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[WM]The rules in soccer are pretty clear-cut: When a player removes his shirt during a goal celebration, it is an automatic yellow card. The rationale is that doing so is considered "unsporting behavior.
But what about when a player removes his shirt to reveal a touching tribute for a lost loved one?
Guilherme Biteco, an attacking midfielder for Parana, lost his brother Matheus in the Chapecoense plane crash last year. So when he scored this weekend, he wanted to pay tribute to his brother.
Its an incredibly emotional moment as Biteco sobs and displays pictures of his slain brother but the referee followed the letter of the law and booked the player for the display.
Its not exactly a banner moment for the world of soccer refereeing, but its something that comes up time and time again. Who can forget Edinson Cavani being yellow-carded for a tribute for Chapecoense only days after the crash?
Referees should learn or be allowed to acknowledge the difference between the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. But until that happens, we'll see more harsh yellow cards like this one.
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[WM]Unfortunately, Sir James Robertson’s plan succeeded partly because leading southern politicians, especially Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, failed to put in abeyance their personal egos and radioactive Igbo-versus-Yoruba rivalry in order to present a united front against Robertson and Balewa. That said, as Premiers of their respective regions, Dr. Azikiwe, Chief Awolowo and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello (whose tenure as Premier of the northern region was tragically terminated during the first military coup in January 15, 1966) performed creditably by implementing programmes that benefitted a significant percentage of the population.
But Azikiwe and Awolowo were by far more attuned to the institution of democracy than the jihadist-oriented Sardauna because of their exposure to solid western education and secular democratic values, whereas Ahmadu Bello was hampered by his limited academic credentials, serious educational disadvantage of the northern region generally as well as by his fixation to outdated Islamic weltanschauung and way of life.
Indeed, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the most powerful northern politician of the First Republic, never really believed in the concept of a united democratic Nigeria. He single-mindedly pursued a northernisation agenda such that that he preferred filling vacant positions in the northern region’s civil service and educational institutions where qualified northerners were unavailable with foreigners on contract basis rather than employ southerners, particularly the Igbo. His narrow negative triumphalist approach to nation-building is evident in an address he delivered to his caliphate constituency less than two weeks after independence. In it, Bello insisted vehemently that Nigeria “should be an estate of our great-grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo also articulated a rational philosophical roadmap for Nigeria. In projecting his vision of secular democracy for the country, Awolowo emphasised the pursuit of “…equal opportunities for every Nigerian; equality under the law; extermination of ethnic hegemony; dethronement of mediocrity wherever it exists; guaranteeing for every Nigerian no matter his place of birth or state of origin equal access to the good things of life.
We can succeed provided we allow ourselves to be guided by this great principle: ‘The glory of a ruler is the welfare of every one of his people.’ ” From the foregoing, it is evident that by amalgamating the predominantly Muslim population of northern Nigeria with the south where Christianity and western education had made tremendous impact on the various peoples there, the prospects of democracy were not encouraging. Historians of Nigerian politics tend to neglect the fact that Islam, the dominant religion of northerners, is fundamentally incompatible with democracy and human rights.
This point needs to be brought to limelight for a proper understanding of the challenges in entrenching viable democratic institutions and also the democratically aberrant dispositions of leading northern Muslim politicians since the creation of Nigeria as a geopolitical entity by Britain. Islam has never really favoured democratic tendencies, a fact King Fahd of Saudi Arabia frankly acknowledged some time ago when he affirmed that the democratic system is not suitable for the Muslim-dominated middle-east, that the system of free elections is not suitable for his country.
The political system the British met on ground in the northern region was the rustic emirate system in which politics and Islam were blended together to form a theocracy headed by the Sultan of Sokoto. In the south, particularly in the defunct eastern region sometimes misleadingly described as “acephalous,” most of the autochthonous communities had evolved some kind of Republican political systems anchored on key cultural groupings, whereas traditionally the Yoruba operated a kind of monarchical arrangement that had checks and balances alien to the emirate system in the north.
Now, for members of the core northern political establishment, the democratic doctrine of separation of religion and state is a western concept which has no legitimacy in the Holy Koran and sharia law. Additionally, pious Muslims believe strongly, as a matter of religious conviction, that legitimate authority comes from Allah alone, and the ruler derives his power from Allah and the holy law, not from the people. The individual owes absolute obedience to the ruler because of the divine right of kings. Hence, a typical northern politician cannot really genuinely espouse democratic values unless he or she pays lip service to or jettisons the totalitarian principles in the Holy Koran and sharia law.
As devout Muslims, Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa must have felt the essential tension generated by their commitment to Islam and the need to operate according to the requirements of democratic governance in a modern nation-state. It is in this light that one can understand why, at the initial stage, they were very reluctant to embrace the concept of democracy under the umbrella of “One Nigeria” and also why northern leaders regularly resorted to threats of secession during the constitutional conferences convened to fashion out an appropriate constitutional framework for post-colonial Nigeria.
Democracy is “government of the people, by the people and for the people,” which means that representatives of the citizens in both the executive and the legislature derive their legitimate authority from the people, not from a certain deity believed to exist whose commands believers must obey unquestioningly.
Therefore, although pioneer frontline Nigerian politicians inherited parliamentary democracy from Britain, that inheritance was deeply flawed partly because the British handed power over to the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), whose leaders, as devout Muslims, were wedded more to the rigidities and insularity of Islamic theocracy than to the tenets of modern democracy, unlike their Christian southern counterparts whose political outlook were shaped by a deep appreciation of democratic culture and values.
The implications flowing from the dissonance in political consciousness between Sir Ahmadu Bello and his cohorts in the north and Dr. Azikiwe and other leading southern politicians on the democratic trajectory of post-independent Nigeria are obvious. As we observed earlier, Dr. Azikiwe and Chief Awolowo envisaged for Nigeria a democratic political system or arrangement that would cater for the welfare of all Nigerians without discrimination; but their northern counterparts were more interested in replacing external British colonialism with a pernicious internal Fulani caliphate version by subjugating the middle-belt and the south. The antagonism between these contrasting political outlooks constitute both a remote and proximate cause of the political problems that led to the eventual collapse of the First Republic.
A plausible case can be made that British colonial administrators deliberately structured Nigeria, with the co-operation of the dominant northern political elite, to ensure that the north dominates the south after independence. That is why they configured the country lopsidedly such that the north constituted over two-thirds of Nigeria’s land mass. Henry Bretton in his work, Power and Stability in Nigeria: The Politics of Decolonisation, affirmed that “the very construction of the northern region, in the form in which it entered the era of independence, represents one of the greatest acts of gerrymandering in history.” Naturally, the overriding intention of British imperialism for Nigeria was to protect the economic interest of Britain; it had nothing to do with the creation of a viable democratic country.
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[WM]Investors in Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. saw new options become available this week, for the May 18th expiration.
Investors in Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (LXRX - Get Report) saw new options become available this week, for the May 18th expiration. At Stock Options Channel, our YieldBoost formula has looked up and down the LXRX options chain for the new May 18th contracts and identified the following put contract of particular interest.
The put contract at the $8.00 strike price has a current bid of 20 cents. If an investor was to sell-to-open that put contract, they are committing to purchase the stock at $8.00, but will also collect the premium, putting the cost basis of the shares at $7.80 (before broker commissions). To an investor already interested in purchasing shares of LXRX, that could represent an attractive alternative to paying $8.36/share today.
Because the $8.00 strike represents an approximate 4% discount to the current trading price of the stock (in other words it is out-of-the-money by that percentage), there is also the possibility that the put contract would expire worthless. The current analytical data (including greeks and implied greeks) suggest the current odds of that happening are 64%. Stock Options Channel will track those odds over time to see how they change, publishing a chart of those numbers on our website under the contract detail page for this contract. Should the contract expire worthless, the premium would represent a 2.50% return on the cash commitment, or 17.55% annualized — at Stock Options Channel we call this the YieldBoost.
The implied volatility in the put contract example above is 118%.
Meanwhile, we calculate the actual trailing twelve month volatility (considering the last 252 trading day closing values as well as today's price of $8.36) to be 44%. For more put and call options contract ideas worth looking at, visit StockOptionsChannel.com.
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[WM]Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co.
Job: Sole owner, chairman of The Irvine Co.
Bio: He is the wealthiest U.S. real estate mogul, with a fortune valued by Forbes at $15 billion. He’s also one of the most generous philanthropists. Bren has controlled for nearly four decades a huge slice of south Orange County real estate and, all told, holds 500 office properties, 40 shopping centers, and nearly 50,000 apartment units, primarily in California. Lives in Newport Beach.
Why he’s an influencer: Bren’s decision to retain ownership of much of the commercial property on his land gives him lasting influence. In 2014, he donated 2,500 acres of Anaheim Hills land to the county, a major boost to the county’s open space; opened for sale the long-dormant Orchard Hills community in Irvine, the first new high-end community in the county in a decade; finished his second new office tower at Fashion Island and started a third, next to Irvine Spectrum; and added $1 billion to his worth, by Forbes’ accounting.
Inspiration: The chance to mold the city of Irvine and the vast open spaces of The Irvine Ranch.
Can’t do without: His love of Mediterranean architecture.
What’s next: Bren’s major focus lately has been on the red-hot Silicon Valley real estate market. But Irvine Co. will continue to build and fill up housing, retail and office properties in and around Irvine.
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[WM]U by Uniworld has said its ship, The B, will be moving to central Europe for the 2020 season.
With increasing demand for the region, where sister ship The A also resides, The B will cease operation on the Seine river and resume cruising in the 2020 season with brand new itineraries.
“Being the first means that we’re not only inventing an entirely new sector of the industry, but we’re quite literally in ‘unchartered waters’.
“As a brand, U will always stay true to its ethos as a chic, fun, never-before-seen cruise experience, but we also want to remain open to consumer trends and feedback.
“That is how brands move from concepts to success stories,” said Ellen Bettridge, president of U.
“As we look forward, the demand is, overwhelmingly, pointing towards central Europe, where guests can experience a new city – and sometimes a different country – each day, which simply isn’t feasible on the Seine.
In 2020, The B will sail from Brussels to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Frankfurt, while The A will sail from Nuremberg to Vienna and Vienna to Belgrade.
Additional details for the new 2020 itineraries will be announced in the coming weeks.
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[WM]Here's some of what's happening this morning in entertainment headlines: Selena Gomez drops an F-bomb; Meredith Baxter marries; and more.
starring David Duchovny, which will premiere in April, will be the last.
It seems like every few years Macaulay Culkin resurfaces to let us know he's still around. Most of the recent news hasn't been positive, but his latest venture – a Velvet Underground cover band he formed called the Pizza Underground – may keep him in the news for a while.
Frustrations with the sound system during the Jingle Ball concert caused Selena Gomez to utter an F-bomb in front of hundreds of fans.
Bob Barker, who hosted the 'Price is Right' for 35 years, returns for a special guest appearance to celebrate his 90th birthday on Thursday's broadcast. Barker's appearance is also in conjunction with National Pet Adoption Week.
, widely known for her role as Alex Keaton's mom, Elyse, on the long-running sitcom 'Family Ties,' has married her longtime partner Nancy Locke.
'SNL' alum Tim Meadows lashes out about not being included in the 'Bill Brasky' sketch which aired this past weekend featuring Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell.
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[WM]Did van Gogh cut off his ear because his brother was engaged?
AMSTERDAM - New evidence has bolstered a theory that Vincent van Gogh's psychotic break on Dec 23, 1888, may have been set off by the news that his brother, Theo, had become engaged to be married.
Author Martin Bailey writes about the findings, based on a thorough examination of family letters, in his new book, Studio Of The South: Van Gogh In Provence, which will be published on Thursday (Nov 3) in Britain.
The artist cut off most of his ear during a psychotic episode about 12 hours after he learned of the engagement, which is "not something you would do if you welcomed the news, by any means", Bailey said in a phone interview on Tuesday.
In the past, most scholars have credited the mental breakdown to a fight van Gogh had that same day with painter Paul Gauguin, a friend of his. Bailey believes the engagement news to be a much more significant disturbance than the fight, and said van Gogh's fears of abandonment may have been stirred.
"Vincent feared that he would then 'lose' Theo, his closest companion," Bailey wrote in the book. "He was equally worried that his brother might withdraw the financial support which had enabled him to devote his life to art. All this was threatened by the unexpected appearance of a fiancée."
Bailey, a London-based art correspondent for The Art Newspaper and an independent curator who has mounted van Gogh exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Scotland/Compton Verney, previously posited his theory in an article for The Art Newspaper in 2009 and in his 2013 book The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story Of Van Gogh's Masterpiece. But his new book provides more evidence, he said, based on an analysis of previously unpublished family correspondence.
"I'm even more convinced that he did indeed know about the engagement on the morning of Dec 23," he said.
Other van Gogh experts are circumspect about the evidence. Ms Nienke Bakker, a curator of van Gogh paintings at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam - which owns the largest collection of the artist's works - said that it's impossible to know whether Bailey's theory is correct, because the letter that van Gogh received on Dec 23 doesn't exist any more.
"It might have contained the news of Theo's engagement, but this cannot be proven," she wrote in an email. "It is equally possible that Theo only informed Vincent of his marriage plans when he visited his brother in hospital - thus after the ear incident."
Mr Sjraar van Heugten, a van Gogh expert and the author of several books about the artist, said, "It seems fair to me that this may have played a crucial role, but it came on top of the increasingly difficult situation with Gauguin." He added: "I give more weight to that, but the dramatic events were probably the result of several tensions."
Scholars have been puzzling over the details of van Gogh's time in Arles, in Provence, for the 126 years since the artist's death, because while he was living there from February 1888 to May 1889, he experienced both the peak of his artistic career and the beginning of his mental decline. He had his first significant psychotic breakdown there, according to a recent conference by physicians and art historians in Amsterdam earlier this year to discuss the case. It is also where he was hospitalised for the first time.
Bailey observes that, just a half day before van Gogh cut off his ear, he received a letter from Paris that may have contained the news that Theo was engaged to Johanna Bonger, known as Jo. Although he could not confirm the precise contents of that letter, which has been lost, he was able to find evidence that Bonger received a telegram of congratulations on Dec 23 from her older brother Henry - which confirmed that Henry had received the news of the engagement - shortly after receiving the announcement letter from Bonger.
Because Vincent and Henry were both older brothers of the betrothed parties, and had the same social standing within the family, it would seem customary to inform them both at the same time, Bailey reasons.
Even if van Gogh had heard about the engagement on that day, however, Ms Bakker of the Van Gogh Museum said: "The question would remain as to whether it played any part in his self-injury. It is a matter of speculation that cannot be proved one way or the other."
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[WM]Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., plans to use a procedural tactic to force a floor vote on a bill that would punish any doctor who fails to provide medical care to a child born alive after an abortion, The Hill reports.
Under the bill, the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, "any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care."
The Senate in late February voted to block consideration of the measure, with all but three Democrats voting against a procedural mayor.
Scalise next week plans to move forward with a discharge petition, which would force a vote on the bill. He needs 218 signatures to do so.
"Next week, on April 2, next Tuesday, I will be formally filing the discharge petition on the Born Alive Act," he told reporters during. "Ann Wagner will be my first signator and there are a lot of members that want to sign that, and frankly we're going to find out real soon which Democrats truly are pro-life."
Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., sponsored the bill.
Opponents of the bill said it would criminalize doctors and was unnecessary since laws already exist to protect an infant in the extremely unlikely scenario of a live birth after an abortion attempt.
Planning to use a procedural tactic, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., intends to force a floor vote on a bill that would punish any doctor who fails to provide medical care to a child born alive after an abortion, according to The Hill.
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[WM]Reseller hosting businesses rent backend server space from larger companies.
2 Can You Make Money Being a Web-hosting Reseller?
Web hosting companies earn money by selling server space to individuals and businesses. While some hosting companies own their own servers, many new hosting ventures begin by renting server space from another provider. This is known as "reseller hosting." Typically, the larger company provides "backend" service that is not visible to the end user, and a reseller hosting business re-brands and sells the available server space.
Create a general business plan for the hosting business. Decide which market niche the hosting services will fill. For instance, some hosting companies compete by offering basic hosting at very low prices, while others offer website building services or specialized software support. Establish a list of services and prices that will be offered by the company. If many different services will be offered, split them into several different packages and pricing levels.
Determine what technical support options the company will offer. Around the clock customer support via phone can be attractive to customers, but requires more staff members than basic e-mail technical support. Decide if the reseller hosting business will use in-house tech support personnel or if support from an outside contractor is required instead.
Form a legal business entity for the hosting company. Choose from a sole proprietorship, limited liability company or corporation. The first option is the easiest to create, while the last two options offer better liability protection. Visit the local Secretary of State or County Clerk’s office to fill out the appropriate forms for the business entity.
Select a backend hosting provider that offers reseller packages. Check the websites and available packages from several different companies, and find one that meets the needs of the general business plan. Compare the available storage space and bandwidth numbers from different companies. Check to see if the hosting provider will offer technical support to your end users, or if you must provide this directly. New hosting businesses usually start with a small and relatively inexpensive reseller hosting package, and expand to a larger package once the company begins to grow.
Choose a payment processing solution for the new hosting business. Compare the costs and features of a bank merchant account, and internet-based payment processors. Verify that the payment service is able to process several different brands of credit cards, and is able to support recurring customer billing for monthly subscribers.
Create an internet presence for the new hosting company. Register a domain name that is unique and easy to remember. Build a website to be placed on this domain or hire a design service to create the site. Many backend hosting service providers provide customizable site templates for this purpose or offer professional design services. Present the available hosting packages and prices on the site, using the general business plan as a guide.
Market the new hosting business. Contact local businesses and offer the hosting services for their website; use a discounted trial rate as incentive. Network with local web design companies, freelancers and marketing companies to offer hosting to their clients. Advertise in publications such as newspapers, or using online pay-per-click advertising on search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
Monitor and administer the reseller hosting business to prevent site downtime and keep customers satisfied. Use the backend hosting control panel to check bandwidth and storage amounts frequently and upgrade to a larger package with the hosting provider if needed. Respond quickly to customer questions or complaints, and consult with the backend hosting provider to solve any technical issues promptly.
Aries, Benjamin. "How to Run a Reseller Hosting Company." Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/run-reseller-hosting-company-25300.html. Accessed 21 April 2019.
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[WM]It recently dawned on me that it has been nearly nine long years since my wife and children moved back to India. Living on my own hasn’t been easy. While mundane, everyday issues like food had understandably been the first and foremost concern, there are a myriad of things that you miss when you find yourself suddenly divested of the emotional support system that loved ones offer, especially in times of distress.
I nearly went crazy in the beginning. Waking up on my own and getting ready for work in the deafening silence of an empty house and being greeted by a deserted, lifeless home on return had been incredibly depressing.
I would stay up late at night as I found it impossible to sleep. My old problem of insomnia got progressively worse. If I somehow managed to doze off, I found it hard to wake up in the morning for work.
Over time, I somehow managed to come to terms with my splendid isolation, repeatedly telling myself to pull myself together. However, without my realising it, the new ‘bachelor’ lifestyle had begun to take its emotional and physical toll on my health. I really piled on the pounds as I sought to find comfort and solace in food and ate junk that Indian and Pakistani hotels usually serve.
Perhaps you never recover from the emotional shock and sense of loss – although in my case it was supposed to have been a temporary separation. My children needed to move to attend college. They were supposed to come back soon.
However, I realised shortly as well as they did that it was not going to happen anytime soon. They had not left the nest to return. Initially apprehensive and nervous, my children have come to love and enjoy the freedom, and the hustle and bustle of life back home. Now whenever they come to visit me in Dubai, they appear bored and cannot wait to go back.
The same goes for their mother. She is seemingly at peace with herself and enjoys the chaotic certainty of life in India, with its myriad challenges as well as small pleasures. Meanwhile, I have found myself feeling increasingly lonely and depressed, and like a stranger at home whenever I visit India.
I have never been very social by nature. Far from it. I love my “me time”, as they say in the West, and like spending time with myself. I hate the company of the endlessly blabbering kind. However, even solitary, shy animals like me do miss and pine for the warmth of human company and kindred spirits. There’s a void and emptiness in and around me that nothing seems to fill.
I have tried keeping myself busy. I watch TV – indeed too much of it, I must admit. Having been a voracious, compulsive reader all my life, I know there is nothing like a good book to beat ennui and loneliness. Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience, said Mark Twain, are key to an ideal life.
However, diversions like reading, TV and music may temporarily help the lonely, but they can never truly be a substitute for that priceless gift called human company, especially of those who you love. Besides, you know what Albert Einstein thought of reading after a certain age? Reading diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, said the genius.
There can never be “too much” reading. But, yes, it is not possible to argue with Einstein’s point about being too dependent on the “received wisdom” of giants like him and not thinking for ourselves. This is perhaps why the Quran repeatedly implores us to think and contemplate on the world around us, where we came from, and where we are headed.
Returning to the issue at hand, hopelessly missing my family and wallowing in self-pity, I often wonder how my son must be dealing with his own share of blues and homesickness. He moved to the US a couple of years ago to pursue his dream of a foreign university degree.
Living all by himself on the other side of the world– he needs to change at least three flights from Hyderabad in India to get to his destination in the American South – the experience couldn’t have been easy for him. Especially for someone as painfully shy and introverted as him.
Growing up, he was so emotionally attached to me that he would stand right next to me, shoulder to shoulder, even in his teens whenever we prayed together in the mosque. Now, he is all grown up to face the world on his own.
I guess these are the rites of passage that we all must negotiate on our own. Each one of us must carry his own cross. In the words of the Quran, “No bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another”. Being the protective parents that we are, we worry ourselves sick about our children, without realising that they are perhaps emotionally stronger and better equipped to deal with the world.
Come to think of it, it is not just me who has to battle these “existential dilemmas”. There are millions and millions like me in this part of the world living thousands of kilometres from home, toiling daily so their families and loved ones back home have the shot at a better life than they had.
I know of people who have spent more than 30 to 40 years in the Gulf – more than two-thirds of their lives – and yet remain strangers in their adopted countries. Some of them arrived by ships and even by traditional dhows when the Gulf El Dorado was still in its infancy.
Many of them spend all their lives diligently saving their dirhams and dinars, often at a great cost to themselves. They live in shared apartments, sometimes six to eight in a room, dreaming of going home “soon”. Many of them have missed seeing their children grow up in their crucial formative years, sharing small, everyday pleasures of life with their families. All this to ensure that their families back home live in comfort.
In many cases though, their hard-earned money is squandered without a thought to the sweat and blood spent in earning it. Many of these valiant soldiers die far from their loved ones and without their dreams ever being realised.
It is their sweat and blood that have literally built the rich petrodollar economies of the Gulf, not to mention the colossal and seldom-acknowledged contribution their remittances have made to the economies back home in South Asia and elsewhere.
The heaven-kissing towers and high-rises of Dubai, Doha and Jeddah wouldn’t have been possible without the sheer hard work and dedication of multitudes of humble men, the overwhelming majority of them from the Subcontinent.
This is why I have always believed that the extraordinary lives and struggles of my fellow travellers are nothing short of a noble jihad. If jihad means striving for a noble cause and putting your life on the line for a higher purpose, then these men and women have been doing just that.
Who says I am alone? I am surrounded by noble and selfless men and women. I am in the presence of greatness.
The writer is an award-winning journalist and editor.
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COTTON HAT ($300) by Hermès; hermes.com. LINEN SHIRT ($225) by Zegna Sport; zegna.com. COTTON SHORTS ($250) by Orlebar Brown; orlebarbrown.com. SUNGLASSES ($280) by Ermenegildo Zegna; zegna.com. NYLON SWIMSUIT ($275) by Canali; canali.com. LEATHER SANDALS ($295) by Salvatore Ferragamo; ferragamo.com.
COTTON SCARF ($165) by Max Mara Weekend; maxmara.com. COTTON HAT ($225) by Moncler; moncler.com. LYCRA BIKINI ($229) by Emporio Armani; armani.com. CREPE DE CHINE SHORTS ($185) by Rebecca Minkoff; shopbop.com. SUNGLASSES ($250) and NYLON LYCRA SWIMSUIT ($98) by Omo Norma Kamali; normakamali.com. LEATHER SANDALS ($840) by Hermès; hermes.com.
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[WM]We've spent a lot of time covering IK Multimedia's line of iOS accessories for guitarists. And with good reason: the original iRig for the iPhone and iPod Touch was one of the first dedicated music accessories for the mobile musician, helping to launch a whole cottage industry of hardware and apps that transformed iOS devices from consumption to creative devices. And with the recently released iRig Keys, IK has extended that line to keyboardists as well.
The iRig Keys is a 37-key mini keyboard and MIDI controller. It works as a Core MIDI device for iOS and a USB class compliant for seamless use with any app or software which supports MIDI devices on both Mac and PC. The device is complete with wheels for modulation and pitch bend and has an input jack for a sustain pedal, along with various buttons for changing octaves or volume. All of the keys are velocity-sensitive, meaning that a lighter touch will result in a softer notes while the opposite is true when hammering out chords.
I tried out the iRig Keys on both my iPad Mini and Mac. Using the Lightning adapter worked great and the Garageband App detected the keyboard, no problem. I pulled up a previous project and started playing with the pianos, organs and other MIDI instruments Garageband offers. It was a truly plug and play experience that let me focus on making music and, again, brought out the fun that Garageband is capable of. The velocity sensitivity wasn't as good as on full-sized keyboards, and certainly those with fully weighted keys, but those complaints must be taken with a grain of salt; there is plenty of variability for making expressive performances.
IK Multimedia also publishes two great apps that serve as companions for the iRig Keys. The first is SampleTank which contains over 500 instruments over 16 categories including drum samplers, a wide range of electronic and orchestral instruments. SampleTank is free with various instrument packs unlockable with in-app purchases. The second app is the iGrand Piano, which has the most faithful piano samples I've ever heard on iOS. With pianos ranging from Classical and Grand Pianos to various uprights and even a fun Saloon piano, the app offers an incredible amount of range. Each piano is customizable with options for adjusting volume, ambience, and lid position and the automatic release of keys when not using an expression pedal are phenomenal. Both apps are compatible with the iRig Keys along with a dedicated iOS-compatible MIDI adapter called the iRig MIDI, so you can bring your own MIDI keyboard if you'd like.
Overall, I feel that IK Multimedia has a home run on their hands with the iRig Keys and the supporting apps they've created. They're smartly designed, work well together and they sound incredible. Any keyboardist who's been jealous of all of the products out there catering to their guitarist friends finally have an equally portable solution for practicing, writing and performing.
Wired: Extremely portable and feature rich with velocity-sensitive mini keys and convenient buttons to activate features in equally rich first-party apps. Flexible use with both iOS and Mac or PC.
Tired: All plastic construction has some flex and feels a bit cheap. Unlocking the full potential of the apps is relatively costly. Separate iPhone and iPad apps.
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[WM]I imagine that Ellis would find this reaction delightful. That it is uttered by a purebred coastal elite with a crush on A.O.C. and a refrigerator full of overpriced organic produce would make it all the more delicious.
Because here is the caricatured target of Ellis’s new book: a millennial who borrows many of his cultural opinions from woke Twitter; who experienced something close to shell shock when Robert Mueller’s report was finally completed and impeachment proceedings did not immediately commence; and who — sin of sins, as far as the author is concerned — confuses aesthetic differences with moral failing.
Ellis has been a public bad boy since 1985, when his debut novel, “Less Than Zero,” was published while he was still a college student. In those days, the author’s vices were obnoxiousness and large quantities of cocaine. Now he is sober. And the obnoxiousness has migrated, naturally, to a podcast and a Twitter feed.
Now, at least in theory, snowflakes on both coasts in withdrawal from Rachel Maddow’s nightly Kremlinology lesson can purchase a whole book to inspire paroxysms of rage. “White” — even the title is a trigger — is a veritable thirst trap for the easily microaggressed.
It’s all here. Rants about Trump derangement syndrome; MSNBC; #MeToo; safe spaces. He thinks “Moonlight” only won the Oscar for best picture over “La La Land” because voting for it could be seen as a “rebuke to Trump.” He thinks that Black Lives Matter is a morally significant movement, but says its “lurching, unformed aesthetic” is why it never reached a wide audience. Had the “millennial mess” mimicked the look of the Black Panthers, he suggests, it would have taken off. I’m not exaggerating. Speaking of Black Panthers — yes, you guessed it — the author thinks that movie was insanely overhyped. It will not escape reader notice that the author of a book called “White” happens to be particularly fixated on black culture.
Ellis recently told The Times that “this is kind of a book for a Bret Easton Ellis completist.” Perhaps he is right that superfans will love to hear him go on for pages about “American Psycho” being transferred from page to stage, where it closed after two months and lost $14 million. I did not.
But one suspects that his editor must be one. Nothing else justifies seven pages on Charlie Sheen’s 2011 breakdown. Ellis summons more detail and color about Alex Gibney’s 2015 HBO documentary about Frank Sinatra (three pages) than he does in the two paragraphs he dedicates to snorting coke and talking about race with Jean-Michel Basquiat on a random October afternoon at the Odeon in 1987 — an anecdote that any person with a pulse would be interested in.
Ellis told The Times Literary Supplement that this book was “a lament from a disillusioned Gen X-er” and I think to read it as anything more than a sustained wail would be a waste of energy.
That is not to say that I don’t share some of Ellis’s bugbears.
I think those writers who boycotted PEN for honoring the surviving staffers of Charlie Hebdo are moral midgets. I think it’s a very bad sign about where we are as a culture when friendships are unable to survive elections or the appointment of Supreme Court justices.
Indeed, many of the topics Ellis blithely skates over in this ranting, stream-of-consciousness book would be rich fodder for a real analysis of the Great Awokening and its excesses. On the face of it, it would seem Ellis would be the ideal person to write it.
He was canceled decades before canceling became a thing. It was November 1990 and Simon & Schuster was set to release “American Psycho,” Ellis’s anticipated third novel, until it caved in the face of criticism, much of it internal. “The noise from the offended was too loud,” Ellis writes of the episode — a concise phrase diagnosing our current cultural malady.
Back then, outrage had not yet become our dominant mode. A more prestigious publishing house swooped in within 48 hours and “American Psycho” became a best seller. Today, young-adult novels deemed politically or culturally insensitive are pulped before they are even put out.
And one of the earliest casualties of our fun-deficient, conformist age (Ellis is entirely right about this) has been the intellectual gadfly. Ellis is one of them.
Yet he refuses to own the role he has chosen. “I was never good at realizing what might offend someone anyway,” he writes. And you want to throw the book across the room because you know that the very reason it was written was to offend.
An earlier version of this review referred incorrectly to “American Psycho.” It was Bret Easton Ellis’s third novel, not his second.
Bari Weiss is an Op-Ed staff editor and writer at The Times.
272 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95.
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[WM]MANCHESTER UNITED stars Ryan Giggs, Darren Fletcher and Chris Smalling followed up their Champions League loss to Olympiakos in midweek with another humiliating defeat... to Super League trio Kevin Sinfield, Ryan Bailey and Rangi Chase in a Foxy Bingo sponsored cross-bar challenge.
Foxy Bingo signed a two-year extension to its sponsorship deal with the First Utility Super League and celebrated by having mascot Foxy coach Sinfield, Bailey and Chase to victory over United's finest.
Giggs famously played rugby league as a youngster, even representing Wales at youth level and showed his prowess with the oval ball from 10 yards out.
But Fletcher and Smalling couldn't match their elder and United fell even further behind from greater distances before closing the gap to 4-3.
The footballers were then forced to look on as Foxy presented the rugby league stars with the silverware.
And given the way United's season has gone up to this point, it is a feeling that the trio may have to get used to.
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[WM]Job sectors that experienced the most gains statewide from September to October were retail trade, education, health care, professional and business services, state and local public schools, leisure and hospitality, technology, construction, financial services and manufacturing.
Manufacturing specifically was up 700 jobs, although year-over-year there have been 10,500 positions generated in that sector, Butler said.
Overall, since October 2011, the state has added 68,000 jobs.
“Our labor force has grown consistently over the past year, indicating that Georgians are more optimistic about finding a job, and fortunately, we’ve had the job growth necessary to put these people to work,” Butler said.
Another employment barometer — initial jobless claims filings — actually rose in Georgia by nearly 12,000 in October. First-time filings for the state are down nearly 4,400 from a year ago, however.
Metro area data released today showed Columbus losing 700 jobs over the past year, its workforce slipping to 118,800 in October. Augusta, with 3,500 jobs lost, and Dalton, down 2,400, were the only other metro areas to see drops in their workforce totals. Atlanta has added 33,700 jobs over the last 12 months.
Nearly 1,400 Columbus residents submitted claims for unemployment benefits for the first time in October, up about 200 from a year ago. The only other metro areas to see an increase in initial filings during that period were Athens and Savannah.
The jobless rate in Columbus in September was 8.7 percent. Metro area figures are expected to be released next week.
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[WM]This free, weekly program shows students in kindergarten through 5th grade how to make unique items from upcycled materials.
FORT PIERCE — Beat the summer heat at the Lakewood Park Branch Library’s Make & Take Crafts program running Fridays at 2 p.m. from June 15 through July 27 (excluding July 6).
Designed for students in kindergarten through 5th grade, this free, weekly program allows participants to make unique items from upcycled materials such as designer pencils and decorative journals.
Each week features a different craft that students can take home with them. Space is limited to 25 participants.
For details, contact [email protected] or 772 462-6870.
The Lakewood Park Branch Library of the St. Lucie County Library System is located at 7605 Santa Barbara Dr., Fort Pierce, in northern St. Lucie County. For additional information, visit www.stlucieco.gov/library.
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[WM]Consumers purchasing IBM PCs will soon get their computers pre-configured for free Internet access from Juno Online Services.
The companies today announced a multiyear distribution agreement, with IBM bundling Juno connection software with new computers beginning in mid-August. The Internet service will be installed on IBM's Netvista and Aptiva desktop models, as well as on i Series ThinkPads.
Juno shares soared on the news, closing up $1.19, or 24 percent, at $6.12.
"Juno is attempting to embellish their distribution channels and get the first shot at customers," said Frederick Moran, an Internet analyst with Jefferies & Co. "If customers like the Juno service, they will likely stick with it."
Juno is not the first Internet service provider to strike deals with a computer manufacturer to increase distribution. America Online, for example, has a similar arrangement with Gateway.
ISPs are eager to reach new Web users first, as many consumers are believed to stick with the first service they use.
"Most every PC purchase today is made to get Internet access," Moran said. "The best chance to get a subscriber is when he first takes the PC out of the package."
Juno said it is the nation's third-largest dial-up ISP after AOL and EarthLink Network, with 3.38 million subscribers.
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[WM]Photos by Brett Luke | The Journal Gazette Angelia Ware Grundy pays respect Sunday afternoon to victims of unsolved homicide cases, including her grandsons Shawn Ware and Donta Grundy.
People at Sunday’s Justice, Accountability & Victim Advocacy event hold candles outside the Allen County Courthouse to remember homicide victims.
Brett Luke | The Journal Gazette Davion Ware, left, and Drevon Ware write the names of victims Shawn Ware and Drevon Grundy in chalk outside the courthouse Sunday afternoon during the vigil held by the “Justice Accountability Victim Advocacy” group.
Amy Davis of Justice, Accountability & Victim Advocacy leads a prayer Sunday outside the courthouse.
Brett Luke | The Journal Gazette Victims with unsolved cases have their names written on crosses and displayed by year at the “Justice Accountability Victim Advocacy” vigil Sunday afternoon outside of the courthouse.
A few dozen people gathered Sunday afternoon in the shadow of the Allen County Courthouse to pay tribute to the city's homicide victims, whose chalk-written names covered the sidewalk alongside pleas for justice.
Family of the slain shook with emotion and struggled to speak as they shared their experiences, including the horror of discovering their beloveds' lifeless bodies.
“I asked God, 'Why? I'm a woman of faith,'” said Timika Bonner, whose 18-year-old son was killed in October 2012.
Recently formed group Justice, Accountability & Victim Advocacy, or JAVA, spearheaded the brief event. Organizers plan to hold monthly tributes as well as monthly meetings featuring speakers and connecting families with resources, spokeswoman Amy Davis said.
There have been 34 homicides in Allen County this year. There were 41 in 2017, making it the third time in five years the county had more than 40. The deadliest year was 2016 with 49 homicides.
When asked about Sunday's turnout, Davis said it is uplifting to see those affected by a homicide support each other.
It doesn't, however, ease the pain of losing a child, attendee Ruth Cox said. A portrait of her slain son, Michael Wilcher, was in her arms.
Wilcher, 51, was found beaten on Huffman Street last September. He died from blunt force injuries to the head. A poster at the event encouraged witnesses to come forward.
Before leaving her house Sunday, Cox looked at a family photograph featuring her six children. She tried to picture the image without Wilcher.
Melissa Deputy attended in remembrance of three people and an unborn child who were killed on Holton Avenue two years ago. She described one of the victims as her stepson.
“They were all so full of life,” Deputy said.
Davis, who mourns a nephew, led those gathered in prayer. Along with comfort and love, she prayed for community leaders to solve the crimes.
Elected officials must be held accountable, fellow JAVA member Nasim Walker said, noting families can't have justice when killers remain free. She urged attendees to vote.
“They're supposed to protect us,” Walker said.
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[WM]These are turbulent times for the travel sector.
Climate change is likely to bring blistering summers to Britain, which will encourage more people to find their own answer to Majorca in resorts like Scarborough and Bridlington.
This is great news for traditional UK seaside resorts, but it’s a very unwelcome development if your business model is built around encouraging millions of Britons to flee the country for a couple of weeks each summer in search of a tan.
Peter Fankhauser, the chief executive of Thomas Cook, a household name in the sector, must have opened his window every day from June to August and prayed for rain. The scorching summer has been blamed for sending the company’s share price plummeting.
The hot weather meant many traditional Thomas Cook customers spent June and July enjoying the sunshine at home instead of booking holidays abroad. Mr Fankhauser said the company’s recent trading performance was “clearly disappointing” and investors shared this glum assessment.
Thomas Cook makes all its profit in the summer when its customers in northern Europe, including Britain, Germany and Scandinavia go on holiday, mainly to warmer destinations in southern Europe such as Spain, Turkey and Greece.
So Thomas Cook’s perfect British summer is damp and dreary. Historically, Britain has a pretty good track record in serving up dismal summers that make millions of people beat a path to the travel agent.
However, as the climate changes, Britons may get used to sweltering summers and become less inclined to travel abroad.
Climate change is a terrible thing, but we must acknowledge that, unless drastic action is taken, our summers are likely to get warmer and this will affect consumer behaviour.
Throw the uncertainty caused by Brexit into the mix, which is likely to shake consumer confidence, and the long term prospects for traditional travel firms become distinctly foggy.
British coastal resorts should be well-placed to undergo a renaissance. Why head to the airport if the temperature in Scarborough is the same as the Costa Brava?
If we can fix the woeful public transport system and improve the road networks, we will have a chance to revive the British seaside experience which was so popular with our parents and grandparents.
Meanwhile, bosses at Thomas Cook must be hoping that the British summer of 2019 turns out to be gloomy. Dull weather across northern Europe will mean more travellers head to sunnier climes.
There are signs that many businesses and consumers are tightening their belts in response to the uncertain political environment.
Travelodge has reported rising sales and profits in the first half of the year as more consumers and businesses opt for budget hotels due to the UK’s economic slowdown.
The firm pointed to “economic uncertainty” in the UK, which has helped drive up demand for budget accommodation among consumers and businesses.
However, Travelodge bemoaned the impact of “significant” cost increases, citing the National Living Wage and operational burdens, although it added that it has successfully navigated these challenges.
Consumers who are keeping a tight grip on spending, could beat a path to Yorkshire..
It’s a chance to revive the lost art of holidaying at home.
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[WM]If you're a regular commuter or tourist in New York City, here's some exciting news: Earlier this week, MTA officials discovered that three N trains were infested with bedbugs.
The New York Daily News reports that two of the trains were taken out of service while a third was sent for fumigation.
"When we found them, we exterminated them," Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Adam Lisberg told the Daily News. At least some of the bugs were found in the cabs used by the trains' motorman and conductors; it's not clear if any were discovered in the passenger area.
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[WM]Whoa! Barbara is lashing out at Selena in a new interview! She’s blaming the ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ star for all the drama that surrounds their twisted ‘love’ triangle with Justin Bieber!
Barbara Palvin is not happy with Selena Gomez. In a new interview, the model blames Selena for all the “ridiculous” stories that have been written about her and Justin Bieber.
“You know how the drama started — Selena retweeted the picture,” Barbara told Celebuzz on Jan. 12.
Selena, 20, posted a photo of Justin, Lil’ Twist and Barbara together with just, “…” on Nov. 8. It was clear that Selena was mad at Justin for hanging with the model.
“I’m okay to talk about it because I know there’s nothing. It’s ridiculous how this got to the news,” Barbara said to the website.
Barbara claims she was just “hanging out” with Justin, 18, during the Victoria’s Secret fashion show on Nov. 7.
“hey everyone. please calm down. he is all yours!!” Barbara wrote on Twitter on Nov. 9, in response to fans getting angry with her.
Romance rumors started when Justin was spotted on Nov. 8, catching a showing of The Lion King on Broadway — with Barbara!
What About Her Visit To Miami?
Fans were in a frenzy yet again when Barbara posted a picture on Twitter of herself in Miami on Dec. 8, allegedly standing in front of Justin’s tour bus. However, Barbara says that was NOT Justin’s bus.
“We didn’t hang out, that’s the funny part,” she said.
“It was so funny when I read we were hanging out in Miami and I was also wearing his t-shirt. Dude, that’s my t-shirt!” Barbara added.
Now that Justin and Selena have broken up, yet again, perhaps Barbara and Justin will finally have a chance at a real romance. What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers?
Justin Bieber Smokes Pot To Get Over Selena Gomez?
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[WM]FAIRVIEW, W.Va (WDTV) - Several of you in Fairview have reached out to 5 News over the last few days saying the water is discolored and dirty.
Some said it's pink, and others called it brown.
"I don't feel safe right now," said Rachel Toothman. "Not after what I saw on Friday night."
"It's not right because we pay for that water," said Rachael King. "We should be able to use that water without any kind of fear of being sick or ill, or it turning our clothes different colors."
These people tell us discolored water has been flowing into their homes.
"It's almost, at least on a monthly basis, where somebody is saying 'hey, I have brown water, does anybody else.'"
Kelley says two of her children came home from school on Friday and noticed the problems there, as well.
"None of my fellow students would drink it because it was a weird color," said Aubrey Hamilton.
"It looked disgusting," said Audrey Hamilton.
5 News reached out to the principal at Fairview Middle School, who told us it was discolored late in the day Friday, the system was flushed Monday morning, and all is back to normal.
Since late last week, Kelley says the water in her home has been somewhat back to normal. However, this is an ongoing problem.
"I have animals, and I don't want to have to go somewhere else to purchase water," Toothman said.
"It's either becoming more of an issue, or we're becoming more aware of it because of social media and people actually asking questions."
5 News also made calls to town water officials, but no calls were returned. We also stopped in the Town Hall, and we were told there wasn't anybody there who could speak to us.
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[WM]CLEVELAND (AP) � Asdrubal Cabrera hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning to lift Cleveland to an 8-7 comeback win over the Kansas City Royals after the Indians� Jim Thome hit a solo shot for his 602nd career homer.
Cabrera connected on a 1-1 pitch from Louis Coleman (1-4) to give the Indians their 21st last-at-bat win and 32nd comeback triumph overall.
Joe Smith (3-3) got the final out in the eighth for the win, and Chris Perez pitched the ninth for his 29th save in 33 chances. Perez threw out a runner trying to go to third on a sacrifice bunt then fanned two Royals to strand a runner at second.
Thome celebrated his 41st birthday with a solo homer in the sixth in his second game back in Cleveland to tie it at 4.
Then Alex Gordon, who had three hits, belted a three-run homer in the seventh off reliever Tony Sipp to put the Royals ahead 7-4. Sipp replaced Fausto Carmona (6-13) with runners on first and third in a lefty-against-lefty matchup but yielded Gordon�s 18th homer of the season.
Cabrera�s RBI single pulled Cleveland to 7-5 in the seventh.
In the eighth, pinch-hitter Lonnie Chisenhall singled with two outs and Kosuke Fukudome walked. Cabrera followed with his 21st homer into the right-field seats.
Thome got a rousing standing ovation as he slowly rounded the bases with his 335th homer in a Cleveland uniform, a line shot into the seats in left-center that extended his club record. It was Thome�s first homer for Cleveland since Sept. 28, 2002, off the Royals� Jeremy Affeldt.
Thome needs seven homers to tie Sammy Sosa for seventh on the all-time list.
For Kansas City, Danny Duffy struck out seven over 51/3 innings, allowing four runs and six hits.
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[WM]The rate of babies who die during their first year of birth has improved nationally in the last decade, but in recent years, improvement in this key public health metric has plateaued.
New data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows there was no change in the national rate of infant mortality between 2014 and 2015, the most recent years for which it has published numbers.
South Carolina has a middling rate overall, compared to other states. The Palmetto State came in at 16th worst of 50 states and Washington D.C., with 6.74 infants dying each year before they reached 1 year old.
The infant mortality rate is considered an important community health measurement and is widely accepted as a key public health metric. The lower the rate, the better. The worst rates in the world are found in African countries, which reach nearly 90 deaths per 1,000 babies in the Central African Republic, according to the World Health Organization.
The report echoes data from the Department of Health and Environmental Control released in late 2017, which also highlighted a racial divide fueled by poor maternal health and other challenges. On average, black babies fared worse than their white peers, the CDC reported.
The infant mortality rate for black babies in South Carolina was 10.52, about half a point lower than the national average for the demographic. White South Carolina babies scored less than half that rate, at 4.98.
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[WM]You long for someone to return your affection, but it just isn't happening. Instead of going into an emotional tailspin, do something nice for yourself. Plan a holiday, play your favourite sport or go to a concert. When you treat yourself well, your self-esteem will bounce back. At that point, you'll attract an admirer who is worthy of your affection. Are you in a romantic relationship that has grown stale? Instead of complaining about the situation, have a heart to heart discussion with them.
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[WM]Omri Barzilay is a co-founder of Propcy.
The real estate rental market is a highly localized, relationship-based industry driven largely by individuals living and working in their own cities, causing many to acknowledge the longstanding difficulty of streamlining disruption to this market.
In recent years, however, that hasn’t stopped a multitude of innovators from seeking novel ways to improve the process’s efficiency.
If early innovators like Zillow and Trulia primarily entailed bringing real estate data online, newer innovators harness data not only to improve analytics for landlords, but also to improve efficiency for apartment seekers. This becomes more important as New York City, for instance, begins to see the start of an expected surge in rental apartments — more than 38,000 market-rate rental apartments, mostly in Brooklyn and Queens, are expected to be completed over the next three years.
With the advent of new technologies, the market has begun to shift nearly every aspect of the rental process, from leasing applications to communications with landlords and agents to payment processing.
As rentals become commoditized and fewer people are satisfied being tied down to static assets, a number of players have sought to empower potential renters in new ways. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is enabling rental without a broker. New York-based real estate startup Oliver, for example, launched in 2015 to serve as a platform that cuts out the middleman and seamlessly connects renters with apartments.
What this means in practice is that by aggregating real-time rental inventory directly from property managers and landlords, rather than through third-parties, the Oliver app enables renters not only to browse and filter listings as could be done on other platforms, but also to schedule showings at the tap of a button using an in-app calendar feature. Rezi, an earlier-stage New York startup, also saves time by automatically scheduling multiple apartment visits to fit its users’ schedules.
Others have invested resources in improving the process for brokers themselves. Nestio, a residential leasing and marketing platform, streamlines the leasing process using cloud-based software, which enables listings to be shared, leads to be tracked and clients to be managed in one easy-to-use platform.
An increasing number of startups, both small and large, are empowering renters.
Earlier this year, Naked Apartments, a website that optimizes how brokers can proactively approach potential and current clients with appropriate, targeted listings, became Zillow’s fifth consumer-brand acquisition, with the shared goal of using data analytics to bring transparency to New York’s real estate landscape for brokers.
As agents spend less time at their desk and more time closing on rental deals via mobile applications, DotLoop has also focused on automating more redundant tasks by allowing agents to upload important documents, negotiate transactions and get bank-approved e-signatures in a single platform.
Others are playing matchmaker in different ways: by connecting potential roommates to each other. Roomi, which raised $4 million in seed funding led by DCM Ventures and already boasts more than 375,000 users in North America, as well as smaller market players like EasyRoommate, make it simpler for renters to find and connect with compatible roommates, whether renting an extra room in an apartment or searching together for an apartment.
Other startups are seeking to disrupt the traditional corporate housing and long-term stay marketplace. Startups like HomeSuite, an online marketplace that removes the hassle from finding furnished housing, aggregates not just long-term but also short-term inventory, geared toward individuals who might previously have focused their searches on more standard month-to-month property managers. In doing so, they are filling the grey area between Craigslist and Airbnb, serving the needs of individuals looking for something more permanent than a vacation rental yet more transient than a typically longer lease commitment.
Disruption hasn’t been limited to the search process. Even payment solutions and mobile are being integrated into newer platforms by companies like RadPad, an end-to-end photo-based rental marketplace aiming to become an A-to-Z platform for renters and landlords alike.
RentPayment similarly reduces the hassle of paper checks and improves the rent payment and collection process by serving as a platform for renters to pay their leases directly to their property managers by credit card, debit card or e-check.
As lead-generation platforms begin to focus more on empowering with complex data analytics those involved in the rental process, an increasing number of startups, both small and large, are empowering renters with more flexible co-living options, capitalizing on the trends toward both optimized roommate matching and pre-furnished apartments.
WeWork, the international co-working startup valued upwards of $16 billion as of March 2016, announced in January that it has begun to convert some of its spaces into fully furnished, flexible apartments. “WeLive replicates the security and comfort of a suburban neighborhood, but with the energy and vigor of a major city,” said the company in a statement, highlighting the company’s strategy to provide residents with private and semi-private housing accommodations alongside community events like fitness classes and potluck dinners, as well as a digital social network. Common, another co-living startup, also offers what it calls “flexible, community-driven housing,” and, in doing so, is revolutionizing the way apartment rental is traditionally done.
As more user-friendly startups begin to steal market share from Craigslist, the value of disruptive innovation that reduces rental-market opacity has become ever clearer, and speaks to the expectations that renters, agents and landlords now have around enabling the rental process, primarily offline in years past, with new technologies. Even more incremental changes, from video walk-throughs to new ways of slicing community rental data, have begun to play significant roles as startups cram into the real estate market, hoping for even a small slice of a huge pie.
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[WM]Aside from its thematic strengths and its delightful characters, if there’s one thing Steven Universe is known for, it’s having a killer soundtrack, jam-packed with powerful, toe-tapping songs. Last night’s episode was no exception, with a chill track that rivals some of the show’s very best musical moments.
Last night’s “Mindful Education” was all about Steven and Connie learning how to deal with their emotions while they train together as their fusion, Stevonnie. The importance of any fusion in Steven Universe is emotional cohesion and focus—something the duo were struggling with, as Connie was distraught over a bad incident that had happened to her at school.
This is unrelated, I just wanted to put a gif of Stevonnie fighting in here because it’s *rad*.
It makes sense to draw comparisons, considering “Stronger Than You” was another Garnet song. Both songs are emotionally resonant with the character’s nature as a bonding between two individuals into a new self, but they speak to that relationship in fundamentally different ways.
“Stronger Than You” is about a declaration of feelings: it’s a triumphant rallying cry for everything Garnet is and stands for as a character—championing her self-worth as a relationship defined by romantic love. It’s high-tempo, high-emotion, loud and bold and proud.
“Here Comes a Thought” on the other hand, is much more about inner reflection, and has a more calming tempo. It’s still about openly accepting the emotions you feel—“the little things that matter so much”—but it’s about tempering those emotions with focus so they can be channelled healthily, a theme that sits at the core of Steven Universe. It might not be as anthemic as “Stronger Than You,” but it’s equally potent and important for the show, thematically.
And like all of Steven Universe’s songs, it’s a damn good foot-tapper. When the hell is this show getting a soundtrack release?
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[WM]Update | 11:08 p.m. Read an article by Steve Lohr on keeping abreast of innovation in the Continuing Education special section.
Noah Berger for The New York Times Tyler Kennedy, 9, searches the Web at home in California.
The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.
Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.
“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” said Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.
This hardly means that we’ll be saying good-bye to classrooms. But the report does suggest that online education could be set to expand sharply over the next few years, as evidence mounts of its value.
Until fairly recently, online education amounted to little more than electronic versions of the old-line correspondence courses. That has really changed with arrival of Web-based video, instant messaging and collaboration tools.
The real promise of online education, experts say, is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms. That enables more “learning by doing,” which many students find more engaging and useful.
“We are at an inflection point in online education,” said Philip R. Regier, the dean of Arizona State University’s Online and Extended Campus program.
The biggest near-term growth, Mr. Regier predicts, will be in continuing education programs. Today, Arizona State has 5,000 students in its continuing education programs, both through in-person classes and online. In three to five years, he estimates, that number could triple, with nearly all the growth coming online.
But Mr. Regier also thinks online education will continue to make further inroads in transforming college campuses as well. Universities — and many K-12 schools — now widely use online learning management systems, like Blackboard or the open-source Moodle. But that is mostly for posting assignments, reading lists, and class schedules and hosting some Web discussion boards.
Mr. Regier sees things evolving fairly rapidly, accelerated by the increasing use of social networking technology. More and more, students will help and teach each other, he said. For example, it will be assumed that college students know the basics of calculus, and the classroom time will focus on applying the math to real-world problems — perhaps in exploring the physics of climate change or modeling trends in stock prices, he said.
For K-12, online classes may translate to more face-to-face instruction. We pulled our son out of a useless junior high, let him play guitar and video games at home all day, and used an online charter school to teach him ourselves at night. The online curriuculum was definitely superior to what the local school offered, and the 1:1 instruction was very efficient. After one semester, he’s ahead of all his old classmates, rather than failing, and he’s enjoying life. Most people probably can’t arrange their lives to do this, but it sure can work when it works.
If you resonate with the studies conclusions, consider that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Imagine what we’ll begin to see when the generation that’s been “bathed in bits” begins building learning communities?
Imagine a mash-up of stumbleupon (randomizing), plus freerice.com (rewards/incentives), plus websites only slightly tweaked to deliver the core content required by states’ NCLB-mandated standards. The most successful (digital) charter school in history.
Great to see the validation from SRI.
Learning is an independent activity Mr. Reiger to the contrary… We all decide what we want to learn — 1st decision and then for different people there are different ways to learn things… The computer which can repreat things forever — and is very patient is a good method for that reason… It can also talk to us and put up something for us to read concurrently — this is where much teaching falls down — on the visual component..A few things do need hands on practice.. say dissection but having had lots of trouble with the instruction from the human instructor on the dissection of the baby pig – I now wonder how I would have done with computer directions to guide me…. sort of like operating long distance via video hookups which are now done…..
and thank heavesn for Wikipedia. — there are some good people out there.
One problem with saying that students in online classes do slightly better than students in traditional classes goes back to the old comparing apples and oranges thing. Online classes have their own assessments that may not parallel traditional assessments. The very technology tends to skew what can and cannot be assessed. Was there any standardization in the compared assessments, I wonder?
I’m halfway through an online master’s program with SJSU’s SLIS. It’s incredibly individualist, timely, and convenient. While the difference between an instructor that can effectively utilize the technology and also bridge the gap of disconnect between students and one who cannot is literally the difference between day and night, I think that the future of education is not as “scary” as it used to be.
p.s. I assure you Hetty, that it costs much more than you think to run these types of programs well.
I wonder to what degree the comparisons are skewed because online learners tend to have more access to technology etc in general. There could be a real effect, but dubious about the magnitude.
Isn’t it a self-selecting group that would want to learn online? Could this be a reason why those taking online courses do better? There’s a certain drive and motivation necessary to force yourself to learn something you don’t have to.
Perhaps by giving business, civics, math and the sciences over to online learning, truly significant time in the classroom can be given over to the arts and humanities.
Fascinating. When it came to college instruction, did the study consider whether older learners did better than traditional college students?
In my experience, on-line learning can work with motivated adults who already possess the BA or BS and take on-line classes to get a credential or a salary boost at work.
Traditional-age college students need the classroom interaction. For that matter, college-level learning is NOT an individual experience. It’s totally dependent upon dialogue and discussion. Otherwise, we might as well say that all we ever need to know we can get by gazing at our navels.
I’m very disturbed by Hetty Greene’s comment. Wikipedia may provide answers, but a college education is designed to help people ask questions and to analyze. The internet is a wonderful tool, but it does not teach analytical or critical thinking. If you don’t want those things, don’t go to college. And if you want a good lawyer, you best make sure he or she does not see the world in terms of answers and quick facts rather than in terms of questions and analysis.
College students, especially those aged 18-24, need to be challenged by the professor and fellow students in person, because they are far too sheltered and naive to seek challenges to what they already think to be true. Those over the age of 24 are not much better, but if they’ve already gone to college they know to ask questions. Young people, now raised in Hetty Greene’s world in which answers and not questions are touted as the end all and be all, are especially in need of the critical thinking skills that a college education provides.
For that matter, most of my on-line students failed their courses and the university knew they’d fail. On-line courses are cash cows *designed* to take advantage of irresponsible, parent-shielded child-adults who, while by no means dumb, are too lazy to drop courses in which they lose interest. Students in my classroom rarely fail because they stop attending class. Students on-line, however, quickly lose interest and are so enamored of their new independence that they forget to drop the course. The F stays on their record and the university gets the cash.
I have personally been the student in a variety of settings, including online, traditional college, foreign universities, community college, etc. What I have found is 1 year later, my retention rate of the material I learned is about the same, irrespective of the delivery method.
That said, I found the online learning drudgery. No live interaction with students & teachers, no debates, etc. No camaraderie, no life-long friendships formed, etc. Not good for extroverts. Living on campus with fellow students is more valuable, and leaves greater impressions, than what you learn in the classroom, particularly 30 years later. So for young people, I definitely recommend the college campus experience, living away from home starting at 18. What you learn about life & getting along with other people will never be reproduced online.
On the plus side, driving to class after work to listen to a bored adjunct for 90 minutes, then driving home is a waste of time. I could read that material myself in 20 minutes in the comfort of my home AND get a higher score on the test. You can move at your own speed and don’t waste time doing stuff that’s redundant. You can do assignments at 2 a.m. if you want – it’s your schedule. In these regards, online learning is superior. Much better for working stiffs trying to get ahead.
The subject matter is also important. Much easier to learn computer programming online than brain surgery. Anything involving people, like physical therapy, needs a large “live” component. OTH, accounting can likely be done easily online.
Bottom line is the motivated learner or student can do well in a variety of settings. As #3 pointed out, it’s cheaper to do online. Just record the professor’s lecture one time, and you’re done, even if s/he dies.
It’s also good for people who live in Timbuktu. You can still have access to the famous professor from home, something that was impossible before.
From this overview that has been presented, it would appear that the research has discovered a correlation rather than a causation in their results.
More bluntly, people taking online courses are a self selected group of people who want to learn. In a regular college environment, that just isn’t there – there are plenty of deadbeats who get weeded out, or people who realize that this isn’t for them, or people who were pushed into college by mom and dad and just aren’t too terribly bright.
Comparison of test scores doesn’t validate the results that Ms. Means and her team has drawn from their research. Their results are interesting, but the essential point still stands; they’ll need more data on the students themselves to draw any form of conclusion about the real efficacy of online teaching.
Just throwing online tools at people does not mean they will engage in meaningful learning. And many course management systems — Blackboard is the notorious biggest offender — are closed, proprietary, and their online media are decades behind the curve.
It’s free and open source software and all the curricular materials are free for others to use.
Yes, I strongly agree. As a teacher, I want students to have individualized learning experiences, especially students who are already 2-3 years behind.
Right now in Florida we actually have a state law that says students who have already been retained “2 or more years” in public schools are required to be in an “alternative placement” — but no one bothered to fund any alternative placement settings for those students already left back 2 or more years who are not eligible for special ed because they do not score low enough to qualify.
What these kids need is an online alternative placement classroom; one like the online classrooms now being used in NYC over the summer to teach math as recently profiled in the NY Times.
By offering students an online alternative, in school, the school still gets the money to educate the student, and the student has a chance for an individual online experience that may even enable the student to catch up.
And, the student could still attend music, art and PE classes with their actual age peers, which is not what happens now.
This is not a good situation for that student, or for the other students who are actually only 10 years old.
And the larger student does not like taking 4th grade art, music and PE three years in a row either.
So, I am looking forward to more online learning in schools, especially for situations like the above. This would really be a tremendous help to all students and teachers.
While enrolled in a mixed media course, where lectures were delivered online through Blackboard with weekly discussion/quiz sessions in a classroom, we quickly found that the best way for many of us to watch the lectures was, in fact, together. This gave everyone a chance to ask questions in the middle of the lecture, and have a possible answer. However, having the ability to go straight to lectures during review helped in studying for finals, or doing homework. Nonetheless, given the complex content of the course, I feel that at least some human interaction was necessary for conceptual comprehension.
On the contrary, Buzz, I think most people can rearrange their lives to allow their kids the best education. There’s no law, biological or otherwise, that says kids can only learn between 9 and 3 or between September and June. Teenagers in particular are more awake in the afternoon and evening than they are at 7am. Why not allow them to adjust their educational schedule to fit their circadian rhythm by implementing more asynchronous learning?
Being in a doctorate program at Boston University, I can certainly attest to the rigor and depth of the educational experience. I have degrees and certification from several prominent institutions (Kenyon College, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of TN – Knoxville, University of Memphis), and would put my on-line experience at BU against any of my excellent live classroom experiences. Being able to continue to work while attending graduate school has been a major plus. I am able to remain in my house, no travel time, and can archive lectures and classes.
On the down side, one misses the informal exchanges of student-to-student and student to faculty personal contacts.
I agree with the last paragraph completely. I have studied in online only, classroom only, and an online/classroom hybrid. While I learned a lot from all of them, logic in online classes and political science and all the drama that entails in classroom classes, I did like the hybrids. Sharing thoughts online and then meeting in person.
I completed an accredited online graduate course in the Humanities at the age is 83! Independent study is the way we all learn, and through the graded discussions and a good professor, it is the only way of the future for working people who cannot travel for their studies, and saves the enormous expense of dormitory life.
It is truly astounding that schools do not offer more online courses..
JS17 seems to have more varied experiences than I have; and seems to capture several facets of the argument. I think certain subjects and basic disciplines could be taught on-line; but others wouldn’t lend themselves to it. Hetty Green thinks one could become a lawyer for $100. Good luck with that. How is one going to participate in a Socratic dialogue amongst ones peers? Maybe when videoconferencing improves and becomes cheaper.
I wonder if what could also be happening, with regards to college students participating in online courses, is that those people voluntarily taking these courses are self-selected to be students with more tenacity and self-discipline than students who would not be able to make that commitment. Just a thought. I could be way off-base here.
Math *is* a humanity. It is not a science. It is an art in itself, not a tool, although it can be used as a tool, much as the English language can be used as a tool though it is not *merely* a tool.
And the best way to learn it is through wide ranging mathematical conversation with an actual mathematician, as opposed to “problem sets”. Unfortunately there is little to no math (proofs, methods of proof etc), and next to no mathematicians, below university level in this country so most people are not exposed to this fact.. Perhaps an inherent flaw of forced “education”.
As to the original article, I suspect again that, because correllation is not equal to causation, there is quite a bit of self-selection in the study. Whether this be true or not, however, the lower cost of online instruction will drive increased use of online education systems in the future.
animation clips, virtual field trips, QTVRs, sound clips to help convey information and concepts. Much better for teachers to SHOW & TELL rather than to just TELLl information to students like our ancestors did in the Bronze Age…and assume the students know what you’re talking/telling about.
chalkTALK to them in an attempt to convey information.
students for the early 1900s?
YouTube, Toyota etc. say we should be teaching our kids to prepare them for the workplace of 2015-2050? Or should we teach them to farm using electric tractors and combines?
online eSchool. And provide free “brick & mortar” preschools for all 3 and 4 year-olds who live below the poverty line.
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[WM]The Public Service Commission on Wednesday approved a pilot program intended to create up to 350 megawatts of long-term renewable power within the next three years, a move that state officials and environmentalists say could help establish a permanent guideline that utilities would use to generate or purchase electricity from renewable sources.
The decision, which followed an eight-hour meeting in Covington, comes four months after the commission announced its support for the program, which is aimed at bolstering the Louisiana's fuel mix while adding resources that contribute to its reliable and economic long-term power supply.
For years, state officials have considered creating a renewable portfolio standard that would require regulated electricity utilities to acquire a portion of their energy from generators that use renewable sources. Some environmentalists and renewable energy advocates say the pilot program that has been approved will also encourage growth and potentially fast-track testing of smaller-scale renewable sources, which would then be sold to in-state utilities.
Details of the program were released for public comment in August, and based on the feedback that was received, state officials made several changes to its guidelines, including one that allows some woody biomass products to be turned into fuel.
The program is intended to create enough long-term renewable power supply 2 percent of the state's energy needs, by way of a request for proposals that would spur research and development of renewable energy technologies, such as biomass, geothermal, hydro, solar or wind.
The board met in executive session for a half-hour before returning to vote on the pilot program, with commissioners indicating that talk centered on opening the program to out-of-state resources.
Discussion on the pilot program, nearing the end of the day, drew a back-and-forth dialogue between Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, the lone vote against the proposal and the most vocal member of the Public Service Commission at the meeting, and several of his colleagues.
"In the future, who knows what will happen," said Skrmetta, of Metairie, who took issue with the program, set to run over several years, being considered an experimental trial. "I don't think it's a pilot, I don't think it passes the smell test on being a pilot for me, and I think it's the wrong way to go."
Other commissioners, including the board's chairman, Lambert Boissiere III of New Orleans, said the program, while not perfect, should move forward.
After the meeting, Jordan Macha, a conservation organizer for the state chapter of the Sierra Club, praised the pilot program as an important step in putting Louisiana in the company of other states attempting to move away from fossil fuels in producing electricity.
"With anything of this magnitude, the devil's in the details," Macha said.
Meanwhile, a day after New Orleans-based power provider Entergy Corp. said that the company was cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into its competitive practices, several commissioners, including Lambert and Foster Campbell, said they believed Entergy should have provided details about the inquiry in the weeks since the probe began.
"I'm real concerned about it," said Campbell, of Elm Grove, who added: "We need to be up to date about this investigation, exactly what's involved. I hope it's nothing bad, but I'd like to know everything about it."
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[WM]What do Indy Mayor Joe Hogsett and Manual student have in common?
Jose Bravo was dressed neatly in a suit as he rode up the elevator to the 25th floor of the City-County Building. The 17-year-old was about to meet Mayor Joe Hogsett, and he wasn't sure what to expect.
No need to worry. The incoming senior at Manual High School and the mayor hit it off immediately. They bonded over a shared love of lifeguarding, football and Netflix.
"I was nervous before this, but he's like a friend," Bravo said. "We're a lot alike."
The teen is the Boys & Girls Club of Indianapolis youth of the year, and Hogsett was serving as a mentor for the day. The same thing was supposed to be happening across the city for 200 other teens, but the push for volunteers for this year's Take a Boy/Girl to Work Day came up significantly short, said club director Rick Whitten.
Hogsett agreed to keep his commitment to host Bravo at his office Wednesday as a way to encourage others to step up to volunteer. A new date for the citywide initiative has not been set.
"If more people would take the time to mentor young people in our city, I don't think there's any question that would be transformative," Hogsett said. "I think our community would be invaluably enriched. Jose is the mentor of tomorrow."
After a tour of the city-county offices, Bravo and Hogsett sat down to a lunch of sandwiches and chips in the mayor's conference room. They talked about college, family and how the Boys & Girls Club shaped them.
Bravo has been a member of the Keenan-Stahl Boys & Girls Club, 1949 E. Troy Ave., for 10 years. He works at the club after school and is a lifeguard in the summer.
Hogsett, 60, grew up in Rushville, where he was active in the Boys Club and worked seven years as a lifeguard and manager at the city pool.
"He is me 43 years ago," the mayor said. "I got started at the Boys Club, much like Jose has done. I worked my way up to junior leader, refereed ball games, coached sports teams."
The clubs have a "profound" impact on the quality of life for children in neighborhoods served by them, he said. There are 11 Boys & Girls Clubs in Indianapolis.
Bravo asked Hogsett about his efforts to get guns off the streets, just as news of another double-fatality shooting was breaking on the city's north side.
As U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Hogsett said he took an aggressive approach to fighting violent crime but acknowledged the serious challenges the city faces when it comes to gun violence. "We're doing all we can."
He then asked the teen if he watches Channel 16, the public access channel where government meetings can be viewed. Bravo politely said, "when I can," while Hogsett's communications director Taylor Schaffer laughed out loud and said, "No one watches it except you, sir; he's just being polite."
Hogsett admitted he is glued to Channel 16. That and Netflix, which he just discovered last fall.
When Bravo asked what the mayor watches, Hogsett ticked off his favorite shows: "House of Cards," "Orange Is the New Black," "GLOW," "13 Reasons Why" and "Bloodline."
"I think if I was the mayor, I wouldn't have time to watch Netflix," Bravo said, more as a question than anything.
"I binge-watch, six or seven hours at at time" on the weekend, Hogsett told him. "When I watched the first season of 'House of Cards,' I thought it was over the top, unbelievable. But with what is going on in Washington today, it's like reality TV."
When Bravo said he would probably start watching it, Hogsett laughed and said, "You shouldn't, you're too young."
Before the two headed off to a news conference, Hogsett promised to come to one of Manual's football games in the fall, where Bravo is a linebacker. The teen hopes to attend Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to study business and communications and plans to be a mentor himself.
Later, Whitten said the mayor served as a great example for the teen. "We hope to encourage lots of local professionals to volunteer for a day of mentorship."
To learn more, call (317) 313-8411 or email [email protected].
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[WM]Heath Herring is a colorful personality in the world of mixed martial arts, known for his Dennis Rodman-esque hairstyles, entertaining fights and a New Years Eve kiss in 2005 from an unlikely person his opponent Yoshihiro Nakao. Though he grew up in Amarillo, Texas, Herring has traveled the world fighting in promotions such as Pride and K-1. Herring will return to his home state April 7 to fight Brad Imes in a heavyweight matchup at UFC 69 in Houston.
I spent 20 minutes talking to Herring by phone on March 27. We discussed his UFC debut earlier this year -- a stunning loss to Jake O'Brien at UFC Fight Night 8 -- his upcoming match against Imes, and the news that the UFC owners had just purchased Pride.
UFC Fight Night 8You lost a fairly one-sided decision to O'Brien at UFC Fight Night 8 on Jan. 25. That was your debut fight with the promotion and you were brought in with a lot of fanfare. Why do you think you lost the fight?
I think I learned a lot at that fight. I had to realize that the UFC isn't the same organization as what I was used to fighting [for] in Japan. And the end result was that I came up short on the judges' cards. And that's what happens sometimes. You start playing a new game with little bit different rules -- sometimes those new rules will kind of catch ya.
When you say new rules, what is different about the UFC compared to Pride?
Just a lot of minor differences, I would say. Like the referee standing the fight up at different times. I think here in the states, they put a lot of credit on [what happens] once the fighters hit the ground, even if there's not a lot of action being done. I think they let the fight continue on the ground for a long time. As opposed to Japan, [where] I've been in fights where we were on the ground 10, 15 seconds [and] they'd stand us up.
But, I'm by no means trying to put that blame on the referee or anything else. That's absolutely my ignorance and that's why I'm taking full responsibility for that fight.
In hindsight, how do you feel about that performance?
win and like I said afterward, I like to give the fans what they want -- that's an exciting fight. I look at it as my job to be in shape and be able to go the full 15 minutes, as hard as I can. And if you get caught with a punch or get caught with a cut or something like that, that's part of it. But to lose to a guy who wasn't doing a whole lot and he was picking away the points -- yeah, that sat a little bit badly with me. But, you're going to be a little bit smarter next time and learn how things go.
After your loss to O'Brien, you mentioned you had an MCL injury. First, which MCL was it?
I think there was some stuff that did come out but I never officially came out and said either way.
About the injuries, I sure hate when people make excuses about fights. And just to sum it up real quick, I went in there and I knew what the score was when I got in the fight and I still chose to get in there so I'm not going to sit back and make up an excuse for an injury. I hate when guys to do that.
If you read stuff -- and I'm not saying it wasn't so and it didn't happen -- but I sure hate to make that as an excuse for why I had such a poor performance.
Are you completely healed from that injury as you prepare for UFC 69?
Yes sir. If I'm getting in the ring, [then] I'm healing up. I am feeling really, really good on it. I'm able to kick again and everything so it's [a lot] better than it was.
I noticed that when you entered the Octagon, you puffed on an inhaler. I haven't noticed too many fighters doing this, at least not right before entering the Octagon. Is this something you do before every fight?
Yes sir. I've actually had asthma since I was a child. I think it might be a little bit more psychosomatic than anything. I can't even tell you the last time I really had to take a puff on an inhaler but I kind of just do it right before the fight more out of habit than anything. I've been fighting for 10 years and there was a time when I used to have to [use] a breathing machine before I'd fight. I'm real fortunate now that I'm able to really not have too much of a problem with my asthma. That's more of a preventative measure.
You also mentioned after the O'Brien fight that you wanted to give the fans excitement and you seemed to imply that wrestling doesn't deliver this excitement.
The point I was trying to stress was, we were in there for a fight. I don't feel I'm out of line to interpret my opponent's actions as he was taking me down, kind of just holding me down, and not doing a whole lot.
That was more me venting my frustration.
Even on the ground, I think I threw more punches than he did [and] I was on my back. I was out there trying to finish the fight and I can't necessarily say the same thing about my opponent. I think he was trying to survive the fight and win on points, which is a valid strategy and obviously he won that fight. Like I said before, that was something I've had to go in and re-analyze and understand that's part of the game.
Do you consider ground skills and takedown defense a strong part of your game?
Normally, my ground skills are actually very, very good. And if anybody has a history of my fights, I do have very good ground skills and very good ground defense.
Unfortunately, I was unable to show those at the athletic level I normally have this last fight.
For those who may not be familiar with your fights, how would you describe your fighting style?
[Laughing] Normally? Normally, it's a very fast paced style -- I do a lot of kicking, a lot of punching. And I'm looking to end the fight on the ground [or] standing up. I've actually won probably the majority of my fights by submission, believe it or not. I'm always looking for that finish. I was a mainstay in Japan for a lot of years because I think a lot of the fans over there realized that there was always something to watch with me. I was always an exciting fighter. I wasn't known for these long, drawn out, boring fights that unfortunately sometimes seem to pepper through this sport.
UFC 69You've traveled the world, fighting in Pride and K-1. How does it feel to now be fighting in Houston in UFC 69, near where you grew up in Amarillo, Texas?
I'm really excited about it. I'm glad to be fighting back in my home state of Texas. It's also double-edged because it's going to be the first UFC ever in Texas and I think the fans are really, really looking forward to that. When I got the opportunity to fight on that card, I accepted right away. And I knew it was something that would be important for me to be on and be a part of.
Houston's real far away from Amarillo but considering all the places I've been on God's green earth, it's not too far away from where I grew up. [laughing] So, I'm looking forward to it.
Your opponent in UFC 69 -- Imes -- is a former TUF fighter who is a little taller and a little heavier than you and is also a grappler like O'Brien. What else do you know about Imes as a fighter?
Well, to be honest with you, I don't really see him as being much of a grappler. I think he's going to come out and try to punch a lot more. But, he might surprise me. I think he's more of a stand-up kind of guy -- he likes to throw a lot of punches and do a few kicks. I know he trains with Tim Sylvia -- he's one of Sylvia's sparring partners and he comes from the Miletich fight camp.
So, we are looking for him to come out there and give me a good fight. And I think it'll be an exciting fight. He'll also be fighting in front of a hometown crowd as well.
How do you feel you will match up against him?
I feel I match up very good against him. I'm actually really excited about this fight. I think it's a good opportunity for both of us to get out there and showcase what our skills and abilities are to the fans.
It's a chance for me to get a little bit of vindication after that last disappointment. [laughing] And it is for him as well. So, it's actually a good fight for both of us.
Given that you lost your first fight in the UFC, do you feel you are at a crossroads in your UFC career with this upcoming match?
You could interpret that in many ways. I've had several people ask me that question. I think if I sat down and I really let the pressure get to me, it could. But, I just have to trust in my abilities, where I've been, what I've been through. I know what I've gone through. I know all the opponents that I've faced. And I know what my abilities are. So, I'm really not too worried about it. I know I've got a place in the sport for a long time to come. Unfortunately, I feel that people weren't able to see me fight at the top of my abilities at that last fight. So, I need to come out and show everybody what I am capable of as opposed to seeing half of a performance.
If you do defeat Imes, who would you like to fight next?
I've never even considered opponents to be honest with you. In Japan, that was a favorite question of all the interviewers. And I never really had a good answer for them. Whoever the organization offers up to me at the time, I'm going to take and accept. I like to stay active. I like to stay busy obviously. I just fought. I'm trying to fight again. I've had a year, year-and-a-half layoff due to some legal issues in Japan so I'm actually glad to be back in the swing of things.
So, as far as an opponent that I would want to face, probably the quickest fight that they'll give me after this one -- if everything goes the way I want it to -- then I'll probably say yes to [that matchup].
You're known for interesting haircuts and hair dye jobs. Do you have a special haircut that you have planned for this fight, your return to Texas?
You know what, I'm going to talk to the girl that does it. I have a girl here in Vegas -- her name's Valerie -- she's the one that does my hair. If you saw me right now, my hair's long, I've got a long beard. I just grow everything out and then I go in the week of the fight and give her free reign to do whatever she wants. I think it's a little bit like artistic freedom. I think if you're someone doing that everyday -- day in and day out -- you don't get many opportunities [where] someone just comes in and says "Do whatever you want"
Usually I'm pretty open with the people who do it and they've always done a really, really good job. In Holland, I had a different guy who used to do my hair. I think they really enjoyed it. This time I might try to sway her a little bit and see if she's got something planned just for Texas. But, I think when you have an open and creative license with things, sometimes you do your best work.
Pre-UFC CareerWhy did you leave Pride at the end of 2004?
Unfortunately I was being managed by someone who I thought was looking out for my best interest and they decided it would be better for me to move over to K-1.
We had a little bit of differences with K-1. Then I was forced to be in legal limbo until my contract came up as of last year.
As you mentioned, after you left Pride, you went to K-1. When you fought in K-1, you were part of a memorable occurrence Dec. 31, 2005. During the pre-fight staredown, your opponent, Nakao, leaned in and kissed you on the lips. You retaliated by punching him and the fight was eventually ruled a no-contest. Has Nakao ever explained why he did what he did?
So, neither he nor anyone else in his camp has ever apologized for the kiss?
Do you regret reacting to that kiss with a punch -- would you have rather taken it out on him during the fight?
No. In hindsight, I think that's the reason that image has become so popular among people. I think people like to think that under the circumstances they would have done the same thing. And I think sometimes it's kind of hard not to be uncompromising.
I think he learned his lesson. I don't think he's been doing that again, so I think that's a good thing.
As you mentioned, the video footage of that kiss has become pretty famous and UFC used footage of that kiss to promote your entry into the UFC. Were you OK with UFC doing that?
Absolutely, I had no problem with it. And actually, to speak kindly of K-1, they let us use that image, very kindly, without any problems.
Everything seems to be clicking together now finally and if we start winning some fights, there won't be a problem. That's the most important thing.
How would you compare UFC as an organization to Pride as you knew it back then and K-1?
Well, if you're going to do a comparison, I don't know if anybody who's ever traveled overseas or been in Japan -- you have to get used to that cultural difference. There's a significant cultural difference. [I'm] not saying if it's good or bad, it's just a difference -- you have to learn how to deal with it.
Also, I would say me having a little condo out here in Vegas for my training purposes, it's been really easy to be able to drive down and take care of things with the UFC people here.
I can't say necessarily that I like one better. People in the UFC have treated me like gold and I've got nothing but a lot of good words to say about them. Same with the people in Pride. And I won't say anything bad about the people in K-1 either. There were a lot of good people in K-1. Just because we had a couple of contractual differences doesn't mean that the organization as a whole wasn't a good organization.
And as someone who has fought in both Pride and UFC, what are your thoughts on the news that the owners of UFC Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta -- are buying Pride?
I don't know. Mixed feelings. I think the Fertittas have done a great job with UFC here in the states. They've helped the sport really grow. As somebody who competes and loves the sport -- as an athlete in it -- I'm hoping it's not going to be a bad thing. I think it's going to be a good thing. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed.
How many fights do you have left on your UFC contract?
After this one, I'll have three.
So you signed a five-fight contract with them?
Pramit Mohapatra covers mixed martial arts for baltimoresun.com. Visit his blog, MMA Insider, for frequent updates on the sport.
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[WM]Talk to the average Joe on the street and he’ll tell you the world is coming undone… And he’s right.
Yet even with stocks at highs, people know there’s something terribly wrong… and they can’t seem to put their finger on why it’s happening and what it all means. The market tanked after Brexit, but it was hitting all-time highs again shortly after. What gives?
After the recent terrorist attack in Nice, the odds of Frexit jumped higher in Las Vegas. France is being torn apart by the EU’s open borders immigration policy. And France is on the verge of a civil war over it. The EU might survive Brexit. But it won’t survive Frexit. And neither will the global financial system.
The problem’s epicenter is Italian banks. Italy’s banks are broke. Many are insolvent. They’re sitting on $400 billion in bad loans. That makes up more than 18% of the country’s loans. In comparison, Britain’s bad loans only make up 1.5% of total loans. And there’s no easy way out. The crisis is spreading to the wider Italian economy. And Italy’s the third-largest economy in the eurozone.
Italian politicians are being pressured to take action. The problem is their desired solutions most likely mean the end of the EU’s banking union… and the entire European project. A taxpayer bailout would put Italy on a collision course with Eurocrats in Brussels and would threaten the EU’s very existence. EU rules state that bank investors must pay up before the banks can be bailed out.
This drama pits taxpayers versus banksters versus hapless bureaucrats. And the big European banks with exposure want Italian taxpayers to make them whole.
Who will win this showdown? And then what? What are the next dominos to fall?
I traveled to Singapore recently for an important conversation with one of the most legendary investors in the world, Jim Rogers. Rogers has seen it all and done it all. His perspective on history and global finance is unmatched. That’s why I ventured to see him for his take on the great global unraveling taking place right before our eyes.
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[WM]The family of a 3-year-old girl who died in October after falling into a grease trap outside an ice cream shop in Auburn joined Gov. Kay Ivey today for a ceremonial signing of a bill intended to prevent such tragedies.
The Sadie Grace Andrews Act requires grease traps to be secured with a bolt or lock or be heavy enough to prevent access by children, and to be able to withstand expected loads.
Sadie was playing with her brothers and sisters when she stepped onto the lid of the grease trap, which apparently was not secured, fell in and drowned. The lid closed back on top of her, the Lee County coroner said at the time.
The Andrews family lives in Auburn. Sadie left behind her parents and five siblings.
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[WM]Jews and Arabs clashed repeatedly in the mixed Mediterranean coastal city of Akko (Acre) during the Yom Kippur holiday. Police are on high alert.
An Arab driver nearly ran down a group of Jews in the street, the latter - fearing a terror attack - stoned him, and Arabs rioted and vandalized Jewish property in the mixed northern coastal city of Akko (Acre) during the Yom Kippur holiday and fast. Clashes began Wednesday evening and lasted through Thursday night. Police are on alert to prevent further provocations or acts of vengeance.
The day of violence began Wednesday evening, just after the start of the Yom Kippur fast, when an Arab driver from Akko's Old City entered a majority-Jewish neighborhood at high-speed. The vehicle raised suspicions, as in Israel it is considered unacceptable for anyone other than emergency vehicles to drive on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, although it is not forbidden by law. The driver had to bypass a barrier set up to block traffic at the entrance to the neighborhood.
A resident of the city told Israel National News that the motorist was spotted driving at a high speed towards a park where a group of Jewish youth had gathered. Fearing they were the target of a vehicular terrorist attack - of the type that has been perpetrated several times in recent months - the youths pelted the car with rocks and called for help. Jews from the neighborhood gathered and the driver took refuge with his relatives, a local Arab family.
At that point, Akko Arabs were called to come to the aid of the driver and his family, with the help of a rumor that Jews had killed an Arab resident of the Old City. Arabs began smashing cars and "everything in their way," one eyewitness said. A police officer, the Arab driver and another person were lightly injured as hundreds of people, Jews and Arabs, clashed.
Police, representatives of Akko City Hall and local Arab leaders managed to end the clashes, but the violence continued as Arabs heading back to their neighborhoods ran riot through Jewish areas of the city. Calling "Death to the Jews" and Allah hu akbar ("Allah is great"), the rioters vandalized hundreds of Jewish-owned shops and vehicles, and threw rocks at people on their way to or from Yom Kippur prayers.
According to an eyewitness, "The Arabs threatened Jews that if they left their home they'd be attacked. The Arabs began vandalizing Jewish-owned cars in the street and smashing windows. Afterwards, we saw them coming with axes and slashing tires. It was awful. Residents were afraid to leave for the synagogue."
Sources in the Akko municipality claimed that among those inciting the Arab mobs were known Islamist activists. Police arrested eight people on suspicion of involvement in the violence. Four people were arraigned Thursday, the others will see a judge on Friday.
Clashes resumed Thursday night after the fast ended, with demonstrations by hundreds of Jews and Arabs near the train station in the eastern section of the city and near the housing projects in the northern neighborhoods. Jewish youths set fire to an empty lot and attempted to make their way to other parts of the city.
Police blocked the eastern entrance to Akko and have been pushing Jewish protesters back towards a local first aid station. To disperse the crowds, police used stun and gas grenades, as well as water hoses, but had difficulty controlling the demonstrators. Clashes with the police continued sporadically into the night, as the Northern District Police Chief, Shimon Koren, is personally overseeing the crowd control operations.
Police are deploying hundreds of officers, patrol cars and special forces in the city's hot spots. "We know that Jews intend to carry out acts of revenge, but we are not talking about an organized initiative," a police spokesman said. "The force will prevent any such interaction."
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter is monitoring the situation closely; he arrived in the city for a visit on Friday morning.
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[WM]BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON, France (Reuters) - The Tour de France is set for its moment of truth on Wednesday as the peloton prepares for a brutal 17th stage that could decide whether leader Geraint Thomas or defending champion Chris Froome will wear the yellow jersey in Paris.
It could, however, also open the door for a challenger to emerge and Dutchman Tom Dumoulin is one of those lying in wait for the top two to slip up.
Should he gain time on Thomas, the world time trial champion could still pip the Team Sky duo in Saturday’s solo effort against the clock. Thomas leads fellow Briton Froome by 1:39, with Dumoulin 11 seconds further back before Wednesday’s savage 65-km trek that ends with the much-feared climb up the Col du Portet, a lung-busting 16-km ascent at an average gradient of 8.7 percent. “This stage is going to be massively decisive, there are going to be big gaps,” said Thomas. “You can’t get carried away at the start because the last climb is one of the hardest of the Tour.” Riders with an outside chance of winning, or making it to the podium on the Champs Elysees, will, however, be tempted to blow up the race from the start, with Frenchman Romain Bardet, fifth overall and an excellent descender, the main suspect.
“It will be important to be steady on the descents, you can easily make a mistake,” warned Thomas. “Everyone is a bit apprehensive about this stage.” Team Sky have said that Thomas and Froome will not race against each other, but the four-times champion is a far better descender than the yellow jersey holder, and knows he must take time off of his team mate to stand a chance of winning the race for a record-equalling fifth time. “In that final climb anything can happen,” said Thomas. “We may find ourselves having to chase someone or together in front. There could be big gap, and different scenarios, as long as we don’t race against each other.” To spice things up, as the stage begins with a climb, organisers have decided that the riders will line up at the start in a grid formation based on the overall standings.
The idea, however, has been dubbed as purely cosmetic by riders and team staff.
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[WM]MGM Resorts International (MGM), the largest casino and hotel operator on the Las Vegas Strip, is looking for a rebound in the famed gambling resort.
MGM’s Vegas properties include the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, and The Mirage. The Strip accounts for 74 percent of the company’s revenue, and both convention business and consumer travel to Las Vegas suffered during the recession. MGM would greatly benefit, of course, from a sustained U.S. recovery.
About 20 percent of the company’s cash flow now comes from Macau, a special administrative region of China, and the casino business there is going gangbusters, Morningstar reports. Betting in Macau surged 45 percent in the first 10 months of 2011.
In June, MGM gained a majority stake in a joint venture MGM China Holdings that owns the MGM Macau, a casino and resort. Earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation (EBITDA) for MGM China soared 65 percent in the third quarter to $139 million, compared to a year earlier.
Standard & Poor’s analyst Esther Kwon sees MGM Resorts revenue rising 19 percent in 2012, the first full year that will include results from MGM China.
Revenue soared 38 percent in the third quarter to $2.2 billion from a year earlier, figures which don’t include MGM China. The company posted a net loss of $123.8 million in the quarter, narrowing from $318 million a year earlier.
Kwon has a hold rating on MGM shares. “We see Las Vegas trends improving on an increase in higher margin convention business, and we see improved liquidity at MGM,” she writes.
The improved liquidity stems from the company’s 2010 move to extend the maturity of much of its $4.7 billion in senior debt to February 2014 from October 2011. MGM issued 41 million common shares in October 2010.
“We expect asset sales to provide further balance sheet improvement,” Kwon writes. MGM has placed its 50 percent interest in the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, in Atlantic City, N.J., in a divestiture trust and says it plans to exit the state.
MGM shares dropped 29.8 percent last year.
The company next reports earnings Feb. 13.
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[WM]Yet more members of law enforcement have made the acquaintance of Lindsay Lohan.
Lohan was arrested Wednesday morning in New York City after allegedly clipping a pedestrian with her Porsche and leaving the scene, TMZ reports.
The alleged victim, described as a man in his 30s, was hospitalized, but didn't have any visible injuries at the scene.
Lohan was pulling in to the Dream Hotel in downtown Manhattan when she allegedly hit the passerby. Lohan's friend got out to check for damages, and then Lohan and her entourage went into the hotel. Someone called police, and when Lohan left the hotel around 2 a.m., she was arrested, according to TMZ.
Lohan was charged with leaving the scene of an accident and released. The charge is a misdemeanor, and it could trigger a violation of her probation on theft charges, as her probation hinges on her obeying all laws.
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[WM]Earth requires fuel to drive plate tectonics, volcanoes and its magnetic field. Like a hybrid car, Earth taps two sources of energy to run its engine: primordial energy from assembling the planet and nuclear energy from the heat produced during natural radioactive decay. Scientists have developed numerous models to predict how much fuel remains inside Earth to drive its engines -- and estimates vary widely -- but the true amount remains unknown. In a new paper, a team of geologists and neutrino physicists boldly claims it will be able to determine by 2025 how much nuclear fuel and radioactive power remain in the Earth's tank. The study, authored by scientists from the University of Maryland, Charles University in Prague and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, was published on September 9, 2016, in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
"I am one of those scientists who has created a compositional model of the Earth and predicted the amount of fuel inside Earth today," said one of the study's authors William McDonough, a professor of geology at the University of Maryland. "We're in a field of guesses. At this point in my career, I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want to know the answer."
Detecting antineutrinos requires a huge detector the size of a small office building, housed about a mile underground to shield it from cosmic rays that could yield false positive results. Inside the detector, scientists detect antineutrinos when they crash into a hydrogen atom. The collision produces two characteristic light flashes that unequivocally announce the event. The number of events scientists detect relates directly to the number of atoms of uranium and thorium inside the Earth. And the decay of these elements, along with potassium, fuels the vast majority of the heat in the Earth's interior.
To date, detecting antineutrinos has been painfully slow, with scientists recording only about 16 events per year from the underground detectors KamLAND in Japan and Borexino in Italy. However, researchers predict that three new detectors expected to come online by 2022--the SNO+ detector in Canada and the Jinping and JUNO detectors in China--will add 520 more events per year to the data stream.
"Once we collect three years of antineutrino data from all five detectors, we are confident that we will have developed an accurate fuel gauge for the Earth and be able to calculate the amount of remaining fuel inside Earth," said McDonough.
"Knowing exactly how much radioactive power there is in the Earth will tell us about Earth's consumption rate in the past and its future fuel budget," said McDonough. "By showing how fast the planet has cooled down since its birth, we can estimate how long this fuel will last."
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[WM]Kissinger, echoing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, also called for diplomatic talks with countries that neighbor Iraq, including Iran and Syria. He was joined in that sentiment by Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state during the Clinton administration, who also testified at the hearing. “I think we need a surge in diplomacy,” she said.
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[WM]SKIERS and riders can start off the new year right by improving their skiing and racing skills at one of the many events that are taking place at ski resorts in the Northeast.
Jan. 6 marks the first in a series of women’s ski seminars for all ability levels at Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills. The classes are geared toward women who would like to increase their skills and expand their comfort zone using techniques and methods sensitive to women’s needs.
The cost of the three one-day women’s seminars for beginners is $125. Intermediate dates are Jan. 27 and March 3 and the cost is $100. An advanced two-day seminar is offered Feb.9-10 for $200. The Mogul Clinic will be held March 10 for $100. You must register by calling (845) 254.5600 x 339.
Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont is offering skiers and riders a way to end the year with style and win some great prizes at the same time. On Saturday, the SoBe Superpipe competition, an Okemo Series free-ride event, will be open to skiers and riders of all ages.
Registration for the competition will take place in the Okemo Base Lodge from 8-9 a.m. on Saturday. Entry fee is $20. For more info, call (800) 786-5366 or visit http://www.okemo.com.
Hunter Mountain will host the Chevrolet Alpine Super Series – Men’s Nor-Am Cup USA from Jan. 2-5. This event brings some of the best male racers from the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and many other countries to Hunter and all competing for a spot at the World Cup and the 2006 Winter Olympics in both GS and slalom disciplines.
Hunter will also play host to Salomon Oasis and the Ultimate Hook-Up on Jan. 7-8. This 15-stop tour will bring a weekend full of free equipment demos, tons of giveaways and a terrain park jam session.
Pathfinders, a six-week learn to cross-country ski program for kids, will be offered this winter to local children ages 5 and up at the Verizon Sports Complex in Lake Placid.
The six-week program begins on Saturday and ends Feb. 11. The cost of the program is $35 per child. For more information, contact Rebecca Dayton at (518) 523-8824.
The Snowboomer Club, an athletic and social ski club for skiers 50 years and older is being offered at Whiteface and the Verizon Sports Complex. The program includes Alpine as well as Nordic coaching sessions, plus a variety of free events and discounts.
The Snowboomer Club meets on Tuesdays at Whiteface and Thursdays at the Sports Complex from January to March. A membership pass for the Snowboomer Club is $199. For more info, log on to http://www.whitefacelakeplacid.com.
The Next Snow Search, put on by Sports Illustrated for Kids, will be held at Jiminy Peak in the Berkshires on Jan. 7. Skiers and snowboarders ages 9 through 13 are eligible to compete to win a trip to Killington, Vt., for a chance at the finals.
The Next Snow Search, is a national talent hunt to find young athletes who best represent the next generation of extreme skiers and snowboarders. The finals will be held at Killington March 2-5.
Factors such as community involvement and grades will gain bonus points for competitors. Additional points will be earned by finishing a modified GS race and a Slopestyle Challenge.
For more information and to register, visit http://www.jiminypeak.com or call (413) 738-5500 ext. 3060.
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[WM](CNN) — Elephants are giant, cancer-battling super creatures that destroy damaged cells long before they become cancerous, scientists say.
In a study released this week, scientists said elephant genes may provide a crucial clue in the fight against human cancer.
The mammoth mammals rarely get cancer, which has long bewildered scientists considering elephants have 100 times as many cells as humans.
“They should be 100 times more likely to have a cell slip into a cancerous state and trigger the disease over their long life span of 50 to 70 years,” scientists at the University of Utah said.
Yet they don’t. The cancer mortality rate for elephants is less than 5% compared with 25% in people, the study said.
A team of scientists from the University of Utah and Arizona State University said they can explain the lower numbers.
In their search for answers, they combed through elephant DNA and found a few deviations.
Elephants have extra genes that stop tumors long before they form.
They have “at least 40 copies of genes that code for p53, a protein well known for its cancer-inhibiting properties,” scientists said. In comparison, humans have only two copies of such genes.
The massive animals also detect damaged cells preemptively, which they then repair or kill.
“Elephants may have a more robust mechanism for killing damaged cells that are at risk for becoming cancerous,” the study said.
During the study, scientists extracted white blood cells from elephants and damaged the cells’ DNA.
“It’s as if the elephants said, ‘It’s so important that we don’t get cancer, we’re going to kill this cell and start over fresh,'” said Joshua Schiffman, one of the study’s author and a pediatric oncologist at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
The study involved work by researchers from the two universities, and the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation. The results were published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Without the genetic cancer-fighting ability, elephants would be long gone.
While there are other contributing factors that make humans more at risk of getting cancer, experts said, the study provides insight on treatment.
“Nature has already figured out how to prevent cancer,” Schiffman said.
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[WM]Last night’s (February 7) Super Bowl 50 saw an inspired halftime show: Beyonce somehow surpassed impossibly-high expectations with a ferocious performance of her African-American empowerment anthem “Formation," Bruno Mars delivered in equal measure, solidifying his reputation as a stellar live act with minimal screen time. Coldplay were also there, reminding viewers of epic halftime performances of years past with help from a video montage. The show, overall, was a good one, and yet some viewers are miffed that it wasn’t 100% live.
A Reddit user posted a photo showing DJ and "Uptown Funk" producer Mark Ronson using unplugged equipment, indicating aspects of the show may have ben prerecorded, as though this were a revelatory discovery. But the Super Bowl halftime performance is never 100% live because, logistically, it can't be.
Flea's letter to fans was something of an eye-opener for viewers — but, again, it's nothing new.
"A lot of the (Super Bowl) bands want to play live, but you just can't do it,” Super Bowl music audio supervisor Mike Stahl told the San Diego Tribune back in 2003. “The only reason they won’t be live is we can’t do a line check (of all the amplifiers and monitor speakers). If you were going to do it live, it would take an hour to go through every instrument to make sure all the lines were perfect. So you have a live vocal to a canned track, simply because we don't have enough time -- we have 3 1/2 minutes to get the sound system set up (for the halftime show)."
Let's try remember this for Super Bowl 51, okay?
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[WM]Today was a good day. A package from San Francisco artist Doctor Popular arrived in the mail. Inside were eight tiny publications, what he calls the Mini-Comics Mixtape.
He writes, "All 8 comics were drawn in under 24 hours with no planning in advance, so the stories can get a little out there." They're so good -- funny, offbeat and engaging!
Plus, he used a Risograph to print the comic books in two colors, which makes them look extra neat.
He's selling the set for $12 over at Etsy or through his site DoctorPopular.com.
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[WM]BOSTON – A disgraced former state chemist may have tainted more prosecutions than officials had first estimated, an independent reviewer of narcotics cases said Tuesday.
More than 40,000 defendants may have been affected by the chemist's mishandling of samples, said David Meier, an attorney appointed by the Massachusetts governor to review prosecutions connected to the state lab scandal.
Meier, who led a file-by-file review of narcotics cases in which Annie Dookhan tested samples, said he'll meet with prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges to discuss how to best use the findings.
Authorities had previously estimated publicly that Dookhan had tested samples involving about 34,000 defendants.
They have alleged that Dookhan tampered with evidence and faked results during her nine years at the now-closed Boston lab. The 35-year-old Franklin resident has pleaded not guilty to a 27-count indictment related to her alleged wrongdoing in cases stemming from six counties.
Gov. Deval Patrick thanked Meier for his work to try to help resolve the legal morass.
"Now, with this detailed information, the many participants in the criminal justice system can do the work of getting each individual case right," Patrick said in a statement Tuesday.
Officials also said Tuesday that the state had spent $7.6 million to date in dealing with the crisis. The Legislature has authorized up to $30 million to cover costs incurred by the court system, prosecutors, public defenders and other state agencies.
A year ago, Patrick ordered the lab closed after state police took over the facility through a budget directive and uncovered what they called Dookhan's failure to follow testing protocols and her deliberate mishandling of evidence.
The scandal sent a ripple through the state's criminal justice system, exposing thousands of convictions to legal challenges.
Meier, who previously served as a prosecutor in Middlesex and Suffolk counties and is a partner at Boston law firm Todd & Weld, started his review by generating a list of 690 people in state prisons and 450 in county jails who were serving sentences based at least partly on Dookhan-related drug tests.
But the list didn't include thousands of people who were awaiting trial, were on probation or were serving federal sentences in cases that Dookhan tested samples.
Police arrested Dookhan last September, and a grand jury issued an indictment in December that charged her with crimes including obstruction of justice and perjury.
Her attorney filed a motion last week seeking to have statements she allegedly made to state police thrown out.
Dookhan said police didn't give her a Miranda warning while doing an interview at her home in which authorities have alleged that she admitted to wrongdoing that included making negative drug samples into positive ones and "dry labbing," or testing only some drug samples and assuming the rest were positive.
A state spokesman said last week that least 337 state prison inmates have been let out of custody as a result of the lab scandal, and the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association said at least 1,115 cases were dismissed or not prosecuted because of Dookhan's involvement or due to problems with producing documents because of the lab closure.
Court officials also set up drug lab court sessions that special magistrates have been presiding over to handle motions brought by defendants claiming to be wrongly incarcerated due to Dookhan's alleged misconduct.
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[WM]Yogis may be enjoying a surprising benefit when they unroll their mats and strike a pose. A new study finds that just 20 minutes of hatha yoga stimulates brain function.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign enlisted 30 subjects to take tests of working memory and inhibitory control, two measures of brain function associated with the ability to focus, retain, and use new information, the researchers said.
Subjects who took a single, 20-minute yoga session were significantly faster and more accurate on their tests than subjects who walked or jogged on a treadmill for 20 minutes.
Participants on the treadmill exercised with the goal of maintaining 60 to 70 percent of their maximum heart rate throughout the exercise session. "This range was chosen to replicate previous findings that have shown improved cognitive performance in response to this intensity," the researchers said.
"Yoga is an ancient Indian science and way of life that includes not only physical movements and postures but also regulated breathing and meditation," said study lead Neha Gothe. "The practice involves an active attentional or mindfulness component but its potential benefits have not been thoroughly explored."
Subjects who practiced yoga performed a 20-minute sequence of seated, standing, and supine yoga postures, with the class ending in a meditative posture and deep breathing.
"It appears that following yoga practice, the participants were better able to focus their mental resources, process information quickly, more accurately and also learn, hold and update pieces of information more effectively than after performing an aerobic exercise bout," Gothe said.
"The breathing and meditative exercises aim at calming the mind and body and keeping distracting thoughts away while you focus on your body, posture or breath," she said. "Maybe these processes translate beyond yoga practice when you try to perform mental tasks or day-to-day activities."
Findings, announced June 5, appear in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.
A separate study published last month finds that twice-weekly yoga sessions can reduce high blood pressure. In the study, researchers led by Dr. Debbie Cohen of the University of Pennsylvania tracked 58 women and men, aged 38 to 62, for 24 weeks.
Another study published earlier this year in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry found that the practice may soothe depression and help sleep problems.
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[WM]New analysis shows 22 of Australia’s largest companies are actively working to undermine the Paris agreement targets, betting shareholders’ money on strategies that assume global climate change action fails.
Investor action group Market Forces says those companies – worth a combined $121bn and representing 7% of the ASX300 – are “out of line and out of time” and has called on shareholders to divest their holdings.
The group’s legal analyst, Will van de Pol, said it was the first time Market Forces had “named names” and called out companies whose business strategies relied on the world failing to meet the Paris targets to restrict the global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
“A handful of Australian companies are undermining efforts to limit global warming by pursuing new fossil fuel projects, or basing their business plans on energy projection scenarios that would doom the Paris agreement to failure,” the report says.
The list of “uninvestables” includes mainly resource and energy companies, but also diversified investment vehicles including WH Soul Pattinson and Seven Group Holdings.
The Market Forces study found that 199 ASX300 companies, representing 64% of total market capitalisation, faced heightened transitional climate risk but had not yet demonstrated business strategies consistent with the Paris agreement.
There were 143 companies with policies “not overtly inconsistent with Paris”, and just eight had aligned their strategy with the agreement.
Three companies – AGL, Origin and BHP – earned a reprieve from the list of the worst offenders, despite acting in a similar manner, because Market Forces said they had shown some progress towards aligning their goals with Paris.
In recent years, the boardroom has become an increasingly important front for climate activism.
This month, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, announced it would divest from firms that explored for oil and gas. Last month, Glencore said it would no longer back new coalmines in response to investor calls for the company to act on climate change.
Pressure is also increasing on Australian companies, though many still refuse to even consider the financial risk posed to their businesses by climate change.
In September, a report from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said “the law requires” relevant companies to “include a discussion of climate risk” in their annual report.
In February, the Asic corporate governance council released new recommendations that directors and companies should make climate risk disclosures.
The Market Forces report singled out “coal cowboys” Whitehaven and New Hope, which it said had plans to establish new coalmines, or expand existing ones, based on forecasts that assume the failure of Paris.
Oil and gas companies Woodside, Santos and Oil Search had each “faced increased investor engagement over climate change in recent years, but this has done nothing to dissuade their plans to increase fossil fuel production”, the report said.
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[WM]GRAND RAPIDS — Following Friday’s Division 3 semifinal win over Ypsilanti Arbor Prep, Pewamo-Westphalia coach Steve Eklund talked passionately about winning the state championship for all the Pirate teams that couldn’t take the final step in the past.
Ten different times, P-W had played into the final week, falling in three quarterfinals, four semis and three championship games — most recently two years ago.
Saturday, the Pirates finally broke through with a 40-33 win over Flint Hamady at Calvin College.
The girls’ state crown comes just one week after the Pirate boys won a state championship with a last-second win over Iron Mountain.
Droste was a freshman on the P-W team that fell in the 2017 state final by two points to Detroit Edison.
Saturday’s title wasn’t handed to P-W, either. After the Pirates led, 20-14, at halftime, Hamady dialed up its defense in the third quarter. The Hawks got more physical and forced 12 P-W turnovers, including 10 in a row over a five-minute stretch which saw the Hawks pull to 29-24.
Following Hannah Spitzley’s 3-pointer with 3:00 remaining in the third, the Pirates didn’t score another field goal the rest of the way, though they did sink 8 of 12 free throws to prevent Hamady from leading at any point during the game.
And even though the 6-foot Spitzley — P-W’s tallest player — fouled out with four minutes remaining, the Hawks could only play up the height advantage into two more points, as Aryana Naylor posted up with 4.1 seconds left.
It was tough to watch from the bench for Spitzley, who only fouled out of one game before, back in her freshman year.
“This year, I’ve been getting into some bad foul trouble, but we’ll figure it out for next year,” said Spitzley, a Western Michigan commit.
Despite giving a few inches away height-wise, the Pirates were tough on the boards, outrebounding the Hawks 32-19 and limiting Hamady’s 6-2 Naylor to six points and 6-1 forward Treshondra Williams to seven.
Ellie Droste, a Grand Valley signee, had a game-high 18 points. Rachel Huhn had 10, and Spitzley added eight.
Even with the comeback, Hamady missed 14 shots in the low post during the second half.
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[WM]As the days went on and Trump began to immerse himself more and more into politics in the United States, it became very clear that not only was he serious about running for the position of Head of State in 2012, but that he is without a doubt the man for the job.
Trump is a successful businessman. He went from being one of the most successful and wealthiest businessmen in America to going bankrupt then back to being successful. Not only did he resurrect his career, but also he improved it tenfold. Trump is by far richer, smarter, and more successful today than he ever was.
And right now, that is exactly why America needs Donald Trump. The United States went from being the most prosperous country in the world to struggling with its economy. Right now we are in a time of crucial need for an economic and political overhaul that would reduce the national debt and deficit, as well as completely turn around the economy.
Trump is one of the wisest people in the entire country in terms of economics and finance. So how could he possibly not be fit for that aspect of the job?
Trump also is the only man in the country with the courage to say what others can only have the guts to think.
He called out President Obama on his political tactics and his place of birth.
Sure Obama may have presented a birth certificate, but as President of the United States of America, is it not even slightly possible that he fabricated the document?
The man barely spent his childhood in the country and his father was not even born in this continent. Do people really trust a piece of paper to discount the rest of the evidence? There have been people who have counterfeit more difficult documents.
Imagine Trump dealing with Congress. He won’t allow anyone to push for random measures or spend money frivolously without calling them on their actions. He would rule with an iron “you’re fired” hand.
Trump will get to the bottom of every issue without beating around the bush or sugarcoating his questions.
Trump would handle every issue that comes his way swiftly and effectively.
With both his personal success and his recent political actions, Trump has proven that he is the man for the job of President of the United States of America.
Yep I agree! Trump would fire every imbisol in Congress, turn the US economy around and dominate the world.
1. Psychology -A person of the second order in a former classification of mental retardation, above the level of idiocy, having a mental age of seven or eight years and an intelligence quotient of 25 to 50.
2. a dunce; blockhead; dolt. In other words, Donald Trump.
4. showing mental feebleness or incapacity.
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[WM]CHICAGO — Newly released U.S. Census Bureau figures show the percentage of Illinois children with health insurance grew between 2008 and 2009. But about 5 percent of Illinois children were still uninsured last year.
Macon County has the highest rate of uninsured children of the 23 largest counties in Illinois. The census data show nearly 14 percent of Macon County children were uninsured last year.
Barbara Dunn directs a community health center in Decatur in Macon County. She says the loss of manufacturing jobs has left many families without health coverage.
Illinois' rate of uninsured children is better than the U.S. rate of 9 percent uninsured children in 2009.
The figures come from the American Community Survey, which is sent to about 3 million households each year.
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[WM]An Atlanta librarian who appeared on “Jeopardy!” Wednesday was unable to beat a Colorado music teacher on a five-day winning streak.
Jordan Moore, a Cincinnati native, works at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library. She lost to Kyle Jones, but snagged 2nd place from Jonathan Lau, an actuarial consultant from New Jersey.
Moore and her wife live in Stone Mountain, close to where Moore volunteers with the refugee service organization, New American Pathways. She also teaches English as a Second Language with the Latino support group, La Amistad.
Moore said being on the popular quiz competition was a bucket list event, adding that she couldn’t believe it was happening until she was holding the buzzer.
Moore joins the ranks of metro Atlanta contestants, such as a Georgia Tech student who retweeted his haters, the chairman of the DeKalb County GOP and an archivist at the Breman Museum.
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[WM]Mukesh Ambani plans to sell Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Ltd (RGTIL), a company that builds pipelines to carry natural gas across the country. Bankers have been sounded to help RIL sell this privately business that could be worth a $1 billion, even though the proposal is at an early stage.
An RIL spokesperson refused comments without denying the move.
RGTIL, which has set up the pipeline network for transportation of RIL gas from its D6 field, moved out of the RIL fold to become a subsidiary of Reliance Utilities Pvt Ltd in 2006.
The transaction took place for Rs 5,00,000, an insignificant sum considering that RGTIL had right of use for setting up major pipeline networks.
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[WM]Pharrell Williams married his girlfriend of 10 years, Helen Lasichanh, in Miami this weekend.
The producer/performer has enjoyed huge success in 2013 after appearing on both Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’ and ‘Blurred Lines’ by Robin Thicke. He wed Lasichanh in a Miami ceremony on Saturday (October 12) according to the New York Daily News.
Paparazzi picture show the couple having their picture taken on a yacht by photographer Terry Richardson. The couple, who have a four-year-old son, Rocket Man Williams, have dated for many years. Williams was linked to Jade Jagger, daughter of The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, prior to meeting Lasichanh.
Earlier this year, Black Eyed Peas member and The Voice coach will.i.am was claimed to be counter-suing Pharrell Williams over his ‘i am OTHER’ YouTube channel. The suit comes after Pharrell filed a lawsuit against will.i.am earlier this year, asking the judge to protect his right to use the ‘I Am’ moniker.
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[WM]This polygon shapefile contains ice observations in the Arctic region for July 3, 1980. This layer is part of the Arctic Climate System (ACSYS) Historical Ice Chart Archive. The earliest chart in the data set comes from 1553, when Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor, commanders of two expeditions sent out by the Company of Merchant Adventurers, recorded their observations of the ice edge. Early charts are irregular and infrequent, reflecting the remoteness and hostility of the region. The frequency of observations generally increases over time, as the economic and strategic importance of the Arctic grew, along with the ability to access, observe and record information on sea ice. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Tromsø used a combination of satellite imagery and in situ observations to produce daily digital charts each working day. These show not only the ice edge, but also detailed information on the range of sea ice concentrations and ice types. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute is continuing this series, and more recent charts may be obtained from this source.The ACSYS Historical Ice Chart Archive presents historical sea-ice observations in the Arctic region between 30ºW and 70ºE. The earliest chart dates from 1553, and the most recent from December 2002.
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[WM]Composting is the ultimate win-win-win for gardeners.
It is recycling at its most basic, turning yard and kitchen waste into rich, organic planting material. It saves money on fertilizer and pesticides. It keeps earthworms working and off the street.
There are several types of composting that involve varying degrees of commitment. Aerobic, which uses air to compost, is quick, but high maintenance because your heap needs frequent turning; anaerobic, both low-maintenance and very slow, is done without air and involves letting waste sit undisturbed for years; vermicomposting employs red worms, bacteria and insects to break down matter (medium maintenance and speed).
But, as Brett L. Markham points out in his excellent "The Mini Farming Guide to Composting" (Skyhorse Publishing), nature is on your side: No matter which method you choose, it's nearly impossible to screw this up. "Nature loves compost," he writes, "and will turn anything that was once alive (or produced by something living) into compost all by itself."
So let's set up an aerobic composting bin.
What you need: Markham recommends chicken-wire bins: four posts (six is better, so you can have two side-by-side bins) and 48-inch-high chicken wire. Why two bins? One for new material, and the other for compost that's farther along in the decomposition process.
Find a location: Practically speaking, try to set up near the garden where you'll be spreading your compost. Moving vast amounts across your property will wear you out. In their book "The Complete Compost Gardening Guide" (Storey), Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin note that you may have to strike a balance: Compost heaps do better in shade, but gardens are in the sun.
What's in? What's out? For a basic aerobic compost heap, grass clippings, leaves (run them through a leaf grinder, if you can, to reduce their size and speed up the process), twigs and other plant materials are all welcome. Indoor fodder can include coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit and vegetable scraps, even freezer-burned vegetables. No meats, no fats. Bones, though, if thoroughly cooked, are fine (they provide calcium and phosphorous). But bury them at least 3 inches down.
Critters: Worms and insects help break down the compost material. Other garden-helpful insects, such as crickets, take refuge in the compost heap. If you add bones and they get exposed, you may have to fend off raccoons (or, more likely, the neighbor's poodle). The chicken wire should be a sufficient deterrent.
Maintenance: When starting fresh, you may want to buy a bag of commercial compost — its bacteria and other microorganisms are already cranked up — and toss it in to get your bin percolating. Once you're up and running, add some of your own mature compost to your second bin. Turn your material every couple of days. To get air into the mix — this is aerobic composting, remember — drive a short length of rebar into the pile and wiggle it around to make a hole and promote air penetration. Do this at several points. Monitor the temperature. As the decomposition process accelerates, the temperature will rise. (Specially made thermometers are sold at garden centers.) If the temp gets above 150 degrees, the process can slow down or stop. Frequent mixing will prevent that from happening.
Moisture is a must for successful compost. For aerobic, the material should feel damp and clump together, but not be so wet that water can be squeezed out. If your aerobic pile is too dry, turn it and add water.
When is it ready? Markham says that immature compost produces chemicals that prevent germination. When you see earthworms thriving in your pile and weeds are starting to sprout, your compost is ready.
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[WM]WASHINGTON, Jun 4 2013 (IPS) - President Barack Obama tried Monday to jumpstart a new national discussion on mental health, sponsoring a conference with Vice-President Joe Biden aimed at reducing social stigma around the issue.
The event took place five months after two-dozen schoolchildren were killed in a shooting spree in the state of Connecticut by a killer who allegedly suffered from psychological problems. Since then bipartisan supporters have urged greater government focus on overhauling the country’s creaky mental health infrastructure.
Fitzpatrick called the United States’ current system of care for young adults dealing with mental health issues “abysmal”.
According to President Obama, speaking Monday at the opening of the conference, one in five adults in the United States experiences some form of mental illness. In addition, some 22 veterans of war commit suicide each day.
President Obama announced the launch of the new website, mentalhealth.gov, a clearinghouse of information for those seeking mental health services. The site will also host stories of those who have overcome mental health-related problems.
Alongside the website, U.S. media outlets across the country are set to start a coordinated national campaign aimed at destigmatising mental health. According to organisers, the campaign will start by focusing simply on getting those suffering from mental health problems to feel comfortable talking about their experiences.
“If someone had cancer in your family or diabetes, you wouldn’t be afraid to seek help or talk about it,” Dennis Wharton, a communications executive for the National Association of Broadcasters, told IPS.
Wharton says the new ads will not star celebrities, but instead feature a cross-section of U.S. society. “Because mental health knows no gender or race boundaries – this affects all walks of life,” he says.
Significant resources will be aimed at people who have served in the U.S. military.
For instance, Blue Star Families, an advocacy group for military families, will be producing a series of ads featuring country music stars urging veterans with mental health problems to seek help.
According to Barbara Van Dahlen, president of Give an Hour, a mental health advocacy group for veterans, says it’s unsurprising that many veterans suffer from mental illness, given their wartime experiences.
Van Dahlen stresses the need for trauma and substance abuse to be included in the category of mental illnesses. Advocates emphasise that substance abuse is an indicator of deeper problems, often mental health issues – and that dealing with those problems often helps with the substance abuse, as well.
President Obama announced that in coming months more than 150 “summits”, similar to Monday’s conference, would take place across the country. Hosted by the Department of Veteran Affairs, these will be held between July and September.
“What we ultimately want to do is take the conversations we are having today in the White House, and take them to school auditoriums, community centres, houses of worship, living rooms and kitchen tables across this country,” Health Secretary Sebelius said.
Nonetheless, she also warned of the presence of significant barriers to the new initiative, particularly given years of cost-cutting and the current environment of financial austerity.
The president’s 2014 budget, for instance, has a request for the training of 5,000 new mental health providers, particularly those who can work with people to transition into university.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Health’s Fitzpatrick, the United States currently requires a massive effort to train practitioners and other medical professionals to be able to offer some form mental health care. Currently, he says, many who are actively seeking help simply cannot find it.
First, however, the new Obama administration push on this issue is focusing on trying to make people comfortable enough to discuss their experiences in the first place. In closing comments Monday, Vice-President Biden drew on personal experiences to urge others seek out mental health-related help if they need it.
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[WM]Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani exits following a news conference on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, US, September 26, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid/File Photo.
JNS.org – Recent reports that the Iranians have removed their personnel from southern Syria and transferred their main activity hub from Damascus International Airport to the T-4 airbase in the heart of the Syrian desert indicate that the first round of the Iranian-Israeli conflict in Syria has ended in resounding defeat for Tehran.
Some in Israel voiced concern and criticized the government’s decision, which the defense establishment had encouraged, to wage a campaign against Iranian entrenchment in Syria. It is a fact, however, that the determination displayed by Israel bore fruit and its objectives were met without sparking a war on the northern border and while avoiding a diplomatic crisis with Russia.
The important takeaway from the first round is that those who dare, win. Iran blinked first and chose to duck a fight with Israel. It’s also possible it didn’t want to push its luck in terms of its relations with Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin, the patron of the Damascus regime.
This further evidences the limitations of Iran’s power and certainly that of its Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in Syria. The Quds Force couldn’t establish a solid foothold in Syria once Israel began pummeling it and therefore its ability to retaliate, threaten, and mainly deter Israel is still limited.
It’s not for nothing that Quds Force chief Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani wants the current government in Israel to fall. He even believes, according to media leaks, that a strong Iranian response to Israeli attacks in Syria could influence the outcome of the upcoming election in Israel. Iran is possibly behind Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s recent attempts in Gaza to spark another clash with Israel on the southern front. The Iranians want to influence the election results in Israel and at the very least deter Israel’s leadership from continuing the campaign against them in Syria. In the meantime, this hasn’t been working.
As stated, however, this is only the first round. The Iranians won’t throw in the towel so easily. Their presence in Syria, alongside their entrenchment in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, is a strategic goal for which they have spilled blood and spent billions of dollars. We can assume Iran will persist with efforts to establish a presence in Syria, even if in the country’s north, in the hope that the Russians will curb Israel’s attempts to uproot them from there as well. After all, in contrast to Israel, Russia doesn’t view Tehran’s presence in Syria as a threat and believes that it can curtail the Iranians.
Meanwhile, Iran last week celebrated the 40-year anniversary of its Islamic Revolution. On Feb. 1, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran riding the wave of protests against the Shah’s regime and wrested control of the country for him and his cohort of clerics. These have been 40 years of uncompromising fanaticism, increasing international isolation, unrelenting subversion in the region and beyond, and burning hatred for the United States and Israel. But more importantly for the citizens of Iran, it has been 40 years of corrupt and violent dictatorial rule that has led the country to the brink of social and economic ruin.
Iran’s only dubious achievements over this time, not coincidentally, pertain mostly to its ballistic missiles, which it touts day and night. The latest — a cruise missile with a range of 1,300 kilometers (around 800 miles) — was unveiled last week to mark the anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
It isn’t clear, by the way, if the reports from Tehran are accurate. To be sure, the Iranians tend to distort and exaggerate such accomplishments even when their missiles are far from being operational. What is pertinent, however, is Iran’s trend and ongoing intention of manufacturing missiles capable of reaching not just Israel but Europe and in the future the United States as well.
The price for these missiles, as we all know, is being paid by the people of Iran; mainly the country’s youth who have essentially been sentenced to a life of economic hardship, poverty, and ignorance and mostly a lack of hope for a better future. The gap between the Iranian people and their leaders has never been larger and another revolution to topple the regime is undoubtedly only a matter of time. This is still quite a few years away, however, because the ayatollahs, similar to their ally Assad, are willing to kill millions before bidding adieu to the global stage.
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[WM]Home Procurement News Why is lean accounting necessary in the supply chain?
Why is lean accounting necessary in the supply chain?
Knowing how to manage your finances is important for any business. If you aren't sure how much money you have in your accounts, you won't be able to pay your bills. Overseeing cash flow is crucial for keeping your finances in order. However, the processes in the supply chain are changing, and you'll need an accounting method that will accommodate those switches.
What accounting methods are currently used?
Traditionally, there are two main techniques for overseeing the money coming in and going out of a company: accrual and cash. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. However, one may benefit the business more than the other depending on the size and income of the company.
With cash accounting, you don't count any transactions until you receive payments or the bills are taken out of your account, explained NOLO, an online legal resource for consumers and businesses. This method is used primarily by smaller businesses and may offer a more accurate account of your finances. Because you don't record any payments coming in or going out of the company until they're actually received, you'll always know how much money you have in the bank. However, this may provide an inaccurate statement of your successes and struggles because sales cannot be recorded until payments are received.
Accrual accounting is the opposite. Revenue and expenses are included in your budget when the services are completed or the products are delivered, according to NOLO. This allows you to keep a more accurate record of your cash flow, as you'll see your sales as they happen. However, this may give the appearance that you have more or less money than is actually in your accounts.
How does the supply chain affect accounting?
In today's society, more emphasis has been placed on conserving resources and protecting the environment. However, with traditional manufacturing methods, that cannot always happen. Both materials and money can go to waste, as companies are thinking in terms of mass production, explained BMA Inc., a lean manufacturing consulting company. This can lead to excess inventory for businesses and higher costs for consumers.
A new workflow has made its way to the market to reduce these results. Lean manufacturing works to reduce waste, meet demand, lower prices and create a more efficient supply chain, the Journal of Accountancy claimed. Processes in production are moved near each other so that the products can switch stations with ease. This cuts lead-time and lowers prices because companies are able to create products when their customers want them. However, this manufacturing process requires a special type of accounting to take these changes into consideration.
Lean accounting allows people to make real-time decisions based on weekly reports and production expenses, Luis Socconini, the founder and director of the Lean Six Sigma Institute, explained to IndustryWeek contributor Michele Nash-Hoff. The method can improve accounts payable and receivable, payroll, inventory and budgets. Lean accounting may even be able to help determine prices and see which products are successful.
Shortened delivery times from three weeks to four days.
Reduction in inventory storage from six months to less than two months.
Increased employee productivity to $2,750 from $1,560.
Despite the benefits, not many businesses have made the switch to the new method. However, Socconini believed lean accounting will be popular in the next five to 10 years.
By switching to lean accounting, you are able to accommodate the changes in the supply chain. The efficiency and speed of the new manufacturing process will need to be accounted for in the financial records, as traditional cash and accrual accounting may not be as accurate throughout all parts of the workflow.
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[WM]Parkland shooting survivor and March for Our Lives leader Emma González coughed deliberately and sipped her tea when asked about the National Rifle Association saying that it's lost money since the teen activists start protesting gun violence.
The NRA claimed last week in court filings that the organization has suffered "tens of millions of dollars" in harm because of actions taken by the New York state government specifically in response to the Parkland shooting.
"They are, and I'm happy about that," said González in an appearance with March for Our Lives activists Bria Smith and Matt Post on BuzzFeed News' morning show, AM to DM.
"Because the National Rifle Association used to stand for safety," González said. "And now it's like, 'We're going to take money from the gun companies, the companies that manufacture weapons of this caliber, and when there is mass shootings, we're going to make more money, so we going to encourage politicians to say what we want them to say, so that we will continue to get more money in the long run and not be the company that people used to think we are.'"
The trio appeared on the show in advance of their New York leg of the Road to Change, a national tour with over 70 stops and 90 events to register young voters and discuss ways to end gun violence.
"We get a lot of protesters at our events, even though our events are set up to communicate with protesters," explained the 18-year-old, noting that in her experience, after conversations with other March for Our Lives leaders, most protesters ending up agreeing with 90% of what they stand for.
The final stop for the tour is in Newtown, Connecticut, on Sunday, where the Sandy Hook massacre took place. Families of that massacre have been painted as crisis actors by conspiracy theorists including Alex Jones. This also happened to González and her friends after a shooter killed 17 people at their high school.
González was asked what she'd want to tell Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, about what it's like to be on the receiving end of those sorts of online threats.
"He already knows. I've had a conversation with him before," said González. "Everybody sees the abuse that people face online."
She pointed out that YouTube hosts videos of people making pipe bombs but often removes videos about people discussing coming out as LGBT.
"There's an extreme problem in this country with censorship, that leans more to 'Nazis should have freedom of speech' and people who are living their life in a safe and comfortable way every day, their rights are being infringed because other people feel uncomfortable seeing love," said González.
During the March for Our Lives protest in Washington, DC, in March, González addressed the crowd and stood powerfully in silence for several minutes.
"It was a low place for everybody," she said. "The whole point of that silence was to create an environment where people could be upset because it was a rough time period. And I'm getting emotional talking about it now because I'm remembering that mindset. But it was important to do."
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[WM]Whenever “nation building” gets trotted out you can be pretty sure the advocates of the subject proposal have little confidence in the logic of their argument. The big question to my mind is why anyone who knows anything about transport and cities still takes this idea seriously.
Why is this even a thing? Why are we still talking about east coast HSR in 2019 as if it’s a pressing national priority?
It’s not because there’s an obvious problem to be addressed. There’s already a regular public transport service operating on this route. It’s got adequate capacity and scope to scale up in line with demand. Importantly, it’s a competitive market with four major operators i.e. Qantas, Tiger, Jetstar and Virgin.
This isn’t like a new outer suburban growth area where there’s no rail access at all. East coast HSR is about replacing one form of public transport with another. That’d be fine except for the fact it hinges on provision of a mammoth subsidy.
It’s not because it only requires a modest outlay of a few billion dollars or so. Any discussion of east coast HSR must be in the context of the truly monumental level of public subsidy required to build it. The 2013 study undertaken by Labor and the Greens put the capital cost at $114 – $127 billion (that’s a ‘b’) and made it clear virtually all of that would have to come from the public purse.
But we know it’s near-certain the cost would be much higher, probably in the range $150 – $200 billion, because early scoping studies like this invariably grossly under-estimate the cost, largely due to optimism bias (see Why do the worst infrastructure projects get built? and Are cost estimates for transport projects reliable?). The cost of building California HSR was initially estimated at $33 billion in 2008; by 2018 it had escalated to $63.2 – $98.1 billion.
Is it instead of a second Sydney Airport?
It’s not because Sydney’s second airport isn’t going ahead. One of the key arguments for east coast HSR was that it might obviate or delay the need to build a costly second airport in Sydney. That’s no longer relevant. Construction of Nancy-Bird Walton Airport at Badgerys Creek started on September 2018, with completion scheduled for December 2026.
In fact, the new airport weakens the case for east coast HSR. According to the Labor/Greens HSR feasibility study, that’s because it would reduce a key driver of demand for HSR – delays and unpredictability of flight times at Kingsford Smith airport arising from air traffic congestion. The study found the new airport would lower the demand for HSR into and out of Sydney and therefore decrease the economic benefits.
Is it to tackle emissions?
It’s not because it’s an efficient way of reducing emissions. After allowing for additional emissions from construction, operation and induced demand, east coast HSR would yield net savings of 55 Mt CO2-e over 50 years. That sounds good, but given the estimated cost of construction it would be an extraordinarily expensive way of addressing climate change i.e. circa $2,000 per tonne of CO2-e avoided. At a more likely $150 billion for construction, the cost rises to $2,700 per tonne (see So high speed rail would increase carbon emissions?).
That scale of subsidy would have a much larger impact on emissions if it were instead used to fund renewable power generation. The Bloomberg New Energy Finance energy outlook estimates the cost of making 92% of generation in Australia from renewable sources by 2050 is $186 billion.
Is it to improve equity?
It’s not because it would be more equitable. The great bulk of benefits from east coast HSR would come from faster trips between Sydney and Melbourne for business travellers. This group currently pays the full capital and operating cost of air travel; there’s no reason why it should now be gifted such a titanic subsidy.
Is it much, much faster?
It’s not because east coast HSR would be significantly faster than flying. CBD business people are the key beneficiaries; they’d save 15 minutes door-to-door travelling from Melbourne CBD to Sydney CBD, compared to what’s currently a three-hour journey by air (although HSR would be slower from Sydney to Brisbane than air). Nice, but hardly worth a couple of generations worth of infrastructure subsidy.
Is it to decentralise big cities?
It’s not because it would encourage decentralisation and “grow the regions”. The Labor/Greens feasibility study couldn’t find any net benefits from regional development. Heavily subsidised HSR fares from somewhere like Shepparton to Melbourne (notwithstanding that air fares aren’t subsidised!) wouldn’t shift high-paying jobs from the capital cities to the regions. Rather, they’d just promote regional sprawl by creating remote dormitory suburbs for city centre workers.
Is it to reduce housing costs?
It’s not because it would reduce housing costs appreciably compared to the capital cities. They’ll be much the same in Goulburn as they are in the outer suburbs of Sydney. It’s hard to see why sprawl in Goulburn or Yass would somehow be better than sprawl in Liverpool (see Will business really pay for High Speed Rail? and Is value capture the silver bullet for funding infrastructure?).
It’s not because it would be “transformative” or “nation building” as claimed by Ms Rice and Mr Albanese. How can that be the case when it will mostly do pretty much what planes already do i.e. move travellers between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne?
The fact that it’s a bit faster than flying for some potential users doesn’t make it “transformative” or “nation building”. This is nothing like the huge increase in speed that trains in the 19th century, and subsequently planes in the post-war era, brought to east coast inter-capital travel. The only way it might be transformative is if it were to destroy the competitive airline services between Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne, leading to higher fares and/or fewer services, and perhaps ultimately an HSR monopoly.
Faster trains might well have a role in the future in connecting far-flung suburbs and major regional centres like Canberra and Newcastle to Sydney, but something like the 160 km/h Type D Trainset currently being tested for the New Airport Line in Beijing is likely to be a much better fit than the 350 km/h HSR service touted by Mr Albanese and Ms Rice.
Public funding on the scale required to build east coast HSR could be more usefully deployed in many other ways. For example, it could be used to improve over-loaded public transport systems in capital cities (e.g. see What would happen if public transport use grew faster?).
It says something truly awful about our political culture and the standard of public discourse, especially around cities and transport, that this foolishness still has legs. I don’t expect gunzels are going to lose their enthusiasm for east coast HSR, but it’s way past time politicians, academics and the commentariat got over this folly. And it’s time to be a great deal more circumspect with terms like “nation building”.
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[WM]A Newtown Township man who threatened to go to the Bucks County Courthouse and kill the man he was infatuated with was sentenced to a four- to 23-month prison term yesterday after pleading guilty to terroristic threats.
On July 19, 47-year-old Edward Joseph Twining was stopped at the courthouse by security personnel, who were aware of his threat on the lives of William Marietta and Marietta's girlfriend, Helen Hovan.
Security guards, who were looking for a man fitting Twining's description, found a gun in his briefcase and Twining was later arrested. Twining knew Marietta would be at the courthouse, court records said, because Marietta was scheduled for a hearing on a minor criminal charge.
At his hearing yesterday, Twining said his intention was not to kill Marietta but to kill himself in front of the man he loved, Senior Deputy District Attorney Terry Houck said.
Twining also said there were love letters in the briefcase he brought to the courthouse.
The subjects of the threats chose not to make a statement in court, Houck said. "They're all very frightened of this guy and what he might do because of the threats he made."
Twining said yesterday that he was upset because Hovan had broken up the relationship between Marietta and him, Houck said. But Marietta has told Houck that "there never was such a relationship," the prosecutor said.
Marietta resided at Twining's house for a period of time, Houck said, but he was living there much of that time with his girlfriend.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Kenneth G. Biehn sentenced Twining to a consecutive five-year probationary term for threatening Hovan.
Bucks County Court personnel learned of the threats from an assistant public defender who was representing Marietta on a receiving stolen property charge.
Twining was arrested outside Courtroom 2. That courtroom is the place criminal defendants wait to find out where their trials will be or plead guilty to the charges against them.
Twining was not charged with bringing a firearm into the courthouse. Doing so is legal as long as the gun is not brought into a courtroom.
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[WM]It takes a lot to make me feel ashamed of London, my beloved home city. But yesterday’s tower-block inferno did it. The raging fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, the disturbing speed with which this home to hundreds was reduced to a smouldering shell of a building, heaps shame on this city. It is positively Dickensian, a hellish scene out of place in 2017, like a violent echo from an older era when safety, especially the safety of the poor, was of little moment. London needs to look in the mirror. This cannot just be chalked up to ‘tragedy’.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was the low social status of the inhabitants of the tower that left them vulnerable to this horror. That’s a serious charge, I know, but how else do we explain that residents who complained about fire hazards were ignored? The Grenfell Action Group residents’ association complained to the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) — which manages Grenfell — about ‘terrifying power surges’ caused by ‘faulty wiring’. It predicted that only a ‘serious fire in a tower block’ would lead to KCTMO being ‘brought to justice’. It remains to be seen how neglectful KCTMO was, if it was at all, but it is profoundly concerning that residents say their complaints were ignored. Their worries ‘fell on deaf ears’, they say. It’s hard to imagine the residents of one of Kensington’s plusher, more pleasing-to-the-eye builds being treated like this.
There are many specific questions that must be asked — and answered — about this horrific fire. Most pressingly: how did a fire in one flat spread with such ferocious speed to the entire block? A flat-based fire can be a simple accident (though we don’t yet know if this fire was accidental or deliberate). But when such a fire moves upwards and upwards with nightmarish intensity, engulfing home after home, it’s not an accident. Then it becomes something else; then it becomes clear that the fire has been enabled by something, perhaps by the decisions and actions of others. In this case, recent refurbishment, including the addition of seemingly flammable cladding, raises serious questions about materials used on buildings and official fire regulations. Also, why don’t all tower blocks have sprinklers? And decent fire alarms that can actually be heard? These specific issues must be pored over, urgently, post this inferno.
But there are broader questions, too. Most importantly, there’s the housing crisis, the dearth of new build, and how this has helped to warp the housing market so that homes in Britain, and especially in London, are pretty much unaffordable to normal people. The failure of both Tory and Labour governments to build the millions of new homes Britain needs has messed up the economy and society in ways we sometimes fail to appreciate. Bank of England governor Mark Carney was right to warn in 2014 that ‘there are not sufficient houses [being] built in the UK’, and that this lack, this dearth, is ramping up house prices, intensifying borrowing, and storing up serious problems for ‘financial durability’.
But the housebuilding failure hasn’t only twisted prices and blown up economic bubbles — it has also had a dire impact on society, too, on community life, even on the value we attach to certain citizens. It has created a situation where developers, and the local councils who love them, tend always to have the super-rich in mind; tend to erect new builds they know will be snapped up by those flush with cash: wealthy foreigners or filthy-rich Brits. In the midst of this market-lighted process of gentrification, the poorer inhabitants of places like Kensington and Chelsea sometimes come to be seen as a pain, as squatters almost, whose towering blocks or state-funded homes are in essence vast concrete barriers to the making of huge amounts of money.
And so do the poorer inhabitants of certain boroughs come to be seen, inexorably, as a problem, as pests, their concerns easily ignored. After all, wouldn’t it be better if they left? If they cleared the way for new opportunities for wealth creation for the few? This is the inhumanity unwittingly unleashed by our warped housing crisis, and by the recession more broadly, and it is, if you will forgive me, disgusting.
Since that benighted building and the family homes it contains went up in flames 24 hours ago, there has been a rush to pin the blame on ‘evil’ individuals. We’ve seen an outburst of Tory-bashing in particular. Boris is to blame, for cutting fire services. Gavin Barwell, Theresa May’s new chief-of-staff, is also getting it in the neck for having allegedly ‘sat on’ a report about how tower blocks are vulnerable to fire. This craven search for the one evil Tory to blame for this calamity is also Dickensian. It’s a Dickensian breed of moralism that prefers to bash wicked individual landlords or nasty Scrooges rather than address the bigger social and economic underpinnings of tragedies like this. Finger-pointing and the desire to feel good and pompous become a substitute for examining how both Tory and Labour governments have helped to warp the housing question through their failures of housing ambition.
I was born into overcrowded social housing in West London, not far from Grenfell. So I know something of how social-housing residents are mistreated, how they can come to be viewed as lesser citizens than those with money and influence, whether it’s by Labourites hectoring them for their ‘nasty neighbour’ behaviour or the rich wishing they would move on. It must stop. We have it in our power to ensure that nothing like the Grenfell fire ever happens again, if we ask the right and hard questions.
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[WM]BAYBAY CITY, Leyte — The Regional Trial Court here will tackle on Wednesday, the three motions filed by Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. who is detained on illegal drugs and gun charges.
Judge Carlos Arguelles of RTC Branch 14 ruled to take up the motions during a hearing where the prosecution would oppose the motions that included asking the court to allow Espinosa to be released on bail.
The two other motions included a motion to quash the search warrant that was used to raid his house in Barangay Benolho, Albuera on Aug. 9 when the police found 11 kilos of shabu worth P88 million.
The other motion was to seek the transfer of Espinosa from the Baybay sub-provincial Jail back to Albuera police station under Chief Insp. Jovie Espenido due to threats to his security.
The three motions were filed by Espinosa’s lawyer, Leilani Villarino last Oct. 12 when the mayor was about to be arraigned for charges of illegal possession of firearms and drugs.
The filing of the motions caused the postponement of the arraignment.
Judge Arguelles warned Villarino not to again delay the proceedings of the case.
The prosecution, however, manifested their opposition to the move to transfer Espinosa back to his hometown.
But the judge ruled that the motions would be discussed during the hearing on Wednesday.
Even before the motions could be discussed, Espenido served two more arrest warrants against Espinosa last Oct. 12 after the postponement of his arraignment.
The two warrants pertained to the two additional charges filed against the mayor that stemmed from the raid on Aug. 10.
One of the cases included sale of illegal drugs in violation of Section 5 of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Acts of 2002.
Espenido has alleged that the 11 kilos of shabu found in the house of the mayor showed that the illegal drugs trade has been a family business and has not been limited to his son, Kerwin, alone.
The other case was the manufacture of explosives in violation of Republic Act 9516 after the police recovered ingredients in bomb making in his house during the Aug. 10 raid.
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[WM]Not content with starring in her own "Will she or won't she?" presidential soap opera, Sarah Palin offered a revision of Paul Revere's famous midnight ride – one of the best-known events in Amewrican history – that both provoked and confounded her critics.
What was at worst a syntactic ambiguity on Palin's part during her bus tour last week became another instance of critics accusing her of historical ignorance, and her supporters just as insistently defending her from error – a battle that spilled over onto the historical event's Wikipedia entry.
He warned the British that they weren't going be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells, and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.
The British armed forces' mission was to seize arms belonging to the nascent rebels, so Palin's right in a general sense, although one assumes Revere and the other riders' primary aim was to warn the rebels and their leaders about the British military move.
As it happened, Revere also did warn the British military directly, when he was captured by British troops and interrogated at gunpoint. Revere told them what he had been doing and according to his own account warned them that 500 armed militia were waiting.
Here is what Paul Revere did. He warned the Americans that the British were coming, the British were coming, and they were going to try take our arms and we got to make sure that we were protecting ourselves and shoring up all of ammunitions and our firearms so that they couldn't take it.
But remember that the British had already been there, many soldiers for seven years in that area. And part of Paul Revere's ride – and it wasn't just one ride – he was a courier, he was a messenger. Part of his ride was to warn the British that we're already there. That, hey, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have. He did warn the British.
So, Sarah Palin claimed that Paul Revere was a Revolutionary-era NRA member whose famous ride was for a British audience, to let them know Americans were going to win the war because they believed in gun rights.
Palin's aim – insofar as she had one – was to blow a dog-whistle for her supporters, turning the Revolutionary war into a tale about gun ownership. That's not historically inaccurate – it's the reason there is a second amendment defending the right to bear arms in the first place.
But her supporters couldn't resist trying to make history conform more closely to her version, by editing the Wikipedia entry covering Revere's ride. The rewriting was first spotted by the political website Little Green Footballs: "Man, you've gotta almost admire the sheer blind dedication of Sarah Palin's wingnut acolytes."
Official: What was the cause of the Civil War?
Official: Wait, wait. Just say slavery.
Apu: Slavery it is, sir.
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[WM]It's a fantastic update to a favorite tool for chefs and bartenders.
WiredA fantastic update to a favorite tool for chefs and bartenders. Improvements over the original version make everything better.
TiredIt's a narrow niche for home use. Consider if you're into this kind of thing before purchasing and filing it away in a drawer after only one use. The screen filter also has a tendency to pop through the burn chamber.
Trundle through as many fancy restaurant kitchens as I have and you'll start recognizing specialized tools, big and small: little offset spatulas, slablike flat-top griddles, high-powered Vitamix blenders, spoonulas. For years now, many of those kitchens also used something that looks like a cross between a black squirt gun and a battery-powered hookah.
This thing, the PolyScience Smoking Gun, uses a tiny fan to draw a flame across a teaspoon of wood chips or other combustibles to produce a steady stream of smoke, which it expels through a long tube. You can do some pretty cool things with it: I've seen chefs present food under a clear glass cloche full of smoke, lifting it tableside to reveal a dish; bartenders will smoke a glass, the booze, or an entire cocktail to impart varying degrees of smokiness. When I worked on The Willows Inn’s cookbook, Sea and Smoke, chef Blaine Wetzel would cold-smoke mussels in a smoker for four hours, sear them on the flat top to caramelize them, tuck them back in their shells, pop them in a tiny cedar box, pipe alder smoke into the box, and immediately walk it out into the dining room, where diners opened the box, sending a puff of smoke billowing toward the ceiling.
Despite its ability to turn a dish or a drink into a showstopper, the original Smoking Gun, like that plastic squirt gun, feels a bit chintzy. It's also poorly balanced: Even in its stand, a tug on the tube can cause the whole thing to fall over and make a literal hot mess.
Version two, the Smoking Gun Pro ($150)—a joint venture between PolyScience and Breville—solves these problems and improves on the original in just about every way. The original, now referred to as the "legacy" version, is being phased out. In a confusing bit of marketing and nomenclature, there is also the Breville Smoking Gun (no PolyScience, no Pro, $100), with a smaller footprint, diminished capabilities, and less weight.
The Pro offers new features, like a large base for stability, a variable speed fan, and a big shiny removable metal barrel that gives it heft, durability, and undeniable cool. It's easily disassembled, and many of the components are dishwasher-safe. Comparing the new versions, the non-pro model looks like a cash grab. If, like most people, you've never heard of these things and are now considering one, save your pennies a little longer and go Pro.
I went to see bartender Jamie Boudreau of the high-end Canon bar in Seattle, and there on the front corner of the bar sat his Smoking Gun Pro. For Boudreau, there are two ways to smoke a drink: in and around. "In is for flavor more than aroma—you get a smokiness in the mouth," he says. To do this, he pours the booze in a decanter with smoke and gives it a quick shake. "I lean toward the darker spirits. Clear spirits like gin are more delicate, and the smoke can overtake the drink."
He keeps this in mind making his Khaleesi cocktail. Boudreau brings a glass skull full of tea smoke to the table, adds a mix of Punt e Mes, Blanton's single-barrel bourbon, and some other lovely ingredients, gives it a quick shake, and pours immediately. Just two shakes, he says—more than that, and you risk the smoke overpowering the drink.
For the around technique, he pipes smoke into a clear smoking box, inundating either the glass or the entire drink in the terrarium-like cube: for example, he might smoke a Manhattan with strawberry tea. Boudreau is clearly a big fan of the Pro. His only quibble is that the screen the wood chips can pop right through the burn chamber (something I experienced during testing), which he avoids by cutting his own screen instead of using the smaller circles that come with the Smoking Gun.
"Other than that," he summarizes, "everything is better."
Everything about the Smoking Gun Pro is so much better that chefs and bartenders who have a legacy version ought to seriously consider replacing it. As for everyone else, do you really need one? Tough call. As my wife said, "This wouldn't rate a spot on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Not even the frivolous end."
With further testing, particularly with food, I learned to think of the smoke more like a seasoning: A nice addition, but it doesn't completely change the meal. You can blend it into a soup or a salsa or whip it into mashed potatoes. You can smoke a salad. You can use all kinds of wood to make smoke or, like Boudreau, you can smoke tea leaves. It's showy and fun—and very easy to imagine someone buying it or receiving it as a gift, using it once, and never pulling it out of the drawer.
Then again, what do I know about people? I bought a bottle of Famous Grouse and brought it, along with the Pro and a utility lighter, to poker night at my buddy Brian's house. We went out to his patio to keep the smoke detector from going off, had everyone try a taste of the "regular" whisky, then combined some with mesquite smoke in an empty glass bottle, gave it two quick shakes, and poured a round of shots. The mesquite gave the Scotch a pleasant burnt-marshmallow flavor that everybody was into. Several hands later, Brian pulled out a bottle of Cazadores Reposado and we ran the same experiment on tequila. Here the results were mixed, but it was a lot of fun.
In short, it was a big, showy success, the guys got really into it, and we all tottered off into the night with a smoky buzz.
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[WM]The Make Comedy Great Again Tour stars, from left, Tina Giorgi, Jeff Allen, Earl David Reed, Brad Upton and Ross Bennett.
ALBANY — Despite its obvious echo of a decidedly partisan slogan, the "Make Comedy Great Again" Tour promises that it will be an evening of five comics who work in an older tradition, namely one free of politics and vulgarity.
Saturday's show at The Egg ran for more than two hours, yet it never got stronger than PG-13 in language and innuendo, and it was a clear hit with a freely laughing audience that had an age range as broad as any I've seen for stand-up comedy, from about a kid about 11 to a couple in their 70s.
Even before the national exposure of the special, interest in MCGA has been so strong that the tour, produced by The Comedy Works in Saratoga Springs, is already looking at booking 30 to 40 weekends' worth of dates next year, according to owner Tommy Nicchi.
The comedians' material isn't explicitly political, but it is fundamentally conservative, in the larger sense of the word.
On the stage this manifested itself in a pair of grandpa personas: Brad Upton as the genial, slightly goofy one who's younger than his age and Jeff Allen as the only-62-but-already-a-geezer guy who walks effortfully and complains about his declining health and about everyone in his life. For Upton, getting older means sitting in the mall food court and staring longingly at plates going by, not the attractive young women carrying them. While this is to him a sign of deterioration, it's representative of MCGA that Upton would never consider that the food-carrying women think it's a major improvement. Allen is more explicitly sour, having crossed over into that late-middle-age period where men are so hen-pecked that it gets a big laugh when Allen says something like, "I've been married 32 years, so it's not like I'm a man anymore anyway."
If they're the grumpy gramps of the tour, Ross Bennett is the weird uncle, with sproingy hair, thick glasses and a persona he describes as "the science teacher that (all the students) suspected smokes pot." Though sentimentality was thickest with Bennett, it was also gentlest, culminating with a hilarious set-closing routine about sledding, the differences between toboggans and flying saucers and being mummified in scarf wrapped around his head so many times that it felt as if his mother was planning to pull-start a lawnmower.
Absolutely necessary to this mix is the ostensible opener/emcee, David Earl Reed, a black comic and morning-radio host in York, Pa., who is supremely skilled at zinging white audiences just up to their comfort levels. In a set that was as long as each of the others', Reed was masterful in his crowd work, riffing brilliantly on interactions with the audience, from late-comers to a monosyllabic 20something who, when asked about his career, said only, but enthusiastically, "Concrete!"
Noting a black-white interracial couple sitting near the front, Reed said, "You know what they say: Once you go black ...."
He trailed off, letting the audience mentally fill in what they thought was coming. What he actually said was far more pointed than a a rhyming, sexually based cliché: "Once you go black, your family leaves."
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[WM]Son of former D.C. mayor claimed he had been "self-medicating"
The son of former District of Columbia mayor Marion Barry has received a nine-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to charges of drug possession.
Marion Christopher Barry pleaded guilty in July to charges of possessing marijuana and PCP. He told the judge in the case that he had been "self-medicating." He'll remain a free man if he avoids further trouble with the law.
The younger Barry is the only child of the former mayor, who was arrested in 1990 after he was caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. The elder Barry, who was in his third term as mayor at the time, was found guilty on a misdemeanor drug possession charge and served six months in prison.
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[WM]star, who suffered a myocardial infarction, has been "moved from the Intensive Care Unit, but remains hospitalized."
"His family are firm believers in the power of prayer, and have asked that you keep him in yours during this time," his rep adds.
Duncan has his quick-thinking girlfriend, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, to thank for saving his life. The notorious star of The Apprentice discovered Duncan while he was unconscious and delivered CPR while waiting for paramedics to arrive.
A week after his hospitalization, doctors said he had a "very strong heartbeat" and were optimistic for his health.
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[WM]TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO star Kevon Carter, 30, has died of a suspected heart attack after training with his club team Defense Force FC.
The Caribbean Football Union says the 30-year-old striker, who had 25 international caps to his name, passed away in hospital after complaining of chest pains at the end of a routine training session.
The general secretary of the CFU, Sheldon Phillips, said: "The young man had a quiet resolve about him and bounced back from a horrific leg injury to once again earn a spot on the national team.
"The entire football family is in mourning and our thoughts and prayers are with Kevon's family and teammates."
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[WM]Notegraphy lets users create and publish notes in beautiful formats and layouts.
If you’ve ever marveled at how artists create beautiful typography and wished you could do the same, this new web and mobile app will be right up your alley.
Notegraphy lets users write and publish pieces of writing in different designs and formats, and share them on their social networks.
The app makes it easy for people to create their own design-worthy typography by offering various templates or “Styles” made by some of the best graphic designers in the world. Users can scroll through the different Styles and preview how their notes look. They can also choose from three color schemes per style. Once they’re satisfied with how their notes look, they can hit “Publish” to add titles, tags, and decide whether to share their notes on their social networks.
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[WM]Take 5: How can we stop being jerky customers?
The customer may not always be right. What are some circumstances where they could be wrong?
In a recent trip to a grocery store, I grabbed my usual few items in a hand basket and took my wares to the cashier's counter. I set the basket on the table (not a conveyor belt, just a small table) and started to reach for my wallet.
I looked up and the cashier was just staring at the basket, not moving. I asked her if everything was OK, and she replied, "I never remove items from baskets."
I didn't realize that was a thing. I simply thought the effort to grab something from inside a basket was the same as it was on a table. I'm happy to learn the right way to be, so it wasn't a big deal to do as she wanted.
Got to thinking: Have I been a jerk all this time and not known? Facebook opinions were 50-50 on whether that's truly an etiquette thing or whether she was just cranky.
What else have I been flubbing up? I asked friends to explain what circumstances they wished customers understood about jobs they had. In other words, when are customers just not right?
The general truth seems to be that people who've never worked in customer service have unrealistic expectations.
Inconsiderate cell phone users during checkout, people who get mad at employees if the store is out of the product they seek, people who make a line of people behind them wait while they get something they forgot and people who treat pharmacists like they only count pills for a living were just a few quick hits my friends offered to support that truth.
School teacher Sylvia Hammons asked me to remind people that school is not a daycare. Dropping kids off early or coming to pick them up late has a ripple effect people generally forget.
"While families are 'our customers,' they need to understand that teachers have a schedule to follow, too, and dropping kids off early and picking them up late prevents teachers from getting other responsibilities done. I’d say probably the same for sports coaches," she said.
Planning for these circumstances is important. Part of planning, however, isn't giving your sick kid Tylenol that wears off in two hours so everyone ultimately has to deal with it (nurses, parents, teachers, classmates) anyway.
Former Community Press writer Liz Carey gave another example: Her husband used to work at CompUSA where a woman screamed at him for 15 minutes because his company didn't sell film for her digital camera. I'll give you a second to reread that.
For her contribution, Leslie Kohlman talked about the bane of restaurant managers: The habitual complainers who come in to get free meals. She said, "I finally told a family you cost me money every time you walk in the door."
I waited tables at Ground Round when the company had penny-per-pound day for kids meals. You'd be surprised how hard people will work to avoid paying for meals, even 65-cent dinners.
Tara Stroud had another restaurant issue. Some people don't understand how reservations/call-ahead/seating issues work. "So many factors come into play when seating guests, i.e. party size, time of arrival, closed sections, smoking/non-smoking (used to), etc. I can’t tell you how many times I had to field a customer complaint because of how they thought it should go. Everyone knows more than the employees when they want to be seated."
Now, it's understandable what most consumers deal with: Tight home budgets, too many stressors and too much to do with no time to do it. However, no one gets paid enough to be a customer's human fidget spinner.
It's sad people talk to customer service workers in manners they'd never tolerate someone talking to their own loved ones.
For the record, when I have a handheld basket at the grocery store, I now ask cashiers if they want me to remove items from those baskets. So far, no one cared one way or the other, but it was nice to ask.
The Golden Rule isn't so hard to remember.
Melanie Laughman is the digital preps planning editor for high school sports. She periodically writes a column, Take 5, on family-related issues. You can reach her via Twitter at @mlaughman or by email at [email protected].
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[WM]Just when you thought you'd seen every variation of moc-toed boot possible, Yuketen comes through with their Fall/Winter 2012 collection and flips the script. While the silhouettes are more or less the same as past seasons, Yuketen freaked the uppers with animal skins, colored suedes, and tweed inlays all set on top of crepe and Vibram soles. If Yuketen's previous models were a bit too mundane for your tastes, these new models might be right up your ally.
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[WM]Alaska's distilleries can no longer serve mixed drinks to customers, the state agency overseeing alcohol ruled Tuesday.
In a 3-1 vote, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board decided that distilleries — which make vodka, gin and other types of distilled alcohol — have to stop serving cocktails in their tasting rooms. The ruling may change how the state's distilleries do business.
The decision centered around vague language in Alaska's laws that says the businesses may serve "the distillery's product" to customers. After complaints landed at the state regulatory office this summer, months of debate followed about exactly what that meant and how it was being applied in distilleries across the state.
Tuesday's vote clarified that the "product" is "distilled spirit made or distilled in the licensed facility," and can't include other things like tonic or other mixers.
But, distilleries will be allowed to "separately serve other types of nonalcoholic mixers/garnishes," Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office Director Erika McConnell wrote in an email.
That means a distillery could serve a customer two glasses, one with gin, and the other with tonic, which the customer could then mix themselves.
Distilleries say they've been serving cocktails since 2014, when legislators passed a bill allowing for distillery tasting rooms. Alaska regulators said that they didn't know distilleries were selling cocktails for the past three years.
"The purpose of the law was to allow the distilling industry to promote and sell our products directly to the consumer, just like the breweries do," Heather Shade, co-owner of Port Chilkoot Distillery in Haines, wrote in public comment to the board.
"Spirits are unique in the way that they are prepared and there is no reason to limit how we serve them," Shade wrote.
Bars spoke out against the practice. The Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers Association — known as CHARR – said it would never have supported allowing for tasting rooms if it had known they would become "de facto bars."
Distilleries said that rules were put in place specifically to prevent them from becoming bars. Customers may only have 3 ounces of alcohol. Alcohol can't be served after 8 p.m. Entertainment is banned. Bar stools are not allowed.
As of September, nine distilleries were operating in Alaska. Anchorage Distillery is the only one in Alaska's largest city.
More than 500 pages of public comment were submitted in advance of Tuesday's meeting.
McConnell wrote that the Department of Law would receive the adopted regulation next week. After the agency's review, the adopted regulations will be sent to Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. Regulation is effective 30 days after he signs it.
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[WM]Ida Reolfi will celebrate her 103rd birthday on March 31, 2013. She is the widow of Eugene (Bill) Reolfi and the mother of three sons, Robert (Carol Bandy), Gary (Sondra) and Fred (Susan). Ida has 10 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren; three great-great- grandchildren, as well as many nieces and nephews.
Ida has always enjoyed cooking, baking and spending time with her family. She is retired from Fishers Foods and spent several years in Boynton Beach, Fla., with her husband where they enjoyed an active social life with friends.
The family is holding a reception for her birthday on April 7, 2013 from 1-3 p.m. at Bethany Nursing Home located at 626 34th St NW in Canton.
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[WM]Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio which recently turned two, is celebrating its second anniversary by offering free 4G data with Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. Here is how to get it.
The Jio offer can be availed from MyJio App.
Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio which recently turned two, is celebrating its second anniversary by offering free 4G data with Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. As part of this deal, Jio is offering 1GB of 4G data with a regular Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate worth as low as Rs 5. The users will also have an option to transfer this data to any other Jio subscriber. The offer is valid until September 30, and the customers need to have the MyJio app on their smartphone to get the free data.
According to the terms and conditions of the offer, this 1 GB data can be availed on the purchase of Cadbury Dairy Milk worth Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 40, or Rs 100. Those who don’t like the regular Dairy Milk chocolate, can avail the offer by buying Dairy Milk Crackle worth Rs. 40, Dairy Milk Roast Almond worth Rs 40, Dairy Milk Fruit and Nut worth Rs 40 or Rs 80, or Dairy Milk Lickables worth Rs 35. The 1GB of free data is above the regular data entitlement and comes as an additional data.
To avail this offer, users need to open MyJio App or download it if they don’t have it. The app shows a banner on the homescreen highlighting the offer. By clicking on the banner, users will be redirected to a page where they need to participate in the offer.
For this, they need to tap the Participate Now button and then scan the barcode from the empty wrapper for a Dairy Milk chocolate to avail the free data.
The data will be credited into the MyJio account within seven to eight working days from the date of redemption. Furthermore, only one empty wrapper is allowed to be redeemed per registered Reliance Jio account.
This data will be added to users’ account as additional data over their regular benefits. The users will also have an option to donate this data to an NGO called Pratham Foundation. The donation is touted to enable e-learning in far-flung areas of India.
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[WM]Odds are you've watched your favorite show on Netflix enough times to pick up on the overarching plot no matter what episode you're watching. Of course, you can manually choose an episode at "random," but that takes a lot of work.
LinkedIn is sending its standalone Job Search app out to pasture next month.
Sony PlayStation 4 owners on Wednesday can finally edit their online IDs with PSN's new name change feature, said Sid Shuman, PSN's director of social media, in a blog post. IDs can be changed on a PS4 or via web browser.
Attention, witches and wizards: you can now secure a code name for the forthcoming Harry Potter: Wizards Unite game. If you already play Ingress Prime or Pokemon Go, you can keep the same agent name or trainer nickname for Wizards Unite.
Many new devices boast of heightened security with the addition of Touch ID, and the Samsung Galaxy S10, which debuted last month, is a prime example. A user of the Imgur image-sharing site, however, has challenged that notion.
Imgur user Darkshark said a 3D print of his own fingerprint fooled the Samsung Galaxy S10's ultrasonic fingerprint scanner and unlocked the device. Darkshark posted a video on Thursday showing the 3D print unlocking the phone.
With all of the streaming TV shows and movies out there, simply finding what to watch can be a hassle. But what if you already know what to watch but don't know where to stream it?
Google Play's Artist Hub is no longer accepting new sign-ups and will reportedly shut down April 30. The service, which lets smaller indie artists post and sell their music on the Google Play Store and Google Play Music, redirects new users to YouTube for Artists.
Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment but told 9to5Google the move is part of its plan to replace Google Play Music with YouTube Music.
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[WM]Everyone has one of these, a person in their lives who they are absolutely terrified to drive with. This person could be a friend, a family member, a coworker. Or maybe it’s you!
Last week, I asked you guys to spill on that one friend you’re scared to get into a car with. Are they erratic, panicky or just way too confident? Are they aggressive phone-users? Over-estimate their ability behind the wheel? All of these things?
The most terrified I’ve been as a passenger happened when I was riding in the car with a friend’s dad. Now, this dad was a real nice guy, but absolutely petrified to be behind the wheel.
And it didn’t help that his mother was in the passenger seat, panicky to be in a car in the first place screaming at him to slow down on the highway. We were the ones going 55 in a 65. He’d brake to merge. It was so, so bad.
Your turn. Who are you scared of?
Someone needs to have a talk with this person ASAP.
What’s Gus up to now?
These people need to be called out.
I’ll pass on a ride in your Porsche.
Breathe, just breathe. And then speak.
It’s good music to work out to, admittedly.
That’s real important for driving.
Now the meetings are arranged separately.
Yeah, those affect your speed.
That’s when you become the driver for everything.
Never had one! Wonder why?
That training doesn’t guarantee anything.
I enjoy all the names you gave them.
Don’t drink and drive, don’t drink and drive.
Johnny needs to keep his eyes on the damn road.
What's the Worst High-Volume Car of This Millennium?
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[WM]"Country Music Hair" author Erin Duvall breaks down the 'dos.
You can't think about country music without thinking about hair. Whenever anyone talks about Dolly Parton, her look is mentioned in the same breath as her unparalleled songwriting ability and angelic voice. Willie Nelson is the Red Headed Stranger; his braids are as iconic as his illegal drug habit. That's why I focused on the evolution of hairstyles in country music for my new book Country Music Hair. From the 1960s to today, my first book is a tribute to the iconic hairstyles we loved on our favorite artists.
Willie Nelson, "The Red Headed Stranger"
In my opinion, there has been no greater hair transformation in country music history than that of Willie Nelson. Most fans who see pictures of the icon in the 1960s cannot recognize him thanks to his clean-cut look. The 1970s brought shoulder-length hair and the first signs of what was to come. By the '80s, Nelson had become the man we think of today, full red braids and a signature bandana.
One of my favorite quotes attributed to Dolly Parton is "People ask me how long it takes to do my hair and I say, 'I don't know, I'm never there.'" Parton has worn everything from a bouffant to long layers, but it's never been her real hair. Stylist Cheryl Riddle is responsible for getting each wig ready to wear, but surprisingly Parton still does her own makeup to this day.
Kelsea Ballerini is in the new class of country stars, finding her own way by honoring those who came before her. When it comes to hair, Ballerini doesn't go full wig, but she's a big supporter of clip-in hair extensions. Her hair is stick straight and, especially in performance situations, clip-ins hold curl (and thus style) despite the environmental conditions.
Patsy Cline is arguably one of the most iconic voices in country music. Her style is stamped in time as well. Reba's stylist Neil Robison explains in Country Music Hair that Cline likely had naturally curly hair and therefore it was a laborious process to get her signature wave. Stylist Earl Cox agrees, sharing a story from his client Barbara Mandrell, who actually styled Cline's hair every night when she was playing steel guitar for the songstress in her teens.
Country Music Hair also looks at the relationships that fans have with the 'dos of their favorite artists. In 1996, Faith Hill famously chopped off her long locks in what has become known as the "Cut Heard Round the World." Most recently, Ali Ryan of the Dry House Nashville started a new movement when she transformed Jake Owen by cutting his established shoulder-length hair to this clean-cut look. Granted, there was far less outcry this time around as happy fans praised Ryan's work.
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[WM]A lawsuit filed by R&B singer Brandy Norwood s mother, Sonja Norwood, against Kim Kardashian was dismissed Monday in an apparent settlement, according to court papers.
Norwood sued Kardashian, who once worked as Brandy’s stylist, accusing her of charging more than $120,000 to a credit card without permission.
In the suit, Norwood accused Kardashian and siblings Khloe, Kourtney and Robert of running up the charges in 2006 and 2007. She sought the return of the money plus 10 percent interest.
As Brandy’s stylist in 2004, Kardashian had been authorized to make only one purchase on the Norwood American Express card, Norwood said in the suit. But Norwood alleged that Kardashian made unauthorized purchases and passed the card number to her siblings, who ran up bills at two Kardashian family-owned clothing stores, Dash and Smooch, for a total of $120,636.
Kardashian denied the allegations, saying she never used the credit card without authorization. The lawsuit was dismissed June 1 with prejudice, which means the case cannot be appealed or re-filed.
Attorneys for Norwood and Kardashian could not be immediately reached for comment.
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[WM]Which Irish names are making a comeback?
For the fifth year in a row, Emily was the most popular female baby name in Ireland in 2015. Emily finished the year ahead of Emma, Ava, Sophie and Amelia – rounding out the top five – and is again number one among girls’ baby names. Emily has ruled the roost without interruption since 2010.
Jack, again, took the crown on the male list as it has for the past eight years. Apart from slight changes in the order, the top five male baby names in 2015 – Jack, James, Daniel, Conor and Sean – are exactly as they have been since 2007. Only one new name has even made even the top 100 boys’ list. As it happens, four out of five of the top five male names have remained in the top five since 1998, almost two whole decades.
George has leaped in popularity both last year and this year, probably thanks to England’s Prince George who probably has won some fans in Ireland based on the number of new-born baby boys sharing his name. George rose from 103rd to 90th.
Ollie also continues to stride up the table, rising most in popularity of all the names on the list. Ollie moved from 87th in 2014 to 66th place in 2015.
On the girls’ side, Annabelle, Mila, and Rosie were three new names to make the top 100, with Mila being the highest climbing name on either list, rising from 142nd place in 2014 to 88th place in 2015.
Emily & Daniel were the most popular baby names on passport applications in Ireland last year.
Out of the 4,487 different girls’ names registered are some more unusual ones, including Paris, Nelly, Dakota, Kim, Pixie and Sabina.
On the male list, which saw 3,475 different boys’ names registered, we may be able to detect the influence of One Direction given the popularity of Zayn among other outsider choices including Barra, Pauric, Gus, Romeo and Otis.
Zayn made the top 100 baby names in Ireland. Words fail me.
Interestingly, the statistics recently published by the Irish Central Statistics Office compare the names chosen by parents who both stated they were Irish nationals, compared to parents who claimed another nationality.
Jack also remained the popular choice for a boy among UK parents, while Noah was the most popular choice for Europeans from countries other than Ireland or the UK. Muhammed was the most popular choice for boys whose parents came from outside Europe.
Isla and Chloe were the top picks for girls' names among UK parents while Chloe, Emma, and Julia were popular with other European parents. In 2015, Fatima was the name of choice for baby girls born in Ireland to parents who are not from Europe.
The recent data also compared the top names of 2015 to those in 1965 when John and Mary reigned supreme.
Of this year’s top five boys’ names, only James appeared in 1965's top five while none of 2015’s top girls’ picks were in 1965’s top monikers. In 1965, Mary, Margaret, Catherine, Anne, and Ann came top of the pile, of which, Mary was the only name to even make the top 100 in 2015.
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[WM]What time GAYA-JAJ PASS depart from GAYA JN Railway Station?
GAYA-JAJ PASS (53624) departs from GAYA JN Railway Station at 05:05.
How much time GAYA-JAJ PASS take to reach JHAJHA Railway Station?
GAYA-JAJ PASS reach on day 1 to JHAJHA Railway Station. The arrival time of GAYA-JAJ PASS at JHAJHA Railway Station is 13:00.
Distance covered by GAYA-JAJ PASS?
GAYA-JAJ PASS covers 183 km to reach JHAJHA Railway Station at average speed of 24 km/hr. GAYA-JAJ PASS passes through 21 stations.
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[WM]Photo: © Donna Ward/Retna Ltd.
Nicki Minaj‘s hairstyle inspiration is cartoon character Marge Simpson. The eccentric rapper has recently been seen in a number of gravity-defying beehive wigs, and claims the idea came to her when thinking about the animated matriarch’s tall blue hairstyle.
Nicki also said that unlike some stars, she will happily wear her wigs more than once–providing they are clean.
Try on Nicki Minaj’s hairstyles in the Makeover Studio!
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[WM]Xiomara Castro began her presidential campaign in Honduras last Sunday, almost four years after husband and ex-President Manuel Zelaya was roused from his sleep and flown out of the Central American country in pajamas during a military coup.
Representing the Liberty and Reestablishment Party, known as Libre, Castro opened her campaign for November’s election with a speech that outlined plans to demilitarize the country, promote foreign and private investment, and create a constituent assembly to modify the constitution. Castro, 53, leads polls with 28 percent support, according to CID-Gallup, which surveyed 1,233 potential voters from May 2 to 8 and has a margin of error of five percentage points.
Castro’s plans to create a constituent assembly echo those of Zelaya, who sat behind his wife in his trademark white stetson cowboy hat at Sunday’s campaign opening in Tegucigalpa. During the final year of his presidency, Zelaya’s attempt to hold a referendum to form a constituent assembly led to his ouster by the armed forces on June 28, 2009, as some government officials presumed that he aimed to modify presidential term limitations to remain in power.
Clad in the red and black colors of the Libre party, Castro also criticized rises in crime and impunity during the current government of President Porfirio Lobo. Honduras has one of the world’s highest homicide rates, with 86 of every 100,000 citizens suffering a violent death in 2012, according to the Violence Observatory at Honduras’s National Autonomous University.
Honduras’s presidential elections will be held Nov. 24.
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[WM]Pennsylvania Republicans on Tuesday called for some voting machines to be impounded because votes were allegedly cast on them before the polls officially opened.
Philadelphia Mayor John Street (search) told FOX News that those charges were false. And City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione, the official responsible for overseeing elections there, issued a statement.
A city investigation found that the numbers were from a device that counted how many votes had ever been recorded on the machine, not how many would be cast Tuesday.
The complaints in the key battleground's largest city were among the earliest lodged on Election Day.
In Mercer County, Commissioner Olivia Lazor said some voters were apparently having problems with new electronic voting machines that the rural western Pennsylvania county started using about two years ago. Voters apparently were voiding their votes by accident while trying to review them, and having to redo their ballots. The delays caused longer lines than normal.
Also in Philadelphia, the Republican City Committee (search) filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a federal judge to give them more time to challenge absentee ballots cast by Democrats. The suit demands that the city turn over a list of every city resident who received an absentee ballot, and then delay counting any of their votes until at least Nov. 5 to give the GOP time to investigate whether any ballots were cast by ineligible people.
A lawyer for John Kerry's campaign in Pennsylvania said some people were prevented from voting when at least a dozen Allegheny County precincts ran out of provisional ballots. More ballots were sent to the precincts that ran out, and Kerry lawyer Clifford Levine suggested that people who were turned away this morning should try again after 5 p.m. The provisional ballots, which are cast when there are questions about whether a person is eligible to vote, won't be counted until three days after the election.
FOX News' Todd Connor and Carl Cameron and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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[WM]Stanley Karnow, the award-winning author and journalist who wrote a definitive book about the Vietnam War, worked on an accompanying documentary and later won a Pulitzer for a history of the Philippines, died Sunday morning. He was 87.
Karnow, who had congestive heart failure, died in his sleep at his home in Potomac, Md., said son Michael Karnow.
A Paris-based correspondent for Time magazine early in his career, Karnow was assigned in 1958 to Hong Kong as bureau chief for Southeast Asia and soon arrived in Vietnam, when the American presence was still confined to a small core of advisers. In 1959, Karnow reported on the first two American deaths in Vietnam, not suspecting that tens of thousands would follow.
Into the 1970s, Karnow would cover the war off and on for Time, The Washington Post and other publications and then draw upon his experience for an epic PBS documentary and for the million-selling “Vietnam: A History,” published in 1983 and widely regarded as an essential, even-handed summation.
Karnow’s “In Our Image,” a companion to a PBS documentary on the Philippines, won the Pulitzer in 1990. His other books included “Mao and China,” which in 1973 received a National Book Award nomination, and “Paris in The Fifties,” a memoir published in 1997.
A fellow Vietnam reporter, Morley Safer, would describe Karnow as the embodiment of “the wise old Asian hand.” Karnow was known for his precision and research—his Vietnam book reaches back to ancient times—and his willingness to see past his own beliefs. He was a critic of the Vietnam War (and a name on President Nixon’s enemies list) who still found cruelty and incompetence among the North Vietnamese. His friendship with Philippines leader Corazon Aquino did not stop him from criticizing her presidency.
A salesman’s son, Karnow was born in New York in 1925 and by high school was writing radio plays and editing the school’s paper, a job he also held at the Harvard Crimson. He first lived in Asia during World War II when he served throughout the region in the Army Air Corps. Back in the U.S., he majored in European history and literature at Harvard, from which he graduated in 1947.
He began sending dispatches to a Connecticut weekly, where the owner was a friend, and in 1950 was hired as a researcher at Time. Promoted to correspondent, he would cover strikes, race car driving and the beginning of the French conflict with Algeria, but also interviewed Audrey Hepburn (“a memorable if regrettably brief encounter”) fashion designer Christian Dior and director John Huston, who smoked cigars, knocked back Irish whiskies and rambled about the meaning of Humphrey Bogart. Friends and acquaintances included Norman Mailer, James Baldwin and John Kenneth Galbraith.
Karnow’s first book was the text for “Southeast Asia,” an illustrated Life World Library release published in 1962, before the U.S. committed ground troops to Vietnam. It was partly a Cold War time capsule, preoccupied with Communist influence, but was also skeptical enough of official policy to anticipate the fall of a key American ally, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dihn Diem, an event that helped lead to greater American involvement.
Like so many others, Karnow initially supported the war and believed in the “domino theory,” which asserted that if South Vietnam were to fall to communism its neighbors would too.
But by war’s end, Karnow agreed with the soldier asked by a reporter in 1968 what he thought of the conflict: “It stinks,” was the reply.
“There are not many carefully delineated judgments in the book. But that is more a comment than the criticism it might be, for Mr. Karnow does not claim to have reached a sweeping verdict on the war,” Douglas Pike, a former U.S. government official in Vietnam who became a leading authority on the war, wrote for The New York Times in a 1983 review.
The PBS series won six Emmys, a Peabody and a Polk and was the highest-rated documentary at the time for public television, with an average of 9.7 million viewers per episode. Along with much praise came criticism from the left and right. The liberal weekly The Nation faulted Karnow for “little analysis and much waffling.” Conservatives were so angered by the documentary that PBS agreed to let the right-wing Accuracy in Media air a rebuttal, “Television’s Vietnam: The Real Story,” which in turn was criticized as a show of weakness by PBS.
Karnow completed no books after “Paris in the Fifties.” He attempted a study of Asians in the U.S., which he abandoned; a history of Jewish humor that never advanced beyond an outline; and a second memoir, with such working titles as “Interesting Times” and “Out of Asia.” He also cared for his ailing wife, Annette, who died of cancer in 2009. A previous marriage, to Claude Sarraute (daughter of French novelist Nathalie Sarraute), ended in divorce in 1955. Karnow had three children.
He was often called on for speeches, panel discussions and television appearances and asked for his opinions on current affairs. One query came in 2009, through his old friend Richard Holbrooke, at the time the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan. Holbrooke wanted advice on U.S. policy in Afghanistan and put Karnow on the phone with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander. Karnow and the general discussed similarities between the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam.
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[WM]Anna O'Flanagan and Katie Mullan scored as Ireland beat 2016 Olympic bronze medallists Germany 2-1 in their opening game of the Berlin Four Nations Cup.
O'Flanagan put Ireland ahead but Germany equalised in the third quarter.
Mullan scored the winner by diverting in a long ball from Hannah Matthews in the final quarter and Ireland now face China on Friday and Korea on Sunday.
Ireland will next meet Germany in the pool stages of this year's World League semi-finals in Johannesburg in July.
The World League 3 tournament in South Africa will be followed by the Eurohockey Championships in August.
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[WM]Roadwork continues in Madison Twp.
WEST POINT — Madison Township’s road crew continues its work on potholes and cleanup of trees following recent storms.
In his report last Wednesday to trustees, road foreman Gary Mitchell announced the road crew is currently in the middle of hot patching various roads throughout the township and will be continuing its efforts until entirely finished.
Mitchell reported one request for work for a culvert pipe cleanout on McDonald has been put on hold until the hot patching process is complete.
Due to recent storms, several trees have been reported down, including on Cream Ridge Road and throughout Bear Hollow. Mitchell said while the Cream Ridge tree has been cleaned up, additional work had to be done at Bear Hollow, resulting in the road being temporarily closed.
” … we had to shut down the road for one day before a power line and a telephone pole down there,” he explained.
Mitchell also said, due to mechanical problems with the mower, crews have not been able to continue mowing. He also stated loggers have been looking at property on Cannons Mill Road and will be there for a couple weeks. He said they may consider placing a bid on the property, but was not certain.
In addition, Mitchell requested the board approve purchases of limestone material which will be used for winter road clearing, along with ash which has been picked up recently. The board approved motions to purchase 500 tons of limestone material. The board, however, is waiting on winter salt after learning that it would cost $62 per ton.
— During public comment, Torma Road resident Todd Mays asked the board about the township’s electrical co-op program and inquired who is the electrical provider for the township following recent news of the bankruptcy and pending purchase of FirstEnergy.
Trustee Roger Walker said to his knowledge all contracts would be honored with the new company. Fiscal Officer Tiffany Chetock stated there was an opt-out program, but the township would need to look into the information.
Also in public comment, Skip Hamilton asked trustees about the switching plant for South Field Energy on state Route 45 in the township and whether or not the township will be able to receive any money from the plant. Chairman Wayne Chamberlain advised Hamilton the township will receive some of the tax money.
— Trustees approved a motion to create a separate emergency fund for any proceeds the West Point Fire Department may receive for fire damage and work. The motion was made at the request of the state auditor’s office, which recommended the township no longer place those funds in the General Fund and instead deposit them into a different fund.
Also related to finances, trustees approved the payment of the bills amounting to $25,762.65, along with seven purchase orders.
The next regular meeting is scheduled 6 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Madison Township Garage meeting room on state Route 45.
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[WM]At The U.S. Olympic Trials, Mixed Opinions About Russian Doping Scandal : The Torch The Russian scandal is a hot topic at the U.S. track and field Olympic Trials. Some feel individual Russian athletes should be allowed to compete if they're clean, others support a blanket ban.
There will be a decision soon about whether some Russian track and field athletes can compete in the Olympics next month in Rio. This week, Russia filed an appeal after its track federation was banned because of state-sponsored doping. Despite efforts to stop it, doping is a persistent problem in track and field as NPR's Tom Goldman reports from the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: It didn't take long in Eugene - matter of fact the first day of the trials - a brilliant blue sky day. There was a reminder of the shadow of doping.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Medal ceremony. Shot put men.
GOLDMAN: A medal ceremony is a happy moment. The winner on this day smiled as he stood wearing a victory wreath on his head. But it was bittersweet, coming 12 years late.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Gold medalist and 2004 Olympic champion representing the USA, Adam Nelson.
GOLDMAN: Adam Nelson won a silver medal in the 2004 Olympic shot put competition. A few years ago, the gold medalist tested positive for a banned drug in retroactive testing, meaning Nelson was the winner. But then one of the most underwhelming victory moments ever - the gold medal was hand delivered to Nelson in 2013 in a food court at the Atlanta airport. Track officials in Eugene thought Nelson deserved better, so did the thousands of fans who cheered him last week at Hayward Field. Not long after those cheers, there were more reminders.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Gatlin and Bromell. Gatlin, Bromell.
GOLDMAN: America's best sprinter proved it again in Eugene. Justin Gatlin won the 100-meter final Sunday in 9.80 seconds. That's a world best time this year. But during the weekend, about 30 people at Hayward Field wore T-shirts with the slogan runners against doping. It was a targeted and quiet protest against Gatlin and fellow sprinter Tyson Gay. Both have served doping suspensions. Thirty-four-year-old Gatlin served two.
Doping is a charged issue for him, but in Eugene, Gatlin was willing to talk about the Russian scandal. I asked him whether some athletes who prove they're clean should be able to go to Rio, even though their track federation is banned.
JUSTIN GATLIN: At the end of the day, I mean, you got to think about fair is fair. You know, if an athlete has come and he's been tested or she's been tested, and they've passed a test, I don't think they should, you know, basically prosecuted or make a statement with other people who have done wrong.
GOLDMAN: Distance runner Stephanie Bruce is sponsored by Oiselle. That's the apparel company that organized the T-shirt protest. For Bruce, the situation is murkier with the Russian athletes who protest their innocence.
STEPHANIE BRUCE: How long have you been running in a culture like that and you don't know that it's going on and you haven't come forward? Like, you are totally oblivious that coaches or - you know what I mean? So that seems strange to me.
GOLDMAN: It's not surprising that Adam Nelson, the man in the belated ceremony, takes a hardest line. He's a long-time anti-doping Fair Play advocate, but he's also a victim of doping. He was quoted as saying this, the reality is you make a ban on a country and then you allow the athletes to compete. It sends a mixed message.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected to decide by July 21 whether individual Russian athletes can compete in Rio. If the decision is no, it will be the first time that country isn't part of the Olympics' most prominent sport - track and field - since the former Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 LA Summer Games. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
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[WM]Blink to take pictures using the new Google Glass firmware?
Google Glass still hasn't been released to the masses and we're already getting word of a second version in the works. But back to the now and Google has come up with a firmware update for the model currently being used by Explorers. We can expect blink controls, more specific voice commands and music control.
The latest XE10 update, studied by Android Police, appears to offer some exciting blink control options. A "wink for photo" function is found in the new build as does the option to control something using a "double blink". While this sounds great it might still be held back by Google because of privacy concerns.
Music has also had an upgrade with a quick control command of "play music" added. This will likely be a way of accessing and controlling music from your phone. It also includes a layout for music items like album art, album name, track name and artist name. Also you should be able to control play, next, previous, pause and stop. A new radio icon has been added which could be used for Play Music's All Access radio channels.
App specific controls have also been added like "take note" to instantly record in Evernote, or "post update" to add to your Path account. Other controls include: "find a recipe", "check me in", "call me a car", "add a calendar event", "learn a song", "start a run", "translate this", and "tune an instrument". All very cool potential uses but whether these controls will have apps to support them anytime soon is another matter.
Perhaps the most exciting new control, which likely won't be usable for some time, is "create a 3D model". Imagine looking at an object and that being enough to create a file for 3D printing. The mind boggles.
The XE10 update will launch next month.
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[WM]A letter to the editor published Oct. 16 supported U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint's recent comments on gay school teachers and referred to homosexuals as predatory.
I recently reviewed the issue of child sexual molestation by homosexuals for a course I am giving on homosexuality for Lifelong Learning of Hilton Head. Phallometric tests (measuring sexual arousal) of teenagers and adult men who molested male children showed them sexually uninterested in adult men, but responsive to adult women. Two peer-reviewed studies of convicted child molesters found that less than 1 percent in one study and zero percent in the other study were lesbian or gay.
To imply that homosexuals are child abusers is narrow-minded and uninformed.
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[WM]The “car chase” is another carryover from The Bourne Identity that Director Greengrass includes yet improves upon. Supremacy takes the cliché car chase, injects it with steroids, and chases it with a Red Bull. The climax is easily the best car chase on screen in ten years. It’s better than the The Matrix: Reloaded. Why? Supremacy isn't hindered by CGI. The chase is intense and real. When Bourne’s car spins out of control and is simultaneously blind-sided by another car, I dare you not to flinch.
As my wife has mentioned many times before, Matt Damon is a good looking man. She also mentions his lovely smile. Well, you won’t see Damon’s pearly whites in The Bourne Supremacy, but you will see why he’s one of the most talented actors of his generation. Forget about his buddy Ben Affleck, Damon knows how to capture the audience’s attention with his talent not his girlfriends.
When Paula Landy’s (Joan Allen) CIA sting ends terribly, the few clues left behind lead her to believe Jason Bourne (Damon) has ended his retirement. Her subsequent investigation of Bourne uncovers the closed Operation “Treadstone” and opens doors that others wish to remain sealed.
Hundreds of miles away, the real Jason Bourne enjoys a peaceful yet cautious life with Marie (Franka Potente). Unbeknownst to him, a Russian Kingpin and an American traitor plan on making Jason Bourne’s retirement, permanent. After the hired assassin Kirill (Karl Urban) attempts to kill him, a resulting tragedy propels Bourne back towards the mysterious life that haunts his nights.
Bourne Identity director Doug Lyman brought us a thriller that was restrained until action was warranted. When the action began, it was relentless, cold, and efficient much like Bourne himself. Lyman rescued the secret agent genre from Spy Kids and Agent Cody Banks with a thriller that while grounded in realism, explodes upon the screen with a fury that no silly kid movie can hope to match.
Lyman passed on directing The Bourne Supremacy, but thankfully Paul Greengrass took the helm and kept Supremacy faithful to Lyman’s vision. The major complaint one could find with Greengrass’ style is an overuse of hand-held camera shots used to represent the cloudy/jumbled bits of memory floating in Bourne’s head. I thought it worked well enough, however I can imagine some viewers finding it distracting.
The key to both movies is Matt Damon’s portrayal of Bourne. With minimal dialogue, Damon gives a complicated performance as a man who struggles to discover who he was while consciously trying to distance himself from his past. Bourne is an assassin who needs amnesia to discover who he really should have been. Only Damon’s talents could have shown us this. Do you really think his buddy Affleck could pull this off? What about Paul Walker or Vin Diesel? I don’t think so. Amongst his peers, Damon is in an acting class by himself.
Whether Lyman’s vision or the directing of Greengrass can claim responsibility for The Bourne Supremacy’s is open to debate. I don’t care. At the very least, Greengrass knew not to screw up a good thing. With Matt Damon establishing himself as a talented and bankable star, The Bourne Supremacy will reign supreme at the box office and in the action-thriller genre.
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[WM]Dancing With the Stars pros Val Chmerkovskiy and Jenna Johnson said their I do’s at a seaside California resort this weekend in front of costars from the ABC reality competition and other VIP guests.
DWTS pros Sasha Farber, Witney Carson, Alan Bersten and Lindsay Arnold were on hand for the festivities on Saturday, April 13, as were Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd, the groom’s brother and sister-in-law.
As the ceremony kicked off at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, snapshots from the event started hitting social media, showing guests in high spirits as they celebrated the newlyweds’ big day.
As she and Val exchanged vows on Saturday evening, the star-studded audience cheered them on. Scroll down to see photos of the celebrity guests at the wedding and reception.
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[WM]Kent State University Urban Design CollaborativeA rendering of the proposed Rivergate Park.
The Cleveland Rowing Foundation's project to create a riverfront park in Cleveland scored its third big grant in two days today with a $200,000 donation from the George Gund Foundation. The grant follows $550,000 in donations announced Tuesday by Peter Lewis and the Cleveland Foundation.
Gund Foundation trustees voted around 2 p.m. to make the gift, said senior program officer John Mitterholzer. The money will be channeled to the project through the non-profit Trust for Public Land, Mitterholzer said.
The goal of Rivergate is to turn 7 acres owned by the former Commodore's Club Marina on Columbus Road Peninsula into a cluster of boathouses for rowing shells, caneos, kayaks and dragon boats. The rowing foundation, an umbrella organization for high school, collegiate and adult rowing organizations with 850 members, currently occupies rented facilities on Scranton Road Peninsula, one river-bend south of the Commodore's Club site.
Jon Adams, co-chairman of the Rivergate Fund, said he was elated by the Gund announcement.
Adams said the Gund grant brings the Rivergate project to within $700,000 of the $3.2 million price for the property. Rivergate advocates have a purchase option that expires July 31.
"It's just wonderful to get this broad-based community support for the project," he said. "It speaks to the fact that people see the vision and benefit of creating a riverfront park and preserving public access for canoeing, kayaking, rowing – healthy, human-powered sports."
In the case of the Gund foundation, Adams' description of "seeing" the vision was literally true.
Mitterholzer said members of the Gund family who serve on the foundation board could look out of the organization's officers in the Guildhall Building at 45 Prospect Ave., and see the site on Columbus Road Peninsula.
"We think it's a transformative project, because we can see what's happening down there, and it was fun because we could show the board through the window," Mitterholzer said.
Adams said Rivergate advocates are confident they'll complete fundraising or obtain a bridge loan in time to meet the July 31 deadline on the purchase option, and will be able to open for business in August.
"Because the site already has two buildings, one of which is perfect for our current boathouse storage needs, we can be up and running very quickly," he said.
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[WM]A report by the Wall Street Journal suggests that Dell could be on the verge of becoming a public company once again.
The deal could be announced as soon as later today and -- if the cited sources close to Dell are correct -- it would see the company swapping the "trading stock" it created when it bought EMC a couple of years ago. It would simplify Dell's current structure, seen by many as overly complicated, and make use of the stock that tracks VMware Inc.
The deal is not yet thought to have been finalized, and the paper warns that there is still a chance it could fall through. While the tracking stock that would facilitate the change has doubled in value, Michael Dell has previously stated a preference for being a private company -- which Dell has been since 2013. With the value of VMware continuing to grow, it's possible that investors might oppose the idea of using the stock at the moment.
The expected move, which would help simplify Dell's complicated ownership structure, is the culmination of a strategic review the company has been conducting for months. Other options it considered include a combination with VMware itself or a straight initial public offering, the company has said.
The tracking stock was created as a way to help finance Dell's purchase of storage pioneer EMC in 2016. The deal was largely in cash, but the remainder was paid via the new security that was linked to a portion of EMC's interest in the VMware business, which provides cloud-infrastructure services.
Issuing the tracking stock meant Dell didn't have to raise quite as much money to finance the deal.
The tracking stock has nearly doubled in value since it was issued, closing Friday at $84.58.
Should Dell become a public company once again, it's not entirely clear what will happen to VMware -- although it should be possible for it to continue to operate as it currently does.
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[WM]Heavy rain hammered Connecticut during Monday morning’s commute, causing spinouts and a roof collapse, while wind and flooding may lie ahead.
The sun was shining brightly in Hartford by late morning, only to give way to more rain early in the afternoon. A flood warning for the Connecticut River in Hartford and Middlesex counties is in effect. The river is expected to exceed flood stage Tuesday in Hartford, the Thompsonville section of Enfield and in the Middle Haddam section of East Hampton.
Before dawn, water pooled on highways and torrential downpours cut visibility, causing some truckers to pull over rather than try to make their way through the driving rain.
Some crashes and spinouts were reported in the Hartford area, although it wasn’t clear if weather was a factor in all of them. One car appeared to have slid off I-91 into the center median in Windsor about 6:30 a.m., and a truck overturned on I-95 north in Stamford, causing authorities to close the highway.
Trees fell on power lines in Sherman and Goshen, closing roads, according to the state Department of Transportation. A combined 44 customers in those towns were without power at 8 a.m., while in Sharon, also in the northwest corner, 102 customers lacked electricity.
On the other side of the state, in Woodstock, 572 customers had no power, according to Eversource.
In the Pawcatuck section of Stonington, the top floors and roof of a long-vacant brick mill collapsed early Monday, police said. No one was injured. The building at 75 Stillman Ave., formerly called Connecticut Castings, had been fenced off and boarded up.
A passerby noticed the damage about 7 a.m., after heavy rain had fallen in the area, Stonington Lt. Bryan Schneider said.
Officials are talking about the possibility of razing the building, he said.
A wind advisory is in effect from 1 p.m. Monday until 8 a.m. Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. A wind advisory means sustained winds of 31-39 mph are expected, with gusts up to 57 mph.
“Winds this strong are capable of downing small tree limbs and branches, possibly causing isolated power outages,” the weather service said.
The good news is that Tuesday’s forecast is for sunny weather, with a high near 60 degrees.
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[WM]Dhaka is celebrating its 400th year and much of the celebration is centred on Old Dhaka, a city immersed in history and tradition. As its crumbling, yet spectacular architecture is evidence to, Old Dhaka represents a glorious and glamorous past. Yet there is so much more to Old Dhaka than merely its architectural splendour. It is the warm and vibrant life in Puran Dhaka as it is locally called, that has sustained despite the decaying infrastructure and utter neglect from the authorities to maintain and preserve this living symbol of our glorious history.
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[WM]LAVALLETTE, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – A Jersey shore town is determined to always remember a teen whose life was cut short in a senseless murder.
With bags of cement on their shoulders, friends, family, and even strangers worked to cement Brendan Tevlin’s memory into a playground in Lavallette.
“We’re all heartbroken, we’re all devastated by it, it’s just something you never imagine would happen to you. Family friends have been the rock that has gotten our family through this,” the teen’s god mother, Kathleen Magnier said.
Tevlin’s family says the Jersey shore was a special place that helped shape his life motto.
“’Good vibes and easy living’… he lived it and he loved it. He was a surfer who spent days on the beach. This is a great town and a great place to have a playground,” Tevlin’s father Michael told CBS2’s Meg Baker.
Volunteers with the non-profit “Where Angels Play” started construction bright and early Wednesday.
The group and the teen’s relatives hope the playground will become a special place for all youngsters to make memories like the happy ones the Tevlins hold onto.
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[WM]We share a lot of things with our Malaysian neighbors. Borneo, which holds the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, and is just a stone’s throw away … physically, culturally and linguistically. The two Malaysian states are familiar territory for me. I used to frequent them in the ’80s and ’90s as a site planning and landscape architectural consultant for real estate and resort developments there.
I flew in from Singapore, where I was based for over a dozen years. I remember having to take small planes from there to Kuching and from there hop across Sibu, Bintulu and to Miri, where I had most of my projects. I felt like an Indiana Jones, albeit without the bullwhip and sidearm.
Kuching’s cool cats are used for all of the city’s major monuments.
Times have changed and that was two decades ago. I visited Kuching recently and was impressed with the extent of development. First, the airport has transformed from a utilitarian box into a well-designed terminal with distinctive Sawarakan touches (something we could learn from). The City of Kuching has grown, too, but from all indications, its growth has been well managed.
The ride into the city is bereft of billboards and the creeping blights that line most of our provincial destinations. The cityscape, though obviously not as dense as our provincial cities, is rational, consistently clean, tree-lined, and green. We also got to our hotel within 15 minutes (compared to the hour or two required in major destinations in the Philippines).
Kuching’s name comes from the Malaysian word for cat similar to ours. The actual etymology is that the name comes from the fruit mata-kuching (whose seeds look like cat’s eyes). The city uses this name and theme consistently, a branding exercise that we can again learn from.
Our hotel was one of several comfortable accomodations lining the city’s picturesque Kuching River. The river, like our Pasig, was and still is the lifeblood of the city. It is used to connect the city to the lush tropical hinterlands and the sea.
Most of the city is built on the southern side of the river, much like Iloilo city. The historic core is a mainly a pre-independence colonial city, when the white rajahs ruled Borneo; a long story we don’t have space for here, but a colorful one that makes the city’s story a compelling one.
Kuching’s crocs are a lively bunch — this one in bronze guards the Esplanade plaza.
In the boom of the ’80s, the city (and the State of Sarawak’s Development Corporation) made a decision to rationally plan for growth … both from the overall context of the economy and from a specific goal of developing tourism.
The direction taken was to conserve the city’s historic resources of architecture and culture, as well as to revive the waterfront. The riverside had deteriorated into a parking lot and the city turned its back to it. A new esplanade was planned, incorporating existing structures but also improving the urban design and landscape architecture to accommodate spaces for modern life and to make it attractive to visitors.
The modern Kuching esplanade was completed in the early ’90s and immediately caught the attention of tourists regionally and internationally. The esplanade also helped to link one side of the city with the other and improved real estate value immensely.
The esplanade provided venues for community and state-wide events. The central plaza at one end provided a front door to the city from the river. Two view towers also marked this plaza and allowed boarding points for river boats (which increased in operation into today’s regular tourist cruises).
Kayaking is super kool in Kuching.
The espalanade’s success is seen in its popularity with locals. It is used for early morning jogging and tai chi. Children frequent it on weekends and food kiosks make it a rendezvous for teenagers.
The Kuching River has also been cleaned up (not that it was dirty). Kayaking is a growing sport and local schools hold competitions. The cleaned-up river and waterfront also led to the general sprucing up of the rest of the city and I saw little in the way of garbage or unkempt sites anywhere we went.
We (a bunch of international journalists and I) also came to Kuching for their world-renowned Rainforest World Music Festival. The festival, which started in 1997, is now a key date in the festival circuit world-wide.
The Rainforest Festival was a short bus ride into where else but the rainforest. The festival featured what else but world music by groups from Africa, South America, and Asia …thank God, there were no pop groups, Beiber or Gaga wannabees. And yes, beer flowed freely (if you’re wondering). A wonderful time was had by all. We went home quite satisfied with the festivities’ overflowing menu of music, food, and spirits (the locals have also apparently taken to western (mostly Australian) wine … with good chardonays, shirazs, cabernet sauvignons available from kiosks.
Cool Kuching river cruises are available every day.
I spent the last day in Kuching walking up and down the one-kilometer esplanade. It is now being extended to allow for more (coordinated) development as the city expands. One hotel, in fact, the 360 Hotel, used a Filipino consultant, architect Yolly Reyes. It has wonderfully modern interiors (embellished in the lobby with a fantastic mural by Robby Mananquil). The city, the capital of Sarawak state, is also the jumping point for adventures into the state’s vast nature preserves, mountains, falls and coastal destinations.
The city museum was built in 1851 and modeled after a European town hall.
I do have friends, too, in Kuching. Juan Lacsamana, or Johnny, is a colorful character whose wedding in Kuching I attended in the early ’90s. He married a local princess and the ceremony, which lasted into the wee hours of the next day, was a classic tale filled with cake fights (started by the best man, his brother Joel), head-banging music and wild dancing, capped by a wild chase around the city ending at the airport. But that’s another story entirely! Regardless of the adventure you’re looking for, from natural to not-the-ordinary, Kuching is truly kool!
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[WM]Decision trees help people identify the pros and cons of business choices.
A decision tree is a visual tool used to help business professionals weigh the pros, cons and various approaches to major tasks or decisions. A decision tree can help executives break down the elements of a decision-making process and consider input from a range of participants. This type of approach is highly effective when used in brainstorming sessions and strategic planning meetings.
An individual decision tree should be used for each decision that must be made. Create the core or “trunk” for the tree using a whiteboard or large paper flipchart that is easy to write on and is visible to all participants. In the center of the core, briefly summarize the decision to be made. For example, if you are thinking about diversifying your product offerings, you would write “New product development?” in the core.
From the core of your tree, draw two main “branches” or lines that represent the pros and cons of the decision. Using the example of a new product introduction, pros might include increased earnings, entry into new markets and portfolio diversification. Cons could include financial risk and the necessary investment in new machinery and employees.
Continue to expand your decision tree by drawing potential “outcome” lines from each of your individual pros and cons. Following the same example, outcomes for increased earnings could include business stability, increased market share and the ability to expand the size of the business. Outcomes for financial risk could include business debt, job loss and company dissolution.
The more complex the decision to be made, the more significant and complex the decision tree can become. You may opt to continue adding different line categories that allow you to go into greater detail about the processes to be considered as part of the decision-making approach. You could include financial projections, steps to be taken during each stage of the process, timelines for implementation and allocation of staff and resources.
When the decision tree is fully branched out, weigh the outcomes of the two main “pro” and “con” branches. This will help you talk through the information that is on the tree in front of you. Ideally, when the tree is complete, the group should have a firm idea of the best way to proceed. A note-taker may opt to supplement the tree with a written summary of the findings for further consideration and analysis.
McQuerrey, Lisa. "Simple Example of a Decision Tree." Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/simple-example-decision-tree-58613.html. Accessed 25 April 2019.
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[WM]More information has been released about a two-vehicle collision near Ireton that claimed the life of a child Tuesday afternoon. The victim was six-year old Michayla Bates. She was a passenger in a car driven by 17-year old Paula Smykel of Akron. Sioux County authorities say Smykel made a u-turn into the path of a sport utility vehicle driven by 23-year old Eric Doyle of rural Ireton. The accident happened at the intersection of Sioux County road K-22 and 460th Street. Smykle was airlifted to St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center where she is in fair condition. Doyle was treated and released at the Hawarden Hospital. Four other passengers were taken to the Hawarden hospital, but authorities did not have information about their injuries.
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