Sunday, 9 May 2010

Team Berated for Hooters Sponsorship Deal

An under-16 Australian Rules football team has come under fire for entering a sponsorship deal with a local Hooters franchise, with critics saying the move could give adolescent boys the wrong message.
The Broadbeach Cats team in Australia's Gold Coast were cheered on by two skimpily-dressed staff from the Mermaid Beach franchise of the American restaurant chain during their home game against local side Labrador on the weekend.
"The message these boys are getting -- and bear in mind we're talking 15 and 16-year-old boys -- is that ... as a young footballer you have an entitlement to large-breasted women in skimpy outfits bouncing around at your games," women's advocate Melinda Tankard Reist said on an Australian morning television show.
Restaurant owner Morney Schledusch described the criticism as "ridiculous."
"Our waitresses represent the all-American cheerleader," he told local media. "And no, they don't all have big boobs. "We are all about sport. We had a great opportunity here to show Australia what we are really about."
@'Yahoo News'

Johnny Cash Does Elvis

Saturday, 8 May 2010

Mike Scott - In The Beginning Was Love

More recent tracks

HERE

The Waterboys - The Whole Of The Moon (Live)

paul__lewis BBC: Cameron offered Lib Dems cabinet posts (home secretary, chief secretary to the treasury and transport secretary) #dontdoitnick 13 minutes ago via web

Lady Gaga and the case of the lost underwear

'Junk' by Melvin Burgess (For National 'Puffin' Books Day!)

More episodes

HERE

For no reason at all...

All I can say is thank god there is NO sound...

Mike Huckaby Fabric Promo Mix (May 10)

Pakistanis pose as Indians after NY bomb scare

Once again, a man of Pakistani descent is at the center of a security story, leading to backlash against the Pakistani-American community.
Faisal Shahzad, 30, a naturalized American born in Pakistan, was arrested on Monday, two days after authorities say he parked a crude car bomb in New York's busy Times Square.
Suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and convicted 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef are also of Pakistani decent, and anti-American militants fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan take refuge in Pakistan.
In Brooklyn, home to one of the largest Pakistani populations in the United States, business is scant at the various grocery, halal meat and sweet cake shops since a Pakistani-American was suspected in the Times Square plot. More than 100 businesses along Coney Island Avenue have closed due to a 30 percent drop in business since 2001, a merchants' association said.
In Washington, an American man of Pakistani descent told of coming under suspicion this week when he tried to buy garden fertilizer. The Times Square car bomb contained a non-explosive type of fertilizer.
While there have been no reported incidents since the failed car bomb attack last Saturday, some Pakistanis are bracing for reprisals. Police have increased foot patrols.
"A lot of Pakistanis can't get jobs after 9/11 and now it's even worse," said Asghar Choudhri, an accountant and chairman of Brooklyn's Pakistani American Merchant Association. "They are now pretending they are Indian so they can get a job."
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, creating hostilities that ordinarily would lead a Pakistani to resent being mistaken for an Indian.
According to the latest U.S. census data, some 210,410 people of Pakistani origin reside in the United States. Nearly 15,000 Pakistanis received U.S. immigrant visas last year.
"I want to make clear that we will not tolerate any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week, noting there are always "a few bad apples."
New York is "the city where you can practice your religion and say what you want to say and be in charge of your own destiny and we're going to keep it that way," Bloomberg said.
SUSPICION OF GARDENING
In Washington, an American of Pakistani heritage who would only be identified as Farhan, said a manager of a suburban home-improvement store prevented him from buying two bags of fertilizer for his family's lawn on Tuesday.
Farhan, who was born in northern Virginia, said police arrived soon after, investigated and allowed him to buy the fertilizer.
"What kind of a country are we living in when a 22-year-old male can't buy fertilizer?" Farhan asked. "I'm American. I'm not Pakistani."
Farhan said the store had subsequently apologized and the case appeared to be one of an overzealous manager rather than store policy.
Merchants in New York, many of whom declined to be named, still remember reprisals after September 11. Soon after the attacks, there was a drive-by shooting in Brooklyn at a Pakistani restaurant, which is now closed.
The local merchants association has shrunk to 150 members, from about 250 merchants almost a decade ago.
The FBI also arrested many undocumented workers in the neighborhood, leading to a wave of deportations, and residents would call law enforcement to make claims against their neighbors, including many false claims, Choudhri said.
"After 9/11, we took much pain," he said. "After that, a small beating is nothing. Now the Pakistanis are not so much scared but we are ashamed. We are embarrassed that the name of Pakistan came up."
@'Reuters'

How (and Why) to Donate Your Hair to the Gulf

Those sausage-looking things are actually hairbooms: pantyhose stuffed with human hair that can be tossed into the water to contain an oil spill. Sounds absurd, but it's one of the few known ways to contain them, and the technique was used for the Exxon Valdez mess in 1989, and in the Cosco Busan spill of 2007. Containing a spill is, after all, a first step in cleaning it up.

Of course, in order to contain the amount of oil currently messing up the Gulf, a lot of hair (and hose) is needed. Matter of Trust is on the case, collecting human, dog, and cat hair from salons and individual donors to weave it all together to make oil-absording mats and booms. If this hair thing works this go-round, it could be a pretty cool low-tech solution to a very big problem.

(If you're not due for a trim, the Daily Beast has a good list of other ways you can help out.)

Siobhan O'Connor @'Good'