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Subscribe to Nintendo Life on If you're a fan of in-game cross-promotion, it might be worth checking out Le Cartel's new game, Heave Ho. It's designed for up to four people and simply requires players to reach a goal without falling to their death. As Heave Ho is published by Devolver Digital, it will include a number of indie game cameos. You'll be able to select avatars based on games such as Enter the Gungeon, Hotline Miami, GRIS, The Messenger, Gato Roboto, My Friend Pedro and many more. See the full line-up below: Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available tomorrow!pic.twitter.com/g65z7bcIiM Lose a bunch of friends but gain a new one with My Friend Pedro joining Heave Ho!Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available tomorrow! https://t.co/HGm5pdZ4bE @deadtoast_com August 28, 2019 Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available Thursday!pic.twitter.com/Mku5RGEZBF Enter the Gungeon is armed to the teeth but Heave Ho is mostly arms and teeth!Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available Thursday! https://t.co/HGm5pdHsN4 @DodgeRollGames August 27, 2019 Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available Thursday!pic.twitter.com/K5xWmhzMFh Gris faces a whole different kind of grief in Heave Ho!Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available Thursday! https://t.co/HGm5pdZ4bE @nomadastudiobcn August 26, 2019 Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29! pic.twitter.com/1a676eIOvN "Yes that shoud work." Katana ZERO knows a little something about trying and trying until you get it just perfect!Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29! @katana_zero https://t.co/HGm5pdZ4bE August 24, 2019 Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29!pic.twitter.com/SKxQx8fHL3 Meow-ve over and provide a helping hand before we love all nine lives - Gato Roboto is making an appearance in Heave Ho!Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29! https://t.co/HGm5pdZ4bE August 23, 2019 Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29!@devolverdigital pic.twitter.com/IelstWITRo "Do you like dropping other people?" Hotline Miami joins the effort in Heave Ho!Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29! https://t.co/HGm5pdZ4bE @HotlineMiami August 21, 2019 Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29!pic.twitter.com/jDXyPO8wAS Piku proves that you don't need arms to be a hero in Heave Ho! We're overjoyed to have @PikunikuGame make an appearance in Heave Ho!Pre-order now on Nintendo Switch and PC, available August 29! https://t.co/2Id3evqa05 August 20, 2019 Our review for Heave Ho will go live soon, until then, why not view the trailer at the top of the page to get a better idea of what you can expect. It really does look like it could be a lot of fun with a group of friends or your family members. Will you be downloading this game later today? Leave a comment down below.

Pharmaceutics Professor Mandip Sachdeva from the Florida A&M University (FAMU) has led a research project to 3D print a cornea in what is reportedly the first example of high throughput printing of human cells, particularly in America. The project was undertaken in two research laboratories in the Dyson Pharmacy Building on the FAMU campus using the Cellink Bio X bio printer. Sachdeva, research assistant Paul Dinh, and Shallu Kutlehria, a graduate assistant in the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, will be submitting a white paper detailing the project later this month for journal publication. Potentially, the results of the project could lead to advancements in the medical field for applications related to the cornea, like transplants and treatments. Sachdeva tells Speaking to the Tallahassee Democrat, Sachdeva explained the significance of this breakthrough: “High throughput cornea printing means that we can print multiple corneas in a matter of minutes using a specially designed scaffold by our laboratory.” “This will save time, and hence, will increase efficiency.” Towards 3D printed corneal transplants Sachdeva has been teaching at FAMU for 26 years, and in his time has been awarded $25 million in research funding. The most recent research for 3D bioprinted corneas follows a 2017 grant from the National Science Foundation. Alongside two FAMU-FSU College of Engineering professors, Sachdeva was awarded the grant to research applications for bioprinting, aerospace materials and energy. After initially focusing on materials/devices for biological applications, this research led to ocular research and the 3D printing of corneas. The project began around the beginning of 2018, and centered on replicating the collagen matrix of real cornea with 3D printing by using stromal cells or keratocytes. These cells help develop and maintain normal corneal structure and transparency, as well as helping to repair tissue after injury. “The starting point was, we have to have print the cornea,” Sachdeva added. “A lot of things went into it. When you print the cornea, the bio-ink is very important. You have to formulate a bio-ink to use for the cornea that simulates the human characteristics.” Potential applications for the tissues include cornea transplants, a long-term goal of the project, and creating an in-vitro model for research and drug screening drug. Currently, the team is developing a prototype of a blinking eye model utilizing the 3D printed cornea, which is an upgrade of a basic in-vitro model. The first 3D printed cornea As the potential impact of artificial ocular tissues is realized several efforts in 3D bioprinted corneas have emerged in recent years. Since 2017 the Instituto de Investigación Biomédica del Hospital La Paz (IdiPAZ) in Madrid, Spain, has been working toward the goal of 3D printing viable human corneas by the year 2020. Pandorum Technologies Pvt., a Bangalore-based biotechnology company, has also used 3D bioprinted cornea tissue to promote the scarless healing of wounds in the eye. In 2018, scientists at Newcastle University (NCL) successfully 3D printed human corneas for the first time. Che Connon, Professor of Tissue Engineering at Newcastle University, and his research team created a printable bioink solution from donor stem cells, alginate, and collagen. This was used to successfully 3D print a cornea in under ten minutes. Sachdeva explains the difference between the research project at FAMU to the NCL study, however, “They printed one cornea. [Dinh] said it takes so much time, if you want to print six corneas, or 12 corneas, how do we do that?” “My team developed a high throughput printing system where in about 10 minutes, you can print about six corneas.” Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter for the latest 3D bioprinting research. Stay connected by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook. Looking for a career in additive manufacturing? Visit 3D Printing Jobs for a selection of roles in the industry. Featured image shows Florida A&M University biology student Paul Dinh holding a 3D printed cornea on the tip of his finger. Photo via Tori Schneider/Tallahassee Democrat.

Article content continued Black Friday The symbolism of announcing the drastic measures on a Friday night wasn’t lost on many Venezuelans. In 1983, President Luis Herrera Campins devalued the bolivar for the first time in 22 years after oil prices crashed. The day became to be known locally as “Black Friday.” When in 1989 Venezuela raised gasoline costs, lifted foreign-exchange controls and let the currency plunge, prices soared 21 per cent in one month alone, leading to riots known as the “Caracazo” that killed hundreds and eventually paved the way for Chavez’s rise to power. Military Alliance It’s not clear how the shock measures announced by Maduro will sit with one of his key allies: the military. Top ranking generals have been handed the keys to ministries, the state-run oil company and the lucrative business of food imports. Myriad exchange rates created juicy arbitrage opportunities that enriched many close associates of the state. “Clearly this will hit Maduro’s popularity, but power is being sustained with bullets and not with votes,” Naim said. “As long as the military continues to have access to lucrative businesses it will continue to grant support to the government.” The opposition, a fragmented group of parties whose leaders are either in hiding or in jail, called for protests against the measures Tuesday. Several labour unions also called for a 24-hour national strike. In Caracas this weekend, many small shops were closed while people flocked to supermarkets and gasoline stations to stock up. Online banking services will be suspended for 24 hours starting at 6 p.m. local time in anticipation of the redenomination. Many private companies, already dealing with hyperinflation, years of brain drain, price controls and threats of seizure, now must deal with even faster inflation and mandatory wage hikes. It’s also possible that the exodus of Venezuelans to other countries will increase, even as Ecuador and Peru announced entry restrictions and tensions flared along the border with Brazil. “People are leaving because of a feeling of despair, and the desperation will now increase,” Naim said. Bloomberg.com

The standard way of assigning file permissions on Unix systems is so tied into how people think of Unix that many of us seem to forget that this scheme was expanded many years ago to accomodate more than just file owners, groups, and everyone else. The setfacl (set file access control lists) and getfacl (get file access control list) commands were designed to allow more than the traditional limited assignment of privileges. While not disturing the customary owner-group-other permissions, you could, for example, give another account holder the same permissions as the owner or allow more than one group to have special access while not giving that access to just everyone. Everything comes at some cost, however, and to use the setfacl and getfacl commands, a file system has to be mounted with a special option that allows these commands and the underlying expansion of priviledges to be used. After all, there is overhead associated with keeping track of the extra permissions, so you have to opt in by adding an option to the file system in the /etc/fstab file -- the acl option. If you don't, anyone trying to use these commands will likely be confronted with an "operation not supported" error. You may also have to check whether your kernel provides support for this feature. To mount a file system with the acl option, you will need to use a command like this: # mount -t ext4 -o acl /dev/hdb3 /data In the /etc/fstab, this same operation might look like this: /dev/hdb3 /data ext4 defaults,acl 0 1 Indications that the extended permissions are in use are rather subtle. You'll just see a + sign at the end of the normal permissions field. For example: -rw-r-----+ 1 smitten admins 22088 Oct 26 recipe That little + at the end of -rw-r-----+ tells you that there are more permissions than the rw-r----- permissions string is letting on. And, if you want to know more, you just have to use the getfacl command to display the complete permissions for the file. For a file with only standard permissions, you will see something like this: $ getfacl beerlist # file: beerlist # owner: smitten # group: admins user::rw- group::r-- other::--- This shows us what we normally see in a long listing, but in a different format. For a file with the extended permissions, on the other hand, the getfacl command might show you any additional permissions that have been set -- like this: $ getfacl beerlist # file: beerlist # owner: smitten # group: admins user::rw- user:tsmiley:rw- group::r-- mask::rw- other::--- Notice that we now see another user (tsmiley) with read and write permissions and a new field -- the "mask" field that sets default permissions for the file. You can set extended permissions using the setfacl command. Here are some examples where we give a user read, write and execute or add write permission. setfacl -m u:tsmiley:rwx /data/example setfacl -m u:tsmiley:+w /data/example The -m stands for modify. The "u" in u: stands for user. You can assign permissions to groups as well as to individuals. You would assign a group permissions with a "g" as in the examples shown below. setfacl -m g:devt:rwx /data/testcase setfacl -R -m g:devt:+x testcases/ setfacl -m d:g:admins:rwx /data/scripts In the third line in this example, the d: before the g: makes the new settings (rwx) the default for this directory. When files or direcxtories are created under the /data/scripts directory, the admins group will have rwx permission to them as well. After setting a default, you can expect to see these values when you use the getfacl command in the form of an additional line that looks like this: default:group::rwx One of the other complexities that you are likely to run into is the idea of the effective mask setting. If the mask is more restrictive than the permissions that you grant, the mask will take precedence. In the example below, the mask is r-- and reduces the privileges given to the groups to r--. $ getfacl /data/jumping.jar # file: /data/jumping.jar # owner: dbender # group: users user::rw- group::rwx #effective:r-- group:devt:rwx #effective:r-- mask::r-- other::r-- To remove extended permissions for a file or folder, you can use one of these commands. Remove all ACLs from a file: setfacl -b /data/example Remove the default ACL: setfacl -k testcases The mask setting is interesting. It will be set up whenever permissions beyond those of owner, group, and other are used. As you'd read in the man page for the setfacl command, the mask is the union of all permissions from the owning group, named user and group settings. It can limit the permissions that are available but you can change the mask with a command like this: $ setfacl -m mask:rw- /data/example Note that mask can be spelled (mask:) out or abbreviated to m (m:). Generally, it will be set to whatever permissions are intended for the expected collections of users and groups. You can also override this setting when you assign permissions by requesting that no mask be used with the -n or --no-mask setting. The traditional Unix permissions are easy to think about, but can be seriously confining when you need more flexibility in defining what various users or groups on your servers should be able to do. The newer ACL commands give you a lot more leeway in determining who gets what permissions. You just have to work a little harder to be sure they're right.

If you would like to get rich in your line of work, it would be best to be an entrepreneur or a salesperson who consistently goes beyond the targets set for you. To dabble in the world of e-sports, well, only a select few will be able to make a good living out of it, and afterwards as well when they have retired. Still, if you would like to give those restless thumbs and fingers of yours a go, how about checking out the Mortal Kombat eSports tournament that boasts of a $500,000 prize pool? Advertising Half a million in cold, hard cash, now that is certainly pretty difficult to turn down, don’t you think so? Warner Bros. would be the one behind this prize money as they launch the massive Mortal Kombat X eSports program later next month April, with the prize pot being a mouth watering $500,000. This particular venture will also include the third season of ESL Mortal Kombat X Pro League, which will see the cream of the crop from around the world go up against one another this April 3rd. As for the top sixteen players, they will then stand a chance to compete in front of a live audience when June 12 rolls around, while the final eight finalists will be able to duke it out for a slice of the $200,000 from the prize pot. This is because Warner Bros. will host tournaments throughout North America, Europe, the Russian Commonwealth and Latin America at the same time. Filed in . Read more about Mortal Kombat. Source: eventhubs

Von Ronen Steinke, Berlin Das Bundesverteidigungsministerium hat die geplante unehrenhafte Entlassung des Whistleblowers Patrick J. vorerst gestoppt. Das geht aus einem Schreiben des Personalamts der Bundeswehr hervor, das die Süddeutsche Zeitung einsehen konnte. Demnach setze man "den Vollzug" der Entlassung "bis auf Weiteres aus". Der 30 Jahre alte Unteroffizier Patrick J. hatte so viele vertrauliche Hinweise auf rechte Umtriebe abgegeben wie noch kein Bundeswehrsoldat zuvor. In den vergangenen Monaten hatte er auf eigene Initiative ein Dossier mit rechtsradikalen oder vermeintlich rechtsradikalen Äußerungen von mehr als einhundert seiner Kameraden angelegt und dem Geheimdienst der Truppe, dem Militärischen Abschirmdienst (MAD), übergeben. Interne Ermittlungen nur in neun Fällen Nach SZ-Informationen haben nur die wenigsten der Hinweise von Patrick J. bisher bundeswehrinterne Ermittlungen ausgelöst. Viele Vorwürfe waren aus Sicht des MAD zu dünn. In neun Fällen allerdings ist der MAD durch die Mitteilungen von Patrick J. tatsächlich zu Ermittlungen veranlasst worden. Zum Beispiel hatte der Whistleblower dokumentiert, wie sich ein Stabsunteroffizier im Internet mit Rechtsextremisten vernetzte, die das KZ Auschwitz mit Legosteinen nachbauten. Bei einem Oberstabsgefreiten entdeckte er Facebook-Kontakte zu sogenannten Reichsbürgern. Im Netz schrieb dieser Bundeswehrsoldat: "Wir sind eh alle Staatenlos." Das Personalamt der Bundeswehr wollte Patrick J. ursprünglich mit der Begründung entlassen, es fehle ihm an der "charakterlichen Eignung". Zahlreiche seiner Vorwürfe gegen Kameraden seien "übertrieben und haltlos". Auch hätten sich inzwischen Kameraden ihrerseits über Patrick J. beschwert, weshalb er wegen "Missbrauchs der Befehlsbefugnis" zu einer Geldstrafe von 1500 Euro verurteilt worden sei. Patrick J. hat allerdings gegen das Urteil Rechtsmittel eingelegt. Das Bundesverteidigungsministerium, dessen Staatssekretär Gerd Hoofe (CDU) sich in der vergangenen Woche mit Patrick J. getroffen hatte, wollte sich auf SZ-Anfrage nicht zu dem Fall äußern. Hoofe verwies auf den Datenschutz.

Rarely a week passes without reports that Labour rebels are planning a split of some kind. The latest story, in the Daily Telegraph, suggested that rather than creating a new party (an option that has never been on the cards), MPs intend to form an alternative parliamentary grouping. This would involve electing their own leader and seeking designation as the official opposition. The idea has been discussed in Labour circles ever since Joe Haines, Harold Wilson’s former press secretary, called in January in the New Statesman for the parliamentary party to unilaterally declare independence. But it is not a course that MPs intend to pursue, even if, as most expect, Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected. Labour backbenchers Toby Perkins and Wes Streeting told the NS they knew of "no one" who was advocating the idea, while Jamie Reed said he thought the story was a "put-up job". He added: "McDonnell and Corbyn have no regard for the party. Never have had, never will. They are ones angling for a split. The 81 per cent of Labour MPs who know what we need to do to have a chance of winning in 2020 have no intention of going anywhere." Three senior rebels described reports of a split as “bollocks”. Another said: "Nobody can track down likely source of the Telegraph piece, so it may just be a lone voice. I don’t think it’s a runner." MPs said that further leadership challenges were likely before anyone gave serious consideration to a split. But one added: "If, however, the hard left pursued deselections then those ejected from their own party would most likely feel compelled into a separate party option, which really would be a disastrous split. Unless that’s what McDonnell meant by ‘so be it’." The shadow chancellor is alleged by leadership candidate Owen Smith to have "shrugged his shoulders and said 'If that’s what it takes'" when privately challenged on whether he was prepared to split Labour (a claim described by McDonnell as "complete rubbish"). Corbyn’s opponents believe that some MPs will follow shadow Home Office minister Sarah Champion and return to the frontbench if he wins the contest. But most of the 172 who backed the no confidence motion have no intention of doing so. “We’ve crossed the Rubicon, there’s no going back,” said Streeting. “This is irreparable while Jeremy remains leader.” The SNP is currently bidding to be made the official opposition on the grounds that Corbyn has the support of just 40 MPs, while it has 54. But the rebels believe the Speaker will not award the nationalists this designation since they, unlike Labour, do not even have the potential to form a full frontbench team. Catherine Haddon of the Institute for Government told the NS: "The only argument here would be if the 81 per cent of MPs who voted against Corbyn seemed likely to refuse the whip or to refuse to serve in a Corbyn government were one likely. If that happened the argument does change. But we are not there yet." Both Corbyn supporters and their opponents have sought parliamentary advice on which side would have the right to use the Labour name in the event of a breakaway. The expectation, based on the Registration of Politicial Parties Act, is that the leader would retain ownership. MPs acknowledge the possibility of a future split, but the option is not being pursued at any significant level. Though most rebels expect Corbyn to be re-elected, they hope to narrow his margin of victory and to win among full party members. This, they say, would deny the leader the right to boast of an "overwhelming" mandate. But without a dramatic change in Labour's selectorate, many now believe that it is only through a general election that the party's internal struggle will be resolved.

When Dr. Lionel Carmant returned to the Montreal Children’s Hospital earlier this week to give a speech for Black History Month, it was a homecoming of sorts. It is where the pediatric neurologist completed part of his training in the 1990s. “Coming back here today, it really hits home - and the house has been quite improved over the years,” he said with a laugh, as he stood in front of the crowd gathered in the P.K. Subban Atrium. Carmant has since moved on to another “house”: Quebec's National Assembly. He’s now the CAQ government’s junior health minister, one of 125 men and women elected last fall. Up until the October 1, 2018 general election, there were just five black MNAs in the entire history of the National Assembly. Now, there are five black MNAs in the legislature at the same time. It’s a sign of the changing times in Quebec politics, and for Liberal MNA and former deputy premier Dominique Anglade, it’s a welcome change. “It's always important to get a good representation of what society generally is, and that's why this year - both in terms of black people, and in terms of women as well - we see progress. So that makes me happy and more positive about the future,” said Anglade. Being elected was a surreal experience for CAQ MNA Christopher Skeete, the son of a French-Canadian mother and a Trinidadian father. “For me, growing up, the idea of having a black president of the United States would have been something I never would have thought I would see in my lifetime, let alone myself getting elected to the National Assembly,” he said, adding that he is particularly proud of the fact there are two black ministers in the current government. “I think we're making great strides. So the message I would say to youth is, "Stop thinking about it. Just go. Just push those barriers," Skeete said. Nadine Girault, of Haitian origin, is also a first-time MNA and the minister of international relations and la Francophonie. She says the black community’s response to her budding political career has been overwhelmingly positive. “It really feels for them like we can take our place and there's room for us, so it's very rewarding. It's a privilege,” said Girault. Now that she has a seat at the table, she’s hoping others will follow in her footsteps. “I think it's on two sides. We have to do more to attract, yes, but black people also have to get involved,” she said. “There were very nice, young black women as candidates, and I look forward to seeing them come back in the next election – because they all said that they're coming back (…) I'm sure that with time, and from one election to the other, we're going to see more and more black people.” Liberal MNA and former Montreal city council speaker Frantz Benjamin said he feels a responsibility to spread knowledge about the historical black presence in Quebec, including the stories of slaves in New France. “The story of Marie-Joseph Angelique, it is not only my story. It is the story of all of Quebec society,” said Benjamin. “Now it is our duty as a member of the National Assembly - but especially the duty of the government - to make sure that at the educational level, more has to be done.” To mark Black History Month this year, the Quebec government announced it will rename a bridge on Highway 50 in the Outaouais in honour of Jean Alfred, Quebec’s first black MNA. Alfred was elected under the Parti Quebecois banner in 1976, when the party came to power for the first time under Rene Levesque. Follow @MJohnsonCTV

This review may contain spoilers for DC continuity. Skip To The Verdict? » Many of you will have heard of the Secret Six but until a couple of years ago no such super-team existed. In fact, several members of it didn’t exist either, or at least not in their current guises. Catman, Rag Doll, Parademon and Scandal Savage are the more unknown characters who, along with Deadshot and Cheshire, make up the Secret Six. The miniseries itself was a direct tie-in with the 2005 DC Universe-changing title Infinite Crisis, one of 6 or so major tie-in/precursor titles for the event. Out of all these tie-ins, Villains United is one of the few tie-ins that can be enjoyed separately from the main story. This trade has more links to the previous mini-crisis, Identity Crisis, than most of the other tie-ins, which for me is pretty nice as I like books that don’t just forget what has happened. Following the fallout of Identity Crisis and the shock revelation of what the Justice League did to Dr. Light, the super-villain community is allying up to make themselves stronger against the so called heroes; they are forming “The Society“. We join them in the full swing of their recruitment drive which features some fan favourite villains starting off with Mr. Freeze and ending with Sabbac and Catman. They all swiftly say yes, in a similar fashion to LOTR’s “You have my sword” followed by “And my …” (replace … with axe/bow/freeze-ray). All except Catman that is. “No,” he sternly responds to Talia al Ghul and Dr. Psycho, which goes down like a lead balloon. Being turned down by Catman of all people does even more to infuriate the society’s “recruitment officers.” He isn’t even a B-list villain. With the Society wanting to become a major force to be reckoned with, this isn’t the kind of underground press they wanted. The majority of the Society want to kill Catman to make an example of him, but Luthor steps in, as devious as ever, suggesting that there is a better way to make an example out of him. The plot then skips to the other 5 members of the Secret Six, who are joined by the Fiddler out on a mission in the Amazon. It becomes apparent that they are acting as a force against the Society on behalf of some faceless employer, Mockingbird. During the course of this mission Fiddler [Spoiler: is tragically killed], meaning they are currently one member shy of being the Secret Six. Obviously they have to replace him. It would be bad juju to not have the right number of members for a phonetically pleasing team name. This is where Catman comes in. The plot then flows forward in a mostly linear fashion. It is not really a spoiler to find out that part of Luthor’s plans involved humiliating Blake by killing not just him but the entire Secret Six. So now we get to enjoy a full-on super-villain-on-super-villain (ultra-hyphenated) war. The writer for this series is Gail Simone, best known before this series for her work on the popular Birds of Prey ongoing. I am happy to report that her writing in this volume is of the same high standard I had come to expect from her previous work. In fact, this team shows off her ability to write characters from scratch that manage to hold my attention better than she ever did before. The Secret Six also allow her to show of the darker side of her humour more than ever, which is the central force behind my affection for this team. The interaction involving Rag Doll and Parademon is prime example of this, as is almost anything Rag Doll says. That Rag Doll is one sick character but you cannot help loving him. After all, he is so well spoken and so polite, even when someone has kneed him in the groin. One of the most fun things about this volume is how it spans the whole range of super-villains in the DCU. There are a ton of different characters popping up everywhere! So many, in fact, that there is a guide in the back that acts a visual role call of who was in the book (by my count, over 70 different villains!). The downside of the title being a tie-in is that some of the plot is aimed at having some affect on the Crisis, meaning sometimes the plot seems slightly unnatural. The artwork is primarily drawn by Dale Eaglesham (Green Lantern Volume 3) which is up to a decent standard. It isn’t artwork that you will wow you, but neither would you find it insulting to your retinas. As mentioned earlier, there is a whole array of different characters in this volume and I can imagine Dale had a great time getting to draw so many. As I am sure Val Semeiks (Lobo) did when he covered for Dale in issue 3. His pencils are a little bit better than the main artist’s. I would also like to point out another neat feature of this collected edition. The first few pages of the book compromise of a summary of events leading up to this trade, taken from all over the DCU. It acts as a very good introduction to the book and a check-in to make sure you know anything needed to enjoy the story. This is a feature I would like to see more in books featuring new teams. For example, something in the beginning of the new Batgirl could have had a brief run-down of Stephanie Brown’s life, Cassandra Cain’s career in the cowl, and the other main events in the Batverse that come up in the trade. Without it, the story might be a little hard to follow for new comic readers. I have attempted to keep this review relatively vague so as not to spoil anything from Identity Crisis or Infinite Crisis. These are two titles that I would 100% suggest reading before you stumble across a spoiler somewhere, if you haven’t already. So what of Countdown To Infinite Crisis: Villains United? Do the new characters hold their own? Does the team fit together and work? Is there enough here that it deserves its own ongoing? Should that title be successful? Yes, yes, yes and hell yes. On the whole this is a very good book with only the average art and slightly forced links to Infinite Crisis letting it down. This is the start of one of the best additions to the DC Universe in a long time. Or let me put it this put it this way: out of 3 direct titles that came out of Infinite Crisis, Secret Six is the only one still going with no signs of stopping. And it all started here. Verdict: 4 out of 5. A solid start to a new team that only grows stronger with each trade. The trade itself is what an example of how modern collections should be put together and adds thoroughly to the enjoyment factor. Essential Continuity: Not overly essential for Infinite Crisis. Small ties to Identity Crisis. Entirely essential for the Secret Six. Read first: Surprisingly, nothing is essential to read before hand. The collected edition has a rare and really useful 8 page segment at the beginning of the trade detailing everything you need to know. You would be missing out if you haven’t read the main Identity Crisis trade, however. I would say it would be wise to also read Countdown to Infinite Crisis: The OMAC Project if you intend to read this and the main Infinite Crisis collection. Read next: I would suggest reading the back up story featured in Infinite Crisis: Companion, and from there move onto the limited series collected in Secret Six: Six Degrees of Separation. Chris just posted a review of that book. After that, just follow along the Secret Six Trade Reading Order. And despite having utterly nothing to do with the DCU, I would heartily recommend Enid Blyton’s similarly named classic Secret Seven books. « Back to the top?

I’m thrilled to report that I’m a co-author of the article “An ultra-stable gold-coordinated protein cage displaying reversible assembly“, which was recently published in Nature. This work is the result of an exciting collaboration between biochemists, physicists, structural biologists, mathematicians, and others (including yours truly, a computer scientist!), spread over at least five countries on three continents. The project is overseen by Jonathan Heddle from the Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology at Jagiellonian University in Poland. Now, I do not have sufficient expertise in most of the science behind this work to unpack the whole article here; you might instead read the summary that appeared in Nature‘s “News and Views” section. My contribution relates to a few words that the journal chopped off of the end of the title due to space constraints. The original title read “…reversible assembly and paradoxical geometry“. The phrase “paradoxical geometry” refers to near-miss Johnson solids, a topic that I’ve studied for a long time; the “protein cage” referred to in the title is, from my point of view, a near miss realized at molecular scale (a fact that is mentioned only in passing in the News and Views summary). I helped to explain the geometry of the cage, and to some extent measure just how paradoxical it is. Here I will give a bit of background on this topic, leading up to a geometric view of the cage’s structure. Near misses The five Platonic solids, the thirteen Archimedean solids, and the prisms and antiprisms are convex polyhedra with regular polygons as faces. But they’re not the only polyhedra with this property. For example, you can imagine a square-based pyramid that’s just tall enough that its triangular sides are equilateral. In 1966, Norman Johnson identified 92 additional convex polyhedra with regular faces, starting with the square-based pyramid; today these are known as the Johnson solids. They’re a motley crew of geometric oddities, which look as if they were assembled out of leftover parts from the Archimedeans. In 2001, George Hart and I published a paper about polyhedra in which we included a brief mention of “near misses”: convex polyhedra with faces that are almost—but not quite—regular. We did not attempt to define near misses rigorously, merely saying that the angles were close enough that you could assemble a model from cut-out regular polygons “without noticing the discrepancy”. The paper offered these three examples: The second and third polyhedra are easily exposed as Johnson solid impostors, by identifying vertices that could not exist in a Johnson solid. For example, the second polyhedron has a vertex surrounded by two hexagons and two triangles. A regular hexagon has an interior angle of 120°, and an equilateral triangle has an interior angle of 60°. So, if those faces were all regular, the angles around the vertex would be 60° + 60° + 120° + 120° = 360°. But that’s impossible! When you pack that much angle around a vertex, you force the faces there to lie flat, contradicting our assumption that this polyhedron is convex. The polyhedron on the left is not so easily dismissed. You need to grind through some trigonometry to prove that if the enneagons (9-sided polygons) and squares are regular, then the triangular faces are slightly isosceles and not really equilateral (I get an angle of about 63.1° at the triangle vertex nestled between two enneagons). I’ve written about near misses elsewhere, including a 2016 post about a new one I had constructed. In 2017, Evelyn Lamb wrote a wonderful article about the more general phenomenon of near misses in mathematics, leading off with near-miss Johnson solids. She also had the good fortune to interview Norman Johnson, who noted that he stumbled on near misses while enumerating his solids, but cared about them only to the extent that he had to eliminate them from his list. Sadly, Johnson passed away shortly after the article was published. A hendecagonal near miss Around the time that we wrote that 2001 paper, I found another interesting near miss, one that didn’t fit with the techniques in the paper. To construct it, start with the pentagonal icositetrahedron (PI), the dual of the more familiar (and Archimedean) snub cube. This solid is made from 24 identical shield-shape pentagonal faces: Let’s focus on a single shield, as in the shape on the left below: We can imagine slicing through each of the four upper corners of the shield, as suggested by the four dashed lines. If we do this correctly, the corners are truncated to create new edges that have the same length as the leftover bits of the original shape. The pointy bottom of the shield still sticks out, but by coincidence we can just about fit two more short edges into the point, as shown in the middle. The right drawing shows that these lines define a shape that bears an uncanny resemblance to a regular hendecagon (i.e., a regular 11-sided polygon). Looked at another way, if we take a perfectly regular hendecagon and fit it by eye to the shield, we can achieve an amazingly good fit. In the diagram below, I’ve lined up the midpoints of the top edges of a shield and a regular hendecagon, and manually scaled the latter until it straddles the edges of the former. The close-up shows just how tight the fit is. You can just barely see the hendecagonal edge tilted relative to the shield edge. As a final demonstration of the closeness of the fit, let’s compare angles in the shield and the hendecagon: The angle α on the left is a property of the PI, and measures around 114.8°. The angle β on the right is exactly 180°⨉(7/11), or around… 114.5°. Again, an amazing coincidence, one that makes it possible to inscribe the hendecagon almost perfectly within the shield. To complete the construction of a near miss, we can simply glue together regular hendecagons in the same pattern as the shields in the PI. The holes around the tops of shields can easily be filled with equilateral triangles, and the holes around the pointy corners of shields can be filled with clusters of four triangles around a square. Here’s the result: The paper model on the right is actually easiest to construct, because you can let the laws of physics absorb and distribute the mathematical error inherent in the construction. To build a computer model, you must make explicit decisions about where that error should go. For example, the faces could be made slightly irregular, or slightly non-planar. Again, I have no rigorous test for near-miss-ness that I could apply to this solid. But intuitively, the miss is very near indeed, and the paper model can easily be constructed without noticing the error. As an aside, my goal at the time was to create interesting tilings of the sphere to serve as a scaffolding for drawing spherical Islamic geometric patterns. I eventually created a few 3D designs based on the techniques in the paper, and on the hendecagonal near miss. I then turned these models into 3D printed sculptures. However, I didn’t have much else to say on the mathematics of near misses, so I put the shape on a short web page and left it at that. The TRAP Cage Fast forward to late 2013. A team of biochemists had been working with a custom-engineered protein ring called TRAP, which they knew had 11-fold rotational symmetry. They observed that under suitable encouragement from gold nanoparticles, a set of TRAP rings would assemble into a round solid form, which they called a TRAP Cage. But the structure of this cage was something of a mystery, because they didn’t know of a simple geometric form made from pieces with 11-fold symmetry. I assume they searched the web for polyhedra with hendecagonal faces, because they eventually found me by chance. And sure enough, it looked like the TRAP rings in their cage were arranged like the hendecagons in my near miss! I joined the collaboration, with the aim of building a computational model of the TRAP Cage, from which we could measure the likelihood that the cage could hold itself together based on the distribution of error in the model. The TRAP Cage is a bit more flexible than the near miss. First, it is constructed purely from TRAP rings, so we don’t have to worry about fitting squares and triangles into the model. Second, the rings aren’t actually attached directly to each other as they would be in a polyhedron; instead, the ring has 11 tiny arms that stick out, and arms from neighbouring rings grab on to gold atoms to hold the structure together. This extra flexibility means that we can likely construct a model cage with even lower error than the original near miss. I tested this hypothesis using numerical optimization, searching for a symmetric arrangement of TRAP rings for which the gold bonds would have the correct lengths predicted by chemical considerations. The goal of the optimization was to minimize the worst error in bond length, while also trying to keep the arrangement of TRAP rings as round as possible. This optimization was easily able to find virtual cages where the bond lengths between neighbouring rings never deviated by more than one part in a billion from their ideal lengths. That’s an astonishing degree of nearness for a near miss. I’m not a physicist, so I can’t say exactly how near, but allow me to speculate. I’ve got to assume that this deviation is well within the chemical tolerances for atomic bonds, meaning that the TRAP Cage would hold together without ever running afoul of its own mathematical impossibility. Going further, I note that the ideal bond length was given to me with just two significant digits, suggesting that an error of one part in a billion is much smaller than our uncertainty in measuring the “true” bond length in the first place. In other words, we may as well round the error to zero in the messy real world. The TRAP Cage is, then, a real-world near miss at molecular scale: you could build it out of regular microscopic pieces without, as I said earlier, “noticing the discrepancy”. Conclusion The article appeared in the May 16th issue of Nature. Even if you’re not a subscriber, they have provided a link that will allow you to read the full article. I tried to use my meagre 3D modelling skills to create a flashy image for the issue’s cover, but it didn’t pass muster. Of course, my blog is the perfect place to display the image. I’m incredibly excited to see this curious corner of geometry find a real-world application. Perhaps this discovery will motivate me or others to establish a more rigorous theory of near misses. Indeed, Agnieszka Kowalczyk, a mathematics PhD student at Jagiellonian University, together with Bernard Piette from Durham University, are already researching other cage structures with “paradoxical geometry” and have found numerous examples (aided by the fact that these cages don’t need to be fully watertight like polyhedra). They force their polygons to join edge-to-edge but permit them to deform slightly away from regularity, and then work on measuring and minimizing that deformation. They’ll be presenting some of their initial findings at this year’s Bridges conference in Linz. I’m looking forward to seeing what else we can do with this work.

The next time you pull up at the traffic lights, look to your left and right at the cars heading in the same way. How many empty seats can you count? Chances are there’s only one or two people in a car that could hold four or five. Now imagine if we could fill extra seats in each of these cars. wouldn’t that lead to significantly less cars on the road? With uberPOOL, that’s now possible as we can match people traveling in the same direction at the same time, just at the tap of a button. It’s why we are so excited to introduce uberPOOL to three more Indian cities starting this World Environment Day, Sunday June 5 in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Kolkata. More people in fewer cars means more affordable rides for passengers and less traffic congestion over time. Amit Jain, President Uber India said: “Uber is committed to India and to meeting the transportation needs of the country, with the help of smartphones and technology. We are incredibly excited to bring carpooling to three more Indian cities at the push of a button. Introducing uberPOOL to Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad means more affordable rides for passengers and less congestion on the roads over time. Getting more people in fewer cars – at no extra costs to the government – and at reduced costs to riders, is a simple yet powerful example of how technology can actually transform our cities.” uberPOOL is a proven model Globally: Over 1,00,000 people are taking pooled trips every week in over 11 cities globally, including New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghai. In China, the number of uberPOOL trips has grown to over 30 million per month. In 2016, if Uber riders had driven alone instead of sharing their rides we estimate that over 90mn more miles would have been travelled — consuming 1.8mn gallons of gas, emitting 16,000 metric tons of CO2. uberPOOL benefits riders, drivers and the environment Cheaper rides for passengers: uberPOOL is cheaper because the cost of the trip is shared. The fare per trip is up to 50% cheaper than uberGO, which is typically our most affordable service – whether Uber pairs you up with another passenger or not. Less congestion: uberPOOL is a convenient solution to cut congestion and pollution across cities, by pairing people travelling in the same direction at the same time. And because uberPOOL is cheap and easy to use, over time it offers a credible alternative to car ownership. Less time between trips for drivers: uberPOOL means less idle time between paying trips for drivers. It also means more demand overall because as the cost of a trip falls more people use the service – which means more rides for drivers. HOW uberPOOL WORKS Choose the uberPOOL option, enter your destination and request a ride. uberPOOL will then match you with another rider heading in the same direction: – that passenger will either be in the car at the start of your trip, in which case you’ll see their name, or – your driver will pick them up along the way, in which case Uber will notify you via the app Whether you’re first or second into the car, Uber ensures that you’re never taken more than a few minutes out of your way At the end of your trip, you’ll pay just like a normal Uber trip and receive an electronic receipt LEARN MORE ABOUT uberPOOL IN MUMBAI | HYDERABAD | KOLKATA

Sometimes we don’t realize how important people are around us until they’re not there. Dale is one of those people to me and I want to make sure I do all I can to help him and his family through this very difficult time. Dale was involved in a car accident yesterday morning on his way to the gym. His car flipped several times breaking his back and ribs. It was very difficult to see him laying in the hospital bed not able to move with wires and tubes attached to him everywhere. As you can see, Dale was very dedicated to keeping in shape. His goal was to become a sponsored body builder. I watched him for years compete only to come up short. The most admiring trait he possesses is his will to succeed. I saw him achieve that success this year by working his tail off. He has a long road ahead to recovering and knowing that he has that desire to succeed I have no doubt he will get through this. Help me help Dale. Read more

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Tel Aviv’s assertion that it attacked Iranian forces stationed near Damascus is untrue, the former head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards has said, warning that the airstrikes would be answered by Syria’s “defenders.” Major General Mohsen Rezaei dismissed allegations that the cross-border strikes had targeted Iranian military personnel who were planning to launch drone attacks aimed at targets inside Israel. “This is a lie and not true. Israel and the United States do not have the power to attack Iran's various centers, and our (military) advisory centers have not been harmed,” Rezaei told the semi-official ILNA news agency. Earlier this week, Israeli airstrikes targeted an alleged Iranian weapons depot in Iraq – a move which was also strongly condemned by Rezaei. Also on rt.com ‘Kill first!’ Netanyahu claims Israel’s Syrian strikes thwarted imminent ‘Iranian aggression’ “The actions carried out jointly by Israel and the United States in Syria and Iraq are in breach of international law and will soon be answered by Syria and Iraq's defenders,” he said. Israel has carried out countless airstrikes inside Syria, claiming that the attacks target Iranian and Hezbollah forces. Damascus has accused Israel of using the alleged threat posed by Tehran to hit Syrian military targets. Although it often declines to comment on its involvement in such strikes, Tel Aviv acknowledged that it was behind the most recent attack, boasting that it was a message to Iran that it should “not feel safe anywhere.” Also on rt.com Lebanese PM accuses Israel of ‘open attack’ on sovereignty after 2 drones crash in Beirut Like this story? Share it with a friend!

In Donald Trump's Washington, there are many people vying for the President-elect's attention. The Washington Post's Robert Costa explains how Trump will seek advice during the transition. (Bastien Inzaurralde,Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) In Donald Trump's Washington, there are many people vying for the President-elect's attention. The Washington Post's Robert Costa explains how Trump will seek advice during the transition. (Bastien Inzaurralde,Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump plans to meet this weekend with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a fierce critic during the campaign, to discuss his transition operation and a potential role as secretary of state, people close to the transition said Thursday. Trump’s outreach to Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, could help bridge the divide between the president-elect’s advisers and the GOP establishment, and send a signal to foreign capitals that Trump is interested in a more conventional figure as the nation’s top diplomat. Late Thursday night, Trump offered the national security adviser post to retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, according to a person close to the transition team. Also Thursday, Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, said in an interview with McClatchy News Service that he would not have an official role in Trump’s administration, despite having previously been identified as a potential secretary of state. Gingrich confirmed the report in an interview with The Washington Post. “I think it’s good that the president-elect is meeting with people like Mr. Romney,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who also is being considered for Trump’s Cabinet, told reporters outside Trump Tower in New York. “He’s meeting with a lot of talented people that he needs good relationships with. I think Mr. Romney would be quite capable of doing a number of things, but he’ll be one of those I’m sure that’s reviewed, and Mr. Trump will make that decision.” The disclosure of their meeting came as something of a surprise. Romney had been one of the earliest and most vocal critics of Trump among the GOP leadership, ripping the real estate mogul last March after squelching speculation that he would mount a late primary challenge to Trump. “If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished,” Romney said, adding that “dishonesty is Trump’s hallmark.” Romney also criticized Trump for racially charged campaign rhetoric, prompting Trump to write on Twitter that “Mitt Romney had his chance to beat a failed president but he choked like a dog. Now he calls me racist — but I am least racist person there is.” Romney took a more tempered tone after Trump’s general election triumph last week, and called him to offer his congratulations. The news came as Trump’s transition to power kicked into higher gear. Transition officials were expected to fan out across federal agencies, and Trump prepared for an important meeting with Japan’s prime minister. The 5 p.m. session with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump’s first with a foreign leader since the election, has raised questions among some in Washington’s foreign policy community because Trump has apparently not been briefed by the State Department. Officials said Wednesday that the transition team has not reached out to State. A former State Department official said such a meeting with a foreign leader would normally be preceded by numerous briefings from key diplomats, which is considered especially important here because the Japanese are concerned about comments Trump made on the campaign trail. The president-elect repeatedly said that Japan should pay more for its own defense and be less reliant on the United States. [Japan’s prime minister hopes to start building ‘trusting relationship’ with Trump] 1 of 74 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Here’s what president-elect Donald Trump has been doing after the election View Photos He has been holding interviews and meeting with Congress and the president as he prepares to transition into the White House. Caption He has been holding interviews and meetings as he prepares to enter the White House. Jan. 19, 2017 President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, visit the Lincoln Memorial before the “Make America Great Again” concert. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. “The world does not stop for the transition,’’ said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely. Trump “would want an intelligence briefing. You’d probably want to get briefed on what’s what happening in the region.’’ But Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Thursday that the session at Trump Tower, which Vice President-elect Mike Pence will attend, will be “much less formal” than in the future because Trump has yet to assume office. “We are very sensitive to the fact that President Obama is still in office for the next two months,’’ Conway said. As Trump remained ensconced with close aides in his Manhattan office tower, his transition team appeared to signal Thursday that Sessions is a leading candidate to be attorney general. “The President-elect has been unbelievably impressed with Senator Sessions and his phenomenal record as Alabama’s Attorney General and U.S. Attorney,’’ the team said in a statement about Trump’s meeting with Sesisons on Wednesday. While the statement cautioned that “nothing has been finalized,’’ Sessions’s 14-year stint in those two posts in the 1980s and 1990s would be his primary qualifications to lead the Justice Department. Sessions’s former staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brian Benczkowski, is also helping to manage the Justice Department transition for Trump’s team, lawyers familiar with the matter have said. Sessions, a top Trump adviser known for his hardline views on immigration, has been a rising force in the transition team and is also under consideration for defense secretary. His nomination for Justice would likely bring a re-examination of his failed nomination by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 to be a federal judge. A bipartisan panel of senators on the Judiciary Committee declined to send his nomination to the Senate floor that year amid allegations that he had made what some characterized as racist remarks. Sessions, who has been a senator for 20 years, has vehemently denied holding any racist views and has said he supported civil rights in Alabama, where he grew up outside of Selma. [In Trump’s Washington, rival powers and whispers in the president’s ear] Trump’s meeting with Abe arose from a phone conversation between the Japanese leader and Trump. When Abe called to congratulate Trump shortly after his victory, he mentioned that he would be passing through New York this week and suggested a meeting. “That would be awesome,” Trump immediately responded, according to people briefed on the conversation. The two leaders have much to discuss. Trump has vowed to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that Abe recently pushed through his parliament. And the president-elect caused jitters in both Japan and South Korea during the campaign by saying both nations were not paying enough for their defense and that he would make them pay more — perhaps even all — of the costs of hosting U.S. military bases. Since Trump’s victory, the Japanese government has been taking a wait-and-see approach. “Trump said various things during his campaign, but I will not presuppose what he will do as president,” Tomomi Inada, Japan’s defense minister, said late last week. She added, however, that Japan is paying its fair share toward base costs. In a new development Thursday, Trump’s transition team announced that anyone serving in the new administration would be banned for life from lobbying for any foreign government. Trump had proposed such a ban in an ethics plan he unveiled last month, but it is unclear how the ban would be implemented. There is no current law that imposes a lifetime ban on post-government employment for administration officials, with one exception — there is a lifetime ban on certain members of the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office from representing foreign governments after leaving the agency. The reasoning is to prevent them from essentially “switching sides” and using the knowledge they gained while representing U.S. interests to weaken or amend the agreement to the benefit a foreign country. A lifetime ban like the one Trump proposed raises constitutional issues, and would have to be more narrowly tailored to pass muster in the courts — for example, if the ban was limited to certain State Department or Defense Department officials whose jobs involved working closely with foreign governments. But a blanket lifetime ban could be unconstitutional. “Lifetime bans are really problematic from a legal standpoint because it prevents people from making a living,” said Brett Kappel, a political law and government ethics attorney. “A lifetime ban on anybody in the administration ever becoming a representative of a foreign government? I don’t see how that would hold up in court.” It is also unclear whether the ban would be implemented by legislation or executive order. Meanwhile, the pace of the transition appeared to quicken. Offices prepared for Trump’s teams in departments and agencies across the government had remained empty Wednesday. But the White House said that it received paperwork, signed Tuesday evening by Vice President-elect Mike Pence, necessary for the teams to move into the department offices and begin to receive briefings from current officials. The names of people on the “landing teams” for the State Department, the Justice Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council will be submitted to the White House on Thursday and announced Friday, the transition team said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. Economic policy landing teams will be announced Monday, followed by teams devoted to domestic policy and independent federal agencies. The transition released a list of 29 presidents and prime ministers with whom it said Trump and Pence have spoken since the election. And transition communications director Jason Miller said that reports of turmoil within the transition following the ouster of several senior team members in recent days came largely from “folks on the outside” and those who feared that Trump was preparing to “drain the swamp, as he’s promised.” Miller declined to speculate on the timing of appointment announcements, saying that “the president-elect is going to get this right” and that names would be put forward when Trump was ready. He also denied reports that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, had been instrumental in purging members of the transition seen as close to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whom Pence replaced as the head of the team last week. Miller said Trump met with several advisers and candidates for administration positions Wednesday, including Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), investor Steve Feinberg, Success Academy Charter Schools chief executive Eva Moskowitz and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.). Miller did not elaborate on which people on the list are candidates to join the administration. Price is considered a candidate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump will meet Thursday with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), Florida Gov. Rick Scott, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and retired Gen. Jack Keane, among others, Miller said. Attention continued to be mainly focused on potential national security picks. Trump campaign surrogates said former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani remained at the top of the rumored list for secretary of state, along with former State Department official John Bolton. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who visited Trump on Tuesday in Manhattan, emerged as a defense secretary candidate. Farther down the defense list were George W. Bush national security adviser Stephen V. Hadley and former senator James M. Talent (R-Mo.). Frank Gaffney, a far-right conspiracy theorist who was described in some media reports as a Trump transition adviser and possible pick for a national security job, said Wednesday that he had “not been contacted by anyone from the team.” His statement followed one by Miller, the transition communication chief, that Gaffney is “a nice guy, but he’s not part of the transition team” and was not advising it. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), mentioned as a possible CIA director after the leading candidate, former chairman Mike Rogers of Michigan, was among those purged early this week, is a transition adviser but is “not interested in a post,” a congressional aide said. Former congressman Pete Hoekstra, also a Michigan Republican and a former committee chairman, said in an interview that he’d told the transition “if they have a role for me, I’d be more than happy to discuss it with them.” Hoekstra said the Trump team was “going to expand its outreach, absolutely. But they’re going to do it in a methodical way.” Despite intense media scrutiny and swirling rumors in Washington, Trump’s timetable was still well within the bounds of his immediate predecessors. Obama did not announce his first Cabinet pick until nearly a month after the 2008 election; he presented his national security team en masse Dec. 1 that year. Confirmation of George W. Bush’s 2000 victory did not come until a Supreme Court decision more than a month after the Nov. 7 election. Anna Fifield in Tokyo and Catherine Ho, Sari Horwitz, Dan Lamothe, Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, Philip Rucker, Missy Ryan, Julie Tate and Elise Viebeck in Washington contributed to this report.

Police arrested a suspect in connection with The Hague stabbing, according to a report. The alleged attacker, who is at least 35 years old and apparently homeless, reportedly stabbed three children in a shopping district in the Dutch city Friday, the BBC reported. The victims — a 13-year-old boy and two 15-year-old girls — have been released from the hospital. Authorities had not ruled out terrorism in the attack, they said earlier.

The primary purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of manipulating load and repetition duration (i.e. time under tension) during RE performed to task failure on muscle fibre activation, which we quantified via fibre type‐specific glycogen depletion (Bell & Jacobs, 1989 ; Robergs et al . 1991 ; Koopman et al . 2006 ). In addition, we measured surface EMG to determine how well EMG amplitude aligned with muscle fibre type‐specific glycogen depletion. Additionally, to obtain mechanistic insight into how muscle fibre activation would be translated, we examined the phosphorylation of select signalling proteins prominent in contraction‐related anabolism. We hypothesized that performing RE to task failure, independent of any specific RE variable, would result in the activation of type I and type II muscle fibres to an equivalent extent and show comparable increases in anabolic signalling. In addition, we hypothesized that surface EMG would be a poor indicator of muscle fibre type‐specific glycogen depletion (i.e. fibre activation) and that muscle fibre glycogen depletion and anabolic signalling would be related. According to the size principle of motor unit recruitment, performing submaximal contractions results predominantly in the recruitment of smaller (i.e. lower threshold) motor units that innervate type I fibres, although increasing fatigue necessitates the recruitment of larger (i.e. higher threshold) motor units that innervate type II muscle fibres (Mendell, 2005 ). Accordingly, several acute aerobic (Gollnick et al. 1973 , 1974b ; Vollestad et al . 1984 ; Vollestad & Blom, 1985 ; Prats et al . 2013 ; Kristensen et al . 2015 ) and resistance (Bell & Jacobs, 1989 ; Robergs et al . 1991 ; Koopman et al . 2006 ) exercise studies have shown that sustained submaximal contractions result in the substrate depletion (which is indicative of preceding depolarization or ‘activation’) of type II muscle fibres as fatigue ensues. Nonetheless, despite considerable debate on the ability of surface EMG to provide insight into motor unit recruitment during fatiguing contractions (Dideriksen et al. 2010 , 2011 ; Enoka & Duchateau, 2015 ; Vigotsky et al . 2016 ), the thesis that type II fibre activation is confined to or superior with the lifting of heavier loads has been asserted. It has been proposed that performing resistance exercise (RE) with heavier loads [greater than 60% one repetition maximum (1RM) strength] is required to elicit muscle hypertrophy and to recruit and result in hypertrophy of type II muscle fibres (Ratamess et al . 2009 ; Grgic & Schoenfeld, 2018 ). By contrast, studies show that performing RE training with relatively lighter loads to task failure (i.e. volitional fatigue) results in hypertrophy of both type I and type II muscle fibres (Mitchell et al . 2012 ; Morton et al . 2016 ; Schoenfeld et al . 2017 ). Indeed, type II muscle fibre hypertrophy, even when lighter loads are lifted to task failure, is indicative of recurrent type II fibre activation (Mitchell et al . 2012 ; Morton et al. 2015 , 2016 ). However, on the basis of greater surface electromyography (EMG) amplitude (Jenkins et al . 2015 ; Looney et al . 2016 ; Haun et al . 2017 ) or decomposition of the EMG signal (Muddle et al . 2018 ), other studies have reported that heavier loads are superior to lighter loads in terms of recruiting higher threshold motor units and thus the eventual hypertrophy of type II fibres (Grgic & Schoenfeld, 2018 ). Methods Ethical approval All participants were informed of the purpose, methodology, and potential risks of the study before giving verbal and written informed consent. The study conformed to the standards set by the latest revision of the Declaration of Helsinki and to the most recent Canadian Tri‐Council policy statement on the use of human participants in research (http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/Default). The study was approved by the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board (Project Number 0802) and was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03991117). Study participants Ten recreationally‐trained young men (mean ± SD: 22 ± 3 years, 81.6 ± 8.9 kg, 178 ± 6 cm) volunteered to participate in the present study. We defined ‘recreationally‐trained’ as engaging in at least one to three RE sessions per week for at least 2 years. Resistance exercise training conditions Participants’ legs were assigned in randomized cross‐over fashion to perform one of four unilateral RE protocols. The four RE conditions varied in the repetition duration and load (percentage of single maximal voluntary isotonic strength: %1RM). The conditions were: 80 %1RM Regular [80R; 1s:1s:1s (eccentric:pause:concentric)], 80 %1RM Slow (80S; 3:1:3), 30 %1RM Regular (30R; 1:1:1) and 30 %1RM Slow (30S; 3:1:3). Three sets were performed for each condition and each set was separated by 180 s rest. Repetition cadence was maintained by an in‐ear metronome at 60 beats min–1; however, for greater accuracy, repetition duration was quantified with the rise and fall of vastus lateralis (VL) EMG activity. RE volume (kg) was calculated by multiplying the number of repetitions in all three sets by the load lifted per repetition. Total time under load (TUL; s) was calculated by multiplying repetition duration by the number of repetitions in all three sets determined from signal from the VL EMG. Finally, impulse (kg·s) was calculated by multiplying the load lifted per repetition by the repetition duration and by the number of repetitions in all three sets. Study design Each participant came in for a familiarization session before the RE trials began, which was used to obtain an independent assessment of 1RM for each leg during knee extension (Atlantis, Laval, QC, Canada) and to familiarize them with performing isometric maximum voluntary contractions (MVC; leg curl and knee extension; Biodex dynamometer, System 3; Biodex Medical Systems Inc., Shirley, NY, USA). Using a unilateral within‐subject cross‐over design, participants came in on two separate occasions (separated by at least 72 h) to perform two of the four RE conditions each day (one on each leg) in a randomized order (Fig. 1). Briefly, on each of the two trial days, participants arrived following an overnight fast and a muscle biopsy was taken from their VL under local anaesthesia (2% xylocaine) to serve as the baseline for both conditions performed that day. After the muscle biopsy, dry reusable electrodes (Biometrics SX230; Biometrics Ltd., Newport, UK) were placed on each participant's VL, vastus medialis (VM) and semi‐tendinosus (ST; in line with the direction of muscle action) along with a reference electrode and electronic joint goniometer (SG 150, Biometrics Ltd.) on the head of the fibula and about their knee joint, respectively. When the electrodes were in place, each participant performed three isometric knee extensions with their leg positioned at 60° and isometric leg curls at 45° to record peak torque and maximum voluntary excitation (MVE; i.e. the highest EMG signal: knee extension and leg curls, respectively) (Mathiassen et al. 1995) of the quadriceps and hamstrings, respectively. Afterwards, each participant performed two of the four conditions consecutively (one on each leg), which involved three sets to task failure (i.e. the participant was unable to complete another concentric muscle action) with three isometric knee extension MVCs between each condition's set (∼15 s delay between the knee extension machine and their first MVC). One h following the last MVC in each condition, a muscle biopsy was taken from the VL (one each leg). Figure 1. Study schematic representing one of the two trial days Open in figure viewer PowerPoint The two arrows represent each of the participant's legs. Reduction in peak torque and EMG analyses Muscle fatigue was quantified in the knee extensors as the reduction in isometric peak torque relative to the pre‐testing peak toque. Surface EMG was recorded on a Biometrics data logger (DataLOG MWX8, Biometrics Ltd.; band‐pass 20–450 Hz, input impedance ∼1015 Ω, common mode rejection ratio >96 dB) and analysed with LabVIEW, version 8.2 (National Instruments, Austin, TX, USA). The raw EMG signals were sampled at 2048 Hz, full‐wave rectified and smoothed with a 6 Hz low pass filter. The skin was shaved and marked (with a dot from a permanent marker) prior to bipolar integral dry reusable electrode (Biometrics SX230; Biometrics Ltd.) placement with a fixed inter‐electrode distance of 2 cm. Care was taken not to place electrodes directly over a biopsy site in the case that the biopsy‐induced oedema impaired motor unit recruitment or EMG signal. The average for each phase of each repetition was modelled with a second order polynomial regression equation, and a fast Fourier transformation was performed on each 250 ms window to calculate mean power frequency (MnPF). The peak EMG amplitude (EMG amp ) of the second repetition of each set is referred to as the ‘initial EMG amp ’. Similarly, the peak EMG amp of the last repetition of each set is referred to as ‘final EMG amp ’. The integrated (or total) EMG is the area under the curve throughout each set. The initial EMG amp , final EMG amp and integrated EMG were calculated as %MVE for each muscle (VL, VM and ST). MVE was measured each trial day during the initial isometric knee extension (VL and VM) and leg curl (ST) MVCs. MnPF and average EMG of the second repetition of each set (initial MnPF and initial average EMG) and the last repetition of each set (final MnPF and final average EMG) were also calculated. Muscle glycogen and fibre‐type histochemistry Muscle tissue from each biopsy was mounted in OCT media, frozen in liquid nitrogen‐cooled isopentane and stored in a −80 °C freezer until analysis. Cross‐sections were cut 5 µm thick using a Microm HM550 Cyrostat (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) with particular care taken not to expose samples to any freeze‐thaw cycles (Fairchild & Fournier, 2004). Fibre type‐specific glycogen depletion was quantified by combining a brightfield periodic acid‐Schiff stain (PAS), as described previously (McManus, 1948; Gollnick et al. 1973; Gollnick et al. 1974a, 1974b; Vollestad et al. 1984; Vollestad & Blom, 1985; Robergs et al. 1991; Koopman et al. 2006; Cumming et al. 2014), with a immunofluorescent myosin heavy chain (MHC) stain (Bloemberg & Quadrilatero, 2012; Morton et al. 2016; Jakubowski et al. 2019) on single cross‐sections similar to the methodology described elsewhere (Schaart et al. 2004). Briefly, cross‐sections were fixed using 3.7% formaldehyde in PBS for 60 min, treated with 1% periodic acid in distilled water for 5 min (#3951; Sigma‐Aldrich, Toronto, ON, Canada), rinsed in tap water, stained with Schiff's reagent for 15 min (#3952016; Sigma‐Aldrich), rinsed with distilled water and then rinsed in PBS prior to fluorescence staining. For fluorescence immunohistochemistry, antibodies raised against dystrophin [MANDYS1 (3B7)], MHC I (BA‐F8), MHC IIA/X (SC‐71) and MHC IIX (6H1) (Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank, Iowa City, IA, USA) were combined with secondary isotype‐specific antibodies [488 (A‐21131), 594 (A‐21125) and 647 (A‐21238)] (Alexa Fluor, Thermo Fisher Scientific) before they were mounted with Prolong Diamond Antifade Reagant (Life Technologies, Toronto, ON, Canada) (Bloemberg & Quadrilatero, 2012). Each slide included muscle sections from a single participant within a single day (e.g. slide 1: pre, 80R and 30R; slide 2: pre, 30S and 80S) and all staining was performed within a period of 2 weeks in batches of three to five slides per day. One day after each stain cross‐sections were imaged (brightfield before fluorescence, similar to a previous study; Schaart et al. 2004) with a CoolSNAP HQ2 fluorescence camera (Nikon Instruments, Melville, NY, USA) at 20× magnification with the exposure times: 400 ms (FITC), 100 ms (TRITC) and 200 ms (Cy5). Muscle glycogen and fibre type analyses Fibre type, cross‐sectional area and glycogen content were determined by tracing the fibre dystrophin border in ImageJ, version 2 (NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA). Each trace was converted to a region of interest (ROI) and saved before being superimposed to another image of interest (i.e. brightfield or another fluorescence channel). Quantification of PAS intensity was determined by first converting the image to a greyscale image and then calibrating the stain to 0.68 µm pixel–1. In addition, by setting thresholds for background vs. stain intensity, we excluded the quantification of freezing‐induced artefact from each ROI on every channel. To quantify fibre type, the intensity of each colour within each ROI was exported alongside the brightfield data for objective quantification of type I and type II fibres. Only fibres with a circularity >0.85 were used for analyses and care was taken not to circle any fibres along the outside of the cross‐section. An average of 275 ± 167 and 191 ± 126 fibres per section (1322 ± 400 and 896 ± 350 fibres per participant) were used for the fibre type/PAS and cross‐sectional area analysis, respectively. The tracer was blinded to both the participant and conditions during the image analysis. Western blot analysis Muscle samples were homogenized using RIPA buffer (#R0278; Sigma‐Aldrich) and a bead homogenizer with protease and phosphatase inhibitors (#05892970001 and 04906837001; Sigma‐Aldrich). A bicinchoninic acid assay (#23227; Thermo Fisher Scientific) was performed on the whole muscle homogenate to quantify the protein content of each sample. Samples were prepared in Laemmli buffer (#1610747; Bio‐Rad, Hercules, CA, USA) with beta‐mercaptoethanol (M6250; Sigma‐Aldrich) and brought to equal concentrations of 20 µg µL–1. SDS‐PAGE was performed on 7.5 µL per sample along with two 7.5 µL prestained protein standards (#1610375; Bio‐Rad) and a calibration curve (2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 µL of all post‐training samples pooled) on 26‐well gels (4‐15% Criterion TGX Stain‐Free, #5678085; Bio‐Rad). As a quality check for protein separation along the gel, the gel was imaged by ultraviolet activation with the Chemidoc MP StainFree Imager (Bio‐Rad) before it was transferred to a nitrocellulose membrane via a Trans‐Blot Turbo Transfer System (Bio‐Rad) at 100 V for 30 min in 4°C transfer buffer (25 mm Tris, 192 mm glycine, 0.1% SDS and 20% methanol, pH 8.3). Transfer success was visualized with ultraviolet activation of both the gel and membrane via a Chemidoc MP StainFree Imager (Bio‐Rad). Nitrocellulose membranes were blocked in BSA for 2 h, washed three times for five minutes with Tris‐buffered saline‐Tween 20 (TBST), cut into specific sections according to the molecular weights of our protein targets, and incubated in primary antibodies at 4°C with the 5% BSA block at concentrations between 1:500 and 1:1500 (depending on the affinity of the primary antibody). The primary antibodies we used were total mTOR (#2972), phosphorylated mTOR (Ser2448; #5536), total p70 S6k (#9202), phosphorylated p70 S6k (Thr389; #9205), total 4E‐BP1 (#9452), phosphorylated 4E‐BP1 (Thr37 and Thr46; #2855), total S6 ribosomal protein (#2217), phosphorylated S6 ribosomal protein (Ser240 and Ser244; #2211), total AkT (#4691), phosphorylated AkT (Ser473; #9271), total FAK (#13009), phosphorylated FAK (Tyr397; #8556), total p44/42 MAPK ERK1/2 (#9102) and phosphorylated p44/42 MAPK ERK1/2 (Thr202 and Tyr204; #9101), which were all obtained from Cell Signaling Technologies (Danvers, MA, USA). After an overnight incubation, membranes were washed again three times for 5 min in TBST, incubated in secondary antibody (dilution 1:20,000; anti‐rabbit, HRP‐linked; #7074; Cell Signaling Technologies) for 1 h at room temperature, washed another three times in TBST, rocked for 5 min in ECL substrate (Clarity Max; #1705062; Bio‐Rad) and then imaged on the ChemiDoc MP (Bio‐Rad). The ladder was imaged in colourmetric mode and the proteins of interest were measured in chemilumescence mode. All image analysis was performed in ImageLab, version 5.2.1 (Bio‐Rad). Each gel lane was calibrated to the gel lanes of our calibration curve and each protein band was calibrated to the protein bands of our calibration curve as described elsewhere (Murphy & Lamb, 2013; MacInnis et al. 2017). Afterwards, the calibrated protein band was divided by the calibrated gel lane to quantify absolute protein band intensity.

Michael Owens/Getty Images The XFL concluded its opening weekend Sunday following an encouraging return with Saturday's two games. The New York Guardians hosted the Tampa Bay Vipers in the first of two matchups, and the Dallas Renegades brought the day to a close against the St. Louis BattleHawks. Here are some of the highlights from the action. New York Guardians def. Tampa Bay Vipers 23-3 The Guardians coasted to a 23-3 win over the Vipers thanks in large part to their defense, which forced three turnovers. Jamar Summers dealt the final blow to Tampa Bay in the fourth quarter. He recovered a fumble and returned for a touchdown, effectively sealing the victory. Matt McGloin only threw for 182 yards but had one touchdown pass and avoided making any big mistakes. He also scored on a one-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. The Guardians gave up 394 yards yet held the Vipers scoreless on four trips inside the red zone, which largely told the story. Tampa Bay's offense was out of sorts for most of the afternoon. The Vipers opened the second half with Quinton Flowers at quarterback following a shaky first half from Aaron Murray. The former Georgia star went 11-of-25 for 156 yards and two interceptions. The second interception was particularly costly as Tampa Bay was poised to get on the board to end the second quarter. Although Murray re-entered the game, Flowers made a positive impact by bringing a different dimension to the Vipers offense with his mobility. He ran for 34 yards on five carries. Drawing any firm conclusions after only one game is rarely a good idea, but the Vipers might be better off by leaning on Flowers more when they face off with the BattleHawks in Week 2. Marc Trestman and his staff have some things to iron out in the coming days. St. Louis BattleHawks def. Dallas Renegades 15-9 If Week 1 is any indication, the BattleHawks defense will be a factor all season. St. Louis set the tone on that side of the ball, keeping Bob Stoops' Renegades out of the end zone and spearheading a 15-9 victory Sunday. While Dallas quarterback Philip Nelson was a solid 33-of-42 passing for 209 yards, St. Louis sacked him four times and forced him into shorter underneath routes that ultimately didn't do much damage. It was only fitting Will Hill notched an interception to clinch the win. BattleHawks quarterback Jordan Ta'amu was 20-of-27 passing for 209 yards, one touchdown and zero interceptions with 77 rushing yards, but it was running back Keith Ford who put the winning side on the board first with a touchdown on a pitch play that saw him break through multiple arm tackles. That, along with a touchdown pass from Ta'amu to Alonzo Russell in the fourth quarter, was enough to outlast three field goals from Dallas kicker Austin MacGinnis. Field position also proved important in the defensive slugfest, and former Oakland Raiders and Denver Broncos punter Marquette King impressed for the BattleHawks: St. Louis will face the Houston Roughnecks in Week 2, while the Renegades will play the Los Angeles Wildcats.

［チューリヒ／ニューヨーク ２４日 ロイター］ - 米食品医薬品局（ＦＤＡ）は２４日、スイス製薬大手ノバルティスNOVN.Sの遺伝性疾患の脊髄性筋萎縮症（ＳＭＡ）に対処する遺伝子療法「ゾルゲンスマ」を承認した。２歳以下の小児に対する治療として認められる。 価格は２１２万５０００ドル（約２億３０００万円）と過去最高額。ただ、ゾルゲンスマは１回限りの治療であるため、年間数十万ドルのコストがかかる長期療法と比べ、患者が負担する最終的なコストは低減されるとノバルティス幹部は説明している。 日本と欧州でも年内の承認を見込む。 ＳＭＡは、新生児１万人当たり１人の割合で発症。乳幼児の遺伝性疾患の死因の第１位とされている。 ＳＭＡ治療では、これまでにバイオジェンBIIB.Oの「スピンラザ」が承認されている。 リフィニティブのまとめたアナリスト調査によると、ゾルゲンスマの売上高は２０２２年までに２０億ドルに達する見通し。スピンラザの昨年の売上高は１７億ドルで、２２年までに２２億ドルに拡大すると予想されている。

Psychologist Ty Tashiro, author of Awkward: The Science of Why We're Socially awkward and Why That's Awesome, explains why awkward people are more likely to demonstrate “striking talent.” Following is a transcript of the video. There is a stereotype in our culture that some people are too smart for their own good. There's a finding in psychology that people who are socially awkward are also more likely to demonstrate what psychologists call “striking talent,” which means that they have tremendous ability in a specific area. So it's not the case that people are usually smart across the board, it's usually the case that people are really smart in one or two areas and then they might be average or even below average in other areas. One of the splits that you see is that if someone's really smart in a certain area, they're less likely to be socially skilled or be a good communicator but they also have this obsessive interest. They have this tendency to focus really intensely and really narrowly sometimes on a specific topic. Now, that can work against them sometimes. Sometimes they're overly rigid or sometimes they don't like it when their routines are broken. But that can be a real strength as well because someone with great focus and great energy is more likely to persist through hard times, more likely to persist when task could get boring to other people. And this manifests in what psychologists call “deliberate practice,” which is the idea that you practice the same thing over and over until you reach a point of mastery and key to deliberate practice is the idea that you are willing to work the hardest on the parts that you are the worst at. And awkward people seem to enjoy the kind of persistence and long hours that go on to mastering a certain area or certain topic. So we often like to say that people are “nerding out” about something. That's actually a very awkward kind of characteristic. You are super enthusiastic about it, you are super focused on it. But all of this focus and energy can sometimes result in expertise and can even result in times when they reach groundbreaking innovation or redefine the way that a field operates or thinks.

An AirAsia airliner has overshot the runway at an airport in the Philippines forcing passengers to make an urgent exit on emergency slides, it has been claimed. The incident occured at Kalibo Airport in Aklan province and involved an Airbus A320-216 carrying 153 passengers and crew from the Filipino capital Manila. Local journalist Jet Damazo-Santos was on board the plane and uploaded photographs to Twitter showing chaotic scenes as passengers were forced to disembark the aircraft on emergency slides. 'Engine was shut immediately, we were told to leave bags, deplane asap. Firetruck was waiting,' she said, adding that there appeared to be no injuries despite the plane coming to an 'abrupt stop'. The incident comes just hours after six bodies and wreckage were recovered from the sea off the Indonesian coast of Borneo Island following the disappearance of Air Asia flight 8501 on Sunday. Scroll down for video Escape: Local journalist Jet Damazo-Santos was on board the plane and uploaded photographs to Twitter showing chaotic scenes as passengers were forced to disembark the aircraft on emergency slides Care: Elderly patients were pictured having their blood pressure checked in the aftermath of the incident Describing the terrifying incident, Ms Damazo-Santos said: 'Nobody seems to be hurt. Weather was bad because of #senangph [sic]. Plane came to a very abrupt stop.' Her mention of bad weather refers to tropical storm Seniang, which has been battering the Philippines for several days. She updated her Twitter account with a number of photographs taken in the aftermath of the incident, including images of elderly patients having their blood pressure checked and shoeless members of cabin standing on the runway, having removed their footwear to use the inflatable slide. Ms Damazo-Santos said that her flight had been delayed by two hours after the poor weather at Kalibo Airport had earlier forced a plane from Cebu Pacific airlines to turn back to Manila. With all passengers said to be safe, Ms Damazo-Santos said they now face a long wait to reclaim their luggage as officials insist the plane is towed to a parking area before it can be unloaded. The journalist later wrote about her experience for the Filipino news website Rappler. In a statement AirAsia said: 'AirAsia Philippines confirms flight Z2 272 from Manila skidded off the Kalibo International Airport runway at 5:43PM upon landing. All 153 passengers and crew were able to disembark safely, no injuries reported.' 'All passengers are now at a hotel assisted by AirAsia staff,' they added. Chaotic scenes: Shoeless members of AirAsia cabin crew stand on the runway at Kalibo Airport, having removed their footwear to use the plane's inflatable slide Firefighters on the scene: The incident occured at Kalibo Airport in Aklan province and involved an Airbus A320-216 carrying 153 passengers and crew from the Filipino capital Manila The incident comes just hours after six bodies were recovered from the Java Sea following the disappearance of AirAsia flight 8501 on Sunday. 162 people were on board the flight when it disappeared from radars 42 minutes into its flight from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore. Poor weather has been suggested a likely factor in that crash after it emerged the pilot requested to deviate from its flight plan and climb above bad weather. By the time permission to do so was granted, the plane had already vanished from radars. Officials have confirmed that bodies and debris found in Java Sea off Indonesia are from AirAsia flight 8501, and a naval spokesman said the rescuers remain 'very busy' retrieving the victims. Scores of bodies were discovered alongside luggage, a plane door and an emergency slide floating in the water 100 miles off the coast of Borneo Island earlier today after three days of searching. The recovery of six bodies came as devastated relatives of AirAsia crash victims collapsed in grief and were taken to hospital after an Indonesian television station showed disturbing uncensored footage of the corpses floating in the sea.

Минулого тижня в місті Каневі, або, як його іноді називають, «Мецці українського народу», відбулася символічна і вкрай непересічна подія. У музеї на Чернечій горі — саме біля могили Тараса Шевченка — у рамках проекту «Славетний Кобзар очима китайських митців» було представлено виставку «Нев’януча слава. Слава Тарасу Шевченку». Зазначимо, що це вже четвертий спільний китайсько-український виставковий проект, повністю профінансований китайською стороною. Як наголосив співорганізатор події проректор Національної академії образотворчого мистецтва та архітектури Остап Ковальчук, найіменитіші художники півторамільярдного Китаю, відомі в усьому світі, пропустили крізь себе творчість українського письменника та представили своє бачення у вигляді портретів Тараса Григоровича, ілюстрацій до «Кобзаря» та ієрогліфів у різних стилях китайської каліграфії — найбільш поцінованого китайцями виду мистецтва. «Тут Джі Лон — 79-річний пекінський маестро, академік, багато працював на літературній ниві як ілюстратор і тепер не полишає пензля — він написав портрет кобзаря Остапа Вересая, ілюстрацію до «Катерини», — зазначив Ковальчук. — Художник вник у нашу історію, був в Україні, малює її. Інша картина — «Українська хатка у селі Моринці», яку написав академік, зірка китайського мистецтва і телебачення Дун Хао». «Як гармонійно і красиво писалася каліграфія, яка є не фоном, а величезним мистецтвом, яким займалися всі — від імператора до Мао. Каліграфію на даній виставці представляє ректор Центральної академії, голова Спілки художників КНР — уявіть який розголос ця тема мала у Китаї!» — наголосив пан Остап і додав, що загалом завдяки цьому проекту, якому сприяли посольства України у Китаї і Китаю в Україні, Міністерству культури, МЗС, «ми у культурних відносинах із КНР на прекрасному рівні». «СВОБОДА БУЛА ОСНОВНИМ ПОКЛИКАННЯМ ШЕВЧЕНКА» Головним організатором та куратором виставки з китайської сторони був віце-президент Китайської академії живопису та каліграфії Алан Юй. «Тарас Шевченко — це дух України, борець за свободу українського народу і обличчя української нації. Зараз він є тим «мостом», який поєднує Китай та Україну, — зазначив Юй під час візиту до Канева. — На сьогодні Тарас Шевченко — це не лише українець, він також китаєць і взагалі людина світу, яка об’єднує всіх нас. Свобода була основним покликанням у його житті». Віце-президент китайської академії також подякував організаторам за можливість провести дану виставку у найбільш знакових культурних місцях України — у місті Каневі — на батьківщині українського поета, а раніше, у травні цього року, — у Національному музеї ім. Тараса Шевченка у Києві. «Шевченко є знаковою фігурою як для Китаю, так і для мене особисто», — говорить Юй. ТАКИМ ШЕВЧЕНКА МИ ЩЕ НЕ БАЧИЛИ. КИТАЙСЬКІ МИТЦІ ПО-СВОЄМУ ЗОБРАЗИЛИ «БОРЦЯ ЗА СВОБОДУ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО НАРОДУ І ОБЛИЧЧЯ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ НАЦІЇ» Звідки ж у китайців такий живий інтерес до України і до одного з найбільших її символів — Тараса Григоровича Шевченка? В 1920-х рр. китайський письменник і літературний критик Мао Дунь вперше опублікував життєвий шлях і вибрані твори Шевченка китайською мовою у «Щомісячному журналі розповідей». Надалі про Шевченка у Китаї дізнавалися завдяки «культурному обміну» між КНР та СРСР. «Китайські митці, які намалювали дані ілюстрації до «Кобзаря» — в основному 30—40-х рр. народження, тому вони чули про Шевченка ще за радянських часів. До того ж багато китайських художників є вихідцями зі школи Максимова та Тетяни Яблонської — китайські художники є учнями радянських митців, тому вони знають про Україну», — говорить Алан Юй. Востаннє ж «Кобзар» видавався у Китаї у 1982 році і був перекладений з російської. Але його перекладач 73-річний Ге Баоцюань на цьому не зупинився і розпочав спеціально вивчати українську мову, аби зробити найбільш наближений переклад збірки. Загалом він зробив 130 перекладів віршів з української. Планувалося, що саме для цього видання китайські митці, які є професорами і викладачами Китайської академії живопису та каліграфії, мали намалювати ілюстрації. В серпні 2015 року вони вперше завітали до України та із супроводом головного зберігача Національного музею Тараса Шевченка Юлії Шиленко відвідали музеї, серед яких Національний музей народної архітектури та побуту України у Пирогові, Національний художній музей. ПІСЛЯ НЕЯКІСНОЇ РЕКОНСТРУКЦІЇ МУЗЕЮ (2003—2010 рр.) СИРІСТЬ, ПЛІСНЯВА ТА ГРИБОК РУЙНУЮТЬ ШТУКАТУРКУ У ПРИМІЩЕННЯХ І РОБЛЯТЬ ВСЕ БІЛЬШЕ ВИСТАВКОВИХ ЗАЛ НЕПРИДАТНИМИ ДЛЯ ВИКОРИСТАННЯ. ОДНА ІЗ НИХ ПЕРЕТВОРИЛАСЯ НА «СКЛАД НЕПОТРІБНИХ РЕЧЕЙ» «Художники тричі були в Україні, відвідували Київ, Канів, Моринці, де народився Шевченко, — розповідає китайський керівник проекту Алан Юй. — Також їм було продемонстровано багато картин з усього світу — як художники малювали українського письменника. Вони дивилися на монументи Шевченка у різних країнах. Кожен з них мав «Кобзаря» китайською, тому міг прочитати і знайти натхнення для робіт. Виходячи з цього, кожен китайський митець отримував розуміння, що він хоче малювати — портрет, уривок з твору Шевченка чи ієрогліфи». «НОВИЙ ПОГЛЯД НА КОБЗАРЯ» Цілий рік китайські митці під проводом Алана Юя працювали над своїми витворами. Проте далі виникли певні проблеми, оскільки вдова перекладача Ге Баоцюаня, яка мала права на його переклади, з якихось причин не захотіла втілювати цей проект. Тож дані картини були випущені у форматі виставки, а до її каталогу було вписано ті самі переклади Ге Баоцюаня. До кожної ілюстрації художники написали свої коментарі. «Виявилося, що у деяких китайських митців набагато глибше, об’ємніше уявлення та розуміння творів Тараса Шевченка, — ділиться враженнями співорганізатор виставки, головний хранитель Національного музею Т. Шевченка Юлія Шиленко. — В Україні Шевченко, якого за багато років зробили чимось «обов’язковим» та розтиражованим, іноді сприймається достатньо поверхово і без розуміння глибини його творчості. Китайці ж дуже пройнялися ним і з нового боку подивилися на Кобзаря». ДАНА ВИСТАВКА — ЦЕ МОЖЛИВІСТЬ РАЗОМ ІЗ КИТАЙЦЯМИ ПЕРЕОСМИСЛИТИ ТВОРЧІСТЬ ТАРАСА ШЕВЧЕНКА, СПРИЙМАЮЧИ ЙОГО У «СХІДНОМУ» КОНТЕКСТІ «Тож результат роботи виявився очікувано чудовим. «Для шевченкіани, шевченкознавства, для наших музеїв і для нашої країни відкриття цієї виставки і взагалі цей проект із «Кобзарем» надзвичайно велика подія, — говорить Юлія Шиленко. — У наш час, коли триває війна, гроші на культуру не виділяють, втілити якийсь проект надзвичайно складно. І раптом китайська сторона, після мандрівки Україною протягом місяця, перейнялася цим, вклала немалі кошти в розвиток нашої культури, щоб просувати її в світі. Весь світ і ми самі зможемо зрозуміти Тараса Шевченка краще лише тоді, коли сприйматимемо його не вузько, а в контексті. Його потрібно «підтягнути» до зрозумілих категорій для всіх народів — даний проект саме це і робить. Так само наступного року ми разом із іспанцями робитимемо проект «Гойя і Шевченко» — один іспанський художник, що перейнявся цією ідеєю, вкладатиме в нього свої кошти — українських коштів знов не буде ні копійки. На жаль, в українському уряді нас не чують». Розповідаючи «Дню» про перспективу китайсько-українських культурних відносин, віце-президент китайської академії Алан Юй зазначив, що вже цього вересня у центрі Пекіна в Музеї світу триватиме виставка даних робіт за мотивами творів Шевченка із рушниками та скатертинами із колекції Віктора Ющенка. «Це буде поєднання України та Китаю», — зазначив Алан Юй. «Китайці продовжуватимуть співпрацю, в тому числі культурну, із Україною, — продовжує Юй. — Місяць тому український та китайський уряди домовилися про полегшення процедури оформлення віз для китайців. Раніше китайцям було легше поїхати до країн Європи, аніж отримати українську візу. Тепер є надія на розширення зв’язків та взагалі на перспективне майбутнє». ЗРУЙНОВАНА «УКРАЇНСЬКА МЕККА» Як поділилися організатори виставки «Нев’януча слава. Слава Тарасу Шевченку», після згаданої події планується здійснення глобального задуму — відкриття музею Тараса Шевченка у Пекіні. Достойний крок для розвитку китайсько-українських взаємин та для підтримки української культури. І з цього приводу хотілося б зазначити і про контрасти даної виставки. Заходячи під високу стелю ззовні розкішної будівлі Канівського музею Тараса Шевченка, перебуваючи у просторій і світлій залі, де триває виставка, одразу і не здогадаєшся, що сусідні приміщення у цій самій будівлі у жахливому напівзруйнованому стані. Реконструкція музею, яка відбувалася з 2003 по 2010 рік і до якої доклали руку «менеджери» Януковича, була виконана абияк, без достатнього рівня гідроізоляції будівлі, тож кожен дощ призводить до затоплення виставкових залів, а сирість, пліснява та грибок знищують штукатурку і роблять все більше приміщень непридатними для використання. І це, як було сказано на початку, — в «українській Мецці»! Якщо українці таким чином ставляться до власної «Мекки», то годі вже говорити про менш культові місця. Окрім того, як після такого ставитимуться до України та її культури іноземці — скажімо, китайці чи поляки? Йдеться про позиціонування держави. «На нещодавній конференції міжнародного об’єднання музеїв та професійних музейних працівників в Італії одним зі спікерів був професор Економічного університету з Австралії Девід Тросбі, — коментує Юлія Шиленко. — Ще в 90-х рр. він написав книжку «Економіка та культура», в якій зазначив, що культура є основним чинником економічного зростання держави. Тоді його тезу сприйняли скептично, але вже у 2002 році на засіданні Світового банку було прийнято цю доктрину як основну: інвестиція грошей у культуру повертається економічним зростанням держави. Люди вже давно довели цю тезу науково — державне ж керівництво України досі не зрозуміло пріоритетів, які потрібно обирати при управлінні державою. Культура — це наша ідентичність і особливість, яка нас вирізняє з-поміж інших народів. Вкладаючи в неї кошти, ми інвестуємо в майбутнє. У мене ж виникає враження, що останнім часом фінансування культури в Україні припиняється». Тож чи інвестує сьогодні держава у своє майбутнє? Таке враження, що за неї це роблять інші суб’єкти міжнародної політики.

Los cuadros de Ernesto "Che" Guevara y Juan Domingo Perón serán retirados del principal patio de la Casa Rosada y serán trasladados a la ex ESMA. La misma suerte correrán 40 retratos pintados al óleo de próceres latinoamericanos que había colocado la ex presidenta Cristina Kirchner y que conformaban la Galería de los Patriotas Latinoamericanos. Serán descolgados antes de fin de mes y enviados a una muestra permanente en lo que fue la Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ex ESMA), donde ahora funciona el Espacio de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, también creado durante la gestión del kirchnerista. "Se va a mantener toda la colección de cuadros junta, porque fueron donaciones de gobiernos de otros países latinoamericanos, pero en una muestra permanente en la ex ESMA, donde el acceso es abierto para todo el público y serán vistos por más gente", dijo a LA NACION un funcionario cercano al secretario general de la Presidencia, Fernando De Andreis, que dirige este proyecto de reordenamiento de la Casa Rosada. En el principal patio interno de la planta baja del palacio, donde fueron velados los restos del ex presidente Néstor Kirchner el 27 de octubre de 2010, conviven los cuadros de Juan Domingo Perón, el Che Guevara, Eva Perón, Hipólito Yrigoyen y el recordado ex presidente de Chile Salvador Allende, depuesto y muerto en 1973. En otro patio adyacente, donde está el ingreso mismo de Balcarce 50, conviven los libertadores de América José de San Martín y Simón Bolívar, pintura esta donada por el gobierno de Venezuela. Para no hacer discriminaciones enojosas, el gobierno de Mauricio Macri resolvió sacar a todos los cuadros. "En realidad las paredes de los patios y pasillos de la Casa Rosada no deben funcionar como una galería de pintura o muestra de cuadros y menos tan sesgada. No tiene sentido que estén allí", dijo uno de los organizadores del inminente traslado. Incluso, añadió que una vez instalada la muestra en la ex ESMA posiblemente se agregarían otros cuadros de próceres argentinos y de otros países no tan emparentados con el ideario kirchnerista para emparejar el contenido histórico. Igualmente la muestra podría mantener el nombre de Patriotas Latinoamericanos, tal como es ahora. Entre los retratos que sobresalen, además de Peron, Evita, Allende, Yrigoyen, Rosas, San Martín, Bolivar y el Che Guevara, están los del recordado obispo Oscar Romero, de El Salvador, el cuatro veces presidente de Brasil Getulio Vargas, o Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, fundador en Perú de la Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana y líder histórico del Partido Aprista. En otros pasillos están las pinturas del caudillo indígena Tupac Amaru, del prócer del a independencia chilena Bernardo O’ Higgins, el uruguayo José Artigas, el caudillo indígena aymara boliviano Tupaj Katari, o el paraguayo Francisco Solano Lopez y Benito Juárez y Pancho Villa, donados por México. Este nuevo recambio en la Casa Rosada forma parte del proceso de deskirchnerización de los lugares públicos e institucionales que está llevando adelante el gobierno de Mauricio Macri.

Após os sites americanos anunciarem que ‘Vingadores: Ultimato‘ voltará aos cinemas dos EUA no dia 28 de Junho com uma cena pós-créditos, muitos fãs brasileiros nos enviaram mensagem perguntando se o filme também seria relançado por aqui. O CinePOP entrou em contato com a Walt Disney do Brasil, que nos CONFIRMOU o relançamento nos cinemas nacionais. Porém, a data ainda não foi definida. Fiquem ligados no CinePOP para mais novidades! A nova versão terá 188 minutos de duração, seis minutos a mais que o original. A nova versão não trará um corte drasticamente diferente do filme, já que os minutos extras virão em forma de uma cena pós-créditos. “Não é uma versão estendida, mas haverá uma versão entrando nos cinemas com um empurrão de marketing que trará algumas novidades no final do filme. Se você ficar e assistir ao filme, após os créditos, haverá uma cena deletada, um pequeno tributo e algumas surpresas. O lançamento acontece no próximo fim de semana.”, afirmou Kevin Feige. Com o relançamento, a Disney tenta passar os US$ 46 milhões que separam a bilheteria mundial de ‘Vingadores: Ultimato‘ (US$ 2,74 bilhões) e ‘Avatar‘ (US$ 2,78 bilhões). Aproveite para assistir: Não foi revelado se o filme será relançado no Brasil. Assista nossa crítica:

Agnel Philip The Republic | azcentral.com A former Phoenix police officer who pleaded guilty to stealing more than 2,000 narcotic pills that were in police custody was sentenced to nearly four years in prison by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Friday. William B. McCartney, 40, will serve three years and nine months in the Department of Corrections followed by three years of probation, according to the sentence Superior Court Judge Peter Reinstein handed down Friday morning. Reinstein will recommend to the Department of Corrections that McCartney be transferred to an out-of-state prison to serve his sentence. McCartney was arrested in 2011 after an internal audit showed that bags containing prescription painkillers, like oxycodone, that were handled by him were tampered with and replaced with over-the-counter medication. McCartney said during the hearing that he stole the painkillers because he was addicted to them. He said his addiction stemmed from an operation on his hand that he injured while on duty. "I know what I did was wrong, horrible and unethical," McCartney said. McCartney and his lawyer, David Cantor, asked the judge for the minimum sentence stipulated in his plea agreement of three years due to his achievements as a police officer and his contributions to society. But prosecutor Edward Leiter asked for a five-year sentence and said other police officers need to learn from McCartney's experience. "The message needs to be sent, frankly, to all police officers that if you engage in this type of activity … you will be appropriately punished," Leiter said. Five or six cases were directly impacted by McCartney's theft, but no cases were dismissed, Leiter said. McCartney's actions were a direct breach of public trust, Leiter said. Three members of McCartney's family spoke during the hearing. They said McCartney was a good man whose life spiraled out of control due to his addiction to painkillers. "We will all continue to love, support and be here for him," his brother, Ken McCartney, said as he cried at the podium. McCartney was extradited from Pennsylvania in July 2012 after being arrested in June. He had previously been arrested in 2011, but was released soon afterward as the case was further investigated. McCartney had been in the Phoenix Police Department since 1999 before his 2011 arrest, according to court documents. He resigned shortly after being arrested in 2011 and moved with his family to Pennsylvania. The defendant's family made impassioned pleas to Reinstein. They said they acknowledged the severity of the crime, but pointed to McCartney's record as a citizen and police officer. "He has always been a generous person," Ken McCartney said. The lead detective on the case, Theron Quass, said during the hearing that McCartney had legal ways to treat his pain and get counselling for his addiction but chose to steal the drugs instead. "He was clearly not honest, clearly addicted to drugs," Cantor said in reply to Quass' statements. Linda Staley, McCartney's sister, said his addiction was hidden from family members, doctors and friends. She said he has made an attempt to become clean after he realized he had a drug problem. "I am proud, as a sister, that he is here today," Staley said in reference to him taking responsibility by pleading guilty. Reinstein said McCartney's history as a police officer and good family man were mitigating factors in his sentencing, and he said McCartney was lucky to have his family support him. However, Reinstein also said he betrayed the trust of the people by stealing the narcotics.

Shabir Ahmad Bhat was one of the most prominent faces of the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district. He was killed by militants on 22 August despite having security. Pulwama: As threats against mainstream political workers and leaders increases in South Kashmir, Reyaz Ahmad, a low-key member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been exploring the possibility of migrating to the relatively safer Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. At the same time, Ahmad has been pushing the inevitable, trying to assure his family members that the "situation is getting better", and that his two children, who are enrolled in a government-run school in South Kashmir, cannot be admitted to another school in the city mid-session. However, the recent killing of one of the most prominent faces of the BJP in Pulwama district, Shabir Ahmad Bhat, allegedly by militants, despite having security, has spread terror through the ranks and files of the party. "He (Bhat) was provided security by the government, yet he was killed. We don't have security, which makes it scarier," said Ahmad, a resident of Pulwama's Pinglan village. "Before this, party general secretary Gulzar Ahmad Nangroo was fired upon by militants, but his personal security officer fired back and saved him in Pulwama town." On Sunday afternoon, he borrowed a car from a neighbour and quietly set out for Srinagar with his wife and two children without informing anyone in his locality. "When the sun would set, I could hear myself breathing because there was so much silence in our home every evening," he said. There was a time in Kashmir when being a BJP worker was taboo and nearly impossible for any Kashmiri. The first BJP leader to fall prey to the bullets was Tika Lal Taploo, a Kashmiri Pandit who was killed by militants in 1989, just when insurgency began to plague the Valley. The party gradually built a tiny base in the villages of Kashmir, albeit behind closed doors. But South Kashmir was one region that had a formidable presence of BJP workers. It was here that the BJP first held its roadshows. Party workers had launched a door-to-door campaign in Anantnag town before the 2014 Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. It was a given that the BJP would not win any seats, but its mere presence was an indicator of the changing politics of the Valley. Those were the days when new-age militancy had yet to take centrestage in Jammu and Kashmir, with no spillover from Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani's killing. Mohammad Rafiq Wani, who fought the last Assembly elections on a BJP ticket and is the party chief in South Kashmir's Anantnag district, said there is fear among the workers of all political parties in the state, more so among BJP workers. While many have already resigned, we held a meeting for them on Monday, which around 300 of them attended. "It is a close-knit society, and everyone knows everyone. Even if someone resigns from the BJP, few would believe it, assuming they will be back after things cool down," he said. A day after Bhat's killing on 22 August, at least two dozen BJP workers met in a small house in Pulwama and decided to migrate from their villages. A majority of them were either Bhat's associates or had participated in small meetings organised by the BJP in Pulwama district. "Living in our houses is like inviting militants to kill us," Arshad, another BJP worker, said at the meeting. "It is better to move to safer areas than wait for death." Party leader Altaf Ahmad Thakur said the BJP has "around 30,000 members in just one district of Pulwama" and "around 12,000 of them live in the periphery" of the town. They are the card-holders of the party, but providing security to all is out of question, he said, adding that the BJP had "around 4.3 lakh members in 2016" in Kashmir, a majority of them in the southern region. "Eleven thousand of them are active members of the party who participate in the BJP's day-to-day activities," Thakur said. Bhat is often given the credit for the BJP's strengthened foothold in Pulwama district, but surprisingly, one of his security guards was withdrawn only a few days before he was killed, making him more vulnerable. BJP national vice-president and Jammu and Kashmir in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna, who visited Bhat's house in Pulwama after his death, said there is mounting concern over the security of party workers in the Valley. "Our workers are targeted to lower their morale, but these dastardly acts won't deter us from carrying out the work for which we are here," he said. However, Khanna's words of assurance will hardly help BJP workers and leaders on the ground. Recently, several party workers in the far-flung villages of Pulwama visited mosques to seek forgiveness. But as militant ranks swelled in these regions, the mainstream activists who participated in political activities began to feel insecure. In the last few months, as the situation improved after Jammu and Kashmir was brought under Governor's Rule, several of BJP's mainstream activists and leaders returned to their homes. Now, Bhat's murder has forced them to leave home once again. Bhat's was the third killing of a BJP political worker since November. The first to be targeted in the last two years was BJP youth leader Gowhar Ahmad Bhat, who was killed by suspected militants in Shopian district. Militants then ambushed Ghulam Nabi Patel, who was earlier associated with the Congress and Peoples Democratic Party, at Rajpora market in April. In South Kashmir, the assassination of Ghulam Hyder Noorani in 1999 is one of the better-known incidents of a BJP leader being attacked. Militants killed Noorani and his three workers during a campaign trail after he was nominated as the party's candidate for the Anantnag parliamentary seat. "People made fun of us at one time. They would boo us and crack jokes at our expense," said Sofi Yousuf, a BJP MLC who joined the party around the same time Noorani was killed. "This too shall pass. We will live here, and we will die her. We aren’t going anywhere."

El cambio de rumbo en RTVE es un hecho especialmente constatable este lunes 10 de septiembre, en el que la cadena pública ha recogido como noticia principal la exclusiva desvelada por eldiario.es de que la ministra de Sanidad del Gobierno socialista, Carmen Montón, obtuvo un máster en la Rey Juan Carlos plagado de irregularidades. El Telediario Matinal de las 8:00 horas ha incluido la información en sus titulares principales, y 'Los Desayunos' de Xabier Fortes directamente han abierto con ella. Algo que recientemente no hizo TVE con dos casos similares como los másters de Cristina Cifuentes y de Pablo Casado, que fueron relegados e incluso ocultados pese a centrar la actualidad informativa en el resto de medios. Mientras continúan los cambios en la Corporación pública, con el PP denunciando "purgas" y "depuraciones sociatas" y antiguos responsables de TVE como Carmen Sastre asegurando que ha sido "un quítate tú que ya vengo yo", la cadena pública no ha obviado la importancia informativa de la noticia aunque su protagonista sea un miembro del actual Gobierno. Tercer titular en el Telediario Matinal de TVE En eldiario.es, la información ha sido publicada a las 6 de la mañana. TVE la ha recogido en su bucle informativo desde las 6:30 horas, y ya en el informativo editado y presentado por Inma Gómez Lobo, la noticia ha sido presentada como tercer titular, tras la apertura del año judicial y la candidatura de Carmena a su reelección en Madrid. "Otro máster en duda. La ministra Carmen Montón curó uno en la Rey Juan Carlos e incurrió en presuntas irregularidades. Eso es lo que dice eldiario.es, que asegura que la ministra tuvo muy buenas notas a pesar de que se incorpora a mitad de curso y no trató con los profesores. Montón ha dicho en Twitter que dará explicaciones esta mañana", ha explicado la presentadora, mientras en formato de "colas" se veía en pantalla imágenes de la exclusiva de eldiario.es y una imagen de la ministra. En el minuto 9:30 del informativo, por lo tanto a las 8:09 horas de la mañana y ya presentados todos los titulares, el Telediario Matinal ha desarrollado algo más la noticia con una entradilla a cámara de Inma Gómez Lobo, y luego nuevamente con un formato de "colas" en las que podían verse imágenes de la web de eldiario.es y de la ministra, a lo largo de unos 45 segundos. Noticia principal de apertura en 'Los Desayunos' El programa matinal de Xabier Fortes había anunciado como punto fuerte para este lunes 10 de septiembre su entrevista con la exministra Ana Pastor, pero se ha adaptado a la actualidad para abrir con este nuevo caso de un máster en duda de un político. Citando nuevamente a la fuente, el presentador ha realizado una entradilla a cámara para explicar más detalladamente la información, mientras se ofrecían imágenes de la web de eldiario.es. Sin detenerse, se ha mostrado también el tuit de la ministra Montón prometiendo dar explicaciones en rueda de prensa, y se ha dado paso a un análisis de los tertulianos Marisa Cruz (El Mundo), Elsa García de Blas (El País), Bieito Rubido (ABC) y Jesús Maraña (Infolibre). También se han recogido las declaraciones al respecto del Secretario General del PP, Teodoro García Egea, en RNE. Todo ello ha ocupado los primeros 6 minutos del programa, hasta las 8:42, y el debate se ha alargado a este respecto situando la noticia así como la más importante del día y asunto de apertura. 'La Mañana' no emite la rueda de prensa, el 24H sí A las 11 de la mañana, la ministra Montón ha convocado a la prensa para dar explicaciones y contar su versión de la polémica desatada, sobre la que ya había opinado Pablo Casado: "Yo no voy a hacer lo que hicieron conmigo, confío en sus explicaciones". La comparecencia de prensa ya se incluía en tiempo de 'La Mañana', que no ha cortado su parrilla habitual para conectar en directo con el acto. Sí que lo ha hecho el Canal 24H, aunque con algo de retraso, por lo que no ha ofrecido la comparecencia de Montón desde el primer segundo, sino que ha llegado unos minutos después. Como explican a Vertele fuentes del Consejo de Informativos, este órgano de control ya ha enviado preguntas a la dirección de informativos para averiguar por qué han entrado tarde en TVE, perdiéndose la primera parte de la comparecencia de Montón. En concreto, en La 1 se ha conectado 8 minutos tarde y solo se ha emitido una parte de la rueda de prensa, volviendo luego a la programación normal antes de que terminara. El Canal 24 horas, aunque ya ha conectado con la comparecencia empezada, ha emitido la rueda completa. Por su parte, la Dirección ya se ha puesto en contacto con ellos para tratar de aclarar lo ocurrido. Noticia principal en 'Más Desayunos', con Escolar en directo Concluido el tiempo de 'La Mañana', ya en el segundo espacio de Fortes en La 1 de TVE, 'Más Desayunos', el programa ha vuelto a situar su foco en esta noticia como una de las principales del día. Por primera vez, TVE ha querido contar directamente con una de las voces de eldiario.es que firman la exclusiva, en este caso la del director Nacho Escolar. En el caso de Cifuentes, ningún periodista de eldiario.es fue invitado o contactado para explicar la noticia de primera mano. Así actuó TVE con el máster de Cifuentes El tratamiento informativo ha sido muy diferente al que, hace unos meses, TVE dio al escándalo por el máster fraudulento de Cristina Cifuentes, que acabó provocando la dimisión de la por entonces Presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid. El 21 marzo, eldiario.es destapó en exclusiva la información, y pese a ser publicada también a las 6 de la mañana, durante toda su franja despertador TVE no informó sobre ello. No lo hizo ni en su bucle informativo, ni en el Telediario Matinal de Jerónimo Fernández (que ha protestado tras ser cesado de su puesto). En 'Los Desayunos' de Sergio Martín: La primera mención al respecto la hizo Sergio Martín en 'Los Desayunos', presentándola como un "run run en los pasillos del Congreso" y diciendo: "Ya hay reacciones políticas y por eso se lo tengo que contar" para dar paso a la información. Martín citó a eldiario.es y el programa incluyó un pantallazo con la portada del medio, del mismo modo que este lunes ha realizado Inma Gómez Lobo. El tertuliano Miguel Ángel Liso, director editorial del Grupo Zeta, al que Martín pedía una valoración, reclamaba "cautela" ante la noticia e insistía en la idea de que Cifuentes había sido "contundente" en "defender su honorabilidad". El colaborador decía que había de esperarse a tener "pruebas fehacientes que demuestren una regularidad" antes de emitir un juicio. Más allá del breve resumen que hacía el presentador en este momento, Los Desayunos no profundizó más ni alteró sus contenidos del día. Durante el resto del caso, la cobertura superficial se repitió en Los Desayunos, que sí informó de él cuando había novedades importantes, recogiendo las informaciones. Sin embargo, ningún periodista de eldiario.es fue invitado a la tertulia en la que sí participaron periodistas de otros medios para explicar la información de primera mano, por lo que los análisis se realizaron siempre sin dar voz directa al medio que destapó la exclusiva, ni siquiera por vía telefónica. En el Telediario 1 de Pilar García Muñiz: En el Telediario 1 de la cadena, la noticia también tuvo presencia, aunque con un polémico tratamiento y presentación: sin contar el contenido de la noticia, abriéndola con el desmentido del rector de la Rey Juan Carlos, Javier Ramos, dando por ciertas las explicaciones sin pruebas de que todo fue "un error de transcripcción" y sin citar al medio, al que solo se ha referido como "un diario digital". ▶ Repasa lo más destacado de nuestro # TD1 en cuatro minutoshttps://t.co/CpUM13KEwlpic.twitter.com/bkewF85Udh — Telediarios de TVE (@telediario_tve) 21 de marzo de 2018 Pilar García Muñiz locutaba de la siguiente manera estas primeras imágenes al respecto. "La Universidad Rey Juan Carlos atribuye a un error de transcripción que en dos asignaturas del máster que Cristina Cifuentes cursó hace seis años figurase como no presentada. Cifuentes aprobó las dos asignaturas según ha confirmado el rector. La oposición pide explicaciones. El gobierno regional defiende la honorabilidad del comportamiento de la presidenta". Para encontrar la noticia en la escaleta del Telediario hubo que esperar 15 minutos: "La Universidad Rey Juan Carlos niega cualquier irregularidad en el máster de Cristina Cifuentes", leyó la presentadora. El espacio eludió citar a eldiario.es como responsable de la noticia, refiriéndose a éste como "un diario digital" que "sostiene que la presidenta regional obtuvo la titulación con notas falsificadas". Días después, el Telediario 1 de TVE eludió informar sobre las "irregularidades" del título universitario de la presidenta regional y obvió mencionar que el anuncio de su querella criminal contra Ignacio Escolar y Raquel Ejerique se realizó a través de un plasma sin preguntas. En 'Informe semanal' de Jenaro Castro: Los intentos de TVE por ocultar y restar importancia a la información sobre Cifuentes, que acabó produciendo su dimisión, fueron aún más evidentes en el 'Informe semanal' de Jenaro Castro. Primero lo ignoraron. Luego lo despacharon en un minuto dentro de otra pieza que alababa los presupuestos del Gobierno. Y, 25 días después de destaparse, llegó el día en el que Informe Semanal decidió dedicar uno de sus reportajes al Máster de Cifuentes, escándalo que había copado las portadas de todos los medios y el tiempo de los programas informativos del resto de cadenas. El reportaje no solo silenció la opinión del medio que dio en exclusiva la información y la de sus periodistas, si no que borró cualquier referencia al periódico digital, mostrando capturas de pantalla de las noticias de eldiario.es sin que en ningún momento se viera su logo o su cabecera. El tratamiento provocó que el Consejo de Informativos de TVE iniciase una investigación al respecto, extrañado por el tiempo que habían tardado en recoger el caso, y que se hubiese silenciado al medio que lo destapó: "Es como si quieres hacer un reportaje sobre el Watergate y no contactas con Bernstein y Woodward". El máster de Casado también fue relegado en TVE La situación se repitió meses después, cuando el 9 de abril El País destapó un caso similar sobre el máster de Pablo Casado, que el ahora líder del PP logró sin pisar el aula pese a que en teoría se exigía ir a clase. El proceso se encuentra desde el 6 de agosto en manos del Tribunal Supremo, después de que la jueza lo elevase tras apreciar que existen indicios de delito y que el título fue "un regalo académico". Nuevamente, el Telediario Matinal no hizo ni una sola mención a la información. Y en este caso, tampoco recogieron la noticia Los Desayunos, pese a que buena parte de su entrega versó en torno a la situación del Máster de Cifuentes y a la Convención del PP. El Telediario 1 tampoco hizo mención a la noticia. En el caso de 'Informe Semanal', el programa tuvo un antes y un después a la llegada de Rosa María Mateo y la salida de Jenaro Castro. Primero, el director y presentador del programa se puso a sí mismo al frente de una entrevista al recién proclamado líder del PP, en la que apenas le preguntó por su máster. Después de que la investigación se trasladase al Tribunal Supremo, apenas cuatro días después, el 10 de agosto, el programa con Jerónimo Fernández al frente trató sobre el máster de Casado con una postura alejada de la del PP. "La actualidad de España nos conduce al Tribunal Supremo, que decidirá en las próximas semanas qué hacer con el caso del máster de Pablo Casado, si archivarlo o investigarlo y abrir juicio. La juez que ha elevado la causa al alto tribunal aprecia los cohechos impropio y prevaricación administrativa. En las 54 páginas de que consta la exposición motivada, la juez Carmen Rodríguez-Medel describe lo más parecido a una fábrica de regalar másters. El líder del PP insiste en que ha actuado correctamente y no dimitirá", introdujo el presentador.

One part of the Department of Defense is hard at work researching technology that is alternately amazing, bizarre, and downright scary. You may not be familiar with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, more commonly known as "DARPA," but the robotic creations it brings under the wing of the U.S. defense budget are often on the cutting-edge of weird. In honor of Skynet Day, we bring you some of the craziest DARPA robots that may someday be our new overlords. DARPA was founded in 1958 as a response to the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite and has since funded "revolutionary, high-payoff research" to keep the Pentagon supplied with the latest in defense-flavored tech. From a fluttering hummingbird-shaped spy drone to more than a few motorized automatons that move in ways uncanny, these projects should help you sleep at night...in theory. 1. BigDog BigDog, developed by BostonDynamics, is quadruped robot intended to haul, climb, and carry its way over rough terrain. While the buzzing noise that BigDog emits makes this robotic beast all the more unsettling, the real kicker is watching BigDog recover from a fall on slippery ice. 2. Nano hummingbird drone This robotic ornithopter might not take the most inconspicuous shape, but it can hover aloft to fulfill your spying needs for 8 minutes straight, darting off at a brisk 11 miles an hour if any onlooker becomes the wiser. Developed by AeroVironment, this little fella has a contract with DARPA for its reconnaissance and surveillance applications. 3. LittleDog LittleDog may not have the raw, unsettling oomphof its big brother, but its beetle-like form and successful rock-climbing (scrabbling?) skills make it no less impressive. 4. RiSE climbing robot We're not sure what kind of surveillance opportunities await the RiSE robot, developed by a team at Carnegie Mellon, but we do know we wouldn't want to run into one of these things scaling its way up...well, anything. The RiSE is a "bioinspired climbing robot" intended to walk on land and climb vertically, two activities it seems to execute with eery aplomb. 5. PetMan PetMan is the bipedal sibling of BigDog, reportedly developed to test chemical protection suits for the U.S. Army. PetMan simulates both human movement mechanics and human physiology precisely - it will can even sweat in hot environments. 6. Crusher unmanned ground vehicle The Crusher is an autonomous, unmanned off-road vehicle that takes after a tank more than most of these other more biologically-inclined robots. Developed at Carnegie Mellon, it weighs 6.4 tons and packs plenty of on-board electronics - like laser range-finders and an advanced GPS system - to help it navigate over rough terrain. 7. BigDog weaponized...with horns If BigDog's eerily sophisticated mechanical abilities and ominous buzzing sound have you a little on edge, maybe this lo-tech "weaponized" version of BigDog will make you feel better? Then again, maybe not. This post originally appeared on Tecca, which helps you get the best from the personal technology in your life.

Georgia’s “stand your ground law” could come into play after a man shot and killed a suspected car thief who was trying to take his car from a gas station. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Atlanta police are now securing murder warrants against 25-year-old Rasheem Scott, who allegedly opened fire against the car thieves. Witnesses tell WSB-TV that the man left his car running outside the gas station, when he saw a couple get in his car. The gas station owner says they watched as the man opened fire on a man who climbed into his black sedan, according to the television station. “I heard five shots, and I look back, and the girl is screaming, ‘Don’t shoot him no more,'” a witness told the television station, “She just screaming, ‘Don’t shoot him no more. Please don’t shoot him no more.'” Immediately after the incident, 25-year-old Scott walked back into the store and asked employees to call 911, WSBTV reports, he immediately turned himself into police custody. Atlanta police were securing murder warrants against him Sunday afternoon, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Georgia’s stand your ground law was adopted from case law into legislation in 2006. Here is what it says: § 16-3-23.1. No duty to retreat prior to use of force in self-defense A person who uses threats or force in accordance with Code Section 16-3-21, relating to the use of force in defense of self or others, Code Section 16-3-23, relating to the use of force in defense of a habitation, or Code Section 16-3-24, relating to the use of force in defense of property other than a habitation, has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and use force as provided in said Code sections, including deadly force. It is not clear if the man’s case would fit into this category, but it is certainly something both prosecutors and defense will consider. [h/t and screengrab via WSB-TV] Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Awesome red beer socks. He got the beer part from stalking me, but red is my favorite color, and that had to have been an accidedent.

I am Dutch born, but because of Canada, I'm headed to the PyeongChang Olympics as a world-record holder. I'm better today because I was embraced by the Canadian long track speed skating team. While Holland gave me my start, it was my father's birth country that gave me my future. Representing Canada is the ultimate goal, and my Olympic dreams are fuelled by a life-altering performance at the beginning of last winter… Salt Lake City (Nov. 21, 2015): Halfway through the World Cup race I found myself on a pace that would lead to a world-record setting time in the 10,000 metres. At first the crowd was cheering loudly for me. They liked my fast start. But later on, as the stadium announcer got more enthusiastic, the crowd got quiet. I was keeping my world-record-pace going, lap after lap. Could this really happen? I had never been close to a world record, never won a World Cup. So nobody ever thought I could do this. As the final laps approached, the crowd picked up again and started going wild. At this stage it was inevitable: the eight-year-old world record would be broken! It was the best and most consistent race I ever skated, and when I crossed the finish line and looked up for my time I saw: 12 minutes 36.30 seconds, more than five seconds faster than anyone had ever skated. After years in the famous Dutch skating system, I broke this record as a Canadian skater. How did that happen?

MY first involvement in trade union activism began just as Thatcherism was getting into full swing. After a long pause, I returned to the maelstrom in the 1990s. By that time the trade union movement was a faint shadow of the mighty force that had once commanded huge influence, its UK membership slashed by five million in the intervening period since I was a teenage shop steward. During its 18 years in power, the Tory government had railroaded through nine Acts of Parliament designed to further weaken the rights of working people to organise themselves. One thing remained unchanged, however. The Labour Party still dominated the machinery of the trade union movement in Scotland and across Britain. Some of them tried in vain to recruit me. “Join the party and change it from within,” they said. “Labour is the political wing of the trade union movement,” they insisted. “And now that we’re in power, we’ll take take the party back to the left,” they claimed. By the time Tony Blair had unleashed global carnage, even the most ardent Labour loyalists were no longer trying to recruit anyone. But 12 years and two General Election defeats later, these old arguments are being revived with a passion as tens of thousands of people – mainly in England and Wales – sign up to change the Labour Party by voting for Jeremy Corbyn. Many have been inspired by the example of Scotland, their confidence in left-wing ideas galvinised by the landslide election victory of the anti-austerity, anti-Trident SNP. But its clear they’re not welcome. The problem with real democracy is that people cannot just be herded like sheep. If you believe in it, you need to live with people who don’t agree with you. And if you claim you’re the natural party of the working class, you need to be prepared to let in the mob. Ultimately, it’s all about power. The Oxbridge elite who’ve run UK Labour for decades are panic-stricken that they’re about to lose control. Yes, political parties should have mechanisms to protect themselves from damaging and destructive behaviour, whether that’s violence, bullying, harassment of women, corruption or fraudulence. But if Jeremy Corbyn is denied the leadership by bans and exclusions, Labour will have taken one more giant leap towards oblivion. Say no to sanctions on the poor BACK in 1923, the Red Clydesider and Independent Labour MP Jimmy Maxton was thrown out of the House of Commons for denouncing a Tory minister as a “murderer” for withdrawing school milk. Times may have moved on, but we still have a Tory government in Westminster driving the poor to early graves. No-one will ever be tried or convicted, but when poor people take their own lives because their benefits have been stopped or cut, those in charge of our welfare system are morally if not legally guilty of culpable homicide. Now DWP staff have been given guidance about how to deal with suicidal claimants. It’s like recruiting burglars to advise the folk they’ve robbed how to make an insurance claim. Only worse. And it’s not even proper training. Many health and social care workers are thoroughly trained by professionals in suicide first aid. The DWP workers are simply given a pink card, which is supposed to help them assess whether or not to call an ambulance. Here’s a better and more humane way of dealing with vulnerable claimants. Stop imposing sanctions. They don’t work. They will never miraculously transform people with a mountain of problems into nine-to-five types. Half of all those who appeal against sanctions win – evidence enough of their arbitrary unfairness. We need a co-ordinated campaign, that includes the power of the Public and Commercial Services Union to abolish sanctions. And save lives. The pink cards should be binned. That would be a start in resisting the Tories’ war on the vulnerable. I cheered when maligned young mum hit back after spray tan boob SPRAY tans might look great under the studio lights of Strictly Come Dancing, but in the cold light of day they tend to make folk look like refugees from a Tango ad. Yet many women, under pressure to look good and bombarded daily with images of bronzed glamour, do take to the spray can on occasion. Gemma Colley, a self-deprecating young mum, made the mistake of posting a shot of her baby on Facebook after accidentally transferring some of the lotion onto her baby’s cheek while breast-feeding. Enter the Holy Willies. In their eyes, mothers should be demure self-denying Madonnas (and certainly not the pop star version). The pelters directed at Gemma underline the impossible duality women are expected to exemplify in a world in which we are still far from liberated. I cheered when Gemma hit back saying: “Yes, I occasionally forget things, lose my s***, give my eldest one too many biscuits, and occasionally let the CBeebies presenters babysit, but I’d hardly say that constitutes as the worst mum in the world.” No, it doesn’t, Gemma. You’re just like the rest of us – trying to do your best in a world where women are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects the Swedish government to explicitly denounce a Swedish newspaper report claiming that Israel Defense Forces harvested Palestinians' organs for transplant and "its anti-Semitic essence". The Swedish foreign minister condemned the report in his personal blog, and Netanyahu views this as "a step in the right direction", but says it is insufficient as long as the government in Stockholm fails to issue an official statement on the matter. Criticism Israel: Sweden using 'freedom of speech' as fig leaf Roni Sofer Responding to Swedish prime minister's refusal to apologize for article alleging Israeli soldiers harvested organs from Palestinian bodies, Foreign Ministry says Sweden utilizing 'freedom of speech' as excuse not to condemn anti-Semitism Israel: Sweden using 'freedom of speech' as fig leaf The Swedish government has so far refrained from denouncing the newspaper wholeheartedly, leaning on the principle of freedom of press. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Sunday morning, "We are in a crisis until the Swedish government issues a different response. "The State of Israel, the Jewish people's state, cannot ignore expressions of anti-Semitism, even if they are made in a respectable newspaper. Those refusing to renounce such blood libels may become unwanted in the State of Israel," he said. Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog noted that this was not a one-time incident, "but a media campaign which has been going on for years." Meanwhile, revenge is already seen on the ground. The Government Press Office (GPO) On Sunday morning prevented a reporter and photographer for the Swedish paper Aftonbladet, which published the controversial report, from entering Gaza. The two were told by the GPO that they would have to wait three months for a pass. The Foreign Ministry declared last week that it would not grant the newspaper reporters entrance permits until the dispute is resolved. Daniel Seaman, head of the GPO, said cynically that "we may have to examine their blood type to check if they are eligible for organ donation." The article which sparked a row (from Aftonbladet's website) "Those two have fallen into our hands like ripe fruit," Seaman told Ynet. "Their newspaper did something that must not be done. We may have made some harsh comments towards them, but this is required on the backdrop of the newspaper's attitude towards Israel. "Over the past few months, many pro-Palestinian activists have been trying to enter Israel, presenting letters from newspaper editorial boards in Sweden. Our job is to check this, and all the more so when we are dealing with a newspaper that published such a blood libel." Last week, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the Swedish government's faint response to the newspaper report to "its silence during the Holocaust". Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt spoke over the weekend with Netanyahu's national security advisor, Uzi Arad, seeking to ease the tensions ahead of his planned visit to Israel next month. Jerusalem is now waiting to see whether the Swedish foreign minister's tone during the telephone conversation signals a new direction in Stockholm's policy, which would allow ending the affair.

Celebrating 34 Years of Nurturing Passion and Artistry DANCE EXPRESSION - Sussex County NJ's Dance Studio-is proud to offer you excellence in dance instruction and dance classes: a qualified, experienced, caring dance faculty and an enthusiastic, warm and positive atmosphere where your child will grow and excel! You will find the youngest beginner through the advanced dancer exploring the joy and expression of movement, developing confidence, self-esteem, physical and technical skill, making life long friendships and having fun while learning! You'll find each student dancing to their personal best!

By Danny Wood BBC News, Madrid Most of those who will suffer will be in Africa, the UN says The meeting of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification has ended in Madrid and is expected to move on to New York to try to sort out funding. The UN says desertification caused by climate change and unsuitable farming is a crisis of global proportions. In 10 years it could drive 50 million people from their homes, it says. Most of those will be in Africa. The UN's top climate change official, Ivo de Boer, said there was a "very close interaction" between climate change and desertification. "Climate change is having an impact on deserts and at the same time, because carbon is captured in soils, desertification also has an interaction with climate change. "So it's something that works both ways which is why it's important to address the issue in combination." Japanese problem Before this conference in Madrid, there was considerable scepticism about the convention's capacity to deal with desertification. The convention on desertification is looking very critically at itself Ivo de Boer UN climate change chief The convention was adopted a decade ago but environmental groups say not one of nearly 200 signatory countries is keeping to its commitments. Spanish news reports say the problem of reaching an agreement at this meeting was caused by Japan. The surprise resignation of the Japanese prime minister left Japan's delegates at the conference unable to get authorisation to approve the budget. Spain's director of biodiversity, Jose Herranz, says the new strategic plan does set concrete objectives that will help fight desertification. But without an approved budget, environmental groups described this conference as a failure. Mr de Boer said the convention was trying to deal with its financial issues and was "making every effort" to become more cost effective. He said it was "looking very critically at itself, at its functioning, how it is using its money".

Don’t feel bad for this paper, it was made from a one hundred year old tree and now here it is creeping on school kids. smh.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London has become one of the first galleries in the UK to offer a virtual reality tour of its collection. The first virtual visitors were young patients at nearby King's College Hospital. The small gallery attracts 160,000 visitors a year and has one of the finest collections of old masters in the UK, including paintings by Rembrandt, Gainsborough and Canaletto. Now it has collaborated with Google to create a virtual tour using the Google Cardboard VR headset. At King's College Hospital a group of six children tried out the app at the hospital's school room, where long-term young patients have classes. They were able to look at pictures and wander through the gallery designed by Sir John Soane in the early 19th century. The young visitors were mostly enthusiastic about the experience, though several said it could not match up to a real visit to the gallery, and one said it made him feel slightly dizzy. Dulwich Picture gallery, which is run as a charity and receives no government funds, hopes to reach a new audience through its VR app, some of whom may end up travelling to see the museum first-hand.

Militant Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip have agreed to halt rocket attacks against Israel, a senior Islamic Jihad leader said Thursday. Open gallery view Masked Palestinian militants in Gaza prepare to fire rockets into Israel in 2008. Credit: AP "We agreed to halt one of the means of armed resistance, which is firing rockets at Israel, to avoid the Israeli threats," Dawood Shihab, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement e-mailed to journalists. "But the armed resistance will keep active in other means such as confronting raids and incursions," he said. However, he said, the agreement to halt the rocket attacks was only "temporary" and was "linked to the situation on the ground." The agreement, reached Wednesday, comes amid an escalation in rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli retaliatory strikes. It also comes two years after an escalation in rocket attacks led Israel to launch a devastating offensive against the Gaza militias, which caused widescale destruction in the salient and led to the deaths of an estimated 1,400 people.

Kolkata: A senior leader of the BJP's West Bengal unit said on Saturday that those trying to stop the party's scheduled 'rath yatra' in the state "will get crushed under the wheels of the chariot", drawing criticism from the ruling TMC. Locket Chatterjee, the saffron party's West Bengal Mahila Morcha president, also said that the 'yatra' is being organised to restore democracy in the state. BJP national president Amit Shah is set to kick off three 'rath yatras' - which will cover all 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bengal - on December 5, 7 and 9. At the conclusion of the 'yatra', the party plans to hold a massive rally in Kolkata which is likely to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "The main purpose of the rath yatra is to restore democracy in West Bengal. We have said this earlier too that the heads of those who try to stop the 'rath yatra' will get crushed under the wheels of the chariot," Chatterjee told reporters after attending a party meet at Malda district. Condemning Chatterjee's comment, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee said BJP leaders are making provocative statements to disturb peace and stability of the state. "The BJP's main aim is to push its communal agenda in Bengal. That is why they are making these provocative comments. But the people of Bengal will defeat the divisive politics of the BJP," Chatterjee said.

Great Scott and all that. In this episode, Tom explains to Morgan just why BTTF is his favourite movie series of all time. They discuss and dissect all three movies, the cartoon series, games and more. We find out why you can’t just copy someone’s face, how the plot of the second movie is so complicated that Tom can’t speak, and just how many Ted Danson puns we can fit into a minute. Right click and save here to download on Desktop, or stream in the player above. Get in touch with us at [email protected], or via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

"As much as we have the rivalry that we have, and as frustrating as it was for the Cowboys not to be playing, as much as all of that, I was proud of them, given that narrow set of circumstances, could root for them," Jones said during the NFL Combine in Indianapolis in March. "That takes it right down to just absolutely no choice, you either do or you die. And I want to go again."

Frankfurt Der Vorwurf ist hart und emotional. „Das Beharren auf absurden Forderungen von 20 Euro für alle ist ein Schlag ins Gesicht jeder ausgebildeten Krankenschwester und jedes Rettungssanitäters und zeigt die Maßlosigkeit der Gewerkschaft“, wettert Rainer Friebertshäuser, der Verhandlungsführer des Bundesverbandes der Luftsicherheitsunternehmen. Angesichts des gewaltigen Warnstreiks an deutschen Flughäfen, der an diesem Dienstag weite Teile des deutschen Luftverkehrs lahmlegt, liegen die Nerven auf der Arbeitgeberseite blank. 20 Euro – diese Zahl ist für Sicherheitsunternehmen aktuell unvorstellbar. Tatsächlich ist die Verdi-Forderung sehr hoch: Bislang ist die Bezahlung der sogenannten Luftsicherheitsassistenten sehr ungleichmäßig. Wer Personal- und Warenkontrollen durchführt, bekommt in der Regel weniger als derjenige, der Passagiere und Handgepäck überprüft. Hinzu kommt eine teils enorme Spreizung zwischen den Bundesländern. Am unteren Ende liegt etwa Thüringen, wo Passagier-Kontrolleure pro Stunde 14,70 Euro und Personalkontrolleure 12,90 Euro bekommen. An der Spitze liegt Baden-Württemberg mit 16,78 beziehungsweise 17,16 Euro. Selbst gemessen an der besten Bezahlung würde ein Stundenlohn von 20 Euro einen Aufschlag von fast 17 Prozent bedeuten. Nimmt man am unteren Ende die 12,90 des Personalkontrolleurs in Thüringen, ergibt sich sogar eine Erhöhung von mehr als 50 Prozent. Verglichen mit anderen Berufen, zeigt sich Folgendes: Ein Luftsicherheitsassistent etwa in Baden-Württemberg liegt schon heute ohne Zuschläge und bei Vollbeschäftigung bei monatlich rund 2.700 Euro. Das ist in etwa das Gehaltsniveau einer chemisch-technischen Assistentin und etwas weniger als das Einkommen eines Elektrikers mit einer zehnjährigen Berufserfahrung (rund 2.800 Euro). Legt man den von Verdi geforderten Stundenlohn von 20 Euro zugrunde, ergibt sich ein Bruttomonatsverdienst von 3.200 Euro für das Flughafensicherheitspersonal, das ist mehr als ein Meister im Elektrohandwerk verdient (rund 3.100 Euro). Ein Rettungssanitäter kommt übrigens im Schnitt auf 2.150 Euro, eine Krankenpflegerin bekommt im Schnitt 2.100 Euro brutto. Unter den Forderungen von Verdi könnten letztlich Passagiere leiden Der Haken an der Rechnung: Die genannten Vergleichs-Berufsgruppen müssen eine mehrjährige Ausbildung machen und zum Teil über viel Berufserfahrung verfügen. Luftsicherheitsassistent kann aber werden, wer nach einer Überprüfung seiner Person eine etwa einmonatige Schulung absolviert und vor der Bundespolizei erfolgreich eine Prüfung ablegt. Für einen Anlernberuf ist die Verdi-Forderung also durchaus stolz. Die Luftsicherheit ist zwar eine hoheitliche Aufgabe, die Kontrollen an Flughäfen hat die Bundespolizei aber mit Ausnahme von Bayern an Dienstleister übertragen. Einige diese Dienstleister wie etwa die Firma Kötter, die die Kontrollen am Flughafen Düsseldorf durchführen, beklagen bereits heute, dass sie zuletzt nicht mehr kostendeckend arbeiten konnten. Kötter hatte die Zahl des Personals im vergangenen Sommer deutlich aufgestockt, um für die Hauptreisezeit besser gewappnet zu sein als ein Jahr zuvor. Damals hatten Engpässe an den Sicherheitskontrollen zu einem regelrechten Chaos geführt. Das Problem dabei: Über das gesamte Jahr gesehen hat das Unternehmen nun einen Personalüberhang, der ihn wirtschaftlich belastet. Die Ausgaben sind zeitweise höher als die Einnahmen. Deutlich höhere Löhne wären in den bestehenden Regelungen zwischen Bundespolizei und Sicherheitsunternehmen also kaum wirtschaftlich darzustellen. Nicht zu vergessen, ist ein weiteres Kriterium. Derzeit werden die Kosten für die Sicherheitskontrollen zum Teil an die Airlines weitergegeben – und zum Teil an die Passagiere. Je nachdem, wie hoch der Lohnzuschlag am Ende ausfallen wird, dürften also auch auf die Fluggäste Mehrkosten beim Ticketkauf zukommen. Einige Luftfahrt-Manager fühlen sich hier ungerecht behandelt – auch weil der Wettbewerb in der Luftfahrt ohnehin schon beinhart ist. „Die Kosten für die Sicherheit etwa bei Fußballspielen werden anstandslos von der Polizei übernommen. Warum muss ausgerechnet der Luftverkehr als kritische Infrastruktur das selbst tragen?“, will ein Airline-Manager wissen. Darüber hinaus treibt die Luftfahrtbranche noch etwas um: Ein allzu großer Lohnzuschlag beim Sicherheitspersonal könnte das Gehaltsgefüge an den Flughäfen in ein Ungleichgewicht bringen. Das Bodenpersonal, das bei Wind und Wetter und unter großer körperlicher Belastung auf dem Vorfeld die Flugzeuge abfertigt, bekommt vergleichsweise weniger Gehalt. Es könnte von der attraktiven Bezahlung und angesichts der recht kurzen Anlernphase dazu verleitet werden, in die Luftsicherheit zu wechseln. Das würde den bereits bestehenden Personalmangel auf dem Vorfeld weiter verschärfen.

Intalnirea a fost arbitrata de Tiberiu Soare. Vasile Dincu a spus, in debutul acestei adunari oficiale: "Situatia este de criza, insa o criza poate fi si inaugurala, de bun augur. Sunt aici pentru a gasi o solutie impreuna cu dumneavoastra."Au vorbit apoi, pe rand, artisti ai ONB. Angajatii care au tinut cuvantari ii sustineau pe Tiberiu Soare si Vlad Conta.Vasile Dincu a luat o decizie, dupa ce le-a ascultat "pledoariile" artistilor: "O sa-i propun premierului sa convoace corpul de control. Artistii nu se simt bine cu agresiunile birocratice. Corpul de control va face o investigatie aici pentru rezolvarea situatiei administrative.""Noi, majoritatea ne-am exprimat dorinta de a-i avea la conducere pe Tiberiu Soare si pe Vlad Conta. Readucerea acestor maestri la ONB ar insemna o onorare a acestor romani. Dvs sunteti membru al Guvernului, dar nu trebuie sa ii reprezentati pe Alina Cojocaru sau pe Kobborg. Vedetele au intotdeaua capricii. Domnul Kobborg nu a fost expulzat, ci doar demis dintr-o functie inexistenta. Domnul Ministru al Culturii a fost impiedicat sa-si onoreze decizia din cauza unei presiune mediatice. Noi nu vrem ca vreo persoana din vechea garda a lui Razvan Dinca sa obtina vreo functie de conducere. Oare ce tara este aceasta in care Ministrul Culturii incearca sa impuna un om, pe Kobbog, la conducere? Ce s-ar intampla daca dumneavoastra, vicepremier, ati vrea la fel, sa-l impuneti pe Kobborg?" a spus Oana Andru, prim-soprana.Artistii de la Opereta au citit o expunere in care si-au exprimat doleantele: "Protestul nostru se refera la separarea Operei de Opereta, deoarece efectele comasarii sunt nocive. Vrem reinfiintarea Teatrului de Opereta. Sustinem pe Tiberiu Soare si Vlad Conta. Aducem la cunostinta problemele tehnice, repertoriale si artistice in perioada in care la conducere era Razva Ioan Dinca. Din cauza fuziunii si managementului defectuos, activitatea e aproape zero la Opereta. Ministerul Culturii a refuzat inca din 2008 sa raspunda in fata acestei stari de fapt. In calitate de guvernanti, sunteti raspunzatori sa gasiti o solutie!"Bianca Ionescu, prim-solista a Teatrului de Opereta: "Acest Teatru este in agonie. Razvan Ioan Dinca l-a preluat dupa incendiu. Opereta trebuia sa renasca din propria cenusa. Insa Razvan Dinca, ne-am dat seama din primul discurs-monolog, era incompetent. A existat pe parcursul acestei conduceri o lipsa totala de transparenta. S-au pierdut partituri, s-au scos spectacole din repertoriu, recuzita, butaforia a disparut. Regiile erau artificioase, superficiale. Artistii suporta suplicii si jigniri. Vocile au rasunat liber in sali cu acustica speciala. Ce se intampla acum? In noul teatru se canta amplificat de lavaliera? Artistii care au fost distribuiti nu sunt in stare sa cante cu voce proprie, trebuie sa le fie vocile amplificate. Teatrul este ruinat. Vrem un teatru de repertoriu, cu structuri tehnice si artistice stabile. Avem nevoi de un director care sa nu faca din arta o afacere."Audienta din Sala Mare prezenta la "protest" a aplaudat frenetic dupa cuvantarea Biancai Ionescu. Atent, Vasile Dancu a reactionat prompt: "sunt profesor de comunicare, inteleg semnificatia acestui val de aplauze."Balerinii din corpul de balet de la ONB au luat la randul lor cuvantul: "Opera a inceput sa semene cu un teatru de proiecte, au fost scoase spectacole din repertoriu. Prosperitatea pe care si-a insusit-o Kobborg nu este reala, intrucat el a dispus de sume imense pentru proiecte. S-a afirmat in mod eronat cum ca inainte de venirea lui Kobborg corpul de balet era slab din punct de vedere artistic. Nu este adevarat, coregrafi mari au venit sa monteze cu noi. Kobborg a exercitat o presiune constanta asupra balerinilor, i-a intimidat prin intermediul retelelor de socializare.O balerina de la ONB a spus ca doar a lasat un comentariu pe internet referitor la un text postat pe Facebook de Kobborg. Un coleg balerin i-a dat "like". Kobborg i-a chemat pe ambii sa-i traga la raspundere. "Salariile sunt discrimantorii, nu atat intre romani si straini, cat intre prietenii lui Kobborg si ceilalti. Un balerin englez castiga dublu cat mine.", a mai spus balerina."Declaratiile Alinei Cojocaru contin minciuni si denigrari ale ONB. Kobborg a denigrat, de asemenea, prestigioasa traditie si istorie a ONB.", au spus mai multi balerini.Coregraful Ioan Tugearu a vorbit mult si cu ardoare: "Opera e jignita in profunzime, Kobborg e aici in ipostaza de turist, cum poate sa conteste valoarea artei noastre romanesti? Pe de alta parte, cum ne poate acuza pe noi de xenofobie? Orice corp de balet este compozit. Nu-i asta, fratilor, poporul roman! Printul Charles vine in tara asta splendida, a carei apa curge si in sangele meu. Noi nu suntem prin natura xenofobi. Orice balet are negri, japonezi, chinezi, europeni, toate suflarea de pe lume. Singurul lucru care ma deranjeaza la acest cuplu, desi eu i-am iubit si pe Kobborg si pe Alina, pentru ca sunt din lumea dansului, este ca arata dispret dansatorilor. Un dansator este un aluat prin care creez pentru spectatori. Eu nu pot sa accept ca acest domn sa conditioneze ONB. El doar a dansat pe scena, la fel ca mine. Sa conditioneze dirijorii, cand stie ce imperiu vast se ascunde in acesti oameni? Mi-ar crapa obrazul de rusine? Sa fac din asta un titlu de noblete, ca fara mine n-o sa fie soare si nimeni director? Eu nu spun ￢Afara, strainii!￢ Mii si mii de americani ne-au bombardat Bucurestiul si noi le-am facut statui. Daca acesti doi oameni nu au iubit ONB, daca nu poti colabora, nene, taticule, iubitule, draga mea, duceti-va unde veti fi primiti cu mai multa dragoste decat la noi."Marina Minoiu, balerina, de partea Alinei Cojocaru: "S-au adus spectacole noi, de talie internationala, am avut totala libertate pentru dezvoltare artistica, mai ales datorita Laboratorului de Coregrafie. Am avut dansatori invitati din baletul de talie internationala. Au fost adusi in companie fizioterapeuti, s-a deschis colaborarea cu firme ce produc pointe, s-a dublat numarul de pointe pentru balerine, am primit sponsorizari din partea unor firme de makeup, s-au organizat gale de balet, turnee. Renumele a crescut la nivel international, datorita aparitiei unor articole laudative in publicatii de mare renume, precum New York Times. Promovarea balerinilor s-a facut treptat, in spectacole, in fata publicului, nu in culise. Au fost trei premiere de balet pentru fiecare stagiune. Au fost schimbate mentalitati vechi."Alti balerini, care-s impotriva dansatorilor de sub inraurirea "Kobborg si Alina Cojocaru" spun ca, de fapt, conditiile in care se lucra erau groaznice. O balerina: "Era iarna, dansam la repetitii cu gecile pe noi. Totusi, Kobborg programa in continuare repetitii. Cat despre spectacolele de talie internationala, despre coregrafii maestri care au venit sa monteze aici, imi pare rau, dar aceasta este o chestiune ce tine de fondurile alocate. Sub Kobborg, s-au alocat bani.""De ce Alina Cojocaru a fost mereu port drapel, cum isi imagineaza ca poate, dupa ce improasca cu noroi artistii romani, sa ne intoarca in mijlocul oamenilor, sa se uite in ochii lor?". Astfel au motivat angajatii Operei zarva ce s-a iscat atunci cand balerina Alina Cojocaru a intrat in Sala Mare. Artista a fost sfatuita de vicepremierul Vasile Dincu sa renunte la dialog. Audienta intrerupea discursul balerinei si conflictul ar fi putut degenera.Ministrul Culturii, Vlad Alexandrescu a schimbat in ultimele saptamani nu mai putin de patru directori ai Operei: George Calin, Tiberiu Soare, Vlad Conta si din nou George Calin. Calin a fost demis de tot de Ministrul Vlad Alexandrescu, joi, 21 aprilie, la solicitarea angajatilor ONB, care au protestat fata de repunerea in functie la Opera a unui manager corupt.Problemele au aparut in urma neintelegerilor dintre corpul de balet al ONB, in frunte cu coregraful Johan Kobborg si fosta conducere a institutiei de cultura, dirijorii Tiberiu Soare si Vlad Alexandrescu.

The first time Carsten Braun visited the Venezuelan Andes was in 2009. He and his wife were climbing Pico Humboldt—the second highest peak in the country—and decided to bring along a GPS in order to measure a small glacier. “That was a total shoestring operation,” he said of the challenging hike to the ice. Braun, a geography professor at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, has been back to visit the Humboldt Glacier a few more times since then. During his most recent research trip six years ago, the glacier had shrunk noticeably. “If you imagine draping a pancake over a slope,” that’s what it looked like said Braun of this “pretty thin piece of ice,” no more than 65 feet thick. It would be just under a mile to walk around its entire circumference. Once one of five major tropical glaciers in the country, the Humboldt is nestled within the Sierra Nevada de Mérida in the western part of the country. Thanks to climate change, Venezuela has found itself a frontrunner in a somber race, with others such as Tanzania and China, to see which country will lose its glaciers first. What we’re seeing now, said Braun, “is maybe the last gasp of the Humboldt Glacier.” But due to a combination of political upheaval and funding challenges, it has largely been forgotten. It is expected to melt away in the next decade or two without scientists ever having fully studied Venezuela’s last glacier. Rapid retreat On a global scale, unlike in Greenland and Antarctica, non-ice sheet glaciers like those in mountains represent about one percent of the world’s glaciers, explained Alex Gardner, a research scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who describes his expertise as “all things icy.” So, their contribution to things like sea-level rise aren’t that significant. But because many of these are in areas where temperatures are frequently above freezing, they’re more sensitive to temperature fluctuations. The Andes are home to more than 95 percent of the world’s tropical glaciers. In some countries, such as Peru and Colombia, the glaciers are a critical source of water—for drinking, hydropower, and agriculture. For them, losing this resource will have a drastic impact. And since the 1970s, glaciers across the region have been in rapid retreat. “Honestly, I was surprised that there were even glaciers in Venezuela,” said Gardner. Until recently, the only field studies conducted on Venezuela’s glaciers were in 1971 and 1992 by the late Carlos Schubert , one of the foremost experts on Venezuelan geology. Between Schubert’s two studies being published, four glaciers had disappeared. In 2013, Braun and Maximiliano Bezada, a mentee of Shubert’s, co-authored a study on the most recent measurements of the Humboldt Glacier. Based on 2011 estimates, the glacier’s surface area was just 0.04 square miles, down about 0.02 square miles since Braun’s first visit in 2009. During this time, numerous cracks appeared throughout the glacier and meltwater was flowing at its base. Thirty years ago the ice looked strong, said Bezada, a former geomorphology professor for the Instituto Pedagógico de Caracas at the Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador, and one of the few scientists in Venezuela to study the Humboldt Glacier. “Now, it looks sick,” he said. “[It] will die very soon.” According to Gardner, global temperature rise is the main culprit behind today’s shrinking glaciers. “The model projections show they’re going to retreat. The question is just how much and how fast,” he said. Lower-lying glaciers like Humboldt are smaller and more vulnerable and are likely to disappear the quickest, he added. Humboldt’s namesake Constant snow and ice cover in the Venezuelan Andes was first recorded in 1560. During one 1941 expedition in the Andes, the petroleum geologist and avid mountaineer A. E. Gunther described the Humboldt Glacier as the “largest in these latitudes,” and noted that it would make, “after fresh snow, a splendid skiing slope.” The mountain upon which the glacier sits takes its name from Alexander von Humboldt, a nineteenth century naturalist and explorer. Humboldt’s first views of Venezuela came in 1799 as he sailed towards its coast lined with green palms and banana groves; a series of cloud-covered mountains sat in the distance. Related: Finding frozen mummies in the Andes. Here, Humboldt witnessed the devastating impact of deforestation from plantations in the Spanish colony. As a result, he became the first scientist to discuss the connection between human activity and climate change. The naturalist outlined how a forest’s fundamental ecosystem services—everything from storing water to protecting the soil—were connected to the broader climate system. While most people during this time argued that our domination over nature was necessary for profit, Humboldt warned that we must first understand the full extent of humanity’s impact on nature. As Andrea Wulf writes in her 2015 biography of Humboldt, The Invention of Nature, “The effects of the human species’ intervention were already ‘incalculable,’ Humboldt insisted, and could become catastrophic if they continued to disturb the world so ‘brutally.’” As early as 1925, and again in the ‘90s by Schubert, scientists have been making the connection between human pollution from the Venezuelan town of Mérida and its potential impact on the nearby glaciers, which have been retreating over the past one to two hundred years since Humboldt’s warning. Keeping tabs Today, mountaineers are the only ones who get close enough to see the glacier. International scientists are either dissuaded from or simply not eager to propose research trips to a country deemed too dangerous to visit. Add to this the reality that the Humboldt Glacier isn’t the most glamorous of the globe’s features—a mere spec compared to the ice fields in Patagonia—and it becomes easy to see why research funding may be hard to secure. During his time, Schubert—among whose prized possessions was an 1815 edition of Humboldt’s Travels—had called for a monitoring program to document Venezuela’s glacial retreat; something echoed by Bezada and Braun. Yet no such program was ever established. Some monitoring of the glacier can be done via satellite. But the glacier is now so tiny that the free data from the Landsat satellites is not high enough resolution to glean detailed information from, says Braun. ‘Entirely symbolic’ Described as “a glaciological anomaly” by Braun and Bezada, the Humboldt Glacier would probably have disappeared years ago if it weren’t for it being nestled on the shadier side of the mountain. And since the glacier is already so small, any impact on local water resources will likely be negligible. “It’s entirely symbolic at this point,” said Gardner of the melting glacier. “This is the impacts of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.” Braun agreed. Mérida is known as the Boulder, Colorado, of Venezuela. So, for those living nearby, the glacier is “part of their identity,” he said. “It’s part of their environment, looking up in these mountains and seeing ice.

Modern games are more than graphics – precise audio positioning gives gamers a distinct edge over enemies. That's why Strix Soar includes Sonic Radar Pro, an ASUS exclusive technology that visualizes and enhances in-game sounds, giving you a vital edge in first-person shooters. Fire up your favorite game and Sonic Radar Pro displays a ‘radar' HUD (heads-up display) that pinpoints in-game actions relative to your position, so you'll know exactly where you are on the battlefield and what's happening around you. Multiple radar-enhancers can be enabled in order to visualize and boost specific sounds such as footsteps, gunshots, and call-outs. Sounds are plotted on the 360-degree HUD, even when there's no clear line of sight, so invisibility is no barrier to pinpointing opponents, giving you a distinct advantage over other players. Additionally, Sonic Radar's on-screen appearance and position is completely customizable, so you can arrange it just the way you want, with whatever game you want.

The Wisconsin College Democrats Vice Chair lashed out against “white men” last week, tweeting that she feels emphatic hatred toward the demographic. [RELATED: Profs look to turn 'white men' into 'social justice activists'] "My new bit is tearing down all the pro life Christian pregnancy resource center fliers that they put up around campus to try & trick people." According to the images obtained by Campus Reform, Sarah Semrad, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, allegedly wrote that “I f***ing hate white men” in a tweet on Thursday. Following initial backlash, Media Trackers reports that Semrad proceeded to delete her private Twitter account as well as her Facebook profile. Semrad’s recent tweet is not the only controversial statement made by the Wisconsin College Democrats Vice Chair in recent weeks. Another image of her Twitter profile obtained by Campus Reform appears to show Semrad admitting to “tearing down all the pro life Christian pregnancy resource center fliers” that were posted on campus. “My new bit is tearing down all the pro life Christian pregnancy resource center fliers that they put up around campus to try & trick people,” Semrad allegedly tweeted in October. According to her bio posted on the College Democrats of Wisconsin website, Semrad says she is a Democrat “because I believe in strong public schools for all [students] across Wisconsin.” “I believe everyone, regardless of race, age, religion, or gender deserves the equal opportunity to [achieve] anything they put their mind to,” she adds, noting that she also believes in strong labor unions and the right of individuals to “marry the person they love.” [RELATED: UPenn TA boasts of calling on white male students last] The College Democrats of Wisconsin did not immediately respond to Campus Reform’s request for comment. Follow this author on Facebook: Nikita Vladimirov

(Rarity) WAAAAAAAAH PLEASE LET US OUT WERE INNOCENT. I'M TO BEAUTIFUL TO BE LOCKED UP IN PRISON WAAAAAAAAAAH (Applejack) Well ain't this a fine mess you got us into Pinkie Pie (Rainbowdash) Yeah nice one pinkie what the heck were you thinking when you broke the new gold statue of princess Celestia and princess Luna in half. (Pinkie Pie) He-he-he-he sorry everybody I thought it was a giant piece of chocolate shaped like them wrapped in gold foil I couldn't control myself (Applejack and Rainbowdash) WELL NEWS IT WASN'T! AND NOW WERE STUCK IN JAIL BECAUSE OF YOU. (Pinkie Pie) Again sorry I'm sure they'll let us out soon. (Fluttershy) I-I-I H-Hope so. I don't want to be locked up in jail it's to scary and dangerous for us. Also what about my poor angel and all the other animals I take care of. I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE FOREVER WAAAAAAAAAAAAH (Twlight Sparkle) This is going to take some time since princess Luna and Celestia were so mad about the statue. They might make us stay in jail for good. (Rainbowdash) If that happens you better sleep with one eye open pinkie pie. Anything can happen while your in jail. (Pinkie Pie) Gulp :' -(

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies, who are pressing her to toughen up immigration policy, should remember their Christian roots and show a sense of responsibility toward the poor and weak, the head of the Catholic Church in Germany said. FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for the second day of a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, July 12, 2018. Tatyana Zenkovich/Pool via REUTERS Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), pushed Merkel’s coalition government to the brink of collapse earlier this month by demanding that she do more to restrict the number of migrants entering Germany. In a rare intervention into politics, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, said it was the wrong approach to drift to the right simply because that was the spirit of the times. Asked about the CSU’s policy stance, Marx told weekly newspaper Die Zeit: “A party that has chosen the C in the name has an obligation, in the spirit of Christian social teaching, especially in its attitude toward the poor and the weak.” “Being a nationalist and a Catholic, that can’t be,” added Marx. Half of Bavarians are Catholic and they form the backbone of support for the CSU, which has been alarmed by the rise of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and is worried about losing votes in a regional election in October. Bavaria was on the frontline of the 2015 migrant crisis when people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and central Asia arrived in Germany, fuelling support for the AfD. Merkel and CSU chairman Horst Seehofer settled their row over migration earlier this month with an agreement that he said would stem illegal immigration. The CSU is sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Under the deal, migrants who have already applied for asylum in other European Union countries will be held in transit centers on the border while Germany negotiates bilateral deals for their return. Seehofer, who is also federal interior minister, is trying to keep the migration issue alive with fresh initiatives to show concerned Bavarian voters he is being pro-active. On Wednesday, he secured cabinet approval for a draft law declaring Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Georgia safe countries of origin. If passed, the law will cut the chances of those countries’ citizens being granted asylum to virtually zero, allowing authorities to speed up the processing of asylum applicants from those states and deport them if they are rejected. In regional initiative, Bavarian state police started patrolling the region’s border with Austria on Wednesday. “These mobile controls, these flexible controls, are a clear signal that one can’t be sure anymore if certain routes are safe,” said Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder, of the CSU.

Australia will push for more business, student and work visas for its citizens in the UK, as part of a new trade deal after Brexit. On Friday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said this was "obviously" something that could be part of the free trade agreement that the countries have agreed to negotiate after the UK leaves the European Union. "Being able to live, work or spend time, study in each other's countries is something to which we would aspire," she said. "Should we be in the position to conclude a free trade agreement after Brexit then obviously this can be the subject of a free trade agreement. It's something that we were able to achieve with the United States.

日本マイクロソフトは、Microsoft HoloLensを活用した協業プロジェクト「HoloStruction（ホロストラクション）」において、小柳建設と連携。建設業における計画、工事、検査の効率化、アフターメンテナンスのトレーサビリティを可視化するコンセプトモデルを開発した。今後、継続的な開発により実用化につなげる。 小柳建設は、新潟県三条市に本社を置く1945年創業の建設会社。河川などの底面を浚い土砂などを取り去る浚渫（しゅんせつ）や、土木事業、建築事業などで実績があり、埋蔵文化財調査支援事業なども行っている。 浚渫においては、独自の3Dガイダンスシステム「GCS900 バックホウ浚渫」を活用。浚渫の計画データと、バックホウ（ショベルが操縦者側向きに取り付けられた油圧ショベル）のリアルタイム三次元座標データをもとにしたガイダンスを使って作業を行っているほか、建設現場における測量作業などにドローンを活用するなど、IT活用にも先進的だ。 業務の透明性向上、検査資料の管理、リモート作業に活用 今回、日本マイクロソフトと連携して開発するのは、「業務トレーサビリティ向上の推進」、「BIM/CIMデータの活用試行」、「新しいコミュニケーションアイデアの試行」の3つのコンセプトモデルだ。コンセプト開発においては、新潟市に拠点を置くティーケーネットサービスが協力した。 「業務トレーサビリティ向上の推進」では、計画、工事、検査、アフターメンテナンスのすべての業務を表現するツールとしてHoloLensを活用。業務のトレーサビリティを確保する仕組みを開発することで、建設事業者としての事業や業務の透明性を図る狙いがある。これにより、国土交通省が推進するi-Construction（建築現場のIT活用）の後押しにもつながるとみている。 「BIM/CIMデータの活用試行」では、設計図を3Dで可視化し、検査に必要にデータや文書も同時に格納。必要なときにHoloLensですぐに表示できるようにした。建設現場における工事の検査における検査員不足や負担増を解消できるとしており、BIM/CIMデータを活用した新たな検査基準の検討や、検査文書の作成負担軽減などに取り組む。 「新しいコミュニケーションアイデアの試行」においては、HoloLensを活用することで、物理的な場所にとらわれない現場の確認作業や、遠隔地の人との視界の共有などを実現。3Dグラフィックにより、HoloLensに映し出される図面や現場視界を共有する機能のほか、実物大のスケールでその場にいるかのような映像体験の実現、建設重機や作業員の配置を計画段階からシミュレーションする機能の開発を行う。 建設現場のなかには物理的に行き来が難しい場所や危険な場所もあり、そうした場所の確認作業などにも利用できるという。 さらに、小柳建設では、Microsoft AzureやOffice 365、Dynamics 365をはじめとするマイクロソフトのクラウドサービスを併用し、建設業におけるすべての事業、業務、行動のデジタル化に取り組む。また、日本マイクロソフトは、HoloLensの拡充シナリオの支援のほか、研究、開発などの技術面から支援する。 HoloLensで業界のイメージを変えていく 日本マイクロソフトの平野拓也社長は、「小柳建設は、発売前からHoloLensに高い関心を持っており、開発プログラムを締結した。建設現場における社員の働き方改革、近未来コミュニケーションの実践、業務の透明性確保、建設関連業務のデジタル化の4点で、小柳建設のデジタルトランスフォーメーションを支援する。日本マイクロソフトのコンサルティングサービスチームのみならず、米国本社とも連動したプロジェクトであり、今後も、米国本社と密に連携しながら、支援を行っていく」とした。 小柳建設の小柳卓蔵社長は、「少子高齢化により、建設業界の人材不足が課題になっている。また、きつい、きたない、危険という3Kの職場であり、古い業態のままというマイナスイメージもある。そして、データの改ざん、耐震偽装の事件により、不透明な業界であるとのレッテルが貼られている」と業界の課題を説明。次代の担い手がいないという建設業界の課題を解決するために、「HoloLensを活用できると直感的に感じた」と述べた。 「HoloLensの活用により、透明性、安全性、生産性を高めることを目指し、課題解決と業界にイノベーションを起こしたいと考えている。建設業界を格好いい仕事にし、地域や子供から尊敬される業界にしたいという気持ちを持っている。今回のHoloStructionを通じて、新潟から、日本全体、世界に向けて、そうした想いを実現できるのがHoloLens。マイクロソフトと協業、共創を進めていく」（小柳社長）。 また、小柳社長が実際にHoloLensを使ってみた感想として、「まさに現場にテレポーテーションしたような感覚に陥る。いつでも、どこでも、現場の状況を確認でき、経営者や現場代理人にとっても即決できる」と期待を示した。 HoloLensは、Windows 10を搭載した世界初の自己完結型ホログラフィックコンピュータだ。日本では1月に、開発者、法人向けに提供を開始した。すでに日本航空（JAL）が、パイロットや整備士のトレーニングにHoloLensを活用する協業プロジェクトに取り組んだ実績がある。今回の小柳建設の事例は、米マイクロソフトとの連携によるプロジェクトではJALに続いて2社目となる。地方に拠点を置く企業が先進的なデバイスを活用した点でも、注目すべき事例だ。 日本マイクロソフトの平野社長は、HoloLensの国内市場での動向について、「開発者が連日のように勉強会を開催し、また多くの企業がビジネス利用の検討を開始している。想像を超える反響と盛り上がりをみせており、日本の関心や購入実績は、世界的に見ても高い」と述べた。

RedditのCEO、スティーブ・ハフマンはドナルド・トランプ支持派がサイト上でハフマンについて書いたコメントを密かに書き直していたことを認めた。 ハフマンはredditでも最大級のフォーラム、「次期大統領（President-elect）」のスレッド上に残されたハフマンに関するコメントを書き直していた。ただしメッセージそのものを削除したわけではなかった。しかしこのことでRedditはユーザー・コミュニティーと協調していないという懸念を復活させることになった。 2005年にアレクシス・オハニアンと共同でredditを始めたハフマンは、「イェス、“fuck u/spez”を書き直した。コメントの“spez”を“r/the_donald mods”と直し〔てドナルド・トランプ支持派のスレッドのモデレーターにリダイレクト〕した」と書いている。 この問題は#pizzagate事件に関連している。 これはワシントンを本拠とするピザ・チェーンが児童売買のネットワークの中心で、ヒラリー・クリントンと選対委員長のジョン・ポデスタが運営者だったというフェイク・ニュースだ。もちろんこのストーリーは捏造だがソーシャルメディアでは注目を集め、New York Timesが記事を書くほどだった。 それほど話題になれば当然だが、この噂はRedditにも投稿された。しかしredditではPizzagate関連のスレッドを特定の個人に関する情報であり利用約款違反だとして次々に閉鎖した。 ハフマンはredditの共同創業者だが、2010年に旅行サイトのHipmunkを立ち上げるためにredditを去った。しかし昨年 エレン・パオの失脚でCEOに復帰していた。ハフマンの主張によれば、コメントを書き換えたのはスレッドの閉鎖に伴ってハフマンに対する暴言が書き込まれたことに対処したのだという。 コメントを編集したことを公けに認めた文章でハフマンは謝罪はしていないが、印象はそれに近い。 「ユーザーとは良好な関係を保っていきたいが、ペドファイルと罵られ続ければ頭に来る。CEOとしてこういうことはすべきでなかったかもしれない。ともかく全部修復した。コミュニティー・チームにはひどく怒られてしまった。もうこういうことはしないと約束する」とハフマンは書いている。 ハフマンは別のユーザーのコメントへの返事に「トロルに少しばかりトロルし返してやったのだが」 と 書いている。 昨年エレン・パオがredditを去った事情も不透明だった。 これにはスレッドの閉鎖やユーザーに人気があったコミュニティー・マネージャー、ビクトリア・テイラーの解雇という問題も関連していた。エレン・パオに反対するユーザーの一部は人種差別的、性差別的投稿をするまでになっていた。 パオ事件は過去のものかもしれないが、ハフマンの率直なメッセージ書き直しの自認は再び多くのユーザーの注目を集めている。現経営陣に不満なユーザーははどんな理由であれ密かに投稿を書き直すのはサイトの信頼性を破壊するものだと感じるかもしれない。 画像： Robert Galbraith/REUTERS 〔日本版〕エレン・パオは有力ベンチャーキャピタル、KPCBの元パートナーだったがredditのCEOに就任後、KPCBをセクハラと性差別的昇進の妨害などで訴え、敗訴している。 [原文へ] （翻訳：滑川海彦@Facebook Google+）

The National Rifle Association demanded Phil Bredesen, the Democratic nominee in the 2018 Tennessee Senate race, retract an ad touting an outdated rating from the organization. "Phil Bredesen is a ‘D' rated candidate, and he will not protect our constitutional rights in Washington, D.C.," Chris W. Cox, chairman of the NRA's Political Victory Fund, said in a statement. "Tennesseans should not be fooled by his false and misleading campaign ads." The gun-rights group called on Bredesen to retract the ad he posted yesterday touting his A rating from his time as governor. Real independence and not party politics — that’s what’s right for Tennessee. pic.twitter.com/BmyyvJGL2e — Phil Bredesen (@PhilBredesen) September 19, 2018 "It's not 2002, you're not governor and you're not A-rated by the NRA," Cox tweeted at Bredesen in response to the ad. "It's 2018, you have earned a D rating for turning your back on self-defense and supporting the Hillary/Schumer/Bloomberg gun control agenda. @VoteMarsha is a 2A champion. You're not." Cox finished the tweet with the hashtag "#stoplying." The Bredesen campaign did not immediately reply to a request for reaction to the NRA's comments. The campaign of Bredesen's opponent, Republican Marsha Blackburn, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The Tennessee Republican Party, however, accused Bredesen of misleading voters. "Phony Phil is caught talking out of both sides of his mouth once again, and the NRA is right to call out Bredesen for his false claims," Scott Golden, Tennessee Republican Party chairman, told the Washington Free Beacon. "Gun owners and all Tennesseans who care about our Second Amendment freedoms recognize that Marsha Blackburn is the only one in this race who will stand up to the national Democrats' radical anti-gun agenda." The NRA announced on Wednesday they endorsed Blackburn. "Marsha Blackburn is the only candidate in this race who will defend our Second Amendment rights in Washington, D.C.," Cox said on Wednesday. "The NRA encourages all freedom-loving Tennesseans to vote Marsha Blackburn for Senate in November." The group said on Thursday that Bredesen's ad reinforced their decision to endorse Blackburn. "Bredesen will vote against Tennessee values in Washington," Cox said. "He will kowtow to the gun control elitists and support Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi's anti-freedom agenda. His new ad is a shameful attempt to fool the voters in his home state, and NRA members won't be fooled."

It has just been announced, along with a trailer, that the next Final Fantasy XIV expansion is called Stormblood and is stated to be released early summer 2017. The developers have confirmed that they’ve been working on the expansion for some time and that are quite a way through their development process, which will come as a welcome relief to many players after the Heavensward expansion was delayed with some features being worked on right into launch. The expansion will focus on liberating Ala Migho from the Garlean Empire after 20 years of occupation. The current ruler of the Ala Mhigo is the XIIth Legion Legatus Zeons Yae Galvus and will most likely be the main antagonist of the expansion. From the brief glimpse provided during the keynote, the new areas have a distinctly Eastern feel with sprawling waterfalls and giant statues carved in stone. With this, the expansion feels to be focused around the Monk job, similarly to how Heavensward focused around the Dragoon job. One hamlet that has been revealed is called Rhalgr’s Reach. It is likely that Rhalgr’s Reach will serve the same function as Ishgard does in Heavensward as the main hub for questing and commerce, although not much other information has been provided about the location. New jobs have been confirmed as coming with the new expansion. Some eagle eyed viewers saw producer Naoki Yoshida’s Scarlet Witch t-shirt worn during the Keynote presentation. In past events, Yoshida’s t-shirts have given clues as to the new jobs such as a Batman shirt alluding to the Dark Knight job. Could this mean possibly mean the Red Mage job? The player level cap will be increased to level 70 with new job actions with a revamped battle system to boot, including a skill system overhaul. The development team are reassessing often unused or ineffective actions, which will be a welcome change to some. Underused skills may in fact be removed, which will help avoid skill bloat with the addition of new skills obtained on the way to the new level cap. In addition to the skill changes, enhancements to the UI will be made, such as making overhauls to buff timers like Blood of the Dragon, which requires changes in player behaviour to make the full use of. In addition to the aforementioned details, the usual suspects crop up as with every patch and/or expansion. New gear, crafting recipes, primals, dungeons and raids will be introduced, as well as a new Exploratory Mission type. This new mission will take you to The Forbidden Land, Eureka. It was noted that this new Exploratory Mission will behave differently to the current Diadem, but little else is known about it. New ‘sprawling’ areas will be introduced, the number of which is equal to or more than those introduced in Heavensward. The new areas will allow players to fly, but they will need to find the Aether Currents first, much like in Heavensward . As well as the new areas, a 4th residential area has been confirmed, however it remains to be seen where the exact location of this area will be. Another improvement is that the current inventory space will be expanded. Lots of players are already struggling to store all of their equipment, since a single character has the ability to play as every class and job, without having some gear overflow from their Armory Chest into their normal inventory. However, this may come after the launch of Stormblood as they want to test their server stability before implementing a change which may cause further issues. That being said, the dev team is going to be reinvesting money to improve their server quality, and hopefully preventing the needed inventory expansion from causing problems. More information will be provided about the inventory change during the Live Letter on Saturday. Finally, with the addition of Stormblood, there is going to be changes to the minimum requirements for Windows users. Hardware like core 2 processor units will no longer be supported. Also, while the dev team will do their best to continue to support 32-bit systems, it is recommended that players try to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system by the launch of the expansion. For PlayStation users, the PS3 will no longer be supported. If you do play on the PS3, you will need to upgrade to a PS4 continue playing. It’s not all doom and gloom though, as the Final Fantasy XIV team are partnering with Sony to provide a special upgrade campaign for those still playing on PS3. This campaign will mean PS3 players will be able to get the PS4 version of the game without having to pay a penny, in order to encourage them to switch to the PS4. With all that said and done, I hope you are as excited with Stormblood as I am. If you are, you’ll be interested to know that there will be big news to be announced during the Tokyo Fanfest 24-25 December which will be a most welcome Christmas present for all. And as Yoshida likes to say, “Please look forward to it.”

Minnesota United FC just added a hefty dose of MLS and international experience to their roster. MNUFC announced on Tuesday that they have signed Finnish international Rasmus Schuller (pictured above) and MLS veterans Jermaine Taylor and Bernardo Anor ahead of the club's inaugural season in the league. A defensive-minded midfielder who can also range into the attacking end, the 25-year-old Schuller has experience in the top flights of both Finland and Sweden, and arrives in Minnesota from Swedish side BK Hacken. He will be added to the Loons' roster pending receipt of his ITC and P-1 Visa. “He has incredible energy, a great left foot, he can do a bit of everything. He can tackle, win the ball, pass the ball and get forward – he’s the box-to-box player we are looking for,” said MNUFC head coach Adrian Heath in a club release. Taylor, 32, arrives in Minnesota after spending 2016 with the Portland Timbers while Anor, 28, was with the Loons last year in the NASL on loan from Sporting Kansas City. A Jamaican international defender, Taylor brings with him six years of MLS experience. He started his time in the league with the Houston Dynamo in 2011 and spent five seasons there before moving to Portland last year. In total, Taylor has made 129 regular-season appearances in MLS and scored one goal while assisting on seven others. Anor, who is coming off an ankle injury that sidelined him for much of 2016, has also been under contract with MLS teams for a half-dozen years. The Venezuelan midfielder joined Columbus Crew SC in 2011 and then went on to suit up for Sporting KC four years later. He has played in 84 regular-season MLS matches in his career, scoring 12 goals and setting up three more.

Rocky Lockridge, a former boxer best known online for the "Best Cry Ever" video, has passed away at age 60. Rocky's family confirmed his death on Thursday, February 7th 2019, which was due to complications from a series of strokes and pneumonia. For the last two decades of his life, Lockridge unfortunately had some drug related problems. He became homeless and suffered a stroke which forced him to walk with a cane. He was featured on A&E's Intervention TV series, on which he claimed that the intervention and the help of his sons saved his life. His appearance on the show is noted for a notorious moment where his son Lamar says, "Because I know, somewhere deep down in my heart, I still love you," which caused Lockridge to break down crying hard enough to the point where he was basically just screaming at the top of his lungs. This spawned the internet meme, "Best Cry Ever" He also went viral for being the old man that knocked out that dude that got in his face seemingly unprovoked despite warnings from bystanders that the old man is not to be messed with. This is an extremely rare convergence of memes. I have seen both of these videos multiple times over the years, and honestly had no clue that it was the same man. Rocky, a former boxer was also a two-time world boxing champion. Here's Rocky's famous match vs. Roger Mayweather in 1984, where he wins by knockout in 91 seconds: It's always a sad day when we hear about internet celebrities passing on, and this one is no different. Rest in Peace Rocky, and thank you for your contribution to the the internet and the culture that is engulfed by it.

I worked at the Boston Globe for nine years, longer than I've ever worked anywhere. I have a lot of friends who still work there. I also have a family member who works there. So, naturally, I was interested to read about this maniac who was busted out in California for threatening the lives of my friends and of a member of my family. From CNN: Robert D. Chain of Encino, California has been charged with one count of making threatening communications in interstate commerce, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a press release Thursday. Chain, 68, is due to appear in federal court in Los Angeles Thursday afternoon. The US Attorney's Office said Chain will be transferred to Boston "at a later date." Of particular interest to me was the nature of the apparent threats. Encino Man has a high-priced writer, I'm thinking. The Boston Globe newsroom. Boston Globe Getty Images Chain is accused of making several threatening phone calls to the Globe beginning almost immediately after the paper announced on August 10 that it was calling on newspapers across the country to publish editorials the following week standing up to Trump for referring to the press as "fake news" and "enemies of the people." According to court documents, on August 16, the day the editorial campaign was published in newspapers around the country, Chain made a call to the Globe's newsroom in which he said, "You're the enemy of the people, and we're going to kill every f***ing one of you. Hey, why don't you call the F, why don't you call Mueller, maybe he can help you out buddy. ... I'm going to shoot you in the f***ing head later today, at 4 o'clock." El Caudillo Del Mar-A-Lago is having another of his organized wankfests on Thursday night, this one in Indiana. On Thursday afternoon, of course, the first of several memorial services for the late John McCain was held. Former VP Joe Biden spoke and, though he was rambling in that Joe Biden way, the ending, as it was, punctuated by a pounding on the podium, was worth following the speech all the way through. Joe Biden eulogizing John McCain in Arizona. Jae C Hong/AP/REX/Shutterstock Bottom line was, I think John believed in us. I think he believed in the American people. Not just all the preambles, he believed in the American people, all 325 million of us. Even though John is no longer with us, he left us clear instructions. ‘Believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here.’ Close to the last thing John said to the whole nation, as he knew he was about to depart. That's what he wanted America to understand. Not to build his legacy. He wanted America reminded, to understand. I think John's legacy is going to continue to inspire and challenge generations of leaders as they step forward. And John McCain’s impact on America is not over. It's not hyperbole. It is not over. I don't think it's even close close... Now John is going to take his rightful place in a long line of extraordinary leaders in this nation's history. Who in their time and in their way stood for freedom and stood for liberty and have made the American story the most improbable and the most hopeful and the most enduring story on earth. I know John said he hoped he played a small part in that story. John, you did much more than that, my friend. To paraphrase Shakespeare, we shall not see his like again. After that, of course, the national stage got surrendered back to the current president* of the United States to rant and to rave in his own mad way and all that came to me were the words of Robert Chain, now in federal custody in California. You're the enemy of the people, and we're going to kill every fcking one of you. It's working. Don't let anyone tell you different. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

Photo: H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock I had a certain Mrs. N as my English teacher during my senior year of high school. She loved teaching 12th-graders, she liked to say, because she couldn’t do that much bad to us — and not that much good, either. She had the rigorous affection that great instructors do, forcing us to memorize Shakespeare and give presentations on Dickens, because, come on, what else is a literature education for. She was also, after years of fundamentalist Protestant education, refreshingly, mind-openingly liberal about language. “There are no ‘bad’ words,” I recall her intoning. “Just more and less coarse.” Motherfucker, I thought to myself. You’re goddamn right. And it seems that, at least according to linguists and philosophers and other people who really care about words, “swears” have a particular social function. In a new piece on Quartz, Noah Berlatsky makes the convincing argument that you should teach your kids to curse, because, he argues, good-natured swearing has a way of bonding people together. (He mentions the way his wife will conspiratorially quote John Oliver’s “Are you fucking kidding me?!’” in front of their son.) A well-placed curse expresses a sort of ribald vulnerability, especially in power dynamics like parent and child. Berlatsky quotes In Praise of Profanity author Michael Adams, who writes that swears “are unexpectedly useful in fostering human relations because they carry risk … We like to get away with things and sometimes we do so with like-minded people.” Without dipping her toe too far into the pool of profanity, Mrs. N was doing that with her rambunctious seniors: By giving us, in a way, a sense of permission about “coarser” language, she was expressing an opinion different from the school’s orthodoxy, and in doing so, expressing vulnerability and cultivating trust. In this way, swearing is a lot like humor: Both carry social risk and skewer taboos (probably why so many good jokes incorporate swears). A good, hearty swear between teacher and student, or among family is not dissimilar from how friends talk shit as a way of bonding. It happens all over the world, reports anthropologist Daniel Hruschka: Men in Papua New Guinea greet each other by saying they’d like to eat one another’s intestines, and for the Bozo tribe of West Africa, Hruschka writes, “friends demonstrate their love by making lewd comments about the genitals of one another’s parents.” It’s parallel to your wife reprising a trademark curse from a late-night talk show host in front of your kids. It’s context-sensitive, it’s funny, and it makes people feel closer. Just make sure that if the kid does swear at school, it’s in front of a particularly cool teacher.

The Dusk Network is a decentralized infrastructure focused on providing the sweet-spot between privacy and transparency in payments, communication and asset ownership transfers. It departs from consensus mechanisms like PoW/PoS, which are poorly suited for privacy, to introduce a new privacy-oriented consensus mechanism called Segregated Byzantine Agreement. Dusk is a new blockchain that provides true privacy and a fast and a secure streaming mechanism called Secure Tunnel Switching (STS), all powered by a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency: DUSK. This means that we are building the first blockchain enabled platform that allows for streaming, file transfer and storage, and video/audio conferencing, all paid in crypto and fully decentralized, unsurveilled, and uncensorable. Our roadmap focuses on three main use cases; payments, digital asset transfer, and p2p communication. Especially in the asset transfer area Dusk aims to be the first platform to reconcile the requirements set out by both businesses and individuals with regulatory auditability requirements. This means that our confidentiality and privacy ecosystem will become the perfect, compliant, launching pad for Security Token Offerings (STO’s). Besides technical innovations Dusk Network is a project that will deliver according to a strict project schedule, combining decades of IT delivery experience. The Dusk Network’s research and development is coordinated through the Dusk Foundation, a foundation that focuses exclusively on delivering the Dusk Network, and the academic, humanitarian, and commercial benefits it brings. Read our whitepaper here. The Dusk Network consists of three layers: 1 — DUSK Anonymous Network Layer A gossip oriented communication tier inspired by I2P. 2 — Segregated Byzantine Agreement A novel privacy-oriented consensus algorithm vastly more efficient than PoW or PoS. Powered by Proof of Blind Bid. 3 — Secure Tunnel Switching A protocol allowing cryptocurrency payments for time-unbound and fast data transmission. (Dusk Network’s three layers.) We conceived the Dusk Network to be the first unrestricted and fully distributed communication network that does not compromise high data-rate transmission capabilities with the security and anonymity of its peers. The system features a new consensus algorithm vastly more efficient than proof-of-work or proof-of-stake called Segregated Byzantine Agreement, and built on top of a low-latency gossip network which utilizes non-repliable datagram and garlic routing in order to prevent IP Address propagation. Finally, the Dusk Network is complemented with an off-online file transfer mechanism and with realtime Dusk payment channel to enable undetectable and fast peer-to-peer data communication through a technique we call Secure Tunnel Switching. Why Dusk? The very existence of freedom of expression, access to cultural heritage, information pluralism and economic liberty depends on the availability of a mean of communication capable of guaranteeing uncontrolled exchange of information and messages. The Dusk Network was conceived for this purpose: to provide its peers with an unsurveilled and unstoppable network infrastructure that grants them the possibility to communicate freely while safeguarding their identities. Everything within Dusk Network is skewed toward decentralization, privacy and communication efficiency: from the anonymous transport layer which solves IP tracking to the Secure Tunnel Switching protocol which allows efficient data transmission paid for through a blockchain-based digital cash called DUSK. Use Cases The Dusk Network solves the problem of secure data transfer, low-latency transmissions and paying for time-unbound communications with cryptocurrencies. This enables a sweet spot between transparency and privacy, and enables the decentralization of: Payments Digital Asset Transfer (STO’s) P2P Communication (Confidential Streaming) This means that the Dusk Platform can function as an infrastructure for a decentralized service like Netflix, WhatsApp, YouTube, or a communication protocol for a drone fleet, a service where whistleblowers can safely communicate, a platform where cultural or political censorship is impossible, or the place where a business seeks to tokenize its equity without having to go through an arduous IPO process where the costs outweigh the benefits. Conclusion The Dusk Foundation is leading the R&D and delivery of the Dusk Network, a new blockchain that uses several technical advancements to deliver an ecosystem laser focused on providing the best trade off between privacy and transparency per use case. Content Series Learn more about the Dusk Network through one of our introductory series. Dusk Network Intro Series Dusk in a Nutshell Anonymous Network Layer (TBA) SBA* in a Nutshell (TBA) Secure Tunnel Switching (TBA) Privacy & Cryptography Intro Series The Startup Dream; STO’s vs. ICO’s (TBA) Privacy and Fungibility (TBA) A brief introduction to cryptography in blockchain (TBA) Dusk Foundation Intro Series Introduction to the Dusk Foundation (TBA) Dusk Social Media Website: https://www.dusk.network FAQ: https://www.dusk.network/faq Telegram: https://t.me/dusknetwork Twitter: https://twitter.com/duskfoundation Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/dusknetwork Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/duskfoundation/ GitHub: https://github.com/dusk-network

At long last, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have found a new tax they can support. Naturally it’s a tax on something the country needs: solar energy panels. For the last few months, the Kochs and other big polluters have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, which have been adopted by most states. They particularly dislike state laws that allow homeowners with solar panels to sell power they don’t need back to electric utilities. So they’ve been pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive. Oklahoma lawmakers recently approved such a surcharge at the behest of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the conservative group that often dictates bills to Republican statehouses and receives financing from the utility industry and fossil-fuel producers, including the Kochs. As The Los Angeles Times reported recently, the Kochs and ALEC have made similar efforts in other states, though they were beaten back by solar advocates in Kansas and the surtax was reduced to $5 a month in Arizona. But the Big Carbon advocates aren’t giving up. The same group is trying to repeal or freeze Ohio’s requirement that 12.5 percent of the state’s electric power come from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2025. Twenty-nine states have established similar standards that call for 10 percent or more in renewable power. These states can now anticipate well-financed campaigns to eliminate these targets or scale them back.

For today's Mailbag Friday, we hear from Barbara Z. of Norfolk, VA. She writes: "On the radio I was listening to the beginning of "The Thomas Jefferson Hour" in which Clay Jenkinson speaks as if he were Jefferson. I heard him say the following: 'I happen to live in the first great era when books were widespreadly available...' "Widespreadly? That one is new to me!" Mr. Jenkinson's impersonation of Thomas Jefferson is an impressive feat. He holds forth extemporaneously as if Jefferson had time-warped to the present day, and since Jefferson was known as a voracious polymath, he covers a diverse range of topics. (Past shows are archived here. The sentence above occurs in Show 731, "Influential Books," but you can also hear Jenkinson-as-Jefferson muse on everything from terrorism to Greek and Latin.) Historical reenactors are always careful to avoid committing anachronisms. We wouldn't want to see a role-player at Colonial Williamsburg whipping out an iPhone, for instance. (A recent episode of "South Park" lampooned the earnest authenticity of reenactors who never break character.) But Jenkinson's use of widespreadly was not an anachronistic modernism put into the mouth of Jefferson. Nor was it a genuine lexical artifact of the Jeffersonian era that he salvaged for the occasion. As best as I can tell, widespreadly would have sounded just as odd two centuries ago as it does now. There are actually some adverbs ending in -ly that were acceptable in early modern English but are no longer considered standard. Take adjectives that already end in -ly, like friendly, manly, costly, and deadly. If you used friendlily, manlily, costlily, or deadlily now, most people would look at you funny. But that wasn't always the case. As the Oxford English Dictionary explains in its entry for -ly: It was, down to the 17th c., somewhat frequently attached, with this function, even to adjs. in -ly, as earlily, godlily, kindlily, livelily, lovelily, statelily; but these formations are now generally avoided as awkward, while on the other hand it is felt to be ungraceful to use words like godly, goodly, lovely, mannerly, timely, as advs.; the difficulty is usually evaded by recourse to some periphrastic form of expression. Periphrastic, the VT tells us, means "roundabout and unnecessarily wordy." But really, we're being necessarily wordy when we say "in a friendly manner/way/tone" instead of friendlily, since the single-word form has been "blocked" by the -ly ending already present on the adjective. Similarly, Jenkinson could only have rephrased his sentence to avoid widespreadly, changing it to "...when books were available on a widespread basis," or simply "...when books were widely available." (Nothing too roundabout about that.) So why does widespreadly sound wrong to most speakers of American or British English? (It may be acceptable in other varieties of World English; a search on Google Scholar, for instance, turns up hundreds of examples from writers in Asia and elsewhere, though many of them may be non-native speakers of English.) It has to do with the composition of the adjective widespread, which combines the modifier wide with the past participle spread. Spread is one of those irregular verbs where the past participle is the same as the base form, like burst, come, hurt, run, shut, and split. Other irregular verbs have less predictable past participial forms; they often end in -en or -n, like shave - shaven or grow - grown, but sometimes the vowel sound in the base form is changed, like wear - worn or speak - spoken. Regular verbs, meanwhile, form their past participles simply by adding -ed or -d, and we seem to be much better at creating adverbs from them: think of doggedly, excitedly, half-heartedly, mean-spiritedly, pointedly, and unexpectedly. Try to make an adverb out of an irregular past participle, or a compound adjective ending in one like widespread, and you're asking for trouble. Ill-advisedly, ill-naturedly, and ill-temperedly all sound fine, but ill-bredly, ill-chosenly, or ill-shapenly? Not so much. As with widespread, we have to resort to periphrastic measures to express these words adverbially, like "in an ill-bred manner" or "in an ill-chosen fashion." The amazing thing is that native English speakers know rules like this one without ever having been taught them explicitly. It's all part of English morphology, or the internal structure of words. So what happened to Clay Jenkinson's morphology? I think it was just a speaking error: he was probably juggling "books were widely available" and "books were widespread" and came up with a blended version, "widespreadly available." Such slip-ups happen even to the most careful speakers of English. I bet they even happened to Thomas Jefferson. Do you have your own question about the history of a word or phrase that you'd like to have discussed in a future Mailbag Friday? Click here and let us know!

Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. HOUSTON — Cheryl Conley curled herself against a wall of the George R. Brown Convention Center on Friday, watching a family hauling their things to the exit, wishing she could do the same. Forced to leave her boarding house by Hurricane Harvey's floodwaters, Conley was on her fourth day at the emergency evacuation shelter, and starting to panic. She has epilepsy and a heart condition, and had left all but a couple of her 12 medications behind in her frantic flight to safety. She had nowhere to go, no one to call for help. Cheryl Conley, 34, was forced to leave her home in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Now she stays at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Spike Johnson / for NBC News "People have forgotten about people like me," Conley, 34, said, beginning to cry. "I just want a home to go back to." The yearning for home is a near-universal lament here. Harvey is estimated to have destroyed or caused major damage to more than 12,300 single, mobile and multi-family homes in Harris County, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. Many more were affected or suffered minor damage. The full extent of the damage is not yet known. Some of the people who lived in those homes can afford to find a new place to live while they rebuild or decide whether to move away. But there are also others like Conley who have no idea where they will go. Often, their only hope is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is offering loans to help homeowners rebuild and short-term housing assistance — hotel rooms and rental subsidies for others whose homes are uninhabitable or inaccessible. The agency said it is also speeding up claims under the National Flood Insurance Program, but the program only benefits people who had coverage before the storm. At the convention center, where more than 9,000 people sought refuge this week, the lines for FEMA applications snake across the entrance hall, the survivors weary and uncertain. "We're overwhelmed. We’re drained. We’re ready to go," said Conley, whose application, like others, remains pending. Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings. This site is protected by recaptcha Among those on line Friday was Ray Salinas, who worked security — and lived — at the headquarters of a food truck company on the city’s west side. The site was destroyed, he said. "When I leave here, I don’t know where I’m going. Maybe the streets," Salinas, 52, said. Ray Salinas, 52, worked as a security guard for a food truck company on Houston's west side. He lived onsite, but when the truck yard was flooded during Hurricane Harvey, he was made homeless. Spike Johnson / for NBC News Vickie Carson is one of 12 family members spanning three generations who fled their flooded home on the city’s northeast side Saturday morning. A friend took them all in, but it was only a three-bedroom house, and no long-term solution. She and a niece came to the convention center on Friday to get their FEMA application expedited, but had no luck. They sat on bench, too tired to move. "I didn't think it was going to be this bad, but it is," Carson said. "If I talk any more, I'll cry." Before Harvey hit, there were more than 3,200 homeless people in Harris County, about two–thirds of whom were in some sort of shelter, according to a 2017 survey by the local Coalition for the Homeless. Evacuees escaping the floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey rest at the George R. Brown Convention Center that has been set up as a shelter on August 29, 2017 in Houston. LM Otero / AP file Many of those who remained on the streets rode out the storm in emergency shelters. They’ve started returning to the streets, with Red Cross volunteers urging them to seek help from social service agencies. The volunteers worry that Harvey will cause the number of chronically homeless people to climb. The issue has been raised at morning meetings at the convention center, staff members said. The Red Cross has also been dealing with a "second wave" of people who left the shelter and returned, said Jeannie Kropp, a disaster relief responder from Michigan. Vickie Carson, 55, was forced to leave the house that she shared with twelve family members in northeast Houston. Now she stays with friends until FEMA can help with hotel costs. Spike Johnson / for NBC News "The water is receding, and people are leaving and expecting to go home and get out of this place," Kropp said. "But when they get there, they realize there’s nothing. So we have to be prepared for them to come back." Tony Briggs, a Red Cross spokesman, said the agency would keep shelters open "as long as necessary" and recommended that evacuees remain until they are sure they have another place to stay. Outside the convention center on Friday, Quincy Moore sat with a friend, unable to imagine where he would end up. He was a patient at a drug rehabilitation facility outside Houston when the storm hit, flooding the building. He and other residents were taken by bus to the center. That was four days ago. He asked his friend to check his FEMA application status on her phone. Still pending. Moore stared ahead. "I'm not feeling very confident," he said.

With the debut of OS X Mountain Lion, Apple brought over Notification Center from iOS. Unfortunately, they’ve still chosen to go with the now familiar dark grey linen background. Looking to change it? Well, you’re in luck, because in this video, I’ll show you how to do just that.

VIDEO Marian Oprișan susține că din cauza #Colectiv nu are Moldova autostradă Declarație halucinantă a baronului PSD de Vrancea, Marian Oprișan, care este de părere că dacă nu exista dezastrul de la #Colectiv, Moldova avea acum autostradă, potrivit Realitatea de Vrancea. Declarația a fost făcută la Conferința Județeană a PSD Vrancea, unde acesta a fost reales președinte. „De 30 de ani mă rog de toate guvernele României, de stânga sau de dreapta, să facem autostradă și aeroport. (…) Când în Focșani, sau pe lângă Focșani, va trece autostrada și vom avea aeroport, pentru că prima dată am încercat pe amplasamentul lui 1921 (unitate militară de la marginea orașului) fosta unitate de aviație și, ce să vezi? A venit #Colectiv și a căzut Guvernul”, a declarat Oprișan audienței de la Conferința din Focșani. Sursa Foto: Inquam Photos/ Autor: Octav Ganea

A teachers' organization in Philadelphia is encouraging teachers to wear Black Lives Matter T-shirts and buttons and provide lessons on the movement every day for one week. The Caucus of Working Educators, a faction of the teachers union, is developing lessons plans and curriculum ideas for teachers of grades from kindergarten through high school for the week of Jan. 23. The plans, distilled from the movement's 13 guiding principles, such as embracing diversity and globalism, will be available online , organizers said Friday. "The vast majority of students that we serve are black, and it's important to affirm the lives of our students," said co-organizer Charlie McGeehan, who is white and teaches high school humanities at The U School, where students work on solving real-world problems. The organizers said more and more educators are signing on every day, but they don't have an exact number of participating teachers. "We had 500 buttons and shirts and distributed those and ordered more," McGeehan said. Amy Roat, who teaches English as a Second Language at Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences, said the idea is to engage students in current events and help them learn about other people. Most of her students are Latino, Asian and Arab-American. "We are a school that is very inclusive and we talk about a lot of good, juicy stuff," she said. "Black Lives Matter functions with 13 principles that I think are good and healthy for kids to learn about." She said she hasn't heard any complaints or gotten any blowback from teachers, principals or parents. Roat, who is white, said they planned the curriculum for a week after Martin Luther King Day, to build off the momentum of marches, protest and actions. Talk of developing the curriculum got started in October, after a school district in Seattle had a "Black Lives Matter at School" day, McGeehan said. "We were inspired," he said. A school district spokesman didn't comment directly on the caucus's plans but said the district provides regular avenues for students to learn and express themselves. A spokesman for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the main teachers union, said it couldn't comment on the plans because it wasn't a union-sponsored activity. The Black Lives Matter movement largely emerged in 2014 after several high-profile killings of unarmed black men and boys by police officers. It has since evolved from its social media presence and protests in multiple cities to a national platform with a policy agenda that also addresses issues including mass incarceration, and systemic inequality against African-Americans. For McGeehan, he plans to incorporate the materials during his 40-minute advisory period, and can see ways it could come up in English and social studies classes. "We want to show the complexity and diversity of the Black Lives Matter movement," he said.

Paul Kirchner‘s comic strip ‘The Bus’ was published in 1978 and appeared regularly on Heavy Metal Magazine for seven years. In every strip the mundane premise of man waiting for a bus quickly escalates in a surreal and humourous world of labyrinthine cities, weird characters or giant insects. In less than six or eight worldless panels, Kirchner turns a completely conventional situation into a world where it is impossible to refer to the usual categories of logic, scale and dimension. In the bus, fire hydrant come alive, buses chose to stray away from the law, the distant horizon might be just an arm’s lenght away and the whole world might just turno out to be a two-dimensional panel messing with our sense of depth. (From the Éditions Tanibis’ introduction) A recent publication collects the entire collection of strips drawn by Paul Kichner and some previously unreleased. You can download a high-res selection on an Imgur posting. Don’t miss the last strip.

The Lititz Pike bridge is expected to open to traffic Wednesday, inaugurating new traffic patterns around one of Lancaster City’s main north-south gateways. Southbound traffic is slated to begin moving onto the new bridge sometime this morning. Northbound traffic is slated to be changed over by early afternoon, after workers change the traffic lines, move concrete barriers and adjust the traffic signal at Keller and Marshall avenues. Traffic will continue to be limited to one lane in each direction. The limitations will allow the closure of the intersection with Marshall Avenue and the removal of the old bridge. The traffic pattern on McGovern Avenue is also being changed. The street will become two-way between North Duke and North Queen streets. The change will allow better access to the Lancaster Amtrak station. Access to Marshall Avenue will also be blocked from Lititz Pike. PennDOT will be posting detours for both southbound and northbound traffic to reach Marshall Avenue businesses. Because detour roads have to accommodate all permitted vehicles — even tractor trailers — the route must stick to major roads. As a result, the detours each pass the blocked Marshall Avenue intersection and then go far out of the way to bring drivers back from the east side. The northbound detour is 4.5 miles long. It takes drivers onto Oregon Pike, Route 30, New Holland, Fountain and Martha avenues before reaching Marshall. Sign up for our newsletter Success! An email has been sent with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. The southbound detour is 3.5 miles. It takes drivers onto Duke, Chestnut and Plum streets, New Holland, Fountain and Martha avenues to get to Marshall. With the bridge opening, traffic will use the new alignment that connects Lititz Pike directly with North Duke Street. Previously, southbound traffic took a one-block dogleg onto McGovern Avenue before turning onto Duke. For the past year, while the new bridge has been under construction, the dogleg has been on Liberty Street. The $26.26 million project is expected to be completed in late October after demolition of the old bridge, which has carried motorists over the railroad tracks since 1939. When complete, the bridge will be two lanes in both directions. Wednesday’s opening of the new bridge could be delayed by heavy rain, said Fritzi Schreffler, a spokeswoman for PennDOT District 8. AccuWeather anticipates cloudy skies giving way to some sunshine this morning. In the event of a morning delay, the new bridge would be opened later Wednesday afternoon or Thursday, Schreffler said.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, whose team is investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election, reportedly obtained thousands of emails from officials involved in President Trump's transition team. The news site Axios reported Saturday that Mueller obtained the emails as part of his investigation from the General Services Administration agency, which hosted the email system. "The transition emails are said to include sensitive exchanges on matters that include potential appointments, gossip about the views of particular senators involved in the confirmation process, speculation about vulnerabilities of [President] Trump nominees, strategizing about press statements, and policy planning on everything from war to taxes," Axios reported. Mueller's expansive probe is also looking into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election. Mueller has used the trove of transition-period emails to question administration and transition officials and to develop new leads in his investigation, according to the report. White House Special Counsel Ty Cobb denied that there are plans to fire Mueller. “As the White House has consistently said for months, there is no consideration of firing the Special Counsel," he said in a statement.

Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith speaks at a Microsoft tech gathering in Dublin Thomson Reuters SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft President Brad Smith on Tuesday pressed the world's governments to form an international body to protect against nation-state hacking, saying recent high-profile attacks showed a need for global norms that police government activity in cyberspace. Smith's call for a "Digital Geneva Convention" followed a 2016 U.S. presidential election marred by the hacking and disclosure of Democratic Party emails that U.S. intelligence agencies concluded were carried out by Russia in order to help Republican Donald Trump win. "Just as the world's governments came together in 1949 to adopt the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect civilians in times of war, we need a Digital Geneva Convention that will commit governments to implement the norms needed to protect civilians on the internet in times of peace," Smith said in a draft of a blog post seen by Reuters. Smith was expected to discuss his proposal during keynote remarks on Tuesday at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco. Cyber attacks have increasingly been used in recent years by governments to achieve foreign policy or national security objectives, sometimes in direct support of traditional battlefield operations. Despite a rise in attacks on governments, infrastructure and political institutions, few international agreements currently exist governing acceptable use of nation-state cyber attacks. The United States and China signed a bilateral pledge in 2015 to refrain from hacking companies in order to steal intellectual property. A similar deal was forged months later among the Group of 20 nations. A Digital Geneva Convention would benefit from the creation of an independent organization to investigate and publicly disclose evidence that attributes nation-state attacks to specific countries, Smith said in his blog post. Smith likened such an organization, which would include technical experts from governments and the private sector, to the International Atomic Energy Agency, an atomic energy watchdog based at the United Nations that works to deter the use of nuclear weapons. Smith also said the technology sector needed to work collectively and neutrally to protect internet users around the world from cyber attacks, including a pledge not to aid governments in offensive activity and the adoption of a coordinated disclosure process for software and hardware vulnerabilities. "Even in a world of growing nationalism, when it comes to cybersecurity the global tech sector needs to operate as a neutral Digital Switzerland," Smith said. (Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Political crisis engulfs the U.S. and Britain On Sept. 24, 2019, Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi announced the opening of an impeachment inquiry directed against Donald Trump. This is not yet an actual impeachment of the U.S. president, still less his removal from office. But it is considered a major step toward impeachment, which had appeared to be a dead letter after the Mueller report failed to produce any evidence that the 2016 Trump campaign had collaborated illegally with the Russian government. A CIA whistle-blower reported that he or she had heard from other government officials that President Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Hunter and Joseph Biden. Joseph Biden is considered a front-runner in the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee for the 2020 election. Since the 2014 Euromaidan coup spearheaded by fascist and openly pro-Nazi elements, Ukraine has been reduced to the status of a virtual U.S. colony. The Democrats consider this colonization of Ukraine a great achievement of the Obama-Biden administration. In the wake of the Euromaidan coup, the younger Biden was appointed to the Board of Directors of Burisma, Ukraine’s leading producer of natural gas, in an obvious move to please Ukraine’s new masters. If Trump demanded in a meeting he held with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Zelensky investigate the Bidens or else the U.S. would withhold military aid, Trump would violate U.S. laws that prohibit seeking the aid of a foreign government in a U.S. election. The Democrats failed to prove that Trump received such aid from the Russian government in the 2016 election. Now they believe they are on the verge of proving it concerning Ukraine’s government. Trump has all but admitted that he did indeed pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens when he publicly suggested that Ukraine, and China as well, open investigations of Joe and Hunter Biden. But Trump’s lawyers can still argue that Trump didn’t say this in so many words and therefore no U.S. law was broken. It is illegal for a U.S. President to use services of value of a foreign government in a U.S. election. (1) If Trump is impeached by a vote of the majority of the House of Representatives, he would still have to be tried in the U.S. Senate. If two-thirds of the Senate then vote to remove Trump, he will be ousted from the presidency. While the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives — all that is needed for impeachment — they are in a minority in the Senate. A purely partisan removal of Trump through impeachment is therefore impossible. Assuming that as now seems likely Trump is impeached, his fate will be in the hands of the Senate Republicans. The Senate Republicans are an extremely reactionary group of mostly elderly and very rich white men. So far, in public at least, they seem to be loyal to Trump, whose “pro-business” policies they strongly support, though many of them in private reportedly would like to see the erratic Trump gone. In the event of an impeachment trial, a vote on whether to convict Trump will be held in full view of the Republican rank-and-file, where the racist Trump has a strong cult following. With the election approaching, the Democrats may be hoping that Trump and the Republicans will be so discredited as a result of the impeachment process and ensuing revelations that Trump will be defeated in the 2020 election, taking many Republicans down with him. This would put the “Party of Order” back in control. An even more profound political crisis is unfolding in Britain, where Parliament is virtually paralyzed over Brexit. Crises of this sort often herald the end of parliamentary rule and its replacement by either a presidential system as in France in 1958 or an outright dictatorship as in Italy in 1922 when Mussolini was appointed prime minister with dictatorial powers. Britain is the pioneer of parliamentary democracy. In a centuries-long struggle, executive power was wrenched from the crown by Parliament and the monarchy reduced to a point where the king or queen reigns but does not rule. This makes introducing a presidential system difficult because it is hard to see how it could be done without eliminating the monarchy. What both the U.S. and British political crises have in common is the contradiction between imperialist democracy in decline and powerful tendencies toward Bonapartism. These crises are developing rapidly as I write these lines, and important developments — Britain is supposed to leave the European Union on Oct. 31 — will almost certainly occur over the next month. This month, I want to start examining what on the surface appears to be a far less important crisis. This involves the U.S. market for overnight repurchase agreements, nicknamed repos. Crisis in the repo market On Sept. 16-17, the rate of interest on overnight financial instruments known as repurchase agreements, or repos, suddenly spiked as high as 10 percent. This was all the more startling since it occurred the very same week that the Federal Reserve System’s Open Market Committee was expected to — and indeed did — reduce its target for the federal funds rate, the rate on funds commercial banks loan one another overnight, by another 0.25 percent. The interest rate on federal funds and repos is generally pretty much the same. The Fed responded with open market operations — purchases of short-term U.S. government securities — that added $75 billion to the U.S. commercial banking system. This is the biggest such operation by the Federal Reserve since the panic days of 2008. It then announced that it would continue these operations through Oct. 10. Then on October 4, the Fed announced that the emergency operation would be extended through Nov 4. If the crisis was a mere technical glitch and had no real importance, as was claimed, why did the Fed’s open market operation have to be extended for weeks? Certainly more is involved! And yes, a lot more is involved. Does this mean that a new 2008-type financial crisis and associated “Great Recession” — or worse — is imminent for the global and U.S. economy? Or assuming that such a crisis is threatening, does the Federal Reserve have the power to nip it in the bud through its timely response to the repo crisis? This is a fast-developing story, so here we can make only a preliminary assessment. However, for those who have been following this blog closely the repo market crisis should not have come as a complete surprise in light of the 20 percent decline in the U.S. dollar-denominated monetary base since October 2015. But what is the repo market anyway and why is it important? What happened on Sept. 16 in the repo market that brought things to a head? To answer these questions, we need to take a look at the operations of the modern commercial banking system. Bank capital, bank solvency, and bank liquidity The capital, or stockholders’ equity, of a corporation — and virtually all commercial banks (2) are now organized as corporations — is defined as the difference between the total assets of a corporation and its liabilities. As the term stockholders’ equity implies, the capital of a commercial banking corporation is defined as the capital owned by the bank’s stockholders as opposed to the capital owned by the creditors. In the case of a commercial bank, the creditors are mostly depositors. The assets of a commercial bank consist mostly of its loans, while its liabilities consist mostly of its deposits. So the capital the stockholders of the bank own consists of all the bank’s assets (mostly loans) minus its liabilities (mostly deposits). During the downward phase of the industrial cycle, the sales of industrial and commercial capitalists slow. Also, a significant percentage of the purchasers of consumer durable goods such as houses, cars and appliances face total or partial unemployment. Therefore, an increasing percentage of the banks’ debtors, which consist of industrial and commercial capitalists plus the purchasers of durable consumer goods on credit, fall behind on their repayment of loans. Bank managers, however, are reluctant to write down the value of their loan portfolio even if accounting principles say they should. Instead, if they possibly can, bank managers who stand to lose their jobs and the value of the shares they own in the bank if the bank is seized by the bank regulators and declared insolvent will roll over “non-performing loans” by extending new loans or simply increasing the terms of existing loans. Bank inspectors, they hope, will be satisfied the bank is solvent despite any “temporary” difficulties. The bank managers hope that many of the non-performing loans will become performing loans once again as business picks up and unemployed and underemployed durable consumer goods purchasers once again find jobs or can again work overtime. Therefore, why shouldn’t bank managers help their clients get over their “temporary difficulties”? In that case, everybody wins. The banks’ stockholders keep their capital, the bank managers keep their jobs and bank shares, and the banks’ debtors stay in business or retain the ownership of the durable goods that they purchased with the money the banks lent them. As for the bank inspectors, why should they spoil the fun and shut down a bank that is experiencing “temporary difficulties”? Isn’t this what the central bankers and the politicians that run the government desire? However, if loan repayments, whether they be on the inventories of industrial and commercial capitalists or durable consumer goods bought on credit, continue to be non-performing — or a particularly severe downturn makes a large enough portion of the banks’ loan portfolio “non-performing” — the point is reached where the increasingly fictitious character of bank balance sheets (3) can no longer be concealed. Therefore, when the wiping out of bank assets in the form of bad loans reaches the point where the bank becomes insolvent, the regulators are supposed to move to liquidate the bank. This has been standard regulatory doctrine at least since the 19th century. At this point, government and central bank regulators are supposed to shut down the bank and liquidate it an “orderly way.” Since the stockholders’ equity has become negative, the stockholders are wiped out. They lose their entire investment, though under the “limited liability” doctrine they get to kept any other assets in the form of capital and landed property they own. However, even if the bank managers and government are honest — and in the case of insolvency, they have a strong incentive not to be — it is quite difficult to be sure at what point a bank — or other business — becomes insolvent. For example, non-performing loans may indeed become performing if a strong economic upswing develops. And who knows at what price the bank’s assets could be sold if they are dumped on the market? What happens when an insolvent bank is liquidated? What the bank regulators — either the central bank or bank deposit insurance agencies such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — do when bank inspectors declare a bank is insolvent is seize and close down the bank. Deposit owners are then allowed to withdraw their deposits up to at least the insured limit, and often it is announced that all deposits will be redeemed at full value. The bank is then divided into a bad bank whose assets are made up of non-performing loans, and a good bank whose assets are made up of performing loans. The performing loans are sold to other presumably solvent and generally bigger banks, while the loans of the bad bank are sold off at a huge discount to any presumably solvent banks willing to purchase them. The losses are eaten by the insurance fund or sometimes the taxpayers, depending on the extent of the losses. The stockholders get nothing and are wiped out. The ‘free market’ way of keeping banks solvent But what happens when bank inspectors do not do their jobs properly and allow insolvent banks to remain in operation? The “free market” method of keeping the banking system solvent in the long run comes into play. This method involves what is called a bank run. During a bank run, many depositors lose confidence in the banking system and demand payment in legal-tender cash at the same time. A bank run involves what is called a liquidity crisis. During a run, the depositors demand payment not in terms of bank loans but in terms of legal-tender cash. Bank runs provide the classic example of the role of money as means of payment, which comes into great prominence during a crisis, at the expense of money’s role as means of circulation. In the time of Marx and Engels, Britain was the world’s leading capitalist nation. The Bank of England — sometimes referred to as “the Bank” with a capital B — was the capitalist world’s leading central bank. During the political lifetimes of Marx and Engels, there were three general bank runs in Britain, the first in 1847, the second in 1857, and the third in 1866. During these runs — and two earlier runs that occurred in 1825 and 1837 — the Bank of England examined the books of the banks and determined whether a commercial bank was solvent or insolvent. If solvent, the commercial bank was experiencing only a liquidity crisis. The bank owners had enough capital but due to the exceptional conditions of the crisis, the capital couldn’t immediately be converted into legal-tender cash such as Bank of England banknotes. Behind the aforementioned British banking crises were crises of the general relative overproduction of commodities, though banking crises can be caused by other factors as well. During a general bank run, the Bank would extend discounts — purchase commercial bank assets such as bills of exchange at a stiff discount. The idea was to discourage commercial banks from becoming dependent on the central bank for normal operations. The Bank told the bank-run-stricken commercial banks, we are bailing you out because you are not insolvent but are only experiencing a liquidity crisis. But don’t make a habit of depending on our discounts. They don’t come cheap! The Bank purchased the bills of exchange either with newly issued Bank of England notes that themselves were payable in gold sovereigns to the bearer on demand or in promises to pay in such notes. The promises to pay in Bank of England notes were extended by simply crediting the accounts of the commercial banks held in the Bank of England. Such promises are called by economists “central bank money.” During the crises of 1847, 1857 and 1866, the Bank’s discount operations were hindered by the Bank Act of 1844, which legally prohibited the Bank issuing additional banknotes not backed by gold. It is quite possible that the bank runs that accompanied these cyclical recessions would not have occurred if the Bank Act of 1844 had not been in effect. Fortunately for British capitalism, the Bank Act of 1844 had an escape hatch and could be suspended temporarily in a crisis. As soon as suspension of the Bank Act was announced, the runs halted. If, however, a commercial bank was determined to be facing not simply a liquidity crisis but a crisis of insolvency, it was seized and liquidated. In this case, the commercial bank stockholders were wiped out and the managers and other bank employees such as tellers lost their jobs. Why capitalist governments and central banks do everything they can to avoid bank runs During a general bank run, the banks scramble for cash. To conserve cash, the commercial banks halt new loans and discounts, and existing loans are called in. A general bank run causes credit, in general, to seize up throughout the economy because non-bank credit is largely dependent on the “health” of bank credit. The owners of commodity capital — industrial and commercial capitalists — also are forced to scramble for cash as their debts are called in by the banks and other creditors. Forced to raise cash quickly, they dump their unsold commodities at great losses causing prices to fall sharply. Production, trade and, most significantly, employment contract sharply. However, for the capitalist economy, there is an upside to this process. Within a relatively short period, inventories run out and have to be rebuilt. The industrial cycle then turns sharply upward. Bank runs, therefore, keep the banking system healthy in the long run. They keep the capitalist system as a whole healthy by periodically cleaning up overproduction. But — and this is the catch — before the industrial cycle turns upward capitalist society is shaken to its foundations and capitalist governments having the bad luck to be in office tumble. The most famous example was Herbert Hoover, who had the bad luck to be U.S. president during the worst bank run of all time, which occurred between 1931 and 1933. Because of this, capitalist governments, beginning with Britain in the 19th century, do everything they can to prevent bank runs. Over time, the measures that capitalist governments and their central banks implement to prevent runs have become more and more extreme. The quantity of gold that must be held in reserve to back the currency, which can limit the quantity of extra currency central banks can create in a crisis, was steadily reduced and then abolished as the international gold standard morphed into the paper dollar standard. We have examined this evolution and its consequences throughout this blog. Another method employed by governments against bank runs is government-sponsored deposit insurance. Deposit insurance and moral hazard When bank deposits are insured, commercial banks are required to pay into a insurance fund. The fund, which acts as an insurance company, then invests conservatively in government securities to earn interest. In the event of a bank failure, the fund is used to promptly repay the depositors, at least up to the insured limit and sometimes beyond that. In the U.S., privately run bank deposit insurance schemes existed before the New Deal, but they tended to quickly run out of cash during general bank runs. However, in 1934 the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was established backed by the full credit of the U.S. government. Even if the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund were exhausted, the U.S. government is charged with coming up with the money to pay off the depositors of failed banks, at least up to the insured limit. The job of inspecting banks’ books to make sure they are solvent falls to the FDIC. If the FDIC decides a bank is insolvent, it is seized and liquidated as described above while depositors are promptly paid up to the full value of the insured deposits — now $250,000 — and sometimes all depositors are paid off. Rather than periodic bank runs, the FDIC and its bank inspectors are supposed to make sure the U.S. banking system — the backbone of the global capitalist banking system — remains solvent. Bank insurance schemes, especially government-backed ones, involve a danger of their own called “moral hazard,” causing some extreme conservatives to oppose them. These reactionaries point out that as long as banks and their depositors fear runs, the bank managers are under pressure to season their profit hunger with a certain amount of caution. In a world without effective deposit insurance, bank customers before depositing their savings with a bank have an incentive to choose one that at least has the reputation of being “sound and conservative.” More knowledgeable bank depositors may even examine the banks’ balance sheets themselves and do a little research of their own. But once the state through the central bank or government deposit insurance “guarantees” deposits, both the management of banks and depositors become less cautious. Now that we have central government deposit insurance, bank managers figure there is little danger they will ever face a run. Therefore, they will pay less attention to maintaining reserves and take more risks to maximize profits for their shareholders, which of course include the bank managers. Bank managers are paid “bonuses” just like other corporate managers when they earn more profit than expected. Like other corporate managers, they are under constant pressure to “beat their numbers” (advance profit estimates of Wall Street security analysts). Profits above “expectations” are made not by caution but by taking chances. And if things go wrong, the government and central bank are there to bail them out. Similarly, with deposits insured by the government, depositors are less likely to care about a bank’s reputation for “soundness” when choosing a bank or feel the need to examine the bank’s balance sheet. Instead, they are more likely to simply put their money in whatever bank office is nearest to their home or work. If the bank regulators do their job and promptly shut down banks as soon as they show signs of insolvency, things will work out. Instead of the discipline of panic-stricken depositors forming lines in front of bank offices, there is the discipline of bank inspectors looking over the books. However, there is constant pressure as explained above for bank inspectors to look the other way. Why seize and liquidate a bank whose troubles are “only temporary.” And there is constant pressure to accelerate the rate of economic growth by “going easy on the banks,” especially if it has been a while since the last big crisis. The banks say they would grant more loans if the bank inspectors would only become less intrusive. To unleash “the full potential of the economy,” the banks and their bought-and-paid-for economists insist, the banks must be free to do business as they see fit. The government should get out of the way. The result is that while government and central bank insurance schemes make bank runs much less likely in the short run, they cause the solvency of the banking system to erode over time. This is what is meant by moral hazard. The reactionaries are right when they point out that moral hazard gradually undermines the stability and solvency of capitalist banking systems with government-backed deposit insurance. The crisis of 2008 and banks too big to fail In retrospect, it is clear that in 2008 many of the largest banks in the U.S. and elsewhere in the capitalist world were in reality insolvent, thanks in no so small part to the working of moral hazard. The normal mechanism that a healthier, younger capitalism had used to prevent the growth of insolvency in the banking system was periodic bank runs. The suppression of bank runs had done its work in destroying the solvency of the banking system. But in 2008, there was another problem. That was the concentration and centralization of bank capital that is an inevitable result of the normal operations of the capitalist system. Now, it is one thing to close down and liquidate a small bank that has become insolvent. However, liquidating an insolvent mega-bank by the methods I described above is virtually impossible. Today, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation holds $107 billion, which covers only 1.4 percent of insured — not all — deposits. The deposits of the five largest U.S. banks, with 40 percent of all U.S. bank deposits, alone exceeds $5.6 trillion. So five banks have about $5.6 trillion more or less in deposit liabilities. At the end of fiscal 2017 — September 30 — the U.S. Treasury, in contrast, had $507.5 billion — not trillion on hand. In other words, the cash that would be necessary to repay the enormous deposit liabilities of the mega-banks simply does not exist. Bank regulators cannot liquidate an insolvent mega-bank the way they can liquidate a traditional bank that has become insolvent. To allow the problem of insolvent mega-banks to be solved the “old-fashioned” way through bank runs in today’s credit-run world where even petty transactions like purchasing morning coffee are settled through debit cards, credit cards, and smartphones, would mean an almost unimaginable global economic, social and political cataclysm. Old-fashioned bank runs compared to modern crises In old-fashioned banking crises such as the British banking crises of 1847, 1857 and 1866, periodic bank runs weeded out insolvent banks while the Bank of England rescued through its discounts the solvent banks merely experiencing liquidity crises. In the healthy days of British-centered industrial capitalism, banks proved their solvency by surviving general runs, perhaps with a little help from the Bank of England. All that was necessary to break the general runs of 1847, 1857 and 1866 was for the Bank Act of 1844, which severely limited the amount of Bank of England notes that could be issued in excess of the gold reserves of the Bank, to be suspended, and the banking crisis went away. But these storms, which Marx observed in mid-19th century England and wrote about in Volume III of “Capital,” were mere tempests in a teapot compared to the storm that descended on the capitalist world in 2008. Indeed, when it came to the basic insolvency of the banking system — as opposed to the liquidity crises-caused bank runs of 1931-33 — the crisis of 2008 even dwarfed the super-crisis of 1929-33. If the crises of Marx’s day were tempests in a teapot compared to 2008, then the super-crisis itself was a storm in a bathtub. No really large U.S. bank — the U.S. had by then replaced Britain as the center of the capitalist world — failed. The U.S. banking crisis of 1933 was a crisis of small mostly country banks. The big Wall Street banks remained solvent even if they too experienced liquidity problems during the run of 1933 just before Roosevelt assumed office. If in 2008 a general bank run, defined as a massive sudden run on the mega-banks — and of course smaller banks — had developed, the financial system would have suddenly shifted the capitalist world from a credit system back into a cash system. If the age of debit and credit cards and the “cashless society” had suddenly reverted to payments in old-fashioned green dollar bills and pocket change, an unprecedented economic, social and political disaster would have descended across the world. (Payments using smartphones were still in the future in 2008 but will be a factor in all future crises.) If the crisis of 2008 had ended in a massive bank run, there would not have been a mere 1930s-style Great Depression, it would have been something far, far worse. In a modern crisis, such as 2008 and the one that will follow in the future, a few mega-banks hold the state and entire society hostage. Either do everything and anything to bail us out, the bankers explain, or we will take you down with us. In a modern crisis, as long as society remains capitalist, bankers are not lying when they say this — it is simply the way things are. Many progressives such as Bernie Sanders say the answer is to break up the mega-banks that have accumulated such monstrous power. Let’s go back to the good old days of small “friendly” banking when no banks were too big to fail. However, the emergence of mega-banks is no accident. Nor is it the result of political corruption. Rather it is the inevitable result of the laws that govern the capitalist system we have been exploring throughout this blog. There is no road back to the past of small local banks in the days of free competition and classical industrial capitalism. (4) We either go forward to socialism or modern society collapses. This is true whether we look at things from the angle of money and banking or global warming. In a future 2008-like crisis — and such crises will occur in the future — there is only one answer to the bankers when they say either bail us out or we will take the rest of you down with us. The answer has to be the expropriation of the capitalist class that the bankers head and represent as part of a transition to a socialist society. The banks being too big to fail means that capitalism itself has become “too big” to continue. How did the U.S. banking system get out of the crisis of 2008? What happens when the government and society knuckle under to the banks’ blackmail? We had an example of that in 2008. With no way to liquidate insolvent mega-banks in any way that did not involve total economic, financial, social and political disaster, the U.S. government — both the outgoing George W. Bush administration and incoming Obama administration — followed the only road open to capitalist politicians. That was— in addition to the Federal Reserve providing trillions in “liquidity” through quantitative easing— to “re-capitalize” the insolvent banks at taxpayer expense. The government spent hundreds of billions of dollars of its money in exchange for non-voting preferred stock. Why preferred stock rather than common stock? Preferred stocks and long-term bonds are in practice similar in that the owners of both are paid dividends in preference to the owners of common stock. Hence the term “preferred stocks.” However — and this is crucial — only the owners of common stocks elect boards of directors that hire the corporate managers who run the corporations — in this case, the banks — on a day-to-day basis. The U.S. government — both Bush and Obama — said to the banks: We are giving you $200 plus billion in additional capital to do with as you please. Now you are solvent again — or at least our bank inspectors say you are — because once we reckon in your newly required assets, your total assets now once again exceed your total liabilities. However, we as the representatives of “the people” will play no role whatsoever in managing the banks — we are not socialists after all. As the immediate crisis passed, to show its good faith when it came to staying out of the business of managing the banks — which is after all under the capitalist system, not the business of “the people” but of the bankers — the Obama administration sold off the preferred stock it had acquired in the banks to wealthy capitalist investors. Everything was exactly the way it was before except the banks were more centralized and bigger than ever, and more than ever “too big to fail.” Bank liquidity and the Federal Reserve System The current “repo crisis” does not involve a crisis of bank insolvency, at least in the immediate sense, but rather a shortage of bank reserves. Let’s examine exactly what is meant by “bank reserves.” Bank reserves are a subset of total bank assets that consist of cash and can be divided into two portions: One part is actual legal-tender cash, green U.S. dollars — or its local satellite currencies — and fractional coins made of base metals that are kept on the premises to pay depositors who wish to withdraw all or a portion of their deposits from the bank. In the banking business, cash that is kept on the premises is called “vault cash.” Vault cash consists of what the lay public thinks of as money. It is what you get when you withdraw money from your account at the bank. The second part of bank reserves consists of what the economists call “central bank money.” Under today’s monetary system, central bank money consists of the deposits of commercial banks at the central bank — in the U.S., one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks that make up the Federal Reserve System. If all or most of the depositors of even an extremely solvent commercial bank were to demand their deposits in the form of cash all at once, the bank will simply not have either cash on hand in the form of vault cash or that it can draw from its accounts at the central bank to meet the demands for payment. Commercial banks are above all profit-making businesses engaged in M — M’ operations. A commercial bank borrows M — money — from its depositors and pays them interest on their deposits. It then lends out the money at a higher rate of interest with the expectation of ending up with more money — M’. The difference between the rate of interest a commercial bank earns on its loans and the rate it pays its depositors represents the gross profit of the bank. For the commercial bank holding assets in the form of vault cash, which earns no interest at all, or in the form of central bank deposits, which earn at most a very low rate of interest, the bank incurs what the economists call an “opportunity cost.” All other things remaining equal, the greater the portion of a bank’s assets held in the form of vault cash and deposits at the central bank the lower will be the rate of profit on the capital of the bank’s stockholders. Leaving aside bank regulations that require the banks to maintain a certain reserve in cash, there are always those testy depositors who on any given day will withdraw money from the bank in the form of cash to meet everyday expenses of living — and sometimes in the case of wealthy depositors to engage in illegal activities. Today, depositors withdraw far less cash from the banks than they used to because even trivial retail transactions like buying a morning cup of coffee are often made electronically through debit or credit cards, and most recently smartphones. This development has been very bad for bank robbers because banks hold much less vault cash — the target of bank robbers — than they used to. Potentially, however, if in some future super-crisis merchants were to refuse to exchange their commodities for debit or credit card or smartphone payments and instead demand payment in cash, the effects on the economy in terms of production and employment would make the banking crisis of 1931-33 seem like little more than an inconvenience by comparison. Besides, commercial bankers have to worry about non-cash withdrawals from the bank — by the traditional check or electronic means — that are not offset by additional deposits. As checks and electronic withdrawals are made against bank A and deposited in bank B, bank A has to pay bank B. At the same time, check and electronic withdrawals are occurring against B and being deposited in bank A. Most of these payments offset one another. Only those that do not are settled in the bank clearinghouse. In the modern banking system, these payments are settled in central bank money and no paper money has to be transferred. However, if a bank has to make clearinghouse payments that push its total cash — central bank money and vault cash — below the legal requirement, and it cannot borrow enough money to make up the difference, the commercial bank fails. Therefore, to prevent a sudden “liquidity crisis” leading to failure, commercial banks have to maintain sufficient cash reserves — either vault cash or central bank money. There is therefore always a tension between the need of banks to maintain a certain cash reserve against customer withdrawals and unfavorable balances in the clearinghouse and the need to maximize profits for the stockholders. As we saw above, the banks in order to maximize their profits have to keep their reserves as low as economic caution and legal reserve requirements allow, but they do have to maintain some cash reserves. On any given day, individual banks often find themselves short of cash reserves while other banks have surplus reserves above the minimum levels set by bank regulation and the need to meet withdrawal requests and settle unfavorable clearing-house balances. Like all capitalists, bankers hate keeping capital idle when it could be “put to work” appropriating surplus value. Therefore, banks with surplus cash eager to appropriate some interest — surplus value — on their “excess” reserves loan it to banks that are short of cash. Sometimes these are actual loans, called federal funds in the U.S., and sometimes repurchase agreements or repos. In a repurchase agreement, a bank that is short of cash reserves sells a short-term government security to another bank for cash. It agrees that it will buy back the treasury note the next day at a slightly higher price than it sold it. The difference between the price the bank with a cash shortage sells the treasury security and the slightly higher price it buys it back for is the repo rate of interest. As a general rule, the repo rate is more or less in line with the federal funds rate but on Sept. 16-17, 2019, some bank or banks were so in need of ready cash they were willing to pay a rate of 10 percent, far above the federal funds rate of around 2.25 percent and due within days to be lowered to around 2.00 percent. The Fed responded by purchasing large quantities of short-term U.S. securities pumping $75 billion in cash (“liquidity”) into the U.S. banking system. It didn’t add $75 billion in capital — the banks already had the capital in the form of U.S. Treasuries — but rather it exchanged the $75 billion in the form of the electronic equivalent of freshly printed green dollar bills for short-term Treasury bills. What the banking system needed and the Federal Reserve System provided was not capital as such but liquidity in the form of ready cash. As we have seen throughout this blog, a sudden demand for cash is a classic symptom of a capitalist economic crisis. The Fed promised to continue to provide cash in exchange for Treasury bills in this way through at least Oct. 10, 2019. On Oct. 4, it announced that it would continue to use repo operations to pump cash into the banking system through at least Nov. 4. It then announced its intention to extend the repo operation to Nov. 26 (the Nov. 12 two-week term repo matures on the 26th). What if anything it will do beyond this date remains to be seen. Behind the cash shortage What in this case caused the cash squeeze? The immediate cause is the Federal Reserve System’s policy of “monetary normalization.” As we explained before the September repo crisis, the Federal Reserve has reduced the U.S. dollar-denominated monetary base by 20 percent since October 2015. That means fewer U.S. Federal Reserve-created dollars are floating around the world than there were four years ago when the Fed ended its unprecedented “dollar-printing” spree embarked on following the failure of the Lehman Brother investment bank in September 2008. When business increases, which it generally has since October 2015, and more workers are employed, the newly employed workers cash in their paychecks for cash. (Many are low paid and still make their payments in old-fashioned cash.) When the banks cash these paychecks — or when workers make withdrawals on their deposited paychecks — the bank must pay these withdrawals out of vault cash, thus reducing its cash reserve. If the monetary base is increasing fast enough, there is no problem, but as we have seen, since October 2015 the monetary base has been falling not increasing. The combination of a 20 percent drop in the U.S. monetary base — again, defined as total bank reserves plus U.S. dollar bills and fractional coin held outside the banking system — and the increasing demand for cash for retail trade as the number of employed workers has risen means a fall in total bank reserves. Sooner or later, this has to result in a shortage of bank reserves. This shortage manifested itself on Sept. 16, 2019. The shortage of cash reserves in the U.S. banking system is the strongest indication yet that we have reached a turning point in the industrial cycle. If a global and a U.S. recession has not already begun — and many economic indicators have weakened or turned down both in the U.S. and in other countries over the last few months — the repo crisis is telling us that a recession is not far off. Whether the recession will be an “ordinary recession” or a 2008-type crisis is, of course, another matter. Can the Federal Reserve System stave off the crisis by creating more bank reserves? But can’t the U.S. Federal Reserve stave off the recession by moving to increase bank reserves by simply increasing the quantity of Federal Reserve-created dollars? Trump has been demanding that the Fed do exactly that, hoping that the next recession will be postponed to some time after November 2020. Technically and legally under the current “fiat money” system, as the supporters of Modern Monetary Theory correctly point out, the Fed can create any amount of dollars it wants to. We have come a long way since the Banking Act of 1844, which required that the Bank of England have enough gold in its vault to mint into five gold sovereigns coins before it issued an additional five-pound banknote. U.S. policymakers — the Federal Reserve is facing an unusual split over what to do next — and above all Donald Trump are urging the Federal Reserve and its Open Market Committee to create enough new dollars to flood the U.S. commercial bank system with fresh reserves and end the current cash squeeze in the system. So maybe a recession is not imminent after all? However, any regular reader of this blog knows that behind the Federal Reserve System shrinking the dollar-denominated monetary base beginning in October 2015 was the need to keep the dollar gold value more or less stable or risk the end of the dollar system and U.S. world empire. Under the dollar system, the “price” of the money commodity gold is quoted in terms of U.S. dollars. The dollar price of gold establishes the amount of gold bullion — real money — that the U.S. dollar represents at any given moment in time. Under the various forms of the international gold standard that preceded the dollar system, the currency price of gold was held constant. Today, the dollar and through the dollar other currency prices of gold rather than a mathematical constant is a mathematical variable. However, the continued existence of the dollar standard — and the U.S. world empire — requires this variable to not vary too much. This is true because all internationally traded commodities — oil, nickel, copper, sugar, cotton, and so on — are quoted in terms of U.S. dollars. As a result, international debts — and national debts denominated in local currencies often are dependent on international debts — are quoted in dollars. This establishes the dollar as the chief means of payment on the world market. Bloomberg News on the Sept. 16 crisis “After the chaos this week in short-term funding markets,” Emily Barrett wrote in the Sept. 18 online edition of Bloomberg News, “the Federal Reserve faces yet another tough task: how to shore up the multi-trillion-dollar network that keeps funds flowing through the U.S. financial system without stoking fears of a systemic problem or fueling talk of a recession.” In other words, they have to pump massive amounts of what in effect are newly printed green paper dollars into the banking system to combat a crisis they have to pretend doesn’t exist! Naturally, this deception is in the interests of the big capitalists and the Federal Reserve System and, if in a somewhat different way, Donald Trump. But the developing crisis does exist. After 10 years of the rising phase of the industrial cycle, the production of commodities — measured in terms of the amount of gold their price tags represent — has increased faster than the actual amount of new gold bullion that has been produced by the miners and refiners over the same period. (5) Eventually, such a situation — and experience indicates that this occurs about every 10 years — leads to what Marx and Engels called a general crisis of the relative overproduction of commodities. One of the Fed’s “duties” as a crisis approaches is to pull the wool over the eyes of the public and pretend that symptoms of the approaching crisis — today the slowdown in growth and the repo crisis — are merely technical problems being “contained” by the Federal Reserve System. Back in 2007 when the initial freeze-up occurred in global credit markets, the Fed claimed that it was a local crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market and it had been contained. Later on, of course, Ben Bernanke claimed that he and his fellow members of the Fed leadership were taken completely by surprise when the crisis erupted in full force the following year. Today, too, it is being “explained” that the repo crisis is contained and is not spreading thanks to the Fed’s timely action. The exact timing of the approaching recession is also uncertain, though the repo crisis indicates that it is not far off. Still, the timing will depend partially on the policies that the Federal Reserve System follows over the coming weeks and months. If the Fed floods the banking system with freshly printed dollar reserves, the chances increase that the crisis will develop more slowly than if they “hang tough” — as Bernanke did in 2007-08, when he failed to accelerate the growth of the monetary base and create additional bank reserves until September 2008. The Fed retains some maneuver room as long as there is not a full-scale “run on gold” in the open markets — like there was in 1979-80 during the “Volcker shock” — or a massive liquidity panic threatening to turn into a general run on the banks like in 2008. As long as these conditions hold — no run on gold and no general liquidity panic threatening to turn into a mega-bank run like in 2008 — the Fed retains some room to maneuver, though it cannot prevent a recession once conditions for a recession have fully matured. However — again absent a gold run or threatened bank run — it can still influence the timing of the recession. (6) Perhaps it will become clear within a couple of months that we are in a recession — recent economic statistics are trending in that direction, though not yet decisively — or perhaps the recession won’t hit with full force until after the November 2020 election. Trump, of course, is hoping against hope that that will be the case. As the recession or more serious crisis develops, the Fed will be able to once again raise the size of the total U.S. dollar-denominated monetary base without an immediate new massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar. As in all crises, the dollar’s role as a means of payment will once again grow at the expense of its role as a means of circulation. The extent to which this occurs will depend ultimately on the intensity of the crisis. Will it be a normal recession or something worse? But — and this is a far bigger problem for the Fed than its need to pull the wool over the eyes of the general public — it must not increase the quantity of Federal Reserve-created dollars too fast and too soon. If it does, a new run on gold, already threatening to develop, will erupt, which could bring the entire U.S. dollar system down and with it the U.S. world empire. On the other hand, if the Federal Reserve waits too long for the signs of recession to become unmistakable in the form of sharply falling industrial production, declining overall GDP (not merely a reduction in the rate of GDP growth), falling global trade, and above all falling employment, then the Fed will be able to create extra dollars, interest rates will fall while the dollar price of gold falls from the present level of around $1,500 toward $1,000 an ounce or maybe a little lower. (In the current unstable atmosphere, the dollar price of gold has been varying sharply day-to-day, so it may already be quite different by the time you read this.) Indeed, it is likely — and indeed a virtual certainty — especially in the event of a severe recession that the dollar price of gold will fall below $1,000 an ounce for the first time since 2008. In that case, the dollar system will be saved for a while but at the price of massive squandering of the productive forces, above all the most important productive force the living labor power of tens of millions of workers around the world. The worst result from the viewpoint of the class the Federal Reserve System serves would be a massive dollar crisis ending with the collapse of the dollar system and the U.S. world empire. The best result that the Powell-led Federal Reserve can hope to achieve at this point is to avoid a disastrous dollar crisis at the price of a downturn the media will call “mild” that is a more or less normal recession over the next few years. This, to paraphrase Volume III of “Capital,” is one of the “beauties” of the capitalist system in general and the U.S. world empire in particular. Recession and trade war The Party of Order [link to posts that explain this] blames the slowdown on Trump’s tariffs, while Donald Trump blames the Federal Reserve System for following a “too tight” monetary policy. Neither the Party of Order or Trump is pointing to the real cause of the looming recession, the general relative overproduction of commodities. By failing to point out the real cause of the approaching economic crisis, the entire capitalist media — both pro- and anti-Trump — are as they always do on such occasions pulling the wool over our eyes to defend the capitalist system that both Trump and the Party of Order defend in their different ways. Trump, however, cannot fail to notice that each time he moves to escalate the trade war, the stock market sells off. But when there is any hint that the trade war might ease, the market rallies. And like the rich and their media, both pro- and anti-Trump Trump, see the stock market as the “real story” while the actual economy is a sideshow, important only as it affects the stock market. In September 2019, as the election drew ever nearer, the Trump administration moved to de-escalate the trade war. Trump announced that he was postponing some tariffs that were due to kick in on Oct. 1, which happens to be the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China, to Oct. 15. China for its part has apparently cleared some purchases of U.S. farm commodities, and the two nations are scheduled to resume negotiations in October (2019). Similar moves since the trade talks broke down, however, were followed by further escalation of the trade war. And the economic contradiction between a rapidly industrializing China and the decaying capitalist economies of the United States and its Western European and Japanese satellites is very real. At present, the world market isn’t large enough to support a fully industrialized China, United States, Europe and Japan. Whatever temporary agreements are reached — or not reached — the laws that govern the capitalist system will keep China and the U.S. — and even the U.S. and its European and Japanese satellites and any other country that seeks to industrialize on a capitalist basis — on a collision course. A new global equilibrium among the leading trading countries, though theoretically possible, is nowhere in sight. In the past when major disequilibrium developed, only world wars could establish a new equilibrium. The last time that happened was World War II. Past trade wars, gold production, and cyclical economic crises Trade wars only complicate and intensify economic crises. The classical example is the super-crisis of 1929-33. The roots of the super-crisis can be traced back to the mid-1890s. Two big events at that time sharply lowered the value of money — gold bullion — not only absolutely but also relative to the value of commodities that gold in terms of its use value measures. One factor that lowered the value of gold was the [newly invented] cyanide process, which uses the poisonous and extremely environmentally harmful chemical compound cyanide to extract gold from gold-bearing ores that contain only tiny amounts of the metal. The second factor was the geographical discoveries of rich gold-bearing land in Alaska and Canada leading to the gold rush of the 1890s. Marx describes the earlier discovery of gold in California in 1848 and Australia in 1851 as a “second 16th century.” In the 16th century, the “discovery” of the “New World” by Europeans with its rich gold and silver deposits led to the birth of the world market and the rise of the capitalist mode of production. In the mid-19th century, capital discovered rich gold deposits in California and Australia, which greatly extended capitalist production while ending the youthful hopes of Marx and Engels that an early socialist revolution [was possible]. The process was repeated in the late 19th century with yet another “16th century” sending the value of gold downward. What happens when the value of gold both relatively and absolutely falls sharply over a short period like it did in the mid-1890s? First, the golden prices of production (prices measured in ounces of gold) will rise sharply because these prices, like all “real” prices, must be expressed in terms of the use value of the money commodity. Starting in the 1890s, a given weight of gold measured in some unit of weight represented less abstract human labor measured in some unit of time than it did in the early 1890s and earlier. However, a rise in the golden prices of production does not mean that the market prices of commodities rise instantly. A process occurs that causes market prices to rise toward the new higher prices of production. What is this process and how does it work? First, those who “struck it rich” suddenly had a lot of money to spend on commodities. Under the monetary system that prevailed at that time, newly mined bullion could be presented to the U.S. mint and minted into new legal-tender dollars in the form of gold coins. These coins inevitably found their way into the banking system, swelling the reserves of the commercial banks. The U.S. had no central bank at the time, so each commercial bank maintained its own reserves of gold bullion and coins. In countries that had central banks, such as Great Britain, Germany, France, and Russia, for example, the central bank bought the newly mined and refined gold bullion at fixed currency prices. The central bank paid for the gold by issuing banknotes in exchange for the gold or writing checks that would be deposited in a commercial bank, expanding the reserves of the commercial bank system. This led to a global rise in bank reserves and the creation of additional bank-created credit money through increased bank loans. All this caused a sudden expansion in the size of the world market. The Long Depression of the late 19th century was over and a new era of capitalist prosperity had begun. As demand increased, the supply of commodities at existing prices was less than the demand. As a result, competition among the industrial capitalists declined and market prices rose sharply towards the new higher prices of production. As the cost of living rose, workers found that their existing wages had been devalued. This became apparent as the cost of living began to rise at about 3 percent a year, a high rate of inflation in a situation where the currency prices of gold are fixed but the value of real money — gold bullion — is not. This led to a devaluation of money wages. However, the devaluation of money wages coincided with a situation where the growth in the demand for labor power was strong. This is the ideal situation for trade union organization. With the demand for labor power rising, competition among the capitalists for labor power increased while the competition among the workers for jobs declined. Both the need for and the possibilities of trade union organization were increasing. The unusually favorable conditions for union organization were also the ideal conditions for the growth of the socialist parties of the Second International. But there was a downside to this process. A temporary very favorable situation for the workers’ movement was increasingly taken as the “new normal.” The “revisionist” tendencies within the Second International gained influence within the Socialist Parties. The revisionists claimed the growth in the credit system and the increased “organization” of capitalism meant that capitalism was not only becoming more prosperous but more stable. They claimed the crises of overproduction that had swept capitalism in the 19th century were unlikely to recur. The outlook, the revisionists claimed, was not for a political and social revolution but rather for a social evolution where the power of the workers’ movement — the Social Democratic Parties, the trade unions, and the workers’ cooperatives — would [gradually] grow stronger and the living standards and working conditions of the working class would improve year by year as far the eye could see. (7) But by the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, conditions were already reversing. The new goldfields were being rapidly depleted and there was no follow-up technical breakthrough on the scale of the cyanide process in the refining of mined gold. The relative value of commodities stopped rising against gold, and the profits of the gold industry leveled off and then fell. And so did the rate of growth in global gold production. The relationship between market prices and prices of production were now reversed. Market prices exceeded the prices of production of commodities. A period of major depression loomed during which the supply of commodities exceeded the demand for commodities at existing prices. Now market prices would have to be adjusted downward toward the new lower prices of production. This could only occur through increased competition between not only the individual industrial capitalists and between the workers as sellers as labor power but also between the capitalist nation-states. The extraordinarily favorable conditions under which the workers’ movement centered on the Second International grew were over as soon was the International itself. But the 17 years of exceptional economic growth between 1896 and 1913 had transformed the relationship between the major capitalist powers of Great Britain, the United States, Germany, France, as well as newly industrializing Japan and the Russian Empire. The most important change was the emergence of the United States as the leading industrial power, replacing Britain. Germany was also hard on Britain’s tail. What turned out to a rather brief era of sharply accelerated capitalist growth as capitalist production responded to a temporary relative devaluation of money had greatly increased the uneven development of capitalism. With Britain sinking from first place as an industrial power to second or even third place, the leading role that it had enjoyed holding the post-1815 “world order” together was no longer possible. However, as long as the world market was in the throes of a sudden expansion, the various capitalist “powers” could reach agreements to divide up a growing pie, much like the increasingly powerful trade unions could come to agreements with capitalists who were experiencing an unusual surge in profits. But as soon as the growth of the world market began to slow, relationships among the “Great Powers” — Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Japan and Russia — rapidly deteriorated. Japan and Russia already had fought a war in 1904-05, where Japan defeated the Czar’s once-mighty empire, leading to the Russian Revolution of 1905. Then, in 1914, the competition among the rival European nation-states exploded into World War I. The United States did not directly enter the war until 1917 but emerged strengthened as against a declining Great Britain and was France’s financier in the war against dynamic Germany and its central power allies. However the U.S. lent to Europe not to develop its productive forces like Britain had previously done with the United States, or later the United States did with post-World War II Europe and then with China. Rather, it financed the transformation of Europe’s productive forces into means of destruction. As a result, the U.S. was the only real victor in the war. Therefore, instead of depression that would adjust market prices downward towards the now lower prices of production, the 1910s saw a highly destructive war economy that dramatically increased the golden prices of production. During the period of the war economy, expanded capitalist reproduction gave way to contracted reproduction, especially in Europe. Wartime shortages caused prices in terms of gold — not just in terms of depreciated currencies, though that happened too — to rise. Not even gold can buy what is not produced. In the early 1920s with the war now over, normal production was more or less quickly restored. The surprising speed at which Europe’s productive forces recovered is a testament to the power that these productive forces had already reached a earlier. As this happened, inflated market prices plunged back towards the prices of production. Among the victors, above all the United States, this deflation of prices occurred in the form of the deflation of 1920-21. In the defeated countries, above all Germany, the lowering of inflated golden market prices down toward the golden prices of production was accomplished through massive currency devaluations that triggered currency devaluation inflations. The 1920-21 recession — which did not occur in the countries experiencing mass currency devaluations such as Germany — was unusual because it was not caused by the overproduction of commodities but rather the extreme inflation of golden commodity prices relative to golden prices of production brought about by wartime shortages. The recession was quickly overcome. But there was a problem that virtually no one at the time and few people even today was/are aware of. The problem was that before golden market prices could fall back to the prices of production, inventories had run out. The price declines halted with market prices still above the prices production. This set a time bomb under the world capitalist economy. We know that world market prices were still above the golden prices of production because though gold production recovered from the lows of 1920-21 it remained below the levels that prevailed before the war until the super-crisis of the early 1930s. Only the super-crisis, by lowering market prices below the prices of production, created the conditions for a new rise in gold production and in time a new “sudden expansion” of the world market. But the new period of capitalist prosperity could not unfold until the relationship between the U.S. and Germany and the lesser imperialist powers was settled on the battlefields. Depressed prosperity of the 1920s fuels trade wars In the United States during the 1920s, the agricultural sector was in depression as soon as the European soldiers returned from the trenches and normal agricultural production was restored in Europe. In the U.S., as agricultural prices fell many country banks failed. Key branches of industry in the U.S. were also bogged down in stagnation, especially the textile and coal industries. The introduction of mass-produced automobiles and appliances made possible by technological revolutions such as the widespread adoption of the internal combustion engine, electricity, and radio masked the fact that the boom of the 1920s, even in the U.S., was far more modest compared the booms of 1896 to 1913 and indeed earlier booms. Just as was the case with the sluggish boom that followed the 2007-08 Great Recession, these conditions led to a global growth of protectionism, economic and political nationalism, and racism in all its various forms. Then in 1929-30, the global recession that was the first stage of the super-crisis dramatically further increased protectionist pressures. Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff law hoping that by further increasing the already large share of the world market held by U.S. capitalists the U.S. recession would quickly end and ensure his reelection in 1932. But as everybody today knows, it did not quite turn out that way Instead, Smoot-Hawley made clear that Germany would not be able to pay off the huge debts that it owed U.S. banks through the growth of exports to the United States. This contributed to the banking crisis that began in earnest in the second quarter of 1931 just as the recovery from the 1929-30 recession that Hoover had been hoping for seemed to be getting underway. The banking crisis spread to Germany, Austria and Poland and forced Britain to devalue the pound. What had first seemed to be a “normal” recession turned into the super-crisis not only in the U.S. but with far graver consequences in Germany as well. Could something similar, though the details would be quite different, happen today? The leaders of the Party of Order fear that it might. As Trump imposes more and more tariffs on Chinese, German and other foreign-produced commodities — and other commodities — entering the United States, U.S. merchants have to either eat these tariffs or raise prices. To the extent that they raise prices, their sales fall. As their sales fall, it becomes harder for them to repay their bank loans that are “backed” by their unsold inventories. The more their sales slow down the greater the number of bank loans that become “non-performing,” eating into bank capital. The greater, therefore, is a new near-term bank crisis and the greater the chance of the approaching recession being transformed into a new “Great Recession” or worse. Therefore, if Trump wants to postpone the onset of full-scale recession until after the 2020 election, he would be well advised to come to at least a temporary compromise with the Chinese in the trade talks scheduled for October (2019). A lowering or removal of the current tariffs and a postponement of additional tariffs would increase consumer purchasing power — or at least would not reduce it — ahead of approaching 2019 Christmas holiday season and thereby increase the chances that the U.S. and world economy will avoid a full-scale recession until sometime after the 2020 elections. Therefore, the Trump tariffs — designed just as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were in its day to ease the effect of a developing global recession on U.S. capitalists by increasing the share of capitalist production carried out in the U.S. at the expense of capitalist production carried out elsewhere — could backfire. Protectionism not only undermines the efficiency of global capitalist production by reducing the international division of labor and encouraging duplication of production in the long run. In the short run, it increases the chances of a global credit, banking, economic, and employment collapse. To be continued. _______ 1 Though the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require it, both the Democrats and Republicans agree that impeachment of the president and other federal officeholders such as federal judges should not occur unless there is actual evidence of lawbreaking. The law that Trump appears to have broken is a law that makes it illegal to accept aid — whether in money or kind — of (monetary) value from a foreign government. In today’s world, the law is actually a reactionary one that limits democratic rights within the U.S. For example, if a revolutionary workers’ international existed and held state power, such as was the case a century ago following the Russian Revolution, federal prosecutors would likely charge the candidates of a workers’ party running a presidential candidate in a U.S. election with accepting aid from a foreign government. As is well known, the U.S. government, both Democrats and Republicans, regularly give aid to pro-U. S. imperialist parties and politicians. So while it is illegal for a foreign government to help U.S. politicians, the U.S. government gives itself the right to intervene in the elections of virtually every country in the world! Trump has given the Democratic Party many reasons to impeach him. For example, he could be impeached for his sexual assaults on women, to name just one example. But instead of doing that, the Democrats are moving to impeach Trump by invoking a law that significantly restricts the democratic rights of the American people. Therefore, if Trump is impeached, and even more so if he were to be removed from office by the U.S. Senate, or like Nixon be forced to resign in the face of certain impeachment and conviction in the Senate, the reactionary law that prohibits accepting the aid of a foreign government will be strengthened. (back) 2 Most large banks today are universal banks engaged in investment banking, stock brokerage, insurance as well as commercial banking. However, it is the commercial side of their operations that we are concerned with here. (back) 3 The balance sheet is a financial statement where a corporation’s assets are listed and added up and balanced against a corporation liabilities, also listed and added up. The difference between the assets and liabilities is the stockholders’ capital. If this number is negative — the liabilities exceed the assets — the corporation is in a state of insolvency. Standard bank regulatory doctrine holds that an insolvent bank should be promptly shut down and liquidated. (back) 4 This why “neo-liberalism” applied to the post-Volcker shock economy is, in my opinion, a poor term. The capitalist class is indeed trying to return to the 18th century as far as concessions that it has been forced to make to the working class over the last several centuries of class struggle and capitalist development. And in a parallel development, the dominant imperialist part of the global capitalist ruling class is seeking to withdraw concessions it made to the oppressed countries during the Cold War. In that sense, but only in that sense, is the capitalist class trying to return to the days of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. But there is no road back to the small-scale capitalist enterprise of classical liberalism. Above all, no road leads from today’s mega-banks, which have grown up based on the concentration and centralization of capital in the industrial and trading companies, back to small-scale banking. (back) 5 The crisis of 2008 and its associated Great Recession of 2007-09, though it left dollar prices largely unchanged, caused a significant drop in golden prices. This was achieved through a rise in the dollar price of gold from well below $1,000 beforehand to above $1,000 after the crisis. As we have explained elsewhere in this blog, this reversed the fall in gold production caused by the depletion of the South African goldfields that began around the turn of the 21st century. Mining of gold from land that had been considered too poor to commercially mine before the 2008 crisis more than offset the declining gold bullion production in South Africa, causing world gold production to once again rise to record levels. If gold production had not risen, the Fed would have had to end its quantitative easing program much earlier than it did under pain of the collapse of the dollar system. In that case, we would have had a new recession well before now. If a repeat of 2008 or worse in the current cycle is avoided, it will largely be because of the rise in gold production made possible by the crisis in 2008. (back) 6 The Polish economist Michael Kalecki, who has greatly influenced the “Monthly Review school,” predicted that the economic “business cycle” would give way to a political “business cycle.” Kalecki assumed that fiscal and monetary policies developed during the 1930s under the influence of John Maynard Keynes and to a lesser extent his own writings, gave capitalist governments the tools to control the state of business much like you can control the level of water in a bathtub. Capitalist governments, therefore, would see to it that business was booming before scheduled elections. Between elections, capitalist governments would arrange recessions in order to weaken the position of workers in their struggles with the capitalists. For the most part, Kalecki’s predictions of a “political business” cycle have not come true. If Kalecki’s analysis had been correct, the largely Republican Bernanke Fed and the Republican Bush administration would not have arranged a “Great Recession” to hit with full force just weeks before the presidential and congressional election of November 2008. Further back, the Volcker shock, which began in 1979 and extended through the election year of 1980, destroyed the chances of reelection of Democratic Jimmy Carter. Again, if Kalecki had been correct, the Democratic Volcker would have waited until after November 1980 before launching his “shock.” In 1959-60, much to the anger of Vice President Richard Nixon, Fed “tightening” to combat an outflow of gold led to an election year recession that probably played a decisive role in Nixon losing to Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. However, Nixon did pressure Federal Reserve Board Chair Arthur Burns to follow a very easy monetary policy in 1971-72 and moved to suppress the symptoms of inflation through the 1971-73 wage and price controls. These polices led to an election-year boom in 1972, which contributed to Nixon’s landslide victory over Democrat George McGovern that year. Burns, bowing to Nixon’s demands that he follow an “easy monetary policy,” has in retrospect been widely condemned by capitalist historians. So in this case, a “political business cycle” played a role. It seems that Trump is attempting to bring about a repeat performance in 2020 through his constant attacks on his handpicked Federal Reserve chairman, Jay Powell, for raising interest rates and now not lowering them fast enough, as well as until very recently following “quantitative tightening” polices. While the U.S. and world economy did boom in 1972, helping Nixon win a landslide victory, inflation dramatically accelerated and the dollar price of gold soared in 1973, forcing the Fed to tighten, leading to the “Great Recession” of 1973-75. Attempts to manipulate the timing of the “business cycle” for electoral advantage only adds to the underlying instability of the capitalist economy. (back) 7 The boom of 1896 to 1913 is only one of the factors that led to the decline of the Second International and its decisive collapse on Aug. 4, 1914. Another factor was the growth of imperialist super-profits, making it possible to bribe the upper layers of the working class. An additional factor was that in Asia, where most of the potential industrial workers — producers of surplus value — were still capitalistically underdeveloped, a considerable further growth of imperialist super-profits became possible, which could be and were used to bribe the upper strata of the workers through various mechanisms in the imperialist countries. (back)

'Pali' zagrebački dileri: Našli su im 108 kg marihuane i kokain Drogu su sakrivali i prepakiravali u unajmljenom stanu u Novom Zagrebu. Drogu su također skrivali u unajmljenoj garaži na Trešnjevci. Među uhićenima i jedna žena <p>Zagrebački policajci dovršili su kriminalističko istraživanje nad dvojicom muškaraca (38 i 33) te jednom ženom (33) zbog neovlaštene proizvodnje i prometa drogama.</p><p>Provedenim kriminalističkim istraživanjem utvrđeno je da su osumnjičeni nabavljali veće količine marihuane i kokaina, a koju su potom sakrivali i prepakiravali u unajmljenom stanu u Novom Zagrebu. Drogu su također skrivali u unajmljenoj garaži na Trešnjevci. Tako pripremljenu drogu preprodavali su na ilegalnom tržištu.</p><p>Policija je u stanu i garaži ukupno pronašla 108,73 kilograma marihuane i 528 grama kokaina, kao i opremu za vaganje i pakiranje.</p><p>Uhićeni trojac predan je pritvorskom nadzorniku, a posebno izvješće dostavljeno je Općinskom državnom odvjetništvu.</p>

If the amendments do pass, they will be put to a referendum ahead of the regional elections on June 13. The draft requires amending the Constitution and will be submitted to the National Assembly. Once it is tabled, it must be put to vote before May 20. Although chances of it passing are low, it will put pressure on lawmakers to find ways of cleaning out the Augean stable of Korean politics in later drafts. But the draft fails to respond to widespread calls to curb presidents' near-regal powers and buffer them with more parliamentary checks and balances. The draft aims to remove some of the moral hazard that has spurred every previous president to amass as much illicit money as possible in the short span allotted them. President Moon Jae-in approved the preliminary draft of a plan on Tuesday to shorten the terms of Korean presidents and make them re-electable for another term. Moon said he is tabling the bill now because the National Assembly "was given more than a year to discuss the plan, but there has been no progress, so we can't to delay it any longer." Enthusiasm for constitutional change was at its peak among lawmakers amid the massive corruption scandal that brought down ex-President Park Geun-hye last year. But since then the National Assembly has descended into its usual squabbling over scraps. The draft envisions reducing the current five-year, one-term presidential tenure to a four-year one with a possibility of re-election, but is soft on curbing the president's powers in favor of parliament. Moon said the public does not support giving more power to lawmakers in order to keep the president in check. "The parliamentary or two-chamber government system does not fit the Korean political structure, at least at this stage," he claimed. Park's old party, now renamed the Liberty Korea Party, was quick to call Moon out on the lack of checks and balances in the proposal. But Moon rejected its criticism. "The opposition party is criticizing the president's preparations for a constitutional amendment, which was a promise made to the public, and I believe this is not a responsible attitude for politicians to take," Moon said. A key Cheong Wa Dae official said Moon "will table the bill on March 21 to give the National Assembly 60 days to review it." That means the vote will be held before May 20. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority, which given the slim margin Moon's Minjoo Party has in the National Assembly is unlikely to materialize.

David Eastman found not guilty of murdering senior AFP officer nearly three decades ago Updated David Eastman, who spent nearly 20 years in jail over the killing of one of the country's top cops, has been found not guilty of the murder after a retrial. Key points: The jury delivered a not guilty verdict after a six-month retrial It retired to deliberate at 10:30am last Wednesday and delivered the not-guilty verdict at roughly the same time on Thursday Taxpayers have forked out upwards of $30 million in the past decade for legal proceedings surrounding the trial A jury found Mr Eastman, now 73, not guilty of murdering senior Australian Federal Police officer Colin Winchester nearly three decades ago. The not guilty verdict in the packed ACT Supreme Court on Thursday marked the end of a six-month trial and just over a week of deliberating. The tension among police, court staff, journalists and spectators who had spent many days listening to the evidence was palpable. Mr Eastman looked stressed until the verdict was read. His mouth appeared to quiver and there was an audible gasp from the public gallery. The former public servant spent 19 years in jail after a first trial found him guilty of shooting Mr Winchester as he got out of his car near his Canberra home in 1989. But a 2014 inquiry found flaws in the original forensic evidence had led to a miscarriage of justice, causing Mr Eastman to be tried a second time. The ACT Government invested millions of dollars in proceedings against Mr Eastman, allocating dedicated funding in recent territory budgets. Taxpayers forked out $6.5 million for this year's re-trial. In the past decade, legal proceedings surrounding the trial cost upwards of $30 million. The prosecutor's 2018 case argued there were "too many coincidences" for anyone else to have been the killer, that Mr Eastman had a motive because Mr Winchester refused to help him out of career-damaging assault charges, and that he had made threats against police. It relied heavily on tapes of Mr Eastman talking to himself in his home — which the prosecution said included admissions. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) also drew on evidence he had looked through the Canberra Times classifieds for a gun, as well as witness sightings of a car similar to Mr Eastman's in a street near the murder scene days before the shooting. But the theory of a motive was rejected by the defence, which claimed the killing was a mafia hit related to Mr Winchester's investigation of drug crops near Canberra. It also questioned the "admission" tapes, claiming they were of too poor quality to be used as evidence. Police at the time said they found no link between the killing and Italian crime groups, while the prosecution stressed the unlikelihood a professional hit man would buy a gun from a Queanbeyan dealer. During the trial — which consisted of 36,000 pages of evidence, more than 100 witnesses and dozens of statements — Mr Eastman was allowed to sit behind his lawyers. But on Thursday he sat in the dock for the first time. The jury went home early on Wednesday, saying they wanted time to contemplate the case overnight. After returning the next morning, they unanimously found Mr Eastman not guilty of Mr Winchester's murder. Winchester family has 'been to hell and back' A statement released on behalf of the Winchester family read: "We believe the verdict is wrong and we are extremely disappointed given the significant volume of compelling evidence. "We acknowledge the DPP and the AFP for their professionalism and determination." Outside the court on Thursday, a spokesman for the Winchester family added to these statements, saying 30 years was "a long time to carry not only grief, but two trials, a full commission of inquiry, and [an] appeal to the Federal Court, an appeal to the High Court". "They have been to hell and back," former ACT victims of crime commissioner John Hinchey said. "The justice system is a difficult system to participate in and experience. They would be gutted, I would imagine." Police 'have full confidence' in investigators then and now In a joint statement, the AFP and ACT Policing said their thoughts were with the Winchester family. Chief Police Officer for the ACT, Assistant Commissioner Ray Johnson said he recognised the "dedication and significant efforts of all those officers who have investigated this matter over almost 30 years". "The AFP continues to have full confidence in the capabilities and professionalism of our investigators both now and in those who initially brought this case before the court," he said. "This matter has placed strain on the Winchester family over a long period and they will continue to receive our support. Similarly, former and current members involved in the case will be supported both professionally and personally." Miscarriage of justice now corrected: Eastman's lawyer Mr Eastman's lawyer Angus Webb also read out a statement, saying a miscarriage of justice had left Mr Eastman spending 19 years in custody. Referring to today's verdict he said: "Justice has been done." Echoing this sentiment, a former public defender who previously acted for Mr Eastman, Terry O'Donnell, said that he had been watching the legal saga "with some horror," but was now relieved for Mr Eastman. "The first trial was an absolute disgrace, it was a shambles, it was a miscarriage — the forensic evidence was almost certainly fabricated in some respects," he said. Asked if he thought the investigation into who killed Mr Winchester should be reopened, Mr O'Donnell stressed that most people involved had died. "It's so long ago, the witnesses I know are alive are subject to suppression and protection orders, and a lot of the people are dead, the investigating police from Armadale are dead, Mrs Winchester is dead," he said. "There's too much water under the bridge to get to grips to it." Key moments of the David Eastman case January 10, 1989 Assistant Australian Federal Police Commissioner Colin Stanley Winchester is shot twice in the head as he gets out of his car. Police and media immediately call it an assassination and the ACT's biggest ever police investigation is launched. "For a senior police officer to be assassinated in the haven of his own home, in the driveway, off duty, is a new element in Australian criminal annals." — Justice Minister Michael Tate Sorry, this video has expired Video: Commander Lloyd Worthy speaks to the media the day after Colin Winchester was shot (ABC News) May, 1989 An inquest into the death opens and runs for more than two years. December, 1991 The coronial inquest returns an open finding, but does reopen 11 months later to consider new evidence. December 23, 1992 The Coroner orders David Eastman's arrest. He is met at his flat by investigators and a media throng. He yells: "Completely innocent. Federal police frame-up" as he is led away in handcuffs. Sorry, this video has expired Video: David Eastman is arrested by detectives in December 1992 (ABC News) December 24, 1992 David Harold Eastman is charged in court with the murder of Colin Winchester. May 2, 1995 The trial of David Eastman over the murder of Colin Winchester begins, but the jury is not empanelled until May 16. June 29, 1995 David Eastman's bail is revoked in the middle of the trial after frequent clashes with the Justice Ken Carruthers, who accused him of disrupting the proceedings. One of Mr Eastman's lawyers, Winston Terracini, is repeatedly sacked and reinstated from June to October. Justice Carruthers orders Mr Eastman placed in a separate room with a two-way television on which he can control the volume if Mr Eastman tries to interrupt. November 3, 1995 The jury finds David Eastman guilty of the murder of Colin Winchester. November 10, 1995 David Eastman is sentenced to life in prison, he will spend time in the notorious Goulburn Jail, before moving to Canberra's Alexander Maconochie Centre after it opens in 2009. June 25, 1997 David Eastman begins his long fight against the conviction, lodging his first appeal to the Federal Court. It is the first of many appeals, one of which makes it all the way to the High Court. May 31, 2001 ACT Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Miles orders a judicial inquiry into the case, setting off a raft of appeals from David Eastman and the Director of Public Prosecutions. October 6, 2005 Chief Justice Jeffrey Miles finds David Eastman is fit to stand trial. Challenges to the finding are launched but all fail. September 3, 2012 Federal Court Justice Shane Marshall orders an inquiry into the conviction of David Eastman for the murder of Colin Winchester. May 31, 2014 Justice Brian Martin releases his report finding there was a substantial miscarriage of justice, and urging the conviction against David Eastman be quashed. He finds the forensic evidence on which he was convicted was deeply flawed. Justice Martin is also of the view that a retrial would not be feasible. August 22, 2014 The ACT Supreme Court quashes David Eastman's conviction and he is released from jail after nearly 19 years behind bars. The ACT Supreme Court deviates from the inquiry's recommendations and orders a fresh trial. Sorry, this video has expired Video: David Eastman freed from Canberra jail after murder conviction quashed (7pm TV News ACT) April 14, 2016 Justice David Ashley throws out a stay application on the murder charge, but keeps his reasons secret. In fact most of the hearing is held in secret. David Eastman lodges an appeal which is heard by three Victorian Judges, it also fails. He then takes the issue to the High Court, but it is thrown out at first base. December 1, 2016 Former Victorian Supreme Court Justice Murray Kellam is appointed to run the trial of David Eastman. After being scheduled to begin in July 2017, it is put off until June 2018. Justice Kellam will preside over frequent directions hearings in the lead-up to the trial. June 4, 2018 A new jury is empanelled from 500 candidates. The jury pool is so large it is forced to convene at Albert Hall where David Eastman is arraigned. June 5, 2018 Justice Murray Kellam lays down the law to 16 jurors, telling them it may be stressful, and ordering them to put their affairs in order before the trial start on June 18. June 18, 2018 David Eastman faces trial for a second time over the murder of Colin Winchester. He is allowed to sit at a desk at the back of the court where he listens carefully. He has his own screen to view videos and images, and makes occasional notes to pass to his lawyer George Georgiou. November 22, 2018 David Eastman is found not guilty of the murder after a six-month trial and more than a week of jury deliberations. Topics: law-crime-and-justice, crime, murder-and-manslaughter, courts-and-trials, police, australia, act, canberra-2600 First posted

Why is it that the head of the Transportation Security Administration comes out with his ideas for reform three years after leaving office? Is it the book he’s got coming out next week? That’s part of it. But he supplies the real answer: “TSA’s bureaucratic momentum and political pressures.” It’s possible to imagine an agency that isn’t directed by bureaucratic momentum and political pressures, but it isn’t possible to produce one. The litany of nonsensical procedures, indignities, and privacy invasions at the airport will not go away until the TSA does.

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Forget what you learned about markets in your introductory economics class. In a new book titled, The Tyranny of the Market: Why You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Wharton professor of business and public policy Joel Waldfogel challenges the conventional thinking that markets will provide adequately if left to their own devices. In the prevailing view, markets allow everyone to get what they want, regardless of what others want — recalling Blockbuster Video’s “Go Home Happy” slogan — while allocation through government imposes what John Stuart Mill called a “tyranny of the majority” — that you get what you want only if the majority wants it. This stark distinction between markets and government, advanced by Milton Friedman in his book Capitalism and Freedom, has been the rationale behind letting markets decide a wide variety of questions for decades. But according to Waldfogel, the tyranny of the majority is also at work in many markets, benefiting some, harming others, and not always ending up promoting efficiency. The tyranny of the majority — Waldfogel calls it “the tyranny of the market” — arises whenever two conditions hold. First, production entails substantial fixed costs; and second, preferences differ across groups of consumers. High fixed costs limit the number of products that markets can profitably offer, so that only large groups get appealing products. And when preferences differ across groups, then those not targeted — “preference minorities,” in Waldfogel’s words — are unable to go home happy. The all-virtuous view of free markets is an influential one in contemporary policy making, often paired with a cynical view of government involvement. Waldfogel cites President George W. Bush’s words on the occasion of Friedman’s 90th birthday: “Milton Friedman has shown us that when government attempts to substitute its own judgments for the judgments of free people, the results are usually disastrous. In contrast to the free market’s invisible hand, which improves the lives of people,” Bush continued, “the government’s invisible foot tramples on people’s hopes and destroys their dreams.” Waldfogel offers a series of detailed empirical and case studies to counter that view. “My goal in this work is not so much to argue that Friedman is wrong,” he writes, but to “demonstrate that Friedman’s dichotomy between markets and collective choice is not right. In many markets, what I get depends on how many others also want it. Market allocation shares many of the features of allocation through collective choice.” Waldfogel presents evidence suggesting “a more nuanced view on the ‘wonders of markets’ and the ‘evil of government.'” His book makes the case that while markets do a good job of providing products that a majority of people demand, they can fall short in meeting the needs of consumers with less prevalent preferences. Potentially left by the wayside are African Americans, Hispanics, people with unusual medical conditions and residents of remote areas, to name a few groups. The Misuse of Economics The Tyranny of the Market is based on academic papers that Waldfogel wrote over the past decade. He says he has repeatedly made the argument to his fellow economists that markets share some messy features of politics and are far from perfect. Now he aims to bring the same ideas “to people outside the narrow world of academic economics,” a goal that meshes with his role over the past 18 months as the Dismal Science columnist at Slate. According to Waldfogel, his arguments, though “not revolutionary,” buck the popular wisdom that government involvement in markets is automatically bad. “Economics has allowed itself to be used as a bludgeon in favor of free markets and against a government role, but I don’t think that’s what economics has to say,” he suggests. “Let’s look at how markets actually work and then make our decisions.” In contrast to the Blockbuster Video conception of markets in which everyone goes home happy, Waldfogel’s research shows many situations in which larger groups get more satisfaction, and smaller groups less, from markets. He first noticed this phenomenon about a decade ago when he was looking at radio-listening data broken down by racial groups. Blacks and whites have sharply different preferences in radio programming. The formats that attract most black listeners get almost no white listeners. A higher share of blacks listens to the radio in U.S. cities with larger black populations. This illustrates that having more people who share your tastes raises the number of products appealing to you, and your group gets more satisfaction from what’s available. But having more whites in the market does not raise the share of blacks listening to the radio, and having more blacks does not increase the share of whites listening. So while more demand generally helps bring forth more variety and more resulting satisfaction, your satisfaction really only increases when there are more people who share your preferences. This is a far cry, Waldfogel says, from the hypothetical situation where you can get what you want simply because you want it. Instead, you get what you want if enough other people also want it. Daily newspapers offer an even starker example. While your typical U.S. city has multiple radio stations, it has only one major newspaper. Newspaper preferences differ across groups, so the paper can be pitched to appeal to one group or another. As with radio, in cities with more whites, whites are more likely to read the paper, while blacks are more likely to read the paper in cities with more blacks. What’s striking, Waldfogel says, is that blacks are less likely to subscribe in cities with larger white populations where the paper is pitched more toward white readers’ tastes. Not only do you not get what you want simply because you want it, but you get something even less like what you want because others want something else. This is the tyranny of the majority translated almost literally into the market. Having more people who share your preferences helps you by making the product suit your tastes, and having more who do not actually hurts you by making the product less appealing to you. Because these problems arise when fixed costs are large in relation to market size, they can be alleviated by increased market size — for example through trade across geographic areas — or through new technologies or managerial approaches that allow cheaper customization of products. A Preference for Action Movies The book also explores the liberating effects of trade and the Internet, bringing desirable options to people who lack appealing local options. While trade goes some distance toward solving this group’s problems, it is not a complete solution. “Instead, with products that remain high in fixed costs even relative to the world market, exporting can shift products away from the preferences of the old domestic consumers,” he says, and toward the preferences of the new market. Hollywood, for instance, has begun catering to customers in new-found movie markets, in some cases at the expense of the preferences of moviegoers in this country. “Hollywood has figured out that Japan and some parts of Europe are markets worth worrying about. And it’s been observed lately that Hollywood has skewed products toward things that will export well, like action movies. If you like what Hollywood used to make — dramatic movies and movies with dialogue — you’ll be less happy.” Waldfogel says there are some business-to-the-rescue stories, where technology and other advances are addressing the downsides to the market. On-line booksellers and movie purveyors can offer more titles for a wider variety of tastes than your neighborhood book or video store. And pharmaceutical companies, traditionally focused on finding the next blockbuster drug, are envisioning a day when medicines can be specifically “designed” for individuals or smaller groups of people based on their genetic profiles. In restaurants, there is a trend for companies to locate several of their brands under one roof, allowing a family to eat items from Taco Bell and Pizza Hut at the same time. All this criticism of markets raises the question of whether allocation through government is better or even different. “It’s tough to find an apples-to-apples comparison of market and government allocation,” Waldfogel says, “but one interesting comparison is between municipal public libraries and bookstores.” Markets make bookstores available in rich and populous areas, while governments make libraries available in both populous and less populous areas, and local library availability is about equally sensitive to white and black populations. “It’s clear that a decision to ‘let the market decide’ is good for some and not for others,” he suggests. According to Waldfogel, there are no pat answers or simplistic formulas to determine the correct balance between free markets and government intervention. “The standard economist view of a subsidy is that it’s venal, and there’s often some truth to that,” he says, adding, however, that the benevolent view of markets is over-stated, too. “While it is true that in a perfectly competitive market, everything that should be done will be done and nothing that should not be done will be done, this expectation does not carry over to realistic, high fixed-cost examples. For people inclined to favor markets because of their efficiency properties, many real-world industries lack an efficiency rationale for a hands-off — or ‘laissez-faire’ — approach.” Society, Waldfogel says, “needs to discuss the shortcomings of market allocation honestly — and with evidence — when choosing whether to let the market decide.”

Newspaper headlines: 'Horror' and 'heroes' on London Bridge By BBC News Staff Published duration 30 November 2019 image copyright AFP/Getty Images All of the front pages lead on the stabbing attack at London Bridge, which resulted in the deaths of two members of the public, and a further three being injured. The Sun's headline is "heroes of the bridge". It has a photograph of armed police surrounding the man who stabbed two people to death during the attack at London Bridge on Friday. In its leader, the Sun salutes members of the public who helped restrain the attacker, whom it says had no way of knowing a suicide explosive vest he was wearing was fake. The front of the Daily Telegraph is largely taken up with a photograph of one of the people who confronted the attacker. The man is clutching a blood-stained knife that he has taken from the suspect. The paper has a comment piece written by Richard Walton , a former head of the Met Police's Counter-terrorism Command. He describes the attack as "a vivid reminder that the UK continues to face an enduring and long-standing threat from terrorists". Mr Walton believes questions will be asked about whether it could have been prevented. He concludes by saying that "if there are lessons to be learned from this case, MI5 and Counter Terrorism Command will learn them very quickly indeed". The paper's leader argues that the "swift action of the emergency services", and members of the public who risked their lives to restrain the attacker, represent British values that should be celebrated. "The heroes who stood up to terror," is the headline in the Daily Express. It says the response showed the same grit and courage often referred to as the "Blitz spirit", in honour of those who endured the bombings of London in the World War Two. On its front page, the Daily Mail has a picture of the attacker being confronted by two men, one of whom is using a fire extinguisher to hose him down, while the other keeps him at bay with a long pole. "Bravery on the bridge" is the headline. The paper has six pages of picture sequences and reports, outlining in detail what it calls the "five minutes of mayhem as terror returns to London Bridge". The Daily Star calls it "a remarkable display of pure bravery" that undoubtedly saved the lives of many others. The Daily Mirror's leader points out that the UK has experienced the brutality of terror before - but that does not make what happened on Friday any less horrific. It suggests that "the best response is to use the rest of the election campaign to uphold the values of tolerance and fairness the terrorists so despise". The paper believes the most urgent line of inquiry will be whether or not the attacker had any links with terror cells. It says this will involve trying to establish whether he had travelled to places like Syria and Iraq. HuffPost UK suggests that the attack "appears to mark a horrible new norm - with terrorist incidents afflicting the last three major democratic events in Britain." Over in politics image copyright PA Media The Sun urges the prime minister to make himself more prominent in the election campaign. Questions have been asked about why Boris Johnson chose not to take part in a Channel 4 debate about climate change and why he hasn't confirmed that he will be interviewed, like other party leaders, by BBC journalist Andrew Neil. The Sun believes Mr Johnson should be "less timid, less defensive, more bullish about what he can achieve". 'Harm and distress' in the NHS The Guardian reports that millions of NHS patients in England might be prevented from having routine treatments and tests as part of plans to save money. The paper says it has seen a list of 34 procedures - including hernia repair and the surgical removal of kidney stones - that would no longer be available. The Patients' Association tells the Guardian that putting barriers in the way of previously commonplace care would cause "harm and distress". But the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges - one of the organisations that has compiled the list, along with NHS England - is quoted as saying: "medicine continually evolves and it's right we don't carry out tests, treatments or procedures when the evidence tells us they are inappropriate or ineffective". 'Political crisis' in Malta image copyright Reuters image caption Prime Minister Muscat is facing calls to resign over the murder of Daphne Curuana Galizia The Guardian also turns its attention to what it describes as the "political crisis" in Malta caused by the government's handling of the investigation into the murder of political journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia two years ago. The paper sees the situation as a threat not just to Malta, but potentially to the European Union as well. "If the rule of law is undermined on this island," it concludes, "the corruption could spread". Warning over Hong Kong With more protests taking place in Hong Kong this weekend, the South China Morning Post has an opinion piece written by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. In it, she warns the territory's government that the only way to solve the current crisis is to begin what she calls a "long-overdue process of meaningful dialogue" with people from all walks of life. 'Car disc fiasco' Under the headline "car disc fiasco", the Daily Mail reports that the scrapping of paper tax discs for vehicles in 2014 has resulted in the loss of an estimated £281m in revenue. It says drivers are either forgetting to pay, or are deliberately avoiding payment. The Mail's opinion column describes it as a "disaster". Cheers to that Finally, the Times reports that there could be health benefits to drinking certain types of beer.

Cybersecurity Skills Shortage & the UK The cybersecurity skills shortage is a big problem. It was predicted as a key forecast for 2017 and has been a growing concern within the cybersecurity sector for some time. 45% of organisations now identify that they have a shortage of cybersecurity skills, versus 28% only two years prior. In addition, by 2019 it’s anticipated there will be a global shortage of two million professionals within the cybersecurity space. With the number of high-profile hacks, data breaches and cases of leaked sensitive information increasing in volume and severity worldwide, it is now more imperative than ever for organisations to ensure they are adequately protected against cyber threats. What steps are being taken within the UK to tackle this issue? None traditional hiring practices With such a limited talent pool to choose from, organisations in the UK are now ‘thinking outside the box’ when it comes to recruiting cybersecurity talent. Previously, 92% of hiring managers prioritised the presence of many years of cybersecurity experience of candidates above all other requirements, but things are beginning to change. Presently, only 25% of candidates hold qualifications outside of the technology space. Moving forward, hiring managers are employing individuals at graduate level that can be trained in the field. Traditionally, those with Computer Science and Technology relevant qualifications would have been the only ones considered for such roles, but whilst the talent pool remains lean, other educational backgrounds are being considered as alternatives. Their ability to view things from outside of a technical mind-set has been highlighted as a key benefit by hiring managers looking for candidates outside of the usual remit. On average, it takes around six months to fill a cyber security vacancy, and only 12% of the cybersecurity workforce are under 35 years old. Things will need to change. Cyber Schools Programme Further to shifting hiring focus onto the graduate market, the UK is going one step further and also encouraging those at school-level to develop an interest in cybersecurity. The UK Government has established an initiative known as the ‘Cyber Schools Programme’. Targeting 14-18 year olds, the plan is for this programme to have trained in excess of 5,500 young people in cybersecurity skills by 2021. With £20 million in funding, the course aims to cover aspects such as ‘digital forensics, defending web attacks, programming and cryptography’. It is hoped that as a result, organisations will create apprenticeships and internships to allow integration of these individuals into their company, reducing the strain and competition for higher-level cybersecurity professionals within organisations. National Cyber Security Centre Launched in October 2016, the National Cyber Security Centre has been created to provide ‘a single point of contact for SMEs, larger organisations, government agencies and departments’. The introduction of this service shows that the UK is taking cybersecurity seriously, and is clearly looking at ways to encourage individuals to learn more about this evolving technology. As a central hub for all-things cybersecurity, they provide support to academic institutions to ensure that the next generation of cyber security professionals are educated and enthused about the future of national cyber security. In addition, the NCSC also offers a ‘CyberFirst’ programme aimed at 11 to 17 year olds. A combination of residential, and non-residential short courses, hosted by a number of UK Universities; CyberFirst is designed to introduce students to cybersecurity and is free of charge. To attend. Using Artificial Intelligence Whilst the UK waits for the next generation of cybersecurity professionals to complete their academic studies, other avenues are being explored. One such avenue is the use of Artificial Intelligence. In its most simplistic form, artificial intelligence can support organisations by detecting and identifying abnormal behaviours in their network. These can then be flagged for the attention of a cybersecurity professional, who can look at the context of these anomalies to determine if they are a genuine threat. By delegating the detection aspect of cybersecurity to Artificial Intelligence, human professionals will be able to focus their attention elsewhere. With the threat of cybercrime increasing at an alarming rate, it is essential that countries do everything they can to encourage individuals into the cybersecurity field in order to reduce the cybersecurity skills shortage worldwide. In 2017, the UK took strides towards closing the gap – will others follow during 2018? Are you looking for as new role in Cybersecurity? Click here to see our current vacancies.

Investigators looking at bullet hole and poking pen through it. Zimmerman said to be okay pic.twitter.com/tSoApZjrJy — Greg Warmoth (@GWarmothWFTV) May 11, 2015 George Zimmerman, the Florida man that was in 2013 acquitted in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was injured in a confrontation with a driver in Seminole County Monday afternoon.Zimmerman was sprayed with glass from his vehicle's windshield after being involved in a shooting stemming from a road rage dispute. Zimmerman's injuries were not serious and he was been released from the hospital."His injuries would be considered minor," West said. "The bullet missed his head. I think it broke a window and lodged in his vehicle."ABC affiliate WFTV earlier reported that Zimmerman was shot during the confrontation. Zimmerman's truck appears to have a bullet hole in the passenger-side window, according to WFTV.Lake Mary Police Officer Bianca Gillett said during a news conference Monday that Matthew Apperson called 911 to report the shooting shortly after Zimmerman flagged down an officer to say someone had shot at him. Both Zimmerman and Apperson have yet to be interviewed formally by investigators, she said.Apperson was involved in another road rage incident with Zimmerman last year. Last September, Apperson said Zimmerman threatened to kill him, asking "Do you know who I am?" during a confrontation in their vehicles. Apperson decided not to pursue charges, and police officers were unable to move forward without a car tag identified or witnesses.No charges were immediately filed against either man.In 2012, Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Fla., shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Florida prosecutors tried to convict Zimmerman of state-level murder and manslaughter charges, but in July 2013 a jury acquitted him, saying prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to prove their case.Since his acquittal, Zimmerman has had several brushes with the law, including allegations of assault by girlfriends, and his wife claiming he smashed her iPad. Charges were either dropped or not pursued because of a lack of evidence in those cases.Earlier this year, the Department of Justice said it would not pursue civil rights charges against Zimmerman in Martin's death.

Indonesian authorities have resumed their tough stance against illegal fishing in the country's water by sinking 51 foreign ships. Maritime and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti says the ships were sunk Saturday at five ports across the archipelago, which has some of the world's richest fishing grounds. The boats had been seized from Chinese, Malaysian, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese fishermen. The move comes a week after an Indonesian navy ship was rammed by two Vietnamese coast guard vessels after intercepting a boat it says was fishing illegally. Last year, the ministry sunk 125 mostly foreign vessels, including 86 Vietnamese-flagged ships, 20 Malaysian and 14 from the Philippines. Indonesia says it has sunk more than 500 illegal fishing vessels since October 2014.

Written by Chris Bing A proliferation of cheap, easy-to-use hacking tools on the dark web is causing an increasing number of U.S. teenagers to commit computer crimes, according to FBI and Justice Department officials. Government lawyers are seeing such a noticeable spike in adolescent cases that it reminds some of the late 1990s, when the term “script kiddies” was first coined. “When I first joined the computer crime prosecution business, you would have these gray-haired lawyers who would talk about the ’80s and ’90s, when they were prosecuting like 13- and 16-year-olds but that [had] really dropped off,” said Josh Goldfoot, deputy chief of the DOJ’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. “The 16-year-olds are coming back as a threat because it’s so easy now on the other side to acquire this type of stuff.” Adolescent hackers are once again becoming common, Goldfoot expounded, because of greater accessibility to exploit kits online and more publicity surrounding the practice. Additionally, it has become easier to make money — making the practice much more financially attractive than a part-time or summer job. “Maybe I shouldn’t advertise this, but you can get into the hacking business right now for a couple thousand dollars,” Goldfoot said during a presentation Thursday at McAfee’ Security Through Innovation Summit, produced by FedScoop and CyberScoop. “The level of technical sophistication required to do this work has fallen dramatically to the extent where we have seen juveniles re-enter the picture as a real threat.” Last year, a group of teenagers were arrested in Scotland, England and the U.S. for executing a series of high profile hacks against the U.S. government, including leaking personal and sensitive details of tens of thousands of FBI and Homeland Security employees. The group, dubbed “Crackas With Attitude,” claims to have also hacked into former CIA director John Brennan’s personal email account. Arrested members of the group include 16-year-old and 17-year-old boys. “When I started this in the early to mid 90s, we were chasing everything from the scientist guy to the guy in the basement and the teenagers are finally getting into it. There’s a war games scenario,” said FBI Cyber Readiness Section Chief Trent Teyema. “Script kiddies are downloading exploit tools [from the dark web] and launching them. That’s actually a real issue.” Tools used to launch a historically disruptive distributed denial-of-service attacks last year against internet company Dyn were quickly shared on hacking forums. The incident showcased how certain hacking capabilities can quickly be shared and adopted by a wide array of actors. In January, noted security journalist Brian Krebs laid out evidence that pointed to a 20-year-old New Jersey resident as being responsible for the Mirai botnet. “More people are availing themselves of this technology because there is such a low buy in,” Teyema told a group of reporters Thursday during a closed door briefing. “One or two people with bad intent can really cause big problems.” To combat script kiddies, Goldfoot said that the Justice Department is prioritizing efforts to investigate and prosecute hacking tool creators and dark web marketplace administrators, where many of these exploits are posted for sale. Teyema, a career FBI official with more than 20 years of service, said that even his own son had been experimenting with hacking tools. “My youngest son came home and he took out his Surface device and downloaded a few rootkits. His whole goal was to go to school and see if he could pop root on the thing to do some hacking. ” Teyema said between a laugh. “I ended up calling him a noob for doing it. I told him ‘You just downloaded a rootkit on your own computer and you may have just infected your own device.” In order to discourage teens from hacking, The FBI launched a science, technology, engineering and mathematics program designed for high school students last year. “We’ve been talking with principals for how we can capture that brilliant mind and push them in the right areas so kids don’t get in trouble,” said Teyema. “It’s like the old don’t do drugs campaign.” The Bureau’s anti-hacking, education-first campaign aimed at high school students mirrors an effort also led by the Europe’s own law enforcement agency, Europol. An October 2016 report authored by Eurpol similarly suggested that parallels exists between why teenagers turn into hackers and how youths become addicted to drugs and alcohol — “frameworks of addiction assist with explaining the difficulties in cessation as well as an escalation in deviancy and targeted victimisation,” the report reads. Europol, like the FBI, recommends that alternative educational opportunities should be provided to at-risk youth, who may be attracted to cybercrime.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed Monday his government is in informal talks with the Taliban. More than 80 per cent of Afghans support the government's efforts to negotiate peace with Taliban insurgents, according to a poll released Tuesday in Kabul. The poll conducted during the summer ranked insecurity as the top concern among citizens, followed by unemployment and corruption. Eighty-three per cent of respondents said they back efforts to secure the country through negotiation with armed anti-government groups, the survey conducted by the Asia Foundation found. That's up from 71 per cent last year. The report also indicated that 55 per cent of Afghan adults had no sympathy at all for the armed opposition groups — up from 36 per cent last year —- and 26 per cent had only a little sympathy. Moreover, 81 per cent — 10 percentage points more than last year — support programs to lure Taliban foot soldiers off the battlefield by providing assistance, jobs and housing to those who lay down their arms and reintegrate into society. President Hamid Karzai has made reconciliation a priority and recently formed a 70-member peace council to find a political solution to the war, now in its 10th year. Officials in the government and the NATO military coalition in Afghanistan have confirmed that contacts are being made with top insurgent leaders, but say no formal peace talks are yet underway. The poll published Tuesday questioned 6,400 adults during June and July in all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, excluding some dangerous areas. The survey, conducted with funding from the U.S. government's Agency for International Development, claims a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. The San Francisco-based Asia Foundation describes itself as a non-profit organization working for a peaceful and prosperous Asia-Pacific region.

Last week, when we debuted our Philly Corruption All-Star playing cards—collect ‘em all and trade them with your friends!—I wrote about the culture of corruption we’ve long tolerated here, a culture notable for its lack of shame and for good people who regularly look the other way in the face of systemic abuse. Of course, we focused on obvious cases of corruption, like the indicted and convicted pols whose perp walks account for so many of our headlines these days. But there’s another type of corruption that also sets us apart, and it’s the kind that’s completely legal. In some ways, it’s more corrosive than good old-fashioned politicians on the take. It’s traditions like Councilmanic Prerogative, the near-absolute power each of the city’s 10 District Council members wield over development projects in their respective districts. It has in the past led to illegal acts—former Council members George Schwartz, Rick Mariano and Leland Beloff all went to jail for shaking down developers—but even when the privilege doesn’t lead to extortion, it constantly reenforces that, when it comes to Philly, all politics are transactional. It’s the product of an insider-dominated game, one in which the players seem to count on ho-hum reactions among voters to their brazen self-dealing. Earlier this month, another example of this Philly Way reared its misshapen head when Council began its seven weeks of budget hearings, with 15 separate agencies appearing before our august legislative body in order to justify their spending of taxpayer dollars. There is one such agency that will, as has long been customary, be exempt from such transparency: Council itself, which doesn’t subject its own $17 million budget to public scrutiny. Kudos to The Inquirer’s Chris Brennan for raising this issue. “There is no way else to view this,” he writes. “Council operates under a different set of rules than it enforces for the rest of Philadelphia’s government.” Forget about the hearing. How about just publishing the itemized $17 million budget on Council’s website? Put it up there for all to see—in an easily understandable format. Why wouldn’t you? You either believe you’re a steward of the people’s money—or not. This hypocrisy is not new. Back in 2012, Brennan worked for me at The Daily News, and he pressed Council President Darrell Clarke on it then; Clarke promised to “enhance the ability for people to see what’s in Council’s budget,” while refusing to say how. Five years later, I guess he’s still working up that plan. What is Clarke hiding? As is so often the case in the insular world of Philly politics, he’s looking out for his own little fiefdom. His Council budget, after all, is what enabled him to create a new position for his buddy, former Councilman Wilson Goode, Jr., after the electorate voted Goode out of office in 2015. Suddenly, Goode was back in City Hall, as Clarke’s senior policy adviser, making $135,000 in taxpayer money—$6,000 more than he was taking in as a Councilman. That’s how Philly works—sweetheart deals from insiders for insiders, with hardly any transparency and even less accountability. When, earlier this month, Brennan raised the issue of their institutional hypocrisy to Council members, they disrespected your intelligence by feigning puzzlement: Just how could they be transparent about their own budget? “Most of them focused on process,” Brennan reported. “Would Council ask itself questions, they wondered.” No doubt, it’s a vexing issue. How could Council hold a hearing on its own budget? Who would ask the questions? It conjures up the courtroom scene in Woody Allen’s brilliant Bananas, in which, at the four-minute mark below, Allen the lawyer questions Allen the defendant: We hear you, Council. Holding a hearing on your own budget must be terribly complicated. So forget about the hearing. How about just publishing the itemized $17 million budget on Council’s website? Put it up there for all to see—in an easily understandable format. Why wouldn’t you? You either believe you’re a steward of the people’s money—or not. If the latter, at least have the guts to say to your voters that how you spend their money is none of their business.

On December 14, 1979, a daring art heist left East Germany stunned. Early that morning in the city of Gotha, thieves equipped with climbing spurs and a lightning rod scaled the Castle Museum’s 33-foot wall, breaking in through a window and swiping five Old Master paintings. More than 40 years later, reports Konstantin von Hammerstein for Der Spiegel, the missing masterpieces have finally been recovered. When East Germany’s notorious police force, the Volkspolizei, first pursued the case, investigators found the base of the lightning rod and fragments of picture frames along the burglars’ escape route. Per a 1980 case report cited by Der Spiegel, the police interrogated more than 1,000 people who lived and worked near the scene of the crime, in addition to monitoring some 250 individuals with connections to the Castle Museum. But the case soon went cold. All that remained of the 16th- and 17th-century artworks were five black-and-white copies—at least until June 2018, when Gotha’s mayor, Knut Kreuch, met with a lawyer known for bringing troublingly-sourced art back into legal circulation. The lawyer, acting on behalf of anonymous sellers, showed Kreuch five color photographs of the lost paintings. Months of careful negotiation followed. Kreuch convinced the lawyer and those he represented to bring the paintings to the research laboratory of the National Museum in Berlin for analysis aimed at confirming their authenticity. What the sellers, who initially wanted €5.25 million euros (about $5.8 million) for the trove, didn’t know was that when the paintings were delivered in September 2019, the police were watching, too. Upon arriving at the laboratory, a van driver unloaded five bubble-wrapped packages. Inside were a portrait of St. Catherine by Hans Holbein the Elder, a portrait of a mustachioed man by Frans Hals, a country landscape by the studio of Jan Brueghel the Elder, a portrait of an old man by Ferdinand Bol and a copy of a self-portrait by Anthony van Dyck. Experts unveiled the paintings—and the tale of their recovery—last week after confirming their authenticity. The works’ owners received no financial compensation for the cache’s return. “We do not give money to thieves,” said Martin Hoernes, an art historian at the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation who aided Kreuch in the affair, at a press conference, as quoted by the Art Newspaper’s Catherine Hickley. “But there is a grey zone encompassing war losses, for instance. In some such cases we pay a ‘finder’s reward,’ which is not equivalent to the market price.” The paintings’ recovery cost about €50,000 ($55,000) in legal fees; the foundation, which regularly sponsors museum acquisitions, covered this amount in full. In lieu of the paintings’ return, authorities have revived their criminal investigation into the heist. Although an undercover officer pressed the van’s driver for an explanation once the paintings were safely in the museum’s possession, his answer—that the paintings were inherited three years earlier from a father who received them as payment for helping someone escape East Germany—left investigators unsatisfied. When the police checked his story against the facts, a number of lies surfaced, including the fact that the man’s father had actually died only 18 months earlier. Per Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Kito Nedo, authorities have released limited information on the investigation, stating only that private individuals smuggled the paintings into West Germany during the 1980s. The mysterious sellers represented by the lawyer remain unidentified, though the Art Newspaper reports that they are known to be German residents. Kreuch’s careful negotiation was a “diplomatic masterstroke,” said lawyer Friederike von Brühl, who also advised the mayor, during the press conference. Throughout the correspondence, Kreuch had to be careful not to lose contact with the lawyer, and any chance of recovering the paintings along with it. The five canvases will be displayed in Gotha until January 26, after which they will be restored in advance of a planned Berlin exhibition on the heist.

Rick Paulas | Longreads | August 2016 | 12 minutes (2,986 words) The storytelling show Mortified was created in 2002 by Dave Nadelberg, and the show has a clever angle: Performers share “their most mortifying childhood artifacts,” along with a running behind-the-scenes commentary from their younger selves. It’s show-and-tell meets #tbt, and the results are hilarious. The show’s so beloved by performers and audiences that there are now nearly a dozen Mortified shows performed each month throughout various “chapters” around the world: eight in the U.S., eight abroad. Tickets range between $10 and $20-plus. They also don’t pay performers, at least not in money. Mortified, like The Moth, Upright Citizens Brigade, and even TED Talks, is one of the hundreds of live events around the world that have sprouted up during an era in which experiential entertainment, or the IRL economy, were supposed to grow more cherished (and more lucrative) as entertainment products became digitized and commoditized. There’s just one problem: Live events exist in the same way many independent publishers exist—on a shoestring budget in which the performer is usually the last to be paid. At Mortified, “everyone who participates is compensated on some level, and that depends on the circumstance,” said Nadelberg. “We’re making sure we’re giving participants things that are enough value, usually at least $30, maybe $60 or $70. It’s hard to value that. There are so many different factors.” The show will give performers comped tickets, drink tickets for the bar, free entry for life, gift bags, food in the green room. (If an ancillary project has money built into the budget—like their movie, TV show, book, or if they’re doing a corporate-sponsored show—they’ll pay performers from that chunk.) They’ll occasionally pay for a hotel if someone’s coming in from out of town, at the very least give them a couch to crash on. They also spend time directly working with storytellers, a not insignificant expense. “One of the main things [performers] are getting is a producer who’s sitting down and workshopping their piece with them,” said Nadelberg. “Sometimes ten hours with each participant, maybe even longer.” But, here’s the rub. The show is at a point in terms of scope and popularity where some performers aren’t happy about their lack of compensation. While Nadelberg said he “checks in” regularly with performers about compensation, as I was investigating this piece, more than one performer countered with some queasy feelings about leaving shows with bare pockets. (These same performers wished to remain anonymous, for fear of pissing off the gatekeepers and not being invited back.) Drink tickets? Great, but they don’t drink. Swag? Who needs more crap in the closet. Most of the venues where most of the Mortified plays have a bar, so they should be dealing with larger pools of cash. And while producers do refine the story with a performer before they get onstage, shows often reuse the same performers over and over without further workshopping; so, whatever “value” from that initial editing session quickly diminishes with each performance. It doesn’t help that performers tend to be in multiple shows over the same weekend. “They get 300 people every weekend, at $15 a pop, we perform two shows, and they can’t give us any of it?” asked one performer. “I get it, they’re not making tons of money. But at the end of the day, people are paying at the door. Should the producer get all of the money?” asked another. Does the producer even make any money? Laurenne Sala is one of the creators of Taboo Tales, which hosts a Los Angeles-based storytelling show four times a year that specializes in particularly harrowing stories (the show has also expanded to New York City). “The more we talk about how fucked up we are,” reads the show’s motto, “the more normal we all feel.” Each show is different, but on average, they have seven storytellers and a host. Tickets cost $15 and shows sell out a venue of about 100 seats. They don’t pay. “We would love to pay our performers,” said Sala. “They work hard. It actually pains me not to give them money.” Sala, who’s a friend of mine, walks me through the money. Let’s say the venue has 100 seats, after comps for industry and friends of performers, the paying customer total goes down to 80 or so. Money coming in from an average show is close to $1,000. And where does that money go? The venue is the biggest chunk, which costs $500 to rent. Taboo Tales also utilizes the service of a videographer, a photographer, and a tech person, each costing around $100 a piece. Their programs cost $50, another $50 goes to prizes they give to audience members. Carry the one, and you’re left with roughly zero in “profit.” Sometimes they make a little dough, though. They’ll get extra donations, walk away with an extra few hundred. And where does that go? There’s the website, the podcast, advertising, graphic design cost, the use of software for collaborating on story notes. And, oh yeah, the legwork that goes into contacting performers, wrangling venue logistics, editing/workshopping stories, spreading the word through social media. “We start working on it a month and a half before the show, and don’t get paid anything,” said Sala. “Not a drop.” Whatever money’s left after goes back into the kitty for future endeavors. (One big hindrance for Taboo Tales is that their venue doesn’t have a bar on the premises. Venues that sell alcohol can—at least, should—make enough from those sales to cover their own expenses without forcing a hefty rental fee. Good venues—that is, those interested in helping cultivate a “scene” or “night”—will also provide the show with what they deem a fair split of door ticket sales; 70 percent is great. Not only does that give producers the ability to pay performers, but it feels more like a partnership. “If a venue will go in on [ticket sales] with me, we both have the incentive to advertise,” said one artist.) Taboo Tales, then, is a show that doesn’t pay because it doesn’t have the money, as indie as it comes. It’s how most storytelling shows, or comedy festivals, or stand-up nights, or indie publishers begin: a few friends trying to do something fun for the sake of doing it. But every now and then, a show gets lucky and becomes a great enough success to justify expansion. And then, it’s time to deal with the slippery awkwardness of introducing compensation into the equation. Live events exist in the same way many independent publishers exist—on a shoestring budget in which the performer is usually the last to be paid. *** The Moth, the national nonprofit storytelling organization, is the behemoth of the enterprise. They have monthly shows throughout every major American city, a regular-scheduled “traveling” Mainstage show, a weekly radio show on PRX, and a weekly podcast that is downloaded 30 million times a year. When it comes to pay for the live shows, they have a unique formula: They don’t pay for participation in their regular StorySLAM shows. In fact, because of how they choose their lineup—20 names drawn from a hat before the show—performers actually have to pay $10 to get in. After ten StorySLAMs are held, the ten ‘winners’ then graduate to GrandSLAM shows . On the surface, this seems sketchy. One alternative would be for just the winners to pay if they’re chosen, but that’s a lot less money, and it doesn’t feel right either. “People in the community have told us they don’t think [pay at StorySLAM events] is a good idea, that there’s a spirit of fun that would be taken away,” said Catherine Burns, artistic director of The Moth. “Instead, what we try to do if someone’s coming to the SLAMs a lot is try to get them on the Mainstage.” When they book a Mainstage performance—a best-of curated event with “booked” storytellers, often with hours of editing and workshopping, tickets costing between $25 to $50 depending on the venue—performers will get $200 if they’re local, $500 if they have to travel. “We don’t pay much, but we pay promptly,” said Burns. “That was always the case, even when we didn’t have a pot to piss in.” They also work with someone at the show to help edit and refine their story, the process taking anywhere between “five, 10, 17 hours” to get everything just right. There’s extra value in that. Performers have been “discovered” through The Moth, some receiving book deals, others getting invites to be on television. At the very least, it’s a calling card that will get a performer booked onto any other storytelling show in their town. There is, certainly, a chance that a performer taking The Moth stage will be seen by the right person at the right time, and quickly find their way into the slipstream of performance economy. It’s not the sole reason to perform shows for free, but it’s one of them. “There’s a little triangle we like to use,” said Adam Kurtz, a pedal steel musician in Nashville who spent years in L.A. “Money, the hang, the music. You need two of those to take the gig. If there’s no money, but the music’s really cool, and the hang is really good, you do it. If the money’s really good, and the music’s really good, but the dudes suck, well…” Marian Call is a folk singer/songwriter based in Juneau, Alaska. When I ask her for her personal mental calculus, she makes a point to highlight that the only rule is there are no clear rules. “It’s tempting to put down hard and fast rules of when to and when not to,” said Call. “But it really limits you and makes it difficult.” When playing for cheap/free, Call promotes transparency about finances throughout her set. “Training my audience to voluntarily pitch in when there’s no ticket price has made it sustainable for me,” she said. “If you can pay, the jar’s over there. If you can’t pay, tell people you love the show. Every dollar you can’t pay, do a Facebook post.” This tactic isn’t always viable for certain live performers; the third act in a four-person comedy show can’t take a few minutes to pass around a personal donation hat if they ever want to be invited back. More importantly, certain venues or scenes need free or cheap labor to exist. Without it, they’d disappear entirely. In those cases, Call advocates playing for free, but still being extremely mindful when doing so. Unfortunately, less noble enterprises are allowed to exploit these murky rules and those aforementioned success stories of “being discovered” by selling performers on the false concept of “exposure.” ‘There’s a little triangle we like to use,’ said Adam Kurtz, a pedal steel musician in Nashville who spent years in L.A. ‘Money, the hang, the music. You need two of those to take the gig.’ *** The world of showbiz is full of detestable human beings, but the most parasitic among them run something called a “bringer” show. In the music world, it’s often called “pay to play.” They allow performers on their stage, as long as they bring (x) audience members with them. Sometimes this tactic manifests itself by having patrons give the performer’s name at the box office, where the official tally sheet lives. Other times, they sell performers advance tickets, turning them into a middleman hawker of sorts; whatever they don’t sell is on them. Once (x) is met, the performer gets a small percentage of sales, but, usually, that never happens. Kegs will be changed, bottles will clink into the recycle bin, and the “bringer” show runners will take home all that sweet, sweet money. Now and then, a performer may ask why they’d ever agree to this deal. The response might return to this promise of “exposure” by appearing onstage. Maybe they don’t say that dirty word anymore, and maybe it’s that “the industry is going to be there.” “If you hear ‘pay-to-play,’ you are being scammed by the venue,” said Kurtz. “You’re not getting what you think you’re getting. They are trying to take money from you, you will not get exposure.” It’s worth pointing out the inherent contradiction in “bringer” or “pay-to-play” shows: The performers are bringing their own audience. (Sure, they can tell their grandkids they played The Viper Room on a famed Sunset Strip stage, but maybe leave out the playing-in-front-of-20-friends part.) More to the point: Someone is trying to get a performer to accept lower than they’re worth by claiming to know how “exposure” works. They don’t. No one does. It’s not that “exposure” doesn’t exist. It does, sort of, but it’s more along the lines of “networking.” Performers get exposed to other performers, friendships form out of common likes and dislikes. Later, when these people are in positions of power, they’ll call the numbers they have, the same relationships that drive any industry. When those people are in the positions to make decisions, they’ll do the same thing, the web will expand, the cycle will continue. So, the only true exposure worth touting is one that cultivates relationships with other performers. The Upright Citizens Brigade—two theaters in N.Y., another two in L.A.—is a venue that trades on this exposure/networking currency. Despite constant sellouts—tickets are free, $5, or $10—they also do not pay performers. While there was a noted kerfuffle about this back in 2013, most performers don’t feel taken advantage of. Rather, they feel the combination of (a) lessons learned onstage; (b) the ability to perform with top-quality improvisers; (c) performing in front of adoring, forgiving, hip, and “industry”-filled audiences far surpasses whatever small chunk of their show’s near-menial earnings they’d get. (Another aspect helping the value of “UCB exposure” is that it operates in two cities where this mythical “exposure” might actually exist. Playing in front of an audience in New York or Los Angeles is a whole lot different than performing in Salt Lake City, Seattle, even San Francisco. “You’re more likely to have a literary agent in New York, or some sort of film agent in L.A,” said Burns. “It’s just inevitable that that’s true.”) But while the UCB may be “doing it right,” their success created copycats. “When the [comedy] boom started again, the scene in L.A. was mostly non-pay venues,” said Sam Varela, producer and founder of Naked Comedy, an independent comedy production company. “Maybe [producers] went to the UCB, or one of the many other venues that charged for tickets and didn’t pay performers, saw how it works, and was like, I can do this. It gives everybody else an out saying, well, we’re also not going to pay you. It’s just a bad precedent to set.” This is a problem. While the UCB has become a bonafide factory—you can’t turn on a new comedy show without seeing someone that worked at one of their theaters—they’re the exception. “My experience with exposure is just being at the right place at the right time and knowing the right people,” said Varela. “There’s not a specific way to ‘win,’ or complete the level. It’s a marathon thing.” The idea that some magical tastemaker is in the audience waiting to “discover” any performer is a myth, proliferated by those profiting from exploiting free labor. (This also occurs when it comes to writing for certain publications, say The Huffington Post, which try to get some folks to write for zero dollars and “the unique platform and reach our site provides”. That’s code for “exposure,” a shameful act by a company rumored to be valued at nearly $1 billion.) There will be those willing to exploit free labor as long as there’s labor that is exploitable. And live performance has an ever-refreshing pool of talent from which to draw from. “The sad reality is that there are so many performers, they don’t have to pay us,” said Dave Ross, an L.A.-based comedian who produces the weekly show Good Heroin; they pay performers by splitting up a donation bucket after the show. “It’s a supply and demand issue. A performer says ‘no’ to a show, and they say, ‘okay, wish we would’ve had you, but this guy will do it for free.’” As long as there are success stories, and those trying to be the next, there will be claims that the code can be cracked. Ross tells a story about the time he agreed to do a television show for a small amount of money because he knew that it’d reach a large audience. It was a decision he was comfortable with, until the producer told him how much “exposure” he’d be getting. “I was like, I know that, that’s why I’m doing it for this little money,” said Ross. “But don’t say it. And don’t think it. Let me make up my mind about what it’s worth for me.” There’s the disconnect. Even if exposure does exist—again, it sort of does—it’s not something that can be calculated. “Exposure is bullshit,” said Ross. “It’s unfair, abusive, and takes advantage of the fact that it’s really, really hard to make it.” So, what’s the solution? The venue, show, festival isn’t going to change until their hands are forced. Things have been working fine for them, so why would they? And while a boycott/strike by performers may have worked in the past—and could potentially work in a tight-knit community in a small town—any big city has too great of a refresh rate for one to be truly effective. Potential scabs are on every bus into town, supply completely crushes demand in this industry. The only real solution, maybe, is for change to come from the remaining party in the live performance transaction: Those paying at the door. *** Rick Paulas has written plenty of things, some of them serious, many of them not. He lives in Berkeley, is a White Sox fan, and is working on his second novel. He can be found at www.rickpaulas.com. *** Editor: Mark Armstrong; Fact-checker: Matthew Giles

Linux skills are in hot demand, even as Linux server revenue evaporates into "Other." According to a new Dice report, the Linux job market remains sizzling hot. Nearly every single hiring manager surveyed (97%) expects to hire more Linux talent relative to other skills areas in the next six months. In fact, Linux jobs growth outpaces Linux server growth. While IDC pegs Linux server market share at 28.5% in early 2014, a climb of 4.5% over the previous year, market share doesn't tell the whole story behind Linux jobs growth. To understand the continued rise in demand for Linux professionals, it's important to look beyond revenue-based market share. Demand, meet supply According to the joint survey conducted by Dice and the Linux Foundation, virtually everyone wants to hire Linux professionals. And not just a smattering of hires here and there: 50% of those surveyed indicate that they expect to hire even more Linux pros in 2015 than they did in 2014. (The last time the Linux Foundation released numbers, 77% of hiring managers wanted to find Linux talent in 2014, up from 70% in 2013.) Demand has reached a fever pitch, making it hard to find and retain qualified people. As the report notes: Hiring managers are still struggling to find professionals with Linux skills, with 88% reporting that it's "very difficult" or "somewhat difficult" to find these candidates. 70% of hiring managers say their companies have increased incentives to retain Linux talent, with 37% offering more flexible work hours and telecommuting, and 36% increasing salaries for Linux pros more than in other parts of the company. Small wonder, then, that 55% of Linux professionals believe it will be "very easy" or "fairly easy" to score a new job in 2015. All of this demand for Linux talent is set against the backdrop of continued battles between Microsoft Windows and Linux for market share. Here, Microsoft continues to dominate, claiming 45.7% of factory revenue in early 2014 by IDC estimates. Paid Linux servers, as mentioned, accounted for 28.5% of the total market. Which doesn't tell the full story, of course. A new kind of server vendor As ever, counting vendor revenue understates the true impact of Linux (and other open source offerings). The biggest growth driver in the server market is the cloud, but it's revenue that doesn't readily show up on vendors' income statements. For example, Facebook, Amazon, or Google may purchase from whitebox server vendors in Taiwan, but are they buying Linux servers? Not really. They're buying servers and then provisioning them according to their precise specifications. I'm not sure IDC and others have a way of accounting for such shipments, despite their huge impact on the market (and on Linux jobs). We can count the number of motherboard shipments (9.3 million shipments in 2014) from ODMs, and we can assume that most of these will end up as Linux servers (at places like Facebook and Twitter), but they're not going to count toward IDC's revenue-based market share numbers, and they don't really count toward any measure of Linux vs. Windows market share I've seen. And yet they're hugely important, and becoming more so every day. Important, in part, because they're having a deflationary impact on name-brand server sales, even as they expand the need for Linux talent. As ZDNet's Larry Dignan describes: "The cloud ultimately means fewer servers to sell. Virtualization means even fewer boxes sold. The cloud service providers are going white box with contract equipment manufacturers. Sure, integrated systems from the likes of Cisco are doing well, but that's a higher end market that isn't likely to scale." Ultimately, the global server market is Linux's to lose, regardless of what revenue breakdowns suggest. Linux in the cloud According to Gartner data, server veterans like IBM and HP continue to slide as the Amazons of the world dump the name brands and build with "Other" vendors (ODMs/OEMs in Asia-Pacific). These so-called "whitebox" vendors that make up the "Other" category now account for 44% of all server shipments and 26.7% of revenue. These "Other" vendors are selling Linux jobs, even if they're not always selling Linux servers (at least, as measured by paid Linux distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux). Not surprisingly, 49% of Linux professionals believe open cloud will be the biggest growth area for Linux in 2015, according to the Dice report. While these Linux pros are thinking about OpenStack and CloudStack when they make that prophecy, the reality is more subtle. The cloud is eating the traditional server vendor. In the future, it's very likely that we'll talk more than ever for the crushing need for Linux expertise in the job market, without there being much of a paid Linux server market to speak of. Also see

The Mighty Carver electric knife ($59.95) might be the most badass way to rip into the holiday bird, besides using an actual chainsaw. Here's how it came to be, as told by its creator, Kimberly Burney: At Thanksgiving dinner as far back as I can remember, I would get out the electric carving knife for Grandpa. He would carefully carve the turkey to serve the family. This is a wonderful tradition shared by most Americans. But Grandpa's been gone for a year now and at the last Thanksgiving dinner I asked, "Hey, who wants to carve the turkey this year?" No one looked up, no one said a word. I thought to myself, come on you guys, you all love power tools, what is the problem? Then it hit me. "If this were a chain saw, you boys would be fighting over who gets to carve the turkey." It's also good for slicing up bread, fruit, and god-knows-what-else in the most glorious fashion ever! Thanks, Kent! image via The Grommet

The actor Simon Barnes, best known for playing Tinky Winky in the BBC children’s series Teletubbies, has died aged 52. The father of three, who once described being in the Teletubbies as being “a bit like the Beatles or Take That of television”, died four days after celebrating his birthday. Barnes was a trained ballet dancer and choreographer, but found fame as the tallest Teletubby who always carried a red “magic” handbag. He became embroiled in a furore over the sexuality of Tinky Winky, who was accused of being a gay role model who could be morally damaging to children by evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell in 1999. “He is purple – the gay-pride colour; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle – the gay-pride symbol,’’ he wrote in the National Liberty Journal. “People always ask me if Tinky Winky is gay,” Barnes said. “But the character is supposed to be a three-year-old so the question is really quite silly.” Barnes’ niece and Inbetweeners actor, Emily Atack, paid tribute to him on Instagram: “My wonderful uncle Simon Barnes has been taken from us all so suddenly. The kindest and most talented man you could ever wish to meet. Loved by all who knew him, and will be forever.” Barnes took over the role of Tinky Winky in 1997 from Dave Thompson, who claimed he was fired after 70 episodes because his “interpretation of the role was not acceptable”. The BBC refused to acknowledge the change at the time, with a spokesperson saying: “We are not allowed to say. As far as we are concerned they are real.” Teletubbies first aired on BBC2 on 31 March 1997. Writing about the show’s impact on its 20th anniversary last year, Stuart Heritage wrote in the Guardian: “Teletubbies was different. It was brightly coloured. It was airy. It was shot outside, so it had the slightest drab tinge to it. The characters communicated in what sounded like a stream of unbroken nonsense.” The show was sold to broadcasters around the world and the group had a No 1 single in December 1997 with the song Eh-oh, while merchandise sales totalled more than £1bn globally.

A is, as its name implies, a gadget that dispenses water. It is used to supply simple access to drinking water. Water dispensers have become a required component of society. Some water dispensers supply clean, filtered water from an exchangeable container. Various other water dispensers supply water right from a community water line. Some offices prefer to have a water dispenser because it provides clients and also workers with practical access to water, without needing to take extended breaks or drive to the store. Water dispensers are likewise typically used in household residences that do not have ideal alcohol consumption water from the faucet, or for individuals who merely do not like the preference of the faucet water. Whether psychologically, or genuine reasoning, individuals often tend to delight in water from a dispenser over water from a sink. Due to the fact that numerous water dispensers supply the alternative to have actually water instantly cooled or warmed, its convenience has come to be a need in lots of businesses and also domestic homes. On top of that, several water dispensers have the choice to use filtered water, which lots of individuals delight in more than tough water from a tap. A water dispenser, referred to as water cooler (if used for cooling down just), is a water with a refrigeration device. It is commonly situated near the bathroom due to more detailed accessibility to plumbing. A drain line is likewise offered from the water cooler right into the drain system. Water dispensers come in a selection of form elements, ranging from wall-mounted to bottle filler water dispenser combination units, to bi-level systems and also various other styles. The Best Strategy To Use For Office Water Cooler POU water dispensers are attached to a vendors . Bottled water dispensers can be top-mounted or bottom-loaded, relying on the style of the design. Mineral water dispensers generally utilize 5 or 10-gallon dispensers commonly found in addition to the device. Stress colders are a subcategory of water dispensers including drinking water fountains and direct-piping water dispensers. In the common wall-mounted cooler, additionally frequently described as a water fountain or filtering system . Wall surface install water colders can be found in a wide array of styles, from recessed designs to splash immune, contoured basins protruding out from the wall surface, typical rounded square edge layouts, container filler and water cooler combination units, bi-level styles, with various other attributes as well as alternatives. Bottom tons water dispenser revealing 5-gallon bottle with closet opened up. Water dispensers generally have the water supply vessel mounted at the top of the unit. Bottom-load water dispensers have the vessel mounted at the base of the device to make loading much easier. There are likewise smaller versions of the water dispensers where the dispenser can be placed directly on top of a table. Water dispensers can be straight linked to the in-house water resource for constant dispensing of cold and hot drinking water. It is generally described as POU (Point of Use) water dispensers. POU systems are usually a lot more sanitary than mineral water colders, supplied the end customer has accessibility to tidy water resources. Free standing water colder with a container A free standing style typically involves bottles of water positioned spout-down right into the giving machine. 8 Easy Facts About Water Delivery Described These coolers make use of air pumps to press the water into the cooling chamber as well as Peltier gadgets to cool the water. New advancement within the water cooler market is the introduction of counter top devices which are connected to the keys as well as give an immediate supply of not just cooled water yet likewise hot and also boiling water. Water will certainly move quicker when the handle remains in the upright position. The water is aerated which allows the water ahead through the spout at a faster price. Water given from water colders may stem from lots of various sources, but are often classified into two significant categories, specifically natural mineral and also springtime water, as well as cleansed water. Natural mineral and springtime water are waters rising from underground geological rock developments gathered from boreholes or arising springs. Cleansed water is water from groundwater or municipal supply of water and also is generated by any kind of one of a number of techniques of purification consisting of reverse osmosis, distillation, deionization , as well as filtration. The water is typically dealt with by ultraviolet light or ozone for antimicrobial reasons and re-mineralized by shot of soluble not natural salts. The shipment of water in a water cooler can be found in 2 major forms, specifically bottled variants, or plumbed straight from the main water system. To mount the container, the bottle is tipped inverted and set onto the dispenser; a probe punctures the cap of the container as well as enables the water to flow into the device’s interior tank. These gravity-powered systems have a tool to dispense water in a regulated fashion. These equipments can be found in different sizes and also differ from table systems, planned for periodic usage to floor-mounted devices meant for heavier use. An Unbiased View of 5 Gallon Water Dispenser The container size differs with the size of the unit, with the bigger variations in the United States making use of 5-US-gallon (19 L) containers. This is likewise one of the most common dimension in other places, classified as 18.9 liters in nations that make use of the basin to capture minor spills. On the front, a lever or pushbutton dispenses the water right into a mug held beneath the spigot. For years and also throughout the 20th century, glass was the major product used for bottling until the evolution of thermoplastics adhering to Globe War II. PVC advanced as a multi-purpose plastic material as well as acquired mass adoption as a perfect mass production product. Only dark green glass bottles were preserved for product packaging carbonated waters. Breakthroughs in production as well as materials technology such as brand-new impact and also shot molding techniques have decreased the wall surface density and also weight of containers while enhancing resilience and also boosting solution life . Directly plumbed water colders make use of Log reduction (i.e. 6-log reduction or 99.9999% reliable) is utilized as an action on the effectiveness of sanitization and disinfection. Suspended carbon, resources such as lignite, coal, bone charcoal, coconut shells, and also wood charcoal are made use of, establishing pores throughout activation when partly burning away carbon layers. Most of the times, turned on carbon is a single-use material as regeneration is frequently not possible on-site. Granular turned on carbon (GAC) is most frequently utilized in the purification of the water colder. Not known Incorrect Statements About Cool Water Bottles The sanitization of water is specified by the decrease of the variety of micro-organisms to a risk-free level. According to the Escherichia coli ) from a marked microbial lots by a 5-log reduction. The primary difference in between a sanitizer and also a disinfectant is that at a certain use dilution, the anti-bacterial needs to have a greater kill ability for pathogenic bacteria than that of a sanitizer. turbidity . If the fluid is vague, the UV light will not travel through totally, leaving the stream partly decontaminated. A lot of modern devices provide a refrigeration feature to cool the water, utilizing Thermoelectric cooling down . Water colders making use of vapor compression refrigeration can be found in one of the complying with systems: Reservoir System – A tank where water is held, to be used for cooling or home heating and also is fitted with a float system to avoid overflowing. It operates the basis of a modular system, permitting one to quickly detach and also fill up water rather than keeping it in a closed system. One of the advantages being used a removable storage tank is the ease of sanitization. This enables end customers to replace the reservoir totally instead than sending a whole water cooler back for servicing. Stainless-steel – open end container with cooling down coils that enter into contact with the external tank surface Stress Vessel Direct Cool System – The mix of a stress vessel, which shields the water in the tank from air-borne contamination, as well as a direct chill system which cools water originating from the mains rapidly. The Only Guide for Water Dispenser Thus, the water does not enter call with the atmosphere, allowing a larger quantity of cool water (depending upon the dimension of the tank) to be dispensed at the expenditure of a slower cooling system. Straight Cool – In a common direct chill system, water is passed with a stainless steel coil that is in call with a copper evaporator that distributes cooling agent gas. Water Delivery Fundamentals Explained When the faucets are run, the chilled water is dispensed at keys pressure. The water never ever enters call with the environment as the cool temperature level released by the cooling agent gas is transferred through the copper coil which moves the chilly temperature levels to water going through the stainless-steel coil without touching each various other. מערכת סינון וטיהור מים איכותית לבית, פילטר סנטר

Say "goodbye" to Disqusting third-party comments with HashOver, a free and open source PHP comment system under the GNU Affero General Public License. HashOver adds a "comment section" to any website, with only a few simple lines of JavaScript or PHP code. HashOver is a self-hosted system and allows completely anonymous comments to be posted, the only required information is the comment itself. No non-free JavaScript, non-free server-side software (software as a service), no account needed to comment, no e-mail address needed to comment, no storing comments on a third-party server, no IP address and user activity tracking, no ads, no heavy use of AJAX (JavaScript), no claiming of broad copyright on comments, no long load times, and no useless APIs. Version 1.0 adds comment sorting, Spanish and Japanese locale support, IP address blocking, spam filtering, embedded external images, control over comment HTML structure, user e-mail notifications subscription per comment, administration control for deletion and editing of all comments, new modular design, 95% JavaScript-free PHP-mode, and an optional login to claim comments after cookies expire. To learn more I direct you to the links below: Looking to the future: HashOver was first announced in July of 2010, as a reinvention of Disqus, however, its development started March 29th 2009. Since its initial early developmental "release" it has matured enough for me to be comfortable making an official version 1.0 release and accept contributions. HashOver version 1.0 should be stable, reliable, and user-friendly enough for productive and constructive daily use. HashOver version 1.0 consists of code written by one person over the course of five years, come March the 29th. Moreover, HashOver was my first serious use of JavaScript and my first PHP project of such complexity. Those two facts should trigger obvious concerns about HashOver's performance, efficiency, and security. With that in mind, version 2.0 will be the next release, and will focus on improving nothing but the following areas. Security Performance Code efficiency Deployment Data storage format Backwards and forwards compatibility Operating system support Aesthetics and graphics Graphic scalability on ( X i )HDPI displays )HDPI displays Code readability Bug fixes This means the possibility of new features in version 2.0 is next to nil, and contributions via GitHub and/or e-mail that add new features will be rejected, at least for the time being. Improvements to existing functionality and aesthetics will be accepted. New features will be accepted and available in version 2.x releases. Getting involved and helping out: For non-developers and users the simplest way to get involved and help out is by using HashOver on your website and reporting any problems you encounter. You may suggest new features or point out missing features and functionality. You may also help write HashOver's documentation and make tutorials to help other people use HashOver. Of course, Flattring this page is also appreciated. For developers the simplest way to get involved and help out is by cloning the hashover-next branch on GitHub and addressing issues in the areas mentioned above.

‘Super VAT’ tax as Ukip turn on luxury goods UKIP has promised to fight for a new Super VAT as it sets out the polices it hopes will see it hold the balance of power. By The Newsroom Friday, 26th September 2014, 6:38 pm Delegates gathered at the party conference in Doncaster heard a new wave of UK Independence Party policies as Nigel Farage prepares for the 2015 General Election. A higher rate of VAT for luxury goods will feature in the Ukip manifesto, with shoes over £200, handbags above £1,000 and cars worth more than £50,000 all facing a price hike. Sign up to our daily newsletter The i newsletter cut through the noise Sign up Thanks for signing up! Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The party also promised to ditch inheritance tax and to cut the higher rate of tax from 40p to 35p for people who earn between £42,000 and £55,000. On immigration proposals were unveiled for an Australian-style points based migration system and a cap of 50,000 people a year allowed to move to the UK. Ukip also promised to reform UK border points so there is one line for British passport holders and “one line for the rest of the world”. Ukip’s deputy leader Paul Nuttall said the party was pursuing a deliberate strategy of appealing to working class voters who are disillusioned with Labour, a group he described as the “low-hanging fruit in British politics”. The MEP said: “You’ve just got to look at the by-elections over the past four years, starting with Barnsley in 2011 I think there’s been six on the bounce in the north of England where we’ve finished second to Labour - 25% in South Shields, 24% in Rotherham. “I’ve been saying since 2007 that the low-hanging fruit in British politics are disaffected working-class people who will no longer vote for Labour, who feel that the Labour Party leadership doesn’t represent them.

Canada’s embassy in Kyiv has been closed amid a government crackdown on protests there. According to an automated message at the embassy, it’s closed “until further notice for security reasons.” The message says the embassy is still providing emergency consular services. In recent days, the embassy has been providing refuge to protesters escaping the violence. Canadians of Ukrainian origin are agonizing over loved ones caught up in the deadly violence that has re-erupted in Kyiv. And they worry that sanctions being considered by Canada, the U.S. and the European Union to end the violence may come too late to save their former country from economic and political disaster. Several dozen people sang and chanted during a protest on Parliament Hill to denounce the violence, which has taken the lives of at least 25 people in the Ukrainian capital. RELATED: Pussy Riot attacked by whip-wielding Cossacks Kyiv violence flares again as bloodshed raises fears of Ukraine civil war Ukraine protests in photos The demonstration came as Ottawa announced that Canada’s embassy in Kyiv would remain closed for a second day. MPs James Bezan and Ted Opitz say in a statement they are “disgusted” by the callous behaviour demonstrated by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his regime. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says Canada is considering a range of diplomatic options to send a message to the Yanukovych government, including targeted sanctions. Baird said the Harper government would speak with other nations as it looked at possible further steps. “I will . . . be consulting our allies and like-minded nations to build a co-ordinated path forward in the coming days,” Baird said. But Olya Korzachenko of Ottawa, who for two days has been unable to reach relatives in Ukraine, fears it may already be too late for economic sanctions to have any meaningful effect. “Enough talk,” Korzachenko said as she stood near the centennial flame at the heart of the parliamentary precinct. “The authorities are moving their own personal millions and billions into banks around the world, and while we talk, all of this is going on — Ukraine is being raped and nobody in the West, nobody in Europe is doing anything.” The escalating anger over the protests, and the government’s crackdown, has fuelled fears that Ukraine could be sliding toward civil war. But protesters in Ottawa largely dismissed that notion, blaming Russia for the violence, and saying they didn’t believe Ukrainians would fight Ukrainians. Already there have been reports of security forces in Kyiv surrendering to protest groups. Sanctions against Ukraine could include a travel ban on prominent officials and a freezing of assets belonging to the powerful oligarchs who back Yanukovych. Canada will also provide medical supplies to Ukrainian activists through a contribution to a Ukrainian non-governmental organization. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... As the violent protests continued Wednesday in Kyiv, Yanukovych said he had replaced the chief of the country’s armed forces. The presidential decree came as Ukraine’s acting defence minister said the army was considering a nationwide anti-terrorist operation to restore order. Yanukovych’s government has frequently referred to the protesters demanding his resignation as “terrorists.” Read more about:

PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People's Republic Of -- Pyongyang's newly opened zoo has a new star: Azalea, the smoking chimpanzee. According to officials at the newly renovated zoo, which has become a favourite leisure spot in the North Korean capital since it re-opened in July, the 19-year-old female chimpanzee, whose name in Korean is "Dallae," smokes about a pack a day. Dallae is short for azalea. They insist, however, she doesn't inhale. Thrown a lighter by a zoo trainer, the chimpanzee lights her own cigarettes. If a lighter isn't available, she can light up from lit cigarette if one is tossed her way. Though such a sight would draw outrage in many other locales, it seemed to delight visitors who roared with laughter on Wednesday as the chimpanzee, one of two at the zoo, sat puffing away as her trainer egged her on. The trainer also prompted her to touch her nose, bow thank you and do a simple dance. The zoo is pulling in thousands of visitors a day with a slew of attractions ranging from such typical fare as elephants, giraffes, penguins and monkeys to a high-tech natural history museum with displays showing the origins of the solar system and the evolution of life on Earth. Another of the most popular attractions that might come as a surprise to foreign visitors is the dog pavilion, which has everything from German shepherds to Shih Tzus. The zoo also has performances featuring other animals trained to do tricks, including a monkey that slam dunks basketballs, dogs trained to appear as though they can do addition on subtraction on an abacus and doves that fly around and land on a woman skating on an indoor stage. Renovations for the new zoo began in 2014, as part of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's efforts to create more modern and impressive structures and leisure centres around the capital. The zoo actually dates back to 1959, when Kim Il Sung, the nation's first leader and the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, ordered it built on the outskirts of the city. According to its official history, the zoo started off with only 50 badgers.

İstanbul Research Institute presents The Four-Legged Municipality: Street Dogs of İstanbul, an exhibition that sheds light upon the adventure of street dogs, an integral part of İstanbul’s daily life in almost every period of the city’s social history, which changed alongside political, religious, and sociological transformations. The fact that İstanbul’s streets, apart from the main roads and intersections leading to marketplaces, were deserted until the mid-19th century is in itself a phenomenon that brought the city’s animals into everyday life. Especially in İstanbul’s Muslim quarters, no adequate relationship could be established between spiritual life under the roof of privacy and the worldly life of the street. Indeed it was this sense of distance that bestowed the street on the city’s dogs as their home. The fate of street dogs, which were the guardians of public property, began to change with the increasing will of getting closer to the “civilized” world. The Ottoman intellectual, who had seen the West, was not at all pleased with the appearance of İstanbul, which fell far short of satisfying those crazes; the streets were narrow and disorderly, the houses little more than ruins, the transportation system did not work, and infrastructure was inadequate. When the dogs, which one never encountered in European cities, were added to this picture, it became a far cry indeed from the modern world. While the four-legged municipality of the Ottomans was being transformed into the two-legged municipality of the Republic, the positivist concept of life was also expunging dogs from İstanbul’s history. Through photographs, travel journals, postcards, magazines, engravings, and other media dated from the 19th to the early 20th centuries, the exhibition, curated by Ekrem Işın and counselled by Catherine Pinguet, follows the history of these fellow İstanbulites that played an integral part in the city’s social life during their coexistence with humans through the centuries. gallery wall paint sponsor

Another news cycle, another mass shooting. Here we go again. As we all know, because of last week’s Oregon school shooting, a “debate” over gun control will now ensue, with talking heads on all the networks rehashing all the old arguments. As we also know, this debate is absolutely meaningless, because nothing is going to change. Gun culture defines America, and the rising body count has no long-term impact. By now we’ve all heard about America’s uniquely high rates of gun violence. That being so, and with discussions about gun control being basically pointless, it seems that we are left with only one legitimate issue that is actually relevant to gun violence: the culture itself. That is, gun control is made impossible in America because of an underlying culture: a macho, gun-toting, tough-guy culture of crooks, cowboys and even cops who see firearms as sacred and bloodshed as socially tolerable. A don’t-fuck-with-me culture. Think about America’s self-image for a moment, and what comes to mind? Sure, liberty and democracy are part of the idyllic creed we teach our children, but even the youngsters soon learn that the essence of America is that we are badass. You do not want to piss us off. Many have done so—Tecumseh, John Brown, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden—and it never ends well for them. Commentators sometimes argue that our bloodthirsty culture is the result of violence on television or in video games, but that argument is far too simple and just plain wrong. America has been violent since long before television and video games—it would be more accurate to say depictions of violence in media are a reflection of our violent nature, not the cause of it. Sure, glorification of bloodshed in the media might occasionally push a vulnerable, mentally deranged person over the edge—but that doesn’t explain the brutality and pervasive violence that have defined American society at a core level since the beginning. As an American, whichever side of the law you’re on—Dirty Harry or Tony Soprano—your solution is to blast away any dirtbag who gets in your way. This is not literally the case for everyone, of course, but it’s at least figuratively so. A badass gene is intrinsic in American DNA: our economic system depends on it, and our society romanticizes it and mythologizes it. Whether good or bad, hero or culprit, America celebrates badass characters: The Founding Fathers were badass for sticking it to the British crown. Andrew Jackson, racist to the point of being genocidal, is nevertheless praised as a tough-guy badass. Lincoln, of course, exemplified a badass leader who would not be beaten. General Custer thought he was badass, but discovered the Sioux were more badass. FDR, taking charge during the Depression and Second World War, was definitely badass. Jimmy Carter was a one-term president largely because he wasn’t badass. Then came Ronald Reagan, who ripped Carter’s solar panels off the White House as one of his first acts, telling the world in a badass way that he expected American domination of Middle East oil for years to come. American society reveres aggressive, take-no-shit behavior, an attitude that naturally sees violence as not just a plausible option, but often a desirable one. For those who would truly like to see gun policy reform, it’s important to realize that cultural change cannot come without widespread acceptance that there is a cultural problem. That means understanding that sky-high rates of violence are not the result of one or two bad policy decisions, but that they reflect deeply rooted habits of behavior that arise from a complex array of sources. Consider, for example, that despite its name, the United States has never had a track record of being united as a society. Rarely has a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood been prevalent across the nation. On the contrary, we forcibly enslaved a sizable portion of the population, fought each other in a horrific civil war that killed over 600,000, then grotesquely mistreated the former slave population and its descendants for another century thereafter, and still do in some ways. Amidst all of this has been a constant flow of immigrants who, while adding to the nation’s mythological narrative, have just as often been seen by the general population as an unwelcome scourge. Ironically, we celebrate the fact that America is a melting pot, but the reality is that our various ethnic, racial, and religious groups have rarely enjoyed a true sense of fellowship. There’s been some crossover here and there—the divisiveness of Catholic-Protestant feuding has all but disappeared, for example, and there’s been some mixing of ethnic groups—but any suggestion that there is a consistent sense of common purpose and community among the population would be a distortion. Lacking solidarity as a people, Americans have little compassion for one another and instead often revert to badass attitudes as a default setting. Thus, our economic system predictably breeds insecurity, which in turn inevitably enflames more resentment, hostility and aggression. As a people, even those with jobs work longer hours than the rest of the developed world, get less vacation time, have less job security, and have fewer social safety nets and assurances. In this atmosphere of anxiety, Americans tend to look at outsiders—meaning anyone with whom we do not feel camaraderie—as a threat. A different skin color, a funny accent, an uncommon religion—these are grounds for suspicion, not celebration, for many. Ours is a violent society because, despite the sugar-coated history we like to tell, ours has always been a fractured society. Bullwhips and chains, institutionalized injustice, class antagonism, constant insecurity, and a total absence of empathy have defined the culture much more than any cooperative spirit. Maybe a conversation about this unpleasant truth is a necessary antecedent to any real effort at gun reform, and for that matter any wider effort to gain control of the reins of government from the various institutional interests that have seized them. Sign up for my newsletter. Follow on Twitter: ahadave

[image-51][image-67][image-83][image-99][image-115][image-131]NASA today declared the winners of the first NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge, held April 11-12 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. Student racers from the Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology in Reno, Nev., claimed first place in the high school division; the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao Team 2 won the top prize in the college division. They raced to victory against 70 high school, college and university teams from 19 states, Puerto Rico, Germany, India, Mexico and Russia. All told, more than 500 students -- drivers, engineers and mechanics, plus team advisers and "cheering sections" -- took part in the competition. The winning teams posted the fastest vehicle assembly and race times in their divisions, with the fewest on-course penalties. The team from the Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology finished the half-mile course in 3 minutes, 37 seconds. The University of Puerto Rico at Humacao Team 2 finished in 4 minutes, 9 seconds. In addition to the winning trophy, first-place teams received a cash prize of $3,000, courtesy of The Boeing Co. of Huntsville. Finishing in second place in the high school division was Team 2 from the Vocational High School Teodoro Aguilar Mora in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. In third place was the International Space Education Institute team from Moscow, Russia. Southern Illinois University Carbondale Team 2 won second place in the college division and Team 1 from the school finished in third place. (For a complete list of additional awards for design, most improved and spirit, see below.) Organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and building on two decades of competitive student innovation in the NASA Great Moonbuggy Race (held in the "Rocket City" from 1994-2013), the new event challenges students to design, build and race lightweight, human-powered roving vehicles, solving technical problems along the way just like NASA engineers must do. Those NASA engineers are paying attention: Students' most innovative vehicle and hardware designs could help inform NASA's own development of rovers and other space transportation systems for future exploration missions across the solar system. Just as importantly, the experience is designed to provide the future workforce to realize those new missions, inspiring students to pursue careers in the technical "STEM" fields -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- so crucial to the agency's endeavors. The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge is sponsored by the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, and organized by the Marshall Center's Academic Affairs Office. Major corporate sponsors for the race are The Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., Aerojet Rocketdyne, Jacobs Engineering ESSSA Group, and Northrop Grumman Corp., all with operations in Huntsville. Full replays of the race will be available in coming days on the Marshall Center's official UStream site, where Marshall Center media personnel and television crews provided continuous, streaming coverage of the event: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc For more information about the race, visit: www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge Race enthusiasts are encouraged to follow the annual event via social media channels: www.facebook.com/roverchallenge www.twitter.com/roverchallenge For information about other NASA education programs, visit: http://education.nasa.gov The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge ADDITIONAL AWARDS AND PRIZES Neil Armstrong Best Design Award (for the best technical approach to solve the engineering problem of navigating the extraterrestrial terrain of the course. The award honors the memory of Apollo 11 astronaut Armstrong, who became the first man on the moon during that historic 1969 mission, and who passed away in 2012): Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology in Reno, Nev. Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro - Team 2 Technology Challenge Award (for the team which best addresses this year's unique "wheel technology challenge," designing an innovative mobility system to aid navigation over the course) Central Connecticut State University in New Britain - Team 1 Featherweight Award (for the lightest rover on the track): Academia Menonita Summit Hills in San Juan, Puerto Rico University of Puerto Rico in Humacao - Team 2 AIAA Telemetry/Electronics Award (for the most innovative onboard data-gathering and delivery system): Technologico de Monterrey Campus Cuernavaca from Xochitpec, Mexico - Team 1 Frank Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award (for ingenuity and persistence in overcoming problems during the race. Sexton, a NASA welder who mentored numerous welders and engineers among the Marshall workforce, worked on the original lunar rover and numerous other space vehicles until his death in 2000): Parish Episcopal School in Dallas, Tx. Ohio State University in Columbus Crash and Burn Award (for enduring and recovering from the worst vehicle breakdown): Rhode Island School of Design in Providence Spirit Award (for overall team energy, enthusiasm and camaraderie): Pana High School in Pana, Ill. Jesco Von Puttkamer International Team Award (for the fastest team hailing from outside the United States. The late, German-born Von Puttkamer worked at Marshall from 1962-1974, supporting the Apollo moon missions and the Skylab and Space Shuttle programs. He was instrumental in introducing international teams to NASA student racing in the early 2000s): International Space Education Institute - Team Russia from Moscow International Space Education Institute - Team Germany from Leipzig Best Report Award (technical documentation of the equipment and procedures used in design, build, test and the results obtained) University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez System Safety Award (for the team exemplifying best safety practices) SVKM NMIMS Mukesh Patel School of Technology in Mumbai, India

A child born on this date in 2001 – just before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 – is old enough to be fighting today in the war in Afghanistan. This week – almost 17 years after the war began – the Taliban attacked Ghazni, killing more than 100 Afghan army soldiers. The Taliban also overran a base, where they killed another 17 soldiers. It’s not hard to imagine that some of the fighters on both sides of this week’s battles – those fighting for the Afghan army and the Taliban – were not yet born on 9/11. As America’s longest war continues in Afghanistan, it is sapping America’s resources and strategic focus while the list of far more serious national security threats – from climate change to the rise of China – continues to grow. It is time to find a way to wind down America’s war in Afghanistan, one way or another. The United States remains stuck in strategic limbo in Afghanistan. No matter how many allied forces deploy to Afghanistan, there is no victory to be had on the battlefield. But Afghanistan is where the 9/11 attacks were planned. This is a fact that imprisons US presidents and policymakers – imagine being the president who withdrew US troops from Afghanistan, only to then suffer another terrorist attack on US soil planned in Afghanistan. There is no good option. And so, America fights. As the reporter CJ Chivers describes America’s current policies in Afghanistan: “They continue today without an end in sight, reauthorized in Pentagon budgets almost as if distant war is a presumed government action.” While the US and its allies continue to send young men and women to fight and die, certain facts remain constant: the Taliban are not going anywhere. Terrorists are not going anywhere – 17 years later, the Islamic State has joined al-Qaida as a threat. The Afghan state will not achieve a level of “stability” that will put American policymakers at ease in the foreseeable future. Pakistan will not change its two-sided policy of working with the US in Afghanistan with one hand while quietly enabling the Taliban with the other. As these facts remain unchanged, the war continues to blight the daily lives of Afghans, who have been at war on and off for almost 40 years now. There is no telling when this horrific cycle of war and violence will end for them. But it also seems clear that the US cannot end it with the military alone. In welcome news, the US recently began direct talks with the Taliban. The United States engaged in direct negotiations with the Taliban during the Obama administration, but those talks produced little. There has long been a debate over whether to talk to the Taliban, but there will be no end to the war without some sort of political agreement that includes the Taliban. A ceasefire in June this year signaled that this time could be different, and the United States must urgently press forward with these diplomatic negotiations to end the war. America is attempting to prevent potential terrorist attacks from one country by sacrificing the lives of American soldiers It’s also important to keep in mind that the United States is not the only player interested in stability and with leverage to wield. China, Russia, Iran and India are all heavily invested in the outcome of the war, and despite very divergent strategies and views of the war, all have an interest in preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists and a source of regional instability. They must be forced to put skin in the game in a diplomatic process to urgently end the war or be forced to deal with the consequences when America withdraws. While America must seize this new potential diplomatic opportunity with the Taliban, regardless of where the diplomacy leads, America’s role in the war must begin to come to an end. Right now, America is attempting to prevent potential terrorist attacks from one country by sacrificing the lives of American soldiers, with no strategy to end the threat other than a perpetual war. That hardly seems sensible. Most importantly, American leaders must remember that the war in Afghanistan takes place in a much larger strategic context for the United States. A US withdrawal – with or without a negotiated end to the war – could lead to more instability in Afghanistan. But how does that compare with the alternative? Afghanistan – along with Iraq – has shaped the way an entire generation in America thinks about its country’s role in the world. The threats posed by Afghanistan today rank nowhere close to the top of America’s national security concerns, dwarfed by challenges like climate change, Russia, China and the erosion of liberal democracy abroad. The forever war fatigue runs a very real risk of draining support in the United States for a robust American role in the world, which is necessary to tackle any of these threats. And that would truly devastate American national security. Donald Trump’s “America First” policies – and the damage they are inflicting – are already a symptom of this national frustration with America’s seemingly unending wars. Inertia and fear of the unknown are not good enough reasons to fight a war. It’s time for America to end its war in Afghanistan.

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Yaalon accused Venezuela of working with Iran to create a “terrorist infrastructure” in Latin America that could “attack the interests of the United States or in the United States,” during his visit to Uruguay this week. The Venezuelan Government published the below statement regarding the comments. Venezuela President Hugo Chavez further explained yesterday that “all of that forms part of the attempt to place Venezuelan on the list of countries called “rogues” by them [the US and its allies], in order to later justify any aggression against us, that’s what it’s about”. Statement Venezuela Rejects Statements by Israel's Vice Prime Minister The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects the statements issued by Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon in an interview during his visit to the sister Oriental Republic of Uruguay, in which he openly accused Venezuela of participating in plots to commit terrorist attacks. Such abusive and tendentious statements, which come from the representative of a government that itself participates in terrorist attacks against the Arab peoples, are part of a continuous campaign of aggression against our people aimed at spreading these slanderous rumors in international media outlets, mainly in the U.S. Additionally, these rumors are against a people, the Venezuelan people, who are playing a leading role in a peaceful, democratic and humanist revolution, and who have never used weapons to attack any people, neither create death and destruction. On the contrary, the Bolivarian Government of President Hugo Chávez maintains and fosters deep relations of cooperation, solidarity and fraternity with all the peoples of the continent and the world, which is widely recognized by Latin American and the international community, as was demonstrated once again during the historic foundational Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). As a consequence, Venezuela denounces and rejects these plans of manipulation that serve dark interests through lies and calumnies, and ratifies that its relations with the generous government and people of Iran are based on the pursuit of peace and development. Caracas, December 8, 2011 Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs

Торги на фондовых биржах США завершились в понедельник значительным падением основных индексов. На торгах в Нью-Йорке индекс Dow Jones, охватывающий 30 крупнейших корпораций США, потерял более 330 пунктов, то есть почти 2 процента. Специализирующийся на акциях высокотехнологичных компаний индекс NASDAQ упал более чем на полтора процента, а сводный индекс S&P 500, отражающий капитализацию 500 компаний, снизился на 1,83 процента. Снижение основных индексов произошло на фоне продолжающегося падения цен на нефть. Стоимость февральских поставок нефти марки Brent на лондонской бирже к концу торгов в понедельник остановилась на отметке 52 доллара 66 центов за баррель. Это самый низкий показатель с мая 2009 года. Цена нефти марки WTI на торгах в Нью-Йорке опустилась на более чем два с половиной процента и составила 50 долларов и 4 цента за баррель. Столь низкой цены на этот сорт нефти не наблюдалось с апреля 2009 года. Как отмечает газета The Wall Street Journal, падение главных индексов в первую очередь связано с потерями, которые в результате снижения цен на нефть понесли крупнейшие мировые нефтедобывающие корпорации. Негативное влияние на котировку акций оказало также падения курса евро по отношению к доллару США. Тем не менее, газета приводит мнение аналитиков, которые считают, что, несмотря на сегодняшнее падение цен акций, перспективы рынка в 2015 году остаются положительными, так как снижение цен на нефть и нефтепродукты должно привести к повышению деловой активности в других областях экономики.

Journalist and political commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates drew attention to the political cause of slavery reparations during a heavily publicized congressional hearing this week. While commentators on both sides of the issue agree that his case was eloquently argued, one of its central claims rested on faulty economic data. Specifically, Coates contends that the case for reparations comes from the economic measurement of the antebellum slave economy in the United States. He testified, “By 1836 more than $600 million, almost half of the economic activity in the United States, derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million-odd slaves.” This stunning statistical claim was widely repeated in commentary on the hearing. It is, however, unambiguously false. Coates’s numbers come from Cornell University historian Ed Baptist’s 2014 book The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. In a key passage in the book, Baptist purports to add up the total value of economic activity that derived from cotton production, which at $77 million made up about 5 percent of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States in 1836. Baptist then committed a fundamental accounting error. He proceeded to double and even triple count intermediate transactions involved in cotton production — things like land purchases for plantations, tools used for cotton production, transportation, insurance, and credit instruments used in each. Eventually that $77 million became $600 million in Baptist’s accounting, or almost half of the entire antebellum economy of the United States. There’s a crucial problem with Baptist’s approach. The calculation of GDP, the main formulation of national accounts and a representation of the dollar amount of economic activity in a country in a given year, only incorporates the value of final goods and services produced. The rationale for doing so comes from accounting, as the price of the final good already incorporates intermediate transactions that go into its production and distribution. Baptist’s numbers are not only wrong — they reflect a basic unfamiliarity with the meaning and definition of GDP. When The Half Has Never Been Told first appeared in print, economists immediately picked up on the error. Bradley Hansen of Mary Washington University kicked off the scrutiny by posting a thorough dissection of Baptist’s errors on his personal blog. Economic historians Alan Olmstead (UC-Davis) and Paul Rhode (University of Michigan) chimed in with a devastating critique of Baptist’s empirics, observing that a continuation of his “faulty methodology by summing the ‘roles’ of cotton with a few other primary products” would yield an amount that “easily exceed[ed] 100 percent of GDP” in the antebellum United States — an economic impossibility. Stanley Engerman, perhaps the foremost living expert on the economics of slavery, weighed in next: Baptist’s economic analysis, intended to demonstrate the essential role of the slave-grown cotton economy for Northern economic growth, is weakened by some variants of double and triple counting and some confusion of assets and income flows. To go from a value of the Southern cotton crop in 1836 of “about 5 percent of that entire gross domestic product,” to “almost half of the economic activity of the United States in 1836” (pp 312-22) requires his calculation to resemble the great effects claimed by an NFL club when trying to convince city taxpayers that they should provide the money to build a new stadium because of all the stadium’s presumed primary and secondary effects. The main takeaways are that (1) the actual percentage of GDP derived from slavery is measured from final goods and services that involved slave-based production, and (2) Ed Baptist clearly did not understand what he was doing when he calculated his statistic. Cotton was by far the biggest item on the list of final goods and services, and, while its output varied year by year, it is probably reasonable to place slave-based goods in the mid to high single digits, not the 50 percent claim that Coates repeated. Unfortunately, historians who work on the “New History of Capitalism” — a school of historiography that emerged after the financial crisis of 2007–8 and that purports to study the relationship between slavery and capitalism — have proven remarkably ill-suited at grasping the fundamentals of GDP and other economic concepts. Not to be outdone by Baptist’s erroneous 50 percent estimate, Emory University historian Carol Anderson offered an even-higher figure from the eve of the Civil War itself. According to Anderson, “80 percent of the nation’s gross national product was tied to slavery” in 1860. Following Coates’s testimony using Baptist’s erroneous numbers for 1836, several historians began circulating this estimate from Anderson’s 2016 book White Rage as evidence of the growing influence of slavery on American capitalism in the late antebellum period. Like Baptist’s book, it too derives from a fundamentally erroneous understanding of national accounts. Anderson’s footnote points to the late historian David Brion Davis’s foreword to a 2010 book on abolitionism. Davis makes a very different claim, however, in noting that the total value of slaves on the eve of the Civil War was equal to 80 percent of a single year’s gross national product (GNP). Anderson appears to have misread Davis’s data point and transformed it into a broader claim about slavery’s share of the entire economy. While this figure is admittedly astounding and signifies the vast amount of wealth tied up in Southern slavery, Anderson mistakes it for the recurring yearly value of slave-produced economic output. She therefore commits the basic economic error of confusing stocks — by definition, a one-time measurement — and flows, which are measured over time. As we’ve already seen from Baptist’s example though, the actual percentage of GDP (or GNP) tied up in slavery was actually a small fraction of that amount. Basic statistical errors of this type are a pervasive feature of the “New History of Capitalism” genre of scholarship — even to the point that they are now entering into the discourse over policy discussions, as Coates’s widely touted testimony at the reparations hearing illustrates. In each case, the historians’ demonstrably wrong GDP and GNP numbers make for a shocking claim that appears to situate slave production at the very core of all American economic activity before the Civil War. This claim appears to confirm many of the ideological expectations of the same historians, who also evince a pronounced hostility to market capitalism throughout their work. Linking historical capitalism to slavery is more of a political exercise for the present day than a scholarly inquiry into the past, and in fact the most virulent defenders of slavery in the mid-19th century actually presented their cause as an expressly anti-capitalist venture (for those interested in further explorations, I’ve written about this deficiency of the “New History of Capitalism” literature at greater length here). There is a great moral gravity to discussions of slavery, not only as a historical problem but also an institution with persistent and adverse legacies that remain with us. It is therefore a timely and ever-present subject of scholarly inquiry and discussion. Regardless of where one stands on the reparations debate or other causes in the modern political scene, academics owe the public an honest, accurate, and scientific assessment of slavery’s history, including its economic dimensions. That assessment is harmed when the discussion forgoes scientific rigor or even basic statistical practices to rally around a mistaken number to support a misleading and grossly inaccurate conclusion about the nature of the antebellum economy. Baptist, Coates, and the other public figures who have repeated this faulty statistic have an obligation to correct their error.