text:
Q: Cannot filter assets for multiple densities using SDK build tools 21 or later Due to an issue building my application in release mode with the gradle plugin 1.3.0, I have switched to 1.4.0 (beta 2), which fixes said build issue.
However, whereas some flavors build perfectly, others have their build aborted with the following error message:

Cannot filter assets for multiple densities using SDK build tools 21 or later. Consider using apk splits instead.

I haven't found any reference to the sentence above, what should I do with the resources of these flavors, or even why this error only appears in a couple of flavors and not in all of them.
Edit: build.gradle
apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    signingConfigs {
        config {
        }
    }
    compileSdkVersion 23
    buildToolsVersion "23.0.1"
    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.example.appname"
        minSdkVersion 8
        targetSdkVersion 23
        versionCode 1
        versionName '0.0.1'
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
            minifyEnabled true
            zipAlignEnabled true
            signingConfig signingConfigs.config
        }
        debug {
            applicationIdSuffix 'debug'
            versionNameSuffix '_debug'
        }
    }
    flavorDimensions "googleplay"
    productFlavors {
        noplay {
            dimension "googleplay"
            versionCode Integer.parseInt(defaultConfig.versionCode + "0")
            buildConfigField "boolean", "HAS_GOOGLE_PLAY", "false"

            resConfigs "ldpi", "mdpi"
            // so far we are using the noplay flavor only for old devices, which do not have hidpi
        }
        play {
            dimension "googleplay"
            versionCode Integer.parseInt(defaultConfig.versionCode + "1")
            buildConfigField "boolean", "HAS_GOOGLE_PLAY", "true"
            minSdkVersion 9
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(include: ['*.jar'], dir: 'libs')

    // Google Play services (analytics)
    playCompile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics:8.1.0'

    // ActionBar and support libraries
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.0.1'
    compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:23.0.1'
}

A: resConfigs is replaced by APK splits for densities and architectures. Note the following sentence:

When using build tools older than 21 you could also add resConfigs
  "nodpi", "hdpi" to also limit the density folders that are packaged.
  Instead, use apk splits to provide different apks to devices with
  different densities.

There is a bug report for this issue.
The offending resConfigs have to be removed, and apk splits can be used in their instead.
Alternatively, switching to build-tool 20.0.0 seems work around this problem.


1921 ROLLS ROYCE 40/50 Silver Ghost Tourer.
Renowned for their durability, reliability and style Silver Ghosts were produced between 1907 and 1925. This 1921 40/50 is powered by a 7 litre L Head side valve 6 cylinder engine (cast in two groups of 3) rated at 48 bhp, 7036 cc. The car has coil & magneto ignition, 4 speed gearbox and rear wheel drum brakes.
This 5 passenger open tourer body is by an unknown coachbuilder.
Wheelbase 143.5". Tyres 700x 21".


If you want to learn to perform poker, you should, first of all, learn to perform five-card draw poker. This is so easy to perform that you will not discover it in most of the casinos or on-line poker websites. Those who are especially intrigued in playing this variant must visit some of these special poker sites which provide this game. The aim of the sport is to win the pot by creating the very best hand or by scaring away the other gamers by making huge bets.
Many of the fighters that come out of the TUF series are beneath average fighters but have good marketing worth. Also the UFC will get these fighters into the show for a inexpensive price and because the fighters have some sort of marketability they are put into the UFC events. TUF alumni are offered higher-profile places than much more deserving competitors.
When people think of horse racing they appear to the fanatical race-goers of Hong Kong, or the civilized Leading Hat and Tail world of Ascot. But when it arrives to horse racing there is no much more prestigious or one that enthralls a nation like the Melbourne Cup. This truly is a race that stops a nation with the condition that retains the event, Victoria, having a community holiday and in many other areas of the country it may as well be with Melbourne Cup features, lunches and occasions to rejoice the historic race that has been operate because 1861 when Archer was walked to the Cup.
Despite his recognition Franklin has by no means been the fighter the buzz has made him out to be. Sure he was UFC middleweight champion but he fought in a very weak division and he by no means fought a top 10 fighter.
The first tip is paying interest. It is easy to get distracted, when playing 먹튀검증 trade poker. Nevertheless, it is essential for you to spend attention as opponents may consider an advantage over you. It is also important that you identify numerous strategies of your opponents and verify out all the hands. In addition, spend near attention on the taking part in designs of other players.
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SynchroniCity prefers to reuse the existing data of partner cities, but it's also open to using new data sources for new pilot cities that we want to bring in. In that case we need to use the synchronicity APIs to make the results available for the consortium.
Also consider that the final solution/app presented must exploit these new datasets, according SynchroniCity Open call basis.


text:
Q: Custom distribution is always giving the same value in Anylogic I am using AnyLogic for a simulation, and in a function I made, I am creating a custom distribution from a list of observations (integers) which I stored in a database table (some values are 10,12,10,14,16,20,21,23,11,...).
The problem is that after creating the custom distribution programatically, it returns always the same value from the distribution (14). I thought that fixing the seed at 0 was causing the problem, so I wrote this code to compute a random seed for each execution and use it to get the random value from the custom distribution :
CustomDistribution dist = new CustomDistribution(leadtimes);
int seed = ThreadLocalRandom.current().nextInt(0, 100 + 1);
traceln("Seed : "+seed);
delay = dist.get(new Random(seed));

In this code, leadtimes is a list of integer observations, seed is generated randomly each time, dist is the custom distribution object, and delay is the random value that I would like to get.
In short :
How to generate a random value that is different each time from a custom distribution created programatically ?

A: you are doing things exactly right, nevertheless it's likely that the seed range you chose produces all the same value...
try this, and you will see you get different values:
for(int i=0;i<1000000;i+=10221){
    traceln(dist.get(new Random(i)));
}

The seed allows you to have 1 reproducible run, but there's no control over what result this will produce, so you can have a significantly huge range of consecutive seed values that will give you the exact same result.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The DAT format is especially interesting to me because it is highly advanced for the time of its debut in the late 1980's. The DAT format specifies uncompressed 48kHz, 2-channel, 16-bit PCM audio data. The fact that it is uncompressed blew my mind. This is a format that exceeds Red Book CD audio specifications coupled with the charm of an unusual format. I picked up a Sony DTC-690 from Craigslist that was in great working order. There is just something really sweet about mid-90s Sony gear and their perfectly labelled switches. It fits in well on the shelf with my more modern Marantz components.
The DAT format never caught on in the consumer market for a variety of reasons but did gain some success in the professional recording industry. The tapes were popular to use as masters. This makes sense given the fact that the data is uncompressed and stored at a high sample rate. The tapes come in a variety of lengths. I have 35, 65 and 60 minute tapes.
The DAT tape decks include a digital input and output. These take the sample data provided to them and commit it directly to tape. This is great for audio because you can make a perfect copy of any input source. I had the idea that any arbitrary data could be fed into the digital input. It doesn't necessarily need to be real audio sample data.
$$ Bandwidth = SampleRate * BytesPerSample * ChannelCount\\ Bandwidth = 48000 * 2 * 2\\ Bandwidth = 187.5kB/s $$This is decently high bandwidth and likely high enough to support modern video codecs. Once I had demonstrated that there was enough bandwidth available on the tape I started to write the datvideo tool.
In order to store arbitrary binary data on the tape, I would need a way to synchronize the receiver with the data on the tape. There could be some audio data, followed by a binary blob, followed by more audio data. The receiver does not know when it will receive a specific type of data, so a system must be devised to signal to the receiver that some binary data has begun. It would also be nice to have some error handling in the form of a CRC. Though it is unlikely that the hardware will introduce errors in the data, it is possible that something in the audio path could introduce some unexpected behavior (some gain on the signal, or the like).
I opted to use the frame format specified by RFC-1662 which is commonly used in PPP (point-to-point) networking. The nice thing about this format is that it is easy to implement, has some error handling and can easily mix in with other forms of data thanks to the escaping feature. More details can be found in the specification.
I used a cheap USB sound card to send/receive data to/from the DAT deck. The sound card that I selected has S/PDIF inputs and outputs. I will use a TOSLINK cable to connect this sound card to the DAT deck.
When the binary data stored on the tape is played back, it sounds like noise and pins the level meter. It is interesting when music is interrupted with binary data and the music resumes.
In order to test all of this, I created a loopback on the sound card so that I could avoid using the tape deck during development.
I wrote a tool called datvideo that helps with this project. It has two modes: encode and decode. The encode mode takes an input file and generates a raw "audio" file that is intended to be recorded to the tape. The decode mode takes captured raw "audio" data and extracts data from the RFC-1662 frames. The tool can be configured to read/write from files or stdin/stdout. This makes it convenient for setting up a pipeline to read/write the tapes with. Here is the help output with a description of all command line flags that can be passed to the tool.
(OR required)  Put the tool in encode mode.
(OR required)  Put the tool in decode mode.
available to read for the client without blocking.
A tool for storing binary data on DAT tapes.
The following commands generate a tape image and decode a captured tape image, respectively. This encodes a photo from a local car meet that I atteded recently. These commands can be chained together with aplay and arecord. More details on that next.
Linux comes with a rich set of tools for working with audio. This demo requires the lowest level of access to the hardware, playing back and recording raw files. The aplay and arecord commands from the ALSA project allow exactly this. First, I will list out the sinks and sources. This can be done for both aplay and arecord.
This allows me to determine that the hardware address of my USB sound card is "hw:2,0". It is also worth noting that I changed the default input and outputs in the pavucontrol app to S/PDIF in and out.
With all of this knowledge in hand, let's chain it together to allow video streaming from the tape deck and USB sound card. I decided to use Big Buck Bunny as a test, which is common when dealing with media and decoders/encoders.
So first, let's grab Big Buck Bunny from Renderfarming. I like the1080p, 60fps version for the buttery smooth visuals :]. The video is roughly 10 minutes long which means the file needs to be around 110MB to achieve real-time playback from the tape. The file is overweight at 356MB which means that some transcoding is needed to trim it down. I noticed that there is an extra audio track. That can be stripped out too.
# Strip the AC3 audio track. MP3 is smaller.
# Transcode to h265 with CRF 30. This yeilds a ~100MB file.
I used my Mac Pro for the heavy h265 transcoding so that my tiny ThinkPad T440s didn't have to work too hard and to speed up the operation.
Once the file was transcoded into a file of suitable size, it was placed into MPEG-TS frames. MPEG-TS is typically used for DVB systems where interruptions in the stream may happen due to interference. Once the MPEG-TS stream was ready, the file was encoded with datvideo.
Now that the image is ready, it is time to burn it to tape. First, the DAT deck is put into record mode. The DAT deck can be recording before starting to burn the image thanks to the RFC-1662 framing that allows detecting the start of binary data anywhere on the tape. The following aplay command is used to play the raw file to tape without modification.
Now that the MPEG transport stream has been recorded to tape, it can be played back, decoded with datvideo and played back with VLC.
Let the file bbb.ts buffer for a few seconds and then it can be opened with VLC for playback. It is a pretty crude setup, but it works surprisingly well.
This was fun. I like doing quirky things with technology. I learned a few new things that I can probably use in my day-to-day work which is always nice. I probably won't go out and convert all of my favorite movies to DAT format, but this was certainly a nice way to spend a rainy weekend.
I hope you enjoyed my zany use of technology and perhaps are inspired to do something yourself. I know one idea that comes to mind is TCP/IP over TOSLINK optical audio cables via the datvideo tool shown above. It should work rather well.
Comments always welcome. Thanks for reading!
A really cool project! Since you're using MPEG-2 TS as a container format anyway, I wonder why you're doing the extra RFC-1662 encapsulation step? Transport Streams are self-synchronizing too, so aplay bbb.ts -> arecord bbb.ts should work fine. Sure, players may have trouble identifying the resulting stream properly if it starts with non-video data, but forcing the file type via something like "mpv --demuxer=lavf --demuxer-lavf-format=mpegts" or "vlc --demux=ts" should work around that. If you manage to create a proper fixed-rate TS stream somehow (spoiler: FFmpeg and derived tools are of no help at that, sadly), it should even support proper live playback, i.e. "arecord | mpv -".
Thanks Martin! I agree, MPEG-TS would likely work without the framing. I was able to store other data on the tape that does not have built-in support for this though, like JPEG, for example. A tar file is also an interesting idea.
I also found that some players didn't like receiving audio data input. Forcing the file type is a good idea.
Saw this on another site. My DAT player is being repaired at the moment but I hope to have it back soon and have a go with this! One quick question. When playing back, does it create the whole file (bbb.ts in your example) on the computer or is it just a small buffered section?
In this case, it does create the whole file, but I had originally intended to rig this up so that it would just use a pipe to stream the video directly into the player of choice (mplayer, vlc). I couldn't get VLC to behave correctly when reading from stdin and I had a working demo. I think it should be possible to make this work though.
I wish I had the programming skill and Linux knowledge to make this something that could be streamed. It would be fun to have a Raspberry Pi like box that would take the data stream and pump out at HDMI signal. I say RPi like as I doubt the Pi could do h265! Actually could you use h264 instead?


text:
In a little brown notebook full of 18th century medical cures and other valuable information, many people are mentioned. Some are patients, some are doctors. Some are notable figures in St. Martin history, others we may never know.
Some remind us that there was a patient behind each treatment, like the woman Judy. She appears in the title of a remedy: "For the dry Belly ache such as the woman Judy had." Others invoke family names still common on St. Martin, like the pills to J.B. Gumbs "to act on the liver."
Some tell a story of inter-island connection. A number of cures are recorded from a Dr. Griffin from St. Kitts, and one from "the French Doctor Laguionie." Others help us place the notebook in history. One medical recipe was "recommended for the man Will belonging to the Estate Mary's Fancy." This seems to show that this was written during the time of slavery.
Parson Hodge is better known for spreading Methodism than curing cough.
Early in the notebook is a list of medicines delivered from New York to Mr. Lucas Percival. He was born around 1809 and died in 1877. He is best known as the owner of the Diamond Estate in Cole Bay. Just after emancipation was announced by the French, 26 enslaved persons left the estate to gain their freedom across the border. This escape showed that slaveholders on the Dutch side could not sustain slavery as it was. They were forced to make changes long before it was finally abolished by the Dutch in 1863.
Most of the cures in the first part of the book come from Dr. Allaway. Peter Welles Allaway was a surgeon who bought the Union plantation in Colombier in 1832. After French emancipation in 1848, Dr. Allaway was the first planter to sign a contract with free workers. Despite being a doctor, Allaway's contract has a clause noting that he makes no commitment to providing medical care to the workers.
The "Remedy by Parson Hodge of Anguilla for cough and digestion" is noted as "good." He is the Reverend John Hodge, who introduced Methodism to Anguilla and St. Martin. He was a free man of mixed race — a black mother and white father. He was also the first Caribbean person ordained by the Methodist Church. At the time, there was no doctor on Anguilla, so medicines were provided by the Methodist Missionary Society and care was given by missionaries.
The author of the book is revealed by their daughter's name.
One more name found in the book is not tied to the major historical changes in 19th century St. Martin, but is still important. Tucked at the bottom of the page is a short recipe: "Pills (by Doctor Allaway) prescribed by him for my daughter Anna Gumbes who had a catarrh, bilious fever and obstinate."
Do you have an idea who the parents of Anna Gumbes are? Share it by writing in to The Daily Herald or info@lesfruitsdemer.com.
Bad Medicines
Get Your Photo Published in Statia Wildlife Book

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Here we are, again…Holiday Season!
Happy All Saints Day, everybody! Or Dia de los Muertos for my Mexican friends.
The best way to be green NOW is to reuse any decorations that can be safely stored away for next year…might as well save the money by recycling those plastic spiders and disembodied hands and orange/black/glow-in-the-dark "garland" strands, too. If you had a jack-o-lantern, go ahead and keep it on display as "harvest art" until it gets too gross to leave on your porch or starts attracting flies. Here in Texas, jack-o-lanterns don't have very long shelf lives since it's pretty warm, still, but northern states… what with your seasonally cooler weather (I'm only a wee bit jealous)… can have a cut pumpkin that stays pretty "fresh" for a few weeks. Whenever you are ready to say goodbye to Mr. Jack, go ahead and send him to your compost pile so he can return from whence he came and become fertilizer for your spring garden.
If you didn't do it this year, save those pumpkin seeds when you carve your pumpkins and roast them in the oven for some tasty, healthy snacks.
Also, something to consider next year is choosing as many "harvest-themed" Halloween decorations so they can last longer and be on display right up until Thanksgiving. It's easy, right? Think gourds, pumpkins, corn stalks, hay bales, etc. You can still go down a fright-themed path by making a scarecrow, other "people" made from clothes stuffed with hay, ghosts from fabric which can be washed and saved again for next year (or even sheets/tablecloths/towels that go back to being sheets/tablecloths/towels), and creatively painted/stacked haybales to make giant spiders, tunnels, or mazes.
When these things are ready to be replaced by Christmas decorations, they can all be composted or otherwise used without finding their way into a landfill or negatively impacting the environment at large.
Many gourds and dried corn can last in storage for years, as long as they are fully dried and kept dry when they are stored. It is probably best to use a plastic storage bin for such things, to avoid attracting mice that might sniff out a delicious harvest treat if they are stored in a cardboard box. I know, I know, I normally don't recommend plastic, but storage bins are something that can last for a very, very long time—I have some that must be over 15 years old and won't have to be replaced any time soon as far as I can tell. I also have a wreath with multi-colored dried corn on it that has stayed presentable for about 10 years…not a single mouse nibble!
Depending on your hay source and your yard or garden conditions, some people use hay as a way to protect bare spots from the erosion of winter rains, to act as an insulator/water gatherer for fallow garden plots (much in the way of mulch), or even as a means to get grass growing instead of just sowing grass seed. In the case of growing grass, you will end up growing whatever kind of grass the hay was before it was cut (obvious, right?) so…if you don't know what kind of hay you have or where it came from, you might want to forgo this usage if you care about having a nice, weed-free lawn. I don't, personally, but some people do…just be warned.
I could tell you all about the artificial colors and preservatives in your Halloween candy and how awful they are for you and your kids, but…I bet you kind of already know candy's not the best thing to eat, and I bet you also know that a short-term intake of such things probably won't do a lot of damage in the long run.
So. No Halloween Scrooge today. Maybe in a few days after that picked-over bowl of candy's not looking so tempting anymore. Until then…I will be noshing on a few Reese's cups, myself. YUM!


text:
Maybe we can fine the dead
HOLLYWOOD — God bless America, and how's everybody?
The White House admitted Friday that 90,000 stimulus checks were sent out to dead people last year.
It's worse than that.
The dead are late in reporting whether they spent their stimulus money to install solar panels or to retain teachers.
President Obama said Friday if Republicans take Congress, it'll be hand-to-hand combat on Capitol Hill every day. House Members would love to start using their hands again.
They're sick and tired of chewing on that No-Grope gum every day to help them kick the habit.
The Labor Department announced Friday the U.S. economy lost another 100,000 jobs last month.
Magically, the unemployment rate stayed the same. Democrats used to go to massage parlors for sex, now they go there for better economic numbers.
Obama named former Fannie Mae lobbyist Tom Donilon his National Security Adviser Friday.
He can't destroy the Taliban with the techniques Fannie Mae used to destroy the U.S. economy. They'll never borrow money against their caves, that's their security.
The Gallup Poll revealed Friday that George W. Bush has pulled into a tie with Barack Obama over who was the better president.
Bush must be sad.
Just two years ago he held the title of the worst president in history. Only Mark McGwire's record was broken faster.
Jerry Brown's campaign aide was caught on tape Friday calling their governor's race opponent Meg Whitman "a whore." Even Democrats were outraged by the put-down.
Within the hour Eliot Spitzer sent Meg Whitman a $4,000 donation just out of habit.
Judge Talmadge Littlejohn of Mississippi jailed a lawyer for two hours Thursday for refusing to join in the Pledge of Allegiance to begin the day's session.
It's a long-held custom. Southerners must recite the Pledge of Allegiance once a day to fulfill the terms of surrender.
Universal Studios pulled a trailer for The Dilemma showing Vince Vaughn telling a crowd that electric cars are "gay."
There's no hiding the truth.
Last night in San Francisco a Prius was arrested for public indecency when it locked bumpers with a Smart Car on Nob Hill.
Lou Holtz was ordered by ESPN Thursday to stop sending fund raising letters on behalf of the GOP. College football has a huge effect on politics.
Fifteen Southern states voted Republican in the last election because Obama sounds too much like Go Bama.
Swiss bankers acknowledged Friday that the world's wealthiest investors have been buying up gold, causing gold's price per ounce to skyrocket.
It's gotten crazy.
Last week, tourists in Beverly Hills saw Mr. T in a pawn shop, for $600,000.
(Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. E-mail him at Argus@ArgusHamilton.com.)


Forget move in ready. Forget immaculate. This place is like BRAND NEW. The sellers have lovingly installed front deck, back deck and a remote deck under hardwood trees out back. Other updates include two remodeled bathrooms, remodeled kitchen, updated lighting and extra parking beside house.They even built a super nice 22ft x 22ft detached garage/workshop fully electric with automatic doors and a storage loft with tons of storage. There is a beautiful stone wood burning fireplace and of course walk in closets.


I have been looking for a caftan dress for awhile and found one at Urban Outfitters but decided not to get it due the print. The other day I found this black caftan dress at Ross for only $15 (similar one here). When I wore it to work and I got so many compliments from co-workers and students, which made me think to myself that I should wear dresses more often.
My arm swag is a Juicy Couture Watch (I like this one here). I purchased my skull stretch bracelet from Claire's (similar one here). Love stretch bracelet (similar one here). Black stretch bracelet (I like this one here). Sideways sword necklace (similar one here or here). Check out my Rainbow Confetti Nail tutorial.


An estimated 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's. Caring for patients with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia is estimated to cost the nation as much as $215 billion. According to a new national survey, a third of family members and friends caring for a loved one with the disease reduced their work hours or quit. And 28% of caregivers eat less or go hungry. The report was released right before an Alzheimer's conference that begins here in Washington today. Diane Rehm and a panel of guests discuss why Alzheimer's is one of the most costly diseases for families and the nation.
"Will the Next Five Years Witness an Innovation Wave in Medicines for Alzheimer's?"
Will the Next Five Years Witness an Innovation Wave in Medicines for Alzheimer's?
MS. DIANE REHMThanks for joining us. I'm Diane Rehm. A new report finds that family members caring for loved ones with Alzheimer's are making even greater financial sacrifices than previous thought, including quitting their jobs. With me to talk about the financial toll Alzheimer's takes on family, George Vradenburg, founder with Trish Vradenburg of Us Against Alzheimer's, Dr Katalin Roth of the George Washington University, Beth Kallmyer with the Alzheimer's Association and Mark Dunham who cared for his wife with Alzheimer's.
MS. DIANE REHMJoining us from a studio in Santa Monica, California, Michael Hurd of the Rand Institute. I'm sure many of you will want to join the conversation. Give us a call at 800-433-8850. Send your email to drshow@wamu.org. Follow us on Facebook or send us a tweet. And welcome to all of you.
MR. GEORGE VRADENBURGGood morning, Diane.
REHMGood to see you all. Beth, I'll start with you. Tell us about the Alzheimer's Association's new national survey into the costs of caregiving for Alzheimer's patients.
KALLMYERSo, you know, we know that the cost of care is enormous to the country, to all Americans, but the Alzheimer's Association wanted to conduct a nationwide survey to look at the personal impact of providing care on the finances of those caregivers.
REHMAnd how did you do that?
KALLMYERWell, it was study that was done by a company that does scientific surveys for us so it's a nationally representative study of over 3500 individuals. And from that study, there were about 500 of them met the criteria to be a care contributor. So a care contributor was somebody that provided care at least once a month for a year's time or paid for care at least once a month for a year's time. So we know these people were intimately involved in providing care for somebody with Alzheimer's or dementia.
REHMAnd did you find things you didn't expect?
KALLMYERIt was startling to see the sacrificed being made. People were cutting back on basic necessities, things like food. Family members were telling us, through the survey, that they had to make decision about putting food on the table. They were making decisions about skipping their own medical care or not filling their own prescriptions so that they could fill the prescriptions of the person they were caring for.
KALLMYERThey were taking money out of their savings. They were sometimes selling things. And so, you know, this impact was really significant on their day to day lives.
REHMAnd to you, Michael Hurd, as an economist, give us an idea of your findings on the cost of caring for those who have dementia or Alzheimer's.
HURDWe published a study in the "New England Journal of Medicine" in 2013 that looked at costs of dementia and we found that the cost associated with dementia or I would say due to dementia, because we adjusted for co-morbidities, that is to say, diseases that people had that they might have had anyway regardless of whether they had dementia, we adjusted for those things and found the costs associated with dementia or due to dementia were actually higher, in total, than the cost due to heart conditions or to cancer, making it the most costly disease.
HURDThe primary cost component of that was not medical services as such, but 75 to 80 percent of that cost was, in fact, due to caring for the people who are suffering from dementia. And there are two cost components to that. The first is formal care, that is care delivered in a nursing home setting, or purchased care that comes into the home, such as care from a nursing home service -- long term care service. But the second component and the most expensive was the cost of informal care, that is care provided typically by a spouse, a daughter, daughter-in-law would be the main contributors to that.
HURDThat is kind of consistent -- I'm sorry?
HURDIt depends upon the valuation we put on how we valued the informal care cost, but we estimated that in 2010, the cost using our best estimate, to be around $160 billion per year due to dementia.
REHMWow. And to Mark Dunham. I know you cared for your wife until she died in 2011. You actually quit your job to do that.
DONHAMNot be measured. And then, their career, you know. I left my career so I was out of the workforce for five years. The company I worked for lost a valuable employee. I didn't pay taxes for that period of time. And ultimately, it will affect my long term retirement.
DONHAMI was a sales and technical rep in the printing and packaging industry and so I had a pretty booming career and I looked at the overall cost, it cost me over a million dollars to be off for that amount of time, if I look at the lost wages, amount of money it took me to survive that period of time. And that was with long term care insurance. I was fortunate enough that we bought long term care insurance, which most people don't do, but Chris had a family history and because of my family background, my father had a stroke, we knew it would be a valuable asset if we needed it.
REHMWow. And when she finally died, were you able to go back to work?
DONHAMYeah. I was just 50 years. She was 54 when she passed away. So it took me about six months. I did find work again and the first year was really rough getting back to a working position, but so far, successfully, I've done it. You know, now I need to, you know, up my 401 (k) s and try to, you know, plan financially for my future.
REHMI'm so sorry about your loss.
DONHAMThank you. One thing I would say is that we made the most of it. It's made my life richer and more empathetic to not only what we went through, but also be able to reach out to other people that are going through similar circumstances.
REHMIndeed. Dr. Roth, are these the kinds of caregiving stories, you hear lots about?
ROTHI do. I primarily see older people with dementia as a geriatrician and palliative medicine physician, although I have seen some very unfortunate situations of early onset Alzheimer's as was just described. So people really -- I see a lot of couples where the unaffected person was really looking forward to a beautiful retirement with their spouse and that doesn't happen. Instead, retirement consists of having to care for somebody who's slowly slipping away and it's very difficult for people who are already -- it's very difficult for anyone to be a full-time caregiver.
ROTHAnd all of the physical stresses of that. And then, when the well person has her own health challenges, she may have some arthritis, she may have medical issues of her own, and then he or she is taking care of somebody who has lots of physical needs, it's a tremendous burden. It's not only the time and the isolation. There's tremendous isolation, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but it's a physical strain as well.
REHMAnd turning to you, George Vradenburg, I should say upfront that I am involved with Us Against Alzheimer's, appearing in the play that your wife, Trish Vradenburg, has written. We've done that around the country to highlight Alzheimer's. A person with Alzheimer's also has, on average, I gather, more doctor's appointments, more visits to the hospital.
VRADENBURGYes. It's a rather significant number. For Medicare, it's about three times the greater cost for a person with Alzheimer's than a person without Alzheimer's who has similar diseases. And for Medicare/Medicaid, it's 19 times more expensive for a person with Alzheimer's than a person who does not have Alzheimer's but the same otherwise -- the otherwise, the same conditions. So one of the things that the Alzheimer's Association report highlights is that most people think that these costs are covered by either Medicare or by Medicaid and most of them are not.
VRADENBURGWhile Medicare will cover most of your doctors and hospitals and skilled nursing facility cost, most not all, but the out-of-pocket cost of caring for a person at home, whether it be everything from adult diapers or long term care, are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid.
REHMGeorge Vradenburg is co-founder with his wife, Trish, and chairman of Us Against Alzheimer's, that's an advocacy organization. We'll take a short break here. When we come back, we'll talk further, take your calls, email. I look forward to hearing from you.
REHMAnd welcome back. Four people are with me here in the studio, George Vradenburg of Us Against Alzheimer's, Dr. Katalin Roth of George Washington University School of Medicine, Beth Kallmyer of the Alzheimer's Association, an advocacy group and Mark Donham, he quit his job to take care of his wife with Alzheimer's. He's a former board member of the Oregon chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. And joining us from Santa Monica, California, Michael Hurd, director of the RAND Corporation study -- Corporation Center for the Study of Aging.
REHMBeth, you've heard Mark Donham talk about his loss of income. What's the average loss of income?
KALLMYERThe Alzheimer's Association survey actually found that on average, people that cut back on work or stopped work entirely like mark did were losing an average of $15,000 a year. So it really becomes a bit of a double-whammy because as Mark was saying, they're not bringing in income, and then they're incurring additional costs. And so we know that the financial sacrifices are really significant.
REHMAnd George Vradenburg, many caregivers incorrectly assume that Medicare or Medicaid is going to take care of all their expenses.
VRADENBURGMedicare will take care of some of your expenses in terms of hospitalizations and doctors' visits, but Medicaid will only cover a nursing home admittance if you basically impoverish yourself. So you go down to basically to basically zero income or close to zero income and zero assets. So for the vast majority of us, the vast majority of us, including middle-income Americans and low- and middle-income Americans, Medicaid is not going to be the answer. So you have to do this yourself, whether it's home care, or whether it's nursing home care.
ROTHThat's correct, and people really -- I'm not sure, I haven't read these studies, but caregiver prices are $10 to $15 an hour, you multiply that times 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you can get some idea of what the costs are to families in terms of their time. And any kind of respite, time to go to the hairdresser, time to go to the doctor yourself, time to go to the grocery store, whatever it is that people need to do to keep their family lives running, they can't leave the affected person alone, and they need assistance.
ROTHSo it takes a lot of time and a lot of people to take care of someone with Alzheimer's.
REHMIndeed. Here's an email from Julie in Michigan, who says caregiving, someone to see to their personal hygiene, make sure they don't wander away, prepare their food, feed them is what dementia sufferers need, not expensive tests or treatments. But this is the only disease I know of where Medicare and private insurance refuse to pay for care until the patient has depleted all of his or her resources. Can you comment on the disparity between the level of support provided by Medicare and private insurance for other illnesses and that provided for dementia? Mr. Hurd?
HURDThis is a social choice we have made. We've made the choice that Medicare will pay for acute illnesses and other diseases among those over age 65, but those are identifiable diseases such as cancer, heart conditions and similar. We've made the decision that Medicare will not cover long-term care. We've also made the decision that there's a back-up insurance plan, Medicaid, that will cover those costs, provided the individual does not have the resources to pay for those costs him- or herself.
REHMSo thereby you have to spend down everything you have.
HURDYeah, now it's a complex situation where the amount of assets that can be retained depend upon whether the person is married, the state the person is in and so on. For a single person, it's pretty clear that you have to spend, unless there's some probability the person will return to the community, the person has to basically impoverish him- or herself.
ROTHSo I was going to add that there are actually negative incentive built into our current payment system. So Medicare doesn't question the utility, for example, of a pacemaker replacement in somebody with advanced Alzheimer's. So the cardiologist's fee, the hospital fees, all of those are paid for without any question about whether the procedure might in fact in any way improve the person's quality of life, and the cost isn't questioned.
ROTHSo we have a lot of negative incentives right now. We don't pay very well for time. So time-based care is what I need to provide to my patients. We don't pay for social workers to spend time with families of patients with Alzheimer's to figure out the best way to support them. I can't possibly see a person with Alzheimer's in a 15- or a 30-minute visit, and yet my time is not -- unless it's based on procedural issues, it's not well-reimbursed. And we -- I will say we also don't have enough trained nurses, nurse practitioners and Pas and physicians to work with the current numbers of dementia patients and/or for the future.
KALLMYERCurrently there's some legislation before Congress that the Alzheimer's Association is supporting highly and advocating for, and it would allow following an Alzheimer's diagnosis, it would allow that family and that person with the disease to meet with a social worker perhaps or a nurse practitioner to help them do comprehensive care planning.
KALLMYERAnd we know that this is one of the things in the face of these enormous costs that planning can make a difference for people. It isn't going to solve it, by any stretch of the imagination, but it can make a significant difference for them if they are educated about what's out there, and then they make a plan for themselves.
REHMGeorge Vradenburg, what does the future look like for Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's patients and the cost of caring for Alzheimer's patients?
VRADENBURGThey're all going in the wrong way, more people with the disease as our nation continues to age. Actually one of the great benefits of the 20th century was all the diseases that we cured and all the public health interventions that we made that extended our lives. And now we are living in an age when we have three generation and four generations families, so that in fact now we're aging as a nation, and it's a similar phenomenon around the world, which means more people aging, which is the highest risk factor for the disease, which mean more caregiving, which means more financial impact on the nation.
VRADENBURGOn the cure side, there is some hope, although we have 17 drugs in final stages of testing, for this disease, which would be on schedule to get to market by -- within five years. Those -- who knows whether they're all going to successful, not likely, but some may be. But that means that we're now going to have some drug costs on top of these costs for a period of time, until we get sufficient innovation to actually reduce the incidence of the disease and to begin to reduce these costs.
REHMHere's an email from Jeff in Cleveland, Ohio, who says, my mother suffered in a facility for over six years, costing most of my parents' life savings of $700,000. She would have preferred that money go to college for her grandchildren. I won't read the rest of this because it has to do with the wish to die, which we may get to a little later, but how does this resonate with you, Mark?
DONHAMYeah, it's a devastating disease, facing, you know, the financial impact, and it hits home for me because that's the kind of money we spent or I spent in caring for my wife.
REHMDid you ever assume you might be able to put her into a facility and then carry on with your work?
DONHAMWell, I actually did have her in care facility at the very end of her life, mostly because I ended up in the hospital, they thought I was having a heart attack over the stress and strain of the finances in taking care of my wife 24/7 and losing sleep and not taking care of myself because I was caring for her. And so I realized at that point that if I didn't do what all the books told me to do, which was take care of yourself, but when you're on the treadmill of caregiving, you don't know how to do that, and then I started getting extra help.
DONHAMAnd with long-term care insurance, I was able to place my wife in the best care and then turn my energy into advocating for the best care she could have and loving her every day I was there, I was there eight to 10 hours a day, minimum, because I didn't put her there to get rid of her, I put her there to get the best care possible and stay healthy enough to survive it myself.
REHMI understand. All right, we're going to open the phones, a caller in Lexington, Kentucky. Ellie, you're on the air.
REHMHi. Go right ahead, please.
ELLIEYeah, I just called in, I am 29 years old, and my mother, Barbara, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about three years ago. She's 58. And so my husband and I made the decision to move from the D.C. area back to Kentucky, and I resonated a lot with this story because I've had to shift from full-time to part-time work not only to balance care for her, but also now I have her son, and so the costs of caregiving are just very demanding.
REHMSo you are clearly part of what we call the sandwich generation.
ELLIENo, it's a big challenge.
KALLMYERNo, I mean, we talked -- we talked to hundreds of families, thousands of families just like that, and, you know, one of the things that I can tell you that is important to do, and Mark mentioned this, is to find ways to take care of yourself. This disease goes on for a period of years, and it happens slowly, often, and so people don't realize how bad things are getting as the caregiver. They just, they think at the beginning, oh, I've got this, I've got this handled, and then things get worse over time, and it's so important for them to get help and to access some of those community resources to help them provide that care so that they can do it over the long haul.
REHMSo Dr. Roth, do you see both the Alzheimer's patient and the caregiver simultaneously? Do you, are you able to direct your attention to both simultaneously?
ROTHWe do our best to do that. I mean, to support the patient, I have to support the caregiver. And he or she is under great strain and needs a lot of counseling and advice. I did want to mention to the caller that I hope in the early stages of recognition of Alzheimer's or other dementias in a patient, it's really important to think way in the future and try and get legal affairs organized and also to talk about advanced care planning while the affected person still is able to talk about his or her hopes and dreams and preferences. So often people avoid that.
REHMAnd you're listening to "The Diane Rehm Show." Now that takes me to the second part of this email, where Jeff in Cleveland said, about his mother, who suffered in a facility for over six years, talked about the costs, he goes on to say she also wanted a gun to be brought to her. She said that death would have been a better solution. We, the staff, the hospice and family, hoped for her quick decline, but it was long and slow. The Alzheimer's Association was very helpful. I wonder how often that comes up in the thinking.
DONHAMWell, you read about it all the time, where someone does take the life of their loved one to stop the suffering, and then they end up in jail. I hear it, every year it happens around the United States. The challenging part, I know, is, you know, if -- I know living in Oregon, where you have a right-to-die state, not getting into the politics, but you have to be of sound mind to do it yourself. My wife never would have done it early enough, before the disease progressed.
REHMYou know, there was an article in the New York Times magazine a year or so ago about a husband and wife who made that plan together, who knew she was progressing and made the decision as to when, while she was still of sound mind to take her own life. That's a pretty drastic solution, Beth.
KALLMYERYou know, I think one of the most important things that the families can do is have these conversations.
KALLMYERAnd to talk about this and to put things in place. We have wonderful hospice programs and palliative care that's available to everybody in this country, and certainly Medicare covers hospice, for example, and so people can access that, and it can bring in a significant amount of support and help them as they go through the dying process.
ROTHActually, I agree with what you say. Alzheimer's and other dementias are very chronic diseases, and the hospice benefit is only available during the estimated last six months of life. So we see many families who would like to put their family members in hospice, but they're really not hospice-eligible. And similarly, the states which do have laws that allow death with dignity, or the California act is called the End of Life Options Act, they are really only applicable to people who have terminal illnesses and are very -- are very near death.
ROTHSo I don't think that those -- in Oregon or in California or in the state of Washington, a person with mid-stage Alzheimer's would not be able to access the assistance of those statutes.
REHMGeorge Vradenburg, you talked about the drugs currently in process. How much are they going to cost?
VRADENBURGWell, obviously they haven't been priced yet, but because they're infusion products, these are not drugs necessarily that you would take by a pill but by actual injections, so they will be probably be fairly expensive. You know, anyone's guess, but it will be in the tens of thousands a year. Whether Medicare covers that or not is still an unknown question.
REHMGeorge Vradenburg, co-founder and chair of Us Against Alzheimer's. Short break here. When we come back, more of your calls, your comments. Stay with us.
REHMAnd welcome back. Here's an email from Pat in Painesville, Ohio. She says, "what do other countries do, like Canada, for example?" George Vradenburg.
VRADENBURGOther countries are providing a variety of supports for caregivers and for those with the disease in their chronic state. But they are recognizing that those supports may not be sustainable in the long term themselves, and so they're struggling with the same problem, although every health system's different. France has a very sophisticated system of national memory clinics. The UK government has the National Health Service, as does Canada. So they're providing a variety of supports. But one of the things that's led Prime Minister Cameron to be so active in this space is he's deeply concerned about the long term sustainability of their National Health Service, if we do not solve this disease.
REHMAll right, and here's an email from Lori. She's with the Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center at the University of Michigan Health System. And we've received a few like this. She says, "while I'm pleased you're talking about the cost to families about Alzheimer's, not all dementia is Alzheimer's. Too many people use the word Alzheimer's as a synonym for dementia. As the daughter of a man who died with Lewy Body Dementia, the second most prevalent neurodegenerative dementia in America, affecting some 1.3 million of our citizens, this misuse is deeply painful." How do we look at this whole area of dementia within the Alzheimer's Association, for example?
KALLMYERWell, the Alzheimer's Association provides care and support for people with all types of dementia. Alzheimer's is the most common type of dementia, but the other dementias certainly make up a large portion of who's impacted.
REHMHow do we differentiate between the dementias?
KALLMYERWell, one of the, one of the things that is happening is we're getting better at diagnosing Alzheimer's disease, we're getting better at diagnosing some of these, some of the other dementias, frontal temporal, or Lewy Body, vascular dementia. We aren't where we need to be, though. We still have doctors that, you know, most people are being seen by primary care doctors, not specialists, not neurologists, so we need to educate primary care doctors and others to be able to figure out, you know, what is the evaluative process and how do we make the appropriate diagnosis so that people can access what treatments are available as well as support services.
REHMMark, how was your wife diagnosed?
REHMWere brain scans done as well?
DONHAMBrain, MRIs, neuro psych testing.
REHMAnd what did they show?
DONHAMWell, they, you know -- in the case of clinical trials, they don't really tell you what's going on, but as you go through the process, you start to see deficits when they start to happen.
REHMTalk about those clinical trials, George.
VRADENBURGThis is something that all Americans can do, and all Americans should do, and that is to sign up for a clinical trial, or for a registry that will determine and follow you to determine whether or not it's useful for you to participate in a clinical trial. I would urge everyone in America to go to brainhealthregistry.org to sign up, to provide a variety of information about your own family history and your own conditions. And take a -- some games on the site, and they will inform you whether -- if in fact you may quality for clinical trials.
VRADENBURGBut this is one of the major stumbling blocks in the speed with which we're getting to a cure, is that we don't have enough people who are participating in clinical trials. And as a consequence, there are many very promising drugs that are not being tested because we don't have enough people to participate in these trials. So signing up at brainhealthregistry.org is one way to do that.
REHMHey, let's go to Nancy in San Antonio, Texas. You're on the air.
NANCYMy mother will be 92 next week, and she came -- I don't know, she was diagnosed in 2010, she lived with us for two years. And then we got to a point where we could not care for her anymore. She's in an Alzheimer's care facility that costs $5500 a month. And what a lot of people don't understand is a normal nursing home is not, either not equipped, or they will not accept Alzheimer's patients, and if they do, oftentimes they're kicked out because of their erratic behavior.
REHMYou want to comment, Beth?
KALLMYERYeah, I think that it's so important that we help families recognize what's available in their communities, because there's -- it really depends on where you live. If you're in a rural area, it's different than if you're in a city or a suburb. And we know that we need to have training for people that work in these facilities so that they understand the best way to interact and to treat and to support people, their residents living with Alzheimer's. And families are really challenged trying to find the best care for their families.
REHMBut now, my husband, as you perhaps know, died after suffering from Parkinson's disease for quite some time. He was at a facility that had set aside one entire floor for Alzheimer's patients. I'm just wondering about the training required to care for those Alzheimer's patients. Is it specific to those patients, Beth?
KALLMYERYou know, the state laws generally govern this, and so it is different in every single state, as you can imagine. So there -- it varies, you know, for nursing homes, you've got Medicare is involved in setting some of those guidelines, and Medicaid. But as we know, many assisted living programs for people with Alzheimer's, that's not covered by Medicare. And there's less regulation on that, if any. So it really depends on the state. But it is important for those workers to understand how to interact with somebody with Alzheimer's disease and to really have a sense of that, so they can provide the best care.
REHMAnd to have very special training, I would think. Here's an email from Tom in Danville, Virginia, who says, "We know the financially fortunate can and do quit jobs and sell assets to care for elderly and demented loved ones. What do those in rural America who have nothing in the way of disposable income and assets do with their elderly and demented loved ones?" Michael Hurd.
HURDWell, the program that we have is Medicaid, as we've talked about, and that is for people who have no financial resources. For people who have modest financial resources, it requires that they spend them, as we've discussed. But it -- Medicaid is that program. One thing that was mentioned earlier is support for the caregiver in terms of decision making. Legal assistance, financial assistance. There is a whole web of programs, things that people need to know. Now from the Affordable Care Act, there's some experimental programs to see how much that helps.
HURDThis is a relatively cost efficient thing that we could do to help caregivers. And in the case you're talking about, a rural situation, that kind of advice would be invaluable, to know what's available.
REHMAnd to George, what do you suggest that families do to prepare for caring for someone with Alzheimer's?
VRADENBURGWell, I think the number one thing they can do is save. They can make sure that they've thought through their retirement. You can look through this as a retirement security issue. We have not saved enough money as Baby Boomers to sustain a 30 or 40 year retirement. So if in face you're hit on top of that with long term care costs, you're in real trouble. So saving, saving at greater rates is vitally important. Beyond that, getting help as a caregiver, almost immediately turning not just to end of life, which is important to think about in those earlier years, but also to caregiver support services.
REHMExactly. I want to bring in an email from Herman in Rochester, New York. "Please discuss how assets can be protected by placing them in a supplemental needs trust, a qualified disability trust. The money in the trust can be used to enhance the patient's quality of life, but is not part of the patient's assets." Do you know about this, Mark?
DONHAMWell, not specifically, but I know, you know, addressing it early and getting legal advice, long term legal advice. There are some very specific things about when that's done, and how early it's done. A five year rule about moving assets and things. And so, yeah, seeking that legal advice early.
REHMSo you've got to have help.
DONHAMYou have to have help, and you need to have it early, as soon as you know that you're accepting that the disease is happening, to turn for that legal advice is really critical. And then you can walk through what really works and what doesn't.
KALLMYERAnd also, if people have resources, they should talk to a financial planner. They should talk to a professional financial planner, because it really is complicated, and you want to make sure that you're educating yourself about what is available to you and what your best choices will be.
REHMA lot of people talk about long term health or care insurance. That's expensive. Mark.
DONHAMIt really is. I know personally. My wife, although I have to say, you know, in the long term, my wife had it through her work, so we took advantage of that. And in the end, it gave me all the options to look for the best care for her. Of course, I've looked at it with just one stepson, for myself, I'm paying for it privately, and it is expensive, but it's a tradeoff of, if I need it, I didn't pay enough for it. If I never use it, it seems like a waste of money, which is sort of like all insurance.
REHMIsn't it something like $15,000 a year?
DONHAMThe earlier you purchase it, the less money. People don't start thinking about it until later in their life, and then it can be quite expensive.
VRADENBURGThere have been proposals over the years to add to our Medicare/Medicaid sort of portfolio support. Long term support services, financed as a mandatory tax on top of Medicare and Medicaid, because not everybody gets these long term things. So if in fact you're over 65, perhaps ten to fifteen percent, huge numbers, but that means 80 to 85 percent are healthy. So if everyone pays, and you can support at a relatively low rate for everyone, the costs of -- catastrophic costs for the families that do suffer for this. It has fallen on political rocks.
REHMAnd you're listening to "The Diane Rehm Show." Let's go to Dawn in San Antonio, Texas. You're on the air.
DAWNGood morning. My name is Dawn. I have a husband that is very young. He's 60, with Lewy Body dementia. Number one, I chased physicians to diagnose him for four years. I do not have any support, Medicaid or Medicare. I have begged to put him in trials. He cannot quality for trials. And also the informal time based care babysitters in the home is average 20 to 25 dollars an hour for caregivers, and of course, clinical RNs are 80. So your price was off with the in-home care.
REHMYeah, but why couldn't he qualify for any of the programs that test?
DAWNBecause we've done everything right. If you've done -- oh, for the trials?
DAWNI have begged, I have begged the physicians to put him in trials. I have no idea. They won't put him in a trial.
VRADENBURG...and so persons who are in the moderate stages are not likely to be the populations in which trails are being conducted. And it is tragic, because the field has moved to prevention trials, which basically means those with moderate to late stage disease, at least for the foreseeable future, do not have programs underway to try and deal with that type of treatment.
REHMAll right. We've been thus far talking about the costs in both personal and dollar terms. Now, what is the projection, George, for five years from now, for ten years from now, as to what Alzheimer's is going to cost this country, unless we do something about it.
VRADENBURGWell, I think the estimates now, at least by 2030, is it will cost us a trillion dollars a year, or close to a trillion dollars a year in the aggregate. So what we're -- I'm sorry, that's not right. It's a trillion dollars by 2050. But what we're looking at is a situation where the second inconvenient truth of the century is that we are aging, and that the cost of health care for the chronically diseased and over 65 are going to grow as a percentage of our GDP, as a percentage of global GDP. So we are going to experience this, and there are health disparities.
VRADENBURGAfrican-Americans twice as likely to get the disease. Latinos one and a half times more likely to get the disease than non-Hispanic whites. And those families, typically, at least in the current state of America, are lower income families. So the health disparities are gonna get driven down. And by 2050, the majority of people in America are gonna be African-American and Latinos and Asians, and the health of America is gonna be the health of our minorities.
REHMSo what do you hope to accomplish at the Alzheimer's gathering going on here in Washington beginning today, Beth?
KALLMYERThe Alzheimer's Association Advocacy Forum is bringing nearly 1200 advocates to Washington to talk to their congressman, to talk to their representatives, about making an investment in research for this disease.
KALLMYERWell, you know, right now the, Alzheimer's is funded at, it's just about a billion dollars and the scientists tell us we need two billion dollars a year to make a significant impact.
REHMWell, let's hope you and all of you have an impact. Thank you all so much for being here and thanks, all, for listening. I'm Diane Rehm.


SUMMARY: Based on UXD's Diagnostic Card, the Abit KR7A-R does not enable PCI divisors above /4.
Josh was nice enough to send an email asking me to look into the issue of "hidden" /5 and /6 PCI divisors on the Abit KR7A-R. This board uses the Realtek RTM560-266R clock generator, which supports PCI divisors beyond /4.
To test this out, I used my UXD P.H.D. PCI Diagnostic Card which reads PCI bus speeds directly. This card mounts in a PCI slot; after the mobo completes BIOS, the UXD card takes over. Note there is no OS involvement – in running the tests below – the only disc was a floppy.
Once you shift to the 4/2/1 setting at 133 MHz, PCI speeds keep on climbing after that. I could not get beyond 180 MHz (which is impressive), but the pattern is clear – if there was a /5 divisor, it would hit at 166 MHz.
As always, a sample of one, but for this particular board, there are no /5 or better divisors. We'll continue to experiment, but unless the UXD Diagnostic Card is misreading PCIs (it did not for Iwill's XP333), it does not look like enhanced divisors are enabled.
If I'm missing something in BIOS to enable these divisors, please drop me a line.


text:
This Elden Ring fan made a 20-foot Hidetaka Miyazaki for the ultimate boss fight, and that's just the start
By Austin Wood
Big Miyazaki is merely the latest of Tobyn Jacobs' massive papercraft creations
(Image credit: Tobyn Jacobs)
Tobyn Jacobs (opens in new tab), a papercraft master who I can only describe as drunk with power, has turned Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki into a real-life boss fight by way of an imposing 20-foot cutout.
Jacobs, or MeanForce1 (opens in new tab) on Reddit, shared his creation with the Elden Ring subreddit earlier this week, complete with an authentic FromSoftware HUD to really sell the experience. Other Tarnished were quick to speculate on what kind of attack patterns Big Miyazaki would use and how you could counter them.
i_made_a_20ft_tall_cutout_of_miyazaki_video_of from r/Eldenring
"He gets more transparent as the fight goes on," suggests PJ_Ammas (opens in new tab), referencing one of the best memes (opens in new tab) from the lead-up to Elden Ring's launch.
"Just throw a pickled foul foot and he'll start sprinting for it, opening him for DPS," BananaMan0803 (opens in new tab) proposes.
"The arena is a swamp," mlodydziad420 (opens in new tab) says, stating the plainly obvious.
Big Miyazaki was well received, and would be an excellent candidate for Elden Ring DLC. He also raises a question you may be asking yourself now: why and how would you make this? It turns out Jacobs has fielded this question before, going so far as to release a short video explaining his passion for enormous, sometimes mass-produced cutouts of people and characters – or as he put it, "why I do things that make people think I'm insane."
Why I do things that make people think I'm insane. pic.twitter.com/LwBDO8SpzODecember 18, 2022
"I do not think this is what a normal, sane person's house looks like," Jacobs says in the video, describing a room plastered floor to ceiling – and indeed on the floor and on the ceiling – with illustrations of Sayaka Maizono from Danganronpa (hence his nickname, The Sayaka Guy). "But it's just my philosophy on being yourself. I post the things that I do because I simply want to, and I'm not really afraid to showcase a side of myself which could be seen as embarrassing. Not posting these things would mean people not knowing who I truly am, and doing that is exhausting, being something that you're not."
I've seen Jacobs' handiwork around various fandoms before, and after witnessing the majesty of Big Miyazaki, I simply had to flag him down for an interview.
Responses edited for clarity and length.
GamesRadar+: I'm glad I watched your video explaining why you make this stuff, because that was definitely my first question. One thing I still want to know is how you choose what people or characters to make cutouts for. How did we get from 21 Amelia Watsons (opens in new tab) to a 20-foot Miyazaki?
Tobyn Jacobs: Generally when it comes to things I make, I really just make whatever I feel like, as with the type of stuff I do it can be very boring since the process is relatively the same thing of cutting hundreds of images then taping it all together. So if I have just a moment of inspiration to make a giant anime girl cutout, or a person I really like, then I will just do it. It's really hard to force yourself to make something you're not passionate about for the type of things I make.
My love for this stuff cannot be contained in 20 feet.
Tobyn Jacobs
I'm also curious how long these things take to make, and how much money. That's got to be a lot of papercraft supplies.
I have gotten pretty fast from where I first started. The first giant anime cutout I did, that was 41 feet tall, took me I think a few months to build, and now I could make something its size within about a day or so. So generally it depends on size, but something the size of the Miyazaki takes between six and 12 hours. The normal-sized cutouts take about 20 minutes each to make.
As far as money, it's definitely a lot. The printers have been the most expensive; I think I have around $30,000 worth of printing equipment. And generally, I am spending thousands each month with art supplies – ink and paper, or whatever else.
Is this a profitable hobby for you or just for fun? Do you sell many paper creations?
I don't sell many paper creations yet, but in the future I want to sell more of it. Currently there are a few anime convention vendors that want to buy my stuff, so once I get the selling part down I'll probably go more into that direction. However, currently I'm not really selling to the public as I'm a bit focused on just making content on social media. But it is definitely not just for fun.
i_made_a_40ft_tall_cutout_of_mumei from r/Hololive
I can definitely picture these at conventions. So what kind of workshop footprint do you have? Where do you make and store these giant things, and how do you transport them? I realize they come together in pieces, but that's still a lot.
All of the things that I make, I make in my house, just on the floor or the garage. And I store all of the stuff I make throughout my house. I've never done a house tour, but all my stuff I make is all over my walls and what not, and yeah, since they are so big what I'll usually do is cut them up, then display like 10 to 50% of a project on my wall. If they didn't come apart then I'd be a bit stuck! But in terms of transportation, there are many methods that I use. If it's just around the house, I'll roll it up like a newspaper and drag it on a wooden platform with a wheel. And if I have to go somewhere far, I usually just choose cutting it up then storing it in the back of my car.
i_made_a_life_size_paper_figurine_of_noelle_from from r/Genshin_Impact
You lucked out with the high ceiling seen in so many of your videos. Even it can barely contain some of these things from what I've seen.
Yeah, that's been really helpful. I usually like to keep it indoors because once you go outside there's another issue with wind and whatnot. My love for this stuff cannot be contained in 20 feet.
I saw you're aiming for a 100-footer this year. Do you have a person or character in mind for that goal? May I humbly suggest Bigger Miyazaki?
Yeah, I do have a few. It most likely will be a vtuber or someone in K-pop. I don't have anyone in mind specifically. And yeah, that Miyazaki would truly be like the size of Elden Ring bosses like the Fire Giant. That would be quite menacing.
his_body_is_ready from r/SmashBrosUltimate
To close, do you have a favorite cutout so far? And for the Miyazaki fans, do you have any more Elden Ring projects in mind?
I think probably my favorite cutout I've done would be the 40-foot tall [vtuber Mumei from Hololive]. My two original monstrosity creations I also really like; I usually say they are my favorite but it's hard to choose.
And for Elden Ring projects, I may do more in the future. A 1:1 Elden Beast I think would be really cool but I will have to see.
These are the monstrosities I was referring to, as people have asked about my favorite and surprisingly it's this. Alongside Mumei.
the_protectors_of_the_white_castle from r/Bossfight
How does Hololive keep invading game news? I don't know, but the Deep Rock Galactic community's response to Shishiro Botan was so wholesome it hurts.
Austin Wood
Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature.


text:
Зорі типу β Ліри (GCVS-скорочення: EB) — група затемнюваних зір, на кривих блиску яких майже немає ділянок сталого блиску, а головний та вторинний мінімум мають різну глибину. Постійна змінність яскравості пояснюється малими відстанями у тісній подвійній системі, які призвели до деформування зір.

Опис
Обидва компоненти зір типу β Ліри досить масивні (декілька мас Сонця кожен) та принаймні одна зоря має значно збільшений розмір (гігант або надгігант). При цьому вони обертаються у доволі тісній системі, внаслідок взаємного впливу гравітації їх форми значно відрізняються від кулястої (тобто, вони мають витягнуту, еліпсоїдальну форму). Внаслідок потужного зоряного вітру більшої за розміром зорі та/або заповнення нею порожнини Роша утворено спільну оболонку й відбувається акреція речовини на меншу за розміром зорю.

Через це криві блиску зір типу β Ліри досить гладенькі — затемнення починаються та закінчуються настільки плавно, що важко визначити час початку чи кінця. Амплітуда зміни яскравості у більшості випадків не перевищує однієї видимої зоряної величини; найбільша відома амплітуда становить 2,3 зоряних величини і спостерігається у V480 Ліри.

Недолік класифікації затемнюваних подвійних за формою кривої блиску полягає в тому, що вона не враховує фізичних властивостей системи, а у випадку зір типу β Ліри також залежить від точності вимірювань. Тому до них застосовують інші варіанти класифікації, зокрема, за ступенем заповнення порожнини Роша системи поділяють на розділені (), напіврозділені () та контактні системи. Зорі типу β Ліри можуть належати до будь-якого з цих трьох типів. ; однак вони мають різні криві блиску (початок та кінець затемнення зір типу Алголя визначається досить чітко). Також зорі типу β Ліри схожі на зорі типу W Великої Ведмедиці, однак останні в цілому є ще більш тісними подвійними (так звані контактні подвійні), а їх компоненти переважно меншої маси, ніж компоненти зір типу β Ліри (десь на одна масу Сонця).

Зміни яскравості дуже регулярні, оскільки визначаються орбітальним періодом подвійної системи. Ці періоди короткі, переважно — кілька діб. Найкоротший відомий період становить 0,29 доби (QY Гідри); найдовший відомий — 198,5 діб (W Південного Хреста). У подвійних системах типу β Ліри з періодами довше 100 діб, один з компонентів як правило — надгігант. У зір типу β Ліри спостерігається залежність між віком та орбітальним періодом — середній період зменшується від двох діб у віці десятків мільйонів років до півдоби у віці 10 мільярдів років. Причина цього невідома, а зорі типу W Великої Ведмедиці такої залежності не демонструють.

Приклади
Відомо майже тисяча зір типу β Ліри: у виданні Загального каталогу змінних зір (2003) перелічено 835 з них (2,2 % всіх змінних зір у каталозі). Найяскравіші зорі цього типу:

V1309 Скорпіона у минулому була зорею типу β Ліри, однак внаслідок злиття компонентів перетворилась на яскраву червону нову і, здається, втратила обертальний момент зір типу β Ліри.

Примітки

Див. також
 Шеліак (або β Ліри) — зоря-прототип цього класу змінності

Посилання

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


SoS Van Visits NYC for Tartan Week!!
What better way to celebrate the 20th Annual NYC Tartan Week than by reuniting the NYC and Vancouver branches of Shot of Scotch?! A couple of the Vancouver dancers took a trip to NYC earlier this month to perform and soak in all the Tartan Week festivities alongside the SoS NYC dancers and other visiting guests including the Celtic Cross Dancers from Ottawa. We had a fabulous time performing at the Pre-Parade Ceilidh, at Bryant Park and of course, marching in the Tartan Day Parade along 6th Avenue! We even snuck in a day or so of tourist fun around the city. :) Huge thank you to the SoS NYC team for inviting and hosting us - we had a wonderful time and hope to reunite again soon... maybe in Vancouver next time??!


Thank you for posting this. In place of the pliers, I recommend using a small reversible ratchet offset (mine was 3-1/4"W x 6-3/4"L x 1/2"H) to remove the 4th screw. It won't slide of the screw like pliers and will make both the removal and replacement much easier.


text:
using bc.cores.repositories.Models.Exams;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;

namespace bc.cores.repositories.Repositories
{
    public class CourseRepository : BaseRepository<Course>
    {
        public CourseRepository(IConfiguration conf) : base(conf)
        {
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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text:
Herta B. Feely
Emily Williamson
Nikoletta Gjoni
Manuscript Critique
Publishing Advice
Queries & Proposals
The Return of Rational Thinking
"Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
Such is part of the opening statement in Joan Didion's acclaimed memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she chronicles the sudden death of her beloved husband of forty years, John Gregory Dunne.
John slumps over at the dinner table in the throes of a heart attack which kills him almost instantly. Didion repeats the above quote throughout the book, mantra-like, as if she's trying to convince herself of the reality of what's happened.
This memoir is her attempt to make sense of the year following this life-altering event.
Didion brilliantly illustrates the experience of grief, beginning when she first arrives home from the hospital after John has "been pronounced". The hospital social worker tells her the news, hands her John's belongings, and places her in a cab to go home. She is cool, calm and collected throughout. When she enters her home, her first thought is, "I'm going to have to talk to John about all this." The fact of his death has not even begun to sink in.
"Magical thinking" creeps in; at times, her mind is hijacked by irrational thoughts. She wakes up one morning and wonders why she's alone in the bed. When she reads John's obituaries, she has a notion that somehow she'd allowed him to be buried alive. She wants an autopsy done, not for medical research, but so she'll know for certain he is dead. She resists giving away some of his belongings, especially his shoes, because if he were to return, he'd certainly need his shoes.
Grief comes in crushing waves, unexpectedly, in "paroxysms, sudden apprehension that weakens the knees and blinds the eyes and obliterates the dailiness of life." She experiences "cognitive deficits," "deranged thinking," and somatic symptoms such as throat tightening, endless sighing, an empty feeling in her gut.
For Didion, grief is prolonged, because their daughter, Quintana, is hospitalized during this period with pneumonia and septic shock. Then shortly after her discharge, Quintana sustains a severe traumatic brain injury from a fall. Didion is simultaneously grieving the death of her husband and "bringing fresh adrenaline to bear on the crisis of the day" with Quintana's fight for her life and subsequent rehabilitation.
Once back at home, several times a day Didion finds herself wanting to discuss what's on her mind with John. They were inseparable; both were writers and ran everything by each other. She's tortured by wanting to experience the deeply ingrained habits of sharing each other's thoughts, and not being able to, but at the same time, she welcomes having the vivid memories of him, the feeling that he is still there. One of her greatest fears in getting through this period is that by moving on with her life, her memories of John will become stale, just a photograph on a table or a name on trust documents.
Not quite yet in her rational mind, Didion obsessively reviews and ruminates on the events and decisions that led up to John's heart attack, and does extensive research into his long-standing heart condition. It's as if by gathering this information, she'll "have control", and might be able to change the outcome. It might open up the possibility that if mistakes in decisions were made, they could be corrected, and maybe John would still be alive. But he is dead. She keeps coming back to this irrefutable fact. She asks herself: will finding any of these answers change anything? No, she finally concludes, if anything, it shows "how open we are to the message that we can avert death… and its punitive correlative, that if death catches us, we have only ourselves to blame."
The back and forth between her irrational hope and the stark realization of John being permanently gone continues throughout the book. Didion brings you right into her mind, her daily experience, while still maintaining her characteristic dispassionate, objective voice and sophisticated use of language. She doesn't resort to hyperbole or emotionality; her grounded, journalistic tone paradoxically makes the experiences she describes even more powerful.
Acceptance, and a return to some semblance of rational thinking, only comes when Didion receives a copy of the autopsy report eleven months after John's passing. It is only then that she begins to believe that nothing he or she did, or didn't do, caused or could have prevented his death.
At the end of the year, her thinking becomes more rational than "magical", and we see her experience a few glimmers of moving on with her life. But she still has no resolution, no peace of mind, and has trouble thinking of herself as a widow. Of course, such a huge loss takes a lot of time to recover from, if one can ever do so; "life as you know it" has ended.
Every person who has lost a loved one, even a beloved pet, could benefit from reading this book. You'll see yourself in these pages, which could be a little disturbing, but most likely comforting.
Didion's writing is superb and her voice is consistently unique; in the end you feel like you know her personally. In my opinion, this is the essence of memoir; when a writer accomplishes this, they've scored a true win. I wholeheartedly recommend the book.
Lili Alpaugh, a native of New Orleans, lives in Bend, Oregon. She loves the outdoors, writing memoir and essays, studying history, and travel. She is a retired physical therapist and has a passion for helping people with disabilities.
Matte Blk link
Miss Gorgeous...
I write uncivilized:
fulla conundrums,
fulla endorphins;
plus! gottagobbalotta
timeless, saucy,
rare-metal-moxie:
rude, crude and so,
so Miss Construed
while sassy, savvy
and quite sub/dude.
Wannum?
All of them?
♡ en.gravatar.com/MatteBlk ♡
-GBY!
ADDENdUMb (<- like bookends):
fall in love with Seventh-Heaven
where I visited; our blogOwamma
shows you how with
H A R D C O R E,
S E M P E R/F I
(Latin: always faithful)
Z E A L O T R Y!!!
you N i cannot stay
here (after death).
I know. Im a NDEr.
Love you. Cya soon.
be@peace! not pieces!!
Just trying to bestow MY elucidation
which helps YOU reach your destination
where WE can write zillions-O-books in
our effusive exaggeration (amidst the stars):
On October 30, 1985,
not far from my house,
we lost our lives:
Im so ready to die now
(Im a Near Death Experiencer -
saw a lil of Seventh-Heaven):
to live! love! exponentially!
to VitSee-harmony for eternity!!
2RITE w/a passion 999×999×999+
milliquadrillion... novels in ♡OUR♡
exalted, extravagant excess!!!
Are you? If you aint, miss adorable,
why donchoo make like a choochoo
and high-tail it into Seventh-Heaven
so we can eternally party-hardy, girl
(skuze d'New Joisey axent)!!


Davista offers a design service for Alterations and additions. We will initially visit the existing house and look at the possibilities and dicsuss the options. Alterations can be as straight forward as extending existing rooms or a complete recald and new look to house. We also look at just a fresh look without adding too much on, some re-organising of interior spaces and replacing roof and joinery.
managing director Colin davis's own home. Bought 25 years ago as a family home and project. An original house built circa 1925; this house has been modified and altered by 4 owners over its 90 year lifespan, with the present owners face lifting the home in 2004, creating an eclectic mix of styles.


Hotel Silberstein is set in pleasant grounds in Puerto Ayora. Amenities include a swimming pool and dive centre.
The hotel is located in the centre of town, handy for shops, cafes and restaurants. There are 24 guest rooms, all air conditioned and with en-suite bathrooms.
Rooms are built around the gardens and pool, a great place to relax and soak up some sun when not out exploring. The restaurant serves local and international dishes and there is also cafe with a terrace where you can enjoy drinks and snacks.
The on site dive centre can arrange daily dive trips and PADI courses. Guided visits to nearby islands can be organised for hotel guests. Mountain biking, hiking and surfing are among activities that are available.
There are 24 guest rooms, a mix of twin and double rooms. Some can take an extra, roll-away bed, for a child.


Every February and August, Copenhagen hosts the Nordic Region's largest fashion event, Copenhagen Fashion Week.
As industry movers and shakers get dressed and ready for a week of sartorial extravagance, the runways come alive with a diverse cast of fashion talents — Danish and international, new and established, classy and street.
Meanwhile, the trade fairs, CIFF, CIFF KIDS, CIFF Raven and Revolver boast upwards of 1,100 exhibitors representing more than 2,500 international collections in all categories of style.


Research suggests juice from 100% Florida-grown oranges may help with healthy blood cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and blood vessel function, along with other heart-friendly benefits. While many factors affect heart disease, diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce their risk.
Orange juice has more nutrients (Vitamin C, folate, potassium) than other 100% fruit juices.
Whether you drink a cup of Florida's Natural® Orange Juice every day or find ways to add it to your meals and snacks, the heart benefits are worthwhile.
1.In a small saucepan, bring the Florida's Natural® OJ to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until half the liquid (3/4 cup) remains. Let the reduction cool.
2.In a bowl, stir together the BBQ sauce, orange juice reduction, and water. Pour over meatballs and heat them to an internal temperature of 165°F.
1.Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. For a creamier smoothie, add a few ice cubes or freeze the diced cantaloupe first.


text:
Andrew Scheer's Pathetic Reefer Madness
Chris Young/Associated Press
It was one of the biggest parties this country has seen for a long time. The one that began when the bud came down at the stroke of midnight.
And millions of Canadians celebrated the end of the Great War on Marijuana.
But not Andrew Scheer.
For him the whiff of weed in the air must surely have reminded him of Justin Trudeau, the leader who had the guts to legalize marijuana, and the man Scheer hates more than anyone else on earth.
So the party pooper who would be our jailer, just couldn't restrain himself.
He just had to accuse Justin of threatening the lives of Canadians. Again.
And make it only too clear, that he hates the legalization of marijuana so much, that he would re-criminalize the drug the moment he came to power.
He won't come out and say it of course, they don't call him Weak Andy for nothing. But that incoherent diatribe was nothing but reefer madness.
And if you look at his body language, and you see him struggling to conceal his true feelings, can anybody doubt that he would send thousands of mostly young people to jail to pleasure his bloodthirsty base, and his inner religious fanatic?
Just like his master Stephen Harper did, in the darkest and most depraved days of the Con Regime.
And for obvious reasons.
Like so many other Cons, Harper created Scheer in his own image, infused him with his own madness...
And made him a pathetic little punishment puppet who can't decide whether he's working for Jesus or Trump...
Even though an overwhelming number of Canadians support legalization.
And even the Con editorialists from the Globe and Mail believe that Canada is setting a good example for other countries.
The essence of the moment is that a government has acknowledged the scope of cannabis use by its citizens, and the reality of its limited health risks, and pushed through a bold reform. That alone makes Oct. 17, 2018, a remarkable day.
But Scheer hates Justin Trudeau with a passion so diseased it verges on the homicidal.
And just like Donald Trump set out to destroy Obama's legacy, so would he seek to destroy Trudeau's legacy by re-criminalizing marijuana.
The warning couldn't be clearer, or starker.
Or we destroy that monster and his grotesque Cons in the next election.
Or they'll destroy our Canada...
Labels: Andrew Scheer, Con maniacs, Justin Trudeau, Marijuana Freedom Day, Reefer Madness, Stephen Harper
Marmalade 9:44 AM
Does he like beer?
Unlike Drug Ford, I think Andy is a fundie teatotal.
Of course he doesn't have the courage to say he'll reverse it if elected.
J. W.
Seems like legalisation has Scheer's head popping like a rogue seed in a joint.
Mark my words Simon, the first report of a car accident involving cannabis will have Scheer screaming like a rabid hyena even though alcohol will still be responsible for 90+% of all substance use related accidents.
Facts matter, unless of course you're a Con.
The CBC is already teeing people up for when that happens. Endless stories about driving, edibles and children the whole gambit.
I note the CBC has dropped all concern about opioids and fentanyl and alcohol fueled violence. No comparisons between alcohol and pot re domestic violence, murder, and car accidents.
Get ready for a unified old fashioned Ottawa media feeding frenzy with a Scheer tagging along.
Kind of like how they exploit Marissa Shen's murder and the Danforth shooting to beat Trudeau over the head about refugees and Muslims in general. Yet of course they don't have a word to say about the Bissonnette, McInnes and Lepine types running amok throughout the country -- and even seeking office under their own banner.
The next peep I hear from Andy or one of his NPCs (Narcissistic Personality Conservatives) about "returning ISIS fighters," I want to see someone, anyone, I don't care if it's the Tru Grits or NDP or Elizabeth May or an uninvited Rhino delegate, demand that he publicly denounce Faith Goldy by name. Or Conrad Black, why was that criminal and hate-mongering propagandist allowed to come back home?
Steve 11:09 AM
Why does someone not call him out. Weak Andy are you going to leave Pot alone if by some cosmic weirdness elected. Get all the cons on their broken record.
Yes, Scheer, let's bring back prohibition. It worked so well.
jrkrideau 4:55 PM
I believe an American cousin in Detroit made a lot of money out of prohibition. He probably would be a drug dealer today.
They have had too many years to understand what the consequences of criminalizing marijuana is, namely broken lives, families and futures. They have had several years to set up law enforcement, social programs and education seminars to address the consequences of legalization. There will be problems, but these can be better addressed by experts in healthcare and social studies fields, rather than the police and criminal justice system. Can you say over crowded courts and over extended police now being freed up to work on more serious crimes, saving monies for the taxpayer? I look forward to the day when the next step moves drug addiction and drug use out of the courts and places it also in the hands of medical and experts in social services where it can be treated as the health issue it obviously is.
filcher
You're right Simon, this bulldozer approach is an obvious personal vendetta. For all the dehumanizing rhetoric the basement-dweller mobs on social media are throwing about "NPCs" (non-playable characters, basically pixel-glitch characters in a video game who just say the same recorded phrase over and over), they're the ones who go into a frothing rage whenever they hear "Obama," "Hillary" or in this case "Trudeau."
The Republicans used "Obama" as their gateway drug to turning back the clock on 100 years of progressive reforms, if not all 240+ since the country was founded. They don't even like Lincoln for obvious reasons. Trump was at a rally last week praising Robert E. Lee and denouncing Grant as little more than a useless drunk who got lucky against a "really great, terrific general." The same is true of the Harpercons who are obsessed with targeting Pierre Trudeau's son to go back 50 years and erase his father from history. First they came for Justin, then they came for Pierre, then they'll go for Pearson, Diefenbaker (a "Conservative in name only"), Laurier... Heck, if they could, they'd rewrite the books such that the Puritans landed up north and formed a thousand-year Reich!
Whereas liberals and progressives simply want to stop honoring whitewashed versions of Columbus and MacDonald (and honoring Confederate traitors altogether), the right-wing reactionaries want to completely obliterate their "sworn enemies" who stand for anything good. Note how that terrorist group in Québec posted on social media that they wanted to blow up a statue of Pierre and Mad Max basically said this is what you get for toppling "our history." Whose history? Why, only those whiter than supply-managed dairy, of course!
Historical revisionism is one of the hallmarks of fascism. Herr-ball Harper and his deputy ding-dong Scheer are chomping at the bit to white out the parts they don't like. That starts, of course, with doing a Find and Replace for every instance of the name "Trudeau" including the Charter itself. They want to roll it up and burn it in a puff of smoke.
And for that, I hope they end up getting blazed up and scorched at the ballot box, and marched right out to the sea.
e.a.f. 3:16 AM
Scheer doesn't have any real platform so all he can do is attack whatever the federal Liberals are doing.
He needs to get over it. Weed is now legal and that isn't going to change. Yes, there have been more impaired drivers in Washington State, but really, would they have been drinking or on something else, if not weed? There will be enough ads on t.v. warning of no toking and driving and that will be it.
Scheer doesn't want to understand that for some weed actually helps them manage their pain and helps with migraines. He needs to get over his self righteous self.
Better weed than booze.
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How Canada's Cons Are Losing The Carbon Tax Battle...
The Day Maxime Bernier Went Over The Deep End. Aga...
Justin Trudeau Sets Out To Battle The Anti-Carbon ...
Doug Ford and the Ontario Cannabis Fiasco
Hog Trump and the Big Blue Wave
Andrew Scheer and the Nasty Election
Andrew Scheer and the Scary Portrait of a Con Clow...
The People's Vote March and the Con Brexiteers
The Reefer Madness of Andrew Scheer (Continued)
The Day the Federal Liberals Deflated Doug Ford
Why Did the Saudis Want Jamal Khashoggi Dismembere...
Justin Trudeau and Marijuana Freedom Day
Doug Ford and the Billion Dollar Carbon Tax Boondo...
Andrew Scheer's Disgusting Return To Parliament
How To Use The Carbon Tax Issue To Destroy The Con...
Donald Trump and the Deadly Deniers
Why We Should Be Scared About Fascism in America
Andrew Scheer's New and Desperate NAFTA Scam
Andrew Scheer and the Saudi Monsters
Is Donald Trump Driving Progressives Crazy?
Will British Police Charge The Ghastly Ezra Levant...
Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, and the Carbon Tax Denier...
The Racist Cons And The Consequences of Hate
The Real Reason Andrew Scheer Is In India
Andrew Scheer's Farcical and Humiliating Visit To ...
The Carbon Gang And The Planet Burning Cons
Why Only The New Generation Can Save The World
Canada, Thanksgiving, and the Right Wing Threat
Why Andrew Scheer's Prison Game Is So Dangerous
Lisa Raitt and the Con Waahmbulance Chasers
The Day Justin Trudeau Struck Back At The Pervert ...
Are The Cons Trying To Steal the Next Election?
The Day Donald Trump Was Exposed As A Sham
Andrew Scheer and the Grubby Con Losers
The Free Trade Victory and the Con Losers