The 1996 Manchester bombing was an attack carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on Saturday 15 June 1996. The IRA detonated a 1,500-kilogram (3,300 lb) Lorry bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of Manchester, England. The biggest bomb detonated in Great Britain since World War II, it targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused devastating damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million (equivalent to £1.3 billion in 2018) – only surpassed by the 2001 September 11 attacks and the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing in terms of financial cost.[3][4]

The IRA had sent telephoned warnings about 90 minutes before the bomb detonated. At least 75,000 people were evacuated from the area,[5] but the bomb squad were unable to defuse the bomb in time. More than 200 people were injured but there were no fatalities[6] despite the strength of the bomb, which has been largely credited to the fast response of emergency services in evacuating the city centre before the bomb could explode.[7][8] At the time, England was hosting the Euro '96 football championships and a Russia vs Germany match was to take place in Manchester the following day.

Although Manchester had been targeted by the IRA before, it had not been subjected to an attack on this scale. In February 1996, the IRA had ended its seventeen-month ceasefire with a large truck bomb attack on London's Canary Wharf financial district, though the 3,300-pound bomb of Manchester was three times the size of the Canary Wharf bomb.[5] The Manchester bombing was condemned by the British and Irish governments and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Five days after the blast, the IRA issued a statement from Dublin in which it claimed responsibility, but regretted causing injury to civilians.[9]

Several buildings near the explosion were damaged beyond repair and had to be demolished, while many more were closed for months for structural repairs. Most of the rebuilding work was completed by the end of 1999, at a cost of £1.2 billion, although redevelopment continued until 2005. The perpetrators of the attack have not been caught, and Greater Manchester Police have conceded it is unlikely that anyone will be charged in connection with the bombing.[10] The bombing has however been credited for starting the city's mass regeneration and turning Manchester into a modern British "powerhouse" city with above national average economic growth in the 20 years following the bombing.[6][11][12]

Background [ edit ]

From 1970 the Provisional Irish Republican Army was carrying out an armed campaign aimed ultimately at bringing about a united Ireland. As well as attacking military and political targets, it also bombed infrastructure and commercial targets in Northern Ireland and England. It believed that by damaging the economy and causing severe disruption, it could pressure the British government to negotiate a withdrawal from Northern Ireland.[13] Manchester had been the target of earlier IRA bombs. Firebombs damaged city centre businesses in 1973 and 1974, for which a man was later imprisoned. In April 1974, a bomb exploded at Manchester Magistrates' Court, injuring twelve. In 1975, IRA bomb factories were found in Greater Manchester and five men were imprisoned for planning attacks in North West England.[14] On 4 December 1992, the IRA detonated two small bombs in Manchester city centre, forcing police to evacuate thousands of shoppers. More than 60 were hurt by shattered glass and the blasts cost an estimated £10 million in damage and business losses.[15]

The Downing Street Declaration of 1993 allowed Sinn Féin, a political party associated with the IRA,[16] to participate in all-party peace negotiations on condition that the IRA called a ceasefire. The IRA called a ceasefire on 31 August 1994. John Major's government, dependent on Ulster Unionist Party votes, then began insisting that the IRA must fully disarm before there could be any all-party negotiations. The IRA saw this as a demand for total surrender and believed the British were unwilling to hold negotiations.[18] It ended its ceasefire on 9 February 1996 when it detonated a powerful truck bomb in Canary Wharf, one of the two financial districts of London. The blast killed two people and caused an estimated £150 million worth of damage.[14] The IRA then planted five other devices in London within the space of 10 weeks.[19]

The IRA planned to carry out a similar bombing in Manchester. The city may have been chosen because it was one of the host cities of the Euro '96 football tournament, attended by visitors and media organisations from all over Europe, guaranteeing the IRA what Margaret Thatcher called the "oxygen of publicity". A Russia vs Germany match was to take place at Old Trafford in Manchester a day after the bombing. The year before, Manchester had also won its bid to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games,[21] at the time the biggest multi-sport event ever to be staged in Britain.

On 10 June 1996, multi-party negotiations began in Belfast. Sinn Féin had been elected to take part but were barred because the IRA had not resumed its ceasefire or agreed to disarm.[23]

Details of the bombing [ edit ]

The IRA's South Armagh Brigade was tasked with planning and carrying out the attack. It had also been responsible for the Canary Wharf bombing in February, and the Bishopsgate bombing in 1993. Its members mixed the explosives in Ireland and shipped them by freight from Dublin to England. In London, the bomb was assembled and loaded into the back of a red and white Ford Cargo van. On 14 June it was driven north towards Manchester, accompanied by a Ford Granada which served as a "scout car".[24]

Discovery [ edit ]

Stills taken from India 99 , a Greater Manchester Police helicopter, showing the Ford van moments before the blast, the explosion taking place, and the resulting mushroom cloud over the city, dwarfing the adjacent 23-storey high-rise, Arndale House.

At about 9:20 am on Saturday 15 June 1996, the Ford van was parked on Corporation Street, outside the Marks & Spencer store, near the Arndale Centre.[1] After setting the bomb's timer, two men – wearing hooded jackets, baseball caps and sunglasses – left the vehicle and walked to Cathedral Street, where a third man picked them up in the Ford Granada.[24] The truck had been parked on double yellow lines with its hazard lights flashing.[25] Within three minutes a traffic warden had issued the vehicle with a parking ticket and called for its removal. At about 9:40 am, Granada Studios on Quay Street received a telephone call claiming that there was a bomb at the corner of Corporation Street and Cannon Street and that it would explode in one hour. The caller had an Irish accent and gave an IRA codeword so that police would know the threat was genuine.[1][27] Four other telephoned warnings were sent to television/radio stations, newspapers and a hospital.[28][29]

The first policeman to arrive on the scene noticed wires running from the van's dashboard through a hole into the back and reported that he had found the bomb. Forensic experts later estimated that the bomb weighed 1,500–1,600 kg (3,300–3,500 lb)[30] and was a mixture of semtex, a military-grade plastic explosive, and ammonium nitrate fertiliser, a cheap and easily obtainable explosive used extensively by the IRA.[32] Components of what may have been a tremble trigger were also found later, designed to detonate the bomb if it was tampered with.

Evacuation [ edit ]

At 10:00 am, there were an estimated 75,000–80,000 people shopping and working in the vicinity. An evacuation of the area was undertaken by police officers from Bootle Street police station, supplemented by officers drafted into Manchester to control the football crowds. The police were helped by security guards from local shops.[1][34]

One group worked to move people away from the bomb while another, assisted by firefighters and security guards, established a continuously expanding cordon around the area to prevent entry.[1] By 11:10 am the cordon was at the greatest extent that available manpower would permit, about a quarter of a mile (400 m) from the truck and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) in circumference.

Explosion [ edit ]

The bomb squad arrived from their Liverpool base at 10:46 am and attempted to defuse the bomb using a remote-controlled device, but they ran out of time. The bomb exploded at 11:17 am, causing an estimated £700 million (£1.3 billion as of 2018)[37] of damage and affecting a third of the city centre's retail space. Marks & Spencer, the sky bridge connecting it with the Arndale Centre, and neighbouring buildings were destroyed.[1] It was the largest peacetime bomb ever detonated in Great Britain,[14] and the blast created a mushroom cloud which rose 300 metres (1,000 feet) from the ground.[38] The explosion could be heard up to 15 miles away and left a crater 15 metres wide.[25] Glass and masonry were thrown into the air, and behind the police cordon – up to 1⁄ 2 mi (800 m) away, people were showered by falling debris.[39] There were no fatalities, but 212 people were injured. A search of the area for casualties was confused by mannequins blasted from shop windows, which were sometimes mistaken for bodies. Hospitals across Greater Manchester were made ready to receive those injured in the blast.[1] The police commandeered a Metrolink tram to take 50 of the casualties to North Manchester General Hospital, which treated 79 in total; a further 80 were cared for at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and many others were treated in the streets by ambulance crews assisted by doctors and nurses who happened to be in the city centre that morning.

Reaction [ edit ]

The bombing was condemned by British Prime Minister John Major and his government, by the opposition, and by individual members of parliament (MPs) as a "sickening", "callous" and "barbaric" terrorist attack.[41][42] Early on, Major stated that, "This explosion looks like the work of the IRA. It is the work of a few fanatics and ... causes absolute revulsion in Ireland as it does here".[43] Sinn Féin was criticised by Taoiseach John Bruton for being "struck mute" on the attack in the immediate aftermath. Bruton described the bombing as "a slap in the face to people who've been trying, against perhaps their better instincts, to give Sinn Féin a chance to show that they could persuade the IRA to reinstate the ceasefire".[43] The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, stated he was "deeply outraged by the bomb explosion" and joined Bruton and Major in "utterly condemning this brutal and cowardly act of terrorism".[44] Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, stated that he was "shocked and saddened" by the bombing. He insisted that his party was committed to achieving a peace settlement and argued "it is sheer folly to return to the old agenda of excluding Sinn Féin and seeking to isolate republicans".[45] On 20 June 1996, the IRA claimed responsibility for the bombing, and stated that it "sincerely regretted" causing injury to civilians.[16] The IRA statement continued:

The British Government has spent the last 22 months since August '94 trying to force the surrender of IRA weapons and the defeat of the republican struggle. We are still prepared to enhance the democratic peace process ... but if there is to be a lasting peace ... then the British Government must put the democratic rights of all of the people of Ireland before its own party political self interest.[46]

The bombing came five days after the beginning of the peace talks in Belfast, and represented the IRA's opposition to talks which excluded republicans.[47] The attack was part of a political strategy by the IRA to be included in negotiations on the IRA's own terms.[48] According to historian Richard English: "What they were doing with their return to bombings like the Manchester bomb was saying, 'We can still return to war if we want to. We can still put off a huge bomb in your cities and devastate them and therefore you have to deal with us'".[49]

In an effort to allay fears that Manchester's considerable Irish community might be subjected to reprisal attacks, Councillors Richard Leese and Martin Pagel – leader and deputy leader of Manchester City Council respectively – made a public visit to the Irish World Heritage Centre in Cheetham Hill. In the event there were only a few incidents, the most serious of which occurred on the evening of the bomb when a gang of ten men rampaged through an Irish-themed bar in the centre of Middleton shouting the Ulster loyalist slogan "No surrender" and smashing furniture and windows. Seven days after the bombing, Manchester Council held a 'family fun day' in front of the Town Hall in Albert Square to encourage shoppers and visitors back into the city centre, the first of a "series of events and entertainments". The Euro '96 football match between Russia and Germany at Old Trafford went ahead as planned the day following the bombing, after the stadium had been heavily guarded overnight and carefully searched; the game, which Germany won 3–0, was watched by a capacity crowd of 50,700.

Investigation [ edit ]

In an effort to trace the route of the Ford van, police examined CCTV footage from every major road and motorway taken in England within two days of the bombing. Footage revealed that the van was driven south along the M1 motorway into London on the Friday afternoon before the attack. It was seen again heading north along the motorway at 7:40 pm, accompanied by the Ford Granada. Detectives surmised that the van had been loaded with explosives in London and that the Granada was intended to be the getaway vehicle. The truck was last recorded travelling east along the M62 motorway towards Manchester at 8:31 am on the morning of the explosion.

Police in Manchester were aware that their Metropolitan Police colleagues in London were investigating a suspected IRA unit based in the capital, and wondered whether the London unit was responsible for the Manchester bombing. On 15 July, Metropolitan police arrested six men suspected of IRA membership: Donal Gannon, John Crawley, Gerard Hanratty, Robert Morrow, Patrick Martin, and Francis Rafferty. Each was tried and convicted of "conspiracy to cause explosions at National Grid electricity stations", and sentenced to 35 years in jail.[54] Police in Manchester meanwhile worked to establish if the men were also responsible for the Manchester bomb.

Their investigation was led by Detective Chief Inspector Gordon Mutch of the Greater Manchester Police (GMP), "astonishingly ... the only person ever charged with a criminal offence in connection with the Manchester bomb". The van's last registered owner told police that he had sold it to a dealer in Peterborough, who had in turn sold the van on to a man calling himself Tom Fox, two weeks before the bombing. After the purchase price was delivered in cash by a taxi driver, the dealer was instructed to take the van to a nearby lorry park, and leave it there with the keys and documents hidden inside.

On checking records of telephone calls made to the dealer, the police found that some had been made from a mobile phone registered in Ireland, and on further checking the records of that phone it appeared that the calls were made from locations consistent with the known whereabouts of the Ford truck. One call was to a known IRA member. The phone was last used at 9:23 am on the morning of the bombing, just three minutes after the bombers had parked their truck in Corporation Street. On 27 June, the phone's registered owner reported that it had been stolen 17 days earlier, but the police felt they had gathered enough evidence to bring a prosecution against the six IRA men held in London.

At a meeting attended by the commander of Special Branch in Manchester, a GMP assistant chief constable and a "senior officer" from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), it was decided, for reasons never made public, not to present the findings of the investigation to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the body responsible for undertaking criminal prosecutions in England. The three may have felt that as the IRA suspects were already in police custody they were no longer a threat, or that to pursue the case against them may have jeopardised ongoing undercover operations. It was not until 1998 that the police finally sent their file to the CPS, who decided not to prosecute.

Leak [ edit ]

Early in 1999, Steve Panter, chief crime reporter for the Manchester Evening News, leaked classified Special Branch documents naming those suspected of the bombing. The documents also revealed that the man suspected of organising the attack had visited Manchester shortly after the bombing and been under covert police surveillance as he toured the devastated city centre before returning to his home in South Armagh. Suspicion fell on Mutch as the source of the leaked documents after an analysis of mobile phone records placed both him and Panter at the same hotel in Skipton, North Yorkshire, about 40 miles (64 km) from Manchester on the same evening.

On 21 April 1999, the Manchester Evening News named a man it described as "a prime suspect in the 1996 Manchester bomb plot".[60] The newspaper reported that the file sent by Greater Manchester Police to the Crown Prosecution Service contained the sentence: "It is the opinion of the investigating officers of GMP that there is sufficient evidence to charge [him] with being a party in a conspiracy to cause explosions in the United Kingdom."[61] The man denied any involvement.[62] The Attorney General wrote in a letter to a local MP that the advice given to the CPS by an independent lawyer was that "there was not a case to answer on the evidence available ... a judge would stop the case": the Attorney General further wrote that the decision not to prosecute was not influenced by the government. The newspaper also identified the six men arrested in London on 15 July as having planned the attack.[63][64] By July 2000 all six had been released under the terms of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

As of 2018, Panter and Mutch are the only people to have been arrested in connection with the bombing. Mutch was tried for "misconduct in a public office" during an 11-day trial held in January 2002, but was acquitted. During the trial Panter was found in contempt of court for refusing to reveal his source, an offence punishable by a term of imprisonment without the right of appeal. Greater Manchester Police announced in 2006 that there was no realistic chance of convicting those responsible for the bombing.[68]

Reconstruction [ edit ]

About twelve buildings in the immediate vicinity of the explosion were severely damaged. Overall, 530,000 square feet (49,000 m2) of retail space and 610,000 square feet (57,000 m2) of office space were put out of use.[69] Insurers paid out £411 million (£800 million as of 2018)[37] in damages for what was at the time one of the most expensive man-made disasters ever,[70] and there was considerable under-insurance.[69] Victims of the bombing received a total of £1,145,971 in compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority; one individual received £146,524, the largest amount awarded as a result of this incident.[71]

Close to the location of the blast, 2009

According to Home Office statistics, an estimated 400 businesses within half a mile (0.8 km) of the blast were affected, 40% of which did not recover.[72] The heaviest damage was sustained by the three buildings nearest the bomb: Michael House, comprising a Marks & Spencer store and a six-storey office block; Longridge House, offices for Royal and Sun Alliance, an insurance company; and the Arndale Centre, a shopping mall.[73] Michael House was deemed beyond economic repair and demolished. Marks & Spencer took the opportunity to acquire and demolish the adjacent Longridge House, using the enlarged site for the world's biggest branch of the store.[69] The company's fortunes changed during construction, and Selfridges subsequently co-occupied the building; Marks & Spencer leased part of the Lewis's store in the interim.[73] The frontage of the Arndale was badly damaged and was removed in a remodelling of that part of the city centre.[69]

Coming to Manchester [after the bombing] was a journey I shall never forget. I sat on the train obviously deeply shocked and horrified. I knew that questions would be asked about what we were going to do; what is the right solution. Then I knew what the right solution was – to see this event, horrific as it was, as an opportunity and, no mucking about, we must do things on the grand scale and to the best quality we can. Michael Heseltine, then-Deputy Prime Minister

The glass domes of the Corn Exchange and the Royal Exchange were blown in. The landlord of the Corn Exchange invoked a force majeure condition in the lease to evict all tenants, and the building was converted into a shopping centre. The dome of the Royal Exchange shifted in the blast; its reconstruction took two and a half years and cost £32 million, paid for by the National Lottery.[78]

The possibility of rebuilding parts of the city centre was raised within days of the bomb. On 26 June 1996, Michael Heseltine, the Deputy Prime Minister, announced an international competition for designs of the redevelopment of the bomb-affected area. Bids were received from 27 entrants, five of whom were invited to submit designs in a second round. It was announced on 5 November 1996 that the winning design was one by a consortium headed by EDAW.

Redevelopment [ edit ]

New security safeguards were included in the redevelopment of the city centre including retractable bollards and pedestrianised streets.

Much of the 1960s redevelopment of Manchester's city centre was unpopular with residents. Market Street, near the explosion and at that time the second-busiest shopping street in the UK, was considered by some commentators a "fearful" place, to be "avoided like the plague". Until Margaret Thatcher's third consecutive election victory in 1987, the staunchly Labour-controlled Manchester Council believed that Manchester's regeneration should be funded solely by public money, despite the government's insistence on only funding schemes with a significant element of private investment. Graham Stringer, leader of Manchester City Council, later admitted that after the 1987 General Election result "there was no get out of jail card. We had gambled on Labour winning the General Election and we lost." Thatcher's victory effectively put paid to Manchester's "socialist experiment", and Stringer shortly afterwards wrote a letter of capitulation to Nicholas Ridley, then Secretary of State for the Environment, saying, "in a nutshell; OK, you win, we'd like to work together with you".

Efforts at improvement before the bombing had in some respects made matters worse, cutting off the area north of the Arndale Centre – the exterior of which was widely unloved – from the rest of the city centre. A large building nearby, now redeveloped as The Printworks and formerly occupied by the Daily Mirror newspaper, had been unoccupied since 1987. Many locals therefore considered that "the bomb was the best thing that ever happened to Manchester",[85] as it cleared the way for redevelopment of the dysfunctional city centre, a view also expressed in 2007 by Terry Rooney, MP for Bradford North. The leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Manchester City Council, Simon Ashley, responded that "I take exception to his [Rooney's] comments about the IRA bomb. No one who was in the city on that day, who lost their jobs or was scared witless or injured by the blast, would say the bomb was the best thing to happen to Manchester".[86] Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP for Manchester Gorton, stated that the bomb provided the opportunity for redeveloping Manchester city centre, although it was not fully exploited. "The bomb was obviously bad but from a redevelopment point of view, it was a lost opportunity. While the area around St Ann's Square and Deansgate is not disagreeable, if you compare it with Birmingham and its exciting development, we've got nothing to touch that in Manchester".[86] Howard Bernstein, chief executive of Manchester City Council, has been quoted as saying "people say the bomb turned out to be a great thing for Manchester. That's rubbish." There was already substantial regeneration and redevelopment taking place in the city centre before the bombing, in support of the Manchester bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics, its second Olympic bid. Tom Bloxham, chairman of property development group Urban Splash and of the Arts Council England (North West), agreed with Bernstein that the bomb attack was not the trigger for the large-scale redevelopment that has taken place in Manchester since the early 1990s:

pillar box that withstood the bomb blast. A memorial brass plaque commemorates the 1996 bomb.

For me the turning point for Manchester came before the bomb ... it was the second Olympic Games bid [in 1992] when we lost but the city suddenly had a realisation. There was a huge party in Castlefield and people grasped the idea that Manchester should no longer consider itself in competition with the likes of Barnsley and Stockport. It was now up against Barcelona, Los Angeles and Sydney and its aspirations increased accordingly.

Memorials [ edit ]

A pillar box that survived the blast, despite being yards from the explosion, now carries a small brass plaque recording the bombing. It was removed during construction and redevelopment work, and returned to its original spot when Corporation Street reopened. The plaque reads:

This postbox remained standing almost undamaged on June 15th 1996 when this area was devastated by a bomb. The box was removed during the rebuilding of the city centre and was returned to its original site on

November 22nd 1999

A Thanksgiving service for the "Miracle of Manchester" was held at Manchester Cathedral on 24 July 2002, to coincide with the arrival of the Commonwealth Games baton, attended by Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh. At 11:17 am on 15 June 2006, a candle was lit at a memorial held at Manchester Cathedral to mark the tenth anniversary of the bombing.[90]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Citations [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]


Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”

Much of the motivation for deficit reduction, a goal shared by policy makers across the political spectrum, is the belief that deficits consume the nation’s seed corn. That is, deficits represent negative saving. Because saving is presumed to be the key determinant of long-term real economic growth, deficits deplete the supply of saving and thus reduce growth.

Today's Economist Perspectives from expert contributors.

There are many problems with this analysis. One is that it assumes that all government spending is consumption. In fact, much of it consists of investment. According to the 2013 budget (see Section 21, Page 356), the federal government will invest $550 billion this year in physical capital (buildings, equipment), research and development and human capital (education). This includes grants to state and local governments for these purposes.

It is perfectly reasonable to finance long-lived capital projects with borrowing. Because the benefits will accrue over many years, it would be silly to treat things like highways as if they were consumed within a single year for budget purposes. Virtually all homeowners know this and borrow to buy homes. They understand that the flow of housing services they receive on an annual basis compensates for the interest that is paid.

Unfortunately, the federal budget is silly in this respect. It treats investment spending the same way every other budgetary item is treated – as if it were consumption with no long-lasting benefits for the nation.

An unfortunate consequence of this budgetary convention is that reducing federal investment is viewed as beneficial if it reduces the deficit. Moreover, it is often easier to cut investment spending than consumption, just as homeowners suffering from an income loss may find that deferring maintenance or planned improvements is the easiest way to conserve cash.

But just as deferred maintenance on our homes, like putting off repairs to the roof, can be very costly in the long run, reducing the value and hence the net worth of our principal asset, the same is true of government investment. Maintenance that is deferred too long may require assets that would have lasted many more years to be replaced prematurely at much higher cost.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the nation is already in a net deficit position as far as building and maintaining its basic public infrastructure. The society estimates that the added costs to people and businesses from this underinvestment will reduce the aggregate gross domestic product by $3 trillion over the next decade. The group recommends an additional $1.1 trillion of public investment through 2020 to what is currently planned, $157 billion per year.

Of course, the federal government is not going to spend that much more because it would make the goal of balancing the budget more difficult, based on the way deficits are calculated, making no allowance for capital outlays. Indeed, it will be difficult to prevent cuts in investment outlays that will reduce such spending below current projections.

One solution to this problem would be to have a capital budget that segregates government investment spending from consumption spending. Virtually all the states do this already. Conservatives who routinely defend a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, on the grounds that the states must balance their budgets annually, appear to be unaware that such requirements apply only to operating budgets, excluding capital outlays.

If households were required to balance their budgets the way balanced-budget amendment supporters want the federal government to operate, they would almost never be able to buy homes or cars. Such outlays almost always exceed their annual incomes over and above consumption and would thus constitute deficit spending.

Of course, families could draw down savings to buy homes and cars. But that’s an option not available to the government because it has no savings, only a large debt. Treating it and private individuals the same way, as balanced-budget supporters propose, would require the entire national debt to be paid off and a surplus accumulated before it would be permitted to make new investments in roads, bridges, buildings and other long-lived assets.

Of course, no one actually believes that. But it follows logically from arguments one often hears about why the government should balance its cash income and outlays annually, because that is supposedly how families and the states are said to operate. In fact, they don’t.

The distinction between capital spending and consumption spending also affects the way economists interpret the rate of saving. The standard measure, produced by the Commerce Department, calculates personal income and personal outlays. The difference between these two figures is assumed to be personal saving. Thus saving is not calculated directly, but is merely a residual between income and spending.

An alternative measure of saving that treats consumer durables, like autos, as investments would raise the measured rate of saving considerably. Alternatively, one could measure saving directly from financial institutions and other sources, as the Federal Reserve does (see Page 17). This yields a much higher measure of saving. In 2011, the last full year available, the Commerce Department estimated the personal saving rate at 4.2 percent, while the Fed put it at 10.3 percent.

Periodically, administrations have suggested creating a capital budget, both to give clearer picture of the economic effects of federal spending and to shield investments from budget cuts that should be limited to consumption outlays. The Reagan administration floated the idea in 1986, and the Clinton administration created a commission to study it.

A common criticism has always been that the definition of “capital” is too slippery and could too easily become a loophole through which consumption spending could escape. The obvious answer is to assign some entity, like the Government Accountability Office, to audit investment spending and ensure that it truly represents investment and not consumption.

Many economists say they believe that the best thing the federal government can do to raise the long-term economic growth rate is increase infrastructure spending. It would have the double benefit of mobilizing idle resources, especially unemployed workers, while low interest rates permit capital projects to be financed very cheaply.

One main barrier to achieving this double benefit is the confusion between investment spending and consumption spending, which is distorted by the way the budget is presented and the way we calculate saving.


Related

The Nets have ruled forward Reggie Evans out for the next two games for “personal reasons,” the team announced today. That leaves Evans out for tonight’s game against the Charlotte Bobcats, as well as Thursday’s game in Chicago against the Bulls. It’s the team’s last two games before the All-Star Break, so Evans won’t be with the team until they play against Utah on February 19th at the earliest.After starting 56 games last year, Evans’s role on the Nets has been significantly reduced. He’s played in just 30 of a possible 49 games, averaging 13.3 minutes per game. He has not suffered a publicly announced injury yet this season, meaning that those 19 games were merely DNP-CD (did not play-coach’s decision).Evans is averaging 2.7 points and 5.0 rebounds per game, while shooting a career-worst 39 percent from the field. His most intriguing storyline this season is the, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding it.The team did not specify what Evans’s personal reasons were for missing these two games.


Aviation Week & Space Technology

A Northrop Grumman-led team is dashing its plan to propose a modified BAE Systems Hawk trainer for the U.S. Air Force’s T-38 replacement program, opting instead for a clean-sheet design for the $1 billion program.

The shift is more bold than it is surprising. The team is paying for a brand-new prototype despite a slump in defense spending. But it has become increasingly evident that the Hawk is unsuited for the mission due to shortfalls in the fast-jet trainer’s ability to sustain Gs, perform high angle-of-attack maneuvering and execute tight turn rate and radius.

Scaled Composites, wholly owned by Northrop Grumman since its purchase in 2007, formed a small team to build a suitable aircraft from the ground up.

This marks the third U.S. company to propose its own new-build aircraft for a competition that began with three foreign-built, modified off-the-shelf designs: the Hawk, Lockheed Martin/Korea Aerospace Industries T-50 and General Dynamics/Alenia Aermacchi M-346. Boeing planned since entering the competition to offer a new-build design; it is teamed with Saab. Textron Airland is looking at three variants of its company-developed Scorpion demonstrator for the T-X mission, says President Bill Anderson. Boeing declined to comment about progress on its prototype.

The Air Force has been openly pursuing a T-X plan since 2011, but the fiscal 2016 budget proposal sent to Congress Feb. 2 indicates that a request for proposals will finally be released in fiscal 2016. The plan calls for $575 million in fiscal 2016-19, with an estimated total program cost at $1.04 billion and a source selection by the end of fiscal 2017. The winner stands to dominate a global fast-jet trainer market, especially for countries planning to buy the F-35. Nine partners already are teamed to develop the stealthy fighter and another three are foreign military sales customers.

The so-called T-X will eventually be used to train future F-22 and F-35 pilots with advanced skills. Adding to the requirements is an Air Force decision in the fiscal 2016 budget plan to expand T-X to cover a requirement for a new “red air” aggressor “stores aircraft interface” kit to include adding a radar, datalink and hard points for weapons and a jamming pod. The T-X aggressors will replace F-16Cs used in that role now at the Air Warfare Center at Nellis AFB, Nevada. The Hawk would be unable to meet the demands of an aggressor aircraft.

The “red air” T-X is needed to tax the technology and skills of future F-22 and F-35 pilots, says Col. Adrian Spain, commandant of the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis. During live-fly training, the aggressors not only use enemy tactics but the aircraft must also emulate adversary platforms well enough to “fool” the Air Force’s aircraft into “thinking” they are an actual enemy system.

“The potential near-peer threat has improved pretty substantially over the last decade, [and] we want to be able to replicate that threat here so we can train against a threat that is realistic and relevant,” Spain tells Aviation Week. “With an older, fourth-gen system, you can probably trick it into thinking [an aggressor] is something else. But in an F-35 and an F-22, the sensors are advanced enough that they’ll know the difference. So we need to have capability on the range to fly against.”

Budget cuts forced the service to deactivate a squadron of F-15Cs last year, leaving only one F-16C aggressor squadron for advanced tactics and pilot training of U.S. and allied pilots at Nellis’s Air Warfare Center.

The Air Force budget proposes to begin funding for the aggressor modification kit in fiscal 2018; a total of $220.5 million is included through fiscal 2020 for the work.

The challenge is for a T-X aircraft to emulate the fifth-generation aircraft qualities without accruing the high cost of replicating them. “As a team—and I want to stress with you that everything was as a team—we entered the fight with the Hawk and as time went on . . . we just kept an eye on the requirements,” says Marc Lindsley, Northrop Grumman’s T-X program director. “And as we saw the requirements evolve and become more clear, we looked at options. It became more and more clear to us that the Hawk wasn’t the optimum solution in terms of requirements and affordability. . . . So we started studying it.”

Northrop turned to Scaled Composites, renowned for its innovative designs and rapid fabrication cycle time, to build the prototype. The team is preparing to assemble the aircraft at Scaled’s facility in Mojave, California, with an eye toward first flight by year-end. Budget constraints are driving the Air Force and competitors to search for affordable options. Tom Vice, president of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, says this is partly achievable with speed in designing and manufacturing aircraft coupled with innovative designs that take life-cycle cost into account upfront.

“We have tremendous agility in the marketplace to bring innovation much, much faster,” Vice told reporters during a tour last month to showcase the company’s facilities in California. “We are setting a tone inside the organization and backing it up with investment that allows us to think about innovation for affordability.”

Until now, Northrop has kept its plans for the new aircraft under wraps. The company teamed first as a subcontractor to BAE Systems in 2011; it quietly shifted roles to become the prime last June. The core team will remain intact, Lindsley says. L-3 Communications will continue to handle the ground-based training system. Northrop is “in discussions with BAE Systems to include their training system in our aircraft solution,” says Northrop spokesman Bryce McDevitt. The goal is to port the air vehicle training system from the Hawk to the new design. It would include a reconfigurable cockpit system to allow for various training scenarios as well as software to allow for insertion of various mission scenarios. BAE has declined to comment on its plans and has not explained how its air vehicle system will interface with L-3’s ground-based equipment.

Northrop is taking lessons from Detroit-based Kuka Systems in designing its assembly line. Kuka started teaming with Northrop in 2012 and has experience in low-cost auto manufacturing techniques. A location for the work has not been announced, although if Northrop wins, the program will be based at its Melbourne, Florida, manned aircraft center of excellence.

Lindsley provides scant details of the actual prototype design, including a “no comment” on whether it would require one or two engines, because of the competitive landscape. The company has not offered a name for the prototype.

The Northrop team’s decision to abandon the Hawk leaves a dim future for the program. BAE moved its Hawk work from Brough to Warton, England, in 2011 despite having few orders for the aircraft. Subsequently, however, it won a contract with the Royal Saudi Air Force for 22 aircraft and a deal with Oman for eight. The Hawk design evolved over time since its first flight in 1974. More than 1,000 Hawks have been built. BAE declined to comment about the future of the program.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced in January that T-X will be a pathfinder for her Bending the Cost Curve initiative, which is designed to allow for dialog with industry on requirements and cost trades with a goal of reducing weapon-system cycle time and cost. “When it comes to T-X, we are about two years away from a request for proposals stage, and this new process should allow us to directly engage industry as we develop an understanding of how to best evaluate our objective and our threshold requirements,” James said. Today’s procurement process is linear, with requirements developed by one unit and handed over to another for a development and buy. James hopes that by opening a dialog with industry early in the process, the service can tailor the requirements not only for operational needs but with a realistic budget in mind.

Lindsley and Anderson welcome this approach. Lindsley cautions, however, that the Air Force must provide industry enough time to adjust its designs accordingly when allowing for such trades, especially when the Pentagon is relying more heavily on contractor research and development funding for prototypes and risk reduction. He says thus far there has been a “very healthy dialog” on T-X with the Air Force; Northrop notified the service it was building its own prototype last year.

“The big issue for us is we can debate the requirements, . . . but then we need the time . . . to meet those requirements,” Lindsley says. “Have the dialog, understand those trades, publish the requirements and lock them in, and then we need the time to design, develop and field that solution . . . at our investment.”

This model is a departure for the Pentagon. With three contractors offering company-funded, clean-sheet options for T-X, industry is clearly keen on it. But the Defense Department’s history in this area includes failures. Despite contractor-funded designs for an Army Armed Aerial Scout helicopter, the service ultimately ended a demonstration effort without selecting a design. Likewise, four bidders have heavily invested in risk reduction for a Navy Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike aircraft, and it has been continually delayed, prompting Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to halt or scale back their work substantially.

The Air Force intends to buy as many as 350 of the trainers as part of a larger T-X system, including advanced training aids such as a sophisticated ground-based training platform and aids.


BEIJING (Reuters) - The U.S. navy's latest collision at sea, the fourth in its Pacific fleet this year, shows it is becoming an increasing risk to shipping in Asia despite its claims of helping to protect freedom of navigation, an official Chinese newspaper said.

The USS John S. McCain and the tanker Alnic MC collided while the guided-missile vessel was nearing Singapore on Monday. The collision tore a hole in the warship's port side at the waterline, flooding compartments that included a crew sleeping area. Ten sailors are missing.

The collision - the fourth major accident in the U.S. Pacific fleet this year - prompted a fleet-wide investigation and plans for temporary halts in operations to focus on safety.

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The state-run China Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday that people will wonder why such a sophisticated navy keeps having these problems.

"The investigations into the latest collision will take time to reach their conclusions, but there is no denying the fact that the increased activities by U.S. warships in Asia-Pacific since Washington initiated its rebalancing to the region are making them a growing risk to commercial shipping," it said.

China has been upset at U.S. freedom of navigation operations near Chinese controlled islands in the disputed South China Sea, where China has been reclaiming land, building air bases and increasing its military presence.

"While the U.S. Navy is becoming a dangerous obstacle in Asian waters, China has been making joint efforts with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to draw up a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea and it has boosted navigational safety by constructing five lighthouses on its islands," the China Daily said.

"Anyone should be able to tell who is to blame for militarizing the waters and posing a threat to navigation."


Some saw the lighter side of the situation:

A viral message

Many are asking what the circuit breaker is about. A securities professional replied: It's like bringing 5,000 yuan to a card game and losing all of it in half an hour. You call a truce for 15 minutes and withdraw 7,000 yuan from the ATM in that time. After losing all of that money too, the winner says to you: You are just too unlucky, let's call it a day.

Ming Liu

We are still having our morning meeting, but securities firm employees already can go home. This shows that men should find jobs as dealers with their high salaries and short working hours; women should marry dealers for not only are their husbands well-paid with lots of vacation time, they would also have time to go to the mall and movies with you!

Fernandeski-Bennett

In the past, I used to have afternoon tea after the market closed. Now, I have tea in the morning.

Llaiyuu

After the Chinese stock markets introduced circuit breakers, I'm even more determined to work for a securities firm after I graduate. After all, I only have to work half an hour every day!

- Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.

Pauline Chiou contributed to this report.


LAKELAND, Fla. — Justin Verlander has not pitched in a game yet, but the early reviews have all been positive.

Tigers catcher James McCann, who caught Verlander Thursday, is the latest.

"He looked really good," McCann said. "Very live arm, ball was coming out really good, all four of his pitches."

McCann does have a frame of reference for comparison’s sake.

Last year he caught Verlander in Kansas City towards the end of the season.

"Completely different guy," McCann said. "He pitched real well but that’s a different guy right there. The ball comes out different, he’s more confident. That’s the kind of Ver we need."

OAKLAND CLAIMS SMITH

When the Tigers re-signed Joba Chamberlain to a one-year deal, it meant less opportunity for some pitchers.

For Chad Smith, it meant a completely new opportunity as the Tigers placed him on waivers to make room on the roster for Chamberlain.

On Thursday, Tigers president and general manager Dave Dombrowski said the Oakland Athletics claimed Smith and Smith’s contract would be assigned to the A’s organization.

"Really wish he would have made it through but you gotta take somebody off your roster at the time," Dombrowski said.

Smith, 25, appeared a little dazed by the news after being in limbo for a couple of days.

"When they told me the news, I was in shock," Smith said. "They took a chance on me back when I was in college, when I blew out my elbow. They were one of the few teams that still liked me so it’s hard. I’ve met so many great people and playing in Detroit was awesome. The fans were great. All-around, it was a first-class experience. Just kind of setting in now so it’s tough."

Smith made his major league debut June 22 of last season at Cleveland.

He made 10 appearances for the Tigers and had a 5.40 ERA, walking three and striking out nine.

Smith said he and his agent hadn’t been optimistic that another team would pick him up as most rosters are set and there haven’t been any injuries.

The A’s placed Taylor Thompson on the 60-day DL to make room for Smith.

"It’s exciting that another team thought highly of me to pick me up," Smith said. "The timing of it, I know a lot of rosters are full so they obviously had to make a move on their end. It’s exciting. It’s a big league team in Oakland, I’m from California and spring training’s in Arizona. Get to go home."

Smith said he’s been in contact with former Tiger Kevin Whelan, who is currently in A’s camp as a non-roster invitee.

Smith planned to go back up his apartment and pack up before heading to Arizona tomorrow.

LIFE OF A UTILITY PLAYER

Don Kelly may not have been the best player in history but you had to respect his versatility.

Every day Kelly would bring his multiple gloves to the field and take turns using each — ground balls in the infield, fly balls in the outfield.

Now Andrew Romine and Hernan Perez, both battling for a utility role on the team, are trying to do the same.

"It’s tough. It’s just extra work, stuff on top of what we practice," Romine said. "I’ll practice with the infielders but then either before, 7:30-8 o’clock in the morning or now, when we get done, I’ll be out there doing outfield stuff."

Romine said outfield coach Dave Clark is not making it easy on them.

"Clarkie’s kicking our butts," Romine said. "I think he secretly loves to kill us out there, which is good for us because we get a lot of good work in."

Romine said everything is going well so far this spring.

"It’s not like I never played outfield before," Romine said. "Just getting live reads off the bat in BP and stuff. When we’re taking live swings off our pitchers right now, just go out to the outfield and kind of read them. It feels good."

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COMPLETE TIGERS SPRING TRAINING 2015 COVERAGE


New Glasgow police have issued a warrant for the arrest of a 34-year-old man after an incident where an officer was dragged several feet behind a car.

Around 4:20 a.m. on Sunday New Glasgow police saw a man driving the wrong way along George Street in downtown New Glasgow. Two officers stopped the vehicle and approached it, suspecting the driver might be drunk.

The driver fled and one of the officers was dragged from the car for three to five feet.

EHS checked the officer at the scene and treated him for minor injuries.

"Luckily the officer wasn't hurt further," said Const. Ken MacDonald of the New Glasgow Regional Police.

Police pursued the suspect's vehicle but it evaded them in the Thorburn area.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for Barrett Johnson Fraser, 34, and are asking for help from the public. Police say Fraser is facing charges of flight from police officers, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, two counts of assault on police, and two counts of assault with a weapon.


After it was reported on November 24 that Sulli had gone to the emergency room for a wrist injury, various rumors began to circulate about the nature of the injury and Sulli’s relationship with Dynamic Duo’s Choiza.

Although SM Entertainment had already stated that the injury was due to carelessness while at home, there were rumors that it had been a suicide attempt and that her relationship with Choiza was on the rocks.

The Fact even claimed that Sulli had been drunk in the emergency room, citing an unnamed source from the Seoul University Hospital. The unnamed source also said that Sulli had denied any attempted suicide. However, the PR department of that hospital has already released an official statement stating that they cannot give out personal information on patients.

Sulli and Choiza were quick to dispel the wild rumors, with Choiza’s agency Amoeba Culture stating, “There is a rumor going around that Choiza and Sulli’s relationship is on the rocks, but we have not heard anything. This is a personal affair between the two of them so we as a company will not be interfering in it.”

In addition to their earlier statement, SM Entertainment stated, “The two of them are still in a good relationship.”

Sulli also posted a selfie on her personal Instagram and wrote, “I got hurt by accident. I’m sorry for making you worry!” to reassure her fans.

Source (1) (2) (3) (4)


The announcement came as security was raised after vehicle attacks in Barcelona and elsewhere, and a widely-reported warning from the Islamic State group that Italy is next on its hit list.

Administrative expulsions, which are not subject to any appeal, are one of the main planks of Italy's strategy for preventing the kind of jihadist attacks suffered by other European countries.

Sicily decided Saturday to introduce barriers preventing vehicular access to six pedestrianised areas of the island's capital Palermo, reflecting fears of truck attacks.

Additional barriers are to be placed on potentially vulnerable locations in Milan, a meeting of regional security officials decided.

The prefecture for the Rome region approved an increase in the number of guards for its major tourist sports and said it would step up monitoring of trucks moving around the capital.

The latest individuals deported included a 38-year-old Moroccan said to have been radicalised while in prison for minor crimes.

His status was bumped from medium to high risk after he and other prisoners were seen enthusiastically celebrating the Stockholm truck attack in April which killed five people.

The Syrian, who also operated under a false Tunisian identity, was arrested in 2015 for involvement in illegal immigration and placed under house arrest at a centre for asylum seekers in southern Italy.

There, he was caught celebrating the attack in May that killed 22 people, many of them children, at a concert in the British city of Manchester.

The suspect, whose age was not released, had managed to avoid the fate of two previous expulsion orders issued in 2011.

The third man expelled was a 31-year-old Moroccan whose expressions of support for IS were thought to be linked to a psychiatric disorder for which he received compulsory treatment after being arrested for theft.

The interior ministry said all three had been flown back to their respective countries of origin.

Italy is regularly threatened by IS propagandists. SITE, a private intelligence group which monitors extremist organisations, said Saturday it had picked up fresh online messages promising the country would be next to be targeted.

Italian officials stress that they have yet to be alerted to an imminent, credible threat on its territory or against the Vatican.

A government panel said in a report in January that Italy was less exposed than neighbouring countries to the risk of attacks carried out by homegrown radicals.


The NBA player who sits in the NBA’s throne for greatest of all time is not the one who goes by King James. All the accolades that have been heaped on the shoulders of the polarizing superstar that is LeBron James are well earned, but the three-time MVP still has his work cut out for him if he seeks the crown that sets him apart from the other elite players in NBA history.

Michael Jordan is rightfully hailed as basketball’s GOAT. He embodies every characteristic that the greatest needs: elite technical skills, incredible athletic ability, and the potential to take over games as an individual. He transcended basketball and brought it to a level of popularity previously unseen by the game. No one can take that away from him, and LeBron will never be able to accomplish that same feat.

But in terms of on-court prowess, LeBron James has the ability to dethrone Michael Jordan as the greatest player that the NBA has ever seen. And with one ring in his pocket, LeBron can now strive to immortalize himself in basketball history. Through a comparison of what both have already accomplished and some thoughts of what is to come for LeBron, there very well may be a new king in the near future.

First, a statistical comparison of Michael and LeBron:

Per game statistics LeBron James Michael Jordan Points 27.6 30.1 Rebounds 7.2 6.2 Assists 6.9 5.3 Steals 1.7 2.3 FG percentage .484 .497 3PT percentage .332 .327 Minutes 39.9 38.3 PER 27.3 27.9 eFG percentage .516 .509

These regular season numbers show the remarkable equality between the two players. LeBron certainly needs to have the longevity of MJ, which is undoubtedly history yet to be written, but these guys are nearly equal in all categories. LeBron’s PRA (points, rebounds, and assists combined) equate to 41.7. Jordan is virtually identical, at 41.6.

Jordan has an edge in scoring ability, but LeBron’s overall offensive game is also based on a guard’s ability to facilitate.

The number that should strike you as most shocking is three-point percentage. LeBron is often criticized for being a one-dimensional scorer whose sheer strength propels him to the basket, but he has a slightly higher 3PT percentage than Jordan. LeBron is often encapsulated in what people think he should be—in part probably with a desire to defend Jordan’s legacy. But looking at the numbers provides the foundation for the argument that one day the two can likely be prepared.

Stats are the ticket to come in the door to the palace. But there is more to be done to overthrow the king.

Defensively, Jordan has a DPOY award to his name—something LeBron has yet to add to his résumé. But nobody in their right mind would say Jordan is a far superior defensive player. At 6’8”, the 250-pound monster can compete with big men like David West in the 2012 NBA playoffs. Not only that, but LeBron has proven he can defend the quickest players in the NBA. Remember the game when he shut down the 2011 NBA MVP, point guard Derrick Rose?

As LeBron said himself, defending power forwards and centers is taxing because of the physicality down low that is not necessary as a perimeter defender. Yet he still managed to put up staggering offensive numbers in 2012, when called upon to defend forwards/centers.

And at 6’6”, Michael Jordan can never claim that diversity in ability to defend all five positions on the court. Even 6’9” point guard Magic Johnson was able to play the center position at a high level on the NBA’s biggest stage. (The two MJ’s both roughly weighed 220 pounds.)

The edge defensively goes to LeBron—he can defend every position on the floor. Enough said.

The true discrepancies between these two players come in with playoff pedigrees and awards. Jordan is still head and shoulders above LeBron when it comes to this comparison:

LeBron James Michael Jordan 1x NBA champion 6x NBA champion 1x NBA Finals MVP 6x NBA Finals MVP 3x MVP 5x MVP 8x All-Star 14x All-Star NBA Rookie of the Year NBA Rookie of the Year 1x scoring champion 10x scoring champion 6x All-NBA First Team 10x All-NBA First Team 4x All-Defensive First Team 9x All-Defensive First Team

he has time. Jordan’s 15-season career was shortened by his brief baseball stint, so if he stays healthy, LeBron very well could have a longer NBA career than Jordan did. LeBron has his work cut out for him to get on Michael’s level here. But in the nine-plus seasons that LeBron has been in the NBA, he not only has room before he catches up to Jordan, but. Jordan’s 15-season career was shortened by his brief baseball stint, so if he stays healthy, LeBron very well could have a longer NBA career than Jordan did.

For the sake of argument, let’s give LeBron James nine more seasons—which is (hopefully for NBA fans) an underestimation. If he wins titles in three of those seasons, that puts him at four. And whenever LeBron wins a ring, that gives him a Finals MVP, too. There is no way that LeBron wins a title as the second best player on his team. He’s the best player in the game

Three more MVPs is not an outrageous prediction for LeBron either, which puts him at six. The rest of the numbers will likely even out through the course of LeBron’s career, perhaps even giving him the edge.

The only exception to this is the scoring titles. LeBron James will never come near Jordan’s ten titles and that is in no way a pre-requisite for the discussion of these two players. LeBron has teamed up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh—players whose career PPG averages are 25 and 20, respectively. And this plays directly into LeBron’s sensational ability to create offense not only for himself but also for his teammates. Jordan only ever looked to one other player to create offense (Scottie Pippen). Toni Kukoc and John Paxson helped spread the floor for Jordan but really Jordan was option 1, 2, and 3…and for good reason!

This leads to an argument that must be addressed: well, you might say, since LeBron is more of a facilitator and all-around player, he should be compared to Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson, not Michael Jordan.

all of the first four seasons of his career from 1961-64. The problem arises when looking at the era that Robertson played in. Statistics were staggering compared to today’s game. Furthermore, Robertson was not even the best player in the 60s: Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain each took home four NBA MVPs during the 60s. Sure, the comparison could be made since the Big-O averaged a triple double one season and was less than half a rebound or assist away from averaging one inof the first four seasons of his career from 1961-64. The problem arises when looking at the era that Robertson played in. Statistics were staggering compared to today’s game. Furthermore, Robertson was not even the best player in the 60s: Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlaintook home four NBA MVPs during the 60s.

In terms of playing style, compare these two all you want but the fact is this: LeBron is the best player in his generation. Oscar Robertson was no higher than the third best of his generation.

can be made, but really who cares? Michael was the best player of his generation and LeBron is the best player of his generation. And if we’re going to compare the greatest player of all time, a pre-requisite is undoubtedly being the best player of your generation. As for Magic Johnson, the comparison againbe made, but really who cares? Michael was the best player of his generation and LeBron is the best player of his generation. And if we’re going to compare the greatest player of all time, a pre-requisite is undoubtedly being the best player of your generation.

So, in this hypothetical situation that I have drawn up, LeBron has four Finals championships, four Finals MVPs, and six regular season MVP awards. He would probably surpass Jordan in All-NBA First Team and All-NBA First Defensive Team, too.

These numbers would put LeBron on equal footing with Jordan. Now, to consider who is better overall involves looking at some of their best playoff performances. Granted, in order for LeBron to be in the same discussion as Jordan, he will have a larger body of work to compare to but for now comparing LeBron’s best two playoff performances to Jordan’s will prove just how close these guys really are.

one more in six more seasons. Again, this is absolutely not to say that at this point LeBron is better but rather to just put it in perspective. Time is on LeBron’s side. LeBron has two spots in the top 10 greatest NBA playoff performances of all time. Jordan has three—or onlyinmore seasons. Again, this is absolutely not to say that at this point LeBron is better but rather to just put it in perspective. Time is on LeBron’s side.

Now to look at the two best playoff performances in each players’ career:

The “flu game” is something that has immortalized Jordan. Commercials vie for this moment, coaches use it as motivation, and it lives on as the definition in the NBA of perseverance. In Game 5 of the NBA Finals in 1997 vs. the Utah Jazz, Jordan put up 38 points in 44 minutes, along with seven rebounds, five assists, three steals, and a block. The pictures of him helped off the court and sipping Gatorade with a towel over his head are engrained in every NBA fans memory. It was historic.

LeBron’s performance in Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals was at least as memorable. 48 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, and two steals in 50 minutes played. He threw down dunk after dunk, a signature of LeBron (and a reason everybody wants to see him in the dunk contest on All-Star weekend).

But the most memorable part was that he scored 29 of the final 30 points of the game. Against the Pistons.

ESPN on this one, I’d take LeBron’s performance over Jordan’s. 29 of the final 30 points in the game? I’d love to see a basketball performance where someone was more unstoppable than this at the time when it matters most (fourth quarter and overtime). I disagree withon this one, I’d take LeBron’s performance over Jordan’s. 29 of the final 30 points in the game? I’d love to see a basketball performance where someone was more unstoppable than this at the time when it matters most (fourth quarter and overtime).

Jordan’s Game 2 of the 1986 Eastern Conference first round was another defining moment in his career. Celtics Hall of Famer uttered seven of the most famous words in NBA history when asked about that game: “that was God disguised as Michael Jordan.” Jordan could fill up the stat sheet, too: playoff scoring record of 63 points in 53 minutes with five rebounds, six assists, three steals, and two blocks. And coming off a season that was largely lost to injury…it was remarkable.

Maybe somewhere Derrick Rose is watching footage of this game, getting some ideas of his own…

in Boston. I say this with complete seriousness: LeBron had the pressure of his career heaped on him in one game. The Heat were one game away from elimination and the criticism would have landed squarely on LeBron’s shoulders. LeBron haters were warming up their LeChoke chants. Skip Bayless was ready to rant. LeBron’s most amazing playoff performance came this year, in the 2012 Eastern Conference finals against the Celtics. I say this with complete seriousness: LeBron had the pressure of his career heaped on him in one game. The Heat were one game away from elimination and the criticism would have landed squarely on LeBron’s shoulders. LeBron haters were warming up their LeChoke chants. Skip Bayless was ready to rant.

45 points, 15 rebounds, and five assists later, the Heat moved on to Game 7. LeBron shot a nearly impossible 19 of 26. And it wasn’t just dunks and drives, as LeBron has proven he is best at. It was jumpers, banks, post-up shots, even three pointers. Another iconic performance.

Let me use a baseball analogy to put this performance in perspective:

The 2004 Boston Red Sox were fighting 86 years of failed history when they were playing the Yankees in the ALCS. Similarly, LeBron was facing a career with zero championships in the 2012 ECF. The Red Sox had their back to the wall in Game 4 of the ALCS, and like the Heat, it was win or go home. Facing Alex Rodriguez, the best hitter in the game (he went yard in Game 4, too, even though he has come to be known as a playoff choker), and Orlando Hernandez, a former Cy Young Award winner, it was looking bleak. But the Red Sox pulled it off, winning four straight games against the Yankees.

It was unprecedented . Literally, such a feat had never been accomplished before. The takeaway from this that is relevant to the comparison to LeBron: the 2004 World Series champion Boston Red Sox were not defined by their sweep of the Cardinals in the World Series. The comeback in the ALCS vs. the Yankees was the propeller that flew the Red Sox to the Promised Land.

It’s the path through adversity that defines the champion, not just the grand finale. Similarly, LeBron’s Game 6 performance made the statement that he had championship talent and desire. The argument that this performance was diminished because it wasn’t in the Finals does not hold up for the same reasons that the 2004 ALCS defined the eventual champion Red Sox.It’s the path through adversity that defines the champion, not just the grand finale.

For those very reasons, I’ll take LeBron’s Game 6 performance over Jordan’s Game 2 or flu game. As for “clutch” storybook endings, LeBron and Jordan both have theirs. Somehow this is a requirement to be considered the greatest of all time because you need a moment that even non-basketball fans can say ‘wow, that guy is special.’ Jordan’s got the crossover of Bryon Russell when he sunk the free throw line jumper in the 1998 NBA Finals and LeBron’s got the fade-away three-pointer at the end of regulation in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Both were moments that you could capture in seconds and realize something about these guys just was not normal.

As for overall “clutchness,” you can argue until the next Jordan or LeBron comes (if they ever do), that Jordan was more clutch for such-and-such reason but again, the numbers show the pair are surprisingly close in this regard—while Jordan still does have an edge.

Chasing 23 names all of LeBron’s clutch shot makes (5) and attempts (12) through May 2012 which puts him at a 42 percent success rate. Jordan was names all of LeBron’s clutch shot makes (5) and attempts (12) through May 2012 which puts him at a 42 percent success rate. Jordan was 9 of 18 in his career in such situations, or a 50 percent success rate. Again, let’s give LeBron his full career but the dismissal of LeBron from the playing field of Jordan as GOAT is unwarranted and founded in 1) a desire to protect history or 2) simply a hatred of LeBron James.

LeBron James has room to go before he can be in the consideration with Michael Jordan as the greatest player ever to hit the court. And even after both have retired, not even a judge could satisfy both sides unless LeBron goes on an absolutely historic tear to match his “not one, not two, not three, not four…” claim. While I personally think that was merely hyperbole, he did earn himself a lot of disrespect in that first public party in South Beach.


I promised monthly updates, so here I am to deliver!

Let me start by introducing you to ‘Ivan’.

With the introduction of Bertha it was imperative that the rebels come up with a counter. Created from some destroyed Bertha’s and a hollowed out cabin of an outdated MAV cockpit model, they were able to create ‘Ivan’. With performance stats similar to Bertha, the rebels stood a fighting chance!

Seeing the arms race taking place, Wilson munitions seized the opportunity to increase their market share by deploying out a new line of heavy rockets as well!

With all this firepower flying around, there was bound to be collateral damage.

And this is just the start!

In addition to the parts shown above, there are a few more I want you to discover on your own. There has been a large increase in the number of deployable parts, making the Engineer role a much more viable role to fill.

Along with these part changes, there has been an update to all the destructible buildings in the game. When buildings explode, they will do damage to anything around them. Small, concrete buildings will barley even be felt. Standing next to an exploding 100ft tall gas tank? That’s going to hurt, a lot.

In addition to doing damage, some buildings will leave a burning residue on the ground as well. This fire will spread to your MAV if you stand in it and will continue to do damage the whole time you are in it. It’s not a lot of damage, but it can turn the tide of the battle if you are not careful! Proper kill and damage credit is given if you destroy a building which then destroys another MAV. This counts for chain reactions as well!

Speaking of doing damage on when exploding, mines have been given an explosion effect when you shoot them. They will also do damage to the surrounding area, though not nearly as much as if they were triggered normally.

Getting into the smaller tweaks, there have been a few balance changes:

-Turning rates have been increased on all biped, reverse joint, hover, and wheel chassis. The final amount depends the the chassis variation.

-The uplink deployable item has been increased in size by 2X and had its durability reduced from 350 to 120

– Machine guns have been given a slight rate of fire reduction. HD versions have also been given a small boost to recoil and a larger rate of fire reduction from 370 shots per minute to 190 shots per minute. This makes the time to kill a full health base with 4 MINI-HD’s go from ~1 minute to ~2 minutes.

-Cannons have received a large increase in damage. They are now the highest damage weapon in the game. They have also received a 4X increase in the projectile size, with new FX to match. For balance, the fire rate has decreased significantly and the projectile speed was reduced slightly. They are a very high skill, high reward weapon.

-The high angle weapons have had a complete rework of the projectile physics. Before, projectiles could land hundreds of meters off from the listed range. They will now land within ~10 meters, every time. This has significantly changed the ‘feel’ of howitzers and rockets.

-All Wheel chassis have been given a significant boost to energy generation

-Turret deploys have had energy requirements increased, along with a re-balance on weights. Deployment cool down timers have generally increased as well.

And for the fun bug fixes!

Fixed multiplayer ‘barrel clearing’: This bug affected the shot velocity of the first shot of every weapon in multiplayer only. Now every shot will behave the same.

Fixed crash bug when taking fire damage: When taking fire damage [or other very rapid damage] the health UI could enter an infinite race condition resulting in a hard crash or lockup.

Fixed health UI not showing temporary damage bars when taking fire damage : Before when taking fire damage the health percentage would decrease, but the bar would stay static.

Loading a MAV with locked parts will now result in an invalid build

Failed build UI icon will now contain a tooltip showing all reasons for a MAV build to be failing.

Known issues:

In extreme cases, the flight path of rockets and howitzer rounds is… unexpected.

Enjoy the new content!


This man is holding an image of a sword that doesn't exist in real life. In fact, it doesn't even really exist on a virtual world—he paid $16,000 for a game sword that he can't play yet.

He got the virtual sword at an auction to celebrate the launch of a highly anticipated game called Age of Wulin. Set in ancient China, the players would be able to ramble through a beautifully detailed world crouching the tiger and hiding the dragon. Other items sold include a sheath for Hook of Departure—sold for $1,600—and a Lordly Spear Sheath—sold for $2,500.

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It's going to be released in China soon, but it will not be available in English until Spring 2012, when all your base are belong to them. [Age of Wulin via Daily Mail]


A Google news search returns 5,240 results for “Ferguslie Park” over the last 24 hours. As compared to 0 mentions in the previous 24 hours.

The media have, with an incredible level of unanimity, seized upon a Tory being elected to represent Ferguslie Park, “the most deprived area of Scotland”, as the leading evidence of a Tory resurgence into areas of Scotland “they could not previously venture into”. I have heard this recounted on every available broadcast platform this evening.

I have two bits of news for the unionist media. Firstly, Ferguslie Park is in Paisley. Most of you think it is in Glasgow. Secondly there is no ward called Ferguslie Park. There is a place called Ferguslie Park, and it is less than half of a ward called Paisley Northwest. Now here is the result of that stunning Tory super-victory amazing spectacular miraculous shocking earth-shattering mould-breaking Tory triumph in Paisley Northwest.

My, how the ground shook. In future years, everybody will recall just exactly where they were at the moment the Conservatives polled 13% in Paisley North West, when that vast uprising of 657 voters swept their candidate to victory on the 10th set of transfers into the fourth available slot in a multi-member constituency.

Now, this will come as a shock to some people. Paisley North West is not a dreadful slum, and contains some distinctly prosperous areas. Much of the ward looks like this.

Here are some statistics for the entire ward.

65% of households in Paisley North West are owner occupied

67% of the population of Paisley North West are employed, self employed or full time students

5.1% of the population of Paisley North West are unemployed

23% of the population of Paisley North West are pensioners

4.9% are housewives/husbands/carers or not in the labour force

In a local election poll with a low turnout, there is a disproportionately high turnout from pensioners and from the wealthier districts. Very few indeed of those measly 657 Tory votes came from the Ferguslie Park estate.

The real story is that in a ward with 65% owner-occupiers and 67% economically active, the Tories could still only manage a measly 13% of the vote. That the large majority of £350,000 owner occupiers do not vote Tory. The real story is that the SNP took 44% to the Tories 13%. But no, the march of Ruth’s 13%ers has apparently changed the course of history. As Tom Robinson once sang, “It’s there in the papers, must be the truth”.

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Two suspicious packages that were found at Gower Park last week.

An item made of metal piping with protruding wires placed under the bowl of a public toilet is the latest in a string of suspicious items requiring bomb squad action in Hamilton.

In the last six months the Auckland-based bomb squad has been called in to deal with four suspicious items located in different public locations around the city.

Last Thursday the central city shopping mall was evacuated for almost four hours after a suspicious package was delivered to the ANZ Bank at Centre Place.

Bruce Mercer Auckland's Defence Force team set up a robot at Gower Park, Hamilton, where a suspicious package was found this morning.

The latest incident on Monday involved an unusual piece of metal piping police say was purposely made to look like an explosive device and placed in the toilet block at the park in Hamilton Lake area.

Hamilton police Senior Sergeant Neil Faulkner said police received a call from Hamilton City Council staff who found a suspicious item in the women's toilet about 8.30am Monday.

"It was described as being a pipe with wires coming out of it, placed underneath one of the toilet bowls in the women's toilet."

Police set up a 200 metre cordon around the toilet block on the Sandleigh Rd side of the park, below Waikato Hospital, and halted motorists and pedestrians entering via Hibiscus Ave.

Residents of about 10 houses in the cul-du-sac on Sandleigh Rd were told to stay inside their homes while the Auckland-based Defence Force team dealt with the item.

"It is the normal operating procedure when dealing with a suspicious package until the defence force have assessed it," said Faulkner.

"We make an assessment of the information that we have and decided to get the Defence Force to neutralise the item."

The bomb squad team arrived in a white van at the quiet park, lined with hospital workers' cars about 11am. About 20 minutes later a robot was deployed from the rear of the van into the building where the item was located in a small stall.

"They have tried to use the robot to go in there with cameras to take a look at the device and neutralise it if needed," said Faulkner.

"However, due to the close proximity of the walls and the cubicle they were unable to manoeuvre it sufficiently so they have done a manual approach."

One of the senior bomb squad members adorned in a specialist protective suit was sent into the cubicle to manually neutralise the item, said Faulkner.

"They are a specialist unit and luckily we had one of the main guys who was able to deal with it. They have a device that fires a water shot through it and blows it to pieces basically."

"We had a number of other contingencies here - fire and gas - in case something eventuated that was outside of our control."

Maddie Cambort was visiting friends on Sandleigh Rd when she heard a loud bang about 12.15pm.

"It was really, really loud, sounded like a gunshot wound. The glass shook a little."

Faulkner said the item, which was being investigated by Waikato CIB, had been purposely made to look suspicious.

"It was made to look like an IED - Improvised Explosive Device - but initial thoughts from the Defence Force are that it probably is not going to cause any danger to the public as it was."

Hamilton City Council Parks and Open Spaces Manager Sally Sheedy said the toilet blocks were open from 7.30am to 7.30pm daily. Outside of those hours only authorised council staff had access.

The item had likely been placed in the toilet sometime between Sunday morning and Monday, said Faulkner.

"It was there this morning, so it could have been anytime between when it was cleaned [Sunday] and when the doors were locked last night."

The bomb squad had recently used the robot to destroy a suspicious bag that had been found abandoned in the Hamilton IRD building on Bryce St. Police later tracked down the owner of the small blue bag left in the foyer who said she had forgotten she left it there.

Back in December the bomb squad were again called in to deal with a suspicious item discovered outside Davies Medical Centre on Hukanui Rd.

University of Waikato political scientist Dr Colm McKeogh said there was a heightened sensitivity to security threats in today's climate.

"There's been two bomb scares in Hamilton, the IRD, which turned out to be innocuous and Centre Place and the one today is either a bomb scare or a threat. We don't know yet."

"Plus there's been the 1080 milk powder threat and the Lindt Café in Sydney..[which] brought it much closer to home the possibility that it could happen here."

The response from the Defence Force and police was sometimes inconvenient for residents, but warranted in all cases due to what was happening with the Islamic State and the recent domestic threats made to milk powder, he said.

"The Defence Force is more aware of bomb scares in New Zealand and there's good grounds. At the moment they have to take them seriously because of what's happening nationally and internationally."

"It's a safe place (Hamilton) but it takes only one incident to shatter that belief."

Police said all three recent events are being treated as unrelated and all items were assessed as not being dangerous.


When we first caught wind of Sensic's head-tracking 3D Smart goggles a few days ago , we couldn't help but think of it as a Sony HMZ-T1 on Android-flavored steroids. We've just spent some time with the prototype here on the show floor playing a virtual demo that had us smashing buildings in a virtual world -- notably running entirely on the headset, thanks (in part) to its 1.2GHZ dual-core CPU. If you can't tell from the picture, the headset is absolutely massive. In-hand it's quiet hefty, but once it engulfed our noggin, we found that it was actually quiet well-balanced and comfortable, to the point that we almost forget that it was on our head -- almost. Notably, this proto is a "one size fits all" type deal rght now, so we did have to wrap a circle-scarf around our head to keep its 1280 x 1024 screens within our eyes view. Thankfully, our horn-rimmed glasses did fit inside with no issue.So, what's it like? An array of cameras on it's face scan the environment to react to your heads position and any movement you make. We were able to spin, tilt, walk around and even jump, with the virtual world on screen following suite -- all while looking like a confused and lost puppy to anyone passing by. We're told video refreshes at 60hz, but sadly, we were faced with stuttery visuals in our use. The unit is also capable of tracking hand movements, but we can't say we were able to make use of the privilege -- instead, a controller made up for the interim. Considering that Sensic's head-tracking 3D goggles do all of the above in a completely self-contained fashion, we can't help but think that there's lots of potential for the tech. The question remains, however, as to whether the experience and the hardware can be smoothed to bring the Minority Report -style of AR closer to a retail reality. Head on past the break for a video of us trying out Sensic's headset for ourselves-- trust us, you're in for a treat.


The electronic currency Bitcoin works because of encryption and a blockchain -- a widely accessible, distributed record of everyone who has created, accessed or altered a given file. Bitcoin's blockchain tracks who has had each Bitcoin, verifies its authenticity, and so on.

This technology, however, has much broader applications. As governments move to release more data and documents online, verifying the authenticity of those files will become increasingly important. In the future, governments could use blockchains to track and verify the ownership of property records, banking records, securities or anything else posted on an open data platform.

Brian Forde, the director of the MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative, explores the concept in the video below.

By 2020, using blockchain technology might even become a best practice for the verification of public records online.

Makes sense, @digiphile. You could be right. — Jessica Rosenworcel (@JRosenworcel) August 31, 2015

"Property records, particularly in the developing world, are notoriously subject to hacking," Oliver Goodenough, a professor at Vermont Law School, observed in an interview. "Honduras got money to do an electronic record land registry, but when they were done, many key properties were held by relatives of people who set up the ledger. Now, a contract was awarded to a company in Texas to set up a blockchain-based property system."

That example and others are drawing attention in other contexts, from countries around the world. In the United States, the blockchain might be a way of validating voter records before and after elections, making entries perusable and insulating them from fraud. It might also be relevant to securities, adding a technological component that would make fraud by corrupt officials much harder.

Given how blockchain technology has matured in recent years, Goodenough says it's just going to require hard work to get it into use -- and he hopes that Vermont will be a leader in that area.

"This could give sunshine and make it very hard to screw the system," he told me. "The blockchain will not cook us breakfast, but it might tell us who cooked breakfast."

For more, watch Goodenough's talk earlier this year at Stanford (embedded below) on the state of legal technology:

Governments haven't been the biggest fans of Bitcoin, given the use of the cryptocurrency on the shadier parts of the Internet, including drug deals on the Deep Web. But at least one recognizes the potential of blockchains.

This summer, Vermont took a couple of step toward smart contracts, agreements that contain technology that automatically tracks versions and authors. On June 3, Peter Shumlin, the state's governor, signed an economic development act into law that commissioned a report on the opportunities and risks of using blockchain technology to validate public records and "electronic facts."

An amendment to the economic development bill submitted by state Sen. Becca Balint suggested that "blockchain technology shall be a recognized practice for the verification of a fact or record, and those facts or records established through a valid blockchain technology process shall have a presumption of validity for matters to be determined subject to, or in accordance with, the laws of the State of Vermont."

"This study will provide reasonable recognition for the blockchain as a way to establish facts, providing a rebuttable presumption that the fact was true," Goodenough, who drafted the amendment, told The Huffington Post. "We are just establishing legal recognition that this is a way of establishing evidence."

Goodenough, who directs the Center for Legal Innovation at the Vermont School of Law, has been researching the potential of smart contracts and automated securities that can automatically record who has accessed, changed or traded them.


Everybody who likes pirates (and who doesn't like pirates?) has a pitch for the ideal game about them. We carry our imaginary game around with us, close to our rum-soaked hearts. It's got to be open world of course, because what's the point of the horizon if you can't have it brought to you? The romance of being a pirate is all about freedom.

It's also about stabbing people. There needs to be good stabbing, and pistol-shooting as well, and belting out a good “har har!” while you do it. You want swinging onto someone else's deck and swashbuckling away to be joyous. Blasting enemies from a distance with cannon fire is Pirating 101. Duelling with swords and also with sails, some kind of system for using the wind against opponents and lining up broadsides, more tactical than the wild to-and-fro of close combat.

Oh, and we'll also need a robust economic simulation, please. What's the point of killing people and stealing their stuff if that stuff can't be sold at port? That leads to profit, so there need to be ways of upgrading ships and buying whole new ones with those profits, as well as managing the crew. Maybe something abstract for the bulk of yer maties, but if the officers could be BioWare-style companions with their own dark secrets to uncover and loyalty missions to undertake that'd be swell.

Sounds perfect. Why doesn't it exist already?

Here's a game we can probably agree is a good one: Sid Meier's Pirates! It doesn't tick every box on that list but it's close. It encompasses a stretch of the Caribbean and Spanish Main so big you need turbo mode to cross it, there are ships full of Spanish gold to take (and Dutch gold, French gold, and English gold), and you can buy low and sell high profitably enough that you don't even need to turn to piracy if you're boring. On the other hand its dueling is pretty simplistic and depending which version you play there might be a divisive ballroom dancing minigame in there as well.

And, more to the point, it's a game from 1987. It's been remade since then, in 1993 and again in 2004, but it still has very little competition. If you want to get your pirate on with something newer you have to play Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and slog through all of the assassin bits so you can unlock the half of the game you actually want: boarding ships and listening to sea shanties. But as great as it is to hit rough water and hear the crew of the Jackdaw launch into “It's stormy weather boys, stormy weather/When the wind blows we're all together, boys,” Black Flag isn't going to let you profit from manipulating trade conditions. It's just not that kind of game.

The MMO Pirates Of The Burning Sea is that kind of game. Its player-driven economy is detailed enough that you can have your own plots of land producing resources like iron ore which you manufacture into nails before selling them to another player who owns a shipyard. It's also got a fine ship-to-ship combat system for getting the wind in your sails and opening fire on someone who has a hold full of nails if you'd rather be a straight-up buccaneer than a manufacturer who also occasionally pirates it up.

Being an MMO means Pirates Of The Burning Sea can use other players for those interactions, whether trading or risking crew and cargo sailing through the dangerous waters of the PVP zones. But online games bring their own problems. Board a ship and you'll find yourself staring at a cooldown bar of attack options straight out of World Of Warcraft, a far less thrilling prospect than its ship-to-ship combat. And even its sailing can be seriously hampered by lag, with your ship suddenly stalling then teleporting to a different position nudged up against an outcropping of land.

There are plenty of other games about pirates and Steam is full of cutthroat simulators, many of them products of Early Access. But just like Black Flag or Pirates Of The Burning Sea there's always something missing, something holding them back from fulfilling our hopes and living up to that dream pitch of being a truly well-rounded pirate. They may start with positive feedback from the most involved community members, but once more players get involved their ratings drop—Blood & Gold: Caribbean, Naval Action, Pixel Piracy, they're all trending down towards a 'mixed' rating in the harsh waters of Steam community reviews.

We're a judgmental bunch. I'd make a joke about pirate fans liking to make underwhelming games walk the plank, but then I'd get a bunch of judgmental comments about how walking the plank's unhistorical. We may like Monkey Island but we still want more than just a pirate costume draped on another genre. We see a ship and we get our hopes up, setting ourselves up for disappointment. Take a look at Sunless Sea, which isn't even about piracy though you can dabble in it. It's a game about story, as much a text adventure as a naval adventure, but there's still a cranky subset of its players upset by the fact its trade side is underdeveloped. Give us a ship and a set of ports and we want to start manipulating their economies for our benefit even in a game that's really about earning eerie stories rather than loot.

Why doesn't our ideal pirate game exist? Maybe it’s simply because we're asking too much. First on our list is “open world” but open-world games are expensive and inevitably troubled by bugs, even when the biggest studios are behind them. The licensed Pirates Of The Caribbean game made by Akella and published by Bethesda, as well as its unofficial sequels in the Age Of Pirates series, are perfect examples, where you're as likely to crash to desktop as into a warship. The first thing on our list of demands is almost impossible on its own, let alone once we start fussing over the rest.

Rare’s ambition for its upcoming online pirate game Sea of Thieves actually highlights why it’s so difficult to make a truly satisfying one. “Everyone’s got an idea of what pirates do,” design director Gregg Mayles told us at E3. “Everyone knows they go after treasure. You don’t need to be told how to sail a ship or climb to the crow’s nest and use a telescope.”

“Anything you expect to be able to do in a pirate game, we expect to make that dream come true for players,” added executive producer Joe Neate.

Other popular genres like sci-fi and fantasy settings certainly come with their own preconceptions, but they’re less clear-cut. Pirate games aren’t just about a place but about a specific kind of character and action. They’re a more codified fiction than “living in space” or “like the past but with wizards” and when we can’t swashbuckle across the seven seas just right and raid and trade and all the rest, it just doesn’t feel like real pirating.

I wish Rare all the luck in the world with Sea of Thieves. But rather than getting our hopes up and setting ourselves up for another disappointment (we don't talk about Risen 2: Dark Waters), maybe we should lower those expectations like we're lowering our sails, losing some speed but gaining some maneuverability so that we don't smash right into a bitter reef of our own making just like this metaphor has.

In the meantime, who's for another rousing chorus of 'The Fish In The Sea?' “It's stormy weather boys, stormy weather...”


Image copyright AFP

Visitors have stayed away from major tourist attractions in the wake of recent terror attacks, according to the London Eye and Madame Tussauds owner.

Merlin Entertainments, which also runs the Legoland theme park, also warned that numbers could continue to fall.

Bosses said before the attacks foreign tourists had been flocking to the UK to take advantage of the weak pound.

The company's London Eye sits just next to Westminster Bridge - where the March attack took place.

Merlin said in a statement: "in the immediate aftermath of the Westminster attack on 22 March... the incident did result in a softer domestic, day-trip market.

"However, the subsequent attacks in Manchester and London over the past month have resulted in a further deterioration in domestic demand and, given the typical lag between holiday bookings and visitation, we are also cautious on trends in foreign visitation over the coming months".

Impact

In the aftermath of a terror attack, major attractions tend to not feel the impact for a few weeks or months because most foreign visitors tend to buy their tickets for Merlin sites such as Alton Towers or The London Dungeons, in advance.

Chief executive Nick Varney added: "The impact of recent terror attacks on our London attractions is unclear at this stage.

"What is clear however is that London has bounced back before, and will do again.

"London is very much open for business, welcoming visitors from the UK and from around the world to this exciting and vibrant city."

Investors heeded Merlin's warning, sending shares falling 2.8% to 489p.

Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said: "Merlin had already warned in March when it released its 2016 full-year preliminary results that the threat of terror attacks had hit its UK business, citing events in Paris and Brussels as having an impact.

"This was before the Westminster attack on March 22nd, meaning the impact on the UK business is likely to be significantly greater in 2017 than it was last year."

Merlin has seen visitors shun its attractions after major incidents before.

In 2015, the company saw a significant drop in visitors to its Alton Towers theme park after several thrill seekers were badly injured on one of the rides.

Bosses will face tough questions from shareholders on Tuesday at the company's annual general meeting at Legoland, where they will also be told about the opening of Legoland Japan and new sites across the US.