text:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats unveiled legislation on Wednesday to allow millions of Americans with student loan debt to refinance at lower interest rates.
Democrats said their measure would let holders of both federal and private undergraduate loans - some with rates of 9 percent or higher - to refinance at 3.86 percent.
Drafted in coordination with the White House, the bill is part of Senate Democrats' 2014 legislative agenda aimed at giving all Americans "a fair shot" and rallying the party's liberal base in advance of the November elections.
But like earlier rejected measures to raise the minimum wage and renew expired long-term jobless benefits for millions of Americans, it faces Republican opposition that could kill it.
"This bill would be hugely expensive," said Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona. "I don't think it will be seriously considered."
Democrats control the Senate, 55-45, but need 60 votes to clear Republican procedural hurdles.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a chief sponsor of the bill, said she expected bipartisan support.
"Student loan debt is a real and growing crisis that is crushing young people and dragging down our economy," Warren said.
"When interest rates are low, homeowners, businesses and even municipalities refinance their debt. But right now the government doesn't offer a refinancing option to students," she noted. "Allowing students to refinance their loans would help give them a fair shot at an affordable education."
Last year, Congress approved the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013, which set the undergraduate student loan interest rate at 3.86 percent for the current school year.
Democrats said the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office will determine the cost of their bill, which would permanently let student-loan borrowers refinance at the going rate.
Democrats propose that the cost of their bill be offset by reducing tax breaks for millionaires.
Democrats cited federal data showing that student-loan debt grew by $31 billion from January to March, to total $1.1 trillion, making it the fastest-growing household debt category.
Overall, about 40 million Americans have student loan debt, Democrats said.
Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Dan Grebler and Eric Walsh


text:
Latest News
Justice Department moves to void Stevens' conviction
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has moved to dismiss former Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment, effectively voiding his conviction Oct. 27 on seven counts of filing false statements on his Senate financial-disclosure forms.
"After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement released Wednesday. "In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial."
The Justice Department filed its motion to dismiss the case Wednesday, saying in it that "given the facts of this particular case, the government believes that granting a new trial is in the interest of justice." However, "the government has further determined that, based on the totality of circumstances and in the interest of justice, it will not seek a new trial."
Within days of his conviction, Stevens, 85, lost his re-election bid to Anchorage's Democratic former mayor, Mark Begich.
Since Stevens was convicted, his lawyers have filed several motions to dismiss his original indictment or to grant a new trial. The motions have been based in part on allegations in a whistleblower complaint by an Anchorage FBI agent, along with other allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that were released after Stevens was convicted.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who oversaw the case, scheduled a hearing Tuesday on the motion to dismiss the indictment.
"I always knew that there would be a day when the cloud that surrounded me would be removed. That day has finally come," Stevens said in a statement released by his lawyers. "It is unfortunate that an election was affected by proceedings now recognized as unfair. It was my great honor to serve the state of Alaska in the United States Senate for 40 years."
Stevens' attorneys, Brendan Sullivan and Robert Cary, issued a statement praising the Justice Department's decision. Stevens was traveling in Alaska and unavailable for further comment.
"This jury verdict was obtained unlawfully. The government disregarded the Constitution, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and well-established case law," his attorneys said, adding, "The misconduct of government prosecutors, and one or more FBI agents, was stunning. Not only did the government fail to disclose evidence of innocence, but instead intentionally hid that evidence and created false evidence that they provided to the defense."
"His name is cleared," Sullivan told a press conference. "He is innocent of the charges, as if they'd never been brought."
Holder said that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility "will conduct a thorough review of the prosecution of this matter."
The decision to dismiss the case appears to be based on a matter that came up during the trial: a discrepancy in the statements of the star witness, Bill Allen, the former oil-services company chief executive officer who plied Stevens with gifts, including renovations that doubled the size of the senator's residence in Alaska. Allen, who pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers in Alaska, is awaiting sentencing in his own case.
The Justice Department recently discovered notes from an interview that prosecutors conducted last April 15 with Allen, wrote Paul O'Brien, who's been handling post-conviction matters in the case since a judge cited some members of the original trial team with contempt for failing to turn over documents.
In the interview, Allen was asked about a 2002 note that Stevens sent him, thanking him for his work on "the chalet," Stevens' home in Alaska.
In the note, Stevens told Allen not to be "P.O.'d" but that Allen needed to have a conversation with one of Stevens' neighbors in Girdwood, Bob Persons, a close friend of both who helped oversee the renovation of the senator's home. It "has to be done right," Stevens wrote.
"You owe me a bill," Stevens' letter said. "Remember Torricelli, my friend. Friendship is one thing, compliance with the ethics rules entirely different."
Allen said on the stand that he was unaware at the time what Stevens meant by "Torricelli." Stevens apparently was referring to former Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., whom the Justice Department investigated in 2002 for allegedly accepting improper gifts from a donor. The investigation closed, but the Senate Ethics Committee reviewed the Justice Department files and issued a public letter of admonishment to Torricelli, who then abandoned a re-election bid and left the Senate.
Allen testified that he didn't send Stevens a bill after the note. Allen also said that he had a conversation with Persons. He testified that Persons told him, "Don't worry about getting a bill, Ted's just covering his ass."
O'Brien wrote that the interview notes indicate that Allen said he "did not recall talking to Bob Persons regarding giving a bill to the defendant."
"That statement was inconsistent with Allen's recollection at trial," O'Brien wrote, and when the Justice Department discovered the interview notes last week, the government provided a copy to defense counsel. That information could have been used when Stevens' lawyers cross-examined Allen, O'Brien noted, or in their closing statement.
The Senate's Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, called the Justice Department's move "a relief to Stevens and his family."
He said, however, that had the Justice Department acted last year, before the election, Republicans might not have lost the seat. That would have given Democrats — who have 58 Senate seats — one fewer seat toward a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority.
"It was disappointing to lose the seat, no question about it," McConnell said. "No question that if this decision had been made last year he'd still be in the Senate."
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who assumed Stevens' role as the senior senator from Alaska, said she was "deeply disturbed that the government can ruin a man's career and then say, 'Never mind.'
"There is nothing that will ever compensate for the loss of his reputation or leadership to the state of Alaska," she said.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin echoed that theme.
"It is unfortunate that, as a result of the questionable proceedings which led to Senator Stevens' conviction days before the election, Alaskans lost an esteemed statesman on Capitol Hill," she said in a statement. "His presence is missed."
Stevens' replacement, Begich, said in a statement that "the decision by President Obama's Justice Department to end the prosecution of Senator Ted Stevens is reasonable."
"I always said I didn't think Senator Stevens should serve time in jail, and hopefully this decision ensures that is the case," Begich said. "It's time for Senator Stevens, his family and Alaskans to move on and put this behind us."
(Richard Mauer of the Anchorage Daily News in Anchorage and Halimah Abdullah contributed to this article.)
Stevens coverage from the Anchorage Daily News
Claims of prosecutorial abuse keep Ted Stevens case alive
Prosecutors from Ted Stevens' trial replaced Key players in Stevens corruption case contest whistle-blower allegations
Watchdogs: Treasury won't disclose bank bailout details
Tough economy could impact accuracy of 2010 Census
Add Sebelius to list of Obama cabinet picks with tax troubles

subset: commoncrawl


text:
dsbadmin | August 30, 2011
By dsbadmin • Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - 13:52
This is a guest post by Glenn Hurowitz, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. It originally appeared on Grist.org, and is reprinted here with permission.
Everything you've heard about the tar sands and energy security is wrong
by Glenn Hurowitz
If there's a single idea that the oil industry has peddled to persuade the Obama administration to approve the controversial Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, it's this: Tar-sands oil might be more polluting than even dirty old regular oil, but it's better to get our energy from our ally Canada than from unstable oil suppliers in the Middle East or elsewhere.
In practice, the opposite is true: Drilling in North America is the single greatest threat to our nation's energy security.
Here's the reality: Protecting the United States' energy security means keeping our continent's oil in the ground for when we need it in an emergency. The United States and Canada combined hold less than 5 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Thanks in part to expanded domestic drilling during the Obama administration, we're depleting those reserves at a high rate. That means we have far less oil to fall back on in the event of true emergency, like an oil embargo or a major war when access to foreign oil supplies becomes difficult or even impossible. If we're really concerned about security, tar-sands oil should be a last-gap, man-the-barricades option – something we as a society hope we never have to use. That's true to an extent for our domestic supplies of oil in general, whether offshore Arctic oil or the dregs left over at the bottom of the "stripper wells" that dot the Great Plains. We should leave them aside now, and hope that by the time we get into a serious security pickle, we've created a 100 percent clean energy economy that avoids the awful choice pundits seem to love to imagine between security, growth, and a living planet.
To understand how urgent it is that we curtail domestic drilling, consider this: If the United States were cut off today from all sources except Canada, we'd have only eight years left at current consumption levels. And that amount gets lower every day as the government issues additional domestic drilling leases.
Looking at domestic production as a threat to national security rather than something that boosts it may seem to turn conventional wisdom on its head, but in fact it's how domestic oil drilling was viewed almost as soon as large Middle East supplies came online in the post-World War II years.
Following this "conservation theory," the federal government and others pushed hard to tap new Middle Eastern oil supplies, primarily so we wouldn't deplete our own. "If we ever got into another World War it is quite possible that we would not have access to reserves held in the Middle East, but in the meantime use of those reserves would prevent the depletion of our own, a depletion which may be serious within the next fifteen years," wrote powerful World War II Navy Secretary James Forrestal, summarizing the postwar security consensus.
It's important to contrast this depletion reality with the old canard that the oil industry and its backers continue to push: that drilling domestically somehow reduces the flow of money to the Middle East and other unstable oil suppliers. In practice, basic oil-industry economics show the opposite. Because Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil is so much cheaper to produce and more plentiful than remaining domestic oil reserves, those countries can almost always outcompete domestic U.S. competitors and still maintain their enormous profit margins and high levels of production. Saudi and Iraqi oil, for instance, costs just $4-$6 per barrel to produce with another $2-$3 tacked on for transportation costs (costs are similar for Iranian oil). Production costs for tar-sands oil clock in at a minimum of $30 per barrel; costs for other domestic sources are similar. To be sure, there are limits to how much oil even Saudi Arabia can draw at any given time without undermining its long-term production capacity, but it and other major oil producers are well within this barrier and retain enormous "swing" production capacity.
Of course, there's no doubt that our addiction to oil props up petrocracies and funds terror groups. But expanding domestic production, especially through carbon-intense tar-sands development, will do little or nothing to change that even as it imposes serious environmental damage on our continent's great natural treasures and worsens climate change.
What we need to do instead is move as rapidly as possible to get off oil entirely by fully implementing and further tightening the Obama administration's strong fuel-efficiency standards, putting a price on carbon pollution, ending oil subsidies, electrifying our vehicle fleet with clean energy, boosting mass transit, and using the full force of our diplomacy to get other major consuming countries like China to do the same.
That will create true American energy security without setting off a carbon bomb that threatens the entire planet, USA very much included.
anonymous replied on Permalink
"The United States and Canada combined hold less than 5 percent of the world's proven oil reserves."
Conventional oil perhaps. But including unconventional oil, Canada holds about 15% of the world's oil reserves. At current rates of production it will last about 200 years.
Which pretty well makes the article a load of bollocks.
Lying with statistics
What does "current rates of production" mean or matter since the government expects to greatly increase the tar sands rate of production, so that 200 years time-frame could soon be reduced to 100 or 50 years: http://www.neb.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rnrgynfmtn/nrgyrprt/lsnd/pprtntsndchllngs20152004/qapprtntsndchllngs20152004-eng.html
klem replied on Permalink
There is no such thing as
There is no such thing as perfectly ethical oil. Not possible. You have to break a few eggs to make an onmlette and you have to damage the earth and people in some way to find oil. But Alberta oil is alot more ehtical that the filthy blood soaked oil comming from the middle east and Africa. It amazes me how it does not seem to bother people that they are burning blood oil when they drive to church or mosque each week to worship and prey for peace, they heat their schools and universities with blood oil, they heat there non-profit environmental and social organizations with blood oil, and the money they pay for blood oil is used to oppress mwomen and murder people all over the world. In my view, not one drop of blood oil should arrive at our shores. Not one drop.
It may not be perfect but I'll take Alberta oil any day. Cheers
Alberta tar sands oil is just
Alberta tar sands oil is just as unethical, with its extraction causing deformed fish and probably causing cancer in people living downstream. It is filthier than some oil because it is bitumen which is causes more GHG emissions in processing. It is being extracted by the very same companies that extract oil in the Middle East and elsewhere, so it's all "blood" oil.
Speaking as an Albertan and a Calgarian, I would advise you not to quote that "ethical oil" lie from someone as discredited as Dame Ezra the serial libeller:
And Velshi, another dishonest blogger: http://understory.ran.org/2011/08/16/breaking-ethical-oil-campaign-uses-stolen-faked-photos/
T D Scott replied on Permalink
Agree to a point
Energy is energy and we have enough natural gas in this country to dump this blood oil and get converted to gas. But our people are protesting this natural gas???? Just cant make head nor tails of their thinking. To me it is not just the blood oil but the money leaving this country that is used by people that hate us. Gas is by far a clean energy source and can be converted into gasoline, diesel, or even jet fuel. look up a company called Rentech
Hank122 replied on Permalink
They are protesting gas ONLY
They are protesting gas ONLY because they see it's continued, cheap availability as a major threat to their plan to convert everyone to VERY expensive renewable energy. They are completely opposed to "cheap" energy of any kind. That's the only reason, it makes no sense at all.
anonymous replied on Permalink
Unethical? if anything its
Unethical? if anything its the most ethical oil in the world. Fair pay to employees, equal opportunity for men/women or race, its the number 1 employer of Aboriginals in Canada. These are all reasons why people buy fair trade coffee, why not oil? As far as blood oil what "middle east" companies are you talking about? 5/7ths of oil production comes from suncor and syncrude at the oil sands, these are canadian companies who may have very small stakes in libya and syria but not significant.
Suncor which is also in
Suncor which is also in Syria? Wow.
And the oil companies which are in Alberta and elsewhere have been lying to us for years about global warming, so they are a pack of unethical lying scum.
And how about the destruction of the boreal forest, when we need more carbon sinks instead of having our environment poisoned by greedy oil companies.
Hank122 replied on Permalink
Dude, wake up and smell the
Dude, wake up and smell the coffee. There is no stopping the XL pipeline and its tar sands oil. The State Dept has already signed off on it. Find another windmill to tilt at.
T D Scott replied on Permalink
Ethical? Natural Gas is Ethical
We Americans consume energy period. Actually if we did not we would have never left the Stone Age. Now first you must realize that oil and natural gas is one in the same. Energy is energy. Now I am not one to be against green energy but we are just not there yet. Wind is really not that good. Companies are getting big government subsidies to build them but they have a big environmental impact regardless of what they say. We need to build 20,000 more just to meet current energy demands. And that is considering we don't have a windless day. Read this. http://www.wvmcre.org/neg_imapcts/ineffeciency.htm What about solar? Well just not cost effective at all. And still yet our government throws subsidies at it. Ok well we could go nuclear. We have 104 plants in the US to produce 9% of our total power. We would need to build about 1150 more to meet current demand. One of our biggest problems with current plants is their spent fuel storage what will we do with the waist from 1150 more plants. Not to mention that the last accident spread contamination around the globe. How about coal? Well just download the Arkansas fishing regulations and in the back they have a list of lakes that you cannot eat the fish because of mercury contamination that has fallen out of the air from the coal fired plants. Because I love getting our in the backcountry of Arkansas fishing I hate the coal industry and what they have done to my fishing holes. So what about hydrogen? Good choice clean and safe. But I will let you in on a little secret. The best, most economical source for hydrogen is natural gas. Bio fuel and ethanol is another flop. It takes a bushel of corn to make 3 gallons of ethanol and then factor in that ethanol only has 2/3 the energy of gasoline or 2 gallons per bushel. Now factor in that more that 50% of this will be burned the make the next 2 gallons and you're down to 1 gallon. How many gallons of ethanol will be used to till the land, harvest it, and truck it? Factor in the carbon footprint on that! The reason our government subsidizes these people is because they sampled it the night before. What about hydro? Simple, not enough amazons in the US. My best solution is to get converted over to natural gas, send them boats back to the Middle East for good, quit funding these terrorists, and keep our money here. That is a plan I can show on paper to work. I have never seen any of these people bashing the oil and gas industry produce a working plan. Don't cuss the farmer with your mouth full. Don't cuss the oil industry while pulling you car in your nice warm garage!
klem replied on Permalink
"Don't cuss the farmer with
"Don't cuss the farmer with your mouth full."
Excellent phrase, Ive never heard that one before. Words to live by.
- Oil sands mining is
- Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.
- At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing in them.
- Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada.
- The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
- Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.
- The oil sands operations are the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gas in Canada. By 2020 the oil sands will release twice the amount produced currently by all the cars and trucks in Canada.
Source: "Report: Alberta Oil Sands Most Destructive Project on Earth," DeSmog Blog, Feb 18, 2008
A single engineering project, the Syncrude mine in the Athabasca tar sands, involves moving 30 billion tonnes of earth—twice the amount of sediment that flows down all the rivers in the world in a year.
"It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest — a natural carbon reservoir.
Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/opinion/tar-sands-and-the-carbon-numbers.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
RickJames replied on Permalink
Tarsands methods are evolving
Tarsands methods are evolving and improving.
The Boreal Forest of Canada
The Boreal Forest of Canada is one of the most important ecosystems on earth.
e.g. - billions of birds from America spend at least part of the year there.
It is also one of the world's major carbon sinks, which helps keep the carbon cycle in balance. This forest is already under a lot of pressure from mining, logging etc. National Geographic has a extensive article on the Boreal Forest and the problems it's facing.
American consumers are also aiding in the destruction of this forest, when they buy disposable diapers, tissue, paper towels etc. (boycott Brawny and Dixie paper products - Koch brothers)
We should be making paper from hemp. - better paper and much more sustainable.
T D Scott replied on Permalink
Can you imagine
Just think no fuel, no energy, no pollution. 20 mil people in NY city riding horses donkeys and there will be no pollution?
rabbit replied on Permalink
Before cars, large cities
Before cars, large cities were absolutely filthy with horse manure dust. Keeping things clean was a full time job.
SteveFunk replied on Permalink
Hurwitz (assuming he is American) forgets that Canada is a sovereign nation, not part of the US. Canada is not going to "save" their tar sands for American use in the future. They have already made the decision to develop it. In fact, they have developed it, and are producing about 1.5 million barrels per day. They can sell it to the US, China, or Europe. If we buy it, contrary to what Hurwitz says, this could allow the US to delay producing the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and the Northwest Alaska Petroleum Reserve. Under NAFTA, the US has the right of first refusal, but the Canadians will be happy to sell it to other customers. The pipeline is absolutely irrelevant to global warming. This oil will be produced and burned by somebody as long as it can be economically produced. And it will be economical as supplies from the rest of the world are depleted.
RickJames replied on Permalink
I think the only realistic
I think the only realistic possibility of stopping the tarsands is a global depression where the price of oil drops down to under $40. and stays there.
It could happen.
SteveFunk replied on Permalink
tar sands
We could slow use of the tar sands down with an appropriate carbon tax. Part of the heavy extraction carbon cost would be offset by reduced transportation carbon use, compared to tankers from the middle east.
RickJames replied on Permalink
yeah - I'm not necessarily
yeah - I'm not necessarily against a carbon tax.
I'm not necessarily against a doubling of gasoline price at the pump and associated rise in price of everything else. I'm pretty sure thats where we are headed. I just wish I had confidence that the collected monies would be well spent for useful projects.


text:
Question: Can one LPAR see the POWERVM internal network packets from another LPAR?
nagger 100000MRSJ Comment (1) Visits (16741)
Another good questions from a customer and my answer was simple:
The PowerVM internal network on POWER machines operates just like a physical network.
If the two LPARs are on different internal networks then they can never see the other LPARs packets.
If two LPAR are on the same internal network but on different VLANs then they can never see the other LPARs packets.
If in doubt think: "Just like a physical network" and you will not go far wrong.


text:
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These replacement foam adhesive strips secure the display to a 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, or 2019 27" iMac and the 2017 iMac Pro.
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Please select your model above for upgrades and repair parts!
If you don't see the part you're looking for, just let us know. We're constantly adding to our line of iMac parts and welcome your requests.


text:
'Action!' on the set of 'Oz the Great and Powerful'
Hop aboard our hot-air balloon for a trip to the soundstages of the $200 million Disney prequel.
PONTIAC, Mich.— Watch your step on this Yellow Brick Road.
On a chilly autumn day 30 miles outside Detroit, the famous golden path curves through cavernous studios on the set of Oz the Great and Powerful (out Friday). In the Dark Forest, the bricks are gnarled and uprooted. Over in Glinda the Good Witch's kingdom, they're a crumbled mess.
Glinda herself (played by Michelle Williams) is off the clock at the moment, but a crowd of cherubic-looking townspeople stand quaking in terror.
"Guys, keep your reaction and energy up. You don't know what it is," shouts a voice behind the monitors. En masse, the colorful lot screams and backs away as a camera swoops overhead on wires. The witch (currently a stand-in sporting a black pointy hat and jeans) sneers, arms outstretched, from the center of a smashed pile of yellow bricks.
The Wicked Witch is back, now terrorizing Munchkins in 3-D.
In Disney's dreamlike new $200 million prequel, directed by Sam Raimi, Dorothy is decades away from being born; the wonderful wizard (James Franco) is a small-time huckster named Oscar Diggs making girls swoon at Kansas roadshows; and two beautiful sisters (Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz) are witches empowered by a rich legacy, piles of gold and a very cool, very potent collection of jewelry. Their land terrorized by evil, they await a savior named Oz, whom their father predicted would come to save them from the Wicked Witch. (Disney prefers her identity be kept a surprise for moviegoers. Even on the set, images of the Wicked Witch are hidden from visitors.)
"If this project was too revisionist, it would not be as satisfying, but you do want to give a fresh take on it," says Franco, sitting in Diggs' damp black suit on a crate between scenes. Behind him, the soundstage is draped in rich blue screens, and later, the fantastical, digitally rendered world of Oz will stretch behind Franco as far as the eye can see.
But right now, Diggs is about to meet his first witch.
'Where's the warts? The broom?'
A pond dominates the soundstage, heaped with brilliant flora and fauna. In the center bobs a deflated hot-air balloon, having theoretically just flown through a tornado and crashed with Franco in its basket. As production assistants in wet suits wade through the water adjusting lily pads, Franco's head is sprayed down with water.
"He's looking really dry," cracks Kunis from the grassy knoll, dressed more like a chic ingénue than a witch in a crisp white shirt and red velvet riding coat, tight black riding pants and wide-brimmed red hat, her hazel eyes lined with kohl.
Franco and Kunis' stand-ins slip on the marsh as the actors take their marks. "It's a slippery slope?" asks Raimi, deadpanning.
Kunis stares at Franco as he emerges from the water. He asks where he is. "You're in Oz," she informs him.
"That's my name," answers Franco quizzically, a shorthand for Oscar. The shot goes awry, but Raimi, dressed in a black suit, merely chides the camera operator in jest as Franco and Kunis mouth jokes at each other.
"You know that rhyme about the little girl with the curl? That's him. He's bad," chuckles Kunis.
REVIEW: 'Oz' is good, escapist fun
"Wet him down again," says Raimi, before shifting attention to the monitor piping in action from his other active set. Two stages down, Munchkins are lying palms-down on the Yellow Brick Road as the woman in the black hat terrorizes them. Raimi nods as a production assistant smooths the velvet on Kunis' plumed hat. In 3-D, attention to detail is paramount.
"Bring forth the wind!" calls Raimi, turning back to the pond. "And, action!"
"So you ARE the wizard!" exclaims Kunis, mistaking the Kansas con man for Oz's prophetic savior.
"Yeah, you've seen my act?" asks Franco. She curtsies lightly, introducing herself as "the Good Witch Theodora."
Franco looks dubious. "Where's the warts? Where's the broom?" Kunis laughs, informing him she'll escort him to the Emerald City, where he is to take his destined throne. Franco assumes the airs of a freshly anointed politico. "Very well, show me the way to my palace, good witch!"
"We must hurry, the Wicked Witch is about." They hear a crack.
Franco: "What are those?"
Kunis, fearful: "The Wicked Witch's minions. They've been sent to kill you. Run!" she yells, as they dart out of the lens.
"I think I'm going to need more fear this time," says Raimi. "I need to see a sense of horror come over you." One take later, Raimi's voicing the imaginary threat: "SCREECH, SCREECH, SCREECH!"
Raimi is 'the perfect captain'
Later in the day, Kunis emerges from her trailer in street clothes. She has been killing downtime by watching Breaking Bad (Franco habitually dips into his book between scenes).
The women in Wonderful Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum's world were always powerful, and "Theodora is, in the movie, desperately trying to be good," Kunis says, playing with her prop ring, which contains an oversized ruby-like gem held by two tiny silver hands (in Oz, it emits fireballs). Until she falls for the young wiz and he breaks her heart, "she does everything that she thinks she's supposed to do. And her sister (the calculating Evanora, played by Weisz) keeps trying to push her toward the darker side of life."
In homage to the original Wizard of Oz film, the new Oz launches in sepia tone. But where the original broke barriers using Technicolor, Raimi is pushing forward in a new dimension. On set, a visitor can view 3-D effects as they are captured, and the director orchestrates "almost like a live TV director (at) the Super Bowl holding 70 cameras," says Zach Braff, who plays both Oscar's beleaguered assistant in Kansas and his sidekick, an adorably devoted flying monkey named Finley. "He's amazing like that. The perfect captain."
And Raimi is pushing for realism, despite Oz's lush visuals. "He didn't want me to be in a 10-mile-long pouffy pink dress, and he didn't want me to talk in an artificially high and sped-up tone," says Williams. "He asked for a Glinda that was more human."
And clean of copyright infringement. The imagery of Oz "is so in our DNA," says Raimi, who embarked on a careful dance building this new world, sourced from the 14 original Baum books rather than the beloved 1939 film (which Disney does not have rights to). Elements like the ruby slippers, and even certain shades of green, are copyrighted. An iconic shot of a spiraling Yellow Brick Road was similarly off-limits, as were Oz's menacing flying monkeys, which were traded for baboons.
Raimi has proven adept at turning mega-budgets into box-office success (see the Spider-Man trilogy). But, he says, the comic-book franchise was a much stricter adaption than what he's doing in Baum's world.
With Spider-Man, "we tried to fulfill audiences' expectations," Raimi says outside his trailer, just a few miles from where he grew up. With Oz, "we're trying to defy their expectations: Who are they when they were young? We don't want to tell a story where they're absolutely everything that the audience expects them to be, because it wouldn't be any fun."
The next day, filming runs late as Franco reshoots close-ups of the moment his balloon crashes into the water. "Part of (Oscar's) emotional journey in this film is learning to connect with people, learning to care for people and not just treat them as disposable objects," he says. Take after take, Franco's face contorts into panic, but the actor shows few signs of impatience.
Neither do the three dozen Munchkins who spend hours a day having their silicone ears, noses and bushy brows applied. Or Williams, who still has "hers and hers" wands with daughter Matilda, 7.
It's a wonderful world, even for the jaded.
Which is why Kunis and Williams couldn't stop giggling in Glinda's castle. "We were having this fight, but it's, like, comical," says Kunis, gesturing at her surroundings. "She has her little wand, and I'm like 'RARR!' It's too good to be true. You'd be crazy to not take a moment and go, 'I don't know how I got here, but this is amazing.'"


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text: X-Ray Report post Posted August 15, 2012 (edited) The day when I will return to my comedies is on the horizon, but I believe that I shall take this time to sit down and pen this small tale...The Golden Age- A Short Story fan fiction by BZPower member X-RayThe room was small, but not cramped. There was a window built into the opposing wall, with no glass over it, only a rough sheet with two holes drilled into the corners, one of which hung on the right of a counterpart pair of rough iron spikes. There was a crude desk and stool on the left side of the room, as well as a bucket, and a more elaborate version of the sleep pallet on the right. The mat propped up off the floor -What was it called? A bed?- looked shabby and used. But then again, everything about the room, the whole building even, was like that.Turaga Dume knew, however, that the shabbiness was perfectly understandable.Where he came from, everything was shiny and new, constantly being repaired and cleaned, improved upon and polished, by expert craftsmen. There was no such attention to unnecessary maintenance in this city -No, it is more like a Koro, I believe, thought the Turaga- even if resources could be expended for that. Fortunately, a handful of Matoran hailing from Artakha had arrived last week, and were already working wonders in the village, much to the amazement, even bewilderment, of the main inhabitants, the Agori.Where Dume came from, the weather was always at its best, and the nearest desert sands were in Po-Metru, where he did not often go... not that there was much desert sand around this place anymore either. Until several months ago, and only for a few months before that even, he had been able to survey the whole of Metru Nui from the window of his comfortable chambers, high in the Coliseum.Of course, he reflected as he went over to the window, the tallest building in this town, Vulcanus, was only three stories tall, not counting the basement. And he was currently in that structure, the Vulcanus Officiary Building, known informally as "the hall." Specifically, this room was reserved for visiting leaders and other important personages. Just what is that bucket for, I wonder?As the de facto leader of the Matoran people, Turaga Dume had traveled from the crash site of the colossal Mata Nui robot, in whose head he had once resided, to the village of Vulcanus, or what of it was being re-established after the... ah, sudden break up, of the briefly established Bara Magna mega-city. Dume meant to meet with Raanu, his effective counterpart in the young Spherus Magna government, which was at present little more than a loose and informal confederation of varied societies, who did not always get along. The fire Agori assigned to Dume had informed him that he and Raanu were very much alike, at least to this orderly's knowledge. They were to speak after a small banquet in the evening -Whatever a banquet is- for Raanu had been traveling as well, arbitrating a dispute between the Jungle Tribe a group of Le-Matoran. Apparently, the incident arose when some particularly impetuous air tribesmen from the island of Mata Nui had tried to do some vine swinging at Tesara. The locals were not amused.Dume lurched over to his new... bed, and sat down. It was not as comfortable as his sleep pallet in the Coliseum, but it was far better than the prison cell in which he had been residing for the last few months with his fellow Turaga. He knew that he had a lot of work in store for him, but he wasn't sure that he had what it took to lead the Matoran anymore. They needed a leader who could know what they knew, and who they were familiar with. Someone like Turaga Vakama, or Turaga Onewa, or Turaga Matau, even. Dume now knew that his detached, aloof ways may not have been for the best.He also wasn't sure whether he had the strength. The journey from the Great Spirit robot had been very hard on his ancient form, even on a good mount, in pleasing weather. The trip had to be made by caravan through the new lush landscape, and had taken him, his entourage, and their Glatorian escorts a week to reach Vulcanus. At least they and the Toa in their group had refrained from any bickering, until they arrived in the town anyway. Dume yawned and set down his staff, stretched his arms, and leaned back. He had not traveled so far in a long time. A long... time... * * *"Are you quite ready, great leader?" called Toa Hain from outside in the courtyard."Be patient brother," called back Toa Dume, slightly annoyed at the Toa of air's flippant tone of voice. "I'm almost ready." He shuffled through the weapons rack, vowing to give Zima a stern lecture when she came back from patrol. The Toa of Lightning simply did not know how to clean up after herself, no doubt trying to escape the chore of tidying the armory by feigning incompetence.Today was weapons practice day for the Toa Sudak who weren't on patrol at the moment, and that meant, after a brief widget flip, that Dume had their resident Toa of air as a sparring partner. The being was a noble and valiant warrior, skilled in many types of weapons. But Hain was also, as many of the tribe of Le were, a jester by nature, and thus was found by some serious types such as Dume to be annoying.But, thought the Toa of Fire, and recently elected leader of the Sudak, I shall be able to learn to better myself in the art of swordsmanship from my practice with him. With that thought, Dume finally found his favorite sword and shield, and ran to the courtyard.In the courtyard, Hain and Dume were standing with their weapons on one side, with some posts and fence pieces mounted in the ground should they need them. On the other side were Naiphak, the Toa of iron, and Apher, the Toa of water, who were practicing with staves among similar equipment."There you are!" Hain said to Dume cheerfully. He did a forward flip in the Toa of fire's direction, drawing his sword and landing in a fighting stance as he finished. "What took you so long?" Hain said. "You were in the armory for almost ten minutes.""Remember how Zima 'cleaned' the armory last night?" said Dume."Oh, right," Hain replied, knowing that nothing more needed to be said. "Zimmy really needs to, heh heh, clean up her act." Hain then burst into a fit of cackling at his own joke, but soon realized that Dume was only looking at him strangely. "Um, very well then," said Hain, quickly adding "great leader. We'll start by reviewing Gukko Form, before moving on to Muaka.""Alright," said Dume, trying to keep his patience. Even after two weeks, his election as team leader was still a source of mockery for Hain, as well as Tolek, the Toa of Stone. "Let's start then."For the rest of the morning, Dume and Hain practiced various methods and forms, and sparred a few times. Dume was stronger and tougher than his opponent, but Hain had the advantage of speed, agility, and experience. There was no danger of either of them harming each other. The weapons being used at the moment had been crafted by Naiphak to be blunted, and therefore of little practical use than as bludgeons, and not very good bludgeons at that. But they were just fine for practice.After Dume had been slammed into the ground for the third time, Hain glanced at the sundial and noted that it was now a half hour past noon. "Break time, Dume," he said, helping his partner off the ground. Dume, for his part, thanked the Toa of air for his patience, stretched out his joints, and then stumbled over to the fountain for drink of water. Naiphak and Apher were there as well.Hain took his marked cup form a shelf engraved into the side of the fountain. He took a deep, refreshing drink. Nothing like cold water on a hot day after training, he thought. Noting that Apher was standing next to him, he said to her, "Everything good on your end of the court?"The sapphire armored Toa glanced up from her cup, and gave a smile. Apher, like most of the other Toa on the eight member team, was a stranger to the Fe-Koro area. She wore a Kanohi Pakari, the mask of Strength. "Fine enough for Naiphak," she said, "bad for my sides. I'm still having trouble getting my head around staff fighting.""You could try something else then," said Hain good-naturedly. "Some weapons just come easier to certain beings than others. Like say, oh, I don't know… sword?""No, no," said Apher, holding up a flattened palm. "I chose this weapon to work on, and I'm going to stick with it-""Ha! Stick!" exclaimed Hain, snickering behind his Kanohi Kakama. "Get it? Staff? Stick?""And- and I'm going to practice with it for more than four days before trying something new," finished Apher, before letting a "heh heh" escape her mouth. No matter how dumb Hain's jokes got, there was still cause for laughter; Hain's determination to not stop telling them. And some of them were actually pretty funny.Dume and Naiphak, meanwhile, had wandered over to the gates leading to the outside of the courtyard. This courtyard, when not being used as a training area for the Sudak, was actually a weathered sports arena, as evidenced by the several seats built around it. The Sudak each had individual homes throughout the town, and the fountain could be lowered into the ground when not needed. The rest of the practice equipment was portable.Naiphak climbed up into the bleachers, and peered over the upper guard rails. He saw the Matoran going about their work, trading, crafting, repairing, moving, guarding in the case of the local patrol, resting, healing, talking, arguing, and, in general, living."How is it in the town?" called Dume from below the seats.Naiphak looked over his shoulder and called back, "Everything seems to be normal." Naiphak looked again. He spotted Tyothis, the team's other Toa of fire, standing watch at the west gate, making sure that incoming and outgoing carts had everything in order, chosen for that task because he wore the Kanohi Akaku, the mask of x-ray vision. He saw Zima, the Toa of Lightning, lazily strolling along the top of the town wall, before disappearing behind a building which obscured the Toa of Iron's vision. He witnessed Tolek, the Toa of Stone, accidently bump over a fruit stand in the market place, and then hastily apologize to the infuriated owner while trying to help fix the stand. And he observed Juin, the Toa of Ice, talking with Turaga Settu, the village leader and former Toa of Iron, as well as Naiphak's mentor.By this time, Dume had climbed up into the bleachers and was now standing next to Naiphak, looking over his adopted home. Upon seeing Tolek's predicament, he was prompted to wonder aloud, "The Matoran have yet to get used to our presence, I see.""How did it take you to get used to having a Toa around your village?" said Naiphak, narrowing his eyes at the Toa of fire."We had no Toa in my village," replied Dume icily, now regretting starting a conversation with Naiphak. The two had been opponents for the position of leader of the Toa Sudak, and there was still some sore wounds over the election. "We only had a worn out Turaga of Water, a handful of hot-headed Ta-Matoran, and the late Barraki Mantax who occasionally visited our village to hunt in our forest.""You actually saw Mantax?" said Naiphak incredulously. Only Tyothis had been at the battle where Brotherhood of Makuta forces had soundly defeated the armies of the League of Six Kingdoms, and even he only got quick look at the Barraki, before they vanished out of the plane of existence. Rumors quickly flared up that Mata Nui had exacted punishment on them, but the Brotherhood of Makuta had recently rejected that possibility in a public announcement."Once," said Dume. "On that particular day, he took two of our villagers and used them as bait for the Muaka he was hunting in the forest. They both survived, but neither of them ever went into the forest again after that, and one of them has only one arm."There was silence for a moment. Naiphak shook his head, still confounded after all these years on how Mata Nui could have appointed such depraved beings as rulers. Tolek had opined in past discussions that the Barraki were once good and just beings, but had become corrupted by power and greed, while Tyothis vehemently argued that the Barraki had always had souls of rot, and that they just became more inept at concealing that rot.After a few minutes, Dume said, "I'm going to send out Apher to check in with the others." He went from his spot in the bleachers and hopped over the bottom wall into the courtyard. "Apher!" he called to his teammate, "Go check in on the others! Report any suspicious activity.""Yes sir!" came her reply. The Toa of water took her staff, running over to the side entrance, before disappearing into the darkness of the indoors section of the arena.Naiphak came from behind Dume to stand beside him. "It looks like we have a quiet afternoon ahead of us, Dume.""As a wise being once said," said the Toa of fire, "'never assume.'" * * *Apher had a pretty clear view in marketplace. After all, she, like the majority of Toa, stood about the same size as one Matoran standing on another's shoulders. Thus, even though the crowd swarmed around her like ocean waves, she had no trouble wading about in it. At least I could swim in the ocean, thought Apher. She missed her hometown, a little fishing village about thirty kio southwest of Fe-Koro. But when the call came for local Toa to band together in order to protect the Southern Continent from rouge Barraki soldiers, she knew that she had to go.In her three months as a member of the Toa Sudak, she had wrestled ash bears, vanquished bandits, and mediated every argument among the team from who should be leader to who had to clean the armory. Apher understood the need for a peacemaker, but often tired of her unofficial role. At least things have been mostly peaceful this month.Out of the corner of her eye, Apher spotted Tolek stacking some crates. "There," he said, rubbing his hands together, "good as new.""Thank you, Toa Tolek," said a Fe-Matoran standing next to a pile of smashed bula berries. "Now, go to Karzahni."Tolek sighed, rumbling along in a different direction, but brightened when he saw Apher. "Sister!" he said, moving quickly toward her. Tolek stood about a head taller than Apher, and wore a bronze Kanohi Hau, the mask of shielding. "What's the word?""Dume just told me to check in on all of you," replied Apher. "Any suspicious activity?""None," said Tolek, patting the horn he carried around his neck. "We all know what to do in case of an emergency, though." He noted a dented portion of her torso armor. "How's stave practice going?""Better than wrestling last week," said Apher, glancing down at her own horn. "Thanks for asking."Apher continued over to Juin, the Toa of Ice, currently in deep conversation with Turaga Settu."…and furthermore, Turaga, it would be irresponsible to leave the surrounding villages perpetually unattended," said Juin."But," said the Turaga from behind his Kanohi Miru, "this village's mines are more important to the larger economy than any other in the region.""Yes, I understand that," came Juin's reply, "but if the other municipalities fall prey to bandits and the like, there won't be any 'larger economy' to worry about!"Perfect, thought Apher, another quarrel for me to squelch. Taking a deep breath, she approached the two debaters and addressed them both, saying, "Turaga, Juin, what in Mata Nui's name are you two arguing about?""We, dear sister," said Juin in his dulcet tones, "have been discussing the merits of having all the Toa bottled up in Fe-Koro, or else spreading out to patrol our own sections of the countryside.""Which is my decision, Toa," interjected Turaga Seetu. A grizzled veteran with a pitted gray Miru, he and the Toa, including Dume, were often at odds on how to best run the southwestern region of the Southern Continent."There hasn't been an attack on the village in over a month!" cried Juin. The Toa of ice was so agitated that his Great Komau began to shake. "And besides, the cost alone to house all of us-""Juin," said Apher, "I don't mean to interrupt, but aren't you supposed to be on patrol at the mines?""The mi-?" said Juin, completely forgetting the argument. "Er, truly, I have neglected my duty. I shall go at once." The Toa of ice turned towards the gate, but not before leaving a final word for the Turaga. "We aren't yet finished, Turaga. Dume agrees with me, and he said you both would discuss this matter in detail at another ti-""Get to your post!" yelled the aged Turaga. "Remember the three virtues! Unity, duty, destiny! In the interest of unity, do you duty, or your destiny will be to polish my staff with your tongue!"Apher eyed Seetu's worn walking staff as Juin went on his way out. It was made out of the finest iron, with a large green gem embedded in the top."Thank you, by the way," said Seetu to Apher. "I thought I'd never get rid of him. Rookies, think they know everything because they went to some fancy school.""You're welcome sir," said Apher, "but I didn't do it for you. I'm interested in the unity of this team, but I'll leave the management to our leaders.""Yeah, yeah, sure," said Seetu, walking away to his shelter. "Turaga Jovan, he'd like you." He glanced over his shoulder before going in out of the bright sunlight.Apher continued over to the bottom of the wall near Zima, the Toa of electricity. "Anything to report?" she called.Zima looked down and made chopping motion with her hand, and then walked along."Alright then," shouted Apher. "Thanks, I guess."Apher's last stop to make to was at Tyothis' post. The old fellow sat in the shade, allowing two Fe-Koro guardsmen to do most of the work. His spear was stuck in the ground next to him, but his shield remained strapped to his front arm."Toa Tyothis!" she called, walking up to the aged Toa. "How are things at the front gate?""Just fine and dandy," said Tyothis. He got up, stretched his muscles, and adjusted the shield mounted to his arm. He then took his spear and walked over to Apher. The gate was empty now, but was generally busier in the morning and evening."How's staff practice going?" said the Toa of fire."Good, good," said Apher. "Any suspicious activity to report?""Well," said Tyothis, "we had one wagon with a load of something metal in a box, but it turned out to just be a bunch of iron nails. We had another feller' with a small herd of Mahi, but they were all right, though one of them-""Caravan!" shouted the lookout in the tower next to the gate. An ussel cart pulling a cage on wheels, containing a snorting Kane-Ra bull, came towards the gate. A Le-Matoran drove the cart, a Ga-Matoran and a Po-Matoran sitting alongside him."Well, what have we got here?" said Tyothis. He went over to the cart as the two Fe-Matoran guards ordered it to come to a stop. "You got a license for this here Kane-Ra bull?" said the Toa of fire to the Le-Matoran."I beg your pardon," said the Le-Matoran from behind a teal Noble Komau, "but the great Janbar does not have a license! He is wild, untamed, the greatest of his kind, and I, Boroval, am the only one who can tame-""Do you or do you not have a license?" interrupted Tyothis. Tyothis had little patience for pomp of any kind, and was at this moment not liking this Boroval one bit."We have a license," said one the Po-Matoran, pulling a stone tablet from his pack. "Here, sir Toa."Tyothis examined the license. It was worn and a little crumbled, but it was valid. "See about renewing the thing soon," he said, handing the tablet back to the Po-Matoran.Meanwhile, Apher noticed that the bull was becoming more and more agitated. It moved crazily about in the cage, eyeing its surroundings with venom."Rahi like the Kane-Ra bull need open fields and pasture land," opined Apher. "It's going mad in that cage.""Fear not, fair water maiden," said Boroval majestically. "In the arena, before me, this beast is a gentle as our ussel crab. Come, see our show tomorrow night and-""Move along," said Tyothis, waving his spear. The cart moved along, but the bull continued to stare at Tyothis. It snorted, and charged against the bars, the impact shaking the cart and nearly sending the Ga-Matoran over the side."Sirs!" shouted Apher. "Your bull seems to be extremely agitated. I would advise that you leave the village and-"It was too late. The Kane-Ra bull slammed its head against the bars of its cage a second and final time before they were broken loose from the wooden frame. The bars clattered onto the ground as the bull jumped from the cart, moving around, looking for something to charge at. It spotted Tyothis, standing in his dusty red armor, shield and spear at the ready. The Kane-Ra bull let out a bellow, and began to summon its strength for a charge.Apher was glued to her spot in abject horror at the situation. But training took over, and she reached for her horn, put it to her lips, and blew. * * *Dume looked up from his sparring match with Hain, the distinct sound of the alarm horn echoing throughout the village. "Go!" he shouted. "It's the alarm!"The three Toa, Dume, Naiphak, and Hain, raced to the armory to retrieve their Toa tools. Dume took his Ember Blade from its spot, Naiphak his mace, and Hain his sword and shield."Hain!" said Dume. "Scout the situation!"Hain nodded, knowing that now was not the time for wisecracks. In a blur of green, he rushed from the armory with the power of his mask of speed, and was back again in an instant."Kane-Ra bull in the market place," he said, catching his breath as he did. "Tolek, Apher, and Tyothis are trying to keep it in one place, but their efforts aren't going to hold up for long.""We'll settle that!" declared Dume. "Here's the plan. I and Naiphak will distract the Rahi. Kane-Ra bulls are agitated by the color red, so it will naturally charge at me. Hain, you get Zima, she has the mask of Rahi control. Now go!""Yes sir!" said Hain, before departing once more."We'll distract the beast?" said Naiphak to Dume, trying to keep pace with his leader's stride."Yes," said Dume, igniting his sword. "Your Kanohi Calix might just come in handy."The two came out of the stadium, finding a largely deserted market place. Most of the Matoran had bolted themselves into their homes, only a few cowering in the shadows while a despairing opera played out before them.Apher was attempting to use her mask of strength to wrestle the Kane-Ra bull to the ground. Tolek was apparently trying to wall the bull in, his lack of success betrayed by several broken stone slabs jutting out of the ground. Tyothis was standing his ground across from Tolek, with Apher and the Kane-Ra between them, but limping. He had his spear couched beneath his arm, his shield over his torso. An overturned cart lay off to the side, on Tyothis' right.Dume waved his sword at the bull, prancing about on his toes. "Rahi, come forth!" he yelled, swishing his blazing sword back and forth. Naiphak for his part slammed his mace into the ground.Apher looked at Dume, her eyes screaming, Are you insane?"Let go, Apher! I have a plan!" shouted Dume. "Trust me!"Apher nodded, and then let go.The charging Kane-Ra bull galloped in Dume's direction, snorting, growling even, its eyes full of hate and rage. Dume looked it right in the eye, fully intending to leap out of the way at the last possible second, to play a game of cat and mouse with the bull- when it suddenly stopped.Naiphak looked to the right, and saw Zima coming forward with her hand outstretched, her mask glowing from use. The Kane-Ra bull stopped as though on a leash, digging its hooves into the ground to stop its charge. It then proceeded to turn around, slowly rumbling towards Zima, before collapsing into a sitting position."Sleep," commanded Zima. The bull lowered its head and closed its eyes.Dume hadn't been happier to see his fellow Toa any day before now. "Perfect, Zima!" he called. "Tolek! Make a pit for the beast."As Tolek did as he was ordered, Dume spotted Juin arriving from the direction of the gate. Tyothis, meanwhile, had dropped his spear, and was leaning on Apher. "Juin!" called Dume, "Help Apher move Tyothis to his shelter! He is injured!""Yes sir!" came the reply from the Toa of ice. Discarding his blade-staffs, Juin took Tyothis' shield arm, and walked off with him towards Tyothis' hut, not far from their current location.While all of this was going on, Matoran began to stream out of their homes, slowly filling up the area. Naiphak quickly created an iron fence to surround the bull pit, while Tolek and Zima directed curious Matoran away from it.Turaga Seetu came through the crowd, led by Hain, and approached Dume and Naiphak. The four beings stood, starring at each other in an awkward silence. Then, Seetu shouted, "Three cheers for the Toa Sudak, who have saved our village on this day!"The crowd of Matoran burst into applause, cheering and clapping in an excited manner which Dume had never before seen in the village's populace."Sudak! Sudak! Sudak!" they cried with all of their might. Dume could only stand and wave approvingly, Naiphak and Hain doing the same."Turaga!" said a voice next to Dume. "Turaga Dume! Turaga Dume!" * * *Suddenly, Turaga Dume woke up.He looked around, seeing a red face against the dark ceiling. He looked up towards his window. It was night out."Turaga, sir," said the Agori attendant. "The banquet is in one hour, and I was told to come and let you know.""Eh… yes, of course," said Dume, righting himself into a sitting position on the bed. How long was I asleep? he thought. "I'm sorry, what is your name?" he said to the Agori."Kyry, sir," said the fire Agori.Dume adjusted his mask. It had gone crooked as he lay asleep. "Kyry," he said, "please send for my aide, Aft.""Yes sir," said Kyry. He gave a slight nod, and then turned and left the room.Perhaps there is more for me to do yet, thought Dume. What else are old duffers like me for anyway?About ten minutes later, Aft came into Dume's room. "You sent for me, Turaga?""Yes, Aft. I want you to prepare a message for Kopeke the chronicler while I go to Raanu's banquet." Dume stood up to stretch his legs. He took his cane from its position leaning next to the wall."In this message," said Dume, looking Aft in the eye, which was hard because Aft wore a Kanohi Akaku, "tell the chronicler that I wish to share with him my years as a Matoran and Toa, for the sake of posterity. I wish to begin as soon as possible.""Yes sir," said Aft, nodding. The fire Matoran bowed, and then left the room.Dume then sat back down on the bed, ready for Kyry to come back to escort him to the banquet. Yes, perhaps there is still a duty for me yet. The End Edited August 26, 2012 by X-Ray Quote "All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." -C.S. Lewis The Selected BZPower.com Literary Works of X-Ray -Comedies- Glatorian of Bara Magna: Curse of the Grey Crystal * Nuva Nation * Bionicles at Work * X-Ray: The Return (One-Shot) * The Misadventures of Nobody (and X-Ray) -Epics- Bionicle: Infinities (Old review topic) (New review topic) -Short Stories- What Comes After * The Golden Age * Hero of the Day * The Settlement * The Ballad of Master Chief * West of Po-Koro * Whatever Happened to the Agent of the Bat? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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You have made a powerful enemy, Ted Thompson, and I do not envy you one bit. On Tuesday, Ted Thompson released Tracy White and signed Danny Lans...Lansan...Really? What does it even matter, we'll just call him #58. Remember, TT, Tracy White doesn't sleep, he waits.
Packer Ranter readers have known of my well-placed affinity for White for a long time. A Special Teams animal whose list of on-field accomplishments are only outweighed by the amount he bench presses. For a special teams unit badly in need of leadership and playmakers, replacing White with #58, a rookie from the practice squad, is foolish. The rationale behind this roster move is troubling because it cannot be justified. Aren't there numerous other positions that could be shored up? Punter and D-line imediately come to mind. Are you trying to field the youngest team in the history of the NFL? It hasn't seemed to work out so well this year. Were you worried about White's meager salary? Compared to his stallion-like efforts on the field of battle, it is a bargain. I read that it was done, in part, to save #58 from signing with another team. You know what? The TT Youth Movement should be about complete, releasing a loyal, productive veteran to promote a practice-squader shows weakness.....and fear...and we all know that fear leads to anger, which leads to the Dark Side.
I have refused to comment on TT's moves until this point, preferring to wait until they play out, but this bone-headed transaction that was swept under the rug needed to be shared. The only consolation I take is that Tracy White is a Survivor. This will not stop him in his quest for total and utter special teams domination, albeit for another team, one who will rank 1st in special teams once he signs. I only hope that Ted Thompson's office is buried deep in an undisclosed, secure location, because, as another group of Survivors once said: "The last known survivor stalks his prey in the night." Tracy White is after you, man, RUUUUUUNNNN!
Tracy White Fact of the Day: Tracy White ghost-wrote Rocky II.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Eye of the Tracy
4 comments:
"A free agent in the off-season, White spurned offers from Pittsburgh and Denver to re-sign with Green Bay." Here's a guy who was not only the most productive ST guys, he wanted to stay loyal to the Packers. And what do we do?ReplyDelete
Replace him with someone from the practice squad. TT: "We just felt Danny is a guy...that can add a little bit more juice." Are you kidding me? So many reasons this is wrong.
He even looks like Carl Weathers circa Rocky I & II.ReplyDelete
- D the DragonOctober 9, 2008 at 2:51 PM
Does this mean the Packer Pro Shop will be slashing prices on T-Dub jerseys?ReplyDelete
Those jersey prices will remain high.ReplyDelete
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|Ross, Calif.
|High School:
|St. Paul's School (N.H.)
|House Affiliation:
Senior • 2013
Rowed in the third and fifth seat for the first varsity, helping the Crimson to an undefeated season … Helped the Crimson win at the Head of the Charles Regatta, Eastern Sprints and the IRA National Championships.
Junior • 2012
First-team All-Ivy League ... Rowed for the varsity eight all season ... Finished a perfect season by setting the men's lightweight course record and capturing the gold medal at the IRA National Championships ... Won Eastern and Ivy League titles at EARC Sprints ... Helped Harvard to cap extend streak of perfect dual seasons to three with 9-0 record ... Took the Goldthwait and Vogel Cups at the HYP regatta over rivals Yale and Princeton ... Helped take down No. 3 Georgetown and No. 8 Navy setting a course record and winning the Haines Trophy for the fourth time in a row... Contributed to the varsity eight's victory over No. 6 Dartmouth and No. 11 MIT to win the Crimson's fourth straight Biglin Bowl ... Also helped to wins against No. 5 Cornell, No. 9 Penn, and Delaware.
Sophomore • 2011
Raced with the second varsity eight and with the varsity four at the IRA National Championships … Helped the varsity four win gold at the IRA regatta … Helped the second varsity eight win gold at the Eastern Sprints ... Helped Harvard secure the Vogel Cup at the HYP regatta April 30, finishing off the second varsity's undefeated dual season with a 1.9-second win over Princeton … Contributed to victories over Navy, Dartmouth, MIT, Georgetown, Penn and Delaware throughout the season.
Freshman • 2010
Rowed in the five seat of the freshman eight all season … Contributed to the Crimson freshmen's a 10-0 dual record … Helped freshmen eight and Crimson team place second at EARC Sprints … Aided in 3.5-second win against rivals Princeton and Yale to cap perfect dual season.


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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) task force received ample attention from news and activist organizations alike following its dramatic announcement at last year's State of the Union Address. The task force was supposed to investigate and prosecute Wall Street fraud that led to the housing bubble and the eventual collapse of the broader economy. FDL alum David Dayen's recent piece in Salon reminds us that, one year later, the "new" task force has essentially amounted to what the "old" task force always was: "a conduit for press releases about investigative actions already in progress."
Firedoglake was among a few groups that met the news of the taskforce with skepticism, but others like MoveOn.org, Rebuild the American Dream and the Courage Campaign were ebullient in their praise of the president and NY attorney general alike. My inbox was flooded with emails like this one, calling on me to thank the President, and get ready for the Wall Street prosecutions to come rolling in.
One month after being tapped to chair the task force, Schneiderman and his fellow 'Justice Democrat' California Attorney General Kamala Harris dropped their longstanding objections to a rather pathetic nationwide foreclosure fraud settlement that not only allowed some of the biggest criminals involved to walk upon payment of a relatively paltry settlement, but as FDL contributor Cynthia Kouril wrote at the time, "The court system will be permanently corrupted by forged and perjurious documents… This settlement is an incredible breach of the social contract between the government and the governed." Months went by without mention of or word from the taskforce. The New York Daily News began to wonder aloud in April of that year whether the taskforce would actually do anything at all, and David Dayen repeatedly wrote at FDL News of the complete lack of information that had yet to surface on the taskforce.
The public – or rather, those who knew about this disturbing trend – was outraged at Schneiderman's inaction, but the biggest outside champions of the taskforce were nowhere to be found. There were no emails from MoveOn calling on their millions of members to urge Schneiderman and the President to act. Really, how could they? They had already declared victory at the formation of the taskforce, and so all leverage was lost. This lack of public pressure from the groups most influential with administration officials may have contributed to the fact that the RMBS task force still does not have its own offices, phone lines or staff.
To this day, it seems these Beltway liberals are incapable of understanding the nature of our predicament. The Nation Magazine's editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, for one, defended these groups' efforts in the Washington Post, writing, "Dayen blames groups like the Campaign for a Fair Settlement, the New Bottom Line, Move On and the Campaign for America's Future (disclosure: I'm on its board) for buying in to the plot. In reality, though, these organizations have been pressuring the Obama administration for months to clean house at Justice, devote real resources to the task force and make it a top priority inside the White House."
But David's response gets at the heart of what I would like to address in this post (emphasis mine):
…I'm sure the Administration trembles at the pressuring from the groups that sent out glowing press releases a year ago about the "real leadership" shown by the President in announcing a task force that, by this own admission, carried no guarantee of resources or prioritization.
Look, nobody likes having to admit they've been duped. But I reject the assertion that there are only two courses of action here, that "we can either fight to see that this investigation is real or we can take our ball and go home." That fight over the investigation is doomed. What would be useful is to examine the role of these DC progressive groups, who continue to build coalitions aimed at "pressuring" the White House and who continue to fail in spectacular fashion.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time MoveOn and the establishment liberals have fallen silent when they were needed most.
At the onset of the Occupy movement, many people were very uncomfortable with the speed with which groups like MoveOn.org, Democracy for America and others latched on to the "99%" messaging and began using it to further their own goals. DFA sold 99% bumper stickers. MoveOn held protests at Romney fundraisers, branding them "Hobnobs with the 1%" while quietly letting the President hobnob in Manhattan just weeks before.
Throughout the winter of 2011, local governments managed to find rare bipartisan consensus in mutual hatred of the Occupy encampments in their communities. Crackdowns began across the country at an alarming rate. Examples include:
- Charlotte City Council has proposed an ordinance that "makes camping on public property a "public nuisance" and would prohibit "noxious substances," padlocks and other camping equipment that city officials fear could impede traffic and create public safety issues." (Convenient, since the DNC was hosted last fall.)
- City officials in Bloomington posted an eviction notice for Occupy Bloomington after three arrests during a downtown march. Gov. Mitch Daniels also introduced new 'security rules' for the Statehouse, including allowing no more than 3,000 people to be inside the statehouse at any one time, "no protest signs larger than 2' X 2', no signs on sticks, no obscenity, no engaging in lewd acts contrary to state law, no Coke cans. Also no gambling."
- Occupy Eugene actually inspired the city to build a wrought iron fence around the home of a city council member who voted to forbid fires at the encampment. Councilman Poling says "his family is unnerved and some neighbors appalled, such as a family with two small children out looking at Christmas lights who saw five masked women demonstrating topless in front of his house." Poling then went so far as to equate the topless protesters with the 1994 drive-by shooting at a Eugene synagogue by white supremacists, and demanded the city pay for redecorating his home. All Occupy Eugene asked for was to build a homeless shelter in the city.
But suddenly, at the moment Occupy could have really used their enthusiasm to rally to the movement's defense, MoveOn, DFA and the others disappeared. As crackdowns intensified, Firedoglake and others called on our activists to lobby their local governments and speak out against the crackdowns, and show up at encampments in solidarity. We sent supplies and livestreamed on our front pages, doing everything we could reasonably do with the time afforded to us to protect the Occupy camps, but it wasn't enough.
In a President's first term, one might reasonably argue that these groups should avoid advocacy that could possibly 'hurt' their candidate's chances at winning an election. While I don't personally agree with this strategy, others are entitled to their own and I respect that. If MoveOn doesn't feel it can safely navigate the space between supporting Occupy and the President at the same time, it may choose sides as it pleases.
But we are in the President's second term. Giving the announcement of the RMBS working group a standing ovation — while completely hyperbolic — makes some sense 1 year out from Obama's re-election. But now that he's back in office (and assuming MoveOn's protestations against Wall Street crimes are sincere) wouldn't one expect to hear calls for action from Schneiderman and the administration, given their total failure thus far?
There is a troubling pattern to the efforts of some of the most visible, well-known advocacy groups on the left that seem, time and time again, to actually empower our opponents rather than empower our movement. When MoveOn and DFA failed to rally to the side of Occupy when they needed them most, they gave a pass to local governments to crack down and devastated the veracity of the movement itself at a time when it could have really dealt a blow to Wall Street. When the MoveOn coalition failed to follow through on their calls for justice for Wall Street crimes after the formation of the RMBS working group, it gave the public the false impression of progress while allowing Wall Street criminals to continue about their business.
The pattern goes something like this:
1. MoveOn comes out swinging at Wall Street, latches on to the emotions of the moment and pulls everyone into a big 'progressive' campaign with a coalition made of groups either affiliated with MoveOn or with other (Veal Pen) groups with close ties to the administration.
2. Then there is a moment of mass potential. Whether it's the crackdowns at the height of the Occupy movement or the announcement of the RMBS working group, this moment attracts substantial press and public attention.
3. The next step should be to leverage the energy of that moment to continue to push for real change in the face of adversity: defend Occupy, or use your considerably large base of activists to urge the government to prosecute Wall Street criminals. But instead, MoveOn et al declare victory in the boldest terms and recede into the background. The coalition is not effectively activated. Everyone feels accomplished, and they should because they just managed to further cement the status quo.
4. Our opponents on Wall Street and in government seize on these opportunities as any shrewd actor would, recognizing that the public's leverage has been squandered. With the campaign over, they can proceed apace with their agenda. Occupy camps were destroyed and MoveOn was nowhere to be found. Eric Schneiderman didn't even so much as get a separate phone line for the RMBS working group, and continues to spoil what little remaining chances are left for Wall Street prosecution, and MoveOn is nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, settlements with Wall Street criminals abound and Americans suffer. Aside from the recent lawsuit announced against S&P, which seems promising for now, not a single Wall Street executive has been jailed for their role in the financial crisis. The least MoveOn and their partners could do is send out an email.


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Regents Approval of Academic Program Changes
March 23, 2012
Regents approve plans to close or restructure selected academic programs
The Board of Regents, State of Iowa met yesterday. Two key agenda items related to UNI included were an update on the Malcolm Price Laboratory School and our request to close or restructure selected academic programs with low completion rates.
College of Education Dean Dwight Watson and I provided an update to the Board about Malcolm Price Laboratory School. Ten transition teams have been established. My remarks and the list of teams and their members can be found at http://www.uni.edu/program-changes/transition-update-report-board-regents. I stressed that we are working with local school systems to place MPLS students next fall; establish expanded opportunities for our teacher-education students to have field experiences in local schools districts; and we are developing plans for new ways to conduct research and development state-wide. We have assembled dedicated and innovative teams to lead this transition. We look forward to following their progress.
Since our original request to the Board to close or restructure select programs with low completion rates was submitted, the Provost and her team received faculty input that resulted in changes to our request. The Board approved the updated request. The updated lists of programs slated for elimination or restructuring are online at http://www.uni.edu/program-changes/academic-program-changes.
As I've said before, we are making these strategic changes to protect and strengthen the core mission of the University. As leaders in higher education we have a responsibility to our students, their parents and taxpayers to maintain academic excellence and affordability, and to prepare for the future.
We believe these decisions will help build on historic strengths, while aligning UNI for future success in a challenging and competitive education environment. These changes also will help us reallocate resources to meet current budget requirements and student demand.
The full Board of Regents docket is online at http://www.regents.iowa.gov/Meetings/DocketMemos/12Memos/March2012/March2012docket.htm
We will keep you updated as we move forward.
Ben Allen


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I wrote this a few weeks after spending a few days riding the best motor bike roads in the world, Southeast TN, Southwest NC, NorthWest SC and Northeast GA. I rode most of the daylight hours and rarely found a straight piece of tarmac that was more than a mile long. Enjoy!
She speaks to me
I turn the key, she hears me. Her heartbeat begins and I hear the rustling of her parts as she tells me she is ready. One button, one sound, one love. Easing away from our stance she whispers to me. Not a soft, amorous tone but a raspy tang of a smoker, one who has breathed fire in the past.
I beckon to her with my wrist. She is cold yet she complies. She begins to howl at me in a voice I know well. I push harder with my hand and she awakens and sings to me from her four throats pointing up at my chest. I demand all she has and her tone changes to a lover who has been plumbed to her depths, legs akimbo, eyes and mouth agape, uttering a sound that is impossible. A sound so raw, a guttural annunciation so foreign that my hands and feet tingle and the hairs all over my body stand at attention.
I hold tightly with both hands now for she will throw me from the saddle in this state of arousal. Many times she has coaxed me to grip tighter, other times she snarls and lurches forward with no regard for her master. My thighs ache as I grip her and flog her further. She jumps and roars with alacrity for she is made for this. The road is her domain and she longs to stretch her fine legs along it.
She speaks to me when tucked tightly into a corner. Sometimes she says let go, the corner is coming too fast and the brake eases our entry into the curve. Still other times she chastises me about looking at other bikes for she is the sole focus of our journey. Read the line, she says, ignore those bikes, you can look when we stop, the line, the line!
I complain to her about my pain. My wrist throbs from hours on the throttle. My ass cheeks are hurting because the last time we got gas we didn't even leave the bike because the roads were good and we couldn't stay away. I complain about not being able to stretch my legs. She hears me but rarely answers. She knows I will stay. She knows I cannot replace her. She knows I cannot leave the saddle unless I absolutely must. She feels me.
In the beginning I hear music. I listen to the shifting. I watch bugs and birds fly into or near me at amazing speeds. I feel the pain in my legs and hands and ass.then I quit feeling. I quit thinking. I no longer speak about an apex in a curve or mumble in my helmet about slow traffic.
We merge.
I become the steel and rage that is between my legs. I am the rubber meeting the road, I am the sound of hell's fury emitting from my lungs and airbox, screaming for more speed, more angle, more traction and more road. I must endure these early minutes and hours so in the middle of the day there is not we two, there is only one. One beast with one mind consuming asphalt and concrete and passing things at insane speeds.
One being with the knowledge and power of our abilities and limits. One being charged with some unknown quest for power, speed, gravity, and noise.
She is quiet now. I dismount abused and drawn. I feel I have been shaken violently and indeed, I have flown! I have traversed a nation as only superman might; flying with head tilted into the wind. I have seen and smelled the country and her treasures.
Now I am still.
The key is off. The stand I have put in place. I feel the vague vibrations from the union now torn asunder. I feel various pains and aches. I thirst.
She knows I will return. I know better still. I am planning the next union in my head. My soul looks days or weeks ahead to the time when will again seek the thrill of speed and gravity and wind and sun. Now to rest. The beast is silent. The beast is silent.


text:
1994 World Econ. & Financial Surveys international Capital Markets
- I Introduction
- II Bond Market Turbulence and the Role of Hedge Funds
- III Derivatives and Supervisory Issues
- IV Developing Country Finance Issues
- V Government Securities Markets in Industrial Countries
- VI China's Emerging Capital Markets
- VII Conclusions
- Annex I Government Securities Markets
- Annex II Developments in the Regulation of International Banking
- Annex III Developments in International Financial Markets
- Annex IV Developments in Private Market Financing for Developing Countries
- Annex V Role of Capital Markets in Financing Chinese Enterprises
- Annex VI Glossary of Financial Terms
- Statistical Appendix
Annex V Role of Capital Markets in Financing Chinese Enterprises
- International Monetary Fund
- Published Date:
- January 1994
Show Summary Details
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Ned Fulmer from The Try Guys tries game shows, Shayne Topp has no idea that he is about to play, and Khadi Don straight crushes it on Twitter! All that and more on - You Posted That?
Ned Fulmer (Try Guys) | @nedfulmer
Khadi Don | @khadi
Shayne Topp | @supershayne
SMOSH presents…. YOU POSTED THAT? The game show where SMOSH asks the best people from the internet to come face-to-face with their worst social media posts in a friendly competition to win, well... something you've definitely never heard of! No matter the score, the audience wins every round as contestants' hilarious and embarrassing tweets from years past are exposed and thoroughly roasted. Smosh co-founder IAN HECOX hosts, accompanied by announcer SHAYNE TOPP, the musical stylings of KEITH LEAK, JR. and SCOTT PASSARELLA, and pop-in appearances by NOAH GROSSMAN, COURTNEY MILLER, and OLIVIA SUI.
Ian Hecox @SmoshIan
Courtney Miller @Co_mill
Keith Leak, Jr. @KeithLeakJr
Scott Passarella @ScottPassarella
Directed and Produced by Ryan Todd
Written by Monica Vasandani & Ryan Finnerty
Smosh Co-Founded by Ian Hecox & Anthony Padilla
Smosh Creative Director: Joe Bereta
Director of Photography: Mitch Anderson
Editor: Nick Agich
Senior Producer: Alex Hluch
Producer: Garrett Palm
Producer: Kristina Nikolic
Associate Producer: Katie Michels
Production Manager: Andy Garwig
First Assistant Director: Tanner Risner
Production Designer: Taylor Frost
Camera: Brennan Iketani
Camera: Katie Eleneke
Camera: Darren Kho
Camera/Gaffer: Nick Giomuso
Camera/G&E: Trent Turner
Sound Mixer: Ivan Harder
Technical Director: Tim Baker
Makeup: Rachel Jenkins
Production Assistant: Jake Sperling
Assistant Editor: Matthew Duran
Post-Production Supervisor: Reed Brice
Senior Design: Ness Cardano
Safiya Nygaard joins us to relive her best tweets and face masks, Olan Rogers shocks us all with his voting, and Joe Bereta from The Valleyfolk is a s...
The Try Guys test their friendship as they probe deep into each others' personal lives. Check out more awesome videos at BuzzFeedVideo! https://bit.l...
Gabbie reveals her addiction to TimeHop, MatPat theorizes how to beat the game, and Ricky brings the "FUN," on the premiere episode of YOU POSTED THAT...
Click here to check out World of Tanks, the online WWII sensation where you collect and battle authentic tanks! http://cpm.wargaming.net/s9mfurko/?pub...
NEW SMOSH MERCH IS HERE!! Only available until September 12 – GET IT HERE: Represent.com/Smosh Whether it's a raging house party, trying not to get ...


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"The most exciting film of the century so far".
It is a ComDoc - a Comedy Documentary. A satire.
This movie and music challenge assumptions. It is unlike anything you have ever seen before - emotionally, dramatically, technically and spiritually.
On this website you can watch and/or download it entirely for free. From anywhere in the world. If you are online, you can click and watch it NOW, FREE, or download it to watch it later, as often as you like, FREE.


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We are happy to anounce that kite manufacturer Cabrinha has joined the IKA to support our future work.
Cabrinha commercial manager Mike Raper states: "Kiteboarding has a strong future and we are excited to see that ISAF has included Kiteboarding as a new class, we hope the benefits of ISAF will assist the sport continue to succeed on the international stage. We look forward to working with the IKA to develop a unified strategy to grow the sport. We are very positive about the possibility of Kiteboarding becoming a participant of the Olympic games, we hope the support of IKA will help us in this direction".