At the end of 2017, the CEO of the band's record label mentioned future plans of releasing "Just Say When" as a single as well.

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# "Their work ethic will make them one of the biggest bands in the world": How Nothing More scooped three Grammy nominations

"I'd be lying if I didn't say yes," says Allen Kovac (CEO, Eleven Seven Label Group).

This is his response when Music Week asks him whether rising rock band Nothing More's three Grammy nominations – Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album - came as a surprise to him.

The nominations pit the Texan band against such heavyweights as Foo Fighters, Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold, as well as the late Chris Cornell and Leonard Cohen.

The band released their fifth album, The Stories We Tell Ourselves, in September.

Ken Levitan, co-president, Vector Management, revealed how the band have, after years of graft, found themselves in the big leagues.

"Nothing More has worked tirelessly in creating music and live performances that continue to evolve," says Levitan.

The music comes directly from their vision and has continued to grow bringing in elements of not only active rock but modern alternative rock and beyond.

"I think the fact that they are always challenging themselves musically coupled with their non-stop work ethic will make them one of the biggest bands in the world," he adds.

"The recent No.1's, the fast growing fan-base, and the Grammy recognition shows they are on that path and makes them stand out as really special."

Here, Eleven Seven's Kovac takes us further inside the journey to the Grammys 2018…

What makes Nothing More stand out in the rock world in 2017?

Kovac: "When we signed Nothing More, we were thinking of starting a new label called Better Noise and we felt like they'd be a flagship for new rock.

Not the same old music that has been going through the rock circles for over the last 15 years.

And obviously from their lyrics to their production, you have a progressive element that's leading, breaking down the barriers of rock, and music in general.

I think they have the potential to go to any format they'd like, and that kind of talent.

There are elements of EDM, elements of loops, elements that lean towards alternative.

There is a very special song Just Say When which is just acoustic guitar, a couple of microphones and an emotional vocal.

Johnny [Hawkins, singer] is an exceptional vocalist and there's tremendous variety of music exploration [on this album] that you don't find in this genre over the last 15 years."

Talk us through the campaign so far that has led you here – what have been the stand out moments?

From the beginning there's been the idea that the music could speak for itself when it came to the industry.

We thought that their live shows indicated that this was one of the most vital bands of rock's future.

So initially we sent the music out and we got a bunch of quotes that were amazing.

We took those quotes, put them together on a one-sheet and sent them out to everyone.

Basically, it said 'The whole world is talking about Nothing More'.

What followed was continued success that needs to move from North America to Europe where folks are just catching on.

These Grammy nominations should cut through the clutter of all the rock bands and bring this band the recognition that they deserve."

What have the nominations done for Nothing More so far – has interest noticeably increased in them?

Kovac: "Being the most nominated rock band, nominated for three categories, allows Nothing More to have three opportunities to let people know who they are.

The idea that the nominations are announced and a band is nominated three times in mainstream media allows an audience way beyond rock to hear the name Nothing More and explore their music through streaming.

It lets them unlock the door where rock bands are generally left in the world of rock magazines and rock radio.

This affords them the opportunity to have a moment with mass media and television vis-a-vis the Grammys."

How do you plan on capitalising on this – what are your plans for 2018 and beyond?

Kovac: "We have a song that I think is going to be the breakthrough for the band - Just Say When.

Our plans are to move the band from self-contained touring where they've headlined their own tours to global special guests, appearances with arena bands.

At the same time taking a very special song (Just Say When) and expanding Nothing More from the rock genre to alternative, indie, and pop.

A record company is only a vessel for the creatives that make music.

It's these artists, their vision, that has garnered three nominations.

There's very little a record company has to do when they have great music.

The ceremony will take place at New York's Madison Square Garden on January 28.

You can listen to Nothing More's Grammy-nominated song Go To War below:

The song performed well, topping the "Billboard" US Mainstream Rock Songs chart. Four other song's in total were released ahead of the album's release as well, including "Don't Stop", "Let Em Burn", "Just Say When", and "Who We Are". In the album's release month, the band also released an alternate version of the song "Don't Stop" featuring a new guest vocal performance by Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix in the song's bridge.
 The album was released on September 15, 2017. The album debuted at number 15 on the "Billboard" 200 all-format album chart, selling approximately 20,000 copies in its first week. In November 2017, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, while "Go to War" received two Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. The 3 cumulative Grammy Nominations from the album made the band the most nominated rock band for the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.
 The band released a music video for their second single, "Do You Really Want It?" on December 19, 2017, which had peaked at number 25 on the Mainstream Rock Songs chart as of January 2018.


He is a board member and chairman emeritus of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

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The ALEC Board of Scholars Program honors those whose distinguished work and dedication to market-based policy innovations have been, and continue to be, invaluable to ALEC and its membership.

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He represented the state's seventy-eighth House district, including constituents in Randolph County, for 35 years. He resigned in 2012 with plans to become a lobbyist. At the time he was the longest-serving sitting member of the House.
 He was born and grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
 Brubaker was Speaker of the House for two terms (1995–1998). He was the only Republican Speaker in North Carolina in the twentieth century, the first Republican speaker since Zeb V. Walser (1895) and the first non-Democrat to be speaker since Populist A. F. Hileman (1897).
 A real estate appraiser and cattle breeder from Asheboro, North Carolina, Brubaker was first elected to the House in 1976 and in 2011 became chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.


Some Israelis advocate another version of the one-state solution in which Israel will annex the West Bank but not the Gaza Strip and remain a Jewish state with a larger Arab minority.

(meta data) TITLE: Caroline Glick's one-state solution for Israel-Palestine asks all the wrong questions - The National

# Caroline Glick's one-state solution for Israel-Palestine asks all the wrong questions

Caroline Glick offers a novel take on the single-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but her uncritical assumptions mean her proposal would most likely fail.

A member of the Israeli security forces on patrol in the West Bank last month.

It will strike many as counterintuitive that in The Israeli Solution, Caroline Glick argues from a Zionist perspective that Israel and the larger of the two Palestinian territories should become one state.

After all, this is almost the very solution advocated by Palestinian and other anti-Zionists who believe that, by force of demography alone, such a state would cease to boast a significant Jewish majority and instead emerge as a binational Jewish-Arab country.

Yet Glick, a senior editor and columnist at The Jerusalem Post, Israel's right-leaning English-language daily newspaper, and the director of the Israel Security Project at the far-right David Horowitz Freedom Center in the US, disagrees with that assessment.

She maintains that even if Israel were to absorb the West Bank (but not the Gaza Strip) and grant its Palestinian inhabitants Israeli citizenship, the country would retain a significant Jewish majority (66 per cent instead of the current 75 per cent) and wouldn't need to alter its raison d'être.

"The basic difference between the Israeli one-state plan and the pro-Palestinian one-state solution, as represented by its supporters, is that the Israeli one-state plan is based on fact and the pro-Palestinian one-state solution is pure propaganda.

What the real demographic data show is that even if all the Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria [the Biblical term for the West Bank] are granted Israeli citizenship, Jews would still remain a two-thirds majority of the citizens of Israel."

Glick bases this demographic claim on West Bank population figures arrived at in 2005 by the American-Israel Demographic Research Group, which posited that the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics had inflated the number of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza in an earlier census and had also projected unrealistic population growth.

Like those before her who have taken issue with Palestinian census figures, Glick may well be right.

However, it is strange that she should omit mention of highly regarded Israeli demographers and geographers (such as Sergio DellaPergola and Arnon Soffer) who are in substantial agreement with the Palestinians' findings.

At any rate, Glick's proposal is intriguing.

Here is a fervent Zionist calling on Israel to permanently incorporate the Palestinian-majority West Bank into its territory in order for the Jewish state to have both defensible borders and no hostile forces on the other side.

Yet she also urges Israel to offer citizenship to West Bank Palestinians, which is anathema to most Israelis across the political spectrum.

In the resulting scenario, Glick forecasts, "Israelis will have the same rights in Judea and Samaria, including access to state lands and the ability to purchase land, as they have in the rest of Israel.

By the same token, Palestinians will have the same legal and civil rights as the rest of the residents and citizens of Israel."

The author may represent a growing trend; she cites a contentious 2013 poll showing that "59 per cent of Israeli Jews believe that Israel should apply its law to all or parts of Judea and Samaria".

(The poll does not reveal whether respondents would support granting Israeli citizenship to the region's Palestinians.)

Yet The Israeli Solution is fraught with problems.

To begin with, more than one third of the book consists of malicious, defamatory attacks on the Palestinians.

This is hardly a good strategy for winning them over, but then again Glick seems more concerned with convincing Americans that the two-state solution they keep pushing for can only lead to war and terrorism, something she attempts to do chiefly by arguing that the Palestinians are inveterate anti-Semites and terrorists not to be trusted with a state of their own in the West Bank.

Even when the author registers a solid point, as with her observation that Palestinian nationalism arose in direct response to the Zionist enterprise, she takes it to the extreme: "Western leaders refuse to recognise the true nature of the Palestinian people.

Ever since [Haj Amin] Husseini invented the Palestinian people in the early 1920s, they have consistently defined themselves around the negative ethos of Israel's destruction and anti-Semitism."

The Israeli Solution also provides a mendacious reading of history.

Highlights include: asserting that the commitment by the British Mandate for Palestine (1920-1948) to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" meant granting "sovereign rights" to Jews over Palestine; omitting that Zionist militias began expelling Palestinians months before Arab military forces invaded following the proclamation of the State of Israel in May 1948; claiming that these invading military forces comprised "five Arab armies" instead of small detachments thereof; describing the Arab countries as the aggressors in the Six-Day War of 1967, whereas Israel initiated hostilities with a surprise attack on Egypt; and calling Israel's resulting occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip "benign military rule".

In fact, Glick refuses to term Israel's rule over these areas occupation, due to what she considers Jewish historical and Israeli legal rights to the lands in question.

Consequently, she maintains that, were Israel to incorporate the West Bank into its territory, this would not constitute annexation.

Yet the most serious flaw here is what Glick doesn't do: pay sufficient attention – let alone attribute importance – to what Palestinians themselves think of becoming part of Israel.

Now, it's understandable that she'd oppose the Palestinian right of return, which has its basis in UN General Security Council Resolution 194 (and which she considers "invented").

There are three reasons for this: most diaspora Palestinians are not refugees but their offspring or descendants; the Arab countries hosting these Palestinians deserve no reward for discriminating against them; and a massive influx of diaspora Palestinians to Israel, together with the latter's annexation of the West Bank, would deprive the country of its Jewish majority.

What causes alarm is Glick's cavalier attitude to Palestinians closer to home.

The desires of the inhabitants of Gaza (which she doesn't want Israel to annex, preferring it to remain Palestinian-governed or become part of Egypt) and the West Bank (which she does want Israel to annex) hardly concern her.

Instead, she contents herself with the argument that her proposed solution will serve Israeli and American political and security interests, as well as the desires of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

True, Glick acknowledges that most Palestinian West Bankers – like Palestinian East Jerusalemites and Syrian Golan Heights residents before them – might refuse Israeli citizenship.

Yet she doesn't care; they'd receive residency permits and that would be the end of it.

Not only that, but even if most or all of the Palestinians in the West Bank did apply for Israeli citizenship, not everyone would get it,

for "past or current membership in terrorist organisations, and past or current incitement to violence against Israel, should disqualify an individual from acquiring citizenship".

It's also true that Glick argues – as an afterthought – that Israeli citizenship would prove a boon to those upon whom it is conferred, because the Palestinian leadership has made a mess of the areas it rules in the West Bank.

But she fails to note that the Palestinians operate under Israeli-imposed adverse conditions – including occupation.

Instead, she points to what she considers the highly enviable situation of Palestinians who are already Israeli citizens, claiming that "[s]ince 1949 Israel's Arab citizens have enjoyed the full rights and privileges of citizenship, contingent on security concerns".

In fact, Palestinian citizens of Israel lived under martial law from 1949 until 1966, and, despite admittedly enjoying civil and political rights since, have continued to suffer discrimination.

Ultimately, Glick's approach to the whole notion of one state recalls that of Palestinians whose endorsement of the same idea stems from the perceived benefits it would provide their people, with precious little attention paid to what Israelis favour.

If Palestinian supporters of one state view it as terminating Zionism (thanks to resulting demographic changes), while their Israeli counterparts consider it Zionism's fulfilment (thanks to enhanced security without major demographic changes), this state, if established, would become an arena for its own disparate advocates to collide.

The sole positive outcome of such a state's eventual break-up (which could happen through civil war) is that it would shatter the dreams of Palestinian and Israeli maximalists alike, most of whom would subsequently throw their weight behind the two-state solution, thereby ensuring that it becomes the near-consensus choice.

Paradoxically, then, the one-state option, if attempted, might in fact lead to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – but not in the way its advocates envisage.

To be sure, should it result in equality between Jews and Arabs in an enlarged Israel, this would signify success (though, if Glick has her way, the issues of Gaza and the Palestinian diaspora would still require resolution).

But should the unitary state collapse, as would likely happen, it would once-and-for-all consecrate the two-state scenario as both the proper and popular solution.

Rayyan Al Shawaf is a writer and book critic based in Beirut.

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 The one-state solution, sometimes also called a bi-national state, is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
 Proponents of a unified Israel advocate a single state in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with citizenship and equal rights in the combined entity for all inhabitants of all three territories, without regard to ethnicity or religion.


Later in June, Vote PR BC launched their campaign for proportional representation, canvassing in cities across the province.

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# Campaign to change B.C. voting system hits the streets, with Ontario election in mind

By Perrin GrauerStarMetro VancouverSun., June 10, 2018

VANCOUVER—Supporters of the proportional representation (PR) voting system hit the streets in Vancouver and around the province on Sunday to talk democracy and raise awareness ahead of B.C.'s electoral referendum in the fall.

Maria Dobrinskaya, spokesperson for the Vote PR BC campaign, said the results from last week's provincial election in Ontario show that the conversation around PR has never been more timely.

Volunteers with the Vote PR BC campaign chat with locals outside the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station in Vancouver on Sunday to promote awareness of proportional representation.

referendum on whether to adopt the proportional representation electoral system — or stick with the current first-past-the-post method — is expected for October or November of this year.

"I think dissatisfaction with our current system is palpable," she told StarMetro outside the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station.

"The example of the election in Ontario … where the majority of people voted for a different party than the one that was elected makes the issue real."

On June 7, Doug Ford — a populist candidate many have compared to Donald Trump — won Ontario's provincial election with 40 per cent of the vote.

Proportional representation, Dobrinskaya said, is a system of voting that ensures the number of votes cast is reflected in the number of seats in the legislature.

If a party receives 40 per cent of the votes, as Ford's Conservatives did, it would receive 40 per cent of the seats.

"Our current system distorts that outcome, so we're able to elect majority governments that have 100 per cent of the power — the legislative agenda — with 40, sometimes event lower, per cent of the vote," she said.

The upcoming mail-in referendum, expected to start this October, will ask British Columbians to decide on whether to keep the current first-past-the-post electoral system, or switch over to one of three PR systems.

In his May 30 report on electoral reform, Attorney General David Eby recommended that if PR is chosen in the upcoming referendum, B.C. voters should be given an opportunity for a second referendum after two election cycles.

Dobrinskaya said this would provide residents with a chance to see how PR works in real-time, at the ballot box, before deciding to adopt the system permanently — though she was sure voters would embrace PR once they'd seen it in action.

"We have not seen any jurisdiction move to a proportional representation system and then revert back to first-past-the-post," she said.

Roughly 85 per cent of countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) currently use some form of proportional representation, according to an ACE Electoral Knowledge Network database.

But the PR system is not without its flaws.

It can lead to the rise of coalition governments, resulting in "legislative gridlock and (a) consequent inability to carry out coherent policies," notes the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network.

The ACE network also writes that PR can fragment the party system, allowing "tiny minority parties to hold larger parties to ransom in coalition negotiations."

In Israel, for instance, this has led to extremist religious parties becoming crucial to the formation of government, while in Italy PR has led to years of political instability.

But Attorney General Eby's electoral report explicitly states any party must win a minimum 5 per cent of the overall vote in order to be eligible to receive seats in an election — a move designed to deter the influence of fringe parties.

And in comparison to the current system, said Dobrinskaya, a representative plurality of voices would reinvigorate those members of the B.C. electorate who have become soured on politics.

She said the phenomenon of "safe seats" — ridings in which voters are so historically likely to vote for a particular party that opposition candidates have very narrow odds of being elected — has created an environment in which many voters feel disempowered.

"If you're a B.C. NDP voter in Kelowna, or a B.C. Liberal voter in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, the outcome of the election is largely determined (regardless of) whether or not you cast your ballot," she said.

"That leads to a lot of cynicism and disengagement, particularly amongst younger people."

Strategic voting — a situation Dobrinskaya said many voters know better as "plugging your nose and voting for the least worst option" — is another problem with the current first-past-the-post system that could be eliminated by embracing a PR system.

"A combination of distorted outcomes, safe seats and strategic voting makes a lot of people feel that their vote doesn't count, and their level of engagement in their democracy is reflected in that," she said.

"We see lower voter turnout, and a general disengagement, again, particularly amongst young people."

Vancouver resident and former Calgarian Igor Kopecky told StarMetro he had friends abroad in countries where PR was currently in use, and felt the system simply made better sense than first-past-the-post.

"It just sounds logical to me," he said.

Kopecky said in his former hometown of Calgary, NDP, Liberal and Green voters are often left feeling their democratic participation has little impact given the dominance of Conservative politics in the region.

"Whereas I think proportional representation, in every situation, would be impactful," he said, adding for that reason, he'll be casting his ballot in the fall referendum.

Perrin Grauer is a Vancouver-based reporter.

Canvassers take case for B.C. electoral reform to commuters | Vancouver Sun

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# Canvassers take case for B.C. electoral reform to commuters

Romeo Tello of Vote PR B.C. canvasses for support of proportional representation Sunday at the Broadway SkyTrain station in Vancouver.

As proponents of electoral reform passed leaflets and prepared to fan out and lobby Italian Day celebrants, Paul Bassett leaned up against an East Van coffee shop window, unimpressed.

"I'm not interested," he said, dryly, as he watched Vote PR advocates launch their "Yes" campaign Sunday with a flurry of activity at the corner of Commercial and Broadway.

"I don't have time to think about this right now."

But that doesn't mean he isn't willing to consider the questions that will be on the proportional representation referendum ballot B.C. voters will receive in their mailboxes in October.

Bassett said he thinks electoral reform is important but he believes proportional representation could make things worse for small-town and rural residents.

"If you have a government that's run by Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, the larger centres, the fate of rural communities will be decided by these cities."

His friend Ann Buckerfield, on the other hand, is very interested, and she plans to vote in the fall referendum on the issue.

"I'm going to look into it and learn more to see if I want to support it," said Buckerfield.

Nearby, Shai Mor, who was also approached by the blue-clad PR proponents, said he cares deeply about the issue.

"One person, one vote, and each vote influences the final tally.

Mor, who was born in Israel, said proportional representation is an effective system, already in place in that country.

B.C.'s NDP government is fulfilling an election promise to put the question of electoral reform before provincial voters with a referendum to be held this fall.

The mail-in ballot will determine whether B.C. should keep its current "first past the post" system, or introduce some form of proportional representation.

Proportional representation is designed to ensure that the number of representatives in the legislature is proportional to the number of votes each party gets.

Vote PR B.C. spokeswoman Maria Dobrinskaya says 'all voters deserve to have their position represented in the legislature more so than it is now.'

"Currently we have a system in which a party with 40 per cent of the vote can get 100 per cent of the power, and can control government," said Maria Dobrinskaya, a spokeswoman for Vote PR B.C.

"It's frustrating for people to feel their vote doesn't count.

We see distorted outcomes in which a majority government doesn't have the support of the majority of the population."

Dobrinskaya said, "All voters deserve to have their position represented in the legislature more so than it is now."

Attorney General David Eby has proposed a mail-in vote with two questions.

The first will ask whether voters prefer the current system, or a system of proportional representation.

The second question will ask voters to rank which of three systems they prefer, dual-member, mixed-member (the most common) or rural-urban representation.

Voters can answer one or both of the questions.

Ballots will be available in October 2018, and voters will have until the end of November to submit their ballots.

New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Israel, Belgium, Denmark and Russia all use some form of proportional representation in their election process.

Slim majority of British Columbians support proportional representation: PollB.C. government releases details on electoral reform referendum

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British Columbia Politics Elections and Voting electoral system Proportional Representation

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2018 British Columbia electoral reform referendum

Between November 2017 and February 2018, Attorney General David Eby conducted a public consultation entitled "How We Vote". On May 30, 2018, he released the report on the consultation and recommendations concerning how the referendum process should be conducted. Cabinet accepted the recommendations shortly thereafter, in early June.


It joined ships from Poland, Germany and Spain.

(meta data) TITLE: Russia suspends military cooperation with Nato | World news | The Guardian

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(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 2008-08-21T13:47:00-0400

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# Russia suspends military cooperation with Nato

First published on Thu 21 Aug 2008 13.47 EDT

Nato today said it had received a note from Moscow saying that Russia would break off military cooperation with the west's military alliance.

The move is the latest fallout from Russia's short, sharp war with Georgia.

It appeared to be a tit-for-tat response to Nato's announcement this week that there could be "no business as usual" as long as Russian forces remained in Georgia.

Foreign ministers meeting in Brussels had decided that the Nato-Russia council would no longer meet for the time being.

The council, set up in 2002, paved the way for cooperation on several projects.

They included the participation of Russian warships in Nato Mediterranean counter-terrorism patrols, sharing expertise to combat heroin trafficking from Afghanistan and developing battlefield anti-missile technology.

Norway, an alliance member, yesterday said it was told by Russia of its plans to cut all military ties with Nato.

An alliance spokeswoman, Carmen Romero, today said Nato had received notification through military channels that Russia's defence ministry had taken a decision "to halt international military cooperation events between Russia and Nato countries until further instructions".

She said Nato "takes note" of the decision, but had no further reaction.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, suggested that Nato needed Moscow more than Moscow needed Nato.

He said Russian cooperation with Nato efforts against militants in Afghanistan could be jeopardised, adding: "Russia's help is critical for Nato."

Lavrov added that after this week's emergency meeting in Brussels, during which Nato "adopted a sharp but not very concrete document" on how to deal with Russia, "leading alliance members came to us and whispered in our ears, hoping that we do not halt cooperation with Nato on Afghanistan".

"We do not intend to slam the door," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

"Everything depends on Nato - if their priorities go to the unconditional support of the bankrupt Saakashvili regime to the detriment of partnership with Nato, it's not our fault."

The US played down the significance of the Russian decision, saying Nato had already effectively frozen cooperation in protest at Russia's continued military presence in much of Georgia.

"For all practical purposes, military to military cooperation had really already been ended with the Russians," the US national security council spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said.

"I can't imagine a circumstance right now that we would engage in military cooperation with the Russians until the situation in Georgia is resolved."

Nato warships entered the Black Sea for what the alliance said were long-planned exercises and routine visits to ports in Romania and Bulgaria.

Nato said the exercises were not linked to the conflict in Georgia, which lies on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, around 550 miles from the Romanian coast.

The three warships - from Spain, Germany and Poland - sailed into the Black Sea today and are due to joined by a US frigate, the USS Taylor, later this week.

They are "conducting a pre-planned routine visit to the Black Sea region to interact and exercise with our Nato partners Romania and Bulgaria, which is an important feature of our routine planning," Vice-Admiral Pim Bedet, the deputy commander at the allied maritime headquarters in Northwood, England, said.

The move could irritate Russia, which has deployed ships from its Black Sea fleet to the Georgian coast.

"Taylor" was homeported in Charleston, South Carolina from 1985-1993.  The ship deployed to Northern Europe as part of the Standing Naval Forces Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT) in 1987 and the Persian Gulf in 1988 and 1990. Participated in Operation Earnest Will. In 1993, the "Taylor" changed homeport to Mayport, Florida with the closing of Charleston Naval Station.
 Up to 2015, "Taylor" was homeported at NS Mayport, Florida, and was part of Destroyer Squadron 14.
 In August 2008, "Taylor" entered the Black Sea conducting a pre-planned routine visit to the region to interact and exercise with NATO partners Romania and Bulgaria.


The program offers students high school and associate programs focusing on the STEM curriculum.

(meta data) TITLE: What is STEM Education? | Live Science

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STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach.

Rather than teach the four disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications.

Though the United States has historically been a leader in these fields, fewer students have been focusing on these topics recently.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 16 percent of high school students are interested in a STEM career and have proven a proficiency in mathematics.

Currently, nearly 28 percent of high school freshmen declare an interest in a STEM-related field, a department website says, but 57 percent of these students will lose interest by the time they graduate from high school.

As a result, the Obama administration announced the 2009 "Educate to Innovate" campaign to motivate and inspire students to excel in STEM subjects.

This campaign also addresses the inadequate number of teachers skilled to educate in these subjects.

The goal is to get American students from the middle of the pack in science and math to the top of the pack in the international arena.

Thirteen agencies are partners in the Committee on Stem Education (CoSTEM), including mission science agencies and the U.S. Department of Education.

CoSTEM is working to create a joint national strategy to invest federal funds in K-12 STEM education, increasing public and youth STEM engagement, improving the STEM experience for undergraduates, reaching demographics underrepresented in STEM fields, and designing better graduate education for the STEM workforce.

The Department of Education now offers a number of STEM-based programs, including research programs with a STEM emphasis, STEM grant selection programs and general programs that support STEM education.

The Obama administration's 2014 budget invests $3.1 billion in federal programs on STEM education, with an increase of 6.7 percent over 2012.

The investments will be made to recruit and support STEM teachers, as well as support STEM-focused high schools with STEM Innovation Networks.

The budget also invests into advanced research projects for education, to better understand next-generation learning technologies.

According to a report by the website STEMconnector.org, by 2018, projections estimate the need for 8.65 million workers in STEM-related jobs.

The manufacturing sector faces an alarmingly large shortage of employees with the necessary skills — nearly 600,000.

The field of cloud computing alone will have created 1.7 million jobs between 2011 and 2015, according to the report.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2018, the bulk of STEM careers will be:

Computing – 71 percentTraditional Engineering – 16 percentPhysical sciences – 7 percentLife sciences – 4 percentMathematics – 2 percent

STEM jobs do not all require higher education or even a college degree.

Less than half of entry-level STEM jobs require a bachelor's degree or higher.

However, a four-year degree is incredibly helpful with salary — the average advertised starting salary for entry-level STEM jobs with a bachelor's requirement was 26 percent higher than jobs in the non-STEM fields, according to the STEMconnect report.

For every job posting for a bachelor's degree recipient in a non-STEM field, there were 2.5 entry-level job postings for a bachelor's degree recipient in a STEM field.

This is not a problem unique to the United States.

In the United Kingdom, the Royal Academy of Engineering reports that the Brits will have to graduate 100,000 STEM majors every year until 2020 just to meet demand.

According to the report, Germany has a shortage of 210,000 workers in the mathematics, computer science, natural science and technology disciplines.

What separates STEM from the traditional science and math education is the blended learning environment and showing students how the scientific method can be applied to everyday life.

It teaches students computational thinking and focuses on the real world applications of problem solving.

As mentioned before, STEM education begins while students are very young:

Elementary school — STEM education focuses on the introductory level STEM courses, as well as awareness of the STEM fields and occupations.

This initial step provides standards-based structured inquiry-based and real world problem-based learning, connecting all four of the STEM subjects.

The goal is to pique students' interest into them wanting to pursue the courses, not because they have to.

There is also an emphasis placed on bridging in-school and out-of-school STEM learning opportunities.

Middle school — At this stage, the courses become more rigorous and challenging.

Student awareness of STEM fields and occupations is still pursued, as well as the academic requirements of such fields.

Student exploration of STEM related careers begins at this level, particularly for underrepresented populations.

High school — The program of study focuses on the application of the subjects in a challenging and rigorous manner.

Courses and pathways are now available in STEM fields and occupations, as well as preparation for post-secondary education and employment.

More emphasis is placed on bridging in-school and out-of-school STEM opportunities.

Much of the STEM curriculum is aimed toward attracting underrepresented populations.

Female students, for example, are significantly less likely to pursue a college major or career.

Though this is nothing new, the gap is increasing at a significant rate.

Male students are also more likely to pursue engineering and technology fields, while female students prefer science fields, like biology, chemistry, and marine biology.

Overall, male students are three times more likely to be interested in pursuing a STEM career, the STEMconnect report said.

Ethnically, Asian students have historically displayed the highest level of interest in the STEM fields.

Prior to 2001, students of an African-American background also showed high levels of interest in STEM fields, second only to the Asian demographic.

However, since then, African-American interest in STEM has dropped dramatically to lower than any other ethnicity.

Other ethnicities with high STEM interest include American Indian students.

Get breaking science news on monster snakes and dinosaurs, aliens, spooky particles and more!

History.:Late-20th and early 21st century (United states).:Modernizing the Education System.

More providers of higher education which include colleges and universities, non-traditional entities like school districts, libraries, and museums, and for-profit organizations will surface. All of these stakeholders will reach out to bigger audiences and use similar tools and technologies to achieve their goals. An article released by CBNC.com said a principal Senate Committee will take into account legislation that reauthorizes and modernizes the Carl D. Perkins Act. President George Bush approved this statute in 2006 on August 12, 2006. This new bill will emphasize the importance of federal funding for various Career and Technical (CTE) programs that will better provide learners with in-demand skills. Congress can provide more students with access to pertinent skills in education according to 21st century career opportunities.
 At present, there are many initiatives aimed at dealing with these concerns like innovative cooperation between federal and state governments, educators, and the business sector. One of these efforts is the Pathways to Technology Early College High School (P-TECH). This six-year program was launched in cooperation with IBM, educators from three cities in New York, Chicago, and Connecticut, and over 400 businesses.


However, despite having a new life and a chance to relive his life and find a new purpose, the temptations that led to his career being tarnished continue to haunt him.

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From executive producer/writer Rand Ravich ("Life," "Crisis") and Emmy Award-winning executive producer Howard Gordon ("Homeland," "24") comes SECOND CHANCE, a thrilling new action-drama about a man brought back to life by two scientists playing god in the quest to save one of their own lives.

Seventy-five-year-old JIMMY PRITCHARD (guest star Philip Baker Hall, "Modern Family," "Magnolia") is a shell of his former self.

A drinker, a womanizer and a father who always put work before family, Pritchard was forced to resign as L.A. County Sheriff for corrupt conduct more than a decade ago.

Now, some 15 unkind years later, he is killed when he stumbles upon a robbery at the home of FBI Agent DUVAL PRITCHARD (Tim DeKay, "White Collar"), one of his two children.

But death is surprisingly short for Jimmy, who is brought back to life by billionaire tech-genius twins MARY GOODWIN (Dilshad Vadsaria, "Revenge") and her brother, OTTO (Adhir Kalyan, "Rules of Engagement"), founders of the social networking empire, Lookinglass.

Resurrected as a younger, better version of himself, with physical abilities of which he never dreamed, a re-animated Pritchard (Rob Kazinsky, "True Blood") is given a second chance at life.

Will he try to repair the damage he did to his family?

Will he embrace a new sense of purpose or fall prey to old temptations?

SECOND CHANCE is a production of 20th Century Fox Television, in association with Kara Productions and Teakwood Lane Productions.

The series is executive-produced by Ravich, Howard Gordon, Donald Todd (SLEEPY HOLLOW) and Brad Turner ("24").

Hugh Fitzpatrick ("Tyrant"), Richard Hatem ("Witches of East End") and Gwendolyn Parker ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit") are co-executive producers.

Emmy Award winner Michael Cuesta ("Elementary," "Homeland") served as director and executive producer on the pilot.

"Like" SECOND CHANCE on Facebook at facebook.com/SecondChanceFOX.

Follow the series on Twitter @secondchancefox and join the discussion using #SecondChance.

See photos and videos on Instagram by following @secondchancefox.

The series follows the life of Jimmy Pritchard, a 75-year-old former King County, Washington, sheriff (Philip Baker Hall) who was morally corrupt and eventually disgraced and forced to retire. After he is murdered, Pritchard is brought back to life in the improved body of a younger man (Robert Kazinsky) by billionaire tech-genius twins Mary (Dilshad Vadsaria) and Otto Goodwin (Adhir Kalyan).


Four years later, Amalie Arena again hosted the Frozen Four of the 2016 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament.

(meta data) TITLE: Road to the Championship | NCAA.com

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There are 60 NCAA member institutions that sponsor Division I Men's Ice Hockey teams and are eligible to compete in the National Championship.

All 60 programs support approximately 1,800 Men's Ice Hockey student-athletes across the country.

The 2020 Division I Men's Hockey Championship provides for a field of 16 teams to compete in a single elimination tournament.

Of the 16 teams, 6 conference champions will receive automatic qualification with the remaining best 10 teams being selected on an at-large basis by the Division I Men's Ice Hockey Committee.

A total of 4 teams will be seeded with each of the seeded teams being placed at 1 regional site.

The NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championship bracket will be announced Sunday, March 22, time and network to be announced.

Regionals for the NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championship will be held March 27 - 29 at 4 locations.

At each site, 4 teams will compete in single-elimination Regional Semifinal competition.

The 2 winning teams will then compete against each other in single-elimination Regional Final competition at the same site.

The winning team from each of the 4 Regionals will advance to the Frozen Four in Detroit, Mich.

The 2020 NCAA Men's Frozen Four will be held at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Mich.

The National Semifinals will be held April 9, times to be announced.

The National Championship game will take place April 11, time to be announced.

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During the arena's time as home of the Tampa Bay Storm of the Arena Football League, it hosted the league's championship game, known as the ArenaBowl, on two occasions, ArenaBowl XII in 1998 and ArenaBowl XVII in 2003.
 The arena was slated to host an NBA preseason game in 2010 between the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat, the league's two Florida teams. However, months before the game, the arena's basketball floor was treated with an oil-based cleaning solution that resulted in a slippery film forming on it. According to Magic players, the floor was so slippery that they had to walk through their shootaround. When it became apparent that there was no way to make the court playable, the game was canceled half an hour before the scheduled tipoff. All fans received a full refund. The Frozen Four of the 2012 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was held in the arena, hosted by the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the nearest collegiate hockey team to Florida. This was the first time the Frozen Four was held outside the northern US since 1999, when the University of Alaska Anchorage hosted the event at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim in Anaheim, California. Boston College won the national championship game 4–1 against Ferris State.


However in 2013 they made a nine to zero decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas so their earlier indecision couldn’t be used as a precedent in other cases in which incompetent defendants might evade the death penalty.

(meta data) TITLE: Opinion recap: Rees clarified, after forty-six years - SCOTUSblog

Lyle Denniston Independent Contractor Reporter

# Opinion recap: Rees clarified, after forty-six years

Posted Tue, January 8th, 2013 12:59 pm by Lyle Denniston

For more than forty-six years, the Supreme Court's brief rulings in the Virginia death row case of Melvin Davis Rees, Jr., have remained in the Supreme Court's records, but few have paid attention to them since and their meaning was never clarified.

The Justices finally did so on Tuesday, ruling that the actions it took in Rees v. Peyton in 1966 and 1967 did not give state prisoners a right to delay their federal court challenges until they are mentally competent enough to proceed.

No federal law, the Court decided unanimously, gives an incompetent state prisoner any right to keep a habeas case on hold until he can regain mental understanding of what is going on.

The habeas case can go ahead with just the lawyers involved, the ruling said.

Although the Court did not say so explicitly, the new decision in Ryan v. Gonzales (10-930) also appeared to mean that state prisoners have no freestanding right to be competent so that they can take part when their case gets into a federal habeas court — an issue separate from whether they had a right to a delay while they remain incompetent.

(Decided along with the Ryan case, from Arizona, was a companion case from Ohio, Tibbals v. Carter, 11-218.)

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the nine-to-zero decision.

The Rees case of nearly five decades ago has been one of the Court's most abiding mysteries.

After ordering a test of his mental capacity, and then being told that Rees was incompetent, the Court in 1967 simply placed his case in a state of perpetual inactivity — until Rees died in prison, some twenty-eight years later, in 1995.

Then, the Court responded by dismissing his case in two words.

Rees v. Peyton came back before the Court this Term, though, in death row cases involving Ernest Valencia Gonzales of Arizona and Sean Carter of Ohio.

Gonzales was given a death sentence after killing a man and wounding his wife in a stabbing attack during a burglary of their home, and Carter was sentenced to die for the murder and rape of his adoptive grandmother.

The Ninth Circuit Court and the Sixth Circuit Court, relying on different federal statutes and both relying in part on what the Supreme Court had done in Rees v. Peyton, had concluded that a finding of incompetence for both men justified a postponement of their federal habeas cases until they could regain competence.

The Ninth Circuit cited a law that gives a right to a free lawyer in a habeas case involving a death row inmate, and the Sixth Circuit relied on a law that gives federal judges the authority to order the hospitalization of a mentally incompetent individual facing a criminal trial.

Justice Thomas's opinion, significantly playing down the role that a convicted individual may play in a federal habeas case, concluded that neither statute authorized stays of habeas proceedings.

Most such cases, the opinion said, are based upon the record made in state court as the case went through a trial and state appeals.

"Attorneys," the Court said, "are quite capable of reviewing the state-court record, identifying legal errors, and marshaling relevant arguments, even without their clients' assistance."

No one who is incompetent at the time can be tried, the opinion noted, but habeas proceedings are not the equivalent of a criminal trial.

The Court also said that an attempt to tie the mental competency issue to the right to a lawyer is a flawed approach, since there is no Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer during a habeas case, and so the only possible source of a judge's authority to assure that the convicted state prisoner can consult with his lawyer during a habeas case would be a federal statute, and none exists.

Turning to its opinion and orders in the Rees case, the opinion said those did not establish a statutory right to a delay of habeas proceedings for an incompetent individual.

Its first order in that case, in 1966, the Court said, "concerned whether an incompetent habeas petitioner may withdraw his certiorari petition, and it provides no clear answer even to that question."

Similarly, the second, brief order in 1967, Thomas wrote, "offered no rationale for the decision to hold Rees' petition.

As a result, Rees offers no support for federal habeas petitioners seeking to stay district court proceedings."

Although the lawyers involved in the Gonzales case told the Court that these new cases only involved the issue of staying a habeas case while a state prisoner is incompetent, so the Court need not decide the question of whether there is a separate right to competency during habeas.

But, in a footnote, the Thomas opinion implied that the grant of review did embrace that question, too, and the opinion left little doubt that no such right exists.

The decision did not entirely take away the authority of federal judges, using their equitable powers separate from any statutory text, to order a delay in a habeas case when a state prisoner is found to be incompetent at the time.

Leaving the choice of when to exercise that power to federal judges, the opinion remarked: "We do not presume that district courts need unsolicited advice from us on how to manage their dockets."

Still, Justice Thomas said that district judges do have the authority to rule on whether a claim made in habeas could benefit from having the prisoner able to communicate with his lawyer about it, but in considering whether to use that power, judges should take into account whether the individual is likely "to regain competence in the foreseeable future."

If there is "no reasonable hope of competence," a habeas case should not be delayed, the Court concluded.

To issue a stay in that situation, it added, "merely frustrates the state's attempts to defend its presumptively valid judgment."

An individual who is convicted of a crime in state court has a number of opportunities to challenge the conviction and the sentence, first in state court and, if that is unsuccessful, in a federal court.

In federal court, that right is found in the ancient promise that a person being held in captivity by the government has a right to compel the government to justify that detention.

That is called the right to a "writ of habeas corpus" — a Latin phrase that generally translates as "you have the body" and must justify holding it.

If lawyers for a state prisoner have taken the case into federal court, the case plays out there under a series of legal rules.

Sometimes, those rules are not entirely clear, and courts have to clarify them.

In two cases decided on Tuesday, the Supreme Court was asked to clarify those rules when the state prisoner involved in the case is found to have become mentally incompetent, and thus is unable to help his lawyer pursue the legal challenge to his conviction and sentence.

Two federal appeals courts had ruled that, if the prisoner has in fact become incompetent, the federal case should simply be put on hold until that individual regains mental competence.

Without the capacity to aid his lawyer, the prisoner's challenge is essentially undermined, and so is his right to a lawyer, those lower courts ruled.

The Supreme Court decided unanimously that the lower courts were wrong.

There is no constitutional right to have a lawyer at all during federal court review of state convictions, so any right to a lawyer, and the consequences of having access to a lawyer, must depend upon whether there is a federal law that promises legal assistance while an individual is mentally incompetent.

There is no such law, the Court ruled, that assures that an individual has a right to aid his lawyer during the federal proceeding when the individual is incompetent, so there is no right to have the case put on hold until the individual might regain the mental capacity to participate.

In reaching its decision, the Court noted that it had once put a Virginia state prisoner's case on hold for twenty-eight years, because the man was incompetent.

But it concluded that the actions it took in that case did not set a precedent for delaying a federal case involving a state prisoner who had become incompetent.

Posted in Ryan v. Gonzales, Tibbals v. Carter, Featured, Merits Cases, Analysis

Opinion recap: Rees clarified, after forty-six years,

# SCOTUS spotlight: William Jay on oral advocacy – SCOTUStalk

# SCOTUS spotlight: Paul Smith on oral advocacy – SCOTUStalk

# Response of Michael Dreeben to tributes upon his leaving the Office of the Solicitor General – Michael Dreeben

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Air and Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVriesApple Inc. v. PepperAzar v. Allina Health ServicesBiestek v. BerryhillBNSF Railway Company v. LoosBox v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc.Bucklew v. PrecytheCarpenter v. MurphyCity of Escondido, California v. EmmonsCochise Consultancy Inc. v. United States, ex rel. HuntCulbertson v. BerryhillDawson v. SteagerDepartment of Commerce v. New YorkEmulex Corp. v. VarjabedianFlowers v. MississippiFood Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader MediaFort Bend County, Texas v. DavisFourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.comFranchise Tax Board of California v. HyattFrank v. GaosGamble v. United StatesGarza v. IdahoGundy v. United StatesHelsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc.Herrera v. WyomingHome Depot U.S.A. Inc. v. JacksonIancu v. BrunettiJam v. International Finance Corp.Kisor v. WilkieKnick v. Township of Scott, PennsylvaniaLamone v. BenisekLamps Plus Inc. v. VarelaLorenzo v. Securities and Exchange CommissionMadison v. AlabamaManhattan Community Access Corp. v. HalleckMaryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist AssociationMcDonough v. SmithMerck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. AlbrechtMission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLCMitchell v. WisconsinMont v. United StatesMoore v. TexasMount Lemmon Fire District v. GuidoNew Prime Inc. v. OliveiraNielsen v. PreapNieves v. BartlettNorth Carolina Department of Revenue v. The Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family TrustNutraceutical Corp. v. LambertObduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLPParker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. NewtonPDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic Inc.Quarles v. United StatesRehaif v. United StatesRepublic of Sudan v. HarrisonReturn Mail Inc. v. United States Postal ServiceRimini Street Inc. v. Oracle USA Inc.Rucho v. Common CauseShoop v. HillSmith v. BerryhillStokeling v. United StatesSturgeon v. FrostTaggart v. LorenzenTennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. ThomasThacker v. Tennessee Valley AuthorityThe American Legion v. American Humanist AssociationThe Dutra Group v. BattertonTimbs v. IndianaUnited States v. DavisUnited States v. HaymondUnited States v. SimsUnited States v. StittVirginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-HillVirginia Uranium, Inc. v. WarrenWashington State Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den Inc.Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife ServiceYovino v. Rizo

Allen v. CooperAltitude Express Inc. v. ZardaAtlantic Richfield Co. v. ChristianAurelius Investment, LLC v. Puerto RicoBabb v. WilkieBanister v. DavisBarton v. BarrBostock v. Clayton County, GeorgiaCITGO Asphalt Refining Co. v. Frescati Shipping Co.,

Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned MediaCounty of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife FundDepartment of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of CaliforniaDex Media Inc. v. Click-To-Call Technologies,

LPEspinoza v. Montana Department of RevenueFinancial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment, LLCGE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA LLCGeorgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc.

Guerrero-Lasprilla v. BarrHernandez v. MesaHolguin-Hernandez v. United StatesIntel Corp.

Investment Policy Committee v. SulymaKahler v. KansasKansas v. GarciaKansas v. GloverKelly v. United StatesLand of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Co. v. United StatesLucky Brand Dungarees Inc. v. Marcel Fashion Group Inc.

Maine Community Health Options v. United StatesMathena v. MalvoMcAleenan v. VidalMcKinney v. ArizonaModa Health Plan Inc. v. United StatesMonasky v. TaglieriNew York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New YorkOfficial Committee of Debtors v. Aurelius Investment, LLCOpati v. Republic of SudanOvalles v. BarrPeter v. NantKwest Inc.R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity CommissionRamos v. LouisianaRetirement Plans Committee of IBM v. JanderRitzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLCRodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.Romag Fasteners Inc. v. Fossil Inc.

Rotkiske v. KlemmShular v. United StatesThole v. U.S. Bank, N.A.Trump v. NAACPUnited States v. Aurelius Investment, LLCUTIER v. Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico

The justices are on their summer recess.

secretary of the Department of Commerce did not violate the enumeration clause or the Census Act in deciding to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 census questionnaire, but the district court was warranted in remanding the case back to the agency where the evidence tells a story that does not match the secretary's explanation for his decision.

Kisor v. WilkieAuer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co – under which deference is given to an agency's reasonable reading of its own genuinely ambiguous regulations – are not overruled.

Rucho v. Common CausePartisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.

The American Legion v. American Humanist AssociationThe Bladensburg Cross does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

dual-sovereignty doctrine – under which two offenses are not the "same offence" for double jeopardy purposes if prosecuted by separate sovereigns – is upheld.see all this term's cases »

Symposium on the Roberts Court after Kennedy

Tributes to retiring Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben

Symposium on the court's ruling in Department of Commerce v. New York

Symposium on the court's ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek

Symposium on the court's ruling in Kisor v. Wilkie

Symposium on the court's ruling in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association

Symposium on what's next in June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee

Opinions | February 27, 2019 (with Casetext's Pablo Arredondo)

Opinions | February 26, 2019 (with Casetext's Jake Heller)

Day five of confirmation hearing | September 27, 2018

Day four of confirmation hearing | September 7, 2018

Day three of confirmation hearing | September 6, 2018

Day two of confirmation hearing | September 5, 2018

Day one of confirmation hearing | September 4, 2018

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When apprehended for the Jackson murder, Rees was living with Pat Barrington who had a dual role in the Ed Wood-scripted Orgy of the Dead (1965).   They met in D.C. in 1959 when she was stripping there as Vivian Storm.   They lived together in Hyattville, MD, and moved further south in 1960. Rees' habeas corpus case reached the Supreme Court in 1967 due to his being incompetent—he was diagnosed a schizophrenic—but SCOTUS put their decision on hold until his death decades later, at which point they just put a lid on it with two words: “Certiorari dismissed.”


Metcalfe was born in Newcastle on 26 June 1895 to English-born parents.

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This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, (MUP), 2000

Arthur John Metcalfe (1895-1971), medical practitioner and public servant, was born on 26 June 1895 at Hamilton, New South Wales, son of English-born parents Rev. John Ewan Metcalfe, Methodist clergyman, and his wife Annie, née Kessell.

Educated at Fort Street Model (Boys' High) School and the University of Sydney (M.B., Ch.M., 1918; D.P.H., 1926), Arthur worked as a resident medical officer at Sydney Hospital and the Renwick Hospital for Infants.

He joined the Commonwealth Quarantine Service in September 1919 and was posted to Newcastle soon afterwards.

At the Methodist Church, Mosman, Sydney, on 2 October 1920 he married Kathleen Mary McCauley.

Based at Townsville, Queensland, in 1920-22, Metcalfe served as acting-director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and helped to contain an outbreak of bubonic plague.

While posted to Thursday Island (1922-23) he was involved in combating beriberi and hookworm.

He was sent to Brisbane in 1924 and to Sydney in the following year.

In October 1926 he was transferred to the administrative staff of the Department of Health, Melbourne, where he was employed under J. H. L. Cumpston.

Metcalfe surveyed Federal and State methods of recording medical statistics and the treatment of infectious diseases.

His report eventually led the States to adopt uniform recording practices.

Appointed chief quarantine officer, Sydney, in 1927, he was made senior medical officer, New South Wales, in 1932.

After Frank McCallum died in September 1946, Metcalfe acted as director-general of health until he was confirmed in the post in October 1947.

That year he studied government health policies in the United States of America, Canada, Britain and Europe.

Under the ministerial direction of N. E. McKenna and Sir Earle Page, Metcalfe's department implemented the hospital, pharmaceutical and medical benefit schemes consolidated by the National Health Act (1953).

During Metcalfe's term as director-general the Department of Health expanded significantly.

The Australian Institute of Child Health and the National Biological Standards Laboratory were established and added to the scientific organizations—including the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, the Commonwealth X-ray and Radium Laboratory, the Commonwealth Acoustics Laboratory, and the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine—for which Metcalfe was responsible.

He chaired the National Health and Medical Research Council (1948-59) and the National Tuberculosis Council.

To check the health of potential immigrants, he kept medical officers in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Denmark, Italy and Austria.

As chief Australian delegate, he attended World Health Organization assemblies in 1951, 1953 and 1954.

He was appointed to the assembly's executive-board in 1957, chaired technical discussion meetings in 1958 and headed the executive-board's standing committee on administration and finance in 1960.

In 1954 Metcalfe had been appointed C.B.E.

A quiet and unassuming man who did not seek the limelight, he retired in 1960, moved to Sydney and helped with community work.

He died on 24 March 1971 at Harbord and was cremated with Anglican rites; his daughter and two sons survived him.

Health, vol 10, no 3, Sept 1960, p 67A1928/1 item 1020/90 section 1 (National Archives of Australia).

W. D. Refshauge, 'Metcalfe, Arthur John (1895–1971)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/metcalfe-arthur-john-11115/text19791, published first in hardcopy 2000, accessed online 3 April 2015.

This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, (MUP), 2000

© Copyright Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006-2015

26 June 1895 Hamilton, New South Wales, Australia

24 March 1971 Harbord, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

medical administratorpublic servantpublic service head


"The Aching Hunger" performances consisted of two parts: the first showcasing Vai's original contemporary orchestral compositions, and the second consisting of Vai (on guitar) playing newly arranged material from his catalog with the orchestra.

(meta data) TITLE: Vai.com - The Official Steve Vai Website > Inside Real Illusions: Reflections

Collection: Wikipedia Outlinks March 2016

Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016.

These files are currently not publicly accessible.

It has been several years since the last time we did this.

For this collection, several things were done:

This collection will be complete, as there is a

good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random

other collections, is a complex problem.

2. For the first time, did all the different wikis.

This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections.

The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20160303175927/http://www.vai.com/minisites/realillusions/07lotusfeet.html

Click here to read Laurel Fishman's essays on The Sublime Essence of the Lotus Feet and Pamposh or Lots About The Lotus...

Performed by the Metropole Orkest and Steve Vai

with special guests Brian Beller on bass and Chris Opperman on piano

The breath of life for the project: Co de Kloet

I was working in the studio on something and I always keep a portable

I was taking a break and meditating for a moment when this

I reached for the DAT and sang the melody into

it while searching for the right chords to accompany it

I was reflecting on my previous state of mind.

When the opportunity came up to work with Joel Thome and the Eastman school

orchestra in Rochester New York, I did an orchestration for the piece.

It was not a bad arrangement but I knew that my friend David Kole would

I gave him the piece to orchestrate for the Metropole

I will let my good friend Co de Kloet tell you a bit

about the Aching Hunger project for which Lotus Feet was performed:

Dear Steve Vai Fan (and one can hardly blame you) and vai.com reader.

Recently Mr. Vai sent me an email in which he asked

me to write a few lines about myself and an orchestra project we did

It'll cost him a jar of Fire Garden Honey

I am a radio producer and creative catalyst for NPS

in Holland (Netherlands Programme Service).

with good music as possible, convinced that music is a healing force

One of the highlights in my day to day work are

the projects I am allowed to do with the amazing Metropole Orkest (Dutch

My collegue Frits Bayens produces an wonderful jazz

oriented series with the band and I can do the "other" stuff.

worth of music by Frank Zappa, performed by the Metropole with Bruce

Fowler: I can send the set list if you like…..I also did projects

with Brian Eno, Mike Keneally, Terry Bozzio, Napoleon Murphy Brock and

NPS commissioned him to write an evening's

worth of music called The Aching Hunger and this music was first heard

on May 22, 2004 in Groningen, to be played again the following two days

As we speak, talks about concerts on July

1 and 2 this year (2005) are in progress.

For me it was a dream come true: to be the first radio person to

let the orchestral composer/animal within Vai get out there and have

Mind you, in the first 40 minutes or so SV wasn't

He created an atmosphere as a composer in which hard-core

guitar fans were completely silent while listening to a long violin

cadenza that deserves a place in contemporary classical music.

Pieces like Frangelica, Helios & Vesta, Theadolite and Is

were premiered and like I said on stage: the people who

witnessed it will once say: "I was there!".

Of course there were also arrangements (mainly constructed by Chris

Opperman and Tom Trapp) of classics like Answers and For The Love Of

God. And!!!!!!!!……. LOTUS FEET. Besides the three live

performances we recorded a version during one of the Paradiso soundchecks:

Steve took it home, played on it, tweezed it and sent it back to be worldpremiered

turns out to be a vehicle for Vai to play a creative and mad scientist-type

He let me hear the whole album and it was worth waiting for.

you may not believe this but the Metropole is under threat: cutbacks

in budget are seriously influencing the very excistence of the orchestra.

If you think that it is important for new music like Vai's

to be created and performed on a high level, let me know on my e-mail

We will tell the authorities that culture is of the utmost importance

in a world full of tension and fundamentalistic crap.

So, to round it up I say: buy the new album, make sure you will

be in Holland for the next orchestral Vai experience, support good

music and beauty and wildlife organisations, stay away from fundamentalism

in whatever form and don't throw stuff on the stage (hey SV, how's that

for an inside joke….what?….you think they'll get

it?…well in that case: when come dee drumzzzzzzzzz

"Suspended around her reflection, the cherry blossoms glowed

She found herself humbled at the boundless, grace-emanating feet

As her letting-go became more complete, wave by wave she was

Although this song was not recorded with the Breed and it's a

live track on a record of studio pieces, I was compelled to put it on

R.I. as it fit the story and I felt it made for a sweet 7th song.

the notes or the tone or bla bla bla, and I'm just humbly begging

God for himself with every note, that's when being able to play

OK, OK, I know some of you must be getting tired of my spiritual meanderings

Guitar/Amp: Flo through a Legacy and that's

In December 2001, Vai recorded two performances at The Astoria in London, with his band The Breed (composed of former David Lee Roth bandmate Billy Sheehan, guitarist/pianist Tony MacAlpine, guitarist Dave Weiner, and drummer Virgil Donati). This live show was released independently in DVD format as "Steve Vai: Live at the Astoria, London" in 2003, and was Vai's first of many successful live concert DVD projects. In 2004, Vai released twelve tracks from the DVD in an online only release.
 2001 saw the limited release of "The Secret Jewel Box", a conceptual ten-CD box set containing unique material from various eras of Vai's career. Four compilation albums ("The Elusive Light and Sound, Vol. 1"; "Mystery Tracks – Archives Vol. 3"; "Various Artists – Archives Vol. 4"; and "Vai: Piano Reductions, Vol. 1") included as part of the box set, were released to the public both in 2001 and the years following. Also in 2001, Vai's record label Favored Nations released "No Substitutions: Live in Osaka". The release, which Vai himself produced and engineered, won him his second Grammy award for Best Pop Instrumental Album in February 2002. While most widely recognized for his stature as a rock guitar player, Vai is also a musical composer fluent in the composition and arranging of orchestral music. In May 2004, Vai premiered "The Aching Hunger", a project commissioned by the Netherlands Programme Service and performed with the Netherlands' Metropole Orchestra.


The optimum effective range is 50 m (55 yd), at which the optimal balance is achieved between lethality and area coverage, with a hit probability of 30% on a man-sized target.

FM 23-23 ANTIPERSONNEL MINE M18A1 AND M18 (CLAYMORE)

The M18 Claymore, a directional fragmentation mine, is 8-1/2 inches long, 1-3/8 inches wide, 3-1/4 inches high, and weighs 3-1/2 pounds.

The mine contains 700 steel spheres (10.5 grains) and 1-1/2 pound layer of composition C-4 explosive and is initiated by a No. 2 electric blasting cap.

The M18 command-detonated mine may be employed with obstacles or on the approaches, forward edges, flanks and rear edges of protective minefields as close-in protection against a dismounted Infantry attack.

The Claymore projects a fan-shaped pattern of steel balls in a 60-degree horizontal arc, at a maximum height of 2 meters, and covers a casualty radius of 100 meters.

The optimum effective range (the range at which the most desirable balance is achieved between lethality and area coverage) is 50 meters.

The forward danger radius for friendly forces is 250 meters.

The backblast area is unsafe in unprotected areas 16 meters to the rear and sides of the munition.

Friendly personnel within 100 meters to the rear and sides of the munition should be in a covered position to be safe from secondary missiles.

The M18A1 mine is primarily a defensive weapon.

It may be employed to a limited extent in certain phases of offensive operations.

The M18A1 has the same basic capabilities as antipersonnel mines and can be used in most situations where other types of antipersonnel mines are employed.

In addition, the M18A1 has the capability of being sighted directionally to provide fragmentation over a specific area and does not necessarily rely upon chance detonation by the enemy.

The M18A1 is adaptable for covering the ranges between maximum hand grenade throwing distance and the minimum safe distance of mortar and artillery supporting fires.

The M18 antipersonnel mine is an earlier model of the M18A1 antipersonnel mine.

The M18 antipersonnel mine comes in two versions--with or without a peep-sight; otherwise, both versions are identical.

The mine is a curved, rectangular, plastic case and contains a layer of composition C3 explosive.

It has a fragmentation face of rectangular steel fragments.

The front face containing the steel fragments is designed to produce a fan-shaped spray which can be aimed at a prescribed target area.

The electrical firing device issued with the M18 CLAYMORE is not safe.

Due to its construction, it may cause premature detonation of the mine.

Whenever possible, the battery holder (firing device) issued with the M18 mine should be replaced by a standard M57 firing device if the battery holder is used, both firing wires should be connected to one terminal until the desired moment of detonation.

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On both sides of the sight are fuse wells set at 45 degrees.
 Internally the mine contains a layer of C-4 explosive behind a matrix of about seven hundred 1⁄8-inch-diameter (3.2 mm) steel balls set into an epoxy resin.
 When the M18A1 is detonated, the explosion drives the matrix forward, out of the mine at a velocity of 1,200 m/s (3,937 ft/s), at the same time breaking it into individual fragments. The steel balls are projected in a 60° fan-shaped pattern that is 6.5 feet (2.0 m) high and 50 m (55 yd) wide at a range of 50 m (55 yd). The force of the explosion deforms the relatively soft steel balls into a shape similar to a .22 rimfire projectile. These fragments are moderately effective up to a range of 100 m (110 yd), with a hit probability of around 10% on a prone man-sized 1.3-square-foot (0.12 m) target. The fragments can travel up to 250 m (270 yd).


Converting a derelict apartment in Hamra into an office and raising $700,000, Karam founded the startup accelerator Seeqnce.

(meta data) TITLE: From The Heart Of Beirut, Startup Accelerator Seeqnce Plans To Thrive – TechCrunch

(meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/techcrunch

# From The Heart Of Beirut, Startup Accelerator Seeqnce Plans To Thrive

If you were going to choose an interesting place to run an accelerator program for startups, Beirut would probably be one place you'd pick.

I recently travelled to the city to meet with Seeqnce, a unique project which hopes to woo the Lebanese diaspora – spread throughout the world after Beirut's notorious war-filled history – to a newly peaceful Lebanon.

This summer it plans to create 8 new startups drawn from Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world.

Each startup will get investment, mentoring and offices.

So far they've had over 275 applicants from 17 countries apply for the program which starts in September and ends in March 2013.

Located in the the cool Hamra district of Beirut, in an office that was converted from a derelict apartment, Seeqnce plans to accelerate Beirut's startup scene.

Already one of its startups, Cinemoz, is on its way to becoming the "Hulu of the Arab world" and has already partnered with Brightcove.

It offers over 1,000 premium Arab entertainment titles and is heading towards an audience of 100,000 – big when you consider broadband penetration in the Arab world is still not high.

Speaking to Samer Karam, one of the key co-founders Seeqnce, he was quick to point out that Seeqnce is not an incubator, but an accelerator.

Founded in May 2010, he and his friends decided they needed a place for early stage startups to come together and work.

They were joined by AlterKey and ClashWith (a gaming startup).

The first few months were run as a collective.

Then – after a big party in Beirut in November 2010 (as part of global entrepreneurship week) attracted over 300 people – they realised there was a growing tech and startup scene in Beirut.

"We set out to create a big startup space.

We funded it through friends an family, and invested a lot into turning this old apartment into a space, says Karam.

They decided on a 6 months incubation programme, allowing for the time it would take to train brand new entrepreneurs and engineers from the region.

They also actively recruited people to come into the programme as opposed to people knocking on the doors.

The new Seeqnce programme invests $75,000 for 30% equity with 10% buyback option based on performance.

Follow on rounds have the right of first refusal.

The large amount of equity is structured on the basis that they are skipping a round based on the fact they are going through Series A.

But "We are not adamant that it will always work this way," says Karam.

He admits the "exit potenial in Beirut is limited to say the least.

But Lebanon is a multi-language region, which means we can reach far beyond our borders."

This will work well with content-oriented startups like Cinemoz that will appeal to the big media companies in the Arab world, as well as the traditional players like the telcos.

Plus they are starting to lure back the Lebanese diaspora and talent from the rest of the world.

"The beauty with Lebanon in terms of the Arab region is that there is a great deal of free speech.

So we are seeing huge amounts of ex-pats returning to this newly stable country."

It's certainly early days, but if you can build a startup accelerator in Beirut, then, well, look out world.

In 2010, Karam decided he would assist Lebanese early-stage startups. After a few months of running a collective, he realized that the growing startup scene needed a space.