- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Everyone’s favorite
overview of social dissidence and unrest the whole world o’er is back and it’s
in Bangladesh, where at least 16 people have died in clashes to kick
off a strike called over a death sentence given to an Islamist party leader. Delwar Hossain
Sayeedi, a high-ranking Jamaat-e-Islami official, was sentenced on charges
including murder, rape and torture during the war of independence in 1971 and
after the sentence for 42-year-old crimes was handed down Thursday, the sh*t
was sure to get real, fast, and it clearly did. The decision sparked riots that
have left about 60 people dead over the past four days because Sayeedi’s
supporters believe the tribunal is politically motivated. The Bangladesh
government denies any such motivation, but Jamaat-e-Islami called a two-day
strike across the country, beginning on Sunday to protest the ruling. The
festivities kicked off in fine fashion in the northern district of Bogra, where
troops were called in and thousands of Jamaat activists armed with sticks and
home-made bombs attacked police outposts early Sunday morning. While their
weapons of choice were crude, the strike was called on relatively short notice.
Two deaths were also reported in the north-western town of Godagari when border
guards and police opened fire on protesters who were attacking police with
sticks and stones. Three more protestors were killed in the Joypurhar district,
while reports from the southern city of Chittagong indicate that there has been
no let up in the violence since the death sentence was issued. The Bangladeshi
government has remained adamant that violence against civilians and police
officers would not be tolerated and that attitude was on display Saturday in
the capital, Dhaka, as activists clashed with riot police, who used tear gas
and rubber bullets to disperse them. Tales of buses being burned in the street
and hand-to-hand combat with riot police suggest this is an uprising that isn’t
messing around with a slow build to a crescendo. It all stems from a special war crimes
tribunal trying those accused of collaborating with Pakistani forces and
committing atrocities during the country's independence war in 1971, proving
that there is no expiration date on riot-sparking offenses………
- It may have won the weekend, but there was
nothing big about the way “Jack the Giant Slayer” landed at the box office. The
movie with the $195 million budget made just $28 million domestically in its
debut, not exactly an auspicious start for such a high-profile film. “Identity
Thief” slid to second place with $9.7 million for the frame and has banked
$107.4 million through four weeks. Two newcomers occupied the next two spots on
the list with “21 and Over” finishing third with $9 million in its opening
weekend and “The Last Exorcism Part II” earning $8 million in its first weekend
in theaters. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new flick “Snitch” slid three spots to
fifth and garnered $7.7 million for a two-week haul of $24.4 million and
counting. “Escape
From Planet Earth” dropped three spots to sixth place with its $6.8 million
weekend and has amassed $43.2 million domestically in three weeks. “Safe Haven”
claimed seventh place on the strength of a $6.3 million effort and its three
week bank roll now stands at a respectable $57.1 million and counting. Eighth
place belonged to longtime top 10 dweller “Silver Linings Playbook,” the owner
of $5.9 million in weekend earnings and $115.5 million in its 16 weeks in U.S.
theaters. The freefall continued for Bruce Willis and “A Good Day to Die Hard,”
with ninth place as well as the film could do in its third weekend. With $4.5
million, the latest “Die Hard” movie has a mere $59.6 million in three weeks.
“Dark Skies” nearly tumbled out of the top 10 in just its second weekend,
claiming the final spot with $3.6 million for a two-week total of $13.4
million. “Warm Bodies” (No. 11), “Side Effects (No. 14) and “Beautiful
Creatures” (No. 19) all dropped out from last weekend’s top 10……….
- Science is in a bind. It needs to explain why
Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 and a team
led by the University of Colorado Boulder has come up with a new excuse, er,
reason. The researchers pointed to dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide
as the culrpits in this enviro-crime. Their findings essentially exonerate
Asia, including India and China, two countries that are estimated to have
increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by about 60 percent from
2000 to 2010 through coal burning. Lead author Ryan Neely a researcher at the
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and his team
found that small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth’s surface
eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the
atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles
that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet. Neely explaiend that previous
observations suggest that increases in stratospheric aerosols since 2000 have
counterbalanced as much as 25 percent of the warming scientists attribute to human
greenhouse gas emissions. “This new study indicates it is emissions from small
to moderate volcanoes that have been slowing the warming of the planet,” Neely
said. Other CU scientists and colleagues from NASA and the National Center for
Atmospheric Research also worked on the study, which aimed to resolve
conflicting results of two recent studies on the origins of the sulfur dioxide
in the stratosphere, including a 2009 study led by the late David Hoffman of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and another in 2011 led by Jean
Paul Vernier of NASA’s Langley Research Center. Hoffman’s study blamed rising emissions of sulfur dioxide
from India and China for aerosol increases in the stratosphere, while Vernier’s
work showed moderate volcanic eruptions play a role in increasing particulates
in the stratosphere. Neely’s efforts relied on long-term measurements of
changes in the stratospheric aerosol layer’s “optical depth,” which is a measure
of transparency, he explained. In their research paper, Neely’s team argued
that researchers need to pay more attention to the impact these volcanic
eruptions have on the atmosphere. The study used two sophisticated computer
models, including the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, or WACCM,
Version 3, which is used around the world by scientists to study the
atmosphere. With the help of a second model, the Community Aerosol and
Radiation Model for Atmosphere, or CARMA, researchers were able to simulate 0
years of atmospheric activity tied to both coal-burning activities in Asia and
to emissions by volcanoes around the world. Each simulation took about a week
of computer time using 192 processors. Unfortunately, the parameters of the
study are not long enough to effectively determine climate change trends, but
it does accomplish science’s long-running purpose of spurring the need for more
research…….
- The Cleveland Indians are generally not a good
baseball team. They tend to put a mediocre or outright terrible product on the
field while spending a bare minimum on salary and expecting fans to show up and
see a losing squad. This year will be different in more than one respect. Not
only did the team sign high-priced free agents Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher
and several other big names from the waiver wire, theoretically with the aim of
winning games and not ending up in last place, but the Tribe is also cutting
prices on certain ballpark items by as much as 25 percent. The biggest
“bargains” for fans will be hot dogs, with the price dropping from $4 to a
measly $3 for a small tube of processed meat parts, and beer, which will also
have a one-dollar price reduction. Why would the team cut concession prices
after spending more money than normal in the offseason? Apparently the team did
some research and found that high food prices were significantly hampering
ticket sales. It makes sense because fans may throw down for reduced-price
tickets, but if they know they’re going to spend just as much on their overall
ballpark experience because of bloated prices for sodas, pop corn and hot dogs,
what’s the difference? The average price of a beer at a Major League Baseball
game last season was $6.17 and the lush-friendly Arizona Diamondbacks had the
cheapest beer at $4 for a 14-ounce cup. At the opposite end of the pricing
scale, the teetotalers who run the Boston Red Sox gouged fans for $7.25 for a
12-ounce cup. At least when the Indians are languishing in fourth place in the
American League Central midway through this summer, their fans will be able to
get drunk and forget how bad their team is without totally wrecking their
wallet…….
- Hopefully James Fox knows what he’s getting
himself into. He has opened the door wide for the biggest kooks in the world to
come knocking on his digital door and worse still, he’s dangling a $100,000
carrot in front of them. Fox, who
co-stars in the National Geographic Channel's “Chasing UFOs,” is a filmmaker who has
made two documentaries about UFOs and he is now offering $100,000 for authentic
video or photographs that can help prove alien existence. "People say to
me, 'Aren't you the guy that does the UFO stuff?'" he said. "And I
say yeah. (They say), 'Why do you do that?' I say, well if Earth were being
visited, would you like to know about it? They're like, 'Damn right I would.'
Well, I'm convinced it's happening." From that quote, one might surmise
that Fox is one of the kooks himself and while that may be true, issuing a challenge
for grainy, middle-of-the-night video from the Nevada desert from Earl the
mobile-home-dwelling conspiracy theorist is something else entirely. Fox’s
offer was timed nicely with this week's 22nd Annual UFO Congress, Convention and Film Festival at Fort McDowell Resort
& Casino, with 2,500 alien enthusiasts expected to attend. Fox hopes one of
those attendees or some other alien-centric event has evidence of alien contact
and is willing to share it for use in a documentary he's working on called “The 701.” The title is a reference to
the number of UFO sightings, out of 12,618, the Air Force wasn't able to
explain in its two-decade study Project Blue Book, which ended in 1969. "If I had a million dollars to put up,
I'd put a million dollars up, because I'm convinced it's (evidence) out
there," Fox added. "It's just we need to provide enough of an
incentive for people to come forward." He plans to assemble a team of
experts to sift through submissions, an effort that should be a long and
sufficiently painful process………
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