text:
Washington, D.C. November 12, 2019:"Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.
It is becoming more and more evident to even the least intelligent American voter that Trump is vicious, corrupt and amoral. He has stated often that even if he loses the election in 2020, he will not leave the White House. I have news for Donald but this is not the place to discuss it.
Commentary for November 12: "Things To Do When Bored:
15 things to do at Wal-Mart while your spouse/significant other is taking
his/her sweet time
1. Get 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when
they aren't looking.
2. Set all the alarm clocks in housewares to go off at 5 minute intervals.
3. Make a trail of apple juice on the floor to the rest rooms.
4. Walk up to an employee and tell him/her in an official tone, 'Code 3 in
housewares,'…and see what happens.
5. Go to the Service Desk and ask to put a bag of M&M's on lay away.
6. Move a 'CAUTION – WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.
7. Set up a tent in the camping department and tell other shoppers you'll
only invite them in if they bring pillows from the bedding department.
8. When a clerk asks if they can help you, begin to cry and ask 'Why can't
you people just leave me alone?
9. Look right into the security camera and use it as a mirror while you
pick your nose.
10. While handling guns in the hunting department ask the clerk if he
knows where the antidepressants are.
11. Dart around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the theme from
'Mission Impossible'.
12. In the auto department practice your Madonna look using different size
funnels.
13. Hide in the clothing rack and when people browse through say 'PICK ME!
PICK ME!!!!!!'
14. When an announcement comes over the loud speaker assume the fetal
position and scream 'NO! NO! It's those voices again'.
And last but not least,
15. Go into a fitting room and yell real loudly… 'Hey! We're out of toilet paper in here!'"
• Sham' investigation of Bidens will not dominate impeachment hearings: House Democrat
• Explainer: What to expect from the televised Trump impeachment hearings this week
• Longtime GOP Rep. Pete King won't seek reelection in New York
• The Impeachment Process Explained: What Happens to Trump Now
• The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
• Encyclopedia of American Loons
Sham' investigation of Bidens will not dominate impeachment hearings: House Democrat
by Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump will not be allowed to become a venue for "sham investigations" into Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son, the head of a congressional committee leading the probe said on Tuesday.
Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, also said he would not allow a debunked conspiracy theory that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. election to derail the hearings.
The inquiry into whether Trump misused U.S. foreign policy by pressing Ukraine to target a domestic political foe of his will enter a critical phase on Wednesday when lawmakers hold their first public, televised hearings and begin to question witnesses.
The witnesses this week will be U.S. diplomats who voiced concern over Trump's request of Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, on unspecified allegations of corruption.
Republicans are seeking to call as a witness the anonymous whistleblower who triggered the impeachment probe after a Trump phone call on July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
They also want to question Hunter Biden in the hearings but Schiff's comments suggested he would not allow the pair to appear. Schiff, as leader of the Democratic majority on the intelligence panel, controls which witnesses testify.
The inquiry and hearings "will not serve as venues for any Member to further the same sham investigations into the Bidens or into debunked conspiracies about 2016 U.S. election interference that President Trump pressed Ukraine to undertake for his personal political benefit," Schiff wrote in a memorandum to committee members.
The Democrat added that the panel would not "facilitate" any effort to threaten, intimidate or retaliate against the whistleblower, a U.S. intelligence official.
Trump's request to Zelenskiy in the July phone call to investigate Joe Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son is at the heart of the inquiry into whether the president abused his power for his own personal political gain.
The investigation, formally launched six weeks ago by Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, has shadowed Trump's presidency with the threat that he could be removed from office even as he seeks re-election next year.
He is the fourth U.S. president to face impeachment. None were removed from office, although Richard Nixon resigned as he faced almost certain impeachment in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and branded the investigation a hoax. In a tweet on Tuesday, he said that the Bidens should be called to testify in the impeachment probe. Biden has denied any wrongdoing related to Ukraine by him or his son.
The president also suggested on Tuesday that he would likely release the transcript of an April 12 conversation with Zelenskiy "before week's end" but gave no other details.
The transcript is from a call with Zelenskiy after the Ukrainian was elected president but before he took office. The White House did not release a summary of the call — known as a readout — when it took place seven months ago.
Congressional Republicans on the House panels conducting the impeachment inquiry, in a memo to party leaders reviewed by Reuters, said that weeks of closed-door testimony have not established that Trump committed an impeachable offense.
Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Writing by Patricia Zengerle and Paul Simao; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Alistair Bell
Explainer: What to expect from the televised Trump impeachment hearings this week
by Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Democrats launch the public phase of their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump this week, with open, televised hearings set for Wednesday and Friday in the House of Representatives.
Since launching their inquiry on Sept. 24 into allegations that Trump abused his office for personal political gain, lawmakers in the Democratic-run House of Representatives have been holding hearings with current and former officials behind closed doors. Now they are taking their case for impeachment to the American public.
Here is what to expect from the hearings:
WHY ARE DEMOCRATS HOLDING THESE HEARINGS?
Democrats want to build a strong public case that Trump abused his presidential powers by pressuring Ukraine to launch corruption investigations involving the son of Joe Biden, the former vice president who is vying to be the Democratic nominee to run against Trump in the 2020 presidential elections. Democrats want the broadest possible public support should they choose to formally impeach Trump, which could happen by December. Any trial would take place in the Senate, which is controlled by Trump's Republican Party.
Televised hearings will "be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves," House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff has said.
Democrats want to present evidence that Trump's officials delayed security aid to Kiev and, with the help of Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, used the lure of a possible White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to try to get Ukrainian compliance with Trump's demands.
Trump has denied doing anything wrong.
HOW DO DEMOCRATS PLAN TO MAKE THEIR CASE?
Democrats have invited three diplomats who have previously testified behind closed doors to recount what they knew or heard about Trump and Giuliani's dealings with Ukraine. These witnesses will be questioned by committee staff attorneys as well as lawmakers including Schiff and the senior Republican on the committee, Devin Nunes.
The Democrats will ask the diplomats to discuss their understanding of events before and after a July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy. According to a rough White House transcript of that call, the president pressed Zelenskiy to investigate an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory involving the 2016 election and a Democratic Party computer server, as well as a Ukrainian energy company in which Hunter Biden had been a board member.
Democrats are also expected to try to use the hearings to show Trump obstructed Congress – the basis of another possible article of impeachment – by detailing how he has blocked some witnesses from appearing and otherwise refused to cooperate with their probe. The White House has called the inquiry partisan and illegitimate as a basis for not cooperating.
Trump has complained bitterly on Twitter that the process does not allow him to be represented in the intelligence committee. "I get NO LAWYER & NO DUE PROCESS," he wrote in one tweet.
However, Trump and/or his lawyer would be allowed to attend later hearings before the House Judiciary Committee, which will debate what, if any, articles of impeachment should be filed and sent to the floor for a vote.
WHO ARE THE WITNESSES?
The top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, William Taylor, is considered a critical witness to the case against Trump. Taylor was upset to find out that security aid to Ukraine, as well as a White House meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy, had been delayed for political reasons.
"It's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," Taylor wrote earlier this year in a text message released by House investigators.
Another senior U.S. diplomat, George Kent, will appear with Taylor at Wednesday's hearing. Kent said in closed-door testimony that he had been alarmed by efforts by Giuliani and others to pressure Ukraine to accede to Trump's demands.
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will testify on Friday. She has said she was ousted from her post after she came under attack by Giuliani, whose associates "may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine."
The Democrats also could call additional witnesses.
Republicans have requested their own witnesses, including Biden's son and the whistleblower whose complaint triggered the impeachment inquiry into Trump. Democrats can veto Republicans' witnesses and Schiff suggested he may do so, saying he did not want the hearings to become an investigation of the Bidens or to facilitate retaliation against the whistleblower.
HOW DO REPUBLICANS PLAN TO RESPOND?
Republicans have painted the Democratic-led inquiry as a partisan exercise, with Nunes saying the Democrats were pursuing a "sham impeachment process" that has mistreated Trump. They will seek to provide a different narrative for the millions of Americans expected to watch the hearings, minimizing Trump's role in events and attempting to cast doubt on witness testimony.
Republicans said on Friday Representative Jim Jordan, one of Trump's most aggressive and tenacious defenders, would move to the intelligence committee for the public hearings phase of the inquiry.
Republicans are already attacking the Democratic witnesses, saying that Yovanovitch's recall as ambassador was a side issue, and that other witnesses' knowledge of key events was largely third-hand.
"He (William Taylor) is admitting that he had no first-hand or second-hand knowledge of any of the developments," one Republican party official told Reuters. "Yet Democrats are presenting him as their star witness for this whole endeavor to impeach the president."
Republicans can also be expected to argue that Ukrainian officials did not feel pressured because they did not even know the $391 million in security aid had been held up at the time Trump asked them last July for a "favor." They have also emphasized that the Ukrainians never announced the investigations Trump wanted, and that Zelenskiy said he did not feel "pushed" by Trump.
Some Republicans may also follow the lead of Republican Representative Michael Turner, a member of the intelligence committee who said in September that Trump's telephone conversation with Zelenskiy was "not OK," but impeachment would be an "assault" on the electorate.
Reporting by Susan Cornwell; additional reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan, and Mark Hosenball; editing by Ross Colvin, Bill Berkrot and Tom Brown
Longtime GOP Rep. Pete King won't seek reelection in New York
by Kyle Balluck
Longtime Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said Monday that he will not seek reelection, becoming the latest in a long line of GOP lawmakers to announce their retirement before the 2020 elections.
King said in a statement on Facebook that "after 28 years of spending 4 days a week in Washington, D.C., it is time to end the weekly commute and be home in Seaford."
This was not an easy decision. But there is a season for everything and Rosemary and I decided that, especially since we are both in good health, it is time to have the flexibility to spend more time with our children and grandchildren," King said.
"My daughter's recent move to North Carolina certainly accelerated my thinking," he added. His daughter, former Hempstead Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney, resigned from office earlier this year and was replaced by another Republican in last week's election.
King, 75, serves on the House Homeland Security and Financial Services committees. He was chairman of the Homeland Security Committee from 2005 to 2006 and again from 2011 to 2012
A wave of House GOP retirements is creating headaches for party leaders and suggesting Republicans see little chance of winning back the chamber in 2020 after losing it last year.
So far, almost two dozen Republicans have announced this cycle that they are retiring from the lower chamber, resigning or running for other offices.
A handful of those departing lawmakers would have faced tough reelections in competitive districts, but a vast majority occupy safely conservative seats.
King, currently in his 14th term, endorsed President Trump in 2016, the same year the congressman was reelected by a margin of more than 24 percentage points over his Democratic challenger.
But in 2018, when Democrats across the country flipped GOP seats, King faced a stronger challenge from his Democratic opponent Liuba Grechen Shirley. Shirley, who lost by approximately 6 percentage points to the longtime incumbent, said in a statement on Monday that she is "seriously considering" another run for Congress.
Before King's retirement, the Cook Political Report had rated New York's 2nd Congressional District as "lean Republican" in the 2020 election. Trump won King's district by 9 points in 2016 while President Obama won it by more than four points in 2012.
In February, King was among the GOP lawmakers on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's (DCCC) "retirements to watch list" of potential targets ahead of the 2020 election cycle.
"Republicans know their toxic health care repeal agenda and wholesale embrace of President Trump's recklessness will guarantee they remain in the minority for years to come. Congressman Peter King's retirement, from a heavily suburban Long Island district, underlines just how serious Republicans' problems are in swing districts across this country," Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), the chairwoman of the DCCC, said in a statement on Monday.
"New York's 2nd Congressional District has been a pickup target of ours from day one of this cycle, and we will compete to win it in 2020," she added.
Democrat Jackie Gordon, who was challenging King in New York's second district, thanked the congressman in a tweet for his years of service, adding that she sees a "desperate need" for new leadership that will do more for constituents.
The House Republicans' campaign arm, meanwhile, called King a "political institution" in a tweet. The National Republican Congressional Committee added that his seat will remain in the GOP's hands "thanks in no small part to the insane socialist agenda of Democrats in both Washington and Albany."
The Impeachment Process Explained: What Happens to Trump Now?
After President Trump's Ukraine scandal drove a new wave of Democrats toward impeachment, on September 24 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally announced that the House would launch a formal impeachment inquiry. It was obviously a huge step, but there's still much confusion about what exactly presidential impeachment means, how the process works, and what consequences Trump is likely to face. Since it's only happened twice in U.S. history (to Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, with Richard Nixon avoiding a near-certain impeachment by resigning), it's not the sort of thing you get a lot of detail on in high-school American history classes. Here's what you need to know.
What Is Impeachment?
Impeachment is to official misconduct what an indictment is to crime: a statement of charges leading to a trial. The procedure for congressional impeachment of Executive branch officials (including but not limited to the president) was spelled out in some detail in the U.S. Constitution, as the official House of Representatives history observes:
Impeachment comes from British constitutional history. The process evolved from the 14th century as a way for parliament to hold the king's ministers accountable for their public actions. Impeachment, as Alexander Hamilton of New York explained in Federalist 65, varies from civil or criminal courts in that it strictly involves the "misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust." Individual state constitutions had provided for impeachment for "maladministration" or "corruption" before the U.S. Constitution was written. And the founders, fearing the potential for abuse of executive power, considered impeachment so important that they made it part of the Constitution even before they defined the contours of the presidency.
Impeachment is not, to be clear, the removal of corrupt presidents or other officials, but simply the adoption of charges by the House, triggering a trial in the Senate. So Johnson and Clinton were impeached, as the House passed articles of impeachment against them; though they were subsequently acquitted by the Senate, the term still applies. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate to consummate an impeachment with removal from office, but the document is otherwise silent about procedures.
What Are Grounds for Impeaching a President?
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution specifically mentions "treason" and "bribery" as grounds for impeachment, but it also stipulates that "other High Crimes and Misdemeanors" are sufficient. It's important to understand that when the Constitution was adopted, the term "misdemeanors" had not assumed its later meaning as a type of criminal offense. According to the most common interpretation of this language, impeachment does not require the allegation of a crime, but simply some grave act or pattern of misconduct deemed by Congress as necessitating this radical remedy.
Under House rules and long-standing practice, the House lays out the grounds for impeachment, then holds a simple majority vote. If the articles of impeachment are approved, they're then presented to the Senate for further action.
In 1868, the House approved 11 articles of impeachment against President Johnson, mostly revolving around his defiance of the (quite possibly unconstitutional) Tenure of Office Act, which restricted the president's power to dismiss Cabinet members (the underlying "offense" was clearly Johnson's efforts to obstruct congressional Reconstruction of the former Confederate States).
In 1998, the House approved just two articles of impeachment against Clinton: one alleged that he committed perjury in grand jury testimony when questioned about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, and the second alleged obstruction of justice to hide evidence in that case. It was a highly legalistic argument, which helped buttress the false public impression that without "crimes" there can be no impeachment.
How Does Impeachment Begin?
This has been perhaps the most confusing aspect of the current debate over impeaching Trump. In past presidential impeachments, the House has formally voted to authorize the Judiciary Committee to initiate impeachment proceedings. But this step has been skipped on occasion in the impeachment of judges, and it's entirely the product of custom and internal House rules (themselves interpreted and controlled by the House majority at a given time).
After the Mueller Report was released and the special counsel himself had finally testified before Congress, House Democrats were deeply divided on whether to "initiate" impeachment proceedings, with Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler voicing reluctance to go in that direction. Then, in what was either a clever or devious maneuver, depending on your point of view, Nadler let it be known in early August that his committee was already engaged in an impeachment "inquiry," as CNN explained at the time:
The House Judiciary Committee is now engaged in a full-blown investigation and legal fight with the goal of deciding whether to recommend articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump by the end of the year, according to Democratic officials involved in the effort …
As additional House Democrats continue to call for the House Judiciary Committee to launch an impeachment inquiry — which more than half the caucus now supports — Democratic sources say the issue is essentially moot since what the panel is doing is basically that: investigating whether Trump should be impeached.
As I noted at the time, "According to this interpretation of the situation, there's no need to 'launch' anything, or to put House Democrats on the spot with some vote to begin 'proceedings' that are already underway." House Republicans might (and did) complain that a vital step had been left out, but there wasn't much they could do about it.
But what had looked like a successful effort to postpone any House vote until actual articles of impeachment were considered unraveled under the pressure of Trump's scofflaw behavior – specifically, the Ukraine scandal and rising House Democratic sentiment favoring a more aggressive posture. While Pelosi's announcement of a formal impeachment inquiry implicitly endorsed Nadler's claim that ongoing House investigations are an impeachment probe, she subsequently made it clear the House could return to its old procedures and formally authorize such proceedings. And that's what they ultimately decided to do during the week of October 28, in part to rebut Republican claims that the inquiry was "illegal," and partly to lay out procedures for the six House committees currently investigating the president's conduct.
There's been further confusion about the scope of the impeachment inquiry. During her September 26 press conference (the first she held after announcing the inquiry), Pelosi suggested a phased operation, as I explained:
… Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clearer than before that the impeachment inquiry she announced yesterday would — for now, at least — focus exclusively on the president's dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Indeed, she indicated that the House Intelligence Committee would have the primary responsibility for uncovering the facts that might or might not justify actual articles of impeachment (she was adamant that no decision had been made on the ultimate outcome of the "inquiry").
So for the time being, Jerrold Nadler's Judiciary Committee (normally the focal point of impeachment proceedings) will be on hold, except for its ongoing investigations of the president and his administration.
That could change later, if, as appears very likely, House Democrats do decide to pursue articles of impeachment.
Pelosi did hold open the possibility that previous examples of the president's "lawlessness" could be the subject of impeachment articles if the House went in that direction, as many of those who supported impeachment before the Ukraine scandal broke into public view are insisting upon. But she seemed determined to convey a belief that the public would see Trump's behavior in the Ukraine incident as reflecting a "different level of lawlessness," just as she did in "crossing the Rubicon" from opposition to impeachment proceedings to support for them.
There are indications that Pelosi has asked other committees that have been investigating Trump or his administration to put together materials supporting articles of impeachment that could be considered by the Judiciary Committee once the Ukraine investigation is complete.
How Long Do Impeachment Hearings Last?
Some Democrats resisting impeachment fear that it's too late, or too deeply into the 2020 presidential election cycle, to begin impeachment hearings. Some point to the terrible performance of House Republicans in the 1998 midterms, which were overshadowed by impeachment talk (Clinton's impeachment was opposed by a majority of Americans, much as polls suggest the public opposes the impeachment of Trump today).
Another consequence of the hazy rules governing the steps leading up to impeachment is that there's no clear expectation about the duration or depth of impeachment hearings. As Vox's Andrew Prokop has pointed out, the two most recent precedents point in very different directions:
The Nixon inquiry was an intensive, lengthy investigative effort that proceeded alongside the special prosecutor's continuing grand jury investigation into the Watergate break-in and cover-up and a Senate select committee inquiry into the matter. The House Judiciary Committee opened it in October 1973 (after the Saturday Night Massacre), the House voted to back it in February 1974, and it lasted until July 1974. Major new revelations about the scandal kept breaking throughout that period, and eventually, the committee got to review secret information from the grand jury probe.
The Clinton inquiry, meanwhile, was essentially just a decision about whether to impeach the president based on the findings of independent counsel Ken Starr's report (which alleged Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice to try to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky). That impeachment inquiry was officially opened in the Judiciary Committee after votes by the committee and then the whole House in October 1998. The committee held a few weeks of hearings and heard witness testimony (including from Starr), but it wasn't really a new investigation, and it was over by mid-December.
It appears House Democrats are trying to balance the need for relatively simple and expeditious proceedings with concerns that they might appear to be "rushing to judgment.
On the other hand, you could see the pace dictated by public opinion, with Pelosi in particular looking for evidence that the hearings were softening independent and even Republican opposition to impeachment. Certainly public opinion has been moving slowly but steadily in the pro-impeachment direction.
How Does the House Vote on Impeachment Itself?
Under all precedents, the Judiciary Committee will debate and vote upon each proposed article of impeachment, and if any are approved (and of course there would be no committee vote unless success was assured), they are reported to the full House for debate and a conclusive vote for impeachment.
Typically, the party pushing impeachment will favor a tight set of resolutions that revolve around a clear pattern of malfeasance, and that might even attract members of the president's party (or at least some of his supporters).
In July of 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved three of five proposed articles impeaching Nixon. The first to draw a vote, alleging presidential obstruction of justice, attracted six of the committee's 17 Republicans. Though two other articles were subsequently reported, one was sufficient for impeachment and a Senate trial, so the committee vote led directly to Nixon's resignation before the House could formally impeach him.
In Clinton's case, the Judiciary Committee approved four articles of impeachment, with committee Democrats voting en bloc against all of them. Enough Republicans defected on the House floor to defeat two of these articles, and only five Democrats voted for the crucial article impeaching Clinton for lying under oath to a federal grand jury about his relationship to Lewinsky.
If a President Is Impeached, Does the Senate Have to Hold a Trial?
Most experts believe the provisions made for an impeachment trial in both the Constitution and in Senate rules mean some sort of proceedings are obligatory. But then we are talking about Mitch McConnell being in charge, and even if you think he is required to hold a trial, who is going to enforce that requirement? The courts are likely to stay away from a conflict as a "political question."
But McConnell has publicly talked about holding impeachment trials as though it's not a real question, most recently describing it as obligatory.
You'd also have to figure Republicans will want some deliberations, however superficial, so they can claim Trump has been exonerated.
The Constitution itself doesn't say much about Senate impeachment trials of a president, other than requiring a two-thirds vote for removal from office, and stipulating that the Chief Justice of the United States will preside over the trial (presumably to remove the conflict of interest presented if the default presiding officer of the Senate, the vice president, oversaw a trial that could result in elevation to the presidency).
There are not, however, constitutional or Senate provisions requiring a trial of any particular length or depth. Here is my explanation of the relevant provisions governing impeachment trials for presidents:
Regardless of how it begins or ends, the trial itself is governed by standing Senate rules, last modified in 1986. They are largely based on precedents set in the Andrew Johnson trial. The basic idea is that articles of impeachment are presented to the Senate by House impeachment managers, and are then disputed by counsel for the president, with senators observing but not becoming directly involved (other than by written questions submitted to one or both of the parties). Witnesses are called and cross-examined according to protocols and timelines adopted by the Senate just before the trial begins on a majority vote.
According to precedent, senators act like jurors, making no public statements on the proceeding until after their votes are cast (in the Clinton case, senators spoke before the vote in a closed-door session, with their remarks published in the Congressional Record after the vote). But there is no actual "gag order" on Senators prior to the trial itself, so when you hear some of them refusing to comment on the House impeachment inquiry or the underlying issues "because I may be a juror," that's not really true, though it does serve as a convenient excuse to dodge tricky questions.
The length of an impeachment trial is another highly variable issue. The Johnson impeachment trial in 1868 lasted from March 5 until May 16, when the Senate's first crucial "test vote" on a catch-all article of impeachment failed by one vote. Ten days later the Senate voted predictably to acquit on two other articles, and subsequently voted for general acquittal and adjournment.
Clinton's impeachment trial was more hurried: It began on January 7, 1999, when presiding officer Chief Justice William Rehnquist was sworn in, and ended on February 12, with Clinton's easy acquittal on both articles (45 senators, all Republicans, voted for his guilt on the perjury article, with ten Republicans defecting; and 50 senators vote for the obstruction article, with five Republicans defecting).
Regardless of what senators initially contemplate, there is a way under the Senate rules to expedite the trial via a "motion to dismiss" the charges against the president, which can be passed by a simple majority. Senate Democrats tried this two weeks into the Clinton impeachment trial, but it failed on a party-line vote (Republicans were in the majority). It's possible McConnell could revive this tactic in order to curtail the trial and express partisan contempt for the whole show.
What Are the Odds the Senate Would Vote to Convict Trump and Remove Him From Office?
As indicated above, the odds of Trump being removed via impeachment current range from "slim" to "none." It would take only 34 of 54 Senate Republicans to acquit Trump, and the idea that 20 senators from a party dominated by this president like a Bronze Age warlord would defy the MAGA base and try to defenestrate him on the brink of an epochal presidential election is not terribly credible. And that's true no matter what the House inquiry uncovers, or what journalists dig up, or what the president himself admits in one of his moments when his belief in his own invincibility overcomes all good judgment ("I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn't lose any voters," he famously boasted). Perhaps there is a theoretical set of events that could rapidly erode Trump's partisan invincibility the way Watergate gradually eroded Nixon's, and comments from the occasional Senate renegade like Mitt Romney will keep that hope alive. But it's still a very long shot.
50 of 53 Republican senators have signed onto Lindsey Graham's resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry, with perpetual swing senators Collins (who is also in a tough reelection cycle) and Murkowski joining Romney as a hold-out. That's probably the best indication of how far we are from 20 Republican senators agreeing to toss Trump over the side.
So How Is This All Likely to End?
Assuming Trump is impeached and then acquitted, this saga will conclude with the 2020 presidential election, and with Trump's ejection from office or his triumphal reelection. It's possible, of course, that whether or not the current impeachment drive goes anywhere, a second-term Trump could get himself impeached (indeed, some Democratic opponents of impeaching Trump now think this option should be saved for later, when his conduct would undoubtedly become far worse). But most likely his impeachment, or even impeachment hearings, will reinforce the sense that the 2020 election is a high-stakes referendum on the sprawling corruption, norm-breaking, and racist and sexist attitudes of the 45th president.
It's the possible impact of impeachment on Trump's reelection that has caused so many arguments among Democrats (mostly in Washington, since rank-and-file Democrats have been trending pro-impeachment for some time). Best we can tell from polls, the public is not making any sort of fine distinctions between "initiating impeachment proceedings" or impeaching Trump or removing him from office. Once Democrats head decisively down that road they may as well follow it until its logical end. Some sincerely believe impeachment will hurt Trump in 2020 by focusing public attention on his misconduct and conveying a clear sense of Democratic purpose in holding him and his corrupt hirelings accountable (or conversely, that failing to impeach Trump will depress Democratic "base" enthusiasm). Others (most clearly presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren) argue that it's a constitutional or moral duty even if it helps produce the horror of a second Trump term.
Any way you look at it, the implications of what House Democrats now decide to do could be momentous yet hard to adjudge until the ultimate deal goes down.
Date: Saturday, November 16, 1996
Concluded: 10:25 AM CST
RTC: Hello, Gregory. Are you getting ready to assault the turkey?
GD: Oh, no doubt. One of the few childhood practices remaining. I gave up Christmas some time ago. I haven't sent a card out in years and last year, I got two. Times change, don't they?
RTC: They do indeed. Christmas used to be a sort of magic time for children but now all it's become is a chance to sell junk to frantic people.
GD: I've been working up the ZIPPER material and I must say, what surprises me is the extent of the plot. Half of Washington was in on it.
RTC: Actually, they weren't. A handful of our top people, Hoover and one or two of his very close aides, a military representative here and there.
GD: The Russian report…do you have this? I can't read Russian but I have friends who do.
RTC: No, I do not.
GD: This Driscoll fellow. Do you know him?
RTC: I did. He's dead now. Was a specialist on the Warsaw Pact people and since I am a specialist on Russia and Russian intelligence, we met on several occasions. That's why I got a copy of the report. Driscoll knew nothing about ZIPPER or at least my part in it.
GD: This might be a hard sell. I have tremendous competition from the nut fringe. They will rise up and smite me hip and thigh because I haven't included their pet theories.
RTC: But that's to be expected. We have a good in with them. At this point, there is little danger of embarrassing facts getting out but we kept our hand in. The Farrell woman is one of ours and she is a strong influence over the nutties.
GD: To accept this might be a problem.
RTC: Gregory, if you knew a half of what was actually planned, you would see that the ZIPPER business was nothing, just nothing. All right, for example, there are some interesting matters for you. I just happen to be in an expansive mood today so I can run a few of the more wild ones past you. There was the Army plan to start bubonic plague in Soviet military units in the east zone of Germany to prevent an invasion of the west. We had a German military specialist working for us on that, plus, of course, many USAF people down in San Antonio. Never went anywhere. Then…by the way, do you know why Truman really sacked MacArthur?
GD: He was defying Truman as I recall.
RTC: Yes but it was his intention to infect the Chinese and North Korean armies with the plague as well. I told you MacArthur had set the Kempeitai Doctor Ishi up in Tokyo in a chemical and medical lab, didn't I?
GD: Yes, you did.
RTC: Well, when the war in Korea broke out and we were in serious retreat, MacArthur wanted to nuke them. We didn't have a hell of a lot of such weapons but he was serious. Truman said no, so Mac decided to, as he said, 'radically reduce their effective troop levels.' For this, read the plague. I don't know how this got back to Truman but a project like that is really hard to conceal and Mac took too long messing over the logistics of it. When Harry found out about this, he blew his top and sacked MacArthur on the spot. Mac was crazy, of course, but was such an idol here that Truman got reamed on this but it really had to be done. We hanged German and Japanese leaders after the war for far less, believe me. And then there was the Army plan to fake attacks on American soil, blame Castro and then attack him. On that project, which included blowing up a commercial aircraft with Americans on board and setting off bombs in major cities, Eisenhower was in full support. Kennedy found out about it by accident and pulled the plug. That wasn't one of ours, by the way, and neither were the plague attacks. We were working on plans to destroy the Asian rice crop but that one was quietly put into the closet when too many people found out about it and our rice industry howled that it could easily spread over here and ruin their business. Not that they cared about the Chinese and others, just their own profits. This AIDS business was a legitimate project that got out of control but it was not planned at all. Of course, there were plans to instigate a war between the Soviet Union and China, but it proved to be too complicated and was dropped. One of our people read Malthus and went to Dulles with a plan to thin out the world's population, after inoculating our citizens, or most of the non-colored ones. That is still in the active file somewhere. If you read of a national immunization day coming up, that will be a token sign.
GD: If the victims ever get wind of this, they might preempt you and start their own plagues and loose their own virus attackers. Müller told me that such actions were not only criminal and insane but would be bound for a certainty to come back on those who started it.
RTC: That's the main reason why they never got started. Pragmatic, not moral.
GD: That sums it all up, doesn't it?
RTC: In theory, Gregory, getting rid of the tired and huddled masses would not be impractical in the long view.
GD: In theory not, but I wouldn't be happy with the practice.
RTC: We would lay the blame on some other enemy and let them worry about defending themselves.
GD: It's one thing for your people to off the head of the UN or blow up an inconvenient head of state or two but starting plagues is nothing less than psychotic mass murder and I, for one, can't think of any kind of an excuse for it, pragmatic or not.
RTC: You can always make such an argument, Gregory, and it is not unbecoming for you to do this but when you have been where I have been, these objections fade away very quickly. Well, enough science fiction for today. I am indeed looking forward to your visit and so is Bill.
GD: Question? Why is Kimmel sitting in?
RTC: He has his own agenda. In spite of all the assistance you have given him and his family, he still despises you. You see, Tom saw that Bill and I were doing well in the writing business and we had, and have, a certain reputation in the professions. He will probably retire and wants to find a safe berth when he does. He sees you as a potential threat and you do not treat him with the unalloyed respect that people like Tom demand as their birthright.
GD: I don't consider myself to be any kind of a threat to him.
RTC: You exist, Gregory, and he views you as a loose cannon, his very words to Bill, and for people like Tom, a loose cannon can't be controlled. I don't care what positive things you've done for him and his family. In the final cut, you are a potential intellectual threat to him so he dislikes you. And be careful at lunch not to let fly with one of your terrible remarks. I understand them and most often agree with them, but Tom considers himself to be an establishment type and people like that don't like people like you.
GD: My grandfather used to say that the reason some people could stand up without a spine is because their skin is so thick.
RTC:(Laughter) Ah, there you go again, Gregory. I would wager you'd say that right to Tom's face, wouldn't you?
GD: If I felt it was necessary.
RTC: He'd do the same thing, Gregory, but to your back, so at the table, watch yourself. Bill is neutral, but Tom is not a friend and keep that in mind all the time.
GD: Speaking of back-stabbing, have you seen my good friend Wolfe lately?
RTC: No, I haven't been over to the Archives lately so I have been spared his most unwelcome attentions. Now we can add Critchfield to your collection of loyal friends. Jim wants back that letter he sent you. The one you read to me. He thinks it might be misunderstood and wants me to try to get it out of you just to look at and then give it back to him. I told him I would try but of course that's not my plan. If you would follow my advice, hide it in a safe place. It would bother me if you went out of town, say to come back here in December, and remember Kimmel knows the dates of your trip, and some burglar broke in and ran off with it and any other inconvenient and accusatory paperwork you might have lying around. Just a cautionary piece of advice from a friend.
GD: I appreciate it. I could leave a little surprise in a box marked 'secret CIA documents,' couldn't I?
RTC: Now, now, Gregory, not on the phone.
GD: I'll bet someone would make quite a report.
RTC: Probably hear it five miles away. Do let's change the subject. How is the Müller book selling?
GD: Actually, I understand quite well. After it's been out for about two years, I expect the usual run of paid rodents to start in squealing their objections to it. It will take that long for the rays of brilliant light to penetrate the Stygian gloom that packs their collective brain cases. I do hope they get nice checks for their pains. It beats public assistance or begging in railroad stations. Which, I suspect, is how most of these twits make their living.
RTC: I think most of them work in obscure community colleges in the wilds of Massachusetts or Ohio.
GD: Yes, and I'm told they eat once a day. A piece of salt pork on a long string which can be used over and over. I've heard about the dog returning to his own vomit but Robert, what happens when they are the vomit?
RTC: Now, now, and so close to Sunday and Thanksgiving. And what are you going to give thanks for, Gregory?
GD: The fact that almost all of my nasty relatives have passed away, Robert. It will be a matter of some satisfaction to me to have survived them all. When I feel my time is coming, I can travel around the country and urinate on their graves. At any rate, tenderly, tenderly Jesus is calling and my dog is making it very clear that she wants to go out and relieve herself on the neighbor's flower beds, so let me beg off. And give my best to Emily, won't you? You know, if I ever meet her face to face, I would be the soul of civility to her.
RTC: I would certainly hope so.
(Concluded at 10:25 AM CST)
David E. Smith
The Illinois Family Institute, a state affiliate of the American Family Association, is, not surprisingly, an anti-marriage-equality organization and its executive director, David E. Smith, a fundamentalist bigot (Smith succeeded Peter LaBarbera in the position; Laurie Higgins is their director of school advocacy). The IFI is also a vociferous opponent of abortion, the separation of church and state, "activist judges", gambling and drugs, and was correctly designated a hate group by the SPLC.
In spring 2013, when a law legalizing same-sex marriage was postponed by the Illinois legislature, Smith was ready to explain why: "The Body of Christ here in Illinois has risen up and has really made a noise and made a really concerted effort to make sure that our state lawmakers know without a doubt that we object to the idea of them redefining marriage," Smith said: "They do not have the moral authority to redefine marriage as God created it." This was not the reason for postponement. Moreover, neither Smith nor his fellows at the Illionis Family Institute have the power to raise zombie Jesus, even though they probably wouldn't be prevented from doing so by alignment restrictions.
Later Smith sent out a fundraising appeal where he warned that if activists failed to stop marriage equality legislation in Illinois, "America will collapse" like Sodom and Gomorrah, and compared his fight against the "evil agenda" of gay rights to that of American soldiers in WW2: "We should be inspired to defend marriage with the same courage, conviction, tenacity, and sacrifice that the greatest generation fought to defend American principles and to honor their fallen. If we don't stop the enemy from achieving his goal of destroying the family, there won't be any monuments to visit." Yes, it's always the end of everything; only apostates would ask for evidence or reasons.
In 2012, IFI called for parents to remove their children from classrooms led by teachers who support LGBT-related instruction; in particular, in their document "Challenge Teachers, Not Books" they encouraged parents to "object to teachers rather than texts", and offered suggestions for parents who are "fed up with the subtle and not so subtle messages that activist teachers of a liberal bent work into their classroom teaching through their classroom comments, curricular materials … and even their desks and classroom displays." The IFI has also for a long time advocated teaching creationism in public schools, ostensibly as a way to present "both sides of an argument" (they aren't really interested in both sides, even if there were two sides, which there aren't), and have made recommendations to Illinois educators to keep explicit references to evolution out of public school classrooms in Illinois.
Diagnosis: Fundie loons, and though they have probably lost the war people like Smith are still trying their best to cause as much harm as possible. A real, if relatively minor, threat to civilization.
Jeffrey Schone
Martin Luther College (MLC) is a religious institution (the college of ministry for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in New Ulm, Minnesota, that pretends to offer something resembling "education". It does not, of course – not even remotely. Instead, they profess creationism, teaches the Genesis story as a factual, historical account, and do their best to prevent their students from being exposed to pollution from reality, truth, science, evidence or similar tricks of Satan. In 2013, for instance, when a local group planned to put on the play "Inherit the Wind" MLC refused to allow them to use any of their facilities for practice, and also pressured the actors to drop out, because evolution is contrary to their teachings. Jeff Schone, vice president of student life at the MLC, made it absolutely clear to its students, WELS members and the public that creationism is the only option. He did admit that he recognized the subtext of the play (or something), but nevertheless said it was unfairly critical of creationism and that most people would only see the criticism. "We felt it was not compatible with what [the school] teaches the Bible says about the universe and the world," said Schone. "People employing our students need confidence about their views." In other words, that they prevent their students from being exposed to science, truth and accountability in research, is a selling point for the MLC.
Diagnosis: Deranged Taliban fundie. It may, however, scare us even more that there is a market for the people "educated" at this camp.
Jeff Schoep
The National Socialist Movement (NSM) is a Detroit-based neo-Nazi organization, and a part of the Nationalist Front. NSM refers to itself as a "white civil rights organization" but objects to being referred to as "racist" and "Neo-Nazi" in part because such descriptions of their goals are unflattering. The descriptionsare not what is wrong here – the group did for instance use the swastika as logo until 2016, and has stated that "When you put on your NSM uniform, you are not just representing the NSM but all National Socialists that fought and died for our Race and our Cause! You are showing the Jews and the rest of the world that our Führer is not forgotten and that his life's struggle was not in vain!". The aforementioned goals include a US inhabited only by those of "pure White blood" (Jewish people and homosexuals need not apply), and they demand that "all non-Whites currently residing in America be required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force" – according to their website "The Constitution was written by white men alone. Therefore, it was intended for whites alone." Supporters include Randy Gray and Christian Identity pastor James Wickstrom.
Jeff Schoep was chairman of the group from 1994 to 2019. It was hence under Schoep's tenure that the NSM for instance led the demonstration that sparked the 2005 Toledo riot and the rally that turned into the 2016 Sacramento riot – ostensibly "non-violent" NSM has a history of seeking out violence that distinguishes them from other expressedly non-violent groups. In November 2016, following the election of Donald Trump, the organization changed its logo from the swastika to an Odal rune, apparently eyeing an opportunity to enter mainstream politics. Apparently Schoep worked hard to unite "pro-white organizations", though he also sought to distance his group from the KKK: "We're both pro-white, but our politics are very different," said Schoep, apparently because whereas the NSM is political, the Klan promotes religion. Anti-semitism is of course at the core of NSM's conspiracy theories, and according to Schoep "illegal immigration from Latin America is driven by an international Jewish conspiracy whose leaders are plotting "the destruction of all races through the evils of race mixing."
In 2019, Schoep was replaced as director and president of the NSM by James Hart Stern, a black activist vowing to eradicate the group. Apparently Schoep was responsible for the takeover because he wanted to leave the group due to the legal issues he was embroiled in (nothing suggests that Schoep has become noticeably less lunatic about the issues that constitute the core of NSM's mission). Matthew Heimbach used to be the group's community outreach director.
Diagnosis: Yeah, well …


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{{incomplete|An extent of explanations of some of the name references in panel 5 would help}}
This comic isn't a static image - even the title text changes depending on which part of the image you're hovering over. It presented a competition for students to see who could come closest to break a {{w|Skein (hash function)|Skein hash}} but also an aid appeal for the Wikimedia Foundation.
Comic #1193 (April 1, 2013)
Title text: Mouse over words and things to see where they come from.
This comic isn't a static image - even the title text changes depending on which part of the image you're hovering over. It presented a competition for students to see who could come closest to break a Skein hash but also an aid appeal for the Wikimedia Foundation.
There are quite a few references in the comic to Baidu. Baidu is a large Chinese Internet services company that employs thousands, whose shares are publicly traded on world stock exchanges. It's the predominant Internet search provider of China, and is sometimes called the "Google of China". It offers parallels for the Chinese market of many of the services that Google provides and offers its own encyclopedic wiki with a restricted edit policy to serve as a replacement for Wikipedia. Wikipedia reports that Baidu's search engine handled 56% of Chinese internet search queries in Q4 2010. and that in October 2012, Baidu ranked 5th overall in the Alexa Internet rankings. Given that explanation for the Baidu references in #1193 is still solicited for explainxkcd, Baidu apparently is not well known yet among savvy XKCD readers. Baidu Search results reputedly follow the censorship dictates of the Chinese authorities, causing it to return censored responses to searches for politically sensitive terms like "Tianamen Square massacre" or "Falun Gong" when executed by web browsers that are connected via Chinese ISPs. When you execute such searches via Baidu in the US, the top links returned for these topics do seem to reflect Chinese government sensibilities although the uncensored English language Wikipedia articles for these topics are listed high in the query results. Baidu's reputation for censorship provides background for Megan's reply "but nothing about Tianamen Square" in response to the "Come and find your future at Baidu" employment enticement of panel one and also provides the background to understand the "It takes great minds to stifle other great minds" slogan of the second panel.
1 Explanation
1.1 Hashing Competition
1.2 First Panel
1.3 Second Panel
1.4 Third Panel
1.5 Fourth Panel
1.6 Fifth Panel
1.7 Sixth Panel
1.8 Seventh Panel
2 Title Text
The blank regions in the above image are dynamically generated from various sources.
The university that is being recruited changes depending on which university is winning the hash finding competition in the fifth panel.
The company doing the recruiting is randomly selected from a pool of companies. It was formerly the first NASDAQ-100 company mentioned on a varying Wikipedia page.
The text in the second panel may vary: See this section.
The text in the third panel may vary: See this section.
The text in the fourth panel may vary: See this section.
The text in the fifth panel changes, depending on which university is currently in third place in a hash finding competition. Clicking on the panel takes you to a webpage where people can enter their school's domain name and hash data, and ranks schools on how close their students can come to matching a Skein 1024 1024 hash value.
The text in the top half of the sixth panel may vary. See this section. The second half of the panel is always the same.
The last panel varies with the amount donated to the Wikimedia Foundation via this link. For past images, see this section.
Hashing Competition
For the two days until comic 1194 appeared, a competition was underway to see who could come closest to breaking a Skein hash. The first text line of the first panel contains a link to http://almamater.xkcd.com. This page contained the text:
Currently looking for Skein 1024 1024 input matching
5b4da95f5fa08280fc9879df44f418c8f9f12ba424b7757de02bbdfbae0d4c4fdf9317c80cc5fe04c6429073466cf29706b8c25999ddd2f6540d4475cc977b87f4757be023f19b8f4035d7722886b78869826de916a79cf9c94cc79cd4347d24b567aa3e2390a573a373a48a5e676640c79cc70197e1c5e7f902fb53ca1858b6
On this page, users were invited to enter "Your school's domain name" — presumably intended to be their college alma mater. (At least in the beginning, only a few top-level domains were accepted.) If the user entered an acceptable domain (by xkcd's rules, which apparently changed during the 48 hours of the competition), he could then enter data values one at a time. For each data value entered, xkcd returned a hash value and the number of bits by which it differed from the target value. The object was to achieve the lowest possible number of differing bits, ideally zero.
A ranking page showed the lowest value achieved for each domain name entered, but not the data that achieved it. The first name on the list was substituted in various panels, and the third-place school showed in panel five. No data values were reported by xkcd, but various results were posted by users of the xkcd forums and on other websites, leading to copycat submissions, so that occasionally large numbers of institutions would show the same moderately low value.
After the end of the contest, the data submission page vanished, replaced by the final list of rankings, which shows that Carnegie Mellon University achieved the best score with 384 bits incorrect out of 1024. The rankings only show a few hundred out of the several thousand domains submitted—presumably Randall chose to chop the copycat submissions off the end of the list, retaining only honestly obtained results.
First Panel
In some cases, Megan's reply seems to correspond to the company.
Hey, [university] students!
Have you applied to [company] yet?
Megan: The recruiter hasn't emailed me back in over three minutes.
Megan: The recruiter hasn't emailed me back in over an hour!
Have you thought of a career at [company]?
Megan: I'm not that good at math.
Megan: What do they even do?
Megan: I don't like monopolies.
Megan: Only in my darkest moments.
Be part of the Apple experience!
Megan: I'm not really a fan of turtlenecks.
Come work at Microsoft!
Megan: I only came to this tech talk for the xbox giveaway.
Y U No Work Yahoo?
Megan: I like working from home!
Become a partner at Starbucks!
Megan: But green's not my colour.
Come work in the Amazon!
Megan: I don't have to actually move to South America, do I?
Megan: Not after that presentation.
Thought about working for Intel?
Megan: I'm not that great at division.
Dude, you should work at Dell!
Megan: That catchphrase is so old.
Ahoy, carnegie melonites!
Have you looked for a job at Kraft Foods?
Megan: I'm allergic to sugar
How about working for Whole Foods?
Megan: Could I afford the food if I did?
Come work at EBay!
Megan: Maybe if they made a good bid.
Come work for Activision... er... Blizzard... er...
Megan: Activision Blizzard?
Hey, [university] students! | Ahoy. Carnegie Melonites!
Come find your future at Baidu!
Megan: But nothing about Tiananmen Square.
Second Panel
The text in the second panel is based on the company in the first panel:
When the Singularity happens, it will happen here.
Ponytail: [Company] has outgrown us.
Men: It is time.
Think of ways to make things smaller and smaller!
Ponytail: I'm worried mine is too big.
Men: Yeahhh
Ponytail: But will it blend?
You'll be part of a dynamic research team envisioning the future.
Ponytail: It probably looks cool.
You'll be creating the future of commerce platforms!
Ponytail: More recommendations.
Men: Yep.
You'll be an insignificant cog in our giant machine
Ponytail: We should improve Notepad
Men: Nah
We can't tell you what you'll be working on.
Ponytail: [Confidential]
Men: [Redacted]
Ponytail: Needs more Bob.
You'll help set the future of the company
Ponytail: Wait. You hired a college grad as the CFO?
At Qualcomm, we know you're born mobile.
Ponytail: Born mobile!
Men: Texting!
Short or tall, we've got a grande job for you!
Ponytail: How many job openings are there?
Men: Ele-venti or so.
You'll help direct the future of nutrition
Ponytail: Microwaveable toast
Men: Delicious
Help us find and provide the best healthy, local, and sustainable products.
Ponytail: Hey guys, how about kale cookies?
Men: Sounds great!
We're the Classmates.com to Facebook's Craigslist.
Ponytail: Maybe we should use game theory.
Men: Why Bother?
Whatever. Come create the future of gaming!
Ponytail: Call of Duty 14.
Men: That's genius!
It takes great minds to stifle other great minds.
Ponytail: Let's block Canada
Men: Sounds good.
Third Panel
We're a convenient four hour drive from New York City (15,000 hours by Roomba)
Only a short commuter flight away!
Travel to us by Roomba, we're *that* close!
We're so close you can get to us by Roomba.
Free Roomba rides every morning while you have coffee.
Your Roomba comes in black & slate, or white & silver
Just a short Roomba ride up the coast, try not to fall off.
We know what everyday life is like for your generation:
Fourth Panel
Our recruiting team is on the lookup for promising young [university] graduates.
We hired a new recruiting startup to help us hire [university] students.
We borrowed the botanical gardens' net to catch promising recruits.
We prefer to recruit from [university] students, of course.
Our recruiters are on the hunt for unaware [university] graduates.
Fifth Panel
Or students from [university], if they're clever with their applications
Possibly [university] grads, if their form-filling startup works out.
Or [university] graduates, provided any of them manage to fill out the application correctly.
Or [university] graduates, if they manage to fill out the application correctly.
The text in the form varies independently of the text at the top, sometimes related to the organization in 3rd place:
(Explanation)
MIT Oliver Smoot pgp encrypted have you ever really looked at the fourier As an undergrad at MIT in 1948, Smoot was used to measure the Harvard Bridge during a fraternity prank. This led to the introduction of "smoot" as a non-standard unit of length.
Wheeeee ford.com stealing lunches from startups
CMU leeroy jenkins [email protected] I can cut up melons Le(e)roy Jenkins is an internet meme originating from a 2006 'Let's Play' video of World of Warcraft
CMU pittsburgh [email protected] I can cut up melons
SEGMENTATION FAULT save trees Contra dancing.
Cambridge I'm applying cam.gov on going problems with birds
certainly elephant An excellent year in the Sahara
Stanford Stanford ford.com Stealing lunches from startups
Stanford Yes Please @twitter Are you Stanford?
Applying For a job I would like to work at you
St.Olaf Me olaf You Helga Hunting wooly mammoths
Ohio State Oh! IO O HAI O A joke on the pronunciation of Ohio.
FOLLOWBACK TOTALLY.EDU.US CONVENIENT US DOMAIN REDIRECTS .edu is a website suffix mostly used for (American) university websites.
Mancher Outlook Made a collage out of macaroni
Stanford Yes Please ford.com Are you Stanford?
Michigan ANN SOUTH DETROIT HUNT LIKE A WOLVERINE
christopher POBox 12532 p.s. ill find my frog PO Box 12532 is located at Pyramid Lake in Nevada.
Oxford Bond, James Righto We're better than Cambridge
Which one Forget it Riding the L all night long
Kit Kat Oh dear Something something sleep
Google My G+ handle? Any I'm feeling lucky G+ stands for Google+, Googles social network. I'm feeling lucky is the second option under the searchbar on Google.
UIC Which one Forget it Riding the L all night long
MY JOB NOW @ SAVE DOCUMENT AND SEND Could be Randall saying most jobs are just sending e-mails (@).
Sixth Panel
At [company], you'll work at a scale you won't find anywhere else
Explore the depths of expensive and undocumented tools!
At Apple, we believe in pushing the boundary of perfection.
At Microsoft, you just need to relax and embrace the machine
Yahoo management aren't just suits. We code too!
At [company], you'll have the opportinity to work on cutting-edge projects.
At Amazon, you'll be shaving the most cutting-edge of yaks.
You get to bid first on any auction, and use other experimental tools!
At QUALCOMM, Device driver code quality is job #1
Make use of our powerful in-house game creation tools.
We're even working on some experimental biotechnology
Seventh Panel
The title text documents the different sources of data in the comic. The different title texts are:
Comic region
Most of the comic, during the competition. Mouse over words and things to see where they come from.
Most of the comic, after the competition ended This comic went up on April 1st, and the panels changed throughout the day in response to readers doing things like breaking hashes, edited a rapidly-shuffling set of target Wikipedia articles, and donating to Wikimedia Foundation. (The vandalism is over now and CMU won the hashing contest.)
The part of the first panel (text and drawing) which is not a link. There is no title text at all over the part where the link is active Happy April 1st, Everyone!
Fifth panel. [University] has the third best hash. See the full standings at http://almamater.xkcd.com/best.csv (University = uic after competition)
Last three panels (only within a frame that would just fit around all three of them). The dog gains a pound for every $10 donated to the wikimedia foundation via this link. Currently at [amount donated] (Amount = $51135.33 after competition).
[This was a dynamic image where the text changed during April 1st. The main title text also changed after the dynamic part was finished, and there are even different title text for different part of the comic. This transcript is of the final version of the comic, (no longer dynamic or changing), as displayed at present on xkcd, there are still four different title texts for specific panels. These four title text are for that reason included here in the transcript.]
[The basic title text for the entire comic is: "This comic went up on April 1st, and the panels changed throughout the day in response to readers doing things like breaking hashes, edited a rapidly-shuffling set of target Wikipedia articles, and donating to Wikimedia Foundation. (The vandalism is over now and CMU won the hashing contest.)" The other three title text are only active over certain panels.]
[The first panel with the caption and Megan below has it's own title text. A part of that panel is a link, and in the section where this link is active there is no title text at all. The title text for the rest of the first panel is: "Happy April 1st, everyone!"]
[A panel with only text is above the first drawing. There is a link on the top part of the text to http://almamater.xkcd.com/ (the link is now broken).]
Come find your future at Baidu.
[Below, not in a frame, is Megan.]
[Caption floating above the frame of the next panel:]
[Ponytail sits at a desk, hand to her chin, with two Cueball-like guys with their hands on the table.]
Cueball-like guys: Sounds good.
[Ponytail crouches on a moving Roomba (labeled) with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a smartphone in the other. Above her is a caption. The Roomba makes a noice]
We're a convenient four hour drive from New York City (15,000 hours by Roomba.)
Whirrrrrrr
[Ponytail and Hairy corners Cueball as he walks out of a door, and a black haired ponytailed girl is moving towards him wielding a giant butterfly net. There is a caption above them:]
Our recruiters are on the hunt for unaware CMU graduates
[The fifth panel has it's own title text only active within (or very close to) the frame. It is: "uic has the third best hash. See the full standings at http://almamater.xkcd.com/best.csv" (The link is now broken)]
[There is a caption above a website application. There is three fields to be filled, with each their caption and text:]
or uic graduates, provied any of them manage to fill out the application correctly.
Name which one
Email forget it
Education Riding the L all night long
At Baidu, Inc., you'll have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects.
[Cueball sits at a computer.]
Cueball: What does "make dog" do?
Off-screen voice: Experimental dog generator. Don't click on it; the default size isn't set, so-
[The last three panels has their own title text, only active within a frame that could contain all three panel. Outside that "frame" (all the way around) is the other title text. Within the title text is: "The dog gains a pound for every $10 donated to the Wikimedia Foundation via this link. Currently at $51135.33."]
[Small insert panel, going in above the next larger panel: Cueball stares at the screen.]
Kzzzt
*bip*
Off-screen voice: Uh oh.
[A giant dog looks down at the desk where the computer once was, now only the wires are left. Cueball, leaning way back in his office chair, holding his hand to his mouth, stares up at it.]
[Again a smaller insert panel above the large one with the dog. A graphic showing two sliders and a dog (similar to the one in the previous panel). Next to the dog with arrows pointing to it are a thermometer graphic and an equation. Below is an e-mail type text and finally a caption. There are arrows over and under "God" and "dogs" between the g and d's.]
d(x)=R
[email protected], Inc.
Play God with dogs.TM
Any chance we can convince Randall to let other universities in: the Canadian ones only work if they have a .edu, so uwaterloo.ca and sfu.ca are out.
As are [schools].ac.in
I can't get my university (PUC-Rio, in Brazil) too... =/ 139.82.240.51 18:28, 1 April 2013 (UTC) etandel
It looks like he may have lifted the restriction, considering all the different urls such as google.com, reddit.com, and even what I have to assume is a porn website. --LRFLEW (talk) 03:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
--137.147.40.248 13:53, 1 April 2013 (UTC) For an easier time spotting the changes, go to [1] and open your web console
199.48.226.89 10:18, 1 April 2013 (UTC) I put in "caltech.edu" and hashed a lot of words, and "Twilight Sparkle is best pony." was the best result I managed, only off by 496 bits.
Lol, "only". The results should be binomially distributed, with a mean of 512, so 496 isn't even close to the scores in the ranking. BKA (talk) 12:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I noticed when looking at the list of scores that a large number of universities have a best score at 420. According to my calculations, the amount of universities with this score is 2516 out of the 2824 universities listed. Is there any reason that so many universities have the exact same score? --LRFLEW (talk) 03:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
+1! A few hours ago this wasn't the case... What's up with all the 420's?? 108.218.230.91 03:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
People keep posting hash values on the internet. Those universities are dirty cheaters, and they're all just entering the 420 hash in for their university without actually calculating it. Davidy²²[talk] 04:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
While this copy-cattism might be the reason for the proliferation of 420s (which, in India, is slang that, funnily enough, refers to a confidence-trickster) - note that at the beginning of the contest, a lot of different domain names all had 'scores' between 400-500. Now, if I'm not wrong, the hash contains 1024 bits. So you could be off by 1024 in the worst case, and 0 in the best case. But the spread was very narrow. Admittedly, you wouldn't notice the higher numbers, because only the best case scenario has been published, but from the clustering of the different universities (with respect to their scores), as well as the fact that it's taking this long for even ONE clear best score to emerge, seems to suggest that there IS something special about the 400-500 score band. Does anyone have any layman-level information on the statistics of the entropy of the Skein hash function? And the statistics of what error figure for random hash compared to given hash is most frequent? 220.224.246.97 18:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
a hash is, at best, very close to a random number. Here, we have two 1024-bit random numbers. It makes sense that most commonly, two such random numbers differ in about half of the bits - for each bit, there's a 50% probability that the bits will be the same and 50% that they will differ. Therefore the spread centers on 512, but of course we just see the lower part of the spread here. 2.223.68.79 23:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
My test here shows that the 420s is that 420 Bits wrong is about what a single computer can get to within a few hours. So its no wonder that 420s are common for a lot of universities. Its just someone there who is running a little script to break the hash.
91.214.44.212 23:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Although it's true that if you run a PC for a couple of hours, you're very likely ending up somewhere between 415 and 425, this does not explain such a peak at 420. If you consider the probability function for a PC's best result within a day, then maybe 420 is the most likely outcome, but you should see a lot of 421s, 419s, 418s and so on: Seeing a number in 419...415 before you see a 420 should have a chance > 0.5. BKA (talk) 11:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
420 is stoner slang for marijuana. Evidently someone (or many someones) thought it would be funny to have that number associated with their school. -- 69.180.123.64 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
All I see is a blank white 780x969 image. Nothing appears when I hover over stuff. 109.65.100.208 09:04, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Sometimes it does that. It takes a while to generate, and it doesn't always render correctly. Try updating your browser or refreshing. Davidy²²[talk] 09:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
The person who provided the shopped image either isn't using a modern browser or is using IE. The font is supposed to be "xkcd-Regular", which I assume is a font that gets downloaded from XKCD's server. Loading the same page in IE 9 gave me that Times New Roman-esque font instead (Chrome, Firefox, and Opera use the special font, although it's rendered a little fuzzy in Firefox). 129.21.119.153 09:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
The dog part now shows "[email protected]" underneath the sliders for me. --Gefrierbrand (talk) 09:50, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
I think it matches the company in the first panel? (Currently [email protected] INC for me.) --81.138.95.57 10:53, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
The page where the company name is supposed to be fetched from is "Sith" now, but I checked and the company is not there. I think this will take some time to decipher ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
.... uh, remember few pages ago where we JOKED about being used as distributted computer? Now we ARE used to crack the provided hash ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:15, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
It's April 1st. Maybe the idea that the company is sourced from a Wikipedia page is not true. That would explain the link to the Wikipedia fund raising page as an apology for the fact that there will be many XKCD readers vandalising the Sith page Jeremyp (talk) 11:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC).
... AND it's [wikipedia:Jean-Luc_Picard|Jean Luc Picard] now. AND there is actually Apple linked from it. While the Google is company doing recruiting now ... hmmm ... but Google actually IS mentioned in one of previous version of page ... damn vandals. -- Hkmaly (talk) 12:35, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
WAIT. Randal now mentioned "... Final Fantasy Tactics. But link on Jean Luc Picard could beat it". So either it's something like "taken from last edited page" or he is doing it manually. -- Hkmaly (talk) 12:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
"Microsoft Corporation is the first NASDAQ-100 company mentioned on the wikipedia page 'IBM'. But a link on 'Oprah' could beat it." -- Hkmaly (talk) 14:05, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
... AND wikipedia editors started observing the comics to edit-protect wikipedia entries BEFORE the vandals strike, as shown here. -- Hkmaly (talk) 14:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
The top of the page for the comic now mentions this: "You can change the company in this comic. Mouse over its name in the first panel. The schools are selected by a hash breaking competition." Don't think that was there before. More interesting is the first sentence. Do we have a list of wikipedia pages that he's tracking for the first company mentioned in the page? 220.224.246.97 17:52, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Ignorant question: What is this hash finding competition? Was it announced somewhere? 129.67.199.117 11:56, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Click that panel: http://almamater.xkcd.com/ Jeremy1026 (talk) 12:05, 1 April 2013 (UTC).
Looking in the externalities file, another usefull link is "... full standings at http://almamater.xkcd.com/best.csv" -- Hkmaly (talk) 14:24, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
The sad thing is that people are probably only donating to a good cause to see the dog-drawing get bigger. 76.106.251.87 14:11, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
In that case it's good Randal used GOOD cause. -- Hkmaly (talk) 14:24, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Actually, the sad thing is taht people are vandalizing Wikipedia. --189.61.0.28 19:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Can anyone explain what, if anything, the name/email/education values (fifth panel) refer to? 108.36.128.122 19:34, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Looks like one random string and one random pair of strings. 178.238.159.109 20:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Has anyone been able to reproduce the 1024-bit Skein hash values that he is generating at http://almamater.xkcd.com/? The hashes that he shows don't match the ones I'm getting from my Skein hash calculator (using 1024 bit output and 1024 bit internal state size). I tried feeding the same string into the hash function both with and without a trailing null character and neither matches. For example, if I type abc into the form, he shows 35a599...1f1f (edited for brevity), but I calculate that a hash of the 3-byte message "abc" should be 10a866...035c.Theodric (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm getting completely different values also. 173.22.172.7 22:57, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
I have the same problem as you. I'm thinking that Xkcd is using an older standard of the encryption. I'm currently trying out the php versions of the code to see if I can get it to work. --LRFLEW (talk) 23:16, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Nope. Tried all I could and still couldn't figure it out. My guess is that he's using a secret salt. --LRFLEW (talk) 23:37, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Solved! :) I was originally using version 1.2 of the Skein hash function. Version 1.3 uses different constants and yields different results. The almamater page seems to be using version 1.3 -- my calculator now matches Randall's hashes.--Theodric (talk) 03:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Where are you getting the implementation? I can't seem to get it to work even with v1.3. --LRFLEW (talk) 04:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm using source code from here: http://www.skein-hash.info/sites/default/files/NIST_CD_102610.zip. I'm using the code in the Optimized_64bit directory. All C files were compiled with gcc as well as http://theodric.com/test_skein.c --Theodric (talk) 10:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the example code. I had two errors in how I was implementing it. The interesting problem I ran into was that the string to hash needs to be formatted for the web (so space becomes '+', ext.) --LRFLEW (talk) 17:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Confirmed, xkcd uses skein 1.3. Did anyone find another implementation (besides the reference implementation)? I wasted an hour starting with the Java impl, before I decided to re-fresh my C, but now I am running roughly 7 million tests per minute on my poor notebook ;) Still way too slow to catch up with the current leaders. My best score is 415. BKA (talk) 12:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
"Wikipedia article on {hint: The perpetrators of the largest extinction in Earth's history}" Would this be humans? I'm afraid to get in on the Wikipedia editing since I'm already in so-so standing due to some childishness in 2006... 76.106.251.87 21:54, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
The opening line of the first panel has changed. It's now "Ahoy, Carnegie Melonites!" (for the current school) rather than "Hey, [university] students!" (as listed in all the current entries for the changing first panel text). The question and response seem to be the same as before. And the fifth panel now has "if they're clever with their applications" instead of "provided any of them manage to fill out the application correctly". So showing the text as static in the comic image is no longer accurate. --50.0.108.18 23:00, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
If I visit http://xkcd.com/1193/ then the font is xkcd-Regular, whereas if I visit http://www.xkcd.com/1193/ then the font is the default serif font… (Iceweasel with NoScript) 178.238.159.109 02:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
The font is loaded from [2], regardless of where you see the comic from. However, Iceweasel (and presumably Firefox) dissallow cross-site access. For this reason, https://xkcd.com/1193/ also gets the default serif font. 128.211.198.17 22:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Someone, please explain what hash breaking is. Jackdavinci (talk) 04:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
A cryptographically-secure hash function maps a set of numbers onto another set of numbers in such a way that converting forwards is easy, but converting back is difficult. The idea is that given a key and a lock, you can check the key against the lock by hashing the key and seeing if it maps to the lock. But given just the lock, you can't generate the key (easily). Randall gave us a lock, and the competition is to find the closest key. This is basically a competition to see who has the most computing power to generate lots and lots of keys. Keep in mind, I've glossed over a lot of technical details here. --173.162.57.51 15:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
There should be some cleverness involved in addition to access to computers. It all comes down to who can generate the most hashes in the time available, because as a good cryptographic hash Skein gives you no hint about how to change your input to get a result closer to your target, you just have to keep making guesses. But that is not just a matter of how many computers you have. For example, Googling around for implementations of Skein I didn't find any ready to run libraries for GPUs of Skein 1024 1024. A team at a university could have stuck with an existing C implementation running on an available set of computers, or taken the time to get it running on GPUs and get quite a bit of extra speed. Also, I haven't experimented with it, but a hash function should be faster if you give it a smaller input. The current best result from CMU would take on the average about 1 quadtrillion (1e15) trials to find. Given that the input to the hash has to be in the form of URL-safe printable characters, if you assume that your team will not have time to generate more than, say 1e16 hashes and the character set you have to work with is 100 characters (my guess from looking at my keyboard) then your test input strings do not have to be longer than 8 characters. Anyone who is generating test input for the hash that is any longer, for example if they are, as a really bad example, converting 1024-bit numbers to 256 ASCII character hex, is doing at least 32 times too much work for each hash calculation. Bugstomper (talk) 00:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
The time it takes to compute a Skein hash depends only on the number of bits of internal state, not of the input. This is intentional; if the execution time were dependent on input length, an attacker could execute a timing attack on the hash. AES is known to be sensitive to such attacks, but Skein is resistant. 140.254.153.76 04:14, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Is it over now that it's after midnight? When I moused over the school name, it didn't give me a pop-up showing the next hint. 76.106.251.87 06:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I would assume so. The wikipedia challenges needed to be done manually, automatic ones would be blocked by wikipedia staff (see my point about Elixir page). Also, making people vandalize wikipedia is not exactly nice. -- Hkmaly (talk) 08:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Do you suppose the "Needs more Bob" possibility in the second panel is a reference to Microsoft Bob (an absolutely and justly reviled Microsoft product from the 90's)? 66.140.241.100 11:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Scary Thought #392: 'Time' and 'Extenalities' are giving Explainxkcd heavy loads. This may be on purpose. Randall might upload yet another 'heavy' comic. Greyson (talk) 14:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
It does feel like he sometimes just releases comics that do unusual edge-casey things, just to see us wiki editors struggle with handling the comic. Then again, it might just be Randall trying to make a really dynamic and novel webcomic. Davidy²²[talk] 14:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
At the moment, xkcd.com seems to be down. Coincidence? --Johnsmith (talk) 06:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm surprised no one had added the Activision/Blizzard versions. I know it wasn't up for long, but I expected we'd have a ton of gamers jumping at the chance to add that version of the comic. (Good thing I screen-captured it so I had a reference to work from!)
Did anyone try using http://xkcd.com/936/ as a method of generating hash inputs? --Theodric (talk) 13:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Someone reported the horse (plus salt) as a (at this time: rather good) try, provoking a bunch of copycats. However, as was pointed out in the discussion, since we weren't looking for the correct hash, but merely a good approx, brute force remained the method of choice (at least within the Top10, I'd say)... Still, maybe some regular could properly include the x-ref to the strip; after all, it could have been Randall "only" making his point. 134.61.103.44 10:57, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
You're missing one of the dog panels: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/externalities/65668a72a3705ffc90ac924e7d5e2a3b75c2419886474fef2f0937dc96f2f3f1.png. --71.193.152.91 21:14, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Baidu references:
Baidu is a large Chinese Internet services company that employs thousands, whose shares are publicly traded on world stock exchanges. It's the predominant Internet search provider of China, and is sometimes called the "Google of China". It offers parallels for the Chinese market of many of the services that Google provides and offers its own encyclopedic wiki with a restricted edit policy to serve as a replacement for Wikipedia.
Wikipedia reports that Baidu's search engine handled 56% of Chinese internet search queries in Q4 2010. and that in October 2012, Baidu ranked 5th overall in the Alexa Internet rankings.
Given that explanation for the Baidu references in #1193 is still solicited for explainxkcd, Baidu apparently is not well known yet among savvy XKCD readers.
Baidu Search results reputedly follow the censorship dictates of the Chinese authorities, causing it to return censored responses to searches for politically sensitive terms like "Tianamen Square massacre" or "Falun Gong" when executed by web browsers that are connected via Chinese ISPs.
When you execute such searches via Baidu in the US, the top links returned for these topics do seem to reflect Chinese government sensibilities although the uncensored English language Wikipedia articles for these topics are listed high in the query results.
Baidu's reputation for censorship provides background for Megan's reply "but nothing about Tianamen Square" in response to the "Come and find your future at Baidu" employment enticement of panel one and also provides the background to understand the "It takes great minds to stifle other great minds" slogan of the second panel.
DLuebbert (talk) 04:42, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Today's incomplete explanation (November 30, 2013)
I have done some layout changes and I did add the final transcript. Please check if it is correct to all countries.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:22, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
The comic isn't on xkcd anymore. 108.162.215.43 05:06, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
There was a glitch on some dynamic servers for a few days; it seems to be solved right now. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
This comic does not appear to be working on xkcd at this time - tried both Firefox and Chrome to view it, and saw some error in Firefox about a cross-site scripting violation. Anyone else seeing the same issue? Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 12:30, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1193:_Externalities&oldid=117668"
Comics from April
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Leaf House is the creation of small home enthusiast Laird Herbert from Whitehorse, Canada, who was inspired by the idea of building his own home. After testing out several prototypes, Herbert has finally finished work on what he calls Version.2 ... and the result is a tiny portable home design that takes up a small amount of space, is big enough to live in comfortably, and reportedly accommodates a family of four.
Designed to withstand the cold Canadian climate, Leaf House Version.2 is a custom built, fully self-contained portable home. Better yet, it is mounted on wheels, allowing you to pick up and go whenever the urge arises. The home has been constructed using Forest Stewardship Certified (FSC) timber, recycled materials, natural finishes and eco-friendly building products.
The home is built on top of a trailer base and offers a further four feet (1.2 meters) in length over Version.1. The interior features a living area with sofa bed, raised sleeping quarters, fully functional kitchen, bathroom with a compact bathtub and an open dining area. Furthermore, the home features many self-sustaining elements including a composting toilet, propane tankless hot water system, propane GE range half fridge, Ecoheat electric baseboards, LED and halogen lighting and a 35-gallon (132-liter) water storage unit.
Incorporating a tin roof, the home's design elements are simple enough to blend in with its surroundings. Pack some portable deck chairs and outdoor furnishings, and you can create an extended exterior living area.
Leaf House Version.2 is currently on the market for CAD$44,500 (US$43,429), which is a steal if you take into consideration that it cost Herbert CAD$40,000 (US$39,038) to build. If you fancy something with a personal touch, you can commission Herbet to design your very own tiny house prototype.


text:
France vs Wales Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 2-0 at 4/1
France and Wales will play an International Friendly match at the Stade De France on Friday, 10th November. Match Preview:…
Bulgaria vs France Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 2-0 at 5/1
Bulgaria and France will play their ninth World Cup 2018 qualifying game at the Stadion Vasil Levski on Saturday, 7th…
France vs Netherlands Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 1-0 at 5/1
France and The Netherlands will play their seventh World Cup 2018 qualifying game at the Stade de France on Thursday,…
France vs England Preview and Line Up Prediction: Draw 1-1 at 5/1
France and England will play an International Friendly match at the Stade de France on Tuesday, 13th June. Match Preview:…
Sweden vs France Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 1-0 at 5/1
Sweden and France will play their sixth World Cup 2018 qualifying game at the Friends Arena on Friday, 9th June.…
France vs Paraguay Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 1-0 at 9/2
France and Paraguay will play an International Friendly match at the Stade de la Route de Lorient on Friday, 2nd…
Luxembourg vs France Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 2-0 at 9/2
Luxembourg and France will play their fifth World Cup 2018 qualifying game at the Stade Josy Barthel on Saturday, 25th…
France vs Sweden Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 2-0 at 4/1
France and Sweden will play their fourth World Cup 2018 qualifying game at the Stade de France on Friday, 11th…
Holland vs France Preview and Line Up Prediction: Draw 1-1 at 5/1
Holland and France will play their third World Cup 2018 qualifying game at the Amsterdam Arena on Monday, 10th October.…
France vs Bulgaria Preview and Line Up Prediction: France to Win 2-0 at 9/2
France and Bulgaria will play their second World Cup 2018 qualifying game at Stade de France on Friday, 7th September.…


text:
Scientists aim for single ...
This Science News Wire page contains a press release issued by an organization and is provided to you "as is" with little or no review from Phys.org staff.
Scientists aim for single flu and pneumonia vaccine
University of Adelaide researchers will team with industry to develop a single vaccine for both influenza and pneumonia, in the hope of saving millions of lives around the world each year.
The project is one of 11 major new research projects at the University of Adelaide to win funding from the Federal Government today, totalling more than $3.6 million.
The funding - from the Australian Research Council's Linkage Projects scheme - has been awarded for outstanding research projects in partnership with industry and government.
Professor James Paton (School of Molecular and Biomedical Science) and industry partner Gamma Vaccines Pty Ltd have been awarded $276,000 to develop a single vaccine that provides long-lasting protection against the flu and pneumonia.
"Right across the world, the influenza virus and the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) individually cause serious illness and death from acute respiratory infections. However, these two pathogens can also combine and synergise with each other to create a deadly super-infection," says Professor Paton, who is Director of the University's Research Centre for Infectious Diseases.
"For example, more than half of the 50 million deaths that occurred during the 1918-19 flu pandemic were directly attributable to pneumococcal super-infection."
Professor Paton and his colleagues aim to develop a single vaccine capable of providing broad-based protection against both of these pathogens.
"This project is an excellent example of the University of Adelaide working with industry to achieve great benefits for the community," says the University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Mike Brooks.
"Much of our research effort is directed at critical global challenges facing our society. These include improved human health, food security, a sustainable environment, and renewable energy, among others.
"This is outstanding work that is being conducted right here at our University, which has the potential to produce tangible benefits for millions of people the world over," Professor Brooks says.
The other new Linkage Projects at the University of Adelaide funded today are:
From organo-mineral nanocomposite to Australian basins; an integrated approach to unconventional gas exploration and development.$750,000 awarded to a team led by Professor Martin Kennedy (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Institute for Mineral and Energy Resources) in partnership with Santos Ltd, SA Department of Primary Industries and Resources, JRS Petroleum Research, Central Petroleum Ltd, and Petrofrontier (Australia) Pty Ltd.
An integrated tool for informing pest management: modelling range shifts for an invasive vertebrate in response to climate change.$575,000 awarded to a team led by Dr Damien Fordham (Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity - Environment Institute) in partnership with Biosecurity SA, WA Department of Agriculture and Food, and NSW Department of Primary Industries.
Scalable classification for massive datasets: randomised algorithms.$510,000 awarded to a team led by Professor Anton van den Hengel (School of Computer Science and Australian Centre for Visual Technologies) in partnership with LBT Innovations Ltd.
Bad tastes, odours and toxins in our drinking water reservoirs: are benthic cyanobacteria the culprits?$465,000 awarded to a team led by Associate Professor Justin Brookes (Water Research Centre - Environment Institute) in partnership with SA Water Corporation, Water Quality Research Australia Ltd, Sydney Catchment Authority and National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.
Evolution and biogeography of Australian idiopid trapdoor spiders: implications for conservation biology and environmental assessment.$276,368 awarded to a team led by Professor Andy Austin (Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity - Environment Institute) in partnership with Western Australian Museum, South Australian Museum, BHP Billiton Iron Ore Pty Ltd, Pilbara Iron Company (Services) Pty Ltd and Biota Environmental Sciences Pty Ltd.
Root distribution and salinity and soil water dynamics in a chenopod shrubland: implications for restoration ecology.$200,500 awarded to a team led by Associate Professor Jose Facelli (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Institute for Mineral and Energy Resources) in partnership with Iluka Resources Ltd.
Green cool wine: solar powered solid adsorption refrigeration system with ice storage to provide cooling capability for wine industry.$195,000 awarded to a team led by Associate Professor Eric Hu (School of Mechanical Engineering and Institute for Mineral and Energy Resources) in partnership with Orlando Wyndham Group Pty Ltd.
Identifying cost-effective reforestation approaches for biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration in southern Australia.$180,000 awarded to a team led by Professor Corey Bradshaw (Environment Institute) in partnership with SA Department of Environment And Natural Resources, Zoos SA and Australian Flora Foundation.
Public and ethical responses to mandated alcohol warning labels about increased long-term risk of cancer.$116,609 awarded to a team led by Dr Emma Miller (School of Population Health and Clinical Practice) in partnership with Cancer Council Australia, and Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia.
High power density, low cogging torque and low-cost micro-scale wind turbine generator system utilising soft magnetic composite materials.$97,653 awarded to a team led by Associate Professor Nesimi Ertugrul (School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Institute for Mineral and Energy Resources) in partnership with Intelligent Electric Motor Solutions Pty Ltd.
Provided by University of Adelaide