Short Link News: Oktober 2017

Senin, 30 Oktober 2017

At just 10 years old, Maxwell Young, aka Bunchie, is receiving official scholarship offers from major universities ... - ESPN (press release) (blog)

Republicans want to slash tax deductions for your 401(k). That's actually a good idea! - Los Angeles Times

This Woman's "Glass Skin" Skin-Care Routine Is Going Viral - Allure Magazine

The latest K-beauty trend has nothing to do with fun products and everything to do with the final result. Glass skin, which is the fancy name for clear, luminous, seemingly transparent skin, is taking over social media — and one person's skin-care routine for achieving the look is going viral.

Ellie Choi, an aspiring makeup artist from Los Angeles, revealed every single step of her skin-care routine on social media, and her tweets are — weirdly enough — blowing up on Instagram. My Instagram explore page is filled with reposts of her skin-care thread and all of the posts have about 20,000 likes. Why? In the accompanying pictures, her skin looks literally poreless and dewy, just like a newborn baby's. Seriously, her complexion is as crystal clear as glass and her skin has that natural glow that is similar to when I wear tons of liquid, wet-looking highlighter.

ISIS Jihadis Have Returned Home by the Thousands - The New Yorker

Over the past few months, as the size of the Islamic State’s caliphate rapidly shrunk, the Pentagon began citing the number of enemy dead as an important barometer of longer-term success. “We have killed, in conservative estimates, sixty thousand to seventy thousand,” General Raymond Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, told the Aspen Security Forum, in July. “They declared an army, they put it on the battlefield, and we went to war with it.”

A high kill rate, which once misled the U.S. military about its prospects in Vietnam, has eased concerns in the U.S. today about future attempts at revenge from ISIS’s foreign fighters. “We’re not seeing a lot of flow out of the core caliphate, because most of those people are dead now,” Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr., the director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, confidently told reporters this month. “They’re unable to manifest the former activities they did to try to pose themselves as a state.”

Yet the calculus is pivotal now that the ISIS pseudo-caliphate has collapsed: Just how many fighters have survived? Where are they? What threat do they pose? Between 2014 and 2016, the perpetrators of all but four of the forty-two terrorist attacks in the West had some connection to ISIS, the European Commission’s Radicalization Awareness Network said, in July.

A new report, to be released Tuesday by the Soufan Group and the Global Strategy Network, details some of the answers: At least fifty-six hundred people from thirty-three countries have already gone home—and most countries don’t yet have a head count. On average, twenty to thirty per cent of the foreign fighters from Europe have already returned there—though it’s fifty per cent in Britain, Denmark, and Sweden. Thousands more who fought for ISIS are stuck near the borders of Turkey, Jordan, or Iraq, and are believed to be trying to get back to their home countries.

Dozens of governments face similar challenges. Earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that ten per cent of the more than nine thousand foreign fighters from Russia and the former Soviet republics who went to Syria or Iraq have come home. (In private, other Russians have given me higher numbers.) The report, titled “Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees,” notes that countries in Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, and in North Africa, such as Libya, are particularly vulnerable. Not only are citizens returning to these nations, so are other foreign fighters who have been forced out of the caliphate and are unable or unwilling to go home. Hundreds of jihadis are believed to be searching for new battlefields or refuge in Muslim countries.

The Islamic State’s future may increasingly depend on the returnees, the report warns. “As the territorial caliphate shrinks and is increasingly denied an overt presence, its leadership will look to supporters overseas, including returnees, to keep the brand alive,” it says. For the jihadis themselves, the psychological impact of their past ISIS experience and their uncertain futures may be as pivotal as any ideological commitment in determining what they do next. ISIS “has tapped into deep veins of disillusion with traditional politics and mistrust of state institutions,” the report notes.

“Most returnees will be unlikely to experience anything in their lives at home that matches the intensity of their experience as a member of IS, whether or not they were fighting on the front line,” “Beyond the Caliphate” adds. “Returnees may be particularly vulnerable to contact from people who were part of the network that recruited them, or appeals for help from ex-comrades in arms. It seems probable that the influence and involvement of returnees will grow as their numbers increase.”

Over all, since 2011, more than forty thousand people, from more than a hundred and ten countries, travelled to join ISIS—in addition to the local Syrians and Iraqis who became fighters. Among these jihadis were seventy-four hundred from the West—five thousand of them from Europe.

So far, the numbers of ISIS fighters from the United States have been comparatively low. More than two hundred and fifty Americans tried to leave the country to join the caliphate in Syria or Iraq. About half—a hundred and twenty-nine—succeeded, the report says. Some were blocked. Only seven of those who made it to to the battlefield have returned. As of August, the United States has charged a hundred and thirty-five people for terrorism offenses linked to ISIS; seventy-seven have so far been convicted.

In Europe, the potential threat from returnees has already been visible. “The terrorist attacks in Brussels in May 2014 (Jewish Museum) and March 2016 (airport and metro station), as well as the multiple attacks in Paris in November 2015, were all atrocities perpetrated to some degree by returnees,” according to the Radicalization Awareness Network. In Paris, at least six of the perpetrators had returned from Syria, while three out of the five Brussels attackers were returnees. Terrorist attacks don’t require a lot of manpower.

U.S. officials counter that the fall of Raqqa, the Syrian city that served as the caliphate’s nominal capital, diminished ISIS’s ability to plot and coördinate attacks abroad. ISIS has lost more than a hundred and twenty of its leaders. It is now in survival mode. Most of the fighters still in theatre—estimated to be somewhere between six thousand and ten thousand—have fled to desert refuges in the Euphrates River Valley.

Among those who are left, the networks created—either formally by ISISor informally among the fighters, through language or national ties—will be critical to the future. Initially, the leaders of the embryonic ISIS, including its caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, emerged from networks forged when they were imprisoned together in Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib prisons, both of which were run by the U.S. military in Iraq. A decade later, the caliphate was born.

The co-sponsors of “Beyond the Caliphate” have ample experience in tracking terrorism. The Soufan Group, a nonprofit organization, is headed by Ali Soufan, a Lebanese-American and a former F.B.I. agent. Once the only Arabic speaker in the largest F.B.I. field office, in New York, he was the first to warn about Al Qaeda’s intention to launch a major attack on the United States. It was, at the time, little heeded. The Global Strategy Network is headed by Richard Barrett, the former director of global counterterrorism operations at Britain’s M.I.6 and the former coördinator of the U.N. Al-Qaeda Taliban Monitoring Team.

To put the numbers in perspective, Soufan told me on Sunday, ISIS amassed more than four times as many fighters as the Afghan Arabs—Arab men who joined the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, the remnants of the Afghan Arabs, led by Osama bin Laden, went on to form Al Qaeda—and launched the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.

“The total number then was only about ten thousand, and look what havoc they caused,” Soufan said. ”Compare that to more than forty thousand today—with their ability to communicate today.”

Tracking the ISIS jihadis was initially tough. They sneaked, or were smuggled, across borders. They didn’t declare their intent; they wore black masks in ISIS videos and social media. Their accents were often the only clue to where they came from. The accent was one of the main pieces of evidence in identifying Mohammed Emwazi, better known as the notorious ISIS executioner “Jihadi John.” Like the Nazis, however, ISIS kept meticulous records of its personnel, their applications, their histories, and their deployments, the report notes. Thousands of pages were recovered in the military campaigns after ISIS fled key cities, U.S. officials told me. Captured computers and cell phones, laden with data and contacts, have helped the U.S.-led coalition build a global profile of ISIS members and sympathizers. Nineteen thousand names have been shared with Interpol to put on a watch list.

In looking ahead, the report concludes that “anyone who wishes to continue the fight will find a way to do so.” Some may opt to join one of the three dozen ISIS “provinces.” The group’s wings in Egypt’s Sinai, Libya, and Afghanistan are now among the most active. ISIS still has a psychological edge, too, despite losing most of its territory. In August, the Pew Research Center released a poll on global threats. Respondents in thirty-eight countries ranked ISIS at the top of the list—followed by climate change, cyberattacks, the global economy, refugees from Syria and Iraq, and the growing influence of the United States, Russia, and China.

Selasa, 24 Oktober 2017

Everything You Need to Know About Pre-Filled Oil Vape Cartridges - Leafly

When it comes to ease of use, portability, and functionality, one cannabis product stands tall above the rest. You may know them as pre-loaded cannabis oil vape cartridges, hash oil vape pens, or even disposable wax pens. These relatively new and exciting devices have permeated the cannabis concentrate market over the last several years, quickly becoming the go-to concentrate-based product for both the novice and accustomed cannabis fans.

Browse Cannabis Cartridges

However, when it comes to choosing the right pre-loaded disposable pen, various factors stand in the way of making a decision. Although many of these products seem aesthetically similar at first glance, there are a myriad of nuances that distinguish them from one another.

Understanding the differences between these disposable pens can help you make an educated decision on which product is right for your consumption.

Why Choose a Pre-Filled Oil Vape Cartridge?

If you’re new to pre-filled oil vape cartridges, there are many benefits to using them that I’ve outlined below.

Ease of Use

Deciding to use a pre-filled cannabis oil vape cartridge takes the guesswork completely out of the equation. Contrary to other methods of using hash oil such as a dab rig and nail setup, or even manual portable vape pens which require self-loading, pre-filled “carts” require little to no effort whatsoever. At most, these products may require you to press a button to inhale. In fact, most of the time you don’t even have to worry about the battery life—many products are designed so that charging the battery isn’t even necessary.

Portability

Pre-filled oil vape carts are the easiest method of enjoying hash oil while on the go. Their sleek and minimalist design allows for discreet vaping, free of the distracting qualities that larger setups or raw cannabis products may carry (such as noticeable smoke or odor).

Dosing

For uninitiated cannabis concentrate users, dosing can be a major concern. Nobody wants an overwhelming experience when attempting to enjoy cannabis oil products responsibly. Unlike dabbing, using a pre-loaded vape pen allows for a highly controlled dose with each inhalation. This gives the user full autonomy of how much or little to consume.

The Types of Pre-Filled Cartridges Available

Familiarize yourself with the many types of pre-filled oil vape cartridges on the market so you can purchase the one that best fits your needs or preferences.

Find a Portable Vaporizer

Cartridge/Battery Combos vs. Disposables

When choosing a pre-filled vape pen, there are several hardware options. Some products are offered in tanks that typically come formatted with a 510 threaded standard vaporizer battery insert. These tanks can fit on any battery that contains the 510 threading, and nowadays almost all battery tanks come in this format. The exception to this is when you purchase pre-loaded tanks designed by companies to fit their personalized batteries. An example would be the PAX Era Pods, which are designed to be used with their vaporizer/battery systems.

Alternatively, many pre-loaded vape pens are available as “disposables,” containing a pre-charged battery designed to support the device until the tank empties. These pen varieties require no charging and are meant to be disposed after use. They contain no threading and are not meant to be separated from their battery.

Distillate Cartridges vs. CO2

Hash oil tends to be a highly viscous substance, making it substantially difficult to use with standard vaporizer hardware. This has led the pre-loaded vaporizer market in a series of directions to design a product that functions properly with standard atomizers.

Methods have been taken to “cut” or infuse standard hash oil with various substances such as polyethylene glycol (PEG), propylene glycol (PG), vegetable glycerin (VG), or even medium chain triglycerides (MCT) such as coconut oil in order to maintain a less viscous and lasting consistency conducive to standard atomizer functionality.

While the use of such agents has been subject to controversy, market innovators have found several ways to mitigate this concern by developing alternative extraction techniques. An example of this is the use of distillates in pre-loaded vape pens.

Distillation takes the standard CO2 extraction process used in most disposable pen varieties and refines the oil once more through a fractioning process to produce a substance with a much higher cannabinoid purity. Distillate, being less viscous, is much easier to use in pre-loaded vape pens and does not require cutting agents.

Terpene Infusions and Strain-Specific Flavorings

Alternatively, the use of terpenes has been found to help cut the viscosity of hash oil as well, making this another, potentially safer, alternative to traditional cutting agents. Terpenes not only add flavor and aromatics to the experience, they can alter the effects due to their ability to influence how cannabinoids interact with our system.

Explore Terpene Concentrates

There are several ways to use terpenes with pre-filled vaporizer cartridges. Food-grade terpene flavorings, for example, are arguably the most prevalent as well as the lowest quality when it comes to flavor and experience. Terpenes are found all over nature, and can also be synthesized in a lab.

Take d-limonene for example, a popular terpene additive that is found in some cannabis varietals. Many manufacturers use food-grade d-limonene as the sole flavoring additive for their pre-loaded cartridges. Although this helps to cut the viscosity of the oil as well as offer a mild flavor enhancement, infusions such as this tend to be one-dimensional and offer little to nothing in enhancing experience to the user.

When shopping for cartridges, oftentimes these types of pens will be labeled as “lemon/lime”-flavored to represent this additive being used. Many other food-grade terpenes are used in this respect, which is why it’s important to check with your budtender and read labels carefully when buying terpene-infused cartridges.

Products Labeled by Effect

Many times, pre-filled oil vape cartridges are labeled and marketed by their supposed effect on the user. Products of this variety tend to claim they provide “relaxing” or “energetic” effects, with some often being labeled as indica, sativa, or even hybrid. When infused into a product, these terpene combinations are designed to give effects similar to what you would find in particular cannabis strains.

Whether they’re infused with food-grade terpenes or naturally-derived terpenes extracted from cannabis strains, many of these products incorporate carefully mixed combinations similar to what would be traced in a strain or strain type. How well these infusions imitate the strain varieties they mimic is debatable; however, products with terpene combinations tend to give a more enhanced experience than a similar product containing one or no terpenes.

Cannabinoid-Specific Cartridges

Although many hash oil pen varieties are labeled by flavor or effect, some focus on cannabinoid concentration. Aside from the typical high-THC product that most pens offer, there are some manufacturers that offer products containing elevated levels of cannabidiol (CBD).

High-CBD pens may or may not contain added flavorings, but they do guarantee a ratio of THC to CBD that can range from 2:1 all the way to 20:1 and greater. These types of pens offer great medicinal value to those looking for CBD in an easy-to-consume product.

Full-Spectrum Cartridges

The pinnacle of pre-loaded oil cartridges in terms of overall quality rests with full-spectrum extracts. These products are created using the entire spectrum of bioavailable molecules found within a given cannabis strain. A full-spectrum oil does not add, reintroduce, or remove any active compound within a strain and offers a flavor and effect far superior and multidimensional to most competitors.

Pre-filled full-spectrum cartridges are hard to come by and are only offered in certain markets; their price tends to reflect their rarity as well. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a market where these products are available, it’s highly recommended to fork up the extra cash to give one a shot. In terms of strain comparability, the flavor on a full-spectrum cart is incredibly similar to what you would experience in a strain.

Browse Cannabis Vape Pens

All in all, there are many types of pre-filled oil cartridge varieties to consider, each one with its pros and cons. If you’re interested in learning more about these types of products, alway ask your local budtender before committing to a purchase. Oftentimes labels only offer a fraction of the information compared to the knowledge and expertise of a cannabis professional such as a budtender. Regardless of your taste, there’s bound to be a hash oil cartridge option available to suit your individual needs.

Tiger Woods flashes some signature moves, Pat Perez inspires golfers everywhere, and Rickie Fowler returns to a ... - GolfDigest.com

Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we’re beginning to understand how crazy this whole Tiger Woods situation seems to non-golf fans. On Sunday, I excitedly showed my wife the tweet of Tiger hitting driver and promptly fired up my laptop just as we were about to sit down for dinner. “You have to write something now because Tiger Woods swung a golf stick?” That’s right! (By the way, she more than made up for the “golf stick” line with a tremendous batch of pesto.) Then on Monday, I told her I had filmed a Tiger video at work that day. “You made a video about Tiger’s little video?” Right again!

Yes, most golf fans are total suckers when it comes to Tiger Woods and believing that any little thing he does is proof that he's BACK. But between him flashing a vintage club twirl and him donning his signature Sunday-red shirt, can you blame us? In any event, we'll try to remain calm and keep the rest of this week's Grind as Tiger-free as possible. After all, there will be plenty of time to talk about TW's triumphant return in weeks to come. Whoops, there we go again. . .

WE'RE BUYING

Pat Perez: With a four-shot victory at the CIMB Classic, Perez picked up a third career PGA Tour title and climbed into the top 20 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. For guys like me who’d rather do anything than go to the gym, this dude is an inspiration.

Stanley Chou

And now that he’s playing the best golf of his life at 41, he should also serve as motivation for a certain other 41-year-old out there. . .

Tyrrell Hatton: For a second straight week, Hatton won on the European Tour, this time claiming the Italian Open to move up to No. 17 in the OWGR. And in a country more celebrated for its food than perhaps any other, Hatton had his celebratory meal at. . . Burger King.

https://twitter.com/EuropeanTour/status/919682828404711426

Hey, sometimes you just crave a Whopper. Even when you're almost literally in Rome. And those onion rings with the zesty sauce? Delizioso!

A round with Phil: If we had a spare $250,000 lying around, that is. That’s what Charitybuzz expects to get for a foursome with Phil Mickelson -- and lunch! -- at his home course in Rancho Santa Fe. The proceeds go to Operation Healing Forces, so it's for a good cause. Plus, the gambling advice and stock tips you'd receive from the five-time major champ would be worth that hefty price tag alone.

Rory's childhood home: For not much more than the price of a round of golf with the five-time major champ Mickelson, you can own the childhood house of the four-time major champ from Northern Ireland. And it’s quite lovely. In addition to the four bedrooms and two bathrooms, there’s a hitting bay in the basement and a beautiful outdoor putting green.

This explains why McIlroy turned into such a great golfer. However, it does not explain his putting stats this year.

WE'RE SELLING

Turf wars: When there weren’t enough spots on the range for PGA Tour pros playing in the CIMB Classic to warm up following a lengthy weather delay on Friday, some of the guys found spots to practice on Kuala Lumpur’s other course, which is hosting an LPGA event next week. And several LPGA stars including Jessica Korda and Brittany Lincicome weren’t happy. Sorry, but this doesn't seem like a big deal considering just three years ago the U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open were played at Pinehurst on back-to-back weeks.

Michael Jordan’s lungs: In an interview with Cigar Afficionado, the legendary basketball player and avid golfer said he smokes six cigars a day. It's not too surprising considering just about every photo of Jordan playing golf includes a smoke stick (Is that a phrase?) dangling from his mouth.

ARIA Resort & Casino's 13th Annual Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational At Shadow Creek - Day 4

Isaac Brekken

But it's still a bit alarming from a health perspective. Then again, this is a guy who barely needed sleep during his playing career. He'll probably live long enough to smoke stogies (that's the phrase I was looking for!) with his grown-up great grandchildren.

Mascots with golf clubs: I’ve never been a mascot guy, but I know from my sister who tried out to be the Miami Hurricanes’ Sebastian that it’s extremely difficult and uncomfortable. So the last thing I’d recommend doing is giving a golf club to one of these people struggling to breathe and see. But the University of Oregon’s duck recently got ahold of one – and a cheerleader nearly got decapitated as a result:

That really could have put a damper in that young lady’s Saturday night plans.

ON TAP

The PGA Tour heads to South Korea for the CJ Cup @ 9 Bridges (Using the @ symbol instead of writing out "at" is so on trend), aka that new event on the PGA Tour schedule. It will quickly become known as that tournament with the island-green closing par 5. Well, to those who stay up really late to watch the TV coverage.

Random tournament fact: The purse for this inaugural event is $9.25 MILLION, making it the second-biggest purse for a non-major/non-WGC event all season. Oh, and it’s a limited field with no cut. Cha-ching!

RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK

-- Golfers in South Korea are there because they heard good things about the course: 9.25 MILLION-to-1 odds

-- Tiger Woods will play in this year’s Hero World Challenge: 10-to-1 odds

-- Tiger Woods will do something this week that causes me to drop whatever I’m doing to write about it: LOCK

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

It’s actually a combo of two photos, both involving Sergio Garcia and Austin Connelly, that were taken 18 years apart. The two first met before Garcia’s first pro start at the 1999 Byron Nelson, and this past weekend, they were paired together for the third round of the Italian Open.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (TOUR PRO DIVISION)

Here’s Jamie Donaldson pulling off the prettiest driver-off-the-deck shot you’ll ever see:

I know he’ll always be known for that winning wedge shot at the 2014 Ryder Cup, but this was pretty special.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (EX-TOUR PRO DIVISION)

Greg Norman is coming back to competitive golf! For one event, at least. Norman will team up with Greg Norman Jr. for the PNC Father-Son Challenge in December. And the two made the announcement with this amusing video:

By the way, Greg Norman is in decent shape for a 62-year-old.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I’m not going to change anything. I’m still not going to work out. I’m still going to have a bad diet and I’m going to enjoy myself.” – Pat Perez, AKA the anti-Greg Norman

THIS WEEK IN TOUR PROS MAKING US FEEL BAD WITH THEIR TRAINING

Nope, not this week! No workout videos that make you tired just watching them. Instead, enjoy this a photo of Pat Perez living it up. At Bojangles’.

THIS WEEK IN MODELS PLAYING GOLF

Introducing Sistine Stallone, the daughter of Sylvester Stallone:

Sistine has a solid swing, but I was more amazed to learn Sly has four daughters. In the Rocky series, he only has Rocky Jr.!

THIS WEEK IN ~~DUSTIN JOHNSON-PAULINA GRETZKY~~ PAT PEREZ-ASHLEY PEREZ AND RICKIE FOWLER-ALLISON STOKKE PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

A week after celebrating the big 3-oh, Ashley celebrated her husband’s big win with this sweet message.

Aww. And Rickie Fowler returned to his alma mater, Oklahoma State, to be the grand marshal at homecoming. And he brought his girlfriend for the first time:

Between this and getting "enranged" this summer, things seem to be getting pretty serious between the two.

THIS AND THAT

Congrats to Matt Parziale, a 30-year-old firefighter from Mass., on winning the U.S. Mid-Amateur. Even more impressive? He was back working at 7 a.m. the following day! Talk about a true grinder. . . . I had a fun and wide-ranging chat with Jerry Kelly (the dude really knows his Wisconsin football) ahead of the PGA Tour Champions Schwab Cup Playoffs, which start this week. Good luck to Jerry and all the other senior players trying to end Bernhard Langer’s reign. . . . And good luck to John Daly on his new line of adult beverages. I know they’re pretty stiff (8 percent alcohol by volume) and I’m sure they’re tasty, but I know how tough the beverage industry is from watching “Shark Tank.” . . . Speaking of shelf space, I snapped this sad photo in a grocery store the other day. It’s like watching a beloved species slowly going extinct.

And yet Diet Coke Lime and TAB live on? Disgusting. RIP Coke Zero.

RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Can anyone stop Bernhard Langer in the Champions Tour Playoffs?

Can anyone stop the Warriors from winning another NBA Championship?

Where would you go for a celebratory golf meal? Other than Burger King, of course.

WATCH MORE VIDEOS FROM THE LOOP

The Deep Unfairness of America's All-Volunteer Force - The American Conservative

As far as we know, the phrase “all-recruited force” was coined by Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, a book that provides vivid insight into the U.S. Marines who fought in that conflict. Mr. Marlantes used the expression to describe what’s happened to today’s allegedly “volunteer” force, to say in effect that it is no such thing. Instead it is composed in large part of people recruited so powerfully and out of such receptive circumstances that it requires a new way of being described. We agree with Mr. Marlantes. So do others.

In The Economist back in 2015, an article about the U.S. All-Volunteer Force (AVF) posed the question: “Who will fight the next war?” and went on to describe how the AVF is becoming more and more difficult to field as well as growing ever more distant from the people from whom it comes and for whom it fights. The piece painted a disturbing scene. That the scene was painted by a British magazine of such solid reputation in the field of economics is ironic in a sense but not inexplicable. After all, it is the fiscal aspect of the AVF that is most immediate and pressing. Recruiting and retaining the force has become far too costly and is ultimately unsustainable.

When the Gates Commission set up the rationale for the AVF in 1970, it did so at the behest of a president, Richard Nixon, who had come to see the conscript military as a political dagger aimed at his own heart. One could argue that the decision to abolish conscription was a foregone conclusion; the Commission simply provided a rationale for doing it and for volunteerism to replace it.

But whatever we might think of the Commission’s work and Nixon’s motivation, what has happened in the last 16 years—interminable war—was never on the Commission’s radar screen. Like most crises, as Colin Powell used to lament when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this one was unexpected, not planned for, and begs denial as a first reaction.

That said, after 16 years of war it is plain to all but the most recalcitrant that the U.S. cannot afford the AVF—ethically, morally, or fiscally.

Fiscally, the AVF is going to break the bank. The land forces in particular are still having difficulties fielding adequate numbers—even with lowered standards, substituting women for men (from 1.6 percent of the AVF in 1973 to more than 16 percent today), recruitment and reenlistment bonuses totaling tens of millions of dollars, advertising campaigns costing billions, massive recruitment of non-citizens, use of psychotropic drugs to recycle unfit soldiers and Marines to combat zones, and overall pay and allowances that include free world-class health care and excellent retirement plans that are, for the first time in the military’s history, comparable to or even exceeding civilian rates and offerings.

A glaring case in point is the recent recruitment by the Army of 62,000 men and women, its target for fiscal year 2016. To arrive at that objective, the Army needed 9,000 recruiting staff (equivalent to three combat brigades) working full-time. If one does the math, that equates to each of these recruiters gaining one-point-something recruits every two months—an utterly astounding statistic. Additionally, the Army had to resort to taking a small percentage of recruits in Mental Category IV—the lowest category and one that, post-Vietnam, the Army made a silent promise never to resort to again.

Moreover, the recruiting and retention process and rich pay and allowances are consuming one half of the Army’s entire annual budget slice, precluding any sort of affordable increase in its end strength. This end strength constraint creates the need for more and more private contractors on the nation’s battlefields in order to compensate. The employment of private contractors is politically seductive and strategically dangerous. To those enemies we fight they are the enemy and to most reasonable people they are mercenaries. Mercenaries are motivated by profit not patriotism—despite their CEOs’ protestations to the contrary—and place America on the slippery slope towards compromising the right of sovereign nations to the monopoly of violence for state purposes. In short, Congress and the Pentagon make the Army bigger than the American people believe that it is and the American people allow themselves to be convinced; thus it is a shared delusion that comforts both parties.

A more serious challenge for the democracy that is America, however, is the ethical one. Today, more than 300 million Americans lay claim to rights, liberties, and security that not a single one of them is obligated to protect and defend. Apparently, only 1 percent of the population feels that obligation. That 1 percent is bleeding and dying for the other 99 percent.

Further, that 1 percent does not come primarily or even secondarily from the families of the Ivy Leagues, of Wall Street, of corporate leadership, from the Congress, or from affluent America; it comes from less well-to-do areas: West Virginia, Maine, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and elsewhere. For example, the Army now gets more soldiers from the state of Alabama, population 4.8 million, than it gets from New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles combined, aggregate metropolitan population more than 25 million. Similarly, 40 percent of the Army comes from seven states of the Old South. As one of us has documented in his book, Skin in the Game: Poor Kids and Patriots, this is an ethically poisonous situation. And as the article in The Economist concludes, it’s dangerous as well.

The last 16 years have also generated, as wars tend to do, hundreds of thousands of veterans. The costs of taking care of these men and women are astronomical today and will only rise over the next decades, which is one reason our veterans are already being inadequately cared for. Without the political will to shift funds, there simply is not enough money to provide the necessary care. And given the awesome debt America now shoulders—approaching 20 trillion dollars and certain to increase—it is difficult to see this situation changing for the better.

In fact, when one calculates today’s U.S. national security budget—not simply the well-advertised Pentagon budget—the total expenditure of taxpayer dollars approaches $1.2 trillion annually, or more than twice what most Americans believe they are paying for national security. This total figure includes the costs of nuclear weapons (Energy Department), homeland security (Homeland Security Department), veteran care (Veterans Administration), intelligence needs (CIA and Defense Department), international relations (State Department), and the military and its operations (the Pentagon and its slush fund, the Overseas Contingency Operations account). The Pentagon budget alone is larger than that of the next 14 nations in the world combined. Only recently (September 2016), the Pentagon leadership confessed that as much as 50 percent of its slush fund (OCO) is not used for war operations—the fund’s statutory purpose—but for other expenses, including “military readiness.” We suspect this includes recruiting and associated costs.

There is still another dimension of the AVF that goes basically unmentioned and unreported. The AVF has compelled the nation to transition its reserve component forces from what they have been since colonial times—a strategic reserve—into being an operational reserve. That’s military-speak for our having used the reserve components to make up for deeply felt shortages in the active force. Nowhere is this more dramatically reflected than in the rate of deployment-to-overseas duty of the average reservist, now about once every 3.8 years.

Such an operational tempo causes extreme problems for both civilian employers and for National Guard and reserve units. What employer, for example, wants to hire a young man or woman who will be gone for a year every four years on average, when that employer can reach out and hire someone from the 99 percent who will likely not be absent? And how do the reserve units keep up recruiting numbers when faced with such a situation?

Moreover, when we look at the reserve component deployment statistics over a decade or so of what now seems like interminable war, we discover how badly skewed such deployments are. For example, as of 2011, North Dakota, Mississippi, and South Dakota had Guard/Reserve deployment rates of over 40 per 10,000, and Iowa had a rate of over 30 per 10,000. In contrast, the Guard/Reserve deployment burdens for New York, California, and Texas were all less than 15 per 10,000. Perhaps surprisingly, Massachusetts had a higher Guard/Reserve deployment burden per 10,000 than Texas did (these numbers cover the 9/30/01 – 12/31/10 timeframe).

A deeper look at the county levels within each state demonstrates that the Guard/Reserve deployment burden really is an urban/suburban vs. rural divide. New York is a case study. Niagara County (Niagara Falls and Lockport) had a deployment rate of over 30 per 10,000, while Jefferson County (Watertown) and Clinton County (Plattsburgh) had rates over 25 per 10,000. In contrast, New York State overall had a Guard/Reserve deployment rate a bit higher than 10 per 10,000, with Kings County (Brooklyn) and New York County (Manhattan) having rates well below 10 per 10,000.

Most Americans are completely ignorant of the facts outlined above, or understand only partial truths about them. In fact, the majority view the military in general and the way we man the force in particular through a lens of fear, apathy, ignorance, and guilt. The media is unhelpful in this regard because in the main journalists and TV personalities are as unknowing as the people. Few in the military leadership have the courage to speak up about these realities, or are themselves so brainwashed that they are incapable of doing so. But if the country does not wake up soon and demand action, we will be looking at another crisis and asking the question posed by The Economist: “Who will fight the next war?”

Worse, we might be asking the question that Skin in the Game poses: “What if we had a war and nobody came?”

When we put that question to a U.S. senator recently, he replied that “If the enemy were ‘on the shore,’ Americans would respond.”

“Would they?” we asked. “And tell us how you know that, please.”

“They just would, I know they would,” the senator replied.

There is yet another dimension to the AVF that is truly an “unmentionable.” As President Barack Obama said to one of us in the Roosevelt Room in November 2015—referring to Washington, D.C.—“There is a bias in this town toward war.”

What the president meant was quite clear: powerful forces such as the military-industrial complex, a less-than-courageous Congress that has abandoned its constitutional duty with respect to the war power, extreme ideologies, and a nation with no skin in the game, work together to persuade all presidents to consider war as the first instrument of national power rather than the last.

Is there anyone among us who would not believe that having an all-volunteer (or, more to the point, an all-recruited) military coming only from the 1 percent does not contribute to the facility with which presidents call upon that instrument? In a rational world, we would be declared insane to believe otherwise.

Said more explicitly, if the sons and daughters of members of Congress, of the corporate leadership, of the billionaire class, of the Ivy Leagues, of the elite in general, were exposed to the possibility of combat, would we have less war? From a socio-economic class perspective, the AVF is inherently unfair.

Major General (Ret) Dennis Laich served 35 years in the U.S. Army Reserve. Col. (Ret.) Lawrence Wilkerson is visiting professor of government and public policy at the College of William and Mary. He was chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002-05, special assistant to Powell when Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), and deputy director and director of the USMC War College (1993-97).

Senin, 23 Oktober 2017

Issue 2 FAQ: What you need to know before you vote - cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio - If you're confused about Ohio Issue 2 on the November ballot, welcome to the club.

The campaigns for and against Issue 2 have been divisive, puzzling and even misleading.

Recently, we asked readers whether they fully understood the ballot initiative. By an overwhelming margin, Issue 2 and its possible effects weren't entirely clear.

At cleveland.com, we have explained aspects of Issue 2 through our reporting - including fact checking and insight into who is behind the campaigns.

With this piece, we've set out to give more context to the Issue 2 debate, including answering questions you might have before heading to the polls.

Note: The editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer came out against Issue 2. The endorsement process is separate from this reporting and the editorial board's opinions are not reflected in this piece.

If you have any other questions about Issue 2, feel free to email the reporter at srichardson@cleveland.com.

What is Issue 2?

Issue 2 - the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act - would require the state of Ohio to pay no more for pharmaceuticals than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs pays.

There is also a provision for the proponents of Issue 2 to receive outside legal counsel at taxpayer expense should the state decline to defend the initiative in court.

What is the ballot language?

To enact Chapter 194 of the Ohio Revised Code, which would:

Require the State of Ohio, including its state departments, agencies and entities, to not pay more for prescription drugs than the price paid by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
Establish that the individual petitioners responsible for proposing the law have a direct and personal stake in defending the law; require the State to pay petitioners' reasonable attorney fees and other expenses; require the petitioners to pay $10,000 to the State if the law is held by a court to be unenforceable and limit petitioners' personal liability to that amount; and require the Attorney General to defend the law if challenged in court.

The full statutory language can be viewed by clicking here.

When would Issue 2 become law?

If approved by a majority of Ohio voters, Issue 2 would become law 30 days after passage.

Who is behind both sides?

The group proposing Issue 2 is Ohio Taxpayers for Lower Drug Prices. Their financial backing mostly comes from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation - a California-based nonprofit organization with a footprint in Ohio. The man behind the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is AHF President Michael Weinstein, a controversial figure in his own right.

Who is the controversial man behind Ohio's drug price ballot initiative?

The opposition has labeled Weinstein as a "California health care CEO," which doesn't paint the whole picture. The Aids Healthcare Foundation is a nonprofit organization, and Weinstein is not a CEO. Weinstein's salary is around $409,000, relatively low considering the nonprofit is a $1.3 billion organization.

AHF has a presence in Ohio, including overseeing the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland and a thrift store and clinic in Columbus.

Other supporters include Our Revolution, the Cleveland Branch of the NAACP, National Nurses United, the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians and the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.

The group opposing Issue 2 is Ohioans Against the Deceptive Rx Ballot Initiative. It is financially backed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association - more commonly known as PhRMA. PhRMA is a lobbying group of some of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country, including Pfizer, Purdue, AstraZeneca and Bayer.

Because of the way PhRMA is funneling donations to the group, we do not know which companies are directly contributing.

The opponents have taken on an aggressive advertising campaign, outspending the proponents of the campaign by nearly 5-to-1 as of mid-September, according to a report from The Columbus Dispatch.

Other opponents include numerous statewide organizations, industry groups and veterans coalitions, including the Ohio Hospital Association, the Ohio Pharmacists Association, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the American Legion Department of Ohio.

Is Issue 2 partisan?

Not really. The initiative has created strange bedfellows on both sides, with typically partisan rivals joining forces.

Each side has hired Republican and Democratic heavy hitters.

Ohio Taxpayers for Lower Drug Prices, the supporters' campaign, hired Matt Borges, former executive director of the Ohio Republican Party, and Dennis Willard of Precision Media, which provides communications services for Democratic candidates and progressive causes such as Planned Parenthood.

Among campaigners for the opposition, Ohioans Against the Deceptive Rx Ballot Issue, are Curt Steiner, a longtime Republican strategist who was former Gov. George Voinovich's chief of staff, and Dale Butland, who worked 20 years for former Democratic U.S. Sen. John Glenn.

Politicians haven't really weighed in, though of the few who have, Democrats have mostly been for it while Republicans have been against it.

Will politicians provide clarity on Issue 2? Probably not.

How does it work?

In the simplest terms, Issue 2 would require the state of Ohio to pay no more for pharmaceuticals than what the VA pays.

It does NOT require pharmaceutical companies to sell to the state of Ohio at what the VA pays, but instead puts the onus on the state.

Do we know the price the VA pays?

Not all the time.

Many of the drugs the VA purchases are a matter of public record and posted on their site monthly in what is known as the Federal Supply Schedule.

However, the VA also negotiates further discounts below the price via contracts. Some of those contracts are not a matter of public record, meaning the lowest price is unknown.

The opposition argues that because the VA price can't always be known, that makes the initiative essentially unworkable. Neutral experts have said it could be workable but would likely require a court challenge or tweaks via legislation or rules.

How does VA pricing work?

From cleveland.com:

Under federal law, the VA receives a 24 percent discount on drug prices. Those prices are known as the Federal Supply Schedule - FSS - and are all published online on the VA's website.

However, the FSS is not the limit on discounts the VA receives for pharmaceuticals. Because it is the largest purchaser of pharmaceuticals in the country, it often negotiates further discounts in the form of contracts.

How does it work in Ohio?

The state of Ohio does not have a schedule of drugs like the VA, but also negotiates bulk rates and rebates with the pharmaceutical companies. This is done on a drug-by-drug and company-by-company basis.

What about drugs that are not purchased by the VA?

The opponents have argued that the initiative creates a legal quandary for drugs not purchased by the VA. The argument is that if a drug is not on the FSS, it technically does not have a lowest price.

According to a video released by Secretary of State Jon Husted's office, no such quandary exists.

"Only the types of drugs purchased by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs would be affected by this price negotiation policy," the video states. "If the federal Department of Veterans Affairs does not offer its patients a certain prescription, then that drug would remain unaffected by Issue 2."

Does Issue 2 affect my drug prices?

Most Ohioans will not see any drug discounts if Issue 2 passes. Issue 2 will only affect your prices if your drugs are purchased by the state through a state-run program. Supporters say that's about 4 million people.

Ohioans who rely on private insurance will not see a decrease in drug prices. It also has no effect on federal programs like Medicare.

That means the initiative doesn't directly affect about 70 percent of Ohioans' drug prices.

The opposition - funded by the pharmaceutical lobby - has said Issue 2 could result in higher prices for the 70 percent of Ohioans who aren't affected.

Which programs are affected?

There is some disagreement over which state programs would be affected by Issue 2, but the proponents argue state employees, university and community college employees, Medicaid, Department of Health programs, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, youth services and all five retirement systems.

However, the state retirement systems have said they would not have to comply. Both the campaigns for and against Issue 2 have said the retirement systems would need to comply.

Could drug prices increase?

The opposition, which is fully funded by the pharmaceutical industry, has said the industry could raise drug prices to offset lost profits should Issue 2 pass.

Dale Butland, spokesman for Ohioans Against the Deceptive Rx Initiative, said there's nothing nefarious about pharmaceutical companies threatening to increase prices over this initiative.

The practice is known as cost-shifting and is used to keep profits steady, Butland said.

A report from the state found "the idea that drug manufacturers might react to legislative restrictions on prices by changing what they charge other purchasers is not theoretical; it has been observed in the past. In fact, it was just such a reaction that gave rise to the federal law that requires VA drug discounts today."

Would Issue 2 save the state money?

There's strong disagreement here.

The proponents have often cited a paid report from Case Western Reserve University professor Max Mehlman that shows savings of as much as $536 million per year, though the figure supporters mostly give is around $400 million.

A memo from the opposition citing a former state budget director and three former Ohio Medicaid directors analyzed the Mehlman report, calling it "extremely flawed." The memo states Mehlman based the savings on a footnote in another study that did not consider the difficulty of implementation or current savings.

A report from the Office of Budget and Management said savings are plausible, but it's impossible to determine exactly how much could be saved - if anything.

The report said if implementation can be worked through and court challenges overcome, the state could realize some savings. Any benefit to Medicaid or the HIV drug purchase program was unlikely, it said.

Is it enforceable?

That's another big question with an unclear answer.

Proponents argue the enforcement is in the sheer volume of drugs purchased by the state. They argue pharmaceutical companies would lose far more money by not selling prescription drugs to the state than if they sold at the negotiated prices.

The opposition notes there is no mechanism in the Issue 2 language that would force drug companies to sell to the state at the VA price. Rather, the onus is on the state to not pay more than the VA.

J.B. Silvers, professor of health finance at the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU, said enforcement is arguably the biggest question surrounding Issue 2.

"I get my hands on a price and I go to the drug companies and say this is the price that I want. They say no. What's the enforcement mechanism?" Silvers said.

Does Issue 2 cut taxes?

An advertisement put out by the proponents stated Issue 2 would cut taxes by $400 million. A fact check by cleveland.com found that claim to be false. Issue 2 does not address taxes at all.

Will it face legal challenges?

Yes. Opponents have openly stated the pharmaceutical companies will sue if Issue 2 is passed.

What's this about lawyers?

Part of the initiative would give the proponents a chance at legal representation for any court challenges to the law. Weinstein, the AHF CEO, argued this was a necessary part of the initiative because of the drug companies' influence on politicians.

During a press call, the petitioners of the initiative said they have no reason to execute that portion of the initiative because Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has indicated he will defend the law from the inevitable lawsuits.

Dan Tierney, a spokesman for DeWine, declined to comment on Issue 2 specifically, but said generally, the attorney general's office will defend any Ohio law in a lawsuit as long as it is not blatantly unconstitutional.

Both candidates for attorney general in 2018, Republican Dave Yost and Democrat Steve Dettelbach, have said they would defend the law as well.

Should the court find Issue 2 is unenforceable, the petitioners would be fined $10,000.

Other materials

For all of cleveland.com's coverage of Issue 2, click here.

Issue 2 fact check: Does Issue 2 cut taxes in Ohio?

Issue 2 fact check: Are all of the VA's prices public record?

Cleveland.com editorial: Reject Issue 2, the drug pricing proposal

The Columbus Dispatch editorial: Drug-price measure carries terrible side effects

Akron Beacon Journal editorial: Issue 2, all message and too little detail

Canton Repository editorial: Vote 'no' on Issue 2

The Herald Star (Steubenville) editorial: Issue 2 is just bad medicine

The Mehlman Report

Opposition memo on Mehlman Report

Opposition analysis of Murray Report

Fiscal Analysis from Ohio Office of Budget and Management

Pro-Issue 2 list of endorsements

Anti-Issue 2 list of endorsements

Issue 2 debate, Sept. 19:

Laura Hancock contributed reporting.

KRACK Wi-Fi attack threatens all networks: How to stay safe and what you need to know - PCWorld

Men, you want to treat women better? Here's a list to start with - The Guardian

Rabu, 18 Oktober 2017

College football players, fans sing 'Star-Spangled Banner' after PA system fails - Fox News

When the PA system broke at a college football game in Connecticut on Saturday, the crowd in attendance improvised and sang on their own. (Meghan Collins)

It was just another college football game on Saturday in Hartford, Connecticut, until just before kickoff, an announcement came over the loud speakers that there would be no playing of the national anthem.

Everyone was on the field, the coin toss had just happened, and players had their helmets off, standing at attention, ready for the anthem to be played, Coach Jeff Devanney told Fox News.

But after a few moments of silence, it was announced the PA system failed – and there would be no playing of the Anthem.

Trinity senior fullback Ethan Suraci told Fox News the silence “felt like forever, honestly. You could hear the crowd and the opposing team” expressing disappointment over the announcement.

Suraci said he immediately started belting out the words to what he calls “America’s song,” which also happens to be his favorite song, and it seemed everyone joined in.

"There were almost three different waves of the Star-Spangled Banner going,” Coach Devanney said. Trinity’s team, Hamilton’s team, and the crowd each had started singing “almost like an echo,” but he added, “It all seemed to end on the same note.”

“That was awesome!” said sportscaster Jake Donnelly, who captured the video and posted it on YouTube. “Not many tenors on either end of the field here this afternoon, but a bunch of players that absolutely love America and love the National Anthem. That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen,” Donnelly added.

“It was a fantastic display of unity and patriotism and gave everyone in the crowd, the teams, and hopefully those who watch the video; chills of hope for a better United States of America and happiness to see us as a society beginning to heal - despite the polarization we see among the citizens and our politicians,” Suraci said.

The incident came a day before Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to leave Sunday’s NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers, when several 49er players kneeled during the Anthem.

Coach Devanney said he discussed the NFL protests with his team, calling it a “complicated issue.”

President Trump tweeted Wednesday it’s “about time” NFL’s Goodell called on players to stand for the national anthem.

The senior political science major, who identifies as a Republican and voted for Trump, agrees.

“I am in total agreement with one's constitutional right to protest. However, these players are protesting in an incorrect forum,” he said. “Why insult an entire country and all those who fell for her?”

The 5-foot-10-inch, 225-pound fullback always stands and proudly holds his hand over his heart, just as he did on Saturday.

No one really knows who first started singing the anthem in at the Jessee/Miller Field, but Coach Devanney told Fox News, “I wouldn’t be shocked if Ethan was the first one, given his love of the song.”

In fact, Suraci listens to the “Star-Spangled Banner” as sung by Celine Dion every day after he’s done with school.

“I love the Star-Spangled Banner so much because I love America,” Suraci said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Caleb Parke is an associate editor for FoxNews.com. You can follow him on Twitter @calebparke

Why So Many of Your Favorite Beauty Personalities are Mormon - Allure Magazine

Any insomniac who has tried to convince herself that “just a few minutes” on Instagram will beckon back sleep has landed, circa 3 a.m., on the feed of a Mormon lifestyle blogger. Although she probably has no idea that’s where she is. The blogger’s faith is never foregrounded. It’s obvious, though — once you know what to look for. She’s white and under 30 and married. Fit and given to flattering dresses that hit the knee and cover the shoulder, she has multiple children and Lady Godiva hair. She knows her way around a braid. She is wholesome but not dowdy; her posts are relentlessly positive but never pious. Until you Google her name and see that she was married at the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), you might not know that she routinely asks herself, while shopping or applying eye shadow, Would I feel comfortable with my appearance if I were in the Lord’s presence?

Amber Fillerup Clark, aka the Barefoot Blonde, is 27 years old and lives in Arizona with her husband, their two young children, and a golden retriever. They all appear on her blog, alongside pictures of Fillerup Clark herself, who is breathtakingly pretty. She offers up beauty and fitness tips and bubbly accounts of her balmy days, as well as a line of clip-in hair extensions, which are for sale on her site for roughly $200 and given names that sound like nail polish shades (“Melt My Heart,” “Platinum Status”).

Why not every Nebraska Cornhuskers fan in Lincoln is pining for Scott Frost - Landof10.com

LINCOLN, Neb. — It’s a watercolor from hell, funereal, the shades of grey in Big Red Nation extending to the skies above. A windy, dreary Monday feels more like early December than the second week of October. The line of Big Ten flags hanging in front of Brewsky’s in the Haymarket district flap loudly and angrily, and the mood inside isn’t all that kinder.

“People are pretty down,” explains David Wacker, Brewsky’s general manager. “There’s a lot of people that are railing about how disappointed they are right now. They’re really down.”

Like most locals, Wacker is a lifelong Nebraska Cornhuskers football fan. And like most locals, the Huskers of present (3-3, 2-1 Big Ten) are driving him slowly up a brick wall.

Last Saturday saw the beloved Big Red snap a 20-game night-game winning streak at raucous Memorial Stadium with a 38-17 defeat to Big Ten West favorite Wisconsin. The 358th straight sellout crowd on Stadium Drive watched the No. 7 Badgers ramble for 353 yards and rush for 3 touchdowns.

“You can see it after the games,” Wacker says of his customers. “You can see it on Sundays. During Sunday is the biggest time that they’re talking about it.”

He’s worked in Lincoln for almost a decade now, watching Nebraska football endure better and worse, sickness and health.

“This is my third coach,” he laughs.

On Sunday, several Brewsky’s patrons posited whether Scott Frost, coach of No. 22 Central Florida and the quarterback of the Huskers’ 1997 national co-champions, ought to be Wacker’s fourth.

“Every week, someone brings it up,” he says.

“They bring up Frost and they bring up Bob Stoops, as if Bob would want to come here. And they bring up Les Miles, and how Les Miles’ kid [fullback Ben Miles] is here. These ridiculous names come up. But Frost is definitely the most [discussed].”

The tribe looks at Wisconsin and they see themselves, not that long ago. They look at Frost and they see hope — a bridge from the glorious past to a glorious future.

“All people talked about was Scott Frost, mostly,” Wacker muses, “and how they really want to see him come in and how he’s doing such a good job at Central Florida.”

With that, Wacker pauses.

“He also hasn’t played anybody.”

‘He’s been wearing UCF shirts and a Huskers hat’

The more the Knights (4-0) keep winning and the more the Huskers keep getting kicked in the teeth, the longer Lincoln’s line for The Frost Bandwagon extends down the block.

And yet among Huskers faithful, it’s worth noting that the bandwagon isn’t completely full, either. At 42 years old and in just his second full season as a college head coach, some Nebraska fans say Frost is still too inexperienced to step up to a stage where the spotlight burns this hot and this bright.

Others counter that his bloodlines — the son of two coaches and a native of Wood River, Neb. — and firsthand knowledge of Huskers culture, Huskers history, the Huskers Way, is exactly the shot in the arm a proud but inconsistent program needs to fix what ails it.

‘What’s really irritating is that Larry The Cable Guy seems to have control of the athletic department.’

— Nebraska fan and Lincoln resident Dave Duncan

Others say bailing on Big Red coach Mike Riley after three seasons would send the wrong precedent to other candidates, that the pipeline of speed and talent is only now flowing and that said talent needs more time to develop. Maybe Frost is the guy, they posit, but not now.

Casey Splattstoesser, a native of Grand Island, Neb., and a Lincoln resident for the last 17 years, pegs the #HireFrost camp at about 60 percent of the populace; he says that football wonks are more likely to want Riley to stay, while more casual and big-picture fans are less patient with the current optics.

One of Splattsoesser’s close pals, Dave Duncan, who manages a Village Inn restaurant in town, offers this:

“I’ve got a good friend of mine, who I thought was a ‘smart’ sports fan. He’s been wearing UCF shirts and a Huskers hat when he goes to the [Nebraska] games.

“I’d say [my inner circle] was about 70-30 that Scott is not the right guy. But at the same time, we’re 80-20 that that is who we’re getting.”

‘It’s going to be a bidding war for him’

On at least two points, though, Big Red fans almost universally agree. First, that watching the Badgers do to them what the Huskers did to everyone else for more than four decades — Wisconsin ran the ball 22 times without throwing a pass in the fourth quarter last Saturday, closing out the contest on a 14-0 run — is getting old.

And second, that some Power 5 program with gobs of money is probably ramping up to throw a bunch of it at Frost’s feet soon, assuming they haven’t thrown it already.

It’s the second part, really, that changes the stakes, to say nothing of the urgency. If Frost is your guy, your solution, you might have to bid — and then overbid — for him now, or risk not getting another shot for five years, six years, or forever.

“It’s going to be a bidding war for him,” says Splattstoesser, an IT professional who’s been coming to Huskers games since his grandparents first brought him with their season tickets back in 1992.

“It feels like the boosters are what’s driving a lot of this — the folks behind the scenes, they’re driving this. And so if they want Scott Frost, I feel they’ll put up the money and they’re the ones that are not going to want to give Riley another year. And I think he deserves another year.

“I’d like to keep Riley around, because this recruiting class is going to be pretty good. But at the same time, if Nebraska wants Scott Frost, they’re probably going to have to go out and get him this year. Tennessee, UCLA, Texas A&M, Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas are all going to have openings. Once he hits a major program, he’s going to stay there for a while. So I’m kind of waffling on it.”

Even at Brewsky’s sports bar in downtown Lincoln, some Nebraska Cornhuskers fans wonder if bailing on Mike Riley after just three years would do more harm than good. (Sean Keeler/Land of 10)

And he’s far from alone. Despite Frost orchestrating some video-game numbers as the offensive coordinator at Oregon and now with the Knights, Duncan wonders if a Pac-12 style spread attack is the right look in a Big Ten West where Wisconsin and Iowa are content to run off-tackle and play-action to the tight end for hours at a time.

“I don’t think that [pro-style] offense works here,” Duncan says. “I couldn’t tell you why. I think it has a lot to do with the Huskers fans being impatient and wanting the ’90s [back].

“When Tom Osborne took the interim AD job, they asked him what he envisioned for Nebraska football, and he said he would run something similar to what Urban Meyer was running at Florida. So when he made the choice to hire [Bo] Pelini, that’s what he got and that worked in the Big 12. And the Big 12 is putting up basketball scores, and it got [Pelini] to two Big 12 title games … the Big Ten is such a more physical conference.

“You look at somebody like [Ohio State offensive coordinator and former Indiana coach] Kevin Wilson, somebody who knows how to recruit to the Big Ten. [Maybe] you’re bringing in some of these more obscure coaches who know how to recruit in the conference and know what they’re doing. When you’re just throwing out names — Scott Frost is just a name that Huskers fans know.”

He’s also a name that many Huskers fans love, and revere, from his playing days. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald are coming off galling home losses this week to Michigan State and Penn State, respectively. But each was an iconic player at their current programs, so a healthy chunk of fans — and the right boosters — have so far been willing to ride out most of the storms. Honeymoons last longer for native sons.

“I think [Frost] would have the same thing here,” Duncan says. “He could lose for five seasons, they’d still say ‘Give him more time.’

“One thing I’ve noticed, if you look at the demographics — and I’m going to be 40 real quick, I saw Nebraska in its prime, and I watched the fall. I think the older you get, the higher the demand for somebody like Frost gets. The younger you get, all you want is a guy who’s going to get the job done.”

‘People seem to think that it’s a magic pill’

Between friends and work, Duncan’s heard the debates on Frost, several times over, back to front. If you want to start a conversation with a stranger at the Village Inn, start with the Huskers.

“But it gets so frustrating,” Duncan says. “Talking football in Nebraska is kind of like talking politics. You’ve got to really feel it out. You’ve got to make real small talk about it. You’ve got to let them respond: ‘Did you see the run by Ozigbo?’

“And then you can move toward really tricky [stuff], like talking about quarterbacks.”

Or the coach. If you’ve got a spare week.

“I think Riley was brought in because he was the exact opposite of Bo,” Duncan says. “Bo was a jerk. [His firing] had very little to do with football. The 9-win thing was just an excuse because they didn’t like him. They brought Mike Riley in because he was the nicest guy in football.”

Big Red fans like Riley, personally. It’s his teams — the Huskers are 18-14 since 2015, 11-9 in the Big Ten — that they sometimes have a hell of a time embracing.

“What’s really irritating is that Larry The Cable Guy seems to have control of the athletic department,” Duncan says. “The Scott Frost thing, if you want to boil it down, is nostalgia and wishful thinking. And people seem to think that it’s a magic pill.”

Wacker has seen magic before, though. He was born and raised in Fremont, Neb. He remembers watching, incredulously, at a bowling alley in 1997 when Shevin Wiggins’ bicycle-kick volley of a deflected pass from Frost landed in the waiting arms of Matt Davison at Mizzou. He remembers seeing Tommie Frazier doing things to Florida in real life that a pixelated Bo Jackson used to do during games of Tecmo Bowl.

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“A lot of people talk about how they want to get back to the running game and how they want to bring back the walk-on program,” Wacker says. “And they think they need more Nebraska players on the team because they’re the heart and soul of the team. Those are the major things that I hear.”

All the time?

Another laugh.

“Only when we lose. When we win, everyone’s happy. They’re fanatics, man. And I hear it all.”

Scott Frost is the answer.

Scott Frost raises too many questions.

Guy’s unproven.

Guy’s a savior.

The truth is in the middle there. Somewhere.

“I don’t think there’s a proven record to crown him the next Tom Osborne,” Wacker says. “But he’s obviously doing something right.”

NEXT Nebraska recruiting: Will Farniok meets future teammates; Keyshawn Johnson Jr. in Lincoln this weekend