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By Leah Temper.
Oil permeates our existence. From water bottles, plastics, fuels and paints to fertilizers, fabrics and solvents. Yet despite its ubiquity, the reality of the infrastructure behind oil extraction – the pipelines, terminals, offshore rigs, the tankers that ply the oceans — the process of how oil arrives into our lives and our tanks, remains completely obscured to the average citizen. At the gas pump, one cannot choose between Bonny Light Nigerian Crude or 'Ethical' Canadian Tar Sands oil.
The dirty business of extracting oil is perhaps best revealed in all its gory in the Niger Delta. Here, one at once understands why Venezuelan Foreign Minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, a founder of OPEC, compared oil to "swimming in the devil's excrement". Never mind that the oil boom made his country fantastically rich.
The Niger Delta may hold the dubious distinction of being the most contaminated place on the planet. Covering an area roughly the size of Scotland and home to 45 million people, the Delta used to be a picturesque wetland. Its marshy sediment-rich soils are home to mangrove swamps, lowland rainforests and barrier islands. Together they once formed some of the planet's richest biodiversity.
A BP disaster every year
The discovery of oil there first took place in 1956 in Olibiri village. Production by Shell began two years later. Yet the despoliation of the delta and oppression of its people by Western companies has a much longer history, beginning with the kidnapping and export of the first 235 men and women sold as slaves by Portuguese adventurer Lancarote de Freitas in 1444. As the Industrial revolution began, British traders turned their focus from slaves to palm oil, needed to grease the wheels of industry. Throughout the delta, communities continued with their traditional agriculture of rice, cassava, yams and sugar. They fished periwinkles, crabs, other seafood and fish from the creeks. Yet over the past six decades, their livelihoods have been devastated by oil pollution. It is calculated that as many barrels spill every year into the unique riverine ecosystem from the vast network of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations and old wellheads as was lost in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Shell, as the main operator in the region, is the biggest offender. The company is targeted with court cases from The Hague to London to the U.S. that will have important implications for corporate accountability around the globe.
The U.S. remains the largest importer of Nigeria's crude oil, accounting for 40% of the country's total oil exports and for about 10% of overall U.S. oil imports. Other big importers include European countries, including the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. Nigeria is the 6th largest oil exporter in the world, yet despite its oil wealth, or rather because of it, it is also one of the most unequal countries on earth. Nigeria is also a large gas exporter. Websites justifying the high cost of living for expats explain how Nigeria's rich are not millionaires, but billionaires. The World Bank has estimated that as a result of corruption, 80% of energy revenues benefit only 1% of the population. The income distribution for the poorest (bottom 10%) is 1.6% while it is 40.8% for the richest (top 10%).
Illegal Flaring
The Niger Delta also happens to be one of the most densely populated regions on earth. The life expectancy in Nigeria now hovers above 50 years, nearly 20 years below the world average. But in the oilfields, it is 41 years. A United Nations Environment Program report on the Ogoni region found water with 900 times the safe level of carcinogens. Local complains of health problems include respiratory diseases and skin lesions, drinking wells poisoned with benzene. Aside from the spills, the 257 gas flaring points that dot the landscape burn night and day. The "superfluous" extraction gas that comes up with the oil, spewing toxic gases, methane and millions of metric tons of C02 emissions per year into the atmosphere. While acid-rain corrodes the tin roofs covering their shacks and means, even the rainwater is too toxic to drink.
Yet amidst the most oil-soaked place on the planet, crushing energy-poverty means that more than 60 percent of the nation's population is not connected to the national grid while the remaining population can only boast of erratic power supply, punctuated by daily blackouts, even in the capital Abuja. Most private business and rich residences use generators but diesel and even kerosene are hard to come by. Nigeria has not enough local refining capacity and must import these fuels.
This explosive superimposition of extreme wealth and poverty means that communities in the Delta have been resisting the ecological war the oil companies have been waging against them for over 20 years. Tactics have ranged from peaceful resistance such as the MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni people) led by Ken Saro-Wiwa to guerrilla military uprisings such as the MEND movement. Nigeria has seen women who have brandished their nakedness as a weapon of resistance long before topless Ukrainian activists FEMEN entered the news.
Beginning with the Ogoni Bill of Rights, submitted in October 1990 and followed by the Kaiama declaration by the Ijaw youth movement in 1998, the demands of the Niger Delta communities laid out in these declarations included resource control and self determination, the cessation of activities of the oil companies and remediation of the impacts. Yet the government with the complicity and sometimes under the guidance of the oil companies responded to the peaceful uprising with violence and brutal crackdown, engendering a cycle of violence whereby communities turned to armed resistance.
Yet until today such popular demands for justice have not been met and social and environmental abuses continue to abound. The security situation has been reined in since 2009, when the government enacted an amnesty program that saw several thousand Delta fighters exchange weapons for cash and in some cases for lucrative jobs as security operatives on the payroll of the oil companies.
This was followed by the election of President Goodluck Jonathan, an Ijaw native of the Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, in 2011. Yet hopes that having "their man" in power would signal a shift in fortunes for the Delta have largely been dashed. When we visited Nigeria in March 2013 the media was up in arms after the President had issued a presidential pardon for Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa who jumped bail after being indicted in London for money laundering oil profits into his personal bank account.
We had been invited to the Niger Delta on a mission with EJOLT (Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade), a European funded project that brings together scientists and activists to document ecological conflicts and to support communities in their struggle for justice and demand true accountability for corporations engaging in "ecocide". The other reason for the visit was the 20th anniversary celebration of Nigeria's leading environmental justice organization (and a member of the EJOLT project): Environmental Rights Action (ERA). ERA has been mobilizing for 20 years to protect the environment in Nigeria. Their achievements are legion, especially in the light of the persecution activists continue to face and the lack of laws and regulation. They are also founding members of Oilwatch, a Southern network of resistance to the fossil fuel economy that has spearheaded the call to "Leave Oil in the Soil".
The celebration was bittersweet. Companies such as Shell continue to reap some of the highest profits of any corporation in the world in 2012 (some $28.6bn or about 2m an hour), at the cost of communities in the Niger Delta who have their meager livelihoods trodden over and destroyed without any recourse to justice. When we arrived we traveled from Port Harcourt to Ogoni-land and to other delta communities to meet with the defendants of the trials and other communities who had been waging battles against Shell in courts.
A long way for justice
The path to litigation in Nigeria is long and painful. Claims are often dust-binned for years before they mysteriously 'disappear', and the corporate- government embrace is designed to let the polluter off the hook. Yet a shifting legal environment has recently enabled activists in the delta to turn to courts in foreign countries in a bid to have their cases heard. Ongoing civil cases in London, The Hague and in the US over Shell's liability are being closely watched by both environmental and human rights activists and corporations around the world. How they play out will not only have important ramifications for Shell's future liability for the ecological disaster in the delta, but more broadly for whether companies and their subsidiaries can continue to enjoy impunity by hiding behind complex legal structures.
Principles of justice hold that companies should maintain the same standards of operation in any country they operate in. While Shell denies claims of double standards, a trip to the delta renders such claims beyond laughable.
Jurisdiction and capital flows: the cases in the Hague
Goi is now a ghost-town. The community has scattered, joining the ranks of environmental refugees that now number perhaps some 30 million worldwide. The Dooh family have been displaced, yet they are here working on their land, even though they know that the yields will be small and the fruit will be poisoned.
"They only came to put a sign saying this land is contaminated, and to keep off." Says Veronika Kobani, age 58 and one of the displaced. "They didn't clean up anything. Nobody knows the levels of contamination and pollution in our communities."
Frustrated with the Nigerian legal system, the Doohs, together with other impacted farmers and fishermen, decided to take their civil lawsuit to The Hague, where Shell holds its head offices. They were supported by ERA and its lawyers, as well as by MilieuDefensie, the Dutch Environmental Defense Organization/Friends of the Earth Netherlands.
They asked that Shell should be held liable for the oil spill from her pipeline, that the company maintain the pipelines to guarantee against future spills, clean up the pollution and pay adequate compensation for the damages suffered. In a landmark ruling, the Dutch judiciary in 2009 declared itself competent to try the case despite protests from Shell that its Nigerian subsidiary was solely legally responsible for any damage.
However, the judgement delivered on January 30, 2013, offered mixed results. The court affirmed that oil spills were not caused by defective maintenance by Shell, but by sabotage and that pursuant to applicable Nigerian law, the company is not liable for spills caused by sabotage. The court thus dismissed the claims in four out of the five lawsuits.
Rust or sabotage?
Sabotage does occur in the delta. "Bunkered" oil is siphoned off and sometimes refined and sold in makeshift shops or in the many gas stations dotting the highway. What is also true is that Shell's aging facilities and corroding network of pipes, degraded by the acid rain and equatorial heat have been 20 years without maintenance. The state of disrepair was attested to in the recent UNEP report on Ogoni territory that affirms that even Shell's own procedures and standards are not applied in the region. According to activists, Shell uses sabotage as a mystification device and an excuse to evade responsibility for the state of its facilities. As one activist says, even if sabotage contributes to the spills, "You can't leave 7,000 kilometers of pipeline unguarded" in a poor country like Nigeria.
Furthermore, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) should involve the company, the regulatory agency and the community who are supposed to visit the site and determine the facts for the spill. Yet the reality is that the process is controlled by the company, as regulatory oversight is ineffective and communities do not have the technical capacity to measure spill volumes and the cause of breaches. Activists from ERA charge that this has allowed Shell to consistently underestimate the spills caused by operational failures. Furthermore, they claim that in the Goi case, no satisfactory JIT was available.
Piercing the corporate veil
The other disappointing precedent in the case was that the court also upheld the claim that Dutch Shell could not be liable for the actions of its subsidiary company, Shell Nigeria. Through its subsidiary Shell Nigeria, Shell is a 55% investor in the Niger National Petroleum Company. The reasoning behind this decision was that according to Nigerian law, the parent company is not held responsible for the actions of its subsidiary. How convenient for the raft of international companies in operation there, which also include Agip, Chevron and Total Elf.
The plaintiffs also plan to appeal due to the court's unwillingness to force Shell to open internal communications for inspection. The court's lack of interest in even peeking under the corporate veil limited the implications of the case and according to some observers, revealed the economic protectionism of the court in the midst of a European financial crisis. This was expressed through a reluctance to uphold companies to human and environmental standards that would be good enough for their own citizens.
A Small Victory
The court however offered respite in one of the cases. The court held that in the two oil spills near the village Ikot Ada Udo, "sabotage was committed in a very simple way in 2006 and 2007 by opening the over-ground valves with a monkey wrench of a deserted oil well by Shell Nigeria. The court observed that Shell Nigeria could and should have prevented this sabotage in an easy way by installing the concrete plug before 2006, which it did not do until 2010."
At a town meeting attended by the regional chiefs, Mr. Akpan presented his victory, framing it as a community victory. He then takes us out to visit what they call the Christmas tree. The well in question had been opened by Shell in 1958 and was found unviable, but Shell never properly plugged it. The company has been ordered to pay damages and compensation still to be determined. Mr. Akpan, sweating under the sweltering heat, points out the land where his fishponds and his farm once prospered, employing several hundred local workers. He says that with God's grace he will hopefully finally be able to rebuild what he lost. Yet so far he stands as the only person who has been handed justice – slim pickings amongst the hundreds of thousands affected by oil pollution in the region.
Despite this, ERA still considers the ruling a watershed, according to former ERA director Nnimmo Bassey. "I think the fact that we succeeded in at least one of the cases is a major milestone because now Shell and other transnational corporations can be sure that they cannot pollute the environment anywhere in the world and run back and enjoy their profits back home." Friends of the Earth Netherlands plan to appeal the findings, and say that Akpan's victory can open the case to other impacted litigants in the community.
The Bodo Case
After Goi, we drove a few km down the road to Bodo. This is where most of the refugees from Goi now live. But if they were attempting to escape the scourge of oil they didn't go far enough. The spill here makes the one at Goi seem like so much spilled milk.
The Bodo community is comprised of 35 villages and fishing communities that covers 9,230 hectares with a population of about 49,000 people. Oil has not been exploited here for over 20 years since the Ogoni mobilization began in 1993, but pipelines still run under their land, bringing Shell crude to the Bonny terminal. Around the 28th August 2008, a rupture in the pipeline emptied from 2,000 to 3,900 barrels per day into the creek that they have fished and gathered seafood in for generations. This geyser was not plugged until November 7th. The second spill a month later in December 2008 was not plugged until February 2009.
We were greeted by a delegation of the Bodo Council of Traditional Rulers. They explained how the spill has devastated their lives. After the talk we walked through what at first glance seems a normal village. Kids running along the paths, a woman drying fish over a fire. Yet when you look closer you become aware that she is defrosting a block of frozen fish, in a region that held the richest aquatic biodiversity in Africa. Where periwinkles, crabs and other shellfish once abounded, the local community is now forced to purchase expensive imported fish from the North. As you walk through a thin row of scraggly trees, you come through what was once the Bodo creek, now a black lake where nothing can survive.
In contrast to the Goi and Icot Ado cases, Shell has actually accepted responsibility for the breaches that occurred there in 2008. What is in dispute is how much crude flowed, as compensation is often heavily correlated with the size of the spill. Amnesty International claims that while Shell's official investigation report claims only 1,640 barrels of oil were spilt in total, the actual volume of oil was at least 60 times bigger. Based on a independent assessment they arrive at between 103,000 barrels and 311,000 barrels. According to Amnesty, the lack of any credible record of the cause of spills, the volumes spilt and even the start date of ruptures give the lie to Shell's claims to investors that up to 85% of oil spilt is by sabotage.
Whether the British High Court case will take the company's claims at its word, as was done in The Hague, remains to be seen. This case is the first time Shell has faced claims in the UK from the developing world for environmental damage.
Kiobel v. Shell
Esther Kiobel's husband, Barinem Kiobel, was arrested in 1994 along with Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Saro-Wiwa and others from the Movement for the Liberation of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). They were principal leaders in the protests against Shell and the Nigerian state over pollution of Ogoni. Known as the Ogoni Nine, they were tortured and executed after a sham military trial.
With no recourse in Nigeria, Esther, who had received asylum in the United States, filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York accusing Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary not only of conspiring with and financing the brutal campaign against the Ogoni and MOSOP but also of actually calling in the military to suppress specific protests, and of providing the military with food, transport and compensation. The suit alleged that Shell was thus complicit in the commission of torture, extrajudicial killing and other violations, resulting in crimes against humanity. She relied on a U.S. law called the Alien Tort Statute (ATCA) dating from 1789 and designed originally to protect against pirates on the high seas.
The ATCA bill is unique in that in enables third parties to bring corporations to trial in the United States for torts with only a tenuous connection with the country. The statute grants "the district courts original jurisdiction of a civil action by an alien in tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." While it lay dormant for almost 200 years, over the past 30 years it has become an achilles heel for activists fighting corporate injustice, with past cases being brought against Unocal, Shell, Coca-Cola, Talisman and many others.
Yet despite the fact that ATCA has been used to bring some 100 corporations to trial in the U.S., because of the Kiobel v. Shell case, the court is now considering a pair of jurisdictional questions about the Alien Tort Statute that threatens to rip the guts out of it. The first is whether it applies to corporations, and secondly, whether it applies to human rights abuses overseas.
ATCA in the dock
While the Kiobel case was under way, Shell won a ruling in September 2010 from the influential 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said Shell could not be held liable under the statute because it was a corporation. This came as a major shock, and Kiobel's lawyers responded by petitioning the Supreme Court, which agreed in October 2011 to take the case on the narrow question of whether corporations could be held liable under the statute.
Here the plot thickens, as the actions of two conservative activist lawyers became significant. John Bellinger, a former legal adviser in the Bush administration State Department had been collecting complaints from foreign governments, including Canada, Australia and Britain, who had protested when cases against their companies were brought under ATCA. He teamed up with Clement, a conservative "wonderkid" lawyer who has worked on some of the most high profile cases in the country, including defending Arizona's immigration law and a federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Together, in February of 2012 they filed a brief on behalf of BP Plc, Caterpillar Inc, ConocoPhillips, General Electric Co, Honeywell International Inc and IBM. Their argument was that the Alien Tort Statute does not cover events that took place in foreign countries, nor does it apply to those who help others commit abuses, only those who commit abuses themselves.
When the Supreme Court convened for the Kiobel case, the plaintiffs were stunned when the court asked the parties to come back and argue an entirely new question: whether, and under what circumstances, the Alien Tort Statute applied to events on foreign soil.
The court's interest, when enquiring about whether local remedies had been exhausted, did not ask about Nigeria (it was assumed the justice system was deficient there), but rather if the UK and Netherlands, home countries to the corporations, were fair judicial systems. Thus the argument seems to be that if countries such as the U.K., and the Netherlands are accepting jurisdiction over their domestic companies, whether the US still needs a role policing for international human rights or whether this amounts to judicial imperialism that will lead to possible "friction" in foreign relations. As in the Dutch case, the main concern seems to be potential retaliatory actions for US companies should they be similarly held to account in other jurisdictions, harming US interests.
The court's decision to consider this wider question of extra-territorial jurisdiction could have a major impact. As of August this year, there were 36 claims against corporations under ATCA. If the court had ruled that ATCA does not apply to corporations, 20 of those cases would have to change to name individual corporate officers as defendants. While this would be complicated, it would not dismiss the cases.
If however, the court rules that the statute does not apply to events on foreign soil, 29 of the current cases would likely be dismissed, wiping out lawsuits pending against companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp, Rio Tinto Plc and Nestle, which are accused by private plaintiffs of helping governments violate human rights in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Ivory Coast, respectively.
Three cases, three courts. How they are resolved could well define the future legal architecture for holding corporations accountable for environmental and social crimes. As it currently stands, there is no functioning system of corporate accountability and liability for transnational corporations. Even when cases are won, as with the Chevron Texaco case in Ecuador, it proves extremely difficult if not impossible to collect the indemnities for damages and remediation.
Towards an International Court for environmental crimes?
Activists are understandably shaken by the possibility that one of the last options for prosecuting these crimes may soon be closed, but the question, 'Why in the United States?' is a good one.
The short answer is that the United States is an appropriate venue for such crimes because most of the largest corporations in the world have a presence of some form there. Of the 500 largest multinationals, a recent study characterizes 186 as having a United States domicile, 126 with homes in the European Union, and 108 with headquarters in Japan. Yet nearly all 500 have a presence in the United States sufficient to support territorial jurisdiction over them. For example, The Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Shell case was brought under ATCA because Royal Dutch maintained a small shareholder relations office in New York.
Yet the larger questions are — should not there be an international court to deal with crimes against nature? And is civil liability enough or should these cases be prosecuted criminally?
Environmental problems are essentially international by nature. We all share the environment and we are all part of the global eco-system. The gas that is flared in Nigeria is a crime against those in the Delta that breathe in the toxic fumes, but it is also a crime against all who share the atmosphere, who suffer the impacts of climate change, and all those who suffer from lack of access to energy.
Calls to institute international legal mechanisms to punish wanton destruction of the environment are not new, but they have been building in force in recent years. In March 2010, international barrister Polly Higgins proposed to the United Nations that ecocide be considered the 5th crime against peace under the Rome Statute. The International Criminal Court is currently limited to the prosecution of individuals of four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. She defines "ecocide" as "the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished." A European Citizen Initiative is now trying to gather more than a million signatures to get it on the European agenda.
One month after her proposal to the UN, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth was proclaimed on April 22, 2010 (Mother Earth Day) by the more than 32,000 participants in the People's World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Declaration recognises that Earth is an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with inherent rights, and defines fundamental human responsibilities in relation to other beings and to the community as a whole. The use of the term "Mother Earth" emphasises that humans should relate to the being that gives them life in a deeply respectful manner and not as an inanimate "resource" to be managed, or as a provider of "environmental services" that can be properly priced and internalized.
The Rights of Nature have already been enshrined in the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador. In the latter country, a court case against BP for the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill gives an idea of what this new legal doctrine could look like. The 2008 constitution has a clause (art. 71) allowing citizens to take action to defend the rights of Mother Earth anywhere on the planet. On the 26th of Nov. 2010, Nnimmo Bassey, along with Vandana Shiva and activists form Peru, Mexico, and Ecuador brought a case against BP in the Ecuadorian constitutional courts for damaging and polluting Mother Earth, and the case has been accepted. Perhaps the most interesting element of the case is that the plaintiffs have not demanded financial compensation. But rather they ask that BP should reveal exactly how much crude oil they spilled into the gulf of Mexico and to commit to leave the same volume of oil untapped, to leave it in the soil, as a compensation to Mother Earth for what they did. This demand highlights that money cannot repair the damage done, and that a key precondition of justice is the promise to cease the damaging activities.
This brings us to the 2nd question that the US high court is grappling with: "Should ATCA allow the prosecution of corporations or of individuals?" Corporations are legal persons (admittedly as Joel Bakan has pointed out, with some pathological traits). Yet despite this a corporation remains an abstraction, it has no body or mind of its own. While corporations can be made to pay substantial sums of money – they cannot go to jail, they cannot be "reformed". The legal costs and the fines are already factored into the costs of "Business as Usual", and when possible they are passed onto the consumer as an externality. For this reason, many argue that civil liability is not a sufficient deterrent and that what is needed is criminal liability for the directing mind and will behind the corporation — namely the CEOs.
Antonio Gustavo Gómez is the General Prosecutor in Argentina's Federal Court of Appeal for the province of Tucumán. He specializes in the investigation of environmental crimes. In 2008, he successfully brought criminal charges against Julian Rooney. Julian is the Vice President of Bajo La Alumbrera, a copper gold-mine jointly owned at the time by Swiss giant Xstrata Copper, Vancouver-based GoldCorp and Toronto's Yamana Gold. The charge was for discharging liquids containing heavy metals, cyanide and mercury into a canal used by farmers and livestock.
Gustavo Gomez is a firm believer that penal responsibility is the only way to deal with environmental crime. He argues for the establishment of a separate international environmental crimes court that would be based on the International Criminal Court. Higgins' vision for "eco-cide" prosecution also entails the imprisonment of the CEO of the company, as well as the need for restorative justice through actively repairing the damage they had caused and not just paying a fine and leaving.
Such demands may seem unrealistic in a world where countries cannot even agree to act jointly to avert catastrophic climate change, but the debate itself aims to underline the absurdity of the current system where the "polluter rarely pays". For true deterrence and a change in corporate practices, penalties must go beyond civil liability. The current obstacles to guaranteeing the right to a healthy environment may seem insurmountable, but we need only think that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on the 10th of December 1948, is only 65 years old this year. Its genesis was the result of the experience of the Second World War and the atrocities witnessed there.
Perhaps all one needs is a trip to the Niger Delta to understand why Nnimmo Bassey and others compare what is happening there to a genocide, "Everyone in America or Europe enjoying cheap oil or thinking that oil is expensive, needs to come down to Nigeria and see the situation of the communities in the oilfields who have been subsidizing with their blood and lives and livelihoods the production of petroleum and the massive criminal profits of the oil corporations. They should think that every pint of oil may well be equated to a pint of blood in the Niger Delta," he says.
Meanwhile, Delta communities continue to grasp at any meager shred of justice available to them. As Mrs. Kobani from Goi says, "We have not got justice but at least our case has been heard."


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Jimmy Rankin
Tinsel Town Tour
November 22, 2013
The holidays are a time for friends and family; for snow-filled days and warm nights gathered 'round the fireplace. But however you're celebrating this special season, iconic Canadian entertainer Jimmy Rankin has provided the perfect soundtrack, Tinsel Town.
Recorded with producer Bill Bell (Jason Mraz, Tom Cochrane), Tinsel Town is a Christmas collection featuring four freshly penned original songs and eight newly recorded holiday classics full of fun and yuletide cheer. Particularly clever is the packaging, which doubles as a Christmas card, making it easy to ship as the perfect holiday greeting for all.
A well-known solo artist, Rankin also doubles as the front man of Canadian Celtic heroes, The Rankin Family. Between the two roles, the singer-songwriter has amassed a slew of awards and nominations including 5 JUNO Awards, 27 East Coast Music Awards, and, having recently been named 2012's Roots Artist of the Year for the second consecutive year, a total of 7 Canadian Country Music Awards, to name a few.
Yet despite the endless accolades, Rankin admits he was challenged when writing for Tinsel Town. "Christmas has become so commercialized. For the originals I went to a different place – I wanted to re-discover the unfettered beauty and old-fashioned joy that I found in Christmas as a kid."
With Rankin's warm, inviting words, "Tinsel Town," the stunning lead single and title track, celebrates the spirit of Christmas through a montage of idyllic, postcard-like imagery. On the gorgeous ballad "December," his singular voice welcomes the onset of winter with the sense of inner peace found walking down a snowy backcountry road.
"Boogie Woogie Christmas" is as much fun as the name implies, conjuring images of a hometown holiday party – good cheer, frosty fun and all – while "Don't Wanna Say Goodbye to Christmas" wishes that Christmas would never end with a modern country rock flair.
As for the well-known numbers that round out the recording, Rankin explains: "I was looking for songs that mean something to me, songs I remember from my childhood growing up." He fondly recalls performing "Silver Bells" with his sisters during the holidays at their Cape Breton home and the way "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" always put spring in his step.
"The challenge was to take these great songs and to interpret them in a new and interesting way," he continues. Whether it's his rockabilly take on "Jingle Bell Rock," his stunning, stripped-down version of "White Christmas," or his cover of John Denver's classic "Christmas for Cowboys," Rankin does indeed render his special magic to these cherished standards.
In late November, Rankin will embark on a cross-Canada tour sharing seasonal selections from Tinsel Town along with favourites from his extensive solo and Rankin Family catalogue. He is also slated to perform on the CBC/CMT Christmas special to air nationally on December 20th.
Whether they're delivered from the stage or stereo this winter, Jimmy Rankin's Tinsel Town songs are sure to bring joy and warm nostalgia to audiences young and old during "the most wonderful time of the year.


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FBI Special Agent Shauna Dunlap said that while the plane was being cleaned about an hour after the plane landed Sunday, the cleaning crew found the apparent fetus. The medical examiner's office will do an autopsy to determine if it was viable.
This sounds like the question is, "Was this a miscarried/aborted fetus or a premature infant?"
Reminds me of the moment -- was it in "Jaws" or a Mad Magazine spoof of "Jaws"? -- in which somebody is looking for someone to consult about "the alleged shark". He's told "The alleged shark bit off his alleged head. Also his alleged arms and legs."


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Pipe threaders
There are no bids for the lot at this time
XYZ Automation, Inc. has commissioned Pearce & Associates to liquidate the remaining assets at their Pelham, AL location in an online auction.
**Vehicles, Trailer, Forklift, MILLING MACHINE, ROBOTS and Robotics/Electronics, Job Boxes, Transformer, Air Compressor, Plasma Cutter, 3D Printers, Shop tools and equipment (some brand new - never used!) , hand tools, office furniture and much more!**
LOCATION: 180 Chandalar Place Drive, Pelham, AL 35124
Sale Ends: Tuesday 6/11/24 starting at 7PM Central Time with a staggered ending
Inspection: Tuesday 6/11/24 from 9am to 3pm Central time
Pick up & Payment: Wednesday & Thursday 6/12 and 6/13 from 9am to 3pm Central Time There will be a cashier on site. We accept wire transfer, cash, check. We accept credit cards up to $2,500 only and we do not accept American Express.
(FORKLIFT BUYER - Please plan to pick up on Thursday 6/13 after 2pm to allow us time to get out anything that needs the forklift to load)
BRING YOUR OWN HELP- Pearce will have 1 or possibly 2 people on site to help you locate your items. Pearce staff will help where we can, but the Buyer is responsible for loading their own merchandise. We will have a forklift driver on site until it has been removed by the Buyer.
BRING YOUR OWN BOXES/CONTAINERS/PACKING SUPPLIES - there are no bins, boxes, packing supplies on site if you buy a quantity of smaller items. Please bring your own.
NOTE: Seller is vacating the building as soon as the auction & pick up is over!!!!
NOTE: All items must be paid for by Thursday 6/13/24 at 3pm Central Time
Please come to inspection!
Questions? Damon Folmar, AL #5610 - Sale Manager - firstname.lastname@example.com 205.966.8114
Auction Terms:
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All disputes will be settled in Shelby County, Alabama.
We encourage you to inspect the items in person.
If purchases are not settled within 3 business days of the close of the auction,
it is in default. Upon default the bidder will be black listed on Pearce &
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4. I, the buyer, hereby agrees to authorize the auction company to charge my credit card for my purchases in the event that I do not show up to pickup my items in person and make other payment arrangements. I also agree that the auction company is not responsible for handling, moving or storing the items I have purchased and that I risk the chance of those items being stolen or damaged if left behind.
5. I, the buyer, hereby agrees to not challenge or deny payment to the auction company for purchases made with the credit card that I have placed on file with the auction company. I fully understand the terms and conditions of the auction and hereby agree to this Credit Card Policy or I will not place bids with this auction website.
Pelham, Alabama 35124
United States


text:
(Originally posted October 26, 2007. This got lost in the migration from TypePad to WordPress, recovered and reposted for the archives here thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)
Left Behind, pp. 353-355
Sometimes when you're reading an otherwise effective book, or watching an otherwise engaging movie or TV show, one of the characters will suddenly say something that just doesn't fit — something so out of character that it takes you out of the story, reminding you that these characters aren't real, that they're just reciting words placed in their mouths by some writer who hasn't bothered to get to know these people all that well.
Everything in Left Behind is like that, only worse. And it's more than just the occasional off-key sentence — there are whole conversations like this, whole passages in which everything that is said goes way beyond "out-of-character" and into the realm of inhuman. The reader doesn't just think, "Buck Williams would never say that," but that "Buck Williams is supposed to be a human, and no human would ever say that." Or think that. Or listen to someone else saying and thinking such things without fearing for that person's sanity and shouting in protest.
We're in the middle of one of those conversations here. Buck Williams, Steve Plank and Stanton Bailey are talking in Bailey's office. If you don't pay attention to what they're saying, and you don't look out the window, then the scene seems almost normal. But if you do listen to them you'll think you've wandered into some absurdist play set in a madhouse.
Steve has just informed his friends that the president of Romania has a multi-point plan for world domination. They smile, nod and ask about the details. Steve explains that the president of Romania intends to ask everyone on earth to give him their weapons, making him an unchallenged superpower and leaving them all defenseless. Sounds reasonable, Buck and Bailey say. And then the president of Romania intends to sign a peace treaty with an invincible nation that no one is at war with, to turn ancient Babylon into the east side of Manhattan and to turn Botswana into Iowa. That'll take some persuasion, his friends say, but an appearance with Jay Leno should do the trick. Anything else? Yes, finally, the president of Romania intends to start a worldwide cult, replacing and outlawing all other religions. "Brilliant," Stanton Bailey says. "Revolutionary."
To have one character sitting there spouting these non-sequitur absurdities is bad enough, but to have two others — including the protagonist with whom we're supposed to identify — just nodding along as nonchalantly as though he were discussing the weather makes the whole effect almost dazzlingly surreal. If you were sitting in that room you would have to interrupt — "Say, you guys didn't happen to do a whole bunch of drugs, did you?" You'd point out that no one in their right mind would ever propose doing such things, and no one in their right mind would ever go along with it. That the president of Romania is making David Koresh and Sun Myung Moon seem comparably balanced and sane.
But here's all Buck comes up with by way of protest:
"Aren't either of you the least bit shaky about the guy?" Buck said. "It looks to me like people who get too close wind up eliminated."
This is a valid concern. In just the past week, Nicolae Carpathia has been linked to the suspicious death of a whistleblower, a police officer and a journalist. (Something in Buck's gut — call it instinct or a nose for news — tells him that car bombing was no accident!) But Buck's timid objection — "the least bit shaky" — is still weirdly conditional. Like his friends, he has no objection in principle to voluntarily ceding all military and ecclesiastical authority to one person. In this particular case, however, due to that one man's ongoing history of murder, intimidation and extortion, he has some minor qualms he feels should be discussed.
Stanton Bailey doesn't share even these half-hearted concerns:
"Shaky?" Bailey said. "Well, I think he's a little naive, and I'll be very surprised if he gets everything he's asking for. But then he's a politician. … Shaky? No. I'm as impressed with the guy as you two are. He's what we need right now. Nothing wrong with unity and togetherness at a time of crisis."
Oh that's right, it's a time of crisis. Nice of Bailey to finally notice that. His estimation of this crisis is somewhat odd, though. It's severe enough, apparently, that he thinks a global Caesar — man and god, pope and king, his power unchecked save by his own benevolence — is "what we need right now." Yet the crisis is not so severe that he thinks it deserves regular, ongoing coverage in his news magazine, or that there's any hurry to do a story on it for a couple of weeks or so.
Bailey dismisses the deaths of Burton, Tompkins and Miller as "only coincidental." No need to make "too much of that," sticking our noses where they don't belong, he says. After all, we're journalists.
Marge buzzed in on the intercom. "Cameron has an urgent message from a Hattie Durham. Says she can't wait any longer.""Oh, no," Buck said. "Marge, apologize all over the place for me. Tell her it was unavoidable and that I'll either call her or catch up with her later."
Marge, like Chloe, uses the indefinite article — "a Hattie Durham" — making me wonder if they both spent time as servants in some upper-class British household. But at least, after eight pages and about a half an hour of story time, the authors finally remembered poor Hattie sitting in the cab outside.
Bailey looked disgusted. "Is this what I can expect from you on work time, Cameron?"
Bailey has no problem with Buck spending half his day in off-the-record meetings for stories the magazine promises never to report, but meeting some woman at lunchtime — that's just irresponsible. A lot of things that people say in LB just don't make sense unless you share the authors' gynophobia.
Jenkins suddenly seems to realize that this setting — the publisher, editor and former editor sitting in Global Weekly's office — provides the opportunity for a bit of retroactive correction. GW is, as the name suggests, a weekly publication. Yet we've had no indication thus far that they've published anything since The Event. We can account for every moment of Buck's time, so we know he hasn't filed a story. Steve hasn't said a word about deadlines, or about the current issue. We've seen reports from CNN and ABC News and from newspapers and Seaboard Monthly, but no evidence that anyone has written or read a single word for or from Global Weekly in the past eight days.
That's the sort of first-draft mistake most authors would correct in subsequent revisions, but Jerry Jenkins doesn't do revisions. He cranks these novels out with more haste and urgency than any of his fictional reporters have thus far displayed. So instead, we get these little retroactive corrections. The effect is a bit like hearing someone stumble through a joke they can't quite remember: "No, wait, not nails, not yet. Grapes. The monkey asks the priest if he's got any grapes. Oh, wait, actually he's a bartender. The priest is, not the monkey. …"
"I'll make no bones about it, Cameron," Bailey says, clearing his throat with a cliché he doesn't understand the meaning of:
"Let's do the big Carpathia story next issue then follow up with the theories behind the vanishings after that. If you ask me, that could be the most talked about story we've ever done. I thought we beat Time and everybody else on our coverage of the event itself. I liked your stuff, by the way. …"
See? Not only did GW publish an issue, but it was even better than all those other reports that Rayford, the authors and even Buck himself seemed to find so much more quotable at the time. Plus Buck did file a story and it was so good that his boss complimented him on it because Buck is like a super-good reporter and stuff. Retroactive correction accomplished.
"… I don't know that we'll have anything terribly fresh or different about Carpathia, but we have to give it all we've got."
Well let's see, there's Buck's exclusive interview revealing Nicolae's ties to a global criminal conspiracy, but they've already agreed that was off-the-record. And there's Steve's insider-scoop about Nicolae's agenda for global domination, except they've promised not to go public with any of that either. I guess they really don't have anything fresh or different to report.
"… Frankly, I love the idea of you running the point on this coverage of all the theories. You must have one of your own.""I wish I did," Buck said. "I'm as in the dark as anybody."
Remember when I mentioned that this book is full of characters saying impossible things — things no human being could ever say, or think, or agree with? This is what I mean.
About a month after the Boxing Day tidal wave, I heard an interview with a counselor who was working with survivors in Sri Lanka. She described one man who had been riding a coastal train that had been swept off the rails. He was traumatized, she said, still in shock because he could no longer rely on the fundamental boundaries and assumptions that shape our lives without our ever having to think about them. The ocean is there and the land is here; they can be relied upon not to suddenly switch places. Take away that assumption, put those fundamental boundaries in doubt, and it becomes impossible to function. You become crippled by fear.
The characters in LB have seen just such an assumption, just such a fundamental boundary, disappear — vanishing into thin air along with their children and two billion other people. Without some explanation, some theory at least, they would not be able to go on without fearing that they, too, could vanish at any moment without cause.
In the following pages, Bailey derisively dismisses "the space alien stuff," even though, under the circumstances, it's as plausible as any other guess as to what caused the disappearances. LaHaye and Jenkins seem to think that this alien-abduction theory would be comforting to those who settled on it. As though the idea that some alien species had, without warning and without explanation, whisked away two billion people, and might do so again at any moment for all we know, would somehow settle things. As though it would simply make people say, "OK, then, that explains that" and go on with their daily lives.
We know, from reading the back of the book, that space aliens aren't involved, but that doesn't change the fact that in this story every person on earth has just been turned into a young Fox Mulder, traumatized by the sudden, inexplicable disappearance of billions of Samanthas. Post-Event, there would be millions of Mulders — damaged and driven by guilt over their impotence to prevent the disappearances, they would refuse to rest, unable and unwilling to stop at anything until they could prove to themselves and to the world what really happened. The other option — the only other option — would be to curl up in the fetal position, sobbing. There is no room for Scully or Skinner in the world of Left Behind. The Event cannot be dismissed, or denied, or debunked with some hokum about "Electromagnetism, nothing to see here, move along."
But instead we're presented with the ludicrous idea that Buck — and Steve, Bailey, Hattie, Chloe, Rosenzweig, Dan Bennett, Wallace Theodore and everyone else outside of New Hope church — is simply going on with daily life, feeling no need to pursue or demand an explanation, untroubled that the boundary between existence and nonexistence has been irreparably shattered. Instead, The Event is presented as fodder for water-cooler speculation and leisurely chatter.
That could work if it were intended as over-the-top satire, but that satire would have to be front-and-center as the dominant theme. It would have to be a story about the human capacity for epic denial — a story about the way people can be so profoundly narcissistic that they could literally stroll past the burning wreckage of an airplane, side-stepping charred bodies without the slightest hesitation and tuning out the cries of the injured as though they didn't even exist.
In a sense, of course, that is what the authors have written, but they did so by accident, unintentionally rendering themselves as meta-characters, two-dimensional clownish representations of the worst kind of solipsistic self-absorbtion.


text:
From Aaaaa! to ZZZap!
an exhibition by Michael Mandiberg
at Denny Gallery, 261 Broome St.
featuring work from the Print Wikipedia series
June 18 to July 11th, 2015
opening June 18th, 6-8PM
To learn more or place an order, please visit printwikipedia.lulu.com.
Print Wikipedia is a both a utilitarian visualization of the largest accumulation of human knowledge and a poetic gesture towards the futility of the scale of big data. Mandiberg has written software that parses the entirety of the English-language Wikipedia database and programmatically lays out thousands of volumes, complete with covers, and then uploads them for print-on-demand. Built on what is likely the largest appropriation ever made, it is also a work of found poetry that draws attention to the sheer size of the encyclopedia's content and the impossibility of rendering Wikipedia as a material object in fixed form: Once a volume is printed it is already out of date. The work is also a reflection on the actual transparency or completeness of knowledge containers and history.
The exhibition at Denny Gallery will be the performance of the upload of Print Wikipedia to Lulu.com (a print-on-demand website), and exhibition of a selection of volumes from the project. The upload process will take between eleven and fourteen days, during which time, the upload process will be on continuous view. In addition, the gallery will remain open around the clock through the first weekend of the exhibition, in recognition that the computer itself works continuously. There will be two channels for watching this process: a projection of the Lulu.com site in a web browser and a computer monitor with the command line updates showing the dialogue between the code and the site. The script will also post to Twitter after it finishes each volume. Individual volumes and the entirety of Print Wikipedia, Wikipedia Table of Contents, and Wikipedia Contributor Appendix will be available for sale. The build and upload process will take place in real time; until this process begins, exact metrics for the scale of the work can only be estimated.
Michael Mandiberg is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator living in Brooklyn, New York. He received his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts and his B.A. from Brown University. His work traces the lines of political and symbolic power online, working on the Internet in order to comment on and intercede in the real flows of information. He sold all of his possessions online on Shop Mandiberg, made perfect copies of copies on AfterSherrieLevine.com, and created Firefox plugins that highlight the real environmental costs of a global economy on TheRealCosts.com. He is co-author of Digital Foundations and Collaborative Futures and the editor of The Social Media Reader. A recipient of residencies and commissions from Eyebeam, Rhizome.org, and Turbulence.org, his work has been exhibited at the New Museum, Ars Electronica, ZKM, and Transmediale. A former Senior Fellow at Eyebeam, he is currently Director of the New York Arts Practicum, a co-founder of the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Associate Professor at the College of Staten Island/CUNY and a member of the Doctoral Faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center. His work has previously been exhibited at Denny Gallery in the exhibition Share This! Appropriation After Cynicism. He has also exhibited at Postmasters Gallery, The New Museum for Contemporary Art, the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Jen Beckman Gallery, Parsons' Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, and the Eyebeam Art + Technology Center. His work has been written about in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Berliner Zeitung, Wired, the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Hyperallergic, ARTNews, MOMUS, Flash Art and Artforum.
The exhibition has been generously supported by Lulu.com, the publishing platform used by Michael Mandiberg for Print Wikipedia. Denny Gallery and Michael Mandiberg would also like to thank the Wikimedia Foundation, The Banff Centre and Eyebeam for their support of the exhibition.
Source code for this project can be found on GitHub.


text:
Here's another bag from the elegant edibles collection (the bunch of grapes pattern). I used size 10.5 double pointed needles and the yarns provided in the kit (2 balls of amethyst heather, less than 1 ball each of jalapeno and avocado). I actually already had some amethyst heather WOTA in my stash (left over from the "Long Live the Queen" mohawk hat).
I went through a LOT more yarn that I had expected... I needed to remove one repeat of rows 1-8 to complete the bag without having to buy more yarn. The kit should have provided 3 balls of amethyst heather. It is strange that there is so much extra of other colors, but not this one. If I had not had some amethyst heather in my stash, I would not have been able to finish the project!
The yarn that remained after knitting the bag (left) and after sewing up the holes in the bag (right).
There are a lot of bobbles in this bag. Rather than turning the bag for each bobble, I decided to knit backwards, eliminating any need to turn the work!
So knitting this project with size 10.5 needles... the "bobbles" are ending up pretty flat. The stitches pull such that there is nothing that bobbles them. I therefore decided to sew up the holes before I felted the bag. (I was afraid that if I did not sew up these holes the bag would loose all of the grape texture.)
Right: The holes between each bobble. Left: same picture, but showing how I was sewing up the holes. I would stitch the top of the hole to the bottom, leaving the sides alone so they could "bubble" out.
Towards the bottom of the bag, I have started sewing up the holes. The holes towards the right of the picture are currently unaltered.
I had a slight problem with knitting the lid. You picked up 5 stitches so it would be attached to the bag. I would have preferred to knit the lid, and then sew it to the bag after the fact. I felt like I was stretching out the bag, as it kept getting twisted around the junction. The instructions have the leafy bits on the cap of the grapes be knit in garter stitch, but I did stockinette since that's the way the rest of the the bag is.
The bag didn't shrink that much during the felting. But thankfully it did keep it's shape! There are a few small holes left in the bag, but most of it closed on its own. This was the easiest hand felting I've ever done. I put the bag in a mopping bucket with hot water and a little dish soap. I then stirred the bucket with a wooden spoon, changing the water twice. I didn't want to use my hands to rub the fibers like I would do on an oven mitt because I was afraid to loose the definition of the grapes.
The cap of the bag is smaller than the body, so I cinched the top of the bag a bit so the cap fits better. I also still need to purchase snaps for the bag. I decided to sew the cap on so it would be connected to the bag by more than 5 stitches. This way I won't need more than one snap to keep it closed.
One more funny note about this project. I misread round 8 from the way my directions are printed... but that ended up being the correct way! what I had printed said to K3 at the end, which would end that row early. I did the K9. That is a good whoops, since I was over 2/3 done with the bag when I found the errata.


text:
A Python utility / library to sort Python imports.
Project description
Read Latest Documentation - Browse GitHub Code Repository
isort your imports, so you don't have to.
isort is a Python utility / library to sort imports alphabetically, and automatically separated into sections and by type. It provides a command line utility, Python library and plugins for various editors to quickly sort all your imports. It requires Python 3.6+ to run but supports formatting Python 2 code too.
Try isort now from your browser!
Before isort:
from my_lib import Object
import os
from my_lib import Object3
from my_lib import Object2
import sys
from third_party import lib15, lib1, lib2, lib3, lib4, lib5, lib6, lib7, lib8, lib9, lib10, lib11, lib12, lib13, lib14
import sys
from __future__ import absolute_import
from third_party import lib3
After isort:
from __future__ import absolute_import
import os
import sys
from third_party import (lib1, lib2, lib3, lib4, lib5, lib6, lib7, lib8,
lib9, lib10, lib11, lib12, lib13, lib14, lib15)
from my_lib import Object, Object2, Object3
Installing isort
Installing isort is as simple as:
pip install isort
Install isort with requirements.txt support:
pip install isort[requirements_deprecated_finder]
Install isort with Pipfile support:
pip install isort[pipfile_deprecated_finder]
Install isort with both formats support:
pip install isort[requirements_deprecated_finder,pipfile_deprecated_finder]
Using isort
From the command line:
isort mypythonfile.py mypythonfile2.py
or recursively:
isort .
which is equivalent to:
isort **/*.py
or to see the proposed changes without applying them:
isort mypythonfile.py --diff
Finally, to atomically run isort against a project, only applying changes if they don't introduce syntax errors do:
isort --atomic .
(Note: this is disabled by default as it keeps isort from being able to run against code written using a different version of Python)
From within Python:
import isort
import isort
sorted_code = isort.code("import b\nimport a\n")
Installing isort's for your preferred text editor
Several plugins have been written that enable to use isort from within a variety of text-editors. You can find a full list of them on the isort wiki. Additionally, I will enthusiastically accept pull requests that include plugins for other text editors and add documentation for them as I am notified.
Multi line output modes
You will notice above the "multi_line_output" setting. This setting defines how from imports wrap when they extend past the line_length limit and has 6 possible settings:
0 - Grid
from third_party import (lib1, lib2, lib3,
lib4, lib5, ...)
1 - Vertical
from third_party import (lib1,
2 - Hanging Indent
from third_party import \
lib1, lib2, lib3, \
lib4, lib5, lib6
3 - Vertical Hanging Indent
from third_party import (
4 - Hanging Grid
from third_party import (
lib1, lib2, lib3, lib4,
lib5, ...)
5 - Hanging Grid Grouped
from third_party import (
lib1, lib2, lib3, lib4,
lib5, ...
6 - Hanging Grid Grouped, No Trailing Comma
In Mode 5 isort leaves a single extra space to maintain consistency of
output when a comma is added at the end. Mode 6 is the same - except
that no extra space is maintained leading to the possibility of lines
one character longer. You can enforce a trailing comma by using this in
conjunction with -tc
or include_trailing_comma: True
from third_party import (
lib1, lib2, lib3, lib4,
from third_party import lib1, lib2, lib3, ... # NOQA
Alternatively, you can set force_single_line
to True
on the
command line) and every import will appear on its own line:
from third_party import lib1
from third_party import lib2
from third_party import lib3
Note: to change the how constant indents appear - simply change the indent property with the following accepted formats:
- Number of spaces you would like. For example: 4 would cause standard 4 space indentation.
- Tab
- A verbatim string with quotes around it.
For example:
" "
is equivalent to 4.
For the import styles that use parentheses, you can control whether or
not to include a trailing comma after the last import with the
option (defaults to False
Intelligently Balanced Multi-line Imports
As of isort 3.1.0 support for balanced multi-line imports has been added. With this enabled isort will dynamically change the import length to the one that produces the most balanced grid, while staying below the maximum import length defined.
from __future__ import (absolute_import, division,
print_function, unicode_literals)
Will be produced instead of:
from __future__ import (absolute_import, division, print_function,
To enable this set balanced_wrapping
to True
in your config or pass
the -e
option into the command line utility.
Custom Sections and Ordering
You can change the section order with sections
option from the default
to your preference:
You also can define your own sections and their order.
would create two new sections with the specified known modules.
The no_lines_before
option will prevent the listed sections from being
split from the previous section by an empty line.
would produce a section with both FIRSTPARTY and LOCALFOLDER modules combined.
Auto-comment import sections
Some projects prefer to have import sections uniquely titled to aid in
identifying the sections quickly when visually scanning. isort can
automate this as well. To do this simply set the
setting for each section you wish to
have auto commented - to the desired comment.
For Example:
import_heading_stdlib=Standard Library
import_heading_firstparty=My Stuff
Would lead to output looking like the following:
# Standard Library
import os
import sys
import django.settings
# My Stuff
import myproject.test
Ordering by import length
isort also makes it easy to sort your imports by length, simply by
setting the length_sort
option to True
. This will result in the
following output style:
from evn.util import (
It is also possible to opt-in to sorting imports by length for only
specific sections by using length_sort_
followed by the section name
as a configuration item, e.g.:
Skip processing of imports (outside of configuration)
To make isort ignore a single import simply add a comment at the end of
the import line containing the text isort:skip
import module # isort:skip
from xyz import (abc, # isort:skip
To make isort skip an entire file simply add isort:skip_file
to the
module's doc string:
""" my_module.py
Best module ever
import b
import a
Adding an import to multiple files
isort makes it easy to add an import statement across multiple files, while being assured it's correctly placed.
From the command line:
isort -a "from __future__ import print_function" *.py
from within Kate:
menu > Python > Add Import
Removing an import from multiple files
isort also makes it easy to remove an import from multiple files, without having to be concerned with how it was originally formatted.
From the command line:
isort -rm "os.system" *.py
from within Kate:
menu > Python > Remove Import
Using isort to verify code
The --check-only
isort can also be used to used to verify that code is correctly
formatted by running it with -c
. Any files that contain incorrectly
sorted and/or formatted imports will be outputted to stderr
isort **/*.py -c -v
SUCCESS: /home/timothy/Projects/Open_Source/isort/isort_kate_plugin.py Everything Looks Good!
ERROR: /home/timothy/Projects/Open_Source/isort/isort/isort.py Imports are incorrectly sorted.
One great place this can be used is with a pre-commit git hook, such as this one by @acdha:
This can help to ensure a certain level of code quality throughout a project.
Git hook
isort provides a hook function that can be integrated into your Git pre-commit script to check Python code before committing.
To cause the commit to fail if there are isort errors (strict mode),
include the following in .git/hooks/pre-commit
#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
from isort.hooks import git_hook
sys.exit(git_hook(strict=True, modify=True))
If you just want to display warnings, but allow the commit to happen
anyway, call git_hook
without the strict parameter. If you want to
display warnings, but not also fix the code, call git_hook
without the
modify parameter.
Setuptools integration
Upon installation, isort enables a setuptools
command that checks
Python files declared by your project.
Running python setup.py isort
on the command line will check the files
listed in your py_modules
and packages
. If any warning is found, the
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Neil Young Joins 'Beautiful' Anti-Trump Women's March
Neil Young shared his experience of joining the Women's March in Los Angeles yesterday (Jan. 20), saying it had been a "beautiful" and "very human" moment that he won't forget quickly.
This year's march, held to protest against President Donald Trump's policies – and particularly those which are seen to fail women's rights and equal rights – followed the event in 2017, which was created as a protest against his election to office. Many hundreds of thousands of people are said to have taken part in this year's marches across the U.S. over the weekend.
"In a sea of humanity, of people carrying signs of change, I was claustrophobic for a while but that passed," Young said in a Facebook post. "Everyone was positive and happy to be there standing up for what they believed in. I got a little uncomfortable, knowing the times we are living in, how safety can no longer be counted on the way it used to be. A few supporters of a self-described stable genius stood in front of the police department hurling insults, but were largely ignored. Women held hands in front of them, separating them from the marchers. It was beautiful. All the happy people, together in one place expressing themselves; it was very human and I think I will never forget it. We just kept walking along hand in hand."
He voiced his frustration that the Equal Rights Amendment, first tabled in 1932, remains unratified to this day. "Thirty-six states have voted for ratification. Thirty-eight states are required. Two more states need to vote to ratify," he said. "I hope the hundreds of thousands of women and men that came out today felt the power their numbers hold. I hope they carry that feeling with them to the polls in November. We have the gall to ask other countries to include rights for women in their constitutions, yet in the American constitution women still do not have equal rights."
He called for "all politicians running for office in the 14 States that have not ratified the ERA" to commit to doing so, with the aim of making the Amendment "final."
In response to the marches, President Trump said in a tweet that it had been "[b]eautiful weather" and "a perfect day for all Women to March" and said his administration had achieved the "[l]owest female unemployment in 18 years".


text:
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Live from SBL in Washington
The 5 hour session on the Freer Biblical Manuscripts happened today. Larry Hurtado spoke about the significance of the collection. Kent Clarke spoke about the biography of Charles Lang Freer and produced evidence that some of the manuscripts may have come from Dimai (Soknopaei Nesou) in the Fayoum. David Trobisch explained how to read a page of the Freer Gospels and spoke about various details on the page. Timothy Brown gave a live demonstration of how he cuts high quality images of the facing page of a manuscript, flips them horizontally, makes them see-through and then superimposes them on the page they face and thereby tests hypotheses of transfer of ink across facing pages (he did various other things too). Thomas Wayment spoke about multispectral imaging. Just as an aside he mentioned the loss to water of 32 boxes of ca. 1000 manuscript fragments each of the Oxyrhynchus Collection in the Ashmolean in Oxford (!). Malcolm Choat spoke about the Minor Prophets scroll in the Freer Collection and specifically about the text that follows it. Leonard Greenspoon was not able to give his paper about the Freer Joshua. Jean-Francois Racine compared the textual smoothness of W with B, comparing the changing tastes of textual critics to the changing fashions of taste in wine. James Royse talked about the various types of corrections in the Freer Gospels and Ulrich Schmid rounded off the day with a provocative paper addressing the question of the date of the Freer Gospels. The IV/V century date seems to have no secure basis and a later date (e.g. VI century or later) is entirely possible. The papers were all so good that 5 hours non-stop still kept the interest of someone with jet-lag. That's a good sign.
11 comments
Ulrich's paper was very well-done and very compelling in its paleographical argument. But at one point it seemed like he was saying that non-paleographical arguments for a date should not be admissible even in cases where the paleography is inconclusive. It might be that in this case, those other arguments are also inconclusive (he mentioned that he addresses that more fully in the book--which I have not yet perused). But it seems to me that where paleography is inconclusive, all other forms of evidence must be considered. Is there a good reason why this would not be the case?
ReplyDelete- Anonymous11/19/2006 3:52 am
Another great day at SBL.
Dr. Don Barker (Macquarie) began his discussion of P. Oxy 1780 by passing around an extremely authentic looking replica of the manuscript in question. I didn't want to ask a stupid question, but I couldn't help asking if such replicas could be purchased from Amazon.com.
If I understood him rightly, he very carefully reproduced by his own hand each letter and space to near exact dimensions of the original on very old looking papyrus from Egypt. It appeared to me that he also reduplicated the same tears and lacunae as the original.
I asked him if anyone else did this sort of thing. He said no. I commented that this painstaking work must help him understand much more about the manuscript than could be learned from simple observation. He replied that this was the whole idea.
After this brief conversation, he then gave me an order form to order my own "New Testament Papyri Reproductions." Available are samples from P46 P 66 P39 P75 P23 for $45.00 each (plust $12.00 postage & handling). Hey! $12 for handling P72 is a pretty good bargain! - Anonymous11/19/2006 4:02 am
Dr. Peter Head presented on early letter carrying.
He made the point that sometimes letters were written simply because a trusted friend or servant was already en route to an area where a letter writer's friend lived. So long as the servant were traveling to the same area, a letter might as well be written, without any other significant impetus for it.
I wonder, then, if this might be the case for Colossians, since the real impetus for Tychicus' trip to Colosse was to ensure that Onesimus actually made it back to Philemon's house. Perhaps the occasion for Colossians might be a bit more muted than has sometimes been asserted.
To be sure, there were some secondary urgencies behind Colossians. But perhaps Paul would have never written it if the occasion of sending Onesimus back to Colosse had not presented itself.
At least I would ask this question, especially in light of Dr. Head's presentation.
Jim Leonard - Anonymous11/19/2006 4:16 am
Two papers were presented as part of the fruit of labors involving the Papyrological Commentary on the New Testament (see, e.g., http://www.fwf.ac.at/en/abstracts/abstract.asp?L=E&PROJ=P17457 ).
What light might be shed from documentary papyrological sources on the Lord's Prayer in Q and on the call of Levi the tax collectors?
Essentially, both presenters gave a couple of parallel texts which 1) suggest that forgiveness of debts may have had more to do with Roman or Ptolemaic offerings of peace amnesties in the aftermath of war than with the typically assumed semitic backgrounds; and 2) Levi was not the typical kind of Roman tax collector, but was a subcontractor whose status was all the more villanous since he was a traitor working for the occupier; perhaps the term "impious" is more subtly adroit than the term "sinner" for hamartoloi.
We were treated to full presentations which led to these conclusions.
Jim Leonard - Anonymous11/20/2006 3:15 am
Juan Hernandez, who now teaches at Bethel, St. Paul--if I remember correctly, has presented papers on scribal tendencies in Revelation in two successive SBL years.
Both in Philadelphia and now here in Washington, he seems to enjoy reporting that his two subject manuscripts overthrow the canon of preference for the shorter reading. P46 and Sinaiticus both omit more in their singular readings than add.
I suspect there is a significant caveat to this conclusion. Despite the statistics, perhaps the canon is nonetheless operative when a scribe is consciously confronted by two competing readings. Surely, the scribe would be loathe to preserve the shorter reading, and would tend instead to preserve the fuller reading.
In such circumstances, a restoration of the text must take seriously the preference for the shorter reading.
This important caveat never seems to be addressed by Hernandez. I can understand that accidental or unconscious omissions may be more frequent than additions of any stripe. Nonetheless, I don't understand how the canon can be dismissed without reference to the aforementioned caveat.
The issue is important in that some TR advocates seize such conclusions indiscriminately.
In making this comment, I'm stating what seems obvious to me. However, I feel rather insecure in making this assertion, and would like to have some assurance as to whether I'm on the right track. - Anonymous11/20/2006 3:33 am
While I learned a great deal from the panel discussion over Dr. Hurtado's The Earliest Christian Artifacts, featuring rather intensive disagreement between him and Dr. Ehrman, the one thing I learned best is to couch criticism against a colleague with subjunctives and not indicatives:
"Your view SEEMS to fail because...."
"You MAY have overlooked this fact...."
"This PERHAPS is better interpreted this way...."
In a later (non-TC) panel session, one significant scholar was called upon to make evaluative comments regarding three panel presentations. He began by saying, "I am not here as a demolitionist. I've already seen one session earlier today in which such an attempt was unfortunately made."
I'm not sure if this scholar indeed was present in the Hurtado session, but his comment could have reflected as much.
At any rate, Dr. Hurtado would not have his work demolished. He gave a rather robust response, especially to Dr. Ehrman. To the charge that his conclusions were theologically motivated, Dr. Hurtado was quick to obliquely rejoin that there was more than one theological commitment represented in the intense exchange.
Jim Leonard
Southwestern Pennsylvania - Anonymous11/20/2006 3:47 am
A recurring issue in several sessions is how representative of early Christianity are our literary "artifacts" from Egypt?
This touches on geographically based Text Types. Years ago Dr. Epp argued that travel was so extensive and easy so as to invalidate geographically based Text Types. Variant readings were constantly exported and imported from and to Egypt.
This prompted his suggestion that Text Types be based more upon the character of the manuscript. For example, is the manuscript expansive (D), or strict (B), or polished/theologically evolved(A)? Yet, I haven't read anyone who has further developed this thought.
Today, it was asserted that every Text Type is represented by manuscripts found in Egypt, and Dr. Epp's thesis was lightly discussed just long enough to move on to another issue.
Why has Dr. Epp's thesis not been advocated?
Jim Leonard
Southwestern Pennsylvania - Anonymous11/20/2006 3:53 pm
Despite the statistics, perhaps the canon is nonetheless operative when a scribe is consciously confronted by two competing readings. Surely, the scribe would be loathe to preserve the shorter reading, and would tend instead to preserve the fuller reading.
Opponents of the shorter reading canon have adduced a fair amount of evidence against it. I've never seen anything comparable from proponents - they just tell us that "surely" scribes must have done this or that, because it seems reasonable that they would have done so. I'd be gratified to see something more compelling. - Anonymous11/21/2006 3:01 am
Having posted so many comments of late, I should hasten to note my status as a novice, and that these posts should be taken with more than a grain of salt....
Going back to Friday's session, Ulrich Schmid suggested that the Freer Gospels be dated a bit later than Sanders suggested. Dr. Schmid pushes the date from the late fourth or early fifth century, to the sixth century.
In case anyone didn't get around all the way through the exhibit hall, I thought I might point out that Lee W. Woodard (D.Min., Phillips University, OK) has rented an exhibit booth on the back edge of the hall and is passing out his free 14 page full color paper entitled "Codex W Discovered to Be the Original First Century Gospels" (caveat lecteur).
Woodard has done...extensive... paleographic study on the Freer Gospels, and has determined that it was the official edition of the Gospels. His considered...analysis... demonstrates that the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all personally signed and sealed Codex W for authentication.
Evidently Dr. Schmid didn't benefit from Woodard's analysis pointing to the exact date of 96 A.D.
Woodard's considered opinion invalidate's Dr. Ehrman's contention that inerrancy doesn't matter since we don't have the originals. Now, as Woodard has argued, we evidently realize that Washingtonensis is the original eye-witness account.
Thus, all text-types in the Gospels stream from Codex W.
Also, by the way, Woodard resolves the Synoptic Problem, not to mention the original Hebrew of Matthew.
To quote from one of our favorite movies: "Would you like to know more?" (Starship Troopers).
http://www.washington-codex.org/ Thank you James and anon for your interesting shorter reading comments. I do find amusing and puzzling the concern that if the shorter reading theory goes down (similarly with lectio difficilior, which appears to be at least grossly abused) that the new truth might be used by TR advocates. Should we not follow truth wherever it leads ?
And I am always amazed at how some of the simplest and clearest issues are ignored. First, that shorter reading (even more so lectio difficilior) has a type of presumption of manuscript errancy in the great majority of manuscripts, that the scribes were generally tamperers looking to actively add this and that, the words of men substituted for the words of God. And that these phoney additions were pulled off against the vigilance of the Bible readers and God's promises of inspiration and preservation.
Consider that omissions are much simpler and less puzzling than additions.
Omissions are quite easy to miss because.. they are not there !
While additions glare out, and will be noticed immediately by the other regional churches and copyists in other cities.
Such a distinction should be a primary consideration in comparative theories, yet this simple major component is simply virtually never mentioned.
From this evangelical perspective of respect for the Bible text, one must consider omissions as a far more prevalent scribal tendency than additions.
However .. ooops.. again we run into the same problem .. that may have been the theoretical base used by the early scholars and Reformers who used a careful textual analysis in bringing forth the TR text.
Steven Avery
Queens, NY


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Nanoscience research involves molecules that are only 1/100th the size of cancer cells and that have the potential to profoundly improve the quality of our health and our lives. Now nine prominent nanoscientists look ahead to what we can expect in the coming decade, and conclude that nanoscience is poised to make important contributions in many areas, including health care, electronics, energy, food and water.
Significant progress has already been made in nanomaterials, report authors Paul Weiss, who holds a UC presidential chair and is a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA, and Dr. Andre Nel, chief of nanomedicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In the journal ACS Nano, Weiss, Nel and their colleagues say the following:
- Nanoparticles can be designed to target infectious disease. Nanomaterials may target the lungs to deliver potent antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs could fight bacterial and viral infection.
- Nanoparticles may lead to more effective treatments of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, as well as arthritis.
- The emerging field of immuno-oncology is likely to produce advances that will activate the body's immune system to attack tumor cells. Important advantages of nanoparticles are that they can bind selectively to receptors over-expressed on tumors and may be delivered to the same cell at a predetermined dose and timing, although significant scientific challenges remain.
- The microelectronics industry has been manufacturing products with nanoscale structures for decades — a market currently valued at approximately $500 billion annually. The researchers say there is still plenty of room for major improvements, including many opportunities in creative design of devices for data processing and information storage.
- Nanotechnology is likely to capture, convert and store energy with greater efficiency, and will help to safely produce sustainable and efficient large-scale energy production to meet the increasing worldwide demand for energy.
- Nanotechnology principles are being used in water desalination and purification, and nanotechnology is poised to make major contributions to supplying clean water globally.
- Technology is likely to become increasingly widespread, with the proliferation of "nano-enabled smart devices" in such areas as telecommunications, consumer staples and information technology.
- Nanoscience advances may lead to advances in food safety and reductions in food contamination. Sensor technologies may be designed that exploit changes at the surface of nanostructures so they can detect disease-causing pathogens before they spread. Nanoscale sensor technologies also may lead to improvements in agrochemicals.
The researchers discuss the need to safely implement new nanomaterials and present ideas for doing so. They also call for researchers to communicate their research with the public.
Nanoscience has brought together scientists, engineers and clinicians from many fields, and will continue to cross many academic boundaries.
"The field is poised to make contributions far beyond the nanoscale worlds that we have explored so far," said Weiss, who is also a distinguished professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA. "This is the age of discovery for nanoscience and nanotechnology."
The researchers advocate strong federal support for nanoscience, and predict significant progress toward major scientific goals will be achieved by the end of this decade. They also advocate basic research to produce currently unforeseen discoveries.