• Oscar Time runner-up for Gold Cup winner Waley-Cohen • Race marred by two fatalities as fences are missed out Ballabriggs at 16-1 gave the new generation of the McCain family victory in a race which will always be associated with their name when grinding out success in a bruising renewal of the John Smith’s Grand National. Donald McCain, whose father trained Red Rum to win the race three times, successes which helped elevate the contest into a national institution, enjoyed his first victory in the world’s most famous jumps race since taking over the licence from his father in 2006. But the race came not without its share of unwanted controversy, with two horses killed and the winning horse heading straight back to the racecourse stables after the race after showing signs of dehydration after the winning post. Instead it was left to jockey Jason Maguire to take the cheers of the sell-out crowd as he walked back to the winner’s enclosure with Ballabriggs left to enjoy being splashed in buckets of cold water, which were thankfully in ready supply given the unseasonal high temperatures at the track. Having taken up the lead at halfway, Maguire’s mount relished the challenge of the fences and produced some impressive jumps in front after one memorable bad blunder at Valentine’s Brook. Going to the second-last fence, there were still five runners in with a clear chance, Niche Market doing his best to get past the leader but under maximum pressure. It was only after the final fence that Irish National runner-up Oscar Time (14-1) emerged as the greatest danger to the winner and the pair set down to battle it out up the run-in. For one brief moment at the Elbow when Sam Waley-Cohen switched Oscar Time out to challenge, it looked as if he might reel in the leader, but Ballabriggs found more and scored by 2¼ lengths. Don’t Push It (9-1) tried gallantly to become the first horse since Red Rum himself to win the race twice and kept on bravely under Tony McCoy for third place, while State of Play (28-1) came from a long way back to finish fourth and make the frame in the race for the fourth consecutive years. A total of 19 horses completed the course. Favourite The Midnight Club finished sixth. Maguire rode the race with his right hand heavily bandaged after a heavy fall on the opening day of the meeting. “This is crazy,” said the jockey. “I’ve got to thank Donald, Mr Hemmings, my mother and father, everybody. It’s a dream come true. I tried to get in the first 10 early on so that if he did make a mistake we hadn’t as much ground to make up. He loved it and was jumping from fence to fence. He was attacking every one. “I got him to the front to get him relaxed and put breathers into him and that helped him get the trip. There was a question mark about him getting the trip, but Donald has done a great job. I don’t know what I feel. I’m just overwhelmed.” McCain, for whom Maguire rides as stable jockey, added: “We’ve always thought this might be an Aintree horse and you only need to see the way he’s taken to this place today. Good horses are easy to train. Everything has gone smoothly all year and he had a nice prep at Kelso last time. “He’s just an absolute pleasure to deal with, I know he’s won a Grand National, but he is. I’ve been involved in Grand Nationals all my life and you come here and you realise what this place is all about. It’s hot out there and he had been up there all the way. He gives his everything, he doesn’t hold anything back. He is coming round fine now thankfully, he was just tired.” Grand National 2011 Horse racing Grand National Aintree Will Hayler guardian.co.uk
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From a bunker in the war torn city of Abidjan, the canny strategist has masterminded stiff resistance to rebel troops Forces loyal to Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo have made advances in the main city of Abidjan even though their leader is holed up in a bunker within his luxury residence. The gains are another sign of Gbagbo’s defiance – and his legendary cunning – after he had appeared on the verge of surrender earlier last week. On Tuesday, three of his generals requested talks, a plea taken as a sign that the 65-year-old was ready to stand down. In response, fighters supporting Alassane Ouattara, who won the November election but has been prevented from taking power by Gbagbo, halted their attacks in the city after sweeping down from the north. However, just when the ultimately futile discussions were taking place, Gbagbo’s forces were reinforcing their positions and retaking territory. “We understand that since that time [Tuesday], the forces of Mr Gbagbo… have regained terrain and they have full control of the Plateau and Cocody area,” said the UN’s peacekeeping chief, Alain Le Roy, referring to the plush districts of Abidjan where Gbagbo is holed up and where most diplomats live. Staff at the British Embassy there had to be evacuated as fighting intensified. A Foreign Office spokesman said the area had played host to some of the fiercest skirmishes, but staff were safe and continuing to work in a more secure part of the town. Other embassies, official residences and private houses were also being evacuated. Le Roy said heavy weapons had been transferred to Cocody on Friday, reinforcing Gbagbo’s arsenal, which includes tanks, rocket launchers and armoured personnel carriers. The statement cast doubt on the claim by Ouattara that his forces had blockaded Gbagbo’s residence. The UN said Gbagbo’s fighters were moving towards the Golf Hotel, where Ouattara has been based since the November poll, under guard from UN peacekeepers. France, the former colonial ruler, also accused Gbagbo’s troops of firing on the French ambassador’s residence. Separately, a French helicopter mission to rescue foreign diplomats in Cocody on Saturday morning drew fire, causing the operation to be cancelled. Commander Frederic Dagillon, a French military spokesman, said an armoured vehicle that had fired on French helicopters had been destroyed. In a further sign of the resilience of Gbagbo, who has ruled since 2000 after repeatedly postponing elections, his RTI television station came back on air for the first time since the fighting started in Abidjan last week, broadcasting an appeal for support. “The regime of Gbagbo is still in place; a strong mobilisation is required by the population,” it said. The fear and uncertainty gripping Abidjan amid the political chaos has caused an exodus. Immigrants – many of them French or Lebanese – are scrambling to escape as the country implodes. Few Ivorians are so lucky: about 1,000 are gathered outside the French military base for so-called “passive protection”. Inside the French base, an Ivorian girl attacked with a machete and an Ivorian woman who was forced to lie down while a gang stamped on her face and hands were receiving treatment. Otherwise, the base has been turned into a refugee camp for largely middle-class expatriates. Many had been enjoying an enviable lifestyle in wealthy suburbs of the one-time “Paris of Africa” before terror came to their doorsteps. The French military says around 3,500 people have passed through the camp so far, with an estimated 1,500 currently sleeping in rudimentary military barracks there. Several hundred a day are evacuated on small planes from the nearby international airport, also under French military control. On Friday, 800 Lebanese people left on a series of jets. Air France became the first commercial airline to resume flying in and out of Abidjan yesterday, accelerating the process. A 26-year-old German, who did not wish to be named, told how she and her daughter were rescued from a furious crowd by the French army. “We spent two days locked in our home,” she said. “We were on the internet all the time
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Benghazi rebels feel they are being denied the promised air power and kept in the dark by revolutionary council The chants of the demonstrators in Benghazi and among furious rebel fighters on Libya’s frontline reflected the sudden shift in mood. “Where is Nato?” demanded the same people who only days earlier were waving French flags and shouting “Viva David Cameron”. But behind the growing anger in revolutionary Libya over what is seen as a retreat by the West from air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces – a fury compounded by two botched Nato raids that killed rebel fighters – there was a second question: where are our leaders? Nato’s failure to use its air power to reverse days of military setbacks for the rebels prompted a collapse in confidence in the West’s intentions among Gaddafi’s foes. Conspiracy theories flew. The West wants a divided Libya so it can control the oil, said some. Turkey, a Nato member, is vetoing air strikes because it supports Gaddafi, said others. Nato denied it was scaling back attacks and explained it faced new challenges in striking Gaddafi’s forces now that they have switched from relying on tanks and heavy armour in favour of smaller fighting units in pick-up trucks that are harder to hit. Not many in the liberated areas of Libya were interested. They were angry – and wanted their leaders to tell the West. But the revolution’s self-appointed chiefs in the interim national council were nowhere to be seen. Eventually it took the leader of the rebels’ armed wing, Abdul Fattah Younis , to voice the anger. “Nato is moving very slowly, allowing Gaddafi forces to advance,” he said. “Nato has become our problem.” The incident highlighted the virtual invisibility of the revolutionary administration to the ordinary people it claims to lead. That was not much of a problem when the uprising appeared to be advancing. But recent setbacks have shaken confidence and raised concerns that Libya might be facing an extended civil war or division, which means divided families among other things. People in rebel-held areas want to know what the revolutionary council – a 31-person body that functions around a core of 11 people who have been publicly named and meet regularly in Benghazi – is doing about it. But they are getting few answers. The council’s two principal leaders, Mahmoud Jibril and Mustafa Abdul Jalil, are hardly visible. Both men are, in any case, regarded by those dealing directly with them as sincere and well-meaning but lacking in either charisma or authority. One person working closely with the council’s day-to-day operations was deeply frustrated at the fact that “they don’t understand the need to communicate with the Libyan people. “They don’t understand that no one knows who they are. These lawyers and doctors in Benghazi who say they are a government, it’s like kids playing dress-up for a lot of them. They don’t understand the need to explain to the people what it is they are doing,” the source
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US director of 12 Angry Men, The Pawnbroker and Dog Day Afternoon dies at home in Manhattan Sidney Lumet, arguably the greatest director of the American crime drama, has died at the age of 86. His stepdaughter, Leslie Gimbel, said Lumet died of lymphoma at his home in Manhattan, the New York Times reported. Lumet was nominated for the best director Oscar on four separate occasions between the late 50s and early 80s before picking up an honorary Academy Award in 2005. Born in Philadelphia, the son of two Yiddish stage performers, Lumet served as a radar repair man in the second world war before directing theatre productions in New York. This apprenticeship would form the basis for his later screen career. Lumet typically corralled his actors through a lengthy rehearsal period and then shot the film at speed. He made his feature debut with the acclaimed 12 Angry Men, a claustrophobic courtroom drama that starred Henry Fonda as a rogue juror. Lumet’s preferred location was the cauldron of inner-city New York and his favoured subject matter tended to be the porous line between order and criminality. Many of his most famous pictures – The Pawnbroker, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and The Verdict – stand as tense, earthy morality plays. But the director also took the occasional detour along the way, as evidenced by his plush version of Murder on the Orient Express, his Oscar-winning media satire Network, or 1978′s The Wiz, a Motown musical update of The Wizard of Oz, starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. His career spanned six decades and more than 50 films. “All I want is to get better and quantity can help me solve my problems,” he once admitted. “I’m thrilled by the idea that I’m not even sure how many films I’ve done. If I don’t have a script I adore, I do the one I like. If I don’t have one I like, I do one that has an actor I like or that presents some technical challenge.” Along the way, he worked with the likes of Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Albert Finney, Ingrid Bergman and Al Pacino. Lumet took a memorable final bow with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, an acclaimed crime saga that proved its creator was still a force to be reckoned with. “The veteran director Sidney Lumet may be 84 years old,” wrote Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw in January 2008. “But in this superb heist thriller, he breaks out the shocks – and the twists – with the ferocity of a hungry youngster.” Sidney Lumet Crime Xan Brooks guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Wisconsin’s right-wing John Birch network, in pictures Untangling the hairball of right-wing non-profits is a job worthy of the DuPont family genealogist. First cousins, second cousins, intermarrying, charities that aren’t really charitable, you name it, you’ll find it in the dark recesses of the back pages of federal disclosures. But if you look long enough, and take the time to get to know the various families and their incestuous patterns, a picture emerges. If I had Glenn Beck’s blackboard I might be able to even illustrate it, but since I don’t, I’ll just use pictures. Up to now, most of the focus on funding has been on Koch Industries, and rightly so. You should all download and read this comprehensive report by the Center for American Progress. It gives a great high-level overview of their political and business dealings. But the Koch family is only one of several just like them. They’re not on the Dow Jones exchange, and if you aren’t living in their state or within their direct sphere of influence, you won’t really be aware of what they’re doing. There’s no better state to begin to shed light on them than Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the descendants and keepers of the Bradley Brothers’ legacy – Lynde and Harry – are who you need to know if you want to get ahead in state and/or national conservative politics. Wisconsin’s Conservative Powerhouse A 2004 report prepared by the National Committee on Responsible Philanthropy (NCRP) about the conservative funding network ranked the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation second on their list of top conservative funders, with the Sarah Scaife Foundation at the top. That was 2004. Like Fred Koch, Harry Bradley was a founding member of the John Birch Society. The asset value of the Bradley Foundation skyrocketed after the Allen-Bradley Co. was sold to Rockwell International Corp. in 1985. The report also notes that Wisconsin was third in a list of top recipient states for conservative philanthropy. Bradley Foundation Grants The 2004 NCRP report listed total foundation grants from 1999-2001 as $38,858,118. For the years 2007-2009, total Bradley Foundation grants were $98,154,552 , a 252% increase. The president of the Bradley Foundation is Michael Grebe . From the NCRP report: Grebe views Milwaukee as a “laboratory” in which it generates and funds various public policy programs that ultimately serve as models for national programs. School choice and welfare reform have been longstanding issues of interest to the Bradley Foundation, and its work on these issues began at the local level but continues at the state and national levels. Specific grants support that claim. The Bradley Foundation is one of the biggest donors to the State Policy Network , which funds and creates state-based think tanks to influence policy. The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute received a grant of $400,000 in 2009 and another $1,075,000 in 2010, earmarked for “a project on Wisconsin policymaking.” In 2009, the Employment Policies Institute received $250,000 with a follow-up payment in 2010 of $750,000. The Employment Policies Institute is currently active in the area of opposing minimum wage laws, among other things. Donors’ Trust received $500,000 in 2009 to support the “Health Freedom Fund”. Most notably in the context of current Wisconsin politics, the Center for Union Facts has received $1,250,000 from 2007-2009 from the foundation for “public education programs.” The Center for Union Facts is responsible for spreading the false claim that public employees earn more than private employees, attacks on public school teachers, and other anti-union talking points and public relations. It is a Rick Berman production . Berman is a favorite front guy for astroturf groups funded by the Bradley Foundation and others, including the Walmart dynasty. In 2009, the Bradley Foundation hired Robert E. Norton, II to fill a newly-created position: Vice President of Donor Relations . Here’s his job description: In 2009, Robert Norton was named Vice President for Donor Relations at the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In this role he serves as the primary interface to create collaborative giving options with other foundations, entities and individuals whose mission is similar to that of The Foundation’s efforts. About Michael Grebe Michael Grebe is not only the director of the Bradley Foundation. Here are his other associations: Chairman, Scott Walker Transition Team Chairman, Scott Walker Campaign Board Member, Oshkosh Truck Company Board Member, Donors Trust Chairman , Philanthropy Roundtable Board Member, Church Mutual Insurance Company CEO, Foley and Lardner (now retired) The Philanthropy Roundtable and Donors Trust connections enable Grebe to be at the heartbeat of national right-wing giving efforts and campaigns. Adam Meyerson , President of Donors Capital Fund (a donor-advised fund ), also sits on the Board of Directors of the State Policy Network and is President of Philanthropy Roundtable. How Scott Walker got elected This post began because two questions kept sticking in my head. First, how did a preacher’s kid with no college degree manage such a meteoric rise from county executive to Governor? And second, what is it about Wisconsin that has made it such a hotbed of controversy and policy fights? How is it that a state can be so deeply divided, ideologically? It seems to me that the divide is created by systematically investing huge sums of money in policy “research”, media influence, and political causes over a long period of time. This is to say that I think Wisconsin was inherently progressive-leaning and has been pushed right by the institutions funded with conservative, far-right wing money. Look at Scott Walker. Scott Walker is a face. He’s a guy carrying out the orders of his keepers. He’s got the look and he’s got the ambition. Scott Walker is the face of the John Birch society writ large in Wisconsin. With Mike Grebe at the helm of Walker’s campaign, $11.3 million was spent to elect him. Outside donors included the Republican Governors’ Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, who spent millions on independent expenditures. Here’s a breakdown of individual donors by industry . Scott Walker, like the policy institutes the Bradley Foundation funds, is another “laboratory”. The formula goes like this. Get a guy with the right bio to appeal to independents. The conservative vote is a given, so it’s the independent vote they’re going after. Walker had the right populist blend for Wisconsin. Son of a preacher who gave up the education for “hard work”, he presented himself as an ‘ordinary guy’ who had trouble even paying for a suit . Put a ton of money into his campaign. Inundate the state. Get him elected. Then start putting the policy issues so heavily funded, researched and publicized into effect. Bust unions? No problem, because the WPRI laid the foundation with a series of “research papers” on union-busting. Same with tax cuts and the rest. Walker’s just the puppet. But don’t assume it’s the Koch family pulling the strings. They hold one. The Bradley Foundation holds two or three. There are other players too, but that’s a topic for another post. This is why we can’t give up. I do not accept the takeover of this country by rich John Birch Society members and you shouldn’t either. We keep pushing, standing up, showing up. Eventually we will win.
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Attacker opened fire with machine gun before shooting himself in crowded mall in suburb of Alphen aan den Rijn near Amsterdam At least five people have died at a shopping centre outside Amsterdam after a gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon before killing himself. There were also at least 11 people wounded during the attack at the Ridderhof mall in the suburb of Alphen aan den Rijn, 15 miles (25km) southwest of Amsterdam. A witness identified as Maart Verbeek told the Dutch state broadcaster, NOS, that the attacker had a machine gun and that he had seen at least five people he believed were dead and many more wounded. “There was a panic in the mall, a lot of people running,” said Verbeek, a pet shop owner. “I see the attacker coming, walking, and I go inside the store … and I see him going by with a big machine gun.” NOS cited witnesses as saying the man later shot himself in the head with a second weapon, a pistol. The gunman was described as a 25-year-old white male with blonde hair who wearing a leather jacket and camouflage pants. “You hear about this sort of thing happening at American schools and you think that’s a long way away,” said Rob Kuipers, 50, a project manager. “Now it’s happened here in the Netherlands.” Four of the wounded are in critical condition, five were in serious condition and at least two others were slightly wounded, Mayor Bas Eenhoorn later told reporters. He described the incident as a “disaster of unparalleled proportions” for Alphen, known as a quiet suburb. “Under these circumstances, with many people shopping at the Ridderhof today, including parents with children, it’s an incomprehensible situation,” he said. Netherlands Europe Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Donna Edwards Gives A Lesson To Her Republican Colleagues, Courtesy of The White Stripes
April 9, 2011 No CommentYou just gotta love this congressperson. Donna Edwards takes the House floor to give a lesson to her Republican colleagues about all the seniors, service members and children who would be affected by a government shutdown by using the lyrics of The White Stripes’ ” Effect and Cause ” I guess you have to have a problem If you want to invent a contraption First you cause a train wreck Then you put me in traction Well, first came an action And then a reaction But you can’t switch around For your own satisfaction Well, you put my house down, then got mad At my reaction Well, in every complicated situation You’re the human relation Makin’ sense of it all Take a whole lot a concentration Well, you can blame my baby For her pregnant ma And if there’s one of these On the order for laws It’s that you just can’t take the effect And make it the cause Well, you can’t take the effect And make it the cause I didn’t rob a bank Because you made up a law When you people robbin’ Peter Don’t you blame Paul Can’t take the effect And make it the cause I ain’t the reason that you gave me no reason to return your call You built a house of cards and got shocked when you saw them fall Well are you sayin’ I’m innocent? In fact the reverse But if you’re headin’ to the grave You don’t blame the hearse You’re like a little girl yellin’ at her brother ‘Cause you lost his ball Well you keep blamin’ me for what you did And that ain’t all The way you clean up a wreck Is enough to get one pause You seem to forget Just how this song started I’m reactin’ to you because you left me broken-hearted See, you just can’t take the effect And make it the cause Can’t take the effect And make it the cause I didn’t rob a bank Because you made up a law Blame people robbin’ Peter Don’t you blame Paul Can’t take the effect And make it the cause Unfortunately for the good congresswoman, the words are merely pearls before swine.
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In less than four weeks, Britain will decide on whether to change the voting system. But do people understand AV? And how many will turn out to vote? Thursday lunchtime, and two Sheffield University students are standing behind a table outside the union handing out free doughnuts. At an adjacent table, beneath a couple of straggly purple balloons, another group gathers around piles of leaflets, asking passersby if they have heard about the 5 May referendum. This is a big day for the Yorkshire and Humber Yes to Fairer Votes campaign. In less than four weeks, Britain decides whether to switch from first past the post to the alternative vote in only the second national referendum ever to be held in the UK. Activists have come from York, Hull and Leeds for this evening’s mega phonebank, when about 20 volunteers will make 1,000 calls. “My great-grandad campaigned for electoral reform,” says 22-year-old politics graduate Emily Wilkie. “He
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enlarge Unfortunately, Washington Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire has been forced to adopt the “slash, don’t tax” mentality more common with Republican governors after voters rejected several new taxes in November’s election and restricted the Legislature’s ability to raise taxes without a statewide vote. Labor unions aren’t going to let it go unchallenged: Seventeen people were arrested after trying to storm the governor’s office in a third day of protests over state budget cuts Thursday. In a prelude to what unions say will be a bigger rally today, a protest organized by the Service Employees International Union brought about 500 people to Olympia to call on lawmakers to end corporate tax exemptions before cutting state services. Most protesters rallied in the Rotunda of the Legislative Building Thursday afternoon. Several were eventually arrested when they tried to push past Washington State Patrol officers guarding the governor’s office and refused to leave. Protesters pushed against troopers stationed at the governor’s door shouting “let us in” and “we want the governor.” “They (legislators) need to listen to us,” said Sharon Kitchel-Perdue, a home-care worker from Olympia and one of the protesters arrested. Sgt. John Sager, one of the troopers on the scene, said that some of the protesters said they wanted to be arrested, and eventually, their actions gave troopers no choice. “It was getting pretty hairy in here,” Sager said. Back in December, Gregoire proposed cuts in the budget targeting the “Disability Lifeline” formerly known as GA-U or General Assistance Unemployable: Programs that help Washington’s poor were among those cut from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed two-year budget Wednesday, a plan she said she hated so much that “in some places, I don’t even think it’s moral.” Gregoire used a mix of cuts to state programs, suspension of voter initiatives and use of the state’s “rainy day” fund to patch a projected $4.6 billion deficit. The approximately $3 billion in cuts to her 2011-13 budget included the elimination of the Basic Health Program, which provides subsidized medical insurance to 66,000 poorer Washingtonians. Also eliminated is cash grants and medical care for the Disability Lifeline program, which mostly aids childless adults who are unemployable but not receiving federal aid. Among local recipients of Disability Lifeline grants are survivors of domestic violence, who often suffer from post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues that can make it difficult for them to hold employment. Gregoire noted that the word “eliminate” is used about 80 times in her budget. “I hate my budget,” she said, tearing up. “I hate it because in some places, I don’t even think it’s moral.” Sate Republicans, of course, are thrilled. Austerity makes them tingly!
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A total of 110 people in 80 cars and three trucks involved in crash on motorway near Baltic Sea after sandstorm A sandstorm in northern Germany has caused a huge motorway pile-up that killed eight people and injured at least 41 others, police said. Rostock police spokesman Volker Werner said rescue operations were still under way and the death toll could rise. At least 41 people were injured, many of them seriously, and were taken to nearby hospitals. Others who suffered shocks or bruising received treatment on the spot, Werner said. Some 110 people in 80 cars and three trucks were involved in the crash a few miles from the Baltic Sea on Friday, Werner said. At least 17 vehicles caught fire, including a truck carrying flammable material. “Unfortunately, it looks like the death toll could rise further,” Werner said. Several bodies were thought to be in the burnt vehicles. “One truck has crashed on a car, so we don’t know yet how many people are in the car below it,” he said. The crash in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state was caused by a sandstorm, but it was unclear if this was down to a sudden lack of visibility or sand on the road, Werner said. Strong winds may have carried the sand from nearby fields – one of them freshly ploughed – to the four-lane highway, Werner said. The region has recently experienced prolonged dry conditions, affecting agriculture and leaving many soils exposed to erosion. Germany Road transport Europe guardian.co.uk
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