Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/334346587?client_source=feed&format=rss
Tags: Emily Ratajkowski Mr Cee Mary Lambert cote de pablo The Wolverine
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
This Year's Best Wildlife Photograph Required Serious Balls to Take
Have ever sat mere yards from a herd of elephants as they drank at a watering hole? What about had one brush by just inches from you? Or then tried to photograph the whole thing? No? Well, it's a good job Greg du Toit did, then.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-years-best-wildlife-photograph-required-serious-b-1446229445Related Topics: Scandal Emmy Winners 2013 freedom tower obama JJ Cale
These Cans Come With Their Own Built-In DAC
Audio Technica makes a wide range of high-end headphones that plenty of audiophiles subsequently plug directly into a standalone digital-to-analog converter. Perhaps that’s why one of their new sets of cans comes with a DAC built into the ear cup.
The Audio Technica ATH-D900USB uses the same 53mm drivers and components as the analog, open-back ATH-D900. But what makes it special is the 24-bit DAC built into the left ear cup. Powered by Burr-Brown amplifiers and taking a Mini USB input, the ATH-D900USB is the first pair of cans with a built-in 24-bit DAC included in the actual headset. Most of the time, these headphones will be playing music through USB, so the built-in DAC can do the usual digital-to-analog dance as well as normalize volume. But if you wanted to use these cans as a traditional pair of analog headphones, it does accept a 3.5mm jack.
Not much else is known about the ATH-D900USB at the moment, including how they sound. But they should be available for purchase in late 2014 for ¥37,800, or about $385.
Images via Audio Technica
Related Topics: politico denver broncos monday night football USA vs Costa Rica Joseline Hernandez
Casey Kasem's Wife Jean -- I Still Do His Toenails
Casey Kasem's Wife
I Still Do His Toenails
Exclusive
Casey Kasem's wife Jean insists she's taking great care of her ailing hubby, right down to giving him manicures and pedicures.
Jean has just filed legal docs -- obtained by TMZ -- challenging the attempt by Casey's 3 kids from a prior marriage to win a conservatorship. The kids say Jean has not allowed them to see their dad -- who has advanced Parkinson's and early onset of dementia -- for months and they fear he's not being properly cared for.
Jean says the kids are ingrates who have sponged off their dad for years. Jean says she and Casey have loaned the kids approx $100k-$150k PER YEAR over many years to pay for their school, housing, cars, parking tickets, travel and other stuff. Jean also says she sent Julie $50k back in July, 2000 and it was never repaid, and that's just one example.
Jean says if there's a need for a conservator, it should be her. Casey's kids say they have a power of attorney from 2007 that gives them control over his health care, but Jean says that document was nullified by a subsequent health care directive in 2011 giving her control.
Get TMZ Breaking News alerts to your inbox
Related Topics: steelers jimmy kimmel Cameron Bay meteor shower brandon jennings
Man Booker Prize Goes to Gold Rush Murder Mystery 'The Luminaries'
The Luminaries, a murder mystery set in the New Zealand Gold Rush of the 1860s, won the Man Booker Prize on Tuesday.
The Booker is given annually to the best novel by a writer from the British Commonwealth.
The prize comes with a £50,000 payment, enormous prestige and a sales bump that generally far exceeds U.S. prizes like the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.
Just 28, author Elizabeth Catton, became the youngest winner in the history of the prize, which dates to 1969.
At 832 pages, it is also the longest winner. The Luminaries is Catton's second novel.
It tells the story of Walter Moody, who arrives in New Zealand in 1866 to find his fortune prospecting for gold but meets a group of a dozen men discussing the intertwined story of the disappearance of a wealthy man, a prostitute who attempted suicide and a newly discovered fortune.
Moody quickly gets sucked into solving these intertwined mysteries.
The book was published to rave reviews. The Guardian called it a "consummate literary page-turner."
Publishers Weekly called the novel a reminder of "the excitement of storytelling."
London's Independent forecast a surefire screen adaptation. "Yes, it's big. Yes it's clever. But do yourself a favour and read The Luminaries before someone attempts to confine its pleasures to the screen, big or small."
She received the award from Prince Charles' wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, at a black-tie dinner in London.
This year's ceremony was somewhat overshadowed by a controversy surrounding next year's prize.
Rule changes announced earlier this year open the prize to any author writing in English, meaning the prize is open to American writers for the first time. Many British writers think Americans will dominate the award and undermine British literary culture.
Tags: Manny Machado Nothing Was The Same Leak The White Queen usher oprah winfrey
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
BMW family donation to Merkel's party stokes lobbying row
BERLIN (Reuters) - German opposition parties on Tuesday accused Angela Merkel of pandering to the car lobby, after her conservatives received major donations from the family that controls BMW, just as Berlin was lobbying against tougher EU caps on carbon emissions.
Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) said the three donations made on October 9 and totaling 690,000 euros "have no connection to any political decisions".
The funds came days before European Union environment ministers backed German demands to scrap a deal to cap EU car emissions that Berlin had argued would cost jobs and damage its premium auto makers.
The donations came from Johanna Quandt, the widow of industrialist Herbert Quandt who is credited with transforming BMW, and her children Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten. The family owns almost 47 percent of BMW.
Juergen Trittin, former co-leader of the Greens, wrote on Twitter that the family had "bought Merkel's climate policy on October 9 for 690,000 euros".
Social Democrat Joachim Poss wrote that the short period between the donation and Merkel's backing for the car industry were "grist to the mill for all those critical of party donations."
A spokesman for the Quandts said they had decided in January to donate to the CDU but waited until October to transfer the money because they did not want to get involved in campaigning for Germany's September 22 election.
The payments were registered with parliament, as required for all personal donations to parties of more than 50,000 euros.
Carmakers Daimler and BMW produce heavier and relatively less fuel-efficient vehicles, meaning they would find it challenging to meet the proposed cap on carbon emissions of 95 grams per kilometer for all new cars from 2020, analysts say.
The CDU said the Quandt family had supported it with donations for years, regardless of whether they were in government. The three family members had also each given the party 150,000 euros after the 2009 election, which saw Merkel enter a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).
Merkel's conservatives emerged as the dominant force in last month's election but need a partner. They are talking to both the SPD and the Greens, with the former seen as the most likely partner. The Greens are strongly in favor of limiting CO2 emissions to 95 grams per kilometer.
(Writing by Alexandra Hudson in Berlin; editing by Andrew Roche)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bmw-family-donation-merkels-party-stokes-lobbying-row-205337755--finance.html
Similar Articles: columbus day Miriam Carey breast cancer awareness justin timberlake Eileen Brennan
Iranians mock Israel PM's jeans remark on social media
Tehran (AFP) - Iranians hit back at Benjamin Netanyahu's suggestion that they were banned from wearing jeans and listening to Western music, mocking the Israeli premier's comments on social websites Monday.
In an interview with BBC Persian television broadcast Saturday, Netanyahu had said "if Iranians were free, they would wear jeans and listen to Western music."
Netanyahu has sought to portray Iranian President Hassan Rouhani -- a moderate elected in June -- as a "wolf in sheep's clothing" in order to maintain international pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programme.
But his comments about jeans and music brought a storm of online mockery from Iranians. By Sunday a Facebook page called "Our jeans in Netanyahu's face, Bibi watch out" had appeared, posting dozens of pictures of young Iranians wearing jeans.
Many young women in Iran wear Western clothes despite a strict Islamic dress code which requires them to cover their hair.
While some Western music, such as rap, is not available in licensed music stores, many young people download foreign artists' work.
By Monday, the page had attracted more than 600 followers, with hundreds of comments.
"He thinks he saw our bomb but he hasn't seen our jeans," one user wrote, referring to Netanyahu's repeated allegations that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, charges denied by Tehran.
"Even our ancestors wore jeans," another netizen wrote, posting a photoshopped picture of an Achaemenid soldier from 500 BC wearing jeans.
One post showed a photograph of young blue jean-clad fighters during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
On Twitter, Iranians posted even more pictures of themselves wearing the supposedly-forbidden jeans and enjoying Western music.
One user uploaded a picture of himself wearing jeans and listening to an album by Australian pop star Missy Higgins.
"Here are my jeans and here's my Western music, idiot!" he tweeted.
Saaman Zahedi posted a picture of himself with a friend in front of a satellite dish with the comment: "here are our jeans, Netanyahu. So shut it," using the hashtag #jeans and #iran.
In the same BBC interview, Netanyahu said Iran’s presidential election was not free and that its people would not have elected Rouhani if they had a real choice.
Rouhani, a moderate cleric, beat his conservative rivals to win the presidential election in June.
He has pledged to reduce online restrictions so that "we are able to access these social network sites" within certain "moral frameworks."
But on Monday Iran's Telecommunications Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said "the ban on networks such as Facebook and Twitter was not supposed to be lifted," despite the presence of accounts affiliated with senior Iranian officials.
When asked about such officials, Vaezi simply replied: "You should ask them."
On September 17, the two networks became briefly accessible, but later Iranian officials explained this had been due to "technical glitch."
Rouhani has launched a diplomatic offensive over Iran's contested nuclear programme aimed at assuaging fears Tehran is trying to develop an atomic bomb.
But Netanyahu has remained deeply sceptical of Rouhani's intentions, insisting that Iran is still a major threat to the Jewish state.
Officially, more than 30 million of Iran's 70 million population have access to the Internet.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iranians-mock-israel-pms-jeans-remark-social-media-134207770.html
Category: Susan Bennett hocus pocus NFL Sunday Ticket robin thicke greg oden
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)