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The Super Health Diet Book Surges to #1 Rank on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
The Super Health Diet Book Surges to #1 Rank on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
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Apple, Facebook, Google Might Be Put On European Union’s ‘Hit List’ Over Monopoly Power
European Union regulators are reportedly compiling a list of Big Tech companies including Apple, Facebook and Google, which will be hit with regulations designed to reduce their power, according to The Financial Times.
Companies placed on the European Union’s (EU) so-called “hit list” would face tougher regulation than their smaller counterparts, forcing them to be more transparent and to share more data, the Financial Times reported Sunday. Market share and number of users are being used to determine which tech companies make the list.
“The internet as we know it is being destroyed,” an anonymous source with direct knowledge of the EU’s plans told FT. “Big platforms are invasive, they pay little tax and they destroy competition. This is not the internet we wanted.” (RELATED: Big Tech Censors Content That Counters The WHO, Despite It Repeatedly Flip-Flopping On Its Guidance)
Another person with knowledge of the list told the FT that the outsized market share of certain tech companies “is not good for competition.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks via video conference during the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law hearing on Online Platforms and Market Power on July 29 in Washington, D.C. (Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images)
The EU will seek measures that go beyond fines, according to FT. The EU might move to break up the companies on the list in some cases and force companies to share critical data to rivals in other cases.
In the past, EU regulators have sought to punish Big Tech without full investigation or findings that companies have broken the law, according to FT. The “hit list” is the latest effort to give regulators more sweeping power in regulating Big Tech.
Although the list is not finalized, it is expected to contain up to 20 companies, FT reported. Most of the companies are expected to be American. (RELATED: ‘Oil Barons And Railroad Tycoons’: Big Tech Must Be Restructured, House Report Says)
Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers released a report on Oct. 6 condemning Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google for abusing their monopoly power. Big Tech companies should undergo restructuring and existing U.S. antitrust laws should be modified, the report said.
“These firms typically run the marketplace while also competing in it — a position that enables them to write one set of rules for others, while they play by another, or to engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves,” the House report said.
The European Commission, which implements EU policy, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Trade, biofuels and the environment: key agriculture issues in U.S. election
… and promises to make farming more environmentally friendly. Here … European Union, while working to address persistent imbalances in agricultural … The U.S. and Europe should work together to … does not specifically mention organic agriculture. A Biden presidency …
Book World: Five books for fans of historical portraits
From the publication of “Wolf Hall” in 2009 until the release of “The Mirror and the Light” last March, devotees of Hilary Mantel’s portrait of Tudor statesman Thomas Cromwell always had more to look forward to. Now, her acclaimed trilogy complete, fans must go elsewhere for historical novels with the complex characters, luminous descriptions and period authenticity that are the trademarks of Mantel’s fiction. One of these excellent, ambitious novels might be just what you’re looking for.
Ford Madox Ford’s “The Fifth Queen” (1906) concerns Catherine Howard, the unfortunate young Englishwoman chosen by Henry VIII in 1540 to replace the disappointing Anne of Cleves as his wife. The tale begins with a chance meeting between the king and erudite, pious Catherine in the treacherous court where Cromwell presides like Darth Vader, menacing and all seeing. In Ford’s portrait, Henry is weary, choleric and mercurial, while Catherine is completely sympathetic, nothing like the girl – frivolous and promiscuous – that many historians describe. The storytelling is less propulsive than Mantel’s: Ford labors over scene-setting and, like a playwright, uses speech and action to reveal motivation rather than explicating his characters’ thoughts. But he vividly captures the uneasiness felt by many in England at the loss of Catholicism, “the old faith,” and his artful use of archaic language transports a patient reader directly back into the heart of Tudor-world.
While Willie Stark, the messianic state governor at the center of Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men” (1946), doesn’t occupy a throne, he wields enormous power in the imagined Louisiana of the 1930s, recognizing no limits to his own will. Sprawling, melodramatic, with a structure that zigzags in time, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel’s rise-and-fall story is told by Stark’s right-hand man, Jack Burden, someone in search of love and meaning who comes to understand that the actions of everybody – exalted or otherwise – have consequences. Warren was inspired by the demagogic Louisiana governor Huey Long, but Stark’s populist methods and the corruption of his confederates don’t seem utterly remote from our own day.
Gore Vidal gives us an American-style royal court with his masterly “Lincoln” (1984), bouncing from character to character, borrowing their point of view in turn, to create an artful portrait of the 16th president. In Mantel’s novels, the reader lives inside Cromwell’s head, but here the main character’s state of mind is a matter for interpretation. Lincoln emerges as a folksy, aphorism-spouting backwoods lawyer whose virtuosic political skills outstrip those of all the sophisticates around him. Vidal relishes the entertaining possibilities of his story, but there is nothing lightweight about this carefully researched work. The reader approaches the martyrdom of the president with dread, conscious that without Lincoln’s willingness to pay any price, the Union might indeed have collapsed.
Our 35th president, John Kennedy, proclaimed Mary Renault as his favorite novelist for her fictional evocations of Greece antiquity. “The King Must Die” (1958) tells the coming-of-age story of Theseus, the legendary Athenian king, whom Renault makes a fully human, completely believable youth living in a strange pagan world. Gods and goddesses are not rendered explicitly – but neither is their power denied. The climatic section finds Theseus among the seven girls and seven boys chosen by lottery to be tributes, shipped to Crete and trained to entertain crowds as they fight wild bulls to the death. Fans of Suzanne Collins’s dystopian “Hunger Games” novels will recognize the debt she owes to Renault’s highly original reimagining of the mythical past.
If what you most savored about Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy was its 16th-century setting, try the Northern Irish writer Maggie O’Farrell’s”Hamnet,” which last month won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the U.K. O’Farrell takes the few scraps of historical evidence about William Shakespeare’s family and uses them to create a dense and lovely rendition of their domestic life. Yet Shakespeare himself isn’t at center stage – O’Farrell is interested in Anne Hathaway, called Agnes here, who in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1582 married a young Latin scholar, later the famous playwright. After Agnes and her husband suffer the crushing loss of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, the playwright produces a play with a variant of the boy’s name as the title. This Agnes is bestowed with not only second sight, but certain modern attitudes and an independence of thought that feels anachronistic. In this regard, O’Farrell is playing to the galleries of today’s female-dominated book club audience. Her novel, while admirably evocative in its physical details, throws into high relief Mantel’s amazing accomplishment. Mantel summoned from the past a human being, called Thomas Cromwell, who isn’t a replica of the real man, but a fictional creation with the mind-set of his age, who despite that can still illuminate the struggles, desires and griefs of people throughout time.
– – –
McHugh is the author of the novel “A Most English Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria’s Daughter.”
Sakharov Prize 2020: meet the finalists | News | European Parliament
, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20201008STO88808/
Rolls-Royce’s Illuminated Spirit Of Ecstasy Banned By European Union
It’s hard to feel too sorry for anyone wealthy enough to own a new Rolls-Royce, but there’s bad news for these folks in the European Union because the illuminated Spirit of Ecstasy badge is no longer available. Making matters worse, the light-up hood ornament needs to be removed from any Rolls that currently has it.
The cause of this weird decision is that the illuminated sculpture does not comply with the new EU light pollution regulations. After disconnecting it, Rolls will refund owners for the price of the option and replace the hood ornament with a silver-plated Spirit of Ecstasy. Note that this only applies to vehicles in the EU, and models elsewhere are still free to light up the lady.
“In February 2019 we sent our dealers a bulletin saying we were removing the option of an unlit Spirit of Ecstasy. It was no longer to be sold to customers. It came off the options list,” a Rolls-Royce spokesman told The Daily Mail. “Sadly, we are telling our customers that we will by law have to disconnect their Spirit of Ecstasy.”
What’s not clear is what happens if owners simply don’t bring their Rolls-Royce to a dealer to remove the illuminated Spirit of Ecstasy. It’s hard to imagine the cops pulling over someone in a Phantom just because there’s a light-up hood ornament.
The latest Rolls-Royce to join the range is the new Ghost. It now rides on the dedicated Rolls-Royce Architecture of Luxury platform and has an interesting suspension setup with a damper on the upper wishbone that helps create an even smoother ride. There’s also a GPS-aided transmission to make motoring in the sedan even more luxurious. Prices start at $332,500.
Trump-Related Books Fueling Record Year
Books about President Donald Trump are fueling a record year for political books, with sales up nearly 100% from 2019.
According to The Wall Street Journal, political book sales increased 85% this year through September, while political e-book sales were up 20%. Many of the books are about Trump, his administration, his inner circle, and how he governs.
“2020 is on track to be the biggest year for political books since we began tracking U.S. book sales in 2004,” NPD BookScan’s Kristen McLean told the Journal.
The sales figures are expected to surge again next month when former President Barack Obama releases the first volume of his memoir. The Journal noted that the first run includes 3 million hardcover copies.
As of Monday morning, the top 20 political books being sold on Amazon include Bob Woodward’s “Rage” (No. 4), Dan Bongino’s “Follow the Money: The Shocking Deep State Connections of the Anti-Trump Cabal” (No. 5), and Michael Cohen’s “Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump” (No. 16).
The Journal reported that overall book sales are up 6% (print) and 7.6% (e-books) this year, despite the fact that many stores were closed for weeks, if not months, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The challenges America is grappling with continue post election regardless of the election outcome,” Penguin Random House’s David Drake told the Journal.
New map book is for adventurers
This is a book for the adventurers – for the intrepid explorers who thrill to the words ‘off the beaten track’!
It’s correctly, and unpretentiously, entitled Topographical Maps of Cyprus – but don’t let that fool you! Yes, the book is packed with detailed maps of the Troodos range (right from the Akamas peninsula to the foothills of Larnaca) but this is so much more than a cartographical guide.
Nature trails (including length, duration, and degree of difficulty) and picnic sites are meticulously listed; medieval bridges, watermills, and even tar kilns are discussed and precisely grid referenced; the renowned painted churches and monasteries of Troodos and environs are cleverly highlighted. There’s even a section on the wineries of the region and, since safety is paramount for those who venture into the wilds, there’s a lovely bit about Hiking Safety. ‘Never hike alone,’ we’re admonished. And among other sensible suggestions, we get: ‘Take plenty of water, don’t pack too heavy, dress in layers, start early, pace yourself, and look out for snakes, spiders and other critters’!
The majority of the book consists, of course, of the maps: meticulously researched, compiled, and charted by cartographer Michael Savvides. A member of the Council of the Cyprus Mountaineering, Climbing and Orienteering Federation, and founder of the hiking and orienteering club Orientaction, Michael is a trailblazer who introduced orienteering to Cyprus some 10 years ago now.
“I have always loved exploring,” he enthuses. “It’s such a challenge to find yourself alone in unknown territory, combining your physical and mental abilities to overcome the challenges you face. Orienteering itself,” he adds, “is such a character-building sport. And though it’s relatively new to the island, it took off immediately; to date we’ve already held three major international orienteering events in Cyprus!”
As a local pioneer of the sport, Michael was often sought out by those who shared his passion. “Over the years, many people asked me where they could find large-scale maps of certain parts of Cyprus,” he continues. “But while there are small-scale maps aplenty, mostly aimed at tourists and travellers, larger scale maps just didn’t exist. Perhaps the area that was most frequently requested,” he adds, “was that of the centre of the Troodos Range. And of course, it wasn’t available. So I set out to create it….”
“Then,” he laughs, “another fervent hiker asked me to add in the Akamas Peninsula. And someone else suggested I also map the biking regions around Larnaca… And slowly, slowly, the one original map grew into a book of the whole Troodos region!”
Unlike your average tourist guide, Topographical Maps of Cyprus is a mine of information for “explorers, researchers, runners, and hikers,” says Michael. “It’s a database of geographical, historical, architectural, religious, and viticultural information, which also includes a list of every village and all the major footpaths. Footpaths,” he continues, “which I have walked myself – hiking thousands of kilometres in a bid to ensure the information is absolutely correct. Nowadays, many cartographers work from satellite imagery, sitting in an office far removed from the landscape. But when you make a map you have to be aware of what the terrain looks like on the ground; if you’re familiar with the territory you’re mapping, then you don’t mistake satellite imagery of a white line for a track when it’s actually a river!”
Six years of painstaking work in the making, Topographical Maps of Cyprus has been drawn from Michael’s own reconnaissance, along with data from a plethora of “books, old maps, new maps, and information from international organisations.”
Comprised of 10 main sections, the book covers the Akamas Peninsula, the town of Polis to the west of Paphos Forest, Paphos Forest, Esouza Valley, the central Troodos Forest, the wine region of Krasochoria, the Pitsillia region, Macheras Forest, the Stavrovouni region, and the hilly area west of Larnaca town. Each of the ten sections includes at least eight detailed maps, each map in turn covering an area of five by seven kilometres.
Drawn to a scale of 1/25,000, so that each centimetre on the map represents 250 metres on the ground, the 90 maps include everything any intrepid traveller could wish for. Contours appear every 10 metres, and highways, roads, dirt tracks and footpaths are all clearly marked. Manmade sites of interest – including buildings, vineyards, churches, chapels and mosques, mills, quarries, fishing shelters, kilns, lighthouses, and even water tanks – appear throughout. And among the more natural features of the landscape, we get cliffs, forests, wild vegetation, tree plantations, seasonal streams, rocks, and (worthy of their capital letters) Huge Rocks – many of which are also marked as climbing fields, should you be so inclined!
Best of all, everything is so precisely grid referenced that you can set your GPS by the coordinates, arriving at the exact spot you intended. “All maps are GPS compatible,” we’re told in the introduction. “Coordinates taken from a GPS receiver can be drawn directly on to the maps.” And with this, Michael has effectively put an end to the days of driving (or stumbling) in circles, desperately trying to find the Venetian bridge/rock-climbing spot/picnic site you’re after!
A pioneering book, there’s a follow-up in the works (which will include the Diarizos and nearby river valleys, along with the Commandaria region) which Michael plans to release in 2021. But until then, Topographical Maps of Cyprus is proving to be an excellent source of information: “It’s a ‘live’ book,” Michael enthuses. “Not something you keep on your bookshelf, but something that goes in your car or your backpack everywhere you do. It’s for the adventurers,” he grins. “The explorers amongst us…”
