Some of Donald Trump’s most passionate GOP detractors — including Sens. Lindsey Graham, left, and Ben Sasse — are now taking a more optimistic tone. (Charles Ommanney/The Washington Post; Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP)

Ten months ago, Doug Heye was one of the Beltway Republicans doing their best to warn the party against getting into bed with Donald Trump — a man, he wrote in an op-ed, who would “cause greater instability throughout the world at a time when the world looks to America for leadership.”

“The emperor doesn’t have any clothes,” the veteran Capitol Hill spokesman later declared on MSNBC. “There’s no part of a Trump candidacy that I don’t see as being a disaster for Republicans.”

And now?

“Well, there actually have been a number of positive signs,” Heye said in a phone interview just days after Trump’s surprise victory. There was that gracious acceptance speech, Heye noted. Plus, that seemingly stable meeting with President Obama. And “the fact that they took down the Muslim ban from the website was heartening to me,” he added.

Uh, Doug. You know, the Trump team put that proposal right back up on its site hours later.

“Oh, I didn’t realize that,” Heye said. “But the fact that it even got deleted is heartening to me.”

If establishment Republicans are going through the stages of grief, it appears they’ve reached the bargaining stage. All over town, erstwhile critics — who once described Trump as a betrayer of conservative values and an agent of chaos — are now, at least publicly, grasping for signs that maybe he won’t be so bad after all.

Perhaps, they say, conservatives will finally get some quality judges on the Supreme Court? Maybe Trump will focus more on unraveling Obamacare than on deporting 11 million people living in this country illegally or registering Muslims into a database? Maybe now that he’s president, they say, Trump will finally pivot to acting presidential?

So many tea leaves floating around this week. You can just pick and choose the ones you like.

[Obama in state of denial as Democrats work through the stages of grief]

That seems to be the new approach of Sen. Lindsey Graham — one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics during the campaign. When Trump announced Sunday that Steve Bannon, the former chief executive of the website Breitbart — a favorite periodical of white supremacists, known for taking aim at blacks, women, Muslims and Jews — would serve as his chief White House strategist, the senator from South Carolina responded only to the other half of the day’s news:

“Congrats to @realDonaldTrump for outstanding choice of @Reince [Priebus] to be Chief of Staff,” tweeted Graham, about the appointment of the Republican National Committee chair. “This shows me he is serious about governing.”

Wishful thinking has become our new national pastime, and because no one really knows what a Trump presidency will look like, it’s possible for everyone to hold out hope.

Elected Democrats are looking to the possibility of an infrastructure bill as a silver lining, while liberal commentators such as Nicholas Kristof ask readers to “give President-elect Trump a chance.”

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), the capital’s most enduring GOP Never Trumper, is crossing his fingers that the president might work at “ending cronyism.” Super-lobbyist Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, has offered up his swamp-draining services.

[As GOP’s anti-Trump, Sasse picked a big fight. What would it mean to win?]

“This past week has reinforced that a President-elect Trump has the capacity to rise above the campaign mudslinging,” said Lott’s former spokesman, Ron Bonjean, now a PR strategist who does not count himself as a “skeptical” Republican. “I’ve always believed that if he can bring in a team around him of solid people and get away from the late-night Twitter accounts, this could be okay.”

As it happened, Bonjean uttered these optimistic thoughts to a reporter after Trump issued a tweet blaming post-election demonstrations on “professional protesters” supposedly incited by the media but before his most recent Twitter rant about how the New York Times is supposedly failing. (It’s doing quite well, actually.)

Erick Erickson, a conservative pundit who served as an outspoken critic of Trump from the right, is pushing back against what he sees as a lot of “crying wolf” about the president-elect. So he says he’s giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. Even about controversial decisions such as hiring Bannon.

“If Obama got [Valerie] Jarrett, Trump can have Bannon,” he wrote for the Resurgent. “And when the alt-right goes marching through Washington or people start trying to round up Jews because of it, then we can raise the issue and provide shelter to those in need. But there is no guarantee that will happen.”

(“No guarantee.” Whew.)

Heye maintained that he doesn’t see his role or his stance changing all that much from before the election: If Trump does something good, he’ll compliment him for it, he said. If Trump reverts to his campaign behavior, he’ll call him out.

“I never really called myself a Never Trump person,” he said. “I just said I’m not voting for the guy.”

Somehow, though, amid the rubble, a dwindling number of unwavering Trump skeptics on the right still live and breathe.

“Winning the election doesn’t change my opinion about him,” said Ben Howe, an editor at the conservative website RedState. “I’ve said from the beginning that he is a sociopath, that he is unstable and dangerous, that his views on nuclear proliferation are dangerous and that he will put people in positions to influence him that are dangerous. So far, he hasn’t done anything to convince me otherwise.”

Howe said he’s not surprised that so many people have traded in their skepticism for optimism. He realizes that some people believe it is their patriotic duty to show their support for the president and that others are just so tired of the chaos of the campaign that they are desperate to make things seem normal again.

And he understands that some critics believe they owe the unpredictable businessman the benefit of the doubt. He just doesn’t see it that way.

“It’s a lot of pretending like this is an innocent-until-proven-guilty type of situation,” Howe said. “The problem is, the campaign was the trial. I’ve seen the evidence, and I’ve made a decision based on that.”

There is, however, one possibility that Howe won’t rule out.

“The only thing I’m open to now is that I could be wrong,” he said. “I’m fine being wrong. Being wrong would be great.”


BAFTA Awards to Feature Plant-Based Menu

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Vegan celebrities and filmmakers can rejoice; at least those attending this year’s BAFTA awards in London.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has announced that their annual star-studded event will feature a plant-based menu for those opting out of meat and dairy. While dessert options have yet to be disclosed, entrees include “quinoa salad with radishes, broad beans, asparagus, peas and a lemon and olive oil dressing,” as well as a “roasted butternut squash and sun-blushed tomato lasagne with wilted spinach, roasted pepper and sage”.

PETA quickly lauded the decision. Director Mimi Bekhechi said in a statement, “interest in vegan eating is skyrocketing in the UK and beyond. With some of the world’s best chefs, including Jamie Oliver and Wolfgang Puck, getting creative with cruelty-free cooking, we’re sure that guests attending the BAFTAs are in for a treat.”

Of course, the lavish event is not exclusively plant-based. The dinner, which began preparations back in September with a team of 25 chefs, includes roughly one tonne of beef (it’s a trio-of-beef main course)and variety of seafood. It also features some 2000 bottles of wine and 8,220 glasses of champagne for the nearly 2,000 guest.

There are also a pair of vegetarian course, though they contain dairy. The starter is

smoked cheese arancini, celeriac and Granny Smith apple salad, port wine glaze, walnut oil dressing; while the main features roast sweet potato, red onion and Taleggio tart, smoked garlic and chive butter sauce, gratin Dauphinoise, green beans and baby carrots.

Still, serving plant-based options is a step in the right direction. Your move, Oscars.

The BAFTAs take place February 8 at Grovesnor House Hotel in London.

Via The Daily Mail, Marie Claire UK


...about a year ago I noticed what would be a lump in my teet, and I have been just thinking of course that it's nothing ... a week or two ago I went in [to the doctor] to get my first mammogram. I'm 41, I guess I should have started last year. So I went in and got the mammogram and the results were abnormal ... go in for a follow-up, and I was told the follow-up would take 30 or 45 minutes at most, and yesterday I spent the entire day in the hospital while they ran numerous tests ... the doctor came in and she was clearly a highly intelligent, kind but very concerned person ... and when I was going through the tests all day yesterday ... part of me thought ... there was a misunderstanding... based on already being hospitalized with a deadly illness and my mother dying, there was just no way they were going to come in and tell me anything but, "Ok, everything looks great!" ... And the doctor came in and her tone was very scary ... she said "Ok, so, we have found something in both breasts," ... after all the explanation I said, "Wait a minute, are you telling me that I possibly have cancer," and she said, "Well, we have to get biopsies done but from what I can see with all the testing we've done today it is very probable that you do in both breasts, yes."


This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN:

In one of his first acts as president last week, Barack Obama signed an executive order setting new rules on the role former lobbyists can play in his administration.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: As of today, lobbyists will be subject to stricter limits than under any other administration in history. If you are a lobbyist entering my administration, you will not be able to work on matters you lobbied on or in the agencies you lobbied during the previous two years. When you leave government, you will not be able to lobby my administration for as long as I am president.

AMY GOODMAN:

Despite President Obama’s pledge, several former lobbyists are set to play key roles in the new administration. Obama has nominated Raytheon’s former top lobbyist, William Lynn, to serve as Deputy Secretary of Defense. Lynn was a registered lobbyist for the defense contractor until July. Several watchdog groups, including Public Citizen and Project on Government and Oversight, have urged the Senate Committee on Armed Services to reject Lynn’s nomination because of his ties to Raytheon.

President Obama has granted a waiver to Lynn, as well as to William Corr, who has been nominated to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Until recently, Corr was a registered lobbyist for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

At the Treasury Department, Secretary Timothy Geithner has hired former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson to be his chief of staff. Patterson was a registered lobbyist until April.

The National Journal is reporting fourteen of the 112 White House staffers that Obama has named had been registered as lobbyists at some point since 2005. The list includes Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod and Homeland Security adviser John Brennan.

We’re joined now in Washington by Bara Vaida. She is a reporter covering the lobbying industry for National Journal. Her article, “Former Lobbyists Join Obama,” appears in this week’s issue.

Lay it out for us, Bara Vaida.

BARA VAIDA:

Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me.

As Obama said, these are the most sweeping restrictions on lobbying behavior that’s ever been implemented by a president, so it’s important to remember that. I think what this shows is that there are — the lobbying industry is just a very big part of the culture of Washington and that there are a lot of people who have worked on policy that end up lobbying from time to time. And there’s such a mix between lobbying and policy that it shows how difficult it is to draw a very bright line between lobbying and policy. Lobbyists, you have to remember, do have a lot of expertise. They have a lot of information. They do play an important role in how policy is developed. So that’s, you know, an important sort of thing to remember when we talk about lobbying.

Obama did campaign on a pledge that he would limit the role of lobbyists in his White House. And as I noted, there are fourteen — or thirteen people, actually, who have had lobbying in their background who are now White House staff, and there’s probably more at this point. But there’s hundreds of positions already that he has named. So he is — he can say that he’s limited so far the role of lobbyists. But it’s important to pay attention to how many of these folks have had lobbying in their background and keep track of it to make sure he keeps with his pledge, you know, not to have lobbyists dominating his White House, as opposed to what we saw with the previous administration.

AMY GOODMAN:

What about Raytheon’s former top lobbyist, William Lynn, serving as Deputy Secretary of Defense?

BARA VAIDA:

Yes, I mean, that has certainly caused a lot of heartburn in the watchdog community. They’re very concerned about that. They don’t see how it’s any way possible that Mr. Lynn can do his job without doing something that’s going to have some kind of impact on the bottom line at Raytheon. And that’s what they’re greatly concerned about.

And that was what happened in the Bush administration. You have to remember, a lot of these rules that Obama has implemented are a reaction to what happened during the Bush years. What we saw happen in the Interior Department, Steven Griles got embroiled in something with a former lobbyist named Jack Abramoff, who’s now in jail, and that he had gotten people in the Interior Department to, you know, trade on favors for him, for his clients. And that’s what this is aimed at.

Mr. Lynn has sent a letter, apparently, to the Hill this week, trying to lay out that whatever he does that may have some effect on Raytheon, he will run it by the general counsel’s office before he does anything. And McCain and some — I think Senator Grassley, as well, have both said, “You know, that’s just too vague. We want somebody more specific.”

AMY GOODMAN:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was questioned Wednesday about the role lobbyists will have in the new administration.

REPORTER: Is the President bothered at all that Secretary Geithner has picked as his chief of staff a former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, who has obviously — that company has benefited from government bailouts. Doesn’t that punch a hole in what the President signed just last week in terms of preventing lobbyists like that from serving in his administration?

ROBERT GIBBS: No, the President — well, again, let’s step back and talk about the broader issue of ethics and transparency in this administration. As I said from this podium, and as you all read in papers throughout the country, that the ethics and transparency executive orders that the President signed the first day institute a policy that covers this administration, unlike any policy we’ve seen in any previous administration in the history of our country.

REPORTER: But if it’s a strong — even if it’s a strong policy, does it mean anything if people are getting waivers to go around it?

ROBERT GIBBS: Those very same people that labeled that policy the strongest of any administration in history also said they thought it made sense for a limited number of waivers to ensure that people can continue to serve the public.

AMY GOODMAN:

And that was Robert Gibbs, the new press secretary. Bara Vaida, what about Treasury Department Secretary Tim Geithner hiring former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson to be his chief of staff? Patterson, a registered lobbyist until April.

BARA VAIDA:

Again, I mean, it’s a good question. I mean, Patterson was lobbying up until about March of 2008, and there is definitely a question: how can he do his job without doing something that may have an impact on Goldman Sachs? It’s almost impossible. So I think it’s totally fair to raise these questions.

And I think the administration is going to keep getting hit with these questions until they explain how they’re deciding how they’re implementing these waivers. They haven’t explained that, what their standard is. I have asked them that. They don’t want to answer it. You heard the response. That’s the response we tend to get, which is, “We’ve said we’ll do a few waivers in the cases where we think there’s unique experience of this person and that a waiver should be granted.” I guess, you know, people will be watching this very carefully, and people will have to decide: are the exceptions OK or not? I think the administration really needs to explain what standard they’re using, and that is not clear.

AMY GOODMAN:

Bara Vaida, I want to thank you very much for being with us, reporter covering the lobbying industry for National Journal.


Vincent Kessler/Reuters French apiarist Andre Frieh holds a sample of normal honey (right) besides a blue colored one (left) at his home in Ribeauville near Colmar, Eastern France, October 5, 2012.

Mars Incorporated has proclaimed that “Chocolate is better in color” with its M&Ms. But French beekeepers may beg to differ on that.

Since August, beekeepers near the town of Ribeauville, in the northeastern region of Alsace, have been reporting their bees are producing blue and green honey, according to Reuters. And they’ve traced the cause back to a biogas plant that processes waste from an M&Ms factory.

(PHOTOS: Bee Beard Contest in China)

Bees are apparently picking up vibrantly colored, sugary waste from the plant, operated by the company Agrivalor some 2.5 miles away from their apiaries. A statement from Agrivalor that appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde said the company would clean its containers and store waste in airtight containers to prevent bees from reaching it.

“We quickly put in place a procedure to stop it,” Philippe Meinrad, co-manager of Agrivalor, told Reuters.

France generates 18,330 tons of honey per year, making it one of the largest honey producers in the European Union. In Alsace alone, about 2,400 beekeepers manage 35,000 colonies, which produce about 1,000 tons of the stuff per year. However, France hasn’t been spared by the largely unexplained decrease in the world bee population in recent years, Reuters reported.

Gill Maclean, a spokesperson for the British Beekeepers’ Association, told the BBC that the harsh winter of 2011-2012 may have affected bees’ ability to forage. This could be a reason why the bees sought out the alternate sugar.

“Bees are clever enough to know where the best sources of sugar are, if there are no others available,” Maclean told the BBC.

Rest assured: Consumers won’t see blue honey on store shelves anytime soon. Alain Frieh, president of the apiculturists’ union, told Reuters the only similarity between regular honey and their bees’ M&M-tainted byproducts might be taste.

“For me, it’s not honey,” Frieh told Reuters. “It’s not sellable.”

WATCH: Do City Bees Make Healthier Honey?

SEE ALSO: The Big Surprise of Martin Luther King’s Speech


Scatec Solar ASA, an integrated independent solar power producer, has entered into financing agreements totalling USD 157 million for construction of a 104 MW(dc) Red Hills solar power plant in Utah. When complete, the Red Hills solar project will be Scatec Solar’s largest developed and constructed project in North America.

Total investment for the plant is estimated at USD 188 million—with Google providing tax equity, Prudential Capital Group providing debt financing, and Scatec Solar providing sponsor equity. The power plant will be wholly-owned by a partnership jointly owned by Google and Scatec Solar, which structured and executed the financing for the project. Scatec Solar will manage and operate the plant when it goes into operation.

Google has signed agreements to fund over $1.5 billion in renewable energy investments across three continents with a total planned capacity of more than 2.5 GW (gigawatts).This agreement represents the 18th renewable energy investment project for Google and supports its continued push towards a clean, low carbon energy future.

Prudential Capital Group, a Prudential Financial asset management business, provided term financing for the project.

The Utah Red Hills Renewable Energy Park, set to be built on a site with excellent solar irradiation, will generate around 210 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year, which will be fed into the grid under a twenty-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with PacifiCorp’s Rocky Mountain Power, according to the utility’s obligation under the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. When operational by the end of 2015, the plant will be Utah’s largest solar energy generation facility, generating enough energy to power approximately 18,500 homes annually. Based on US Environmental Protection Agency estimates, it will produce enough renewable power to prevent nearly 145 thousand tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually—the equivalent to not burning 156 million pounds of coal each year.

The ground-mounted photovoltaic solar facility is being developed on approximately 650 acres of privately-owned land in Parowan, Utah, will deploy approximately 325,000 PV modules on a single-axis tracking system and will interconnect to an existing transmission line.

Scatec Solar is an integrated independent power producer, aiming to make solar a sustainable and affordable source of energy worldwide. Scatec Solar develops, builds, owns and operates solar power plants, and will in 2014 deliver power from 220 MW in the Czech Republic, South Africa and Rwanda. The company is in strong growth and has a solid pipeline of projects under development in Africa, US, Asia, Middle East and Europe. Scatec Solar is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ‘SSO’.


One year since the military coup in Egypt

5 July 2014

This week marks the first anniversary of the US-backed military coup that brought the junta of now president and de facto dictator General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to power.

In launching the coup, the army sought to pre-empt a mass movement that had developed against Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi. The class struggle exploded in the first half of 2013, as workers mounted over 5,544 strikes and social protests against Mursi’s government. When protests were called in late June, tens of millions of workers went onto the streets to express their anger at Mursi’s free-market policies and his support for Israel’s assault on Gaza and the US-led proxy war in Syria.

While the protests showed the immense power of the working class, their outcome revealed the essential problem of the Egyptian revolution: the chasm between the elemental anger of the Egyptian population and the absence of political leadership.

In the absence of a revolutionary party fighting to rally the working class in a struggle to take power on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program, the forces that emerged in control of the movement, primarily the Tamarod (“Rebel”) movement, worked to channel popular opposition behind the army.

When al-Sisi launched a coup and deposed Mursi in close coordination with the American military and the Obama administration, liberal youth activists and pseudo-left political forces operating in and around Tamarod hailed it as a “second revolution.” Sameh Naguib, a leader of the pseudo-left Revolutionary Socialists (RS), enthused: “This is not the end of democracy, nor a simple military coup ... People feel empowered and entitled by the events of the last few days.”

In contrast, the day after the coup, the World Socialist Web Site warned the working class of the reactionary role the military would play. We wrote, “The army will seek to enforce the policies demanded by finance capital. In the final analysis, the conflict between the military on the one hand and the ousted Muslim Brotherhood on the other is a fight between conflicted factions of the ruling class. The main target of the repression that the military is preparing will be the working class. The stage has been set for the denunciation of further protest actions by the working class as harmful to the ‘national interest’ and illegitimate.”

This warning has been dramatically confirmed over the past year. After taking power, the al-Sisi junta unleashed a reign of terror against its political opponents, seeking to restore the military-police state as it existed under Hosni Mubarak, before the Egyptian revolution began in 2011.

The military government violently dispersed protests and strikes, shooting thousands in cold blood in the streets of Egypt’s cities. It banned Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood and sentenced over 2,000 of its members and supporters to death. According to recent figures from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, 41,163 people were jailed between the coup and May 15 of this year.

The year following the coup was without question a major setback for the Egyptian revolution. Yet it is not over. From the beginning, the Egyptian revolution has been driven by deep objective processes: the impoverishment and exploitation of the working class internationally, and the escalating crisis of imperialism in the Middle East. A new stage of the revolution will begin, and the key task is to draw the necessary political lessons to prepare for it.

The al-Sisi coup was the culmination of three-and-a-half years of bitter revolutionary struggles that have confirmed Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution. None of Egypt’s bourgeois factions—the army, the Muslim Brotherhood, or the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left groups that oscillated between them—had any progressive perspective to solve the democratic and social demands of the masses.

The task of building a truly democratic society freed from poverty and imperialist oppression, the Theory of Permanent Revolution explains, falls to the working class in a struggle for world socialist revolution. It was on the basis of this perspective that the WSWS opposed the al-Sisi coup.

The WSWS consistently defended this position from the beginning of the Egyptian revolution, explaining on the day before the working class toppled Mubarak: “The revolutionary Marxists must counsel workers against all illusions that their democratic aspirations can be achieved under the aegis of bourgeois parties. They must expose ruthlessly the false promises of the political representatives of the capitalist class. They must encourage the creation of independent organs of workers’ power which can become, as the class struggle intensifies, the basis for the transfer of power to the working class. They must explain that the realization of workers’ essential democratic demands is inseparable from the implementation of socialist policies ...

“Above all, revolutionary Marxists must raise the political horizons of Egyptian workers beyond the borders of their own country. They must explain that the struggles that are now unfolding in Egypt are inextricably linked to an emerging global process of world socialist revolution, and that the victory of the revolution in Egypt requires not a national, but an international perspective.”

In Egypt, all the necessary prerequisites for a revolution were present save one: a revolutionary party fighting for this perspective. The central question posed in Egypt, and internationally, is the construction of such a party, a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, fighting to rekindle the struggles of the revolution, bring down the al-Sisi government, and take up the fight for socialism.

Johannes Stern

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Until now, we mostly talked about how to create simple components in Angular, like a zippy or a tabs component, and we also covered some isolated parts of the framework like the new dependency injection. In this article we are going to discuss another essential part when it comes to building components: Styling.

A component in Angular is basically a controller class with a template. But as all of us know, a component also needs it’s own styles, especially when it comes to sharing reusable components across applications, which is what we want to achieve in the modern web anyways, right?

We can always write our CSS code in a way, that it is modular and easily extensible at the same time. However, if we don’t rely on technologies like Web Components, our styles all end up concatenated and minified in the head of our HTML document, without our components actually knowing that they exist. This is actually good when we think in separation of concerns, on the other hand, if we build a component and want to share it, it should come packaged with all the needed styles, scoped to that component.

Angular components are designed with exactly that in mind. A component comes with HTML, JavaScript but also has it’s own styles that belong to it. All we need to do is to define the styles in our component, or at least declare, where to get those from. In fact, there are three ways to associate CSS styles to a component in Angular: Component inline styles, style urls and template inline styles. Let’s explore them one by one.

Component inline styles

The easiest way to add styles to a component is taking advantage of the @Component decorators that allow us to define component inline styles. All we need to do is to add a styles property to the decorator and define the styles. To see what that looks like, here’s a snippet of our zippy component that we’ve built a while ago.

@ Component ({ moduleId : module . id , selector : 'my-zippy' , templateUrl : 'my-zippy.component.html' , styles : [ ` . zippy { background : green ; } ` ] }) class ZippyComponent { @ Input () title : string ; }

This is pretty straight forward. You might wonder though, why the value of that property is a list and not just a (multi-line) string. Well, I wonder too. That’s why I asked the question right away.

Okay, so defining styles on the component is pretty clear, but where did those end up in the DOM? If we run this code in our browser, we see that there’s something very interesting happening. It turns out that Angular takes the defined styles, and writes them into the head of the HTML document. Here’s what that looks like:

<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <style> .zippy { background : green ; } </style> </head> <body> ... </body> </html>

What’s going on there? The reason why Angular takes our styles and puts them up there, is because of the View Encapsulation that we are using. Since Angular 2.x, it comes with three different view encapsulation types in order to support both, browsers that don’t support Shadow DOM, and also the ones that do support it. The view encapsulations will be explored in another article are covered in this article, but we have to touch on this though in order to understand why this is happening.

Angular currently uses the Emulated View Encapsulation by default. Which basically means, there’s no usage of any Shadow DOM at all. One of the nice features of Shadow DOM is style encapsulation. It allows us to scope styles to a specific component without affecting the outer world.

To take advantage of style encapsulation, styles have to be put into the shadowRoot of a component. Due to the Shadow DOM strategy that is used, there is no shadowRoot to put our styles into. That’s why Angular writes them into the head. But as mentioned, there’s another article that explains all three view encapsulations.

Let’s take a look at another way of adding styles to our component.

Styles urls

In an ideal world, we don’t have to mix our styles with our application code. That’s why we have the <link> tag, that allows us to fetch and embed a stylesheet from a server. Angular components allow us to define styleUrls , so that styles don’t have to be written into the component. Pretty straight forward, here’s an example:

@ Component ({ moduleId : module . id , selector : 'my-zippy' , templateUrl : 'my-zippy.component.html' , styleUrls : [ 'my-zippy.component.css' ] }) class ZippyComponent { @ Input () title : string ; }

Where do those end up in the DOM? Well, for the same reason as explained earlier, they are written into the head of the document. But not only that, when Angular fetches the style resources, it takes the text response, inlines and appends them after all component inline styles. So if we would have a configuration like this:

@ Component ({ moduleId : module . id , selector : 'my-zippy' , templateUrl : 'my-zippy.component.html' , styles : [ '.zippy { background: green; }' ], styleUrls : [ 'my-zippy.component.css' ] }) class ZippyComponent { @ Input () title : string ; }

And the my-zippy.component.css content would look like this:

. zippy { background : blue ; }

We will end up with a document head that looks something like this:

<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <style> .zippy { background : green ; } </ style > < style > .zippy { background : blue ; } </style> </head> <body> ... </body> </html>

This also brings us to the next conclusion that styles defined in style urls will always be appended and therefore override styles defined in the component, unless the inline styles don’t have a higher specificity.

Last but not least, we have template inline styles.

Template inline styles

We can for sure always write our styles directly into the DOM, nobody can prevent us from doing that. In fact, when thinking in Web Components it’s quite common to put styles directly into the template of a component, since they will be encapsulated when Shadow DOM is used.

Translating the styles used above to template inline styles would look something like this (in case of our zippy component):

<style> .zippy { background : red ; } </style> <div class= "zippy" > <div ( click )=" toggle ()" class= "zippy__title" > {{ visible ? ' ▾ ' : ' ▸ ' }} {{title}} </div> <div [ hidden ]="! visible " class= "zippy__content" > <content></content> </div> </div>

Guess what, also those will be appended in the head of our document, after the ones defined in the component or as style urls. Template inline styles always have the highest priority, which sounds pretty straight forward to me.


rbutr Puts Climate Information In Front of Those Who Need It Most

Posted on 6 May 2012 by Shane Greenup

Guest post by Shane Greenup.

It is an unfortunate fact that most people will tend to only see information which confirms their current beliefs. Thanks to choosing friends with similar beliefs, choosing news programs which report things in a way which we find agreeable, and now thanks to the filter bubble concept, even Google and Facebook are selectively giving us more of what we have previously indicated we liked and clicked on.

This is a real problem for those of us who are interested in genuinely finding the truth in this sea of opinions. How do we inform ourselves completely when everywhere we look (whether by design or by accident) we only see more self-confirming bias? Perhaps more importantly, how do we reach everyone else who is trapped in their own bubble of self-confirmation, and don’t even realise it?

In an attempt to help with this problem we have recently launched an application which provides a surprisingly simple way out of this self-confirmation bubble for anyone who cares to look. It is called rbutr, and it simply allows people to connect one webpage which makes a claim, to another webpage which rebuts that claim. In doing so, any future visitors to the original claim webpage are then able to see that that page has been rebutted, and can easily click through to read the rebuttal.

Take for example a recent Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal: No Need to Panic About Global Warming. Within our system we already have 8 rebuttals listed for this page. Following one of them to Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog we get a thorough debunking of the op ed, including use of Skeptical Science’s Escalator animation. Interestingly, there is also a rebuttal posted to Phil Plait’s rebuttal, taking you to an article which argues against the escalator graphic. Looking at that article though, you are then able to click through to another rebuttal on SkS itself, defending the graphic, which has also provided links to a few other articles which argue against W.M.Briggs’ article criticising the escalator. Using rbutr you are able to immediately step outside the single perspective presented on any one of these websites, and see the greater internet-wide discussion which is taking place.

One point which is particularly worth noting about rbutr, which separates it from other apps designed to inform people about particular subjects, is that rbutr is neither subject specific, nor agenda driven. This is important, because the way that people are trapped within their own confirmation-bubble means that the people who most need to install an application like Skeptical Science’s climate change myth debunking tool, won’t even know it exists! However, if the tool is genuinely neutral and the subject matter presented by the tool is entirely up to the contributors, then hopefully it is just as likely to be used by creationists as it is to be used by evolutionists, by anti-vaccinationists as by vaccine supporters, and of course, by all people on all perspectives of the climate change debate. Because really, preaching to the converted is not much help to anyone…

What Do We Hope To Achieve?

We do hope to have a significant impact on the way information is accessed online. Since launching our beta just over a month ago, rbutr has had press coverage in The Australian, a great review by Tim Farley of SkepTools, and made it in to the final 52 of the 1078 applications for the Knight Media News Challenge - we're waiting to see if we've made it in to the top 15, and then one of the winners who will receive a large grant to fund ongoing development costs of our application.

Our current goal is to build a large, vibrant and active community who are all interested in improving the quality of online discourse and information in general. Providing a way for people to readily inform themselves with quality information.

We are also looking at ways rbutr can be used to provide a platform on which an online crowdsourced debates can be conducted - allowing opposing sides to present their arguments and counter arguments to the best of their ability (as a global community), rather than relying on fallible individuals, or moderators to control the exchanges. The exact details are still being sorted out, but if you register with rbutr we will be sure to keep you informed, and if you are interested in participating or helping out, please feel free to contact us.

In the end, we just hope that for every new article which pops up repeating an already debunked myth, it will be fast and simple to add a rbutr link to an already existing rebuttal, immediately quashing any new-resurgence of the old myth for all rbutr users, who will then hopefully spread that rebuttal to other non-rbutr users, helping to keep the mole-whackers one step ahead of the nonsense-spreaders...

Head over to http://rbutr.com, register, install the plugin (chrome only at the moment – we are still in beta testing), and let us know what you think! We’re eager for as much feedback and thoughts as we can get during these early stages.


Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced today that the club has signed defenseman Julius Honka to a three-year entry-level contract. Per club policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Honka, 18, played his first season of North American hockey in 2013-14. In 62 regular-season games for Swift Current of the Western Hockey League, he posted 56 points (16-40=56), which paced all team defensemen. Honka was also tied for third on the team with two goals (2-0=2) in six postseason contests as well.

A native of Jyvaskyla, Finland, he won a gold medal for his country at the 2014 World Jr. Championship, recording one assist (0-1=1) in seven games. Honka also won a bronze medal for Finland at the 2013 Under-18 World Junior Championship, earning four points (1-3=4) in seven games.

"We are happy to have signed Julius quickly so that the young defenseman can continue the process of developing his game," said Nill. "He's highly skilled, moves the puck extremely well and is very competent at running a power play. We are really excited about his potential and think he has the tools to grow into an NHL defenseman in the near future."

The 5-foot-11, 180-pound defenseman was originally selected by Dallas with the 14th overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft.


Drones set for commercial take-off

Updated

Hundreds of small commercially operated drones could soon take to Australian skies under a radical new set of rules proposed by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) in Melbourne this week.

Under a new weight class system, prospective drone entrepreneurs with craft weighing 2 kilograms or less could take off after completing nothing more than an online application form.

CASA officials say they want to encourage use of this emerging technology, but the drone plan will be forced to dodge flak from opponents who have raised serious concerns over safety and privacy.

Warne vs the FoxKopter

In the practise nets at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a taut Shane Warne confronted an expressionless drone. Robocop in cricket whites? Almost.

The legendary spin bowler was appearing in a Fox Sports promotion for the Twenty20 Big Bash League.

But the real star of the promo was FoxKopter, a small camera-drone deployed over several games this season. Flying 30 metres clear of the spectators, FoxKopter provided TV audiences with an up close and personal view of the match play. After a successful summer, the drone has already been deployed for the National Rugby League.

From sport to news gathering to lifesaving patrols, there are dozens of potential civilian applications of drone technology. Currently there are just 33 CASA-approved commercial drones operators in Australia, mainly deployed on scientific research, surveying and aerial photography.

The approvals process can take months and costs thousands of dollars, with applicants required to complete about 90 per cent of a conventional private pilot's course.

That will abruptly change if CASA introduces the new rules on small 'Unmanned Aerial Systems' (UAS), more commonly called drones, operating commercially in Australian skies.

But CASA is also responding to the rapid, uncontrolled spread of high performance drone technology in Australia. Director of aviation safety John McCormick concedes he has no way of effectively enforcing regulations on those who don't want to fly by the rules.

This week in Melbourne he told a conference organised by industry lobby group The Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems Australia that there could already be up to 100 drones operating illegally.

"We think that for every one we know of there are two or three that we do not," he said.

Better, faster, cheaper

The problem for CASA is that small drone technology is now proliferating at an extraordinary rate, with capability and performance doubling every 18 months, while the price and size of the craft continues to plummet.

Currently $2,000 typically buys you a small, high performance multi-rotor the size of a wheelie bin lid, equipped with HD live stream video cameras, GPS, autopilot, top speed of 70 kilometres per hour, with a range of two to three kilometres and a 15-20 minute flight time.

Most of these craft are legally flown by hobbyists who are required to stay below 400 feet, and operate only in daylight, well away from airports and areas of high population density. These recreational flyers are not required to undertake training or register their craft.

There are no accurate records on the numbers of small drones now in Australia, as they are often assembled locally from components ordered online from overseas. Hobbyists and retailers speculate that about 100 new multi-rotors and fixed wing drones are now taking to Australian skies each week.

The cat's out of the bag, long ago, long ago. Director of Aviation Safety John McCormick

For CASA's John McCormick, it's a regulatory nightmare.

"The cat’s out of the bag, long ago, long ago," he says.

"The way you manage this is you manage it through Customs, you say you can't bring one in, just like they did with laser pointers, yes? You can't bring them in.

"But that's not my decision, I've got to work with what I've got.

"That's a decision for Government, that's a decision for other people to use or implement, be they Customs or Federal Police or somebody. But from our point of view, once it's out there, I can't pass a law I know I can't enforce."

One size doesn't fit all

John McCormick's skies are being further darkened by growing swarms of smaller craft, marketed as toys.

Weighing in at just 700 grams, the $350 Parrot AR Drone 2.0. boasts HD cameras and a more modest range of 50 metres.

Optional extras now include a plug in GPS, and tests on new control systems have pushed the range out to one kilometre, batteries permitting.

The Parrot Company refuses to reveal sales figures, but leading industry website sUAS News claims 500,000 have been sold worldwide since it was first launched in 2010.

"The very lightweight thing you can buy in Harvey Norman or any toyshop somewhere, am I going to go out and tell that guy or woman to get an operators certificate? I can't write a regulation I know I can't enforce – I can. But it's bad law," John McComick says.

So CASA is writing some rules it can control. Pending consultation with industry, the Authority will re-categorise all commercial drones in four weight classes, to be flown under the same rules as hobbyists until they receive specific exemptions.

Operators of the smallest Group A, weighing 2kg or less, will simply be able to fill out an online authorisation form, receive electronic approval, and start flying.

Senior CASA officer Jim Coyne says the safety risk posed by this group is negligible, comparable to being hit by a cricket ball.

"A cricket ball weights about 160 grams, but at 100 kilometres per hour, [with a] kinetic energy of about 62 joules….there's been no recorded incident of anyone being killed by a cricket ball in the stand," he says.

"The potential for harm and the consequence is very low.

"We talk about a harmless UAS, causing minimal harm to a person. If it hits them on the head it will give them a headache. If it hits them in the back it will give them a bit of a bruise, but it is not going to kill you."

The bigger the drone, the more stringent the controls. The 2-7 kilogram class will require a risk assessment, and CASA will provide a half-dozen-page rule book.

"Potential for harm goes up, still it's not going to do a lot of damage ... that's seven kilograms, about the weight of a six-month-old baby, at 14 knots, or 26 kilometres per hour," Jim Coyne says.

He says operators proposing to launch the biggest drones in Group D will face greater scrutiny.

"For example, the Scan Eagle weighs about 20kg, it can fly at about 15,000 feet, it can be on station for 20-plus hours, and flies about 120kph. It can fly to New Zealand, it can fly internationally ... that person will be licensed, that person will have a full risk assessment, and it will be treated like a real aircraft."

Globally, civilian drones are set to become big business, eventually eclipsing the military market. US aviation analysts the Teal Group forecasts $US89 billion will be spent in the combined military/civil sector over the next decade.

Despite growing industry and community pressure, CASA's John McCormick insists there will be no compromises.

"Safety is the number one priority, that’s the only reason CASA exists," he says.

'Flying lawnmower'

CASA can expect some heavy flak from sections of the piloted aviation community, which points out that drones carry no effective systems to avoid collisions.

Last year a commercial helicopter pilot, who requested he not be named, told the ABC he had already had one near miss with an unidentified drone.

What the FAA says about drones: Federal agencies are planning to increase their use of UASs. State and local governments envision using UASs to aid in law enforcement and firefighting. Potential commercial uses are also possible, for example, in real estate photography or pipeline inspection. UASs could perform some manned aircraft missions with less noise and fewer emissions. Federal Aviation Authority (US) Forecast Fiscal Years 2010-2030

And in November 2011, a Royal Australian Navy target-towing jet encountered an unidentified drone while flying at 3,000 feet, 65 nautical miles east of Jervis Bay in NSW.

The mystery drone was not operated by the Australian or US military, nor any of the certified civilian operators.

While most operators do fly responsibly, drones will crash, and the small-drone-disaster is becoming a popular YouTube genre.

One recent clip from Brazil no doubt sent shudders through the Fox TV/Foxkopter camp: A phone camera recorded the worst-case sports scenario, as a small drone tracked across a football stadium before veering off course and into the crowded terraces.

No-one appeared to be injured, but 5kg of carbon fibre and alloy, propelled at 40kph by several spinning rotors, still generates a lot of what aviation engineers call "kinetic energy".

In lay terms this translates as being hit by a flying lawn mower.

Who watches the watchers?

But perhaps the biggest challenge to CASA's drone future is privacy.

In 2012 the US Congress ordered the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to integrate drones in domestic airspace by 2015.

The FAA estimated 15,000 civil and commercial drones could be flying by 2020, and as many as 30,000 by 2030.

The ACLU's view Rules must be put in place to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits of this new technology without bringing us closer to a "surveillance society" in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinised by the government. Drone manufacturers are also considering offering police the option of arming these remote-controlled aircraft with (nonlethal for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas. The ACLU's Domestic Drones blog

Now this ambitious timetable is stalling. The pro-drone lobby is locked in an epic struggle with growing numbers of US privacy advocates, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is concerned by the mass surveillance capabilities of this technology and its potential misuse by police.

US state and regional governments have also begun banning civilian drone operations in their locales before the concept has even taken off.

Australia has yet to have its drone debate. Given the implications of CASA's proposed reforms, Government sources tell the ABC it is unlikely any changes could be implemented before the federal election in September.

Last year Federal Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim told the ABC he was concerned by the patchwork of federal and state laws that may or may not cover various civilian drone activities, and the ability of police to operate drones without a warrant.

He requested that Commonwealth, state and New Zealand attorneys general meet to formulate a coherent overall strategy for this emerging technology.

That hasn't happened yet.

In stark contrast to the United States, public opinion in Australia remains finely balanced by disinterest.

If a drone is used to assist in the rescue of the drowning swimmer, perhaps widespread acceptance will follow. But if a multi-rotor gets sucked into the engine of an Airbus on take-off from Mascot, we may well see drone control right up there alongside gun control.

What to read next Drone journalism takes off : As the media starts to deploy small toy-like drones to cover stories, what ethical and safety issues are arising?

As the media starts to deploy small toy-like drones to cover stories, what ethical and safety issues are arising? The kill chain: Behind the scenes of Australia's drone war.

Behind the scenes of Australia's drone war. Rise of the machines: How civilian drones are already being put to use in the US.

- Mark Corcoran has been a reporter/producer with Foreign Correspondent for 15 years. He is currently a Visiting Fellow and research student at the University of Technology, Sydney, examining potential news-gathering applications of drone technology.

Topics: science-and-technology, australia

First posted


Assassin's Creed Unity's next major update (Patch 4) has begun rolling out on Xbox One and PS4, so forget about the delay we wrote about earlier.

Detailing the new update, Ubisoft says the patch is "mainly focused on alleviated performance issues and improving the overall experience." Part of that is an improved frame rate which Ubisoft says involved replacing and updating portions of the Paris city map. Of course, there's a number of other improvements as well — all of which are detailed in the patch notes below:

Stability, Performance and Save Game

Fixed numerous random crashes both on Campaign and Coop

Implemented multiple optimizations and fixes to improve overall performance

Fixed save issue caused by the companion app on the main menu (loss of data)

Fixed save issue caused by contacts list (crash occurring). Users should now have access to save

Gameplay (navigation, fight, stealth)

Fixed various navigation issues

Fixed issues with lock picking chests

Fixed additional haystack issues

Character, AI and Crowd

Fixed various character, crowd station and NPC issues

Online, Matchmaking, Connectivity and Replication

Fixed various matchmaking and connection issues both in matches and when starting a match.

Fixed various issues with voice chat

Fixed join-in-progress issues

Fixed various replication issues between host and clients

Fixed issues with player rank and COOP/heist rewards

Fixed issues with Helix credits

Fixed issues with the My Club feature

Menus and HUD

Fixed HUD icon issues and issues with map information

Fixed various Initiates issues

Fixed additional issues with notifications

Mission tweaks (campaign, coop and side content)

Fixed various low occurrence walkthrough breaks in both Campaign and COOP

Fixed various NPC issues

Fixed issue with the quest log disappearing for specific side missions

World and 3D

Fixed various collision and mesh issues

Fixed additional issues where player would fall through the world

Fixed specific areas where textures were missing

PC-Specific

Fixed crash on "Quit to Windows" in free roam mode

Fixed crash on accepting multiple "Join the club" requests

Fixed issues with TXAA

Fixed issues with PCSS

Fixed issues with textures on NPCs

Fixed black texture issues on MSAA-4x, MSAA-8x and TXAA

Right Control now can be assigned as a hotkey

Minor UI fixes

Because portions of the map had to be replaced, today's title update checks in at 6.7 GB; however, since a large portion of the patch replaces existing files the net increased to the game's overall size is actually less than 6.7 GB.

Patch 4 is rolling out to Xbox One and PS4 players today and will be available on PC later in the week.


Today’s post comes from Alan Walker, archivist at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

In my reflective moments, I think about what has kept me here at the National Archives for all this time. It couldn’t be the bone-wearying monotony of shuffling heavy cartons of records from here to there, or the tedium of changing out old information systems and learning the vagaries of new ones. No, there’s something else that gets me in the door every morning. Fasteners.

You wouldn’t think that something so trivial would hold my attention for any length of time. And yet, paper fasteners play such a vital role in our daily lives here. Consider: when researchers open boxes of records, they will see the telltale signs—the double round holes centered at the tops of the documents, the pinprick perforations in the corners. And many fasteners are still doing their duty among the records now.

It is a canon of archival preservation that fasteners are the devil’s work; capable of doing lasting and disfiguring damage to their host’s integrity, they must be removed, and forthwith. And so they are. Textual processing staff at all National Archives facilities do this every day. Perhaps gazillions of the little buggers get the boot each year; here are some Acco fasteners awaiting their fate.

My fellow staff like to collect the unusual ones. Clips, pins, staples, nails (!), tabs, and types whose names I couldn’t begin to fathom—we have come across an astounding variety among the records. Customer Service Division chief Diane Dimkoff told me that she once found an inch-and-a-half-long thorn holding papers together! They were Army records from the field during World War II; you had to make do with what you had.

Just among the humble paper clip, the range of artistry is astounding! Twisted into an amazing variety of shapes, angles, and patterns, there is a touching industrial beauty about them. And the range of raw materials from which these fasteners were produced—steel, aluminum, copper, plastic, string, even compressed paper! —offers a history lesson in itself; how industry introduced new materials and methods of production in the search for more efficiencies of cost, while ever mindful of how they could stylishly set themselves apart from the competition.

The fasteners themselves generate conversation. Archivist Pam Anderson at Lee’s Summit tells of how court records from Puerto Rico were, for lack of folders, simply pierced through the center with extra-large staples. Not a bit of fun for the National Archives staff who have to remove them.

Folks who work in processing the records will tell you that part of what they love about their work is the excitement of opening a box to see what’s inside. And sometimes, while the records themselves may not seem interesting, what’s attached to them can be fasten-ating.

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The Pacific Ocean is growing more acidic at a much faster rate than anticipated, scientists say, putting everything from corals to mussels in jeopardy.

Researchers say carbon dioxide from the atmosphere forms carbonic acid in the ocean, changing the seawater enough that it can dissolve the shells of coral and shellfish.

The water off the west coast of Vancouver Island is changing at an unprecedented rate, meaning vulnerable life forms in the ocean's food chain must adapt or die.

UBC PhD student Kathryn Anderson says sea urchins are one of the many species extremely sensitive to the changes now underway.

"It'll hit the larval stage, it'll hit the fertilization stage, it'll hit the adult stage," she said.

"Urchins are going to be hit from many different angles … this is stuff that we do know. Urchins will be highly negatively impacted."

Tidal pools along the coast are home to a complex web of life, with dozens of species dependent on each other.

"All the species we look at interact pretty tightly with each other," Anderson said.

"A single species may be affected less directly by ocean acidification, but because another species that it consumes or consumes it is highly affected by ocean acidification, that can cascade down the food web, through connections of competition and affect the entire community structure.

"People are only just starting to even consider these concepts."

'A spectacular environment'

As ocean acidification continues, some species will die off and others will grow faster, creating an imbalance in the food chain.

Pisaster, or starfish, grow faster and eat more in response to ocean acidification, while its main food source, mussels, grow slower. (CBC)

"Our top predator, the pisaster [a starfish], is pretty interesting," she said.

"It has calcium carbonate in it but mostly in the form of spicules, and the research from our lab actually found that pisaster grow faster in response to ocean acidification and consume more.

"And this is an interesting problem because their main food source are mussels, which grow slower in response to ocean acidification. So they're becoming more voracious carnivores, while their food source is having a harder time calcifying and growing."

Near the Bamfield Marine Research Station on Vancouver Island, 60 artificial tide pools that Anderson constructed each form their own little ecosystem. She's pumping in different levels of carbon dioxide in order to determine how different species will react.

"What I am trying to do is in one-third of my tide pools, trying to get a picture for what a tide pool is going to look like in 2100, and what tide pool our grandkids will look at," she said.

"It's a spectacular environment, and the truth is we don't know if it is going to look like that. We will lose a lot of stuff. I don't think the urchins will be there at all."

Lessons from a scallop farm

For some, that future has already arrived.

Aquaculture is big business in B.C., supplying a steadily increasing percentage of the food supply.

At Island Scallops near Qualicum Beach, scallops are raised from microscopic larvae. Two years ago, something all but wiped out a billion of them — nearly the entire year's crop.

"In 2010, we couldn't grow anything, everything died," said Island Scallops owner Rob Saunders.

"Every batch we put through the hatchery either died at day 10 or by the end of its larval life, which is about day 20, they were all dead. "

Similar problems were popping up all along the Pacific Coast. Some blamed a mysterious disease, and those in the industry scrambled to test water temperature and salinity, but nobody considered pH.

"I was trained at UBC, and we were trained that the ocean never changes," Saunders said. "It's the mother Earth, it's always stable and it hardly fluctuates, nobody was looking at pH."

With creditors calling and his multimillion-dollar business on the line, Saunders came across a study detailing the effects of pH levels on fish. He altered the pH of the water and put some larvae under the microscope.

"After we removed the CO2, I came in early in the morning, and I'm looking at the microscope ... and sure enough they were swimming around like mad, and then we knew we had it, and we haven't looked back since then."

Mass extinction feared

In Port Moody, UBC marine biologist Chris Harley and a student are conducting experiments to examine the effect of ocean pH on invasive species.

UBC marine biologist Chris Harley says it is 'highly likely' we are in a period of mass extinction. (CBC)

"We're pretty that sure mussels are going to not do well, because they have to grow shells, which is hard to do when the water is acidic," Harley said.

"The barnacles, every study seems to show the barnacles are almost immune to this, so they might be all right."

Harley has students working up and down the West Coast this summer, doing some basic research. He believes the changes he's seeing are directly related to climate change — the CO2 long accumulated in the oceans is now making its way toward shore.

"You have a power plant ... when it needs to be turned on, to generate extra electricity, it's burning natural gas, which is putting carbon dioxide into the air," Harley said.

"That carbon dioxide ends up in the ocean ... where it changes the pH of the water — and that's where it starts to create trouble for the plants and animals that live there."

There is debate about the role humans play in ocean acidification, but there's no doubt acidification is happening.

Adjusting pH in the controlled setting of a scallop farm is relatively easy, but changing it for the entire Pacific Ocean is next to impossible.

Harley says the science suggests we're in a period of mass extinction.

"It's highly likely we are in that scenario now. It's not just ocean acidification," he said.

"It's also overfishing combined with warming, combined with acidification, combined with lots of other things, and all of these changes happening so quickly and happening all at the same time is pushing these species past where they can rebound when their populations get knocked down.

"So over the next 50 years, we should probably see a lot of species go extinct in the sea."

Scientists are seeing changes in their own lifetime that in the past would have taken thousands of years.

Researchers are struggling to catch up — monitoring changes, trying to determine just how bad it will get and finding out which species will be the first to go.


A pro-Police group has accused CNN of deceptively editing the Charlotte shooting video, where police shot Keith Scott. Hat tip to our friends at The Daily Wire.

Yes, as shocking as it sounds to accuse CNN of doing such a thing (see CAUGHT: CNN Forced to Apologize For Doctoring Violent Milwaukee Video), let’s take a look. First, what CNN aired…

Second, the unedited footage…

Looks like a deceptive edit to me. CNN removed the clips where the police constantly yelled for Scott to “DROP THE GUN!”

“The editing was clearly intended to give viewers the impression that Scott wasn’t armed. By intentionally excluding information to promote the false narrative that the officer-involved shooting of Keith Scott was unjustified, CNN directly contributed towards inciting violence and destruction in the Charlotte riots. Innocent citizens were hurt during the Charlotte riots, but editing like this also incites violence against police officers long after the riots are over.”

This is what conservatives and anyone who cares about facts are up against (see RED-HANDED: Katie Couric Caught Editing Video to Push Anti-Gun Lies… and CENSORED: White House Edits Video of French President Saying ‘Islamist Terrorism’). The media will never let facts get in the way of their narrative unless they get called out.

To recap:

To the average person who works and raises a family and doesn’t have the time to fact check the media (because they assume it’s the media’s job to fact check themselves), they just hear “cops shoot black man holding book.”

Liberals know this. They run with it. They reap the consequences of their actions with ratings as cities like Charlotte burn. Media like CNN, with this editing trick, helped Black Lives Matter push the false narrative that cops are shooting unarmed black men. But no. Not so much, as this video shows.

And this is why we fight back.

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(UPDATED) The former first lady is accused of creating private foundations in Switzerland from 1978 to 1984 when she was governor of Metro Manila

Published 1:05 PM, January 17, 2017

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED)– Ilocos Norte 2nd District Representative Imelda Marcos did not attend her last day of trial for a 25-year-old graft case before the Sandiganbayan, which has now been postponed to February 16.

The 5th Division on Tuesday, January 17, reset the trial because the defense failed to present their last evidence, which includes a testimony from deceased former judge Cesario del Rosario.

The 10 counts of graft filed in 1991 against Marcos stemmed from allegations that she created private foundations in Switzerland from 1978 to 1984 while she was governor of Metro Manila.

The former first lady also allegedly held financial interests in several private enterprises, a violation of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

Assistant Special Prosecutor Rey Quilala told reporters that the evidence from the defense team consist of documents dating back to the 1990s. One is a copy of Del Rosario's testimony when the case was still with the Manila Regional Trial Court. Another is an internal memorandum between Del Rosario, then assistant solicitor general, and Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, then the chief presidential legal counsel of president Fidel Ramos.

The memo is said to be Del Rosario's briefer to Carpio, as the latter, after being appointed by Ramos in 1992, asked the former for an update on cases against the Marcoses.

Neither the former first lady nor her lawyers attended the hearing.

Quilala told reporters they will seek a formal order so the case could proceed for judgment. The prosecution had rested its case in 2015.

The private foundations that Marcos allegedly formed are considered among her and her family's hidden assets in Switzerland.

The government has since been able to identify $658 million worth of Marcos Swiss deposits. Documents which were used by the government to track down these deposits are used in related cases, such as this 1991 graft case.

The Sandiganbayan Special 1st Division is also handling another corruption claim against the former first lady, stemming from appeals from the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to declare $24 million worth of art collections "unlawfully acquired." (READ: Recovering Marcos' ill-gotten wealth: After 30 years, what?) – Rappler.com


Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., has reopened after being on lockdown for nearly six hours due to an “online threat made against the university,” officials said.

All students and staff were asked to stay away from the campus as police investigated. Classes and meetings were also cancelled.

The lockdown was lifted at approximately 11:30 a.m.

Threat contained “similar verbiage” to posts about Oregon shooting

The nature of the threat is not immediately clear, but Waterloo police superintendent Pat Dietrich said it contained “similar verbiage” to online threats on the same website ahead of the shooting at the Umpqua Community College in Oregon that killed 9 on earlier this month.

“It was something we understand was previously used on a school-related…incident in the State and that elevated concerns,” Dietrich said. “It was the shooting in Oregon.”

The threat “was picked up by a variety of police forces and passed on to the Waterloo Regional Police,” Crowley said.

The university’s Special Constable received a tip about the threat from Waterloo police at approximately 3 a.m. on Friday. The university was placed on lockdown at 6 a.m.

Crowley said the threat was centred at the Science Building at University and Bricker Avenues. The building was empty when the university was placed on lockdown and no injuries have been reported, Crowley said.

Suspect may not be a local

Dietrich also said the person who posted the threat online may not be in the Waterloo area, or even in the country.

As a result, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the RCMP are also involved in the investigation, Dietrich said.

“These are very complicated investigations, locating IP addresses and the ways you can mask them is something that is very complex,” Dietrich told reporters.

The suspect, he said, could face public mischief charges.

The university is in its reading week and campus is not as crowded as usual.

All students, faculty and staff were notified about the lockdown by email and on social media, Crowley said.

Representatives from the university will provide updated information via legacy.wlu.ca as it becomes available.

The nearby University of Waterloo remained open during the lockdown, but officials said they were monitoring the situation at Wilfrid Laurier University closely.

With files from CTV Kitchener


The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a British civilian organisation set up during the Second World War and headquartered at White Waltham Airfield that ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants, transatlantic delivery points, maintenance units (MUs), scrap yards, and active service squadrons and airfields, but not to naval aircraft carriers. It also flew service personnel on urgent duty from one place to another and performed some air ambulance work. Notably, some of its pilots were women, and from 1943 they received equal pay to their male co-workers, a first for the British government.

Mission [ edit ]

The initial plan was that the ATA would carry personnel, mail and medical supplies, but the pilots were immediately needed to work with the Royal Air Force (RAF) ferry pools transporting aircraft.[1] By 1 May 1940 the ATA had taken over transporting all military aircraft from factories to maintenance units to have guns and accessories installed. On 1 August 1941 the ATA took over all ferrying jobs.[2] This freed the much-needed combat pilots for combat duty. At one time there were fourteen ATA ferry pools as far apart as Hamble, between Southampton and Portsmouth, and Lossiemouth near Inverness in Scotland.

A special ATA Air Pageant was held at White Waltham on 29 September 1945 to raise money for the ATA Benevolent Fund, supported by the aircraft companies that had been served by the ATA. It included comprehensive static displays of Allied and German aircraft, including a V1, aero engines, and even an AA gun and searchlight complete with crew. Pilots taking part included Alex Henshaw in a Supermarine Seafire.

Lord Beaverbrook, a World War II Minister of Aircraft Production, gave an appropriate tribute at the closing ceremony disbanding the ATA at White Waltham on 30 November 1945:[3]

“ Without the ATA the days and nights of the Battle of Britain would have been conducted under conditions quite different from the actual events. They carried out the delivery of aircraft from the factories to the RAF, thus relieving countless numbers of RAF pilots for duty in the battle. Just as the Battle of Britain is the accomplishment and achievement of the RAF, likewise it can be declared that the ATA sustained and supported them in the battle. They were soldiers fighting in the struggle just as completely as if they had been engaged on the battlefront. ”

Accomplishment [ edit ]

During the war the ATA flew 415,000 hours and delivered more than 309,000[4] aircraft of 147 types, including Spitfires, Hawker Hurricanes, Mosquitoes, Mustangs, Lancasters, Halifaxes, Fairey Swordfish, Fairey Barracudas and Fortresses. The average aircraft strength of the ATA training schools was 78. A total of 133,247 hours were flown by school aircraft and 6,013 conversion courses were put through. The total flying hours of the Air Movement Flight were 17,059, of which 8,570 were on domestic flights and 8,489 on overseas flights. About 883 tons of freight were carried and 3,430 passengers were transported without any casualties; but a total of 174 pilots, women as well as men, were killed flying for the ATA in the wartime years.[5] Total taxi hours amounted to 179,325, excluding Air Movements.[6]

Initially, to comply with the Geneva Convention, as many of the ferry pilots were nominally civilians and/or women, aircraft were ferried with guns or other armament unloaded. However, after encounters with German aircraft in which the ferried aircraft were unable to fight back, RAF aircraft were ferried with guns fully armed.

Administration [ edit ]

The administration of the ATA fell to Gerard d'Erlanger, a director of British Airways Ltd, which was merged into the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in 1940. He had suggested a similar organisation in a letter dated 24 May 1938.

In late August 1939 the ATA was placed under British Airways Ltd for initial administration and finance,[1] but on 10 October 1939 Air Member for Supply and Organisation (AMSO) took over. The first pilots were assigned to RAF Reserve Command and attached to RAF flights to ferry trainers, fighters and bombers from factory and storage to Royal Air Force stations.[7] The ATA's Central Ferry Control, which allocated the required flights to all Ferry Pools, was based at RAF Andover.

Late in 1939 it was decided that a third and entirely civilian ferry pool should be set up at White Waltham, near Maidenhead in Berkshire. The operations of this pool began on 15 February 1940. On 16 May 1940 RAF Maintenance Command took control through its No. 41 Group. Then, on 22 July 1941, the ATA was placed under the control of Lord Beaverbrook's Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP). Although control shifted between organisations, administration was always carried out by staff led by Commander Gerard d’Erlanger CBE, first at British Airways Ltd, then, after the merger in 1940, at BOAC.[2]

Pilots [ edit ]

The ATA recruited pilots who were considered to be unsuitable for either the Royal Air Force or the Fleet Air Arm by reason of age, fitness or gender. A unique feature of the ATA was that physical handicaps were ignored if the pilot could do the job, thus there were one-armed, one-legged, short-sighted and one-eyed pilots, humorously referred to as "Ancient and Tattered Airmen".

The ATA also took pilots from neutral countries. Representatives of 28 countries flew with the ATA.[8]

Most notably, the ATA allowed women pilots to ferry aircraft. The female pilots (nicknamed "Attagirls")[9] had a high profile in the press. On 14 November 1939 Commander Pauline Gower MBE was given the task of organising the women's section of the ATA.[10] The first eight women pilots were accepted into service on 1 January 1940, initially only cleared to fly Tiger Moths from their base in Hatfield.[11] They were: Joan Hughes, Margaret Cunnison, Mona Friedlander, Rosemary Rees, Marion Wilberforce, Margaret Fairweather, Gabrielle Patterson, and Winifred Crossley Fair. Overall during World War II there were 166 women pilots, one in eight of all ATA pilots, and they volunteered from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States, the Netherlands and Poland. From Argentina and Chile came Maureen Dunlop and Margot Duhalde.[12] Fifteen of these women lost their lives in the air, including the British pioneer aviator Amy Johnson. Two of the women pilots received commendations; one was Helen Kerly.[13]

A notable American member of the ATA was legendary aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran who returned to the United States and started a similar all female organization known as the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).

These women pilots were initially restricted to non-combat types of aircraft (trainers and transports), but they were eventually permitted to fly virtually every type flown by the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm, including the four-engined heavy bombers, but excluding the largest flying boats. Hurricanes were first flown by women pilots on 19 July 1941, and Spitfires in August 1941.[11]

One of the many notable achievements of these women is that they received the same pay as men of equal rank in the ATA, starting in 1943. This was the first time that the British government gave its blessing to equal pay for equal work within an organisation under its control.[14] At the same time American women flying with the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were receiving as little as 65 per cent of the pay given to their male colleagues.[15]

Training [ edit ]

The first ATA pilots were introduced to military aircraft at the RAF’s Central Flying School (CFS), but the ATA soon developed its own training programme. Pilots progressed from light single-engined aircraft to more powerful and complicated aircraft in stages. They first qualified on one “class” of aircraft, then gained experience on that class by doing ferrying work with any and all aircraft in that class, before returning to training to qualify on the next class of aircraft. As a result, pilots made progress on the basis of their own capabilities rather than according to a rigid timetable. This ensured not only that as many pilots as possible advanced, but that those who could not were still gainfully employed flying the aircraft types on which they had qualified.

Once cleared to fly one class of aircraft, pilots could be asked to ferry any plane in that class even if they had never seen that type of aircraft before. To do so they had Ferry Pilot Notes, a two-ring book of small cards with the critical statistics and notations necessary to ferry each aircraft. A pilot cleared on more than one class could be asked to fly an aircraft in any of the categories on which he or she was qualified. Thus, even a pilot cleared to fly four-engined bombers could be assigned to fly a single-engined trainer if scheduling made this the most efficient way to get the aircraft to its destination.

The ATA trained its pilots only to ferry planes, rather than to achieve perfection on every type. For example, aerobatics and blind flying were not taught, and pilots were explicitly forbidden to do either, even if they were capable of doing so. The objective of the ATA was to deliver aircraft safely and that meant taking no unnecessary risks.[16]

Ranks [ edit ]

Units [ edit ]

The following units were active in the ATA:

No. 1 Ferry Pool ATA White Waltham, Maidenhead

Previously: No. 1 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA <- 'A' Section of No. 3 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 2 Ferry Pool ATA Whitchurch, Bristol

Previously: No. 2 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA <- 'B' Section of No. 3 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 3 Ferry Pool ATA Harwarden, Chester

Previously: No. 3 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA <- 'C' Section of No. 3 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 4 Ferry Pool ATA Prestwick, Ayrshire

Previously: No. 4 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 5 Ferry Pool ATA Thame, Oxfordshire (Training Unit)

Previously: No. 5 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA <- 'D' Section of No. 3 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA <- Women's Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 6 Ferry Pool ATA Radcliffe, Leicester

Previously: No. 6 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 7 Ferry Pool ATA Sherburn-in-Elmet, Leeds

Previously: No. 7 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 8 Ferry Pool ATA Sydenham, Belfast

Previously: No. 8 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 9 Ferry Pool ATA Aston Down, Gloucestershire

Previously: No. 9 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 10 Ferry Pool ATA Lossiemouth, Moray

Previously: No. 10 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA <- No. 4 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 12 Ferry Pool ATA Cosford, Staffordshire

Previously: No. 12 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 15 Ferry Pool ATA Hamble, Southampton

Previously: No. 15 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 16 Ferry Pool ATA Kirkbride, Carlisle

Previously: No. 16 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA <- No. 4 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 14 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA Ringway, Manchester

Previously: No. 14 Ferry Pilot Pool ATA

No. 5 (T) Ferry Pool ATA

Previously: (Training) Ferry Pool ATA

Initial Flying Training School ATA

Previously: Elementary Flying Training School ATA <- ATA School

Air Movements Flight ATA (1942–45)

Advanced Flying Training School ATA (1942–45)

Previously: ATA School

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Citations [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]

Lake, A (1999). Flying units of the RAF. Shrewsbury: Airlife. ISBN 1-84037-086-6.

Books [ edit ]

Air Transport Auxiliary, Air Transport Auxiliary . (Handbook) White Waltham: Reminder Book, 1945.

. (Handbook) White Waltham: Reminder Book, 1945. Barnato Walker, Diana. Spreading My Wings . Patrick Stephens, 1994 ISBN 1-85260-473-5

. Patrick Stephens, 1994 ISBN 1-85260-473-5 Bergel, Hugh. Fly and Deliver: A Ferry Pilot's Log Book . Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, 1982.

. Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, 1982. Cheesman, E. C. Brief Glory: The Story of A.T.A. . Leicester: Harborough Publishing, 1946.

. Leicester: Harborough Publishing, 1946. Curtis, Lettice. Lettice Curtis: Her Autobiography . Walton on Thames: Red Kite, 2004.

. Walton on Thames: Red Kite, 2004. Curtis, Lettice. The Forgotten Pilots: A Story of the Air Transport Auxiliary, 1939-45 . Olney, Bucks: Nelson & Saunders, 1985 ISBN 0-947750-02-9

. Olney, Bucks: Nelson & Saunders, 1985 ISBN 0-947750-02-9 De Bunsen, Mary. Mount Up with Wings . London: Hutchinson, 1960.

. London: Hutchinson, 1960. Du Cros, Rosemary. ATA Girl: Memoirs of a Wartime Ferry Pilot . London: Muller, 1983.

. London: Muller, 1983. Ellis, Mary. A Spitfire Girl . Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2016.

. Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2016. Fahie, Michael. A Harvest of Memories: The Life of Pauline Gower M.B.E. . Peterborough: GMS Enterprises, 1995.

. Peterborough: GMS Enterprises, 1995. Genovese, J. Gen. We Flew Without Guns . Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1945.

. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1945. Great Britain, and Hugh Bergel. Flying Wartime Aircraft; ATA Ferry Pilots' *Handling Notes for Seven World War II Aircraft . Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1972.

. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1972. Hathaway, Warren. Pursuit of a Dream: The Story of Pilot Vera (Strodl) Dowling . Edmonton, Canada: PageMaster Publishing, 2012.

. Edmonton, Canada: PageMaster Publishing, 2012. Hawkins, Regina Trice. Hazel Jane Raines, Pioneer Lady of Flight . Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996.

. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996. Hyams, Jacky. The Female Few: Spitfire Heroines of the Air Transport Auxiliary . Gloucester: History Press, 2012.

. Gloucester: History Press, 2012. King, Alison. Golden Wings . London: C. Arthur Pearson Ltd, 1956.

. London: C. Arthur Pearson Ltd, 1956. Lucas, Y. M. WAAF with Wings . Peterborough: GMS Enterprises, 1992.

. Peterborough: GMS Enterprises, 1992. Miller Livingston Stratford, Nancy. Contact! Britain! . Createspace, 2011.

. Createspace, 2011. Moggridge, Dolores Theresa. Woman Pilot . London: Michael Joseph, 1957. Republished as: Moggridge, Jackie. Spitfire Girl. My Life in the Sky . London: Head of Zeus, 2014.

. London: Michael Joseph, 1957. Republished as: Moggridge, Jackie. . London: Head of Zeus, 2014. Narracott, Arthur Henson. Unsung Heroes of the Air . London: F. Muller, 1943.

. London: F. Muller, 1943. Phelps, Anthony. "I Couldn't Care Less." . Leicester: Harborough Pub. Co.; sole distributors to the trade: H. Marshall, 1945.

. Leicester: Harborough Pub. Co.; sole distributors to the trade: H. Marshall, 1945. Schrader, Helena. Sisters in Arms . Barnsley: Pen & Sword Aviation, 2006.

. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Aviation, 2006. Taylor, Leonard. Airwomen's Work . London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1943.

. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1943. Thomas, Nick. Naomi the Aviatrix . Createspace, 2011.

. Createspace, 2011. Volkersz, Veronica. The Sky and I . London: W.H. Allen, 1956.

. London: W.H. Allen, 1956. Walters, Anthony Jack. Air Transport Auxiliary (The Lost Child) . Wallingford: Aries Publications, 2006.

. Wallingford: Aries Publications, 2006. Welch, Ann Courtenay Edmonds. Happy to Fly: An Autobiography . London: John Murray, 1983.

. London: John Murray, 1983. Wheeler, Jo. The Hurricane Girls: The Inspirational True Story of the Women who Dared to Fly . London: Penguin Books, 2018. ISBN 978-0-241-35463-6

. London: Penguin Books, 2018. ISBN 978-0-241-35463-6 Whittell, Giles. Spitfire Women of World War II. London: Harper Press, 2007.

Fiction [ edit ]

Dewar, Isla. Izzy's War . Ebury Press, 2010.

. Ebury Press, 2010. Gould, Carol. Spitfire Girls: A Tale of the Lives and Loves Achievements and Heroism of the Women ATA Pilots in World War II . Forfar: Black Ace Books, 1998.

. Forfar: Black Ace Books, 1998. Lord Brown, Kate The Beauty Chorus . London: Corvus Atlantic, 2011

. London: Corvus Atlantic, 2011 Matthews, Beryl. A Flight of Golden Wings . Sutton: Severn House, 2007.

. Sutton: Severn House, 2007. Morrison, Margaret and Pamela Tulk-Hart, Paid to Be Safe . London: Hutchinson, 1948.

. London: Hutchinson, 1948. Ryan, Garry, Blackbirds (2012) and Two Blackbirds (2014). Calgary, AB: NeWest Press.

(2012) and (2014). Calgary, AB: NeWest Press. Schrader, Helena. The Lady in the Spitfire . Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse, Inc, 2006.

. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse, Inc, 2006. Singer, E. M. Mother Flies Hurricanes . Bend, OR: Avidia Cascade Press, 1999.

. Bend, OR: Avidia Cascade Press, 1999. Terrell, George. I'll Never Leave You . San Jose: Writer's Showcase, 2001.

. San Jose: Writer's Showcase, 2001. Wein, Elizabeth. Code Name Verity (Electric Monkey, 2012) and Rose Under Fire (2013)

Other books that mention the ATA's women pilots [ edit ]

Bell, Elizabeth S. Sisters of the Wind: Voices of Early Women Aviators . Pasadena, CA: Trilogy Books, 1994.

. Pasadena, CA: Trilogy Books, 1994. Jaros, Dean. Heroes Without Legacy: American Airwomen, 1912-1944 . Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1993.

. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1993. Keil, Sally Van Wagenen. Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines: The Unknown Heroines of World War II . New York: Rawson, Wade Publishers, 1979.

. New York: Rawson, Wade Publishers, 1979. Lomax, Judy. Women of the Air. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987.


About This Game Man O' War: Corsair.

Engage in epic naval combat and explore the oceans of the Warhammer world.

Man O' War: Corsair is a video game of high adventure, naval combat and exploration based on the Games Workshop classic Man O' War table top game.

Your Quest

Sail the seas plundering enemy ships, visiting ports, and trading. Dominate everything in your path with a fleet of ships at your back and watch people flee at the mere sight of you, leaving legends of your deeds in the history books and steel through the hearts of your enemies.

Explore and Fight

Captain a wide variety of unique sailing vessels, explore and trade whilst combating enemy ships in frantic naval action.

Boarding Actions

As well as sea battles, engaging in boarding actions with enemy vessels sees you walking the deck, weapon in hand, attacking enemy crew. Loot the vessels or sink them, the choice is yours.

Enemies and Allies

Buy a variety of unique and deadly ships. Command allies from different races and fight many deadly enemies. Fierce storms, deadly fleets and terrible foes will block your path to ultimate glory.

Custom Battles

Build your own fleet from any faction in game, and battle it against any foe you choose.

The Old World

A captain in Man O' War: Corsair can sail the coast of a huge continent in the Warhammer world. Visiting over 50 ports from Erengrad to Sartosa, the sea is yours to explore.

A heroic adventurer does not only have enemy ships to contend with. The deep and unexplored oceans hold terrifying creatures that few see and live to tell the tale.

These deadly creatures emerging from the deep sea will chill blood and drop jaws in equal measure. The wise would attempt to flee but those brave enough to tackle such creatures will be famed throughout the world.

Here there be monsters....


You're probably thinking: "Big deal, so someone tied a big old balloon to a hot dog and a video camera and sent them into space. That's been done before except with sushi." The difference here? The guys from San Francisco's Zog's Dogs managed to retrieve their hot dog when it fell back down to earth and then they ate it. To celebrate the achievement of having sent "the first hot dog into outer space," Zog's Dogs is, uh, launching a Space Dog Combo for $5. It is, of course, a Zog Dog with Astronaut Ice Cream for dessert. Are space dogs okay to eat? Anybody?

Video: The First Hot Dog in Outer Space

· The First Hot Dog in Outer Space [YouTube via HuffPo]

· All Hot Dog Coverage on Eater [-E-]

· All Space Food Coverage on Eater [-E-]


Getty Images

Count Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman as one NFL player who hasn’t changed his opinion about the game he plays as he’s learned more about the risks of concussions.

Sherman told GQ that he hasn’t changed his approach and would love to see his son play football if he wants to.

“It doesn’t change the way I play,” Sherman said. “I’ve always tried to tackle with the best form, and not try to always get people down on the ground without using my head. But it doesn’t change the way I think about the game or how I feel about my kids playing the game. I feel like this game has given me a lot more than its taken. It obviously takes a toll on your body and you understand the risks going into it, but you also have to understand that it’s taught me discipline, hard work, teamwork, being dependable, being available, how to be a leader, how to work past adversity. Just so many things that you use in your everyday life. And you can’t take that for granted. So maybe my son doesn’t end up being a professional athlete, maybe he never even plays a sport, but I wouldn’t hold him back from something that’s been so great to me.”

At a time when some players are retiring early and citing concussions as the reason, Sherman’s view still seems to be the majority opinion about NFL players: There are risks associated with playing football, but the risks are outweighed by the rewards.


Police arrest 2 Arabs, hunt 3rd, after they were documented committing horrific rape of mentally disabled girl while shouting racist slurs.

Two Arab residents of Judea and Samaria as well as an Arab citizen of Israel are suspected of raping a 20-year-old mentally disabled Jewish girl two weeks ago for "nationalistic" motives, as was revealed on Wednesday when a media gag order on the case was lifted.

All three were documented in footage they filmed two weeks ago raping the mentally handicapped girl in a motel in southern Tel Aviv, humiliating her and spitting on her while shouting racist slurs and threatening to harm her family.

Police hid the case from the public for ten days out of concerns it would spark clashes between Jews and Arabs.

"Nationalistic motives" is a term used in describing terror attacks, as opposed to criminal motives.

The gag order came despite the fact that police arrested two of the perpetrators a full nine days ago, and are currently hunting down the third rapist whose identity is known to the police.

One of the three attackers is a minor from Jaffa (Yafo), and he was arrested.

Another arrested suspect, Amad Al-Din Daragmeh from the Judea-Samaria region, apparently filmed the vile gang-rape with the goal of spreading the video.

He was brought to the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Wednesday morning for an extension of his arrest, where the judge emphasized the severity of the case and the condition of the victim.

The traumatic incident has left the victim in a difficult psychological state and she requires treatment.


A Class VI textbook of science taught in some of the schools under the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) has kicked up a controversy with one of its chapters using a Mosque-like image in pictorials to explain the sources of sound pollution.

The issue first came to the light after someone reportedly circulated a message on Whatsapp about the pictorial used in the textbook titled, Integrated Science. It later gained steam as people began sharing the controversial pictorial on various social networking sites.

One Masood Pasha, meanwhile, started a petition with a single signature at petition.org, demanding the removal of the pictorial. His petition had drawn more than 6000 supporters till Sunday.

The pictorial in the textbook has shown a man standing among various sources of sound pollution including an aeroplane, a fast moving train, couple of four wheelers and a Mosque-like building.

“The text book of science of ICSE board sixth class has a picture of noise pollution and it is illustrating the Mosque/Masjid is one of the reasons for sound pollution. It is totally wrong to point at one specific religion as a one of the reasons for the noise pollution. It will create unnecessary hatred among young minds of tender age kids. Pls (sic) remove the Mosque/Masjid picture so that we can avoid polluting younger minds in our country,” Pasha demanded in his petition.

A news agency quoted the chief executive and secretary of the CISCE Gerry Arathoon as saying in his response to the row that the ICSE did not publish “or prescribe these textbooks.”

"If any book with objectionable content is being taught at certain schools, it is for schools and publisher to ensure such a thing does not happen," Arathoon told the news agency.

Selina Publishers, which published the book, regretted over the controversy and promised that it will be removed from the textbook in next editions.

“The diagram on page 202 of our publication integrated science for Class-VI has a structure resembling a portion of a fort and other noise producing objects in a noisy city. We apologise if it has hurt the sentiments of anyone. This is to inform all concerned that we will be changing the picture in our subsequent editions of the book,” Hemant Gupta said on behalf of the Selina Publishers in a statement uploaded on the Twitter.