The Nigeria Police on Thursday presented cheques worth N53 million under the Police Life Insurance Scheme to families of 40 officers who died in active duty in Zone 2 Command.
NAN reports that the zone comprises Lagos and Ogun states.
Presenting the cheques, the Inspector-General of Police (I-G), Solomon Arase, represented by AIG Bala Hassan, who heads the zone, said the gesture was in fulfillment of the police life insurance policy.
Arase explained that the scheme was put in place to alleviate the suffering of the family members of the deceased personnel who either died or sustained near fatal injuries in the course of duty.
"This is another move that the police authorities have come up with though it has been on.
"The reason why this is different is that those colleagues of ours that died in active service their families are being given some money.
"This will enable the families of the deceased to take care of their loved ones that are still living; we have officers that died during the course of duty and those that were shot by armed robbers," he said.
Arase added that the benefits cut across all ranks in the force and that the amount differed depending on the rank and circumstances in which the officer departed.
"Each serving member usually fills a form showing their next of kin and after death, we then contact their next of kin and present the cheques to them.
"The rank is usually from Inspector downwards; we have distributed close to N53 million now to the all the families.
"With this, I am sure the little children that are left behind will be able to go to school," Arase said.
He urged the beneficiaries to put whatever they got to good use to meet their needs.
"The money is not meant for frivolities; it is to ensure that children left behind are well taken care off.
"This does not end here, we still have other benefits, this one is for the insurance the force did for its officers, especially for those that died in the course of duty.
"Those who were involved in accidents and those that were sick and eventually died also benefit," Arase said.
NAN reports that the beneficiaries include the families of the two officers that lost their lives in the Ikoyi and Ipakodo-Ikorodu bank robberies of March 12 and July 6.
They received N400, 000 and N3 million each.
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, Augustina Osai, thanked the I-G, saying that the money would go a long way in assisting members of their families.
"Basically, it is my dad's retirement benefit; it is just to support the family that my dad left behind.
"My dad was ill and he died in May 2014 as an Assistant Superintendent.
"The benefit is a good thing, a good initiative and the government has done its best to take care of the families of the deceased.
"I am surprised it came early because from what we heard, it will take about five years for us to get the benefit.
"We almost gave up hope, but now that we have the money, will take care of all our father left behind," she said.
Also, Elvis, whose first name was withheld, commended the police authorities for the development.
He added that after his father was shot during the Lekki-Ikoyi robbery, he was not expecting any benefits soon.
"I did not expect the money to come this early; I was thinking it will take up to three years.
"This is a good development in the police and this is also an evidence that the authorities were passionate about the welfare of deceased officers' families," he said.
Posted by pmnews on October 28, 2015, 9:50 pm. Filed under Metro, News, Today's Headlines.


Pruitt was a the helm of the defense that just helped FSU when the national championship.
Pruitt was at Alabama the two previous seasons before coming to FSU last season. He made an impact in Tuscaloosa. In 2012, Alabama was "ranked No. 7 in pass defense yielding just 173.64 yards per game and No. 7 nationally in pass efficiency defense (103.72) while also leading the nation in total defense (250.00 ypg), rushing defense (76.36 yards per game) and scoring defense (10.93 points per game)" according to the Florida State website.
Pruitt's bio on the FSU website goes on to read "In 2011, Alabama not only led the nation in pass defense (111.46 ypg) and pass efficiency defense (83.69 ypg), but the Crimson Tide led the nation in rushing defense, total defense and scoring defense on its way to winning the BCS National Championship".
ATHENS – Jeremy Pruitt, defensive coordinator at Florida State, has been named defensive coordinator at the University of Georgia according to an announcement Tuesday by UGA head coach Mark Richt.
As defensive coordinator/defensive backs coach at FSU, Pruitt was part of a coaching staff that led the Seminoles to an undefeated season and 2013 BCS National Championship. The FSU defense ended the season ranked first nationally in scoring defense (12.1 ppg), second in team passing efficiency defense (93.77), third in total defense (281.4 ypg), and 18th in rushing defense (124.8 ypg). He was a finalist this year for the Broyles Award which goes annually to the nation's top assistant coach.
Pruitt was named Florida State's defensive coordinator in December, 2012, after serving the previous three seasons (2010-12) as Alabama's defensive backfield coach. In each of his three seasons as secondary coach, the Crimson Tide ranked in the top 10 nationally in pass efficiency defense, top 15 in pass defense and top five in both total defense and scoring defense.
A former Alabama defensive back, Pruitt originally joined the Crimson Tide staff in 2007 as director of player development. He had previously served as an assistant coach at Hoover (Ala.) High from 2004-2006, and as an assistant under his father, Dale Pruitt, at Fort Payne (Ala.) High and Plainview (Ala.) High. He spent one season, 1999, as defensive backs coach at the University of West Alabama.
Pruitt made an impact in Tuscaloosa his last two seasons. In 2012, Alabama ranked No. 7 in pass defense yielding just 173.64 yards per game and No. 7 nationally in pass efficiency defense (103.72) while also leading the nation in total defense (250.00 ypg), rushing defense (76.36 yards per game) and scoring defense (10.93 points per game). In 2011, Alabama not only led the nation in pass defense (111.46 ypg) and pass efficiency defense (83.69 ypg), but the Crimson Tide led the nation in rushing defense, total defense and scoring defense on its way to winning the BCS National Championship.
Pruitt's 2011 secondary at Alabama produced three first team All-Americans and NFL draft picks in first rounders safety Mark Barron (No. 7 pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick (No. 17 pick by the Cincinnati Bengals). Cornerback DeQuan Menzie was taken in the fifth round by the Kansas City Chiefs.
In 2012, Pruitt's secondary overcame the loss of three NFL Draft picks to become one of the best in the nation. Junior cornerback Dee Milliner led the group with 51 tackles, 18 pass breakups and two interceptions en route to earning first-team All-America honors. A finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award, Milliner ranked third nationally in passes defended with 1.67 per game.


Burkhard Bilger wrote about cave divers a few months ago in the New Yorker. It is full of delightful scenes of adventure and incipient horror, as our divers enter apparently endless labyrinths of jagged rock and running water. Undoubtedly there is great beauty under ground, and there is also the constant dread of dying by suffocation or drowning, far from where the sun shines.
Burk narrates an overview of the cave diving life in a video at the New Yorker.
His piece is exciting and rewarding reading, but the following clip will give you a case of the willies because the fear and danger are so imminent, and hardly an arm's length away from safety. At least this time.
hi peter..your post brings to mind a kindred soul i met here in bangor who owned a pet shop called animal crackers..he was from jersey originally..well anyway,cut to the chase,in his past he delivered pet food in nyc and on his list of customers was john and yoko..atleast once..so he kept the check signed by j.l. and has it to this day..his local biz has since crumbled and i know not what became of him,but,he was truely a good cat! animals bring us together,but only paul revere and the raiders brought us kicks that keep getting harder to find.hope you are all enjoying your summer in the country,unlike "summer in the city".


Old wooden bowling pin with a spider attached firmly in the mouth the trout, brass gill tacks, copper spider legs.
Sold only as a set - old wooden bowling pin for trout with brass gill tacks & 7" DFD northern decoy to place in mouth of trout - detachable.
Mallards - Hen and Drake, same size as the "print ducks" - sold individually or in pairs.
"Purple People Eater" - - Minnesota Vikings decoys. In catfish, trout or northern bodies. Can be numbered on the bottom with your players favorite number.


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An Appreciation of John Mahoney, America's Dad
By Neil Turitz on	 February 7, 2018 2 - FILM NEWS, 3 - TELEVISION NEWS, Film Features, Neil Turitz, TV Features
I always loved John Mahoney. Even before I really knew who he was, I knew enough to understand that he was that sort of character actor who was clearly a member of the That Guy club, wherein as soon as you see him, even if you don't know his name, you still say, "Oh! I know that guy!" Harry Dean Stanton was a member, too, as are literally dozens of others who populate our movies and TV shows with consistently solid work that keeps them perpetually employed.
But Mahoney was different. There was something fatherly about him, even before he became known for playing two of the most famous dads of the past few decades. The first time I noticed him was in the 1985 movie The Manhattan Project, in which he had a small part as an Army colonel trying to avert a nuclear disaster. Three years later, he played the manager of the infamous Chicago Black Sox team in John Sayles' terrific baseball movie Eight Men Out. He co-starred in that film with John Cusack, and just one year later they re-teamed for Cameron Crowe's Say Anything… — a career highlight for both actors. That's when I realized John Mahoney was truly someone special.
For someone of my generation, there aren't too many romantic comedies better than Say Anything…, which explores the kind of first love that only seems to exist for teenagers, even if there's something timeless about it. The relationship between Cusack's Lloyd Dobler and Ione Skye's Diane Court made the movie special, but it was Mahoney as Diane's dad, James, who elevated it into another realm.
James Court ran a retirement home, and was a single dad raising a gifted daughter. James loved his daughter so much, he was willing to steal from his residents to give her everything she needed to succeed. It's a heartbreaking story arc for the character, who could have been something of a one-dimensional villain, but Mahoney humanized him. He goes from triumphantly singing a Steely Dan song in his car upon hearing some good news about Diane, to hiding in his bathtub after realizing that he's about to go to jail, terrified at what his life has become. Through it all, he still wants his daughter to recognize what he's done for her, which is even more tragic. He did such a good job raising her, teaching her morality and the difference between right and wrong, that she is appalled by his behavior and can't forgive him for it. Laurie Metcalf deservedly earned an Oscar nomination this year for playing a devoted and put-upon mother in Lady Bird, but I would argue that Mahoney's work in Say Anything… had even more depth and resonance, and if that movie were to come out today, he would have been similarly honored.
Mahoney's biggest and best known role, of course, was on Frasier, as Martin Crane, the title character's father. The show ran for 11 seasons, and yet somehow, he was only nominated for two Emmys in that time. His co-stars, Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce, each won a bevy of trophies, but Mahoney's blue-collar father figure was the rock that grounded the show and kept it from spiraling into full-on pretentiousness — a fact that was perhaps best illustrated in a monologue from the show's first season, in which he chastises his two sons for their boorish behavior at a steak house.
"Alright, that's it," he says. "I've had enough of you two jackasses. I've spent the whole night listening to you making cracks about the food and the help. Well, I got news for you: People like this place. I like this place. And when you insult this restaurant, you insult me. You know, I used to think you two took after your mother, liking the ballet and all that, but your mother liked a good ball game too. She even had a hot dog once in a while. She may have had fancy tastes, but she had too much class to ever make me or anybody else feel second-rate. If she saw the way you two have behaved tonight, she'd be ashamed. I know I am."
I remember watching that and wanting to jump up and applaud. It wasn't just the line, it was the way Mahoney said it, which, of course, is the whole point. It didn't feel like an actor delivering a line, it felt like a father who was terribly hurt by and disappointed in his two sons. It's something every son has heard from his father at some point, and to see it play out in such a realistic fashion, it gave me chills back then, just as it gave me chills again while writing about it.
If Mahoney's career was defined by those two roles, that would be impressive enough, but he was far more than that. He somehow played fatherly to Clint Eastwood in In the Line of Fire as Sam Campagna, a friend and former boss at the U.S. Secret Service, and to Annette Bening as Leo Solomon, the head of an environmental lobbying firm in The American President. In the latter movie, he has yet another a great moment when he tells Bening's Sydney Ellen Wade that you can clock with an egg timer how quickly one can fall from a hired gun to a cocktail party joke. Literally two minutes later, after she receives a gift from the President in Leo's office and is referred to as "the President's girlfriend," he shakes his head and famously laments, "There's never an egg timer around when you need one." The line cuts like a dagger from a disappointed dad trying to teach his precocious daughter something important that she just can't seem to grasp.
The whole point of a character actor is that they are chameleons. They don't always play the same part, but rather switch between the good guys and bad guys, alternately displaying grace and menace, because that's their job. But Mahoney always brought gravitas and a sense of trustworthiness. He wasn't just another member of the That Guy club, he had earned an immediate trust whenever he showed up on screen. His gravelly voice was a comfort, even when he unleashed unbridled pain, like when he yelled at Cusack, "I'm incarcerated, Lloyd!" It was the line that he once said was quoted back to him more than any other, and he loved it, because it reminded him of the impact he could have with his work.
John Mahoney went toe-to-toe with remarkable, Hall of Fame talents — heavyweights who command the screen whenever they're on it. He did that and he shined, probably because he was a heavyweight himself.
Neil Turitz is a filmmaker and journalist who has spent close to two decades working in and writing about Hollywood. Feel free to send him a tweet at @neilturitz. He'll more than likely respond.
Neal Reynolds on February 9, 2018 11:46 pm
So glad your brought up Mahoney in "Say Anything". I've been saying for decades how it is his performance that makes the movie, not the famous "boombox" scene. (I also think he, along with Cusack, is what made "Eight Men Out" so good.)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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This is what's wrong with Canada's Right - Macleans.ca
This is what's wrong with Canada's Right
As its support base shifts and hardens, the Conservatives increasingly have a new measure: are you with us or against us?
by Shannon Proudfoot
While his party has gone on the attack, Andrew Scheer has mostly stuck to his aw-shucks persona (Andre Forget/OLO)
This month's duelling cover stories go inside the angry, closed-minded, petty world of Canadian politics—and how to fix it. Here's why we did it.
During Ontario's Progressive Conservative leadership race last winter, Bill Fox donated to Caroline Mulroney's campaign. The party immediately began carpet-bombing him with fundraising messages denouncing the "downtown elites" they were going to take down. "When you live in a condominium in Leslieville at the corner of Dundas and Carlaw, it's pretty hard not to take that a little personally," says Fox, hooting with laughter.
He was Brian Mulroney's director of communications when Mulroney steered the PCs to a historic federal majority of 211 seats in 1984, but Fox hasn't felt at home with the current federal Conservatives for years, mostly because of the party's social policy and anti-elite bent. He can see the feeling is mutual. "In their mind, I am now part of the 'other,' " he says. "I'm not them."
The major parties in Canada were, not so long ago, big tents that were nominally blue or red but sheltered a broad and often ideologically mixed bag of policy positions and personal opinions. Every few years, they would cobble together a set of proposals tackling the issues of the day and hope to build a coalition large enough to govern. As Fox points out, in his days on the front lines, Red Tories like him and Blue Grits were common creatures, and if you wanted to be mischievous, you would ask what the difference was between them.
No one would confuse a Grit and a Tory of any hue these days, and it would be treated as a slur if you did.
On the right side of the Canadian spectrum, this tribalism has its roots in the 2003 merger of the PCs and Canadian Alliance that produced the Conservative Party of Canada, now led by Andrew Scheer. But, paradoxically, the newly split right—thanks to Maxime Bernier bolting to found the anti-immigration, libertarian People's Party of Canada—is further fuelling the Conservative tendency to appeal to the most ardent base and seemingly no one else. "Mr. Bernier, for his own selfish reasons, has made it increasingly difficult, and borderline impossible, to campaign in the mould of the Harperite campaign strategy, which was 'rough the edges off and go for a big-tent Conservative party,' " says Jason Lietaer, a conservative strategist and president of Enterprise Canada. "Because Mr. Scheer is fighting a rear-guard action, that is a significant risk."
RELATED: Why it's dangerous to equate the Left and the Right
More broadly, James Moore, Stephen Harper's former industry minister, argues that across all parties, the traditional left-right axis has been replaced by a sort of tripartite purity test. "There's 'with us,' 'might be with us,' and 'against us,' " he says. "And it's on an issue-by-issue basis."
And the metrics by which Canadian Conservatives judge who is with them or against them have fundamentally shifted. University of Saskatchewan political studies professor David McGrane, drawing on findings of a paper he co-authored called "Moving beyond the urban/rural cleavage," says the action on the right is on identity issues like immigration, gay rights and environmentalism rather than traditional small-government, low-tax policies. "For Conservative voters, suburbanites and people who live in more rural areas, this idea of being socially progressive and economically conservative doesn't hold up," he says. "You're probably more economically progressive and socially conservative."
This appears to have animated a Conservative voter base that is more hard-core in its partisanship than elsewhere along the spectrum. This fall, Abacus Data found that 31 per cent of Canadians would only consider voting for one party—of which 14 per cent were Conservative, 10 per cent Liberal and four per cent NDP. Of those inclined to vote Conservative, 47 per cent would not consider another party, compared to 30 per cent of Liberal supporters and 21 per cent of NDP voters.
In September, Ekos Research Associates Inc. asked Canadians which issue should be most important in the 2019 federal election. Fiscal issues like taxes and debt were the top concern of 46 per cent of Conservative supporters, but just 20 per cent of Liberal partisans, 12 per cent of NDP and seven per cent of Green supporters. Climate change and the environment, on the other hand, were the biggest worry for 43 per cent of Liberal voters, 47 per cent of NDP and 62 per cent of Green supporters—but just seven per cent of Tory voters consider that the defining issue. "There are two different worlds," says Frank Graves, president of Ekos. "There's no common ground. You don't divide that and say, 'Let's meet in the middle.' "
An anti-racism protester, centre, confronts alt-right protesters during opposing rallies at City Hall in Vancouver, B.C., on Aug. 19, 2017. (Darryl Dyck/CP)
Ekos's numbers further show that Conservative supporters are less likely to see the #MeToo movement as necessary and overdue than other partisans; more likely to think discussions of racial and gender equality are distracting from more important issues such as the economy; and more inclined to say Canada is taking in too many immigrants. And there has been a shift in who those supporters are, with Ekos finding the Tories now hold an "overwhelming" advantage among the non-university-educated—a demographic split that did not exist during the 2015 federal election. "When did the Conservatives become working-class heroes?" Graves wonders. "This is a totally different political landscape."
Graves's research shows that right-leaning voters are increasingly attracted to what he calls an ordered populist outlook. They feel economically and culturally insecure, they're often stuck in downward class mobility and they "value order and obedience more than creativity and reason." They are often drawn to a nostalgic vision of an earlier period when things made more sense. "This is the new contest for the future: are we going to go for this 'pull up the drawbridge,' follow the way a lot of Europe is going, and Britain and the United States?" Graves says.
PAUL WELLS: Canada's angry, divisive politics are as old as Canada itself
The paradox, he says, is that this shift within the right-leaning electorate runs counter to the long-standing trend of Canadians becoming more open on issues like immigration and trade. But the emotional intensity is on the side of the ordered populists. "There's nobody out with placards going, 'Bring more immigrants!' " Graves says.
A pair of recent papers based on the Canadian Election Study (CES), a massive national study conducted in each election year going back to 1965, traces how partisan attitudes have evolved in Canada.
Laura Stephenson, a political science professor who specializes in voter behaviour at Western University, co-authored a chapter in the 2017 book The Blueprint: Conservative Parties and Their Impact on Canadian Politics, examining how the views of right-leaning Canadians shifted between 1993 and 2011 as they were thrown together in a unified Conservative party.
Before the merger, PC and Reform/Canadian Alliance supporters largely agreed on economic issues, she and her co-author, Éric Bélanger of McGill University, found, but they were not on the same page on social issues such as attitudes toward women, immigrants and racial minorities, or constitutional questions like how much should be done for Quebec, or feelings of regional alienation. After the merger, that flipped so that Conservative partisans had varying views of economic matters but aligned more on other issues, they found—with two exceptions. Regional alienation remained a point of contention, perhaps reflecting the gaps between old Reformers from the west and new Tories from other provinces, and moral traditionalism was another point of tension. To Stephenson, the present Conservative party is clearly socially conservative, as a result of its Reform and Canadian Alliance DNA. "There is no other game in town on the right—if you're a conservative in any way, you either have to plug your nose and swallow the social conservatism or go elsewhere, and then you have to deal with the economic," she says. "The fact that there's only one party on the right gives it a little bit of leeway in terms of what it can do, but I think moral issues are also ones that clearly divide people who do support the Conservative party." That potential for division was reflected in Harper's refusal to reopen the abortion debate, she notes.
A second paper based on the CES, co-authored by Stuart Soroka, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, examined "partisan sorting" in Canada. The term refers to whether people who hold certain views increasingly find their way to a particular party over time, so that, for instance, people who are in favour of immigration may identify more strongly with the Liberals, while those who are not will find their way to the Conservatives as that issue becomes more important to them. That concept is distinct from but related to polarization, which refers to the attitudes of people on certain issues getting further apart over time.
ANDREW MACDOUGALL: The question Conservatives need to answer before they say anything
Soroka and his co-author, Anthony Kevins of Utrecht University, focused on 1992 to 2015, examining people's attitudes toward the welfare state—such as whether the government should "see to it that everyone has a decent standard of living" or "leave people to get ahead on their own"—and testing how much of the variation in opinion could be predicted based on someone's party. "What our analyses suggest is that over time, I can explain that variation better and better and better just by using party," he says.
Similarly, for a long time in Canada, you wouldn't be able to predict which party someone voted for based solely on their preferences about immigration, but other research Soroka has yet to publish shows that changed around 2006 (an election year that saw Harper defeat Paul Martin's Liberals). "It was the reformation of the Conservative party as the not-Red-Tory party, as a more traditional conservative party," he says of the turning point.
Partisan sorting on its own is neither a good or a bad thing, Soroka says. There is clarity and simplicity in voters having coherent platforms to choose from, but on the other hand, it's not very efficient to have public policy that swerves wildly from one set of priorities to another depending on who is in power.
Polarization, however, is not neutral. In a polarized electorate, people are so divided that they see the two different worlds that Graves has identified in his research, and that makes democratic politics complicated and dysfunctional, Soroka says. Sorting is a step along the way to polarization. "I wouldn't argue that Canada doesn't have to worry because it's only partisan sorting at this point," he says. "Once you get people into more like-minded groups, once you make it clear to people who their team is, then they can start to see bigger differences."
JEN GERSON: How to harness the volatility of the populist right
The politics-as-team-sport mentality is prominent in the issues and approach that have preoccupied the right side of the Canadian spectrum of late. The Tories have a flair for displaying a catty edge on social media, with MPs Michelle Rempel and Pierre Poilievre alternately playing concern trolls or outright attack dogs, and Scheer himself appearing to be A/B testing Smiley Suburban Dad Who Just Happens to Lead the Conservative Party. In recent months, the party established two websites devoted to providing mocking one-note commentary on the Liberal government: the budget-focused IsItBalancedYet.ca and IsJustinTrudeauOnVacation.ca, which is now defunct and redirects visitors to the main Conservative party page.
The Conservatives and their Ontario PC cousins who wield outsize influence on the national stage right now spent much of the summer and fall arguing that the Liberal government was directly responsible for thousands of migrants crossing the border illegally from the U.S. In July, the federal party produced an attack ad that showed a dark-skinned man towing a suitcase through a gap in a fence, using Trudeau's infamous tweet welcoming newcomers to Canada as a bridge. "Trudeau's holier-than-thou tweet causes migrant crisis—now he needs to fix what he started," the ad copy read. It was pulled after a barrage of criticism. And in early December, Scheer denounced Canada's participation in the UN Global Compact on Migration. "It gives influence over Canada's immigration system to foreign entities," he warned. The agreement is non-binding and would do no such thing—a fact immediately pointed out by Harper's former immigration minister, Chris Alexander.
But it's the carbon tax that has been the most focused and furious battleground. "The Trudeaus of the world seem out of touch in what they're saying," says Lietaer. "Most people, as well, are looking at it and saying, 'If you really think me paying a couple cents more per litre of gas is going to save the world, I think you'd better come up with a new plan.' " The carbon tax is about affordability, and oblivious elites who expect ordinary people with normal budgets to shell out even more, but like most every other political issue right now, it is a proxy for something much larger than itself. "The same people who told me that globalization and information technology were going to float us on an infinite cloud of prosperity are the same ones who have told me we've got to deal with climate change, and look where that got us," Graves says, by way of explaining the resistance on this.
ANNE KINGSTON: The political terms 'right' and 'left' are simplistic, damaging, and need to be retired
Doug Ford and the Ontario PCs capitalized on this last spring, trouncing Kathleen Wynne's Liberals with an explicit "stick it to the elites" campaign. David Herle, who ran Wynne's campaign, says his team spent more than two years trying to address affordability worries, but they could have mulled it over for years longer and they never would have come up with the things the Ford campaign offered. "It's not like we missed that issue," Herle says, mentioning pensions, guaranteed income pilots and raising the minimum wage as examples of the Wynne government's attempts to address it. "That stuff was all very popular, but it was seemingly just as effective to promise to lower the gas tax by 10 cents and to promise buck-a-beer and to really take this down to a simplistic level." It's telling that what proved popular with conservative voters were gestures that served virtually no pragmatic purpose, but carried note-perfect symbolic meaning.
To Herle, Conservatives are working from a fundamentally different playbook than the "let's see how popular we can be" instincts of the Liberal party over the past decade. The Tories are less interested in gaining new supporters or wooing tentative ones, he argues, and are instead focused on firing up their most ardent base. "So let's have a really hard, direct, motivating message to our supporters, on the theory that if they turn out to vote, and those unmotivated people who are kinda Liberals don't turn out to vote, we'll win the election," he says. Herle doesn't believe Canadians at large are terribly worked up about illegal border crossers or the carbon tax—but they're perfect issues for stoking the Tory base. "They'd rather have 30 per cent solid supporters than 45 per cent wishy-washy supporters," he says.
Polling suggests that, increasingly, Canadians see themselves as explicitly choosing one team or another. Ekos asks whether people consider themselves small-"l" liberals or small-"c" conservatives, independent of who they vote for in a given moment. From 1997 to 2008, "neither" was the most popular choice, but since then, the ranks of the unaffiliated have taken a nosedive, from a peak of 47 per cent in 2002 to just 17 per cent in 2017, when 30 per cent declared themselves conservative and 49 per cent liberal.
Moore, the former Harper cabinet minister, has a theory about the tribalism of contemporary politics. He takes a page from Harvard professor Robert Putnam's 2001 book, Bowling Alone, which used disappearing bowling leagues as a vehicle to examine the isolation of modern life. Volunteer involvement, charitable giving and participation in religious organizations have plummeted, Moore points out, and more of us live alone than ever before. And while we warm our hands and our internal rage-engines around the hearth of social media, that makes us even more isolated in real-world ways.
Moore argues that people have plugged politics into the place in our lives and sense of self that used to be occupied by a much deeper set of attachments. "They're investing their religious energy, their ideological energy, their sense of community, their sense of belonging, their sense of aspiration, their need for expression of frustration—all of it is getting dumped into politics," he says. People build themselves digital echo chambers and read opinions they already agree with that are more articulate than their own internal dialogue, Moore says, and that gets dark really fast because we were never meant to define the entirety of who we are by who we vote for.
"It's too much," he says. "Politics can't handle it. It's more than what politics was made for."
CORRECTION, Feb. 6, 2019: A previous version of a graphic in this story claimed the riding of Souris-Moose Mountain was in Manitoba. In fact, it is in Saskatchewan.
MORE ON WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE LEFT:
TERRY GLAVIN: What the yellow vests' revolt revealed about the sad state of the Left
ANDRAY DOMISE: The Left is constantly trying to out-woke itself. That's a problem.
POLL: Canada's most polarized voters really, really hate Trudeau
Left vs Right


(Clearwisdom.net) On the last day of the year 2000, dozens of Falun Gong practitioners were going to Beijing to validate Dafa, but they were detained by the police in the Tianjin train station.
That day was the doorway to the new century. At midnight, the clamor of firecrackers resounded outside. Realizing that this was a great opportunity to validate Dafa, the detained practitioners unfurled their banners and together called out with their full hearts and souls, "Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is righteous! Restore Teacher's reputation! Restore Dafa's reputation!" Their voices were loud enough to reach the sky. There were various colorful banners. A senior practitioner displayed a long banner several meters long. With the overwhelming voices and the sounds of the firecrackers, beautiful, colorful flashes lighting up the big glass window in the waiting room, it was as if both Heaven and Earth were celebrating this grand moment of practitioners' compassion and fearlessness.
After a minute or so, the calling and the firecrackers and their sounds all stopped. At that moment all was quiet and time seemed to freeze completely. The people present in the waiting room were still immersed in that magnificent moment while the echo of "Falun Dafa is good..." resounded and lingered in their ears. The police were too shocked to do anything but quietly watch and listen to the righteous voices. All were awed by the greatness of the scene.


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Sold! A working 1976 Apple-1, signed by Woz, just went for $340,100.
By Heath Rivera On Jun 14, 2022
Source: The AAPL Collection
A vintage Apple-1 computer signed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has sold for more than $340,100 at auction. The machine was built in 1976 and is said to be fully operational.
Sold by The AAPL Collection out of Dubai, the working Apple-1 is 42 years old — older than many reading this — and is a work of art. That's presumably what the person who won this eBay auction also believes, having agreed to hand over $340,100 to get their hands on it.
Here's how The AAPL Collection describes the immaculate-looking bit of history.
This Apple-1 computer has been professionally restored both for originality and operation. It is one of the few remaining Apple-1 boards that is almost completely original and in an operational state. Unlike most remaining Apple-1 computers, it contains almost all period-correct components with the appropriate make, part, and production date for an Apple-1 "NTI" board. The exception is the four 74S257 data selector multiplexor ICs that are Texas Instruments parts with 1977 date codes.
The original Apple-1 was sold without a case, power supply, keyboard, or monitor which might make it a very early Mac mini of sorts, although even that comes with a couple of those parts in the box. The seller says that this example is "one of the few remaining that has all period components" and that it comes with "all the typical period accessories."
Don't miss this opportunity to own a piece of history! The auction for our 1976 Apple-1 computers is in its final few days and the bidding is heating up! Go to eBay now to make your bid for this priceless relic from the dawn of the personal computer age. https://t.co/Pd5tcEQboW pic.twitter.com/AzF4xxMIto
— The AAPL Collection (@AAPLcollection) June 11, 2022
While the name of the buyer hasn't been made public, the seller does say that they are "an experienced vintage computer collector and Apple aficionado in the United States. Could it be that Woz has spent a small fortune on one of his early Apple computers?
Miss out on this Apple-1? No problem, there's another one up for action now and this one was signed by Steve Jobs! It's a bargain, too — bidding is now at just $189,880.
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Wanna help the economy (and your approval ratings), Joe? Then cut taxes!
Don't applaud the Senate's gun move yet


An article by Jonathan Gornall (right) in today's Daily Mail featured a study carried out on behalf of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence, and published in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
The review, one of the largest ever carried out of studies investigating the incidence, severity and duration of reactions to antidepressant withdrawal, concludes that the phenomenon is not only real, but more widespread, severe and long-lasting than doctors have been led to believe by years of guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Researchers looked at 23 studies published over the past 20 years and concluded that 56% of all patients on antidepressants suffer withdrawal symptoms, of which 46% said their symptoms were severe. The authors estimate that in England alone, where one in six adults takes antidepressants, 4 million people may experience symptoms when withdrawing from the drugs, and around 1.8 million may experience these as severe. They also found that it's "not uncommon for patients to experience symptoms for several weeks, months or longer", with some having debilitating symptoms for years.
These findings, say the authors, make a nonsense of the NICE guidance, which advises prescribing doctors that while withdrawal symptoms 'can be severe', they are 'usually mild and self-limiting over about one week'. The current guidance from NICE "is not only out of date but doesn't respect the evidence base", said James Davies (left), co-author of the new paper and a reader in medical anthropology and mental health at the University of Roehampton.
And the personal cost to patients is incalculable. Dr Davies suggests the faulty guidance is causing "many doctors to misdiagnose withdrawal symptoms, often as relapse, resulting in unnecessary and harmful long-term prescribing". That's because when people come off antidepressants and then experience withdrawal: "The doctor looks at the NICE guidelines and concludes it can't be withdrawal. Patients are regularly having their withdrawal reactions either denied, ignored or, most concerningly, misdiagnosed as a relapse in their condition, at which point the drugs are reinstated." As a consequence, the length of time people are kept on the drugs has doubled since the guidelines were issued in 2004. Dr Davies suggests that the existing guidelines have contributed to the doubling over the past decade of the number of adults in England on antidepressants — an escalation he describes as nothing less than "a public health crisis".
Although many people say that these medications have helped them, there is no scientific proof that the drugs do so by reversing a 'chemical imbalance'. There is also evidence that, for most, they're no more beneficial than placebos. "'But unlike placebos, they cause side-effects and withdrawal problems," says Dr Davies.
The new research casts doubt on the official view that withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants are usually mild and short-lived, as set out in NICE guidelines and also in a recent statement from Professor David Baldwin (left), chair of the psycho-pharmacology committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Professor Baldwin stated in a letter to The Times, that: "In the vast majority of patients, any unpleasant symptoms experienced on discontinuing antidepressants have resolved within two weeks". He then resigned after an overwhelmingly negative response to this comment from doctors and patients alike.
Jonathan Gornall's article in the Daily Mail also includes the personal stories of just two of the millions who have suffered terrible withdrawal symptoms.
The first of these is 63-year-old Stevie Lewis (right) who, at the age of 41, went to see a GP in Bristol for help with insomnia after struggling with the pressures of starting up a business consultancy. She hoped that she'd be given something to help her sleep. "But to my surprise the doctor announced that I was on the edge of clinical depression – what my mother's generation would have called a nervous breakdown," she recalled.
However, her shock at being prescribed an antidepressant was nothing compared with the horror that awaited her when she tried to wean herself off Paroxetine. Stevie did not know this was the start of a 20-year battle to extricate herself from the grip of a drug she never needed, during which she would struggle with appalling side-effects that doctors refused to acknowledge were caused by withdrawal, dismissing them as a return of her original symptoms.
Antidepressants, she was told emphatically, weren't addictive and she could stop taking them whenever she felt like it. But when she tried, she found herself running a gauntlet of horrific side-effects, including extreme anxiety and an irrational terror of everyday acts, objects and places. At times, she felt she might be going mad.
She decided to come off Paroxetine for the first time after taking it for about five months, but within a few days began to suffer 'tremendous nausea and dizziness', which lasted for two weeks. She had no idea it had anything to do with the drug – neither did her doctor, who diagnosed labyrinthitis, an inner-ear disorder affecting balance. In fact, dizziness is a well-documented side-effect of suddenly stopping antidepressants.
After a year back on Paroxetine, Stevie again decided to quit – "but this time I just couldn't do it". Every time she tried, a few days later she'd feel highly anxious and tearful, developing insomnia. Her doctor said it was anxiety disorder and told her to stay on the pills.
It was only in 2002, when she made contact with a support group online, that she realised she'd become dependent on the drug and was experiencing withdrawal from it. "It had been a shock to be told I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and then another to be told I had a chemical imbalance in my brain — now I was a prescription junkie," said Stevie.
It would take her another 15 years to get free of Paroxetine. Time after time, and with the support of a new doctor, she tried tapering her doses, using specially designed syringes to administer ever smaller amounts of Paroxetine in liquid form.
"I'm strong, capable and strong-willed," she said. "I didn't want to be taking this stuff, but I couldn't get off it." She'd manage to get below the liquid equivalent of 3.56mg before the withdrawal symptoms kicked in again.
She attributes the break-up of marriage in part to the strain: "in 36 hours, I'd change from a normal human being to a crying wreck".
And when she met a new partner in 2006, Stevie decided to stick with the smallest dose she could manage without triggering withdrawal symptoms. "I didn't want to put the poor man through all that," she said.
In September 2014 she married again, to Roger, now 75. He is a retired pensions services manager, and they live in South Wales. They've fought the drug together. She describes him simply as "a saint". It took another three more traumatic years before the nightmare began to fade, and another year before she felt completely normal again. She was finally free of the withdrawal effects about 18 months ago, having spent years battling a drug she believes she should never have been given.
Unsurprisingly, Stevie says that she feels "badly let down" by the medical profession, but is focusing her energy on campaigning for awareness and pressing for a change in the NICE guidelines.
The second interviewee is James Moore (left), a former high-level civil servant from Bristol. James was prescribed the antidepressant Mirtazapine in 2012 after he began having panic attacks. After spending six years on the drug, he has been battling to get off it for the past year.
James's problems began when he had to make thousands of people redundant in the department where he worked. It was, he recalled, "an extremely pressured time", compounded by the fact that he and his wife Miranda were juggling caring for their two-year-old.
Then, at the end of 2011, aged 41, "all of a sudden I found myself experiencing daily panic attacks at work, panic that was all consuming and unbearable," he said.
His GP diagnosed anxiety and depression, signed him off work and, in February 2012, prescribed James 15mg Mirtazapine. Like Stevie, James was told he had a chemical imbalance. When he felt the medication was actually increasing his anxiety – a common side-effect of some antidepressants – he paid to see a psychiatrist privately, who increased his dose to 30mg.
But instead of identifying withdrawal as the problem, James's doctor insisted he was experiencing a return of his original symptoms. James knew that his chronic insomnia and appalling headaches were not part of his original condition, so he went online to find out more – and came across others experiencing the same problems when trying to come off antidepressants.
Fortunately he's found a supportive GP who is helping him to withdraw slowly, using a liquid form of Mirtazapine and special syringes that, unlike pills, allow doses to be tapered by tiny amounts. He is now down to 40 per cent of his starting dose.
The leading story in today's Herald on Sunday is a report on "Scotland's secret addicts: the patients hooked on antidepressants – and harmed by withdrawal".
Much of the article is devoted to an interview with Alyne Duthie, who is still suffering the terrible effects after stopping antidepressants in 2011. When she first started taking antidepressants, she said she felt relieved because it was "a chance to get some help", but as the years went on she was troubled by brain fog, weight gain, digestive and bladder problems, and fatigue. Periodically, she tried to come off the drugs only to become "jittery and unwell", subsequently reinstating them. By 2011 she had had enough and slowly tapered herself off Venlafaxine. The following year, she survived a suicide attempt, after which she ended up in a psychiatric hospital where antidepressants were reinstated along with benzodiazepines and strong sedatives like Zopiclone.
It took Alyne (right) another year to wean herself off the medication, but she suffered extreme – and lasting – side effects: "I used to get this burning sensation deep within my brain, especially towards the end of the day. Even my thoughts started to hurt me. Within days of coming off them I started having severe tinnitus, the kind that pierces your brain. I started having severe abnormal movements – my head, arms, and legs jerked constantly. To this day my head and my right arm still jerk occasionally. I would get boiling hot then freezing cold the next. I used to go around with cold packs strapped to my chest.
The most severe phase lasted four months, but Alyne continued to endure disturbing daily symptoms for years afterwards. Ironically, the duration of her ordeal eroded the support she had from medical professionals who preferred to diagnose it as relapse, not withdrawal.
Dr Peter Gordon (left), a consultant psychiatrist, knows first-hand how hard it be to speak out about withdrawal. He was prescribed the antidepressant Paroxetine (Seroxat) in 1998 for social anxiety and sleep disturbance, but ended up being sectioned with psychosis when he later tapered himself off it over an 18 month period.
Despite his own experience, he was reluctant to raise the issue with colleagues and feels there is a widespread "head in the sand" attitude to the potential scale of the problem. "I found it extremely difficult and for many years I just didn't talk with my colleagues about it because I just knew I wouldn't be believed. I would be seen as less credible and when I've raised it in meetings I've not had a good reception. If I had that problem revealing my experiences and learning over time, what might patients have?
Glasgow GP Dr Des Spence (right) says that too many patients "find it impossible to stop them". As a result, Dr Spence and his colleagues at the Barclay Medical Group have a blanket ban on initiating antidepressants on a patient's first presentation and employ their own mental health staff to cut the waiting time for counselling.
In a meeting at the Scottish Parliament earlier this year, Dr John Mitchell, the Scottish Government's psychiatric adviser, presented no evidence to support his view that severe and life-limiting side effects from withdrawal from prescription drugs such as antidepressants are "very rare". He did, however, manage to admit that the Scottish Government has no data on how many patients in Scotland are seriously harmed.


Contact Lois Lois is available for bookings in your area.
Lois was born in Montreal, Quebec, after which she managed to spread her childhood across Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia prior to her move west. Following her graduation from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Lois taught in the historic Eastwood School in Edmonton prior to moving to Calgary. Lois pursued a Fine Arts diploma in music at the University of Calgary and spent the next three decades enjoying a wonderful teaching career in Calgary. All of these richly Canadian experiences sparked a passion for bringing Canada's stories alive for young readers.
In addition to reading, writing, blogging, and drinking lattés, Lois loves visiting schools, conducting workshops and presenting at conferences.
This interactive, multi-media presentation begins with a peak into what it takes to be an author with a few personal anecdotes from Lois' journey including the challenges of writing historical fiction. Then, with a short reading from The Journal, Lois will lead the students back in time to the Alberta of 1929. Starting with a New Year's Eve celebration, the students will hear jazzy 1920's music and get to practice dance moves popular at the time, then countdown to the new year of 1929 with some old-fashioned noisemakers. In addition to meeting some Alberta heroes , students will get a sneak-peak behind the scenes of the writing process. Students will be challenged/inspired to write their own stories based on some juicy tidbits from Lois' research. Time for questions from students and staff.
Explore various genres and contemplate how a particular historic event changes in the telling, depending on the choice of genre. After discussing the effect the choice of genre has on content, participants will have the opportunity to experiment with telling the same tale through different genres.
This multi-media adventure brings the land of L'Acadie alive as students travel back in time, with the help of a magical Mi'kmaq quill box, to the Nova Scotia of 1755 just as the deportation machine is heating up. From the dykes to the deportation and beyond, it is a touching story of courage and survival. While sharing the story-behind-the-story of Winds of L'Acadie, Lois weaves in her own journey and struggles through the writing process from blank page to publication.
The Acadian presentation can be tailored to fit from Grade 1 – adult. There are spoons to play with Acadian music for the younger students and more detail of the events leading up to the deportation etc. for high school students. It is an excellent fit for discussions of identity and nationalism in high school social studies.
Beginning with the student's idea of a what makes a hero, this multi-media presentation will explore real life heroes and fictitious heroes. Lois will read excerpts from The Journal as students join Lois on her journey through the writing of The Journal, including the controversy surrounding the Famous Five. Themes of family, racism, heroes, making a difference, lead into how the students might weave their own stories into writing fiction. An effective cross-curricular connection between Language Arts and Social Studies. Q &A time at the end.


So after showcasing this 20-year-old classic, XL Recordings are today releasing a 12" containing remixes of the most iconic track from the LP, 'Piper'. With efforts from Peverelist, Overmono, Powell and Zomby, these remixes go some way towards showing the influence Jonny L's music still has on a wide range of contemporary electronic artists.
I was 18 when 'Piper' came out. It was a time when drum and bass was evolving rapidly and tunes like 'Piper' were at the vanguard of that change. I remember there was red and green 10" versions of the single, the red one had the Grooverider mix on, a subtle reworking of the original. I could never figure out which I preferred. My remix is influenced by both, stark, mechanical, robotic and futuristic but rolling with a deep groove, hopefully I've retained that.
There's so much gold on the XL back catalogue, but some of it shines more brightly than the rest. 'Piper' is one of those tracks that has genuinely stood the test of time - an understated classic.
Jonny L - In A Jungle Remixes 12"
Jonny L - Piper 12"
Overmono - Arla III 12"


text:
The James Begg Society
Publishers of Protestant, Reformed Christian Literature
Faith and Salvation
Volume Two of The Works of Thomas Halyburton
More information about purchasing our publications can be found here.
by Rev. Prof. Thomas Halyburton
358 pages; hardback
The 4 volume set of Halyburton's Works can be purchased here.
"What is the state of my soul before God?" In a day when life is lived for the moment and eternity is rarely considered, many never give serious thought to such a vital question. Here to help you reflect is a godly minister with a true concern for souls. He will sober you. He will challenge you. He will spur you as a sinner to seek salvation by faith in Jesus Christ and as a saint to walk in the way of joyful, obedient service. For your lasting benefit read Halyburton on Faith and Salvation.
This volume contains Halyburton's work, "The Great Concern of Salvation."
by Professor F.S. Leahy
T HOMAS HALYBURTON, one of Scotland's greatest theologians, was first and foremost a preacher of the gospel and as a theologian he spoke from the heart. In this second volume of his Works we meet Halyburton, preacher and theologian. It consists of a series of sermons under the title, The Great Concern of Salvation.
Considering that Halyburton lived some three hundred years ago, it is striking to see how directly and plainly he speaks to us today. Even allowing for his divisions and sub-divisions, his style is lucid and cogent. There is a warmth and passion and intense earnestness in every sentence. His use of Scripture is impressive and effective. He is exhaustive in his treatment of Scripture, but never tiring; faithful in application, but never offensive. Indeed his concern for the spiritual well-being of his hearers is evident in his every word.
The introductory sermon, on Acts 10:29, "I ask therefore for what intent ye have sent for me?" considers the designs and motives of a people when they issue a call to a gospel minister. It is a masterly treatment of the subject, showing the implications of such action for preacher and people alike. On reading it, one cannot help wondering what are the principles that motivate congregations today when seeking a suitable pastor. Would that they could study this sermon on such occasions, for it is firmly grounded on biblical teaching.
When Halyburton turns to a consideration of man's natural state, and conviction of sin, (Rom. 3:23), he puts many heart-searching questions. No stone is left unturned. His exposure of man's sinfulness and peril is devastating. There is just no escape for the sinner when we read these pages. It would be hard to imagine a more faithful and powerful exposition of this key text. In its presentation and application it cannot be surpassed: every conceivable aspect of the text is explored in depth.
In this work there is a nice balance between law and gospel. We see that when we compare the sermons on Romans 3:23 and Acts 16:29-31. It is well worth having the book for this latter chapter alone. It should be read and re-read. We are shown the marks of the person who is truly convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit. "One that is soundly convinced of sin, and is thence induced to lay salvation to heart, will not stop at anything he meets with in his way: for he can see no lion in the way that is so terrible as that wrath of God he sees pursuing him; nor can he hear of any enjoyment, to make him turn back again, that is so valuable as that salvation he seeks after" (p. 153). The free offer of Christ in the gospel is stressed. There is no hint of hyper-Calvinism in Halyburton's writings. And he presents the gospel in the context of the Covenant of Grace, salvation being consistently seen in a covenant setting.
Superficial professions of faith are exposed. Emotional response alone is insufficient. Knowledge, while essential, is not enough in itself. "Men.....may have their head full of notions of truth, and be perfectly void of saving grace; like the toad, which has a precious stone in its head, and yet has its body full of poison" (p.255). In his treatment of Joshua 24:15, Halyburton shows the Christian's duty with respect to both personal and family religion. In great detail he discusses every aspect of family life – worship, authority, baptismal vows; and family irreligion is condemned. This is an area sadly neglected is much preaching today; consequently many Christian homes are seriously impoverished, and the long-term consequences of such neglect are incalculable.
One cannot but be moved, in reading this timely material, by Halyburton's earnest beseeching of the ungodly to look to Christ for salvation. There is nothing in Calvinism, properly understood, to inhibit such entreaty. Indeed it will do much to prompt and sustain it. In Halyburton we have gospel preaching at its best, as a Spirit-filled man, in a brief span of years, proclaimed the whole counsel of God without fear or favour. His one over-riding desire was to see God glorified in the salvation of the lost and the edification of believers.
We live in a day when even in Reformed churches much preaching is shallow and skimpy. And we see, too, the extremes of intellectualism on the one hand, lacking in devotion; and on the other hand an untheological devotion: both extremes are to be avoided.
Thomas Halyburton was no theorist. In his early days he had battles with doubts and unbelief. At that time the deistic heresy was having its deadening effect. But Halyburton, by God's grace, finally and effectively rejected deism and made the Reformed Faith his own. So he writes and speaks from the heart. He died at the early age of 38, leaving to the church a spiritual legacy in line with the best of British Puritanism.
The structure of his work is almost architectural, it is so systematic. But within that structure we have a wealth of biblical doctrine, and a balance which is quite remarkable. He avoids the extremes that often mar otherwise useful material. This has been well demonstrated by Dr John Macleod in his Scottish Theology. For example, when it comes to the order of salvation, Abraham Kuyper gives priority to justification, whereas Halyburton gives it to regeneration. In this he is right. As Macleod puts it, "In the Reformed Theology, faith is the effect and not the cause of Regeneration" (Scottish Theology, p.128).
This second volume of Halyburton's Works is to be welcomed. We look forward to seeing the four-volume series in print. We are much indebted to the James Begg Society for this enterprise which can only be of immense benefit to the church at large.
– Rev. Professor F. S. Leahy, Lisburn, 2002.
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text:
The Iraq scoop
Jan. 18, 2006, midnight | By Anna Coughlan | 15 years ago
Washington Post reporter discusses his experiences, war
Every day reporter Tom Ricks wakes up at dawn, conducts interviews, checks in with the Washington Post bureau and later works on a story. But throughout these typical journalistic routines, Ricks also adorns body armor, a helmet and sunglasses to protect him against bomb blasts, because security is always a problem when reporting in Iraq.
Ricks, a Silver Spring resident, returned to Iraq on Thursday, Jan. 12 for the fifth time during the U.S. occupation. His experiences in the past few years talking to soldiers and conducting research for his book to be released in September have helped him understand the current situation on the controversial war. Yet no matter how many times Ricks goes to Iraq, he admits that reporting there is a dangerous challenge. "It's always a relief to leave Iraq," he says.
Risking life to bring us news
Ricks has been writing for the Post since 2000 and previously reported for the Wall Street Journal for 17 years. He is a visiting fellow at the international security program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and authored "Making the Corps" in 1998 and "A Soldier's Duty" in 2001.
As a veteran military journalist, Ricks has traveled to Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, to name a few places. Iraq remains his most difficult venue for covering news. "It's probably the hardest reporting environment I've ever seen," he says.
Getting interviews with military people is the easiest part about working in Iraq, according to Ricks, who is mostly concerned about lack of safety and communication. "You spend like 40 percent of your time worrying about security," he says.
For safety reasons, Ricks usually lives and travels with the U.S. military. The soldiers that he talks to are very candid about the situations and events. "The troops tend to be very honest," says Ricks. "In Iraq, everything is on the record."
Ricks works 12 to 14 hours a day, for seven days a week, which gets to be exhausting. "It takes just a week to get used to it," says Ricks. He cannot go to bed until 10 p.m. or later because back in Washington it's only late afternoon and Ricks's editors want to discuss stories with him.
To mollify the stress, Ricks brings a big book to read and his favorite CD's. To fellow reporters, he recommends, "make sure you have some good music and some good books." One day when Ricks was writing a story he was listening to the band Outkast. A soldier leaned over and mentioned that he was surprised that the 50-year-old man liked the contemporary hip-hop duo. Music helps Ricks "get away from Iraq," he says.
No end in sight
It has been almost three years since the occupation in Iraq began. Cindy Sheehan's anti-war campaigns and Bush's declining approval ratings in the fall both show that Americans are getting antsy about bringing the troops home. Yet, Ricks foresees the war will last "much longer than any of us will think."
American troops will start coming home when a key insurgency leader joins the Iraqi government, Ricks predicts. "That's what victory will look like in Iraq," he says. "The war is not going to end militarily."
Ricks puts part of the blame of the perpetual war on the military's early mistakes. One tactic was conducting sweeps and detaining hundreds of innocent people, which increased sympathy for the insurgency. "Having American troops coming into houses at night really antagonized Iraqis," says Ricks. "The U.S. military didn't understand the culture it was working with."
Ricks says the Bush administration's assurances of progress are measured by their own standards. "It's like letting students grade their own papers," he says.
For example, the administration cited the Dec. 15 Iraqi National Assembly election as evidence of advancement. On the other hand, Iraqis might gauge improvement by feeling safe in their homes, having the ability to go to school and work or having electricity.
The insurgents know that security and transportation are important to common citizens' lives, and so they threaten those aspects, according to Ricks. "The insurgents do stuff to interrupt the gasoline" flow, he says.
Future escalation?
Ricks worries that the war could branch out to other Arab countries such as Syria and Iran. "Iran and Syria are very involved and upset," he says. Sunni leaders in Saudi Arabia are also concerned that the government in Iraq is now pre-dominantly Shi'ite.
Civil war between the Shi'ites and Sunnis is also a possibility, according to Ricks, who believes that divisions were evident in the Dec. 15 elections. "People voted along religious lines," he says.
Even if the war does not worsen, soldiers who enlisted hoping for the best are now stuck in an everlasting conflict, according to Ricks. "One theme that emerged was everyone went in there with the best of intentions," says Ricks of the soldiers he interviewed.
Ricks shows no emotion about his own intentions reporting in a hazardous environment. But he does reveal a frank opinion about the Iraq conflict. "This has been a real mess," he says.
Anna Coughlan. Anna is a CAP junior who can't believe she's an upperclassman already. She likes to run Blair cross-country and track, do yoga, play soccer, and chill with fun-loving people. Anna is a big movie fan and loves the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Star … More »


text:
Q: Can we get the image for (at least) the gmail contacts found in the user's contact list? I am currently getting email and name, like this:
function tratar_gmail($accesstoken){
    $max_results = 3000;
    $url = 'https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/contacts/default/full?max-results='.$max_results.'&oauth_token='.$accesstoken;
    //echo $url;
    $xmlresponse =  curl_file_get_contents($url);
    if((strlen(stristr($xmlresponse,'Authorization required'))>0) && (strlen(stristr($xmlresponse,'Error '))>0))
    {
        echo "
OOPS !! Something went wrong. Please try reloading the page.
";
        exit();
    }
    $xml =  new SimpleXMLElement($xmlresponse);
    $xml->registerXPathNamespace('gd', 'http://schemas.google.com/g/2005');
    $result = $xml->xpath('//gd:email');
    $return;

    foreach ($result as $title) {

      $parts = explode('@', $title->attributes()->address);

      $pos = count($return);
      $return[$pos]['email'] = $title->attributes()->address;
      $return[$pos]['name'] = strip_tags($parts[0]);
    }

Where $title dumps:
object(SimpleXMLElement)#4 (1) {   ["@attributes"]=>   array(3) {     ["rel"]=>     string(38) "http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#other"     ["address"]=>     string(18) "xxxxxxx@wanadoo.es"     ["primary"]=>     string(4) "true"   } }

But it would be great to get some images, at least for the gmail contacts, is there a way?
something like:
$return[$pos]['email'] = $title->attributes()->address;
$return[$pos]['name'] = strip_tags($parts[0]);
if (preg_match('/^gmail.com/', $return[$pos]['emal']) {
     $return[$pos]['pic'] = magic_goes_here()
}

A: The photo link can be found in the contact entry:
<entry xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'
    xmlns:gContact='http://schemas.google.com/contact/2008'
    xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005'
    gd:etag='{contactEtag}'>
  <id>
    http://www.google.com/m8/feeds/contacts/{userEmail}/base/{contactId}
  </id>
  ...
  <link rel='http://schemas.google.com/contacts/2008/rel#photo' type='image/*'
    href='https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/photos/media/{userEmail}/{contactId}'
    gd:etag='{photoEtag}'/>

If there is no photo, the link element will not have the attribute gd:etag.
To retrieve the image for each contact, GET that URL:
https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/photos/media/{userEmail}/{contactId}

Full documentation for Google Contacts API.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


On the side of the world I grew up in, avocado is a fruit strictly for smoothies and ice cream, smothered in evaporated milk or condensed milk. Then a guacamole came into my life, enlightening me that avocados can be much more than a sweet-creamy fare.
While I still love them in my desserts, I have also been developing a savory affair with avocados. From eating them raw with just a sprinkle of garlic salt and squeeze of lime to snucking them in many salads, including this colorful one with seared shrimps. The hero of the salad is the zesty cilantro-lime vinaigrette accentuating the sweet bites of shrimps and creamy avocados in their au naturel flavors. Juicy tomatoes and crisp cucumbers lends their freshness to the salad coupling with bold and piquant Burmese condiments like garlic oil, fish sauce and toasted peanut powder (which I forgot to include in the photos). It is a perfectly-balanced meal on its own and also a refreshing side for hearty, heavy Holiday feasts.
I omitted the chilies as I was serving this salad for a potluck party. If it is for myself, I would definitely add few chopped green chilies to the dressing for an extra kick!
Season the shrimps with a pinch of salt and turmeric powder.
Add the shrimps in a single layer and sear them 2-3 minutes on each sides until they are curled, pink around the edges and opaque in the center.
In 2 tablespoons of oil, add the minced garlic and fry them on low heat until golden and fragrant.
Mix the garlic oil, fish sauce, lime juice, salt, and sugar.
Stir till salt and sugar are dissolved.
Add half of the chopped cilantro to the dressing.
Place avocados, shrimps, tomatoes and cucumbers in a mixing bowl.
Sprinkle the rest of the chopped cilantro and peanut powder.
Pour the dressing over and toss till well-coated.