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Posts Tagged 'Facebook'
Warning Against a Government Campaign to Clamp Down on 1st Amendment Activity in Social Media, Rutherford Institute Defends Marine's Rights
Posted: January 27, 2015 in Uncategorized
Tags: brandon raub, Elonis, Facebook, first amendment, free speech, Marine
Rutherford Institute Attorneys Present Oral Argument Before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Defense of Marine Who Was Arrested & Locked Up in a Psych Ward for Criticizing the Government on Facebook
RICHMOND, Va. — Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute will present oral argument in Raub v. Campbell before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Jan. 28, 2015, asking the court to reinstate the lawsuit of a decorated Marine who was seized by a swarm of Secret Service, FBI and local police officials and involuntary committed for a week because of controversial song lyrics and political views he posted on his Facebook page. In a related matter, Rutherford Institute attorneys have filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Elonis v. United States on behalf of a Pennsylvania man who was charged with making unlawful threats and sentenced to 44 months in jail after he posted allusions to popular song lyrics and comedy routines on his Facebook page.
"Whether it's a Marine arrested for criticizing the government on Facebook or an ex-husband jailed for expressing his frustrations through rap lyrics on Facebook, the end result is the same—the criminalization of free speech," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. "While social media and the Internet have become critical forums for individuals to freely share information and express their ideas, they have unfortunately also become tools for the government to monitor, control and punish the populace for behavior and speech that may be controversial but are far from criminal."
Brandon Raub, a decorated Marine who has served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, uses his Facebook page to post song lyrics and air his political opinions. On Aug.16, 2012, Chesterfield police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub's home, asked to speak with him about his Facebook posts, and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, handcuffed Raub and transported him to police headquarters, then to a medical facility, where he was held against his will for psychological evaluation and treatment.
In coming to Raub's aid, Rutherford Institute attorneys challenged the government's actions as a violation of Raub's First and Fourth Amendment rights. On Aug. 23, Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett ordered Raub's immediate release, stating that the government's case was "so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy." Rutherford Institute attorneys filed a lawsuit in May 2013, challenging the government's actions as procedurally improper and legally unjustified. In February 2014, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit, rejecting concerns over government suppression of dissident speech as "far-fetched."
In appealing to the Fourth Circuit, Institute attorneys claim that the Chesterfield County mental health screener who recommended Raub's seizure and commitment failed to exercise reasonable professional judgment in interviewing and in wrongly determining that Raub was mentally ill and dangerous, thereby violating Raub's rights under the Fourth Amendment. The lawsuit also asserts that Raub's seizure and detention were the result of a mental health screener's dislike of Raub's "unpatriotic" views on federal government misconduct, thereby violating the ex-Marine's First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
Click here to read The Rutherford Institute's reply brief in Brandon Raub v. Michael Campbell
Click here to read The Rutherford Institute's brief in Brandon Raub v. Michael Campbell
Click here to read Judge Hudson's decision in Raub v. Bowen et. al.
Click here to read The Rutherford Institute's complaint in Raub v. Bowen et. al.
'You're Either a Cop or Little People': The American Police State in 2014
Posted: December 30, 2014 in Uncategorized
Tags: A Government of Wolves, asset forfeiture, cell phones, censorship, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Constitution, corporations, criminal behavior, criminalization, Declaration of Independence, Department of Homeland Security, dissidents, drones, drug-sniffing dogs, education, Elonis, Facebook, first amendment, florida v. harris, fourth amendment, GPS devices, militarized police, police, police shootings, police state
"You're either a cop or little people."—Police captain Harry Bryant in Blade Runner
For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and never-ending letdowns.
We've been held up, stripped down, faked out, photographed, frisked, fracked, hacked, tracked, cracked, intercepted, accessed, spied on, zapped, mapped, searched, shot at, tasered, tortured, tackled, trussed up, tricked, lied to, labeled, libeled, leered at, shoved aside, saddled with debt not of our own making, sold a bill of goods about national security, tuned out by those representing us, tossed aside, and taken to the cleaners.
As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we've had our freedoms turned inside out, our democratic structure flipped upside down, and our house of cards left in a shambles.
We've had our children burned by flashbang grenades, our dogs shot, and our old folks hospitalized after "accidental" encounters with marauding SWAT teams. We've been told that as citizens we have no rights within 100 miles of our own border, now considered "Constitution-free zones." We've had our faces filed in government databases, our biometrics crosschecked against criminal databanks, and our consumerist tendencies catalogued for future marketing overtures.
We've been given the runaround on government wrongdoing, starting with President Obama's claim that the National Security Agency has never abused its power to spy on Americans' phone calls and emails. All the while, the NSA has been racing to build a supercomputer that could break through "every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world." Despite the fact that the NSA's domestic surveillance program has been shown to be ineffective at preventing acts of terrorism, the agency continues to vacuum up almost 200 million text messages a day.
We've seen the police transformed from community peacekeepers to point guards for the militarized corporate state. From Boston to Ferguson and every point in between, police have pushed around, prodded, poked, probed, scanned, shot and intimidated the very individuals—we the taxpayers—whose rights they were hired to safeguard. Networked together through fusion centers, police have surreptitiously spied on our activities and snooped on our communications, using hi-tech devices provided by the Department of Homeland Security.
We've been deemed suspicious for engaging in such dubious activities as talking too long on a cell phone and stretching too long before jogging, dubbed extremists and terrorists for criticizing the government and suggesting it is tyrannical or oppressive, and subjected to forced colonoscopies and anal probes for allegedly rolling through a stop sign.
We've been arrested for all manner of "crimes" that never used to be considered criminal, let alone uncommon or unlawful, behavior: letting our kids walk to the playground alone, giving loose change to a homeless man, feeding the hungry, and living off the grid.
We've been sodomized, victimized, jeopardized, demoralized, traumatized, stigmatized, vandalized, demonized, polarized and terrorized, often without having done anything to justify such treatment. Blame it on a government mindset that renders us guilty before we've even been charged, let alone convicted, of any wrongdoing. In this way, law-abiding individuals have had their homes mistakenly raided by SWAT teams that got the address wrong. One accountant found himself at the center of a misguided police standoff after surveillance devices confused his license plate with that of a drug felon.
We've been railroaded into believing that our votes count, that we live in a democracy, that elections make a difference, that it matters whether we vote Republican or Democrat, and that our elected officials are looking out for our best interests. Truth be told, we live in an oligarchy, politicians represent only the profit motives of the corporate state, whose leaders know all too well that there is no discernible difference between red and blue politics, because there is only one color that matters in politics—green.
We've gone from having privacy in our inner sanctums to having nowhere to hide, with smart pills that monitor the conditions of our bodies, homes that spy on us (with smart meters that monitor our electric usage and thermostats and light switches that can be controlled remotely) and cars that listen to our conversations and track our whereabouts. Even our cities have become wall-to-wall electronic concentration camps, with police now able to record hi-def video of everything that takes place within city limits.
We've had our schools locked down, our students handcuffed, shackled and arrested for engaging in childish behavior such as food fights, our children's biometrics stored, their school IDs chipped, their movements tracked, and their data bought, sold and bartered for profit by government contractors, all the while they are treated like criminals and taught to march in lockstep with the police state.
We've been rendered enemy combatants in our own country, denied basic due process rights, held against our will without access to an attorney or being charged with a crime, and left to molder in jail until such a time as the government is willing to let us go or allow us to defend ourselves.
We've had the very military weapons we funded with our hard-earned tax dollars used against us, from unpiloted, weaponized drones tracking our movements on the nation's highways and byways and armored vehicles, assault rifles, sound cannons and grenade launchers in towns with little to no crime to an arsenal of military-grade weapons and equipment given free of charge to schools and universities.
We've been silenced, censored and forced to conform, shut up in free speech zones, gagged by hate crime laws, stifled by political correctness, muzzled by misguided anti-bullying statutes, and pepper sprayed for taking part in peaceful protests.
We've been shot by police for reaching for a license during a traffic stop, reaching for a baby during a drug bust, carrying a toy sword down a public street, and wearing headphones that hamper our ability to hear.
We've had our tax dollars spent on $30,000 worth of Starbucks for Dept. of Homeland Security employees, $630,000 in advertising to increase Facebook "likes" for the State Dept., and close to $25 billion to fund projects ranging from the silly to the unnecessary, such as laughing classes for college students and programs teaching monkeys to play video games and gamble.
We've been treated like guinea pigs, targeted by the government and social media for psychological experiments on how to manipulate the masses. We've been tasered for talking back to police, tackled for taking pictures of police abuses, and threatened with jail time for invoking our rights. We've even been arrested by undercover cops stationed in public bathrooms who interpret men's "shaking off" motions after urinating to be acts of lewdness.
We've had our possessions seized and stolen by law enforcement agencies looking to cash in on asset forfeiture schemes, our jails privatized and used as a source of cheap labor for megacorporations, our gardens smashed by police seeking out suspicious-looking marijuana plants, and our buying habits turned into suspicious behavior by a government readily inclined to view its citizens as terrorists.
We've had our cities used for military training drills, with Black Hawk helicopters buzzing the skies, Urban Shield exercises overtaking our streets, and active shooter drills wreaking havoc on unsuspecting bystanders in our schools, shopping malls and other "soft target" locations.
We've been told that national security is more important than civil liberties, that police dogs' noses are sufficient cause to carry out warrantless searches, that the best way not to get raped by police is to "follow the law," that what a police officer says in court will be given preference over what video footage shows, that an upright posture and acne are sufficient reasons for a cop to suspect you of wrongdoing, that police can stop and search a driver based solely on an anonymous tip, and that police officers have every right to shoot first and ask questions later if they feel threatened.
Now there are those who still insist that they are beyond the reach of the police state because they have done nothing wrong and have nothing to fear. To those sanctimonious few, secure in their delusions, let this be a warning: the danger posed by the American police state applies equally to all of us: lawbreaker and law abider alike, black and white, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, blue collar and white collar, and any other distinction you'd care to trot out.
The lesson of 2014 is simply this: in a police state, you're either a cop or you're one of the little people. Right now, we are the little people, the servants, the serfs, the grunts who must obey without question or suffer the consequences.
If there is to be any hope in 2015 for restoring our freedoms and reclaiming our runaway government, we will have to start by breathing life into those three powerful words that set the tone for everything that follows in the Constitution: "we the people."
It's time to stop waiting patiently for change to happen and, as Gandhi once advised, be the change you want to see in the world.
Get mad, get outraged, get off your duff and get out of your house, get in the streets, get in people's faces, get down to your local city council, get over to your local school board, get your thoughts down on paper, get your objections plastered on protest signs, get your neighbors, friends and family to join their voices to yours, get your representatives to pay attention to your grievances, get your kids to know their rights, get your local police to march in lockstep with the Constitution, get your media to act as watchdogs for the people and not lapdogs for the corporate state, get your act together, and get your house in order.
In other words, get moving. Time is growing short, and the police state is closing in. Power to the people!
U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Online Free Speech Case; Rutherford Institute Warns Against Criminalizing Provocative Facebook Postings
Posted: December 1, 2014 in Uncategorized
Tags: brandon raub, Elonis, Facebook, first amendment, free speech, internet, rap music, Twitter
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments today in a case that will significantly impact expression on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. In filing an amicus brief in Anthony D. Elonis v. United States of America, The Rutherford Institute argues that the First Amendment protects even inflammatory statements that may give offense or cause concern to others unless the statements were a credible threat to engage in violence against another and made by the defendant with the intent to cause fear in the alleged victim. The case arises out of Facebook postings made by Anthony Elonis expressing his anger about events in his life, and which were based upon rap lyrics of artists such as Eminem and a comedy sketch of the group The Whitest Kids U' Know. Elonis was charged with making unlawful threats (it was never proven that he intended to threaten anyone) and sentenced to 44 months in jail after he posted allusions to popular song lyrics and comedy routines on his Facebook page.
Anthony Elonis was an active poster on Facebook who often used references to popular culture to express his views, feelings and frustration about events in his life. In May 2010, after Elonis' wife left him and took his two children, he began listening to rap music and alluding to the sometimes violent lyrics of rap songs on his Facebook page. Elonis would couple these postings with statements acknowledging that the lyrics were fictitious and that he was simply exercising his First Amendment right of expression. After his estranged wife obtained a protection order against him, Elonis posted a reference to a comedy sketch of The Whitest Kids U' Know about threatening language that Elonis changed to include a reference about harming his wife. In another post, Elonis used the lyrics of Eminem in which the rap artist included fantasized thoughts about shooting up a school. After federal agents were alerted to some of his postings, an investigator was sent to speak with Elonis. In response, Elonis posted rap lyrics he wrote containing fantasized language about having a bomb strapped to his body and doing violence to the agent. In response to these postings, the federal government charged Elonis under a statute making it a crime to transmit in interstate commerce any communication containing a threat to injure another. Elonis was convicted on four counts of violating this statute but appealed his conviction, arguing that the government should have been required to prove that he intended to threaten the alleged victims, not simply that the victims could reasonably have believed the words were "true threats."
In weighing in on the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that "(i)n order to protect the First Amendment rights of speakers, courts must ensure that they are criminalizing more than just the unrealized and unrealizable fears of particularly sensitive listeners." In a related case, The Rutherford Institute is also representing Marine veteran Brandon Raub, who was arrested, detained in a psychiatric ward, and forced to undergo psychological evaluations based solely on the controversial nature of lines from song lyrics, political messages and virtual card games which he posted to his private Facebook page.
Warning Against the Danger of Criminalizing Provocative Facebook Postings, The Rutherford Institute Calls on Supreme Court to Protect Internet Speech
Click here to read The Rutherford Institute's amicus brief in Elonis v. United States
The Final Nail in the Coffin: The Death of Freedom in Our Schools
Posted: August 26, 2014 in Uncategorized
Tags: civil liberties, Congress, Constitution, criminal behavior, criminalization, drug-sniffing dogs, education, Facebook, Ferguson, first amendment, fourth amendment, free speech, Hitler, Hitler Youth, lock downs, metal detectors, militarized police, Nazi Germany, police, police state, public schools, school safety, strip searches, surveillance, tasers, zero tolerance
"Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves."―D.H. Lawrence
No matter what your perspective on the showdown between locals and law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, there can be no disputing the fact that "local" police should not be looking or acting like branches of the military.
Unfortunately, in the police state that is America today, we're going to find ourselves revisiting Ferguson over and over again. Every time an unarmed citizen gets shot by a police officer who is armed to the hilt, or inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, or so concerned about their own safety, to the exclusion of all else, that everything becomes a potential threat, we'll find ourselves back in Ferguson territory again.
Here's the thing, though: whether or not it ever gets reported, whether it incites any protests or marches or showdowns of epic proportions, whether it elicits any outrage on the part of the citizenry, Ferguson is already happening over and over again, all around us.
It's happening in small towns and big cities alike every time a citizen gets stopped and frisked for no better reason than they "look" suspicious. It's happening on the nation's highways and byways, where corporate greed disguised as road safety is making a hefty profit off of drivers who have the misfortune of passing a red light camera or a speed camera or a license plate reader. It's happening in the privately run jails, which are teeming with prisoners doing time for nonviolent crimes that should have landed them with a slap on the wrist and a fine instead of hard time and forced labor.
It's happening in our airports and train stations and shopping malls, where menacing squads of black-garbed, jack-booted, up-armored soldiers disguised as law enforcement officials are subjecting Americans to roving security checkpoints, allegedly in the pursuit of terrorists. And it's happening in the schools, where the school-to-prison pipeline is fully operational and busy churning out newly minted citizens of the American police state who have been taught the hard way what it means to comply and march in lockstep with the government's dictates.
Young Alex Stone didn't even make it past the first week of school before he became a victim of the police state. Directed by his teacher to do a creative writing assignment involving a series of fictional Facebook statuses, Stone wrote, "I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur. I bought the gun to take care of the business." Despite the fact that dinosaurs are extinct, the status fabricated, and the South Carolina student was merely following orders, his teacher reported him to school administrators, who in turn called the police.
What followed is par for the course in schools today: students were locked down in their classrooms while armed police searched the 16-year-old's locker and bookbag, handcuffed him, charged him with disorderly conduct disturbing the school, arrested him, detained him, and then he was suspended from school. Stone's mother was never alerted to the school's concerns about her son's creative writing assignment or his subsequent interrogation and arrest.
Keshana Wilson, a 14-year-old student at a Pennsylvania high school, was tasered in the groin by a police officer working as a school resource officer, allegedly because she resisted arrest for cursing, inciting a crowd of students, and walking on the highway. One might be hard pressed to find a teenager not guilty of one or the other at any given time. Nevertheless, the tasering came after the officer grabbed the teenager from behind and pushed her up against a car, without identifying himself as a police officer. "The teenager had to be taken to hospital to have the taser probes removed before she was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on the officer, simple assault, riot, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, failure to disperse and walking on the highway," noted one reporter.
Rounding out the lesson in compliance, police officers who patrol schools in Compton, Calif., are now authorized to buy semi-automatic AR-15 rifles and carry them in their patrol car trunks while on duty—a practice that is becoming increasingly common, according to Joe Grubbs, president of the California Association of School Resource Officers. A few states away, in Missouri, a new state law actually requires that all school districts participate in live-action school shooting drills, including realistic gunfire, students covered in fake blood, and bodies strewn throughout the hallways.
Now these incidents may seem light years away from the all-too-grim reality of the events that took place in Ferguson, Missouri, but they are, in fact, mere stops along the way to the American police state, and parents with kids returning to school would do well to consider these incidents fair warning, because today's public schools have become microcosms of the world beyond the schoolhouse gates, and increasingly, it's a world hostile to freedom.
As I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, within America's public schools can be found almost every aspect of the American police state that plagues those of us on the "outside": metal detectors, surveillance cameras, militarized police, drug-sniffing dogs, tasers, cyber-surveillance, random searches, senseless arrests, jail time, the list goes on.
Whether it takes the form of draconian zero tolerance policies, overreaching anti-bullying statutes, police officers charged with tasering and arresting so-called unruly children, standardized testing with its emphasis on rote answers, political correctness, or the extensive surveillance systems cropping up in schools all over the country, young people in America are first in line to be indoctrinated into compliant citizens of the new American police state.
Zero tolerance policies, which punish all offenses severely, no matter how minor, condition young people to steer clear of doing anything that might be considered out of line, whether it's pointing their fingers like a gun, drawing on their desks, or chewing their gum too loudly.
Surveillance technologies, used by school officials, police, NSA agents, and corporate entities to track the everyday activities of students, accustom young people to life in an electronic concentration camp, with all of their movements monitored, their interactions assessed, and their activities recorded and archived. For example, the Department of Education (DOE) has created a system to track, archive and disseminate data on every single part of a child's educational career with colleges and state agencies such as the Department of Labor and the offices of Technology and Children and Family Services.
Metal detectors at school entrances and police patrolling school hallways acclimatize young people to being viewed as suspects. Funded in part by federal grants, school districts across the country have "paid local police agencies to provide armed 'school resource officers' for high schools, middle schools and sometimes even elementary schools." As the New York Times reports, "Hundreds of additional districts, including those in Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, have created police forces of their own, employing thousands of sworn officers." The problem, of course, is that the very presence of these police officers in the schools results in greater numbers of students being arrested or charged with crimes for nonviolent, childish behavior. In Texas, for example, school police officers write more than 100,000 misdemeanor tickets a year, each ticket amounting to hundreds of dollars in court fines—a convenient financial windfall for the states. All too often, these incidents remain on students' permanent records, impacting college and job applications.
Weapons of compliance, such as tasers which deliver electrical shocks lethal enough to kill, not only teach young people to fear the police, the face of our militarized government, but teach them that torture is an accepted means of controlling the population. It's a problem that has grown exponentially as the schools have increasingly clamored for—and hired on—their own police forces. One high school student in Texas suffered severe brain damage and nearly died after being tasered. A 15-year-old disabled North Carolina student was tasered three times, resulting in punctured lungs. A New York student was similarly tasered for lying on the floor and crying.
Standardized testing and Common Core programs, which discourage students from thinking for themselves while rewarding them for regurgitating whatever the government, through its so-called educational standards, dictates they should be taught, will not only create a generation of test-takers capable of little else, but it will also constitute massive data collection on virtually every aspect of our children's lives which will be accessed by government agents and their corporate allies.
Overt censorship, monitoring and political correctness, which manifest themselves in a variety of ways, from Internet filters on school computers to sexual harassment policies, habituate young people to a world in which nonconformist, divergent, politically incorrect ideas and speech are treated as unacceptable or dangerous. In such an environment, a science teacher criticizing evolution can get fired for insubordination, a 9-year-old boy remarking that his teacher is "cute" can be suspended for sexual harassment, students detected using their smart phones during class time can be reported for not paying attention in class, and those accused of engaging in "bullying, cyber-bullying, hate and shaming activities, depression, harm and self harm, self hate and suicide, crime, vandalism, substance abuse and truancy" on social media such as Twitter or Facebook, will have their posts and comments analyzed by an outside government contractor.
As problematic as all of these programs are, however, what's really unnerving are the similarities between the American system of public education and that of totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany, with their overt campaigns of educational indoctrination. And while those who run America's schools may not be deliberately attempting to raise up a generation of Hitler Youth, they are teaching young people to march in lockstep with the all-powerful government—which may be just as dangerous in the end.
You don't have to take my word for it. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides some valuable insight into education in the Nazi state, which was responsible for winning "millions of German young people … over to Nazism in the classroom and through extracurricular activities." The similarities are startling, ranging from the dismissal of teachers deemed to be "politically unreliable" to the introduction of classroom textbooks that taught students obedience to state authority and militarism. "Board games and toys for children served as another way to spread racial and political propaganda to German youth. Toys were also used as propaganda vehicles to indoctrinate children into militarism." And then there was the Hitler Youth, a paramilitary youth group intended to train young people for future service in the armed forces and government.
Hitler himself recognized the value of indoctrinating young people. As he noted, "When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side, and you will not get me on your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to me already. A people lives forever. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants however now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.'"
In the face of such a mechanized, bureaucratic school system that demands conformity, indoctrinating and enslaving their minds while punishing anyone who dares step out of line, American school children are indeed powerless. And they will remain helpless, powerless and in bondage to the police state unless "we the people" take the steps to set them free. — John W. Whitehead
Warning Against the Danger of Criminalizing Provocative Facebook Postings, TRI Calls on Supreme Court to Protect Internet Speech
Tags: criminalization, Elonis, Eminem, Facebook, first amendment, free speech, rap, social media, the rutherford institute, The Whitest Kids U' Know, Twitter, u.s. supreme court
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Weighing in on a case that will significantly impact expression on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, The Rutherford Institute has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the conviction of a Pennsylvania man who was charged with making unlawful threats (it was never proven that he intended to threaten anyone) and sentenced to 44 months in jail after he posted allusions to popular song lyrics and comedy routines on his Facebook page.
The Rutherford Institute's amicus brief in Anthony D. Elonis v. United States of America argues that the First Amendment protects even inflammatory statements that may give offense or cause concern to others unless the statements were a credible threat to engage in violence against another and made by the defendant with the intent to cause fear in the alleged victim. The case arises out of Facebook postings made by Anthony Elonis expressing his anger about events in his life, and which were based upon rap lyrics of artists such as Eminem and a comedy sketch of the group The Whitest Kids U' Know.
The Rutherford Institute's amicus brief in Elonis v. United States is available at www.rutherford.org.
Anthony Elonis was an active poster on Facebook who often used references to popular culture to express his views, feelings and frustration about events in his life. In May 2010, after Elonis' wife left him and took his two children, he began listening to rap music and alluding to the sometimes violent lyrics of rap songs on his Facebook page. Elonis would couple these postings with statements acknowledging that the lyrics were fictitious and that he was simply exercising his First Amendment right of expression. After his estranged wife obtained a protection order against him, Elonis posted a reference to a comedy sketch of The Whitest Kids U' Know about threatening language that Elonis changed to include a reference about harming his wife. In another post, Elonis used the lyrics of Eminem in which the rap artist included fantasized thoughts about shooting up a school. After federal agents were alerted to some of his postings, an investigator was sent to speak with Elonis. In response, Elonis posted rap lyrics he wrote containing fantasized language about having a bomb strapped to his body and doing violence to the agent.
In response to these postings, the federal government charged Elonis under a statute making it a crime to transmit in interstate commerce any communication containing a threat to injure another. Elonis was convicted on four counts of violating this statute but appealed his conviction, arguing that the government should have been required to prove that he intended to threaten the alleged victims, not simply that the victims could reasonably have believed the words were "true threats." In weighing in on the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that "in order to protect the First Amendment rights of speakers, courts must ensure that they are criminalizing more than just the unrealized and unrealizable fears of particularly sensitive listeners."
In a related case, The Rutherford Institute is also representing Marine veteran Brandon Raub, who was arrested, detained in a psychiatric ward, and forced to undergo psychological evaluations based solely on the controversial nature of lines from song lyrics, political messages and virtual card games which he posted to his private Facebook page.
TRI Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Over Wrongful Arrest, Detention in Psych Ward of Marine Brandon Raub Because of Facebook Posts
Posted: May 22, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: brandon raub, Facebook, FBI, first amendment, fourth amendment, involuntary commitment, Operation Vigilant Eagle, Secret Service, the rutherford institute
Marine veteran Brandon Raub is not the first veteran to be targeted for speaking out against the government. However, his case exposed the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that is targeting military veterans for expressing their discontent over America's rapid transition to a police state. Hopefully, by holding officials accountable, we can ensure that Brandon is the last to suffer in this way.
That's why attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have just filed a civil rights lawsuit against law enforcement and other government officials on behalf of Raub. Last August, Raub was arrested by a swarm of FBI, Secret Service agents and local police and forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward for a week because of controversial song lyrics and political views posted on his Facebook page. The complaint, filed in federal court in Richmond, alleges that Raub's seizure and detention were the result of a federal government program code-named "Operation Vigilant Eagle" that involves the systematic surveillance of military veterans who express views critical of the government. Institute attorneys allege that the attempt to label Raub as "mentally ill" and his involuntary commitment was a pretext designed to silence Raub's speech critical of the government and that the defendants violated Raub's rights under the First and Fourth Amendments.
Since coming to Raub's defense, The Rutherford Institute has been contacted by military veterans across the country recounting similar incidents. In filing a civil suit against government officials, Rutherford Institute attorneys plan to take issue with the manner in which Virginia's civil commitment statutes are being used to silence individuals engaged in lawfully exercising their free speech rights.
On Aug.16, 2012, Chesterfield police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Brandon Raub's home, asking to speak with him about his Facebook posts. Like many Facebook users, Raub, a Marine who has served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, uses his Facebook page to post song lyrics and air his political opinions. Without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, law enforcement officials handcuffed Raub and transported him to police headquarters, then to John Randolph Medical Center, where he was held against his will. In a hearing on Aug. 20, government officials pointed to Raub's Facebook posts as the reason for his incarceration. While Raub stated that the Facebook posts were being read out of context, a Special Justice ordered Raub be held up to 30 more days for psychological evaluation and treatment.
In coming to Raub's aid, Institute attorneys challenged the government's actions as procedurally improper, legally unjustified, and in violation of Raub's First Amendment rights. On Aug. 23, Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett ordered Raub's immediate release, stating that the government's case was "so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy." In asking the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to acknowledge the harm done to Raub and to rectify the violation of his First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Institute attorneys are requesting that Raub be awarded damages for the harm caused by the deprivation of his constitutional rights.
To support the Institute's efforts on this and other cases, donate online at https://www.rutherford.org/donate/.


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ggplot()
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so that when I knit to pdf latex positions my plots (the float) at the precise location in the LaTeX code. It is my understanding that this should make my latex code look like:
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics{files/figure-latex/unnamed-chunk-3-1.pdf}
\end{figure}

but instead when I open the generated Tex document I see:
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics{files/figure-latex/unnamed-chunk-3-1.pdf}
\end{figure}

I am ending up with my plots in random postions in the PDF document instead of where they are located in the latex code, sometimes taking up an entire page for one plot. I have tried fig.pos='h', fig.pos='H',fig.pos='h',fig.pos='h!'and fig.pos='H! based on the table on this page.
I am attempting this based on this link where it states under plot chunk options: fig.pos: (''; character) a character string for the figure position arrangement to be used in \begin{figure}[fig.pos]
What am I missing or how else can I ensure my plots are displayed where the text is located within the Rmd file or latex code?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
How to Avoid a South China Sea Showdown
August 2, 2018 Topic: Security Region: Asia Blog Brand: The Skeptics Tags: ChinaWarGeopoliticsMilitaryEast Asia
America must scale down the size of its military involvement in East Asia to avoid ratcheting up tension with China.
by Samuel Leiter
This essay was a runner up in the 2018 John Quincy Adams Society/TNI Student Foreign Policy Essay Contest.
It is imperative that the United States reduce its military involvement in East Asia as China rises to relieve its overstretched military and avoid conflagration with this rising power capable of challenging American hegemony. Although this idea is counterintuitive to those who would argue that American leadership in the region is necessary to contain China, the economic and geopolitical realities mean that the American strategy towards the Soviet Union in the Cold War is not reproducible with China. While there are parallels between the two great power rivalries, there are key differences between China today and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century that will make containment dangerous and ineffective this time. Instead, the United States ought to reduce its military presence in East Asia and let its allies develop independent nuclear deterrents to keep the region stable. Critics would argue this would create incentives for China to attack its proliferating neighbors leading to war and chaos, but the historical evidence suggests such an attack is highly unlikely.
The United States faces unique challenges in containing China that include an economic deficit, a discontinuous and non-united front, and other great powers. As a result, it cannot succeed with the strategy of containment used against the Soviet Union. Throughout the Cold War, the United States was well ahead of the Soviet Union in every relevant economic measure, and the gap only widened as the Cold War progressed. China today has already passed the United States in gross domestic product measured by purchasing power parity, and will continue to widen the gap in the decades to come. As time goes on, the United States' current military advantage will erode making containment more and more difficult to maintain. American allies in the region will feel increasing pressure to bandwagon with China and there are already a number of countries dispersed throughout the region that have aligned themselves with China from Pakistan to Malaysia. This is not the united front of Western Europe, but a region divided in allegiance between the rising regional power and the declining global one. What's more, the frontline of the Cold War in Western Europe was a narrow and clearly demarcated area, the border between East and West Germany. This small geographic land area that could be easily stationed by American troops. Containing China requires stationing troops from the 39th Parallel to the South China Sea and the disputed Chinese-Indian border. This poses serious strategic coordination problems and also increases military costs. Containing China would be a losing strategy that drains American resources, but if a withdrawal would create a vacuum and instability in the region, then it could be just as destructive to American foreign-policy goals.
By encouraging its allies to develop independent nuclear deterrents, America can ensure that China cannot take advantage of its withdrawal and the region will continue to be stable. The period since World War II has been characterized by the longest period of great-power peace in modern history as a result of the advent of nuclear weapons. The American nuclear umbrella provides an effective deterrent for its Asian allies, but under the proposed withdrawal the nuclear umbrella would be gone or at least questioned making independent nuclear deterrents necessary. South Korea, Japan, and even Taiwan have the capability to acquire nuclear weapons, but have avoided doing so because the United States provided security for them and the United States discouraged proliferation. Were they to develop their own nuclear deterrents it would keep the region stable without an American presence.
Well-known scholars of international relations, like Barry Posen, have advocated that such drawdowns are in the United States' long-term interest. Posen envisions a world where U.S. allies would defend themselves without the United States through independent nuclear deterrents. Critics of this view point to the risk of preventive war arising during the transition period. This begs the very important question: is there a serious risk of China, the rising power in East Asia, attacking Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan if they attempt to acquire nuclear weapons? An examination of the history of preventive strikes against nuclear programs will show that such a scenario is unlikely. A carefully executed drawdown of U.S. commitments would not create incentives for preventive war against United States allies that would destabilize the region.
The most well-documented case of a preventive strike against a nuclear program is Israel's attack against the Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. Israeli leaders worried that like Israel, Iraq would finish its nuclear weapons program faster than predicted. The Iraqi regime posed a special threat since it regularly threatened the destruction of Israel and seemed intent on becoming a regional hegemon. Since Israel is geographically small and very close to Iraq, a nuclear Iraq was an existential threat. Even still, the Israeli government was very conflicted in its decision to bomb the Osiraq reactor. International backlash from world powers and Arab neighbors was a grave concern. It was only Iraq's uniquely vulnerable position during the Iran-Iraq war and Israel's alliance with the world's foremost superpower, the United States, that gave Israeli leaders the confidence to eventually attack the reactor at Osiraq.
When the United States chose not to attack China's nuclear program in the 1960s it was faced with less of a threat and higher potential costs when compared to Israel's decision not to attack Iraq. The United States government was initially quite worried about Chinese proliferation, but quickly came to realize that it threatened only to limit freedom of action in East Asia and it would be decades before Chinese missiles could even reach the United States. In addition to the obvious distinction that the United States' large land area makes it more resilient to nuclear attack, China would remain at a military disadvantage relative to the United States, making a first-strike "highly unlikely" in the minds of United States military leaders. Attacking China's nuclear program was not as simple as one bombing run against a sole nuclear reactor. There were numerous reactors and the location of them was not known within "any very high degree of confidence." If they had been known, destruction was not guaranteed, and were they destroyed, it would at most delay China's nuclear program for a few years. Additionally, preventing Chinese retaliation after attacking its nuclear facilities would involve a huge force commitment to East Asia, and it was hard to conceive of a scenario in which the Soviet Union did not intervene. Altogether, this meant a strike could worsen the United States' strategic position and at best delay China's nuclear ambitions.
Between these two cases, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan's position relative to China more closely resembles China's position relative to the United States in the early 1960s. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have no interest in, or chance of, establishing hegemony in East Asia. Although China is geographically close, its size and military advantages mean that if any one of China's regional adversaries acquired nuclear weapons it would limit freedom of action, not threaten its existence. China would also have to worry about a preventive strike bringing a withdrawn United States back into the region, much as the United States worried about its main rival, the Soviet Union, becoming involved in any attack against China. Finally, all three states have substantial civilian nuclear programs spread throughout the country, which makes stopping a nuclear program more difficult, costly, and prone to retaliation. The Israeli strike against Osiraq was an extraordinary case, which is unlikely to be repeated in Asia, especially since it revealed the impermanence of striking nuclear facilities when Iraq simply redoubled its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon in the following years. Whether American allies in East Asia will proliferate remains to be seen, but if they did, history suggests China would not opt for the military option. With the greatest threat to peace in an Asia absent the United States being highly unlikely to occur given the historical evidence a drawdown could be safely undertaken. This would give the United States much needed resources to invest in its own economy and would also give China the breathing room to rise peacefully, which reduces the risk of miscalculation or accidental war.
Samuel Leiter is a senior at the University of Chicago studying political science with a focus on nuclear proliferation and preventive war. In July he will start working as an analyst for the Civic Consulting Alliance, a non-profit that helps Chicago's government govern better.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Jeanspread in patchwork style. Stunning handmade thing!
Patchwork, In other words, patchwork - is not for the weakNerves. You need to show unprecedented assiduity and patience to get the desired thing! Since ancient times, from the remnants of cloth and unnecessary stretches, craftsmen created practical, beautiful and durable products.
We suggest you try yourself in this technique: make a stylish veil of old jeans. This thing will be relevant in A teenager's room, On the kitchen couch, on the balcony and even in the living room - jeans themes persistently do not go out of fashion.
At your discretion, you can leave the edges ragged or obtachat, fitting to a more restrained interior. A few pairs of old jeans you probably are hidden, it's time to get them!
First step: Calculate the size of the veil that you want to sew. Standard size - 1 m 50 cm at 2 m 30 cm. For manufacturing, you need 60 square flaps with a side of 23 cm. Cut the available jeans into squares. Try to make them the same size - it's not so difficult to stitch them.
Square squares with horizontal ribbons,Seams. Now we have finished tapes with each other. To beautifully draw the underside and hide the seams, sewing to the coverlet an interlayer of other fabric - for example, from the synthepone.
The work process is quite laborious. It's difficult, but people still take on this work, to later admire and be proud of the beauty made by own hands!
Option without frills. Denim fabric can be diluted with squares of other colors.
The veil definitely creates an entourage in the interior. It is here as a native!
Here's how you can use the jeans top scraps left after cutting the pants into squares. Non-waste production! Such a bench at the entrance will cause admiration for everyone.
In 1920, in a cave of thousands of Buddhas in China, a carpet made of many pieces of pilgrim clothes was found. It dates back to the ix century!
Still then technology patchwork Was in high esteem. Give your friends a brilliant idea for re-making jeans - many will like it.


A 38th birthday party may not hold the momentous significance that a 30th or 40th celebration would, but it can and should still be fun. After all, a birthday is still important, as is the person in your life ringing in the occasion. A person of this age is at a crossroads of sorts, as they remain relatively youthful while approaching middle age. This provides plenty of ideas for a good party, as there are several approaches you can take.
An Oscar Night theme party is a fun way to have everyone dress up in black tie attire and celebrate the guest of honour. For example, you could have trivia games about her, and have her "win" the lifetime achievement award at the end of the evening. The idea is to tailor the evening to whatever she and the guests would deem fun. You could play charades with a Hollywood theme. You could also host a movie marathon featuring winners from 38 years ago and have everyone dress like the actors did from that era. Also, consider featuring appetizers and drinks with an added Hollywood name, such as Gwyneth's Baby Martini (Apple) or Superman Salsa. Have a cake that features a theme of a red carpet or stars.
Casino Night is another popular party theme for a thirtysomething birthday. On the invitation, encourage guests to dress up for the occasion. Include plenty of easy-to-eat finger foods and feature plenty of Vegas-style drinks, such as martinis. You don't have to feature every casino game, but it helps to have the more popular ones, such as poker, craps and blackjack. As your guests arrive, present each with an envelope of play money. Present the guest of honour with a birthday cake that has a gambling theme.
Schedule a day or weekend event outdoors, especially if the honoree likes adventure. It's casual, low key and fun for everyone. This can be a great way to celebrate with a group of families, and you don't have to worry about cleaning the house. This is also a good choice for when the guest of honour is on the shy side and is uncomfortable with being the centre of attention. Plus, it's relatively inexpensive. You could even ask guests to bring picnic food for a potluck feast.
Plan a surprise party for a 38th birthday. While the birthday person certainly expects to be remembered and given a few gifts and cards, he is probably not anticipating anything hugely significant since it's not quite the big "4-0" just yet. So this is the perfect time to throw a surprise party. It could be at work, home or at one of her favourite places. For example, take her out to what she thinks will be a low-key birthday dinner at her favourite restaurant, and have everyone be there when you arrive.


text:
Q: Dispatching s4 method on an s3 object I recently defined an s4 method for an s3 class by mistake.  For example:
> foo <- structure(list(a=1),class='Bar')

And then define an s4 method like this
> setMethod('show','Bar',function(object) cat('-->',object$a,'\n'))
in method for 'show' with signature '"Bar"': no definition for class "Bar"

You get a warning, but otherwise things seem okay.  And then
> show(foo)
--> 1

has the intended behavior.  Why does this work?

A: "Why"-questions can be difficult to answer with authority because most of the designers of the language will not see this question. If it were posted on the R-devel Mailing List it might have a chance of being addressed with the needed authority. My take on it is that R and S before it were primarily functionally focussed so calling an object "S4" isn't really what was intended. It's the methods (functions) that were intended to be called S3 or S4,  and S4 methods were intended to work with named classes, and so should succeed with object that have classes which were originally intended to be used with S3 methods. In other words there was never an intent to have a sharp dividing line between classes defined by whether they were originally being created or used by S3 methods.
A slightly more trivial/flippant answer has also occurred to me as well. If the code you used had thrown an error, then the help page for setMethod would also have thrown an error and the methods-package would not have compiled and the would be no current version of R. That because the same sort of code appears as the first executable line in that help page and it throws the same warning.
You are warned in the ?setMethods page that:

Old-style ('S3') classes can also be used, if you need compatibility with these, but you should definitely declare these classes by calling setOldClass if you want S3-style inheritance to work.


text:
Last Chance to Sail Along with the WND Wingers
Filed By Pam Spaulding | November 30, 2008 4:00 PM | comments
Filed in: Entertainment, Fundie Watch
Tags: anti-gay, David Kupelian, religious, rightwing nutjob
WingNutDaily has a conservative cruise slated for after the new year, so you better sign up for your spot soon -- apparently there are berths available...
Why you should join WND's pre-Obama cruise
A special message - and radical offer - from Managing Editor David Kupelian
Dear WND readers,
I know. With all three branches of the U.S. government soon to be in the hands of the liberal-left, many of you are plagued by two giant-sized questions:
1. What can you do - what can anyone do - to protect America from morphing into another pathetic socialist state where liberty, prosperity and morality are just a fond memory? And;
2. How can you positively protect yourself, your family, your assets and your personal freedoms during what promises to be a very challenging next four years?
For some inspired and possibly life-changing answers, I want to personally invite as many of you as possible to join me, along with WND founders Joseph and Elizabeth Farah, best-selling author Jerome Corsi, Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein and other key WND folks on a pre-inauguration cruise in the Western Caribbean. Rest assured, we will thoroughly explore those two big issues - and a whole lot more.
Look at who you could cruise with...
For an entire week, you'll be interacting, dining, talking to and generally hanging out with:
Joseph Farah - founder, editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily, who sits at the helm of the Internet's premiere independent news organization. WND is constantly growing in readership and influence, while most of the "mainstream" (cough) press is rapidly losing readers, downsizing and in some cases going out of business. Farah has a fantastic message of hope, based on specific steps that individual Americans can take in their families and their communities to rebirth the real America, regardless of who occupies the marbled halls of Washington, D.C
Jerome Corsi - whose brilliant WND reporting during the 2008 election season, including authoring the No. 1 New York Times best seller "The Obama Nation," vexed Obama so much that, out of desperation, he publicly accused Corsi of just "makin' stuff up." Besides briefing us expertly on what's in store during the upcoming "age of Obama," there's one other area in which Corsi is also tops: economics and finance, having been involved in that industry for over 25 years. Corsi is the creator of the amazingly prescient financial newsletter RED ALERT, and he's ready, willing and able to share his economic insights and advice with cruisers, both in groups and individually
Aaron Klein - who talk radio legend G. Gordon Liddy says is not only "the most accurate, talented reporter in the Middle East," but also has "better access to the terrorist bad guys than Muhammad would if he came back from the dead." Now, remember the "test" Joe Biden predicted Obama will attract within his first six months - you know, the one that will sorely shake the nation's confidence in the new president? While no one (except Biden) can predict the future, there's a good chance that "test" will emanate from the Middle East, very possibly Iran. Fortunately, we'll have WND's Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein cruising with us, who will fill us in on the international scene in a way that perhaps no other reporter has the knowledge and courage to do
And yes, I'll be there, to expose the latest - and upcoming - political and cultural madness to infect America, and how to protect yourself and your loved ones from it. I'll also discuss my upcoming book - the sequel to "The Marketing of Evil" - and we'll explore together how to identify and combat the many immoral and atheistic influences that are attempting to subvert our core institutions and convert the greatest nation on earth into a Sodom-and-Gomorrah freak show. This is a war we can win - indeed, must win, because the soul of our nation hangs in the balance.
Recent Entries Filed under Entertainment:
MUST WATCH: John Oliver's Segment on Trans Rights
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Caitlyn Jenner Scores Big Payout For Series
Big Brother 17 To Feature First Transgender Housemate
Chobani Debuts Sexy Lesbian-Themed Ad
Michael Crawford | November 30, 2008 6:02 PM
I am thinking about my vacation plans now. I'll bet that a lot of fun could be had on a trip like this.
On the other hand, being trapped on a boat with countless hay-haters, could get really old really fast.
Angela Brightfeather | November 30, 2008 9:12 PM
Pam,
I'm there if you are honey. I think what that cruise really needs to is to have some very, merry, Transgender people on board to liven things up a bit. I'd like to fill out an application just to see how they woud react to about 20 people not being able to state their gender in terms asked for.
Do you think the threat of having that many Trans people would cancel the cruise?
Polar | December 1, 2008 12:23 AM
Lessee here, they're taking a western Caribbean cruise. I can only guess two of the destinations; Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island, and Jamaica. I've taken this cruise before, although we had Bears on ours instead of Reichers.Of course, if you weren't already aware, Grand Cayman is a tax haven, and I'll bet that has more to do with this cruise than conservative politics. It is very entertaining to watch the well-heeled touristas disembark at Georgetown, wearing their expensive beachwear with their briefcases and portfolios, heading for the banks, lawyers, and investment firms located a couple blocks from the dock. The day ours docked there, there were 5 cruise ships moored, and the lines at the banks were long indeed. Fine with me, Susan and I were more interested in pirate coinage and clothes.
Jamaica is simply straight up bigoted. Ocho Rios reminded me of any American rustbelt inner city, complete with storefront churches and bars, dropped into a tropical paradise. They are anti-GLBT and do not pretend otherwise, and the cruises usually warn gay couples to avoid public displays of affection in Jamaica.
Sorry, Angela, but I've no desire to share a cruise ship with 1000 Reichers. They do have the king of all Harley-Davidson dealerships on Grand Cayman, however, with an Eaglerider booth, so with a credit card. you can rent a Sportster and explore the island properly.
Bil Browning | December 1, 2008 8:09 AM
Is Rosie leading this one? :)
Alex Blaze | December 3, 2008 1:06 PM
Is there any way someone with no money like me can get on this? or is saving the nation, in true conservative form, only for those who can pony up?


text:
Grace Winn Ellis
Posted on April 15, 2015 by gracewinnellis
Ed and Diane Lawrence were best friends with my husband Stewart and me. The four of us had arrived in Raleigh about six months before—the Lawrences from Korea with the Peace Corps, Stewart and I from Atlanta. Diane and I were both pregnant. The Lamaze classes we attended, along with three other couples, became a social occasion for us.
If we hadn't all been so earnest, we surely could have seen how ridiculous we looked. Each of the five women, exceedingly pregnant, arrived at the teacher's home carrying a pillow for use in doing the exercises. We all looked as if we were wearing pillows, too. We lay on the rug in her unfinished basement room and practiced tensing and relaxing on command.
"Why is it that after one of these meetings I always feel like I've been to a coven?" Ed asked one night.
Diane giggled, a little embarrassed.
"A coven?" I asked. "You mean like witches?"
"Yeah. You know, the enthusiasm, knowing the secrets everyone else in society has missed, the fanatic battle with doctors over drugs and delivery rooms closed to fathers."
"I see what you mean," I responded, although I hadn't thought of it that way before. But in 1971, Lamaze classes were relatively new in the US and brand new in North Carolina, the whole notion of trying to minimize the use of drugs during delivery was a novelty, and the only hospital in Raleigh where babies were delivered had an iron-clad rule banning fathers from the delivery room. That would all change within a few years, but at this particular point in time, we felt as if we were on the front lines of a cultural battle, almost the way we had been when we had marched for Civil Rights and against the war in Vietnam a few years earlier.
My husband Stewart, a Presbyterian minister, did not agree. "You're exaggerating," he said. "The Lamaze teachers are just excited about something they've experienced and really believe in. They're frustrated with the conservative medical establishment here."
Our Lamaze instructor, Sis Mizell, was a nurse and a psychiatrist's wife. She had two young children. I couldn't see calling Sis a witch, but she was something of a fanatic about prepared childbirth. Sis showed us charts and diagrams and taught us how to breathe during the various phases of labor.
"Let's review now," Sis had said earlier in the evening. "The first stage of delivery has three phases. During the first phase the cervix effaces, or flattens out, and dilates to three centimeters. Husbands, here you begin to time the contract." She drew a diagram of the rising and falling breaths during a contraction. Her blue eyes sparkled. Her tone was very definite. This was exactly the way it would be: one, two, three.
"During the second stage," she added, "you may experience some discomfort—notice I didn't say 'pain,' just discomfort. Don't listen to other women talk about the 'pain' of childbirth. With proper training, thirty per cent of all women have no pain at all; the rest, only some discomfort. Above all, don't go to see movies like that horrible one with Katherine Hepburn screaming all the way through it. What was the name of that picture?"
"A Farewell to Arms?" I asked. (I had read the book but not seen the movie.) I had never felt real physical pain, having made it through childhood without a toothache or a broken bone or surgery. So I didn't really know what they were talking about.
"Yes," said Sis. "Horrible movie. Anyway, in this second phase you may accelerate to panting as the contraction builds, then decelerate. Like this." Here the up-and-down curves in the diagram developed jagged little teeth.
Sis went on. "The third phase, you recall, is the hardest. During transition use your fast shallow breaths, and blow out if you feel the urge to push. Husbands, remember that your wife may feel persecuted and tired. Wives, you may feel as if you just can't make it. You may call for drugs or just want to go to sleep. But remember, this only lasts a short time, and then the baby's almost here." She clapped her hands like an excited child, and we took it all in.
In her lecture on drugs, Sis pointed out the disadvantages of each method. Of the caudal, the local anesthesia most widely used in area hospitals, she could only say that sometimes bladder function was slow in returning and you might have to be catheterized. (She made that sound horrible.) It was clear to us all that to be really successful you had to make it all the way through the delivery without anesthetics.
The babies of various members of the class were delivered, and the husbands came back to the group to report. Ed and Diane's baby arrived before Christmas, and Ed came to tell the class about the experience. "If this was just discomfort, it was pretty severe," he insisted, "like the intestinal cramps of cholera we had in Korea." But along with the others in the class, I was already too de-conditioned to heed the warning.
Why had Stewart and I decided to approach the birth of our first child with the new-fangled methods of the "coven"? I was abysmally ignorant of anatomy and physiology, and I wanted to understand as much as possible about what was going to happen. And having always excelled as a student, I believed that the best preparation for anything involved getting the most up-to-date information.
Stewart and I had talked to friends who were ecstatic about their experiences with this form of childbirth. "It was the most incredible, wonderful, terrifically joyful, sexual, sensual, loving times of our lives," according to one Christmas letter we had received. A little offbeat and very satisfying, something to talk about (maybe brag about)—this method seemed to offer me a way to make childbirth an achievement. And I had been trained from childhood to collect achievement medals any way I could.
Also, Stewart very much wanted to be a part of the birth experience. He had felt rather left out of the pregnancy. This life he had engendered was growing quite separately from him, in my body. Through the classes and by coaching me during delivery, he would be included this life-changing event.
Sis was working toward full accreditation as a Lamaze instructor. Because she was required to observe several births, she had asked all the members of our class to call her as soon as we left for the hospital. She would just watch silently, she explained. Since no one was paying a fee, Stewart felt that we should invite her to come with us. I was hesitant, although I could never quite say why. This was supposed to be a shared experience for my husband and me. The doctor would be there, of course, but I didn't think I wanted Sis there, too. Besides, Sis had such a strong personality and so much authority that I was afraid of getting railroaded by her. I was pretty sure I couldn't yell or scream of ask for pain medication with Sis in the room. But I swallowed my feelings of foreboding and agreed.
This entry was posted in Post Partum Journal 1971 by gracewinnellis. Bookmark the permalink.


text:
RESEARCH Streams
Complex Adaptive Systems
Patterns of the Anthropocene
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Our engagement in science-policy-practice activities has increased steadily over the years and range from high-level UN dialogues to local resilience assessments. Want to know more about our policy work? Click here!
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Stockholm Resilience Centre
Redefining sustainable development
Ending poverty and safeguarding Earth's life support system must be twin priorities
Following up from recent UN meetings on the definition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a group of international scientists have published a call in Nature, arguing for a set of six SDGs that link poverty eradication to protection of Earth's life support.
They argue that in the face of increasing pressure on the planet's ability to support life, out-dated definitions of sustainable development threaten to reverse progress made in developing countries over the last decades.
"Ending poverty and safeguarding Earth's life support system must be the twin priorities for the Sustainable Development Goals, says Johan Rockström, centre director and a co-author of the Nature article.
Together with the international team he identified six goals that, if met, would contribute to global sustainability while helping to alleviate poverty.
A serving economy within Earth's boundaries
"Climate change and other global environmental threats will increasingly become serious barriers to further human development," says lead author Professor David Griggs from Monash University in Australia. Humans are transforming Earth's life support system — the atmosphere, oceans, waterways, forests, ice sheets and biodiversity that allow us to thrive and prosper — in ways "likely to undermine development gains", he adds.
The team asserts that the classic model of sustainable development, of three integrated pillars — economic, social and environmental — that has served nations and the UN for over a decade, is flawed and does not reflect reality.
"As the global population increases towards eight billion people sustainable development should be seen as an economy serving society within Earth's life support system, not as three pillars," says co-author Dr. Priya Shyamsundar from the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics, Nepal.
The six goals
The new set of goals — thriving lives and livelihoods, food security, water security, clean energy, healthy and productive ecosystems, and governance for sustainable societies — aim to resolve this conflict. The targets beneath each goal include updates and expanded targets under the MDGs, including ending poverty and hunger, combating HIV/aids, and improving maternal and child health.
But also a set of planetary "must haves": climate stability, reducing biodiversity loss, protection of ecosystem services, a healthy water cycle and oceans, sustainable nitrogen and phosphorus use, clean air and sustainable material use.
Co-author Dr. Mark Stafford Smith, science director of CSIRO's climate adaptation research programme in Australia says:
"The key point is that the SDGs must genuinely add up to sustainability. The SDGs have the potential to lock in the spectacular gains on human development that we have achieved in the past two decades and help the global transition to a sustainable lifestyle. But the link between these two aims must be more coherent".
A new model for sustainable development: the illustration explains the six goals that, if met, would contribute to global sustainability while helping to alleviate poverty. Download illustration (credit: Sustainable Development Goals for people and planet, Nature, Griggs et al (2013))
Read the Nature article here
The new research is linked to Future Earth, a new international research programme designed to "develop the knowledge required for societies worldwide to face challenges posed by global environmental change and to identify opportunities for a transition to global sustainability."
Resilient days in Davos
Forum opens up to sustainable business within planetary boundaries
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text:
Since 2005, Gazprom has been supporting seven-time Russian champions FC Zenit and helped them become a flagship club representing the country internationally year after year. So far, the highlight year has been 2008 when the club from "The Venice of the North" gained attention throughout Europe: On 14 May, Zenit won the UEFA Cup final against Glasgow Rangers and a few months later also celebrated the win of the UEFA Supercup against Manchester United.
Besides its commitment for the first team, Gazprom also promotes St. Petersburg's youth teams.
The involvement is enlivened by Gazprom and Zenit on a regular basis. Be it the permanent Zenit tipping competition on our website or the various temporary raffles for games in both European cups – Gazprom brings together what belongs together: football and fans!
The official FC Zenit Website
Discover more Gazprom Sponsorships


text:
Yosemite National Park's stunning 'firefall' phenomenon returns
Yosemite National Park's stunning 'firefall' phenomenon appears
FRESNO, Calif. -- Yosemite National Park's natural "firefall" phenomenon over the Horsetail Fall has officially returned.
Raj Pillai captured these images of what looks like a river of fire at Horsetail Fall, which flows over the eastern edge of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.
The beautiful sight doesn't last for long and the waterfall plunges about 1,500 feet.
The National Park Service says the window for the 2021 "firefall" is February 12 through February 24.
Restrictions to parking, visitor access and traffic are currently in effect from 12:00 pm to 7:00 pm Click here for more details.
RELATED: Photographer captures black bear in Yosemite National Park snow
Officials believe this bear was making a last push to build fat ahead of the hibernation season.
travelyosemite national parkyosemite national park
Yosemite ranger shares poignant story of mom bear calling for dead cub
What to know before visiting Yosemite this summer
Day-use passes for Yosemite available starting April 21
California Dreaming: What's good about the Golden State?


No better quote to start the year as with the one of Jean Hersey: " January is the month for dreaming"
January is as a blank page. This new year has give is 365 pages to fill, the freedom to re-direct our lives, to live our dreams.
wish you an amazing January, the start of a wonderful new year.


text:
The canton of Ballan-Miré is an administrative division of the Indre-et-Loire department, central France. Its borders were not modified at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015. Its seat is in Ballan-Miré.

It consists of the following communes:
Ballan-Miré
Berthenay
Druye
La Riche
Saint-Genouph
Savonnières
Villandry

Notable people
Michel Lezeau, mayor 1977-2007

References

Cantons of Indre-et-Loire
Centre region articles needing translation from French Wikipedia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This class is the base class for all material classes. It desrcibes physical properties of materials which interact with light.
Material base constuctor. Set material temperature to 20.
Get material internal transmittance for thickness in mm. Subclasses _must_ provide this function or the get_extinction_coef() function.
Get material internal transmittance for 1mm thickness.
Get material relative refractive index in given medium at specified wavelen in nm.


text:
to make Sydney a sustainable destination
Credit: Hamilton Lund
The Sustainable Destination Partnership is a collaboration of hotels, backpacker hostels, serviced apartments, cultural institutions, entertainment venues and industry influencers working together to make Sydney a sustainable destination.
Single-use items
Working to reduce single use items in our businesses.
Working to eliminate food waste and piloting a range of toolkits.
Aligning supply chains with our sustainability objectives.
Shared measurement
Developing shared targets and indicators to measure our progress.
Sydney is Australia's leading destination for tourists and the gateway to NSW. The tourism sector is a vital component of the city's economy and an important contributor to national and international recognition of Sydney being a great place to visit, live and work. But this popularity comes at a price with accommodation and entertainment venues creating 47% of Sydney's commercial waste, 21% of its carbon emissions and consuming 14% of its drinking water.
We are taking action
We are taking action. Sustainable Destination Partnership was launched in June 2018 with 40 founding members. These members represent almost half of Sydney's hotel rooms, the majority of our well-known cultural and entertainment venues and key industry associations and supporters. The Partnership is one of many actions from the City's Making Sydney a Sustainable Destination plan which seeks to reduce the environmental impact of the sector while saving money and attracting new customers.
The Sustainable Destination Partnership will work collaboratively to:
improve the environmental performance of Sydney's accommodation and entertainment venues
invest in renewable energy, recycled water, waste avoidance and management and other sustainable solutions that support Sustainable Sydney 2030 goals
engage with regulators and governments on key environmental policy and regulatory issues
champion and promote our objectives and outcomes to the broader sector and wider community.
Sustainable Sydney 2030
Sustainable Sydney 2030 is the City of Sydney's vision for a green, global and connected city. To help realise this vision the City set targets to reduce carbon emissions by 70%, divert 90% of waste from landfill and have a zero increase in potable water by 2030 (from 2006 levels).
The Sustainable Destination Partnership is one of many City initiatives helping to deliver these targets and sustainability outcomes for Sydney.
Katie Shammas
kshammas@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au


text:
Q: TypeScript generic extending some Array type accepting unrelated type problem I have some function similar to the following mock.
// All properties in this type are optional.
interface MyType {
  a?: string
}

// The type of the return result of `cb` is kept as the final result type.
const f = <T extends ReadonlyArray<MyType>>(cb: (() => T)): T => cb()

const myTests1 = f(() => [1, {}]) // no error, but it really should
const myTests2 = f(() => [{}]) // no error
const myTests3 = f(() => [{}] as const) // no error
const myTests4 = f(() => [1]) // error
const myTests5 = f(() => [1, {}] as const) // error

TypeScript playground link
I intend for the cb function to return only items that are of MyTypes. The f function is sort of a type safe data model builder I intend to build that users can use to declare the complex MyType with type safety.
I know that TypeScript only really cares about the duck type and not the JS type strictly, so e.g. there would be no error when I say const x: {} = 1. And by experimenting, my typing issue was gone if any property in MyType is required.
But my question are:

*

*How is the TS compiler OK with myTest1 but not with myTests4 or myTests5?

*Is there a way to redefine the typing of the above function that would disallow users returning any items in cb that is not an object?

A: The TypeScript type system isn't completely sound, so there are some inconsistencies that people occasionally trip over.  Assignability/compatibility/subtyping should be transitive, so if X extends Y is true and Y extends Z is true then X extends Z should also be true.  But this is sometimes violated in TypeScript:
let x: number = 1;
let y: {} = x; // okay
let z: { a?: string } = y; // okay

z = x; // error!

Here you can see that while y = x is allowed, and z = x is allowed, the direct assignment z = x is prohibited.  This inconsistency is responsible for the weirdness you're seeing.  If the compiler notices that you are widening number to {a?: string} it will complain, but if there is an intermediate widening to {} it will not complain.
In
const myTests1 = f(() => [1, {}])

the compiler takes the array literal [1, {}] and infers it to have the type {}[].  This is inference to the "best common type" of number and {}, which is {}.  At this point you've lost, since from then on the compiler makes sure that {} is assignable to {a?: string}, which it is, and no error occurs.
To some extent, this built-in inconsistency means that there's no way to prevent the kind of problem you're seeing in all situations.  All you can hope to do is work around it and perhaps change your definition of f() to make the problem less likely to appear.

One way to do so might be as follows:
const f = <T extends MyType[]>(
  cb: (() => readonly [...T])
): readonly [...T] => cb()

Here I've replaced T with readonly [...T].  This is a variadic tuple type which is nearly the same as T.  But when the compiler sees [...T] it takes it as a hint that it should try to infer a tuple type instead of an unordered array type.
And so then the array literal [1, {}] is inferred to be of the type [number, {}] instead of {}[].  And this preserves the number type long enough for the compiler to notice that it is not assignable to {a?: string}:
const myTests1 = f(() => [1, {}]) // error!
// ---------------------> ~
// Type 'number' has no properties in common with type 'MyType'.

There are observable differences between T and readonly [...T] (e.g., if T is not readonly then readonly [...T] will be) so this approach might not work for all possible use cases.  And even with this approach, all it does is make the issue less likely; it doesn't eliminate it:
const myTests6 = f(() => {
  const ret = [1, {}]; // const ret: {}[]
  return ret;
}) // no error

Here, the type of ret is inferred to be {}[] inside the body of the callback function, independently of how f() is typed.  Contextual typing can't reach back through the return ret line to the definition of ret.
Playground link to code


APA Member Services Help - What is a Defensive Shot?
All Categories > Rules Questions > What is a Defensive Shot?
Instructional video showing how to properly recognize defensive shots while playing pool in the APA Pool League featuring pro player and APA Co-Founder Terry Bell. If you have questions about Defensive Shots or how to keep score, please contact your local League Operator.


text:
Role of Political Rhetoric on Diversity
With the recent Brexit win, one can surmise some underlying factors that could have led to the favorable support for the "Leave" vote:
-Political rhetorics fueling fear or suspicion of immigrants; -Exploiting the less advantaged sectors of society; -Exclusivist attitude
While these may not be what could have really driven the Brexit vote, as some are saying that the Brexit vote is even a vote for diversity, as one opinion article tries to describe it in the sense that Japan is able to maintain its disctinct culture, even as it builds relationships with other countries through trade and socio-cultural exchanges: "Those who oppose this homogenization with Europe tend to be those who voted to exit the EU. As much as anything, the polls show, they took the long view, protecting that which made them culturally distinctive, even if it came at a financial cost," – it is clear that the above mentioned can impact the diversity efforts of any organization, society and country.
A look at Trump's campaign makes it clear his statements on minorities, such as Hispanics and Blacks show he does not have a high regard of them.
And it can also stoke negative feeling towards these specific groups of people, and other individuals/groups perceived to be — *stealing jobs, health/social benefits and other opportunities from them; *terrorists out to carry evil acts on American soil;
His trademark use of "we" reveals such an exclusivist mentality, which betrays the very ideals upon which this great nation has been founded. A report by The Atlantic quoted Trump as saying in his victory speech when it was apparent that he had become his party's presumptive presidential nominee: "We're going to bring back our jobs, and we're going to save our jobs, and people are going to have great jobs again, and this country, which is very, very divided in so many different ways, is going to become one beautiful loving country, and we're going to love each other, we're going to cherish each other and take care of each other, and we're going to have great economic development and we're not going to let other countries take it away from us, because that's what's been happening for far too many years and we're not going to do it anymore," he said. […] "We're going to have great relationships with the Hispanics," he said. "The Hispanics have been so incredible to me. They want jobs. Everybody wants jobs. The African Americans want jobs. If you look at what's going on, they want jobs."
The use of "we" and "they" when referring to others sets the tone of excluding others; it puts up a psychological barrier between ourselves and others, thus making it hard to forge mutual understanding, better appreciation of the differences and similarities that make up who we are – as individuals, groups, nations.
The use of language – the way we convey our messages – is such a powerful psychological tool, and an exclusive language is always a barrier to unity, cooperation and meaningful relationships.
Here is an excerpt on the psychology of language use: …our everyday language use often ends up maintaining the existing structure of intergroup relationships. Language use can have implications for how we construe our social world. For one thing, there are subtle cues that people use to convey the extent to which someone's action is just a special case in a particular context or a pattern that occurs across many contexts and more like a character trait of the person. According to Semin and Fiedler (1988), someone's action can be described by an action verb that describes a concrete action (e.g., he runs), a state verb that describes the actor's psychological state (e.g., he likes running), an adjective that describes the actor's personality (e.g., he is athletic), or a noun that describes the actor's role (e.g., he is an athlete).[…] Intriguingly, people tend to describe positive actions of their ingroup members using adjectives (e.g., he is generous) rather than verbs (e.g., he gave a blind man some change), and negative actions of outgroup members using adjectives (e.g., he is cruel) rather than verbs (e.g., he kicked a dog). Maass, Salvi, Arcuri, and Semin (1989) called this a linguistic intergroup bias, which can produce and reproduce the representation of intergroup relationships by painting a picture favoring the ingroup. That is, ingroup members are typically good, and if they do anything bad, that's more an exception in special circumstances; in contrast, outgroup members are typically bad, and if they do anything good, that's more an exception.
It behooves political leaders and politicians of all persuasions and class to use language in a positive way, so that diversity and inclusion can be promoted. Through their language use, those in power and authority can either create walls or bring them down.
Yet, some public leaders and personalities can be devoid of such sensitivity and compassion, and overcome with personal agendas, so they tend to cater to unfounded fears and biases of people with not enough knowledge and understanding of people, events and situations.
It takes political will to make diversity working in all strata and sectors of society, yet political rhetorics that pander to populist sentiments can undermine diversity initiatives, or as in the Brexit case, populist Nigel Farage was said to stoke up fear or anger towards immigrants due to perceived threats from them focusing, obsessively, on the threat from immigrants, both from inside the EU and out, thus the LEAVE votes taking over the REMAIN votes.
It also takes political maturity for people to discern whether their rational fear of terrorism, or non-acceptance of other people's faith or beliefs are being exploited by some politicians to suit their personal agendas.
As this article explains, there is such a thing as Terror Management Theory, which was developed in the 1980s by a group of social psychologists, and said to be based on human awareness of the inevitability of death.
According to the theory, people become anxious and scared when they're reminded of this fact. This fear, in turn, makes them more likely to coalesce around a shared identity or worldview: a religion, country, culture or ideology. […]
Images of the aftermath of terrorist acts such as the horrific 9-11 tragedy are an effective means of reminding people of their human frailty, the article said. After attacks, politicians sometimes seek to capitalize on this vulnerability, turning speeches and press conferences into opportunities to rhetorically place the "nation" and cherished "freedoms" as at risk. The attack on a few becomes an attack on all. When speakers do this successfully, they are able to unite voters through a sense of shared threat.
The world, not only America, faces all kinds of challenges: rising unemployment, unabated poverty, climate change, violence, terrorism, to name a few, and the last thing humanity needs are walls that isolate us from one another and weaken our defenses.


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Azalea Acres is a quiet community located in Norfolk VA. This beautiful, established community appeals to a wide range of buyers and is especially attractive for those looking for a starter or investment home. Many homes in the community feature desirable upgrades and remodels that help them meet the needs of modern homeowners. Yards in Azalea Acres tend to be on the more spacious side -- perfect for outdoor recreation, pets, gardening and outdoor entertaining.