Charlie Chaplin statue banned in India

Hindu extremists wreck plans for statue of 'Christian' Charlie Chaplin

Rhys Blakely in Mumbai

(United Artists) Chaplin in The Great Dictator.

Pathetic stupidity has once again been shown by the Hindu extremists who say the actor's work is symbolic of a Western culture that must be resisted. Give me a break you fools. Well wearing western jeans, clothing, eating fast food, watching American/English movie DVDs, going to night clubs, dancing and drinking alcohol, traveling to Europe/America and the filthy pathetic things of Bollywood...isn't that all smithering in western culture ? The Indians are rolling over in western culture inside out and all these foolish extremist could make an excuse is about Chaplin statue. Open your eyes you doti wearing fools and look in you own backyard or better look into your own household for a change...To my readers carry on reading if you so desire.....

He fought Fascism in the 1940s armed with little more than a crumpled suit, a bemused look and funny walk. Now Charlie Chaplin is embroiled in another battle of beliefs, this time with India’s Hindu extremists.

Radicals in the southern state of Karnataka have stymied plans to erect a 20m (67ft) statue of the film star because he was a Christian. The move comes amid a campaign against Western culture that has raised concerns that parts of India are being “Talebanised” by Hinduism’s far Right.

The Chaplin sculpture, which would have shown him in his baggy trousers and bowler hat, was being built at a cost of about 3.5 million rupees (£48,600) near the town of Udupi, the site of several important Hindu temples. It was to form part of a set for a dance routine in a film but work ground to a halt when Hindu activists chased the workers away and buried the materials.

Hemant Hegde, the film-maker, told local reporters that he abandoned the project after being threatened by a mob of 50 people whose leader told him: “We will not allow you to construct a statue of a Christian actor.”

The protesters were said to belong to the Hindu Jagarna Vedike (Hindu Enlightenment Group), a group linked to an attack on a Christian school in the same state last May. They demanded that Mr Hegde instead erect a statue of Swami Vivekananda, a 19th-century Hindu missionary to the West.

Mr Hegde told a local TV channel: “I’m really surprised that people would associate Charlie Chaplin with being a Christian and not allow the statue.” Chaplin, whose 1940 masterwork The Great Dictator mocked Hitler and Nazism, might also have been confused: the British-born actor was baptised into the Church of England but later avowed himself agnostic.

Commentators warned that the dispute was part of a wider revolt by extremists who claim that Indian values are under attack from Western cultural imports. One of the most shocking incidents came in January when a mob of followers of the Sri Ram Sena (Lord Ram’s Army), a radical Hindu group, assaulted young women in a pub in Mangalore, a college town also in Karnataka.

Valentine’s Day celebrations, kissing in Bollywood films and cheerleaders at Indian Premier League cricket matches are also targets. The Times of India said yesterday: “With amazing regularity, petty and prejudiced acts that rip at the social fabric of society are hitting the headlines.”

The local head of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist and India’s main opposition party, said there was no place for Chaplin in the region. “If the locals are against such a statue, I am also against it,” he told The Times of India. “Why should one bother so much about Charlie Chaplin, who was not even an Indian?”

Karnataka has one of the poorest records for anti-Christian violence in the country. According to the Global Council of Indian Christians, at least 112 anti-Christian attacks were recorded in the state last year.

The state government, control of which was won by the BJP last year, said recently that it was considering laws that would govern the circumstances under which Hindus could convert to Christianity. Pro-Christian advocates claim similar laws already in place have provided the pretext for anti-Christian violence in other states.

Speaking in favour of the proposed new laws, S. Suresh Kumar, the Karnataka minister for law, justice and human rights, said: “Poor and uneducated Hindus are becoming victims of false propaganda against Hinduism.”

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5912873.ece)

IRA plotting to kill Princes William and Harry

IRA plotting to kill Princes William, Harry, Report

London. The security cover for Britain's Princes William and Harry has been stepped up over fears that IRA terrorists are plotting to assassinate the royals, a new report said on sunday.

Scotland Yard fears the Princes, who are officers in the British Army, are prize targets for Irish Republican Army (IRA). The number of close protection officers guarding the two royals on each shift has been increased, Britain's Sunday Express reported today. The threat level has been upgraded following the murders of two soldiers and a police officer in Northern Ireland. "The Princes are regarded as legitimate targets by these madmen. The number of royalty protection officers has been increased from two to three and they are being reinforced by a back-up team of two," a source within the security services was quoted as saying by the Express. "No risks are being taken. William and Harry like to get about in London when they are not on duty and that makes them vulnerable," the source said. Princes' bodyguards and the security agencies are concerned that even with heightened threat William, 26, and Harry, 24, want to live as normal as possible. The tightening of royal security comes as police hunting the gunmen who killed two British soldiers at Massereene barracks in Antrim last Saturday arrested three men yesterday, the report said. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/IRA-plotting-to-kill-UK-princes-Report/articleshow/4268741.cms)

Angry Balloon being sold as Egyptian artefact

eBay prankster selling 'angry balloon' on eBay as ancient Egyptian artefact

I came across this article and found it really funny..I thought my readers may enjoy it too...

Full of hot air ... the prankster claims the balloon is either from Ancient Egypt or the Howard era / eBay

AN EBAY prankster is trying to sell a balloon with an angry face scrawled across it with marker pen.

"I don't know where it came from but one night I heard a knock on my door and it was sitting out the front," the eBay ad says.

"I am not exactly sure but some people believe that it came from the ancient king Bobo the Clown's tomb in Egypt. This thing is freaking me out and I need to get rid of it fast."

The prankster, "vwcamper745," claims it is either a cursed artefact from Egypt or a relic from Australia's Howard era.

"It is possible that it is ancient Australian," the ad says.

"What makes me think that it might be from the Howard period is that I initially was not going to charge GST but I later changed my mind and now I will."

The balloon has been listed in the antiques section of the auction website, and the prankster claims it is cursed.

"I am not sure if this is relevant or not but if I hold a crucifx (sic) near the balloon it starts to cough up feathers. So far I have filled three cushions and one doona."

The user appears to have resurrected an account last used in 2007 to sell the prank item.

He has offered to send it deflated, or by filling it with helium and releasing it.

"Hopefully it should find its way to your place and it should save you some cash on postage."

With a starting price of $10, there have been no bids so far.

(http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25180625-5014239,00.html)

Web Inventor wants to ban online snoopers

Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee wants ban on snooping on internet users

By Richard Ford, (Home Correspondent, Telegraph, UK)

Sir Tim Berners-Lee says internet information should not be harvested

The creator of the worldwide web warned today against the collection of users’ data by commercial organisations.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee said that third parties, including companies and governments, should not be allowed to snoop on the public's browsing of the internet.

He told a meeting at Westminster: “We use the internet without a thought that a third party would know what we have clicked on. But the URLs / people use reveal a huge amount about their lives, loves, hates and fears. This is extremely sensitive information.

“People use the web in a crisis, when wondering whether they have a sexually transmitted disease, or cancer, when wondering if they are homosexual and whether to talk about it,” he said.

He said that people would consider using the web at a moment of crisis in a different light if users knew that they were being monitored and the data would be shared with a third party such as an advertising agency.

“This information is very sensitive. I feel it should not be collected,” he added.

Sir Tim said that businesses would initially insist that information was being collected only for a limited purpose but he said that they would be under enormous pressure to release it. “Once it exists, it can be used by the company or by an insider.”

Sir Tim, speaking at a meeting at Westminster organised by the Liberal Democrats to discuss the commercial use of data on the internet, said: “It should not be collected in the first place.”

There have been trials monitoring of the internet use of about 30,000 people to send adverts tailored to the users’ search interests. The development of advertising based on consumers’ internet usage is alarming privacy campaigners.

Dame Wendy Hall, a professor of computer science at Southampton University, appealed to Parliament to protect internet users’ privacy.

“There are lots of good reasons why companies and government want access to our data but there are huge downsides to that,” she said. “This debate is about our digital lives. It is about who we are, what we are interested in and what is private to us.”

(http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5890530.ece)

Cutting edge batteries recharge in seconds

Breakthrough battery can charge up in seconds

The days of waiting hours to charge a mobile phone or laptop computer could soon be over because of research that could transform battery technology in as little as two years.

Scientists in the United States have invented a battery that can charge in seconds, promising a revolution in power storage that could also help green cars and renewable energy.

The advance allows lithium-ion batteries, the standard variety used in consumer electronics and cells for electric or hybrid vehicles, both to charge and discharge stored energy more quickly than at present.

This should lead to smaller, lighter batteries for mobile phones and other devices, which can be fully charged when plugged in for a few seconds.

The researchers, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have already made a small prototype cell that charges fully in 10 to 20 seconds, compared with six minutes for cells made in the standard way.

“If you can charge your phone in 30 seconds, that becomes a life changer,” said Gerbrand Ceder, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who led the research. “It could change the way we think about technology like this: you would literally be able to charge up while you stand and wait.”

The technology has been nicknamed the “beltway battery”, after the orbital motorway in Washington DC, because it uses a bypass system to let lithium ions that carry charge to enter and leave the battery more quickly.

As it involves a new approach to manufacturing lithium-ion battery materials, rather than a new material, it could be ready within two to three years, the researchers said.

Electric car batteries may be able to charge in less than an hour, removing one of the main barriers to wider uptake of the vehicles. Solar and wind power generation could also benefit as better batteries could be used to store surplus energy.

Rechargeable batteries store and release energy as charged atoms, called ions, from between two electrodes called the anode and the cathode. Their charge and discharge rates are limited by the speed with which these ions move.

Professor Ceder and Byoungwoo Kang, his colleague, established that ions can move quickly across the lithium iron phosphate that is used as the cathode in lithium-ion batteries. However, the ions are effectively held up because they must find their way through channels in the material.

“It is like a freeway, but if the ramps are congested you can't get on to it very fast,” Professor Ceder said.

The scientists found that by coating particles of lithium iron phosphate in a glassy material called lithium pyrophosphate, ions can bypass these channels and move more quickly. “It works like a beltway around a city,” Professor Ceder said.

(http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5891194.ece)

Horror video games: horror has a new home

The suspense-filled plots and scare tactics of video games are leaving the tired movie genre for dead.

I came across this excellent review by Tom Hoggins (of Telegraph, UK) on Horror video games and I thought many of my readers would be interested...enjoy....

Cutting-edge horror: the chainsaw-wielding Manjini in 'Resident Evil 5' is all the more terrifying because it's your neck on the line

Friday the 13th. A day intrinsically linked to cinematic horror, when film fans would sit in a darkened cinema, breath drawn in and sweat-lined palms tightly gripping the armrest. However, it’s hard to argue that Hollywood horror is in good health right now, from a qualitative standpoint at least. Another remake hit the silver screen yesterday: Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, a movie that was hardly revered in its time. It’s systematic of a desperate lack of imagination and invention in a genre that, despite its troubles, still remains hugely popular, with cinemagoers ever hungry for their Friday-night frights. However, current releases such as the inexplicably expansive Saw franchise, tend to rely on shock tactics and gallons of blood and gore.

So where has that imagination gone? “Purists might argue that all horror movies are essentially remakes, and that something like Ridley Scott’s Alien is really just a rehash of B-movie ideas, but there the design was so original and unsettling that it felt new, and this is the key,” says Telegraph film critic, Tim Robey. “None of the current mainstream horror releases have that stamp of shocking novelty.

It’s hard to be scared when you know what’s around the corner and pretty much what it’s going to look like. Even the promising cycle of Japanese and Korean horror films that kicked off with The Ring seems to have played itself out, basically because of self-plagiarism and a shortage of visual ideas beyond those pallid black-haired wraiths, which were good for a few sleepless nights but not several years’ worth.” And this is where another medium has begun to take the edge from movies when it comes to horror: the video game. Also released yesterday was Capcom’s excellent Resident Evil 5, a game that puts you in the shoes of two anti-bioterrorism agents in Africa, facing off against legions of infected zombies in the scorching sun.

The interactive nature of video games places the audience under direct threat, allowing even the oldest of cinema scares to once again feel fresh and terrifying.

While the chainsaw-wielding maniac in the game is an undoubted tribute to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface, it’s altogether more frightening when it’s your neck on the line. A rev of the chainsaw signals his arrival, sending a cold shiver down your spine as you realise your ammo stock is perilously low. It’s a taut and tense experience that relies heavily on the nature of interactive entertainment.

Resident Evil 5 is another terrific title in a recent spate of video games that manage to cover the full horror spectrum, from action to comedy, despite an unhealthy obsession with zombies (see sidebar). Sega’s light gun shooter, House of the Dead: Overkill, is a gloriously silly grindhouse tribute, while the latest Silent Hill title, Homecoming, is a fraught psychological horror that, while lacking in several mechanical areas, shows more intelligence in its plot and penetration than many mainstream Hollywood nasties of recent times.

While video game horror is nothing new, technological advances allow developers to constantly find new ways to scare.

EA’s Bafta award-winning Dead Space is a technical marvel and an exquisitely sculpted piece of horror. It makes outstanding use of advanced lighting techniques to disorient the player and features phenomenal sound design to constantly keep the player on their toes.

It’s a game that is heavily influenced by cinema sci-fi horror, but moulds the terror around the unique characteristics of video games to keep its audience on a knife-edge from start to finish.

For a medium that in many ways is still in its creative youth, this understanding of how to use a video game’s technological strengths to engage the player in terrifying scenarios in ways that cinema cannot is key to keeping the genre fresh and frightening.

The film industry, meanwhile, is looking at the recent advancements in 3D technology to further involve the audience and bring new life to the horror movie. Whether this is the answer remains to be seen. For now, however, those scare aficionados looking for a frightening fix can be satiated in the new, digital, house of horrors.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologyreviews)