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Title: A Star Trek and a Game of Thrones AU Artist:  blue_sparkels (Sparkle)Characters: Sam Tyler, Gene Hunt, Annie Cartwright, Maya Roy Rating: White Cortina ( crossovers under the cutCollapse ) |
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Title: Ghosts That We Knew 6/? Author: Cloud wildwinterwitchBeta: xebgocDisclaimer: Everything recognisable from Doctor Who is the creation of R T Davies, whereas characters from Single Father are Mick Ford's creation. Pairing: Dave/Rose Setting: after I Met a Traveller Rating: M overall Summary: When your stepmother is sort of an alien and deals with other, real, aliens for a living, the excitement never dies down. As Dave, Rose and the children try to build life as a family, the past gets in the way of present developments and the future seems to be going to be quite different from what everyone imagined. Author's Notes: The title is taken from the eponymous Mumford and Sons song Ghosts That We Knew.  Six -- NSFW |
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By every indication, Rob Ford’s world is crumbling. He is eluding the media like a fugitive in his own city. The 24-hour news channels that run silently in the corners of bars and dentists’ offices loop random clips of Ford being chased around by packs of TV reporters. Here’s Ford trying to order something through a thicket of microphones at Tim Hortons, a forced grin on his face. Now Ford peeling out of his driveway in his Escalade. Now Ford crossing a parking lot, mob in tow. Behind him in the last frame, the sign on the gas station, over his shoulder: “On The Run.” Two days ago, the city’s Catholic school board announced that Ford been sacked as the coach of a high-school football team. Sometimes it seemed like the highest office he ever held, the one appointment he could never miss. (Last fall, things got to the point where Ford was rescheduling his court appearances to coach football.) But students and parents chafed at the way he’d boast about how destitute they’d be if it weren’t for him. Officially, the school board’s decision officially had nothing to do with the drug allegations, yet they chose this week to make the announcement. The Globe quoted a source saying Ford was “shattered.” One day ago, Ford fired his chief of staff. Mark Towhey was a true believer in the cause, a member of Ford’s brain trust from the very beginning, an unblinking champion against every charge so far. He was escorted out of city hall by security. By midnight, every news outlet was running more or less the same anonymously sourced account of what had happened: Towhey had confronted the mayor, demanding he go to rehab, and the two fell out. The final straw, according to these accounts, was Ford’s demand that his staff organize a pizza party for his former football students at his house. (Ford’s penchant for appropriating city staff and vehicles for football purposes is not a new thing.) Towhey is said to have refused, and that was that. ( Read more...Collapse ) |
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California judge cites “Star Trek,” stuns copyright trolls Sci-fi-lover Otis Wright quoted Spock in his ruling against a group of lawyers laying claim to a single porn video As someone who made a certain amount of my reputation by using the Star Trek universe to illustrate the dangers of strong intellectual property law, I feel obligated to comment on the recent court decision against the entity commonly referred to as Prenda Law. The case combines copyright battles, Star Trek, and pornography — if I can slip in a picture of a cute animal, I may be able to construct the Platonic ideal of a popular Internet post. The case, decided in the District Court for the Central District of California, concerns a group of lawyers engaged in a particularly egregious form of copyright trolling. Their strategy was to file a large number of lawsuits accusing individuals of illegally downloading a single porn video, the copyright for which was apparently assigned to one of the lawyers’ groundskeeper on the basis of a forged signature. The basis for these lawsuits was quite flimsy, but the firm had no real intention of winning the lawsuits in court. Instead, they would offer to settle — and as the court decision notes, the offer was “for a sum calculated to be just below the cost of a bare-bones defense.” This, combined with the embarrassment of being publicly linked with downloading porn, was apparently enough to extort money from a significant number of people. The tangled organizational web woven by the trolls is shown in the image below, taken from the court decision. It won’t shock anyone who followed This American Life’s story about patent-trolling front companies. In this case, though, the strategy of obfuscation ultimately contributed to Prenda’s undoing, as the judge concluded that its only purpose was to “shield the Principals from potential liability and to give an appearance of legitimacy.” ( Read moreCollapse ) |
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 STUTTGART, Germany — Soon after Pete McCollaum received word that the government was going to cut off his housing allowance and seek repayment for all past subsidies it says it paid him in error, he wanted to know how many others were in the same bank-busting boat. “Do you know how to start a Facebook account,” McCollaum, a retired Special Forces officer, asked fellow Army civilian Rik Thibodeau, who received word last month that he too was losing the allowance due to government error. Now, just two weeks after launching their Facebook page, the Vicenza, Italy-based civilians have more than 300 members on the social media site, which is proving to be a rallying point for Defense Department civilian workers stretching from Germany to Japan as they try to figure out their next move. “People are finding out about it by word of mouth,” Thibodeau said. “We’re finding strength in numbers.” Nearly 700 DOD civilians, almost all of whom are based in Europe and the Pacific, were flagged during a Defense Department’s audit of overseas housing allowance allotments. As a result, those who were erroneously receiving the benefit are now in debt to the government for all past housing allowance payments, which can be as much as $50,000 annually. ( The other night, when my oldest daughter asked me ‘Daddy, are we going to be OK? Will we be poor?’ I couldn’t look her in the eye.”Collapse ) My mother is actually affected by this mess and it is making me so angry! It is written in her (and everybody else's) contract with the government that she is entitled to LQA! Apparently, contracts mean nothing anymore and the government can just say say "oops, our bad but you're going to have to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars because of a mistake WE made". If you are confused about what exactly is going on or you just want more information, here are some helpful links. LQA (Living Quarters Allowance): FAQ http://www.stripes.com/news/error-c http://www.stripes.com/news/annual-hous http://www.stripes.com/news/dod-civilia http://www.stripes.com/opinion/lett http://www.stripes.com/news/some-dod-ci And PLEASE sign the whitehouse.gov petition! |
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Okinawans angry with Hashimoto say sex services don't curb crime Citing the failure of similar attempts decades earlier, Okinawan residents have criticized Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's recent suggestion that U.S. military members use legal sex services to curb sexual assaults. According to public documents, the number of rapes did not decline after "special entertainment districts" were set up for the U.S. military 63 years ago, and local activists say the only solution is to move the bases off Okinawa. In 1949, Koshin Shikiya, who was then the head of the civilian government in Okinawa that was still under U.S. control, asked U.S. military authorities to create facilities where soldiers and sailors could buy sexual services. Shikiya made the request because of the frequent sexual crimes committed by U.S. military personnel. Arguing that such facilities were "a realistic social need," the request followed the reasoning that, "If consideration had been given by the military authorities for facilities where young military personnel could satisfy their sexual urges, it might have been possible to prevent these crimes." In 1950, the civilian government played a leading role in setting up four special entertainment districts, and civilians were allowed to operate brothels aimed at the U.S. military. ( In a published history of Ginowan city, local residents described what the situation was like.Collapse ) -- This seemed like a really interesting article, looking how the people of Okinawa felt about what Hashimoto said, and a bit of history. The thing with Hashimoto is still unfolding; just today two former comfort women who were supposed to meet with him today cancelled, saying they basically didn't want to be Hashimoto's insincere photo-op apology (Hashimoto said this was "regrettable"), Hashimoto backpedaled some more and said he wanted to apologize to Americans and American troops for suggesting the US military people in Japan use sex services to curb their appetites so they wouldn't go around raping people, and a group of lawyers in Osaka called for him to be recalled as mayor. Yesterday, a member of his party withdrew their candidacy for an election they were running in, citing what Hashimoto said, and one of the parties the Ishin no Kai had an alliance dissolved their partnership and said they would not help the Ishin no Kai, or accept help from them, in the upcoming elections. Basically, Hashimoto screwed himself and his party BIG TIME with this. |
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Worse than Watergate. That's the refrain coming from the Obama administration's critics as it scrambles to tamp down a growing pile of scandals. "The Obama administration's cover-up of the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack surpasses Watergate," states Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). The IRS-tea party scandal "is far worse than Watergate," according to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). And Pinal County, Arizona, Sheriff Paul Babeu maintains that Fast and Furious "is a much larger scandal than Watergate." And of course there is a hashtag: #WorseThanWatergate. Comparing the scandal du jour to Watergate is an easy way to score political points. (Conservatives aren't the only guilty ones here.) But if you're interested in making a more subtle and perhaps accurate comparison, you need only refer to the United States' long history of White House scandals, starting in the first days of the republic. To help you keep track of them, we've plotted more than 25 on this matrix, organized by their relative seriousness and their place in our current collective memory. (The current crop of Obama scandals aren't on there since it's not yet clear where they fall on the continuum between, say, Billygate and Iran-Contra. See a missing scandal? Suggest it in the comments.) ( Read more...Collapse ) Source has links to all the various scandals |
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 (Photo: Tony Gutierrez, AP) (CNN) -- Openly gay youths will be allowed to join scouting, a historic decision the Boy Scouts of America says will keep it unclouded by "a single, divisive, and unresolved societal issue." More than 60% of the group's 1,400-member national council voted Thursday at an annual meeting in Grapevine, Texas, for the change, which takes effect Jan. 1. "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," says the resolution. The BSA, however, will maintain its ban on gay adult leaders. "The resolution also reinforces that Scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting," the 103-year-old organization said in a statement after the vote. ( Read more...Collapse ) Source So at what age do they take away a boy scout's merit badges? |
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Excuse-me, I was told I could watch David's Diaries on this community, if so, is there a link that lead me to it? |
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