Removing the burden of SOEs on our people – ft.lk

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No one seems to know precisely how many business enterprises the Government owns. Official Government figures suggest 55 businesses, but these are only those which are considered to be strategic.

The Mid-Year Fiscal Position Report 2019 issued by the Minister of Finance suggests that there are 422 State-owned enterprises (SOEs), whilst research based on data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act undertaken by a think tank found that there could be as many 527.

What is already published and known is that in 2018 the top 55 SOEs made a staggering loss of Rs. 27,405,000,000 (Rs.27.40 billion) and nobody knows how much the remaining SOEs cost the state and the people. Because most SOEs do not publish their annual accounts as per the statutory requirements.

A research by Advocata has revealed that only 10.4% of SOEs provide financial information on their operations. While there is no substantial financial contribution to the state, many, if not all SOEs are overstaffed, poorly managed and underperforming. In the final analysis they have become a severe burden on the people of Sri Lanka.

Mismanagement, fraud, corruption, misappropriation of funds and negligence in SOEs have been highlighted in the recent reports of the Auditor General and COPE. During the first four months of the year 2019, losses incurred by a few key SOEs are as follows:

n Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) operating losses Rs. 23,114,000,000

n Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) operational losses Rs. 4,294,000,000

n SriLankan Airlines (SLA) lost Rs. 12,961,000,000 in the first quarter of 2019

nSri Lanka Ports Auth-ority (SLPA) made profits of Rs. 10,505,000,000 during the first four months of 2019 but had debts amounting to Rs. 11,957,000,000 for the same period.

There are, of course, many more SOEs that have been registered under the Companies Act avoiding scrutiny by the General Treasury and therefore do not fall within the restrictions imposed by the budget. It is a well-known fact that such enterprises are great recruiting grounds for the families and friends of politicians and cronies.

Against this backdrop the Pathfinder Foundation recommends that the new Government should:

1. Instruct the General Treasury to identify each and every entity within government that falls under the category of SOEs, including those registered under the Companies Act.

2. Ensure that SOEs are independent of the governments budgetary support including bank guarantees. The appointment of the Board of Directors should also be independent of the individual ministers.

3. Make it mandatory that each and every one of these businesses produces audited accounts for 2018 within six months and that these accounts are published in full for Sri Lankan public for their scrutiny.

4. Also, it is necessary that annual publication of economic and financial performance data.

5. In the case of natural monopolies, adopt appropriate international benchmarks by relevant independent regulators as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

6. Call in auditors to identify the quality of governance, management, the degree of internal controls, any structural deficiencies and then publish the reports for scrutiny by Sri Lankan public.

7. Non-strategic SOEs should be privatize or formed into public-private partnerships to ensure eliminate waste of scarce public resources and/or enhance contribution to the economy.

8. Remove all board members from those companies that have consistently failed to generate reasonable return on investment or reach international standards of good business.

(This is one of the Pathfinder Economic Disruptors and hope that policymakers will seriously take these into consideration in their policy formulation process. It can be viewed at http://www.pathfinderfoundation.org, comments are welcome at: pm@pathfinderfoundation.org)

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Removing the burden of SOEs on our people - ft.lk

Anti-abortion group says 45 now-elected Conservative MPs would vote to restrict abortion access heres why pro-choice experts are concerned – Toronto…

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VANCOUVERNot long after Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer was dogged by the abortion issue during the 2019 federal election, questions are being raised about the support many of his partys members have received from ardent anti-abortion groups.

In October, Scheer finally told reporters that despite his own personal anti-abortion beliefs, his party was not going to try to reopen the abortion debate.

Two Canadian anti-abortion organizations, both of which aim to influence legislation on abortion, collectively supported more than 60 candidates from parties on the political right, with one group alleging many of these individuals would vote to restrict access to abortion, and for the promotion of conscience rights for doctors.

Now 45 of those candidates all members of the Conservative Party are MPs.

And while these groups say the candidates they supported are anti-abortion, several of the now-elected MPs have not explicitly discussed their position, or commented to media on why they received support from anti-abortion groups.

One of these groups is Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), a national organization working at all levels of government to secure full legal protection for all human beings, from the time of conception to natural death.

A website run by CLC called voteprolife.ca, has a list of all candidates they determined to be pro-life in the 2019 election. There were more than 60, all belonging to right-leaning parties, such as the Conservatives or the PPC, or who ran as Independent.

Of the candidates on the list, 45 all Conservatives won their seat.

Candidates were given the green light endorsement based on their alleged answers to a questionnaire distributed by CLC, or by a having a pro-life voting record.

Seventeen now-elected Conservative MPs are alleged to have said yes to the question: If elected, would you vote in favour of a law to protect all unborn children from the time of conception (fertilization) onward? or a similarly phrased version of that question.

A smaller number of 11 now-elected Conservative MPs allegedly answered yes to the question: Do you support the conscience rights of health care professionals to refuse to do or refer for medical procedures which they oppose?

CLC has not responded to multiple requests for comment from the Star Vancouver.

Another anti-abortion group, Right Now, which describes itself as a political pro-life organization (that) is focused on nominating and electing pro-life politicians, federally and provincially, also lent its support to federal candidates during the election.

Right Now has kept a list of the candidates it supports under wraps. But it recently published a blog post on the results of the federal election, and mentioned supporting B.C. Conservative candidates Nelly Shin and Tamara Jansen, who are both on the CLC list.

Scott Hayward, co-founder of Right Now, would not say exactly how his organization determined who they would support, only that it was predicated on whether or not a candidate will vote for pro-life legislation, should they be elected.

Hayward went on to say that while Scheer established that the Conservatives would not introduce anti-abortion legislation, individual members could still introduce private members bills.

No leader of a political party recognized in the House of Commons can unilaterally disqualify any private members legislation; we live in a Westminster parliamentary democracy, not a presidential republic, said Hayward in an email statement. Our goal has always been, and remains, to elect a pro-life majority in our federal and provincial legislatures so that pro-life legislation can be passed, regardless of political party affiliation.

A Conservative Party of Canada spokesperson did not answer repeated questions about the partys possible links to CLC and Right Now, but instead doubled down on Scheers comments.

Millions of Canadians hold personal beliefs and different positions on this issue. The Conservative Party is no different, said Cory Hann, director of communications for the Conservative Party of Canada. The Conservative Party will not reopen this divisive social debate.

Hann then pointed to several Liberal candidates he said had expressed anti-abortion views, including Filomena Tassi, John McKay and Lawrence MacAulay.

None of these Liberal MPs have been endorsed by the CLC or Right Now.

Additionally, other MPs on the CLCs list include those who have not been open about their anti-abortion views or answered any of the questions.

One such MP is Nelly Shin, a Conservative newcomer in the riding of Port MoodyCoquitlam, who was also supported by Right Now. Shin did respond to the questionnaire posed by CLC, and it is not clear why the organizations supported her.

In a statement emailed to Star Vancouver after the election, Shin said, Personally, I am pro-life, but Andrew Scheer has been very clear we are not reopening this debate.

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Shin went on to say that groups, individuals, associations, and special interests in Canada have the freedom to organize and support those whom they choose. ... To your question on why some organizations have chosen to include me on their support lists, is a question best for those organizations to answer.

Right Nows Hayward would not explain why his organization endorsed Shin.

Like a political party that does not reveal their list of target seats, we do the same, he said.

The Star Vancouver reached out to several other candidates on CLCs endorsement list, but did not receive responses.

Under Elections Canada rules, a person, corporation or group must register as a third party if they spend more than $500 during the election or pre-election period, on regulated activities, which include activities that promote or oppose a political actor.

Right Now appears on the list as registered third party for the 2019 federal election; CLC does not appear on the list.

Pro-choice advocates have expressed concern over these groups and their possible impacts on the ability for Canadians to access abortion.

Joyce Arthur, executive director of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, said the Conservative partys claim that they will not reopen the abortion debate is disingenuous.

Its a political play because they know its a divisive topic, and it can hurt election campaigns, so thats why they take that stance to not reopen the debate, she said. But there are a lot of members of the caucus itching to make that stand.

Arthur said that refusing to reopen the abortion debate does not mean access cant be eroded in other ways, both at the federal and provincial levels. She said one way this is already happening is through the push for medical professionals to be able to exercise their right to practice their conscience at work including the ability to refuse to perform abortions or give abortion referrals.

An Ontario court ruled in 2019 that doctors in the province must give patients referrals for medical services that clash with their religious beliefs, but another battle is now underway in Alberta in the form of Bill 207. The private members bill dealt with conscience rights protections for health-care workers and was introduced by United Conservative Party MLA Dan Williams of Peace River, Alta. This Thursday, a committee of MLAs tasked with reviewing the bill recommended that it not be moved forward to a vote in Albertas legislature.

Michelle Fortin, director of Options for Sexual Health in Vancouver, said that access to abortion, especially in rural areas where medical services are already limited, is already being threatened and conscience rights could further limit access.

We currently have areas of this province and across the country where access to abortion, especially medical abortion, is challenging, she said, noting there are still physicians unwilling to prescribe the abortion pill and pharmacies not willing to carry it.

Fortin added that it was important for Conservative MPs to be up front about their views so voters can understand who they are supporting.

There are folks who voted in the election who arent social conservatives, they are fiscal conservatives, she said. I dont think they understand the depth of concern here.

With files from Nadine Yousif and the Canadian Press

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Anti-abortion group says 45 now-elected Conservative MPs would vote to restrict abortion access heres why pro-choice experts are concerned - Toronto...

Rick and Morty Is Nihilistic, Self-Destructive, and Still Hilarious in Season 4 – The Escapist

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Rick and Morty recently returned for its fourth season.

Like a lot of successful and beloved pop cultural phenomena, it can be hard to separate Rick and Morty from the noise around it. It is entirely possible that people might only have heard of the series through the controversies generated by the more extreme elements of its fandom like the debacle surrounding a McDonalds promotion or the harassment of its female writers.

This is a shame because Rick and Morty is worthy of celebration on its own terms. The premise of the show is a disarmingly simple riff on the familiar framework of beloved properties like Back to the Future or Doctor Who: Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland) is a brilliant and nihilistic inventor who embarks on a series of adventures with his grandson Morty Smith (also Roiland).

As one might expect from an animated television series co-created by Dan Harmon (Community), Rick and Morty is impressively pop culturally literate. In some ways, it feels like the perfect television series for the internet age; like Steven Moffats Doctor Who or Sam Esmails Mr. Robot, it is designed for viewers with an understanding of how these kinds of stories work so it might play with them.

Episodes draw on inspirations as ubiquitous as Jurassic Park (Anatomy Park) and as niche as Zardoz (Raising Gazorpazorp), including nods to directors like David Cronenberg (Rick Potion No. 9) and even casting Werner Herzog (Interdimensional Cable 2). Even the interdimensional Council of Ricks seems to have been drawn from writer Jonathan Hickmans Fantastic Four run.

While it might be possible to position Rick and Morty close to the riff on pop culture template of Seth MacFarlane projects like Family Guy or American Dad, it is attempting something slightly more nuanced and intriguing. It takes familiar genre elements and then twists them in a variety of interesting ways to play with underlying assumptions.

A large part of the appeal of Rick and Morty comes from its application of a cynical view of human nature to these familiar genre templates. Over the course of the shows first three seasons, Rick and Morty develops its two leads from the familiar archetypes suggested by the premise through subtle but committed character work amid high-concept comedy.

Ricks cynicism and nihilism is portrayed as toxic and damaging to both himself and the people around him, with the show repeatedly emphasizing how empty and hollow his worldview truly is. This is perhaps most explicitly articulated in the third season standout episode Pickle Rick, which paired the mimetic joke of the title with an insightful family therapy session.

Simultaneously, Morty finds himself increasingly traumatized by these weird episodic adventures, as each madcap journey inevitably culminates in an absurdist high-stakes drama requiring a horrific resolution. Over the shows three seasons, Morty has suffered a tremendous amount. While the show has a loosely episodic format, it never loses sight of the cumulative nature of that trauma.

With its title characters, Rick and Morty isnt just playing with genre archetypes, but exploring them. Rick is a deconstruction of the jaded genius archetype, while Morty is a humanized peril monkey sidekick. A lot of the comedy and a surprising amount of insightful, humanist pathos arises from the juxtaposition of that character work with ridiculous science-fiction plot elements.

Of course, it helps that Rick and Morty is consistently funny. Over its 30+ episodes, the series has developed its own rhythm and language. It has developed an impressive supporting cast and a reliable catalogue of recurring jokes. More than that, like the best television series, it has found a niche that makes it unique in the television landscape.

This gets at the beauty of Rick and Morty. There is nothing else on television like Rick and Morty, even if the shows strength comes from its unique approach to tried-and-tested genre elements. The show consistently uses familiar elements in new and interesting ways, pushing them in strange directions to fascinating effect.

Its good to have it back.

The fourth season of Rick and Morty is currently airing on Adult Swim on Sundays at 11:30 p.m. ET. Previous seasons are available to stream on Hulu in the United States and on Netflix internationally.

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Rick and Morty Is Nihilistic, Self-Destructive, and Still Hilarious in Season 4 - The Escapist

The Smaller Lights of Democracy Need to Stay Bright, Too – Washington Monthly

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The last decade has proven more challenging to the news industry than any since the end of the early 20th centurys yellow journalism era. The reasons for this reality could fill volumes. But stated briefly, they include: 1) the destruction of revenues from print and from web advertising; 2) the predation by vulture capital firms and the expensive legal hostility from litigious billionaires; 3) the control of content visibility by impersonal social media companies more interested in engagement than in the public good or the sustainability of news organizations; 4) the explosion of free media sources, both of high and dubious quality; and 5) the fragmentation and partisanization of news consumers, naturally limiting any one organizations potential audience.

The radicalization of the conservative movement and the Republican Party also play a key role. If news and opinion organizations decide to call out their descent into nihilism for what it is, they get dismissed as partisan rags of the left. If they bend over backwards to be balanced, they invite justified outrage by failing to adequately inform readers of the reality of the situation. The New York Times, for instance, has consistently chosen to softpedal their coverage of the Trump Administration, especially in the headline department. Many customers have chosen to speak with their wallets by unsubscribing.

Still, the big newspapers like New York Times and Washington Post are not seriously in danger. Its the local papers and smaller online publications that are.

Facebook continues to prioritize garbage conservative content over more honest smaller publications, and the well is drying up for outfits that provide an alternative to what the big behemoths are offering in both reporting and opinion. Those that responded by pivoting to video turned out to be victims of Facebooks data fakery. Those that sensationalized content and headlines for clicks slowly destroyed their own reputations. Turns out, theres enough good content out there that paywalls tend to be a self-destructive proposition.

Our magazine doesntdo any of thatand we feel we serve an important purpose in the media ecosystem. We offer innovative policy dives from a variety of ideological viewpoints that are rarely found elsewhere, and in thePolitical Animal section of our website, were one of the few left-of-center places remaining where you can find old-fashioned blogging. We pull no punches and avoid the equivocating tropes of leading opinion pages, while, at the same time, maintaining high standards of accuracy and freshness of perspective. At least, I like to think so!

The banner head of the Washington Post rightly claims that Democracy Dies in Darkness. Here at the WashingtonMonthly, were a smaller light, but one that serves an important role in keeping our democracy alive.

Ultimately, the only tried and true way of sustaining that light is through the generous contributions of our readers. So please,make a donationduring our holiday fundraising drive.

Give whatever you can$10, $20, $100, $1,000and for a limited time only your contribution will be matched, dollar for dollar, thanks to a generous challenge grant from NewsMatch. If you give $50 or more, youll receive a complimentary one-year subscription to the print edition of the Washington Monthly.Your contributions are vital, tax-deductible, and much appreciated.

We cant keep this light on without you.

If you enjoyed this article, consider making a donation to help us produce more like it. The Washington Monthly was founded in 1969 to tell the stories of how government really worksand how to make it work better. Fifty years later, the need for incisive analysis and new, progressive policy ideas is clearer than ever. As a nonprofit, we rely on support from readers like you.

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The Smaller Lights of Democracy Need to Stay Bright, Too - Washington Monthly

‘Joker’ and the Weak Nihilism of Todd Phillips – Pajiba

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Its official: Joker has now earned one billion dollars worldwide, making it not only the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time but, according to several sources, the most profitable comic book movie ever made. After weeks of hot takes and fears over its content and all manner of online nonsense, film has done all that Warner Bros. wanted it to and more. Todd Phillips, the director, took to his Instagram account to thank fans for bringing the movie to this point. Joker is easily the highest-grossing film hes ever directed, having made a hefty $400 million more than 2011s The Hangover Part II. Its fitting that those two movies will stand as the ultimate testament to whatever legacy Phillips leaves behind as a director or, yes Im going there, auteur. That duo of movies exemplifies everything he has delivered to audiences, the messages he wants to convey, and the methods he uses to do so. Of course, when that message is one of pure undistilled nihilism, what else can one do but sigh?

Critics and fans have spent many weeks trying to dissect what the overall themes and morals of Joker are. The lions share of criticism the film has faced is rooted in that ideological muddle. Some feared the movie would incite incel violence while others saw it more as an Eat The Rich fable. Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix have been happy to encourage multiple readings of the movie, which isnt a bad strategy, but it overlooks the truth of Joker: The message is nihilism itself, even as the script tries to quickly tack on a social message about isolation and the wealth gap. Nothing matters. You wouldnt get it.

Truthfully, I dont even think Joker is the bleakest of most nihilistic movie Phillips has ever made. For me, that dubious honor falls to The Hangover: Part II, film so unrelentingly dark and bitter that you walk away from it wondering if Phillips yearns for the annihilation of humanity. The first Hangover movie, released in 2009, was never my thing my parents love it but I understand its appeal. There are plenty of solid jokes, the characters are all well-defined and the entire affair reeks of morning-after regrets of a night out that you cant decide whether or not youre glad you forgot about. Its dark but not inescapably so and rises to the level of charm through sheer force of personality thanks to the combination of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis. Making a sequel to such a lightning-in-a-bottle movie, one with an inherently one-off gimmick premise, became inevitable once the box office numbers continued to grow and it won the freaking Golden Globe for Best Comedy/Musical.

Two years later came the sequel, moving the action to Thailand, a concept in and of itself that inspired unease over the potential for inevitably racist, transphobic, and xenophobic jokes. In that aspect, Phillips and company certainly didnt let anybody down. Plot and joke-wise, its more of the same, but with a hefty side-order of bigotry of nearly every flavor. The trans sex worker scene is played for hilarity and revulsion, playing into the dangerous trope of cis men being tricked into sex with trans women and encouraging true disgust at the prospect. Thailand itself is depicted as nothing but a toxic sex den where anything goes. Every character is either utterly useless, purely decorative, or depraved in ways that leave a nasty stain on the imagination. Everyone and everything is bad and the explicit aim of each moment is just baseless provocation. Oh, and Mike Tyson returns because turning a convicted rapist into a cuddly meme of a man is one of this franchises many crimes.

In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert said The Hangover: Part II plays like a challenge to the audiences capacity for raunchiness. He also draws attention to a moment in the credits where the characters recreate a very famous war photograph by Eddie Adams featuring the public execution of a Vietcong prisoner by police chief General Nguyn Ngc Loan. Thats Phillipss philosophy in a nutshell: poke and prod and goad people into offense for its own sake. The satisfaction comes from ensuring people are angry or shocked and Phillips seems to prize that more than long-term thought. Escape from the world by embracing the notion that it does nothing but confirm the worst thoughts we have about it.

There is something to be said about using nihilism as an artistic tool. It can be extremely effective in the right hands. It makes sense for a lot of Phillipss stories too. What is The Hangover if nothing but a reminder that the American comedy blockbuster is built on the backs of imbecilic frat bros who get away with the most disgusting behavior because they learn a vague lesson at the end, only here, the overgrown man-babies of Phillipss world learn nothing, to the point where they repeat all their worst mistakes twice over. Indeed, Joker is at its most effective when it has the nerve to commit to nihilism as Arthur/Jokers only salvation from a world that has used and abused him. Of course, the problem with Joker and Phillipss wider philosophy is that he so often chickens out from carrying it through to its logical storytelling conclusion. Joker has to pretend to be about something.

Hollywood is built on misanthropes. The history of directors working in the medium could easily be boiled down to a history of cranky old dudes getting their way, even as the world around them changes at a quicker pace than theyre ready for. Nowhere was this more evident with Phillips than when he went on his recent rant about how woke culture has ruined comedy and rendered him unable to make the films he wants to. Strong words coming from a man working in the traditional studio system whose last movie made a billion dollars. If nothing else, that quote certainly gave away why Phillipss work is the way it is. Its all very Ricky Gervais, isnt it? No depth, no concern for appropriate targets or wider ideas, just meanness because if he cant be bleak all the time then f*ck everything.

Nihilism is one thing, but the diluted attempt to wield it as a political and creative tool while lacking the guts required to truly commit is just sad. Phillips wants the provocation without the purpose. He wants to mean something while saying nothing. Its all a big fat joke but the punchline never made an appearance. Its okay, though: That just means we dont get it.

Kayleigh is a features writer for Pajiba. You can follow her on Twitter or listen to her podcast, The Hollywood Read.

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Paintings, linocuts and etchings by Welsh artist John Abell mark the 180th anniversary of the Rebecca Riots – Creative Boom

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Arusha Gallery, John Abell, Fire in the Night, 2019, watercolour on paper, 153 x 121cm. Photo credit: John Sinclair

A new exhibition by Cardiff-based artist John Abell will open at the National Trust's Newton House in Carmarthenshire this January, marking the 180th anniversary of the Rebecca Riots.

Titled Becca and her Children, the show will feature a series of new paintings, linocuts and etchings made by Abell during a three-week residency at Dinefwr earlier this year. "History is an essential part of the present, and I immediately wanted the opportunity to respond to such an inspiring place through my artwork," he said.

Responding directly to the rich and tumultuous history of Newton House, Dinefwr and in particular the Rebecca Riots, Abell's body of work examines the daily life, beliefs and camaraderie of the rioters as they rose up in protest against the Turnpike Trusts and the introduction of road tolls in rural Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire.

During the Riots in 1839-1843, men disguised themselves as women to attack the tolls. They called themselves 'Rebecca and her daughters', likely inspired by a passage in the Bible where Rebecca talks of the need to "possess the gates of those who hate them" (Genesis XXIV, verse 60). One of the linocuts sees the biblical Jessie Tree transported into rural Wales, rich with symbolism it further merges past and present, tale and history with its moving imagery.

Born in 1986, John Abell studied at Camberwell College of Art; he currently lives and works in Cardiff. He is particularly known for his large-scale woodblock prints and highly coloured watercolour paintings which explore life, love, lust, the embodied experience. The work is charged with a sense of fear and death, pessimism or even nihilism along with a large pinch of gallows humour. His aim is to represent a human feeling, the world and himself as honestly as he can with no intellectual mediation.

Arusha Gallery, John Abell, The Woman Feeds The Willow, Feeds the Flowers, Feeds the Birds, 2019, Linocut, 100 x 90cm. Photo credit: John Sinclair

Arusha Gallery, John Abell, A Conspiracy Round Campfire (A Witches of Mendocino), watercolour on paper 153x121cm. Photo credit John Sinclair

Arusha Gallery, John Abell, Fire in the Night (A Visit From Becca) 2019, watercolour on paper 121x153cm. Photo credit: John Sinclair

Arusha Gallery, John Abell, The Wolf at the Table, 2019 drypoint engraving, 57.5 x 37.5 cm. Photo credit: John Sinclair

Arusha Gallery, John Abell, Campfire For the Commune 2019, watercolour on paper 153x121cm. Photo credit John Sinclair

Arusha Gallery, John Abell, Paths To The Sunlit Uplands, 2019 drypoint engraving, 80 x 77 cm. Photo credit: John Sinclair

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Paintings, linocuts and etchings by Welsh artist John Abell mark the 180th anniversary of the Rebecca Riots - Creative Boom

The Republicans Impeachment Shrug – The Bulwark

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On Tuesday morning, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army officer detailed to the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, testified in the House impeachment hearings. Both were on the July 25 phone call in which President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the favor of investigating Joe and Hunter Biden. Their testimony was not earth-shattering, but it did damage two of the Republican defenses to the Trumpian quid pro quo that Democrats are now characterizing alternately as bribery and extortion.

Last week, Republicans complained that the Democrats only presented weak hearsay evidence. The testimony of Vindman and Williams took that defense off the table, because they both have first-hand knowledge of the July 25 call. Vindman also attended a July 10 meeting involving a Ukrainian delegation in which the quid pro quo was first discussed.

The second defense that was rendered inoperable is the Republican argument that the Ukrainians didnt know that the president was holding up diplomatic and financial goodies unless they complied with his demand to investigate the Bidens. How could there be a favor for favor, they asked, if the Ukrainians werent even aware that they had to launch investigations if they wanted the nearly $400 in military aid that Congress had authorized in the spring of 2019?

Vindmanwho speaks fluent Ukrainian and Russiantestified that Zelensky mentioned the company linked to Hunter Biden by name on the July 25 call. The name Burisma is not one that would have come up had Zelensky not been briefed on it, Vindman explained, and he wouldnt have been briefed on it if it didnt matter to President Trumpand therefore to Ukraine. For her part, Williams also confirmed that Burisma was expressly mentioned on the call, although the word didnt appear in the White Houses call summary. (Vindman testified that he failed in his internal attempts to have Burisma explicitly mentioned in the call summary before it was released.)

A lawyers instinct in watching the impeachment hearings is to look for whether there is a defense on the meritsthat is, whether there is an alternative version of the facts that makes sense.

The evidence presented so far shows that a White House meeting for the newly elected Ukrainian presidentand the military aid needed to defend the country against Russian aggressionwas withheld pending Zelenskys public announcement of investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden and supposed Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. The evidence also shows that the presidents personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was given substantial foreign policy authority that was ultimately exercised in a manner demonstrably at odds with the official U.S. policy towards Ukraine.

So far, there is no meaningful defense on the merits. None.

The one question remainingreally the only oneis: Who cares?

Or as some people frame it: Is the presidents established conduct impeachable?

If you wanted to answer this question on the merits, youd have to keep in mind that the president takes an oath of office to uphold the Constitution on behalf of the United States of America. Scholars have likened the presidency to a fiduciary relationship or a power of attorneythe idea being that the holder of the office is empowered only to act on behalf of his constituents. Unlike a monarchy, the presidency is not a divine grant of power to a particular individual.

Imagine, for example, that a trustee is charged with managing a $10 million trust fund until the beneficiary turns 18. The fiduciary needs cash to launch his own start-up company, so he takes the $10 million and invests it in the company for his own benefit. Clearly, such self-enrichment would be a violation of the fiduciarys legal obligation to act solely in the interests of the beneficiary.

Likewise, the facts so far establish that Trump used his office to try and secure his own power in 2020. He did this in a way that undermined the written national security policy of the United Stateswhich the president himself signedas well as the interests of the American people.

And again, there is no alternative version of events offered by Republicans.

Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee attempted to challenge Vindman for bias and leaking (there is no evidence for either suggestion). Devin Nunes railed against the media and assailed Robert Muellers investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election. Republicans made a great deal of noise about matters that have been reported in the press. (Which is odd, since just last week Republicans were wailing about the lack of witnesses with first-hand knowledge of events.)

But through it all, Republicans have not put even a dent in the central story of abuse of office by the president of the United States.

The only Republican argument left is a postmodern nihilism: You cant make us care.

And its true. Nothing can make Republicans take abuse of power by this president seriously. They too are elected to represent the people, but seem more eager to focus their attention on sudoku or cribbage or whatever wealthy old men in a minority party do to fill the time.

But when we refuse to care is the basis of an entire political partys view of a constitutional crisis, then something has gone very, very wrong. And the problem does not stop with the president.

Reason and argument are the only guideposts which prevent politics from devolving into pure will-to-power. When one of our political parties openly abandons even the pretense of reason and disdains even the idea of argument and instead retreats into the smug assertion that they simply will not countenance either evidence or the law, we are in dangerous territory.

UPDATE (7 p.m. EST): Republicans had the best run to date with the two witnesses who testified Tuesday afternoon, former special envoy Kurt Volker and national security aide Tim Morrison. This was as expected.

Heres the alternative defense narrative that finally squeaked out:

Volker testified that Trump was distrustful of the Ukrainians based in part on bogus conspiracy theories peddled by Rudy Giuliani and others. He suggested that the military aid was held up until September 11 because Trump was skeptical about the Ukrainians in general. When Zelensky convened a parliament on September 2 and began anti-corruption initiatives, Trump released the aid a little over a week later.

For his part, Morrison testified that he believes the July 25 call was not inappropriate (even though he went to National Security Council lawyers about concerns with political fallout from a leak of the call record). He explained that, at the time of the call, he didnt have an issue with Trump asking President Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, but admitted that Trumps asking for an investigation of someone like Nancy Pelosi or Kurt Volker would not be acceptable.

Morrison also said that the burying of the whistleblower complaint on a top-secret server by NSAs top lawyer was a mistake (according to that lawyer, John Eisenberg).

Heres the nagging problem for Trumps defenders: These were the best witnesses on the roster for Trump so far, and the central narrative has not changed.

In fact, like Gordon Sondland before him, Volker changed his original testimony today. At his October 3 deposition, Volker said he had no recollection of Gordon Sondland bringing up the Burisma/2016 election investigations at the July 10 meeting in the White House with a Ukrainian delegation. Volker also testified that he had no recollection of then-National Security Advisor John Bolton abruptly ending that meeting with the now-famous drug deal jab. Today, however, Volker said that his recollection was refreshed by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindmans testimony that Sondland did in fact raise the investigations on July 10.

Volker also testified that he didnt understand Trumps sought-after investigations of Burisma to mean investigations of the Bidens, but that in hindsight he should have made that connection. He added that a presidents getting a foreign government to investigate a political rivalparticularly a former vice presidentis inappropriate, and that this is what he later saw recorded in the call notes of the July 25 conversation between Zelensky and Trump.

Morrison testified that he was on the July 25 call, that the Bidens were mentioned, that the word corruption was not, and that he had a sinking feeling after GordonSondland told him that a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens was necessary as a condition to Trumps release of the aid.

Bingo.

One thing remains crystal clear and unrebutted: Every witness to date concurs that the promotion of democracy and the rule of law in Ukraine is in Ukraines and Americas interest, and antithetical to Russias interestand that Trumps withholding of Ukrainian aid was bad for both Ukraine and America.

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The Republicans Impeachment Shrug - The Bulwark

Iggy Pop review fearless punk rages against the dying of the light – The Guardian

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That hes appearing as part of the London jazz festival signals that, at least at first, this punk-pioneering former Stooge does not wanna be your dog tonight. Instead, Iggy Pop explores the subterranean corners of his darkly jazzy new album Free, much of which was written by trumpeter Leron Thomas, who lends sonorous squall to the groups Berlin-Bowie turbulence.

Tanned, sinewy and the only person who could convincingly pull off a Rachel haircut in 2019, Pop leans on his mic-stand, crooner-style, his rumbling vocal basso mucho profundo. Hes a static presence to begin with, conjuring the doomed lovers and the desperate loners wandering through his new songs. He introduces Page as concerning the damage and weirdness of a relationship ending, sounding like Kurt Wagner as he sings, all gravel and smoke and bittersweetness. The Dawn, he says, is about depression, and finds him musing I dont know where my spirit went, before growling like Lee Marvin: But thats all right.

Hardly Lust For Life, then. No, tonight Iggy sounds exactly like a man who has buried his best friends (Bowie, the Asheton brothers), whose inimitable swagger now betrays some arthritic stiffness. But abandoning the heady nihilism of yore to stare into uncertainty and darkness is its own act of punk fearlessness, the shadow of mortality lending his baritone ruminations a compelling resonance.

Iggys not ready for the grave yet, however. Announcing some music from the 70s and hurling his mic-stand to the wings, the cold funk of Sister Midnight sees him hurtling wildly across the stage, Lazarus-like, and leaping into the stalls for a commendably feral Death Trip, fans vaulting flights of stairs so they might touch the 72-year-olds legendarily punished flesh. A scabrously autobiographical rewrite of Sleaford Mods Chop Chop Chop, meanwhile, sees Pop listing various chemical/sexual misadventures, then howling but, somehow, I survived!, thumbing his nose at the reaper with profane panache.

After his band finally file off stage, Iggy hobbles along one last circuit of his audience, pressing flesh and sharing with us some poetry. Do not go gentle into that good night, he rasps, before giving the Dylan Thomas verse a spin thats gleefully his own: Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

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Iggy Pop review fearless punk rages against the dying of the light - The Guardian

The Limits of the Bit – lareviewofbooks

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NOVEMBER 25, 2019

TOWARD THE START of Females, a book-length essay of media criticism and gender theory, Andrea Long Chu admits that she doesnt mean what she says. The content of her claims, she suggests, matters less than the fact of saying them. Chu relates an incident from an academic event: someone asks what she means by ethics, and she replies, I think I mean commitment to a bit. To commit to a bit is to play it straight that is, to take it seriously, she continues. A bit may be fantastical, but the seriousness required to commit to it is always real. This passage presents something like a how-to guide for reading Females, a book that, as its own publishers copy states, defends the indefensible. Chu articulates something less than an argument and more than an attitude. If what counts is doubling down on what you say, no matter if you really believe it in the end, then the point of saying it becomes convincing someone that you really feel how you feel. Your argument is a front for your tone. Females therefore doesnt so much present a theory about gender as an affective stance toward it, one derived from a politics but without political claims per se at least, not claims that, in the last instance, the author is really prepared to defend the truth of. [M]aybe Im just projecting, she ends one chapter, throwing a rhetorical stink bomb in the air and ducking for cover.

Considering the content of her claims, Chus willingness to back off not to commit at the last moment seems prudent. Her bit, after all, is contained in two theses: that everyone is female not in the everyday sense of that word and that everyone hates it. Chu intertwines these claims with a reading of a play by Valerie Solanas, a curious figure of the 1960s downtown scene. In 1965, Solanas began writing the SCUM Manifesto, a pamphlet arguing that every form of social misery war, work, disease derives from mens drive to disguise their social and biological inferiority. In 1968, she shot Andy Warhol, pled guilty to the attempted murder, and was incarcerated in a psychiatric institution for three years after a diagnosis for paranoid schizophrenia. Chus book upcycles an essay she once wrote on Solanass 1965 play Up Your Ass; in its second life, the essay becomes a tract about gender, sort of.

Chus two theses dont concern biological sex at all, she says. She means female in an idiosyncratic as she says, ontological sense. Being female means any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another. [] To be female is to let someone else do your desiring for you, at your own expense. Chu is not the first person to describe this experience. In fact, she taps into a well-mined philosophical vein. In the Kantian tradition, Chu just describes heteronomy, the experience of being subject to anothers will. In the language of psychoanalysis significantly closer to Chus own territory, given her lexicon of desire she describes castration.

Jacques Lacans formulation that desire is always the desire of/for the Other [le dsir de lAutre] presents a version of the same thesis: to be a desiring subject means to be confronted with a social world that you inherit, and that shapes, constrains, and continually exceeds the desire you have toward it. In that regard, the six or so chapters at the center of Chus book on incels, sex, and pornography addiction are straightforwardly a series of footnotes to a Lacanian theory of castration: tops turn into bottoms, powerful men are always begging for sex, anyone who claims command of the phallus actually wants to get fucked, et cetera. From whichever perspective, becoming a subject means pursuing limited means of agency in the midst of vast external determination.

Chu isnt the first to understand this relationship between self and other as somehow violent, either. Following a certain materialist tradition from Du Bois, Fanon, Silvia Federici, or David Harvey you could just as easily describe the experience of [letting] someone else do your desiring for you, at your own expense as a dispossession: a forfeiting of your own capacities and agency into someone elses control, whether exchanged by force or sale. Chus contribution to theorizing this experience of being hollowed out for anothers aims and agency therefore takes two forms. First, she redescribes the material experience of dispossession in the basically psychoanalytic terms of desire. Second, she transforms a series of psychoanalytic theses about becoming a subject among other subjects into what she calls an ontological, or an existential, condition the one and only structure of human consciousness.

Still, why call this experience not one of gender or sexuation per se being female, rather than any of its more familiar names? Because everyone already does, she answers. This is a head-scratcher: before galleys of Females began to circulate, nobody referred to this experience by a name that the author simultaneously acknowledges is a wildly tendentious definition of being female. Women hate being female as much as anybody else, she explains, but unlike everybody else, we find ourselves its select delegates. This argument takes, to put it mildly, some reconstruction to understand. Chu argues for a position like the following: by whatever historical accident, women have been, so to speak, synonymized with the experience of dispossession vel sim. The social dynamic of misogyny, a critical term in Chus lexicon, doesnt express the abjection of women so much as the abjection of abjection itself. This argument reverses a more common and more convincing order of explanation: instead of arguing that women experience social abjection because of the contempt that various institutions, practices, and social codes hold for them, Chu argues that the object of societys misogyny isnt women at all, but the experience itself of being hollowed out for anothers desire. Women are only its accidental, but universal, targets.

Whereas the various theorists alluded to above make claims about the social order, or the historical record of expropriation and exploitation, about processes of becoming a subject, or of the alienation constitutive to selling your labor-power, Chu makes a claim about what she calls an ontological, or an existential, condition. Being female, in her account, is a subject position outside and against politics; politics as such all politics rebels against that position. Redescribing this experience in terms of ontology rather than social relations removes both the experience and its possible causes and redresses from the order of history or social struggle. Its a just-so story about total antagonism. Indebted once more to a psychoanalytic tradition, Chu presents something like a drive theory of social relations, only darker, even nihilistic: if all politics positions itself against acting on anothers desire, then the point of any politics couldnt be a society founded on, say, mutual aid. Theres no collectivity here, no sense of social liberation. Really, theres no liberation, period, only a Hobbesian war of all against all, in different social disguises: feminism, mens rights. Its hard to reconcile any of these arguments with a politics in which life and the means for living it for whom, by whom, and at whose expense are actually at stake.

Sifting through someone elses political nihilism is one challenge; doing so when the writer admits she isnt speaking in good faith is another. Chus book is littered with indefensible syntagms, sentences designed for maximum shock value. Females masterminded the Atlantic slave trade, she writes in her preface. Given her commitment to arguing that everyone is female, hers is a tautologically true sentence but one that refuses in advance an encounter with the arguments of critical race scholars, including Hortense Spillers, Alexander Weheliye, Saidiya Hartman, and others, about gender and sex as both objects of dispossession and imposition through the world-historical cataclysm of chattel slavery. (Chu stages a late encounter with C. Riley Snortons argument that the distinction between biological females and the social category of women emerged in order to allow Black women to be the objects of biological study without receiving the benefits of legal personhood. Chu concludes that in this sense, a female has always been less than a person. But this is a rhetorical sleight of hand: Chu has already insisted that she doesnt mean female as a category of biological sex at all; her arguments are categorically irreconcilable with Snortons.) Chus flippant sentences dismiss any conceptual encounter with the actual consequences of what shes saying in this case, its implications for racialized gender, a target and device of state-sponsored and extralegal violence on a mass scale well into the present. Then again, maybe shes just doing a bit: the books dodge of last, and every, resort.

Whether or not she believes them, Chus initial theses lead her into a series of chapters in which she theorizes, among other things, gender transition according to the recuperated principles of her personally curated second-wave feminism. Chu quotes her icon Solanas on Candy Darling (19441974), an actor and trans woman associated with Warhols Factory scene: [A] perfect victim of male suppression. (Chu says the epithet was spoken admiringly; its hard to see how.) Females inclines toward this view, with a twist. Trans women come across as the dupes of patriarchal gender norms, consuming and reproducing the stereotyped and anti-feminist images of the beauty industry. In that mode, Chu describes the YouTube makeup artist Gigi Gorgeous as in the most technical sense of this phrase, a dumb blonde. She only recuperates this, frankly, sexist jeer by universalizing its principle: From the perspective of gender, then, were all dumb blondes. Trading on an alt-right lexicon borrowed from The Matrix, she refers to hormone therapy as plugging [] back into the simulation. The charge that gender transition reinforces sexist stereotypes and retrograde gender norms is an old accusation; it doesnt get more convincing when the person saying it happens to be trans herself. Chu updates this anti-trans feminism by generalizing its theses: she agrees with the accusation that transition sustains the objectification of women, and submits that theres no way out, for trans people or anybody else.

Females regurgitates the anti-trans ethics of earlier decades including the notorious second-wave tendency to refuse any acknowledgment of the subjectivity of trans men blended together with its own particular political fatalism: transitioning is politically bad, Chu argues, and so is every other gendered disposition. This conclusion follows from Chus attempt to turn a Lacanian theory of sexuality into an ultimately nihilistic drive theory of social relations. For all the dubious uses of Lacanian psychoanalysis in the medicalization of transsexuality, [1] Chus rendition of this theory offers significantly fewer conceptual resources for thinking about gender transition with respect to agency, autonomy, or the renegotation of gender and sexual relations. Oren Gozlan, for instance, argues that Lacans captivating concept of sinthome points to a different route out of endless suffering. [2] The Lacanian sinthome sutures together the spheres of real, symbolic, and imaginary the world as it is in itself, the discursive representation of that world, and its conceptual and fantastical representation in thought and identification. For Gozlan, along with Patricia Gherovici and Susan Stryker, the sinthome offers a conceptual model for gender transition, a rebirthing of the self that holds the threads of the real, symbolic and imaginary. [] It is a transition that accepts failure as inevitable and is willing to live creatively with the between zone the interval between the fantasy of a complete and satisfactory identification and the selfs acknowledgment of its own lack in the face of that fantasy.

None of this complex acknowledgment of the creative potential of the subject or the mourning of a fantasy survives into Chus rendition of castration as the one and only structure of human consciousness. Theres just inevitable failure, and the taunts that follow it. Chus signature conceptual moves eventually become pretty clear: she subscribes to the dubious theses of so-called radical feminism the anti-trans theorist Janice Raymond and the anti-sex work feminist Catharine MacKinnon appear in Females with approving citations so long as she can transform its formulations into a description of a universal gendered disposition; and she happily throws trans women under the bus, demonstrating her neutrality by including herself as the object of her own contempt.

Its not like there arent other ways to think about transition and transsexuality. There are. I could start listing items off a bibliography say, Snortons Black on Both Sides, or Strykers introduction to the recently released diaries of Lou Sullivan, or Gayle Salamons Assuming a Body. I could go on; by the time you closed the tab I wouldnt be done. Its not clear what Females achieves in the warmed-over theoretical truisms of a prior cultural moment, beyond the projection that it promises, or a scandalized reaction to the comedic bit. And the problem with the bit the problem for comedy in general, a genre that Chu more than once expresses an affinity for is that its theses have conceptual consequences and social implications, whether or not, in the last instance, Chu really means what she says. However tangentially, Females addresses political problems with significant stakes: bodily autonomy, reproductive justice, gender liberation, sexual violence. In the face of those struggles, maybe it makes somebody a killjoy to hate feeling like theyre being fucked with. But so what? Instead of the carte blanche of the bit, we could opt to commit to the concepts that we mobilize, and to being accountable to their consequences.

Kay Gabriel is a poet, essayist, and PhD candidate at Princeton University.

[1] Witness, for instance, Catherine Millots Horsexe (1991), which argues that trans people have a clinically psychotic relationship to subjectivity.

[2] Gozlan, Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning: A Lacanian Approach (New York: Routledge, 2015)

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The Evanescence of Three am – Yale Daily News

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Isabel Lee

The first time I saw him, he was standing on the grass outside of the pool, surrounded by laughing teenagers and smiling sheepishly.

His name was Itai, I would soon find out. He was the golden boy of the delegation from Britain, a charming and self-deprecating nationally ranked swimmer. During the first week, his name fluttered off of the Brits lips, generating a group-wide Itai obsession.

I was at the International Summer Science Institute, called ISSI for short, a fellowship for the summer after high school. I had been selected into a group of 70 students from 17 different countries to spend three weeks at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, conducting research and exploring the country.

For me, ISSI was about starting fresh, beginning the process of rebuilding myself. I had woken up the day after my high school graduation feeling dazed, stunned that four years had escaped me in a whirlwind of coffee-filled all-nighters, frantic group text messages and last-minute review sheets. I noticed my journal sitting on my shelf, a gift from my dad in elementary school, and opened it up on the dining room table. My most recent entry was from eighth grade. I touched my face hesitantly, feeling water gathering on my cheeks, as I read the unselfconscious and hopeful anecdotes I had written before high school. I realized that I had lost my sense of wonder and eagerness to soak up the world around me in the intense marathon that was my high school experience.

My goal for that summer was to get back my true self, to breathe once again the air of being more than a student, to be an active, hungry partaker in the beauty of the world. I hoped to make genuine, interesting friends who would enable me to tap back into that true self. Itai was nothing more than a good-looking, charismatic distraction.

I easily became a part of a friend group of American girls. My circle expanded to include non-Americans by week two. I was exposed to real-world issues, like hearing my Barcelonan labmates perspective on the Catalan conflict as he shared a story of how he guarded his high school during the referendum voting. Slowly, I felt myself returning.

By the time we packed up large duffels, covered ourselves in sunscreen, and boarded a coach bus for the culminating desert excursion trip, I was happier than I had been for the past four years. ISSI felt like my personal paradise: thought-provoking individuals from around the world living together among palm trees and world-renowned research labs.

On the first night of the excursion, a few of us stayed up late talking. I remember asking a nerdy question about the future of artificial intelligence. Itai, whom I had never heard make more than a funny comment, seemed to come to life, his face suddenly becoming much more serious and his voice quickening as he shared an endless stream of arguments, complete with statistics.

I smirked, thinking about how even the popular blond boy was intelligent at nerd camp. Friends kept drifting off to bed until just Itai and I remained. As I spoke with him that night, I grasped that Itai was literally a genius, a math prodigy with mastery of philosophy, history and literature.

We stayed up till 5 a.m. that morning, just talking. When I stumbled out of my cabin the next morning for sunrise yoga, he caught my eye and grinned, sauntering over to explain how he didnt feel tired because of sleep-cycle timing. Barely able to hold my tree pose, I unsuccessfully tried to convince myself that I had experienced the same scientific phenomenon.

Nonetheless, we continued our late-night chats for the rest of the desert trip, talking until we saw the sun peek above the mountains. I had never admired someone more, and I felt Itai continuously transform my worldviews as he shared his thoughts on everything from string theory to what defines a life well-lived. He would often veer off into tangents, his love of knowledge bubbling out of him as he apologized profusely for getting sidetracked.

Itai was almost unbelievable, too perfect to be true. And I had discovered this depth in him, this depth that he casually hid from the rest of the group under his veil of constant jokes. One night, he said, I feel that we were all these awkward, quiet kids in high school, and ISSI is our chance to connect with each other and be our real selves. I nodded but did not appreciate how right he was until months later.

Our last night in the desert, we slept under the stars, in a mush of sleeping bags in the sand. We had night shifts to watch for wolves, but Itai and I werent in the same shift. When I woke up for my 3 a.m. shift, I saw Itai alongside the other members of my team. He had waited up for me, and when my 15 minutes of wolf-watching ended, Itai and I walked far away from the campsite, sitting on a hill of sand.

I knew that Itai was interested in another girl on the program. But moved by the vastness of the stars or perhaps my complete lack of sleep, I did something that I had never had the courage to do with other boys: Itai, can I tell you something?

After a long introduction about how I didnt want this to hurt our friendship, I told him, I like you a little bit. In that moment, I was filled with adrenaline, feeling brave and powerful and unafraid. I wanted to feel how I felt with Itai forever.

And our friendship did continue. As I packed up my sleeping bag in the morning, Itai appeared next to me, pointing out a celestial change from the night before. When we returned to the Weizmann Campus for the last three nights of the program, we continued to sneak out of our dorms, roaming around acres of the massive campus in our pajamas until morning.

I assumed that Itai would be a part of my life from then on, a vibrant new thread in my lifes tapestry. On my flight home to New York, waiting for takeoff, my laughter at his text messages caused curious stares from fellow passengers. At baggage claim, I received a text with a customized bingo board whose boxes contained randomized hours of the day and night. For phone calls, Itai wrote in his text. Every time we are on the phone during a time on your board, which I promise Ive deleted from my computer, you cross off the box. I have saved a different randomized board on my computer. Whoever reaches Bingo first wins.

Yet, during the rest of the summer, his texting became distant and infrequent. In September, once I had already begun my gap year, I sent him a text at 3:33 a.m.: Why do you never share any details about your life?

He responded, I hate writing down things because that makes them feel unnecessarily permanent.

I sent back a polite thats interesting.

But obviously, I thought, it is necessary that things are permanent. I needed my friendship with Itai and the person I had become during ISSI to be permanent.

I texted again, But once things have happened, arent they automatically permanent, so why would writing them down make them more permanent?

Your perception of events is not permanent and is very actively changed. The issue of context of when you are remembering a specific memory must be considered, Itai answered.

After this conversation, we started talking even less until we stopped talking altogether. When I say we stopped talking, I mean that every couple of months, I optimistically send him a text a part of me expecting to discover that he just woke up from a long coma. But WhatsApp shows hes awake, just not responding. I began to consider Itai a temporary gift, an exquisite pattern within a specific spot of my lifes tapestry, the most incredible conversation partner that I have ever had. I wrote a journal entry about him and reassured myself that the impact he had on me would remain forever. Nothing could take that away from me.

But as the months have passed by, I have started to rethink what Itai said about permanence. I am realizing that my past experiences remain alive in my head, replaying themselves again and again. And during each replay, my relationship to these memories develops new layers.

As I learned about nihilism in philosophy class, for instance, I was brought back to that moment under the stone gate outside of our bunks where seconds before the automatic sprinkler system surprised us Itai explained why hes a nihilist but life remains meaningful for him. Reliving that memory, this time with a better understanding of nihilism, I was more touched by Itais brilliance.

Its not that Itai changed me in a permanent way. We as humans are constantly changing; permanence is a delusion, a human-made safety net whose absence is terrifying but real. And in the gaping hole of impermanence, Itai continues to change me for the better, for now.

** Names have been changed to ensure privacy.

Ayelet Kalfus | ayelet.kalfus@yale.edu

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Interview: Trey Edward Shults on ‘Waves’, healing, and that Kanye biopic – Vanyaland

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The acclaimed director talks about his working relationship with Kelvin Benjamin Jr., and *that* shocking moment

With his first two features, Krisha and It Comes at Night, director Trey Edward Shults proved himself to be one of the most talented young directors currently working in the United States. His latest film, Waves, is further proof of his skill. Documenting the downfall of Tyler (Kelvin Benjamin Jr.), a high school wrestler whose life spirals out of his control after he suffers an injury during a match, Waves is an impressive and vivid portrait of a family struggling to pick up the pieces in his wake. Vanyaland spoke to Shults about his latest film, via phone, in advance of its wide release.

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the film.

Nick Johnston: The last time we talked, you had just come off of It Comes at Night, in which you showed an all-consuming grief swallow up a family and that grief destroys them in the process. All of your films are about that, in some ways: family units collapsing for one reason or another. With Waves, you really push past that and show us the aftermath and the healing that comes with it. Was crafting that aspect of this story challenging for you?

Shults: Honestly, I think it just felt more liberating to push past that. A lot of it is where Im at as a human being now, and once you get on the other side of those things, youre able to have some real perspective on it. I dont know. It felt amazing conveying that for a change, to not just stay in the worst of it, and trying to heal as much as you can and grow. Im sure there were hard challenging parts of it, but in hindsight now, it just felt kind of liberating.

Both this and It Comes at Night have father figures who are convinced that they need to protect their families, especially their sons, from the dangers of the world. In the latter, its from very physical external threats; here, its a bit more abstract, though no less real and impactful. What draws you towards creating stories about this perspective?

I think Im still working out father/son stuff [laughs], and it was really interesting, too, for that last one, It Comes at Night, that dad character was sort of a combo of who my biological father was and who my step-dad is, and I think the same thing happened with Waves because Im clearly not done with it and Im still exploring it. But its pushed further [here] too, and collaborating with Kelvin and talking about the dynamic with his father, and [us] finding some commonalities in there, and just trying to make that feel honest and real. Maybe Im done now, but yeah, Im fascinated by family, Im fascinated by parents and children, fascinated with fathers. Still have a lot of baggage with that, you know [laughs].

How would you say that your relationship with Kelvin has evolved over the course of your time together? Did anything fundamentally change between the two of you in the course of making your last two films together?

Hugely. With the last one, we had just met for the first time and it was more of a straight director-actor relationship while bonding a lot making it, and bonding for a year after [we stopped shooting]. For this, it was extremely collaborative, we were texting and doing phone calls, and talking about what it felt like at that time in our lives and our relationships with fathers and mothers and family and lovers and pressures and school, and just getting to know each other really deeply. I really just wanted to hear him and listen and try to infuse that into the story as much as possible. Kel got a draft of the script a couple of months before we shot, and he would give me detailed notes, and I would go back and change things. So it was very unorthodox in terms of the normal actor-director [relationship], he was extremely involved in the [creation] of the character and the story.

***

And it was amazing. I mean, now, Im closer to him than any other living actor apart from maybe my aunts and my mom [laughs]. Hes like a brother. And then just to watch Kel grow from his first leading role to doing all of these other roles, and then coming back to work together its amazing seeing him in these other movies and being blown away and then working with him again and seeing, past the collaborative nature of the writing and everything, just [his] actual acting. He just fully blew me away, man. He fully, fully inhabited Tyler and went in that headspace. Sometimes Id wonder Ok, who am I with now? Am I with Kelvin or with Tyler? I was just so, so proud and blown away by that kid. He put his whole heart and soul into this, man, and I love him so much.

Its incredible that he had a film like Luce come out in the same year as this. Hes so fantastic in both.

Amen, man. I saw him in Luce and I was just so proud.

Each time Ive seen the film, theres always been an incredible audience reaction when Tyler does what he does in the middle of the film every time there has been an audible gasp from the crowd or even a shout from a particularly invested member. Were you ever worried about the audience reaction here, that you might lose people in the course of it?

Yeah [laughs]. I think thats the great gamble of the film. And Im sure that we will lose people its not going to be for everyone. But I believed in the structure, I believed in what it was about and what it was going for, and all you can really do is just try to make it as good as it can be and to keep audiences as well as you can. I was really interested in trying to understand how this terrible tragedy can transpire, but then not just live with that and try to rebuild. We had a big theory, as well, that who that [new protagonist] would be Emily [Taylor Russell] would be huge [in whether] you would go with this change or not. And then I think the other part is hopefully that Kelvin is so impactful as Tyler, and hopefully, that dynamic between Kel and Lex [Tylers girlfriend, played by Alexa Demie] feels true to some domestic relationships, so we tried to make that incredibly honest to where that I hope people just go with it. I hope theyre caught in the emotion of the story and are connected with the characters and can make that shift.

How do you manage such a dramatic narrative shift like that on the production side of things, like in the edit bay or in your shot construction?

A lot of it is just an intuitive, spiritual feeling, you know? For myself, I felt like when the movie goes the movie sort of straight-up devastates me and I cant take anymore, and I need to change energy and direction, almost like I need a hug or something so I can try to pick through the pieces. Ok, I just went through that. I dont just want to live in nihilism. Can we find a way to heal and grow? So, its really just a tonal feeling you get. From the writing to the editing, to how youre shooting things, and the feeling you have with all of your collaborators: how youre performing scenes, and how you craft them in the edit, and the pace. Its just trying to get through to that feeling, where Im devastated and I get in that grief for a second, but then I cant take it [any longer] and I need more. And hopefully, the audiences will feel the same way that you and your collaborators will feel.

What was your reasoning with regards to the films shifting aspect ratio? I didnt get a chance to appreciate it as much on my first viewing, but the second time around I really noticed how big of a role it played visually.

Its all about the characters mindset, basically. All of the filmmaking were doing is to get you emotionally and spiritually closer to where Ty or Emilys headspace is. So, in a broad stroke way, the aspect ratios hopefully feel like theyre squeezing in on you as Tylers world is dismantling and collapsing in on him, and as Emily is starting to heal and love herself again and open up, hopefully, it feels like the burdens being lifted up, and the aspect ratio is [expanding] again. So we go from 1.85:1 to 2.4:0 to 4:3 back to 2.4:0 and native anamorphic which is 1.6:6 and then opening back up to 1.8:5. If you look at the whole broad movie, it squeezes in and then it opens back up. And, for me, I just wanted it to feel and its not even about noticing it I just wanted it to feel like youre getting as close to these characters as possible and getting into their headspace whenever you can. And that was really the goal with it.

Another thing I really appreciated about the film was your approach to on-screen texting, which is depicted realistically on phone screens, instead of, say, text superimposed on the image itself. What was your thinking in making that choice?

I just wanted to make it feel honest. I would think we can all relate I mean, I can relate to responding to big moments over text messages [laughs], in angry ways, in emotional ways. Its communication, right? Its kind of crazy to me that, with my loved ones, therell be these big moments over this little phone at your fingertips and these words. Really, my goal was to just make it feel how that feels, whether thats the intensity of an epic text fight, or the natural messages [you send] when youre using your phone and talking to people, or when youre trying to say this really big thing to this person you love and you just cant form the words in the right way. I just thought it was really interesting. Communication is a sort of theme in the movie, and lack of communication and [how] to work on that, to grow and connect better. So, yeah, I hope all those reasons come across, because texting in movies can feel cheap to me, and not real, and I wanted it to feel emotionally right.

I asked you about this last time, and Im still curious about it: Do you still want to make your Kanye biopic?

[laughs] I mean, sure! I still have no idea what I would want that movie to be, but I know that Kanye West is still endlessly fascinating. Theres always something new going on with that man, and it can be very frustrating and very fascinating, but Im definitely interested. Honestly, I think a movie would be only more fascinating.

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Interview: Trey Edward Shults on 'Waves', healing, and that Kanye biopic - Vanyaland

Bitcoin SV to $1,200: Craig Wrights Prophecy Almost out of Time – BeInCrypto

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This past summer, Craig Wright, a chief proponent of the Bitcoin Satoshis Vision blockchain, made a rare end-of-year price call for his favorite cryptoasset. With just six weeks remaining, the realization of Wrights $1,200 BSV prediction for 2019 is looking increasingly doubtful.

Investor and entrepreneur Alistair Milne pointed out the ticking clock against Wrights call in a tweet featuring a screenshot of Wrights original prediction, dated June 3, 2019.

Wright posted the tweet as he was in the midst of a legal battle against the estate of his former partner, the late computer scientist, David Kleiman. The court cases referred to above would apparently finally settle the question of who Satoshi Nakamoto (SN), the creator of Bitcoin, really is (or was).

Wright, having long argued that he himself created Bitcoin in 2008, seemed to suggest above that when he inevitably proved his identity in court, the price of Bitcoin SV would shoot up from a sudden influx of wealth moving into the market. In a reply tweet to his price prediction, Wright went as far as to give it a 97.8 percent probability.

Of course, the Kleiman Vs. Wright battle is still ongoing and Wright is still to prove himself the author of the Bitcoin Whitepaper. The two parties had agreed to settle in September. On October 30, Wright broke the agreement claiming that he could no longer afford to pay the legal fees.

With legal proceedings set to go on into next year now, it doesnt look like Wrights bold price prediction will come to fruition. Already past the middle of November, there are just over six weeks remaining for the price of Bitcoin SV price to increase by more than $1,000 equivalent to a level of around five times greater than its all-time high.

Wright has not been having much luck with his soothsaying of late. BeInCrypto recently reported on the Satoshi Nakamoto-claimant promising that he would reveal a coin-killing flaw in the coding of SegWit, an update to both Bitcoin and Litecoin aimed at increasing the number of transactions per second. The day Wright said he would make his grand announcement has, of course, come and gone. Wright has yet to disclose or exploit this supposedly fatal flaw.

Images courtesy of Twitter, TradingView.

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Default Bitcoin Addresses Are Now Longer But Simpler & Cheaper to Use – Cryptonews

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Source: iStock/deepblue4you

The Bitcoin Core client version 0.19.0.1, the last expected version before the anticipated Bitcoin mining reward halving in May 2020, was released this past weekend by the Bitcoin Core developers. Although it contains no major changes, it does come with several interesting speed and security improvements, as well as other modifications.

One of those is that so-called Bech32 Bitcoin (BTC) addresses are now set as the default option. Originally introduced in 2018, Bech32 addresses start with bc1 and are 15% longer (90 characters in total), but do not differentiate between the uppercase and lowercase letters. The mixed case makes it inconvenient to reliably write down, type on mobile keyboards, or read out loud, while the increased length does not matter when copy-pasting addresses, according to developers that hope that this change will reduce the possibility of human mistakes.

Moreover Bech32 addresses are native SegWit addresses, which allow cheaper transactions. (Learn more: How to Use Bitcoin SegWit Transactions)

However, as not all cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges support SegWit transactions, only new software will be able to use Bech32 addresses, and only for receivers with SegWit-enabled new software. In all other cases, P2SH or P2PKH addresses can be used, according to the Bitcoin Core developers.

The 19th major release of Bitcoins software client is still the dominant original version of Bitcoin, first launched by its creator Satoshi Nakamoto 11 years ago. Although there is no fixed schedule, a new and improved version of Bitcoin Core client is released approximately once in six months or so, followed by some minor fixes on a monthly or quarterly basis. Bitcoin Core generally refers to a full Bitcoin node as well as the community dedicated to its development.

The most recent version includes contributions from more than 100 developers as was led by the Bitcoin Core lead maintainer Wladimir van der Laan. In total, it took 550 merged pull requests and was released over a period of six months.

Other notable changes include the possibility of starting a node with limited disk space, new features for Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) protocol, and other smaller improvements that are handy for programmers working on Bitcoin applications.

The complete list of Bitcoin Core 0.19.0.1 upgrades can be found here.

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Default Bitcoin Addresses Are Now Longer But Simpler & Cheaper to Use - Cryptonews

More than just crypto: blockchain usage grows amidst greater regulation – Bobsguide

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With countries such as China and Germany laying the groundwork for their blockchain legislation in the past few months, and financial services still undecided on the uses of blockchain, it is apt to re-evaluate the uses of the distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Blockchain often connotes cryptocurrencies, but the technology has many uses: increasing speed and security in cross-border transactions, smart contracts, digital identity to name a few. As blockchain regulation becomes more commonplace, the application of the technology has the potential to grow in prevalence.

Blockchain as a decentralised peer-to-peer system has been around since 2008, when it was coined by the anonymous Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto in a whitepaper. Since then it has gained hype, yet governments and regulators have been hesitant to regulate a fledgling technology that seemed unstable, and in many cases, illegitimate given its tie to dark web transactions. Silk Road, a black market platform facilitating Bitcoin transaction, was shut down by the FBI in 2013 for this reason. Some market players believe blockchain has passed its heyday; since 2018 there has been talk of the crypto bubble bursting, with major players Bitcoin, XRP, and Litecoin shrinking in market value, then proceeding to intense fluctuation in late 2019, according to Coindesks index. Several bankers have questioned blockchains commercial usage. Other market players claim that blockchains usage is more beneficial in processes of industrialisation. As we move further into the aftermath of the bitcoin bubble being burst, blockchain technologies emerge in more diverse sectors.

Payments take the lead

The payments sector has long been considered one of the ripest for blockchain adoption, as high speed of payments has become more expected. The recent proliferation of real-time payments is turning speed into a priority.

SWIFT, for decades the global payments system of choice, has recently been under pressure regarding the emergence of blockchain as a potential competitor amid its own declaration to avoid the technology. The payments system has chosen to focus on common standards and API rather than the trendier DLT. However, the decision to avoid blockchain could also be a result of SWIFTs great reach with 11,000 financial institution (FI) links in 300 countries, experimenting carries a lot of risk, something firms with smaller may be more willing to test. In 2017, the company launched SWIFT Global Payments Initiative (GPI) with the intention of creating the new standard in global payments. There has been some indication toward a lightening up on blockchain, though: a report from June 2019 announced that they would soon enabling GPI on DLT platforms as well.

The players pushing SWIFT towards increased speed of cross-border payments and openness to DLT firms include both established banks and challenger payment providers. In 2018, JPMorgan launched its Interbank Information Network (IIN), which now includes 365 banks who use the network to share information on global payments via blockchain. Ripple, a de-centralised real-time payments network founded in 2012, was created with blockchain as its backbone, and has long been considered a rival to SWIFT. In June of this year, Visa launched B2B Connect, its DLT-based end-to-end payments network with 30 countries on board; by September it had doubled its reach.

Whether DLT will emerge as the industry norm in payments is yet to be seen, but blockchain is still far from large-scale adoption.

Digital identity takes ethical turn

Blockchain has long inspired hesitation from its involvement in cryptocurrencies, but there hasnt been the same amount of contention surrounding digital identity, the feature that underpins all DLT payments.

IBM launched its blockchain-based Verify Credentials program in 2017 as a way to verify identity without the need of an intermediary provider. In March, Mastercard announced plans to embrace digital identity. The move towards digital identity has been triggered by the desire to ease up on know-your-customer (KYC) procedures. In September, global financial markets data provider Refinitiv announced a digital identity solution to assist in KYC compliance.

While recent embraces point to a focus on digital identity, concerns remain around the way ID is stored and managed by different authorities. After the initial buzz of blockchain that overtook most of the 2010s, focus has recently shifted towards responsible or ethical use of digital identity. Organisations such as the ID2020 Alliance attempt to establish frameworks for the responsible implementation of digital identities, while also ensuring that they are accessible.

Recently, conversations surrounding digital identity have turned to its role in financial inclusion. No doubt spurred by Facebooks Libra announcement in June, blockchains ability to provide an economic identity for those who previously have been left out of financial institutions has gained traction. According to the World Bank, 1.7 billion adults did not have a bank account in 2017. Often this is because they lack identification methods, which digital identity is increasingly aimed at remedying.

Smart contracts legally recognised

Smart contracts are another blockchain innovation to have cropped up in a post-crypto boom landscape. They are digital protocols that facilitate the negotiation of a contract, generally operating on a blockchain. Launched in 2015, Ethereum was created explicitly for facilitating smart contracts. Since then, similar platforms have emerged such as RSK pegged to the Bitcoin blockchain and EOS an open-source blockchain protocol.

On November 18, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce of the Lawtech Delivery Panel recognised smart contracts as enforceable agreements under English law in an official statement:

Time and again over the years the common law has accommodated technological and business innovations, including many which, although now commonplace, were at the time no less novel and disruptive than those with which we are now concerned. In no circumstances therefore are there simply no legal rules which apply.

The announcement follows the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security recognising smart contracts under Dutch law in October. Such recognition could set a precedent for how blockchain-based smart contracts are considered in other countries.

Smart contracts remove a third party from negotiation, instead using a cryptographic code to enforce the desired action. The insurance industry is ready for this type of disruption. A study by Accenture in 2018 demonstrated that 84 percent of insurers think blockchain and smart contracts will redefine their interactions with partners, with 50 percent already planning on using blockchain within the next two years. Insurance firm AXA has experimented with Ethereum contracts in the past with a flight delay compensation protocol called fizzy, though the project was terminated in September 2019.

The travel and hospitality industry could also benefit from smart contracts in the form of traveller loyalty and the ability to connect with serval providers flights, car rentals, hotels all at once.

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More than just crypto: blockchain usage grows amidst greater regulation - Bobsguide

Exclusive Interview with John McAfee: Epstein Didnt Kill Himself, Bitcoin to Hit $1 million, & Rus – U.Today

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In the first part of our interview with John McAfee, we discussed various topics in-depth, such as his run for President, McAfeeDex, and his opinion on stablecoins. Today, we continue talking about the future of cryptocurrencies and the governments role in it. Mr. McAfee also told me about the story behind the upcoming film King of the Jungle. It is based on the story of the Wired reporter Joshua Davis and his three weeks with McAfee in Belize. Lets jump right into it.

WARNING: Do not attempt to duplicate, recreate, or perform the same or similar stunts or tricks with guns as personal injury and/or property damage may result. U.Today is not responsible for any such injuries or damages.

U.Today: Youre launching a new token called Epstein Didnt Kill Himself. What can you tell me about this token? Why did you call it that? Why is Hillary Clinton being advertised in the picture?

John McAfee: Okay, it's obviously a joke coin like Dogecoin. There are a couple of things with this token. I believe very strongly that Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself. I think it's in the interest of the American people and perhaps the world to understand that we must find those responsible for it, and trace it back to those corrupt individuals in power who can do things like wack people while they're in jail. Being in jail is the easiest place to kill someone, and every gangster knows this. So, a little bit to that extent, I took advantage of the memes floating around the Internet. Jeffrey Epstein Didn't Kill Himself is a big meme. Everybody was making memes so I thought I would make my own. Mine is the WHACKD token, and with every transaction, 10% is skimmed off the top. With every 1,000 transactions, 1 receiver will lose everything - the entire transaction. It's just whacked. The coin acts as if its in a crypto environment, in which there are criminals skimming off the top. There are people whacking entire assets from someone else.

Now, what's not a joke - after we constructed this [token], I realized that we've created a truly deflationary token. I mean those who want to exchange or sell their tokens will be the losers, right? Its because the more they sell, the less volume available. What I mean is that with fewer tokens, the ones who are holding onto their supply will see that supply increase in value. It's just a great social experiment.

U.Today: So what about Hillary Clinton?

John McAfee: You know, I know nothing whatsoever about the lady. Ive never had dinner with her, nor have I shaken hands with her. So, I am not one to answer anything about her. I mean, rumors on the internet are just rumors on the internet. I mean they're sparked by God knows who, and are extinguished by the next rumor.

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

U.Today: So, its just a joke?

John McAfee: Yes, it was just a joke. Of course, the whole thing is just a meme. You know, a meme looks at a particular situation from a whimsical or interesting aspect. This is what makes it funny. That's all, and so people are creating memes. This one is mine.

U.Today: Did you know Jeffrey Epstein personally?

John McAfee: No, I did not.

U.Today: What are your thoughts on Chinas digital currency - the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP)? Will the US launch a digital US Dollar in the near future?

John McAfee: I think that every country and every nation state on this planet will launch their own cryptocurrency. I mean they will be forced to do so because it is so clear that fiat currencies, paper currencies, and even credit cards are so vastly inferior in terms of safety, speed, and ease. In terms of the entire economy, cryptocurrencies are vastly superior, so governments will have to create their own. People, please be aware that all of the coins created by governments on blockchains will monitor your every penny, where it goes, and for what purpose. I mean it's just one more bar in your cage. You can seize upon the opportunities offered by cryptocurrencies, which came by way of the people, and not from the government or from corporations. Just a bunch of ordinary programmers.

I came from the people and take what the people continue to create, which will always be vastly superior to those monolithic, slow-moving dinosaur-like entities called governments. They just can't create them fast enough, but the people can. So let the people continue to create and everyone thats listening to me, please choose the digital currency created by the people. There are thousands. It may take you a little bit of learning, a couple of hours maximum, but learn and understand them. And please don't use the government cryptocurrencies even if they say you must use them. They said that we shouldnt smoke marijuana for the last 75 years. I've heard that people still smoke marijuana. So, you tell me about the difference. Please people, stick with the people, and not with the power that has been suppressing you for thousands of years.

U.Today: Okay. Do you still believe that Bitcoin (BTC) will hit its $1 million dollar mark by the end of 2020? We all remember what you were going to do if it doesnt hit that mark. What are the reasons that support your belief?

John McAfee: Because Bitcoin is another deflationary currency. No one has noticed this yet. I don't understand it. There are only 21 million [coins] that can ever exist, and 18 million [coins] have already been mined. This leaves only 3 million left, and it will take many years to mine those 3 million coins. In the meantime, 7 million coins have been lost forever, and for every coin that's mined, four are lost. Do you understand? This is the world's first automatic deflationary currency.

Since nobody seems to have noticed that, I promise you that when they do, which will be within a matter of months, people will go, Oh my God, look what we missed!

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

U.Today: But why 2020?

John McAfee: Well, because 2020 is 14 months away. I mean the end of 2020. Trust me, that's plenty of time.

U.Today: Do you really know Satoshi Nakamoto? How do you know him? Can you give us some details that wont compromise Satoshis identity? Is it a man, a woman, or a group of people?

John McAfee: I do. Satoshi is a man. That's all I can tell you. Of course, I know who he is, but let me ask you a question. Everybody wants to know about Satoshi, and I was just ready to say something. I was asked not to tell anyone, and while he did not admit to me that he was Satoshi, he did say one thing, Imagine if the world knew who Satoshi was. Satoshi's life would have to change. Yes. He is certainly one of the world's richest entities. He would have to surround himself with armed guards because he would be the target of criminals, and he would have to change his way of living. He couldn't just go out in the middle of the night, down to the coffee shop, kick up his feet, light a cigarette, and have an espresso - that part of his life is over. He then said:

So, you want to radically change someone's life. What makes you think you have that right? What if you were the 1% that was wrong? You would have totally destroyed an innocent person's life whos now incapable of going to the store or a movie without hiring two dozen, full-time armed guards. Hes at the mercy of the people.

After he said that, I thought, Jesus. My sincerest apologies. I am a stupid old man for not thinking this through. So, do you want me to tell you now?

U.Today: No, please dont. Can you tell me a little about the film King of the Jungle? Did you have a particular role in this film, such as with casting or a cameo in a potential scene? Are you looking forward to this film?

John McAfee: I have nothing to do with the movie. I have nothing to do with any documentary that's been done about my life. This is not a documentary though, it is a fiction. Even though I wasn't consulted, I've been in touch with the screenwriters, as theyre really funny and enjoyable people. But I have no control over the film, nor do I know anything about the casting or anything other than what I read in the news. I find out at the same time as the rest of the world.

I do know that, uh, who is the new kid (*McAfee speaking with his wife Janice and asking her the name of the kid playing the reporter), ZacEfron. Apparently, he's an actor. I don't know as I don't get out much. I seldom watch movies. Documentaries are my thing. ZacEfron is playing the reporter that came down to visit me. It's based on a three-week in-depth story about my life in Belize, where Wired reporter Joshua Davis came down to spend a few weeks with me. I expected him to come down and spend an hour or two, or even a day interviewing me, which I was willing to do. However, he wanted to be with me all the time, or at least when he thought I was doing something interesting. Most people would have said, Oh, you crazy. But I said, All right, if you think you're up for it. Well, he was not up for it. He was literally traumatized by hanging out with me for three weeks.

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

Afterwards, he went back and wrote a story for Wired. There was actually an eBook called John McAfee's Last Stand. I never read it. I mean, I was with him at the time. What can his writing tell me about the events? In the book, he put down what he thought were horrific things. For example, the cover of the ebook is certainly a well-known photo of me with no shirt, my tattoos, and a gun to my head. That's on the cover of the book. After it was all written, they got that photo by sending photographers down here because Josh is a writer, not a photographer.

That [photo] was based on his second day with me, when we were sitting in San Pedro at a big oak table. He was so naive about life. And I said Joshua! You have to understand, you can't believe anything that you hear. Only half of what you see, and this is the truth. And he said, Well, that's nonsense. That's philosophy. And I go, Hey, watch this. I always carry a gun. I pulled out a .357 Magnum revolver, emptied the rounds onto the table, showed him that it was empty, picked up one of the rounds, put it in the gun, spun the cylinder, put it to my head, and pulled the trigger. And he was screaming, No, don't! Dont! You know, he's a slightly built young man, and he's not gonna **** with me or do something because he's literally screaming, You don't have to do this! And I said, Okay. Well, I apologize.

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

I then spun the cylinder again and it went click, and now he is totally ****ing frantic. While he's frantically screaming for me not to do it, I'm just sitting there spinning the cylinder while he's yelling. I must've done it 35 times. I then said, Now, Josh, watch this. So with a gun in my hand, I took him outside to the beach, aimed the gun at the sand, and pulled the trigger. Boom! Sand goes flying everywhere. Now, Josh is a writer. Any mathematician would know, You know dude, if you've got a bullet in there, there is no powder in that cartridge. I mean, any rational person would say that, and by the way Mr. McAfee, that is a great trick. With Josh, it was a no.

You just pick one up, put it in the gun, and play Russian Roulette. Any magician would have gone and said that's a good trick. Any rational person would have gone and said, That's a trick. How did you do it? But Josh being naive took it for real. So that was his second day. So for the next three weeks, I ****ed with him in ways that made that look like a kindergartener pick a card and get the wrong card.

So, what I would do if there was no imminent danger and I wanted to **** with someone, I would always take one of the rounds out of the gun, pry off the bullet, fire the cap so that there's no gunpowder and there's no firing cap now, take another bullet, insert it back in the casing and put that back in the gun. I could always spot which bullet it was because there was an indentation where the firing pin had hit the primer. So, I could dump my bullets anywhere, but no one else would have noticed the indentation. Right? They're just noticing bullets flying everywhere. You just pick one up, put it in the gun, and play Russian Roulette. Any magician would have gone and said that's a good trick. Any rational person would have gone and said, That's a trick. How did you do it? But Josh being naive took it for real. So that was his second day. So for the next three weeks, I ****ed with him in ways that made that look like a kindergartener pick a card and get the wrong card.

After three weeks of that, Josh was literally traumatized. I don't feel bad about it because I hate organized media and the way that they select stories. There are trillions of stories to be told at any point in time. And who are our storytellers today? The media. The mass media are our storytellers, and there are trillions of stories that they could write about. What do they focus on? The things which are in their interest or in the interest of their sponsors or their controllers. Now I had Josh, who was being less naive. If you are naive, then why are you in the media at all? It's people like you who should not be here. So I felt justified. I waited two days before I decided, All right, you're going to get your story, but you're going to get the story that I choose for you.

I chose the story of John McAfee's insanity, and played that story for him for three weeks. That's what the movie is about, and thats why its a comedy. But I have no control over it. I think that the screenwriters are great, but I don't know how they're going to do this. I've read the synopsis, which is about that three week period. That's the entire movie.

I chose the story of John McAfee's insanity, and played that story for him for three weeks. That's what the movie is about, and thats why its a comedy.

U.Today: Why didn't you want Johnny Depp to play you in the film?

John McAfee: I don't think Johnny Depp has experience in life. Not in acting per say, but because even to me, Im a mystery. Some people think Im more of a mystery, while others think Im insane. With todays standards, I probably am, and I'll tell you what is sane today. Sane is buying all of the propaganda that the government and the media feed you while as your commuting to work for up to an hour each way, five days a week for 40 years in a job that you may not love. Thats considered sane because that's what everybody does. So, in that world, of course, there's nobody more insane than me.

U.Today: Last question - What do you think the web will look like in 50 years from now?

John McAfee: The first thing that comes to my mind is God, I would love to be here to see it, but I will not. The second thought is that 20 years ago, I could not have predicted today, nor could anyone on this planet. I have no idea where you are, but that doesn't matter because we're talking face to face. I see your smiling face, your gestures, and your eyes blinking as if youre here. Could you have imagined this 20 years ago? No, the technology did not exist, nor did the concepts other than in Star Trek movies. Now, they're here. So I would be the last person to ask given the history and the 74 years that I've experienced on this planet. The sky is open.

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Exclusive Interview with John McAfee: Epstein Didnt Kill Himself, Bitcoin to Hit $1 million, & Rus - U.Today

Thailand: Cryptocurrency Law Will Change in 2020 to Stay Competitive – Cointelegraph

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Lawmakers in Thailand plan to reform cryptocurrency laws after voicing concerns that they have made the country uncompetitive.

As local English-language news outlet Bangkok Post reported on Nov. 25, Thailands regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to reconsider its crypto policy in 2020.

The reason, it says, lies in poor uptake of its certification and licensing scheme by cryptocurrency businesses.

Since it came into power last year, only five companies have completed certification, and of those, just two have launched.

Now, amendments are on the table, but the SEC has not yet given precise details of how current practices would change.

The regulator must be flexible to apply the rules and regulations in line with the market environment, Bangkok Times quoted Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol, the secretary general of the SEC as saying.

Ruenvadee continued:

For example, laws should not be outdated and should serve market needs, especially for new digital asset products, and be competitive with the global market. We need to explore any possible obstacles.

Thailand imposes stiff penalties for those attempting to sell digital tokens without due approval from the SEC. These include possible fines of at least 500,000 baht ($16,540), as well as two-year jail sentences.

Nonetheless, when the countrys first initial coin offering (ICO) under the new rules launched last month, it signaled a significant step forward from state policy several years ago, which favored an outright cryptocurrency ban.

Worldwide, ICOs, in particular, have all but died out, with analysts attributing the lack of momentum to mounting regulatory pressure.

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Thailand: Cryptocurrency Law Will Change in 2020 to Stay Competitive - Cointelegraph

Dwight Schrute tells Bitcoin holders to give their worthless cryptocurrency to a non-profit – The Next Web

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Rainn Wilson has a message for Bitcoin BTC holders: give your worthless cryptocurrency to the Mona Foundation, a non-profitthat supports worldwide initiatives in education and equality.

The organization opened up its donation channels to accept a raft ofcryptocurrencies earlier this week. It now accepts Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, as well as the USDC stablecoin, via a web app operated by major exchange Coinbase.

Wilson, widely recognized for his portrayal of Dwight Schrute in the US version of The Office, appears in a promotional video to encourage Bitcoin owners, cryptocurrency fanatics, and alternative financing fans to donate.

I hope youll consider giving your worthless cryptocurrency to the Mona Foundation, says Wilson. As you know, Mark Cuban said that cryptocurrency that hed rather have bananas than Bitcoin, so please, give your bananas to the Mona Foundation.

The Mona Foundations website explains that any cryptocurrency donations it receives will be valued at the time of donation at its fair market value, which presumably means that donations will be sold for fiat almost immediately.

In 2017, philanthropic experiment Pineapple Fund donated $1 million worth of Bitcoin to the Mona Foundation.

Hard Fork has reached out to the Mona Foundation to confirm its process for handling donations in cryptocurrency, as well as how it handled the $1 million in BTC from Pineapple Fund. Well update this piece should we receive a reply.

Published November 21, 2019 17:11 UTC

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Bitcoin Slips in KPMG Rankings, But Cryptocurrency Innovation Has Strong Showing – Cointelegraph

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On Nov. 18, Big Four auditing firm KPMG released its 2019 Fintech100 ranking, which lists the top 100 fintech firms in the world. The list saw a drop in Bitcoin-related companies but reinforced innovation in the payments industry.

As was the case in 2018, AntFinancial owned by Jack Ma of Alibaba led the ranking. AntFinancial controls Alipay, one of China's leading payment systems, and is valued at $83 billion.

Among the companies that offer innovation through blockchain and cryptocurrency, JD Finance was best placed in third place, surpassed by Grab, an Uber-like rideshare app that also functions as a payment system in Singapore.

Robinhood dropped from 8th place in 2018 to 14th in 2019. However, crypto innovation remains strong according to KPMGs rankings, which featured blockchain-focused OneConnect (18th), Revolut (26th), Coinbase (34th), Liquid (38th) and Banketa (42th).

Commenting on the strength of Chinese companies on the list, Chris Wang, partner and head of fintech at KPMG China said:

"As fintech development continues to go strong in China, we are seeing some changes in China's fintech landscape. Aligned with trends we observe globally, we see an increasing number of wealth, insurance and multi-sector companies in China on the list, which indicates that technologies and innovations have spread into more financial services sectors."

The report also named Binance, MemaPay, Moin, Silot and Tokeny among emerging companies in the top 100.

KPMG further points out that Fintech100 companies raised over $18 billion in the last 12 months and more than $70 billion in their lifetimes. The report identifies these companies as changing the world with their respective innovations, serving over 2.5 billion customers globally.

Although fintech firms have emerged as a financial services option, KPMG points out that many companies on the Fintech100 list have benefited from open banking, allowing them to access customer banking to create more personalized experience and services. Early fintech innovators with single product propositions are now diversifying to fulfill customer needs, often through banking licenses and supported by favorable regulatory developments.

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Bitcoin Slips in KPMG Rankings, But Cryptocurrency Innovation Has Strong Showing - Cointelegraph

Cryptocurrency exchange that went dark with $16M in user funds only has $45k, report – The Next Web

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A Canadian cryptocurrency exchange that was shut down earlier this month for allegedly misappropriating CAD$16 million ($12.1 million) in user funds only has $45,000 in hard assets, reports Global News.

As previously reported by Hard Fork, the B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) shut down Einstein Exchange after looking into several complaints from customers unable to access their cash and cryptocurrency assets.

Grant Thornton Limited was appointed to seize the exchanges assets and return the allegedly missing funds to users. These included cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, the BCSC case documents said.

But, a British Columbia Supreme Court filing published yesterday reportedly says Grant Thorton has discovered that the business only has approximately $15,000 in cryptocurrency and $30,000 in cash.

The cryptocurrency exchange was incorporated by director Michael Ongun Gokturk in December 2017, during Bitcoins famous bull run.

In May this year, the BCSC launched an investigation into customer complaints.

Grant Thornton has reportedly issued notices to several banks across Canada and the US, whereGokturk and the exchange may have held investments or deposits, and seized shares in private companies.

Gokturk did not respond to Global News request for comment, nor has he replied to the allegations made in the BCSC case filings.

But, the Einstein Group has reportedly told Grant Thornton that it believes it owes clientsbetween US$8 and $10 million.

This deficit, the company says, stems from credit card and bank draft frauds. The majority of this loss is made up of cryptocurrency assets, it adds.

Einstein Exchange is believed to have served 200,000 users from all over the globe.Grant Thornton has so far heard from 200-300 people said to be affected by the exchanges collapse.

Published November 19, 2019 11:00 UTC

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Cryptocurrency exchange that went dark with $16M in user funds only has $45k, report - The Next Web

The cryptocurrency market update: Bitcoin bears have an upper hand – FXStreet

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The cryptocurrency market has settled down after a sharp sell-off on Thursday. Bitcoin and all major altcoins are nursing losses on a day-to-day basis with ta notable exception of Tezos (XTZ). The coin has gained over 5%, building on the recovery of the week. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization crashed to $208 billion, from $220 billion this time on Thursday; an average daily trading volume is increased to $81 billion. Bitcoin's market share settled at 66.1%.

BTC/USD recovered from Thursday low of $7,393 and settled down in a new range limited by $7,700 on the upside and $7,500 on the downside. At the time of writing, BTC/USD is changing hands at $7,580, down nearly 5% on a day-to-day basis and unchanged since the beginning of the day.

Ethereum, the second-largest digital asset with the current market capitalization of $17.4 billion, has settled above $160.00 after a sharp sell-off towards $156.22 on Thursday evening. The recovery is capped by the middle line of 1-hour Bollinger Band 1-hour currently at $162.50. Once it is out of the way, the upside is likely to gain traction with the next focus onpsychological $170.00 reinforced by SMA50 (Simple Moving Average) and the upper line of 1-hour Bollinger Band. At the time of writing, ETH/USD down 8.5% on a day-to-day basis and unchanged since the beginning of the day.

Ripples XRP returned to $0.2400 on Friday after a short-lived dip to $0.2357. The third-largest digital asset with the current market value of $10.4 billion has lost 3.6% of its value in recent 24 hours, unable to develop a sustainable recovery. The initial barrier is created by $0.2460 (the upper line of 1-hour Bollinger Band) followed by SMA50 1-hour at $0.2470.

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The cryptocurrency market update: Bitcoin bears have an upper hand - FXStreet