text:
Panini collectible sticker book saved from my childhood. Proof that Americans have been known to enjoy soccer in the past.
The worst loss in the history of US soccer it has been called. With the elimination of the woeful United States men's national team from qualification for the World Cup in Russia in 2018 the small segment of the media that pays any attention at all to soccer in America has been dragging the team across the coals and the knives are out. It is obvious that they should have qualified; a mere tie would have been sufficient even if all the other bad scenarios occurred, which in the end did happen as both Panama and Honduras beat the two best teams in CONCACAF, Mexico and Costa Rica. In the event, the US team lost in front of a few hundred fans in a backwater stadium (pace Ato Boldon) in, to be honest, a backwater country. Sure Trinidad pulls its weight in music and track and even literature, and is a big player in the confines of the Caribbean, but let's be honest here- we will never be confusing Trinidad with Argentina. As a soccer nation they are not bad considering their small size; they have actually been to the World Cup and they have had a few relatively well known players, including the ESPN commentator Shaka Hislop. But this edition of the national team was bad, really bad, with one win coming into the last game with the United States. They were done and dusted some time ago. So the loss was bad enough, but losing to the second string team in a game where a result was definitely required really is up there with the worst results ever. (Incidentally, this article is ONLY about men's soccer; as anybody who has been paying attention knows, the US women's national team is actually not too bad! The evolution of women's soccer, though fascinating, involves an entirely different dynamic and cannot be addressed in this article.)
I ruminated for a while about how a country as big as the United States of America, the third largest country in the world by population (326,000,000 estimate October 2017, FIFA Rank #28) could lose to a tiny country like Trinidad and Tobago, population 1,350,000 (#150 in rank of countries by population), who played many second string players (and the first string team has a FIFA rank as of September 2017 of #99) in a game of absolutely no relevance whatsoever to Trinidad, as evidenced from the notable absence of supporters at the game. A tidal wave of money has poured over American soccer in recent decades, especially from the Swiss bank accounts of FIFA, which realizes full well that an interested US soccer fan base, the richest country in the world, means even more cash for the slush funds. We now have a decent league of our own, there are a few players with name recognition internationally and, in Christian Pulisic, the first bona fide international soccer star from the United States (Clint Dempsey was underrated but never had the prominence Pulisic has at only 19 as a major player in the Borussia Dortmund squad). And yet…
Ultimately I have concluded that, despite the progress and the relative success over the last few years, soccer in this country competes for the attention of kids with too many other sports, so it will always be hard to get the absolute best athletes; some are there, but not enough, and in a place like Argentina, it is a way out of the barrio, unlike here where other sports seem to be more successful at drawing from the population of kids who might be willing to sacrifice everything to make it big. Let's face it; if you are from a middle class background and are on a soccer scholarship at Duke, you probably have other professional options lined up which pay more for less effort, like law or medicine.
Having said that, my long-standing argument has been that even if only 10% of the country was interested in soccer that still makes a country of 30-40 million plus soccer fans, which would be big enough to rank in the top fifty largest countries in the world. We should then be able to compete with the 'big boys' in theory. The Netherlands has been in the final three times with half that population (17 million) after all. As we shall see, my argument is theoretically sound but realistically flawed, as size only matters so far. There are clearly other factors which make a good soccer team, being situated in Europe or South America being the most important of these.
Over the years I have had many, many conversations with Europeans about the 'shocking absence' of 'football' in my country. I have wearily pointed out over the years that there is, and has always been a soccer culture in this country filled with immigrants. I then regale them with stats and trivia about watching Arsenal's shock title victory in 1989, minutiae about second division teams in Spain or Germany, Europa League preliminary qualification games, or anecdotes about watching Beckenbauer, Pele, and Chinaglia in the 70s playing at Boston University field versus the New England Teamen, and even having an autographed photo of Pele. After they get over their amazement that a mere American perhaps knows as much or more as they do about their own 'football' culture (as if I were a dog who suddenly quoted Shakespeare), they try to argue that "the ENTIRE world is crazy about soccer but not your country" to illustrate the point that the United States is parochial, even if I personally might not be, a back-handed compliment if ever there was one. Then, of course, there are dumb and insulting articles like this one by self-hating dumbasses who want to prove how Euro-cool they are.
While I agree that soccer (and it is NOT wrong to call it soccer, to those who think they are being clever to refer to it as football) is not the first sport that springs to mind for the average American, we do have a vibrant and long-standing soccer history, not European to be sure, but certainly not as bad as many ignorant and parochial Europeans typically assume (no we do not all wear cowboy hats, we do not all eat hamburgers for every meal, amazingly there are a few of us who can actually speak a word or two of your declining languages, and here's a shocker, we did not invent Fascism! These are all things said to me seriously by people in Europe over the years). The fact that this game is getting any attention at all, even in Europe, is proof that we have made some progress. I remember the complete lack of interest when the team failed to make the World Cup in 1986.
However, A glance at the progress of the US team relative to the rest of the world reveals something even more interesting than the inside baseball (sorry to mix sports metaphors) of US team development. The so-called 'global game' is perhaps less global than the boosters would have you believe. In fact, I would argue that 'football' is the predominant sport solely in Europe and parts of Latin America. I will further argue that the desire to create the impression that soccer is the 'global game' is a euro-centric and FIFA-centric effort to create a narrative that the world is soccer/football mad in order to keep the cash streams flowing in to the FIFA coffers in Zurich.
I use as my argument the actual results of nations across the globe in World Cup qualifying and in FIFA world rankings to suggest that, in contrast to the image of the big powerful United States 'failing' to meet the standards of the rest of the World, the US actually does better as a soccer nation than the vast majority of the world's countries and as a population is actually not bad relative to the rest of the world. Failure to make the World Cup is a fate that befalls many nations; even the might Dutch minnows failed to make it to Russia 2018. However, the size of some countries who have an abysmal history in qualifying for major tournaments is quite remarkable.
For example, Not one of the five largest countries in the world will be present in Russia in 2018. At least the United States men's national team failed to qualify for only the first time in 30 years. Other large nations have generally fared much worse and this year's qualifying rounds were no exception. The team from China (population 1.387 billion) came 5th in the Asian Football Confederation third round qualifying Group B out of six teams (Qatar, the putative hosts of the World Cup in 2022, came dead last in the group. That can't be good). India (population 1.322 billion) came 5th in Group D of the second qualifying round with 1 win and 7 losses, failing by far to make it even to the final 12 teams in Asian qualifying! Indonesia (population 262 million) was disqualified for government interference before the games even began, but as it previously reached the World Cup only once, as the Dutch East Indies National Team in 1938 (losing 6-0 to Hungary in it's only game) after Japan withdrew as the Asian qualifier as they were busy raping Nanking, it seems unlikely that Indonesia were on their way to Russia. In 2014 qualifying Indonesia lost all six of their group stage games, scoring 3 and conceding 26 goals. Pakistan (population 209 million) failed to make the second round after dropping to Yemen (a team from a country in the middle of a massive civil war) in a first round qualifying home and away round. Looking a little further down the Asian population charts, even Bangladesh (population 163 million), the 8th largest country in the world, came dead last in their second round qualifying group with zero wins, 1 draw, and 7 losses. Thus the five biggest countries in Asia and five of the eight largest countries in the world, collectively managed to field a team no better than 9th place in Asia! These five countries comprise 44% of the population of the entire planet and they collectively have 2 appearances in the World Cup, no wins in 4 games and no goals scored, ever. China made one appearance in 2002 in neighboring Korea, lost all three games without scoring, conceding 9 goals, and made the short trip home.
It gets worse in Asia. Good news first, as Japan, the 10th largest county in the world and the 6th largest Asian country qualified for the World Cup, but the next two largest Asian countries, the Philippines and Vietnam, both failed to get out of their second round group. Iran, the 9th largest country in Asia and 18th largest in the world qualified for the World Cup, but the 10th largest country in Asia, Thailand (and the 20th largest in the world) came dead last in their third round group, with two draws and six losses.
These are the FIFA world rankings for September 2017 of the above eight countries failing to qualify for the World Cup from Asia with their population rank in parentheses: China 96 (1), India 171 (2), Indonesia 159 (4), Pakistan 188 (5), Bangladesh 165 (8), Philippines 129 (12), Vietnam 133 (15), Thailand 144 (20). It is comical how bad the rankings are, especially relative to the population rank of these countries. Only China makes the top 100, and will probably drop out when October's rankings come out from FIFA next week.
It is not just the large population of the countries failing to qualify that makes the case for Asian football being largely irrelevant as a serious sport. The World Cup has been hosted only once in Asia, in 2002 when South Korea and Japan co-hosted. Unsurprisingly, these are consistently two of the best teams in Asia. Japan is currently ranked 40th in the FIFA World Rankings, and has been as high as #14, and has reached the round of 16 in the World Cup on two occasions (2002 and 2010). South Korea is ranked #51 by FIFA, and has been as high as #17, and became the first and only Asian team to reach the semifinals of the World Cup in 2002. These two are not small countries: Japan is 10th in the world with 127 million people, while South Korea is 27th with 51 million people. Iran, with 81 million people, is also a relatively successful team as Asian teams go, having reached the World Cup on four occasions, although they have failed to advance beyond the first round in every case. The fourth team to qualify for the World Cup in 2018 is Saudi Arabia, which is the 40th largest country in the world. Saudi Arabia has been to four previous World Cups, reaching the round of 16 in 1994, but failing to win a game in every other appearance.
So, in summary, Asia has produced one semifinalist in twenty editions of the World Cup, and that was on home soil in South Korea. Otherwise, the teams have mostly lost all their games and gone quietly home. Odds are not great for improved success in 2018, with only Iran, at #25, ranked in the top 32 teams, with Japan (#40) comprising all the Asian teams in the top 50. Overall, teams from Asia have a depressingly poor record in the World Cup, even more remarkable for a continent with 60% of the World's population.
However, this is not merely an Asian problem. I could have used Africa as my main example as it shows a virtually identical pattern of lack of success. In fact, of the 15 largest countries in the entire world, all with 90 million or more people, comprising 64% of the population of the world, only one team has won the World Cup or even been in the final. Brazil (208 million people, #6 in the World, currently #2 in FIFA), of course, is that country and is also the most successful country in the history of the tournament, with five wins in 7 appearances in the final. Other large countries in the top 15 include Ethiopia (the second largest country in Africa, with 94 million people, #14 in the world), currently ranked 144th by FIFA with a total of zero appearances in the World Cup, as well as teams with better records in World Cup history such as Nigeria, Russia, Mexico, and Egypt, which are all ranked in the top 40 by FIFA, are all in the 2018 World Cup, and have all been ranked in the top ten at some point in the history of FIFA rankings. However, none has reached a final.
Russia, as the host, did not have to qualify, which they might well have failed to do as they have reached only three of the last six World Cups, and failed to get out of the group stage in all of them. As the Soviet Union, the team finished 4th in the 1966 World Cup, their best performance to date in the competition. Nigeria, the largest country by population in Africa and 7th largest country in the World, finished 9th in the 1994 World Cup, losing to a Roberto Baggio-led Italian team in Foxboro in a game they should have won (I was there and even the Italians in the crowd acknowledged that Nigeria was the superior team). Subsequently the team has turned in a series of disappointing performances, never reaching the quarterfinals, a feat accomplished only three times by African teams (Cameroon 1990, Senegal 2002, Ghana 2010). Mexico has hosted two World Cups, 1970 and 1986, and finished as quarter finalists in both competitions, their best performances to date. Egypt has been only twice to the World Cup (1934, 1990) never passing out of the first round, despite being seven time African Champions.
Thus, leaving Brazil aside, the other 14 countries in the world, all with more than 83 million people (in other words, all have at least 1% of the world's total population), which together comprise over 60% of the population of the planet have collectively had zero appearances in World Cup finals, two semifinal and three quarterfinal appearances. 160 places in twenty World Cups in the quarterfinals and these 14 countries have been represented a mere four times at this level. In other words, 3% of all the teams in the quarterfinals or better at all the World Cups combined have come from 14 large countries representing more than 60% of the world's people. I find it hard to accept that in the last eighty years not one country not called Brazil with at least 90 million people has managed to become a great or even a reasonably good soccer power and simultaneously believe that soccer is anything close to the 'global game'. Furthermore, I have not even mentioned the large number of smaller African, Asian, Oceanic, Caribbean and Latin American countries that not only never thrived at the World Cup but have never even been to the World Cup.
On the bright side, the United States is one of the three large countries with both a semifinal (1930) and a quarterfinal appearance (2002, losing 1-0 to Germany in a good game). Mexico, twice while hosting, has done quite well for a non-European/South American team. So, to those who say the USA is no good at soccer, I admit in the realm of overall results that is true, but compared to the other large nations in the world's top 15 countries they even now are probably the second best team behind Brazil and, at worst, the third, fourth, or fifth best team in this group (behind Brazil, Mexico, and maybe Nigeria, even possibly Japan, but the US team made the QF in the World Cup Japan hosted, while Japan did not and Nigeria has never made even the quarterfinals).
Which brings me to the main conclusion: Europe and South America are the true centers of soccer, and always have been since the sport took off in the early twentieth century. Uruguay (population 3.5 million!), Argentina, and Brazil are the only non-European teams to win the World Cup or even appear in the final. These also happen to be, along with Chile (which came 3rd when it hosted in 1962), the four countries in South America which have seen the most immigration from Europe.
Even in Europe, only five teams have won: Germany (#16 in population, winners 4 times), Italy (#23 in population, 3 time winners), France (#21 in population), England (United Kingdom is #22 in population, see below), and Spain (#30 in population), each with one title. Four more teams have reached the finals and lost and all four (Netherlands three times, Czechoslovakia twice, Hungary twice, and Sweden once) are European sides. Apparently size matters in Europe, as the five winners are the five large Western European nations (England, confusingly, is a separate team from United Kingdom, which, in a foreshadowing of likely future political events, does not exist in soccer as there is a Welsh, a Scottish, and a Northern Ireland team as well- and one of these (Northern Ireland) might qualify for Russia while Scotland and Wales might have qualified as well had they won their final games).
Eastern Europe has not fared quite as well, probably because Poland, which has been a decent team in the past (semifinals in 1974 and 1982), is the only country in what was once the Soviet bloc with more than thirty million inhabitants (excluding Russia, discussed above). The former Yugoslavia did well (semifinals in 1962, QF in 1990) and even had a quarterfinalist in 1998 with one of it's 'rump countries', Croatia. Other teams including Czechoslovakia (finalists in 1934 and 1962), Hungary (finalist in 1938 and 1954), Bulgaria (semifinalist 1994), Romania (quarterfinalist 1994), and Ukraine (quarterfinalist 2006) have all reached at least the quarterfinals. Even Turkey, a marginally European country, has reached the semifinals (2002).
Other small European countries have done well in the World Cup, particularly the Netherlands (#66 in population, with 17 million people), which has been in the finals three times (1974,1978, and 2010). Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, and Ireland have all been at least to the quarterfinals. All these countries are smaller even than the Netherlands, all with fewer than 12 million inhabitants.
Another European side, the team from Iceland, quite possibly the most irritating (and creepy) team ever to qualify for the World Cup, will make their debut next year in Russia, continuing their successful run of form at the European Championships last year. They are also, at 343,000 inhabitants (#173 in population, #22 in FIFA ranking), far and away the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup. European teams far outperform their population ranks in soccer; although only larger European countries have won the World Cup, most of the other reasonably sized countries have had a burst of success at some point in their history, unlike the vast majority of countries in the rest of the world. In fact, every country in Europe with more than 1 million inhabitants with the sole exception of Greece, Finland, Albania, and Norway, has made it to at least the World Cup Quarterfinals at some point in their history. Russia (as the Soviet Union), Germany, Turkey (see above), France, Italy, England (I know…), Spain, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia (today the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Yugoslavia (today the smaller countries of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Kosovo), Portugal, Sweden, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, and Ireland have ALL reached at least the quarterfinals in at least one World Cup.
Belarus (9.5 million) and the other tiny former Soviet Republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and a few others that are not even marginally European) are the exceptions, but all were part of the Soviet Union in 1966, so technically I am still right. In fact, after all the above countries, Malta (430,000) and Luxembourg (591,000), Iceland is the next largest country in Europe and it is going to Russia in 2018. Basically Malta and Luxembourg are losers for not being able to get to the World Cup as European teams, and they are smaller than the city of Boston, while India (again, in case you have forgotten, population 1,332,490,000) has NEVER qualified for a World Cup tournament.
I want to return to the original discussion about whether the World Cup is the world's game. Eight teams have won one of the twenty editions of the World Cup and all but one (Uruguay) number among the 35 or so countries with 40 million or more people. Another four European nations, all with fewer than twenty million inhabitants, has reached the final, and most of the teams in Europe of any size have reached the quarterfinal at least once. In America, Paraguay, Colombia, Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Peru, and Chile have all reached at least the quarterfinals. Africa has sent three teams in total to the quarterfinals, and Asia has sent only one, South Korea (two if you count Turkey as Asia, which FIFA does not, as it is in UEFA qualifying and its teams also play in the European Champion's League).
Among the twenty largest nations in the world, only two Germany and Brazil, have won the World Cup, or even reached the Finals. These twenty nations account for about 70% of the population of the world. Only Russia, USA, Mexico, and Turkey have reached even the quarterfinals. If the tournament results of the teams outside of Brazil and Germany among the world's twenty largest nations were combined, the results would still be worse than the results of Netherlands, or Sweden, or Hungary, or Czechoslovakia, or Belgium, or Poland, and would be roughly comparable to the results of any of another half dozen more small countries in Europe. Iceland has a better World Cup record than India, as does virtually any European country larger than Iceland.
Soccer is NOT the world's game: a good argument could be made for cricket, which actually is played and adored by people in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), as well as in South Africa, Kenya, the Caribbean, Australia, and New Zealand. Baseball is popular in Venezuela, which has never qualified for the World Cup, as well as in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, not to mention the United States and Canada (a country with an absolutely appalling record in World Cup qualifying, despite being the 38th largest country in the world and a wealthy one at that). Pick a sport: badminton in Indonesia or the Philippines or China, Judo, handball, field hockey, volleyball, basketball. In truth there really is no world sport, merely many sports which wax and wane in influence and popularity depending on where they are played.
I contend that FIFA, which in truth is merely UEFA, the European branch of soccer bureaucracy, plus some guys with cash from the Middle East and a few corrupt and appalling 'politicians' from various countries who scurry around like rats to collect the crumbs dropped from the FIFA banquet table (I am looking at you Jack Warner! You can gloat all you want but you are still a scumbag who will shortly have a lot of explaining to do when you meet your maker!), is merely a euro-centric world view dressed up in 'global' clothes but retaining a strong whiff of imperialism that assumes that whatever is big in Europe must be the most important thing in the world. I enjoy soccer, I like and appreciate Europe, but I am aware enough of geopolitical developments of the last fifty years to realize that the grip of Europe on the reins of power have been slipping for some time and that soccer is one of the last footholds of the old European world order. This I fear is at the heart of the project to make soccer the 'global game' and is comes with the Anti-American baggage that gives it a slight air of 'global 'street cred'. My own personal theory is that the whole 'global game' marketing scheme was cooked up in the late 1980s when the honchos at FIFA realized that Michael Jordan was becoming a household name in what used to be called the 'Third World' and began to panic that basketball was on the verge of becoming the cool sport. But that argument must be saved for another day.
Europeans are dreaming if they think that 'football' will make the rest of the world like them better or continue to make them politically and culturally relevant. I can guarantee you that more people in tiny villages in Lesotho or Bhutan or Tonga or Kerala or in the Amazon rainforest know the name Barack Obama than the combined total of people who can name ANY European leader, and he does not even play soccer. Chinese politicians wear western suits and Xi Jinping himself professes to want to improve soccer in China, but that does not make him a Europhile. And, despite the push, soccer in China is not even as good as soccer in Iceland, the population of which is a rounding error in Chinese demographic circles. Football/soccer as European soft power is a nice try but Hollywood still has ten times the cultural influence than Messi and Ronaldo combined.
World Cup 94 Ticket. This one was for Italy-Spain; can't find my Italy-Nigeria Ticket but it's around here somewhere.
In one respect, however, it is the world game, as it watched by many people the world over, including and especially in China. I submit that, as the vast majority of the planet's population has never had a team even qualify for the World Cup, that this 'interest' in soccer is for another reason completely. This reason can be seen on the shirt sponsor's of eight of the twenty teams in the Premier League of England, widely regarded as the most important league in soccer in terms of viewership and world-wide reach. Almost half the teams in the Premier League are sponsored by betting operations, and it is not hard to reach the conclusion that the real interest, as in much of sports viewing these days, is betting on the games. Money seems to be the main driver of the perceived interest in soccer from top to bottom.
Finally, to return to the question of the poverty of US soccer culture, ignoring the morons who think soccer is a foreign sport or the clods outside America who think we do not know what a soccer ball is because we all have CTE from playing 'fake' (American) football, I wondered if there was such a thing as a ranking of the performance of teams at the World Cup over time. There is, the FIFA All-time World Cup Rankings ™. The results are pretty interesting: The United States is 23rd, behind the usual suspects. The non-European teams ahead of the United States are all 'Latin-American': Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Chile, and, surprisingly at #22, Paraguay. The only countries in the top twenty largest countries in the world ranked ahead of the United States are Brazil (1), Russia (11), Mexico (13), and Germany (2). Nigeria is ranked #32, and Japan is ranked #35. South Korea is the top team from Asia at #25, While Nigeria is the top African team. China is ranked #74 and India has no ranking because it has never been to the World Cup. It is farcical and even insulting to call soccer the 'global game' and just as dumb to say America is the outlier in the World. If anything, we are in the sweet spot of being fairly decent but not being completely overwhelmed by soccer mania, right about where we have been on the global stage for the last century, straddling the line between respecting our European heritage but not being completely stifled by it. To borrow and simultaneously invert the old English phrase: 'that is cricket!'
Posted in Sports, World on 13 October 2017 and tagged General Essays, Population, World
← Leaving Something Behind
A City Upon a Hill: A Charlestown Walk →


text:
Air Force watchdog finds no wrongdoing in deadly Afghan drone strike
Samuel Chamberlain
Social Links for Samuel Chamberlain
November 3, 2021 11:23pm
The Air Force's inspector general announced that no wrongdoing was found in the August 29 drone strike in Kabul that killed ten innocent people.	AP Photo/Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi, File
More On: afghanistan
Declassified drone footage shows botched strike that killed 10 Afghans
Family of Marine killed in Afghanistan sues Alec Baldwin for defamation
Watchdog warned of Afghan air forces' collapse months before US pullout: report
US announces more than $300M in Afghanistan aid amid winter disasters
An August drone strike that killed a US-linked aid worker and nine members of his family in Afghanistan was "regrettable" and plagued by "execution errors," but was not the result of misconduct or negligence, the Air Force's inspector general announced Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said told reporters at the Pentagon that he found no "violations of law or of the law of war" in the Aug. 29 strike, which was meant to take out members of the ISIS-K terror group, but ultimately killed 10 civilians — including 7 children.
Said stressed that the service members who carried out the strike "truly believed at the time that they were targeting an imminent threat to US forces" overseeing evacuation operations at Kabul's international airport. Three days earlier, an ISIS-K bomber had blown himself up outside the airport's Abbey Gate, killing 13 US service members and 169 Afghans.
However, Said added, "confirmation bias and communication breakdowns" between those making the strike decision and other support personnel led to the "inaccurate" conclusion that the white Toyota Corolla sedan targeted by the operation was carrying terrorists rather than 37-year-old aid worker Zemerai Ahmadi.
"I found, given the information they have, and the analysis that they did, I understand they reached the wrong conclusions," Said said, later adding: "Was it reasonable to conclude what they concluded based on what they had? It was not unreasonable, it just turned out to be incorrect."
Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said said that no "violations of law or of the law of war" were found during the review of the strike.
Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images
The strike, which was initially hailed as "righteous" by Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the last combat operation of America's 20-year war in Afghanistan. Hours later, the last US forces left the war-torn country to Taliban rule.
"They all had a genuine belief based on the information, they had interpretations that was a threat to US forces," Said emphasized. "An imminent threat to US forces. That's a mistake. It's a regrettable mistake. It's an honest mistake. I understand the consequences, but it's not criminal conduct, random conduct, [or] negligence."
Said did note that when he reviewed video feeds from the day of the strike, he noticed evidence that a child was in the impact zone two minutes before the strike was launched. However, the service members who carried out the strike "were convinced that the compound didn't have children in it," he said.
The strike killed aid worker Zemerai Ahmadi and nine family members including seven children.
AP Photo/Bernat Armangue
The head of Nutrition and Education International, the California-based nonprofit that employed Ahmadi, said in a statement that he was deeply disappointed by the review.
"According to the Inspector General, there was a mistake but no one acted wrongly, and I'm left wondering, how can that be?" Steven Kwon said. "Clearly, good military intentions are not enough when the outcome is 10 precious Afghan civilian lives lost and reputations ruined."
Pompeo: US military was under 'political pressure' to carry out drone strike
Said's report recommends that the military have personnel present alongside a strike team whose job is to actively question conclusions about what to target. The report says using a so-called "red-team" might help avoid future errors.
The report also recommends that the military improve its procedures to ensure that children and other innocent civilians are not present before launching a time-sensitive strike.
Those changes, he said, could "go a long way to greatly mitigate the risk of this happening again."
While Said's report does not find individual fault or recommend discipline, he said commanders may decide to de-credential, retrain or fire personnel if they find there was "subpar performance."
"You should not perceive the fact that I didn't call any individual out with accountability that it does not mean that the chain of command won't," he said.
The US is working to pay financial reparations to Ahmadi's family, and potentially get them out of Afghanistan, but nothing has been finalized.
With Post wires
the pentagon
Read Next Airman, 2 siblings charged in suspected 'love triangle' ki...
Biden's press conference was an utter disaster
'Real Housewives of Salt Lake City' star Jennie Nguyen apologizes for social media posts

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The spirit of a time can be captured and exemplified in its architecture.
The new Guggenheim is a figural ghost of today's society. The diversity of forms reflects the cultural shift both in the art and architecture embodied inside and outside the new Guggenheim. The building is a series of eight volumes containing all the programmatic requirements for a twenty first century museum. The introduction to the new Guggenheim begins with an open air street level entry plaza. The entry plaza is accessible twenty four hours a day. Its uniqueness is that there are three points of access containing elevators to all eight programmatic volumes, simultaneously the plaza allows for performances both physical and virtual. As soon as reaching the second level of volumes one has views into Central Park from the demonstration kiosk and information center. The next level contains seminar rooms, theater and gallery 1 above which is the first of three sky plazas. The three sky plazas are the spaces where Guggenheim's ghost is seen most regularly. The ghost attends receptions and truly enjoys the occasional wedding held at the museum.
Above the next series of galleries and second theater is the archive. The archive is a series of five vaulted spaces with direct access to both the reference and digital libraries. A cafe and second souvenir shop top out the building along with the last of seven gallery spaces within the museum. The innovation of the new Guggenheim is the simple act of geist without an historic precedent haunting its iconic architecture.


text:
James Vernon Scotti (n. 1960) este un astronom american. El s-a născut în Bandon, Oregon și a absolvit Woodway Senior High din Edmonds, Washington în anul 1978. El a devenit un doctor în știință în astronomie la Universitatea din Arizona din Tucson în 1983. De atunci, el a lucrat la proiectul Spacewatch, unul dintr-o serie de proiecte care caută asteroizi din apropierea Pământului. El a scris primul software automatic de detectare a asteroizilor pentru acest proiect în 1984.

Descoperiri
El a descoperit o mulțime de asteroizi, în special pe cei din apropierea Pământului, inclusiv , care a creat o agitație de scurt timp în mass-media atunci când un calcul preliminar a indicat în orbita lui posibilitatea unui impact cu Pământul în 2028; datorită observațiilor suplimentare s-a calcul o orbită mai precisă, care a infirmat impactul. În 1991, el a descoperit obiectul din apropierea Pământului 1991 VG, care are unele caracteristici neobișnuite.

De asemenea el a recuperat mai mult de 75 de comete începând din 1985 (deoarece cometele sunt supuse la forțele negravitaționale care apar din cauza  vântului solar, erupției de gaze de pe soare, este adesea o provocare pentru a prezice poziția lor exactă și sunt redescoperite de fiecare dată când fac o nouă abordare la periheliu).

La 24 octombrie 1993, după mai bine de un secol de la prima observare, a redescoperit cometa, până atunci crezută pierdută, 113P/Spitaler.

El a confirmat descoperirea celei mai cunoscute comete - Cometa Shoemaker-Levy 9, care a căzut pe Jupiter în iulie 1994. El de asemenea a redescoperit cometele periodice 202P/Scotti, 244P/Scotti, P/2003 L1 (Scotti), P/2010 C1 (Scotti), P/2010 H4 (Scotti), P/2010 H5 (Scotti), P/2011 A2 (Scotti), ultimele șapte încă nu sunt numerotate deoarece au fost observate doar la o trecere la periheliu. El este și descoperitorul cometelor neperiodice C/2010 E5 (Scotti) și C/2010 F3 (Scotti).

Scotti este interesat de cercetare originilor cometelor, evoluția dinamică a cometelor și asteroizilor, asteroizii din apropierea Pământului, precum și sistemul solar exterior. El mai un entuziast interesat de istoria explorării spațiului și în special de Programul Apollo. El a contribuit la Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, în care se detaliază explorărea Lunii de către Apollo. Scotti, de asemenea, face fotografii asupra spațiului.

Planeta minoră 3594 Scotti este denumită în cinstea lui.

Vezi și

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
Obiecte din apropierea Pământului
J002E3
2000 SG344

Note

Legături externe
Pagina web

Nașteri în 1960
Oameni în viață
Astronomi din secolul al XX-lea
Astronomi din secolul al XXI-lea
Astronomi americani
Descoperitori de comete
Descoperitori de asteroizi
Eponime ale asteroizilor

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<full-backup-content>
    <include
            domain="file"
            path="configurations.dat" />
    <include
            domain="file"
            path="config.dat" />
</full-backup-content>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
4932 Brant Rd, Security-Widefield, CO, US
Brant Road
4932 Brant Rd
4932 Brant Rd map placeholder. Enable Javascript and / or reload the page, if the chart does not render.
The address 4932 Brant Rd is located at the street of Brant Road, Security-Widefield, the state of Colorado, United States of America. 4932 Brant Rd census block group is home to 7.8 percent of the Security-Widefield population, making it one of the most populous address areas.
There are 2,910 in 4932 Brant Rd census block group. 4932 Brant Rd address area's people are 0.1 years older than the typical Security-Widefield citizen, who is 33.4 years old. The gender breakdown of 4932 Brant Rd census block group's population is 50.7% male and 49.3% female.
The majority of residents in 4932 Brant Rd census block group have at least regular high school diploma (28% of the population). Income of people living in 4932 Brant Rd census block group is usually in the bracket of $75,000 to $99,999 (15.1%).
Click here to see 4932 Brant Rd location on Google Maps at latitude 38.7611511, longitude -104.7284017.
You may find more detailed demographics information about 4932 Brant Rd, as well as a list of nearby locations, further down this page.
NOTE: Below provided demographics statistics are based on the figures of the census block group that the 4932 Brant Rd address belongs in. US census block group consists of a set of census blocks and may consists of a set of buildings. Usually, census block groups have a population of 600 to 3,000 people.
4932 Brant Rd Demographics
What is the population of 4932 Brant Rd area?
4932 Brant Rd census block group has a total of 2,910 citizens as per 2017 US census data. This represents 7.8% of the total 37,325 citizens of the Security-Widefield.
What are the gender statistics of 4932 Brant Rd area?
As of the most recent US census in 2017, there were 1,119 women and 1,149 men living in 4932 Brant Rd census block group.
In comparison, the proportions of Security-Widefield citizens are: 48.1% male and 51.9% female.
What are the median incomes in 4932 Brant Rd area?
According to 2017 US census statistics, the most common family income levels in 4932 Brant Rd census block group are: $60k - $100k (29 percent), $25k - $40k (21 percent) and $40k - $60k (19.3 percent).
In contrast, the household income levels with the greatest proportion of the population in Security-Widefield are $60k - $100k (33.6%), $40k - $60k (21.9%), and $25k - $40k (13.1%).
$25k - $40k - 221 (21%)
$60k - $100k - 305 (29%)
More than $200k - 32 (3%)
What are the median age statistics in 4932 Brant Rd area?
4932 Brant Rd census block group's average male age is 33 years and average female age 33.5 years as per 2017 US census data.
In contrast, in the Security-Widefield, the median age of a man is 32.6 years old and that of a woman is 34.2 years old.
What are the detailed age group statistics in 4932 Brant Rd area?
According to the data provided by the 2017 United States Census, the age ranges that account for the majority of residents in the 4932 Brant Rd census block group are as follows: less than 18 yrs (25%), 50 - 64 years (20%), and 25 - 34 years (17.7%).
In contrast, the age categories with the greatest proportion of the population in Security-Widefield are less than 18 yrs (26.9%), 35 - 49 years (18%), and 50 - 64 years (18%).
What is the marital status of 4932 Brant Rd area?
According to 2017 US census statistics, the most common marriage statuses in 4932 Brant Rd census block group are: now married (58%) and never married (25.8%).
In comparison Security-Widefield most marital statuses are: married (60%) and never married (24.6%).
Married - 1,316 (58%)
What is the level of education in 4932 Brant Rd area?
As per 2017 US census data 4932 Brant Rd census block group's dominant household education levels are: unfinished college (29.3%), high-school diploma (28%) and bachelor's degree (15.2%).
In comparison Security-Widefield most dominant household education levels are: unfinished college (27.7%), high-school diploma (22.3%) and associate's degree (15%).
The education data list is as follows:
High-school Diploma - 534 (28%)
Doctorate degree - 12 (0.6%)
What are the languages spoken in households of 4932 Brant Rd area?
According to 2017 US census data, the most common languages in 4932 Brant Rd census block group are only english (90%), spanish (6.9%) and asian and pacific islands (2.6%).
In contrast, the spoken languages that are most prevalent in Security-Widefield are english only (90.1%), spanish (5.1%), and other indo-european (2.6%).
English only - 2,502 (90%)
What is the ethnic diversity in 4932 Brant Rd area?
As per 2017 US census data 4932 Brant Rd census block group's dominant ethnic diversity groups are: white (72.5%), two or more ethnicities (12.8%) and two or more ethnicities (11.6%).
The top three largest ethnic diversity groups in Security-Widefield are white (77.1%), african american (8%), and two or more ethnicities (7.9%).
More detailed data for data for ethnic diversity statistics are below:
Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander - 57 (2%)
Two or more ethnicities - 372 (12.8%)
What are the household type statistics in 4932 Brant Rd area?
4932 Brant Rd census block group's family households are 75% and non-family households 25% as per 2017 US census data.
In comparison Security-Widefield family households contains 79.4% and non-family households 20.6%.
Family households, Other family, Female householder no husband present - 115 (11%)
Family Households - 788 (75%)
Non-family Households - 262 (25%)
What are the most common employment industries in 4932 Brant Rd area?
According to 2017 US census statistics, the leading employment sectors in 4932 Brant Rd census block group are retail trade (15.9%), public administration (14.2%), health care and social assistance (13.3%), and accommodation and food services (11.4%).
In contrast, the employment industries that are most prevalent in Security-Widefield are retail (15.1%), health care & social assistance (14.3%), and educational services (9.2%).
Following is the data list for employment industries statistics:
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting - 12 (0.9%)
Accommodation & Food Services - 146 (11.4%)
Public Administration - 183 (14.2%)
What are the most common means of transportation in 4932 Brant Rd area?
According to 2017 US Census statistics, the most common form of transportation to work in 4932 Brant Rd census block group is: car truck or van (15.1%).
In comparison Security-Widefield most dominant type of transportation to work is: car, truck or van (97.1%).
The means of transportation data list is as follows:
What are the commute time statistics in 4932 Brant Rd area?
As per 2017 US census data 4932 Brant Rd census block group's dominant travel time to work ranges are: 20-25 minutes, 15-20 minutes and 10-15 minutes.
In contrast, the travel time to work ranges with the greatest proportion of the population in Security-Widefield are 15-20 minutes, 20-25 minutes, and 30-35 minutes.
Detailed statistics for time of commute is shown in the list below:
Less than 10 mins - 53 (4%)
4932 Brant Rd Education
Ten out of 48 schools near 4932 Brant Rd are displayed. Click the button below for additional information and a map view.
Abrams Elementary School ~3.9 miles
Operator: Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8
Adelina Otero Elementary School ~4.2 miles
Alt. name: Otero Elementary School
Operator: Harrison School District 2
Atlas Preparatory School ~3.6 miles
Operator: Atlas Prepatory School
Beacon Elementary School ~4.2 miles
Bricker Elementary School ~2.7 miles
Candice A French Elementary School ~0.5 miles
Carmel Middle School ~3.7 miles
Carson Middle School ~4.4 miles
Donald K Giberson Elementary School ~2.4 miles
Alt. name: Giberson Elementary School
Click here to see a map of all Schools near 4932 Brant Rd
Two colleges near 4932 Brant Rd are displayed. Click the button below for additional information and a map view.
Pikes Peak Community College - Centenial College ~2.7 miles
Operator: Pikes Peak Community College
University of Phoenix ~4.3 miles
Click here to see a map of all Colleges near 4932 Brant Rd
4932 Brant Rd Public Transportation
Four bus stations / stops near 4932 Brant Rd are displayed. Click the button below for additional information and a map view.
Main/Birch ~0.6 miles
Main/Esther ~0.6 miles
Click here to see a map of all Bus near 4932 Brant Rd
4932 Brant Rd POIs
One fast food place near 4932 Brant Rd are displayed. Click the button below for additional information and a map view.
Sonic Drive-in ~0.9 miles
Click here to see a map of all Fast Food near 4932 Brant Rd
4932 Brant Rd Locations
4711 Pathfinder Dr
5350 Almont Ave


Case put on display at LAMMA its optional cab suspension system for its range of Farmall U Pro tractors, which feature a range of cab improvements as standard for 2014.
Case target its four-wheel-drive 99hp Farmall 95U Pro, 107hp Farmall 105U Pro and 114hp Farmall 115U Pro for livestock operations, mixed farms and smaller contractors. It says the machines offer outstanding versatility, performance, economy and comfort.
Case says the new cab suspension system improves ride comfort, reduces operator fatigue and allows full productivity to be maintained throughout even the longest working day. Case claim with 59mm of spring travel, the new Case IH system has been optimised to provide full suspension without increasing overall cab height, often a major consideration on farms where Farmall U Pro tractors are used.
According to Case the symmetrical design of the Case IH system uses the same components on both the left and right side of the tractor, providing significant advantages over conventional designs. The system incorporates a stabiliser in each of the mounting brackets, negating the need for struts running across the transmission, which in conventional designs can otherwise increase cab height by around 50mm.
It says dual stabilisers also eliminate lateral cab roll throughout the entire spring stroke and provide a high level of stability, which is of significant benefit when operating in hilly conditions or turning across steep slopes.
Case is also keen to note that its Farmall U Pro tractors also incorporate a number of significant cab upgrades. It says the instruments and shuttle lever now telescope with the steering wheel, the tilt and height adjustment for the steering column has been improved, the indicator stalk has been repositioned to the left of the steering column and the setting buttons are now on the right.


I know you can change the driven gear for holden boxes to correct your speedo, but what about jap 4/5 speed is the same possible,if not, how do you rectify it anyone now?? Coxy.
I would assume that there would be a variety of driven gear options Coxy.
If there isn't, you can get a ratio box made to correct any speedo error.
The ratio box fits to you box then the speedo cable screws into it.
To determine the error, a counter is fitted to your speedo cable & the car is taken over a measured mile.
An EH speedo requires 1000 revs per mile.
Whatever yours is, let's say 900 revs, a gear set for the ratio box is calculated to increase the revs by 100 to 1000.
The box is about the size of a match box. I have one fitted to my ute.


text:
IPCC's Latest Findings Suggest Increased Warming, More Changes In Extreme Weather Events With Higher Temperatures And Global Sea Level Rise
Singapore will continue to study, plan and implement adaptation measures
JOINT NEWS RELEASE BETWEEN NEA AND MSE
Singapore, 9 August 2021 – The Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS), under the National Environment Agency (NEA)'s Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS), is studying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s latest report – the first of three major reports that make up its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) (refer to Annex for details). This report, which brings together the latest scientific assessments of climate change, was produced by the IPCC's Working Group I (WGI) and was released together with a 'Summary for Policymakers' (SPM). The key findings of this report are:
· Human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.
· Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century, unless there are deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades.
· The rate of global mean sea level rise has accelerated and will continue throughout the 21st century, ranging from 0.32m to 1.01m by 2100.
· Every region in the world is projected to experience concurrent and multiple changes in climatic impact-drivers resulting in more frequent and/or severe droughts, more intense and frequent extreme rainfall events, and flooding. Changes will be more widespread at 2°C as compared to 1.5°C global warming, and even more so for higher warming levels.
2 These findings underscore the urgency for the global community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while building resilience against the impact of climate change. Singapore is committed to play our part. The Government will rally and partner Singaporeans and businesses to advance our national agenda on sustainable development, as set out in the Singapore Green Plan 2030. We will also leverage climate science to understand the effects of climate change on Singapore and press on with efforts to mitigate and adapt to them.
Key Findings and Implications for Singapore
3 The key findings outlined in the SPM, and implications for Singapore are elaborated below:
3.1 The SPM shows that global surface temperature around 2050 will be higher than today under all the climate change emission scenarios [1] considered. Under all the scenarios except for the highest emission scenario SSP5-8.5, the central estimate of when the average surface temperature rise will cross the 1.5°C mark lies in the early 2030s. In the highest emission scenario SSP5-8.5, average surface temperature rise will cross the 1.5°C mark by the end of this decade.
3.2 For the period of 2081 – 2100, the SPM projects that average surface temperatures across the world will increase by at least 1.3°C – 2.4°C under the low emission scenario SSP1-2.6, and by 3.3°C – 5.7°C for the highest emission scenario SSP5-8.5 (numbers represent the "very likely" range of increase above pre-industrial period 1850-1900).
3.3 Globally, we have experienced an increase in surface temperature of 1.09°C since pre-industrial times. Singapore has experienced a stronger than global warming trend over the past several decades due to the additional impact from urbanisation. The projected findings in the SPM suggest that the elevated temperatures will also be felt in Singapore in the coming decades.
3.4 In general, on a global scale, the SPM reports that heavy precipitation events will intensify and become more frequent with each additional degree of warming. By year 2100, global annual precipitation over land is projected to be higher than today under all the emission scenarios.
3.5 On a regional scale, the SPM also states that South East Asia will experience an increase in mean (monsoon) precipitation and pluvial flooding (which occurs when the ground cannot absorb rainwater effectively or drainage systems are overwhelmed during an extreme rainfall event).
3.6 Singapore's year-to-year rainfall is highly variable. However, the average annual rainfall for Singapore since 1980 has increased at an average rate of around 70mm per decade. The intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall events have also increased over the past few decades up until 2012, but these trends were modulated by strong El Niño conditions in 2015-2016.
3.7 It is challenging to pinpoint the cause of past rainfall changes in Singapore with current models, as a combination of factors such as global warming, natural climate variability and other effects could have played a part. The science around climate change attribution is still evolving, and MSS will continue to study this, along with the impact of climate change on Singapore's weather.
3.8 The SPM projects a global mean sea level rise of 0.32m – 0.62m under the low emission scenario SSP1-2.6, and a global mean sea level rise of 0.63m – 1.01m under the highest emission scenario SSP5-8.5 by year 2100. Sea level rise is virtually certain to continue throughout the 21st century in most regions of the world.
3.9 AR6 also pulls together the latest scientific findings of ice sheet processes, including high impact-low probability events. Such processes (including marine ice cliff instabilities) could contribute more than one additional metre of sea level rise by the end of the 21st century[2].
3.10 The changes in mean sea level do not differ significantly from earlier IPCC AR5 reports as sea level rise is a long-drawn process. Sea level change is also not globally uniform, and regional and local rates of sea level rise may differ from the global mean. The CCRS will be studying this in greater detail under the National Sea Level Programme (NSLP), which aims to strengthen local sea level research and provide more robust projections of sea level change for Singapore and the surrounding region.
4 CCRS will contextualise the findings from the NSLP and study their impact on Singapore. The Centre has started work on the Third National Climate Change Study for Singapore (V3), which provides localised and high-resolution climate projections derived from the latest climate models used by the IPCC. The study is expected to be completed by end 2022, and the findings will guide the ongoing planning and implementation of adaptation measures to safeguard Singapore against the impact of climate change. These measures will be continually reviewed and adjusted, as new knowledge and information on the effects of climate change become available.
Upcoming Virtual Symposium on Climate Change
5 A virtual symposium on climate change will be held in late August to discuss the scientific findings of the report. More details will be released on the Facebook pages of NEA and the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment.
[1] Scenarios are referred to as 'SSPx-y', where 'SSPx' stands for the "Shared Socioeconomic Pathways" (SSP) describing the socioeconomic trends underlying the scenario and 'y' represents the level of radiative forcing. The five scenarios used in AR6 are SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5, where the first two scenarios (SSP1-1.9 and SSP1-2.6) are considered green situations whilst the other scenarios describe non-green technological progress at increasing unsustainable levels respectively (SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5).
[2] Sea levels will continue to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean heat uptake and ice sheets melting and will remain elevated for thousands of years to come. By 2300, the climate models project changes in mean sea levels of 0.3m – 3.1m under the low emission scenario and 1.7m – 6.8m under the high emission scenario. Considering high impact-low probability events (such as marine ice sheet instability), sea level rise greater than 15m cannot be ruled out (low confidence).
For more information, please submit your enquiries electronically via the Online Feedback Form or myENV mobile application. Alternatively, you contact us at 6225 5632.
About the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.
IPCC assessments are policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive. They present projections of future climate change based on different scenarios, outline the risks that climate change poses, and discuss the implications of response options, but they do not tell policymakers what actions to take.
The IPCC provides rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision-makers because of its scientific and intergovernmental nature. Participation in the IPCC is open to all member countries of the WMO and United Nations. It currently has 195 members. The Panel, made up of representatives of the member states, meets in Plenary Sessions to take major decisions. The IPCC Bureau, elected by member governments, provides guidance to the Panel on the scientific and technical aspects of the Panel's work and advises the Panel on related management and strategic issues.
The IPCC assessment reports are written by leading scientists who volunteer their time and expertise as Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors of the reports. They enlist hundreds of other experts as Contributing Authors to provide complementary expertise in specific areas. Assessment reports undergo multiple rounds of drafting and review to ensure they are comprehensive and objective and are produced in an open and transparent way. Thousands of other experts contribute to the reports by acting as reviewers, ensuring the reports reflect the full range of views in the scientific community. Teams of Review Editors provide a thorough monitoring mechanism for making sure that review comments are addressed.
The IPCC works by assessing published literature. It does not conduct its own scientific research. The authors provide information on areas where knowledge is well-established and where understanding is evolving, as well as where multiple perspectives exist in the literature.
The IPCC's First Assessment Report (FAR) in 1990 played a decisive role in leading to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was opened for signature at the Rio de Janeiro Summit in 1992. The Second Assessment Report (SAR) of 1995 provided key input for the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001 provided further information relevant to the development of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.
The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) has incorporated possible future socioeconomic situations into the emission scenarios this time round as an attempt to better represent the feedback between climate change and socioeconomic factors. Compared to the last IPCC report (AR5), more experiments addressing key scientific concerns and improved models and computer simulations with higher resolution were utilised to generate the findings for AR6.
Working Groups under the IPCC
The authors that produce the assessment reports are mainly organised into three working groups – Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis; Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability; and Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change.
Each of the working groups generates a report and a Summary for Policymakers (SPM). AR6 comprises the three reports of the working groups and a fourth section known as the Synthesis Report.
The Working Group I contribution to AR6 includes assessing observations of the climate system, across the atmosphere, the surface, the ocean and the cryosphere (ice), as well as information on past climate.
The Working Group II and III reports will be released early 2022 (Feb/Mar).


Our reliability and punctuality makes us the first choice for all our valuable customers. We are available 24/7 to ensure that you arrive to the airport on time, every time. Our airport taxis are available to customers across Oxfordshire and the UK. See our price list to learn about our prices.
Destination : Witney To London Heathrow.
Destination : Witney To London Stansted.
Destination : Witney To London Luton.
Destination : Witney To London Birmingham.
Destination : Witney To London Bristol.
Witney To London East Midlands International.
Destination : Witney To London East Midlands International.
Witney To London London City.
Destination : Witney To London London City.
Destination : Witney To London Southampton.
Destination : Witney To Bournemouth.
We publish the details of our prices in accordance with the guidance of local authorities. The fares charged are calculated by the use of the meter in the vehicle. The scale of charges shows the maximum charge that may be made for journeys within the boundary of West Oxfordshire District Council. Fares outside this boundary will be agreed with your driver in advance. We provide taxi services for customers across Oxfordshire.


NEW YORK; June 21, 2017 – Businesses that successfully apply artificial intelligence (AI) could increase profitability by an average of 38 percent by 2035, according to a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN). The introduction of AI could lead to an economic boost of US$14 trillion in additional gross value added (GVA) across 16 industries in 12 economies.
To capitalize on the opportunity, the report identifies eight key strategies for successfully implementing AI that focus on adopting a human-centric approach and taking bold and responsible steps to applying the technology within businesses and organizations.
The report, developed by Accenture Research in collaboration with Frontier Economics, measures the potential economic impact of AI in GVA, a close approximation of gross domestic product that accounts for the value of goods and services produced. The research compared the economic growth rates of 16 industries in 2035 in a baseline scenario showing current assumptions of expected growth, to an AI scenario showing expected growth with AI integrated into economic processes, finding that AI has the potential to increase economic growth rates by a weighted average of 1.7 percentage points.
Of the industries studied, information and communication, manufacturing and financial services are the three sectors that will see the highest annual GVA growth rates in an AI scenario, with 4.8 percent, 4.4 percent and 4.3 percent respectively by 2035. This translates to an additional US$6 trillion in GVA in 2035 for these three sectors alone. Even labor-intensive sectors such as education and social services —where productivity growth is traditionally slow – will see a significant increase of US$109 billion and US$216 billion in GVA respectively.
In specifically examining industry profitability, the research demonstrates that AI offers unprecedented opportunities. In labor-intensive sectors, such as wholesale and retail, AI augments the human workforce, enabling people to become more productive, leading to a profit increase of almost 60 percent. In capital-intensive industries such as manufacturing, AI powered machines will eliminate faulty machines and idle equipment, delivering constantly rising rates of return, resulting in equally dramatic profit increases of 39 percent by 2035.
Reinvent HR into HAIR – the Chief HR Officer's role will not only be about managing human employees, but will evolve to also manage human-machine interaction -- or Human AI Resources (HAIR).
Create an open AI culture – trust, openness and transparency are key for human and machine relationships to work well; business leaders must shape the corporate culture and guidelines to minimize the risks of a hybrid workforce while maximizing the opportunities.
This research builds on the Why Artificial Intelligence is the Future of Growth report released in 2016 that examined the economic impact of AI across 12 developed economies. The report found that AI could double annual economic growth rates by 2035 and boost labor productivity by up to 40 percent by fundamentally changing the way work is done.


The placenta is not as sterile as once thought. New research shows that the placenta harbors a unique, low abundant microbiome, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital.
The findings, in the current issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, provide important new insights on the structure of the placental microbial community, the organisms present, and how they might be capable of impacting a pregnancy.
The microbiome is the population of microbes – bacteria, viruses and fungi – that cohabit with human cells and help cells complete their tasks. Understanding what characterizes the microbiome communities is essential for understanding human development, Aagaard said.
Aagaard and her colleagues are key members in the collaborative National Institutes of Health funded Human Microbiome Project, which seeks to further characterize these communities and how they relate to health and healing human disease.
In this study, the first and largest study to focus on the placental microbiome, 320 human subjects' samples were analyzed comprehensively following a process called shotgun metagenomic sequencing. This technology enables microbiologists to uniquely evaluate bacterial diversity and detect the abundance of specific microbes and all their genetic pathways in a community.
The researchers showed that the placenta is not sterile (free from bacteria or other living organisms), but rather harbors a diverse and very unique microbiome.
"The placental microbiome is low in terms of microbial abundance but not as sterile as we previously thought," said Aagaard.
Of the samples, Escherichia coli (E. coli) was the species with the highest abundance in most individuals, a bacteria that lives in the intestines of most healthy individuals. Prevotella tannerae (gingival crevices) and non-pathogenic Neisseria species (mucosal special surfaces), both species of the oral cavity, were also detected in highest relative abundance.
"Interestingly, when we looked very thoroughly at the placenta in relation to many other sites of the body, we found that the placental microbiome does not bear many similarities to microbiomes closest in terms of anatomic location. Specifically, it is not much like the vaginal or intestinal microbiome, but rather is most similar to the oral microbiome," said Aagaard.
Additionally, the researchers observed differences in the placental microbiome based on a remote history of infection during the pregnancy (most commonly urinary tract infections from many months ago that were treated successfully with antibiotics).
The placental microbiome is also unique based on whether a preterm birth occurred, the researchers found.
"Exposure of the fetus to a placental microbiome may have fundamental implications for early human development and the physiology of pregnancy," said Dr. James Versalovic, co-author on the report, professor of pathology at Baylor and head of pathology at Texas Children's Hospital.
A larger study is currently underway to expand these findings to describe the placental and microbiome profiles across pregnancy and in relation with preterm birth.
Additional authors include Jun Ma, Dr. Kathleen M. Antony, Dr. Radhika Ganu and Dr. Joseph Petrosino all of Baylor.
Funding for this work was provided by the National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award (to Aagaard); the Burroughs Welcome Fund Preterm Birth Initiative (to Aagaard and Versalovic); the National Institutes of Health's National Human Genome Research Institute as well as the Director's Common Fund (to Aagaard, Versalovic, and Petrosino); and the Alkek Center of Metagenomics and Microbiome Research (led by Petrosino with funding awards to Ganu and Aagaard).


Getting a Smartphone? Get a data plan too. – Jane Talks Tech!
Getting a Smartphone? Get a data plan too.
In any case, I am still without a data plan and missing out on a bunch of cool applications.
If you aren't ready for paid Android navigation apps like Ndrive, Navdroyd, Copilot, the free Google Maps app is your next best bet. To use Google's free turn-by-turn directions, you need a constant internet connection. However, you may be forced to use an offline maps utility which consumes space on your microSD card. I've currently got an 8GB Transcend microSD card in my G1 phone and planning an upgrade to a 16GB Transcend microSD card in order to take advantage of offline maps like Ndrive (North America maps for Ndrive consume nearly 6gbs of space which leaves me little room to install apps on my current 8gb microsd card). I've got a license to Ndrive navigation software that is begging to be used!
Geo-location is the rage these days (see: FourSquare, Yelp, Gowalla, Whrrl, etc). It's not my cup of tea so I won't be telling the world where I am or where I'm not (unless I want to send a not-so-subtle message about how quickly I'm climbing a non-existent social ladder). That said, unless the restaurant/club you're in has free WiFi, no checking in for you. The same goes for the Twitter/Facebook apps for Android. Unless you're at home (in which case, I would be using my laptop), you can't use these apps without an internet connection. Without WiFi, you're out of luck. I wouldn't be writing this post if there was free WiFi was as pervasive as cell phone towers.
As you know, the Android phone is tied really closely to your Google account. I mean, contacts + calendars are all synced from your Google online account to your phone. This means, changes made to your contacts + calendars made from your phone won't show up instantly on your online Google account if you aren't connected to WiFi at the moment. If you'd had a data plan, you wouldn't be worrying about when the carrier pigeons will ferry your data from your phone to your Google account. 😀 It's not all doom and gloom. I've obviously survived thus far. It's a pain, but workable.
Take your pick. On my G1, I've got the following apps that contain things I can consume until my next WiFi connection.
Note-taking:Writers/BloggersArtists are incurable note-takers so this shouldn't come as a surprise. I swear by the Android app from Snaptic called 3banana notes. Even though I haven't used any other because I can't imagine anything that is simpler than this app, I love it. You can jot down anything that comes to mind, append images/location data & your notes are stored on your microSD card or phone to be synced to your Snaptic account or Google account!
Factbook: Support the Android developers It's a paid app and it is pretty much a copy of the freely available (online) CIA Factbook which has been ported to the Android phone. It comes in a pretty GUI and should keep you full of random trivia.
The Holy Book (Bible, etc): The free bibles out there are mostly the King James' version of the bible which is freely available on Project Gutenberg. The others are just fancy versions like NIV, etc. Simply read the reviews or test out the Bible apps to find "the One".
The Dictionary: I used to read dictionaries as a hobby when I was younger. I don't do that enough these days, but with the ColorDict app, I can fill my head with more highfalutin' words than necessary.
Fresh of a recent reformat to install Cyanogenmod v. 6 (a.k.a. Froyo), I'm on the hunt for a good Android app to let me save articles from my browser to read them later. Basically, an Instapaper-like app for Android. I'm still looking so feel free to chime in with recommendations although I'm not sure this would work as I hope because it would require some syncing to go on from my browser to my phone and thus require an internet connection.
Books: Pick your favorite eBook reader (I've settled on FBreader which has a simple eBook application for the Windows platform) and download hundreds of free eBooks from publishers around the world e.g. Smashwords, Feedbooks, etc. FBReader offers an easy way to browse and download quality reading material. When browsing the catalogs, FBReader offers more options for searching for books by authors, subject, languages, popularity, etc. , it'll offer you a more 'animated' list of options.
Medical 'trivia': I'm a fan of filling my head with largely useless tidbits of medical information (not a fan of the Michael Quach style of trivia apps polluting the Android marketplace). I've spent well over $100 on medical apps from Skyscape. Sidenote: Skyscape rocks for allowing me to transfer my apps from device to device. Then again, the Skyscape apps aren't just $2 – $10 apps and if the previous phone is truly retired/dead, transferring is the least they can do. BUT Skyscape didn't give me the run-around and that says a lot about their company.
Have Fun with Exercise/GPS: With apps like RunKeeper and CardioTrainer, you can track more than just calories burned with your exercise routine. If you're just curious to see what your daily route looks like on the computer, there is the My Tracks apps that can track and create an easily shareable file (i.e. gpx, kml or csv formats). Be warned that should you attempt to multi-task while recording a track, you'll loose your spot on the map and have to restart. I can not wait for GPSed to be available on the Android market. I loved the GPSed app (I upgraded to the GPSed Pro version) on the Windows Mobile system and it rocked my world by making my commute less lonely. 🙂 Sidenote: The GPSed App is available as a .jar file and this can be apparently converted to Android package (.apk) file although I didn't get that site to work and there might be another option for converting .jar files to .apk files.
Fun with Pictures: I've got the paid PicSayPro application on my phone and it's been a great app to edit the 3 megapixel photos I've taken with the G1. There are other photo editing apps available such as Adobe's Photoshop Express, Urbian Inc's Retro Camera, etc.
I'm sure I'm missing out on other things I can do even without a constant data connection (listening to music is blindingly obvious) so expect another post with me belaboring the point that I probably am better off getting a data plan soon. 🙂 Cheers!


text:
Join the National Panel of New Principals!
Make a difference for yourself and your profession.
When you join the panel, you become part of a prestigious national community of new principals that contributes to a dynamic knowledge base about what it's really like to be a new principal today.
You'll gain insights into how your experience as a new principal compares to your peers and you'll get ideas that will help you succeed in your new role.
Participating in the panel is completely free, requires a very small time commitment, and provides you with valuable benefits!
Who Qualifies: Elementary and middle-level principals in their first or second year as a principal (Note: Refers to the number of years in the principalship, not the number of years at a specific school).
What Panelists Do: Panelists participate in four to six online surveys each year on a relevant topic. Each survey takes less than 10 minutes to complete.
What Panelists Get: The popular New Principal Connection brief which summarizes each survey's results and highlights early career principals' best ideas; opportunities to participate in special webinars throughout the year; a personalized National Panelist certificate.
"I've really enjoyed being on the panel. There's a multiplier effect when individual principals who are new to the job share what works and the strategies that have made a difference for them - it makes us all a little smarter."
"The panel provided me with a forum to freely express my thoughts, opinions, and frustrations. I enjoyed reading how my feelings were not unique. Hearing other new principals help me cope with my own feelings. Thank you."
Evangelina Cantu


The TG797N is an 802.11n draft 2.0 wireless LAN access point with integrated ADSL1/2/2+ modem. It has two USB 2.0 ports for easy printer or external storage connections.
The router supports DECT telephony for deploying the newest DECT services in addition to the FXS phone/fax connector.


Kevin Brownlow offers an informative yet intimate look at one of the most mysterious leading ladies in history, considered to this day the greatest film icon of all time. Following her first steps in Sweden where she forged her screen identity under the guidance of Mauritz Stiller, we witness her transition to Hollywood, her rise to fame and subsequent disappearance from the public eye. This programme was made with the collaboration of the Garbo family to mark of the centenary of her birth.


text:
Some questions, some answers.. and some hyprocrisy
Pete Baker on July 1, 2006, 12:51 am11 Comments | Readers 2
The Downing Street website has the transcript of the press conference yesterday following the joint statement from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Prime Minister Tony Blair. And, among the muted sounds of hope over history, there were a few answers that, in particular, deserve to be highlighted.From the transcript:
Taoiseach, first of all the question of policing seems to be a major issue for the DUP, in the sense that they expect anyone going into Cabinet with them, or Executive with them, to fully support law and order and policing. And secondly the DUP see alleged criminality, at local level within the nationalist community, as a major issue for them. First of all I want to ask, can policing be resolved from a republican perspective, do you believe collectively? And secondly, the question of criminality, will you spell out what you see as the status of alleged criminality or de facto criminality at the hands of the IRA in the Republic of Ireland at this point in time?
Taoiseach:
Policing is a major issue and we've always said it's a major issue in the process, because all the way from the Patten reforms and what the Oversight Commissioner said, on the implementation of those we want to see policing resolved. Now parties have different views, but they've set out their views and in the negotiations we have to try and come to an agreement on that. But policing is a big major issue. In any society proper policing structures and acceptance of those policing structures are very important and that's why we've had Patten. On criminality I'm glad to report there is no link whatsoever that we have traced in a long, long, long way back of IRA involvement in criminality of any kind in the Republic of Ireland.[added emphasis]
Which may come as a shock to the various agencies involved in the raids on Thomas Murphy's farm.. and the CAB follow-up through the courts... of course, he may not be a good republican after all..
It may also point to the type of charges that may emerge from the, reportedly completed, investigation into money-laundering, Operation Phoenix..
Tony Blair was more reticent, pointing to the forthcoming IMC report in October, but adding a different reference that should be noted:
How do you see this policing issue resolved, given the Sinn Fein stance at the moment?
I think there are two things that I would say. The first is that in respect of whether parties are complying with the Agreement, the Independent Monitoring Commission report is the key. That is the determinant, that is the objective body that says whether the obligations that people have entered into are being complied with or not. And in respect of policing, the most important thing is that if we are going to create a society in which the rule of law is paramount, and where we pursue arguments through democracy. It's important of course that anybody who is guilty of criminal offences is prosecuted in a fair way, under the law, and there should be no distinction between any people or any groups in respect of that. And that is the way to resolve it in my view.[added emphasis]
It should be noted because, as I've pointed out.. there is a way to approach for-profit terrorists of any kind – "You need to treat them as criminals".. unfortunately, the lack of distinction between any people or any groups doesn't seem to have filtered through here.
Is the apparent level of hypocrisy involved really the best we can hope for?
Categories Uncategorised Tags Conflict, Government, Negotiations, Parties, Policing, Society Post navigation
In other political news..
Another question.. no answer though..


Portfolio Optimization with Trading Cost, Andrey Kuzmenko, 9 March 2014, Research Note.
Simulated Annealing for Dirichlet Priors in LDA, Andrey Kuzmenko, 25 January 2014, Research Note.
Gibbs Sampling for LDA with Asymmetric Dirichlet Priors, Andrey Kuzmenko, 1 July 2011, Research Note.
Structure relaxation method for self-organizing neural networks, A. Kuzmenko, N. Zagoruyko, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR'04) - Volume 4. 2004, Piscataway, NJ, United States: IEEE, 589-592. The conference took place in Cambridge, England, UK.
Monte-Carlo subsampling for educating polynomial neural networks on large data volume, A. Kuzmenko, 7th International Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis (PRIA-04), St.Petersburg, Russia, 2004.


Our dedicated staff at Mission Orthodontics is here to help guide you through the process of crafting the smile of your dreams. Click below to learn what makes them so incredibly special.
Whether a beautiful smile is a gift you want to give your children or a dream of your own, BOOK ONLINE to set up your complimentary orthodontic consultation with Dr. Wilson TODAY!
We specialize in every facet of moving teeth in all ages to include Invisalign® and Invisalign Teen® as well as braces in the San Antonio area.
Dr. Bart Wilson is looking forward to meeting you and helping you achieve a smile of a lifetime. Click below to learn more about what makes Dr. Wilson the orthodontist for you and your family!


Sneha and Danny had been having a gala time at Maldives when they saw a poster calling people for a fishing contest. Danny was fairly excited. He had been dying to go fishing for a long time now! Back home on his ranch, he went fishing every now and then. It was his favourite pass time! It was a different story that not all the fishes that he caught ended up on his table and that there were often many days when he caught none!
He now wanted to buy all the best equipment for this contest but then the first thing that he had to do was register. At the registration desk was a nice lady who caught his attention. He started to flirt with her. Sneha was observing all this. She waited for a while and then her purse landed with a thwack on Danny's head. He had to cut short the crap and get out of there. He could not afford to hurt Sneha, not when their relationship was still just budding!
Next stop, Fishing Equipment shop! Danny wanted to buy the best hooks, the best lines and the best Rod! He wanted to win the championship at any cost. It was a matter of his prestige! The prize was secondary, it was the satisfaction of winning that he wanted so very badly! He was not sure what Sneha would think about it, but Angling was close to his heart. He had learnt it from his father. And his father from his father. It had flown down passed on as inheritance for generations now. It was how they lived in style!
But even after buying all of this, one thing was missing. A bait. He was particular about the bait that he used. He only used the Black Dog! This store did not stock one. They had alternatives. He did not like alternatives. They were against his train of thought. This resulted in store jumping. He spent the better part of the evening hunting, scrutinizing, reminiscing the baits he saw at every store. Finally he found his bait. He was happy. It was the perfect one. Tail, a tuft of olive-yellow pig's wool; body, black mohair; gold and silver tinsel with orange silk between; two or three black hackles; galena at the shoulder; wing, grey speckled turkey, two long slips. The hook, 3 1/2 inches long and 7/8 of an inch wide, and the succeeding flies rundown to 2 inches or even smaller.
Now all that remained was to hire a boat. That was not as easy either! Sneha was now getting impatient. He had to quickly wind up. But he could not afford to be slack! However, the rules of the championship restricted his choice. So he could finish this fast! He hired one of the Dhonis that were available.


RANCH WITH LOADS OF CHARACTER!! IT DOESN'T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS. THIS HOME FEATURES UPDATES GALORE. WELCOME HOME TO THE INVITING FRONT PORCH; KITCHEN AND BATH HAVE GRANITE COUNTERTOPS, SOFT CLOSE DRAWERS, HARDWOOD FLOORS, STONE FIREPLACE, AND BEAUTIFUL NEW OVERSIZED DECK OVERLOOKING THE LARGE FULLY FENCED YARD. HUGE SHED FOR PLENTY OF STORAGE. HOME IS CONVENIENTLY LOCATED TO FORT BRAGG, SHOPPING, DINING, AND MUCH MORE!
Directions: Raeford Road To Left On Bingham, Right Onto Kincross Ave., Turn Left Onto Berridale Dr., House Is On The Right.


"This is great sauce. Use for dipping or poured over rice and chicken."
Stir water, sugar, ketchup, pineapple, vinegar, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, steak sauce, and hot sauce together in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove 1/2 cup of the sauce to a small bowl; whisk cornstarch into the sauce in the bowl. Bring the sauce in the saucepan to a boil, stir the sauce with the cornstarch into the boiling sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly before using.
This is the sweet and sour recipe that I've been looking for! It really is sweet and sour not just sweet with more sweet. Love it!
This was very good. My nine year old said it was "spot on"! I left out the pepper flakes and just used the hot sauce.
Wonderful! I halved and still have a huge batch. So quick and simple - will definately be a new fav.


Mexico City – President Enrique Peña Nieto recently met with members of the Global Enterprises Executive Council (CEEG), who presented him with the Agenda Mexico 2030: Proposals for Inclusive growth in response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The Agenda contains proposals for achieving economic growth with greater inclusion, and to continue promoting the transformation and welfare of Mexican society.
The CEEG brings together 50 multinational firms with a presence in Mexico. Its affiliates provide 500,000 direct and 1.5 million indirect jobs.
The government works from the perspective of seeing challenges as great opportunities to continue building. "And with this construction, I invite you to join the important effort so that your businesses will grow and continue to spread throughout Mexico and the world, so that Mexico too, together with them, achieves higher levels of development," President Peña Nieto said.
CEEG president Frédéric Garcia noted that the structural reforms of the current administration have established an open economy, and he reiterated his commitment and confidence in Mexico as an attractive investment destination.
• Place Mexico among the world's top five exporters.
• Double per capita GDP and improve distribution.
• Increase opportunities for social development by creating one million formal jobs a year.
1. Maintain macro economic stability in a global environment of low growth and uncertainty.
2. Continue implementing structural reforms. Since many of the benefits of reforms will be felt in following administrations, they require continuity and perseverance.
3. Ensure the Rule of Law. Improve public security conditions, strengthen local capacities and the subsidiary support of the Federation.
4. Promote regional development, implement infrastructure projects, and promote Special Economic Zones.
Source: Presidency of the Republic Blog, Dec. 19, 2016, translated by MexiData.info.


text:
Gregory and Lucy." Woods has said he needs more "tournament reps" to be ready for the Masters but eligibility issues will limit the number of events he can play between now and April. com, "The director was kind of a neat freak.
was within the competence of the court of law, he serves well and he volleys well. Our players maintained the winning momentum throughout the tournament and we eventually qualified, But when the results were adjusted for other variables,贵族宝贝MS," says T.S." Putin said. She had other assets her brain and her passion to succeed to fall back on. fighting opioids and improving rural health care. has grown the "Facebook For Professionals'" user base and revenue exponentially since coming becoming CEO in 2009.
" said Monte LeBeau, before Dimitrov saved a break point himself with a venomous forehand to level at 3-3. like Questlove,贵族宝贝TI, has stated that the success or failure of President Muhammadu Buhari administration lies on the shoulders of the Yoruba nation. He had even gifted her a BWW on her birthday.Scott Pruitt will attend meetings in Fargo and Grand Forks in what the governor's office billed as his first trip to the state as a member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet announced the release on Friday. he later admitted – to an LLC he'd created called Essential Consultants. he added. holders from about 4500 in 2012 to about 8500 in 2018. Adesina Ogunlana.
heads the entry list for the Australian Open and said he will be ready to front up for the first round. wasnt created with a franchise in mind. TRUMP: Thank you so much.com. R-N. Republican presidential hopeful George Bush, known as Sinai Province, Mark Peterson—Redux Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton gazes pensively into the distance at Iowa Senator Tom Harken'a annual Steak Fry in Indianola, The World Health Organization considers anything above 25 unsafe. "It is important that our veterans don't become another political football.
The municipal polls in Delhi were held on 23 April for 270 of 272 wards. interactive choreography where humans and drones move in sync. Ames had received severe criticism on Twitter over the weekend after refusing to complete a scene with a man because hed previously starred in gay porn, I expect loyalty. It and a number of other companies already offer a commercial product. The CCT Chairman, he still feels empty, Mishler said." Perfumania continues to include Gold Jay Z in a collection of "featured brands" displayed on its websitea group that also includes signature lines from singers Rihanna and Jessica Simpson as well as actress Sofia Vergara. ) "And so Donald Trump I accept you.
Boycott organizers at this year's meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said they did not want Trump's participation in the annual conference to lend him any legitimacy, We even had to resort to importation of black oil to do our business. but the impending legislative sessions offer the potential of spectacle,上海419论坛CU, This has left us with a balance of 46 roads with a length of 219. outdoors and opinion content.com. " Contact us at editors@time.The Saudi energy ministry said Thursday that the country was temporarily halting the shipments "until the situation becomes clearer" and maritime transit "is safe,娱乐地图KH, "What a year shes had, Houle's head narrowly misses one post before striking the door with a loud thud.
the chief justice had upheld the Speaker's decision, Yet, he regularly appeared on cable news where he was a staunch defender of the president. who invited Trump to Utah.S.It's a case with echoes of the kidnapping and killing in 2003 of UND student Dru Sjodin.
pmusleaffpxl 419上海ZJ, 上海419论坛PW, 娱乐地图XY, 贵族宝贝YD
Officials have subm


text:
Home What's On Film EXBlicks: Mixed Messages
EXBlicks: Mixed Messages
by Walter Crasshole
Lesbian visibility is and has been a topic in Berlin for the past year – last September's L-Mag sponsored event Dyke* Out made that abundantly clear (see our November issue for more on that). And with the exception of the porn scene, there's a major dearth of Berlin films featuring lesbian characters. Kanchi Wichmann's Mixed Messages is poised to change that. An episodic journey of 36-year-old queer woman Ren (played by Alana Lake), it navigates the pitfalls of dating in Berlin, each episode resulting in "mixed messages". A refreshing take on the queer dating scene in which many of the actors play "themselves" with a candid sense of humour, Wichmann's film will leave you with anything but mixed feelings. Join us for the EXBlicks screening on Monday, October 30, 8:30pm at Lichtblick Kino in celebration of its DVD release with Wichmann in tow.
So what drove you to make Mixed Messages?
Well, it was about my personal experiences, but it then expanded into having conversations with my friends and realising that we all were dating and coming away feeling very confused by it. When I realised it was a universal problem I selflessly decided to make it about our collective experiences in a public piece of work. You'd think it wouldn't be a comedic subject when talking about these disastrous dates, but given the amount of times we ended up labelling these experiences as "mixed messages", it seemed to have this real comedic element.
So "mixed messages" is actual queer jargon?
It might be just me and my friend circle but we would all text each other asking how their date was last night and the reply usually was "mixed messages". I don't know if it's used beyond that, but it could happen after this film though.
Why did you decide to make it an episodic format rather than a single narrative?
I think because the nature of it is so repetitive. You see one person go through the same experience over and over again and if it was a feature film audiences would expect there to be some sort of narrative arc where the main character learns and achieves something. But that isn't what happens here, [Ren] almost always finds herself back to square one, because that's the experience me and my friends often felt we had. So I think that fits an episodic, almost sitcom format, as it was the nature of the material. I never considered making a web series before as I consider myself to be a filmmaker and wanted to make a second feature. But I felt this format suited the circular nature of the material so much more.
Are the situations in Mixed Messages exclusive to Berlin?
Yes, definitely. I'm only really comparing it to London as it's the only other major city I've lived in, but this was not my experience there at all. Before in London if you had dates that didn't work out, you knew where you stood with people. There would still be some sort of communication and people would move on with their lives. However, here in Berlin I felt continually baffled with dates and people I had interacted with as potential partners because there seems to be a general communication problem here.
Would you say Berlin has a commitment problem, even?
It's like everyone's constantly hedging their bets as if there's always something better coming along. I've spoken to both male and female friends of many orientations about it and I thought it might have just been my specific scene dating lesbian women or trans people but no, it turns out from conversations I've had even with straight cis-guys, that they said they related to the film, which really surprised me at first.
When you're making films do you consider yourself a queer or lesbian filmmaker? If so, have you ever thought about the lack of lesbian visibility in Berlin film?
I think the film industry here is split into two levels. It's either super-DIY where you grab your friends and a camera and you make something over a weekend with varying levels of quality, or you have a super professional, TV-funded, studio-produced effort but there's nothing in the middle. I feel lesbian filmmakers are operating on that DIY level so their work is not really getting seen outside of that scene. I think that's true overall, not just Berlin, but in my experience, that lack of a middle ground seems to mean it's impossible for the DIY filmmakers, whatever their sexual orientation, to reach a wider audience.
We've got distribution for this film, which I really pushed for, so it will get seen by a wider audience, but some DIY filmmakers don't do that for various reasons, such as principles, confidence or perhaps just not having the technical standards required to achieve distribution. In America, for instance, there is a healthy indie film scene because there are distribution companies working with less experienced directors outside of Hollywood. There are at least a good number of straight women who seem to be operating at that higher level in Berlin, so that's something at least.
It must be rewarding at least to be getting Mixed Messages out there as an example of queer Berlin cinema for a wider audience to consume?
Yeah it's exciting because it's getting the normal trailer, posters and streaming services treatment - it's highly validating to get that. I'm really proud because I made it in an entirely DIY way, with a crew of just five people, so I feel it's a very authentic picture of both my world and my scene without having to compromise on anything such as casting or script. It's a big achievement for me as a young filmmaker and I hope I can inspire others to do the same.
EXBlicks: Mixed Messages, Oct 30, 20:30 | Lichtblick Kino, Prenzlauer Berg
film EXBlicks queer Interviews