The BBC has been ordered to disclose the names and details of 150 senior managers who received severance payouts after MPs invoked a rare parliamentary custom.

The Commons public accounts committee is to invoke the power of a standing order to force the broadcaster to release information about 150 redundancy payments to senior managers between 2010 and 2012.

Citing data protection issues, the BBC has previously fought attempts to divulge the names, but has now written to the former managers alerting them that the nature of their severance arrangements may now be made public.

The development came on Friday amid further fallout in the BBC payoffs controversy, with a statement challenging former director general Mark Thompson's claim that the BBC Trust was fully informed about a £1m severence settlement with a senior executive in 2010 issued by five trustees.

One ex-senior BBC manager, who received the letter warning that details of his severance arrangement may be published, told MediaGuardian: "I am not prepared to have details of what was meant to be a confidential matter released into the public domain without any kind of assurance of how it will be presented.

"My redundancy was totally in order, but there is no guidance from the BBC as to how the information will be presented. The concern I would have is that a senior manager such as myself – whose redundancy settlement was perfectly in order – will be lumped together with the very small number of senior managers whose deals seem to have been rather more generous. I cannot see myself giving consent for my name and details to be released."

In the letter sent to all 150 former bosses to give them the opportunity to raise any concerns, the corporation said: "PAC has recently confirmed in writing to the BBC that it is applying its Standing Order power to call for the 150 names and details of the 150 recipients of severance payments cited in the [National Audit Office] report, which includes you.

"PAC has informed us that on receipt of this information, it will then decide whether or not to make this information public taking into account the public interest in doing so. PAC further states that it will consider any representations concerning individual cases, that it takes the needs of confidentiality seriously and has chosen not to publish information regarding individuals on previous occasions."

On Friday the BBC Trust issued a statement from five trustees who were in post when the payoff for former deputy director general Mark Byford was being discussed in late 2010 – Richard Ayre, Diane Coyle, Anthony Fry, Alison Hastings and David Liddiment.

"We were not asked for approval of the financial package – formally or informally – nor did we give it. The Trust was assured that the package was within contractual terms and that the chairman of the BBC's executive remuneration committee had agreed to it being approved," they said.

Thompson, in his PAC evidence submission published on Friday, said he took "all reasonable steps to ensure that the BBC Trust was properly informed in advance" about the proposed redundancy settlements with Byford and Sharon Baylay, the former director of marketing who left with a £390,000 payoff.

"The timetable and the urgency of the email traffic between the Trust and various BBC managers supports the view that the Trust wanted to be able to express its view about the proposed settlements before the [executive remuneration committee] was asked to formally approve them," he added.

"The only non-automatic part of the proposed settlement with Mark Byford was the intention to delay the issuing of formal notice and to make a payment in lieu of notice: there is clear evidence that the trust was aware of both those points."

Earlier on Friday, it emerged that Lucy Adams, the BBC's HR director, has written to MPs to correct her evidence to parliament about her involvement in agreeing the £1m severance payment for a former senior executive.

Adams admitted in fresh evidence released by the PAC on Friday that she was involved in drafting a key memo to the BBC Trust that detailed the controversial £1m severance payment to Byford.

Thompson described Adams in evidence also published by the committee on Friday as "one of the main authors" of the memo – dubbed the 7 October note – which she claimed not to have seen when she appeared before MPs on the PAC on 10 July. In a letter made public on Friday, Adams said it was not clear which document the committee was referring to at the time.

The 7 October note, drafted in 2010, has become central to the BBC payoffs saga because it was drawn up to inform the BBC Trust of two controversial payoffs – to Byford and Baylay. The BBC Trust has since claimed not to have been fully briefed on these redundancy deals.

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Austrians elected a Green Party-backed economics professor as their next president, spurning the appeal of an anti-immigration nationalist who campaigned to weaken ties to the European Union.

With all regular votes counted, Alexander Van der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party by 51.7 percent to 48.3 percent after Sunday’s repeat run-off election to the mainly ceremonial presidency. While mail-in ballots will only be counted on Monday, Van der Bellen’s margin of victory was too great to change the outcome, and Hofer conceded defeat.

Van der Bellen, 72, said that he stood for the “old values” of freedom, equality and solidarity. He also signaled that he wanted to preside over a more active presidency, urging a focus on policies such as efforts to tackle unemployment.

Austria sent a “good signal” today “to the capitals of the European Union,” Van der Bellen, who ran as an independent, said in an interview with public broadcaster ORF. “You can actually win elections with a pro-European position.”

Together with a referendum in Italy also being held on Sunday, the Austrian vote was seen as a bellwether for populist sentiment in Europe after the U.K.’s Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency. Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam Dutch politician, offered Hofer his commiserations on Twitter, as did French National Front leader Marine Le Pen. Nigel Farage, the former head of the U.K. Independence Party, had cited Hofer’s EU-skeptic stance as further evidence of the pressures buffeting the EU “construction.”

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who heads the Social Democratic Party, hailed Van der Bellen’s win as a “victory of reason against right-wing populism,” according to an interview with Bild newspaper. EU President Donald Tusk extended his “wholehearted congratulations” to Van der Bellen in an e-mailed statement.

Year of Acrimony

The result defied projections of a razor-tight finish and ends an acrimonious year of campaign politics that polarized Austria. Van der Bellen, who pledged to prevent anti-EU forces from forming a government, now has to heal the rifts exposed over immigration and economic inequality.

It’s the first time in 70 years the country has elected a presidential candidate outside the Social Democratic or Austrian People’s Party, after both the established parties were eliminated in earlier rounds of voting. It’s also the first time that a Green Party leader has won a popular election in Europe to become head of state since the global environmental movement began.

Van der Bellen narrowly squeezed out Hofer in the first presidential runoff on May 22, but the result was overturned by the Constitutional Court because of irregularities in counting mail-in ballots. Austria’s Interior Ministry showed Van der Bellen won more rural support in Sunday’s repeat vote, and also took key regions in the industrial heartland of Upper Austria as well as in the mountains of Tirol.

Opening Doors

The result is a rebuff to some analysts who predicted Hofer would benefit from the same nationalist forces that propelled Trump to the presidency last month. Hofer campaigned on his ability to court favor inside a Trump White House as well as with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m asking my voters to accept that in a democracy, the voter is always right,” said Hofer. He added that he’s looking forward to the next round of national elections where he’ll stand by Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, who accused Van der Bellen of orchestrating Sunday’s victory with a “massive campaign of fear.”

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, a Social Democrat who warned last week that the EU must reform or slip into the abyss, struck a more conciliatory tone.

“Alexander Van der Bellen will be a good partner for an open-minded, future-oriented policy of chances and hopes,” Kern said. “To the voters of Norbert Hofer, I say nobody should feel like a loser today. We’re all Austria.”

— With assistance by Rainer Buergin, and Matthias Wabl


The views may be pleasantly apocalyptic, and the second act may feature a motorbike duel with a robot B52, but it's the little things that really sell me on Gears of War 4 - the surprisingly delicate way it both harkens back to and departs from Epic's original cover-shooters. The fact that Swarm footsoldiers rush you when they're close to death, for example, where their Locust predecessors would often dig in till the bitter end. The presence of branching path sections that ask teams of two to support one another across a gulf, a classic Gears device enlivened by the addition of flying enemies and eccentric new flavours of sniper rifle.

And then there's the Overkill shotgun, which perhaps encapsulates how well the Coalition understands the series it has inherited. On the surface it's a quad-barrelled monster worthy of Painkiller, but in practice the Overkill is a flexible instrument that, much like the famous Active Reload mechanic, challenges you to keep a cool head under pressure.

Simply pull the trigger and you'll fire all four barrels at once to shattering effect. But if you hold the trigger, pause and release, you'll fire each pair of barrels separately for a tighter spread, allowing you to dent targets at range and really make the most of your ammo. Shotguns have always been Gears of War's principal skill weapons, the roaring Sphinxes that gate access to the upper echelons of competitive multiplayer. With the Overkill, the Coalition has crafted both an elegant tool for returning Gnasher pros and a bloodthirsty treat for the rest of us.

Everywhere you look in Gears of War 4, you'll find a studio engaged in careful dialogue with the past. This is literally the case in the story, which takes place a few decades after the destruction of the Locust, and sees two generations of the Fenix clan fighting side by side. In a bid to shore up what remains of civilisation, the Coalition of Organised Governments has herded Sera's surviving humans into gigantic walled cities, defended by robots, but not everybody is content to trade their freedom for security. Amongst the rag-tag Outsiders who scrape a living in the wilderness is the one and only Marcus Fenix, he of the thousand yard scowl. As the game's second act begins, the COG is holding the Outsiders responsible for a spate of abductions, and new leading man JD Fenix has returned to his father's estate in hopes of guidance and a little covering fire, if not a hug.

What follows is essentially a license handover reimagined as a family squabble, a clash between epochs in video game characterisation. JD is a blond and blue-eyed graduate of Nathan Drake High, accompanied by glib sidekick Delmont Walker and token ladybro Kait Diaz, whose parents are among the missing. Marcus remains a potty-mouthed crank, cut from the rock of the WW2 shooter and pickled to perfection by years of isolation. The script isn't exactly captivating so far - in opting for a more presentable college age cast, the Coalition has sacrificed a certain vivacity - but the reinvention of Marcus as a grouchy hermit, bellowing about his greenhouse in the midst of a COG bombing run, is worth a few laughs. I'm looking forward to finding out who else is back from Gears 3. With any luck, the Cole Train still operates somewhere deep in the wilds.

The art direction is also something of a generational mash-up. The Coalition has come up with its own spin on the original's "destroyed beauty" aesthetic - "reclaimed beauty", an admittedly clunky buzzword which pays into an unexpected riff on fossil fuel politics. By the time of Gears 4, Sera's reserves of underground immulsion are long gone, Mother Nature has taken back much of the surface, and the population now depends on a hodgepodge of renewable energy resources.

The game's plunging rural fastness is littered with the vestiges of the old world and ramshackle stabs at revival - windmills idling against a baleful sunset, enormous flywheels canted against cliff-faces, hydroelectric dams torn open by the "windflares" that now rake the planet's crust. In the course of the campaign's five acts (an estimated 10 hours) you'll take a ride in a deteriorating funicular and do battle inside a memorial to the Pendulum Wars, Sera's darkest hour prior to the emergence of the Locust. A hint: some of the antique weapons on display are functional.

Inspired by the landscape of north Italy, the game's palette is quietly enchanting - wiry underbrush and purple leafpile, mildew-spotted signage and ground-down masonry, flowing together in a way that makes the cover layouts less obvious to the eye, if no less tangible under the thumb. Gears of War's world has always been uniquely textured, and the Coalition has done a fine job of weaving its own vision into the tapestry, aided no end by some fancy bells and whistles - screen-space reflections on puddles, physically based shaders for a more tactile look, and a persistent dynamic weather system which, at its most severe, actually affects how you play.

When the winds are raging, movement becomes a chore, certain terrain fixtures can be shot loose to create tumbling hazards, and slower projectiles such as the Boomshot's rounds may be blown off course, allowing you to sneak the odd shot around cover. If all this sounds transformative, however, the wind was seldom this much of a presence during my few hours with the campaign. For the most part, Gears of War 4's cover combat follows on from that of Gears 3, its AI behaviours, animations and even exploits painstakingly rebuilt to take advantage of Unreal Engine 4.

The basic rhythms are much as in any Gears game: you'll enter an area, slam your back against a pillar and work your way gradually around to flanking positions, overlooks and weapon drops, relying on AI comrades to revive you as and when you overreach yourself. The Coalition has added a few new tricks - you can reach across cover to haul a foe onto your combat knife, which adds an extra element of risk and reward to close-quarters gunplay - but any longtime Gears detractors hoping for a change of tune will come away disappointed.

There are, of course, new weapons to spice up the familiar double act of rifles versus shotguns. The Embar rifle handles like a mix of Torque Bow and Longshot - you must hold the trigger to charge up a slug, but if you hold it a second too long the weapon will vent, a blunder that's sure to rouse the scorn of Twitch chatboxes. The Buzzkill and Dropshot, meanwhile, are ways of cheating the game's cover logic. The former coughs up sawblades that ricochet around objects, while the latter spits out a flying drillhead that slams to earth explosively when you release the trigger.

More important than the new firearms, though, are the creatures you'll wield them against. Gears of War 4 introduces two new factions, the crusty Swarm and the COG's army of automatons or "Dee Bees". They share a number of familiar combat archetypes - units that pin you down, skirmishers that flush you out, and the odd towering bullet sponge equipped with a power weapon. But each faction boasts a few oddballs that may throw veteran players off-balance. The Dee Bees occasionally field Guardians, slippery UAVs that sport a chaingun or a rocket launcher (detachable, once you've shot the vehicle down) plus a recharging energy shield. Their rolling Tracker units are Kamikaze terrain denial weapons, exploding at your feet to create a brief but deadly puddle of static electricity.

The Swarm feel indistinguishable from the Locust at first, their rank and file emerging from sinkholes that can be sealed with a frag grenade, but just wait till you meet the Juvies - Swarm infants caught mid-gestation, fatty tissues dripping from their muscles as they hop and flail towards you. The original game's Wretches are the obvious comparison, but Juvies are much nimbler around objects and harder to hit - I was reminded a little of the Doom reboot's fidgety reinvention of the Imp, which is an encouraging parallel indeed. They also represent something of a terrain variable: you'll encounter Juvie egg sacks that can be used as cover, or shot down from the ceiling to squish anything beneath, but woe betide the player who rouses the occupant in the process.

Weirder and deadlier still are the Swarm elites, especially the prancing Snatchers - they'll actually ingest you if they get the chance, carrying the hapless victim around in their bellies till blasted into submission. Carriers are the Swarm's artillery, their enormous torsos cracking open to release a cloud of toxic spores as they stomp slowly into melee range, and then there are the Pouncers, catlike, dart-tossing fiends with soft pink bellies that hop from surface to surface. As the name implies, Pouncers may try to pin you, but if you're alert to the warning signs you can usually catch the descending beast on the blade of a Lancer.

Beyond the campaign, Gears 4 offers up a brace of familiar modes - Warzone, TDM, King of the Hill, and Guardian - plus the already discussed Dodgeball, a co-op bots mode and Arms Race, a team-based version of the Gun Game mod for Counter-Strike. In the latter, all team members get a different weapon after every third kill, which good news in that a struggling player won't be left behind, and less good news in that allies may accidentally sabotage each other. Finding that your Gnasher has become a Longshot after cornering an opponent is every bit as exhilarating as you'd imagine.

There's also Escalation, a three ring objective capture mode with a metagame element that is aimed squarely at the eSports community. The idea is to win seven rounds, the twist being that losing teams can activate a weapon spawn between rounds, whether to give themselves an edge or bait the other team into taking a risk. Backed up by LAN support and a robust suite of commentator options, it seems a good pitch for the tournament crowd.

But the star attraction in multiplayer is, of course, the new take on Horde, Gears of War's influential wave survival mode, which again follows on from Gears 3 but retains a few ideas from the underrated Gears of War: Judgment. The battle now revolves around a movable fabricator, where you'll construct fortifications such as turrets, fences and decoys using globs of power that must be manually collected from the bodies of the slain.

This creates more of a frantic, push-pull rhythm, as players scurry out to gather energy at the risk of being caught trousers-down when the next round begins. It accompanies a set of loose player classes - Heavy, Soldier, Engineer, Scout and Sniper - which determine your starting layout and are geared towards certain roles, but flexible enough that you can change tactics on the fly.

Each class has a selection of abilities, largely passive, that can be levelled up - the Scout can equip a skill that awards bonus Power when harvesting under fire, for instance, while the Soldier might plump for the ability to plant up to five grenade mines at once. The class system doesn't quite feel essential yet, and there's the suspicion that it exists to justify the sale of ability cards, though all abilities can be earned and upgraded in-game. But having to factor in the fabricator's location and resource gathering on top of the usual Horde strategies is a fun complication, and you needn't give those cards a second thought once you've left the lobby screen behind.

The truly disarming thing about Gears of War's return is that it no longer has an obvious rival. The original's mechanics have been imitated by every blockbuster under the sun, from Killzone through Tomb Raider to the Tom Clancy franchise, but most of its disciples have either died off or evolved beyond recognition. If the Coalition's debut is a fairly conservative work at heart, one that is content to tinker ingeniously within sturdy parameters, it nonetheless feels strangely exotic. There is no game out there right now that plays like this one, that uses quite these variables in quite this way, and while the revisions aren't mind-blowing individually, they're gripping as a whole. Marcus Fenix may have aged disgracefully, but Gears of War 4 has the wind in its sails.

This article is based on a press trip to The Coalition's headquarters. Microsoft paid for travel and accommodation.


(1) Existing law generally prohibits the possession or transfer of assault weapons, except for the sale, purchase, importation, or possession of assault weapons by specified individuals, including law enforcement officers. Under existing law, “assault weapon” means, among other things, a semiautomatic centerfire rifle or a semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has any one of specified attributes, including, for rifles, a thumbhole stock, and for pistols, a second handgrip.

This bill would revise this definition of “assault weapon” to mean a semiautomatic centerfire rifle, or a semiautomatic pistol that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of those specified attributes. The bill would also define “fixed magazine” to mean an ammunition feeding device contained in, or permanently attached to, a firearm in such a manner that the device cannot be removed without disassembly of the firearm action.

By expanding the definition of an existing crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

(2) Existing law requires that any person who, within this state, possesses an assault weapon, except as otherwise provided, be punished as a felony or for a period not to exceed one year in a county jail.

This bill would exempt from punishment under that provision a person who possessed an assault weapon prior to January 1, 2017, if specified requirements are met.

(3) Existing law requires that, with specified exceptions, any person who, prior to January 1, 2001, lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the date it was defined as an assault weapon, and which was not specified as an assault weapon at the time of lawful possession, register the firearm with the Department of Justice. Existing law permits the Department of Justice to charge a fee for registration of up to $20 per person but not to exceed the actual processing costs of the department. Existing law, after the department establishes fees sufficient to reimburse the department for processing costs, requires fees charged to increase at a rate not to exceed the legislatively approved annual cost-of-living adjustment for the department’s budget or as otherwise increased through the Budget Act. Existing law requires those fees to be deposited into the Dealers’ Record of Sale Special Account. Existing law, the Administrative Procedure Act, establishes the requirements for the adoption, publication, review, and implementation of regulations by state agencies.

This bill would require that any person who, from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2016, inclusive, lawfully possessed an assault weapon that does not have a fixed magazine, as defined, and including those weapons with an ammunition feeding device that can be removed readily from the firearm with the use of a tool, register the firearm with the Department of Justice before January 1, 2018, but not before the effective date of specified regulations. The bill would permit the department to increase the $20 registration fee as long as it does not exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department. The bill would also require registrations to be submitted electronically via the Internet utilizing a public-facing application made available by the department. The bill would require the registration to contain specified information, including, but not limited to, a description of the firearm that identifies it uniquely and specified information about the registrant. The bill would permit the department to charge a fee of up to $15 per person for registration through the Internet, not to exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department to be paid and deposited, as specified, for purposes of the registration program. The bill would require the department to adopt regulations for the purpose of implementing those provisions and would exempt those regulations from the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill would also make technical and conforming changes.

(4) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.


The Marijuana Policy Project, a grassroots organization supportive of marijuana legalization, has named Colorado Senate President John Morse as the worst state legislator with a stance on marijuana issues in the country.

Morse was included on the list primarily due to his role in attempting to repeal Amendment 64 in the last few days of the 2013 legislative session.

Amendment 64 was authorized via a statewide people’s ballot last year with a majority vote in all CO counties, and in May the Colorado legislature moved forward with a regulatory framework to support recreational sales.

Morse has received considerable push-back from voters due to his stance on marijuana and other issues since the 2013 legislative session.

Currently, over 10,000 petition signatures have been collected to support the recall, nearly 50% more than the required amount to initiate a recall.

Next Tuesday, September 10th, voters will be given the opportunity to decide whether or not Morse and fellow anti-legalization legislator Senator Angel Giron will be allowed to maintain their office.

Sen. Giron, of Pueblo County, was responsible for a separate anti-legalization bill, which would had criminalized marijuana if voters do not pass new taxes to support regulation.


Noah McCall (Albany Police Department Facebook page) Noah McCall (Albany Police Department Facebook page) Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Partygoer accused of urinating on police officer 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Albany

City police officers who went to the site of a loud party early Sunday said one of the partygoers urinated from a staircase onto an officer.

At 3:20 a.m., officers went to 470 Hudson Ave., where they say several people inside and out were drinking alcohol and causing a disturbance.

Noah McCall, 19, urinated on an officer, police said. McCall was charged with reckless assault, police said.

A resident was found with metal knuckles, police said. Luca Quinn, a 19-year-old State University at Albany student, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon.

Both men were arraigned in Albany City Court and released.

Police also requested a building and codes inspection of the house. The inspection found the building to be unsafe and uninhabitable.

Police were called to the home at least two other times in the last 15 months.

At about 12:15 a.m. on Aug. 30, police received a report of a loud party and found a group of people drinking alcohol. Police noted safety hazards on that visit and requested a building and codes inspection. The site was deemed uninhabitable.

On 1:15 a.m. Nov. 9, 2012, police found 14 people in the basement for what appeared to be an initiation for membership in a group or fraternity.

Officers said they saw several people face down on the basement floor with their faces submerged in water. They were being struck with wooden paddles and rubber hoses while being told to "beg for mercy" and having cold water from a garden hose sprayed on their heads.

Nine people were arrested on charges of hazing, criminal nuisance, unlawful assembly, obstruction of governmental administration and resisting arrest.


To many parents, it may be confirmation of something they have long suspected. A new study suggests that children pose a greater distraction to drivers than using a mobile telephone at the wheel.

The research involved an analysis of 12 families over a period of three weeks, in which all their car journeys were monitored by four cameras installed in their vehicle.

The families taking part had an average of two children, between 1-8 years of age. In total, 92 trips were analysed by the researchers, looking for any evidence of potentially distracting activity undertaken by the driver, such as looking away from the road for more than two seconds.

In 90 of the 92 trips studied, the team detected distracting activity on the part of the motorist, with the average parent taking their eyes off the road for three minutes and 22 seconds, during a 16 minute trip.

The video recordings showed that children travelling in the rear seats accounted for 12 per cent of all potentially distracting activity, compared to mobile phones, which were responsible for one per cent.

Fathers were more likely to engage in distracting activities with their children and were distracted for longer periods than their mothers.

The most frequent types of distractions included turning to look at the child in the rear seat or watching them in a rear-view mirror (76.4 per cent), engaging in conversation with the child (16 per cent), assisting the child in some way, such as handing them food or drinks, (seven per cent) or playing with the child (1 per cent).

The study found that the presence of a front seat passenger did not significantly affect the way in which drivers engaged in potentially distracting child-related activities.

The research was conducted by the Monash University Accident Research Centre, in Melbourne, Australia, where rules regarding the use of mobile phones while driving are similar to those in the UK, with hands free phones permitted.

The team say the results suggest that children are 12 times more distracting to motorists than talking on a mobile phone.

Dr Judith Charlton, an associate director of the centre, said: “The costs of distracted driving are undeniable. One major and previously unrecognised distraction is kids in the back seat.”

The research comes just days after Brake, the road safety campaigners, supported by the Association of Chief Police Officers, called for tougher rules on mobile phones in cars, with a ban on hands-free devices, as well as hand-held ones. The charity also called for the penalty for calling or texting behind the wheel to be increased from £100 to somewhere between £500 and £1,000.

But Dr Charlton suggested that while the risks of distraction during driving are becoming increasingly well known, motorists often overlooked children as a source of the problem. She added that her research indicated there was a need for more education on the issue. Her team have now launched a larger study, involving 50 families.

The research comes just months after Norland College, the British nanny school, was involved in the launch of Nanny Drive iQ, a specialist driving school to teach childcare professionals techniques about driving with children.

Sarah Rowley, from the driving school, said: “Parents expect those who care for their children to have relevant qualifications, but often let a carer or nanny drive off with their children without knowing how skilled and confident they are behind the wheel.”


Hannity: GOP's Failure 'Pushed Trump Into Arms of Chuck & Nancy'

Tucker: Trump Signing Dems' DACA Deal Would Be 'Massive Amnesty,' 'Collapse' of GOP

President Donald Trump has been criticized by some on the right for striking a deal with Democrats on raising the debt ceiling and then meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to discuss a plan to preserve the DACA program while increasing border security.

On "Fox & Friends," former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump made it clear during the campaign that he's a deal-maker and he's going to do what's in the best interests of the U.S.

"I think Washington needs to wake up and understand that this is a guy who is going to make the best deal for the country when he can," Spicer said. "If that's with Republicans, it's going to be with Republicans. If that's with Democrats, it's going to be with Democrats. If that's with a bipartisan group of individuals, it'll be them."

He said that Trump has a big heart and wants to find a way to protect so-called "Dreamers" from deportation, but he also knows the importance of border security and is committed to building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"So like it or not, I don't see how you get a deal done that doesn't include the wall, because that's been a major priority of this president," Spicer said. "When you see what the final product is, I guarantee it's going to be on Donald Trump's terms."

Watch more above.

Coulter: 'If We're Not Getting a Wall, I'd Prefer President Pence'

Tomi Lahren: 'ESPN Values Diversity, But Maybe Not Diversity of Opinion'

Gorka: Trump Won on 'Make America Great Again,' Not 'Make the GOP Great Again'


Doug, Mr. Hennigan & Chaille discuss starting a Bisbee gossip column, Bingo's new book, Doug's dad on tour and a couple of travel tips. Hey, they all can't be gems.

Recorded Oct 10th, 2017 at the FunHouse in Bisbee, AZ with Doug Stanhope (@DougStanhope), Brian Hennigan (@MrHennigan), & Ggreg Chaille (@gregchaille). Produced & Edited by Chaille.

Pre-Order a SIGNED copy of Doug's NEW book, " This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir"" at - http://bit.ly/2z4dmBg

This episode is sponsored by BlueApron.com - Get $30 OFF YOUR FIRST MEAL - WITH FREE SHIPPING - by going to BlueApron.com/STANHOPE

DRAFT.com – New players get a FREE entry into a draft when you make your first deposit! Use promo code DOUG and play a real money game for FREE!

ALL THINGS COMEDY Comedy Festival (OCT 26-29) presents The Doug Stanhope Podcast LIVE with Doug Stanhope, Chad Shank, Greg Chaille and Special Guests @ The Orpheum Theater Thu - 10/26 8:00pm in Phoenix, AZ. Tickets at https://phoenix.ticketforce.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=371

More Stanhope 2017 Tour Dates at http://www.dougstanhope.com/tour-dates/. Get on the Mailing List.

LINKS: Amy Dresner's book,“My Fair Junkie” - http://amzn.to/2gBVaZ9 Justin's Peanut Butter Packs - http://amzn.to/2zk0fNr Chad Shank Voice Over info at AudioShank.com Support the Innocence Project - http://www.innocenceproject.org/

The comedy clip is from Todd Barry's DVD “From Heaven” (2008 Comedy Central Records) and is available on Amazon.com - http://amzn.to/2xBXb1Y


Oh, space. You're so hard to explore. Sometimes you bombard spacecrafts with hurtling rocks and deadly cosmic rays, and other times you're so empty you don't give astronauts a darn thing to hold on to. But while scientists haven't quite figured out how to keep radiation at bay, the scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory—specifically, its Planetary Robotics Laboratory—are building machines that can get a grip on the most difficult surfaces astronauts will find out there.

Adhesion-wise, space presents a couple problems. First, robots typically struggle with uneven surfaces, let alone the kind of cliffs and crags you see on Mars. Second, space is kind of gravity challenged. "Out in zero gravity, even pushing tape against surfaces is difficult," say Jaakko Karras, a robotics electrical engineer at JPL. Without gravity to anchor your feet to the ground, it's easy to run afoul of Newton's third law. (For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So you'll be pushed away from the wall with the same amount of force you applied to it. Physics!)

And that's not just a problem in microgravity. Low gravity environments, like asteroids or comets, can be uncooperative too. (Just ask the European Space Agency's Philae lander.) "If you got out there and wanted to do some sort of sampling and just started drilling, you’re more likely to spin about the drill bit than the drill bit into the surface," Karras says.

So what's a robot to do? "Nature solves the problems around us all the time," says Karras. "A fairly common path for us is the biomimicry approach." When Karras and his team would test climbing robots out on vertical rock walls, lizards would blaze right past them. But rather than getting annoyed at the speedy little reptiles, Karras decided to take his cues from evolution instead. His team's adhesive makes use of van der Waals forces, which geckos use to climb smooth surfaces. For bumpy ones, his team built claw-inspired microspine grippers that can bend and flex. (You can see them in action in the video up top.)

Both gecko adhesive and microspine grippers are well on their way to scoring a ticket to deep space. Gecko adhesive is already being tested on the International Space Station. Right now, astronauts are using it to anchor things to interior panels, but NASA is considering using it as a replacement for Velcro, which kicks off a lot of dust and bristles—particulates aren't all that welcome in the fragile environment of the ISS. And microspines are a crucial part of NASA's asteroid redirect mission: The little spikes will cover robotic arms used to snatch up an asteroid's boulder and deposit it in orbit around our moon.

Karras also hopes that future missions will use microspines' vertical climbing skills to explore Mars' caves and lava tubes. "They haven't been explored yet because they're difficult from a mobility standpoint," Karras says. "But they may once have been collection points for liquid water, and they're sheltered, low-radiation areas. They're of interest for investigating the possibility of past and present life." So if we find any Martians in the next couple of decades, you have lizards to thank.


HANOI (Reuters) - Abuses by Vietnam’s powerful police force are occurring at an alarming rate, a rights group said on Tuesday, and it urged the government to rein in offenders and create agencies to investigate complaints of beatings, torture and killings.

Tracking four years of alleged abuse of suspects in custody, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Vietnam’s Communist government needed to recognize the scale of the problem and urgently initiate police reforms.

“What we have uncovered is a human rights crisis in the daily operations of the Vietnam police,” Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director, told a news conference in Bangkok.

“We’re convinced that what we’re presenting today is the tip of a much larger iceberg,” Robertson said, according to a transcript provided by HRW.

The group said many victims of police brutality were accused only of minor crimes like speeding or petty theft. It cited 14 deaths in custody - four unexplained, six alleged suicides and four from illness - and documented 31 cases of police beatings, among whose victims were eight children.

Robertson said the report was far from a quantitative survey and “more a snapshot of a serious situation”. The rights group did not interview witnesses or suspects itself for fear it could put them in danger.

It drew largely on what it described as patchy coverage of the issue in by Vietnam’s state-controlled media and from bloggers keen to document cases of police brutality.

Reforming the police force could, however, be a tall order in Vietnam. The force is overseen by the Ministry of Public Security, which has a big stake in politics and numerous areas of society and administration.

Several ministers, current and former, are politburo members and the remit of the ministry is far-reaching.

“STRONG COMMITMENT”

The rights group recommended that the government establish an independent police complaints commission, local-level internal affairs units, a tracking system to address allegations of abuse and ensure interrogations of suspects were videotaped.

Vietnam’s government rejected what it said were “false allegations” in the report, citing its signing of the U.N. treaty against torture and inhumane acts as evidence of strong commitment to preventing abuses of suspects in police custody.

“Every act of torture and corporal punishment during investigation and trial processes will be strictly handled in accordance with Vietnamese law,” deputy Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Tran Thi Bich, said in a statement.

Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang last week said during a hearing of the justice committee of Vietnam’s parliament that action was being taken against policemen accused of abuses and cases had risen from 2011 to the end of last year.

Quang said that of the 828 police accused of “infringing upon judicial activities”, 23 were charged with using corporal punishment. Quang did not disclose if any had been jailed. Robertson described the hearing as remarkable but said far more needed to be done.

“For now, it’s clear that the Vietnam police are mostly getting away with these abuses,” he said.


Germany coach Joachim Low will explore his options against Azerbaijan as he attempts to identify a pecking order behind injured goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.

The world champions secured their place at Russia 2018 with a 3-1 win away to Northern Ireland on Thursday, extending their 100 per cent record in qualifying to nine matches.

But their preparations suffered a setback with news that Neuer could be sidelined for a further six months due to a metatarsal injury.

Barcelona shot-stopper Marc-Andre ter Stegen is the current replacement, but Bayer Leverkusen's Bernd Leno will be given another chance to impress on Sunday after an underwhelming display against Australia at the Confederations Cup.

"When Neuer is fit, he starts. We must see how [his injury] develops," Low said at his pre-match press conference.

"Marc-Andre has shown himself to be very capable. He has developed well with us.

"If you can speak of a goalkeeper behind Manuel Neuer, it is Marc-Andre ter Stegen. We also have confidence in him, just as in Bernd Leno and Kevin Trapp."

Low also confirmed the in-form Leroy Sane will earn his eighth international cap at the Fritz-Walter Stadion and will be joined in the starting XI by Liverpool midfielder Emre Can.

Manchester City attacker Sane, a member of Germany's Euro 2016 squad, pulled out of the Confederations Cup to undergo nasal surgery.


Tricks of the trade: The world's best make-up artists reveal their secrets

From primer to eyeshadow, these are the products we use every day - but do we know how to use them? We asked international make-up artists Laura Mercier, Jackie Tyson and Gucci Westman to give us their inside tips.

Laura is known for her successful make-up range - her primer is a beauty icon. Gucci is a New York-based celebrity make-up artist who works with all the stars, including Demi Moore and Jennifer Garner. And Jackie is the make-up artist on The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent.

Here, they select the products we really need and give their differing views on how to use them...

Debating the truth: Make-up artists Laura Mercier (left), Gucci Westman (centre), and Jackie Tyson (right)

Should you apply primer on top of freshly cleansed skin or on top of moisturiser?

LAURA: Primer is a protective layer that seals in moisturiser and provides a smooth surface for foundation.

If you have an oily complexion, you may feel that the primer without moisturiser is enough.

GUCCI: My routine is more about colour- correcting, treating and highlighting the skin. A product that gives you an immaculate canvas is a pore minimiser, which would be my equivalent to a primer.

I use it only around the T-zone, where pores need to be made to look smooth and match the rest of the skin. Apply after moisturiser, and before you apply your foundation.

JACKIE: A primer provides a base for your foundation, which will ensure it will stay put longer, but will also help give the illusion of flawless, radiant skin.

Try Avon MagiX Face Perfector, £7 (avonshop. co.uk) or Beauty Flash Balm by Clarins, £26.50 (from Boots), which is a cult classic.

The X Factor: Jackie Tyson cannot live without her eyelash curlers and disposable mascara wands

Which make-up tools can’t you live without?

LAURA: My camouflage brush to apply concealer - it allows me to pinpoint areas where I need more coverage.

GUCCI: My sponges - they are amazingly soft.

JACKIE: My Shu Uemura Eyelash Curlers, £19.50 (020 240 7635). I also get through lots of disposable mascara wands - £6.25 for a set of nine (thepromakeupshop.com).

Professional tools: Invest in a set of brushes to get that flawless finish

What’s the best way to apply foundation to get a smooth, even coverage?

LAURA: Fingers for a cream foundation, a sponge for liquids and a brush for mineral powder.

GUCCI: Using a brush, start from under the eyes working out and up. Then apply highlighter to cheekbones, bridge of the nose and cupid's bow, pat it in with your fingers, and smooth out with a brush. Revlon brushes from £6.99 (Superdrug).

JACKIE: Use foundation only where you need it: around the eyes, nose and mouth. Blend well with a brush or fingers.

How can you get a lovely, healthy glow using bronzer without looking unnatural?

LAURA: Never overload your brush, and match texture to texture. A cream or gel is perfect over liquid foundation, for example.

If you don't want a powdery look, use a blusher with a hint of pearl to lift the texture and add a glow.

GUCCI: For mature skin, the more cream textures you can use, the better. Avoid powders as much as possible. It's easy to get a natural look with blusher - it's all in the blending.

After applying cream or powder blush, simply dust over the area with a clean powder brush.

JACKIE: Avoid powder bronzers for a more mature skin. POP Beauty has a fabulously easy-to-apply cheek stain called Apples Of The Cheeks, £12 (popbeauty.co.uk), that looks great on any skin tone and can be applied with fingertips.

Break out of your eyeshadow rut: Bellapierre has a good range of shimmer powders

How can you break out of a colour rut with eye shadow?

LAURA: Seek the advice of an in-store make-up artist - they'll give an objective opinion. When applying eye shadow, use a little at a time; it's easier to add more than take some off.

GUCCI: Go for a eye make-up palette that combines a few of your safer, familiar tones with a range of new colours.

JACKIE: Try to complement your outfit with make-up rather than match it. Bella Pierre has a good range of shimmer powders - individual pots cost £12.99 or a stack of nine is £59.99 (bellapierre.co.uk).

Can you define your mouth and get long-lasting colour that doesn't look too fake?

LAURA: Apply lipstick by dabbing with your finger to create the shape. The colour will look far more natural, and the pressing action will grind its pigment onto your lips.

GUCCI: Apply lip colour using your fingers, pat it on and clean up the edges with a small concealer brush. Revlon's new Colorburst lipstick, £7.99 (Superdrug and Boots) has a great lip balm feeling and provides a huge amount of colour.

JACKIE: Colour is best applied sparingly over the top of a good lip primer to fill in fine lines around the lip line. Blend gently with the ring finger. When buying lipstick, get exactly the same colour lip liner.

After applying a primer, such as Elizabeth Arden Advanced Lip-Fix Cream, £18 (Boots and department stores; 020 7574 2714 for stockists), apply the liner all over the lips to provide a colour base and give the lipstick something to cling to. Blot with a tissue and repeat two to three times for extralasting power.

Bobbi Brown's Lip Liner pencils, £14 (bobbibrown. co.uk), are long-lasting and the shades are all wearable. After applying, blend gently with the fingertips to remove any excess colour.

Nearly here: Yes To Tomatoes Totally Tranquil Facial Hydrating Lotion, £11.99, victoriahealth.com COMING SOON… Tomatoes in your face cream The Yes To Tomatoes range is rich in vitamin C and lypocene.

Totally Tranquil Facial Hydrating Lotion, £11.99 (victoriahealth.com) combines 26 minerals from the Dead Sea with tomatoes, rosemary and red pepper.

Nivea's Protect & Bronze, £12.55 (nivea.co.uk) is a dual-purpose suncream that protects the skin and enhances tanning.

It uses a plant extract called GA that helps increase the skin's melanin production.

Benefit Confessions Of A Concealaholic, £28.50 (benefitcosmetics. co.uk) has everything to hide blemishes in one handy kit, including eyelid brightener, primer and concealer brushes.

WE LOVE... For anyone who's ever had a disastrous home hair colour, Colour B4, £9.99, Boots, is a must.

Britain's first home hair colour remover erases blunders with one application. Launched in association with hair, image and style expert Scott Cornwall, Colour B4 is available in regular (to reverse an undesirable hair colour) and extra strength (for hair with multiple colour applications).

Pedicure perfect: Comfys have been designed to stretch, flex and rejuvenate your feet

HEAD TO THE BEECH!

These sandals may look scary, but are as comfy as slippers. There are four toe separators that flex and rejuvenate your feet.

Beauty addicts have discovered that they're the perfect footwear for polished toes after pedicures. Available in leather or velour.

Beech Sandals, £29 (victoriahealth.com).

WHERE CAN I FIND... ULTRAGLOW?

Created in the Seventies, Ultraglow was a must-have, along with shaggy perms and Sun-In hair lightener.

But the product was wise before its time because it contained minerals long before the rest of the cosmetics world had realised their benefits.

Wise before its time: Ultraglow Mineral Shimmer Powders, £4.21 (ultraglowshop.co.uk)

The original formula hasn't changed, but it now comes with a Kabuki brush for application, and is available in loose or pressed textured.

Complexsun is a matte version with a four-star UV rating.

The famous Ultraglow Magic Lips, £20.42, are also still around (remember the lip stains that came in black, red and green and changed to your personal shade of pink when applied?) and sell like hot cakes on the internet.

And there's also a great range of Ultraglow Mineral Shimmer Powders, £4.21, and a Magic Mascara, £9.95, which gives impressive coverage.

Ultraglow Original Pressed Bronzing Powder, £15.99 (ultra glowshop.co.uk).


Okay, are y’all ready for the longest sex question I’ve ever answered? Because this one’s a doozy. Normally we edit the questions down to a nice size, but there’s a lot going on here and I think all of it’s valuable. So we’re publishing most of this question, almost intact:

I have been in a relationship with a bisexual girl for more than 10 months. We have a pretty okay relationship, we have our strong differences but there are things about her that I do adore. However, we are having some bedroom issues.

In February 2013, she went for an operation to remove a couple of cysts in her womb and she has been put on the mini-pill ever since. And since after that, our sex life has gone from hero to zero. We have had many chats (both peaceful and heated) about the lack thereof and she has said on many occasions that she will decide when we have sex. She said it’s her body and she has a right to decide what someone else can do with it.

I definitely have a higher libido than she does and here, I’m not sure if it is because she has had sex with men or women (I’m not her first girl) who have been demanding and have forced themselves on her. But all this is making me afraid to initiate sex in fear of rejection and yet I feel that it’s unfair that sex should solely be on her terms. She sees penetration as an “invasion” of her body and it is getting increasingly frustrating for me.

I do not want to jeopardize the relationship—I know sex isn’t everything but I don’t feel the intimacy with her. She says that I always want instant gratification that I get from sex and I always want it when I want it, which is not true. It seems that she only wants sex when she’s drunk or when she feels like it. Please help. I don’t know what else to do.

Alrighty, dear reader. This is going to be a multipart opus, because you’ve actually asked a lot of questions here, not just one.

I want to start, though, by commending you for not calling this lesbian bed death. I feel like that term gets bandied about a lot and it implies that a difference in libido is somehow a lesbian-specific phenomenon. It’s not. Any couple, no matter how they identify, can face this issue.

So now let’s start by picking apart these questions, one by one, and see if we can’t unwind this tangled ball of string into a more manageable spool.

Medications Make A Difference

You’ve acknowledged that there might be an external cause for the gap between your libidos. Medication, hormones, stress—these are all things that can make a difference in one’s desire to have sex. So it could be that this is a storm that you can weather—is she on this medication temporarily? Or it could be that she’s on the wrong medication for her. I don’t know enough about her medical condition (or about medical conditions in general) to tell you if that’s the case, but it’s something about which she can certainly talk to her doctor. However, some medications are long-term and have unavoidable libido side-effects—which might mean that this is the new normal. So what could that mean for you?

Her Body Is, In Fact, Hers

She says that her body is hers and she can decide who does what with it when, and that’s 100% correct. Even in your horniest state, it would be super ultra mega no-good to pressure her into having sex. Remember that consent counts only when it’s enthusiastic. You have the right to pursue a sexually fulfilling relationship, but that doesn’t mean that your girlfriend is personally obligated to sexually fulfill you even when she doesn’t want to.

But there is another side to that equation—your body is yours, and you are allowed to want things done to it. And you’re allowed to seek out those things. It’s normal and wonderful to want sex and to seek it out. So let’s talk about the ways you can do that within the parameters you’ve described.

The Price Of Admission

Before everyone gets on my case for using an idea that Dan Savage popularized, let me be clear. Dan Savage has said some VERY problematic things in his career, as many have. But he has helped normalize talking about sex and has contributed to the culture of being open and honest about our wants and needs. And this particular idea of his, despite so many problems with his other ideas, is a real winner.

Basically, think of your partner as a ride (while still thinking of them as a person! I’m not suggesting you objectify your partner!). There is a price you pay to ride the ride, and that price is often a compromise. I’ll give you an example from my own life: my girlfriend is wicked smart. Like, the kind of smart you cannot even believe exists. But she does have this weakness. And that weakness is Say Yes To The Dress. Sure, most of the time we’re watching thought-provoking documentaries or really excellent foreign films or any number of other things that are WAY MORE INTELLIGENT than Say Yes To The Dress. But the price of admission for my girlfriend is that sometimes we are gonna marathon this show and there’s nothing I can do about it. If there is a Say Yes To The F*cking Dress marathon, that is what we are watching. Instead of fighting against it, I go with it and we have fun critiquing the wedding industrial complex together. I’ve even come to grudgingly love it and find my inner Monte.

(My girlfriend’s note here: YOU DID NOT SPECIFY SAY YES TO THE DRESS ATLANTA! SAY ATLANTA! I HAVE MY STANDARDS.)

You can apply this idea to sex as well. I’ll give you another example from my own life: I cannot keep my mouth shut during sex. I dunno, I just let forth a torrent of filthy talk every time I get naked. That’s the price of admission for me—I don’t necessarily need someone to reciprocate it, I just need someone who’s okay with me doing that. Because I like it and I really don’t want to not do it.

Sometimes price of admission can change — it sounds like her boundaries about sex and penetration might be more recent, and may not have been there when you began this relationship, but that doesn’t make them less valid.

In your case, it sounds like you both have different prices of admission when it comes to having sex at all. Your price of admission is frequent sex. Her price of admission is no penetration, or only when she’s completely into it. Thus the apparent libido gap. Which brings me to my next point:

Sex Can Be More Than Penetration…

In your question, you state “she sees penetration as an ‘invasion’ of her body.” But if penetration is your criterion for sex, I’d challenge you to broaden your definition. Sex is a huge category that covers a bunch of different acts. Here are a few suggestions for things that could be considered sex that are not you penetrating her.

Using a vibrator on her.

Her using a vibrator on you.

Mutual masturbation!

Non-mutual masturbation/watching each other masturbate!

Her penetrating you (fingers, dildo, back door or front door if ya catch my drift).

Oral sex!

BDSM acts without penetration. (Yes, you can just flog someone and leave it there! Totally a thing!)

And much much more!

Whenever someone, a couple of someones, or multiple someones talk to me about a perceived libido gap, I always have to check and make sure they’re on the same page when it comes to defining sex for themselves as an individual, couple or group. Everyone has certain things they’re into, and when you’re having sex with someone else, you’re going to do the things that you’re both into, the acts where your interests intersect. Think of it as a Venn diagram.

It could be you’re both thinking you’ve got a huge libido gap because you’re both defining sex as acts totally on the opposite sides of your circles, but actually there are certain things you’re both into doing together that fall smack in the middle and are totally still sex acts. The only way to find out about that is to talk about it. For a more complete list of sex acts to peruse, I recommend this list on Scarleteen (yes, yes, I know, I am always talking about it, but that’s because the yes/no/maybe list is so good!) or this (admittedly a bit cheesy) interactive sex questionnaire. Your libido gap may not be as large as you think, you might just be looking in the wrong place on the diagram.

Or you discover that no, in fact, your libido gap (the difference between your respective prices of sexytime admission) is exactly as large as you think it is and it is truly a difference in how often you want to be having the sex in the intersection. You still have other options.

…And Relationships Can Be More Than Monogamous

Another valid way of addressing a libido gap is to consider sleeping with other people. If you’re both into it and you want to keep the non-sexual parts of your relationship going, you can always negotiate a less traditional relationship structure. You know, one that allows you to take your yayas outside the two of you and get your rocks off with someone else. Or many someone elses.

Now there’s a bit of a misconception I hear often—a non-monogamous relationship doesn’t mean you both have to be sleeping with other people to make it equal. It sounds like that wouldn’t be really happening for her if you all decide to go this route. No, what makes this kind of relationship egalitarian is that both partners’ needs are being met and both of you are happy. That means that, if you both agree on it, you could sleep with other people and she could sleep only with you, when she feels like it. Totally cool.

Or perhaps she really likes her nonsexual relationship with you, but would like to also have a sexual relationship with someone else.

Or! Maybe she finds that her libido increases when she gets her yayas yaya-ed by someone else and you are also bumping hoo-has with another human and then you come together for a sextravaganza. Some couples find that INCREDIBLY SEXY!

Or! OR! She might want to watch you fuck someone else. Some couples find THAT incredibly sexy.

The point is that there are options for bridging a libido gap. And those options can safely and respectfully include non-monogamy. For more thoughts on this subject, I highly recommend The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy and Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino.

Regardless of what you decide, you should still feel okay talking about sex with your partner and asking for sex from your partner (if you both agree that you still wanna be having sex). So—

There Are Ways of Bringing Up Sex Without Pressure

I’ve actually written about this before, but let me do a reader’s digest version.

Always talk about sex at a time and in a place where you’re not having sex, or intending to immediately have sex after the conversation. Noisy coffee shops are my favorite. Driving in the car is my second favorite, though some have told me that location doesn’t work for them because it distracts them from driving. Regardless, pick a place that your partner won’t feel like you’re pressuring her to have sex right this second.

Ask permission to talk about sex and give that other person a chance to reschedule the conversation. If they say they don’t want to talk about it right now, say something along the lines of “that’s totally cool, no pressure. But this is a really important conversation to me. Can we work out another time to talk about it?”

Assume positive intent. Assume your girlfriend wants to make you happy. Assume that she is not mismatching y’all’s libidos on purpose. Because unless you’re dating a mustache-twirling cartoon villain, she’s not. If you are dating a mustache- twirling cartoon villain, pics please.

Be prepared to compromise on one of those above solutions. Be prepared to make an actual change in the way you’re doing things, and not expecting her to be the only one changing.

And I’m going to add another bullet point here, specific to you. Your partner seems to be not super into the way you’ve asked for sex in the past. So make sure to include this question: “How would you prefer me to express my want for sex in the future?” And again, really listen to what she says here, and be prepared to do what she asks.

Always Be Masturbating

Well, not always. You’ve got to eat, sleep and go to work. But yeah, masturbation is included in every You Need Help I answer because it’s important. And in this case, it can be an important tool for filling the libido gap with some spectacular orgasms. It can also be a sex initiator—many people get turned on when their partner starts touching themselves, and not wanting sex can turn into wanting sex totally organically.

However.

May I speak frankly?

I generally try not to give really specific advice because even though I answer the You Need Helps on Autostraddle sometimes, my relationship isn’t your relationship and the way I have sex isn’t the way you have sex. Things are different for everyone. But I want to point out a few things I read in your question:

“I have been in a relationship with a bisexual girl for more than 10 months. We have a pretty okay relationship, we have our strong differences but there are things about her that I do adore.”

“I do not want to jeopardize the relationship—I know sex isn’t everything but I don’t feel the intimacy with her.”

First off, you’ve only been in a relationship with this woman ballpark ten months. That’s not a very long time and already you’re experiencing problems—I want you to think about spending the next year this way. How about the next five? You also describe the relationship as only “pretty okay” and you don’t say you adore her, but rather you say there are things about her that you do adore. That sounds like a pretty ambivalent way to talk about what should be a fairly new relationship. It sounds like you’re compromising pretty hard here, and not just in the bedroom but outside it as well.

You also state that it’s not really about the sex, it’s about the intimacy that you’re not feeling. Which brings up yet another reason for a libido gap: that there are deeper problems with the relationship. Problems like not truly having feelings for each other, or not trusting each other. Or perhaps more personal problems for one or both of you (think depression or anxiety). And it’s these issues that are the problem—the mismatched libido is merely a symptom, not the cause. It’s up to you whether or not you want to work through those problems. But I need to be honest with you—if I were in the relationship that you have described here, I would end the relationship. I would be breaking up with my partner.

Which brings me to my last point. Sometimes a libido gap isn’t a libido gap. It’s just a gap, plain and simple. An everything gap. And that gap can be too big to bridge. We need to reframe breaking up in our community—everyone talks about it like the worst thing that could happen to a relationship. It can actually be the best thing. It means both of you get to be honest about what you’re truly feeling, instead of keeping up a charade and wasting time y’all could be out courting people who are fulfilling your needs. It could mean that you remain friends because you haven’t ventured into the place where your relationship (not the romantic kind) is irreparable. It could mean that you never speak to each other again, and that’s okay too! But whatever the case, we don’t have to look at it as a thing that has to get ugly. Or a moment that has to be entirely sad. Endings are beginnings too, and I recommend you end this era and begin something new and different.

Good luck, dear reader. I’m rooting for both of you.


A number of the recent improvements made to Dropbox have focused around greater integration with Microsoft Office. The companies announced a partnership last fall, and you can now do things like open Office files in your Dropbox directly in Office Online, with changes being automatically synced back to the original file through Dropbox. Today, yet another new Office-related feature is being announced: the Dropbox app for iOS will soon let you create Office documents right inside it, without having to jump to another app.

Presumably, the files are then saved to your Dropbox folder and can be accessed through Office Online or the traditional desktop apps. We haven't had a chance to try it out yet and see if it truly offers the same features you'd find creating files through Microsoft's apps, but it's certainly an intriguing way for Dropbox to take on the Google Drive / Docs combo. Dropbox says the feature will be available "later this month."

Office document creation is the standout new feature here

Dropbox is also building on the commenting feature added last week. The feature lets users leave remarks on shared files that all other collaborators could see; you can now make and view those comments in the iOS app as well as through the web. Today's update also includes a slight navigation change. Rather than seeing simply an alphabetical list of your files and folders, the default Dropbox app view will instead show your most recently used files — that's anything you've uploaded, viewed, renamed, or edited on any device. While all these features are useful enough, the most intriguing feature here is definitely the upcoming Office document creation — we'll be keeping our eyes peeled to see exactly how that works.

Update, May 5th 11:34 AM ET: This article has been updated to reflect that comments are now available on iOS as well as the web.


A Texas woman has filed a lawsuit against three police officers in Victoria, claiming that they brutally beat her and broke her ribs without a good reason.

Mary Frances Jones told the Victoria Advocate that the three police officers woke her up early in the morning on Dec. 22, 2013 over reports that a truck that she had purchased the day before had been seen driving in a local creek.

Jones said that she had been unaware at the time that her sons borrowed the truck while she was sleeping. After officers claimed that she was lying about owning the truck, Jones said she tried to go back inside her home, and that’s when they forced her to the ground.

“One of them had his foot on my arm, and the other kicked me and broke my ribs,” she recalled. “They hurt me. They hurt me bad, and they know they did.”

According to Jones, she had to plead no contest to a charge of disorderly conduct-vulgar language so that she could go to the hospital. Her fiance, 50-year-old Mathew Milberger and two sons, William and Danny Wallace, were also arrested and charged with disorderly conduct-vulgar language.

A police report filed by Officer D. Stone accused Jones and her family of yelling, “F*ck the police, f*ck yall, and various other profanities.” The report noted that Jones’ son was shocked with a Taser, but it did not mention that she suffered broken ribs, black eyes and other injuries.

Jones said the broken ribs eventually resulted in pneumonia, which left her on a ventilator. In all, she had been in the hospital six times because of the beating, she said.

Attorney Christopher J. Gale, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jones, said that police had made her pay for showing “disrespect.”

“I think the police, while they’re trained in the concepts of law enforcement, they are not trained in regards to the application of them,” Gale explained. “When you express your opinion in any form or fashion with any kind of words and walk away from them, that’s a sign of disrespect.”

“It’s completely and utterly constitutional to walk away from somebody,” he added. “They’re just going to make you pay the price. That’s concerning. This is not a police state.”

The lawsuit accuses the officers of false arrest and imprisonment. And it asserts that Jones’ constitutional rights were violated because officers went beyond the “reasonableness” standard set by the Fourth Amendment. Jones is seeking $1 million in damages.

The Texas Rangers recently launched an investigation after another officer with the Victoria Police Department used a Taser on a 76-year-old man while he was already on the ground.


LANSING, MI -- Enbridge directors say there are no areas where bare Line 5 metal is exposed to Great Lakes water but admitted during a Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board meeting the outer coating layer has failed in places and the company doesn't usually repair that kind of protection system. Kurt Baraniecki, Enbridge director of pipeline integrity, told the state board on Monday, March 13 that anticorrosion protections on the controversial pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac are "working as designed," but there are 18 places where there is coating "

."

Baraniecki said a federal work plan incorrectly identified the delamination spots along the pipeline as "holidays," where the multi-layered coating has been completely lost and bare pipe metal is exposed. Baraniecki said "the consultants had generalized this" language in a

to assess the impact of invasive quagga and zebra mussels on the twin underwater pipeline segment, a required part of a civil

Enbridge reached with the U.S. Justice Department last year following the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill. "These are locations we've identified that could potentially have coating holidays," he said. Divers "are going to each of those locations to take samples of the biota and visually inspect the coating to see if it is still intact." He said Enbridge is "confident it is still intact" because of constant monitoring. Baraniecki's presentation was the main event at a rowdy pipeline board meeting on Monday that featured several busloads of protestors who packed the hearing room at the Michigan Public Service Commission building on W. Saginaw Highway. Security estimated there were about 260 attending, not including media, board members and state staff. Board co-chair Valerie Brader admonished the hostile audience several times during Baraniecki's presentation, reminding them that shouted questions, jeers and other interruptions only ate time away from the public comment period. At one point, a Petoskey man and his grandson sitting in the front row briefly left the meeting for the bathroom, where they undressed and coated themselves in chocolate cake batter to make a visual statement about the threat of a spill.

Man and grandson cover themselves in cake batter at rowdy Line 5 meeting "We wanted show you what the birds will look like... if the line breaks."

The packed meeting followed confusion related to Enbridge's biota investigation plan, which pipeline board member Jennifer McKay of the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council stumbled across on the company website in February. The plan

with the pipeline board because it referred to numerous holidays in the pipeline coating that had been identified during a June 2016 inspection of the pipeline. Enbridge called the holidays "

," but agreed to give a detailed presentation. In a March 8 letter, Attorney General Bill Schuette, Department of Natural Resources director Keith Creagh and Department of Environmental Quality director Heidi Grether called Enbridge's characterization of the holidays as merely hypothetical "confusing in light of the terms of the plan itself," which clearly identified them in maps and diagrams. Using a series of slides, Baraniecki said the pipeline has a coal tar enamel coating layer under two layers of outer fiberglass wrap, and cathodic protection inspections show the enamel layer is "still intact," although photographs show the outer wrap layer is missing, or "delaminated," in spots. He said a consultant that created the biota work plan, Gulf Interstate Engineering (GIE), used data from Ballard Marine and identified places where they believed bare pipe was exposed to the water, but Enbridge concluded it was a "mistake."

Enbridge director of pipeline integrity Kurt Baraniecki explains why Line 5 has delaminated outer coating during the Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board meeting on March 13.

He said in-line inspection tools have not detected any holidays, but the delamination areas were discovered by visual inspection last year. "We're not certain what is causing the delamination" but they hope to figure that out. This year, Enbridge plans to hydrostatic test the original pipeline pressure used in 1953 when the line was installed to demonstrate the lines are as "good as they were when they were brand new." The maximum pressure allowed on the line is 600 pounds-per-square-inch and Baraniecki said the company will test the line at double that level. As part of the biota survey, divers will look at delamination areas and "if there are holidays, we will assess whether we need to do any repairs." Baraniecki said the purpose of the outer layers is to protect the pipe during construction and to prevent abrasion from soil or sediment during the line's lifespan, so it being compromised shouldn't diminish the coating system. "The outer wrap is not something we'd typically repair." That statement got the attention of Michigan State Police Captain Chris Kelenske, the state's emergency management coordinator. "If the outer wrap was necessary when it was put in, why would we not repair it, regardless of whatever the testing is?" he asked. Brad Shamla, Enbridge vice president of U.S. operations, jumped in. "We don't believe that going in and doing a repair is going to change the corrosion protections at all, but it's certainly something to look at," Shamla said, adding that the delamination spots amounted to "less than 0.1 percent of the system." Kelenske replied that, "from where I sit, any percent above zero is not good."

Enbridge Line 5 may be 'one peak current event' from failure, says scientist Meanwhile, state officials seek info about 'hypothetical' defects in pipeline coating.

After the meeting, McKay said the presentation left her with more questions. "I think Enbridge needs to do a full analysis on the coating and look at the outer wrap, inner wrap, coal tar enamel and determine what is the extent of loss and what does it ultimately mean for the fitness of service for this pipeline," she said. Board member Mike Shriberg, regional director for the National Wildlife Federation, said he had a hard time squaring Baraniecki's assertion that the line was as good as new when there's delamination in the outer wrap. "A pipeline that's in 'like new' condition isn't missing part of its coating,' he said. Shriberg, who represents an organization that is active in opposition to the pipeline in the public realm and in the court system, said Enbridge appears not to really know the depth of coating loss at certain points on its pipeline. "They're assuming it's just the outer wrap -- which is bad in and of itself -- but it could be much deeper," he said. "It left me with more questions than I started with." After the meeting, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said the company is satisfied that Baraniecki showed there's no exposed metal on the pipeline. As for the outer wrap delamination, Duffy said it "doesn't play a role in preventing corrosion, necessarily. It's just the outer thin wrap on the line. Bottom line: There's no exposed metal anywhere along the line. There's no holidays."


An ancient Roman merchant vessel has been discovered off the Italian coastline, reportedly in such good condition that much of the food it was carrying might still be intact in its storage jars.

'There are some broken jars around the wreck, but we believe that most of the amphorae inside the ship are still sealed and food-filled," Lt. Col. Francesco Schilardi of the police divers' group told the BBC of the containers.

Local fisherman first became aware of the wreck when pieces of pottery began turning up in their nets. They notified police divers who used a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to locate the 2,000-year-old ship in the sea off the town of Varazze.

"We believe it dates to sometime between the 1st Century BC and the 1st Century AD," Schilardi said.

Tests on some of the roughly 200 pots, or amphorae, that the ship holds reveal that they contain pickled fish, grain, wine and oil, which were most likely en route to Spain to be traded for other goods when the ship sank.

The ship's remarkable state of preservation has been attributed to the layers of mud on the seabed, which covered the wreck and protected it from harm.

The vessel will remain on the ocean floor until Italian authorities decide whether to raise it.

"Right now, the area of the finding has been secured," Schilardi said, "and no fishing or water traffic is allowed."


Political action committees with silly names are a dime a dozen — "Americans for Real Good Coffee" and "Americans for Crushing It" both actually exist — and most of them never end up with a dime to their name. But the Americans Against Insecure Billionaires With Tiny Hands PAC is standing out from the pack with a political ad demanding that Donald Trump release the exact measurements of his hands.

It's a spot-on parody of political ads, from the regular people expressing their dire fears about the future while engaged in everyday activities (setting the table, doing chin-ups, working at a construction site) to the swelling, ominous background music. There are some good hand puns: America, the ad declares, needs "a president who can grasp the complexity of the world and hold off the decline of a great nation."

"If the White House phone rings at 3 am, will his little hands even pick up the receiver?" one woman asks worriedly.

The video is tapping into a rich vein of criticism that Trump has historically found very difficult to tolerate: Call him a racist or a bully or a xenophobe if you must, but do not, under any circumstances, insult the length of his fingers.

During the primaries, Sen. Marco Rubio was the first to pick up on it: "I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5-foot-2," Rubio said during his brief insult comic phase: "And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can't trust them." (That isn't actually what they say about men with small hands, but we'll get to that in a minute.)

Jokes about Trump's small hands — or, in the phrasing more commonly used before 2016, his short fingers — have a long, entertaining, very Trump-like backstory. His sensitivity to the insult dates back decades.

Why Trump really hates the insult "short-fingered vulgarian"

Accusations of below-average finger size have dogged Trump for nearly 30 years. In 1988, Spy, a satirical magazine based in New York, coined an epithet for Trump that it would gleefully repeat for eight years: "short-fingered vulgarian."

Spy, which was published from 1986 to 1998, was busy skewering celebrities and public figures as Trump was building his national profile. Proudly avaricious and braggadocious, Trump embodied the spirit of the '80s. And Spy made him a frequent target of not just insults but also elaborate practical jokes.

"Donald Trump was our clickbait," Bruce Feirstein, a contributing editor for Spy, wrote for Vanity Fair in 2015:

He brought us word-of-mouth recognition, and more readers—just the same way he is now bringing eyeballs to newscasts, and page views to Web sites… Over the course of our years at Spy, we fact-checked his books and his finances (with predictable results), trolled him by sending miniscule checks — as low as 13 cents —to see if he’d cash them (he did), and wrote up his all-but-forgotten business debacles. (Remember the "Trump Castle World Power Boat Championship"?)

"Two-month anniversary of the publication of short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal," Spy noted in January 1988, its first use of the phrase. "Reader … is rushed to the hospital with hubris shock." (The same issue, presciently, floated the possibility of a Trump presidential bid, citing a survey that found 4 percent of Americans were sad he wasn't in the running.)

Spy would call Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian" 12 times in the next eight years, including once reprinting a correction from the Stanford student newspaper, which had written the phrase as "short-fingered Bulgarian" and had to apologize for insulting Bulgarians.

Trump, an expert troll, was getting trolled. He rose to the bait, responding in characteristic fashion: scribbling on the article in Sharpie marker and sending it to its writers. ("Face of a dog!" he once wrote over a photo of New York Times columnist Gail Collins, who had committed the other ultimate infraction: downplaying Trump's wealth by calling him a "thousandaire.")

What upset Trump wasn't being called a "vulgarian," a rich person with bad manners. It was the slur on his finger length.

"To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump," Graydon Carter, a founder of Spy and now the editor of Vanity Fair, wrote in 2015.

"There is always a photo of him — generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby."

Rubio's "small hands" joke was probably a slur on Trump's penis size

Before we get any further into the saga of Trump's hands, here's one important note: It is not at all clear that Trump's fingers are, in fact, unusually short. But what matters is that Trump himself seems to believe short-fingeredness is a terrible accusation that must be refuted.

The Washington Post's Philip Bump conducted a thorough investigation that included, among other things, the photographic concept of foreshortening, a 1902 study of the finger lengths of imprisoned criminals, and a comparison of the size of Trump's hands with the size of a sheet of paper.

Bump's conclusion: "Trump is not a 'short-fingered vulgarian,' for the sole reason that he is not short-fingered."

Still, Trump seems to take a slur on his fingers as a terrible insult, for reasons that Spy was far too arch to make explicit.

Palm readers, for one, have a host of stereotypes about short-fingered people: They're impulsive, stubborn, unconcerned with detail, prone to jumping to conclusions, and interested above all in doing big things. ("They build enormous buildings," the Benham Book of Palmistry even notes.) But while that's a scarily accurate description of Trump, it's unlikely this is what Spy meant.

Finger size also could be linked to testosterone, and has been cited as a predictor of everything from athletic prowess to ruthlessness on a trading floor. But that research — which, in any case, was conducted long after Spy first called Trump short-fingered — deals with the ratio of the length of a man's ring finger to the length of his index finger, not how long or short the fingers in question are.

Trump was probably drawing a much less obscure conclusion: He thought Spy was implying he had a small penis. "My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body," he told the New York Post's Page Six in 2006. "From what I hear, the same cannot be said of editors of the failed Spy."

Trump, as Trump does, was making the subtext text. While there are some superstitions linking hand size to strength of character, a far more common association is that small hands are an indication of, um, smallness elsewhere. (Urban Dictionary was on the case in 2008: "If you say someone has small hands it means that they have a small penis.")

And Rubio's remark has put the old jokes about Trump's hand size back into circulation, from funny tweets in March to the PAC today.

Hastily-Arranged News Conference Just Excuse for Trump to Show Off New Hands pic.twitter.com/CNJxNpLQV0 — Daniel Lin (@DLin71) March 2, 2016

It might set Trump's mind to rest if it were more widely known that the connection between hand size and penis size is spurious at best. The connection has been studied twice, once finding only a weak correlation and once finding no relationship at all.

But the feud over whether Trump is a "short-fingered vulgarian" has now lasted nearly 30 years. It would be a shame to stop it now.


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Video title:

A Man Called Gaddafi: (His Life & Death) (Why Gaddafi had to die?)

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April 4 2017

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americanpatriot

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Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (c. 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He governed Libya as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, he came to rule according to his own Third International Theory before embracing Pan-Africanism. The son of an impoverished Bedouin goat herder, Gaddafi became involved in politics while at school in Sabha, subsequently enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. Founding a revolutionary cell within the military, in 1969 they seized power from the absolute monarchy of King Idris in a bloodless coup. Becoming Chairman of the governing Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), Gaddafi abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the Republic. Ruling by decree, he implemented measures to remove what he viewed as foreign imperialist influence from Libya, and strengthened ties to Arab nationalist governments. Intent on pushing Libya towards "Islamic socialism", he introduced sharia as the basis for the legal system and nationalized the oil industry, using the increased revenues to bolster the military, implement social programs and fund revolutionary militants across the world. In 1973 he initiated a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of General People's Committees (GPCs), purported to be a system of direct democracy, but retained personal control over major decisions. He outlined his Third International Theory that year, publishing these ideas in The Green Book. In 1977, Gaddafi dissolved the Republic and created a new socialist state, the Jamahiriya ("state of the masses"). Officially adopting a symbolic role in governance, he retained power as military commander-in-chief and head of the Revolutionary Committees responsible for policing and suppressing opponents. Overseeing unsuccessful border conflicts with Egypt and Chad, Gaddafi's support for foreign militants and alleged responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing led to Libya's label of "international pariah". A particularly hostile relationship developed with the United States and United Kingdom, resulting in the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya and United Nations-imposed economic sanctions. Rejecting his earlier ideological commitments, from 1999 Gaddafi encouraged economic privatization and sought rapprochement with Western nations, also embracing Pan-Africanism and serving as Chairperson of the African Union from 2009–10. Amid the Arab Spring, in 2011 an anti-Gaddafist uprising led by the National Transitional Council (NTC) broke out, resulting in the Libyan Civil War. NATO intervened militarily on the side of the NTC, bringing about the government's downfall. Retreating to Sirte, Gaddafi was captured and killed by NTC militants. Gaddafi was a controversial and highly divisive world figure. Supporters lauded his anti-imperialist stance and his support for Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism, and he was decorated with various awards. Conversely, he was internationally condemned as a dictator and autocrat whose authoritarian administration violated the human rights of Libyan citizens, and supported irredentist movements, tribal warfare and terrorism in many other nations.

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That is the same thinking that got Europe into such deep trouble—the idea that one must welcome hordes of diversity in order to, what? still have enough people to buy cars or rent apartments, or require teachers—to fuel the economy. And, they pretty much say it in this article at a small town newspaper in Maine, to wipe our old white butts in nursing homes!

Watch, I’ll be accused of being a white nationalist (oh wait! I already am labeled as such!) just for writing about this story.

But, it isn’t me saying this, it is an immigration lawyer whose livelihood depends on more immigration just as a used car salesman looking for refugees to sell to (not disparaging used car salesmen!) does, or a nursing home owner who is trying to get workers at the cheapest hourly wage he can get!

Here is the story from Maine. ‘Lawyer, employer encourage hiring more refugees‘ which reports that refugees are now being spread out further from the normal resettlement sites in Maine (thanks to Catholic Charities).

“Why are we so old?” immigration attorney Jennifer Atkinson asked a small crowd gathered Nov. 16 for a talk about her work, hosted by the Camden Conference at Rockport Opera House.

“Look around…” she said. “We’re white. We’re so old because we’re so white.”

She put the area’s demographics bluntly, calling the Midcoast “a bastion of whiteness” within the oldest and whitest state in the country.

[….]

While some residents might be content with this, Atkinson said it doesn’t bode well for Maine’s economy or its future.

When you read these next lines consider this: I’m white and old enough to remember when the pressure on all of us college grads was to have ONLY two children or risk killing the planet. Guess who didn’t listen to that—the rest of the brown world didn’t listen! Heck we have 9/11 mastermind KSM telling interrogators that they are going to take us over by outbreeding us!

Statistically speaking, there is a correlation between whiteness, oldness and slow population growth.

[….]

Maine’s aging and decreasing population (the state had a net loss of 928 people last year) leads to cascading problems: low school enrollment, pressures on budgets, strains on services — especially health care — and declines in the working-age labor force. [928 doesn’t sound like a lot to me!—ed]

[….]

“To grow we have to be willing to become more racially diverse,” Atkinson said, “because that’s where the growth is, in non-white communities.

“There’s always the option to reach out to refugees and asylum-seekers,” she added, fully disclosing that doing so would be good for her Friendship-based practice, but also would benefit employers and the community as a whole.

Who is taking care of the old white people in nursing homes?

I don’t have time to discuss the next section, but you should read it, here. It is about a nursing home owner who has figured out that he can hire refugee labor probably much cheaper than a Mainer. When making arguments about why they hire refugees they NEVER admit it is about the hourly wage. They could probably find Americans for this work if they paid a decent wage! But, that would mess up their bottomlines!

(Your tax dollars subsidize the family’s needs when wages are too low.)

LOL! Big business owners are always pretending they are doing God’s work by hiring refugees!

Having had some experience with nursing homes in recent years, any one of you considering finding one for your elderly family member, especially one with some form of dementia, make sure that all those caring for your loved one (no matter their skin color) SPEAK ENGLISH WELL. It is hard enough for the mentally impaired as it is, and they need to be able to communicate well with a nursing aid. Something as benign seeming as a urinary tract infection can kill if not detected in time.

Questions I want answered:

Why is that Leftwingers are always pushing for more population growth (to fuel the economy) when they must know that growth of that sort will necessarily bring some degradation of the environment—more cars, more roads, more houses, more school construction, less open space, etc? I don’t get it! If there is some Open Borders Leftwinger who would like to explain it to me and our readers, I would very much welcome a guest column.

And this too? Why all the yammering at whites to have only 2 kids, I don’t see any of you nagging the Arabs or the Africans to do the same thing.

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