text:
Canadian Academics Accuse Harper Campaign of 'Vicious Propaganda'
"By conjuring up a phantom menace to the country and implying that some immigrants and religious minorities are enemies, the Conservatives hope to pit Canadians against one another," the letter, signed by more than 600 professors, states.
October 9, 2015, 3:05pm
Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
Hundreds of Canadian university professors are condemning the campaign strategy of Stephen Harper's Conservative Party, which they allege has turned, in the last weeks of the election, to mongering fear and hate in order to win votes.
In an open letter, signed by over 600 academics from a wide array of disciplines and published this morning in the Ottawa Citizen, the scholars state that the Conservative campaign has "flagrantly crossed the line" with its messaging about "barbaric cultural practices" — a term the letter claims is specifically tailored to play on bigotry without sounding bigoted.
"The repeated use of this phrase along with a proposed tip line to root out undesirables are cynically calculated to distract and divide citizens by insinuating that some law abiding and peaceful members of the community are freedom-hating barbarians who threaten Canadian society," states the letter. "By conjuring up a phantom menace to the country and implying that some immigrants and religious minorities are enemies, the Conservatives hope to pit Canadians against one another. Like many sophisticated forms of vicious propaganda, the invocation of barbarism is meant to create fear and anxiety rather than to identify a real problem."
For weeks, the federal election has been marked by controversy over the Conservative government's challenge to a court ruling striking down its ban on women taking the oath of citizenship while wearing a niqab, its initiative to revoke the citizenship of Canadians convicted of terrorism who hold dual-citizenship, and the prime minister's use of the phrase "old-stock Canadians." But one of the letter's authors said that it was Conservative Immigration Minister Chris Alexander's proposal last week for a police tip line where citizens could report "incidents of barbaric cultural practices" that drove him and his co-authors to act.
"That crossed a line that we haven't seen crossed at any point in Canadian politics," Daniel Weinstock, a professor of law at McGill University, told VICE News. Each of the four co-authors initially sent the letter to 20 colleagues, but it quickly gained steam going viral within the Canadian academic community after it was first published on the blog In Due Course. Weinstock said that he was pleasantly surprised by the scale of the support and is still getting emails from people who want to sign, including some academics who he says "in no way shape or form could ever be accused of being left wing."
"We don't think this is a left-right issue," said Weinstock. "I dare say that progressive conservatives of the Brian Mulroney Joe Clark tradition would be horrified by this as well."
Related: The Battle Over a Face-Covering Ban at Canadian Citizenship Ceremonies Is Boiling Over
Indeed, last week Danny Williams, the former Progressive Conservative premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, told the CBC that Harper's tactics are flirting with racism and said that conservatives who couldn't bring themselves to vote Liberal or NDP would do their country a service by staying home on election day.
Asked for comment about the letter criticizing his party's campaign strategy, Conservative spokesperson Stephen Lecce instead provided a statement decrying "honor" killing, polygamy, female genital mutilation and forced marriage — all of which are illegal in Canada, and were so long before the Harper government passed the "Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act." On Tuesday, Harper doubled down on his stance on the niqab in an interview with CBC host Rosemary Barton, saying that his government is considering barring public employees from wearing the face covering.
Two March public opinion polls showed that roughly two-thirds of Canadians support a ban on the niqab in citizenship ceremonies.
Avigail Eisenberg, a professor of political science at the University of Victoria who co-authored the letter, said in an email that pushing such questions to the center of a campaign distracts voters from the major issues facing Canada. Weinstock said that doing so is dangerous.
"It enables and authorizes people who may have felt that their anti-Islamic views were best repressed," Weinstock said. "In order to achieve this wedge advantage, the government is opening up this area of speech, which had been thought to be off limits, and it isn't a long way from speech to action." Two Muslim women have been publicly attacked in Canada over the last ten days.
Tagged:PoliticsVICE NewsamericasJustin TrudeauStephen HarperConservative PartyniqabLiberal partyNDPThomas MulcairZunera Ishaqbarbaric cultural practices


text:
CD Projekt has a new deal with The Witcher creator Andrzej Sapkowski
By Andy Chalk 20 December 2019
It's a happy ending for everyone.
(Image credit: CD Projekt)
The Witcher has been a pretty big deal in Poland for a long time, but it was virtually unknown to Western audiences prior to 2007, when CD Projekt released the first game in its groundbreaking RPG trilogy. It came to light much later that Witcher creator Andrzej Sapkowski had licensed the property for an up-front sum instead of a percentage deal, because he thought videogames were stupid and it wasn't going add up to anything anyway.
But it did—it really did—and in 2018, Sapskowski issued a demand for more money, to the tune of 60 million PLN, which works out to $15.6 million. CD Projekt said no, but it also said that it would work toward reaching an "amicable resolution" of the matter. In February 2019 it was reported that "reconciliation" between the two parties was in the works, and now it appears that the goal has been reached: The company announced today that Sapkowski and CD Projekt have "signed an agreement further solidifying their relationship."
"We've always admired Mr. Andrzej Sapkowski's works—a great inspiration for the team here at CD Project Red," CD Projekt president and joint CEO Adam Kiciński said in a statement. "I believe today marks a new stage in our continued relationship."
Details of the new arrangement are buried under an NDA, but CD Projekt said that deal "satisfies and fully clarifies the needs and expectations of both parties, past and present, and sets out a framework for the future cooperation between the two sides," which has to be encouraging for fans eager for more Witcher games. It also "grants CD Projekt new rights" with regard to the property, although those also are not spelled out, and confirms its right to use the The Witcher in "videogames, graphic novels, board games, and merchandise."
Money is clearly the fix here, but it will be interesting to see if the new deal also takes steps toward resolving Sapkowski's other complaint: That despite the popularity of The Witcher, he's virtually unknown in most of the world as its creator. He's sure not wrong about that. Even Henry Cavill, star of The Witcher on Netflix, recently admitted that he knew nothing about the books (or, presumably, Sapkowski) until years after he'd played The Witcher 3.
Andy Chalk
Andy covers the day-to-day happenings in the big, wide world of PC gaming—the stuff we call "news." In his off hours, he wishes he had time to play the 80-hour RPGs and immersive sims he used to love so much.
The best VR headset in 2021
Best antivirus for PC gaming 2021
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Razer Blade Stealth 13 review

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Flash back to 1949 when a Chicago chemist named Bill Swartz came up with the idea for a new beverage after hearing the complaints from his coworkers around the office about the lack of vitamins in foodstuffs. Experimenting with the B vitamin family, Swartz soon had the formula for a carbonated, vitamin – fortified drink he christened Dr. Enuf.
Next, Swartz placed an ad in national Bottler's Gazette (the forerunner to Beverage World) seeking someone to bottle and distribute his new beverage. Seeing the ad, Tri-City Beverage's Charles Gordon met with Swartz, and a partnership between the two businessmen was quickly agreed upon.
On the eve of Dr. Enuf's arrival in stores, Gordon launched a clever marketing campaign to promote the fledgling brand. Soon, "Dr Enuf is Here!" bumper stickers began appearing on doctors' cars at the local hospital. A banner proclaiming "The Dr. Has Arrived" was hung across Johnson City's Main Street. Finally, Gordon placed a full-page advertisement on the back page of the Johnson City Press Chronicle identical to the paper's front page. he then paid carriers to fold the paper backward.


1 When did the government commenced census?
2 Who inaugurated the census?
3 How and where the President Mamnoon Hussian inaugurated the census of 2017?
5 The 2017 census was the _________ census of the country.
6 When was the last census conducted in Pakistan?
7 When was the first census in Pakistan conducted?
8 When was the second census in Pakistan conducted?
11 When was the fifth census conducted?
13 According to the second census, what was the population of Pakistan?
15 In fourth census, what was the population of Pakistan?
17 When the sixth census of Pakistan came to an end?
18 When will the next scheduled census be conducted in the country?
19 When was the provisional result of the sixth census of Pakistan shared publically?
20 Which institution shared the census result?
22 According to the sixth census data, what is the total population of Pakistan?
24 In Pakistan what was the annual population growth rate between 1981 and 1998?
29 Pakistan's population constitute how much of the world population?
30 What is the median age of Pakistan according to the census report?
31 What is the total land area of Pakistan?
32 What is the population density of Pakistan according to 2017 census report?
33 Urban population constitute how much percentage of Pakistan's total population?
34 Rural population according to the census report of 2017 constitute what percentage of the total population?
35 What is the agriculture contribution in Pakistan's total GDP?
36 According to a report conducted by a private organization, how many Pakistanis have access to mobile phones?
37 According to the census report how many mobile phones are added to Pakistani society each month?
39 What is the total population of women according to the 2017 census report?
40 What is the total population of trans-genders in Pakistan, according to the census report of 2017?
41 Out of the total population of Pakistan, men forms what percentage?
42 Out of the total population of Pakistan, women makes what percentage?
45 At present for 100 women in Pakistan, there are how many men?
46 According to the 2017 census report, which is the largest/highly populated city of Pakistan?
48 Which is the third largest and highly populated city of Pakistan according to the 2017 census report?
50 According to the 2017 census report which is the fifth largest city of Pakistan?
53 As per 2017 census report, which is the eighth largest city of Pakistan?
56 According to the 2017 census data, what is the population of Karachi?
59 What is the total population of Rawalpindi?
61 According to the 2017 census report, what is the population of Peshawar?
63 According to the 2017 census data what is the population of Hyderabad?
64 The population of Islamabad is according to the 2017 census data is how much?
65 What is the population of Quetta as per 2017 census report?
67 According to the census data what is the literacy rate in Pakistan?
70 In KPK there are how many districts?
71 Among the twenty four districts of KPK, which is the most populated district?
73 How many districts are there in Balochistan?
77 Among the twenty nine districts of Sindh, which is the most populated district?
83 Among the six divisions of Balochistan which is the most populated division according to 2017 census report?
84 Which is the least populated division of Balochistan according to the 2017 census report?
85 KPK has how many total districts?
85 Among the seven divisions of KPK which one is the most populated according to 2017 census report?
87 In Sindh there are how many divisions?
93 In Pakistan, as per 2017 census report, which area has experienced fastest growth rate?
94 What is the population growth rate of Islamabad, according to 2017 census report?
95 What is the population of Quetta division?
97 What is the total population of Lahore division?
100 What is the total population of D.I Khan division according to 2017 census data?
101 As per the 2017 census report what is the population of Karachi division?
102 How much is the population of Mirpur Khas division?
105 The middle class market of Pakistan is composed of how many people?


Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by sidious, Apr 7, 2003.
Uh...Sid? Where exactly are they? Am I supposed to imagine them? .........Ok, I'll do that!............ WOW, those are really nice. You are such an inspiration!!! LMAO!!!
You stoner! Post the damn pics!!!!
VERY! nice for seven days!!
what lighting are they under?
and how many times have ya watered em?


I would LOVE to use a distributed version control system. While my main computer was down over the last week I was using my laptop for development, and I couldn't check-in anything (The server was of course on my main desktop)!
Usually I'm developing one feature on my main computer and a different feature on my laptop; having a distributed version control system would be perfect because I could be checking things in on my laptop (where I do all the easy features) and only merge them into my main computer when I'm done the next major feature on it.
Specifically, I'd love to be using Bazaar, which at first glance looks great! The website looks great, the focus on functionality (such as rename) looks great, the focus on usability and different workflows looks great. This software looks great.
About once a week I get bitten by some Subversion weirdness, almost always around renames, and sometimes caused by I don't know what but files/directories either disappear or stick around after I've removed them. Like the famous Mark Shuttleworth blog posting, I think renaming is very important; I didn't use to think this but the more I get bitten by the lack of good/real rename support in Subversion the more I want it.
I realized the other day that I've become reasonably demanding about my version control. I didn't know this about myself, it just crept up on me.
Kyle Cordes has a very nice blog posting on this subject here.
Command line tools – WTF?!
Unlike Kyle I don't really care if it has a great standalone GUI as long as I've got the above features and I can easily see the revision tree somwhere then I'm good.
Additionally, unlike the <4% of Linux users (and what smaller subset of them are developers?) I NEVER want to use the command line to interact with my SCM. Ever. Period, exclamation point full stop.
When I read about GIT's 2 million command line tools each one of which probably with hundreds of esoteric command line switches each of which probably accepts multiple types of options I think, "Who actually needs that and wants to spend time NOT developing to learn it all while potentially doing something disastrously wrong that could serious mess up your core repository?!" When I read that Mecurial's command line tools are almost the same as Subversion's, I just don't care! Can you get a decent human readable diff from the command line? Can you get a meaningful navigable tree hierarchy from the command line?! (Plastic SCM even has a 3D revision tree for crying out loud – I DARE you to do that in a console window). Even most Java developers (who don't even know the kind of productivity we achieve with .NET and VS) want to do things right inside Eclipse.
I should mention that I do really appreciate free software and the fact that people enjoy donating their time and expertise to free software projects. However, I am a very goal oriented person. I remember years ago when I was running Linux for the first time and I needed to print a report for some second year university class. I discovered that Linux didn't have a driver for my printer and when I asked around the overwhelming response was "Great! Write one!" I promptly uninstalled Linux, re-installed Windows and easily printed my report and achieved my goal of handing in the assignment.
If a tool doesn't make me more productive than I am now thus helping me achieve my goals more quickly or easily then I'm not interested. This is why I LOVE PostSharp and will happily pay for version 2 when it comes out. This is also why (even though I spent 8 years working with Java and know it inside and out) that I actually dislike Java and Eclipse when compared to .NET because Microsoft and the smart people building .NET focus on making developers more productive with each release. Conversely I saw a pannel at Java One a few years back that actually lauded Java's complexity because it helped keep out the VB developers! WFT?! Sure Java will let me run on 27 different platforms but I'll probably never finish my software and all my prospecitve (paying) clients use Windows anway.
As a software developer I know how much time it takes to really learn the craft of designing, architecting and writing good software, and how much time it takes to actually write really good software. Right now I'm working on building a software business, so yes, after dumping my life savings into this and living like a pauper for 2 years I'll be charging for my software thank you very much.
So I will happily spend money on a distributed SCM if it helps me achive my goals (one of which is not breaking the bank however). So if your free SCM doesn't help me achieve my goals faster and easier than what I've got now then I don't want to use it, and that means it needs to integrate to some extent into Visual Studio and Windows Explorer.
To this end, Subversion is very easy to use; sadly, it is not distributed and has terrible rename support that messes up about once a week but it's manageable. TortoiseSVN not only works on an x64 machine (which I think more and more developers have – if your development tools don't support x64 yet then what the hell are you doing?!) but it actually exposes lots of the capabilities of Subversion (such as rename, for what that's worth). TortoiseBazaar, which I'd love to use doesn't even support rename yet, which is weird considering that proper rename support is Bazaar's claim to fame!
VisualSVN Server makes the server very easy to setup, and AnkhSvn 2.x is rock solid and wonderful so I can easily use Subversion from within VS2008.
BitKeeper, SurroundSCM don't post their prices which means I probably can't afford it, Code Co-Op (besides having a scary picture of a woman with a mustache on their home page) talks about the "latest" version of Visual Studio as 2005 (yikes), DARCS is apparently very buggy, and Monotone has a very cute mascot and no VS2008 or Windows Explorer tools whatsoever.
So I'm stuck with Subversion. Sigh.
I've never had an opportunity to use it, but people tell me it's pretty cool. I didn't think it was distributed though.
However, I really like the idea of everything being related to "work items".
I totally 100% agree to your statements… Whatever slows you down during development has to be replaced. Currently I have to work with JAVA EMF and RCP, and I've been working months and years before with .NET… It is a PAIN!
Hopefully SVN will emerge as a DVCS in the next major revision, so we can keep the good old tools like Tortoise or Ankh.
I sent BitKeeper an e-mail on Saturday, but so far I haven't heard back from them about their free trial.
I also strongly dislike it when they hide the price, saying "give us a call!" What is there to hide?
I called BitKeeper, and the sales guy tells me that they have next-to no GUI right now and that they are still heavily command line based. That explains why the linux guys were using it, and why I won't be.
I have been using Git for a little over a month now on a Vista64 machine with no major problems yet. Like you, I don't mind paying for something that saves me time, but Git seems like the best that is out there right now. It took me a couple of hours to completely set up. The installation is actually easy and has a graphical user interface (Tcl/Tk on top of command-line, no surprise) which works well, even though it won't minimize. It is very fast, has very good support for branch and merge, nice history view, easy to backup, and I think will work well for me when I hire on other developers. I love the idea of distributed SCM. However, where you need to customize the experience outside of the GUI (like setting it up to ignore the bin and obj directories in your projects globally), it is a bit cumbersome. Windows support feels very second-class vs what I expect is better support in Linux. I would prefer something fast and distributed and geared more towards Windows, but until I come across something better I will stick with Git. I'll be going to a free Microsoft event on TFS 2010 and I'll let you know what I think afterwards.
That's interesting about Git, thanks.
I am very interested in hearing about your TFS 2010 impressions.


text:
Remove This Item Author/s: A.A. Troitzky
Remove This Item Author/s: James Gelo
Remove This Item Author/s: Jonathan Tisdall
Remove This Item Author/s: Maurice Ashley
Remove This Item Author/s: Daniel A Yanofsky
Remove This Item Author/s: Thomas Wiswell
McFarland Publishing (1)
Tournament Chess (1)
Let's Play Checkers
This is regarded as one of the best books for the average player ever written. This modern textbook pays particular attention to the many problems confronting the average player. Besides an extensive game collection that shows the best restrictive lines for Black and White (thus reducing study to a minimum) it includes a new method for studying the Mid-Game.
Chess The Hard Way
'Chess the Hard Way'' is the autobiography of Daniel Abraham Yanofsky, who was not only Canada's first chess grandmaster buit was Canada's only grandmaster until the modern era. His career is remarkable. He was from a remote Indian town in Central Canada where there were no chess masters. Almost invariably, strong chess players only develop in places where there are strong players.
The Most Valuable Skills in Chess
From the Basic Moves to Winning Your First Game - And Beyond
This book makes his ideas and material available to all: teachers and students alike. He has been called the Tiger Woods of chess. In 1999, Maurice Ashley became the first African-American to qualify for the elite Grandmaster title, an achievement that was widely reported in the international media, including Time magazine, USA Today, New York Times, Sports Illustrated and The Times (London).
Collection of Chess Studies by Troitzky
Alexey Alexeyevich Troitzky (1866-1942) is considered to have been the greatest composer of chess endgame studies ever. To call him a genius is to trivialize his accomplishments, because there are many geniuses, but few can equal the output of Troitzky. In his lifetime, Troitzky composed more than one thousand chess endgame studies.
Chess World Championships - 2 Volume Set
All the Games - All With Diagrams - 1834-2004
Catalog Code: B0006MF
If you're looking for the ULTIMATE COLLECTION of World Championship Games, Look no further than this two-book collection from McFarland Publishing.
CLEARANCE - Short
All 41 games from the Candidates matches won against Jon Speelman, Boris Gelfand, Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman are given in full. Eight recent Short games are extensively analysed. Many other games have light notes.


ANOTHER OF THE CLINTON'S GIFTS TO ROTHSCHILDS BANKSTER MAFIA = MADE STUDENTS INTO DEBT SLAVES TO THE BANKSTERS! = STUDENTS CAN NEVER CLAIM BANKRUPTCY! | Concise Politics -- Your Time should NOT be wasted.
ANOTHER OF THE CLINTON'S GIFTS TO ROTHSCHILDS BANKSTER MAFIA = MADE STUDENTS INTO DEBT SLAVES TO THE BANKSTERS! = STUDENTS CAN NEVER CLAIM BANKRUPTCY!
FACT: Hillary supported "the bankers in making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy." = The Clintons' gift to the bankers.
FOREVER STUDENT LOANS = Encourages education to expand prices dramatically without any practical checks or balances. = US HIGHER EDUCATION AMONG HIGHEST IN THE WORLD!
AIPAC-ROTHSCHILDS BANKSTER MAFIA = LOVE THE CLINTONS AND THEIR AIPAC-TOOL PREVENTS US politicians from rising up in favor of students.
History = This will end very badly = ANOTHER SEED FOR CIVIL UNREST and a major political revolution down the road.
ROTHSCHILDS BANKSTER MAFIA = Converted student loans into a DEBTOR'S PRISON = IMMORAL + UNLAWFUL + ABUSIVE TO OUR CHILDREN!
CLINTON = IMMUNE TO 98% PEOPLE PRESSURE BUT EXTREMELY SENSITIVE TO BANKSTER MAFIA PRESSURES = SHE WILL NEVER admit that they did SUCH AN ILLEGAL EVIL!
PART OF THE ROTHSCHILDS MAFIA PLAN TO DUMB DOWN THE GOYIM (NON-JEWS)!
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← CLINTON ILLEGAL EMAIL SCAM = JAN 1 2016 SMOKING GUN SHOWS SHE KNOWINGLY ORDERED VIOLATION OF US LAWS!


▲ by brocantetit | 2007-12-20 18:38 | BROCANTETIT.
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▲ by brocantetit | 2007-12-07 15:14 | BROCANTETIT.
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We ensure each and every Wedding we coordinate has our full undivided attention from intial enquiry onwards. For that reason we limit the amount of Weddings we take on each year, so that we may really get to know you, your partner and your all important plans inside and out.
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text:
GM to lay off about 50 workers at Brownstown battery plant
In state filings Tuesday, GM said it will cut 50 jobs at its Brownstown battery plant, in addition to Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly layoffs.
GM to lay off about 50 workers at Brownstown battery plant In state filings Tuesday, GM said it will cut 50 jobs at its Brownstown battery plant, in addition to Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly layoffs. Check out this story on Freep.com: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2018/12/18/gm-layoffs-brownstown-plant/2352156002/
Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press Published 4:15 p.m. ET Dec. 18, 2018 | Updated 8:10 a.m. ET Dec. 19, 2018
General Motors announced plans to close three assembly plants, one each in Michigan, Ohio and Ontario before the end of 2019. Wochit
General Motors Brownstown Battery Assembly Plant worker Tina Oaks attaches wiring harnesses on a Spark EV battery pack Tuesday, May 13, 2014, in Brownstown.(Photo: John F. Martin for General Motors)
General Motors on Tuesday added about 50 employees in metro Detroit to the number of production employees who face losing their jobs.
In state filings Tuesday, GM said it will cut 50 jobs at its Brownstown battery plant at the same time it starts layoffs at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, which it said in November will be idled later in 2019. The Brownstown layoffs had not been previously disclosed.
The filings said the Brownstown workers and 620 Hamtramck employees will be laid off in February.
Detroit-Hamtramck makes the Chevrolet Volt electric car with gas backup and the Buick LaCrosse. The plant will end production of the LaCrosse and Volt by March 1. About 1,550 people work at Detroit-Hamtramck.
GM said it will provide notice of the remaining Detroit-Hamtramck layoffs "closer to the end of production for (Chevrolet) Impala and (Cadillac) CT6." Sixty days' notice of such layoffs is required by law.
The filing said the layoffs at Detroit-Hamtramck will begin Feb. 18, or in the 14 days before that, and impact about 620 hourly workers, 28 of whom are skilled trades employees.
The Brownstown facility, located Downriver west of Trenton, makes the lithium-ion batteries for the Volt and the mild hybrid LaCrosse.
GM will cut 37 hourly jobs and 13 salaried jobs in February at Brownstown, according to a state filing. The Brownstown plant opened in 2010 and employs 110 people, GM said.
A spokeswoman for GM said Brownstown will continue to support GM's Orion Assembly plant, which builds the Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles and self-driving Cruise EVs. Cruise is GM's autonomous vehicle division, based in San Francisco.
General Motors and Honda have announced a partnership to develop an autonomous vehicle for Cruise. Cruise Automation Generation 2 Bolt EV AV self-driving technology on the streets of San Francisco in November 2017. (Photo: Karl Nielsen)
In November, GM said it would end production at three assembly plants: Detroit-Hamtramck, Lordstown in Ohio and Oshawa in Canada — plus two transmission plants by the end of 2019. It is cutting more than 14,000 salaried and hourly jobs in the process and ending production of the Volt, LaCrosse, Chevrolet Impala, Chevrolet Cruze, Cadillac CT6 and Cadillac XTS sedans.
More: General Motors to close Detroit, Ohio, Canada plants
More: GM workers say they had 'no warning' of closure
The targeted plants make traditional sedans that have fallen out of favor as consumers shift to SUVs. Unless GM gives those plants new vehicles to build, they will shutter.
GM has said it will add a third vehicle next year to its production lineup at its plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee. A future Cadillac crossover will be assembled in Spring Hill. The underused plant already produces the crossover Cadillac XT5 and GMC Acadia midsize SUV.
The automaker has said many of the affected U.S. production workers at the factories in question are eligible for jobs at busy plants, including Flint, Lansing Grand River and Arlington, Texas. The UAW has disputed the practicality of transfers for many workers, and the affected communities note that they will suffer in any case.
More: GM wants to soften blow of layoffs for workers at closed plants
More: Why these 4 GM plants should be worried about closure risk
GM will also lay off nearly 6,000 of its white-collar workforce early next year, after 2,250 of them chose to take voluntary buy-out packages. The move is to trim costs and refocus resources on developing electric and self-driving cars. GM has said its salaried workforce skills must shift to the high-tech future of transportation.
GM leaders have dubbed the plant closures and job cuts a "restructuring" and "transition," saying the result will be a $6 billion cost saving by the end of 2020.
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com
Read or Share this story: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2018/12/18/gm-layoffs-brownstown-plant/2352156002/
Don't believe that student loan forgiveness pitch
Auto supplier plans to build $55M facility in Detroit
US women's soccer team pay vs. men will make you gag
Clock ticks as Ford awaits word from VW on deal
How Ross Perot became GM's biggest shareholder
Lee Iacocca remembered as a courteous family man


This traffic-free cross country run takes place in beautiful Alice Holt Forest, near Farnham and offers 5k, 10k and 21k distances. We also have a 2k fun run for children and a 5k juniors' distance – and a 21k team event.
2018 will be our tenth Bolt Round the Holt so promises to be an extra special celebration of all things running. Over the past decade, runners have raised tens of thousands of pounds for GUTS and have run the equivalent of running up Everest 7935 times!
To register or for more details, use the link below to the AAT website.
More information on the run, helping to marshal or sponsoring the event.


Saying that the FCC "has not kept pace with the times or the technology," Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) opened a hearing today into the FCC's methods for measuring broadband availability in the US. The US lags in speed, availability, and value, said Markey, compared to a country like Japan, where most residents can pay $30 a month for 50Mbps fiber connections to the Internet (which some senators would like to see migrate across the Pacific). But without accurate data on US broadband, neither the government nor private industry will be able to put forward a comprehensive national broadband plan.
Problems with the FCC's broadband data collection methodology have been well-known for years, and Congress is finally poised to step in and tell the agency how to fix the problem. The Broadband Census of America Act, currently in draft form, asks the FCC to increase its broadband threshold speed from 200Kbps to 2Mbps and to stop claiming that a ZIP code has broadband access if even a single resident in that ZIP code does. It also asks the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to prepare a map for the web that will show all this data in a searchable, consumer-friendly format.
The mood among the members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet was jovial; Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) even opened by asking (in reference to the proposed map), "Why do maps never win at poker?" The answer: "Because they always fold." Groan.
"More broadband" is one of those issues that every politician supports, and everyone agrees that the current system has problems, but there was still wrangling over important details. The most contentious of these was whether the government should mandate a definition for "high-speed Internet." Right now, that definition includes any connection over 200Kbps, which Markey wants to boost more than 10 times. 2Mbps is faster than many current DSL links, so part of the reasoning behind this change appears to have a public relations focus—telecommunications companies will want to boost their offerings to over 2Mbps in order to avoid the stigma of not providing "true" broadband.
The plan went over well with the consumer advocates who appeared before the subcommittee. Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America, said that the US is "stuck with a twentieth century Internet" and that he would support increasing the "broadband" definition to 2Mbps. Ben Scott of Free Press echoed that sentiment, suggesting that the definition needs to be an evolving standard that increases over time, which is in contrast to the current FCC definition; it has not changed in nine years. "We have always been limited by the FCC's inadequate and flawed data," he said.
Those from the industries that provide Internet connectivity were less thrilled about the approach, arguing that 768Kbps DSL lines in rural areas might not be speedy today but still remained a massive improvement over dial-up speeds and should still be counted. One proposal, made by several speakers, was summed up well by Steve Largent of the CTIA, which represents wireless telephone companies. He suggested that the FCC keep the current threshold at 200Kbps but provide more granularity so that users can see exactly which speed tiers are available in their neighborhoods. Many new broadband subscriptions are currently coming from wireless connections, which would nearly all be excluded under any definition that set a baseline of 2Mbps. Largent also stressed the need, acute in his industry, for more spectrum to deliver services, and he asked that the FCC's upcoming 700 MHz auction occur on schedule.
Kyle McSlarrow, who heads the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (and who was yesterday calling for a vastly reduced FCC), said that his group supported the goals of the subcommittee, but that the government must act cautiously in attempting to translate broadband data into a grand national strategy. "It's not like the marketplace isn't addressing consumer demand," pointing out that Comcast recently demoed 100Mbps cable technology.
The representatives appeared most interested in the testimony of Brian Mefford, CEO of ConnectKentucky. ConnectKentucky is a public/private partnership that has boosted broadband availability from 60 percent to more than 90 percent in just two and a half years and used mapping techniques to identify current gaps in service. Once those were discovered, the group helped to create a regulatory environment that encouraged private investment, then partnered with companies on a market-driven approach to rolling out new lines, even in rural areas. 80 percent of the funding came from state and federal government agencies, while 20 percent was put up by the companies involved. By the end of this year, 100 percent of Kentucky homes should be able to access broadband of at least 768Kbps.
No such public/private partnership exists on the national level, but Markey and others appeared greatly interested in Mefford's testimony, suggesting that a similar scheme could be introduced to Congress in the future. Such a plan had the support of several industry leaders, including Walter McCormick, head of the US Telecom Association, who would no doubt love to see federal money and support for extending services into low-profit regions.
The FCC, the whipping boy at the hearing, has heard enough of the criticism that it has started to take a hard look at its data collection policy, but major changes have yet to be introduced.


text:
Dr. Adsit throws first pitch at Renegades game
Dr. Jason N. Adsit, Mount Saint Mary College president, delivers one of the first pitches at the Hudson Valley Renegades game on Monday night.
With some enthusiastic support from his wife Heather and his five children, Dr. Jason N. Adsit, president of Mount Saint Mary College, threw one of the first pitches at a Hudson Valley Renegades game on Monday, August 27.
Thanks to an incredible five runs in the seventh inning, the 'Gades took the game 5-0 over the Staten Island Yankees.
It was a great night for the Mount community, which showed up in force to cheer on their new president and enjoy the local ballgame. Including students, faculty, staff, and their families, more than 200 members of the college community were in attendance.
Dr. Adsit, the Mount's seventh fulltime president, began his tenure on June 1. He joins the Mount family from D'Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y., where he served as Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Education, as well as Director of the Educational Leadership Doctoral Program.
An accomplished author and speaker, Dr. Adsit earned a doctoral degree in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from American University in Washington, DC.
Earlier on Monday, about 2,400 students began or resumed bachelor's and master's degree programs at the Mount, ranked a Top-Tier Regional University by U.S. News & World Report. The college welcomed nearly 400 freshmen from as far away as California and more than 100 transfer students.


text:
International Assistance 1480
pie_chartStatistics
Amount Approved
Funded by Committee Italy (2008-2019) India (2011-2019) Partnerships (2013-2018) Finland (2013-2019) Rep. of Korea (2013-2019) Philippines (2015-2019) Turkey (2015-2019) Czech Rep. (2004-2005) Germany (2017-2017)
No Funding
Result Publish
Decision Dates
Year of creation 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978
Year of submission 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978
Year of Decision 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978
Year Terminated 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978
Budget Year 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978
Revision of the Tentative List
Creation of the Tentative List
Preparation of Nomination
Prep. of Technical cooperation request
Not approved
Reapprovals
Original approvals
Final Reapprovals
Finals and originals
Type & Category
N°: 1480
Emergency Technical Co-operation for the enhancement of conservation and management of the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras
Approved amount
Decision Date
Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras
Amount Requested: 0 USD
Type of Assistance: Mixed / Emergency
Previous Id: 2002-703
World Bank: LMC
Decision: Approved
Decision by: Committee
Approved amount: 75,000 USD
Decision Date: 16 Dec 2001
25COM XVIII.6 expand_more
Code: 25COM XVIII.6
XVIII.6.1 NATURAL Seychelles
Enhancing the capacity of Aldabra Atoll management: The Secretariat informed the Committee that IUCN, while supporting the request had underlined the importance of ensuring that the boats and the engines purchased have minimal pollution and are easily maintained. The Committee approved US$44,150 for this activity, requesting the Centre to ensure through the UNESCO equipment purchasing unit that the engines purchased have minimum pollution emission and can be maintained.
XVIII.6.2 NATURAL Zimbabwe
Increasing the management capacity of Mosi-oatunya/ Victoria Falls and Mana Pools National Parks: The Centre informed the Committee that the State Party had paid its dues to the World Heritage Fund, and that additional information concerning the assessment of the current situation, particularly concerning existing equipment, had not yet reached the Centre. However, the Committee was informed that the State Party had assured the Centre that this additional information had been transmitted. Therefore, the Committee approved this request for an amount of US$63,708 on the condition that the Centre and IUCN receive the additional information, and the allocation of funds be made upon authorization by the Chairperson.
XVIII.6.3 CULTURAL The Philippines
Emergency Technical Co-operation for the enhancement of the conservation and management of the Rice Terraces of the Philippines Cordilleras: The Centre informed the Committee that the Advisory Bodies supported the request. The Committee approved US$75,000 subject to the State Party paying its dues to the World Heritage Fund, and requested that the national authorities implement the activity in close co-operation with the UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in the Asia-Pacific Region (UNESCO Bangkok Office).
Read more about the decision
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text:
package commands

import (
	"bytes"
	"errors"
	"io"
	"strings"
	"text/template"
	"time"

	cmds "github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/commands"
	diag "github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/diagnostics"
)

type DiagnosticConnection struct {
	ID string
	// TODO use milliseconds or microseconds for human readability
	NanosecondsLatency uint64
	Count              int
}

var (
	visD3   = "d3"
	visDot  = "dot"
	visFmts = []string{visD3, visDot}
)

type DiagnosticPeer struct {
	ID                string
	UptimeSeconds     uint64
	BandwidthBytesIn  uint64
	BandwidthBytesOut uint64
	Connections       []DiagnosticConnection
}

type DiagnosticOutput struct {
	Peers []DiagnosticPeer
}

var DefaultDiagnosticTimeout = time.Second * 20

var DiagCmd = &cmds.Command{
	Helptext: cmds.HelpText{
		Tagline: "Generates diagnostic reports.",
	},

	Subcommands: map[string]*cmds.Command{
		"net":  diagNetCmd,
		"sys":  sysDiagCmd,
		"cmds": ActiveReqsCmd,
	},
}

var diagNetCmd = &cmds.Command{
	Helptext: cmds.HelpText{
		Tagline: "Generates a network diagnostics report.",
		ShortDescription: `
Sends out a message to each node in the network recursively
requesting a listing of data about them including number of
connected peers and latencies between them.

The given timeout will be decremented 2s at every network hop,
ensuring peers try to return their diagnostics before the initiator's
timeout. If the timeout is too small, some peers may not be reached.
30s and 60s are reasonable timeout values, though networks vary.
The default timeout is 20 seconds.

The 'vis' option may be used to change the output format.
Four formats are supported:
 * plain text - Easy to read. Default.
 * d3 - json ready to be fed into d3view
 * dot - graphviz format

The 'd3' format will output a json object ready to be consumed by
the chord network viewer, available at the following hash:

    /ipfs/QmbesKpGyQGd5jtJFUGEB1ByPjNFpukhnKZDnkfxUiKn38

To view your diag output, 'ipfs add' the d3 vis output, and
open the following link:

	http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbesKpGyQGd5jtJFUGEB1ByPjNFpukhnKZDnkfxUiKn38/chord#<your hash>

The dot format can be fed into graphviz and other programs
that consume the dot format to generate graphs of the network.
`,
	},

	Options: []cmds.Option{
		cmds.StringOption("vis", "Output vis. One of: "+strings.Join(visFmts, ", ")),
	},

	Run: func(req cmds.Request, res cmds.Response) {
		n, err := req.InvocContext().GetNode()
		if err != nil {
			res.SetError(err, cmds.ErrNormal)
			return
		}

		if !n.OnlineMode() {
			res.SetError(errNotOnline, cmds.ErrClient)
			return
		}

		vis, _, err := req.Option("vis").String()
		if err != nil {
			res.SetError(err, cmds.ErrNormal)
			return
		}

		timeoutS, _, err := req.Option("timeout").String()
		if err != nil {
			res.SetError(err, cmds.ErrNormal)
			return
		}
		timeout := DefaultDiagnosticTimeout
		if timeoutS != "" {
			t, err := time.ParseDuration(timeoutS)
			if err != nil {
				res.SetError(errors.New("error parsing timeout"), cmds.ErrNormal)
				return
			}
			timeout = t
		}

		info, err := n.Diagnostics.GetDiagnostic(req.Context(), timeout)
		if err != nil {
			res.SetError(err, cmds.ErrNormal)
			return
		}

		switch vis {
		case visD3:
			res.SetOutput(bytes.NewReader(diag.GetGraphJson(info)))
		case visDot:
			buf := new(bytes.Buffer)
			w := diag.DotWriter{W: buf}
			err := w.WriteGraph(info)
			if err != nil {
				res.SetError(err, cmds.ErrNormal)
				return
			}
			res.SetOutput(io.Reader(buf))
		default:
			output, err := stdDiagOutputMarshal(standardDiagOutput(info))
			if err != nil {
				res.SetError(err, cmds.ErrNormal)
				return
			}
			res.SetOutput(output)
		}
	},
}

func stdDiagOutputMarshal(output *DiagnosticOutput) (io.Reader, error) {
	buf := new(bytes.Buffer)
	err := printDiagnostics(buf, output)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	return buf, nil
}

func standardDiagOutput(info []*diag.DiagInfo) *DiagnosticOutput {
	output := make([]DiagnosticPeer, len(info))
	for i, peer := range info {
		connections := make([]DiagnosticConnection, len(peer.Connections))
		for j, conn := range peer.Connections {
			connections[j] = DiagnosticConnection{
				ID:                 conn.ID,
				NanosecondsLatency: uint64(conn.Latency.Nanoseconds()),
				Count:              conn.Count,
			}
		}

		output[i] = DiagnosticPeer{
			ID:                peer.ID,
			UptimeSeconds:     uint64(peer.LifeSpan.Seconds()),
			BandwidthBytesIn:  peer.BwIn,
			BandwidthBytesOut: peer.BwOut,
			Connections:       connections,
		}
	}
	return &DiagnosticOutput{output}
}

func printDiagnostics(out io.Writer, info *DiagnosticOutput) error {
	diagTmpl := `
{{ range $peer := .Peers }}
ID {{ $peer.ID }} up {{ $peer.UptimeSeconds }} seconds connected to {{ len .Connections }}:{{ range $connection := .Connections }}
	ID {{ $connection.ID }} connections: {{ $connection.Count }} latency: {{ $connection.NanosecondsLatency }} ns{{ end }}
{{end}}
`

	templ, err := template.New("DiagnosticOutput").Parse(diagTmpl)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	err = templ.Execute(out, info)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	return nil
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Alberta premier Jason Kenney, right and Doug Schweitzer, Minister of Justice and Solicitor General, provide details about Bill 13, the Alberta Senate Election Act., in Edmonton Alta, on Wednesday June 26, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Kenney says Alberta will study already 'compelling case' to leave CPP
Premier says panel will look at issue as a way to assess 'fairness' for Alberta within nation
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says there's a "compelling case" to be made for his province to exit the half-century-old Canada Pension Plan — an idea sure to face increasing scrutiny over the coming months.
With growing frustrations in his province about its place in the federation, Kenney has revealed that a deeper analysis is on the way to consider Alberta's potential withdrawal from the national pension plan.
The move, if it goes forward, would pull Albertans' multibillion-dollar share from the $400-billion pool of assets that are handled by the investment manager, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
The proposed departure, Kenney said, will be examined by a panel his government intends to create as a way to assess "fairness" for Alberta within the federation.
Talk of the CPP withdrawal follows a federal election result late last month that many say exemplified Prairie frustration toward the Liberal government in Ottawa. The federal Liberals were reduced to a minority mandate after failing to capture a single seat in Alberta or Saskatchewan.
There's also been momentum behind separatist sentiments in the two resource-dependent provinces, where their economies have struggled through a commodity downturn.
Much of the anger has been directed at Ottawa and other parts of Canada — which are accused of preventing the landlocked Prairie provinces from getting their natural resources to the coast for export.
Now, Kenney is ready to take a long look at ditching the CPP — which has been in place everywhere in Canada, except Quebec, since the mid-1960s. Quebec has been managing its own sister pension plan.
"I can certainly tell you that will be one of the issues studied by the panel that I will be appointing to consult with Albertans on fighting for a fair deal in Canada," the Alberta premier said in a recent video clip, which was posted last week on Facebook.
"I believe that a compelling case can be made for such a shift."
In his message, Kenney said he understands about $40 billion worth of Albertans' premiums are managed by the CPPIB.
He said the funds, if pulled from the CPPIB, would be transferred to the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, also known as AIMCo. The institutional investor, which includes the province's public-sector pension plans, already manages about $100 billion in assets for Alberta taxpayers, he said.
READ MORE: 'Wexit' applies to become a federal political party
With Alberta home to Canada's youngest population, he added it's the biggest net contributor to the CPP.
"Let me underscore, our government has not made any decision in this respect — but it is certainly one of the ideas that people will be presenting to our panel on fairness within the federation," Kenney said.
The premier argued the extra funds would enable AIMCo to diversify further and potentially improve the returns over time. Kenney also noted that Quebec has responsibly managed its own pension plan outside of CPP for decades.
Kevin Milligan, a University of British Columbia economist, said Alberta's proposed exit from the CPP should be taken seriously given it's coming from the premier.
Any push by Alberta to abandon the CPP is a much more credible suggestion than the debate about equalization, given the pension plan is a joint federal-provincial project with exit provisions, while equalization is a federal program, Milligan said.
"I do wonder what the goal of this is," he said of Alberta's possible withdrawal from the CPP. "Alberta could certainly do this — it is in their rights to do so. But in doing so they would have to set up their own administration, set up their own benefits structures… and these things are not cost-free."
Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press
Alberta to prevent lawsuits against homeowners who stand up to criminals
Soccer community supports 16-year-old recovering from collision


text:
Manoeuvring trials with the MUN Explorer AUV: data analysis and observations
Resolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/OCEANS.2007.4449330
Search for: Issac, M. T.; Search for: Adams, S.; Search for: He, M.; Search for: Bose, N.; Search for: Williams, C. D.; Search for: Bachmayer, R.; Search for: Crees, T.
Oceans '07 [Proceedings]
Oceans '07, 29 September-4 October 2007, Vancouver, BC
Manoeuvring trials are usually performed to determine the manoeuvring characteristics of a marine vehicle. It is through certain standard manoeuvres we evaluate the robustness, performance and limitations of the vehicle control system. A series of open-water manoeuvring trials were performed using the MUN Explorer AUV in the summer of 2006. The actual purpose of these experiments was to collect a set of experimental data in order to validate a hydrodynamic model of the dynamic performance of the vehicle. This paper presents the results and observations from the analysis of a set of manoeuvring trials data: in particular the results from straightline (acceleration - deceleration) tests and turning circles. It outlines briefly the method by which these tests were conducted and discusses the results and observations made. Apart from providing a data set for validation purposes, the results also indicate the ability of the vehicle to follow a pre-planned mission with precision.
6fc0007d-8131-4159-985a-d81c59822f24


This page shows businesses on West Town Drive. Click on a business to bring up its details and a map showing its location.
Dorringtons is a firm of builders who do various building work on different property types.
Map showing West Town Drive in Bristol.


text:
Becoming a Pro-feminist Male in the Military
Home / Podcast / Becoming a Pro-feminist Male in the Military
Revealing Men
Trey Sumner, lead facilitator for the Men's Resource Center of West Michigan's Altogether Boys program returns to the Revealing Men podcast to talk about his experience in the armed services and how he developed into a pro-feminist male while serving in the military. Sumner served for 26 years and four deployments. His military duties included Chinook door gunner and Flight Operations for MEDEVAC. In this conversation, he and Randy Flood, psychotherapist, and Director of the Men's Resource Center explore how the concepts of masculinity and masculine identity can include compassion and thoughtfulness while retaining courage and strength. Excerpts from the conversation are below (edited for length and clarity). You can access the entire discussion on the Revealing Men podcast.
This is the last in a series of four podcasts featuring men who reveal their personal experiences with abuse, violence, and bullying. The series provides insight as to how males are often socialized to accept emotional and physical abuse and pain—suck it up—and how that primes them to pass this abuse forward. Each man interviewed identifies how he has experienced abuse and how a new self-awareness allows a revisioning of masculinity where the cycle of abuse is no longer accepted or mindlessly passed down. Sumner spoke earlier in this series about his experience with bullying.
The two additional podcasts in this series are:
Counseling Changed His Life – an abusive man's experience with counseling.
One Man's Story of Surviving Domestic Abuse – a man finds new life and strength after being abused.
Living up to Macho Stereotypes
Flood: Welcome, Trey!
Sumner: Thank you.
Flood: You and I met after you came out of the gender studies program at Grand Valley [State University] and started working in the Altogether Boys program. But, prior to that, you had this incredible experience of serving in the Army, and finding your pro-feminist wings, shall we say.
Sumner: When I joined the military, I went into combat arms, which is very hyper-aggressive. My whole experience there, I wasn't always completely comfortable. I was trying to fit a mold. I was trying to make my dad happy: "Look how tough I can be!"
Flood: How old were you when you went in?
Sumner: I was 20. My dad had told me I wasn't tough enough to join the Army and I should've joined the Air Force. So, I was like, "I'm going to go be a tough guy." That's what I did.
Flood: Did he serve?
Sumner: Yes. He was in Vietnam. He was in the Air Force.
Flood: Okay. So, you graduated from high school. Did you think about just going into work? Or college?
Sumner: I started to go to college. I just didn't really have any direction. My sister's fiancé was in the National Guard. He's the one that encouraged me to join. I was a door gunner in a Chinook unit for a while and then I switched into MEDEVAC. A transition I thought was going to be easier as an experience. When I got to MEDEVAC that was the first time I'd ever worked with women in the military in a substantial capacity. There aren't any women in combat arms. We saw women in logistical places. So, there was a very macho, very misogynistic mentality around everything. But I didn't realize.
Flood: Were you part of it at that point? Were you just immersed in it?
Sumner: Absolutely.
Flood: Were you just like the fish swimming in water? Not knowing where.
Sumner: I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I fit all the roles and I did all the things. It wasn't until I got into MEDEVAC and I deployed with MEDEVAC that I realized what an incredible Boys Club the military really is and just how difficult it is for women.
Pushing Back Against the Male Code
Sumner: The biggest fear for people when pushing back against the military is you don't want to make anybody mad because you're not going to be able to advance in rank. I did not want any more rank than I had, so I had no advancement ambitions. That gave me the freedom to speak honestly—not rudely, but honestly—about things that I saw. What I saw was just a horrific way that women were treated and it struck me. It just really struck me.
Flood: What year was this?
Sumner: It was 2009. It was when the military was talking about repealing "Don't ask, Don't tell" and so it was a perfect storm that came together that I fortunately came out on the right side of. I had very strong feelings about "Don't ask, Don't tell." I thought that was a ridiculous policy. It was stupid. I strongly encouraged repealing it. And actually, I made an argument with my commander and my chaplain for a long time. I'm like, "We're saying that we accept gays in the military but the one thing that makes a gay relationship different from mine is still illegal in the Army. How is that open to that?" So, in an attempt to support my fellow soldiers that were not heterosexual, I painted my toenails pink for a year. And that freaked out a whole bunch of people. [Laughs.]
Flood: Say a little bit about this male code. You said there's also male socialization that's bigger than the Army or the service, and then there's something more specific, kind of a microcosm of masculinity, that you were following and others were pressured by.
Sumner: There's a couple of examples. One soldier of mine, she was the "problem child" and they gave her to me because I was supposed to be the tough guy. She, after three months of working with me, came into my office crying and I'm like, "what's wrong?" And she's like, "you're the only leader that's never tried to have sex with me." [Flood: "Oh, wow."] She wasn't a problem child. She just didn't want to f**k everybody. And that's a real thing in the military in a very harsh way.
Another soldier I worked with was in charge of a lot of things. When you're MEDEVAC it's like a commune, everybody is on call all the time. Everybody has to stay in this area and you just have to work together. You share responsibilities. And, when he divided up the responsibilities, there were two women on our site, on our team, and guess who got laundry and sweeping? Every time. Because that's women's work in this guy's head. Just so many things that I saw were just weird. You saw that misogyny accentuated, hyper-accentuated and put into place.
Awakening to a Pro-feminist Mentality
Flood: So, it's that rigid, gender binary that was playing out and everybody had their gender scripts and that's what you saw. Say more about what kinds of experiences or relationships you had or insights you had or reflections that started your evolution or transformation into thinking in a more, let's call it "pro-feminist" ideology.
Sumner: Yeah. So, that was my fourth deployment, and having had experience with that, I knew it was important to have something to do besides your military job to keep you going for that year. I always encourage people to learn another language, go to college. And I had decided I was going to go to college. Because I hadn't been—I was 39 at the time—and I was going to ask my kids to go and I thought I should do it then too.
I started looking into what I wanted to study and I was just going with what was interesting. And what was topical at the time for me were these gender issues that were shining like bright flashy lights in front of me every day. And the "Don't ask, Don't tell," being repealed or being questioned. So, that's what I found interesting and that was the way I started focusing my attention. There's a very clear "a-ha" moment I had. I didn't have the words then to say why I knew it was wrong, but I knew that calling other guys "pussys" was something wrong. I didn't have the complete understanding that, yes, what I'm doing is associating you with a woman and that's weak, and so, therefore, by calling you that I'm just lowering women on the totem pole and that's wrong.
Stepping Outside the Man Box
Flood: This is like the man box. You get forced into a box that's rigid, that you have to stay in, and if you get outside that box—show some kind of weakness/femininity/something that's anti-male—then you shame people with names such as "sissy," "pussy," to say "stop being a girl," "stop being a gay man," "be a real man and get back in the box."
Sumner: Right. And when I did that, I also made a conscious decision to challenge other guys who did it. And that started the ball rolling. Now all of a sudden, I got labeled. Now I'm the "sissy," and all the names that came with it and all the associations.
Flood: You were removing yourself or challenging the tribal script.
Sumner: Absolutely. In fact, I remember, there was one pilot one time, … all the men would go, all the tough guys would go play Backgammon. I don't like Backgammon.
Flood: I didn't realize Backgammon was a tough guy sport!
Sumner: It's a pilot thing. I don't know; it was their thing. I wouldn't go and they were like, "oh, it's because you're gay." [Laughs.] I was like "sure, that's what it is." [Both: Laugh.] I would then go into the rec room and hang out with the female soldiers, and I'm like, "I guess that makes me gay. Instead of going into a room with you!" That just kind of reframed me in everybody else's mind and I was totally comfortable with that. The irony, I guess, is that the military gave me the self-confidence and the assuredness where I was like, "this is what I think and if you don't like it, I don't care."
Rewriting the Masculinity Script
Flood: What we associate, oftentimes with masculine qualities, like courage, like power, independence, autonomy, a real man takes a stand. You took what was very masculine and used that energy or those traits to be a pro-feminist. It took a lot of courage, a lot of strength to be able to stand away from the pack and deal with the pressure, or deal with the negative feedback you were getting, the harassment, bullying, or whatever occurred.
Sumner: I am pro-feminist, but that's not what was going on in my head. [Flood: "At the time."] I was recognizing that the posturing that I was doing, that the presenting I was doing, that all these things I was doing, weren't making me happy and I didn't like who I was.
Flood: What do you mean it didn't make you happy? What did you notice?
Sumner: When hyper-aggressive men get together, we extract so many wonderful things of what it means to be human from what it means to be a man. I can be strong. I can be tough. That doesn't mean I have to be a jerk. I don't have to be rude. I don't have to be mean. That's not what a man is but that's what we associate [it with]. I didn't like who I was and I think that has a profound impact on us as individuals. I found that when I made the intentional conscious decision to say "I want to be a complete human," and therefore, I don't need to behave in this very narrow script, because these aren't the behaviors that I wanted to exhibit.
Flood: The process of busting out of the man box was actually freeing and liberating.
Sumner: Yes, absolutely. What I knew was that I was in a lot of pain inside, and it was a lot of pain that had been inflicted upon me, a lot of pain I had inflicted upon myself. And I also had pain from things I had inflicted upon others, perpetuating that cycle. I didn't like it. And, to be honest, I got lucky. That's a crossroad and most men, in my experience, at that crossroad, go into an angry, depressed, violent [mode], find a way to exercise your power where you can. You get to that point where you realize that we want to dominate the world and we're not going to. So, we dominate what we can, which tends to be our partners, our spouses, our children, our animals. I didn't want to be that. I didn't like that.
How to Better Train and Support "Tough Guys"
Flood: Do you think that as you became more in touch with your own pain, that gave you the ability to be more empathic to the targets of men's aggressions? And that helped you then have the courage to speak up or stand up.
Sumner: Absolutely. And that's a process that's still painful today because now all of a sudden, I'm going "Wait! We can't do these things." And these were things that I was doing that were a part of my learning process. I had to unlearn a lot of things and I still am. So, yeah, it was difficult. But what I have found is—and this is something that I've tried very hard to teach the boys that I work with—owning when you're wrong doesn't make you weak, it makes you right. There is so much freedom. I'm always like, I know it's scary, I know it is, it sounds scary but once you really embrace being a complete human being, it's very freeing and very empowering. It just makes everything easier.
Flood: Right. So, we have the military. We always will, most likely. How do you look at it today? If you went back as a 20-year-old with your current knowledge and insights, how would you serve your country and do what you're trained to do? While at the same time, trying to be connected to your heart, to empathy, to respect. How do you pull that off? Give me a sense of whether you have a vision of how that can be done, just to project this idea that we can do something that's traditionally masculine while being human, even though we know the military is, we have some questions about its role and purpose in an imperfect world. I'm wondering how you envision that.
Sumner: That's a really difficult question to answer because when you say the military—and this happens a lot—people say "the military" and you think it's just one big thing. The military is so different; it's as different as people. You couldn't say "society" and then just come up with one thing we need to do. It's just too complex. But I think that in the more cerebral parts within the military, I mean when you're talking with Air Force and Navy people that are working in NASA, I think that that's a different set of problems than when you're dealing with the high school dropouts that are all grunts, and infantry soldiers, and bully catchers. I think this is where you find the meat of the problem, in the combat arms.
And there's a lot of reasons behind that, and it's a difficult problem, it's a wicked problem. Because how do you take a group of men and quickly break them down, build them into a team. I mean it's a very effective tool, to do what they want to do. The real question now is do we need to do this?
Flood: As much as we have done.
Sumner: That's right. And that's where I think it is possible to be that tough guy—I mean firemen do it, policemen do it, soldiers—to have that training and the capability to go do violent, dangerous things. It's important that we have people that can do that. But we also need to take care of those people.
Courage is Not the Absence of Fear
Flood: It's interesting that you're talking about firefighters and police officers. I remember working with a firefighter and he said, "You know, it would take more courage for me to tell my fellow firefighters that I'm scared to run into that burning building. It doesn't mean I don't run into that burning building! I just do it because it's the right thing to do, but to acknowledge my fear, would take more courage than actually running in there." I was thinking of just that idea that courage is really about, it's not about not having fear, it's about being able to acknowledge you have it and then you still carry forward with the mission.
Sumner: And I have found, in the last half of my military life, or the last few years of it, where I got to a point in my life where I said yes, I will embrace the complexity of what it is to be human. And that means owning when you're afraid. And being afraid doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. It doesn't mean that you're going to fail, but you've got to acknowledge that. And I found young soldiers need that leadership. I think young people, we all do, we all look for that kind of leadership. I had so many young soldiers that were drawn to me in the end of my career and it's because they were in an emotional desert. And there are a lot of reasons why I think that's happened in our military. It's complex.
Flood: I remember Shelley Irwin [WGVU Morning Show] interviewing some paratroopers that jumped on D-Day. There were two or three men in their 90s and I remember she asked the question, "were you scared to jump?" The 90-something-year-old man said, "Oh Miss Irwin, we were very scared. But we knew we had to jump because we had these people who needed help down there." And I thought that was very sweet that these men were able to acknowledge that as 19- or 20-year-old men they were scared as hell to jump, but they did it because it was a mission and it was noble to do it.
What Wholehearted Leadership Looks Like
Flood: You know you see that "No Fear" sign in the back of a big pickup truck to try to prove masculinity: "I don't have fear." But real masculinity, full masculinity, is about "yeah, you have fear," because you're a human, but how do you carry forward with the mission of pushing through it?
Sumner: I have an example that popped into my head [about] a very high-ranking man in the battalion, a decorated man who has all the tough guy cred that you could imagine. We were sitting outside—it was the smoking area and everybody was standing out there—that's where everybody hangs out and talks shop, and there was an ant carrying this massive crumb and he looked and he said, "You see that ant? It's been traveling all day. It got all the way to here to bring this back," and then he squashed it.
And everybody laughed. And I looked around, and this was at the very tail end of my career so I had no fear of pointing out something and I was just like, "what are you doing?" I pushed back on that. And I'm not saying that to point out that I was courageous. The other men that were there, afterward, were like "thank God you said something." And I'm like, "Why didn't you? Jump in there!"
Flood: The pressure from the man pack; you don't say something to the man in power.
Sumner: Yup. You don't push back. But I tell you what. That guy respects me more than he does those people. Because I'm not afraid to say that was wrong. It doesn't mean I don't respect him; I don't respect his rank, I do. And I follow orders. But that was just a bad incident and nobody would say anything.
Flood: You reminded me of something. I had a lieutenant colonel in one of my men's therapy groups. [The] first session he came in, one guy had an expression of sadness and was crying in the group. The guys were supporting him and he [the lieutenant colonel] said to me, "if this shit is contagious, I don't think I am going to stay in this group." And then, he stayed and he realized there were different types of courage and he began to honor the type of courage it takes for someone to open up and be honest and real. This man grew to respect men who had the courage to sit down in a circle and share their hearts.
Sumner: That's awesome. I love that! And it doesn't make that man weak.
Flood: No. He still served. He was still in the National Guard or something leading as a lieutenant colonel. It didn't stop him from being able to perform leadership, but it gave him more of a chance to be a complete human being by sitting in a circle with other men and sharing his heart.
Sumner: There was a young soldier who made a pretty big mistake on a training exercise with me; [it] actually hurt me personally. And there was a time gap—I got stranded somewhere—and it took me a couple of hours to get back to the base. And, by the time I did, he, everybody, was terrified. He thought I was going to murder him, I think, literally. This guy only knew my past, he didn't know who I was. And one of my friends had kind of set him up for failure, and was like, "Sergeant Sumner's coming? You are smoked!"
And I got there, and we sat down and had a talk for about three minutes about how to do it better, and I got up and left. And he came back to me later. He was like "you have no idea that changed me." He literally thought I was going to hit him and he was ready for it—and he was like, "but, instead we talked through it." And I feel like that just opened up something in him. That was a cool opportunity for me.
Flood: It's a different kind of leadership. He probably had a great level of respect for you and you could get him to do a lot of things for you and for a good mission.
Sumner: And I think that's a better way.
Flood: I appreciate you coming and sharing.
Sumner: And I appreciate you, Randy, for letting me come in here and talk about these things. This is as good for me as it is for you.
Becoming Fully Human Doesn't Mean Losing Your Manhood
Trey Sumner helped young men and women in the armed forces grow in strength and confidence, not by being a bully but by showing care and recognizing the full humanity of those around him. He retained his masculine identify while developing his more empathetic traits. At the Men's Resource Center, we help men find the courage and strength within themselves to become fully human. We provide programs that address PTSD and trauma as well as online support groups and in-person counseling.
If you're looking for more information about these or other counseling services, please explore our website or give us a call at (616) 456-1178. Also, feel free to contact us on our website if you have questions about this segment, ideas for a topic, or would like to be a guest on the Revealing Men podcast.
By Mens Resource Center|2021-03-22T17:01:15-04:00March 24th, 2021|
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We love football at SC Carts! And even more than we love football, we love when our customers' want football inspired custom golf carts. This week we're starting on a Saskatchewan Rough Riders cart … check out the beginning of this cool cart!
We are not wasting anytime getting in the paint booth with this cart. We have the body prepped and ready from epoxy sealer! Then we will be able to start laying down some awesome paint.
There is no way a Roughrider's cart can be stock height, this mean machine is getting a 3″ lift with a super cool wheel and tire package.
The tear down is complete and if this cart had feelings it would be blushing as it is virtually naked! But we will fix that soon enough.
wait a minute not only the SC Carts Speedster motor but the SC Carts Speedster Plus, this is the Precedent you want on your defensive line!
With all these goodies are you really going to want to miss next week, I don't think so, come back next Tuesday and see what is going on!


The DSM moves towards officially pathologizing grief and bereavement. The practice of doing so, is, of course, not new. Lots of people already begin their journeys on psych meds as a result of a death or loss that is then medicated.
This is an important enough issue to bring up again even though NPR did a story a couple of weeks ago and I covered it then. If you've not read my commentary from that piece it works for this piece too. Read it here.
A startling suggestion is buried in the fine print describing proposed changes for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — perhaps better known as the D.S.M. 5, the book that will set the new boundary between mental disorder and normality. If this suggestion is adopted, many people who experience completely normal grief could be mislabeled as having a psychiatric problem.
Suppose your spouse or child died two weeks ago and now you feel sad, take less interest and pleasure in things, have little appetite or energy, can't sleep well and don't feel like going to work. In the proposal for the D.S.M. 5, your condition would be diagnosed as a major depressive disorder.


Very cute and move in ready 3BR 2BA house on corner lot! Open floor plan, new flooring and over-sized bedrooms! Great one level home and ready for new owners!
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It is Sunday morning in the main square of the indigenous town of Cherán, Mexico where the ringing of church bells clash with music from the youth community radio station. Election day has come to the Mexican state of Michoacán, but here in Cherán nobody is voting.
For the last three years this community of around 11,000 people has been caught up in Mexican President Felipe Calderón's war on drugs. As gangs of illegal loggers backed by the local drug cartel and aided by local politicians encroached further onto the community's land, with them came threats, abduction and murder.
Since April, the town has been sealed off in a bid to protect its future. Local and federal authorities are not welcome, politicians even less so. Barricades at the entrance to the town are manned 24-hours a day and members of the community keep vigil around fires in the street.
With local government no longer in charge, the town is now run by commissions, covering all aspects of town life from security to education, made up of around 60 local residents. What is missing, and what the people of Cherán now want, is to elect their own town representatives in line with indigenous tradition.
Mr. Ramírez, one of those running the Commission for Security, explains that elected residents will now do the work once done by politicians, but with one major difference, they will not represent any political party.
In boycotting the regional elections, the people of Cherán are making a statement against local politics. Sitting at his desk surround by papers, Father Antonio Mora, one of the town's priests, knows only too well the trouble traditional politics can bring. He moved to the community three years ago and found the town deeply divided along political lines. He explains that as political divisions worsened, organized crime took advantage of the split to drive a further wedge between members of the community.
Santiago Tapia, one of the members of the Commission of Coordination, which oversees the organization of the commissions, agrees pointing out that local politicians are often affiliated with organized crime. "Not having political parties here is a way of protecting ourselves," he states simply. In the past he explains, only two people were elected to run the town. Having so few people in charge meant not only were they vulnerable to threats from local criminal gangs, but they were also more likely to be corrupted. The town will now elect 12 people to oversee the running of Cherán. Tapia believes that by putting power into the hands of many greatly reduces the risk of corruption. "Our new system is a way of ensuring that organized crime does not find a way into the village," he states.
Residents of Cherán were hoping to name their new representatives the same day as the elections in Michoacán, but a legal hitch has meant delaying the announcement until the end of the month.
Unity is important for those involved in the running of Cherán. "If the town is able to stay organized and united it will progress," says one of the members of the Commission of Honor and Justice, who wished to remain anonymous. "We need to make people aware that we are in a process of change, a society different to what we had before," he adds. Those marching later that afternoon certainly agree. As demonstrators of all ages set off from the five barricades on the edge of town and made their way through each of the four neighborhoods, they called on those watching to unite and join them. "Those who stand and watch are also with our fight," they chanted. As the march of around 2,500 demonstrators entered the main square, Upside Down World, spoke with Juan, a 60-year-old artisan. "I'm marching because I am pleased that there were no state elections," he states. He says the government needs to understand that the town is serious about looking after its own affairs.