text:
UPDATED: THIS IRKSOME LAW OF 'CONTMEPT'
UPDATED: R.I.P. ISAAC OPOKU EDUSEI
R. I. P. ISAAC OPOKU EDUSEI, KWABOTWE HILL STALWART
By CAMERON DUODU
(PICTURE: Isaac Opoku Edusei (right) with his youngest son, Nana Kwame Adusei, in happier days.)
Why do secondary schools seem to win a greater affection from their alumni than Universities and other institutions?
I suppose it's because secondary schools play the 'midwife' to a boy who is being transformed into a man, whereas, by the time one passes through a secondary school and gets into a University, one is already a man and one does not need too much of the gentle handling that only a midwife is qualified to
offer to those emerging into the dangerous world we inhabit.
But how many secondary schools are aware that they are "delivering babies"? Not many, I guess. There is much ugliness in secondary schools — even the most reputable ones — world-wide. Perhaps, then, disappointment is also part of the mysterious allure of secondary schools? I suppose memories that do not include days of hardship — and even cruelty, such as initiation processes or, in Ghanaian parlance, "homoing" — are easily tossed into the rubbish heap that lurks within our minds.
My brother-in-law, Isaac Opoku Edusei, or Yaw Barima as everyone called him, often talked to me about his secondary school, Mfantsipim. Once, when he saw me reading the autobiography of a former headmaster of the school, Mr F L Bartels, he "stood behind my neck" and silently eyed the book until I got the message, finished reading it in record time, and handed it to him to read.
(By the way, that Bartels book is an extremely good one: it is very frank, and one can get a flavour of the battles some of our educationists of integrity had to fight during our days of one-party rule in the 1960s, from it. It isn't bitter though; just matter-of- fact and replete with insights. Prof Adu Boahen also wrote a very good book about Mfantsipim, which was his alma mater. I suppose the fierce loyalty that Mfantsipim alumni have for their institution is partly caused by the fact that the Governments of our country tended to favour Achimota over it, despite Mfanstipim's superb academic record.)
Once, Yaw took me to a small gathering of his Kwabotwe Hill school-mates at a small club near the State Transport Corporation h.q. in Accra. Beer, kebabs and a great deal of laughter. It reminded me that people used to envy me when I took them to the Press Club in Axxra in the esarly 1960s: there, too, there was beer, kebab and a great deal of laughter. Plus an occasional live dance band.
These days, such gatherings appear to have vanished from the face of the earth. Who can replace an "afternoon jump" at the Star Hotel on a Saturday afternoon? Any afternoon, for that matter? Or the Continental Hotel bar/terrace on a hot. humid afternoon? I shouldn't forget, of course, the Ambassador Hotel, when the Ambassador Hotel Band under Rex Ofosu was playing on the terrace and a fabulous "club sandwich" was easily affordable? And la creme de la creme: the Senior Common Room at Commonwealth Hall, University of Ghana, Legon, on a Saturday afternoon, when everyone was expected to grill his own fillet beef kebab to his taste on the charcoal pot? Ah-yah—yah-yah-yah! How does one cry for a whole vanished world?
Yes, Yaw loved Mfantsipim, but I seldom heard him talk about the University of Cape Coast, where he actually obtained his degree. I am sure, though, that his Cape Vars mates will mourn him as much as the Kwabotwe Hill lot – for he was one of the most lovable, generous, good-humoured and conscientious people anyone could have the good fortune to meet or befriend
Yaw left us, sadly, on 16th July 2013. How does one weep for such a man? How does one comfort those who loved him so much and whom he has left behind? Woe! Woe!! Woe is us! For Yaw, 'The Man', is gone from us for ever.
I first met Yaw when he was a young lad who lived opposite my house at Osu New Estate in Accra (later Nyaniba Estate.) My beautiful sister, Elizabeth, often came and stayed with me when she was on holidays from Aburi Girls Secondary School.
I was then a busy editor working for Drum Magazine, and a lot of things went on in my immediate vicinity that passed below my radar. And I happen to have brothers who are gifted with the most wooden of lips — they'd see things, which they should tell me, as the eldest of our clan, but never whisper a word about what was going on! I have learnt to write many of them off as secretive so and so's — as far as sharing crucial information is concerned!
One such "invisible" development that was effectively hidden from me was a love affair between my dear sister and Yaw. I had no knowledge whatsoever of it until some YEARS later, when Yaw's elder sister came to me one day and said that – she wanted me to take her to go and see my father!
"My father?" I asked. "What do you want with my father?"
She was silent.
Then, in a shy but forthright manner, she blurted out: "My brother Yaw wants to ask for your sister Elizabeth's hand in marriage!"
"What?" The shock to my system was considerable.
To cover my ignorance about things I clearly ought to have known about, I took refuge in tradition: "Your brother wants to marry MY SISTER and you want ME to take you to see my father? It's never done!" I declaimed. "Neither in your place, Asante, nor in mine, Akyem!"
I have a short fuse and it was close to being lit. I mean, heck, the woman had succeeded in absolutely confusing me…!
Yaw's sister looked at me mischievously. As gentle as a lamb, she adjusted her cloth. But I could hear her say in her head, "Ahah! You Cameron Duodu you think you are a tough nut. Today, you will meet your match."
Without much ado, she casually lobbed the nuclear option into my lap, POM!: "I think the idea came from your sister, actually. She said – she said that even though it might be unusual, you WOULD do it for HER!"
Almighty help me! I immediately melted like a mushroom left in the sunshine for several hours. Mushroom? No — shea butter, more likely.
For, in truth, there was nothing I wouldn't do for that young lady. She doesn't know it but she was born in the year my maternal Grandmother –Nana Yaa Wusuaa – who was my very first and also my greatest-ever friend on earth, left us suddenly one afternoon, whilst I was in school. When I returned home that evening, chaos wasn't the word to describe what I found there.
My Mum was totally traumatised and couldn't handle anything. The only food available was something my Grandma had been eating when she suffered her heart attack and died. Maame wanted me to eat it, but I was afraid of eating a "ghost's food" and chose to remain hungry.
There was oncessant crying everywhere. It was only the second time that anyone had ever died in our house. So everything felt weird to me; the whole scenario was just bizarre — beyond the comprehension of my 9-year-old mind.
But, then, a few months later, my sister Liz was born, purposely (we all thought) to make up for our mammoth loss. Maame was so pleased with her lovely appearance that she named her "Ante" (Lady)! And as if to add sugar to her soul's porridge, my father also named her after my dead Grandmother, Nana Yaa Wusuaa, herself. Nobody had the slightest doubt — not even for a second — that she was indeed my Grandmother reincarnated. To me, who was even then acquiring a taste for things literary, what was most remarkable was that her name rhymed: "Akwasua Wusuaa!"
The years passed and then I became a teacher and had the good fortune of teaching Liz in Class Three. I saw how bright she was and was absolutely convinced that she would have a bright academic future. So when she later passed the Common Entrance examination and my father exposed the misogyny typical of his generation by muttering unhappily about "wasting" so much money to pay for "a girl" to go to Aburi Girls, I didn't say a word but took matters into my own hands. Realising that my father's hesitation had delayed her response to the offer of a place, I borrowed ba friend's Jaguar and drove straight to Aburi and saw Miss Anderson, the headmistress. She agreed that Liz should come for the interview, late though she was.
Of course, Liz sailed through. I wasn't earning too much as a junior civil servant at the time, but I made sure that I didn't disgrace myself before Miss Anderson — I never left her fees unpaid.
Liz eventually got into the University of Ghana, obtained her degree, and went on to Britain to study French. Meanwhile, she'd also acquired secretarial skills, and on her return, she became the Secretary of the Registrar of the University of Ghana.
She is, without doubt the greatest investment anyone could ever have made, for having already mothered four children, she then astounded everyone by enrolling at the Ghana School of Law, obtaining her lawyer's qualification and succeeding in being appointed a Circuit Court Judge.
Which, of course, goes to show what a good husband Yaw was to her, for how many men would stand by a woman with four children on her hands, and assist her to achieve her ambition of acquiring a law qualification in addition to her [already adequate] B.A. degree?
Of course, I couldn't foretell that any of this was going to happen, when
Yaw Barima's sister came to me that day ages ago with her "provocative" request! Indeed, if truth be told, I haven't let on what I really felt! I strongly wanted to throw the book at her: " YOU go and tell YOUR father that your brother wants to get married to my sister, and urge HIM to go and see my father. That is the custom!"
What a good thing self-restraint is, at times.
For if I had not eschewed formality and voted in favour of love, guess what a fantastic brother-in-law I might have lost. As it was, I took Yaw's elder sister to my father. And he told her, "If this son of mine has brought you, then it means it is a good thing." And thus was sealed a fruitful union that lasted all their lives — until Yaw's untimely demise. As far as I know, they were good friends till the very last day — which is extremely unusual in the "normal" Ghanaian marriage, given the strains and stresses that our extended families, our harsh economic conditions and our propensity to gossip about each other, exert on all our relationships.
Yaw Barima never let me forget the "extraordinary" role he said I had played in making his marriage to Liz possible. Any time I wanted to thank him for some kind deed he had done for me, he would start, "Had it not been for you!…" And I would be thoroughly embarrassed and simply shut up. We used to play a game of "revenging" ourselves on each other with kindness — whenever possible!
Isaac Opoku Edusei was born on 3rd June 1943. His father was Mr Jackson Adusei, who worked for many years at the Ministry of Defence, Accra. Yaw has two surviving brothers: Joe Adusei and Abel Edusei, both products of Legon. He also has a sister, Mrs Akua Kyei.
Yaw's four children with my sister are Akwasi Adusei (currently in Chicago, USA;) Kwame Poku Adusei (Ghana); Yaa Adusei (a Medical Practitioner in the USA) and Nana Kwame Adusei of Vodaphone, Ghana.
Yaw was a stable character and his employment history is pretty short: he worked at the Ministry of Communications in Accra; then moved to the Special Action Unit during General I K Acheampong's NRC regime; then to the Cocoa Products Division, CMB, Accra and later at Crocodile Machetes, Tema.
Now, this guy Yaw Barima, be it known, was a very astute observer of Ghana's political and economic scene, and gave me many insights into how things really were, despite the gloss on the surface. He was a democrat through and through and never feared to express his opinions. His no-nonsense approach to issues was charming to some and distateful to others. If you didn't mind hearing a spade being called a spade, then he was your man. Otherwise, you'd have to put some distance between yourself and him, for he hated hypocrisy. He especially despised those who gave excuses for the ineptitudes of politicians. He would ask the vaccilators pointblank: "You can see all the roguery going on with your own eyes and you are still saying that?!"
When I learnt, on my visit to Ghana in December 2012, that he was due to have a surgical operation, I tried to reassure him by saying that I had had a nasty, complicated one myself the year before, but had come through it successfully.
In his usual blunt way, he threw my reassurance aside. "But yours was done in the UK!" he said. I retorted, "But Yaw, the doctors here are trained by those in the UK, or those trained in the UK!" He said, "But in the UK, you have so many facilties that we don't have here."
With that knowledge preying on his mind, I shudder to imagine what he went through in the few hours while he lay on a hospital bed, ALONE WITH HIS THOUGHTS, waiting to be operated upon. Our selfish and short-sighted governments have perfected the art of turning our hispitals into mortuaries, by starving them of facilities, and "dashing" the money needed to equip our hospitals to the most modern standards, to rogues like Alfred Woyome (who got C51 million for doing nothing for Ghana!), while the, the rulers, fly around in tax-payer-financed executive jets, to enjoy expensive and superb medical facilities abroad — whenever they are taken ill themselves, or need a medical checkup.
What great wisdom is needed to realise that if they put the money they waste in that way into our healkth services, they would not only save the lives of the many fellow-countrymen who voted for them, from a needless death, but also, most probably, prolong their own lives? Who knows the future? I mean, look at the mess that is reported to have occurred when our late President, Prof J. A. Mills, was stricken by his last illness.
Adequately equipped ambulance — baabu!
Adequately equipped emergency life-saving unit in hospital — baabu!
And the man died. But will his successors learn from that terrible disaster? I doubt it.
Up to today, the actual cause of the death of Prof Mills is hidden from the populace, because no-one wants to expose the inadequacies that were unearthed in the few hopurs leading to his death. Some aspects of his treatment are still being debated, one year on. That is a civilised nation for you. In some countries, the mere approach of an "important birth" is turned into world news and medical operatives hover over mum and expected baby like you-know-not-what.
Here, fools that we are, we send Mills to spend huge sums seeing the best specialists in the USA, or South Africa, or the UK, or now ( so I hear) Equatorial Guinea! They forget that sooner or later, a ruler might be let loose into the hands of the local doctors we despise so much and whose intelligence we constantly abuse in the crassest manner by denyng them the modern equipment and facilities that they know exist and which they could emply to save so many lives. If only…. if only!
When will our "important people" realise that you cannot phygsically transport the facilities in America or Britain or South Africa or Equitorial Guinea to this country on a day-to-day basis and that the best thing is to DUPLICATE what they have, here on Ghanaian soil? Is it any wonder that some of our more intelligent citizens are sometimes so dispirited by what they see our governments do that they are forced to ask themselves whether — sebi o, tafrecher — (I beg your pardon to have to make this monstrous statement) there isn't something "wrong with the blackman"? You can say what you like, but they see what they see. And only a change in the attitudes of our — sebi o ,tafrecher again! — empty-headed rulers can make them revise their opinion.
Yaw went to Korle Bu for his operation. He never regained full consciousness after his operation. The same thing happened to my mother, fifteen years ago!
What am I to think? I just sink into sheer despair.
For is it not maddening that in the 21st century, one can go and lie on a hospital bed and die before anybody has touched one with a surgical knife, because one is so petrified by the knowledge that if anything goes wrong, the facilities for ressuscitation might not be good enough? Death in the mind before physical death — that's what it amounts to, isn't it?
Pardon me, my heart is in the mortuary there with Yaw,
And I must say what he cannot say to the world
But would surely say, if he could only rise up and speak.
Yaw was a keen sportsman during his school-days, and excelled in football, cricket and the high jump at Mfantsipim School.
O, Me nua Yaw, M'akonta Pa, Da yie! (My Brother and Good Brother-on law, Yaw, Rest In Peace!)
Abel Edusei, Aburi Girls Secoindary School, afternoon jump, Ambassador Hotel Yerrace, CMB, Cocoa Products Division, Commonwealth Hall Senior Common Room, Crocodile <achetes, Elizabeth Edusei, Ghana Press Club, Isaac Opklu Edusei, Jackson Adusei, Joe Adusei, Legon, Mfantsipim, Miss Anderson, Nana Yaa Wusuaa, Rex Ofosu, Star Hotel, University of Cape Coast, University of Ghana
Permanent link to this article: http://cameronduodu.com/uncategorized/r-i-p-isaac-opoku-edusei-kwabotwe-hill-stalwart


text:
Q: Transform string of objects into elements of object I have this below string of objects as shown below.
[0,5]
   0: "A123  G  2323232"
   1: "F345  G  345667"
   2: "T677  G  -34343"
   3: "G454  G  4343"
   4: ""

As you can see  "A123  G  2323232" is a string which has tab seperated values in it.
I would like to have a final output as follows.
[0,4]
   0:
     UserId:A123
     Type:  G
     Values: 2323232
   1:
     UserId: F345
     Type:  G
     Values: 345667
   2:
     UserId: T677
     Type:  G
     Values: -34343
   3:
     UserId: G454
     Type:  G
     Values: 4343

Please note. the 4th element is empty string. so it should not transform to final data.
Can anyone please suggest how to distribute this to different elements.

A: You can split each string into its individual pieces of data, and then map those pieces into an object with the properties you want. Here's what it would look like:

var data = ["A123  G  2323232","F345  G  345667","T677  G  -34343","G454  G  4343", ""];
/* ES6 Syntax */
var objects = data.filter(str => str !== "").map(function (str) {
  var [UserId, Type, Values] = str.split("  ");
  return { UserId, Type, Values };
});

/* ES5 Syntax */
var objectsES5 = data.filter(function (str) {
  return str !== "";
}).map(function (str) {
  var split = str.split("  ");
  return {
    UserId: split[0],
    Type: split[1],
    Values: split[2]
  };
});

console.log(objects);

A: You could match non space parts and deconstruct the array to the wanted properties and return an object.

var data = ["A123  G  2323232", "F345  G  345667", "T677  G  -34343", "G454  G  4343", ""],
    result = data
        .filter(Boolean)
        .map(s => {
            var [UserId, Type, Values] = s.match(/[^ ]+/g);
            return { UserId, Type, Values };
        });

console.log(result);
.as-console-wrapper { max-height: 100% !important; top: 0; }

A: Use a combo of reduce and split:

var strings = [
  "A123 G 2323232",
  "F345 G 345667",
  "T677 G -34343",
  "G454 G 4343",
  ""
];

var result = strings.reduce(function(res, str) {  // for each string in strings arrays
  var parts = str.split("\t");                    // split the string by tabs
  if(parts.length === 3) {                        // if the string is valid (the splitting yielded 3 parts)
    res.push({                                    // then add an object to the result array using the parts we got
      UserID: parts[0],
      Type: parts[1],
      Values: parts[2]
    });
  }
  return res;
}, []);

console.log(result);

A: You can do it using javascript filter() and map() methods like following.

var array = ["A123  G  2323232",
             "F345  G  345667",
             "T677  G  -34343",
             "G454  G  4343",
             ""];

var result = array.filter(function(item) {
  return item.trim();
}).map(function(item) {
  var split = item.split('  ');

  return {
    UserId: split[0],
    Type: split[1],
    Values: split[2]
  };
});

console.log(result);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


If you own some Wemo device and a Gear S3 Take a look at Tizmo. My Free app on the Galaxy store for Gear S2 and Gear S3.
Take a quick look to my video.
Samsung Gear S3 and Wemo !
That's one cool integration you have there. Can you elaborate on the configuration that you did especially the app for the rest of the community?
So I have many wemo ligthswitch and outlet in my house. As my gear S3 was on pre-order couple of week ago. I decided to download Tizen IDE which is the developper SDK for Samsung smart watch. I was thinking of a cool project and came with the idea to develop a custom app to control my Wemo from my Gear S3 Watch. The App is done in C and is now available in the Galaxy App store for free and is called Tizmo which is a combination of Tizen and Wemo ... hehehe not much of imagination there.
The app is only available for Gear S3 and S2. The app discover your Wemo device on the wifi network using a UPnP request to populate the list of the device automaticaly. Once the device are listed the App send the correct command to any of the lightwitch or outlet to control them. Currently the app support on/off and there is also a All on all off. The app is currently pretty basic but I can't live without it. It's a dream for the lazy guy that want to turn on and off any light while going to bed or while watching tv on the couch.
I plan to add other cool feature on the app such as custom scene. As you see on the video the app is pretty responsive.
Like I said if some of you guys have Gear S2 or S3 the app is there for free for you to enjoy your wemo as much as I do.
Hi Any chance you can implement the Wemo link too to control the light bulbs, I have a Gear S3 and using your app I can see the Wemo Link, but obviosuly nothing happens with it, or happy to collobarate if you need some testing doing?
As I do not own any Wemo Link it will be hard for me to figure out it report all the devices that are connected to this devices. I'm about to buy some wemo dimmer to integrated them in the application. Adding the Wemo Link to it would have been nices to maybe we could have some chat together and try and test some hack to determine how to access it.


text:
Don't drink too much celebrating end of the work week …
Sometimes the best beer is root beer…
(Feel free to take it off, Mick, if I've been a bad boy and posted something inappropriate, but I thought it was pretty funny!)
Posted in Humor/Satire
11 Questions for Mr. Bush
Mark Morford has a few simple questions he'd like George W to answer. Should only take a few minutes.
3) You are called by God. You believe you are the chosen one. The Lord Himself has happily green-lighted your decisions to bomb the living crap out of pip-squeak and nearly defenseless nations for decreasingly justifiable reasons. You are born-again, re-sobered, a former hardcore binge drinker and rumored huge fan of various illegal substances back in college, and you had at least one DUI arrest and went AWOL from the National Guard, and you've stashed away from public view all records of both your tenure as Texas governor, and those SEC investigations into your alleged insider trading. You are a failed oilman and a failed businessman and have been spoon-fed your entire career.So then: Do you sleep peacefully at night, or do your dreams involve small armies of angry sharp-toothed fairies, tearing you limb from limb and sucking the pith from your withered soul while they casually erase your entire portfolio as you scream, silently, unable to move due to all the leeches? Don't bother answering. Your expression says it all.
Go read the rest.
Posted in Bush/Bush Administration
FLASH!
NYT Exclusive!
The New York Times has just discovered that rich people's kids do better in school!
What startling new information will America's plucky little "Paper of Record" dig up next?
COMING SOON FROM YOUR NYT!
Does the sun really rise in the east?
Can birds really fly?
Do Republicans hate democracy?
Are Bobby and Whitney fighting again?
Do the poor have inadequate dental plans?
Don't miss these ground-breaking NY TIMES EXCLUSIVES!
(Oy….)
Posted in Humor/Satire, Media
Bush Charms Panel With 9/11 Quips– Astoundingly, Manages to Walk and Chew Gum At the Same Time
The headline on this NYT article should have read, "Nation's President Manages to Walk Without Falling Down", sub-head, "America Proud of President Who Gets 100 On Pop-Quiz, Speaks For Self Without Usual Rambling, Mumbling, and Incoherence." You think I'm kidding?
After a meeting that both the White House and the commission had billed as historic, Mr. Bush appeared before reporters in the Rose Garden and described the question-and-answer session with the 10 members of the bipartisan commission as "very cordial." He said he "answered every question that they asked."
"Look, Mommy, I answered evewy kestion aw by myse'f."
"That's Mommy's big, grown-up boy. Tell Mommy-Barb all about it."
The setting for the panel's long-awaited interview of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who insisted on talking with the commission together, was orchestrated to take advantage of all of the symbolic power of the Oval Office while making clear that the White House did not consider the meeting to be adversarial. [Yeah, right.–M]Administration officials said the president and vice president were seated in wing-back chairs in front of the Oval Office fireplace, with the commission members seated on a pair of couches and several wooden chairs in an informal semicircle around them, the day's strong sunlight streaming in from the windows behind them.
"We bwot all the teachers into my Big Woom and made 'em all sit wight in fwont of the window so the sun was in their eyes, and then me 'n Dick sat down in the BIGGEST chairs so we was lookin' down at 'em–"
"Very good, dear. What a good trick! And who taught you that?"
"My fwiend Karl, Mommy. He knows a lot of good stuff like that."
"And then what happened, precious?"
"We just tol' 'em evewything we tol' 'em before, thass all."
… they were aware of intelligence warnings but believed them to refer to threats overseas…the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing about domestic terrorist threats was mostly historical…[that it] did not recommend that the White House step up security…"There were no surprises," said the panel's chairman, Thomas H. Kean.
Really? I'm shocked. In these uncomfortable circumstances, faced with tough questioning, I'm sure (of course there's no way to know since THEY DIDN'T ALLOW IT TO BE RECORDED), The Prez didn't crack like a blanched walnut, huh? (Clinton reference–see Guidebook) Sorry for the interruption, now back to our regularly scheduled program, Dick & Georgie's Excellent Adventure.
He said in an interview that the questioning was "very sharp but very fair — by sharp, I mean in the sense of intellectually sharp."
"Uh-oh."
"It's OK, Mommy."
"You mean Dickie answered all the questions?"
"Naw. I did."
"Oh dear, dear."
…the president had handled nearly three-quarters of the questions raised by the commissioners. If the public had been allowed to witness the meeting, he said, "I think they would have had a lot more confidence in our government."
Because he may have shown he can answer a few friendly questions by giving answers he's rehearsed without tripping over his own tongue? Oh, yes, that would have made me feel a LOT better.
Another of the panel's Republicans, John F. Lehman, Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, said Mr. Bush had answered the panel's questions with little hesitation or need for assistance from Mr. Cheney or Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel.
"They said they wewe vewy pwoud of me."
"They did, dear? Really?"
[Note the absence–and we are 2/3 of the way through the story–of any quote from Democratic panel members. Oh, look, here comes one now:]
"He answered directly and completely and in a very cordial and respectful way," Mr. Kerrey said.
"I was a perfeck gen'leman."
"I'm proud of you, dear. You didn't spit at them?"
"You didn't squirm in your chair and burp like you usually do?"
"Nuh-uh."
"And you called them all 'Sir'?"
"Yup. Even that Jamie guy, excep' I think he's a girl."
Despite what both sides agreed was the polite, even friendly tone of the meeting, the commissioners were treated as outsiders by the White House. They were seen being searched by hand for weapons before they stepped into the Oval Office….
"Well, you had to do that, dear. Some of them were..Democrats!" *shudders, gasps, gives her boy a hug* "I'm so glad you're alright. That must have been a terrible ordeal."
"Naw. I din't like the test questions so I just took 'em and tossed 'em."
Their notebooks were taken from them before they left the session….
"But what good will that do, dear?"
"I jus' take my widdle black pen and scrrrr-itch! Anythin' I don' like is 'national security', 'classified.'"
"Oh, very, very good, George."
"I can say 'redacted', can you?"
"Yes, dear. Yes, I can."
In an appearance before reporters after the session, the president offered his first public explanation for why the White House had wanted him and Mr. Cheney to be interviewed together. Mr. Bush said he had wanted the commission to understand how he and Mr. Cheney operated as a team — both on Sept. 11 and in its aftermath."I wanted them to know how I set strategy, how we run the White House, how we deal with threats," Mr. Bush said. "The vice president answered a lot of their questions — answered all their questions. And I think it was important for them to see our body language as well, how we work together."
Body language? Body language? He wanted them to see his body language? He wasn't wearing his flight-suit again, was he? So he went hand-in-hand with Cheney so they could see his *gagging sound* "body…language…" Give the guy credit–it's original. Stupid, but original. ["Body language"! Sheesh….]
Asked if the commission had questioned Mr. Bush about the possibility that Qaeda terrorists were still in the United States, Mr. Bush said, "No, they didn't."
Why would they? As their investigation showed conclusively, he'd be the last to know.
"The president was very forthcoming and answered all of our questions"…there was frequent laughter during the questioning…the former Republican governor of Illinois…praised Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney for "five-star performances."…Mr. Bush would sometimes get a "twinkle in his eye" [You know, he could have that surgically removed, now–M]…"The president got off a couple of good shots."
Of bourbon, or so I hear. They might as well have pinned a medal for bravery on him just for showing up, planted a gold star on his forehead for having his answers ready, given him the lead in the school play for being so convincing in his "performance", and handed him the award as "Most Popular Kid in Class" because he was just so dang charming.
I fink I gonna fwow up.
Am I wrong or is everybody just relieved he didn't self-destruct right in front of them?
Posted in Bush/Bush Administration, Cheney, Humor/Satire, Iraq
Pinochet Clement Defends Gitmo
Paul D Clement, Deputy Solicitor-General, is arguing the Administration's case against applying standard judicial procedures to the Gitmo prisoners. In the process, he is proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that the BA is distinctly undemocratic in outlook and instinctively authoritarian in nature.
This conclusion doesn't arise just because they're defending a basically indefensible concept; what is far more damning are the arguments they're using to do it. In a court of law–the highest court in the land, no less, Clement began by saying that it was "remarkable that we have to confront this question when our troops are still on the ground in Afghanistan," an argument that pre-supposes the SCOTUS has no role during a war. But that was only the beginning.
A majority of the justices expressed some degree of concern over the breadth of the administration's position. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor asked Mr. Clement why "a neutral decision maker of some kind" could not be provided to determine whether a detainee is being properly held. "Is that so extreme that it should not be required?" she asked.Mr. Clement said the potential detainees' initial screening, sorting those to be held from those who need not be, met that requirement. "For all intents and purposes, that is a neutral decision maker," he said.
Um, what initial screening would that be? Is Mr Clement talking about the confab on the battlefield where the detainees were picked up? Or the kangaroo court in Gitmo run by the military–oh, darn. THERE WASN'T ONE.
Wait, it gets better. When Justice Ginsberg didn't see why the detainees shouldn't have "a forum" during which they could "explain themselves", Clement answered that they already had one: their interrogation. "The interrogation process itself provides an opportunity for an individual to explain that this has all been a mistake."
Is that right? Doggone, we done been wastin' a awful lot o' money on lawyers an' judges and courts iffen that's true. Hell, why, we could just say a police interrogation gives a suspect every chance to state his case to the cops an' iffen they don't buy it, then he's guilty, pure an' simple. Wham! Off he goes to jail for the rest o' his life, and we're done. No damn dumb "appeals" or even a tee-rial to appeal about. We could save $Billions$. We don't need all that junk. Screw it. We got our justice system–the police.
This argument has been the justification and rationalization of every dictator of the past 100 years; the Soviets even enshrined it in law. Pinochet, accused of executing prisoners without a trial, pointed to the secret police interrogation as the only "trial" that was needed. He even used the same excuse–that these people were dangerous "anti-social terrorists" (he was talking about journalists, students, labor leaders, playwrights, teachers, and priests, by the way) and that the State was in a war for its survival and couldn't afford little luxuries, like, say, a judicial system that might decide that some of his political the State's enemies were innocent. In the Soviet Union, Stalin argued that his pogroms were necessary for "the security of the people and the people's state", and used the fear of the late 30's when Hitler and Europe were readying for war to dismantle what was left of the old Czarist legal system (not much) and embark on the greatest murder spree in history in 1938.
What's going on here? The virulently anti-Communist Republican right takes control and turns out to be exactly like the Soviets they hated? Aping their policies, mimicking their rationalizations, copying their techniques? But Mr Clement doesn't have any problem with that.
"Doesn't the court have some business intervening at some point if it's the Hundred Years' War or something?" Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked.Mr. Clement replied, "I'm not quite sure what you have in mind that they would intervene on."
Golly, Paul, I dunno. Maybe BEING RAILROADED BY AN ADMINISTRATION THAT WANTS TO MAINTAIN AN UNPOPULAR WAR BY SHOWING US HOW ENDANGERED WE ARE? How about the possibility that the Administration's designation was just WRONG? How about that? Over 100 of the Gitmo prisoners were released after almost two years of confinement because of lack of evidence. The Gitmo authorities arrested Capt Jimmy Yee for sedition and espionage and then had to drop the charges when his lawyers proved there was NO evidence to back them up. How about that? I mean, a trial is asking too much?
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose position appeared most in doubt, pressed Mr. Clement at one point for some sign of a concession. "I'm taking away from the argument the impression, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that you think there is a continuing role for the courts to examine the reasonableness of the period of detention," he said in a hopeful tone.Mr. Clement was quick to correct him. "Well, I wouldn't take that away, Justice Kennedy," he said.
Translation: The Bush Admin does think that there is NO "continuing role for the courts". As fas as they're concerned, the Commissar-in-Chief is the one and only authority and everybody else ought to just shut up and go home like good little comrades.
Put this insane argument against the re-writing of history Seattle called our attention to, and this Admin isn't just Orwell-like, it is Orwell brought to life. 1984 has Officially Arrived in the US, courtesy of George W Bush, First Emperor of America. Rove admires Imperial Rome? Well, Karl, your dreams have just come true. Enjoy it while you can because in November–pffffft!
Posted in Bush/Bush Administration, Guantanamo, SCOTUS
Today's Toons
Tom Toles: Cheney Lays Down the Rules
Get Your War On: Complicated times call for simple language!
Tom Meyers: Kerry's War Record v That Other Guy
John Branch: Bush Makes a Decision
Mike Keefe: Kerry Attack!
Ben Sargent: In the Pocket
C-TEG Plays At Being Spies
A while ago, I promised a series on intelligence agencies and how they work. This isn't it. I'm still wading through a ton of material, finding whatever I can of it that's online (I'm trying to emulate Seattle, which is bloody hard, and source as much as I can), and organizing my notes. But after reading a piece in today's NYT on Doug Feith and his Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group (C-TEG), there are a few comments I wanted to make that you can consider a lead-up to the Intelligence series. Call it a "Preface". Or "An Extended Preliminary Note". Or a "Watermelon." Whatever floats your boat.
Most of this material was originally unearthed by Sy Hersh and published in The New Yorker (I'll be quoting a LOT of it in the series) over several issues of the mag some months ago, so the NYT is, as usual, a little late getting on the bus. Nevertheless, reporter James Risen's portrait of C-TEG and the controversy that swirled around it inside the IC is reasonably accurate. You should go read it. However, I'm not going to deconstruct this article now. What I want to do is call your attention to a few fundamental facts of intelligence-gathering before you read it so you have a context in which to put it.
C-TEG consisted of only two men–Michael Maloof and David Wurmser–and they were charged by Feith, Def-Undersec for Policy, with "re-evaluating" raw intelligence data. Feith, one of Newt Gingrich's cadre of neocon altar boys, was convinced that the standard intelligence services were hiding or downgrading important information about Saddam's links with Mid-East terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, and the strength and sophistication of his WMD program either because they were filled with Democratic holdovers or because they were, as Gingrich said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in the fall of 2002, simply and irretrievably incompetent.
Gingrich has no experience in intelligence; neither has Feith; neither have Maloof and Wurmser, two more Gingrich accolytes. So how did they know all this "vital information" was being withheld by the IC? They "knew it" because they were all devotees of and True Believers in Laurie Mylroie's conspiracy theory that Hussein was the Professor Moriarty of terrorism–that he was the planner, motivator, and funder of every Islamic terrorist group in the Middle East, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and AQ, and that he was even behind the bombing of the Murra Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Here's Maloof showcasing a classic example of neocon naivete in action:
"We discovered tons of raw intelligence," said Michael Maloof, one of the pair. "We were stunned that we couldn't find any mention of it in the C.I.A.'s finished reports."
Stunned. "Raw intelligence" consists of unconfirmed reports, unsubstatiated rumors, gossip, and outright lies told by informers to gain some desired advantage. It isn't included in finished reports because most of it–as much as 95%–is plain, unadulterated garbage, inaccurate and meaningless. But Mr Malloof clearly didn't know that. What's worse, he didn't care.
"I don't have any problem with them bringing in a couple of people to take another look at the intelligence and challenge the assessments," said Patrick Lang, a former Middle East analyst for the D.I.A. "But the problem is that they brought in people who were not intelligence professionals, people brought in because they thought like them. They knew what answers they were going to get."
Feith responds to the charges with a challenge:
"I would be happy to have anybody come in and examine the quality of the work, whether it is supported by the data, whether it is logical, whether it is well-reasoned," he said.
Here's the problem: that "anybody" needs to be qualified and Feith doesn't know that. "Anybody with intellegence experience" who looks at that data is going to be searching for confirmation and corroboration; when they don't find it, they're going to do what the IC has already done: label the C-TEG analysis worthless and throw it in the circular file. But if "anybody without intelligence experience" looks at that data, it might on the surface seem to be relevant, even significant, and they'll wonder why it wasn't in the reports.
What we have here is the worst possible combination of weaknesses for intelligence analysts: a pre-ordained agenda, a startling degree of naivete, a total lack of experience or training in the field, zero knowledge of how intelligence-gathering works–they didn't even know as much as you would know if you read a couple of books–and a level of gullibility that strains belief. These guys were prepared to believe virtually anything that seemed to fit or confirm Mylroie's wacked-out fantasies and to pass it on as if it were the Gospel. Which is, in fact, exactly what they did.
Mr. Feith said his group was not set up as a rival to the C.I.A. "This is what policy people do all the time, they read the existing intelligence," he said. "We were not bypassing, we were not being secretive, we were not cutting the intel community out of this." (emphasis added)
But you weren't reading "the existing intelligence", Mr Feith. You were reading the existing gossip, rumors, innuendos, and lies in a raw data file. Not quite the same thing.
But you didn't understand that, did you, Mr Feith? And you still don't.
These are the nincompoops, the naifs, the extraordinarily gullible James Bond wanna-be's who justified this war for Junior. These are kids playing at being spies in the backyard, adolescents whose only knowledge of the grown-up intelligence world came from Ian Fleming, Matt Helm, and–gawd help us–Newt Gingrich.
No wonder they made such a mess.
Posted in Intelligence, Iraq
No matter how you measure it, the economy is the best it's been in ten years.–Tom DeLay
What is it with you guys? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?–Joe Turner (Robert Redford, Three Days of the Condor)
Recession means that people's incomes, at the employer level, are going down, basically, relative to costs, people are getting laid off.–George W Bush
He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.— T. S. Eliot
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.–Douglas Adams
Posted in Quote of the Day
Path to Pandemonium
Posted on April 28, 2004 | 1 comment
Stan Goff, a former member of the special forces, has written an excellent timeline of the mess our government has gotten us into in Iraq. From the first sentence, you can see Goff's attitude toward understanding the problem: "It is always important to ask why we start history when."
When our government has played a less than honorable role in history, whether in recent events or in events of the distant past, most pundits in the mainstream press take one of three approaches:
1. Ignore the history all together.
2. Distort the history into portraying our government as having played an honorable role.
3. Reluctantly acknowledge the mistake, but then invoke the doctrine of "change of course" – well yes, we did make a mistake back then, but it was innocent and we meant well and it surely has no predictive value for the future and we wouldn't do that again, etc.
This attitude toward history leads to absurdities like W going on and on about how Saddam used chemical weapons without ever mentioning the fact that his dad and members of his administration helped Saddam acquire and use those weapons. Entirely predictably, the American press doesn't have the integrity to point out this gaping hole in Bush's logic, so most Americans end up ignorant of these inconvenient facts. Anyway, Goff doesn't take this dishonest and counterproductive approach to political analysis. He logically lays out cause and effect in this historically accurate timeline. It takes a long time to read the whole thing, but it's well worth it. You'll be left thinking that we better get the hell out of Iraq ASAP. And you'll be right.
Thanks to Kryton over at the Christopher Lydon site for calling this timeline to my attention.
Posted in Iraq
Boondocks, Racism, and Stereotypes
Phaedrus' two weeks off seems to have kinetically re-charged his batteries. In a brilliant essay on Aaron MacGruder and Boondocks, he takes on the definitions of racism and political correctness in America, and argues that left-wing stereotypes are just as damaging as those from the right.
Not to be missed. Go. Read. Think.
Posted in Racism
Kerry Fights Back, But Is It Enough?
In a post called "Is the Kerry Campaign On Vacation, Or What?", I questioned their failure to take advantage of Junior's voluminous troubles during the whole month of April. While Bush was squirming over Fallujah, the 9/11 Commission hearings, and Bob Woodward's book, among other body-blows, Kerry and his staff were sitting it out, giving Karl time to regroup. I thought that was a BAD tactical mistake. ThatColoredFellasweblog took issue with that (our discussion in Comments is here), and while he made some good points, I think he's underestimating the danger of letting opportunities like this slip by. Assuming that Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett are going to go on making mistakes for the rest of the campaign, or that voters are seeing through the pervasive lies and constant deception of the Bushies at long last, is a high-risk gamble at best, the kind of laissez-faire strategy that blows up in your face more often than not.
So it was with some relief that I noted he is at least re-active if not pro-active, though it's worrying that it took a nasty personal assault on his military service to get him to move off the dime.
CANONSBURG, Pa. — Senator John F. Kerry moved yesterday to shield his own war hero image from new doubts about whether he threw his Vietnam War medals away at a 1971 antiwar protest, while sharply questioning President Bush's National Guard record in the 1970s.Kerry angrily accused ABC News and the Republican National Committee of creating "a phony controversy" by portraying him as both unpatriotic for throwing away US medals and inconsistent because his details of the event have changed over time.
The senator has long said that he threw away his war ribbons — but kept his medals — at the rally on April 23, 1971.
In response to this typical RNC slime job, he hit back by finally raising the issue of the questions surrounding Bush's "military service"–or lack of it.
Then Kerry turned the issue against the president, saying for the first time that Bush was far more vulnerable on matters of Vietnam-era choices because of questions about whether he completed his service in the Texas Air National Guard. "He owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it," Kerry told NBC.
'This comes from a president and a Republican Party that can't even answer whether or not [Bush] showed up for duty in the National Guard," Kerry said on ABC's "Good Morning America," the first of three assaults on Bush directly. "I'm not going to stand for it."
Better late than never, I suppose. But as glad as I am to see he's still at least semi-awake, it continues to bother me that he made no attempt to capitalize on Junior's April floundering. I've said before–and it bears repeating–that the Bushies are bullies and bullies only respect opponents who attack as fiercely and unrelentingly as they do. Bert at TCF responded by saying that there was no reason for the Democrats to sink to the RNC level of "lies and deceptions". But there's no need to do that. What Kerry needs to do is tell the truth, pound away at the lies and deceptions of BushCo unceasingly until it's part of the air we breathe.
I live in Central Mass (Kerry's state, mind you), miles and miles from the liberal Hub, and I can say without reservation that most people have no idea how much or how often the BA lies. About as far as they've got is the understanding that Bush lied about the WMD's in Iraq, and it troubles them. But they're just about willing to let him get away with blaming "intelligence" (meaning the CIA) and give him a pass. Between now and November, Kerry has got to make it clear to the average voter that BushCo lies about everything, that they can't be trusted on taxes, the economy, the war, the occupation, the environment, or even science. He had a golden opportunity this month to make major gains in that effort–Junior was handing him material on a platter–and he blew it.
It's not like it would have been hard. All Kerry had to say about the uprising, for example, was something like this: "When you lie about everything as often as this Administration does, you're bound to provoke a reaction. The President promised the Iraqis a free press for the first time in decades–and then shut down an Arab newspaper. He promised them a democratic govt in which they could control their own country–and then refused to agree to any compromise that would allow any future Iraqi govt to make meaningful decisions about its own destiny. The Iraqi people have been betrayed by this Administration over and over again, one broken promise after another, one lie following another in a long line. The first thing we need to do to calm this situation is to stop lying to the Iraqi people and honor our promises. America's word used to be her bond. Under this President, it means nothing. That has to change."
That was easy, wasn't it?
As I said at TCF: This is not encouraging. Not encouraging at all.
Posted in Democrats, Politics, The '04 Election
The Weekly Best-Of List
Best Name for a Security Company Supplying Mercenaries to Iraq: Custer Battles.
Best Quote of the Week on Fallujah:
[A]s another senior officer put it, "We have the potential to turn this into the Alamo if we get it wrong."
Clearest Explanation of the Bushian World View: Grover Norquist
"Americans don't care about the rest of the world. If they mess with us, go blow them up, and don't bother me, y'know—don't sit and talk about it all day. You went out and blew up the nice Taliban. Good. O.K. Next. What are you doing for me?"
Best Bonehead Political Move of the Week: Dick Cheney's attack on Kerry's military record. (Kerry promptly released 120 pages of glowing recommendations from his superiors and began to question–finally!–Chicken George's non-service).
Most Orwellian Moment: The White House "Presidents" webpage. (see Seattle's post just below)
Best Example of the Way the PATRIOT Act Is Being Used: The trial of an Islamic grad student because he maintained websites the govt didn't care for.
Posted in Bush/Bush Administration, Grover Norquist, Iraq
A World-Around-Us News-Quiz
"Guess Who?"–A World-Around-Us News-Quiz
There are countries besides Iraq?
Posted in International
Thomas Jefferson as Dubya Prototype
by Seattle
The White House is recasting Thomas Jefferson as sort of an early version of W. For example, they've changed him from being a Democratic proponent of separation of church and state to a Republican fundamentalist Christian. They've taken similar liberties with the biographies of John Adams and James Madison. The degree to which this administration will politicize everything is remarkable – but no longer surprising.
Posted in Bush/Bush Administration, History
An HHS Crackdown on States? Or Kids?
The NY Times reports today that Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has initiated–or appears to have initiated; when dealing with "good news" coming out of the Bush Admin, I've learned to be very cautious–a crackdown, finally, on the scandalous treatment of child welfare programs in a number of states, including Florida, which gained national attention several times last year when children who were supposed to be in the care of the state due to abusive parents either died unaccountably or simply disappeared from the system altogether. Similar, if less drastic, faults exist in a number of states.
The federal report was based on a review of state data and case files, as well as interviews with children, their biological parents, foster and adoptive parents, social workers and juvenile and family court judges.Federal officials repeatedly cited states for certain deficiencies: significant numbers of children suffering abuse or neglect more than once in a six-month period; caseworkers not visiting children often enough to assess their needs; and not providing promised medical and mental health services.
Federal officials said 16 states did not meet any of the seven standards. These states were Alaska, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The sad truth is that child welfare funds have been cut by a LOT of states in an effort to reduce debt. Federal money to support such programs was one of the first items to be cut in the new Republican govt's budget, cuts which, along with cuts in state budgets, helped pauperize child welfare programs all over the country. Bob Herbert pointed out in one of his columns a while back attacking the tragedies in Florida (no longer available online) that child welfare workers there were responsible for as many as 400 cases apiece because of cuts in personnel–ten times as many as the maximum suggested by Federal guidelines.
Every one of the flaws mentioned in the HHS report is directly traceable to Federal or state funding cuts, yet the HHS-Sec isn't proposing new money to cover the shortfalls–not in Junior's corporate-owned Admin, he's not–but penalties that will make the money crunch even worse.
The federal government provides $7 billion a year to states for foster care, adoption assistance and other child welfare programs. If states do not correct the deficiencies, they stand to lose some of the money.Penalties are estimated at $18.2 million for California, $3.6 million for Florida, $3.5 million for Texas, $3 million for Pennsylvania, $2.5 million each for Ohio and Michigan, and $2.3 million for New York.
The penalties, if enacted, will require yet more program and personnel cuts and weaken already tenuous state systems possibly to the breaking point. On the other hand, who wants to see the dangerously sloppy and inattentive way states have shoveled the problems of at-risk children onto the back burner continue?
I suspect that Tommy, who had, shall we say, a "mixed" record while Gov of Wisconsin, is going for an easy political kill here, like his so-called "Children First" program in Wisconsin which used the hot "deadbeat Dads" controversy to shift some of the state's responsibilities for the care and protection of children from indigent families onto the backs of fathers who couldn't pay their child support.
On the other hand, there was Tommy's showpiece, "Wisconsin Works", his version of the 1996 Congressional mandate to reform Welfare. Unlike the lazy, not to say mean, "make-'em-go-to-work-and-damn-everything-else" approach taken by many states' govs, Tommy actually crafted an intelligent program that provided job training and financial and educational support to families on welfare (a model, incidentally, that was developed and tested in a small way in pilot programs in the early and mid-80's right here in MA and then promptly defunded and totally ignored when it worked; I know–I was there). W2, as it was called, successfully put some 90% of welfare families into real jobs and off the state welfare rolls, many of them for good.
So that's my problem: Is this a shot-across-the-bow in a war against the budget-cutters who are doing all the damage? Tommy's way of announcing that he wants HHS' funds restored? Or is it an s-across-the-b in a new war on children by the BA, infamous for its bait-and-switch tactics?
I know which way I'm leaning, but then I'm a cynic.
Posted in Politics, Republicans, War on the Poor

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Could This Fatal Durham Parking Lot Shooting Have Been Prevented?
A shooting outside of the Emerald City Ultra Bar and Lounge reportedly claimed the life of 30-year-old Stacy Nichols, Jr. and left 2 other victims injured Saturday morning, January 28, 2017.
According to ABC 11, gunfire erupted "outside of the Emerald City Ultra Bar and Lounge…in the Lakewood Shopping Center on Chapel Hill Road." Tragically, Mr. Nichols succumbed to fatal injuries at the scene.
Two others, a man and a woman, suffered "serious injuries" in the attack, per WNCN reports. Their current conditions have not been released.
Did negligent security contribute to the death of this young man? We represent individuals and families who have suffered a tragic loss or injury as a consequence of negligent property security. Read Our Legal Take to find out if the victim's family may have a legal avenue for justice and claims for substantial compensation in North Carolina, or call now for a free consultation with out legal team: 888.842.1616.
Nightclub and parking lot patrons have a right to feel safe and secure while on the premises. The Murray Law Firm questions the level of security provided in the parking lot and whether this tragic loss of life may have been prevented.
Have there been prior incidents of violence on or near property? If so, were any additional security precautions implemented by the nightclub or parking lot owners to protect guests?
Generally, property owners are required to protect all patrons legally on the premises from any foreseeable harm. Should the facts of this matter reveal that the owner or management of the parking lot failed to provide adequate security to protect those on its premises, the family of Stacy Nichols, Jr. may seek justice and elect to pursue legal claims for his wrongful death. Additionally, the other victims of this shooting may elect to pursue claims for their injuries.


text:
import {Component, Directive, ElementRef, Injector, Input, NgModule, destroyPlatform} from '@angular/core';
import {async} from '@angular/core/testing';
import {BrowserModule} from '@angular/platform-browser';
import {platformBrowserDynamic} from '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic';
import {UpgradeComponent, UpgradeModule, downgradeComponent} from '@angular/upgrade/static';
import * as angular from '@angular/upgrade/static/src/common/angular1';

import {bootstrap, html, multiTrim, withEachNg1Version} from '../test_helpers';

withEachNg1Version(() => {
  describe('content projection', () => {

    beforeEach(() => destroyPlatform());
    afterEach(() => destroyPlatform());

    it('should instantiate ng2 in ng1 template and project content', async(() => {

         // the ng2 component that will be used in ng1 (downgraded)
         @Component({selector: 'ng2', template: `{{ prop }}(<ng-content></ng-content>)`})
         class Ng2Component {
           prop = 'NG2';
           ngContent = 'ng2-content';
         }

         // our upgrade module to host the component to downgrade
         @NgModule({
           imports: [BrowserModule, UpgradeModule],
           declarations: [Ng2Component],
           entryComponents: [Ng2Component]
         })
         class Ng2Module {
           ngDoBootstrap() {}
         }

         // the ng1 app module that will consume the downgraded component
         const ng1Module = angular
                               .module('ng1', [])
                               // create an ng1 facade of the ng2 component
                               .directive('ng2', downgradeComponent({component: Ng2Component}))
                               .run(($rootScope: angular.IRootScopeService) => {
                                 $rootScope['prop'] = 'NG1';
                                 $rootScope['ngContent'] = 'ng1-content';
                               });

         const element = html('
{{ \'ng1[\' }}<ng2>~{{ ngContent }}~</ng2>{{ \']\' }}
');

         bootstrap(platformBrowserDynamic(), Ng2Module, element, ng1Module).then((upgrade) => {
           expect(document.body.textContent).toEqual('ng1[NG2(~ng1-content~)]');
         });
       }));

    it('should correctly project structural directives', async(() => {
         @Component({selector: 'ng2', template: 'ng2-{{ itemId }}(<ng-content></ng-content>)'})
         class Ng2Component {
           // TODO(issue/24571): remove '!'.
           @Input() itemId !: string;
         }

         @NgModule({
           imports: [BrowserModule, UpgradeModule],
           declarations: [Ng2Component],
           entryComponents: [Ng2Component]
         })
         class Ng2Module {
           ngDoBootstrap() {}
         }

         const ng1Module = angular.module('ng1', [])
                               .directive('ng2', downgradeComponent({component: Ng2Component}))
                               .run(($rootScope: angular.IRootScopeService) => {
                                 $rootScope['items'] = [
                                   {id: 'a', subitems: [1, 2, 3]}, {id: 'b', subitems: [4, 5, 6]},
                                   {id: 'c', subitems: [7, 8, 9]}
                                 ];
                               });

         const element = html(`
           <ng2 ng-repeat="item in items" [item-id]="item.id">

{{ subitem }}

           </ng2>
         `);

         bootstrap(platformBrowserDynamic(), Ng2Module, element, ng1Module).then(upgrade => {
           expect(multiTrim(document.body.textContent))
               .toBe('ng2-a( 123 )ng2-b( 456 )ng2-c( 789 )');
         });
       }));

    it('should instantiate ng1 in ng2 template and project content', async(() => {

         @Component({
           selector: 'ng2',
           template: `{{ 'ng2(' }}<ng1>{{ transclude }}</ng1>{{ ')' }}`,
         })
         class Ng2Component {
           prop = 'ng2';
           transclude = 'ng2-transclude';
         }

         @Directive({selector: 'ng1'})
         class Ng1WrapperComponent extends UpgradeComponent {
           constructor(elementRef: ElementRef, injector: Injector) {
             super('ng1', elementRef, injector);
           }
         }

         @NgModule({
           declarations: [Ng1WrapperComponent, Ng2Component],
           entryComponents: [Ng2Component],
           imports: [BrowserModule, UpgradeModule]
         })
         class Ng2Module {
           ngDoBootstrap() {}
         }

         const ng1Module =
             angular.module('ng1', [])
                 .directive('ng1', () => ({
                                     transclude: true,
                                     template: '{{ prop }}(<ng-transclude></ng-transclude>)'
                                   }))
                 .directive('ng2', downgradeComponent({component: Ng2Component}))
                 .run(($rootScope: angular.IRootScopeService) => {
                   $rootScope['prop'] = 'ng1';
                   $rootScope['transclude'] = 'ng1-transclude';
                 });

         const element = html('
{{ \'ng1(\' }}<ng2></ng2>{{ \')\' }}
');

         bootstrap(platformBrowserDynamic(), Ng2Module, element, ng1Module).then((upgrade) => {
           expect(document.body.textContent).toEqual('ng1(ng2(ng1(ng2-transclude)))');
         });
       }));

    it('should support multi-slot projection', async(() => {

         @Component({
           selector: 'ng2',
           template: '2a(<ng-content select=".ng1a"></ng-content>)' +
               '2b(<ng-content select=".ng1b"></ng-content>)'
         })
         class Ng2Component {
           constructor() {}
         }

         @NgModule({
           declarations: [Ng2Component],
           entryComponents: [Ng2Component],
           imports: [BrowserModule, UpgradeModule]
         })
         class Ng2Module {
           ngDoBootstrap() {}
         }

         const ng1Module = angular.module('ng1', []).directive(
             'ng2', downgradeComponent({component: Ng2Component}));

         // The ng-if on one of the projected children is here to make sure
         // the correct slot is targeted even with structural directives in play.
         const element = html(
             '<ng2>
1a

1b
</ng2>');

         bootstrap(platformBrowserDynamic(), Ng2Module, element, ng1Module).then((upgrade) => {
           expect(document.body.textContent).toEqual('2a(1a)2b(1b)');
         });
       }));
  });
});

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Team person in search of likeminded other.
Integrity is essential to me. Like breathing. A healty body & mind, love & respect for the earth, plants, forests, animals, civic responsibility.
I am tired of shallow, responsibility-avoiding people who want to glide through life without ever checking in with themselves or with the consequenses of our actions on ourselves and everyone around us.
I enjoy doing things together, having fun in sharing a good life, be that working together, or hiking, or bbqing, or travelling. I do not enjoy parallel lives, nor traditional family roles.
I love brainstorming, finding inspiration, and improving situations. I find the fun in simple things of every day life and in other people's genious (like Leonidas Kavakos' violin playing, or australian bamboo-plant hedge designs, and french xeriscaping). I enjoy evolving and correcting faults of my character, laughing at myself and sharing the experience with like-minded others.
A person who really wants to BE every minute. Who is. Who IS in the present. Aware of himself, himself amonst other people, in the community, in society, at work, in the environment, etc. Not looking for excuses. Living a good life because he wants to, because that is what he chooses, and wants to share it with me because he appreciates integrity and loves my company.


Touchdowns are worth six points, but maybe this team should've gotten a few style points, too.
The 7th grade football team for Plainview Elgin Millville in Minnesota recently pulled off this spectacular trick play that resulted in a touchdown against Lake City.
Quarterback Conner Schumacher faked the handoff and then tossed the unconventional no-look, backward, over-the-head pass to receiver Derrick Boyum while a surprised crowd and fooled defense looked on.
PEM cruised to a 51-0 victory, so you know there were plenty of other scores on the day, although we doubt they were as memorable as this one.


text:
Cicer is a genus of the legume family, Fabaceae, and the only genus found in tribe Cicereae. It is included within the IRLC, and its native distribution is across the Middle East and Asia. Its best-known and only domesticated member is Cicer arietinum, the chickpea.

Cultivable species
Currently, the only cultivated species of the genus Cicer is C. arietinum, commonly known as the chickpea.

The wild progenitor of C. arietinum is Cicer reticulatum. Since the chickpea has descended from this wild plant, there is a possibility that this wild progenitor can offer other forms of edible chickpeas after domestication. In wild chickpea (C. reticulatum), a considerable proportion of the mature pods remain intact, and this characteristic leads to the species being described as pre-adapted to domestication. This essentially means that the function of one of its traits can change, or evolve, as the progenitor is domesticated. This implies that traits such as texture, size, and most importantly, nutritional content can be adjusted in this species. Domesticated chickpea is considered vernalization insensitive (it can flower at all times of the year), whereas wild C. reticulatum shows a considerable flowering advance (of up to 30 days) in response to vernalization—which means that the plant would have to grow in areas where it is exposed to a prolonged period of cold before it can properly grow.

Although there is promise for some kind of domestication process to allow for and create new sources of food through C. reticulatum, there are several issues that make domestication of this wild species quite difficult. The first of these problems is that C. reticulatum may offer only limited adaptive allelic variation for improving the chickpea crop. Also, the narrow range of the C. reticulatum suggests that the prospects for improving the adaptive range of domesticated chickpea are quite limited. The patchy distribution of the wild plant, the small number of seeds produced per plant, and the relatively low allelic variation within populations (of the wild progenitor) makes germplasm conservation ( conservation of seeds or tissues, otherwise known as the living genetic resources of plants) a bit difficult.

When tried in the past, chickpea breeding has faced problems because of the lack of genetic diversity. This has caused limitations in efforts to improve resistance to diseases such as Ascochyta blight and Fusarium wilt. There have also been problems such as insects susceptible to breaking through the chickpea pods and limitations in increasing tolerance to abiotic stresses such as terminal drought and extreme temperatures. To fix these limitations, the introduction of alleles controlling the traits of interest from wild germplasm is essential in order to increase the genetic diversity of cultivated chickpeas. Currently, the chickpea's immediate ancestor, C. reticulatum, and its interfertile sister species Cicer echinospermum, are the main sources of new variation. Introgression is still possible from the more distantly related gene pools, but more research has to be done on this possibility. But the narrow variation of the wild progenitor (C. reticulatum) of the chickpea and the limited number of C. reticulatum accessions have caused a need to look for desired alleles in other more distantly related Cicer species

Resistances of various Cicer perennials and potential for plant improvement
Cicer perennials harbor great resistances in particular environments in comparison to the resistances of other herbaceous species. Although some Cicer perennials are difficult to harvest, there have been studies to improve the germination of particular species. Various studies highlight the specific resistances and improvements in fitness of particular Cicer perennial species. For example, one way in which Cicer canariense, a perennial species, was able to improve its fitness is by the help of scientific experimentation.

Cicer canariense, a perennial species, has a lowered field emergence due to a hard seed coats. However, various methods such as chemical scarification with concentrated sulphuric acid as well as hot water treatment can be used to improve germination. In one particular study, physical dormancy was overcome most effectively by mechanical scarification and sulphur immersion. More studies regarding crop development could introduce this species as a potential food source.

Another perennial species, Cicer anatolicum, resists chickpea ascochyta blight superior to the cultivated chickpea. Access to this resistance is barred due to hybridization barriers. A detailed study on endogenous hormones showed that interspecific hybrid production could occur if hormone profiles between the cultivated chickpea and the perennial are synchronized. Further experimentation on hormone profiles could open up hybridization barriers between the modern chickpea and Cicer anatolicum. Another barricade that could be overcome is the inability to cultivate specific Cicer perennials in different parts of the world.

Many Cicer perennials and annual plants grow in different environments. So far, none of the perennial Cicer species have been grown successfully in a tropical or subtropical setting in which annual Cicer species grow. If the pollen of perennial species can be preserved for use in the different parts of the world in which annual species grow, then crossability techniques can be performed more effectively. This difficulty in use of the perennial germplasm can be resolved by transshipping viable pollen across the ocean. If this issue were to be resolved, more Cicer perennials could be planted in various portions of the world.

Another constraint that affects the Cicer species is the bollworm Helicoverpa armigera, which is one of the biggest problems for their survival. Host plant resistance is an effective method to resolve these pests. A study found that perennials such as C. canariense and C. microphyllum have high resistance to H. armigera compared to C. judaicum, an annual plant. More experimentation on cross-breeding could give clues on the genetic origin of the proteins responsible for this resistance. Drought resistance is another opposition to overcome for many Cicer perennials.

About 90% of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) in the world is grown with very little rainfall and where drought is a significant constraint to growth. A study assessed the resistance of drought of many perennials compared to annuals. When tested, the perennial wild Cicer species recovered after wilting and drying out and also tolerated high temperatures. Of all the perennials tested crossbreeding with Cicer anatolicum should be tested because of its close genetic affinities to the annual species.

These resistances and improvements in the Cicer perennial genome can be a potential reservoir of knowledge for the exploration of the genes that contribute to the perennials' traits. Drought and pest resistance along with scientific improvements in crop development play a huge role in the evolution of many Cicer perennials. Further studies of genetic exchange and crossbreeding between Cicer perennials could potentially benefit the traits of contemporary food-bearing crops and provide extensive knowledge for innovation.

Evolution
The genus, Cicer, is composed of many species with different characteristics that make it an interesting candidate for a food crop. Currently, only one species of Cicer, the modern chickpea, is domesticated as a cultivar, but there are many other options researchers are considering for further domestication and expansion into perennial crops. One of the most promising options that could lead to the expansion into perennial crops is hybridization between annual and perennial species. However, hybridization is only possible and/or successful between certain species, which have not been determined.

The first step in this expansion is to examine the relationships between perennial and annual species of Cicer both morphologically and genetically to identify possible candidate species. Unfortunately, research shows stark morphological differences between perennial and annual species of Cicer which hints at difficulty that could result from attempting to cross these species into a hybridized species. More specifically, a study examining the seed coat morphology at several specific gene loci compared annual and perennial species that showed very distinct differences between the two branches of Cicer. The research was able to create phylogenetic trees tracking the genetic divergence of Cicer species, and the data indicate "the rapid species differentiation of Monocicer including adaptation to the disturbed environment," showing much distance between annual species (Monocicer) and perennial species of Cicer.

Further research into these relationships has been performed to analyze the relatedness of perennial and annual species, both cultivated and wild, at 12 loci to see how closely they are related. The researchers were able to narrow down one perennial species, C. incisum, that was more closely related to annual plants than other perennial species. Research also showed similar results upon genetic and phylogenetic analyses. While most annual and perennial species tend to form monophyletic clades, C. incisum is an exception to this rule. Another species that occurs outside of the typical monophylies is C. cuneatum, an annual species more closely related to the perennial species C. canariense than any other annual species. These outsteps in the common trend of the phylogenies indicate that there may be close relatives that present as candidates for further cultivation. There is significant evolutionary distance between the common ancestors of the modern perennial and annual species, but this research gives hope that there may be a possibility of cultivating a perennial species as a food crop.

Hybridization
Hybridization, or the reproduction of two species to create a unique offspring, is especially important in developing new food crops from existing species. Because of the phylogenetic and genetic data studied and produced in the past, a hybrid between perennial and annual Cicer species is promising. Many steps have been taken to improve the hybridization techniques and results between perennial and annual species, but it has proven difficult to create a viable offspring from these crosses. Not surprisingly, it has been relatively easy to hybridize annuals together and perennials together. Other research has shown some success with crossing specific annual and perennial species of the genus. One particularly successful cross between "the annual C. cuneatum and perennial C. canariense" showed a "partially fertile with intermediate morphology" F-1 generation.

This success, however, is determined by which species provides each gamete and therefore presents some possible difficulties in cultivating the crop further. This cross is especially interesting because it is one of the few partial successes of the perennial and annual crosses, which have proven especially difficult. Furthermore, the species crossed, C. cuneatum and C. canariense were previously determined as sister species during evolutionary analysis in previous research.

Such research is at the forefront of developing a perennial food crop for Cicer that is related to its modern cultivar, the chickpea. Perennial crops have an advantage to food production because they are a more sustainable food option than annual crops. As seen, the genetic and evolutionary relationships of the species play a crucial role in developing hybrids between the species, and can be used to determine further relationships.

References

External links
 Chickpea Taxonomy and Biosystematics

Faboideae
Edible legumes
Fabaceae genera

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Researchers convert CO to CO2 with a single metal atom
by Washington State University
Tufts University researcher Charles Sykes has demonstrated for the first time that a single metal atom can act as a catalyst in converting carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide, a chemical reaction that is commonly used in catalytic converters to remove harmful gases from car exhaust. Credit: Tufts University
Researchers from Washington State University and Tufts University have demonstrated for the first time that a single metal atom can act as a catalyst in converting carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide, a chemical reaction that is commonly used in catalytic converters to remove harmful gases from car exhaust.
The research, published today in the journal Nature Catalysis, could improve catalytic converter design and also has major implications in the field of computational catalysis.
Overcoming lower engine temperatures
As engines have become more efficient, their combustion temperature has become lower, making it harder for catalytic converters to work and creating, paradoxically, more harmful emissions. Car companies have struggled to meet strict emissions standards that aim to protect human health. Volkswagen was even found guilty of having developed a software workaround to cheat on emissions testing.
While studying low-temperature catalysts, the researchers, led by Jean-Sabin McEwen, assistant professor in WSU's Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, and Charles Sykes, a professor of chemistry at Tufts University, got interested in single metal atoms and their ability to act as catalysts at lower temperatures.
"Most of the harmful chemicals in your exhaust such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide are emitted when starting up the engine," said McEwen. "The lower the temperature, the harder it is to neutralize these harmful chemicals."
Carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide
In their paper, the researchers demonstrated that the reaction can work with single platinum atoms on a copper oxide support near room temperature. The single platinum atom holds the carbon monoxide in place while the copper oxide supplies the oxygen to convert it into carbon dioxide.
"This is a benchmark study that can guide the design of the next generation of low temperature catalytic converters," said Sykes.
Washington State University researcher Jean-Sabin McEwen has demonstrated for the first time that a single metal atom can act as a catalyst in converting carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide, a chemical reaction that is commonly used in catalytic converters to remove harmful gases from car exhaust. Credit: Washington State University
Since catalytic converters use rare and expensive metals like platinum, reducing the use of those elements down to the single atom level could also reduce costs, he added.
Their research also conclusively answers a longstanding debate in the scientific world on whether a single metal atom could act as a catalyst for the oxidation of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide at low temperatures or whether such a reaction requires a cluster of atoms.
New catalyst meets challenge of cleaning exhaust from modern engines
More information: Andrew J. Therrien et al, An atomic-scale view of single-site Pt catalysis for low-temperature CO oxidation, Nature Catalysis (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41929-018-0028-2
Journal information: Nature Catalysis
Provided by Washington State University
Citation: Researchers convert CO to CO2 with a single metal atom (2018, March 5) retrieved 16 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2018-03-co2-metal-atom.html
Mechanism behind platinum catalyst captured
Researchers improve catalyst efficiency for clean industries
New catalyst for making fuels from shale gas
Ultra-efficient removal of carbon monoxide using gold nanoparticles on a molecular support
Improved low-temperature performance of catalytic converters
granville583762
Ruined by an environmental fix
If there was a catalytic convertor to remove nitrous oxide the perfectly running Volkswagen Tiguan automatic diesel would still be getting 55mpg, after the fix it is getting 35mpg and it is noisy, rattles, vibrates in 7th just above its tick over speed, it cannot stall it has the best automatic in the world you never knew it was changing gear, you do now after the engine fix it has upset the smooth diesel matched to its gear box so its double clutch is out of synch. They could have just fitted an add-blue tank removing 90% of nitrous oxides and no one would known, But No! They did the reverse. Now emits more emissions, use's more fuel, produces less power and is noisy and unpleasant, at what used to be its most efficient tick over speed at 30mph it used to get over 60mpg, not now you're talking in the 20s to 30s mpg. It is still the best car in the world ruined by environmental fix when it should have had an add-blue tank!


text:
Dudanus javieri är en insektsart som beskrevs av Adolf Remane och Della Giustina 1997. Dudanus javieri ingår i släktet Dudanus och familjen dvärgstritar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Dvärgstritar
javieri


Sequel to the most addictive and entertaining physics based driving game ever! And it's free!
Hill Climb Racing 2 is free to play but there are optional in-app purchases available for you to gain the competitive edge – if you choose to do so!


text:
Roman Catholic Cardinal Says Gay Marriage is 'Analogous' to Christian Marriage
March 15, 2018 News Division Cardinal Kasper, Catholic, Gay Marriage, Homosexuality, LGBT, marriage
Cardinal Walter Kasper, whose theology appears to be the chief inspiration for Pope Francis' doctrine on giving Holy Communion to people living in states of adultery in second marriages, now appears to be claiming that homosexual unions contain "elements" of Christian marriage and are even "analogous" to it in a way that is similar to the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian communities.
Moreover, the cardinal is attributing his claims to Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, despite the fact that the document explicitly contradicts him.
"The pope does not leave room for doubt over the fact that civil marriages, de facto unions, new marriages following a divorce (Amoris Laetitia 291) and unions between homosexual persons (Amoris Laetitia 250s.) do not correspond to the Christian conception of marriage," writes Kasper in a recently-released book onAmoris Laetitia.
"He says, however, that some of these partners can realize in a partial and analogous way some elements in Christian marriage (Amoris Laetitia 292)," continues Kasper.
Kasper compares such relationships with the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian groups, whom Vatican II says contain "elements of sanctification and truth" of the Church.
"Just as outside the Catholic Church there are elements of the true Church, in the above-mentioned unions there can be elements present of Christian marriage, although they do not completely fulfill, or do not yet completely fulfill, the ideal," adds Kasper.
The statements appear in Kasper's new booklet, "The Message of Amoris Laetitia: A Fraternal Discussion," which was recently published simultaneously in German and Italian.
In the same work, Kasper also insinuates that Amoris Laetitia opens the way to permit the use of contraception, a practice that is universally condemned in the Scriptures, Church Fathers, and the Papal Magisterium, most recently by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II.
Kasper notes that in Amoris Laetitia, the Pope only "encourages the use of the method of observing the cycles of natural fertility," and "does not say anything about other methods of family planning and avoids all casuistic definitions." In the context with the book's passages on communion for those who commit adultery in second "marriages," which use similar language, Kasper appears to be claiming that the pope is allowing for exceptions to the Church's condemnation of artificial birth control.
You can continue reading this article at LifeSite News…
[Editor's Note: This article was originally published at LifeSite News]
← Beth Moore Says Fighting Donald Trump is A Fight for the Faith
Video: Greg Locke Rebuked at Church, Church Assaults the Man and His Family →
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January 6, 2014 News Division
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Alabama Public Television Pulls Arthur's Gay Wedding Episode
May 21, 2019 May 21, 2019 Cherie Vandermillen


text:
Q: TypeError : unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'NoneType' and 'NoneType' I am a beginner in python and just for the sake of testing out my skills, tried to make a program to check if a given integer can be expressed as a sum of two prime numbers the code for which I have mentioned below -
a = int(input('Enter the number: '))
def prime(b):
    for i in range(2, b):
        while b % i == 0:
            pass
        else:
            return b
if a < 3:
    print("The number is too short to be tested")
else:
    for i in range(2, a):
        for j in range(2, a):
            d = prime(i)
            e = prime(j)
            if d + e == a:
                print("It can be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")
                break
    else:
        print("The number can not be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")

The error says TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'NoneType' and 'NoneType'
I understand that the prime class needs to return a value first hence I stored the returned values in variables d and e respectively but in vain. Any help with the above would be highly appreciated.

A: Your function prime is doing too many things. Just have it return True if prime, False otherwise.
def prime(b):
    for i in range(2, b):
        if b % i == 0:
            return False
    return True

You also don't need to iterate over two ranges: just check if i and a - i are prime (because i + a - i == a by definition). Also, since i and a - i are symmetric around a/2, you don't need to iterate over the full range of values from 2 to a.
a = int(input('Enter the number: '))

if a < 3:
    print("The number is too short to be tested")
else:
    for i in range(2, a // 2 + 1):
        if prime(i) and prime(a - i):
            print("It can be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")
            break
    else:
        print("The number can not be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")

As an exercise, adapt the loop so that you don't have to consider all values between 2 and a// 2 + 1, only 2 and the odd ones.

A: I suggest you return a default value if the statement b % i == 0 is never statisfied in prime().
Also please verify d and e actually exists before this statement (d + e) == a
Example: (should run as is)
a = int(input('Enter the number: '))

def prime(b, default=None):
    for i in range(2, b):
        if not b % i == 0:
            return b
    return default

if a < 3:
    print("The number is too short to be tested")
else:
    for i in range(2, a):
        for j in range(2, a):
            d, e = prime(i), prime(j)
            if d and e and (d + e) == a:
                print("It can be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")
                break
    print("The number can not be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")

A: a = int(input('Enter the number: '))
def prime(b):
    for i in range(2, b):
        if b % i == 0:
            continue
        else:
            return b
if a < 3:
    print("The number is too short to be tested")
else:
    for i in range(3, a + 1):
        for j in range(3, a + 1):
            d = prime(i)
            e = prime(j)
            if d + e == a:
                print("It can be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")
                break
    else:
        print("The number can not be expressed as a sum of prime numbers")

This variation should work


"I had some eyeglasses. I was walking down the street when suddenly the prescription ran out. "
Seeing the World ClearlyI've worked in the optical industry for years. I mean, like 10 years. And I've never really needed glasses. My vision when I was a kid was 20/15, mean I could see better than most people. So when I started slowly needed a small prescription, it didn't really phase me as it was so minor and just make everything a little crisper. But slowly and slowly, I started noticing that I needed glasses for night driving. I mean I have over 8 pairs of glasses, so it wasn't an issue of not having glasses, but just never really needing them and not making it a habit of wearing! So when I recently got an eye exam done and put on my new pair of glasses, it felt like a new world! I didn't realize what I was missing out on. It's not that I couldn't see, but it's the fact that everything was so much clearer and sharper. And driving at night was a piece of cake - I can see road signs and the lines on the road a lot easier!
I know how important it is to get your annual eye check-ups - whether it be for glasses or just a health check. But sometimes I forget to practice what I preach. I'm always explaining or letting others know the importance of check-ups that I don't always follow the rules myself. The last eye exam I had before was about 2 years ago. And that may not seem that long ago, but for someone who could slightly tell their vision has been changing, it's too long. As soon as I put on my new glasses with my update prescription, I was so surprised too how well I could see again. I guess I just started to forget how everything looked before I started needing glasses. And it makes a hell of a difference while I'm driving at night. It's just so nice to be able to see better.
Guys, take my word for it - make sure you get your eyes check at least once every 2 years. It's important and sometimes you don't even realize that you need glasses or that something is happening with your eyes because it's not always noticeable or drastic enough of a change.