Not even country music can ruin that song. But as you well know Taylor, Eminem’s version is the best of all time. (via @anildash ) Tags: Eminem music remix Taylor Swift video Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : kottke Discovery Date : 04/08/2011 16:58 Number of articles : 4
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Not even country music can ruin that song. But as you well know Taylor, Eminem’s version is the best of all time. (via @anildash ) Tags: Eminem music remix Taylor Swift video Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : kottke Discovery Date : 04/08/2011 16:58 Number of articles : 4
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Supporters clash with riot police removing opposition leader from Kiev courtroom on judge’s orders Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been arrested by police acting on a judge’s orders for violating court procedure during her trial for abuse of office. Her supporters squabbled on Friday with riot police in court, trying to prevent them from driving her away in a prison car and shouting: “Shame! Shame!” Dozens gathered outside court in Kiev and tried to block the road, but were pushed aside. The charismatic Tymoshenko has criticised the trial as a ploy by President Viktor Yanukovych to bar her from elections and mocked the court. She has refused to rise when addressing the court, as required, and routinely insulted the judge. Her supporters have repeatedly disrupted hearings. Complying with the presiding judge’s orders, police surrounded Tymoshenko and escorted her out of the courtroom. The 50-year-old opposition leader is charged with abusing her powers by signing a natural gas import contract with Russia in 2009 that prosecutors claim was disadvantageous to Ukraine. Tymoshenko insists she is innocent, arguing that the contract ended weeks of natural gas disruptions to Ukrainian and European consumers and that she was authorised to sign the deal as prime minister. Experts in Ukraine and abroad believe the trial’s real motive is to disqualify Tymoshenko from upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections by convicting her as a felon. Tymoshenko has a long and bitter history with Yanukovych. She was the central figure in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution mass protests, which threw out Yanukovych’s fraud-tainted victory in a presidential election and led to another vote that brought a pro-western government to power. Tymoshenko became prime minister, but Ukrainians grew frustrated by economic hardships, slow reforms and endless bickering in the Orange camp. As a result, she lost to Kremlin-friendly Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election. Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko Europe guardian.co.uk
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Supporters clash with riot police removing opposition leader from Kiev courtroom on judge’s orders Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been arrested by police acting on a judge’s orders for violating court procedure during her trial for abuse of office. Her supporters squabbled on Friday with riot police in court, trying to prevent them from driving her away in a prison car and shouting: “Shame! Shame!” Dozens gathered outside court in Kiev and tried to block the road, but were pushed aside. The charismatic Tymoshenko has criticised the trial as a ploy by President Viktor Yanukovych to bar her from elections and mocked the court. She has refused to rise when addressing the court, as required, and routinely insulted the judge. Her supporters have repeatedly disrupted hearings. Complying with the presiding judge’s orders, police surrounded Tymoshenko and escorted her out of the courtroom. The 50-year-old opposition leader is charged with abusing her powers by signing a natural gas import contract with Russia in 2009 that prosecutors claim was disadvantageous to Ukraine. Tymoshenko insists she is innocent, arguing that the contract ended weeks of natural gas disruptions to Ukrainian and European consumers and that she was authorised to sign the deal as prime minister. Experts in Ukraine and abroad believe the trial’s real motive is to disqualify Tymoshenko from upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections by convicting her as a felon. Tymoshenko has a long and bitter history with Yanukovych. She was the central figure in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution mass protests, which threw out Yanukovych’s fraud-tainted victory in a presidential election and led to another vote that brought a pro-western government to power. Tymoshenko became prime minister, but Ukrainians grew frustrated by economic hardships, slow reforms and endless bickering in the Orange camp. As a result, she lost to Kremlin-friendly Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election. Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko Europe guardian.co.uk
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At least 10 people dead after government troops, who witnesses claim also tried to steal food, opened fire at UN distribution site Somali government troops opened fire on famine refugees on Friday, killing at least 10 people, as both groups made a grab for food at a UN distribution site in Mogadishu, witnesses said. Witnesses accused government soldiers of starting the chaos by trying to steal some of the 290 tonnes of dry rations as aid workers tried to hand them out at Badbaado, the biggest camp in the Somali capital for famine victims. Refugees then joined in the scramble, prompting some soldiers to open fire, the witnesses said. “It was carnage. They ruthlessly shot everyone,” said Abdi Awale Nor, who has been living at the camp. “Dead bodies were left on the ground and other wounded bled to death.” David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Programme, said the food distribution started smoothly at about 6am, but degenerated a couple hours later. “We got reports of trouble, looting. The trucks were overwhelmed by a mob of people. There were reports of some shots fired,” said Orr, who said he could not confirm any death tolls. Another refugee, Muse Sheik Ali, said soldiers tried to steal some of the food aid and refugees began to take the food. “Soldiers opened fire at them. Then soldiers took the food and people fled from the camp,” he said. Thousands of Somalis have flooded into Mogadishu from the drought-stricken south, walking much or all the way and seeing weakened loved ones perish from starvation or complications from malnutrition. The drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under five in the past 90 days in southern Somalia alone, according to US estimates. The Somalia prime minister, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, visited the camp after the violence and said he was “deeply sorry”. He said an investigation would be held and promised harsh punishment for anyone found guilty. International groups face huge challenges in distributing food inside Somalia. The worst-hit part of the country is a no-go area for most aid groups because it is controlled by al-Qaida-linked insurgents, who deny there is a famine and who have allowed only the International Committee of the Red Cross to enter. More than 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are in need of immediate food aid. The UN says 640,000 children are acutely malnourished in Somalia, where the UN has declared five famine zones, including the refugee camps of Mogadishu. Witnesses said two WFP trucks were delivering aid when the chaos broke out. WFP often tries to do what it calls “wet feedings” in Somalia – giving out already made food like porridge – to limit the chances that it will be looted. But in this case it was dry rations, Orr said. Somali soldiers control just part of the capital and are poorly trained. “They fired on us as if we were their enemy,” said famine refugee Abidyo Geddi. “When people started to take the food then the gunfire started and everyone was being shot. We cannot stay here much longer. We don’t get much food and the rare food they bring causes death and torture.” Private militias – most of them politically connected – are competing to guard or steal food. At least four competing militias have the run of government-controlled areas of Mogadishu. The gunmen roar around in pickup trucks and wage battle over the wages they hope to be paid to either guard the aid or for the cash it will bring when it is stolen and sold. The insecurity amid the famine echoes the situation in 1992 that prompted deployment of a US-led multinational force to safeguard the delivery of food to Somalia’s starving. That international intervention collapsed in 1993 after two US helicopters were shot down and 18 servicemen were killed in the crashes and subsequent rescue attempt in the streets of Mogadishu. Famine Somalia Africa United Nations guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …At least 10 people dead after government troops, who witnesses claim also tried to steal food, opened fire at UN distribution site Somali government troops opened fire on famine refugees on Friday, killing at least 10 people, as both groups made a grab for food at a UN distribution site in Mogadishu, witnesses said. Witnesses accused government soldiers of starting the chaos by trying to steal some of the 290 tonnes of dry rations as aid workers tried to hand them out at Badbaado, the biggest camp in the Somali capital for famine victims. Refugees then joined in the scramble, prompting some soldiers to open fire, the witnesses said. “It was carnage. They ruthlessly shot everyone,” said Abdi Awale Nor, who has been living at the camp. “Dead bodies were left on the ground and other wounded bled to death.” David Orr, a spokesman for the World Food Programme, said the food distribution started smoothly at about 6am, but degenerated a couple hours later. “We got reports of trouble, looting. The trucks were overwhelmed by a mob of people. There were reports of some shots fired,” said Orr, who said he could not confirm any death tolls. Another refugee, Muse Sheik Ali, said soldiers tried to steal some of the food aid and refugees began to take the food. “Soldiers opened fire at them. Then soldiers took the food and people fled from the camp,” he said. Thousands of Somalis have flooded into Mogadishu from the drought-stricken south, walking much or all the way and seeing weakened loved ones perish from starvation or complications from malnutrition. The drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under five in the past 90 days in southern Somalia alone, according to US estimates. The Somalia prime minister, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, visited the camp after the violence and said he was “deeply sorry”. He said an investigation would be held and promised harsh punishment for anyone found guilty. International groups face huge challenges in distributing food inside Somalia. The worst-hit part of the country is a no-go area for most aid groups because it is controlled by al-Qaida-linked insurgents, who deny there is a famine and who have allowed only the International Committee of the Red Cross to enter. More than 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are in need of immediate food aid. The UN says 640,000 children are acutely malnourished in Somalia, where the UN has declared five famine zones, including the refugee camps of Mogadishu. Witnesses said two WFP trucks were delivering aid when the chaos broke out. WFP often tries to do what it calls “wet feedings” in Somalia – giving out already made food like porridge – to limit the chances that it will be looted. But in this case it was dry rations, Orr said. Somali soldiers control just part of the capital and are poorly trained. “They fired on us as if we were their enemy,” said famine refugee Abidyo Geddi. “When people started to take the food then the gunfire started and everyone was being shot. We cannot stay here much longer. We don’t get much food and the rare food they bring causes death and torture.” Private militias – most of them politically connected – are competing to guard or steal food. At least four competing militias have the run of government-controlled areas of Mogadishu. The gunmen roar around in pickup trucks and wage battle over the wages they hope to be paid to either guard the aid or for the cash it will bring when it is stolen and sold. The insecurity amid the famine echoes the situation in 1992 that prompted deployment of a US-led multinational force to safeguard the delivery of food to Somalia’s starving. That international intervention collapsed in 1993 after two US helicopters were shot down and 18 servicemen were killed in the crashes and subsequent rescue attempt in the streets of Mogadishu. Famine Somalia Africa United Nations guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Credit: Washington Post In 1952, my father was a young sailor in the US Coast Guard, on leave in Washington. Early one morning, he’d gone to a shop to buy cigarettes, stepped outside for a smoke and was startled by the sight of the President of the United States strolling briskly toward him, trailed by a single security man. He tossed the cigarette away, straightened and saluted. “At ease, sailor,” said Truman with a grin, stuck out his hand and gave my father a quick handshake before breezing past and was gone. By 1952, Truman’s popularity was at an all-time low, but that single moment turned my politically apathetic dad into a life-long Democrat, and he measured the worth of every president thereafter by how close they were willing to get to ordinary American citizens. He treasured a newspaper clipping with a photo of me as a small child riding on his shoulders to see over the heads of the crowd during a visit by Lyndon Johnson, with the president smiling and waving and shaking hands as he rode by in an open car – not that long after his predecessor had been shot in one. After eight years of George Bush and his obsession with security that earned him the sobriquet ‘Bubble Boy’ we have a President who has received an average 30 death threats every day since he took office, more than another president in our history, 400% more than Bush , and has been so vilified by the likes of Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent gleefully whipping up lynch mob hysteria that he has real reason to worry about his personal safety. But yet…. when President Obama landed in San Francisco this past February, rather than hurriedly jumping into the safety of his bullet-proof limo, he strolled across the tarmac to greet people eagerly reaching over a chain-link fence to shake his hand, stopping to chat and even receive a kiss from an elderly woman. After what has to be the most contentious month of his presidency thus far, President Obama chose to greet crowds of tourists at the Lincoln Memorial , much to the delight of surprised ordinary people, in order to stress that despite the Republican mania for cutting every public service they can think of rather than raise taxes on corporations and the rich, national parks, monuments and museums are still and will remain open. And just this past Father’s Day, he stopped at Georgetown’s Thomas Sweet Ice Cream shop with his daughters, Sasha and Malia. The Secret Service did arrive first, but simply asked people to just go about their own business – they didn’t clear anyone out, they didn’t stop anyone from chatting with the President while he and his daughters ordered scoops of cookie dough and vanilla ice cream. It’s probably just not possible any longer for a President to take an early morning stroll nearly unchaperoned down a city street and shake hands with an astonished Coast Guard sailor, but Obama comes close. As a progressive liberal, I have to admit I’ve been disappointed lately with Obama’s unfathomable fixation on “bi-partisanship” and these continually disastrous negotiations with an obdurate right-wing whose only objective is to crush Obama’s presidency regardless of the cost to the economy or the American people. But I can’t remember Bush ever getting this close to actual human beings. I don’t think I ever saw him wading into a public crowd, even when they were thoroughly vetted and screened and anyone so much as wearing a subversive t-shirt whisked off to jail , just in case. Even with the death threats, even as his popularity declines, even as he’s losing the backing of his base, I can’t help but admire Obama’s continued trust in ordinary Americans, and the example he sets for his daughters. He’s still got more courage than any of the dickless wonders on the tea party-controlled right. Happy birthday, Mr. President.
Continue reading …enlarge Credit: Washington Post In 1952, my father was a young sailor in the US Coast Guard, on leave in Washington. Early one morning, he’d gone to a shop to buy cigarettes, stepped outside for a smoke and was startled by the sight of the President of the United States strolling briskly toward him, trailed by a single security man. He tossed the cigarette away, straightened and saluted. “At ease, sailor,” said Truman with a grin, stuck out his hand and gave my father a quick handshake before breezing past and was gone. By 1952, Truman’s popularity was at an all-time low, but that single moment turned my politically apathetic dad into a life-long Democrat, and he measured the worth of every president thereafter by how close they were willing to get to ordinary American citizens. He treasured a newspaper clipping with a photo of me as a small child riding on his shoulders to see over the heads of the crowd during a visit by Lyndon Johnson, with the president smiling and waving and shaking hands as he rode by in an open car – not that long after his predecessor had been shot in one. After eight years of George Bush and his obsession with security that earned him the sobriquet ‘Bubble Boy’ we have a President who has received an average 30 death threats every day since he took office, more than another president in our history, 400% more than Bush , and has been so vilified by the likes of Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent gleefully whipping up lynch mob hysteria that he has real reason to worry about his personal safety. But yet…. when President Obama landed in San Francisco this past February, rather than hurriedly jumping into the safety of his bullet-proof limo, he strolled across the tarmac to greet people eagerly reaching over a chain-link fence to shake his hand, stopping to chat and even receive a kiss from an elderly woman. After what has to be the most contentious month of his presidency thus far, President Obama chose to greet crowds of tourists at the Lincoln Memorial , much to the delight of surprised ordinary people, in order to stress that despite the Republican mania for cutting every public service they can think of rather than raise taxes on corporations and the rich, national parks, monuments and museums are still and will remain open. And just this past Father’s Day, he stopped at Georgetown’s Thomas Sweet Ice Cream shop with his daughters, Sasha and Malia. The Secret Service did arrive first, but simply asked people to just go about their own business – they didn’t clear anyone out, they didn’t stop anyone from chatting with the President while he and his daughters ordered scoops of cookie dough and vanilla ice cream. It’s probably just not possible any longer for a President to take an early morning stroll nearly unchaperoned down a city street and shake hands with an astonished Coast Guard sailor, but Obama comes close. As a progressive liberal, I have to admit I’ve been disappointed lately with Obama’s unfathomable fixation on “bi-partisanship” and these continually disastrous negotiations with an obdurate right-wing whose only objective is to crush Obama’s presidency regardless of the cost to the economy or the American people. But I can’t remember Bush ever getting this close to actual human beings. I don’t think I ever saw him wading into a public crowd, even when they were thoroughly vetted and screened and anyone so much as wearing a subversive t-shirt whisked off to jail , just in case. Even with the death threats, even as his popularity declines, even as he’s losing the backing of his base, I can’t help but admire Obama’s continued trust in ordinary Americans, and the example he sets for his daughters. He’s still got more courage than any of the dickless wonders on the tea party-controlled right. Happy birthday, Mr. President.
Continue reading …Magic Johnson On Retirement: ‘If I Knew What I Know Now, I Wouldn’t Have Retired’ (VIDEO)
August 5, 2011 No Comment
During a sit down with Bill Plashke of the Los Angeles Times, Magic Johnson opened up about his basketball career, and even expressed regret over retiring immediately after he learned that he had contracted the HIV virus. “If I knew what I know now, I wouldn’t have retired,” he said. Johnson’s sudden retirement announcement in the fall of 1991 remains one of the most shocking moments in sports history. During the interview with Plashke, Johnson also expressed the betrayal he felt when some of his fellow players expressed an unwillingness to play against him. “I had just played with these guys at the Olympics,” Johnson said. “Then I get back home and said I’m coming back to the NBA and the same guys that I went to war with in the Olympics came out and said ‘No, I think I’m going to get HIV.’” Johnson played in the NBA for 13 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers and was inducted into the Pro Basketball Hall Of Fame in 2002. Video via the Los Angeles Times. (WATCH VIDEO AT TOP)
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New tax data from the Internal Revenue service shows that in 2009, incomes fell, unemployment claims rose, and the U.S. economy shed nearly two million taxpayers. And of the 235,413 taxpayers who earned $1 million or more in 2009, 1,470 of them paid no taxes. According to the data, the average income for American taxpayers fell to $54,283 — a drop of $3,516, or about 6.1 percent, between 2008 and 2009. Not only that, but the overall number of taxpayers — that is, individuals or married couples filing with the IRS — fell by almost two million. “What you’re seeing is the devastation of the massive loss of jobs and the effects of the real recession on real Americans,” said Ed Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California. The numbers, part of a package analyzing 2009 tax returns that the IRS has just made available, reflect a grim picture of the recent past. Tax returns filed in 2009 largely speak to the state of the economy in 2008 — a time when unemployment ballooned, markets dropped precipitously and the economy languished in recession. The IRS’s data is unlikely to surprise any of the millions of Americans who were out of work in 2008 and 2009. The unemployment rate climbed from 5 percent in April ’08 to a 25-year high in February ’09, and continued to rise for several months, topping double digits that fall with a rate of 10.2 percent. The IRS report shows that unemployment claims rose by nearly 2 million, or about 19 percent, between 2008 and 2009. The amount of unemployment benefits paid in 2009 nearly doubled from the previous year. The number of 1040EZ returns — the simplified tax form for filers who have no dependents, and whose taxable income is less than $100,000 — fell by 23 percent between 2008 and 2009. The decline in 1040EZs represents low-income taxpayers who lost their jobs and couldn’t remain a part of the workforce, Kleinbard told The Huffington Post. “What you’re seeing is people at the bottom rung of the economic ladder being taken off the economic ladder entirely,” Kleinbard said. According to the latest figures from the Department of Labor, U.S. unemployment is currently at 9.2 percent. A new monthly report will be released Friday.
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