One Pennsylvania restauranteur has pulled the car over and told the kids to just get out. A local ABC affiliate reported that Mike Vuick, owner of McDain’s in Monroeville, Pa., sent this email to his customers letting them know that kidlets would soon be non grata: “Beginning July 16, 2011, McDain’s Restaurant will no longer
Continue reading …It’s about as far away from Christmas as we can get, but much of the South and Midwest might feel like they’re roasting on an open fire. Heat advisories and warnings were issued yesterday for 17 states, reports the AP; that number increased to 22 states in the lower 48…
Continue reading …
Climate Reality Project aims to expose reality of global warming crisis and kicks off with a 24-hour live streamed event It should almost be called Inconvenient Truth 2.0. Five years after Al Gore launched his original documentary project, the former vice-president returned on Tuesday with a new campaign aimed at exposing the full scale of the climate crisis. Gore’s Climate Reality project announced it would kick off with a 24-hour live streamed event on 14 September. The day’s events will include a new multimedia presentation by Gore that will “connect the dots” between extreme weather events and climate change, a statement said. The campaign represents a modest comeback for Gore who has reduced his public profile on climate action in the past few years – probably out of consideration for the political consequences to his fellow Democrat Barack Obama. It is being launched four years after Inconvenient Truth, based on Gore’s climate change slide-show, won an Oscar for best documentary . The project made Gore the most visible advocate for action on climate change in the US – but it also made him an even greater target for the oil and coal lobby and Republicans. Republicans attacked Gore’s calls for climate action as a symbol of government excess. In recent years, the new conservative majority in the house of representatives has gone even further, casting almost any sort of environmental issue – including even a move to energy-saving bulbs – as an assault on personal freedom. But Gore came back into the spotlight last month in an essay in Rolling Stone in which he also accused Obama of failing to fight hard enough for climate action. Tuesday’s announcement, which echoed some of the themes in Gore’s Rolling Stone piece, suggests the former vice-president thinks the time has come for a broader fightback. “As the impacts of climate change are growing more prevalent, so is the resistance to finding the truth and implementing solutions. Just like the tobacco companies that spent decades in denial that smoking causes cancer, oil and coal companies are determined to sow denial and confusion about the science of climate change, ignore its impacts, and create apathy among our leaders,” the release said. “This event is the first step in a larger, multifaceted campaign to tell the truth about the climate crisis and reject the misinformation we hear every day.” Gore gave further details of the project in an interview with the climate blogger Joe Romm, saying the event would feature a new 30-minute slideshow with video on extreme weather events. Gore will host the event from New York City, but new content will be added to the slide show for the 24 locations used in each time zone. “Each site where a presentation originates will have basically the same 30-minute slide show, but with slides used in each time zone that illustrate particular impacts and particular efforts towards solutions at the venue representing than that time zone. And then the second 30 minutes of each hour will include a panel discussion focused on the climate crisis and the solutions to it from the perspective of leaders and scientists and others in that particular location. So it will be a 24-hour event,” he told Romm. Climate change Al Gore Activism Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Weeks of fierce fighting sees troops consolidate positions less than 100 miles from the capital, Tripoli A flattened lamp-post, two neat rows of bullets and a no-left-turn sign lying on the tarmac road mark the frontline in Libya’s western mountains. Nearby are seven young men, leaning against a battle-scarred building they say was once a guardhouse for Italian soldiers during the second world war. Another sits on a rock, gazing into the desert of no man’s land in search of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, said to be little more than a mile away. The advance in the Nafusa mountains has raised hopes of a significant breakthrough for rebels striving to reach Tripoli and topple Gaddafi. Whereas the battlefields in eastern Libya have reached a virtual stalemate, rebel soldiers have seized 25 miles of this arid, hot, rocky terrain in recent weeks, putting government troops on the defensive. But it is a hard campaign, an attritional struggle unlikely to meet Nato’s timetable for an end to the war, especially with a further slowdown expected for Ramadan next month. The rebels are forced to consolidate their incrementalgains before they can think about moving forward. The young men guarding the frontline post at Qawalish said Gaddafi’s troops tried to retake it two days ago and subject them to a nightly bombardment of Grad rockets, peaking from 11.30pm to 4am. “We are not scared,” said a 21-year-old, who gave his name as Ahmed, half-an-hour after another rocket had thudded into the earth nearby. “We are OK, we just take these things, we get used to it. It’s the Gaddafi army who’s afraid.” Sitting on a wooden crate of ammunition and wearing a Valencia football shirt, army trousers and trainers, Ahmed said he was risking his life for two reasons: “Democracy. Freedom.” Qawalish fell to the rebels a week ago as, mile by mile, they gradually push from west to east along the mountain ridge. On the road to the frontline the Guardian saw a series of ghost towns which were home to thousands of residents during peacetime. There were wrecked shop fronts and petrol stations, abandoned mosques, concrete buildings blackened by fire, cars blown upside down and tanks and rocket launchers apparently destroyed by Nato air strikes. Government soldiers who were not killed or captured during these battles appeared to have fled, leaving a trail of abandoned uniforms, boots and weapons still visible in the shade of trees where they once camped. Along roads the rebels used to move in on Qawalish, government forces planted 240 anti-personnel mines and 72 anti-tank mines, say Human Rights
Continue reading …
Astronauts stepped out for the last spacewalk of NASA’s shuttle era. Space station astronauts Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan Jr. ventured out nearly 250 miles above Earth Tuesday. (July 12)
Continue reading …Obama ‘Repositioning’ as ‘Pragmatic Centrist’…But NYT Has Claimed for Years He Already Is
July 12, 2011 No CommentTuesday’s off-lead New York Times story by Jackie Calmes from Washington claims Obama is now grasping centrism as a weapon in the budget battle. So why has the Times been telling us he has always been a centrist? “ Obama Grasping Centrist Banner In Debt Impasse – Talks Remain Stalled – President Urges Biggest Deal Possible Despite G.O.P. Skepticism .” For the last three years we’ve been told by the Times and the rest of the media Obama was in fact a “pragmatic” centrist, unlike the conservative George W. Bush. Why would Obama have to “reposition” himself to ground he already occupied? President Obama made no apparent headway on Monday in his attempt to forge a crisis-averting budget deal, but he put on full display his effort to position himself as a pragmatic centrist willing to confront both parties and address intractable problems. At a news conference preceding the latest round of debt-reduction talks with Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders, Mr. Obama said he would not accept a temporary agreement to kick the problem down the road a few weeks or months. He said that he was willing to take the heat from his own party to move beyond entrenched ideological positions and that Republicans should do the same. And he continued to insist on “the biggest deal possible,” saying that now is the best opportunity for the nation to address its long-term fiscal challenges. Republicans dismissed his performance as political theater. But Mr. Obama’s remarks appeared to be aimed at independent voters as well as at Congressional leaders, and stood in contrast to the Republican focus on the party’s conservative base, both in the budget showdown and in presidential politics. Mr. Obama’s remarks were among the clearest expressions yet of a repositioning effort that has been under way since the midterm elections last November, when Republicans captured the House and made inroads in the Senate. Seeking to shed the image of big-government liberal that Republicans used effectively against him last year , he has made or offered policy compromises on an array of issues and cast himself in the role of the adult referee for both parties’ gamesmanship, or the parent of stubborn children. Notice the Times never admits Obama ever actually governed like a big-spending liberal with Obama-care and the enormous “stimulus” spending, merely that Republicans had successfully portrayed him that way. Back issues of the Times are littered with claims Obama was governing as a centrist or moderate: Reporter Jeff Zeleny on April 10 wrote a story under the online headline: “President Obama Adopts Centrist Approach.” Zeleny also considered Obama a “pragmatist” in December 2009: “He delivered a mix of realism and idealism…. he continued a pattern evident throughout his public career of favoring pragmatism over absolutes .” An April 19, 2009 story by David Herszenhorn and Jackie Calmes claimed: “In some of his earliest skirmishes, Mr. Obama eventually chose pragmatism over fisticuffs…. Pragmatism, [his aides] add, is an Obama hallmark, and among the changes he promised — and has delivered — is a break from his predecessor's often uncompromising style .” Here’s reporter Jodi Kantor on Obama the law professor , May 3, 2009: “Former students and colleagues describe Mr. Obama as a minimalist (skeptical of court-led efforts at social change) and a structuralist (interested in how the law metes out power in society). And more than anything else, he is a pragmatist who urged those around him to be more keenly attuned to the real-life impact of decisions.”
Continue reading …
TV Show Promo of the Day: 20 years after the final episode of the long-running primetime soap opera Dallas aired on CBS, TNT has announced the greenlighting of an updated version centered around the misadventures of J.R.’s son John Ross, and Bobby’s adopted son Christopher. The show, which is scheduled to premiere next summer, will see many of the original cast members reprising their roles alongside… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Daily What Discovery Date : 12/07/2011 15:44 Number of articles : 5
Continue reading …
WikiLeaks founder’s counsel claims in high court that Swedish judges were misled about sexual assault and rape allegations The European arrest warrant issued for the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is invalid, the high court was told on Tuesday, because of significant discrepancies between its allegations of sexual assault and rape and the testimonies of two women he allegedly had sex with. The warrant details four allegations of unlawful coercion, sexual molestation and rape, relating to encounters between Assange and two Swedish women while on a trip to Stockholm last August. But Ben Emmerson QC, for Assange, said the warrant was a misinterpretation of the evidence and it was “surprising and disturbing” that Swedish district judges who requested Assange’s extradition had been misled. Emmerson was opening the latest step in the Australian’s attempt to avoid being sent to Sweden for questioning and possible charges which Assange has said he fears could pave the way for him to be further extradited to the US. There he could face charges relating to the leak of hundreds of thousands of classified government documents through WikiLeaks. An earlier appeal failed and Assange has appointed a new legal team which is taking a more conciliatory approach. Emmerson told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ousely that there was no evidence about there being a lack of consent in the encounters as appeared to be suggested in the wording of the arrest warrant. He said three of the allegations would not amount to criminal offences under English law. Emmerson said: “The senior district judge found that those factual allegations would establish dual criminality on the basis that lack of consent, and lack of reasonable belief in consent, may properly be inferred from the conduct described, particularly the references to ‘violence’ and a ‘design’ to ‘violate sexual integrity’. However, that description of conduct is not accurate. The arrest warrant misstates the conduct and is, by that reason alone, an invalid warrant.” Emmerson examined the witness testimonies of the encounters in graphic detail. Referring to evidence of an encounter on the night of 13 August given by a woman known as AA who was hosting Assange at her apartment, Emmerson said: “The appellant’s physical advances were initially welcomed but then it felt awkward since he was ‘rough and impatient’… they lay down in bed. AA was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her … AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom … she did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration … AA tried several times to reach for a condom which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and try to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.” But, Emmerson said, crucially there was no lack of consent sufficient for the unlawful coercion allegation, because “after a while Assange asked what AA was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together. AA told him that she wanted him to put a condom on before he entered her. Assange let go of AA’s arms and put on a condom which AA found.” Emmerson told the court the case did not hinge on whether Assange accepted this version of events and others relating to other incidents because there were no charges against him, but whether the arrest warrant in connection with them was valid on “strict and narrow” legal grounds. As if to illustrate the change of strategy by Assange’s new legal team, Emmerson said: “Nothing I say should be taken as denigrating the complainant, the genuineness of their feelings of regret, to trivialise their experience or to challenge whether they felt Assange’s conduct was disrespectful, discourteous, disturbing or even pushing at the boundaries of what they felt comfortable with.” Assange was in court with supporters including Vaughan Smith, the founder of the Frontline Club who is hosting his house arrest at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, and John Pilger, the veteran investigative journalist. Assange arrived at about 9.15am, saying nothing to questions as he moved at a snail’s pace through a tight scrum of photographers. He was asked if he was looking forward to his latest day in court and whether he would take the case to the supreme court if he lost over the next two days. He said nothing. By the court railings, small groups of protesters gathered, including one carrying a banner saying: “Free Assange! Free Manning! End the wars.” Julian Assange WikiLeaks Rape Sweden Europe Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Subpoena from 3M would force defence secretary Liam Fox to answer claim under oath in US court Liam Fox, the defence secretary, may be forced to give evidence in a blackmail trial in the United States, the Guardian has learnt. The “unprecedented” legal action could make Fox the first serving British cabinet minister to give evidence in a serious legal case in America. The Guardian understands that US conglomerate 3M is preparing to serve Fox with a subpoena demanding that he gives evidence over a claim that he was aware of a threat to interfere with the award of a knighthood to 3M’s British-born chief executive. It has been alleged that a private equity partner of the Ministry of Defence demanded that 3M hand over $30m (£18.5m) or risk the embarrassment of the government interfering with the knighthood award to George Buckley, 3M’s chief executive. It has been alleged that Fox was party to a conversation about the alleged suggestion. A 3M subpoena would force Fox to answer the claim under oath. An email to the private equity company from 3M’s lawyers, seen by the Guardian, said: “We request that you accept subpoenas on [Fox's] behalf for the production of documents and deposition upon oral testimony.” 3M’s lawyers have yet to serve a subpoena on Fox. Harvey Boulter, chief executive of Porton Capital, which worked with the government to develop innovative technology to help combat MRSA, has been accused of blackmail and served with legal papers. Boulter and Porton Capital deny the claim. According to 3M’s lawyers, Boulter told them that if an earlier legal battle over the MRSA technology was not settled out of court he would use his political influence to interfere with Buckley’s recently awarded knighthood. The blackmail case is built on emails Boulter sent to 3M’s lawyers last month. “As a result of my meeting [with Fox] you ought to understand that David Cameron’s cabinet might very shortly be discussing the rather embarrassing situation of George [Buckley]‘s knighthood. It was discussed today,” Boulter said in one of the emails. “Governments are big and sometimes decisions in one part are not well co-ordinated.” Bill Brewer, 3M’s lawyer, said: “We are committed to determine who aided, abetted or participated with Boulter in any manner relative to the demands that were made to 3M during the weekend of 18 June.” The MoD has denied that Fox discussed the continuing legal case or Buckley’s knighthood. However, in a new statement, Boulter has again claimed that he and Fox discussed the litigation. The MoD declined to issue a fresh statement. Mark Stephens, a high-profile media lawyer with London firm Finers Stephens Innocent, said: “Calling a serving British cabinet ministers to give evidence is pretty unprecedented.” Stephens said that if the subpoena is served Fox would be pushed to give evidence in America or speak to US lawyers in a British court. Private equity Liam Fox United States Defence policy Rupert Neate guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Forget about walking. Visitors get to tour Miami’s art hub in search of the best graffiti, all while riding a Vespa. The two-hour tour is but a taste of the graffiti art scene in Wynwood Arts District, part of Miami’s emerging arts scene. (July 12)
Continue reading …