Elizabeth Taylor’s Distichiasis: Actress’ Double Eyelash Genetic Mutation Revealed
March 31, 2011 No Comment
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Huffington Post Refuses to Address Maher’s Contributor Status After Vulgar Attacks on Palin
March 31, 2011 No Comment
Following its controversial decision to ban Andrew Breitbart from publishing articles at its front page, the Huffington Post has found itself in quite a pickle now that one of its regular contributors, comedian Bill Maher, made disgustingly vulgar references to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. As NewsBusters previously reported , Breitbart made some comments about President Obama's former green czar Van Jones that precipitated the following hypocritical statement from HuffPo spokesman Mario Ruiz last Thursday (readers are warned of vulgar content in full article): The Huffington Post is committed to fostering a lively and often provocative debate about the issues of the day and encourages a wide range of voices from all perspectives to participate. Andrew Brietbart’s [sic] false ad hominem attack on Van Jones in The Daily Caller violates the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched. As a result, we will no longer feature his posts on the front page. He is welcome to continue publishing his work on HuffPost provided it adheres to our editorial guidelines, as the two posts he published on HuffPost did — guidelines that include a strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks. Our decision today recognizes that placing posts on the front page is an editorial call that elevates some posts over others, and is an indication of how seriously we take these judgment calls. Just what were Breitbart's supposedly offensive comments ? Van Jones is a commie punk. He was exposed to a great extent because of the hard journalism that was done at my website, that exposed him as a guy who was an unvetted liability to the Obama administration. He was forced to step down because of my journalistic work. I believe that Van Jones, and Color of Change, and ACORN poison the black community with propaganda that divides this country. Van Jones is a human toxin, ACORN was a human toxin. These are poisonous, venomous forces within the American experience. I will expose them like the cockroaches that they are. By contrast, Maher on March 18 called Palin a “twat” and on March 27 called her a “cunt.” Which is worse: calling a man a “commie punk” or a woman a “cunt”? One would certainly think the latter, yet HuffPo has yet to comment. With this in mind, I sent co-founder Arianna Huffington and editor Roy Sekoff the following email message Tuesday: Ms. Huffington and Mr. Sekoff: Noel Sheppard here from NewsBusters. I'm wondering if Bill Maher calling former Alaska governor Sarah Palin a “twat” and a “cunt” violates the Huffington Post's “tenets of debate and civil discourse” that Mario Ruiz noted in his statement concerning Andrew Breitbart's banning from your front page. One would think such vulgar slurs are far worse than anything Breitbart said to the Daily Caller concerning Van Jones. Is Maher going to be banned from your front page? When are you planning on notifying your readers of this decision, and if not, why not? Noel Sheppard/NewsBusters.org After a number of hours went by without a response, I sent another one to Huffington and Sekoff but separately this time: Ms. Huffington, This is Noel Sheppard, the Associate Editor of NewsBusters trying for the second time to get a comment from you regarding Bill Maher being a front page contributor to the Huffington Post. As you know, in the past twelve days, Maher has called former Alaska governor Sarah Palin a “twat” and a “cunt.” Your Mario Ruiz in his statement concerning Andrew Breitbart’s banning from the Post’s front page said Breitbart’s comments in the Daily Caller about Van Jones had violated the “tenets of debate and civil discourse.” We at NewsBusters would like an explanation as to why Maher’s attacks on Palin aren’t at least as bad as Breitbart’s comments regarding Jones. As we see Maher’s offense as far worse, given the Post’s rules, we would like to know either why you disagree or when Maher is going to be banned from your front page. We would like a response concerning this matter at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Noel Sheppard/NewsBusters.org Having still not received a response, on Wednesday morning I sent a roughly similar version of the following to HuffPo reporters Jason Linkins, Sam Stein, and the spokesman that issued the Breitbart statement, Mario Ruiz: Mr. Ruiz, This is Noel Sheppard, the Associate Editor of NewsBusters trying to get a comment from you regarding Bill Maher being a front page contributor to the Huffington Post. As you know, in the past twelve days, Maher has called former Alaska governor Sarah Palin a “twat” and a “cunt.” In your statement concerning Andrew Breitbart’s banning from the Post’s front page, you said Breitbart’s comments about Van Jones in the Daily Caller violated the “tenets of debate and civil discourse.” We at NewsBusters would like an explanation as to why Maher’s attacks on Palin aren’t at least as bad as Breitbart’s comments regarding Jones. As we see Maher’s offense as far worse, given the Post’s rules, we would like to know either why you disagree or when Maher is going to be banned from your front page. We would like a response concerning this matter at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Noel Sheppard/NewsBusters.org Later in the day Wednesday, having only received a response from Linkins who advised me to contact Ruiz, I sent the following to the entire group: Arianna Huffington et al, I have been trying for several days to get an answer concerning the Huffington Post’s position on Bill Maher as a contributor given his recent vulgar attacks on Sarah Palin and your decision to ban Andrew Breitbart from your front page due to comments he made regarding Van Jones. To date, no one has responded. NewsBusters is going to be running a piece concerning this matter Thursday and would like an opinion about it from someone within your organization. If I don’t hear back, we have no choice but to run the piece without your input while advising our readers of your silence. Sincerely, Noel Sheppard/NewsBusters.org Sadly, as of 11:00 AM, I still have no response, not even from HuffPo spokesman Ruiz. Is this the kind of transparency we can expect from AOL/Huffington Post in the future? Of course, I realize Arianna et al are in a very tough spot. They made what was clearly an absurd statement about “tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched” when everyone in the industry knows their website is filled with hateful rhetoric and ad hominem attacks against conservatives on almost a daily basis. The laughter at Ruiz's statement throughout the blogosphere on both sides of the aisle was deafening. Complicating matters further was one of their popular contributors the day after Breitbart was canned making a vulgar slur at Palin and another one nine days later. As most people know, Huffington has been friends with Maher for years. She was a regular guest on his Comedy Central program “Politically Incorrect” appearing in an ongoing gag with Al Franken called “Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows.” Maybe more importantly, Maher is a darling of the Left. Would Huffington dare do anything to him like she did to Breitbart? Unfortunately, not doing so totally invalidates the reason given by Ruiz for Breitbart's demotion. No wonder I didn't get any replies to my email messages as I'm sure these folks hope this matter is going to just go away as quickly as possible – but they shouldn't count on it. Maher's vitriolic attacks have been in the sights of writers on both sides of the aisle for years. The folks at HuffPo should know that any time one of his comments crosses the “tenets of debate and civil discourse” line they have set for their contributors, the blogosphere will be asking why he's still a front page contributor at their website. More importantly, their continued silence regarding this glaring hypocrisy will act to reduce whatever journalistic integrity and credibility they claim to strive for potentially leading AOL and its shareholders to seriously question their investment.
Continue reading …Kiefer Sutherland is starring in a new series but you won’t find it on traditional TV. The 24 star plays a hit man trying to save his soul in The Confession , an online serial that made its debut on Hulu this week, reports the Independent . The series—made up of…
Continue reading …The real and stage names of thousands of current and former porn film workers has been leaked online. The data has been posted on a WikiLeaks-style site and was apparently obtained from the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM), a California clinic that conducts lab tests for sexually transmitted diseases…
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LRHFarm says: Though a promising study read the details and there research becomes weak. The USDA Organic Standards are… http://fb.me/S6y0nJvR
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With the critics savaging Sucker Punch, it’s possible for Warner Bros to promote Christopher Nolan, demote Zack Snyder and still use his mainly visual gifts Can one film ruin a career? Maybe it can, if that film is Sucker Punch. Speculation has been rife this week that Zack Snyder might find himself out of the Superman hotseat due to the critical drubbing and poor US box-office bow for his salacious new action fantasy. MTV News even quotes a number of critics willing to bet their last greenback that the US film-maker is about to be unceremoniously dumped in favour of another director. At first glance, this all seems a bit farfetched. Snyder was only handed the job of reviving the Man of Steel in October, and Warner Bros executives will rest comfortable in the knowledge that they have producer Christopher Nolan above him in the film-making hierarchy as the project’s “godfather”. On the other hand, anyone who has seen Sucker Punch will easily be able to understand why it might prove to be the director’s kryptonite. Horribly misconceived, puerile, distasteful and hugely wasteful of the talent involved, Snyder’s latest release is Coyote Ugly for the fanboy brigade – or Girl, Interrupted , had Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie been forced to spend the entire film shooting things while tarted up to the nines in stockings and suspenders. Quite what Snyder was thinking is anyone’s guess, but one can only assume he was given free reign to indulge his cinematic vision following the relative box-office successes of 300 and Watchmen (and promptly fluffed his lines). Snyder’s vision, such as it is, seems to be that of a 15-year-old video-game junkie. Sucker Punch is all hotpants and uzis, scantily clad babes blowing the bejesus out of hordes of zombie Nazi troopers and bazookaing dragons and giant robots to kingdom come. It’s even compartmentalised into game-style, task-orientated segments which must be completed to allow our high-kicking heroines to escape the nuthouse-cum-whorehouse where they have been incarcerated. One can only imagine somebody somewhere thought this might appeal to adolescent males in the same way the similarly vacuous Twilight movies have drooling teenage girls flocking to cinemas. I am pleased to report that somebody somewhere got it very wrong indeed. I am less pleased to admit that, earlier this year, I thought Sucker Punch might just be one of this year’s fantasy highlights, based on Snyder’s excellent efforts on Watchmen. If he does remain in charge of Superman, we can only hope that results will improve when he is once again working from somebody else’s screenplay, which in the latter film’s case is a much-hyped David S Goyer /Nolan creation. The other big news this week on a Warner/DC tip (the studio owns the screen rights to all the comic book publisher’s major titles) is head honcho Jeff Robinov’s LA Times interview , in which he reveals two things. Firstly, Nolan will be in charge of rebooting Batman in a producer’s role once he has finished work on The Dark Knight Rises, and secondly, there are proposals in the works to revive the long-awaited (albeit with some degree of trepidation) plan for a Justice League movie, uniting the caped crusader with Superman, Wonder Woman and other characters in one feature. What this means is that Warner are basically counting on Nolan to oversee both their major superhero “franchises” for the foreseable future. What it does not mean, apparently, is that the British film-maker will also be taking charge of a Justice League film. Speaking on the red carpet at the London premiere of Sucker Punch, Snyder said there were no plans to link his iteration of Superman or either Nolan version of Batman (either the current series or the planned post- Dark Knight Rises reboot) with Justice League. “It doesn’t [connect],” Snyder said. “Like what Chris Nolan is doing and what I’m doing with Superman, what they’ll do with Justice League will be its own thing with its own Batman and own Superman. We’ll be over here with our movie and they’ll kind of get to do it twice, which is kind of cool.” Except, of course, that it isn’t. The most recent attempt to bring Justice League to the big screen failed precisely because executives feared putting parallel iterations of Batman and Superman on the screen at the same time. Why they have changed their minds now, beyond the potential for generating extra revenue, is somewhat open to question. Without tie-ins to the more grown-up solo series (the Snyder-Nolan Superman is being pitched as a more realistic take than previous versions, in line with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight ), Justice League looks likely to be a rather insipid affair, since none of its main protagonists will have more than a small portion of screen time to establish themselves. So here’s a solution: give Snyder Justice League. The film-maker has an unquestionable gift for visual flourishes which might just paper over the cracks of what would likely be a prosaic storyline, even if it didn’t quite work for Sucker Punch. Then give Superman to someone else, or better still hold off bringing the Man of Steel back to the big screen until Nolan himself has the time and inclination to take on the project as director. Mr Robinov, I’ll expect my cheque in the next post. Christopher Nolan Science fiction and fantasy Comics and graphic novels Film adaptations Ben Child guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The needs of vulnerable disabled people are being sidelined by overstretched services, and families such as ours are fracturing My husband and I are currently facing one of the most difficult decisions of our lives. Do we place our disabled daughter in residential care? Parenting a child with any disability is extremely tough. We have to face many hurdles, from the lack of adequate respite provision to verbal abuse on the streets. Social exclusion also adds to the pressure on family life. Life can be extraordinarily bleak. Autism, learning disability and epilepsy are Emily’s diagnoses. Her level of care needs are high and her medical needs are in a fluid state as we try to achieve the correct epilepsy medication for her. We are currently wading through the quagmire of side-effects, but for us it is her violence that takes the greatest toll. The lack of a tangible sign of her disability – such as a wheelchair – have led many people in public to wrongly conclude that she is a badly parented troublemaker. She is noisy and she draws the eye, as she often wears a pair of pink earmuffs to protect her ears from crying babies. “Look at that, ” a teenage boy once said, spotting Emily in a shopping centre and pointing her out to his mates. That phrase is branded into my memory. “That” is a person. My daughter. I made this point to the young man responsible. Admittedly when I pointed out the error of his ways I may not have done so as calmly as I’m doing now, but I feel I covered the basics. I’ve fought for her and loved her and cried for her for longer than I can remember, but I find we are now torn between what Emily wants and what we need, because her violence – so rooted in her anxiety and need to control her environment – has brought us to crisis point. Her shouting led to slapping, and that led to punching. How long before she headbutts one of us? Or worse? Her world at home is dovetailed to her needs, but she will always have to live to the agenda of others so am I, by facilitating this, actually doing her a disservice? At 14, is she simply demonstrating extreme teenage rebellion – albeit one which is now dangerous? Stranger danger, the bogeyman of the terrified modern parent, is never far from our minds because abuse of disabled people in all forms outside their homes is not just the stuff of nightmares . We are battling to get the Children with Disabilities team to listen, to give us more than platitudes. We have asked for help and were given emergency respite but the service, accessed by Emily for the last seven years, is now apparently no longer an option. There are now no emergency respite beds at respite units in Shropshire. If we need it again, they will send her to a foster family. Many parents of disabled children who battle daily with overstretched support services, the bullying of their children, and meetings that fail to deliver meaningful support, end up divorcing. Or they become so entrenched in caring responsibilities that they believe they alone can give their child what they need. One example of this is the case of Stephania Wolf , whose disabled daughter, Sam, apparently starved to death after Stephania died. Stephania had reportedly turned down offers of support, yet neighbours say that she put a “Help” sign on the roof of her house in the months before they died. Ultimately, they were both failed. Other parents who lack support have lost hope, as Fiona Pilkington did . She killed herself and her disabled 18-year-old daughter in 2007, after years of abuse from youths who waited outside her house. Services were sparse then, when there was money to be spent, let alone now. My fear is that, in a time of recession, the very real needs of vulnerable people and their families are being sidelined. How can we let that happen? In 2007, disability charity Scope ran their Time to Get Equal week. The survey they commissioned was very revealing in finding that “over a quarter of respondents would pay £1 a week extra council tax to ensure disabled people in their area could get the support they need – and nearly one in 10 people would pay an extra £5 a week or more.” I wonder if that still holds true today. Our family, like many others in a similar situation, is fracturing. This is the reality. To make this terrifying decision takes energy, clarity and time. Yet we are at crisis point. They say you should never make important decisions when you’re upset. Wise words indeed. Long-term care Disability Autism Health Social care Public sector cuts Public services policy Nicola Clark guardian.co.uk
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Never mind the cringe-inducing advertising , ASUS has given us a much better reason to care about its Tegra 2-toting Eee Pad Transformer : a $400 price. The 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet (with 1280 x 800 resolution on an IPS display) has quickly moved from its Taiwanese release , through yesterday’s UK pricing announcement, to today showing up at Best Buy in the US, so we suspect its global shipping can’t be far off at all. With a sticker that’s a clear $99 less than the cheapest iPad and a good deal more affordable than its Android competition like the Xoom and G-Slate , the Transformer could yet take the tablet world by storm. Do take note that the keyboard dock that inspires this slate’s name is an optional extra, but given the starting price, the whole package might still end up less than what others will ask. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer shows up at Best Buy for $400 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …President Obama made light of his increasingly controversial Nobel Peace Prize during a speech on energy. He praised the efforts of Energy Secretary Steven Chu before quipping “Chu’s the right guy to do this, he’s got a Nobel prize in physics—he actually deserved his Nobel prize,” reports Mediaite. On…
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