tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41774449385137811042024-03-15T18:56:38.781-07:00Anz Banking Internet Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.comBlogger7245125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-5945911215592062802013-09-21T06:47:00.001-07:002013-09-21T06:47:15.770-07:00Watch Upside Down<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-35078191308776924942012-12-10T21:51:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:44:02.970-08:00WUTHER OR NOT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JGpMuVEbC7w/UMWCr0RZxnI/AAAAAAAAKYU/ixRsmilsxvg/s1600/wutheringheights2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JGpMuVEbC7w/UMWCr0RZxnI/AAAAAAAAKYU/ixRsmilsxvg/s200/wutheringheights2011.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Nobody can take away from the newest adaptation of the cinematically well-worn <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1181614/"><i>Wuthering Heights</i></a> that it wants for a bold idea: Andrea Arnold, writer and director of the marvelous social-realist fables <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0471030/"><i>Red Road</i></a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232776/"><i>Fish Tank</i></a>, took her characteristic <i>vérité</i> style of hand-held camera and grotty sound and rugged, heavily naturalistic acting, and set it loose on the late-18th Century of Emily Brontë's hugely beloved Gothic drama of broken love on the Yorkshire moors. It is not enough to call this a "realistic" <i>Wuthering Heights</i>: it is more realistic than realism, harsh and low-fi, filthy in its depiction of the mud and dirt of everyday life in the days before hot and cold running water and filthy in its depiction of the hard, mean people who had what it took to eke out a kind of life in the miserable surroundings of that country. It is a brutal version of the story that, with its coarse language and casual violence (don't expect any "no animals were harmed" boilerplate in the credits), seeks to restore the squalid shock that the book initially had back when it was a brand-new scandal, long before it was ossified and made respectable.<br /><br />Like I said, a bold idea, and one that I would absolutely love to see applied more often in a genre where "realism" typically consists of putting a bit extra dirt on the floors in an otherwise prim and dressy costume drama <i>comme une autre</i>. So all credit and honor to Arnold for attempting something new and challenging in the face of decades of stuffy prestige literary adaptations. Pity that the film itself is such an ineffective slog, which doesn't knock the scales away from Brontë's familiar book, and leave it feeling fresh and alive again after so many movie adaptations and high school English classes; rather, it's a movie that seems to have been made in the spirit of outright contempt for the source material, and while any of us may or may not feel that way, the question remains as to why you'd bother adapting <i>Wuthering Heights</i> in the first place if the story made you so angry that you wanted to treat it this way.<br /><br />It doesn't feel like this ought to be the case, for most of Arnold's conceptual shifts are genuinely interesting and smart ways to reimagine the material from a more politically aggressive place: her increased emphasis on the class divisions of the central relationship, or her controversial but - on paper - brilliant decision to cast the surly Heathcliff with a black actor, drawing on a hint in the original novel and making this as much a study of how "nice people" deal with undesirable Others as anything else. Part of the problem with this proves to be one of basic story logic: rather than having her racially-coded Heathcliff be black in a symbolic way, Arnold goes right on ahead and makes <i>Wuthering Heights</i> a parable about racism, which would be meaningful if there was anything in the story to justify that kind of approach. I mean, hell, you can make Hester Prynne black and then turn <i>The Scarlet Letter</i> into a racism parable too, but there's no value or nobility in doing something so completely fucking daft.<br /><br />That, in brief, explains everything that's wrong with the movie - though by now means is it a movie where everything is wrong, let's get that out of the way right now. The problem is that for everything it gets right (the jarring <i>vérité</i> camerawork, for example, does a fantastic job of bringing immediacy to the setting, even if it otherwise suffers from the usual sins of handheld cinematography: looking sloppy and being nauseating), the things it gets wrong are much more primal and distracting, and far easier to access, given that everything right is kind of theoretical and stylistic, while everything wrong is directly related to the story and characters and our inability or lack thereof to feel things about them.<br /><br />Of course, the secret about <i>Wuthering Heights</i> has always been that it's a far cry from the weepy Gothic melodrama of its reputation, and more of an exposé of some very nasty people behaving nastily, and this is something that previous film adaptations have not necessarily wallowed in. So, on the face of it, unsympathetic protagonists aren't inherently film-breaking. And while it's difficult to feel very enthusiastic about spending two hours with such people, that's not really the problem here anyway: it's not that doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff are unlikable, but that they barely register as human, so insatiably ill-performed are they, and by two actors each: as children by Shannon Beer and Solmon Glave, respectively, as adults by Kaya Scodelario and James Howson (Scodelario is the only one of the bunch with any previous acting experience, and perversely, hers is the worst performance, though it's a race to the bottom).<br /><br />This is especially upsetting given Arnold's track record with new and amateur actors: did not <i>Fish Tank</i> give us non-actor Katie Jarvis burning up the screen with one of 2009's finest, most alive performances, while also introducing the world to a certain actor of no particular note named Michael Fassbender? None of that this time around. The actors - and not just these four, though they are by far the ones who damage the movie worst (Nichola Burley as Catherine's sister-in-law, whom Heathcliff seduces in his jealous fury, is a ghastly mess of anachronistic line readings an leaden screen presence) - are thrown to the wild and left to die there by a director who has made the film-breaking mistake of stripping away all of the extraneous trappings that make costume dramas feel fussy and inhuman, in order to focus solely on the human figures, made to seem as relevant to a contemporary audience as could possible be done; and then failing to direct the actors to feel like humans at all. Scodelario gapes with a one-size-fits-all expression of light confusion and mouths her dialogue as though she'd was learning the script phonetically, while the cameras were rolling; the children are clearly not aware at all of what's going on, and feel more like parodies of adults than pre-adolescents with the first stirrings of lust. Howson, of all of them, acquits himself the best, mostly by virtue of having the most straightforward character: his Heathcliff fumes and glowers and is a pissy shit, but that's not an inappropriate way to play the character, particularly given that the script has taken away everything else about his characterisation besides resentment at white people. Just like Brontë intended.<br /><br />I'm inclined to give the film points just because the style is so striking, and as a concept, I love what Arnold was up to: a gritty, neo-realist costume drama that rips off all the sentiment is a nice antidote to all the respectable fussy and arid examples of the same drama that continue to plague us (I am reminded of Joe Wright's current, super-fussy <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1781769/"><i>Anna Karenina</i></a>, which also tries to upend the costume drama apple cart, and also falls short, but respectably, and interestingly). The problems with this <i>Wuthering Heights</i> are severe: but they are simple. Most of what's here is interesting enough to be valuable on its own right without quite managing to be "good"; but it is an admirable failure, and rather than calling Arnold's ability into question (though seriously, those performances needed so much help), it points hopefully to her ambition and intelligence, which has in this case somewhat exceeded her ability.<br /><br />6/10Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-65675340079893857272012-12-10T21:01:00.002-08:002012-12-24T01:57:29.781-08:00CUE Magazine (1975) - SPACE: 1999 vs STAR TREK<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NHdvI0u9zfU/UMa9Pd_QmbI/AAAAAAAAPWE/DNbyagm1ylM/s1600/1999-space-1999-16131500-538-720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NHdvI0u9zfU/UMa9Pd_QmbI/AAAAAAAAPWE/DNbyagm1ylM/s1600/1999-space-1999-16131500-538-720.jpg" /></a></div>This made me smile. New York area entertainment magazine, <i>Cue</i> ("Seven Leisure Magazines in One"), from December of 1975. Artist unknown (to me, anyway). I particularly like Barbara Bain with the space bazooka....Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-4013854147990395332012-12-10T21:01:00.001-08:002012-12-24T01:50:36.909-08:00CUE Magazine (1975) - SPACE: 1999 vs STAR TREK<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NHdvI0u9zfU/UMa9Pd_QmbI/AAAAAAAAPWE/DNbyagm1ylM/s1600/1999-space-1999-16131500-538-720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NHdvI0u9zfU/UMa9Pd_QmbI/AAAAAAAAPWE/DNbyagm1ylM/s1600/1999-space-1999-16131500-538-720.jpg" /></a></div>This made me smile. New York area entertainment magazine, <i>Cue</i> ("Seven Leisure Magazines in One"), from December of 1975. Artist unknown (to me, anyway). I particularly like Barbara Bain with the space bazooka....Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-80035034039727219992012-12-10T21:01:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:34:36.644-08:00Grabbing the Zebra, and Other Survival Tactics for Writers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">By <a href="http://www.kathrynlilley.com/" target="_blank">Kathryn Lilley</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QtMWY6Gx79s/UMaHZEYyJrI/AAAAAAAABdI/3tc4BjsEMhA/s1600/zebra1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QtMWY6Gx79s/UMaHZEYyJrI/AAAAAAAABdI/3tc4BjsEMhA/s200/zebra1.jpg" width="169" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Earlier this week, a dear writer friend shared her most important survival instinct with me. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">My friend--I'll call her "Jane"--is the creator of a popular children's sitcom, and an <i>uber</i>-successful writer. She also happens to be deathly afraid of animals. Especially wild animals.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b-HkYH313aA/UMaMWm0lNVI/AAAAAAAABd4/SgTWq0mCQMg/s1600/lizard.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b-HkYH313aA/UMaMWm0lNVI/AAAAAAAABd4/SgTWq0mCQMg/s200/lizard.png" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jane's fear of the wild is regularly put to the test during production season, mostly because her show's cast includes a 7-foot Asian Water Monitor Lizard. Although Mr. Lizard looks like a refugee from Jurassic Park, he's usually a docile fellow. (But, as Jane notes, "His handlers make sure to feed him before he goes onstage." Hungry 7-foot Asian Water Monitor Lizards get cranky, evidently.)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">In addition to the lizard, last week Jane's show featured a zebra: It was a cute but extremely <i>nervous</i> zebra. (Sharing lines with a dinosaur probably didn't help the zebra's stage fright). </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jane was onstage typing up some production notes when the zebra's handlers let him stretch his legs nearby. Somehow the animal managed to slip his rope, whereupon he bolted. And of course, he bolted straight toward Jane.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jane kept her head. She pushed Save. Only <i>then </i>did she add, "Would someone grab that zebra?" </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, ladies and gentlemen--even under the most extreme duress, my courageous writer friend remembered to Save Her Work. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">So that's Jane's most valuable tip for the week. What about yours? What's your most important habit as a writer, the one that has gotten you through thick and thin? We want to know!</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-15940646535209558112012-12-10T20:58:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:36:35.779-08:00Sports Make People Say Stupid Things<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sports is interesting in that it makes people say stupid things. Things like "We're going to war." Sports are an important part of our culture, no doubt, and have an important part to play in our lives. But they're way overblown. One of my favorite poems is this one that puts sports in the context I believe it belongs in. As a game. Just a game. It's a poem I wrote about my grandfather, who not once, but twice stayed at work to complete his shift despite having a heart attack during the day. This poem appeare in one of my very favorite literary periodicals <a href="http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/gargoyle/Issues/Issue50.php">Gargoyle #50</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The Streak </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The announcer fawns </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Over the Iron Man: </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> ` “Number 63 has played </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> In 120 straight </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Football games, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> An amazing feat </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Of endurance.” </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I do the math: </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Sixteen Sundays a year, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Three hours a pop </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> For nearly eight years, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> 360 total hours, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Or maybe five or six </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Weeks of my granddaddy’s </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Life in the field and </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The mill afterhours, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Covering the rent </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> 2,750 straight months, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Playing hurt through three </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Heart attacks, seven children </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> And five disbanded </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Pro football leagues. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Now let’s talk about </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> A fucking streak.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-79047252303535981932012-12-10T20:01:00.000-08:002012-12-24T02:17:23.279-08:00Drones and a bad movie<a href="http://theworldtodayjustnuts.blogspot.com/">Isaiah</a>'s The World Today Just Nuts "<a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2012/12/isaiahs-world-today-just-nuts-symbolic.html">Symbolic Value</a>." <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/82752072@N06/8261417484/" title="symbolic value by More TCI images, on Flickr"><img alt="symbolic value" height="407" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8355/8261417484_a50bdb23f0.jpg" width="500" /></a><br /><br /><br />As long as Barack got his photo op, I guess we're all supposed to be okay with his attending last night's concert and with his posing with Psy afterwards.<br /><br /><strong><br /></strong><strong>"</strong><a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/dec2012/nypd-d10.shtml"><strong>New York City police arrest artist who created drone satires</strong></a><strong>" (Sandy English, WSWS):</strong><br /><strong></strong><strong>Last week, The New York Police Department (NYPD) arrested Essam Attia, an artist who had designed and surreptitiously placed satirical posters dealing with the NYPD’s potential use of pilotless drone aircraft.</strong><br /><strong> </strong><strong>Attia and a team posed as maintenance workers who routinely replace advertisements in plastic cases at bus stops and other public locations. The posters simulated NYPD public service announcements and depict drones firing missiles at fleeing civilians. One of the posters says, “NYPD drones: Protection when you least expect it.” An NYPD logo appears at the bottom of the image.</strong><br /><strong> </strong><div class="imageLeft"><img alt="poster" border="0" height="270" src="http://www.wsws.org/images/2012dec/d10-post-480.jpg" width="480" /><span><strong>A satirical poster on the potential use of drones by the NYPD</strong></span></div><strong> </strong><strong>In what amounts to a political vendetta against Attia for daring to criticize the police, the artist has been charged on 56 criminal counts, including grand larceny, possession of stolen property and a weapons charge for possession of an antique, unloaded .22 caliber handgun. The NYPD appears to have put some effort into hunting the artist down. Officers were seen dusting the poster-boxes for fingerprints in September, shortly after the posters began to appear.</strong><br /> <br /><br /><br />The NYPD should be called out for this. The citizens should demand to know how many police officers were put on this non-case. <br /><strong><br /></strong><strong>"</strong><a href="http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogspot.com/2012/12/tv-real-ugly.html"><strong>TV: The real ugly</strong></a><strong>" (Ava and C.I., The Third Estate Sunday Review):</strong><br /><strong>Like</strong><i><strong> </strong><a href="http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogspot.com/2007/02/tv-aftermath-leaves-aftertaste.html"><strong>Jericho</strong></a></i><strong> before it, </strong><i><strong>Revolution</strong></i><strong>exists in a world where, if everything came crashing down, women would take orders and men would lead and the writers are forever attempting to re-create slash fiction based on </strong><i><strong>Father Knows Best</strong></i><strong>. Popular science fiction in the 20th century like Buck Rodgers, Flash Gordon and, later, </strong><i><strong>Star Trek</strong></i><strong> was based on something more than misogynistic lust. </strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><i><strong>Revolution</strong></i><strong> is a deeply conservative show. It is to TV what </strong><i><strong>The Dark Knight Rises</strong></i><strong>was to film: Plodding and deeply sexist. Toss in a tiny handful of women to hide behind and the boy-geniuses think they've managed to fool someone. So Catwoman, a Middle Eastern woman that turns out to be the ultimate villian (how novel!) and, in one scene, the wife of Deputy Commissioner Peter Foley. You're never supposed to notice, for example, that there are no women in New Gotham's police force. You're just supposed to say, "Go, Anne Hathaway! You're no Michelle Pfeiffer and your character's kind of weak and pathetic, but, go, Anne Hathaway!"</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>That's how you get women's role in Revolution: Whores. "Sex and Drugs," episode six, finally shows women at paid work: at a brothel. It's also the last time you saw women at paying jobs. To make that episode 'work,' they take Nora out of commission (to again allow Aaron to 'grow') and push Charlie into prostitution. </strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>And back to New Gotham's all male police force. In the real world, </strong><a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2012/11/iraq-snapshot_27.html"><strong>November 27th</strong></a><strong> saw a major lawsuit. </strong><a href="http://www.aclu.org/womens-rights/legal-challenge-filed-against-policy-excluding-women-combat"><strong>The ACLU explained</strong></a><strong>:</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong> The Defense Department’s longstanding policy barring women from thousands of ground combat positions was challenged today in a federal lawsuit by four servicewomen and the Service Women’s Action Network.</strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong>The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Northern California and the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong></strong><strong>The four servicemembers have all done tours in Iraq or Afghanistan -- some deploying multiple times --where they served in combat or led female troops who went on missions with combat infantrymen. Their careers and opportunities have been limited by a policy that does not grant them the same recognition for their service as their male counterparts. The combat exclusion policy also makes it harder for them to do their jobs.</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>The ACLU is asking that what no longer can be denied -- American women have been in combat for years now -- be recognized officially. It doesn't seem like too much to ask but maybe it is to those involved in Revolution? Time and again, we see the militias, the officers, the rank-in-file, and they're always men.</strong><br /><br /><br />Thank you, Ava and C.I. I saw The Dark Knight Rises last week (on Amazon streaming). I knew it was anti-Occupy because a few on the left had noted that. I didn't realize how reactionary it was until I watched. I agree with Ava and C.I.'s call. Where were the women?<br /><br />None on the police force. There were three women. Catwoman who gives up her own interests and her chance at life (refuses to leave as a nuke is about to detonate) because she loves Batman. Then there's the police officer's wife who answers the door in her only scene to declare her husband's not at home -- and we all know she's lying. Then there's the other woman. The 'foreigner.' The 'other.' She has a few scenes but your first clue that she's bad comes on a rainy day after Bruce has lost everything when she comes onto him. You know right away that only a bad woman would want sex. <br /><br />The crap from that film is disgusting. It is anti-Occupy but it's even worse and I'm offended that so many reviewers ignored the sexism which is rampant throughout the film.<br /><br /><br />"<a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2012/12/iraq-snapshot_1759.html">Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills): </a><br /><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name"></h3><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="yiv40467651" id="yiv40467651bodyDrftID"> <tbody><tr> <td _yuid="yui_3_1_1_11_1355182203187163" id="yiv40467651drftMsgContent" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;"><div _yuid="yui_3_1_1_2_1355182203187178">Monday, December 10, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, 3,000 US troops supposedly entered Iraq (from Kuwait) last week, the Pentagon publishes the memo of understanding signed with Iraq last Thursday, Barack got his goal: more US troops in Iraq, Nouri tried to think of another reason why Iraqis shouldn't talk about Iraqi women being tortured in prisons (it distracts from the overall thoughts on human rights!), Senator Patty Murray notes the just released homelessness rates for veterans in the US, and more. </div><div>How many US troops remain in Iraq? December 12, 2011, Ted Koppel filed an important report on <a href="http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/" rel="nofollow" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Rock Center with Brian Williams</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>(NBC) about what was really taking place in Iraq -- what 'reporters' insisted on calling a 'withdrawal' but what the Pentagon had termed a "drawdown." Excerpt.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>MR. KOPPEL: I realize you can't go into it in any detail, but I would assume that there is a healthy CIA mission here. I would assume that JSOC may still be active in this country, the joint special operations. You've got FBI here. You've got DEA here. Can, can you give me sort of a, a menu of, of who all falls under your control?</b></div><b> </b><br /><div><b><br /></b><b><br /></b></div><b></b><div><b>AMB. JAMES JEFFREY: You're actually doing pretty well, were I authorized to talk about half of this stuff.</b></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>As September drew to a close, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/world/middleeast/iraq-faces-new-perils-from-syrias-civil-war.html?ref=world" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tim Arango (<i>New York Times</i>) reported</a> that the US had just sent in a Special-Ops division into Iraq. Yesterday <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/09/277127/3000-us-troops-secretly-return-to-iraq/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Press TV reported</a>:</div><div><b>Over 3,000 US troops have secretly returned to Iraq via Kuwait for missions pertaining to the recent developments in Syria and northern Iraq, Press TV reports. <br />According to our correspondent, the US troops have secretly entered Iraq in multiple stages and are mostly stationed at Balad military garrison in Salahuddin province and al-Asad air base in al-Anbar province. </b></div><div>Noting those 3,000 troops going into Iraq, <a href="http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_12_10/US-secret-comeback-to-Iraq/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Voice of Russia</i> adds today</a>, "Another 17,000-strong force is preparing to cross the Kuwait-Iraq border over time, Iraqi press says."</div><div><a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2012/12/iraq-snapshot_6736.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Thursday</a> DoD and the State Dept had officials in Iraq. The Defense Dept issued the following that day:</div><div><b>Under the auspices of the Strategic Framework Agreement, the Governments of the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq reaffirmed their commitment to an enduring strategic partnership during the second meeting of the Defense and Security Joint Coordination Committee on December 5-6, 2012 in Baghdad. </b></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>The meetings held at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense were co-chaired by Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun Al-Dlimi, the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller, and the Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller.</b></span></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>Defense and Security Cooperation is one of the cooperation areas that were agreed upon in the Strategic Framework Agreement signed in 2008 between the United States Government and the Government of the Republic of Iraq in order to strengthen cooperation in areas of mutual interest for the two countries.</b></span></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>The United States and Iraq discussed efforts to continue strengthening their security cooperation, enhance Iraq's defense capabilities, modernize Iraq's military forces, and facilitate both countries' contributions to regional security. The two delegations explored U.S.-Iraq training opportunities and Iraq's participation in regional exercises. </b></span></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>The United States and Iraq also discussed the strong and growing foreign military sales program, a symbol of the long-term security partnership envisioned by both countries. The United States stated its support for Iraq's efforts to meet its defense and security needs. </b></span></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>Both delegations reviewed regional security issues. They exchanged views on the conflict in Syria and its effects on regional stability, with both sides urging an end to the violence and support for a political transition that would represent the will of the Syrian people. The two sides agreed to continue consulting closely on regional security matters.</b></span></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>The capstone event was the exchange of a Memorandum of Understanding signed by Defense Minister Saadoun Al-Dlimi and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. This agreement represents the enduring strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq, and provides mechanisms for increased defense cooperation in areas including defense planning, counterterrorism cooperation, and combined exercises.</b></span></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>Finally, the United States and the Republic of Iraq committed to convene a third recurring Defense and Security Cooperation Joint Coordination Committee meeting in Washington, D.C., during 2013 to continue discussions on the enduring security and military cooperation between the two countries.</b> </span></div><div><span id="yiv40467651ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder_Body_lblArticleContent"><b>View the Memorandum of Understanding at: </b><a href="http://www.defense.gov/releases/US-IraqMOUDefenseCooperation.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>http://www.defense.gov/releases/US-IraqMOUDefenseCooperation.pdf</b></a> </span></div><div>As we noted in real time, Saadoun al-Dulaimi is not Minister of Defense he is 'acting Minister of Defense.' <span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost">Back in July, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/22/world/meast/iraq-violence/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observed</a>, "Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has struggled to forge a lasting power-sharing agreement and has yet to fill key Cabinet positions, including the ministers of defense, interior and national security, while his backers have also shown signs of wobbling support." We also noted that the DoD link did not work. It does now. It's a brief document. </span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost">The White House got what they wanted: The right to add US troops on the ground in Iraq. Read over section two.</span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>The Participants intend to undertake the following types of defense cooperation activities:</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>a) reciprocal visits and meetings by high-ranking delegations to military facilities and institutions; </b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>b) exchanges of instructors, training personnel, and students between Participants' military academies and related institutions;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>c) counterterrorism cooperation;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>d) the development of defense intelligence capabilities;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>e) cooperation in the fields of defense-related research and development and technology security; </b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>f) acquisition and procurement of defense articles and services;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>g) exchanges of information and experiences acquired in the field of military operations, including in connection with international humanitarian and peacekeeping operations;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>h) training and exchange of information regarding the development of military health services, military health facilities, and military medicine training opportunities; </b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>i) training and exchanges of information regarding staff organization and human resources for regulation and management of defense personnel;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>j) cooperation for the development of logistics support and sustainment systems;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>k) defense planning;</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>l) joint exercises; and</b></span></span></div><div><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><span class="yiv40467651fullpost"><b>m) cooperation in the area of social, athletic, and military culture activities. </b></span></span></div><div>That's very clear if you understand contracts.</div><div>Sadly, with the 2008 Status Of Forces Agreement, we learned that most people -- including reporters -- don't understand contracts. For that reason we did multiple and repeated walk throughs. We explained the aspect of options. At one point, we even used Rick Springfield as an example. We tried to make it interesting and basic. And we went over it over and over. In the community, people understood. Outside the community, our thanks for that was to have United For Peace and Justice loons attack us. The SOFA, they just knew, meant after three years, it's over. Were they lying or were that they stupid?</div><div>I'm going to repeat what I said when I got the most ticked off: When you've broken a multi-million dollar contract with a coporation and walked without a lawsuit because you knew what you were doing, then sit yourself down next to me and tell me about contract law. Until then, you should probably just try to nod along to a conversation that is clearly over your head. And if it helps, I didn't just break the contract, I kept the bulk of the money.</div><div>As we saw in 2011, the White House was attempting to re-negotiate the SOFA or come up with a new agreement. As we said here, that was a possible outcome. The White House team got caught on the immunity issue in 2011. They also had a more active press which was being fed details of the negotiations by some who did not support US troops remaining in Iraq (for various reasons -- often solely because they didn't want Barack to look like a liar in his 2012 re-election bid). So that ended up being the sticky point. The press then falsely reported negotiations were over. After their false report, we were at the hearing where both General Martin Dempsey (Chair of the Joint Chiefs) and DoD Secretary Leon Panetta testified that negotiations were still going on (Panetta would state in that November Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that he believed some agreement would be reached in 2012). A ton of reporters were present at the hearing but only one reported that aspect: Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times. The hearing made all three broadcast networks' evening news -- and they all avoided the actual news that the negotiations continued. Instead, they focused on a 'testy' exchange between Panetta and Senator John McCain that was forgotten before the hearing ended (both men were laughing about the exchange in the second round of questions). That really didn't matter but ongoing negotiations did. (For coverage of that hearing, see November 15th's "<a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2011/11/iraq-snapshot_15.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Iraq snapshot</a>," November 16th's "<a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2011/11/iraq-snapshot_16.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Iraq snapshot</a>," November 17th's "<a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2011/11/iraq-snapshot_17.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Iraq snapshot,</a>" <b>Ava</b>'s "<span class="yiv40467651item-title"><a href="http://trinaskitchen.blogspot.com/2011/11/scott-brown-questions-panetta-and.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)</span></a>,</span>" <b>Wally</b>'s "<span class="yiv40467651item-title"><a href="http://sexandpoliticsandscreedsandattitude.blogspot.com/2011/11/costs-wally.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">The costs (Wally)</span></a>,</span>" <b>Kat</b>'s "<span class="yiv40467651item-title"><a href="http://katskornerofthecommonills.blogspot.com/2011/11/who-wanted-what.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">Who wanted what?</span></a></span>" and Third's "<a href="http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogspot.com/2011/11/editorial-silences-that-enable-and-kill.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Editorial: The silences that enable and kill</a>," "<a href="http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogspot.com/2011/11/enduring-bases-staging-platforms.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Enduring bases, staging platforms, continued war</a>" and "<a href="http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogspot.com/2011/11/gen-dempsey-talks-10-enduring-us-bases.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gen Dempsey talks "10 enduring" US bases in Iraq</a>.")</div><div>Kid yourself that the news media in America is serving the public and informing them.</div><div>The left's been taken over by a toxic strand in the last four years: Hatred of women. You see it over and over especially when it comes to the lives of Iraqi women. Thanks to the United States government, Iraqi women have lost their most basic rights and Iraq has elements that wants to create a home grown Taliban to control women. In that environment, a US ambassador to Iraq has to be above board. You cannot send a man (and the administration refuses to nominate a woman -- four times now, Barack has refused to nominate a woman for the post) if his mere presence means Iraqi women are not safe if they visit the Baghdad embassy. Brett McGurk.</div><div>The toxic strand silenced the bulk of the left on McGurk. He never should have been considered for the post. But the left with outlets like <i>The Nation</i> and <i>Democracy Now</i> didn't want to tell their audiences what was what. But when it turned out that married Brett McGurk had an affair with married reporter Gina Chon while McGurk was working for the administration, it should have raised serious questions.</div><div>The toxic left has been happy to document Lara Logan's sexual activities. She slept with a contractor! When do I care about Lara Logan's sex life? When she gets into bed with a US official. Until then, she can sleep with whomever she wants and more power to her. But Gina Chon worked for the <i>Wall St. Journal</i>. The paper was the only one who gave damn about ethics. The sick Victor Navasky made sure that <i>CJR </i>would look the other way -- we've all been looking the other way for years as Victor's been a menace to women, haven't we? But the <i>Wall St. Journal </i>grasped that you can't sleep with a source and you can't let the source vet your copy -- especially when your source is a government employee. That's why Gina's no longer with the <i>Wall St. Journal</i>.</div><div>Sending <a href="http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2012/06/isaiahs-world-today-just-nuts.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">'swinging' Brett</a> back to Iraq as the US Ambassador would have been a threat to Iraqi women. This scanald was huge in Iraq. While idiots took to the airwaves to whine that Gina could sleep with whomever she wanted (forgetting the fact that Brett was a source, a government employee and was shown her copy in advance, before her editors even saw it, so he could provide 'input'), the issue was Brett cheated on his first wife while in Iraq. He was now, if Barack Obama got his way, going back to Iraq. Every Iraqi woman meeting with him would be assumed to have slept with him.</div><div>In Iraq, that can get a woman killed. </div><div>But where was <i>The Nation</i>, where was <i>Democracy Now</i>, where was the so-called <i>Progressive</i>, go down the list. None of them, as evidenced by their silence, gave a damn about Iraqi women. They were prepared to back Barack in sending an ambassador to the country that women could never meet with unless they wanted to risk their lives.</div><div>Because United For Peace and Justice grossly misinformed the American public, they didn't know who Brett was. UFPJ should have been telling them about Brett in 2008. The SOFA almost faltered once -- only once was it in serious danger.</div><div>No, that doesn't fit with the 'hard bargain' Nouri was driving meme which a bunch of crazies pushed (and, continue to which makes them look insane and like the flash card for raving "America-haters" -- when you need to believe an untruth just because it makes it appear someone 'stuck it to' the US, that's how you get the right-wing calling you "America-haters" or worse so self-check frequently because the rest of us on the left suffer enough without your crazy leading us to all be tarred and feathered). Nouri drove no hard bargains. Nouri wanted the troops there. As he demonstrated twice before with the UN extensions. If you don't know about those two extensions, you need to go to the outlet you counted and demand accountability. We don't have enough space in this snapshot to spoon feed visitors and passerbys.</div><div>But the only real time the SOFA was in jeporady was when the immunity for US troops came up. Brett's the one who found the legal language to satisfy the US government and provide Nouri with cover (the Blackwater shooting spree in Baghdad had caused many to question immunity). For having done that in the past, the supposedly anti-war left (does it exist anymore on Pacifia or in magazines -- I don't think so -- but it does remain at the grass roots) should have opposed Brett McGurk. </div><div>Just for having done that in 2008, they should have opposed him. When you factor in that he was nominated after Panetta declared in an open Senate hearing that the US was still in negotiations with Iraq over US troops, the last thing anyone against the Iraq War should have wanted was to send contract 'fixer' Brett to Iraq as the US Ambassador.</div><div>But it didn't matter to them. Where are there ethics?</div><div>I have no idea. But we've repeatedly noted where Brett's been: Iraq. And that he's worked on the negotiations.</div><div>Nouri always wanted to do the contract via Memo Of Understanding. But some in the White House -- the same raising objections to the immunity aspect in October 2011 -- felt it had to go through Parliament. It would never pass Parliament. In part because so little passes Parliament. So Brett's been very resourceful.</div><div>And some of the usual American stupid will insist that the Memo Of Understanding is being misunderstood by me. I can be wrong and I often am. But I do understand contracts and I do comprehend what I'm reading when I read the latest Memo Of Understanding.</div><div>There will be 'attachments' added to the Memo but, for now, the big news is Barack Obama got what he wanted and did so while tricking the American public. </div><div>We stood alone in pointing out that while Candy Crowley wanted to fact check Mitt Romney, she had no interest in fact checking Barack on Iraq. This despite the fact that Tim Arango's report noting Special-Ops back in Iraq and that negotiatons were ongoing to send even more troops into Iraq -- that report was only weeks old. Crowley allowed Barack to claim that all US troops were out of Iraq (a lie -- as <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/13149-until-they-all-come-home" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wiliam Rivers Pitt observed at<i> Truthout</i> last week</a>, "if you think we're not still at war in Iraq, I can introduce you to some military families who are still posting love-you-be-safe letters to that particular delivery code"), she didn't question the ongoing efforts to negotiate with Iraq on sending more troops in, she didn't question anything. She didn't do her job and none of the other moderators did because they also avoided Iraq. Yet Crowley was the worst because she wanted to be a participant and assigned herself the role of fact checker -- but she only fact checked one side.</div><div>Where are the US reports -- confirming or rejecting foreign reports -- about 3,000 US troops just going into Iraq last week? Probably in the same trash can the stories about last week's memo are in. Again, let's not pretend that the US media is interested in an informed public. They're not. They suck up to power and that's really all the bulk of them do. And, on the left, we get outraged when a Republican is in the White House and we yell and scream about how embarrassing the media is. But when it's a Democrat in the White House, suddenly we are outraged that they're even expected to be accountable. We no longer care about ethics or about the pbulic being informed. Instead, we're all supposed to run defense for the president. Don't confuse that with ethics, don't confuse that with independence. Accept it for what it is: whoring.</div><div>The world has more than enough cheap whores and they don't help the people of Iraq and they don't stop wars. We need to hold everyone's feet to the fire and a bit of advice to the Cult of St. Barack: It's a bit hard to hold his feet to the fire when you're so busy sucking his toes. </div><div>Today was Human Rights Day and the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">United Nations noted</a>:</div><div><div class="yiv40467651intro"><br /></div></div><div class="yiv40467651intro"> </div><div class="yiv40467651intro"><b>Human Rights Day presents an opportunity, every year, to celebrate human rights, highlight a specific issue, and advocate for the full enjoyment of all human rights by everyone everywhere.</b> </div><div><b>This year, the spotlight is on the rights of all people -- women, youth, minorities, persons with disabilities, indigenous people, the poor and marginalized -- to make their voices heard in public life and be included in political decision-making.</b></div><div><b>These human rights -- the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, to peaceful assembly and association, and to take part in government (articles 19, 20 and 21 of the </b><a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="United Nations: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights"><b>Universal Declaration of Human Rights</b></a><b>) have been at the centre of the historic changes in the Arab world over the past two years, in which millions have taken to the streets to demand change. In other parts of the world, the "99%" made their voices heard through the global Occupy movement protesting economic, political and social inequality.</b></div><div><br /><a href="http://www.almadapaper.net/ar/news/3900/%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D9%8A%D9%81%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%86-%D8%A3%D8%B9%D8%B6%D8%A7%D8%A1%D9%87%D9%86-%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AA%D8%AC%D9%87%D9%86-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A8%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A8-%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B2%D9%88%D8%AC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><br /></a> </div><div><a href="http://www.almadapaper.net/ar/news/3900/%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D9%8A%D9%81%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%86-%D8%A3%D8%B9%D8%B6%D8%A7%D8%A1%D9%87%D9%86-%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AA%D8%AC%D9%87%D9%86-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A8%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A8-%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B2%D9%88%D8%AC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Al Mada</i> reports</a> that women's organizations gathered in Najaf yesterday for a conference to prevent violence against women. One attendee explained that when her husband beat her she found no assistance from her family, her community or even the law. She is divorced now. For some women, divorce in Iraq can mean losing the children. Being divorced can also be a social stigma. The conference called on the clergy to educate regarding violence against women </div><div>The conference also found that laws need to be changed. MP Batoul Farouk attended the conference and she noted that the Parliament is attempting to pass more equitable laws but that their application is often impacted by customs and traditions. Staying on the topic of women and their rights, <a href="http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogspot.com/2012/12/iraqi-women-protest-treatment-of-women.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the next four paragraphs are from an article we wrote at Third yesterday</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.almadapaper.net/ar/news/3824/%D8%AA%D8%B8%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%84%D9%88%D8%AC%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%8A%D9%82-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%B6--%D8%B3%D8%AC%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%84" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Al Mada</i> reports</a> that Saturday in Falluja, women demonstrated to demand an investigation into the treatment of women in Iraqi prisons and detention centers. If you count on US press outlets, you won't learn of that protest or even why it took place. But, in reality, this is an issue that has been building for several weeks now.</div><div><br />November 27th, <a href="http://www.alliraqnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59289:2012-11-24-12-38-33&catid=41:2011-04-08-17-27-21&Itemid=86" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>All Iraq News</i> reported</a> that the Women, Family and Children's Committee was calling for the Ministry of Justice to make prisons and detention centers open to legislative committees so they can see what the conditions are. <a href="http://www.alliraqnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59305:2012-11-25-14-51-12&catid=41:2011-04-08-17-27-21&Itemid=86" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>All Iraq News</i> also noted</a> MP Safia al-Suhail is calling on the Ministry of Women to focus on eliminating violence against women in prison. November 29th, <a href="http://www.alsumaria.tv/news/67045/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B7%D9%84%D9%83-%D9%8A%D8%AA%D9%87%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%B2%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%BA%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%B0%D9%8A%D8%A8-%D8%B3%D8%AC%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%AA/ar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alsumaria reported</a> that Iraqiya MP Hamid al-Mutlaq accused security forces of raping and torturing women prison and he traces the culture back to the torture of Iraqis by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison.<br /><br /><br />November 30th, <a href="http://www.almadapaper.net/ar/news/3248/%D8%A7%D8%BA%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%AC%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%8A%D9%81%D8%AC%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%B4%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Al Mada </i>reported</a> that a fight broke out in the halls of Parliament between State of Law (Nouri al-Maliki's political slate) and Iraqiya (led by Ayad Allawi) and that it was over the issue of what is happening to Iraqi women in prisons and detention centers as well as an allegation that State of Law had attempted to bury the report and refusing to allow Parliament's Committee on Women to issue the report on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25th). <a href="http://www.daraddustour.com/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%8A%D9%84/tabid/94/smid/408/ArticleID/83927/reftab/38/Default.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Dar Addustour </i>added</a> that the Committee report is said to have found that women are being arrested without judicial warrants and that, while in prison, women are being tortured to force confessions against their husbands.</div><div>And the government's response? Saturday, December 1st, Nouri gave a speech (that has since been called out by many including Moqtada al-Sadr, Jalal Talabani, Massoud Barzani and Ayad Allawi) in which he threatened to arrest those members of Parliament who had discussed the violence against women in Iraqi prisons and detention centers.</div><div>Today, Nouri felt the need to make another speech. <a href="http://www.alsumaria.tv/news/67964/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A8%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%88%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89/ar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alsumaria reports</a> he decried the recent talk about voiolations of human rights in Iraqi prisons and said such talk was narrowing the concept of human rights. <a href="http://www.alliraqnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61061:2012-12-10-14-18-08&catid=41:2011-04-08-17-27-21&Itemid=86" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>All Iraq News</i> continues</a> that Nouri lamented the lack of focus on the victims of terrorism. <a href="http://www.alliraqnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61030:2012-12-10-10-27-41&catid=41:2011-04-08-17-27-21&Itemid=86" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">He then launched into his usual attack on the Ba'ath Party</a>. <a href="http://www.alrafidayn.com/2009-05-26-22-07-53/39224-2012-12-10-09-51-24.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Al Rafidayn</i> has</a> him also questioning publicly whether or not Moqtada al-Sadr is trustworthy. </div><div>Imagine that, Nouri wanting people to talk about something other than Iraqi prisons. He's got a long history of running secret prisons. (Ned Parker's Iraq reporting for the Los Angeles Times repeatedly touched and exposed the secret prisons. He was also one of the few American reporters to write seriously about the Ministry of the Interior.) Barack Obama ignored that public record when he backed Nouri for a second term. <a href="http://www.aliraqtimes.com/ar/page/09/12/2012/1542/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%AC%D9%88%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%8A-%D9%88%D9%81%D9%83-%D9%84%D8%BA%D8%B2-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B3%D8%B1%D9%8A.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The <i>Iraq Times</i> reports</a> that there are rumors of another secret prison as families of tens of thousands of Iraqis who've disappeared believe their loved ones are being held. Yes, Nouri would have a reason to distract from the reports that women are being tortured in Iraqi prisons.<br /><br /></div><div>Nouri has started many crises in Iraq. The latest crisis was ignited by his sending forces (Tigris Operation Command) into the disputed areas. A military stand-off between his forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga is ongoing. <a href="http://www.alrafidayn.com/2009-05-26-22-07-53/39221-2012-12-10-09-45-10.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Al Rafidayn</i> reports</a> KRG President Massoud Barzani visited Kirkuk today to inspect the Peshmerga who are stationed around the province. This follows Nouri's attack on Barzani to the Kuwait press on Sunday. <a href="http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/5514.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nehro Muhammad (<i>Rudaw</i>) notes</a> that Halgurd Hikmat, Peshmerga spokesperson, declared today that the KRG "will not give in to demands by Baghdad to withdraw its Peshmerga troops from all disputed territories." <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/barzani-visits-kirkuk-to-inspect-peshmarga-units.aspx?pageID=238&nID=36574&NewsCatID=352" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AFP offers</a> this thought, "The visit may increase already-high tension with Baghdad, which has seen both sides deploy military reinforcements to areas in north Iraq" <a href="http://www.daraddustour.com/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%8A%D9%84/tabid/94/smid/408/ArticleID/84280/reftab/38/Default.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Dar Addustour</i> adds</a> Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is in discussions with Iraqiya head Ayad Allawi on how to best resolve the crisis. <a href="http://www.almadapaper.net/ar/news/3919/%D8%B7%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A-%D9%8A%D8%A4%D9%83%D8%AF-%D8%AE%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%88%D9%81%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B2%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%B9%D9%8A-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%87%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%A1-" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Al Mada</i> notes</a> that Talabani met with Communist Party officials in Baghdad yesterday. Why would he be there? It could be any number of reasons.</div><div>But if you were Nouri al-Maliki and your hold on power was said to be slipping, you'd look at Jalal's meeting with the Communist Party and conclude that Jalal's sounding out to see where everyone stands on a no-confidence vote to remove Nouri from office. Nouri's notoriously paranoid -- as well documented in the State Dept cables -- but you don't have to be paranoid to look at Jalal's meeting with the Communist Party in the midst of this Baghdad and Erbil crisis to realize the only thing of value the Communist Party can offer currently is their support for a no-confidence vote.</div><div><br /><br />In today's violence, <i>All Iraq News</i> reports a <a href="http://www.alliraqnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61060:2012-12-10-14-12-49&catid=42:2011-04-18-02-56-30&Itemid=87" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mosul attack left two police officers injured</a>. <a href="http://www.alsumaria.tv/news/67995/%D8%A5%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D8%B9%D9%86%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%B7%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%A9-%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%81%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%AF%D9%81%D8%AA-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1/ar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alsumaria adds</a> that a Baghdad roadside bombing injured one police officer. </div><div>Today Nouri pretended to care about Palestinians. I'm not in the mood to cover his propaganda. He has been prime minister for over six years now. And Palestinians in Iraq were herded into camps, really unprotected from the elements and treated worse than animals. (<a href="http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4264/an-ongoing-nakba_the-plight-of-palestinian-refugee" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here</a> and <a href="http://www.euromid.org/marsad/index.php?action=main%2Freadcontent&lang=en&cat=1&id=318" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> for more on the topic.) When they've managed to leave those camps, it has not been pretty. Just a few months ago, <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-refugees-forced-out-iraq-feared-lost-sea-en-route-australia" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ali Abunimah (<i>Electronic Intifada</i>) was reporting</a> on one group of Palestinian refugees. In an attempt to muster some regional support for his iffy position, Nouri wanted to grandstand on the back of Palestinians after being behind their mistreatment in Iraq for over six years now.</div><div>The US State Dept issued the following this afternoon: </div><div><div id="yiv40467651templateFields"><span class="yiv40467651multiple_speakers"> </span><br /><span class="yiv40467651multiple_speakers"> <div><span class="yiv40467651official_s_bureau"><b>Office of the Spokesperson</b></span></div></span></div><div id="yiv40467651templateFields"><span class="yiv40467651location-"><b>Washington, DC</b></span></div><div id="yiv40467651date_long"><b>December 10, 2012</b></div></div><div><div id="yiv40467651centerblock"><div><b>Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Thomas Nides departed for Baghdad, Iraq today where he will meet with senior Iraqi officials to discuss areas of mutual interest in the U.S.-Iraq relationship. Deputy Secretary Nides will also meet with Ambassador Beecroft and senior embassy leadership for a progress report on our efforts to streamline our presence in Iraq and to discuss ways to accelerate these efforts going forward.</b></div><div><b>Upon departure from Iraq, Deputy Secretary Nides will lead a delegation of U.S. Government officials to the annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on December 11-12. Deputy Nides will be joined by U.S. Department of Commerce Under Secretary for International Trade Francisco J. Sánchez; Assistant Secretary of State for Economics and Business Affairs Jose W. Fernandez; Executive Vice President of OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) Mimi Alemayehou; and also from the Department of State, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science, Space and Health in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Jonathan Margolis; Special Representative for Global Partnerships Kris Balderston; Special Advisor on Global Youth Issues Zeenat Rahman; and Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs Lorraine Hariton.</b></div><div><b>In 2009, President Obama elevated entrepreneurship as a critical pillar of U.S. global engagement to deepen ties between the United States and the international community. Since then, the U.S. Government has committed to supporting entrepreneurship to help channel the creativity, innovation, and potential of millions of individuals around the world to create economic opportunity. The GES is the leading U.S. Government-supported forum for promoting economic growth through entrepreneurship. The Summit provides an opportunity to link U.S. economic leadership with an encouraging trend towards entrepreneurship in Muslim-majority countries.</b></div><div><b>The U.S. Government remains committed to supporting innovation and entrepreneurship through our many agencies, organizations and programs dedicated to promoting sustainable growth, expanding trade, and improving the investment climate.</b></div><div><b>Viewers may follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag (#GES_EVA).</b></div><div><b>For further information, please contact Jeffrey Ladenson at </b><a href="http://us.mc1624.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ladensonjl@state.gov" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>ladensonjl@state.gov</b></a><b>, 971-(0) 50-616-2935.</b></div></div></div><div>Lastly, Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and her office issued the following today on homelessness:</div><div><b>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</b></div><div><b>Monday, December 10, 2012</b></div><div><b>Contact: Murray Press Office</b></div><div><b>(202) 224-2834</b></div><div><b>HOMELESS VETERANS: Chairman Murray Statement on Decline in Homeless Veterans Population</b></div><div><b _yuid="yui_3_1_1_2_1355182203187180">WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD), made the following statement after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, released the 2012 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR). The report showed a 7.2 percent decline in veterans homelessness since 2011 and a 17.2 decline since 2009. However, the report also details a 1.4 percent increase among persons in families.</b></div><div><b>"Those who heroically served America in the military should not find themselves struggling to find a bed to sleep in or a meal to eat," said Chairman Murray. "With new servicemembers returning home every day and the economy on the road to recovery, it is critically important to continue supporting programs like HUD-VASH and the SSVF. I am grateful for the progress we have seen, because these programs have been working. However, I am deeply concerned about the data indicating an increase in homeless families. I firmly believe the success of our nation's families and the future of our economy are rooted in the investments we make in basic necessities like education and housing. And I remain committed to providing Ameirca's families and veterans with the sense of security and dignity they all deserve."</b></div><div><b>###</b></div><div><div><b><br />Megan Roh</b></div><div><b>Deputy Press Secretary | New Media Director</b></div><div><b>Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray</b></div><div><a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/PattyMurray" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>@PattyMurray</b></a></div><div><b>202-224-2834</b></div><div><a href="http://murray.hilltopcms.com/subscribe" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>Get Updates from Senator Murray</b></a></div></div><div><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/iraq" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">iraq</span></a></div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/rock+center+with+brian+williams" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">rock center with brian williams</span></a><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/nbc+news" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">nbc news</span></a><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/ted+koppel" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">ted koppel</span></a><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/the+new+york+times" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">the new york times</span></a><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/tim+arango" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc6611;">tim arango</span></a></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/the+voice+of+russia" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the voice of russia</a> </div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/press+tv" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">press tv</a> </div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/the+iraq+times" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the iraq times</a> </div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/alsumaria" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">alsumaria</a> </div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/al+mada" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">al mada</a> </div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/all+iraq+times" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">all iraq times</a><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/al+rafidayn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">al rafidayn</a> </div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/rudaw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rudaw</a> </div><div><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/nehro+muhammad" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">nehro muhammad</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-61857792539320789892012-12-10T16:50:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:39.723-08:00Uttara (2000) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online <img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A4j7ZLfyMlY/UMaDB7BlKPI/AAAAAAAAINU/vhN9Tc2iqfg/s1600/Uttara.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="267" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A4j7ZLfyMlY/UMaDB7BlKPI/AAAAAAAAINU/vhN9Tc2iqfg/s1600/Uttara.jpg" width="200"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Uttara 2000 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLBE2416DF88604CBC&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Jaya Seal, Tapas Pal, Shankar Chakraborty, R.I. Asad, Tapas Adhikari, Saurav Das, Gautam Warshi, Masood Akhtar <b>Genre:</b> Drama <b>Director:</b> Buddhadev Dasgupta</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-58428359001576754292012-12-10T16:45:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:39.846-08:00Byomkesh Bakshi (2010) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J7MRt0QMQeQ/UMaBzd9GFgI/AAAAAAAAINI/rYkD7b3vlRs/s1600/Byomkesh%2BBakshi.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="320" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J7MRt0QMQeQ/UMaBzd9GFgI/AAAAAAAAINI/rYkD7b3vlRs/s1600/Byomkesh%2BBakshi.jpg" width="224"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Byomkesh Bakshi 2010 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLA5DFDB007702723C&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Biswajit Chakraborty, Abir Chatterjee, Sasawata Chatterjee, Rudranil Ghosh, Swastika Mukherjee <b>Genre:</b> Drama, Mystery, Thriller <b>Director:</b> Anjan Dutt</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-87424625475716391002012-12-10T16:36:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:39.925-08:00Jiban mrityu (1967) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u8RXAda-d5w/UMZ_rMDrXtI/AAAAAAAAIM8/1uhY6FZJmKY/s1600/Jiban%2Bmrityu.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="240" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u8RXAda-d5w/UMZ_rMDrXtI/AAAAAAAAIM8/1uhY6FZJmKY/s1600/Jiban%2Bmrityu.jpg" width="173"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Jiban mrityu 1967 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL0852A2024B8CE684&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><center>SOURCE - 2</center><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL9DFC9B53144B4714&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Uttam Kumar, Supriya Choudhury, Tarun Kumar, Kamal Mitra, Dipak Mukherjee, Bankim Ghosh, Samita Biswas <b>Genre:</b> Drama <b>Director:</b> Hiren Nag, Biswanath Roy</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-25668306815508145262012-12-10T16:29:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:39.962-08:00Jodi Jantem (1974) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVTD_HqINSI/UMZ9-aVUJjI/AAAAAAAAIMw/1BuJQtl_IGo/s1600/Jodi%2BJantem.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="240" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVTD_HqINSI/UMZ9-aVUJjI/AAAAAAAAIMw/1BuJQtl_IGo/s1600/Jodi%2BJantem.jpg" width="194"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Jodi Jantem 1974 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLC933A36D723D0BF6&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Cast: Uttam Kumar, Supriya Choudhury, Soumitra Chatterjee, Asitbaran, Tarun Kumar, Basant Choudhury, Kamal Mitra <b>Genre:</b> Drama <b>Director:</b> Yatrik</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-41772164424314618402012-12-10T16:23:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:40.027-08:00Jibon Jigyasa (1971) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online <img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-214k2wWOxxI/UMZ8ui1Am9I/AAAAAAAAIMk/9dRphFOyBro/s1600/Jibon%2BJigyasa.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="283" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-214k2wWOxxI/UMZ8ui1Am9I/AAAAAAAAIMk/9dRphFOyBro/s1600/Jibon%2BJigyasa.jpg" width="225"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Jibon Jigyasa 1971 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL7D695E04927B7060&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Uttam Kumar, Supriya Debi, Chandraboti Debi, Tarun Kumar, Mantu Banerjee, Geeta Dey, Sulata Choudhury <b>Genre:</b> Drama <b>Director:</b> Piyush Basu</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-39430065355853393682012-12-10T16:18:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:40.059-08:00Swet Pathorer Thala (1992) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jc9ZMyUOCs0/UMZ7au6hXxI/AAAAAAAAIMY/yeiU5miXjl8/s1600/Swet%2BPathorer%2BThala.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="240" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jc9ZMyUOCs0/UMZ7au6hXxI/AAAAAAAAIMY/yeiU5miXjl8/s1600/Swet%2BPathorer%2BThala.jpg" width="174"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Swet Pathorer Thala 1992 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLEB35AC3EE3FB3B5A&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Haradhan Banerjee, Depankar Dey, Aparna Sen, Rituparna Sengupta, Indrani Halder <b>Genre:</b> Drama <b>Director:</b> Probhat Roy</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-42014283792262779612012-12-10T16:12:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:40.093-08:00Parashuram (1980) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMwzwuQ_9sY/UMZ6FrDxksI/AAAAAAAAIMM/YSKqB5GFKjw/s1600/Parashuram.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="240" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMwzwuQ_9sY/UMZ6FrDxksI/AAAAAAAAIMM/YSKqB5GFKjw/s1600/Parashuram.jpg" width="173"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Parashuram 1980 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLDD3AED501B2817E0&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Jayanta Bhattacharya, Bibhas Chakraborty, Anuradha Debi, Nirmal Ghosh, Sreela Majumdar, Arun Mukherjee <b>Genre:</b> Family <b>Director:</b> Mrinal Sen</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-3410751404364698222012-12-10T15:59:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:56:40.172-08:00Ora Thakey Odharey (1954) Bengali Movie HQ Watch Online<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a-zHFrrGZNY/UMZ2fUI9o_I/AAAAAAAAIKQ/E52d-EGwhSE/s1600/Ora%2BThakey%2BOdharey.jpg" /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0px 0 0 0;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="240" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a-zHFrrGZNY/UMZ2fUI9o_I/AAAAAAAAIKQ/E52d-EGwhSE/s1600/Ora%2BThakey%2BOdharey.jpg" width="172"></iframe><br /> <h4><b>Ora Thakey Odharey 1954 – Watch Full Free Bengali Movie Online</b></h4><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="410" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL86263CD6E33BEB68&hl=en_US" width="660"></iframe></center><br /><span style="font-size: 90%;"><b>Movie Starring:</b> Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Molina Devi, Chhabi Biswas, Tulsi Chakraborty, Bhanu Bannerjee <b>Genre:</b> Comedy, Family, Romance <b>Director:</b> Sukumar Dasgupta</span> <br /><br /></div> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-72589787519058365932012-12-10T14:53:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:44:03.069-08:00MOVIES I MISSED IN 2012: HIGH-RISE TO HELL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HsyWpUy1Ge8/UMWBtIzRJVI/AAAAAAAAKYM/O7ZTiWX-QWs/s1600/raidredemption.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HsyWpUy1Ge8/UMWBtIzRJVI/AAAAAAAAKYM/O7ZTiWX-QWs/s200/raidredemption.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>There are some movies that beautiful and true chiefly in their purity: they are, and they pretend to be, one thing only. Such it is with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1899353/"><i>The Raid: Redemption</i></a>, an Indonesian action movie written and directed by a Welshman, Gareth Huw Evans. An action movie, and nothing at all <i>but</i> an action movie: insofar as the film has anything like a "plot" to speak of, it seems awfully ashamed of it, and insofar as it develops its characters, it is mostly to justify specific beats in the action to come.<br /><br />No, this movie is about one thing: gun and knife battles. Two things, then. And it has an irresistible conceptual hook upon which to hang these battles: Rama (Iko Uwais), a supercop, is part of a team led by Jaka (Joe Taslim) and Wahyu (Pierre Gruno) infiltrating a high-rise Jakarta tenement building where druglord Tama Riyada (Ray Sahetapy) runs his empire. Very shortly after the police squad enters the building, they are spotted, by sheerest accident, by a boy in Tama's employ, who raises the alarm, and causes Tama to send out a message to the entire building to the effect of, "there are cops, and I want you all to kill them". Which means that instead of sneaking up floor-by-floor, the cops are now obliged to fight their way through an army of drugged-out thugs and Tama's special pair of lieutenants: Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian) and Andi (Donny Alamsyah), the latter of whom has a secret past that concerns Rama. And since the film very quickly kills off or incapacitates everybody <i>but</i> Rama, forcing him to fight his way single-handedly to Tama's lair - I said he was a supercop - a showdown between Rama and Andi is clearly in store.<br /><br />Even that, though, is more than you really need to know: "cop fights his way through an apartment building of disposable henchmen" is enough. Because that's the only part of <i>The Raid</i> that really matters: its depiction of fight sequences of less or much, much more violence and intensity. The peculiar thing is that it really <i>does</i> matter: the film might be selling an extremely limited product to a very self-selecting audience, but as action movies go, by God, it is one of the very best and most important in an age. Not simply because it is largely unflagging: after the 10-minute mark, this 100-minute film doesn't really bother with anything other than setpieces, or the brief lulls between setpieces that only represent a minor dip in momentum and severity. Though certainly, as there are more and more action movies that spend more and more time slowing down with the characters to little real effect, that alone is reason to give the movie a spin.<br /><br />Mostly, the film is good because, well, <i>it's good</i>: not merely the quantity, but the quality of the action scenes is at a level rarely met these days, and despite the incredible quantity of blood that gets splattered around throughout the film - the visual effects are just persuasive enough that you never doubt the movie's reality for a second, though it's also never disgusting or prurient - Evans takes a downright classical approach to staging the action, which is considerably more intelligible and thus more engaging than the reigning style in most contemporary Hollywood films, where editing used less as a tool to increase the intensity and force of the action, but to cover it in a thick layer of inscrutable style, attempting to suggest hectic momentum by turning the film itself into an assault, rather than trusting the on-screen action itself to keep us invested and excited. <i>The Raid</i> is certainly not light on style, but its main approach is as old-fashioned as a '30s musical: show as much of the human body doing impressive feats as you can manage. True, <i>The Raid</i> is cut at a fairly machine-gunned rate when compared to a Fred Astaire number, but it's also a good deal slower than something like the manically lifeless <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/"><i>The Expendables 2</i></a>, or any of the big, pulverising comic book movies you could name.<br /><br />Certainly, Uwais, a martial artist whose only other screen credit is Evans's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1368116/"><i>Merantau</i></a>, makes for a terrific action star, flinging himself around as needed to make the action seem as visceral and savage as need be; but the movie does everything in its power to frame him in the best possible light. It is a wonderfully holistic action movie, if that phrase makes any sense at all: the editing cuts on all the right beats to make punches and gunshots land with a crack of doom, the camerawork (the film has two cinematographers, Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono) is furiously ragged - handheld hasn't been this well-used in a long time - doing the job of making things seem wildly chaotic and unstable that other films try to do with editing, but it works out much better here. Best of all might be the sound design, among the best in any movie I've seen in 2012, comfortably blending a hellish barrage of gunshots and explosions with the sound of men talking, screaming, and grunting.<br /><br />Or, I should take that back - <i>best</i> of all is the ingenious way all of this is staged, with some of the most impressively creative moments I've seen in an action film, maybe ever: there's a shot of cops dropping through a hole in the floor where the camera plunges right on with them that is, legitimately, as well-executed as any single camera movement that I have ever seen. A lot of this is only looking to score cool points, which doesn't speak terribly well of the film's depth or intelligence; but it's a film that <i>wants</i> to be cool, and it gets there without any irony or detachment, like its American cousins. In fact, most of the cleverest, coolest moments are also the most impactful and visceral - another highlight is a sequence that find Rama hiding in a wall to avoid death-by-machete, and the moment when he receives a nasty cut to the face and has to swallow down his scream is one of the best human-sized moments in an action movie in years - and while the film can be accused, rightfully, of being all about style, that style is strictly meant to draw us further into the film, not give us a haughty way to stand above it. This is, in fact, as deeply involving as any equally shallow action movie I have ever seen, which maybe means that it's no so "shallow" as all that, anyway. Just because it's not a human story doesn't mean it can't be about living, bleeding, relatable human beings.<br /><br />9/10Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-43787161879724310182012-12-10T11:46:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:30:18.920-08:00Motherhood Mondays: An ode to rituals<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cKAFez2iNT8/UMY54xQxY7I/AAAAAAAA39E/-Xc_8qxMiRQ/s1600/jenny-rosenstrach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="719" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cKAFez2iNT8/UMY54xQxY7I/AAAAAAAA39E/-Xc_8qxMiRQ/s719/jenny-rosenstrach.jpg" width="575"></a>My friend <a href="http://www.dinneralovestory.com/" target="_blank">Jenny Rosenstrach</a> wrote the cookbook/memoir <a href="http://goo.gl/dheXt" target="_blank">Dinner: A Love Story</a>, and as I was reading it for the hundredth time in bed this weekend...<a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2012/12/motherhood-mondays-ode-to-rituals.html#more"><strong>Read More ></strong></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-37125825430970714662012-12-10T11:30:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:47:38.162-08:00Get the Latest Weather with Uber Weather<a href="http://uberweather.com/" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ne2OFNOJC6I/UMYzKJJ5skI/AAAAAAAAW_o/CRMvhnd9zxA/s523/mapsmania.gif" /></a> <br /><b><a href="http://uberweather.com/" style="color: #cc0000;" target="_blank">Uber Weather</a></b> is a new Google Maps based weather service that provides the current weather, weather forecasts and a wealth of other weather related information. <br /><br />The map includes a real-time cloud layer, using data supplied by weather.com. It is also possible to view a temperature layer (pictured) that displays a heat map of current temperatures. To get a forecast for a particular location the user can enter a town or city name and switch to 'city view'. It is then possible to get your local weather information and a four day forecast.<br /><br />Uber Weather can also be used to get information about global ski resorts, snow reports and even view the locations of ski lifts. The application also contains a number of other layers to view current traffic, nearby cafes, bike paths and much more.<br /><br />Uber Weather is available as an application on the <b><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/uber" style="color: #cc0000;" target="_blank" title="Chrome Web Store">Google Chrome Web Store</a></b>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-40080414957408440722012-12-10T09:55:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:29:48.838-08:00Khiladi 786 2012 Hindi Movie Watch Online<br /><br /><br /><br />Release Date : 7 December 2012<br /><br />Director : Ashish R. Mohan<br /><br />Genres : Action, Comedy<br /><br /><br />Cast in Khiladi 786 :<br /><br />Akshay Kumar ... Khiladi 786<br /><br />Asin Thottumkal ... Indu Tendulkar<br /><br />Mithun Chakraborty ... Tatya Tukaram Tendulkar<br /><br />Paresh Rawal ... Champaklal<br /><br />Himesh Reshammiya ... Mansukh<br /><br />Johnny Lever ... Inspector Bhalerao Kambli<br /><br />Raj Babbar ... Sattar<br /><br />Mukesh Rishi ... "Ikhatar<br /><br />Gurpreet Ghuggi ..Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-90869700236985371932012-12-10T09:54:00.002-08:002012-12-24T01:29:48.868-08:00Watch This Means War Online<br /><br /><br /><br />Release Date : 14 February 2012<br /><br />Director : McG<br /><br />Genres : Comedy, Action, Romance<br /><br />Cast in This Means War :<br /><br /><br />Reese Witherspoon ... Lauren<br /><br />Chris Pine ... FDR Foster<br /><br />Natassia Malthe ... Xenia<br /><br />Laura Vandervoort ... Britta<br /><br />Tom Hardy ... Tuck<br /><br />Til Schweiger ... Heinrich<br /><br />Chelsea Handler ... Trish<br /><br />John Paul Ruttan ... Joe<br /><br />Abigail Spencer ... Katie<br /><br />Angela Bassett ... Collins<br /><br />Rosemary HarrisAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-59074940130646990382012-12-10T09:54:00.001-08:002012-12-24T01:29:48.861-08:00Ata Pata Laapata 2012 Hindi Movie Watch Online<br /><br /><br /><br />Release Date : 2 November 2012<br /><br />Director : Rajpal Yadav<br /><br />Gener : Comedy, Musical<br /><br /><br />Cast in Ata Pata Laapata :<br /><br /><br />Rajpal Yadav ... Manav / Satyanand<br /><br />Asrani ... Session Court Lawyer<br /><br />Mukesh Tiwari ... Girdharilal<br /><br />Amit Behl ... Lawyer<br /><br />Krishna Bhatt ... Sevakram<br /><br />Raja Bherwani ... Lawyer<br /><br />Sharat Saxena ... M.D. of Insurance Company<br /><br />Late Pt. Satyadev Dubey ... Pagla Baba<br /><br />Jayant Gadekar ... Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-50968466181110304192012-12-10T09:54:00.000-08:002012-12-24T01:29:48.854-08:003 Bachelors 2012 Hindi Movie Watch Online<br /><br /><br /><br />Release Date : 29 June 2012<br /><br />Director : Ajai Sinha<br /><br />Genres : Comedy, Romance<br /><br /><br />Cast in 3 Bachelors :<br /><br /><br />Sharman Joshi ... Amit<br /><br />Raima Sen ... Neha<br /><br />Riya Sen ... Nisha<br /><br />Manoj Pahwa ... Deepak Verma<br /><br />Himani Shivpuri ... Principal Shalini Devi<br /><br />Manish Nagpal ... Jai<br /><br />Nigar Khan, Master Kashish, Master Salin<br /><br /><br /><br />3 Bachelors 2012 Hindi Movie Watch Online Full Movie Novamov Link :<br /><br /><br /><br />3 Bachelors 2012Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-83579379764724904442012-12-10T09:53:00.005-08:002012-12-24T01:29:49.080-08:00The Dark Knight Rises 2012 Hindi Dubbed Movie Watch Online<br /><br /><br /><br />Release Date : 16 July 2012<br /><br />Director : Christopher Nolan<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Geners : Action, Drama, Thriller<br /><br /><br />Cast : Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine, Alon Aboutboul, Ben Mendelsohn, Burn Gorman<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Dark Knight Rises 2012 Hindi Dubbed Movie Watch Online Movshare Link :<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Dark Knight RisesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-41218083267080839822012-12-10T09:53:00.004-08:002012-12-24T01:29:49.073-08:00Watch The Bourne Legacy Online<br /><br /><br /><br />Release Date : 10 August 2012<br /><br />Director : Tony Gilroy<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Genres : Action, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller<br /><br /><br />Cast in The Bourne Legacy :<br /><br /><br />Jeremy Renner ... Aaron Cross<br /><br />Scott Glenn ... Ezra Kramer<br /><br />Rachel Weisz ... Dr. Marta Shearing<br /><br />Donna Murphy ... Dita Mandy<br /><br />Michael Chernus ... Arthur Ingram<br /><br />Corey Stoll ... Zev Vendel<br /><br /><br /><br />Watch The Bourne Legacy Online Filenuke<br /><br /><br /><br />Watch Free The Bourne Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177444938513781104.post-55759708670550485312012-12-10T09:53:00.003-08:002012-12-24T01:29:49.019-08:00Watch Resident Evil 5 Online<br /><br /><br /><br />Release Date : 14 September 2012<br /><br />Director : Paul W.S. Anderson<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Genres : Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller<br /><br /><br />Cast in Resident Evil: Retribution :<br /><br /><br />Milla Jovovich ... Alice<br /><br />Sienna Guillory ... Jill Valentine<br /><br />Ali Larter ... Claire Redfield<br /><br />Michelle Rodriguez ... Rain<br /><br />Oded Fehr ... Todd / Carlos<br /><br />Aryana Engineer ... Becky<br /><br />Kevin Durand ... Barry Burton<br /><br />Bingbing Li ... Ada Wong<br /><br />Megan Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09040205939105389518noreply@blogger.com0