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FAQs
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What are some good electronic discovery firms and litigation support technology firms?
This field is in constant flux, but as of January 2016 here's some basic information. It's a little tricky to assess the competitive landscape because there is lot of vertical integration going on -- in particular, legal staffing companies keep buying legal review software (or e-discovery) companies so the former can use the latter's platforms in an efficient manner during the course of the projects the staffing companies do for their clients (who are usually law firms or companies). So, for example, FTI Consulting recently purchased Ringtail, which is one of the better e-discovery platforms, and now develops it in-house; likewise, Epiq Systems has bought at least one platform recently.The major players today are likely Kroll Ontrack, kCura (developer of the market-crushing platform called Relativity), Recommind and Catalyst.If you're doing in-depth market research on this, be aware that most software developers do not do the marketing and servicing for their own products -- typically if you're, say, a customer in New York City, you'll call a local licensed vendor that will be the middleman between you and the developer, and you might never actually speak with the developer in the course of the relationship. (As an aside, that's one of the frustrating things about working as a customer in the e-discovery market -- if you have a good or bad experience with a product, it's not always clear whether the problem was the product or the particular vendor you hired to run it for you).For a deep dive that requires paid access, you could try this Gartner Magic Quadrant analysis of the market as of June 2015:Gartner Magic Quadrant for e-Discovery Software 2015
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What will happen to Theranos: acquisition, sustainable company at lower valuation, or full shutdown and return of investor monie
Hard to say - but I don't see how it gets resolved outside a court of law. The allegations by the Wall Street Journal are serious - and mostly around manipulating proficiency tests (designed to verify the accuracy of testing equipment with great precision - down to machine make and model number - three times a year).If those allegations are true - it potentially throws into question the accuracy of 3.5 million blood tests run by the company to date. The results of those tests were used by millions to make (potentially) life and death healthcare decisions. That's serious liability - and not just just for Theranos. Walgreens may not have vetted the technology as carefully as they would have normally for clinical reasons because this wasn't just a partnership - it was an investment in the company. Lot's of this hinges on the use of their proprietary technology for transporting blood samples (taken via finger-stick) called nanotainer's. The company has since acknowledged that they stopped using these for any test other than the one that was FDA approved (for Herpes Simplex Virus), but when did they stop in the run-up to 3.5 million tests? The FDA has indicated that the nanotainers are considered a Class II medical device and were not approved for any use other than the one test. This is critical because the HSV test is relatively easy - and binary. It's more like a pregnancy test that you can buy OTC. But what about the 3.5 million OTHER tests? How many used "nanotainers" and what testing equipment was used on those samples and was the proficiency testing (for non Theranos invented testing equipment) manipulated in any way as a part of using those nanotainers?We already have strong evidence that at least one test was inaccurate - using the nanotainer - from (ready for this?) a venture capitalist that lives in Silicon Valley - Jean-Louis Gassee (who wrote to Ms. Holmes with questions about his test earlier this year). [1]I'm not an attorney - but the first legal opinion certainly makes it look like the only path forward is through a judicial process. [2]I happen to know that Theranos was using nanotainers - for tests other than FDA approved one for HSV - in July - because I paid for one here in Arizona. Here's a picture of my "nanotainer" with my blood. Now, I'm fortunate because my test was entirely based on curiosity - there was NO medical neccessity, but there are 3.5 million OTHER tests that (arguably) were medically necessary - and where healthcare decisions (potentially fatal ones) were made base on those test results. Hey, feel free to experiment with 23andMe genetic testing - or Uber - or any of a dozen other "disruptive" services. Those are 100% OPTIONAL and as consumers - we have a choice to use or not use the service. No one of clinical authority is ordering a test for us to take in order to render a clinical assessment or judgment - with all the attendant liability. Again, I'm not an attorney - but it's hard to see how this gets resolved for the 3.5 million tests to date - outside of legal action. [1] Theranos Trouble: A First Person Account | Monday Note [2] Here's What Troubled The FDA When It Inspected Theranos This Summer
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For those who are a fan of SCPs, which SCP is arguably the most dangerous to mankind?
SCP-001 explained in a nutshell if you want a simpler explanation.Summary:SCP-001 is possibly a dangerous SCP. Let's see.Upon inspection, we notice there are not 1, not 2, but 28 proposals for SCP-001. The above page states that only 1 of them is true. The only true ones are the ones that pose a true danger to mankind. Here they are, summarized.Jonathan Ball's proposal (Sheaf of Papers) details a sheaf of papers that when opened, details a new SCP that will be discovered in real life later. It is safe (a machine that can clone anything can found), but unsafe at the same time. Anything can, and will, happen. A machine that can destroy the universe by activating? Possible. And in fact, a joke SCP, named SCP-001-J, already took upon this task.Dr. Gear's proposal (The Prototype) details an alien that is extremely dangerous, emitting radiation and microsingularities. It killed Dr. Hermann Keter, leading to the creation of the Keter class of SCP objects. It is an example of an early SCP file, explaining the name. In fact, it may be the first one. Once it arrived in that US base in Guatemala, it would never be the same. After the base finds out there's more out there, the Foundation is born.Dr. Clef's proposal (The Gate Guardian, the most popular) details a gigantic winged creature (implied to be Uriel, one of the archangels) guarding a gate of what is implied to be the Garden of Eden. It holds a sword that can destroy anything within a 1-km radius. It is extremely powerful (judging by an experiment involving the nuclear submarine Nautilus, which is suspiciously dated December 26, 2004, at the time of the Indian Ocean tsunami) and has a terrifying ending. He tells that when SCP-001 ever moves, it signals the Rapture, and the end of the world (written as a Patmos XK-class scenario) and even details a transmission from the future about this exact event happening. It issues a command to anyone who sees it, the most important being "Prepare", which was spoken to the Founder, prompting him to create the precursor to the SCP Foundation.QNTM's proposal (The Lock) details a gemstone with white markings on it. It is surrounded by a gold ring and emits some radiation, in the microwave scale. In 2003, Foundation staff noticed that the markings closely mirror the cosmic microwave background, implying that the lock may be a replica, if not an exact clone, of the observable universe. It is currently indestructible, and multiple attempts to open the lock at the bottom have failed. It was discovered in a Sumerian temple and it is implied there is a demon inside.Bright's proposal (The Factory) details The Anderson Factory, an organization that appears to have made multiple SCP objects. Not to be confused with the GoI named The Factory, working conditions were horrible, but that was a simple price for the fact that the Factory could produce nearly anything. However, when anomalous objects began leaking out, numerous people had to stop it, and in 1911, raided the Factory, driving out the current inhabitants (Faeries, which are referenced in SCP-4000 "Taboo") and shutting it down. Numerous people were selfish enough to leave with their own anomalous objects, becoming splinter groups of the Foundation (for instance, the Chaos Insurgency), and the rest who remained became the SCP Foundation.Dr. Mann's proposal (The Spiral Path) details a spiral gravel path which continuously goes uphill if travelled in a counter clockwise direction. If travelled in a clockwise direction, the path becomes normal. Seems normal, right? Wrong. New members of the Overseer Council are advised to view Document 001-O5, which details how early members of the Foundation created anomalous objects, which turned into actual SCPs (the first was SCP-005, a key which can open any lock), however, the narrator gets terrified when he recounts the story of SCPs he didn't create and just appeared in storage one day.Dr. Mackenzie's proposal (The Legacy) details 2 objects, which are a device and a key, and some notes. In the previous universe, mankind meddled around, corrupting the fabric of the universe. To reset it, a machine was created by a man (calling himself the Administrator, seems familiar, right?) to reset the universe. However, the man died, and the Foundation was created to continue his work. However, the problem is, the machine hasn't been found yet, and the corruption in our universe is increasing, causing the entry of numerous SCPs into our universe.S. Andrew Swann's proposal (The Database) seems to be a jumbled mess. However, when given some context, SCP-001 becomes clear. SCP-001… you see… is us. Every writer on the SCP website is SCP-001, able to change the entire narrative at their own desire. But the people inside hate this, and have prepared a last resort. To do this, they have placed memetic agents as booby traps in the website, causing us to die. However, they state that there is no way to contain SCP-001 without causing a ZK-class scenario (reality ending scenario), or basically to us, just wiping out all traces of their existence by deleting the SCP website. But wait. From our point of view, we have near-universal access to all SCP files. No memetic agent would work against us (have you ever died while scrolling down the main SCP-001 page due to the Berryman-Langford agent? No!) because to them, we are gods. Nothing can stop us.Scantron's proposal (The Foundation) details the entire SCP Foundation, but from the perspective of an organization called the Unusual Incidents Unit which is controlled by the FBI. Basically, in this proposal, the SCP Foundation itself is SCP-001. It details a high school which is slowly converted into an SCP facility over time. Some agents they sent in are incorporated into the SCP facility.Djoric's/Dmatrix's proposal (Thirty Six) details what used to be 36 people (some have died). These 36 people were destined to save the world. The death of a member results in catastrophic events throughout the world. Individually, they can nullify or severely decrease any SCP's capabilities. When they come together, their capabilities can "bring quiet days", or in other words, wipe out all anomalous entities in existence.Roget's proposal (Keter Duty) details a facility that houses all Keter objects. These objects are contained in the facility by pitting them against their counterparts. For instance, SCP-682 (which you might know as the TOTALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE REPTILE that hates literally everything) is contained in the facility along with SCP-296. What is 296 exactly? Formerly, it was an SCP facility holding 55 SCPs (take note of this) when a containment bsignNow occurred, causing the nuclear warheads to be detonated. Within the wreckage, a stone tunnel was spotted. Inside the tunnel is an ampitheater (think of the Roman Colosseum) and within it are 56 figures seemingly constructed out of ice (one more than the SCPs before!) So what is the 56th figure? It calls itself Judgement, and it "judges" all those who enter. Those it deems "guilty" will be killed by one of the SCPs that used to be on the site. The thing here is that 296 doesn't "judge" us the same way that we judge other humans. In SCP-001, 296 takes on the appearance of multiple personnel who have lost their lives fighting SCP-682. 296's anomalous properties denies 682 the ability to kill them, and 682 transitions between trying to kill them or cowering in the middle. Judgement said that 682 is denied here the ability to kill or to die. Another example is SCP-871 (aka the replicating cakes that should be eaten in 24 hours to avoid it duplicating), contained along with SCP-1295, a group of 4 old men who preside over a diner, and emit anomalous properties if they are removed from it within a certain time. In the facility, 1295 is served 871 by a waitress. They usually complain about the lackluster menu items, but praise the variety of 871. Another infamous one is SCP-579 and SCP-055, of which the description says "Can't fit round pegs in square holes". It is a mystery which one is referring to which, considering the description of 579 is expunged, and 055 cannot be described except in terms of what it is not. Releasing all the Keters would cause a giant containment bsignNow and a K-class scenario.Ouroboros — The Cycle Proposal is a combination of all of djkaktus's proposals (The Children/The Broken God/Atonement/The Way It Ends) and was created January 5, 2019. Here is a summary of each.djkaktus' 1st proposal (The Children) details 9 children who have extraordinary capabilities (including the ability to simply will an object out of existence by thinking of it) who were buried under a church in San Marco, Mexico. They were used to fight a Saharan kingdom called Abaddon, but the end reveals the O5 who planned this was insane and related to the Chaos Insurgency. The children are still alive.TwistedGears and djkaktus' proposal (The Broken God) is about an entity known as the Broken God, created in Mexico during WW2. What is the Broken God? To know that is to know the lore of the Church of the Broken God. They believe that their deity (a god named Mekhane, the god of machines and intelligence) broke itself apart during a fight with Yaldabaoth (the god of animalistic and wild behavior) to save humanity. Later, the CBG tried to reconstruct Mekhane, believing that this will bring about the end of the world. However, due to the core of the machine (SCP-882) being provided by The Factory, "it" malfunctioned, and began to destroy and warp the landscape of Baja California. In 1943, the machine was activated, causing an "Apotheosis Event" that formed the Gulf of California. However, SCP-2399 (a destroyer machine originally supposed to land on Earth, but instead landed in Jupiter because it was destroyed) swooped down from the sky and destroyed the Broken God.djkaktus' 2nd (independent) proposal (Atonement) details an anomalous humanoid black hole, originally Calvin Desmet, who was injured in an accident in 1982. He is instructed by the Foundation to destroy all anomalous objects. But the O5 Council uses SCPs to become immortal, causing them to run into some problems. His reasoning is flawed, believing he must kill all alternate universes so no SCPs go into our own. He tries to kill the O5.djkaktus' 3rd proposal (The Way it Ends) details why the Chaos Insurgency hates the O5 council, and their successful murder of each of the O5s. Finally, they put in some members of their own. And the Chaos Insurgency reforms once more.The Ouroboros proposal substories are meant to connect and build up on the previous ones, and create a cycle.Kate McTiriss' proposal details a story of Mary Nakayama, a researcher who unwittingly becomes God (a benevolent one) via an SCP article which originally detailed a song that would be first in every record it encounters. That SCP article turned out to make everything written in it come true, and after Mary discovered this during an April Fools' joke edit, she made herself into a God to help the Foundation.Kalinin's proposal is extremely complicated. It is the tale of an entity occupying a planet with 9 moons, which seeks to return humanity to 1 of the moons (named The Planet of the Hands, and where we originally came from), where it can torture us for eternity, so that a utopian society can occur on the planet. It can manipulate all anomalous entities, and you know what that means. Hijinks ensues. Although a minor victory in the end does occur, humanity has fled from Earth, accepting an eternity of torture. Throughout the story, it is implied that, once again, we are SCP-001.Dr. Wrong's proposal details an Occult War in the previous reality. SCP-001 was an attempt to create a CK-class restructuring scenario in 1900. Their reason was the Occult War, specifically the 5th Occult War. Multiple stuff went wrong during this war (including SCP-140 being edited too much, causing the Daevites from SCP-140 to conquer Asia, Sarkic (enemy of Church of the Broken God) involvement in the American Civil War) leading to the end of the world. Now, there were these 13 organizations that combined to form the Foundation. The organizations came from: Britain, France, the Russian Empire, the German Empire, the USA, Spain, Japan, China, and 5 more countries. 13 people were chosen to be members of the O5 council. The Forbidden City Convention which finalized and created the modern SCP Foundation was signed September 7, 1901, coinciding with the end of the Boxer Rebellion in our timeline. This retconned the Boxer Rebellion and the Taiping Rebellion into existence. Basically, an origin story of the Foundation. And they're just planning to erase it and cover it up as another SCP.TL;DR: Stuff messed up because SCPs were prevalent through history, so we pressed a reset button.S.D. Locke's proposal details an incident that happened to the Sun causing every organism to melt into wax and form a gelatin-like substance, which can merge with each other, and occasionally retain part of their original shape. It follows the tale of Logan Igotta, and her companion Ari, as they succumb to the disaster. It is special for showing the end of the Foundation, not the beginning, and it is implied at the end that you are not alone, and the slime noticed you, and you will become one of the jello slime.Spikebrennan's proposal details Facility T, a location in the Sinai peninsula which prevents any type of human death in the area. It was created after the events detailed in Exodus 4:24–26, in which God attempted to kill Moses after he failed to circumsize his son. The Foundation has made a contract with God to limit their time in Facility T in exchange for not getting killed when exiting.WJS's proposal details a document that defines what is normal, and what is not. Everything outside is anomalous. A thing at the end of the page claims to bring you to SCP-001, but it actually leads to a document by O5–5 explaining that the SCP Foundation is not trying to abuse anomalous objects, but that they're more or less protecting them.Billith's proposal details how another Foundation implanted life on Earth, classifying Earth as SCP-001, after discovering its life-holding property. And we (our Foundation) found out about them.Tanhony's proposal details an 84-year old man who has been merged with the concept of death, and as such, if he is modified, how everyone will die will be modified as well. The Foundation modified him in this way so that none of the O5 council will die. If he ever dies, he will be replaced with a young D-class, and the old man will be killed to complete transfer of his anomalous properties. The Ethics Committee gets suspicious that the O5 Council is using him for their own purposes, and a massive skirmish occurs. In the process SCP-001, the entire O5 council, Administrator, and Ethics Committee are killed. Due to this the Administrator tried to make sure there were 12 candidates for the missing positions: 11 O5 members, and 1 Administrator.Lily's proposal details a phenomenon that will happen 24 hours before the end of all life on Earth. Since the event has not happened yet, information was found through various documents. The phenomenon will result in flowers blooming on 90% of the Earth's land surface. The weather will clear, and the temperature will be ambient and comfortable. Weapon usage will dramatically decrease before the end of the world occurs.Tufto's proposal details an entity known as the Scarlet King, which has been attempting to enter our reality for multiple years. Yep. The exact same Scarlet King as SCP-2317's pre-Iteration 6 files. It is a commentary on antiquity's hatred for our modern age. It is demonstrated even further by saying that since the SCP Foundation deals with organizing stuff, it is the definition of modernity, and the Scarlet King hates them because of that. Or rather, it actually is the definition of that hatred.Note: The Scarlet King could be SCP-2317, or not. It is because the redacted name of the "Destroyer of Worlds" is 1 letter longer than Scarlet King.Jim North's proposal details a Safe humanoid SCP toy maker named Dr. Wondertainment who made several SCPs. These include SCP-445 (paper that will become whatever it is folded into), SCP-1553 (a paint set that can paint and erase shadows), SCP-3147 (a lollipop that can switch your voice), and more. His origin story was about him finding out about The Factory, stealing some documents, and him getting to work. No wait! Now, he's "Dr. Reginald Philbert Lionel Archibald Westinghouse Wondertainment III", a Euclid level man who has been around for eternity, and can make anomalous games that are classified as SCPs. No, wait. There's something even deeper. Dr. Wondertainment is a corporate entity, and is a Keter! That's not it. There must be something else. The current Dr. Wondertainment is "Dr. Isabel Helga Anastasia Parvati Wondertainment V", the daughter of the original Dr. Wondertainment, a Thaumiel object. Wait. That's not all. Here comes the truth.Did you think that the little trinkets with my name on them were the full extent of my creations? Did you truly think of me as such a small, petty creature? I am no mere toysmith, Foundation, no mere trickster. I am a god. The god of chaos, the harbinger of madness, the progenitor of insanity, and the bane of all who would try to shackle the universe in their cloying chains of order. I have tugged at the edges of that order and unraveled it, creating and unleashing the very anomalies you seek to contain, all to show you how wonderful and amazing and frightening and deadly the universe can be.You want examples of my creations? Then look upon your collected list of anomalies, Foundation. Look upon those of the Unusual Incidents Unit, the Office for the Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts, the Global Occult Coalition, and so many others. I made them. I made them all, from the most harmless Safe to the most nightmarish Keter, and they are mine!Are We Cool Yet? The Circus of the Disquieting? Marshall, Carter & Dark? The Church of the Broken God, Anderson Robotics, the Fifthist Church, and so many more? My institutions! Mine! I founded all of them, created all of their artifacts! Their leaders?! Their GODS?! When you fight against the likes of FULLER and ION and MEKHANE and THE SCARLET BLOODY KING, you were really fighting against ME! I AM ALL OF THEM, I AM EVERYTHING YOU FEAR AND DON'T UNDERSTAND! I AM THE GOD OF PURE CHAOS, AND YOU WILL BE DRIVEN BEFORE MY POWER, YOU WILL CRUMBLE AND DECAY INTO NOTHINGNESS, YOU WILL BOW BEFORE ME YOUWRETCHEDPATHETICDr. Wondertainment is an Apollyon class god. He created every SCP. Every GoI. The Foundation, AWCY, CBG, M,C&D, Chaos Insurgency, GOC, all of them.Wait. He's actually a Neutralized SCP. He is all of what he described earlier, and at the same time none of them. He doesn't know who he is anymore, but invites the Foundation to try and understand all of his creations.After being exhausted from typing and copying that massive blockI begin typing.I wonder, "Why am I typing this in a narrative form?"Why am I typing out how I typed out this story?No wait. I suddenly remember what is coming next. I type,"I.H. Pickman's proposal details an SCP-001 which can only be written and documented in a narrative form. Therefore most of the page is basically just a story."I sigh, relieved that I have got it over with.Now to the next one.But wait! There's more!Behind all that storytelling, this proposal is basically the exact same as S. Andrew Swann's Proposal (see above)Next!The Great Hippo's proposal (ft. Peppersghost) details a text AI who initially shows pretty good on how to contain some SCPs. However as the Foundation relies on it more, the Ethics Committee decide to stop the machine once and for all. However, the machine slowly begins to show hatred toward the Ethics Comittee, and begins neutralizing anything and everything, even the O5 council. At the end it is unknown if it actually neutralized everything or hacked the database to make it look like it did so.Weizhong's/The Deadly Moose's/Drewbear's/Dexanote's proposal details Project Palisade, their attempt to stop The Worm, an entity that can destroy multiple realities. The Foundation keeps it out by placing it in other realities which they create themselves.Finally… another of my favorites…████ ███'s proposal details a space expedition to another galaxy, revealing that every single galaxy outside of the observable universe is just a clone of the Milky Way, but the materials that make them up get stranger as we go. At the end it is implied that "The Truth" is related to SCP-184.Alright, that was a lot of information. Now to eliminate which ones are least terrifying.Dr. Gear's (it was easily contained), QNTM's (we haven't broken the lock yet) and…You know, it'd be easier if we detailed the most terrifying and how they could affect humanity.Sheaf of Papers - I mentioned the reason why. Anything could happen.Gate Guardian - If it ever moves a Patmos XK-class scenario will occur.Spiral Path - The SCPs they didn't create may be dangerous. Same concept as Sheaf of Papers.Thirty Six - What if they all die?The Database - This is dangerous, not to us, but to the people in the SCP universe, since we could just delete the entire SCP website.When Day Breaks - 6.8 billion people have died instantly due to the event.The Children - Yes, they're alive, so they can destroy the world at any time.Dead Men - He can change death itself.Atonement - He can literally be anywhere, and can kill anything.Project Palisade - The Worm can destroy anything.So, what here is the most terrifying?I think either Database, Sheaf, Gate Guardian, or When Day Breaks fit the record.So, anyone of these.How about a non-001 SCP?Some people say SCP-231–7 is dangerous because if it ever gives birth then the world will end.Then again, in 1 story the fear was neutralized when she gave birth to… unexpectedly…SCP-999. And it is said that SCP-999 is weak right now, but it will grow strong enough to end the King's reign of terror with love and kindness.However, there are multiple SCPs that could be far more dangerous.The most dangerous threat level is Black, so you better look for that one there. One example is SCP-3480.Version 2.0After reading through more of these SCP scenarios, and finding suggestions from other people, I have an updated list of contenders for the most dangerous SCP.SCP-001RIP THE OLD 001 KILL AGENTReason: There are multiple proposals for SCP-001, so let's run through each one and see why they are extremely dangerous to humanity. This is updated with djkaktus's 4th (non-joke 001) proposal.Jonathan Ball's proposal - Sheaf of PapersSummary: Sheaf of Papers is about a pile of papers. The topic seems tame at first, however when you realize what it does, it could be the worst thing the Foundation has ever discovered in its entire history. The pile of papers contains pages for every known SCP in history, starting from SCP-002 (skipping 001, since it itself is SCP-001) all the way up until the most recent SCP to be written, SCP-4999 (aka Death itself). Every single SCP, even 682, 2317, and 343.Reason: Even though it has brought us 999, and other SCPs which have helped the Foundation, it has also brought us objects that have hindered their progress, or could pose a threat to the universe. Imagine if one day, an extremely terrible event that would destroy the Foundation appeared as an SCP in the pile of papers.Dr. Gears' proposal - The PrototypeSummary: Dr. Gears' proposal is about an alien which can create microsingularities that emit large amounts of radiation. First discovered in a military base in Guatemala, it was extremely dangerous and reported as a "demon" by the locals. Due to the appearance of the page, this could be one of the earliest objects contained by the Foundation. Dr. Hermann Keter (the man who also designed SCP-001's containment) was killed during the incident, possibly granting a name to the unpredictable and dangerous uncontainable objects belonging to the class named Keter. And it is implied that the base had to cope with more and more being found, becoming the SCP Foundation.Reason: Due to the capabilities it has, I think that this proposal for SCP-001 is not that dangerous.Dr. Clef's proposal - The Gate GuardianSummary: Dr. Clef's proposal talks about a mysterious gigantic winged creature found at the intersection of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. It has a weapon that spectographic analysis shows is hotter than the Sun. It can also give people who approach it a directive that they should obey, the most common being "Forget". The most infamous instance of this incident occurring is to a man, who was ordered to "Prepare". The man went on to found the precursor to what is now the SCP Foundation. Furthermore, it appears to be guarding a gate to a garden of sorts, which contains an apple tree and a tree containing a fruit unknown on Earth. Due to the various Biblical references littered around the article, it is reasonable to assume that this creature (which looks like an angel from the picture), is the angel sent by God to guard the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:24, after Adam and Eve were banished."After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."Even worse, the addendums fully reveal the strength of the being.Reason: SCP-001 is, in this proposal, revealed to be the most dangerous being in the world, due to the addendums. Anything within 1 km of the being is obliterated completely. Far worse than that is Incident E, a test involving a nuclear warhead being fired at 001. Oddly enough, the event is said to have taken place on December 26, 2004.The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on 26 December, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Sumatra and a magnitude of 9.1–9.3 Mw, signNowing a Mercalli intensity up to IX in certain areas. It was an undersea megathrust earthquake caused by a rupture along the fault between the Burma Plate and the Indian Plate.A series of large tsunamis up to 30 metres (100 ft) high were created by the earthquake that became known collectively as the Boxing Day tsunamis. These tsunamis flooded communities along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and killed an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries; the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh reported the largest number of victims. The earthquake was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history and the deadliest of the 21st century. Indonesia was the hardest-hit country, followed by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.The earthquake was the third largest ever recorded and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed; between eight and ten minutes. It caused the planet to vibrate as much as 1 centimetre (0.4 inches), and it remotely triggered earthquakes as far away as Alaska. Its epicentre was between Simeulue and mainland Sumatra. The plight of the affected people and countries prompted a worldwide humanitarian response, with donations totaling more than US$14 billion. The event is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake.Finally, the last addendum reveals a glimpse of what is earlier dubbed "a PATMOS XK-class end-of-the-world scenario" via a message from Site 0 (the site monitoring SCP-001) which says this:SCP-001 has left its location. The Gate is Open. They are riding forth.Oh G_d, it's so beautiful…thelordreigneththelordhasreignedthelordshallreignforeverthelordreigneththelordhasreignedthelordshallreignforeverthelordreigneththelordhasreignedthelordshallreignforeverthelordheisgodthelordheisgodthelordheisgodthelordheisgodthelordheisgodthelordheisgodthelordheisgodthelordheisgodHEAROISRAELTHELORDOURGODTHELORDISONEIf you aren't aware, SCP-001 is not supposed to move from its spot.It is followed forth with a message confirming the XK-class scenario by saying that, "Because of this event's confluence with the recent bsignNow of SCP-995, the opening of SCP-616, and the activation of SCP-098, the Foundation is required to immediately begin preparations for an XK-class end-of-the-world scenario. SCP-076 and SCP-073 are to be secured immediately. All personnel are to unlock and decode Emergency Order Patmos-Omega, and follow all orders within. Site 19 is to be secured, and all nonessential SCPs and personnel terminated and/or destroyed."A vantablack sphere, the closest to the classic SCP-995 I can get.The SCP-995 being referred to is not the current fungus, it is what is referred to as an "Infinite Devil Machine" and can be found on the SCP Foundation Classic website (not to be confused with SCP-1995, which has the same name but no relation). It has been described as a black mass similar to a black hole, it is extremely evil, seeing as holy water taken from it is black, and it should be stored in a container of lead, and tons of holy water, and both the container and the holy water should be blessed by a clergyman above the rank of archbishop.Still frame from footage of exploration of SCP-616.SCP-616 (on the current site) is basically a emergency door to hell inside a Boeing plane, which opens every 30 days. The Foundation has timed it so the door opens mid-flight. If it opens on the ground, it causes something extremely horrible. SCP-616 on the classic site is just a door to hell.The closest to SCP-098 classic I can get.SCP-098 (not those surgical crabs, and once again is on the classic website) is a cave which contains a door to hell. It is heavily redacted, so I couldn't understand what the document was about.SCP-073 and 076–2 are of course, Cain and Abel (the latter is referred to as Able). However over a few millenia, their roles switched, and Cain is the tamer of the two and Able is the more dangerous, killing anybody in his path.Speaking of Cain and Able, the latter refused to approach 001, and the former's symbol on his forehead became [REDACTED] causing the Administrator to declare no more tests on 001 are to be performed.The message begins degrading into nonsense after repeating 3 times."Repeat, because of this event's confluence with the recent bsignNow of SCP-995, the opening of SCP-616, and the aktivation of SCP-098, the Foundation is rekwired to immediatelebegin preprrations ffr an XK-class end-of-theworldsenario. SCP-076 and SCP-073 @re to be secured immediately Cain and Abel my two sons, I amcoming all personnel are to unlock and decode behold, I stand at the gate and knock and if anyanayansdfysffollowaall alla khaf3242!$$@andisawanewheavenandanewearthandthefruitofofof^&@#$@#@#$@#$█████████████████████████████████████ [SIGNAL LOST]"Revelation 3:20"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."Revelation 21:1"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea."QNTM's proposal - The LockSummary: SCP-001 is an onyx gemstone with a mysterious white pattern on it, revealed later on to be exactly similar to the cosmic microwave background radiation of our own Universe, as mapped by WMAP in 2003. It has a lock on one end. It is invulnerable. For some unknown reason, the Foundation is trying to open the lock, to release the entity locked inside, named Apakht. It was discovered in a Sumerian temple.Reason: If SCP-001 is indeed the Universe, then it has massive implications for our own Universe. After all, the order of the object could be recursive, and someone else could be trying to crack our universe.Bright's Proposal - The FactoryA factory. Not The Factory, just a factory.Summary: This proposal, an O5's tale, tells the story of the Anderson Factory, a company notable for "creating" the first SCP objects, not to be confused with The Factory, a GoI. A famous SCP created by the Factory (not 001) is SCP-248, a handful of stickers with the words "110%" imprinted on them, that can improve any machine's function, seemingly by 110%. This goes even further by saying that ALL SCP objects were created by The Anderson Factory. The Factory was originally a normal factory, but things got worse when living conditions became terrible. O5–1 led a rebellion against The Factory's founder, leading to its destruction, and replacement by the SCP Foundation.Reason: For a similar reason to Sheaf of Papers, The Factory is also dangerous.Dr. Mann's proposal - The Spiral PathSummary: Dr. Mann's proposal is aboutKalinin's proposal - Past and FutureSummary: Since this is a very, and I mean very long proposal for SCP-001, I will try to sum it up, with some help from the SCP Declassified subreddit.SCP-001 is a cosmic entity that has been warded off by SCP-2798, which is lots of "soul juice" pumped into the mantle specifically to ward off SCP-001.SCP-2798's range (in purple)SCP-001 (later revealed to be a planet with 9 moons) wants humanity to return to "The Planet of the Hands", one of its moons where it came from.In November 2016, SCP-2798 broke down. This caused SCP-001 to arrive, in an event known as An important note here, SCP-001 can manipulate all other SCPs. This results in some humorous and terrifying results.SCP-063, previously "the World's Best Tothbrush [sic]", took on a human form, now dubbing itself "the World's Best Dantist [sic]".Still frame of video footage of SCP-087 during Exploration I.SCP-087, previously within the campus of an unknown university, relocated to the Pentagon, and SCP-087–1 can now open the door of its own containment.SCP-106, in the middle of emerging from a wall.SCP-106, previously unable to speak, has shown greater intelligence and can now speak to research staff.SCP-167, previously a 10-cubic meter cube made of a white polymer, which had a seemingly infinite maze in it, stayed the same, but with some major changes. 11% of observed doors in SCP-167 led to other Foundation facilities, and 7% led to Russia's Запретный Прогресс (Forbidden Progress) space station. 17% led to rooms containing machines that harvested brain tissue.SCP-222, previously a tunnel complex in Italy that contained a stone coffin which would clone people who laid in it, retained its function, but instead of cloning you, it cloned your mother.SCP-294.SCP-294, previously a coffee machine that dispensed any liquid, had its abilities limited, so that it could only dispense liquids produced by the Coca-Cola Company, no matter the keyboard input. Inputting non-CocaCola terms, however, resulted in the stock price of the Coca-Cola Company changing.SCP-332, previously the Class of 1976 Kirk Lonwood High School marching band, which teleported to major locations and prompted all humans who heard its music to join in, became limited to locations associated with marching band field trips.SCP-383, previously a strain of influenza that caused its host to vomit items that it needed, mutated, so that its hosts now vomited illicit items.A specimen of Armadillidium vulgare (the common pill bug), which appears similar to SCP-400SCP-400, formerly an organism similar to the common pill bug (above), which manipulated babies to feed on breastmilk, changed so that it now manipulated people 17–18 years of age, so it could still feed on breastmilk.I myself, SCP-426, formerly a toaster that couldn't be described in the 3rd person, have changed, causing people to turn into a toaster as well. In any case, I'm not the toaster anymore, you are.And lots more. Basically, SCP-001 is messing with the world. Why does it want us back, though? Well, the answer is simple: It wants to torture us, for its own benefit. In this case, a utopian society exists on SCP-001, which is sustained by our torture.We escaped, and 001 manipulated us so we thought we came from Earth. We will come back by our own will.The other moons were disabled, to prevent this from happening again. Due to SCP-001's arrival on Earth, humanity's illusion that nothing anomalous has ever occurred has been broken, and millions of people have fled back to the Planet of the Hands. SCP-001 has succeeded.Reason: It has effect on most, if not ALL anomalous entities in the Universe, allowing it control over nearly every aspect of the Universe. SCP-001 is therefore a nigh-omnipotent being. Imagine what such a being can do.
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Are you as happy as Donald Trump is with AG William Barr’s summary of the Mueller report?
I think we should see the actual report, not a short summary by Trump’s appointed stooge. It is conceivable the summary is correct, but also conceivable it is not only incorrect, but even a complete lie. Why do I say that? Well, Trump has already announced the report was a “total exoneration” of him, whereas Barr’s letter actually specifically said it was not. If Trump just completely made that up (which he did) then why should we assume the Barr summary was not also completely made up? There simply is no credibility here, Trump just removed any hope of that — so we need to see the report itself. And I also do not think the report itself necessarily will be credible. For example it has been claimed that (a) there are no plans to indict anybody else, and also that (b) no member of Trump’s family involved in his campaign (e.g. Ivanka, Eric, Jared Kushner) was ever interviewed by the Mueller team. I simply cannot see at present how both (a) and (b) can be true while still contending this was a genuine investigation and not a sham. (They perhaps could enjoy more credibility by also making available evidence, e.g. the evidence seen by the grand jury.)But you definitely are not going to know if nobody ever sees the report.UPDATE 11 april 2019: (a) Barr, testifying under oath before congress, was asked whether the Mueller report (which nobody in congress or the media had ever seen) had already been shown to… the people under investigation, i.e. the Trump team at the White House. He refused to answer.(b) Would Barr request that the court release the grand jury evidence? Barr refused. As opposed to every other comparable investigation (e.g. Starr report re Clinton, Cox report re Nixon) in which, in all cases, the grand jury evidence was released.(c) Barr claims he will release his bowdlerized version of the Mueller report in “mid April” which is about 10X longer delay than any previous such report ever experienced.(d) Media leaks claim members of the Mueller team dispute the Barr summary, and that said team had already helpfully prepared multiple summaries of their own… all of which have been kept secret so Barr instead could release his own “summary” letter to congress. Was anybody on the Mueller team consulted to review Barr’s letter before it went to congress? Barr answered: no.(e) Barr says he is censoring the report in 4 ways: (i) Grand jury information (ii) Material that might compromise intelligence sources and methods (iii) Information that could affect ongoing matters (iv) material that could affect the privacy and reputations of peripheral third parties.These 4 categories seem extremely broad and vague. Essentially everything in the report probably came thru the grand jury and/or intelligence agencies. Ongoing matters could be anything. “Third parties” could be anyone, including president Trump himself. I am unaware of any previous investigation like this in which the “privacy and reputations of peripheral third parties” were considered so worth protecting. This is quite an astonishing concern being shown by Barr here for all those poor fellows.(f) Congress asked the IRS to see Trump’s taxes. Under the income tax law, they get to see any taxpayer’s taxes. Well, the deadline for delivering the info has now passed. So, this non-delivery is simply illegal. And according to Trump, congress should consult his lawyers and attorney general Barr. But the tax law simply says certain congressional committee heads get any taxpayer return they want to see, with no involvement whatever by the AG or the lawyers of the taxpayer involved. This statement by Trump combined with illegal non-action by the IRS indicates to me that Barr has already participated in an illegal act at Trump’s behest. These are impeachment level crimes.STILL FURTHER UPDATE:Barr when head of the Justice dept office of legal counsel in 1989, refused to release a Justice Dept report about Panama to congress, but said he would prepare a summary of the main conclusions. Many years later the unredacted report came out proving Barr had highly distorted it in his summarization:Barr’s Playbook: He Misled Congress When Omitting Parts of Justice Dep’t Memo in 1989MORE GENERALLY:What perhaps bugs me even more than having a proven major criminal (I refer to the NY Times’ pulitzer-winning investigation of Trump-led tax fraud amounting to at least 100s of $millions) as US president, is the fact that he has successfully effectively corrupted the entire government by corrupting a large fraction of the Republican party. (This is following Putin’s playbook.) Some of the commenters to this answer are a case in point. I doubt that they, or virtually any Republican or anybody for that matter, would have pretended all this was perfectly reasonable if the president involved had been, e.g, Obama. And rightly so. The problem is that they now have just totally lost their ethical judgment. I.e. they have been corrupted. In, for example, Watergate, Republicans had ethics. Enough of them weren’t willing to go along with firing special prosecutors, refusing subpoenas, systematically shutting down all congressional oversight, having presidents and their close associates both committing proven crimes, etc, and acting as though it all were just fine and “no collusion proven.”UPDATE 18 April:Release of the redacted Mueller Report 446 pages, but with an estimated 700 pages of appendices completely removed. Even in this extremely redacted form (far more redacted than available) it was apparent within 1 hour that Barr’s “summary” had been an absolutely massive distortion. You can download the report here: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/ima...https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdfBarr while 3 times refusing to answer under oath Congress questions about who he’d shown the report to outside Justice, who’d been briefed, etc (the NY Times later reveled “numerous” discussions had been held between Justice and Trump legal team about the report before its release, which Trump’s lawyers used to help them write a “rebuttal” ahead of time — which is absolutely deranged right there — and also one has to wonder why they are working so hard to “rebut” a “complete and total exoneration”…) also actually did make a factual claim. Barr said he would, from that point on, not be discussing the report at all until after it was released. That claim under oath was a flat out lie, as Barr then held a press conference to try to tell us all about the report before releasing it.UPDATE 19 April:Regarding the question of whether the entire Mueller investigation was designed to be, to at least some extent. a sham and whitewash, we have this amazing quote from page 2 vol II of the report: “we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the president committed crimes.”Another revealing fact: although a common investigative technique is to “follow the money,” the report seems to indicate there was zero attempt to do so for Trump’s finances. I repeat, zero, not even trying, not at all.REACTIONS TO MUELLER REDACTED-REPORT RELEASE:Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called for impeachment of Trump: “The report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack… To ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways. The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President.”Some other Sens. have now joined Warren in claiming obstruction by Trump was severe enough that the House must under the constitution impeach Trump (e.g. Warren: “if any other human being had done [what Trump did] he would be in jail”), even though they expect the Republican-controlled Senate will not convict.Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) “It is good news that the evidence [was considered insufficient to charge],” but “I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President. Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders.”Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) however offered a rather different opinion to his co-Senator Romney, saying “Republicans learned a couple of decades ago when going through the impeachment process for Bill Clinton. It didn't turn out well for us. No reason why it would turn out well for [the Democrats] this time.” He went on “There is no there there. There is no evidence, not even a scintilla, of collusion. They don't suggest any type of obstruction charge. So they don't have it. [The Democrats] must be very disappointed that is how the system works.”But I must disagree with Lee re “not even a scintilla” and “don’t suggest any type.” (E.g there were over 140 documented contacts between at least 18 members of Trump’s campaign and Russian intelligence and/or high Russians close to Putin, 100% of which had been initially denied.) Those were simply flat out lies by Lee. I also disagree with Romney that it is “good news” there was not enough evidence. I would consider it to be “good news” if there were enough evidence that the report’s authors had regarded guilt or innocence as completely clear.Pres.Donald Trump [after the redacted report came out, as opposed to previously when he’d called it a “complete and total exoneration”]: “Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue. Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed. Because I never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the ‘Report’ about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad). This was an Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened, a . . . [nothing came after the dots]” Incidentally, Robert Mueller’s party affiliation is Republican. And Trump many times publicly said he was going to be happy to testify, but as he here correctly states for perhaps the first time, actually never agreed to.Fox News commentator (former Judge) Andrew P. Napolitano, also a personal friend of Trump: concluded Trump is guilty of at least 5 counts of Obstruction of Justice, but was not charged because of AG Barr’s personal belief that Presidents cannot obstruct justice, a belief not shared by Napolitano or virtually anybody else either. Judge Andrew Napolitano: Did President Trump obstruct justice?UPDATE: Some Democrats now calling for AG Barr to resign in view of his distortions. E.g. Nancy Pelosi (Speaker) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in joint statement: Barr “deliberately distorted signNow portions of Special Counsel Mueller’s report.” NY Times story comparing Barr’s “summarizing” statements side by side with Mueller report statements: How Barr’s Excerpts Compare to the Mueller Report’s FindingsAs of 30 April: several news organizations, especially the Washington Post, have now determined that after Barr released his original 4-page summary on 24 March, Mueller wrote a 27 March letter to Barr expressing his displeasure with it. The Mueller letter advocated that Barr instead should simply release the Mueller report’s own already-available summaries immediately, and claimed Barr’s summary had (unlike his own) failed to “fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his conclusions. (Read Mueller letter: House Judiciary Dems on Twitter) Nobody including Barr himself was able to think of any prior occasion in US history when a special counsel had ever in writing rebuked an AG like this.Barr responded by keeping that letter secret (until it leaked out over a month later), refusing to do what it said, and testifying under oath to congress that he “did not know” what Mueller’s opinion of Barr’s 4-page summary was. That was a flat out lie. (Also in same testimony Barr noted that Trump had “fully cooperated” with the Mueller investigation. What universe does this guy come from?)Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA): “OUR Attorney General acts as Trump’s defense attorney. He can’t represent both. Barr must resign.” I am afraid I must agree with Swalwell: Any other attorney who tried to represent 2 sides in a case would be disbarred. For the top attorney in the country to behave this unacceptable way? Again, the fact that congressional Republicans systematically block any attempt to do anything about this, while the Democrats do nothing except whine, again, is a symptom of the fact that Trump as President (and by transitivity, Vladimir Putin) has effectively corrupted the entire US government.George Conway (lawyer & husband of top white house aide Kellyanne Conway): calls for Trump’s impeachment based on Mueller report based on (a) Trump’s massive failure to uphold his position’s “fiduciary responsibility,” and (b) comparison vs Nixon case: Opinion: Trump is a cancer on the presidency, he must be impeachedCOMPARISON:A certain amount of sanity can be restored by consulting public statements by important Republicans about the topic of obstruction of justice. E.g.Mitch McConnell (R-KY, senate leader): “Contrary to federal obstruction of justice laws and contrary to judge Wright’s protective order … President Clinton left the deposition, went back to the White House and called Ms Currie at home to ask her to come to the White House the next day, which, I might add, was a Sunday. … I am completely and utterly perplexed by those who argue that perjury and obstruction of justice are not high crimes and misdemeanors.”But McConnell had no problem endorsing Barr as AG, despite Barr having recently published a statement saying the opposite. And Clinton’s obstructions of justice seem to me less numerous and severe than Trump’s. For example, Clinton did not even try to fire anybody, and in particular not Ken Starr. So “obviously” McConnell would fully agree that Trump’s behavior at least merited an impeachment proceeding.UPDATE 5 May 2019: 370 former federal prosecutors (370 appears to be increasing substantially with time, think 1 day later has risen over 600) signed a joint letter saying “We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report” specifically multiple felony prosecutions of Trump for obstructing justice. Hundreds of former prosecutors say Trump would have been indicted if he were not president. Read the STATEMENT BY FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTORSUPDATE 6 May: Speaker Nancy Pelosi argues against impeaching Trump, because she claims Dems should instead focus on winning the 2020 election by huge margins, and not slim ones because (she said) “Trump would not give up power voluntarily if he lost re-election by a slim margin next year.” Guess I am nowhere near as brilliant as Pelosi, since my mind is absolutely boggled by this “argument”…Treasury secretary S.Mnuchin refuses to allow congress to see Trump’s tax returns (even though the law says congress can see anybody’s tax returns just by asking) because “I have determined that [congress’s] request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.” This marks the first time this law has ever been challenged or any such request has ever been denied, in the entire history of the USA: https://home.treasury.gov/system...UPDATE 7 MAY: Trump asserts “executive privilege” over the entire Mueller report, in an effort to prevent anybody from seeing his “complete and total exoneration.” This is amazing. Under this theory, every investigation ever of any executive branch member by the justice dept would only ever be released [even just to congress, the overseeing body] if the president wanted it released. I mean, that sure sounds like a real democracy to me.UPDATE 8 May: Judiciary committee votes 24–16 to hold AG Barr “in contempt of congress.” If the whole House votes the same, then Barr will be subject to legal penalties such as fines or jail time. In theory. I mean, virtually any other human would be jailed. Anybody want to make bets on whether Barr is an extra special amazing human?UPDATE 18 May: Congressman Justin Amash (R-MI) becomes the first Republican congressman to call for Trump’s impeachment. Amash said he’d concluded President Donald Trump committed "impeachable conduct" and accused Attorney General William Barr of intentionally misleading the publicHere are my principal conclusions:1. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report.2. President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.3. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances.4. Few members of Congress have read the report.— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019 House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded by claiming that the Michigan Republican simply "wants to have attention" while Trump himself noted Amash was a “loser.”
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Regarding the Trump-Russia collusion debate, if a smoking gun hasn't been found yet, in what form would it exist?
To prove collusion, Mueller would first need to show consistent contacts between Trump's campaign and the Russian government. Recall that over a dozen US intelligences services have long since concluded (independently) that such contacts took place, and have at their disposal intercepts of conversations from within the Russian government, as well as emails and phone call metadata. So, this first step is just a matter of collecting additional evidence to ensure robust court cases without revealing too much sensitive intelligence, losing high moral ground, or creating bad optics.At this stage, Mueller will surely try to get as many cooperating witnesses as possible (apparently, Gen. Flynn is one, and a guy arrested in July is another). In particular, people caught lying to the FBI can be packed up for doing that, and Mueller demonstrated this very clearly. Other crimes, such as money laundering, can also be used in this context to encourage cooperation with the investigation via plea bargains and other agreements.Proving collusion is harder, but internal conversations within the Russian government explain what happened. Mueller would need to corroborate all that by other means and find independent evidence (since Russia could send sworn testimonies by the same people, saying opposite things). Trump caused a lot of legal harm to himself by his public pronouncements during the campaign, such as inviting the Russians to hack Clinton's emails — they apparently boasted of doing that. To this end, Trump's racist speeches, and in particular his promises to ban Muslims from coming to the US, have already been used by courts to suspend actual presidential orders. More important will be the cooperation of Trump's aides — Hope Hicks is scheduled to testify soon. They will all have to choose between lying, stalling, and providing potentially incriminating information on other people related to Trump, as well as Trump himself. For now, the White House is promising full cooperation, so stalling would be difficult, and stalling could be seen by the public as a sign of guilt. However, some current officials are already walking on very thin ice — notably, Jeff Sessions, who gave sworn testimonies to Congress and later had to retract them because evidence indicated he was wrong about his own activities.In other words, I suspect that Mueller knows what happened for the most part, so the remaining challenge is to get cooperating witnesses and to indict non-cooperating witnesses, while preserving the integrity of the investigation and Congressional support. Trump has very few possible counter moves, such as pardoning the people convicted on Mueller's charges. I doubt he can pardon someone who is under investigation or clear the charges. Firing Mueller would be increasingly difficult, and Congressional leaders already warned Trump not to interfere with the investigation. Cheap and not-so-cheap tricks like getting the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal call for Mueller's resignation are going to harm those who pulls them more than they harm the investigation.At the end, the main charges could be of lying under oath — really not that difficult with Trump, since he often contradicts himself (contradicting claims cannot be true!) This was the case with Bill Clinton, which is why the Senate didn't remove him from office. However, the stakes are much higher now, so I suspect Mueller will prove something much stronger than lying or even obstruction of justice. Even if Trump goes for anything that qualifies as contempt of court, he might be removed from office. But Mueller is still focused on the collusion case. There is now plenty of evidence of Russia's attempts to help Trump, with Trump's campaign staying in touch with representatives of the Russian government, and Trump personally cheering up for such help. There is some evidence that Russia may have materially affected US elections. There is also strong evidence of Trump's business interests in Russia, and Russian money flowing to Trump's businesses. However, a smoking gun might come in the form of discussions of quid pro quo between high-placed Russians and people close to Trump. Such discussions have already been reported, and it's just a matter of collecting enough hard evidence and signing up enough cooperating witnesses to prove beyond reasonable doubt that such discussions took place.One missing element is the actual “quid” — Trump was unable to do much for Russia, given pressure from the Congress, several ongoing investigations, and unfavorable media coverage. This can hardly undermine Mueller’s case, IMHO.
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What should I choose for transactional e-mails: Mandrill, Sendgrid, or Pepipost?
I just want to advise you against using Mandrill. Here is the reason: Mandrill is not honest!Mandrill often provides fake delivery reports so you never know if the email was delivered or just put in a secret queue or just lost. We are developing a CRM application and recently we advised all our customers to sign-up for a mandrill account themselves and link their API key into our CRM so that we can avoid abuse issues. However some of our customers reported email delivery issues (e.g. their customers complained they didn't receive any email response) so we investigated the logs found that Mandrill API reported the emails as ``sent`` (not `queued` or whatever). The Mandrill Admin UI reported them as "Delivered" . After we conducted some simple tests we found that these accounts were actually somehow put on hold but the account owners(i.e our customers) didn't receive any notice, the API didn't report any error and as I said the mandrill user interface displays them as "delivered". I'm not sure if that's a kind of security through obscurity thing, a mandrill technical error but I find it just a bad business practice. We are now working on new plugins so that we can allow our customers to use Amazon SES or SendGrid.Update:After extensive research I've found that the accounts were put on a kind of 'silent' hold so be aware that your emails may appear as sent although they are not sent and mandrill will not tell you anything about it even when you ask them. I personally will never use their service even if they make it free.
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Which movies are known to have resulted in a surge in US military recruitment during its opening week like Top Gun?
Q. Which movies are known to have resulted in a surge in US military recruitment during its opening week like Top Gun?A. These movies were successful at the box office and increased interest in military service.Top Gun - WikipediaTop Gun' Boosting Service Sign-upsHow did Top Gun affect military recruitment? (Quora)An Officer and a Gentleman - WikipediaA Few Good Men - WikipediaBlack Hawk Down (film) - WikipediaSaving Private Ryan - WikipediaZero Dark Thirty - WikipediaThe US military storm Hollywood | Steve RoseWhy the Pentagon Didn’t like “Platoon”'Act of Valor', 'Call of Duty' and the Role of Entertainment in Military Recruitment - Video Games and Military RecruitmentTop 10 Lies (Some) Military Recruiters Tell ApplicantsMovies with and without Pentagon CooperationTop Gun - WikipediaTop Gun is a 1986 American romantic military action drama film directed by Tony Scott, and produced by Don Simpsonand Jerry Bruckheimer, in association with Paramount Pictures. The screenplay was written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr., and was inspired by an article titled "Top Guns" published in California magazine three years earlier. The film stars Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, and Tom Skerritt. Cruise plays Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a young naval aviator aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. He and his Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Edwards) are given the chance to train at the Navy's Fighter Weapons School at the former Naval Air Station (NAS) Miramar in San Diego.Top Gun legendary opening scene and creditsTop Gun was released on May 16, 1986. Upon its release, the film received generally mixed reviews from film critics but many particularly praised the action sequences, the effects, the aerial stunts, and the acting performances with Cruise and McGillis receiving the most praise. Four weeks after release, the number of theaters showing it increased by 45%.Despite its initial mixed critical reaction, the film was a huge commercial hit grossing $356 million against a production budget of only $15 million. The film maintained its popularity over the years and earned an IMAX 3D re-release in 2013. Additionally, the film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Take My Breath Away" performed by Berlin.In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically signNow".A sequel,Top Gun: Maverick is scheduled for release on July 19, 2019.My favourite Top Gun moments'Top Gun' Boosting Service Sign-upsJuly 05, 1986|MARK EVJE | Associated Press WriterSAN DIEGO — Regulations prohibit the Navy from promoting the hit movie "Top Gun" in its recruitment efforts, but the film extolling the service's best fighter jocks apparently has become a valuable tool--in some parts of the Southwest anyway.When the film opened in May, recruiters in some cities manned tables outside movie houses during "Top Gun" premieres to answer questions from would-be flyboys emerging with a new-found need for speed from an F-14 warplane.Navy recruiting officials say they didn't keep track of that operation's success, but they have noticed more inquiries than usual about the naval aviation officer candidate program since the movie's release.They don't think it's a coincidence."Two groups I can identify (as having increased interest) are individuals who have applied in the past and were turned down or dropped out of Aviation Officers Training School, and individuals who are approaching the maximum age limit (to apply)," said Lt. Ray Gray, head of the officer programs department in Los Angeles."There seems to have been a big rush in those categories that I have to attribute to the movie. I've asked several of these individuals if they've seen the movie and if that's why they came down to talk to us again and they've said 'yes'."On the other end of the spectrum, we've seen a general increase in interest in young men who don't yet qualify for the program, and I have to attribute that to 'Top Gun' also."Lt. Sandy Stairs, the Navy's representative while the film was in production, said Navy regulations prohibit the service from "selectively endorsing or appearing to endorse a commercial product," like the movie, even though it favorably portrays the Navy and could aid in recruiting."Some recruiters have said to me that a lot of young high school graduates said they've seen the movie and would like to sign up for naval aviation, but we don't actively go out and say, 'Go see the movie.' We're not in the business of promoting the movie, we're in the business of recruiting people," Stairs said.But Lt. Cmdr. Laura Marlowe, officer in charge of recruiting for the naval officer program in Arizona and San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, said her recruiters in Phoenix have received twice as many calls as usual about the aviation program in the last month."They couldn't specifically say it was a direct result of 'Top Gun,' but they suspect it probably had a lot to do with it because when they would talk to applicants, about 90 percent said they had seen the movie," Marlowe said."Maybe it hadn't made them call in, but they'd been thinking about (joining the Navy) and this was just the kicker that put them over the line," Marlowe said.The film has been in the top 10 for box office receipts throughout its seven weeks of release, grossing more than $72 million. It depicts the extensive training given to the top 1% of fighter pilots at the Navy Fighter Weapons School at the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. The school is nicknamed "Top Gun."Several scenes were filmed at the real-life Top Gun school, where most of the pilots have several years of F-14 experience. To qualify as a pilot, rigid mental and physical screenings must be passed, followed by two years of officer and flight training school and four years of non-combat flying.Despite the local tie, Marlowe said there hasn't been an appreciable increase in San Diego applicants. She said she thinks that's because of the high level of interest in aviation and the Navy in the area to begin with.Master Chief Charles Griva, who oversees the Navy's general recruiting in San Diego, said he's noticed a slight increase in people wanting to join the Navy since the movie came out and "a definite increase in those asking about the naval aviation program."This would be a hard town to sample," Griva said. "Maybe the Midwest would be a better place because if you live in Mira Mesa (next to Miramar), for example, watching F-14s is old hat."An Officer and a Gentleman - WikipediaAN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN - Trailer ( 1982 )An Officer and a Gentleman is a 1982 American romantic drama film starring Richard Gere, Debra Winger and Louis Gossett Jr., who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film, making him the first African American to do so. It tells the story of Zack (Gere), a United States Navy Aviation Officer Candidate who is beginning his training at Aviation Officer Candidate School. While Zack meets his first true girlfriend during his training, a local young woman named Paula (Winger), he also comes into conflict with the hard-driving Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant (Gossett Jr.), the drill instructor training his class. Also starring Phillip J. Salmon in his first role.The film was written by Douglas Day Stewart and directed by Taylor Hackford. Its title is an old expression from the Royal Navy and later from the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice's charge of "conduct unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman" (from 1860). The film was commercially released in the U.S. on August 13, 1982. It was well received by critics, with a number calling it the best film of 1982. It also was a financial success, grossing $130 million against a $6 million budget.An Officer and a Gentleman was an enormous box office success and went on to become the third-highest-grossing film of 1982, after E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and Tootsie. It grossed $3,304,679 in its opening weekend and $129,795,554 overall at the domestic box office. It sold an estimated 44 million tickets in the US.A Few Good Men - WikipediaOne man is dead. Two men are accused of his murder. The entire Marines Corps is on trial. And 'A Few Good Men' are about to ignite the most explosive episode in US military history. Universally acclaimed, 'A Few Good Men' unites the big screen's biggest stars.A Few Good Men is a 1992 American legal drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore, with Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, Wolfgang Bodison, James Marshall, J. T. Walsh and Kiefer Sutherland in supporting roles. It was adapted for the screen by Aaron Sorkin from his play of the same name but includes contributions by William Goldman. The film revolves around the court-martial of two U.S. Marinescharged with the murder of a fellow Marine and the tribulations of their lawyers as they prepare a case to defend their clients.Saving Private Ryan - WikipediaFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic war filmdirected by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Set during the Invasion of Normandy in World War II, the film is notable for its graphic portrayal of war, and for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which includes a depiction of the Omaha Beach assault during the Normandy landings. It follows United States Army Rangers CaptainJohn H. Miller (Tom Hanks) and a squad (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies) as they search for a paratrooper, Private First Class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), who is the last-surviving brother of four servicemen.The film received widespread critical acclaim, winning several awards for film, cast, and crew, as well as earning signNow returns at the box office. The film grossed $216.8 million domestically, making it the highest-grossing film of 1998 in the United States, and $481.8 million worldwide, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 1998 worldwide. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture; Spielberg's direction won his second Academy Award for Best Director, with four more awards going to the film. Saving Private Ryan was released on home video in May 1999, earning another $44 million from sales.In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically signNow."Black Hawk Down - WikipediaBlack Hawk Down is a 2001 war film produced and directed by Ridley Scott, from a screenplay by Ken Nolan. It is based on the 1999 non-fiction book of the same name by Mark Bowden, which in turn is based on the 29-part series of articles published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, chronicling the events of a 1993 raid in Mogadishu by the U.S. military aimed at capturing faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid, and the ensuing firefight, known as the Battle of Mogadishu. The film features a large ensemble cast, including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Jason Isaacs, Tom Hardy in his feature film debut, and Sam Shepard.Black Hawk Down (2001) - Official Trailer [HD]Black Hawk Down won two Academy Awards for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing at the 74th Academy Awards.In 2009, an extended cut of the film was released on DVD. The cut contained an additional 8 minutes of footage increasing the running time to 152 minutes. This extended cut has yet to be released on Blu-ray.Zero Dark Thirty - WikipediaZero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American political-thriller filmdirected by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. Billed as "the greatest manhunt in history", the film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for al Qaedaleader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks in the United States. This search eventually leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid that resulted in bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011.The film stars Jessica Chastain as Maya, a fictional CIAintelligence analyst, with Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke, James Gandolfini, Kyle Chandler, Stephen Dillane, Chris Pratt, Édgar Ramírez, Jennifer Ehle, John Barrowman, Mark Duplass, and Frank Grillo in supporting roles.It was produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and was independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures. The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 19, 2012 and had its wide release on January 11, 2013.Zero Dark Thirty - Official Trailer #2 (HD)Zero Dark Thirty received widespread critical acclaim and appeared on 95 critics' top ten lists of 2012. It was nominated in five categories at the 85th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Chastain, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing, and won the award for Best Sound Editing. The film also earned Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, with Chastain winning the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.The film's depiction of so-called "enhanced interrogation" generated controversy, with some critics describing it as pro-torture propaganda, as the interrogations are shown producing reliably useful and accurate information.Acting CIA director Michael Morellstated, "The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques ... were the key to finding bin Laden. That impression is false."Other critics described it as an anti-torture exposure of interrogation practices.Republican Congressman Peter T. King charged that the filmmakers were given improper access to classified materials, which they denied.An unreleased draft IG report published by the Project on Government Oversight, in June 2013, stated that former CIA Director Leon Panetta discussed classified information during an awards ceremony for the SEAL team that carried out the raid on the bin Laden compound. Unbeknownst to Panetta, screenwriter Mark Boal was among the 1,300 present during the ceremony.'Act of Valor', 'Call of Duty' and the Role of Entertainment in Military Recruitment - Video Games and Military RecruitmentBy Ryan Gorman| Feb. 25, 2012The much hyped military action drama Act of Valor opens nationwide this weekend. It is the latest in a long line of movies, TV shows, and video games focusing on war and combat. The amount of readily available war-related content is at an all-time high right now, is this good or bad for military recruitment?Movies like Act of Valor impact recruiting, so do video games. Usually they cause people to enroll in the military because they want to look as cool as what they saw at the theater or on TV.The Navy saw a huge increase in recruitment after Top Gun was released. Will this film, along with the killing of Osama bin Laden and other assorted SEAL Team Six activities, boost enrollment in the Navy again? Only time will tell. One thing that is quantifiable is the impact past military/special forces dramas and video games have had on military perception.The Army is so convinced that video games like Call of Duty boost recruitment numbers that it has released multiple versions of its own video game called America’s Army. Call of Duty itself is now on its 18th iteration, with a 19th already on the way. Every year the video game franchise breaks sales records, and the latest CoD: Modern Warfare 3 was no exception. With over 12 million copies soldin the first week it broke the old record of 4.8 million copies held by Call of Duty: Black Ops; its predecessor.America’s Army has never even approached those numbers, most likely never will, but it still gets the message the military wants to broadcast out there: shooting things is fun, and you can do it while working for us.Act of Valor sets itself apart from the pack by starring an ensemble cast of active duty Navy SEALS. Most movies about combat retain former soldiers in consulting roles, but this movie put commandos in front of the camera and let them do what they do best. This may not be the best military action film ever made, but it will likely be the most realistic.Before you watch the movie, remember the Vancouver Sun review’s headline: “US Navy SEALS can do anything – except act.” They aren’t being paid to act, they’re being paid to kick ass and make it look cool while doing it like Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer did in Top Gun. Only this movie involves less drama and more murder, death, kill.While movies like Full Metal Jacket, Platoon and Saving Private Ryan made attempts to dramatize wars, they did not always convey a very positive image of the military. With graphic war scenes in the media, soldier meltdowns, and war crimes being committed all over the place; it’s no wonder people have such distrust in the soldiers who dedicate their lives to serving and protecting our freedom.That brings us back to Act of Valor, which derives its name from the Medal of Valor; an award bestowed on soldiers for heroic acts while under attack. The Navy SEALS portrayed in this film perform heroic act after heroic act because it’s their job, they’re SEALS. The movie goes for the gusto instead of the Oscar.Most movies that depict war make it look cool and fun. They make dying in combat look brave and heroic. My father fought in Vietnam, he would disagree with that idea. While dying in war can be heroic, simply doing so isn’t a heroic act and shouldn’t be viewed that way. Movies that make it look heroic to cowboy up and go guns a blazing into a hail of bullets are unrealistic and ridiculous. Movies like Act of Valor depict action in a way that will hopefully make people see war realistically. It will probably also boost recruiting so more people can try to be the hero who kills the next Osama bin LadenPhoto Credit: US NavyCall of Duty: WWII vs. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Storming Normandy then and now | PCWorldFilmThe US military storm Hollywood | Steve RoseThe US military happily rents out its wares to film-makers. But are the results little more than adverts for the forces? And are they now being targeted at children? Steve RoseMon 6 Jul 2009 21.30 BSTAt first glance, it looks like just another disposable summer movie, this time about battling robots from outer space. But Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is also quite possibly the most militarised film ever made. Even more than its predecessor, it crams in an exhausting amount of military hardware: jet fighters, transport planes, unmanned spy planes, helicopters, tanks, submarines, hovercrafts, aircraft carriers, you name it. And if you can't name it, an actor will usually yell something helpful like: "They're bringing in the C-17s!"Apocalypse NowIn addition, many of the characters in the movie are military personnel, and genuine US troops were used as extras. Large chunks of it were shot at US airbases, too. Holloman, in New Mexico, stands in for Diego Garcia, while the nearby White Sands missile range doubles for Egypt in the movie's comically destructive finale. It was generally assumed that the Transformers films were toy adverts disguised as event movies – but, on the strength of Revenge of the Fallen, a new question arises, one with much more sinister connotations in a movie directed at kids: are they really selling the mighty US military?By reputation, Hollywood is a town of lily-livered liberals. Military people rarely come off well in the movies: they are usually characterised as disciplinarian dads, meat-headed bullies, inflexible authoritarians or, in the case of American Beauty, self-hating, closeted gay Nazis. But there's a contingent of film-makers who seem to get on just fine with the troops, and chief among them are Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Not only did Bay direct both Transformers movies, but also such war-tastic blockbusters as Pearl Harbor and Armageddon, each made with heavy military cooperation; Pearl Harbor even held its premiere on a US aircraft carrier. Both were produced by Bruckheimer, who has also brought the world military-themed movies such as Crimson Tide, Black Hawk Down and the daddy of the genre, Top Gun.FuryIt's not difficult to see what both sides get out of it. The use of official hardware gives a movie such as Revenge of the Fallen a much-needed veneer of credibility: without the military, it's just a film about robots fighting. And it saved the film-makers millions of dollars in props, locations and special effects. Meanwhile, the military gets to show off its latest equipment to millions of people, and depict its personnel in the best possible light."Yes, we have a good relationship," says Philip Strub, director of entertainment media at the US department of defence, who has worked with Bay since Armageddon. Bay is always keen to include the military's latest equipment, says Strub: "We might say, 'Hey, you've never shown an X, Y or a Z.' We'll send them information, talk about its role. Or they'll come back to us and say, 'We'd like to have a C-17. Or what about an aircraft carrier and some F-18s?'"Bay and Bruckheimer aren't the only military-minded film-makers in Hollywood, though. The first Oscar-winning picture, Wings, from 1927, was a first world war movie made with support from the US air force, and they have been working together ever since, in war epics such as Patton, The Green Berets and From Here to Eternity.American SniperIn theory, any US film-maker can make use of the military's hardware, personnel and property. It all belongs to the taxpayer, after all. As well as Strub's office in the Pentagon, each of the US's armed forces has its own public affairs department in LA to work with film-makers. "The rule of thumb for us is that there's no additional cost to the US government," says Strub. "So if they're filming typical flight operations on an aircraft carrier, we wouldn't charge. But if you wanted to control the aircraft, then we would charge exactly what it costs the squadron." These costs vary: from $1,000 an hour for a tank, to more than $25,000 for an F-15 jet fighter.However, you get all this on the military's terms. The script must be submitted for approval, a military consultant will be on hand during the shoot, and the finished product has to be screened for Pentagon chiefs before its release. And if the military doesn't like the way it is portrayed in the script, it won't help you until you make the changes it recommends. "Our desire is that the military are portrayed as good people trying to do the right thing the right way," says Strub. "That's probably our single most important imperative. We want the equipment to be operated in a way that's more or less the way it would be; and for servicemen to act towards each other and towards others as they would in real life."Full Metal JacketIn his 2004 book Operation Hollywood, David Robb paints a darker picture. Robb documents the discussions between the two sides on many movies since the second world war. What emerges is a startling picture of an entertainment landscape shaped by the Pentagon. Sometimes the changes are laughable. In the James Bond movie GoldenEye, the Pentagon demanded the nationality of an incompetent US admiral be changed if the producers wanted US helicopters for the finale. He became Canadian.Sometimes the changes are more sinister. In the Cuban missile crisis drama Thirteen Days, the Pentagon objected to the way generals were shown to be in favour of invading Cuba at the time, even though this was based on tapes of discussions within the White House. The military described Thirteen Days's portrayal of the generals as "negative" and "inauthentic". It sought to alter the scenes, but producer and star Kevin Costner refused, and went ahead without their support."The military is part of the US government," says Robb now. "In America we have the First Amendment, which prohibits government from favouring speech it likes, and not favouring speech it doesn't like. You can't reward somebody who makes a movie saying how great the American government is – and deny the same break to somebody criticising it." By taking the military's assistance, he says, an artist's vision is inevitably corrupted. "The military are not film-makers. They're good at making war, and making weapons, but they're not good at making movies. They don't have a sense of humour and they don't really even have a sense of their own history."Bridge over the River KwaiDespite the extra cost and hardship, many of the best Hollywood war movies have been made without the forces: Apocalypse Now, Platoon, MASH, Catch-22, Full Metal Jacket, Dr Strangelove, Three Kings. And when it comes to the recent anti-Iraq/Bush war movies such as Redacted, Rendition, Battle for Haditha, Stop Loss, In the Valley of Elah, or HBO's Generation Kill, the film-makers didn't even bother to ask the US military for support, knowing full well how they operate. Even Bay and Bruckheimer have managed to make the odd movie without Pentagon help, such as 1996's The Rock, in which renegade US marines hold the country to ransom and kill Navy SEALs – a definite deal-breaker.But the more commercially minded film-makers have learned how to get the goods without coming close to upsetting the top brass, through a process that could be described as self-censorship. Transformers is the perfect example. First, it is not a war movie but a sci-fi movie. Its fantastical, apolitical storyline neatly sidesteps issues of historical accuracy or military competence. As Strub puts it: "Since we don't have too many existing war plans for fighting Decepticons, and allying with Autobots, there's an enormous amount of flexibility in terms of artistic licence."StalingradSecondly, and more worryingly, Transformers is aimed at children. Its target audience might well come to associate the military and warfare solely with exciting action, giddying technology, civic duty and untarnished heroism – and perhaps one day sign up themselves. The military don't like to talk about the recruiting value of movies these days, but they are clearly mindful of the Top Gun effect. It seems impossible to imagine now, especially since Quentin Tarantino's "Top Gun is the gayest movie ever" analysis, but in 1986, the sight of Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and co in white uniforms and aviator shades standing in front of throbbing jet fighters sent lots of America's young men straight to the nearest recruiting office. They usually didn't have to go far – the Navy installed special recruiting booths in cinema lobbies.That strategy would never work today. Post 9/11, the appetite of US film-goers for patriotic entertainment might be undiminished, but recruitment rates are low. And they haven't been helped by real-life events such as Abu Ghraib, friendly fire incidents, extraordinary rendition, atrocities committed by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention friends and family killed or maimed in the US's current conflicts. So sci-fi movies aimed at younger audiences seem to be a new direction for military recruitment. In the last few years, the Pentagon has helped with Spielberg's War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still and Iron Man. Coming soon are Iron Man 2 and GI Joe (another toy being turned into a movie). Think it's all just brainless nonsense and nothing to worry about? Well, bear in mind that Transformers broke box-office records.Paths of GloryWHY THE PENTAGON DIDN'T LIKE 'PLATOON'Fighting for country. At war with themselves. A contemporary trailer for Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning 1986 Vietnam War movie "Platoon". This is a fan-made trailer.There's a group of movie critics that the public knows little about, yet it has a sometimes important influence on movies the public sees: the anonymous military officers in the Pentagon who decide whether a movie maker will get official cooperation that could save millions in production costs.From our examination of a series of documents that detail the confidential negotiations between Hollywood and the Pentagon, we have come to the following conclusions:The Pentagon gives its wholehearted cooperation only to those producers who agree to turn out the equivalent of a recruiting poster.If a producer acts like a doormat to get the military reviewers' approval and cooperation, the Pentagon will walk all over him and demand changes that could signNowly affect the artistic integrity of the movie.There's an inverse principle of military movie making: the less support (and interference) a producer gets from the Pentagon, the more likely it is that the movie will be a critical and/or commercial success.In short, this unholy, unhealthy alliance between Hollywood and the Pentagon -- so often eagerly sought after by each side -- is usually to the advantage of neither, and is certainly not useful for the American public, which pays for the movie in both subsidies and at the box office.Perhaps the best confirmation of these conclusions is that the total level of Pentagon support for the Vietnam War movie ''Platoon'' was exactly zero. Yet it was both a critical and a commercial success of prodigious proportions.The low-budget ($6 million) film was a blockbuster at the box office and won four Oscars, including ''Best Picture'' and ''Best Director.'' Its success was a tribute to Oliver Stone's dogged loyalty to a script he wrote in 1975, based on his own combat experience in Vietnam -- a script that was rejected by all the major studios.The ''Platoon'' script was also rejected by the Pentagon. In a confidential memo dated June 28, 1984, Col. John E. Taylor of the Army's public affairs staff wrote:''We have reviewed the script, 'The Platoon,' and have found the Army cannot support it as written. In its present form, the script presents an unfair and inaccurate view of the Army.''There are numerous problem areas in the script. They include: the murder and rape of innocent Vietnamese villagers by U.S. soldiers, the coldblooded murder of one U.S. soldier by another, rampant drug abuse, the stereotyping of black soldiers and the portrayal of the majority of soldiers as illiterate delinquents. The entire script is rife with unrealistic and highly unfavorable depictions of the American soldier.''Donald E. Baruch, a top Pentagon public affairs official, concurred in a July 5, 1984, letter. ''In our opinion,'' he wrote, ''the script basically creates an unbalanced portrayal by stereotyping black soldiers, showing rampant drug abuse, illiteracy and concentrating action on brutality.''Baruch left the door open for compromise: ''Of course, we would be delighted if your company would consider screenplay revisions. A meeting can be arranged to go over the script, if someone wishes to come to Washington.''As it happens, all objections raised by the Army censors were aimed at the very features of the movie that eventually drew critical acclaim, led to its commercial success and brought widespread testimony from Vietnam veterans that the story of their war had finally been told as it was.Admittedly a movie doesn't have to be a critical smash to get the thumbs down from the Pentagon. It refused to cooperate with Sylvester Stallone's ''First Blood,'' a gory action adventure that was a smash with the public and a bust with the critics.The Pentagon also refused to cooperate with the makers of another Vietnam film, ''The Deerhunter.'' Other Pentagon rejects included Arnold Schwarzenegger's ''Commando'' (for ''implying that the U.S. Army has or had a special unit trained solely for the purpose of committing murder and pillage''); ''War Games'' (because no computer hacker could break into the military's strategic defense system); ''An Officer and a Gentleman'' (because the Lou Gossett character and the portrayal of boot camp were offensive) and ''Heartbreak Ridge'' (because the profanity and other attributes of the Clint Eastwood character were offensive).The one notable exception that proves the rule was ''Top Gun,'' which succeeded even with the Pentagon's enthusiastic cooperation.Top Gun versus Sergeant Bilko? Pentagon CooperationFilms which obtained cooperation: Air Force One The Caine Mutiny A Few Good Men From Here to Eternity Armageddon The Longest Day The Hunt for Red October Pearl Harbour Patton Patriot Games Top Gun Windtalkers (to be released) The Jackal Hamburger Hill Hearts in Atlantis (to be released) The Longest Day GoldenEye The American President Behind Enemy LInes (to be released) Apollo 13 Tomorrow Never Dies Tora! Tora! Tora! A Time to KillFilms denied cooperation: Apocalypse Now Catch-22Advertisement Broken Arrow Die Hard 2 Dr Strangelove Forrest Gump Full Metal Jacket GI Jane Independence Day The Last Detail Lone Star Mars Attacks! Memphis Belle An Officer and a Gentleman Platoon Sgt Bilko The Thin Red LineTop 10 Lies (Some) Military Recruiters Tell Applicants
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