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We are the champions! – The Navasota Examiner

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

A well written sports story or movie features an underdog, disappointment, perseverance and the thrill of victory. Grimes County Machine Pitch All Stars played the role of stars to perfection battling from the losers bracket to win the District 13 Little League All Star Machine Pitch Tournament in Bellville.

A group of players from three machine pitch boys teams in Grimes County were selected to represent the Grimes County Little League All Stars (GCLL) and with just a little over a week of practice represented the league with the best allstar performance in years.

GCLL lost in a hardfought heartbreaker to open tournament play Thursday, July 23, falling to Hempstead 19-18 in an extra-inning battle that lasted nine-innings. The loss sent GCLL into the treacherous waters of the losers bracket.

Our boys faced adversity in the first game but never gave up, never wavered, kept their heads up, remained calm and fought their way out of the losers bracket, said GCLL coach Wes Male. After falling into the deep end of the losers bracket, GCLL began swimming against the current fighting tirelessly one game at a time toward their ultimate goal of a championship.

GCLL defeated Bellville Black 15-5 Friday, July 24 to earn a Saturday showdown rematch against Hempstead. This time GCLL had revenge on their mind and knocked the little sluggers from Hempstead out of the tournament with a 16-10 victory.

The win over Hempstead on Saturday, July 25, set up a seemingly impossible matchup with previously unbeaten Bellville Red. With GCLL advancing from the losers bracket and one loss already under their belt, and Bellville entering from the winners bracket, it meant GCLL must not only beat Belville but had to double-dip (beat them twice) them to secure a championship.

Although tired from battling to the championship, GCLL continued fighting stroke by stroke upstream and edged out a 12-11 win over Bellville Sunday, July 26 setting up a winner take all game.

In their first doubleheader of the season, GCLL showed relentless effort battling toe-to-toe in the championship bout, and in true underdog fashion knocked off the topranked contender Bellville Red by a score of 13-7.

Our team got better each game and we are so proud of them and their accomplishments, stated Male. This is a great group of boys who have great parents. They buckled in with us on this roller coaster ride. Congratulations boys, you made Grimes County proud earning District 13 All Star Champions.

Male also expressed gratitude to Kyle Warzon owner of 4 Fifteen Construction who sponsored uniforms for the team.

GCLL Machine Pitch All Star team members

Coaches: Wes Male, Joe Young and Keith Zimmerman.

Players: Ryder Sechelski, Jaxon Male, Coney Haynie, Travis Cowthon, Garrett Ham, Evan Zimmerman, Damacio Rodriguez, Sawyer Young, Owen Smith, Carson Small, Tobias Blankenship, Dax Williams, Gracen Currie, Caleb Jackson and Bryce Allen.

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We are the champions! - The Navasota Examiner

Courtney Love hopes Jeffrey Epstein burns in hell after her name appeared in his address book – The Independent

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

Courtney Love says that she hopes Jeffrey Epstein burns in hell after learning that her name was in his infamous little black book.

The musicians name was one of a number of high profile figures to feature in the book that surfaced in 2015 in court proceedings after Epstein's former house manager Alfredo Rodriguez tried to sell it in 2009.

Epstein died in jail of apparent suicide last year while awaiting trial for multiple charges including sex trafficking.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Hey. About my name in Epsteins address book, its creepy as f*** that Im in that thing I agree, Love tweeted.

I didnt know him, never met him, didnt know who he was. Apparently he collected celebrity phone numbers. The end. Hope he burns in Avci hell.

The singer then linked to the Wikipedia page for Avci, which is described as the lowest level of hell in Buddhism.

Also among the celebrity names to feature in Epsteins book were Donald Trump, Alec Baldwin, Ralph Fiennes and Mick Jagger.

Despite not being named in the book, model Chrissy Teigen was recently forced to distance herself from Epstein after alt-right trolls shared a conspiracy theory that claimed she flew on Epsteins private plane, dubbed The Lolita Express.

Why would I be such a public paedophile, tweeting about it?? she asked. It was about how anyone who watches it needs to go to jail. Its not hard Everyone thinking Im guilty because Im defensive. You understand you are calling me a paedophile, correct?

Amazon compared to heroin dealer as Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook and Google CEO accused of squeezing out com – The Sun

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

AMAZON boss Jeff Bezos had his company compared to a "heroin dealer" during a historic anti-trust hearing today.

On Wednesday, Amazonboss Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc Google's parent company Apple's Tim Cook were accused of squeezing out competitors and small businesses.

The highly successful tech moguls were all sworn in to address lawmakers at the Rayburn House Office Building inWashington, DC.

Congressman David N. Cicilline said small businesses the committee had spoken to compared their relationship with Amazon to that of heroin pusher or "drug dealer."

"[Amazon is] exploiting its monopoly power,"Cicilline said. "It's dual role [with sellers]... is fundamentally uncompetitive."

Likewise, Zuckerberg was grilled by Rep PramilaJayapalabout whether he had threatened competitors like Instagram founder Kevin Systrom and Snapchat's Evan Spiegelabout their product's features.

Jayapal recounted for her fellow lawmakers how Systrom felt Zuckerberg would go into "destroy mode" if he refused to sell Instagram.

When she directly asked the tech mogul if his company ever copied features from other organizations, his answer was vague.

"We've certainly adapted features ... as have others," he said, before denying that Facebook had threatened to clone a competitor while trying to buy it.

"Not that I recall," he added as Jayapal reminded Zuckerberg that he was "under oath."

The congresswoman also referenced a 2012 email wherein Zuckerberg noted that it would be a "while before we can buy Google.

"[You've] used Facebook's power to threaten smaller competitors and to ensure you always get your way," Jayapal declared.

Earlier, Rep Neguse asked Zuckerberg whether he has a monopoly, which he denied.

"Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram are the most downloaded apps of the last decade," the congressman noted.

"Your company, sir, owns them all. We have a word for that. That word is monopoly."

Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook, and Pichai were all asked to swear an oath not to use slave labor in their respective companies during the lengthy hearing.

Bezos launched into his testimony first shortly after 1.30 pm, followed by Pichai, Cook, and Zuckerberg who described Facebook repeatedly as an "American success story."

All three of the businessmen emphasized the innovation of their respective companies and the significant job creation while bring grilled by Committee members.

Rep Raskin asked Zuckerberg about election interference on Facebook, fake profile pages, and "alt-right racist" content.

Zuckerberg said their AI systems aim to identify this "with the goal of getting this stuff down before people even see it."

Speaking about their 6.5 billion fake accounts, Zuckerberg said they try to remove billions of accounts every year a small amount of these are "nation states" trying to interfere, he said.

Rep Sensebrenner also raised the issue of Trump promoting hydroxychloroquine during the hearing.

"We do not prohibit discussion about trials of drugs," Zuckerberg said. "But if somebody is going to say it's proven when it's not..."

After a brief recess due to tech issues, the committee resumed and Jayapal grilled Bezos about Amazon using sellers' data.

She asked him about whether the policy againstusing seller specific data was really enforced after employers claimed it was "like a candy shop."

"The fact that we have such a policy is voluntary I dont think any other realtor has such a policy," Bezos said, after saying he "can't answer that question [with a] yes or no" when it came to violations.

Rep McBath concluded her address to Bezos asking if Amazon used "bullying,fear and panic" to control their sellers.

She played a recording to one book seller begging Bezos to get back on track."

Pichai was the first to be grilled by Cicilline, who said small businesses had accused Google of stealing content.

He also queried why Google shows what ever is profitable rather than relevant when users are looking for something.

"I disagree with that characterizations," Pichai responded, citing the 1.4 million small businesses they assist.

Cicilline also accused Google of stealing content from Yelp, describing it as "anti-competitive."

"Google is increasingly a walled garden that keeps users on its own sits," Cicilline said. "Virtually ensuring that any business that wants to be seen on the web, has to pay Google a tax."

Congressman Gaetz also threw a series of China-related questions at Pichai, who denied Google was in cahoots with the communist country.

Gaetz cited claims that his company was "directly aiding the Chinese military" via their AI Center and working with universities.

Pichai denied these claims.

Rep Jordan also expressed his concerns that Google would assist Joe Biden over Donald Trump come November and "electioneering."

Pichai said they complied with laws in 2016 and that their work was non-partisan.

Lawmakers also quizzed Cook about claims that Apple changes the app rules as they go to benefit the phone giant at the expense of developers.

"We treat every developer the same," Cook insisted. "It's a rigorous process ... We do look at every app before it goes on."

Cook said it wasn't correct to say that some app developers were favored over others, however.

Just before 4.30 pm, the committee went on another recess.

After the recess, McBath questioned Cook about Apple excluding apps from the app store that it may deem competition.

"Before [Apple's app] screen time existed, there were other apps that limited kids [screen time]... You removed these competing apps from the app store Why did apple remove competing apps?

"We were concerned about the privacy and security of kids," Cook said. He added that there are now "over 30 apps" today.

Cicilline questioned Zuckerberg about a Breitbart video showing doctors promoting the drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19 and face masks not being necessary.

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He questioned how the video amassed over 20million views in 5 hours before being removed.

"A lot of people shared that. And we did take it down because it violates our policies," Zuckerberg said.

Cicilline insisted that Facebook "polices" its own platform and alleged the only person holding the platform accountable is itself.

Amazon compared to heroin dealer as Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook and Google CEO accused of squeezing out com - The Sun

Who wants to cancel cancel culture? The voiceless or the privileged? – Coconuts

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

The term cancel culture has been thrown around a lot in Singapores internet-sphere lately, with targets including online provocateur Xiaxue and former political candidate Ivan Lim.

In the brief time since its birth with the #MeToo movement, the social media phenomenon has gone from holding the most powerful accountable to broad application across the realms of culture and politics. But is it leveling the playing field to make the world more just, or, as critics argue, a blunt instrument of mob rule?

The term recently entered the lexicon of Singapores culture wars at a time when more voices, especially on the political right, are speaking critically of its alleged threat to expression, with Singaporean influencer Xiaxue joining the likes of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling in calling for people to reject it.

Coconuts Singapore tracked the evolution of cancel culture and how it has unfolded on our shores.

Canceling traditionally means discontinuing plans or deleting something. But that definition evolved to also mean ending support for a person and their work after the #MeToo movement emerged three years ago.

Cancel culture, or delegitimizing someone because of their wrongs real or perceived, can be traced to victims of Hollywood sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, whose impunity went unpunished because their voices were not heard.

It wasnt just a way to impose consequences on someone for their wrongdoing, but also a means to empower those denied power.

Weinsteins downfall began In 2017, when enduring whispers against the powerful movie producer of Hollywood juggernauts such as Quentin Tarantinos Kill Bill and the Lord of the Rings came to public attention.

Long ignored by the media, it took multiple victims going on the record with Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker before the criminal charges were filed against then-66 Weinstein in 2018. More than a dozen women had rallied to accuse him of sexual misconduct including rape, which eventually led him to being sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Cancel culture proved liberating for those women and even encouraged other sexual assault victims to speak out. Not long after, a separate group of victims came forward to give voice to long-standing rumors about American comedy giant Bill Cosby, who was later convicted of sexual assault in 2018.

Since then, cancel culture has become more widespread, particularly online and in American pop culture. Celebrities and social media personalities have quickly become targets for cancellation. So much so that it seemed increasingly easy for individuals like certain Beauty YouTubers to lose subscribers and fans to cancel culture.

Three noteworthy targets were Say So singer Doja Cat and beauty YouTubers Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star. Hashtags like #DojaCatIsOverParty, #ShaneDawsonIsOverParty and #JeffreeStarIsOverParty even trended on Twitter when the controversies happened.

Not that they came out of nowhere. Fans were reacting unhappily to actions deemed to promote racism, homophobia and even pedophilia. Doja Cat, who is openly bisexual, had apologized for using a homophobic slur in the past and years later apologized again for participating in an alt-right online chatroom but denied participating in racist conversations.

Online stores discontinued products by Dawson and Star after the former drew a backlash for his pedophilia jokes and wearing blackface in his sketches. The latter was caught making racist slurs in previous videos.

How effective those cancel campaigns were remains to be seen. Doja Cat still has her career intact; Star has just announced a new skincare line.

Meanwhile in Singapore, whats now called cancel culture seems to have been around even before the term was popularized.

Complaining and doxxing, reporting people to the police, and setting up petitions have successfully cancelled people in the city-state, some even before the #MeToo movement.

A woman named Amy Cheong fled for Australia after her racist Facebook rant about Malays drew a backlash and police attention.

A petition by a mainly Christian group prompted the authorities to cancel a gig by Swedish black metal band Watain a move that drew a counter-backlash for happening in a nominally secular nation.

In recent weeks, however, more Singaporeans have used cancel culture to impact individuals in positions of bigger power and influence.

Clicknetwork TV dropped influencer Xiaxue over the divisive way she addressed her past racist and xenophobic comments. Ivan Lim withdrew from the ruling political partys candidate roster after several people accused him of elitist and abusive behavior.

In June, popular entities being held accountable by society was witnessed in the Okletsgo episode after Malay women rallied against the podcast hosts misogynistic content. The podcasters rejected complaints until President Halimah Yacob stepped in to demand the trio issue a proper apology and promise to review their content. They quickly did.

Using cancel culture to empower disenfranchised communities seems like a good thing, but some people are increasingly perceiving it as a threat to unwelcome opinion, or worse, mob justice.

In the past month, people resisting cancel culture have come out to criticize it as a form of intolerance and threat to freedom of speech. Because of their efforts to shut it down, the victims inadvertently use the phrase cancel culture more often than anyone else.

After British author J.K. Rowling was accused of transphobia earlier this month, she signed an open letter denouncing cancel culture in support of freedom of speech. The letter was also signed by 150 other authors and academics, including novelists Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood.

The letter said that it was becoming too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. It also condemned the disproportionate punishments institutions had meted out to cancel culture targets amid panicked damaged control.

Wendy Cheng, aka Xiaxue, also tried to cancel cancel culture after being fired by Clicknetwork TV. In a fearmongering video post, the Trump-loving 36 year old told her viewers that the obsessed online mob was out to cancel everyone, and that people should start standing up against it.

But regardless of which camp youre in, its pretty clear at this point at least that the ones opposed to cancel culture tend to be those held to account in positions of power, influence and privilege. On the flipside, those who support and promote cancel culture usually arent.

Other stories you should check out:Clicknetwork TV drops divisive Xiaxue over racist tweetsOkletsgo issues apology after President Halimah Yacob tells them off for misogynistic remarksBye Ivan, Hello Yao Quan: PAP replaces Jurong GRC candidate after backlash

Support Coconuts and rep your city

Now you can wear your love of Coconuts proudly across your chest. Thats right, were getting into the merch business with the launch of our official online store, The Coconuts Shop.

Our first product is that ultimate wardrobe mainstay: the white T-shirt.

If you want to rep your city, weve also launched Coconuts City Logo Tees for Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, KL, Jakarta, Bali, and Yangon.

Theyre all sold exclusively at The Coconuts Shop at a special introductory price of S$29 until Sep. 30, 2020!

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Who wants to cancel cancel culture? The voiceless or the privileged? - Coconuts

‘You Do the Right Things, and Still You Get It’ – The New York Times

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

They are amazing nerds, Ms. Roman, 38, said of her parents.

Sheryl Roberts, 65, understood the perils of the pandemic she had diabetes, asthma and heart disease, which could put her at higher risk. Her husband had chronic lung disease and a stent to open a blocked coronary artery.

We have been so careful, so very careful, and stayed away from people, Ms. Roberts said. Her husband began working from home in the spring when Washington State, New York and then other areas around the country were hit hard. Mr. Roberts occasionally made a supermarket run during senior hour; the couples only big, hot date in recent months, Ms. Roberts said, was to view wildflowers from their car.

Their younger daughter was diligent as well. But then she came back from work sneezing one day in mid-June and thought it was allergies. Soon she had a cough, fever, headaches and diarrhea, and lost her senses of taste and smell, telltale symptoms of the coronavirus.

She told me, I dont know whats going on, Mom, but I wore a mask, I wore gloves, I washed my hands, Ms. Roberts said. You do the right things, and still you get it.

Elaine Roberts, who tested positive for the coronavirus, did not become seriously ill. But for her parents, it would be much worse.

Mr. Roberts and his wife started sneezing, then coughing, just like their daughter, and developed fevers and severe body aches. Then he got awfully sick, awfully quickly, Sheryl Roberts recalled. He became confused on June 22. Alarmed, she tested his oxygen level. It was low, and she called her older daughter to take him to an emergency care center, the second visit in two days.

Before he left, his wife asked him to make a promise.

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'You Do the Right Things, and Still You Get It' - The New York Times

Pittsburgh-based Steelers reporter quits PennLive in protest of site calling a Nazi rally "peaceful" – PGH City Paper

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

click to enlarge

CP photo: Jared Wickerham

Jacob Klinger

Many people online criticized the post, saying that a racist group that advocates such causes could hardly be called peaceful." PennLive deleted the tweet, changed the headline, and updated some language of the original story. PennLive also repacked the reporting in adifferent story which included some different language, too.

But for Jacob Klinger, a Pittsburgh-based PennLive reporter who covers the Steelers, his newspaper had not done enough. Klinger announced on Twitter today that he has quit, and that the papers coverage of the Neo-Nazi protest was the main reason why.

In his statement on Twitter, Klinger also said the body of the original article frames false equivalencies of the put-off passersby and the armed, Seig Heil-ing, Swastika-wearing, Nazi-flag flying Nazis.

He acknowledges that the headline and the article were later altered, and that a follow-up article was also written, but he had issues with that as well. The follow-up article, titled National neo-Nazi group holds illegal protest in Pa. park: cops, ran on July 20 and added descriptions not seen in the original story, like that the group openly supports the oppression of minority groups. However, Klinger notes that the follow-up, repacked story still said in the lead paragraph that the NSM members were the same as the group that marched at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017, but referred to that group as a so-called Neo-Nazi group. Marchers at the 2017 Unite the Right rally chanted, Jews will not replace us, and one of its participants murdered an anti-racist counter protester named Heather Heyer.

Screenshot taken from Twitter

In July 2020, one of our reporters knew they could get away with calling avowed Nazis, so-called Neo-Nazis, and those people killed my family, so I quit, said Klinger.

He also is open about what he hopes to accomplish with his resignation, and the splash it might make. He understands that reporting softly on racists, the alt-right, or Nazis doesn't necessarily mean reporters are advocating for those subjects, but says it doesnt matter if the PennLive reporting was due to "a lack of intellectual curiosity or just being unbothered." He says going softly on those subjects is unacceptable.

It is a product of the culture, says Klinger of his former employer. He says before announcing his resignation on Twitter, he had a meeting with Patriot-News publisher Cate Barron, which he says he appreciated, but his mind was already made up.

Barron did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Klinger hopes that his resignation will motivate PennLive and the Patriot-News, as well as other newsrooms, to change how they cover the the alt-right and hate groups. I would not have done this the way that I did it, if I didnt think it would give PennLive the most likely chance of changing, said Klinger.

In his statement, he mentioned that he was chastised for covering protests of Trump's Muslim ban that popped up in Pittsburgh on January 29, 2017. Klinger acknowledges his beat is the Steelers, but also says he was one of only a few other PennLive reporters stationed in Pittsburgh at the time. He also said that an editor killed a story in 2016 he had started to report about a Pittsburgh Holocaust survivor who was critical of Donald Trump.

Upon leaving the paper, Klinger says he left PennLive management some suggestions. These include: identifying Southern Poverty Law Center hate groups as such; during coverage of such hate groups, giving a voice to populations hate groups target; offering context in those stories of the nationwide rise in hate crimes; noting that the FBI has reported that members of these hate groups have infiltrated local police forces; and to acknowledge that the initial coverage of the Nazi protest was wrong and share some next steps.

Klinger says that he did enjoy many parts of his job at the paper, including covering the Steelers and the NFL. In his statement, he said he respects and believes in many of his former coworkers. But he says the frustration over the culture he says PennLive is enabling led to the failures in the Nazi protest coverage. He is hoping that amplifying his story will lead to some change.

I am not the first person to quit out of frustration, and there is a level of privilege that I have that knows I will be okay for a month a so, says Klinger. But I did want to make this as loud as possible.

He also hopes this will remind other publications of some issues in a lot of their own coverage, especially of protests. He says that people could search many publications and media outlets and find substantial reporting issues, even if they are less problematic than being soft on Nazis.

Right now, a lot of coverage is showing unsubstantiated state power being used against people with water bottles, and that is being framed as an even fight, says Klinger.

In Pittsburgh, some media outlets were still referring to Blacks Lives Matters protests in late May and early June as riots, despite that more than 90% of the people arrested at those events have had all charges dropped, and documentations of a protest on June 1 in East Liberty shows that Pittsburgh Police fired tear gas and sponge rounds at marchers, before marchers started throwing water bottles back.

These are not games, says Klinger. They are peoples lives.

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Pittsburgh-based Steelers reporter quits PennLive in protest of site calling a Nazi rally "peaceful" - PGH City Paper

What is alt text in WordPress? How to add the accessibility feature – Business Insider – Business Insider

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

Alt text is a short text description of an image published to the internet that can be read aloud by accessibility programs for the blind and visually impaired, including screen readers.

But there's another reason to include alt text: Google and other search engines use alt text to better understand your photos' content, which affects your website's page ranking in search results.

Because WordPress is a popular web site publishing tool, it includes the ability for you to add alt text to images contained in those web pages. The best time to add alt text to an image is when you upload it to WordPress. This way, the image has alt text right from the start, and the text is already there every time you add the image to a web page.

If the image is already in the WordPress media library and you are merely selecting it to insert in the post, there may already be a description in the alt text field in the Attachment Details pane. If the alt text is appropriate, insert it into the post. But if you prefer, you can edit the alt text before adding it.

While alt text is not required, you should strive to add useful, well-crafted alt text to every image you publish via WordPress so all users and search engines can better understand your content.

Here's how to write and add alt text in WordPress.

Because alt text describes the image to a visually impaired person, try to make the alt text as useful as possible. That will also help search engines rank your web pages appropriately for relevant keywords. Here are some things to keep in mind:

1. While writing a post in WordPress, click "Add Media" at the top of the page.

Start adding alt text by clicking the Add Media button near the top of the page. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

2. Add the image to your media library, either by browsing or dragging it to the web page.

3. After the is uploaded, the Attachment Details page should appear on the right side of the screen. Enter a description of the image in the Alt Text field.

Enter alt text in the field on the right side of the page. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. Complete any other entries you need to add, such as the caption and media credit.

5. Click "Insert into post."

Insider Inc. receives a commission when you buy through our links.

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What is alt text in WordPress? How to add the accessibility feature - Business Insider - Business Insider

Hillsdale Must Join the National Reckoning on Race – The Bulwark

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

In September 1888, an aged Frederick Douglass made his second visit to a tiny abolitionist college in rural southern Michigan. He spoke on the looming presidential election, and his words have uncanny relevance today.

In a Presidential canvass three things are always in order: First, we have to consider the character of the candidate, he said in a typed version of the address that matches descriptions of the ones he gave at the college and elsewhere on that speaking tour. A man in the presidential chair should stand for something more than a lucky and successful politician. He should be one among millionsa model man; one to whom the sons of after-coming generations can be referred as an example to them.

Douglass went on to argue that voters should also consider the past actions of political parties when deciding how to cast their ballots. The past is parent to the present, and it is only by the past that we are able properly to discern the future, he said.

That tiny abolitionist school was Hillsdale College, my alma mater, now sometimes dubbed the conservative Harvard. At its heart Hillsdale is simply a liberal arts college, but its alumni pepper the Trump administration and its various lecture programs, online courses, and D.C. outpost serve as intellectual training ground for the conservative movement.

So when hundreds of Hillsdale alumni signed petitions in June asking the college to condemn historical injustices against black people in response to the George Floyd protests, the school was at a crossroads. Would the college that sent more of its sons to fight for the Union than any other Michigan school vocally oppose state violence against the descendants of slaves? Or would it reiterate, as it had in the past, the danger of the Black Lives Matters movement?

Hillsdale chose to be evasive.

The College is told that it garners no honor now for its abolitionist pastor that it fails to live up to that pastbut instead it must issue statements today. Statements about what? read an open letter from leaders of the college, republished in the Wall Street Journal. It must issue statements about the brutal and deadly evil of hating other people and/or treating them differently because of the color of their skin. That is, it must issue statements about the very things that moved the abolitionists whom the College has ever invoked.

But Hillsdale, like all of America, ought to heed Douglasss advice and take a good, hard look at its past. It must lament the evil and treasure the good. The college has more than abolitionists in its pastlike many other institutions, it has a history of tangled, unexamined, internally competing racial views. Hillsdale has plenty of reasons to join the national reckoning on race.

Hillsdale was founded by abolitionist Baptists in 1844. It was the first college in the nation to prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, or religion in its charter. It fought efforts to segregate its ROTC unit in World War I. Its 1955 football team refused to play in a bowl game that barred its black players from the field.

But Hillsdale was not exempt from the racism that permeated educational institutions in the 20th century.

Hillsdale sat out the civil rights movement, as noted by the preeminent chronicler of the colleges history, Arlan Gilbert. The student newspaper, the Collegian, voiced some support of black protesters in the 1960s but was mostly mum on the topic. It did, however, reprint in 1960 an editorial that ran in the Duke student paper: We would question the appropriateness of protesting against a Southern . . . custom by applying pressure on a private business establishment, it read. While we are for desegregation, we realize that the problem is complex and that no easy solution is possible.

The college then found a president who would use apathy toward civil rights legislation to make it famous. When George Roche III became president of Hillsdale in 1971 at age 35, he was fresh from the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education, which in the previous decade had issued a steady stream of anti-civil-rights commentary of the type that animated the GOPs Southern strategy. FEE authors defended private businesses right to discriminate against blacks, criticized the Supreme Courts Brown v. Board of Education ruling, argued for a hands-off response to South African apartheid, and saw the civil rights movement primarily as a massive expansion of federal power. Roche echoed these arguments.

The racial problem is still with us (as are innumerable other problems as well) but it ill-behooves us to destroy the American tradition of federalism in the course of attempted solutions to our problems, he wrote in 1967.

The future president of an abolitionist college also questioned whether the Civil War was necessary to end slavery, calling abolitionists do-gooders who pressured the United States into war but did not lead on the battlefield and wondering whether the free market might have averted the Civil War.

National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., a longtime friend of Hillsdale, was on hand to celebrate Roches appointment as president. Buckley in 1957 supported gradual, voluntary change from Jim Crow, because whites were the advanced racea stance he later disavowed.

Roche made a name for Hillsdale. When in 1972 the federal government began to require colleges to track students by their race for the purposes of implementing anti-discrimination law, Roche led the college both to refuse race statistics and to cement its refusal of federal funds. He then trumpeted those refusals around the nation to win conservative praise and donors.

In 1973, under Roches leadership, one of the first editions of the colleges widely circulated digest of speeches, Imprimis, defended minority white rule of Zimbabwe and private discrimination. Imprimis also printed a response from the countrys white prime minister, Ian Smith, who wrote of the backward races and the more sophisticated European and Asian races.

The college continued to keep odious company. Segregationist James Kilpatrick, racist Sen. Strom Thurmond, and racist Jared Taylor, the editor of the white supremacist American Renaissance magazine, spoke at Hillsdale seminars in the following decades. Taylor argued in a college-sponsored lecture that minorities were genetically inferior and more suited to manual labor. Roches statement at the time did not specifically condemn the talk: For 150 years we have prided ourselves on treating individuals on the basis of their own merit and anything that moves from that direction is not keeping with our mission. The college still sells copies of Taylors lecture in its Freedom Library Catalog.

Though many Hillsdale professors are fiercely pro-Union, an odd strain of Lost Cause romanticism lingered at Hillsdale. In 2008, the Hillsdale-published reader for its required American history course included writings by Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. but also introduced an 1891 essay by Confederate apologist Basil Gildersleeve by praising him and saying that his view of the South had universal validity. Gildersleeve argued that the South had fought for states rights and the cause of civil liberty, not to defend slavery; the introduction was signed by a historian who also edited the neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan.

In recent years the college has done little to voice sympathy for black Americans protesting police brutality. Imprimis, with more than 5 million subscribers, regularly points to black culture and black-on-black crime as the root causes of any ill treatment from police. For years Hillsdale speakers have pooh-poohed diversity.

Hillsdale as an institution does not endorse the racist alt-right and its hatred. The colleges current president, Larry Arnn, is no Roche; he loves Hillsdales abolitionist legacy, can recite Douglass and Lincoln by heart, and demonstrates his personal care for students of color. In 2016 he led the school to launch the Frederick Douglass scholarships, offering tuition, room and board to first-generation college students from disadvantaged school districts.

But the college has chosen to publicize voices that make the alt-right feel comfortable. For example, the colleges D.C. center last year hosted an excellent symposium with a Howard University scholar on black classical education. Her presentation did not make it into Imprimis, but a speech defending John C. Calhoun and Confederate monuments did.

Meanwhile, Hillsdales colorblindness has made it blind. The college continues to keep no records of students race and awards no financial aid on that basis. But in the 2018-2019 academic year, for example, it did offer four different scholarships to students of Norwegian, Lithuanian, or Polish descent and many more that gave preference to students from predominantly white areas. It also had a handful of scholarships for international studentsfrom China, for exampleand Hispanic students. It had none that explicitly gave preference to black Americans.

What has all this meant for black students at Hillsdale?

Hillsdales graduates are now nearly all white. Many American universities struggle to attract and retain students of color. But Hillsdale has given itself a special challenge and has not done enough to solve it. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a friend of the college, once critiqued conservatives attitude toward race as indifference. He could say the same of Hillsdale.

Since the 1980s Hillsdales black students at any given time have been able to count their total number on two hands, or some years even one. Roche told the Chicago Reader in 1996 that the school was being outbid for black students.

It wasnt always this way. Thirty-one black students attended Hillsdale as it was beginning to parade its federal-tie-cutting in 1976a larger slice of the student population than at many other Michigan schools at the time. The campus Blacks United club had a house, staged events for Black History Month and produced a play about Malcolm Xs life. By the mid-1980s, it disappeared from Hillsdales yearbooks.

Black students in the following decades gave mixed reviews of the school to the Collegian, while recounting a few chilling incidents. In 1991, the same year a Confederate flag hung in the first-floor window of one mens dorm, two black students hung a Nelson Mandela poster on their door. After someone tore it down, they put up a picture of Malcolm X, only to find later the words NS GO HOME scrawled on their door. They reported the incident to an administrator, who in turn told them not to hang anymore posters of black leaders on their door, because it invites racism, the Collegian wrote.

The experiences of recent black alumni have varied. Of the ten black former Hillsdale students I interviewed for this article, three had completely positive experiences at the school. Some might see a lack of diversity and say, Wait theres a problem, but for me I never really had an issue, said Joseph Nchia, class of 2017. Its just one of those things.

Kayla Fletcher, class of 2014, loved Hillsdale and was drawn to the school because it does not consider race in admissions. If I got into a school like Hillsdale, it was just because I was good enough to get into a school like Hillsdale, she said. Thats what mattered to me.

Others describe a painful four years. Christian Campbell, class of 2010, stayed at Hillsdale for financial reasons but grew tired of the constant stares and questions from fellow students about what sport he played, if he could dance and rap, whether they could touch his hair. The stupidity and ignorance just got me, he said.

Some chose to transfer out. Thad Wilson attended Hillsdale in 2006 but left the following year, primarily because of finances but also because of race. While a coach and two professors were kind, he said, one classmate asked him pointed racial questions constantly, such as: You like fried chicken, right?

Not having the ability to really see a black person who was in the same shoes I was in was difficult, he said.

For most of the students I spoke to, Hillsdale was a mixed bag of friends and classes they loved and experiences they wished had been better. Keyona Shabazz, class of 2017, loves Hillsdale but recalled two different students calling her a Negress or n-r on multiple occasions. While Hillsdale gave her a good liberal arts education, she said, it rarely discussed the black experience in America.

Hillsdale has done its populace a disservice by taking itself out of the conversation, Shabazz said. You cant pat yourself on the back for who you used to be.

Shabazzs fellow alumni should look hard at the schools indifference to race. We should question why we have a student body so white that many of the black students feel out of place. And we should think about how the school can show all its students that the good, the true, the beautiful belong to them, and that they belong at the school.

Hillsdale wishes to critique illiberalism on the left, but it will lack the moral authority to do so without critiquing illiberalism and racism on the right. The colleges liberal values should put it at the forefront of the fight to defend Frederick Douglasss vision for America. In the months before his second visit to Hillsdale, Douglass toured the South and witnessed how Reconstruction had failed former slaves. He hoped that his country would change; he hoped that his party, the Republican party, would lead that change.

The national honorthe redemption of our national pledge to the freedmen, the supremacy of the Constitution in the fullness of its spirit and in the completeness of its letter over all the states of the Union alikeis an incomparably greater interest than all others. It touches the soul of the nation, Douglass said in a speech that year. I simply say to the Republican party: Those things ye ought to have done and not to have left the others undone, and the present is the time to enforce this lesson.

With that last sentence Douglass borrowed from Jesus, and likewise Hillsdale should heed the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. The college has a chance to change for the better, to change America for the better, to be better than the whims of the right wing rather than tethered to them. If it does not, many of its alumni will have run out of faith, just as Douglass warned he might with the GOP: If it fails to do all this, I for one shall welcome the bolt which shall scatter it into a thousand fragments.

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Hillsdale Must Join the National Reckoning on Race - The Bulwark

How Brooks Brothers Became a Symbol of What Not to Wear to the Revolution – TownandCountrymag.com

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

When Patricia and Mark McCloskey stormed out of their lavish St. Louis mansion in a wild-eyed, class-war lather, brandishing guns aimed at nearby Black Lives Matter activists, they committed one of the most risibly deplorable, meme-birthing acts of socio-political optics since U.C. Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper-sprayed a seated group of students protesting with the Occupy movement in 2011.

Firearm enthusiasts on Twitter mocked the McCloskeys inexpert gun-handling, and armchair fashion pundits, like myself, couldnt help but notice their chosen uniform for the outburstMarks pink polo shirt and light khakis, and Patricias French boating chemise and capri leggings. When they were inevitably declared the champion Ken and Karen of the summer, they also unwittingly pulled a 202-year-old symbol of American normcore into a national polemic by turning it into the label of the un-woke.

The timing of the St. Louis incident couldnt have been worse, as the company, the countrys oldest apparel brand, filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter due to a variety of financial and market reasons. Here was another stain on its otherwise crisp chinos, its long-held place in the public consciousness as the definition of fashion safety for the conservative class, now an emblem of toxicity.

Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPIAlamy

The psychology and semiotics of fashion dictate that in times of turmoil, your personal style is especially burdened with the symbolic history of your commercial choices, for good or ill. In the late 1960s, clothing was just one of the aesthetic battlegrounds for the visual opposition of us vs. them, between the John Birch Society and Phyllis Schlafly on the one hand, and the anti-war activists who stopped shaving their armpits and went commando under their ponchos.

Now, the playing field is a lot more complicatedtraditional symbols of conformity or anarchy are being further warped by the participants in the frontlines of the culture wars.

The Hawaiian shirt was once an innocent staple of summer, Margaritaville and endless boogie guitar solos. Now, its caught a case of political COVID and must be quarantined since being co-opted by 8chan gun enthusiasts called Boogaloo Bois, a disparate group of heavily armed anti-government militia-types.

Some of them abhor immigration; some believe there is a white genocide happening, and others are eager to incite a civil war to defend their rights to carry M4 rifles into a Wendys. Reece Jones, an author and a professor at the University of Hawaii, went viral on Twitter earlier with a thread explaining the connection.

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Along with Brooks Brothers and Robin Williams shirts, some previously inoffensive basics of womens fashion have also acquired a suspicious patina. Is a sheath still alright to wear, or a wallpaper print dress for that matter? When worn at the White House lectern by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, they become something else, implements in a broader campaign of disinformation.

The array of body-con outfits at her briefings suggests at first a Tracy Flick-ish brand of intensity but its as transparent a costume as some of her specious talking points. I will never lie to you, she said during her first appearance in the role. And then, of course, she proceeded to lie straight to the cameras, constantly, as if it was part of a sorority hazing stunt.

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Clothes are not the only politicized aspect of our appearances nownor were they ever; hair is also a prominent battleground. During the French Revolution, Marie Antoinettes signature powdered pouf was copied by the bourgeoisie, but it was reviled by the starving sans-culottes, who saw it as a wasteful indulgence, another representation of her to loucheness and profligacy.

A more modern hairdo once popular with hipsters is the shaved/faded sides and long-on-top look, or grown-out high and tight once favored by everyone from Macklemore to David Beckham. That, too, has been appropriated by far-right figurehead Richard Spencer and his ilk, who have taken to wearing it with Brooks Brothers suits, because Nazis used to wear the hairdo to look tidy under their helmets.

The New York Times once dubbed it the Hitler Youth, but it has since gone on to be nicknamed the Fashy Haircutshort for fascist, natchand some of its adherents seem blithely unaware of the politics telegraphed by their coiffure. In 2016, the Washington Post once noted the irony of white nationalists sporting a hairstyle thats already been repurposed in the 21st century by young people whose ethos is radical safe-space inclusiveness, not ethnophobic separatism with eugenic undertones.

In the context of today, that misdirection is precisely the point. The alt-right has intentionally become more sophisticated about blending in, substituting red tank tops and MAGA hats with more ambivalent iconography, the kind of fungible avatars that can be taken at face value, or interpreted as dog whistles if weaponized.

Getty Images

Arguably, another head of hair that looks suspect in the current climate is worn by perennially corporate hyper-conservatives like Jared Kushner. Its the third-grade-picture-day, combover haircut that announces you have a turtle in your lunchbox and get to wear big boy pants because you havent wet the bed in weeks. Its hair that looks excessively Boy Scouty and feckless precisely because it isnt, like when predatory octopods camouflage themselves by mimicking the ocean floor.

For maximum due diligence, ask yourself a few difficult questions before opting for the old standbys when getting dressed for your next Zoomtinis. Remember that something that looks safe on the surface rarely is. We must all make sacrifices during times of (culture) war, but dressing in flip flops and pajama bottoms is arguably better than walking out of your house looking like you want to annex the Sudetenland.

The McCloskeys, by the way, are looking at a possible felony for what the Circuit Attorneys Office in St. Louis called unlawful use of a gun in an angry or threatening manner. The fashion police, however, has not yet pressed charges, though a guilty verdict seems like a foregone conclusion.

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How Brooks Brothers Became a Symbol of What Not to Wear to the Revolution - TownandCountrymag.com

The future of history – Huntsville Item

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

An emerging approach to the analysis of US History centers on the alleged racism of the Founding Fathers. The approach reflects the recent directive of civic leaders of Seattle demanding white city employees repent for embracing classical Christian-based reasoning common to the founders. Classical reasoning, it is argued, perpetuates white subjugation of the African American race. Included in its critique, the new interpretation challenges the Christian view of human nature which underpins traditional historical analysis. Beginning with the traditional, lets compare the two approaches to historical analysis.

Foundational to the traditional perspective on human nature, as seen in early text books, et al, is the concept of original sin in the Biblical Garden of Eden. As a consequence, human nature is characterized by a tendency toward evil which can be tempered only by an individuals embrace of Jesus via the Holy Spirit. It was this which led James Madison to take the lead in fashioning a US Political System centered on checks and balances. Christianity also places emphasis on the individual as its centerpiece.

Furthermore, Christianity pays obeisance to the Transcendent God as the standard or reference point by which to mark the truth of an issue. This reference to reason in terms of antithesis conditioned the study of US history to feature reverence for the founding fathers in terms of their Christian faith. Witness the classic painting of George Washington on his knees in prayer during the American Revolution.

Thus, the drive to delegitimize Christianitys framework of propositional truth is a pivotal step toward instigating a new socio-political system. Fundamental to this new interpretation is the belief in the goodness of human nature. If the roots of traditional Christian reason can be de mystified, so the thinking goes, mans true nature could rise to its natural goodness. Indeed, this belief constitutes the end level of Marxist theory with totalitarian politics ushering in a perceived utopia with no need for a government.

As with Marxism, to reach that blessed utopian condition, architects of the new history must first mold an elite with understanding of these matters. Ironically, at the time the Christian theme of all are created equal became finally crystallized into law, with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, evolution- based thinking was already in a position to stymie the positive results of that 188- year battle from 1776 to 1964.

Evolution had by the sixties dug deep roots, leading to the view of mans nature being subject to change over time; this meant that little could be learned from history in terms of a model of how to address various situations. The distant subjects of history had a different nature than those of the present, it came to be believed. Furthermore, by the sixties the view was emerging that the study of man should focus on the genetic aspect, ones race, sex, and the like rather than the individual of whatever genetic make- up. In the process, the emphasis on the individual fell captive to the focus on the group.

The group focus plays to pluralism which centers on policy and values flowing from the interaction of groups, with the group most committed to a position being presumed correct. Currently, African-Americans constitute the favored group.

History, therefore, is being maneuvered, as seen in Project 1619, to feature the clash of races rather than togetherness, with the villain of that battle the faith of our white Christian founders. This means that separatism rather than togetherness mark the new path of US Culture. Along the way, the foundation for our cherished checks and balances and unalienable individual rights is weighed in the balance.

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The future of history - Huntsville Item

Herman Mashaba: Why he might draw the crowds at election time Chuck Stephens – BizNews

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

Herman Mashaba, former DA politician and mayor of Johannesburg, is preparing to fight the municipal elections next year in three areas: Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni. In an interview with BizNews founder Alec Hogg, Mashaba said he is committed to saving this country. He is not prepared to sit back and complain at dinner parties and warns that whoever takes over from the ANC will inherit a bankrupt country to fix, Mashaba said on Rational Radio. In this in-depth analysis, leadership expert Chuck Stephens explains why he believes Herman Mashaba is a progressive conservative who might draw the crowds at election time. Editor

By Chuck Stephens*

The Inconvenient Majority. Sometimes called the silent majority, is really a kind of political centre-of-gravity. It does swing though, from place to place and from election to election.

Let me take two glances at Britain and America before taking a close look at South Africa.

In Britain, there were rising concerns about European policies like immigration and about high levels of corruption. First Britain confronted its European partners, but it was outnumbered. This fired up an ultra-conservative, patriotic movement called Brexit. It became very vocal, and to try to tame it, Prime Minister Cameron ran a plebiscite. That backfires, and the Leavers won. So Cameron resigned and his successor tried to comply with public opinion by negotiating a soft Brexit.

This proved to be very difficult because of two forces. First, the sheer size of the European Union which made no bones about not wanting Britain to leave. Second, because of a three-way split in parliament. Essentially, the Brexit bloc was bigger than any other, but couldnt muster a 50% majority. Finally Theresa May resigned in frustration and Boris Johnson replaced her. This was symbolic for he was more inclined to a hard Brexit. Conservatism prevailed when he called a snap election. He got Brexit done.

In America, there has always been a strong conservative base. For a century, American elections were contested by two parties the Democrats and the Whigs. Then along came an upstart new party called the Republicans, in the mid 19th century. Its leadership race was won by Abraham Lincoln, who went on to win the next presidential election too. However, he only garnered about 37 percent of the vote which was split three ways. But he had more than anyone else, so he was first past the post.

Lincoln was so conservative that when States started to secede over the question of slavery and their sovereign rights as states, he read that as treason.

Lincoln was so conservative that when states started to secede over the question of slavery and their sovereign rights as states, he read that as treason. A civil war started, during which Lincoln declared the Emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves. Once again in 2020, over a century later, America may be at the edge of civil war. Once again, the way I read the trending, conservatism will prevail. A kind of Reformation was started when the civil rights movement connected to the white left after the abhorrent death of George Floyd. This looked like a rising tide that would wash away the Republicans.

But I rather expect like Brexit that there will be a strong Counter-Reformation in the months that remain before the Nov 3 election. The silent majority in America will vote with its feet against anarchy, violence and polarization. The Democrats are splintered into so many factions, some militant like Antifa, some democratic socialist left like Bernie Sanders, and some moderate like Joe Biden. Meanwhile there is a Blexit of black conservative to join the silent majority of centrists with their comrades in arms in the alt-right. I would call this alignment the inconvenient majority once Biden, twice shy.

In South Africa, the predominant political space is shared by Liberals and Socialists. I regard Liberals as centrists or near-left. Socialists vary from near-left to far-left like the SACP and EFF. But honestly, the ANC is split between two factions one socialist and one liberal. You dont dare call the DA a conservative party they will quickly remind you that they took a stand against apartheid while the ANC was still in exile. Their core values are liberal, not conservative.

Read also: Herman Mashaba SA, ANC cannot exist in mutual prosperity ANC must go

In short, we are left with a fragmented Conservatism. You have the alt right, mostly in the ethnic enclave of the Freedom Front Plus. You have tribal conservatives in the Inkatha Freedom Party. You have small parties like the ACDP which champion religious constituencies. Then you have two significant blocs one in the DA and the other inside the ANC.

Vytjie Mentor left the ANC some time ago, she once served as an MP, but she fled to the ACDP. This week she switched allegiances again to the new Peoples Dialogue party (soon to be launched). I regard Herman Mashaba as a kind of progressive conservative who walked away from the DA when it decided to return to its roots, instead of following Mashabas more populist approach. Listen to the policy platform of this new emerging party, after a long process of consultation with stakeholders:

What will start to happen, I predict, is that the inconvenient majority will start to coalesce in or around (maybe in coalitions) with this new party. Just like the Republican party, which when it first started, chose Abraham Lincoln as its presidential candidate, and went on to re-define Americas future, Mashaba and the Peoples Dialogue can pull off the ANC-exit that centrists and conservatives together have been dreaming about.

I do not belong to any party, as I am an independent observer. This is certainly not a paid political announcement. I am simply reading the signs of the times, in an informed way. To me, it looks like dj vu all over again.

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Herman Mashaba: Why he might draw the crowds at election time Chuck Stephens - BizNews

Disney+ Guide: Everything Coming in August – PopCulture.com

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

Disney+ is gearing up to unleash a list of new titles for August 2020, expanding upon its already impressive content catalog. The official home for movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and more, Disney+ has risen to be a fierce competitor in the streaming wars, battling it out against the likes of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, and its list of August releases is putting up a new round of the stiff competition.

Beginning next month, and following on the heels of the dozens of additions made throughout July, Disney+ subscribers will be treated to even more new titles, with some impressive names making the list. For those in love with all things superhero, the streamer will be stocking X-Men and Ant-Man and the Wasp mid-month. Anyone still caught up on Hamilton can sing along to The Greatest Showman, which is also headed to the streaming library in August. The new month will also find the addition of several new Disney+ Originals.

Disney+ is available for an annual $69.99 subscription. You can also subscribe monthly for $6.99 per month. Keep scrolling to see everything coming to Disney+ next month.

Hidden Kingdoms of ChinaPrince of Persia: The Sands of TimeStar Wars Galaxys Edge: Adventure AwaitsThe Peanuts MovieUFO Europe: The Untold Stories (S1)X-Men

Howard Premiere"Directed by Don Hahn (Beauty and the Beast), Howard is the untold story of Howard Ashman, the brilliant lyricist behind Disney classics like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and creator of musicals including Little Shop of Horrors. Featuring never-before-seen archival footage, personal films and photographs, as well as interviews with Howards friends and family, the film is an intimate look at the Disney Legend's life, his creative drive, and the process behind the music. Spanning his childhood in Baltimore, to his formative years in New York, and his untimely death due to AIDS, Howard goes in-depth to explore his journey to become the lyricist behind some of the most beloved and well-known classic family films in the world."

Muppets Now, Episode 102 - "Fever Pitch""Fozzie Bear has some big ideas for Muppets Now, and there's no time like the deadline to start pitching! He's found a very tough audience in Scooter, who just wants to finish uploading the latest delivery. We see the very first episode of a game show that Pepe The King Prawn totally just made up. The Swedish Chef tries to cook a better mol sauce than his competitor, Danny Trejo. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew has replaced Beaker with a new smart assistant, and things get fired up. Miss Piggy and her guests, Taye Diggs and Linda Cardellini, show viewers how to work it out when they share the secret to staying healthy."

One Day At Disney, Episode 136 - "Ryan Meinerding: Marvel Studios Creative Director""Creative Director Ryan Meinerding brings Marvel characters to life through innovative design every day. There's never a dull moment as Ryan creates the first looks of characters for Marvel Studios films including Iron Man, Spider-Man, Captain America and more. From initial sketches to special effects, Ryan oversees the process of bringing the next iteration of iconic characters to the screen."

Disney Family Sundays, Series Finale, Episode 140 - "Goofy: Pencil Cup""Who says you cant be Goofy and organized at the same time? Not Amber or the Gubaney family, who connect to work on a Goofy-inspired craft. She will show them how to turn a simple item from the cupboard into a fun organizational tool that's sure to stand out. Meanwhile, the biggest challenge of all may be figuring out which Gubaney is the Goofiest!"

Pixar In Real Life, Episode 110 - "WALLE: BnL Pop-up Shop""When Buy N Large opens its first store in New York City, hungry customers get a taste of the future."

Alaska Animal Rescue (S1)Ant-Man and the WaspIndias Wild LeopardsJungle Animal Rescue (S1)Nature Boom Time (S1)Sams Zookeeper Challenge (S1)Scuba Sams World (S1)Spaced Out (S1)T.O.T.S. (S1)T.O.T.S. Calling all T.O.T.S. (S1)The Greatest ShowmanWild Cats of India (S1)Zombies 2

The One and Only Ivan Premiere"An adaptation of the award-winning book about one very special gorilla, Disney's The One and Only Ivan is an unforgettable tale about the beauty of friendship, the power of visualization and the significance of the place one calls home. Ivan is a 400-pound silverback gorilla who shares a communal habitat in a suburban shopping mall with Stella the elephant, Bob the dog, and vario us other animals. He has few memories of the jungle where he was captured, but when a baby elephant named Ruby arrives, it touches something deep within him. Ruby is recently separated from her family in the wild, which causes him to question his life, where he comes from and where he ultimately wants to be. The heartwarming adventure, which comes to the screen in an impressive hybrid of live-action and CGI, is based on Katherine Applegate's bestselling book, which won numerous awards upon its publication in 2013, including the Newbery Medal."

Muppets Now, Episode 103 - "Getting Testy""Joe, the new legal counsel for The Muppets, interrupts the scheduled delivery of Muppets Now to announce that all streaming content must be vetted by a focus group. Things go from bad to worse when Scooter meets up with the assigned test audience - curmudgeonly critics Statler & Waldorf. The Swedish Chef collaborates with Chef Roy Choi as the two try to make a one-of-kind kalbi bowl. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant, Beaker, enlist a Pizza Delivery Person (Al Madrigal) to explore velocity. Miss Piggy and her guests, Linda Cardellini and Taye Diggs, dig deep into the workings of a healthy relationship. Pepe The King Prawn' unbelievable game show features new contestants, new challenges, new rules, and no planning at all."

Magic Camp Premiere"A group of misfit campers help a down-on-his-luck magician rediscover his love of magic in Disney's Magic Camp, a heartwarming comedy about finding joy and confidence in self-acceptance."

One Day at Disney, Episode 137 - "Pavan Komkai: Broadcast Engineer""Manager of Broadcast Engineering at Disney Streaming Services, Pavan 'Billy' Komkai explains the unique process of broadcasting live sports on ESPN+ for fans around the world. No matter the time of day or the location of the event, Disney's Streaming Services team provides viewers with high quality coverage of diverse sporting events every day."

Weird But True!, Season Premiere Episode 301- "Dinosaurs""Did you know there are more stars in the universe, than grains of sand on the whole planet?! So weird! National Geographic's newest season of Weird But True! on Disney+ gets even weirder! Childrens entertainers and educators Charlie Engelman and Carly Ciarrocchi host the third season of the Emmy Award-winning series, and this time, theyre embarking on even more imaginative and strange adventures to reveal surprising and interesting facts about the world. Set both in studio and in the field, the award-winning Weird But True! integrates a mix of arts and crafts, unbelievable facts and real-life exploration. This 13-episode season includes weekly guest appearances from renowned astrophysicist Michio Kaku and Nat Geo Photographers and Explorers, including Anand Varma, and professor and founder of SciStarter Darlene Cavalier. Whether hunting for dinosaur fossils, hiking volcanoes or flying planes, the science-loving duo Charlie and Carly inspires kids to get excited about the world around them.

Hosts Charlie Engelman and Carly Ciarrocchi dont have tickets to their favorite actress movie premiere, but somehow their friends do. Charlie and Carly's quest to get to the Alabama Cones premiere takes them on a fascinating journey to Dinosaur National Monument. There, they hatch a plan with a paleontologist to 'dig up' the dough."

Back to the TitanicBeauty and the BeastMars: One Day on the Red Planet

Disney+ OriginalsMuppets Now, Episode 104 - "Sleep Mode""Scooter wakes up in horror to discover his all-nighters have finally gotten the best of him, and he has only 30 minutes to upload Muppets Now. With the clock ticking and his eyelids drooping, Scooter enlists Animal to help him stay awake. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant, Beaker, conduct a series of vibrational experiments with the help of a lonely, outdated computer. The Swedish Chef uncovers the secrets of Spaghetti Carbonara when staring down his competitor, Giuseppe Losavio. Miss Piggy sits down with Aubrey Plaza to conduct a fabulous one-on-one interview. Later, she looks out for number one as she focuses on self-care with guests Linda Cardellini and Taye Diggs."

One Day At Disney, Episode 138 - "Heather Bartleson: Holiday Services""As Senior Facilities Coordinator for Holiday Services, Heather Bartleson helps bring the holiday spirt to Disney. From parks, resorts, cruise lines and more, Bartleson works year-round to ensure the Holiday Services Team has everything they need to create holiday themed environments that immerse guests and create magical holiday moments."

Weird But True!, Episode 302 - "National Parks""To protect or enjoy? Hosts Carly and Charlie have two very different plans for the backyard and cannot come to an agreement. Carly thinks backyards are to be enjoyed, and Charlie thinks they should be protected. A visit with park rangers from Yellowstone National Park might just help settle Carly and Charlie's debate."

Alice Through the Looking GlassFantastic Four

Disney+ OriginalsPhineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe Premiere"Stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb, their older sister Candace, Perry the Platypus and the Danville gang are back together again in Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe, an out-of-this-world animated adventure from Disney Television Animation. Executive-produced by Dan Povenmire and Jeff 'Swampy' Marsh (creators and executive producers of the long-running Emmy Award-winning series Phineas and Ferb), the movie centers on Phineas and Ferb as they set out across the galaxy to rescue Candace, who after being abducted by aliens, finds utopia in a far-off planet, free of pesky little brothers."

Muppets Now, Episode 105 - "The I.T. Factor""Chip the I.T. guy installs an upgrade to Scooter's overtaxed computer just as Scooter is beginning to upload the latest episode of Muppets Now. Scooter must work fast to get everything in place before the hard reboot goes into effect. Miss Piggy takes a trip through the topic of travel with guests Linda Cardellini and Taye Diggs. Pepe The King Prawn makes up a new game show on the spot, and the contestants do their best to keep up. Uncle Deadly demonstrates the drama, disciplines, and danger of stage combat for Muppet fanboy, Walter. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew puts the pressure on his assistant, Beaker, with a hydraulic-press experiment that requires a personal touch."

One Day At Disney, Episode 139 - "Eric Baker: Imagineering Creative Director""Step into Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge with Walt Disney Imagineer & Creative Director Eric Baker as he helps create this new, exciting land. From traveling the globe in search of props to overseeing larger-than-life installations, Eric is constantly reimagining how to elevate the park guest experience so they are in awe each time they step into new lands and attractions."

Weird But True!, Episode 303 - "Farming""Charlie and Carly run a fruit-and-vegetable stand outside of headquarters, but lately, they've been selling out of their crops faster than they can grow them. Carly has an idea to turn the garden into a farm, but they don't have enough space to grow everything they need outside. She takes Charlie on a trip to an indoor vertical farm in NYC to learn new possibilities of farming!"

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Disney+ Guide: Everything Coming in August - PopCulture.com

NOT REAL NEWS: A look at fake news that was shared on social media this week – WBTW

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

CLAIM: There is no coin shortage. Coins get recirculated, they dont just disappear. The government is trying to usher in a cashless society.

THE FACTS: Not so, says The Federal Reserve, which manages the countrys coin inventory. Coins arent being circulated because businesses are closed and sales are down during the pandemic. And the government isnt pushing the U.S. into a cashless society, either. The U.S. Mint is actively producing more coins to alleviate the short supply.

Despite that, posts circulating widely on Facebook are suggesting that the shortage of coins in the U.S. is a hoax because it doesnt make sense for the currency to have disappeared. The posts suggest a larger conspiracy is at play to usher us all into a cashless era.

The Federal Reserve has explained that the supply chain is severely disrupted by the pandemic. With establishments like retail shops, bank branches, transit authorities and laundromats closed, the typical places where coin enters our society have slowed or even stopped the normal circulation of coin, the Federal Reserve said in a June statement. The Federal Reserve has asked banks to only order the coins they need and to make depositing coins easy for customers. It also put together a task force of retail, bank and armored cash carrier leaders to brainstorm ways to normalize coin circulation again.

The U.S. Mint, meanwhile, is moving at full speed to mint more coins, while minimizing its employees risk to COVID-19 exposure, the agencys spokesman Michael White told The Associated Press in an email. The Mint produced nearly 1.6 billion coins last month, White said, and is on track to average about 1.65 billion per month for the rest of the year. Thats up from an average of 1 billion coins per month last year, he added.

CLAIM: Former President Barack Obama signed the law authorizing federal agents to snatch protesters off the streets in Portland, Oregon.

THE FACTS: The White House says 40 U.S Code 1315, under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, gives the Trump administration the authority to send armed federal agents to confront protesters in Portland. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush, not Obama.

A false claim circulating on social media says people criticizing President Donald Trump for sending federal agents into Portland to clear protesters are ignoring the fact that Obama signed the law that allows for that to happen. When everyone just blames Trump but forgets who actually signed the law authorizing federal agents to snatch protestors off the streets in Portland, says an erroneous Facebook post shared more than 1,300 times with a photo of Obama smiling.

In early July, Trump sent federal agents to Portland to halt protests, arguing that it was necessary to protect federal buildings from protesters. State and local authorities oppose federal intervention and a lawsuit has been filed to stop the action. Trump is relying on the Department of Homeland Security in unprecedented ways as he tries to bolster his law and order credentials by making a heavy-handed show of force in cities around the nation in the lead-up to the November elections, the AP has reported.

According to Stephen Vladeck, professor at the University of Texas School of Law, social media posts are falsely referencing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 signed by Obama, saying that law authorizes the Trump Administration to deploy federal agents.

Its simply preposterous, Vladeck said. That statute includes a controversial set of provisions concerning military detention, but it has absolutely nothing to do with whats happening in Portland.

The law, often referred to as NDAA, included detention provisions that could be interpreted to authorize indefinite military detention without charge or trial. When questioned about the legality of sending agents with tactical gear to confront protesters against the will of local officials in those cities, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany cited Section 1315 during Tuesdays press briefing. McEnany claimed that Section 1315 gives DHS the ability to deputize officers in any department or agency, like ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, and Secret Service to protect property owned by the federal government. And when a federal courthouse is being lit on fire, commercial fireworks being shot at it, being shot at the officers, I think that that falls pretty well within the limits of 40 U.S. Code 1315, she added.

CLAIM: A video from a 1985 hearing exposes Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for using the N-word, stating: We already have a n mayor, we dont need any more n big shots!

THE FACTS: Social media users are twisting Bidens words from a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1985 for the nomination of William Bradford Reynolds as U.S. deputy attorney general. Biden was reading a racist statement made by a state legislator during a redistricting process in Louisiana that was overseen by the nominee, who was being questioned under oath.

Biden was using those comments to build a case against Reynolds nomination, pointing out that as the assistant attorney general for civil rights he ignored racist comments by lawmakers and signed off on a plan that gerrymandered Louisianas congressional districts to deprive Black residents of representation. Biden specifically questioned Reynolds about a Louisiana congressional map redistricting proposal called the Nunez plan. C-Span video footage of Reynolds 1985 nomination hearing shows that Biden repeatedly asked Reynolds if he heard or saw any evidence that Louisianas politicians intentionally drew the map in a way that discriminated against Black residents in New Orleans.

Reynolds said he did not find any evidence that this was the case. Biden pointed out that Reynolds did, however, receive a memo from his staff that highlighted racist comments made by legislators who opposed the majority Black district. Using the N-word in the quote, Biden said: They brought to your attention the allegation that important legislators in defeating the Nunez plan, in the basement, said, We already have a n mayor, we dont need any more n big shots.

Biden argued that those comments, as well as other problems with the Louisiana governors plan, should have been a red flag for Reynolds, who should have never signed off on the plan. The Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately rejected Reynolds nomination in a 10-8 vote.

CLAIM: Black tour buses wrapped with Black Lives Matter were seen in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, bringing in Black Lives Matter and antifa rioters for protests.

THE FACTS: The photos being shared online show tour buses that were wrapped with the Black Lives Matter slogan for the Toronto Raptors basketball team.

Social media users are misrepresenting photos online to say they show that Black Lives Matter protesters and activists associated with antifa an umbrella term for anti-fascists are being bused into cities for protests. At a truck stop in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. Notice the number and immense cost of the custom buses bringing in Black Lives Matter and Antifa Rioters. This is huge money and organization. @realDonaldTrump. This should be attacked by going after those with the deep pockets, one post on Twitter with more than 7,000 retweets said. The photo shows a bus yard where tour buses wrapped with the Black Lives Matter slogan are parked.

The buses were part of a Toronto Raptors effort to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement. The team used the buses for only a day and they were moved to a Fort Lauderdale bus yard on July 10. They have not moved since.

A spokesperson for the Toronto Raptors confirmed to The Associated Press that the buses were wrapped for the team and were provided by a bus company that transported the team in Florida from their training camp in Naples to Orlando, where the NBA constructed a social bubble to resume the NBA season and protect 22 teams from COVID-19.

The Toronto Raptors posted photos of the buses with the Black Lives Matter wrapper to Twitter on July 9, tweeting, Silence is not an option. The team also included the buses in an Instagram video where team members boarded them in T-shirts that also said Black Lives Matter.

The bus company that transported the team confirmed to the AP that the buses have been out of service since they were used by the basketball team. The posts misrepresenting the photos online coincided with Mondays Strike for Black Lives, where essential workers picketed during their lunch breaks and held moments of silence in support of Black Lives Matter.

CLAIM: In a July 17 tweet, President Donald Trump says he is SO MAD the Pentagon abolished the Confederate flag and calls the flag a symbol of love.

THE FACTS: This tweet was fabricated. It does not appear on either archived versions of Trumps Twitter feed or databases that track deleted tweets by politicians.

On July 17, the same day the Pentagon announced a policy banning displays of the Confederate flag on military installations, an image of a tweet allegedly sent by Trumps account began circulating on Facebook and Instagram. SO MAD!!! the fake tweet read. Pentagon abolished Confederate flag today. The flag is TREMENDOUS part of our history. Its a symbol of LOVE!! Plantations kept black people employed and gave them free food and housing!!! Black unemployment was VERY low back then like now with ME as your President!!

Several social media users sharing the image posted it alongside criticism of Trump. Remember Trumps Tweets when its time to vote! wrote one Facebook user in a post viewed more than 22,000 times in two days. Another Facebook post with the image, shared without context or a caption, racked up more than 158,000 views.

But there is no evidence Trump ever tweeted this. The alleged tweet does not appear on his Twitter timeline, nor does it show up in a search of archived versions of his profile. In ProPublicas Politwoops, a tool that tracks deleted tweets by politicians, a search for Trumps account does not turn up any deleted tweets with this message, nor any deleted tweets from July 17.

In previous interviews, Trump has defended peoples rights to display the Confederate flag, referring to it as a First Amendment issue. Like it, dont like it, its freedom of speech, he told CBS in a July 14 interview.

CLAIM: NASA has officially announced a 13th zodiac sign, Ophiuchus, after discovering a new constellation, meaning your zodiac star has changed.

THE FACTS: NASA is the federal agency dedicated to studying and exploring astronomy, not astrology, and has not made any such announcement.

Social media users are passing around an old hoax once again, claiming that NASA has officially established a 13th zodiac sign. The claim, which also contends that the entire zodiac system has now been realigned, is circulating in popular Facebook posts.

NASA debunked the social media posts on its website and Twitter account. We see your comments about a zodiac story that re-emerges every few years, NASA said in a July 16 tweet, sharing a link to a 2016 blog post that explains the zodiacs history. No, we did not change the zodiac.

In an online statement, NASA said the Babylonians created the zodiac 3,000 years ago, centering it around 12 constellations to pair with each month of their 12-month calendar. That statement did note that the Babylonians ancient stories identified 13 constellations and they left off one Ophiuchus to match the calendar.

Though thats been known for centuries it isnt a new discovery by NASA or anyone else. So, we didnt change any zodiac signs we just did the math, NASA said in the online post.

CLAIM: In an April 9 interview with CNBCs Squawk Box, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he expects 700,000 people to develop negative side effects from a coronavirus vaccine.

THE FACTS: Gates used the number in a hypothetical example, but social media users are misconstruing his words to claim he expects 700,000 vaccine injuries.

Ever since Gates interview about the coronavirus aired in April, posts and false news articles have claimed he had grim projections for the vaccine. Hes expecting 700,000 people to have negative side effects, wrote one Facebook user, in a post viewed by more than 40,000 people in two days.

But these posts dont accurately represent Gates words. Asked about the timeline for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, Gates said creating effective vaccines for older populations is always a challenge.

He then referred to the number 700,000 in a hypothetical example to illustrate the importance of creating a vaccine that is effective without side effects. Here, we clearly need a vaccine that works in the upper age range because theyre most at risk of that, Gates said. And doing that so that you amp it up so it works in older people and yet you dont have side effects you know, if we have 1 in 10,000 side effects, thats way more, 700,000 people who will suffer from that. So, really understanding the safety at gigantic scale across all age ranges you know, pregnant, male, female, undernourished, existing comorbidities its very, very hard. And that actual decision of, OK, lets go and give this vaccine to the entire world governments will have to be involved because there will be some risk and indemnification needed before that can be decided on.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation confirmed in a statement that the reference was hypothetical. Strong scientific evidence shows that vaccines are safe and they have a proven track record of preventing diseases, the statement said. Experts believe that a vaccine against COVID-19 will be critical to ending this pandemic once clinical trials show that they are safe and effective in a broad group of people.

Originally posted here:

NOT REAL NEWS: A look at fake news that was shared on social media this week - WBTW

Gravitons Revealed in the Noise of Gravitational Waves – Quanta Magazine

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

Even coherent gravitational waves produce graviton noise, but as Dyson also found its far too small to ever measure. This is because the jitter created as the detector absorbs gravitons is exquisitely balanced with the jitter created when it emits gravitons, said Wilczek, who had hoped that their calculation would lead to a bigger noise for coherent states. It was a little disappointing, he said.

Undeterred, Parikh, Wilczek and Zahariade examined several other types of gravitational waves that Dyson did not consider. They found that one quantum state in particular, called a squeezed state, produces a much more pronounced graviton noise. In fact, Parikh, Wilczek and Zahariade found that the noise increases exponentially the more the gravitons are squeezed.

Their theoretical exploration suggested against prevailing wisdom that graviton noise is in principle observable. Moreover, detecting this noise would tell physicists about the exotic sources that might create squeezed gravitational waves. They are thinking about it in a very serious way, and theyre approaching it in a precise language, said Erik Verlinde, a theoretical physicist at the University of Amsterdam.

We always had this image that gravitons would bombard detectors in some way, and so there would be a little bit of jitter, said Parikh. But, Zahariade added, when we understood how this graviton noise term arises mathematically, it was a beautiful moment.

The calculations were worked out over three years and are summarized in a recent paper. The paper describing the complete set of calculations is currently under peer review.

Yet while squeezed light is routinely made in the lab including at LIGO its still unknown whether squeezed gravitational waves exist. Wilczek suspects that the final stages of black hole mergers, where gravitational fields are very strong and changing rapidly, could produce this squeezing effect. Inflation a period in the early universe when space-time expanded very rapidly could also lead to squeezing. The authors now plan to build precise models of these cosmological events and the gravitational waves they emit.

This opens the door to very difficult calculations that are going to be a challenge to carry through to the end, said Wilczek. But the good news is that it gets really interesting and potentially realistic as an experimental target.

Rather than looking to quantum sources in the cosmos, other physicists hope to see graviton noise directly in the bubbling vacuum of space-time, where particles fleetingly pop into existence and then disappear. As they appear, these virtual particles cause space-time to gently warp around them, creating random fluctuations known as space-time foam.

This quantum world might seem inaccessible to experiment. But its not if the universe obeys the holographic principle, in which the fabric of space-time emerges in the same way that a 3D hologram pops out of a 2D pattern. If the holographic principle is true, quantum particles like the graviton live on the lower-dimensional surface and encode the familiar force of gravity in higher-dimensional space-time.

In such a scenario, the effects of quantum gravity can be amplified into the everyday world of experiments like LIGO. Recent work by Verlinde and Kathryn Zurek, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, proposes using LIGO or another sensitive interferometer to observe the bubbling vacuum that surrounds the instrument.

In a holographic universe, the interferometer sits in higher-dimensional space-time, which is closely wrapped in a lower-dimensional quantum surface. Adding up the tiny fluctuations across the surface creates a noise that is big enough to be detected by the interferometer. Weve shown that the effects due to quantum gravity are not just determined by the Planck scale, but also by [the interferometers] scale, said Verlinde.

If their assumptions about the holographic principle hold true, graviton noise will become an experimental target for LIGO, or even for a tabletop experiment. In 2015 at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a tabletop experiment called the Holometer looked for evidence that the universe is holographic and was found wanting. The theoretical ideas at that time were very primitive, said Verlinde, noting that the calculations in his paper with Zurek are grounded on the more in-depth holographic methods developed since then. If the calculations enable researchers to precisely predict what this graviton noise looks like, he thinks their odds of discovery are better although still rather unlikely.

Zurek and Verlindes approach will only work if our universe is holographic a conjecture that is far from established. Describing their attitude as more of a wild west mentality, Zurek said, Its high risk and unlikely to succeed, but what the heck, we dont understand quantum gravity.

By contrast, Parikh, Wilczek and Zahariades calculation is built on physics that few would disagree with. We did a very conservative calculation, which is almost certainly correct, said Parikh. It essentially just assumes there exists something called the graviton and that gravity can be quantized.

But the trio acknowledge that more theoretical legwork must be done before its known whether current or planned gravitational wave detectors can discover graviton noise. It would require several lucky breaks, said Parikh. Not only must the universe harbor exotic sources that create squeezed gravitational waves, but the graviton noise must be distinguishable from the many other sources of noise that LIGO is already subject to.

So far, LIGO hasnt shown any signs of physics that breaks with the predictions of Einsteins general relativity, said Holz, who is a member of the LIGO collaboration. Thats where you start: General relativity is amazing. Still, he acknowledges that gravitational wave detectors are our best hope for making new fundamental discoveries about the universe, because the terrain is completely uncharted.

Wilczek argues that if researchers develop an understanding of what graviton noise might look like, gravitational wave detectors can be adjusted to improve the chances of finding it. Naturally, people have been focusing on trying to fish out signals, and not worrying about the interesting properties of the noise, said Wilczek. But if you have that in mind, you would maybe design something different. (Holz clarified that LIGO researchers have already studied some possible cosmic noise signals.)

Despite the challenges ahead, Wilczek said he is guardedly optimistic that their work will lead to predictions that can be probed experimentally. In any case, he hopes the paper will spur other theorists to study graviton noise.

Fundamental physics is a hard business. You can famously write the whole thing on a T-shirt, and its hard to make additions or changes to that, Wilczek said. I dont see how this is going to lead there directly, but it opens a new window on the world.

And then well see what we see.

This article was reprinted onWired.com.

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Gravitons Revealed in the Noise of Gravitational Waves - Quanta Magazine

Freedom of Speech and of the Press | The Heritage Guide to …

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

What exactly did the Framers mean by freedom of speech, or of the press? Little is definitively known about the subject. The debates in the First Congress, which proposed the Bill of Rights, are brief and unilluminating. Early state constitutions generally included similar provisions, but there is no record of detailed debate about what those state provisions meant. The Framers cared a good deal about the freedom of the press, as the Appeal to the Inhabitants of Quebec, written by the First Continental Congress in 1774, shows:

The statement mentions some of the values that the Founders saw as inherent in the principle of freedom of the press: the search and attainment of truth, scientific progress, cultural development, the increase of virtue among the people, the holding of governmental officials to republican values, the strengthening of community, and a check upon self-aggrandizing politicians. But broad statements such as this tell us less than we would like to know about what the freedom of the press meant to the Founders as a rule of law, when the freedom would yield to competing concerns, or whether the freedom prohibited only prior restraints or also subsequent punishments.

There were few reported Founding-era court cases that interpreted the federal and state Free Speech and Free Press Clauses, and few Founding-era political controversies excited detailed discussion of what the clauses meant. The governments of the time were small, and the statute books thin. Not many states passed laws restricting commercial advertising. Only one state law banned pornography, and that ban appears to have been unenforced until 1821. Some states had blasphemy laws, but they were largely unenforced from the early 1700s until the 1810s. No laws banned flag-burning, campaign spending, or anonymous speech.

This may but does not necessarily mean that such speech was broadly believed to be constitutionally protected; then, as today, the government did not ban all that it had the power to ban. But the paucity of such bans meant that few people in that era had occasion to define carefully what the constitutional boundaries of speech and press protection might be.

In fact, the most prominent free press debate of the years immediately following the Framingthe Sedition Act controversyillustrated that there was little consensus on even as central an issue as whether the free press guarantee only prohibited prior restraints on publications critical of the government, or whether it also forbade punishment for seditious speech once it was made.

In 1798, the country was fighting the Quasi-War with France. The Federalist Party controlled all three branches of the federal government, and its members suspected many Republican party stalwarts of sympathizing with France and the French Revolution and thus of fomenting disloyalty. Congress consequently made it a crime to publish any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings...with intent to defame the government, Congress, or the President, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations...for opposing or resisting any law of the United States...or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government. Several publishers were in fact convicted under the law, often under rather biased applications of the falsity requirement.

The Federalists actions likely represented a serious constitutional judgment, and not just political expediency. True, malicious falsehoods about the Vice PresidentThomas Jefferson, who was a leading Republicanwere not covered by the law, and the law was scheduled to expire on March 3, 1801, the day before Federalist President John Adamss term was to end. But shortly before the law expired, and after the Federalists lost the 1800 election, Federalist Representatives nonetheless tried to renew the Act; had they succeeded, the Act would have punished libels against President Jefferson and the new Democratic-Republican Congressional majority. The bill was defeated in the House by a 5349 vote, with all but four Federalists voting for it and all Republicans voting against it.

Indeed, in 1799 Federalist Congressman John Marshall (who would soon become Chief Justice), expressed doubts that the Sedition Act was wise but nonetheless argued that the free press guarantee meant only liberty to publish, free from previous restraintfree of requirements that printers be licensed, or that their material be approved before publication. Under this view, which echoed the British law as expounded by Sir William Blackstone, criminal punishment after publication was constitutional, at least if the punishment was consistent with the traditional rules of the common law. Other early American political leaders, such as James Madison, the principal drafter of the Bill of Rights, argued the opposite: [T]his idea ofthe freedom of the press can never be admitted to be the American idea of it; since a law inflicting penalties on printed publications would have a similar effect with a law authorizing a previous restraint on them.

Likewise, Marshall and other Federalists argued that the freedom of the press must necessarily be limited, because government cannot be...secured, if by falsehood and malicious slander, it is to be deprived of the confidence and affection of the people. Not so, reasoned Madison and other Republicans: even speech that creates a contempt, a disrepute, or hatred [of the government] among the people should be tolerated because the only way of determining whether such contempt is justified is by a free examination [of the governments actions], and a free communication among the people thereon. It was as if half the country read the constitutional guarantee one way, and the other half, the other way.

The Founding generation undoubtedly believed deeply in the freedom of speech and of the press, but then, as now, these general terms were understood differently by different people. Many people did not think about their precise meaning until a concrete controversy arose; and when a controversy did arise, people disagreed sharply on that meaning.

A Supreme Court case, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995), illustrates the continuing debate over the original meaning of the clause. The question in McIntyre was whether the government could outlaw anonymous electioneering. The majority dealt with the question based on the Courts twentieth-century case law and twentieth-century First Amendment theories. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the Courts most devoted originalists, however, did focus on the original meaning discussion but reached different results.

Both Justices recognized that there was no record of discussions of anonymous political expression either in the First Congress, which drafted the Bill of Rights, or in the state ratifying conventions. They both recognized that much political speech in the time of the Framers (such as The Federalist Papers itself) was anonymous. Indeed, much political speech justifying resistance to Parliament before the Revolution was also anonymous.

To Justice Thomas, the experience of the Founders in their own use of anonymous speechThe Federalist Papers being a classic examplewas dispositive of what they would have regarded as a vital part of the freedom of speech, particularly where political speech was at issue. Justice Scalia, however, who has a narrower view of what can be accepted as evidence of original intent apart from the text of the pro-vision itself, argued that to prove that anonymous electioneering was used frequently is not to establish that it is a constitutional right; perhaps the legislatures simply chose not to prohibit the speech, even though they had the constitutional power to do so.

Justice Thomas did produce evidence that some Founding-era commentators saw anonymous commentary as protected by the Liberty of the Press, but Justice Scalia replied that many of these were mere partisan cr[ies] that said little about any generally accepted understanding. Justice Thomas found the evidence sufficient to justify reading the First Amendment as protecting anonymous speech. Justice Scalia did not think the historical evidence of what people did necessarily shows much about what people believed they had a constitutional right to do. Instead, Scalia turned to American practices of the 1800s and the 1900s, a source that he considers authoritative where the original meaning is uncertain. A consensus on the original meaning on this subject thus remains elusive.

This having been said, on some questions it is possible to have a good idea of what the Framers thought, based on a combination of pre-Framing, Framing-era, and shortly post-Framing evidence. First, traditional libel law was seen as permissible. Several state constitutions also secured the freedom of the press and the liberty of the press, and under them, defaming another person was understood to be constitutionally unprotected.

Second, the Free Press Clause was seen as covering the press as technologyall who used printing presses to try to communicate to the public at largeand not the press in the sense of a specific industry or occupation. Professional publishers and journalists were not seen as having symbolic expression, such as paintings, effigies (whether just being displayed or being burnt), liberty poles, and the like as tantamount to verbal expression. Both would be equally punishable as libel, if they conveyed false and defamatory messages about someone. But both would also be equally covered by the freedom of speech or of the press.

Fourth, Framing-era sources treat civil tort liability for speech the same as criminal liability for constitutional purposes. Indeed, the very first court cases setting aside government action on constitutional freedom of expression grounds, an 1802 Vermont case and an 1806 South Carolina case, involved civil libel verdicts set aside because of the state constitutions Petition Clauses. Similar cases from that era applied the same principle to state Free Speech and Free Press Clauses.

As noted above, there was considerable controversy about how broad the constitutional protections were, and what the scope of the exceptions to protection might be. But the constitutional protections, whatever their substantive breadth, applied equally without regard to whether the speaker was a professional publisher, whether the communication was symbolic expression or verbal expression, and whether the case involved tort liability or criminal punishment.

Notwithstanding occasional references to originalist debatessuch as the originalist debate between Justices Thomas and Scalia in McIntyretodays free speech and free press law is not much influenced by original meaning. It mostly stems from the experience and thinking of the twentieth century, as the Court first began to hear a wide range of free speech cases only in the late 1910s. This approach has produced the following general free speech rules:

a. Incitement: Speech may be restricted if it is: (i) intended to persuade people to engage in (ii) imminent unlawful conduct, and (iii) likely to cause such imminent unlawful conduct. Outside this narrow zone, even speech that advocates lawbreaking is constitutionally protected. Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).

b. Libel, fraud, and perjury: Libel, fraud, and perjury may generally be punished if they consist of knowing lies, though generally not if they are honest mistakes (even unreasonable mistakes). There are, however, some situations where even honest mistakes can be punished. United States v. Alvarez (2012); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.

c. Obscenity: Hard-core pornography is punishable if: (i) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to a shameful or morbid interest in sex or excretion; (ii) the work depicts or describes, in a way that is patently offensive under contemporary community standards, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (iii) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Miller v. California (1973).

d. Child pornography: Sexually themed live performances, photographs, and movies that were made using actual children may be punished even if they do not fit within the obscenity test. This does not cover digitized pictures, drawings, or text materials, which are constitutionally protected unless they are obscene. The Court has reasoned that child pornography is unprotected because it hurts the children involved in its making, so the exception only covers cases where actual children were indeed involved. Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002).

e. Threats: Speech that is reasonably perceived as a threat of violence (and not just rhetorical hyperbole) can be punished. Virginia v. Black (2003).

f. Fighting words: Face-to-face insults that are addressed to a particular person and are likely to cause an imminent fight can be punished. More generalized offensive speech that is not addressed to a particular person cannot be punished even if it is profane or deeply insulting. Cohen v. California.

g. Speech owned by others: Intellectual property laws, such as copy-right law, may restrict people from using particular expression that is owned by someone else; but the law may not let any-one monopolize facts or ideas. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises (1985).

h. Commercial advertising: Commercial advertising is constitutionally protected, but less so than other speech (political, scientific, artistic, and the like). Misleading commercial advertising may be barred, whereas misleading political speech can-not be. Commercial advertising may also be required to include disclaimers to keep it from being misleading; such disclaimers cant be required for political speech. Recent cases hold that commercial advertising may not be restricted for paternalistic reasons, because of a fear that people will learn accurate information but will do bad things based on that informationfor example, buy more alcohol, smoke more, or prescribe more expensive pharmaceuticals than the government thinks wise. This rule applies only to speech that proposes a commercial transaction between the speaker and the listener; it does not apply to speech that is merely sold in commerce, such as books, videos, and databases. Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. (2011).

Free speech/free press law is sometimes called the tax code of constitutional law. The discussion above suggests how complex the law is, but while some of the complexity may be needless, much of it is inevitable. Communication is in many ways the most complicated of human activities, and no simple rule can properly deal with all the different kinds of harms that it can cause--or all the different kinds of harms that restricting communication can cause.

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Freedom of Speech and of the Press | The Heritage Guide to ...

Revolve Appoints Retail Veteran Melanie Cox to the Board of Directors – Business Wire

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Revolve Group, Inc. (NYSE: RVLV) today announced the appointment of retail industry veteran Melanie Cox to its board of directors, as well as the audit and compensation committees, effective immediately. Cox is CEO of Backcountry, a leading online retailer of premium outdoor sports gear and apparel. Drawing on more than 25 years of industry experience, Cox has served in CEO, president and chief merchandising executive roles for several prominent retail brands where she had a significant positive impact.

Prior to Backcountry, Cox served in various senior leadership roles, including as CEO and interim CEO of womens fashion retailers Wet Seal and rue21, respectively. Earlier in her career, Cox served in senior-level roles at Urban Outfitters, Gymboree, Scoop NYC and Contempo Casuals (acquired by Wet Seal). She is also the founder of MBC Consulting, where she advised private equity and corporate clients on retail industry trends, risk assessment, strategic direction and identifying market opportunities including mergers and acquisitions.

Melanie is a proven leader with deep apparel industry experience, said co-founder and co-CEO Michael Mente. Her experience successfully guiding public and private companies in our industry is a great complement to our already strong board. I am excited to tap into Melanies breadth of industry knowledge and confident that her contributions to our board will be invaluable in shaping REVOLVEs future strategies for growth and unlocking shareholder value.

I am thrilled to join the REVOLVE board and excited to contribute to the companys continued success, said Melanie Cox. Mike, Michael and their talented team have built REVOLVE into a globally recognized brand serving a loyal and growing customer base. Powerful e-commerce tailwinds, generational shifts and global expansion opportunities create a long runway to further capitalize on their success in the years ahead.

Cox is replacing Jennifer Baxter Moser on the board. Moser, a managing director at TSG Consumer and a REVOLVE director since 2012, submitted her resignation from the board on July 28, 2020.

On behalf of the board and leadership team, I want to thank Jenny for her dedicated service and outstanding contributions to our success during the past eight years, said co-founder and co-CEO Mike Karanikolas. Her considerable talents and deep insights into the REVOLVE core customer demographic have played a critical role in the development of our margin-accretive portfolio of owned brands, our industry-leading marketing strategy and the launch of REVOLVE Beauty, which has become our fastest-growing product category in recent months.

I feel honored to have been part of the REVOLVE journey over the past eight years, said Jennifer Baxter Moser. I have been a passionate REVOLVE fan from the very beginning, and I am so proud to see what Mike, Michael and the team have created. What began as a bootstrapped startup has emerged as an industry leader and a brand that is shaping the future of fashion. They have been innovators in every aspect of the business. I know they will continue to do great things and I am excited to watch their continued success.

About Revolve Group, Inc.

Revolve Group, Inc. (RVLV) is the next-generation fashion retailer for Millennial and Generation Z consumers. As a trusted, premium lifestyle brand, and a go-to online source for discovery and inspiration, we deliver an engaging customer experience from a vast yet curated offering of apparel, footwear, accessories and beauty styles. Our dynamic platform connects a deeply engaged community of millions of consumers, thousands of global fashion influencers, and hundreds of emerging, established and owned brands.

We were founded in 2003 by our co-CEOs, Michael Mente and Mike Karanikolas. We sell merchandise through two differentiated segments, REVOLVE and FORWARD, that leverage one platform. Through REVOLVE we offer a highly curated assortment of premium apparel and footwear, accessories and beauty products from emerging, established and owned brands. Through FORWARD we offer an assortment of iconic and emerging luxury brands. For more information, visit http://www.revolve.com.

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Revolve Appoints Retail Veteran Melanie Cox to the Board of Directors - Business Wire

The White Company to install Quadient’s automated packaging system – Packaging Gateway

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

]]]]]]>]]]]>]]> The White Company offers linens, home decor, dinnerware, and furniture. Credit: Simone Meier.

UK multi-channel retailer The White Company is upgrading its Northampton fulfilment centre with a new automated packaging system.

The retailer will install Quadients CVP Everest at its centre in August.

CVP Everest is a high-speed fit-to-size packaging technology and will support The White Companys future e-commerce orders.

It will also allow the company to cut down on the environmental impact of its distribution centre and fulfilment and delivery operation.

The White Company DC continuous improvement manager Rob Gascoigne said: To meet the uplift in e-commerce order volumes and to efficiently comply with new health and safety requirements brought on by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, we decided to invest in an automated packaging technology that could not only deliver speed, but importantly, would present a sustainable packaging solution for the future. Im happy to say that we found it in Quadients CVP Everest.

Designed to measure, construct, seal and label each parcel in a seamless process, CVP Everest reduces package volumes by up to 50% and cardboard usage by 20%.

The system can customise each package to the required individual order size.

For Quadient, this is the first commercial installation of this technology since its launch in January this year.

Quadient emerging operation executive vice-president Jrme Vigier said: We pride ourselves at Quadient on being an innovative and forward-thinking organisation and are delighted to be supporting The White Company with a sustainable solution for its e-commerce channel.

The CVP Everest is an innovation designed, created and built by our R&D teams in Drachten, Netherlands.

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The White Company to install Quadient's automated packaging system - Packaging Gateway

Reid awards $150,000 in grants to promote physical activity, good nutrition and weight – Palladium-Item

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

Palladium-Item Published 7:51 a.m. ET July 29, 2020

Cyclists ride along the Cardinal Greenway in this file photo.(Photo: Joshua Smith/Palladium-Item)

RICHMOND, Ind. Reid HealthCommunity Benefit is awarding $150,378 in grants for 25 programs throughout Reid Health's service area.

Programs receiving the grants are designed to improve health by encouraging physical activity, good nutrition and healthy weight control, according to a release.

These grants are the second awards of two grant cycles for this year. A committee of Reid Health's governingboard and community members reviews requests for grants to promote health and wellness locally, and to target prioritized health needs in Reid's service area. "The grants are awarded as part of the health system's efforts as a mission-driven, not-for-profit organization," the release stated. "The work of Reid Health Community Benefit provides millions of dollars of support to our communities each year."

Grants awarded this cycle are:

"Community benefitis defined as programs or activities that improve access to health services, enhance public health, advance increased healthknowledge, and/or relieves the government burden to improve health. It is the basis of the tax-exempt status of not-for-profit hospitals, and ensures that tax-exempt hospitals are meeting the health needs of their communities while demonstrating transparency and accountability to those they serve," the release stated.

In addition to grants, Reid Health Community Benefit supports various programs focused on community health, specifically in the areas of mental health and substance misuse, nutrition, physical activity and weighand adverse childhood experiences. Information: reidcommunities.orgor reidhealth.org

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Reid awards $150,000 in grants to promote physical activity, good nutrition and weight - Palladium-Item

Beat the summer heat – C&G Newspapers

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

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METRO DETROIT Seemingly endless weeks of hot, steamy weather along with a few intense storms have dramatically increased the use of air conditioning, and at times, cut power altogether this summer.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated both issues, with families staying at home more and the closure of many public buildings typically sought after for shade.

Consumers Energy and DTE encourage customers to shift energy use away from peak times, typically 2-7 p.m. weekdays in the summer, when demand rises and electricity is more expensive to provide.

According to DTE, the number of 90-degree days in Detroit is already three times higher this summer compared to last summer at this point.

Michigan residents should know they can take simple steps in their homes every day to reduce energy waste and lower their bills, Consumers Energy Vice President of Customer Experience Lauren Youngdahl Snyder said in a prepared statement.

Youngdahl Snyder recommended clearing leaves and debris away from central air conditioning units and compressors and replacing dusty filters, which make air conditioners work harder. Replacing or tuning up old air conditioners also will increase energy efficiency.

She said to seal and insulate homes, which keeps cool air inside in the summer, as well as keeping hot air inside during the winter.

She also recommended setting thermostats at 78 degrees while at home and higher when away. Automatic setback or programmable thermostats can start air conditioners shortly before returning home.

Operate appliances such as stoves, ovens, dishwashers and clothes dryers during morning or evening hours when its cooler outside, as they add extra heat to the home and make the air conditioner work harder, Youngdahl Snyder said.

Roger Morgenstern, the senior public information director for Consumers Energy, said residential energy use has increased, while commercial use has decreased. Many employees are working from home and families are staying in.

Our offices are closed at Consumers Energy, he said. Obviously, there are crews you see out there day and night taking proper COVID-19 safety measures, and the dispatchers. You cant pack up an 800 megahertz radio and take it home with you.

Using less energy also decreases the need for energy companies to build more power plants and reduces pollution, Morgenstern said.

Brynn Guster, a senior communication specialist at DTE Energy, recommended closing blinds and drapes during the day to keep out the heat from the sun. Window film and solar screens can also be used on west- and south-facing windows to block sunlight.

Guster also recommended ensuring that furniture is not covering registers, which blocks cold air from circulating into the home, and closing doors and windows to trap in cold air.

Other tips provided by DTE Energy include using microwaves or grilling outdoors, instead of using stoves or ovens, to avoid adding extra heat, or if cooking inside is necessary, turn on exhaust fans to move the hot air outside.

Taking quicker, cooler showers will also prevent bathrooms from filling up with hot, humid air; installing an attic fan can reduce the need for air conditioning; and using box, ceiling or hand-held fans can provide instant relief.

(Fans) create a cooling effect on skin because they move air around and cool your body. Its great for instant relief, and its not going to cause your energy to go through the roof, Guster said.

In case of power outages, fans are energy experts No. 1 recommendation.

Its important to stay out of the sun and hydrate, Morgenstern said.

Guster said to practice safety first by taking breaks and avoiding becoming overheated.

We definitely have seen the summer temperatures with 90-degree days. Its fun to feel in summer mode when youre next to a pool, but not everybody can do that. It becomes draining. You feel your body become lethargic, she said. Were all under some additional stress with COVID happening, and everyone at DTE takes it very seriously.

Royal Oak Assistant Fire Chief Jim Cook recommended installing smart thermometers, which can be controlled remotely; purchasing dry ice in case of extended power outages, which can keep frozen and refrigerated foods cold; and cooking outdoors.

You can also do some outdoor water stuff if you have kids. You can use the garden hose or sprinklers you dont need power for that, Cook said. When the pandemic started, you couldnt find kiddie pools in southeastern Michigan. They were completely sold out because everybody was snatching them up.

He said the Fire Department, to his knowledge, has so far only responded to one call of an overheated, elderly patient, who ultimately recovered, and its biggest issue has been responding to more than 100 calls for service for downed power lines due to recent storms.

For more information about DTE Energy or its energy incentives, call (800) 477-4747 or visit dteenergy.com.

For more information about Consumers Energy or its energy incentives, call (800) 477-5050 or visit consumersenergy.com.

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Beat the summer heat - C&G Newspapers

Alphamin Initiates Resource Extension Drilling, Construction of a Fine Tin Recovery Plant and Increase in Ownership of its Flagship Tin Mine -…

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Danzig

GRAND BAIE, Mauritius, July 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alphamin Resources Corp. (AFM:TSXV, APH:JSE AltX, Alphamin or the Company) is pleased to provide the following updates regarding its operational initiatives and ownership level of its flagship Bisie tin mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Alphamin to increase ownership of its Bisie tin mine

In connection with Alphamins equity offering concluded in May 2020, Alphamin settled certain third-party indebtedness of indirect subsidiary Alphamin Bisie Mining SA (ABM), the owner of the Bisie tin mine, by the issue of Alphamin shares in consideration for a temporary loan due by ABM. Alphamin has now secured the required Board and shareholder approvals from ABM to convert this ABM loan into new shares of ABM. This will increase Alphamins equity ownership of its flagship tin mine from 80.75% to 84.14%.

Fine Tin Recovery Project

Alphamin has appointed Obsideo (Pty) Ltd as its engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contractor for the execution of its Fine Tin Project (FTP). The FTP is focussed on treating the tailings stream from its gravity concentration plant at Bisie to recover the fine to ultra-fine tin particles.

"When we first commissioned the gravity concentration plant at Bisie, we were focussed on ramping up to a production level of 10,000 tonnes of payable tin per annum, which we have surpassed since Q2 2020 at an annualised ~11,000 tonnes. We believe we can increase plant throughput by another 10% through minor plant de-bottlenecking activities this could increase annual tin production to ~12,000 tonnes. Additionally, in our efforts to maximise metallurgical recoveries, we have identified process flow streams that contain fine, recoverable tin, and have selected proven metallurgical technology to recover the fine tin from these streams, which should increase tin output further at very low incremental operating costs," said Maritz Smith, CEO of Alphamin.

The FTP will utilise Multi Gravity Separators (MGS), set-up in rougher-cleaner configuration, to treat a 20 ton per hour process flow stream from the current plants tailings running at a grade of 0.8-1.1% tin. The FTP is estimated to produce a concentrate containing 45-55% tin which will be blended with the concentrates from the main gravity concentration plant to produce a final concentrate estimated to contain 60% tin.

The MGS technology was selected for the FTP as a result of its proven track record in the tin industry to recover particles down to 10um in size, low energy requirements and the high upgrade ratios achievable. Internal analysis shows the FTP has the potential to increase production at Bisie by 400 800 tonnes of payable tin per annum. By increasing units of production at a very low incremental cost, the FTP is expected to further decrease our all-in sustaining costs (AISC), securing our place as a lower quartile cost producer, said Smith.

The projected timeline for the FTP execution from approval to achieving nameplate capacity is 11-months. Orders for the long lead items have already been placed and the total project expenditure is estimated at US$4.6 million.

Mpama South Drilling Program

Alphamin has appointed T3 Drilling SARL, an internationally recognised drilling contractor, to undertake a 6,000 metre diamond core drilling program at its Mpama South prospect, commencing in Q3 2020. Mpama South is located approximately one kilometre south of the main processing plant at Bisie and the drilling program has been designed to delineate a maiden Mineral Resource at Mpama South.

Between 2012 and 2013, Alphamin drilled 19 drill holes for 3,364 metres to determine the extent and nature of the mineralization at Mpama South. Two distinct mineralized zones were intercepted, an upper zone showing well-developed lead, zinc and silver mineralization, and a lower zone rich in tin and copper.

We are encouraged by the historical drilling results from Mpama South and we are optimistic that by applying our exploration experience as demonstrated at Mpama North, that this drilling program will deliver sufficient information to support the declaration of our maiden Mineral Resource at Mpama South and allow for possible extension to the life of operations at Bisie, commented Smith. While Mpama South is the first drill target post successful commissioning of the Mpama North operations, we have already identified a number of areas along the Bisie Ridge showing soil geochemistry anomalies similar to those found at Mpama North. We expect to generate a further 3-5 drill targets from these anomalies over the next 18-months. Additionally, plans are being developed for deep level drilling at our producing Mpama North orebody which is currently open at depth.

Qualified Person

Mr Vaughn Duke Pr.Eng. PMP, MBA, B.Sc. Mining Engineering (Hons.), is a qualified person (QP) as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release. He is a Principal Consultant, Partner and Director of Sound Mining Solutions, an independent technical consultant to the Company.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Maritz SmithCEOAlphamin Resources Corp.Tel: +230269 4166E-mail: msmith@alphaminresources.com

AISC

This measures the cash costs to produce and sell a ton of payable tin plus the capital sustaining costs to maintain the mine, processing plant and infrastructure. This measure includes mine operating production expenses such as mining, processing, administration, indirect charges (including surface maintenance and camp), and smelting, refining and freight, distribution, royalties and capital sustaining costs divided by tons of payable tin sold. All-In sustaining cost per ton sold does not include depreciation, depletion, and amortization, reclamation, borrowing costs and exploration expenses.

Sustaining capital expenditures are defined as those expenditures which do not increase payable mineral production at a mine site and excludes all expenditures at the Companys projects and certain expenditures at the Companys operating sites which are deemed expansionary in nature.

CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

Information in this news release that is not a statement of historical fact constitutes forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements contained herein include, without limitation, statements relating to anticipated production volumes and anticipated tin grades and processing recoveries. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable at the time such statements are made. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Although Alphamin has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results described in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: uncertainties associated with Alphamins resource and reserve estimates, uncertainties regarding estimates of the expected mined tin grades, processing plant performance and recoveries, uncertainties regarding global supply and demand for tin and market and sales prices, uncertainties with respect to social, community and environmental impacts, adverse political events, impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic on mining operations and commodity prices as well as those risk factors set out in the Companys Management Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure documents available under the Companys profile at http://www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and Alphamin disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

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