What the Middle East would be like without Christians
From Iraq to Syria to Egypt, Christians are under siege. How their faith – including at a Bethlehem church – sustains them and how their decline is altering the region: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/1222/What-the-Middle-East-would-be-like-without-Christians
Posted from WordPress for Android
Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, the inventor of the AK-47, holding a prototype of his famous assault rifle in 2007. The arms designer credited by the Soviet Union with creating the AK-47, the first in a series of rifles and machine guns that would indelibly associate his name with modern war and become the most abundant firearms ever made, died on Monday in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic, where he lived. He was 94. Picture by Dima Korotayev/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
Mikhail Kalashnikov, Creator of AK-47, Dies at 94
The inventor of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died at the age of 94. His ingenuity earned him widespread admiration, but his legacy became more controversial when his weapons were used in some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts.
“It is difficult and sad to realize that Mikhail Kalashnikov is no longer with us. We have lost one of the most talented, memorable and committed patriots of Russia, who served his country throughout his life,” said the statement from the press secretary of the Udmurtia administration Viktor Chulkov.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed “deep condolences” over the death of the engineer. Picture below: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (C) and Mikhail Kalashnikov (R), the Russian inventor of the globally popular AK-47 assault rifle, talk during a visit to IZHMASH Izhevsk Mechanical Works, a weapons manufacturer, in Russia’s city of Izhevsk, 1,126 km (700 miles) from Moscow May 25, 2010.(Reuters / Alexei Nikolsky)
Kalashnikov who continued working well into his nineties, had been suffering from heart and intestinal problems, and on November 17 was admitted been in intensive care in Izhevsk – where the plant that produces the eponymous rifles is located. The official cause of death will be revealed following a mandatory autopsy.
A public funeral will be organized by the regional administration, in consultation with surviving relatives, though no date has been named so far.
Patriot, genius, villain?
For most of his life, Kalashnikov was feted as a straightforward hero.
The self-taught peasant turned tank mechanic who never finished high school, but achieved a remarkable and lasting feat of engineering while still in his twenties.
But as the rifles, inextricably linked forever to their creator by name, were more and more commonly seen in the hands of terrorists, radicals and child soldiers, the inventor was often forced to defend himself to journalists.
He was forever asked if he regretted engineering the weapon that probably killed more than any other in the last fifty years, though nine out of ten AKs are not produced in Izhevsk, and perhaps as many as half are manufactured illegally.
“I invented it for the protection of the Motherland. I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it,” he told them.
On a few occasions, when in a more reflective mood, the usually forceful Kalashnikov wondered what might have been.
“I’m proud of my invention, but I’m sad that it is used by terrorists,” he said once.
“I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower.”
Review Photo/Kevin Graff The John Hampu Band performs at the annual Christmas party hosted by Alliance Municipal Court Judge Robert G. Lavery on Tuesday.
WHEN OUGHT YOU HAVE A CHRISTMAS PARTY IN A COURT ROOM
Following the local story, about a Maltese judiciary member throwing a Christmas party in his court room (read all about it here http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/courtandpolice/Government-asks-Justice-Commission-to-investigate-Magistrate-s-actions-20131219 ), I came across an interesting story of a more sober tone despite the cheerful ring to it.
Review Photo/Kevin Graff Janet Vick hugs Alliance Municipal Court Judge Robert G. Lavery at his annual Christmas party on Tuesday. Vick was a secretary for Milton Gieger, since the 1940s and has known Lavery since the beginning of his career.
M&S TELLS MUSLIM STAFF THEY CAN REFUSE TO SERVE CUSTOMERS BUYING ALCOHOL OR PORK
This is in Great Britain, not Saudi Arabia!
Marks & Spencers (M&S), an old British firm on the UK’s retailing market, has told its Muslim staff they can refuse to serve shoppers buying alcohol or pork! The chain has granted its checkout workers in more than seven hundred stores permission to decline to serve customers on religious grounds. Instead, shoppers are being asked to wait to pay for certain items at a different till!
This seems quite out of the ordinary, a tad wee bonkers, and just plain craven acquiescence to a foreign religion on home turf, when the same is NOT reciprocated in any mild form in such Muslim states.
Last week, shoppers buying alcoholic drinks for Christmas at a M&S store in central London were asked by a Muslim checkout worker to wait to be served by another member of staff. One customer – who wishes to remain unnamed – told a newspaper she was “taken aback” by the M&S store worker’s request.
Britain, like a couple more other European states, seeks to appease every other religion or ethnic group, but there is no reciprocal move by those Muslim countries to accommodate other (Western or non) customs and religions. For example, despite the presence of thousands of Saudi funded mosques in Britain, there is not a single Christian church in the whole of Saudi Arabia!
In contrast to M&S, Sainsbury’s has told Muslim staff that there is no reason why they cannot handle goods such as alcohol and pork – even if they are not allowed to eat or drink the products.
A Marks and Spencer customer chooses a bottle of wine Photo: Kumar Sriskandan / Alamy
Customers at Marks and Spencer will not be refused alcohol or pork by Muslim staff after the store reacted to a massive backlash by customers.
Thousands of shoppers threatened to boycott the retailer after Marks and Spencer said it would allow Muslim staff to refuse to sell pork and alcohol because it was against their religious beliefs.
But now Marks and Spencer has apologised and said that Muslim staff who did not want to handle these products would not man tills and would work in other roles such as in clothing or in the bakery.
Read full update in this report
the way ahead to come into the current fold of media trends and flows
The Vatican has hired two international consulting firms to modernize Holy See communications and to improve financial procedures throughout the Vatican’s agencies.
“An advisory role has been entrusted to McKinsey & Company for the development – in close collaboration with the heads of the relevant offices – of an integrated plan to render the organisation of means of communication within the Holy See more functional, effective and modern,” the Holy See press office announced Dec. 19
The decision was made the previous day, on the initiative of the Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Organization of the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See, after a bidding and selection process. The commission was established under Pope Francis to study and streamline Vatican administration.
“The consultancy project will aim to provide the Commission with the information needed to make appropriate recommendations to the Holy Father,” the press office’s communique noted.
View original post 207 more words
Won’t get the chance to wish each of you all following me on Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Linkedin a Merry Christmas! So here it is: a message en masse…. Be safe and be merry, have a Happy New Year too 🙂
Here’s an awesome CGI twist to a Van Damme advert that went viral, but this takes the mickey at Chuck Norris:
It's at this point that you reconsider your status update.
Photo by Slate
On Second Thought …
Facebook wants to know why you didn’t publish that status update you started writing.
By Jennifer Golbeck
The code in your browser that powers Facebook still knows what you typed—even if you decide not to publish it. It turns out that the things you explicitly choose not to share aren’t entirely private.
Facebook calls these unposted thoughts “self-censorship,” and insights into how it collects these nonposts can be found in a recent paper written by two Facebookers. Sauvik Das, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon and summer software engineer intern at Facebook, and Adam Kramer, a Facebook data scientist, have put online an article presenting their study of the self-censorship behavior collected from 5 million English-speaking Facebook users.
Posted from WordPress for Android
Kids Christmas Caroling at St. John of the Cross Parish, Ta’ Xbiex, Malta: see video on web URL below:
Christmas Caroling St. John of the Cross Ta’ Xbiex Dec 2013 from Ivan M. Consiglio on Vimeo.
accompanied by their catechism tutors and parents, some pic snaps of the proceedings in the parish neighbourhood streets.
This is a reminder to those poor souls IN FRONT of the damn camera, when live and on air: wait for the PRODUCER or the FLOOR MANAGER to signal you are flippin’ clear !!!
Sospesa la giornalista di Rainews24 Laura Tangherlini: ‘Me so rotta er ca…’
Laura Tangherlini, giornalista di Rai news 24: La bella e brava giornalista di Rai News 24è incappata in una gaffe tremenda durante un fuori onda del telegiornale che in pochissimo tempo ha fatto il giro della Rete
La gaffe della giornalista di Rai News 24 Laura Tangherlini (“Me so’ rotta er c….o!“) ha fatto il giro del web, e il video del suo fuori onda è stato cliccatissimo negli ultimi giorni. La trentunenne jesina, però, è stata sospesa dall’azienda, visto l’evidente danno di immagine causato. Ma che cosa è successo nello specifico?
Qualche giorno fa la Tangherlini, trentunenne marchigiana, durante la diretta del canale all news Rai dopo avere annunciato la pubblicità è incappata in un’esclamazione ben poco urbana, pensando di non essere più in onda. E così, dopo il garbato “Ci vediamo tra poco con gli aggiornamenti e le notizie. Restate con noi“, credendo di non avere più il microfono aperto si è lasciata andare a un commento (indubbiamente divertente) poco rispettoso della Rai: “Restatece voi, perché io me ne vado, può esse. Me so’ rotta er c….o!“.
Jesina di origini ma stabilitasi a Roma da ormai sei anni (dopo aver frequentato l’università anche a Bucarest), la giornalista di Rai News 24 ha evidentemente lasciato trasparire l’accento romano acquisito negli ultimi tempi. A dire la verità, l’errore – al di là della gaffe della giornalista – è stato della regia, che ha lasciato il microfono della Tangherlini aperto per molti secondi dopo il lancio della pubblicità. Il video della gaffe, come detto, è stato ripreso dai più importanti siti Internet, venendo visto da migliaia di persone.
La Rai non poteva che adottare un provvedimento disciplinare nei confronti della Tangherlini che, contattata al telefono dal Resto del Carlino, ha preferito non commentare la notizia. “Scusatemi, ho già avuto parecchi guai, non posso dire nulla“.
Autrice di un libro dedicato alle storie di profughi siriani (Siria in fuga, edito da Poiesis) frutto dei suoi viaggi in Giordania e Libano, la giornalista marchigiana ha conosciuto una popolarità inaspettata, e forse non voluta, negli ultimi giorni, come dimostrano i tanti commenti postati su Youtube sotto il video. Non solo: anche la sua pagina Facebook è diventata visitatissima nell’ultimo periodo.
Laura Tangherlini, tra l’altro, è anche in corsa per vincere il premio di telegiornalista dell’anno (concorso virtuale, avviato su Facebook), in una sfida all’ultimo clic con Barbara Capponi: chissà che questa sua gaffe non contribuisca ad aumentare il numero di voti per lei.
Once unheard of, it soon will be the practice of more than 40% of U.S. dailies
“The New York Times” now has 727,000 digital subscribers.
(Photo: Angus Oborn, Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images)
Charging for digital news — erecting paywalls — is not a panacea for the many problems newspapers face as they struggle to adapt in the Internet era. But it’s an important arrow in the quiver. It’s a critical new source of revenue for news outlets that desperately need them in the wake of a steep decline in ad dollars.
Some early attempts to charge for digital content were short-lived, among them TimesSelect, which placed New York Times columnists behind a paywall, so there was much skepticism when the paper began charging for digital content in March 2011.
The New York Times now has 727,000 digital subscribers. While advertising revenue continues to shrink, the newspaper industry’s circulation revenue rose by 5% last year, thanks to those digital pennies. It was the first such increase since 2003.
Change had come so quickly that it’s hard to remember how bold and against-the-grain the Times’ move was. For years, the prevailing mantra was that on the Internet, information wants to be free. Digital enthusiasts portrayed it as virtually the moral equivalent of a constitutional right.
Newspaper companies, understandably baffled by the digital maelstrom engulfing them, figured they better get in on the action. They started posting their expensively gathered news content on the Web, for free, all the while charging for it in print. The hope was that their handiwork would attract lots of digital readers and that advertising dollars would follow.
READ FULL ARTICLE: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2013/11/20/charging-for-digital-content/3650943/?goback=%2Egde_45264_member_5812046841352585216#%21
FOLLOW THE DDEBATE ON LINKEDIN.COM: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&srchtype=discussedNews&gid=45264&item=5812046841352585216&type=member&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_pd-ttl-hdp&fromEmail=&ut=2uSj_xnmbJPm01
The Cons's Nook: www.ivanmconsiglio.com 