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Alex Kahuam Talks About His Unforgettable Short Film Red Light
Posted by Susan Leighton | Nov 26, 2020 | Interviews, Slider | 0
Red Light (2020) is the passion project of director Alex Kahuam, actor Ted Raimi and producer Marco De Molina. A real deal guerilla indie effort, clocking in at nine-plus minutes, Kahuam's production keeps you riveted from the first frame until the end. This proof of concept is definitely unforgettable. As a matter of fact, it stays with you, and trust us when we say this, in a good way.
What starts out as a night of "adventure" with the promise of a killer party for a group of millennial influencers is going to take a dark and unusual turn. Right off the bat, all of these kids are ultra-annoying with their selfie taking and their "live" broadcasts. Naturally, when they aren't navel gazing or pontificating to their vapid followers, they excel at being detestable humans.
When a homeless man approaches their car asking for assistance, they tell him to get lost. After one of them has an altercation with the harmless vagrant, a van pulls up and obstructs them from leaving. Enter Ian (Ted Raimi) and his brother, Stephen (Brian Krause) who turn out to be these social media junkies' worst nightmare.
For those fans of Ted Raimi, who are anticipating another goofy, slightly eccentric performance, prepare to be pleasantly surprised for his character, Ian is gloriously terrifying. Think along the lines of his darkly nuanced portrayal of Dennis Skinner (Skinner, 1993) and you're on the right track. The actor plays it straight. Ian is a highly-intelligent man, the type that you wouldn't mind conversing with at a dinner party. It is that same charisma that also lures victims to horrible fates, and to make matters worse he appears sane!
We were eager to speak with Kahuam who wrote the unnerving script with his partner, Daniel Kuhlman. Here is our conversation about the significantly creepy Red Light, his horror influences, and what lies ahead for the director.
Inspiration Wields a Chainsaw
Diabolique: Thanks for speaking with us, Alex. Before we get into Red Light, let's talk about your background, which is pretty interesting. In 2011, you directed a comedy short called Disaster Date, which sounds very much like something John Hughes would have done in the 80's. From there you got into crime dramas with Escondida (2012) and So, You Want to Be a Gangster? (2014). Was being behind the camera something that you always wanted to do?
AK: Wow, Disaster Date was a long time ago! When I was a kid, I started doing short films. A teacher assigned us homework, so instead of doing a paper I asked her if I could do a video with my friends and she said, sure, go ahead, why not? We did this crime drama about a kidnapping. I was very fascinated by her response because we were young; I was 12 and I was playing a father of my classmates. My teacher got really deep into this short. She was like, these kids are doing violence and saying bad words, what's going on? (Laughs)
I fell in love with doing short films. From the age of 12 until now, I have been progressing in the sense of changing the genres that I want to explore. Horror has always been interesting to me because it stays with you, but I also like crime.
Diabolique: Name some movies and directors that have influenced your work.
AK: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is my favorite movie, and Tobe Hooper is a god. That film was so disturbing. I was 14 when I first watched it. Since then, it stayed in my head. What really intrigues me about the film is the characters like Leatherface and their motivations. Red Light was influenced by that production. I like to say it is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for millennials.
Diabolique: It's funny that you would mention that because when we were viewing Red Light, we picked up on the TCM influence right away. From the moment your film starts, you are drawn into the story. If you are on social media, you are familiar with every one of the obnoxious "influencer" lead characters. We also noticed the parallels to another storied horror franchise, Saw (2004). Were you aware of that?
AK: Yes, totally! The original idea came from Escondida. That film was the blueprint for Red Light, but the difference was the main character was a YouTuber because, at the time, it was the thing. Everyone was using it. Now it is Instagram and Snapchat. YouTube is still around, but it's not like before, from my perspective. I feel like Instagram has more influencers and people like Red Light's lead characters there. So, I wanted to do the Hollywood version of the film but with changes of course.
I was very lucky to have Ted Raimi and Brian Krause for this proof of concept film. Pretty much what we did is, we shot a couple of scenes from the full-length screenplay that we already wrote. It's just a small taste of what a dynamite feature it will be.
The Dark Side of Ted Raimi
Diabolique: Speaking of Ted Raimi, did you write the character of Ian with him in mind? How did he become involved in the project?
AK: I wrote the script with no actors in mind, but one of the producers, Marco De Molina is Ted's friend. While I was rewriting the script with Daniel Kuhlman, I was thinking it would be awesome if Ted Raimi played Ian. It would be a great character for him.
Marco sent the script to Ted. He read it and loved it. He read the feature-length script and not the proof of concept. Then he said he wanted to be involved as a producer because he wanted to make the picture happen. This was wonderful because now we had our villain, and he nails the role. He is incredible, and we've become a family. Ted, Marco, and I are really close with each other. It's been an evolution from our first work together to friendship.
Diabolique: It was great to see Ted not be the comic relief because that is what his fans expect from him. Did you know he was going to be able to dial into Ian's darkness? What makes him terrifying is the character seems like a normal, intelligent guy, like someone you would want to hang out with. Sort of in the vein of Hannibal Lecter, minus the cannibal tendencies.
AK: I grew up watching his work. Yes, you're right, in most of his films he provides the comic relief. However, he did a dark picture called Skinner in 1993. I felt like that was different, so I talked about it with Ted. I knew he was capable of doing a very serious role that was scary and frightening. He has the skills to pull it off.
When we were talking about it he told me, "I don't want to do a goofy, comedic killer." I thought, great, we're on the same page. The script doesn't provide any comedic relief with Ian. With the influencers, yes, but with the killer, no. It has to be very serious.
Like you were saying, I love Hannibal Lecter. He's very smart and he's terrifying because he knows exactly what he's doing. Actually, The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is another influence because Hannibal is a great character.
What Lies on the Horizon?
Diabolique: We enjoyed Red Light very much. It needs to be a feature film. Are you any closer to obtaining financing for it?
AK: I cannot tell you a lot, but I can say it is going in that direction. I think we have a good shot of making the film next year. We are really excited and happy. All of the festivals and the critics love Red Light. They want to see a feature, so I think our objective of showing it to audiences and seeing what they thought about it is paying off.
Diabolique: Will Red Light be screening at any virtual festivals in the future?
AK: Yes. Next month we will be at the New York City Horror Film Festival. We are also going to be at Awesome Con, which is Washington, DC's Comic Con.
Diabolique: According to IMDb, you have another scary thriller in post-production called Forgiveness (2021) and you are also working on 165 Days in Quarantine (2021) as well. Tell us a little bit about those efforts.
AK: Forgiveness is a psychological horror film that will be released next year. We have been working on it for two years. In 2021, we will start our festival run. I am really excited about this project because it has been a long process.
The story is about three women who are stuck in a hospital. One is mute, one is deaf, and the other is blind. There is no dialogue. However, there are jump scares. I shot it in a series of long takes. Red Light was shot the same way because I experimented with the technique in Forgiveness.
165 Days in Quarantine is another proof of concept. It is a drama. When I was in quarantine, I wrote four feature-length screenplays. I had inspiration; the world was collapsing and I felt the need to write about it. I grabbed one scene from the script like Red Light, and we shot it in August. We are finishing it in two weeks, and then we are going to start our festival run next year.
Diabolique: Beyond those projects, what else do you have in store for audiences?
AK: I have another movie that is in development. It is a psychological thriller/drama. The human condition interests me because as human beings we are kind of crazy in a way (laughs). I like exploring that. Right now, I am talking with a friend of mine. I cannot say her name, but she is a well-known actress in Hollywood. We're in talks to make that film happen.
Diabolique: Do you have any advice for up and coming filmmakers on how they can get their passion projects noticed?
AK: I would tell them to "think big." What do I mean by that? Don't limit yourself by only making short films. Always have a longer version of your script ready. Have a strategy and a plan.
Once again, we thank Alex Kahuam for taking time out of his busy schedule to speak with us. For information on how you can get tickets to the Red Light screenings at NYC Horror Film Festival and Awesome Con, visit their websites.
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Susan Leighton
Susan Leighton has written for many entertainment sites including 1428 Elm, VHS Revival, Cult Faction, The Queen of Style, TV Series Hub, Heroic Hollywood, That's My E and Crash Palace. She is known for her interviews with genre icons, Bruce Campbell, Joe Lansdale, Joe Bob Briggs, Dee Wallace, Michael Ironside, Jeffrey Combs, Josh Becker, Danny Hicks, Brent Jennings and Alice Krige. As well as prominent paranormal experts, Christopher Garetano, Chuck Zuckowski, Paul Bradford, Daryl Marston and Kristen Luman. She has also hosted two podcasts, Nerdrotic & Pop Culture Minefield. Her short stories are featured on the Get Scared Podcast on all platforms. Currently, she is writing a paranormal TV series and a feature film script with the hope of eventually obtaining "hyphenate" status, lol. Look for her collection of essays to be included in Lee Gambin's upcoming compilation on great sitcoms of the70's and 80's, "Tonight, on a Very Special Episode."
Hatchet for the Honeymoon (Blu-Ray Review)
Penny Dreadfuls: Tales of Horror (Book Review)
Halley (2013) (Film Review)
TV: American Gothic episodes 5 & 6 (review)


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Metaphrynella pollicaris (common name: Malaysian treefrog or Malaysian tree-hole frog) is a species of frog in the family Microhylidae. It is endemic to Peninsular Malaysia.

Description
Males measure  and females  in snout–vent length. Dorsum is dark olive-brown above, with a variable patterning. Tympanum is hidden. Finger tips are expanded into large disks.

Habitat and conservation
The species' natural habitats are evergreen rainforest and forest edges. It lives in hollows in tree trunks and bamboo, where it also reproduces. While it is secretive, the male call is distinctive and makes it surveyable. Based on the calls, it is abundant where it occurs. It abundance seems to be limited by the availability of tree holes. It can occur as low as  asl, but is more common from about  upwards.

It could be locally threatened by habitat loss, although it may benefit from habitat clearing that encourages the growth of giant bamboos, providing it with its microhabitat. It is known from several protected areas.

References

Metaphrynella
Endemic fauna of Malaysia
Amphibians of Malaysia
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
Amphibians described in 1890

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Working with Tea Break was such a rewarding, warm and wonderful experience. As someone who works in theatre primarily with the 11-25 age group, the ability to observe and facilitate a group like Tea Break with such a span of ages, experiences, abilities and personalities was so enriching for me personally and professionally and made me think about how we could all work to make theatre arts more intergenerational and inclusive. It was also lovely to be welcomed into another arts organisation and get a glimpse into the structure and approach of the company to help inform the way I and National Youth Theatre works.


Content Learning Targets - Ryan Dumkrieger, Ed. S.
I have been with the same school district since the fall of 2010. One of the first things I remember learning is that it was a district expectation that teachers post "student friendly learning targets in 'I can' statements." Our walkthrough form had a section where the target is identified as posted or not posted. I learned that it was an expectation teachers struggle with achieving.
The expectation has not changed and neither had the struggle for teachers to consistently post targets. Human nature tells me that with 100 teaching staff members, a few will forget to post or change them on any given day. Looking back on walkthrough data our school building consistently posts and teaches content learning targets 81% of the time. Why is it not 100% or at least extremely close?
Answer 1: We get busy and we forget to post them.
Answer 2: The students don't look at them.
Answer 3: I don't see how they help. I don't believe in them.
These answers made me realize the "mandate to post" targets was heard more than the "mandate for posting" targets. We want to ensure students understand the relevancy and "why" of learning something. We must do the same here.
What is the Mandate for Posting Learning Targets? Below are the four points that, I believe, sell posting targets in clsssrooms.
Having well written targets on the board does nothing to support learning if they are not explicitly taught to students. Students must understand what the target means and understand it's connection to the day's activities. Teachers who start with the target, refer back to the target, assess the target, and holds closure on the target will have deeper student understanding - if the student understand the learning target. Having them visual supports our English Language Learners.
As a student, if I read a target as "what" I am learning today, how will I know I learned it? The content of the target is the most important concept, problem, or theme of the unit or lesson. Teachers should be developing formative assessments that measure the content learning target. This allows the student to assess his or her learning and the teacher can examine data to determine progress of learning.
McREL completed a study update on Classroom Instruction That Works in 2010 (1) and showed the effect size of posting objectives as 0.31. This would equate to 9-10 month's growth in student learning. The key to it being research based is that it is used to connect students to learning. When written as "I can" statements it sets the stage for the student to self assess learning.
The video below is researcher John Hattie who explains how posting Learning Targets without also addressing success criteria weakens the goal. Students must not merely know "what" or "how" they are going to learn but also what the criteria is to be successful at a high level.
Posting targets must be about the "what" (content target) and the "how" (language target). We must also present, for understanding, the criteria for achieving the learning of the target. Students must know what they are learning, how they are learning it, and the criteria set to measrlure if they learned and at what level.


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Photos by CregorNews.com and Norwich Photo
UK Monoposto
Following an impressive Monoposto debut, as part of the Finol Star of Tomorrow championship towards the end of 2018, young hotshoe Max Hart committed himself to the 2019 championship season. He continued his debut form through the opening rounds of the championship, where the 17-year old took a brace of podiums at Donington Park.
Hart carried his impressive form and continued to cause the series regulars headaches in the early phase of the season, securing another two podiums by the time the series marked the mid-way point at Castle Combe. It was here that Hart took his first win of the series, with a fantastic drive from 5th on the grid. Jumping to second in the early stages of the race, Max stalked the leader up to the races half way point before enjoying a spirited battle, with the pair swapping positions on a lap by lap basis. In the end, it was Hart that prevailed, snatching the lead on the penultimate lap and securing his first slicks and wings victory.
Max was to back this up with a stunning victory on the Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit 2 rounds later, under difficult conditions. Lying second when the heavens opened, he maintained composure despite being on slick tyres, and steadily reeled in the erstwhile leader, taking the lead in the closing stages and pulling a comfortable gap by the time the chequered flag was shown.
A handful of engine issues in the latter end of the season saw Max lose ground on the championship leader, but despite this he arrived at the final round at Brands Hatch still with a mathematical chance of taking championship honours in his first season of racing in the UK. Alas, it was not to be but with a total of 8 podiums, he took some consolation in the runner-up spot.
His performances over the course of the season were enough to catch the attention of Motorsport Ireland, who awarded him Young Driver of the Month for the month of June. Max was then selected as part of the final 3, who were in contention for Young Driver of the Year and the 50,000 that comes with it. Ultimately he lost out to Formula 3 racer James Roe, but it was a great accolade for the Baltinglass youngster.
Fresh on the back of his successful year, Max recently competed in the final rounds of the South East Asia Formula 4 championship, where he managed to take a podium, despite extremely limited track time in the Formula 4 machine.
Morgan McCourt again tackled the Monomoto 1000 championship and the Cork based surgeon enjoyed his strongest season to date, recording numerous top 6's on his way to 4th place in the final standings.
2017 Monoposto Champion Mark Reade made his return to the cockpit for the Leinster Trophy event at Mondello in September and he was also joined by Max Hart for the weekend. The pair put forward a typical giant killing performance, mixing it with some of the front runners despite the significant power deficit. The Irish weather duly obliged when race day came, with torrential rain causing the drivers all manner of headache. Reade and Hart enjoyed a battle early on, before the race settled out and Reade pulled a gap on his young teammate to finish 7th and 8th respectively.
Irish Formula Vee
Team boss and Leastone founder returned to competitive action for the first time in over 15 years by electing to tackle the Irish Formula Vee Championship for 2019.
Despite the undertaking 'just being for fun', it was clear the competitive edge was still there and Heavey hit the ground running early in the season, consistently running at the sharp end of the field and taking 3rd place in the Kirkistown opener. A number of rookie mistakes meant the results were mostly limited to top 5 finishes but he made amends during his first visit to Bishopscourt circuit in Northern Ireland. Despite not have raced at the former airfield before, Heavey took a popular win after a race long battle with the eventual 2019 champion, Anthony Cross. Ironically, this would he Heavey's penultimate race of the year as he elected to sit out the remainder of the season to focus on Max and Morgan's Monoposto efforts.
Even though he missed the bulk of the season, his early results were enough for him to take 3rd place in the 'B' Championship and 6th overall in the Selco Hygiene National Championship.
For 2020, the Leastone Racing Team will once again tackle the full UK Monoposto championship, which will see 14 rounds across 6 race weekends. Morgan McCourt will return for his fourth full time campaign, looking to break into the top 3 following his 2019 success.
The works team will field two cars for the full championship, with Morgan's team mate on the verge of being confirmed at time of writing.
2020 will see the return of Mark Reade to Irish competition, taking the reigns of a works Leastone JH004 Formula Vee. Reade will look to take on select rounds of the National Formula Vee Championship. Paul Heavey is intending to emerge once again from retirement, to pilot the no. 26 Leastone for the few events that Reade is expected to be absent. Provisional 2020 calendars can be found here
msvr
formula vee
finol oils
finol
leastone 1000

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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News and Programs
The phenomenon of artisanal mining in Katanga, DRC
News and Programs Programs and Projects Slideshow
15 June 2013 27 June 2013 Ecojes Admin
Alicia Alemán Arrastio
The phenomenon of artisanal mining in Katanga, in the southern area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), shows the impact of international economic growth of the last three decades on traditionally mining countries and regions like Katanga.
Artisanal mining refers to the activity characterized by the use of extraction techniques that are least intensive in both technology and capital. Artisanal mining can be formal or informal, legal or clandestine. Small mining, or small-scale mining, differs from artisanal mining in the more intensive use of technology and capital. Both artisanal and small mining are characterized by their great dynamism and diversity, which complicates to a great extent their descriptions and definitions.
The increased demand of minerals such as copper, cobalt, and uranium, together with the rising prices in international markets, helps to explain the growing phenomenon of artisanal mining in Katanga in the past 10 years. This happens in a national context characterized by the weakness of the democratic institutional character and the social tissue, and in an unstable economic-financial international environment that underwent a severe crisis since 2008.
In this complex, changing and uncertain context, it is necessary to look at the social action of the heterogeneous population of artisanal miners in the region of Katanga. Thus, we analyze the demands and struggles of this group when it comes to claiming their rights and suggesting proposals in relation to the access and control of mining resources.
As a first step, an interpretative look at the context, national and international, highlights both the "mining boom" associated with the international economy, and the complex swarm of international and regional geo-economic and political interests that are woven around the mining riches of the Congo for the past decade. International and national reports (among which include the Final Report of the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo, October 8, 2002 [S/2002/1146]) show the relation between resource exploitation and violence in DRC.
As a second step, we can point out two characteristics of the phenomenon of artisanal mining in Katanga: its huge size (in people involved in artisanal exploitation), and its insertion into a longer chain of commercialization, in which artisanal production ends up merging itself with the industrial production and, finally, exportation.
As a third step, the laws and policies related to artisanal mining extend from the 2002 Mining Code, and the mining policies, to the regulation and guidelines established in relation to the organization and direction of artisanal mining exploitation. Besides the legal framework, we want to underline the social action in the mining population of Katanga in relation to these rights, the challenges they face, the strategies they use, and the serious limitations they find to organize themselves and coordinate a social action.
Finally, we acknowledge the role of civil society and government organizations in relation to the accompaniment of these populations, as well as of the proposals to improve the governance of mining resources in the region of Katanga, with the prevailing concern on the phenomenon of artisanal mining and the risks of ignoring.
Ms Alicia Alemán Arrastio works with the Alboan Foundation, a Jesuit NGO in Spain that promotes development cooperation in South and North countries and provides support through education and training that promote justice, strengthening people's groups working for social change, and collaborating with other organizations to influence public policies for human development.
Alicia Alemán Arrastio, artisanal mining, DRC, Katanga
Reconciling with Creation, Source Book
Why there is local opposition to coal mining in Karanpura Valley in Jharkhand, India
One thought on "The phenomenon of artisanal mining in Katanga, DRC"
Pep Mària SJ
20 June 2013 at 7:39 pms Reply
¡Congratulations Alicia! soon a Cristianisme i Justicia Booklet in English will be published on the problems of the mining sector in the DR of the Congo. Its Catalan and Spanish versions have just been published


The House System is designed to embody the values and ethos of the school and is an integral part of our school community. It is our ambition that the House System alongside the School Council will enable our pupils to have a stronger voice in the decision-making across the school.
All children are placed into one of the four houses on entry to Old Park Primary School. Each class will have a variety of children who make up the representing body of each House to allow children to work as a team, aiming for the success of the House in all challenges, activities and competitions. All siblings who are on roll are placed in the same House allowing a sense of unity and togetherness throughout their time at Old Park.
The House names are inspired by our school motto Dream, Believe, Inspire and Achieve; this is celebrated throughout the Houses and in House assemblies that all participants strive to have these attributes.
The House colours and animals were chosen by our School Council pupils. Each House is represented by one of the strands of Old Park's motto, a colour and an animal for each House. This allows all children to have a sense of belonging and to be aware of their House colours, animal and motto.
Each House has two Captains represented by Year 6 Each term there is one large House competition and a number of smaller House challenges. All Old Park staff are also assigned to a House and support in the running of the events and earning House points. The House Captains work alongside the School Council to organise Well-Being assemblies, Values assemblies, charity fundraising and school fundraising.
Students in each House strive to earn as many House points as they can to support their House and to be the House with the most points. Students can earn these points through class effort in class for varying situations, attending lunchtime and after school clubs, participating in visits or outside competitions whereby the individual has represented the school. Students are awarded House points for completion of homework and for being entered into the Golden Book or completing an effort point card.


IVEY TRAIL 19 – WHAT A LARCH!
At one time, this site was in agricultural production. When Thomas Doherty bought this property in 1986 he began planting trees on this farmland. The trees here are European Larches (Larix decidua), related to the Tamaracks (L. laricina) of northern forests in Canada. These cone-bearing trees or conifers are so named because they produce their seeds in cones. Most conifers, like hemlocks, cedars, spruce and pine are evergreens. Larches are deciduous conifers and lose their needle-like leaves each fall.
About 3,000 larches were planted here for an original cost of about $750. The same number of native hardwood trees would have cost over $3,600. Cost is a major factor in the choice of non-native trees used for forest plantings. These larch trees will help prepare the site for a native forest to grow. They will reduce the cover of grasses and allow native trees, shrubs and herbs from the adjacent forest to establish themselves here over time. Eventually the larches will die, or be cut down as part of Joany's Woods management plan. When your descendants are walking this trail, they will see a forest of native species growing here.


Place a hay inside your fist. Today press. Notice that is you'll not much has the capacity to move across the hay. This can be, primarily, when you yourself have a nerve what's occurring within your back. Your back or nerves (the hay) are now being crammed due to the impinging by bone/and-or disc material.
Decompression is actually a surgical treatment to alleviate strain and alleviate discomfort caused by this impingement. A tiny portion of the bone over the nerve root, named disc content or lamina from underneath the nerve root is removed to provide the nerve house.
Each of these procedures can be executed as an independent surgery or may be combined together. Along with a discectomy, a laminectomy might be performed like. Your doctor will establish which technique or techniques provides you with one of the most relief.
What Are Laminectomy and a Laminotomy?
Laminotomy and laminectomy are spinal decompression operations on the lower back that entail eliminating bone, called the lamina, to alleviate pressure on the spinal nerve(s) and hopefully mitigate the chances of needing botox injections Union City.
Laminotomy are generally completed to relieve signs including discomfort, of stenosis, and weakness or numbness that can expand down the biceps or feet.
Your physician may recommend one of these simple techniques if signs don't increase, or if numbness or weakness makes walking difficult or ranking.
In some instances, these processes might be vital within surgery to treat a herniated spinal disk. Your surgeon might need to eliminate element of, or the full lamina to gain entry to the broken disk.


The Utrecht region (The Netherlands) wanted to establish itself internationally as a healthy playground for students, expats and companies from all over the world. The mission was 'not another logo', but something surprising and playful in which it shows the development and growth of the region. And a little bit cheeky.
In collaboration with DDK and letter designer Guido de Boer, we developed the concept Come Play Grow, with the region Utrecht as playground: come to the region, do your thing (play) and growth as big as you want. With this concept, the idea was born to develop a dynamic font: playful, surprising, growth and a little bit cheeky. We've called it U-Type.


How do I hire a Traffic Reporter / Anchor? WBAL NewsRadio 1090 & FM 101.5/Baltimore has an opening for a Part-Time Traffic Reporter/Anchor. We are looking for a dependable, dynamic individual with a confident on-air delivery, who can effectively and concisely communicate real time traffic conditions in the Greater Baltimore area in an easy to understand and useful way.
• Live in studio on air traffic reporting.
• Monitor multiple sources to compile reports on the latest traffic conditions.
• Deliver up to the minute information on fast changing conditions.
• Use digital and social media platforms to update and interact with listeners.
• Understanding of the Baltimore metro and surrounding areas helpful.
• Familiarity with radio or television broadcast news operations helpful.
• Must be available to work holidays, and be able to manage a flexible schedule.
• College or comparable experience preferred.


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Equities Analysts Offer Predictions for Kemper Corp's Q1 2020 Earnings (NYSE:KMPR)
Kemper Corp (NYSE:KMPR) – Analysts at Piper Sandler lowered their Q1 2020 earnings per share estimates for shares of Kemper in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, March 11th. Piper Sandler analyst P. Newsome now forecasts that the insurance provider will post earnings of $1.59 per share for the quarter, down from their prior forecast of $1.60. Piper Sandler also issued estimates for Kemper's Q2 2020 earnings at $1.37 EPS, Q3 2020 earnings at $1.60 EPS, Q4 2020 earnings at $1.38 EPS, FY2020 earnings at $5.95 EPS, Q1 2021 earnings at $1.62 EPS, Q2 2021 earnings at $1.38 EPS, Q3 2021 earnings at $1.63 EPS and Q4 2021 earnings at $1.36 EPS.
Kemper (NYSE:KMPR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 10th. The insurance provider reported $1.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.42 by $0.03. Kemper had a net margin of 10.54% and a return on equity of 11.42%. The firm had revenue of $1.28 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.23 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.91 EPS. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 17.3% on a year-over-year basis.
A number of other research analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Kemper from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $89.00 price objective for the company in a report on Friday, February 14th. ValuEngine raised shares of Kemper from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Friday, December 27th.
Shares of NYSE KMPR opened at $75.31 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $4.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.47 and a beta of 1.22. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $76.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $75.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 0.24 and a current ratio of 0.24. Kemper has a 52-week low of $61.81 and a 52-week high of $91.97.
A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Kemper by 29.7% in the third quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 772 shares of the insurance provider's stock valued at $60,000 after acquiring an additional 177 shares in the last quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Kemper by 25.0% in the fourth quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 1,000 shares of the insurance provider's stock valued at $78,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund grew its stake in shares of Kemper by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund now owns 42,852 shares of the insurance provider's stock valued at $3,321,000 after acquiring an additional 229 shares in the last quarter. State of Michigan Retirement System grew its stake in shares of Kemper by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. State of Michigan Retirement System now owns 18,450 shares of the insurance provider's stock valued at $1,430,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Advisory Services Network LLC grew its stake in shares of Kemper by 217.2% in the fourth quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 460 shares of the insurance provider's stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 315 shares in the last quarter. 69.38% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
In other news, EVP Mark A. Green sold 34,590 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.00, for a total value of $2,628,840.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 32,141 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,442,716. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 1.40% of the company's stock.
The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th were given a $0.30 dividend. This represents a $1.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 14th. This is a positive change from Kemper's previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. Kemper's payout ratio is currently 19.14%.
Kemper Company Profile
Kemper Corporation, a diversified insurance holding company, provides property and casualty, and life and health insurance to individuals and businesses in the United States. It operates through three segments: Preferred Property & Casualty Insurance, Specialty Property & Casualty Insurance, and Life and Health Insurance.
Equities Analysts Issue Forecasts for Crew Energy Inc's Q1 2020 Earnings (TSE:CR)
Equities Analysts Reduce Earnings Estimates for Bird Construction Inc (TSE:BDT)


This document describes how your App Engine application receives requests and sends responses. For more details, see the Request Headers reference.
Importantly, on the last few lines, the code has the server listen to the port specified by the process.env.PORT variable. This is an environment variable set by the App Engine runtime - if your server does not listen to this port, it will not be able to receive requests.
A maximum of ~15KB in request headers is allowed.
The total size of the request is limited to ~32MB.
All HTTP/2 requests will be translated into HTTP/1.1 requests when forwarded to the application server.
SSL connections are terminated at the load balancer. Traffic from the load balancer is sent to the instance over an encrypted channel, and then forwarded to the application server over HTTP. The X-Forwarded-Proto header lets you understand if the origin request was HTTP or HTTPS.
Responses are buffered by 64k blocks.
The response size is unlimited.
The response time limit is one hour.
HTTP/2 traffic to the backend service.
HTTP requests that directly access instances.
By default, all responses from App Engine are buffered in 64k-blocks. In some cases, it might make sense to disable buffering and directly stream bytes to the client. This is generally preferred when using hanging GETs or Server Sent Events (SSEs). To disable buffering, you can set the X-Accel-Buffering response header to no.
You can use the helmet library, which handles setting HTTP security headers.
Caution: You should implement HTTP Strict Transport Security with caution; clients that have received the header in the past will refuse to connect if https becomes non-functional or is disabled for any reason. To learn more, see this Cheat Sheet on HTTP Strict Transport Security.


We believe that New Yorkers and visitors to New York alike can be better informed about the breadth, range and vitality of New York City's opera-producing community. NYOA is a community-driven organization; together, we aspire to increase awareness of participating organizations, share ideas and resources, and generate revenue for collaborative projects.
We hold quarterly meetings that include a workshop or presentation on a topic of interest to opera producers and artists, and a chance to engage with other participant organizations. In addition, we maintain a shared website with an online events calendar and publish a monthly e-newsletter about upcoming participant company events.
In May & June, 2016, NYOA is producing the inaugural New York Opera Fest, open to all of our participant organizations, to bring increased visibility to opera in New York.
NYOA offers many opportunities for professional development, increased recognition and publicity, festival participation, and engagement with other opera-makers and audiences. Perhaps more importantly, however, NYOA is building a community of collegiality and support — we believe our city is enriched and uplifted by cross-pollination between organizations, and we invite you to be part of the conversation. NYOA participation also provides access to limited Opera America benefits.
Start your journey through the world of opera in New York City by visiting our Calendar and dedicated Participant pages.


This time its because I'm stupid and uninstalled SWAT 4 without having the first disc up at school. Just Disc 2 of the Installation and TSS.
I'll be on again next month-ish when I get my CDs back.
Had tons of fun with you SWAT 4 peoples. I do intend to continue it.
Fury if your in the UK i can send you my first copy i dont need it!
I'm smart, most of my CD-Keys are written down on a floppy disk in case I lose the disk covers hehe.
Oh I have the CD Key. I just don't have Disc 1 of the installation.
And I don't pirate. Being a Comp Sci Major, it kinda hurts my future job openings. Plus, the campus hates P2P and Bittorrent traffic, so I couldn't even if I wanted to.
It was just a joke, Fury.


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Winds are from the South at 15.0 gusting to 21.9 MPH (13 gusting to 19 KT). The pressure is 1007.4 mb and the humidity is 28%. Last Updated on Apr 20 2019, 1:53 pm CDT.
Tomorrow will be 2 mins 54 secs longer than today.
96.9% of the Moon is Illuminated.


text:
Tag Archives: politics
May 30, 2011 · 12:03 pm
If it weren't for you meddling kids
Governments love sheep. They adore compliant leggy clouds of wool flocking after them for a sniff of fresh grass. They like to funnel them through the dip for a fungicidal top-up, and wave a pair of clippers at them for a nice shear now and then. And they love to sell them off to Tesco, pocket the cash, and feast on their minty legs.
It's an old joke: teaching is great, apart from all the students. System administration would be a breeze if not for those damned users. And government would be easy without those pesky citizens demanding rights and freedoms.
Last week's G8 and eG8 meetings should get us worried. Do not be fooled: the rhetoric about freedom and innovation and unlimited rice pudding is simply designed to give us the warm'n'fuzzies. Yes, we're supposed to think, they get it. The net is safe! Hooray! Baa! Baa!
The truth is far more sinister. It's a classic "I love you, but…". The net is full of lawlessness, of copyright infringement, the governments say, and they want to do something about it.
And again, don't be fooled. "Copyright" is a trigger word: it polarises, it rehearses the same old arguments from both camps, it focuses the debate on one, narrow aspect. It ensures that big media, the copyright barons, are on the government's side. It brings out the Cliff Richardses, claiming imminent destitution while dabbing eyes with local Caribbean onions.
Who could deny these artists a living wage? emotes a minister, justifying stricter net regulation on the basis of copyright infringement before nipping off to rip a CD onto an iPod, an act still considered infringement in English law despite now two government-commissioned reports recommending legalisation.
Governments are slow to increase freedoms and quick to reduce them.
But, as I said, don't be fooled. The copyright thing is a diversion: the government calling "come by" to the media and entertainment sheepdogs and leaving a trail of goodies to distract the noisier lambs.
And it's not about injunctions, super, hyper or otherwise – though that's another convenient shiny thing to blind everyone with. Here are two incontrovertible facts:
Humans are social animals and love to gossip, even if that's not what they think they're doing.
Twitter is the most efficient gossip-distribution mechanism yet invented by man.
It thus follows that Twitter radiates gossip around the globe faster than any lawyer can stop it.
But you know what Twitter gossip isn't? It isn't doorstepping the people gossiped about. It isn't rummaging through their bins. It isn't intercepting their phone messages. It isn't papping them on the beach and tutting at some tiny variation from this week's idea of perfection on pages one, two and thirteen. It isn't publishing lurid details of their private lives on trumped-up notions of public interest.
Privacy invasion and harassment by the redtops – and not just the redtops – is much worse than Twitter gossip for those invaded and harassed: but the government doesn't legislate about that.
Twitter spreads gossip, some of it true, some of it false, just like email does, and the telephone, and the larynx. And guess what: we already have laws about the false stuff. We already have judges struggling to understand social networking, refusing to recognise tweeted jokes borne of frustration but plainly not menacing.
Twitter is communication, like any other form – but faster and with a global audience. It's many-to-many, not one-to-one or one-to-many. (And, lest I be accused of undue Twitophilia, so is Facebook.)
This is why G8 governments want to regulate it. This is why they are afraid of it. It is no coincidence that governments have recently woken up to the possibilities of many-to-many. They've seen it help to disrupt north Africa and the Middle East all year, and drag them into a civil war none of them want to be a part of but all of them know they must be, thanks to what none of them want to admit: oil. Governments all think: could we be next? What would it take to bring down a western government? It might be on the verge of happening in Greece or Spain.
Governments fear nothing more than their own citizens rising up against them.
This latest shepherding tactic about privacy and copyright is a front, a sleight-of-hand, an attempt to outflank those sheep who sense the approaching knives. I suspect G8 governments believe, like the Romanian communist leaders of the 1980s who ordered the population to hand over their typewriters as they made it easier to disseminate subversive material, that by asserting control over the means of communication they can preserve control over the populace.
Western governments are lumbering beasts but they're not daft enough to believe they could simply switch off internet and mobile phone services if the people start making too much of a noise, as happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Such an act would only be counterproductive were it even possible, and they'd have to take over the TV stations too. They want subtler control, like mandatory filters. Don't like this Twitter account? Filter it out. Hashtag chatter a bit near the mark? Filter it out. All "for legal reasons" or for the "protection of children". It's all possible: China does it.
But the USA has the first amendment! Free speech! Yes, and that's a qualified privilege. You can still be prosecuted for crying "fire" in a crowded theatre, or for what someone decides is treasonous speech. Some US legislators and judges believe that linking to a page that contains links to copyright-infringing material should itself be a criminal act. And it seems you can be arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial.
There is nothing to stop a determined government, with a supine or bought legislature, from enacting laws that restrict our freedoms on the internet. There is nothing to stop them: except the people.
I realise it's easy to see spooks lurking behind every bush, to see malignancy and conspiracy where there is none. Yet history shows that good intentions wither and weather, like rivulets of erosion in the majesty of the Sphinx. RIPA surveillance powers, used to monitor dog fouling. Anti-terrorism laws, used to harass and detain photographers. Laws about "improper use of a public electronic telecommunications network," used to interpret as "menacing" an obvious joke on Twitter by a frustrated flyer eager to see his girlfriend, and ruining his life in the process.
Governments and their officers, whether deliberately or not, tend to overreach. Powers once taken are hard to let go. Our ancestors fought for our freedoms; they are entrusted to us by our descendants. We hand over those freedoms at our peril.
Or perhaps you believe what the governments say: that regulating the internet is necessary to protect blah, blah, blah. I offer these questions:
The internet must be regulated by government, but the press is allowed to regulate itself. Why do you think that is?
Do you trust this government? Yes? How about the government after next?
Baa! Baa!
Tagged as politics, rant
It's not about the children
It's a standard technique in government: use an interview to float an idea to gauge reaction, and to "suggest" a solution lest a more draconian legislative route be hypothetically taken. It's the governmental equivalent of plonking a horse's head in the bed. Even better if the interview appears near Christmas, when Paxman et al are hibernating and the fiercest political cross-examination you're likely to get occurs on a pastel Daybreak sofa between Michael Buble and a Chuckle brother.
Thus it was with weary inevitability that I saw a weekend newspaper interview in which the (Conservative) coalition minister for t'internet Ed Vaizey muttered about making ISPs responsible for filtering adult content, and forcing consumers to opt-in to porn. Of course, since the internet is for porn according to Avenue Q, it should really be the other way round: get the porn by default, and opt-in to the non-porn.
What does Vaizey actually say? "I think it's very important that it's the ISPs that come up with solutions to protect children."
Ah, to protect children. The sainted kiddywinks, the mere mention of which serves to render all argument or dissent invalid. Won't somebody please think of the children?
Well, it's not about children, obviously. That's a standard device used to justify any number of actions (and yet, still, the media laps it up). Here's a tip: "for the children" means "we have an agenda and we're deploying the C-bomb to distract you." If the safety of children were truly the driving factor here, then I could suggest many more pressing matters.
For example, how about a ban on parents smoking around their children, particularly in enclosed environments such as cars?
Or let's look at religion, where articles of faith are presented as fact, in which children can be indoctrinated with stuff and nonsense about sky fairies of one flavour or another with the full consent of the state, before they are old enough to be able to form their own opinions. And yet religion does not come with a warning sticker. (Don't get me started on Catholic priests.)
As I said, it's not about children. But hypothetically, were those proposals to be made, you just have to conjugate the verb: I protect children, you want a nanny state, he looks like a Belgian paedo. It's all a matter of politics. Politically a government couldn't win support to ban smoking around children, or the practice of religion. But it looks like it thinks it might be able to get away with the porn thing.
Like Parkinson's law, the state tends to expand to fill the uncontrolled space available. Politics, or economics, or pragmatism, or other factors, determine whether or not the expansion is achievable in practice. It floats a proposal, to gauge initial reaction. It couches everything in terms designed to press the buttons of the electorate ("for the children"). It "concedes" meetings with those groups who actually know what they're talking about, and lets the ignorant public Have Their Say. It performs the wildest acrobatics to be seen to "listen" and "engage".
And then it makes a political decision. Not about the safety of the children, but of its majority. Could a bill pass? Will the Lords kill it? Will the Murdoch press support it? Politics is the art of the achievable, a concept some seem unable to grasp even with a compromise-driven coalition government in office.
Decision made to press on, it legislates with only a passing glance to the consultation with experts and public. There's now a political agenda at work. The Opposition opposes, not through enlightenment but simply to fulfil its political purpose to oppose and obstruct regardless of the merits. ("We will support the government where it makes sense," says every opposition leader, and again the media laps it up, frothing about a New Politics, but it never happens.)
How will this sordid dance play out with Vaizey's hare-brained idea? Well, the ISPs and groups like ORG will patiently explain, with diagrams, that Problem One is to define porn, and that Problem Two is to correctly classify porn according to that definition when a human or algorithm is presented with some content. They will say that in any automatic or manual system there will be both false positives (non-porn wrongly classed as porn, such as educational materials, advice columns or Daily Mail stories about X Factor) and false negatives (porn wrongly classed as non-porn, which will happen for all sorts of reasons up to and including bugs, mendacity and pressing the wrong button). They will strongly recommend a well-defined, transparent corrective mechanism to allow for appeals, and they will ask why the hell are we being asked to be surrogate parents anyway?
The politicians will steeple their fingers and nod politely, making notes including pictures of boobies and willies and giggling amongst themselves. Then they'll make simplistic analogies to TV watersheds and the controversial and secret Internet Watch Foundation blacklist of what somebody unknown once claimed to be child porn. They will invoke holy phrases like "children are our future" and that pol fave "our children, and our children's children."
And then when the experts have rolled their eyes for the nth time and left muttering, chances are we'll see a bill that establishes an anonymous group of people who will, with only the flimsiest of oversight and a 99-step appeals process culminating in a rubber stamp of the word DENIED, maintain a secret list of verboten URLs. The members of the group will not be named "for their own safety, and to avoid nobbling" (they'll snigger at the word "nobbling"). The list will be secret "to deter use of technical measures to bypass its restrictions" (despite the experts having told them that security through obscurity is a Bad Idea). The public will be assured that the system is foolproof (despite the experts explaining that the biggest fool is the fool calling any technology foolproof).
And the first URL on the list post-enactment will be the Wikileaks du jour. Because the Act will, of course, contain that other holy phrase of our age, "national security," which can be applied to anything anyone decides it can be applied to. Additional URLs blocked will try and fail to stop copyright infringement on films, TV shows and recorded music, because some idiots still think that's possible. And there'll be a push to ban web sites for violent video games, movies and TV shows, too, because there always is.
For additional Kafka points, you will naturally commit a criminal offence if you access a URL on the list you are not allowed to see.
It's all "for the protection of children," you understand.
Thoughts on the coalition
I didn't vote Liberal Democrat for a Tory government. I voted Liberal Democrat because I wanted a Liberal Democrat government.
But I'm not naïve. Despite those heady days when the polls went mad, and a couple of secret what-if moments shared between me and the BBC's election prediction applet, I never truly expected Nick Clegg to end up as PM. The most likely outcomes were always either a hung parliament or a small-to-workable Tory majority, with a faint chance – given the vagaries of our current electoral system – of a Labour minority government.
I would have preferred the Lib Dems to enter a coalition or confidence-and-supply agreement with Labour, if possible, and without Gordon Brown as PM. The election result made this unworkable: Labour plus Lib Dem still wouldn't make a majority. There was talk of a "rainbow coalition" including every man and his dog, but such a government wouldn't last the year. Not the best way to achieve anything.
So the only feasible outcome, discounting an immediate second election that nobody wanted and only the Conservatives could afford, was a Tory/Lib Dem agreement of some kind.
Not ideal. It's no secret that I think David Cameron is a fake, a PR man. I think George Osborne will blunder his way through the job of Chancellor. I fear Cameron dragging back Tory grandees who still have a thing for Margaret Thatcher. I fear a return to the bad old days of Section 28 and the Poll Tax, albeit in different, better-branded forms.
But, but, but. At least we don't have the "strong, stable government" that Cameron craved: a sizable Tory majority. That's the goal of all parties, of course. They want to be in control, to use their electoral mandate to pilot HMS Britain to port or to starboard according to their manifesto or newspaper baron of choice.
People want "strong, stable government" too, but not in the sense that political parties want "strong, stable government". Parties want power; people want a better life for themselves and their families and friends. People want governments that do the Right Thing. People want fairness, honesty, respect.
We've seen the results of the party political version of "strong, stable government" that large majorities give us – Thatcher's divisive, dictatorial 1980s and Blair's war-mongering, fear-mongering 2000s. In the last thirty years we've now had just two changes of ruling party, counting this one. Eighteen years of Conservative government – "strong, stable government", gradually weakening and festering into corruption, sleaze, decay, a step too far, a change of leader, in-fighting, and back-stabbing – followed by thirteen years of Labour government – "strong, stable government", gradually weakening into corruption, sleaze, decay, a step too far, a change of leader, in-fighting and back-stabbing.
I don't want that again.
It's my belief that a coalition government would never have passed the Poll Tax, or Section 28, or ID cards, or railway privatisation, or PFI, or the Digital Economy Act, amongst other bad laws. A hung parliament by definition means no party has a mandate to ram through its own legislative agenda: it must work with others.
A coalition government by necessity dulls the sharp edges of party purity and rabid dogma. Like the memento mori of ancient Rome, in a coalition government the leadership is constantly reminded of its own mortality, its own limitations. Instinct might drive Cameron right; Clegg's reminding whisper should hold him steady: the desire to keep his job will be strong. Clegg can bring down the government, and Cameron knows it.
Joining a coalition doesn't mean selling out and abandoning your principles: it means compromise. It means sacrificing some of your stuff to get some of your other stuff done – and at the same time stopping some of the stuff you don't want done from happening. I'm sure I won't like everything the coalition does – but then I never expect to like everything a government of any colour does.
I might be wrong. Perhaps the Lib Dems are walking, smiling, into an abyss and David Cameron's perception filter has fooled them all. Perhaps we'll suddenly be at war with Eurasia again. Perhaps Nick Clegg is actually a cyborg sent from the future to prevent John Redwood again from learning Welsh. I don't know.
But right now it looks as though the Liberal Democrats finally have a chance to implement some of their policies. If we're lucky – very lucky – we'll change to a fairer voting system. And at the next election people might vote for what they want, rather than in fear of what they might get.
Tagged as politics
Given enough eyeballs, all politicians are shallow
Alert readers may have perceived the thundering cloven hooves of an approaching General Election. Thousands of women are even now bearing down heavily to ensure sufficient raw materials for baby-smooching photo ops with slobbering, faux-chummy moat-owners and mortgage flippers. Between now and – most likely – May 6th (curse my predictive non-skills!) – pols of all flavours, none of them particularly lickable, will promise the earth while secretly planning to deliver a couple of inconsequential sods.
It's a familiar, draining process. Manifestos full of smiling multiracial faces, hero-posing alongside commitments that mysteriously become aspirations for the n+1th term as soon as the ballot boxes go back into the ballot box box. Those smiling faces, like the swirling angels at the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark, melt and burn into evil spirits sucking the souls of the electorate into a Westminster-based heaven allegory. Er, spoiler alert.
During the campaign we'll see interview after interview where the usual reporters ask the usual questions and get the usual non-answers: "I'm glad you asked me that, Krishnan, let me answer something else"; "Look, the real question you should be asking is…"; "You should be focusing on the things the public care about, like…"; "Typical of the left/right wing BBC to…". And my favourite double act: "The only poll that matters is the one on…" vs "Our internal polling is showing something entirely different". Over, and over, and over…
This happens because complete honesty tends to be a career-limiting move for a politician. To climb the greasy pole – to even grasp your hands around its base – you need to become one with the grease. You don't so much climb up the pole as oleaginate via osmosis and rise by capillary action. Dare to level with the electorate – by which I mean truly level, not say "Let me be clear here" because that's code for "I am saying words to fill dead air while I formulate my non-response" – and you risk a roughing up by the whips, the party Dementors, and possibly defenestration.
Voters hate the evasion, distraction, rhetorical tricks, petty squabbling, dishonesty, finger-pointing, underhand tactics, etc, etc, used by politicians. They also hate it when broadcasters let politicians off the hook. Jeremy "Did you threaten to overrule him?" Paxman's apparently accidental stuffing of Michael Howard in 1997 is a beautiful, shining, oh so rare exception. Discos and triscos typically degenerate into playground arguments over Top Trumps moderated by freshly graduated teachers eager to please both sides, when what's really needed is a grumpy old soak not afraid to administer a good, old-fashioned clip round the ear.
I fear there is no great desire amongst broadcasters to fix this problem. It's mostly all about the news cycle, the trivia, the access. I fully expect this time to see Sky News broadcasting live from David Cameron's freshly waxed anus. There'll be breathless reporters deployed like paratroopers at Arnhem to chase after any suit with a rosette, and eager to magnify the tiniest fluff or mullet-related punch-up to grotesque proportions, vomiting Westminster twittle-twattle to a British public thoroughly, self-throttlingly bored of the whole thing by day two.
I'm atypical; I love elections and TV election coverage. Indeed I have an honorary degree in Swingometry from McKenzie College of Psephology and Knitting, Vancouver, BC. And yet even I get utterly sick of the same old faces spouting the same old stories and getting away with it. I'll be shouting at the screen – while stabbing my politician-shaped voodoo doll with a selection of the very finest cutlery – as reporters move swiftly down lines of suited twerps bleating their non-responses, then wrapping them up because they've only got twenty-five seconds before the next update from Jeremy Thompson wedged firmly up Cameron's bumcrack.
But this election is, I think, going to be different and a little disruptive. This election will be the first bottom-up election.
Linus' law: Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. This works just as well in politics: given enough eyeballs, all politicians are shallow. We've now reached critical mass. Someone outside the mainstream media, at some point during the campaign, will discover something important. It might be one of the 'celebrity' political bloggers, like Iain Dale or Guido Fawkes, already breaking stories; it might be an unknown. It could be a street urchin or ragamuffin of some kind who YouTubes a candidate twatting about. There are signs of bottom-up already: look at www.mydavidcameron.com.
Twitter will spread the key stories – true or not – twice round the world before rolling news has cut back from the weather. It's going to be a shock to the political system, and everyone will be fair game. It might even change a few results.
None of this can prevent manifestos full of self-destructing promises, interviews as enlightening as the test card, and 24-hour CamAnusCam. And the Westminster of tomorrow won't look that different to the Westminster of today, whoever ends up kissing hooves with Queenie. But it's a start.
November 7, 2009 · 12:52 pm
Each of us has a war story or two. By which I mean an actual story about an actual war, not just an anecdote about that time a skinhead threatened you with a kumquat. I have several, almost none of which involve me. They're family stories, handed down by our family's official teller of stories, my aunt.
Stories such as: how World War II broke out on her fifth (I think) birthday; how Uncle Bill (her mum's brother) was "the only Canadian" on the beach at Dunkirk; how he, later in the war, happened to meet up with (I think) his cousin and another friend or family member in the middle of the North African campaign (there's a photo somewhere). In case you're wondering, her father – my grandad – was in a reserved occupation and didn't see active service.
When I hear these stories I invariably ask myself how I would have fared in that war – or worse, World War I. When I was twenty I was at college, watching on TV amazed as the Berlin Wall came down; in World War II I might have been fighting in the skies over Kent, resisting what seemed an inevitable German invasion. In World War I I'd have been in the trenches.
I remember in January 1991 when the Gulf War started: a newsflash jumping into coverage of a football match, TV quickly patching into the CNN feed from Baghdad: chunky graphics and Bernard Shaw on a crackly phone line describing the bombs falling. I was working on my final year project and the adrenalin rush made my hands shake enough that I couldn't write. I expected, as did many others, that Saddam would use chemical weapons on Israel – live on TV. We saw news reporters in gas masks; Kate Adie in a tent "in eastern Saudi Arabia"; John Simpson kicked out of Baghdad. It took just a few weeks to kick Saddam out of Kuwait.
A more local conflict followed as Yugoslavia imploded and NATO finally, reluctantly, acted. War in Europe, but not a european war. John Simpson dodging bombs in Belgrade this time.
And then Bush came to power and used the attacks on New York and Washington to bring his own idea of democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. I agreed with the original goals in Afghanistan, but I knew the Iraq war was a sham as did millions of others. A shameful war, justified by lies, supported by sycophants, and driven by fundamentalist Christian ideology. The only plan to invade and conquer, the only goal revenge, the only possible result an entire region destabilised for decades. I watched on TV; sadly I'm still watching.
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, and the deaths continue. Democracy in Afghanistan has resulted in a corrupt election with Karzai last week declared the winner. Why are we still fighting this war?
Gordon Brown made a speech yesterday on the UK's Afghanistan strategy. Here's one passage:
"The first priority of any government is to provide security for its people. It is not sustainable to subcontract that task indefinitely to the international community. So the expansion and training of the Afghan army and police must be the new government's first priority."
And then three paragraphs later:
"President Karzai agreed with me yesterday that the first priority of his new government would be to take decisive action against corruption."
I wonder which of the many first priorities Karzai will tackle first, and which he will only tackle first.
Why is our "strategy" on this war so apparently cobbled together that ridiculous, contradictory statements like that can get into major, supposedly defining speeches? Why are we still fighting this war?
Brown defines success in Afghanistan:
"We will have succeeded when our troops are coming home because the Afghans are providing security themselves, continuing the essential work of denying the territory of Afghanistan as a base for terrorists."
If we pulled out all our troops today, who would provide security? The Afghans themselves. There: done. In any meaningful sense this is not a measurable way to define victory. The reality is: success is when we declare success. Why are we still fighting this war?
Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday. I wear a poppy. I observe the two minutes' silence. I'm grateful that men and women fought and died, and continue to fight and die, so that I may live in a world in which I don't have to battle in the skies over Kent, or in the trenches, or in the deserts of Iraq or Afghanistan, or anywhere else. I won't have any first-hand war stories to pass on to the offspring I also won't have.
But I want the war stories that today's soldiers tell their children and grandchildren to be about wars that were fought for a just cause, for a clear goal, for honourable reasons. The worst, most poignant war stories don't end with death or destruction, but with one word: "why?".
November 1, 2009 · 9:21 pm
Evidence versus expedience
Last Friday Home Secretary Alan Johnson fired the government's chief drugs advisor, Professor David Nutt, for speaking out against government policy: for saying the unsayable, that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than cannabis. This inconvenient truth has been, for a long time, the elephant in the room – metaphorically rather than hallucinogenically. Indeed a rare non-rubbish Horizon covered the same ground some time ago.
But governments don't govern by evidence: they govern by expedience.
One death from tobacco-related lung cancer or alcohol-related liver failure is a statistic. One death from ecstasy is a front-page story, a week of leader articles and why-oh-why fodder for an officeful of lazy, smoking, drinking hacks. The Daily Mail has more influence on government drugs policy than any scientist, or any fact.
(Similarly, deaths on the road are considered "acceptable". Crushed between two 12m, 44 tonne, six axle articulated lorries carrying fizzy weak Eurobeer to satiate the Friday night binges lubricating the traditional British weekend? Statistic. Span off when driving too fast on an icy road to die in a ditch polluted by a local factory? Statistic. Unless of course you were daft enough to get in a car driven by a drunk bodyguard and didn't wear your seatbelt: then you're the People's Statistic.)
Political expediency ensures that tobacco and alcohol are legal and (not particularly well) regulated, despite the costs in lives, in time and in money. That same expediency rejects the evidence-based analysis that would logically lead to legalisation and regulation of (according to Nutt) lower-harm drugs like cannabis. The belief is that the votes of Middle Britain would go elsewhere, at least in the present generation, mostly thanks to sky-falling-in tabloid articles written by journalists who, of course, have never taken any illegal drugs themselves.
Politically, David Nutt had to go. He had proclaimed the emperor's nudity from the rooftops and most significantly he had criticised the government: the emperor was not only starkers, but a big old Fatty McFat Fat.
I have no problem with the notion that "advisers advise, politicians decide". I do think that scientists should keep out of politics, mainly for their own sanity. But this goes both ways: politicians should keep out of science. By all means ignore some or all of the advice you're given, as long as you don't pretend in public that the advice is something else. Instead, tell us why you've rejected it. Plain and simple. We might or might not agree, and we might argue vehemently that you're wrong, but we'd respect the honesty.
And we desperately need an honest debate about drugs: about the science and about the politics. Sadly that doesn't seem possible. Scandalously Channel 4 News hasn't even been able to persuade a single representative of the Home Office to appear on its programme to answer questions about David Nutt's dismissal.
I guess it's not seen as politically expedient.
The invisible revolution
People generally notice that they're taking part in a revolution. Barbarians-at-the-gates revolutions with Bolshevik oiks toppling Romanov nobs and their imperialist haemophiliac ways are self-evident thanks to the bodies in the streets and the widespread clampdown on interesting haberdashery. But we're in the middle of a revolution now, a revolution most people aren't even barely aware of.
Two skirmishes in this revolution have taken place in the last week. They're not the first and won't be the last, but they're a classic demonstration of cluelessness from the Old Guard.
The first can be summarised in one word: Trafigura. You, like me, had probably not heard the name before this week. The first inkling I had of a percolating story was a tweet from Ben Goldacre suggesting that the Guardian had been gagged from reporting Parliament. The bare facts emerged pretty quickly: this tweet revealed all to me a short time later. What followed, and the story behind it, is well documented so I shan't bother here. The salient point to make is: welcome to a different world. In this world, sufficient eyeballs routes around censorship. Maybe not immediately, but ultimately.
The second skirmish involves the Daily Mail and is ongoing. One of its columnists, Jan Moir, wrote a hateful story that appeared on Friday morning entitled Why there was nothing "natural" about Stephen Gately's death. As with Trafigura an immediate twitstorm ensured that the bigotry was well publicised. Comments on a Daily Mail article are usually of the string-em-up, ship-em-back variety, but not on this one: the writer's views were soundly condemned. The Daily Mail changed the story's headline (but not its content) in an attempt to paper over the cracks, and the article's author has issued a non-apology apology. But more importantly for the paper, companies have pulled their adverts from the story.
People power again, yes; big deal, nothing new. But it's yet another demonstration of the crucial difference between the bolshies and the nobs. What Trafigura's legal team Carter-Ruck and the Daily Mail's journalists don't get is that people – more people every day – now realise that power, real power, is bottom-up not top-down. That's at the core of this revolution.
Jan Moir complains in her non-apology that there is "clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign" to accuse her of homophobia. Excuse me while I point and laugh at the deluded woman. The Daily Mail is itself massively guilty of orchestrating campaigns in a traditional top-down approach: it was the Daily Mail that hyped up the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross story, encouraging its readers to complain en masse to the relevant authorities about something they hadn't themselves heard. That's orchestration. Top-down.
Moir's story about Gately offended individuals, who commented or tweeted or blogged to make their opinions known to others. Those others read the article themselves, made up their own minds, and communicated likewise. The network effect ensured that, pretty soon, word spread to connectors (to use Gladwell's term from The Tipping Point) like Stephen Fry, Graham Linehan, Charlie Brooker and Derren Brown who have thousands of followers. Bottom-up. (I'm not using the word viral because that makes me think of marketing, and this is more fundamental.)
The same effect a few days earlier ensured everyone knew about Trafigura and its "super-injunction" gagging order on the media, even if they hadn't read the Guardian and put two-and-two together. People also soon learned that Wikileaks held a copy of the Minton report, which says that Trafigura's oil waste, dumped in west Africa, was potentially toxic. Meanwhile traditional media couldn't even mention the report's existence. Last night Trafigura caved again, since the ants had well and truly unstitched the bag to let out the potentially toxic pussy, and the Guardian became free to publish the report. Trafigura and Carter-Ruck bodged this up in as bodgy a way as it is possible to bodge, and questions are now being asked about how, on earth, could a judge issue such a super-injunction in the first place. And why do we have super-injunctions anyway?
Publicity about Moir's article ensured the Press Complaints Commission web site was hammered out of existence for a time. But the PCC won't do anything of consequence: it's a toothless body, controlled by the newspapers themselves, that exists as a sop to politicans afraid to regulate an industry that knows all about their cupboard-based body parts. In any case its policy is to "normally accept complaints only from those who are directly affected by the matters about which they are complaining." Which is handy.
The way to deal with the Daily Mail is, I hope by now, obvious: bottom-up. Continue to publicise its bigotry and hatred. Make its advertisers pull out.
The two incidents I've highlighted aren't isolated cases. Earlier in the year a single tweet by Graham Linehan started off a "we love the NHS" campaign on Twitter to fight back against uninformed or deceitful comments from those on the side of private health insurers in the US healthcare debate. Many right-wingers in the UK proved they Just Didn't Get It by claiming this was a Labour party campaign: nope. Bottom-up, not top-down.
Perhaps I'm being idealistic. Perhaps this is merely a Prague Spring of freedom before the tanks roll in. But I don't think so. People may not be brandishing pitchforks but change is afoot and the world will be a very different place in ten years or so. At the moment we're still clanking our way to the summit of the rollercoaster, and don't have the faintest idea what'll happen on the way down.
Tagged as homophobia, politics, rant, revolution, twitter
Speaker Bercow!
Well well, the publicity over the near-whipping of MPs to support Margaret Beckett backfired. And we now have Speaker Bercow, who – say those in the know – has more support in the Labour party than from his now-former colleagues in the Conservative party.
He's a better choice than Sir George Young in any case, the "bicycling baronet", who once infamously described the homeless as people you step over when leaving the opera. (Not that Bercow is unstained – his relatively left-wing views today stand in contrast to the swivel-eyed right-wingery of his past.)
Bercow promises reform. What will be his first reforming act, I wonder? I still remember the shock and awe when Betty Boothroyd dispensed with the wig, though it's fair to say she had the hair for it. Perhaps Bercow will do without the long gown traditionally worn (and carried by some peasant) while processing from Speaker's House to the chamber. Perhaps he'll abandon the entire fancy dress; I suspect the skies might fall were he to do so. It would certainly be a signal; but only a signal.
As I write, some ancient ritual is about to take place by which the Queen, via the Lords, confirms him in his illustrious position. Naturally, this involves processions, Black Rod and flamboyant haberdashery. I look forward to watching it on a news channel with some idiot blathering over the top. Me, probably.
The legitimacy of Speaker Beckett
Today, MPs vote (in a secret ballot for the first time, under new procedures) to elect a new Speaker for the House of Commons.
Of course, since the expenses scandal that brought down Michael Martin and effectively ended the political careers of several of them, MPs are taking excruciating care over this new election. There is complete transparency, there are no hidden agendas, and everything is happening in a new-broom, bipartisan spirit.
Not a bit of it.
Avaragado's first rule of politics:
Wherever three or more people are gathered together, there shall be politics
This is natural, since we're social animals. Gossip, bitching and backstabbing have been going on since we had the ability to communicate.
Avaragado's second rule of politics:
Wherever three or more politicians are gathered together, there shall be corruption
The early favourite was Conservative John Bercow, seen as a reformist – ie, what the public seems to want, and what the Commons needs. But he also has some wacky ideas like taking Parliament round the country, which reminds me of that recurring sketch from The Day Today of the Bureau de Change on the back of a lorry.
But now the smart money's on Margaret Beckett. Why? Because it seems the government whips are "encouraging" Labour MPs to back her. She's the "Stop Bercow" candidate. So much for the new broom, for transparency, for reform.
Would she be a good Speaker? Possibly. But that won't be why she'll be elected, if she gets the job.
And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that someone who until only last month was Housing Minister (and who occasionally sat in Cabinet) – and, let's not forget, who was Tony Blair's last Foreign Secretary, and who stood in as Labour leader after John Smith's death – is not going to be seen as entirely independent.
One of the reasons many MPs didn't like Michael Martin was the perception that he favoured Labour. How is that going to be fixed by the Labour whips installing a recently ex-minister as his replacement? There is always going to be a whiff of distrust.
The Westminster bubble indeed. Entirely clueless, the lot of them.
On Brown and constitutional reform
I still think he's doomed. But I watched Gordon Brown's statement today on constitutional reform with interest. It's well known that he's put the kibosh on many previous attempts at constitutional reform over the last twelve years, so why the sudden conversion?
It's not a conversion. It's politics as usual.
We now have, at most, less than twelve months until a general election. There isn't time to enact huge constitutional changes. They can get some things done – reform of the expenses system, for example – but changing the electoral system? And a fully elected House of Lords? They won't happen this side of the election.
Brown is talking about these things now to place a wedge between the Labour party and the Conservatives. The perception at Westminster is that the people want reform of the expenses system (which is not strictly true: people want trustworthy politicians), so Brown's strategy is to link that in people's minds with more fundamental reforms that he knows Cameron and the Conservatives disagree with. Brown talks about expenses reform, House of Lords reform and electoral system reform as one item, knowing that Cameron only wants the first of those and would actively campaign against the others.
Cameron's message is "change", by which he means a general election now. Brown is trying to paint this as "no change": Cameron doesn't want reform, he wants to keep the same old gentlemen's agreements, the same old 19th Century practices, same old Tories, etc. Any attempt by Cameron to disagree with any of the proposed reforms will be presented as opposing all reform.
I don't think Brown believes in the level of constitutional reform he talked about today. There will be talk, but little action: talking shops, proposals, committees, discussions. Some laws will pass – the expenses stuff, internal Westminster changes – but the big stuff will be punted to the next Labour manifesto, where it can be safely ignored since it looks like Cameron will win anyway.
As a Lib Dem of course I believe that we need electoral reform. I think we need some form of proportional representation, as long as we retain the 1:1 link between an MP and a constituency.
If this means the BNP is represented at Westminster, so be it. The bright lights will reveal their warts. Thatcher was wrong in the 1980s when she tried to deny Sinn Fein the "oxygen of publicity" (leading to the surreality of TV interviews in which actors dubbed the voices of Gerry Adams and others). And the anti-fascist egg-throwers were wrong yesterday when they gave the BNP free airtime in which they did not have to account for their obnoxious views.


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I do not really remember, which version brought the problem, but since a month or more. The empty name fields (prefix, midle, suffix) are auto filled with the first name. Only those contacts are updated, which used, e.g. phone call, sms.
This issue is related only to Davdroid contacts, and affects all my devices.
I do not really know what causes the issue, but no other sowftware part was updates/altered than Davdroid.
OS: Cyanogen 13 variant(Galaxy Express and Tab S 10.5), latest Davdroid and Egroupware 14.3.20160113.
The repeated names are pushed back to egroupware.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, where/how to debug the issue.
What does "auto fill" mean? Are the values pre-filled in the Contacts app, or are the "auto-filled" values uploaded to the server automatically? Do you have to edit the contact to make it upload?
I have never heard of this behavior and just need much more information to get an idea.
after some hours of debugging, it came out, that egroupware altered the address fields, and that was synced back to device.
@oregszun I see – did you find a solution?


Your dad have a nice car? You want to handle it? Now you can ride a car without adult supervision.
Amuse yourself for hours playing fun games of cars that we have made for you. Follow the adventures of each game and do not waste a second in another category.
We have a variety of games of cars. You can select your convenience and play for hours. That if we are not responsible if you suffer an attack of gameplay for hours.


It isn't easy being an indie author. It is difficult to get reviews, and Lord knows the royalties one gets are very little, though there are some exceptions. I know this post is very different than others I do, but hear me out. I have published a few books, and praise God those have helped people develop a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. Those books have been available for a low price pretty much everywhere…until today.
I made the difficult decision to pull my ebooks from listing on Amazon. Amazon seems to get deeper and deeper into the bullying business when it comes to indie authors. I made the decision before Amazon told my current distributor to remove them. Why? It would seem that Amazon has these built in Algorithms that scan the web to find any remnant of your material. Once in a while I post a small section of an upcoming, or previously published, book as a tease to generate interest, On the surface this would appear to be basic marketing. After all I own the material adn am only posting a small section of around 450 words out of a book that may have 23,000. To the brain trust at Amazon this is unacceptable in there mind because I am giving the "book" away.
I have gone around and around and the frustration isn't worth it to be honest. Most of my sales come from Apple and Kobo, so it really won't hurt sales much. While I am talking about sales I do have to mention one other thing. I don't write for the sales. I write to spread he message of Christ and His church. I'm sure Amazon has been burned in some fashion and that is why they are choosing this route, and maybe since they are the largest dog on the block they feel the need to show their teeth. Long story short, my books will no longer be available on Amazon. All books are the lowest price I can make them, and I do that intentionally. If for whatever reason you are not able to afford the 99 cent price tag please email me, and I will gladly send you a free pdf of the book you want. No strings attached. God bless you all and thank you for your patience through my rant.
My book is on sale for $0.99 for the next 24 hours!


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If you haven't had your ducts cleaned after moving into a home, you're basically breathing in the old homeowners, not to mention contaminants that leave inside air 10 times more polluted than outside air.