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Saudi Arabia's Sudden Interest in Sudan Is Not about Friendship. It Is About Fear
Posted on May 7, 2019 by martyrashrakat
By Nesrine Malik – The Guardian
In the days following the 'Yom Kippur' war, after the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, agreed to a ceasefire and subsequent peace treaty with 'Israel,' he faced questions at home about his climb-down. When confronted on his capitulation, he is reported to have said that he was prepared for battle with 'Israel' but not with America. On the third day of the war, President Nixon had authorized Operation Nickel Grass, an airlift from the United States with the purpose of replenishing 'Israel's' military losses up to that point. In November of 1973, the New York Times reported that "Western ambassadors in Cairo confirm Egyptian accusations that American Galaxies were landing war equipment in the Sinai."
There was something of Sadat's realpolitik in the realization over the past few weeks that Saudi Arabia has no intention of letting Sudan's revolution achieve its objective of removing the military once and for all and installing a civilian government. In the period preceding the revolution, Saudi Arabia had grown relatively lethargic and jaded about Sudan, a country it saw as good only for providing bodies as battle fodder for its war in Yemen. When Sudan's then president, Omar al-Bashir, fearful of his demise, took his begging bowl to his allies in the region, Saudi Arabia demurred. But this lack of interest evaporated the moment it became clear that there was real power in Sudan's streets, and Bashir was deposed.
Long gone are the days when the US was the chief meddler in the region. Saudi Arabia has taken its place as a powerful force for the status quo. Gone also are the days when Saudi Arabia's idea of extending its sphere of influence was to sloppily funnel funds to religious schools and groups across the Arab world and south Asia. The country has now taken on a more deliberate role: to stymie political change wherever possible.
Within days of the removal of Bashir, Saudi's purse strings loosened. Along with the UAE, it pledged a $3bn aid package to prop up Sudan's economy and thus the transitional military government. This shot in the arm has been accompanied by an alarming and unprecedented phenomenon, a propaganda campaign launched in Saudi-owned or Saudi-sympathetic media.
Gulf News ran a profile of the current head of the transitional military council saying that "during the war in southern Sudan and the Darfur region, he served on [sic] important positions, largely due to his civic manners and professional demeanor". "Civic" and "professionally run" are not words many would use to describe the wars in Darfur and the south of the country.
The editorial started with a panicked homage to Sudan as "one of Africa's and the Arab world's most strategic countries", as if the Saudis had just caught on to the fact that Sudan was not the sleepy, pliant, begging backwater they hoped it was. A senior United Arab Emirates minister last week tried to frame the sudden interest and largesse towards Sudan as a wise precaution after the tumult of the Arab spring. "We have experienced all-out chaos in the region and, sensibly, don't need more of it," he lectured. But this newfound affection for oh so strategic Sudan and its civic-mannered military leaders has more to do with the Saudi royal family's heightened insecurity about its own fate than it does with maintaining stability. The danger of a Sudanese revolution is in its optics, in the sense of possibility that it suggests. If Saudi used to care about extending its soft power across the world in order to call on alliances against regional enemies such as Iran or Qatar, today's aggressive Saudi foreign policy adventurism can be seen in the light of its one overarching fear: regime change.
Despite its economic troubles at home, the Saudi government still sees its sovereign wealth as a massive war chest to be leveraged to the end of its own survival. Even though the Saudi royal family seems to have a total monopoly on power, executing dissenters on a whim on national or foreign soil, Sudan has demonstrated that regime change is rarely about the technicalities. It is never about the firepower that an opposition can wield against an incumbent: it is about popular will. You can't execute everyone.
The many failures of the Arab spring have been a boon for establishment regimes across the Middle East. No good will come of change, was the conventional regional wisdom for too long. Sudan is messing with that narrative. The army and the royal family are the only two institutions that can be allowed to rule, the logic goes: when civilians enter the fray they bring with them security lapses, terrorism and incompetence. But civilian governments also threaten other nuisances: real democracy, accountability and free expression. Saudi Arabia must prevent this, under the pretense of seeking stability, with the US absent but tacitly endorsing.
And so the Sudanese protesters, still firm in their standoff with the transitional government as they demand civilian rule, can wage war against Bashir and the remnants of his regime that are still in power. But how can they take on Saudi Arabia and its powerful allies in the region, who airlift support to the government? The burden on the Sudanese revolution is now even heavier – but the reward, if it succeeds, is to shake the thrones of all despots across the Middle East.
Filed under: AngloZionist Empire, Arab Zionists, Egypt, Egypt Zionists, Popular Revolutions, Saudia, Sudan, UAE, USA, Wahabism At Work | Tagged: Sadat, Wahhabism |	Comments Off on Saudi Arabia's Sudden Interest in Sudan Is Not about Friendship. It Is About Fear
Bahrain Crackdown: Afghan Judge Revokes 183 Citizenships of Bahraini Nationals!
As part of the continued crackdown against own nationals, the Bahraini regime decided to revoke 183 citizenships of native Bahrainis under the alleged pretext of a 'Bahraini Hezbollah' case.
Ironically, the judge who issued the verdict that bans original landowners from their homeland, identified as Badr Abdul Latif Al Abdallah is of Afghan origins. Additionally, he belongs to the third generation of a family that was granted a Bahraini citizenship before it added the name "Al" to its title, a habit that is usually taken by families of non-Arab origins in Bahrain.
Following the unfair sentences issued on Tuesday to revoke the citizenship of 138 individuals, the number of similar cases in the tiny kingdom has now reached 985.
Relatively, yearly figures are classified as the following:
Earlier to the sentence, a report published by the Bahrain Mirror stated:
The revocation of citizenship in Bahrain after 2018 has become no more than a symbolic punitive measure- a pattern and part of a clear plan to purge the country of the opposition at any price, or perhaps a plan to change the country's demographic makeup the quickest way possible, even by the most brutal means.
Following the total elimination of opposition groups and civil society, the arrests of the most prominent political and human rights figures, the complete suppression of remaining voices, and the ongoing imprisonment of thousands every year, without any deterrent, the revocation of nationalities seemed to be the final touch in cleansing process.
The number of citizens who have been stripped of their Bahraini nationality since 2011 amount to about 800, in a country with an indigenous population of 650,000, which is the biggest evidence of this practice.
"To put that figure into context, were the same policy applied to the UK, one million Britons would be made stateless," says author and political analyst Bill Law.
The authorities have not only withdrawn the citizenships of political defendants in trials, but have also deprived all children whose fathers were imprisoned from having birth certificates and passports issued, as noted by the US State Department said in its annual 2017 report on human rights in countries around the world.
The numbers alarmingly increased during 2018, which recorded the highest number of citizenship revocation affecting 298 citizens, with the total number of citizens stripped of their nationality in Bahrain since 2011 amounting to about 804, according to the statistics of organizations and news reports.
In 2018, a court of cassation issued a final verdict, revoking the citizenship of Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, the spiritual leader of the country's Shia citizens, who was under house arrest before leaving for London to receive emergency treatment.
2018 also witnessed a rare incident in the history of the country's judiciary, and perhaps in history of all countries of the world, as 115 people were stripped of their citizenship in a single trial, in what was known as the Zulfiqar Brigades case.
News agencies reported on this verdict in surprise, while Amnesty International described the trial as "ridiculous" and "one of the most severe rulings yet, and is further proof that the Bahrain authorities have no regard whatsoever for international fair trial standards."
Filed under: Bahrain, GCC, Popular Revolutions, Saudia, sectarianism, USA, Wahabism At Work |	Comments Off on Bahrain Crackdown: Afghan Judge Revokes 183 Citizenships of Bahraini Nationals!
The Bahraini Revolution in the Words of its Elite
Posted on February 14, 2019 by martyrashrakat
By Zeinab Daher
With every anniversary of an uprising against oppression, a person recalls a glimpse of hope that the winds of change are blowing again.
Bahrain, the country of Shia-majority ruled by Sunni-minority, was a platform for peaceful popular demands back on February 14 of 2011. Today, there is nothing more honest than the words of those who lived the revolution, its early days, and the impressions they made as such time has passed over the first day since its birth.
In an exclusive interview with al-Ahed News, Sheikh Abo Yasser Abdullah al-Saleh, Deputy Chief of Bahrain's Islamic Work Association (Amal), listed the many achievements of the revolution atop of which is the clear popular alignment against the oppressive and dictatorial authorities that is a major achievement in Bahrain.
"The opposition in Bahrain is deep-rooted, it is nothing new, but the current impression is that the opposition is something new."
In the 1980s, before and after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, demanding to topple the Al Khalifah regime was a fantasy. Now, however, there is a sort of popular agreement that this family should be changed because it doesn't deserve to rule the Bahraini people, and that the Bahraini people deserve more just government, that is finer, more aware of the demands of peoples and more independent, afar from any foreign and western alliances.
Additionally, in Bahrain, there became a clear orientation and understanding by all parties that it is necessary to establish a just democracy through inclusive elections that get rid of all kinds of tyranny and appropriation as well as ties to the foreign colonialism practiced by Al Khalifah.
The revolution was able over 8 years to draw attention that there is a major determination by the Bahraini people to reach their rightful and legitimate demands and that it is never possible to play the minds of people and deceive them just like what happened during the 1990s uprising.
"There is total agreement that this authority in untrustworthy and can't be dealt with by any means, even if it still controls the country."
Another achievement is uniting the local lines and tending to a true change which wasn't clear in the past era. This revolution has serious tendency to change the country's status and make a true shift that suits the Bahraini people.
The Al Khalifah authority treat the opposition as if it is a zero. It is oppressive and try to kill any activism before it is born.
"The glow of revolution didn't change."
It is true that the protests in which the majority of people used to participate are not happening now. The figures and major symbols who used to participate in the protests are not there, but the movement itself didn't stop, even if the momentum has decreased. There are still protests and demands in some places. There are also detentions, since the beginning of the revolutions, detentions didn't stop. If the authority claims that it has got rid of the revolution, then why it is still carrying out the non-stopping arbitrary detention campaigns.
There are some 930 people, including clerics, symbols, academics, youth and citizens, whose citizenships have been revoked. More than 7824 people are detained by the authority, and the number is still climbing. We sacrificed more than 200 martyrs, scores of victims and thousands of displaced people. But the Al Khalifah authority couldn't, through all this, to prove that it has got rid of the February 14 revolution. The revolution is being renewed in different ways and remains with the same slogans and demands.
The most important among all is that the Bahraini people didn't retreat any of its legitimate demands. And the latest statement made by His Eminence Sheikh Isa Qassim was a clear evidence that this people didn't and will not compromise.
Why remaining peaceful?
The Bahraini people is not a violent one. The people of Bahrain are known for love, peace, mercy, generosity, containing others and coexisting with them.
The rightful demands the Bahraini people are asking for are not new for any people, they are rather part of their basic due rights whether by understanding or another mean. When the Al Khalifah denies the people their rights, it must expect that the people won't remain silent. And now, they insist to fulfill their demands.
For our people, we would like to stress that the international situation in this particular anniversary is on our side and it is not on Al Khalifah's and Al Saud's. They were previously more arrogant and stronger, but the situation in the entire region now carries the promises of a near victory, by God's willing. It carries the promises of a change in the regional map. The Bahraini people tolerated over many years, but the less has remained. The Al Khalifah authorities are in a bad situation while the morale, practices and rights of our people are way stronger than ever before. The legendary endurance presented by the Bahraini people over the past years is able to drive them towards fulfilling their demands. It is matter of a little patience and we will reach our goals.
We are demanding democracy and inclusive elections in which the source of authority and sovereignty should be the Bahraini people. We only need to be a free people in an independent state.
Normalization is nothing new. It has existed since before, at least all Gulf states, most Arab and Muslim countries related to the west, whether the US or the UK, have sorts of ties with the "Israeli" entity. However, ties today became public. What has been under cover, became today public.
Exchanged visits weren't born recently, they are since the 1950s but they were low. The King Saud's condition for the UK was that ties with the Zionists should be secret. Today, however, the Zionists set their condition that any price should be paid in exchange of public relations. This is the reason why we notice today public relations whether with the Al Saud or the Al Khalifah governments or others. Zionists now insist on publicized ties, this is why we are witnessing them on the surface.
In the past, the colonial scheme tried to indirectly run its issues in the region. But now, it is being faced by the peoples of the region, which are looking for their interests and trying to build their future the way they want. This is why the government now cannot fulfill the task and this explains with the Americans and the British are coming to the region repeatedly, weighing more and intervening much than before in the country's internal affairs which is exposing those governments' betrayal.
To Al Khalifah, the Bahraini people would never accept dealing with Zionists and would never be part of any alliance against its Arab and Muslim state. You can do whatever you want because the decision is in your hands, but the Bahraini people will breach any agreement that would be made with the Zionist entity.
For his part, Bahraini Journalist Hussein Youssef recalled some painful and emotional spots from the time of the revolution's first days:
Among the most significant of the scenes of the February 14 revolution I recall is the youths' advance as they were topless against the Bahraini army's tanks that were supposed to protect the protesters and civilians, however, they were directed towards them and killed martyr Abdul Rida Bou Hmayyed. This scene would never be erased from the Bahrainis' memory.
Another scene that I could never forget over seven years of the revolution is that of revoking the citizenship of Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Ahmad Qassim and the Imam Hussein-inspired speech delivered by Sayyed Maji al-Mashaal.
In between the two scenes, there is the very important event when Sheikh Ali Salman addressed the Bahraini people as the 'Peninsula Shield forces' entered the country. He referred to their behavior as defeatist and called the Bahraini people for sticking to peaceful activism until achieving its fair demands.
"Regarding the presence of the Bahraini issue in media, the activism is actually peaceful, political and rightful. There is no direct presence on which media can feed as it wants."
However, there are other media outlets that are trying to turn a blind eye to the reality of the Bahraini people for certain political goals and reasons. They want to blind what is happening in Bahrain, and most of them are pushed by Saudi and American motives. This is something constant for us. An evidence is that many political and rights events, major protests, political speeches and stances issued by the Bahraini opposition are blinded by such paid outlets.
I don't believe the regime has succeeded in silencing the opposition. Now, everybody confesses that there is a political crisis in Bahrain. The important evidence on this is that the leader of the opposition His Eminence Sheikh Ali Salman is in prison and sentenced to life. This firstly means that the political crisis in Bahrain will remain as long as such symbols and figures, atop of them is Sheikh Ali Salman, stay in jail. Hence, the opposition movement is non-stopping in different forms and during different circumstances. It is sometimes in Australia, another time in Bahrain… the movement is represented by the rights and political conferences held by the opposition at home and abroad. In conclusion, even if the regime had security-wise tightened the grip on the opposition movement, this doesn't mean that it will be able to cancel the presence of the opposition and the popular demands.
There are huge numbers over the 8 years of revolution. There has been more than 40.000 protests, in addition to more than 5000 prisoners in Bahraini jails. This number makes Bahrain the most crowded country with political prisoners in the Arab world as per comparison to its population. There are also violations against journalists. Over 8 years of revolution, there is more than 25 years of imprisonment sentences against activists and journalists and even politicians who expressed their opinions. The law is very 'flexible' since whoever express their opinion via Twitter are subject to 'anti-terror' crimes for opposing the authority.
The international community raises the slogans of human rights in the area of political abuse and not in the place where people do believe in it… the international community is disabled in front of the Saudi-American decision; hence, the political cover baking the Bahraini regime is due to weighing political interests and Gulf oil heavier than human rights and the people's rights to self-determination.
"All what happened over the previous period (8 years) is a motive for Bahrain to continue."
The words of Sheikh Ali Salman and Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Ahmad Qassem say there is no way for retreat, and it is necessary to continue with strength and determination to fulfill this people's demand for reform.
"I do believe that what is waiting the Bahraini people is way better than what the authorities are practicing."
There is no room for political settlement and fulfilling the national demands without democracy and respecting citizenship in Bahrain, he concluded.
Bahrainis Clash with Regime Forces on Revolution Anniversary
Zionist Media Highlights Strength of Israeli-Bahraini Ties
Netanyahu: Warsaw Talks with Arab States 'Turning Point'
Filed under: Bahrain, Colonialism, Dictatorship, GCC, Humanitarian crisis, Justice, Political arrests, Popular Resistance, Popular Revolutions, Saudia, sectarianism, UAE, UK, USA, Zionist entity |	Comments Off on The Bahraini Revolution in the Words of its Elite
Bahrain opposition begins armed resistance against 'Saudi occupation' – English Subs
Posted on February 9, 2019 by martyrashrakat
Note: this is the first time I am posting a video by the Middle-East Observer which has now joined the Saker Community (translations) and who will be providing us Arab-language videos translated and subtitled in English. Please see under this video how to support the Middle-East Observer and stay in contact. Please support this work generously!
Original description: A prominent Bahraini opposition leader says his al-Wefaq movement has begun carrying out increasingly sophisticated armed resistance operations against the ruling al-Khalifa government and the "Saudi occupation". Sayyed Murtada al-Sanadi said that the ruling al-Khalifa monarchy and its Saudi backers gave no opportunity for dialogue or negotiations despite eight years of peaceful protests by the opposition. Source: Etejah TV (YouTube) Date: 24 January, 2019 ———————————————————————————————————–
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Filed under: AngloZionist Empire, Armed resistance, Bahrain, Dictatorship, Freedom of Speach, GCC, Human Rights, Political arrests, Popular Resistance, Popular Revolutions, Protests, Saudia, sectarianism, Trump, UAE, Wahabism At Work |	Comments Off on Bahrain opposition begins armed resistance against 'Saudi occupation' – English Subs
Memories Of The Days Of Struggle & Revolution
Posted on February 6, 2019 by uprootedpalestinians
By Mokhtar Haddad
Iranian journalist Seyed Ismail Alawi Yakana is a revolutionary who lived through the days of the Islamic Revolution. Because of his participation in the struggle against the Shah's regime, he spent nearly three years in the SAVAK prisons.
He was also an activist during the revolution and educated a number of its men.
During the period of the sacred defense, he was present as a journalist and a fighter along the frontlines. He was responsible for reporting on the sacred defense for an Iranian newspaper during those days. Today, he still works in the same field, seeking to spread the values of the Islamic Revolution and the sacred defense among the new generation.
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Al-Ahed website met with Seyed Ismail Alawi to ask him about the days of struggle and victory.
Q: How would you describe the Islamic Revolution, which you lived through?
A: I must talk about the start of this revolutionary movement and its peak. There are things that led the people to resent and oppose the former regime.
The incident involving the publication of an article that was offensive to Imam Khomeini in late 1977 in a regime-run newspaper was the spark that ignited this popular resentment and anger toward the Shah's regime.
It is true that Imam Khomeini's uprising began in 1963, after which he was exiled. But the peak of the popular movement and the start of the final drive that eventually led to the overthrow of the tyrannical regime began after the publication of the offensive article. But before that, there was revolutionary activity by activists, which was suppressed by the Shah and his police system.
Following the publication of the article, the residents of the holy city of Qom rose against this abusive measure. The Iranian people regard the holy city of Qom as a religious symbol. The revolutionaries were religious and the revolution was of religious nature. All the people had religious tendencies.
The demands of the religious revolutionaries represented the demands of all the Iranian people and even the rest of the elites and sects in society.
The former regime had such an experience. On June 4, 1963, when Imam Khomeini was arrested and the scholars were insulted, the next day they carried out a major uprising in Tehran and across various cities. The struggle was ongoing, but the regime was suppressing it.
It is true that the regime suppressed the June 5, 1963 uprising. But the revolutionaries formed a revolutionary nucleus for the political or armed struggle. In the early 1970s, we witnessed the regime's crackdown on the revolutionaries. But the revolutionaries did not retreat.
Then, in the mid 1970s, the political struggle escalated in universities and mosques.
In late 1977, after the publication of that offensive article, the Shah's regime was surprised by the reaction of the people.
I remember even some of the revolutionaries believed that revolutionary action needed extensive work. But when the people rose up, everyone was surprised with the speed. Some did not expect the people to overthrew the Shah that quickly.
Q: Why did the Islamic Revolution accelerate?
A: First, the Shah's regime did not pay attention to the demands of the people. But there is another important point which is the love for Imam Khomeini. The Iranian people loved Imam Khomeini. This was thanks to God Almighty.
Q: The Shah's regime was dependent on America and the West. Even Carter, who visited Iran during the regime's final last months, described the country as the island of stability. Why did the monarchy collapse?
A: The former regime was the front line, countering the influence of the former Soviet Union with the support of the West. During the Cold War, they considered Iran an important state for them. And the Westerners were supporting the Shah.
When the West wanted the help of its allied countries, including the countries in the NATO alliance, it was done through the Shah's regime since it was trusted by the West and was regarded as the region's policeman.
The Shah relied on this support and thought that in case of any popular movement he would be fully supported.
Q: In this context, we see that in the final days of the Shah's regime, Washington sent its special envoy, General Robert Huyzer. What was this man's mission in Tehran?
A: America sent General Robert Huyzer to maintain the Shah's regime and carry out a military coup as it did in the fifties. This is all documented, even in the memoirs of this American general.
Huyzer was tasked with supporting the Shah and maintaining his regime. Before that the American spies who used to work in the US Embassy in Tehran had prepared for him all the polls and statistics for him to carry out the mission.
But he saw that the armed forces were not prepared to carry out this mission and massacre the people, so his mission failed.
Many members of the armed forces, including Air Force officers, joined the people.
Q: But America came up with new plans to target the revolution.
A: Using several schemes, Washington wanted to deter the Islamic Revolution because the victory of the revolution had damaged the interests of Washington in the region.
The Islamic Revolution was inspiring to the people. The Zionist enemy was occupying Islamic countries. During that stage, we saw an Islamic awakening that was confronting the Zionist plan. Therefore, we see that the Islamic Revolution has become the inspiration for the resistance, revolutionaries and the people in the region.
This led to growing concerns by the Zionists and the Americans. Washington became concerned about the future and the fate of the Zionist entity.
I remember that in the first months of the revolution's victory there were rallies in which they were asked to go to Palestine to support the Palestinian people.
We saw the "Israeli" Embassy in Tehran transformed into the Palestinian Embassy in the first week of the Islamic Revolution.
Therefore, we saw that the Americans and the Zionists carried out many plans in the first months of the revolution's victory in order to limit the revolution to slogans and internal issues. Therefore, they activated the separatist movements such as the events in Kurdistan province in which Saddam's regime and other regional regimes played a large role. But these projects failed.
After the failure of this project and the revolutionary forces overcoming the internal problems, they came up with another plan, which is to impose Saddam's war on Iran.
Q: Why did Imam Khomeini from the start of his uprising raise slogans greater than Iran, like supporting the Palestinian people against the Zionist enemy?
A: This is due to the cultural and religious nature of the Islamic Revolution. It was not only focused on internal issues or economic issues. This revolution had wide and comprehensive goals and visions. Imam Khomeini's first speech during the sixties in the holy city of Qom and the beginning of the uprising is the most evident proof of this. He raised issues such as the Muslim awakening and confronting the colonial and Zionist schemes, etc.
Q: How did you enter the revolutionary work and why did the Shah's regime arrest you?
A: Religious circles were directly related to the revolution and the revolutionaries. When a person participates in the activities in the mosque, Hussainiya or places where the Holy Quran was taught, his sense of fighting the corrupt regime of the Shah strengthens since Islam and the Quran both stress the importance of standing up to the oppressor. We saw that the policies of the Shah's regime were contrary to the teachings and objectives of Islam.
When I started the revolutionary work I was 15 years old during which I experienced this atmosphere. I met the leaders of the revolution during those days, including Ayatollah Khamenei, martyr Ayatollah Beheshti and engineer Mahdi Bazarkan. We learned and were inspired by them. So, I entered the revolutionary work. We worked in the mosques and Hussainiyas, spreading the ideas of Imam Khomeini and distributing His Eminense's statements and messages.
Then we founded a revolutionary student group. We were, then, arrested by the SAVAK and spent about three years in prison.
In prisons, revolutionaries were subjected to the most severe forms of torture. There were people in the SAVAK who specialized in the implementation of systematic torture.
In 1971, the Shah established a joint committee between the SAVAK and the police to counter sabotage as he claimed. The committee had a very scary prison that housed the revolutionaries who were arrested. They were also tortured.
I was detained for a while in that prison.
Q: What sort of relationship did the SAVAK have with the Mossad and the CIA in confronting the revolutionaries?
A: It is natural that there be a relationship between the SAVAK and the Mossad and the CIA because the Shah had a close relationship with the United States and the Zionist entity. So, both the Mossad and the CIA used to transfer their security experiences to the SAVAK.
As you know, some of our revolutionaries used to go to Palestine and Lebanon for training. So the Mossad sent these people's information to the SAVAK.
Q: Do you have some memories of the last days before the victory of the revolution and the day Imam Khomeini returned to the country?
A: I was one of the members of Imam Khomeini's reception committee. I was in the third circle to safeguard the security of the Imam. We were positioned in the Paradise of Zahra (PBUH) cemetery where Imam Khomeini was supposed to deliver a speech honoring the revolution's martyrs. We were there for 10 nights and days. We had concerns of acts of vandalism that might be carried out by the regime during the Imam's reception ceremony.
And I remember one of the brothers, a Lebanese revolutionary. His name was Shaher. He trained our group, which was made up of 100 people, in order to maintain the security of the Paradise of Zahra (PBUH).
Imam Khomeini's reception was historic. Millions of people lined up from Maharabad Airport to Freedom Square and Revolution Street until the Paradise of Zahra (PBUH). It was the final victory of the revolution. I still remember the happiness and joy on the faces of the people that day.
Filed under: AngloZionist Empire, Iran, Khamenei, Popular Revolutions, War on Iran, Zionist entity | Tagged: 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, CIA, Khomeini |	Comments Off on Memories Of The Days Of Struggle & Revolution
AI: Verdict on Bahrain's Salman Is Bitter Blow to Freedom of Expression
Amnesty International slammed Bahrain's verdict on opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman.
Responding to the news that Bahrain's Court of Cassation has upheld the conviction of opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, Amnesty International's Middle East Campaigns Director Samah Hadid said:
"Today's verdict is yet another nail in the coffin for the right to freedom of expression in Bahrain and exposes the country's justice system as a complete farce. The decision to uphold Sheikh Ali Salman's conviction and life prison sentence following an unfair trial highlights the authorities' determination to silence critical voices".
She went on to say, "The Bahraini authorities must quash Sheikh Ali Salman's conviction and release him immediately and unconditionally. They should also rescind the decision to dissolve the two opposition political groups, al-Wefaq and Wa'ad, and guarantee the right of everyone to freedom of association".
Sheikh Ali Salman has been repeatedly arrested and charged for his perceived critical views of the authorities.
On 4 November 2018, he was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of alleged trumped-up spying charges. Two other al-Wefaq members, Ali al-Aswad and Sheikh Hassan Sultan, were convicted in their absence during the same trial.
On 28 January 2019, Bahrain's Al Khalifa regime's Supreme Court upheld a life term over the alleged "spying" for Qatar.
Source: AI, Edited by website team
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Bahraini Crackdown: Opposition Leader Sheikh Ali Salman Loses Appeal against Life Sentence
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World Remains Silent As Bahrain Detains 5,000 Prisoners of Conscience
Filed under: Amnesty International, Bahrain, Human Rights, Popular Revolutions, Saudia, sectarianism, USA, Wahabism At Work |	Comments Off on AI: Verdict on Bahrain's Salman Is Bitter Blow to Freedom of Expression
نقاط على الحروف تحية للمبادرة الشيوعية… إلى الأمام
Posted on December 18, 2018 by uprootedpalestinians
ناصر قنديل
– لبنانيون كثر لا يشاركون الحزب الشيوعي اللبناني الكثير من مواقفه ونظرته للكثير من الملفات أثلجت صدورهم مبادرة الشيوعيين للخروج المنظم إلى الشارع لرفع البطاقة الحمراء للنظام السياسي والاقتصادي أمام أزمة اجتماعية خانقة، تدقّ أبواب الفقراء وذوي الدخل المحدود والشباب العاطلين عن العمل، بيد قاسية مع اقتراب مواسم البرد والشتاء. والفرح بالمبادرة الشيوعية نابع من عوامل عدة على الشيوعيين الانتباه إليها والاستثمار عليها، للمضي قدماً وصولاً لتحقيق غايات لا يجهضها خروج الحكومة إلى النور، ولا تجعل صرختهم مجرد ومضة عابرة.
– في البلد يقين بأن المعالجات للشأن الاقتصادي والمالي والاجتماعي منحازة بقوة إلى جانب حيتان المال، ويقين بأن الفساد يخترق أغلب القوى السياسية الممثلة في السلطة، بما فيها تلك التي هي قيد الولادة، وبأن التقاسم للمغانم والمكاسب والمناصب، في خلفية أغلب الخلافات السياسية، بما فيها تعقيدات ولادة الحكومة المنتظرة منذ شهور، ويقين بأن شيئاً جذرياً لن يتغير بولادتها سوى الحركة التي يمكن أن تدب نسبياً في آلة الدولة الصدئة والمعطلة، يقابل ذلك قلق من أيّ تحرك تقوده قوى غامضة، ربما تنتهي في أحضان المسؤولين سياسياً أو اقتصادياً عن الأزمة برشوة هنا أو مكسب فئوي هناك، أو تنتهي بفوضى تجعل كل حراك واسع صندوق بريد للرسائل في الداخل والخارج، أو تنتهي بتصنيف طائفي أو فئوي للحراك يقيد انفتاحه على كل الشعب اللبناني. وهذه مخاوف لا يطمئنها لكون التحرّك بقيادة الشيوعيين، الموجودين خارج جنة الحكم والمصالح.
– المطلوب من الشيوعيين وقد حازوا من الذين لم يشاركونهم تحرّك الأمس، لكنهم صفقوا لهم بقلوبهم، إدراك الحاجة للمواظبة والمثابرة، كل أحد على حراك مشابه، سينضم إليه المزيد فالمزيد كلما أظهر الشيوعيون قدرة على إثبات ما ينتظره منهم اللبنانيون، طغيان لبنانيتهم على شيوعيتهم، اي العلم اللبناني والنشيد الوطني اللبناني، والهتافات الجامعة للبنانيين، والترفع عن الحزبية العصبية، وكلما أظهروا استعداداً للانفتاح على قيادة جماعية للتحرّك تسعى لضم كل من يبدي استعداداً للمشاركة، وخصوصاً الخصوم العقائديين والسياسيين للحزب، فالكثير من العقائديين القوميين والإسلاميين والكتائبيين كانو أمس يصفقون للشيوعيين عدا الكثير من القيادات النقابية والشعبية ومنظمات مدنية. وهذا لم يحدث من قبل، والتقاط اللحظة يستدعي توجيه دعوة منزهة عن الكسب الضيق للجميع، الجميع دون استثناء وبأسمائهم، وقياداتهم، ليكونوا قبل الأحد المقبل في لقاء تشاوري جامع واسع عنوانه: كيف نطلق حراكاً هادفاً للتغيير الاقتصادي والاجتماعي لا يخضع لمساومات وصفقات جانبية مع النظام السياسي والاقتصادي، وتحديد المطالب الواضحة والفعالة التي لا تراجع دون نيلها، والدعوة بنهاية اللقاء وفقاً لبيان يحمل تواقيع الحضور، لأحد لبناني يجمع الساحات من 8 و14 آذار، تحت العنوان الاجتماعي، حيث الشيوعيون ضمانة عدم الانقسام كما عدم التطييف وعدم التسييس، والأهم عدم الذهاب إلى خراب الفوضى.
– الفرص التاريخية تأتي مرة واحدة ولا تنتظر، وقد دقّ الحزب الشيوعي باب فرصة تاريخية أمس، ستجعل له مكانة في كتابة تاريخ جديد للبنان، إن أحسن التعامل معها، وأول شروط التقاط الفرص التاريخية، السرعة والترفع والتواضع والصدق، وتلك ميزات لا ينقص الشيوعين إدراكها أو توفيرها، فهي بعض مما يُنتظر منهم.
الشيوعي ينجح في تحرّكه الأول: نحو العصيان؟
تحديات الإصلاح
الشيوعيون يفتتحون الحراك الشعبي… أما الحكومي فينتظر موعداً من الحريري
عون يتبنّى ملف جورج عبد الله: سعي إلى الإفراج عنه قريباً
السترات الصفراء قادمة… انتبهوا أيها المسؤولون!
ماكرون… المصير المُؤجل
Filed under: Corruption, Lebanon, Nasser Kandil, Popular Revolutions, Protests, Reform | Tagged: Lebanon's Communist Party |	Comments Off on نقاط على الحروف تحية للمبادرة الشيوعية… إلى الأمام


text:
Harmful algae blooms still a threat in portions of Lake Anna
Laura Peters
Some branches of Lake Anna are still experiencing harmful algae blooms and the public is advised to avoid contact with the lake in those areas.
The blooms were first announced in mid-August. But this isn't the first time the harmful algae blooms have affected area waterways.
Virginia and several other states saw this last year. The toxic algae had been the contributing factor in killing pet dogs in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas. The blue-green algae was found in Virginia counties, including Albemarle, Orange, Louisa and Spotsylvania as well. Dogs would have been exposed to the algae by swallowing water, then later developing health issues like liver damage.
The Middle Pamunkey and the Upper North Anna Branch of Lake Anna in Orange, Louisa and Spotsylvania counties are affected, a release said. The public should avoid contact with the lake in these areas until algae concentrations return to acceptable levels, the release said. Some of those areas affected in August, have been cleared for recreational use.
The toxic algae, which is called cyanobacteria, can cause skin rash and gastrointestinal illnesses, like upset stomach, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, the release said.
Results of samples collected at sites within these areas contained cyanobacteria, which exceed safe swimming levels. People and pets are advised to avoid swimming, windsurfing and stand-up-paddle-boarding as well as other activities that pose a risk of ingesting water. Advisory signs will be posted in areas of the lake.
There is routine monitoring occurring above Va. 208 on Lake Anna. Results from Sept. 1 showed that the Middle Pamunkey Branch currently contains unsafe levels of cyanobacteria densities.
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More:JMU passes 1,000 COVID-19 cases as classes move online
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More:Bank closing branch; scavenger hunt; COVID-19 funds — The buzz
The Upper North Anna Branch currently contains cyanobacteria densities that are within safe levels. However, there needs to be an additional sample collected with algae within safe levels before the advisory there can be lifted, the release said. The next anticipated sample date is to be determined, the release said.
The areas to avoid can be seen on an interactive map at SwimHealthyVA.com.
The sites currently under advisory include:
Pamunkey Branch
Middle – From the confluence of Terry's Run with Pamunkey Creek downstream to Va. 612 (Stubbs Bridge)
North Anna Branch
Upper – From the upper inundated waters of the North Anna arm of the lake downstream to the Va. 522 Bridge.
The advisory has been lifted at the Upper Pamunkey Branch, which includes Terry's Run.
Warm water conditions and nutrients combine to make favorable conditions for algae bloom. While most algae species are harmless, waters that are discolored or have scums that are green or blueish-green should be avoided because there is a higher potential they contain toxins.
Swimmers should avoid discolored water or scums that are green or blueish-green because they are more likely to contain toxins. Be aware of algae blooms and avoid water that smells, is discolored or where there are dead fish present, the alert said.
According to the VDH, to prevent illness, people should:
Avoid contact with any area of the lake where water is green or an advisory sign is posted, "When in doubt, stay out!"
Do not allow children or pets to drink from natural bodies of water.
Keep children and pets out of the areas experiencing a harmful algae bloom and quickly wash them off with plenty of fresh, clean water after coming into contact with algae scum or bloom water.
If you or your animals experience symptoms after swimming in or near an algal bloom, seek medical/veterinarian care.
To ensure fish fillets are safe to eat, properly clean fish by removing skin and discarding all internal organs, and cooking fish to the proper temperature.
If you suspect you experienced health-related effects following exposure to a bloom, contact the Virginia Harmful Algal Bloom Hotline at 1-888-238-6154.
The VDH and the Virginia Harmful Algal Bloom Task Force, which includes the Virginia Department of Health, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and the Old Dominion Phytoplankton lab, will continue to monitor water quality in the lake, the release said.
Advisories are generally lifted after two consecutive test results with acceptable levels for algal cell counts and/or toxin concentration, the release said.
You can reach reporter Laura Peters at lpeters@newsleader.com. Follow her @peterslaura.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
YouTube New Rochelle Buzzer Beater Stuns Mount Vernon, March Madness Commences
By Liam Boylan-Pett
Holy wow. Holy cow. Exclamation point. Dropped jaw. That couldn't have happened. Bunch of gibberish on a keyboard. Is there any way to describe the turn of events at the end of this basketball game?
Welcome to March.
It has to be one of the most unbelieveable buzzer beaters I have ever seen. The ball is stolen, a Mount Vernon player lobs it up thinking the clock will run out, but Khalil Edney doesn't give up on the play and sinks a 75-footer to shock the Mt. Vernon players.
Whether the shot should have counted or not is too hard to tell. The refs made a gut decision and counted the basket. Heartbreaking for Mount Vernon, but utter pandemonium for New Rochelle.
Aside from Mount Vernon fans, only one person can be upset about this: Tyus Edney. The former UCLA star must have thought he'd have the title for "Greatest Buzzer Beater by an Edney" locked up. Too bad Khalil from New Rochelle had to come around and make one of the most amazing shots ever to steal the crown. It's not quite the magnitude of keeping your team alive to win the NCAA tournament, but Khalil Edney: great work.
Bonus: relive Tyus Edney's buzzer beater from 1994 right here.


The premise of Web Mentions is very simple: gather mentions of content you've created—likes, replies, reposts & more — from all over the web and display them on your own website.
Web Mentions are build on the indie web, which is — in their own words — a people-focused alternative to the corporate web. It's a movement which aims to give indie web creators like you and me control over our own content again.
And that's exactly what Web Mentions do. Websites or third party services implementing them notify you when anyone mentions a url pointing to your site. You can then aggregate these mentions and display them with the relevant piece of content on your own website.
The interesting part to me was leveraging this technology to turn Twitter into a comment system for my articles. A lot of the discussion regarding frontend development takes place on Twitter, so I figured it's the perfect platform for comments on the topic. And most of the people looking to comment on my articles probably already have a Twitter account as well.
Since most of the articles about Web Mentions only describe how the API works on a higher level, I decided to document to process of adding them to my own site in this article. If you're actually interested in a more high-level overview of the technology, you can read Drew McLellan's excellent article Implementing Webmentions.
First things first. You need to IndieWebify your website. In practice, indiewebifying your site means adding a bunch of meta information to your HTML. This makes your site indexable for robots, so they know when to give you an update regarding a new mention.
Venturing into the indie web, the first step is to link your social media accounts on the web, to provide some information about who you are. You do this by adding a link with rel="me" on your site linking to the profiles you want to associate with your site. You should also link back to your website from the respective social media profiles to validate it's really you.
To indicate the author of your site (you, duh!) or an individual article, you have to add a so called h-card to your index and article pages. The h-card contains general information like your name, profile picture and site url. You can find the full list of allowed properties over at the microformats wiki.
I've actually hidden this information for regular visitors, since I only publish my own articles on here.
The content of your articles should be marked up in the h-entry microformat. Among other properties, the h-entry highlights the title, content, summary and author of an article. You can also provide links to re-posts of this article elsewhere on the web.
Finally, we need to format our index page according to the h-feed microformat. This is used to link to all our content entries from the index page. The h-feed is pretty basic: it contains the feed title, your h-card, the feed url and — most importantly — a bunch of h-entries.
Sad face. Luckily for us most of them do offer API's to access and search their content for mentions. The awesome people at Brid.gy decided to use this to bridge this gap in functionality (pun intended, of course).
First login to Brid.gy using social login. The next step is to link your website by entering your website in your social media profile. Conveniently, you already did this when you were indiewebifying yourself.
Crawl your site: crawling indexes your website and discovers the original content on it. For this step it's important you've marked up your content as described above.
Poll for mentions. Polling means performing a search on Twitter for mentions of your content known to Brid.gy.
Check a post. This means checking a specific post for replies, likes and reposts.
Whenever Brid.gy finds a mention, it will gather the required information and send it to the endpoint of the entry. It won't happen instantly — more like once every 30 minutes — but it works quite well. And it's a free service!
Syndicating sounds fancy, but it's actually really simple. It means indicating to the indie web that content somewhere else on the web — for instance a Tweet — is a copy of the original post on your website. To do this, you place a list of syndicated links on the relevant content entry on your site.
Syndicating a tweet requires that the Web Mentions server (in this instance brid.gy) can find a link from your Twitter profile page to your website. You can also syndicate reposts of your content on other sites (if those sites send out Web Mentions). In this case an a tag with a rel="shortlink" should be included in the re-post, pointing to your original article.
Having a look at the W3C page for Web Mentions you can see that handling incoming mentions yourself is no trivial task. Things get complex quickly when you consider updating and removing content. This is where Webmention.io steps in.
Webmention.io is a cloud service which handles incoming Web Mentions for you. Instead of placing a unique Web Mention endpoint on every one of your pages, you just paste an endpoint provided by Webmention.io.
Webmention.io takes care of collecting mentions and keeping them all up to date. As an added bonus Webmention.io also easily lets you delete mentions, making moderation a breeze. To gather your mentions from the service you just make a request to an endpoint they provide. In response they send you a nicely formatted piece of JSON, which is yours to do with as you please.
Of course you should really cache the response you receive. Since Brid.gy only checks your mentions at most once every 30 minutes it doesn't make sense to send a request to webmention.io for each visit. You don't want to DDOS them in case your article goes viral.
That's all there is to it. Now go fire up your editor and collect yourself some fine Web Mentions!
Appendix: Being a good internet citizen you should also send out a web mention to other people's site if you mention their content! I'd recommend looking into webmention-client on NPM.


text:
Coming Up for Air Quotes
FreeBookNotes found 9 important quotes from 5 key chapters of Coming Up for Air by George Orwell.
For your reference, we provided these Coming Up for Air quotes with page numbers using the following version of the book: Coming Up for Air, 1st World Publishing, 2004 (292 pages).
To view 1 Full Study Guide, 2 Short Summaries and 3 Book Reviews for this book, visit our Coming Up for Air - Summary and Analysis page.
Chapter 2 Quotes
There's a lot of rot talked about the sufferings of the working class. I'm not so sorry for the proles myself. Did you ever know a navvy who lay awake thinking about the sack? The prole suffers physically, but he's a free man when he isn't working. But in every one of those little stucco boxes there's some poor bastard who's never free except when he's fast asleep and dreaming that he's got the boss down the bottom of a well and is bunging lumps of coal at him. Chapter 2, Page 16
The truth is that a woman doesn't look on any man as a joke if he can kid her that he's in love with her. Chapter 3, Page 27
It gave me the feeling that I'd bitten into the modern world and discovered what it was really made of. Chapter 4, Page 32
Whatever thought you think there's always a million people thinking it at the same moment. Chapter 4, Page 34
The past is a curious thing. It's with you all the time, I suppose an hour never passes without your thinking of things that happened ten or twenty years ago, and yet most of the time it's got no reality, it's just a set of facts that you've learned, like a lot of stuff in a history book. Then some chance sight or sound or smell, especially smell, sets you going, and the past doesn't merely come back to you, you're actually in the past. It was like that at this moment. Chapter 4, Page 36
The truth is that kids aren't in any way poetic, they're merely savage little animals, except that no animal is a quarter as selfish. Chapter 4, Page 90
They're solid kind of names. The people who made them up hadn't heard of machine-guns, they didn't live in terror of the sack or spend their time eating aspirins, going to the pictures and wondering how to keep out of the concentration camp. Chapter 4, Page 92
It's because there's some devil in us that drives us to and fro on everlasting idiocies. There's time for everything except the things worth doing. Chapter 5, Page 98
Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea. Chapter 1, Page 194
Showing 1 - 9 of 9 Quotes


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Q: Client object model: orderby in camlquery doesn't work I have a list on SharePoint 2010: (only showing the first item)

How can i get that list alphabeticly? I use a camlquery to try this but it doesn't work. I do get the list but it is in a random order. Am I doing something wrong?
List oList = clientContext.Web.Lists.GetByTitle(listTitle);
                CamlQuery camlQuery = new CamlQuery();
                camlQuery.ViewXml = @"<View><Query><OrderBy><FieldRef Name='DisplayName'/></OrderBy></Query></View>";

                ListItemCollection listItems = oList.GetItems(camlQuery);
                clientContext.Load(
                     listItems,
                     items => items.Include(
                         item => item.DisplayName,
                         item => item["WikiField"]));
                clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

A: The DisplayName property is

A string that contains the item display name, which for a document
  library item equals what the user types in the Name box of the item
  form. The default value equals the original name of the uploaded file
  minus the file type extension.

as stated here.
If you would like to order the items in a document library you can do it via
camlQuery.ViewXml = @"<View><Query><OrderBy><FieldRef Name='FileLeafRef'/></OrderBy>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
December, 2009:
China Unveils World's Largest Solar Office Building
Solar office building in China.
China is often dubbed as a heavy user of fossil fuels and polluter or a climate killer. Because it meets the 70% of its power needs by exploiting coals. But they are making changes on the environment front too. Slowly and steadily they are choosing wind and solar power as their source of energy. China has earned the distinction of having the world's largest solar-powered building. It is situated in Dezhou, Shangdong Province in northwest China. The building covers an area of 75,000-square-meter. The office building is modelled after the sun dial structure.
The building provides many services such as space for exhibition centers, scientific research facilities, meeting and training facilities and a sustainable hotel. This building is named as the Sun and the Moon Altar micro-row buildings. The architecture included the Chinese characters for sun and moon. The solar building has a white exterior that represents clean energy.
The clean and green ideas are not confined to the massive solar array only but can be spotted in the whole building complex. They have utilized only 1% of steel to the Bird's nest. Their advanced roof and wall insulation system consume 30% less energy than the national energy saving standard. The building will be showcased to the whole world during the 4th World Solar City Congress. The building's pioneering solar energy and power-saving technologies, a few already patented, include a number of technical advancements that will push forward the mass application of solar energy.
The building will procure 95% of its energy needs from alternative energy sources. They have installed a 5000 square meter solar panel array on the building complex. This building also has the facilities of solar hot water, a solar desalination plant and a solar energy theme park.
Dezhou can safely be termed as a solar city because among 5.5 million people living in this city most of them opted for the solar hot water systems. In this city, solar energy is all pervasive. It powers everything from street lighting to tourist cars.
Greenpeace put forth some statistics for this city. According to them, in 2007, 800,000 people in Dezhou had jobs in the solar panel industry. Greenpeace predicts that this figure is expected to grow to 1,500,000 by 2020.
source: http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/
Swiss firm's €70m solar plane takes off
Forget the discouraging climate talks in Copenhagen and the difficulties in replacing fossil fuels with biofuel on airplanes. In Zurich, about 75 engineers and technicians have spent the past six years pursuing the dream of zero emissions by building a plane solely fuelled by solar power.
The prototype of the propeller driven airplane, HB-SIA, completed its runway test at Dubendorf Airfield, a military airport in Zurich, earlier this month.
Although the plane only flew about 350 metres at an altitude of one metre, the engineers and technicians appeared gleeful when it landed gracefully on the centre of the runway. Bertrand Piccard, the chairman of Solar Impulse and co-founder of the privately funded project, raced to embrace the pilot.
The short flight was a milestone for the project. The next test flight will take place in spring, between Dubendorf and Payeren, another military airport in Switzerland, to find out more about the airplane's flying capabilities. A second HB-SIA is scheduled to fly around the globe in five legs as early as 2012.
Piccard, a Lausanne-born aeronaut, first came up with the idea of flying a solar-powered plane in 2003. He says people told him it was an insane idea. He was unable to find any funding for this €70 million (HK$782.8 million) project during the first year he pitched it.
But the spirit of adventure runs in the family. Piccard's grandfather, a pioneer balloonist, set altitude records in his pressurised gondola and later invented a deep-sea submersible that set depth records.
Piccard said he began thinking about how to make a breakthrough in the field after launching the first non-stop round-the-world balloon ride in 1999. "I should do something to reform transport in modern history," he said.
The idea of the solar-powered airplane came after a failed attempt to fly an aircraft around the world, in which he ran out of fuel. Piccard decided to create an aircraft that did not need to carry fuel.
The first to respond with help for Solar Impulse was Semper, a Geneva-based private asset management company, followed by others including Altran, Omega, Deutsche Bank and Toyota.
Piccard said he is trying to persuade people to pay more attention to developing alternative energy. "No one could say it is not possible to use [solar energy] in a car or a ship if an airplane can do it," he said. "It is because the technology required for using it in an aircraft is higher."
About €40 million of the investment money has been secured from private companies and individual donations at present, mainly from Europe. In a bid to take the message to the other side of the world, Piccard has visited the mainland three times over the past year.
"We are hopeful that more mainland companies will support us," he said. "For example, we're hoping Suntech [a mainland solar energy company] will provide us with the solar cells," Piccard said. There has been no sponsorship from the mainland so far.
Still, he is confident that the remaining funds can be raised easily.
"This is because I raised the first €15 million with a PowerPoint presentation only, long before the prototype of the plane came to exist."
One of the few remaining problems to be addressed in the prototype before the round-the-world trip takes place is how to upgrade the cockpit with a business-class seat from an economy seat at present.
Three pilots, each flying alone, will complete the five legs of the trip in a total of 20 days. Each will spend at least four days in the cockpit. The seat designer must mitigate the pain and fatigue on the pilots by making the seat as comfortable as possible, given the extreme physical and psychological demands on the pilots during the trip.
Unlike racers, who can boost their endurance with energy drinks, Piccard said these would be forbidden in his round-the-world flight. "Since we have to stay in the cockpit for four to five days in a row, we would like to keep our mind calm," said Piccard, who has a background in hypnosis. Meditation and hypnosis are techniques Piccard and his fellow pilots will apply during the trip.
Still, it will be difficult to stay awake for four to five days. To deal with that, a vibrating jacket was designed for the pilots that will wake them if their position changes to an odd angle.
Flying the solar-powered plane in the dark is another challenge. In the round-the-world trip, the plane should be capable of flying in the absence of light for 14 hours, Piccard said.
That means the 12,000 solar cells attached to the wings and the fuselage of the plane should be able to store energy for at least 14 hours.
The wingspan of the HB-SIA is as wide as an Airbus 340; however, its weight is just about that of a car – 1,600 kilograms. The plane is designed to fly up to a maximum altitude of 8,500 kilometres, with an average speed of 70 km per hour, on the power equivalent of that needed to light up all the bulbs on a large Christmas tree.
The 20-day expedition in 2012 is scheduled to begin between May and July as it is the period when the earth enjoys the longest period of sunlight. Three pilots, including Piccard, Markus Scherdel, the test pilot and Andre Borschberg, the co-founder of Solar Impulse, will take turns on the trip.
Divided into five legs, HB-SIA will start in Europe and stop over in the United Arab Emirates, the mainland, Hawaii and the United States before completing the loop.
One of the key technologies in the project is the carbon fibre needed for the fuselage. Over the past five years, the Solar Impulse technology team has cut the weight of the material in half.
Piccard does not rule out the possibility of applying solar power in commercial aviation, such as building a hybrid aircraft that can fly on solar power when it has reached a certain altitude. "It is foolish to say that we have the technology at present," said Piccard. "But it is equally foolish to say it won't happen in the future."
Source: SCMP
After 6 years, Solar Impulse prototype passes first test with global flight planned for 2012.
CLP Power can take lead in pollution fight
Can CLP help us by setting up new green traget?
The failure of the Copenhagen climate summit to cut a deal to tackle rising temperatures effectively is a sad indictment of leaders' claims to be taking the matter seriously. In the absence of a unified effort, governments have to implement their own targets and rules to reduce the carbon emissions that are causing global warming.
The chief of Hong Kong's biggest electricity producer and single largest polluter is right to say the lack of a legally binding treaty is a "real shame" and big disappointment. He should be going a step further by pairing his rhetoric with policies that make his company a shining example for others to follow.
CLP Holdings has a target of a 75 per cent cut in carbon intensity by 2050. It aims to have 20 per cent of its power generated from renewable and nuclear sources by 2020. Goals need to be set and met to fight climate change. They could be considerably more ambitious than those put in place by CLP.
Emissions from the power plants operated by CLP and Hong Kong's other electricity supplier, Hongkong Electric Holdings, account for the majority of our city's carbon emissions. Both firms are public companies with shareholders' interests to protect. But the pollution that comes from the smokestacks of their plants affects the well-being of all citizens.
They have to make every possible effort to keep pollution levels as low as possible. Generating electricity by burning the most polluting fossil fuel of all, coal – as happens at present – is not in Hong Kong's interests. Power bills are kept low, but the grey pall that hangs overhead threatens and harms our health. Our city's image is lessened in the eyes of tourists and businesses wanting to locate here or expand.
Alternatives should be used as soon as possible, even at a higher cost. Both electricity providers are making an effort. In CLP's case, sights are set on new nuclear reactors in Guangdong to complement cleaner energy being produced at its jointly owned plant at Daya Bay. More than 10 per cent of the power coming from its stations across the region is generated from renewable sources other than nuclear – up from 1 per cent five years ago. More gas and oil are being used instead of coal. As the unambitious targets indicate, though, greater effort is needed. The government drives Hong Kong's policies to cut carbon emissions. It has not set targets, which are of debatable value in the context of a city that has a small area and is prone to the effects of regional pollution.
Officials have a poor track record in environmental protection. Their lack of a popular mandate to govern has made them reluctant to implement laws that affect the companies that contribute to bulging coffers. Authorities need to be pushed into tougher pollution-cutting policies. CLP is perfectly placed to take the lead. By setting an example through taking bigger strides to clean up its operations, it will send a loud and clear message to the government and community.
Electricity charges will most likely be raised, but the cost is worth bearing for the sake of the improvements that will follow.
Two million consumers to pay more, but Hongkong Electric tariff frozen
CLP Power (SEHK: 0002) was yesterday given government approval to raise its tariff by 2.6 per cent next year, including the basic tariff, which was adjusted for the first time in 10 years.
But Hongkong Electric (SEHK: 0006)'s charges for next year will be frozen.
The approved increase for more than two million power users in Kowloon and the New Territories triggered fears that it would push up inflation, and raise more questions on the future cost of clean energy.
From January 1 CLP Power's charge per kilowatt hour will be 91.5 HK cents – 2.3 cents, or 2.6 per cent, higher than the existing 89.2 cents.
The increase includes a 2.6 cent rise in the basic tariff, which is partly offset by a fall in the fuel charge of 0.3 cents made possible by stable prices over the past year.
It means more than 70 per cent of domestic and commercial users will see monthly increases of less than HK$10 and HK$40, respectively.
CLP Power attributed the basic tariff increase to a rise in capital investment on emissions controls, and provision of a replacement gas supply, along with a rise in the cost of raw materials such as copper and aluminium.
"We are seeing in 2010 a slightly higher level of capital expenditure compounded by higher material costs," Richard Lancaster, CLP Power's chief operating officer, told the economic development panel yesterday. Lancaster said emissions control projects must be carried out to meet licence requirements, and new gas supplies had to be made ready by 2012 before the existing source from Hainan ran out.
The company is working on a desulphurisation project, and planning new pipelines from Shenzhen to receive natural gas from Central Asia and a LNG terminal.
The company also has to provide about HK$5 billion for power supply infrastructure at new developments such as in Kai Tak. Lancaster said it was the first time in 10 years that the firm had raised its basic tariff, and the new net tariff would still be lower than last year's level.
Environment secretary Edward Yau Tang-wah said yesterday that while anti-pollution measures at power plants were necessary, they were not the only reasons behind the tariff rise.
He said emissions control accounted for less than a third of the total capital spending of CLP Power, with about a half being spent on power transmission and distribution to new developments.
Hongkong Electric will freeze its tariff at 119.9 cents per kilowatt hour, without changes to either the basic rate or fuel charge.
"We hope this will help the economic recovery of Hong Kong, and minimise the impact on the public," Tso Kai-sum, its group managing director, said.
However, Tso warned that the company was still under pressure to increase charges, because it had to double its gas use for power generation to 600,000 tonnes next year, and gas was about three times dearer than coal.
A person familiar with the negotiations between the government and the power firms said both companies had originally proposed raising their tariffs by 3-5 per cent. The person said Hongkong Electric would have a greater deficit in its fuel account next year as it expanded its gas intake.
Concerns have been expressed over the cost of increasing gas-fired electricity generation to a half in Hong Kong to improve air quality or mitigate climate change. Hongkong Electric said it needed to build more gas-fired units for this, while CLP Power said that its newly sourced gas supply from the mainland would be more expensive than what it was currently paying.
Meanwhile, legislator Lee Cheuk-yan criticised CLP Power for ignoring the financial difficulties low-income groups faced.
"This is likely to trigger a chain of price increases and the poor, who have not had any pay rises in recent years, are the hardest hit," the unionist said.
Miriam Lau Kin-yee of the Liberal Party queried if it was justifiable for power firms to pass on all capital spending to consumers.
Cheung Chi-fai
9th Dec, 2009
Letter to CLP
Dear Legco Panel on Environmental Affairs
please see the self explanatory information herewith.
If this anti pollution system works well in China and reduces dangerous suspended particles then it should also work here.
Exxon Mobil has one test unit installed at Castle Peak but is hesitant to spend more money for all their boilers whilst delaying the issue of test reports to the public on the efficacy of the unit. Meanwhile they have Alstrom here looking at how they can redesign these coal fired systems to use gas. We see this as a delaying tactic to save their valuable pennies – meanwhile Hong Kong pollution continues to increase. Clear the Air says 'Delay No More' to CLP and HK Electric.
From what we can see , Indigo is the Best Current Available Technology and our power companies should be made to fit it by the imposition of WHO Air quality standards which they must meet – they will need this technology to meet those standards.


Casein is the protein that's found in milk. Actually, cow's milk only has about 3% casein in it, which is extracted by acidifying cow's milk. Often the casein is sold as a white powder or grainy solid that's really difficult to dissolve in water.


Are pesticides making you ill?
If you get hay fever symptoms when you're in a park, it may not be pollen you're reacting to but pesticides.
According to The Pesticides Trust, a charity which monitors the use of chemicals, pesticides are being used so liberally in cities that they could be putting people's health at risk, affecting their sight, skin and even causing stomach upsets.
'Few of us give a thought to what local councils are spraying down in the local park to keep the lawns well manicured and flower borders weed-free,' warns Mark Davis, project co-ordinator with the Pesticides Trust. 'In fact, councils are second only to farmers in the amount of pesticides they use every year and the quantities have risen dramatically.
Councils are legally obliged to hand their park maintenance over to whoever can do the job at the lowest cost. 'Spraying pesticides is cheaper and quicker than having people out there with hoes,' explains Mr Davis.
Though all six of the most widely used active ingredients in park pesticides (glyphosate, diuron SIC, 2,4-D, dichlorophen, dichlobenil and ferrous sulphate) are reckoned to be safe by The Pesticide Safety Directorate, the body which approves usage in the UK, others are not so convinced.
Diuron (SIC) may keep grassy weeds and mosses in their place but it has also been shown to irritate the eyes and throat. Male rats fed high levels of the chemical showed changes in the spleen and bone marrow and growth retardation.
Dicholorophen is also an eye irritatant and is not allowed to be used by members of the public in their own gardens. Glysophate caused liver, spleen and kidney damage in dogs.
There is much concern over 2,4-D, which is not approved for use in Sweden and has been linked to cancer in some studies. There was shown to be an increase of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in Kansas and Nebraska farming communities which use 2,4-D.
Pesticides stick to shoes and clothes and can rub off on to carpets and furniture. Taking shoes off at the door and a change of clothes may be a good precautionary measure.
Dr Vyvyan Howard, a toxico-pathologist at Liverpool University, believes the risks associated with an afternoon in the park are very slight for adults. He is, however, worried about children.
'Children's bodies don't deal with poisons as well as adult's and because they are still growing there could be more serious long-term effects.


text:
Steve McQueen's Widows Stylishly Explores Its Genre Trappings
by Brian Marks November 19, 2018
by Brian Marks Published: November 19, 2018 Last Updated on November 23, 2020
There's an intriguing duality that clings to Steve McQueen's new film, Widows. For much of its runtime, the movie works as a compelling socio-political drama, one that explores the nature of race and representation in Chicago, a city that has long suffered from corruption in its political machinery. It's a logical subject for McQueen to explore, considering the political nature of his previous films, especially Hunger (2008) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). And yet, in its second half, the film mutates into a high-octane crime thriller, one that ranks among the best work of Michael Mann. It's in those sections that the film reveals its dual authorship, both to McQueen and Gillian Flynn, the talented writer of thrillers and mysteries (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects). Neither film is quite hardy enough to support itself, but when combined, the two create a sumptuous piece that's as thrilling as it is moving.
Widows is, as the title would suggest, a film about women, and about women coming into their own. It's with men that the film starts, however; unsurprisingly, they create a mess. After having said goodbye to their spouses, four men initiate a robbery. It's clear that the group is led by Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson), and they're obviously well-versed in the mechanics of the crime. But something goes wrong this time, and a squadron of police cars are waiting outside the warehouse where the men have camped out. As the door opens for the truck to escape, the police open fire, engulfing the vehicle in flames.
The story then shifts to Rawling's wife, Veronica (Viola Davis) in the days after his death. McQueen mastered the ability to portray depression and despondency in earlier films like Hunger and Shame (2011), and he's able to extract an uncomfortably realistic performance from Davis as a grieving woman. There are none of the false histrionics we've been led to normally expect; her version of mourning is about detaching herself from the world, and shrinking until there's nothing left.
But the world isn't about to forget her. The money Harry stole didn't belong to some faceless bank or corporation — it belonged to Jamal Manning (Atlanta's Brian Tyree Henry), a crime figure running for an alderman position on Chicago's South Side. For decades, the position has been held by Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall), and now his son, Jack (Colin Farrell), is running to replace him. The Mulligans have used corruption and deception to their advantage for years, claiming to represent the area's black residents while lining their pockets with cash. Manning hopes to unseat the Mulligans with the money that Rawlings had stolen, despite being just as power-hungry as they are.
After a visit from Manning and his fixer/brother, Jatemme (a chilling turn from Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya), Veronica is tasked with rounding up the $2 million that her husband stole. Now that she's a social pariah, she determines that theft is the only way to get the cash, and she assembles a team of the dead men's widows (Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki) along with one outsider (Cynthia Erivo).
McQueen resists the temptation to immediately switch back into thriller mood. He devotes a large chunk of the film to following these women in their daily lives as they navigate their new statuses. The scenes with Debicki in particular are heartbreaking. She plays a woman who hasn't figured out her place in life before being confined to the role of wife, and now her young marriage is over, and she's once again adrift. Debicki is over six feet tall and lithe, something her previous film work has mostly tried to hide, but McQueen embraces it. She stands out and apart from others in scenes, as if she doesn't quite belong. He imbues her with a sense of isolation that helps us to understand her desire to join a wildly dangerous mission — it's her first chance to have a real purpose and a connection with others. She provides an interesting counterpoint to Davis, who is nothing if not established in her life.
As excellent a drama as Widows is, it's equally adept as a thriller. While watching, I had forgotten about Flynn's screenwriting credit, but a shocking twist half-way through the story makes her contributions clear. The screenplay has a great sense of the way each woman's private life conflicts with their mission; Erivo's character puts her job as a babysitter and her relationship with her wife on the line as she plots the robbery, while Debicki's character has to juggle her controlling mother and a distant playboy (Lukas Haas) she meets while escorting. They can't drop everything on a dime the way their husbands did, but failure isn't an option.
McQueen's go-to mode is to film steely, modernist spaces with an eye for ennui, but the grittier Chicago locales bring him down to earth a bit, which in turn gives the film a lively mood that hasn't existed in any of his previous work. You get the sense that he's actually having fun with the material, something that's not evident in 12 Years or Shame (as great as those films are).
It's hard not to watch Widows without comparing it to another heist film from this year: the failed Ocean's 8. That picture attempted to recycle the style of Steven Soderbergh's original, with none of its cleverness and no real insights into the lives of the women doing the robbing. McQueen and Flynn studiously avoid making the same mistake; their characters come first, and the heist second. It's a winning difference.
Steve McQueenViola DavisWidows
Brian Marks
Brian Marks is Sordid Cinema's Lead Film Critic. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, LA Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, and Ampersand. He's a graduate of USC's master's program in Specialized Arts Journalism. You can find more of his writing at InPraiseofCinema.com. Best film experience: driving halfway across the the country for a screening of Jean-Luc Godard's "King Lear." Totally worth it.
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text:
struct eigenmat
{
  float* data;
  int size[2];
  int is_trans; // 0 or 1
  int owns_data;
};

struct rnd_struct_e
{
    rnd_struct_e() : pGenerator(NULL) {}
    ~rnd_struct_e() { if (pGenerator) { delete pGenerator; } }

    std::default_random_engine *pGenerator;
};

int get_leading_dimension(eigenmat* mat);
int get_nonleading_dimension(eigenmat* mat);
void set_transpose(eigenmat* mat, int is_trans);
inline char get_transpose_char(eigenmat* mat);
int allocate_memory(eigenmat* mat);
int cumsum_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis);
int selectCols(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, eigenmat* indices);
int swapRows(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, eigenmat* indices1, eigenmat* indices2);
int setSelectedCols(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, eigenmat* indices);
void sgemm(bool rowMajor, bool TransA, bool TransB, int M, int N, int K, float alpha, float* A, int lda, float* B, int ldb, float beta, float* C, int ldc);

int init_random(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, int seed);
float uniform(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state);
float normal(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state);
int fill_with_rand(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat);
int fill_with_randn(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat);
int sample_bernoulli(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int sample_bernoulli_tanh(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int sample_gaussian(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, float mult);
int perturb_energy(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int perturb_prob(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int dropout(rnd_struct_e* rnd_state, eigenmat* mat, float dropprob, float val, float scale);

int write_at(eigenmat* mat, int row, int col, float val);
float read_from(eigenmat* mat, int row, int col, int* err_code);
int copy_on_device(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2);
int get_row_slice(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, unsigned int start, unsigned int end);
int set_row_slice(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, unsigned int start, unsigned int end);
int copy_transpose(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target);
int set_shape(eigenmat* mat, unsigned int m, unsigned int n);
int reshape(eigenmat* mat, int m, int n);
int get_slice(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, unsigned int first_col, unsigned int last_col);
int get_vector_slice(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, unsigned int first_ind, unsigned int last_ind);
void init_from_array(eigenmat* mat, float* data, int m, int n);
int init_empty(eigenmat* mat, int m, int n);

int add_col_vec(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int add_col_mult(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target, float mult);
int add_to_each_pixel(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target, float mult);
int mult_diagonal_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float val, eigenmat* target);
int add_diagonal_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float val, eigenmat* target);
int mult_diagonal(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int add_diagonal(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int add_row_mult(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target, float mult);
int add_row_vec(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int mult_by_col_vec(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int mult_by_row_vec(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int div_by_col_vec(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int div_by_row_vec(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* vec, eigenmat* target);
int less_than(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int less_than_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float val, eigenmat* target);
int greater_than(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int greater_than_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float val, eigenmat* target);
int upper_bound(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int lower_bound(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int upper_bound_mod_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float val, eigenmat* target);
int upper_bound_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float val, eigenmat* target);
int lower_bound_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float val, eigenmat* target);
int max_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis);
int choose_max_and_accumulate(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* acc);
int choose_max_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis);
int argmax_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis);
int sqsum_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis, float mult, float p);
int sum_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis, float mult, float p);
float sum_all(eigenmat* mat);
int normlimit_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis, float norm, int constraint);
int normalize_by_axis(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, int axis);
int sign(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_cos(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_sin(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_sigmoid(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_tanh(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_abs(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_log_1_plus_exp(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_relu_squash(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, float lambda);
int apply_log(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target, float tiny);
int apply_exp(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_ceil(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_floor(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_sqrt(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int apply_pow(eigenmat* mat, float exponent, eigenmat* target);
int apply_pow_matrix(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* exponent, eigenmat* target);
int compute_cross_entropy(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target, float tiny);
int compute_cross_entropy_bernoulli(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target, float tiny);
int correct_preds(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target, float cutoff);
int reciprocal(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int dot(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target, float beta, float alpha);
float vdot(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, int* err_code);
int add_mult(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, float alpha);
int add_mult_sign(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* mat2, float mult);
int add_elementwise(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int subtract_elementwise(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int divide_elementwise(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int mult_elementwise(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int apply_sin_deriv(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int apply_cos_deriv(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int apply_logistic_deriv(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int apply_tanh_deriv(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int apply_rectified_linear_deriv(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int apply_rectified_linear_smooth_deriv(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* target);
int assign_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float alpha);
int mult_by_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float alpha, eigenmat* target);
int divide_by_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float alpha, eigenmat* target);
int add_scalar(eigenmat* mat, float alpha, eigenmat* target);
float euclid_norm(eigenmat* mat);
int selectRows(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, eigenmat* indices);
int swapColumns(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, eigenmat* indices1, eigenmat* indices2);
int shuffleColumns(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* rand_perm_indices);
int setSelectedRows(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, eigenmat* indices);
int blockify(eigenmat* source, eigenmat* target, int blocksize);
int softmax(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* target);
int softmax_row_major(eigenmat* mat);
int softmax_row_major_multi(eigenmat* mat, int numslices);
int apply_logistic_grad(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* out_grad);
int apply_softmax_grad(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* labels, eigenmat* target);
int apply_softmax_grad_row_major(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* labels, eigenmat* target);
int get_softmax_correct(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* labels, eigenmat* target);
int get_softmax_correct_row_major(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* labels, eigenmat* target);
int hinge_loss_row_major(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* labels, eigenmat* target, int quadratic, float margin);
int get_softmax_cross_entropy(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* labels, eigenmat* target, float tiny);
int get_softmax_cross_entropy_row_major(eigenmat* mat, eigenmat* labels, eigenmat* target, float tiny);
int extract_patches(eigenmat* images, eigenmat* patches, eigenmat* width_offset,
                    eigenmat* height_offset, eigenmat* flip, int img_width,
                    int img_height, int patch_width, int patch_height);
int rectify_bounding_boxes(eigenmat* boxes, eigenmat* width_offset,
                           eigenmat* height_offset, eigenmat* flip,
                           int patch_width, int patch_height);
int adagrad(eigenmat* history, eigenmat* grad, float delta);
int rms_prop(eigenmat* history, eigenmat* grad, float factor);
int get_logistic_correct_normalized(eigenmat* mat1, eigenmat* mat2, eigenmat* out);

// LSTMs
int lstm_fprop(eigenmat* s_in, eigenmat* s_out, eigenmat* w_dense, eigenmat* w_diag, eigenmat* b, bool init, bool use_relu);
int lstm_bprop(eigenmat* s_in, eigenmat* s_out, eigenmat* d_in, eigenmat* d_out, eigenmat* w_dense, eigenmat* w_diag, bool init, bool use_relu);
int lstm_outp(eigenmat* s_in, eigenmat* s_out, eigenmat* d_out, eigenmat* dw_dense, eigenmat* dw_diag, eigenmat* db, bool init);

int bn_bprop(eigenmat* deriv, eigenmat* input, eigenmat* gamma, eigenmat* mu,
             eigenmat* sigma, eigenmat* target, float scale_targets);
int bn_grad(eigenmat* deriv, eigenmat* input, eigenmat* mu, eigenmat* sigma,
            eigenmat* dgamma, eigenmat* dbeta);
#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Since publishing the blog post "A Growing Understanding of Digital Literacy" this past May, I've been giving a lot more thought to the urgent need to reconsider digital literacy, and have since published a full paper on the topic in Information for Social Change. In short, I argue that if we are to achieve full digital inclusion and equity so as to assure individuals and communities are empowered to address their own needs and to fully participate in society, democracy, and the economy, we need to bring together traditional digital literacy skills with those of computational thinking, wrapped within a critical sociotechnical perspective. Competencies include technical, information, cognitive, sociotechnical, and application skills.
Last week, though, I was asked a question I couldn't properly answer by a student in one of my classes: "Is my listing of the skills in an expanded understanding of digital literacy intentionally ordered by priority or primacy?" This question has occupied my thought a great deal, and the result has been this diagram.
People who I would especially consider digitally literate aren't defined by their technical skill competencies, but rather by their ability to set about harnessing the resources at hand, and using just-in-time learning to acquire the technical skills needed, to achieve the project of the moment. This requires the cognitive and socio-emotional skills that have come to be embedded within the computational thinking framework. (But I would argue that these skills predate by millennia the advent of digital computers.) This also requires the information skills to effectively seek out information and resources, and to recognize and overcome or accommodate forces of exclusion.
Thus, technical skills are not the first skills needed, or the most important skills, but rather skills learned at the time they are needed. The digitally literate also often find the technical skills as a human resource available in the community as a collaborative effort. As such, they may not learn a needed technical skill at all, but have the competency to communicate and collaborate with those who do (a skill highlighted within the computational thinking framework). This moves the primacy and priority to the cognitive, socio-emotional, and information skills that are the basis of application skills.
It should be noted that for full digital inclusion, it is essential that individuals and communities have (1) affordable, robust broadband internet service; (2) Internet-enabled devices that meet the needs of the user; (3) access to digital literacy training; (4) quality technical support; and (5) applications and online content designed to enable and encourage self-sufficiency, participation and collaboration. (NOTE: self-sufficiency is different from self-reliance, a hyper-individualistic form of self-sufficiency.) Further, effective use also typically requires a unique mix of geographic, social, educational, financial, material, time, and other resources.
A critical perspective recognizes that there are a wide range of historical, systemic, and structural barriers that exist and which contribute to digital inequities for people of color, women, and other's who have been historically disenfranchised. Quite a few are related to under-resourcing. However, I've been intrigued as of late regarding the way cultural training can serve as a force for exclusion within the socio-emotional and cognitive competencies, as illustrated in recent TED Talks by Carol Dweck and Reshma Saujani. This further illustrates the need to urgently move away from a digital literacy that so often prioritized or focuses exclusively on technical skills development if we are to achieve full digital inclusion and equity.
Indeed, I would argue that if we are to champion a more just society, we must urgently work to transition from a technical skills-oriented digital literacy program to one that focuses on cognitive, socio-emotional, information, and criticality skills, and only brings in technical skills development as infill training when needed.
In the meantime, check out these TED Talks by Saujani and Dweck.
Previous Post Will We Learn From, or Repeat, History?


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Results For: In The News
News — More U District high-rise student housing to open late next summer
The content for this article was originally featured in the Daily Journal of Commerce on November 18, 2021. When it opens in the late summer of 2022, ...
News — Meet the 2021 Passive Design Competition Winners | Green Building & Design Magazine
The content for this article was originally featured in Green Building & Design Magazine on November 8, 2021. Story at a glance: PHIUS recognized...
News — No, Passive House Doesn't Have to Cost a Lot More | Treehugger
The content for this article was originally featured in Treehugger on October 20, 2021. One of the standard tropes you hear about Passive House desig...
News — Editor's Note: A Gang of Green | Seattle Business Magazine
The content for this article was originally featured in the October 2021 issue of Seattle Business Magazine. Though Climate Pledge Arena generates mos...
News — The Center of the Green Building Universe | Seattle Business Magazine
The content for this article was originally featured in the October 2021 issue of Seattle Business Magazine. Strategically on the north lip of the La...
News — An architecture firm dedicated to green building felt the heat and got AC at the office. They still cut their energy use | KUOW
The content for this article was originally posted on KUOW on August 5, 2021. "Watershed" is the name of the building Weber Thompson desig...
News — "More Than a Unit Count:" Beacon Hill Project Rethinks Traditional Multifamily Metrics | The Registry
The content for this article was originally featured in The Registry on June 23, 2021. In the world of multifamily, a project's unit count is often ...
News — Renovation of Obsolete Office Sparks Sustainable Solution | LoopNet
The content for this article was originally featured in LoopNet on February 5, 2021. In an effort to ease energy expenditures, Washington state has ma...
News — Massive mural is a nod to Passive House design for East Pike apartment building | Daily Journal of Commerce
The content for this article was originally featured in the Daily Journal of Commerce on May 27, 2021. The goal for the 45-unit building is a 70% red...
News — Seattle project wins WoodWorks award | Daily Journal of Commerce
The content for this article was originally featured in the Daily Journal of Commerce on March 10, 2021. Cedar Speedster, a heavy timber retail-office...
News — After decades in SLU, WT Moves to Sleek, Sustainable Office in Seattle's Fremont Neighborhood | The Registry
The content for this article was originally featured in The Registry on February 5, 2021. One of Seattle's busiest architecture firms has departed i...
News — [PRESS RELEASE] Weber Thompson's new office in Watershed now complete
February 2, 2021 Interdisciplinary design firm Weber Thompson has announced the opening of its new headquarters at Watershed, a deeply sustainable com...
News — Beyond LEED: Exploring the front edge of sustainable and profitable developments in Washington State | NAIOP
The content for this article was originally posted on the NAIOP blog on December 4th, 2020. What is the first thing many developers or investors think...
News — NAIOP honors the best brokers, projects and buildings of 2020 | Daily Journal of Commerce
The content for this article was originally featured in the Daily Journal of Commerce on November 12, 2020. Owing to the pandemic, NAIOP's Night...
News — Honoring Excellence: NAIOPWA's Night of the Stars 2020 | NAIOP Washington
The content for this article was originally featured in the NAIOP Washington's website on November 7th, 2020. SEATTLE – At today's first-eve...
News — [VIDEO] Design Break: The Accolade
Rendering of Lakeview Student Housing Construction recently started at the Lakeview Student Housing tower located in the University District. This 21-...
News — 17-story low-income apartments underway on First Hill | Daily Journal of Commerce
The content for this article was originally featured in the Daily Journal of Commerce on October 27th, 2020. Rendering of 1400 Madison located in Firs...
News — A case study featuring Watershed by Old Castle Building Envelope
The content from this article was originally featured by Old Castle Building Envelope. "Today's workforce wants to be in a space that supports...
News — Going 'deep green,' office buildings give back to the planet | The New York Times
This article was originally featured in The New York Times on July 14, 2020. As technology costs have declined, more developers are creating buildings...


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