- This is getting better by the day. Riot Watch! Kiev has
turned into something bigger, better and bolder than a weekend angry uprisings
demanding the ouster of a a corrupt, ineffective government. Sure, that’s how
it started, but the revolution has grown into something much bigger now that
the opposition movement has taken over the massive City Hall building near Independence
Square. The square has become the epicenter of recent protests and on the
granite façade of the city hall, graffiti in black spray paint declares
“Headquarters of the Revolution!!” Initially, the uprising appeared to be
similar to the Orange Revolution of 2004, which forced the revote of a
presidential election after 17 days of protests, but the current revolt seems
destined to drag out over an extended period of time. Protestors are demanding the
dismissal of the entire government as well as the ouster of President Viktor F.
Yanukovich and they have seized control of the city hall to facilitate their
efforts. The building has been transformed into a makeshift kitchen and hotel,
with protestors setting up sleeping bags in the marble hallways and trudging in
from the frigid cold outside and lining up for meals of raw bacon on bread,
pancakes and boiled potatoes. Donated clothing is collected and set aside for
use by those in need and oh yeah, there are also booby traps set up around the
building in case riot police are thinking about retaking the building. Guerrilla
tactics include plywood stacked on the central staircase, dozens of shrink-wrapped
half-gallon bottles of water ready to be used as projectiles against invading
officers and heavy bags of dry concrete powder at the tops of staircases, to be
dropped from above on anyone trying to ascend. Furniture has also been used to
blockade doorways and as a last line of defense, encamped protestors have
unfurled the building’s fire hoses to use to douse police. Oddly, protestors
have occupied only the bottom two stories of the 10-floor building, leaving the
upper eight floors open for any city employees bold enough to show up for work………
- On a frigid weekend for much of the country, “Frozen”
fittingly won the box office earnings race by besting a movie named after heat.
The animated children’s flick banked $31.6 million, seizing the top spot from “The
Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” which fell one spot to second. “Frozen” has
earned $134.3 million overall domestically, with “Catching Fire” at $336.7
million after three weeks thanks to its $27 million take this weekend. “Out of
the Furnace” was the top new film, ranking third with $5.4 million in its first
weekend. “Thor: The Dark World” stepped back one spot to fourth and with $4.8
million, the superhero epic has now amassed $193.6 million and counting
domestically. The mind-numbingly terrible “Delivery Man” finished the weekend
in fifth place, making just $3.8 million to raise its modest three-week haul to
$24.8 million. Sixth place went to “Homefront,” which ground out $3.4 million
and has made just $15.2 million in its first two weeks in theaters. In limited
release, “The Book Thief” notched $2.7 million and although it has not shown in
more than 1,316 theaters in any of its five weeks, the much-acclaimed movie has
still managed $12.1 million. Still terrible and unwatchable, “The Best Man
Holiday” garnered eighth place with $2.7 million to up its overall bank roll to
$67.2 million after four weeks. “Philomena” took ninth place with $2.3 million,
giving the relatively unknown project $8.3 million so far. “Dallas Buyers Club”
completed the top 10 with $1.5 million and has earned a modest $12.4 million in
six weeks. “Last Vegas” (No. 11) and “Black Nativity” (No. 14) both lost their
spots in the top 10 from last weekend………
- Twitter is an über-mobile technology used heavily by
those with smartphones as they navigate their busy days. But not everyone rolls
with a phone capable of accessing the Internet, so what is a person in a developing
nation to do if they want to access the popular microblogging site? U2opia Mobile, a
Singapore-based startup, is teaming with Twitter to bring 140-character
messaging to users in emerging markets who have entry-level mobile phones, with
the goal of having the service up and running in the first quarter of next
year, chief executive and co-founder Sumesh Menon said. Menon’s company has a
similar arrangement with Facebook. To access Twitter, users will simply dial a
code and in return, they will receive a feed of the popular trending topics on
Twitter. This diluted version of Twitter will come to the 11 million people who
use U2opia's Fonetwish service, which helps access Facebook and Google Talk on
mobile without a data connection. U2opia utilizes a telecom protocol named USSD,
or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which does not allow viewing of
pictures, videos or other graphics. "USSD as a vehicle for Twitter is
almost hand in glove because Twitter has by design a character limit, it's a
very text-driven social network," Menon said. The move should add a few
quasi-users to Twitter’s growing base of 230 million and with eight out of 10
people in emerging markets still using phones without data access, U2opia
(which sounds like a U2 fan site) is a key service with its presence in 30
countries across seven different languages. "So somebody in Paraguay would
definitely get content that would be very, very localized to that market vis a
vis somebody sitting in Mumbai or Bangalore,” Menon said of his company’s
service, which localizes Twitter feeds based upon the location of each user……….
- Wisconsin loves its cheese in all forms. Residents of the
Badger State like their cheese on top of burgers, in fried curds served solo,
drizzled on top of nachos in liquid form…..and in a useful brine to help keep
their roads safe and drivable in the winter. Just ask the city of Milwaukee,
which will
be testing a new tool in its street-clearing efforts in the frigid months
ahead. Road crews will be mixing in cheese brine with the rock salt they spread
on the roads. The mozzarella brine will be supplied free of charge by the F&A
Dairy in nearby Dresser, Wisc. City officials chose the brine because of its
high salt content, which is expected to work best with rock salt. “It makes it
work when the temperatures are colder which is really what we need to have,
because salt by itself will only work at maybe 22 degrees Fahrenheit,” said
Jeffrey Tews, the fleet operations manager with the Milwaukee Department of Public
Works. “We are hoping for the best. There are a lot of questions that we have
as to how effective it can be, and at what temperatures you should not use it.”
Any time a new product is used, there needs to be a guinea pig and in this
case, it will be the neighborhood of Bay View. If the brine beats back the snow
and ice there, the city will expand its use to other areas. Go ahead and check
off another box when it comes to Wisconsinites finding areas of their life to
infuse with cheese………
- Hockey is an inherently violent sport. It’s just not
supposed to be THIS violent. Penguins
forward Brooks Orpik was released from the hospital in Boston and was able to
return to Pittsburgh with his team after leaving Saturday night's game on a
stretcher courtesy of some truly thuggish actions from the Boston Bruins' Shawn
Thornton. Thornton yanked Orpik to the ice and clubbed him in the head twice in
a crowd of players and officials during a stoppage in play at 11:06 of the
first period of the Bruins' 3-2 win at TD Garden. He received a match penalty
and has been told he faces a disciplinary hearing for his actions. After the
game, he expressed remorse for his goon act. "It's hard for me to talk
about right now. I can't say I'm sorry enough. I'm sure I'll be criticized, but
it's true," he said. "I felt awful. It wasn't my intention. I know
Brooksie. I've gotten to know him the last seven years here. I skated with him
during the lockout. I texted him a couple of times. It's not what I wanted to
see or anyone to see." Anyone watching the game could see it was going to
be a physical one from the opening puck drop. Orpik popped up on the Bruins’
radar during the first shift of the game when he knocked Loui Eriksson from the
game with a major check. Erikson barely made it to the bench and was taken
immediately to the locker room, where he was diagnosed with a concussion, his
second in a five-week span. Teammate Chris Kelly was also injured and after
Eriksson left, Thornton attempted to fight Orpik. Orpik refused, but when an
altercation occurred moments later between Boston’s Brad Marchand and Penguins
winger James Neal, Thornton skated toward Orpik, grabbed him and threw him to
the ice before he started to punch him. A clearly dazed Orpik was tended to by
trainers for nearly 10 minutes before he taken off the ice on a stretcher.
"It's always my job, I guess, to defend my teammates. But I prided myself
for a long time to stay within the lines. It's hard for me to talk about right
now. I can't say 'I'm sorry' enough,” Thornton added………
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