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Mark Steyn's film column returns next week .
Cover by Tim Gow. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Dish, Cookson, K.J. Lamb, Robert Thompson, Nick Downes, RGJ, Jorodo, Holland, Adam Singleton, Nick Newman, Geoff Thompson and Kipper Williams.
Website: www.spectator.co.uk To subscribe to The Spectator, turn to page 26.
The Spectator is published weekly by The Spectator (1828) Ltd at 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL.


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British Hillclimb Championship
Posted on September 26, 2016 by rich1698	• Posted in sport	• Tagged Motor Sport	• Leave a comment
The final of the 2016 British Hillclimb championsip took place at Loton Park,near Shrewsbury on Sunday 25 September. The championship was won by Scott Moran from Orleton, Ludlow.
Posted on September 26, 2016 by rich1698	• Posted in music	• Tagged music	• Leave a comment
The late, great Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter Robert Palmer sadly passed away in Paris, France, on 26th September 2003 at the age of 54. Born 19 January, 1949 in Batley, Yorkshire. He was known for his distinctive voice and the eclectic mix of musical styles on his albums, combining soul, jazz, rock, pop, reggae and blues. He found success both in his solo career and in the musical act Power Station, and had Top 10 songs in both the US and the UK. His memorable music videos for the hits "Simply Irresistible" and "Addicted to Love", which were directed by Terence Donovan feature identically dressed dancing women with pale faces, dark eye makeup and bright red lipstick, which resembled the women in the art of Patrick Nagel and have since become much-parodied. Sharp-suited, his involvement in the music industry commenced in the 1960s, & covers five decades.
He released his first album "Pressure Drop" in 1975, which mixed reggae and rock music. In 1978, he released Double Fun, a collection of Caribbean-influenced rock. Palmer's next album 1979′s Secrets produced his second Top 20 single "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)". During The 1980s Palmer became even more popular with his next album Clues, which contained the singles "Looking for Clues" and "Some Guys Have All the Luck". In April 1983 Pride was released, which featured a cover of The System's "You Are In My System". Palmer also performed at Duran Duran's charity concert at Aston Villa football ground where he became friends with members of Duran Duran which would spawn the supergroup Power Station, who had two hit singles "Some Like It Hot" and a cover of the T.Rex song "Get It On (Bang a Gong)".
In 1985 Palmer recorded the album Riptide featuring the single "Addicted to Love" which garnered him the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1987.The album also contained The singles "Hyperactive!" and "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On". In 1987 he released Heavy Nova and returned to experimenting, this time with bossa nova rhythms, heavy rock and white-soul balladeering. He repeated his previous success with the video of "Simply Irresistible", again with a troupe of female "musicians". The ballad "She Makes My Day" was also a hit. In 1989, he won a second Grammy for "Simply Irresistible" which was featured in the Tony Award winning musical Contact. Rolling Stone magazine voted Palmer the best-dressed rock star for 1990. The same year Palmer expanded his range even further for his next album, Don't Explain, which featured the Bob Dylan penned single "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight", in a collaboration with UB40. Marvin Gaye cover "Mercy Mercy Me". Throughout the 1990s, Palmer ventured further into diverse material and his 1992 album Ridin' High was a tribute to the Tin Pan Alley era.
Bryan Ferry CBE (Roxy Music)
English singer and songwriter Bryan Ferry CBE was born 26 September 1945 in Washington, County Durham, England. Ferry came to prominence as the lead vocalist and principal songwriter with the glam art rock band Roxy Music, achieving three number one albums and ten top ten singles in the UK between 1972 and 1982. Their singles included "Virginia Plain", "Street Life", "Love is the Drug", "Dance Away", "Angel Eyes", "Over You", "Oh Yeah", "Jealous Guy" and "More Than This". Ferry began his solo career in 1973. His solo hits included "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", "Let's Stick Together" and "This Is Tomorrow". After disbanding Roxy Music, Ferry concentrated on his solo career, releasing further singles such as "Slave to Love" and "Don't Stop the Dance".
His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style; according to The Independent, Ferry and his contemporary David Bowie influenced a generation with both their music and their appearance. As well as being a prolific songwriter himself, Ferry has also gained attention for his many cover versions of other artists' songs and for his re-working of standards, especially from the Great American Songbook, in albums such as These Foolish Things (1973), Another Time, Another Place (1974) and As Time Goes By (1999). When his sales as a solo artist and as a member of Roxy Music are combined, Ferry has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
Posted on September 26, 2016 by rich1698	• Posted in aviation	• Tagged aviation	• Leave a comment
BAC Concorde
On 26 September 1973, Concorde, the iconic retired turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner made its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time. It is one of only two Supersonic planes to have entered commercial service; the other being the Tupolev Tu-144. Concorde was jointly developed and produced by Aérospatiale and theBritish Aircraft Corporation (BAC) under an Anglo-French treaty. First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued commercial flights for 27 years.Among other destinations, Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights fromLondon Heathrow and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport to New York JFK andWashington Dulles; it profitably flew these routes in less than half the time of other airliners. With only 20 aircraft built, the development of Concorde was a substantial economic loss; Air France and British Airways also received considerable government subsidies to purchase them. Concorde was retired in 2003 due to a general downturn in the aviation industry after the type's only crash in 2000, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and a decision by Airbus, the successor firm of Aérospatiale and BAC, to discontinue maintenance support. Concorde's name reflects the development agreement between the United Kingdom and France. In the UK, any or all of the type—unusual for an aircraft—are known simply as "Concorde", without an article. The aircraft is regarded by many people as an aviation icon and an engineering marvel.
Scheduled flights began on 21 January 1976 on the London–Bahrain and Paris–Rio (viaDakar) routes, with BA flights using the "Speedbird Concorde" call sign to notify air traffic control of the aircraft's unique abilities and restrictions, but the French using their normal callsigns. The Paris-Caracas route (via Azores) began on 10 April. The US Congress had just banned Concorde landings in the US, mainly due to citizen protest over sonic booms, preventing launch on the coveted North Atlantic routes. The US Secretary of Transportation,William Coleman, gave permission for Concorde service to Washington Dulles International Airport, and Air France and British Airways simultaneously began service to Dulles on 24 May 1976. When the US ban on JFK Concorde operations was lifted in February 1977, New York banned Concorde locally. The ban came to an end on 17 October 1977 when the Supreme Court of the United States declined to overturn a lower court's ruling rejecting efforts by the Port Authority and a grass-roots campaign led by Carol Berman to continue the ban. In spite of complaints about noise, the noise report noted that Air Force One, at the time a Boeing VC-137, was louder than Concorde at subsonic speeds and during takeoff and landing. Scheduled service from Paris and London to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport began on 22 November 1977.in 1977, British Airways and Singapore Airlines shared a Concorde for flights between London and Singapore International Airport at Paya Lebar via Bahrain. The aircraft, BA's Concorde G-BOAD, was painted in Singapore Airlines livery on the port side and British Airways livery on the starboard side. The service was discontinued after three return flights because of noise complaints from the Malaysian government; it could only be reinstated on a new route bypassing Malaysian airspace in 1979. A dispute with India prevented Concorde from reaching supersonic speeds in Indian airspace, so the route was eventually declared not viable and discontinued in 1980.
During the Mexican oil boom, Air France flew Concorde twice weekly to Mexico City's Benito Juárez International Airport via Washington, DC, or New York City, from September 1978 to November 1982. However The worldwide economic crisis during that period resulted in this route's cancellation; the last flights were almost empty. The routing between Washington or New York and Mexico City included a deceleration, from Mach 2.02 to Mach 0.95, to cross Florida subsonically and avoid creating a sonic boom over the state; Concorde then re-accelerated back to high speed while crossing the Gulf of Mexico. On 1 April 1989, on an around-the-world luxury tour charter, British Airways implemented changes to this routing that allowed G-BOAF to maintain Mach 2.02 by passing around Florida to the east and south. Periodically Concorde visited the region on similar chartered flights to Mexico City and Acapulco. From 1978 to 1980, Braniff International Airways leased 10 Concordes, five each from Air France and British Airways. These were used on subsonic flights between Dallas-Fort Worth and Washington Dulles International Airport, flown by Braniff flight crews. Air France and British Airways crews then took over for the continuing supersonic flights to London and Paris. The aircraft were registered in both the United States and their home countries; the European registration as covered while being operated by Braniff, retaining full AF/BA liveries. The flights were not profitable and typically less than 50% booked, forcing Braniff to end its tenure as the only US Concorde operator in May 1980
The fastest transatlantic airliner flight was from New York JFK to London Heathrow on 7 February 1996 by British Airways' G-BOAD in 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds from takeoff to touchdown. Concorde also set other records, including the official FAI "Westbound Around the World" and "Eastbound Around the World" world air speed records.On 12–13 October 1992, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' first New World landing, Concorde Spirit Tours (USA) chartered Air France Concorde F-BTSD and circumnavigated the world in 32 hours 49 minutes and 3 seconds, from Lisbon, Portugal, including six refuelling stops at Santo Domingo, Acapulco, Honolulu, Guam, Bangkok, and Bahrain. The eastbound record was set by the same Air France Concorde (F-BTSD) under charter to Concorde Spirit Tours in the USA on 15–16 August 1995. This promotional flight circumnavigated the world from New York/JFK International Airport in 31 hours 27 minutes 49 seconds, including six refuelling stops at Toulouse, Dubai, Bangkok, Andersen AFB in Guam, Honolulu, and Acapulco. By its 30th flight anniversary on 2 March 1999 Concorde had clocked up 920,000 flight hours, with more than 600,000 supersonic, much more than all of the other supersonic aircraft in the Western world combined.On its way to the Museum of Flight in November 2003, G-BOAG set a New York City-to-Seattle speed record of 3 hours, 55 minutes, and 12 seconds.
By around 1981 in the UK, the future for Concorde looked bleak. The British government had lost money operating Concorde every year, and moves were afoot to cancel the service entirely. A cost projection came back with greatly reduced metallurgical testing costs because the test rig for the wings had built up enough data to last for 30 years and could be shut down. Despite this, the government was not keen to continue. In 1983, BA's managing director, Sir John King, convinced the government to sell the aircraft outright to British Airways for £16.5 million plus the first year's profits. King recognised that, in Concorde, BA had a premier product that was underpriced. Market research had revealed that many customers thought Concorde was more expensive than it actually was; thus ticket prices were progressively raised to match these perceptions. It is reported that British Airways then ran Concorde at a profit, unlike their French counterpart. Between 1984 and 1991, British Airways flew a thrice-weekly Concorde service between London and Miami, stopping at Washington Dulles International Airport.Until 2003, Air France and British Airways continued to operate the New York services daily. Concorde routinely flew to Grantley Adams International Airport, Barbados, during the winter holiday season. Prior to the Air France Paris crash, several UK and French tour operators operated charter flights to European destinations on a regular basis; the charter business was viewed as lucrative by British Airways and Air France.In 1997, British Airways held a promotional contest to mark 10th anniversary of airline's move into the private sector. The promotion was lottery to fly to New York held for 190 tickets valued at £5,400 each, to be offered at £10. Contestants had to call a special hotline to compete with up to 20 million people.
Unfortunately On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, registration F-BTSC, crashed in Gonesse, France after departing from Paris Charles de Gaulleen route to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members on board the flight, and four people on the ground. It was the only fatal accident involving Concorde.According to the official investigation conducted by the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA), the crash was caused by a titanium strip that fell from a Continental Airlines DC-10 that had taken off minutes earlier. This metal fragment punctured a tyre on Concorde's left main wheel bogie during takeoff. The tyre exploded, a piece of rubber hit the fuel tank, and while the fuel tank was not punctured, the impact caused a shock-wave which caused one of the fuel valves in the wing to burst open. This caused a major fuel leak from the tank, which then ignited due to sparking electrical landing gear wiring severed by another piece of the same tyre. The crew shut down engine number 2 in response to a fire warning, and with engine number 1 surging and producing little power, the aircraft was unable to gain height or speed. The aircraft entered a rapid pitch-up then a violent descent, rolling left and crashing tail-low into the Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus Hotel in Gonesse. On 6 December 2010, Continental Airlines and John Taylor, one of their mechanics, were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but on 30 November 2012 a French court overturned the conviction, saying mistakes by Continental and Taylor did not make them criminally responsible. Prior to the accident, Concorde had been arguably the safest operational passenger airliner in the world in terms of passenger deaths-per-kilometres travelled with zero, but had a rate of tyre damage some 30 times higher than subsonic airliners from 1995 to 2000. Safety improvements were made in the wake of the crash, including more secure electrical controls, Kevlar lining on the fuel tanks and specially developed burst-resistant tyres.
The first flight after the modifications departed from London Heathrow on 17 July 2001, piloted by BA Chief Concorde Pilot Mike Bannister. During the 3-hour 20-minute flight over the mid-Atlantic towards Iceland, Bannister attained Mach 2.02 and 60,000 ft (18,000 m) before returning to RAF Brize Norton. The test flight, intended to resemble the London–New York route, was declared a success and was watched on live TV, and by crowds on the ground at both locations. The first flight with passengers after the accident took place on 11 September 2001, landing shortly before the World Trade Center attacks in the United States. This was not a revenue flight, as all the passengers were BA employees.Normal commercial operations resumed on 7 November 2001 by BA and AF (aircraft G-BOAE and F-BTSD), with service to New York JFK, where passengers were welcomed by then mayor Rudy Giuliani.. This aircraft flew for 22,296 hours between its first flight in 1976 and its final flight in 2000.On 10 April 2003, Air France and British Airways simultaneously announced that they would retire Concorde later that year. They cited low passenger numbers following the 25 July 2000 crash, the slump in air travel following 11 September 2001, and rising maintenance costs. Although Concorde was technologically advanced when introduced in the 1970s, 30 years later its analogue cockpit was dated. There had been little commercial pressure to upgrade Concorde due to a lack of competing aircraft, unlike other airliners of the same era such as the Boeing 747. By its retirement, it was the last aircraft in British Airways' fleet that had a flight engineer; other aircraft, such as the modernised 747-400, had eliminated the role.
On 11 April 2003, Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson announced that the company was interested in purchasing British Airways' Concorde fleet for their nominal original price of £1 (US$1.57 in April 2003) each. British Airways dismissed the idea, prompting Virgin to increase their offer to £1 million each. Branson claimed that when BA was privatised, a clause in the agreement required them to allow another British airline to operate Concorde if BA ceased to do so, but the Government denied the existence of such a clause. In October 2003, Branson wrote in The Economist that his final offer was "over £5 million" and that he had intended to operate the fleet "for many years to come". The chances for keeping Concorde in service were stifled by Airbus's lack of support for continued maintenance. It has also been suggested that Concorde was grounded because airlines could make more profit carrying first class passengers subsonically and that the Air France retirement of its Concorde fleet was the result of a conspiracy between Air France Chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta and Airbus CEO Noel Forgeard, In addition A lack of commitment to Concorde was cited as having undermined BA's resolve to continue operating Concorde.
Stuart Tosh (10cc)
Stuart Tosh, (Stuart Mackintosh) Scottish singer-songwriter and drummer (10cc and Pilot) was Born 26 September 1951. Three of the founding members of 10cc were childhood friends in the Manchester area. As boys, kevin Godley and Lol Creme knew each other; Graham Gouldman and Kevin Godley attended the same secondary school; their musical passion led to playing at the local Jewish Lads' Brigade .They achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1970s. The band initially consisted of four musicians—Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme—who had written and recorded together for about three years, before assuming the "10cc" name in 1972.
10cc featured two strong songwriting teams, one 'commercial' and one 'artistic', but both teams injected sharp wit into lyrically dextrous and musically varied songs. Stewart and Gouldman were predominantly pop-song-writers, who created most of the band's accessible songs. By way of contrast, Godley and Creme were the predominantly experimental half of 10cc, featuring an Art School sensibility and cinematic inspired writing. Every member was a multi-instrumentalist, singer, writer and producer. Most of the band's albums were recorded at their own Strawberry Studios (North) in Stockport and Strawberry Studios (South) in Dorking, with most of those engineered by Stewart. Among their best known songs is "I'm Not in Love". Stuart Tosh also recorded and toured with a succession of other well-known and respected bands during the 1970s and 1980s, including Pilot, the Alan Parsons Project, 10cc, Camel, and Roger Daltrey.
a long time ago in a galaxy far away….
Posted on September 25, 2016 by rich1698	• Posted in films & DVD, Science fiction, Television	• Tagged Film & DVD, Science fiction, television	• Leave a comment
American actor, voice actor, producer, director, and writer Mark Richard Hamill was born September 25, 1951. He is best known for his performance as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as his voice role as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, its various spin-offs, and the video games Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Hamill has also lent his voice to various other villains and anti-heroes in various other animated productions.
Mark atended Nile C. Kinnick High School in Yokosuka, and was a member of the drama club. After that he attended Annandale High School in Annandale, Virginia. He subsequently enrolled at Los Angeles City College and majored in drama. Hamill's early career included voicing the character Corey Anders on the Saturday morning cartoon Jeannie by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He also portrayed the oldest son, David, on the pilot episode of Eight Is Enough, though the role was later performed byGrant Goodeve. He acted in TV series such as The Texas Wheelers, General Hospital, The Partridge Family, and One Day at a Time. One of his earliest films was the made-for-TV film The City. Robert Englund was auditioning for a part in Apocalypse Now when he walked across the hall where auditions were taking place for George Lucas' Star Wars. After watching the auditions for a while, he realized that his friend, aspiring actor Mark Hamill, would be perfect for the role of Luke Skywalker. He suggested to Hamill that he audition for the part; Hamill did, and won the role. Released in the summer of 1977, Star Wars became hugely, successful and Hamill also appeared in Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) and the Star Wars sequels The Empire Strikes Back(1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). For each of the sequels, Hamill was honored with the Saturn Award for Best Actor given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Films. He reprised the role of Luke Skywalker for the radio dramatizations of both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, but did not act in theReturn of the Jedi radio drama.
After the success of Star Wars, Hamill found that audiences identified him very closely with the role of Luke Skywalker. He attempted to avoid typecasting by appearing in Corvette Summer (1978) and the better-known World War II film The Big Red One (1980). Hamill also made a guest appearance on The Muppet Show as both himself and his role of Luke Skywalker. C3PO and R2-D2 were along with him on a search for Chewbacca in that episode. During the 1980s, Hamill did little film work outside of Star Wars. Instead, he acted on Broadway, starring in The Elephant Man, Harrigan 'N Hart (for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination), The Nerd, and other stage plays. Hamill also played the antagonist Hawkins in the Swedish action movie Hamilton in 1998. Some of his other film credits include The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, Britannia Hospital, Slipstream, The Guyver, and the 1995 remake of Village of the Damned. In 1990, he played an escaped mental patient who terrorizes Michael Dudikoff and his wife in Midnight Ride. He also narrated The Sci-Fi Files, a four-part documentary about the influence of science fiction upon present society. In 2001, Hamill starred in Thank You, Good Night alongside Christian Campbell, John Paul Pitoc, and Sally Kirkland. Hamill appeared in the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and parodies Luke Skywalker, The Joker, The Trickster (of "The Flash" fame), and the rest of the vast array of super-villain voices he has done and himself all at the same time.
In live-action television, Hamill had recurring roles in General Hospital and The Texas Wheelers, and a small role in The Bill Cosby Show. He guest appeared in two episodes as the Trickster in the live-action television series of The Flash, a role he would later reprise in the animated series Justice League Unlimited. He has made cameo appearances on MADtv (where he played the estranged father ofMs. Swan), and appeared on Saturday Night Live (playing himself being sold on a Star Wars-themed home shopping sale). Hamill appeared on single episodes of 3rd Rock from the Sun and Just Shoot Me! He also had a guest spot on The Muppet Show as both himself and his "cousin" Luke Skywalker, along with C-3PO, Chewbacca and R2-D2. In 1986, he appeared in an episode of the TV seriesAmazing Stories ("Gather Ye Acorns") in the role of Jonathan. He also had a recurring role as Tobias LeConte on seaQuest DSV. It has been recounted by Richard Hatch that, shortly after the filming of Star Wars, when Mark appeared on set for a guest appearance onStreets of San Francisco, he was asked by Richard about recent work, to which Mark had reportedly replied "I just finished a movie called Star Wars."Hamill also directed and starred in the 2005 direct-to-DVD Comic Book: The Movie. A comic book fan who attended science fiction and comic conventions before he became famous, Hamill claimed that his character was based on an exaggerated version of himself. He and his crew shot most of the "mockumentary" film during the 2002 San Diego Comic-Con, and enlisted Stan Lee, Kevin Smith, andHugh Hefner in small roles. The movie won an award for Best Live-Action DVD Premiere Movie at the 2005 DVD Exclusive Awards.
Mark Hamill has gained a reputation as a prolific voice actor. He previously did voice acting work in the Ralph Bakshi film Wizards, where he played "Sean, leader of the Knights of Stardust," which was released just three months before Star Wars in 1977. Though the voice-role he is most known for is Batman's archenemy the Joker, his success as the Joker has led him to portray a wide variety of characters (mostly villainous) in television, film, anime, and video games including the Hobgoblin in the 1990sSpider-Man cartoon series, Lawrance "Larry" 3000, in Cartoon Network's animated series Time Squad. He also guest starred in The Simpsons episode "Mayored to the Mob", he played the Gargoyle in the animated series of The Incredible Hulk, the Hobgoblin in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Maximus in Fantastic Four, Captain Stickybeard inCodename: Kids Next Door, and the deranged shock jock anchorman Dr. Jak in Phantom 2040. He even parodied his Joker role in theTom & Jerry Kids episode "Droopy Man Returns," and in the Animaniacs episode "The Cranial Crusader", as Johnny Bad-Note. He voiced Dr. Julius Pendecker in The Tick, and Niju the Evil Wolf in Balto II: Wolf Quest. He also voiced Christopher "Maverick" Blair in the animated series Wing Commander Academy. In 1999, he provided the voice of Van Ripper in The Night of the Headless Horseman.
He voiced the character of Chanukah Zombie for the 2007 straight-to-DVD release Futurama: Bender's Big Score. He also voiced the character Adolpho in Loonatics Unleashed.Hamill was also the voice of Judah in the DreamWorks film Joseph: King of Dreams As well asSolomon Grundy and the Trickster in the DC animated universe seriesJustice League and Justice League Unlimited. He voiced the murderous gangster Tony Zucco in The Batman, an animated series unrelated to the various DCAU shows. He also voiced the Spectre, in an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, another animated series unrelated to the DCAU.Hamill performs the voice of Undergrowth in the Danny Phantom episode "Urban Jungle." He provided the voice of series antagonist Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Skeleton King in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!. He also guest starred as The Moth in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Night Light". Additionally, he played the latter character in the Mina and the Count shorts. In the Hanna-Barbera Productions cartoon SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Hamill voiced Jonny K., the Red Lynx, and Burke, among others. He is also a recurring voice actor on Seth Green's Robot Chicken. He also voiced Cry Baby Clown in Sccoby Doo Mystery Incorporated And had a voice cameo in the NASA animated short "Robot Astronomy Talk Show: Gravity and the Great Attractor," part of the web-series IRrelevant Astronomy, produced by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
he also appeared in Star Wars episode VII alongside Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, and is also doing voicework for several characters in the Metalocalypse animated series. He voices Skips in the animated series Regular Show and also voices Frank the Director in Random! Cartoons on Frederator Studios. He provided the voice for Abraham Kane in the new series, Motorcity. He voiced Colonel Muska in the English-language version of Castle in the Sky and the Mayor of Pejite in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, both directed by Hayao Miyazaki and distributed by Disney. Hamill provided the voice of Commander Taylor in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, the sequel to the 1980s adapted anime series Robotech. He was also in Afro Samurai Resurrection. Hamill provides the voice of Jameson Burkright in the miniseries comedy The Wrong Coast, and Yamma in the joint Cartoon Network/Production I.G anime series IGPX Immortal Grand Prix. In early 2010, he voiced as Dante's father in the anime film version ofDante's Inferno. Hamill also co-wrote The Black Pearl, a comic book miniseries published by Dark Horse Comics. He wrote an introduction to the Trade Paperback Batman: Riddler Two-Face which reprints various stories involving The Riddler and Two-Face to tie in with Batman Forever. He has also written several stories for Simpsons Comics, including "Catastrophe in Substitute Springfields!", which parodies DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths and also references several other classic comics. It was confirmed that Hamill is also doing the voicework for Alvin the Treacherous, a villain who is appeared in DreamWorks Television Series, Dragons: Riders of Berk.
American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author & activist Christopher Reeve was born September 25, 1952. He achieved stardom for his acting achievements, in particular his motion-picture portrayal of the fictional superhero Superman. Reeve had been asked to audition for the leading role as Clark Kent/Superman in the big budget film, Superman: The Movie . A meeting between director Richard Donner, producer Ilya Salkind and Reeve was set in January 1977., Reeve was sent a 300-page script for the film. He accepted & was told that Marlon Brando was going to play Jor-El and Gene Hackman was going to play Lex Luthor. He based his portrayal of Clark Kent on Cary Grant in his role in Bringing Up Baby & felt that the new Superman ought to reflect a contemporary male image.Although Reeve was a talented all-around athlete, portraying the role of Superman would be a stretch for him, but he was tall enough for the role & had the necessary blue eyes and handsome features. However, his physique was slim & he went through an intense two-month training regimen supervised by former British weightlifting champion David Prowse, (Darth Vader). Despite landing the role, Reeve was never a comic book fan, though he had watched Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves.
The film was a worldwide hit & Reeve won a BAFTA Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles & became an instant international star. He also guest starred in Smallville, about Clark Kent/Superman's childhood. He appeared as Doctor Virgil Swann, in two episodes titled "Rosetta" and "Legacy", while his death was made known in the fourth season episode "Sacred".Reeve's first role after 1978′s Superman was as Richard Collier in the 1980 romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time which co-starred Jane Seymour . Sadly reviews savaged the film as overly sentimental & melodramatic, however thanks to screenings on cable networks and video rentals; its popularity began to grow and it has since gone on to become something of a cult classic. Director Jean-Pierre Dorléac was also nominated for an Academy Award in Costume Design for the movie.In 1980 Reeves played the lead in the successful play The Front Page,as well as a disabled Vietnam veteran in the critically acclaimed Broadway play Fifth of July. In his research for the role, he was coached by an amputee on how to walk on artificial legs. After The Fifth of July, Reeve played a novice playwright opposite Michael Caine in Sidney Lumet's film Deathtrap, Reeve was then offered the role of Basil Ransom in The Bostonians alongside Vanessa Redgrave. In 1984, Reeve appeared in The Aspern Papers with Vanessa Redgrave and played Tony in The Royal Family and the Count in Marriage of Figaro.
In 1985, Reeve hosted the television documentary Dinosaur! having been Fascinated with dinosaurs since he was a kid. DC Comics also named Reeve as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great for his work on the Superman film series. In 1986 He starred opposite Morgan Freeman, in the film Street Smart, for which Freeman was nominated for his first Academy Award. The film also received excellent reviews.Reeve was very active and went sailing, scuba diving, skiing, aviation, windsurfing, cycling, gliding, parasailing, mountain climbing, Played baseball, tennis and went horse riding after learning to ride for the film Anna Karenina, he also built a sailboat, The Sea Angel, which he sailed from the Chesapeake to Nova Scotia. He was also a licensed pilot and flew solo across the Atlantic twice, & also raced his sailplane in his free time and joined The Tiger Club, a group of aviators who had served in the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, who let him participate in mock dogfights in vintage World War I combat planes. He was approached by The producers of the film The Aviator to fly a Stearman in the film, Reeve readily accepted the role and did all of his stunts.
He also served as a board member for the Charles Lindbergh Fund, which promotes environmentally safe technologies, & lent support to causes such as Amnesty International, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and People for the American Way. He joined the Environmental Air Force and was also awarded The Bernardo O'Higgins Order and the Obie Prize and the Annual Walter Brielh Human Rights Foundation award, for helping to save the lives of 77 Actors in Santiago during 1987. Reeve was a member of the Creative Coalition, an organization designed to teach celebrities how to speak knowledgeably about political issues. along with Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, and Blythe Danner. In 1990, Reeve starred in the Civil War film, The Rose and the Jackal, in which he played Allan Pinkerton, the head of President Lincoln's new Secret Service, he was also offered the part of Lewis in The Remains of the Day. The film was deemed an instant classic and was nominated for eight Academy Awards. In 1994, Reeve was elected as a co-president of the Creative Coalition. Reeve was also asked by the Democratic Party to run for the United States Congress. He also went to New Mexico to shoot Speechless (co-starring Michael Keaton). Reeve also played a paralyzed police officer in Above Suspicion. He research the role at a rehabilitation hospital and learned how to use a wheelchair to get in and out of cars. Reeve was then offered the lead in Kidnapped and also planned to direct a romantic comedy entitled Tell Me True until his life took An unexpected turn…
Not long after making these plans, Reeve was invited to compete in the Commonwealth Dressage and Combined Training Association finals at the Commonwealth Park equestrian center in Culpeper, Virginia . He took horse riding seriously and was intensely competitive with it and finished fourth out of 27 in the dressage, before walking his cross-country course. He was concerned about jumps sixteen and seventeen, but paid little attention to the third jump, which was a routine three-foot-three fence shaped like the letter 'W'. Sadly during the event On May 27, 1995, Reeve's horse refused to jump the 3rd fence and Reeve fell and sustained a cervical spinal injury that paralyzed him from the neck down. He had no recollection of the incident but landed headfirst on the other side of the fence. His helmet prevented any brain damage, but the impact of his 215-pound (98 kg) body hitting the ground shattered his first and second vertebrae which meant that his skull and spine were not connected. When paramedics arrived he was taken to the local hospital, then flown by helicopter to the University of Virginia Medical Center. He had an operation to reattach his skull to his spine.Reeve was taken to the Kessler Rehabilitation Center in West Orange, New Jersey. At the Institute, one of his aides was a Jamaican man named Glenn Miller, nicknamed Juice, who helped him learn how to get into the shower and how to use a powered wheelchair, which was activated by blowing air through a straw. Reeve had occupational therapy and physical therapy in rehab. In the therapy gym, Reeve worked on moving his trapezius muscle, every day he would try to do better. The most difficult part of rehabilitation was respiratory therapy, the ammount of air Reeve could inhale had to be 750 ccs before getting off the artificial respirator could even be considered. Initially, Reeve could hardly get above zero. By the end of October, he was able to get around 50 ccs. This inspired him, and he felt his natural competitive edge coming back. The next day, he went up to 450 ccs. He reached 560 ccs the day after, and by December 13, 1995, Reeve was able to breathe without a ventilator for 30 minutes.
In July 2003, Christopher Reeve's continuing frustration with the pace of stem cell research in the U.S. led him to Israel,which was at the center of research in spinal cord injury, He was invited by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to seek out the best treatment for his condition. During his visit, Reeve called the experience "a privilege" and said, "Israel has very proactive rehab facilities, excellent medical schools and teaching hospitals, and an absolutely first-rate research infrastructure." Throughout his intensive tour, Reeve visited ALYN Hospital, Weizmann Institute of Science, and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, among many other places. Israelis were very receptive to Reeve's visit, calling him an inspiration to all and urging him to never give up hope.Reeve left Kessler feeling deeply inspired by the other patients he had met. Because he was constantly being covered by the media, he realized that he could use his name to the benefit of everyone with spinal cord injuries. In 1996, he appeared at the Academy Awards to a long standing ovation and gave a speech about Hollywood's duty to make movies that face the world's most important issues head-on.
He also hosted the Paralympics in Atlanta and spoke at the Democratic National Convention. He traveled across the country to make speeches, he narrated the HBO film Without Pity: A Film About Abilities. The film won the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Informational Special." He then acted in a small role in the film A Step Towards Tomorrow.Reeve was elected Chairman of the American Paralysis Association and Vice Chairman of the National Organization on Disability. He co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center, which is now one of the leading spinal cord research centers in the world. He created the the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation to speed up research through funding, and to use grants to improve the quality of the lives of people with disabilities. Reeve used his celebrity status for good causes.He lobbied on behalf of people with spinal-cord injuries and for human embryonic stem cell research, founding the Christopher Reeve Foundation and co-founding the Reeve-Irvine Research Center. Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he visited terminally ill children. He joined the Board of Directors for the worldwide charity Save the Children. and has done more to promote research on spinal cord injury and other neurological disorders than any other person before or since.
In 1997, Reeve made his directorial debut with the HBO film In the Gloaming with Robert Sean Leonard, Glenn Close, Whoopi Goldberg, Bridget Fonda and David Strathairn. The film won four Cable Ace Awards and was nominated for five Emmy Awards including "Outstanding Director for a Miniseries or Special. In 1998, Reeve produced and starred in Rear Window, a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film. He was nominated for a Golden Globe and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance. On April 25, 1998, Random House published Reeve's autobiography, Still Me. The book spent eleven weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and Reeve won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. In 2000, he also began to regain some motor function, and was able to sense hot and cold temperatures on his body, and was also able to move his left index finger on command, Reeve also lobbied for expanded federal funding on embryonic stem cell research. In 2002, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center, a federal government facility created through a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention non-compete grant, was opened in Short Hills, New Jersey. Its mission is to teach paralyzed people to live more independently. In 2004, Reeve directed the A&E film The Brooke Ellison Story. The film is based on the true story of Brooke Ellison, the first quadriplegic to graduate from Harvard University Reeve's second book, Nothing is Impossible was also published, Reeve also directed the animated film Everyone's Hero.
During his recovery He experienced a number of illnesses, including mononucleosis, malaria, and superior mesenteric artery syndrome. He also suffered from mastocytosis, a blood cell disorder and fought off a number of serious infections believed to have originated from bone marrow. He also had asthma and many allergies and More than once he had a severe reaction to a drug. In Kessler, he tried a drug named Sygen which helps reduce damage to the spinal cord. The drug caused him to go into anaphylactic shock and his heart stopped, He fell into a coma and was taken to Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York. Eighteen hours later, on October 10, 2004, Reeve died of cardiac arrest at the age of 52. His doctor, John McDonald, believed that it was an adverse reaction to the antibiotic that caused his death. During the final days of his life, Reeve also urged California voters to vote yes on Proposition 71, which would establish the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, & allot $3 billion of state funds to stem cell research. A memorial service for Reeve was held at the Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut, which his wife attended. Reeve was cremated & his ashes scattered. Proposition 71 was also approved less than one month after Reeve's death.
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text:
Gary Friedkin, who had roles in 'Star Wars,' 'Happy Days,' dies at 70 from COVID-19
By Debbie Lord, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
December 09, 2022 at 10:28 am PST
Gary Friedkin dies at 70 383417 12: Actress Tori Spelling, right, poses with actor Gary Friedkin during a party and final shoot for "Joe Head Goes Hollywood" December 17, 2000 in Venice, CA. Friedkin died on Dec. 2, 2022 of COVID-19 complications. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
Gary Friedkin, an actor who had roles in movies like "Star Wars" and "Young Doctors in Love," and the TV show "Happy Days," has died, according to the Tribune Chronicle.
Friedkin, 70, died Dec. 2 from COVID-19 complications, according to his family.
In Friedkin's obituary in the Tribune Chronicle, his family thanked friends and fans, and remembered Friedkin as "a gift to all who knew him."
Friedkin, who was 4 feet tall, made his acting debut in 1981 in "Under the Rainbow," which is loosely based on the gathering of little people in a Hollywood hotel to audition for roles as Munchkins in the movie "The Wizard of Oz."
He played Clarence the Cook in the 1970s hit sitcom, "Happy Days." In "Star Wars," Friedkin played an Ewok.
According to IMDb, Friedkin made his last onscreen appearance as Shorty in Garry Marshall's 2016 film "Mother's Day."
"[Friedkin] was a gift to all who knew him as an amazing son, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, great-uncle and friend," his obituary read. "Gary lived his life to the absolute fullest, bringing endless laughs to his family and many friends, while never letting the obstacles he faced get in his way. Gary put countless smiles on people's faces and left so many with their own special 'Gary story.'"
"While Gary may have been short of stature, he was a giant amongst his family and friends," the obituary said. "His legacy will live on as stories are told and retold for years to come by all who loved him."
Latest entertainment and celebrity news:
Meghan Trainor, Daryl Sabara announces they are expecting second baby
Married! Marc Anthony weds Miss Universe 2021 first runner-up Nadia Ferreira in Miami
NHL Hall of Famer Bobby Hull dies
Annie Wersching, actress in '24,' 'Bosch,' dead at 45


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Q: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xcb while doing bs I save the xml page locally from an API of Merriam-Webster, let me give you the url:
http://www.dictionaryapi.com/api/v1/references/collegiate/xml/apple?key=bf534d02-bf4e-49bc-b43f-37f68a0bf4fd
That was an example.
I urlretrieve it from the url and save it as a xml file.
Now I want to open it but a UnicodeDecodeError occurs.
I did :
page = open('test.xml')
bs = BeautifulSoup(page)

Then the following error happens:
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xcb

I tried to make the url u'test.xml' it didn't work.

sys.getdefaultencoding()
         'utf-8'

The encoding configuration is already utf-8, which doesn't solve the problem, thanks for the advice anyway.

A: You need to specify the encoding as utf-8 which is what the data is encoded as, the filename has nothing to do with what is inside so prefixing with u to make a unicode string is not going to help:
import io
with io.open('test.xml', encoding="utf-8") as page:
      bs = BeautifulSoup(page)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Jimmy Wetch (born April 23, 1968 in St. Paul, Minnesota) is an American professional pool player nicknamed "The Kid". He was at one time a feared , later becoming an accomplished tournament pro, having won numerous competitions. He was ranked fifth in the world by the Pro Billiards Tour (PBT) in 1996.

Early years
The son of Jimmy, Sr., the owner of a painting business, and Janice Wetch, a switchboard operator, he has one sibling, Sharon, who is four years his junior. His early life was characterized by instability. Wetch's parents divorced when he was 9, remarried when he was 17, and again divorced after a short time. Wetch would sometimes live with one parent, and sometimes with the other, or both when they were together, and each of his parents moved a number of times, though always in or around the Twin Cities area. Wetch never went to the same school for more than two years in a row. "It still probably affects me," said Wetch in a 1999 interview, "To this day I'm not very good at interacting with people."

At a young age, Wetch became fascinated with gambling, so much so that his mother threatened to enter him in Gamblers Anonymous. He pitched coins, played cards, bet on sports, and even on pinball. His other gambling pursuits tapered off when he discovered a pool table at 13 while playing cards in a friend's basement. Wetch was soon hooked, spending as much time as possible in a local pool room called the Rack & Cue, playing eight ball and nine ball for 20 cents a game or more. He earned free table time by recording high scores on the room's video games.

Wetch's talent was quickly evident: A month after taking up the sport he was already beating his father who was a decent recreational player. Pool became his passion. He would practice his  at the kitchen table, attempting to keep his stroke perfectly level by passing it through a hollowed-out cube of pool chalk without touching the sides, and stain his father's towels wiping down the  of his cue stick. Every night after completing his homework, he would head to the pool room to practice. He was known there for pestering all the better players for tips to improve his game.

By 15 years of age, Wetch had  50 balls at straight pool, calling each shot in advance, as is mandatory in the game. At 16, he posted a run of 131 balls, and at 17 he won the 1985 Minnesota State Championship. Wetch had theretofore been a decent student, but pool had become all he thought about. He soon dropped out of St. Paul's Humboldt High School, to take up the life of a . He set off with a family friend, one Joe Saad, who acted as his  on the road. By that time, he had already earned the nickname, "The Kid", given to him by a manager of Minnesota Billiards, one of the pool rooms in which Wetch had cut his teeth.

On the road
Wetch kept at the  for a number of years. Joe Saad would back him with thousands of dollars, sometimes accompanying him on his trips, and sometimes not. Wetch was soon playing matches for huge stakes; Up to $10,000 bet on a single  . In addition to Saad, Wetch was fostered by others such as veteran road player Jack Cooney, a hustler who often went under the assumed name George Carlson and was twenty years Wetch's senior. "He taught me how to survive out there, to be patient for decent games and to manage my money right."

However, Wetch's love for gambling and for pool did not translate into a love of the hustle. He did it because it was the only way he knew how to make money doing what he loved, but he never liked "the , the moving, the mismatches, the phony names.""I never felt good about the hustling. No matter how much money I made at it, I knew I didn't want to keep doing it. Frankly, when no one knows how you play, it's like putting a gun to someone's head. It wasn't a matter of whether you were going to win, but how much you were going to win, Early on, you make money everywhere you go. Then it all disappears."  – Wetch, in Billiards Digest (1999)

The event that finally took him off the road came in Houston in 1993. He had made a large score playing high-stakes pool one night. The following morning while attempting to leave his hotel room with his then-girlfriend, two men shoved the two back into the room and at gunpoint demanded the money he had won. Not satisfied with the amount of money Wetch handed over, they placed a bag over his head and beat him. Though he escaped the ordeal with only minor injuries, he promised himself he would only make one more road trip to gather a stake, and then he would quit. He made that final trip and used the money to open up a pool room with partner David Wagner, Jimmy's Pro Billiards in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. The following year, in 1994, he took the ultimate step for a road player, shucking aside his anonymity by going pro.

Career
In the 1994 Super Billiards Expo Players Championship in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, he finished third, knocked out by the ultimate winner, dominant pro Mike Sigel with a score of 9 to 8. Later that year he took first place at the McDermott Masters and was ranked sixteenth in the world by the PBT and named their rookie of the year. In 1995 he won the Huebler Cup and in 1996 a tour stop at Great Gorge, New Jersey, as well as three second-place finishes at tour events, including a tense 8-6 loss in the finals of the 1996 PBT Riviera Eight-ball Championship at the hand of the Magician, Efren Reyes. His PBT rank increased that year to fifth.

Despite his success on the pro tour, Wetch couldn't make enough money on tournament purses alone. He said in a 1999 interview: "Back in 1996, I thought this game was going somewhere. We were on TV, we were making pretty good money. I was proud to be a pool player back then ... [but now] I'm just going to put more effort and time into my room.... The bottom line is, you gotta make money to survive. I don't want to be another statistic." Today Wetch lives in Eagan, Minnesota, not far from his pool room.

Wetch remains an active player at professional pool events but has not broken into the top ten since his high finish in 1996. In 2006 he was selected as one of 150 players to compete on the International Pool Tour. He finished 77th in the rankings, earning a total of $15,000 in prize funds. Wetch is currently sponsored by Schön cues.

Titles
 1991 Midwest Open 9-Ball
 1995 Huebler Cup Open 9-Ball
 1994 McDermott Masters 9-Ball Championship

References

1968 births
Living people
American pool players
Sportspeople from Saint Paul, Minnesota
People from Eagan, Minnesota

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The Partnership for Clean Competition will support high-quality, high-impact, novel research that has a high likelihood of success and of resulting in methods or products that will advance the anti-doping field and ensure integrity in sport.
The PCC offers three grant cycles a year with pre-applications due March 1st, July 1st, and November 1st of each year. Applicants whose pre-applications align with PCC research objectives and show considerable potential will then be asked to submit full grant applications.


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Westminster City Council open gates to new athletics facility at Paddington Recreation Ground
Wednesday 26 September 2012 saw Team GB athletes Laura Turner and Larry Achike unveil brand new athletics facilities at Paddington Recreation Ground, London. The Lord Mayor of Westminster and Cllr Steve Summers, cabinet member for sport, leisure and the olympics were also in attendance to see the impressive new facilities including a new running track, high quality field event equiptment and improvments to public address facilities.
The new facilities at Paddington Rec will provide the local community with free casual use, school sessions, resident athletics clubs, coaching programmes for juniors and adults, engagement programmes, talent identification programmes and an annual athletics festival event.
Double Olympic hero Mo Farah has lent his support to a restoration project on one of the UK's most iconic running tracks. The 5,000m and 10,000m gold medalist has backed a £240,000 project to revamp the historic running track at Paddington Recreation Ground where the legendary Sir Roger Bannister trained to break his four-minute mile.
Speaking after the birth of twins, Mo Farah, who lives in London, said: "Central London getting a new running track is great news for athletes of the future. The London Olympic Games will inspire a whole new generation of potential sports men and women and it is good to see Westminster City Council leading the way in bringing important new facilities to the heart of the capital."
Cash for the project has come from The London Mayor's Legacy Fund, The Marathon Trust with the remaining funding being met by Westminster City Council.
Cllr Steve Summers, deputy cabinet member for Olympics, sport and leisure, said: "It is great to see that one of the stars of the Olympic Games is backing this project. This is an important new facility for Westminster as we want to leave an Olympic legacy in the centre of London to inspire the next generation of sporting heroes.
"We hope that hundreds of people will be inspired to take up track and field sports and maybe even go on to represent the UK in Olympics around the world."


Maao Museum is the only museum to display ancient fishing villages' wares in Zhejiang province. Some exhibits in the museum date back to 6,000 years ago. The museum is composed of inner exhibiting zones and relics zones. Covering an area of 1,260 square meters, it includes 5 Neolithic Age exhibiting areas and 15 Eastern Zhou Dynasty exhibiting areas.


Marigold Consultants specializes in innovation consulting, strategic marketing, management and commercialization. Co-creation and competence sharing are our traits and innovation is our path. Our broad experience and competence from industry and entrepreneurship, along with strong partners, enable us to provide competitive services to our customers.
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In modern building design, beauty is in the details. StoSignature and Sto Specialty Finishes allow you to create your own signature on every building façade. Evoke the impression of stone, brick, wood or concrete or create your own unique textures.
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It is advisable to point out to a licensed commercial paving experts in your location when you are thinking of repaving your sidewalks or parking lot. Nowadays, there exist several paving contractors which makes it challenging to select a competent and experienced service provider hence the need to research thoroughly. It is advisable to choose wisely as not all the firm have qualified professionals who can deliver the required outcomes. When you are set to identify a reliable commercial paving company, it is essential to emphasize on various aspects such as experience, reputation, license and insurance among other vital considerations. Most of the paving contractors, are having websites which make it easy to study their work and research on their mode of operation in the best way possible.
When you are looking for a competent commercial paving firm, you need to check on their reputation. You need to ask the paving expert you are willing to engage on the year they started serving on the market as this will give you a chance to determine if they have the necessary expertise to deliver best outcomes. A company which have worked for a long time has gained trust from clients and gained knowledge on how to handle projects in the best way possible. It is advisable to confirm if the commercial paving firm is licensed and approved to work in your area. Ask for a license number when you are hiring their services as tis will help you to avoid colliding with the local authority. Make sure that you have asked them the insurance documents before permitting them to handle your work. Most of the construction projects are subject to incidents and when a worker get injured, the insurance firm will cater for the treatment payments.
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Fiskavaig is a small community on the west coast of Skye, a few miles from Carbost. I drove out to the end of the road near Fiskavaig Bay to see if I could photograph the sunset. It proved difficult to access the shore, so I turned around and was driving back when I came around a corner and saw this lovely view with the setting sun lighting the clouds. Pure magic, but that's Skye in a nutshell!


text:
EPC symposium recommends 'clarity' in current assisted-suicide debate
Home/Issues/Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia/EPC symposium recommends 'clarity' in current assisted-suicide debate
Paul Tuns2015-12-23T08:11:20-05:00December 23, 2015|Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia|
On Oct. 31, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition held its annual symposium at downtown Montreal's Best Western Ville Marie Hotel. Attendees spanned a wide range of ages and hometowns, including medical students from Calgary and veteran pro-life activists from the Maritimes. Talks were delivered in both official languages with simultaneous translation.
Though there was no official theme, Quebec's Bill 52 and the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark decision in the Carter case shaped much of the day's discussion. Dr. Will Johnston, an obstetrician and the chair of the EPC in British Columbia, called the court's February ruling "catastrophic and disastrous." He told the story of Kay Carter, a woman from the same province who had a degenerative spinal disorder. Carter's daughter Lee accompanied her to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland where she ended her life. Lee Carter then sued the Canadian government over the "unconstitutional" sections of the Criminal Code prohibiting assisted suicide. Gloria Taylor, another British Columbia woman who had ALS, later signed onto the lawsuit and "became the face of the case."
Nine Supreme Court judges unanimously ruled the existing laws unconstitutional. They recommended that assisted suicide be available for any Canadian aged 18 or older with a "serious illness or disability" that was "irremediable." Johnston called use of the term "subjective." It was defined as "preferring death to available treatment." Parliament was then given a year to put forth new legislation. Johnston said "polls won out over Parliament." The elimination of Criminal Code section 241b was "a misrepresentation of the argument against assisted suicide. (The judges believed that) 241b was meant to protect only the vulnerable," so "any law that prevented more than the vulnerable from dying was too broad." Instead, most opponents of the practice maintain that any suicide is wrong. Johnston believes the way forward should focus on reducing the harm that assisted suicide is bound to cause.
Both Dr. Catherine Ferrier and Aubert Martin discussed the aftermath of Bill 52, which legalizes "medical aid in dying" in Quebec as of December 10, 2015. Ferrier is president of the Physicians' Alliance against Euthanasia. Bill 52 is meant to "hasten death at a patient's request, to relieve suffering." Eligibility conditions include: being of age and having capacity to consent, being at the end of life, having a serious and incurable illness that has caused an advanced and irreversible decline in capability, and "experiencing constant and unbearable physical or psychological suffering that the patient deems intolerable."
How will this affect palliative care professionals? Ferrier advised them to "respect refusal of medical treatment, (and) use sedation if necessary for symptom control." Every institution will be required to have an "end of life plan," about which palliative care centres must inform patients before admittance. Ferrier said the centres and any conscientious objectors are exempt from involvement in assisted suicide. Objectors, however, must allow their institution's executive director to refer to another provider. This means that Quebec "has the only coercive referral law in the world." According to the Canadian Medical Association, 63 percent of Canadian doctors oppose the practice assisted-suicide.
Aubert Martin is the director of the Montreal non-profit Vivre Dans le Dignité. He lamented that the law "permits killing, and aid in killing," even though it was adopted in June 2014 under the guise of providing "end of life care." Martin noted that twenty-nine palliative care centres across the province refuse to perform assisted suicide. In contrast, Quebec's College of Physicians and Surgeons called the practice "justified" in September. Martin said "the medical world needs to participate in the law's implementation." Part of the problem is that the word "euthanasia" is never used and does not prompt public discussion of the subject. Instead, the alternate term "medical aid in dying" is regarded as a key component of health care towards the end of life.
Dr. Margaret Cottle is vice president of the EPC and a palliative care physician in Vancouver. She called for a clarification of terms, in light of the "campaign of misinformation" surrounding the issue of assisted suicide. She reminded attendees that supporters' concerns about suffering are real. "Suffering is a dirty word, but it is a part of life. We must acknowledge it." References to "autonomy" hide the desire to "get out of suffering," made worse by our society's difficulty with "accompanying" others.
Other words that need to be replaced include "burden" (use "stress") and "professional" in place of "provider." Patients cannot consume health care as a commodity. "Physician-hastened death" is a more accurate and neutral substitute for "euthanasia" or "assisted suicide," since "we're all dying." Furthermore, the difference between the two methods of death needs to be understood. "assisted suicide" means "prescribing pills for a patient to take," while "euthanasia" involves "someone else pushing the syringe." Finally, the frequent use of "'dignity'…affirms (the view) that life is not worth living." When the need for help is an indignity, "there is an assumption that only the purely independent are worthy of life."
Other speakers included Nicolas Steenhout – former director of Vivre Dans le Dignité – and McGill University law professor Margaret Somerville. Steenhout explained how assisted suicide affects Canadians with disabilities, while Somerville described the secular understanding of "the common good" missing from the Carter judgement and society at large.
EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg called the event "a great success," with more than 150 participants.
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This AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND DISASTER RESILIENCE project and symposium is a continuation of a grant through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) proposed to continue a project previously funded by the NEA that involved a series of coordinated peer-reviewed design projects and regional symposia to stimulate and promote innovative design strategies for affordable and mixed-income housing. In July 2009, ACSA invited faculty members, in collaboration with their university-based architecture programs, to respond to a call for qualifications to carry out the design project and regional symposium described above. Respondents outlined their experiences in the area of housing and identified potential participants in their local symposia.
Following the call, ACSA and critics reviewed the submittals and selected Nadia Anderson at Iowa State University, who won the 2009 National Council of Architectural Registration Boards Grand Prize for her work on sustainable affordable housing prototypes. Building upon an earlier prototype project, Anderson documented the physical and social conditions that led to significant affordable housing impacts from severe floods in 2008 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The additional web-pages cover Anderson's project documentation and research on CEDAR RAPIDS BACKGROUND & GRAPHIC ANALYSIS along with SYMPOSIUM INFORMATION & DISCUSSIONS.
The project combined two components familiar to architects, designers, and educators. First, university-based research/designer completed project analysis focused on innovations to improve the social, economic, and environmental performance of affordable and mixed-income housing. Second, the daylong symposium that took place at Iowa State University assembled a broad range of stakeholders (designers, developers, funders, city & state leaders, along with others) to discuss findings and relevant outcomes.


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Back to school on a budget (copy)
Crissa Shoemaker DeBree Staff writer
For Leah Ingram, back-to-school shopping isn't a one-weekend event.
She's always scouting stores for supplies she'll know her teenage daughters will need during the year.
It's a way for Ingram, a New Hope mom and professional writer who runs the SuddenlyFrugal.com blog, to keep control of her back-to-school shopping budget.
The National Retail Federation, an industry trade group that surveys shoppers about their spending habits, said the average parent of grade-school children will spend nearly $689 this year on pens, pencils, notebooks, new clothes and other supplies.
That's up from $603 last year, for a total of $30.3 billion. Spending on college-age students will add another $53 billion, the federation said.
Back-to-school has emerged as the second-biggest retail event behind the winter holiday season, with parents stocking up on new clothes ($246) and electronics ($217) as well as supplies.
"August is our busiest month behind November and December," said Ashlyn Delson, marketing manager for the Willow Grove Park Mall.
"Everybody's really excited," she said. "There's a lot of really great sales in the stores. They know that there are people out there shopping."
But the economy is still weighing on shoppers' minds, the federation said. Nearly 85 percent of survey respondents said economic concerns would impact their shopping plans. More than half said they would shop for sales more often, and 11 percent said they would cut back on extracurricular activities.
Ingram and fellow frugal mom blogger Kaley Ehret said saving, even this late in the game, is possible if parents are willing to do some homework. Visit multiple stores if you can.
"You can price match" at stores such as Walmart and Target, said Ehret, a mom of three from Telford, who runs the site Cha-Ching on a Shoestring. "Go through your ads and find the best deals. You can get all the deals in one store if you do your homework ahead of time."
Parents can also save money by taking inventory of what they already have at home before shopping.
"You only need so many folders and pencils," she said. "If you already have them, cross that off your list."
When you do find deals, Ehret and Ingram said, stock up.
"I stock up when I see the stuff really cheap," Ingram said. "When spiral notebooks were a penny at Staples, I bought 10 or 20 of them."
When shopping for clothes, wait until after the August rush, and look for deals at thrift stores, Ehret and Ingram said.
"The advice that I followed when my kids were younger was wait until school began to buy clothing, not only because stuff would start to get marked down in September, but if they wanted to be fashion conscious and wear what all of their friends were wearing, I was not going to buy what they thought was going to be in fashion in August, only to find out in September it wasn't cool," Ingram said.
Crissa Shoemaker DeBree: 215-345-3186; email: cshoemaker@phillyburbs.com; Twitter: @bucksmontbiz