The proposal by 50 Conservative MPs follows plans to turn Britain’s passports blue after Brexit

Fifty Conservative MPs are pushing ministers in Theresa May’s cabinet to create a new lottery to raise funds for a £120 million royal yacht to promote post-Brexit Britain.

It follows plans to replace the country’s passports, which are currently burgundy and bear EU markings, with a blue British one after Brexit.

A new yacht would “showcase post-Brexit Britain and bring trade to our shores”, the MPs said.

In a letter sent to the Government, the MPs said that a new national lottery game would allow ordinary Britons to feel “the pride of having a stake” in the boat, which would also “project our humanitarian role across the globe” after Brexit.

But the proposal met with an immediate backlash on Twitter, as the MPs faced accusations of being “out of touch” with the public.

Angry social media users pointed to the number of homeless people on the streets and the cash-strapped National Health Service, as they questioned the Conservatives’ priorities in spending £120 million on a new yacht.

Number of people sleeping rough has DOUBLED since the Tories took over in 2010 and these MPs are focusing on buying a new royal yacht? If you vote Tory you have a hand in this. — Ian M (@Ian_McKinley) December 28, 2017

Prominent Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, were among the recipients of the letter. Defence secretary Gavin Williamson and culture minister Tracey Crouch also received the letter.

Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned in 1997 by the then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on account of its high costs.

Until then, it had been regularly used by the Queen and members of the Royal family on their overseas trips. Over the course of 40 years, it took part in almost 1000 official tours and travelled over a million miles at sea.

The MPs called on ministers to “right the wrong” of Labour’s decision on the vessel, saying: “As we leave the European Union, there has never been a better time to consider how Britain projects herself on the world stage.

“We believe that now is the time to commission a new Royal Yacht Britannia as a new symbol of global Britain, designed and built domestically to showcase the best of UK shipbuilding and industry, and as a platform for promoting trade.”

_______________

Read more:

Brexit to turn British passports blue

British firms fear fate worse than Brexit

Year in Review: Populism was on the march in 2017

_______________

It added: “Our country needs and deserves a floating Royal Palace that can be used to host meetings and exhibitions to showcase the best of British business and project our humanitarian role across the globe.”

The letter insisted that the replacement vessel would not add a burden to departmental budgets, thanks to the proposal to establish a new national lottery to help pay for it. “It would be the people of the UK through the unique funding method who would have the pride of having a stake in her,” it said.

The note was signed by four former ministers, including Andrew Murrison, a former defence minister, and Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a Parliamentary private secretary in the defence department. It was written by Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay, who was previously a member of the UK Independence Party.

The campaign was supported by Anthony Morrow, the last captain of HMY Britannia, who said: “A new initiative for a Royal Yacht to replace Britannia is to be warmly welcomed and it would be wonderful to see this come about.”


University of Illinois point guard Jaylon Tate was arrested in Champaign, Ill. early Saturday morning on domestic battery charges, public records show.

Champaign police Sgt. Bruce Ramseyer said on News-Gazette.com that the 19-year-old victim, also a University of Illinois athlete, confirmed to police she had been hit once in the face by Tate.

MORE: NCAA basketball live scoreboard | UConn clock controversy

Ramseyer said the responding officers could see she was spitting blood and had a swollen face. She went to a local hospital's emergency room to be evaluated. Police arrested Tate without incident and he was booked in Champaign County Jail at 6:15 a.m.

Tate, 21, will remain in the county jail until at least Sunday morning, when he is expected to make a bond court appearance. He has denied any physical contact with his girlfriend, Ramseyer said.

Tate has been indefinitely suspended by Illinois. Athletics Director Josh Whitman and head coach John Groce released the following statement.

Tate has started at times during his career at Illinois. He averaged 1.8 points and 2.5 assists per game as a junior. He's the third Illini basketball player to be arrested since August.


Research suggests the majority of women arrested in domestic violence incidents are themselves victims of ongoing abuse from their male partner.

The research, by the anti domestic violence group Shine, analysed the arrests of 60 women in Auckland City between April and September last year.

The report's author, Deborah MacKenzie, says of 35 women who assaulted their male partners, 19 used violence in response to ongoing abuse.

Dual arrests, where both parties are taken into custody, featured in nine out of the 35 cases.

Ms MacKenzie says this indicates the police sometimes have difficulty in identifying who the dangerous person is in the relationship.

She says officers should be trained to identify which party is most at risk.

Ms MacKenzie says in some cases men want to be the first person to call police, knowing they will be treated as the victim rather than the offender.


When you’re depressed, it’s easy to lie in bed and consider staying there forever – here are some suggestions for owning the world you might be scared of

Text Beth McColl

I wasted most of my time when I was depressed. I stared at walls instead of doing my essays. I got in from work and lay face-down on the floor instead of getting started on dinner, putting my clothes in the wash, or calling someone who loved me. I watched two seasons of Nashville before I realise how much I hated Nashville. Then I watched the third season of Nashville. It was so fucked up. Point is – in the midst of soul-crushing depression, wasting time is easy. It’s understandable. When you’re in the deepest dark of depression your only job is to survive. It’s enough to begin and end each day alive. Getting out of bed is almost impossible, getting a glass of water takes 45 minutes. You weigh up the pros and cons of leaving your room to pee. ‘Could I pee in that cup?’ you think. ‘Is that a thing I could do?’ But what about after? What about when the depression lifts – and it will lift, it will, it will. What about then, when you’re standing almost healed among the wreckage, wondering how to begin building it into a life worth living? This was me last year. I’d gotten over the worst of the breakup that felt like it would kill me. I was taking my Prozac on time, every day. I was putting an end to those harmful behaviours that had kept me locked in a depressive state for two years. I was eating. I was taking walks. Basically, I was only a little bit depressed, instead of full blown suicidal. Progress, sure, but six months after this turning point, I was still sort of in the same place. My self-destructive behaviours had morphed into inertia. I was so afraid of ever going back to The Worst Place that I didn’t dare to take any risks on myself, didn’t dare to take a step forward in case I stumbled and brought the world crashing back down. I didn’t write, I didn’t date. In short, I didn’t Do. But here’s the thing. The best of life is in the Doing. It’s in the Deciding To Apply For That Job. It’s in the Finally Learning How To Knit. It’s in the Healing. It’s in the Getting Up Everyday To Do Yoga. We could do these things, right? We survived the worst of the worst, these things should be easy. So why aren’t we doing them right now? Why are we keeping them undone? Maybe it’s because we’re avoidant idiots with hearts of gold. Maybe it’s because we’re just not ready (which is fine). But maybe it’s simply because, undone, they can’t be proven undoable. It’s like the promise of a feast at the end of a long day. It both starves and sustains us. And the real terror is that you can stay hungry forever. It’s a possibility. It happens. What’s to stop it happening to you?

IT’S YOU THAT DECIDES IT CAN’T HAPPEN You can calmly accept that, if you want to have something, you will need to reach out and take it. You will have to fill your own belly with food. It is as terrifying and as easy as that. Your best life will not be handed to you by the universe. But that’s OK. Because the universe doesn’t know what you want. The universe is like that great aunt you have who smells like medicine and knits you a jumper for Christmas that’s two sizes too big and has three sleeves and says ‘From Your Aunt Morgaret’ on the front even though that’s not her name. That’s nobody’s name. MAKE LISTS Take it as lightly as you can. Be nice to yourself. Hold your own hand. Understand that these are things that need to happen. They’re things that can happen. You can make the phone calls you need to make, you can fill out the forms that need filling in, you can learn what needs to be learned. You can push through the panic and do what you need to move forward. You can do these things, not because the world will fall apart if you don’t, but because you are as important as any other person on this planet, and your life will be better and more enjoyable if you try your best to get to where you want to be. Also because it’s what Aunt Morgaret would have wanted.


Israel’s foreign minister on Wednesday said it's not the business of the United States whether his country decides to attack Iran.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that warnings from the United States and Russia about an attack would not affect Israel’s decision-making.

ADVERTISEMENT

“[It] is not their business,” Lieberman said in an interview with an Israeli TV station Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.

“The security of the citizens of Israel, the future of the state of Israel, this is the Israeli government’s responsibility,” he said.

Lieberman’s comments come after Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said Sunday that an Israeli attack would be “destabilizing” for the region.

President Obama has said that the United States will not allow the Iranians to obtain a nuclear weapon, but Israeli officials say their country’s existence is threatened by a nuclear Iran. The Israelis have suggested they might attack Iran to stop its nuclear program with or without U.S. assistance.

Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but Israel, the United States and their allies believe Iran is striving to create a nuclear weapon.

U.S. officials have pushed Israel to wait for sanctions against Iran to have an impact on the country that could convince the Iranians to abandon their nuclear pursuits.

U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon just returned from a visit to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials.

Netanyahu and Obama have a meeting scheduled March 5 at the White House while Netanyahu is in the country for the AIPAC convention.


Singaporean retail service provider (RSP) MyRepublic has called "bull****" on claims by Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) CEO Bill Morrow that consumers don't need and wouldn't use 1Gbps broadband, and has announced that it is launching a "gigatown" to prove customers' desire for higher speeds.

"It's absolute bull****," MyRepublic Australia managing director Nicholas Demos said in an interview with ZDNet.

"Australians want faster internet ... it is just a ludicrous statement to say there is not a requirement for it."

Demos argued that 82 percent of NBN's users are on speeds of 25Mbps or less only because the incumbent RSPs have simply moved customers from their existing plans and price points onto the same plans and pricing on NBN services.

In the 12 weeks since launching as an NBN RSP, Demos said MyRepublic has signed up 10,000 customers to its high-speed plans, which proves that customers do want faster services -- as does the fact that 40 percent of its New Zealand customers are already on 1Gbps plans.

Arguing in November that the NBN had not yet properly launched, because RSPs are simply offering the same services, speeds, and pricing as before, MyRepublic offers just one package at one price on the highest possible speed tier available for each customer.

Demos blamed the lack of 1Gbps NBN products on the network company's connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) charge, which reserves a consumer's bandwidth from the point of interconnect and is priced depending on usage of data.

"The CVC pricing that the NBN are charging, it's not economical," he told ZDNet.

"Yes, they do offer retailers such as us a product with CVC pricing -- a one-gig product -- but it's just priced out of the market and no consumer will buy it at that price in Australia."

MyRepublic has announced that it plans to convince NBN of the desirability of 1Gbps broadband by bearing the cost of connecting consumers in one Australian town with 1Gbps services and gauging uptake of the service.

"We're launching a one-gigabit town in Australia ... just to show there is demand for it, it does work, people want it, but it's the [NBN] product that is wrong, which is why you can't offer it to the mass market at the moment," Demos told ZDNet.

The RSP will on Friday put out the call for consumers to express their interest in receiving a 1Gbps broadband connection, which will inform MyRepublic's decision on which town to connect -- although it would have to be in an area with full fibre-to-the-premises connectivity, Demos conceded.

The 1Gbps pricing will remain the same as MyRepublic's other packages, at AU$60 per month, with the gigatown to be launched in the next few months.

MyRepublic's statements follow Morrow's claim during NBN's financial results presentation on Thursday that RSPs are not offering 1Gbps packages to consumers due to a lack of demand.

"We have roughly a million and a half homes that can have a technology to get a gigabit-per-second service capability today. We have a product that we can offer the retailers, should they want to sell it," Morrow said.

"The reality is that a couple of the retailers have signed up for a trial ... but they have chosen not to offer that to the consumers.

"I will presume it's because there isn't that big of a demand out there for them to actually develop a product to sell to those end users."

On its fixed-line network, NBN again reported the majority of its users as being on the 25/5Mbps speed tier as of December 31, with 51 percent of users choosing these speeds, while 31 percent were on the 12/1Mbps speed tier; 13 percent were on 100/40Mbps; 4 percent were on 50/20Mbps; and 1 percent were on 25/10Mbps.

Calling 1Gbps "a lot of bandwidth", Morrow claimed NBN has "scoured" the globe to speak with RSPs and carriers that have 1Gbps products that have seen limited uptake due to consumers not needing those speeds, or not wanting to pay for them.

"We asked the question, 'Has anybody actually used that amount of bandwidth?' And the answer was unanimously 'no'," Morrow said.

"There are not that many applications that warrant much above the products that are being sold on NBN today, so I suspect that's the main reason. 'If I have to pay for it to move from 100[Mbps] up to a gigabit per second, I don't really have the application or the need for it, so why would I pay more to do that?' I believe that's the market dynamic that is occurring today."

Morrow acknowledged that there will be applications in future that will need more bandwidth, such as alternate reality, artificial intelligence, and 8K video, but said the demand is not there now.

"All of these other things could certainly drive up more of that consumer need, but we haven't seen that as of yet," NBN's chief executive said.

"Even if we offered it for free, we see the evidence around the world that they wouldn't use it anyway."

NBN has since claimed that Morrow's statements were taken out of context.

"NBN is disappointed to see media coverage today has taken comments on internet speeds by our CEO out of context," an NBN spokesperson told ZDNet.

"While the NBN network does offer 1Gbps wholesale services to retailers, to date no retailer has elected to sell these services. That is a commercial decision for the retailers."

Morrow's statements came despite the City of Adelaide last month putting out a call for providers for its 10Gbps fibre broadband network; Telstra launching a 1Gbps 4G mobile network; and the majority of RSPs in New Zealand offering a 1Gbps service as of the end of last year across the New Zealand government's NBN equivalent.

In Singapore, 10Gbps broadband services have been offered by both Singtel and M1 for a year.


To celebrate International Women’s Day 2017 we take a look at some inspirational and bold Welsh women from our history.

5. KATE ROBERTS

Kate Roberts was our “Queen of Letters” and one of ‘the most important Welsh woman of the 20th century’ according to her biographer Alan Llwyd.

She was a prominent author, a prolific journalist and a major benefactor. Kate Roberts was one of the earliest members of the National Party and was the owner of Y Faner. She served Wales on various committees and in eisteddfods, and was prominent in several national and local campaigns, including the one to establish Ysgol Twm o’r Nant school in Denbigh. She lived a varied and industrious life, but also a life that was filled with tragedy and sadness.

4. MARGARET JONES

Margaret Jones (1842-1902), was a woman from Rhosllannerchrugog, north Wales, who became famous in the nineteenth century as “The Welsh Lady from Canaan”. She travelled extensively and spent time living in Paris, Jerusalem, Morocco, the United States and Australia. She published two books of her observations, “Llythyrau Cymraes o Wlad Canaan [The Letters of a Welsh Lady from Canaan] (1869) and “Morocco, a’r hyn a welais yno” [Morocco, and what I saw there] (1883).

3. ZONIA BOWEN

Zonia Bowen is an Englishwoman who embraced the Welsh language and became a key figure in the period leading up to the establishment of Merched y Wawr. She came to Wales at age 17, married a Welsh man and learnt Welsh – well before the days of Welsh lessons for adults.

2. ESME KIRBY

Esmé Kirby was the conservationist who formed the Snowdonia National Park Society. Her career began as an actress, and at 23 she married Thomas Firbank, whose bestselling book, I Bought a Mountain (1940) tells of their married life at Dyffryn, a 3,000-acre farm near Capel Curig. Their marriage ended as the Second World War began but Esmé continued to farm on her own in the rugged Snowdonia landscape and made a success of it. She remarried and became a volunteer conservationist and formed the Snowdonia National Park Society, to ensure the mountains were protected from future development. The local farming community saw her strength and determination, and helped her to succeed… She made a success of Dyffryn against all the odds, leaving a lasting legacy.

1. KATE BOSSE GRIFFITHS

Kate Bosse-Griffiths, of German-Jewish descent, succeeded in fleeing from Germany to the Britain in 1937. She fell in love, married, began writing in Wales and established Cylch Cadwgan whilst the Nazis made life in Germany and Europe hell on Earth. Her family was persecuted. A few tried to become a part of the system, others struggled in spite of the system, and some self-sacrifed in opposition of the system.

In Oxford she met fellow Classics scholar and Egyptologist J. Gwyn Griffiths and they soon settled as a married couple in Rhondda where Kate established the Cadwgan Literary Circle. She fled the brutal regime of the Nazis and became one of Wales’ leading academic and literary figures.

The story would have been lost forever if it wasn’t for the thousand and more pages that have been kept by the family; letters, diaries and documents. They give an account of the attacks during Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass), life under the insane regime, details of prison camps, fleeing to Shanghai, suicide, imprisonment and killing. Hers is a story of love and hatred, protection and persecution, yearning and terror during the most destructive period in European history.

Read more at

ylolfa.com

Advertisements


EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — When Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer canceled the last session of minicamp as a reward for the team’s offseason work, most players were surprised and delighted by the early start on summer vacation.

Moritz Böhringer wasn’t so sure.

More Vikings coverage

"I wanted to practice," Böhringer said, smiling wryly, "because it’s always good to get some more reps."

Nobody on the 90-man roster needs more training than Böhringer, the rookie wide receiver from Germany who became the first draft pick in the history of the NFL to come directly from a country outside the United States.

His deficiencies haven’t been for a lack of dedication, though. This is simply the situation he’s in, having discovered the sport about five years ago through YouTube videos of Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. He has played competitively for merely three seasons at a level nowhere near as sophisticated or intense as the league is entering.

"He’s starting from way, way, way behind," offensive coordinator Norv Turner said.

For the Schwabisch Hall Unicorns in 2015, Böhringer had 16 touchdown receptions and an average of 20.9 yards per catch in 21 games on his way to the German Football League’s rookie of the year award. The Unicorns only ran 70 or 80 plays out of five or six formations, paling in comparison to the complexity of Turner’s playbook with the Vikings.

Naturally, Böhringer’s helmet has been spinning this spring in his attempt to grasp the route concepts, blocking responsibilities and advanced footwork technique required to excel at his highly skilled position.

He threw up on the field during his first practice in Minnesota, last month at rookie minicamp. Throughout the workouts with the full team over the past three-plus weeks, Böhringer has dropped plenty of passes.

"Most of the time it’s a mental thing, because I’m not 100 percent comfortable with the playbook," Böhringer said Thursday after the Vikings wrapped up their offseason program and adjourned for six weeks until training camp. "But I think it’ll come after time."

The Vikings have raved about the 22-year-old’s acuity, despite his inexperience. General manager Rick Spielman declared Böhringer "off-the-charts smart," fully confident he can grasp the intricacies of American football with time.

"You want to start at the grassroots and work your way up, and we’ve been doing that with him. He’s extremely intelligent, so he catches onto things pretty well," wide receivers coach George Stewart said. "He understands exactly what I’m trying to communicate to him. He has a great understanding of the language."

FOLLOW US

FS North on Facebook

FS North on Twitter

FS North on YouTube

FS North on Instagram

Culture hasn’t been an issue, either, beyond a couple of predictable hiccups. His golf debut didn’t go so well — "I don’t think it’s my sport, but I tried," he said with a laugh — and he was unaware of the American custom of tipping restaurant servers that is uncommon in Europe.

"We go out to eat almost every night, so that’s something that was kind of eye-opening for him and he’s still kind of getting used to," said quarterback Joel Stave, his roommate this spring. "Every once in a while, he’ll leave a dollar and we’ve got to cover it for him."

Böhringer and Stave have formed a playbook study group with another rookie, tight end David Morgan.

"He’s getting more comfortable with the offense, he’s getting more comfortable with just football here, and he’s getting more comfortable with the guys," Stave said. "He seems more confident, and it seems like he’s having more fun. It’s been a lot of fun getting to know him and a lot of fun getting to talk to him and see what it’s like coming from a different background like that."

Targeted as a prospect through the NFL’s expanding international outreach program, Böhringer blew away the scouts at Florida Atlantic University’s pro day workout with a 4.43-second 40-yard dash. His 6-foot-4, 227-pound frame stoked the buzz around the league.

Spielman called Stewart into his office one day during the pre-draft evaluation process at team headquarters to watch a YouTube highlight video of Böhringer’s GFL games . They were sold. Rather than risking a wait to sign him after the draft, the Vikings took him in the sixth round.

"There are not a lot of receivers who are as big as me and have athletic ability. I think this combination is pretty unique," Böhringer said.

He’s equally aware of the marketing implications accompanying his arrival.

"I think that’s the best way to spread the game, having players from other countries be as role models," Böhringer said.

Soon he’ll report to training camp and put the pads on, bringing a new bunch of challenges.

"I still have to get used to that it’s my job now," Böhringer said, "and not just a hobby."


An unfakeable test for cocaine use that only requires a single fingerprint has been developed by scientists.

It is the first of its kind to test for ingestion of the drug, and is sufficiently developed that its creators expect it to be miniaturised into a portable device and in the hands of law enforcement agencies within ten years.

By using mass spectrometry, the test is able to detect the presence of chemicals excreted as cocaine metabolises in the body, providing immediate confirmation of a suspect’s cocaine use.

Such a device would be a revolution for law enforcement, as it would enable police, prison officers and other agents to establish if a person had taken the drug at the scene, without the need for invasive blood or urine tests.

It would also remove the need for specialists and safe storage and disposal of bodily fluids, reducing costs and rapidly speeding up the process.

It is likely become a commonly used device, akin to the breathalyser, that police use during standard stop-and-searches and raids.

The test, which was developed by scientists from the University of Surrey with support from researchers from the Netherlands Forensic Institute, the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, King’s College London and Sheffield Hallam University, is notable for ability to test for ingestion of cocaine, rather than just skin contact.

“When someone has taken cocaine, they excrete traces of benzoylecgonine and methylecgonine as they metabolise the drug, and these chemical indicators are present in fingerprint residue,” explained study lead author Dr Melanie Bailey, from the University of Surrey.

“For our part of the investigations, we sprayed a beam of solvent onto the fingerprint slide (a technique known as Desorption Electrospray Ionisation, or DESI) to determine if these substances were present. DESI has been used for a number of forensic applications, but no other studies have shown it to demonstrate drug use.”

The scientists verified the test’s efficacy by comparing its results to standard saliva tests, thus demonstrating that it would be reliable enough to use in real-world situations.

As it tests using a fingerprint, the device could also simultaneously verify the subject’s identify, meaning it would be – at least in theory – impossible to fake.

“The beauty of this method is that, not only is it non-invasive and more hygienic than testing blood or saliva, it can’t be faked,” said Bailey.

“By the very nature of the test, the identity of the subject is captured within the fingerprint ridge detail itself.”

Detailed in research published today in the journal Analyst, the test only requires miniaturisation before it can be used by law enforcement. And due to advances in this area, the researchers are confident this will be a quick process.

“We are only bound by the size of the current technology. Companies are already working on miniaturised mass spectrometers, and in the future portable fingerprint drugs tests could be deployed,” added Bailey.

“This will help to protect the public and indeed provide a much safer test for drug users.”

However, the public reaction to the device remains to be seen.

In a world where increasing police powers and control are a genuine concern, a fingerprint scanning device of this type could be met with considerable suspicion and resistance.


The problem with Xbox Kinect - aside from a decent range of top-drawer titles - is the inability to play without a large living room and yards of space.

Gaming accessories manufacturer Nyko seeks to change all that, though, with this badboy accessory.

The Nyko Zoom for Kinect reduces the space required to play Kinect by up to 40 per cent. By my calculations, that means the recommended distance required to stand away from the sensor can be lowered from 8ft to under five.

The Zoom clips on top of the sensor without any modification and effectively makes Kinect look the wrong way through a pair of binoculars.

It also comes bundled with iBoutique Zoom Lens Cleaner, a brush-like device of which the name is fairly self explanatory.

The Nyko Zoom will see its UK release on 31 August. Amazon is now taking pre-orders for £36. ®


The use of the word “toon” to describe MMORPG characters is a contentious one, with fans divided over its annoyance or acceptance. But when it came to one MMORPG, it was nothing but proper terminology to call all characters just this.

Toontown Online was one of those “kiddie MMOs” that you probably ignored unless you happen to fall within its demographical clutches back in the day. While it lasted for about a decade, the game’s operation would be notable for its repeated transformation and uncertain status.

With a silly, cartoon-like look and theme, this MMO attempted to bring a levity to a genre that was often marinating in deep fantasy lore and statistical theorycrafting. But when you wanted to eschew dragon fighting for slapstick pie throwing, there was no better game out there. Let’s take a look!

M.I.C.K.E.Y. MMO.U.S.E.

The year 2003 witnessed an explosion of MMORPGs that had been in development after the first generation of graphical MMOs rose to such prominence in the late 1990s. Tucked among Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online, Shadowbane, Lineage II, and PlanetSide was an odd little title from the Mouse House itself.

Disney had been looking to take its brand online since 1996 (with the proposed yet never-developed HercWorld). Around that time, one Imagineer named Jesse Schell created a virtual game of tag between Mickey and friends as a proof-of-concept that gained traction among the company. Disney’s Internet Zone at its Epcot theme park incorporated the Toontag game for a decade and led to the idea of a family-friendly online game that would be safe and fun for all ages.

The pitch that the internal team gave to its higher-ups was that of a “Massively Multiplayer Online Theme Park,” which obviously appealed to Disney’s sensibilities. But the “20 MMOs in one” concept was too expensive — to the tune of $100 million — and so the team started working on an Atlantis: The Lost Empire MMO as an alternative. This project didn’t make it to launch (fortunately, considering that the movie floundered at the box office), and the team moved on to creating a town full of cartoon characters in the vein of the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? With about six million dollars budgeted, Toontown began production in 2000.

Having run its beta (or “sneak peek”) since late 2002, Toontown Online was ready to go prime time with its launch on June 2nd, 2003. Disney Online marketed the game as a “non-violent” alternative to other MMOs that incorporated the experience from Disney’s famous theme park Imagineers.

“We made Toontown a place for everyone, much like our theme parks, so it would appeal to a mass audience. In addition, and in the tradition of the Disney theme parks, this online attraction will grow over time, continuously offering our guests an ever-changing adventure,” said Managing Director Ken Goldstein.

A cartoony community

In the game, players would take on the role of colorful Toons who were attempting to defend their town against soulless “Cogs” — robots who wanted to turn everything into dull grey structures. The only way to fight back was to employ slapstick gags as weapons, such as spritzers, megaphones, or good ol’ fashioned pies in a turn-based showdown. Either the Toons would prevail with their hilarity or the Cogs would overwhelm them with sadness.

Housing, parties, and minigames were also par for the course when a player Toon didn’t want to go out to tackle the Cogs. Interestingly enough, while the game was an official Disney product and featured several licensed characters, the player Toons themselves looked like they came straight from the Looney Toons library.

Toontown Online was specifically designed to encourage players to be social and varied in their activities. They had to farm jellybeans from minigames to purchase gags for combat, and to play those minigames and progress in fights, they needed friends.

“It was almost a religious thing with us: If this is going to be an online game, everything about it should be about playing with other people,” said Schell.

ToonFest and SpeedChat

While no massive hit, Toontown Online nevertheless became a modest success both critically (it was awarded “MMORPG of the Year” in 2003 by Computer Gaming World) and among its growing crowd of fans.

A subscription fee of $9.95 a month kept the title somewhat affordable for families and kids, and a “safe” communication system called SpeedChat. In design, SpeedChat would select pre-made sentences to keep kids from getting harassed, and grouping could only happen if kids exchanged special codes in-person with their friends. Not surprisingly, players found a way to pass out these codes in game even so, arranging housing decorations to form the letters and numbers.

Sony Online Entertainment, a major player in the MMORPG market in the 2000s, got in on the action in 2005. A subsidiary of SOE called Platform Publishing helped to get Toontown Online to retail shelves in an attempt to grow the game’s market. By 2006, 15 million characters had been created for the game.

To its credit, Disney threw a lot of support behind Toontown Online, including hosting a couple of player conventions that it called ToonFest. The first ToonFest was staged in 2006 and got a major publicity bump by the Disney Channel, with a second festival to follow in 2007. Another cool event was an in-game charity event in 2004 in which players recovered Cog-captured buildings to raise money for the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation.

The end (or is it?)

The long-running MMO stumbled to a halt on September 19th, 2013, almost 10 years after it first released. No specific reason save that of “shifting development” from Disney was given for the closure, although the company encouraged players to check out its other titles (such as Club Penguin).

CNN put the blame for the shutdown on Toontown Online’s declining population but reported that thousands of players had signed a petition to get Disney to change its mind. The news outlet noted that the game had a special significance to certain gamers: “Because Toontown was a family game open to anyone seven and older, many of its more dedicated users started as children and grew into young adults while playing the game, making it an integral part of their childhood.”

It wasn’t as though Disney was trying to ditch and forget about Toontown Online entirely, however. Rumor was that the title wasn’t making enough money in its current format, and whispers of a mobile port surfaced soon after the shutdown. As of today, any further plans with the game have yet to be unveiled.

Toontown Rewritten

Not willing to let a good thing die, the Toontown fan community gathered the perishing title into its arms and breathed a single word in its ear: “Emulator.” This, mere months after Toontown Online was canceled, Toontown Rewritten started alpha testing.

“We know that it has been a long time since we originally promised the Toontown Rewritten alpha, however we do have good reason for the delays,” the project team posted in October 2013. “The more we worked on Toontown Rewritten, the more we saw that this game is severely outdated and needs a big rework. These past three months we have been setting groundwork to make sure that this game is not only revived, but revived so that it will last.”

This hard work paid off, as Toontown Rewritten progressed through alpha, beta, and finally launch. The fan emulator, which publicly distances itself from the Disney moniker, has been running and delivering new content for four years now.

It really goes to show that you never know how certain MMOs can make a lasting imprint in the minds and hearts of fans and how these games can become virtual homes that players never want to leave.


Having broken into the England Test side the player’s decision to walk away from the game aged 25 caused quite a stir but he explains that, for him, there is a lot more to life than cricket

Professional sport is scarred by stories of ageing athletes clinging to faded glory, or by bleak tales of their struggles in retirement, and so Zafar Ansari stands out in shimmering contrast. Ansari played three Tests late last year, his debut in Bangladesh and two in India, picking up five wickets and grinding out a highest score of 32. It was a start in the hardest arena of cricket and so Ansari’s retirement in April, at the age of 25, seemed unusual.

Of course those who knew him felt no shock. Alec Stewart, the director of cricket at Surrey, for whom Ansari had played since the age of eight, was supportive. “It’s a brave and considered decision,” Stewart said. “He was always open and honest.”

County cricket: Yorkshire v Surrey and more as day-night matches begin – live! Read more

Stewart alluded to Ansari’s academic background, for the left-arm spinner had obtained a double first in social and political science from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, as well as a subsequent MA in history. “When Zafar was reading a novel, the rest of our boys would be doing a colouring-in book,” Stewart said in his homespun way. Kevin Pietersen, who played with Ansari at Surrey, tweeted amusingly: “Way too clever to be a cricketer!”

Over the last six weeks I have got to know Ansari a little better. It is striking to receive some beautifully written emails from a sportsman, whether young or retired, about subjects stretching from I Am Not Your Negro, the recent James Baldwin documentary, to Ansari’s encouraged and flowing analysis of Labour’s unexpected election results. Books and writing have been at the heart of our exchanges, from Hisham Matar’s The Return to Norman Mailer’s The Fight.

It seems fitting that Ansari suggests we meet at the National Theatre, rather than The Oval, so he can talk for the first time in detail about his reasons for leaving cricket. After we have chatted for an hour he relives the quietly dramatic moment when he told his Surrey team-mates he was retiring a month into a new season: “There definitely were a few tears. I was choking up, and eventually crying. Other guys were also in tears. Alec Stewart choked up and Kumar Sangakkara said some lovely things. A physio I’ve known a long time was crying his eyes out. It was tough.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ansari appeals unsuccessfully during the County Championship Division One match between Surrey and Lancashire at The Oval in April. It was to be his last game as a professional cricketer. Photograph: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images

Ansari smiles at his bittersweet memory. “It’s difficult when you don’t have a Twitter account, and are reserved in your public output, because these are very hard decisions you spend hours talking about with your family. But once you stop playing it’s natural there are lots of things you’ll miss. So it was reassuring it felt difficult.

“It would actually be inhuman to think that you’d just forget. You can’t move away from something you did for so long without an ache. But I’m fortunate this is my choice – rather than a decision forced on me by injury or age. It happened over a long period as my competitive instinct was diminishing – and there was a fundamental sense I needed to be not only obsessive about cricket but obsessive about constantly improving my game. I started to tire of the complete immersion demanded by cricket.”

Ansari’s involvement with England’s Test team underlined that consuming focus – while making him regret the way in which international sport isolated him from real life. “I don’t want to make it sound negative but being an England cricketer requires a single-mindedness about cricket I lack. At Surrey, having lots of disparate things in my life helped my cricket. But this approach was not appropriate with England. The standard of cricket and the intensity of being abroad for 12 weeks, with the press around you, meant I could not be myself. I was missing out on things that are authentic to me.”

He was proud to have become a Test cricketer and Ansari knew he should be thinking more about bowling to Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli than worrying about Donald Trump. But such a restricted worldview did not make sense. “It was a very politically significant time. Trump was elected on the first day of our opening Test in India. I was batting at 10 and we weren’t allowed our phones in the dressing room. I was getting snippets of information from security but I felt so disconnected from something I would have been hyper-connected to here. The combination of playing very difficult cricket, while missing things that mattered so much, made me think more clearly about my future.

Pink balls at night may not be every County Championship batsman’s delight | Vic Marks Read more

“I heard the news about Trump at the end of that day’s play. We got our phones and it was a shocking moment. I expected [Hillary] Clinton to edge it and found it difficult to accept. I’ve since focused most on the policy – like changes to healthcare provision, the attempted Muslim ban, as well as the ramping up of immigration and deportations – rather than just thinking of Trump as the clown he often appears. It’s important to be less hysterical about the person but more hysterical about the political implications.”

Could he talk about such concerns to his England team-mates?

“Yeah, and I think they enjoyed the fact we had conversations around the breakfast table that we wouldn’t normally have as cricketers. They are by no means apolitical but their focus is inward a lot of the time. So we had some interesting discussions and there was a range of opinions.

“I don’t know if there were any people who were pro-Trump. But some were definitely sympathetic to things he was saying. I took it as a positive that there was space for these conversations. But when you have a degree there’s this expectation you can provide answers to questions you have no idea about. I’m just not that well-read so sometimes it was quite funny.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zafar Ansari bowls during his Test debut for England against Bangladesh at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka in October 2016. Photograph: Philip Brown/Popperfoto/Getty Images

Just as people expect Ansari to be the proverbial boffin, it was assumed by some that he would leave cricket for a career in the City. “People were really supportive of my decision to retire. Mike Atherton wrote a really nice piece – as did Ali Martin in the Guardian. But there can be the assumption that because you’ve been to Cambridge you’d only give up cricket to earn a lot of money. My girlfriend and friends found that quite funny – because they know how far it is from the truth. Cricketers don’t get paid like footballers but I was earning more than my parents – and they have been academics for 40 years. So if money was a motivation I would have stayed longer in cricket.”

Ansari smiles when he outlines his plans for the next year.

“I’m going to work for a charity, starting in September, which supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. It’s called Just For Kids Law and they’re in north London. They work with young people involved in the criminal justice system. These are kids from disadvantaged backgrounds with educational difficulties, exclusions and immigration cases. I’m doing a year there as a trainee youth advocate while taking an evening law conversion course. It’s a great opportunity to develop new skills and, hopefully, help a few people.”

Compassion for others, and curiosity about their lives, beats just as strongly inside Ansari as his intelligence. “There are many people in cricket who are cleverer than me,” he suggests. “I think what perhaps differentiated me from other players wasn’t necessarily my ‘intelligence’ but rather my wider interests. I love going to the cinema, I love listening to podcasts and hearing people talking about politics and broader social issues.”

Did he sometimes feel unhappy as a cricketer? “It sometimes felt claustrophobic with a sense of me wanting to be doing other things. It was a restlessness rather than an unhappiness. I was tussling with it for two years and I worried about letting people down who had invested a lot in me. Alec Stewart had always been very good to me so I was concerned that, because of his own passionate commitment to cricket, he would struggle with me walking away at 25 – and saying that there is more to my life than wanting to be an international cricketer. But it was absolutely the opposite. Alec and everyone at Surrey understood – which really helped.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ansari receives a Surrey youth cricket award from the former Surrey and England captain Adam Hollioake in 2003. Photograph: Adam Davy/Surrey County Cricket Club/Press Association Images

“Since retiring it’s become obvious that the temporality of cricket is so distinctive when you’re a player. You spend five days a week from 9am to 7pm at the ground watching cricket, surrounded by cricketers. But since I’ve stopped playing I’ve started to follow the game more at home. I’ve followed England the last few weeks – and I’m engaging with it most days. I look at the scores online and I might watch 20 minutes of highlights. So that’s 40 minutes a day where I’ve followed cricket for pleasure. I didn’t do that as a player.”

Have there been days when he regretted his decision? “No. I’ve been back to The Oval a few times, as I’m still involved with Surrey’s charitable arm, and I’ve been up to the dressing room during games. It’s felt very comfortable.”

Ansari can now savour his three Test appearances. “Absolutely. The crowds weren’t that large in India [in Rajkot and Visakhapatnam] or Bangladesh – but they were intense and exuberant. The atmosphere made it special and I am more and more proud of those five wickets and the 49 runs I scored. My first Test wicket in Bangladesh was quite magical and it meant a lot when I was handed my cap. Mark Ramprakash [England’s batting coach] and I had played a little cricket together and he spoke incredibly kindly about me. That sense of entering an exclusive group is something to be proud of.”

Eoin Morgan says dropping himself from series decider was a ‘tough call’ Read more

Did his more expansive interests outside cricket help him cope with failure better – when he dropped a catch or bowled poorly? “I probably felt those failures as much as anyone. In the moment of failure, or even the day of the failure, it hurt. But I could rationalise the situation a little more easily. I could genuinely say to myself that there are things that are more important in my life.”

Ansari flummoxed many whenever he was asked to pick his dream slip cordon. In 2015 he listed Malcolm X, Rosa Luxemburg, Chimamanda Adichie and Angela Davis. He laughs. “We get asked to do them every year and it’s funny how people pick up on that particular selection. Malcolm X is definitely someone I’m fascinated by but the last one I did included Rihanna and James Baldwin. It’s just fun.”

There is a seriousness, however, to Ansari’s interest in race and politics. His Masters’ thesis explored the legacy of the Deacons for Defense – an obscure 1960s black civil rights group in Mississippi and Louisiana.

“They were more conservative than the Black Panthers. But they were based in the deep south and reflected their geography. The Black Panthers had a more coherent leftist ideology but the expressive politics of the Deacons for Defense were very powerful. Considering America today, with Black Lives Matter, I looked back and tried to assess all the Deacons of Defense had done.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I started to tire of the complete immersion demanded by cricket,’ says Ansari, who will start working for a charity and studying at a law conversion course in September. Photograph: Sarah Lee/for the Guardian

The world today is even more fractured and dangerous. With a white mother and having been born in Ascot and gone to Cambridge, Ansari stresses that: “I obviously had a privileged upbringing. But I think I look at the urgent questions we face today through my father’s eyes, to some extent, an Asian man and a Muslim. He arrived in the UK from Pakistan in the early 1960s, aged 14, and I always try to consider things from his perspective.

“Society is in a concerning place whatever your background. There are troubling questions about inequality and the atomisation of people – the way in which societies are splitting up socially and economically. There are 3.1 million Muslims in this country and it’s often very difficult to have conversations about divisions in British society after devastating attacks on all communities. But it’s important we keep having those conversations.”

Cricket is a wonderful diversion – and, as Ansari makes clear, it can also play a part in uniting communities. “It was a special moment this winter when we had four very different England players with a Muslim background in Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Haseeb Hameed and me on tour. They will continue to be great representatives for England.”

Ansari will make his own lasting contribution in very different fields. At 25 it’s impossible to know yet where his best work will unfold – but it is easy to believe that, beyond cricket, so many more people will benefit from his intelligence and concern for the world around him. Zafar Ansari’s real life, after all, has only just begun.


Image caption The Titan Arum is endangered in its natural habitat of Sumatra's tropical forests

The National Botanic Garden of Belgium is staying open late to give visitors a chance to see one of the world's largest and smelliest flowers.

The Titan Arum rarely blooms, though the Brussels specimen is said to have done so three times since 2008.

The flower rises 2.44m (8ft) off the ground and is expected to wane on Wednesday after only three days.

The Titan Arum is also known as the "corpse flower" because of the strong stench of rotting meat it gives off.

When the plant is ready to attract pollinators, the spike heats up and gives off the smell which, while revolting to humans, is very alluring to insects. It then develops a fruit which attracts birds before ending its life.

It is endangered in its natural habitat of the tropical forests of Sumatra.

A spokesman for the Jardin de Meise said it was "exceptional" that its specimen had flowered so frequently.


Last week, Minneapolis-based utility Xcel Energy proposed its fourth wind farm in the Upper Midwest since mid-July. If approved, the 150-megawatt Border Winds Project would be developed in North Dakota near the U.S.-Canadian border and produce enough electricity to save customers an estimated $45 million over its lifetime while reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by about 320,000 tons.

In July, Xcel Energy — the nation’s top utility for wind-based power — proposed to add 600 megawatts of wind energy through three wind farms in North Dakota and Minnesota. With the addition of the Border Winds Project, Xcel could save customers more than $220 million and add a total of 750 megawatts of wind power to its existing Midwest portfolio, which would bring its wind capacity total in the region to 2,550 megawatts — or enough power to serve over 750,000 homes.

“These projects will lower our customers’ bills, offer protection from rising fuel costs, and provide significant environmental benefits,” Dave Sparby, CEO of Xcel subsidiary Northern States Power Co., said in a statement last month. “Wind prices are extremely competitive right now, offering lower costs than other possible resources, like natural gas plants.”

Xcel has submitted the four projects to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and the North Dakota Public Service Commission for consideration and expects to hear the regulators’ decisions by late fall. If approved, construction will begin immediately in order for the projects to qualify for the federal renewable energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

Advertisement

The PTC, which was set to expire at the end of 2012, was extended in January to projects that begin construction by the end of 2013. The tax credit provides 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity produced over the first ten years of operation.

The Upper Midwest is not the only region that’s benefiting from Xcel’s aggressive push to add more wind power before the PTC expires. In Colorado, Xcel has asked regulators to approve a 200-megawatt wind farm that would save customers more than $142 million in fuel costs over the 20-year contract term.

Xcel also proposed three projects totaling nearly 700 megawatts that would be built in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, citing a lower price per megawatt-hour for wind energy generation than their own natural gas-fueled generation. These projects are expected to save customers $590.4 million in fuel costs over 20 years.

Altogether, Xcel is awaiting approval on about 1,650 megawatts of wind power that could come online before the end of the 2016, which would increase its overall wind capacity by 30 percent.

“We are committed to meeting our customers’ needs in clean and affordable ways,” said Ben Fowke, Xcel Energy’s chairman and CEO. “Wind power is simply the cheapest resource available right now, and we are taking the opportunity afforded by the PTC extension to further shape our systems for the future.”


It’s happening.

In just a few hours, Conor McGregor will be stepping in a boxing ring to take on Floyd Mayweather for the belt of the moneyweight division. This monumental moment in sports, that has captured the attention and drawn the interest of millions, is finally here and it will go down on Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nev.

To breakdown all the chapters and layers of this cultural phenomenon, MMA Fighting caught up with arguably the best welterweight boxer on the planet and one of the most analytical minds of the sweet science. Current undefeated unified 147-pound champion Keith “One Time” Thurman weighed in on all of the ins and outs and the build up of Mayweather vs. McGregor.

The impact of Mayweather vs. McGregor on combat sports

Danny Segura: First thing, first. Are you surprised these two are actually fighting?

Keith Thurman: No, I’m not surprised that it got made. I mean it’s the year 2017 and hey, money talks.

This is not your typical boxing event, and it’s almost not your typical sporting event although it’s being placed as a typical boxing event in a typical boxing ring. What you’re witnessing is a crossover extravaganza. How much of a build up has there been in the past seven years or whatever, just throwing a number out there, of what is better, boxing or MMA? You’ve had some guys like Kimbo slice, rest in peace, that crossed over got defeated, won some matches, but nothing major came from it. But what you have here, and why this really manifested, and why Floyd even allowed it to happen is because his name is Floyd “Money” Mayweather, so whatever makes money makes sense to him.

Segura: Do you think this is the biggest fight in combat sports history?

Thurman: I don’t know, man. I mean, Muhammad Ali back in the day in Africa that was big. It was also broadcasted to everyone for free. But of our generation, my lifetime? Shoot, is this bigger than any fight Mike Tyson ever had? I would say so. I’m my lifetime, from 1988 to 2017, I would say this is the biggest event.

Segura: Do you think we’ll now see more MMA fighters crossover to boxing?

Thurman: It’s interesting. I do see the possibility for a few more crossovers in the future, but I don’t think they will ever be of this kind of stature. I don’t think it will ever be like this because, I mean, it’s Floyd Mayweather. He’s been at the top of the game for over a decade, you know, he’s dominated since he was an Olympian. So people really understand Mayweather and have watched his whole career manifest.

Mayweather is a truly rare athlete, he’s a rare specimen, and to have him go up against the most rumbustious, most entertaining, biggest loudmouth Irishman on the planet, you know. So I don’t think no matter what kind of crossover they do, I don’t think it could ever compare to this crossover. So I think it’s cool that this is the first time and the best you’ll ever get to witness. But then again, if they do some heavyweight crossover, that could be interesting. People love heavyweights and whenever those guys fight is just lightning and thunder. So that could be interesting, but just as overhype and everything, I don’t think anything can get bigger than this.

NAC approves the switch to eight-ounce gloves

Segura: Are you surprised the fight is happening in 8-ounce gloves?

Another handy 12 rounds today. We are prepared to destroy Floyd. Pick whatever size gloves you want as well little man. I fight with 4oz. I don't give a fuck about the size of the glove. I am coming sprinting at you with bricks. Know that. Brittle hands. A post shared by Conor McGregor Official (@thenotoriousmma) on Aug 2, 2017 at 4:27am PDT

Thurman: I told everybody that they would fight in whatever Floyd Mayweather wanted to fight in.

Segura: Have you ever seen a case where the commission overrides the rules regarding glove size?

Thurman: The funny thing is that I competed in Florida early in my career, and when I competed at a catch weight of 152 pounds, the commission gave my opponent the option of eight or 10-ounce gloves. So I will say that there are times where it becomes negotiable to say the least. I knew with Floyd and McGregor that a lot of people were intrigued whether it was going to be with eight-ounce or 10-ounce gloves.

Segura: Well, so is there a difference between 8 and 10-ounce gloves?

Thurman: It does make a difference. If it didn’t make a difference, heavyweights would wear 8-ounce gloves. The more ounces McGregor has to wear the more it will negate from his power. The more ounces Floyd has to wear, the more it can assist in his defense. Real fighters know that the smaller the glove, the easier it is to slip one in. You might have your guard up, but the punch might still come through and you might think you’re covering everything, but there is still that other inch unprotected.

McGregor’s beef with Paulie Malignaggi

Segura: So, the drama with Paulie Malignaggi. What did you make of that situation?

A post shared by Paul Malignaggi (@paulmalignaggi) on Aug 3, 2017 at 8:07pm PDT

Thurman: You know how like sometimes people have beef but then you go and fight face to face and then you kind of squash your beef. Well, this is one of those situations where they had beef, they met each other, and now I think they got even more beef than they did before. That’s their own story. I think it’s kinda funny, and I wonder how personal it’s going to get for Paulie when he ends up commentating on the fight.

DS: What do you think actually happened in the sparring session?

Thurman: There are a lot of rumors about what really happened in that sparring session with Paulie. Paulie ultimately said that McGregor has some growth in his boxing technique but there isn’t really enough time to allow him to grow enough for the Mayweather fight. That sounds like a true statement regardless of whether the guy got beat up or not.

Paulie Malignaggi was a retired fighter that went into your training camp out of shape. And whenever you call somebody into your training camp, you have to understand that you will be in better shape than they are. And another thing is that I’ve never sparred a single sparring partner for 12 rounds. So you don’t make the guy that just got off a plane and who’s not ripped and shredded like you are, you don’t make that dude spar 12 rounds with you.

For example, back in the day when me and Shaun Porter were sparring partners before we were battling for these titles — and it looks like he might end up being my next opponent as a rematch — I was preparing for Marcos Maidana, that’s why we were sparring because of Porter’s aggressive style. That was before Maidana pulled out. Me and Porter never even sparred 10 rounds, we would only spar a maximum of five rounds at a single time. We would always spar four rounds and then my other sparring partner would come in next. So being able to get the best of a sparring partner in a training session, I mean, and you’re talking about a retired fighter. When I look at the photos of Paul Malignaggi in that training camp, he was overweight, but still went 12 rounds with the guy. So it is what it is, he’s not fighting Paulie, he’s fighting Mayweather.

Segura: Did McGregor’s side break any code or etiquette by releasing the photos and sparring footage?

Thurman: A little bit, yeah. But at the end of the day, this motherf*cker is trying to create hype to make this fight worth watching. So you see Paulie Malignaggi on the ground and you’re like, ‘oh he’s messing up this world class fighter; I can’t wait and see what happens when he fights Floyd.’ So with that going on, I’m not really going to, I mean, it’s not my thing. But man, if you don’t want them to be releasing shi*, don’t give them anything good to release.

The breakdown

Segura: Is there an actual chance here for McGregor to pull off the upset?

Thurman: Well, it’s a fight, and when you’re in a fight, there is always a chance. Especially because, you don’t have to call McGregor a boxer, but you have to admit he’s used to hand-to-hand combat and his preference is hand-to-hand combat, not submissions or anything like that. We can say that McGregor has hit enough people in the face that it’s a skillset.

For me, he became a boxer when he defeated Nate Diaz. The reason I say that is because whenever he struck Nate Diaz with a straight-left hand that knocked him down to the ground, he (McGregor) didn’t take advantage of the MMA rules, which allow him to keep attacking Nate Diaz while he’s still on the ground. He simply stood up and kept telling Diaz, ‘stand back up, stand back up.’ I’m wondering why the referee ain’t just giving them a 10 count, and if he doesn’t stand up in 10 then the fight is over, so that looked like a boxing match to me.

So what I’m intrigued in seeing is, what happens when McGregor lands that straight left? Can he land the straight left? Muhammed Ali said, ‘yeah, Frazier is strong. But he ain’t going to hit me, so it doesn’t matter if he can’t hit me.’

Segura: Do you think there could be a case where Mayweather is the one that scores a stoppage?

Thurman: Mayweather hasn’t knocked anybody out since what, Ricky Hatton? Victor Ortiz was a freebie, hands down. So I’ve made this statement a lot the many years I was rising through the ranks and I wanted to have an opportunity to put my skills against Floyd Mayweather, the best boxer of our generation. I always said, ‘you don’t have to be scared of Floyd knocking you out.’ I mean, you can look forward to a 12-round fight with Floyd. I mean, I’d put my grandma in the ring and not think she’ll get knocked out, so that’s not the question. The question is, can you beat the man?

Segura: So this could be a long night for McGregor. Do you expect his conditioning to be ready for a 12-round bout?

Thurman: A lot of boxing guys believe that McGregor doesn’t have a 12 rounds in him. If Floyd targets the body in the early rounds, some believe McGregor will gas out in the later rounds because he gassed out in Nate Diaz fight. In my opinion, he gassed out in both fights, but he handled it better in the second fight, although he was still gassing out towards the end of that fight. So I hope his team really upped their strength and conditioning, especially the conditioning part, in preparation for this fight.

Prediction

Segura: So who wins this fight and how do you think it goes down?

Thurman: I never really care about fights that I’m not involved in so the outcome can be anything for my concern. I’d like to stay open minded, but I think a defensive 12-round victory for Floyd. I don’t see McGregor winning a 12-round victory. I don’t see McGregor walking away with seven out of 12 rounds.

As long as you get seven of the 12 rounds in the books on the judges scorecards, you have a unanimous decision. So I don’t see McGregor achieving that. Floyd Mayweather boxing’s style is one that makes sure no fighter achieves that because that’s his goal and he knows you’re not allowed to win seven rounds. You can win five rounds and look good, but he doesn’t allow you to win six or win seven. So yeah, McGregor needs a knockout to really shock the world.


It's Time to Slay the Revenant Keynes Share This:

Naturally, many prominent economists are viewing this development with horror. "People are saving! The economy will collapse! We've got to get them spending! Paradox of thrift!"

The

I think I have finally learned where such silly notions arise. I recently read an article by an Austrian economist (alas, I've forgotten who, so I can't give proper credit) that explained it thus: in the Keynesian view, an economy is driven by consumption, whereas in the Austrian view, an economy is driven by production (and savings).

So to a Keynesian, an economy is healthy as long as people spend, spend, spend...even if they have to borrow, borrow, borrow to do it. And if they stop spending, they must be made to spend more. And if they refuse, then the government has to do the borrowing and spending for them. (Somehow freedom of conscience never seems to be honored in the economic sphere. Can't I be a conscientious objector to Keynesian stimulus?)

This, despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, the theories of Keynes have never been scientifically proven or even substantiated. No Keynesian intervention has ever been shown to work. So why are they always the first resort? Because whether or not they work, Keynesian prescriptions are convenient for those in power. They give the state a plausible cover, that the citizens will accept, to enlarge its power.

So, it's time to slay the revenant Keynes. Like Karl Marx, his half-baked theories reach from beyond the grave to strangle societies and ruin people's lives. It's Ptolemaic crackpottery which is long overdue for refutation. It enjoys what I call "academic celebrity" -- not "famous because it is famous", but rather "accepted because it's accepted."

Alas, I don't think Keynesianism will be discredited unless the economy suffers a total collapse. And from the rubble, I'm sure we'll hear the whine of the last Keynesian: "It's because we didn't stimulate enough!" Back to category overview Back to news overview Older News Newer News

Printer Friendly Brad - Thursday 05 March 2009 - 13:56:26 - Permalink I saw a few days ago that the U.S. savings rate has increased to 5%. To my mind, this is Good News: people are starting to get responsible about their finances, starting to pay down their debt, and starting to put some cash away for hard times. I figure this is exactly what's needed to get out of the credit swamp and back to a sustainable economy.Naturally, many prominent economists are viewing this development with horror. "People are saving! The economy will collapse! We've got to get them spending! Paradox of thrift!"The "paradox of thrift" holds that what is good for every individual (thrift and saving) is bad for the economy at large....rather as if the economy were one gigantic Prisoner's Dilemma . Mainstream economists love citing this, perhaps because it sprang from the mind of the exalted J. M. Keynes.I think I have finally learned where such silly notions arise. I recently read an article by an Austrian economist (alas, I've forgotten who, so I can't give proper credit) that explained it thus: in the Keynesian view, an economy is driven by consumption, whereas in the Austrian view, an economy is driven by production (and savings).So to a Keynesian, an economy is healthy as long as people spend, spend, spend...even if they have to borrow, borrow, borrow to do it. And if they stop spending, they must be made to spend more. And if they refuse, then the government has to do the borrowing and spending for them. (Somehow freedom of conscience never seems to be honored in the economic sphere. Can't I be a conscientious objector to Keynesian stimulus?)This, despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, the theories of Keynes have never been scientifically proven or even substantiated. No Keynesian intervention has ever been shown to work. So why are they always the first resort? Because whether or not they work, Keynesian prescriptions are convenient for those in power. They give the state a plausible cover, that the citizens will accept, to enlarge its power.So, it's time to slay the revenant Keynes. Like Karl Marx, his half-baked theories reach from beyond the grave to strangle societies and ruin people's lives. It's Ptolemaic crackpottery which is long overdue for refutation. It enjoys what I call "academic celebrity" -- not "famous because it is famous", but rather "accepted because it's accepted."Alas, I don't think Keynesianism will be discredited unless the economy suffers a total collapse. And from the rubble, I'm sure we'll hear the whine of the last Keynesian: "It's because we didn't stimulate enough!"


David Villa isn’t going anywhere.

There was speculation that Villa would retire after his three-year contract expired at the end of this season, but New York City FC silenced those rumors Wednesday by signing the reigning MLS MVP to a one-year extension that will keep him in The Bronx.

“I am so happy to play [at NYCFC],” Villa told The Post. “I am fit, the club spoke about joining for one more year and it was one of the easiest things I’ve done in my life.”

Villa’s contract extension was formally announced at P.S. 49 in The Bronx, where the former World Cup winner from Spain fielded tough questions from youngsters, like what’s his favorite pregame meal (pasta or rice) to whether he enjoys playing soccer (obviously). After all, the 35-year-old could have easily called it a career after this season, but he’s not ready to hang up his boots just yet.

“I think I’ve improved [at NYCFC],” said Villa, who’s missed just seven matches since NYCFC’s inaugural season in 2015. “With experience, games, with minutes on the pitch and outside the pitch, I keep learning. I’m a better player [now].”

Villa signed a three-year Designated Player contract in 2014 and, since then, he’s been everything NYCFC could have asked for. Arguably one of the best Designated Player signings in MLS history, Villa never took his foot off the gas, especially last season, when he scored 23 goals to win MLS MVP honors and led NYCFC to their first ever playoff appearance.

“When I look back to those first days in 2014, it’s really amazing to see how far we’ve come in such a short space of time,” said Villa, who is NYCFC’s all-time leading scorer with 46 goals. “And to know that there is so much potential for us to continue growing, on and off the field.”

The World Cup winner has shown no signs of tired legs this season, leading NYCFC (13 points) with five goals in seven appearances.

For Villa, coming to NYCFC hasn’t been a mistake.

“There were no sacrifices,” Villa said. “I always dreamed of being a soccer player. I can say I sacrificed nothing playing soccer.”


Advertisement CBO: GOP health care bill would reduce number of people with comprehensive health insurance 'by millions' Share Shares Copy Link Copy

The Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary analysis of the Graham-Cassidy bill on Monday saying that millions of people with comprehensive health insurance would lose coverage under the new bill. “That number could vary widely depending on how states implemented the legislation, although the direction of the effect is clear,” said the analysis. The non-partisan scoring agency estimates that between 2017 and 2026, "the legislation would reduce the on-budget deficit by at least $133 billion and result in millions fewer people with comprehensive health insurance that covers high-cost medical events."The report is not as detailed as previous CBO scores, however.It does not give a more specific number of how many Americans would lose health care coverage under the health care law sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana nor does it include information on how Graham-Cassidy would affect the cost of premiums throughout the country.According to CBO, the reduction in the number of insured people relative to the number under current law would result from three main causes. 1. Enrollment in Medicaid would be substantially lower because of large reductions in federal funding for that program.2. Enrollment in nongroup coverage would be lower because of reductions in subsidies for it.3. Enrollment in all types of health insurance would be lower because penalties for not having insurance would be repealed.Senator Susan Collins from Maine, who reportedly said she was waiting for the report to come out before making her decision, said shortly after the analysis was posted that she was a no.Collins tweeted a full response as well saying, "This is simply not the way that we should be approaching an important and complex issue that must be handled thoughtfully and fairly for all Americans."The agency announced weeks ago that it would not have adequate time to release coverage numbers and instead would only be able to release a "preliminary" report."CBO will not be able to provide point estimates of the effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums for at least several weeks," the agency said in a statement about the bill.The CBO score's main purpose is to ensure that the legislation meets its saving targets required under reconciliation, the process that allows Senate Republicans to pass the health care bill with 51 votes.The non-partisan agency's score is also of the first version of the bill. Changes were made to the legislation over the weekend and released Sunday night. Those tweaks include a recalculation of how much money rural states would receive under Graham Cassidy as well as a further roll back on protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The CBO's latest score does not include the changes.CNN has contributed to this report


A new survey on Jewish Americans released just now by the Pew Research Center shows what we’ve come to expect from these reports: They are becoming less religious overall, with Millennial Jews even less religious than their older counterparts:

A Pew Research reanalysis of the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey suggests that at that time, 93% of Jews in that study were Jews by religion and 7% were Jews of no religion (after some adjustments to make the NJPS and Pew Research categories as similar as possible). In the new Pew Research survey, 78% of Jews are Jews by religion, and fully 22% are Jews of no religion (including 6% who are atheist, 4% who are agnostic and 12% whose religion is “nothing in particular”). Though the two studies employed different question wording and methodologies and are thus not directly comparable, the magnitude of these differences suggests that Jews of no religion have grown as a share of the Jewish population and the overall U.S. public. The new Pew Research survey finds that approximately 0.5% of U.S. adults — about 1.2 million people — are Jews of no religion.

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times highlights this change in her report and brings up another relevant point: Non-religious Jews aren’t passing down their religious traditions to their children, meaning the trend is likely to continue:

… the percentage of “Jews of no religion” has grown with each successive generation, peaking with the millennials (those born after 1980), of whom 32 percent say they have no religion. “It’s very stark,” Alan Cooperman, deputy director of the Pew religion project, said in an interview. “Older Jews are Jews by religion. Younger Jews are Jews of no religion.” … But Jews without religion tend not to raise their children Jewish, so this secular trend has serious consequences for what Jewish leaders call “Jewish continuity.” Of the “Jews of no religion” who have children at home, two-thirds are not raising their children Jewish in any way. This is in contrast to the “Jews with religion,” of whom 93 percent said they are raising their children to have a Jewish identity.

What we’re seeing more than anything else is a rise in secular Judaism as opposed to religious Judaism. It’s the non-religious traditions that are being passed down to the next generation, if that.

The report also shows a rise in Jews who marry non-Jews, another sign that religious faith is taking a backseat to other qualities.

The strangest finding, though, may be just how many Jewish people believe that you can be a Jew while believing that Jesus was the Messiah…

I would jokingly say 34% of Jews didn’t go to Hebrew school… but I don’t think that’s a joke.


'Pray at the Pump' activist: 'We shall overcome' high gas prices Nick Langewis

Published: Sunday August 17, 2008

Print This Email This Divine intervention, not the market, is bringing gas prices down, one campaigner says. 59-year-old Rocky Twyman of Rockville, Maryland has garnered worldwide attention after holding prayer meetings at gas stations across the United States since April as part of his "Pray at the Pump" drive. Recently, to celebrate a drop in the average price of gasoline to $3.80 a gallon, Twyman led a group meeting at their inaugural Washington service station, singing a version of "We Shall Overcome" whose words were changed to "We'll have to lower gas prices." "We believe not just in prayer," Twyman said, "because we believe that faith without works is dead. So we've encouraged people to car-pool more and organise their days more, because it's a combination of faith with these other factors." "God is the only one we can turn to at this point," Twyman said during an April stop in San Francisco. "Take it to the real CEO," Alabama DJ Todd Baker said during a recent prayer session at a Huntsville Texaco station on the heels of ExxonMobil's posting of a second-quarter profit of about $11.7 billion. Twyman also recently prayed for Tonight Show host Jay Leno, who mentioned him in a July 29 monologue: "Hey, have you heard about this group called Prayer at the Pump? They're a prayer group that sprang up, and they go to gas stations and they hold hands and they pray for lower gas prices. Otherwise known as the Bush energy plan." Twyman's involvement in the community also includes the recruitment of about 14,000 minority individuals into the national bone marrow registry since 1992, for which he received honors from Montgomery County, Maryland in April. He also led a petition drive in 2005 to nominate Oprah Winfrey for the Nobel Peace Prize. "We're just really impressed," Twyman told People Magazine, "with what she has done to raise the level of consciousness about hunger, poverty, homeless, women's issues and, of course, the issue of AIDS."


That's bad policy for Americans as well as Cubans, and it's based on a disingenuous argument. The putative reason for the change is that Cuba still violates the human rights of its own people, including jailing dissidents and independent journalists. But hasn't the Trump administration been moving the U.S. away from its focus on human rights around the world? Pressing foreign governments to end oppression has been a mainstay of U.S. foreign policy for decades under Republican and Democratic administrations — but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told State Department employees last month that the U.S. would no longer put such a premium on human rights issues because such considerations could interfere with our national interests. Trump has vowed to put "America first" and has been loathe to criticize foreign leaders publicly for their violations of human rights.


INDIA will send a strong squad to Zimbabwe for its five-match One-Day International (ODI) series against the hosts to give the series the zest coach Andrew Waller’s men have been yearning for.

Staff Writer

There were fears India would dampen the series by sending a second-string side as it did in 2010, but the tourists have since forwarded a squad list that, barring any injuries, should tour Zimbabwe this month.

All the big names that toured England for the International Cricket Council Champions Trophy and are currently engaged in a triangular series in the West Indies with Sri Lanka, are in the squad expected to arrive in Zimbabwe on July 21.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni captains a 15-men squad that has been submitted to Zimbabwe Cricket.

Champions Trophy player of the tournament Shikhar Dhawan, who had a dream tournament by scoring 363 runs, will be travelling to Zimbabwe.

The spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Ashwin Ravichandran, one of India’s success stories, is also part of the squad.

Zimbabwe has been in camp for a month preparing for this tour, which comes ahead of Pakistan’s visit, and also includes a two Test series.

Zimbabwe and India play the first three ODIs in Harare on July 24, 26, and 28 before travelling to Bulawayo for the final two matches on July 31 and August 3.

India Squad for Zimbabwe:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni; Shikhar Dhawan; Dinesh Karthik; Murali Vijay; Virat Kohli; Amit Mishra; Suresh Raina; Rohit Sharma; Ashwin Ravichandran; Ravindrasinh Jadeja; Bhuvaneshwar Kumar; Ishant Sharma; Umeshkumar Yadav; Vinay Ranganatha and Irfankhan Pathan


Republican lawmakers are threatening to put the nation’s financial health at risk over a ritual vote to raise the debt ceiling, but they don’t actually object to throwing away money. Case in point: they seem to relish spending taxpayer dollars on the plainly unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act.

The 1996 law prohibits federal recognition of marriages between people of the same sex. It was signed – to his shame – by President Bill Clinton, and for years the government defended DOMA in court against lawsuits. But in 2011 President Obama instructed the Justice Department to relent – after Justice concluded that the law was not constitutional.

Cue the budget-conscious Republicans on Capitol Hill, who authorized the spending of up to $2.75 million in public funds to hire lawyers to defend DOMA on their behalf. Apparently, that was not a big enough check, so on Jan. 4, the House Republicans raised the fee ceiling to $3 million.

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner protesting the spending, which the G.O.P. leadership somehow forgot to mention at any of the dozens of press conferences they’ve held to preach the gospel of fiscal responsibility.

“This clandestine commitment of taxpayer funds is highly irregular and objectionable, and it must end now,” they wrote, pointing out that defending DOMA is futile since it violates Constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

The Defense of Marriage Act is perhaps the last example of officially sanctioned discrimination in the United States. Until Congress repeals it or the Supreme Court strikes it down, a select group of Americans will be denied the benefits and recognition provided to all other married Americans, and state laws that allow gay unions will have only limited effect.


The layout principles–columns and rows, angles and lines–that we use to build websites today are largely influenced by their print heritage. And although grid implementation on the web is getting better and more polished, web layout in general is still awkward compared to print media, especially when it comes to content flow.

Magazines and newspapers have always enjoyed elegant ways for arranging content layout, such as wrapping text around, or inside, non-rectangular shapes.

Multipurpose Magazine by GreenSocks

Let’s explore how the CSS Shapes Module will allow us this same freedom on the web.

Quick Intro to CSS Shapes

CSS Shapes enable web designers to create more abstract, geometric layouts, beyond simple rectangles and squares. The specification provides us with new CSS properties which include shape-outside and shape-margin . Browser support is reasonable, though these properties are currently only available in Chrome, Opera, and Safari, with the -webkit- prefix, hence -webkit-shape-outside .

The shape-outside property will cause inline content to wrap around (outside) following the element curve, rather than the box model. Initially there was also shape-inside to wrap the content inside an element; text within a circular element would be moulded into a circle shape as well. However, the implementation has been postponed for CSS Shapes Level 2.

From top to bottom: shape-outside and shape-inside in action.

The shape-margin property sets the margin around whichever shape is using the shape-outside .

Let’s take a look at some examples.

Creating a Shape

The easiest way to find out how CSS Shapes works is probably through creating a circle. So, here’s a div (our circle), with several paragraphs alongside.

Here’s some basic styling, including the width and the height of our circle, the border-radius to shape the element, and a float so the paragraph wraps around the element.

As the we would except, the paragraphs is now wrapped around the element. However, since the border-radius property does not define the actual element shape, the paragraph wrap does not form the circle curve.

If we inspect the element through our browser DevTools, we will find the element is, in fact, still a box. So, even though our div has the appearance of a circle, the border-radius has done nothing to the actual shape of the element.

Notice the rectangular highlight around the element.

In order for our paragraph to adhere to the circular shape, we need to change the actual element shape through the shape-outside property; in this case, we’ll add one with the circle() function passed as the value.

Our paragraphs now wrap neatly around the circle’s circumference.

Additionally, if we now inspect the element through DevTools, we’ll see that the element is properly rendered into a circle.

Notice the darker highlight.

With some margins, look how it might enhance a simple layout:

Customizing the Circle

The circle() function takes a couple of values for defining the radius and the center coordinate respectively: circle(r at x y) . By default, the radius value is derived from the element size; if the element is 300px wide, for instance, the radius will be 150px (the radius being half of the circle’s diameter).

Similarly, the x and y coordinates are measured relative to the element’s size, and they are by default set at 50% 50% ; right at the centre of the element.

The circle is positioned at the center of the element.

These two values will come in useful when you want to resize the shape, while keeping the actual element size, or move the shape while retaining the element position. In the following example, we’ll reduce the circle radius down to 60px and set the center coordinate to 30% 70% , which should move the circle to the bottom left of the element box.

The paragraphs now pass through the element box following the circle size. View the demo.

It is worth noting that when modifying the circle both the center coordinate and the radius have to be explicitly defined; adding only one of the them is invalid.

Shape Box Model

CSS Shapes inherit the same box model principle as the element, but applied outside the scope of the element itself. This allows us to separately set the element, say, to border-box while setting the shape to padding-box . To change the shape box model, add one of the box model keywords, content-box , margin-box , border-box , or padding-box after the function.

The default box-model of the shape is set to margin-box . And in the following example, we’ve changed it to padding-box to tell the browser to exclude the element margin when determining the shape size or span. Now we should find the paragraph pass through the border, and immediately touching the padding of the element.

The orange square is the margin, the yellow square is the border, and the green square is the padding,

I highly recommend checking out our free course on the Basics of CSS Box Model for more about how the box-model works in detail.

Creating More Shapes

The CSS Shapes specification comes with a few more shape functions:

ellipse() : As the name implies, this function will create an ellipse shape. We can configure the ellipse radius and move the shape center coordinate as well. But unlike the circle() function, the ellipse() function applies two radius measurements, horizontal and vertical, hence ellipse( 100px 180px at 10% 20% ) .

: As the name implies, this function will create an ellipse shape. We can configure the ellipse radius and move the shape center coordinate as well. But unlike the function, the function applies two radius measurements, horizontal and vertical, hence . polygon() : This function enables us to create more complex shapes like triangles, hexagons, as well as non-geometrical shapes. Using polygon is not as easy as creating a circle, but the Path to Polygon Converter tool makes it a bit more intuitive.

Wrapping Up

In this tutorial, we looked into the basic application of CSS Shapes; we created a shape, customized the size, the position, and the box model. At the time of the writing, several aspects of CSS Shapes are still very rough around the edges, which is probably why we don’t see it used widely just yet.

As mentioned earlier in this tutorial, the CSS Shapes shape-inside property, which allows us to wrap and shape content inside an element, has been put on ice.

property, which allows us to wrap and shape content inside an element, has been put on ice. The CSS Shapes specification provides a separate property named shape-box to define the shape box-model, though it currently seems inapplicable to any browsers.

to define the shape box-model, though it currently seems inapplicable to any browsers. Safari requires the -webkit- prefix, highlighting that this feature is experimental.

Nonetheless, despite slow progress and disparity across browsers at the moment, I’m looking forward to CSS Shapes! Once the major browsers pick it up I can’t wait to see some really creative layouts on the web!


The venerable British medical journalhasretracted a 1998 study suggesting a link between autism and childhoodvaccination with the measles -mumps-rubella MMR vaccine .

The Lancet tells WebMD that it has retracted "10 or 15" studies in

its 186-year history. The retraction follows the finding of the U.K.

General Medical Council (GMC) that says study leader Andrew Wakefield, MD, and

two colleagues acted "dishonestly" and "irresponsibly" in conducting their

research.

The Lancet specifically refers to claims made in the paper that the

12 children in the study were consecutive patients that appeared for treatment,

when the GMC found that several had been selected especially for the

study. The paper also claimed that the study was approved by the

appropriate ethics committee, when the GMC found it had not been.

"We fully retract this paper from the published record," The Lancet

editors say in a news release.

The retraction means the study will no longer be considered an official part

of the scientific literature.

BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, has

competed with The Lancet since 1840. BMJ editor Fiona Godlee says

she welcomes the Lancet retraction.

"This will help to restore faith in this globally important vaccine and in

the integrity of the scientific literature," Godlee says in a news release.

In 2004, 10 of Wakefield's 13 co-authors disavowed the findings of the 1998

study. Although the study never claimed to have definitively proven a

link between the MMR vaccine and autism, sensational media reports ignited a

public panic . MMR vaccinations fell

dramatically.

More rigorous studies have found

no link between autism and the MMR vaccine . Last year, the U.S.

"vaccine court" rejected U.S. lawsuits claiming that there was a plausible

link between the vaccine and autism.

Wakefield continues to proclaim his innocence and defends his earlier work.

He now resides in Texas, where he is executive director of an alternative

medicine center for autism treatment and

research.

By Daniel DeNoon

Reviewed by Louise Chang

©2005-2008 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved