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Albion must sink the Swans
Published on: 1 Feb 2016 Author: Jon Want
A little over five weeks since the two sides met in the Liberty Stadium on Boxing Day, the fixture computer pitches West Bromwich Albion and Swansea City against one another once more, this time at the Hawthorns. It's a massive game for both sides who sit in 14th and 15th places in the Premier League table, nervously eyeing the bottom three.
With just one win in the last six games in all competitions, Albion are in desperate need of a morale-boosting victory. They had the perfect opportunity against League One Peterborough on Saturday, but they came up short with Posh equalising twice in the last 11 minutes as the Baggies put in yet another lacklustre display. That means yet another midweek fixture for Albion next week, which will make it two games a week for five weeks in seven since Christmas.
Swansea, on the other hand, had a weekend off having been knocked out of the FA Cup by League Two Oxford United in the third round and are buoyed by consecutive victories over Watford and Everton that has seen them pull four points clear of the relegation zone. A win over the Baggies will see the two clubs swap places, while a win for Albion will open up a six point gap.
Tony Pulis was severely criticised for his starting line-up on Boxing Day as he went ultra-defensive against a struggling side, and ended up losing. This time around, he must play an attacking line-up – Albion need to win this game, and Pulis still needs to win the fans back. Furthermore, defeat for Albion would surely put the right in the midst of another relegation scrap.
Embed from Getty ImagesHe went with two up front against Peterborough, and was rewarded with two goals from Berahino, although having scored early, they failed to push on and finish the game off. Sébastien Pocognoli got a rare start, but was partially at fault for both Peterborough goals so he may have fluffed his chance to get re-established in the team, although if Chris Brunt is not fit, he may get another opportunity.
With McManaman and Morrison definitely out, and Brunt and Fletcher uncertain to be fit, Pulis is limited on midfield options, and may have to go with McClean and Sessègnon out wide once again. There is a good chance that new midfield signings Sandro and Alex Pritchard will be in the squad, if not the starting line-up.
Up front, I think Pulis needs to go with two again, not least because of the lack of fit midfielders. At the time of writing, with just a few hours of the window to go, Berahino is still an Albion player and likely to remain so. I always thought it unlikely that he would move to Newcastle, both because they are a direct rival to the Baggies, and the player himself has his heart set on a club somewhat higher in the table.
Assuming Berahino is still around, he should start, probably alongside Rondón. Lambert, as he has pretty much admitted, continues to fail to impress and, if fit, Anichebe would also be a good foil for Albion's number 18.
There are concerns at the back, primarily because of the number of games they are playing. Chester is not proving to be a worthwhile alternative at right back and, with Gamboa largely ignored, Dawson is likely to make his 27th start of the season. At 25, he is the youngest of the regular defenders and is generally performing well, but fatigue may prove to be a factor later in the season if he doesn't get a rest. McAuley and Evans also have had little rest and two clean sheets in the last eight games could be a sign of things starting to go awry.
As stated above, Morrison and McManaman are defintiely out, and Fletcher and Brunt are doubtful for the hosts. Berahino supposedly picked up a dead leg in training on Monday, but I would expect him to be fit enough to play.
New Swansea manager, Francesco Guidolin, could well have a fully fit squad to choose from including new striker, Alberto Paloschi, who was signed from Chievo last week.
This is a game Albion cannot afford to lose and, in my opinion, it is one they really have to win with tough trips to Newcastle and Everton up next in the Premier League. I really hope that Pulis sees it the same way and goes with an attacking line-up – if he does, I fancy Albion to get the three points they desperately need.
D D L W D D
D L L L W W
All competitions; most recent game on the right
Last matches
Last meeting
26 Dec 2015 – Premier League
Swansea City 1 (Ki)
West Brom 0
Last meeting at the Hawthorns
11 Feb 2015 – Premier League
West Brom 2 (Ideye, Berahino)
Swansea City 0
Albion's Record against Swansea City
League 33 12 6 15 54 53 16 9 3 4 37 19
FA Cup 1 0 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
League Cup 2 1 1 0 2 1 1 1 0 0 2 1
Total 36 13 7 16 58 57 17 10 3 4 39 20
Home 4 2 0 2 5 5 6
Away 5 1 0 4 3 11 3
Total 9 3 0 6 8 16 9
Post navigation ← Pulis needs to win back the fans Albion's Premier League Season Comparison – 24 games →


The St. Christopher School Hockey Program begins in early March and runs through the beginning of June. By clicking here: Buffalo Niagara School Hockey League you can find information for all Hockey Teams. This information includes where the games will be played and parking information. Please contact Mr. Derek Hoover, Athletic Director, at 693-5604 extension #326 or E-mail - Dhoover@saintchris.org if you have any questions.


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'Players are low on confidence' - Butt concerned by Man Utd plight
Nick Howson
A defeat against Manchester City leaves Jose Mourinho's men 12 points off the top and seven behind the top four
Nicky Butt expects Manchester United to recover from the defeat to Manchester City and stage a bid to reach the Premier League's top four, but first the team will need to recover a bit of confidence.
Pep Guardiola's leaders extended their advantage over Jose Mourinho's men to 12 points with a 3-1 success at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
Though it took a late Ilkay Gundogan goal to confirm the win for City as United threatened a second half comeback, the chasm between both teams was there for all to see.
Mourinho has downplayed the difference in quality between both sides but there is no masking over the seven-point gap which separates United from the top four.
Butt, the head of coaching at United's academy, says coupled with the absence of Paul Pogba the lack of confidence within the squad is evident - however the 43-year-old is predicting an about turn in fortunes.
"I think it's difficult when you have got players that aren't in form," the six-time Premier League winner at Old Trafford told Sky Sports .
"It doesn't matter who you are or what team you manage, if the players are not on a high or confident they are not going to win too many games.
"At United at the minute, players are low on confidence.
"They came up against the probably the best team in Europe [Manchester City] and got beaten.
"They are steadily improving. The manager has recognised that and they are getting some consistency in the team.
"The injury to Pogba can kill any team.
"They are not getting all the luck but that City game is gone now and hopefully they can push on to Christmas and get into a position where they are challenging in the top four."
After the international break, United will hope to get back on track with back-to-back home games against Crystal Palace in the Premier League and Young Boys in the Champions League.
A run of eight games in the space of 30 days in December starts with a trip to Southampton before London sides Arsenal and Fulham are the visitors to the Theatre of Dreams.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


For more details on JaCoCo, see its documentation. You can also play with this sample project.
If your project uses the argLine property to configure the surefire-maven-plugin, be sure that argLine defined as a property, rather than as part of the plugin configuration. Doing so will allow JaCoCo to set its agent properly. Otherwise the JVM may crash while tests are running.
There is a known issue on version 0.7.3 of JaCoCo agent producing binary reports incompatible with JaCoCo analyzer 0.7.2 embedded in SonarJava.
This issue is fixed with version 0.7.4+ of the agent, so please prefer this version.
SonarJava is compatible with JaCoCo 0.7.5 starting from SonarJava 3.4.


When it comes to business software solutions, Endeavour is well known for only working with the best - and that means that our clients always have the pick of the crop. Well, now we're delighted to announce that one of those partners has recently recognised the Endeavour team as one of their best – again!
At the recent United for Growth 2017 Enterprise Partner Conference, MYOB Greentree awarded Endeavour NZ the Excellence in Business Development Award for New Zealand for 2016, and Partner of the Year for the third year in a row.
With business becoming increasingly mobile, the Endeavour and MYOB Greentree teams have been even busier than usual. As long-time leaders in the digital sector, we understand the urgent need for companies to streamline their business and become more responsive and efficient. So, on 16th March, Endeavour and MYOB Greentree held a joint Breakfast Event providing pertinent MYOB Greentree product updates together with valuable insights from a client already forging ahead in this area.
We were delighted to see such a great turn out at this event and appreciate all the positive feedback we have received since. For those that missed the MYOB Greentree Product update, the topics covered included 'Mobile-business on the go' plus insights into MYOB Greentree's Reports and Documents module-ability to centralise and streamline key documents and reporting with a searchable library. (Please get in touch with the team at Endeavour if you would like to learn more).
Artificial intelligence, in particular, pattern recognition (think eDocs and automated back feeds), plus self-learning. Expect to see developments in these areas later this year.
New browser-based timesheet modules are expected to replace eTime-sheets. This development is also expected to take place later this year.
To find out what other developments are planned, and for more information about any of the topics, products or developments mentioned in this blog, get in touch with the Endeavour team – we'll be happy to help.
Qlik is positioned as a Business Intelligence leader once again.


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Suit moves forward in police death of Maryland man
By: Associated Press October 17, 2014
A federal judge has allowed a lawsuit to move forward against three Frederick County sheriff's deputies in the death of a young man with Down syndrome.
In a scathing, 54-page ruling, U.S. District Judge William Nickerson wrote that "a man died over the cost of a movie ticket" and questioned the quick escalation of force used by the deputies.
Robert Ethan Saylor, 26, died of asphyxiation last January after the deputies, moonlighting as mall security officers, were called to remove him from a movie theater in Frederick. Saylor had watched "Zero Dark Thirty" with his caregiver and had gone back into the theater for a repeat showing without paying for another ticket.
The deputies wrestled the flailing, cursing, nearly 300-pound Saylor out of his seat and down an exit ramp, where they handcuffed him after police say he fell or was dropped onto his belly. He went into cardiac arrest, lost consciousness, and died shortly after.
The state medical examiner's office ruled Saylor's death a homicide, meaning he would not have died except for the officers' actions. A county grand jury declined to file charges against the deputies.
In Thursday's ruling, Nickerson dismissed all the lawsuit's claims against the movie theater's operator, Knoxville, Tennessee-based Regal Cinemas, finding that the company did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act by asking the sheriff's deputies to remove Saylor. Nickerson also dismissed wrongful death claim against the state and a simple negligence claim against the deputies.
The claims Nickerson allowed to move forward were that the deputies were grossly negligent and that the state failed to properly train them to handle people with disabilities.
The judge noted that Saylor had an IQ of 40, and his caregiver warned the deputies that he would resist if touched by strangers.
Deputies could have waited for Saylor's aide or his mother to coax him out of his seat or allow them to buy a ticket for the next show and let him stay, Nickerson wrote, according to The Washington Post, (http://wapo.st/1vDLboA ).
"When the deputies were presented with these various alternatives, there was no emergent situation requiring any rapid response on their part," he wrote.
He said it was a reasonable assumption that Saylor would suffer significant injuries when "the decision was made to drag an obese individual with a mental disability out of his chair and down a ramp."
Joseph Espo, the attorney who represents the Saylor family, said Nickerson's ruling is a "strong affirmation of the rights of individuals to live in the world and take part in the community."
"(It) affirms the fact that if the state fails to train its employees, then the state may be responsible," he said.
Daniel Karp, a Baltimore lawyer for the deputies, noted that Nickerson mentioned several discrepancies concerning important facts of the case, such as exactly when during the struggle Saylor was handcuffed and how he ended up on the floor.
"You can't tell from the allegations how many times the deputies tried to tell (Saylor) that he either had to pay or leave and how abusive and uncooperative Mr. Saylor was," Karp said. "This was a fairly extended incident, and the deputies are trained in how to escalate."
Karp said that once all witnesses involved in the case are interviewed, he will again try to get the entire case thrown out before trial.
negligence 8:15 am Fri, October 17, 2014 Maryland Daily Record
Tagged with: negligence


The build process is systematic, integrating site considerations, budget, and aesthetic vision to achieve the goals of our clients from acquiring land to the finished residential product.
Idagon has developed good relationships with area architects. Whether you have already worked with one to design a plan-set or choose to work with our design team, Idagon works with you to record the finishes and materials within your specific Builder Specifications document and we then create an itemized budget to meet your goals. We also offer a portfolio of existing residential plans that can be modified to your specific needs.


Even in the face of a tragic loss, it is possible for life saving miracles to take place.
Just ask Dallas police officer Josh Forner who has seen it happen right before his eyes and in his own family.
His sister, Brittany married a Marine, Payton McCarty. The two had been high school sweethearts and together they had a small business and two children together.
Tragedy struck when Payton was tragically injured in a motorcycle accident. When it was clear that he would not recover, the Marine who lived to serve would be given a chance to serve one more time to serve. He would become an organ donor to another Dallas police officer, who was in need of a kidney.
Forner told his sister about his fellow officer and friend, police Officer Bryson Brown, who was in need. The McCarty family agreed it was something that Payton would have wanted to do.
Since the transplant, Officer Brown's father says that his son's health is already improving and that he is expected to be released from Baylor University Medical Center in the next few days.
Officer Forner intends to keep his brother-in-law's company, McCarty Fabrication, running. However, his brother-in-law had no life insurance and he was the sole source of support for the family.
Nothing can adequately compensate for the loss of a loved one. After a fatal accident, a whole exists in the family where the lost family member once was. Even though Payton McCarty will in essence live on through his kidney donation, there are other matters such as family support that have left them wondering what to do next. A go fund me page has been set up for community members and friends to help, but often such measures just aren't enough. That is why after such a tragic accident it is important to get the counsel of an attorney in order to ensure your rights.
If you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area you need a qualified attorney to look out for you. If you or a loved one has been seriously hurt, or if a family member has lost their life in an automobile, motorcycle or any other kind of accident, contact our offices today.
Our firm will match you with an attorney who will go over the details of your case and outline several possible ways to move forward. It may be possible for you to recover any damages and costs from medical bills, funeral costs, pain and suffering or even wrongful death.
Our lawyers can help you to file and settle a claim that could compensate you for these kinds of expenses. We are committed to the needs of our clients and will go over your case with you. We will also act as your point of contact and your advocate when dealing with insurance and all others connected to your accident.
Call us at the number on your screen or contact us here on our website. Your initial consultation is free and without cost or obligation. Call today and find out how we can help.


On what stock market is Ranplan listed?
What is the Ranplan ticker symbol?
How do I buy shares in Ranplan?
To buy shares in Ranplan Group AB, contact your bank or stockbroker.
Who should I contact to register my shares?
Does Ranplan pay a dividend?
At the moment the company is focused on growth and so shareholders should not expect to receive any, or very low, dividends over the next few years.
Investors can email us at investors@ranplanwireless.com. Alternatively, questions can be addressed to our Investor Relations agency Laika.
Where is Ranplan group of companies located?
When is the next shareholders' meeting?
When is the next quarterly report due out?
Our auditors are Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers AB.


text:
The train value of a gear train is
(a) equal to velocity ratio of a gear train
(b) reciprocal of velocity ratio of a gear train
(c) always greater than unity
(d) always less than unity
The question was posed to me in an interview for internship.
My doubt stems from Minimum Number of Teeth on a Pinion for Involute Rack in Order to Avoid Interference in chapter Toothed Gearing & Gear Trains of Machine Kinematics
minimum number of teeth on a pinion for involute rack in order to avoid interference
answered Oct 20, 2022 by Greg (45.7k points)
Right choice is (b) reciprocal of velocity ratio of a gear train
For explanation I would say: The train value is the reciprocal of speed ratio.
A fixed gear having 100 teeth meshes with another gear having 25 teeth, the centre lines of both the gears being joined by an arm so as to form an epicyclic gear train. The number of rotations made by the smaller gear for one rotation of the arm is
contact ratio
In a simple gear train, if the number of idler gears is odd, then the direction of motion of driven gear will
length of arc of contact
When the axes of the shafts, over which the gears are mounted, move relative to a fixed axis, then the train is known as reverted gear train.
In a reverted gear train, two gears P and Q are meshing, Q-R is a compound gear, and R and S are meshing. The modules of P and R are 4 mm and 5 mm respectively. The numbers of teeth in P, Q and r are 20, 40 and 25 respectively. The number of teeth in S is
law of gearing
A planetary gear train is gear train having
standard spur gears-1
Which gear train is used for higher velocity ratios in a small space?
types of gear trains
Which type of gear train is used in clock mechanism to join hour hand and minute hand?
In which of the following type of gear train the first gear and the last gear are co-axial.
A helical gear has the active face width equal to b pitch p and helix angle α. What should be the minimum value of b in order that contact is maintained across the entire active face of the gear?
standard spur gears
There are six gears A, B, C, D, E, F in a compound train. The numbers of teeth in the gears are 20, 60, 30, 80, 25 and 75 respectively. The ratio of the angular speeds of the driven (F) to the driver (A) of the drive is
In a simple train of wheels, if the number of intermediate wheels is odd, the motion of the follower will be same as that of the driver.
Match list I with list II List I List II A. Compound train 1. Hart mechanism B. Quick return mechanism 2. Coriolis force C. Exact straight line motion 3. Transmission of motion around bends and corners D. Approximate straight line motion 4. Watt mechanism
In a simple train of wheels, the velocity ratio _____________ the intermediate wheels.
The velocity ratio in the case of the compound train of wheels is equal to
When the axes of the first and the last wheels are co-axial, then the train is known as
If the centre distance between a pair of spur gears in mesh is 240 mm and the pinion moves five times faster than the gear, then the pitch circle diameters of pinion and gear respectively are
Speed reduction in a gear box is achieved using a worm and worm wheel. The worm wheel has 30 teeth and a pitch diameter of 210 mm. If the pressure angle of the worm is 20^o, what is the axial pitch of the worm?
A worm gear set is designed to have pressure angle of 30^0 which is equal to the helix angle. The efficiency of the worm gear set at an interface friction of 0.05 is
Two mating spur gears have 40 and 120 teeth respectively. The pinion rotates at 1200 rpm and transmits a torque of 20 Nm. The torque transmitted by the gear is
Common contact ratio of a pair of spur pinion and gear is
reverted gear train


Is DEAR System supporting Magento 2?
How do we import/export Product Families? Because from there we should be able to extract the product names and their details. What actually we will have in the Products module are our variants.How syncing of images from DEAR to Magento?
How do we link products into its product family? Is it automatic that if we have the same SKU / product code it will get connected?
How we can update details simultaneously of product family and products module to Magento.
Let's say we create or delete a new attribute in product Module in DEAR, is there any way there would be no manual modification in our Magento site?
Is CRON Jobs possible inside the DEAR System. Our purpose here is to create and link API also coming from our Magento site since we are encountering issues with automation. I actually tried the Task Settings > Calendar / Workflow / and Task Categories, but nothing from here caters this feature.
Thank you for contacting DEAR Support.
Is DEAR System supporting Magento 2? > This is currently not available, but our development team is already working on this integration and will be ready in a month.
How do we import/export Product Families? Because from there we should be able to extract the product names and their details. What actually we will have in the Products module are our variants. > You can use the Inventory List CSV file to Import products/families. There are fields/columns in that CSV file where you can set up the products as belongign to a family. You may click on the + sign button to learn more details on what values to enter on those fields.
Also, what we can suggest is to manually create 1 family in Dear, and you can follow this article in creating a product family in Dear http://support.dearsystems.com/support/solutions/articles/11000035365-product-families . Then you may Export the Inventory List, and follow or use as a guide the set up of that family in that file, as you add up other families through the CSV file. Save the file and import back to Dear.
How syncing of images from DEAR to Magento? > If you have the products on Dear and you list them to Magento, then the images from Dear will be pushed to Magento provided that there's no default image to your products yet in Magento. If you have them in Magento, and you load them into Dear, then those will also be reflected in Dear.
How do we link products into its product family? Is it automatic that if we have the same SKU / product code it will get connected? > If you have created a family in Dear and you list this family, then the variants will be reflected under a family in Magento as well. If you have a SKU in Dear and that SKU is also existing in Magento then the products will be linked once you Load products from Magento or List products from Dear to Magento.
How we can update details simultaneously of product family and products module to Magento. > You can update the product family details and save. And you will have to List the changes from Dear to Magento so that the Magento products will be updated.
Let's say we create or delete a new attribute in product Module in DEAR, is there any way there would be no manual modification in our Magento site? > Kindly clarify what you mean by attribute, do you mean the additional attributes field in Dear? If so, this field in Dear does not get pushed to Magento.


Sikes, S. 1971. The Natural History of the African Elephant. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
Poole, J.H. and Granli, P.K. In press. Signals, gestures and behaviors of African elephants. In: The Amboseli Elephants: A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived. Mammal. Moss, C.J., Croze, H.J & Lee, P.C. (Eds.) University of Chicago Press.
Kahl, M.P. & B.D. Armstrong. 2000. Visual and tactile displays in African elephants, Loxodonta africana: A progress report (1991-1997). Elephant 2 (4): p. 19-21.
Kahl, M.P. & B.D. Armstrong. 2002. Visual displays of wild African elephants during musth. Mammalia 66:159-171.
Kühme, V.W. 1963a. Ethology of the African elephant. Int. Zoo. Yearbook 4: 113-121.
Kühme, W. 1962. Ergänzende Beobachtungen an afrikanischen Elephanten (Loxodonta africana Blumenbach 1797) im Freigehege (2.Teil). Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20(1): 66-79.


On November 8, 2018 around 8:45am, undercover personnel conducting a narcotics investigation observed a subject of interest approach a residence on West View Place in Riverside.
Greenwich Police officers approached the subject, Adam Rivera, 29, of 1414 4th Avenue in Watervliet, NY and identified themselves.
Mr. Rivera was compliant and indicated to officers that he had heroin on his person and in his vehicle. He also admitted that he was delivering heroin to a local resident.
Police say 40 folds of suspected heroin were seized from Rivera, with an approximate weight of 27 grams (including packaging). They say 100 more folds of suspected heroin were seized from the vehicle with an approximate weight of 36 grams.
Cash in the amount of $1,515 was also found in the possession of Rivera and seized.
Rivera was charged with Criminal Attempt to Sell Narcotics, Illegal Possession and Possession with Intent to Sell.
Rivera posted a $1,000 bond and was assigned a court date in Stamford on Nov 26, 2018.
"That's 140 bags that won't be in circulation," Slusarz added.
The subject who was to receive the delivery was identified as Donald Hrnciar, 50, of 33 West View Place in Riverside. He was charged with Criminal Attempt to Possess Narcotics.
He was released on a PTA in Stamford Superior Court on Nov 26, 2018.


During its fifth – and arguably most thrilling – season, the adrenaline-fueled Extreme Sailing Series made an unprecedented stop in North America. The Fallon Company, which sponsored this five-day event in 2011, was thrilled Fan Pier was chosen as the race's Boston venue. Proximity to the city, plus a wealth of superb restaurants and hotels nearby, made this waterfront setting an ideal destination for the unrivaled global series. Tens of thousands of avid sailing fans and newcomers drawn by the sport's exciting nature enjoyed the racing at this free event as well as the fine amenities of Fan Pier. Visit Website.
Fan Pier, the perfect place to watch extreme sailing on Boston HArbor. Thousands came to Fan Pier, easily accessible by car, water or public transportation.


text:
Advisor Victor Davis Hanson — LPA Foundation
View all Articles by Victor Davis Hanson
The Tragic and Complete Collapse of Racial Relations
Why do polls show that racial relations have gotten much worse under Barack Obama, who won the White House with over 95 percent of the black — and 45 percent of the white — vote?
A recent New York Times/CBS News poll just revealed that about 60 percent of Americans feel race relations are not good. Some 40 percent think that they will become even worse. Yet when Obama was elected, 66 percent of those polled felt race relations were generally OK. All racial groups, according to recent polling, believe that Obama's handling of racial relations has made things worse since 2009. Another recent Pew poll confirms these tensions, and suggests whites are now about as pessimistic as blacks.
What has happened to racial relations?
Crime. A small cohort of urban African-American males under 50 — no more than 3-4 percent of the general population — is responsible for about 50 percent of many of the violent crimes committed. Blacks are 5-8 times more likely to commit rather than suffer an interracial crime, which makes up less than 10 percent of most violent crime. Both the analysis and solution have become taboo subjects. Writing the above is a near thought crime.
The non-African-American community of all races largely feels that if blacks were committing crimes commensurate to their percentages in the general population, the police would come into contact with young black males with much less frequency, diminishing the opportunities for jaded police-community flare-ups. In turn, would crime decline in the inner city if there was more emphasis on curbing illegitimacy, drug use, and single-mother families, while privileging study and academic excellence over sports and the cult of machismo?
Black leaders counter that racism is still the engine that drives a sense of despair, which insidiously is at the root of all pathology. Equality-of-result federal programs are ultimately seen as the answer that will catapult the disadvantaged into the middle class. The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is said to trump the horrors that other immigrant and minority groups experienced — the Irish who were declared to be inhuman by mid-19th-century essayists; the Asian exclusionary laws and the Japanese internment; the Holocaust and the deliberate polices of the State Department and War Department to refuse entry of Jews fleeing the gas chambers; the Native Americans who lost their tribal landscapes; and on and on.
One can see why this back-and-forth argument about cause and effect has no solution by reading a typical story about black crime in any online mainstream newspaper or wire-service report. The journalistic narrative is embedded within politically correct tip-toeing around the race of the perpetrator, with interviews of family members attesting to complete astonishment that a son, brother, or friend, with a previous arrest or criminal record, would ever do such a heinous thing. Police overreaction is thematic. Crimes such as assault are downplayed. Little concern is accorded to a victim who was robbed, murdered, or raped. The news accounts of black crime are the written versions of the edited George Zimmerman 911 tape, his photoshopped picture, and his new identity as a "white Hispanic."
But read what follows these daily crime stories in the online comments section. (Do the usually censorious PC editors encourage uncensored commentary in their news websites, in the sense of bread-and-circuses entertainment or efforts to gin up sagging readership?) The readers' editorialization could come right out of the Old Confederacy. If elites doctor our news to massage racial themes, the mass displays a furor at the political correctness and lying. And in their wrath, online commentators ironically end up confirming stereotypes that many whites are getting angry to the point of becoming racists.
Obama never seriously raised the topic of inordinate black crime other than a few ephemeral pre-election throat-clearings about personal responsibility. We were left instead with his administration's cheap editorializing on Trayvon, Ferguson, "nation of cowards," and "punish our enemies." Few see resolution of the half-century-old argument, except that much of non-white America (Asians, East Asians, Arabs, Latinos, etc.) does not yet see racism as the cause of a lack of parity; e.g., so far there is not a Korean Al Sharpton, a Latino Jesse Jackson, or a Punjabi Louis Farrakhan.
As the country moves beyond the old 90/10 percent white/black binary, race becomes more complex, and the charge of racism less effective as an exegesis for pathology. We fear the familiar script of 2014-15 will play out for the rest of our lives: a young Michael Brown-like inner-city African-American, with a past record of felonies and often unarmed, will be manhandled or perhaps even shot during a police encounter, usually as a result of either resisting arrest or attacking the officer. He will be immediately lionized as "gentle" or "on his way to college," and become emblematic of reckless government violence in a way hundreds of murders each month of blacks by blacks are not indicative of inner-city pathologies. Mention of rap sheets will remain taboo. The media insists that more numerous examples of police shooting whites (who comprise a larger population, but are far less likely on a percentage basis to be arrested for suspicion of committing a felony) are irrelevant; so are black-on-white instances of crime, or black officers killing those of other races. Police will react by pulling back from the inner city in fear their careers will be ruined should they use greater force to counter initial force. Black community leaders will fire back that derelict racist officers are not protecting the community. Police will re-enter the inner city in proactive fashion. Another Freddie Gray or Michael Brown case will follow, with demands that police leave the community alone.
The cases quickly become iconic and mythographic: Obama evokes "Ferguson" as an example of racism, without any context that Michael Brown resisted arrest, was under the influence and walking down the middle of the street — after recently committing a felony. If the president's own attorney general can exonerate Officer Darren Wilson and the president can still persist in referencing Ferguson, racial relations, as the polls suggest, are going to get even worse.
So far we have read only in the elite media about black furor over white privilege. Yet the white elite that most certainly has Ivy League pedigrees, Washington/New York insider leverage, and corporate/Wall Street Clintonian-like help seems to encourage black anger as a sort of personal penance. Yet the elite has no clue of the growing anger of the white middle class and underclass that has no white privilege, and is tired of hearing that it does and being smeared as Neanderthal racists. When those who have no privilege hear "white privilege" from those who most certainly enjoy it, their reaction is similar to Denzel Washington's in Man on Fire, who tires of hearing ad nauseam only "I'm just a professional."
Jobs. A second problem is the static pyramidal Obama economy that has made labor participation historically low. Overregulating and overtaxing are fine for elites, who have enough money to either pay or find ways to avoid higher taxes. They don't care much if their power, gas, or health costs go up — at least if they are led to believe that is the proper green atonement to pay for cooling the planet, putting a bait fish back into a delta, or shutting down a coal plant. Obama, in recompense for favoring the aristocratic elite, feels that by expanding food stamps, disability insurance, housing, legal, and education subsidies, etc., the lower classes will be satisfied in lieu of a high-paying job on a fracking rig, in construction, or welding on the Keystone pipeline.
Yet in such a fossilized European system, the subsidized lower classes still see little chance of getting all the stuff they see advertised on television and computers, or the opportunities of the middle classes, and don't wish to accept that their smart phones, Kias and air conditioning make them princes compared to the wealthy of 1970. Throughout history, the absence of parity, not the lack of means, has been the criterion for revolution. I'd go further: the more affluent the consumer underclass becomes due to Chinese-made goods, inexpensive high-tech appurtenances, and federal and state largess, the angrier it become that others have even more. Looters focus on sneakers and electronic goods, not flour and vegetables. Should Obama cut taxes, lift regulations, become pro-energy and pro-growth, and reform entitlements and the tax code to expand the economy at 5-6 percent growth per annum, would not all sorts of new opportunities open up for African-Americans?
If 1 million illegal aliens a year were not pouring across the border, would not employers vie for labor rather than seek to import it cheaply? Instead, the Democratic Party is mostly about an elite on top that, as penance for its privilege, supports subsidies for the mass below that remains distant and out of sight and mind. By that cheap fillip, I mean the Obama daughters don't walk into the inner city any more than Chelsea Clinton lives in Jamaica, Queens, or Barbara Boxer has a granddaughter in the Madera city schools.
The Implicit Bargain. African-American elites envision the urban underclass the same way that some La Raza third-generation Latinos view impoverished illegal immigrants from Oaxaca. Social disparities among the poor become arguments for affirmative-action leverage for elites, as if Barack Obama getting into Harvard Law or Lisa Jackson serving as EPA administrator will lower the crime rate in Baltimore or help change attitudes about illegitimacy in Oakland. Until we confess class is a greater barometer of privilege than race, I see no solution to the escalating tensions. How odd that upscale, one-percent African-Americans at NPR, the New York Times, and MSNBC monotonously blast white privilege, as if their own lives are always far more hurtful than those in Appalachia or rural Oklahoma.
Progress is Impossible? Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that he has no affinity with the firemen and police who were incinerated on 911, given his grievances over endemic racism and the inability of blacks to gain parity with the majority due to systematic exclusion, formerly overt, today insidious. Currently, blacks make up about 12 percent of the population. The president of the United States, the present (and former) attorney general of the United States, the secretary of Transportation, the secretary of Homeland Security, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the head of NASA are African-American. Twenty-one percent of the Postal Service employees are African-American; 17 percent of the entire federal work force is black. Seventy-eight percent of the NBA are African-American. Sixty-seven percent of NFL players are black. Sixteen percent of the teams have African-American head coaches; 24 percent of the teams have black general managers. Has the definition of diversity become that overrepresentation in some areas (the Left's word, not mine) of African-Americans, based on percentages in the general population, is still diversity, while underrepresentation of blacks in the physics department at Caltech is proof of endemic racism? Or does a physics professor enjoy more perks and money than an NFL general manager?
We are asked to believe that Mr. Coates encounters crippling racism more so than my quite dark, quite accented, and quite turbaned Punjabi neighbor, who lives in a sea of non-Punjabis. We are asked to believe that an entire generation of lower middle-class white and mixed-race Americans who came of age not during Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, but during the half-century of affirmative action and diversity set-asides are guaranteed winning slots in American because of their "white privilege." When I see the local, broke, and white tire-changer, somehow I don't think his coming of age in the 1980s was easier than that of Jeh Johnson or Eric Holder. When I see a video in which a privileged young white elite at $65,000-per-year Wellesley or Amherst confesses to "white privilege," I wonder how many hours he has welded in Tulare or she has done data entry in a carrel in San Jose. Many of our problems derive from black elites feeding off the guilt of compatriot white elites of a like class in a similar landscape, who claim to speak for all whites, as if they shared something when in fact they share nothing much at all. I suspect that more white males feel an affinity, a stronger one based on shared ideas, with Ben Carson than any affinity on the basis of race with Hillary Clinton or John Kerry.
Because of our dishonesty on matters of race and the elite's use of it for their own privilege, we will see not only little progress, but also much retrogression. Look at the world abroad: anytime a man or woman identifies by race, violence mounts and chaos follows. The times they are a-changing — for the worse.
This article originally appeared at PJMedia.com.
Issue Categories : American Exceptionalism


The 1999 Scotland rugby union tour of South Africa was a series of matches played in June–July 1999 in South Africa by Scotland national rugby union team, to prepare the 1999 Rugby World Cup. No Test Matches were played .
Mick Cleary, ed. (2000). Rothmans Rugby Union Yearbook 2000–01. Headline.


The Spanish Left, under a new united banner – Unidos Podemos – seems on course for a major breakthrough in general elections on 26 June. This prospect raises for many a whole new spectre of hope and possibility for real change. For the second time in the last few years, the genuine Left could be in a position to implement an alternative programme. Learning the lessons of the first, failed, experience of Syriza in Greece will be decisive to the opportunities being seized in Spain and elsewhere. Here, we examine the reaction of important sections of the Left in Portugal and Spain to Syriza's betrayal, with special reference to positions and attitudes towards the capitalist EU and Euro.
When Alexis Tsipras and the Syriza leadership betrayed the heroic "OXI" of the Greek working class in last summer's austerity referendum, it was not only that party, or even only the Greek working class which was dealt a blow. Tsipras' capitulation also represented a "before and after" moment for Left wing politics in Europe.
The position which had been defended by the majority of European Left leaders – from Syriza, to the Portuguese left Bloc, to Podemos in Spain – over previous years had been reasonably clear, and more or less unanimous. They defended the implementation of a left, anti-austerity (while not anti-capitalist or socialist) programme against Troika diktats, while simultaneously posing as defenders of the European Union and Euro projects. Leaving the EU or euro was never put on the table. Austerity was "killing our EU and Euro", they explained, and Left governments and policies were required to save it.
In Greece, this approach faced its first test in practice since the beginning of the current crisis. It was the position of Syriza, whose electoral victory was the result of the collapse of the ex-social democratic PASOK following its terms in power, and a protracted period of class battles, including over 30 general strikes. The result, over a year on: a Syriza-led government which now confronts general strikes against its policies.
This crushing reality was bound to have far-reaching consequences. After all, the eyes and hopes of workers, youth and the oppressed around Europe had been firmly placed on Greece and Syriza, keenly observing its experience. This experience, of months of fruitless negotiations, of naïve appeals to the reason and better judgement of the Troika, all leading up to a crushing defeat, was a school for the workers movement and Left around the continent and globe.
Lessons were bound to be learned. Though initially, and understandably, shock and disappointment dominated, the case of Syriza and Tsipras was an episode which could only raise the level of understanding of many working class people about the nature and character of the system, and of the EU and euro themselves. And this has indeed happened.
The development of the position of the Portuguese Left is a case in point. In recent years, Portugal provided an important part of the theoretical and ideological under-pinning of the Left's pro-EU position. Leaders of the Left Bloc, such as Francisco Louca (a member of the USFI –'United Secretariat of the Fourth International'), coined the phrase "Left Europeanism", to describe their outlook.
They argued vehemently against any question of leaving the EU or Euro, as "not internationalist" positions. The solution to the European crisis, they claimed, could only come from within the EU and progressive policies had to be translated into demands on the EU institutions. Thus, in the face of the sovereign debt crisis, the Left Bloc championed the demand for "eurobonds" – "mutualisation" of public debt, through which Europe's strongest economies would share the burden faced by the likes of Portugal and Greece.
The Left Bloc's MPs voted in favour of the Troika's 2010 "bailout" programme to Greece in parliament, merely demanding that the bailouts take on a more social character. They demanded that the European Central Bank be "democratised" and lend to peripheral countries at lower interest rates, akin to those offered to the private sector.
Their position was based on the mistaken perspective that there would be a meaningful and profound integration in Europe, overcoming national tensions and interests, on a capitalist basis. From this flowed the logic of their "Left Europeanism". The CWI opposed this perspective, explaining the unsurmountable limits to the capitalist European unity project. This process could make certain strides forward in the context of economic growth, but once crisis set in, this must and has indeed come to an end.
The pro-austerity, anti-working class actions of the Troika in Portugal represented not just a series of "political choices" determined by the composition of the European parliament, or the like. These policies were driven by naked class and national interests pursued by the forces in control of the EU project – essentially big European business and finance, led by Germany and the central and northern European powers – with the blessing and support of Portuguese capitalism.
We argued that attributing such noble progressive tasks to the EU and Troika institutions, beyond merely being unobtainable, also served to obscure the real character of these institutions, assigning the EU a "social" role which it could not, by definition, play.
When the Troika's intransigence before the infinitely more timid pleas of the Greek government was revealed for all to see, these warnings were borne out. Consciousness within the Left itself on the issue, and the Left Bloc membership and leadership, turned dramatically.
A Left opposition document (Motion R) to the June convention, which Socialismo Revolucionario (CWI in Portugal) members support, goes further, calling for the immediate formation of a Left Bloc commission to examine the practicalities and consequences of leaving the Euro.
With the Portuguese Communist Party's longer-standing (though not rounded-out socialist and internationalist) opposition to the euro and EU, the Portuguese Left as a whole has thus moved sharply in the direction of a clearer position of opposition to the capitalist EU and Eurozone.
Of course, for this better abstract understanding of the nature of these institutions to be reflected in practical policies is not straightforward for the Left Bloc's leadership. Indeed, their current policy of propping up, along with the Communist Party, the government of the ex-social democratic "Socialist" Party, will pose the question directly of a confrontation with these institutions and the need to fight for an alternative.
Socialismo Revolucionario (CWI in Portugal) fights for a united front of the Left parties, social movements and trade unions to demand a radical break with austerity and put pressure for genuine reforms, from an independent position, on the government. Ultimately, while struggle can win individual reforms now, such a united front needs to pose the question of fighting for a genuinely socialist government – which the now capitalist PS cannot constitute – to end austerity and implement policies of rupture with austerity and capitalism.
Across the border in the Spanish state, similar winds are blowing. While the leadership of Podemos ultimately endorsed the betrayal of Tsipras, with Pablo Iglesias saying he would have done the same thing, others have learned more pertinent lessons.
Izquierda Unida, which won a million votes in last December's elections and with which Podemos has formed an electoral alliance for the June 26 general election re-run, has a new leader from the left of the party, Alberto Garzon. Under his leadership, a general shift to the left in programme and rhetoric has taken place. The question of the EU and Euro has been no exception.
Both the IU and the Communist party combine their opposition to the EU with calls to build an international alliance of workers' and Left struggles for an alternative. Garzon has held out the prospect of a Southern European political union of Left governments – modelled on ALBA (the alliance of progressive governments in Latin America promoted by Hugo Chavez in 2004). Though the ALBA governments essentially failed to break with capitalism, this correctly points to the international impact that a government of rupture with EU austerity and capitalism would have, laying the foundations for an internationalist alternative.
Again, as in the case of the Left Bloc, whether these noble ideas are to be translated into a practical policy remains to be seen. Socialismo Revolucionario (CWI in Spain) argues for the urgent need to arm the Left and working class movement with revolutionary socialist policies, as the only way to way off the threat of a Spanish Tsipras. For any government with a mandate to end austerity in the current context, the nationalisation of the banks and major companies under democratic control, the implementation of capital controls and non-payment of the bondholders' debts are fundamental policy prerequisites for avoiding capitulation and betrayal.
Central to a Marxist viewpoint is the understanding that consciousness evolves based on material circumstances. The experience of events assists workers and youth around the world in obtaining a clearer understanding of the situation facing them and the tasks in their struggle.
This movement among the Left in southern Europe towards clearer opposition to the capitalist EU, under the impact of the deepening crisis and abject failure of Syriza's euro-reformism, represents precisely this. In those countries closest to, and thus paying greatest attention to, the Greek situation, the character of the European institutions has been more clearly registered.
However, in Britain, where the referendum campaign over 'Brexit' has entered its final stages, this process seems to have had less of an impact on the tops of the working class movement. The majority of trade union leaders, and of leading Left figures in the Labour party, including Jeremy Corbyn himself, have taken, however reluctantly, a "Remain" (in the EU) position. This stands in marked contrast to the 1975 referendum, when left-wing Labour and trade union leaders led the campaign to oppose remaining into the EU's predecessor.
This partially represents a hangover from the past period, in which illusions in a "social" EU project dominated most of the Left. In Britain, this approach was largely adopted as a defeatist response to the defeats of key struggles and movements in the 1980s. European institutions, these leaders hoped, would help to protect rights and conditions which they themselves had failed to protect through militant and united struggle. Many trade union leaders turned to the EU in an attempt to cover-up their own failures, particularly leaving isolated the 1984/5 miners' strike and those local councils, led by Liverpool, which were refusing to implement government ordered cuts.
Now, beyond just lamenting the cruel treatment of Greek workers by the EU, those Left and workers leaders who argue today for "Remain" have drawn no political conclusions from the Syriza experience. In fact, they merely display sympathy with the Greek working class before regurgitating almost verbatim the arguments of the leadership which betrayed it.
Of course, the fact that both sides of the Brexit referendum campaign are led and dominated by the reactionary right wing, is a factor which cannot be ignored. However, this factor is itself a consequence of the position taken by these individuals and forces. As the Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales) has repeatedly stated, if the union and Labour leaders had come out for a pro-worker "leave" vote, the whole dynamic of the campaign would have been altered.
As these illusions – which everyone must admit did exist in almost every European country – in the EU as a force for progress are being broken down among the masses themselves, the pro-EU left has found itself caught out and out of touch with developments. As is often the case, the leaders of the workers movement are behind the curve, out of step with the outlook of the more conscious elements of their base.
In 1915, Lenin wrote that "a United States of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary". His basic reasoning, that the conflict of interests between Europe's dominant national capitalist classes could not be papered over, still applies to the current situation, and the capitalist European unity projects of the EU and euro.
During the current crisis, national tensions have blocked any possibility of a genuine united European response to the key issues the continent has faced, from sovereign debt to the refugee crisis. National tensions, and the refusal of one set of national capitalists to "share the burden" of the problems of another, is precisely what is behind the dead end of aforementioned debt "mutualisation" and "eurobonds" policies defended by the pro-EU Left in the past.
Of course, the EU and Eurozone represent an extent of international integration and collaboration between different national capitalist classes which has gone some distance. However, the crisis and "centrifugal" tendencies which it has revealed in Europe show the real limits of the nation state and conflicting national capitalist interests which still exist, and that even the current level of cooperation and integration, including the euro currency, cannot be permanent.
The superficial implication that the EU, and support for remaining within it, is somehow "internationalist" is also something which experience undermines. While it is true that national tensions and contradictions under capitalism are an obstacle to genuine European unity, it is also true that even the limited alliances and partnerships which capitalist states do constitute are never formed on an equal basis.
The European Union, as with other capitalist international alliances, is in reality less an "alliance" and more an institutionalised subordination of the weak to the strong. Rather than even up the scales of Europe, bringing the economies and living standards of the peripheral countries closer into line with the core European powers, such as Germany, France and Britain, the EU and Eurozone has achieved the opposite.
From an economic point of view, it has promoted and accelerated the deindustrialisation of Europe's periphery, thus creating a competition and barrier-free and stable local market for German and other central European industry. The gulf between the strength and viability of the German economy compared to the Spanish, Portuguese, Irish or Greek, has thus widened rather than narrowed under EU influence.
From a political point of view, it has immeasurably undermined the sovereignty of national governments, with austerity policies imposed at the behest of foreign institutions, with a real effective control over budgets and policies. The Troika's bailouts intensified this even further. Commentators have compared the level of political autonomy of the Greek government to the European powers, to that of a German Federal state to the central government. This situation, storing up great explosions, can only ultimately lead to the union's downfall.
The EU is thus little more "internationalist" in relation to the most down-trodden countries of Europe than was the British Empire to its colonies!
For socialists, international cooperation and unity are an objective necessity. Only the integration of world resources and industry into a European and world plan can create the conditions in which democratic socialist economic planning can thrive, allowing production and living standards to reach a new level across the globe.
Capitalism as a system is incapable of uniting Europe, as experience has demonstrated. The ownership and control of national capitalist elites – represented by major banks and corporations, as well as governments – over the wealth of the world, and the competition between them, has historically been the axis of the national conflicts on the continent. Only on the basis of the democratic socialist, common ownership and control of major wealth and resources can the logic of national antagonism in Europe be broken, and genuine unity achieved.
The opposition of socialists to the EU and Eurozone, has nothing in common with narrow nationalism. For us, in the struggle against the capitalist EU, the foundations for an internationalist socialist European alternative must indeed be laid.
On 14 November 2014, at a high point of active working class resistance to austerity in Southern Europe, an international day of struggle saw general strikes and partial general strikes in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Belgium, with mass strikes and protests also taking place in Greece, France and elsewhere. This unity in struggle against the EU governments' austerity policies shows the potential basis for an alternative Europe, forged in the course of these struggles and mass movements.
A socialist government in a single European country, basing itself on the organisation and mobilisation of the working class to implement a 100% anti-austerity programme would be a powerful beacon across the continent. Breaking from the EU and euro on this basis, an appeal to form an alternative socialist European federation would provide a powerful impetus to revolutionary developments around the continent.
A voluntary socialist federation of Europe would be firmly placed on the table. This is the horizon which the Left throughout the continent must set for the struggle against austerity in all countries.
However, it is impossible to reconcile such a perspective with one of remaining within the EU, "until international conditions mature sufficiently" or until more socialist governments are elected in other countries, shifting the EU balance of forces towards the left. This can seem plausible in the abstract. However, what such a position does not take into account is that this "postponement" of the moment of rupture is not only a delaying tactic. Meanwhile, a concrete, austerity anti-working class policy would be imposed on any government, bringing it into conflict with the working class, as Greece has shown.
Despite the best laid plans of reformist leaders, the international class struggle does not allow for stable and perfectly coordinated transitions, implemented simultaneously in every country, via the ready-made international institutions of capitalism. If it has not already disintegrated on a capitalist basis, overcoming the capitalist EU will require the rupture of individual socialist government, or group of governments from it, opening up a breach through which the European working class can move to build a new international alternative.


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Stories from Monday, August 9, 2010
Norma Virgina Vincent Coursey (Obituary ~ 08/09/10)
Norma Virgina Vincent Coursey, 90, of Shelbyville died Saturday at Middle Tennessee Medical Center in Murfreesboro. Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Gowen-Smith Chapel with Geoff Giesemann and Bobby Vannatta officiating. Burial will follow at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens. Visitation will be held from 5-8 p.m. Tuesday.
Martha Dolen Haislip Smith (Obituary ~ 08/09/10)
Martha Dolen Haislip Smith, 86, of Fayetteville died Sunday at Donalson Care Center. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Higgins Funeral Home, Fayetteville, with Jim Black officiating. Burial will follow at Wrights Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 5-8 p.m. Monday.
Bobby Malone 'Bob' Bragg (Obituary ~ 08/09/10)
Bobby Malone "Bob" Bragg, 74, of Wartrace died Friday at his home. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Jennings and Ayers Chapel, Murfreesboro, with Jimmy Gray officiating. Burial will follow at Bryan Family Cemetery in Wilson County. Visitation was held Sunday.
Ricky Allen McClendon (Obituary ~ 08/09/10)
Ricky Allen McClendon, 51, of Shelbyville died Sunday at Heritage Medical Center. Graveside services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Cawthron Cemetery in Rover with Bill Doak officiating. Visitation will be held from 5-8 p.m. Tuesday at Doak-Howell Funeral Home.
Deborah Ann Mills Howell (Obituary ~ 08/09/10)
Deborah Ann Mills Howell, 54, of Shelbyville died Monday at Heritage Medical Center. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Fellowship For Christ with the Rev. Ray Armstrong and the Rev. Ronald Anderson officiating. Burial will follow at Unity Cemetery in the Howell community. Visitation will be held from 4-9 p.m. Tuesday at Hillcrest Funeral Home.
Charles Arthur Warren (Obituary ~ 08/09/10)
Charles Arthur Warren, 89, of Shelbyville died Saturday at Harton Regional Medical Center in Tullahoma. Funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday at Gowen-Smith Chapel with Tim Forsythe officiating. Burial will follow at Willow Mount Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 5-9 p.m. Wednesday.
Shirley L. Milligan (Obituary ~ 08/09/10)
Shirley Milligan, 77, of Shelbyville, died Sunday at Heritage Medical Center. Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Doak-Howell Funeral Home with Ben Baucom officiating. Burial will follow at Rosebank Cemetery in Flat Creek. Visitation will begin at 12:30 p.m.


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You are here: Home > News & Events > News > Congress Takes Up…
Texas Broadcast Calendar
Congress Takes Up Journalism Competition, Performance Tax
posted on 2.07.2022
- Hearings on Both Key Measures Explore Concerns
Texas broadcasters' primary congressional policy interests were the subject of dueling House and Senate committee hearings on Feb. 2, just ahead of the ice storm that swept much of the state. Lawmakers in both hearings probed arguments for and against both measures, with some expressing more than a little uncertainty about broadcasters' claims.
Journalism Competition and Preservation Act
The Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and co-author of the proposed Act, led a broad discussion of the harm that anticompetitive practices by Big Tech companies are doing to local broadcast and newspaper journalism.
The measure would create an anti-trust exemption to allow traditional media companies to collectively negotiate rates for how Big Tech platforms use their content.
Journalism advocates testified that Big Tech platforms are growing their business by using journalistic content without adequate consideration, jeopardizing the viability of local media outlets.
Several subcommittee members – all Democrats – lauded the importance of local newspapers and broadcasters, citing their critical value to local communities.
Others expressed skepticism of the Act in its current form, with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, suggesting the JCPA would create a "cartel" of "Big Media" conglomerates that could be biased against conservatives, a concern echoed by his GOP colleague Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
Lee also suggested the economic challenges facing local journalism stem more from bad internal business decisions than to predatory practices by Big Tech platforms, but he indicated that he might be able to support a more narrowly structured bill.
Witnesses for Big Tech expressed concern that the proposed legislation could infringe on "fair use" rights and would benefit large media companies more than small ones.
A revised bill draft under development could be released soon if House and Senate sponsors reach agreement, either as a stand-alone bill or part of a more expansive measure containing Big Tech antitrust provisions.
Performance Tax
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York, held a full hearing of the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA), which is being advanced by the international record labels and would create a performance tax on local Radio broadcasters.
The line-up of witnesses reflected the chairman's support for the measure, with only NAB President/CEO Curtis LeGeyt invited to speak on broadcasters' concerns, while three other witnesses advanced record labels' interests.
Lawmakers' questions focused on discounted rates for "small" stations, artists' property rights, streaming royalties and collection of foreign royalties owed to American artists.
Regarding the promotional value of broadcast Radio, witnesses argued it has diminished over time and is not a substitute for royalty payments.
Only two of the five Texans serving on the committee spoke up. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, primarily expressed concern that small Spanish-language stations be protected, while Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, also a Houston Democrat, offered comments advancing the record labels' arguments.
The outlook for this legislation is uncertain. While the committee clearly is stacked in favor of the record labels, the measure has 32 co-sponsors, including Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin/Houston.
This compares to HConRes 33, the Local Radio Freedom Act which opposes a performance tax and has the support of 210 members of the House, just eight shy of a majority.
Texas leads the country in the number of co-sponsors of the Local Radio Freedom Act.
Questions? Contact TAB's Oscar Rodriguez or call (512) 322-9944.
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3 MIN READ | 5G
New Challenges in Propagation Modeling
Yann Le Helloco
Dec. 29 2010
RF Planning
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Predicting radio channel behavior in an environment where wireless networks are deployed has always been an important but challenging task for engineers due to the fact that radio wave propagation models fulfill two contradictory requirements: (1) Predicting radio path loss with the highest accuracy and (2) Doing so while being computationally efficient to allow operational usage with large radio networks.
With the first 2G wireless network deployments in the 1990s, propagation modeling based on empirical models, with additional corrections based on analytical methods, became very popular. This was mainly because more advanced modeling techniques would have required more computing power than was available at that time, as well as a highly accurate, but often unaffordable, geographical database describing terrain and buildings. These models lacked accuracy because propagation phenomena were modeled in a simplistic manner. Furthermore, such models could not accommodate different propagation environments without recalibration, making them costly and very complex to deploy operationally.
Over the years, advancements in propagation modeling techniques, improvements in the underlying hardware performance, and the affordability of highly accurate geodata, have enabled the use of more advanced models in the design and optimization phases of commercial wireless networks. Today, advanced propagation models based on a tridimensional deterministic approach, such as the Planet Universal Model, as well as the use of 3D geodata have been largely adopted and have proven to be extremely accurate in dense urban environments as well as in other areas where accurate predictions are difficult (e.g., hilly terrain, low antennas). This type of advanced modeling solution is able to automatically adapt its behavior to various propagation environments by using the modeling algorithm that provides the best accuracy. This versatility solves one of the key difficulties in the propagation modeling field, which is the robustness of the propagation model when used in different propagation contexts.
With the deployment of broadband wireless networks such as LTE, operators must respond to the new radio modeling challenges that engineers are facing in order to benefit from the new access technologies, and to differentiate their service offering. LTE network rollouts are introducing new challenges including:
Increasing accuracy in dense urban areas. In order to offer broadband data services in the most profitable areas, operators must overlay a new radio access layer onto an existing 2G/3G network that is already very dense. In doing so, the focus shifts from coverage to SINR, effectively driving the requirement to improve prediction modeling accuracy in urban areas. This requires adapting propagation modeling to dense environments and 3D geodata usage in order to accurately predict the performance of those new access layers from both a coverage and capacity point of view in order to optimize new investments.
Supporting indoor coverage. When providing indoor coverage and data services to users located in buildings, it is crucial to maximize the return on investment by maximizing capacity and network quality in those strategic areas. This comes with complex challenges however as the signal levels tend to be insufficient at street level and in low floors, due to penetration losses, while the level if interference tends to be too large in the upper floors given the lack of signal containment. Accurately modeling wave propagation in order to tackle those challenges then becomes key to planning a network that will behave optimally for in-building users.
Predicting more radio channel characteristics. Traditionally, radio propagation for network planningand propagation models was limited to modeling the mean path loss, along with a provision for suitable fade margins as a way to plan a good quality network for a defined probability of service. With the introduction of advanced antenna technologies in 4G, such as MIMO, it is important to accurately model additional radio channel characteristics as otherwise system performance will be impacted. In particular, large scale-fading characteristics, space-time channel dimension, delay spread, DoA (Direction of Arrival) distribution, etc. should be modeled more accurately as a way to more precisely predict their impact on the performance level of technologies such as diversity, spatial multiplexing, cyclic prefix, beamforming, etc. This will in turn ensure operators make the right engineering decisions and extract the most value out of new radio access technologies.
Mentum Planet 5.0 represents a major step forward in this direction, with the introduction of the new Planet Antenna Format, which fully supports all of those notions, as well as the support for antenna algorithm, beamforming models, MIMO simulation, etc., now all native parts of the application. Mentum is further investing and researching this area and is committed to continue leading the evolution of propagation modeling, alongside its partners, Orange Labs and CRC (Communication Research Center Canada).
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Dr. Le Helloco oversees the development of the network planning and service assurance products, and he is responsible for technical innovation. Prior to joining InfoVista, Dr. Le Helloco was the CTO of Mentum, where he headed R&D and product management activities. He has many years of experience in managing technological, research and R&D teams for various companies including Ericsson, Marconi, Siradel and Cap Gemini. Dr. Le Helloco is an expert in the fields of signal processing, radio wave propagation prediction, mobile and fixed wireless simulation as well as imagery and radar systems. He has more than 15 years of experience with most air interface technologies and protocols, and has acted as a consultant to many public and private sector organizations including wireless operators and military organizations. He has authored numerous patents, published many articles and speaks frequently at industry conferences. Dr. Le Helloco received his degree in signal processing, and also has a master's degree in radio communications from the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Rennes, France.
A look at 5G Backhaul Challenges
5G is different from all its "G" predecessors. Learn how to solve key backhaul challenges.
Irina Cotanis
Jul. 5 2019
5G Testing Challenges: Top 5 Areas to Focus with Devices
Lessons learned from tackling 5G challenges in early deployments across the globe
Operators and vendors can now conduct their own tests using the P3 scoring methodology, as part of Infovista's certified TEMS solutions
It's very interesting to see the recent report of mobile network performance from The Netherlands recently produced by P3 communications.
Julian Lowe
May. 29 2019
Recent Survey Finds Mobile Network Operators Struggling to Prepare for 5G
Adrian Jakobsson
Apr. 18 2019
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The KBS TV1 epic drama `Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-shin` is enjoying enormous popularity in China. The drama, which depicts the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 16th century, is already very popular with its Korean audience. And now it has a large fan group in large Chinese cities as well, including Shanghai and Beijing, where it airs on a satellite channel.
The drama`s popularity in China may stem from the recent spate of anti-Japanese protests over Japan`s history distortions. The Chinese audience seems to identify with Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who defeated the Japanese forces a few centuries ago. The first four episodes of the drama are especially popular in China as they depict how the Joseon navy led by Yi Sun-shin forged an alliance with the Ming Dynasty navy led by Jin Lin to defeat Japan. These four episodes, which are subtitled in Chinese, have been the top downloads on Sina.com and other Chinese Internet portal sites recently.
`Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-shin,` which has already gained enormous popularity via unofficial routes. He also added that KBS has been flooded with requests to provide the copyright of the drama. Such major Chinese broadcasters as CCTV even requested KBS hold copyright negotiations. The popularity of actor Kim Myung-min, who plays Yi Sun-shin, is rising as well, with many Chinese fans checking out Kim`s shooting schedule and posting inquiries about meeting the actor in person.


Ciba® XYMARAT - "I feel more alive in insecurity"
an interview with the artist Devakrishna Marco Giollo.
Devakrishna Marco Giollo's mixed-media art will be seen adorning the walls of 100% Design's centerpiece auditorium, the Ciba® XYMARAT Theatre, for the duration of the design event in London.
Giollo's pieces are sensual experiences, with color, texture, glint and shimmer all building up into an emotionally complex, but resonant, whole.
Ciba commissioned Giollo to produce four pieces incorporating Ciba® XYMARAT pearlescent pigments and Ciba® XYMARA NordicT sparkle-effect pigments to showcase the subtle and sensitive possibilities offered by these products.
XYMARA.com discussed his creative process with him .
In our first interview with you, we already talked about your philosophy and your approach. This time, can you tell us more about your creative process?
First of all, I have a lot of "material" at home that I have been collecting. It's just objects and pieces, which you can see on the paintings. I can't exist only on a flat surface, I am used to sculpture, so for me, a painting is a three dimensional thing. I see objects that attract me and I just collect them. Then, when I have the object, I depart - it's like going out from a center and it's almost like going out from my own inner center. It's very important for me that I am in a clear space inside when I do that. That means my heart is open, I don't have anything that clutters my mind; that I am in a clean, good space. And then I start placing the objects, I start moving and creating shapes that have some harmony. And then from the center I spread out into space. It's like what I do in my private life as well. I am always trying to go inside, and then, from my center, fill the space of what we're living in. It's big, it's like the universe. And that's the shape before the colors. The colors come after.
How do you choose your starting-point objects?
That's very spontaneous. I pick an object up: it's the color, it's the feeling ... I pick up this one but not that one ... I lay them around, and then I start. I let my unconscious think about it. For this particular painting, I started with a red object ... If the first object would have been green, then all the other things would have been greenish.
And then, from there you discover the shape ...?
I discover the shape. The object gives me the shape, and then I go from there.
So at first it's a single color and emotional concept, based on the object.
In this particular painting. But it's never the same. Sometimes I have something in mind that I want to do. Sometimes it's figurative, but "my" figurative: I want to do a woman, for example, so I choose the woman, but then again I start putting the objects around the woman, and that gives the feeling of the whole painting.
Is there a theme to how and where you collect your objects?
I was traveling, I was in India, and I was in a few markets. And there was this very old woman selling jewelry that nobody wanted anymore. I remember she was trying to charge a very high price and I was bargaining with her, just for the fun. At the end, I gave her the money she wanted. I bought a plastic bag full of these things which were not sellable on the market because they were all broken and old. And it was all jewelry for Rajahstani women. This was down in Goa. She looked like a beggar; in those places I just buy things and that's how I get inspired.
But anything I bought, I bought because I knew I would put them on canvas. It was clear.
What was it about those specific objects which attracted you?
There is something - I don't know how to explain it. I just don't know. It's like an attraction. "I want that, I will use that."
I also bought old embroidered saris and I want to use them too. With the red one, there is a piece of Sari there.
So you start with the object to create the basic concept ... And then?
Then, what I do, I just sit there for a day or two. I just sit. And I hang it in my living space; it has to hang where I live. In the morning, I get up, I pass it by and I look at it, and maybe something is missing, something is not right. Then I take it down and go back to work on it. And that process goes on and on to the point when I feel that it feels really right. And there is a danger that I could go too far or do too much. For example, on this particular painting, I was still busy putting the pigments on until last night because I was not so excited with how it looked, yet. So I did these last three splashes with the silver. And when you splash, you can ruin the whole thing, because you don't know where a splash goes .


text:
Fiction, Books
Pebble in the Sky
Cover for Asimov's Pebble in the Sky
Pebble in the Sky is Isaac Asimov's first novel, published in 1950. It later became part of his Empire series. Although it has two prequels (The Stars, Like Dust and The Currents of Space) they are only loosely connected.
This article, Pebble in the Sky, contains spoilers. Be forewarned, plot and/or ending details follow. Asimov says you decide.
While walking down the street in Chicago, Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor, is the unwitting victim of a nearby nuclear laboratory accident, by means of which he is instantaneously transported tens of thousands of years into the future (50,000 years, by one character's estimate). He finds himself in a place he does not recognise, and due to apparent changes in spoken language, he is unable to communicate with anyone. He wanders into a farm, and is taken in by the couple who live there. They mistaken him for a mentally deficient person, and secretly offer him as a subject for an experimental procedure to increase his mental abilities. The procedure, which has killed several subjects, works in his case, and he finds that he can quickly learn to speak the current language. He also slowly realises that the procedure has given him limited telepathic abilities, including the ability to project his thoughts to the point of killing or injuring a person. These are similar, but much less developed, powers to those employed by The Mule many millennia later.
Earth, at this time, is seen by the rest of the Galactic Empire as a rebellious planet—it has, in fact, rebelled three times — and the inhabitants are discriminated against. Earth also has several large radioactive areas, although the cause is never described. (The prequels elaborate on this point.) Because the radioactivity makes large areas of Earth uninhabitable, it is a very poor planet, and anyone who is unable to work is legally required to be killed. Earthpeople must also be executed when they reach the age of sixty, a procedure known as The Sixty, with very few exceptions, mainly for people who have made significant contributions to society. This is a problem for Schwartz, who is sixty-two years old.
Although Earth is part of the Empire, with a resident Procurator (as in the Roman empire), with a military garrison, it is in practice ruled by a group of religious fanatics. They have created a supervirus which they plan to use to kill or subjugate the rest of the empire and revenge themselves for way their planet has been treated by the Empire.
Schwartz, along with Affret Shekt, the scientist who developed the machine that Schwarz was treated with, his daughter Pola Shekt and a visiting historian Bel Arvarden, are captured but escape with the help of Schwarz's new mental powers, and are narrowly able to stop the plan to release the virus.
It should be noted that the 50,000 year estimate is at odds with the chronology given in Asimov's later novels, in particular Foundation and Earth and The Caves of Steel. The latter novel indicates that the robot R. Daneel Olivaw was constructed some three thousand years after the founding of New York City. Foundation and Earth, in its concluding scene, establishes that Daneel survives into the Interregnum period, after the First Galactic Empire collapses. He gives his age as (roughly) twenty thousand years. The Galactic Era dating system, to which most of Asimov's Foundation series adheres, places Foundation and Earth approximately twelve thousand years after Pebble in the Sky. Adding up all the differences, Joseph Schwartz's time displacement transported him only eleven millennia into the future.
This sort of inconsistency occurs elsewhere in Asimov's fiction. It is probably to be expected, given that Asimov wrote the Foundation stories over several decades and did not fully link the disparate historical eras until the last years of his life. Furthermore, his characters almost always act with incomplete information, frequently enriching their understanding of Galactic history as the plot unfolds. In this context, such inconsistencies are not only expectable but also, to an extent, necessary for realism.
This book takes place in the same universe as the Foundation series. There is even a reference to Trantor, later the planet where Hari Seldon would invent Psychohistory. Asimov returned to the radioactive Earth theme in Foundation and Earth, and he would explore it most fully in Robots and Empire.
Isaac Asimov Novels
Robot Series: The Caves of Steel | The Naked Sun | The Robots of Dawn | Robots and Empire
Empire Series: The Stars Like Dust | The Currents of Space | Pebble in the Sky
Foundation Series: Prelude to Foundation | Forward the Foundation | Foundation | Foundation and Empire | Second Foundation | Foundation's Edge | Foundation and Earth
List of Books by Isaac Asimov
Retrieved from "https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Pebble_in_the_Sky?oldid=6421"


Monday is the eve of the release of U.S. News & World Report's annual college rankings. And like all great eves — New Years, Christmas, Hanukkah, Arbor Day — I will gradually be overcome by a tingling sense of anticipation.Why?Why do I care?Usually, I care about something because of its value and merit. So what, then, is the value and merit of the rankings?Well, not much. In fact, they're, largely, arbitrary. U.S. News uses several general categories to rank colleges, all of which are assigned relative weights. But, as Malcolm Gladwell points out, the relative weight assigned to each category can substantially influence the outcome of overall rankings. And how does U.S. News determine the relative value of each category? Quite arbitrarily. Robert Morse, who heads the U.S. News rankings project, has said, "We're not saying we're social scientists, or we're subjecting our rankings to some peer-review process. We're just saying we've made this judgment. We're saying we've interviewed a lot of experts, we've developed these academic indicators, and we think these measures measure quality schools" (emphasis added).So, not only are the relative weights of each variable arbitrary, the actual variables themselves are too. Forbes produces its own list of college rankings and they use almost entirely different criteria to asses institutional quality — including one which gives 17.5 percent overall weight to student evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com. And, no surprise, they get entirely different results (finding, for instance, Dartmouth, Columbia, UPenn and Cornell all to be inferior to Boston College).These results also exhibit mysterious yearly swings. Bruce Gottlieb, investigating the meteoric rise of Caltech from ninth to first in the 1999 U.S. News rankings, found these swings to be anything but incidental. He explained that they are caused by changes U.S. News makes to its methodology in a purposeful effort to create "volatility" in the rankings to stoke reader interest and generate sales.It would be hard to argue that these intentionally manipulated rankings based on arbitrary variables assigned arbitrary weights are very valuable or meritorious. Yet still, we care.This may be due to the consequences of the rankings, not their actual content. Professor Ron Ehrenberg at the ILR School has shown just how consequential these rankings can be. His research suggests that, holding other factors constant, in the year following a jump in a college's rank, that college could increase its selectivity, increase its matriculation rate and accept students with higher SAT scores — all while awarding less financial assistance. (And, visa versa for a drop in rank.) So, better rankings attract better students, potentially bettering rankings again and attracting even better students. This circular cycle, while clearly of consequence, does not speak to the quality of a school, merely that of its students — not one in the same. This is even more dramatically clear with the peer assessment category, which constitutes 15 percent of the overall rankings. Peer assessment evaluates institutional quality using top administrators' opinions of their fellow colleges. However, these opinions usually reflect nothing more than the previous rankings. Colin Diver, the current president of Reed College (and former Dean of UPenn Law School) openly admits that, aside from "badly outdated information" and "fragmentary impressions," his opinion of many peer institutions is based on the "relative place of a school in the rankings-validated and rankings-influenced pecking order."This pecking order can become so ingrained in the collective psyche that it comes to define a school across all programs. Penn State Law School once received a middle-tier ranking from a group of approximately 100 lawyers who were handed a list of several law schools and asked to evaluate their quality. The only problem: When this ranking was made, Penn State didn't actually have a law school.Many universities, aware of how rank can define a college's entire brand, have made it a mission to improve their rankings, often at the cost of all else. Clemson recently announced its goal to become a top-20 public university. In this pursuit, administrators intentionally ranked all peer institutions below average and allowed classes with over 50 students to grow even larger (U.S. News only penalizes schools for the amount of classes with over 50 students, not the number of students in them).Cornell proves no great exception to this trend. In fact, our school's strategic plan for 2010-2015 explicitly acknowledges an "overarching aspiration for the University: to be widely recognized as a top-ten research university in the world." (In case you're wondering, U.S. News also ranks the "world's best universities.")So, the rankings are consequential. Maybe that's why we care. But they're only consequential because we give them consequence; we act on them. And why do we act on them?We can't help ourselves. They appeal to a base urge to judge ourselves relative to others and others relative to ourselves. The rankings aren't about the school. They're about you. It doesn't matter if Cornell is better than Clemson, it matters that you're better than a Clemson grad — and there's a list to prove it! It's a matter of pride and perceived self-worth, for students, faculty, alumni and prospective students deciding where to go. Until we get over that, the rankings will always have meaning, and I'll always have that tingling sense of anticipation on Rankings Eve.