PyroFalkon #39;s Sims 4 Socialism Challenge Day 3
Let #39;s play The Sims 4! Jon "PyroFalkon" Michael, the writer of the IGN Entertainment strategy guide wiki for The Sims 4, has created a set of house rules to make The Sims 4 more challenging,...
By: PyroFalkon #39;s Let #39;s Play Extravaganza
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PyroFalkon's Sims 4 Socialism Challenge Day 3 - Video
Latest NBR Member Subscriber winner John Monaghan from Eketahuna is NBR's latest winner of New Zealand's richest subscription prize, the all-new BMW 320i xDrive Touring valued at $83,800 Read More
Past Winner Stephen Tubbs is NBR's latest winner of New Zealand's richest subscription prize, a fabulous trip for two flying Business Class with Singapore Airlines and SilkAir to Cambodias newest ultimate "all-inclusive" luxury eco-resort Song Saa Private Island, valued at $59,000 Read More
Past Winner Matthew Horton (right) catching the keys to his new Peugeot 508 from NBR publisher Todd Scott (centre), with Sime Darby Automobiles divisional manager Simon Rose (left) Horton Media Chief Executive Matthew Horton is the lucky winner of NBRs latest subscription prize. Mr Horton won a Peugeot 508 worth $54,990, which brings the publications prize pool total to almost $500,000 since 1999.
Past Winner FMA chairman Simon Allen was the winner of NBR' s latest subscriber prize of a Luxury European Escape courtesy of Air NZ, flying Business Premier to London, with stopovers each way in either Hong Kong or Los Angeles, plus four weeks' accommodation staying at the Small Luxury Hotels of the World properties of his choice. So what did he do with this wonderful prize?
Past Winner Long-time NBR subscriber Peter Merton won a Mini Countryman Cooper S valued at $63,000 in NBR's latest subscriber competition, drawn on February 24, 2012.
Past Winner Congratulations to Justin and Janine Smith (owner-operators of the Oamaru New World) They won seven nights for two on board Seabourn Odyssey valued at $30,000 - Athens to Istanbul.
Past Winner Max and Christine Tarr of Max Tarr Electrical in Palmerston North, winners of the Ultimate NZ Experience valued at $40,000 Three nights for four people staying at each of these luxury NZ Lodges, Kauri Cliffs, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers and Matakauri Lodge in Queenstown. Max has been an NBR subscriber since Sept 1991
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Election 2014: Voters reject 'throwback socialism'
By Steve Almond Special to The Washington Post.
Over the past few weeks, Americans have been confronted by a slew of scandals besieging our most popular sport. Outrage over the off-the-field violence of star running backs Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson has been accompanied by the revelation that the National Football League expects almost one-third of its retired players to develop long-term cognitive problems at "notably younger ages" than the rest of the population. Amid all this scrutiny, the NFL remains enshrouded in myths. Let's consider five of the most stubborn.
1. The NFL is on its way to resolving its concussion crisis.
This talking point, trumpeted by league officials and routinely repeated by sports reporters and fans, relies on the notion that new helmet technology and rule changes will suffice. In fact, the number of concussions was up more than 50 percent in this year's first three preseason games compared with the same games last year.
And even if the league reduces concussions, the profound risks to its players will remain in the form of sub-concussive hits, the hundreds or even thousands of lesser blows that damage the brain without registering as full-blown concussions, and that are absorbed not just during games but in every full-contact practice.
The NFL doesn't have a concussion crisis, in other words; it has a violence problem. Players are bigger, stronger and faster than ever. When they collide, their brains soft organs smash against the inside of their skulls. No miracle technology or rule tweaking is going to undo the basic physics and physiology of the sport.
2. The NFL's economic model is socialist.
Pundits from Chuck Klosterman to Bill Maher have echoed this canard.
It's true that NFL teams share revenue generated by TV and merchandise deals. But this fact is a testament to the league's canny corporate ethos. In 1961, for instance, lobbyists persuaded Congress to pass a law that allowed the NFL to circumvent antitrust rules and to sell TV rights, collectively, to the highest bidder. In effect, the NFL became a legal monopoly. A few years later, lawmakers cut a deal with the league that granted it tax-exempt status.
Like most effective monopolies, the NFL has leveraged its power at the expense of taxpayers, who supply 70 percent of the funding for NFL stadiums along with millions in infrastructure according to Judith Long, a professor of urban planning at Harvard University. Team owners also receive lucrative "inducement payments" to keep them from moving their franchises to other cities. Billionaires shaking down cities and states for public monies? That's not socialism. It's crony capitalism.
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Commentary: Five myths about the NFL, from concussions to socialism
PyroFalkon #39;s Sims 4 Socialism Challenge Trailer
Let #39;s play The Sims 4! Jon "PyroFalkon" Michael, the writer of the IGN Entertainment strategy guide wiki for The Sims 4, has created a set of house rules to make The Sims 4 more challenging,...
By: PyroFalkon #39;s Let #39;s Play Extravaganza
Read the original here:
PyroFalkon's Sims 4 Socialism Challenge Trailer - Video
IN 1949, Albert Einstein wrote a short essay entitled Why Socialism? In it he made a compellingly simple case for why humanity had to build a new social order based on fundamentally different principles than those which prevailed in the capitalist present. Einsteins political views were not necessarily a secret during his lifetime, but in death he has been stripped entirely of his socialist politics.
The great man is, of course, not alone. In this country and all over the world, innumerable individuals who openly espoused rebellion against state and class power, patriarchy and national oppression, have been rechristened as dedicated loyalists after their departure from this world. Some icons have been perversely transformed into corporate brands, Che Guevara most obviously so.
Accordingly, a vast majority of ordinary people are exposed only to caricatures of figures like Einstein and Guevara. Hence their understanding of socialism is at best vague and at worst based entirely on mainstream propaganda.
Over the past few years, interest in the socialist tradition has undergone something of a revival amongst ordinary Europeans. Intellectuals like Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou who overtly celebrate the writings of revolutionaries like Lenin and propagate the original Communist Hypothesis have been important figures in this regard. Given what happened in the years following the collapse of actually existing socialism in 1991, the growing influence of a body of socialist thinkers is no small matter.
Having said this, the dominant trend prevails in most countries. Take India. From the late 1970s onwards, communist parties formed many successive governments in West Bengal and Kerala, and leftists were reasonably well-represented in the intellectual mainstream. Over the past decade, Indian socialism has taken a beating, and is now at its lowest ebb in decades.
The socialist project has suffered in no small part due to its own contradictions. At one and the same time viewed as the culmination of the Enlightenment principles and a rejection of capitalism, the socialist ideal has not yet fully freed itself from the cul-de-sac of modernisation.
Yet we cannot ignore just how many resources were dedicated to demonising socialism in the 20th century, and how this legacy continues to inform politics, culture and just about everything else in society.
In Pakistan the combination of the American Empire, Pakistans establishment, and right-wing political forces hounded anyone who harboured even sympathy for leftist ideas. Communists were openly decried as atheists, and therefore enemies of Islam and Pakistan. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was not a communist, and the extent of his commitment to socialism can be debated. Yet he, Pakistans elected prime minister, suffered acute character assassination due to his socialist leanings despite his initiatives to prove he was no less a Muslim than any other Pakistani.
As a teacher in a public university, I am reminded everyday of just how deeply anti-socialist propaganda has seeped into the veins of society. Only ignoramuses would ignore the contributions of Marx and others in that tradition to the corpus of modern social theory, yet even the slightest mention of Marxist writing draws gasps from a scandalised student body, convinced that socialists and communists seek to de-fang Islam and corrupt societys moral fabric.
It is ironic that since it was Islamised in the 1980s the same period in which socialism has been most vilified Pakistani society has become more individualistic and amoral than before, ie the more we wear our Islamic morality on our sleeves, the more we tend towards transactional practices in which theres no pretence of collective betterment.
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Interest in the socialist tradition has seen a revival.