text:
Turkish court cancels plan to redevelop Istanbul's Taksim Square
Press TV – July 3, 2013
A Turkish court has blocked a redevelopment project for Istanbul's Taksim Square after the country was rocked by four weeks of anti-government protests.
The court ruling is seen as a big blow to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had strongly backed the project, but is also seen as a victory for the opposition that has been staging nationwide rallies against it.
Istanbul has been the epicenter of anti-government demonstrations since May 31, when the police broke up a sit-in staged at Taksim Square to protest against the redevelopment plan which involved the demolition of Gezi Park.
The Turkish protesters said Gezi Park, which is a traditional gathering point for rallies and demonstrations as well as a popular tourist destination, is one of Istanbul's last public green spaces.
The protests soon spread to other cities across the country and turned into calls for the resignation of the Turkish prime minister.
Several people have been killed in the violent crackdown on peaceful protesters, who Erdogan has described as foreign-backed extremists and terrorists.
Last week, Turkish artists, journalists, and authors placed full-page advertisements in several newspapers, asking Erdogan to stop using divisive language.
On June 24, Erdogan praised the "legendary heroism" of police forces in quelling anti-government protests.
The Turkish prime minister has faced international condemnation for his handling of the crisis. Turkish police have been also strongly criticized for using excessive force against the peaceful protests.
Turkey will consider protesters staying at Taksim terrorists, official says (alethonews.wordpress.com)
July 3, 2013 Posted by aletho | Solidarity and Activism | Istanbul, Press TV, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Taksim Square, Turkey | Comments Off on Turkish court cancels plan to redevelop Istanbul's Taksim Square
The Evolving Story of the Death of Father Murad
By Richard Edmondson | War and Peace | July 3, 2013
Conflicting news reports have been coming out on the death of Father Francois Murad. Initially it was reported by a number of sources, including a press release from the Vatican, that the priest had been beheaded. Today, however, reports are saying that no, this was incorrect, that he was only shot dead, and that the video purporting to show his beheading was an old video. Here is how The Telegraph is reporting the matter:
The footage, said to show Father Francois Murad, 49, as the victim in a brutal summary execution by foreign jihadists is likely to be an older video that bares no relation to the death of the Catholic priest.
Father Murad "died when he was shot inside his church" in the northern Syrian Christian village of Ghassaniyeh on June 23, three separate local sources, who did not wish to be named, told the Telegraph.
Claims that Father Murad was one of two men to be decapitated by a foreign jihadist group went viral, with outrage expressed in blogs and articles worldwide.
The story goes on to describe the contents of the video, noting that it is "too grainy to be able to confirm the identity of either of the victims as Father Francois," while offering quotes of clarification from Human Rights Watch as well as Holy Land Custos Pierbattista Pizzabala. The latter is quoted as saying, "Islamists attacked the monastery, ransacking it and destroying everything. When Father Francois tried to resist, defending the nuns, rebels shot him."
According to the HRW spokesperson, the video "looks like it may have been filmed" several months ago, well before Murad's death, and that the confusion may have arisen due to its appearance "around the same time that the news came out that Father Francois had been killed."
All of this quite naturally raises some questions. Descriptions of the video, found at both LiveLeak and YouTube, specifically said the two men shown being beheaded were Christians and that Murad was one of them. Who made this video available to the public and what was their motive?
The conflict in Syria is becoming more and more like a house of mirrors—something noted in a report by journalist Patrick Cockburn published Sunday in The Independent and headlined, "Foreign Media Portrayals of the Conflict in Syria are Dangerously Inaccurate." Cockburn writes:
Every time I come to Syria I am struck by how different the situation is on the ground from the way it is pictured in the outside world. The foreign media reporting of the Syrian conflict is surely as inaccurate and misleading as anything we have seen since the start of the First World War. I can't think of any other war or crisis I have covered in which propagandistic, biased or second-hand sources have been so readily accepted by journalists as providers of objective facts.
Slogans replace policies: the rebels are pictured as white hats and the government supporters as black hats; given more weapons, the opposition can supposedly win a decisive victory; put under enough military pressure, President Bashar al-Assad will agree to negotiations for which a pre-condition is capitulation by his side in the conflict. One of the many drawbacks of the demonising rhetoric indulged in by the incoming US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and William Hague, is that it rules out serious negotiations and compromise with the powers-that-be in Damascus. And since Assad controls most of Syria, Rice and Hague have devised a recipe for endless war while pretending humanitarian concern for the Syrian people.
In the midst of all this confusion and pretense over humanitarian concerns comes a report from the Hudson Institute highlighting the horrendous toll the conflict has taken on Syria's Christian population. The report documents, among other things, deaths of priests, though here again there is some suspicious timing. On June 25, two days after the murder of Father Murad, a pair of congressional subcommittees held a joint hearing on the issue of "Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle." This is the subject of the Hudson Institute's report, or more specifically the report focuses on the testimony given at the hearing by one of the institute's chief researchers on the plight of Syria's Christians.
Such a report becomes all the more remarkable when you consider that the Hudson Institute basically could be thought of as a neocon think tank. Its senior vice president is Lewis "Scooter" Libby, while Douglas Feith is listed as a senior fellow. Is there not something strange about a report documenting rebel atrocities against Syrian Christians being released by such an organization? Doesn't Israel want to see Assad overthrown, and haven't the Zionist media been feeding us the spin of the rebels, as Cockburn puts it, wearing the "white hats"? What gives?
I'll have more on this report in an upcoming post, hopefully in a day or two.
Catholic Online Muddles Story of Priest's Beheading (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Vatican confirms horror beheading of Catholic priest by Syrian rebels (independent.ie)
July 3, 2013 Posted by aletho | War Crimes | Hudson Institute, Susan Rice, Syria | 1 Comment
Bolivia's Morales Dissed and Pissed as France, Portugal, and Austria Violate Diplomatic Immunity
By Dave Lindorff | This Can't Be Happening | July 3, 2013
Those of us who have been saying that the US has become a weak, or at least more ordinary power among many in the world because of its military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and because of its economic decline, will have to recalibrate our analysis after watching the pathetic behavior of the leaders of Russia, Germany and France under pressure from the Obama administration not to allow Edward Snowden to gain asylum in those countries or even to escape his purgatory in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
Last night, in an astonishing display of fawning obedience to the demands of US leaders, France and Germany first announced that they would not grant asylum to Snowden, despite broad popular support by French and German people for such an offer of aid to the embattled whistleblower. Then, France and Portugal abruptly refused to allow a Bolivian aircraft carrying the country's president, Evo Morales, from a state visit with Russia's Vladimir Putin, to land for refueling in their countries, saying that they were concerned he might be flying Snowden to asylum in Bolivia.
Although Spain said eventually it would allow the Morales plane to refuel in the Canary Islands, it did not have enough fuel to get there and had to be diverted to Vienna, where, astonishingly, it was then searched like a drug-smuggling flight over Bolivian protests. Snowden was not aboard. A furious Morales immediately blamed the US Department of State for the whole incident — a charge that no one has disputed, though of course the US is refusing to comment.
Aircraft carrying national leaders have absolute diplomatic immunity under international law and moreover, Bolivia would have the absolute right to grant Snowden amnesty, and to bring him to its territory, whether or not he had a valid passport. As the leader of a sovereign nation, Morales has every right to carry anyone he wants on his plane with him back to his country.
Bolivian President Evo Morales, forced under US pressure to land in Vienna to have his returning plane searched for Snowden, calls the blocking of his flight from Russia to Bolivia a "kidnapping," and "act of aggression" and an "offense against all the whole Latin region."
That France, Portugal and Austria would so violate such basic diplomatic rules suggests that the US (which of course has long demonstrated that it views diplomatic rules and international law as applying only to others, but not itself) has some powerful leverage to exert behind the scenes. The more so because this whole incident makes leaders like French President Francois Hollande, who only the day before had suggested his country might consider Snowden's asylum appeal, look foolish, and because this aggressive and hostile action taken against the leader of a sovereign nation makes France, as well as Portugal and Italy, look pathetic and ridiculous at a time that public sentiment across Europe is solidly in support of Snowden. (An activist friend in Germany reports that sentiment there in support of Snowden and even of granting him asylum is "probably at about 80%," and that is probably also true in France.)
This latest incident, which has incredibly not been protested either by Russia's Putin, from whose country the disrupted flight originated, and who was Morales' official host, also exposes Putin and Russia as being under America's thumb. Who could have imagined Putin allowing a meeting of leaders in his own country to be so shamed by US intervention involving diversion and impoundment of a foreign leader's return flight home without a loud protest and even some counter action. At a minimum the US ambassador should have been called in to be tongue-lashed by the Russian president. Yet even Russian state television station RT-TV, in its report on the halting of Morales' plane and the unprecedented search of a state leader's plane in Austria, carried no comment from Putin or the Russian government on the insult and outrage.
Has the US, with its incomprehensibly massive spy network, just demonstrated that it now has a power greater than its nuclear arsenal: a dossier perhaps on almost every leader in the world with which it is able to blackmail even the likes of Hollande, Merkel and Putin? It is hard to come up with another explanation for the way this incident played out.
We will have to see now whether Morales, a popular leader from an impoverished indigenous background who is clearly no coward and who is probably too clean to be blackmailed, will make good on his assertion made in Moscow that Snowden would be welcome in Bolivia. Russia could recover a modicum of its self-respect by flying him there on a Russian plane to avoid similar US-orchestrated interference. Venezuela's new president, Nicolás Maduro, who has also spoken favorably of granting asylum status to the National Security Agency whistleblower, should also step up at this point. Since he is still in Russia, he could offer to bring Snowden back home with him, and dare the nations of Europe to try and stop him.
Europeans are pissed off already at the US, in the wake of National Security Agency leaker Snowden's latest revelation that the US was aggressively spying on its European allies, both at their and the European Union's embassies in Washington, and in Europe itself, gleaning not information about terrorism, but inside-track knowledge about trade negotiation positions and other areas of disagreement or negotiation.
Leaders in Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries are demanding that the US cease its spying on them, and give a "full accounting" of the spying that it has been engaging in. But given the steady stream of lies coming from the NSA, the Obama Administration, Secretary of State John Kerry, and other American sources, why should they believe anything they are being told? Most Europeans understand now that all this bluster from their leaders is just that: bluster.
Europe's leaders have shown themselves to their own people to be sell-outs in the pocket of the US. As several commenters on the website of the German magazine Der Spiegel, which last week ran a cover expose about the NSA spying program directed against European leaders, have written, Germany's and France's leaders have sold out their countries and people by caving in to US demands. As one person wrote: "Our government has sold us out and is beyond help."
To be sure there was a wave of tough talk only days earlier, with, for example, Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, saying that the NSA is like the Soviet-era KGB, and with leaders of countries like Ireland and Norway saying that they might consider amnesty for Snowden, but only if he could reach their soil first — a ludicrous requirement, since there is no international law requiring such silliness. Any country can grant asylum to any person it wishes, wherever that person may be at the moment. They cannot offer protection, of course, except in an embassy or in-country, but that's different from just offering a grant of amnesty. Indeed, the mere fact that the US has cancelled Snowden's passport doesn't mean his passport cannot be respected as a travel document by another country. How, in fact, when you think about it, would a country know that a person's passport had been "cancelled" unless the issuing nation had issued some kind of news release about it as the US did in Snowden's case? There's no international registry of global passports. Those records are held closely by each country and in fact are supposed to be secure. Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Norway, Ireland or any other country that had said at any point that it would be willing to accept Snowden, could stamp their visa on his passport and accept him on their planes. (Even the US Passport Office accepts an old, expired passport as an identity document when one is applying for a new one.)
After this abject display of rank servitude in the interest of the US Imperium by some of Europe's most powerful nations, if little Bolivia and/or Venezuela don't step up and show Europe how sovereign nations are supposed to act, it will be up to the people of Europe and Latin America to act.
Already, Latin nations seem to be rallying, with protests across the continent, and with Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, and Cuba's retired leader Fidel Castro expressing anger at the diversion of the Morales plane. An "urgent" Latin American leadership meeting is planned over the crisis, and if it is not just talk, this could indicate that the US may have overstepped in insulting a region that has been growing increasingly assertive about resisting US diktats.
Certainly, following the latest revelations in the Guardian, Der Spiegel, and elsewhere showing that the NSA has been vacuuming up data on millions of Europeans, and with former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden stating publicly that the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution — the one that at least used to protect Americans' right to privacy and from government search and seizure — "is not an international treaty," the anger among Europeans at US spying is swelling too, and with it, support for the embattled whistleblower Snowden.
We can only hope that the revelations of outrageous US intelligence abuses and violation of Europeans' privacy rights will continue, that the rage against the US among ordinary European citizens will grow. We can only hope that with that growing rage, a desire to stick it to the US by protecting Snowden will grow too, until some European leader finally sees it as a popular or necessary move to offer him asylum.
This latest abomination in the treatment of Bolivia and its leader, which has shamed France, Portugal, Austria, Italy and Russia, will be a great test of how angry the peoples of those countries are about their leaders' servile behavior towards the US.
Of course, we in the US should be the most outraged of all, but sadly, there is probably even less chance that a majority Americans will get angry at all this than that Europeans will.
'Act of aggression': Bolivia to file UN complaint over airspace blockade
July 3, 2013 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Bolivia, Evo Morales, France, National Security Agency, Russia, Snowden, United States, Vladimir Putin | 1 Comment
Dundee church survives block's demolition
ht/malterwitty
The direction of collapse was controlled by more than 10,000 detonators and delays.
Note the top of the second building is not destroyed by the demolition – when it reaches ground level the remaining solid building simply falls over.
The Dundee demolition shows that the suggestion that fires could collapse WTC 7 perfectly into its footprint is ludicrous.
July 3, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Demolition | Comments Off on Dundee church survives block's demolition
OBAMA FALSELY ASSERTS HE IS MANDELA FOLLOWER
By Sherwood Ross | July 3, 2013
Just as President Obama disgracefully used Martin Luther King's Bible at his Inauguration to tie himself to the great pacifist civil rights leader, so this totalitarian-minded, warmonger president claimed in South Africa Sunday to have been inspired by Nelson Mandela, whose legacy he said "we must all honor in our own lives." Coming from an American president linked so intimately to the CIA as is Mr. Obama, this declaration is laughable. It was the CIA, after all, that fingered Mr. Mandela, then head of the African National Congress, to BOSS, the country's secret police, who, acting on the CIA's tip, arrested Mandela and clapped him in the notorious Robben Island prison for 18 years. Yes, that was the very same prison Mr. Obama toured with his family this week, his face reflecting a mournful aspect, as he allegedly contemplated the suffering Mr. Mandela endured to liberate his country from the white apartheid regime.
In his book about the CIA, "Legacy of Ashes", former New York Times man Tim Weiner writes, "The African National Congress leader, Nelson Mandela, had been arrested and imprisoned in 1962, thanks in part to the CIA." Weiner pointed out the CIA "worked in the closest harmony" with South Africa's BOSS. Weiner quotes Gerry Gossens, a CIA station chief in four nations during the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter, stating that CIA officers stood "side-by-side with the security police in South Africa. The word was that they had fingered Mandela himself."
And has Mr. Obama done anything on his watch to reform the CIA? No way! Not only does he not prosecute those CIA agents guilty of torture and murder but by his own admission he personally directs the CIA thugs who kidnap and/or assassinate suspects with no due process of law. As of now, the Pakistan government reports at least 400 civilians have been killed in the attacks, the most recent horror being 17 killed on July 3 in a Pakistan drone strike.
A Grand Canyon-sized chasm looms between the principles of Mandela and Obama. When Mandela assumed power he created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate crimes committed by the former apartheid government. Just the opposite, President Obama says he will not investigate the CIA torturers who plied their grisly trade under President George W. Bush. No Grand Dragon in America's Klans ever left the wide swath of murder and mayhem that Mr. Obama is creating in the Middle East and Africa while he poses as an admirer of Rev. King and Mandela. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Obama's drone attacks alone have killed more than 3,500. Since none had the opportunity of a trial, the presumption must be all were innocent.
As for civil rights, when Mandela held office he pressed for an American style Bill of Rights for South Africa as opposed to Mr. Obama, who has been actively shredding that venerable document. An army of NSA snoops has been spying on Americans by the millions as well as on the conversations of the Associated Press, a blatant attack on freedom of the press. Obama has also signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law which allows the president to order the military to arrest any person on suspicion and jail them indefinitely without even a trial. Again, that's the opposite of the Mandela approach to individual freedom. Speaking of freedom, even as Mr. Obama brays he is "deeply honored" to visit Mandela's cell on Robben Island, he operates a Gulag today of cells stretching from Guantanamo to Afghanistan and beyond. Having spent weeks with MLK in the civil rights movement in the South, this reporter can say without fear of contradiction that the thug in the White House is no Martin Luther King. On the contrary—with his sneaky, secret, extra-judicial attacks and murders—President Obama today carries on the traditions associated with the Ku Klux Klan.
Sherwood Ross spent most of the Sixties active in the civil rights movement or activities related to civil rights. Reach him at sherwood.ross@gmail.com
Barack Obama, His Mother, and the CIA
Obama Visits Mandela's Old Cell, But Won't Free His Own Political Prisoners
Obama, Mandela and Dangerous Mythology
July 3, 2013 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | African National Congress, Human rights, Mandela, Nelson Mandela, Obama, Robben Island, South Africa | 4 Comments
PCHR slams immunity for Israel army chief on UK visit
Aftermath of an Israeli air strike on the building of Hamas' Ministry of Interior in Gaza City Nov. 16, 2012
Ma'an – 03/07/2013
BETHLEHEM – The Palestinian Center for Human Rights on Tuesday condemned a decision by the United Kingdom to grant immunity to Israel's army chief while visiting the country.
Lt. General Benny Gantz, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, arrived in the UK on Tuesday, in the first visit of an Israeli army chief since 1998.
The UK government granted Gantz's trip the status of Special Mission, thus granting him immunity from the UK's criminal justice system, PCHR said.
Hickman & Rose Solicitors, who represent the victims of General Gantz's actions together with PCHR, said the decision "sends the dangerous message that political considerations will be placed ahead of the rule of law."
"Credible evidence exists indicating Mr. Gantz's involvement in the commission of war crimes: these allegations should be investigated and, if appropriate, Mr. Gantz should be prosecuted," PCHR said.
"He should not be pre-emptively granted immunity by the UK Government, circumventing normal criminal justice procedures."
Lt. General Gantz is suspected of involvement in the commission of war crimes, particularly with respect to his role in the November 2012 assault on the Gaza Strip, codenamed Operation Pillar of Defense, PCHR says.
A week earlier, the UK government also applied Special Mission status to the visit of Major General Doron Almog, a retired army official suspected of war crimes, granting him immunity from Britain's criminal justice system.
Mr. Almog canceled his scheduled UK visit at the last minute for unknown reasons.
In 2005, a British court issued an arrest warrant for Major General Doron Almog in relation to the destruction of 59 Palestinian homes in Rafah refugee camp in 2002 as part of a sustained policy of house demolitions in Gaza, PCHR said.
British police were preparing to arrest Almog on suspicion of war crimes after he and his wife flew to the United Kingdom in 2005, but he refused to leave his plane at Heathrow airport following a tip-off about the arrest warrant and was allowed to return to Israel.
The decision to grant immunity to both Israeli officials "sends the clear message that Israel can commit war crimes in the Gaza Strip with impunity," PCHR said.
There is a risk, the group said, that Special Missions will be used to protect allies of the government and undermine the "basic principle of equal application of the law and the UK's international legal obligation to seek out and prosecute suspected war criminals."
July 3, 2013 Posted by aletho | War Crimes | Benny Gantz, Doron Almog, Gaza, Israel, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, UK | 1 Comment
RT | July 3, 2013
'An act of aggression and violation of international law' is how Bolivia's UN envoy described Austria's decision to search the Bolivian presidential jet for NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The envoy has pledged to make an official complaint to the UN.
Read the full story on the presidential plane grounding and follow RT's live updates on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Envoy Sacha Llorentty Soliz told press in New York that he had no doubt the decision to search the plane originated from the US.
Austrian authorities grounded Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane in Vienna early on Wednesday morning due to suspicions that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board. Morales refuted speculation that Snowden had stowed away on the plane and allowed authorities to conduct a search.
"Our colleagues from the airport had a look and can give assurances that no one is on board who is not a Bolivian citizen," Austrian Deputy Chancellor Michael Spindelegger told press, saying rumors that Snowden might be on board were untrue.
The move to detain the presidential plane triggered a wave of furious rhetoric from Latin American leaders who alleged it had been "kidnapped by imperialism."
Morales called on the countries who had cancelled air permits for the presidential flight to explain their decision.
"The governments of France, Spain and Portugal must explain to the world the reasons behind this delay," said Morales, adding that these actions were indicative of the "repressive policies" of some EU countries.
"This is an excuse to try and frighten, intimidate and punish me. An excuse to try and gag us in the fight against the dominant economic powers," said Morales.
Morales finally flew out of Vienna on Wednesday morning after being detained for over 12 hours in the airport. He will stop of in the Canary Islands to refuel before flying on to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.
July 3, 2013 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Austria, Bolivia, Evo Morales, Michael Spindelegger, National Security Agency, United States | 1 Comment


text:
Microstegium vimineum, commonly known as Japanese stiltgrass, packing grass, or Nepalese browntop, is an annual grass that is common in a wide variety of habitats and is well adapted to low light levels.

Despite being non-native in the United States, it serves as a host plant for some native satyr butterflies, such as the Carolina satyr Hermeuptychia sosybius and the endangered Mitchell's satyr Neonympha mitchellii. Owing to its invasive potential, the plant has been put on the European list of invasive alien species. This means the plant can no longer be imported into or traded in the European Union.

Distribution
It is native in much of South Asia, East Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia, and has since moved to the United States.

Description
It typically grows to heights between  and is capable of rooting at each node. The plant flowers in late summer and produces its seeds in the form of a caryopsis shortly thereafter.
It is quite similar to and often grows along with the North American grass Leersia virginica, but L. virginica lacks the distinctive silver stripe on the center of the leaf that is present on Japanese stiltgrass and also flowers one to two months earlier.

The plant is known to be a common habitat for ticks such as the lone star tick. Browsing deer often transport these ticks into other areas where they can expand.

Invasive species ecology

The plant was accidentally introduced into the U.S. state of Tennessee around 1919 as a result of being used as a packing material in shipments of porcelain from China.  It has spread throughout the Southeastern U.S. and is now found in 26 states.   Microstegium vimineum most commonly invades along roads, floodplain and other disturbed areas, but will also invade undisturbed habitats. Whitetail deer, which do not browse the grass, may facilitate spread by browsing on native species and thereby reducing competition for the exotic plant. Invasion of Microstegium can reduce growth and flowering of native species, suppress native plant communities, alter and suppress insect communities, slow plant succession and alter nutrient cycling.  However, removal of Microstegium can lead to recovery of native plant communities.

Control
As this plant serves as a host for satyr butterflies, including at least one that is ranked imperiled or endangered, its removal, unless accomplished via biological control, should be accompanied by a careful survey to avoid destroying existing butterflies in their various stages of growth as well as to ensure adequate alternative food plant availability.

Biological control is the method of control that is the least-damaging to ecosystems not typified by monoculture, like forested areas, while also being the most efficient in terms of costs.
Biological control is the foundation of the differentiation between native species living in complex ecological balance and non-native invasive species. It is nature's method of maintaining ecological balance.  Herbicide application and human-managed labor such as mowing, tilling, and pulling may be preferred for managing unwanted vegetation on land that is highly disturbed by human activity, such as agricultural land. For more complex ecosystems such as forests, effective biological control can eliminate or greatly reduce adverse impacts such as trampling and other physical disturbance such as soil compaction, the spreading of seeds from clothing, chemical toxicity, unwanted damage to non-targeted species, demanding human labor, petrochemical consumption, and other factors. Biological control agents are being evaluated for their effectiveness in controlling Microstegium vimineum as well as their chance to become pests themselves.

Microstegium vimineum can be controlled with pre-emergent herbicides targeted for crabgrass, in areas where native grasses subject to damage are not present in quantities sufficient to make herbicide application too undesirable. Post-emergent controls can also be considered. Some herbicides that target crab grass contain calcium acid methanearsonate, a chemical that contains the element arsenic. In the U.S., the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry ranked arsenic as number 1 in its 2001 Priority List of Hazardous substances at Superfund sites. Surfactants should be added to herbicides for better control, unless noted. Non-ionic surfactants are considered less damaging for other plant life, while crop oil containing surfactant is often considered somewhat more effective in killing grasses. Glyphosate has been found to be effective in controlling Microstegium vimineum by using as little as a half-percent of the concentrate in water. Being a non-specific herbicide, however, its effectiveness can come with damage to desirable plant life. Glyphosate also binds to soil phosphate, potentially causing a reduction in phosphate available for the remaining plant life. In addition to herbicides, hand weeding and mowing can be used for removal, in circumstances where such methods are appropriate. As this grass is an annual, in order to be effective, mowing must be performed before the plants go to seed.

References

External links
NPS Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas: Japanese Stilt Grass
Maine Invasive Plants: Japanese Stilt Grass, University of Maine
Species Profile of Microstegium vimineum (Japanese Stilt Grass)—United States National Agricultural Library, National Invasive Species Information Center. Lists general information and resources for Japanese stilt grass
Microstegium vimineum in Guide to Invasive and Hegemonic Grasses
Japanese stilt grass  Wisconsin DNR
Japanese stiltgrass - Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin

Andropogoneae
Flora of Asia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
from django.utils import timezone
from django.db.models import (
    Count, Subquery, Exists, OuterRef, Value, NullBooleanField,
    Case, When
)

from rest_framework import serializers, viewsets, mixins, status
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.reverse import reverse

from oauth2_provider.contrib.rest_framework import TokenHasScope

from froide.foirequest.models.request import (
    FoiRequest, get_absolute_domain_short_url
)
from froide.foirequest.auth import get_read_foirequest_queryset
from froide.helper.api_utils import CustomLimitOffsetPagination

from .models import FoiRequestFollower

class CreateOnlyWithScopePermission(TokenHasScope):
    def has_permission(self, request, view):
        if view.action not in ('create', 'update'):
            return True
        if not request.user.is_authenticated:
            return False
        if not request.auth:
            return True
        return super(CreateOnlyWithScopePermission, self).has_permission(
            request, view
        )

class CreateFoiRequestFollowSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    request = serializers.PrimaryKeyRelatedField(queryset=FoiRequest.objects.none())

    class Meta:
        model = FoiRequestFollower
        fields = ('request',)

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(CreateFoiRequestFollowSerializer, self).__init__(
            *args, **kwargs
        )
        qs = FoiRequestFollower.objects.get_followable_requests(
            self.context['view'].request.user
        )
        self.fields['request'].queryset = qs

    def validate_request(self, value):
        """
        Check that the blog post is about Django.
        """

        user = self.context['view'].request.user
        qs = get_read_foirequest_queryset(self.context['view'].request)
        try:
            value = qs.get(id=value.id)
        except FoiRequest.DoesNotExist:
            raise serializers.ValidationError('No access')
        if value.user == user:
            raise serializers.ValidationError('Cannot follow your own requests')
        return value

    def create(self, validated_data):
        follower, create = FoiRequestFollower.objects.get_or_create(
            request=validated_data['request'],
            user=validated_data['user'],
            defaults={
                'timestamp': timezone.now(),
                'confirmed': True
            }
        )
        return follower

class FoiRequestFollowSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    request = serializers.HyperlinkedRelatedField(
        view_name='api:request-detail',
        lookup_field='pk',
        read_only=True
    )
    resource_uri = serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField(
        view_name='api:following-detail',
        lookup_field='pk',
        required=False
    )
    request_url = serializers.SerializerMethodField(
        source='get_absolute_domain_url',
        read_only=True
    )
    follow_count = serializers.IntegerField(read_only=True)
    follows = serializers.BooleanField(read_only=True)
    can_follow = serializers.BooleanField(read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = FoiRequestFollower
        fields = ('resource_uri', 'request', 'request_url',
                  'timestamp', 'follow_count', 'follows', 'can_follow')

    def get_request_url(self, obj):
        return get_absolute_domain_short_url(obj.request_id)

class FoiRequestFollowRequestSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    request = serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField(
        view_name='api:request-detail',
        lookup_field='pk',
        read_only=True
    )
    resource_uri = serializers.HyperlinkedRelatedField(
        view_name='api:following-detail',
        lookup_field='pk',
        read_only=True
    )
    request_url = serializers.SerializerMethodField(
        source='get_absolute_domain_url',
        read_only=True
    )
    follow_count = serializers.IntegerField(read_only=True)
    follows = serializers.BooleanField(read_only=True)
    can_follow = serializers.BooleanField(read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = FoiRequest
        fields = ('request', 'request_url', 'resource_uri',
                  'follow_count', 'follows', 'can_follow')

    def get_request_url(self, obj):
        return get_absolute_domain_short_url(obj.id)

class LargeResultsSetPagination(CustomLimitOffsetPagination):
    default_limit = 150
    max_limit = 200

class FoiRequestFollowerViewSet(mixins.CreateModelMixin,
                        mixins.ListModelMixin,
                        mixins.DestroyModelMixin,
                        viewsets.GenericViewSet):
    serializer_class = FoiRequestFollowSerializer
    permission_classes = (CreateOnlyWithScopePermission,)
    read_scopes = ['read:request']
    required_scopes = ['follow:request']
    pagination_class = LargeResultsSetPagination

    def get_serializer_class(self):
        if self.action == 'create':
            return CreateFoiRequestFollowSerializer
        if self.get_request_filter():
            return FoiRequestFollowRequestSerializer
        return self.serializer_class

    def get_foirequest_queryset(self, requests=None):
        if self.action != 'list':
            raise Exception('Bad call to foirequest queryset')
        user = self.request.user
        token = self.request.auth
        qs = get_read_foirequest_queryset(self.request)
        if requests is not None:
            qs = qs.filter(id__in=requests)
        if user.is_authenticated and (
                not token or token.is_valid(self.read_scopes)):
            follows = (
                FoiRequestFollower.objects
                .filter(request_id=OuterRef('pk'), user=user)
            )
            qs = qs.annotate(
                follows=Exists(follows),
                resource_uri=Subquery(follows.values('pk')),
                can_follow=Case(
                    When(user_id=user.id, then=Value(False)),
                    default=Value(True),
                    output_field=NullBooleanField()
                )
            )
        else:
            qs = qs.annotate(
                follows=Value(None, output_field=NullBooleanField()),
                can_follow=Value(None, output_field=NullBooleanField())
            )
        qs = qs.annotate(
            follow_count=Count('followers'),
        )
        return qs

    def get_request_filter(self):
        if not hasattr(self, '_requests_filter'):
            requests = self.request.query_params.get('request', '').split(',')
            try:
                requests = [int(r) for r in requests]
            except ValueError:
                requests = []
            self._requests_filter = requests
        return self._requests_filter

    def get_queryset(self):
        user = self.request.user
        token = self.request.auth
        requests = self.get_request_filter()
        qs = None
        if requests and self.action == 'list':
            # Never return on destructive action
            return self.get_foirequest_queryset(requests=requests)
        elif user.is_authenticated:
            if not token or token.is_valid(self.read_scopes):
                qs = (
                    FoiRequestFollower.objects
                    .filter(user=user)
                    .order_by('-timestamp')
                )
        if qs is None:
            qs = FoiRequestFollower.objects.none()

        if self.action == 'list':
            follower_count = (
                FoiRequest.objects
                .filter(id=OuterRef('request'))
                .values('pk')
                .annotate(count=Count('followers'))
            )
            qs = qs.annotate(
                follow_count=Subquery(follower_count.values('count')),
                # follows by query definition
                follows=Value(True, output_field=NullBooleanField()),
                # can_follow by query definition
                can_follow=Value(True, output_field=NullBooleanField())
            )
        return qs

    def create(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        serializer = self.get_serializer(data=request.data)
        serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
        instance = self.perform_create(serializer)
        data = {
            'status': 'success',
            'url': reverse('api:following-detail', kwargs={'pk': instance.pk},
                           request=request)
        }
        headers = {'Location': data['url']}
        return Response(data, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED, headers=headers)

    def perform_create(self, serializer):
        return serializer.save(user=self.request.user)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Ludvig Rosenkrantz (født 28. april 1628 i Odense, død 23. august 1685 i Kristiansand) var en dansk-norsk lensbaron, stiftamtmand og gehejmeråd.

Han var søn af oberst Holger Rosenkrantz og Justina Ursula van der Lauwick. Ludvig Rosenkrantz' karriere syntes tidligt at skulle være militærvejen. Allerede før Christian 4.'s død havde han fået fændriks gage til ophold i udlandet for sin militære uddannelse, og dette fortsatte under Frederik 3. Efter hjemkomsten fik han 1654 bestalling at være skibskaptajn, 1658 blev han krigskommissær nordenfjelds (til 1661) og drog samtidig til Trondheim med den troppeafdeling, som sendtes dertil for at tilbageerobre byen fra svenskerne, der overgav den i december 1658. 1671 blev han vicegeneralkommissarius, og 1673 blev han amtmand i Stavanger Amt og assessor i overhofretten samt generalkommissarius. 1680 stiftamtmand i Kristiansands Stift, men flyttede dog først i 1684 fra Stavanger til Kristiansand. Samme år udnævnt til ridder af Dannebrog. I Kristiansand modtog han det følgende år Christian 5. ved dennes besøg i Norge, men døde kort efter sammesteds 23. august 1685 efter langvarig svagelighed.

Ludvig Rosenkrantz var ca. 1657 blevet gift med den på det tidspunkt rigeste arving i Norge, jomfru Karen Axelsdatter Movat, datter af Axel Movat til Hovland m.m. Ægteskabet var særdeles fordelagtigt for den forholdsvis fattige Rosenkrantz. Således fik han et betydeligt jordegods i Bergens Stift. 14. januar 1678 blev han ophøjet i friherrestanden som baron til Baroniet Rosendal. Rosendal blev oprettet af tre af hans sædegårde, Hatteberg, Mel og Sem, med underliggende gods. Han beboede Hatteberg, hvor han i begyndelsen af 1660'erne opførte den endnu bevarede, prægtige hovedbygning. 1679 blev han gehejmeråd. Formentlig samtidig indgik han sit andet ægteskab; den første hustru Karen Movat var død 1675. Den nye hustru var dronning Charlotte Amalies kammerjomfru Clara Catharina von Stockhausen (død 1689). Ludvig Rosenkrantz regnes ved skatteansættelsen i 1676 for en af landets rigeste mænd, men alligevel var hans økonomiske forhold ved hans død temmelig dårlige. Alle hans fire sønner døde uden afkom, den sidste 1723. Hermed uddøde denne norske gren af den danske adelsslægt.

Lensbaroner fra Danmark
Amtmænd fra Norge
Ludvig
Godsejere fra Norge
Danskere i 1600-tallet
Riddere af Dannebrog (1671-1808)
Krigskommissærer fra Danmark
Personer i Dansk Biografisk Leksikon
Gehejmeråder fra Danmark


text:
| MEN'S SQUASH: No. 8 Elis end losing skid before Ivy play
Griffin Smilow
MEN'S SQUASH: No. 8 Elis end losing skid before Ivy play
Griffin Smilow 12:42 am, Jan 31, 2017
Contributing Reporter
Greg Cameron
After mixed results this past weekend on the road, the No. 8 Yale men's squash team will turn attention to conference play in the familiar stomping grounds of the Brady Squash Center.
The defending national- and Ivy- champion Bulldogs (5–5, 2–1 Ivy) suffered a narrow, hard-fought 5–4 loss to No. 5 Drexel (10–4) on Friday before rebounding the following day with 7–2 and 9–0 tallies against No. 12 George Washington (4–6) and No. 11 Navy (15–5), respectively. The pair of victories on Saturday put an end to a recent losing skid in which Yale dropped five out of six matches, including four in a row, and fell from No. 2 to No. 8 in the national rankings.
"Drexel is a team that has improved a lot over the last few years," Arjun Kochhar '18 said. "There were a couple of tight five-gamers that could've gone either way at No. 2 and No. 6, but unfortunately we couldn't pull it out."
Kochhar, playing at No. 7, found himself facing sudden elimination after dropping his first two games by 11–9 scores — the narrowest margin not requiring extra points. At this point Drexel led Yale 4–3 and a loss for Kochhar would seal his team's fate. After regrouping between games, the junior headed into the third with a new game plan and a doggedness that led him to overwhelm his opponent 11–8, 11–7, 11–5 to claim a win in the decisive fifth.
Four of the nine matches against the Dragons required the maximum five games to determine a winner, demonstrating the parity of the competition. In addition to Kochhar, No. 8 Pierson Broadwater '18 claimed a victory in his fifth game with 11–13, 11–7, 11–1, 5–11 and 11–6 scores. Captain and No. 2 TJ Dembinski '17 fell 14–12 in his fifth game and No. 6 Thomas Kingshott '18 lost 11–8 in his final contest. Dembinski's first game, which he lost 12–10, also required extra points to determine a victor.
Ultimately, the entire match came down to just one point. After trading games back and forth, the two schools were tied at four wins apiece, and all attention turned to the big stage where Spencer Lovejoy '20 battled Drexel's Omar El Atmas at No. 1. Lovejoy dropped his first two games to the Cairo native by 11–3 and 11–5 marks, and while a desperate last stand from the Eli freshman tied the third at 13–13, El Atmas clinched the match with a 15–13 win.
"The match against Drexel was very heated and every match could have gone either way," Lovejoy said. "Both teams had their chances to finish it off, but unfortunately we fell just slightly short and they were able to capitalize on the crucial points. However, I liked the way everyone fought and it was a learning experience for sure."
Yale reversed its misfortunes the following day with a pair of wins in the span of a few hours. The Bulldogs opened competition Saturday morning with a 7–2 win over GW. Showcasing the team's depth, the Bulldogs — who were without the play of top-nine regulars Dembinski and Liam McClintock '17 — secured 3–0 sweeps in the No. 6 through No. 9 positions. Yale's lone losses came from No. 2 Kah Wah Cheong '17 and No. 4 Kingshott, who both fell in four games.
Later in the day, the fatigued Bulldogs cruised to a clean 9–0 win against the Midshipmen, just their third sweep of the season and their first since Dec. 6, 2016. Again, the Bulldogs secured victory without two regular roster players, this time with McClintock and Cheong out of the lineup.
The win against Navy marked the seventh consecutive away match in just 18 days for the Bulldogs, who have not competed at home since a week before classes resumed.
"It's been an extremely rough stretch of away games for us and, even though the results haven't been ideal, the team has learned a lot," Kochhar said. "We're happy to be done with all the travel and are hungry to play on our home turf again this weekend."
Yale will face off against No. 10 Princeton (2–5, 0–2 Ivy) this Saturday and No. 6 Penn (5–4, 1–1 Ivy) on Sunday in what will be crucial matches for a Bulldog squad aiming to defend its Ivy title. Yale also hosted the Tigers and Quakers back-to-back in early February last year, clinching respective 7–2 and 6–3 wins en route to the Elis' perfect 7–0 conference record.
After suffering a 7–2 upset loss to then-No. 5 Columbia earlier in the season, Yale currently sports a 2–1 record against Ancient Eight competition. With both the Lions and No. 4 Harvard holding 3–0 conference records, a pair of wins this weekend will likely be necessary for the Bulldogs to compete for a share of the Ivy title heading into their final matches of the season, both against Ivy League foes.
"With the positive momentum and the strong performance last weekend, the home matches are a great chance to add a couple of wins to our Ivy League Championship campaign," Jonathan Kovac '19 said. "Penn and Princeton are strong teams with good results this season, but this is in our hands; playing in front of our crowd will give us the extra push to show our strength."
Yale opens play at the Brady Squash Center on Saturday at 4 p.m.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Midway brings Id's classic 3D shooter home to Nintendo 64 in good form. Don't miss the full review
By Matt Casamassina
Updated: Dec 13, 2018 1:47 am
Posted: Mar 25, 1998 2:00 am
Quake made its gaming debut for the PC two years ago. The dark 3D shooter was generally thought of as the "Doom killer"; sporting a polygon-pushing true 3D engine and options not found in Doom such as the ability to jump, look up-down and fight on multiple levels. But beyond everything else, Quake came to be known as one of, if not the very best multiplayer game ever created. Up to 16 (32 later) deathmatchers could battle it out over the Internet or local network, and new mission packs, hacks and upgrades were and still are a given.
And now Nintendo 64 owners finally get a chance to do some Quakin' of their own, courtesy of Midway Home Entertainment and the same development team responsible for Doom 64. But is it too little far too late? Quake 2 has been available for the PC for nearly six months, Goldeneye has raised the standards of the first-person shooter for Nintendo 64 and the hype for Turok 2 is just beginning. The 64-bit update of Id's classic shooter has quite a bit to live up to.
Quake (Nintendo 64)
Bi-Linear Filtering, Anti-aliaising
Consistently high frame rate
Ambient sound effects very similar to Doom 64. No music.
A total of 25 single-player levels and seven deathmatch levels. No exclusive N64 levels. No Co-op mode
Deathmatches are split-screen for two players. Frame rate suffers slightly in two-player mode.
Fake colored-lighting via prerendered light-maps and no real-time light-sourcing. Rockets won't illuminate hallways as they go, the nailgun won't light up a room, etc. Everything has been pre-colored.
Rumble Pak support
Controls can be customized. There are six built-in configurations, including a scheme identical to Turok and another identical to Goldeneye.
If you've ever sat down with the PC version of Quake then you probably won't be shocked with the changes made (or lack thereof) for the Nintendo 64 port of the game. All of the levels from the PC are back (with no Nintendo 64 exclusives) in slightly modified form; a few objects moved around here and there with monsters repositioned occasionally as well. Don't expect exclusive, brand new levels.
For that one person out there who has never played or heard of Quake before, the object of the game is to make it through alive, while killing as many enemy soldiers and mutations as humanly possible. Of course, there's a simplistic story mixed in for good measure, but you'll never notice it (or remember it) once the carnage begins -- which is immediately.
Players must battle through 25 levels, acquiring keys to unlock doors to progress through the game. A massive army of soldiers, sorcerers and demons await at every turn. Quakers aren't exactly harmless though; weapons such as the nailgun, super nailgun, shotgun, missile launcher, grenade launcher, lightning gun and axe make up the wide arsenal of destruction available.
Whereas Goldeneye requires brains and technique, Quake requires quick thinking and lots of bullets. There are no objectives here, except to kill everything in sight and make it to the next level. It's bloody good fun at a frantic pace -- and we do mean bloody. Body parts explode into pieces upon being hit by a rocket, decapitated heads roll to a dead stop, and satanic overtones are everywhere. The Nintendo 64 version retains all of the violent goodness in its pure form.
The analog stick is put to good use, delivering precise control (comparable to the PC mouse) for navigating or, if Turok-style is your thing, for aiming. It should be noted though, that turns can't be performed as fast as a sensitive mouse setup, where a complete revolution can be performed in a split second. Still, Quake responds better and moves much quicker than both Turok and Goldeneye, as it should.
The game is running in a lower resolution than GL Quake and also seems to be using less detailed environments, probably to keep the frame rate high. Where as certain surroundings in PC Quake have grooves, markings, added design and more depth, the Nintendo 64 version looks a little naked in comparison. However, the difference, while noticeable, is not annoying and in fact the 64-bit version does look better than the unaccelerated version of Quake for PC. Like the PC version, there is no real-time environmental light-sourcing, which is disappointing considering that Lobotomy Software managed to add the feature for the Saturn version and it looks great. On the other hand, the colored-lighting present in Quake 64 gives the illusion of illuminated areas, colored rooms and so on. And we're not going to downplay this addition to the game because it really adds atmosphere. Hallways illuminate red, yellow, green, blue and orange; rooms glow with color and all of this happens with no hit on framerates, which run smoothly at all times.
Many will disagree, but we like the ambient sound effects in Quake 64 better than Trent Reznor's soundtrack for the PC version. The grunts, whispers, sadistic howls and everything else blend together nicely for a dark, urgent mood that while also present in Reznor's soundtrack, isn't as effective. Nintendo 64's Quake represents one of those rare cases where music simply isn't needed; the dark sound effects do much more for the frantic feeling of the game.
Midway delayed Quake so that the development team would have time to implement a multiplayer mode for the game. Well, it's in there, but unfortunately the feature isn't all that it could be. Quake offers two-player split-screen deathmatches, whereas the competition (namely Goldeneye) has four. There are no cooperative modes. Framerates suffer (sometimes drastically -- lots of explosions on-screen at once) during the multiplayer mode and there are only a handful of levels that can be played (seven in all). And finally, if you've ever played the PC version of Quake you're probably going to gawk at the multiplayer options in comparison.
On the other hand, the two-player deathmatches are playable and can be extremely fun, especially when explosions aren't interfering with smooth framerates. Quake generally moves much faster than other first-person shooters and usually whoever shoots first kills first.
The Nintendo 64 version of Quake is exceptionally well done, but it's still the same game. There are no new levels, no new monsters or weapons and the multiplayer mode pales in comparison to its PC predecessor. Visually, it looks better than the original PC version, but not quite as good as the 3DFX accelerated upgrade. Pre-rendered colored textures give the game its own moody look and the framerate is very high most of the time.
Despite its flaws, Nintendo 64 owners looking for the Quake experience can't go wrong with this game -- if for single-player mode alone. However, seasoned Quakers looking for the ultimate multiplayer game may want to rent before they buy.
ESRB: Mature
Nintendo 64SaturnMacintoshPC
Matt Casamassina
More Reviews by Matt Casamassina
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon Review
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Review
HBO's The Last of Us: Episode 3 Review
2d ago - Love in a hopeless place
Simon Cardy


text:
44.6F
Brian Clarey- January 13, 2021 0
Staff- January 12, 2021 0
Brian Clarey- January 7, 2021 0
HomeColumnsEditor's Notebook: Columbia, SC history for dads
The sun glints off the confederate soldier monument in front pf the South Carolina State House in Columbia.
Editor's Notebook
Editor's Notebook: Columbia, SC history for dads
Brian Clarey
As far as mid-sized Southern cities go, Columbia, SC has a lot to offer.
Its assortment of Stuff We Don't Got Yet in the Triad includes a ramen restaurant, a bougie ice-cream parlor (think roasted-beet-and-feta ice cream) a straight-up vegan restaurant.
It's the state capital, too, so I dragged my sweaty family to the grounds of the State House on Assembly Street so that I could conduct a teaching moment.
I lined them up under the most prominent monument, dedicated to the soldiers of Confederacy, who attempted an armed insurrection against the United States of America just four score and seven years after its formation.
I explained to my children that behind the statue of the soldier, who is quite literally on a pedestal, there once flew a Confederate flag, right here in front of the state capitol. That didn't happen back in 1879, when the statue was unveiled, I further explained. It was decreed four score and three years afterwards, by state law in 1962, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, as an effort to intimidate black people in this place that was once entirely dependent on slave labor.
And at first, the offending flag flew atop the dome of the State House, to be relocated to the memorial in May 2000. They moved it because of a threatened NCAA boycott.
It took a North Carolina woman, Bree Newsome of Charlotte, to pull it down early one morning in June 2015 after scaling the 30-foot flagpole and tearing it from its tether. This was in the wake of a racially motivated shooting down the road at a Charleston church, after which the South Carolina legislature began debating the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, which it finally did in July 2015.
I swept my arms across the wide plaza to impress upon my children the events of history that had happened right here. And for a moment they humored me. But really they just wanted to get back to the ice cream place.
bree newsome
confederate monument
south carolina state house
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'Unlawful arrests': Dozens still face charges from Graham protests over past year
Graham redux: 650 march for voting rights and police reform
Racist fliers and displays crop up in heavy-turnout Chatham County during election run-up
Postcard from San Diego
Brian Clarey- August 2, 2018 0
I'm standing with the food writer Ari LeVaux outside the Omni Hotel in downtown San Diego, where tourists zip through the streets on electric...


WEST HAM'S Olympic dream is lying in tatters after suffering final day torment in their quest to qualify for the Europa League.
Slaven Bilic's side are now anxiously hoping Manchester United lift the FA Cup next weekend to earn them a reprieve following a dramatic turnaround at Stoke City which meant they slipped to seventh place in the Premier League.
The Hammers looked on course to secure European football for an exciting new start at the Olympic Stadium when Michail Antonio fired home his 13th goal of the season, but they were made to pay for missed chances as Mark Hughes' side hit back to secure ninth place for a third successive time since he succeeded Tony Pulis.
Within minutes of Given denying Sakho with his point blank save, Stoke drew level as Giannelli Imbula was given the freedom to fire a long range shot past Darren Randolph.
Despite that setback, West Ham had further opportunities to regain the lead as Given and Glenn Whelan produced crucial goal-line clearances.
Stoke made the most of those let-offs as Charlie Adam, who went close with one of his trademark audacious chips from the halfway line, delivered the left winger corner from which fellow substitute Mame Diouf powered home a close range header.
STOKE CITY (4-2-3-1): Given 7; Cameron 6 (Bardsley 79), Shawcross 7, Wollscheid 5, Pieters 6; Whelan 7, Imbula 8; Walters 5, Bojan 7 (Adam 77), Arnautovic 6; Joselu 5 (Diouf 73). Booked: Imbula, Given.
WEST HAM: (4-1-4-1): Randolph 6; Tomkins 6 (Moses 86), Reid 7, Ogbonna 7, Cresswell 6; Kouyate 7; Antonio 8, Noble 7, Lanzini 6, Sakho 5 (Emenike 61, 5); Carroll 5 (Valencia 66, 5). Booked: Kouyate.


text:
Thoughts about Firestorm's warning of mass TPV failure in March...
By Nuhai Ling,
February 18, 2013 in General Discussion Forum
Nuhai Ling
Did anyone else read the Phoenix-Firestorm Project's warning about all TPVs going on the fritz as early as March? Here is the link to last week's Q & A Meeting with a 20-minute "We are warning people now..." statement by Jessica Lyon. Make sure to read the blog reviews and video. The link is http://www.firestormviewer.org/qa-results/
I thought for sure this would make a bigger splash here but ya'll might still be recovering from VD (Valentine's Day for those of you with PG minds!). For me, it triggered memories of the huge drop in retention and visitation SL experienced after Viewer 2 was launched, and back then a smaller percentage of residents used TPVs. Anyone want to gander a guess as to the overall effect of making Firestorm and other viewers unable to work for weeks or even months?
I won't speculate yet but hope everyone else does! I am leaving the discussion wide open...
wiked Anton
my phoenix has already become unusable. so now i am forced to use firestorm. bring back emerald...lol...anyway, thats ho things go, they call it progress. add more amd more bells and whistles so there is more things to go wrong.... anyway, i think people are getting used to forced changes and will just deal with it with a minimum of fuss. Phoenix's eventual demise ( because they stopped maintaining it) has been known for quite a while now, and though phoenic could still work, LL's Sl changes just means it wont work in SL anymore....maybe it will work in utherverse or ozworld.....i am not sure.
Madeline Blackbart
I was under the impression that it wouldn't break TPV per say just make them more unstable as the new code isn't intigrating well. But maybe I read the summeries wrong?
Cerise Sorbet
It might not happen by March (delays on big changes are inevitable), but it will happen some time this year. Once the server side baking changes go through, old viewers will still be able to connect, but they won't be able to display avatars in SL any more. Everybody will show up as a cloud or gray person.
This will pretty much be the end of useful life for retired viewers, but it won't be the end of viewers that are still being maintained. LL has been making the source code changes available, so that they can release new compatible versions.
Innula Zenovka
When server-side baking comes in, it's going to break all viewers -- tpvs and official ones -- that haven't been updated to accommodate it. I attended the meeting, and one of the things I took away from it was that Jessica was trying to warn us to expect a bumpy ride over the next few months whatever viewer we're using, Firestorm, the Official Viewer or something else, and apologising in advance for the fact the next release of Firestorm isn't going to be as stable as she'd like. I got the feeling, too, that there was a bit of expectation-management going on there as well, but I'm sure it is going to take a while for the new changes to bed down.
The point behind the changes is very welcome -- it's supposedly going to stop people being ruthed, or seeming OK to themselves but not others (or vice versa) and going to lead, too, to sims and people rezzing far faster after you teleport. For once it's not LL introducing new shinies but fixing some long-standing and much-complained-about bugs.
Medhue Simoni
BENTO Guru
My guess, a 1 percent loss. This is being made out to be more than it really is. Plus, It's likely LL will wait for FS to be ready b4 they pull anything.
Renee Caxton
Mark my words, what they are doing will not fix anything. If viewers are having trouble communicating with the servers (the thing SSAB is supposed to "fix") then adding yet another server is not going to help. Most likely they are just trying to appease vendors by further locking down DRM on clothing.
Instead of constantly breaking things, the Labs should concentrate on FIXING things. Right now the Labs viewer is so messed up I cannot use it at all. If they break Firestorm too then I will just retreat to OSGrid. Second Life is hopeless. Three years and thousands of dollars down the drain on my end ... poured into a company that hates its loyal customers.
This is fixing things.
Since you seem not followed the server side baking discussion, the problem explained in short:
To make your avatar visible, your viewer loads everything necessary from the asset server,
then assembles everything, sends the baked avatar back to the sim server,
where it is then distributed to the other viewers logged in that sim.
There are enough points, where this process fails, including your operating system, Graphics drivers,
defective and or malconfigured routers, etc.
By moving the avatar baking process onto the sim server and/or the asset server, a lot of possible fail points is removed.
Plus, since the baking process happens on the server side, avatars will render faster after a teleport.
And it has the potential of ending clouding, missing parts, grey aliens, etc. once and for all.
Oh, and I do see potential for a slightly increased viewer performance as well.
However, since this requires bigger changes to the viewer code, I expect a reduced stability for a few minor version iterations.
But then, bigger changes to a software as complex as this one always have the potential to unleash a few
unwanted gremlins.
Btw. if your viewer has problems communicating with the servers, avatar baking is your smallest problem.
I expect a gigabit ethernet cable in a datacenter to be more reliable than a home dsl connection.
Amethyst Jetaime
Jessica pointed out in that meeting that the code that LL gave them has lots of bugs in it. Since this is the same code that they use in the official viewer, all of them will be unstable until these are all worked out.
From what I understand and have seen pictures of, an avatar will not look like a cloud to someone using an old viewer, they will look like an avatar but will have no textures. The "Missing" suit, for those of us that have been around long enough to remember that , is about to come back into style just updated just a bit. This is the pic that the Phoenix team is using to illustrate what they will look like.
Czari Zenovka
Renee Caxton wrote:
I'm with you. All the "new technology" has done nothing to enhance my SL "experience." Having mixed listings on my MP store for a solid year and a Linden telling a friend of mine "We're still working on it, these things take time" is ridiculous.
Others have said this and I didn't want to believe it, but I'm starting to think LL *does* want to get rid of the long-term residents who tend to be the ones who know about, and ask for, things to be fixed before adding new "features" that were released before being thoroughly debugged, thus adding to the long list of "still not fixed" items.
One set of friends with whom I began SL in 2007 have been trying to get me to join them on OS-Grid and another dear friend has offered free land to me in another VW - might be time to do one or the other...or both.
Nice... white plastic is the new grey. :smileywink:
But seriously, I know these effects from Inara's blog, she had written a few entries about SSB.
This plastic outfit should be a thing of the past, when everyone has updated their viewer.
And what I meant with this sentence:
""And it has the potential of ending clouding, missing parts, grey aliens, etc. once and for all.""
is simply, that the bake fails, we know so well are mostly gone. I do know, that SSB doesn't catch everything,
but there is a realistic chance, that popping into a G sim stark naked doesn't happen anymore.
Speaking of the buggy LL-code, hey, it's Linden Lab, bug free code on the first release would have been a wonder.
I expect the TPV-vendors to debug/rewrite the code anyway.
Czari Zenovka wrote:
But this is an attempt to fix a long-standing problem, isn't it?
People have been complaining for as long as I can remember about being Ruthed and how long places take to rez , and you only need to look at the number of posts in the Answers section here about "I'm stuck as a cloud -- how do I fix it?" to see that it's still a big problem for many people, as are the related problems of "my avatar is permanently blurry and I keep on having to rebake" or "my clothing looks OK to me but I appear nude to others" (or vice versa).
What I took away from the meeting was that LL is concerned to get this new code working and rolled out on the grid as soon as possible, and then tweak the viewer code later as proves necessary. They are unwilling to do this if Firestorm, at least, haven't been able to adopt the new code, but are putting a lot of pressure on Firestorm to adopt it as soon as possible.
This means, Jessica was warning us, that the next release of Firestorm won't, in many ways, meet the QA targets she and the team normally set themselves, but the matter isn't wholly in their hands.
Darren Scorpio
You are about a month and half late, this has already been discussed here on dozens of threads. Anyway, you are reading too much into it. Not ALL TPVs will be broken, the Firestorm/Phoenix team made the decision to stop supporting Phoenix so when SSB is rolled out Phoenix will become broken, Firestorm on the other hand will NOT be broken as it will get updated to support the new system. Which TPVs will be broken is really up to the people who develop them if they decide to update their viewers to support SSB. Cool VL Viewer which is a V1 viewer has already been updated to include this for testing, once it is rolled out I am sure it will become a standard feature for that particular viewer. Keep calm! SL is not coming to an end and neither are TPVs.
Czari, I am as worried myself as my 4 year old crappy lappy can not handle much any more. What I have been told though is that SSB should help us rather than hurt us. I guess we just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.
Dilbert Dilweg
LOL this is supposed to be in effort to fix problems with rezzing. Its not an attempt to ad new things .
And there is nothing wrong with LL viewer. It runs fantastic.
It doesn't matter to me if it breaks firestorm . That just means the coders need to be on their toes and fix it faster,
I haven't used a tpv in over a year and loving it
When you use a third party viewer, you also take on the extended bugs as well as extended time in adding the new features than if you would using the official. Because the TPV will always be playing catch up
Its the same code (Open Source). A good computer can run all viewers with no problem. A Poorly managed or weak computer hardware wise will have troubles with anything
Sl Is Not hopeless LOL
Help the sky is falling! The sky is falling! LOL
Rhys Goode
/me scratches her head in wonder. The crash statistics (objective data, unless you think there is a conspiracy to make them up) say SL is more stable than its ever been. This is certianly true for me, I rarely crash at all. And at the events I go to, other people rarely crash either. Oh there are a couple of exceptions, a few people who certainly have ongoing problems. But a few individuals account for at least 90% of the crashes I witness, it has to be problems with their connection, or thier computer capability or configuration, otherwise the large majority would not be dancing along without all the crashes.
Personally, I can account for nearly all my crashes as being caused by my connection. My ISP provides a link has the annoying habit of going dead for minutes at a time, at random intervals. No internet traffic at all. Its not just an SL thing, it happens when I am not even running SL, and it happens to our other computer at the same time. Sometimes the viewer recovers, sometimes it doesn't. The other case is when I am out in the world, using public wifi. If I get a link with bad packet loss, then I crash like crazy, turn off the computer and read a book. But more often than not packet loss is tolerable (1 or 2 %) --- enough to cause significant lag, and a few crashes, but not a show stopper.
In fact, my biggest annoyance of all right now is bake fail problems, the particular issue being addressed by SSB. So, I can't wait for the bugs to work out, I have very high expectations that it will improve my SL.
Jenni Darkwatch
~shrug~
LL can't win. If they try to fix things (like they do with SSB), people will scream. If they add new features, people will scream. If they do nothing, people will scream. No matter what they do, they lose.
My opinion? SSB is a good idea. How well it'll work out in reality is not easy to predict. Firestorm... they've been lagging behind LL's codebase for a long time, it's to be expected that they're going to run into problems.
Buggy code? All code is buggy. There is no bug-free code, open- or closed-source. With open source there's a good chance TPVs will fix at least the big bugs quickly. Whether LL will back-port those fixes into their own viewer anytime soon... well... depends on how much pot you smoke. Eventually you'll believe anything.
Ciaran Laval
That's a known bug I believe, I got that when I was testing SSB on the beta grid, it was in the release notes that it can happen, it worked nicely for a while then went like that.
Rhys Goode wrote: "The crash statistics (objective data, unless you think there is a conspiracy to make them up) say SL is more stable than its ever been. This is certianly true for me, I rarely crash at all."
Same here, doesn't matter, if I use Firestorm, Singularity or the SL-Viewer, I don't have any crashes at all.
But I still remember times, when a crash every two hours was the norm for me.
Rhys Goode wrote: " My ISP provides a link has the annoying habit of going dead for minutes at a time, at random intervals. No internet traffic at all."
Ouch. That's deadly for all applications, that need constant synchronization. That results also in bake fails for your avatar.
Others see only parts or a cloud. I do suggest, that you have a serious talk with your ISP/Phone provider.
There could be something wrong with the cabling or the DSL- / Cable-Modem, maybe sync loss due to electrical interference.
The cresh stats aren't made up, but lots of crashes happen at the very end, while logging out normally. I wish those could be broken out separately, since those crashes are usually in the "so what?" end of things.
Persephone Emerald
a wanderer in liminal space
I just hope LL waits untile after the Twisted Hunt ( all of March ) to do this.
Maryanne Solo
3D Mesh <-> Real Life :p
It's no big deal and no real inconvenience.
LL viewer is pretty much ok these days sooo
It's good they are always advancing SL - well done.
I prefer firestorm for no real reason.
Possibly because Jess is so approachable & friendly.
RangiUtu
It's bollocks. You will not need to use the official SL viewer and viewer 1 interface lovers won't need to give it up. SINGULARITY will still work. It's the only viewer 1 interface TPV that will, because it's being updated. So let's put the rumours to rest. Linden decisions, including viewer 2 have been responsible for the vast majority of any exodus in SL. I would suggest the loss of a huge percentage more if it weren't for Singularity remaining viable. However, that said, there will be a lot that will leave because their computers can not handle the laggier mesh viewers. Unlike lots of you mean people who say "good riddance" or "Luddite," I say only how sorry I am to those people who won't be able to log in again when this occurs.
Ansariel Hiller
Anti-Apple Shill
Cerise Sorbet wrote:
That is not 100% correct as depending on where exactly the crash during logout happens you could end up with settings not being saved.
But even more annoying are the crashes due to running out of memory that started with the introduction of mesh. V3 viewers seem to leak memory from whenever you cam close at avatars, especially those wearing lots of sculped attachments. This however is primarily an issue for people running the viewer on 32bit operating systems, but even on 64bit systems it's quite annoying if the viewer starts to suck up to 2.5GB of memory when visiting clubs.
Annalise Ember
Well, thanks to Jadeclaw, I have a basic view of what's going on. So far the viewers I have liked were SL V1, Emerald, Phoenix, and Imprudence. I wouldn't give a wooden nickel for SL later versions or Firestorm - don't like the format and I even tried the Firestorm/Phoenix hybrid. If the Lab hadn't gone all screwy with its megalomania and antisocial personality disorder, I'd still be using its viewers.
I am patient and can wait till I find a likeable viewer that works. If not, I'll blow off the few hundred I have spent as an experience (the same as I do when I buy skiing passes or travel tickets) and go play in Inworldz or somewhere. Most of my online friends have other accounts in other VWs anyway.
LL has neither the brains nor the abilities to ruffle me much.
Good health and happiness to you all. Hugs, too. :cathappy:


Pokemon Go Fest is expanding to four days.
Pokemon Go Fest is making its return in 2019 as part of the Pokemon Go Summer Tour.
The event, which brings together trainers to catch the fictional creatures, is headed to Chicago's Grant Park and is expanding to four days (June 13-16) from the original two. It's also coming to Dortmund, Germany, July 4-7, organizers said Thursday.
"Last year's Pokemon GO Summer Tour brought hundreds of thousands of Trainers together at real-world events around the world which left us with some truly unforgettable moments and stories," said John Hanke, CEO and founder of Pokemon Go maker Niantic.
There will also be events in which trainers can participate from afar, as well as worldwide "Community Day" events.
Pokemon Go, an app that lets folks try to catch Pokemon characters in augmented reality using their phones, was a big hit in 2016, nabbing 55 million mobile users in its first month.


1.2 Week 3 - Topic What does it take to enter foreign markets?
Reputation of a social entity (a person, a social group, an organization) is an opinion about that entity, typically a result of social evaluation on a set of criteria. It is important in business, education, online communities, and many other fields.
Reputation may be considered as a component of identity as defined by others.
He is most known for his work on the RepTrak Model and RepTrak Alignment Monitor.
Van Riel co-founded The Reputation Institute in 1997.
Week 3 - Topic What does it take to enter foreign markets?
Non-tariff barriers to trade are trade barriers that restrict imports, but are unlike the usual form of a tariff.
In economics, the bottom of the pyramid is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. In global terms, this is the 3 billion people who live on less than US$2.50 per day. The phrase "bottom of the pyramid" is used in particular by people developing new models of doing business that deliberately target that demographic, often using new technology. This field is also often referred to as the "Base of the Pyramid" or just the "BoP".
This page was last edited on 23 January 2015, at 21:23.


DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Feb 19, 2019–The "Governance, Risk and Compliance – The Lesotho Insurance Industry" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
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The Lesotho insurance industry is supervised and regulated by the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL), established in 2000. Its key role is to promote the country's financial industry. It functions as a public agency, with autonomous powers and a separate budget. The agency's competence rights, obligations and rights are stipulated in the Insurance Act 2014, which regulates the functioning of insurers and insurance intermediaries in the country.
The report covers details of the insurance regulatory framework in Lesotho.
Gain insights into the insurance regulatory framework in Lesotho.
Track the latest regulatory changes, and expected changes impacting the Lesotho insurance industry.


text:
Energized Asian-American voters could play key role in N.C. elections
NCAATCanvass.jpg
Student volunteers with N.C. Asian Americans Together prepare to canvass in Wake County, an area where Asian-American voters have significantly grown over the last decade. (Photo: David Chang/NCAAT)
As the 2018 election season enters its final weeks, community leaders are mobilizing a key voting demographic that could be pivotal in races across North Carolina: Asian Americans.
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the country and the state. The number of Asian-American voters in North Carolina has more than doubled over the last decade, with more than 89,000 registered to vote as of August 2018. As a group that is politically independent, their swing vote could tip the balance in key races and hard-fought ballot measures.
Those are among the findings of "How Asian American Voters are Changing N.C," a new analysis by N.C. Asian Americans Together (NCAAT) and the Institute for Southern Studies, publisher of Facing South.
"Asian American communities are a growing force in North Carolina," said Chavi Khanna Koneru, executive director of NCAAT, a Raleigh nonprofit working to engage Asian-American voters. "At a time when issues affecting immigrants and communities of color are in the national spotlight, it's more important than ever to educate and motivate our families, friends and neighbors."
A key issue in 2018 will be voter turnout. Just 56.5 percent of registered Asian Americans in North Carolina voted in 2016, according to the report. That compares to 69 percent for all voters in the state.
One cause of the lower turnout figures may be that Asian-American communities have often been bypassed by candidates and political parties; 71 percent of Asian American voters nationally said they weren't contacted by either major party in 2016. In a national survey conducted from August through early October 2018 by AAPI Data, more than half of Asian-American voters reported they had yet to be contacted by a political party or civic group about the upcoming elections.
Energized and politically independent
Despite the relative dearth of outreach in their communities, Asian-American voters appear to be energized for the 2018 elections. In AAPI Data's survey, 48 percent of those polled said they were "more enthusiastic about voting this year," compared to only 28 percent in 2014, the last midterm election.
New research also points to the political independence of Asian Americans. In North Carolina, the NCAAT/Institute report found that, as of August 2018, more than half — 52.5 percent — of registered Asian-American voters are independent or unaffiliated.
That's in line with AAPI Data's national survey, which found that Asian-American voters nationally favor the Democrats' position on key issues like the environment, racial discrimination and gun control, but the Republicans' on taxes, the economy and national security.
"Not only is the Asian-American community the fastest-growing racial group in the country," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and director of AAPI Data, "it is a politically dynamic population whose vote still remains up for grabs."
That could make Asian Americans an especially critical swing vote in key North Carolina elections in 2018, including three tight U.S. House races, more than a dozen highly contested seats in the N.C. General Assembly, and statewide campaigns for a N.C. Supreme Court justice and six proposed amendments to the state constitution.
N.C. Asian Americans Together and other groups are working to capitalize on heightened voter interest to boost turnout, especially in areas where Asian-American voters are most heavily concentrated, such as Charlotte, Greensboro, and the Raleigh-Durham Triangle area.
In 2018, NCAAT has registered more than 2,000 voters and hosted three candidate forums in Wake County, which has the state's largest Asian-American community. These are part of what the group calls an "unprecedented" push to educate and mobilize the state's Asian-American electorate in 2018, which over the next 12 days will include an issue forum on the constitutional amendments, phone banking, a door-to-door canvass in Wake County, and a "Party at the Polls" on Election Day.
To read the full report and find out more information, visit ncaatogether.org.
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