See the FULL Refinery29 Fashion Website Blogroll here. While you’re spring cleaning, you should also be thinking about tidying up all your online spaces, too. Let’s be serious–you’re about to declare RSS bankruptcy because you can’t stand seeing that you have 1,000+ Unreads on your Google Reader. It’s time to re-evaluate and edit down to only the sites whose content you consistently need and, most importantly, want to read. After you’ve re-added Refinery29 ;-), make sure to borrow inspiration from our ultimate blogroll. Got a site or blog we didn’t include? We want to know–just tell us in the comments! Columnists Cintra Wilson, Critical Shopper–Cintra’s biting store reviews change the way we think about some of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) shops. We miss her already. Cathy Horyn, On The Runway–We love Horyn’s no-bullshit collection reviews and her ability to put what’s on the runways into real context. Hilary Alexander–Between her interviews, show reviews, and on-point trend reports, Hilary’s Fashion Week coverage is one we obsessively follow. Lynn Yaeger–Lynn Yaeger’s current seasonal column for The Cut is one of our favorites to read, and her meandering, whimsical style brings a dose of brevity we crave during Fashion Week. CerebralNowness–Each day, Nowness offers a custom video, series of photos, article, or other nuggets of amazingness that you can’t afford to miss. Business of Fashion–BoF explores the industry–and all the movers and shakers in it–in a way that’s more about mergers and ideology than models and Ikat prints. Showstudio–Showstudio is the mecca of fashion film, creating content that explores and celebrates the creative processes of fashion. Coolhunting–Coolhunting might just be the arbiters of cool–but they’ll lay out their reasoning for you. Look toward this site if you’re into knowing about the Next Big Thing. Fashion News The Cut–Covering fashion news, industry gossip, and everything else you want to know, this comprehensive site delivers with a hefty side of snark. Fashionista–Fashionista pioneered the recognizable, buzzy sort of fashion blogging we all know and love today, and this one is still a must-bookmark. Fashionologie–Fashionologie has their ears to the ground for late-breaking buzz on the industry, from editrix shuffling to style blogger drama. Racked–Racked and all its local umbrella sites will have you on top of the fashion shopping scene, day and night. Huffington Post–Your one-stop site to survey everything that’s been going on in the fashion sphere that day (including guest posts from yours truly!). Styleite–Styleite covers all bases with up-to-the-minute info on all things fashion, your favorite style A-listers, and the latest super-hot beauty trends. Celebrity StyleRed Carpet Fashion Awards– All things celeb fashion; peek into their closets without the distractions of their tabloid-worthy dirty laundry. Go Fug Yourself–Hilariously witty commentary on failed celeb style, plus more ways to use the word fugly than you could ever imagine. The Vogue Diaries–A mixture of candid and posed red-carpet photos, and a great resource to concoct your own pap-worthy day and night looks. Fashion Tips Who What Wear–Who What Wear promises a daily dose of up-to-date trend reports and styling tips inspired by It Girls, models, and celebs. P.S. I Made This–Whether you’re trying to re-create a runway trend on a dime or just want a little twist that’s not predictable, this DIY site shows you how to reuse materials and create your own accessories and clothing. Beauty Into The Gloss–This site features profiles of fashion insiders and their beauty picks, backstage Fashion Week shots, and a smattering of product reviews. BellaSugar–The beauty blog on the massive Sugar network, this site is heavy on celebrity hair and makeup looks, covers new product launches, throws in some humorous beauty-related slideshows for fun, and has how-to videos, too. Style.com’s Beauty Counter–This blog gets tons of exclusives on new launches and covers the luxury angle with new product, backstage beauty, a bit of celebrity, and some travel. Allure.com–The website-to-print’s “beauty bible,” Allure.com delivers short, resourceful hair and makeup stories, a lot of skincare and anti-aging tips, and covers backstage beauty and trends. Closet Tours The Coveteur–The Coveteur looks like a hybrid of a fashion and interior design magazine, featuring interviews with fashion insiders as well as sneak-peeks of their favorite closet essentials, all beautifully styled and snapped. The Selby–Photographer Todd Selby gives us a more artful, quirky version of Cribs, photographing creative individuals in their personal spaces. Style Like U–Photos and videos of interviews with stylish people based around their closet and homes, revealing the relationship between style and individuality. For the best websites on magazines, models, personal style, street style, college style, men’s fashion, women’s lifestyle, humor and personalities, please keep reading at Refinery29.
Continue reading …NYT Portrays Obama as the Pragmatic ‘Centrist’ and ‘Level-Headed Referee’ of the Budget Crisis
April 11, 2011 No Comment
Obama the centrist? That’s the takeaway from New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny’s Sunday “news analysis,” “ President Adopts a Measured Course to Recapture the Middle .” The original online headline was even more misleading: “President Obama Adopts Centrist Approach.” President Obama opened the week by calling on Democrats to embrace his re-election campaign. He closed it by praising Republicans for forging a compromise to cut spending this year and avert a government shutdown. The juxtaposition made clearer than ever the more centrist governing style Mr. Obama has adopted since his party’s big losses in November and his recapture-the-middle strategy for winning a second term. Actually, Zeleny has considered Obama centrist, or at least a “pragmatist,” from his first year in office, well before the 2010 election. Here's Zeleny on Obama the 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 .” On Sunday Zeleny positioned Obama in the center, at least from the view of the far-left wing of his party: The president may be viewed as liberal by some of his conservative critics, but to the traditional base of the Democratic Party he is often seen as not liberal enough. As details of the budget agreement came to light on Saturday, the first criticism came from the left, with Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois, accusing the president of “keeping the government open on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised.” …. After Republicans found success casting Mr. Obama as a reflexive liberal intent on expanding the reach of government, the president has sought to reintroduce himself as a pragmatic leader more attuned to the political center than to the ideologies of left or right . He has talked about this brand of politics for years, but now his challenge is to employ it. Again, Zeleny had previously taken Obama at his word that he is “a pragmatic leader more attuned to the political center.” If Zeleny truly thought Obama was only masquerading as a centrist and had failed to actually “employ” such politics, why didn't he mention this in his reporting? Mr. Obama not only helped avoid the first government shutdown in 15 years, but also pressured Republicans to remove provisions intended to restrict financing for Planned Parenthood and to limit environmental regulations. In doing so, he assumed the role of a level-headed referee, rising above the squabbling to take ownership of a solution rather than a problem. “He’s the undisputed grownup in the group,” said Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist who has managed Senate and presidential campaigns across the country. “Presidents almost always compare well against Congress.” Zeleny also went on to praise Boehner’s handling of his own caucus. Zeleny’s colleague Peter Baker made the same “pragmatist” claim in his front-page story for the Sunday Week in Review, “ The Vision Thing – Above the fray, the president struggles to define liberalism in an era of debt .” Mr. Obama has always cast himself as a pragmatist and he seems to be feeling his way in the post-midterm election environment.
Continue reading …NYT Portrays Obama as the Pragmatic ‘Centrist’ and ‘Level-Headed Referee’ of the Budget Crisis
April 11, 2011 No CommentObama the centrist? That’s the takeaway from New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny’s Sunday “news analysis,” “ President Adopts a Measured Course to Recapture the Middle .” The original online headline was even more misleading: “President Obama Adopts Centrist Approach.” President Obama opened the week by calling on Democrats to embrace his re-election campaign. He closed it by praising Republicans for forging a compromise to cut spending this year and avert a government shutdown. The juxtaposition made clearer than ever the more centrist governing style Mr. Obama has adopted since his party’s big losses in November and his recapture-the-middle strategy for winning a second term. Actually, Zeleny has considered Obama centrist, or at least a “pragmatist,” from his first year in office, well before the 2010 election. Here's Zeleny on Obama the 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 .” On Sunday Zeleny positioned Obama in the center, at least from the view of the far-left wing of his party: The president may be viewed as liberal by some of his conservative critics, but to the traditional base of the Democratic Party he is often seen as not liberal enough. As details of the budget agreement came to light on Saturday, the first criticism came from the left, with Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois, accusing the president of “keeping the government open on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised.” …. After Republicans found success casting Mr. Obama as a reflexive liberal intent on expanding the reach of government, the president has sought to reintroduce himself as a pragmatic leader more attuned to the political center than to the ideologies of left or right . He has talked about this brand of politics for years, but now his challenge is to employ it. Again, Zeleny had previously taken Obama at his word that he is “a pragmatic leader more attuned to the political center.” If Zeleny truly thought Obama was only masquerading as a centrist and had failed to actually “employ” such politics, why didn't he mention this in his reporting? Mr. Obama not only helped avoid the first government shutdown in 15 years, but also pressured Republicans to remove provisions intended to restrict financing for Planned Parenthood and to limit environmental regulations. In doing so, he assumed the role of a level-headed referee, rising above the squabbling to take ownership of a solution rather than a problem. “He’s the undisputed grownup in the group,” said Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist who has managed Senate and presidential campaigns across the country. “Presidents almost always compare well against Congress.” Zeleny also went on to praise Boehner’s handling of his own caucus. Zeleny’s colleague Peter Baker made the same “pragmatist” claim in his front-page story for the Sunday Week in Review, “ The Vision Thing – Above the fray, the president struggles to define liberalism in an era of debt .” Mr. Obama has always cast himself as a pragmatist and he seems to be feeling his way in the post-midterm election environment.
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US filmmaking great Sidney Lumet dies in NY at 86; Anti-war icon Bob Dylan jams in a Vietnam at peace; Brand doubles up as ‘Hop,’ ‘Arthur’ lead weekend. (Apr. 11)
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‘Red Riding Hood’ star Amanda Seyfried talks about not being able to keep her iconic red cape, whilst director Catherine Hardwicke reveals the raunchy way in which she auditioned Seyfried’s love interests. (Apr. 11)
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Moldovan woman who was sent back home where she was at risk from her traffickers wins ‘groundbreaking’ settlement A woman who was a repeated victim of sex trafficking and suffered severe sexual degradation is to be paid substantial damages by the Home Office after it returned her to Moldova, where she faced grave dangers. The “groundbreaking” settlement was reached on the eve of a high court hearing of her claim against the Home Office for failing to take steps to protect her and for sending her back to Moldova despite substantial grounds to believe she was at risk from her traffickers. The woman, who cannot be named because she and her family are still at risk of retribution by her traffickers, was kidnapped at the age of 14 and then continually trafficked and re-trafficked for forced prostitution in Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Israel and Britain until she was 21. Her solicitor, Harriet Wistrich of Birnberg Peirce and Partners, said she was repeatedly beaten, raped and threatened with death, and was treated as a slave. She was arrested by police and immigration officers in a brothel in London in 2003, but instead of rescuing her they charged her with possessing false documents, which had been provided by her traffickers. She was imprisoned for three months before being sent back to Moldova through a fast-track immigration process. Her trafficker was neither investigated nor arrested but was allowed to visit her in Holloway prison and Oakington detention centre, where he posed as her boyfriend, in order to intimidate her. Wistrich said the woman was found by her trafficker when she got back to Moldova and was savagely ill-treated before being trafficked back into prostitution for a further two years. In 2007 she was arrested again in Britain and held at Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre, but was eventually referred to the Poppy project, which identified her as a victim of sex trafficking and provided her with the necessary support to make an asylum claim. She has since been granted refugee status in recognition that the Moldovan authorities could not offer her adequate protection against her traffickers. Wistrich said the undisclosed “substantial damages” followed the “groundbreaking” attempt to sue the Home Office for its failure to protect her. She said she hoped immigration authorities would learn from the experience so that other trafficked women would be treated as victims instead of criminals and rescued rather than handed back to their traffickers to be raped and ill-treated. Mrs Justice Cox, who approved the confidential settlement, said the woman had been the repeated victim of sex trafficking over a long period of time, during which she had suffered severe sexual degradation resulting in psychiatric injury. She remained at significant risk of serious harm because the police had not been able to catch her traffickers. A spokeswoman for the Poppy project said it hoped the case would highlight the continuing need to identify and protect victims, “especially as we are seeing an increasing number of trafficking victims detained and given removal directions”. The immigration minister, Damian Green, said it was a very disturbing case and showed why the approach to human trafficking had changed significantly since 2003. The UK had introduced a mechanism to identify and refer victims of trafficking and established mandatory training for all frontline immigration staff, he said. Immigration and asylum Moldova Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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Oxford accuses PM of using inaccurate and misleading figures after he claims one black student was admitted last year David Cameron has clashed with Oxford University over its numbers of black students, after he said it was “disgraceful” that only one black student began studying at the university last year. Speaking at a PM Direct event in North Yorkshire, he said: “I saw figures the other day that showed that only one black person went to Oxford last year. I think that is disgraceful. We have got to do better than that.” But Oxford accused Cameron of quoting an “inaccurate and highly misleading” figure. Oxford’s admissions figures for 2009 show that just one “black Caribbean” candidate was accepted for undergraduate study, out of 27 black students in that year’s intake. Last autumn, seven black Caribbean candidates were accepted and there was a total of 20 black students in this year’s intake. The success rate for black candidates at Oxford remains lower than white candidates. In part, Oxford blames this on the fact that black candidates are more likely to apply for over-subscribed subjects, such as medicine. Figures obtained by the Labour MP David Lammy last year showed that more than 20 Oxbridge colleges made no offers to black candidates for undergraduate courses in 2009. One college had not admitted a black student in five years . An Oxford University spokeswoman said: “The figure quoted by the prime minister is incorrect and highly misleading – it only refers to UK undergraduates of black Caribbean origin for a single year of entry. “In that year a full 22% of Oxford’s total student population came from ethnic minority backgrounds.” Oxford’s data showed that the next largest ethnic group after white students was students with an Indian background, of whom 77 were admitted. A total of 2,653 students were accepted for undergraduate study in 2009, of whom 2,316 were defined as white. Cameron was taking part in a 40-minute question-and-answer session with employees of the tea and coffee merchants Taylors of Harrogate. He was asked about tuition fees and the effect they might have on deterring students from poorer homes. He said that universities had to keep to strict rules if they wanted to charge the maximum fees and argued that the country’s top institutions needed to attract students from poorer backgrounds. But he added that the top universities did not have a good record when it came to admitting students from state schools, saying the numbers had gone down in the past 20 years. “That is a terrible record,” he told the audience. This statement was also attacked by the Russell Group of leading universities, which said the proportion of state-educated pupils at its institutions had grown by 9% since 1997. Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, said: “This rate of growth exceeds the growth in the proportion of state school students across all UK universities, which was 8.6% in the same period.” However, 10 of the 16 English Russell Group universities are far below their benchmarks for state school access, the latest figures show. The benchmark reflects the proportion of pupils nationally who achieve the right entry qualifications. At Oxford, 54.3% of the undergraduate intake in 2009 went to state schools or colleges, compared with a benchmark of 70.2%. At Cambridge, 59.3% were state-educated, against a 70.4% benchmark. University of Oxford David Cameron Race issues Higher education Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk
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NASA is retiring the space shuttle, some 30 years after the first orbiter took to the heavens. Now, the AP’s Lee Powell says the familiar black-and-white crafts are becoming sought-after museum pieces. (April 11)
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Veiled women were among a group protesting against the French ban on face covering in public that took effect Monday. Police said at least two were detained, but complained the new law would be tough to enforce. (11 April 2011)
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When ASUS dumped the source code for its 10.1-inch, Honeycomb powered Transformer tablet online we knew it was only a matter of time before someone cracked it open and bent it to their will. Before it hit store shelves here in the U.S. MoDaCo founder Paul O’Brien managed to get his hands on one of the upcoming Android devices and, with a little help from Twitter user BumbleDroid, gained root access to the tablet. So, you’ll still have to hang out for a bit before getting yours, but at least when it lands you won’t have to wait to get your hack on. [Thanks, Alessandro] Transformer rooted before ASUS can get it out the door originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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