debate. "I have to say that nobody in this town saw this coming, and very few think it is warranted." House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said the House has worked to trim spending across the entire federal government and that federal workers are already highly compensated. "Currently, federal workers receive typically over $100,000, and are about 16 percent higher compensated than their private-sector counterparts," he said. Rep. Michele Bachmann Michele Marie BachmannGillibrand becomes latest candidate scrutinized for how she eats on campaign trail Trump will give State of Union to sea of opponents Yes, condemn Roseanne, but ignoring others is true hypocrisy MORE (R-Minn.) introduced her own bill to keep the entire pay freeze intact and said some legislative response is needed. "I too was shocked when I saw that the president of the United States, out of nowhere, at no request from any member of Congress, had issued a unilateral executive order, which means he decided to take the law into his own hands, and in effect become his own Congress," she said. House Democrats from Virginia and Maryland, which have high proportions of people who work for the federal government, criticized the bill, H.R. 6726, as a GOP attempt to try to put the burden of reducing spending on these workers. "The Senate last night ... froze our salaries, but it didn't do this," Rep. Gerry Connolly Gerald (Gerry) Edward ConnollyDem rep hopes Omar can be 'mentored,' remain on Foreign Affairs panel Fairfax removed from leadership post in lieutenant governors group Virginia Legislative Black Caucus calls on Fairfax to step down MORE (D-Va.) said. "It didn't extend that freeze for a third year to the men and women who serve our country in federal service. "It's yet another tired, duplicative cheap shot at our nation's dedicated federal workforce. One last parting shot in the dying days of this Congress, which cannot die too soon." Rep. Jim Moran James (Jim) Patrick MoranJoe Lieberman says Northam shouldn't resign: Rush to judgment 'is unfair' Former Virginia congressman says Northam shouldn't resign: 'Redemption is a very powerful factor' States are stepping up to end animal testing in cosmetics while federal legislation stalls MORE (D-Va.) argued that the two-year pay freeze has already forced federal workers to help reduce the deficit. "Federal employees have contributed now over $100 billion toward deficit reduction," Moran said. "They've had their pay frozen for two years; this will be a third year. New hires are going to have to contribute four times as much into their pension as they would have to today. So they're really being made a scapegoat." Democrats also charged Republicans with pursuing the bill as a critique of federal workers, but Issa rejected that. "We're not arguing whether or not the federal worker is dedicated at all," he said. "We're arguing whether this is the right time to add $11 billion" to the deficit. House passage sends the bill to the Senate, but it's not clear the upper chamber will consider the bill, particularly given the congressional pay language already in the fiscal-cliff bill. Immediately after the pay-freeze bill, the House approved two other suspension bills, then went back into recess so leaders could continue deliberating on the fiscal cliff. The two other suspension bills are: H.R. 443, conveying land from the U.S. to the Maniilaq Association tribe in Alaska. Passed 410-5. H.R. 4212 — the Drywall Safety Act, establishing safety standards for domestic and imported drywall. Passed 378-37.

When a Fox News host does something right, I am all for giving them lots of applause. Gretchen Carlson is my "Fox News Heroine of the Day" today, because she's standing firm on her opposition to AR-15s, in spite of the abuse she's taking from ammosexuals. On her show Wednesday, she doubled down on her opposition to those instruments of death, in spite of vicious viewer feedback. “And of course, there were a lot worse ones with tons of F-bombs and worse than that even,” Carlson shrugged. “Intolerance is no doubt why politicians sometimes don’t say what they really think.” “But could that now be changing?” she asked, pointing out that Republicans like Donald Trump, Rob Portman and Bob Dole had all expressed an openness to new gun restrictions. “Maybe it’s time for more of us to start getting real and try to come together to actually get things done,” the Fox News host concluded. Ammosexual Twitter has been unkind too. She evidently only replies to the ones that don't have f-bombs, so these are pretty tame by ammosexual standards. But still... I'll never watch @GretchenCarlson again. Her Show or any appearances on @FoxNews because she doesn't understand the will of Americans. #2A — KevKid (@kevkid79) June 16, 2016 @GretchenCarlson it's a real shame that someone in a public forum can be such a moron in regards to guns. Should have stuck to pageants — JohnnyCJohnnyDo (@JohnnyC_6284) June 16, 2016 @GretchenCarlson why do you rich elitists who always want to make it more difficult for us common law abiding folks to protect ourselves — John Matthews (@ManViking) June 14, 2016 @GretchenCarlson Ur a stupid woman. You have just supported citizens 2 be under armed when faced by those with AR's. Only the good guys lose — brooke richards (@blazinbling91) June 15, 2016 Good for her. She is saying an incredibly unpopular thing on the Republican News Network, but it's the right thing. Keep standing firm, Gretchen.

Afrofuturism: The New Black twenty-seven mp3 music files / one hundred thirty-one minutes / two hundred and two megabytes » LISTEN INSTANTLY « » DOWNLOAD THE MIX « Similar themes can also be found in the mythologies and cosmologies of the Rastafari movement, Nuwaubianism, the Nation of Islam and its offshoot the Nation of Gods and Earths (the Five Percenters), all of which have been influential to hip hop culture. Personal mythologizing, ancient African civilizations (particularly Egyptian), space travel, UFOs, urban decay, dystopia and alienation, as well as the embrace of technology and the future are common themes in Afrofuturism, whether in the free jazz of Sun Ra, George Clinton's funk, dub, electro, house, techno, drum n bass, trip hop, ghetto tech, glitch hop or dubstep. There is also a strong concern with the use of language, as found in Samuel R. Delaney's novel Babel-17, the Rastafari's invented vocabulary of Iyaric, the Supreme Alphabet of the Five Percenters, or the work of b-boy theoretician Rammellzee, whose theory of Gothic Futurism describes the battle between letters and their symbolic warfare against any standardizations enforced by the rules of the alphabet. His treatise, "Iconic Panzerisms", details an anarchic plan by which to revise the role and deployment of language in society. Further Readings Mark Dery: Black to the Future Kodwo Eshun: More Brilliant than the Sun Mark Sinker: Loving The Alien - Black Science Fiction Christian Zemsauer: Afrofuturism Universal Zulu Nation Afrofuturism.net Sun Ra's family was deeply religious but was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. The Black Masonic Lodge was one of the few places in Birmingham where African-Americans had essentially unlimited access to books, and the Lodge's many books on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a large impression on him. In 1956 Sun Ra started to perform jazz concerts with his Arkestra using Egyptian and science fiction images. He was one of 1950s pioneer of synthezisers and electronic instruments. Ra also created the "Astro Black Mythology" as a context for his music and life with a thoroughly developed cosmology and he claimed to be not from this planet, but from Saturn - the planet that was associated with the color black in Old Egypt. For inspiration he looked at Egypt's civilization. Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn, Sun Ra developed a complex persona of "cosmic" philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of afrofuturism as he preached awareness and peace above all. The melody from this song also appears on the album A Black Mass which appeared in 1968 with Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), a radio horror play written by Baraka based on the Nation of Islam myth of the evil angel Sun Ra was born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Alabama. His legal name is Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra's music ranged from keyboard solos to big bands of over 30 musicians; his music touched on virtually the entire history of jazz, from ragtime to swing music, from bebop to free jazz; he was also a pioneer of electronic music, space music, and free improvisation, and was one of the first musicians, regardless of genre, to make extensive use of electronic keyboards.Sun Ra's family was deeply religious but was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. The Black Masonic Lodge was one of the few places in Birmingham where African-Americans had essentially unlimited access to books, and the Lodge's many books on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a large impression on him.In 1956 Sun Ra started to perform jazz concerts with his Arkestra using Egyptian and science fiction images. He was one of 1950s pioneer of synthezisers and electronic instruments. Ra also created the "Astro Black Mythology" as a context for his music and life with a thoroughly developed cosmology and he claimed to be not from this planet, but from Saturn - the planet that was associated with the color black in Old Egypt. For inspiration he looked at Egypt's civilization.Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn, Sun Ra developed a complex persona of "cosmic" philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of afrofuturism as he preached awareness and peace above all.The melody from this song also appears on the albumwhich appeared in 1968 with Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), a radio horror play written by Baraka based on the Nation of Islam myth of the evil angel Yakub . According to the Nation of Islam (NOI), Yakub (also spelled Yacub or Yakob), was a scientist alive 6,600 years ago, responsible for creating the white race, a "race of devils". According to NOI doctrine, Yakub 's progeny were destined to rule for 6,000 years before the original black peoples of the world regained dominance, a process that began in 1914. When the women are asked to contain Yakub with an incantation, they use the melody from this song. Mothership Connection and the subsequent The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein and P-Funk Earth Tour. In the thematic underpinnings to P-Funk mythology ("pure cloned funk"), Clinton in his alter ego Starchild spoke of "certified Afronauts, capable of funkitizing galaxies." Afrofuturist ideas were taken up in 1976 by George Clinton and his bands Parliament and Funkadelic with his magnum opusand the subsequentand. In the thematic underpinnings to P-Funk mythology ("pure cloned funk"), Clinton in his alter ego Starchild spoke of "certified Afronauts, capable of funkitizing galaxies." Bambaataa's live-appearance is closely related to George Clinton's: alien-like outfit with spaceships in the background. Like Sun Ra, he often wore ancient Egyptian style clothing. He is also founder of the "Looking for the Perfect Beat" was a followup to Bambaataa's highly influential song "Planet Rock".Bambaataa's live-appearance is closely related to George Clinton's: alien-like outfit with spaceships in the background. Like Sun Ra, he often wore ancient Egyptian style clothing. He is also founder of the Universal Zulu Nation , a social and spiritual movement dedicated to fight against discrimination, powered by a belief in "the funk". The Zulu Nation has undergone changes over the past decade. From the late 1980s, at the height of the Afrocentric movement in hip hop, the movement seemed to be incorporating many doctrines from the Nation of Islam, the Nation of Gods and Earths, and the Nuwaubians. In the 2000s, however, its official Web site affirmed that the Zulu Nation has left the 15 Beliefs and instead adheres to Factology versus Beliefs, a religious philosophy and doctrine in Nuwaubianism. "Electro is craze music, a soundtrack tor vidkids to live out fantasies born of a science fiction revival (courtesy of Star Wars and Close Encounters) and the video games onslaught. Nobody can play Defender or Galaxian for long without being affected by those sounds - sickening rumbles and throbs, fuzzy explosions and maddening tunes." Face Magazine, 1984 Newcleus is an electro and old school hip hop group from Brooklyn that gained popularity in the early 1980s. Newcleus contributed one true electro classic in "Jam on Revenge (The Wikki-Wikki Song)". The track was a block party favorite which featured vocals that were sped up to resemble Alvin and the Chipmunks."Electro is craze music, a soundtrack tor vidkids to live out fantasies born of a science fiction revival (courtesy of Star Wars and Close Encounters) and the video games onslaught. Nobody can play Defender or Galaxian for long without being affected by those sounds - sickening rumbles and throbs, fuzzy explosions and maddening tunes." Face Magazine, 1984 Rammellzee's graffiti and art work are based on his theory of Gothic Futurism, which describes the battle between letters and their symbolic warfare against any standardizations enforced by the rules of the alphabet; his treatise, "Iconic Panzerisms", details an anarchic plan by which to revise the role and deployment of language in society. Rammellzee is often identified as an artist of the Afrofuturism canon. Rammellzee wears a strange costume during performances. According to Mark Dery, "the artist encases himself during gallery performances in Gasholeer, a 148-pound, gadgetry-encrusted exoskeleton inspired by an android he painted on a subway train in 1981. Four years in the making, Rammellzee's exuberantly low-tech costume bristles with rocket launchers, nozzles that gush gouts of flame, and an all-important sound system." Comprised of drummer/producer Stuart Argabright, guitarist Michael Diekmann, bassist/guitarist/keyboardist Shinichi Shimokawa, DJ High Priest, and MC/grafitti writer Rammellzee on occasional vocals, DCC was drawn together intermittently for shows and recording sessions in '83 and '84. Rammellzee (born 1960 in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York), is a graffiti writer, performance artist, rap/hip-hop musician and sculptor from New York.Rammellzee's graffiti and art work are based on his theory of Gothic Futurism, which describes the battle between letters and their symbolic warfare against any standardizations enforced by the rules of the alphabet; his treatise, "Iconic Panzerisms", details an anarchic plan by which to revise the role and deployment of language in society. Rammellzee is often identified as an artist of the Afrofuturism canon.Rammellzee wears a strange costume during performances. According to Mark Dery, "the artist encases himself during gallery performances in Gasholeer, a 148-pound, gadgetry-encrusted exoskeleton inspired by an android he painted on a subway train in 1981. Four years in the making, Rammellzee's exuberantly low-tech costume bristles with rocket launchers, nozzles that gush gouts of flame, and an all-important sound system." Greg Broussard better known by his stage name Egyptian Lover is an American musician, vocalist, producer and DJ, and was an important part of the L.A. dance music and rap scene in the early 1980s. Egyptian Lover records didn't start appearing until several years after the New York and Miami electro scenes were already in full swing, and by the mid-'80s Egyptian Lover cuts like "Egypt, Egypt" were standards among club DJs, particularly in the breakdance scene. Before Ice-T, N.W.A., and Eazy-E made Los Angeles famous (or infamous) for gangsta rap in the late '80s, the city's rap community was best known for a high-tech, futuristic approach that owed a lot to Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 classic, "Planet Rock." In the early to mid-'80s, L.A.-based electro-hoppers like the Egyptian Lover, the World Class Wreckin' Cru (the group that Dr. Dre belonged to before N.W.A.), the Arabian Prince, and Uncle Jam's Army didn't get much respect from East Coast hip-hoppers, who insisted that their music wasn't gritty enough. Midnight Star was a synth-funk group from Kentucky. "Freak-a-zoids, robots: please report to the dancefloor". Future Shock. "Rockit" was perhaps the first popular single to feature scratching and other turntablist techniques, performed by GrandMixer D.ST - an influential DJ in the early years of turntablism. Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist and composer. He is regarded as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. "Rockit" was released as a single from his 1983 album"Rockit" was perhaps the first popular single to feature scratching and other turntablist techniques, performed by GrandMixer D.ST - an influential DJ in the early years of turntablism. Future Shock and The Third Wave. The name "Cybotron", coined by Atkins, is a portmanteau of cyborg and cyclotron. Atkins was fond of creating such "futuristic-sounding" words - the record label names "Metroplex" and "Transmat" being other examples. Although generally considered electro, Cybotron was also part of the early evolution of techno music. Cybotron was the first musical outlet of techno co-"originator" Juan Atkins, and the group's unique combination of musical influences, boldly experimental aesthetic, and afrofuturist philosophy became the underpinnings of Detroit Techno. On the cover of Cybotron's album Enter is written: "We dedicate this album to the people of the Detroit metroplex. To survive we must technofy and save the biosphere." The Great Migration of the early 20th century shifted black American culture to metropolitan cities such as New York, Chicago and Detroit. At the time this track was recorded, the trend in migration had reversed, and Detroit was suffering from the effects of deindustrialization. The Detroit club scene was as much in transition as the city they were in. The wide-spread popularity of techno across socio-economic lines led to a mixing between West Side and elite high school youths with ghetto and gangster "jits" (abbreviation for "jitterbug"). Unfortunately, the economic problems of Detroit and the prevalent social apathy and desolation led to a proliferation of gun violence within clubs and by 1986, the techno club scenes were wrought with gun shootings, fights, and acts of violence further compounding the sociological and economic recovery of Detroit. This wave of violence, economic collapse, and socio-communal atrophy extensively affected the Detroit techno themes. Still influenced by the same Euro sounds, Juan Atkins and Rick Davis formed Cybotron producing Detroit hits like Alleys of Your Mind, Techno City, Cosmic Cars, and Clear before signing onto the Fantasy label. However, Cybotron's dominant mood of tech-noir and desolation played into describing the city's decline. For all their futuristic mise-en-scene, the vision underlying Cybotron songs was Detroit-specific- from industrial boomtown to post-Fordist wasteland, from US capital of auto manufacturing to US capital of homicide. By the end of the first successful wave of Detroit techno, the city's center had become a ghost town and the techno landscape was evolving into a more hardcore, militaristic frenzy of drug-infused rave and trance scene. Cybotron was group formed in 1980 by Juan Atkins and Richard "3070" Davis in Detroit, Michigan. The group was inspired by midwestern funk, especially the music of George Clinton, along with European synthesizer pioneers Kraftwerk, English electropop, Italo Disco, and futurist literary influences such as Alvin Toffler's booksand. The name "Cybotron", coined by Atkins, is a portmanteau of cyborg and cyclotron. Atkins was fond of creating such "futuristic-sounding" words - the record label names "Metroplex" and "Transmat" being other examples. Although generally considered electro, Cybotron was also part of the early evolution of techno music. Cybotron was the first musical outlet of techno co-"originator" Juan Atkins, and the group's unique combination of musical influences, boldly experimental aesthetic, and afrofuturist philosophy became the underpinnings of Detroit Techno.On the cover of Cybotron's albumis written: "We dedicate this album to the people of the Detroit metroplex. To survive we must technofy and save the biosphere." The Great Migration of the early 20th century shifted black American culture to metropolitan cities such as New York, Chicago and Detroit. At the time this track was recorded, the trend in migration had reversed, and Detroit was suffering from the effects of deindustrialization.The Detroit club scene was as much in transition as the city they were in. The wide-spread popularity of techno across socio-economic lines led to a mixing between West Side and elite high school youths with ghetto and gangster "jits" (abbreviation for "jitterbug"). Unfortunately, the economic problems of Detroit and the prevalent social apathy and desolation led to a proliferation of gun violence within clubs and by 1986, the techno club scenes were wrought with gun shootings, fights, and acts of violence further compounding the sociological and economic recovery of Detroit.This wave of violence, economic collapse, and socio-communal atrophy extensively affected the Detroit techno themes. Still influenced by the same Euro sounds, Juan Atkins and Rick Davis formed Cybotron producing Detroit hits like Alleys of Your Mind, Techno City, Cosmic Cars, and Clear before signing onto the Fantasy label. However, Cybotron's dominant mood of tech-noir and desolation played into describing the city's decline. For all their futuristic mise-en-scene, the vision underlying Cybotron songs was Detroit-specific- from industrial boomtown to post-Fordist wasteland, from US capital of auto manufacturing to US capital of homicide. By the end of the first successful wave of Detroit techno, the city's center had become a ghost town and the techno landscape was evolving into a more hardcore, militaristic frenzy of drug-infused rave and trance scene. A classic of the Detroit Warehouse. The track was a sensation in the city's underground despite never being released on vinyl. The success of the song relied entirely upon tapes being copied and circulated through the clubs. Detroit house evolved from disco but with a more electronic sound. Fingers Inc. was Larry Heard and Robert Owens, a talented gospel-styled vocalist. This Chicago House classic shows a connection between 80's house and gospel music. It is regarded as the first Deep House record and is still a popular track in the deep house scene today. The spoken word vocal are thought to reflect what is regarded as the true meaning of house music. Their name referred to a myth comparable to Plato's myth of Atlantis, which the group revealed in the sleeve notes to their 1997 album The Quest. ÒDrexciyaÓ was an underwater country populated by the unborn children of pregnant African women thrown off of slave ships that had adapted to breathe underwater in their mother's wombs. Member James Stinson claimed to have come up with idea in a dream. Although both members of Drexciya remained completely anonymous throughout their active recording career, James Stinson was identified posthumously in 2002 after dying aged 32 of heart complications. The other member of the duo was Gerald Donald. The members of Drexciya did not allow themselves to be photographed, although they gave interviews, throughout one of which they wore Star Trek masks to conceal their identity. Gerald Donald went on to produce music under many names including Arpanet, Glass Domain, Heinrich Mueller, Intellitronic, Japanese Telecom, Abstract Thought, Der Zyklus, Dopplereffekt, Elecktroids, Ectomorph, Flexitone, Black Replica, Zwischenwelt and L.A.M. (Life After Mutation). Drexciya was a later techno group from Detroit. Drexciya combined a faceless, underground, anti-mainstream media stance with mythological, sci-fi narratives, to help heighten the dramatic effect of their music. In this respect they were similar to artists within and close to the Detroit collective Underground Resistance.Their name referred to a myth comparable to Plato's myth of Atlantis, which the group revealed in the sleeve notes to their 1997 album The Quest. ÒDrexciyaÓ was an underwater country populated by the unborn children of pregnant African women thrown off of slave ships that had adapted to breathe underwater in their mother's wombs. Member James Stinson claimed to have come up with idea in a dream.Although both members of Drexciya remained completely anonymous throughout their active recording career, James Stinson was identified posthumously in 2002 after dying aged 32 of heart complications. The other member of the duo was Gerald Donald. The members of Drexciya did not allow themselves to be photographed, although they gave interviews, throughout one of which they wore Star Trek masks to conceal their identity.Gerald Donald went on to produce music under many names including Arpanet, Glass Domain, Heinrich Mueller, Intellitronic, Japanese Telecom, Abstract Thought, Der Zyklus, Dopplereffekt, Elecktroids, Ectomorph, Flexitone, Black Replica, Zwischenwelt and L.A.M. (Life After Mutation). Bombing. He moved to the US and started selling grills (gold teeth) in New York and Miami, a business which he continued after his return to England in 1988, and turned into his trademark. Goldie pushed the genre of drum n bass by fusing it with soul vocals by Diane Charlemagne. Goldie is Clifford Joseph Price. Price was a member of a breakdance crew Westside, based in the Whitmore Reans and Heath Town areas of Wolverhampton, in the 1980s. He later joined a breakdance crew called the B-boys, and made his name as a graffiti artist in the West Midlands. His artwork around Birmingham and Wolverhampton was featured heavily in Afrikaa Bambaataa's documentary. He moved to the US and started selling grills (gold teeth) in New York and Miami, a business which he continued after his return to England in 1988, and turned into his trademark. Goldie pushed the genre of drum n bass by fusing it with soul vocals by Diane Charlemagne. Pre-Millennium Tension. Again we see the theme of language: "It means we'll manage, I'll master your language, and in the meantime, I create my own." Tricky was born Adrian Thaws, from Bristol, England. An example from the trip hop genre, this was the opening track from his sophmore album. Again we see the theme of language: "It means we'll manage, I'll master your language, and in the meantime, I create my own." Straight Up Detroit Shit mix series which helped define the hyrbid ghetto tech sound emerging from Detroit. It combines elements of Chicago's ghetto house with electro, hip hop, techno, and grafts the perceived raunch of miami bass as the vocal stamp of the music. It is usually faster than most other dance music genres, at roughly 145 to 170 bpm, and usually features sexually explicit lyrics. This faster sound was achieved by modifying turntables to play records at faster speeds. A Detroit ghetto tech style of dancing is called the jit. It is an improvisational dance that mainly centers around the fast movement of the feet but also arms and body movement dating back to the early 1950s jitterbug also known as the black bottom stomp. Craig Adams AKA Craig Diamonds released a number of influential 12"s and Mix CDs as DJ Assault on his Assault Rifle and Electrofunk labels in the 90's. Amongst these were themix series which helped define the hyrbid ghetto tech sound emerging from Detroit.It combines elements of Chicago's ghetto house with electro, hip hop, techno, and grafts the perceived raunch of miami bass as the vocal stamp of the music. It is usually faster than most other dance music genres, at roughly 145 to 170 bpm, and usually features sexually explicit lyrics. This faster sound was achieved by modifying turntables to play records at faster speeds.A Detroit ghetto tech style of dancing is called the jit. It is an improvisational dance that mainly centers around the fast movement of the feet but also arms and body movement dating back to the early 1950s jitterbug also known as the black bottom stomp. Funkstörung (German for "transmission interference") are a duo of electronic musicians hailing from Rosenheim, Germany known for rhythmically complex but melody driven music. They are particularly famous for their remix work. Some claim glitch-hop was born when Funkstörung cannibalised New York hip-hop on this remix of the Wu-Tang Clan's "Reunited". Travis Stewart's hip-hop inspired work is done under the alias of Machine Drum. On this track the rap lyrics are manipulated to become unintelligible, becoming just a rhythmic element of the song. This main audio sample from this track is taken from the 1972 Sun Ra film Space is the Place. From Ras G's website : "Ras G guides a deep space exploration of music's ancient history and rich future. Working thru obsolete tools to reach back in time and pluck out the essence of groove, Ras G's music is rich with space-funktified rhythms, fog horns, natty chattin, subterranean bass lines, colossal percussion and glorious highs. Ras G has been a fixture on the underground hiphop scene in Los Angeles since the early 90s. He is a proud South Central LA resident. This is the music that people will be playing in the ghettos of Mars in the year 3014."This main audio sample from this track is taken from the 1972 Sun Ra film Darrell Fitton is an electronic musician from Manchester, England. Most of his work is recorded under recording monikers Bola and Jello. As in the electro genre, this track features distorted, vocoderized vocals. Shadow Huntaz are a 5 piece experimental hip hop group notable for their use of online file sharing to distribute their work. They were originally formed by a trio of MC's, Breaff (a/k/a Shadow 1), Dream (a/k/a/ Shadow 2) and Non (a/k/a Shadow 3 or Nongenetic), all of whom are based in different cities in the US, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles respectively. They are joined by brothers Don and Roel Funcken from The Netherlands who perform under the name Funckarma. The brothers had originally approached them to do some remixes but this evolved into a full collaboration, undertaken through file sharing over the internet. Another track by Darrell Fitton, a sort of futuristic take on soul. Dabrye is an alias of Ann Arbor, Michigan-based musician Tadd Mullinix. Besides Jay Dee & Phat Kat, he has worked with other underground hip hop artists such as MF DOOM, Beans, Vast Aire, and Big Tone. Lost Children of Babylon is a Nuwaubian hip hop group from Philadelphia. Nuwaubian hip hop groups call their style Nu-wop. They debuted with a conscious style, with lyrics filled with Nuwaubian teachings of Dr. Malachi Z. York and different theories of the creation and destination of the human soul. Together, they made an album rife with quotes from The Matrix and rhymes about ancient Egypt, outer space and chromosomes, all laid over futuristic/sci-fi beats that seem transplanted from other worlds. Flying Lotus, (born Steven Ellison) is an experimental music producer, disc jockey, and laptop musician from Winnetka, California. His great-aunt is the late Alice Coltrane. Mark Pritchard is an electronic musician. He was half of the duo Global Communication. His work as Harmonic 313 explores Detroit-style hip-hop and dub-step. Burial is an English dubstep producer. Spaceape MCs in a dread poet style. Dubstep evolved from the UK grime and 2-step garage. "Sensory language leaves us with no habit for lying, we are hostile aliens immune from dying".

Oakland City Council member Desley Brooks is a runaway train that needs to be derailed before she does irreparable harm. Her most recent collision — with 72-year-old former Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown, who says Brooks assaulted her at a downtown restaurant on Oct. 30 — is only the latest misstep in a political career defined by controversy, confrontation and rage. The alleged target of Brooks’ ire is an elderly woman who runs a county jobs program and who, because of her radical past, holds celebrity status in Oakland. But anybody could run afoul of Brooks, whose public demeanor can be described in two ways: angry and angrier. In a civil complaint filed with the Oakland city attorney’s office last week in which she is asking for at least $10,000 from the city, Brown says that Brooks, 54, assaulted her at a gathering to discuss affordable housing issues. A heavily redacted police report says that “hands, feet, teeth, etc.” may have been used in the alleged assault, which it calls a misdemeanor. Neither Brooks nor Brown has responded to interview requests. If Brooks’ history on the council provides any insight into how this matter will be resolved, I wouldn’t count her out yet. In a sad commentary on the lack of will among Brooks’ colleagues and on the poor ethical standards of Oakland city government, Brooks has managed to dodge every bullet aimed at her during her 13 years in office. She has even turned the council chambers into her own three-ring circus. In 2007, a month after the City Council approved the $800,000 purchase of a building in the 5800 block of International Boulevard that it wanted as a teen center, Brooks sent an e-mail to staff asking, “When can I have the keys?” according to a 2013 grand jury report on the project. “From that moment forward, it was very clear that the council member exerted control over nearly every element of the project, making demands of staff from multiple city departments at all levels,” the report said. According to the grand jury, Brooks ignored a council decision to delay renovating the building and entered into construction contracts with builders on her own in 2010. She also blew off numerous requests by the grand jury to testify. When her council colleagues attempted to censure her in 2013 for her misdeeds, Brooks packed the room with supporters. Before the night was over, she had persuaded her witless council colleagues to vote to censure themselves. Brooks goes through council aides the way Wimpy goes through hamburgers. And when her staff has abandoned her, she has used taxpayer money meant for their salaries to support her favorite political groups and nonprofits — including the group that lobbied former Rep. Ron Dellums to run for mayor in 2006, according to city documents cited in The Chronicle in 2006. Brooks has run roughshod over and thumbed her nose at every institution that has ever attempted to rein her in, starting with city administrators, the City Auditor’s Office and the Alameda County grand jury. She also brought a $1 million libel lawsuit against The Chronicle and me in 2008. A court dismissed her claim a year later, a decision upheld on appeal. Along the way, she’s managed to polarize most of her colleagues on the City Council — or simply intimidate them into silence. Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney is a polite, cultured person. Yet during a recent council meeting, Brooks called her a “hanky-head.” What do you know? A racial insult from the city’s Queen of Racial Equality. Brooks has been a supporter of minority contracts, Occupy Oakland and the Black Lives Matter movement. Brooks’ actions, antics and antisocial behavior have long been a public embarrassment to Oakland — and she’s now become a public liability. I don’t know if Brown has a legitimate legal claim to city resources as a result of Brooks’ actions, but make no mistake: The city — and the voters — are ultimately responsible for this abuse of government representation. Brooks is a monster created by the city’s lack of administrative controls; poor ethical standards; and downright absurd, race-based political environment that lets her survive. Given her history and the city’s unwillingness — or inability — to hold her accountable, it’s going to take a lot more than a misdemeanor assault charge — or a conviction — to slow that train down. It’s time for the taxpayer-funded Oakland Public Ethics Commission and the city attorney to speak up. At the very least, the Oakland City Council should give censure another try to let the public know it “gets it” and that such behavior by an elected official is unacceptable. Chip Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. His column runs Tuesday and Friday. E-mail: chjohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @chjohnson

Introduction Heyo guys! I'm here to talk a bit more about the Conversation System which I've spent a little while designing and I hope you will enjoy it! This system is a bit unique compared to other Conversation Systems you may have encountered so I'm going to explain a few systems before getting onto the goodies. Familiarity System One of the core systems which the conversation system heavily relies on is the Familiarity system. This system in itself is composed of different smaller systems which have their own functions. Two of these subsystems is the one that keeps track of the character's Personality and the other keeps track of Familiars. The Personality subsystem simply keeps track of the unit's likings, reputation and other various personality traits, such as being sarcastic, evil, cruel, good etc. The Familiar subsystem keeps track of when a unit is spotted, when such an event occurs a "snapshot" is taken where it saves the body properties, currently equipped gear and inserts that into a list of other snapshots. This data will allow for a very good way of exchanging information both between Player NPC as well as NPC NPC, Yes, NPCs will be essentially using this data and conversation system to exchange information about the world. Even if these snapshots save what you're currently wearing doesn't mean that the NPCs will immediately remember the information correctly, this depends on several factors. A Familiarity score is calculated from variables such as, how many times the unit has been seen before, the time since last seen, the time in between seeing the unit, the time of encounter and the lighting during encounter. These are only a few factors which are needed in order to calculate such a score, obviously talking to an NPC will increase this score of being recognized. This opens up game mechanics such as being able to commit a crime, change your outfit and possibly fool the people which saw you committing the crime. Or you could possibly stalk an NPC, understand what they were, get similar clothes and commit a crime and later pin it on that unit. As you can see with such a system it opens up a lot of cool new game mechanics which I think will be quite interesting to explore. Concept Image of Conversation UI Conversations Now this is the real meat of this post, the Conversation System. As I mentioned previously and which I hope you've noticed by the Familiarity system explanation that this conversation system is a bit different from similar systems previously. This system is a bit unique in the sense that it will be dealing with a lot of dynamic data. Anything from various generated area names, town names, towns, NPCs, familiarity data to quests and tasks. So obviously due to dealing with such a massive amount of dynamic data the conversation system itself has to be fairly dynamic. This includes being able to select more than 2-3 different response messages which most other games uses. I'd argue that you need to be able to select both the Topic of the conversation and even the Response Type, which is exactly what I started designing the system around. This will allow for having 2-3 different responses per Topic and per Response Type, which is a lot of different conversation responses and which is exactly what an RPG of this size deserves. Topics Topics will be selectable in the conversation GUI, these topics will be selected depending on relevance to the current NPC, so for example if the NPC is a good friend of yours in-game, you won't start getting suggested Topics about getting to know the NPC (Such as asking for his/her name etc.). The relevance will be calculated depending on where you currently are, reputation/standing with an NPC and even time of day etc. Topics will essentially be a guiding point for your conversation in order to properly interact with the AI in the world and retrieve relevant and necessary information. Response Type Being able to choose Topics of the Conversation is good and all, but it'll only get you so far, in order to properly interact in a good way you need to be able to respond in a specific "tone of voice". Which is why currently the design for Response types will include such types as "Hostile, Friendly, Neutral" but also thinking about types like Sarcastic, Vague in order to properly interact in the way you'd like to. Concept Image of Conversation UI By combining these two concepts I believe it will create quite a unique and interesting way of interacting with the world. It also allows for a fairly cool way of exchanging information, not only between you and the AI but even in an AI AI situation. By forcing the AI to use this system in order to exchange information you inherently add a delay before everyone in a town knows something, or perhaps you are able to silence the information before it reaches another Unit. An example of this would be if a unit sees you committing a crime, in regular games you'd be instantly guilty and guards would start chasing you, however by using this system a witness would have to see you and in some way exchange that information, either via screaming or running and telling people. But due to this inherit latency of information exchange you will be able to silence that victim and stop the spread of information. Which I find adds quite a cool game-play mechanic. Conclusion I hope you all enjoyed my explanation of the conversation system or at the very least found it interesting. Cheers!

The Steelers and defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau have agreed to part ways, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The split was mutual, according to LeBeau. He added that it was "time to go in a different direction." LeBeau had been the team's defensive coordinator since 2004. During LeBeau's tenure, the Steelers defense finished first in yardage five times. The team finished outside the top-10 in each of the past two seasons, however. While LeBeau will leave the team, he stressed that he is not retiring. "I'm resigning this position, not retiring," LeBeau said. "I had a great run in Pittsburgh. I'm grateful for all the things that have happened to me and thankful for all the support I had in Pittsburgh." LeBeau, 77, was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010 for his accomplishments as a player. He's also credited with creating the zone blitz.

Rite Aid Sued by Man Detained for Ebola Suspicions NOVEMBER 02, 2015 Meghan Ross, Associate Editor A man went into a Rite Aid seeking treatment for diarrhea. Next thing he knew, he was detained at a medical center for 7 hours while he was tested for Ebola. Ouattara Sana, 43, who is from the Ivory Coast but lives in Hackettstown, New Jersey, maintains that the Ebola tests were “invasive” and performed without his consent. Sana has since sued Rite Aid, the Warren County Health Department and Sheriff’s Office, Hackettstown First Aid & Rescue Squad, Hackettstown police, and Hackettstown Regional Medical Center, according to Patch. He is seeking damages for false imprisonment, assault, and discrimination, according to NJ.com. Sana sought help from a Rite Aid pharmacist in October 2014 for diarrhea. The pharmacist asked where he was from and if he had a fever. Sana responded that he had not been sick in the 5 months he had been living in the United States, and then he left the Rite Aid. According to Sana, Rite Aid called him back to the store under the pretenses that they found a medication for him. The pharmacy staff took his temperature several times while health officials were called in, Patch reported. He then spent 7 hours at the Hackettstown Regional Medical Center undergoing tests. The lawsuit states that Sana’s detention resulted because of discrimination based on his race and nationality. Sana accused the defendants of lacking proper training, NJ.com reported. The Rite Aid closed for about an hour after Sana left the store, Patch previously reported. SHARE THIS

Show us your rig Each week on Show Us Your Rig, we feature the PC game industry's best and brightest as they show us the systems they use to work and play. Ben Knapp, Senior Character artist on Smite over at Hi-Rez Studios, continues a trend we've been seeing with character artists featured on Show Us Your Rig. Specifically, they have an excellent reason to cover their desks in toys. Ben has figures ranging from X-Men to Assassin's Creed to Dragon Ball Z and beyond all around his desk, and a massive Cintiq touch screen in the center. He was kind enough to take some time and tell us about his PC and more. What's in your PC? Dell Precision T3600 Workstation CPU - Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1650 @ 3.2GHz Motherboard - DELL Precision t3600 Motherboard with Intel Chipset Memory - 16GB DDR3 Drives - 2TB HDD in a Raid 1 configuration Video - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti Power Supply - DELL 635W Case - DELL Midtower Display - WACOM Cintiq 21UX, DELL 2208WFP Mouse - DELL USB Optical Mouse Keyboard - DELL Entry keyboard What's the most interesting/unique part of your setup? Simply put, the Decor. I have a pretty cool selection statues, figures, and reference materials I have collected over the years. These resources prove to be invaluable when creating character art, giving me inspiration and reference. I spend most of my time at this desk Monday-Friday so I feel it has to be entertaining to me as well. The figures on my desk started out from just having some select action figures I grew up with. I started with some classic 80s figures and then started to branch out into different comic book figures and video game ones soon after. Eventually it has grown into what you see here. My favorite is a custom Skeletor action figure I found online; never before that had I seen a figure that actually made Skeletor into a thin mage opposed to a body builder with a skull head. What's always within arm's reach on your desk? You will always find a Wacom pen and a protein bar within arms reach. Also given the type of character I am working on, I might grab some additional reference materials and sprinkle them around my desk. What are you playing right now? Right now I am playing only a few games. My go to game is Marvel Heroes, if you look at my desk you can see why. Outside of that I am a huge fan of survival horror type games and I am really enjoying Alien Isolation and the Evil Within. What's your favorite game and why? My favorite game is Resident Evil 1, closely followed by Resident Evil 2. I know a lot of people hate the controls and cheesy acting, but I never had a problem with that. I had not played any other survival horror game before this and it made a huge impact on me. I never had experienced a mood and atmosphere like that prior to playing RE and it showed me there is more to games than just run & gun and platforming.

Movies are fantastic. They exfoliate all forms of emotions. For that short duration of time: You are transported to a whole new world. You are introduced to strangers. You get sucked into their lives. You travel along an epic journey with them. You witness them in their most powerful states. You witness them in their most vulnerable states. You feel their strengths and burdens. For that short time you forget about reality. You go on your own fictional journey. Then it ends. All those feelings are torn off like umbilical cords. Sometimes you feel satisfied. You enjoyed your experience and you received closure. However, most of the time, you are left wanting more. There are still untraveled roads to traverse through. Questions remain unanswered. Will Astronaut Taylor ever escape this ape dominating post apocalyptic world? What more monstrous actions will Michael Corleone do as the new Godfather? These questions will linger for a long time. After a while, all these emotional ties will be severed. You will move on. But then arrives that announcement you have been waiting for. The announcement of a SEQUEL. The journey continues. You have invested so much time in the previous adventure that you are fully prepared for the next one! The only problem is that you have probably joined the most half ass trip of your life, filled with garbage, along with disrespect for your fellow ‘strangers’. Lets take a look at some examples to better avoid these torturous trips. Continue reading →

Introduction “Money in politics is such a divisive and politically sensitive issue that Congress hasn’t been able to [do anything]. It has fallen to the IRS … It’s working to sweep up after the parade​.” – Alex Reid, former U.S. Treasury fellow and staffer for the Joint Committee on Taxation When federal election lawyers decided the nonprofit Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies likely violated political spending limits, campaign finance watchdogs were certain the Internal Revenue Service would take action. After all, lawyers for the Federal Election Commission argued that Crossroads GPS, co-founded by Republican operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, spent more on politics than anything else leading up to the 2010 election. Then the IRS tea party scandal exploded. Republicans in Congress began waylaying the IRS over what they said was the systematic and inexcusable targeting of tea party and conservative groups. And the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration declared that the agency had employed “inappropriate criteria” in heavily scrutinizing some groups’ tax-exemption applications. The scandal has persisted with the recent revelation over missing agency emails, which the IRS has blamed on a computer hard drive crash in 2011. The IRS’ nonprofit division, grappling with a decimated staff and limited resources, effectively lost whatever nerve it had left. Notably, it came to a near standstill on deciding whether it should grant “social welfare” nonprofit status to Crossroads GPS and other conservative groups. It likewise balked at denying or revoking nonprofit status for a growing constellation of politically driven, big-spending liberal nonprofits such as Patriot Majority USA and Priorities USA. The IRS knew that many of these groups were highly political. But “nobody wanted to say ‘no, you’re not exempt,’” said an IRS exempt organizations division staffer who asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job. “We stalled so we wouldn’t have to say no,” he added. The paralysis allowed organizations waiting for IRS approval to continue to spend freely on elections while keeping the names of their donors secret. The tea party scandal, combined with Congress systematically stripping the IRS of resources and clout over decades, has led to an exempt organizations division that has all but quit regulating politically active nonprofits in any consistent, demonstrable way, a six-month Center for Public Integrity investigation reveals. The investigation, which involved a review of thousands of pages of IRS documents and interviews with more than two dozen current and former IRS employees and administrators, finds the agency’s nonprofit regulation division has: Bled 14 percent of its staff positions during the past two decades while the number of nonprofits it regulates has grown by more than 40 percent. Scaled back inquiries, as the number of nonprofit group tax returns investigated recently fell by 10 percent, from 11,699 in 2011 to 10,575 last year. Applications for “social welfare” nonprofit status jumped 27 percent from 1,777 to 2,253 during the same time. Reduced the number of denials for exempt status for social welfare nonprofits from nearly 4 percent during the early 1980s to less than a quarter-percent in 2013. Softened, tabled or reversed course on at least a dozen proposed policy positions or enforcement plans after criticism from politicians and lobbyists. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen says the agency he’s led since December is in peril. “We don’t have enough employees anywhere,” he told the Center for Public Integrity when asked about its ability to regulate nonprofit groups. “I think the whole agency is at risk at the level of underfunding we have.” Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen explains how his agency wants to regulate politically active nonprofits during an interview at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Eleanor Bell/Center for Public Integrity ‘Social welfare’ explained “Social welfare” nonprofits, also known as 501(c)(4) organizations, today play a key role in many federal political elections. But they began their existence as entirely different — and unassuming — kinds of creatures. A federal law passed in 1913 created them as a “catch all” for nonprofit groups that weren’t necessarily educational or charitable but provided a public service and operated “exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” Thank a macaroni factory run by the nonprofit New York University Law School for their evolution. Responding to business complaints about the arrangement, Congress in 1950 passed a law levying taxes on nonprofits’ “unrelated business income.” If nonprofits — 501(c)(3)s like hospitals, charities and universities and 501(c)(4)s — could run a side business, it meant they weren’t operating “exclusively” for their exempt purpose. The U.S. Department of the Treasury, the IRS’ parent agency, ultimately issued new regulations interpreting “exclusively” as “primarily.” In other words, social welfare nonprofits could engage in other kinds of activities so long as they operated primarily for the common good. By 1981, the IRS further relaxed the rules by saying social welfare nonprofits could “carry on lawful political activities” as long as their work primarily benefited society’s welfare. It wasn’t until the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 2010, however, that politically active nonprofits — social welfare groups as well as 501(c)(5) labor unions and 501(c)(6) trade groups — became a major force in political elections, all while receiving a de facto tax subsidy. The decision allowed corporations, unions and certain nonprofit groups to spend unlimited amounts of cash supporting or opposing political candidates so long as they didn’t coordinate with candidates or their committees. Social welfare and other nonprofit groups galloped into the post-Citizens United era with an inherent advantage over overtly political groups: They could hide the source of their funding, regardless of whether those sources were corporations, individuals or other special interests. And they’re only required tell the FEC the names of donors who give money to help produce specific ads — something that rarely happens. Social welfare groups’ political spending, specifically, ballooned to $256 million during the 2012 election cycle from next to nothing only a few years before, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Aghast, watchdog groups and politicos filed numerous complaints with the IRS in hope the agency’s exempt organizations division would intervene, since it’s supposed to ensure 501(c) nonprofit organizations don’t become more political than the law allows. Meanwhile at the FEC, efforts by the commission’s three Democratic appointees to rein in the nonprofits were stymied by the three Republicans on the commission, who were ideologically opposed to stifling what they consider the free expression of political views. Weeks turned to months and months into years, and the IRS showed few outward signs that nonprofit groups’ politicking and electioneering was of any particular concern. While IRS officials declined to say how many social welfare groups have been rejected for tax-exempt status on the grounds that they were too political, the Center for Public Integrity and other media organizations have identified 10 groups since the Citizens United decision. Six were chapters of Emerge America, a group that trains Democratic women who want to run for office, and one engaged in politics abroad. Another — Arkansans for Common Sense — spent about $1 million during 2010 supporting the failed re-election bid of Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln. At least several other groups had their tax-exempt status denied for benefiting private groups such as political parties instead of the common good. ‘Always being second-guessed’ Nonprofit regulation is “the most explosive, difficult and challenging area of the IRS,” said Larry Gibbs, a former IRS commissioner who served under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. “It touches on issues that every voter in the country not only can understand, but they’re also issues voters have very strong feelings about.” Both the IRS and its nonprofit division are prone to criticism, IRS Exempt Organizations Director Tamera Ripperda told the Center for Public Integrity. “We’re always being second-guessed,” she said, adding that the division is obligated to consider external feedback. Most of the two dozen former and current IRS employees interviewed — spanning five decades at the agency — could recall moments the nonprofit regulation division succumbed to outside pressure by retreating from or killing proposed actions. Decades in the making: The decline of IRS nonprofit regulation By Jared Bennett Julie Patel and Outside pressure on the Internal Revenue Service’s nonprofit regulation division is nothing new, whether it’s Congress-driven budget cuts or attempts to halt agency actions by presidential administrations. In part because of this pressure, and in part because of what it considered its limited resources, the exempt organizations division deprioritized full-blown examinations in favor of audits done by mail and bare-boned “reviews” done by phone. The division’s “assembly line approach to deal with the volume” of work likely led to shortcuts, like searching for questionably named groups, and contributed to the tea party debacle, said Jim Buttonow, who worked for the IRS for nearly two decades until 2006 and managed large investigations of nonprofits. “What you end up doing is delegating and empowering people at the lowest levels,” he said. In late 2002, to grapple with new priorities and a smaller workforce, the nonprofit division officially reassigned about 100 employees from its investigations unit to the area that processes applications for tax-exempt status, said Steve Miller, who led the division then, in a speech published in the trade journal Tax Analysts. “Examination workforces have greatly diminished and hence the number of examinations we are able to do,” added Miller, who was fired as acting IRS commissioner in May 2013 amid questions about tea party targeting. The nonprofit regulation division’s investigations of all nonprofits — politically active ones and otherwise — have fallen during recent decades and also the post-Citizens United years. For instance, the division audited fewer than seven tax returns per every 1,000 nonprofits last year. Early in Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the IRS audited such groups at nearly four times that rate. During the post-Citizens United years, audited returns fell from 11,449 in 2010 to 10,575 in 2013, agency records indicate. During the same time, applications for 501(c)(4) social welfare status jumped to 2,253 — up from 1,741 in 2010. The Citizens United decision made it easier for these groups to involve themselves in elections. In addition, last year and this year, the nonprofit regulation division temporarily shifted some employees from investigative work to help process the backlog of nonprofit applications. The backlog is a major concern of Republicans and conservatives upset with the IRS. Tamera Ripperda, director of the Internal Revenue Service’s exempt organizations division, speaks at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ National Not-For-Profit Industry Conference on June 12, 2014. Sarah Whitmire/Center for Public Integrity “Everybody is all hands on deck” to tackle that problem, said Ripperda, who replaced Lois Lerner, a central figure in the tea party controversy. It’s not that there’s a dearth of complaints about nonprofits. Eve Borenstein, a Minneapolis attorney, said she was told by Lerner a few years ago that there were tens of thousands of them. The retreat on investigations gives nonprofit groups the impression they can bend the IRS’ rules, which may not be clear in the first place, Borenstein said. When Borenstein advises her nonprofit clients against doing something that may violate IRS rules, she says they sometimes tell her: “There are six others who do that.” Fewer resources, less enforcement For an agency whose primary responsibility is to collect tax dollars, the IRS itself is receiving fewer and fewer of them from Congress. The IRS’ approved budget for the 2014 fiscal year is $11.3 billion. That’s $855 million, or 7 percent, less than its 2010 budget. During the same period, the IRS lost more than 10,000 staff positions — an 11 percent reduction. Meanwhile, it collected 22 percent more in taxes through fiscal year 2011, an indication that its workload has increased. Congress is proposing another $341 million cut to the agency’s budget for fiscal year 2015. The Center for Public Integrity is still waiting for a response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in December that seeks a variety of basic information about the IRS’ exempt organization operations, such as a staff position roster and enforcement actions against politically active nonprofits. But interviews and IRS documents show the division has, of late, been hit particularly hard. Since the Citizens United decision in 2010, the exempt organization division’s budget has shrunk 6 percent, from $101.2 million to $95.4 million during 2013. Staffing in the division dropped more than 8 percent, from 900 in 2010 to 824 in 2013. Ninety-eight division employees left the IRS from Jan. 1, 2012 to May 17, 2014, according to a list of former employees obtained from the IRS through a FOIA request to the federal Office of Personnel Management. Viewed over decades, the staffing declines become more pronounced. For example, exempt organization division staffing decreased 14 percent from the early 1990s to last year. Unlike other IRS divisions, the nonprofit regulation unit’s main job isn’t raising revenue by collecting taxes — making it an easy target in times of budget cuts. The exempt organizations division has also faced several waves of retirements, thereby losing expertise and institutional knowledge, former employees there say. The “brain drain” has been exacerbated since the early 2000s by the agency filling key roles with people with management know-how but lacking nonprofit regulation experience. The budget for training exempt organizations staffers was also slashed from 2009 to 2013 — from more than $7 million to less than $500,000 thanks to “budget cuts and sequestration,” records show. The IRS has also recently decided, in a bid to save time and money, that it will no longer screen most applications for 501(c)(3) charitable status. Some IRS watchdogs worry politically motivated organizations will attempt to exploit this decision. Scandal, then paralysis Since the tea party dispute erupted, more than half a dozen key agency employees have left the agency. They include Miller, acting commissioner at the time, and Lois Lerner, director of the exempt organizations division. The tea party affair has directed attention away from what many IRS workers say is the much larger problem — regulating the activities of politically charged nonprofits. The issue is “too hot to handle” for Congress in part because members may benefit from the groups, said Alex Reid, a former U.S. Treasury fellow who was also a staffer for the Joint Committee on Taxation. “Money in politics is such a divisive and politically sensitive issue that Congress hasn’t been able to” do anything, he said. “It has fallen to the IRS …. It’s working to sweep up after the parade​.” Still, employees and retirees say the tea party brouhaha, triggered by the IRS delaying some conservative nonprofits’ tax-exempt applications and asking them invasive questions based on their names, could have been averted. Regulators, for example, could have denied exemptions on the grounds that some social welfare nonprofits appeared too political or they could have approved the groups and flagged some for future audits. Paul Streckfus, who worked in the division for six years and now runs a trade publication called EO Tax Journal, said Miller and Lerner had reputations for being very cautious. “It’s sort of ironic they got into trouble. She … should have denied the groups off the bat. But she kept them, kept looking at them, and the rest is history,” Streckfus said. Miller and Lerner declined to comment on the record. A current IRS exempt organization division attorney, who didn’t want to be identified for fear of losing his job, said denials were warranted in some cases. “The groups were coming in saying, ‘No, we’re just trying to exercise free speech.’ But that doesn’t mean you should do that as a tax exempt organization,” he said. “We should have just let them go to court. A judge will tell us if we’re right or wrong.” Gibbs, the former IRS commissioner appointed by Reagan who now works at the Miller & Chevalier law firm, echoed the sentiment, saying the social welfare designation isn’t intended for highly political nonprofits. “No ma’am, it’s just not,” he said. “That’s why 527 was put in the code.” Political “527 groups” are tax exempt like 501(c)(4) groups, but unlike them, they must disclose their donors. U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., said additional delays with applications can be blamed on congressional hearings that began in earnest during 2013. “When you see employees of the federal government getting badgered by members of Congress … that’s got to have a really detrimental effect on the psyche of any worker [who is] thinking, ‘Wow, if I take action or not, I might be called in front of Congress and I might be badgered like that in front of the whole country.'” IRS officials have estimated the scandal has so far cost the agency at least $16 million as it limps from U.S. House investigation to investigation. Groups like the Richmond Tea Party, one of 41 conservative groups suing the IRS, was not denied tax-exempt status. But delays and extra paperwork cost it time and money. Organizations can initially operate as tax-exempt social welfare nonprofits without receiving formal approval from the IRS. But Bruce Jaggard, chairman of the board of the Richmond Tea Party, said it took the agency two-and-a-half years, until July 2012, to approve his group’s application to be a social welfare group in part because it sent the group two more rounds of questions in addition to those asked in the application. “If you have to do something two and three times, there’s no question you’re going to get into a backlog,” Jaggard said. “Our application we had sent to them was complete with all the information they requested. So make a determination, a thumbs up or thumbs down. They made work for us, and they made work for themselves.” That, he added, is reason enough to believe the agency doesn’t need more money. “If they think congressional oversight is intimidation, well, they have more coming.” – Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La. Red alert Republican congressional members leading efforts to investigate the IRS said the only inappropriate pressure exerted on the agency was by President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats, who repeatedly criticized political spending by social welfare nonprofits. IRS employees “were intimidated by their own [colleagues’] politics,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., added that the IRS wastes money, as evidenced by reports about its spending on a conference and a “Star Trek”-themed video in 2010. “If they think congressional oversight is intimidation, well, they have more coming,” Boustany said. In addition to the political pressure, the rules regarding activities of nonprofits aren’t very clear. “I can’t blame [social welfare nonprofits] because the law was not clear on what is political activity and how much is allowed,” said Marv Friedlander, a 41-year veteran of the IRS who retired in 2009 as chief of the exempt organization division’s technical branch. Without easy-to-understand rules, regulators’ jobs became harder, and “they were stuck,” Friedlander said. Late last year, the IRS attempted to tackle the unclear rules by defining “political activity” for social welfare groups. But it scrapped the proposal earlier this year after receiving about 169,000 comments — many critical. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle criticized the rules, noted Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. “At some point, we have to let people do their jobs,” he said of IRS exempt organizations division employees. Koskinen, the new IRS commissioner, said the IRS is working on new rules that will not only create a definition, but say how much political activity is allowed. “We’d be much better off if we had clearer definitions and a clearer roadmap,” he said. The IRS’ new proposal isn’t expected until early next year — after the mid-term elections — at which point the IRS will hold hearings and ask for more public comments. ‘Dark money’ proliferates Nonprofits have spent $26 million on 2014 elections as of July 2 — more than double what they had spent at this point in the 2012 election cycle, a presidential election year, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Millions of dollars more have been spent by social welfare nonprofits on politically charged “issue ads” that don’t directly advocate for or against candidates, and therefore, aren’t reported to the FEC. Said Robert Maguire, a political nonprofit investigator at the Center for Responsive Politics: “The amount of ‘dark money’ this cycle will far eclipse what we saw in the last midterms and probably even the totals we saw in the last presidential elections.” Meanwhile, the exempt organizations division is in limbo, and employees fear doing anything controversial as congressional hearings into the tea party issue continue. “While we have a duty to oversee, it can very well have a chilling effect,” Cummings said. As part of a reorganization of the nonprofit regulation division, about 45 employees will be shifted to the chief counsel’s office, IRS spokesman Grant Williams said. There are no guarantees the attorneys being moved will continue working exclusively on nonprofit issues, Ripperda, the exempt organizations director, said in a recent interview. “The counsel is still in the process of structuring that. We don’t know that yet.” The changes will happen by year-end. What’s clear is that written opinions on nonprofit regulation issues will now be drafted by the IRS chief counsel, a political appointee. “If you wanted to take politics out of the thing, you just put the politics in there completely,” said Debra Kawecki, a former senior attorney for the nonprofit regulation division. Former IRS official Marc Owens and Tessa Boyd-Caine, a Fulbright scholar from Australia, discuss how to improve the Internal Revenue Service’s administration of nonprofit tax laws. Eleanor Bell/Center for Public Integrity Topics and speakers are outlined in an agenda for a June 2014 roundtable discussion hosted by EO Tax Journal about how to improve the Internal Revenue Service’s administration of nonprofit tax laws. Eleanor Bell/Center for Public Integrity Marc Owens, the exempt organizations division director from 1990 to 2000, put it this way: “They are setting the stage for an even more cataclysmic situation.” With the reorganization under way, congressional scrutiny continuing and pressure to do more work with fewer resources, employees say morale is at an all-time low. “We spend all our time processing applications, doing some auditing, and nothing is left over,” said a current IRS exempt organizations employee familiar with this work. Kawecki, who left seven years ago, said even then the Cincinnati office, which processes most of the applications, was overwhelmed trying to keep pace: “The last year when I was there, we took cases from them and did them in the national office [in D.C.] because they were just swamped.” “Congress has made it clear that nobody is to stick their neck out.” – Cheryl Chasin, former IRS employee Commissioner bites back Some employees are encouraged by Koskinen, a turnaround expert with experience in the private and public sectors who has shown himself to be a bulldog at times. At a recent hearing in which members of Congress grilled him about the tea party scandal, with one accusing him of lying under oath, Koskinen stood firm. He refused to apologize when asked and corrected his questioners on several occasions when he believed they were making misleading statements. In addition to his recent announcement of bigger plans for the IRS’ new rules on political activity for social welfare groups, he has said the agency recently restarted audits of social welfare groups that were suspended last year — despite the heat it’s getting from Congress about the issue. “We tend to look at it a lot from the political side. The real question is also what are your social welfare activities? Primarily, are all your activities, are they social welfare? So we will look at that as well as the other side of the coin,” Koskinen said in an interview. IRS officials declined to comment on the record beyond what Koskinen said, citing several reasons: regulations the agency is drafting on nonprofit political activity, lawsuits filed against the agency and ongoing investigations by congressional committees, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Treasury’s inspector general. “Accordingly, it is inappropriate for the IRS to comment at this time on these matters,” IRS spokesman Bruce Friedland said. The U.S. Treasury provided a brief statement that in part reads: “The IRS and Treasury work together to implement the tax code in a manner that is effective and fair​.” The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Meanwhile, others worry Congress won’t budge on funding and won’t let the IRS do its job. “Congress has made it clear that nobody is to stick their neck out” to regulate nonprofit political activity, said Cheryl Chasin, who retired from the IRS about three years ago and whose email on politicized social welfare groups was referenced in a congressional report. A recent IRS manager familiar with exempt organization issues places the blame squarely on Congress. “It’s them. They write the rules. … They have ruined people’s lives,” said the former employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. “If this is what happens [when you regulate,] who is going to ever want to do it?” For its part, Crossroads GPS has spent tens of millions of dollars on political candidate advertisements since its inception, although none yet in 2014. Dozens of other 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups also are spending big on candidate advocacy. The IRS largely remains idle. Crossroads GPS maintains its activities comply with federal law, and that its primary purpose isn’t political. Representatives from the organization did not return requests for comment. With no foreseeable action by regulators, the nonprofit spending trend is expected to continue into the midterm elections this fall unabated, and the donors to these groups still largely a mystery.

I don’t go to the Drudge Report anymore, so I only heard about this screaming headline second-hand when it was being crowed about on Twitter. But the headline read: “TRUMP MOST VOTES IN REPUBLICAN HISTORY.” Wowie. Well, ain’t that impressive? But then there is the other side of the coin. According to Philip Bump at the Washington Post , though he has yet to hit that mark of having the most primary votes in Republican history (George W. Bush holds that record), by the end of the 2016 primary season, Donald Trump probably will exceed Bush’s 2000 totals. Now, here’s the other side of the coin. Trump also will be another historic first. In addition to garnering the most primary votes in Republican history, Donald J. Trump will also hold the record for having the most primary votes against him. Take a look: Graph from the Washington Post Well, sweet merciful Zeus! The primary season isn’t even over yet and already the anti-Trump vote is solidly the most “anti” votes in Republican history. Nearly fifteen million Republican primary voters have said no to Trump. Fifteen million. That’s quite a hefty number. Philip Bump closes his piece with this: This isn’t a critique of Trump, really. The math is simple: Lots of people voting for lots of different candidates means that the guy in first got a lot of votes — but so did the aggregation of everyone else. The lesson to take from this is that the truly historic component of the 2016 Republican contest isn’t the number of votes Trump is getting or that his opponents have earned. It’s that so many people in total have come out to vote. Of course, contra Trump’s insistence that he’s bringing people out in droves to give him their support, an awful lot of those people would rather vote for someone else. I wonder if Drudge ever will point this out? Probably not. — If you like the work at Patriot Retort, please consider contributing Hit the tip jar DONATE button in the side bar. Even a few bucks can make a world of difference!

BEDMINSTER, N.J. -- Some of the best golfers in the world are competing in New Jersey this weekend -- and vying for attention with a guy whose best finish was an age-group club title. That would be President Donald Trump. The president's arrival at his club on Friday created such a commotion that crowds at the U.S. Women's Open were asked to keep it down as golfers Lexi Thompson, Brook Henderson and Stacy Lewis approached the 15th green. Trump, fresh off a quick trip to France, turned up in a glassed-off patio of the clubhouse with son Eric by his side. President @realDonaldTrump arrives at #USWomensOpen at his New Jersey golf club Friday afternoon. pic.twitter.com/i1AQ2xgB61 — Bill Fields (@BillFields1) July 14, 2017 Acknowledging the crowds, the president waved, pointed and gave a thumbs-up, which prompted squeals from a group of schoolgirls. Dozens of people swarmed around the clubhouse snapping photos and waving as the president occasionally approached the window. Trump's presence did pose a distraction to players. Chinese golfer Shanshan Feng said she could hear crowds screaming for the president from the 15th green. Editor's Picks President Trump draws crowd at LPGA major Some golfers remained focused. Others waited for the motorcade to pass through. President Donald Trump's appearance Friday at the U.S. Women's Open at Trump National Bedminster caught the attention of everyone on the course. Feng extends Women's Open lead to 2 after 70 Shanshan Feng shot a 2-under 70 and had a 36-hole total of 8-under 136 on the 6,732-yard Trump National Golf Club, which played longer because of rain the past two days. 1 Related Asked if she could tell which direction the crowds were looking, Thompson told reporters, "not toward the golf." Trump's visit during the weekend tournament also poses a security challenge because his residence is on the course, where fans and players pass by throughout the day. But the tournament's director said of Trump's visit: "We're ready." Trump tweeted Friday morning that he was headed to New Jersey to attend the tournament after spending time in France this week to celebrate Bastille Day and meet with French President Emmanuel Macron. Left Paris for U.S.A. Will be heading to New Jersey and attending the#USWomensOpen, their most important tournament, this afternoon. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2017 The event was expected to draw protesters critical of the U.S. Golf Association, which operates the tournament, for not moving it to a different venue after audio surfaced last year in which Trump made derogatory comments about women. Trump has spent several weekends at the club since his election in November but none during an event of this magnitude: 156 golfers and their entourages and thousands of fans. Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to attend a U.S. Women's Open. Two presidents -- Warren Harding in 1921 and Bill Clinton in 1997 -- attended the U.S. Open while in office. Harding presented the trophy and gold medal to winner Jim Barnes at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Clinton and his daughter, Chelsea, watched final-round action from a specially constructed stand on the 16th hole at Congressional Country Club. When the U.S. Open returned to Congressional in 2011, the USGA prepared a viewing platform for President Barack Obama in the event that he attended, but he did not come to the championship. Information from ESPN contributor Bill Fields was used in this report.

...or hope that the Mon roe County Police have taken other measures with Cassi to help protec t you Please feel free to leave a comment below. If you'd like to sing my praises or tell me how terrible I am more personally, I can also be found on Twitter. It's officially Spring Break season, which means that Florida beaches will be filled with intoxicated college students...and the garbage that they produce. Smathers Beach in Key West has always had an issue with empty beer cans and other form of litters being strewn across the sand, but last week they had to contend with a whole new type of problem: Revenge Cannibalism.20-year-old Stock Island resident Cassi Lyn Clayton could be identified as a bit of a "spitfire" to say the least. She had already been arrested on February 4 of this year for attacking an officer and causing a bit of property damage. Unfortunately, there's not much else on record about that arrest or her (apparently very checkered) prior history other than a collection of mugshot ranging from completely adorable to slightly intimidating.But on Monday, March 4 of 2013, 21-year-old Madison Pelfrey of Stamford, Flordia found out just how crazy Cassi could get. At approximately 5:00 PM, Madison was observed throwing her trash onto the beach. This desecration of her natural habitat enraged Cassi, who approached the litter bug and began screaming at her.The argument between the pair continued to escalate to the point where things got physical. That's when Cassi promptly ended the altercation by biting into Madison's right cheek Cassi Lyn Clayton was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery. She was also released from custody...so if you happen to be Spring Breaking in Key West over the next two months, please make sure to properly dispose of your garbage and/or recyclable materials.

Zabibah and the King (Arabic: زبيبة والملك‎ Zabībah wal-Malik) is a romance novel, originally published anonymously in Iraq in 2000,[1] that was written by Saddam Hussein. Characters [ edit ] Plot summary [ edit ] The plot is a love story about a powerful ruler of medieval Iraq and a beautiful commoner girl named Zabibah. Zabibah's husband is a cruel and unloving man who rapes her. The book is set in 7th or 8th century Tikrit, Hussein's home town. Although the book is on the surface a romance novel, it is (and was intended to be read as) an allegory. The hero is Hussein and Zabibah represents the Iraqi people. The vicious husband is the United States and his rape of Zabibah represents the U.S. invasion of Iraq at the end of the Gulf War, as illustrated by the date of the rape being January 17--the same date that U.S. led forces commenced the 1991 offensive that drove Iraq out of Kuwait.[2] In the novel, the king dies after capturing the rapists and avenging the honor of Zabibah.[2] Distribution [ edit ] The book was a best seller in Iraq when it was originally published for 1,500 dinars (about US$0.50). It is estimated that over one million copies were sold.[3] Royalties, according to the back cover, were to go to "the poor, the orphans, the miserable, the needy, and [other] charities".[1] The Iraqi publishers appropriated four paintings by Canadian artist Jonathon Earl Bowser, to illustrate the novel, putting his "The Awakening" on the cover. Bowser did not authorize their use of his work and has attempted with no success to obtain compensation for copyright infringement.[3] Authorship [ edit ] The U.S. CIA believes that it was written by ghostwriters with the direct influence of Saddam.[4] Adaptations [ edit ] Cover of the English edition of the novel. A twenty part television series, and a musical based on it, were later produced.[1][2] Before its release, it was rumored that the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy film The Dictator (2012) was adapted from the novel.[5][6] The book is also featured in Matt Ruff's alternate history novel The Mirage (2012), where in the novel's narrative it serves as an equivalent to O. J. Simpson's If I Did It (2007). Zabibah and the King and Lynne Cheney's novel Sisters are the subject of Taylor Mac's song 'The Palace of the End'.

Chicken tender offer A meat giant gobbles up another meat giant We live in the era of meat mergers. In recent decades animal-farming companies, gobbling up competitors, became giants. Then those giants merged. Now, a meat titan is coming back for seconds. The New York Times is reporting that Tyson has been successful in its hostile-takeover bid for Hillshire Brands. Measured in dollars, the $6.1 billion purchase is the largest consolidation in the industry ever — though other mergers have meant more when measured in terms of impact on farmers and consumers. Anti-trust experts say the deal won’t create an illegal monopoly, according to Reuters, because the two companies don’t directly compete. Hillshire is in the business of selling meat to us: It owns Jimmy Dean (sausages), Ball Park (hot dogs), Sara Lee, Aidells, and others, controlling 32 percent of the breakfast sausage market, the Wall Street Journal reports. Tyson is in the business of producing meat: It owns slaughterhouses and packing plants — though it also sells to eaters. Christopher Leonard, author of The Meat Racket, has made a convincing case that Tyson was already big enough to manipulate prices (it produces one in every five pounds of meat in the U.S.), so I asked him about the implications of this acquisition. Even if this deal doesn’t violate anti-trust law, there are problems with this kind of consolidation, he said. “When all the power is so centralized in these behemoths, they end up writing their own rules in Congress and fighting the reforms to protect consumers and farmers,” he said. When the Obama administration sought to reform the animal farming industry, many farmers, some visibly frightened, risked their livelihoods by speaking publicly about abuses. But industry squelched that attempt. Now, the industry lobbyists are working to reduce the number of inspectors in slaughterhouses, while speeding up the lines. There is some logic to this, Leonard said, because producers will compensate by conducting more testing for pathogens. But the chickens already move down the disassembly lines “obscenely fast, in my opinion,” Leonard said. These companies also have the clout to fight environmental regulations. Tyson works to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but at the same time it pays farmers so little that they have little choice but to pollute. The deal does have a small silver lining: Tyson’s victory means that its competitor JBS — the largest meat producer in the world, which owns Pilgrim’s Pride — lost. “I like to keep my oligarchies all-American,” Leonard joked. (JBS is based in Brazil.) “But to be honest, what bothers me is the loss of local control. Local communities don’t keep the profits, and they lose control over their economies. And now that’s moved from the little chicken towns to an international scale.” It’s not much of a silver lining. JBS may be the largest meat producer in the world, but Tyson is the second largest. If we want a change from this era of meat mergers, we’d need to pass tough anti-trust laws, Leonard said, as we did in 1921.

You’ve got to pay to play, and that’s especially true if you want to play PC games with Nvidia’s most powerful graphics option: two GeForce GTX 1080 cards in SLI. Not only will the cards themselves cost you royally ($599 each at a minimum), but you’ll also have to throw down $40 for a new, special SLI HB Bridge, so says Nvidia. The HB Bridge is required, Nvidia claims, because the GeForce GTX 1080 cards pass so much data under heavy loads that older bridges just can’t keep up (the HB stands for “high bandwidth,” mind you). The company says the HB Bridge will transfer data at 650MHz on GeForce GTX 1080 cards compared to the 400MHz that older GeForce cards achieve with soft bridges, such as those that come bundled with a motherboard or GPU. The older soft bridges will still work, but only up to a point. You can also use the aftermarket fancy SLI bridges that sold with the last gen of cards, but even those won’t achieve maximum potential, according to Nvidia. As if plunking down more money for a new SLI bridge weren’t bad enough, getting the HB Bridge seems to be a difficult task. They’ve been sold out on Nvidia’s site, and even PC OEMs say they’re hard to come by. Good luck getting the SLI HB Bridge. They were sold out whenever we checked over the past couple weeks. We were fortunate enough to have Digital Storm’s tricked-out Aventum 3 PC in house, which features two liquid-cooled GTX 1080 cards in SLI, using the SLI HB Bridge, naturally. Like the previous "Pro" bridges, the HB Bridge consists of a hard PCB that uses both connectors on the GPUs. Gordon Mah Ung A view of the back of the HB Bridge, and a closer look at the connectors below. Gordon Mah UngA closer look at the connectors. Normally, the HB Bridge comes with a fancy black-and-silver cover, but Digital Storm removed that in the Aventum 3 to accommodate the water block. Gordon Mah Ung The front of the HB Bridge with its cover removed. The small connector in the PCB connects to an LED. Putting it to the Test But who cares how it looks, right? You want to know if Nvidia is selling you snake oil. To test the necessity of using the new HB Bridge over a standard flexible SLI bridge solution, I ran a series of benchmarks on the Aventum 3 with three different scenarios: the HB Bridge, a single flexible SLI bridge, and two flexible SLI bridges in tandem. While conventional wisdom used to be that a single bridge was sufficient for a two-card setup, there’s been a growing belief that two bridges are “better.” In fact, one PC OEM told me he’s heard anecdotal reports of two soft bridges working nearly as well as the HB Bridge. While I would have liked to have tested a previous-gen Pro bridge as well, I did not have one on hand for this comparison. 3DMark FireStrike Ultra performance For the first test, I turned to 3DMark Extreme Ultra, which runs at 4K UHD resolution. What I focus on here is the graphics portion of the test. The results indeed show that the HB Bridge yields higher performance but it’s pretty insignificant. You’d likely get more value buying a $40 mouse pad. The results form 3DMark FireStrike Ultra make the old soft bridges look pretty good. Far Cry Primal Performance Of course, 3DMark is just a synthetic test. Next I turned to a real game, Far Cry Primal set to Ultra and at 4K res. Same underwhelming results. And no, this isn’t some SLI scaling issue, as going from one GeForce GTX 1080 to two yielded a considerable performance increase. It just seems like that fancy bridge doesn’t matter much. Far Cry Primal at 4K UHD on Ultra settings doesn’t care about that fancy bridge either. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor performance We finally start to see the HB Bridge make a difference in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. I ran the game at 4K resolution with the 4K texture pack installed. Still, that roughly 10 percent difference isn’t going to set the world on fire. Middle-earth shows a minor delta between the fancy bridge and freebies. Whoa now, let’s not jump to conclusions Before your eyes glaze over and you decide you don’t need to see any more—that the internet conspiracy theory is true: “Nvidia’s just ripping us off; the free bridges work just fine!”—there’s more to be said. Nvidia claims that its fancy bridge is actually paying off in ways that your eyes can see but benchmarks won’t record. That’s because benchmarks often report the frame rate but don’t tell you about the frame “quality.” That’s especially critical in multi-GPU configurations, where the timing involved in delivering both cards’ output to the screen can result in visual artifacting called “micro-stuttering.” “Measuring frame time data you would see how the extra bandwidth smooths out delivery of the frames for a more consistent game experience,” an Nvidia official said. While I didn’t have time to use Nvidia’s Frame Capture Analysis Tool for this story, I will say that in my personal experience of watching repeatable benchmarks, I observed more artifacts with the soft bridges than the HB Bridge. I also saw the HB Bridge pay off pretty big measurable returns in some games. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Moving on to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, we can see a roughly 15 percent gap open up between the soft bridges and the $40 HB Bridge. Rainbow Six Siege shows a nice return on investment for that $40. Tom Clancy’s The Division Our biggest return on investment comes from Tom Clancy’s The Division where we see a massive gulf of roughly 25 percent open up between the free bridges and the HB Bridge. As with the other games here, I ran The Division on the Ultra setting at 4K resolution. Tom Clancy’s The Division makes that fancy $40 HB Bridge seem worth it. I was curious about the delta if I ran The Division at 5K resolution, or 5120x2880. That’s about 14.7 million pixels vs. a typical 4K UHD panel’s 8.2 million pixels. With the massive increase in output, you can see that higher-bandwidth bridge really paying off. Crank the resolution up to 5K and the gap grows even larger with the HB Bridge. Maximum frame rates too The final proof that Nvidia isn’t just bilking us is evident in the maximum frame rate. With Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor running at 5K, the average frame rate is pretty, well, average, with the HB Bridge: 79.6fps vs. the soft bridges’ 74.9fps. When you look at the maximum frame rate in the game, however, the HB Bridge has a clear performance advantage. So yes, that HB Bridge is doing something positive. Maximum frame rate in Middle-earth. Conclusion The final answer may seem a little muddled but it’s pretty crystal clear to me. First, Nvidia says you really don’t need the HB Bridge if you’re playing games at 1920x1080 or 2560x1440—you can stick with your old soft bridges. But why bother? If you’re using a pair of GeForce GTX 1080 cards to play at such a low resolution, you’re doing it wrong. That’s just too much GPU for the job. At resolutions of 4K and 5K, the tests show that it’s not worth cheaping out on the $40 HB Bridge, especially after you just put out $1,200 or more for a pair of the world’s fastest GPUs. So just deal with paying for the bridge—if you can find one, that is—since you’re already in for a pound. Gordon Mah Ung If you’re really pushing the resolution, then don’t cheap out by trying to reuse those old SLI bridges.

Once again, classical music-loving travelers will be faced with a staggering abundance of performance options at the hundreds of music festivals that dot the American summer landscape. Following is a selective guide to some of the more interesting, promising and/or noteworthy cultural destinations, presented by region and in alphabetical order. As always, programs and dates are subject to change and should be verified. Midwest Cincinnati May Festival, May 19-27; Cincinnati: The city's oldest arts organization welcomes Gerard McBurney as creative partner for a series of concerts including Bach's B-minor Mass (led by Harry Bicket), Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Elgar's "The Dream of Gerontius" and more. Other conductors include Markus Stenz, Michael Francis and Matthew Halls. Pending the completion of the renovation of Cincinnati Music Hall, performances will take place at the Taft Theater. 513-381-3300, www.mayfestival.com Des Moines Metro Opera, June 23-July 16; Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa: The highlight of the 45th festival summer promises to be Benjamin Britten's "Billy Budd," in a new edition by Britten scholar Steuart Bedford. Rounding out the schedule will be Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," Piazzolla's "Maria de Buenos Aires" and Puccini's "Turandot." 515-961-6221; www.dmmo.org Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest, July 21-Aug. 5; Minneapolis: Two milestones will be observed — Andrew Litton's 15th and final season as artistic director and the 90th birthday of trumpeter Doc Severinsen, Sommerfest's Pops conductor laureate. Litton's operatic finale will be a concert version of Strauss' "Salome," starring Patricia Racette. 612-371-5656; www.minnesotaorchestra.org North Shore Chamber Music Festival, June 7-10; Village Presbyterian Church, 1300 Shermer Road, Northbrook: Directors Vadim Gluzman, violin, and Angela Yoffe, piano, will preside over the seventh edition, which will include performances by the Escher String Quartet; a mostly Mozart gala with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, Ohio, under David Danzmayr; and pianist-composer Adam Neiman leading the festival's first commissioned work. 847-370-3984; www.nscmf.org Opera Theater of St. Louis, May 20-June 25; Loretto-Hilton Center, Webster University, Webster Groves, Mo.: The 45th festival of operas in English will bring the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass' "The Trial," based on Franz Kafka's novel; a new performing version of "The Grapes of Wrath" by Ricky Ian Gordon; Puccini's "Madame Butterfly"; and Mozart's "Titus" ("La Clemenza di Tito"). 312-961-0044; www.experienceopera.org Peninsula Music Festival, Aug. 1-19; Door Community Auditorium, Fish Creek, Wis.: Surrounded by the natural beauty of Door County, the 65th summer fest under music director Victor Yampolsky will emphasize the music of Dvorak and his contemporaries in three programs. Soloists include pianists Vasily Primakov and Jon Kimura Parker; violinists James Ehnes and Anna Lee; and cellist Mark Kosower. 920-854-4060; www.musicfestival.com West Aspen Music Festival and School, June 29-Aug. 20; Aspen, Colo.: With more than 400 orchestral concerts, recitals, master classes and world premieres, the 69th season offers something for practically every musical taste, with the Colorado Rockies as a magnificent backdrop. "Enchantment" is the theme for programs under music director Robert Spano, including Berlioz's "The Damnation of Faust" and Ravel's "L'enfant et les Sortileges." Soloists include Renee Fleming, Sarah Chang, Gil Shaham, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Conrad Tao, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Sharon Isbin. 970-925-9042; www.aspenmusicfestival.com Bravo! Vail Music Festival, June 22-Aug. 3; Vail, Colo.: The 30th season will feature residencies by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Five commissioned works will receive world premieres. Dozens of performances and programs for all ages will feature such guest artists as Leonidas Kavakos, Steven Isserlis and Yefim Bronfman, framed by the scenic vistas of Vail Valley. 877-812-5700; www.bravovail.org Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, July 30-Aug. 12; Santa Cruz, Calif.: America's longest-running festival of new orchestral works celebrates the arrival of Cristian Macelaru as music director with a series of commissions that further its commitment to the music of today. Composers in residence include Clarice Assad, Gerald Barry, William Bolcom, Michael Gandolfi, Jake Heggie and David T. Little. 831-426-6966; www.cabrillomusic.org Music Academy of the West Summer Festival, June 12-Aug. 5; Santa Barbara, Calif.: The seaside festival turns 70 with a packed schedule that includes orchestra, chamber and solo concerts, 10 premieres and a new piano competition. In his final appearance as music director of the resident New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert will conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, an outdoor performance billed as the largest classical music event in local history. 805-969-8787; www.musicacademy.org Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute, July 14-Aug. 5; Atherton, Calif.: The theme of the 15th anniversary season is "The Glorious Violin," exploring the evolution of violin playing and composition and its impact on the musical landscape. Artistic directors David Finckel, cello, and Wu Han, piano, will oversee more than 50 events, including concerts by international artists and an institute for emerging professional chamber musicians. 650-331-0202; www.musicatmenlo.org

Malware dubbed Mayhem is spreading through Linux and FreeBSD web servers, researchers say. The software nasty uses a grab bag of plugins to cause mischief, and infects systems that are not up to date with security patches. Andrej Kovalev, Konstantin Ostrashkevich and Evgeny Sidorov, who work at Russian internet portal Yandex, discovered the malware targeting *nix servers. They traced transmissions from compromised computers to two command and control (C&C) servers. So far they have found 1,400 machines that have fallen to the code, with potentially thousands more to come. "In the *nix world, autoupdate technologies aren't widely used, especially in comparison with desktops and smartphones. The vast majority of web masters and system administrators have to update their software manually and test that their infrastructure works correctly," the trio wrote in a technical report for Virus Bulletin. "For ordinary websites, serious maintenance is quite expensive and often webmasters don't have an opportunity to do it. This means it is easy for hackers to find vulnerable web servers and to use such servers in their botnets." Mayhem spreads by finding servers hosting websites with a remote file inclusion (RFI) vulnerability – it even uses Google's /humans.txt to test for this. If the ad giant rewrote this file, specifically changing the words "we can shake", Mayhem infections would be slowed – until its rfiscan.so plugin is updated. Once the malware exploits an RFI, or some other weakness, to run a PHP script on a victim, it drops a shared object called libworker.so onto the infected system and pings its C&C servers. It then creates a hidden file system, usually called sd0, and downloads eight plugins, none of which were picked up by the VirusTotal malware scanning tool. These include a couple of brute-force password crackers targeting FTP, Wordpress and Joomla accounts – presumably to spread the malware further – and information-gathering web crawlers, one of which hunts for other sites with RFI holes. Some of the vulnerable web applications Mayhem scans for ... click for slightly larger version (Credit: Kovalev, Otrashkevich, Sidorov) The Yandex trio warn there may be other plugins in circulation, based on data found on the two cracked C&C servers. These include a tool specifically to exploit systems that haven't patched the Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL. The team notes that the Mayhem code does bear several similarities to the Trololo_mod and Effusion families of malware, which target Apache and Nginx servers respectively. They recommend system administrators check their servers to make sure Mayhem's spread is limited. ®

Democrats, Paranoia, And Political Violence Michael Tracey Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jun 15, 2017 The contemporary trend of making authoritative extrapolations based on the Facebook “likes” of an alleged assailant often leads amateur sleuths on pointless wild goose chases. It’s difficult to discern with absolute certainty someone’s true political/moral/religious views after a several-hour colloquy, never mind a cursory Facebook skim. Yet, in the aftermath of violent incidents, a person’s social media behavior is frequently taken as dispositive of motivation. Though it’s possible sometimes to make inferences based on Facebook, the idea that you can get a complete character profile based on perusing someone’s online postings is asinine. That said, we do know that Wednesday’s congressional attacker, James Hodgkinson, shared a conspiracy-tinged Change.org link on March 22, accompanied by the caption, “Trump is a traitor.” Once again, it has to be stressed that this information is woefully insufficient to conclude that the perpetrator was motivated by Russia-oriented conspiracy theories. Motivations are multifaceted, and often political beliefs “intersect” with mental distress, causing people to act violently. But the sharing of the link does indicate that Hodgkinson has been affected by the frenzied climate Democrats have stoked around the Russia issue. Once again, for extra emphasis: calling attention to the link Hodgkinson shared is not to say that Democrats are directly culpable for this shooting. That would be ridiculous. But the shared link does show that he was to some extent enmeshed in the conspiratorial paranoia that Democrats have knowingly fostered, at full-blast, for approaching an entire year. One ancillary consequence of fostering conspiratorial paranoia for a full year is that certain people with unstable mental predispositions may latch on and commit violent acts. But Democrats and liberals, in their self-assuredness, have been reticent to acknowledge this byproduct of their current political strategy. Proclaiming that the president engaged in treason — as many members of Congress and media figures have — is going to have an influence on the broader public, and included in that broader public are people who might be deranged and/or have violent inclinations. If you deny that the kind of overblown rhetoric that Democrats have specialized in over the past months — warning about traitorous subterfuge and foreign infiltration — can have any trickle-down effect on regular people, you’re deluding yourself. And yes, this same principle applies across the board. Republicans and conservatives who wail delusionally about Sharia Law and the usurpation of American institutions by scheming Muslims also have this effect. Given that Islam-obsessives promote a political ideology that reeks of paranoia and conspiratorial fancy, it should be no surprise that disturbed individuals occasionally latch on to these beliefs and commit acts of violence. When this occurs, the act can be reasonably attributed to the right-wing provocateurs who have spewed such propaganda for such an extended period of time. Does that mean you can assign direct culpability to any given provocateur for any given violent act? No. To do that would be to make an unfounded claim of causation, and establishing causation is inherently tenuous in these situations. But it’s ridiculous to suggest that political beliefs can’t motivate unstable people to act in certain ways, including in ways that bring about violence. After an attack on the Canadian parliament by a self-styled ISIS devotee in December 2014, Jeet Heer wrote: What seems to be the problem, rather, is the fusion of radical jihadist ideology with other personal problems, whether they be alienation, anomie, or various shades of mental illness […] For a person radicalized in this manner, the fantasy of political violence is a chance to gain agency, make history, and be part of something larger. Jeet stresses that these incidents are almost invariably multi-causal. And to be clear, we don’t have any hard evidence yet that Hodgkinson was mentally ill in a classically diagnosable sense. Still, the fallacy that right-wing trolls are engaged in today is concluding that mono-causal motivation can be attributed on the basis of Hodgkinson’s Facebook posts alone. But it’s equally folly to deny that a person can be influenced to act by their political beliefs. Just this Tuesday, Sen. Kamala Harris showed just how insidious Democrats’ paranoia has become. Coursing through the hearing and the line of inquiry pursued by Democrats was the idea that meeting with Russian state officials ought to be regarded as intrinsically sinister and/or suspicious, and that any such meetings ought to be regarded as evidence of untoward relations between the Trump campaign/administration and Russia. Marco Rubio reminded us that these suspicions are thoroughly bipartisan in nature when he asked Jeff Sessions to reach back into his memory bank and try to deduce whether he had encounters “at any point during the campaign” with a Russian “businessman, or anyone walking down the street” which “in hindsight, appears suspicious.” But Harris took it to another level when she demanded to know whether Sessions had interfaced with “any Russian businessmen or any Russian nationals.” In doing so, Harris expanded the ‘zone of suspicion’ beyond Russian state actors to anyone of Russian nationality. It’s really not hard to imagine how such logic might manifest in extreme acts undertaken by people who take the “Russians behind every bush” allegations seriously. Whether or not Hodgkinson was motivated by Russia hysteria, we’ll probably never know. But we do know that Democrats have engendered an increasingly unhinged political environment. (As, in other ways, has Trump.) Accordingly, Democrats bear responsibility for their role in fostering that environment, a consequence of which is that large portions of the left/liberal grassroots have been driven insane with fantasies of treason and Manchurian Candidate plots. It’s a huge leap to suggest that individual Democrats bear responsibility for any individual act of violence, given the multi-causal reasons why someone might do a thing like this. But ignoring the paranoia that has been stoked is equally wrongheaded.

Egypt's official religious institution tasked with drafting edicts has found 3,000 fatwas (religious edicts) issued by extremists that incite the destruction of churches in the country, Egypt’s Grand Mufti, Dr. Shawki Allam, said on Friday. Dr. Allam rejected the existence of these fatwas, saying: “human diversity is inevitable and divine … the oppression of religions is rejected by law because human relations are a divine formula to achieve coexistence and renounce discord.” The extremist fatwas rejected coexistence between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Towards the end of 2016, 25 people were killed and 31 wounded in an explosion that targeted the Cathedral of Saint Mark in the Abbasia district in Cairo. A nun cries as she stands at the scene inside Cairo's Coptic cathedral, following a bombing, in Egypt December 11, 2016. (Reuters) The Mufti said that “all attempts aiming to divide between the Muslims and Christians of Egypt have failed.” He added: “Muslims had never destroyed any kind of heritage after their historic victories in foreign countries, in contrary to what ISIS and other extremists are doing now.” He said that they have also found “fatwas inciting the demolition of Cairo and Giza heritage sites, in an explicit violation to the way Islam deals with heritage.” Last Update: Saturday, 1 April 2017 KSA 08:46 - GMT 05:46

Kingdom’s justice ministry announces move to ‘protect the rights of the woman’, ending practice of only supplying document to husbands Saudi Arabia gives women the right to a copy of their marriage contract Saudi brides will now get a copy of their marriage contracts, a privilege that was previously exclusive to men in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the kingdom’s justice ministry has announced. According to a directorate issued by the justice minister, Walid al-Samaani, clerics who register marriage contracts will now have to hand a copy to the bride “to ensure her awareness of her rights and the terms of the contract”. The suffragettes of Saudi Arabia: 'We try and be reasonable calling for our rights' Read more The decision aims to “protect the rights of the woman and facilitate procedures for her”, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency. It said the decision took into consideration that a woman would need a copy of her marriage contract in case of a dispute with her husband and in court. Women need the permission of their male guardians to get married under Saudi Arabia’s interpretations of Islamic law. They also need that permission to travel and work, in a country where they are not allowed to drive and have to cover from head to toe when in public.

Media playback is not supported on this device FA Cup: Scunthorpe 2-2 Chesterfield Jay O'Shea grabbed a late equaliser as Chesterfield battled back to earn an FA Cup replay from a pulsating third-round tie against Scunthorpe. The Iron led thanks to on-loan Chelsea defender Alex Davey's first senior goal and it was 2-0 just before the break when Lyle Taylor ran through to net after a Ritchie Humphreys error. Eoin Doyle's penalty - his 22nd goal this season - gave the visitors hope. And O'Shea struck to make it 2-2 from a Gary Roberts cross to earn a replay. The Spireites, who had to beat MK Dons twice because of an administrative error to reach this stage, showed great spirit to finally break stubborn home resistance and find a way past inspired home keeper Sam Slocombe. Watch every FA Cup goal Click here to find highlights from every game After Davey smashed in a superb opener from the edge of the box, Slocombe made fine saves from Doyle and Armand Gnanduillet to keep the hosts ahead. But a careless back header by Humphreys gifted Scunthorpe a second goal, Taylor showing great composure to run through and beat Tommy Lee. Chesterfield continued to have the upper hand after the interval, forcing more heroics from Slocombe, who denied Gnanduillet, Sam Clucas and Roberts. However, Doyle struck from the penalty spot after Roberts was fouled to make it 2-1. Then, with five minutes left, O'Shea converted Roberts' cross from 10 yards to ensure both sides can still reach the fourth round, where a tie at Championship side Derby County awaits.

A 20-year-old Kansas City woman mysteriously vanished early Sunday morning after being pulled over by police after work — and her family is growing increasingly worried and confused. “None of it makes sense,” Toni Anderson’s mother, Liz Anderson, says of her disappearance. “She could be anywhere at this point.” Toni left work at the Chrome Club shortly after 4 a.m. to meet up with a friend, Kansas City police tell PEOPLE. But she never made it. She was pulled over at 4:30 a.m. by a North Kansas City, Missouri, police officer — a separate jurisdiction from Kansas City — for a routine traffic stop for an illegal lane change, which resulted in a warning. She then stopped for gas, police confirm. Liz Anderson tells PEOPLE her daughter’s debit card was declined at 4:33. At 4:42, she texted her friend, “OMG just got pulled over again.” It is not clear if she was referring to the 4:30 traffic stop or a subsequent one. She has not been heard from since, though she received an incoming call at 4:53. The investigation is being handled by Kansas City, Missouri, police. A spokesman tells PEOPLE there are no signs of foul play, and that they believe the text message refers to the traffic stop by North Kansas City police. But he says, “As time goes on, it is concerning.” To Toni’s mother, the phrasing of that final text does not sit well with her. “I don’t understand why she would write ‘I’m getting pulled over again’ in the same night,” Anderson says. “It just keeps resonating in my brain ‘again,’ ‘again’ … that’s just odd to me.” • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. The day after she went missing, someone on a local Facebook community page warned other users about a person allegedly pretending to be a police officer driving around. “I called 911 as he scared me half to death and almost caused several accidents. Who knows what would have happened had this person gotten someone to pull over and stop,” the woman writes. “When in doubt … call 911 for verification that the vehicle is a police officer. This person clearly was not,” she continues. Toni’s friend, Roxanne Townsend, received the scrutinized text that morning, Anderson tells PEOPLE. “We’ve called every police station, every jail, every hospital, and no one seems to have her,” Townsend told KSHB. ‘You Can’t Imagine the Horror’ Anderson’s family, friends and colleagues are cooperating with investigators, according to police. Police say they have heard no reason to believe Toni is in danger other than the fact that she has no history of running away. “She’s just a beautiful, smart, intelligent, hard working, kind and loving person,” Anderson says. “We just want her back home.” Toni is a sophomore at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, where she studies marketing. In her free time, she reviews music festivals around the country for blogs, Anderson says. According to Anderson, her daughter’s 2014 Ford Focus had a tracking device that sent out pings every eight or 10 seconds for insurance reasons. On the morning of her disappearance, the tracking device sent out its final ping from the gas station. “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” Anderson says. “I have no clue — it’s just bizarre.” • Pick up PEOPLE’s special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBenét Ramsey and more. After several days of searching, Anderson tells PEOPLE she is choosing to stay positive for Toni’s sake. “You can’t imagine the horror of your child missing until you go through it,” she says through tears. “You just don’t know, and we’re just trying to get her message out there, trying to get her face out there to as many places as we can. “I’m trying to just focus on that, I don’t want to focus on my feelings,” Anderson continues. “I’m trying to be strong for my daughter.” Toni has blonde hair, green eyes and is roughly 5 feet 5 inches tall. She was last seen driving her 2014 black Ford Focus. Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is urged to call police at 816-474-TIPS.

EDMONTON — Cross-border trade and the looming renegotiation of NAFTA top the agenda of the upcoming summer gathering of Canada’s premiers, says host Rachel Notley. Notley says the premiers will hear from Canada’s ambassador to the United States at the meeting of what is known as the Council of the Federation. “We will be focusing mostly on economic matters beginning with a visit from Ambassador David MacNaughton talking about the work that he’s doing in the United States (and) all of us talking about the work that we’ve being doing in terms of building the relationships in the U.S.,” said Notley in an interview. Negotiations are set to begin next month on a re-working of the tripartite 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration formally gave notice in May it wants to renegotiate the deal, labelling it obsolete and unfair to American workers. Trade between Canada and the U.S. is pegged at $600 billion. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other premiers have been working with state governors to build cross-border support for the deal. Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said it’s critical premiers have their voices heard, noting the bulk of his province’s billion-dollar rubber exports and lucrative seafood products go to U.S. markets. “We’re not afraid to have NAFTA looked at and negotiated but I think it’s important that it doesn’t drag on,” said McNeil. “We need to make sure investment confidence is still high.” Premier Wade MacLauchlan of Prince Edward Island said: “We have been the beneficiaries of a growing export economy and intend for that to continue to be the case. We are absolutely for the maintenance of NAFTA and the importance of that trading relationship.” New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant said he will talk NAFTA, but also for opportunities beyond the continent. “There are opportunities with the comprehensive economic trade agreement between Canada and the European Union and certainly opportunities to see some of the growth in the Asian markets,” said Gallant. Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister wants to address domestic issues as well, including the growing number of refugee claimants crossing into Manitoba from the United States. “I am going to reiterate our call for increased federal partnership and federal resources to improve the processing of asylum claims, for example, (and) to call on the federal government to work with affected provinces and territories to develop a long-term strategy,” said Pallister. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s office said her priority is trade with the U.S., but she will also discuss infrastructure spending and pharmacare. Dwight Ball, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, said he will solicit ideas on job creation, infrastructure investment, skills training and health-care innovations. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard is expected to speak to his counterparts about his recently released constitutional initiative. The document outlining Couillard’s thinking about Quebec’s place within Canada is entitled “Quebecers: Our Way of Being Canadians.” He has said the goal of his government’s proposal is to “start a dialogue” he hopes will eventually lead to the reopening of constitutional negotiations and to Quebec finally signing the 1982 Constitution. B.C. premier-designate John Horgan will not be attending. He is being sworn in on Tuesday. The province is sending government staffers. Other issues on the agenda include plans to regulate the legalization of recreational cannabis use on July 1, 2018. The provinces will be responsible for implementing regulations on cannabis use, including where and how it is sold, whether the legal age should be higher than 18, keeping roads and workplaces safe, and keeping marijuana out of the hands of children. Notley said provinces will also discuss the fallout from the Supreme Court’s year-old decision in the landmark Jordan case, which delivers hard deadlines to bring criminal cases to trial. More than 200 cases have already been tossed out due to unreasonable delays. The Council of the Federation will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Monday, the premiers are to convene with Indigenous leaders, but that meeting is up in the air. Three of the five First Nations groups announced on Friday they will boycott the meeting, because they believe they should be part of the full Council of the Federation. The Assembly of First Nations, the Metis National Council and the Inuit Tapirit Kanatami have said they will instead hold a news conference in Toronto on Monday.

Today’s WeChat Essential Tip is a little more advanced. We are going to give you a step by step guide on how to set up your own personal shop and start selling on WeChat using Weidian (English name: YouShop). Yes, you too can be part of the Chinese mobile commerce revolution! This article will cover the following: Background info: Weidian basics Download and Registration Process Linking a bank card Setting up your products Promoting your products on WeChat Background info: Weidian basics You can think of Weidian as the mid-ground where Wechat meets Taobao. Weidian’s mobile commerce platform is based on social relationships with no centralized entry point. The industry tends to describe Weidian as a ‘decentralized’ business model. You can post your products information across a wide variety of social media platforms, not only WeChat. Weidian, backed by Tencent, has an ultra streamlined registration and administration processes which makes it simple for anyone to sell goods or services. Things you need to set up your Weidian: A Chinese person’s ID card number The details of a Chinese bank account in that person’s name Things you don’t need to set up your Weidian: A Deposit (the process is entirely free) A Business License Some things to sell (you can act as an agent to sell other people’s things if you wish) Registration Process Step 1: Download and install the Weidian app Search for 微店 (weidian) on the App store or any Chinese Android App Store Alternatively download directly from the official wesite: http://www.weidian.com/ Opening the app and flicking through the intro pages will take you to the login / register page We suggest you skip the normal registering process and just go straight for 微信登录 (login with WeChat). It will ask you to authorize the app to access your personal WeChat info. You will need to input the phone number that you wish to bond to the account. The app will send a message to that phone number with a code for you to input confirming the number is in fact yours. Once you are all done, you can reach the home screen of the app. Where you can see the following options: Swiping to the right reveals further options The little red button at the bottom of the screen has links to lots of tutorials and videos to help you use the app. These will be very useful if your Chinese is good enough to follow. Linking a bank card Okay, so next step. Let’s link that bank card up so we can take payments. Let’s click on the pink ‘Income’ (收入) button at the bottom right, taking us to this page. Select (我的银行卡) ‘My Bank Card’ Now it’s time to get your Chinese friend’s ID card and bank card info, you will need to input it. Once set up and linked you should see a screen like this when selecting (我的银行卡)’My Bank Card’ showing the details of the card linked. You can only link 1 card. Setting up your products Okay now onto the fun part: adding our products. Lets go to the green button in the top right ‘My Products’ You will be met with this screen Setting up a new product is very easy. Add a picture, add a note, fill in your price, inventory amount and a model number (if appropriate). Click (完成) ‘complete’ in the top right when done. Promoting your products on WeChat Upon adding your product, you will be prompted with the following message to share. So you’re ready to go, let’s post our book on our moments first (朋友圈 the 2nd option) After adding a comment, it will appear like this: Similarly posting to a group or chat (微信 the 1st option) will appear like this: Now let’s imagine your friend wants to buy the product. Clicking on the link brings up a page featuring the product with a nice big red buy now button at the bottom. The payment process has several pages where you must confirm various things. The page below is an important option. You can choose to make a direct payment to the seller or take the recommended option of a secured payment, which means the payment will be held from the seller until you confirm that you have received the good. And that’s it. Your first customer has bought your first product. Congratulations! As a final side note, Weidian also has its desktop friendly web browser version that can be found here: http://d.weidian.com/vshop/1/CPC/login.php Alternatives to Weidian Despite what you may be starting to think, this article is not an advert for Weidian, we promise. There are several alternatives to Weidian using a similar model of sales: Youzan 有赞: http://youzan.com/ Paipai : http://wd.paipai.com/ V店 http://vd.cn/ (a rather unfortunate web address) China Channel is in no way associated with Weidian. This article was based on Weidian app for Android Version 5.4.0 Join us tomorrow for our next article in the WeChat Essential Tips series where we will be giving away more free info on WeChat. Follow us on WeChat by scanning the QR code to follow our official account.

at home with AT HOME WITH MATT PIERCE Owner of Wood & Faulk, Portland, OR TARIQ DIXON Sept 16, 2014 | BY Matt Pierce, founder of the artisan brand Wood & Faulk, is a self-described 'tinkerer.' A designer by trade, Matt has been tearing things apart and rebuilding them since his early days in Kansas. We first learned of Mr. Pierce after stumbling upon his beautiful collection of waxed canvas bags - little did we know, Wood & Faulk started only three years prior as a humble DIY blog. Looking for another outlet to explore his passion for creating, Matt began posting his personal secrets for everything from pickling brussels to reclaiming old barn doors. Enthusiasm for his nifty tips quickly compounded, and his lil' ole website soon evolved into a full collection of hand-crafted leather goods. When planning our recent trip to Portland, Mr. Pierce was top of mind, assuming his brand's rugged, yet sleek qualities would translate to a wonderfully masculine and unique home. Certainly, our intuitions didn't fail us. We were thrilled when Matt invited us to spend an afternoon at his incredibly charming, century-old bungalow. Naturally opting for a fixer-upper upon moving to Portland seven years ago, Matt walks us through the process for transforming the historic, but somewhat ailing space into his ideal, lifelong home. We were especially impressed by the personal hand he applies to everything he keeps in his company - from reviving an old Eames lounger himself, to creating a dining table from his home's original ceiling beams. Check out the full tour of Matt's custom-fitted bungalow, and to shop the products inspired by his eclectic style.

Image copyright Ellie Wilkie Image caption Ellie Wilkie shared this image with her father along with their story It's an innocent picture of a man and his daughter, but the emotional story behind it has been shared by thousands of people online. Ellie Wilkie from Edinburgh posted the image on Twitter on Wednesday evening to praise her dad's struggle with mental illness. Skip Twitter post by @ellzthelephant This year began with my dad mentally suffering depression and suicide attempt. Today he ends the year starting his new career in becoming a recovery support worker. Words can’t describe how proud we are #breakthestigma It’s okay not to be okay❤️ pic.twitter.com/HyUu3ZeO2S — Ellie Wilkie (@ellzthelephant) November 22, 2017 Report By Thursday morning, her post had been retweeted by more than 8,000 people and liked by almost 60,000. The words resonated with so many the BBC asked her to share the story behind it. Image copyright Brian Wilkie Image caption Brian says: "My family have been my rock. It's not been easy. It's been a huge effort, but there is light at the end of the tunnel." "This is my dad Brian Wilkie. He suffered bad depression after the passing of our eldest stepbrother, who died from suicide in June 2014. His name was Jordan. "The space in my dad's head became dark. He no longer saw a point to life without Jordan. "In January my dad attempted suicide in the family home. The effect was devastating, but luckily for us he survived. "The pain from losing Jordan was still raw but we were strong and held it together as a family. "The emotions towards my dad were mixed. I resented him for wanting to leave me and my three sisters behind, but at the same time I was devastated thinking about how low he must be. "Life was hard, a struggle. We kept asking ourselves was he going to do it again? Weren't we good enough for him? I lost my dad that day. "Since then he has been on the road to recovery. He's turned his life around. He goes to the gym, he's given up alcohol and gives his all to fighting back and helping others." Image copyright Ellie Wilkie Image caption Brian Wilkie says regular gym attendance helps improve his mental health Ellie says "with specialist help and 100% determination" she and her sisters got their father back. "Our brother was so young. He was only 22 when we lost him. For a close family this was hard, we blamed ourselves and were left picking up the pieces. "My dad is now my hero. I've never met someone so focused to change his life and love it. "I was so proud of him I wanted to tweet it. My post has reached thousands and that's brought me to tears. Image copyright Ellie Wilkie Image caption Jordan pictured with Brian and his stepmother in 2014 "I wanted to tell everyone who may also be suffering it's OK not to be OK, particularly because men are stereotypically supposed to be the strong ones. "I wanted to share awareness and fight back against the 'just get over it' attitude, especially on my brother's behalf. Everyone has their dark days, but you are not alone. "My dad has now been offered a job as a recovery support worker so he'll be helping people with addiction and mental health issues, something so fitting and touching to end the year on." You may also like: Ellie's tweet has provoked a huge reaction from others sharing stories of courage. One user said: "My year started unfortunately exactly the same as your's and we're still working through it with my dad. But I am so happy to hear this for you and your dad." Another posted: "I'm currently going through the same with my mum. If you ever need to talk I'm here. " And another tweet reads: "Amen sis! My dad battled through this five years ago, and now he's striving and being his best self." The hashtag #breakthestigma, used in Ellie's post, has been used more than 7,000 times in a little more than a day. 'Break The Stigma' is a term used to raise awareness of mental health issues. It was used as a hashtag in a NHS backed scheme by mental health survivor Ben Salmons in 2015. The campaign encouraged others struggling to cope with their mental health to share images on social media holding a white board headed "Let's be open about mental health to 'Break the Stigma'." If you or someone you know has been affected by the issues in this story, there are resources and support on the BBC Action Line website. You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.

This Friday, we’ll talk with Christine Baranski about her Emmy-nominated role as Diane Lockhart in the CBS legal drama “The Good Wife.” Join us for our live chat on July 25 at 12.30 p.m. PT/3.30 p.m. ET on Gold Derby’s home page. This is Baranski’s fifth consecutive Emmy nomination for “The Good Wife” and her 11th in total. She won for her supporting work on the comedy series “Cybill” back in 1995. She was nominated a further three times for that role and was also nominated once for her guest work on “Frasier” and twice more recently for her guest work on “The Big Bang Theory.” We will talk about Baranski’s impressive Emmy history, and take her back to that first win almost two decades ago. We will also focus on her fifth straight bid for “The Good Wife,” for what many have heralded as her best work to date on the buzzed-about fifth season of the show. She submitted “The Last Call” to the Emmy judging panel. In this episode, Diane grieves over the loss of her law partner and best friend Will Gardner (Best Drama Supporting Actor nominee Josh Charles) alongside her former colleague and now competitor Alicia Florrick (Best Drama Actress nominee Julianna Margulies). Exclusive: Emmy episode submissions revealed for ‘Louie,’ ‘The Good Wife,’Jim Parsons, Claire Danes You can participate in our chat by adding your comments or questions in our chat box that will appear next to the video box on our home page. Or you can participate over at our Google+ page in the Q&A chatroom there. Follow Gold Derby on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, iTunes and YouTube Will Baranski finally win that elusive Emmy booken this year? Predict her category below and come back this week for our live chat.

Enough nonsense Stop right there: Michigan attorney general sues to stop recount Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette is surely going to catch heat for this - criticism that he’s strictly acting out of partisan concern because he’s a Republican. And yes, Schuette is a very partisan Republican and has been one for a long time. And oh yes, he would certainly like to be our next governor. But no matter who he is, his legal argument is awfully solid that there is no valid reason for a recount of the presidential race in Michigan. It would be extremely time-consuming and expensive - and yes, the state would bear a huge share of the cost - and it’s not going to change a damn thing. Plus, the party who demanded it can hardly claim to be a seriously aggrieved party. That’s Schuette’s position, and he’s asking the Michigan Supreme Court to step right in and put a stop to this nonsense: Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette wants the Michigan Supreme Court to halt a presidential recount in Michigan before it begins. In a court action filed today, Schuette echoes arguments made for President-elect Donald Trump, arguing Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who received just over 1% of the vote in Michigan, is not an “aggrieved” candidate entitled to a recount, and there isn’t time to complete a recount, even if Stein was entitled to one. “If allowed to proceed, the statewide hand recount could cost Michigan taxpayers millions of dollars and would put Michigan voters at risk of being disenfranchised in the electoral college,” Schuette, in a filing signed by Chief Legal Counsel Matthew Schneider, said in asking the Michigan Supreme Court for immediate consideration of his petition barring a recount. The State Board of Canvassers was supposed to meet this morning to move forward on the recount. Schuette’s motion stops that, at least for now. There’s no guarantee Michigan Supreme Court will agree to bypass the Court of Appeals and go straight to a final and definitive ruling, but given the urgency of the situation - the Electoral College votes in 17 days - this thing can’t be dragged out indefinitely. By the way, even if the recount goes ahead, it’s unlikely to be the hand recount Stein wants. Secretary of State Ruth Johnson has noted that in any recount, the state has the discretion to decide how the recount is conducted - and she has every intention of doing a machine recount if she has to do one at all. Meanwhile, the Michigan Legislature is trying to push through a bill that would require future recount demanders to pay the full cost of the recount. That would not affect situations in which the race is so close that a recount is legally mandated. But that was not the case here. The race was close, with Trump taking the state by just over 10,000 votes, but that’s not mandatory-recount close. And the candidate who came within 10,000 votes of winning is not even the one who demanded the recount, although I would in no way be surprised if Hillary was hiding behind Stein’s skirt so she could claim she was “accepting the results” as she thundered against Trump for supposedly threatening not to do. By the way, I keep hearing people worried that if Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania start recounts as Stein wants, and don’t get them done quickly enough, all three states could lose their electoral votes entirely. This is apparently based on a quote from Michael Haas, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Wisconsin’s last statewide recount was in 2011 for a state Supreme Court seat and the outcome did not change. The recount showed Justice David Prosser defeated challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg by 7,004 votes — a slightly tighter margin than the 7,316-vote victory he had in initial returns. That recount took more than a month. This one would have to happen more quickly because of a federal law that says states must complete presidential recounts within 35 days of the election to ensure their electoral votes are counted. This year, that’s Dec. 13. “You may potentially have the state electoral votes at stake if it doesn’t get done by then,” said Haas. A lawyer with Stein’s campaign has said it wants the recount done by hand. That would take longer and require a judge’s order, Haas said. Let’s deal with this, because from everything I can find the panic over this is almost entirely baseless. What Haas is referring to is that, if there are questions about the certification of the election, Congress could theoretically have the discretion to disregard a state’s results and refuse to recognize its electors. That’s true, technically, but there is zero chance it would actually happen. Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania can all certify the original results - Stein’s recount demand notwithstanding - and the Republican-controlled Congress is certainly not going to turn away their electors because Jill Stein used a well-timed legal maneuver to rend those certifications arguably invalid. I don’t know if that’s Stein’s real gambit here, but if it is, it has zero chance of succeeding. The only thing she’s doing is mucking up the works and causing a lot of extra work for state employees in three states. Hopefully Bill Schuette’s motion to stop Michigan’s recount is successful, and with any luck the other two states manage to avoid this complete waste of time as well. Donald Trump won the election. That’s a fact and it’s not going to change. We have more important things to do at this point than try to re-run a campaign that no one wants going into overtime. Except the losers, I guess. But they lost. Screw them. Only YOU can save CFP from Social Media Suppression. Tweet, Post, Forward, Subscribe or Bookmark us Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook. Please adhere to our commenting policy to avoid being banned. As a privately owned website, we reserve the right to remove any comment and ban any user at any time.Comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence and death, racism, anti-Semitism, or personal or abusive attacks on other users may be removed and result in a ban.-- Follow these instructions on registering

When cattle are crossing a ford, if the chief bull goes crookedly, all the others go crookedly because their leader has gone crookedly. So, too, among human beings, when the one considered the chief behaves unrighteously, other people do so as well. The entire kingdom is dejected if the king is unrighteous. When cattle are crossing a ford if the chief bull goes straight across, all the others go straight across because their leader has gone straight. So too, among human beings, when the one considered the chief conducts himself righteously, other people do so as well. The entire kingdom rejoices if the king is righteous. – from AN 4:70, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi In the book The Buddha’s Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony, by Bhikkhu Bodhi, there are a number of suttas that emphasize the importance of having a righteous leader, sometimes called a (Dharma) “wheel-turning monarch”. In the Buddha’s time, there were small monarchies in many parts of India, so it was pretty clear who was in charge of particular areas, and whether they were righteous or unrighteous. These monarchs were not elected and usually remained in power until they either died or were conquered in war. Our situation is less clear. Even if we live in a country with a monarch, who’s “in charge” can be ambiguous. Different groups of people make laws, enforce the laws, make judgments about the legality of laws, and often customs determine what actually happens, sometimes in spite of the laws of the land. The leaders of the different branches of government, most of the time, change regularly, which may cause citizens to feel confused about the prevailing rules and culture. How are we to manage? In our work or school environments, it’s clear that the person at the top influences the daily experience of staff and consumers. Sometimes we can influence others, and sometimes not, depending on how we are positioned. Many people in America think the President is in charge, and to some extent he is. Many others claim that God is in charge, but there’s no agreement about what that means. In many places, the local government provides the dominant political framework. Who are our leaders? Who is guiding our “herd”, at how local a level, and in what direction? At the local, national, and international levels, there are righteous leaders. Our choices of who those people are will vary, but there are good leaders in government and other institutions who can help us make sense of our world. If we follow the Dharma, our respected companions on the path can serve as our chiefs. And we can do our best to guide others in wholesome directions. Or the teachings of the Buddha can be our touchstone. We can ask ourselves: “If I follow this way, make this choice, do this action, would it be for the harm or benefit of myself and others?” Leading and following are human activities; sometimes we don’t even recognize when they’re happening. Who are we following? Who are we leading? To where? We can bring an awareness of these questions into our decision-making process, for the benefit of ourselves and others.

Shares , MOGADISHU, Jul 12 – Last month, a baby was born in the Somali capital Mogadishu with a terrible eye defect that requires treatment abroad. The infant was cleared for treatment in Turkey but before the paperwork was complete a container ship, believed to be the Panama-flagged MSC Alice, docked outside Mogadishu port, accidentally dragging its anchor through the main fibre optic cable connecting Somalia with the rest of the world. ADVERTISEMENT Since that evening of June 24 most of the Horn of Africa nation has been cut off from the web, costing it an estimated $10 million (nine million euros) a day in lost business according to the government, and freezing the lives of those, like the sick child, whose hopes depend on international connections. – Internet-enabled diaspora – There are a wealthy, fortunate few with the wherewithal to get online via satellite link-ups, but the vast majority of the 6.5 million people in Somalia’s south-central region are in the dark, said Mohamed Ahmed Jama, chief executive of Dalkom, a Somali telecommunications company that is part of the consortium providing the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System. The blackout has wreaked havoc in Somalia, where decades of conflict have combined with irrepressible entrepreneurialism to create a far-flung diaspora of almost two million people who earn money abroad and send it home to their relatives. The internet is what connects these Somalis with Somalia. “In Somalia the telecommunications sector has thrived, even during some of the worst years of conflict,” said Ahmed Soliman, Somalia researcher at the Chatham House think tank in London. “Urban Somalis have become increasingly connected online since fibre-optic was rolled out in 2014.” The World Bank estimates that at $1.4 billion annually, international remittances make up a quarter of national GDP. Habiba Mohamud, a customer relations officer at Mogadishu’s International Bank of Somalia, said the international transfers department has been cut off since last month’s anchor incident. Mohamud has been personally affected too. Unable to check her email in recent weeks she struggles to communicate with her family, most of whom live in Nebraska in the United States. With international phonecalls expensive, she commonly gets in touch via the WhatsApp and Viber messaging services. “It has affected every part of my life: social life, family life, love life, work life,” Mohamud said. – Information means survival – The internet plays a still more existential role for residents of the seaside capital where al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab insurgents carry out regular attacks and where potentially life-saving information is shared fastest on social media and messaging networks. Hassan Istiila, chief editor of the local Radio Dalsan, which claims four million listeners, said Twitter is a key tool for gathering and broadcasting information on terror attacks and other events. Ships dragging anchors through undersea internet cables are not uncommon occurrences along Africa’s east coast and elsewhere — in 2012 six African countries were cut-off in one go — but they rarely take weeks to fully repair. More than a fortnight since the blackout the MSC Alice’s owner, Geneva-headquartered Mediterranean Shipping Company, said it was looking into the incident. “Following reports that an underwater cable was damaged, MSC is investigating the incident with other relevant parties and these investigations are at an early stage,” the company said in a statement. The Somali government and Dalkom hope engineers will have the cable fixed and internet services restored perhaps later this week. It will not come a moment too soon for Somalis whose lives are in limbo such as the sick child’s mother, for whom a downloadable visa form and online submission are all that stands between her child and medical care in Turkey.

the xonsh shell¶ ~ ~ Xonsh is a Python-ish, BASHwards-looking shell language and command prompt. The language is a superset of Python 3.4+ with additional shell primitives that you are used to from Bash and IPython. It works on all major systems including Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows. Xonsh is meant for the daily use of experts and novices alike. At a glance Installation¶ You can install xonsh using conda, pip, or from source. conda: $ conda install -c xonsh xonsh Note For the bleeding edge development version use conda -c xonsh/channel/dev xonsh pip: $ pip install xonsh source: Download the source from github (zip file), then run the following from the source directory, $ python setup.py install Arch Linux users can install xonsh from the Arch User Repository with e.g. yaourt or aura: yaourt: $ yaourt -Sa xonsh # yaourt will call sudo when needed aura: $ sudo aura -A xonsh If you run into any problems, please let us know! Comparison¶ Xonsh is significantly different from most other shells or shell tools. The following table lists features and capabilities that various tools may or may not share. Bash zsh plumbum fish IPython xonsh Sane language ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Easily scriptable ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Native cross-platform support ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Meant as a shell ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Tab completion ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Man-page completion ✓ ✓ Large standard library ✓ ✓ ✓ Typed variables ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Syntax highlighting ✓ in notebook w/ prompt-toolkit Pun in name ✓ ✓ ✓ Rich history ✓ Dependencies¶ Xonsh currently has the following external dependencies, Run Time: Python v3.4+ PLY prompt-toolkit (optional) Documentation: Sphinx <http://sphinx-doc.org/> (which uses reStructuredText <http://sphinx-doc.org/rest.html> ) Numpydoc Cloud Sphinx Theme

JACKSON, Mississippi -- Actor Dan Aykroyd has been sworn in as a reserve deputy with the Hinds County Sheriff's Department, according to a report in the Clarion-Ledger. Aykroyd is in Mississippi for his role in the movie "Get On Up," the film about the life of singer James Brown. Aykroyd plays the part of Ben Bart, Brown's manager for four decades. The movie is scheduled to premier in October. Aykroyd filled out a request to join the reserve unit and his request was granted. "My family fell in love with this state on the last trip down here," he said, adding that his wife is from Tennessee and Virginia and feels a Southern kinship with Mississippians. His daughter, a correspondent on Bluesmobile Radio, has been all over the state interviewing its residents. Aykroyd also said he wants to work to bring more attention to the needs of law enforcement agencies. "A lot of departments can't even afford ammunition for practice; it's that kind of tiny little challenge that you never think of," he said. "We're going to be aware of that and aware of maybe doing some programs and some fundraisers to supplement the resources of the department here."

Ad astra, per aspera. "Through hardships to the stars." We've finally done it. Our Civilization has finally broken the chains of history and gone to the stars. Lo, how those digital stars sparkle. I got my hands on an early build of the latest Civilization game, "Beyond Earth," which brings the longstanding 4X series to outer space. No, it's absolutely not Alpha Centauri. Seriously, it's not. Forget that Sid Meier helmed both games, and that Alpha Centauri was basically Civilization in Space. It's not Alpha Centauri. Because then 2k would be sued. Well in that case Okay, did all the lawyers stop reading? Great. Civilization: Beyond Earth is basically a sequel to Alpha Centauri—a "spiritual successor," let's say. There's not much to prevent people from making the inevitable comparisons. While the 4x genre has evolved in the fifteen years since Alpha Centauri's release, it hasn't evolved that much. You could go play Alpha Centauri right this moment and outside of cringing at the outdated interface and the square tiles (seriously, how did we live without hex-based maps for so long?), you'd probably be able to hold your own. So if Alpha Centauri was Sid Meier and Co. making Civilization II in space, Beyond Earth is Sid Meier and Co. making Civilization V in space. It's an oversimplification, perhaps, but not by much. If you feel comfortable with Civilization V, you'll feel comfortable with Beyond Earth's hex-based maps and one-unit-per-tile combat. I played through the first 55 turns of Beyond Earth—otherwise known as the "barely anything is happening" phase—but it was enough to hit on a few observations. Hands-on with Civilization: Beyond Earth The biggest change: There are two maps to pay attention to simultaneously. Most of the action plays out on the planet's surface, like a normal Civ game, but there's also an "orbital layer" where you'll direct satellites and the like. I assume there will be orbital weapons in later builds, but all we were shown was a satellite that buffs ground troops. The traditional "tech tree" is also gone, replaced with a "tech web." Technologies towards the center of the web are grounded in near-future developments or even current fields like biology, chemistry, et cetera. Expand toward the fringes of the (very large) web and you'll find speculative technology and the realms of science fiction. Additionally, each technology on the web is accompanied by sub-technologies, giving you more room to specialize in a given field. That's how they git you. They're under the ground! Where Civilization V has neutral tribes and independent city-states on the map, Beyond Earth has roaming alien life-forms. As a Civilization veteran your first instinct may be "I have to kill all these organisms." Mine certainly was. This is absolutely a mistake. These aliens are not automatically hostile, and will utterly destroy and overwhelm your troops with sheer numbers in the early game. Later in the game the developers say you'll be able to harness these aliens. The most obnoxious aliens are the Seige Worms: Large, drill-like worms a la "Dune" that completely wreck any tile improvements you've built. There are three primary alignments in the game—Purity, Harmony, and Supremacy. You'll edge towards these affinities through the technologies you research, and ultimately this will affect your win conditions each game. Those who follow "Purity" believe humanity is best preserved by turning this new planet into Earth, through terraforming and the like. "Harmony" followers hope instead to live in symbiosis with the new planet's life-forms. Those on the path to "Supremacy" think it's foolish to be tied down to a single planet, and hope to conquer humanity's own weaknesses and form a global empire. Yes, "kill them all" is still a valid victory tactic. Each affinity has its own long-term project for a win condition. Supremacy, the most militaristic win condition, requires eventually going back and conquering the Earth you left behind. Purity players will instead bring Earth's population to this new, terraformed planet. Harmony followers will merge with the planet and create a planet-wide consciousness. Then there are the two other non-alignment win conditions. The "Contact" ending involves unraveling the history of the planet's former inhabitants and, like a futuristic Jodie Foster, bringing humanity in touch with the aliens. And no Civilization game would be complete without the option to just wipe every other faction off the face of the planet, you warmongering monster. Beyond Earth attempts to guide you through the game more than past titles, using an overhauled dynamic quest system. I didn't see much beyond the basics in my 55 turns—mostly just "Try to get a unit to this square and see what happens!" type quests—but Firaxis promises it will react to how you're playing and try to both guide you down your current path and prompt you to explore other possibilities. Also, it's apparently an incredibly moddable system, and the developers said they're "excited to see what fans do." So here we are, back where we started: It all looks like Civilization. But in space. Exactly like you expected. It's hard to get a real feel for a 4X game with only 55 turns—I'd barely researched four technologies when my time with the game was up. Even in 55 turns, however, our room full of journalists had already gone down wildly different paths. I'd given up on forming an army and focused on production. Another journalist in my group had built up an entire legion of troops and marched on the nearest city already. It's a 4X game. It's a Civilization game. We might be "Beyond Earth," but we're definitely not beyond the tropes of the genre—not yet, anyway. I expect you already know whether this type of game will appeal to you, and can (barring any technical disasters or unforeseen development issues) plan accordingly.

The Tasmanian Tiger The Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacine, was the apex predator of Australia for a time, native to the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea, as well as the mainland. Despite being discovered by the British when they arrived to settle Australia and being taken into captivity, the Tasmanian tiger is incredibly mysterious and wasn’t well studied before going extinct. A pouch-laden marsupial like the kangaroo, Tasmanian tigers are a little backward—literally. Their pouch opened from the back instead of the front and appeared on both male and female tigers. It got its name from the stripes along its back, though it is entirely unrelated to ordinary tigers. Tiger Hunting Though the species was discovered in 1808, it seems that the poor Tasmanian tiger was already struggling to survive. It had become near-extinct everywhere but Tasmania by this time. Adapted to survive in the food-scarce jungles, these tigers prowled the underbrush eating anything they could get their jaws on, including kangaroos, wombats, bandicoots, and emus. The species proved an immediate threat to the interests of settlers and was superstitiously thought to be a blood drinker, sucking the blood from farmer’s sheep. The added competition of dingoes on the island, as well as the arrival of diseases carried by dogs severely threatened Thylacines. This would-be chupacabra became the target of organized hunts, and possibly a smear campaign that used a staged photo to coerce settlers into pursuing the creatures. Bounties paying up to £1 per tiger head were issued by the Tasmanian government, and the last wild Thylacine was shot in 1930. Life in Captivity A few of the Tasmanian tigers had been placed in zoos, but they didn’t fare well, getting sick, and sometimes refusing to eat. Only one attempt to breed them in captivity was successful. Transferring the animals to zoos outside the continent was difficult and expensive, and some even ended up in sideshows and traveling menageries. The last tiger died in captivity at the Hobart Zoo in 1936. Nicknamed “Benjamin,” it is believed he died of neglect, being locked outside of his shelter during swelteringly hot days and freezing cold nights. The Hunt for the Ghost Tiger Though Benjamin is recognized officially as the last Tasmanian tiger, rumors of their presence and unsubstantiated sightings persisted in Tasmania for another 50 years. The hunt for the Tasmanian tiger since its extinction has been almost as fervent as the hunt that led to its destruction. Now regarded as a cryptid alongside the Loch Ness Monster and Himalayan Yeti, Tasmanian tiger sightings and photos never pass the muster of thorough examination. Media magnate Ted Turner has even offered a $100,000 reward for proof the animal still lives, spurring a generation of hunters searching for an elusive Tasmanian tiger. They continue their search to this day, and “sightings” are reported every year.

Actor Wil Wheaton, known for his roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lost and The Big Bang Theory made a few interesting comments on his blog. He says that piracy isn’t as evil as Hollywood claims and believes that Internet providers shouldn’t mess with people’s BitTorrent traffic. “I believe in network neutrality, I don’t believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don’t believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don’t believe in crippling the Internet to protect a business model that desperately needs to change.” Net Neutrality should be guarded according to Wheaton, who accuses Hollywood lobby groups for wanting to shut is down. “Some ISPs are blocking all bittorrent traffic, because bittorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws wich would force ISPs to block or degrade bittorrent traffic, too.” “Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away, which I know is an imperfect comparison, but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.” Wheaton the goes on to show his readers how to download a Linux distro. And seed it properly. You can read the rest of Wil’s thoughts on his blog.

President Trump waved a supporter’s sign that read “Keep on tweeting!” as he arrived in Palm Beach, Fla., to spend the Christmas holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The video footage, obtained by ABC News, shows Trump holding the sign above his head amid a crowd of supporters. Pres. Trump holds up a "Keep on Tweeting!" sign after landing at Palm Beach for the holiday weekend. https://t.co/CFdzczE0fE pic.twitter.com/Qnoh4ahYJR — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 22, 2017 Trump is notorious for his Twitter habits, and has sparred with political figures including Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., on the social media platform. He has also endorsed various individuals, including failed GOP Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, via Twitter. Trump traveled to Florida after signing the Republican tax bill that passed through Congress earlier in the week. “It will be an incredible Christmas gift for hardworking Americans,” Trump said during the signing on Friday. Trump also spent the Thanksgiving holiday at the Mar-a-Lago.

Colin Trevorrow. Earlier this week, a disturbance in the Force triggered paroxysms of anguish and confusion across the galaxy. That is to say, since the Tuesday announcement of Colin Trevorrow’s firing as director of Star Wars: Episode IX (with Lucasfilm reaching the conclusion that his and the company’s “visions for the project differ”), Hollywood’s chattering class has been trying to figure out: How did this bona fide blockbuster filmmaker come to be laid so low? Conspiracy Theory A maintains that The Book of Henry — Trevorrow’s critically mauled, commercially stillborn art-house passion project — which arrived as the June follow-up to his $1.6-billion-grossing sophomore co-writing/directorial effort Jurassic World — may have given Lucasfilm cold feet. Star Wars remains, after 40 years, eight films, and a combined $7.5 billion at the box office, arguably moviedom’s most valuable intellectual property. And Henry’s craptacular reception exposed glaring liabilities in the director’s ability to make the jump to lightspeed, as the thinking goes. But to hear speculation from a ranking Hollywood movie insider with direct knowledge of the productions on both The Book of Henry and Jurassic World (and who requested anonymity out of concern for sensitive ongoing business relationships), Trevorrow’s firing may have come more directly as a consequence of being “difficult.” “During the making of Jurassic World, he focused a great deal of his creative energies on asserting his opinion,” the executive explains. “But because he had been personally hired by Spielberg, nobody could say, ‘You’re fired.’ Once that film went through the roof and he chose to do Henry, [Trevorrow] was unbearable. He had an egotistical point of view— and he was always asserting that.” Then, during preproduction on Episode IX, Trevorrow’s relationship with Lucasfilm top brass became reportedly “unmanageable” over the course of “repeated stabs at multiple drafts” of the script. “When the reviews for Book of Henry came out, there was immediately conjecture that Kathy was going to dump him because they weren’t thrilled with working with him anyway,” the executive continues. “He’s a difficult guy. He’s really, really, really confident. Let’s call it that.” Kathy, of course, is eight-time Academy Award–nominated Lucasfilm president/Star Wars brand manager Kathleen Kennedy, who found herself beneath the red-hot scrutiny of Movie Twitter in June after firing co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller from the Han Solo spinoff prequel. And in terms of that surfeit of self-belief, Trevorrow admitted to as much in an interview with Esquire in 2015. “Directors require a level of confidence that can border on the delusional,” Trevorrow said. “You have to push it right up to the edge of arrogance, but never cross the line.” Which really would be nothing new in an industry where gigantic egos are as common as Tesla Xs, and directors convinced of their own Kubrickian greatness come a dime a dozen. But by the point of his supernova success with Jurassic World, it’s worth noting Trevorrow had become inextricably linked to the scourge of white male privilege in Hollywood. In an era when men are almost 12 times more likely to direct movies than women, and minorities continue to lose ground as directors (according to the 2017 Hollywood Diversity Report), he landed the coveted Jurassic job on the strength of a single film, the quirky 2012 Sundance sci-fi dramedy Safety Not Guaranteed. This evolved into such an inescapable talking point, Trevorrow even admitted to the Los Angeles Times, “[It] hurts my feelings when I’m used as an example of white male privilege.” Still, the decision to bounce him from the project ultimately fell to Kennedy, who, five years into her Lucasfilm tenure, is showing less and less compunction about firing or replacing directors she feels are temperamentally or creatively unsuited to the job, having also overseen the resignation of Fantastic Four director Josh Trank from another stand-alone Star Wars film in 2015. “There’s one gatekeeper when it comes to Star Wars and it’s Kathleen Kennedy,” says a veteran movie producer, who has worked with the studio chief. “If you rub Kathleen Kennedy the wrong way — in any way — you’re out. You’re done. A lot of these young, new directors want to come in and say, ‘I want to do this. I want to do that.’ A lot of these guys — Lord and Miller, Colin Trevorrow — got very rich, very fast and believed a lot of their own hype. And they don’t want to play by the rules. They want to do shit differently. And Kathleen Kennedy isn’t going to fuck around with that.”

Today, we’re rounding-up the best GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards that we’ve reviewed this year, including categories of Best Overall, Best for Modding, Best Value, Best Technology, and Best PCB. Gaming performance is functionally the same on all of them, as silicon variance is the larger dictator of performance, with thermals being the next governor of performance; after all, a Pascal GPU under 60C is a higher-clocked, happier Pascal GPU, and that’ll lead framerate more than advertised clocks will. Rounding-up the GTX 1080 Tis means that we’re primarily going to be focused on cooler and PCB build quality: Noise, noise-normalized thermals, thermals, and VRM design are the forefront of competition among same-GPU parts. Ultimately, as far as gaming and overclocking performance, much of that is going to be dictated by silicon-level quality variance, and that’s nearly random. For that reason, we must differentiate board partner GPUs with thermals, noise, and potential for low-thermal overclocking (quality VRMs). Having gone over the best CPUs , cases , some motherboards , and soon coolers, we’re now looking at the best GTX 1080 Tis of the year. Contrary to popular belief, the model of cooler does actually matter for video cards. We’ll be going through thermal and noise data for a few of the 1080 Tis we’ve tested this year, including MOSFET, VRAM, and GPU temperatures, noise-normalized performance at 40dBA, and the PCB and VRM quality. As always with these guides, you can find links to all products discussed in the description below. All Our GTX 1080 Ti Reviews Best Overall: ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti Buy the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti here. Find our review of the ASUS ROG Strix here. The first award is the most important, and is assigned for the best overall combination of thermal and noise performance. Across all tested thermal categories – that’d be VRAM, MOSFET, and GPU diode temperatures – we found the ASUS Strix 1080 Ti (Amazon) to be the most consistent and impressive in its performance. Our review found that the Strix keeps its core temperature low, but also manages to keep VRAM and VRM thermals equally and proportionally low, which can’t be said for a lot of other coolers. A lot of this comes down to the mounting plates for the heatsink, and then the fact that ASUS is actually leveraging the mass of its 2.5-slot heatsink. Fin design, pitch, and density permit good airflow through the heatsink, and the shroud doesn’t trap the air inside of the cooler. The only category where the Strix cooler loses some ground is that of size – but size and cooling-to-noise performance are largely mutually exclusive. At 2.5 slots, some users may instead require a 2-slot card to better accommodate build needs. For a single-card build, though, this isn’t generally a concern. Honorable Mention: MSI 1080 Ti Gaming X Buy the MSI 1080 Ti Gaming X here. Find the MSI 1080 Ti Gaming X review here. We want to give an honorable mention to MSI and the 1080 Ti Gaming X (Amazon), here: The Twin Frozr cooler remains the most effective dual-fan solution we’ve tested this year, and is able to leverage its larger fans to spin at lower, quieter RPMs than some of its competition. The Twin Frozr design isn’t the best by raw numbers, but has an excellent mix of noise-to-cooling performance, and manages this at a lower price than some of the flat-out best coolers, like the Strix. That price reduction matters, and to offer a competitive cooler at a lower price, MSI gets an honorable mention. We are interested to see how the company improves its dual-fan design for 2018. Best for Modding: MSI GTX 1080 Ti Armor Buy the MSI GTX 1080 Ti Armor here. (Note: Currently overpriced, at time of posting. Wait til it’s $700-$720) Find the MSI GTX 1080 Ti Armor review here. This next category, “Best for Modding,” could also be taken to mean “most room for improvement.” The MSI GTX 1080 Ti Armor (Newegg) was originally a $700, bottom-of-the-barrel GTX 1080 Ti, and it was for good reason: We found the stock cooler to be abysmal in its performance, and noted that the cooler was highly similar – though not entirely the same – as the coolers on the MSI GTX 1070 Armor cards. The upshot of this, though, is that you could get a very cheap, very good PCB and VRM for entry-level 1080 Ti prices. The best-kept secret of 1080 Tis is that the GTX 1080 Ti Armor, for all its faults, actually has the Gaming X PCB. The Gaming X PCB uses 16 5018SGs hooked up to 8 inductors, controlled by 8 driver ICs, and results in an 8-phase VRM with 4 MOSFETs per phase. The Fairchild dual-FET packages contain both the high-side and low-side FETs, and this overbuilt VRM outputs just 15W of heat under a typical 250A load, or 40W of heat under a 400A OC, assuming 125C and 300KHz switching frequency. If you’re hoping to buy a 1080 Ti and convert it to a liquid-cooled card – something that we tested with this very card – this is one of the best options. You’re discarding the cooler anyway, so don’t spend big on one; get a cheaper cooler, like the one on the Armor, and a good PCB. In our testing with a closed-loop cooler, the Armor PCB became one of the best cards on our thermal charts, while also retaining one of the better PCBs. You definitely wouldn’t want this thing with its stock cooler, but it’s primed for modding. Best Technology: EVGA ICX Series Buy the EVGA GTX 1080 Ti SC2 ICX here (Amazon). Find our EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 review here. Our next category is for Best Technology, which is assigned to the card that made the biggest contribution to the underlying tech in an AIB partner card for 2017. This one goes to the EVGA ICX cards (Amazon), responsible for implementing NTC thermistors across the entire PCB, improving VRM cooling by increasing baseplate surface area, and significantly overhauling ACX after the Great Thermal Pad Incident of 2016. Video cards don’t change much generationally, so to see a company move to install thermistors on critical non-GPU components is big. It may not seem like it to the average user, but if you think about it from a testing perspective, ICX gives us new tools to improve thermal testing accuracy of aftermarket coolers, water cooling blocks, and validate our own external case temperature measurements of VRMs with NTC thermistor measurements. ICX has become a tool for benchmarking, as it’s easy to measure temperatures of components that would usually go unrecognized. This comes at a time when other manufacturers have dropped the ball on VRM thermals, like Zotac with the Amp Extreme and its poor thermal performance when compared to the sheer mass of the cooler. As GPUs continue to reduce power consumption and cards get smaller, temperatures of components other than the GPU core become increasingly relevant. ICX complements what we do with our own thermocouples, and has become an important tool for testing other cooler designs. Best Value: MSI GTX 1080 Ti DUKE (and EVGA SC Black) Buy the MSI GTX 1080 Ti DUKE here. Our next award is for Best Value. Thus far, other than the Armor, a lot of these cards have been in the $750 to $800 range. You definitely don’t need a card that expensive to still get the same framerates, and acoustic or thermal performance aren’t universally important to people. We were split between the 1080 Ti SC Black and 1080 Ti Duke, but given the current pricing market, the MSI Duke is winning. This card ranges from $735 to $750, depending on rebates and sales, and ends up priced about where the Gaming X used to be, before the mining craziness. The SC Black used to be closer to $720, but is unfortunately out of stock at that price or boosted to $750 now, making the Duke a bit cheaper. For pure value, we’d recommend considering the Duke. Best PCB: Galax HOF On the opposite side of the value argument, we also wanted to point out the Best PCB and VRM. This isn’t something that 99% of users will ever need, but if you’re going for heavy overclocking, the Galax GTX 1080 Ti HOF video card is among the top-tier cards. Buildzoid of Actually Hardcore Overclocking worked on this card, and believes it to be the best PCB of the 1080 Tis. The Galax HOF VCore VRM is a 16-phase VRM which, to quote Buildzoid, is “ridiculous” and “absolutely insane.” The Galax HOF uses an IR 3595 voltage controller in 8-phase mode, using a doubling scheme on the 16-phase setup for this card. The VRM ends up with 40W of heat dissipation at 400A, or 54W at 500A, both of which are reasonably controllable with targeted and active cooling. Find Buildzoid’s Galax HOF review here. Dumbest Trend The Dumbest Trend award goes to gigantic heatsinks. In what can only be described as a measuring contest, some manufacturers have continued to increase the mass and physical size of their GPU coolers, often with minimal gain in thermal performance, or in noise-normalized performance. What’s worse, a lot of these massive coolers overlook cooling basics, like physically connecting hot VRM components to the oversized heatsink – sort of the entire point of a big cooler, really. Stretching into 3-slot designs with 3 pounds of metal doesn’t make the cooler automatically good. It just means it’s big, and oftentimes, not at all worth the added cost to buy. There are a lot of good 2.5-slot designs out there, like MSI’s Twin Frozr and ASUS’ Strix coolers, and cards like the Gigabyte Xtreme or Zotac Extreme are larger than each of these, yet worse in thermal performance. This comes down to smart design, as opposed to just using more metal for the sake of looking bigger. That’s all for this one. Check our other round-ups here: More to come soon. Editorial, Testing: Steve Burke Video: Andrew Coleman

Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption The documents include records of UFO sightings About 13 million pages of declassified documents from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have been released online. The records include UFO sightings and psychic experiments from the Stargate programme, which has long been of interest to conspiracy theorists. The move came after lengthy efforts from freedom of information advocates and a lawsuit against the CIA. The full archive is made up of almost 800,000 files. They had previously only been accessible at the National Archives in Maryland. The trove includes the papers of Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of state under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, as well as several hundred thousand pages of intelligence analysis and science research and development. More on the CIA CIA head warns Trump to watch his tongue CIA tip-off 'led to Mandela's arrest' Four ways the CIA has meddled in Africa Among the more unusual records are documents from the Stargate Project, which dealt with psychic powers and extrasensory perception. Those include records of testing on celebrity psychic Uri Geller in 1973, when he was already a well-established performer. Memos detail how Mr Geller was able to partly replicate pictures drawn in another room with varying - but sometimes precise - accuracy, leading the researchers to write that he "demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner". JFK and the rise of conspiracy theories Image copyright CIA Image caption One set of documents details results of psychic tests on Uri Geller, where he attempted to copy drawings made by researchers from within a sealed room Other unusual records include a collection of reports on flying saucers, and the recipes for invisible ink. While much of the information has been technically publicly available since the mid-1990s, it has been very difficult to access. The records were only available on four physical computers located in the back of a library at the National Archives in Maryland, between 09:00 and 16:30 each day. Image copyright CIA Image caption Recipes for invisible ink A non-profit freedom of information group, MuckRock, sued the CIA to force it to upload the collection, in a process which took more than two years. At the same time, journalist Mike Best crowd-funded more than $15,000 to visit the archives to print out and then publicly upload the records, one by one, to apply pressure to the CIA. "By printing out and scanning the documents at CIA expense, I was able to begin making them freely available to the public and to give the agency a financial incentive to simply put the database online," Best wrote in a blog post. In November, the CIA announced it would publish the material, and the entire declassified CREST archive is now available on the CIA Library website.

In his classic work “Capitalism and Slavery” Eric Williams exposed in vivid detail a fact that the west would like to forget. The west owes it’s wealth in large part to slavery (and genocide of course). It was slavery that funded the industrial revolution. Not in some abstract way but quite literally the famous Watt engine (The first steam engine) was funded with money from the West Indian sugar plantations. Many of Europe’s great fortunes owe themselves to slavery. Williams wrote his book long ago in 1942 but the facts he revealed have been intentionally ignored ever since. Thus only recently historians have rediscovered what Williams wrote about back then. Williams work is a classic of both Marxist analysis and black history. Actually Marx himself had noted the role of Slavery in fueling the rise of Capitalism. Williams focuses his work on the relationship between British capitalism and slavery, but he also deals with the role slavery played in funding the rise of France and the US. Those interested in the role of slavery in fueling France should read C. L. R. James classic “Black Jacobins” which I discussed in my August 2015 article “Revolution in Haiti”. Williams charts the economic history of slavery fueling the expansion of commercial capitalism, leading to the rise of Industrial Capitalism. Lavery Williams argues was abolished in England not purely for the moral reasons cited at the time but simply as part of the triumph of free trade over mercantilism. Slavery was abolished in the British empire but ended up being “outsourced” to Latin America and the United States. Slave grown cotton would fuel the industrial revolution of the 19th century just as the profits from slave grown sugar had fueled the 18th century. Anti-Slavery would become a cover for British Imperialism as it expanded in India, and would serve as the excuse for the conquest of Africa later in the century. Actually I’m currently reading Gerald Horne’s “Negro Comrades of The Crown” which deals with the great use England made of the slavery issue against it’s american rivals mobilizing slaves to rise up against their masters during the war of 1812 or using black troops (former slaves) to defend Canada. It’s another masterpiece but lets return to Eric Williams Classic work which has inspired (and doubtless been plagiarized by) so many recent historians. I should mention that Eric Williams later became the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago an important biographical detail. “Capitalism and Slavery” begins by examining the origins of slavery. Slavery arose out of the economic necessity for labor. First to be enslaved were the Natives but they died quickly, or knowing the local territory often escaped. Ironically next it would be the turn of the whites who were forced into servitude. In a detail especially relevant today with the rise of mass incarceration state as Glen Ford calls it was the way the legal system was used to force the whites into servitude for a variety of petty crimes. They were given the choice of deportation and servitude or a hanging. However servitude was temporary not permanent. In addition the english poor mounted violent resistance against the “spirits” as they called those who kidnapped people into servitude anyone they suspected could easily be killed by an angry mob. In the colonies it was much easier for a white in servitude to run away and pass for free. Williams offers a vivid picture of the terrible conditions faced by those in servitude who were also packed into ships in only slightly better conditions then the slaves, and reminds his readers that it was perfectly legal for masters to beat their white servants both in England and it’s colonies. Africa became the new source for forced labor and their slavery was usually permanent. I should explain There were two types of colonies. First Those with poor soils and little resources like the northern US or Canada. Ironically this would later be to their advantage as they were forced to become diversified self sufficient economies. However the second type colonies with rich soils or natural resources could be used for quick and easy profits by producing a single crop. In the 17th and 18th centuries one extremely valuable cash crop was sugar cane. Sugar was the Oil of it’s day with the introduction of tea and coffee back in Europe there was ever growing demand for sugar. The most efficient way to cultivate it was on large plantations. Since it was so valuable it was cheaper to just import food with the profits so as much land as possible could be dedicated to sugar cultivation. It was the islands of the west indies like Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, and Barbados that were ideal for growing it. Sugar Cane exhausted the soil which would be an important factor in the future. The British West Indies were far more valuable then the mainland in the amount of profits it generated. The British West Indies were at one point 4 times as valuable as all the other British colonies combined. The Growth of the still colonial future northern united states was fueled by providing the food and supplies for these islands which generated enormous fortunes. Those plantation owners who got rich in the sugar returned to England where they formed the powerful “West Indian Interest” as Williams called it which bought a number of famous english politicians like Gladstone and the famous conservative Burke. They used their political muscle to enforce a sugar monopoly forcing England to buy it’s more expensive west indian sugar instead of the cheaper sugar from France’s newer and hence more fertile Caribbean colonies. This would later be their downfall but for a time they would rule England and their enormous fortunes would fund the industrialization of England. But it was not merely the wealthy plantation owners of the colonies that made their fortunes off of slavery. The economic growth of the English cities was closely tied to slavery as Williams documents in extensive detail. Liverpool owed it’s fortune in the slave trade. They supplied not just english colonies with slaves but their Spanish and French competitors. It was well known at the time and once when a visiting (and intoxicated) actor was being heckled he shouted back that he refused to be insulted in a town built entirely on the blood of slaves. From it’s humble beginnings with a single slave ship stetting sail in 1709 by 1795 Liverpool controlled 5/8 of the British Slave Trade and 3/7 of the whole european slave trade. Bristol had begun as the dominant slave trading city but was forced by Liverpool’s competition into the equally slavery related sugar refining interest. The Growth of Manchester was driven by the cotton manufacturing Cotton supplied by slave labor in America’s south. Birmingham sold Guns that were traded for African slaves (1 gun for 1 slave) fueling the massive but forgotten slave catching wars that would destabilize much of the continent spreading chaos, horror and murder across Africa. Incidentally as Gerald Horne points out once Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 the United States would take over, Brazil for example owes it’s massive black population to the energetic efforts of the american slave traders. In addition to fueling the growth of some of Britain’s most important cities. Williams points out the many sectors of the english economy whose growth was fueled by the profits of slavery and slave trade. The growth of Iron industry was fueled by the demands for chains, swords, guns used in the slave trade. Slavery Financed the growth of the commercial Insurance industry a vital element in the growth of capitalism allowing for the “management of risk” the slave Trade was a risky business with the constant threat of shipwreck, disease, and of course uprisings among the captured slaves. Each slave, a valuable piece of merchandise was insured for the voyage. The Banking industry also owed it’s growth to the massive profits generated by slavery. In fact many bankers began as slave traders. Captain on a slave ship was the first step on the ladder that lead ultimately to the Merchant-Banker as Williams points out. One famous bank that made it’s fortune off slavery is Barclays for example. The rich West Indies Planters often became bankers on their return to England. Actually they were so rich that even the King was annoyed and envious of their opulence and they quickly married into the highest ranks of the nobility. Of course even the monarchs of Europe got rich off the slave trade. In fact one major reason for the “Glorious Revolution” as Williams points out was to destroy the lucrative royal monopoly on the slave trade opening the doors to the “Free Trade in Slaves” which would fuel England’s economic growth during the 18th century. England and France fought wars over the “Asiento” the right to sell slaves to Spain’s colonies. To return to the industries fueled by slavery and the slave trade, there was shipping. Slavery contributed to a huge growth in shipbuilding and paid for the construction of the ports and docks in Liverpool Bristol, and other cities. Textile manufacturing was fueled by the need to provide clothes for the millions of slaves. Wool for example was used to clothe the slaves even though it was completely inappropriate for the tropics. The raw materials for cotton came from slavery and the finished goods were traded in Africa for more slaves. The dye industry developed to provide colorful patterns to trade for slaves. There was a whole industry that produced useless trinkets to trade for slaves. The Iron industry itself produced bars of iron which were used as currency on the coast to pay for slaves. The wealthy west indian interests funded the invention of the steam engine as Williams describes in detail. They also invested heavily in building England’s railroads the Industrial revolution was thus fueled by slavery. Cotton would drive the massive growth of industry in 19th century England. Cotton mills were the biggest factories in England and their raw material was grown by slaves in the US south, Latin America, and the supposedly “free” semi-slave labour of their Indian empire. Even England’s great philanthropists had been enriched by the slave trade. The various Churches were also involved. In America slave traders would found famous universities like Brown. Some of the most powerful politicians in England were in the west indian interests pockets. Slavery was perfectly respectable. As Williams points out it was only changing economic circumstances that forced a change in attitude although there were important geopolitical reasons as well. For example the victory of the Haitian revolution and the inability of the British to conquer the island where they suffered disastrous defeat at the hands of the former slaves who were masters of guerrilla and conventional war and beat the British, the Spanish and the French. Williams devotes the last two chapters of his book to examining the abolition of slavery. First he deals with the efforts of reformers who were backed by powerful new economic interests intent on destroying the west indian sugar monopoly. They wanted cheaper food so they could pay their workers less and so wanted to institute free trade in food. England had become the most powerful economy in the world and it was cheaper to rely on the slave labor of the United States and Latin America, as well as the cheap labor of feudal India. Free markets became the key to english economic dominance and the West Indian interest were standing in their way. The abolitionists were the tools of a new East India interest. These were the economic motives behind the abolition movement. Of course as the system of slavery was a nightmare of barbarous cruelty (again I recommend C. L. R. James who provides a full account of the horrors of slavery where a hundred different forms of torture and grisly murder became part of everyday slang) Thus it was easy to whip up a massive public relations campaign simply by describing the everyday conditions of slavery. A powerful mass movement against slavery was built up. To break the power of the west indian lobby democratic reforms were carried out to redistrict parliament. Politicians debated endlessly in parliament. However as Williams points out there was a certain unavoidable hypocrisy in all this as it was still to profitable to trade with the slave societies like the US and Latin America for Capitalism to actually break it’s ties with slavery. In fact until 1823 the english abolitionists didn’t seek to end slavery which they claimed would die out naturally. They were only trying to end the slave trade. Williams attributes the real cause of the abolition of Slavery to the resistance of the Slaves themselves. In the wake of the Haitian revolution the West Indies was rocked by waves of slave insurrections. British Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados all had nearly successful slave revolts. Upon learning of the outlawing of the slave trade in 1807 they misinterpreted it as being a Royal decree ending Slavery itself and began to refuse to work and to constantly petition the authorities. While the politicians debated back in London the Caribbean had become a powder keg and Britain was faced with the choice of either ending slavery or loosing control of their colonies altogether as France had lost control of Haiti. Finally in 1833 Slavery was abolished in the English empire although it secretly continued in India. Of course as Williams pointed out in 1942 this history of slave rebellion is constantly being suppressed just as more then 70 years later the same is equally true. This is of course no accident our present day masters want us to forget that we have the power not only to resist but to overturn their entire fragile system based on the exploitation of the many by the few. A friend in Academia tells me that research along these lines is actively discouraged. Thus we are continually forced to discover anew our history. Brilliant works like “Black Jacobins” and “Capitalism & Slavery” are suppressed forgotten and then rediscovered again and again. To conclude the wealth of the western powers like France, America, and Great Britain was based on slavery and genocide. Today this same process continues and Ironically as the UN revealed recently slavery is on the rise worldwide. Meanwhile with the end of the civil war in the United States they put an important loophole in the abolition of slavery allowing it for prisoners. Prison Labor is a massively growing sector of the american economy and just as the great fortunes of the 18th and 19th century were tied to slavery todays multinational corporations are deeply invested in the growth of the mass incarceration state. Of course it would take a whole new article to describe the companies involved big names like McDonalds and Goldman Sachs. Slavery didn’t end like they told us in school. Slavery is on the rise! Latin American workers in the US have become major new victims. There is no crime that capitalism will not commit if it creates a few percentage points of profit. Until Capitalism is abolished the world will never know an end to war, slavery, genocide, imperialism, exploitation and poverty. Sources A Special Thank You to @Zaganashikwe for suggesting I read this book. You should definitely read Eric Williams “Capitalism and Slavery” for yourself as I’ve only offered a brief outline. It is written with a delightful irony. I also recommend C. L. R. James “Black Jacobins” which does a great job of showing how slavery fueled french economic growth and unlike Williams who deliberately avoids the topic, gives a nightmarish picture of what life was like for the slaves on the sugar plantations. I’ve just begun reading Gerald Horne’s “Negro Comrades of the Crown” and I highly recommend it as well. Horne is a master at bringing suppressed history vividly to life and I’ll smile whenever I hear the year 1812 I’ll imagine angry slaves burning the white house and stealing president Madison’s silver ware. Since it is Black History Month I direct you to Abayomi Azikwe’s podcast where I have learned a great deal of black history from listening too. It was from Azikwe that I learned about Williams, James and Horne. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/panafricanjournal And Check out The Black Agenda Report which created the term “mass incarceration state” and does a great job of exposing the crimes of capitalism. http://blackagendareport.com And Check out my friend @arghshell who has a blog and a podcast that did a great expose of the US military role in Sex Trafficking another continuation of slavery http://n0p3.net Here is the third episode which describes the lives of enslaved women in the US http://n0p3.net/2015/10/01/us-military-trade-in-trafficked-persons-and-sexual-servitude-part-3/

A psychology researcher has controversially claimed that stupidity is causally linked to how likely people are to believe in God. University of Ulster professor Richard Lynn will draw the conclusion in new research due to be published in the journal Intelligence , the Times Higher Education Supplement reports. Lynn and his two co-authors argue that average IQ is an excellent predictor of what proportion of the population are true believers, across 137 countries. They also cite surveys of the US Academy of Sciences and UK Royal Academy showing single-digit rates of religious belief among academics. That professional skeptics don't believe in a creator is perhaps not all that surprising. Lynn argues, however, that it is their intelligence that directly gives rise to the boffinated classes' non-God-bothering tendencies. He said: "Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population." Lynn pointed out that most children do believe in God, but as their intelligence develops they tend to have doubts or reject religion. Similarly, as average IQ in Western societies increased through the 20th century, so did rates of atheism, he said. The researchers' claims of a direct causal link have drawn criticism from others in intelligence research, who argue their conclusions are too simplistic. London Metropolitan University's Dr David Hardman said: "It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief. Nonetheless, there is evidence from other domains that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability - or perhaps willingness - to question and overturn strongly felt intuitions."

NEW DELHI: The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation ( EPFO ) advised subscribers on Tuesday against completely withdrawing funds for petty reasons, saying such a decision would cost them social security benefits that only come with continuity.People should not treat the money like a bank deposit , the retirement fund body added.“We want to convey to all our members not to be tempted to make final withdrawals from their provident fund balances unless and until it is really necessary. They should continue to live with the fund until they retire from service, that is our primary objective,” V Ranganath , additional commissioner, central PF commissioner, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh , said.“...We are discouraging people withdrawing in full for petty reasons, because they are not only losing on their PF money, they are also losing out big time on security in their old age and pension,” he added.

MIT researchers have developed a machine-learning system that can comb through repairs to open-source computer programs and learn their general properties, in order to produce new repairs for a different set of programs. The researchers tested their system on a set of programming errors, culled from real open-source applications, that had been compiled to evaluate automatic bug-repair systems. Where those earlier systems were able to repair one or two of the bugs, the MIT system repaired between 15 and 18, depending on whether it settled on the first solution it found or was allowed to run longer. While an automatic bug-repair tool would be useful in its own right, professor of electrical engineering and computer science Martin Rinard, whose group developed the new system, believes that the work could have broader ramifications. “One of the most intriguing aspects of this research is that we’ve found that there are indeed universal properties of correct code that you can learn from one set of applications and apply to another set of applications,” Rinard says. “If you can recognize correct code, that has enormous implications across all software engineering. This is just the first application of what we hope will be a brand-new, fabulous technique.” Fan Long, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, presented a paper describing the new system at the Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages last week. He and Rinard, his advisor, are co-authors. Users of open-source programs catalogue bugs they encounter on project websites, and contributors to the projects post code corrections, or “patches,” to the same sites. So Long was able to write a computer script that automatically extracted both the uncorrected code and patches for 777 errors in eight common open-source applications stored in the online repository GitHub. Feature performance As with all machine-learning systems, the crucial aspect of Long and Rinard’s design was the selection of a “feature set” that the system would analyze. The researchers concentrated on values stored in memory — either variables, which can be modified during a program’s execution, or constants, which can’t. They identified 30 prime characteristics of a given value: It might be involved in an operation, such as addition or multiplication, or a comparison, such as greater than or equal to; it might be local, meaning it occurs only within a single block of code, or global, meaning that it’s accessible to the program as a whole; it might be the variable that represents the final result of a calculation; and so on. Long and Rinard wrote a computer program that evaluated all the possible relationships between these characteristics in successive lines of code. More than 3,500 such relationships constitute their feature set. Their machine-learning algorithm then tried to determine what combination of features most consistently predicted the success of a patch. “All the features we’re trying to look at are relationships between the patch you insert and the code you are trying to patch,” Long says. “Typically, there will be good connections in the correct patches, corresponding to useful or productive program logic. And there will be bad patterns that mean disconnections in program logic or redundant program logic that are less likely to be successful.” Ranking candidates In earlier work, Long had developed an algorithm that attempts to repair program bugs by systematically modifying program code. The modified code is then subjected to a suite of tests designed to elicit the buggy behavior. This approach may find a modification that passes the tests, but it could take a prohibitively long time. Moreover, the modified code may still contain errors that the tests don’t trigger. Long and Rinard’s machine-learning system works in conjunction with this earlier algorithm, ranking proposed modifications according to the probability that they are correct before subjecting them to time-consuming tests. The researchers tested their system, which they call Prophet, on a set of 69 program errors that had cropped up in eight popular open-source programs. Of those, 19 are amenable to the type of modifications that Long’s algorithm uses; the other 50 have more complicated problems that involve logical inconsistencies across larger swaths of code. When Long and Rinard configured their system to settle for the first solution that passed the bug-eliciting tests, it was able to correctly repair 15 of the 19 errors; when they allowed it to run for 12 hours per problem, it repaired 18. Of course, that still leaves the other 50 errors in the test set untouched. In ongoing work, Long is working on a machine-learning system that will look at more coarse-grained manipulation of program values across larger stretches of code, in the hope of producing a bug-repair system that can handle more complex errors. “A revolutionary aspect of Prophet is how it leverages past successful patches to learn new ones,” says Eran Yahav, an associate professor of computer science at the Technion in Israel. “It relies on the insight that despite differences between software projects, fixes — patches — applied to projects often have commonalities that can be learned from. Using machine learning to learn from ‘big code’ holds the promise to revolutionize many programming tasks — code completion, reverse-engineering, et cetera.”

SAN DIEGO -- A member of the San Diego Chargers' game-day staff has died after falling out of the press box before the Denver Broncos played the Chargers on Monday night. Walt Daniels, 66, died at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday at Sharp Memorial Hospital, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office said. Daniels appeared to sustain a head injury after falling about 25 to 30 feet out of a booth that was to be used by Broncos assistant coaches, and landing on the loge level. He was administered CPR before being taken to the hospital. Workers later cleaned up a puddle of blood. The accident happened about three hours before kickoff and delayed the opening of the gates by about 40 minutes. "The San Diego Chargers' family is greatly saddened by the loss of Walt Daniels," the team said in a statement. "Walt loved the team and loved working in the press box on game days for more than 20 years. Our prayers are with his family and friends during this most difficult time."

Elizium for the Sleepless Souls Prologue: At the Gates of Silent Memory X-X-X-X-X-X -|- X-X-X-X-X-X -|- X-X-X-X-X-X The world was an inky void, the darkness only interrupted by his ragged breathing, which exhaled plumes of fog across cold lips, through the burlap sack clinging to his face. He was soaked to the bone, rainwater dripping from every inch of his skin, leeching the last remnants of heat from his body. Ten fingers clamped down upon each arm, the viselike grips dragging him deeper into the chilly depths. A door creaked open and he was unceremoniously driven into a hard wooden chair, forcing the air from his lungs. Before he could recover his senses, twin coils snaked around his wrists, binding them to the arms of the chair. "Leave us," a sugary, girlish voice ordered. Before the echo of her words died, the burlap bag was ripped from his face, bringing the world back into focus. "Good evening, Mister Potter," Dolores Umbridge greeted from the opposite side of a polished wooden table. A wide, inviting smile stretched across her flabby features. Upon her short, tightly curled hair perched a black bow. She had done away with the fluffy pink cardigan favored during her tenure at Hogwarts, and instead wore dark, formal robes more befitting of a Wizengamot member. "Dolores," replied Harry, unable to keep the vitriol from his voice. His muscles tensed against the bonds, itching to leap up and wipe the self-satisfied leer from the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. "How cold you must be, Mister Potter," she continued, acting as if they were not bitter enemies. "Please, have a cuppa." Umbridge's flabby hands wrapped around the handle of a large teapot adorned with pink floral patterns. She poured the steaming liquid into a light pink mug, before pushing it towards him. "It'd be far easier to drink this with my hands free." Umbridge let out a chuckle. "Perhaps, but it would also be far easier for you to make an attempt on my life. No, Mister Potter, I'm afraid that you'll have to make do." Harry spared the steaming mug a brief glance, before shaking his head. "Slipping something into my drink didn't work at Hogwarts. Why bother trying again?" "Suit yourself," Umbridge replied with a shrug, reaching over to slide the mug back to her side of the table, leaving faint marks on the polished surface. "Remember this moment, Mister Potter. That cup of tea is going to be the closest thing to warmth you'll see for quite a long time." From the moment of his capture, Harry had known the truth of the matter, but to hear it vocalized was more demoralizing than he would have ever admitted. "How cross you must be with me. A terrorist group to run, attacks to carry out, and yet here you are, in Azkaban. Tell me…what madness drove you back to the Ministry? As corrupt and immoral as you are, you possess a certain degree of cunning. One would have assumed that one spectacular failure would be enough." Despite his best effort, Harry's teeth ground together. As bad as things had seemed on that night two years ago when he took five of his closest friends with him on the wings of thestrals to rescue Sirius from the Department of Mysteries, it had been a mere prelude to the horrors to come. In the space of an hour, both Dumbledore and Sirius were dead, half of the Order of the Phoenix had been arrested, and he was a fugitive, the most wanted person in Wizarding Britain. "Every potential success has risk attached to it," Harry replied, keeping his voice level. "You know, if I were you, I'd be more interested in why I bothered to take that risk in the first place." A slight flush rose in her jowls, her small eyes narrowing. "We plan on winning this war, Potter. Whether you planned on destroying the Ministry of Magic itself, or seizing an experimental weapon from the Department of Mysteries, the end result is the same: you failed." Bile built up in the back of Harry's throat. Half of the Order had been against his plan, but he had nonetheless pushed on. The war was at an impasse, with the key players for both the Ministry and the Death Eaters hidden from sight. Someone had to break the stalemate. "Whatever the case may be," Umbridge continued, "the Order of the Phoenix has lost its leader. Without proper leadership, how long do you think it will take for the remnants to unravel?" Loathe as he was to admit it, not long. There was no fiercer opponent in the field than Mad-Eye Moody, but he could not relate to non-combatants, the same of which could also be said of Minerva McGonagall. "It's hard to say," Harry conceded. "Maybe long enough for the Ministry and the Death Eaters to take each other out first." Umbridge let out a light chuckle. "I think not, Mister Potter. The ranks of the Death Eaters thin with each passing day." "And even more flock to Voldemort's call," Harry objected, leaning forward as much as his bonds would allow. "More and more wizards are concluding that bending a knee to Voldemort is kinder than living beneath the Ministry's yoke." "That's preposterous-" "And they have a point," he spat, cutting her off mid-sputter. "I thought it was bad when you first arrested Stan Shunpike, but that was just a taste of things to come." "Stan Shunpike was tried and convicted of conspiring with the Death Eaters. Do you know what percentage of the wizarding population travels on the Knight Bus, Potter?" Harry let out a derisive snort. "If brains were Floo Powder, Shunpike wouldn't have enough to travel across the room. Voldemort would have no interest in someone that soft headed. You had to know that." "What I know is that Stan Shunpike, to openly boast of Death Eater plans, was at the very least a Death Eater sympathizer. To support Voldemort is no better than serving him." Harry chose not to retort. An appeal to reason had no affect upon Dolores Umbridge. Whatever policy the Ministry held, she adopted her thinking to coincide with their creed. "High treason, Potter. That is what your group of vigilantes is guilty of, a crime equal to that of the atrocities Voldemort has wrought." "You've lost all sense of perspective, haven't you?" Umbridge's lips thinned at his question. "No, Mister Potter, it is you who are delusional. The Aurors and the Hit-Wizards had their hands full fighting against the Death Eaters, having to spend time and resources defending against your Order's attacks are an intractable offense." "They won't give up, you know," stated Harry. "Even with me gone, they'll fight against you every step of the way." "Oh, I have no illusions of that, Mister Potter. That's why you're going to help the Ministry stop them." Harry favored the older woman with an incredulous glare. Him, help the Ministry? There was a better chance of him besting Hagrid in an arm-wrestling match. "You must have me confused with someone else." "Would it be correct to assume that you haven't been reading the Daily Prophet as of late?" Umbridge asked, ignoring his comment. "I have no interest in what that rag has to say." "Tsk, tsk," she scolded, shaking her head. "It pays to be informed of current affairs. Had you bothered, you would have heard about the new edict upon the floor of the Wizengamot, which goes to vote next week. The Daily Prophet has been quite vocal in their support of this new measure, as the editorial section can attest to." Alarms were blaring in his head. No, it couldn't be… "As of next week, all enemies of the state will be under a 'kill on sight' order. A distinction your precious Order more than qualifies for, I'm afraid." "It will never pass," Harry spat, straining against his bonds. "Oh, I assure you, Mister Potter, the voting process is a mere formality. The support for it is universal." Harry leaned against the back of the chair, gob smacked by the news. Order members, supporters, business partners…all of them could to detained and killed without proof, without due process. Even the shadow of suspicion would be enough to condemn them. "So Mister Potter," continued Umbridge, gloating at his mental anguish. "How much do you value your followers? Are you content to let them throw away their lives on poorly conceived ploys? To let them be cut down in the street like cattle? Or…do you want to help your friends?" His eyes hardened at her words. As much as it stung, if the edict passed, half of the Order and its supporters would be wiped out before they could fall back to Grimmauld Place. Harry remained silent, deep in thought. Umbridge took his lack of reply as an invitation to continue. "All you have to do is give us the location of the Order's headquarters. We know that you are utilizing an illegal Fidelius Charm to cloak your hideout. Break the charm, and we'll use Stun Gas to overtake the hideout. No blood needs to be spilt." "I have no intentions of trusting the word of the Ministry," Harry spat, anger beginning to cloud his vision. "Even if you hold up your end of the bargain, would the Ministry really allow former members of the Order of the Phoenix to wander free about the country? That doesn't fit into your 'total control' motif. What would happen when they got out of Azkaban? Would the ship back sink? Would they be run over by the Knight Bus? Would they mysteriously contract Dragon Pox?" Umbridge's mouth thinned to a frown. "Mister Potter, I assure you-" "No, forget it. I won't sell them out. Not for myself, and not for you." The older woman let out a sigh of displeasure. "I feared as much," she said, before rising to her feet. "Though I thought perhaps you might be smarter. Perhaps a few months here in Azkaban will sway your opinion, allow to you see more clearly." "I doubt it." A predatory smile stretched across Umbridge's face, as if she had just won some great victory. "Time shall tell, Mister Potter. We can be very….persuasive. Nonetheless, you'll have plenty of time to consider my offer." With a sudden sweep of her arm, she swept the teapot onto the floor. It shattered into a hundred pieces, spraying tea and miniature shards of pink masonry across the floor. No sooner had the teapot exploded, the door flew open, admitting the two silent guards that had escorted him in, wands drawn. "Mister Potter wasn't interesting in warming himself up with tea. Please show him to our coldest room, if you would be so kind." As they stuffed the burlap bag over his head, Harry wondered if perhaps breaking into the Ministry of Magic was a bad idea. "He who dares, wins," he said to himself, before darkness claimed him. X-X-X-X-X-X -|- X-X-X-X-X-X -|- X-X-X-X-X-X Author Notes: This story will be eight chapters long, including the prologue and epilogue. As opposed to the epic-length chapters I usually produce, the chapters in this story will a far shorter, in the 3-6k word range. Chapter one should be up in a week or so. Thanks to T3t, PrincessCupcake and SenseandCommon for the beta assistance. Thanks to Master Slytherin, scaryisntit and vikingsfn for the additional guidance. Thanks for reading.

A San Diego man is suing MillerCoors, claiming the company's Blue Moon beer isn't a true craft beer. NBC 7's Matt Rascon has the exclusive interview with the man behind the lawsuit. (Published Sunday, May 3, 2015) A San Diego man is suing MillerCoors, claiming the company’s Blue Moon beer is not truly a craft beer. Evan Parent claims MillerCoors deceived him by advertising their product, Blue Moon, as a craft beer produced in a small brewery when in actuality the product is made in large plants, according to the lawsuit. The product is marketed as “artfully crafted,” but, Parents says, the product does not qualify as a craft brewery product. “What this case is really about is people think they're buying craft beer and they're actually buying crafty marketing,” Parent's lawyer Jim Treglio told NBC7. In the lawsuit, Parent says that despite the fact that MillerCoors has been brewing the beer for the past 20 years, “Defendant [MillerCoors] goes to great lengths to disassociate Blue Moon beer from the MillerCoors name. MillerCoors does not appear anywhere on the Blue Moon bottle,” the lawsuit claims. By misleading the people who buy the beer, the lawsuit claims, they are able to charge up to 50 percent more for the product. Parent said he cares about it because he is a beer aficionado and home brewer. “It matters to me because I'm a craft brew fan...I take care in where I spend my money,” Parent said. After learning the way the beer was made and marketed in 2012, he stopped purchasing the beer. “When someone's deceiving me into giving them my money for the wrong reasons that's upsetting,” Parent told NBC7. The class-action suit was filed in San Diego Superior Court. A spokesperson for MillerCoors company says the lawsuit lacks merit.

Fear is spreading in the stock market. A monthlong drop in U.S. stocks intensified in afternoon trading Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 450 points and putting the index on track for its biggest loss in more than a year. The decline came as investor fears of a global economic slowdown deepened after several weeks of turbulent market action. Worrisome economic news in the U.S. also fueled Wednesday's selling. Traders dumped risky assets and parked their money in investments seen as relatively safe, such as U.S. government bonds. That pushed the yield on the 10-year Treasury note briefly below 2 percent, the lowest level in more than a year. "It's a function of the U.S. being the best house in a bad neighborhood," said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. "There's still uncertainty about economic growth, primarily on a global basis." Stocks plunged at the open of trading and extended a rough October for the market. The Dow was down 299 points, or 1.8 percent, to 16,016 as of 3:17 p.m. Eastern time. It dropped as much as 460 points earlier and was headed for its biggest percentage drop since June 2013. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 31 points, or 1.7 percent, to 1,846. The Nasdaq composite dropped 52 points, or 1.2 percent, to 4,176. All three indexes are now down for the year. Until late September, the market had moved higher for most of 2014 as U.S. corporate earnings kept up record growth and the economy strengthened. Stocks, though, have been declining for nearly a month as investors have grown increasingly nervous about slowing global growth. While the U.S. economy remains healthy, investors are concerned that earnings growth will fade this year and next because of the slowdown in Europe and, to a lesser degree, China. Wednesday's slide brings the stock market closer to a correction. That happens when a benchmark index like the S&P 500 falls 10 percent or more from a recent peak. The S&P 500 hit its most recent peak of 2,011.36 on Sept. 18. It would have to close at 1,810.22 to mark a correction. The last time that happened was October 2011. The correction threshold for the Dow is 15,551. The Nasdaq's is 4,138. The Nasdaq traded below that threshold on Wednesday and could match the widely accepted definition of being in a correction if it closes below that point. Parts of the market are already in correction, which has some analysts calling for caution. Small-company stocks, as measured by the Russell 2000 index, have fallen 12.8 percent since hitting a peak in July and are down 9.5 percent for the year. Many market watchers say occasional corrections are a healthy phenomenon over the long term and give investors an opportunity to add to their holdings at a lower cost. "That's why it' so important to stay invested at a time like this, rather than think it's a time to get out," said Kate Warne, an investment strategist at Edward Jones. Bond prices soared Wednesday as investors shifted money into safe-haven investments. Early on, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note plunged to 1.91 percent from 2.20 percent the day before, or 29 basis points, a huge move. It recovered to 2.06 percent in afternoon trading. Bond yields fall when their prices rise. "It typically takes weeks for 10-year Treasurys to move 29 basis points," noted Tom Di Galoma, head of fixed income rates in New York at ED&F Man Capital. "Today it moved 29 basis points in 5 minutes." Investors got discouraging U.S. economic news early Wednesday, when the Commerce Department reported that retail sales declined 0.3 percent in September from the previous month. Purchases of autos, gasoline, furniture and clothing slowed. Retail sales have risen 4.3 percent over the past 12 months, slightly below their historical pace. A snapshot of manufacturing activity didn't bolster optimism. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Empire State Manufacturing index dropped sharply from 27.5 to 6.2 in October as new orders shrank and shipments barely rose. The latest reading marks the slowest pace of growth in six months. All 10 sectors in the S&P 500 declined, led by financial stocks, which slid 3.3 percent. KeyCorp, Hudson City Bancorp, Lincoln National and Citigroup were among the biggest decliners. Covidien led the slide among S&P 500 companies, falling $7.89, or 8.5 percent, to $84.46. Bucking the trend were several energy and oil services companies, including Cabot Oil & Gas, Southwest Energy and Helmerich & Payne. Southwestern paced the gainers, rising $2.02, or 6.1 percent, to $35.12. Homebuilders surged, getting a lift from the slide in the 10-year Treasury bond yield, which affects rate on consumer and business loans. A decline in the 10-year Treasury note yield should nudge mortgage rates lower, spurring home sales. M/I Homes got the biggest boost among the builders, adding 77 cents, or 4 percent, to $19.99. As more companies report earnings over the next couple of weeks, investors should get a better read of the impact that the economic situation overseas will have on U.S. companies. In overseas market action, traders worried that Europe might relapse into recession. France's CAC 40 sank 3.6 percent and Germany's DAX lost 2.9 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 2.8 percent. Greece's stock index plunged 6.3 percent on concerns that the Greek government could collapse next year, putting its bailout program in danger. The index fell 5.7 percent the previous day. U.S. crude slipped 23 cents to $81.61 a barrel. In metals trading, gold rose $10.50 to $1,244.80 an ounce, silver rose six cents to $17.46 an ounce and copper fell eight cents to $3.01 a pound.

For "Windows tax", a term for the cost of Microsoft Windows preinstalled on a computer, see Bundling of Microsoft Windows The window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was a significant social, cultural, and architectural force in England, France, Ireland and Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries. To avoid the tax some houses from the period can be seen to have bricked-up window-spaces (ready to be glazed or reglazed at a later date). In England and Wales it was introduced in 1696 and was repealed in 1851, 156 years after first being introduced. France (established 1798, repealed 1926) and Scotland both had window taxes for similar reasons. Details [ edit ] The tax was introduced in England and Wales in 1696 under King William III and was designed to impose tax relative to the prosperity of the taxpayer, but without the controversy that then surrounded the idea of income tax.[1][2] At that time, many people in Britain opposed income tax, on principle, because the disclosure of personal income represented an unacceptable governmental intrusion into private matters, and a potential threat to personal liberty.[3] In fact the first permanent British income tax was not introduced until 1842, and the issue remained intensely controversial well into the 20th century.[4] When the window tax was introduced, it consisted of two parts: a flat-rate house tax of 2 shillings per house (equivalent to £13.63 in 2018),[5] and a variable tax for the number of windows above ten windows in the house. Properties with between ten and twenty windows paid an extra four shillings (equivalent to £27.26 in 2018),[5] and those above twenty windows paid an extra eight shillings (equivalent to £54.52 in 2018).[5] In 1709 with the union of England and Scotland, taxes were harmonised and a new top rate of 20s total was introduced for houses with 30 or more windows. In 1747 the 2s flat rate was detached from the window tax as a tax in its own right and the way the window tax was calculated was altered. 6d was charged for each window in a house with 10–14, 9d for each window in a house with 15–19, 1s for every window in a house with 20 or more. In 1758 the flat rate charge was increased to 3s. The number of windows that incurred tax was changed to seven in 1766 and eight in 1825.[6] A house in Portland Street, Southampton , with bricked-up spaces in place of windows The flat-rate tax was changed to a variable rate, dependent on the property value, in 1778. People who were exempt from paying church or poor rates, for reasons of poverty, were exempt from the window tax.[7] Window tax was relatively unintrusive and easy to assess. Manchester Royal Infirmary had to pay a tax of 1/9d per window on the windows of the rooms occupied by staff of the infirmary in 1841—a total of £1 9/9d.[8] Certain rooms, particularly dairies, cheeserooms and milkhouses, were exempt providing they were clearly labelled, and it is not uncommon to find the name of such rooms carved on the lintel. The bigger the house, the more windows it was likely to have, and the more tax the occupants would pay. Nevertheless, the tax was unpopular, because it was seen by some as a tax on "light and air".[9] In Scotland, a window tax was imposed after 1748. A house had to have at least seven windows or a rent of at least £5 to be taxed.[10] A similar tax also existed in France from 1798 to 1926. There was a strong agitation in England in favour of the abolition of the tax during the winter of 1850–51, and it was accordingly repealed on 24 July 1851, and a tax on inhabited houses substituted.[11] The Scottish window tax was also abolished at the same time. See also [ edit ] References [ edit ]