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What president?
A year after politics — and the newly elected occupant of the White House — dominated the conversation and tone of the Golden Globes, there was barely a mention of such things at Sunday's ceremony. This year, it was all gender politics, and of course the #MeToo movement that has engulfed Hollywood and spread into the culture at large with astonishing speed. From the sea of glittering black gowns worn in solidarity on the usually multi-colored red carpet, to sly references to unequal pay and recognition for women, to Frances McDormand's salute to "a tectonic shift" in the Hollywood power structure, it was a night for reckoning — crowned by Oprah Winfrey's barn-raiser of a speech proclaiming "Their time is UP!"
Usually, red carpet interviews focus on the provenance of designer gowns and jewelry. This year, there was talk of working conditions for farmers and janitors, and demands for equal pay across society. Several actresses, including Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams and Emma Watson, brought social activists with them , to focus on real-life solutions to gritty problems far from Hollywood. "We feel emboldened in this particular moment," Streep said, "to stand together in a thick black line dividing then from now."
It was a night of unusually powerful speeches, whether long or short, that touched eloquently on the #MeToo moment. One came from Laura Dern, who won supporting actress for "Big Little Lies," a TV series that, aptly, depicts not only sexual abuse, but a group of women who only fully discover their power when they unite. Using her character to describe a past culture in which people were afraid to speak out, Dern urged Hollywood to support and employ survivors brave enough to come forward. And she went further: "May we teach our children," she said, "that speaking out without the fear of retribution is our culture's new North Star."
One of the most glaring snubs in this year's movie nominations came in the best director category, where Greta Gerwig was passed over for her much-loved "Lady Bird." Natalie Portman, presenting the director prize, was not about to let that go unnoticed. "And here are the all MALE nominees," she quipped, to knowing laughter. (Guillermo del Toro won for "The Shape of Water.") Barbra Streisand also took a jab at the Globes, noting that she'd been the only woman to have won best director — in 1984. "That was 34 years ago, folks. Time's up!" she said.
A big winner was "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," in which Frances McDormand plays a mother taunting police to solve the rape and murder of her daughter. Winning for best actress , McDormand noted to the crowd that "I keep my politics private. But it was really great to be in this room and to be part of a tectonic shift in our industry power structure." And she added: "Trust me: The women in this room tonight are not here for the food. We're here for the work."
But with all the eloquent speeches, none roused the room like Winfrey's, who had the crowd giving her repeated ovations as she issued a warning — not once, but three times — to powerful men who abuse women: "Their time is up! " She ended her barn-storming speech, in which she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award, with a call to young girls. "I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon!" she said. "And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women ... and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say, 'Me too,' again." Director Ava DuVernay later wrote on Twitter that the room was "still vibrating like electricity from that speech."
Photo: AP/Jordan Strauss
While most of the talk was about progress in the sphere of gender, actor Sterling K. Brown of TV's "This Is Us" addressed progress of a different kind: he was the first black actor to win the Globe for best actor in a TV drama. He thanked the show's creator, Dan Fogelman, for writing a role "for a black man that can only be played by a black man." What he was grateful for, Brown said, is that "I'm being seen for who I am and being appreciated for who I am, and it makes it that much more difficult to dismiss me or dismiss anybody who looks like me."
There's been much talk about equal pay lately, but Debra Messing and Eva Longoria got very specific, calling out E! Entertainment Television on the issue while doing interviews with them on the red carpet.
Messing referenced the recent departure from E! of host Catt Sadler, who has said she was making about half the pay of her male counterpart, Jason Kennedy.
"I was so shocked to hear that E! doesn't believe in paying their female co-hosts the same as their male co-hosts," she said. "I miss Catt Sadler."
Longoria also made the point, to Ryan Seacrest. "We support gender equity and equal pay and we hope that E! follows that lead with Catt as well," she said.
On an evening recognizing women in Hollywood, it was certainly apt to have Thelma and Louise, aka Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, present an award. Davis — who is a longtime advocate for gender equality in film — joked cynically that the two had already "fixed everything." She also noted that the men in the category they were presenting had agreed to give half their salary back "so the women can make more than them."
She was joking there, too.
Guillermo del Toro, who won best director at the Golden Globes, had to hush the orchestra after they began playing shortly after he started his acceptance speech.
He told them to "lower the music ... it's taken 25 years. Give me a minute!"
He won for the Cold War-era fantasy "The Shape of Water." The film stars Sally Hawkins as a mute cleaning lady who falls in love with an amphibious creature kept confined in a government lab.
The emotional Mexican-born filmmaker's acceptance speech was an ode to his love affair with monsters.
He thanked the film's cast, before continuing: "My monsters thank you."
Del Toro later tweeted a photo of an In-N-Out drive-thru menu board with the caption "After the globes celebration."


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April 3rd, 2012
New York pulls plans to ban words from standardized tests
By Brian Vitagliano, CNN
New York (CNN) - One week after New York's Department of Education drew controversy with a request to ban 50 words and references from the city's standardized tests – including "dinosaur," "birthday" and "religion" – the department announced Tuesday that it is abandoning the plan.
"After reconsidering our message to test publishers and the reaction from parents, we will revise our guidance and eliminate the list of words to avoid on tests," New York Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky said in a statement.
"We will continue to advise companies to be sensitive to student backgrounds and avoid unnecessary distractions that could invalidate test scores and give an inaccurate assessment of how students are doing," the statement continued.
The list of words New York hoped to ban from tests was made public when the city's education department released this year's "request for proposal" for test publishers across the country. The city is looking for vendors to revamp math and English tests for its students.
The list of words, which included "divorce," "Halloween," "Christmas" and "television," attracted considerable criticism, with many alleging it was political correctness gone too far.
CNN's Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories
In its request for proposal, the NYC Department of Education explained that it wanted to avoid certain words if "the topic is controversial among the adult population and might not be acceptable in a state-mandated testing situation; the topic has been overused in standardized tests or textbooks and is thus overly familiar and/or boring to students; the topic appears biased against (or toward) some group of people."
Matthew Mittenthal, a spokesman for the NYC Department of Education, said last week that this is the fifth year his agency has created such a list. The request for proposal said certain words "could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students."
Apparently, many of the words on New York's list were avoided because of faith-based concerns.
For instance, the use of the word "birthday" or the phrase "birthday celebrations" may offend Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not celebrate birthdays. A representative for the Jehovah's Witnesses declined to comment on the use of the word "birthday."
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The Department of Education would not go on the record to explain the specific reasons for each word, leaving many to draw their own conclusions.
"Halloween" may suggest paganism; "divorce" may conjure up uneasy feelings for children in the midst of split within their family. The term "rock 'n' roll" was also on the "avoid" list.
The New York Post speculated that the "dinosaurs" could "call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists."
Stanford University professor Sam Wineburg, director of Stanford's History Education Group, welcomed Tuesday's announcement.
"It is a courageous move," he said. "Any time educators reverse a decision that was public, which received air time in the press, it's an act of courage and to recover a position of common sense."
soundoff (580 Responses)
About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.

subset: commoncrawl


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It could prove to be a perfect ending to Manziel's college career.
Manziel threw four touchdown passes, and Toney Hurd Jr. returned an interception 55 yards for the late go-ahead touchdown in Texas A&M's 52-48 victory over Duke on Tuesday night in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Led by Manziel, the Aggies rallied after trailing 38-17 at halftime. It was the highest-scoring game in the bowl's history.
Manziel, playing in what might be his final college game, completed 30 of 38 passes for 382 yards and ran for 73 yards and a touchdown.
"I was in a zone I haven't been in before," Manziel said. "Ever. I just wanted this game."
Hurd's interception return gave the No. 20 Aggies (9-4) their first lead with 3:33 remaining.
No. 22 Duke (10-4) took a 41-31 lead into the fourth quarter. The Blue Devils couldn't hold off the comeback and are still looking for their first bowl win since beating Arkansas 7-6 in the 1961 Cotton Bowl.
Hurd stepped in front of receiver Johnell Barnes for the interception, the first turnover for either team. Texas A&M linebacker Nate Askew ended Duke's next possession with another interception.
Duke's Anthony Boone passed for 427 yards and three touchdowns but was left to regret the two interceptions, especially Hurd's.
"It hurt," Boone said. "It was a very unfortunate play on my part."
Manziel, a third-year sophomore who won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman last season, is widely projected as a first-round pick if he decides to enter the NFL draft. He wasn't ready to talk about his decision after the game.
"I can't even talk about anything other than this game," Manziel said. "This was unreal. ... I haven't made (the decision) yet. I'm in the moment right now."
Asked if this would be a perfect way to cap his college career, Manziel said: "I don't know. It's an unreal feeling, I know that. The way these guys fought, it was unreal. I'm proud of them."
Texas A&M's defense opened the second half with its first stop of the game. The Blue Devils, successful on two fourth-down calls in the first half, were stopped on fourth down from the Texas A&M 35.
That set the stage for Manziel's magic.
The elusive quarterback had runs of 12 and 14 yards before his highlight play of the game. On second down from the Duke 17, Manziel danced and shuffled in traffic before vaulting a defender and dumping a short pass to Travis Labhart, who scored easily for his third touchdown of the game.
"It looked like we had him down three times," Duke coach David Cutcliffe said. "He's just strong, so strong."
Josh Snead ran and caught passes for touchdowns and blocked a punt to set up a scoring run by Boone as Duke dominated the first half.
Snead capped Duke's opening drive with an 11-yard touchdown catch. He had 17 carries for 104 yards and a touchdown and three catches for 21 yards and a touchdown. Juwan Thompson added 92 yards rushing for the Blue Devils and Jamison Crowder had 12 receptions for 163 yards and a touchdown.
All the pregame focus on Manziel and his possible farewell game failed to address the Aggies' weakness that made the 2013 season a disappointment. Texas A&M ranked last in the Southeastern Conference and 105th in the nation in total defense and 88th in the nation in scoring defense.
Duke's offense, led by Boone, ripped through the vulnerable Texas A&M defense. The Blue Devils gained 365 yards with no punts in the first half while building the three-touchdown lead.
Manziel and the Aggies couldn't match Duke's relentless attack. Mistakes hurt the Aggies, including an unsportsmanlike conduct call against receiver Mike Evans which helped to stall their first possession. Evans drew a second personal foul call later in the first quarter and then had to hear about it on the sideline from Manziel.
Duke attacked with go-for-broke play-calling.
The Blue Devils were successful on two four-and-1 plays in a second-quarter drive that ended with Snead's 25-yard touchdown run. Duke then added even more pressure by recovering an onside kick following the touchdown.
The recovery at midfield set up Ross Martin's 18-yard field goal on the final play of the half.
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Dear Colleagues: Please disseminate the following announcement to those who may be interested. I would be grateful. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. Thank you, Hamid ----- CALL FOR PAPERS and Call For Workshop Proposals WORLDCOMP'08 The 2008 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing July 14-17, 2008, Las Vegas, USA (composed of 25 Joint Conferences) ACADEMIC SPONSORS: Research labs at Harvard University, UCLA, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Texas at Austin, University of Iowa, and others (see below). You are invited to submit a paper (and/or a proposal to organize a session/workshop). All accepted papers will be published in the respective conference proceedings. The 2008 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing (WORLDCOMP'08) is composed of the following 25 conferences (all will be held simultaneously, same location and dates: July 14-17, 2008, USA): o BIOCOMP'08: The 2008 International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology o CDES'08: The 2008 International Conference on Computer Design o CGVR'08: The 2008 International Conference on Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality o CIC'08: The 2008 International Conference on Communications in Computing o CSC'08: The 2008 International Conference on Scientific Computing o DMIN'08: The 2008 International Conference on Data Mining o EEE'08: The 2008 International Conference on e-Learning, e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, and e-Government o ERSA'08: The 2008 International Conference on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms o ESA'08: The 2008 International Conference on Embedded Systems and Applications o FCS'08: The 2008 International Conference on Foundations of Computer Science o FECS'08: The 2008 International Conference on Frontiers in Education: Computer Science and Computer Engineering o GCA'08: The 2008 International Conference on Grid Computing and Applications o GEM'08: The 2008 International Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Methods o ICAI'08: The 2008 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence o ICOMP'08: The 2008 International Conference on Internet Computing o ICWN'08: The 2008 International Conference on Wireless Networks o IKE'08: The 2008 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Engineering o IPCV'08: The 2008 International Conference on Image Processing, Computer Vision, and Pattern Recognition o ITSL'08: The 2008 International Conference on Information Theory and Statistical Learning o MLMTA'08: The 2008 International Conference on Machine Learning; Models, Technologies and Applications o MSV'08: The 2008 International Conference on Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Methods o PDPTA'08: The 2008 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications o SAM'08: The 2008 International Conference on Security and Management o SERP'08: The 2008 International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice o SWWS'08: The 2008 International Conference on Semantic Web and Web Services (a link to each conference's URL can be found at http://www.world-academy-of-science.org) General Co-Chair and Coordinator: H. R. Arabnia, PhD Professor, Computer Science Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Supercomputing (Springer) Vice President, Int'l Society of Intelligent Biological Medicine The University of Georgia Department of Computer Science 415 Graduate Studies Research Center Athens, Georgia 30602-7404, USA Tel: (706) 542-3480 Fax: (706) 542-2966 E-mail: email@example.com PURPOSE / HISTORY: This set of joint conferences is the largest annual gathering of researchers in computer science, computer engineering and applied computing. Many of the 25 joint conferences in WORLDCOMP are the premier conferences for presentation of advances in their respective fields. We anticipate to have 2,600 or more attendees from over 80 countries participating in the 2008 joint conferences. The motivation is to assemble a spectrum of affiliated research conferences into a coordinated research meeting held in a common place at a common time. The main goal is to provide a forum for exchange of ideas in a number of research areas that interact. The model used to form these annual conferences facilitates communication among researchers from all over the world in different fields of computer science, computer engineering and applied computing. Both inward research (core areas of computer science and engineering) and outward research (multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, and applications) will be covered during the conferences. WORLCOMP'08 will be composed of research presentations, keynote lectures, invited presentations, tutorials, panel discussions, and poster presentations. In recent past, keynote and/or tutorial speakers included: Prof. Michael J. Flynn (Stanford U.); Prof. John H. Holland (U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor); Prof. H. J. Siegel (Colorado State U.); Prof. Barry Vercoe (MIT); Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy (U. of California, Berkeley); Prof. David Cheriton (Stanford U.), Prof. A. K. Dunker (Indiana U. and Purdue U.); Prof. Jun Liu (Harvard U.); Dr. Jim Gettys (developer of X Window, ...); Dr. Chris Rowen (President and CEO, Tensilica, Inc.); and many other distinguished speakers. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: Prospective authors are invited to submit their draft paper (about 5 to 7 pages - single space, font size of 10 to 12) to H. R. Arabnia by Feb. 25, 2008. email submissions in MS document or PDF formats are preferable (Fax or postal submissions are also fine.) All reasonable typesetting formats are acceptable (later, the authors of accepted papers will be asked to follow a particular typesetting format to prepare their papers for publication.) The length of the Camera-Ready papers (if accepted) will be limited to 7 (IEEE style) pages. Papers must not have been previously published or currently submitted for publication elsewhere. The first page of the draft paper should include: title of the paper, name, affiliation, postal address, email address, and telephone number for each author. The first page should also identify the name of the Contact Author and a maximum of 5 topical keywords that would best represent the content of the paper. Finally, the name of the conference that the paper is being submitted to must be stated on the first page. Papers will be evaluated for originality, significance, clarity, impact, and soundness. Each paper will be refereed by two experts in the field who are independent of the conference program committee. The referees' evaluations will then be reviewed by two members of the program committee who will recommend a decision to the chair of the track that the paper has been submitted to. The chair will make the final decision. Lastly, the Camera-Ready papers will be reviewed by one member of the program committee. PROPOSAL FOR ORGANIZING SESSIONS/WORKSHOPS: Each session will have at least 6 paper presentations from different authors (12 papers in the case of workshops). The session chairs will be responsible for all aspects of their sessions; including, soliciting papers, reviewing, selecting, ... The names of session chairs will appear as Associate Editors in the conference proceedings and on the cover of the books. Proposals to organize sessions should include the following information: name and address (+ email) of proposer, title of session, a 100-word description of the topic of the session, the name of the conference the session is submitted for consideration, and a short description on how the session will be advertised (in most cases, session proposers solicit papers from colleagues and researchers whose work is known to the session proposer). email your proposal to H. R. Arabnia (address is given above). We would like to receive the proposals by January 16, 2008. IMPORTANT DATES: Jan. 16, 2008: Proposals for organizing/chairing sessions/workshops Feb. 25, 2008: Submission of papers (about 5 to 7 pages) March 25, 2008: Notification of acceptance April 25, 2008: Camera-Ready papers and Registration due July 14-17, 2008: The 2008 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing (WORLDCOMP'08 - 25 joint conferences) MEMBERS OF PROGRAM AND ORGANIZING COMMITTEES: The Program Committee includes members of chapters of World Academy of Science (chapters: supercomputing; scientific computing; AI; imaging science; databases; simulation; software engineering; embedded systems; internet and web technologies; communications; computer security; and bioinformatics.) The Program Committee for individual conferences is currently being formed. Those interested in joining the Program Committee should email H. R. Arabnia (email@example.com) the following information: Name, affiliation and position, complete mailing address, email address, a short biography together with research interests and the name of the conference offering to help with. Many who have already joined the committees of individual tracks are renowned leaders, scholars, researchers, scientists and practitioners of the highest ranks; many are directors of research laboratories, fellows of various societies, heads/chairs of departments, deans and provosts. LOCATION OF CONFERENCES: The conferences will be held in the Monte Carlo hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (with any overflows at other near-by hotels). This is a mega hotel with excellent conference facilities and over 3,000 rooms. It is minutes from the airport with 24-hour shuttle service to and from the airport. This hotel has many recreational attractions, including: waterfalls, spa, pools, sunning decks, Easy River, wave pool, lighted tennis courts, health spa, nightly shows, a number of restaurants, ... The negotiated room rate for conference attendees is very reasonable. The hotel is within walking distance from most other attractions (recreational destinations, Golf courses, ...) SPONSORS: (this is a partial list) Academic Co-sponsors include: - Computational Biology and Functional Genomics Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA http://compbio.dfci.harvard.edu/ - Horvath Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA http://www.genetics.ucla.edu/labs/horvath/CoexpressionNetwork/ - BioMedical Informatics & Bio-Imaging Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA http://www.bio-miblab.org/ - Intelligent Data Exploration and Analysis Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA http://www.ideal.ece.utexas.edu/ - Center for the Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA http://opal.biology.gatech.edu/GeneMark/ - Hawkeye Radiology Informatics, Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa, USA http://www.uiowa.edu/~hri/ - Medical Image HPC & Informatics Lab (MiHi Lab), University of Iowa, Iowa, USA http://www.uiowa.edu/mihpclab/ - The University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA http://www.und.edu - International Society of Intelligent Biological Medicine http://www.isibm.org/ - Institute for Informatics Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. Other Co-sponsors: - NIIT Technologies http://www.niit-tech.com/ - High Performance Computing for Nanotechnology (HPCNano) http://www.hpcnano.org - International Technology Institute (ITI) http://www.itiworld.org/ - GridToday http://www.gridtoday.com/gridtoday.html - HPCwire http://www.hpcwire.com/ - Hodges' Health (H2CM), UK http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk Future Announcements: If you do not wish to receive future announcements about this event, please send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com on Monday, 17 December 2007 15:50:33 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Tuesday, 5 July 2022 08:45:04 UTC


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Police: Woman embezzles $116K from doctor's office
Sept 2013 – MOREHEAD CITY, CARTERET COUNTY – A Carteret County woman has been been arrested for allegedly embezzling more than $100,000 dollars from a doctor's office.
According to investigators, Michelle Branche, 45, of Newport, turned herself in to police at about 2:15 p.m. Thursday. She is accused of embezzling $116,000 from Sea Breeze Family Practice on Bridges Street in Morehead City.
Lt. Kelly Guthrie of Morehead City Police said Branche had worked at the practice for 18 years. Branche took over bookkeeping at the office in January 2010, investigators said. But in July 2013, staff members noticed discrepancies.
"They had their accountant come in, and after the accountant went through their books, they called us," Lt. Guthrie said.
A couple of days after Sea Breeze Family Practice filed the police report, the business gave Branche the opportunity to resign, and she did, said Lt. Guthrie. It then took months to investigate what happened.
"We had to go through all the paperwork, all the deposits that were made for about three years," Lt. Guthrie said.
Branche allegedly used the money she stole to pay for her own health and dental insurance, police said. Branche has been charged with embezzlement and obtaining property by false pretense. Her bond was set at $50,000. More charges are possible, investigators said.


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The town of Ave Maria—located about 30 miles east of Naples—is a charming, clean city, filled with energy from the many young families, retirees, and others who are residents. Everything is only a few minutes golf cart ride away, which is the preferred method of travel. Ave Maria offers downtown condo living, a 55 plus golf community, and single family homes.
Ave Maria offers excellent educational choices from Ave Maria University to Donahue Academy, a private classical K-12, to nearby A-Rated public schools.
The charming, semi-circle town center—La Piazza—features businesses, dining, and shopping to serve the community. The focal point is the massive marble sculpture that dominates the front of the University Chapel, the Oratory. This area has been attracting manufacturing and other businesses, such as Arthrex, Collier Family Farms, and Orange Jeep Tours, thus ensuring a steady growth of this young but thriving town.
Are you ready to find Ave Maria, FL homes for sale? Feel free to give us a call, or stop by our office on Annunciation Circle. You can also start shopping now by browsing the newest real estate listings in Ave Maria.
Sign up to have new listings in Ave Maria, Florida sent directly to your inbox.
Demographic information taken from 2020 US Census Data


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To get you excited about the premiere ofTeen WolfSeventeen
, MTV's new show (it's on after the Movie Awards on Sunday, June 5), Crystal Reed sat down with to dish about everything from her character and life on set, to her love life! Here's what she had to say.
17: What's your character, Allison, like?
CR: She's the new girl in town, and she has a lot of trust issues. She has to keep re-inventing herself, which I know a lot of girls go. I know that I did. But at the end of it, she finds herself and gets comfortable in her skin, and I think that's great. I think that girls are going to be like, "Oh, you rock!" when they get to know her. At first, she's really quiet and she doesn't like to talk a lot, but in the end, she finds her voice, which I think is great.
More From Seventeen
17: What's life on set like?
CR: It feels like summer camp because we are with each other 12 to 16 hours a day, and then we go home, and then on the weekends we all hang out some more. And we never get sick of each other. Ever. I'm slightly spoiled because I know that's not how it is on every set. Well, I hope that's how it is on every set—or that Teen Wolf goes on forever! Our cast is so honest with each other. There's no drama. There's no judgment. We just click. It's like a family. And we are free and open and we burp and we share bodily functions. We'll have a movie night where we sit on the couch and wrap blankets around ourselves and watch movies, or we'll go out to dinner, or we'll cook. I'll make a bunch of food, and because I live in the same building as Tyler H. and Tyler P. and Dylan, I'll take it over and we'll all have dinner together. It's so much fun!
17: You guys are filming the show in Atlanta, where The Vampire Diaries films too. Do you ever hang out with that cast?
CR: I met Steven R. McQueen. He's really cute and adorable. But that's really the only person I met. I work every day! Our hours are insane. We're working like 16-hour days. But it's fun, and I have fun doing it.
17: Speaking of cute guys, this show seems like it's just as much about falling in love as it is about werewolves. What's your best love advice?
CR: I started to be much happier in my relationships when I realized that I can only control myself. That way, you don't worry about people and don't waste your time thinking, "What if he cheats on me?" You can't control that. It's like, if this person is going to betray me or deceive me, they're going to do it regardless whether or not I'm texting him constantly or looking through him phone or being jealous. And once you realize that, then jealousy isn't a factor. You're just you, and you can live in the moment.
What do you think about Crystal's advice? And how excited are you for the show? Sound off in the comments!


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Web programmer at risk of execution in Iran: Saeed Malekpour
W eb programmer Saeed Malekpour could be executed at any time in Iran . His death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court on 17 January 2012 and a court official has indicated that his death sentence may have now been sent for implementation .
Saeed Malekpour, a resident of Canada and Iranian national, aged 36, was again sentenced to death on 19 October 2011 by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court, and it was confirmed by Branch 32 of the Supreme Court on 17 January 2012. On 14 February 2012, one of Saeed Malekpour's lawyers visited both courts to ask about his case, but learned that the file was being held at neither court. Comments from a court official suggested that this is because Saeed Malekpour's file has been sent to the Office of Implementation of Sentences.
Saeed Malekpour was sentenced to death for "insulting and desecrating Islam" after a programme he had developed for uploading photos online had been used to post pornographic images without his knowledge. Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death in October 2010 following a trial that reportedly only lasted 15 minutes. After a June 2011 announcement that the Supreme Court had returned the case for further review, Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court imposed again the death sentence as well as prison sentence of seven and a-half years. Amnesty International understands that although he has legal representation now, for much of his detention Saeed Malekpour has had no access to legal counsel.
Saeed Malekpour had been living in Canada since 2005, but was arrested in October 2008 while visiting his family in Iran. He was allegedly tortured while held for over a year in solitary confinement in Tehran's Evin prison. In 2009, Iranian state television repeatedly aired a "confession" by Saeed. In an open letter dated March 2010, Saeed Malekpour stated his "confession" was extracted after prolonged torture following orders by Revolutionary Guard interrogators.
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in Persian, English or your own language :
Calling on the Iranian authorities to not execute Saeed Malekpour;
Expressing concern that Saeed Malekpour did not have a fair trial, and to disregard as evidence in court "confessions" which may have been coerced;
Reminding the Iranian authorities that under international law, the death penalty can only be carried out for "the most serious crimes", which must be "intentional crimes with lethal or other extremely grave consequences".
Leader of the Islamic Republic
Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street – End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: "Call on #Iran leader @khamenei_ir to halt the execution of Saeed Malekpour Salutation: Your Excellency
Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
[care of] Public relations Office
Number 4, 2 Azizi Street
Vali Asr Ave., above Pasteur Street intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email: [email protected] (In subject line: FAO Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani)
Salutation: Your Excellency
And copies to:
Secretary General, High Council for Human Rights
Mohammad Javad Larijani
High Council for Human Rights
[Care of] Office of the Head of the Judiciary, Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave. south of Serah-e Jomhouri, Tehran 1316814737, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: [email protected]
(subject line: FAO Mohammad Javad Larijani)
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
Web programmer AT RISK OF EXECUTION IN IRAN
Saeed Malekpour has been in detention since his arrest on 4 October 2008. In a March 2010 letter he wrote about his arrest: "a few agents physically beat me severely and verbally abused me, while I remained handcuffed and blindfolded. They forced me to sign a few forms, but I was not able to read the contents". Saeed Malekpour was held in solitary confinement from his arrest until 16 August 2009 and during this time was denied contact with his family or legal counsel. Saeed Malekpour was again transferred to solitary confinement on 21 December 2009 and remained there until 8 February 2010. After being reportedly beaten by guards and kicked in the face in January 2009 , Saeed Malekpour's jaw became dislocated. It is not known whether he received adequate medical care. In addition to this, Saeed Malekpour has had limited access to legal counsel throughout his detention and Amnesty International understands that his lawyer has been unable to file for a judicial review of the case.
Saeed Malekpour's arrest in October 2008 was in relation to alleged cyber crime. Two other individuals were arrested around the same time: blogger Vahid Asghari, who had been studying information and computer technology in India prior to his arrest in 2008, and website administrator Ahmad Reza Hashempour. Both are also on death row after apparently unfair trials, awaiting execution in relation to their online activities.
In 2009, a group reportedly affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, alleged that some individuals, including Saeed Malekpour, were part of "a network of decadence on the internet." The 2009 Law on Cyber Crimes in Iran extended the death penalty to such crimes. A relatively new and shadowy "cyber army", reportedly linked to the Revolutionary Guards, has also carried out attacks on websites at home and abroad, including the Twitter site and Voice of America.
Prior to his arrest, Saeed Malekpour had been living in Canada since 2005 and holds Canadian permanent residency. There has been ongoing campaigning in Canada for Saeed Malekpour's release.
This year the Iranian authorities have acknowledged the execution of 41 people, including nine public executions. Amnesty International has received credible reports of 25 other executions which were not officially acknowledged, mostly of alleged drugs offenders.
Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a state party, states the death penalty may be "imposed only for the most serious crimes". In November 2011, the UN Human Rights Committee, which oversees implementation of the ICCPR, expressed concern about the number of death sentences imposed and carried out in Iran in its Concluding Observations. The Committee stated that the Iranian authorities "should consider abolishing the death penalty or at least revise the Penal Code to restrict the imposition of the death penalty to only the 'most serious crimes'".
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and violation of the right to life and is calling for all death sentences in Iran to be commuted.
Name: Saeed Malekpour
Gender m/f: m


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Seldom Screened Cinema Presents: Scenes from the Diaspora
The Seldom Screened Cinema series is coming to an end, but we have a special double featured planned for Monday, December 10th, 6p.m at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. Join us as we explore the lives and contributions of two unknown but uniquely pivotal figures of the Civil Rights Movement.
Special Double Feature:
Alice's Ordinary People (2012)
A documentary about Alice Tregay – a woman who refused to stand still for injustice and brought others together to change what was. It's Alice's story of the ordinary people who effected extraordinary change and advanced the endless struggle for human rights and dignity. It's an inspiration to current and future generations, as they take up the mantle and continue the fight. Unrated
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement (2011)
This documentary short film is about James Armstrong, the Birmingham, AL barber whose involvement in civil rights and racial activism spanned nearly forty years. The program opens on the day before Election Day in 2008 as 85-year-old Armstrong remembers the "terrible days" of the civil rights movement, and reflects on his happiness at seeing a black presidential candidate. The documentary raises questions about democracy and patriotism in the face of adversity, and the vigilance and action required to ensure continued forward movement to end racial injustice. 25 min, Unrated.


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Photographer Sean Perry turned me on to a website called "Area of Design" that is featuring a wonderful interview with him currently on the home page, with samples of his work and his artists book Transitory. (I interviewed Sean about "Transitory" for the forthcoming Fall issue of the Photo-Eye Booklist; I'll post when it is on the stands.)
I'd not previously known of this website, and find if of interest, particularly as it showcases both art and design.
"Our scope includes, but is not limited to, the following disciplines:
Fashion Design
Furniture Design
Graphic Design
Interior Design
Interactive Design."
It's mission statement: "Area of Design is an organization that showcases established and emerging artists, designers, commercial firms, and non profit groups based in the United States.
Our mission is to provide a forum for artists to express themselves and inspire others by encouraging, educating, and nurturing creative talent."
Many sections of this site should be checked out, especially American Icons, Resources and the Calendar, pointing readers to interesting events like Pop!Tech 2007, and exhibitions like "Meet Contemporary Czech Design." Just the blend of art and culture I love!


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Jean S has sent the following longer contribution on Rutherford et al 2005. I always appreciate Jean S's thoughtful comments (which is no secret to readers here). So enjoy. JeanS:
Now since the review of Burger and Cubash [BC06 here after] put Rutherford (2005) [R05] back on the table, there is an issue to which I'd like to draw readers' attention. This issue went completely unnoticed by the AR3 of BC06 [I wonder if AR3 was a reviewer for R05 also, if so, what were his/her comments]. IMO, the issue is not fully noticed by BC, either. Namely that R05 does not use the RegEM algorithm by Schneider(2001), but a modified version of it. In fact, there are at least three completely ad-hoc modifications introduced in R05, I'll discuss them below in some detail.
As a general note, one should recognize that any (optimal) properties proved for RegEM can not be claimed for the R05 version, since it has not been shown anywhere that these (ad-hoc) modifications introduced do not change the properties.
1) "Hybrid frequency modification"
This step is "justified" in R05 with a lot of handwaving without any indication of its mathematical soundness. There are some RE values given for the reconstruction, but those values seem to differ little. So it is hard to understand why this step was needed given the the trouble in coding etc.
Modification introduced: instead of using RegEM directly on (proxy) data, R05 chooses to apply RegEM to separately to "low" and "high frequency" components. In essence, they filter the proxy data with a low pass filter (10 point Butterworth) to create the "low frequency" component and then take the residual as the "high frequency" component. Then each of these series is given "weight" which is essentially the ratio between their variances with respect to the variances of unfiltered series. Then this weight is used as an initial covariance estimate for the RegEM, which is applied separately for the both series. Finally the results are somehow combined.
The combination code is not provided in Rutherford's web page (why not???) [As a side note: Rutherford's code is terrible to read, and I would go nuts if any of our PhD-students would return me code like that not to speak of making it public.] and the combination is described in R05 as:
The REGEM method is applied separately to the calibration of proxy and instrumental data in the high- and low-frequency bands. The results of the two independent reconstructions are then recombined to yield a complete reconstruction. Each proxy record is weighted by a bandwidth retention factor defined as the percent of its total variance within the particular frequency band under consideration. For example, a proxy record dominated by interannual variability, with
very little low-frequency variability (e.g., a very data-adaptive standardized tree-ring record) would be assigned a high weight (near one) in the high-frequency band calibration and a low weight (near zero) in the low-frequency band calibration.
From which I couldn't figure out the exact details. If anyone can help me with this, I would be grateful as this would allow the complete testing of Rutherford's results.
At this point I'd like also to remind the readers about the AR3 (of the BC paper) comment:
Concepts are used loosely in a way that leaves their specific reference in the context unclear
Hmmm… isn't that customary in the field 😉
Anyhow, it seems that the "low and high frequency" component results are somehow weighted with respect to the relative variances of the proxies (under what period?). In essence, this step gives, in BC terminology, yet-another-flavor introduced by the hockey team. This is somewhat recognized by BC as they state in their answer to AR2 (see also the nonsense answer by AR2):
Regarding the hybrid-20 variant, Rutherford et al., 2005 state: "As described below, cross-validation experiments motivate the choice f = 0.05 cpy (20-yr period) for the split frequency in almost all cases." – This sentence illuminates how a posteriori selections penetrate a model definition. If there is no extra (independent, a priori) motivation for that choice, the chosen model is no longer independently verifiable. This is especially critical if the above cross-validation is sensitive to the parameter in question, and is of course dramatically aggravated with the number of such choices.
However, IMO BC have not fully realized the arbitrariness of this step. Not only there is the "cut-off-frequency" variable issue (as realized by BC above), but also the ad-hoc weighting is used as an initial estimate for the covariance matrix and, supposingly, is later used in combining the "low" and "high" frequency results. Potentially, I see another "Mannian PCA"-step that would give high weight for proxies with "right" properties. In any case, the arbitrariness of this "yet-another-flavor" should be IMO clearly stated in the main BC text.
I also find it curious that Mann goes nuts on the detrending/trending-issue, but here, without hesitation, he is ready to introduce this type of procedure which seems to allow any type of "detrending" one is looking for.
2) "Stepwise modification"
This is a modification that I think that have not been discussed much before.
This step was "justified" in R05 by an unreported toy example. I find it troubling that in "climate science" papers you are allowed to modify existing algorithms and then justify the modification by simply claiming that the modification "works better" in a single toy-example. It seems that one does not need to even provide the results of the toy-example runs for the reader to check. Even worse in R05, they modified a recently proposed algorithm that in itself has not been fully explored. Anyhow, the "justification" in R05 ends:
The stepwise approach performed as well as or better than the nonstepwise approach in cross validation in each of these experiments. The results of these pseudoproxy experiments give us some confidence that the primary conclusions presented in this study are insensitive to whether the stepwise or nonstepwise approach is used.
This is very troubling for at least three reasons: a) either the first sentence is not correct or this is a strong case for inappropriateness of the used metrics b) they generalize the results of single toy example c) if the results are truly insensitive, why then use a modification?
The idea in this modification is that instead of calculating the target (temperature field) by inputing the whole available data into the algorithm at once, one reconstructs the temperature field in a step-wise manner: first back to 1820, then back to 1800, and so forth. This method leads to different reconstruction as that implemented by BC06 (for the AD1400 step):
if we are at step AD1400, the temperature field for the period 1500-1855 is obtained from the step AD1500 so it is not calculated by RegEM as in the BC06 implementation. In other words, the AD1400 step have no effect to the temperature field past 1500.
Now, the Table~2 in R05 supposingly calculates the RE values with respect to the BC06-style implementation (using only the proxies available to the given time). However, BC obtained clearly lower value for the AD1400 step (from the reply to AR2):
For this setting they report a verification RE of 40% (66% for the "early" calibration, with even 71% for the "hybrid-20" variant), as opposed to our emulated RE of 30%..
BC give possible reasons for the difference:
a) different temperature data (NH only, newer CRU version), b) different calibration periods than MBH98 (1901-1971 and 1856-1928), and c) an infilling via RegEM of the incomplete temperature data set prior to the entire analysis.
These are good sources for the difference reported, but IMO the difference (0.1) seems just too large to be completely explained by those factors alone. Rutherford's code does not show how Table~2 was calculated. So maybe, just maybe, instead of calculating Table~2 in BC06-manner, they used the following procedure:
a) calculate the temperature field backwards as usual (maybe NaNing the verification period at each step)
b) calculate the verification temperature field for the target period by NaNing the verification period
BUT using the rest of the temperature field obtained so far (instead of using NaNs for the whole non-caliberation temperature field). I think this is worth considering in some detail. Another possible source for the difference is the fact that there is "yet-another-flavor" introduced in R05:
3) Unreported "standardization"
There is a "standardization" step in Rutherford's code, which seems to be (to my knowledge) unreported. Here's a segment of the code (taken from "mbhstepwiselowrecon.m", but the same is present in all reconstruction codes):
if i==1% first step standardize everything
save standardlow
else % now just standardize the new pcproxy network
The above code "standardizes" all proxies (and the surface temperature field) by subtracting the mean of the calibration period (1901-1971) and then divides by the std of the calibration period. I'm not sure whether this has any effect to the final results, but it is definitely also worth checking. If it does not have any effect, why would it be there?
Rutherford, S., Mann, M.E., Osborn, T.J., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Hughes, M.K., Jones, P.D., Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions: Sensitivity to Methodology, Predictor Network, Target Season and Target Domain, Journal of Climate, 18, 2308-2329, 2005. Code and supplementary material available from: http://fox.rwu.edu/~rutherfo/supplements/jclim2003a/
Schneider, T., Analysis of incomplete climate data: Estimation of mean values and covariance matrices and imputation of missing values. Journal of Climate, 14, 853-871, 2001. Code available from: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~tapio/imputation/index.html
Bürger,G., Cubasch, U., On the verification of climate reconstructions Climate of the Past Discussions, 2, 357-370, 2006


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Russian President Vladimir Putin urged President Barack Obama not to rush into a decision on striking Syria, but to consider whether strikes would help end the violence and be worth the civilian casualties they would inevitably cause.
Putin also questioned whether Syrian government troops should be held responsible. He said it would make no sense for them to carry out such a devastating attack while they were on the offensive.
"In such conditions, to give a trump card to those who are calling for foreign military intervention is foolish nonsense," Putin said.
The Russian leader implied the chemical attack came from among the rebels, saying he was convinced it was a provocation carried out by those who wanted to draw in the United States.
If the Americans have evidence to the contrary they should present it to the United Nations inspectors and the U.N. Security Council, he said. "If there is evidence it should be presented," Putin said. "If it is not presented, that means it does not exist."
Putin's foreign policy adviser complained Friday that Russia had not seen the U.S. intelligence that Washington insists proves the role of the Syrian government.
On August 31st. the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, met with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to provide information backing up the U.S. position, the Foreign Ministry said.
In addressing Obama, Putin said he was speaking to him not as the U.S. president but as a holder of the Nobel Peace Prize.
"We have to remember what has happened in the last decades, how many times the United States has been the initiator of armed conflict in different regions of the world," Putin said. "Did this resolve even one problem?"
He urged Obama to reflect on the results of the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq "before taking a decision to carry out air strikes that will bring casualties, including among the civilian population."


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Editor's Note: The following article is reprinted from TechWorld.
A team of chip archaeology enthusiasts is making headway on "imaging" for posterity the hugely-influential but now little-understood MOS 6502 chip that almost single-handedly launched the home computer and games console revolution a generation ago.
If the 8-bit 1MHz MOS Technology 6502, designed by Chuck Peddle in 1975, doesn't trip off the tongue to the average Internet user, its influence on computing history is still immense.
Invented to undercut the cosy duopoly of Intel's 8080 and Motorola's 6800 (previously also designed by the MOS team), the 6502 was eventually used in the Apple 1 and II, the Commodore PET, and the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game consoles that changed the course of digital entertainment.
The 6502 was also at the heart of the BBC Micro that kick-started home computing in the UK and was a big influence on the ARM chip designs that now power many of the world's most famous smartphones, including the Apple iPhone.
Famously, the chip was said to power Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator and, in a wholly ironic fashion, Bender the alcoholic robot in Matt Groening's cultish animation series, Futurama.
Although emulators for the chip exist, these are an approximation that can't model exactly what is happening on the microprocessor at transistor level.
According to the chip techies at visual6502.org—engineers Greg James, Barry Silverman, and Brian Silverman—the only way to glean in-depth understanding of the chip is to strip away the polysilicon layers of the chip using acid, photographing the results in high-resolution.
As well as revealing the inner structure of the chip in great detail, this also allows a three-dimensional understanding of the chip's 20,000 interior components that can be used to build a working model of its operation.
"While a multitude of people understand the instruction set for the 6502, almost no one, apart from the original designers, understands how the physical chip achieves this instruction set," says a blog on the group's Website.
The team openly describe themselves as 'chip archaeologists' and have imaged a number of other ancient chips—the Intel 4004, the Zilog Z80 and Motorola's 6800—which they hope will give future researchers a better understanding of the ever more remote birth of the digital age.


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Following murder of Fr. Moyalan, Christian leaders from India seeking protection.
KATHMANDU, Nepal, August 13 (Compass Direct News) – Father John Prakash Moyalan, the 62-year-old Catholic priest killed on July 1 by an underground militant Hindu organization in Nepal, might have been alive today – had he not been an Indian, according to the Himalayan republic's Christian community.
With the law-and-order situation in the new republic plummeting since elections in April and relations with southern neighbor India becoming increasingly acrimonious, Christian leaders here said Indian Catholics in Nepal are facing a greater threat from Hindu extremists. The extremists blame New Delhi for the May 28 ouster of Nepal's Hindu king Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev and the transformation of the world's only Hindu kingdom into a secular state.
Father John Vianney, head of the Pastoral Animation Centre (PAC) in Lalitpur (located on the south side of the Bagmati River that separates it from Kathmandu), said PAC received five to six calls after the gunning down of Fr. Moyalan in Sirsiya town in south Nepal, the most volatile region in the country since the abolition of the monarchy.
"Fr. Prakash's attackers took away his cellular phone," Fr. Vianney told Compass. "Then they began calling the numbers stored in it, demanding money."
Fr. Vianney himself took one of those calls.
"Are you a Nepali or Indian?" the caller asked the priest, who is from India's Kerala state. "We are from the Nepal Defence Army [NDA], and we killed Fr. Prakash [Moyalan]. Our spies are everywhere. All of you are under surveillance. You better be on your guard."
Nepal's first bishop, Father Anthony Sharma, said he also received a similarly threatening call.
"Don't engage in conversions," the caller warned him. "Otherwise, we will chop you into little pieces."
Most people who received the calls said the Nepali-speaking callers asserted that they were not against Christians. The jarring note came from their insistently as king if the recipients were Nepalese or Indian.
"The threats seem to have been directed towards Indians," said Fr. Sharma. "Two more Indian priests, who had been working with Fr. Prakash in eastern Nepal on village development and education projects, also received warnings on the phone."
Fr. Vianney estimated that there are about 40-45 Indian priests in Nepal. They are mostly from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa and West Bengal. Indian priests, he said, are the softest targets.
"If a western priest comes under attack, his government will take it up immediately," he said. "If a Nepalese priest is attacked, other Nepalese and the media will raise a hue and cry. But the Indian government doesn't take up cudgels on behalf of its citizens in Nepal, and people feel they can be targeted with impunity."
After Fr. Moyalan's death, Christian leaders gave a report to the Indian Embassy in Nepal, but they said there has been no discernible official action.
"Police arrested five men, said to be members of the NDA," said Fr. Sharma. "But we don't know what happened after that."
Threatening Calls
Fr. Moyalan's murder marked a period of violence directed towards Christians and triggered growing fear in the community.
On July 18, 17 days after the attack at the Don Bosco School in Sirsiya in which Fr. Moyalan was killed, a bomb exploded inside the Protestant Jyoti Church in Banke district in southern Nepal.
Pamphlets left at the venue claimed the explosion to be the handiwork of the NDA.
Soon different Christian missions started receiving threatening calls. Alarmed Jesuits closed down the Don Bosco School and were on the verge of closing a second one, St. Mary's School in Biratnagar, the home town of Nepal's prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala.
Little is known about the NDA, a shadowy organization that hit the headlines last year when it claimed responsibility for a couple of minor explosions at the office of the former Maoist guerrillas in Kathmandu.
According to Nepalese weekly Ghatana R Bichar, it is run by a former policeman, who adopted the nom de guerre Parivartan, meaning "change." The former policeman has claimed that NDA aims to re-establish Nepal as a Hindu kingdom and is training Hindu suicide bombers.
Parivartan also claims NDA has a large army of trained soldiers and has been putting together an arsenal of explosives, the ingredients for which are smuggled from India across the 1,800-kilometer open border.
Since the fall of the government headed by Gyanendra, the last king of Nepal, over two dozen armed gangs have been spreading terror in southern Nepal, the NDA among them. They are known to be involved in extortion, abduction and, at times, killings.
The NDA pamphlets left at the crime sites project a 21-point agenda, including restoration of Hinduism as the state religion, driving out all Muslims, putting an end to conversions, banning the slaughter of cows (considered a holy animal by Hindus) and a ban on having more than two children. The latter directive targets the Muslim population in southern Nepal, who consider family planning to be unlawful.
Anger grew among Nepal's Christians over the government's failure to provide security, and on July 28 Fr. Sharma held a meeting with home secretary Umesh Mainali in which he asked for police protection for Christian organizations.
"We received a letter from the Nepal Catholic Society," said Home Ministry spokesman Modraj Dotel. "It was forwarded to the police headquarters for action."
Now, the calls have stopped and people are rallying, said Fr. Sharma.
St. Mary's reopened after students' parents promised that they would provide security.
The Jesuits run 30 schools in Nepal and 40 social service centers. The beneficiaries are non-Christians from low-income households who have little or no access to education and health care. The projects are meant for mostly women and children.
About 2.5 percent of Nepal's 25 million population are Christians. The majority – nearly 75 percent – are Hindus.
"Till parliament overwhelmingly declared Nepal a secular state, Christians, as non-Hindus, had been under some threat from the Hindu country," said Fr. Sharma. "But threats don't prevent us from carrying on."
Fr. Vianney added a postscript. "Now we will be careful."
Report from Compass Direct News


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Video of the Day: Stars come out to support Ellen Page
Staff Writer
Hot video: Celebrities support Ellen Page after she comes out
Actress Ellen Page has come out as gay. Now, many fellow Hollywood actors have congratulated Ellen on her choice to come out.
Screen time
Jay Leno has retired and Jimmy Fallon is now the host of the iconic "Tonight Show" franchise. The weeknight program broadcasts from New York at 11:35 p.m. EST tonight on NBC.
Worst of the day
After winning bronze in the super-G, an emotional Bode Miller broke down during an NBC interview when a reporter repeatedly questioned him about the death of his brother. Most people thought the reporter went too far, making it the worst of the day.
More Content Now


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The eternal graphics war: ATI vs. Nvidia. With the rise of GPGPU computing, if you're deciding who to fall in line with based on their graphics-accelerated platforms—Stream or CUDA, respectively—PC Perspective's done the dirty benchmarking work for you.
Is AI Moving Too Fast? | Future Tech
It actually boils down fairly simply to a mixed bag: ATI's Stream tends to be outright faster and pulls more of the load off of the CPU, but Nvidia's CUDA tends to produce better quality results. Interestingly, PC Perspective seems to like ATI's Avivo video transcoding application more than they used to, saying they're impressed by its simplicity. But which side are you on? [PC Perspective via Engadget]


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Before starting the online questionnaire it is strongly recommended that you:
Once you have completed the SME self-assessment wizard, a report summarising the data and result of the SME assessment will be issued.
Once you have read and understood the SME Recommendation and collected the relevant financial documents, you will be ready to start the SME questionnaire.
The only currency used by the SME Self Assessment is Euro (EUR). If you need to convert from a different currency to EUR, consult Inforeuro Website
Most types of corporate structures can be easily encoded in the system. Please contact our helpdesk if your organisation's corporate structure is not supported by the wizard.
If you encounter any difficulty while going through the steps of the SME self-assessment, please use this email for your help requests.
The user manual of the SME Self Assessment Wizard is available at this link SME Self Assessment User Manual


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Guinea worm disease on the way out
The Guinea worm's days of using the human body as an incubator for its one-metre uterus are numbered. Dr Karl tells the tale of this gory parasite's path of destruction - and how we are on the path of destroying it.
The human race has only ever wiped out one single infectious disease — and that was smallpox. We could wipe out smallpox because it had just one single reservoir — people like you and me. Well, for the same reason, we might be able to eradicate another very nasty infectious disease — Guinea worm disease.
The Guinea worm was described by the ancient Egyptians 3,500 years ago. In the Bible, the Book of Numbers describes how "fiery serpents" attacked Israelites wandering the deserts — again, Guinea worms. And 2,000 years ago, both Persian and Greek doctors wrote how to gently wind the worm out of the body by slowly spinning it out onto a stick.
The Guinea worm has a strange life cycle.
Let's start with a baby Guinea worm that has just been born, and is squirming around in the water of a pond. Along comes a water flea hopeful of an easy meal. But once the Guinea worm embryo is inside the gut of the water flea, it turns the tables. It does not get digested inside the gut of the water flea, to feed the water flea. Instead, it just drills straight out of the gut and into the body cavity of the water flea, and eats the water flea's testes or ovaries. This gives the guinea worm embryo enough food to moult twice over the next few weeks, getting bigger each time. The water flea is not just a carrier, it's also an unwilling nursery for the guinea worm.
Despite a rather ferocious start to its life, this could be the end of the line of the Guinea worm embryo — that is, unless it gets swallowed by you or me. Like smallpox, the life cycle of the Guinea worm can be completed only inside a human. And this water-borne stage is where we can break the life cycle of the guinea worm, by treating the water.
But if a person is unfortunate enough to drink infected water from this pond, they'll swallow our water flea (you can't really see it, because it's so tiny). As a result, the cycle continues. The host water flea gets digested by the acid juices inside our stomach, releasing the Guinea worm. Again, the Guinea worm embryo is not bothered by the digestive juices of its host, and again, repeats its trick of drilling straight out through the wall of the gut. This time it ends up inside the muscles of the person's abdomen. The Guinea worm embryo then starts on a journey through the human body, usually towards the feet. You don't feel any of this journey. In fact, it's totally painless — perhaps because Guinea worms can make the painkiller, morphine.
After about three or four months the maturing Guinea worms roaming through your body are fully grown. The males are only four centimetres long, but the females are about a metre long with most of their body length taken up by their giant uterus. The males and females meet somewhere in your muscles and they mate. The male then crawls away to die, while the female begins to fatten up to the diameter of a strand of spaghetti, thanks to the three million embryos beginning to grow inside her.
About nine months later, or about a year since you drank the infected water, the guinea worm babies are ready to be born. The mother heads for the skin and pierces through it with chemicals that generate a blister so painful that it feels like intense, relentless burning.
It can take days or months of unremitting pain until all of the embryos have left the mother. The process can be slightly sped up by winding the metre-long mother, ever so slowly and gently, onto a stick.
The quickest relief is rush to the nearest pond and plunge your leg into the water. The good news is that the water slightly and temporarily relieves the pain. The bad news is that the guinea worm mother vomits out Guinea worm embryos from her mouth whenever she senses water. If the water is a pond loaded with some hungry water fleas, then when the fleas eat the Guinea worm embryos, the cycle is complete.
Back in 1947, the Guinea worm infected some 50 million people around the world. Thanks to the work of the World Health Organization and the United Nations, the numbers were brought down to 3.5 million by 1986. And thanks to the tireless humanitarian work by former US President Jimmy Carter, in 2012 there were only 542 cases reported in the whole world. The overwhelming majority, 521, was in South Sudan, with the remainder in Ethiopia and Mali.
Former US President Carter says that he hopes to outlive the Guinea worm, that is, that the guinea worm will be extinct before he dies. But does that mean that somewhere in the world, some contrarians will start up a "Save the Guinea worm" movement? Perhaps they won't see the imminent demise of the guinea worm as something worth getting wound up over ...
Published 03 April 2013
© 2023 Karl S. Kruszelnicki Pty Ltd


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The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport just snagged the title of "World's Fastest Production Car" away from the American-built SSC Ultimate Aero. Now the folks at Shelby SuperCars are hinting at a new, faster Aero to challenge the German behemoth.
In a statement released after the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport set a new production car land speed record of 268 MPH, the makers of the now second-fastest SSC Ultimate Aero first applaud the company:
We would sincerely like to congratulate Bugatti... When the Ultimate Aero broke the record in 2007, we knew it was just a matter of time until it was broken by someone else.
And then they make mention of where they're going with their newest vehicle:
[W]e've been working on a new project to debut before the end of the summer. Not much can be said at this time except that we'll be upping the ante on all fronts. Having famed American designer Jason Castriota as our lead design enables SSC to reflect its engineer and performance in its aesthetics. It's impossible for us to be more thrilled about having him on board and we're anxious to show the world what we have up our sleeve.
Dewalt 20V Max Cordless Drill & Driver Kit
#1 Best-seller
Comes equipped with an LED which goes on when the trigger is pulled. You'll a clear view of whatever you are drilling or screwing with minimal shadows.
The current SSC Utlimate Aero TT is a pure high-performance supercar. Powered by a mid-engined, twin-turbo 6.2-liter V8 producing a time-warping 1,183 hp it's less a fashion accessory and more a strategic weapon and up until this week it held the fastest production car time at 256 mph. Not just a straight-line rocket, the car can also change directions, beating the Ferrari Enzo around Road & Track's slalom course.
In order to top the Veyron, any vehicle they produce is going to have to add power, drop weight, and get slippery. No details yet on the first two points, but the appearance of Jason Castriota clears up the last one. The hip designer responsible for penning both the Bertone Mantide and Pininfarina P4/5's going to attempt to wrangle a few tenths off the car's coefficient of drag while giving it a more unique treatment.
Can America again snatch victory from the Germans? We'll find out soon.


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Conor McGregor entered the cage with a confidence that bordered on cockiness, but it proved more than justified as he dominated and embarrassed Ivan Buchinger to win his second Cage Warriors title.
The organization's reigning featherweight champion added the vacant lightweight belt to his collection with a highlight-reel knockout of the experienced Slovakian fighter in the main event of Cage Warriors 51.
The New Year's Eve event took place at The Helix in Dublin, and the main card streamed on MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) following prelims on Facebook.
McGregor (12-2), an Irishman, dazzled the crowd with what was simply a thrilling performance. After entering the cage to a huge reception, he scored an easy takedown and taunted Buchinger (21-4) when standing. Then, a little more than midway through the round, he dropped Buchinger with a perfectly placed left. Buchinger was out on his feet and slowly fell to the mat. McGregor, who had toyed with his opponent prio to the big punch, could do little but stand and admire his work.
"The Dubin people really get behind me and support me, and I'm just happy to come out here and put a show on for them," he said.
McGregor, who's now won eight straight fights all via stoppage (six in the first round), hopes his latest performance garners some attention from the UFC, where he'll likely find challenges worthy of his obvious talent.
'JT-Money' Taylor takes middleweight title
Jesse "JT-Money" Taylor (25-9) and his world tour resulted in another belt for his collection; the former UFC fighter and "The Ultimate Fighter 7" runner-up defeated Irish fighter Chris Fields (10-6) on home soil to take the Cage Warriors middleweight title.
Taylor needed little more than a round to secure the dominant victory.
Taylor easily scored takedowns, had a stifling top game, and unloaded a steady stream of ground and pound during his wrestling-heavy first round. Then, after catching a front kick early in the second round, he forced the fight to the mat and took Fields' back.
Fields, who won the title in a bout with Pavel Kusch following Cage Warriors' injury-plagued middleweight tournament, couldn't fight off the choke. Taylor, who's recently fought at welterweight but looked bulked up for his middleweight return, needed to secure just one hook to muscle the tap-out from the deep rear-naked choke. The end came just 66 seconds into the round.
"I'm old school, so I'll do any weight class," said Taylor, who made his promotional debut earlier this year. "I can't do lightweight, but let's do this.
"I want to fight as soon as possible. If it were up to me, I'd fight everyday. This is my life, my livelihood. … Maybe one day the UFC will call me. If not, I'm perfectly happy right here."
Kankaanpaa tops Daly, Mason successfully ends busy year
In the night's lone female fight, Katja Kankaanpaa (7-0-1) built on her undefeated record and spoiled the homecoming of fellow 120-pounder Aisling Daly (13-5) via unanimous decision. The Finnish wrestler dominated the action on the mat, threatened with a few submissions, and held her own standing to defeat the Irish fighter via 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 scores.
Jack Mason (22-6) ended a busy 2012 campaign on a winning note and went 5-2 on the year with a grinding unanimous-decision victory over fellow welterweight Florent Betorangal (10-6). The ref issued Mason a questionable one-point deduction in the third round for a headbutt, but despite the point loss, he comfortably took the unanimous-decision victory via 29-27 scores.
In the night's competitive main-card opener, Paul Redmond (5-3) delivered fellow lightweight Ryan Roddy (5-1) his first career loss with a second-round submission via toehold. Redmond grabbed the hold when his opponent attempted butterfly guard on a takedown attempt. After the victory, which moved him to 3-0 in the promotion, Redmond was rewarded with a new five-fight Cage Warriors contract.
The full Cage Warriors 51 results included:
- Conor McGregor def. Ivan Buchinger via KO (punch) – Round 1, 3:40 – wins vacant lightweight title
- Jesse Taylor def. Chris Fields via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 1:06 – to become new middleweight champion
- Katja Kankaanpaa def. Aisling Daly via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
- Jack Mason def. Florent Betorangal via unanimous decision (29-27, 29-27, 29-27)
- Paul Redmond def. Ryan Roddy via submission (toehold) – Round 2, 2:14
- James Brum def. Moktar Benkaci unanimous decision (30-28, 29-28, 29-28
Tommy Quinn def. Philip Mulpeter via majority decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-29)
Henry Fadipe def. Charlie Watts via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 1:09
For more on Cage Warriors 51, stay tuned to the MMA Events section of the site.
(Pictured: Conor McGregor and Ivan Buchinger)


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Bunn H5E-DV PC 5 Gallon Hot Water Machine – 200F
5 Gallon Portion Control Hot Water Machine
Detailed Product Description:
- 200F Temperature Setting
- Locate hot water at preparation site to increase speed, safety and efficiency of kitchen staff
- Prepare large amounts of mashed potatoes, gravy, cheese sauce, gelatin, oatmeal, and many more foods
- Dispenses hot water in three portion sizes
- Precise electronic temperature control (65F-205F) (18.3C-96.1C) ensures consistent water temperature
- Three programmable volume settings and one push and hold continuous dispense button
- Front of machine volume programming
Use water filter Easy Clear® EQHP-10L or Easy Clear® EQHP-25L
No cord attached
Electrical: Dual Voltage: 120V/20 amp or 120/208-240/20 amp – requires 3-wires plus ground service rated 120/208V, single phase, 60 Hz.
Plumbing: 20-90 psi (138-621 kPa). Machines supplied with 1⁄4″ male flare fitting
Size: 28.4″H x 7″W x 15.5″D
Weight: 35 pounds
Warranty: Circuit boards: 3 years parts and labor; All other parts: 2 years parts and 1 year labor


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Greg Koger offers important insights here about potential reforms of Senate rules that seek to encourage "talking filibusters." Although as Greg notes, we lack details about the mechanics of the proposed rule change, the gist of the potential reform is two-fold. First, senators seeking to delay or derail measures and amendments would be forced to go and stay public with their objections on the chamber floor. Second, in the absence of overt floor activity by the opposition, a simple majority of senators could vote to invoke cloture, thus (in theory) ending the filibuster (or, presumably, to thirty hours of post-cloture debate). Under current rules, sixty senators typically must vote to invoke cloture to end debate and to bring the chamber to a vote on the underlying proposal. In short, reformers seek to both encourage full-fledged filibusters and to end them more easily.
I generally share Greg's degree of skepticism about the potential effectiveness of the talking filibuster reform. As he explains, one source of uncertainty about the impact of the reform is that we don't have sufficient details about the precise mechanics of the rule change to fully evaluate its effectiveness. The devil is always in the details, no less in the Senate than in other institutionalized settings.
I would also add another source of uncertainty more unique to the Senate: It's very hard to predict the consequences of changes to Senate rules. Why? Because most of the time, senators do not fully exploit the chamber's formal rules. They don't have to. Instead, senators use their leverage under the rules to force Senate leaders to accommodate their demands when leaders negotiate unanimous consent agreements. By addressing senators' demands (say by delaying consideration of a bill or guaranteeing that they can offer an amendment), leaders set aside the formal rules and make the chamber (barely, perhaps) functional. Sometimes, senators' demands cannot be met. On those occasions, the Senate typically crawls to a halt—till the majority moves on to other business. But on a daily basis, leaders often succeed in stemming their colleagues' incentives to fully exploit their formal rights under the rules. It may look like the Senate is often tied in knots, but it could be a lot worse (more cloture votes, more delay, etc.).
Why is this relevant for anticipating the effects of changing Senate rules? It's tough to turn on a new rule and calculate the effects that are likely to follow because it's hard to know how senators will react. A new rules regime—particularly one curtailing the right of extended debate under Rule 22—could encourage senators to aggressively avail themselves of every procedural avenue in the Senate rule book for obstructing the Senate. For instance, the minority could become less likely to agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed, preventing the majority from calling up bills high on its agenda. Or senators could become more aggressive in the demands they make on a leader as a condition for signing onto consent agreements. Both scenarios suggest that filibuster reforms could bring unintended consequences.
Such uncertainty about the effects of Senate reform complicates life for reformers. No surprise then that the last major reform of the Senate cloture rule occurred over thirty years ago. Even senators in the majority—who might have the most to gain from curtailing extended debate—are often reluctant to discover firsthand the uncertain consequences of reforming Senate rules.
[Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]


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Welcome to our website! As we have the ability to list over one million items on our website (our selection changes all of the time), it is not feasible for a company our size to record and playback the descriptions on every item on our website. However, if you have a disability we are here to help you. Please call our disability services phone line at (416) 635-6111 during regular business hours and one of our kind and friendly personal shoppers will help you navigate through our website, help conduct advanced searches, help you choose the item you are looking for with the specifications you are seeking, read you the specifications of any item and consult with you about the products themselves. There is no charge for the help of this personal shopper for anyone with a disability. Finally, your personal shopper will explain our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, and help you place an order if you so desire.
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Brooklyn Furniture in Toronto, ON is an authorized dealer of Amisco Products. The Amisco brand is backed by a team dedicated to upholding their reputation for reliability and uncompromising quality and continuously improving their products and services. Employees readily share their passion, sense of innovation, and energy. As a result, each flawlessly designed Amisco piece is alluringly attractive and a pleasure to use.
Amisco, a Quebec-based Canadian company, takes great pride in designing and producing residential furniture that satisfies the tastes and needs of all ages. Their top-quality steel furniture reflects the latest North American design trends, and they are committed to producing pieces their customers will enjoy using day after day. Every item they make is exceptionally comfortable, superbly finished, durableand backed by worry-free after-sale support. Browse their collections and discover one-of-a-kind furniture you can personalize to suit your lifestyle, whether you are furnishing an apartment, condo, home, or cottage. If you prefer traditional styles, you will love their Library Luxe, Countryside and Eco Vintage Collections. If you crave a contemporary look, check out our Hollywood, Boudoir, Eco, Perfect Balance, Urban and New York Collections. On page after page, youll see that Amisco is much more than furniture. Its your look, your style, your home.
So if you are looking for Amisco products in Toronto, Richmond Hill, Markham, Newmarket, Mississauga, Oakville, Milton, Maple, Woodbridge, Burlington and Thornhill, or if you have any questions about Amisco products, please feel free to call us at (416) 635-6111 or simply stop by Brooklyn Furniture at any time and we would be glad to help you.


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Magnitude-7.2 earthquake sparks panic in Mexico City, Acapulco
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — A powerful magnitude-7.2 earthquake shook central and southern Mexico on Friday, sending panicked people into the streets, where broken windows and debris fell, but there were no early reports of major damage or casualties.
The U.S. Geological Survey said it was centered northwest of the Pacific resort of Acapulco, where many Mexicans are vacationing for the Easter holiday.
It was felt across at least a half-dozen states and Mexico's capital, where it shook for at least 30 seconds. Around the region, there were reports of isolated and minor damage, such as fallen fences, trees and broken windows. Chilpancingo, capital of the southern state of Guerrero, where the quake was centered, reported a power outage, but service was restored after 15 minutes.
In Acapulco, 59-year-old Enedina Ramirez Perez was having breakfast, enjoying the holiday with about 20 family members, when her hotel started to shake.
"People were turning over chairs in their desperation to get out, grabbing children, trampling people," the Mexico City woman said. "The hotel security was excellent and starting calming people down. They got everyone to leave quietly."
The quake struck 170 miles (273 kilometers) southwest of Mexico City, where people fled high rises and took to the streets, many in still in their bathrobes and pajamas on their day off.
"I started to hear the walls creak and I said, 'Let's go,'" said Rodolfo Duarte, 32, who fled his third-floor apartment.
"This is really strong," said Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez Chavez, 45, an apartment building guard in Mexico City. "And I'm accustomed to earthquakes."
The USGS initially calculated the quake's magnitude at 7.5, but later downgraded it to 7.2. It said the quake was centered 22 miles (36 kilometers) northwest of the town of Tecpan de Galeana, and was 15 miles (24 kilometers) deep.
In many cases of earthquakes in Mexico, it can take time to receive word from remote areas near the epicenter, where damage could be more extensive. No one answered the phone at the city hall for Tecpan de Galeana.
Mexico City itself is vulnerable even to distant earthquakes because much of it sits atop the muddy sediments of drained lake beds that quiver as quake waves hit.
The magnitude-8.1 quake in 1985 that killed at least 6,000 people and destroyed many buildings in Mexico City was centered 250 miles (400 kilometers) away on the Pacific Coast.


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The Power of I Am
Two Words That Will Change Your Life Today
Transform your self-image and embrace the power of positive thinking with two simple words: declare "I Am" and celebrate the life God has created for you!
Whatever follows the words "I am" will always come looking for you.
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Joel Osteen reveals how The Power of I Am can help you discover your unique abilities and advantages to lead a more productive and happier life. His insights and encouragement are illustrated with many amazing stories of people who turned their lives around by focusing on the positive power of this principle. You can choose to rise to a new level and invite God's goodness by focusing on these two words: I AM!


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Critics of Islam tend to avoid the main question about Islam in favor of secondary questions. The main question is, "Did Muhammad actually receive a revelation from God?" The secondary questions are: "Is Islam a religion of peace?" "Is Islam compatible with modern values?" "Are women treated fairly under Sharia law?" And so on. These are useful questions to ask if you are trying to wake up your fellow citizens to the utterly alien nature of Islam, but they won't carry much weight with a believing Muslim. Warlike religion? Incompatible with modern values? So what? If that's the way God wants it, who are we to question his ways?
That's why the main question needs to be raised. Did God deliver a message to Muhammad, or did Muhammad make it up? It's a good bet that most Americans believe the latter but are too polite or too prudent to say so. We keep our thoughts on the matter to ourselves, not just out of fear of offending Muslims, but also because the cult of cultural relativism requires us to give lip service to the proposition that all religions are equally valid. Nevertheless, the question about the authenticity of Muhammad's claim is still the heart of the matter. As long as Muslims believe that Muhammad received his marching orders from God, the threat of Islamic jihad will continue to grow. But take that away and you take away the rationale for Islam's war against the world.
So it makes sense to lay out the case that Muhammad's claims are highly improbable. One way to do this is to apply to Islam the same tests of critical reason and historical evidence that we apply to the Christian revelation. Over the centuries, both Christian critics and Christian scholars have subjected the Gospel revelations to a rigorous examination. While this had the effect of shaking up some people's faith, it also had the effect of strengthening the rational/factual case for Christianity. But when this method of inquiry is applied to the Islamic revelation things fall apart.
For example, take the depiction of Jesus in the Koran and compare it to the depiction of Jesus in the Gospels. Since they flatly contradict each other on essential matters, normal curiosity invites the comparison. Which is the real Jesus? Or better, which of the two accounts seems to describe an actual historical figure?
Jesus is considered a great prophet by Muslims, but one has to wonder why, seeing as he has almost nothing to do or say in the pages of the Koran. He only speaks on six or seven occasions and then, very briefly, and primarily to deny that he ever claimed to be God. But then, the whole point of introducing Jesus into the Koran is to discredit the Christian claim that he is divine—a claim that, if true, invalidates Muhammad's entire mission. Thus, whenever Jesus is mentioned in the Koran, it's almost always for the purpose of whittling him down in size. For example, "He was but a mortal whom we favoured and made an example to the Israelites." (43: 60).
The Jesus of the Koran appears mainly in the role of a counter to the Jesus of the Gospels, but "appears" is really too strong a word. This Jesus doesn't attend weddings, or go fishing with his disciples, or gather children around him. He has practically no human interactions, and what he has to say is formulaic and repetitive. He is more like a disembodied voice than a person. And, to put it bluntly, he lacks personality. The Jesus of the New Testament is a recognizable human being; the Jesus of the Koran is more like a phantom. When did he carry out his ministry? There's not a hint. Where did he live? Again, there's no indication. Where was he born? Under a palm tree. That's about as specific as it gets in the Koran. Next to the unanswered questions about the Jesus of the Koran, President Obama's problems over establishing his birthplace seem minor by comparison. In short, Muhammad's Jesus is a nebulous figure. He seems to exist neither in time nor space. On the one hand you have Jesus of Nazareth, and on the other, someone who can best be described as Jesus of Neverland.
One thing you find in the Gospels which you don't find in the Koran is a solid geographical and historical context. If the story of Christ was set in some mythical location, long before the age of recorded history, it would be easier to pass it off as…well, a myth. But the story takes place not in some vague neverland but in places that can still be visited today—Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem. Christ doesn't just go to some indeterminate wedding feast, he goes to the wedding feast at Cana; in his parable about the good Samaritan, he mentions a specific road, the one going from Jerusalem to Jericho. He converses with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well in the town of Sychar. He cures one man at the pool of Siloam, and another at the pool with five porticos. Sidon Tyre, Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, the Mount of Olives, the Praetorium, Herod's court, Golgotha—there is a specificity and facticity that you won't find in mythology.
…Or in the Koran. Take, for example, the differing accounts of the crucifixion. Here is what the Koran has to say: "They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did." (4:157). Well, that's an interesting take on the crucifixion. Tell us more. Dan Brown has a similar theory about the crucifixion but at least he concocts a story to support it. But inquiring minds who hope to gain some further insight in the Koran will be disappointed. "They did not kill him…but they thought they did?" Why did they think that? And who were "they"? Answer: Muhammad didn't seem to know who "they" were. Or, if he did know, he didn't want his followers to know that there existed an entirely different and far more detailed story of the life of Christ than the one he presents. In the Koran account there are no chief priests, no Sadducees, no crowds, no Romans, no Pilate, no Herod, no Peter, James, and John, no Golgotha, no Garden of Gethsemane, no upper room, no Jerusalem, no Nazareth, no Galilee, no preaching in the temple, no sermon on the mount, no calming of the tempest, no last supper, no trial before the Sanhedrin. For that matter, there's no historical context, no geography, no kind of setting at all. Someone once said of Los Angeles that "there's no there there." That's the feeling you get when you encounter Jesus in the Koran.
The Jesus of the Koran really does exist in a neverland. Set against the Gospel story with all its vivid detail and close attention to persons and events, the Koranic account is vague and vapid in the extreme. And amazingly brief. If you omit the repetitions, the whole of what the Koran has to say about Jesus can be fit on about two or three pages of Bible text. And of that, about half is devoted to denying that he was God's son.
You don't have to be a Christian to see that the New Testament looks much more like a historical document than the Koran. It's curious when you think about it. With all of his audacious claims to be equal with God, the Jesus of the Gospels is far more believable than the Jesus of the Koran. Not only is it difficult to believe in the few claims that are made for Muhammad's Jesus, it's difficult to believe in his existence. There's just no convincing detail.
Which is more likely the true account of Jesus? On the one hand, you have the Koran's sketchy version; on the other you have a highly detailed narrative with numerous references to historical facts and geographical locations. Which is more believable? An account composed in Arabia some six hundred years after the life of Jesus, or one composed by his contemporaries with the help of numerous witnesses who were on the spot?
Whatever you may think of the claims of Christ, it's hard not to believe in his existence. As Dinesh D'Souza puts it in What's So Great about Christianity, "Do you believe in the existence of Socrates? Alexander the Great? Julius Caesar? If historicity is established by written records in multiple copies that date originally from near contemporaneous sources, there is far more proof for Christ's existence than for any of theirs." Historical reliability? F.E. Peters in his book Harvest of Hellinism writes that "the works that make up the New Testament were the most frequently copied and widely circulated books of antiquity." What does that mean? It means that the New Testament survives in some 5,656 partial and complete manuscripts that were copied by hand. And that's in Greek alone. If you add in the Latin-vulgate and other early versions, there are more than 25,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament in existence. How does that compare with other early histories? Well, there are seven copies of Pliny the younger's Natural History, twenty copies of the Annals of Tacitus, and ten copies of Caesar's Gallic Wars. Score: Christianity, 25,000, Caesar, 10. When you render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's in manuscript terms, it doesn't seem to amount to much.
It's a little more difficult to check up on the authenticity of the other Jesus, however, since there is no record of anyone in the ancient world declaring himself not to be the Son of God, while simultaneously heralding the coming of a prophet named "Muhammad." Muslim apologists insist that there is an original, long-lost version of the Gospel which corroborates the account of Jesus that appears in the Koran. Christians, they say, tampered with the original, and manufactured a corrupted version which turned Jesus into God, and left Muhammad out of the story—in effect, the Muslim equivalent of the Da Vinci Code theory. But it's a general rule of scholarship that you have to work with the records you have, not the hypothetical ones. And in the record we have—the Koran—Jesus seems more like a mythological person than a real one. Subjecting him to the historical/critical method of inquiry would be akin to subjecting Perseus or Achilles to the historical/critical method.
In the Koran, Jesus' longest monologue is delivered from the cradle when he is only a few days old. In view of the air of unreality surrounding him, it's worth asking again why he is in the Koran at all, or why he is accorded the status of a great prophet. The answer is that in claiming him as a Muslim prophet, Muhammad is giving Jesus a demotion, not a promotion. John the Baptist said of Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Muhammad preferred it the other way around. For him to increase, it was necessary that Jesus decrease.
So, although Jesus is supposed to be a great prophet, he does not really come across that way in the Koran. He comes across more like a shadowy government witness at a show trial who has been given some statements to memorize. At one point he is actually interrogated by God:
Then God will say: "Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind: 'Worship me and my mother as gods besides God?'"
"Glory be to You," he will answer, "I could never have claimed what I have no right to. If I had ever said so, You would have surely known it…I told them only what you bade me." (5:116-117)
Well, that settles it, then. You see, he never said it. Admits it himself.
Muhammad seems to have realized early on that if Christ is who Christians say he is—the Son of God and the fulfillment of all prophecy—then there is no need for another prophet and another revelation. In one sense, Muhammad's handing of the Jesus problem is very clever: keep him in the narrative but demote him; and use him to rebut the Christians' central beliefs. In another sense it was not so clever, because the stage-managed Jesus Muhammad presents is almost totally lacking in substance, and is clearly meant to be nothing more than a prop to the Prophet's own claims. Christian scholars and Christian critics often talk about the search for the "historical Jesus." Here's a time-saving hint: don't bother looking for him in the Koran.
William Kilpatrick's articles have appeared in FrontPage Magazine, First Things, Catholic World Report, National Catholic Register, Jihad Watch, World, and Investor's Business Daily.