New Jetpack release including site monetization tools, ad-free video hosting, new shortcodes and sidebar widgets.
How 1995! JetPack v4.5 now has a widget for “blog stats: a simple stat counter to display page views on the front end of your site.”
Welcome to Jetpack 4.5, available now for upgrade or installation. We’re starting the year in style with some very exciting additions and improvements that we can’t wait for you to try. This release includes:
In an interview seven days before leaving office, Mr. Obama talked about the role books have played during his presidency and throughout his life.
Not since Lincoln has there been a president as fundamentally shaped — in his life, convictions and outlook on the world — by reading and writing as Barack Obama.
The new policy eliminates a special parole period that allows them entry to wait for U.S. residence and ends the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy.
The Obama administration, in one of its final foreign policy initiatives, on Thursday ended the special status accorded migrants fleeing Cuba who, upon reaching this country, were automatically allowed to stay.
Cubans are still covered by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants them permanent residency — a green card — after they have been here for one year. Until now, they were given temporary “parole” status while waiting for that year to pass. That will no longer be granted, making the act moot for most by denying them entry on arrival.
In this March 22, 2016 photo, President Barack Obama speaks at the Grand Theater of Havana, Cuba. (Desmond Boylan/AP)
Effective immediately, President Obama said in a statement, “Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally . . . will be subject to removal,” treating them “the same way we treat migrants from other countries.”
More than a million Cubans have come to this country, many of them in vast exoduses by sea, since the island’s 1959 revolution. More than 250,000 have been granted residency under the Obama administration under the law, which can only be repealed by Congress.
The new rule on parole applies to Cubans attempting to enter the United States without visas by sea or by land through Mexico or Canada.
It ends the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy, adopted by the Clinton administration in 1996 at a time when illegal seaborne migrants were flooding across the Florida Straits. That policy differentiated between those reaching U.S. soil — who were allowed to stay — and those intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, who were returned to Cuba or sent to third countries.
The policy was agreed upon with the Cuban government, which issued a statement calling it “an important step in the advance of bilateral relations” that will guarantee “regular, safe and orderly migration.” The government has long complained about the special status for Cubans, particularly the “wet-foot, dry foot” policy, which it said encouraged illegal travel in unseaworthy vessels, homemade rafts and inner tubes.
As part of the accord announced in both capitals, Cuba will allow any citizen who has been out of the country for up to four years to return. Previously, anyone who had been gone for more than two years was legally said to have “emigrated.” The Cuban statement said efforts to “modernize” immigration policies would continue.
The White House described the changes as a logical extension of the normalization of relations with Cuba that began in December 2014, when Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced they would end more than a half-century of estrangement. Since then, U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations have been reestablished, and Obama has used his regulatory authorities to ease long-standing restrictions on commerce and trade, as well as travel by U.S. citizens to the island, under the continuing U.S. embargo.
The latest change comes as President-elect Donald Trump has indicated his unhappiness with increased Cuba ties and has threatened to reverse normalization. “If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal,” Trump tweeted in late November, after the death of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, the current president’s brother.
If he chose to do so after taking office, Trump could order the Department of Homeland Security to reinstitute special treatment for Cuban migrants.
Lawmakers long opposed to the new relationship with Cuba expressed displeasure at the new policy. “Today’s announcement will only serve to tighten the noose the Castro regime continues to have around the neck of its own people,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a statement.
“Congress was not consulted prior to this abrupt policy announcement with just nine days left in the administration,” Menendez said. “The Obama administration seeks to pursue engagement with the Castro regime at the cost of ignoring the present state of torture and oppression, and its systematic curtailment of freedom.”
Benjamin Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said that plans for the change were kept quiet in large part to avoid a new flood of Cubans trying to enter — many of them trying to beat a deadline they feared was the inevitable next step in U.S.-Cuba rapprochment under the current administration.
The total number of Cubans admitted after reaching here without visas by land or sea was 4,890 in 2013, according to Customs and Border Protection. In 2016, the number was 53,416.
According to the Coast Guard, 1,885 people traveling by sea have either arrived here or been intercepted — and sent back — in fiscal 2017, which began Oct. 1.
Thousands of others have joined a growing stream of Central Americans who have made the arduous journey through Mexico, often after paying hefty sums to smugglers, to reach the U.S. border. While Cubans have been allowed to cross, others, largely from Guatemala and El Salvador, have been turned back.
“The aim here is to treat Cuban migrants in a manner consistent to migrants who come here from other countries . . . equalizing our immigration policies . . . as part of the overall normalization process with Cuba,” said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. “Our approach to Cubans arriving [at the border] tomorrow will be the same as those arriving from other countries.”
Rhodes said the change was also justified because, while many Cubans in the past left the island “for political purposes . . . I think increasingly over time the balance has shifted to those leaving for more traditional reasons,” such as “economic opportunity.”
“That is not to say there are not still people who have political cause to leave Cuba,” he said. As with other countries, Rhodes said, “political asylum continues to be an option.” Adjudication of asylum claims of political or other persecution normally takes several years, allowing time to be granted a green card under the Cuban Adjustment Act before there is even a ruling on the claim.
The Cuban government continues to arrest dissidents and restrict civil liberties, including political and press freedoms. At the same time, however, it has slowly loosened its grip on the economy — allowing the growth of a private sector — and liberalized some other restrictions.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who has long advocated rapprochement with Cuba, said in a statement that “this is a welcome step in reforming an illogical and discriminatory policy that contrasted starkly with the treatment of deserving refugees from other countries. Refugees from all countries should be treated the same way, and now they will be. That’s the American way.”
Engage Cuba, a coalition of private U.S. companies and organizations working to end the trade embargo still in place against Cuba, called it “a logical, responsible, and important step towards further normalizing relations with Cuba.”
The new agreement also ends the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, adopted under the George W. Bush administration, which targeted Cuba’s policy of sending medical professionals abroad as a form of humanitarian aid by encouraging them to defect. The program allowed U.S. embassies abroad to accept them for U.S. migration.
A U.S. lottery that gives green cards to 20,000 Cubans on the island each year remains in place, Rhodes said.
You probably don’t realise – we all talk the language of falconry!
category Having such a long and rich history around the world, the practice of falconry has developed an extensive vocabulary to describe it. Over time many of these words and phrases have become part of everyday life without many of us realising the original meaning behind the term.
For example:
“I’m just so fed up with all this work.”
The term to be ‘fed up’ comes from the falconry term for when a trained hawk has eaten its fill. When a bird is ‘fed up’ it is unwilling to fly and hunt for the falconer. Hence today, to be ‘fed up’ means you are no longer interested in doing something.
“That guy is so under her thumb!”
To be under the thumb, comes from the action of a falconer holding the leash of the hawk under their thumb to maintain a tight control of the bird. Today the term under the thumb is generally used in a derogatory manner to describe a partners overbearing control over the other partners actions.
“Ha ha – he’s been hoodwinked!”
Falconers use a leather ‘hood’ to cover a hawks eyes and keep them calm. Hence the term hoodwinked came about to describe somebody being fooled or tricked into doing something.
“Noel has been working too hard – he’s looking a bit haggard!”
A haggard falcon was traditionally a bird that was caught from the wild while on migration. Typically a bird caught at this time would be thin and tired from its journey. Hence the term for somebody looking ‘haggard’ means that they look a bit rough around the edges, a bit worn out.
“She’s been waiting with bated breath all day”
Falcons, when they want to fly, bate from the block, meaning they try to fly but are held short of leaving the area around their perch by their leash. When doing this they can become short of breath – and hence are waiting for the falconer to come to release them from their tether with ‘bated breath’. The term “at the end of my tether” similarly comes from the action of a falcon, particularly an un-trained young falcon, bating from the perch and being held up by their tether – hence they are at the end of their tether i.e. extremely frustrated.
“Ok, I will cadge a lift off Tom.”
A cadge was what falconers called a portable perch. Falcons were carried to the hunting grounds on a cadge. Thus the term to ‘cadge a lift’ came about, meaning to get a free lift. Phrases based on the words cadge don’t end there. ‘Codger’ is a derivative of the word ‘cadger’. Cadgers were usually old falconers (who carried the falcons on the cadge) hence today the term has come to be used to refer to an elderly person, as in the affectionate term – ‘the old codger’. Interestingly, a caddy today is somebody who carries golf clubs for somebody – and normally the person carrying the clubs is considerably younger than the person playing the game!
“I’m off down the boozer.”
When raptors drink, it is called bowsing. A bird that drinks heavily is called a boozer. The same term is used to describe the same tendency in humans – hence a ‘boozer’ is someone who drinks a lot and the ‘boozer’ is where people that drink beer like to go for a drink (or two).
The tough part that most don’t realize or take into account is the randomness of life. In some cases one is born to wealth and privilege while others not. And even in cases of wealth and privilege one may be randomly “singled out” for disease, accidents, or other problems that may level a lifetime of working. Statistical thermodynamics and big history can tell us is that none of us are immune, all of us will die eventually, but also that we’re here because of the billions who came before us. If we’re going to beat evolution, we’ll need all the help we can get, from every single member of our society.
A robust social safety net can benefit both the individuals in a society and the society itself. Free of the fear of total impoverishment and able to meet their basic needs, people have a better opportunity to pursue long-term goals, to invent, create, and innovate. Of course, there are many who believe otherwise. And there are some, including the acolytes of Ayn Rand, who believe as Rand did: that those who rely on social systems are—to use her ugly term—“parasites,” and those who amass large amounts of private wealth are heroic supermen. Continue reading When Ayn Rand Collected Social Security & Medicare, After Years of Opposing Benefit Programs | Open Culture
These mettle tests are going to come more quickly than we thought, I guess. HarperCollins: you're up!
Today Andrew Kaczynski of CNN published this article. It says that author and TV figure Monica Crowley, recently appointed to the Trump administration as a national security aide, plagiarized many portions of her 2012 book “What The (Bleep) Just Happened.”
In a previous post, I talked about POSSE and PESOS, and publishing on your own site vs other platforms, syndicating content back and forth and content ownership. I mentioned that I’d opted for the PESOS approach, and that I was publishing content on other platforms, then syndicating it back to my own site. Let’s take a look at how that happens.
I’ve been using WordPress to power my own website for a while now, and working with it in some way or another for even longer. Over the years, I’ve developed the belief that it’s a pretty perfect platform for people to build their own “digital home on the web”, considering the range of plugins and themes available, the flexibility of the publishing options it offers, and the fact that it’s completely open source, so you can do whatever you want with it.
That last bit is important in more ways than you might immediately think. Apart from just being able to write my own plugins or tweak my themes, this also means that I own my own data. I think in this MySpace/Facebook generation, people are all too loose with the data trails they create — giving up ownership of their digital self at the drop of a hat. In case you didn’t realize, when you use something like Facebook, it is not the product, you and your data are the product.
RSSCloud support has been enabled on all WordPress.com blogs. If you are running a WordPress.org powered blog you can do the same thing with the RSSCloud plugin.
Version 0.4.1 of the rssCloud WordPress plugin is now available. The biggest change is adding support for the domain parameter in notification requests. This means that rssCloud updates processed by the plugin are no longer limited to being sent to the IP address that the request came from. Support for the domain parameter is live on WordPress.com as well.
When a domain parameter is included with a notification request the verification process does the following:
Sends an HTTP GET request to the {domain}:{port}{path} URL
That HTTP GET includes to pieces of data: url and challenge. The url field contains the URL of the feed that we’ll been sending pings about. The challenge field contains a random string of characters
The response back must have a status code of 2xx and the body must contain EXACTLY the contents of the challenge field. If both of those conditions are not met then the verification process will consider this a failure
For notification requests that have no domain parameter the verification process is unchanged from before.
Another item that some may find helpful is a new constant – RSSCLOUD_FEED_URL – if that is defined they it will be used as the feed URL of the blog instead of determining it via get_bloginfo( 'rss2_url' );. For plugin authors that provide options for an alternative feed URL note that can override the default in WordPress via the feed_link filter. That filter can be used instead of the RSSCLOUD_FEED_URL constant and will bubble up through the get_bloginfo( 'rss2_url' ); call.
Today I pushed some updates to: People & Places Keyring Social Importers These updates make it so that the Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram importers are now dynamically identifying and indexi…
Having such a long and rich history around the world, the practice of falconry has developed an extensive vocabulary to describe it. Over time many of these words and phrases have become part of everyday life without many of us realising the original meaning behind the term.
