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Captiv8 wrote: I second this emotion. Dude has created some of the greatest instrumentals I'v ever heard, and in such a dark and moody way. Is he Australian, or is that just where he lives? For some reason I assumed he was from Boston.
Sage Francis wrote: I believe he's originally from the UK, but he's been living in Australia for many years now.


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Comedian Jose Barrientos is Hispanic and bilingual but his accent is purely American.
Except his Speech 101 classmates don't know that.
Recognizing room for some quality shenanigans, Barrientos decided to slip into a thick Mexican affectation for the entire duration of the semester. After delivering three speeches over the course of four months, it was finally time for the grand reveal.
Come for the idolization of David Hasselhoff — stay for the "so, the donkey stuff wasn't real?"


text:
- Protection that won't get your way
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Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are apparently at it again.
According to CafeMom.com, Pattinson's car was spotted by photographers recently in front of Stewart's house, where it sat for two hours.
A lot of things can happen in two hours.
Stewart was reportedly home for a few days, having a few days off from shooting the Guantanamo-themed movie "Camp X Ray."
These two realize that the "Twilight" movies are over and they don't have to hang around each other any more ... right?
As you know -- or maybe you're lucky and you don't -- the pair dated while making the four "Twilight" films. Then a few month before the last installment came out in February, Stewart had a fling with her "Snow White and the Huntsman" director Rupert Sanders, which broke her and Pattinson up. Then they got back together. Then they broke up. Then ... I lost my place. Where were we?
Anyway, they seem to be spending time together again. We'll update you on any news we get about these wonderful kids as soon as we see it.
Contact Tony Hicks at Facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.TonyHicks or Twitter.com/insertfoot.


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Music Legend Neil Young Plans Announcement at 2008 JavaOne Conference
By jacki decoster on Apr 30, 2008
Yes, it's true - Neil Young will join Sun on stage during the JavaOne
opening keynote session on May 6, at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Come hear and see what Java technology means to Neil Young as he does a special demo of a new music project.
Day/Time: Tuesday, May 6; 8:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Who: Rich Green (EVP, Software, Sun Microsystems) will be joined by several special guests, including Neil Young and Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz
Can't make it to JavaOne this year?
The keynote session with Neil Young will also be available via webcast & we'll post some photos in the JavaOne press kit.
You can also view all JavaOne blogs at JavaOne BlogCentral


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Nestled deep in the Northwoods of Wisconsin,
you will find some of the cutest puppies !!
We have 35 years of experience raising happy healthy
puppies, who will bring warmth, laughter and love to your family.
Our puppies have their vaccinations up to date, a vet certificate and 2 year health guarantee.
We are Wisconsin licensed and inspected.
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text:
Former volunteer firefighter killed in NC house fire
UPDATED 3:27 PM EST Nov 30, 2012
A former volunteer firefighter was found dead in a house fire Friday morning, along with his three dogs.
Donnie Smith, 60, was killed in the Stanly County fire, which started around midnight, WCNC reported.
The fire was put out quickly, but crews found Smith's body in the back of the home.
Smith used to volunteer at the Aquadale Fire Department, firefighters said.


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Get excited about reading again with fun and interesting tips from our experts, including The M.D., our dietitians, and our fitness expert. In our health library, you will find all of the information you need to achieve your goals of making a healthy lifestyle change. So, start reading and start losing!
Learn about a host of diabetes-related topics such as how many Americans suffer from this disease to how to easily adjust to a new diet after diagnoses. This section will provide you with the information you need to make informed dietary decisions regarding diabetes.
Diabetes is a condition diagnosed in hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world. These people share the need to watch what they eat, and when they eat it. They have to check their blood sugar often, sometimes more than six times a day, and some of these people have to inject insulin into their body after every meal in order to make sure that the body can break down the sugar that they just put into it. Often, people do not realize that they are headed down a path for diabetes until it is too late.
There are some diabetic symptoms to watch out for. A person who is knowledgeable about these symptoms and approaches a doctor early may be lucky enough to catch diabetes before it becomes very difficult to control. If diabetes is diagnosed early enough, it is called "pre-diabetes", and diet and exercise can often stop it from progressing. Caught a little later and it is called Type 2 diabetes. This diabetes may be helped with diet and exercise as well.
Some of the diabetic symptoms are a bit confusing, because they can be mistaken for other things, while other diabetic symptoms are unmistakable. The first sign, or diabetic symptom, is usually frequent urination. This is often because the person feels thirsty constantly, which is another of the diabetic symptoms that you should watch out for. If you feel like you have to drink constantly, and are never able to quench your thirst, you should head to your family physician.
There are other diabetic symptoms to watch out for including unexplained weight loss and a feeling of fatigue. The fatigue can occur either from a low sugar, or a high sugar. Imagine how you feel after you eat a turkey dinner. Now magnify this a bit. This is how it feels to have your sugar so high that your body is trying to deal with it. You get very, very tired very quickly. Some people also find that they get very irritable when their sugar is acting up. Blurred vision is also one of the many diabetes symptoms that you should watch out for. The vision starts to blur generally when there is something serious going on, so instead of heading for the optometrist, head for the physician.
If your doctor does discover that you have diabetes or pre-diabetes, you will likely be put on a diet that will help to keep your sugar in check. It can be difficult to learn how to eat the right things, however, after a lifetime of eating whatever you wish.
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text: After overcoming a severe case of tuberculosis, the young Desmond planned to study medicine and become a doctor, but a lack of money for tuition led him to study education and he became a teacher. However, he quit after three years to protest deteriorating standards for black students mandated under the Bantu Education Act, which reduced classroom work to three hours a day.He subsequently earned a licentiate of theology in 1960 from St. Peter's Theological College in Rosettenville, South Africa, and a year later was ordained as an Anglican priest. In 1975, he became the first black Anglican dean of Johannesburg, South Africa, giving him an international platform in the anti-apartheid movement.Each year, a nine-member panel chooses a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension to receive the Templeton Prize.


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FREMONT -- In a move that has caught the attention of First Amendment advocates, the City Council has tightened restrictions on political protests at some public events, banning "disruptive conduct" and speech that "disturbs and antagonizes" people.
The new law gives Fremont police more authority to cite or remove those who disturb others at the 100 or more annual public events for which the city issues permits, such as Festival of the Arts or the Niles Antique Faire. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor or issued a citation with a fine, similar to a parking ticket, police said.
City leaders say they will protect First Amendment rights at special events by setting up free-speech zones, sectioned-off areas where advocates can make their points without interfering with the event.
"It protects free speech rights of the participants but also allows the city to control those activities, within reason," Assistant City Attorney Debra Margolis said.
Although Fremont leaders say they will balance free speech rights with the people's right to hold public events, an American Civil Liberties Union representative said part of the ordinance could be unconstitutional.
"The problem with laws like this one are they're written vaguely enough that they sometimes can be used to discriminate against people because of who they are or what they're saying," said Michael Risher, an ACLU attorney.
However, a First Amendment law professor said Fremont has the right to manage its special events by reasonably regulating the public's behavior.
"The ordinance seems to be an acceptable way of doing that," said UCLA professor Eugene Volokh.
As the city avoids inhibiting the content of free speech, he said, it still can regulate the manner in which public speech is performed. Volokh said he believes the ordinance's wording is clear and does not invite misinterpretation by police. "In theory, it's possible," he said. "In practice, I don't think it is going to be much of a problem."
Reports of verbally abusive revelers and political activists disrupting a few festivals last year led to the new policy, said police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques. "Last summer, the complaints we heard were definitely stronger and more compelling than in the past," she said.
Until Tuesday, police said they did not have the authority to remove those engaging in "disruptive conduct" -- as a Fremont staff report describes it -- at city-controlled events, unless they were violent.
But what does "disruptive conduct" mean?
The city's definition includes anything causing "undue disruption to the safety and enjoyment" of organizers of special events or those attending them.
The ordinance bans people, for instance, who prevent others "from viewing, hearing or meaningfully participating in the event," and cases where "people conduct free speech in a way that ... makes special event participants ... unable to access or enjoy the event," a city staff report states.
The ordinance prohibits amplified sound equipment, unless approved with a city permit.
It also bans bikes, skates and skateboards. "A lot of our special events are festivals with children walking around, and having a skateboard or bike could cause accidents," Fremont Deputy City Attorney Bronwen Lacey said. "It's about safety and ensuring that people attending the events can participate without disruption."
Festival revelers also must allow authorities to search their backpacks, purses or coolers, or risk being denied admission or ejected.
Whether Fremont can do that may be a debatable issue.
Risher said the state constitution does not allow mandatory searches of personal belongings in public places.
"You must weigh the need of the search to the weight of intrusiveness," he said.
"The law is clear that people walking down the street cannot be subject to required searches, even if it's a crowded street. Is a special event different from that? Probably not."
Contact Chris De Benedetti at 510-353-7011. Follow him at Twitter.com/cdebenedetti.


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إرفنج ضد ليبستدات
Defense Documents
David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition, by Richard J. EvansTable of Contents
|<< (I) Use of insignifican...
|< (A) Misquotation and Sk...
(J) Conclusion
1. As we have seen, therefore, the available evidence points overwhelmingly to Hitler's having backed the pogrom. There are strong indications that he actually approved of this before he left the Old Town Hall in Munich. In any case, the evidence makes it clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Hitler did not attempt at any time to stop the pogrom, as Irving maintains he did. Irving knows the evidence. Yet he has deliberately chosen to suppress or distort it in his efforts to exculpate Hitler from responsibility. This is clear evidence of his skewing of sources as charged by Lipstadt. It is not a mere case of carelessness or sloppy research on Irving's part. He has decided to suppress information of which he is aware, deliberately misconstrue other information, and manipulate the material in order to serve his own purpose of absolving Hitler from blame for the anti-Jewish excesses of the night in question.


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The new El Dorado Livestock Auction sale pavilion 2 1/2 miles east of El Dorado will be the location of this regional meeting. Topics will include the new Sunflower Supreme Replacement Heifer Program, weaning management options, and the Trichomoniasis regulations. Registration and the meal will start at 6:00 pm, followed by the program at 6:30 pm.
Topics of the meeting include the Sunflower Supreme Replacement Heifer Program, weaning management options, and Trichomoniasis regulations.
• The Sunflower Supreme Replacement Heifer Program is a program offered by Kansas State University and the Kansas Department of Agriculture for Kansas producers who are looking for management guidelines and additional marketing options for their replacement heifers. This meeting with provide information about guidelines and participation requirements for producers.
• Weaning management techniques and understanding of vaccinations and other important testing methods for replacement heifers will be discussed.
• New regulations for cow-calf producers in regards to Trichomoniasis regulations will also be covered by Dr. Larry Hollis, K-State Extension Veterinarian. Dr. Hollis will help prepare producers for guidelines on transportation and testing information for management of this reproductive disease.
Registration is requested no later than September 19th by calling the Butler Co. Extension office, 316-321-9660. $5 will be collected at the door for the meal.


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Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sweet Taters (Grandma's Brag Book)
I wasn't going to post tonight until my daughter-in-law sent me this photo of Gavin enjoying his sweet potatoes. Oh my, how much I miss the little guy and can't wait to see him (and them) next weekend. I'll be taking a photo of him enjoying (or spitting out) the strained green beans I made for him last week. Grandma loves you little Bean.
18 comments:
- Julie said...
What a cutie! Can't wait to hear what he thinks of the green beans.
- August 29, 2010 at 9:20 PM
- ~Carrie from Cottage Cozy~ said...
Gotta love those messy little guys...sooo cute!
- August 29, 2010 at 9:21 PM
- June (Jbug) said...
oh Mags, he is such a little sweetie and who knows, he may just have a new girlfriend. Whitney had a bsby girl yesterday - Charlotte Anne ...8 lbs 1 oz.
- August 29, 2010 at 9:24 PM
- Moogie said...
Mags.... I'm so very jealous that you had guests for the weekend. Where is my invitation? Is it in the mail?
Hey... I eat my sweet potatoes just like your cutie pie. That's why Pap doesn't take me out in public.
- August 29, 2010 at 9:58 PM
- scrambledhenfruit said...
What a cutie pie!
- August 29, 2010 at 10:26 PM
- Invizzible Ink said...
I can't believe how big he is getting! I've been a bad cuddy and haven't been to visit near as much as I should.
- August 29, 2010 at 10:31 PM
- Mags said...
Inviz: you've been a busy cuddy with your move. We're very excited for you!
- August 29, 2010 at 10:33 PM
- Sweet and Savory said...
Adorable. You enjoy every moment. Soon, you will be looking up at this little guy.
- August 29, 2010 at 11:20 PM
- Deb I said...
Thank you!! for a great weekend. It was fun watching you cook while we sat watching you with our favorite beverage. Great hosts!!! Can't wait to see little Gavin soon. Love you and Dave!
- August 30, 2010 at 6:52 AM
- Debbie said...
Just adorable!!!
- August 30, 2010 at 8:17 AM
- Nanan said...
Oh my, how he's grown! - Handsome fellow!
- August 30, 2010 at 10:07 AM
- Laurie said...
What a cutie! I think he's got your eyes and nose, Mags! :)
- August 30, 2010 at 10:54 AM
- Jessica said...
Adorable! Can't wait to see more of the little cutie!
- August 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM
- Natalie said...
so glad you had a great weekend. love the picture :)
- August 30, 2010 at 4:37 PM
My name is w uuuu sss WES....he is sooo a Wes...love him Margie he is such a sweetie...hope he likes to share his sweet potatoes
- August 30, 2010 at 9:44 PM
- Karen said...
- August 31, 2010 at 10:29 AM
- Co Irker said...
First, I can't believe how big he is!
Second, I can't believe how cute he is - he obviously takes after you!
And we are holding our breath and crossing our fingers and sending out a little prayer that your sweet tater will grace us with his presence on Friday. Please? Please? Pretty please?
I'd even sacrifice our sweets - he'd be treat enough.
(But if you have something already made you could bring that too)
- September 2, 2010 at 6:46 AM
- Mags said...
Co Irker: I'm planning on bringing the little guy in to meet you all tomorrow AND treats too!
- September 2, 2010 at 7:43 AM


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text:
"Conservation is the only way we can ensure our grandchildren and their children will have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors like our generation has, and Ducks Unlimited has been promoting conservation for the past 76 years," said Johnny Morris, Bass Pro Shops' founder. "It's a tremendous organization with a great mission, and I'm proud to call myself a DU member."
The special paint scheme was a generous donation from Morris, and was unveiled during DU's annual convention in St. Louis in May.
"Johnny Morris and Bass Pro Shops have always been great partners, and their generosity never ceases to amaze me," said DU CEO Dale Hall. "The fact that they support DU's mission speaks volumes about the company and their commitment to conservation."
In a similarly painted racecar last year, Stewart drove the DU car to a second-place finish behind Jimmie Johnson.
"As an avid hunter and proud supporter, I was honored to drive the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops car carrying the DU logo during the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona last year," said NASCAR legend Tony Stewart. "I hope DU's more than 1 million supporters will follow me to the winner's circle on race day this year."
The car will feature a greenhead on both back fenders, along with "Ducks Unlimited" painted in large letters. The race is slated to begin at 7:30 p.m. EST on Saturday evening.
"I had the opportunity to visit Daytona last year when the DU car raced, and it was truly an exciting experience, especially since Tony finished in second place," Hall said. "I fully expect Tony to put the DU car in Victory Lane this year, but no matter the outcome of the race, hundreds of thousands of people will see the Ducks Unlimited name thanks to Johnny Morris and Tony Stewart."
About Ducks Unlimited
Ducks Unlimited Inc. is the world's largest non-profit organization dedicated to conserving North America's continually disappearing waterfowl habitats. Established in 1937, Ducks Unlimited has conserved more than 13 million acres thanks to contributions from more than a million supporters across the continent. Guided by science and dedicated to program efficiency, DU works toward the vision of wetlands sufficient to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow and forever. For more information on our work, visit www.ducks.org. Connect with us on our Facebook page at facebook.com/DucksUnlimited, follow our tweets at twitter.com/DucksUnlimited and watch DU videos at youtube.com/DucksUnlimitedInc.
About Bass Pro Shops
Bass Pro Shops, which specializes in outdoor fun, operates 87 retail stores and Tracker Marine Centers across America and Canada that are visited by more than 116 million people every year. Bass Pro Shops stores, many of which feature restaurants, offer hunting, fishing, camping and other outdoor gear while their catalogs and website serve shoppers throughout the world.The company's Tracker Marine Group (http://www.trackermarine.com/), which has produced the number one selling brand of fishing boats for more than 35 years, manufactures and sells a variety of boats for fishing and cruising. Family fun is on tap at Bass Pro Shops resort Big Cedar Lodge (http://www.bigcedar.com/) voted number six by Travel + Leisure Magazine as World's Best Hotels for Families. For more information, visit http://www.basspro.com/. To request a free catalog, call 1-800-BASS PRO. Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bassproshops.
Media Contact:
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(901) 758-3764
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act into law.
First duck stamp, designed by Pulitzer-prize winning editorial cartoonist, Jay N. "Ding" Darling, issued.
Prairie drought peaks.


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rogerfederer.com - Roger to meet Söderling
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Roger to meet Söderling
Roger ovecame a spirited challenge from Philipp Kohlschreiber today to advance into the fourth round in Wimbledon.
The 6-3, 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-1 victory brings Roger a clash with Robin Söderling on Friday, the man he beat to win the French Open just a few weeks ago. Roger said: "I felt more pressure two years ago when I was trying to win a fifth Wimbledon title, but I'm relaxed and feeling good about being in the second week."
Kohlschreiber had lost all his three previous meetings with our champ and had never been able to win a set so far. But the German showed his determination and took advantage of the chance given in the third set, coming from a break back and eventually winning the tie-break. But Roger regained his rhythm right away, showing more brilliant tennis before he sealed his victory after 2 hours 31 minutes with a forehand winner.
On Monday afternoon, Roger will play Robin Söderling, against whom he has won his 10 previous matches.
5-4 now and Soderling to serve.
Go Roger, take this set and match!!!


text:
13 January 2010
Double Feature: In the Loop & The Hurt Locker
Released on DVD the same day in the U.S., the British comedy In the Loop and the American war movie The Hurt Locker make a fine pairing. The first is a political satire about the behind-the-scenes machinations leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq that feels rather like an extended episode of the original version of The Office, while the second is a tense and intensely immersive view of six weeks in the life of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Baghdad in 2004.
Or, to put it all another way, In the Loop is the story of a bunch of repressed homosexuals who start a war rather than deal with their feelings, while The Hurt Locker, as Glenn Kenny pointed out, is a study of addiction.
Most of the characters in In the Loop are mid-level British or American politicians, the sorts of people who can't make very many decisions on their own, but like to think they can. Though there are differences between the Brits and the Yanks, they do share one hang-up in common: hardly a scene passes without the characters questioning each other's masculinity, using homophobia for a quick insult, or otherwise reinforcing a toxically heterosexist environment. At the same time, all of the men in the film are schmucks, and at least a couple of them are psychopaths. There are only a few women, but some of them are in prominent roles, and most of them are, if occasionally silly, generally reasonable and apparently against the idea of going to war just because it sounds like fun.
Two of the lower-level assistants have a brief fling, but that's it for sex in the movie -- personal and political battle is how these folks get their jollies. General Miller has a reputation for promiscuity, but he also calls himself "the Gore Vidal of the Pentagon", not realizing exactly what that implies until he's told Vidal is gay; later, he makes a point of claiming, "I'm not like some little gay mercenary," while the events of the film show he is quite certainly mercenary in his actions.
The language of all the various battles, though rich in the variety of its vulgar locutions, is extremely limited in its references, most of which are to some sort of sexual activity, sexual violence, genitalia, etc. (For some of the most amusing lines, check out IMDB's compendium.) You don't have to be Sigmund Freud with an erect cigar in your mouth to notice some repression giving itself a good return.
The result is amusing if, like me, you don't mind watching despicable people say despicable things to each other for an hour and a half, all in their quest to help start a war that none of them will fight in and that will certainly kill at least a couple of people who are vastly more deserving of a long life and happiness than any character in the film.
The characters in The Hurt Locker are more complex and sympathetic than the characters in In the Loop, and that includes at least one suicide bomber. The central character of Staff Sergeant William James (who seems to have a single variety of religious experience: defusing bombs) is the one character in the film to really rise beyond typical war/buddy-movie stereotype, and most of the fault for that seems to be Jeremy Renner's, since he tells us much about James through his eyes, face, and body language. James is a familiar enough character: tremendously skilled, but also a lone wolf addicted to risk -- sometimes blinded by the addiction, sometimes aided by it. This could have been, as Jonathan McCalmont pointed out, a role for Mel Gibson, but Renner brings more consistent and complex physicality to this role than Gibson did when mugging his way through the Lethal Weapon movies.
The Hurt Locker isn't really a character study -- or, rather, it isn't just a character study. This is where addiction comes in. James is obviously addicted to war, and more specifically to defusing bombs in combat environments. His addiction warps his relations with everything except the bombs, the things that will, in all likelihood, one day kill him. He has moments where he saves lives and saves the day, but the film shows us just as many where his addiction distorts his sense of reality, ruins his judgment, and nearly leads to more deaths than just his own.
It's tempting to see James as admirable, even heroic, his macho individualism an essential element of his success, and it certainly may be essential to his success (so far) at defusing bombs, but that success comes at quite a cost to him and to the people around him.
Director/producer Kathryn Bigelow and many critics have proclaimed The Hurt Locker is unpolitical, but I'm with Jonathan Rosenbaum on this one -- while a film about the war in Iraq may eventually, far in the future, be only vaguely interesting on a political level, it's going to have political implications now, when the war is still going on, regardless of how hard the filmmakers work to avoid such implications. The work of avoiding may muddle the implications or may sharpen them, and in the case of The Hurt Locker, I think they're sharper.
To avoid casting political aspersions, Bigelow and writer/co-producer Mark Boal focused simply on portraying the soldiers and their actions, sticking very closely to their point of view and keeping out any discussion of politics or the meaning of the soldiers' presence in Iraq and the work they do there. Viewers will apply their own interpretations, as viewers are wont to do, and so, with the title of the movie unfortunately not Socialist Kenyans For Global Peace, Love, and Patchouli!, there will be crazy war nuts who say crazy things, as crazy war nuts are wont to do. (Some undergraduates also apparently think Stephen Colbert is ironic about his irony. There will always be outliers, and I, being a tolerant and compassionate liberal, suggest we taunt them mercilessly.)
The key to The Hurt Locker, it seems to me, lies in its portrayal of Iraqis. After one particularly tense encounter, James says of a taxi driver, "If he wasn't an insurgent, he sure as hell is now." Again and again, the soldiers are watched by Iraqis, and the impossibility of knowing who wants to kill the Americans and who doesn't is a central theme to every scene between soldiers and civilians. But it's more complex than that -- as the reluctant suicide bomber toward the end of the film vividly demonstrates both to James and to us, the viewers. Indeed, some of James's biggest failures happen when he tries to just go out and get the bad guys. He and his fellow soldiers don't know -- don't, in fact, as the film makes sadly clear, even recognize -- the people they're trying to protect any more than they know the people they're trying to protect them from. And yet we can't blame the guys on the ground for this -- we feel the immediacy of their situation, not just through good storytelling and acting, but through particularly visceral cinematography and editing -- and so if we're going to rise beyond just liking the movie because it's got soldiers and explosions and guns and stuff, we're forced to think about the system that put these guys here. And if we've just watched In the Loop, that's not so hard to do.
The final shot of The Hurt Locker is unlikely to cause people to want to organize parades to celebrate endless war. It is an image of the addict returning for another fix, throwing away everything else in his life for the thrill of one more high -- an image, in short, of futility and waste.
6 comments:
I'm sure you are aware of this but it seems strange not to at least mention that In The Loop is a feature-length version of the British TV series The Thick Of It. I found the film immensely depressing for the reasons you suggest in your last paragraph and the fact I can well believe it was unpleasantly close to reality.ReplyDelete
The characters in The Hurt Locker are more complex and sympathetic than the characters in In the Loop, and that includes at least one suicide bomber. The central character of Staff Sergeant William James... is the one character in the film to really rise beyond typical war/buddy-movie stereotype
There seems like there is a bit of a disconnect between these two sentences. At the very least, I think this does a disservice to Anthony Mackie's portrayal of Sgt Sanborn.
As for the political context of the film, I'm not sure we are "forced to think about the system that put these guys here", at least in any specific sense. (Some more thoughts about this .
I saw In the Loop last summer, and was impressed with the way it managed to be hysterically funny right up until it was suddenly utterly depressing. I thought it was one of the best movies I've seen recently, and I also have to admit that for weeks afterwards I kept trying to find excuses to call things "difficult difficult lemon difficult."ReplyDelete
Re: the undergraduates who think Colbert is being ironic about his irony: The title of their paper, "The Irony of Satire," is fun in that the terms in that title can be reversed ("The Satire of Irony") almost without substantial loss of meaning.ReplyDelete
When I was an undergrad, getting hit pretty hard with postmodern lit crit and starting to resent it somewhat, I remember making a parlor game out of this: Can the nouns in the title of an academic paper be rearranged and still mean almost the same thing? This trick can be done with more papers than you might think; I remember even coming across a couple that seemed to admit as much, in that they'd name their paper--to use the example above--something like "The Irony of Satire, the Satire of Irony." It was awesome.
I didn't mention The Thick of It simply because I haven't seen it, so don't have anything to say about it. It's not strange to leave it out -- I'm not being the least bit comprehensive here, and didn't mention, among other things, that Hurt Locker writer Mark Boal was an embedded journalist with an EOD team in Iraq, either. Gawd bless the internets, that's why there are links to things like IMDB.ReplyDelete
I don't see a disconnect between the sentences you quote, Martin, so much as a bit of relativity. I think of character depth as a spectrum, and most comedies, and particularly satires, rely on extremely flat (typed) characters and have for eons. In the Loop's characters have moments of self-awareness or development of some sort, but for the most part they are what they are, and the actors have lots of fun embodying that. I don't think The Hurt Locker's creators or actors were trying to embody familiar types of characters -- I expect they were trying to make the characters as individual and developed as they could within the limited space they had to do so -- and they do a pretty good job given how much else they're also trying to accomplish. Hence, they're more complex, which is as much a function of genre as of anything else. I thought Mackie's acting was fine for the role, and he did an excellent job with what he had, but Jeremy Renner's seemed to me a career-making performance, Mackie's a very solid one in a film full of solid performances. On the whole, this seems to me more a film rich with fine ensemble acting than especially noteworthy individual performances, but that, too, seems to me a real accomplishment and one I tend to prefer to films with scene-stealing actors. Renner got that thing every actor dreams of, though -- a particularly meaty role that was a perfect fit for his skills and personality, offering lots of potential for him to realize.
Which is not to suggest I won't find more in other performances on another (third) viewing when not so captured by the gravitational forces of the plot and Renner's performances.
I agree that there is no need to be (or attempt to be) comprehensive. The Thick Of It does provide some additional context for In The Loop but you don't need that context and its existence doesn't affect the point you are making. What I thought was strange was comparing the film to an extended version of one half hour long naturalistic BBC comedy without acknowledging that it actually is an extended version of another half hour long naturalistic BBC comedy.ReplyDelete
Thanks, Martin -- I see what you mean now. I think I'd intended to do something more with the Office comparison (Tom Hollander as Simon Foster reminded me in some ways of Ricky Gervais as David Brent), but that got lost amidst other things, so I can see how the Office reference is a bit odd.ReplyDelete


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The 23rd annual Community Golf Outing will be held on Friday, June 14, at the Eldon Golf Club.
Registration at 11:30 a.m., with lunch at noon and a four-person scramble shotgun start 1 p.m.
Cost is $75 for individuals or $300 per team. The fee includes 18 holes of golf, cart, lunch, drink ticket and tee prizes. There will be cash prizes, door prizes and a 50/50 drawing.
For more information, call 573-392-3752 or email email@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Location, ST | website.com


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News 12 This Morning / Monday, Sept. 24, 2012
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- A normal school day lasts around seven hours, but for some students in Richmond County, they can complete it in just four. It's a program that's in it's second year, but they say they've already seen it's impact.
The program offers kids an alternate way to make it through high school. For students who have to work, have a child or regular high school just isn't working for them, they can go to the Performance Learning Center.
"I was pregnant my last year, my senior year so I kinda fell back after having my son," said student Leteica Fairley. She is finishing up her last few credits of high school at the PLC. "[I] got really, really behind missing too much work and I felt I couldn't maintain and graduate when I was supposed to."
The Performance Learning Center is located at the Tubman Education Center. Instead of dropping out, the program offered her another way to get her diploma.
"I have two and a half classes to finish so I'm here from 9-11:50 and I can leave here my son's still asleep, I can go home get him ready for daycare, do what I have to do and then go to work," said Fairley.
She says she wouldn't have been able to finish high school without the program -- something that wasn't really an option for her and her child.
"I work a Krystal right now," said Fairley. "Having a child, you can't make it off of fast food. So I'm trying to get my diploma where I can get a good paying job."
The Performance Learning Center is just starting it's second year, helping students in all sorts of situations finish high school.
"It was a necessity because we have students out there that have to work, they have to help support their families, those students were missing days from school because they were tired from work , they had to go to work, so this is really a good convenience," said Natalie Robinson, Academic Supervisor at the PLC.
Since all the students are at different levels, the program uses an online class system allowing them to work at their own pace.
"I like how it's online," said student Hunter Woods. "It's self paced, you work at your own pace, and you have teachers to help you."
"You don't have the distractions of your peers, classmates joking and playing around," added Anthony Williams. "You have that one-on-one with you, your computer, and your learning facilitator."
For Leteica, the program offered something more, "It gives you a second chance that most wouldn't have and for those who feel like they can't finish, it is possible."
Right now, the program is at capacity of 125 students. There is a waiting list, but administrators are hoping some will graduate in December allowing more to come in. Last year 17 students graduated, students that Robinson says may have dropouts without this program.
The students are co-enrolled with their high schools. As long as they are passing, they can participate in extra curricular activities and sports at their high school. The kids come from schools all over Richmond County.


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NEW: For a prettier blog interface, see the Wordpress version!
Headlines for Saturday:
|Read books
|Ping family
1. This week in books: 21:38
I read a lot. This week, I took notes on five non-fiction books, skimmed another seven books, and read three fiction books (the Artemis Fowl hardcover books we picked up yesterday). And that's just my casual reading, not including the research papers I read for my thesis.
I keep notes on the most interesting books in searchable, semi-structured text files on my hard disk. The page numbers and quotations are invaluable when I'm recommending books to people. I also keep track of when I talk about books and to whom I mention them. It's all part of
I put the time into doing this because I'm too lazy to reread everything. The highlights help me review. =)
Today I tried using a scanner to pull in pages. tesseract-ocr is surprisingly accurate. With optical character recognition under Linux, I might be able to more easily capture excerpts. I still have to edit the results and summarize the book, but it would be nice not to have to type the short paragraphs that I copy into my digital commonplace book. My notes aren't posted online and I don't pull everything in, so I shouldn't have problems with copyright... =)
Happy girl. Much reading. Much learned, too. Best book find of the week was "First, Break All the Rules." I owe that one to Ian Garmaise, who tipped me off about Marcus Buckingham. "Never Bet the Farm" also yielded useful insights on risk-taking, and "How to Sell a Lobster" shared lots of marketing tricks. Good stuff.
I also read a lot about work-life balance. "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children" had better statistics on high-achieving women and relationships than I had previously encountered, and actually paints a fairly positive picture of women who decide early. "Flex Appeal" talked about flexible work such as entrepreneurship, compressed work-weeks, part-time work, and job-sharing. It had practical advice for negotiating such arrangements and a good visioning exercise. "Three-ring Circus" by D.C. Jefferson and R. Welch had lots of anecdotes about balance. Stuff to keep in mind for several years down the line, although it's good to plan ahead.
I recommended "First, Break All the Rules" to four people and talked about "The Tipping Point" with one person. "How to Sell a Lobster" looks like it has direct applications to some of my projects.
I've got a constant stream of books coming in via the library. Life is good!
Random Emacs symbol: term-start-output-log - Command: Record raw inferior process output in a buffer.
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Vail official report: 0" new snow.
Liftline status: No lines in Lionshead.
Weather: Warm, with a few high clouds.
Breakdown: Vail now has the Gondola open for regular ski traffic, as well as a few new runs like the "Practice Parkway" section of Ledges. As usual, Vail's grooming is second to none.
Snowcast: Breaking news, there's a 20 percent chance of snow for tonight, and snow is likely for Sunday!


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What show are you talking about?
Sunday, 05/22/1994
Vogue Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Soundcheck: Dog Log -> Machine Gun -> Dog Log, John Hardy, Poor Heart, My Sweet One (unmiced)
Set 1: Demand > SlothThe Sloth, DividedDivided Sky, Glide, PeachesPeaches en Regalia > SOAMeltSplit Open and Melt, Fluffhead, MSOMy Sweet One[1], GinsengGinseng Sullivan[2], Dog Faced Boy[1], Axilla (Part II)
Set 2: DwDDown with Disease > Bouncin'Bouncing Around the Room, It's Ice > McGruppMcGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters > Tweezer > Lifeboy > Rift > SlaveSlave to the Traffic Light > TweepriseTweezer Reprise
Encore: Sleeping Monkey
[1] Acoustic and without microphones.
[2] Acoustic and without microphones. Fish on washboard.
Average Song Gap: 6.43
Performers: Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon
Notes: Glide was humorously introduced by Trey as "Whoomp! There it Is," referencing a then-popular dance club song by Tag Team. My Sweet One, Ginseng Sullivan, and Dog Faced Boy were performed acoustic and without microphones. Ginseng also featured Fish on washboard.
Song Distribution:
5 Hoist
3 Stash
3 A Picture of Nectar
3 Lawn Boy
2 Rift
2 Junta
2 The White Tape
1 The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday
Songs by Debut Year:
This show was part of the "1994 Spring Tour."
What show are you talking about?
Assertive versions of It's Ice and McGrupp give way to badass 14-minute Tweezer that hints at MLB / Prudence territory during an edgy melodic section. Slave has a great near-silent cooldown before building to a typically screaming finale. Sleeping Monkey recaps the "Whoomp" banter, and it's a fun way to top off a typically strong Spring '94 Phish show.
This was my second time seeing Phish at the Murat Theatre. I was so enthralled by my first show there in `93, I decided that for this show I was gonna do it right. I got up at 5:00 a.m. to go camp out at Ticketmaster for some good seats. Low and behold, we were first in line and managed to get second row, center stage.
We drove up early to hang out outside the venue, and there was actually a little lot scene in the parking lot. I remember a bunch of people trying to get tickets outside. This was a much different scene than the year before. We had a little caravan of two cars going up and we got separated.
Thus, I was walking around looking for the other driver, my friend Dave. I walked around singing "McGrupp" to myself as I tried to find the rest of friends. We eventually met up and went in the show. It was nice to later on hear the band play "McGrupp" sandwiched in a crazy second set.
My memories of this concert are the most vivid of any shows I saw in the early nineties. Being second row center in such an incredible place with an incredible band burned a lasting impression in my mind. The first set was great and we were all rocking out down in front. The security was pretty tight so we had lots of room. My favorite part of the set was the "Paul and Silas" > "Horn". I was just starting to get into bluegrass at this time.
The second set went way above and beyond my expectations. The "Demand" > "Antelope" was smoking. The jam in "Antelope" had many peaks and valleys, one of the peaks being the "DWD" jam. The "Curtain" > "McGrupp" > "Simple" > "Sanity" blew me away. Having seen the Columbus show a couple of nights prior, I knew when that they went into "Simple" things were going to get crazy!
I am a big fan of the earlier versions of "Simple". The old versions of that song are choppier and not as melodic, but I liked the intensity it had.
Then came "Sanity". I had been wanting to hear a "Sanity" ever since I had got a copy of Ian's Farm 1989 that stayed in the twenty tape rotation for years, and it was very well received.
Soon after came one of my most memorable Phish experiences, the little acoustic set. I was literally at the band's feet during this part. I remember that I could of grabbed the band's toes had I wanted too. During "Cavern", Trey was singing the alternate lyrics, which are hilarious. I said to myself, "Is he just freestylin' these lyrics or what"? Later I found out
they were the original lyrics. I thought "Disease" was the encore, but then they came out for "Rocky Top"!
All in all, it was a fabulous experience. So when the Trey Band came back to the Murat in `99, I just had to go! And they didn't let me down.
This show has it all - 1st set has a Demand > Sloth opener, Peaches > SOAM, and a positively perfect Fluffhead. The 2nd set is just pure bliss. I was enthralled. There's a soundboard of the 2nd set that circulates but the Robert Ward tapes are where it's at if you ask me - pure, crispy goodness.


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The maximum age for hunters participating on the Youth Waterfowl Hunting Days has been increased from 15 to 16 years of age.
The black bear hunting area has been expanded to include all of Frederick and Washington counties. Bear hunting will now be open in Allegany, Frederick, Garrett and Washington counties by permit only. The permits will continue to be issued by a lottery.
DNR's long-term goals for deer are to ensure the present and future well-being of deer and their habitat; maintain deer populations at levels necessary to ensure compatibility with human land uses and natural communities...
Read the entire 2016-2017 Maryland Hunting Regulations online! Our unique digital edition allows you to page through the entire guide, just as if you were reading the magazine.


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Photoshop® Elements 4 For Dummies®
380 pages
January 2006
This title is out-of-print and not currently available for purchase from this site.
Read an ExcerptDownload Acrobat
Table of Contents
Author Information
Whether you're a hobbyist or a pro, look what you can do with Elements 4!
Photoshop Elements is all grown up - a powerful program that's easy to use and gives professional results. This book's step-by-step instructions and full-color examples help you take creative control of Photoshop Elements' tools. From sharpening and improving contrast to creating greeting cards, calendars, and photo albums in Windows, here's how to tweak, improve, print, and share great pictures.
Discover how to
- Create sharp and colorful images for printing
- Combine multiple images into creative collages
- Correct color, contrast, and clarity
- Share photos as PDF slideshows
- Build a Web photo gallery
- Organize and find photos fast


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A Nashville Singer/Songwriter charity concert was held at Mexicali Blues in June, raising close to $1,500 for Citizens Against Domestic Violence. The concert featured Buddy Jewell and Wynn Varble, and was hosted by Mexicali Blues. Owner Chad Kautz donated all of the ticket sales to CADV.
"The CADV board and staff are very grateful to the Kautz family and Mexicali Blues for their continued support of CADV," CADV director Angie Fiene said. "Chad organized the concert and wanted 100 percent of the ticket sales to go to CADV so that we can continue to help serve the victims in the community. It was a great event and CADV would also like to thank everyone who attended."
"This is the 5th Nashville Singer/Songwriter concert that I have hosted for a local charity. These songwriters are amazing to watch. The stories that are behind the songs that you hear on the radio is something that most people don't know. These artists tell you how they come up with these songs," Kautz said. "I've always wanted to host one for the CADV because it is an organization that I deeply believe in. I've personally seen too many women that are victims to this senseless crime. Angie puts her heart and soul into the CADV, and I wanted to help her with her efforts of caring for those in need."
CADV offers various services including a 24-hour hotline, support groups, crisis intervention, food, shelter, advocacy and support to victims of domestic and sexual violence.
Location, ST | website.com


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Wood circuit court hears five cases Friday
March 11, 2013
PARKERSBURG — Five hearings took place Friday in Wood County Circuit Court. * Roger Dale Logston III, 39, 912 Virginia Av....
How is it that 1 person who gets his 3rd offense dui gets 3 years in prison while another person gets his 3rd offense dui and gets probation??? Not to mention if you break your probation its ok??? I dont understand the justice system apparently!
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It looks like our fine Prosecutor dropped the ball on Logston. Judge Beane must have fallen and hit his head putting 2 people that had their Home Confinement revoked back on Home Confinement to get revoked again.
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SugarCRM. Funding for EnterpriseDB and Morphlabs. Even more core. And more
Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and
"Tracking the open source news wires, so you don't have to."
# OStatic asked whether SugarCRM has violated open source principles.
# Larry Augustin clarified SugarCRM's approach to open source and openness.
# Savio …[Read more...]


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Unemployment Rate Telling a Much More Hopeful Story
The U.S. added a meager 113,000 jobs last month, raising concerns about the durability of the economy, but the unemployment rate dropped to 6.6% and a broader measure of unemployment dropped even further to 12.7% and it appeared to be for encouraging reasons.
The main reason for the disparity is that the two figures are derived from different surveys. The number of jobs added comes from businesses in what is known as the establishment survey, while the unemployment rate is taken by a poll of households. The two data sets generally move in the same direction but can vary widely from month to month. January was one of those months.
The number of people who said that they had a job last month soared in January. The Labor Department made its annual change in the numbers it uses for the overall population this month. That makes January-to-December comparisons difficult, but those adjustments were pretty small overall this year. But even taking the adjustment into account, there were more than 600,000 more people this month counted as employed than last month.
At the same time the number of people in the overall labor force surged by nearly 500,000. That brought the share of the population working or looking for work — called labor force participation rate — up to 63%, still a low rate historically but moving in the right direction.
That is especially surprising given the expiration in extended unemployment benefits that hit at the beginning of this year. Some 1.3 million workers lost those benefits when the program expired, and it was expected that many of them would become discouraged and drop out of the labor force altogether.
And that may have happened. The number of people unemployed for more than six months declined by 232,000 in January. It's many of those people got new jobs and how many left the labor force. Month-to-month comparisons are difficult because of the population adjustment, but there was a drop in the broader rate that measures workers on the margins.
A broader unemployment rate, known as the "U-6″ for its data classification by the Labor Department, dropped 0.4 percentage point last month to 12.7% — the lowest rate in more than five years. That rate includes everyone in the official rate plus "marginally attached workers" — those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that's all they could find. The ranks of discouraged workers and those part-time for economic reasons fell last month.
It's unclear right now which survey is telling the clearer picture about the job market. The survey of businesses is larger, and it could mean that the gains in the household data could be lost. But there also could be seasonal distortions in the number of jobs that could look better in coming months.


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For more information, go to: www.walkfriendly.org/
2010: EPA Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging – Achievement Award The principal goal of the Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Award program is to raise awareness across the nation about healthy synergies that can be achieved when communities combine and implement the principles of smart growth with the concepts of active aging. Charlotte was recognized at the "Achievement" level, the highest honor possible for this award. Mecklenburg County Status of Seniors Initiative (2005) makes a comprehensive set of recommendations to make Mecklenburg County more age-friendly by making improvements to the built environment. Over the past five years, Charlotte has used this adopted policy to organize and guide growth and development for the city. New growth has been concentrated in several key corridors and activity centers that have created higher densities, mixed use development and a more walkable community. Specifically, Charlotte has incorporated senior-friendly design into street improvements, including:
2008: League of American Bicyclists Bicycle Friendly Community – Bronze Level Designation BFC is a national recognition program that recognizes a community's commitment to improving conditions for bicycling through investment in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure, and pro‐bicycling policies.
For more information, go to: http://www.bikeleague.org/content/communities


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For U.S. Banks, Hard Yards Begin Now
U.S. banks have been the "good bad team" of the stock market in 2013.
For those who don't follow sports, the term refers to a team that is capable of beating inferior rivals but can't really prevail against stronger opposition. (Topical examples include the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League and Manchester United in English soccer.)
Last year, financial stocks beat investors' fairly modest expectations and surged even more than the overall market, helped by an improving economic outlook and more investment-banking activity. It was the second consecutive year in which bank shares have done better than the S&P 500.
Will they three-peat? Investors small and large seem to think so, judging by cash flows into financial-stock funds and the optimism of large money managers.
A good round of fourth-quarter earnings, which begin next week for U.S. lenders, could give further impetus to the "bank-is-beautiful" theme.
But before we all buy football shirts with "Dimon" and "Blankfein" on the back and start tailgating outside Bank of America's headquarters, it may be helpful to reflect on the past five years in the U.S. financial industry.
The short story is that, after the ruinous 2008-2009 period, banks cut costs, trimmed balance sheets and got rid of "hobbies" that didn't fit with their main businesses. The results have been substantial: The KBW Bank Index, a broad measure of the sector's shares, has more than tripled since its postcrisis nadir. Large banks like Goldman Sachs Group and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. are enjoying valuations unseen in years.
However, that success hasn't been accompanied by a significant increase in either top-line revenues or operating profits. In other words, banks have largely grown by cutting expenses and becoming more efficient, rather than by doing their job of lending to businesses and consumers, helping companies with deals and enabling investors to trade.
Take the performance of Wells Fargo & Co. since 2010. The shares are up nearly 70% but revenues and operating income are virtually flat, according to estimates of this year's earnings by analysts at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.
For Wells and others, the hard work begins now: sustaining gains in both share prices and the bottom line.
Bank bulls point to two factors: the acceleration of U.S. economic growth and a "steeper yield curve"—a rise in long-term rates while short-term rates stay low. These elements should enable banks to extend more loans to more financially sound borrowers while at the same time charging more for the money. (Banks borrow at short-term rates and lend at longer-term rates.)
"Commercial banks will be in an ideal position in 2014," says Davide Serra, the founder of Algebris Investments (UK) LLP, a $1.6 billion asset-management firm focused on financial companies around the world. "Better credit quality, coupled with a steeper yield curve and a continued focus on costs should lead to some excellent results."
As for investment banks, experts such as Brad Hintz at Bernstein Research argue that despite an ongoing regulatory onslaught, a recovery in capital markets should boost revenues from equity and debt issuance, and maybe even the long-dormant takeover market.
Now for the bad news: The U.S. economy is growing, but not fast enough to spark a sharp increase in demand for loans. "Loan growth may pick up slightly," Citigroup analyst Keith Horowitz wrote to clients recently. "But we don't see a catalyst for a large acceleration…as the slow recovery of the U.S. economy continues."
And while higher longer-term rates help bank margins, they are already curbing one of the main profit engines: mortgage refinancing activity.
More important, banks are coming close to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to cutting expenses and releasing reserves set aside for bad loans—two big drivers of recent performance. Christopher Mutascio, a KBW analyst, expects the pace of reserve releases, an accounting maneuver that enables banks to add to profits any money set aside for bad loans when credit quality improves, to slow down this year for all the 11 commercial banks he covers.
His conclusion? "We believe outperforming the broader market in 2014 will be tough for the large banks."
As with many "good bad teams," the experts are divided on banks going into a new season. Investors should tune out the noise and ask the fundamental question: Can banks increase profits without the crutches of cost control and balance-sheet tweaking?
The answer could make a difference between another bout of Chicago Cubs-like futility and a miracle on ICE. (As in IntercontinentalExchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, where most banks are listed.)
Francesco Guerrera is The Wall Street Journal's financial editor. Write to him at: firstname.lastname@example.com and follow him on Twitter: @guerreraf72.