CBC.ca | Apple 'pulls 60 VPNs from China App Store' BBC News In January, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that all developers offering VPNs must obtain a license from the government. And Apple said it was required to remove some VPN apps from its store because they didn't comply ... Apple Removes Apps From China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship Apple removes VPN apps in China to adhere to new rules |
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Samantha Madison
ROME This years Project Fibonacci STEAM conference and speaker series will feature a number of high-profile speakers, including Shark Tanks Daymond John.
The second annual event will take place at The Beeches in Rome and other surrounding locations, ending Saturday, Aug. 5.
The event hopes to build on last years headway, which led to about 10 internships and several new jobs, said Andy Drozd, president and chief scientist at ANDRO Computational Solutions.
"This says a lot in our efforts to revitalize youth talent and spur on new ideas in our own backyard," he said in a news release.
The Project Fibonacci Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization focusing on strengthening the workforce and economic development for the region using science, technology, engineering, arts and math education as a catalyst.
Students in 11th grade through seniors in college come from all over New York and beyond for the one-week event, taking part in immersive, hands-on education that is both team- and project-based.
"Last year, Project Fibonacci brought in nearly $340,000 to our local Mohawk Valley economy for a one-week event," Drozd said. "We want to continue to grow and increase that impact in 2017 and beyond as well as synergize our activities with other local and regional workforce education, economic development, entrepreneurial and start-up initiatives to revitalize our region and capitalize on its many strengths."
Last years speakers included astrophysicist Alex Filippenko, astronaut Jeanette Epps, astronaut and artist Alan Bean, neuroscientist David Eagleman and actor Alan Alda.
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Event to feature technology, science speakers - The Times Telegram
Marketers and social theorists love to talk about digital natives. This group is supposedly a generation of early adopters under the age of about 35, uniquely adept at technology compared to their older counterparts. But according to a recent editorial in Nature, these digital natives are a figment of our collective imaginationabout as easy to find as a a yeti with a smartphone.
The editorial points to a review paper published this June in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education, which concluded that information-savvy digital natives do not exist. Despite assertions that younger generations learn differently and require specialized, multimedia teaching strategies because they grew up with smartphones and the web, the authors say that there is no evidence to suggest that digital natives are more tech-savvy or good at multi-tasking than older generations.
This idea of the digital native was born out of the a 2001 essay by educator Marc Prensky, who claimed that a new generation was especially skilled at processing multiple streams of information and using technology, reports Discover Magazine. Prensky argued the world should adapt its teaching methods accordingly. But Paul Kirschner, co-author of the Teaching and Teacher Education study and a professor of educational psychology at the Open University in the Netherlands, argues that we hurt, rather than help, students learn when we assume that they have unique technological skills. We have to treat people as human, cognitive learners and stop considering one specific group to have special powers, Kirschner tells Discover.
This idea is backed up by other research showing that millennials do not necessarily possess special skills at basic computer programs compared to older generations. Research has also shown that multitasking is neither a special domain of the young nor an effective way to get good results for virtually anyone.
If the idea of digital natives was just jargon that advertisers used to sell to the under-30 crowd, all this might not matter much. But the idea that digital native are fundamentally different is influencing everything from the way curriculums are designed to the way companies shape their corporate work environments.
A better approach might be to rethink how we define generations. Digital natives have not developed unique intellectual abilities from their proximity to technology because basic human cognition doesnt change from generation to generation. But Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, argues that categorizing people into distinct generations can be useful for certain things. She points out that millennials show significant differences from older peers in terms of their workplace preferences, life goals, religious participation, alcohol and drug use, and trust in institutions. In other words, generations may have different habits and world viewsbut the way people learn wont change so quickly.
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New research shows digital natives are no better at technology than the rest of us - Quartz
USU's Innovation Campus
Posted: Monday, July 31, 2017 12:00 am
State agency hopes to encourage commercial development of technology being developed at USU and other research places Bill Walter cachevalleydaily.com |
This past Thursday, lawmakers, members of the media and members of U-STAR (which stands for Utah Science, Technology and Research) paid a visit to the Innovation Campus at USU to see some of the ground-breaking technology as applied to batteries, autonomous vehicles and a 20-seat electric bus that charges itself wirelessly through tracks embedded in the roadway.
While not yet available commercially, many lawmakers are hoping that the state can move entrepreneurs to harness some of this new research and do something with it. On KVNUs For the People program on Friday, USTAR managing director Brian Somers said the bus was really amazing.
You could have a bus that could charge itself and do some continuous loops around a given area without having to stop and recharge. It also allows you to have smaller battery packs on the bus which reduces weight and other things. So its a really promising and interesting technology that we were able to witness, Somers said.
He said the bus has great acceleration and no emissions. Somers explained that USTAR has a very unique mission as a state economic development agency. Its purpose is to maintain a healthy technology eco-system within the state of Utah and to assist in developing commercially many of the technologies that are being tested and researched at institutions such as Utah State University.
You can find out more at http://www.ustar.org and innovation.usu.edu.
Posted in News, Local News on Monday, July 31, 2017 12:00 am.
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YourStory.com | Do you find solving problems using technology motivating? #TalkTechToHer YourStory.com ThoughtWorks challenges passionate technologists with interesting business problems. Here, equal opportunity ensures that every employee works with cutting edge tech and builds solutions that reap high impact results. In recognition of the diverse ... |
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Do you find solving problems using technology motivating? #TalkTechToHer - YourStory.com
Andre Ethier and Adrian Gonzalez, a pair of Dodgers veterans recovering from herniated disks, took batting practice on Sunday afternoon. Both are likely to begin rehabilitation assignments in August, with Gonzalez expected back from the disabled list before Ethier.
Ethier is likely to be activated when the rosters expand in September.
Manager Dave Roberts watched the session before Sundays game against San Francisco. Gonzalez also took part in a simulated game with nine at-bats. Ethier impressed Roberts with the intensity of his approach.
For Adrian and Andre, just seeing the aggressive swings, seeing pitches come at them for the first time live, that was a good step in the right direction for both those guys, Roberts said.
The Dodgers placed Gonzalez on the 60-day disabled list on Saturday. Gonzalez, who hasnt played since June 11, is eligible to return on Aug. 11. He has homered once this season. He is expected join triple-A Oklahoma City later this week for rehab games.
Ethier, who injured his back in late March, has not played for the Dodgers this season. He missed the first five months in 2016 after breaking his leg last spring. He returned as a pinch-hitter for the playoffs. Ethier will compete to play a similar role in 2017.
Kershaw plays catch again
Clayton Kershaw played catch for the third day in a row, as he increases activity while recovering from a lower back strain. Kershaw will not join the team on the road during visits to Atlanta and New York this week. Kershaw said he expected to meet the team in Arizona next week to continue his rehabilitation program.
Roberts declined to reveal the next step of Kershaws rehab. The team has not announced a timetable for his return.
What the next progression is, thats for the training staff, Roberts said.
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Some 20 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking, and nearly 70 percent of those are trapped in forced labor.The International Labour Organization reports that this dark web of modern day slavery generates roughly $150 Billion in profits.Law enforcement agencies lack deep data about trafficking patterns, specific sub-types, and locations, and victims rarely have access to channels of communication for help. Less than one percent of victims are identified globally each year. Its hard to wrap your mind around the scale of the problem and the avenues for solutions.
How can the progress of an intervention be measured when the dynamics and drivers of the problem are so difficult to determine? Polaris has pioneered an effort to map out the landscape and break it up into discernible segments, ensuring that interventions can be tailored to the specific context. Using aggregated data, Polaris has been able to create atypology of human trafficking, a first step in creating concrete action steps for combating the scourge. Seeing the problem in higher resolution allowslaw enforcement, border officials, service providers, and governments to be better equipped to identify trafficking in its various forms and then to take targeted action to prevent it.
Polaris reviewed more than 32,000 cases of human trafficking documented between December 2007 and December 2016 through its operation of the National Human Trafficking Hotline and BeFree Textlinethe largest data set on human trafficking in the United States. They analyzed the data and developed a classification system that identifies 25 distinct types of human trafficking in the U.S. Each has its own business model, trafficker profiles, recruitment strategies, victim profiles, and methods of control. This detailed typology brings the problem of human trafficking out of the shadows and into sharper focus.
This is a huge step towards better understanding the unique facets of the larger problem. The critical next step is to get all actors, now armed with this data, to collaborate on solutions and to create shared methodologies to track the effectiveness of interventions informed by the typology. Just as Polaris marshaled a sea of data in the U.S., on the international scale, theInternational Labour Organization and the Walk Free Foundationare working in collaboration to determine a baseline by which to measure the magnitude of the problem globally and map progress against target 8.7 of the SDGs to end modern slavery.
To turn the tide on the problem, we need accurate and actionable data that informs cross-sector collaboration. Polaris is showing that its possible to employ rigorous data science to unpack the ecosystems of modern slavery, now its time to put that science to work.
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Human Trafficking: Where's the Progress and What Comes Next? - Skoll Foundation
Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
The New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics have reportedly made "zero progress" on their trade discussions regarding A's ace Sonny Gray.
Bob Klapischof theBergen Recordreported the potential deal could come down to the trade deadline wire.
The Yankees have focused for weeks on acquiring Gray, as they hope to bolster the front of their rotation for a playoff push.
Gray, 27, is 6-5 with a 3.43 ERA and 1.18 WHIP this season. He's in his fourth full season with the A's and has bounced back from a miserable 2016 campaign to regain his status among the AL's most promising young starters. The potential prospect haul for Oakland could be considerable, as Gray cannot become a free agent until 2020.
The Athletics pushed Gray's scheduled start from Sunday to Monday night, likely to avoid injury in case of a trade.Buster Olney andJerry Crasnickof ESPN.com reported Oakland general manager Billy Beane is willing to table Gray trade talks until the offseason if current offers do not improve by Monday's 4 p.m. ET deadline.
The Yankees are said to be unwilling to sendoutfielderClint Frazieror infield prospectGleyber Torres to Oakland in exchange for Gray.
Perhaps seeing their chances for Gray dwindling, the Yankees acquired Jaime Garcia from the Minnesota Twins over the weekend. Garcia should slot into the back of a New York rotation that has been inconsistent for most of the season.
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Yankees Trade Rumors: NY Made 'Zero Progress' in Sonny Gray Talks with Athletics - Bleacher Report
Visual effects studio Weta Digital has begun work on the four sequels to James Camerons Avatar, one of the highest-grossing films ever.
The Wellington, New Zealand-based shop was most recently in the limelight for its motion-capture work on War for the Planet of the Apes.
What Joe Letteri and Weta Digital bring to these stories is impossible to quantify, said Cameron, referring to Weta Digitals senior visual effects supervisor. Since we made Avatar, Weta continued to prove themselves as doing the best CG animation, the most human, the most alive, the most photo-realistic effects in the world.
He added, And of course, that now means I can push them to take it even further.
The depth of talent at Weta is impressive and the culture of excellence is one that matches how we do things at Lightstorm, said Jon Landau, producer on all the avatar movies. Lightstorm Entertainment is the production company behind Avatar and other Cameron-directed features, including Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Titanic.
Landau hinted at breakthroughs to come. We also know that these next films promise to be even more ambitious than the first film, he noted.
Avatar is the ideal type of film for us, said Letteri. Jims vision for the world of Pandora was always so much bigger than what we created for the first film. Helping him expand the language of cinema through new narratives set in such an expansive universe is the type of opportunity that rarely comes along twice. Projects like this allow everyone involved to push themselves to do their best work.
The excitement at Weta around Avatar is obvious and the fact is that we have already been working on it for a number of years, said Weta Digital executive producer David Conley. During that period we have grown the company to a size and model that allows us to expand beyond any one project. This enables us to find a mix of other films that can help us grow along with Avatar, as is the case with Alita: Battle Angel, Avengers: Infinity War and Mortal Engines, to name a few of the other films we are currently working on.
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'Avatar' Sequels Progress to Next Level as Weta Digital Begins Visual Effects Work - Variety
Sacramento Bee | Second wildfire starts up near Jamestown as crews make progress on Jacksonville burn Sacramento Bee A second wildfire erupted south of Jamestown on Sunday afternoon, close to another blaze where crews were making progress. The new Twist Fire had reached about 150 acres as of 6:15 p.m., the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection ... |
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By Steve Krause
Ive been sitting here for two days trying to figure out a profound way to start this column that I had a funny feeling I was going to write. And then it dawned on me that there really wasnt a way to express my overall feelings about David Bowie that contained the right amount of intellectual gravitas and dewy-eyed admiration.
Thats because to me, David Bowie was, first, last and always, delightfully daffy. Weird. Willing to go to whatever outrageous lengths necessary willing to take on almost any persona and run with it, whether it was to relieve his boredom or to keep people guessing. Whatever it was, Bowie was game.
And that could be because despite all of his antics, his costumes, his glitter, his whatever else, David (nee Jones) Bowie knew he could get away with it because, beneath it all, the man had talent oozing out of him.
Theres nothing really intellectual about any of that, nor was there anything really intellectual about Bowie. He wasnt Yes or the Moody Blues, or anyone else penning metaphysical meanderings for the masses. He wasnt John Lennon or Bob Dylan, writing music that stood as representative of a generation stuck between hedonism and eternal angst.
He was unique. He gave us androgyny, and when he was tired of that, he gave us something else, whether it was the soul sound of Young Americans, or the Thin White Duke days of Golden Years, or his reincarnated disco king of the Lets Dance era (for which the late Stevie Ray Vaughan played lead guitar).
Stripped of all his definitions, David Bowie wrote, and sang, killer songs. It didnt matter what he looked like or how much cocaine he was ingesting (and apparently it was quite a bit, especially in his emaciated Thin White Duke look).
In whatever iteration Bowie presented himself to the world, there was sure to be great music to go along with it. His early years were full of wonderfully innovative music, from Changes to Space Oddity, to Starman. And when he grew tired of that glam rock persona, he bade farewell to it with his album Diamond Dogs, that contained one of his stone-classics, Rebel, Rebel.
Bowie had the knack of easing out of one role and into another seamlessly. He took a lot of flack in some circles for Young Americans, but even if it represented a radical departure at the time, it was still a good song.
To me, that was Bowies gift to rock n roll. Songs. Some groups made their mark with albums. He did his with songs and not just the ones he sang by himself. He gave Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople All The Young Dudes, and it became a huge smash (and, personally, one of the real thrills of seeing the J. Geils/Ian Hunter doubleheader last August was listening to that song, which closed the opening set).
His collaborations with Iggy Pop made him better and his protege famous.
He went into the studio one day with Freddie Mercury and Queen, ostensibly to record another song. Next thing you know, they were collaborating on Under Pressure, one of the real strong eighties songs.
He even sang with Bing Crosby. As the story goes, he and Der Bingle were to do a Christmas show (which, ironically, was wrapped up about two days before Crosby collapsed and died of a heart attack after playing 18 holes of golf). The plan was to sing a duet of The Little Drummer Boy, except that Bowie hated the song. So, a counterpointed tune was written for him that became the Peace on Earth part of a song that is now one of the staples of the Christmas season.
Bowie went through several other phases during his career, and they always ended up yielding signature tunes, whether Fame, Ashes to Ashes, and my personal favorite, Heroes.
Bowie was more fortunate than many of the heavyweights among the circles in which he traveled. John Lennon was murdered at the age of 40. George Harrison died of cancer at 59. Through the last 30 years, weve seen so many of our childhood rock idols cut down by some combination of bad living and natural causes. Frank Zappa anybody? Chris Squire? Jerry Garcia? The list is long and there are too many names to mention.
Bowie died of cancer Sunday night at the age of 69. And while that might be too much for some to comprehend, when you see how some of these people including Bowie lived, you wonder how its possible theyve lasted as long as they have. Keith Richards? David Crosby?
Bowies musical legacy is writing a string of tremendous songs that, when you line them up and play them back-to-back-to-back on Spotify, as one of my friends said the other night, youre gobsmacked by how great he really was.
He also added an element of risk and campiness to the genre that has served it well over the years. How many times has Madonna reinvented herself? Do you suppose she thought of Bowie the king of reinvention every time she launched another incarnation? How about Boy George? Do you think hed have ever seen the light of day were it not for Bowie?
Think of all the rock n roll acts that were long on camp if not always talent. All of them can thank David Bowie for making that possible. Every time I saw Twisted Sister on MTV in the 1980s, all I could think about was how proud Bowie must have been to see that.
In typical Bowie fashion, he left us with one more bit of bizarre theater by which to remember him. If you havent already seen it, look up the Lazarus video on YouTube. Itll haunt you.
The journey is over for Major Tom, regrettably. But what a trip it was.
Steve Krause can be reached at skrause@itemlive.com.
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Fresno Bee (blog) | Marin County gets another smug reprieve from housing quotas Fresno Bee (blog) ... Will wrote at the time, a Baedeker guide to a desolate region, the monochromatic inner landscape of persons whose life is consumption, of goods and salvations, and whose moral makeup is the curious modern combination of hedonism and earnestness.. |
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Marin County gets another smug reprieve from housing quotas - Fresno Bee (blog)
It's an unlikely encounter, but popular comedian and provocative activist Russell Brand met this week with acclaimed Oxford professor and Christian apologist Alister McGrath to discuss the question 'Is there any point in God?'
The pair met for a wide-ranging, reflective conversation for Brand's podcast Under the Skin,in which Brand meets guests from academia, pop culture and the arts to explore 'what's beneath the surface of people we admire, of the ideas that define our time, of the history we are told'.
As an Anglican priest, molecular biologist and Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University, McGrath straddles the worlds of both science and religion. He and Brand discussed the pressure points, even though as McGrath sees it, both science and religion should work together to give a 'big picture' of the universe.
The tension between science and religion, he said, has often been 'all about power, who do you trust? Who's the top guy?' McGrath spoke from his own background as a committed atheist growing up in violent, religiously divided Northern Ireland in the 1960s. He had thought: 'If there was no religion, there'd be no religious violence...religion was a malevolent religious force.'
McGrath was once committed to a strict materialism that judged truth only on what could be empirically proved. But, he found, 'the really big things like "What's life all about?", "What is the good?", these lie beyond proof. We've got to go beyond what we can prove to lead meaningful lives.'
Rather than it being a combative debate, the conversation saw Brand frequently resonating with McGrath's ideas. He said he liked the idea of Christ's call to 'die to self' and being 'decentred by something bigger', and the ideas of deeper layers of truth and meaning to reality that McGrath spoke about.
However, Brand also said he was 'sympathetic' with the atheist worldview, given all the wrongs that have been committed in the name of religion. And he noted that in contemporary culture 'science' seems to hold far more value than religion.
While religion seems to be often bound up in power struggles, and demands faith where there is no proof, 'science has solved the problems where mankind most needed them to be solved, dealing with death, disease, fear...Connection, communication, healing...all of these problems seem to have been resolved [by science]', Brand said.
But, he added, a void remains. He said: 'My fear of atheism is that if there is nothing else, the material, the mechanical...then why not materialism? Why not individualism...without a deeper truth, for me there is only hedonism. Only indulgence.'
McGrath agreed, saying: 'What we need is a way of thinking that says no, you're part of something bigger, you need to go figure out what that is and transcend yourself, stop making the universe about you.'
Reflecting on his previous podcast interviews, Brand reflected that many of his guests had shared a common idea, a sense that human beings, particularly in the west, 'need a vision' wearied by the dead-end, cynical, hedonistic worldview of consumer-capitalism.
Again, McGrath agreed, saying that materialism 'boxes us in'.
He said: 'This is an age of fading dreams dying visions...I think we need hope. [But] that's not about being optimistic. No, it's saying things might actually get a lot worse. But there is meaning and once we see that and embrace it we can cope with whatever gets thrown at us and we feel we can do something with it, and there's a bigger vision of which we're a part and it empowers us to keep going even when it seems the world is falling to bits around us.'
The full conversation can be listened to here.
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Russell Brand meets Oxford Christian apologist Alister McGrath to ... - ChristianToday
Shashi Kapoors character Rajkumar says it best at the end of Jawani Jaanemann from Namak Halaal (1982): Wah wah, wah wah, wah, splendid.
Bappi Lahiris irresistibly catchy tune, beautifully belted out by club song queen Asha Bhosle, is set in movie set heaven. For once, this trip into golden-hued intemperance actually has a context.
Rajkumar is the owner of a hotel that has previously seen performances by black-faced men, women in shiny colour-coordinated clothes and Arjun (Amitabh Bachchan) channeling Peter Sellers from The Party (1968). Rajkumar is unaware that a plot to kill him has been hatched by his manager (Ranjit). It involves a honey trap in the form of Nisha (Parveen Babi), a cabaret artist with dubious dancing skills but estimable seductive powers.
Nisha initially demurs when told that Rajkumar must be liberated from life. But she accepts the assignment and plays hard to get when she lands up at the hotel. When sent a bouquet through loyal waiter and Rajkumars eventual savior Arjun, Nisha spurns the flowers and sends her employer a cactus plant in return.
In the long tradition of men who are not used to being rebuffed, especially when they resemble Shashi Kapoor, Rajkumar is initially puzzled and, when he finally sets eyes on Nisha, gobsmacked.
Who wouldnt be? The dance floor is decorated with glistening golden-hued floral and cacti-inspired props. Nisha is resplendent in a shimmering lam gown and matching accessories, and she teases the drunk Rajkumar with loaded lyrics. The hunter is now the hunted, she informs him as her hands jerk out from her waist in robotic movements.
Parveen Babi wasnt the best dancer of the 1980s, but she was easily one of popular Hindi cinemas stunners. Terpsichorean excellence isnt the point in this unabashed tribute to hedonism in the decade that embraced it.
Babi is as ornamental as the cacti props in Prakash Mehras blockbuster, which is a multi-starrer in the tradition of 80s films but reserves its best lines and scenes for Bachchan. This is the movie with the monologue in which Arjun displays his English speaking skills. Its the one in which Shashi Kapoor stands by like a sport and Smita Patils character submits herself to an icky rain dance song.
Babi has another great moment of seduction in Raat Baaki, in which she is clad in a shiny black gown and sings of the unknown pleasures of the night. Its another smooth and catchy number, superbly rendered by Bhosle, but the bling and cacti are missing.
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Picture the song: Bring out the eyeshades for 'Jawani Jaanemann' from 'Namak Halaal' - Scroll.in
China's ruling Communist Party cannot rest on its laurels in the fight against corruption, President Xi Jinping said ahead of a key party congress later this year where he will cement his grip on power.
Since assuming power in late 2012, Xi has pursued a relentless campaign against corruption, warning that the problem could threaten the party's ability to retain power, though some analysts say he is also taking down political rivals.
The progress made in governing the party since the last party congress held nearly five years ago had been praised by the people, the official Xinhua news agency late on Thursday cited Xi as saying.
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"But we absolutely cannot be self-satisfied and blindly optimistic. Strictly governing the party is still a heavy burden," Xi told a meeting of provincial and ministerial government officials.
"We will forever be on the path of comprehensive, strict governance of the party. One political party, one political authority, it's prospects and fate rest on the support of the people," Xi said.
The comments come days after China's anti-corruption watchdog said the former party boss in the southwestern city of Chongqing, Sun Zhengcai, had been placed under investigation for "suspected serious violations of discipline", a term that can encompass everything from taking bribes to not toeing the party line.
Sun, the latest senior official implicated in the anti-corruption campaign, was once considered a contender for top leadership.
He had been party chief in Chongqing, one of China's most important cities, until an abrupt announcement this month that he had been replaced by Chen Miner, a rising political star close to Xi.
Chen is seen as a potential new member of the party's elite Standing Committee when it is unveiled after a reshuffle at the upcoming congress.
Xi's anti-corruption crackdown has punished more than a million party members, jailed top military figures and retired security tsar Zhou Yongkang, the most senior official toppled for corruption since 1949.
Separately, the official People's Daily warned in a commentary on Friday about corruption in the military, a central theme of Xi's ambitious military modernization program.
"In this era, there is corrosion from the worship of money and hedonism," it wrote, in a piece ahead of next week's 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.
"This has dispirited some people's thinking, and depressed their will, drying up their spirits," the paper added.
A strong military needs to have a firm base in the rule of law, it said.
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China's Xi: We Can't Be 'Blindly Optimistic' On Corruption Inside The Communist Party - Newsweek
I can get myself into a lot of trouble sometimes by making a blanket statement, but Im not sure that anyone ever rejects the Bible or Jesus Christ on philosophical grounds. Israel certainly did not.Israels decision to reject Christ was based solely on moral grounds (Gods definition of holiness differed from that of Israel).
It is my observation that the man who continues in his rejection of Christ has some hidden sin somewhere, a sin that he has no intention of letting go.Hes in love with it. He wants to keep what God declares is reprobate, and the result is a personal, moral conundrum.
At that point, because there still remains some shame should the sin become public (unless, of course, you are beyond shame: Ephesians5:12; Philip3:19), man hides behind a straw man an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.We call it a philosophical choice or an intellectual crisis and reject God, when the real problem is that man is morally reprobate.
Your rejecting God has nothing to do with Gods creating the world in six 24-hour days or the fact that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it.
When we love our sin, we can come up with a thousand reasons to stay away from the cross.But when a person gives up his pride, puts away his sin and looks at the light that is in Christ and His gospel, that man will put away his rationalism and atheism.He will never be able to tell you why because psychology can never explain the new birth. But that man will smile and agree that the light of God has flooded his heart and soul.
A blind man can argue until he is blue in the face that there is no such thing as light but that doesnt make it so. Jesus said, For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved (John3:20).If that means anything, it means that people who reject God reject Him for His teachings on moral grounds.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil(John3:19).
Disregarding the light God has given you is bad enough (man is condemned already John3:18).But to reject the light you were given is the ultimate slap in the face to a holy God. Jesus called the men of His day stiff-necked and hard of heart.They had a perverse hatred of light because it interfered with their sin.
And thats mans problem today.
Do you have a question? You can contact Pastor MacDonald by writing to this paper or New Testament Baptist Church, 150 E. Trinity Acres, Safford, AZ 85546; e-mail:info@ntbcsafford.org.
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Lucknow: BJP chief Amit Shah targeted the Congress over dynasty politics on Sunday and said that the lack of internal democracy in a political party results in it being dominated by caste or family.
Addressing a meeting of intellectuals in Lucknow, Shah drew parallel between the BJP and the Congress over who will be the next chief of the two parties. Shah asked the audience that who will succeed Sonia Gandhi in the Congress, to which the people responded saying Rahul Gandhi. He then posed the same question about the BJP.
"Can anyone tell me who will be the next president of BJP?, No one knows. A person with nirmal charitra (pious character) will head the BJP. The president of BJP is not elected on the basis of dynasty, caste or religion, but on the basis of merit," Shah said.
File image of BJP chief Amit Shah. PTI
"Internal democracy provides an opportunity for talent to develop naturally. In the absence of internal democracy in any political party, it ends up being run by gharanas (families). Among the 1,650 political parties in India, very few have internal democracy, and BJP is one of them," he said.
He said in the absence of internal democracy, a party cannot serve the purpose of democracy and incompetent heirs are chosen to head them.
"...Then these political parties become family-based or caste-based. Talent is not given any importance there, and talented people are sidelined. Parties like the SP and the BSP decide their waaris (heir). Sometimes there is a mistake in deciding the heir as well," the BJP chief said, apparently hinting at the falling out of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Shah said principles and development should also be two vital characteristics of a political party. "In absence of principles in a political party, casteism and family politics take over," Shah said.
He said the BJP is a party which follows "cultural nationalism", both in letter and spirit, and also believes in Antyodaya a model which touches all sections of the society, and aims to disseminating the benefits of development to the last strata of the society.
"Since 1950 to 2017, in the journey from Jan Sangh to the BJP, the basic principle has been Antyodaya, integral humanism and cultural nationalism," Shah said.
Shah claimed states without a BJP government have been "taken over by scams, corruption and dynasty politics.
Talking about Uttar Pradesh, he said the BJP will script history in terms of development.
"Owing to financial indiscipline, a term Bimaru (laggard) states was coined in the 1980s for Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have come out of the Bimaru bracket. Bihar had shed the tag, when we were in government. There were some roadblocks, but day before yesterday things have moved in the right direction.
"We want to promise that UP will be out of the Bimaru bracket in the next five years. I assure you that under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath, we will script a new story of development of UP and make it the best state," Shah said.
He also claimed that the country's growth came down to 4.4 percent under the previous Congress-led UPA government. However, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it went up to seven percent.
Taking a jibe at former prime minister Manmohan Singh, the BJP chief said his government suffered from "policy paralysis".
"Every minister assumed himself to be the prime minister and no one considered him as the prime minister. Today under Narendra Modi, the BJP has completed three years in government, but even the rivals could not level allegations of corruption against us," Shah said.
"Wherever the BJP forms the government, it works for the welfare of the people, is transparent and decisive," he said. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya also addressed the meeting.
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Amit Shah says no internal democracy in Congress, claims BJP chiefs are picked on merit - Firstpost
An Israeli border policeman shouts at journalists during clashes with between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters near the Jewish settlement of Bet El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah October 30, 2015.. (photo credit:REUTERS)
During the past two weeks of unrest in and around the Old City of Jerusalem, police forces have restricted access to journalists attempting to cover the events.
On occasion they have used violence.
Sinan Abu Maizer, a cameraman with Reuters, suffered a concussion after being beaten by police with a baton near Lions Gate a week ago Thursday, according to a complaint addressed to Jerusalem District Police commander Yoram Halevy by the Association for Human Rights. The incident is captured on video.
In another incident, Faiz Abu Rmeleh, a freelance journalist and a member of the photojournalism group ActiveStills, was arrested Tuesday night while covering clashes at Lions Gate. A video seems to contradict police charges that Abu Rmeleh was aggressive. Following Abu Rmelehs arrest, the Union of Journalists in Israel published a statement calling on the police to provide clarifications and explanations.
Jerusalem Post chief photographer Marc Israel Sellems ID card was confiscated last Sunday, and police only returned it to him after he left the Old City. On Wednesday, police forced Sellem to erase photos, and an officer told him hes shit like all journalists.
Other journalists who have suffered from police brutality or who have been prevented from covering the events in Jerusalem include Ynet websites Hassan Shaalan, who was pushed to the ground near the Lions Gate; Haaretzs reporter Yotam Berger; and photographer Emil Salman, who were prevented access to the Lions Gate while tourists and others were allowed in; Sky News Arabias Nidal Kanaaneh, who was harassed while broadcasting; and Shireen Younes, who was attacked by police at the Al-Makassed hospital, adjacent to the Lions Gate.
While we sympathize with the pressures under which police have been forced to work after two of their colleagues were shot to death by terrorists on July 14, nothing justifies lashing out at journalists trying to do their job. A free press is the lifeblood of democracy. With relative quiet restored, Jerusalem police should now do some soul searching.
No coherent explanation has been given by the police for the way journalists have been treated.
First, it was claimed that the very presence of journalists near the Muslims who congregated to protest the use of metal detectors causes unrest and undermines the security situation. Then, on Thursday, Halevy said during a press conference that the restrictions were in place for the journalists own good to protect them from danger.
What seems more likely is that police officers view journalists, at best, as a nuisance and, at worst, as a fifth column who expose inconvenient facts about police behavior or generate slanted news items that present Israel in a bad light.
Police attacks on journalists cannot be seen in isolation from derogatory statements made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Likud against the news media. These statements are often calculated to appeal to public opinion on the Right, which tends to be critical of the press.
There is good reason to be critical of news outlets that intentionally present Israel in a negative light or fail to contextualize stories in an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state. However, it is not the job of the police to ensure that news coverage of Israel is fair.
Attempts to use force to prevent individuals considered by police to be enemies of Israel ultimately backfire.
These incidents end up being documented and go viral on social media, erroneously presenting Israel as a police state that stifles free press.
In an age of Internet, every cellphone becomes a source of raw news. If police ban coverage by professionals like the Posts Sellem, they allow private individuals, often Palestinians taking part in the rioting, to control media coverage.
The only way to fight negative news media coverage is to ensure that a broad spectrum of news outlets is given access to what is going on, whether it be in Jerusalem or elsewhere. Allowing diverse perspectives to be articulated in a free and open atmosphere lies at the heart of democracy. The discerning intellects of the public not the police will decide for themselves which narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to accept.
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When Chinese social media users on microblog Weibo came across an almost illegible post earlier this month, many of them would have instantly recognized it as Martian, a coded language based on Chinese characters that was very popular many years ago.
It was a version of a post by a prominent retired sociologist and sex adviser, Li Yinhe, in which she called for the elimination of censorship in China. The original post went viral on Weibo, which is similar to Twitter and has some 340 million monthly active users. More than 60,000 users (link in Chinese) shared the postunsurprisingly, it was soon deleted.
Chinese internet users and media observers have noticed tightening online restrictions in recent months, as stricter internet rules for online journalism and a new cybersecurity law came into effect in June. This month, in the wake of the death of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in custody, pictures vanished from private conversations on messaging platform WeChat, and similar blocks were noticed on WhatsApp, the last product from Facebook available in the country, and hotels announced they were reconfiguring internet access to comply with Chinese law.
To navigate around restrictions, Chinese internet users have often engaged in linguistic acrobatics, from code words, slang, and coded images, to dipping into other languages. Recently, some have turned to Martian (huo xing wen), a linguistic invention from the early days of the Chinese-language internet that had fallen out of favor and now is resurfacing.
Martian dates back to at least 2004 but its origins are mysterious. Its use appears to have begun among young people in Taiwan for online chatting, and then it spread to the mainland. The characters randomly combine, split, and rebuild traditional Chinese characters, Japanese characters, pinyin, and sometimes English and kaomoji, a mixture of symbols that conveys an emotion (e.g. O(_)O: Happy). For example, the word (y g), which means one of or one thing is transformed into in Martian language. It replaces with the number in a circle and adds a small square to the left of the traditional version of .
A Weibo user who goes by the alias Tangnadeshuo, and is a Martian-language user, says its a marker for Chinese people born after 1990: We use it to make fun and sneer. Its a cultural symbol of the post-1990s [generation], he said.
Its not an easy language to masterthe same Chinese character can have more than one Martian counterpart.
Even so, Martian language fever swept across the strait as players chatted in popular online games like Audition Online (link in Chinese) and then flooded onto Tencent QQ, a widely-used instant messaging app at the time. Soon creative Chinese developed new Martian language input methods for keyboards. The language has online translation tools.
It was very popular back in my school days People used Martian language in their ID and profile descriptions on QQ, Lotus Ruan, a research fellow at University of Torontos Citizen Lab, which conducts research on censorship, told Quartz.
Though its hard to read, young Chinese adopted the language not only because it was new and cool but also because it was incomprehensible to parents and teachers. Parents in paternalistic China seldom regard teenagers messages and diaries as their private materials. But they werent familiar with the transformation rules of Martian (and some even worried that using Martian might affect other language skills). Gossiping in Martian prevented many moms (link in Chinese) from understanding childrens messages in QQ and prevented teachers from reading notes passed to classmates.
Although Martian language is not as popular now as it was five to 10 years ago, people will still resort to it from time to time to circumvent the censors, Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, told Quartz.
Internet censorship works by filtering information for sensitive keywords. Research by Citizen Labs Jason Q. Ng shows that a Weibo post will first be reviewed by a machine and flagged if it contains certain keywords that are blacklisted. Human censors also review published posts. Using Martian can prolong the longevity of a post. If the Martian language [versions] of certain keywords are not on the blacklist already, it can be used to bypass censorship until a human reviewer censors it, she said.
It isnt only the Chinese whove resorted to using workarounds derived from Martian, such 7-1, 5-1 to refer to the June 4 Tiananmen Square protests (the math in the workaround refers to the date 6/4). In 2014 when the British Embassy in China published a 2013 human rights report, it posted (link in Chinese) the title in Martian: 2013 was written as 2013MZ. The new titl breaks down the word (rights) into its two parts , replaces with its synonym , and changes (democracy) into the initials of its pinyin MZ.
In the face of renewed efforts to ban the use of individual VPNs and crack down on online video streaming services, Chinese netizens have become increasingly concerned about their ability to communicate online. Earlier this month, a Weibo user posted in Martian language (link in Chinese and Martian language): From today on, I will post on Weibo in Martian language. Because if I post in Chinese I will be gagged. Guys you can have a try.
After the sexologist Li Yinhes anti-censorship July 9 post in Chinese was deleted in Chinait can still be read outside Chinait was reposted several times in Martian. Several of those posts got deleted too, most likely by a human censor, but one still survives.
Ruan notes that just because a Martian term gets blocked on one platform doesnt mean it wont be useful on another. Internet users should also note that censorship in China is not monolithic, she said. If a Martian-language keyword is censored on Weibo it does not necessarily mean that it is censored on other platforms such as WeChat.
Still, as Chinas sensitive-terms blacklist gets refined, Martian language may become less helpful. Also Chinese Martian users trying to evade censorship shouldnt ignore the possibility that, like them, people working in internet censorship groups might once have been Martian-speaking teens too.
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In China, internet censors are accidentally helping revive an invented Martian language - Quartz
Accordingly, the President has signed another law requiring that chat apps identify users through their phone numbers after January 1st, 2018. Some messaging clients already encourage you to attach an account to a phone number, but this makes it mandatory -- Facebook and others can't reject the idea if they're prefer to give you some kind of anonymity. The measure also demands that operators limit users' access if they're spreading illegal material.
The timing likely isn't coincidental. Russia is holding a presidential election in March, and banning technology like VPNs will make it harder for voters to see news that questions Putin's authority. Likewise, you may be less likely to organize a protest if you know that the police can trace anonymous chats back to you through your phone number. As with China's VPN crackdown, Russian officials are trying to control the online conversation at a crucial moment to make sure the powers that be go unchallenged.
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Russian censorship law bans proxies and VPNs - Engadget - Engadget