Agenda – NeuroTech Partnering

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Tuesday, May 1, 2018

7:30 am Conference Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:30 Welcome Keynote and State of the Neurotechnology Industry

The Neurotechnology Industry Organization and guest speakers provide an annual review of trends and developments in neuropharmaceuticals, neurodevices, and neurodiagnostics.

Panelists: Alison Fenney, Member, Board of Directors, Neurotechnology Industry Organization

Harry Tracy, President, NI Research

James Cavuoto, Editor & Publisher, Neurotech Reports

9:00 Investing in Neurotech Panel

A diverse panel of private, public and strategic investors will discuss their investment strategies. What does it take to get a neurotech company funded? What are the benefits and risks of business models in devices, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and information technology? What are todays deal terms and valuations? What are the best exit strategies and how is neurotech comparing to other industries?

Moderator: Joshua Pinto, Vice President, Healthcare Investment Banking, Credit Suisse

Panelists: Rahul Ballal, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Versant Ventures

Laura Tadvalkar, Senior Associate, MP Healthcare Venture Management

Paulina Hill, Principal, Polaris Partners

Jamil Beg, Principal, 5AM Ventures

William Robb, Founding Partner, NovaQuest Capital Management

10:00 Coffee Break with Exhibit Viewing

10:40 Treatments for Alzheimers and Cognitive Disorders

As the population ages, the market for neurodegenerative disorders is exploding. Current treatments stabilize symptoms only for a short period of time. What is on the horizon for symptom improvement and disease modification from drug and device companies? Can earlier or more accurate diagnosis improve outcomes?

Moderator: Michael Gold, Vice President, Development Neurosciences, AbbVie

Panelists: Christopher U. Missling, President and CEO, Anavex Life Sciences

Leen Kawas, President and CEO, M3 Biotechnology

Michael Mullan, CEO, Archer Pharmaceuticals

Casey Lynch, CEO, Cortexyme

Carlos Buesa, CEO, Oryzon

11:40 Developments on the Horizon for Pain and Epilepsy

Drugs and devices with novel mechanisms of action are on the horizon to decrease side effects and improve efficacy in treatment resistant populations for epilepsy and neuropathic pain. Hear from leading companies on their approaches.

Moderator: Robert H. Ring, Founder & President, Auts Consulting and Advisory Solutions

Panelists: Gregory T. Mayes, President, CEO & Founder, Engage Therapeutics, Inc.

Stephen Collins, CEO, Biscayne Neurotherapeutics

Ana Maiques, CEO, NeuroElectrics

Louis Mayaud, CSO, Mensia Technologies

12:40 pm Networking Luncheon

2:00 Internal and External Research and Development

Pharmaceutical and device companies are looking to provide complete solutions that span from prevention to treatment. Functions across the value chain will be kept in house or partnered. This panel of experts will discuss how they approach collaborations with other companies, academic groups, research institutes, and platform companies.

Moderator: Christine de los Reyes, Vice President, Strategic Planning & Business Development, Alopexx Enterprises, LLC

Panelists: Jeff Erb, Senior Director, Strategy and Business Development, Medtronic

Isaac Veinbergs, Head, External Innovation, Sanofi

Eric Schaeffer, Senior Director, Neuroscience Innovation, Johnson & Johnson Innovation

3:00 Refreshment Break with Exhibit Viewing

3:45Targeting Orphan Diseases

Orphan disorders are a hot area of investment due to perceived benefits with regulatory agencies, ready access to patients, and premium pricing. This session will gather companies developing treatments for ALS, lysosomal storage disorders, Huntingtons, and more.

Moderator: Daniel Burch, Global Medical Officer, PPD Biotech

Panelists: Marc Martinell, CEO, Minoryx

Andrew Lim, CEO, Circumvent Pharmaceuticals

Lynn Durham, CEO & Founder, Stalicla

Michael Panzara, Franchise Lead, Neurology, WAVE Life Sciences Ltd.

Pushkal Garg, Chief Medical Officer, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

David B. Clissold, Director, Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, P.C.

4:45 Strategic Development of Your Product Outside of the US: The Australian Advantage

Tina Soulis, PhD, CEO, Neuroscience Trials Australia

This session will focus on case studies to demonstrate the approval process, regulatory framework, tax advantages, networks and overall capabilities that exist in Australia that could be used as part of a strategic development plan to save time, effort and cost when planning your studies.

5:00 Emerging Company Showcase - Learn More About Our Participants

The third annual Emerging Company Showcase offers the stage to young neurotech companies to pitch their drug, device, diagnostic, or software to an audience of investors, CEOs, and executives in the field.

Moderator: Carla Lema Tome, Advisor, Neurotechnology Industry Organization

Participants: Lowry Curley, CEO, AxoSim, Inc

Dan Rizzuto, CEO, Nia Therapeutics

Shawn Ritchie, CEO and CSO, Med-Life Discoveries LP

Sefi Epel, CEO, Brainmarc

Visar Berisha, Co-Founder, CSO, Aural Analytics

Julie Collens, CEO, Vivid Genomics

Devon Greco, Founder and CEO, Narbis

Kumar Sripathirathan, CEO, DEHA

Steven Prawer, Director, Cofounder, CTO, iBIONICS

Eliav Shaked, Founder & CEO, RetiSpec

6:00 Welcome Reception with Exhibit Viewing

7:00Close of Day

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Wednesday, May 2, 2018

8:00 am Continental Breakfast

8:45Keynote Presentation

Stephanie Fertig, MBA, Director, NINDS Small Business Programs, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

9:00 Partnering and Licensing in Neurotech Panel

Big pharma, biotech and medtech need to act to capitalize new innovations that provide solutions to the global demands in healthcare. This insider panel will discuss their areas of interest for in-licensing novel therapeutics, devices and diagnostics and what they look for in a partner.

Moderator: John Reppas, Director, Public Policy, Neurotechnology Industry Organization

Panelists: Murali Gopalakrishnan, Head, Neuroscience Search and Evaluation, AbbVie

Robert Bagdorf, Vice President, Biopharmaceuticals Search and Evaluation, Pfizer

Matt Gunderman, Director, Business Development, Boston Scientific

10:00 Coffee Break with Exhibit Viewing

10:40 Parkinsons and Other Movement Disorders

Current treatments for movement disorders can improve functioning, but suffer from side effects and off period, especially as the disease progresses. A number of novel pipeline pharmaceuticals and devices seek to address these issues. This session will explore how disease modifying treatments alter the course of movement disorders, and how companion diagnostics can be leveraged to provide the most optimal outcomes for patients.

Moderator: Julie G Pilitsis, Chair Dept of Neuroscience & Experimental Therapeutics, Professor of Neurosurgery, Albany Medical College

Panelists: Ralph Kern, COO and CMO, BrainStorm Therapeutics

Randall W. Moreadith, CEO, Serina Therapeutics

Michael Almstetter, CEO, Origenis

Nader Yaghoubi, President and CEO, PathMaker Neurosystems Inc.

Jim DeMesa, CEO, Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals

11:40 Next-Generation Psychiatry

Schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, addiction, ADHD and other psychiatric illnesses represent a large portion of the neurotech market. Development of promising next-generation treatments is challenging. Novel devices and diagnostics are poised to change the treatment landscape. This session will gather the most innovative treatments for mental health disorders.

Moderator: Manuel Lopez-Figueroa, Venture Partner, Bay City Capital

Panelists: Remy Luthringer, CEO, Minerva Neurosciences

Stephen Brannan, CMO, Karuna Pharmaceuticals

Atul Mahableshwarkar, Vice President, Clinical Development, BlackThorn Therapeutics

Michael J. Detke, CMO, Embera Therapeutics

Eric J. Messika, President and CEO, Coronis Neurosciences Ltd.

12:40 pm Networking Luncheon

2:00 Frontiers in Neurotechnology

In this session, we will hear from companies on the cutting edge. Novel neurostimulation devices are being developed for new markets. Closed loop systems create the promise of reduced side effects and more targeted treatment. New technology is yielding benefits in delivery of therapeutics to brain. This session will preview next generation products and companies in neurotechnology.

Moderator: Daniel OConnell, Founding member & Managing Partner, NeuroVentures; President and Chief Executive Officer, Acumen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

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Agenda - NeuroTech Partnering

Freemasonry: Midwife to an Occult Empire

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- by Terry Melanson , June 4th, 2005

When later he [the Mason] is given Light, it means really that he is taught the principles of occultism ...

The article located at this URL, and earlier at Geocities, was first written 4 years ago. Since then I have learned a bit more about Freemasonry and have had many communications, good and bad, with its members. I've been put on an "anti-mason" [hit]list, along with others who dare to write anything unflattering against the brethren; I've had heated debates and arguments in public forums and message boards; and I've actually been threatened, both subtly and overtly. Curiously, many times the offended Mason claims to be a chaplain, a minister or a supposed "man of cloth" - a real surprise, at first, considering the occult nature of the organization.

The negative experiences far outweigh the positive. The members who regularly post to forums and send out emails display the traits of having been thoroughly brainwashed by a first-class cult. Some are far more clever, however, and are undoubtedly part of a concerted effort by the Brotherhood. See, Masonic Disinformation, Propaganda, Dissembling, and Hate Techniques for a concise elaboration of their techniques.

Historically, Freemasonry has been charged with corruption of public officials because of the oaths and promises they swear to keep amongst themselves, above all else. At the very least, joining a secret society, or a "society with secrets," creates a glaring conflict of interest.

The following document doesn't go into corruption or masonic favoritism. A secret society, by its very nature - and one as widespread and established as masonry - would naturally enable such intrigue. My only intention here is to outline its influence, and guiding hand on a unique phenomenon that occurred at the crossroads of the 19th and 20th century. Having learned from earlier criticism, and with all brevity aside, I hope this page is seen as one of the most comprehensive and accurate expositions in this field of study.

Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled ...

The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them. Their true explication is reserved for the Adepts, the Princes of Masonry. (pp. 104, 105 & 819)

General Albert Pike wrote those words in a work called Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, 1871. At the time his title was The Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in Washington D.C. This book is revered by occult groups across the globe, and most masons have never read it, let alone understood it. It deals with the occult origins of the symbols, initiations, and rituals of Freemasonry. Morals and Dogma is typically only giving to Master Masons. It is estimated that for every hundred Masons, ten will read it, three will finish it and only one will understand it.

The rites and rituals of Freemasonry are directly derived from ancient occult mysteries. 1 An Entered Apprentice is deceived from the beginning, as Pike has openly admitted; at the same time revealing its likeness with the "Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy."

Pike said the initiate is "intentionally misled by false interpretations." Another esteemed Mason put it this way:

FREEMASONRY is a fraternity within a fraternity an outer organization concealing an inner brotherhood of the elect. Before it is possible to intelligently discuss the origin of the Craft, it is necessary, therefore, to establish the existence of these two separate yet interdependent orders, the one visible and the other invisible. The visible society is a splendid camaraderie of 'free and accepted' men enjoined to devote themselves to ethical, educational, fraternal, patriotic, and humanitarian concerns. The invisible society is a secret and most august fraternity whose members are dedicated to the service of a mysterious arcanum arcanorum. Those Brethren who have essayed to write the history of their Craft have not included in their disquisitions the story of that truly secret inner society which is to the body Freemasonic what the heart is to the body human.

When a mason learns the key to the warrior on the block is the proper application of the dynamo of living power, he has learned the mystery of his craft. The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and before he may step upward, he must prove his ability to properly apply energy.

The latter quote, in particular, may be surprising to some but occultists have a clear concept of what Manly P. Hall was conveying. To them, the true definition of occultism is the science of energy flow and energy relationships. Occult meditation is a means of consciously and purposefully directing energy from a recognized source to the creation of some specific effect. This is the task of the initiate in all Occult groups. The initiator shows the candidate his latent faculties, his dormant powers, and initiates him into their use. He explains or demonstrates how the candidate may awaken the static energy into dynamic power.

Freemasonry has always, admittedly, held deep occult secrets which it hides from the "profane" and unworthy. One person who believed this to be true was Alice Ann Bailey. Her praise and admiration - she appeared to be almost in awe of the craft - was evident throughout all her works. A typical flattery can be found on p. 511 of The Externalization of the Hierarchy: "The Masonic Movement . . . is the custodian of the law; it is the home of the Mysteries and the seat of initiation. ...It is a far more occult organization than can be realized, and is intended to be the training school for the coming advanced occultists. In its ceremonials lies hid the wielding of the forces connected with the growth and life of the kingdoms of nature and the unfoldment of the divine aspects of man."

Satanic Ritual is a blend of Gnostic, Cabbalistic, Hermetic, and Masonic elements, incorporating nomenclature and vibratory words of power from virtually every mythos .... Masonic orders have contained the most influential men in many governments, and virtually every occult order has many Masonic roots.

The occult revival of the 20th century can be directly attributed to Freemasonry and its peripheral entourage of acolytes: Theosophy, the New Age Movement, Satanism, Cabalistic Black Magic, Enochian Magic, Gerardian Wicca, Alexandrian Wicca and Sex Magic.

A. E. Waite (October 2, 1857 - May 19, 1942) was a Freemason, an English occultist and member (later Grand Master) of the magical order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Waite is most famous as the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, the most popular tarot deck in use today.

From Wikipedia: "Waite was a prolific author of occult texts on subjects including divination, Rosicrucianism, freemasonry, black and ceremonial magic, Kabbalism and alchemy; he also translated and reissued several important mystical and alchemical works. His works on the Holy Grail, influenced by his friendship with Arthur Machen, were particularly notable. A number of his volumes remain in print, the Book of Ceremonial Magic, The Holy Kabbalah, and New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry having seen reprints in recent years."

At least one Masonic authority had high praise and glowing approval for Waite's writings. In Builders: A Story and Study of Masonry, in a chapter entitled Secret Doctrine, Baptist minister Joseph Fort Newton, the Grand Chaplain for his lodge, said:

Perhaps the greatest student in this field of esoteric teaching and method, certainly the greatest now living is Arthur Edward Waite, to whom it is a plesure[sic] to pay tribute. ...Much learning and many kinds of wisdom are in his pages, and withal an air of serenity, of tolerance; and if he is of those who turn down another street when miracles are preformed in the neighborhood, it is because, having found the inner truth, he asks for no sign. (p. 57)

William Wynn Westcott (December 17, 1848 - July, 1925), East London coroner, a Freemason, Theosophist, Qabalist, Supreme Magus of the Societas Rosicruciana and founding member (and organizing genius) behind the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Westcott, along with MacGregor Mathers, initiated Golden Dawn students into the study of the Qabalah, Alchemy, Astrology, Geomantic and Tarot Divination, Tattwa Vision and the Pentagram Ritual.

Before the Golden Dawn had its own Lodge, its rituals (the Isis-Urania) were performed, covertly, in a Masonic Lodge Hall:

From the beginning, the ceremonies of Isis-Urania were conducted at Mark Masons Hall in Great Queen Street (now demolished) but members were careful not to embarrass the Masonic authorities, being told that they must not enter Mark Masons Hall by the front door, but go under archway and down passage, entering by a door on the right

The mention of Golden Dawn rituals being performed at "Mark Masons' Hall" is also repeated in other places recounting the history of the magical order: A Short Treatise on the History, Culture and Practices of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, A Detailed History of the Golden Dawn and The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887-1923, by Ellic Howe. It seems to be generally accepted as fact.

Wynn Westcott is also famous for his translation of the legendary Kabbalah treatise, Sepher Yetzirah "Book of Formation," into English.

Samuel Liddel "MacGregor" Mathers (January 1854 November 1918) a Freemason, a Rosicrucian and an adept occult magician. Mathers was one of the most influential occultists in modern times. Along with Dr. Wynn Westcott, he founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. On the Golden Dawn, Wikipedia has this to say: "The 'Golden Dawn,' as it is commonly referred to, was probably the single greatest influence on 20th century western occultism. While it existed, it was the focal point of the development and redevelopment of magical thinking in Europe. In it, most concepts of magic and ritual that have since become core elements of Wicca, Thelema, western mystery schools and other forms of magical spirituality were first formulated."

Mathers was instrumental in formulating instructions on the occult meanings of the Tarot. From the Golden Dawn website: "Much of what we know of the Tarot comes from Mathers and his wife. Today, we take the Tarot for granted, but without the ground breaking work of Mathers and the Golden Dawn, our Tarot symbolism might be basic and trite."

Aleister Crowley (12 October 1875 1 December 1947), the most controversial occultist in modern times, dubbed the "wickedest man alive." There's much dispute as to his official status as a mason. The Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon, however, admits to his initiation into Craft Freemasonry in Anglo-Saxon Lodge No. 343. Crowley was also conferred the degrees 33, 90 and 96 of the Antient and Primitive Rite of Masonry, Disciples of Memphis by John Yarker. Throughout his career, Crowley was as much influenced by Freemasons as he in turn had influence on them.

Crowley has generated an intense following since his death. He has influenced countless disciples and gave birth to Satanism. Proclaiming to be the magus (and great Beast 666) of the "new age of Horus," he saw himself as the usher, or prophet, of a "new Aeon" of illuminism.

Because of his total disregard for imposed social values and his legendary rebellion toward authority, Crowley became a hero for young people - especially rock musicians of the 60s and 70s and through to the Heavy Metal acts of the 80s and 90s.

Docteur Grard (Anaclet Vincent) Encausse (1865 - 1916), a Parisian spiritualist; Theosophist; Qabalist; chief of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix; founder of the Order of the Martinists, based on two extinct Masonic Rites; an OTO initiate; a Golden Dawn occultist; and an adherent of Esoteric Christianity of the Gnostic Church.

Encausse organized an "International Masonic Conference" in Paris on June 24, 1908. Later, Theodor Reuss gave him a patent to form a "Supreme Grand Council General of the Unified Rites of Antient and Primitive Masonry for the Grand Orient of France and its Dependencies at Paris." [source: The Invisible Basilica: Gerard Encausse (Papus)]

Doctor (Albert Karl) Theodor Reuss (1855 - 1923) joined Masonry in 1876. Reuss was a tantric occultist and utopian socialist. William Wynn Westcott, in 1901, provided a charter to Reuss for the Swedenborgian Rite of Masonry. Westcott also provided authorization for Reuss to found a High Council in Germania of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Theodor Reuss, also in 1901, was designated Special Inspector for the Martinist Order in Germany, by Grard Encausse. [source: The Invisible Basilica: Theodor Reuss]

Reuss is most famous as the Outer Head of the Ordo Templi Orientis. The O.T.O. is a revival of the Order of the Illuminati with practical magickal rituals and initiations. Ordo Templi Orientis is still in existence today, and has thrived in recent years as its members have embraced the internet.

"Old George" Pickingill (1816-1909) is perhaps the most intriguing figure of the bunch. George Pickingill was a legend in his own time and was much feared by the villagers of Canewdon as a "Master of the Witches" and a black magician. "Old George" was a hereditary witch of a continuous, and genuine tradition dating back centuries. Pickingill claimed to be the direct ancestor of "Julia The Witch of Brandon," burned at the stake in 1071; "since that time each generation of the Pickingill family has served as priests in the Old Religion." Occultists from all over Europe and the United States revered him and sought after his teachings.

During the course of his long life, Pickingill established nine hereditary covens in Norfolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Sussex, and Hampshire. Each coven worshiped the "Horned God" and practiced sex magick in its rituals. According to the legend both Allan Bennett and Aleister Crowley (around 1899) were initiates.

Some quotes:

Lefebure claims that Pickingill was believed to have sold his soul to the Devil and he was alleged to hold nocturnal orgies in the graveyard of St. Nicholas' church attended by his Romany kin. These midnight rites were allegedly ignored by the aged incumbent vicar who was terrified of George Pickingill's powers.

The O.T.O. claimed that sex magic was the key which opens up all Masonic and Hermetic secrets. If Kellner did receive this knowledge via P.B Randolph then Pickingill's influence on the O.T.O. can be demonstrated. The Pickingill Nine employed texts from the Classical Mysteries in conjunction with sexual techniques to contact ancient Divine Forces. P.B Randolph visited London in 1858 and discussed sex magic techniques with Hargrave Jennings, who was one of George Pickingill's pupils.

...His reputation preceded him and landowners and influential Rosicrucians were impressed with his magical powers. He was granted access to the archives of several cunning lodges and Masonic temples in London....

...It was not long before Pickingill was exhibiting his gifts at Masonic temples and private houses. He conducted the bulk of his demonstrations at a country house in Hertfordshire. John Symonds (1973) states in his biography of Crowley that the famous French magician Eliphas Levi visited Knebworth, the country house in Hertfordshire where Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton held his magical club. It is certainly possible that Bulwer-Lyttons house was the country house in Hertfordshire. Many Masons and Rosicrucians are known to have observed the magical experiments at Knebworth.

Sources:

Annie Besant (October 1, 1847 - September 20, 1933) was responsible for founding the British Federation of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry. Besant was intimately involved with Fabian socialism and was a member of the Fabian Society. Having been converted to the teachings of the Theosophical Society after a review of Madame Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, she joined the organization, rose in the ranks, becoming its European, and finally, worldwide head.

Bishop Charles W. Leadbeater (1847 - 1934) 2; a Freemason; a prolific author and teacher on occult subjects and Masonic history; an adept Theosophist and prelate in the Liberal Catholic Church.

Leadbeater was a mystic and clairvoyant widely regarded by both his masonic brothers and other occultists of his time. His works on the occult origins of the Craft are still widely read, and printed: Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites and Hidden Life of Freemasonry being the most sought after.

His greatest contributions to the world of the occult were by association with the Theosophical Society. He joined Theosophy in 1883 and traveled with its founder, Madame Helena Blavatsky, to India in 1884. He helped spread the teachings of Theosophy to a wide audience through "his ability to write and speak in a direct, convincing, simple popular style." Obscure concepts such as the "aura, akashic records, reincarnation, vegetarianism, long hair, bare feet, the spiritual life as practised in India, [and] the bioenergetic field surrounding the human body" were easily grasped through his accessible exposition of the material. 3

After Blavatsky's death, Leadbeater had a hand, along with Annie Besant, in the promulgation of a new "World Teacher":

In 1909 at Adyar, India, Leadbeater discovered a boy whose aura he judged to be completely free of selfishness. This was Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was 13 years old. Adopted by Besant and Leadbeater, he received intensive training, then 10 years of schooling in England. People in many countries were informed of his future role. At the age of 27, Krishnamurti had a personal vision which convinced him that the consciousness of Maitreya was beginning to overshadow him. Theosophists throughout the world had been waiting for this development.

But when he was 34, Krishnamurti renounced his association with the Theosophical Society, declaring: 'I do not want followers. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.' He spent the rest of his years teaching humanity how to achieve that freedom.

Manly P. Hall (1901 - 1990) is unequaled, he is the most prolific occult philosopher of all-time. No one in history has even come close to matching his literary output on the subject. "Hall authored over two hundred books on occult subjects ranging from works on astrology, the Bible, Tarot, dreams, mysticism, Eastern and Western philosophy, religion, psychology, symbology, and reincarnation, plus hundreds of essays and a monthly magazine published called the PRS Journal. Over the course of six decades he delivered eight thousand lectures. He spoke for up to two hours extemporaneously, weaving a mesmerizing tapestry of wisdom." 4

Born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada in 1901, the Hall family moved to the United States in 1904. In 1919, Manly settled in Los Angeles. From an early age he was interested in occult matters and subsequently joined a number of societies: Theosophy, Freemasonry, the Societas Rosecruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis, and the American Federation of Astrologers.

After writing his first book, The Initiates of the Flame, in 1922, Hall began collecting rare books on the mystery schools and esoteric philosophy to begin assembling the text for a magnum opus of occult history. During this time he also travelled extensively in Europe, Asia and Egypt. In the search for "ancient wisdom" texts, Manly Hall's favorite place was the British Museum in London:

The great center of learning in England is the British Museum, with its miles of bookcases, which caused De Quincy to sit and weep because he could not read all the volumes. In order to gain access to the two principal departments of the museumone of rare books, and the other of manuscriptsit was necessary to be appropriately sponsored. I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with General Sir Francis Younghusband, the man who led the British expedition into Tibet in 1903-1904, and camped his army at the foot of the Potola at Lhasa. While dining one day at the Officers Club, Sir Francis confided to me that he was known as the conqueror of Tibet, but he regarded this as a dubious honor. The real fact, he said, was that Tibetan religion and philosophy had conquered him. A note from Sir Francis immediately gave me admission to the most valuable parts of the British Museum, and I was able to examine the originals of many of the worlds most priceless books and manuscripts. 5

In 1923, Hall was ordained a minister by the Los Angeles-based Church of the People, an occult/metaphysical congregation. As the leader of the Church of the People, Hall started a magazine titled " The All Seeing Eye."

By 1928, after 6 years of work and raising $100,000 for the first edition, Manly Hall finally published what has become a valuable classic for those who want to learn about the history of the occult and the "Ancient Wisdom" mystery schools: The Secret Teachings of All Ages. A quarter of a century later, the sheer breadth and scope of the work remains impressive: "pythagorean mathematics; alchemical formulae; Hermetic doctrine; the workings of the Kabala; the geometry of Ancient Egypt; the Native American myths; the uses of cryptograms; an analysis of the Tarot; the symbols of Rosacrucianism; the esotericism of the Shakespearean dramas these are just a few of Halls topics." 6

In 1934, Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society, a research institute modeled on the ancient school of Pythagoras. It was here that he made his home, he held weekly lectures and continued to publish an incredible body of work. In the year of his death, Manly P. Hall was bestowed with the honorary 33 of Scottish Rite Masonry.

Gerald Brosseau Gardner (June 13, 1884 - February 12, 1964) was a Freemason, an English hereditary Witch and largely responsible for reviving Witchcraft in the modern Western world. Gardner claimed to trace his roots to a Witch named Grissell Gardner who had been burned at the stake in 1610 at Newburgh.

Gardner suffered severely with asthma from an early age and required a nurse to attend to his needs. Nurse Josephine "Com" McCombie brought along young Gardner on her various trips to Europe and Ceylon, where he worked on a tea plantation. Gerald later worked and travelled to Borneo and Malaysia. In Ceylon between 1905 - 1908, Gardner became a Freemason, Sphinx Lodge 113, I.C., Colombo.

Between 1920 and 1923 Gardner studies native lore, magic, and weaponry in Malaysia. In 1926 through to 1932 Gardner takes up amateur Archaeology; proves the existence of a Malaysian civilization predating the coming of the Portuguese in 1687; returns to England and marries Donna Rosedale, a nurse; frequents the British Museum to research Welsh and Basque folklore; encounters a whole host of Spiritualist mediums; and visits an archaeological dig at Gaza in Egypt, prehistoric caves in France, and England.

In England before the Second World War, Gerald was involved with the Fellowship of Crotona - an occult group of Co-Masons - and met people who introduced him into Witchcraft. The Fellowship of Crotona was a secret society within a secret society; the inner circle claimed to be hereditary Witches. In 1939, Gardner was initiated into the New Forest coven by high priestess Old Dorothy Clutterbuck.

It was in 1940 at a large gathering of many covens that a legendary event was to take place:

In June 1940 when England faced invasion from the Nazis, Gardner claims that the high priestess of his coven called a huge gathering of witches in the New Forest where the Great Circle was erected. This was a magical ritual only performed in cases of extreme emergency. Previously it had only been raised twice, in 1588 to combat the Spanish Armada, which was defeated not only by Drake and his ships but with the help of a great storm, and in the 1800s when it looked as if Napoleon would cross the Channel. The ritual in the forest involved raising a cone of psychic power and directing it towards the French coast with the command, You cannot cross the sea. You cannot cross the sea. You cannot come. According to Gardner this ritual involved the use of the life force of the gathered covens and as a result several elderly witches died. The ritual was repeated four times and then the Elders said We must stop. We must not kill too many of our people.

By 1951 the last of the English laws against witchcraft were repealed and throughout the 50s into the 60s Gardner published some widely read books on the rituals and traditions of the New Forest covens. This laid out the seeds of what would eventually be known as "Gardnerian Wicca." The resurgence of the "Old Religion" spread like wildfire and continues unabated.

Gardnerian Wicca borrows very heavily from Freemasonry, Tantric Hinduism and a touch of ceremonial magick. Gardnerian covens are always headed by a High Priestess and have three degrees of initiation closely paralleling the Masonic degrees. Worship is centered on The Goddess and The Horned God. Eight seasonal Sabbats are observed, and the Wiccan Rede is the guiding principle.

Sources:

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) heralded the dawn of the New Age Movement. Her writings are the foundation for many occult fraternities. After publishing monumental works such as Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, the Theosophical Society (1875) was formed to spread her teachings worldwide. She claimed to receive her revelations from Secret Chiefs, or disembodied Ascended Masters; who claimed to be aiding humanity evolve into a race of supermen. Freemasonry took notice and many soon proclaimed her an occult genius:

"The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled are Madame Blavatsky's gifts to humanity, and to those whose vision can pierce the menacing clouds of imminent disaster it is no exaggeration to affirm that these writings are the most vital literary contribution to the modern world. No more can they be compared with other books than can the light of the sun be compared with the lamp of the glowworm. The Secret Doctrine assumes the dignity of a scripture, . . ."

Blavatsky soon had a great host of admirers. The Theosophical Society had freemasons Henry Steel Olcott, George H. Felt appointed president and vice-president respectfully. Among the early members were high ranking masons Charles Sothern and Albert Pike.

In 1907 Annie Besant became president of the Theosophical Society. The beginnings of the modern New Age Movement began with search for their "own" messiah, as it were. Along with 33rd degree mason C.W. Leadbeater, Annie Besant promoted a young adept as the messiah: Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Alice Bailey and husband Foster (32 degree mason) continued to interlock the workings of Theosophy with the aims of Freemasonry. Bailey, as founder of Lucis (Lucifer) Trust, worked laboriously to fulfill the plan toward a New World Religion, which her master Djwhal Khul had said was the ultimate aim of Freemasonry. The Hierarchy had blessed both their beginnings, her master said.

The O.T.O. founded at the beginning of the 20th century represents a reunification attempt to incorporate the traditions of the Freemasonic, Rosicrucian and Illuminist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, the crusading Knights Templars of the middle ages and early Christian Gnosticism and the Pagan Mystery Schools.

The spiritual father of the OTO was Karl Kellner a wealthy Austrian paper chemist. Kellner was a student of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and Eastern mysticism. He developed adhesive to form an Academia Masonica which would enable all Freemasons to become familiar with all existing Masonic degrees and systems.

In 1895, Kellner decided that the Academia Masonica should be called the 'Oriental Templar Order'. The occult inner circle of this Order (OTO) would be organized parallel to the highest degrees of the Memphis and Mizraim Rites of Masonry, and would teach the esoteric Rosicrucian doctrines of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, and Kellner's 'Key' to Masonic symbolism. Possession of the various degrees of Craft and High-Grade Freemasonry would be a prerequisite for admission to the Inner Circle of OTO.

Theodor Reuss, Kellner's partner, was granted the charter to perform three systems of high-grade Freemasonry known as the Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis of 97, the Ancient Oriental Rite of Mizraim of 90, and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of 33. With the incorporation of these rites, the Order was enabled to operate as a completely independent Masonic system.

John Symonds, the official biographer of Aleister Crowley, tells us that "the letters of O.T.O. stand for Ordo Templi Orientis or Order of the Templars, an occult society which was founded in Germany at the beginning of this century. Its leaders were well-known Grand Masters of Masonry, such as Franz Hartmann, Heinrich Klein, and Karl Kellner. They had decided to found the O.T.O. after the Viennese Karl Kellner had returned from an extensive tour in the East (where he had been initiated by the Arab fakir, Soliman ben Aifa, and the Indian yogis, Bhima Sen Pratap and Sri Mahatma Agamya Guru Paramahamsa) and had expounded the mysteries of yoga and the left-hand path which he called 'sexual magic'. Thus, in 1902, the Ordo Templi Orientis was constituted for an inner circle of adepts who, in the light of this new and exciting knowledge, found the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of masonry rather tame, and the ninety-seven degrees of the tiresome Rite of Memphis quite unnecessary." (The Great Beast: The Life and Magick of Aleister Crowley, Granada Publishing, 1973, p. 179)

The O.T.O. has also claimed, "Our Order possesses the KEY which opens up all Masonic and Hermetic secrets, namely, the teaching of sexual magic, and this teaching explains, without exception, all the secrets of nature, all the symbolism of FREEMASONRY and all systems of religion." (Ibid. p. 181)

I've tried to keep my biases in check for the entirety of the text. I am a Christian, but hopefully the explication of the facts have spoken for themselves; without resorting to preaching or any appearance of a smear campaign. Maybe that goal was accomplished, maybe not.

Many Freemasons throughout history have contributed immensely to our society, I would be remiss having not mentioned it. However, for all the good that has been done there is still only one occult revival that has occurred on such a grand scale (taken together as a phenomenon) which I thoroughly believe warrants the appellation of an empire. Historians will record this unique event, and its repercussions. It should also be put on the record that many Freemasons of the period had more than a passing influence on its birth.

Freemason Chevalier Andrew Ramsay, as far back as 1736, during a gathering of French Masons, revealed that Masonry was the heir of the secrets of the Templars who in turn were the inheritors of the ancient wisdom of the pagan Mysteries. (The Occult Conspiracy, p. 57; Murdered Magicians: The Templars and Their Myths)

Mystery Schools - of all stripes, whether ancient or modern - are based on a staged series of initiations or degrees; conferred ceremonially through allegory and symbol.

Many Freemasons shudder at the word occult which comes from the Latin, meaning to cover, to conceal from public scrutiny and the profane. But anyone studying Freemasonry cannot avoid classifying Freemasonry among occult teachings.

"Official records place his birth at February 16, 1854, while official Theosophy publications approved by him place his birth at February 17, 1847 (Source: Charles Webster Leadbeater Biography 1854-1934)." The Liberal Catholic Church, as well as Theosophy, places his birth in 1847.

Ibid.

Manly P. Hall: Portrait of An American Sage, The Philosophical Research Society

Ibid.

The Inscrutable Manly P. Hall: The Author of The Secret Teachings of All Ages Remains an Enigma

[Freemasonry] makes no profession of Christianity, and wars not against sectarian creeds or doctrines, but looks forward to the time when the labor of our ancient brethren shall be symbolized by the erection of a spiritual temple whose moral grandeur shall be commensurate with civilization; a temple in which there shall be but one altar and but one worship; one common altar of Masonry on which the Veda, Shastras, Sade, Zend-Avesta, Koran, and Holy Bible shall lie untouched by sacrilegious hands, and at whose shrine the Hindoo, the Persian, the Assyrian, the Chaldean, the Egyptian, the Chinese, the Muhammadan, the Jew, and the Christian may kneel with one united voice celebrate the praises of the Supreme Architect of the Universe.

Masonry, successor of the Mysteries, still follows the ancient manner of teaching.

Though Masonry is identical with the ancient Mysteries, it is so only in this qualified sense: that it presents but an imperfect image of their brilliancy, the ruins only of their grandeur . . .

The doctrines of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical essentials of the doctrine.

The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god, but the negation of God. The Devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry.

For the Initiates, this is not a Person, but a Force, created for good, but which may serve for evil. It is the instrument of Liberty or Free Will. They represent this Force, which presides over the physical generation, under the mythologic and horned form of the God PAN; thence came the he-goat of the Sabbat, brother of the Ancient Serpent, and the Light-bearer or Phosphor, of which the poets have made the false Lucifer of the legend.

Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines; and may in time come to understand the Hermetic philosophers, the Alchemists, all the Anti-papal Thinkers of the Middle Ages, and Emanuel Swedenborg.

All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah and return to it: everything scientific and grand in the religious dreams of all the illuminati, Jacob Bhme, Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, and others, is borrowed from the Kabalah; all the Masonic associations owe to it their Secrets and their Symbols.

[Albert Pike] was an honorary member of almost every Supreme Council in the world, personally receiving 130 Masonic degrees.

Pike also was one of the most physically and morally repulsive individuals in American history. Weighing well over three hundred pounds, his sexual proclivity was to sit naked astride a phallic throne in the woods, accompanied by a gang of prostitutes. To these orgies he would bring one or more wagon loads of food and liquor, most of which he would consume over a period of two days until he passed into a stupor.

In his adopted state of Arkansas, Pike was well known as a practitioner of Satanism, Portraits of his later years show him wearing a symbol of the Baphomet around his neck.

It is generally agreed that the biggest single influence in the modern expansion of ritual magic, and the occult explosion in general, in the Western world, was the Golden Dawn. This magical fraternity, founded by Freemasons at the end of the 19th century, developed a complex ritual system with ten degrees of initiation relating to the Cabalistic Sephiroth.

Worshipful Master: What makes you a Mason?

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Freemasonry: Midwife to an Occult Empire

U.S. Bankruptcy Code 2018 Edition

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Filing bankruptcy can help a person by discarding debt or making a plan to repay debts. A bankruptcy case normally begins when the debtor files a petition with the bankruptcy court. A petition may be filed by an individual, by spouses together, or by a corporation or other entity.

All bankruptcy cases are handled in federal courts under rules outlined in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

There are different types of bankruptcies, which are usually referred to by their chapter in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Bankruptcy Basics provides detailed information about filing.

The rules of procedure that govern how Bankruptcy Courts operate are called the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure.

Seeking the advice of a qualified lawyer is strongly recommended because bankruptcy has long-term financial and legal consequences. Individuals can file bankruptcy without a lawyer, which is called filing pro se. Learn more.

You can either browse the Bankruptcy Code using the menu on the right side of you screen or you can proceed directly to the Table of Contents.

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U.S. Bankruptcy Code 2018 Edition

The Abolition of Man | work by Lewis | Britannica.com

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The Abolition of Man, in full The Abolition of Man; or, Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools, a book on education and moral values by C.S. Lewis, published in 1943. The book originated as the Riddell Memorial Lectures, three lectures delivered at the University of Durham in February 1943. Many people regard this as Lewiss most important book. In it he argues that education, both at home and in schools, needs to be conducted in the context of moral law and objective values.

Throughout the book Lewis argues for an objectivist position in aesthetics and morality, contending that qualities and values inhere in things and positions and are not just projected onto them. Two objectivists may disagree about whether a work of art or a human act is good or not, but both believe there are agreed-upon standards by which the work or act is to be judged. Unlike subjectivists, objectivists hold common principles on which to base their judgments.

The doctrine of objective values, which Lewis calls the Tao, is the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are. Lewis uses the Chinese term Tao for what he elsewhere in The Abolition of Man refers to as Natural Law or Traditional Morality in order to emphasize the universality of traditional values: people throughout history and around the world believe in the same objective values. (Lewis also explores these ideas in the first chapter of Mere Christianity.) He illustrates such universality in an appendix that offers quotations from widely varying cultures, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, showing agreement on the need for general beneficence and on specific duties to parents, elders, and children, and agreement that loyalty and justice are consistently praised while disloyalty, lying, theft, and murder are consistently condemned.

The first lecture begins with a critique of a composition textbook published a few years earlier. Lewiss concern about the book is that while it teaches writing, it also subtly advocates subjectivism. Such moments occur, for example, when the textbook refers to an observer who calls a waterfall sublime; Lewis quotes the textbooks claim that, in such observations, [w]e appear to be saying something very important about something, and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings. Lewis points in particular toward the textbooks use of the words appear and only: dismissive words such as these suggest that predicates of value are merely projections of the inner state of the speaker and have no significance. Lewis replies that the speaker is not just expressing his own feelings but asserting that the object is one that merits those emotions.

On this ground Lewis argues the importance of objectivism for education. Children are not born with knowledge of appropriate reactions; those reactions must be nurtured. According to Lewis, The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful. Thus, teachers and parents who are objectivists teach their children principles of right and wrong, because if a child knows right principles, Lewis claims, he or she will respond in particular situations with the right sentiments and will know the right thing to do.

Right sentiments is a key concept in the book: by it Lewis means emotions conform[ing] to Reason. As he explains it, The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it. When childrens emotions have been so trained, their moral impulses can be trusted to lead them correctly. For Lewis the ability to have right sentiments is what separates humans from animals, but such training of the hearttraining of the emotions, what Lewis refers to as the chestis lacking in modern education, with its emphasis on the intellect. The failure to nurture right sentiments ultimately results in the abolition of man, Lewis contends, because modern education produces what may be called Men without Chests.

Lewis goes on to argue that the lack of sentiment in modern thought is particularly dangerous when it is extended to science and the social sciences. The modern sciences teach people how to analyze natureto dissect it, literally and figuratively. Thus does science turn nature into an object, Lewis laments, instead of treating it with respect or care as a living being. What worries Lewis most is the tendency for the sciences to regard human beings as a part of nature. Such an understanding of people allows them to be treated as things to analyze and experiment on. That allows some people to gain power over other people. If that happens, Lewis asks, what principles will guide their use of such power? If they are objectivists, the Tao will guide them. If they are not, Lewis fears, they will have no absolute guidelines or trained sentiments to restrain them. (Lewis later embedded these ideas in a novel, That Hideous Strength [1945], which depicts England being taken over by a totalitarian force that has almost unlimited power and uses it without moral principles of restraint.)

In The Abolition of Man, Lewis urges a new attitude for sciencetreating it as a Thou (citing the philosopher Martin Buber), not an It having a personal relationship with nature, a love of Truth rather than a desire for power. The degree of power humankind has attained makes such a change in attitude necessary and makes it crucial, Lewis argues, that the world return to having the Tao at the centre of education.

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The Abolition of Man | work by Lewis | Britannica.com

Prison abolition movement – Wikipedia

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The prison abolition movement is a loose network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation that do not place a focus on punishment and government institutionalization[1].

It is distinct from conventional prison reform, which is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons; however, relying on prisons less could improve their conditions by reducing overcrowding.[2]:3

Supporters for prison abolition work toward non-reformist reforms[3], such as ending solitary confinement and the death penalty, stopping construction of new prisons, and the eradication of cash bail.[4] Some organizations such as the Anarchist Black Cross seek total abolishment of the prison system, not intending to replace it with other government-controlled systems. Many anarchist organizations believe that the best form of justice arises naturally out of social contracts or restorative justice.

Prominent social activist Angela Davis, outspoken critic of the prison-industrial complex, openly supports prison abolition.[5] In her work, she writes: "Mass incarceration is not a solution to unemployment, nor is it a solution to the vast array of social problems that are hidden away in a rapidly growing network of prisons and jails. However, the great majority of people have been tricked into believing in the efficacy of imprisonment, even though the historical record clearly demonstrates that prisons do not work."[6] Her relevancy in this movement is attested by her close involvement with groups moving to abolish the Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC).[7]

Critical Resistance, co-founded by Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, is an American organization working towards an "international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe."[8] Other similarly motivated groups such as the Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC), a group "committed to exposing and challenging all forms of institutionalized racism, sexism, able-ism, heterosexism, and classism, specifically within the Prison Industrial Complex," [9] and Black & Pink, an abolitionist organization that focuses around LGBTQ rights, all broadly advocate for prison abolition.[10] Furthermore, names such as the Human Rights Coalition, a 2001 group that aims to abolish prisons,[11][12] and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a grassroots organization dedicated to dismantling the PIC,[13] can all be added to the long list of organizations that desire a different form of justice system.[14]

Every other year after Ruth Morris organized the first one in Toronto in 1983,[15] The International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) gathers activists, academics, journalists, and "others from across the world who are working towards the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, carceral controls and the prison industrial complex (PIC),"[16] to discuss three important questions surrounding the reality of prison abolition ICOPA was one of the first penal abolitionist conference movements, similar to Critical Resistance in America, but "with an explicitly international scope and agenda-setting ambition."[17]

Anarchists wish to eliminate all forms of state control, of which imprisonment is seen as one of the more obvious examples. Anarchists also oppose prisons because a significant number of inmates are non-violent offenders[18]. Numbers show incarceration rates affect mainly poor people and ethnic minorities, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse.[19] As a result, the prison abolition movement often is associated with humanistic socialism, anarchism and anti-authoritarianism.

In October 2015, members at a plenary session of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) released and adopted a resolution in favor of prison abolition.[20][21]

Proposals for prison reform and alternatives to prisons differ significantly depending on the political beliefs behind them. Proposals and tactics often include:

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published a series of handbooks on criminal justice. Among them is Alternatives to Imprisonment which identifies how the overuse of imprisonment impacts fundamental human rights, especially those convicted for lesser crimes.

Social justice and advocacy organizations such as Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI) at the University of California, San Diego often look to Scandinavian countries Sweden and Norway for guidance in regards to successful prison reform because both countries have an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment.[22] According to Sweden's Prison and Probation Service Director-General, Nils berg, this emphasis is made popular among the Swedish because the act of imprisonment is considered punishment enough.[23] This focus on rehabilitation includes an emphasis on promoting normalcy for inmates, a charge lead by experienced criminologists and psychologists.[24] In Norway a focus on preparation for societal re-entry has yielded "one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%, [while] the US has one of the highest: 76.6% of [Americans] prisoners are re-arrested within five years".[25] The Scandinavian method of incarceration seems to be successful: the Swedish incarceration rate decreased by 6% between 2011 and 2012.[26]

In place of prisons, some abolitionists propose community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies to control the problem of social crime.[27] They argue that with the destruction of capitalism, and the self-management of production by workers and communities, property crimes would largely vanish. A large part of the problem, according to some, is the way the judicial system deals with prisoners, people, and capital. They argue that there would be fewer prisoners if society treated people more fairly, regardless of gender, color, ethnic background, sexual orientation, education, etc. This is evidenced by the creation of private prisons in America and corporations like CoreCivic, formerly known as Correction Corporation of America (CCA). Its shareholders benefit from the expansion of prisons and tougher laws on crime. More prisoners is seen as beneficial for business.[28]

Many organizations and abolitionists in the United States advocate community accountability practices an alternative to the criminal justice system. Organizations such as INCITE! and Sista II Sista that support women of color who are survivors of interpersonal violence argue that the criminal justice system does not protect marginalized people who are victims in violent relationships. Instead, victims, especially those who are poor, people of color, or trans or gender non-conforming, can experience additional violence at the hands of the state.[29] Instead of relying on the criminal justice system, these organizations work to implement community accountability practices, which often involve collectively-run processes of intervention initiated by a survivor of violence to try to hold the person who committed violence accountable by working to meet a set of demands.[30]

Prison abolitionists such as Amanda Pustlinik take issue with the fact that prisons are used as a "default asylum" for many individuals with mental illness.[31] One question that is often asked by some prison abolitionists is:

"Why do governmental units choose to spend billions of dollars a year to concentrate people with serious illnesses in a system designed to punish intentional lawbreaking, when doing so matches neither the putative purposes of that system nor most effectively addresses the issues posed by that population?" [31]

This question is often one of the major pieces of evidence that prison abolitionist claim highlights the depravity of the penal system. Many of these prison abolitionists often state that mentally ill offenders, violent and non-violent, should be treated in mental hospitals not prisons.[32] In the United States, there are more people with mental illness in prisons than in psychiatric hospitals.[33] By keeping the mentally ill in prisons they claim that rehabilitation cannot occur because prisons are not the correct environment to deal with deep seated psychological problems and facilitate rehabilitative practices.[32] Individuals with mental illnesses that have led them to commit any crime have a much higher chance of committing suicide while in prison because of the lack of proper medical attention.[34] The increased risk of suicide is said to be because there is much stigma around mental illness and lack of adequate treatments within hospitals.[34] The whole point of the penal system is to rehabilitate and reform individuals who have willingly transgressed on the law. According to many prison abolitionists however, when mentally ill persons, often for reasons outside of their cognitive control, commit illegal acts prisons are not the best place for them to receive the help necessary for their rehabilitation.[32] For many prison abolitionists, if for no other reason than the fact that mentally ill individuals will not be receiving the same potential for rehabilitation as the non-mentally ill prison population, prisons are considered to be unjust and therefore violate their Sixth Amendment and Fifth Amendment Rights, in the U.S., and their chance to rehabilitate and function outside of the prison.[31][31][32][35] In America, by violating an individual's rights as a citizen, prison abolitionists see no reason for prisons to exist, and again, offer another reason people within the movement demand for the abolition of prisons.[31][32][35]

After the Attica prison massacre, the inmates of Walpole prison formed a prisoners' union to protect themselves from guards, end behavioural modification programs, more visitation rights, work assignments and the ability to send money to their families and advocate for the prisoner's right for education and healthcare. The union also ended race-related violence within the prison, creating a general truce between ethnic truce and an agreement to kill any inmate who broke said truce. During the black prisoner's Kwanzaa celebration, the black prisoner's were placed under lockdown, angering the whole facility and leading to a general strike. Prisoners refused to work or leave their cells for three months, leading to the guards beating prisoners, putting prisoners in solitary confinement, denying prisoners medical care and food.[36]

The strike ended in the prisoners' favour as the superintendent of the prison resigned. The prisoners were granted more visitation rights and work programs. Angered by this, the prison guards went on strike and abandoned the prison, hoping that this would create chaos and violence throughout the prison. But the prisoners were able to create an anarchist community where recidivism dropped dramatically and murders and rapes fell to zero. The guards retook the prison after two months, leading to many prison administrators and bureaucrats quitting their jobs and embracing the prison abolition movement.[37]

Opponents of the abolition argue that none of the arguments above address the protection of non-criminal population from the effects of crime, and from particularly violent criminals.

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Abolitionism – United States American History

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The abolitionist movement called for the end of the institution of slavery and had existed in one form or another since colonial times; the early case had been stated most consistently by the Quakers. Most Northern states abolished the institution after the War for Independence, reacting to moral concerns and economic unfeasibility.

The movement gained new momentum in the early 19th century as many critics of slavery hardened their views and rejected their previous advocacy of gradualism (the slow and steady progress towards the goal of freedom for slaves) and colonization (finding land in Africa for former slaves). As the movement grew and became more formally organized, it sparked opposition in both the North and the South; Northern mill owners depended upon slave-produced cotton every bit as much as the Southern plantation owners.

Undeterred, many abolitionists defied the original Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, as well as the later Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and actively sought to assist runaway slaves in their quest for freedom, most notably through the auspices of the Underground Railroad.

Abolitionist leaders included such figures as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and William Lloyd Still.

Garrison adopted a militant tone which differed strikingly from the more timid proposals of prior abolitionists, who generally favored "colonization" of blacks away from white society. Garrison demanded the immediate end of slavery without compensation to slaveowners and equal rights within mainstream society for everyone, regardless of race.

Garrison`s efforts led to the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. He wrote its initial declaration, which appeared on December 14, 1833, reading in part:

Within five years, the society had 1,350 local chapters. The success of the abolition movement in the North, and the large amount of propaganda that it generated, enraged the South. South Carolina took the step of declaring that

They further petitioned the federal government to have the post office stop the distribution of abolitionist literature. Congress decided that this would be unconstitutional, but in practice it was not unusual for Southern postmasters to prevent the delivery of offending material.

After the Reverend Elijah Lovejoy, editor of an Abolitionist newspaper in St. Louis, moved it in 1836 to Alton, Illinois, the citizens of Alton destroyed in on three occasions. On the fourth, on November 7, 1837, the mob murdered Lovejoy. His associate Edward Beecher, brother of Henry Ward Beecher, wrote in the narrative of the Alton riots, which appeared in 1838, "The true spirit of intolerance now stood exposed. Events were so ordered by the Providence of God as to strip off every disguise. It now became plain that all attempts to conciliate and to discuss were vain; and nothing remained but to resist or to submit."

One of the early leaders of the Abolitionist movement was Theodore Weld, who helped organize the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and whose 1839 work, Slavery As It Is, inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom`s Cabin.

Although some in the Abolitionist Movement, especially Garrison, felt that women should play a prominent role, that position was resented by many. When in 1840, Garrison and his followers elected a woman to the American Anti-Slavery Society`s business committee, a split in the organizations resulted. The departing members explained themselves:

It is interesting to note that abolitionists anticipated an argument later used by the Confederacy. Just as Southerners eventually concluded that their institution of slavery could not be protected under the Constitution while the number of free states grew, abolitionists argued that since slavery could not be abolished under the existing Constitution, it was the obligation of the north to secede! In 1843, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society endorsed disunion by a vote of 59 to 21. They argued that no principled abolitionist could either vote or hold office under the Constitution as it then existed. In 1845, the group published a pamphlet to that effect with an introduction by Wendell Phillips.

---- Selected Quotes ----

Quotes regarding Abolitionism.

By Stephen A. DouglasAbolitionism proposes to destroy the right and extinguish the principle of self-government for which our forefathers waged a seven years' bloody war, and upon which our whole system of free government is founded. Speech in the U.S. Senate, March 3, 1854By Susan B. AnthonyMany Abolitionists have yet to learn the ABC of woman's rights. Written in her journal, 1860By John C. CalhounAbolition and the Union cannot exist. As the friend of the Union, I openly proclaim it, and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events.Senate Speech in 1837By Jefferson DavisDo they find in the history of St. Domingo, and in the present condition of Jamaica, under the recent experiments which have been made upon the institution of slavery in the liberation of the blacks, before God, in his wisdom, designed it should be done do they there find anything to stimulate them to future exertion in the cause of abolition ? Or should they not find there satisfactory evidence that their past course was founded in error? 1850 speech

- - - Books You May Like Include: ----

Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois by John J. Dunphy.Southwestern Illinois played a fierce and pivotal role in the national drama of a house divided against itself. St. Clair County sheltered Brooklyn, f...From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline L. Tobin.The Underground Railroad was the passage to freedom for many slaves, but it was full of dangers. There were dedicated conductors and safe houses, but ...Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby.At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage t...Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth.This inspiring memoir, first published in 1850, recounts the struggles of a distinguished African-American abolitionist and champion of women's rights...Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War by Eric Foner.Since its publication over four decades ago, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men has been recognized as a classic, an indispensable contribution to our u...Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich.Interweaving thrilling personal stories with the politics of slavery and abolition, this work shows how the Underground Railroad gave birth to America...Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.Born into a family of slaves, Frederick Douglass educated himself through sheer determination. His unconquered will to triumph over his circumstances ...A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 by Paul E. Johnson.A quarter-century after its first publication, A Shopkeeper's Millennium remains a landmark work--brilliant both as a new interpretation of the intima...

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Ripple Price Forecast: XRP vs SWIFT, SEC Updates, and More

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Ripple vs SWIFT: The War Begins
While most criticisms of XRP do nothing to curb my bullish Ripple price forecast, there is one obstacle that nags at my conscience. Its name is SWIFT.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is the king of international payments.

It coordinates wire transfers across 11,000 banks in more than 200 countries and territories, meaning that in order for XRP prices to ascend to $10.00, Ripple needs to launch a successful coup. That is, and always has been, an unwritten part of Ripple’s story.

We’ve seen a lot of progress on that score. In the last three years, Ripple wooed more than 100 financial firms onto its.

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How to download videos from youtube on java? – Stack Overflow

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import java.io.BufferedReader;import java.io.File;import java.io.FileOutputStream;import java.io.IOException;import java.io.InputStream;import java.io.InputStreamReader;import java.io.Reader;import java.io.StringWriter;import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;import java.io.Writer;import java.net.URI;import java.net.URISyntaxException;import java.util.ArrayList;import java.util.List;import java.util.Scanner;import java.util.logging.Formatter;import java.util.logging.Handler;import java.util.logging.Level;import java.util.logging.LogRecord;import java.util.logging.Logger;import java.util.regex.Pattern;import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;import org.apache.http.NameValuePair;import org.apache.http.client.CookieStore;import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;import org.apache.http.client.protocol.ClientContext;import org.apache.http.client.utils.URIUtils;import org.apache.http.client.utils.URLEncodedUtils;import org.apache.http.impl.client.BasicCookieStore;import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;import org.apache.http.message.BasicNameValuePair;import org.apache.http.protocol.BasicHttpContext;import org.apache.http.protocol.HttpContext;public class JavaYoutubeDownloader { public static String newline = System.getProperty("line.separator"); private static final Logger log = Logger.getLogger(JavaYoutubeDownloader.class.getCanonicalName()); private static final Level defaultLogLevelSelf = Level.FINER; private static final Level defaultLogLevel = Level.WARNING; private static final Logger rootlog = Logger.getLogger(""); private static final String scheme = "http"; private static final String host = "www.youtube.com"; private static final Pattern commaPattern = Pattern.compile(","); private static final Pattern pipePattern = Pattern.compile("\|"); private static final char[] ILLEGAL_FILENAME_CHARACTERS = { '/', 'n', 'r', 't', ' ', 'f', '`', '?', '*', '\', '', '|', '"', ':' }; private static void usage(String error) { if (error != null) { System.err.println("Error: " + error); } System.err.println("usage: JavaYoutubeDownload VIDEO_ID DESTINATION_DIRECTORY"); System.exit(-1); } public static void main(String[] args) { if (args == null || args.length == 0) { usage("Missing video id. Extract from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"); } try { setupLogging(); log.fine("Starting"); String videoId = null; String outdir = "."; // TODO Ghetto command line parsing if (args.length == 1) { videoId = args[0]; } else if (args.length == 2) { videoId = args[0]; outdir = args[1]; } int format = 18; // http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Quality_and_codecs String encoding = "UTF-8"; String userAgent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13"; File outputDir = new File(outdir); String extension = getExtension(format); play(videoId, format, encoding, userAgent, outputDir, extension); } catch (Throwable t) { t.printStackTrace(); } log.fine("Finished"); } private static String getExtension(int format) { // TODO return "mp4"; } private static void play(String videoId, int format, String encoding, String userAgent, File outputdir, String extension) throws Throwable { log.fine("Retrieving " + videoId); List qparams = new ArrayList(); qparams.add(new BasicNameValuePair("video_id", videoId)); qparams.add(new BasicNameValuePair("fmt", "" + format)); URI uri = getUri("get_video_info", qparams); CookieStore cookieStore = new BasicCookieStore(); HttpContext localContext = new BasicHttpContext(); localContext.setAttribute(ClientContext.COOKIE_STORE, cookieStore); HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(); HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(uri); httpget.setHeader("User-Agent", userAgent); log.finer("Executing " + uri); HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget, localContext); HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity(); if (entity != null && response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode() == 200) { InputStream instream = entity.getContent(); String videoInfo = getStringFromInputStream(encoding, instream); if (videoInfo != null && videoInfo.length() > 0) { List infoMap = new ArrayList(); URLEncodedUtils.parse(infoMap, new Scanner(videoInfo), encoding); String token = null; String downloadUrl = null; String filename = videoId; for (NameValuePair pair : infoMap) { String key = pair.getName(); String val = pair.getValue(); log.finest(key + "=" + val); if (key.equals("token")) { token = val; } else if (key.equals("title")) { filename = val; } else if (key.equals("fmt_url_map")) { String[] formats = commaPattern.split(val); for (String fmt : formats) { String[] fmtPieces = pipePattern.split(fmt); if (fmtPieces.length == 2) { // in the end, download somethin! downloadUrl = fmtPieces[1]; int pieceFormat = Integer.parseInt(fmtPieces[0]); if (pieceFormat == format) { // found what we want downloadUrl = fmtPieces[1]; break; } } } } } filename = cleanFilename(filename); if (filename.length() == 0) { filename = videoId; } else { filename += "_" + videoId; } filename += "." + extension; File outputfile = new File(outputdir, filename); if (downloadUrl != null) { downloadWithHttpClient(userAgent, downloadUrl, outputfile); } } } } private static void downloadWithHttpClient(String userAgent, String downloadUrl, File outputfile) throws Throwable { HttpGet httpget2 = new HttpGet(downloadUrl); httpget2.setHeader("User-Agent", userAgent); log.finer("Executing " + httpget2.getURI()); HttpClient httpclient2 = new DefaultHttpClient(); HttpResponse response2 = httpclient2.execute(httpget2); HttpEntity entity2 = response2.getEntity(); if (entity2 != null && response2.getStatusLine().getStatusCode() == 200) { long length = entity2.getContentLength(); InputStream instream2 = entity2.getContent(); log.finer("Writing " + length + " bytes to " + outputfile); if (outputfile.exists()) { outputfile.delete(); } FileOutputStream outstream = new FileOutputStream(outputfile); try { byte[] buffer = new byte[2048]; int count = -1; while ((count = instream2.read(buffer)) != -1) { outstream.write(buffer, 0, count); } outstream.flush(); } finally { outstream.close(); } } } private static String cleanFilename(String filename) { for (char c : ILLEGAL_FILENAME_CHARACTERS) { filename = filename.replace(c, '_'); } return filename; } private static URI getUri(String path, List qparams) throws URISyntaxException { URI uri = URIUtils.createURI(scheme, host, -1, "/" + path, URLEncodedUtils.format(qparams, "UTF-8"), null); return uri; } private static void setupLogging() { changeFormatter(new Formatter() { @Override public String format(LogRecord arg0) { return arg0.getMessage() + newline; } }); explicitlySetAllLogging(Level.FINER); } private static void changeFormatter(Formatter formatter) { Handler[] handlers = rootlog.getHandlers(); for (Handler handler : handlers) { handler.setFormatter(formatter); } } private static void explicitlySetAllLogging(Level level) { rootlog.setLevel(Level.ALL); for (Handler handler : rootlog.getHandlers()) { handler.setLevel(defaultLogLevelSelf); } log.setLevel(level); rootlog.setLevel(defaultLogLevel); } private static String getStringFromInputStream(String encoding, InputStream instream) throws UnsupportedEncodingException, IOException { Writer writer = new StringWriter(); char[] buffer = new char[1024]; try { Reader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(instream, encoding)); int n; while ((n = reader.read(buffer)) != -1) { writer.write(buffer, 0, n); } } finally { instream.close(); } String result = writer.toString(); return result; }}/** * 

 * Exploded results from get_video_info: *  * fexp=90... * allow_embed=1 * fmt_stream_map=35|http://v9.lscache8... * fmt_url_map=35|http://v9.lscache8... * allow_ratings=1 * keywords=Stefan Molyneux,Luke Bessey,anarchy,stateless society,giant stone cow,the story of our unenslavement,market anarchy,voluntaryism,anarcho capitalism * track_embed=0 * fmt_list=35/854x480/9/0/115,34/640x360/9/0/115,18/640x360/9/0/115,5/320x240/7/0/0 * author=lukebessey * muted=0 * length_seconds=390 * plid=AA... * ftoken=null * status=ok * watermark=http://s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/logo-vfl_bP6ud.swf,http://s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/hdlogo-vfloR6wva.swf * timestamp=12... * has_cc=False * fmt_map=35/854x480/9/0/115,34/640x360/9/0/115,18/640x360/9/0/115,5/320x240/7/0/0 * leanback_module=http://s.ytimg.com/yt/swfbin/leanback_module-vflJYyeZN.swf * hl=en_US * endscreen_module=http://s.ytimg.com/yt/swfbin/endscreen-vflk19iTq.swf * vq=auto * avg_rating=5.0 * video_id=S6IZP3yRJ9I * token=vPpcFNh... * thumbnail_url=https://www.euvolution.com/futurist-transhuman-news-blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/766e4df312efault.jpg.jpg * title=The Story of Our Unenslavement - Animated *

*/

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How to download videos from youtube on java? - Stack Overflow

John McCain: Dying Without Dignity – committedconservative.com

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I watched my father, a World-War II Marine wither and die from cancer. The process kills its victim, and it can break the loved ones. That reality is particularly harsh when your loved one has been a war hero, role model, and pillar of strength. John McCains diagnosis was rough, and I had a heartfelt concern for his likely outcome.

The self-described Maverick is in the home-stretch, and I wish him a pain-free departure from a life of amazing accomplishment. Mostly, however, Id like to see the man die with dignity. It appears he does not share the same wish.

It is a little known, if not unknown, fact that I was the one who recommended that McCain suspend his presidential campaign. I am not even sure he knows that the suggestion, a speech, and a strategy came from me. What he did next, taught me much.

I learned then that Mr. McCain was neither a principled conservative nor a disciplined candidate, let alone a smart and thoughtful leader. He was a rash, undisciplined, short-sighted, politician who turned great advice into a parlor joke when he abandoned the suspension and inexplicably took the same position on the bailouts as his younger, wiser, more charismatic opponent. It was political suicide.

McCain made a political career out of shooting himself in the foot. Indeed, even in heroism, he found himself the lucky survivor of being shot down and captured. But Mr. McCain proved his will could not be easily broken. Unfortunately, his political career is one where his will was never about backing conservative principles. It was about remembering personal slights and living to avenge them.

His pettiness is the disease that infects our sick political culture.

The media loved McCain, most of the time. They liked to portray his maverick image, which really was his penchant for self-promotion. The media gobbled up and sold his self-serving style, and it never focused on John S. McCains propensity to sell out his party, his so-called conservative principles, and when necessary, his constituents.

John McCain is a small man, and he has not earned the appearance of a President at his funeral, not even a President Trump. McCain, in these last weeks, made the office of Senator smaller. His recent foolish, petty, disrespectful proclamations are iron-clad proof that he was never Presidential timber.

I regret trying to help him get elected.

McCains recent expression of remorse at picking Sarah Palin as his running mate is classic McCain. It is an apology to the left for being conservative. Its not a mea culpa. That is to say, he doesnt consider the pick his fault, he considers his own pick the reason he lost. Thats some apology. Heck, I regretted his pick too.

A real statesman doesnt use his pending death as an opportunity to throw his hand-picked, former running mate overboard. Its embarrassing, John McCain.

McCains declaration that he does not want the sitting President at his funeral as a result of their personal feud is text-book political pettiness. Moreover, its proof that the McCain used his country, party, voters, and personal honor just to stick it to Trump by voting down the repeal of Obamacare on which McCain ran and championed.

The Trump ban at his funeral is an admission of his own tininess.

No, I dont wish for Mr. McCain to die. Heck, I dont like the President much more than he does. And, no conservative I know would wish for a McCain to die. In fact, Id love to see him beat the impossible odds and come back. Id love to see him granted more time with his family and to be granted a new opportunity to reflect on his final actions.

In the end, Mr. McCain has made himself smaller. He has disgraced himself and exposed for the world to see that he is a bitter, angry, caustic, petty, grudge-holding simpleton. He has lost any of the dignity that should attach automatically to a life with his resume.

I dont wish Mr. McCain ill-will. I wish for him a miracle. If he cannot fight off this wretched cancer, I wish that he would choose to die with dignity.

Ironically, he hates President Trump for Trumps attacks on him and for Trumps lack of couth and class. Yet, here he is, in the autumn of his time bleating, you think Trump is classless, watch this.

John McCain is dying without dignity, and it is brutal to watch.

Richard Kelsey is the Editor-in-Chief of Committed Conservative.

He is an Attorney, a former Assistant Law School Dean, Law Professor, and Virginia state court law clerk. Dean Kelsey was also the CEO of a technology company specializing in combating cyber-fraud. He is a regular commentator on legal and political issues in print, radio and on TV.

Rich graduated from George Mason law school, clerked for the Arlington Circuit Court, and later joined an AM LAW top 10 law firm practicing commercial litigation. He left the firm to be counsel and CEO to a consulting firm, rising to CEO of Turiss, LLC, a technology firm specializing in computer forensics, digital investigations, and fighting cyber-fraud through civil intel services and new technologies. Upon the sale of the company, Kelsey returned to Mason Law, where in the years before his return, he both taught at the school and served as President of the Law Alumni Association. Kelsey was the Assistant Dean for Management and Planning.

At Mason, Dean Kelsey taught legal writing and analysis and an advanced litigation seminar. In 2014 he was elected by the graduating class as the faculty speaker at their graduation. While serving the former George Mason Law, Kelsey conceived of, planned, and brought to fruition Masons Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, known as CPIP.

Rich has appeared on radio, TV, and in print hundreds of times as both a legal expert and political and legal commentator. He provided the legal analysis for all stages of the Bob McDonnell trial and appeal for numerous outlets including NPR and WMAL. He writes on occasion for the American Spectator and CNSNews.com. He returned to private practice in September of 2016, and he is working on a book/expose on legal education.

In his free time, Rich is part of the baseball mafia of Northern Virginia, serving on numerous boards and as a little league and travel baseball coach.

Rich has many opinions, and they are his own. His Twitter handle is @richkelsey.

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John McCain: Dying Without Dignity - committedconservative.com

Information about Genetic Testing | School of Medicine …

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Even with the success of the Human Genome Project, there still isn't a genetic test for every disease. A disease may run in a family and clearly be inherited, but the gene responsible may not be identified yet. Our team will see if there is a genetic test available for the condition running in your family.

If a test exists, we will find the best laboratory to use. Some laboratories offer clinical testing and must follow federal quality control standards. Clinical laboratories typically quote a fixed price and a standard return time for results.

Other laboratories offer research testing and are usually linked to academic centers and universities. They do testing at no cost in most cases. Often research laboratories do not provide results. If they do, it may take months or years to deliver results. Research test results should be confirmed in a clinical laboratory if medical management is based on the result.

Testing costs and turnaround times vary. Genetic test results are usually ready in three to four weeks. Though genetic testing costs are often paid for by insurance carriers, patients may be required to pay some or all of the cost when the test is ordered. When indicated we can write a letter of medical necessity explaining the benefits genetic testing might have for you. This can often increase the likelihood that your insurance company will pay for the testing.

Not everyone who has a genetic disease will have a mutation or a biochemical abnormality that shows up in testing. Because of this limitation, in a family it makes sense to first test someone who has had the disease in question.

If a genetic risk factor is found, ways of managing or preventing the disease due to that genetic risk can be discussed. Additionally, at-risk relatives can check their own status by testing for that specific risk factor. If that specific genetic risk factor is not found in an at-risk relative (i.e., they have a normal test result), he or she can be reassured. If the at-risk relative has a positive genetic test result, he or she has a greater chance of getting the condition. Relatives whose risk has been confirmed can start screening and prevention practices targeted for their genetic risk.

Sometimes testing a family member who has the disease isn't possible. (The person may be dead, unavailable or unwilling to be tested.) Then, an unaffected person can take the test. Finding a genetic risk factor will certainly give useful information. But a normal test result doesn't always mean there's no risk. Many genes responsible for an inherited susceptibility are not yet known. In other words, a normal test result can exclude the genetic risk factors that have been tested but not the possibility of an inherited susceptibility. It may be valuable to test other family members.

If you were to have genetic testing it would be important to interpret your test results in light of your personal and family medical history. We will also identify family members who might benefit from genetic consultation and genetic testing. If necessary, we can provide referrals for relatives outside the Denver area.

If you test positive for a genetic condition, you can better understand how this condition arose in you and your relatives. If you do not yet have symptoms, you can start to plan for the future, such as planning for a family, career, and retirement. You might want to start seeing specialists to help manage the condition. Preventive actions may be useful as well. Drugs, diet and lifestyle changes may help prevent the disease improve treatment.

Close relatives might value having this information. They can go through testing themselves to determine their disease risks and the best treatment approach.

If you test negative for a genetic risk factor that is known to run in your family you may be relieved that a major risk factor has been excluded.

Diagnosing a genetic condition does not tell us how or when the disease will develop. Although DNA-based genetic testing is very accurate, there is a chance that an inherited mutation will be missed. If a mutation is not found, the test results cannot exclude the possibility of an inherited risk since there may be a mutation in another gene for which testing was not done. If you still have symptoms of a genetic condition, a normal test result might not get you 'off the hook'. An inherited disease risk can only be excluded if a known mutation in the family has been excluded.

Family relationships may be affected by this information. If you have a genetic condition, other family members might benefit by also knowing. In the process of sharing your genetic risk information, family members may learn things about you that you do not want known. In addition, you may learn things about relatives that you did not want to know. For example, it may be revealed that a family member is adopted.

Some people find it hard to learn that they carry a gene that makes their risk of developing a disease greater. They may feel many emotions, including anger, fear about the future, anxiety about their health or guilt about passing a mutation on to their children. They may be shocked by the news. They may go through denial or a change in their self-esteem.

Knowing that you have a higher risk of getting a particular disease (when you don't currently show symptoms) may affect your ability to be insured (health, life and disability). Several state and federal laws prohibit use of genetic information by health insurance companies. In general, health insurers cannot use this information as a pre-existing condition that could disqualify you when applying for new insurance. Genetic information cannot be used to raise premium payments or to deny coverage. However, these laws are not fully comprehensive and may not entirely prevent discrimination. You may want to contact your insurance company to see what effect, if any, genetic testing may have on your coverage.

Sometimes genetic test results are uninformative or ambiguous, making it difficult or impossible to say if a person has a higher risk. These ambiguous results can be the most difficult as they don't provide a clear-cut answer.

For people with normal test results, where the genetic risk in the family has been excluded, a variety of emotions might occur. Most people feel tremendous relief. Others may feel survivor guilt, wondering why they were spared the risk. This can sometimes lead to changes in relationships between family members.

In some cases, an inherited risk for disease seems likely but the gene responsible has not yet been identified. The Adult Medical Genetics Program can help link families with researchers studying that disease. We can contact researchers for you and help you become part of the gene discovery studies. Although being part of research studies doesn't always give you answers, it does allow you to contribute to science.

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Information about Genetic Testing | School of Medicine ...

Logicube

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NEW!Blazing fast, the ZXi-10G, is the newest addition to Logicube's hard drive duplication family. The only duplicator on the market with two 10GbE network connections for fast cloning to/from a network repository or NAS. Features 6 SATA/SAS-ready targets, with an optional expansion of 4 targets and features 8 USB 3.0 targets. Also supports cloning to/from Thunderbolt storage enclosures. ZXi-10GThe next-generation of the ground-breaking Falcon, the Falcon-NEO delivers unparalleled imaging speed of over 50GB/min! Image from 4 sources to 6 destinations simultaneously, image to/from a network repository using two 10GbE connections for fast network imaging performance. Falcon-NEOCSQ Magazine ( C-Suite Media) recently posted an article about Logicube and the launch of the Forensic Falcon-NEO Forensic Focus, the leading digital forensics portal for computer forensics and eDiscovery professionals recently posted an interview with Farid Emrani, President & CEO of Logicube.

Since 1999 Logicube has been the world leader in Hard Drive Duplication and Forensic Imaging hardware. IT departments around the world in corporate, military, government, medical and education markets use Logicube duplicators for all their hard drive duplication tasks including back-ups, PC rollouts, software application deployment and for secure sanitization of hard drives. Our digital forensic imaging solutions meet the demanding requirements of forensic investigators around the globe. Our products have become the gold-standard for forensic imaging solutions, with advanced features and ease-of-use that we're known for.

If youre not sure which solution is right for your specific requirement we have a team of knowledgeable people to help you choose. Were committed to not just meeting but exceeding customer expectations with our product innovation, quality and our customer service.

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Logicube

What is Cell Phone Cloning – Everything You Need to Know …

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Do you know how to clone a cell phone? Are you receiving exorbitantly high phone bill that doesnt match your mobile phone usage or somebody used you for letting them send lewd messages or for making obscene calls??? If yes then its time for you to realize that your mobile handset has been cloned.

What clone phone refers to? Cell phone cloning is a technique wherein secured data from one cell phone is transferred into another phone. The other cell phone becomes the exact replica of the original cell phone like a clone. As a result, while calls can be made from and received by both phones, only the legitimate subscriber is billed as the service provider network does not have a way to differentiate between the legitimate phone and the cloned phone. The cloner can set the options to ring his phone when you make a call and you will have no idea that the cloner is listening from his own mobile. He can read text message, phone book entries, look at pictures etc. Also he can dial phone numbers from their phone and a whole lot more. Though communication channels are equipped with security algorithms, yet cloners get away with the help of loop holes in systems. So when one gets huge bills, the chances are that the phone is being cloned. Millions of cell phones users, be it GSM or CDMA, run at risk of having their phones cloned.

Are you searching for how to clone a cell phone? Lets start, cloning is the process of taking the programmed information that is stored in a legitimate mobile phone and illegally programming the identical information into another mobile phone.The culprits clone and get access to your phone using softwares that are easily available, once the software is installed they just need the unique IMEI number of the phone and they can digitally imprint these numbers on any of the phone they want. Once this is done they can send messages, make calls to anyone and the person whose phone has been cloned will be held responsible. Weve described method toclone phone.

FOR CDMA: Cloning involved modifying or replacing the EPROM in the phone with a new chip which would allow you to configure an ESN (Electronic serial number) via software. You would also have to change the MIN (Mobile Identification Number). When you had successfully changed the ESN/MIN pair, your phone was an effective clone of the other phone. Cloning required access to ESN and MIN pairs.

FOR GSM:- Cloning has been shown to be successful on code division multiple access (CDMA) but rare on the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), one of the more widely used mobile telephone communication systems. However, cloning GSM phones is achieved by cloning the SIM card contained within, not necessarily any of the phones internal data. GSM phones do not have ESN or MIN, only an IMEI number. GSM SIM cards are actually copied by removing the SIM card and placing a device between the handset and the SIM card and allowing it to operate for a few days and extracting the KI, or secret code. Cloning has been successfully demonstrated under GSM, but the process is not easy and it currently remains in the realm of serious hobbyists and researchers.

FOR CDMA:- If PIN and ESN are known, a mobile phone can be cloned in seconds using some softwares like Patagonia which is used to clone CDMA phones. FOR GSM:- However, if the accused manages to also clone the IMEI number of the handset, for which softwares are available, there is no way he can be traced

Each year, the mobile phone industry loses millions of dollars in revenue because of the criminal actions of persons who are able to reconfigure mobile phones so that their calls are billed to other phones owned by innocent third persons. Many criminals use cloned cellular telephones for illegal activities, because their calls are not billed to them, and are therefore much more difficult to trace. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in drug crimes. Drug dealers need to be in constant contact with their sources of supply and their confederates on the streets. Traffickers acquire cloned phones at a minimum cost, make dozens of calls, and then throw the phone away after as little as a days use. In the same way, criminals who pose a threat to our national security, such as terrorists, have been known to use cloned phones to thwart law enforcement efforts aimed at tracking their whereabouts. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) estimates that financial losses due to cloning fraud are between $600 million and $900 million in the United States. Some subscribers of Reliance had to suffer because their phone was cloned. Mobile Cloning is in initial stages in India so preventive steps should be taken by the network provider and the Government.

Unfortunately, there is no way the subscriber can detect cloning. Events like call dropping or anomalies in monthly bills can act as tickers. But some points mentioned below can help you.

The mobile phone seems to be moving at impossible, or most unlikely speeds. For example, if a call is first made in Helsinki, and five minutes later, another call is made but this time in Tampere, there must be two phones with the same identity on the network. Reactions include shutting them all off so that the real customer will contact the operator because he lost the service he is paying for, or tearing down connections so that the clone users will switch to another clone but the real user will contact the operator.

The best way to prevent you simcard or mobile phone from being cloned is to use Authentication feature. Authentication is a mathematical process by which identical calculations are performed in both the network and the mobile phone. These calculations use secret information (known as a key) pre-programmed into both the mobile phone and the network before service is activated. Cloners typically have no access to this secret information (i.e., the key), and therefore cannot obtain the same results to the calculations. A legitimate mobile phone will produce the same calculated result as the network. The mobile phones result is sent to the network and compared with the networks results. If they match, the phone is not a clone. IS AUTHENTICATION EFFECTIVE? Yes, for the most part. However, Authentication is the most robust and reliable method for preventing cloning fraud and it is the only industry standard method for eliminating cloning. The fact that it is standardized means that all mobile telecommunications networks using IS-41 can support Authentication. There is no need to add proprietary equipment, software, or communications protocols to the networks to prevent cloning fraud. IS MY PHONE AUTHENTICATION CAPABLE? If the phone supports TDMA or CDMA digital radio, then yes. Otherwise, it depends on how old the phone is and the make and model. Almost all phones manufactured since the beginning of 1996 support the Authentication function. The best bet is to check with your service.

Recently the Delhi (India) police arrested a person with 20 cell- phones, a laptop, a SIM scanner, and a writer. The accused was running an exchange illegally wherein he cloned CDMA based cell phones. He used software named Patagonia for the cloning and provided cheap international calls to Indian immigrants in West Asia. So its illegal to clone phone!

Anyways you people got the idea abouthow to clone a phone and what is cloning! Beconnected with movzio for more updates!

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What is Cell Phone Cloning - Everything You Need to Know ...

UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights | Fostering the …

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by unescobiochair | May 15, 2018 | News

by Giulia Bovassi - How should theology interpret transhumanism? What can be said about the mans relation to God, his spiritual striving, and his self-understanding? These are just some of the questions that emerged during the meeting on Friday April 20 during the...

by Serena Montefusco | May 10, 2018 | News

According to the Cyprus Mail Online, an average of 70,000 people trying to escape the war zones reaching Europe have been stuck in Cyprus, Italy or Spain. These countries share a common path: huge waves of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers who want a better life and...

by Serena Montefusco | Mar 26, 2018 | News

On Monday February 19th, the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights collaborators Serena Montefusco and Kevin Ramirez took part in the event host by BIDA e. V. Kultur and Bildunng, at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Berlin. As part of the eight partners...

by unescobiochair | Mar 16, 2018 | News

By Michael Baggot - The UNESCO Chair of Human Rights and Bioethics hosted a book presentation of Religious Perspectives on Bioethics and Human Rights (Springer Press) on February 22 at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome and the European...

by unescobiochair | Mar 6, 2018 | News

By Giulia Bovassi - Abstract Refined surgical skills and human dexterity are fully manifest in such complex operations as organ transplantations, a difficult intervention and great therapeutic resource. How should we deal with the possibility of a head (or body)...

by unescobiochair | Feb 26, 2018 | News

By Giulia Bovassi - Abstract Neurosciences field of action surprises in depth, involvement and extension, as evidenced during the Interdisciplinary Neuro-bioethics Research Group (GdN) last meeting, held last 9 February, having as its protagonist the hypnotic...

by unescobiochair | Feb 19, 2018 | News

The UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights will hold its 6th international Bioethics, multiculturalism and religion workshop to discuss issues of informed consent and clinical research February 21-23. As part of the i-Consent consortium (a project funded by the...

by unescobiochair | Jan 18, 2018 | News

MASTERCLASS IN NEUROBIOETHICS PSYCHIATRY INTERFACES WITH THE HEAD TRANSPLANTATION IDEA 14 December 2017 By Giulia Bovassi - Abstract Through a dialogue between experts and in an open debate, the intervention of two well-known psychiatrists, professor Armando Piccinni...

by Serena Montefusco | Jan 17, 2018 | News

Prof. Garasic engaged in a discussion on his bookGuantanamo and Other Cases of Enforced Medical Treatment(Springer, 2015)http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319226521has on the Italian Journal "Bioetica -Rivista Interdisciplinare (3;2017; year...

by unescobiochair | Jan 15, 2018 | News

By Dominic Farrell LC - Two professors from the Pontifical AthenaeumRegina Apostolorum, Dominic Farrell LC (Faculty of Philosophy) and Joseph Tham LC (Faculty of Bioethics), took part in an International Workshop onPublic Reason and Bioethicsat Chinese University...

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How to Use MDMA

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MDMA is a truly remarkable medicine for working with difficult emotional experiences. The clinical results have far exceeded other interventions for a range of uses (see the research section at the bottom of this page).

MDMA is a synthetic psychedelic, first developed by the pharmaceutical company Merck in 1912. It has been widely studied since then, particularly for psychotherapeutic uses. With the rate of academic research growing rapidly, it is likely that MDMA will become FDA approved for therapeutic use within the next few years, and MAPS.org is focused on moving it through the approval process. MDMA is being widely tested for post-traumatic stress, with results that surpass any other existing treatment method.

MDMA is a particularly appealing psychedelic for therapists and researchers because the subjective mental experience feels fairly stable, while creating a dramatic increase in emotional openness and a reduction in fear and anxiety.

Before you begin, be sure to read our safety section and see the special safety considerations for MDMA at the bottom of this page.

Because MDMA has anti-anxiety and anti-fear effects, it is generally considered safe to use a full dose your first time and each time you use MDMA (generally 75mg - 125mg depending on the individual). It is important to measure the dose carefully. Milligram-precision scales cost about 20 dollars (heres an Amazon search for milligram scale).

Some therapy protocols add a booster dose of about 60mg of MDMA 2-3 hours after the first dose to extend the period of therapeutic effects and provide more time for deep exploration.

MDMA will typically be in the form of a powder, pill, or crystal. Again, be sure that you are receiving pure MDMA, not mixed with other drugs or stimulants like caffeine. 'Molly' is another term for pure MDMA, distinguished from 'Ecstasy' which often contains MDMA but is not pure MDMA. If the MDMA is in pill form, youll have to be confident of the reported dosage, as fillers are added to create a pill and weighing the pill will not indicate the MDMA content. As always, do not take any MDMA if you are unsure of quantity or purity.

Once the MDMA has worn off, be sure that you drink lots of water and get a long peaceful sleep at night. MDMA can be mentally tiring and you need to rejuvenate.

Most people find that they have an afterglow from their MDMA experience that can last days or weeks, improving their mood and outlook and keeping them very open to others.

On the other hand, some people feel mentally drained by MDMA and have a foggy headed feeling for a day or two afterwards. Others will feel emotionally drained, and have a depressed mood for up to a week after the experience. Sometimes, these feelings begin two days after the experience, but not the day after. To combat this, some people who feel sensitive to that after-effect will take 5-HTP or L-Tryptophan (both are common supplements available from any source) for a few days after MDMA in an attempt to restore their serotonin levels. People who do feel drained after an MDMA session generally report that precise the MDMA dose can affect how they feel afterwards. Too much may leave them more drained than necessary. This is another reason to start with a modest, precisely measured dose to begin.

Nearly everyone, no matter how they feel the following week, finds that the thoughts, feelings, and emotional release that they experience on MDMA persists afterwards. In particular, any realizations that they had during the experiences tend to prove real and lasting.

Most remarkably, painful emotional associations with life experiences -- traumas, breakups, divorces, etc -- are dramatically reduced if that issue has been explored during the experience. You will find that when you think about that same painful experience after exploring it on MDMA, you will not have the same flood of emotional pain and tension that you would have had beforehand. The memory will be intact but the emotional strings will be looser.

Even for extreme emotional trauma, this holds true. In a recent research study for patients with PTSD, 83% of patients experienced reduced symptoms after just 3 MDMA sessions combined with therapy, vs. only 25% of patients who had therapy alone. Quite simple, MDMA is the most effective treatment for PTSD ever developed. Compare this level of success to traditional anti-depressants which have strong side effects and are dosed every day for years at a time (for a total of hundreds or thousands of doses) and which have very low rates of effectiveness, often just slightly above placebo.

In addition to our standard safety suggestions, there are three particularly important precautions for MDMA use:

Psychedelics have been misunderstood and misrepresented for decades. That's changing. Please help us share safe, responsible information on using psychedelics by sending this page to friends, and posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

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How to Use MDMA

Turmeric’s Amazing Effect on Psoriasis

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See that teaspoon? Thats what you need for your flakes.

Today I want to talk about the benefits of eating turmeric for psoriasis, and especially, of taking a supplement known as curcumin.

Many of you curry-eating flakers out there might know that its used by the bucket-load in Indian cuisine. It has a warm yellow colour, an earthy, peppery taste, and it stains absolutely everything a nice ten-day old urine colour. So dont get any on your pants.

Turmerics use in Asia goes back at least 2,500 years and its not just contained to the cooking pot. In fact, this amazing spice was highly valued in traditional healing practices, especially when it came to skin conditions. Which is where psoriasis comes in.

It looks pleasant enough right?

So why is turmeric so good for our flaky skin?

Science has no proven that it contains certain compounds that are fantastic for fighting chronic inflammation, such as psoriasis.

The most important compound of them all for us flakers is curcumin. It reduces histamine levels (which are responsible for inflammation), blocks a molecule called NF-kB, which turns on the inflammation response in cells, and a does a whole range of other good things.

Curcumin has even been found to treat Alzheimers, prevent cancer, destroy bacteria, boost brain function and protect the liver from toxin damage which also helps to reduce psoriasis as the liver is essential for cleaning the blood and getting rid of impurities.

There are several studies out there supporting the claim that curcumin is great for psoriasis:

In thisstudy, patients with at least 6% psoriasis coverage were given three 500 mg pills of curcumin three times a day.At the end of four months, two patients saw excellent improvements of over 80%. The researchers did note that theres a problem with it not being readily absorbed by the body. Ill show you how to get around that later!

In another clinical trial, this time conducted by the University of California, curcuminwas put up againstcalcipotriol, which many of you might know as the branded cream Dovonex. Patients in this study either used an alcoholic gel with 1% curcumin, or the Dovonex. The ones who used curcumin did far better: five had morethan a 90% improvementafter 26 weeks of treatment, and the remainingfivepatients showed a 5085% improvementafter 38 weeks.

Before you run off to your local shop to get some, there are two little catches.

Firstly, only 3% of turmeric powder, by weight, is curcumin. So for you to get the full benefits Ive mentioned above, you would have to gobble hundreds of grams of turmeric powder every day. Youd youd have to add it to your Weetabix and froth it up in your latte, and thats before lunch!

There is a workaround for this, which Ill mention later.

Secondly, curcumin is not absorbed very well by the body. This is why you have to ingest it with black pepper, as itcontains a compound called piperine which increased the bodys absorption of curcumin by a whopping 2000%!

There are several ways of using turmeric for psoriasis. Ill go over the rather unpleasant ones first.

I made and drank this for your benefit, reader!

First of all, you can consume it. Its simple, just mix it in a glass and drink it, trying not to gag. Its super inexpensive and should set you back only $1 or $2 dollars for a nice bag.

All you have to do ismix one teaspoon of turmeric powder with a bit of juice and a teaspoon of black pepper. The last part is essential as otherwise it will be broken down before having any noticeable effect.

I wont lie; its not like a nice cold cup of OJ in the morning. The pepper gets stuck between your teeth and it feels like youve just washed down a cup of curry.

But it does the job. I took it this way for ages as it was the cheapest method available, and I was extremely happy with the results.

Remember, you can also add a pinch to your favourite marinade or saut it with onions to increase your daily intake. Get creative.

Id like to see you laugh when you try to scrub it off!

Secondly, you can rub it onto your psoriasis patches.

This is also simple, but highly, highly dangerous to your wardrobe. Or anything that stains for that matter. Just mix the powder with a bit of water, or Vaseline, and whack it on.

At this point I have to emphasise that turmeric is a pain in the ass to remove! Its like having the Midas touch, but only in colour. Your skin, your shirt, your iPhone, your dishes, your dog, your girlfriend everything you touch will turn yellow. The first time I tried it, it took three days for it to come off. My hands were so yellow it looked like I had jaundice.

To get around this, buy powder with any extra dyes removed, such as Starwest Botanicals Organic Turmeric.Starwest turmeric is still yellow but they do not add additional dyes to make it look even yellower, like some other brands.

However, the effect was simply amazing, particularly after a few runs. It really soothes psoriasis when its inflamed!

The most convenient solution that Ive found, is taking turmeric pill capsules. Just the amount of time they save me from splashing around in the kitchen with turmeric makes them worthwhile.

If youre like me and are not in love with the taste of turmeric, then this route may be for you too. The brand Ive started ordering regularly is called Dr. Danielles Organic Curcumin.

Its comes in a bottleof 120 capsules, each one containing 500 mg. At two a day it lasts me for two months, which is pretty affordable when its only $24. 95

As a bonus, its already pre-mixed with a compound called bioperine, which is basically a branded form ofpiperine, so you dont have to swallow any black pepper when you take it!

For me, turmeric, and curcumin by extension, is a staple in the psoriasis-fighting cupboard. Ive been using it regularly for over two years now and cannot recommend it highly enough!

I partly bought this brand because it had great reviews from other flakers on Amazon. For example:

Julie Casbar says: I used this product because I have psoriasis and nothing pharmaceutical was working or was too expensive. I found that this tumeric worked excellently for inflamation! My skin cleared within 6 weeks between diet and using the tumeric.

Chad Phillippi says: I suffer from extreme psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, along with some IBS, just because God has a sense of humor, I suppose. Ive been using this product for a few weeks now and have really noticed a change in my body for the better! My joints, fingers, ankles, and toes dont seem to ache as often as they did prior to the product. Also, my stomach issues have gotten a lot better!

Let me know if you end up trying it!

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Tags: psoriasis, supplement, turmeric

redblob I'm just an average 28 year old living with psoriasis. Over the last decade, I've tried everything, from real snake poison to rubbing banana peels over my body. I've finally found an approach that's working for me, and I'm sharing it with all the flakers out there. But Psoriasis Blob is not about one man, it's a growing community of great, red people.

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Turmeric's Amazing Effect on Psoriasis

Apple Cider Vinegar Melts Away Psoriasis Flakes

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Its made from squashed apples and it makes your flakes cry. Every man or woman with psoriasis needs a bottle of it. I have two.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who use apple cider vinegar (known as ACV) for salad dressings, and those who drink it and rub it onto their skin. Guess which category flakers fall into? The weird kind. To find out why apple cider vinegar and psoriasis isnt as crazy as it sounds, read on!

I currently have two bottles in my cupboard: Bragg, the big daddy brand of ACV that all hippies swear by, and a random Italian brand that I picked up from my local shopkeeper Vimal for cooking with that cost just $2.

You might think that Im bonkers, but there are tonnes of people out there with psoriasis that swear by ACV.Over the centuries, its been used time and again to treat skin conditions cultures as diverse as the ancient Egyptians, to the Romans, and even American used it, the latter in the 19th century, when it was used as a wound disinfectant. Ive even read that the Victorians lathered it on as a perfume called Vinegar de Toilette!

Tonight, were drinking from the bottle! (Just kidding. Please dont try this unless you have dentures handy.)

The first time I came across using apple cider vinegar for psoriasis was when I was researching the effects of bad diet.One popular, albeit alternative theory, is that it is caused by a leaky gut and candida overgrowth, which allows toxins to infiltrate the body.

This, in turn, can be down to a highly-acidic modern diet, full of processed foods and empty carbs.What ACV does for us flakers is that it reverses this by making pH levels in the body more alkaline, thus helping the digestive tract to function better, and by killing toxins as it is anti-fungal and anti-viral.

You might be thinking, Wait a minute, isnt it acidic!? and thats true, but the end products it creates while being digested turn out to be alkaline. It also includes a boat load of essential nutrients (such as Vitamins C, A, B1, B6, potassium & iron for starters), and alpha hydroxy acids, which exfoliate the top layers of the skin and are now used in a lot of dermatological creams.

To me knowledge there are no clinical studies out there supporting the use of ACV for psoriasis probably because theres no way a company could slap a label on it, patent it and sell it for a million dollars but the anecdotal stories of it working are plenty. There are also Amazon reviews for Braggs apple cider vinegar from people who have psoriasis.

Heres what Nigel, from the UK, says on a website called Curezone:

About 2 weeks ago I was surfing this forum when I saw several posts about ACV. Not knowing what it was, I proceeded to read the posts and finally I figured out it was apple cider vinegar. I set out to my local grocery store and started on the treatment of 2 teaspoons mixed with honey. 2 weeks later here I am, VERY HAPPY and giddy! The ACV treatment is working. The patches are diminishing. They are no longer rough and flaky. Instead, smooth, REGULAR, HEALTHY skin is now there (only thing that remains is a mark where the patch once was!)

This comment was left by Sreenivas, from India, on a site called EarthClinic:

I read your comments and bought the organic ACV and the result was amazing. I drank 1 tea spoon of ACV with 250 ml of water for about 2 weeks and I see 90% improvement. I got psoriasis in 2007 on my hands and my feet. Cracks, blisters and discharges was something I have lived with while trying all kinds of creams, tablets. It worked like magic for me.

I also found this testimonial from a mid-50s flaker in the US:

Drank 2 teaspoons of natural ACV with 16 oz. of water each day and the red, painful, scaly condition just disappeared! This is the cloudy version of ACV with all the active nutrients. Not the clearer, grocery-store ACV. My skin was freaking me out and scary painful when acting up. And no, I would not have believed something so simple would have worked.I thought this psoriasis was going to flat out eat me alive!

This is one of the original posts that made me want to experiment with ACV, left by a guy in London!

ACV definitely works.I was on prescription topical steroids and it just made it worse. Every time I came off the steroids the psoriasis would bounce back worse.I apply ACV at least twice daily with a sponge and bowl to affected areas and here are my observations.Day 1-3)Massive reduction in skin production & much cleaner appearance.Day 3-7)Small amount of outer shrinkage of spots of psoriasis.Week 3)Hollowing out of spots of psoriosis to form a ring of psoriosis with healthy skin on the insideWeek 6)Ring breaks up into smaller spots which turn into scabs that reveal deep itchy lesions if picked at.Week 12)Lesions slowly heal and close up.

ACV is quite versatile

Most people recommend drinking apple cider vinegar for psoriasis, and thats how I normally take it.What I do is mix two to three tablespoons of ACV in a tall glass of water, normally once a day in the evenings, just before dinner in order to get those gastric juices flowing, baby.

The best kind to get is organic ACV, without preservatives or any other additives. The cream of the crop is organic ACV with what is known as the Mother,a little tangled clot of enzymes, bacteria and living nutrients. It is created during the fermentation process and is the most nutritious thing in the whole bottle!

Ive been drinking it for around a year, off and on, and I really like the effects. It takes around 2 weeks to see the main improvements, but I find that when Im using it my skin doesnt feel like a pile of wood shavings, and its a nice light-pinkish in colour.

Apart from slurping it up, you can also use ACV topically. I normally do this with cotton pads or a sponge, but you can also apply it straight to the scalp or soak your hands and feet in a bowl. Ive even heard of people with penile psoriasis dipping their bits in it, but remember, only try this if you have nuts of steel as the stinging and pain will be pretty, pretty high!

Mmm, vinegary elbow

Research shows that when used externally, it promotes blood circulation in the small capillaries of the skin, has antiseptic qualities which prevent bacteria, and regulates pH levels on the skin.

Most people Ive spoken to apply it on their body for 20 to 30 minutes before rinsing it off, but you can also leave it on overnight. You can even pour some into a bath if your psoriasis coverage is extensive.

Related flaky goodness

Tags: ACV, apple cider vinegar, psoriasis

redblob I'm just an average 28 year old living with psoriasis. Over the last decade, I've tried everything, from real snake poison to rubbing banana peels over my body. I've finally found an approach that's working for me, and I'm sharing it with all the flakers out there. But Psoriasis Blob is not about one man, it's a growing community of great, red people.

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Apple Cider Vinegar Melts Away Psoriasis Flakes

Social Darwinism: The Theory of Evolution Applied to Human …

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Social Darwinism was the application of Charles Darwin`s scientific theories of evolution and natural selection to contemporary social development. In nature, only the fittest survivedso too in the marketplace. This form of justification was enthusiastically adopted by many American businessmen as scientific proof of their superiority.

Leading proponents of Social Darwinism included the following:

Spencer was widely popular among American capitalist leaders, but held a much smaller following in his homeland.

In 1907, Sumner published his most influential book, Folkways, in which he argued that customs and mores were the most powerful influences on human behavior, even when irrational. He concluded that all forms of social reform were futile and misguided.

Sumner`s views contrasted sharply with those of the advocates of the Social Gospel.

- - - Books You May Like Include: ----

Social Darwinism in American Thought by Richard Hofstadter.Social Darwinism in American Thought portrays the overall influence of Darwin on American social theory and the notable battle waged among thinkers ov...

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Social Darwinism: The Theory of Evolution Applied to Human ...

Nihilism

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Nihilism Abandoning Values and KnowledgeNihilism derives its name from the Latin root nihil, meaning nothing, that which does not exist. This same root is found in the verb annihilate -- to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Nihilism is the belief which:

Nihilism A Meaningless WorldShakespeares Macbeth eloquently summarizes existential nihilism's perspective, disdaining life:

Nihilism Beyond NothingnessNihilism--choosing to believe in Nothingness--involves a high price. An individual may choose to feel rather than think, exert their will to power than pray, give thanks, or obey God. After an impressive career of literary and philosophical creativity, Friedrich Nietzsche lost all control of his mental faculties. Upon seeing a horse mistreated, he began sobbing uncontrollably and collapsed into a catatonic state. Nietzsche died August 25, 1900, diagnosed as utterly insane. While saying Yes to life but No to God, the Prophet of Nihilism missed both.

Beyond the nothingness of nihilism, there is One who is greater than unbelief; One who touched humanity (1 John 5:20) and assures us that our lives are not meaningless (Acts 17:24-28).

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Nihilism

The News Progress: Obituaries

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On Sunday, January 28, 2018, the angels from Heaven heard Clevelands cry and came to take him home. Cleveland Ratliff, Sr. transition from his earthly life at McGuire Veterans Hospital in Richmond, Va. He was born on May 6, 1925 in Anson County, North Carolina to the late Gaine B. Ratliff and Laura R. Ratliff. He attended Henry Grove School in Lilesville, N.C.

Cleveland was employed by Corengerie. He was preceded in death by his parents, Gaine B. Ratliff and Laura R. Ratliff; his children: Laura Small, Cleveland Ratliff, Jr., and Brandy Ratliff; two brothers; and four sisters.

He is survived by his wife, Rebecca D. Ratliff; daughters: Roxanne R. Booker (Charles) of Palmyra, Va. and Doralene R. Boswell of Boydton, Va; 13 grandchildren; 27 great grandchildren; two great-great grandchildren; sister, Essie Bell McNeil of High Point, N.C.; brother-in-law, Carwell Duncan of Boydton, Va.; and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and friends including special friends Terrell Evans, William Moore, James Young and Odell Oliver,Jr.

Funeral Services were held on Sunday, February 4, 2018 at St. Pauls Baptist Church, Boydton, Va.

Funeral arrangements were entrusted to Carters Funeral Home, Clarksville, Va.

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The News Progress: Obituaries

computer_chess:engines:myrddin:index – Computer Chess Wiki

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First of all, thanks very much to Ron Murawski for making this site available and hosting Myrddin here!

Version 0.87 to be released soon! This version supports SMP via processes (up to 16 instances) and is about 10 ELO stronger than v0.86 at 1 CPU and about 50 ELO stronger at 4 CPUs. This version has not been formally tested above 4 CPUs so it is unknown how well it will scale above 4 CPUs.

Myrddin 0.87 (released 1/25/15, CCRL rating estimated at 2385 at 1 CPU and 2435 at 4 CPUs)

Myrddin 0.86 (released 12/21/12, CCRL rated approximately 2360)This package contains Windows32/64, Linux32/64, & Android executables compiled by Jim Ablett, and a Mac executable compiled by Julien Marcel, author of the Prdateur chess engine. Myrddin 0.85 (released 5/3/11, CCRL rated approximately 2220) Myrddin 0.84 (released 9/17/10, CCRL rated approximately 2115) Myrddin 0.83 (released 2/22/10, CCRL rated approximately 2015) Myrddin 0.82 (released 9/26/09, estimated CCRL rating of 1915) Myrddin Alpha 2 (released 5/26/09, estimated CCRL rating of 1550) Myrddin Alpha 1 (released 3/9/09, estimated CCRL rating of 1150)

Myrddin 0.87 1/20/15

Myrddin is a winboard-compliant chess engine to a reasonable degree. It supports protover 1 primarily to support the Chessmaster interface, and also protover 2.

If you don't know what Winboard is, and you only just want to play against this engine, you can download Winboard-compliant interfaces here:

The 64-bit version of Myrddin should play approximately 2380 ELO against chess engines at 1 CPU (using CCRL rating), and probably 100 points higher against humans. This is an improvement of approximately 30 points compared to the previous release. Myrddin should play about 90 points stronger at 4 CPU.

The following winboard commands are supported:

Myrddin also supports the following non-winboard commands:

eval returns a static evaluation of the current game position

perft N standard perft algorithm to calculate the number of leaf nodes of depth N from the current position. Note that Myrddin will not respond to any input until the perft calculation is finished.

divide N extension to perft algorithm showing the number of leaf nodes of depth N from the current position, divided among each legal move from the current position.

tb toggles Gaviota endgame tablebase support

None of these commands are supported while Myrddin is searching/analyzing.

It is crucial that the winboard UI send the time command to the engine, as Myrddin does not have an internal clock. Post is ON by default, as opposed to the winboard protocol. This is just for debugging convenience and it appears that a lot of engines do it this way anyway.

This is the first version to support SMP. The implementation is based on Dan Homan's lazy SMP idea. Myrddin uses multiple slave processes to fill the transposition, eval and pawn hash tables so the parent process can search deeper in the same amount of time. Myrddin uses Pradyumna Kannan's magicmoves code for move generation of sliding pieces. Evaluation is rather simple: wood counting, piece square tables, pawn structure, rudimentary king safety, rooks behind passers. There's still a long way to go here. Search is basic alpha/beta, with reasonable and generally conservative extensions and reductions. All user-modifiable parameters are supported in the INI file, an example of which is included in the download. Max search depth is 128. The ProDeo opening book is used by kind permission of Ed Schrder. Draw claims from the opponent are not supported. Myrddin does, however, claim all draws by rule, as well as checkmate. There is enough winboard support to play games on ICS. But without support for draw I'm sure there are some scary loopholes and/or exploits. When the engine is in analysis mode, positive scores always favor White and negative scores always favor Black. When the engine is thinking or pondering, positive scores favor Myrddin. Logfiles will be in the logs folder below the folder where you ran Myrddin. The output of the log is not very interesting just PV output and communication reality-check stuff. If you are running Myrddin with multiple CPUs, there will be one logfile for each process.

Myrddin's first official tournament was in the Promotional division of ChessWar XIV and was rated at 1655 over 11 rounds. Myrddin scored 6.5 points (+5 =3 -3) and placed 51st out of 212 engines rated between 1859 and 812. The median engine rating was 1499. To see the PGN of Myrddin's games and see some comments, read this journal. Much of the development between Alpha 1 and Alpha 2 occurred during this tournament.

Myrddin participated in OpenWar 6. This was a round-robin tournament with 92 engines. Myrddin finished in 68th place with 27 points (+22 =10 -59). Myrddin's best legitimate results were a win against Firefly (rated about 2050) and a draw against Timea (rated about 2150). It managed to get a win against one of the top 10 (Cippolino) thanks to a crash. It also got two draws against two very strong engines (DanaSah and N2) due to endgame blunders, and a win against another top engine (Tornado) due to a crash. Much of the development for version 0.82 occurred during this tournament, and the last few rounds were played with 0.82.

Version 0.82f (unreleased and slightly better than 0.82) participated in the 5th Division of WBEC Ridderkerk 17. There were 84 engines in this division, and the division was broken down into three groups of 28 engines each, each group having a double round-robin tournament. As expected, Myrddin finished in the middle of the pack, in 14th place with 31.5 points out of 54 games (+28 =7 -19).

Version 0.82f also participated in the Promotional division of ChessWar XV. This tournament was very similar to Myrddin's first tournament, ChessWar XIV, except there are even more engines (242!). Because Myrddin was at least 300 points stronger than it was eight months previous, it finished in 9th place with 8.0 points (+7 =2 -2). This was a good enough performance to promote to the next division, Myrddin's first promotion. Myrddin now has a bit of a reputation as a very lucky engine, as it got a free point when GnuChess (a typically very stable engine) crashed in a Mate in 3 position. Without that crash, Myrddin would have finished about 20 places lower and would not have promoted.

Versions 0.83 through 0.83k participated in OpenWar 7. This was a round-robin tournament with 76 engines. I was hoping that Myrddin would place around 55th and score about 25 points. But, despite some noticeable improvements in Myrddin that went into version 0.84, Myrddin performed poorly and finished in 62nd place, with only 20.5 points (+14 =13 -48). Myrddin's best results were draws against the 11th place engine, WaDuuttie, and the 20th place engine, Rotor. Both of these engines are rated 2500+. Its best win was against the 45th place engine, Sungorus, rated 2300+. The only other good thing that can be said is that Myrddin had good results against the 18 engines that finished immediately above him (+3 =9 -6).

Version 0.84 participated in the F division of ChessWar XVI. There were 80 engines in the tournament and Myrddin was seeded 70th. Myrddin finished respectably in 49th place with 5 points (+3 =4 -4). Its best performance was a draw against the engine that finished in 6th place.

Version 0.84 (32-bit) was the first version to win any tournament, doing so in the 23rd Series the CCRL Amateur Division 7. It competed with nine other engines in a double-round robin and won with a score of 23.5 out of 36 (+20 =7 -9). This victory promoted Myrddin to Division 6.

Version 0.84g (unreleased and clearly better than 0.84) participated in the 5th Division of WBEC Ridderkerk 18. There were 98 engines in this division, and the division was broken down into three groups of 32-34 engines each, each group having a double round-robin tournament. The hope was that Myrddin could place in the top 6 in his group, thereby reaching the final. Myrddin did accomplish this, scoring 55 points in 66 games and placing 4th. The final was another double round-robin with the top 18 engines (6 from each group), and the top 7 would promote to the 4th division. Myrddin managed to achieve this by placing 7th, scoring 18 points in 34 games.

Versions 0.84g through 0.85 participated in OpenWar 8. This was a round-robin tournament with 78 engines. I was hoping that Myrddin would place close to 40th and score about 37-38 points. This tournament was a mixed bag, as Myrddin drew 10 of the engines that finished between 15th and 30th places (and all 6 engines between 15-20: Brutus, Hermann, Dirty, Arasan, Francesca MAD and Gaviota). But some poor performances against weaker engines kept Myrddin from achieving my goal. Myrddin finished in 46th place with 34.5 points.

All results are for the 64-bit version of 0.85 using 128MB hash and 5-man Gaviota tablebases. The tests are run on an AMD 9650 Quad 2.3GHz machine (although Myrddin does not support multiple CPUs). Running all of the below tests takes approximately 5 hours.

300 positions at 5s per position. Almost exclusively tactical positions, many leading to mate. Myrddin finds 295 correct moves within the time limit. Regarding the five missed positions, two (141, 222) are found within 10 seconds, one (293) is found within 30 seconds, and two (17, 230) are not found within one minute. This suite can be found here.

A series of (currently, but occasionally expanding) 14 individual suites of 100 positions each, primarily intending to test positional knowledge such as square vacancy, proper recapturing, pawn advancement, control of the center, etc. At 10s per move, Myrddin gets 789 out of 1400 positions correct. This suite is also interesting because it contains partial credit. In other words, you can still get some points by choosing moves other than the optimal. Myrddin gets 9,556 out of 14,000 points if partial credit is included. You can download this test suite here.

176 positions at 10s per position. Combinative middlegame and endgame suite. Myrddin finds 134 positions within the time limit. You can download this test suite here.

100 positions at 10s per position. Myrddin does not do very well at this suite, getting only 20 correct moves within the time limit. You can download this test suite here.

182 positions at 10s per position. Challenging tactical suite. Myrddin finds 149 positions within the time limit. You can download this test suite here.

For a list of (hopefully) interesting test positions that I have accumulated during the development of Myrddin, go here.

Many parts of the code from Myrddin contain ideas and/or algorithms gathered from studying the source code of other engines. Most notably, Stockfish, Fruit, Crafty and Greko are well-written, well-documented and relatively easy to understand even for a mediocre programmer like myself. The list of features implemented (and sometimes modified or discarded altogether) from these ideas would be too long to go into here. But I can safely say that all code in Myrddin is my own, written either from scratch or based on these ideas, with the following exceptions: Myrddin's Winboard interface is based on Tom Kerrigan's excellent TSCP engine, for which Tom has graciously given permission. Myrddin's SEE implementation is based on pseudo-code generously given to me by Andres Valverde, author of EveAnn and part of the Dirty development team.

Initial Release, rated approximately 1200-1300

Reduced move generation time by ~21% (perft 6 on initial position went from 57 to 44 seconds on P4-3.0) Search now pings the input command handler every 8K nodes (about 1/30-1/50 second, depending on position and hardware), so applicable commands can now be entered during search/analysis Search will allocate extra thinking time when it gets noticeable drop in score Evaluation improvements pawn structure, open and semi-open files for rooks, rooks behind passers, king safety Added MVV/LVA and PV Move Ordering Added Killer and History move ordering heuristics Added Null Move reductions Added Late Move reductions Added Opening Book (ProDeo Thanks, Ed!) Added pondering, so hard and easy commands are now supported analyze, ? and result commands are now supported level command is now fully supported for all time control types Added check for dirty pawn structure before evaluation Search can be interrupted due to time management considerations Added Hash Tables, with a fixed size of 128MB Maximum search depth increased from 20 to 30 Fixed a bug with evaluating castling moves Fixed a bug determining which King piece table to use Can now generate capturing moves only so quiescent search has less moves to sort/deal with Quiescent moves are added to PV Added code for pushing lone King towards edge of board Added material and 50-move draw detection Fixed a bug in the undo and remove commands Fixed some bugs in the 3-fold repetition detection Fixed a stupid bug that caused me to check for user input WAY too often many thanks to Bob Hyatt for pointing me in the right direction Significant code cleanup

Removed Alpha designation from version number Commandline parameters are now supported Increased max search depth to 50 Reduced move generation time by ~15% (perft 6 of initial position on a P4-3.0 went from 44s to 38s) Now claiming checkmates, 50-move draws and 3-fold repetition draws Plays a move after completing a depth 3 search if there is only one legal reply Will not play a move if in the middle of resolving a fail low or fail high at the root Will never use more than 1/4 of remaining time Greatly improved time management for bullet games. Version 0.81 could lose as many as 20% of its games on time at 2 minutes per game. Version 0.82 now only loses about 1% of its games on time at 1 minute per game, and only very rarely will lose a game on time at other time controls. Many thanks to Lars Hallerstrom (The Mad Tester!) for all of his assistance in helping determine if my fixes actually improved anything. Myrddin should never lose on time in games with increments. Quiescence search now only searches recaptures after depth 1 Added promotions to Quiescence search Added aspiration window Improved Late Move Reductions parameters Fixed a bug in the Principal Variation search Pondering is now OFF by default Evaluation adjustments:

bishops and knights are scored at 310 centipawns, as Myrddin was susceptible to trading two pieces for rook+pawn

increased penalty for doubled/tripled pawns

for doubled/tripled pawns, added further penalty if they are blocked

added larger bonus for passed pawn on the 7th

adjusted bishop piece tables to encourage occupation of long(er) diagonals

modified the lone king piece table to give larger penalites as the king goes towards the edge/corner

Added knowledge of knight outposts (in enemy territory, supported by pawn, cannot be attacked by enemy pawn) Piece and wood counting are now done incrementally Fixed a bug in which the 50-move counter could be set to zero if the move being pondered was a zeroing move and the opponent did not play that move Fixed a bug in which the engine would go into an endless loop if it reached (max_search_depth + 1) during pondering or analysis Fixed a bug in which the engine would go into an endless loop if there were no legal moves during analysis Fixed a bug in the evaluation of Black doubled/tripled pawns Added code to handle KPvK endings Added code to recognize various material draws, such as KNNvK Added code to recognize insufficient mating material for materially winning side (e.g. KNNvKP or KBvKP) Added code for rook pawn and wrong colored bishop against lone king in promoting corner (from a loss to Sorgenkind in OpenWar) Now only adding en passant square to hash signature if en passant capture is possible Added ? and ! comments to PV output for fail lows and fail highs Logfiles are now created in a logs folder below the Myrddin executable program, as requested by Lars

Only search to depth 1 when there is only one legal move and pondering is off No longer clearing the hash table before starting a depth 1 search Improved hash replacement strategy If a search depth was reduced by late-move reductions, and that search improves alpha, now researching at proper depth Reductions are now less aggressively implemented Adjusted the second aspiration window from 300 to 110 centipawns Doubled (or worse) passed pawns after the leading pawn no longer get the passed pawn bonus Will now play a move in a checkmating line as soon as it is confirmed to be optimal Removed Result from checkmate reporting Rook and minor vs rook (with no pawns) is now hard-coded as a draw should be safe in 99.99% of cases Re-removed bad king safety code Now using piece square table for knight outposts, rather than a hard-coded bonus Modified piece square table for kings in opening and middlegame Added penalty for having no pawns, to help avoid trading down into pawnless endgames (e.g. rook vs. minor) Sending the '.' command during analysis no longer restarts the analysis from depth 1. The '.' command is still not implemented, though. Fixed a bug in which most hash moves were not getting placed at the beginning of the move order Fixed a bug evaluating Black doubled and passed pawns Fixed a bug in which the initial position was not being checked for draw by repetition Fixed a bug maintaining wood tables when unmaking a promotion move Fixed an asymmetrical problem in the bishop piece square table Fixed a problem with determining if a rook or queen was behind a passed pawn Fixed a problem with calculating the pawn shield of a king on column h, or a king not on his home row fixed a bug updating the board signature after making a null move when en passant was possible king+rook vs. king+minor is now being scored as a draw

Added Gaviota tablebases (thanks so much to Miguel Ballicora, also the author of the Gaviota chess engine, for making this available!) Added initialization file for setting hash size, creating log file, turning on kibitz, and tablebase info Fixed a bug in which a hash probe would not return a hash move if the saved depth was less than the requested depth (thanks to Edmund Moshammer, author of Glass!), so in these cases the hash move would not be used for move ordering Implemented fail-hard Tweaked parameters for reductions (yet again) Adjusted queen value from 900 to 950 and minor piece value from 310 to 320 Adjusted bishop pair bonus from 20 to 30 Removed second aspiration window Lazy eval is now more conservative Will now analyze the entire depth if the first move searched fails low, or if first move fails high in a non-mate situation Increased maximum search time to half of the remaining clock (required due to above item) Added support for winboard computer command kibitz PV, book moves and Mate in N Increased max half-moves in a game to 1024 Fixed a bug in which the first move searched at the root was saved in the hash table as an exact value even if it did not improve alpha Fixed a bug in which Myrddin would run out of time by thinking indefinitely if it was told it had a negative amount of time on its clock (can happen on ICS due to lag) Modified the check to see if null move is allowable, previously was if any piece was on board, now only if side to move has at least one piece

Almost complete rewrite of the evaluation, in particular the pawn structure evaluation and king safety. Also added mobility factor and significantly adjusted many piece table values Added SEE (thanks, Andrs!) Added futility pruning Added resign. See Myrddin's INI file for instructions, as this is off by default Added second aspiration window at 150 centipawns Cleaned up code for how reductions/extensions are used to modify depth in search calls Will now claim draw by insufficient material, but only checking for bare kings or at most one minor on board Now generating all moves in quiescent search if side to move is in check Now searching all moves in order of their move score order, instead of just the first four moves and then taking the rest as they were generated Some changes to the transposition table replacement strategy Fixed a bug in which the en passant square was not being passed to the Gaviota tablebase probe Fixed a bug in which the 50-move draw check was not checking that the drawing move was also checkmate Fixed a bug in which the flag for a mate threat found during null move was not being stored in the hash table Fixed a bug in which a hash entry could be saved when the engine was forcibly bailing out of a search Fixed a bug that could cause Gaviota tablebases folder to not be read properly from the INI file

Finished conversion to bitboards from 088 Added pawn hash (thanks again, Dann!) Removed lazy eval Added support for winboard st and sd commands Lots of bug fixes either discovered by the bitboard conversion or removed by them (of course, new bugs added!)

Added SMP support for up to 16 instances (using processes and shared hash memory Very Lazy SMP!) only tested up to 4 instances! This use of shared memory for all hash tables (transposition, eval and pawn) means that the reported memory usage may appear to be incorrect depending on what program you use to get the information. Beware! Fixed very embarrassing bug in passer eval calculating the distance between two squares that could cause any number of other issues, even a hang or crash Added support for the cores command which changes the number of processes being used when SMP is enabled. The initial value will be based on ini file settings. Added a tb command which toggles tablebase support. The initial value will be based on ini file settings. Added Mate in N announcements to PV output when applicable Fixed a bug in saving scores near mate to the hash table Fixed a bug in determining valid knight outpost squares Fixed text output bug in kibitzing opening book moves on ICC Fixed a rare bug in determining material draw Fixed a bug in which Myrddin would hang or crash if the '.' command (used by Chessmaster GUI) was sent while Myrddin was pondering Fixed a bug that could cause hash memory allocation to fail if more than 1GB was requested. Thanks to Graham Banks for reporting this issue.

Many thanks to the following brilliant people who helped/guided me (either directly or indirectly) in countless ways with their work:

Lars Hallerstrm - The Mad Swedish Tester! I would never release anything without his (grudging) approval.

Dann Corbit Without whose generous help, huge speed improvements, bug fixes and general suggestions, the first bitboard version (v0.86) would not have been released

Pham Hong Nguyen Firstchess

Please send bug reports and general suggestions/comments to JohnVMerlino@gmail.com.

Thanks for playing!

John Merlino

Read more here:

computer_chess:engines:myrddin:index - Computer Chess Wiki