flying car masters golf tournament the replacements how to hard boil eggs new nfl uniforms derbyshire the matrix
Monday, 29 July 2013
'I'd rather go to hell than worship a homophobic God': Desmond Tutu speaks out as he compares gay rights to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa
By Abigail Frymann
|
The South African Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he will never worship a 'homophobic God' and would rather go to hell than find himself in a 'homophobic heaven'.?
The retired archbishop said the fight against homophobia in South Africa was similar to the campaign waged against racial apartheid in South Africa.?
Archbishop Tutu, 81, was speaking at the launch of the UN's first global campaign to promote gay rights.
Emphatic: Archbishop Tutu said today's struggle for gay rights in Africa was on a par with the struggle to end apartheid
Although gay relationships are legal in South Africa, the country has had some of the worst incidences of homophobic violence, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said.
'I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level,' the 81-year-old archbishop said at the launch of the Free and Equal campaign in Cape Town.?
Same-sex relationships are illegal in more than a third of countries around the world and punishable by death in five, Ms Pillay said.
In Africa, homosexual acts are criminalised in 38 countries, according to the rights group Amnesty International.?
Tutu, who retired as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996, has long campaigned for gay rights.??
'I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place,' he said.
'I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this.'
Alliance: The charismatic archbishop, 81, shared a platform with the openly gay Constitutional Court Judge Edwin Cameron the and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay
Archbishop Tutu said the campaign against homophobia was on a par with the campaign to end the official racial segregation that split South Africa until it was formally ended in 1994.?
'I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level,' he added.
Ms Pillay said gay and lesbian people in South Africa had good legal safeguards but they still faced brutal attacks.??
Last month, a lesbian was found dead in a township outside Johannesburg. She had been sexually assaulted with a toilet brush.
'People are literally paying for their love with their lives,' Ms Pillay said, AFP news agency reported.
Launch: the trio were announcing the launch of Free & Equal, a United Nations global campaign to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality. Gay people in South Africa still face brutal homophobic attacks
Ms Pillay said the UN will push for gay rights to be recognised in countries where they are illegal.?
'I constantly hear governments tell me, 'but this is our culture, our tradition and we can't change it'... So we have lots of work to do,' she added.?
When US President Barack Obama visited Senegal at the start of his visis to Africa in June, he urged African nations to decriminalise homosexual acts.
But he was publicly rebuffed by President Macky Sall of Senegal while the pair were sharing a podium. President Sall said Senegal was not ready to make the step.
Other African faith leaders including Kenyan Catholic Cardinal John Njue also rejected Obama's comments.?
Share or comment on this article
rob gronkowski Coughing eddie murphy Stephanie Bongiovi stanford football guy fieri Jill Kelley
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Spurrier, SEC should know a college education is enough of a reward for football players
Not this again.
Not Steve Spurrier and his fellow fat-cat coaches in the Southeastern Conference whining about how their poor, pitiful players need to be given a stipend just for playing college football.
"We as coaches believe they're entitled to a little more than room, books, board and tuition," Spurrier said. "We think they need more and deserve more. It's as simple as that."
I'm sure Spurrier, in his mind, believes he is being benevolent and philanthropic, but in reality he and the SEC would simply be providing another entitlement for athletes who have been given special treatment since Pop Warner. Spurrier's proposal would provide stipends only for those who play the revenue sports of football and men's basketball? the two groups of athletes who already prance around campus as if they are better than everyone else. So why not give them extra money just to solidify that sentiment in their minds, right?
As if the third-team right tackle who never plays and whose only contribution to the university is eating up $5,000 worth of groceries per semester deserves a stipend more than the Olympic gold medalist freestyler on the women's swimming team. Come on, Spurrier, you know better.
Obviously, the SEC's multi-millionaire coaches make so much money, they value a full-ride college education as if were a Groupon for 30 percent off a Swedish body rub at Massage Envy. Believe me, as someone who has one daughter in college and will have another one there in a few years, college football players are already paid handsomely.
When you count room, board, books and other miscellaneous expenses, the price for an in-state student to attend the University of Florida is about $22,000 per year. You multiply that by five ? which is the number of years most college football players stay in school ? and that's $110,000. For an out-of-state student, it's double that. So, essentially, many college football players are getting a quarter-of-a-million-dollar education for absolutely free.
And what the SEC coaches always fail to mention is that there is already a way for football players to have a little extra cash in their pocket. An athlete ? or any other college student who comes from a low-income home ? already gets up to $5,500 a year in federal Pell Grant money. That money, by the way, does not have to be repaid.
"You know what school would cost here for a non-state guy? Over $200,000 for room, board and everything else," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops recently told the Sporting News. "That's a lot of money. Ask the kids who have to pay it back over 10-15 years with student loans. You get room and board, and we'll give you the best nutritionist, the best strength coach to develop you, the best tutors to help you academically and coaches to teach you and help you develop. How much do you think it would cost to hire a personal trainer and tutor for 4-5 years?
"I've always said college is more about proving you can make it on your own," Stoops added. "Proving you can go through the process and come out on top and be ready for the world. The typical student here leaves our university and has a boatload of student loans to pay back. Our players leave not owing a dime to anyone."
Amen, Stoopsy.
With rapidly escalating tuition costs and admission standards going through the roof, the competition has become cutthroat among the best and the brightest to even get into a good state school. Even if football players were able to pay their own way to school, they would not be able to get in. The fact is, most college football players wouldn't even come close to getting admitted into a university based upon their grades and test scores.
In essence, they are getting an education they couldn't otherwise afford and being admitted into a college they couldn't otherwise attend. But because they can sack the quarterback, they get a full ride, they get room and board, they get to eat filet mignon at the athletic dining hall and they get 24-7 access to tutors and counselors to help them graduate.
Spurrier claims that these players bring in "billions." That, too, is a misconception. It's the universities that bring in the billions. Fans come to the games to root for their school; not for the players. At Alabama, 100,000 fans will show up to cheer star quarterback A.J. McCarron. Guess what? Before McCarron arrived, 100,000 fans showed up to cheer quarterback Greg McElroy. And after McCarron leaves, 100,000 fans will show to cheer quarterback who takes his place.
If I've written this once, I've written it 100 times:
If you don't think a college education is enough compensation for playing football, I suggest you try paying for one with today's tuition rates, competing for one in today's ultra-competitive academic pool and getting a job without one in today's dreary economy.
mbianchi@tribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @BianchiWrites. Listen to his radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on 740 AM.
vincent jackson vicki gunvalson pierre garcon brown recluse spider wiz khalifa taylor allderdice eddie royal iditarod
#MissingThePoint: Companies alienate customers with Twitter bots, scripted responses
Technology 
23 hours ago
From upset consumers whose gadgets broke prematurely to stranded air travelers stuck on the tarmac, Twitter has been an effective outlet to publicly shame companies, sometimes resulting in VIP treatment.
Those days may be over.
Some recent incidents suggest tweeting is starting to resemble being stuck on hold, or worse yet ? trapped in an automated telephone system pressing #1, #2, or #3.
NBC News
The most extreme example involved Bank of America's @BofA_Help account, which last month repeatedly responded to a vitriolic cycle of foreclosure criticism with robotic-sounding, "Please let us know if you need assistance," messages. Public embarrassment soon followed. When an account called @OccupyLA wrote, "You can help by stop stealing people's houses!!!," @BofA_Help responded, "We'd be happy to review your account." And on it went from there.
Frank Eliason, often considered the founder of Twitter-based customer service as the voice behind @ComcastCares and author of "@YourService," said the latest trend is "breaking my heart." (NBC News is part of NBC Universal, which is owned by Comcast.)
"Companies are really looking at this more as a PR play as opposed to fixing the root cause of the problem, and that makes me really sad," Eliason said. "Companies do not want to talk to you, and it shows. The fact is most do not want to tweet with you either."
Cheesy stunts
As the Twitter customer service channel has matured, companies have turned to automated "bots" and scripted responses, ruining the personal touch that had made Twitter help so valuable, Eliason said. Rather than trying to be purely helpful, and enhance customer relationships, Twitter has become the land of cheesy public relations stunts, such as Chipotle faking that its account had been hacked to gain more followers.
"They haven't devoted the staff it would take to respond in real time with real answers,? said Carri Bugbee, a social media expert, discussing Twitter failures in general. "Whether it's a bot or a person with a script, it's a failure, and it's tantamount to outsourcing customer service to the lowest-level employee."
There's a pretty straightforward reason that Twitter help might be in trouble. When the channel was narrow, and the number of potential users was small, a single tweeter like Eliason could handle the volume. As success stories have proliferated, more consumers have tried, forcing firms to replace single agents with teams and processes.
In other words, the personal touch is hard to scale.
"Obviously, large companies that have a lot of relationships to manage are looking for ways to make it scale, to automate, but it really doesn't work," Bugbee said. "(Companies are) looking for cheap or easy ways to do things that aren't cheap or easy."
Making things worse?
Social media is hard work, and many companies aren?t getting it right. Simply Measured, which studies Twitter response, says 32 of the Interbrand top 100 companies have a dedicated customers service Twitter handle, meaning they have gone over and above the others to invite tweets.
Even among those 32 Twitter-focused firms, performance isn't great: The average response time to a tweet is 4.6 hours, and the average response rate is 45 percent, says Nate Smitha of Simply Measured.
"We have seen those continue to improve every time we take the study," Smitha said. "But the numbers do come across as low."
Of course, simply responding to a tweet doesn't equal a successful customer service exchange, as Bank of America proved. In fact it's easy to imagine that companies targeting improved response metrics by using bots or scripts actually make things worse.
"Those canned responses have to go the way of the past because (companies) will become a laughingstock ... and it will reach Wall Street," said Marsha Collier, author of several books on social media customer service.
Turn down the temperature
Failures come when company cultures won't allow Twitter agents to do the right thing, limiting their responses to scripts and legalese.
"These are large corporations who [are] bogged down in silos, who do not give their social media team the latitude to decide on the fly how to handle things," Collier said.
Collier says good Twitter responses also require deft hiring. Twitter agents must have a good sense of humor, be willing to take a punch, and be artful in written responses, she said ? a skill set over and above what companies are used to hiring in call centers.
Studies show most consumers who take to Twitter are already angry ? they've probably tried and failed using traditional channels ? so being able to deftly turn down the temperature of a conflict is a must.
"You have to know customer service, but you also have to understand marketing, understand corporate communication, human resources ? you have to understand all these components," she said.
'One of the crowd'
But Collier disagrees that Twitter help is dying out. The mistakes, she says, are a bump in the road.
"I argue that it isn't a death knell. We are observing an education," she said. "We are in our infancy ... We will always have examples of companies that don?t do it right, but the tools are getting better and better." Tools like HootSuite help firms do a better job of not missing angry tweets and managing responses, she said.
Still, Eliason is worried because he thinks there's only one way for Twitter help to work ? when consumers know they are working with a real human being who genuinely cares about their problem. And it also helps it the person behind the accounts is, as Eliason puts it, ?humanized.? When he tweeted for Comcast, he would also tweet personal pictures and thoughts, and just generally act like any other Twitter user.
"I was one of the crowd," he said. "There's an aspect to that that is actually important if you want to be a trust agent ... it's about being one with the community, not being the center of it. "
Follow Bob Sullivan on Twitter or Facebook.
legend of korra magic mike trailer Alan Turing brave Stephanie Rice Meet the Pyro Karen Klein
Officials: Train driver suspected of negligent homicide
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (AP) ? Spain's interior minister announced Saturday that the driver whose speeding train crashed, killing 78 people, is now being held on suspicion of negligent homicide.
Minister of Interior Jorge Fernandez Diaz announced the step against Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, who previously had been detained on suspicion of recklessness following Wednesday's crash in Santiago de Compostela.
"There is rational evidence to lead us to think that the driver could have eventual responsibility," the minister told reporters at the city's police station.
Fernandez Diaz also said Garzon, 52, has been discharged from the hospital, taken to the police station and would appear before a judge by Sunday evening.
Garzon has the right to keep silent, "although he may change his mind on that," the minister said.
Blame has increasingly fallen on the driver, with the country's railway agency saying it was his responsibility to brake before going into the high-risk curve where the train tumbled off the rails and smashed into a wall. But it's still not clear whether the brakes failed or were never used, and the driver has remained silent so far.
A blood-soaked Garzon was photographed Wednesday being escorted away from the wreckage, at first by civilians who had hurried to the scene of the accident and then by police, but it is not clear just what his medical status is.
Unconfirmed media reports said that Garzon had injured ribs.
He had been expected to give a preliminary statement to judicial police as early as Thursday, but that process was delayed, reportedly due to health reasons. Earlier Saturday, the justice department said Garzon's first appearance before a judge had been postponed until Sunday.
In Wednesday's crash, the train's eight carriages packed with 218 passengers blazed far over the speed limit into a curve and violently tipped over. Diesel fuel sent flames coursing through some cabins.
Investigators are examining recording devices from the train but have not officially said how fast it was going when it derailed.
An American passenger, Stephen Ward, said he was watching the train's speed on a display screen in the carriage ? and it indicated it was going 194 kph (121 mph), more than double the 80-kph speed limit.
The president of Adif, the Spanish rail agency, said that the driver should have started slowing the train 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) before the dangerous bend. He said signs clearly marked this point when the driver must begin to slow.
Normally, police take a first statement that is then examined by an investigating judge who must then take testimony within 72 hours of the arrest. That deadline is Sunday.
Although that initial court hearing would be closed, it would give hints about the status of the investigation. The judge would decide whether to jail the driver as an official suspect, release him on bail, or release him without charges. If a judge finds sufficient evidence for a criminal trial, the suspect will be charged and a trial date set.
___
AP writer Harold Heckle in Madrid contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spain-train-driver-suspected-negligent-homicide-123651689.html
Fast And Furious 6 Tony Kanaan Hangover 3 earthquake UFC 160 criminal minds London attack
I'm Trapped In The Reply-All Email Chain From ... - Business Insider
Last Sunday afternoon, at 12.34pm, I received an email from someone I did not know. The email was titled simply "Hey." and contained a link to a nefarious looking website.
Within a half hour or so, another person I did not know responded, adding simply "spam?"
I didn't know it at the time, but this was the beginning of my ascent into "reply-all" hell. Since Sunday afternoon I've received 293 emails from people I don't know in response to this first email. What's worse, is that this doesn't seem to be the standard case of stupidity, naivety, or unfunny jokes ? instead, me and the 342 other people trapped on the email list from hell seem to be stuck in some kind of infinite loop.
It took me a little while to realize, but it's all Facebook's fault.
Screengrab
The beginning.
Every person who has a Facebook account has a Facebook e-mail address. This is an email address that can be used to send messages to your Facebook account.This feature was implemented in 2010, but the service never really took off ? despite Facebook making it your "default" email address. It's still there, however, and it's still possible to send messages to people via their Facebook email address, which is usually related to their username.
One place you are likely to have seen Facebook email addresses is in your mobile phone's contact book. If you've ever synced your contacts with your Facebook profile, you may notice that when you look at a contact on your phone is an "@facebook.com" address for them. It's a little confusing, and has sparked a small amount of controversy from some who said it was replacing their original contacts, but other than that it always seemed harmless.
That is, until it trapped me in an infinite loop of "reply-all" emails.
I actually never read the first email with that nefarious link that was sent to me ? my spam filter caught it. Looking back, I can see that I must have been in the person's address book because they tried to contact me about a story a couple of times (I never responded). Then it appears that this person got some kind of virus that sent the dodgy link out to everyone in his contact book.
Curiously, I would guess that the email may have been sent from this person's phone. How can I tell? Because more around half of the addresses on the list seem to be "@facebook.com" email addresses, amongst the many gmail addresses and the automatically created "@craigslist.org" addresses.
By their very nature, the Facebook email addresses add another layer of disaster to this "reply-all" email thread. This is because they are two things at once ? both emails and Facebook messages.
When one of the Facebook users, understandably, wants to leave the conversation, they click "leave conversation" in their Facebook message window. Doing this, however, sends the following message to all people on the email chain:
"Auto-generated message: [Person's Name] has left this conversation and will no longer see your messages"
For reasons I don't quite seem to understand, it's not quite as simple as that for the Facebook users. Despite the 293 emails that have been sent, almost all attempts to leave the thread, my latest email shows 306 people on the respondent list for the latest email.? According to the emails, some people appear to have "left this conversation" multiple times, but they are still there in the latest email. Those who are receiving the messages on their normal email addresses, like me, for example, have no option to "leave the conversation" at all.
Personally, I am not particularly upset when I get stuck in "reply-all" email threads. I am aware of how to block email addresses or mute certain conversations in gmail. Whenever I get a new email in this particular email thread, I chuckle to myself, thinking "Wow, it's still going."
However, amongst the others, things are getting a little Lord of the Flies-esque amongst those in this "reply-all" society.
"Mark" writes:
If I find out who put me on this list, they will be banned from my Friend's list.
"David" seemed confused:
What in the world is all this about and why now am I seeing it on Facebook after a day of constantly having to clean out my regular [mail] inbox the last couple of days?
"Rebecca" is exasperated:
how the hell do you make this message stop.. I have hit leave conversation now over [ten] times and this shit keeps showing up in my inbox and popping up a chat box. .
Someone named "Big David" wrote 560 words in size 18 font admonishing people for hitting the "reply-all" button ? slightly missing the point, I felt.
Sadly, the problem may not go away away anytime soon. According to Facebook's Community Help pages, the issue is widespread. One man complains he's been getting hundreds of messages for months. In a post marked "leave a conversation for eternity," someone complains that they've been getting the messages for around 6 months and have tried multiple tactics to get themselves out of the infinite message loop.
For now, I've put up a filter that will keep the emails out of my inbox. It's a minor annoyance, sure, but it's a sad legacy for an email system even Business Insider once called "brilliant."
david blaine gotye divine mercy cabin in the woods the legend of korra three stooges the three stooges
BCCI to discuss South Africa tour, betting, spot-fixing at Sunday meeting
Amid reports that the two-member internal probe panel of the Indian cricket board has cleared its chief N Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan of betting charges, the BCCI mandarins meet here on Sunday to discuss a host of issues, with the schedule for the upcoming tour to South Africa likely to come under the scanner.
The BCCI bosses, however, categorically claimed they were yet to receive the report of the commission comprising retired judges T Jayaram Chouta and R Balasubramanian formed in May to probe the allegations of betting in the Indian Premier League against Chennai Super Kings Chief Executive Officer Meiyappan, who was arrested by the Mumbai police May 18.
?We have not received any such report. I don?t how people are saying this,? BCCI acting president Jagmohan Dalmiya told IANS, on the eve of the board?s crucial working committee meeting at a five star hotel.
However, a news channel quoted insiders in BCCI as claiming the report clearing Meiyappan was submitted Thursday.
With BCCI chief Srinivasan stepping aside till the pendency of the commission, a clean chit for Meiyappan could clear the decks for his return to the top post and make him a strong candidate for re-election in September.
The schedule of the trip to South Africa beginning November 21 has generated much interest in the wake of the appointment of ex ICC Chief Executive Officer Haroon Lorgat as Cricket South Africa CEO.
With India not on the best of terms with Lorgat, who had repeatedly rubbed BCCI the wrong way while discharging his duties in the ICC, there were efforts on the part of the Indian board to prevail upon South Africa to appoint somebody else in the key post.
But with CSA going ahead with Lorgat?s appointment, there is some speculation about the BCCI opting for a shortened tour. While the original schedule comprised three Test matches, seven One Day International engagements and two Twenty20 International, BCCI now seems keen to play two Tests, five ODIs and two T20 Internationals.
The BCCI is planning to send the alternative schedule to South Africa following the working committee parleys.
The working committee is also expected to finalise its decision on following up the report submitted by its Anti-Corruption and Security unit chief Ravi Sawani regarding the spot fixing scandal which had snared three Rajashtan Royals cricketers S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, who were arrested May 16.
The BCCI was earlier slated to issue show cause notices to the three players, and call them for hearings before the disciplinary committee based on their reply. The latest of the sensational case is likely to come out in the meeting.
The committee could also deal with the Disciplinary Committee findings on the accusation of of financial bunglings against former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, besides the upper age limit of 60 for match referees in domestic matches.
On the agenda is the extension of contract of all Indian team's support staff, except coach Duncan Fletcher, and the issues in the National Cricket Academy where the contracts of the key coaches are expiring July 31. There are some indications that coaches Bharat Arun and Dinesh Nanavaty are not keen on seeking extensions.
matilda cab calloway melissa gilbert deadliest catch dwts sean hannity bobby petrino fired
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)