- Time to sober up, passengers on Delhi's subway. Subways tend to be
the best transportation option for lushes who are too drunk to drive themselves
home, but authorities for the subway system in India’s largest city are
cracking down on drunks trying to stumble home after a night out on the town.
Passengers will now face being breath-tested for alcohol consumption in an
experiment aimed at preventing late-night brawls and other drunk-related
incidents. As part of the experiment, a nyone who appears drunk will be tested
and possibly refused entry to the metro system. This pilot program is the
latest attempt to decrease the number of late-night fights on the city’s
subway, which carries almost 2 million people a day. In a sense, it’s part of a
larger debate over public concern about alcohol and lawlessness. The tipping
point for the new approach was the December 16, 2012 gang rape on a New Delhi
minibus – an incident in which a medical student died, prompting global outrage.
All of the alleged perpetrators in the incident were drunk, according to
prosecutors. There is no law against being drunk on a train in India, but the
new standard under the pilot program will be refusing entry for anyone found to
have more than 30mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. "Drunkenness is an
unnecessary nuisance to other passengers. It's uncomfortable if you have to
share space with someone who is reeking of alcohol," Hemendra Singh,
spokesman for the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which is
responsible for metro security. Way to be a total buzz kill, Hemendra.
According to this bureaucratic wet blanket, officers will only breath-test
people who shows signs of being under the influence of alcohol. To carry out
the sobriety checks, the CISF has asked metro authorities for 130 hand-held
breath-testing devices, similar to the ones used by traffic police. Sounds like
the party’s over, Delhi drunks……
- David Bowie has two distinct talents in life: being a rock
star and pissing people off. Fortunately for him, the two go well together and
that is exemplified by his new music video for his latest single, “The Next
Day.” It’s the title track off of his comeback album and the video is causing
plenty of commotion because of its religious-centric content. The video stars
Bowie as the Christ-like
figure he has likely always imagined himself to be, with Gary Oldman as a priest and Marion
Cotillard with blood gushing from her stigmata-studded hands. Those images captured
the attention of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who branded the video as
“juvenile” and created enough of a stink that the video, which premiered
Wednesday, was also briefly banned from YouTube on Wednesday before being
reinstated later in the day. Former Archbishop of Cantebury Lord Carey is the
one who blasted the video for being juvenile and criticized Bowie for
“upsetting people.” “If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery perhaps
Christians should not worry too much at such an exploitation of religious
imagery," Carey wrote about the video. "I doubt that Bowie would have
the courage to use Islamic imagery - I very much doubt it. Frankly, I don't get
offended by such juvenilia - Christians should have the courage to rise above
offensive language, although I hope Bowie will recognize that he may be
upsetting some people.” Verrry subtle, Carey, very subtle. A little reverse psychology
here, a challenge to Bowie’s toughness there and you have yourself a nice,
snarky little statemnet. Other Catholic organizations also criticized the
video, in which Bow’s Jesus-like character hangs out in a trashy nightclub frequented
by priests, cardinals and half-naked women. Bowie and director Floria Sigismondi are likely reveling in the
attention the video is receiving, knowing how many albums and digital singles
it will help them sell………
- Groton is gridlocked in debate over a proposal to build
a 10,000-square-foot Shri Shirdee Sai Baba Temple. Yes, a small city in
Massachusetts is debating whether or not something called the Shri Shirdee Sai
Baba Temple can be built, but a group led by Groton resident Barbara Dunn
insists that its opposition to the project has nothing to do with religion. “I
don’t care what their religion is, everyone is entitled to their own opinion,”
Dunn said. “I thought about the size of it, the parking and the cars and the
problems it’s going to create. There is already a problem on that road with
traffic,” Dunn said of the temple scheduled to be built in the shadow of farm
stands and wetlands. That farm and those wetlands happen to belong to Dunn, who
claims she was fine with the Hindu worshipers bid to be her neighbor on the 28
acres of swampy woods along the Groton-Littleton line until she saw the
rendering of the proposed temple. The design features an 800-foot domed tower,
a prayer hall with a capacity of 400 people and 200 parking spaces. According
to Dunn, the size and scale of the project is what threw her for a loop. “I was
like ‘oh my God, I didn’t realize it was going to be that big,’” Dunn said.
“It’s not about religion, it’s about the size.” Yes, size does matter….even
when one is attempting to build a Hindu temple in rural Massachusetts. Church
leaders want to build the bigger building because they say their group has
outgrown the facility it currently rents in nearby Chelmsford. Their temple
plan would cost $3 million, but only if they can get clearance for the project.
Church officials have offered to sit down with concerned residents in the next
few weeks and find a way to work out their differences so they and their
worshippers can become a force for faith and tolerance in their new community.
Maybe they can resolve the problems by using the tactics employed a few years
back when a Mormon church was built just down Route 119 from Groton and many of
the same aesthetic and traffic concerns were raised by concerned residents……..
- Say what you will about Tim Tebow, but no one in NFL
history has ever inspired fans of a team that has nothing to do with him to
create a website declaring their opposition to that team signing that person.
Tebow, who was released last month by the New York Jets and cleared waivers
without any interest from another team, is a Florida native and for a Jaguars
team that cannot sell out home games, signing a hometown hero would seem
logical….except new general manager David Caldwell has made it clear the team
has zero interest in Tebow. However, Tebow supporters recently attempted to
create a petition on the White
House's website for the Jaguars to sign ttheir hero and an Orlando lawyer who
took out an ad to the same effect and the anti-Tebow crowd seems to feel that
its voice must be heard. Bold City Brigade, which bills itself as a new-age
Jaguars booster club, has ponied up the necessary cash to acquire a domain name
and build a website of its own, Evenifhesreleased.com. The name is drawn from he
answer Caldwell gave at his introductory news conference when asked about the
potential to pursue Tebow. "I can't imagine a scenario where he'd be a
Jaguar, even if he's released," Caldwell said Jan. 10. Caldwell has not
changed his stance since then and this week said the team wants “a fresh start.”
The new anti-Tebow website has already generated more than 31,000 clicks and
went live Wednesday morning in response to radio advertisements by Orlando
attorney John Morgan urging owner Shad Khan to sign Tebow so the Jaguars
can win "for the people.” "We are inspired to counter anything or
anyone that chooses to attack or spread ignorance about our fan base,"
said John Caputo, president of Bold City Brigade. "We aim to do it in a
tasteful and tactful manner, which represents our mission and members."
Wrong answer, Johnny boy. Tasteful and tactful equals boring………
- Have you found yourself wondering lately how Greenland’s
glaciers are doing? Glad you asked. For the past decade, ginormous
icebergs have cracked off glaciers in Greenland and tumbled into the sea at an
ever-increasing rate. Global warming has been blamed and enviro-lovers have
fretted about runaway ice loss and rising seas. But wait…....there’s good news.
A new study suggests that the rate of acceleration will slow due to the
physics and geography that govern glacier movement. Although this sunny prognosis
is not a suggestion that the rise in global temperatures will stop anytime soon,
good news in relation to global warming is good news at this point. According
to Faezeh Nick, a glaciologist at The University Center in Svalbard, Norway,
the glacier melting will slow because the ice sheets will continue to melt and
push up sea levels around the world at a lower rate than expected. Nick’s work
contradicts previous studies that extrapolated the rate of acceleration seen
since the late 1990s out to 2100 on the thesis that glaciers respond to warming
in complex ways, especially those that end at the sea. These contact points, known
as outlet glaciers, accelerate in bursts — dumping tons of ice into the ocean —
before their pace slows. "It doesn't go lower than it was before, but it
doesn't stay at the top rate,” Nick explained. Her results are based on individual
models of the four largest outlet glaciers in Greenland and their individual
response to atmospheric and ocean warming. Nick used these models to forecast
future ice loss using two different scenarios of warming in the coming
centuries and the four glaciers she studied account for 22 percent of
Greenland's total contribution to sea level rise. If her findings are extrapolated
to include iceberg production and surface melt from all of the island's
glaciers, Greenland will contribute between 3-7 inches to sea level rise by
2100. At least that’s less than previously projected…….
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