Jul 12, 2015

Riding Bikes in London

Going for gold this weekend?

Stratford to Barking; Go east for a mostly traffic-free circuit with an Olympic view

IN ASSOCIATION WITH TRANSPORT FOR LONDON AND SANTANDER CYCLES
Published: 09 July 2015
Updated: 12:42, 09 July 2015

Start the day at View Tube Café by treating yourself to coffee and cake while taking in the stunning views of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and futuristicArcelor Mittal Orbit, the UK’s tallest sculpture. Then pick up a Santander Cycle from the docking station on Bromley High Street, and leave the 21st century behind. This meandering route takes you down the towpath beside the Three Mills Wall River. There have been mills on this site since the Domesday Book. Look out forHouse Mill, a Grade 1 listed building constructed in 1776 and still the world’s largest tidal mill, and don’t miss the Clasping Hands sculpture, a moving memorial to a fatal accident in 1901. After negotiating the famous floating towpath, head south west along Limehouse Cut, London’s first navigable canal opened in 1770, toLimehouse Basin, keeping an eye out for moorhens, coots and other waterfowl along the way.
 
From the calm canalside the route brings you into the buzz of Canary Wharf. Dock your cycle at Westferry DLR and head over to the Museum of London Docklands(free entry) for a fascinating insight into the history of the area. Pick up another bike (your next docking station is Bromley) to continue anticlockwise, passingBillingsgate Fish Market and the Excel Centre before returning via the Greenway to View Tube Café.

This route is provided by the British Cycling’s as part of its free guided ride programme. For other bike rides visit tfl.gov.uk/leisureroutes
Did you know?
This summer Santander Cycles are unlocking unique experiences around London including a once-in-a-lifetime bike ride around the Science Museum on a Santander Cycle. Visit Santander.co.uk/uk/cycles



copied from standard.co.uk

Santander Cycles is easy
Just go to any docking station with your bank card and touch the screen to begin. Or download the official Santander Cycles app to get quicker access.
Hire a bike, ride it where you like and return it to any docking station along the way. Costs start from £2 for 24-hour bike access, including unlimited 30 minute journeys

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Jul 11, 2015

Dr. Zhivago Will Always Be My Movie: RIP Omar Sharif

66ème Festival du Cinéma de Venise (Mostra), 9...
66ème Festival du Cinéma de Venise (Mostra), 9ème jour (10/09/2009) Tapis rouge avec Omar Sharif et Cyrine AbdelNour pour le film The Traveller de Ahmed Maher (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
copied from NDTV..............







Omar Sharif, the Eternal 

'Doctor Zhivago'

People | Agence France-Presse | Updated: July 10, 2015 20:16 IST
Omar Sharif, the Eternal 'Doctor Zhivago'
File photo: Egyptian film legend Omar Sharif poses during the photocall of "Al Mosafer" (The Traveller) at the Venice film festival. (Agence France-Presse)
CAIRO:  Egyptian-born film legend Omar Sharif, who has died aged 83, captivated audiences worldwide for more than half a century, but will forever be remembered as the eponymous "Doctor Zhivago".

Known for his debonair style, raffish good looks and often mischievous joie de vivre, Sharif, who also gained worldwide fame as a bridge player, had Alzheimer's disease.

He died of a heart attack, his agent Steve Kenis said in London.

Sharif began acting in the 1950s and his most high-profile roles were in the 1960s when he won an Oscar nomination for "Lawrence of Arabia" and Golden Globes for the same film and for "Doctor Zhivago".

His role in "Lawrence of Arabia" as Sharif Ali, an Arab chief enlisted by Peter O'Toole's T.E. Lawrence in Britain's fight against the Turks in World War I, propelled him to stardom, setting the stage for an even higher profile role in David Lean's subsequent release, "Doctor Zhivago".

Sharif played the hero in the epic adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel of tortured passions during the Russian Revolution, with his real-life son Tarek playing his younger self.

The actor, fluent in Arabic, English, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish, went on to star in many films and television productions, including alongside Barbra Streisand in 1968's "Funny Girl".

But he never again scaled the heights of critical acclaim as in his work with Lean.

Sharif kept working over the following decades, often in television movies, and in later years became equally renowned for his prowess as a bridge player and owner of thoroughbred racehorses.

- Venice best actor award -
He co-wrote a syndicated bridge newspaper column in the 1970s and 80s, and wrote several books and licensed his name to the computer game "Omar Sharif Bridge".

"I'd rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie," he once said, before saying in 2006 that he had given up the game.

Sharif made something of a comeback in 2003 in the title role of the French film "Monsieur Ibrahim", playing an elderly Muslim shopkeeper.

The performance won him a best actor award at the Venice Film Festival and the best actor Cesar, France's equivalent of an Oscar.

In his later years he continued making movies and television films, including "I forgot to Tell You" in 2009 and "Rock the Casbah" in 2013.

Born Michel Demitri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932 in the Egyptian Mediterranean city of Alexandria to parents of Syrian and Lebanese extraction, he was raised a Catholic.

He studied at Alexandria's Victoria College before gaining a degree in mathematics and physics from Cairo University.

He joined his father's lumber business, but the acting bug had taken hold while he was studying, and in 1954 he made his silver screen debut in the Egyptian film "Siraa Fil-Wadi" ("The Blazing Sun") by Youssef Chahine.

The movie's romantic intrigue was echoed off screen as he married the leading lady, renowned Egyptian actress Faten Hamama, converting to Islam and renaming himself Omar Sharif.

They had one son, Tarek, before divorcing in 1974. Hamama died in January 2015.

- Playboy lifestyle -
Sharif never remarried, but had another son, Robin, from a brief relationship with Italian journalist Lula De Luca.

He lived between France, Italy and the United States, before settling again in Egypt.

His playboy lifestyle of fine hotels, casinos and restaurants from California to the Cote d'Azur was not without its brushes with controversy.

In August 2003, he received a one-month sentence and a 1,500-euro fine for headbutting a policeman outside a Paris casino. He was unrepentant, saying: "It made me the hero of the whole of France. To head-butt a cop is the dream of every Frenchman."

He was also ordered to take an anger management course by a California court in 2005, after punching a parking attendant in a dispute over whether he could pay in euros rather than dollars.

Sharif had a triple heart bypass in 1992 and suffered a mild heart attack in 1994, according to the IMDb movie database website. The 100-cigarettes-a-day smoker quit after the operation.

In January 2011, during Egypt's popular uprising Sharif called for then president Hosni Mubarak to stand down, while at the same time expressing doubts about the Muslim Brotherhood.
Story First Published: July 10, 2015 20:16 IST



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Jul 10, 2015

Geraldo Rivera Bashes Bombastic Barbie Ann Coulter on Immigration.........

from Salon.......


FRIDAY, JUL 10, 2015 05:02 AM PDT

Immigration cage match! Geraldo Rivera and Ann Coulter throw down on “Hannity”

Coulter wishes we could "criticize" Hispanics like the Irish were "criticized" in the 19th and early 20th Century VIDEO

  
TOPICS: HANNITY, FOX NEWS, VIDEO, SEAN HANNITY, GERALDO RIVERA, ANN COULTER, IMMIGRATION, ,
Immigration cage match! Geraldo Rivera and Ann Coulter throw down on "Hannity"Geraldo Rivera, Ann Coulter (Fox News)
On “Hannity” Thursday night, Geraldo Rivera confronted both host Sean Hannity and fellow guest Ann Coulter on the subject of immigration, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the conversation was quickly whipped into a maelstrom of bellowing cross-talk by all parties involved.
Coulter began by thanking Rivera for granting that there could be 30 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, even though he only did that for the sake of argument. “The true about immigration is always the same,” she said, “the lies are always different.”
“We are talking about a group of people who have no right to be here,” she said, adding “whether legal or illegal.” She didn’t clarify as to why legal immigrants have no right to be in America legally, but that’s neither here nor there, because Coulter’s more concerned with the fate of “native” Hispanics and African-Americans on government assistance. “Why are we bringing in people that we have to help?” she asked. “That’s meant for our poor people, and that includes Hispanic poor people, and black poor people. We have to care about our own.”
“Is the filibuster over?” Rivera asked. “Let me respond!” And respond he did, noting that rates of violent crimes in the two cities with the highest population of undocumented immigrants — New York and Los Angeles — are at historic lows.
“That means nothing!” Coulter interjected. “That’s not because of immigration!”
“If undocumented immigrants were more prone to commit crimes,” Rivera continued, “why would these cities be experiencing such relative freedom from violent crime. Compare that to Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, and other post-industrial cities, where there is a spike in terrible crime, where you should be concerned with violence, instead of singling out this population and ginning up this false fear.”
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“Look, you’re talking about a correlation, not a causation. You’re not that stupid, Geraldo!” Coulter replied. “Crime goes down for a lot of reasons. We want immigrants to have crime rates lower than [those] of our most criminal population. You have got to stop talking about this as if we’re talking about Americans attacking Hispanics. No, we are talking about immigrants.”
“When you write a book that says ‘Adios America,’ you are ipso facto attacking Hispanics,” Rivera shot back. “Do you really believe the left is conspiring to make this a third-world hellhole? That it’s a conspiracy?”
“They’re winning elections now!” Coulter replied. “Obama wouldn’t have won elections but for for the post-1970’s immigration, which of course is Hispanic!”
“I remember when they said the same thing — the same thing! — about the Irish in the 19th Century,” Rivera responded.
“They were right!” Coulter shouted back. “Not only were they right, we were allowed to criticize the Irish!”
Watch video of the exchange below via Fox News.
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50 Years of Satisfaction--and Mick in Raybans


copied from entertainthis.com
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Jul 9, 2015

Karl Rove Talks Donald Trump: Digging A Grave For The GOP

Wall Street Journal
By Karl Rove
July 9, 2015 
Print

Trump And Sanders, The Disrupter Brothers

The noisy challengers won’t win, but they will complicate the campaign for their party rivals.

Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls are facing challenges from two candidates who draw on the populist wings of their parties.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described “Democratic Socialist,” represents the far-left populists—angry at Wall Street, infuriated by income inequality, fearful of foreign economic competition and committed to a peace-at-all-costs isolationism that blames America for the world’s ills.

Mr. Sanders has gained about 250,000 donors and turned out huge crowds in Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine and New Hampshire. Since launching his campaign on May 26, he has cut Hillary Clinton’s lead in Iowa to 34 points from 51 and her margin in New Hampshire to 16 from 37, according to poll averages by Real Clear Politics.

For Republicans, the challenge is television personality and hotelier Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump is hardly a die-hard conservative, having donated $314,300 to Democrats (including Sens. Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton) and $290,600 to Republicans between 1989 and 2010, as the Daily Caller reports. But his message is aimed at conservative populists.

These are people who believe the country is going down the tubes and are angry that the GOP hasn’t stopped President Obama. Mr. Trump’s promise to build a wall on the southern border and send Mexico the bill has helped his poll numbers. So has telling the Chinese to go to hell on trade. Mr. Trump’s rise, to 6.5% in the Real Clear Politics average, comes at the expense of others competing for the same space, including neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Scott Walker. None of them is as blunt and outrageous in tapping into resentment as Mr. Trump.

Both of these new populist champions are planning to hang around. Mr. Sanders, an ideological true-believer, wants to drag his party further left. Mr. Trump wants to draw attention and become a political force. It will be interesting to see how other White House hopefuls handle these disruptive intraparty rivals.

So far Mrs. Clinton is dealing with Mr. Sanders’s challenge by moving left. She is attempting to make herself indistinguishable from him ideologically, even at the risk of looking inauthentic and cynical—as she does when attacking hedge-fund managers while playing down her and her husband’s long and lucrative relationship with Wall Street. Mr. Sanders could also pull her so far left in the primaries as to create openings for Republicans to exploit in the general election.

Mrs. Clinton recognizes that Mr. Sanders may win early states like Iowa that include a fervent hard-left element. But she’s counting on her fundraising advantage and stronger national organization to grind the senator down over time.

The response of GOP candidates to Mr. Trump should be guided by the June 23 Fox News Poll showing that 64% of Republicans, 69% of conservatives and 55% of tea party members consider his candidacy a sideshow. An analyst at the FiveThirtyEight website pointed out that Mr. Trump has the worst favorable/unfavorable ratings of 106 presidential candidates since 1980, worse than even Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Mr. Trump is disliked by 57% of his own party.

If asked about his extreme statements, Mr. Trump’s Republican competitors have two options: They can gingerly applaud the feisty casino magnate, hoping to eventually inherit his supporters while trying to avoid responsibility for what he says.

Or they can disagree with Mr. Trump by emphasizing their own views and distance themselves, respectfully, while trying not to use his name. When Mr. Trump is wrong, this is the better course—but be prepared: He responds with insults. He feeds on controversy.

He has called the rest of the candidates in the GOP field “clowns”; tweeted that Rick Perry “needs a new pair of glasses to see the crimes committed by illegal immigrants”; and retweeted a follower who wrote that Jeb Bush “has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.”

When I raised questions about his seriousness, Mr. Trump tweeted that I had “spent $430 million in the last cycle and didn’t win one race.” (In 2010, he donated $50,000 to the Crossroads political-action organizations for which I volunteer.) In the 2014 cycle, Crossroads groups spent $103 million to help win 10 of 12 targeted U.S. Senate seats and 10 of 13 competitive House seats. Not that facts matter much to The Donald.

Mr. Trump could become the 2016 version of Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, who tarnished the GOP brand in 2012 with an offensive statement about rape. Republican leaders from Mitt Romney on down immediately condemned his words, but swing voters were persuaded that every Republican believed what Mr. Akin said.

Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump won’t win their party’s nomination. But in trying, they could make the path to the White House that much rockier for whoever eventually does.

A version of this article appeared July 9, 2015, in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline Trump And Sanders, The Disrupter Brothers and online at WSJ.com.
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