Michigan State coach Tom Izzo's Spartans are coming off their most spectacular and dominating win of the season, a 75-52 rout of rival Michigan, the best win Izzo said he's seen from his team in three years. (Photo11: Mike Carter, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Izzo thinks people stopped talking about/thinking about the Spartans after the UConn loss

Izzo says going through the Big Ten's top teams might be tougher than the NCAA tournament

Izzo says Draymond Green is one of those great players that rarely comes along

Each Friday leading up to the NCAA tournament, USA TODAY Sports' Nicole Auerbach catches up with a premier college basketball coach:

EAST LANSING, Mich. – This week, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo is happy – or as happy as he can be when he says he still can't tell how good his team is. (Here's my hint: Pretty good.) Izzo's Spartans are coming off their most spectacular and dominating win of the season, a 75-52 rout of rival Michigan, the best win Izzo said he's seen from his team in three years.

Once again, Michigan State is being touted as a Big Ten title contender (and is sitting atop the conference standings with Indiana at the moment) and a national championship contender, too. If there's one thing we've learned about college basketball this season, it's we should never count out a coach like Izzo and a balanced, talented team like the Spartans.

Sitting in his office Thursday morning, Izzo caught up with USA TODAY Sports about his team flying under the radar for much of the season, the brutal Big Ten schedule and what every great college basketball team needs – a fantastic leader.

Izzo on why people haven't been talking much about the Spartans until recently:

BUBBLE TRACKER: Who's in and who's out

We had some question marks coming in. You have to remember the (Branden) Dawson (torn ACL). He didn't start shooting the ball again until September, so that's seven months. Most people say you aren't any good until the year after. Adrian Peterson kind of screwed up that theory. That was a key thing. Our point guard – would he come into his own? He was a 2 guard playing the point. Would he grow? We had a couple of freshmen we knew we'd have to rely on, especially (Denzel) Valentine and (Gary) Harris. Those are unknowns.

That, along with you take Michigan – they had (Trey) Burke and (Tim) Hardaway coming back. They had some things to plug, too, but usually a team is going to have a chance to go far with its guards. It's like if you have a great quarterback, you're going to have a better chance to go somewhere.

Usually, most years, we lose a couple of games early and we go from top five, top seven, top 12 to 20th and we're kind of off the radar. Most of the time, we play a schedule that's different than most people. This year, we lose to UConn and lose at Miami before Miami's anything.

MAILBAG: Duke-UNC, Izzo and more

Izzo on the challenge of Michigan State's upcoming Big Ten schedule:

(In a 17-day stretch starting Feb. 19), ours is Indiana here, at Ohio State, at Michigan and Wisconsin here. That's concentrated. If you threw something in there, like Penn State, then you at least have some breathing room. You have to get up for every game. That's harder than the NCAA tournament. In the NCAA tournament, there's more space in between. We just came off three games in six days. When you're traveling and going to school, that's hard. When everybody tries to compare these conferences, there is no comparison. I've been in this 30 years. There's no comparison to what the top teams in our league are going through.

Izzo on the importance of great leadership, like he had in recent years with Draymond Green:

He is rare. You know what happens with rare guys? You go to Final Fours. … That was another Jud (Heathcote) line when we won the national championship. He calls me four days later, and he always tells me I work too much. … He says, 'Take some time off. You better enjoy this.' I said, 'Yeah, I'll enjoy it.' He says, 'You really better enjoy it.' He says, 'You don't understand, this comes around every 20 years.' I say, 'Oh, I have to wait 20 more years to get to a Final Four, this or that?' Nope, he says, having that kind of leader. It was Magic (Johnson). It was Mateen (Cleaves). ... Thirteen years later, Draymond came around, and he's not far off.

That's what's missing at a lot of programs.

(Izzo then mentioned Indiana's Victor Oladipo and Michigan's Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. as guys, like Draymond Green, who weren't really, really hyped or highly rated coming out of high school but have developed into their teams' leaders. He also discussed how programs like Duke, UNC and Kansas have talented upperclassmen who could have gone pro stay, and then they in turn teach underclassmen how to grow into leaders. Interesting stuff about what makes these teams successful.)


Competition to feed humans has grown difficult enough that a Seattle couple, Dawn and Ben Ford, opened a food truck for humanity's best friend.

Via Life with Dogs:

The popularity of food trucks in the United States has exploded recently, and in almost every major city there are a few that specialize in a particular style or flavor profile. This is great because it gives people options to eat foods that they may not have before. This is great for humans, but what about dogs? Is there a food truck for them somewhere? In Washington, the answer is YES!

The Seattle Barkery is a new mobile café for dogs. Everything they make and serve is aimed towards giving dogs a similar freedom of choice like we as humans have. For their furry, four legged customers, they have everything from bacon cupcakes and peanut butter pumpkin pretzels, to chicken feet and duck necks.


Another day, another batch of mostly redundant and anonymously sourced stories about whether Vice President Joe Biden will run for president. Some of those stories, however, are getting ridiculous. So FiveThirtyEight’s politics writers met in Slack to pick over the latest Biden coverage, our own assumptions and the state of the 2016 Democratic primary. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.

micah (Micah Cohen, senior editor): So, the will he/won’t he speculation about Joe Biden hasn’t slowed down, but do either of you buy the argument that a Biden run could actually help Hillary Clinton?

hjenten-heynawl (Harry Enten, senior political writer): I don’t think it would be particularly helpful to Clinton. Forget about all the BS about whether Clinton runs better when she’s in trouble. Personally, I never got that. If she were so good at running when she was in trouble, then why did she lose in 2008?

Rather, why would Biden run? Sure, he’s in his 70s and this is his last shot, but he also has a family to take care of. He’d likely only run if he concludes he has a better than nominal chance of winning. And that conclusion would be quite different from what the current metrics, such as endorsements, suggest. Biden may have an insight on the invisible primary that isn’t visible to the rest of us.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The irony is that the media has exaggerated all sorts of threats to Clinton, who remains in good shape for the nomination. But then you have the one thing that would be a tangibly bad sign for her campaign — the vice president of the United States running for the nomination against her! — and there are lots of “smart takes” about how it could help Clinton.

hjenten-heynawl: What we’ve argued this entire time is that Sen. Bernie Sanders has a weakness among the party actors (i.e., he doesn’t have any endorsements), and that he has no longtime connections to the Democratic Party (remember, he’s not a Democrat). Biden, on the other hand, has been in major federal office in Washington since 1973. He’s someone who could conceivably reach out to all members of the party. He’s already polling better among African-Americans than Sanders, for instance.

micah: Let’s break this down a little: Both of you seem to think Biden entering the race is inherently bad for Clinton — he’d be the most serious competition for the nomination she’s faced. But would there be a couple side benefits, like that by giving the media a horse race to cover, there would be less focus on Clinton’s scandals?

natesilver: Well, first of all, it’s not just that Biden would be a more formidable competitor to Clinton than Sanders. I don’t know that Biden would be all that great a candidate, in fact. But Biden running would signal that concern about Clinton among Democratic Party elites had gone from the bedwetting stage to something more serious.

micah: Is bedwetting not serious?

hjenten-heynawl: I mean, it depends how old you are.

natesilver: But the other big problem (as we and others have pointed out before) is that Biden doesn’t have much rationale to run other than if Clinton has “trust”/scandal problems. He might never come out and say it, but that would be the whole basis for his campaign. They don’t really differ in any meaningful way on policy.

micah: But your logic seems circular: “Biden will only enter the race if Clinton is in big trouble, and therefore if Biden enters the race it means Clinton is in trouble.” What if all the party actors are telling Biden that he shouldn’t run, that they’re backing Clinton, and Biden just wants to run? It’s his last chance. And he enters the race.

natesilver: What I’m saying is that there’s a lot of information we’re not privy to, about what Democratic elites are thinking. Sure, there’s some reporting on it, but a lot of that reporting needs to be looked at skeptically — like because it relies on anonymous sourcing, or cherry-picked information from a media that would like to make the race seem competitive. The one tangible sign we have about what Democratic elites are thinking — endorsements — looks really good for Clinton. But Biden running would be a tangible sign too.

Contra Maureen Dowd or whatever, this isn’t necessarily a personal decision for Biden, or at least not entirely one. He’s a party guy. He’s the vice president. He’s not likely to run unless he thinks it’s in Democrats’ best interest.

hjenten-heynawl: Endorsements are merely a proxy for intra-party support. And proxies are wrong from time to time. They’re imperfect. And I don’t buy Biden is desperate to run. He reportedly indicated this week in a phone call with Democratic National Committee members that he and his family are grieving. The man lost his best friend and son. He wants to be there for his family. If I lost my father (my best friend), I don’t take off running for president just because I feel like it. I run because I think I can help my party, and because I think I can win.

natesilver: Right. It’s possible that Biden assesses the problem and miscalculates. But running for president would be a calculated decision on his behalf.

And, by the way, if you read the reporting on Biden carefully, it suggests that the decision is very, very calculated. He’s taking as long as possible to decide whether to enter — and at a time when it’s already pretty darn late to begin a campaign — because he wants to collect more information on whether Clinton’s in trouble or not.

hjenten-heynawl: BINGO. He’s meeting with a ton of people who represent different wings of the party, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Trumka (head of the AFL-CIO). He’s doing that, one would think, because he wants to understand what they are seeing. What are their people, their constituents, telling them.

micah: OK, so let’s say Biden gets in. The night before he announces, he’s sitting with his family and some advisers and they’re talking about why they can beat Clinton (based on everything they hear during these weeks of meetings). What are they saying? Does it all come down to email/scandal? Or would they be pointing to something else in the Clinton campaign or electorate? (I want data.)

natesilver: If you want data, and Biden’s camp is looking at the same data, then they shouldn’t be running in the first place. Unless they think the scandal will be Clinton’s undoing.

Clinton remains extremely popular with Democrats, and that popularity is pretty broad-based. White liberals might not like her as much as white moderates, Hispanics, or African-Americans, but as we’ve argued before, their support for Sanders is more an indication that they like him than that they dislike Clinton.

Some of the reporting around what Biden’s coalition would be doesn’t make any sense. See, for example, from Politico:

Biden’s circle has identified what they see as their potential voting blocs: Reagan Democrats, Jews, an LGBT base that largely credits him with pushing President Barack Obama into supporting gay marriage, and Rust Belt voters. They believe he’ll benefit from better stump skills than any of the other candidates running.

There’s no evidence that any of these groups are weaknesses for Clinton. Nor are they all that large, nor do they have very much in common.

micah: What about the Quinnipiac poll out this week showing Biden running better than Clinton against Republicans in general election matchups? And that voters don’t think Clinton is trustworthy or honest?

natesilver: I don’t think you can compare a declared candidate in Clinton — who’s been getting a ton of scrutiny from the press, some deserved and some not — against a hypothetical candidate who has a halo around him because the press would love to see a huge fight for the nomination.

Over the long run, Clinton’s favorability numbers have been no worse than Biden’s. Often a little better.

hjenten-heynawl: General election polls of candidates who aren’t running in the primary are ridiculous. Once he enters, all of Biden’s faults will be put on the table. And there are a lot to play with. If there weren’t, he’d have done better when he ran in past elections.

micah: From the WSJ writeup of the Quinnipiac poll:

The Quinnipiac poll found that 51% of voters have an unfavorable impression of her, her worst score ever on that measure. The poll also found that 61% of voters say she is not honest and trustworthy, another record low. On the honest and trustworthy question, that is up from 57% in a July Quinnipiac poll.

natesilver: Here’s the problem, Micah. Lots of people, political reporters especially, believe in momentum. If something goes from 50 to 45 percent, they assume it will keep going down, until it hits 40, 35, etc.

But empirically, the opposite is closer to being true. At least when it comes to polling.

If something goes from 50 to 45, it’s more likely to bounce back to 50 than to continue declining. Mean-reversion tends to be stronger than momentum. At least over the long term — the short term is sometimes a different story. But it’s the long term we should be concerned with, given that it’s still only August.

The Clinton who has a 42 percent favorability rating today isn’t really all that different than the one who had, I dunno, a 52 percent favorability rating at the start of the campaign, or a 48 percent favorability rating when she was running in 2008, or whatever. She is different than Clinton as secretary of state or first lady, because those are closer to being nonpartisan positions. So she can’t expect to see those numbers again, at least not while she’s a presidential candidate. But the odds are that her favorability ratings would revert to the mean by Election Day next year, which in her case means about 50/50.

hjenten-heynawl: Remember when there was talk about whether Chris Christie would get into the 2012 race? Or whether Fred Thompson would get into the 2008 race? Or Wesley Clark into the 2004 race? Those guys were tied or leading in the primary polling at the time. Biden’s best percentage so far has been 18 percent. He’s down nearly 30 percentage points to Clinton. Clinton is still in a ridiculously strong position.

natesilver: Yeah, I saw some article that offhandedly asserted Biden was polling exceptionally well given that he wasn’t in the race yet. Polling at 12 percent or 15 percent or 18 percent among members of his own party doesn’t seem that great to me for a guy who is vice president of the United States.

hjenten-heynawl: But we don’t have all the information. We believe Clinton is strong based on polling, money and support from party actors. If Biden were to enter, though, it says to us that he has a piece of information that we aren’t privy to. And this information is that Clinton is weak — for whatever reason. If he doesn’t enter, it’s a confirmation that she is strong within the party.

natesilver: Part of this is looking for verifiable evidence in an environment where the media has an interest in overrating how competitive the Democratic race is.

By most objective measures, Clinton is doing really well in the nomination hunt. About as well as any non-incumbent candidate has been doing up to this point in time. So, on the one hand, we look at that data and it makes us skeptical that Biden will convince himself to run. On the other hand, it means we have more reassessment to do if Biden in fact does run.

micah: OK, let’s say Biden gets in. How does he win? Does he come in guns blazing on email and trustworthiness? Does he claim the Obama mantle?

natesilver: How does he run or how does he win? I’d guess that his messaging would be rather cryptic at first. Because the way he wins is basically if Democrats decide that Clinton is too much of a liability because of her scandals. But Biden doesn’t want to come right out and say that. Debating Clinton on policy is also awkward, though, given that they have few real differences. And that, to the extent they do, one of them is going to be criticizing the Obama administration’s policy, which is an odd look for an incumbent party trying to win another term in office.

hjenten-heynawl: Let’s start with this: Clinton must perform disappointingly in the Iowa caucuses. If Clinton wins in Iowa by a convincing margin, this thing is going to take off. I don’t know how Clinton loses in Iowa, necessarily, but that’s where it needs to begin. Biden cannot wait until later states to take her on. Her money and momentum will be too great. So it’s Iowa or bust. Now, it could be that Sanders comes close in Iowa — it doesn’t have to be Biden, but he’s gotta do reasonably well.

natesilver: Yeah, I agree. I mean, one way Biden wins is if there’s some new scandal (or some new wrinkle to the email scandal) that’s so bad Clinton drops out. That’s sort of obvious, I suppose.

Short of that, it might come down to the timing. Say there’s some bad news for Clinton that drops a couple of weeks before Iowa. Iowa is taken as a referendum on her campaign, and she fails that referendum.

micah: And what happens to #feelthebern if Biden jumps in?

hjenten-heynawl: I think he continues on the path it was on. He’ll continue to get white liberals and that’s about it. I guess you could argue one way or another whether this slightly boosts his odds, but I think it doesn’t help him. If anything it could steal attention away from him as the anti-Clinton.

natesilver: Yeah, I don’t think Sanders’s support will be affected that much. At the margin, it might make it easier for him to win the plurality in a caucus state here or there. But Bernie will keep on Bernin’.

What I don’t think we’re likely to see is a case where the Clinton-Biden fight drags out for months and months, and then we’re all doing a bunch of delegate math, involving Clinton and Biden and Sanders, in May. As Harry said earlier, a Biden candidacy would either gain traction or collapse pretty quickly based on how it did in Iowa and New Hampshire.

hjenten-heynawl: Support for an anti-Clinton is either there or not.

micah: So on our initial question — “Could a Biden run help Hillary Clinton?” — we think the answer is: “No. And also, it probably wouldn’t affect Sanders much either.”

Is that right?

natesilver: A Biden run would be the worst news Clinton has had so far in the campaign. She’d still probably be the favorite, however.

Read More: Joe Biden Made the Right Call


REGINA — The Saskatchewan government has introduced a climate-change strategy that inches toward a price on carbon emissions, but leaves large parts of its economy untouched.

And it doesn't include a carbon tax, which Environment Minister Dustin Duncan was happy to point out Monday.

"I believe it will achieve as much, if not more than, a carbon tax ever would," Duncan said after introducing the plan.

It calls for performance standards on facilities that emit more than 25,000 tonnes annually of carbon dioxide equivalent. Facilities that exceed their limit will have to pay.

I believe it will achieve as much, if not more than, a carbon tax ever would. Dustin Duncan

They will be able to buy carbon offsets from farmers or foresters, a carbon credit from another company with emissions under its allotment or pay into a provincial fund.

The standards are to be developed next year, Duncan said.

"We want to see the economy continue to grow and, for some industries, that means that their emissions will grow. It's not a cap-and-trade program where we're capping absolutely the amount of emissions."

Duncan said standards will recognize investments companies have already made to reduce their emissions, something the energy industry has been lobbying for.

No goals or targets

The document contains no goals or targets and doesn't include estimates of how much greenhouse gas emissions are expected to be reduced. There is an undated pledge to have SaskPower, a Crown-owned utility, generate half its electricity from renewables.

"They're going to great pains to say they're not doing carbon pricing and then implementing a policy which, everywhere else it's implemented, is called carbon pricing," said University of Alberta energy economist Andrew Leach.

The biggest hole in Saskatchewan's plan is its limited scope, said Leach.

"They're not touching their transportation, home heating, commercial and industrial energy use at all with this policy."

Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec all have more inclusive plans, he said.

Leach also noted the government hasn't specified how high the emissions standards will be. Too high, he said, and carbon becomes worthless and few emissions will be cut.

Chris Wattie/Reuters Environment Minister Catherine McKenna takes part in a news conference in Ottawa on Dec. 9, 2016.

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said the plan is a good step toward carbon pricing.

"Saskatchewan's new plan proposes a performance standard for heavy industry that includes a carbon market. Momentum for carbon pricing is growing."

But she said it will have to be wider to satisfy Ottawa.

"Based on what's in today's plan, Saskatchewan's price likely wouldn't hit our standard, because it applies only to heavy industry instead of being economy-wide."

Brad Herald of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers welcomed Saskatchewan's plan.

Based on what's in today's plan, Saskatchewan's price likely wouldn't hit our standard. Catherine McKenna

"There's a great range of compliance options for us there."

He declined to say whether Saskatchewan's plan is more favourable to industry than Alberta's, which includes a carbon tax.

"Both are legitimate," he said.

The Agricultural Producers of Saskatchewan also praised the plan. It leaves agriculture, the source of about one-quarter of the province's emissions, largely exempt.

"We also strongly reject the imposition of a carbon tax on our sector," said association president Todd Lewis.

'They are last to the party'

Erin Flanagan of the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think-tank, said Saskatchewan's plan is an improvement over previous positions.

"It's still not a credible approach to climate change," she said. "They are last to the party, but it's good they are moving forward with some pieces of an approach."

Flanagan said it's tough to know how much difference the plan will make.

"The fact they haven't said what these (carbon) prices will be makes it difficult to know what kind of impact this is going to have. Saskatchewan doesn't have an economy-wide (reduction) target.

Saskatchewan has remained opposed to the federal government's insistence that all provinces must have a price on carbon in place by 2018.

Duncan said Monday's plan doesn't change that.

"We're prepared to defend our position. If that means go to court, so be it."

Previously On HuffPost:


I’m still trying to find my place as a pray-er among the residents at the women’s care facility. As an introvert and hermit, and with what little social skills I possess, the challenge is large.

I had been given a list of names of the women who are Catholic and ambled to each room to introduce myself. Awkwardly I’d pause to greet those in the corridors and sitting areas.

In the first room, the woman sat on the side of her bed, a wheeled oxygen tank between her knees and tubes under her nose. She was confused by my presence but not my purpose, and accepted my offer to pray with her. She’d scurried to the administrator’s office when I left her room. I learned later she had asked if I were real—and convinced that I was—asked if I would come again.

My next stop was with a very joyous developmentally-impaired woman. I’m not a touchy-feely kind of person and found her advances to hug and touch off-putting. I struggled to hold my ground against the urge to back away. She could not understand that I was offering prayer, telling me instead of her upcoming birthday and of many other happy things.

I knocked on two more doors, shamefully relieved that there were no responses, and headed upstairs. In the stairwell I stopped, overwhelmed. I was ill-prepared for the emotions that flooded my heart.

I was upset because of the confusion I felt in the presence of these women, and questioned if I lacked genuine love in my actions. I wanted to feel that my presence gave validation to Jesus’ love, and to feel pleasing to our Lord. I felt none of this. What I felt was the little love I had was barely enough to keep me moving to the next floor, let alone sufficient to be a presence to these ladies.

Leaning against the banister I steadied my resolve to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit felt months ago. I prayed for those I had just encountered and for perseverance and the confidence to move on.

Later at home in my oratory I thought about my shortcomings of truly being the hands of Christ. I felt that the spiritual food I had to offer was not enough for the enormity of the summons set before me.

As I sat in silence, the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000—more than that counting women and children—came to mind. When I read the Bible passages (Mt 14:13-16, Mk 6:30-37, Jn 6:1-13) something struck me. Consistent in all three, Jesus did not say to the apostles that he would feed them—he said you feed them.

The apostles begged Jesus, for the good of all, to quickly send them away. There were too many in need for only a dozen hands to feed.

Jesus knew that with what little they possessed there was enough for him to work with. He didn’t change the venue of the challenge; he multiplied the bits and pieces that they had to meet the need at hand.

I only have a small amount to share—of confidence, courage, and love. But in the hands of Jesus, what little I have is multiplied enough to feed those standing beside me, and he gives me enough for another day.

There’s a miracle in here, somewhere. I’m just too startled to see it.


Italian airport is letting travellers take as much as 500g of the sauce in their carry-on luggage, exempting them from the 100ml rule for liquids

The Italian port city of Genoa has taken pride in its famed pesto sauce to new heights by granting special airport waivers for those who can’t get enough of the basil and pine nut pasta sauce.

Trevi levy: Rome imposes fines for frolicking at famous fountains Read more

Genoa’s airport is letting travellers take as much as 500g of pesto in their carry-on luggage, exempting them from the 100ml rule for liquids in carry-on baggage.

The catch: passengers must make a donation of 50 cents or more to a charity that airlifts sick children to hospitals.

The airport said this week that €500 had been raised in the first 20 days of the initiative, which was inspired by the anguish of so many foodies having their pesto confiscated when trying to get through security.


The United Nations doesn’t really give a shit that most of the rest of the world suppresses freedom and violates human rights. No, they are more concerned with what’s going on in the most free and most civil country on the planet. In their newest most ridiculous demand, the UN is warning the United States that we must abolish the 1st Amendment right to free speech to combat white supremacy, or else. I think I speak for all Americans on all sides of every issue when I say the UN can go f*ck itself.

The UN threw The UN threw this shit out there in response to Charlottesville:

 The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has called on the Government of the United States of America, as well as high-level politicians and public officials, to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech and crimes in Charlottesville and throughout the country. In a decision issued under its ‘early warning and urgent action’ procedure, the Committee — which monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination* — stated “there should be no place in the world for racist white supremacist ideas or any similar ideologies that reject the core human rights principles of human dignity and equality.”

Early warning and urgent action procedure? This peculiar wording makes me think that if we don’t comply, the UN is going to issue some kind of sanctions against the US. I double-dog dare them to do this. I’m almost certain President Trump will react by pulling all funding to the UN and as I’m sure they know, we pay most of their bills.

“We are alarmed by the racist demonstrations, with overtly racist slogans, chants and salutes by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan, promoting white supremacy and inciting racial discrimination and hatred”, said UN nitwit Anastasia Crickley.

Gosh, what about the daily radical Islamic acts of terror around the globe? Don’t those cowardly acts of violence that result in the deaths of hundreds of innocent people seem like a bigger concern? Apparently not. The death of one person in an isolated incident in the US is a way bigger deal.

“We call on the US Government to investigate thoroughly the phenomenon of racial discrimination targeting, in particular, people of African descent, ethnic or ethno-religious minorities, and migrants,” said Crinkly.

In case this isn’t crazy enough for you, check this out:

 Acting under its early warning procedure, CERD also called on the US to ensure that the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly are not exercised with the aim of destroying or denying the rights and freedoms of others. It also asked US to provide the necessary guarantees so that such rights are not misused to promote racist hate speech and racist crimes.

The UN wants America to get rid of the 1st Amendment rights of free speech and assembly to address white supremacy, which is only an issue with hysterical liberals. I guess they don’t quite get how freedom works or that unpopular speech is exactly the kind of speech that the 1st Amendment protects.

A better idea would be for the UN to condemn 99% of the rest of the world that has some kind of free speech restrictions. In half the countries having a opinion is a jailable offense and in the other half speaking one’s mind is a death sentence.

Putting up with a handful of racist knuckleheads is a small price to pay for liberty. America’s freedom is the least pressing issue facing the globe.


Bedrock presented preliminary design and plans for the site of the former J.L. Hudson’s Department Store Wednesday, February 22, 2017, at a meeting of the DDA (Photo: Bedrock Detroit)

In an era of a downtown Detroit renaissance, plans for the tallest building in the city were unveiled Wednesday.

The building is part of an estimated $775 million development proposed by an entity linked to billionaire Dan Gilbert. The project for the empty Woodward Avenue block where the J.L. Hudson department store once stood is one of the most expensive and ambitious plans introduced in a decade that has seen many blockbuster deals.

The shimmering, futuristic 734-foot tower aims to be a centerpiece for the city and state, officials for Gilbert’s Bedrock Detroit said as they rolled out the proposed project to the board of the Downtown Development Authority. That’s one of the city agencies that would need to approve the deal.

The tower would have 250 residential units and 700-plus underground parking spaces. A connected nine-story base structure would house retail, office, technology and arts and culture space. The development looks like nothing in Detroit now, with a glass and steel exterior that sweeps upward.

Bedrock officials showed images of Smithsonian exhibits and TED Talks as examples of the kind of events that could be held in conference and exhibit space. There were images of a market and hip retailers in the floor beneath street level. The mixed-use development would have 1.2 million square feet of space.

“We believe this project is so unique that it can help put Detroit back on the national, and even global, map for world-class architecture, talent attraction, technology innovation and job creation,” Gilbert said in a written statement Wednesday.

The DDA board quickly approved a new time frame for the yet-unnamed development. An entity linked to Gilbert has had development rights for the former Hudson’s site since 2010; the DDA has granted extensions for the project several times. Early designs released in 2015 showed a swooping glass-and-metal structure.

If things go as intended — and it’s too soon to tell — the new schedule would see construction start in December of this year and be finished by the end of 2020.

A spokesman for Mayor Mike Duggan did not respond to an email asking for comment on Wednesday’s announcement.

Plans for the project could change because Gilbert is counting on tax breaks that don’t yet exist to make the financing work on the project. Those potential tax incentives are currently in the state Legislature. On Wednesday, the package of bills was approved by the state Senate and the bills now go to the state House of Representatives. Last year, similar legislation died in the House.

If the tax incentives are not passed, “It certainly will impact what happens,”said Joe Guziewicz, vice president of construction for Bedrock Detroit. “We would end up coming back to the DDA with revised renderings and a revised timeline,” for the project, he said.

Beyond the tax incentives, it’s unknown whether other tax breaks may be sought for the development.

Entities linked to Gilbert and Bedrock Detroit are major forces downtown, controlling more than 90 properties, which amounts to a $2 billion-plus investment.

The proposed tower would make the structure Detroit’s tallest — by 7 feet. The 70-story center tower of the General Motors Renaissance Center stands 727 feet tall. The development plans were designed by SHoP Architects of New York in conjunction with Detroit-based Hamilton Anderson Associates.

For decades, the Hudson’s store was the jewel of a bustling downtown filled with stores, offices and people. The store was demolished in 1998 and the site has been empty ever since, serving as a reminder of Detroit’s decades-long decline.

The scope of the Hudson’s development was praised by John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor who follows downtown development. “Hudson’s was a magical place that was really the catalyst for the downtown. This could be that, too. The Renaissance Center failed to do that.”

The estimated $775 million price tag rivals the cost of Little Caesars Arena, the still-under-construction venue that will be the home ice to the Detroit Red Wings. The current estimate for the arena is $732.6 million, but that will increase if the arena also becomes home to the Detroit Pistons, which would result in millions of dollars in modifications to the venue.

laguilar@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @LouisAguilar_DN

Higher ground

These are the tallest buildings in Detroit. The planned building on the Hudson’s site — at 734 feet and 52 floors— would eclipse them all.

1. The Detroit Marriot at the Renaissance Center: 727 feet tall, 70 floors

2. One Detroit Center: 619 feet tall, 43 floors

3. Penobscot Building: 565 feet tall, 47 floors

4. Renaissance Center Towers 100, 200, 300, 400 (Satellite Towers): 522 feet tall, 39 floors

5. The Guardian Building: 496 feet tall, 40 floors

Sources: Emporis, historicdetroit.org

Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2lwdlQU


FBI Handout Gunman who killed a security agent at LAX was carrying a note expressing 'disappointment in the government', reports claim.

In pictures: Shooting at Los Angeles Airport

The gunman who opened fire inside Los Angeles International Airport, killing a security agent and injuring several others, was carrying a note describing himself as a "pissed off patriot" who wanted to shoot "pigs", it has been reported.

In the hours after Friday's deadly attack, suggestions began to emerge that the shooter - identified as Paul Ciancia, 23 - was motivated by extremist anti-government views as well as emotional problems that had pushed him towards thoughts of suicide.

Authorities have declined to address his motivation publicly but a law enforcement official told the Los Angeles Times that a note was found on Ciancia expressing "disappointment in the government" and claiming he had no interest in harming "innocent people".

Instead, he wanted to "kill TSA", the note reportedly stated, a reference to the Transport Security Administration created in the wake of the September 11 attacks to increase safety on US transportation. The written rant was said to detail Ciancia's belief that his constitutional rights were being violated by TSA searches and his anger at former Department of Homleand Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

As he embarked on his shooting spree, dressed in fatigues and carrying a high-powered rifle, Ciancia asked several cowering members of the public if they were TSA, witnesses claimed. He found his target, shooting dead 39-year-old agent Gerardo Hernandez, the first TSA officer to be killed in the line of duty since the agency's creation.

A number of other agents suffered gunshot wounds.

The deadly attack threw one of the world's busiest airports into chaos as terrified passengers fled Terminal 3, some gathering on the airside tarmac under the wings of waiting planes. Others locked themselves in bathrooms as security officers sought to fell the shooter, ultimately engaging him in gunfire which resulted in shots to his mouth and leg, and taking him into custody.

Ciancia, originally from New Jersey, reportedly began his assault at a check-in counter where he pulled an assault rifle out of a bag and opened fire. Witnesses heard several "popping" sounds before the gunman moved up an escalator, and through a security screening area to where passengers were waiting for their flights outside boarding gates.

He was then shot and wounded by police, reportedly near a Burger King stand. Up to a dozen shots were heard by passengers as they scrambled away.

Ciancia had at least five full 30-round magazines with him, police said. He was shot in the mouth and leg by two airport police officers.

Ciancia had earlier that day sent a text message to his brother saying that he intended to take his own life. This led his father to contact police in the family's home state of New Jersey expressing concern for his state of mind and asking for help in locating him. They in turn contacted police in Los Angeles who sent a patrol car to Ciancia's apartment in the city. There, his two roommates said they had seen him the previous day and that he appeared to be fine.

A former classmate of Ciancia's told the LA Times that the suspected shooter was a loner and suffered bullying at their private school.

"In four years, I never heard a word out of his mouth," said David Hamilton, who graduated with Ciancia from Salesianum School in Wilmington, Delaware, in 2008. "He kept to himself and ate lunch alone a lot. I really don't remember any one person who was close to him."

Witnesses said Ciancia appeared calm and composed as he picked his way through the terminal seeking targets. But passengers, who included a number of TV and film celebrities, told of their terror during the ordeal.

Emmy-nominated actor Tim Daly, who appeared in The Sopranos, was in the Virgin first class lounge on the other side of a wall from the shooting.

"Less than a minute after the shots the LAPD burst into the lounge with weapons drawn to make sure there were no bad guys in the lounge," he said. "That was pretty frightening."

Daly said when he was evacuated he saw a gun that looked like an AR-15 assault rifle with three clips on the floor outside Gates 35 and 36.

He said: "It was right in the middle of where everyone waits to get on their planes. We were told not to step on any blood or bags because it was evidence."

TV presenter Tory Belleci, from the show Mythbusters, tweeted:

Twitter: Tory Belleci - Heard gun shots then everyone starting running for the door. Not sure if anyone was hurt. #LAX

The airport, known as LAX, serves about 64 million people a year, with more than 1,500 flights taking off and landing every day. Terminal 3 is home to Virgin America and other airlines. All flights were grounded and President Barack Obama was being kept informed.

Passenger Sarah Richardson said: "We heard a lot of loud gunshots. My colleague threw me to the ground and we were scrambling. Somebody told us to make a run for it. We got into a room and they pulled a coffee machine in front of the door. We could hear gunshots outside.

"The sound was so loud we thought a bomb had gone off. Some people hid in a bathroom. It was pure and utter mayhem, people tripping over each other crying and screaming, bags everywhere."

Eyewitness Brian Adamick, 43, told the Los Angeles Times he saw a wounded TSA agent with a bloody leg on the tarmac.

"It looked like it was straight out of the movies," he said. The agent told him "I got shot, I'm fine," adding that he had been shot before.

Los Angeles chef Vernon Cardenas, who was en route to Philadelphia to audition for the MasterChef TV programme, said the gunman looked at him but didn't shoot.

He described a white man in his 20s with "dirty blonde hair". Mr Cardenas said: "He was dressed in navy blue clothes, he almost looked like an employee of the airport. He was walking around in sort of a daze."

The television channel AMC confirmed that scenes for its award-winning drama Mad Men were being filmed at the airport at the time of the shooting.

Production on Mad Men was taking place at nearby Terminal 4 and a member of the crew said on Twitter: "We are filming at LAX. Gun fire. Locked down. Evacuating. Terminal 4. Forced back inside for safety."

It was not clear which members of the cast were present at the airport at the time.

Mythbusters presenter Tory Belleci told CNN: "People were running towards me screaming 'There's a shooter, there's a shooter.' I heard the shots. Everybody was jumping over each other and trying to stay low. It was blowing my mind how he could get a weapon that far into the airport."

Fellow Mythbusters star Grant Imahara said: "To be there was surreal and you went into survival mode. It was like the whole airport was holding its breath for an hour."

Passenger Leon Saryan, who was walking from the security check carrying his shoes and belt, told ABC News: "I was cowering in a corner. He (the gunman) looked at me and he said, 'TSA?' I shook my head no, and he kept on going. I just prayed to God. That's all I did. I just prayed."


Despite years of painful austerity, the UK’s level of public spending is today no lower as a share of national income than it was after 11 years of a Labour government in 2008, according to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The major report from the UK’s leading economic think tank shows that deep cuts have left the NHS, schools and prisons in a “fragile state”, and have merely returned public spending to pre-financial crisis levels.

The document presents a challenge to claims that Conservative-driven austerity saved the public finances following years of Labour overspending.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.

The think tank’s report goes on to conclude that in the light of the data, Chancellor Philip Hammond’s plan to abolish the UK’s deficit by the mid-2020s is “no longer sensible”.

With his critical Budget approaching in November, it challenges him to admit the target looks “increasingly unlikely” in the light of a worsening economic outlook, exacerbated by Britain’s “terrible” productivity and uncertainty over Brexit.

The IFS analysis of public spending levels appears in its pre-Budget look at the Chancellor’s options published on Monday.

It found public spending as a share of national income was at a similar level both now and shortly before the financial crash, an event David Cameron and George Osborne claimed Labour overspending left the country ill-prepared for.

In 2007-08, public spending as a share of GDP was 39 per cent, it peaked in 2009-10 at 45.1 per cent and is forecast to be 39.6 per cent this year, according to the IFS.

The main justification for austerity has been the need to reduce and eventually abolish the deficit, a target that the IFS refers to as “ever-receding”.

The IFS argues Mr Hammond’s critical budget speech next month, will be given against a backdrop of a worsening economic outlook that demands austerity goals are rethought.

The key to the “significantly worsened” fiscal forecasts expected in November, leaving the Government less money to play with, is the UK’s “lower productivity growth” coming off the back of seven years of “terrible” growth.

The report argues Mr Hammond will also find it difficult to raise new money from taxes given the “political arithmetic” that exists following an election which left the Tories without a solid Commons majority.

The Chancellor also faces huge pressure to ease the Treasury’s purse strings, including demands to boost universal credit welfare payments, increase public sector pay and spend more on defence.

The IFS report said: “It looks like [Mr Hammond] will face a substantial deterioration in the projected state of the public finances.

“He will know that seven years of ‘austerity’ have left many public services in a fragile state. And, in the known unknowns surrounding both the shape and impact of Brexit, he faces even greater than usual levels of economic uncertainty.”

It goes on: “Given all the current pressures and uncertainties – and the policy action that these might require – it is perhaps time to admit that a firm commitment to running a budget surplus from the mid-2020s onwards is no longer sensible.”

The body sets out areas where continuing austerity is having its greatest impact on services, citing “clear signs of strain” in the NHS.

It adds: “Both the four-hour A&E target and the 18-week waiting period target are being missed nationally.

“The indicators paint a worrying picture for prisons, which, unlike the NHS, have seen large real-terms cuts (over 20 per cent) since 2009-10.

“Statistics compiled by the Institute for Government show that while the prison population is at roughly its 2009 level, staffing is down and violence (both against fellow prisoners and prison staff) and prisoner self-harm rates are on an alarmingly steep upwards trajectory.”

The report goes on to note how the Chancellor has already abandoned the blanket public sector pay cap and may decide to give more people a pay rise.

The Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said: “The IFS have today confirmed seven years of Tory austerity policies have failed to drive up investment and productivity, with serious potential consequences for the public finances.

“Tory economic failure means wages and salaries are lower today than when they came to power, and still falling, whilst their mishandling of Brexit is now also adding to the uncertainty around future borrowing plans.”

The Independent contacted the Treasury for comment.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.

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Michael Garb/Gravity Glue (Facebook)

Michael Grab, a Boulder artist who goes by the name Gravity Glue, said that police threatened to ticket or jail him for creating stacked river rock sculptures that the community has been enjoying for years.

In a Monday Facebook post, Grab explained that a Boulder police officer had informed him that there would be stiff penalties for continuing his art.

“For the past 7 years i have been creating this art in and around Boulder, Colorado, USA. nearly every day!” he wrote. “[J]ust this weekend, one police officer has decided that balancing rocks in Boulder, Colorado is now illegal, obscurely referencing two city codes [5-4-8 and 5-4-2] about ‘destruction of public property’ in relation to rocks.”

“So now the police have belligerently taken it upon themselves to write tickets and/or arrest ANYONE balancing rocks in Boulder, CO. and specifically threatened to ticket me and/or arrest me if they catch me in the future,” the artist lamented. “[I] encourage as many people as possible (especially locals) to contact the city council here in Boulder and voice your support for this long standing tradition in Boulder. [I]t is something that an overwhelming portion of the community supports.”

Grab said that he would be forced to leave Boulder if the city council did not step in to clarify the city ordinances.

Rooster Magazine wondered why Boulder police felt the need to focus on “Draconian rock art witch hunt” instead of higher-than-average rates of rape and theft.

“Why is any of this important? Because if we ban every bizzaro Boulder character that causes a stir (see: nude gardening woman), we’re left with nothing more than a college town with a Target that’s about to become Google’s new headquarters,” the magazine noted. “At a time like this, we need less kid gloves in the form of overzealous legislation, and more attention paid to retaining the city’s core personality. And if you don’t like that, f*cking move to Westminster.”

“Keep Boulder weird, and keep Gravity Glue making weird ass rock art.”

In the end, the call to action worked. Grab said that the city attorney personally called to let him know that rock stacking was not illegal in Boulder.

“UPDATE: holy shit! maybe the support was more than i anticipated!!” he exclaimed. “[J]ust got a call from the city attorney personally here in Boulder telling me that he has ordered the police to NOT cite rock balancing under the city codes [I] mentioned below!!!”

“THANK YOU everyone for the overwhelming support!!!! [T]hey must have gotten lots of calls!! haha :))”

Watch a video below of Gravity Glue doing his thing.


Kirsten Dunst earns millions for a film. But what about the actor who dubs her into Spanish? The world's top voice artists tell all - in their own words

Mexico's Kirsten Dunst: Claudia Motta

I began dreaming of acting as a little girl, watching Japanese cartoons. I fell in love with the voices. Later I got into radio and then into dubbing - and I love it. After I spoke Kirsten Dunst's lines in Spider-Man, they asked me to do Mona Lisa Smile, Wimbledon, and others. She's a favourite in my stable of characters now, and I'm so pleased things are going well for her in Hollywood. I don't imitate the actor, I get into the personality of the role. I focus on the gestures and reflect that in my voice, even if there was no sound in the original. I add to the drama because to dub well you have to be as good an actor, or better. They paid me 10,000 pesos (£500) for Mary Jane in Spider-Man. The problem is that distributors don't put us in the credits. Suppose Kirsten Dunst thought, "Gosh, how nice I sound in Spanish." She wouldn't have known who the voice belonged to.

Much of my work is for television. I'm best known for playing Bart Simpson for 10 years. When different actors were brought in because of a contract dispute, the public demanded we be brought back. Mexican dubbers mostly use a kind of neutral Spanish without accents or regional expressions so all Latin America can understand. We have the best dubbing industry, and the competition in Argentina and Venezuela just doesn't have our finesse or tradition. Top Cat in Spanish has a personality and feeling that is missing in English - and I take my hat off to the woman who voiced the witch in Snow White.

France's Angelina Jolie: Françoise Cadol

Sometimes my home phone will ring and when I say "hello" there will be a sharp intake of breath at the other end. I know immediately it's a dubbing fan who has got hold of my number. Once a woman rang me and started gasping. Then after a silence, she said: "Sorry, I'm just so emotional at hearing you, I can't speak, I'll have to call back."

There are people in Paris who keep scrapbooks on dubbing, who collect signed photos, who know what you've dubbed despite your name rarely appearing on the credits. I respect people's reasons for wanting to contact me, but I don't send out photos. People feel they know the voice and they want to know you. A voice is a very moving thing. Dubbing is taken seriously in France, and people get very upset if an actor who has dubbed a star for a long time suddenly changes. Audiences want continuity.

I get invited on to TV shows to discuss dubbing - people are interested in the process. I have been Angelina Jolie since Tomb Raider because I was the voice of Lara Croft in the video games. I thought Jolie was very good in Mr and Mrs Smith - you could tell she and Brad Pitt were having a good time making that film. I don't seek out information on her in the celebrity mags, or follow her life at all, but I get on very well with the French actor who dubs Brad Pitt - a well-known actor in his own right. I'm also Gong Li, Sandra Bullock, Patricia Arquette and the voice of Mary Alice in Desperate Housewives.

I dub films because I enjoy it, it's artistic - and it is a skill that teaches you a lot about acting. I'm currently writing my fourth play for my theatre company and dubbing allows me to keep on doing the work for theatre. I've acted in theatres all over Paris, I've been on the TV, but the greatest irony is that I've never actually appeared on the cinema screen.

Italy's Renée Zellweger: Giuppy Izzo

I was born into the business. My teacher was my father. He had four daughters and most evenings at dinner he would try to teach us something about intonation. He had a saying: "Your voice is the soundtrack of your life." One of my sisters also entered the business and is now a dubbing director as well as a dubbing artist. It was a bit like growing up as a circus child, really.

My first job was as the 10-year-old daughter in The Goodbye Girl. I've no idea how many other films I've dubbed since then. I've voiced Renée Zellweger in both her Bridget Jones movies and several others. I've studied her diction, her movements and her breathing so much that I feel I know her. We've not met, though - the only actor I've both dubbed and met is Ellen Pompeo, the star of Grey's Anatomy. She came up and hugged me at a conference in Milan in the summer.

The key to this profession is obsession with detail. To get the same effects as in the original, I try, as far as I can, to imitate the actor's movements as I say her lines. Anyone who saw me working would think I was nuts. I lay down on the floor for the bedroom scenes in the Bridget Jones films. At the end of one of them, there's a scene in which Bridget is badly out of breath.

I ran twice around the block before we recorded it.

China's Tom Cruise: Ren Wei

Tom Cruise was my latest voice acting role, but I have played hundreds of parts since I joined the Shanghai Film Dubbing Studio in 1986. I was Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge, John Travolta in Broken Arrow, Joseph Fiennes in Enemy at the Gates, Hugh Jackman in Kate and Leopold and Vincent Perez in Fanfan la Tulipe.

But my real dream is to become a tenor. Luciano Pavarotti is my idol and I haven't given up trying to get a role in a musical. I have a good voice, dancing skills, and acting experience. I just need a chance.

I guess I was chosen to voice the Tom Cruise role in Mission: Impossible III because my age and physique are similar to his. Some people say I even look like him from a certain angle. It was a tough job. While Atang [the Cantonese nickname for Tom Cruise] had months to make the film, I had to do the whole thing - from learning the script to dubbing all the lines - in four days. We always have to rush because of the piracy problem in China. If we don't get the translation and dubbing done quickly, an unauthorised version will be out on the streets before ours.

Every day I worked for at least 12 hours. I studied Atang's voice and tried to imitate his style of talking. It was an action movie, so there was lots of running about and shouting, which was hard to emulate in a studio. It was very intense and I had to cover a big range of emotions. In the fighting scenes, it was all "Get down, get down! Go, go!" Then there were romantic moments when his voice breaks up as he tells his wife how much he loves her. I had to watch the original English version time and time again to get the feeling right.

When it was all over I was so hoarse that the director told me to go home and take a rest. The crew cracked jokes: "Tom Cruise runs so fast he breaks his legs, Ren Wei shouts so loud he breaks his voice."

I have never used the fact that I am Atang's voice actor to chat up women, but I have received letters from fans who say they really like my delivery. But that is not what is most important. My main aim is to satisfy the original actor as much as the audience.

Germany's Julia Roberts: Daniella Hoffmann

It all started out with the casting for Pretty Woman back in 1990. Back then I didn't expect it to be a big deal - more like a B-movie. I was among the finalists and I think it was my laugh that clinched it. I can do a good, really filthy laugh just like Julia Roberts -I love it when she laughs. Since Pretty Woman I've played her in every film. My vocal range is very like hers, so it all comes pretty naturally. With Ally McBeal, whom I also dub, I put on a very different voice, much higher.

I don't often get recognised as being the voice of Julia Roberts. I think women's voices are much harder to identify than men's. But being Julia has definitely brought work my way. Some adverts want the sound of "Julia Roberts" and I have also done Charlotte's Web because it was originally Julia who did the voiceover.

When I come in to record I generally haven't seen the film I'm going to dub. It used to be different: we used to get the videos to take home beforehand. But these days they are amazingly strict about new releases. When I did a voice for Star Wars, I wasn't even told in advance what film we were doing - just to turn up.

But when I play Julia Roberts I don't need to prepare or anything. I follow her lead. I mean, the woman is a great actress, an Oscar-winning actress - why should I change anything about her work?

India's Arnold : Schwarzenegger: Pawan Kalra

I've done most of the big names: I was Arnold in The Terminator and True Lies; I voiced Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights; and Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing. A number of people say I look like Bruce Willis and I did Bruce as the cop in Sin City. I think Brad Pitt is one of the finest. I have just done him in Spy Games - a great film. Pitt is a very fine actor who can both overplay and underplay a role. You really have to watch how he speaks, it is fantastic.

Dubbing is an art requiring a voice of many textures and tones. Not everybody can do it just because they have a good voice. Voiceover artists are cast and we have writers who make the scripts fit the lip movements of the actors on screen so that it runs as smoothly as possible. There are sometimes arguments over how to translate a single phrase.

It is hardest with black actors like Eddie Murphy and Will Smith. They are not only very funny but they speak very, very fast. Trying to street talk quickly in Hindi is extremely tough. After two days your mouth gets really tired.

My brother was in the film business. I was running my father's transport company in Bihar, out there in the sticks. But I had done some performances, so my brother said: come out and try. So I did. And here I am, eight years later.

A film for TV takes two days. I will make 20,000 rupees (£250). For theatre release it is more like 50,000 rupees (£625). It's really exploding. I do films, commercials and TV shows now. There are a lot more people saying "I heard you on television" these days. But it's a really competitive industry. When I started there were just a few people - now everybody thinks they can voice movies.

· Interviews by Jo Tuckman, Angelique Chrisafis, John Hooper, Jonathan Watts, Jess Smee and Randeep Ramesh


ALLEN PARK -- There was some fear that Ndamukong Suh had opened himself to possible retaliation hits following his latest questionable football act. Seems he had to wait only one week for the first blow, after Arizona right guard Paul Fanaika dove at Suh's knees behind a play during Sunday's game. But there's been little media coverage of the hit, and no public backlash.

Ndamukong Suh was on the other side of a questionable block Sunday against Arizona, but isn't making a big deal about it.

And the Detroit Lions defensive tackle isn't angry at the possible double-standard. "(That kind of hit) happens all the time," Suh said during a news conference Wednesday "It's not going to stop. Look forward to it -- look forward to keep making plays down the field. That's my job. "To me, it's just gnats that are in the air that keep going after you. You swat at 'em, and sometimes you hit 'em, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they run away, sometimes they come back again. But ultimately, I'm just that bee going to find that honey hole. That's what I do." Suh was excoriated by various players, past and present, as well as coaches and some media for blocking Minnesota center John Sullivan in the knees in the opener. He drew a record $100,000 fine. Fanaika, conversely, wasn't whistled for a penalty -- in fact, the block was legal because Fanaika's an offensive lineman -- and the country hasn't rallied to Suh's defense. Suh said he "doesn't care" about being treated differently in the media. "That's not my job," he said. Coach Jim Schwartz shrugged off the play as well, and wouldn't disclose whether Detroit has or plans to file a grievance with the league. "That whole turning plays in and saying the league called and said this, I honestly think that's a little unbecoming," Schwartz said. "We try to keep our conversations with the league just to that. If they tell us they blew a call ... I mean, how many times have I come up here and said that? "Probably never, because we don't make excuses. We don't want to make excuses for stuff like that." Schwartz did seem to have some issue with the rule itself though, which allows for offensive lineman to block below the waist as long as it's from the front. "Is it less of an injury risk (than if a defensive lineman does it)? No, but it's a legal play as opposed to a play that's penalized, so it is what it is," he said. Suh also denied a Fox Sports report that he's stomped on teammates in practice, deferring to previous statements from Schwartz and center Dominic Raiola that it never happened.


Humanoid robots are a vanity project: an attempt to create artificial life in our own image – essentially trying to play God. The problem is, we’re not very good at it. Ask someone on the street to name a robot and you might hear “Terminator”, “the Cybermen” or “that gold one from Star Wars”. What you’re not going to be given are names like Tesla Model X, Cassini or DJI Inspire 2. These are all robots, but they don’t follow the sci-fi narrative of what robots should be like. The fact is, the robots of the near future won’t be going about on two legs like the shuffling C3PO. And they’ll be much more efficient than us bipeds.

Our impression of what a robot is has been tainted by science fiction and popular culture. The term “robot” was first used in 1920 by Karel and Josef Čapek in a play called R.U.R. to describe an artificial automaton. Since then, our narcissistic desires have seen the word become synonymous with humanoid robots, or androids.

We like to think that we’re the dominant creatures on the planet, so mobile robots should look like us. But the fact is, they shouldn’t. We can’t fly, we’re not very good swimmers, we can’t live in a vacuum and if we want to travel more than a mile, most of us will get on some type of wheeled vehicles. Bipedal locomotion has served us well but it is limited and requires a huge amount of brain power and years of learning to perfect. The computer versions of our brain are nowhere near our level and are unlikely to be so for decades to come. After nearly 100 years of development, our most advanced humanoid robots can only just open a door without falling over (too often).

Is a plane a robot?

So what is the future of robotics? Well, it comes down to what you define a robot as. Unfortunately there isn’t a unified definition of what a robot is, but the general consensus is that it’s a physical device which can sense its surroundings and interact with the environment with limited human intervention. This could either be automation, where tasks are pre-programmed, or autonomy, where the robot makes decisions on its own.

Let’s say that I build a little four-wheeled robot that can move from point A to point B without crashing into anything. I can give it a map and tell it where to go and it will do so without any further instructions. This sounds quite nifty, but what’s the point of it? Well now let’s scale it up so you can sit in it. Now suddenly it’s not a robot, it’s a driverless car. But all that’s changed is the size.

I now want to fly off on my holidays. I quite happily get on the plane and see the two pilots in the cockpit. When I land, they’re still there and I think what a great job they did. More than likely though, the pilots didn’t actually fly the plane. They will have inputted commands to the autopilot and the computer will have flown the plane. The plane, for all intents and purposes, is a robot with human supervisors to take over if anything goes drastically wrong, just like a driverless car.

Planes, trains automobiles … and robots

The future of nearly all transport is mobile robots. We’re already there with robotic aircraft and within the next decade, we’ll have robot cars. Robots already fly through space and scour the bottom of the ocean. It won’t be too long before we have driverless trains and trams too. Drones will become a bigger part of society. All these things are robots, but they’ve had to be called something else due to societal impression of what a robot is.

What this highlights is that we adapt the technology to fit the environment. Rather than building robots that look like us so that they can be a direct replacement, you’ll start to see things being built to suit a problem. Why do you need a robot with complex hands to pick up a pair of scissors or a hammer, when it can be built into their arms? Why build a robot to climb over debris in an earthquake on two legs, when four or six legs – or a wheeled track – would be much more stable?

There is no doubt that eventually androids will be walking around and talking with us. You’ll pass them wandering down the street or hold a conversation with one as you do your shopping. But for now, the robots of the near future won’t walk like us. Instead they’ll drive, they’ll fly, they’ll swim or they’ll walk on any number of legs – except two.


Russia today announced the beginning of a significant military drawdown in Syria, with the nation’s lone aircraft carrier group being withdrawn from the Syrian coast, and a number of troops apparently set to follow as the ceasefire in the country continues to hold.

Exact details of the drawdown are unclear, but reports suggest a drawdown of some sort was actually always meant to be part of the deal which led to the ceasefire, which began a week ago and continues to mostly hold. There is considerable skepticism, however.

That’s because Russia already announced a drawdown back in 2016, shortly after the February ceasefire began, only to eventually send a number of reinforcements when that collapsed. Until a peace deal is negotiated, these drawdowns are always going to be seen as temporary.

Peace talks are coming though, with plans for negotiations in Kazakhstan some time later in January. Exact dates are not set, and the rebels have largely not committed to take part in the negotiations.

Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz


Emma Mærsk is the first container ship in the E-class of eight owned by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group. When launched in 2006 she was the largest container ship ever built, and in 2010 she and her seven sister ships were among the longest container ships. Officially, she is able to carry around 11,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) or 14,770 TEU depending on definition. In May 2010, her sister ship Ebba Mærsk set a record of 15,011 TEU in Tanger-Med, Tangiers.[3]

History [ edit ]

Emma Mærsk was built at the Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark. In June 2006, during construction, welding work caused a fire within the superstructure.[4] It spread rapidly through the accommodation section and bridge, which delayed her completion by six to seven weeks.

She was named in a ceremony on 12 August 2006, after Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller's late wife, Emma. She set sail on her maiden voyage on 8 September 2006 at 02:00 hours from Aarhus, calling at Gothenburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Algeciras, the Suez Canal, and arrived in Singapore on 1 October 2006 at 20:05 hours. She sailed the next day for Yantian in Shenzhen, then Kobe, Nagoya, arriving at Yokohama on 10 October 2006, and returning via Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tanjung Pelepas, the Suez Canal, Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Gothenburg to Aarhus, arriving on 11 November 2006 at 16:00 hours.[5]

She appeared in headlines prior to Christmas 2006, when she was dubbed SS Santa because she was bound for the United Kingdom from China loaded with Christmas goods. The return journey to southern China was loaded with UK waste for recycling.[6]

Her appearance in the news prompted the State Environmental Protection Administration in China to promise to "closely watch the progress of investigation into the dumping of garbage in south China by Britain". Ministry officials added that no official approval had been given to any company in the area to import waste.[7]

In 2008, the ship was featured on an episode of the television documentary series Mighty Ships, during a voyage between Malaysia and Spain.[8]

In 2011, the National Bank of Denmark issued a 20 DKK commemorative coin for her.[9]

Going eastwards on 1 February 2013, she suffered a damaged stern thruster and took on so much water in the Suez Canal that she became unmaneuvrable. Tugs, anchors and the wind[10] took her to Port Said to offload 13,500 containers, drain her and be investigated by divers. She had not been in danger of sinking.[11][12][13][14][15]

On 15 February 2013, Maersk Line confirmed that she was about to leave Port Said under tow to a yard for further assessment and repair.[16] On 25 February she reached the yard of Palermo, Sicily, where she was scheduled to stay for four months.[17] In August 2013, she was in service again[18] after a DKK 250 million (roughly US$44.5m) repair.[19]

Capacity [ edit ]

Originally Maersk reported a capacity of 11,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) as the maximum capacity of fully loaded 14 ton containers, according to Maersk company's then method of calculating capacity,[20] which, at her introduction into service, was about 1,400 more containers than any other ship.[21] However, Maersk also acknowledges the standard method of defining capacity, stating 14,770 TEU.[22]

By normal calculations, she has a capacity significantly greater than reported—between 13,500 and 15,200 TEU.[23][24] The difference between the official and estimated numbers is because Maersk calculates the capacity of a container ship by weight (in this case, 14 tons/container), i.e. 11,000+ containers,[25] of which 1,000 can be refrigerated containers.[26]

Other companies calculate capacity according to the maximum number of containers that can be carried irrespective of weight, always greater than the number calculated by the Maersk method.[citation needed] As of 2012, the E-class is still the largest by full-weight 14-tonne capacity. The Marco Polo can carry 10,000 14-t containers, 16,020 if not fully loaded.[27][28]

On 21 February 2011, Maersk ordered a family of ten even larger ships from Daewoo, the Maersk Triple E class, with a capacity of 18,000 containers. A further ten ships were ordered in June 2011. The first was delivered in 2013.[29][30]

Engine and hull [ edit ]

She is powered by a Wärtsilä-Sulzer 14RTFLEX96-C engine, the world's largest single diesel unit, weighing 2,300 tonnes and capable of 81 MW (109,000 hp) when burning 14,000 litres (3,600 US gal)[31] of heavy fuel oil per hour. At economical speed, fuel consumption is 0.260 bs/hp·hour (1,660 gal/hour).[32] She has features to lower environmental damage, including exhaust heat recovery and cogeneration.[33] Some of the exhaust gases are returned to the engine to improve economy and lower emissions,[34] and some are passed through a steam generator which then powers a Peter Brotherhood steam turbine and electrical generators. This creates an electrical output of 8.5 MW,[35] equivalent to about 12% of the main engine power output. Some of this steam is used directly as shipboard heat.[36] Five diesel generators together produce 20.8 MW,[35] giving a total electric output of 29 MW.[26] Two 9 MW electric motors augment the power on the main propeller shaft.[35]

Two bow and two stern thrusters provide port manoeuvrability, and two pairs of stabilizer fins reduce rolling.[35] A special silicone-based paint, instead of biocides used by much of the industry, keeps barnacles off of the hull.[21] This increases her efficiency by reducing drag while also protecting the ocean from biocides that may leak. The paint is credited with lowering the water drag enough to save 1,200 tonnes of fuel per year.[37] The ship has a bulbous bow, a standard feature for cargo ships.

The turning diameter at 44 km/h (24 knots) is 1.50 km (0.81 nmi). The engine is near midship to make best use of the rigidity of the hull and to maximize capacity. When banking 20 degrees, the bridge sways 35 metres.[38]

Sailing schedules [ edit ]

Her regular round trip is between northern Europe and the far east via the English Channel, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, calling at Ningbo, Xiamen, Hong Kong (westbound), Yantian (westbound), Algeciras (westbound), Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Algeciras (eastbound), Yantian (eastbound), Hong Kong (eastbound), and Ningbo.[5][39][40]

As of April 2011 , the schedule included Gdańsk, Aarhus, and Gothenburg.[41]

Criticism [ edit ]

She and similar ships have been criticised for burning bunker fuel, which has a high sulphur content,[42] 2.5 to 4.5%, over 2,000 times more than allowed in automotive fuel.[42]

In Europe, new rules regarding the operation of marine shipping will require ships to burn cleaner fuel. MARPOL Regulation 14 will limit global sulphur content to 0.5% in 2020. However, a review of global fuel availability due to conclude in 2018 may delay the new regulations by five years, until 2025.[43]

See also [ edit ]


Now in its 11th year, the annual Race to Wrigley will feature a new course this year, giving participants their first chance to experiencing running through the new bleacher concourse that opened last year.

The race, which starts at Addison and Racine, takes runners through the Wrigleyville and Lakeview areas, heading west to Ravenswood and east on Irving Park. This year, runners will continue on Irving Park all the way to Sheridan, which will eventually lead them to the center outfield of Wrigley Field for a final stretch through the field’s concourse before ending at Clark and Addison.

“It’s always been a race that reflects the fact that we are in a neighborhood and yet a major league ballpark,” Mike Lufrano, executive vice president of community affairs and chief legal officer for the Chicago Cubs, says. “It’s the third largest tourist attraction in Illinois. We started a race that would combine the two, [allowing runners] to see a bit of the neighborhood and community and reflect the fact that we are part of the community as well.”

The 5K race, which will start at 8 a.m. on April 23, also serves as a crucial fundraiser for Cubs Charities. Runners can also choose to individually raise money for Advocate Children’s Hospital, with the first 100 who raise $500 receiving an autographed baseball from a current Cubs player.

“[The money raised] all goes back into the community here,” Lufrano says. “It supports youth sports, building baseball fields, health and fitness programs for kids, provides scholarships for kids to go to college. Last year, we donated about $3.4 million total and the race is part of that.”

Registration for the race will remain open online through April 22. To sign up, visit either cubscharities.org or racetowrigley.com.


Mid Canterbury's mysterious big black cat is back.

Ange Montgomery reckons she spotted it prowling down an Eiffelton hedge line 150 metres away from where she was sitting having a coffee early one frosty August morning.

She knows some people might think she is crazy, but she knows she's not. She knows what she saw, and that other people have seen it too.

Erin Tasker/FairfaxNZ Angela Montgomery, with two-year-old daughter Isabel Purton, believes she saw Mid Canterbury's mysterious black panther walking along the hedge in the background.

It's been about three years since the last reported sighting of the cat, which some people believe is a black panther or puma.

Its story dates to 2001 when it was first spotted near Alford Forest. In 2003, Ashburton truck driver Chad Stewart saw a large black animal sitting at the foot of a hill near stockyards on the Mayfield farm of Blair and Sarah Gallagher.

READ MORE:

* High-country trap for mystery black panther

* Editorial: Mystery of the panther

Erin Tasker/FairfaxNZ Angela Montgomery, with two-year-old daughter Isabel Purton, believes she saw Mid Canterbury's mysterious black panther walking along the hedge in the background.

Extensive searching from air and on land found no trace of the mysterious animal. In the years that followed numerous people reported seeing a similar creature lurking on Mid Canterbury farm land.

Montgomery admits that before she saw it for herself she would have been skeptical.

Montgomery – who moved from Christchurch to an Eiffelton dairy farm with her partner and two-year-old daughter Isabel only a couple of months ago – knows what she saw was a big cat. It walked along the hedge and then disappeared into it. It was the way it walked that convinced her it was a big cat. She has been keeping her eyes peeled since, but has not seen it again.

"It was exciting for me, I know what I saw and it wasn't anything explainable," she said.

"It wasn't a cow, or a dog, or anything like that."

She called out to her partner, but he was not quick enough to see it. When he told her it might have been a black panther, she thought he was kidding, until she remembered seeing something on the news a few years ago about a panther sighting in the area.

Now, she is a believer, but she held off going public until she had researched the other sightings and the habits of big cats.

"I've told a few people about it and they kind of think I'm nuts and it was probably something else, but I know what I saw," Montgomery said.

It was bigger than a labrador dog and smaller than a cow, but was not a feral cat, she said.

"I know my animals and I know what they look like, and it wasn't that far away."

There have been rumours in the past that it is a black panther that escaped from a private zoo, or possibly from a boat, but no physical trace has been found.

In 2005, Timaru man Mark Brosnahan reported seeing a large black feline in the Mid Canterbury high country. He got two pictures of it from a distance.

If it was the same big black cat first seen in 2001, it was getting on in years now. Black panthers have an average life expectancy of 12 to 17 years.

* Comments have been closed.


The warnings on Europe sound extra-apocalyptic this week. “The eurozone really only has days to avoid collapse,” blares the headline on Wolfgang Münchau’s column. And, while European leaders are frantically thrashing out plans for further fiscal union to save the euro, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is still resisting sweeping reform measures. As my colleagues Michael Birnbaum and Anthony Faiola report, “investors and world leaders alike hang on Merkel’s every word, searching for a hint that her resistance is simply a bluff to scare countries into behaving more like hers.”

Not so easy, going it alone. (Michael Sohn/AP)

These sorts of scenarios are no longer unthinkable. But a recent report suggests that either move would be far more painful than most people seem to realize. Indeed, a crack-up could prove far more costly to Germany than a bailout of its neighbors.

In September, economists at UBS Investment Research tried to tally up the costs of seceding from the euro. If a “weak” country like Greece tried to leave the euro, it would almost certainly have to default on its national debt, watch its domestic banking system collapse — every halfway-sentient depositor would rush to withdraw euros before they got converted to new, less-valuable drachmas — and the country would get rocked by big trade disruptions and unrest. UBS estimates that a “weak” country like Greece or Ireland leaving the euro would take a hit of up to 50 percent of its GDP in the first year alone, and then a 15 percent hit per year for the next few years. That’s a crushing blow.

Now, what would happen if a financially sound country like Germany decided to leave the euro, in order to maintain its own currency? Even that would hurt. A lot. Germany wouldn’t default on its national debt — in fact, its new currency would likely be worth more than the old euro — but its banks would suddenly have assets in the old, devalued currency. Balance sheets would be thrown out of whack, and Germany would have to pour an enormous amount of money into bailing out its banks. What’s more, the country’s exports would likely collapse. All told, UBS estimates, the cost of secession to a country like Germany would likely reach 20 percent to 25 percent of GDP, and remain at about half that for a few years thereafter.

One thing UBS notes is that it would be much, much cheaper for Germany to simply bail out Greece, Ireland, and Portugal outright (that would cost about 1,000 euros for every German man, woman and child in one swoop) than it would be for Germany to exit the euro zone (which would cost the average German 8,000 euros the first year and 4,500 euros thereafter). Bailouts are deeply unpopular in Germany, and for good reason, but they look like the cheaper path. Even Bernard Connolly’s estimate that it would cost Germany 7 percent of its GDP for several years to bail out all troubled euro zone countries, up to and including France, looks like a less-painful option at this point.

Indeed, that’s why the UBS report suggests that it would be insane for Germany to let the euro fracture, and argues that there’s “an overwhelming probability” that the euro zone moves toward some sort of fiscal integration — which partly means German taxpayers bailing out the Mediterranean neighbors it deems irresponsible. Of course, even if that’s the more rational approach, that doesn’t mean that will be the end result.


Arabic is the fastest-growing language in American households — and that’s leading the US Census Bureau to explore the tricky task of adjusting its questionnaires to accommodate the language’s right-to-left script.

The bureau is using focus groups to explore possible changes to the 2020 census questionnaires for Arabic speakers who are not English-proficient, the Pew Research Center reported Friday.

Arabic is now the seventh-most commonly spoken non-English language in US households. An estimated 1.1 million people ages 5 and older speak Arabic at home, an increase of 29 percent between 2010 and 2014.

The number who speak Spanish at home has grown only 6 percent during the same period.

Of those who speak Arabic at home, 38 percent are not proficient in English, according to census estimates.

That’s just below the 42 percent English proficiency rate among the 39.3 million US residents who speak Spanish at home.

The growth in Arabic is linked to continued immigration from Middle Eastern and North African countries, according to the Pew Research Center.

Possible changes to the census questionnaire include replacing the blocks for individual printed letters with a single open-field rectangle, so that answers can be written in connected Arabic script, the center said.

One major challenge facing census officials is whether to require a response in English and when to allow an Arabic response.

A focus-group study recommended that the address fields require people to use English, because an American address might not be accurately translated into Arabic, according to the Pew Research Center.

Arabic names present another complication — as they can be transliterated into English in different ways because the letters of the Arabic alphabet don’t necessarily have direct English equivalents.

For example, the Arabic name Hussein can be transliterated into English at least five additional ways: Hussain, Husein, Husain, Houssain and Houssein.


Img Project Descripton Backers Pledge / Goal / % +1 Button CoMo Booster Board for Rpi Module with: wifi, oled screen, digital audio, RTC, 6-36v power input. 55 $6,834 / $40,000 / %17

ZIR EL-200 "ZIR EL-200 is connected to your computer, smartphone or tablet using Wi-Fi wireless network, and from there we set or directly assign instructions using the browser. However, one of its most interesting features is the ability to also be controlled by voice, using for that purpose applications on iOS and Android." 60 $5,012 / $90,000 / %5.6

1080Pi 10" 1080p Screen that mounts to the Rpi GPIO with 16 extra GPIO, 4 with 3A sinking current. 189 £20,451 / £100,000 / 20%

RFberryPi A 433Mhz Radio Shield used to communication with several peripherals such as relays & sensors. 14 £321 / £4,850 / 6.6%

SerialPi5 Board giving the Rpi the ability to have 5 RS-232 serial ports. 5 £261 / £11,000 / 2%

Jilia Iot Dev Kit "Add ZigBee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi to your Raspberry Pi with on-board sensors and an easy cloud API." 119 $6,256 / $50,000 / 12.5%

RF Breakout Kit Breakout kit to build your own radio using the Rpi's built in clock generator. Frequencies up to 250Mhz 126 £1,330 / £1,800 / 72%

Bridge Shield Bridge an Arduino with:

RTC, Motor drivers, Temp Sensor, IR Sensor, USB-UART converter, 5V 3A Reg, header for ESP8266, header for HC-05, level shifting between Rpi and Arduino, 8 Servo Motor Driver (I2C) 45 $2,696 / $4,100 / 65.8%

Pi UpTime "GPIO connections, analog ports, UPS, RTC & battery power enabling Raspberry Pi to be mobile." 17 hours of uptime on full battery, 2 analog input, RTC, and 25 $4,020 / $15,000 / 26.8%

Hatlogico "Open-source 16 PWMs, 8 ADCs and dual-voltage communications to sit on your Raspberry Pi to drive your quadcopter, robot, 3D printer etc" 42 £1,352 / £4,800 / 48.3%

BattPi "BattPi is a Case for Raspberry Pi with integrated Battery and Real Time Clock. Built in UPS offering up to 8 hours of battery life." 34 £1,973 / £20,000 / 9.9%

ProtoPLC Industrial add-on board. 6 inputs, 6 outputs, 1 analog input, 1 analog output, programmable leds. 28 $3,653 / $20,000 / 18.3%

Raspitab Hackable tablet built from the Rpi Module with 3400mah battery, 7" screen, wifi usb, 5MP camera module. 87 £9,981 / £125,000 / 8%

Pi-Home Add-on board with the ability to control: Zwave, Infra-red devices (TV/DVD..), RF Device (315/433 Mhz Plugs), and Zigbee devices. 80 $10,001 / $15,000 / 66.7%

TX-1 GSM Cellular phone w/GPS add-on module. 5 $641 / $14,000 / 4.6%

HDMI Input Module "Add an HDMI input interface to your Raspberry Pi and record or stream high quality video from your HD camcorder with clean HDMI output." 63 $6,907 / $15,000 / 34.5%

easyPio GPIO breakout module for prototyping. 45 £329 / £1,200 / 27%

RasPoE Raspberry Pi PoE Shield. 28 €3,310 / €12,500 / 26.5%

If you're looking to crowdfund your Raspberry Pi project maybe you can learn what didn't go right for these projects. Here is a list of hardware projects that didn't get funded. This list was pulled from the two top crowdfunding sites Indiegogo and Kickstarter . This isn't all of the projects that I had found but some of the more interesting ones.*Note items in the list may have been re-listed later and funded. Some projects may have been ahead of their time as the Pi wasn't popular enough.


This article is about the motion picture of a fictional story of a character whose name is a homonym of a famous American automobile. For the article on the automobile, see Ford Fairlane (Americas)

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is a 1990 American action comedy mystery film directed by Renny Harlin and written by David Arnott, James Cappe, and Daniel Waters based on a story by Arnott and Cappe. The film stars comedian Andrew Dice Clay as the title character, Ford Fairlane, a "Rock n' Roll Detective", whose beat is the music industry in Los Angeles. True to his name, Ford drives a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner in the film.

The film's main character was created by writer Rex Weiner in a series of stories that were published as weekly serials in 1979–80 by the New York Rocker and the LA Weekly. The stories were published as a book by Rare Bird Books in July 2018.[3]

The film was both a commercial and critical failure, grossing a little more than half its budget and being awarded the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture, tying with Bo Derek's Ghosts Can't Do It. However, it has since developed a cult following.

Plot [ edit ]

Ford Fairlane (Andrew Dice Clay) is seen sitting on a beach smoking as the film opens. A flashback initiates, showing a roaring crowd at a concert given by fictional popular heavy metal band The Black Plague. Lead singer Bobby Black (Vince Neil) makes an eccentric entrance down a zip-line onto the stage and begins performing. Shortly into one of the band's songs, Bobby Black collapses on stage and dies.

After the lead singer of The Black Plague is murdered onstage, shock-jock Johnny Crunch (Gilbert Gottfried), an old friend who came west with Fairlane, hires Ford to track down a mysterious teenage groupie named Zuzu Petals, who may have a connection to Black's death.

Soon after hiring Fairlane, Crunch is electrocuted on the air. The world's hippest detective soon finds himself trading insults with ruthless record executive Julian Grendel (Wayne Newton), a clueless cop and former disco star, Lt. Amos (Ed O'Neill), a merciless hit man named Smiley (Robert Englund) and countless ex-girlfriends out for his blood. Aiding and abetting Fairlane is loyal assistant Jazz (Lauren Holly) and a hip record producer (Morris Day) at the head of a bizarre lineup of suspects, victims, beautiful women and a koala as he finds himself hip-deep in the case of his life.

The Macguffin of the film is three data CDs which, when read simultaneously, detail the illegal dealings of Julian Grendel, who was getting rich from bootlegging his record company's music and murdered Bobby Black when he found out Black had acquired the CDs with the incriminating evidence. Both of Fairlane's beloved possessions, his house and his car, are blown to bits, courtesy of Grendel.

The first disc was with Colleen Sutton, the second with Zuzu Petals, and the third disc was hidden under the star for Art Mooney on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

It is later revealed that Grendel killed Bobby Black and Johnny Crunch, as he considered them both greedy and stupid because they wanted more money for their involvement in pirating CD's to sell to the highest bidder, making the music industry corrupt. However, Fairlane kills Grendel by setting him on fire with a flammable milk shake. Jazz leaves Fairlane, knowing how ungrateful he is for everything that has happened. Smiley shows up and plans to kill Ford, but not before revealing that he killed his young neighbor's [the Kid's] father. Ford distracts him and kills Smiley with a sleeve pistol. Jazz and Ford decide to reconcile, while the Kid decides to join their detective agency. Ford wins a million dollar lottery and buys a yacht, ending the film.

Cast [ edit ]

Soundtrack [ edit ]

Music being central to the plot of a film about a private detective who specializes in cases arising from the music industry, the soundtrack featured a diverse group of artists. The official soundtrack release featured:

The film's soundtrack includes Idol's "Cradle of Love", the video for which was shown often on MTV in 1990. The song also appeared on Idol's 1990 album Charmed Life. In the video, a young woman, played by Betsy Lynn George, taunts an uptight neighbor with her advances as she dances to the music. The video also featured footage from the film playing on a television in the neighbor's home, although none of the footage features Clay (at least not his face). This may be due to the infamous ban of Clay from appearing on the music network. Alternate versions of the "Cradle of Love" video eliminates the film footage when the video is usually aired on MTV.

Richie Sambora's contribution to the soundtrack was a cover of the Jimi Hendrix song. Yello's "Unbelievable" samples bits of dialogue from the film, with one notable dialog switch - where in the film, a phone number is said as "1-800-Unbelivable" and in the song, the phone number is said as "1-800-Perfect". A number of the musicians featured on the soundtrack also appeared in the film itself, including Morris Day, Sheila E., Tone Loc (as Slam the Rapper), former Ozzy Osbourne bassist Phil Soussan, and drummer Randy Castillo appear playing the Black Plague concert during the flashback at the beginning of the film and Vince Neil, the lead singer of Mötley Crüe (who appeared as Bobby Black, the lead singer of the fictitious band, Black Plague). Black Plague's lead guitarist was played by Quiet Riot's axeman Carlos Cavazzo. Not appearing on the soundtrack is "Booty Time", the song that Ed O'Neill's character performs during the film.

Yello is also credited with the film's "music score", and an early cut of their album Baby is used as the film's incidental soundtrack. The film's score was composed and conducted by Cliff Eidelman.

Release [ edit ]

Billy Idol's recording of "Cradle of Love" was named one of the "Most Performed Songs from Motion Pictures" by the ASCAP.[4]

Critical response [ edit ]

The film received generally negative reviews upon release. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 29% rating based on 28 reviews.[5] On Metacritic, the film has a 24 out of 100 rating based on 13 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[6] Critic Roger Ebert gave the film 1 star out of a possible 4, and called the film "loud, ugly and mean-spirited" but he also suggested that Clay had the confidence and screen presence for a successful acting career if he could move beyond his shtick.[7]

Box office [ edit ]

The film was not a financial success during its original theatrical release, making just over $21 million in the U.S.[2] Clay has claimed in interviews that the film had a successful first week before being pulled from theaters under pressure from the politically correct.[8] In fact, the film played on more screens during its second week than its first, but still suffered a 53.5% drop in box office gross.[9]

Accolades [ edit ]

The film "won" numerous Razzies at the 1990 Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Actor (Andrew Dice Clay), Worst Picture (Joel Silver & Steve Perry — tied with Ghosts Can't Do It), and Worst Screenplay (Daniel Waters, James Cappe and David Arnott). It was also nominated for Worst Director and twice for Worst Supporting Actor (for both Gilbert Gottfried and Wayne Newton).[10]

International reception [ edit ]

Despite negative reviews in the US, the film enjoyed tremendous success in post-communist Hungary, where copies of a pirated, dubbed version were widely circulated in the burgeoning VHS market. The film's popularity in Hungary has been attributed to a high-quality dub starring iconic eccentric musician and actor Feró Nagy, which contains gratuitous use of profanity not found in the original English version of the film. Several lines of dialogue from the film became ingrained in the slang of Hungarian urban youth culture throughout the 90s.

In Norway, after its 1992 VHS release, Ford Fairlane soon became a phenomenon. The catchphrases became hugely popular and the movie received cult status during the 90s. After huge demand from Norwegian audiences, the film was released on DVD in the early 2000s.

It also became quite popular in Spain, especially due to the dub by the popular singer, actor and comedian Pablo Carbonell.

See also [ edit ]