The partition of Quebec refers to the secession of regions of the province of Quebec, rather than to partitions in a strict political sense. It is usually discussed as a possibility in the event of Quebec secession from Canada. It was not a key issue in either the 1980 Referendum on Quebec Sovereignty or the 1995 Referendum on Quebec Sovereignty, but dominated the politics of national unity for about two years in the aftermath of the second referendum. Since then, the issue has occasionally resurfaced (for example in the 2007 provincial election).

Partition proposals [ edit ]

What area would an independent Quebec occupy? That of the Province as it is today without any territorial waters? That of 1867 i.e., the territory without the 1898 and 1912 annexes? That of 1984 with the addition of Newfoundland's Labrador? A.-L. Sanguin, 1984[1]

Broadly speaking, partition proposals have tended to fall into three categories:

1. New borders based on a return to historical boundaries that predate the Confederation of 1867.

Provinces of Canada at Confederation in 1867

The logic here is that the separation of Quebec would represent an end to a constitutional deal in which Quebec was granted stewardship over certain lands which would revert to their former sovereign owners if Quebec were to leave Canada. For example, in his 1991 book Who Gets Ungava?, David Varty notes that the northern two-thirds of Quebec’s current territory had formerly been a part of the lands owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, and that it had been transferred to Quebec by means of two Acts of the Canadian Parliament, in 1898 and 1912 respectively. For this reason, if Quebec were to secede, the transfer would be legally void: Quebec was a province of Canada at the time that the Ungava territory was transferred to Quebec’s jurisdiction... Had Quebec been moving to become an independent country, the transfer of jurisdiction would not have taken place. There was an implied condition that the Province of Quebec was going to remain part of Canada. Any attempt to move to independence would constitute a breach of that implied condition attached to the transfer.[2]

2. New borders that would create a ‘land bridge’ between New Brunswick and Ontario This could be set up to prevent Canada’s remaining nine provinces from being split into two non-contiguous chunks of territory separated by about 300 miles (480 km) of foreign (Quebec) soil. The term sometimes used for this eventuality is "Pakistanisation",[1] in reference to the way in which East Pakistan and West Pakistan were separated by hundreds of miles of foreign soil, following independence in 1947, with East Pakistan eventually separating and becoming its own country, Bangladesh, in 1971. The fear is that Canada would be unworkable if its four Atlantic provinces were to become an exclave. 3. New borders based on the preferences of local populations. The logic of this approach is that, if Quebecers as a whole have the right to determine by majority vote whether to separate from Canada, then by extension the residents of regions within Quebec ought to be accorded the same right to separate from Quebec and to remain within Canada. The areas of Quebec that have been mentioned as likely to choose to remain in Canada include predominantly English-speaking municipalities on the western part of the Island of Montreal, Northern Quebec, the Eastern Townships and the Pontiac region in the Outaouais.[ citation needed ] In his 1992 book Canada Remapped: How the Partition of Quebec Will Reshape the Nation, Scott Reid argues in favour of partition as determined by local populations and largely dismisses the first two lines of thought on partition listed above.

History of the Partition debate [ edit ]

The partition movement dates from May 1976, when William Shaw, a candidate for the leadership of the Union Nationale, proposed the idea in a series of interviews with journalists. Writing several years later, Shaw recounted one of these interviews: "I said to the journalist at that time, ‘I want to introduce a new word into the lexicon of Canadian politics—PARTITION. The threat of partition will prevent separation.’"[3]

In December 1976, an organization called the "Preparatory Committee for an Eleventh Province" was formed in Montreal. This group contained some individuals who believed, along with Shaw, that the threat of a partition in which some parts of Quebec would remain within Canada would weaken support for separation.

Other members of the Preparatory Committee sought to create a new province out of the linguistically mixed parts of Quebec even if Quebec were to remain in Canada, in order to create a new, bilingual province.[4] This faction within the early partition movement bears some resemblance to the movements that have arisen from time to time in parts of some Canadian provinces to break away and form new provinces. For example, also in the 1970s, there was a movement, led by the Parti Acadien, to create a new Acadian province out of northern New Brunswick.

Shortly before the 1980 referendum on Quebec secession, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau remarked, "Si le Canada est divisible, le Québec doit être aussi divisible."[5] (This translates as, "If Canada is divisible, Quebec must also be divisible.") Apparently taking their inspiration from this statement,[6] Shaw and co-author Lionel Albert had published a book on the subject by the end of the year. Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence outlined a plan for the excision of three slices of territory from a newly independent Quebec republic:

Shaw and Albert calculated that the resulting independent Quebec republic would contain somewhat less than one-quarter of the province’s total landmass, have a population of around 2.9 million, and would be about 97% French-speaking. The parts remaining in Canada would contain over three million residents, of whom about two-thirds would be French-speaking. But they also seem to have believed that their scenario would never play out. As they put it, "Such a country will not be proclaimed—ever. The French-Canadian people would not have it. They would rather have a large province than a small country. That is why separation will not happen."[10]

The Grand Council of the Crees and the Inuit of Nunavik in Northern Quebec have both expressed that they will keep their lands in Canada should Quebec secede, invoking international laws that guarantee their right to self-determination. In 1995, a Cree referendum voted 95% in favour of staying in Canada should Quebec secede.

Following the narrow loss by the separatist side in the October 1995 referendum on secession, there was a widespread belief that another referendum would be held in the near future. For this reason, potential players began to take actions that would strengthen their positions in the coming unity crisis.[11] Forty-three municipal councils in Quebec, including many on the western part of the Island of Montreal, passed resolutions expressing their will to stay in Canada.[12]

In 1997, Denzil Spence, the mayor of Allumette Island, a small west Quebec municipality on the Ontario border, approached the county councils in several nearby Ontario counties with the following pro-partition resolution which had previously been endorsed by Quebec's Equality Party:

Resolved: Regardless of the outcome of any referendum on the independence of Quebec conducted by the government of the province of Quebec, the Government of Canada guarantee forthwith the rights of loyal citizens of Canada, where they form the majority in any provincial riding in Quebec, to remain citizens of Canada, territorially part of the Canadian nation and people, one and indivisible.[13]

Between March and August 1997, the resolution was endorsed by county councils in Renfrew County, Frontenac County, Lanark County, and Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry United Counties, but it was rejected by the council of Prescott-Russell County.[14]

A similar resolution, circulated by a group called the Quebec Committee for Canada, was endorsed by New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna in early summer 1997, and shortly afterwards by New Brunswick's Union of Municipalities, representing about 40 predominantly anglophone municipal councils. However the parallel francophone organization, the Association of New Brunswick Municipalities, rejected the partition resolution.[15] Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard responded to Premier McKenna's letter of endorsement with a letter of his own, defending Quebec's right to secede with its territory intact. This in turn provoked an open letter from federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, arguing that partition was a legitimate option. Finally, on August 14, Quebec's deputy premier, Bernard Landry, responded with an open letter in Le Droit, accusing partitionists of being anti-democratic.

Shortly after these events, the sovereigntist provincial government of Premier Bouchard enacted a law forcing many of Quebec's municipalities to merge — and in particular, forcing all of the small non-francophone municipalities on the Island of Montreal to become part of a single francophone-majority municipality covering the entire island. Montreal Gazette columnist Henry Aubin observed shortly afterwards that "many sovereigntists hoped that the merger would boost French and stymie partition.", ignoring the fact that municipalities have no constitutional powers and belong to the province.[16]

Arguments against partition [ edit ]

Quebec sovereigntists and federalist Quebec nationalists generally oppose partition. Partition is chiefly supported by the argument of the right of territorial integrity (intégrité térritoriale) of Quebec. A number of arguments have been advanced in defence of this position.

1. International law guarantees the territorial integrity of Quebec. The most precise expression of the argument that international law would guarantee a sovereign Quebec’s right to its current boundaries was given, in 1992, from the Bélanger-Campeau Commission, by a panel of international law experts (Thomas Franck, Rosalyn Higgins, Alain Pellet, Malcolm Shaw, Christian Tomuschat) commissioned by the government of Quebec in the aftermath of the failed Meech Lake Accord. They responded to the following two questions on the territorial integrity and the potential partition of an independent Quebec, which were posed by a special commission of the Quebec National Assembly:

Question No. 1: “Assuming that Quebec were to attain sovereignty, would the boundaries of a sovereign Quebec remain the same as its present boundaries, including the territories attributed to Quebec under the federal legislation of 1898 and 1912, or would they be those of the Province of Quebec at the time of the creation of the Canadian Federation in 1867?”

Question No 2: “Assuming that Quebec were to attain sovereignty, would international law enforce the principle of territorial integrity (or uti possidetis) over any claims aiming to dismember the territory of Quebec, and more particularly: “(a) claims of the Natives of Quebec invoking the right to self-determination within the meaning of international law; “(b) claims of the anglophone minority, particularly in respect of those regions of Quebec in which this minority is concentrated; “(c) claims of the inhabitants of certain border regions of Quebec, regardless of ethnic origin?"

The panelists answered with their opinions as follows:

Answer No. 1: “If Quebec were to attain independence, the borders of a sovereign Quebec would be its present boundaries and would include the territories attributed to Quebec by the federal legislation of 1898 and 1912, unless otherwise agreed to by the province before independence, or as between the two States thereafter.”

Answer No. 2: “If Quebec were to attain independence, the principle of legal continuity (absence of a vacuum juris) would allow the territorial integrity of Quebec, guaranteed both by Canadian constitutional law and public international law, to be asserted over any claims aimed at dismembering the territory of Quebec, whether they stem from: “- the Natives of Quebec, who enjoy all the rights belonging to minorities, in addition to those recognized in indigenous peoples by present-day international law, but without giving rise to the right to secede; “- the anglophone minority for whom the protection provided by international law has no territorial effect; or “- persons residing in certain border regions of Quebec, who, as such, enjoy no particular protection under international law."

“These conclusions are reinforced by the applicability of the principle of the succession to the existing territorial limits at the time of independence.”[17]

This line of argumentation is supported by "Uti possidetis juris" which states, as per customary international law, that newly formed sovereign states should have the same borders that their preceding dependent area had before their independence.[18]

2. Quebec is a nation, and therefore it has the collective right to be an independent nation-state, and also a collective right not to be partitioned or divided. There may be corollaries to this argument. First, Canada including French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians would be considered not to be a nation, and hence its territorial integrity does not warrant the protection given under international law to the existing borders of nation-states. Second, the fact that English-speaking Canadians living in Quebec are linked by language to another nation (the rest of Canada) does not mean that they have the right to remain within Canada in their homes if the province secedes. This was the argument presented by Premier Lucien Bouchard when he stated, on January 27, 1996, that "Canada is not a real country."

This argument is also based in international law, more specifically Section b. of Article XI of the Charter of the United Nations, stating:

"Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and, to this end: [...]

b. to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of advancement; [...]"[19]

Worded otherwise, this means that Quebec, as a distinct nation, has the right to aspirations to form a sovereign state, as well as the right to be supported by the Federal government in this endeavor.

Gérald Larose, the president of the Confederation of National Trade Unions, used this argument to explain why he referred to partition proposals as "racist":

"Asked why he calls the partition movement racist, Larose said, 'cutting up a territory, wherever it's done in the world, is a racist project. They cut according to the backyard and the sidewalks of people, according to their race. This is a racist project.' Asked why this does not apply to the sovereigntist project and Canada, he said, 'There is not one people in Canada. There are two peoples. Quebec is a people and Canada is another people and we have our territory. That is why Canada is divisible, Quebec un-divisible.'"[20]

This argument has also been supported by francophones in provinces outside of Quebec. In the two-year period following the 1995 referendum, when many municipal councils in Ontario and New Brunswick were passing resolutions endorsing the right of individual municipalities within Quebec to leave the province and rejoin Canada, the "partition resolution" was rejected by almost all French-majority municipalities in the two provinces. In the mostly French-speaking Ottawa suburb of Vanier, the council approved the resolution, and later rescinded its approval. Mayor Guy Cousineau explained this reversal to a newspaper reporter by stating "I had letters and calls from many francophones in Nepean, Gloucester, and on the Quebec side." He went on to explain, "We must show solidarity for 'la francophonie' from one ocean to the other. Not just here in Ontario, not just in Quebec, but everywhere in Canada…. Now, it's very clear and certain that we're not in favour of Quebec separation, but there are better ways to encourage Quebecers to remain in Canada."[21]

3. Partition is based on the undemocratic assumption that Quebec is not divisible as long as it is voting "No" to secession, but that it is divisible as soon as it votes "Yes." In 1997, future Parti Québécois leader Bernard Landry expressed this point of view when he wrote,

"The partitionists argue that 'No' voters should have more rights than 'Yes' voters. In 1980 and again in 1995, sovereigntist voters accepted with good grace the majority decision. According to the partitionists, some 'No' voters could ignore democracy, refuse the verdict and change the rules of the game. This would be an intolerable injustice…. [Do] you think that the towns or the regions that voted 'Yes' in 1980 and in 1995 also have the right to break themselves away from Canada? Surely not."[22]

As an example of what ex-premier Bernard Landry explained, it can be established that after the Quebec Referendum of 1995 where the Yes vote lost by a margin of about 0.5% (49.42% Yes, 50.58% No), no attempts to partition were made by the "Yes" voter base, in respect of the referendum. It is an argument based less on legal grounds, and more on moral grounds.

4. Partition is an impractical solution, or is being proposed insincerely even by its advocates. This argument has been advanced by Raymond Villeneuve, a founding member of the FLQ and leader of the Mouvement de libération nationale du Québec (MLNQ), who says,

"They're always threatening us, always, always. Whether it's Brent Tyler, Stephen Scott, William Johnson, William Shaw or whoever. And they're very subtle about it. They say that if we want to divide Canada, then they'll divide Quebec. And they make it sound as though people will accept it. Their real objective is to scare people, but they say, 'We don't want violence. We just won't pay our taxes. We'll use civil disobedience.' "

There is merit in Villeneuve's characterization of partition as being primarily an argument designed to encourage Quebecers to vote against separation in any future referendum on separation. Trudeau's 1980 observation that if Canada is divisible, Quebec is also divisible, was made on the eve of a referendum in which he was attempting to encourage voters to cast their ballots against secession. The first book on the subject, and the one which gave its name to the movement, was 1980's Partition, the Price of Quebec's Independence, by Lionel Albert and William Shaw. The title of this book makes clear its intention to use the threat of territorial losses to dissuade Quebecers from voting in favour of secession. Stephen Scott was even more direct about his intention to use the threat of partition as a means of preventing separation altogether:

"Partition is to Quebec nationalists like rats for Winston Smith in George Orwell's novel 1984 — it is the ultimate fear. That is the only thing they have ever been afraid of: the disintegration of their territory."[23]

By the time of the second referendum on secession, in 1995, not all partition arguments were designed with the intention of causing Quebecers to vote against independence. The referendums by Quebec's Cree and Inuit populations in the days prior to the province's referendum seem to have been designed not to serve as a threat, but rather to provide a clear basis on which to actually carry out the separation of these territories from Quebec, in the event of a provincewide majority in favour of secession.

5. Partition is illegal due to municipalities being entities created by the Quebec National Assembly and therefore, the municipalities cannot hold referendum on separations, because they don't have any constitutional powers.

The fact that municipalities don't have constitutional powers is recognised by the constitution act:

"The Constitution Act, 1867 established the parameters of current federal and provincial relationships with municipalities. Section 92 of the Act sets out the exclusive powers of provincial legislatures in 16 areas, with section 92(8) giving the legislature of each province exclusive responsibility for making laws relating to that province’s municipal institutions. [...] Because local governments are legally subordinate to provincial governments, the only sources of authority and revenue available to municipalities are those that are specifically granted by provincial legislation."[24]

6. Partition is not allowed without the consent of the affected provinces. Section 43 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly states that “any alterations to boundaries between provinces […] only where so authorized by resolutions […] of the legislative assembly of each province to which the amendment applies”[25]

Popular support / opposition [ edit ]

No polling was done on the subject of partition prior to the 1995 referendum on secession, so it is difficult to guess at levels of support. However, during the years following the referendum, a number of polls were conducted, asking Canadians their views on the subject. Different questions sometimes elicited different responses, but certain patterns could nevertheless be distinguished:

Support for partition was relatively low when people were asked, simply, if they favoured “partition” as a concept, but rose rapidly when the pollsters asked whether people or regions should be allowed to choose whether to remain in Canada. For example, one poll published in late September 1997 reported that when Quebecers were asked, “Are you for or against partition?” only 34.4% supported the idea. In another poll conducted at almost the same time, 60% of Quebecers answered “yes” when asked, “Do you believe that any regions of Quebec which want to remain part of Canada have the right to do so?”[26]

Within Quebec, opinion was about evenly divided as to whether parts of the province that wish to remain within Canada should be permitted to do so. However, outside Quebec, a decisive majority believed that parts of Quebec which wish to remain Canadian should be permitted to do so. In a poll conducted five months after the referendum, 48% of Quebecers responded “yes”, and 45% “no” to the question, “If Quebec becomes sovereign, do you think regions of Quebec should have the right to remain part of Canada?” In the rest of Canada, 75% answered “yes” and only 23% answered “no.”[27] In a 1997 poll, 56% of Quebecers and 80% of non-Quebecers felt that “regions” of Quebec should “have the right to stay in Canada” if Quebec were to secede.[28]

Both inside and outside Quebec, there tended to be opposition to any option that hinted of the use of force to settle territorial issues. The strongest opposition to partition came in the answers to a 1996 poll in which respondents were asked whether it would be acceptable “for groups within Quebec to partition the territory and separate from Quebec.” Only 66% of non-Quebecers said this option was acceptable (about 10 - 15% below support levels in other polls), and it was supported by only 25% of Quebecers. Significantly, survey respondents had first been asked whether they agreed with the statement, “If Quebec votes to leave Canada, the federal government should use force to make it stay,” and it seems likely that many survey respondents associated partition with the use of force.[29]

Among both Quebecers and non-Quebecers, support was higher for giving the right to self-determination to Quebec’s aboriginals, than it was for giving the same right to non-aboriginals who might want to remain within Canada. For example, in a 1997 poll, 75% of Quebecers and 92% of non-Quebecers agreed that the Cree and Inuit regions of northern Quebec “have the right to stay in Canada.”[30] A 1999 poll showed that 72% of Quebecers found it reasonable that “northern regions with an aboriginal majority could stay in Canada”, while only 49% were willing to accord the same right to regions where a majority had voted No to separation.[31]

No major political party in Quebec supports partition, including federalist parties.

Provincial election of 2007 [ edit ]

During the Quebec provincial election of 2007, Liberal Premier Jean Charest stated that while he personally was opposed to partition, it would emerge as an issue if Quebec voted to secede from Canada.[32] Political rivals Mario Dumont (Action démocratique du Québec) and Andre Boisclair (Parti Québécois) criticized this.

Pierre-Karl Péladeau 2015 [ edit ]

On 26 November 2015, PQ leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau created controversy when he implied First Nations and other groups could negotiate succession from an independent Quebec. This went against his party's longstanding position than an independent Quebec's borders would remain the same. He later retracted his statement, saying negotiations with First Nations would take place within the context of Quebec's current territory.[33]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]


An Iqaluit man has taken advantage of Amazon's free shipping to the city to make food donations to local schools. Now he wants to expand his giving to other schools throughout Nunavut's Baffin Island region.

"The need's not going away," said Michael Murphy of the high local food prices that have driven him to ditch his shopping cart for his computer mouse.

'At the post office ... there was a section that was called 'Michael's Section'' says Murphy. (CBC)

Since November Murphy has shipped $7,000 worth of food to several schools in Iqaluit.

He started in November 2015 by asking for donations to help pay for breakfast and lunch programs and food hampers at the schools.

He bought all the food — peanut butter, cereal, soup, breakfast bars — on Amazon.ca or Amazon.com.

"That's where you get the best buying power," Murphy said.

Free shipping key to program

Amazon.ca charges substantial shipping fees to shoppers living outside of the Nunavut capital.

What it costs on Amazon to ship 12 cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup to Pond Inlet, Nunavut. The same order can be shipped for free to Iqaluit. (CBC)

Someone from Pond Inlet ordering a dozen 284-millilitre cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup would have to pay $121 in shipping and handling fees — 12 times the cost of the soup.

But someone placing the same order from Iqaluit has the option of choosing free shipping or slightly faster free shipping using a $79-a-year Amazon Prime account, which is what Murphy has.

"If Amazon ever changes the shipping to Iqaluit, we would be hurting up here," he said. "Our dollar doesn't go very far."

Expanding to other communities

Murphy's next goal is to ship food to other Baffin Island communities — like Pond Inlet, which is a two-and-a-half hour plane ride from Iqaluit — where free Amazon shipping is not an option.

But he knows that, once the items arrive in Iqaluit, shipping them himself to the other communities will be pricey.

"I'm exploring other avenues for when I start up in the fall to see if I can get it on gratis on a plane to go up there," he said.

Sylvain Charlebois, professor of agriculture at Dalhousie University. (CBC)

Murphy is also talking to schools in the Toronto District School Board about auctioning off art depicting life in the North made by Nunavut schoolchildren, as a way to raise money for shipping outside of Iqaluit.

"If anything the need has just gotten worse and it's not going to go away," he said of those communities.

Sylvain Charlebois, a professor at Dalhousie University's Faculty of Agriculture, says Amazon has the potential to fight food insecurity in the North thanks to the company's sheer size and its ability to keep food prices low and stable.

"Amazon could actually allow many people to have access to not only good food, but many people up North could actually have access to affordable food as well," he said.


FORMER Brisbane Lions captain Jed Adcock is determined to extend his career at another club, believing he has at least three years of football left in him.

The Lions informed the 29-year-old last month they would not renew his contract beyond this season after 12 years and more than 200 games with the club.

But a match-winning four-goal and 21-disposal effort in the Lions' surprise victory over the Western Bulldogs has left Adcock even more certain he can play on for several more years.

"I was pretty confident throughout the whole year that my future next year was going to be pretty good, so it came as a fair shock when I got told at the end of the year that I'd be moving on," Adcock told AFL.com.au.

"I felt like my form as a defender was really good, and I definitely felt that I'd done enough.

"I still feel like I've got three or four really good years of footy left in me. I'm only 29. I'm excited by the opportunity to move on and see what's next for me."

Adcock was the longest serving Lion on the club's list in 2015, was co-captain with Jonathan Brown in 2013 and took on the reins solely in 2014 before the role was handed to teammate Tom Rockliff.

Adcock said he spoke with coach Justin Leppitsch about two weeks before the end of the season and was delivered the news he would not be at the club in 2016.

"It was a weird meeting. It was just me and 'Leppa', and Leppa felt that my form had dropped a little bit," he said.

"But it was more that he was worried that my body had given way more than anything and that my pace was down and change of direction not as good. I found that a bit hard to believe."

Adcock said the ensuing final rounds of the season were difficult knowing he would soon be packing up his locker and departing, describing it as "a kick in the guts".

"But it was really important for me to play well, because I've not got to go out and prove to other teams they should be picking me up and that I do have three good years left in me," he said. "I'm hoping on the weekend some teams were able to see that."

Adcock's credentials are strong. He has been durable – playing 20 or more games in the past five seasons – and will be able to start next pre-season on day one after not requiring off-season surgery.

He has had two top-three finishes in the club's best and fairest (in 2005 and 2007) and was an All Australian nominee in 2007.

He will also be eligible as a delisted free agent, allowing clubs to consider signing him without having to go through the trade process.

"They know me as a defender but having that flexibility and going both ends of the ground is only going to help me find a club next year," Adcock said.

"Hopefully it's not a hard sell but I imagine what will happen is there's probably bigger priorities they're trying to get at the moment and I'll fall through after that."

Adcock and his young family are prepared to move anywhere for another AFL opportunity, having already considered it likely they would leave Queensland after his career at the Lions ended.

He has been developing his skills as part of the Next Coach Program run by respected football assistant coach David Wheadon, and hopes to get into a position as soon as his playing career ends.

"It's probably made me think about footy in a few different ways, but in a lot of ways my beliefs about coaching are the same as his," Adcock said.

"The more I've done it the more I've enjoyed it. There as aspects I've got to do a bit more work on but there are other aspects which I feel right across."

While speculation had dogged the Lions in recent weeks about unrest with some players and their coach – including midfielder Jack Redden who wants to be traded out of the club – Adcock said he had a good relationship with Leppitsch.

"It was never going to be an easy conversation with a 12-year player who has captained the side. It was never going to be easy for him," he said.

"I respect that he was able to tell me face-to-face where he thought my footy was at. It's fine, that's footy and I understand it's a business and sometimes you have to make the tough calls.

"This opens another opportunity for me and we're really excited to find out what that will be and I can play some good footy at another club."


Arena South District redevelopment 8 Gallery: Arena South District redevelopment

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The parking lots south of the Van Andel Arena need more pedestrian connections, green spaces and buildings for people to work, live and shop in, according to a “visioning plan” presented to the Downtown Development Authority Wednesday, April 10. The seven-week study yielded a series of drawings that propose replacing freeway exits and parking lots in the Arena South District with new buildings, some of which would wrap around parking structures.

Tom Nemitz, an architect who led the “visioning” effort, said the suggestions gained from meeting with residents and stakeholders in the area, concluded the “South Arena District” should establish “street grids” that end the US-131 off ramp at Cherry Street rather than Oakes Street. One option called for a tree-lined boulevard leading to Oakes Street while another option called for the creation of a park-like plaza connected to Oakes Street. While the DDA did not act on any of the plans, it voted to approve the five priorities established by the study. Those goals included: • Growing business and economic opportunities • Greening streets, buildings and public spaces • Building compact urban blocks that are densely developed and designed for people • Connecting transit, shops, restaurants, hotels, schools and the Grand River • Living and engaging in a multi-season inclusive environment. Mayor George Heartwell urged the planners to consider the needs of low-income residents in the neighborhood. Heartwell also encouraged the planners to consider mass transit options as an alternative to replacing the parking spots that will be lost with redevelopment. em>E-mail Jim Harger:

and follow him on Twitter at


Live concert I recorded and released on tape years ago. Original pressing was limited to 25 and they were all given out at Brattfest. For sale now is a copy from my personal archives. Very rare cover songs and one unreleased song. Won't find these recordings anywhere else! Please note the sound quality isn't the greatest as it was recorded live straight to cassette.

Track listing:

1. New Mexico song (part)

2. Free as the rent we don't pay (part)

3. Whiskey is my kind of lullaby

4. DIY orgasms

5. Where is my coffee

6. Green St.

7. Wagon wheel

8. Harmony parking lot song

9. Acid song

10. Color in your cheeks

11. Going to Georgia

12. This year

13. Tampa Bay song

14. Fuck cops intro, into Skaggy

15. No trespassing waltz

16. Crackhouse song

17. Sellout song


Canberra's proposed lockout laws ditched by ACT Government

Updated

The ACT Government has scrapped its proposed bar and nightclub lockout laws in the face of opposition from the Greens, businesses and the community.

The Government was considering enforcing a 3:00am closing time or increasing fees for businesses selling alcohol after that time.

The proposal was aimed at reducing the amount of alcohol-fuelled violence in Canberra.

But similar changes introduced in Sydney have been widely condemned by business owners and patrons.

On Tuesday the Greens announced they would not support the changes, effectively blocking the proposal.

"The Greens didn't support restrictions on trading hours because we want Canberra to have a thriving night time economy," ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury said.

"It would shut down opportunities for nightlife and entertainment in Canberra, when in fact we should be moving in the other direction.

"Dealing with alcohol-related harms is important, but we don't need to do it by curbing Canberra's nightlife.

"We can have safety and entertainment at the same time."

Emphasise on smaller venues and transport: Rattenbury

Mr Rattenbury said he believed there were other ways to reduce street violence.

"We believe an emphasise on smaller bars, restaurants and live music is one of the key issues to addressing alcohol-fuelled violence," he said.

"So there are options for people to go out and be entertained without having to just drink alcohol.

"Certainly having good transport options for people to get home at the end of the night safely is another important part of maximising the ability for people to go out without getting involved in alcohol-related violence."

Chief Minister Andrew Barr denied he had been "rolled" by the Greens.

"Well without me it wasn't going to get up and I didn't support it and that was the most important factor in the decision," he told 666 ABC Canberra.

"I'm not going to go through in great detail the position of each individual Cabinet minister, but suffice to say the Attorney-General [Simon Corbell] put forward a discussion paper and it had the support of all of his colleagues."

But Mr Barr said community and Cabinet response to a possible 3:00am closing time was mixed.

"The issue here is to what extent does the poor behaviour of a very small number of people dictate a response that impacts very negatively on a much larger number of people," he said.

Attorney-General Simon Corbell said the Government would continue to work with police and venues to reduce street violence.

"There is no place in our city for alcohol-fuelled violence and we will continue to work to keep our streets safe," he said.

The Government will continue to introduce legislation later this year that will include initiative to "lower licence fees for lower risk venues and red tape reduction for cafes".

Topics: music, health, alcohol, community-and-society, states-and-territories, canberra-2600, act

First posted


Ribbon Profile Blog Joined April 2010 United States 5278 Posts Last Edited: 2011-07-19 08:06:12 #1

Are you a nerd?

Are you a slob?

Do you have a girly screen name on Team Liquid?

If you answered any of these questions, there's only one thing can salvage your life

BUFFCRAFT! HUAH!

You see, I know a lotta y'all wanna spread the word of e-sports, but how you gonna get taken seriously if you look like the sterotypical gaming nerd. Y'aint, t's how.

In order for our fandom to be taken seriously by today's materialist culture, we must be more than devoted, funny, and all around cool people. The Starcraft 2 fandom must be known o'er the land as the fandom with the

ROCK!

HARD!

ABS!

Huah!

Rules

When you're a real man (or real woman, as they case may be. Muscles are not a patriarchy, they're a pec-riachry), you make your own rules. Here's what they are:

1. You gotta ladder, bro. How you gonna be taken serious as a Starcraft 2 player if you don't ladder. That's common sense.

2. When you win a game, reward yourself by doing a manly act of your choice. Flex! Punch something! Headbutt a tree! What matters is that you stay pumped

3. But when you LOOOOOSE, that's when you need to earn back the right to play.

3a. If you lose a macro game, you need to do 10 crunches OR 10 jumping jacks OR ten push-ups

3b. If you lose to cheese, you need to do 25 crunches, jumping jacks, OR push-ups

3c. If you yourself are the cheeser and still you lose, you must do 30 crunches, jumping jacks, or push-ups

4. After payin' your dues, you can rest if you feel you feel you need to. Play when you're ready, don't actually hurt yourself. We don't judge you...out loud.

5. If you wanna keep track of your weight-loss and share the results with the thread, fucking go for it, bro. If you want to keep it to yourself, that is also dude. The goal is self-improvement through self-indudement.

6. Buffcraft is not a substitute for an actual exercise regime. I'm not a doctah. Go see one before starting this program if you feel the need, due a medical condition, pregnancy, or anything like that.

Remember, the most important rule is to get a little healthier and manlier (or womanlier!) while having fun playing Starcraft 2. Anything in accordance with that rule is not only allowed, but encouraged. You think you can have more fun adding "flex and then yell" at 50 food in your build order. Fucking do it. You wanna ladder dressed as David Coverdale from the band Whitesnake? Huah!

And if you get flex and crunch your way to Masters, then you're just goddamn winning at everything.

EDITED:

A lot of y'all in the thread thing that the Buffcraft regime is insufficiently masculine. I'm proud of you for recognizing that more can be done. You wanna participate, and you think you can handle MORE than the vanilla pansy-ass version of Buffcraft. Post your alternative regimen in the thread, and keep us updated as you step up further. But remember, lying causes your secondary sexual organs to shrink to the size of raisins. And nobody likes raisins.

Ribbon

Win: Having crushed my enemy and seeing him driven before me, I imagine the lamentations of his women.

Lose a macro game: 25 crunches. 25 jumping jacks

Lose to cheese: 25 crunches, 25 jumping jacks, 10 push-ups

Fail at committing cheese: 25 crunches, 25 jumping jacks, 20 push-ups. However, Ribbon does not cheese, and thus never has to face this punishment. Are you a nerd?Are you a slob?Do you have a girly screen name on Team Liquid?If you answered any of these questions, there's only one thing can salvage your lifeYou see, I know a lotta y'all wanna spread the word of e-sports, but how you gonna get taken seriously if you look like the sterotypical gaming nerd. Y'aint, t's how.In order for our fandom to be taken seriously by today's materialist culture, we must be more than devoted, funny, and all around cool people. The Starcraft 2 fandom must be known o'er the land as the fandom with theHuah!When you're a(or, as they case may be. Muscles are not a patriarchy, they're a pec-riachry), you make your own rules. Here's what they are:1. You gotta ladder, bro. How you gonna be taken serious as a Starcraft 2 player if you don't ladder. That's common sense.2. When you win a game, reward yourself by doing a manly act of your choice. Flex! Punch something! Headbutt a tree! What matters is that you stay3. But when you, that's when you need toback the right to play.3a. If you lose a macro game, you need to do 10 crunches OR 10 jumping jacks OR ten push-ups3b. If you lose to cheese, you need to do 25 crunches, jumping jacks, OR push-ups3c. If you yourself are the cheeser and still you lose, you must do 30 crunches, jumping jacks, or push-ups4. After payin' your dues, you can rest if you feel you feel you need to. Play when you're ready, don't actually hurt yourself. We don't judge you...out loud.5. If you wanna keep track of your weight-loss and share the results with the thread, fucking go for it, bro. If you want to keep it to yourself, that is also dude. The goal is self-improvement through self-indudement.6. Buffcraft is not a substitute for an actual exercise regime. I'm not a doctah. Go see one before starting this program if you feel the need, due a medical condition, pregnancy, or anything like that.Remember, the most important rule is to get a little healthier and manlier (or womanlier!) while having fun playing Starcraft 2. Anything in accordance with that rule is not only allowed, but encouraged. You think you can have more fun adding "flex and then yell" at 50 food in your build order. Fucking do it. You wanna ladder dressed as David Coverdale from the band Whitesnake? Huah!And if you get flex and crunch your way to Masters, then you're just goddamn winning at everything.EDITED:A lot of y'all in the thread thing that the Buffcraft regime is insufficiently masculine. I'm proud of you for recognizing that more can be done. You wanna participate, and you think you can handle MORE than the vanilla pansy-ass version of Buffcraft. Post your alternative regimen in the thread, and keep us updated as you step up further. But remember, lying causes your secondary sexual organs to shrink to the size of raisins. And nobody likes raisins.: Having crushed my enemy and seeing him driven before me, I imagine the lamentations of his women.: 25 crunches. 25 jumping jacks: 25 crunches, 25 jumping jacks, 10 push-ups: 25 crunches, 25 jumping jacks, 20 push-ups. However, Ribbon does not cheese, and thus never has to face this punishment.


Washington (CNN) It was their last, best chance at a big, bipartisan deal: President Barack Obama and congressional Republican leaders all agreed on free trade.

Just a little more than a year ago, that philosophical alignment looked like enough for Obama's signature trade deal and centerpiece of his Asian pivot policy -- the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership -- to clear Congress.

Then the 2016 presidential campaign intervened. Now, as Obama participates in his last Southeast Asian summit to promote the pivot and its massive trade pact, the TPP looks like it's headed to the political graveyard.

Obama tried to sound optimistic Wednesday about the deal's future, while also conveying to leaders in Asia the reality of the obstacles.

"I believe that we'll get it done but it's always going to be hard," Obama said at a news conference in Laos, suggesting the deal's path might be easier after the US election. "Nothing is easy in the US Congress right now. Maybe there was a time when it was but I haven't seen it."

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump roused a populist base with his strident anti-trade message, declaring the Pacific Rim deal "terrible" and a "rape" of American workers. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, seeking to minimize the threat of primary opponent Bernie Sanders, announced that she, too, opposes the TPP. And, sensing the political risk of supporting a controversial deal both presidential nominees oppose, several lawmakers changed their positions.

Trump is expected to call Wednesday for eliminating the sequester on defense spending and bolstering the US' defenses by proposing a "major investment" in US military spending.

As Obama tries to cajole last concessions from partner countries on his final trip to Asia, the same congressional leaders who'd nudged him along on the TPP now say it's unlikely to be ratified.

"The current agreement, the Trans-Pacific agreement, which has some serious flaws, will not be acted upon this year," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell flatly declared at a Kentucky Farm Bureau event last week.

Right now, with even pro-trade stalwarts like McConnell opposed to ratification during Obama's term, advocates of the TPP admit that they don't have the votes necessary to clear the House and the Senate.

The summer has featured a rush of Republicans -- particularly those in competitive races -- bolting from the trade deal.

Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican and long-time trade supporter, wrote in August in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette op-ed : "We should dump the TPP and return to the negotiating table to get an agreement that would create jobs and economic growth here at home."

Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt told reporters he's having second thoughts about the deal . Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, once a Trump challenger, hasn't taken an official position, but he stripped mention of trade -- and his support for earlier steps greasing the wheels for TPP -- from his website, RealClearPolitics recently reported

And Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican who once negotiated pacts as the US trade representative under George W. Bush, opposes the TPP.

Conservative activists who waged a battle to deny Obama trade promotion authority in the first place, meanwhile, say they believe Trump awakened a party that had been ignoring its loyalists on trade.

"I think this will last. Every time an issue comes to the forefront, I've never seen the activists forget about it. Once that issue is in the quiver and activists are paying attention to it, it stays there and activists will fight it forever," said Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler. "The stain is here to stay."

The deal's supporters -- including the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers -- aren't giving up. But they acknowledge the uphill battle on Capitol Hill.

Linda Dempsey, the National Association of Manufacturers' vice president of international economic affairs, said that, "additional leadership is needed in Washington to forge a viable path forward."

The US manufacturing sector "continues to lose foreign sales and access to new customers in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world," Dempsey warned about the deal falling through.

Obama and TPP advocates have a problem with the president's typical allies on the left, too.

Only a small group of Democrats -- mostly members of the centrist New Democrat Coalition -- backed trade promotion authority in the first place, making for the unusual coalition of Obama and congressional Republicans.

Since then, those Democrats have been under pressure from labor unions that argue the TPP, which they've dubbed "NAFTA on steroids," would siphon more manufacturing jobs away from the United States.

Sanders stoked opposition to the TPP among unions and progressives during the primaries, making it a mainstay of his stump speech and his go-to answer about what differentiated him from Obama and Clinton.

That forced Clinton -- who'd declared the TPP a "gold standard" trade deal in 2012 while serving as Obama's secretary of state -- to the left. Her announcement in the fall of 2015 that she opposes the deal made Obama's task of getting Democrats on board even tougher.

Opponents, meanwhile, are declaring victory -- at least for now.

"It won't come up because the votes aren't there," Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, a labor union that opposes TPP, said at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Thursday. "The candidates running will have to declare where they stand on TPP and the chips will fall where they may."

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has maintained the deal would need substantial renegotiation -- a tough task since each of the other 11 participating nations have their own political sensitivities and Obama has less than five months remaining in office.

"They have to fix this agreement and renegotiate some pieces of it if they have any hope or chance of passing it," Ryan said in an early August interview with Wisconsin Public Radio. "I don't see how they'll ever get the votes for it."

But McConnell made clear last week that the path to the TPP's passage isn't totally closed.

"It will still be around. It can be massaged, changed, worked on during the next administration," he said.

Even if Congress ultimately does approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the next president will have ways of blocking its implementation -- such as procedural steps like refusing to officially notify other countries of the United States' implementation of the deal or not verifying that those countries have satisfied their TPP commitments.

The hope of trade supporters is that a President Clinton or Trump would drop their resistance to the trade deal once in office. If they did, they'd be following a path similar to Obama, who pledged as a presidential candidate to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement but governed as a trade supporter who entered new negotiations with the European Union and Asia-Pacific countries.

But trade was less of a driving issue in the 2008 race, and neither Clinton nor Trump has left much wiggle room for a post-election reversal.

"I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages -- including the Trans-Pacific Partnership," Clinton said in August in Warren, Michigan. "I oppose it now, I'll oppose it after the election, and I'll oppose it as president."

Trump -- whose strident rejection of the TPP and other trade deals is a staple of his campaign events -- denounced the pact again on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham's show Thursday.

"It's a terrible deal for the United States," he said. "It's a terrible deal for our workers."


The wide scar that runs the length of Vivi Lozoya’s abdomen is a daily reminder of the brutal attack that almost took her life.

She constantly replays the incident in her mind.

It was May 2011, and Lozoya, a transgender prostitute, had recently run away from the pimp she says had abused her and held her captive for two years.

One day while she was out with friends, Lozoya says a man working for her pimp and his associates came up to her on the street, tapped her on the shoulder, and stabbed her in the stomach - she can't remember if it was three or four times. She does remember what the man said before sticking the knife in: "They sent me to wish you sweet dreams."

The recovery was grueling. To this day, Lozoya says, when she drinks water, it sometimes feels as if it’s seeping out of her digestive tract.

"And I still dream about being chased," she recounts one recent afternoon, sitting in her apartment in a working-class Los Angeles neighborhood. She says she doesn’t know if her attacker was ever caught.

Violence is common

Lozoya’s experience was extreme in its brutality. But advocates say violence against transgender women, specifically transgender immigrants like Lozoya who are in the U.S. illegally, is all too common.

In response, immigrant rights groups are beginning to expand the scope of their work to raise awareness about the discrimination and abuse that gay, and specifically transgender, immigrants often face.

Zizi Bandera, an organizer with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, says the impetus to address these issues was the realization that the broader LGBT movement - with its emphasis on marriage equality - has not embraced the cause of gay immigrants.

"It’s led by gay white men and it hasn’t centered the lives of immigrants that are also LGBT, and particularly transgender," Bandera maintains.

A 2011 study by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 26 percent of transgender people had experienced either physical or sexual abuse. But advocates believe the number is much higher among transgender immigrants, because of intolerant families or because those in the country illegally are much more likely to engage in prostitution to survive, or both. What drives those high rates of abuse, Bandera asserts, is the belief by some people that transgender lives are expendable.

Abuse from an early age

For Lozoya, the abuse began early, even before she arrived in the U.S. at 19 and began the transition from man to woman. She says it began when Vivi Lozoya was Jose Lozoya, a 12-year-old gay boy living in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Beatings from homophobic family members were common, Lozoya remembers.

Once in the U.S., Lozoya decided to become a woman physically, and paid for the surgeries with the money earned from prostitution. Always trusting and, she admits, a bit naïve, Lozoya says she welcomed an offer by a man she met on the street to help her earn more money by placing ads for her services.

Before long, she says, the man was driving her from one hotel to another across northern California, beating her and forcing her to have sex with up to 30 men a day.

When she finally ran away, she filed a restraining order against him, she recalls. She thought that would keep him away; she hadn’t expected him to send someone to kill her.

Lozoya only recently started sharing her story. One afternoon in mid-April, she stands before a crowd of people near downtown L.A. and lifts her blouse to show the gruesome scar.

The first "Day of Transgender Survivors"

The event, called the First International Day of Transgender Survivors, is a resource fair organized by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. About 200 transgender people and their allies show up to tell stories of violence and survival.

When Banderas began working with transgender immigrants about two years ago, she noticed that many of those who came to the Coalition for immigration help - especially the transgender women - had stories of being attacked.

"I can’t think of one transgender woman here that I’ve worked with that hasn’t faced some kind of severe physical violence in her life," she says.

And yet many of the women no longer seem fazed by the violence, as if they are used to it, she adds. Banderas says she’s spending a lot of time trying to get transgender women to understand that such violence isn’t normal - and that it should be reported to the police.

Those in the country illegally resist going to the authorities "out of fear of deportation," Bandera says. Others hesitate "out of fear that their abuser or the person that attacked them will find them later on if the police [don't] follow up the way they should."

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights is beginning to work with police to sensitize them to the issues that transgender people face and to encourage them to investigate attacks against transgender people as hate crimes, Bandera says. Though she acknowledges that a hate motive isn’t always apparent in such crimes, she's convinced that "their transgender identity has everything to do with the violence they experience."

A stark reminder

The resource fair culminates with a noisy march to nearby MacArthur Park, with transgender men and women and their supporters chanting and carrying signs declaring, "Trans Lives Matter" and "Trans Lives Are Beautiful."

As she marches, Vivi Lozoya says being so visible and open about her story gives her a sense of empowerment unlike any she’s felt before.

But that mood is quickly spoiled. As the rally’s participants head back to their cars, three transgender women are assaulted in two separate attacks.

Organizer Zizi Bandera says the attacks are a reminder: While transgender people want to make themselves more visible to the world, doing so still isn’t completely safe.

She says the coalition plans to increase security at next year’s event.


I’m conflicted. As a front-end web developer, I should be excited about the advancements in HTML5: the new HTML tags that correct all the hacks and self-replicating div s; the correctly cross-browser rendered styles which have finally caught up to modern web design; and the new Javascript API’s that make the browser into a semi-legitimate – albeit Frankensteinian – app environment.

Then I read this presentation on HTML5, and suddenly, I’m a lot less excited. It’s one thing to formalize the hacks developers have come up with over the years and standardize them into a cohesive spec, but with the renewal of the browser wars, it feels like an escalating feature war all over again.

Google has taught us, over the years, that it’s possible but difficult to build complex applications completely in the browser. Google+, Gmail, Google Docs are written with many millions lines of carefully hand-crafted front-end code[1]. Careful coding, because the development environment is markedly unfriendly: loose HTML parsing, undefined and silently-failing CSS styling, and ironically unforgiving Javascript interpretation.

For a while, this was the accepted state of the web development world: the pieces didn’t really fit together, but with enough brute force you could make things work, even across browsers if you really put in that 50% extra effort. When that wasn’t good enough, browser vendors raced to introduce new features, knowing the spec would take a decade or more to be ratified.

The new API’s were great, but they necessitated defensive coding in languages not suited for it (e.g., enabling the styling of HTML5 tags in IE’s not recognizing HTML5 with the appropriately-named html5shiv). It also brought about the idea of graceful degradation, where you not only have to worry about getting the functionality to work properly as it is coded, but also somewhat work when functions, features and entire languages are ripped away via browser incompatibilities and user preferences.

Nowadays it seems like we’re just going full-steam-ahead, damn the compatibility issues. With the pace of browser releases picking up – Google’s at the forefront with rapid Chrome releases, Firefox following suit – it’s nice to have new API’s to play with, but it reeks of the Microsoft-style, proprietary add-ons to an already-crowded and piecemeal coding “ecosystem”.

Having to support 3-4 major browser was already a pain, but supporting 7-8 various browser versions is impossible. Even worse, only Chrome is really set up for rapid client releases; Firefox, for instance, is trying to release more often, but has already claimed its first casualties with a legacy plugin system[2] that wasn’t designed for malleable software versioning. In other words, a lot of add-ons just stopped working with the upgrade, despite how similar FF5 was to FF4.

Adding even more features that is basically implemented in the 3rd-place browser further bifurcates web development: either make full use of new technologies and create cool demos that target a small subset of platforms, or work across all modern platforms targeting a wide audience while sticking with more mundane design and coding techniques. I think most of us who have to work on the web fall into the latter camp by business necessity; it’s only in our spare time that we can try out the new stuff, but with no real hope to transfer what we learn back work-related tasks.

Although…now that I think about it, there is a platform for the former group of adventurous web coders.

Chrome OS. It suddenly makes a little more sense.


Market expectations for an interest-rate hike before the end of 2015 have fallen sharply this autumn, following weaker-than-expected economic data and rising fears of a global growth slowdown.

The Fed-funds futures market is now pricing in a 5% probability of a rate increase in October and a 30% probability of a rate increase in December The first fully priced-in rate hike has now been pushed out to March 2016, according to the CME Group’s Fed Watch Tool.

But if history serves as a guide, the market is probably still getting it wrong, according to Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank.

Since 2009, the market has continuously overestimated the Fed’s rate-hike intentions, getting caught in continuous cycles of anticipating a rate rise and readjusting as the Fed subsequently stayed put, Slok said, in a note late last week.

As the following chart shows, Fed-funds futures have been predicting a Fed liftoff for the past six years—and have been proven wrong every time.

The dotted lines represent the projected Fed-funds rate, based on Fed-funds futures prices, while the red line shows the actual Fed-funds rate.

Deutsche Bank The market’s rate-hike expectations (dotted lines) have overestimated the Fed’s actions (red line).

Forecasts by Wall Street economists about the benchmark 10-year rate have also been too optimistic for a very long time, the Deutsche Bank report showed.

For more than a decade, as the following chart shows, forecasts for the 10-year rate from the Fed’s quarterly survey of professional forecasters came in consistently about 60 basis points higher than the actual 10-year yield.

Deutsche Bank The projected 10-year rate (dotted lines) has constantly overestimated the actual 10-year yield (blue line) by about 60 basis points.

Currently, the Philly Fed survey projects a 2.5% yield by the end of 2015, according to the report. That’s about 46 basis points above the current 10-year yield TMUBMUSD10Y, -0.98% which on Monday hovered around 2.037%, according to Tradeweb.

Making an accurate prediction about future interest rates might become even more difficult as Fed policy makers—in the name of transparency—express conflicting opinions on monetary policy.

When Stanford University economist John Taylor, a well-known expert on monetary policy, told New York Fed President William Dudley on Thursday that the Fed is creating confusion in the market, he echoed the views of many interest-rate strategists.

“It has recently become cloudier as Fed officials have been taking diverging views,” said Ninh Chung, head of investment strategy at SVB Asset Management.

“The data remain uneven and inconsistent, so you can see an argument to support both sides. Fed officials’ conflicting views just cause more volatility,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors.

Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here.


Sometimes lost in the contentious discussion around fighters receiving a Therapeutic Use Exemption for Testosterone Replacement Therapy is that some fighters unequivocally need it for medical reasons. While many fans are cynical over Vitor Belfort's use of TRT, the case of Antonio “Bigfoot” is another matter.

Silva engaged in a battle for the ages with Mark Hunt at UFN 33, but tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone afterwards. Although he had been granted a TUE, he let his levels get too high, so the fight was declared a no contest, Silva was suspended for nine months, and he was denied his Fight of the Night bonus.

Silva's manager Alex Davis appeared recently on The MMA Hour and explained that Silva's case is a medical necessity.

“This is one of the guys that really have authentic technical reasons to be on TRT,” said Davis as transcribed by MMA Fighting. “He has acromegaly. His pituitary gland overproduces GH (growth hormone) and that unbalances all his other hormones.”

“When I started managing him, he was actually lactating. He has extreme low testosterone. He has extremely low testosterone, so he has a real reason to be on TRT.”

“I didn’t really take part on the TRT process. There was a miscommunication between him and his doctor. If I was in the middle of it maybe we would have avoided it. I didn’t realize I needed to be involved.”

“He took the instructions wrong, but he did not try to cheat. What happened was, there was a miscommunication with the doctor and he ended up taking injections at the wrong time. He was taking a month then started taking a week. He took one a week before the fight and one at the week of the fight, which wasn’t supposed to. It got mixed up.”


Patrick Stokes, Deakin University

Dear Mr Briggs,

We haven’t met. But I’ve been following your ministerial career with some interest, since just before the last election.

As you’ll recall you were the then-opposition’s spokesperson on “government waste,” a role that involved attending a surprising amount of sport. And in that capacity, you launched a broadside against what you saw as: those ridiculous research grants that leave taxpayers scratching their heads wondering just what the Government was thinking.

You gave four examples of ARC funded “projects that do little, if anything, to advance Australians [sic] research needs.” As I discussed on this site at the time, two of those four were projects in my field, philosophy.

Of course, ARC funding is insanely competitive, so those projects were more or less by definition world class contributions to the discipline. Yet you chose to ridicule them – and, by extension, the life’s work of people like me – all the same.

Can you believe that was only two years ago? My, what a roller coaster it’s been for you: winning the election, becoming Assistant Minister (not, as you insisted to Raphael Epstein that time, a ‘junior minister’ even though that’s a common and well-understood term) for Infrastructure and Regional Development, busting a leg tackling the newly deposed PM, being made Minister for Cities and the Built Environment.

As your new boss might have said, surely there was never a more exciting time to be Jamie Briggs.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, you had to resign after inappropriate behaviour towards a public servant in a bar in Hong Kong.

So clearly you’ve been busy, and I doubt you’ve had much time to revisit the question of what does and doesn’t count as a valid area of research.

But what I’d urge you to do, now that you’re back to constituency business and maybe have a little time on your hands, is to find out a bit more about what you knocked back then. Perhaps, in your enthusiasm to win the election, you were a bit too hasty. Perhaps philosophy was the answer all along.

There’s certainly precedent for those in your profession. Plato, after all, insisted the rulers of the ideal state should be trained philosophers. The likes of Cicero, Seneca, and the philosopher-king Marcus Aurelius all managed to meld the life of the mind and the affairs of state, to the benefit of both. As a Liberal, you’ll surely appreciate the Harm Principle - the cornerstone of modern liberalism - formulated by J.S. Mill, who served one term as an MP.

But as you can confirm, politics is also brutal and full of setbacks. Philosophy can help there, too.

The philosopher Boethius was a powerful official under the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, until he was accused of treason. While awaiting execution, he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy (523), one of the most influential books of the Middle Ages. As my Cogito colleague Laura D'Olimpio has described, Boethius imagines being visited by a personification of philosophy, who explains that love of wisdom is the only true balm for the sufferings of his soul.

The Stoics, too, might offer you some resources for overcoming your recent loss of rank. But perhaps that won’t be won’t be enough, and you’ll find you can’t shake it off that easily (as another noted philosopher urges). Politics is a game built for the ambitious, and there’s little so painful as frustrated ambition. Perhaps you’ll find yourself in the position William James describes:

The paradox of a man shamed to death because he is only the second pugilist or the second oarsman in the world. That he is able to beat the whole population of the globe minus one is nothing; he has ‘pitted’ himself to beat that one; and as long as he doesn’t do that nothing else counts. He is to his own regard as if he were not, indeed he is not.

Fifty years earlier, Kierkegaard too had diagnosed this particular form of despair:

Thus when the ambitious man, whose slogan was ‘Either Caesar or nothing’, does not become Caesar, he is in despair over it. But this signifies something else, namely, that precisely because he did not become Caesar he now cannot bear to be himself. Consequently he is not in despair over the fact that he did not become Caesar, but he is in despair over himself for the fact that he did not become Caesar.

That’s a bad place to be. We’ve already seen what how corrosive that form of despair can be with one ousted PM and it looks ominously like we might be seeing it with another.

If philosophy can help you avoid that fate, surely it’s worth taking a second look?

Best regards,

Patrick

PS: Do let me know if I can offer any reading suggestions. Always happy to help.


Sen. John Cornyn said Tuesday, he viewed “four large binders full of classified information that’s been made available to the committee to conduct” its wide-ranging investigation. | Getty CIA providing raw intelligence as Trump-Russia probes heat up Congress has entered a new phase in its investigation.

Lawmakers are trekking to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to review classified evidence on Russia’s involvement in the presidential election. The House has scheduled its first public hearing on the issue. And the Senate is preparing to interview witnesses.

The congressional investigations into ties between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russian officials are in full swing.

Story Continued Below

For months, the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees said their investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election were in their “initial” stages. On Tuesday, it became clear that the probes had moved into a new phase.

The CIA is now providing raw intelligence documents to committee members, according to multiple senators. Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) visited CIA headquarters on Monday to view the documents underlying the intelligence community’s unclassified assessment that Russia sought to sway the election in favor of Trump.

At Langley, Cornyn said Tuesday, he viewed “four large binders full of classified information that’s been made available to the committee to conduct” its wide-ranging investigation.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said members of his panel had also made visits to CIA headquarters and that there will be “more trips out there.” He said he was close to reaching an agreement with the intelligence community on whether evidence would be turned over to Congress or continue to be housed within the agencies.

Nunes also said Tuesday that his panel’s first public hearing on the issue would be held March 20 and that former members of the Obama administration had been asked to testify — including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired by Trump in January after refusing to defend his travel ban executive order in court.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, meanwhile, is expected to begin questioning witnesses behind closed doors “in the coming days and weeks,” according to a congressional source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. These formal interviews are expected to take place on Capitol Hill, the source said, and will likely be with officials from the agencies that contributed to the assessment that concluded Moscow was trying to aid Trump in November — the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency.

The panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, said he planned to travel to Langley on Wednesday to view the raw intelligence documents. Warner emphasized that the documents were “not the extent of the information we'll need” to conduct the Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation, which will include looking into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

The Virginia senator said he and Burr were in discussions about which people should be interviewed as part of the probe. He declined to say whether the committee would seek testimony from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a top Trump backer, who did not disclose two meetings he had with Russia’s ambassador last year during his January confirmation hearing.

The Associated Press reported Monday that the Intelligence Committee had reached out to former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page and that Page had responded to the panel that he would "provide any information" that might be needed.

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Warner also indicated Tuesday he was happy with the cooperation the Intelligence Committee has gotten so far from the FBI. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, has accused the FBI of withholding information from his panel.

“I have regular conversations with [FBI] Director [James] Comey,” Warner said Tuesday. “I am confident that we're going to get all the information we need to get to the bottom of this in a way that we can let the American people know what happened or didn't happen.”

Nunes also suggested Tuesday the intelligence community might not have shared information about potential counterintelligence investigations with top lawmakers — called the Gang of Eight — who are supposed to be briefed on such matters.

The congressman noted that multiple news reports have indicated that people associated with the Trump campaign were being investigated for potential ties to Russia, but that Congress was not made aware of any such investigations.

“If Trump or any other political campaign, anybody associated with Trump, was under some kind of investigation, that clearly should have risen to the Gang of Eight level,” Nunes said. “Clearly we have some questions about whether or not last year we were read into everything that we should have been read into.”

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.


An Ocean’s Eleven or Dirty Dozen-style caper series with time travel? That’s DC’s Legends of Tomorrow which started filming its series today on Vancouver’s waterfront near Crab Tree Park with most of the cast on set except for the Big Bad — Vandal Savage.

Doctor Who’s Arthur Darvill is time-master Rip Hunter who assembles a squabbling group of DC super heroes and villains — Victor Garber as Dr. Martin Stein, Wentworth Miller as Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, Caity Lotz as resurrected Sara Lance/the White Canary, Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer/ the A.T.O.M, Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heatwave, Ciara Renee as Kendra/Hawkgirl, Falk Hentschel as Carter Hall/Hawkman and Franz Drameh as Jax Jackson — to try to stop Vandal Savage (Casper Crump), who threatens the planet and time itself. It could be a suicide mission but they’ll trade quips along the way. The two-part pilot is directed by Glen Winter. Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Phil Klemmer is on set too.

Day one of #LegendsofTomorrow with our amazing director!! I think this show is going to be ________! pic.twitter.com/KAbftRP0xw — Caity Lotz (@caitylotz) September 9, 2015

Ciara Renee, Caity Lotz and Falk Hentschel.

Arthur Darvill as Rip Hunter. And looking like David Tennant’s Doctor Who with the big brown coat.

Wentworth Miller.

Prison Break reunion: Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller.

Brandon Routh and Caity Lotz soak up the sun waiting for the next take.

Victor Garber as Dr. Martin Stein. And Franz Drameh as Jay Jackson in the passenger seat.

Dancing in the streets like a proper time master….tick tick tick Boom A photo posted by Caity Lotz (@caitylotz) on Sep 10, 2015 at 2:54pm PDT

Got to meet the lovely Caity Lotz at DC’s ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ filming in Downtown Vancouver today! @olv @yvrshoots pic.twitter.com/9ZgT0KvXHd — Rachel Short (@RackkShort) September 9, 2015

After production wrapped on the waterfront it moved into Gastown’s Bourbon Bar.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow debuts mid-season on The CW.


SAŽETAK: Istraživanja pokazuju da postoji pozitivna povezanost među predrasudama prema različitim društvenim skupinama, kao i određena vremenska stabilnost te stabilnost rang poretka u izraženosti predrasuda. Sukladno tome, opravdano je pretpostaviti da, osim nestalnih, kontekstualnih faktora, antecedente izraženosti predrasuda mogu predstavljati i neke trajnije dispozicije pojedinca. Cilj doktorskog rada je produbiti razumijevanje dispozicijskih osnova za sklonost predrasudama prema različitim društvenim skupinama, odnosno pobliže istražiti odnos osobina ličnosti i kognitivnih sposobnosti s generaliziranim predrasudama. Istraživanje na kojem se rad temelji provedeno je na reprezentativnom uzorku maturanata iz Grada Zagreba i Zagrebačke županije (N = 1034). Istraživanjem su prikupljeni kvantitativni podaci o kognitivnim sposobnostima, osobinama ličnosti, desnoj autoritarnosti, orijentaciji na socijalnu dominaciju te predrasudama prema starijim osobama, pretilim osobama, psihički oboljelim osobama, ateistima, gej muškarcima i imigrantima. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su da je pozitivne interkorelacije izraženosti predrasuda prema pretilima, psihički oboljelima, ateistima, gej muškarcima i imigrantima moguće objasniti latentnim g faktorom predrasuda koji upućuje na sklonost generaliziranim predrasudama. Najvažniji korelati generaliziranih predrasuda su orijentacija na socijalnu dominaciju, desna autoritarnost, otvorenost prema iskustvu i kognitivne sposobnosti. Zajedno s ostalim dimenzijama ličnosti iz petofaktorskog modela, ove varijable objašnjavaju tri četvrtine varijance latentnog konstrukta generaliziranih predrasuda. Kognitivne sposobnosti i pored otvorenosti prema iskustvu imaju jedinstven doprinos predikciji kriterija. Analiza mehanizama djelovanja dispozicijskih varijabli na generalizirane predrasude pokazala je da: (1.) otvorenost prema iskustvu i kognitivne sposobnosti imaju na generalizirane predrasude izravne i neizravne negativne efekte posredovane desnom autoritarnosti i orijentacijom na socijalnu dominaciju; (2.) ugodnost ima neizravni pozitivni efekt posredovan desnom autoritarnosti i neizravni negativni efekt posredovan orijentacijom na socijalnu dominaciju; (3.) neuroticizam ima izravni i neizravni negativni efekt posredovan orijentacijom na socijalnu dominaciju; (4.) ekstraverzija i savjesnost imaju isključivo neizravne pozitivne efekte posredovane desnom autoritarnosti. Primarni doprinos istraživanja ogleda se u činjenici da pruža uvid u, ranije nedovoljno istražen, međuodnos osobina ličnosti i kognitivnih sposobnosti u kontekstu predikcije predrasuda. _____________________________________________________________________________________EXTENDED SUMMARY: Introduction. Prejudice most often denotes negative attitude towards a social group or its members. Previous studies revealed a positive correlation between prejudices towards different social groups, as well as certain time stability and rank-order stability of prejudice. This suggests that individual's dispositions, along with contextual factors, may play a significant role as antecedents of prejudice. This thesis focuses on personality and cognitive ability as possible precursors of prejudice. Three theories seem to be especially relevant when examining the relationship between dispositions and prejudice: McCrae and Costa’s (2008) meta-theoretical framework of the Five-Factor Theory (FFT) of personality, Duckitt’s (2001) Dual-process motivational model of ideology and prejudice (DPM) and Dhont and Hodson’s (2014) Cognitive Ability and Style to Evaluation (CASE) model. According to the FFT, dispositions (as basic tendencies) should relate to the ideological attitudes (as characteristic adaptations), which should further relate to prejudice, ethnocentrism or discrimination (as objective biography). This is in line with the postulates of the other two relevant theoretical frameworks. As stated in the DPM, the exposure to threatening and competitive social surroundings results in the development of social conformity (i.e. low openness and high conscientiousness) and toughmindedness (i.e. low agreeableness). A person characterized by high social conformity reacts sensitively to signs of threat within society and is eager to protect the established norms at any cost. Individuals characterized by high toughmindedness perceive the world as a competitive jungle and tend to be unattached and interpersonally aversive. These characteristics bring forward the motivational goals for security and power (embodied in the right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation), which ultimately lead to prejudice. Finally, according to the CASE model, lower cognitive ability and higher need for structure, order and predictability enhance the perception of changing social environment as threatening. This leads to the activation of the prevention focus, aimed at keeping the status quo. Perceived threat and prevention focus can further lead to the right-wing, socially conservative attitudes that are related to the resistance to change, and consequently, stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. The causal order of these models’ components was supported both experimentally and longitudinally. Although this thesis did not comprehensively test any of the above-mentioned theoretical models, it largely aligned with the FFT, the DPM and the CASE model predictions when building its hypotheses. The aim of the study. The aim of the study is to deepen the understanding of the dispositional basis of proneness to prejudice. Empirical study was conducted examining the relationship of personality traits and cognitive ability with generalized prejudice. It also explored the mechanisms underlying the effects of dispositions on generalized prejudice and analyzed the interdependence of dispositional predictors of generalized prejudice. Methodology and data analysis. The study was conducted on a representative sample of secondary school students from the City of Zagreb, Croatia and the Zagreb County. Participants were 17-20 years old and were attending their final year of secondary education (N = 1034). The measures encompassed dispositional variables - Big Five personality traits and cognitive ability, ideological variables - right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, as well as different measures of prejudice - prejudice towards elderly people, prejudice towards overweight people, prejudice towards individuals with mental illnesses, prejudice towards atheists, prejudice towards gay men and prejudice towards immigrants. The data was analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and series of regression analyses. In addition, structural equation modelling with latent variables was performed. Results and discussion. Results revealed that positive correlation between the measures of prejudice towards overweight people, individuals with mental illnesses, atheists, gay men and immigrants can be explained by the latent g factor of prejudice. Prejudice towards elderly people shared less variance with other measures of prejudice and appeared to be somewhat sub-optimal indicator of the g factor of prejudice. Therefore, this indicator was not included in the definition of the generalized prejudice construct. The lower correlation of this specific prejudice measure with the g factor was discussed with respect to the following: the peculiarity of this group as an untypical out-group; the prevailing norm of nurturance of traditional values in contemporary Croatian society; and the opposite direction of its relations to the ideological variables of right-wing authoritarianism [-] and social dominance orientation [+]. Generalized prejudice was strongly positively correlated to right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation and moderately negatively correlated to openness to experience and cognitive ability. There was a low negative correlation of generalized prejudice with neuroticism and low positive correlation of generalized prejudice with extraversion and conscientiousness. The correlation of generalized prejudice with agreeableness was low and statistically insignificant. The ideological variables, followed by openness to experience and cognitive ability, appeared to be the most pertinent correlates of generalized prejudice. The latter is in accordance with the theoretical background and previous empirical evidence about these relationships. In the thesis, only tentative interpretations of the relationships of extraversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism with generalized prejudice were given, since the correlations were low and the earlier findings were incongruent or inconsistent. The unexpected finding revealing the non-significant relationship of agreeableness and generalized prejudice was discussed in regard to the opposing direction of the correlations of agreeableness with right-wing authoritarianism [+] and social dominance orientation [-], as well as regarding the fact that the Big Five Inventory was used as a measure of personality traits. A set of dispositional and ideological variables explained about three quarters of the variance of the generalized prejudice latent variable. The dispositional predictors appeared to be as useful in explaining the variance of generalized prejudice as the ideological variables (with contribution shared with dispositional variables accounted for). The results indicated a statistically significant contribution to the prediction of generalized prejudice by all the individual predictors. The most important predictors were social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism and openness to experience. Importantly, cognitive ability and openness to experience had non-redundant contributions to the explanation of the variance of the generalized prejudice. The present study also investigated the mechanisms underlying the effects of dispositional variables on generalized prejudice. The analysis of direct and indirect effects resulted in several notable conclusions. Firstly, the effect of the openness to experience and cognitive ability on generalized prejudice was threefold: (1.) direct negative effects of these variables suggested that higher openness to experience and higher cognitive ability were associated with lower generalized prejudice; (2.) indirect negative effects via right-wing authoritarianism suggested that individuals with higher openness to experience and higher cognitive ability were more inclined to reject right-wing attitudes and thus had lower generalized prejudice; and (3.) indirect negative effects via social dominance orientation indicated that individuals who were more open to new experiences and had higher cognitive ability were less focused on establishing hierarchy in social relations and thus less inclined to generalized prejudice. Secondly, agreeableness had a dual contrasting effect on generalized prejudice via right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation: (1.) an indirect positive effect via right-wing authoritarianism suggested that more agreeable individuals were more inclined to adhere to right-wing ideology and thus more inclined to generalized prejudice, while (2.) an indirect negative effect via social dominance orientation suggested that the more agreeable individuals were less supportive of social domination and thus, indirectly, less prone to generalized prejudice. Thirdly, the effect of neuroticism on generalized prejudice was twofold: (1.) a direct negative effect suggested that higher neuroticism (trait more characteristic of female compared to male participants) was associated with lower generalized prejudice, while (2.) an indirect negative effect via social dominance orientation suggested that the individuals with higher neuroticism preferred egalitarian social relations and thus demonstrated lower generalized prejudice. Finally, extraversion and conscientiousness had positive effects on generalized prejudice, mediated by the right-wing authoritarianism - more extroverted and conscientious individuals were more inclined to favor right-wing authoritarian tendencies and thus, indirectly, were more inclined to generalized prejudice. Comparing the magnitude of indirect effects of dispositions for which both ideological variables served as mediators of the effect on generalized prejudice, right-wing authoritarianism was found to be more important mediator in the case of openness to experience, and social dominance orientation was found to be more important mediator in the case of agreeableness and cognitive ability. In sum, both right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation appeared to be of vital importance in ensuring the mechanism through which the dispositions exerted its effects to prejudice, since the former mediated the effects of five, and the latter mediated the effects of four (out of six examined) dispositional variables to generalized prejudice. In addition, none of the dispositional variables had exclusively direct effect on generalized prejudice. Rather, indirect effects always followed the identified direct effects. However, it should be borne in mind that the robustness of some (unforeseen) mechanisms might be brought into question by the upcoming research, since the significance of some of the effects may well be influenced by the fact that the analysis was performed on a large sample. Conclusion. The present research contributes to better understanding of the role of personality traits and cognitive ability as precursors of (generalized) prejudice, especially with respect to their interdependence. A deeper understanding of the dispositional basis of proneness to prejudice serves as one of the preconditions for the integration of these constructs into the models that include a wider spectrum of prejudice antecedents. Indirectly, the research fuels further advancement in the study of nature and determinants of prejudice and provides a basis for the development of more effective interventions for prejudice reduction.


FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Colorado State, in conjunction with the University of Arkansas, announced on Wednesday that the two teams will play each other on Sept. 8, 2018 in Fort Collins. It will mark the second time that an SEC school has ever visited Fort Collins, joining Mississippi State in 1981.

"This is exciting for our football program and for our fans," said head coach Mike Bobo . "Being able to bring an SEC opponent to Fort Collins speaks to the growth of our program and also speaks to the impact our new on-campus stadium is already making. We want to challenge ourselves in our non-conference schedule and also bring those quality opponents to our home field and our fans."

The addition to the schedule completes the Rams' 2018 non-conference slate, which will feature three Power-5 opponents for the second year in a row. The season will begin Sept. 1 with the annual Rocky Mountain Showdown vs. Colorado in Denver. The following week, Sept. 8, the Razorbacks will visit Fort Collins, followed by a trip to another SEC school, Florida, on Sept. 15. The Rams will close the non-conference portion of their schedule on Sept. 22 vs. Illinois State before opening up Mountain West action. CSU will host Hawai`i, New Mexico, Utah State and Wyoming in conference play while travel to Air Force, Boise State, Nevada and San Jose State.

Tuesday's announcement with Arkansas is the second in the past year. In April, it was announced that the two schools will face each other in Fayetteville during the 2019 season. Additionally, the two schools signed a home-and-home deal to play in basketball over the next two seasons, which was also announced in April.

"Arkansas is a wonderful addition to our home schedule in 2018 and reinforces our trend of securing high-profile non-conference opponents," said athletics director Joe Parker . "We are thrilled to have the Razorbacks in Fort Collins as we transition an originally agreed-upon guarantee game into a home-and-home series."

The Rams and Razorbacks have met three times in football. All three contests - in 1974, 1979 and 1990 - were played in Little Rock and won by Arkansas.

Between 2018-2028, CSU now has 18 non-conference dates scheduled, 15 of which are against Power-5 teams. The Rams will also play three Power-5 opponents in 2017, facing Colorado (Denver), hosting Oregon State and traveling to Alabama. From 2008-14, CSU did not host a Power-5 school once, but from 2015-2021, at least one will visit Fort Collins in six of the seven years, plus other dates already scheduled for 2025, 2026 and 2027.

The Rams are preparing for their highly anticipated 2017 season and opening of the new on-campus stadium. New season ticket commitments are now being accepted by contacting the Rams Sales Team at 800-491-RAMS (7267) or visiting www.CSURams.com/tickets. Current season-ticketholders will have first priority to select their seats during appointed times set to begin March 22. In preparation for the inaugural season of the on-campus stadium, the Colorado State athletics department has launched a special football gameday website, which provides in-depth information on everything from tickets to parking, tailgating, gameday logistics and much more. The website can be found at www.CSURams.com/footballgameday.

FUTURE COLORADO STATE NON-CONFERENCE FOOTBALL SCHEDULES

2017

Sept. 1 - vs. Colorado (in Denver)

Sept. 9 - ABILENE CHRISTIAN

Sept. 16 - at Alabama

Sept. 23 - OREGON STATE

2018

Sept. 1 - vs. Colorado (in Denver)

Sept. 8 - ARKANSAS

Sept. 15 - at Florida

Sept. 22 - ILLINOIS STATE

2019

Aug. 31 - vs. Colorado (in Denver)

Sept. 14 - at Arkansas

Sept. 21 - TOLEDO

2020

Sept. 5 - COLORADO

Sept. 12 - at Oregon State

Sept. 26 - at Vanderbilt

2021

Sept. 11 - VANDERBILT

Sept. 25 - at Toledo

2025

Sept. 6 - TEXAS TECH

Sept. 27 - at Vanderbilt

2026

Sept. 12 - at Texas Tech

Sept. 26 - VANDERBILT

2027

Sept. 4 - ARIZONA

2028

Sept. 2 - at Arizona


Leyton Orient are understood to have offered the head coach role to Kevin Nugent.

The O's are looking for a replacement to Russell Slade following his resignation last week. Nugent stepped in as caretaker boss for Saturday's 3-2 home defeat to Rochdale and is expected to take charge again at home to Swindon this weekend.

Nugent is believed to have accepted the offer in principle although it has not yet been confirmed by the club.

Speaking at the weekend, Nugent said: "I'm sure there will be people interested because it's a fantastic job for someone. I'm sure there will be interest in it but I don't know.

"I've obviously worked here a long time and I've done the youth team, scouting and all sorts. Changing the role to head coach is something that would certainly excite me but we'll have to wait and see."