11/6/2007 – In a recent article one of our readers analysed the system used in the recent Bilbao tournament, which awarded three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a defeat. Ron Dorfman came to the conclusion that this does not prevent short draw but may in fact encourage collusion amongst player. A lot of our readers disagree, and many have proposed profound alternatives. Long, interesting read.
In the following we have sorted the feedback to our recent article on the Bilbao anti-draw system somewhat, bringing the most substantial and formally presented proposals up front, with the shorter and more casual suggestion following them. At the end there is an editorial note regarding proposals we have ourselves submitted in the past.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a hard-fought draw, but there has been considerable interest recently in reducing the percentage of non-games. The situation is different in team tournaments from in individual events. A number of partial solutions have been tried with varying success.
It has been suggested that, where all the players pay their own way, with no sponsorship of any type of the prize money, then it is no business of the administrators of the event. This has some truth, but there are few events like this outside the US. For example, in Gibraltar many people pay their own expenses, but the entry fees are minuscule and the overall subsidy of all the players is about £400 a player. Moreover, encouraging even amateur players to try to win can only be good for our sport. After all, there are now often many spectators due to the rise in viewing the games on the Internet.
Scoring the game 3 for a win, one for a draw and zero a loss, 3/1/0. This has only occasionally been tried. For a Swiss, in particular, it invites cheating by collaboration in the last round. The two players may well receive more prize money if one wins than if they draw. In addition, to rate such games in the normal FIDE Rating System is fallacious. The players have a different objective than when playing 1/½/0, which is the same as 2/1/0.
The FIDE Laws of Chess required at one time that there be no draws in less than 30 moves, apart from repetition or inadequate pieces left to secure mate (unlikely). This was swiftly discontinued. It could often lead to concocted games, which personally I abhor. I prefer the more honest: 1 draw agreed.
Various systems where the players cannot agree a draw in a specified number of moves without the permission of the arbiter or his representative. Variations include: no draws at all by agreement, as in M-Tel or Corsica; no draws in less than 40 moves, tried in Gibraltar but it was thought to be too many; no draws in less than 30 moves, used in the US and will be in Gibraltar 2008; no draws in less than 30 moves in the top half in New Zealand. All of these systems have either the disadvantage that there is a measure of consultation with an outside party, or alternatively may lead to games which are partly concocted. In my opinion a new addition to the 2009 Laws of Chess is desirable or even necessary for this type of event.
A system of fining players who agree draws in less than 30 moves, perhaps 10% of their start money (if any) or of their prize money. This requires no changes to the Laws and is a private matter between the Organizer and the Player(s). Again games may occasionally be concocted.
The Organizer not inviting players who take quick draws. This can only be partly successful and the organizer may not be that knowledgeable. Each organizer creating a hidden blacklist cannot be desirable. A public list would be fraught with problems.
Single game knockout tournaments avoid the problem. Eventually one player must go through to the next round. This has been tried in both Dresden and Hastings. There is some problem with the unfairness of White having such a big advantage. Overall the systems have not met with commercial success. Two game knockouts suffer from the problem that the players may take quick draws in both games in order to expend less energy. They then play properly in the Rapidplay games.
The Iranian System devised by Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh. If the slowplay game is won, the winner scored 7 points and the loser 0. If they draw, a Rapidplay game is played. The winner scores 5 points and loser 2. If that is drawn, an Armageddon (sudden death 5/4) game is played. The person who 'wins' scores 4 points and the loser 3. Thus 7/5/4/3/2/0. I don't know whether Mehrdad has ever tried this. It is a great deal of chess for one day and is thus unsuitable for two rounds per day. Again there is the problem that the players may agree a perfunctory draw in the slowplay game in order to conserve their energy. Also 7 point is an enormous score for the last round and may well lead to collusion.
The Iranian-Jewish System. I have only recently thought of this in Predeal in Rumania. If the slowplay game is won, the winner scores 3 points and the loser 0. If they draw, they proceed to Armageddon. The winner scores 2 points and loser 1. Thus 3/2/1/0. Such systems are used in other sports such as hockey I understand. The stronger player is less likely to agree a quick draw in the slow game because he would be risking the points in a rather random tiebreak. 3/2/1/0 should have a less pronounced effect in a Swiss, possibly even less than the standard 2/1/0. Indeed, it might be difficult to determine the best way of cheating until all the other games are concluded. In the Rumanian Team Championship, many games were agreed drawn in a package deal before the last round started. At least here there would be Armageddon games to view. Another advantage of 8 and 9 is that the points would be more spread out than with a conventional Swiss. Thus players would be less likely to tie for first place.
For both 8 and 9, the venue must be large enough so that fast games can take place at the same time as slow games.
Stewart Reuben is the author of "The Chess Organiser's Handbook".
I was quite surprised to read the article by Ron Dorfman since it constitutes possibly the worst argument against the 3-1-0 scoring system I have ever heard of. While his argument is theoretically true it has some serious real-life flaws.
First of all there is the obvious question: In the two player mini-match, which player takes the first loss? One need not be a professor to see that it takes a massive amount of trust to hand another player a win and then expect him to throw the second game of the mini-match. I dare the reader to consider this: Would you be comfortable deliberately throwing a game to another player, even if you had made a 'gentleman's agreement' that he would deliberately lose the next game. What if, by the time of the second game, your opponent would win the tournament if he drew or won that game? Does anyone seriously think that the other player would throw the game in that situation?
What would you be able to do about it if your opponent didn't lose his game as agreed? The answer to that is: Absolutely nothing. If you told anyone about your little agreement you would admit that you had been cheating by prearranging games and would (most likely) get thrown out of the tournament and (definitely) be the laughing stock of the entire tournament.
Secondly there is the question of how to arrange the reciprocal wins/losses. With the double draws it is quite easy to do 'naturally'. When one player offers an early draw in the first game it is a sign that maybe he/she is not in a fighting mood. If the other player is not in a fighting mood either he accepts the quick draw and all is well. Neither player risks anything, and in the second game the two players can make a quick draw as well, or play a 'real' game depending on mood, tournament situation, etc.
The situation with the two mutually thrown games is quite different. You must necessarily agree to it beforehand, and it cannot be something implicit or unspoken. Player A must literally go to player B and say: "I lose game one and then you lose the second, ok?" and player B must answer: "Yes, let's do that." Apart from the fact that in any tournament, an agreement like this would be blatantly cheating it would also entail the trust/who-goes-first issues mentioned above.
Practically all of the European football-leagues now use the 3-1-0 scoring and I think I can safely say that, apart from maybe a few of the bottom feeders, you would get laughed out of any clubhouse if you suggested swapping wins (most European leagues operate with a double round robin system or similar).
Instead of this silly argument, we should really rather discuss the real issues and problems with the 3-1-0 scoring system. For one, it would be entirely possible for a player to go +2 (+6-4=2 20pts) in a tournament and still beat another player who went plus 3 (+3-0=9 18 pts). This is a real issue that can be argued both for and against.
There is also the problem that even if 2 players go all out and play a great drawn game they still get 'punished' at the same level as the 2 players at the next board who took a 15-move GM draw.
This brings us to the real issue at hand. The problem is not the draw itself. Draws are a natural part of the game and happens when 2 players come up equal. The problem is the 15-move draws that continue to let down the spectators and (not least) the sponsors of major tournaments, and the 3-1-0 scoring doesn't entirely seem to address this issue, though it would be quite interesting to see it tried out in a few proper GM tournaments (long time control tournaments, that is).
Thank you for your very interesting article from Ron Dorfman. My approach to this problem relates to the fundamental definition of a truly and fairly contested game of chess, in harmony with other sporting contests. The proliferation of so-called 'Grandmaster Draws' has damaged the image of chess, has diminished interest from spectators, fans, and sponsors, and threatens to relegate our beloved game and sport into second-rate status. It is simply not possible to do this, receive credit for non-effort, in other sports.
My solution is to combine a minimum 'number of moves' requirement for a game, together with arbiter intervention as necessary, and to apply a sliding scale for transgressions, as described below.
We have already seen some forms of this approach tried, with mixed success. In the early 1960s, FIDE implemented a '30-move rule' before draws could be agreed to in its official events; it is somewhat ironic that GM Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest fighting players in chess history, was one of the transgressors of this rule, at the 1962 Varna Olympiad. The 1962 Candidates' Tournament at Curacao was notorious for the number of short, apparently previously agreed draws, between certain Soviet participants, Grandmasters Petrosian, Keres, and Geller.
Then, with more recent events, such as the annual Linares supertournaments, the Sofia M-Tel supertournament, and the rich Minneapolis HB Global Challenge, with a first prize of $50,000, further attempts were made to enforce fighting chess, by the organizers.
At the 2007 Canadian Open in Ottawa, where a new tournament record of 22 Grandmasters took part, and where the event attracted ACP recognition, the organizers (of which I was one) imposed a '30-move rule' for the first time in the 51-year history of this championship. It was enforced quite strictly by the arbiters, with only a couple of shorter draws slipping through, for unusual reasons, not related to the theme of this article.
I, along with millions of other chess lovers, am hoping that this concept will catch on.
But this provision needs to be strengthened, in my view, by arbiter intervention, as necessary. Arbiters for top events need to be trained to spot so-called 'pre-arranged' draws, some of which are filled with nonsensical moves. One can think about the farcical drawn 'game' between GMs Miles and Hubner at Tilburg 1985 (which had its own bizarre background), as well as many other examples. The arbiter needs to have the right to sign off on drawn games, before this result becomes official (more on this below).
In nearly 40 years as a player and arbiter, I have noticed that 'Grandmaster draws' are almost completely nonexistent among non-Master players. It is only when the class of the players and the size of the prize fund rises, that we see this phenomenon appear.
Again, no one in chess objects to a true contest which ends in a draw. This sort of game demands much energy, effort, and time from both players. A short, non-contested draw is virtually a day off for both 'players', giving them an unfair advantage on their rivals, and this is simply not right from the sporting perspective.
My solution to this phenomenon is for the arbiter to score both players who partake in this sin with LESS than half a point, depending on the severity of their crime. It could be 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, or something of this type. Granted, this is somewhat subjective. And furthermore, this score would also be applied for the tournament score for norms and for rating purposes. I get constantly annoyed when I see international norms scored by players who have played one or more non-contested 'games' in order to achieve the magical norm threshold.
I think that if these provision were to be made available, we would soon see the virtual extinction of pre-arranged and Grandmaster draws at the international level.
This disease of 'Grandmaster draws' has become so pervasive that drastic measures must be taken, on the lines of the shot clock in basketball, which revolutionized the game in the 1950s, by mandating the team with ball possession to take a shot within a ruled amount of time (now 24 seconds), or else turn over the possession to the opponents.
We simply have to do something dramatic, and must eliminate this evil phenomenon of arranged games and non-contested games, in order to enable our beloved chess to continue to grow and develop.
An agreed swap of wins is not as easy as it sounds. You can agree, but it is far from risk free if you have to give-up the first game. How can you be sure the other guy will honor the agreement and throw the second game? Who can you complain to if he does not? No, no one is going to take that big of a risk.
The criticism of fighting draws being punished is a valid point. Another not mentioned is the fact that few players actually try to win with black. They spend lots of time analyzing at home looking for lines they can draw with as black, they can be so engaged in trying to draw that they don't try to win when they get an advantage, they just jump at the draw. This makes the draw all the more likely. Consider also that since everyone wants to see the best players, and the best players are nearly the same strength, the most likely outcome is going to be a draw.
Sure you could invite weak GMs to be obliterated by good GMs but that would cause all sorts of problems. I would suggest another approach.
My solution instead is to give one player 1/2 or 1/3 the time of the other. This artificially reduces the strength of the player with less time and increases the strength of the one with more time. This accomplishes several things. The player with more time is really giving up something when he accepts a GM draw because those he is competing with are not as likely to be happy with draws from the strong side because draws will not win the tournament. This approach could be amplified by making a draw a win for the player with less time. Or if you really want blood, how about if when the player with less time actually wins, it counts double and the player with more time gets a point taken away or a negative point if he has no points to give yet.
Example: player A with 5 points and the time advantage looses to player B who has 5 points. The result would be that player B now has 7 and player A has 4. If the color is independent of the time imbalance, the players would have to try to win as black and as white, if they have the time advantage.
If they are going to make an honest attempt to win with black it is going to have to get interesting – they have to go into chaos. I think the best way to actually do this is to have a four round, round robin (all play all). Each player would have two whites and two blacks against each of the other players. In one of the whites he would have the time advantage and in one of the blacks he would have time advantage.
One interesting aspect is that we would see how a very strong player would handle a much stronger player where there actually is no such player that strong for him to play. The cost of the tournaments could actually be less because the games would be shorter and two rounds a day is plausible. It should also test everyone's psychological metal because it is unlikely anyone will escape having a loss.
Chess is a Peer-Reviewed sport. Agreeing to a draw is simple, and executing one even easier since it takes literally no collaboration. Engineering a win which is reviewed by professionals and students the world over would take some serious effort. They would even have to innovate within current lines of play. This amount of work requires they both be in a room together studying for a good while. Or they could tell their seconds too work it out – either way their reputations would be dependant on the quality of the draw. So manufacturing wins that keep the quality of their chess intact is going to be difficult. They would likely be discovered as cheaters.
One more point: how would this Dorfman reality affect the ratings of players?The imbalance between two agreed cheaters would mean a net loss in rating points for the stronger player. Am I wrong on this point? I am not precisely sure.
And lastly, one must take into account the pride and professionalism of the majority of chess players. Agreeing to a draw is not cheating. It is a time honored tradition, regardless of its negative impact. But agreeing to throw a game would be cheating, and I think the very idea of it is insulting to a large number of players. As a strong competitor myself – at the very top of my professional food chain...I would never even consider throwing a game.
E) The Pride and Competitive Spirit of Pro Chess players.
To Chessbase: I love your page, have visited it daily since it came to life. Keep up the truly fantastic work on all fronts.
The Red (move first) player has a fixed time of 80 minutes.
The Black (move second) player is decided through bidding. Each player will try to bid the time to play as the Black player. Whoever bids less will play Black in that game, with the clock time he/she bid.
Each move is rewarded 30 seconds to the clock of that player.
If result of the game is a draw, the Black player will be declared the winner.
Hopefully, this experiment will be applied to chess too.
A few years ago, I pointed out a fatal flaw on this Bilbao system of allowing wins to count three times as much as draws. My argument appeared on the "Alekhine's Parrot" website. The palpable problem with this ridiculous system is that it would encourage fixed games. If, say, two players are competing in a crucial tournament game and the game appears to be heading towards a draw, they could just quietly agree for one of them to "blunder" and let the other "win." Thus, the "winner" pockets three points instead of the one point that a draw would have given him, and the two players could then split the additional prize money that the "winner" received. You don't need much of an imagination to think of other scenarios where this screwy system would encourage rigged games! If a win is worth three times as much as a draw (instead of twice as much) there's just too much temptation for cheating to take place. Granted, no one likes a draw-saturated tournament especially when a lot of the draws last a paltry 20 moves or less. But the Bilboa system is a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease.
For the record, here's what I might propose – and I would welcome any reader feedback in case MY idea has a flaw too. Why not carve out a portion of the tournament prize fund to be used as bonus money for games ending in wins? For example, two players might tie for first place in a tournament with, say, a score of 8/11. Player A may have achieved that score with (yawn) five wins and six draws, while Player B got there with seven wins, two losses, and two draws. Since Player B won two more games, he pockets more prize money overall. The amount of this bonus money should be kept a bit low so as to discourage the type of cheating alluded to above, but the idea is still worth considering.
Try this modified scoring to award game result: Win: 1, Draw : 0 (no one wins), Loss: -0.25. No one will be interested in loosing or drawing. Hope this works out.
I have watched this debate over the years with increasing despair as there has been a point system used in professional golf periodically to promote aggresive play.
This point system does not allow a player to coast to victory in a tournament by drawing. Therefore, a player has every incentive to keep winning games. Also, with 2 points for a win and -1 for a loss, a three point swing in a round dramatically changes the dynamics of a tournament. Anotherwards, aggressive players are going to have every opportunity and edge to win a tournament. Additionally, a player with several losses can still overcome the field by winning games because each win of two points also subtracts one point from a defeated player. Long live players like Ivanchuk, Morozovich and Grischuk. As much as I admire players like Kramnik, Svidler and Leko – they will have to change their game!
Go through any major professional tournament crosstable and apply this point system – you will an eye-opening difference in who tops the tournament.
The idea suggested is really help to minimize the grandmaster draw. But in my opinion any sort of draw must be seen as unaccomplishement because the purpose of chess game must be to win. So for any kind of draw the point must be 0 and for a loser player the point must be -1 (negative one) and for a win should be 1. In this case for a losing player to come back will be very difficult but it does not encourage player to draw a game whether it is a hard fought or mischiveous agrement. It only reward the winner only. In my opinion this is best, even if it hurts the losing player.
Ron Dorfman's article on the "Bilboa Draw" effect – a pre-arranged swapping of wins – makes clear the point that there is a need for something other than a 3-1-0 scoring system in chess. However, his argument falls short in single-round-robin competition.
I for one am an advocate of finding a suitable way to do single-round-robin. Chess is a game that is nowhere near being solved for white, and at the highest levels the advantage of playing as the lighter pieces is generally overshadowed by who is the better player. Therefore, there should be some effort into playing an ODD number (1, 3, 5, etc) of games per match in order to offset some of the effect of the "Bilbao Draw."
The problem your correspondent identified with the Bilbao (3 points win) rule is that the game is no longer fixed sum. Players by colluding can generate 3 points (instead of 2 by drawing) at the expense of other players. My own suggestion would be that 1 point is available for a win in regular time. If the game is drawn colors are reversed and 30 min is given to each player but now only half a point is at stake – the winner gets 0.75 the loser 0.25. If this game is also drawn then colors continue to alternate on 5 minutes games but now only a quarter of a point is at stake (winner 0.625 loser 0.375) and quick games are played until a decisive result is reached. Of course players can 'agree' to go straight to the smaller stake fast games but that would likely produce an interesting spectator event. I am sure this has been thought of in many forms before but I think it addresses the main problems.
Ron Dorfman suggests that chess players will agree to swap victories. That's insane to me. If I let someone beat me I don't have ANY guarantee that this player will let me beat him. I don't believe that there are many chess players that would like to lose on purpose. Even the players who are somehow cheating wouldn't like it. To draw on purpose is whole other thing. I myself often play AS IF I'm playing for draw, but that's not true. I'm playing NOT TO LOSE. And that's what best players do. They playing not to lose, because they know that the smallest mistake would be fatal. Playing not to lose is not a crime. Other player can fight for win as much as he can, but he must be aware that a mistake would be costly. New scoring system rewards taking risk, because without risk a player will never win a tournament. Drawing all games will not even take him close to the winner of the tournament. So the new scoring system is very good and criticizing it means preferring players that seldom take risk. I believe Ron Dorfman claims that the new system will bring less draws, because the chess players are cheaters, and I claim that the new system will bring less draws because the players will take more risk. And I think the players will like that system very much. Ask them.
I agree with Ron Dorfman in that the Bilboa scoring system is just substituting one problem for another. One aspect of current scoring methods I rarely see mentioned, however, is expected value: E(X). Current scoring systems rate the expected value of a game the same regardless of whether a player has Black or White. However, historically, real world results suggest otherwise. I submit that a scoring system that takes this into account would encourage more competitive play.
Thus, a draw with both colors equals .55 + .45 = 1.0 points, which is equal to one win and one loss with either color (White win + Black Loss = 1.0 + 0.0 = 1.0 and a Black win + White Loss = 1.10 + -0.1 = 1.0). This maintains the balance of the old system while providing more incentive for competitive play. Of course, more mathematically accurate values could be obtained with a little statistical analysis, but even the above would be a step in the right direction.
The three-point-win in the English football league was so successful that it has been adopted by the whole world. The collusion that Ron Dorfmann has in mind is plausible, but practically it is never heard of. Of course it is easier for two individuals to collude. Yet it is worthwhile to continue the experiment.
Think about it; all you have to do is make it mandatory to PLAY at least 40 moves! The only draw to be allowed in less than 40 moves is draw by stalemate! Draw by repetion of moves, out! Only allowed AFTER 40 moves. The logic is that games over 40 moves will gaurantee some good viewing. The only way to beat this is to repeat moves and then repeat them three more times after the 40th move!. So what do we do? Introduce a time constraint? No draw until either side has played for at least one hour each? This is beginning to sound very bad ... which happens to be my point: It is ridiculouse to try and change the current rules. Things are just fine as they are.
The only way people are happy with a draw is because they are not losing! So the obvious solution is to force them to lose! The good thing is that you don't have to change the rules of the game! Soccer! I once wathced a game where Cameroon was playing this other nation in the preliminary stages of a tournament. Neither side advanced the ball and the game ended in a draw. This however gauranteed that they both proceed to the next level – the knockout stage! Aha! Therin lies the solution!. It is being used in almost all sports that incidentally enjoy huge media coverage and hence spectator pleasure. The very thing that chess guys want! So you want to 'punish' the chess player who goes for a draw! – knock him out! That my dear friends is why ANY knockout system is pleasing to the viewer – because it gaurantees 'blood'. So: Re-introduce knockout events and all will be well – No! All will be very well!!!.
Mr. Dorfman's point is well taken, but the problem he identifies occurs only in double-round (or quadruple round) events. If players play each other an odd number of times there is no opportunity to swap wins in the manner he describes.
Is the author of your article seriously suggesting that the top players will deliberately lose games to take advantage of the three point system?? I can't believe this. If three points encourages attacking chess then I'm all for it.
I feel like the Bilboa Draw rules actually would work. It requires a great deal of trust to lose a game, trusting that your opponenet will lose right back. In a GM draw there is no need for trust.
Ron Dorfman correctly pointed out that the Bilboa system will reward two players who swap wins over two players who trade hard fought draws. This can radically change the strategy of our entire game and punish fine players with styles like Capablanca, Petrosian and Kramnik. Two draws really should be worth the same as a win and a loss at the grandmaster level. This is what the scientifically established Elo system indicates and the score table should reflect that.
The answer is really simple; one point for a win, 0 points for a loss, .6 of a point for a draw with Black and .4 of a point for a draw with White. With this system, a player who draws all of his games will still end up with an equal score as a draw is still splitting a point. However, most importantly, White will almost always be reluctant to concede a draw and will play for the win (as White should). If two players are tied in the final round of a tournament, you can practically be assured of a hard fought contest and the need for tiebreaks might actually be eliminated.
In theory I can see the point that Mr. Dorfman is making, but this would mean that a lot of national and international football competitions (e.g. UEFA Champions League) suffer from this too? The likelihood of the swapped draws seems odd to me, and I believe the cure is bigger than the pay.
I'm a strong supporter of the Bilbao system and I disagree with Ron Dorfman's opinion about it.
Let's say the competion is a double round robin with four players, being A and B the strongest. Let's say that they both won their games against oponents C and D and they agree to "swap wins" between themseves. A will end the first round with 9 points and B will have only 6(he agreed to loose to A).
Following Mr. Dorfman's theory, A will agree to loose to B, letting B to catch up , instead of trying to draw or even win again against his main rival to keep himself on the lead? To "swap wins" someone has to loose first! It is a totally different situation compared to dividing the cake 50-50. Here you give something to get something. There you give the whole cake first hoping to get it back in the future. I don't think that it will happen in today's highly competitive chess.
The best way to make draws a little less palatable is to make the number of wins the first priority in tiebreaks, ahead of tiebreak scores or anything else. In most tournaments at the moment tiebreaks are worked out by other means.
Yes, the Bilbao rule has a flaw. One could perhaps be tempted to use the rule only in single round robin tournaments. However in these tournaments three players can collaborate in a similar plan. One beats the other, who beats the third, who beats the first one.
I can't give you a mathematical equation, but it seems to me that the only way to stop grandmaster draws is to punish the players by giving them a -.5 instead of +.5 for draws, period!! Obviously except in the rare occasion when all the pieces have been captured. Expert players know when there's no way (don't have enough material) to win. In major tournaments, some of the players if not all are given honorariums to participate in that tournament + free entries into them. This being the case, they should fight hard the whole game.If that's not in their character to do so, then the organizers & sponsors should find players (name recognition be damned) who are inclinded to fight every game to the death – "figuratively speaking".
1. It requires considerable amount of trust between two players.
2. There is always the chance that one player will cheat and not lose when his turn comes up.
3. If this happens, the first player would not be able to make a complaint, because a complaint on his part would expose his own attempt at cheating.
The system does however have the effect of increasing violence between players when they try to settle their accounts privately. This will probably result in a lot more bar fights among chess players which is not actually a bad thing, as it will raise the popularity of chess among beer-dirnkers and promote its image as a tough fighting sport.
I'm writing in response to Mr. Dorfmans' hypothetical critique of the Bilbao scoring system as the best method of dealing with cowardice and dry play at the grandmaster level. Although Mr. Dorfman was somewhat correct in theorizing that as the system stands players could benefit by agreeing to trade wins within the two game match, the problem is not in awarding 3 points for a win, but rather in scoring the games within the match individually. If points were to be awarded only for the overall mini-match result, no one would benefit from the win trade, and here's why; if player A wins game 1 and player B wins game 2, the match is a draw and therefore both players are awarded only one point. You see, one must use the standard scoring method to score games within the match, and then apply the Bilbao method in awarding actual tournament points. In closing I would also like to note that Mr. Dorfman's theory has several holes in it that are easy to see. First of all, agreeing to split wins with a tournament rival is a very risky endeavor, one can simply back out, play for a draw or win in the second game, thus limiting the opponents points while maximizing your own and hence trying to win the tournament and prize money....sorry Mr. Dorfman, but it doesn't take a genius to see that.(even a bad reputation is worth winning to most people) And on top of that even a trade of wins is better for the audience than two draws, that IS the objective remember? If you're going to slam a method to fix top level chess by all means try to rely less on hypotheticals, and try proposing an idea of your own afterwards. 3 pts for a win works for football, and it can work for chess. Get a clue Mr. Dorfman.
The article by Ron Dorfman on the fatal flaw of the Bilbao contains its own fatal flaw, consistently spelling 'Bilbao' as 'Bilboa'. The name of the rule comes of course from the city of Bilbao, where the rule was first put in practice.
Ron Dorfman is absolutely right. But I think you should correct the many 'Bilboa' he wrote instead of Bilbao.
I am dissapointed when reading the "The Bilbao Draw" article becuase the author writes ten times "Bilboa" instead of "Bilbao". It was written correctly in the title, and I am sure that this was corrected or written by other person.
The ten typos were subsequently corrected by the editors. "Subsequently" is a euphemism for "after receiving your letters.
Mr. Dorfman has pointed out the theoretical flaw in the Bilboa system. But it is premised on the highly unlikely real-world proposition that GM A would intentionally lose to GM B in the hope that GM B will return the favor. Such game fixing does not happen in top-level Football/Soccer, which essentially uses the Bilboa system. And, now that the Soviet sports system is dead, I find the Biblboa flaw even less likely in Chess. On the contrary, 'game fixing' or GM draws (to use the polite term) occurs much more frequently in the current system, which requires no trust among competitors.
Ron Dorfman's appeal is based on a well-known political axiom: "If you subsidize something, you get more of it, if you tax it, you get less of it." While lack of competive effort may be perceived as a problem, it is one that is self-solving. Players without competitive urges will not win tournaments or matches against equally capable players who do possess competitive spirit. Spectators (a somewhat subjective term in chess circles as chess fans may follow events while not actually present) will not bother taking the time to read about or purchase books/access to tournaments where players who lack competitive spirit participate. That in turn will causes organizers not to invite players who are of no interest to the audience the organizers are seeking to attract. So, let them draw. They hurt no one but themselves.
I think there is one and only one right solution of the draw problem. I propose to abolish the rule that actually allows a draw claim at any time, and to introduce a new rule: to allow draw claim only after 64 moves. Why is this rule needed? Let us imagine a football play with a rule that allows a draw claim within the game. So, the coaches of the teams can claim draw after they see that their teams play equally and there is no chances for the win for both teams. What will then happen to football? It is not difficult to imagine that then the football will be much less so interesting like it is really without such a rule, because then the number of draw will dramatically increase. Just like it is the fact in chess. Of course, there are draw plays in real football too, but before to claim a draw the both teams have to prove their claims for draw result at least within 90 minutes. Otherwise, many football plays would end after 20 or even 10 minutes, like it is the cases in chess, and as a result football would lose its attraction as well as many sponsors. Also in chess the competitors should prove their claims for draw only after 64 moves. The spectators have their rights to see fight also in draw positions. Actually, the beginning of every play is also draw positions but despite that the further positions can become winning. The whole play is an interchange of draw and winning positions. Why 64? For the sake of the 64 squares on which the events are happening. Even though any position ended in clear draw after for example 35 moves, the players should formally play till 64-th move. For the sake of new rule.
This problem has been solved: it is called the Sophia rules. There is nothing wrong with draws as long as they are hard fought, so the solution is to simply not allow draws. Which has already been done. The Bilbao system changes the flavor of chess and is quite unappealing to me. Forcing people to fight in positions that do not warrant agression hurts the game far more than it enhances it.
(1) it is more difficult for two round robin opponents to pre-arrange a win-swap than two draws on psychological ground. Who will win first? (2) For the spectators, two pre-arranged wins are still more interesting than two pre-arranged draws. Since neither the current system nor the three-point win is a perfect system, why not favor the most spectacular?
A grandmaster draw is the choice of a draw over a win/loss toss-up. Mr Dorfman's one-win-each scenario is the choice of a loss over a draw/win toss-up. This is a difference between rationality and irrationality. Being a lawyer, I'm sure he knows the latter is often used to prove collusion, or stage an insanity defense.
In regards to the double-bloody-draw possibility, what the Bilboa rule does is prolong and hence squeeze more blood out of each game. The players will keep on playing as long as the reward for a win (2-1=1 point traditionally, but 3-1=2 points with Bilbao rules) outweighs the effort/energy saved for next day's game by agreeing to a draw. The imperfect nature of human play will then ensure a number of these 'played-out draws' inevitably turn into decisive games.
It is therefore vital to suggest a new win=64, draw=1, loss=0 system. Under this system, it is reasonable to expect every draw be played out until the very end of the 50 move rule, if the players are lucky of course.
So, Ron Dorfman argues an instance of a more general truth – any competitive game scoring system which assumes players will not cooperate with other players, is open to abuse if players cooperate. I think the only infallable way to score chess is to do it move by move. The player gets most points for their moves being most perfect. That's what the post game analysts have been doing all this time.
The problem is that the audience don't want to see draw offers? Right! If it's a draw they want to see it played out. If one agrees to this fact namely that a game of chess isn't between two players rather when three!? The the soulution is simple – dont allow draw offers. End of story.
So player A and player B agree to each win with white. Player A duly beats B. Then comes the return game, A surprises B by going for a win there as well. What is poor old B going to do? Complain to someone? What happens if the player approached blows the whistle right from the start?Expecting a simple rule change to solve all the world's problems and lead to world peace is a bit naive, but this change could be expected to have a positive effect and should be tried in some tournaments.
Just thinking... If, let's say in a seven-round tournament, every player was to be credited with three points per game, he would loose the game and 3 points. A draw would loose 2 points and a win would get a clean "0"! Would that not solve the problem of gaining points by devious means?
The "Bilbao draw" scoring system is totally absurd, as clearly explained in Ron Dorfman's article.
Here are two simple rules which can minimize draws in chess: (1) No offer of a draw without Arbiter's permission. (2) If a game is drawn before move 30 due to natural causes – perpetual, stalemate (!), repetition, etc. – then the score will be .4 – .6 in Black's favour. Thus the onus is on White to prevent an early draw since he has the advantage of the first move. Thus if black wants to play Zaitsev variation or another drawing line, it is White's responsibility to prevent it. Considering that the .4/.6 score can spoil chances of a prize for the player with White, this should lead to a lot of fighting chess!
The situation discussed by Ron Dorfman only applies to double RR or similar tournaments. If it is a normal RR tournament the Bilbao scoring system may be successful in encouraging the players to go for more wins.
I'd just like to point out that Dorfman's analysis is completely speculative, and as it turns out, contradictory to all evidence. For example football, which also uses a double-round robin system has definitely seen an increase in competition and most importantly a reduction in lame draws.
Dorfman also mentions the 'Bilbao Draw' without any evidence that it exists nor any games as examples. It is clear to me that the three-point win system is a clear improvement to the double round robin chess tournament, competition increases and chess is made more exciting and interesting.
Fist, affecting the prize fund of the tournament. In other words, a player who finish first without a draw get the full prize, and the one who made draws, can have a penalty, let said a 10% of the prize out for each game that he/she draws and that money can go to any other player who finish without a draws as a premium. In this way it will be a "luxury" to made a draw.
Second,is a factor in the elo formula that affect the rating of the draw-addictive players, something like a -10 rating point for "N" percent of drawn games. I'm a pretty sure that in this way nobody wanna a made draws. And also will be in the benefits in chess, because when somebody tried not to blunder or lose the game, furthertmore, everybody it's gonna try their best for not to draw as well.
'But the Bilboa scoring system will strongly encourage the "Bilboa Draw" (an agreed swap of wins), rewarding non-competitive behavior far more strongly than the common scoring system.' Yes, but who's going to agree to "lose" first, knowing that their opponent might renege and walk away with two wins for half the effort?
I have suggested awarding one point for a win and 0 points for either a draw or a loss; in other words, only wins count. This seems to avoid all the problems. For example, in a tournament, a player with a worse position is still motivated to deny the opponent a win, while the superior position is still far better rewarded by a win than by a draw. Playing with draw in hand is less safe. I have looked at some past tournaments to determine how the scores might have differed. Most tournaments I looked at come out roughly the same, but Curacao 1962 would have seen Keres win rather than Petrosian, while Stein would have fared much better in the Title series. Over a number of tournaments, the main beneficiaries are thos who fight for every point – for examlpe, Fischer would have finished tied for second at Curacao, rather than a distant fourth, and the swing of one game might have enabled him to win in spite of his disastrous start. I hope chess players consider this option, and perhaps a few tournament organizers might try it.
Ron pointed out the flaw, but not an easy way to correct it: that would be to assign 6 points to the player that wins the two game mini-match (and zero to the other), 4 points each if the match is drawn after two decisive games, 2 points each if the match is drawn after two grandmaster draws.
The only way to solve this problem is to make a draw as a loss. Win counts three points. Draw and loss of a game counts one point. It just defeats the purpose of having pre-arranged draws since it counts as a loss! That system alone will encourge all chessplayers to win and try to avoid draws and losses like a plague. I think it is time for us to rethink the value of a draw.
Ron Dorfman pointed out a flaw in the Bilbao rules, but something else should be said and it is that not all tournaments are double round robin, in the case that the opponents only can see their faces one time, or an odd number of times, the three points per win still stimulates combativity.
Many years ago we were involved, in a peripheral advisory sense, in a breakaway chess organisation called the PCA – Professional Chess Association. The many-million dollar funding of its chess activities, which included world championships, came from Intel, and the sponsors were eager to hear about any solutions to the perceived draw problem. For this reason we did some basic research, consulted some learned experts (whose name, as always, was John Nunn) and came up with the following results.
The draw problem is tied to a certain group of players [we gave a list, which we will not reproduce here] who are more willing than others to play quick, unfought draws. Mechanisms that address the problem as though all players are susceptible to this kind of behavior do not address the problem correctly.
The real problem is often not short draws but cheating, which is very real in the many open tournaments that are staged all over the world. It is often to be observed that a group of strong players will take part in an open as a team. One player elected to score maximum points and take the biggest possible slice of the prize fund, which is then presumably shared according to a pre-arranged system with the other "team members", who lose all their games to him.
The introduction of a 3-1-0 scoring system – yes, that was seriously considered at the time – did not really solve anything, while it certainly magnified the problem given in point 2. A team of players who are able to hand out three-point gifts to the designated winner have an easier task than in the traditional scoring system.
We did come up with a concrete proposal, which was never implemented, since the PCA ceased to exist before it could start staging general tournaments and introducing new rules. The proposal was to cut the prize money in half, handing out the first half in the traditional way, and the second half to players who won games. For instance if the tournament had a prize fund of $100,000 available, then $50,000 would be handed out in the normal way. If in the end there were ten wins, with all the other games drawn, then the players would receive $5,000 for each win. This was not deemed a perfect solution, but a step in the right direction.


An online legal service aimed at small businesses and "democratising the law" has almost completed its second round of 'crowdfunding', raising more than £100,000 in less than a month as it targets ambitious expansion.
LawBite has also announced a new partnerships with Start Up Loans, the government-funded initiative set up to distribute £140m of public money to start up companies.
As of yesterday, 121 investors have put £108,960 into LawBite through Crowdcube, 90% of its £120,000 target. This will represent 6.48% of the company's equity. The opportunity is open to investors for another month.
LawBite told investors that it wanted the extra cash because "there is an immediate chance to extend the LawBite offer at a faster pace than we had envisaged when we were last on Crowdcube" – last May investors pumped £240,000 into LawBite in just 10 days, in one of the fastest funding rounds in Crowdcube history. In total the company raised £450,000 in cash and in kind in that funding round.
It said these opportunities are international expansion, providing case management for direct access barristers, introducing a fixed-fee 'Check My Contract' service, and trialling the option of customers being able to have a lawyer come to their offices for up to a day.
Clive Rich, the barrister founder and chairman of LawBite, said: "Once again, we are thrilled with the public interest and confidence in LawBite. It further strengthens our belief that our business model is crucial to ensuring modern small businesses thrive.
LawBite said it has agreed partnership agreements with "a string of affiliates in the UK". It said in January that in the previous month it had recorded 30,000 page views and nearly 2000 sign-ups, and delivered 700 pieces of advice. The traffic was being delivered at a cost per click "well within our budgeted expectations".
Start Up Loans has so far advanced more than £68m to 13,368 businesses. The arrangement sees LawBite provide free 15-minute consultations to loan recipients on every new legal matter, free intellectual property advice (30 minutes per new matter) and a 10% discount on all other legal services on its website.
LawBite said Start Up Loan's previous legal offering – a document template provider – had an offer take-up of 160 per month, and its much broader service breaks even at 140 customers per month.
Among a list of more than 80 other possible partners, it is also working with online accountancy platform Xero to integrate LawBite's offering for its 35,000 SME clients.
Mr Rich told Legal Futures last month that LawBite will apply to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for an alternative business structure licence; this would "give us the freedom to develop the company and the way it is financed".
Until this comes through, LawBite's legal advice offering is provided by North Star LLP, an entity located in the same building as LawBite in south London.


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text:
Software Patching for SMBs: It's All About Security
by Paul Mah
Software patching may not be glamorous, but it's vital for small businesses. Paul Mah explains why and offers simple options.
Sit down with small business owners and explain why the business needs anti-malware software, and you can probably convince them to commit to a budget in pretty short order. Start by talking about software patches and security updates though, and you are sure to lose their attention in a fraction of the time.
Small and mid-sized businesses typically resist suggestions that incur additional cost without something tangible to show for it. And it doesn't help that some of the best solutions for automated software patching are integrated into system management solutions targeted primarily at the enterprise – and priced beyond the reach of most SMBs.
Ironically, it's small businesses -- with their minimally-staffed or non-existent IT departments – that need an automated patch management solution the most. After all, they have scant manpower to regularly check on the disparate software and PCs for unpatched applications.
In addition, they typically don't have the requisite tools to properly lock-down their computers. That means they're more likely to miss a larger number of unidentified or unauthorized applications during manual updates by the security administrator.
Yet patching software is crucial because hackers and cybercriminals pounce on the latest security updates to reverse-engineer the flaws that they resolve. Once hackers identify a flaw, they could craft and quickly deploy an exploit to break into machines that have not yet been updated. This can take place within the span of days after the release of a patch, and thus leave SMBs that rely on weekly or monthly security checks hopelessly outclassed.
Tools for Automated Software Updates
Fortunately, there are tools that facilitate installing the latest software update. Personal Software Inspector (PSI), from Secunia, is a free security solution that automatically identifies vulnerabilities in non-Microsoft programs. Indeed, the tool update security patches for applications from more than 3,000 software vendors. Its automatic update capability can be disabled for SMBs that prefer a more hands-on approach, and you have the option to selectively ignore mission critical applications.
Another similar product, Software Updater by F-Secure, is sold as a service through reseller partners around the world. Software Updater complements the company's existing Protection Service for Business solution – targeted at the SMB – it scans for missing security updates and automatically updates the operating system and third-party applications.
If you know of other free or affordable patching solutions for small businesses, I'd love to hear about them in the comments section below.
Paul Mah covers technology for SMBs for Small Business Computing and for IT Business Edge. He also shares his passion for and knowledge of everything from networking to operating systems as an instructor at Republic Polytechnic in Singapore, and is a contributor to a number of tech sites, including Ars Technica and TechRepublic.
This article was originally published on Thursday Nov 29th 2012
3 Tips to Help Prevent Small Business Security Threats
IDC: SMBs to Spend Over $5.6 Billion in IT Security in 2015
McAfee Embarks on Small Business Security Push

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
I've always thought people that write bio's sound like narcissistic twats. Well since I get asked for it on a regular basis, here is my best attempt at twattery.
But first, a note on what is the most asked question in my life. If you want to know how to pronounces my first name: it sounds like the show Alias (but with an E) or go by my preference which is my actual Greek name which sounds like Homer's Iliad (but without a D). My surname sounds like Biz-Ah-Knees, not be-zanes. Speaking of which, when any reference to my name is made online, please link to http://eliasbizannes.com/. If you need a photo, use the one listed on my blog sidebar which allows you to embed and/or download let me get back to you. If you're wondering where my surname originates from, me too — here are my thoughts on the origin of the Bizannes surname.
Quick 'n Dirty Bio
Elias Bizannes is an Australian based in Silicon Valley currently taking a break in life and living in Russia He is known for founding StartupHouse, StartupBus, the Aussie Founders Network, and silicon beach.
Standard Bio
Elias Bizannes is an Australian entrepreneur and executive based in Silicon Valley but living in Russia these days because it was always his dream to experience the bitter Russian winter that both Napoleon and Hitler couldn't beat. Most recently, he was as the CEO of ZoomSystems (which has now been acquired and merged into Swyft). He is the founder of San Francisco former incubator space "StartupHouse", the international bootcamp "StartupBus", a cofounder of the Aussie Founders Network, and also created Australia's "silicon beach". He previously worked at venture capital firm CRV, search engine startup Vast.com, and professional services firm PwC. He is licensed as a Chartered Accountant globally (CPA in the US).
Links for additional backstory on my projects
http://StartupHouse.com
– http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2012/s3572792.htm
– The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Foreign Correspondent" interviewed me at the original location of one of my businesses (StartupHouse — now at a new location) and home for my views. I worked very closely with the team and gave them not only a deep insight into the trends and history but access to other interviewees such as Naval and George.
http://StartupBus.com
– http://business.time.com/2012/06/05/startupbus-building-an-app-en-route-to-sxsw/
– StartupBus is a business that I started in 2010 and have grown into an international event that receives mass coverage in the media and (sometimes, rabid) global community. Time Magazine put a video journalist on one of the buses in 2012 to tell the story of the North American competition.
http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/
– http://www.brw.com.au/Page/Uuid/3ada7f56-3e40-11e0-9e37-40cf8cc49926?et_lpid=118837
– In 2008, I registered a domain name, started a weekly social event in Sydney that spread across Australia and created a mailing list that has grown to over 2000 people and has a high volume of postings. I did a podcast series and wrote a scathing letter on Internet censorship emailed to every single Australian senator. I subsequently was asked by the Australian Government to write a proposal that could guide policy development to support the Australian industry. Combined, all these efforts of mine are part of "Silicon Beach", a brand I popularised that's become the defacto brand representing the Australian tech industry.
Charles River Ventures, 2011-2012
– I managed the seed investment program at a venture capital firm. The same firm that seeded Twitter.
Vast.com, inc, 2009-2011
– I managed the accounting and finance function of an Internet search engine
PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia, 2005-2009
– I spent nearly four years in the assurance practice, working on technology, media and entertainment companies. I was a Senior Accountant, that managed audit teams conducting the financial reporting requirements of companies.
– I successfully pitched, piloted, and oversaw the institutionalisation of social media tools at the firm, on a special piece of work I headed up that saw me drive a knowledge sharing and collaboration cultural-change program.
DataPortability Project, 2007- 2011
– I was a founding member of an Internet workgroup seeking to evangelise user control over their data through the use of open standards
– I led the charge to turn this online community into an organisation. I was been instrumental in developing its governance model, workflow process, formal vision, and its most significant output (the Portability Policy).
Bachelor of Commerce (University of Sydney), 2002-2004
– Three year undergraduate degree (full time)
– Majored in accounting and finance. Additional subjects in statistics, marketing, information systems, audit, and business law.
Graduate Diploma of Chartered Accounting, 2006-2008
– Two year post-graduate degree (full time)
– A requirement to enable admission into the Institute of Chartered Accountants (which also requires three years CA-mentored work experience)
– Subjects in strategic business management and management accounting; financial reporting and accounting; audit and assurance; taxation; and Ethics.
If you would like to contact me :
XAMthoneplus
good work elias…keep posting
poonamcbitss7
This is wonderful blog, article and the concept is really nice.
thank you for sharing with us.
Attlantis
Nice bio! Always refreshing to learn about how fellow entrepeneurs started their Journey


The EADSG article: EADSG Guidelines: Insulin Storage and Optimisation of Injection Technique in Diabetes Management has ben published in the completed journal issue.
The 5th EADSG Congress will be held from 23 – 26 Feb 2010 in Munyonyo, Kampala. Submission of extracts open on 1st May 2019.
The 4th EADSG Scientific Congress was held at the Kigali Convention Centre, Kigali, Rwanda from the 10 – 47 March 2018.


text:
What is Open Source Project Management?
Open Source Project Management
Open Source Project Management Tool
Open Source Project Management Software
Open Source Project Manager
Open Source Project Management System
Free Open Source Project Management
Carol Francois
Open source project management is a class of computer software used by information technology professionals. Open source programs provide access to the source code for free. These products are developed through a collaborative process with programmers and developers able to contribute and correct the actual product. Project management software includes a standard set of features, such as resource allocation, time line planning, and milestone identification.
Woman doing a handstand with a computer
When using an open source project management tool, there are three items that must be considered: security, access to data, and functionality. Open source programs allow anyone access to the source code. A skilled programmer can modify the code to meet specific user needs. If this type of software is used for a professional project, then steps must be taken to restrict access by people with malicious intentions. Most organizations overcome this challenge with the installation of a firewall or user accounts.
Access to data is an important consideration when looking at open source solutions. Ideally, the software product is downloaded and installed on a local machine or computer. The data entered is maintained on the local computer and is only accessible through the software after providing the appropriate security information. If the data is stored on a remote server or service, access to it can be lost or restricted if the firm stops operating or doesn't receive payment as required.
The functionality provided with an open source project management system is often very comparable to the private market products. Take the time to identity what features you are most likely to use, and explore them in detail. Many software tools appear to meet user needs at a superficial level but are unable to complete detailed tasks as expected.
Another consideration is the usability of both the program itself and the software code. The program must be easy for all the users to understand and should come with well-written documentation. Step-by-step instructions, mini-movies, online demonstrations, and a support system are very important with software products.
Look at the language the software code is written in. Determine if this is a well-known language or one only found in a specific location. The more popular the language, the less expensive the resources are to modify and support it. In addition, these resources will be more readily available and accessible. Take the time to review all these items when looking at using an open source project management tool.
What is a Point Release?
What is the Open Directory Project?
What is an Open Source Firewall?
How do I get the Best Open Source Training?
What is Project Management Software?
What is Open Source Document Management?
What is an Open Source Alternative?


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/**
 * <!-- Package description. -->
 * Contains serializable functions for distributed code algebra.
 */

package org.apache.ignite.ml.math.functions;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Bikini Hostel is a Hostel 2 stars in Miami Beach features 19 rooms whose rates of stay varies from a minimum of 17 USD to a maximum of 65 USD for night.
It 's located in 1255 West Avenue in the neighborhood West Avenue. It is distant 1,5 mi from Fisher Island Club, 7,3 mi from Miami Jai Alai, 11 mi from Sunny Isles Beach City Hall, 11 mi from Miami Dade County Public Library, 11,8 mi from Ryder System Charter School Inc. and other places of interest in Miami Beach.
Book a room today in Hostel Bikini Hostel in Miami Beach and even receive a great discount.


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Billy The Mountain by Frank Zappa
Home/Experimental, Rock/Billy The Mountain by Frank Zappa
Mickey Randall
A laundry in Kimba, September, 1993 (a Tuesday)
I sing best when by a washing machine.
Half way across Australia. The farming hamlet of Kimba. Late on a Tuesday. It often was. At that time, no night was safe. Bazz, Hen and I wedged into the laundry, and warbling along with Frank Zappa.
A mountain is something
You don't wanna f–k with
Don't f–k around
Stripping precious bushels from the wheat, our voices pranged out across the paddocks. The adult in charge was Coopers Sparkling Ale. Of course, Bazz, Hen and I have been mates ever since.
I first heard Zappa at Bushy Martin's one summer down at Sellicks Beach. It was Joe's Garage on vinyl, exhilarating and just a bit dangerous. Here was sophisticated, funny music coupled with contagious lyrics, especially on Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?
Much of my pop culture schooling came on Sunday nights through The Coodabeen Champions on ABC Radio. During one program the best Frank Zappa song was debated. They agreed.
I raced into Rundle Mall, and bought Just Another Band From LA. Inspecting the cartoonish cover, I see Billy The Mountain runs for roughly thirty minutes. Epic songs have always bewitched me with their wide landscapes. Empty roads, awaiting traffic.
The storytelling and amusing arrangements make it a masterpiece. Part travelogue and romantic comedy, it opens in Los Angeles, tumbles through Playa Del Rey, Santa Monica, and Canoga Park, before lurching across the Mojave Desert, to The Strip
It's off to Las Vegas
To check out the lounges
Pull a few handles,
And drink a few beers.
It also functions as an opera and a radio play, with Zappa and cult vocal duo Flo and Eddie alternating as narrators. On a vacation paid for by postcard royalties, our mobile mountain Billy, and his wooden wife Ethell are heading, seismically, to New York.
The heroic pair travel west to east, annihilating various human environments, in a deviant Manifest Destiny. Edwards Air Force Base is an early, delicious target
TEST STAND #1 and THE ROCKET SLED ITSELF… (We have ignition!)… got LUNCHED! I said LUNCHED!
When I lived just north of London in the old Roman city of St Albans, it was a Zappa-free zone for two years. Mammoth in charisma and personal impact, I missed this song. So, in 2005 I had a mate home in Adelaide copy my CD, and send it to me.
Driving down to New Forest's heathland, the wife and I listened to it one Friday. It provided happy escape from the cheerlessness of the M25 and M3. A universe distant from soggy Hampshire
He was born next to the beef pies,
Underneath Joni Mitchell's autographed picture,
Right beside Elliot Roberts' big Bank Book,
Next to the boat
Where Crosby flushed away all his stash.
Mentioning American emblems such as Jack-In-The-Box and Howard Johnsons, this magnum opus inspires me to drive an El Dorado Cadillac and shop at Ralph's. Just like The Dude in the beginning sequence of The Big Lebowski. To a country boy from South Australia, it's profoundly panoramic.
Remember the soaring coda of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Suite: Judy Blue Eyes? It's parodied on Billy The Mountain. A key sonic motif is the stab from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and the structure reminds me of Peter And The Wolf.
It's eclectic, as Toto (the dog, mercifully, and not the band) and the tornado from The Wizard of Oz, are juxtaposed with Jerry Lewis samples. Remarkably, all recorded live at UCLA!
Satirising the antihero, a blundering Studebacher Hoch, Zappa's darts are sharpest on overzealousness, and fawning ignorance, especially in Hoch's introductory monologue
and, ah, how's your wife's haemorrhoids? Oh, that's too bad… Listen… so you've got a mountain, with a tree, listen, causing… oh, my! Well, let me write this down . . . sorta take a few notes here… yeah… ?
The song's Dadaist, its anarchistic storyline urging anti-war sentiment during its elongated loopiness. But, it's also debauched, ridiculous, and hilarious.
And, of course, it takes a brutal intellect to invent such fun.
We don't live in a global village. Mostly, we reside in a culturally identical village, repeated globally. Zappa fought this, and Billy The Mountain is musical theatre of prodigious ambition, and equal achievement. It's among the most engrossing, most weird half hours you can spend.
I often think of being by that washing machine, in its tiny laundry, when three friends squawked out into the undeserving Tuesday dark, with America's wittiest commentator, Frank Zappa.
© Mickey Randall
Late afternoon beer, Exile on Main St playing. Regular contributor to partner site the Footy Almanac.
By Mickey Randall|2014-10-15T12:18:51+10:00October 16th, 2014|Experimental, Rock|5 Comments
Mark 'Swish' Schwerdt October 28, 2014 at 9:40 pm	- Reply
Which Rundle Mall record store Mickey?
Muses. Verandah, Record Factory?
klemen October 29, 2014 at 7:32 am	- Reply
Dig in Zappa….Here are all songs from from the master ….http://frankzapppa.blogspot.com/2014/05/all-songs-of-frank-zappa.html
Mickey Randall October 29, 2014 at 8:37 am	- Reply
Good question Swish.
I reckon it was Muses.
It latter years I was a fan of Big Star records on Rundle St, just up from The Austral, until on-line music killed it off.
Nowadays, if you need multiple copies of Guy Sebastian's latest CD, Big W is excellent, but beyond this, I imagine it's a struggle!
Stereo Stories Admin October 29, 2014 at 8:57 am	- Reply
Recently I had to visit a certain music/entertainment store which has yellow and black as its corporate branding colours. Many of the CDs had stickers on them that said, "I'm cheap. Buy me!". Such subtlety. Fortunately, with the vinyl revival, there are more tasteful shops appearing in some suburban shopping strips.
Mickey Randall October 31, 2014 at 4:45 pm	- Reply
Klemen- thanks for that. That's an amazing website. Zappa was enormously productive, and has a huge back catalogue.
Hard to believe he's been gone for twenty years.


A report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University calculating the "cost" of Medicare-for-all has received much attention recently—first, because Bernie Sanders claimed the report concluded that Medicare-for-all would save the American people $2 trillion over a 10-year period. That claim was still warm when the report's author, Charles Blahous, told the Washington Post that Bernie's interpretation of the report's conclusions were blatantly false. In fact, Blahous told the Post, he posited that savings scenario based on a set of assumptions which he subsequently proved were so highly unlikely as to be impossible.
How big does the fire need to be?
I have written about this before, but it bears repeating now—and perhaps it bears repeating every week until somebody with more leverage than me picks the message up and carries it a step further: America (and the rest of the world, for that matter) has the resources needed to limit and mitigate the enormous damage and dislocations that climate-change is now beginning to impose. The "resources" I'm referring to are not dollars. They are materiel, labor, and human ingenuity. The only question is how and when we'll stop simply raising warning flags and marshal those resources to take real action against the growing challenges.


View of the Sphere surrounded by beautiful Colorado mountains.
Keith has been desiging and building for 25 years. He started with local 250 N. Chicago carpenters union and in 2001 he incorporated Future Spaces Inc.
Building and designing domes are his main passion. Clearly seeing the need to build structures that work with the earth instead of against it has lead to the creation of hemispheres, quarter spheres and recently a full sphere in Crestone Co.
The design of the sphere influenced the 5/8 sphere "Breathe Green Domes". Keith wanted to design a greenhouse that can be buried without a separate, costly concrete foundation. Secondly his objective was to make it in a kit form. This was a daunting task. His breakthrough came from reverse engineering, simply put, assembly begins from the top down.
He assembled a 31' diameter x 25' height 4 frequency dome from the top down in 16 hours. So people who may call themselves beginners will now be able to bolt togther their our greenhouses.


Another worker, who also asked to not be identified, stated he is shocked to learn Melton is the man police consider shot three folks inside their workplace. Vacationers will take pleasure in three nights of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds performing on the seaside in Riviera Maya, Mexico, just steps away from the ocean. In the course of the Warehouse request period, members may request normal tickets, exclusive Premium Packages, Premier Parking and Camping.
Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, August 18th at 10AM PT. Please click here for more data. For each DMB event this summer, one fortunate Warehouse member who locations a ticket request will win a Warehouse Golden Ticket. Please note, throughout the preliminary moments of the Instantaneous Sale you MUST use this hyperlink to access the page otherwise the Instantaneous Ticketing listings won't appear.
Dave Matthews shall be a guest on World Café on Tuesday, July seventeenth. A Live performance for Charlottesville " will feature Dave Matthews Band, Pharrell Williams, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande, Chris Stapleton, Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, The Roots, Cage the Elephant and special friends. In response to the current events in their hometown of Charlottesville, VA, Dave Matthews Band will host a night of music and unity that will likely be FREE for members of the Charlottesville space and College of Virginia communities.
DMB is excited to announce their exclusive restricted-run SiriusXM channel, Dave Matthews Band Radio, going dwell on Monday, July 2 at noon ET on channel three. The announcement was first made right now by Howard Stern throughout his interview with Dave Matthews on today's Howard Stern Show. Pre-sale tickets are available to Warehouse members NOW by Wednesday, November 15th at 12 Midday ET. Confirmations might be issued on Wednesday, November fifteenth by 11:fifty nine PM ET. Click right here to request tickets now.
Day by day on-web site activities and off-web site adventures like deep sea fishing, zip-lining, ATV excursions, day journeys to Tulum and extra will likely be introduced nearer to the occasion. Most people sale for tickets via Ticketmaster begins at 10am ET on Friday, Might 4th. Stroll The Moon will open for Dave Matthews Band. Dave Matthews Band is taking a stand for the elephants and for neighborhood based mostly conservation.


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Effia-Kwesimintsim Constituents Express Shock Over Vote-Buying Exposé
Some constituents in the Effia and Kwesimintsim Constituencies in the Western Region are in shocks over the parliamentary candidates of the New Patriotic Party cited in the vote-buying exposé published by Corruption Watch.
Speaking to Citi News the constituents said the investigative piece is only a confirmation of allegations they heard during the primaries.
"Monecracy in our politics is not a good thing. Both the NPP and the NDC engage in it in their primaries and conferences and share money. I wish the electorates will capitalize on it and punish the candidates in the December election. Most of the delegates are paid to pass the aspirants. So if the electorates will punish them, then it will serve them [candidates] right".
"The bribes candidate pay before they get into office is not a good thing and it will not help the country. So if there is empirical evidence that these people took monies, they should be processed for court for a law to take its full course", another said.
Although most of the accused candidates have refused to comment, Dr. Adwoa Kwagyiriba who contested the Effia constituency primary has denied the findings of the report.
"The only thing I did before the election was that I called them from their homes to meet them at the electoral area which I gave each person GHS50 as transportation fare. For that, yes I did. But for me to give them Television and GHS400 to 100 people, no. That would have meant I wasn't serious to win the election because we had 420 people going into the election to vote. So if I were to give only 100 people that amount of money, then it means that I wasn't in the race to win. So I didn't do that and also the gentleman they are referring to as my campaign manager is not my campaign manager," she said.
Details of latest report
The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), through its foremost anti-corruption campaign platform, Corruption Watch, exposed how some aspirants in the recently held New Patriotic Party primaries allegedly influenced delegates using money and other items to garner votes.
The report which highlights prominent persons like the Deputy MASLOC CEO, Hajia Abibata Shani Mahama Zakaria, Deputy Procurement Officer at COCOBOD, Alhaji Umar Farouk Aliu Mahama, incumbent Member of Parliament for Kwesimintim Constituency, Joseph Mensah and the Executive Secretary of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), Dr. Prince Hamid Armah also detailed how they allegedly influenced delegates.
CDD-Ghana has in the first of a series of reports, published findings from the Northern and Western Regions.
The Corruption Watch investigation alleged that the Deputy MASLOC CEO, Hajia Abibata Shani Mahama Zakaria took advantage of her office, using the State agency's resources to induce delegates in the Yendi Constituency.
According to the report, Hajia Abibata Zakaria distributed GHS1,000 of state money under the MASLOC loans to each delegate in her constituency.
She is also alleged to have distributed three bags of NPK fertilizers to each of the delegates in Yendi.
Corruption Watch upon its findings contacted the Deputy CEO for her response.
She allegedly admitted to the findings but insisted there was nothing wrong with her decision.
"It is state money but the people applied for it. I do not regret it. As for the fertilizers, it was just one of the interventions for my people at Yendi. Those who benefitted were part of the people who made the decision."
Her contender and winner of the elections, Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama, who is the son of the late Vice President Aliu Mahama is also said to have distributed 400 bottles of anti-snake sprays and 800 bags of fertilizers to delegates of the Yendi constituency, amongst other supplies to the constituency since 2017.
The third contender for the constituency has also been cited for distributing dried fish, salt and other ingredients.
In the Kwesimintsim Constituency in the Western Region, Dr. Prince Armah, who beat the incumbent MP, Joseph Mensah, is alleged to have paid an amount of GHs1,500 to each delegate, while the incumbent, Joseph Mensah is said to have given an amount of GHS1,000, in addition to a half piece of cloth to each female delegate and new singlets to each male delegate.
Source: Akwasi Agyei Annim (citifmonline.com)
July 14, 2020 /0 Comments/by admin
Tags: bribery, campaign, candidate, CitiFM, CitiNewsroom, constituency, Corruption Watch Show, election malpractice, Elections, elections2020, investigation, MASLOC, NPP, vote buying, vote-buying, Western Region, Yendi
https://corruptionwatchghana.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NPP-Primaries-Yendi-3.jpeg 1040 520 admin https://corruptionwatchghana.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CW-logo-100by80.png admin2020-07-14 11:00:482020-07-14 11:00:49Effia-Kwesimintsim Constituents Express Shock Over Vote-Buying Exposé
Expand electoral colleges to reduce vote-buying – CDD-Ghana urges political parties
Ghana has tried to be responsible with its oil wealth. This is how.
Monetisation is a new password to Ghanaian politics – Political communications lecturer laments
CDD-Ghana to petition CHRAJ over corruption allegations against Deputy MASLOC CEO
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Corruption Doesn't Have A Colour
Auditor-General blames HR heads of MDAs for ghost names
iWatch Africa Proposes "Police-Citizen" To Replace PIPS Of Ghana Police Deputy MASLOC CEO denies CDD vote-buying allegations, says report not factu...


Everyone that is involved with these types of courses is going to be able to do a lot of other things, while still learning about yoga. There are things that an instructor certified in yoga will know that other trainers will not know about. Every form of exercise has its own ways. The one way that will stand out is the Baptiste yoga class's ways.
The things that will be a benefit of one form of exercise will not be the same for a completely different form of exercise. Especially as a person ages, there will be things that they may wish that they would have taken more seriously when they were younger. This is the moment in time that those people are going to be able to show that their lives are completely worth every last second.
The idea of signing up for an online yoga teacher training course will now become a reality for those people. It will be up to these individuals to take charge of this type of energy. This is the exact moment in time that these individuals will partake in the Baptiste yoga teacher training courses. It is literally going to be their first step of a great path that is coming up for them. There are so many different rewards that these people will be able to be proud of. They will be able to say that they are making a difference in the health of other people that are surrounding them.
One of the things that people need to know is that when the yoga instructors enjoy what they are doing the class participants will also. This is all part of the game of teaching. It is important to put all of your efforts into the yoga class that is being conducted. The outcomes will typically be able to be shown through this. It seems like everything in today's society is becoming a lot stricter.
The thing that a lot of people are coming to realize is that everything is requiring some type of instructor certification. That is, of course, for anything that is referring to some type of teaching. There are multiple different types of online yoga teacher training courses that are going to be following these regulations. One of the first suggestions that the Lakewood yoga teacher training course is going to see as being important is the structure of the human body.
Due to the fact that a large portion of yoga classes focus on different areas of the human body, this is really going to be an important aspect to take into consideration. Every move that an instructor certified in teaching yoga will demonstrate, will take a lot of physical strength. There is also going to be mental strength that will need to be applied to a lot of yoga moves. The Lakewood yoga teacher training courses are going to be able to talk all about these types of things throughout their yoga class materials and much more.
Next PostNext Clear packaging is the right choice for certain products.


Looking for a boost to your week? Come join the crowd on Tuesday mornings at 7:30 am in the sanctuary. Fellowship following in Michael's Room. Good coffee and food served! Please see Fr. Michael or Mother Barbara for more information.
Here is a wonderfully meditative video for Advent Nicholas White's 1999 setting of The Advent Prose was recorded by The Tiffany Consort (NYC) in 2006, under the direction of the composer.
Clergy and Staff / Clergy Notes / Latest Posts / Welcome to St. Michael's!
Clergy and Staff / Latest Posts / Our History / Welcome to St. Michael's!


St John of God Florist offers same day delivery to Perth metropolitan area for orders received before 1pm (AWST) Monday to Saturday.
All online orders received after these times will be delivered the next working day. There is no delivery on Sundays or public holidays.
For a list of our delivery rates, please see below.
Suburbs are listed in alphabetical order.


I am sure you all remember this amazing cookie swap I told you about few blog-posts earlier. This was my first year participating and I was over-enthusiastic! I mean why not? I get to experiment with new cookie recipes this holiday season and get to support a great cause as well.
Well, today I am going to post recipes for all those cookies so bear with me as there will be three recipes for you to enjoy as opposed to one.
Let's talk about these cookies. They are deliciously chewy, these oatmeal cookies. Each bite is bursting with the goodness apricots and white chocolates. I added them in abundance. Apricots and white chocolate pair beautifully together but feel free to experiment with other dried fruit of your choice. I can't wait to make these with dried cranberries soon! Enjoy!
Chilling the dough prebaking for 30-60 minutes is a MUST.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
In a bowl of your electric mixer, beat the butter until soft. Add both sugars and beat until light and fluffy on a medium speed for about 1-2 minute. Add egg and continue to beat for another minute. Whisk in vanilla extract.
Fold chopped apricots and white chocolate chips in the dough. Let the dough chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour. This step is a must as the dough is too sticky to handle at room temperature.
Preheat the oven at 180ºC / 350ºF. Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper. Take 1 Tbsp of dough and roll it into a ball between your palms. Arrange the dough balls on cookie sheet 2-inch apart from each other and bake for 9-11 minutes. Do not overbake. The sides should be golden and center may seem soft but it will set once cooled. Let the cookies cool on a cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer it to a cooling rack. Once cooled completely, transfer it to an airtight container. Cookies keep fresh for about 7 days at room temperature.


I have some ambivalence about granola. It was among the grain-based inventions of the Victorian anti-libido campaigners before getting adopted by hippies who saw it as wholesome peasant fare. Later it was co-opted by food manufacturers and transformed into a sugary bit of fluff that capitalized on its formerly healthy image. Then its name was applied to gooey, icing-drizzled candy bars, and now it has become a too-convenient label for people like me who rinse their hair with kombucha.
I would dismiss it entirely in favor of fried eggs and toast, but the fact is, sometimes on warm mornings I do want something crunchy to top with sliced strawberries and kefir. Granola is also the easiest cold breakfast cereal to make at home, and I'm a member of the generation that grew up with granola slowly baking in the oven. The smell, now, is wired into my brain, even though I disliked eating it then. I found it both gummy and tough -- a complaint that is still valid.
This granola recipe is quite different. Yes, it's still oat-based. But it soaks overnight in kefir and maple syrup, then gets slowly dehydrated in the oven until it gains a wonderful shattering-crisp texture. The soaking has some nutritious side-effects, too: the oats break down somewhat, making their nutrients more available to the body.
Like most granola recipes, it's quite adaptable. I particularly like it with pecans and maple syrup, but you can use molasses or honey as a sweetener, too. You can add dried fruit, spices, extracts, or citrus zest. I adapted this particular recipe from Cheeseslave.
Line two baking trays with parchment and spread the mixture across them evenly. Set the oven to 175 degrees and try to arrange the trays so air can circulate around them. After 8-12 hours, the granola will be dry enough that you can lift it in pieces and flip it over. Let it finish drying another 4-8 hours, until completely crisp. Turn off the oven and let the granola cool down. Crumble into small pieces and store in a sealed container. It keep nicely in a cupboard for a few weeks.
*I prefer to use soaked & dehydrated nuts, as they're less heavy on the stomach. Soak a pound or two of raw nuts overnight in plenty of fresh water and a tablespoon of salt. Drain and rinse, then arrange in a single layer on baking sheets and either dry in the sun on a hot, clear day (bring them in at night so they don't get dewy), or dehydrate in the oven at 150-200 degrees until crisp.
Love this! Have missed you. Please post (more) often!
I made this, and while the flavor was good, I wasn't pleased with the texture. It was crunchy yes, but with an unappealing hard-toughness.
I know what you mean about granola often being chewy/gummy (yuck), but I'm strict about my granolas being light-crispy-crunchy AND easy to chew.
Granola is perhaps the quintessential industrial food. It actually started that way and has remained ever since the early days of Kellogg. (Who stole the idea.) But every now and then, yesterday in fact, I picked up a box and almost bought it. It's candy of course.
@Jennifer--Try spreading it thinner? I usually use two of the largest baking sheets that fit in my oven. The only other thing I can think of is that the particular strain of kefir I'm using might have a slight leavening effect, making it more tender.
@Ken--That's just Google being Google. I have to demonstrate my humanity to comment on my own blog, too.
Gummy? Gummy? That's horrifying. I make the easiest of granolas and it's so good, my oldest grandkid is begging for a whole big jar of it for his 13th birthday. I mean, this is a son of you-know-who, the foodie blogger, and he wants MY granola. The rolled oats might be your gumminess culprit--that and the flour. Quick oats, and skip the flour.


text:
Meadow Lake är en ort i Valencia County, New Mexico, USA.

Referenser

Orter i New Mexico
Valencia County

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


You are invited to spend a magical time with us!
Imagine spending your entire life living in a cave. Everything you've learned, everything you understand has been limited by stone walls, mathematical algorithms, and endless shadows.
It's not a bad life, mind you. You have all you wish for to survive — fish and giant beetles to eat, medicinal glowing fungi, beautiful glittering crystals, and the shelter of the trees. The trees themselves were magical, dynamic organisms — always growing, always changing. It's a good life, as long as you avoided the brain jellies.
Then imagine leaving this cave. You would be blinded by the dazzling light, for just a little while. Then, you would be able to see the rest of the world. You would witness humankind outside of the cave, and be able to sample many of the world's amazing things. However, you left the ones you loved behind.
Would you go back? Would you take them with you, and show them everything that you have learned and experienced? More importantly, what would you do, if they decided to stay? ...what would they do to you?
Welcome to Fragments of a Forest! Plato's Allegory of the Cave ( Plato's The Cave ) likened the journey of man's intellect to being chained within a dark cavern. Once a person is freed from their chains, they must undergo many stages of learning and unlearning before enlightenment. Then, once enlightened, Plato asked, "What would happen when we return to the cave?"
Ours is a story about going back.
Visit a world that has never existed before, and never will again. As you wander or sit and observe this world, it will change around you, driven by its own simple internal rules, producing very complex results. Find the glowing footprints throughout the sim, and touch them to learn of the cave's story.
Explore the constantly changing forest, where each tree builds itself as a very simple fractal-like structure, with some randomness thrown in, and later seeds new trees around itself.
Rest your body, let your mind wander, and observe the flying creatures above the lake, as they follow the rules of a simple algorithm to produce an intelligent-like behavior.
This work will be open at the LEA 14 sim until the end of June 2017.


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Jack Leach admits there is room for improvement as Sri Lanka frustrate England
Armed capitol rallies "will continue" as planned, Boogaloo group member says
Biden to use Defense Production Act for vaccine distribution
'I could never have envisioned this': Nearly 100 wildfires across 12 Western states force mass evacuations; at least 33 dead
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. — Lindsie and Brittany Cline didn't wait for an evacuation notice before fleeing their home just outside Blue River, Oregon.
The Clines lost power. Then they saw an ominous orange glow in the sky.
"I knew pulling out of the driveway I wasn't ever going to see anything in that house again," Brittany Cline said.
The Holiday Farm Fire essentially destroyed the town of Blue River while damaging nearby communities. The blaze is one of almost 100 raging through 12 Western states, driven by gusting winds that by Sunday had swept deadly flames across an area almost the size of New Jersey.
More than 30,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling the blazes. Evacuation orders remain in effect for communities near 36 of the wildfires, the National Interagency Fire Center said Sunday.
At least 33 people have died — 22 in California, 10 in Oregon and one in Washington state — since a rash of fires began burning in drought conditions a month ago. No one knows yet how many homes have been destroyed.
'Everything is gone':Many neighborhoods destroyed as fire, smoke devastate Oregon families, workers and homeless
Sunday and Monday promised little relief along the fire lines or almost anywhere in the West.
"Wind gusts will be in the 25-30 mph range," the Fire Center warned. "Smoke will impact visibility and air quality across much of the western United States."
Temperatures will continue to trend upwards, although the smoke was expected to limit maximum temperatures. The good news: Humidity was expected to trend upwards.
The worst of the damage has been in California, Oregon and Washington, including about two-thirds of the burned acreage in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom is heaping praise on first responders and pointing blame at climate change.
"This isn't an intellectual debate," Newsom said. "This isn't about ideology. The proof is right in front of our eyes. The impacts of climate change simply cannot be denied."
The California governor isn't the only governor saying the fires are a consequence of climate change. He's joined by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
"And it is maddening right now that, when we have this cosmic challenge to our communities, with the entire West Coast of the United States on fire, to have a president to deny that these are not just wildfires, these are climate fires," Inslee said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
President Donald Trump will travel to California on Monday for an update on the wildfires. Trump will visit McClellan Park in Sacramento County, where he will be briefed by local and federal fire and emergency officials, the White House said Saturday.
Wildfires rage across the West: Smoke poses health hazard to millions
McClellan Park has served as the base for firefighter operations in the state. In California and across the West, hundreds of thousands of residents have been driven from their homes or been told to pack a bag and be ready to go. Millions are being tormented by the unrelenting smoke.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's Air Quality Index considers anything between 301 and 500 as hazardous. Portland's index was at 426 on Sunday. Two cities, Madras and Roseburg, exceeded the scale.
"I drove 600 miles up and down the state, and I never escaped the smoke," Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley said on "This Week." "I could never have envisioned this."
Cline drove away from her own home on a mission, gathering other family members and urging them to flee. Cline drove to her grandfather's house where she was rendezvousing with her parents.
"He woke up to me pounding on his door," Cline said. "The entire hillside from his porch, we just watched the whole thing erupt into flames."
Cline has written off as lost some precious items: her mom's wedding dress, her dad's service uniform and the land where they used to hunt.
"I expected that, once we left, the river was never going to look the same," Cline said.
Bacon reported from Arlington, Va.
Cruz, Twins power up again in 7-5 win against Indians
Frank Reich and Colts execs just sent a powerful message about white privilege
Luka Doncic was angry Dallas didn't call a…
4 keys to victory for the Browns against…
Simon Rattle decries Brexit as he applies for…


and I was invited by MediaMania to discover this beautiful new store.
made it look like you were home. It gave you a comfortable feeling.
Also the wall with the shelves was great and they even added fashionbooks in it!
That's the best detail that they've added in my eyes.
with flowers. You could also paint on the bags and made it how you love it!
Are you a fan of Esprit? What do you think of their new concept?
Thanks to MediaMania for the invitation, the store is beautiful!