We’re excited to announce VMware Workstation 11 and Player 7 Pro today with general availability in December 2014.

VMware Workstation 11

VMware Workstation™ 11 delivers leading-edge features and performance that technical professionals rely on every day when working with virtual machines. With support for the latest version of Windows and Linux, the latest processors and hardware, and the ability to connect to VMware vCloud Air, VMware Workstation is the perfect tool to increase productivity, save time and leverage the cloud.

VMware Workstation 11 updates include:

Ready for Windows 10 Tech Preview – Run hundreds of operating systems including the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Tech Preview. Technical users can also run the latest Linux distributions including Ubuntu 14.10, RHEL 7, CentOS 7, Fedora 20, Debian 7.6 and many more.

– Run hundreds of operating systems including the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Tech Preview. Technical users can also run the latest Linux distributions including Ubuntu 14.10, RHEL 7, CentOS 7, Fedora 20, Debian 7.6 and many more. State of the Art Performance – VMware Workstation supports the latest Intel 64-bit x86 processors, including the new Haswell microarchitecture for maximum performance. Taking advantage of key new Haswell extensions, the solution also delivers up to 45 percent improvement in CPU intensive operations like multimedia and encryption/decryption compared to Workstation 10.

– VMware Workstation supports the latest Intel 64-bit x86 processors, including the new Haswell microarchitecture for maximum performance. Taking advantage of key new Haswell extensions, the solution also delivers up to 45 percent improvement in CPU intensive operations like multimedia and encryption/decryption compared to Workstation 10. Powerful Virtual Machines and Graphics – Create virtual machines with up to 16 vCPUs, 8 TB virtual disks, 64 GB memory, and now 2GB video memory. Graphics-intensive applications can now be given an additional boost by allocating up to 2 GB of video memory per virtual machine.

– Create virtual machines with up to 16 vCPUs, 8 TB virtual disks, 64 GB memory, and now 2GB video memory. Graphics-intensive applications can now be given an additional boost by allocating up to 2 GB of video memory per virtual machine. Connection to VMware vCloud Air – Connect to VMware vCloud Air to extend and scale virtual machines on a public cloud. Developers can easily connect to VMware vCloud Air and upload, run, and view virtual machines right from the Workstation interface to easily collaborate with remote team members and scale through a public cloud.

VMware Player 7 Pro

VMware Player 7 Pro™ is a streamlined desktop virtualization application that runs multiple operating systems on the same computer without rebooting. With its simple user interface, unmatched operating system support and portability, it’s now easier than ever for IT professionals to get their users up and running with a corporate desktop. Player 7 Pro is licensed for commercial use and is enabled to run restricted virtual machines created by VMware Workstation 11 and Fusion® Pro 7.

Key Features Include:

Enhanced Operating System Compatibility – VMware Player 7 Pro will run on the latest release of Windows including Windows 8.1 and will support prevalent operating systems like Windows XP and Windows 7 in a virtual environment so users can continue to run legacy applications as long as they need.

– VMware Player 7 Pro will run on the latest release of Windows including Windows 8.1 and will support prevalent operating systems like Windows XP and Windows 7 in a virtual environment so users can continue to run legacy applications as long as they need. Greater Hardware Compatibility – VMware Player 7 Pro will be optimized to run on today’s modern hardware including the latest PC laptops and high-resolution tablets.

– VMware Player 7 Pro will be optimized to run on today’s modern hardware including the latest PC laptops and high-resolution tablets. Updated VMware Compatibility – VMware Player 7 Pro will be able to run restricted virtual machines created by VMware Workstation 11 or VMware Fusion 7 Pro. Restricted virtual machines secure corporate desktops with encryption, runtime password protection, USB access restriction, isolation between the host and guest OS, and time limitation.

New System Requirements

While 32 bit operating systems are supported inside virtual machines, VMware Workstation 11 and Player 7 Pro will require 64 bit processor and 64 bit host operating systems for advanced computing and enhanced performance.

Availability and Pricing

VMware Workstation 11 and VMware Player 7 Pro will be available for purchase in December for $249.99 and $149.99 respectively. Upgrades from VMware Workstation 9.x and 10.x to Workstation 11 will be priced at $149.99 and upgrades from VMware Player 6 Plus to VMware Player 7 Pro will be priced at $79.99, at the time of availability.

Customers who purchase VMware Workstation 10 and VMware Player 6 Plus between October 2014 and December 2014 will receive a free electronic upgrade to VMware Workstation 11 and VMware Player 7 Pro respectively. For more details, visit the upgrade page.


Back in the 1990s, Steve Rambam posed as a university researcher to get war criminals to tell him their stories.

In Hope, B.C., he interviewed Antanas Kenstavicius.

“He was a police chief in Lithuania and his unit, under supervision of Germans, rounded up 5,000 Jews. They were locked up for a week, the women raped, their belongings looted. Then they lined them up naked in the ditch… it took them six days to kill them all by gunfire. This guy was telling me all this matter-of-factly. He told me: ‘Then on Nov. 19, no more Jews.’”

It took them six days to kill them all by gunfire. This guy was telling me all this matter-of-factly

Proceedings to deport Mr. Kenstavicius began in 1997; the 90-year-old died the same day.

The case was not the first, or last, Canadian failure to bring suspected Nazi war criminals to justice.

Nazi hunter @StevenRambam to speak in Toronto, June 24. Fundraiser for United Chesed unitedchesed.com/store/c1/Featu… http://t.co/j7ePBd2mr0 —

Dave Gordon (@davegordonwrite) May 13, 2014

It is estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 war criminals fled to Canada after the Second World War, but not one Nazi has ever been successfully prosecuted in this country.

“It is to the Canadian government’s great and eternal shame that more was not done,” said Mr. Rambam, the renowned “Nazi hunter” who will be in Toronto on Tuesday for a charity event.

Activists say it’s not too late for Canada to act. A handful of cases are still actionable.

Looking back, a key problem was that for decades Canada did not actively pursue suspected war criminals, and when it did decide to launch proceedings they were done badly and ineffectively, said David Matas, senior legal counsel of B’nai Brith Canada.

“Canada started too late; there were just too many perpetrators; too much evidence had been destroyed or lost. The effort was more an attempt to construct a justice legacy for the victims of the Holocaust,” said Mr. Matas.

The seeds of Canada’s inaction were sown three years after the end of the war. The allied powers decided that prosecuting war criminals would end and the British Commonwealth Relations Office wrote to the dominions explaining the policy.

The punishment of war criminals is more a matter of discouraging future generations, than of meting out retribution

“In our view, the punishment of war criminals is more a matter of discouraging future generations, than of meting out retribution to every guilty individual,” wrote the department, as revealed by Franklin Bialystok in his book Delayed Impact: The Holocaust and the Canadian Jewish Community.

The letter went on to say it was “now necessary to dispose of the past as soon as possible.”

In 1985, pressure from the Jewish community led Brian Mulroney to set up a Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, headed by Jules Deschênes. The Deschênes Commission put forward the names of 883 suspects.

From 1987 to 1992 just 26 cases were filed before the justice system; charges were laid under the Criminal Code in four cases.

The man in the dock in 1987 was Imre Finta, the first suspect to be accused under new laws on war crimes. Mr. Finta, who came to Canada in 1948 and died here in 2003, was accused of being a key official in the rounding up of Jews in Szeged, Hungary, in 1944 and sending them to Auschwitz and to Strasshof.

His acquittal in 1990 shut down any hope of winning criminal proceedings against Nazi war criminals.

“Finta presented no evidence to answer the charges against him,” Mr. Matas said. “When asked if he wanted to call evidence on his own behalf at his criminal trial he declined. Yet he was acquitted.”

Why? The courts allowed a defence that said believing Jews to be the enemy was a legitimate reason for killing them.

Two appeal courts agreed.

Parliament later legislated to overturn the reasoning in the Finta case in 2005. But by then it was too late to recommence prosecutions, Mr. Matas said.

After the failure of criminal prosecutions, the government in 1995 announced it would use such administrative measures as revoking citizenship and ordering deportation.

Under this new course of action, two men were extradited and five deported.

Bernie Farber, former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, calls a 90-year-old Kitchener, Ont., man, Helmut Oberlander, the “final symbol” of Canada’s failure on this issue.

In fact, three cases could still be acted on: those of Mr. Oberlander, Vladimir Katriuk, and Wasyl Odynsky.

Mr. Oberlander was part of a Nazi killing squad, Einsatzkommando 10a, which operated in the eastern occupied territories during the Second World War. Mr. Oberlander admits to serving with the “German armed forces” but says he never subscribed to the Nazi ideology or participated in any killings.

A judge ruled in 2000 that Mr. Oberlander worked, lived, and travelled as an interpreter for a Nazi mobile death squad and, although there was no evidence he participated in atrocities, he must have been aware of them.

Mr. Oberlander has been fighting attempts to strip him of his citizenship and deport him since 1995.

There is no justification for continuing to give him a haven

In 2008, he was stripped of his citizenship for a second time, but in 2009, the Federal Court of Appeal instructed the federal cabinet to reconsider because of Mr. Oberlander’s assertion that he joined the squad as an interpreter under duress.

In 2012, Mr. Oberlander, a Ukrainian Canadian, was again stripped of his citizenship and immediately mounted a counter challenge. The Federal Court heard the appeal in February this year, but has not yet released a decision.

Mr. Oberlander could not be contacted for comment.

Vladimir Katriuk, ranked No. 4 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s most-wanted list, came to Canada under a false name in 1951.

In 1999, the Federal Court ruled he had obtained his Canadian citizenship by misrepresentation, but found there was no evidence he had committed atrocities. The cabinet decided in 2007 not to revoke his citizenship

New evidence in the case came when declassified records released in 2008 documented that a man with the same name as Mr. Katriuk, currently in his 90s and living on a farm in Ormstown, outside of Montreal, was a commander of a platoon in a battalion that perpetrated a massacre in a Belarusian village in 1943, and that he personally opened fire with a machine gun.

B’nai Brith wrote to the government in 2011 urging that the government reverse the Katriuk decision.

“The information we now know about Mr. Katriuk makes it unconscionable for the existing decision … to stand. There is no justification for continuing to give him a haven in Canada,” it said.

The organization never got a response.

Mr. Katruik has consistently refused to talk publicly about his past. His wife told the National Post on Thursday that he would not be answering any questions.

Wasyl Odynsky came to Canada in 1949. Mr. Odynsky, 90, who had been living in Toronto but whose whereabouts are not known, was accused of serving as a guard at two forced labour camps and in an SS battalion. While a Federal Court ruled in 2001 that he had lied to gain entry to Canada, it also found that he was unlikely to have participated in a massacre of Jewish captives.

In 2007 the government decided not to take away his citizenship.

B’nai B’rith is also challenging that decision.

Mr. Rambam, the U.S. private investigator who will speak at an event for impoverished Jews in Toronto on Tuesday, believes scores of war criminals are still living in Canada.

“Entire units came en masse into Canada through Halifax in the 1940s,” he said. “Canada knew at that time who they were.

“If there are a few cases that can still be brought, just for the sake of doing the right thing, then that should happen.”

“None will live long enough to make it to trial, they will hire excellent lawyers. … They’ll delay and throw legal roadblocks in the way until they have died safely in their beds, but it’s the point of doing it.”

It was the justice system itself that in the end let us down

Mr. Rambam interviewed 72 out of a list of 1,000 suspected Nazis living in Canada. His work was sent to the authorities, but he said little was done.

“It’s a stain on the history of Canada,” he said.

Mr. Farber views things slightly differently.

“The government did look at this matter with laser focus, so I think we have to give them credit … they tried. It was the justice system itself that in the end let us down.”

Paloma Aguilar, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, said individuals who have been involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity would find no haven in Canada.

“The Deschênes Commission put forward the names of 883 suspects. To this day, federal authorities have investigated upward of 2,000 files,” she said.

“The government continues to receive allegations, all of which are examined.”

National Post


Sausage Party has become the surprise hit of a summer sorely lacking in them, making almost $37 million on a $19 million budget. Well, now animators are speaking out about how the film kept costs down.

Stories about horrible working conditions first started coming out in the comments of a Cartoon Brew interview with directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon. Anonymous commenters claiming to have worked on the film flooded the article with complaints about working for Nitrogen Studios. Here are a few examples:

The production cost were kept low because Greg would demand people work overtime for free. If you wouldn’t work late for free your work would be assigned to someone who would stay late or come in on the weekend. Some artist were even threatened with termination for not staying late to hit a deadline.

Almost half the animation team was not credited. The team believed in this film and poured their hearts and souls into it. Despite this, more than half of it was not credited. You can see the full team on IMDB, which contains 83 people (and I am certain there are some missing). The film’s credits, however, contains 47.

All of the comments are truth or maybe rather written too lightly. I personally know & witnessed many other incidents during the production; such as an “Open Letter” to the clients, and how Greg threatened artists for it. I cannot put more details because I’m scared of revealing my identity.. and *I really want to keep working in this industry* Sickening how one can brag about production cost, when he was the one who demanded artists to work for free, otherwise get fired.

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It made sense that the commenters were anonymous: everyone was afraid of reprisals, especially since the stories included Tiernan threatening to ruin people’s careers. But, of course, that also made it hard to verify.

Now Variety has talked to the animators while keeping their names out of the story. And it all sounds true. The “Open Letter” referenced above was a petition sent to Annapurna Pictures—the production company behind the film—by the animators telling them about the conditions. According an animator, one of the reasons they had to send a letter to the clients was because the person that received the complaints about Nitrogen was Nicole Stine, Tiernan’s wife.

“There was no one you could go to,” the animator told Variety. “It was uncomfortable.”

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Nitrogen Studios is based in Vancouver, and conditions similar to these are apparently the norm in non-US-based animation studios. It’s a combination of an overabundance worldwide of animators, making it hard to rock the boat when you know it’s easy to be replaced, and Canada providing tax incentives for productions. In Los Angeles, animators are unionized and have protections workers in other countries just don’t have.

Sony, which distributed the film, and Annapurna didn’t comment on the Variety story, while Tiernan told Variety that the complaints were “without merit” and wouldn’t explain why they existed, if they weren’t true. “We take these things seriously and don’t want to ignore these claims,” he said.

Now that complaints been made public, they can’t.

[Variety]


This week's edition of Critical Reception examines online reaction to People Can Fly's first-person shooter, which reviews describe as "an intelligent, nuanced design with fathoms of depth."currently earns a score of 86 out of 100 at Metacritic.com.David Houghton at Games Radar scoresat 10 out of 10 . "," he begins, "is a very intelligent, highly intricate, and sumptuously nuanced design masquerading as a big dumb action game. In fact it's such an evolution of the FPS experience that it's very probably destined for that pantheon of rare games to be deemed worthy of the word 'important' in a couple of years time."is not just a shooter," Houghton explains. "In fact, once you've taken the time to really explore its depths, you'll realise that being a shooter is just one small part of what it's about. It's just as much a 3D puzzle game, high-speed strategy game, and even, if you really get into it, a bit of a maths challenge too."'s combo system proves to be a compelling mechanic. "You're constantly judged on the complexity and inventiveness of your kills, and scores decrease with repetition," Houghton says."The points you score for clever killing are the currency you use to buy new weapons, as well as functionality upgrades for your existing ones. Every gun and additional perk is meticulously designed to integrate with and balance against the others, opening up a pantheon of new options with each one that's added to the mix."These options make up's comprehensive list of Skill Shots, a line-up of circumstantial kills and stacked combos detailed in the pause menu, which comprise every possible violent interaction you'll concoct and plenty you won't. We're talking well over a hundred individual 'moves' here, with an accessible freedom of blendability that evokes the glory days of's combo system."This ultimately defines the experience, according to Houghton. "None of this creative killing is any mere gimmick. It all serves serious purpose," Houghton says. "The kind of interactions most games save for their most inventive Achievements or Trophies,builds its core game around. And when you really start plumbing its depths you'll discover a sense of personal involvement and purpose within its world that genuinely is groundbreaking.""Forget your preconceptions ofas a foul-mouthed big dumb action game," Houghton writes. "It's an intelligent, nuanced design with fathoms of depth, which marks a return to the importance of player creativity in shooters and simultaneously evolves the concept of interactivity in an FPS world. And with two cleverly complimentary secondary modes, it will have serious legs for a good long while to come."IGN's Arthur Gies ratesat 8 out of 10 . "At face value I shouldn't like," he begins. "It comes off as obnoxious and crass, full of toilet humor, emphasizing a sort of dickish boldness and attitude that's been driven into the ground by countless shooters over the last few years.""So it's a surprise then thatis actually something kind of special," Gies says. "Sure, it's still brash, and it's still full of toilet humor, but with context,is a violently charming popcorn shooter that plays well with some great design."Gies praises's Leash weapon, in particular. "The Leash allows Grayson to snag enemies and fling them into the air in slow motion, and its AI has been designed to evaluate combat performance � it rewards balls-out combat bravado in the form of points that can be redeemed at Confederate resupply pods scattered around the planet," he explains. "By combining shots to specific appendages and/or bathing suit areas with standing and sliding kicks, the Leash, and various environmental hazards, you'll discover a variety of named kill combos that reward more points than standard shots."Gies continues: "The Leash AI takes all of's unique and genre-defying mechanical elements and makes sense of them within its own particular reality. It's... smart. Who'd have thought, particularly given the throwback nature of's first person shooting? There's no cover, enemies aren't especially smart, and levels are a straight shot from A to B, butstill impresses. In tandem with shooting that feels responsive and meaty, with powerful, interesting weapons, the combo system makes's combat a success."disappoints with its omission of cooperative play, however. "The time-and-score-attack Echo mode is a nice enough inclusion with its online-enabled leaderboards, but why isn't there leaderboard-enabled campaign scoring in the main game?" Gies asks. "Campaign co-op also seems like a missed opportunity; you have at least one AI partner at all times in, which makes the solo-only nature of the main game that much more jarring. Campaign leaderboards would help give replay value to a main game that I finished in less than six hours, and Echo just didn't hold my attention."demonstrates the value of 'why' for action games," Gies asserts. "Taken out of the context of its fiction, People Can Fly would have something fun but forgettable on their hands, but the wayfits together results in something cool and memorable. Multiplayer failings notwithstanding,shines as a single-player shooter."Taylor Cocke at 1UP.com gives a B- grade . "Billed as the 'antidote' to the modern shooter,is certainly on a much higher level of ridiculousness than, say, thefranchise or the recent reboot of," he notes. "Even its sister series,, which is over-the-top in its own right, can't keep up with's old school, hyper masculine tendencies. And yet, it doesn't go quite far enough."Cocke finds that's limp narrative is one of its greatest shortcomings. "Unfortunately,doesn't manage to escape the pitfalls of those it seemingly attempts to lampoon," he explains. "The story revolves around Grayson's obsession with taking down his former commanding officer Serrano for a past deception that caused Grayson and his covert operations unit, Dead Echo, to assassinate various innocent citizens under the pretense that they were enemies of the state. Of course, upon discovering that fact, Grayson declares that he'll have his revenge. Sound too serious? It really is."Cocke continues: "All the game needed to was a simple excuse to go on a rampage, not a deep motivation to appease some sort of indignant revenge desire. For a game ostensibly based around absurd violence and 'killing with skill', the seriousness of the plot feels like a misstep."This softens the impact of's over-the-top gameplay. "There's a discrepancy between the Skillshot-heavy gameplay and the overtly serious plot that drags the campaign down," Cocke writes. "While I attempted to have a good time with action and vulgar jokes, the plot intruded. All I wanted to do was kick fools into massive cactus spikes (for the Pricked Skillshot, of course), but I the generic, all too serious plot points simply took my maniacal murderous rage, previously aimed at the on-screen enemies, and redirected it right back at the unnecessarily humorless plot."is a game unsure of what it wants to achieve," Cocke concludes. "When it lets itself, it's a fantastic adrenaline rush through well-constructed set-pieces and gloriously fun-to-watch violence. But it too often drags itself down with overly structured situations and restrictive, strategy-heavy gameplay."It feels like if chaos had been allowed to take the design process over, this could have had one of the most fun shooters of our generation, but as it stands,is a mechanically enjoyable game that's missing what it needed to be great."


Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were asked directly if Donald Trump is a racist at Wednesday’s Democratic debate in Miami.

“Secretary Clinton, you have known Donald Trump a long time. You have seen what kind of campaign he’s running,” the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty said 20 minutes into the debate. “Secretary Clinton, is Donald Trump a racist?”

Clinton first said she prefers to keep the Democratic primary about Democrats, then reiterated her criticisms of Trump’s xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric — and added a splash of spanish.

“I was the first one to call him out. I called him out when he was calling Mexicans rapists, when he was engaging in rhetoric that I found deeply offensive. I said basta,” she said, drawing applause from the room. “And I am pleased that others are also joining in making clear that his rhetoric, his demagoguery, his trafficking in prejudice and paranoia has no place in our political system. Especially from somebody running for president who couldn’t decide whether or not to disavow the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke.”

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Pressed by Tumulty, she again demurred from the journalist’s label but said the Democratic nominee “can make the case against him, if he is the nominee, by pointing out what he has said, what he claims to believe in, the values he’s promoting. I think that’s a better way for the American people to draw their conclusions.”

Tumulty put the question differently to Sanders, asking if it was fair to say Trump is racist. Sanders also declined to provide a direct yes-or-no. After saying that Americans will never elect someone who insults Mexicans, Muslims, women, and African-Americans, Sanders pointed out Trump’s prominent role in a racist smear of Barack Obama.

“And let us not forget that several years ago Trump was in the middle of the so-called Birther movement trying to delegitimize the President of the United States of America,” Sanders continued, to applause. “My dad was born in Poland and I know a little bit about the immigrant experience. Nobody has ever asked me for my birth certificate. Maybe it has something to do with the color of my skin.”

Meanwhile on the right, Trump’s rise has helped reinvigorate avowed white supremacist groups. “Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,” Stormfront founder Don Black recently told Politico.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center’s recent report on white nationalist activity in 2015 found a 14 percent rise in the number of hate groups, and cites other research finding more people were killed by domestic terrorists in 2015 than in any year since 1995. According to the group, this moment is comparable in radical white racist activity to 1968, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In a sense, then, the Grand Old Party is coming full circle on its long-running strategic deployment of coded racism that prominent Republican strategist Lee Atwater described at the dawn of the Reagan era.


Fireworks black market: Experts struggle to halt sale of illegal crackers

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Pyrotechnics experts are warning it will be difficult to stop Australia's dangerous underground market of illegal professional-grade fireworks.

Police are urging people to hand in their stashes of illegal fireworks before Australia Day, as they investigate two deaths from accidents with the devices.

A 52-year-old man on the NSW Central Coast and a 46-year-old man in Victoria's Gippsland died after they attempted to set off illegal crackers on New Year's Eve.

Australia's fireworks industry is made up of between 250 to 300 companies.

Christian Howard, the president of the Pyrotechnics Industry Association, said the black market fireworks were sourced from legal suppliers in Australia, rather than imported from overseas.

"I think the legal market of suppliers sell to the legal users, that they potentially on-sell them to the illegal market," he said.

"So there's a supply chain that's all legal and then at some point people start selling them to the public.

"I think there is a small amount of direct import but I think that's actually been slowed down in the last 10 years. It's very difficult to export them and import them into the country."

Mr Howard admits it will be difficult to stop the black market in illegal fireworks.

"There was a person selling fireworks out of a white van in Western Sydney and one of my colleagues who worked in the area just advised me that they were there.

"We alerted the authorities.

"They worked out he'd sold several hundred cartons of fireworks per year, just as a one person driving around in a van making a lot of cash on the side."

That person was linked back to a legal supply chain.

"In actual fact, he had a licence to use pyrotechnics but he would buy them and not use them, he would buy them and sell them, which is illegal because you need a licence to sell."

Fireworks are also freely for sale on the internet, including on Facebook.

"We take a lot of time and energy to make sure as an industry that we are safe with storage, handling, using, transporting and then the fact that then anyone can then buy them or sell them online and the general public is then using fireworks," Mr Howard said.

"And probably most of the time they are not low-level fireworks, they are probably the professional-grade, high-altitude aerial shells, which are very dangerous."

'Hand them in', police warn

The sale of fireworks is banned in Australia, except on a single day in the Northern Territory, and under tight controls in Tasmania.

The deaths of two men on New Year's Eve are believed to be the first deaths from illegal crackers in four years.

Victoria's Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp has urged people who may be holding onto illegal fireworks for Australia Day to hand them in.

"If you have illegal fireworks hand them in, report to Victoria police report to Worksafe, if you know of someone whose got illegal fireworks, similarly report it.

"How would you feel if you knew someone was about to let off illegal fireworks and it resulted in serious injury or the death of another person?"

Topics: accidents---other, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, law-crime-and-justice, crime, australia, nsw, vic


Watergate veterans have seen this movie before about a president firing his attorney general to stop an investigation.

It didn’t work back then, and the consensus among three Watergate insiders interviewed by The Daily Beast is that it won’t work now. Just as the Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973 marked the beginning of the end for President Nixon, who resigned in August 1974, President Trump would grease the skids for himself if he tries to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions with someone who would fire special counsel Robert Mueller.

“Mueller is the kind of guy who would say, ‘Fire me without cause, and I’m going to Court.’ And that could end up strengthening the Special Counsel,” says John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel during much of Watergate.

“They can’t just cook up a PR campaign. It’s like the Muslim ban. You just can’t do it and pretend there’s cause. The courts could come in and play havoc with Trump. It’s amazing the institutions are working exactly the way they should. It’s a pleasant surprise.”

Conservative backing for the embattled Sessions appears to have scared Trump off Sessions, at least for now, as some Republicans are beginning to show some backbone. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley tweeted that there is no room on the committee’s schedule to confirm a new AG—and if Trump tried to slip one in while the Senate was in recess, it would almost certainly trigger a constitutional crisis.

Public outrage forced Nixon to name a second special prosecutor to replace the fired Archibald Cox. The White House thought Texas lawyer Leon Jaworski wouldn’t be overly aggressive. After he heard the tape of Dean telling Nixon there is a “cancer on the presidency,” Jaworski told Dean he knew the president was “guilty as sin.”

I asked Dean if he thought we could get that kind of clarity today. After all, as Trump likes to point out, the FBI has been investigating the Russia connection for a year, and no one has been charged with a crime. “We’re in a different technical era,” Dean replied. “Who knows what’s out there today. Who knows what the NSA is sitting on. None of us have seen this intelligence.”

As news has poured in over the less than 200 days that Trump has served as president, people have forgotten how “agonizingly slow Watergate was,” says Dean.

Nixon’s resignation on Aug. 8, 1974 came 782 days after the June 17, 1972, break-in. It was 920 days after the break-in that a jury found former Attorney General John Mitchell and aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman guilty of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Elizabeth Holtzman was a member then of the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Democrat Peter Rodino in the Democratic controlled House, and in her telling, the Democrats took no action even as the taping system in the White House was disclosed, along with Dean’s “cancer on the presidency” and reports of the Watergate burglars being paid off with hush money (PDF). There were serious abuses of power, if not criminality by the president. In July of 1973, Father Drinan, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, filed an article of impeachment based on Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia.

“And nobody paid attention,” she says, even as Nixon was trying to dismantle a signature Great Society program, the Office of Economic Opportunity. “So you had the president thumbing his nose at limitations of power, but none of that moved anybody in the leadership of the House. Peter Rodino had no interest in impeachment. It was really forced by the American people.”

The trigger event was the Saturday Night Massacre. Members of the House were inundated with phone calls and telegrams. “The American people were outraged. It was an amazing shift in public opinion,” says Holtzman. “My office was flooded with messages. That’s what started the process [of impeachment]. It was not a partisan process.

“The lesson for Trump is if the American people realize that he’s threatening our democracy, and they don’t want to be a banana republic, the president can’t pick his prosecutor. They can force the Congress into action. Nixon had a huge landslide victory in 1972 and 11 months later, the Saturday Night Massacre was the beginning of the end. We expect our president to obey the law.”

When the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Elliot Richardson as Richard Kleindienst’s successor in May ’73, they made him name a special prosecutor to their liking, Archibald Cox, and pledge that he would not fire Cox except for “extraordinary improprieties,” a Justice Department regulation that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has adopted in saying he would not fire special counsel Robert Mueller except for “cause.”

Richard Ben-Veniste was one of the lead Watergate prosecutors, “following money to find a motive,” he recalled to The Daily Beast, from the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) and then ultimately the White House.

He explains that here, investigators are probing Trump’s financial dealings to determine whether they provide a motive for Trump asking Comey to go easy.

Ben-Veniste reminds those impatient with the pace of the Russia investigation that for a long period after the break-in, the White House was successful at deflecting investigative efforts to determine who sponsored it. Those efforts to deflect turned out to be obstruction of justice, so a separate crime was committed.

As today’s investigation unfolds, he cautions that “we are drifting into what may be uncharted waters if Trump makes good on his threat to fire Mueller. That would create a constitutional crisis.”

Asked how that might play out, he says it’s “unclear whether Trump would find anyone” to fire Mueller if Rosenstein refused. Asked how far down in the Justice Department Trump could go, Ben-Veniste said, “I don’t know if the elevator goes down that far.”

He concluded our conversation saying that if Trump does what everybody is advising him not to do, and one way or another, gets rid of Mueller, it will come down to “whether Republicans in Congress can put country above party. Our system will be severely tested, and we will find out whether we are a government of laws, where the rule of law is respected, or whether an outrage like firing a person lawfully appointed is acceptable to one political party.”

If Trump understood Watergate, he’d be having second thoughts about trying to push out Sessions, says Dean.

Unlike Sessions, who has significant support both in the Senate and in the conservative media, Kleindienst was easy to toss overboard. During marathon confirmation hearings over a record 22 days, he repeatedly perjured himself on his knowledge of an antitrust case that involved a $400,000 payoff to the 1972 Republican convention. The case had nothing to do with Watergate, but Kleindienst resigned under fire the same day (April 30, 1973) that Nixon announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and fired Dean.

At least Nixon didn’t trash Kleindienst in public, I ventured in my conversation with Dean. “Nixon did that in private,” he said, before there was Twitter. “There’s no one who worked for Nixon he hadn’t trashed on the tapes.”

Dean calls the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in September of 1971 the reason the White House was so concerned about the Watergate break-in. Gordon Liddy, who headed the White House Plumbers unit (named for its initial mission of plugging leaks), had used two of the same guys, who were now in jail and could tie the break-ins to the White House. “Otherwise we would have cut the Re-Elect loose,” says Dean.

Liddy’s plan had gotten shot down twice before Mitchell signed off, saying, “give them $250,000 and see what they come up with.”

The casual straying from dirty tricks to criminal behavior is striking. “We wrote the book on what not to do, and Trump doesn’t seem to have any knowledge of what’s in that book,” says Dean.

“A lot of Watergate is just bungling—it’s pure bungling—stupid things, like not hiring a lawyer. I tried to get Ehrlichman to agree to a criminal lawyer on my staff after Liddy confessed to me the same people were used in the Ellsberg break-in—the first I heard of the Ellsberg break-in. Ehrlichman shot me down.”

After he left the White House, Dean learned of a handwritten memo signed by Ehrlichman authorizing the Ellsberg break-in “as long as it is not traceable to the White House.” It was an options memo on how to deal with Ellsberg, who had released the Pentagon Papers, and one of the options suggested by the Plumbers was to enter his psychiatrist’s office, take his files and use them to discredit him.

Nixon launched into the cover-up very early, not because anybody told him about the Ellsberg situation, but because he was concerned about Mitchell, says Dean. “But for John Mitchell, he never would have become president. Mitchell is to Nixon what Trump’s family is to him—you can’t get any closer.” When Nixon came to New York from California, Mitchell set him up as a partner in a prestigious law firm, put money in his pocket, and when Nixon decided to run again in 1968, Mitchell ran the campaign.

Mitchell didn’t want to be attorney general, according to Dean, but Nixon insisted, and the president was very worried on a personal level about Mitchell. “And that comes through on the tapes,” says Dean. “Four days after the arrest of the Watergate burglars, there’s a conversation where Nixon says, ‘Let’s just put all the facts out, put this thing behind us—but if that’s going to hurt Mitchell, we can’t do it.

“That was a bungle,” says Dean. At every point where they could have cut their losses, they dug in deeper, and the crimes piled up under the heading conspiracy to obstruct justice. There was also the cover-up Nixon got away with, says Dean, by intentionally disrupting President Johnson’s efforts to get peace in 1968.

Nixon biographer John Farrell found the evidence in Haldeman’s notes, “and if that isn’t treason it sure does look, feel and smell like it,” says Dean. “It was long suspected that Nixon wanted to break into the Brookings Institution when he heard they had ‘bombing halt’ papers. He might have been worried they had papers somehow showing what he had done with South Vietnam.”

The Republic survived Watergate and people thought the safeguards put in place afterward ensured that a scandal of that magnitude could never happen again. Forty government officials were indicted or went to jail. One Senate investigator who did not want to give his name told The Daily Beast, “In retrospect, everyone in the administration who got anywhere near Watergate, even tangentially, lied or sat still while other people lied. It was a lesson in an administration going absolutely wild. My whole generation of lawyers and politicians feel this is history repeating itself—the same personal characteristics, personal weaknesses, the same personal desire to acquire and embrace power.”

Some people saved their reputation then, notably Attorney General Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, who defied Nixon’s order to fire the special prosecutor. We’re waiting for today’s profiles in courage. There should be ample opportunity.


China’s Digging

Since the industrialization of coal, the world has sourced much of its energy from fossil fuels. While the global energy landscape has started to change again over the past several years, with the introduction of more renewable and cleaner sources, fossil fuels are still the main source of much of today’s energy. However, it looks like China has now found a way to access a previously elusive source of energy.

Reports from China’s Ministry of Land and Resources claim that the country has successfully extracted methane hydrate — also known as “flammable ice” — from beneath the South China Sea, just 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Hong Kong.

“We brought the gas to the surface and have lit it up since May 10. By now, the drill has been running continually for eight days,” project leader and deputy chief engineer at the China Geological Survey Ye Jianliang told the South China Morning Post. “The daily output [of gas] exceeds 10,000 cubic meters. The best day recorded 35,000 cubic meters.”

Not Clean Enough

Though methane hydrate is not a new discovery, researchers have had difficulty putting it to practical use. The substance is called “flammable ice” because it looks like ice, but it’s actually methane trapped inside water molecule lattices. Deposits of methane hydrate are usually found in areas with low temperatures and moderate pressure, such as the bottom of the ocean, making them difficult to access.


CNET

Yahoo.com visitors over the last few days may have been served with malware via the Yahoo ad network, according to Fox IT, a security firm in the Netherlands. Users visiting pages with the malicious ads were redirected to sites armed with code that exploits vulnerabilities in Java and installs a variety of different malware.

Correction:This story previously stated that the ads required a click to trigger the exploit. According to Maarten van Dantzig of Fox IT, the ad being displayed is enough to redirect users to the malware injection site. We are checking with Yahoo for further explanation.

In a blog post, Fox IT estimated that, based on sample traffic, the number of visits to the site carrying the malicious code was visited around 300,000 times per hour.

"Given a typical infection rate of 9% this would result in around 27,000 infections every hour. Based on the same sample, the countries most affected by the exploit kit are Romania, Britain, and France. At this time it's unclear why those countries are most affected, it is likely due to the configuration of the malicious advertisements on Yahoo," Fox IT said on its blog.

The security firm found evidence that the redirects go to domains hosted in the Netherlands, but was unable to identity the perpetrators. Traffic has slowed to the exploit, Fox IT noted, suggesting that Yahoo is addressing the vulnerability.

Yahoo confirmed the presence of malware on its servers and said it had taken steps to combat the issue.

"We recently identified an ad designed to spread malware to some of our users," Yahoo said Saturday in a statement. "We immediately removed it and will continue to monitor and block any ads being used for this activity."

In a further statement issued Sunday, a Yahoo spokesperson said:

On Friday, January 3, on our European sites, we served some advertisements that did not meet our editorial guidelines, specifically, they were designed to spread malware. We promptly removed these advertisements. Users in North America, Asia Pacific and Latin America were not served these advertisements and were not affected. Additionally, users using Macs and mobile devices were not affected.

Yahoo subsequently modified its statement, adding that malicious ads were served between December 31 and January 3, not just Jan. 3. The spokesperson added that the company plans to post more information on the malware incident for its users.

Updated January 5, 2014, with additional information from Yahoo.

[Via ZDNet and the Washington Post]


David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Nate Jackson was a tight end and wide receiver with the Denver Broncos from 2003-08. In April, he wrote about the draft from a player’s perspective.

Your body says No, but your brain says Yes.

Yes, you will get out of bed. Yes, you will try to eat breakfast. And Yes, you will put on your pads and run out on that field. Despite the pain, the doubt, and the fear, you will say Yes. You always say Yes.

Training camp is hell. Some players adapt to hell well, some burn up quickly. But there is no way around the psychological and physical warfare that players will endure this month.

In a strictly physical analysis, training camp brutalizes the body. The N.F.L. is home to the strongest, most explosive athletes on the planet. Being hit over and over again by these men is a painful ordeal, not so much as it’s happening, but after the fact: after practice, late at night, early in the morning. Morning is the worst.

About three or four days into training camp is when the soreness starts to peak, and it sticks around for about a week and a half until your body starts to desensitize itself to misery. During my six seasons with the Denver Broncos, there were days when getting out of bed was so difficult I was sure there was no way I could practice. Of course I was wrong. I found a way to get it done. Football players learn how to push down the pain and make a play. But it hurts later. It hurts a lot.

Compounding the physical pain is the strange dichotomy between players and coaches. Coaches expect mathematic perfection from their players, so most often, whatever a player does is not quite right. There is always something to improve, even when you get the job done. As my friend Stefan Fatsis eloquently describes it in his book A Few Seconds of Panic, about the summer he spent on the field with me and my Denver teammates (as a kicker), different coaches communicate in different ways. But in the N.F.L., the militaristic approach usually dominates: veiny-foreheaded dopplegangers berating players daily.

The longer you’re around, the more the cackle becomes background noise, which you learn to accept as an industry standard. But it’s unproductive, because the aim begins to be, “Don’t make a mistake, don’t get yelled at.” That’s an awful way to play football, especially when the dudes doing the yelling are or were inferior athletes to you.

The verbal haranguing isn’t exclusive to the field. In meetings every day and night, it continues. The decibel level decreases, but it’s no less biting. Every play of every practice is watched on film by the whole team that same day. Morning practice is watched in the afternoon before the afternoon practice, and the afternoon practice is watched at night before going home. Practices are watched on huge screens with high quality projectors. When a player makes a mistake, it is pointed out and discussed.

Nothing slips through the cracks. Depending on the severity of the mistake, and the frequency of mistakes being made by the player, the reaction from the coaches will vary, but the feeling for the player is always horrible. Being called out in meetings and having everyone in the room watching you fail in slow motion — often with a laser pointer on your two-dimensional body — is demoralizing, and only intensifies the pain. This scrutiny is well intentioned, but often falls flat from overkill, the message trampled by the messenger.

Teams will go through their training-camp schedule for about eight days before a day off. Eight straight days is bad enough, but the length of each day makes it feel much longer. Each day feels like three days. Players arrive at the facility at roughly 7:30 a.m. The first practice is at 8:30 and lasts until around 11. After that comes lunch and a bit of down time, when players relax however they can: napping, video games, reading, crying. A special-teams meeting at around 1:30 p.m. is followed by offense/defense meetings, then back on the field around 4 for a slightly shorter practice than in the morning. After practice is dinner, then meetings from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m.

The meetings drag on more than one would imagine. N.F.L. players spend typically twice as much time in meeting rooms as they do on the field. The attention to detail and robotic application of minute coaching points become an obsession, so there’s always something to fix. This drains the brain. It’s not uncommon to see a rookie make mistake after mistake as he mopes around the field on one day or another, simply because his brain is filled to the brim with detailed coaching points. The players who end up making the team and having a sustained career in the N.F.L. are the ones who can process these details and apply them quickly. It’s one thing to understand what you’re supposed to do, but to actually do it, at 100 miles an hour against the best in the world, is another thing entirely.

Adding to the general feelings of blah and barf are cuts that must be made as August progresses. Realistically, of the 80 guys on each roster, 15 are already cut. Coaches have a pretty good idea of what the final roster will look like. There’s a little bit of wiggle room in the middle of the depth chart. At every position, there are usually two guys competing for one spot. This is usually where I found myself, fighting for my professional life on a daily basis, battling with another good football player who was often my friend. I learned how to win that daily battle, but it never came easy, and someone was always left in its wake.

But this is in the middle of the depth chart, meaning that if a team is carrying 10 receivers in camp, receivers Nos. 5 and 6 are battling for a job. Nos. 7 through 10 are camp bodies, there to bolster the numbers, to take punishment, to give veterans an occasional rest, to serve as verbal punching bags for position coaches trying to make a point. This happens at every position, even quarterback. Players see this happening to them, and there is nothing they can do about it. At the bottom of the depth chart, guys get very few quality “reps” — repetitions, turns to play in practice. Coaches often encourage these players, saying things like, “Don’t count your reps, make your reps count!” But reality sets in. For many, this will be the last football they will ever play.

Yes, there is much to worry about this month for players on N.F.L. teams. For every superstar, there are 10 blue-collar players who fear their job security is in danger. This fear makes them anxious and paranoid. If you know someone in the N.F.L., leave him alone this month. If he survives, he will be better for the experience. Just wait until September to ask him about it.


Khao Yai National Park, Thailand

Thailand’s not known for its wine; you’re much more likely to think of beer when you think of this South-east Asian nation. But at Khao Yai National Park, around two hours by road from Bangkok, you’ll find a cluster of wineries, producing an array of reds and whites.

The locally run Thailand Wine Tours (thailandwinetour.com) take visitors on a tour of the national park where they can spot the huge white Buddha statue on a hilltop, as well as visiting two wineries. Prices start from 7,850 baht (£169) for two people including transport from Bangkok, lunch, wine and English speaking guides.

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Lastminute.com has a week in Bangkok from £377pp including flights and two-star room-only accommodation.

Kefalonia, Greece

The Ionian island of Kefalonia, off the west coast of mainland Greece, has a beautiful landscapes and exceptional wines – some of which can’t be exported, so a trip here is the only way you’ll get to taste them.

The Robola Wine Cooperative, in the Omala valley, is around an hour from all of the main resorts, and half an hour from the capital, Argostoli.

Thomson (thomson.co.uk) offers packages to Kefalonia from £534pp in October including flights and self-catering accommodation in Skala, and for an additional €45pp you can book a day trip to Argostoli and the Robola vineyards, where you can try a selection of whites, reds, and a very strong dessert wine – which I would describe as half way between a port and a sherry. In addition to the wine, the views of the valley are worth the visit alone.

Jeruzalem, Slovenia

Ljubljana markets itself as a "City of Vine and Wine"; this despite there being no vineyards in or around the city. But if you’re not satisfied with the Slovenian capital’s numerous wineries, take a two-hour trip to the north-eastern village of Jeruzalem. It’s renowned for its white wines and great views, which can be experienced in tandem on a walking wine tour.

The Ljubljana tourist board runs a Wine Routes of Jeruzalem tour (visitljubljana.com) in which you’ll visit Prlekija, a Slovenian region known for its wine, food and thermal springs, before heading to the wine hills of Jeruzalem.

The tour costs €102 including wine tasting, lunch and transfers. The tour is available from the beginning of March – 30 October.

Expedia (expedia.co.uk) offers four nights in Ljubljana from £220pp including flights.

Oahu, Hawaii

Hawaii conjures imagery of fresh fruit, bright cocktails and exotic flavours, yet you’ll also find wine produced here. Island Mana Wines (islandmanawines.com), in Honolulu’s beachside Waikiki neighbourhood, on the isle of Oahu, is a wine tasting experience with a difference. The tipples here are not made with grapes, but instead include varieties produced from guava, mango, passion fruit and pineapple– all sourced from organic fruit native to the island. Reservations must be made in advance; entry is free, you just pay for the wine you drink.

Virgin Holidays (virginholidays.co.uk) offers a week in Waikiki from £1470pp in October, including flights and room-only accommodation.

Skane, Sweden

Skane, the region known for producing Absolut vodka, started to make a name for itself in the wine world during the 1990s. The main grapes of the region are solaris and rondo, which produce fruity whites and full-bodied reds. The Hallakra Vingard (hallakra.com), however, is renowned for its pinor noir. Groups of eight or more can book tours and tastings on request all year round (it’s open to the general public over the summer); prices available on request.

The vineyard is half an hour from the city of Malmo, or around an hour from Copenhagen – across the bridge in Denmark. easyJet Holidays (easyjet.com/holidays) has three nights in Copenhagen from £290pp including flights and hotel, room only.


British society needs modernisation but instead Brits will be busy rebuilding bridges they are about to tear down

I love British humour. When something goes fundamentally wrong, the British laugh at it.

Brexit? The EU now has 1GB of free space. If that gives you a wry smile, better jokes will be along soon – Brexit has a lot of potential to go wrong.

Travelling for two months around Britain and Ireland, visiting Birmingham, Hull, Grimsby, York, Edinburgh, Belfast, Newry and Dundalk, I got an idea of why so many people voted for Brexit and how difficult it will be. For Britain, Europe and the rest of the world.

Guardian readers gave me inspiration for where to go and who to meet, sending nearly 100 emails after I asked for tips in my first article. “You should visit my 76-year-old mum in Grimsby. In a Brexit heartland, she was the one swearing at our bridge club players, telling them not to betray their grandchildren,” wrote Paul.

It was a pleasure to meet the resolute Mary Randall and her friends Margaret and Beat Haessig in Grimsby, and it helped me understand people’s anxieties and challenges in an area that has suffered a long period of economic decline.

When Margaret was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, Grimsby was thriving. By the time Mary moved to the town in 1983, the decline had already begun. “But when the fish industry went downhill there was no investment at all,” she said. “The young people went away because there were no jobs for them.”

They showed me around once-busy shopping areas, now run-down, and pointed out shops and businesses that had closed.

Travelling to Hull the next day, practically a stone’s throw away on the other side of the river Humber, took almost two hours because there is no proper train connection. Local entrepreneurs told me how fed up they were with the bad infrastructure and the lack of investment from Westminster. I heard “you in London” a lot, even though I was only a temporary Londoner for two months.

The people I spoke to who had voted for Brexit and claimed to be fed up with Europe really had more specific concerns: sinking living standards, a lack of affordable housing, rising poverty and an inefficient NHS. All good reasons to be disgruntled, though Brussels is hardly to blame.

The morning I left Grimsby was the day the world learned that Donald Trump had won the US election. The outsider had beaten the establishment. Plenty of people, including me, felt that Brexit had happened again.

Frank Stauss, a political consultant who has organised several election campaigns for the Social Democrats in Germany, said Trump’s biggest asset was “that he didn’t stand for going on with business as usual”. Trump’s voters in the US wanted a change, and so did leave voters in Britain. They were fed up with an establishment that promised wealth and prosperity in the EU when they were experiencing the opposite.

When I came to Britain I had a picture in my mind of a divided society in which young, urban and well-educated people had voted for remain, while elderly and working-class people, and xenophobic ones, had voted to leave.

But it isn’t that simple. I met a shipowner who employs only Polish people on his trawlers but voted to leave. (If the Poles left, he said, he would hire Russians instead.) I talked to a porter who was proud to have voted remain.

British society as I experienced it has more and deeper faultlines than any other country I have lived in – namely Poland, Sweden, Germany and Italy.

According to research by Poverty and Social Exclusion, 30 million people in the UK suffer from financial insecurity, 4 million people are not properly fed and 2.3m households cannot afford to heat the living areas of their homes. On the other hand, more billionaires live here than in many other countries, and the economy has grown over the last six years.

“Privileged” young Londoners with good jobs told me that starting a family was out of the question because they could not afford flats with enough space. “Our parents live in houses we could never afford,” say the millennials. The Northern Irish and Scottish complain that they are neglected by decision-makers in London.

Some Britons claim Polish people are taking their jobs, but the Poles say they were welcomed at first as cheap labour, then treated with mistrust when they took on better jobs and homes. “The British liked us in these cheap jobs and became concerned when they improved,” my friend Ania Faluta, with whom I studied in Poland, told me. She started her career in London 11 years ago as a cleaner and is now a project manager.

It struck me sometimes that the British are so occupied with competing – in their jobs, dancing, baking, with other nations – that they miss the bigger picture.

An education system that provides chances for everybody irrespective of social background? Well, has there ever been a Guardian editor from a comprehensive school?

A modern childcare system that is affordable and adapted to the needs of families? Women told me how they jeopardised their careers by staying at home with their toddlers because it was cheaper than sending them to nursery.

An efficient healthcare system? I spent hours listening to my housemate’s enraged reports about his experiences in waiting rooms.

With every week I spent in Britain, I grew fonder of the German federal system that allows states to set their own key issues, independent of the government in Berlin, and of a social system that allows me to have four children, a full-time job and to afford a two-month break abroad.

British society could do with modernisation, in my view. It’s so 1980s. But I doubt if Brexit will bring that about. Instead, the British will be occupied with rebuilding the bridges to the EU that they are just about to tear down.

That’s what the negotiations are aimed at, aren’t they? To leave Europe and the European single market, and at the same time guarantee access to the latter. Norway, which could serve as an example, is not a member of the EU but of the European Economic Area, and has 70% of EU directives and 17% of EU regulations in force.

Brexit seems like a big waste of time and money, but nevertheless I’d prefer the British to be as close as possible to the EU. When Theresa May sets off to embrace the autocrats in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the other Gulf countries, the democratic opposition in these countries will be even less heard.

But the EU is also far from perfect. Its harshest critics should not be easily dismissed. And we Germans could do with a good deal more of the politeness, consideration and respect that people in Britain show to their fellow humans.

And, of course, with some British humour. How many Germans do you need to change a lightbulb? One! They are so efficient and have no sense of humour. You see?


When Massachusetts voters legalized recreational marijuana in November, it sparked a war in the legislature, where some lawmakers are bent on limiting the sale, use and cultivation of the intoxicating plant. Pro-pot advocates have accused lawmakers of trampling on the will of the voters as bill after bill — 37 to be exact — has been filed to scale back the legalization rollout. One bill, filed by Sen. William Brownsberger, D-Belmont, on behalf of a constituent, seeks wholesale repeal of the referendum that legalized pot. Recommended Slideshows 4 Pictures PHOTOS: Singapore's treasures star in NY Botanical Garden's 2019 Orchid Show 4 Pictures 36 Pictures Oscars 2019: Red carpet looks and full list of winners 36 Pictures 36 Pictures All of these celebrities have had their nudes leaked 36 Pictures More picture galleries 16 Pictures These photos of Trump and Ivanka will make you deeply uncomfortable 16 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside Brooklyn's Teknopolis is tech that makes us more human 4 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside The Strand's Fight Against Being Named a New York City Landmark 4 Pictures “What we are worried about is bills that would really eviscerate what was passed in November,” said Jim Borghesani, spokesman for the Yes on 4 campaign that lobbied for legalization. “It goes completely against the will of the people. You can’t say you pledged to uphold the will of the people while at the same time filing bills that gut the very measure the people approved.” The referendum to legalize retail pot sales and possession and growing the plant for adults over 21 passed by more than 53 percent of those who voted. Among other things, the bills would: Slash the amount of pot people over 21 can possess in their homes from 10 ounces to 2 ounces; Cut the number of plants people could grow from 12 down to six per household; Impose a two-year moratorium on the sale of marijuana-infused products at retail dispensaries; Give regulators the power to outright ban any product other than the leafy plant matter itself. In Colorado, where recreational pot was legalized in 2012, infusedproducts account for more than 50 percent of the market, state data shows . Related Articles Melting pot simmers Oakland legalizes pot growth Fruity One-Pot Lamb Fourteen of these bills were filed by Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Winchester, a leader in the failed crusade to stop legalization, who has said the specifics should be left to the legislature to “responsibly, thoughtfully and safely implement a legal marijuana market in Massachusetts.” The legislature has already successfully pushed back the opening of retail dispensaries and the establishment of a Cannabis Control Commission by six months, something Borghesani also opposes. “Lewis is a prohibitionist and his bills are reflecting his position,” Borghesani said. “During the campaign, he opposed legalization just like he opposed med marijuana and just like he opposed the decriminalization of marijuana. Now he is doing his best to undo what voters approved overwhelmingly in November.”


Ciaran Clark scored in Newcastle's 6-0 win at QPR in September, but his own goal denied the Magpies victory at St James' Park

Ciaran Clark's last-minute headed own goal handed Queens Park Rangers a draw at St James' Park and denied Newcastle United top spot in the Championship.

Jonjo Shelvey's superb half-volley put the hosts ahead inside 37 seconds, but it was Rangers who created by far the better of the first-half chances and equalised through Conor Washington.

Newcastle, beaten by Oxford in the FA Cup on Saturday, then edged back in front thanks to Matt Ritchie's header.

But Clark's error earned QPR a point.

The 27-year-old defender was stretching back in an attempt to clear Kazenga LuaLua's cross, but could only loop his header from the edge of the area over stranded goalkeeper Karl Darlow.

It means Rafael Benitez's side remain in second, one point behind leaders Brighton & Hove Albion and only four clear of Reading in third.

On the overall balance of play it was no more than QPR deserved, having carved out several opportunities in the first half before looking dangerous on the break in the second.

The visitors wasted numerous chances to equalise even before Washington eventually poked them level from close range, with Massimo Luongo twice failing to beat Darlow when well placed.

Newcastle wrested their advantage back early in the second half through Ritchie's smart finish - his 11th goal of the season - and looked on course for a return to the summit of the Championship table.

However, Clark's mistake in the final minute of normal time gave QPR a valuable point to move them up to 18th, nine points clear of the relegation zone.

Newcastle manager Rafael Benitez:

"We had a lot of chances but we didn't take our chances and we conceded with an own goal which is the worst thing that can happen.

"We didn't take the chances that we had. We needed to score the third goal but we didn't do it.

"We're all disappointed that we couldn't get three points."

QPR boss Ian Holloway:

"Would I have taken this after 45 seconds? Yeah.

"We took a punch on the chin, shook ourselves down and managed to go. We've got to learn to be a bit more clinical but I'm delighted for everybody.

"I've brought a whole load of new people in. That group has done us all proud."


The British Obsession with Parliamentary Sovereignty

Gerry Hassan

The Scotsman, January 15th 2011

The curse of the European issue has been slowly re-emerging for the Tory led government after a period of relative quiet and calm.

Right-wing voices have stated that the European Union Bill with its Clause 18 defining parliamentary sovereignty is not clear and powerful enough to block the continued encroachment of Brussels into British public life.

What then is this thing called parliamentary sovereignty, why are our political classes obsessed with it, and what does this tell us about the health of our democracy?

Britain’s parliamentary sovereignty is based on the Diceyian notion that no Parliament can legally bind its successor. It is of course a myth, fraud, and part of the folklore which makes up how the British constitution has evolved over time.

The actual reality is that Britain stopped being governed by parliamentary sovereignty in the pure sense a long time ago. The rise of party and cabinet government was one factor in the early 20th century bemoaned by Dicey. Another was the creation of dominion status for Canada and Australia in the Empire, limiting the powers of Parliament.

A significant moment in all of this was the accession of the UK to the then Common Market in 1973. Related to this has been the emergence of a more politicised judiciary, the increased use of judicial review and the passing of the Human Rights Act.

Then there is Scotland. Long before devolution we had MacCormick versus the Lord Advocate in 1953 – a complicated judgement which in many eyes qualified parliamentary sovereignty in Scotland.

More crucially do our elected politicians really believe the people out there hold on to the idea of parliamentary sovereignty? Have they learned nothing from the expenses scandal and the private welfare state they built to cocoon themselves from the harsh winds they inflicted on the rest of us? The public rage on this showed a sentiment that was shaped by popular, not parliamentary sovereignty.

Political power now stems from the people, not Parliament. The confused Conservative Eurosceptic response to this is shown by the fact that their suggested ultimate defence of parliamentary sovereignty in the European Union Bill is the holding of a referendum whenever the European Union proposes a significant extension of its powers into UK domestic life.

As any constitutional student at even A Level would know – a referendum – a device once frowned upon by the defenders of the British constitution as being ‘unBritish’ and the sort of thing ‘continental dictatorships’ used such as Hitler and Stalin – undermines parliamentary sovereignty. The reason being it is an expression of popular sovereignty.

Some of the Tory discontent in this is admittedly with the party’s backbench frustration with the Cameroons and David Cameron himself. There is a feeling which strays far beyond the Tory right that David Cameron isn’t exactly ‘a Tory’ and that this is not a Conservative enough administration.

The toxic distrust on the Tory right takes them into a surreal world of the land of make believe where a more full-blooded Conservative Party would be rapturously received by the voters; it is the kind of Walter Mitty fantasyland which the Labour left used to inhabit in the 1980s and which did such damage to the Labour Party.

Strangely one of the paradoxes of this is that as parliamentary sovereignty has weakened in practice, our political classes have become more obsessed by it. One explanation for this is that it is one of the tales told of which makes Westminster and its politicians feel special and unique. Parliamentary sovereignty is one of the last stories of British exceptionalism; a kind of British version of the American dream but just for our political elites.

Then there is the story of British democracy and liberty, which has by modern times been reduced to a Whig style caricature and set of clichés whereby all the Westminster classes sign up to the special importance of Britishness.

Parliamentary sovereignty has a special place in this story, for it is the conventional account of how Britain became a democracy, its politicians stood up to despots, and overthrew arbitrary power. All of this was then given validation through British democracy surviving the Second World War when as the phrase goes ‘we kept the lights on in Europe’ and then built a welfare state and civilised society.

Our democracy and Parliament was meant to be the envy of the world at the end of Second World War, but this fed into a British complacency and conceit. One British expert on politics responded to an American academic by stating that ‘the British constitution’ was ‘as nearly perfect as any human institution could be’. Now only two other democracies in the world have parliamentary sovereignty, New Zealand and Finland, while the First Past the Post electoral system is only rarely used in places such as the USA, Canada and India. British democracy is increasingly an anachronism in the world.

There is more to it than that. The old system of parliamentary sovereignty was shaped by a carefully constructed system of checks and balances which gave Britain relatively representative and responsible government. However, as Britain faced huge economic and social challenges and decline this system began to fall apart.

From Thatcher on governments have chosen to interpret a literal version of parliamentary sovereignty to do what they like: be partisan, centralise powers, reward groups of supporters, and abolish tiers of government as they fancy, and much worse.

Thatcherism and New Labour drove through their revolutions on minority votes, aided by our truncated democracy and the ethos of parliamentary sovereignty. This allowed them to mount in Chris Mullin’s words ‘a very British coup’, using the cloak of time old precedent to push through far-reaching change.

Still to this day the dusty, rarefied, ancient corridors of Westminster are filled not only with the ghosts and tales of old, but with present day worship and deference to the voodoo myth that is parliamentary sovereignty.

It is a fiction, but the worst, most damaging kind of fiction, one which our political classes believe to be true, and act accordingly. It is a mantra which animates and holds prison our politics, political system and ourselves, the people.

It has long outserved its usefulness, and should be carted away to some special museum or made the subject of a David Starkey TV special on the mumbo-jumbo which people used to believe in the bad old days. It is time for Britain to enter the modern age, become a fully-fledged democracy, and dispense with the idea that parliamentary sovereignty protects us.


Tony Gentile, POOL, AFP | Pope Francis (pictured centre) with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his wife, Jeannette, at the Vatican on March 20, 2017

Pope Francis asked for forgiveness on Monday for the “sins and failings of the Church” during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, saying he hoped his apology would help heal the African state’s wounds.

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But Rwanda’s government indicated it felt the apology did not go far enough, saying the local Church was still complicit in protecting the perpetrators of the genocide.

At a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Pope Francis said that priests and Roman Catholic faithful had taken part in the slaughter of some 800,000 people from the ethnic Tutsi minority as well as moderates from the Hutu majority.

“(The pope) implored anew God’s forgiveness for the sins and failings of the Church and its members, among whom priests, and religious men and women who succumbed to hatred and violence,” the Vatican said in a statement.

An official Rwandan statement repeated the government’s long-standing accusation of Catholic complicity in the massacres.

“Today, genocide denial and trivialisation continue to flourish in certain groups within the Church and genocide suspects have been shielded from justice within Catholic institutions,” said a government statement.

Kagame, a Tutsi, led a rebel force to halt the slaughter in 1994 and accusations immediately surfaced that some priests and nuns had taken part in the killings.

Some of the ugliest massacres were committed in churches, missions and parishes where Tutsis who took shelter were hunted down by extremist Hutu militias.

A U.N. court in 2006 jailed a former Catholic priest for 15 years for ordering bulldozers to level a church, killing 2,000 people who were hiding inside.

Rwandan authorities have said other clergy implicated in the killings were allowed to start new lives in Europe and were protected by the Church.

A Rwandan military court sentenced a missing priest in absentia to life in prison on charges of rape and delivering Tutsi refugees from his church to militias who killed them.

Later arrested in France, where he was a popular priest in a rural parish, his case was eventually dropped and he was allowed to remain working at the parish. He has denied the charges.

The Catholic Church in Rwanda last year offered an apology, saying some of its members had fanned the ethnic hatred that led to the killings, but Kagame said at the time that he wanted the pope himself to say sorry.

“Why doesn’t he apologise like he does with other cases where more minor crimes were committed by comparison with here?,” he said, referring to sexual abuse cases where the pope has regularly apologised to victims and their families.

Francis said on Monday he hoped his “humble recognition of the failings of that period, which, unfortunately, disfigured the face of the Church, may contribute to a ‘purification of memory’ and may promote, in hope and renewed trust, a future of peace”.

(REUTERS)


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President  rump has laid out our princi ples or tax reorm: First, make the tax code simple, air and easy to understand. Second, give American workers a pay raise by allowing them to keep more o their hard-earned pay checks. Tird, make America the jobs magnet o  the world by levelin g the playing ﬁeld or American businesses and workers. Finally , bring back trillions o dollars that are currently kept oﬀshore to reinvest in the American economy. Te President’ s our princip les are consisten t with the goals o both congression al tax-writing committees, and are at the core o this ramework or ﬁxing America’s broken tax code. oo many in our country are shut out o the dynamism o the U.S. economy, which has led to the justiﬁable eeling that the system is rigged against hardw orking American s. With signiﬁcan t and meaningul tax reorm and relie, we will create a airer system that levels the playing ﬁeld and extends economic opportunities to American workers, small businesses, and middle-income amilies. Te rum p Administration and Congress will work together to produce tax reorm that w ill put America ﬁrst.

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Back in June, Toronto singer Daniel Caesar dropped two stunning new tracks, "We Find Love" and "Blessed," as a kind of two-for-one single. Today he's gifting us with a grainy visual for the songs, which you can watch above. In the video, Caesar — who's low-key a total heartthrob — finds love, loses it, and finds it again.

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Today, he's also announcing his debut album, Freudian, which will be out August 25 on Golden Child Recordings.

"I've never been as proud about anything I've created in my whole life," Caesar wrote in a note to The FADER, about the forthcoming full-length. "This body of work is about examining my most complex feelings and thoughts more directly. I'm more exposed than ever on this album. It's like I'm in therapy, but it's on display. And I got to make this with my friends. It's just us, no label, so it makes it that much more special."


At this point, it should come as no surprise when Donald Trump manipulates the truth to his political advantage. However, presenting false racially biased statistics a day after an African-American protester was thrown out of one of his events doesn’t send the best message.

Earlier on Sunday afternoon, Trump did his weird version of a manual retweet of an image depicting a man (in this context, assumed to be black), with a bandana over his face pointing a gun sideways toward a list of wholly fabricated statistics.

The image alleges that 97 percent of African Americans were killed by African Americans, while only 1 percent of murdered African Americans were killed by police. These two statistics are demarcated from the rest in blue and red ink respectively. It also claims 81 percent of whites who are killed are killed by blacks, which is pure race-baiting at its most ignorant. The numbers in this erroneous image are attributed to the “Crime Statistics Bureau - San Francisco,” and reflect 2015 data.

For one thing, a “Crime Statistics Bureau” does not exist. The FBI is responsible for this data and they have yet to release a report on 2015, because, well, 2015 is not over yet.

Secondly, whoever made that image did so with the intent of lying about the percentage of white Americans killed by black Americans. In 2014, that number was 14 percent, not 81 percent.

Additionally, in the graphic, only 16 percent of whites are killed by other whites. In the same FBI report, it clearly states that 82.3 percent of whites are in fact killed by other whites, which is very similar to the number of blacks killed by blacks (89.9 percent).

Finally, when The Daily Beast reverse google image searched the picture, the only yielded results were attributed to YouTube videos in Arabic, which featured a duplicated image of the man in the picture Trump shared.

This explicit truth-bending is only compounded by the fact that a Black Lives Matter protester named Mercutio Southall Jr. was kicked out of a Trump rally in Alabama on Saturday.

“Get him the hell out of here, will you please?” Trump requested at the rally. “Get him out of here. Throw him out!”

Southall at one point was on the ground being kicked and punched by several white men in attendance. When asked about the violent incident this morning on Fox & Friends, Trump said, “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble.”

The Daily Beast has reached out for comment to Southall Jr., who said he was repeatedly called a “nigger” and a “monkey” at the event. Meanwhile in a Facebook message, his father asked me for some time before speaking about yesterday's events.

The Trump campaign has not responded to a question from The Daily Beast about whether Trump himself retweeted the image and where he got the information within it.

The FBI National Press Office told me they would have to wait until staffers were at work tomorrow to assess the validity of the data.


Williams "couldn't afford" to put together a mule car to run in Pirelli's 2017 tyre test program this year, according to Pat Symonds.

Pirelli asked teams to produce modified cars in order to simulate increased levels of downforce, allowing it to test the 2017 tyres before next year's cars hit the track. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull will carry out a number of tests from August until November, with all three testing two days after the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

Williams was one of the teams to originally signal its intent to take part but Symonds - who is the team's chief technical officer - says the costs were too high.

"Not second class, but we don't have the money to do it," Symonds told the official Formula One website when asked if missing out makes it a second class team. "We wanted to join, but then we worked out the costs and it showed that we couldn't afford to do it.

"Pirelli will disseminate the information as best as they can, but it will never be the same as running it on your car. And we certainly don't have a strategic relationship with any other team!"

And Symonds believes the change in tyre regulations next year will be the "most crucial" difference in 2017, but says tyre strategy will continue to play a part in races.

"Not eliminated - that would be a too strong word - but if Pirelli hit the target then I would expect that two-stop races turn into one-stop races and three-stop races turn into two-stop races. We will see wider windows to make the pit stop - so the strategic element will be less, but not eliminated.

"Of all the changes for 2017 the tyres will be the most crucial I believe. All teams aside from the three that do testing will have no knowledge of what the 2017 tyres will look like until they run them in February. Only Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are testing - the rest, we need to see."

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The manufacturer of the diet candy Ayds is seeking a new name for its product because publicity about the deadly disease AIDS is hurting sales, the chairman said today.

The diet suppressant has been on the market for 47 years and remains a profitable product for the the Dep Corporation, but sales have dropped by as much as 50 percent in recent years because of the name association, Robert Berglass, the chairman, said.

Since January, Ayds has been marketed in Britain as Aydslim. If sales show signs of recovery, the appetite-suppressant candy may be sold in the United States under that name later this year, Mr. Berglass said.

So far, reaction from retailers has been positive, he said, but consumer reaction has not been determined. Consumer reaction could be available within a few months becuase most people go on diets in the spring, he said.

Federal health officials believe about 40,000 Americans have been stricken with AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome.


EU Looks To Prevent Employers From Viewing An Applicant's Publicly Available Social Media Information

from the well-that's-dumb dept

Ever since social media sites like Facebook and Twitter became household names here in America, we've occasionally had really stupid debates about just what type of access to those accounts employers should get from their employees. Some states have even passed laws that would allow employers to demand social media passwords from employees and applicants, presumably so that company reps can comb through private messages and posts shared only with the employee's or applicant's friends. If all of that seems stupid to you, that's because it totally is!

But it's not remotely as dumb as what the EU has decided to do in regulating corporations such that they are disallowed from viewing public social media information about an applicant unless it directly relates to the job for which they have applied. To be clear, this new regulation is non-binding at the moment, but it will be the basis of data protection laws set to come out in the future. Still, preventing a company from viewing publicly available information doesn't make much sense.

Employers who use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to check on potential job candidates could be breaking European law in future. An EU data protection working party has ruled that employers should require "legal grounds" before snooping. The recommendations are non-binding, but will influence forthcoming changes to data protection laws. The guidelines from the Article 29 working party will inform a radical shake-up of European data protection laws, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which are due to come into force in May 2018. Their recommendations also suggest that any data collected from an internet search of potential candidates must be necessary and relevant to the performance of the job.

When it comes to privacy restrictions on matters of social media, it seems to me that there is an easy demarcation line that ought to suffice here: that which is public and that which is not. Most social media sites come with handy tools to keep some or all portions of an account private, or shareable only amongst connections within the platform. If an applicant wants something kept from the eyes of an employer, they need only hide it behind those privacy options. This regulation, however, would restrict a company from accessing public information, which should plainly be viewed as nonsensical.

The post notes that recruitment sites like CareerBuilder have seen rates of 70% or so employers that check public social media accounts of applicants they consider hiring. That's as surprising as the sun rising each morning. It's barely even considered creepy any longer to google the names of friends, never mind people you're looking to hire. Somehow I don't see any regulation curbing that across a continent.

Filed Under: data protection, eu, interviews, jobs, privacy, public info, social media


Americans believe that obesity is tied with cancer as the biggest health threat in the nation today. But though scientific research shows that diet and exercise are insufficient solutions, a large majority say fat people should be able to summon the willpower to lose weight on their own.

The findings are from a nationally representative survey of 1,509 adults released on Tuesday by NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent research institution. The study, funded by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, found that concerns about obesity have risen. Just a few years ago, in a more limited survey, cancer was seen as the most serious health threat.

The lead researcher, Jennifer Benz of the survey group at the University of Chicago, said that to her knowledge no other survey has provided so comprehensive a view of Americans’ beliefs about obesity, including how to treat it, whether people are personally responsible for it and whether it is a disease.

Researchers say obesity, which affects one-third of Americans, is caused by interactions between the environment and genetics and has little to do with sloth or gluttony. There are hundreds of genes that can predispose to obesity in an environment where food is cheap and portions are abundant.


Glendale Water & Power is warning customers of a recent increase in telephone scams aimed at bilking them of thousands of dollars for phony past-due bills.

Customers are contacted by presumed customer service representatives and told their accounts are delinquent and they must pay immediately over the phone or face service shutoff. They are instructed to purchase a Green Pack Money Card — a specific prepaid debit card — from a 7-Eleven or Rite Aid and then call back to pay the bill using the card.

In the past week, three separate customers have paid the scammers between $1,000 and $2,000 each, according to GWP spokeswoman Atineh Haroutunian.

The scheme is run mostly from outside the United States, and organizers use software to make the calls appear on caller ID to be coming from GWP or from local numbers with an 818 area code, the utility said in a statement.

GWP says its representatives will never ask for payment over the phone, and customers who receive these types of calls are encouraged to contact the utility at 818-548-3300 to check the true status of their account and report the attempted fraud.

Customers are also asked to call the Glendale Police Department at 818-548-4911 to report the calls.