news , news paper ,news update ,news pakistan: December 2014

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has more than 20 flood alerts and warnings in place, particularly for coastal areas.
Several train services will also be cancelled as a safety precaution, Network Rail and train operator ScotRail announced.
Users of the Forth Road Bridge have been warned to expect significant disruption as the bridge could be closed to all vehicles except cars throughout the day.
The Forth, Kessock and Skye bridges were closed to high-sided vehicles yesterday because of the rising wind speeds.
Western Isles Council said all schools and nurseries there will be closed as the police have advised the public not to travel unless it absolutely necessary.
All depots, libraries, museums and sports facilities in the Western Isles will also be shut.

2:33 am

Ferry services suspended in Scotland amid warnings of "hazardous" travel conditions

Police have warned that travel conditions in the worst-hit areas of Scotland could be "hazardous", with disruption also expected on ferries, rail services, roads and bridges today.
Many ferry services operated by Caledonian MacBrayne, which operates ferries in the west of Scotland, have already been disrupted or hit by cancellations.
Further disruption is likely throughout today as winds are expected to whip up unusually high waves, with sea swells of up to 12 metres in parts.

2:01 am

'A period of severe gales is likely over northern and central Britain'

Here's a more detailed forecast for today from the Met Office's chief meteorologist Steve Willington.
He said: "Very strong winds are likely to affect northern and central parts of the UK from early Wednesday and last through until early Thursday as a very deep low pressure system moves slowly eastwards between Scotland and Iceland.
"A period of severe gales is likely over northern and central Britain, as well as the potential for storm force winds over north western coastal areas of Scotland."

1:20 am

Met Office forecasts heavy showers in the North and severe winds on North west coasts

The Met Office has forecasted heavy showers in the North and severe winds on North west coasts.
The Met Office tweeted last night: "Good evening, rain clearing to the SE followed by showers, heaviest in the North.
"Winds most severe on NW coasts."

M25 TRAFFIC UPDATE: Road remains closed as Essex Police complete investigation work

The M25 is still shut after the accident between junctions 25 and 27 this morning

Comments (0) The M25 is still shut between junctions 25 and 27 as more details have emerged about the accident that took place this morning.
The vehicles involved were a Peugeot car, a Scania lorry, a DAF artic, a Mercedes lorry and a Romanian lorry.
The man who died was pronounced dead at the scene and his body has now been taken to the mortuary at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow. He is believed to be a 39-year-old man from Leicester.
Four other people remain in hospital receiving treatment for injuries which are not believed to be serious.
Clean up and repair work is still going on, but the police have now released the scene to the Highways Agency.

President Obama takes command of 'The Colbert Report'

Stephen Colbert may be in complete control of his New York studio, but on Monday he hosted "The Colbert Report" in Washington, D.C. And when you're in Washington, the president is the commander in chief. Which is why President Barack Obama was able to stroll out on stage ahead of his planned interview and take over Colbert's signature segment, "The Word."
Except, when someone like the president is delivering the word, it becomes something else. It became "The Decree."
Colbert briefly launched a mock bid for president in 2007. And in a bit of turn-about, Obama came out on stage and launched a mock stint as comedy show host.
"Stephen, you've been taking a lot of shots at my job," Obama said. "I decided I'm going to take a shot at yours."
So how did Obama do delivering Colbert's comedy? Surprisingly well. The bit included jokes at his own expense, as well as jabs at Republicans, Fox News and even Colbert himself. He even made good use of Colbert's pen as a prop.
The switcheroo comes just as Colbert is winding down his Comedy Central show. His final episode will be Dec. 18. After that, he'll be on CBS as host of "Late Show" sometime in 2015.
Later, Colbert conducted an actual interview with the president that touched on the midterm elections, the Keystone pipeline and Obama's plans for his final two years in office.
Strangely, Obama slipped up briefly during the interview and called Colbert "Bill," perhaps mistaking the comedian for his less comedic inspiration, Bill O'Reilly.
You can watch Obama's entire segment here. And Colbert's actual interview with him here.

Pirate Bay Gets Shut Down After Swedish Police Raid

(Reuters) - Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay was taken down after Swedish police seized servers and computers from a server room in Stockholm.
"We had a crackdown on a server room in Greater Stockholm because of a copyright infringement, and yes it was Pirate Bay," Paul Pinter, national coordinator, intellectual property crime at Stockholm County Police told Reuters.
Other file-sharing sites such as EZTV, Zoink, and Torrage were also offline, as was Pirate Bay's forum Suprbay.org.
It was unsure if Pirate Bay was taken down for hosting some of the movies leaked due to the recent cyber attack on Sony Corp's Sony Pictures Entertainment, tech website Wired reported.
Pirate Bay resurfaced for a while late Tuesday, after changing its domain name to .cr (Costa Rica), according to Russian news site Rt.com.

Cam Newton Suffers Back Injuries In Car Crash

Cam Newton, the Carolina Panthers quarterback, suffered two transverse process fractures in his lower back, the result of a roll-over two car collision just blocks from Bank of America BAC -0.57% stadium in Charlotte, N.C., earlier this afternoon.
The car accident occurred about 12:30 pm today, according to the Charlotte police. The driver of the car as well as Newton were taken to the hospital with apparent non-life threatening injuries.
“Further testing revealed that Cam Newton has two transverse fractures in his lower back, and no further internal injuries,” according to a statement released earlier this afternoon by the Panthers.
This is the same injury that Tony Romo, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, suffered earlier this season while playing in a football game. Romo ended up missing just one game as a result of this injury. At this time, it is unclear how long Newton will sit out before returning to play.
Transverse processes are smaller bones that extend from the main vertebral bodies of the spine, and serve as attachment points and anchors for ligaments and soft tissues. Such fractures are painful injuries that can take between 4-6 weeks to fully heal. It is important to know that these fractures do not affect the spinal cord, or lead to any loss of motor function, but may restrict motion and movement due to pain.
Bleeding and soft tissue injury can accompany such fractures, so ice, rest as well as anti-inflammatory medications can help reduce pain early after injury.
Newton will be held overnight for observation and well as pain management for his injuries.

Monday 8 December 2014

Louis van Gaal: Man Utd 'lucky' to beat Southampton

Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal admits his side were lucky to beat Southampton 2-1.

Two goals from Robin van Persie saw United win at St Mary's to climb up to third in the Premier League.

However, they were outplayed for much of Monday's game and only had three shots to the Saints' 15.

"When you are the better team then of course you deserve more," Van Gaal told BBC Sport. "The performance was not good enough - we were the lucky team."

United's boss also praised the contribution of Van Persie - who scored either side of Graziano Pelle's equaliser.

Robin van Persie is now one of 10 players to have scored 140 Premier League goals or more

Van Gaal had been critical of the Dutch forward after their win over Arsenal saying he had a "very bad game" but called his performance at St Mary's his best of the season.

"I think not only the goals are telling something about Robin van Persie, I think also his performance," he said.

"He was one of three players on the pitch for Manchester United who were good or maybe very good. He had a great influence on the result and until now it is his best performance."

After an indifferent start to their season United now find themselves in third position but Van Gaal admitted it was an unsavoury way to achieve it.

"It is fantastic to be third in the table but I had hoped to do it with a better performance," he said.

Southampton, who slip to fifth, have now suffered three successive defeats and manager Ronald Koeman said his side were guilty of not being clinical enough.He also admitted Van Persie was ultimately the difference between the two sides, adding "the better team" lost.

"We did not lose to Man Utd, we beat ourselves," Koeman told BBC Sport. "We were the better team.

"If you give players like Robin van Persie those chances, he will punish you. We did not punish them and that was the difference.

"We did everything, we created chances, but we made mistakes as well."Maybe they made more mistakes than us, but they have players who handle those kinds of mistakes, and that was the difference. Because on football and chances, I think we deserved more."

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Saints didn't punish er

Why John Lennon’s Death Was the End of an Era

John Lennon’s death 34 years ago today triggered the same shock and outpouring of grief as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy. So wrote critic Jay Cocks for his 1980 TIME cover story about the legacy of the late Beatle and his death by the hands of Mark David Chapman. The touching tribute — comments from Bruce Springsteen that are included in the piece may bring tears to your eyes — featured one memorable quote from Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono: “This is not the end of an era,” she said in the days after he was killed. “The ’80s are still going to be a beautiful time, and John believed it.”

But in his piece, Cocks makes the case for why Ono’s words were more wishful thinking than a truthful declaration.

The band had broken up a decade before, but Lennon’s death signaled a shift more serious than the Beatles’ dissolution ever did. After all, the music of the Beatles would be around indefinitely, whether or not the band continued to record together.

When Lennon died at age 40, however, everyone who had grown up with the Beatles was approaching middle age too. In addition to their sadness about Lennon’s death, they could not ignore their own mortality. “For everyone who cherished the sustaining myth of the Beatles,” Cocks wrote, “the murder was something else. It was an assassination, a ritual slaying of something that could hardly be named. Hope, perhaps; or idealism. Or time. Not only lost, but suddenly dislocated, fractured.”

There was an innocence and idealism to Beatles songs, Cocks explained, that stood in stark contrast to how Lennon died. Even kids could sense the loss: “I recognize the end of an era — my mom’s,” 16-year-old Gretchen Steininger told TIME. In the days after Lennon died, a Florida teenager and a 30-something man in Utah committed suicide and left notes behind that referenced depression over Lennon’s death.

Mark David Chapman is still alive. He’s now 59, and he’s been denied parole eight times — the most recent was August of this year — since he was imprisoned in 1981. (Ono has publicly campaigned against his release.) “At that time, I wasn’t thinking about anybody else, just me,”said Chapman, who can try again in 2016, at this year’s hearing. “But now, you know, obviously through people’s letters and through things I hear a lot of people were affected here. I am sorry for causing that type of pain. I am sorry for being such an idiot and choosing the wrong way for glory.”

Prince William, Kate Middleton take in Brooklyn basketball game, topping day that included visiting Obama, children in Harlem

The royal couple is in the midst of a whirlwind United States visit. After Prince William returned from the Oval Office and the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge made the rounds with New York City's First Lady Chirlane McCray — which included wrapping presents with the kids at Northside Center for Child Development — the royals attended a Brooklyn Nets game at the Barclays Center on Monday night.

The Duchess of Cambridge gave some lucky kids in Harlem the royal treatment Monday when she stopped by their center to help them wrap Christmas presents and spread some holiday cheer.

Kate Middleton showed she had the common touch — and displayed some uncommon wrapping skills.

“She got down on her knees and worked with the kids,” said Dr. Thelma Dye, who heads the Northside Center for Child Development. “She had glue all over her fingers.”

In no time at all, the duchess finished wrapping a present and topped it off with a red bow handed to her by New York’s First Lady, Chirlane McCray. The gifts were for kids at the center.

“Perfect,” the future queen said, pleased with her effort. “I think it’s quite good, actuallyOn Tuesday she and hubby Prince William will cap their three-day visit by rubbing elbows with A-listers at a $10,000-per-seat scholarship fund-raiser for the University of St. Andrews — the Scottish institution where they met.

Kate, who spent 90 minutes visiting Northside on Fifth Ave., took a moment Monday to cheer up a child with a case of the holiday blues.

“She spoke to one child who told her he didn’t have any friends,” Dye said. “But he got better. You can see she was very touched.”

Kate’s visit uptown was the first stop on a whirlwind day that included lunching with swells at the residence of the British Consul General, taking in a serious talk about the environment alongside her husband, Prince William — capped with a night of NBA basketball in Brooklyn.And she did it all five months pregnant — and in heels.

But Kate’s first stop in Harlem was probably the sweetest.

McCray was waiting for her outside the center, dressed in the same royal purple $578 Nanette Lepore coat she wore at the inauguration of her husband, Mayor de Blasio.

The First Lady greeted Kate with a firm handshake — but no curtsyKate was wearing a black crepe “Washington” coat by Goat that had beige trim at the neckline, cuffs and back — and which sells for over $1,100. But that’s not what impressed the kids, most of whom know only royalty like Princess Elsa from “Frozen.”

“She was like a real person, she seemed like a New Yorker,” said 9-year-old Serenity Rodriguez, who gave Kate a paper swan as a gift. “Her tone of voice was really nice. She didn’t make me feel uncomfortable.”

Unlike many of the other kids at the center, “she knew she wasn’t going to meet Elsa,” Serenity’s mom, 28-year-old Abril Molina, joked.

Kate continued her charm offensive when she emerged from the facility, stopping to talk with an adorable trio of kids bundled up against the cold.There was 4-year-old Luz, all dressed in pink. There was 3-year-old Christopher, his gray and red cap pulled down over his ears. And there was 4-year-old Dylan wearing a penguin hat.

“Kate! Kate!” the cheering crowd cried out as Kate gave a well-practiced wave and took off in her motorcade.

While Kate was soaking up the love, Prince William was making his first visit to Washington for a grip-and-grin with President Obama.

They sat side-by-side in the Oval Office and exchanged pleasantries and talked about illegal wildlife trafficking in front of a pack of reporters straining to hear what they were saying.Both men were wearing dark suits. But in this politically polarized town, William’s tie was red while Obama’s was blue.

When that was over, the second in line to the British throne did what lots of regular American business commuters do — he flew back to New York by shuttle, CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported.

The royal couple rendezvoused later in Manhattan after Kate wowed the big shots at the Consul General’s digs.

Kate was eating for two and it was quite the feast — poached salmon with dill hollandaise sauce served with lemon pearl barley risotto and sauteed vegetables. And for dessert, apple and rhubarb crumble with ice cream.

Obama jumps in to Hour of Code event with a little JavaScript

In campaign to promote computer programming, the president tells kids: "Don't just consume, create." Later, at a White House-hosted event, he even learns to write a few lines of code himself.

Anyone can learn to code -- even world leaders, who are not often thought of as the most tech-savvy bunch. The president of the US? Yep. The prime minister of the UK. Check.

To promote the idea that anyone can do it, President Obama sat down Monday with middle-school students at a White House-hosted event and learned to write a few lines of JavaScript.

The event was part of the second annual Hour of Code campaign, spearheaded by nonprofit Code.org, whose mission is to make computer science accessible to kids everywhere.More than 77,000 Hour of Code events worldwide are scheduled for this week -- dubbed Computer Science Education Week -- at schools, public libraries and coding clubs, among others. Earlier today in London, students taught UK Prime Minister David Cameron a few things about programming.

In a video to champion Hour of Code events this week, Obama has a message for young people: "Don't just consume things, create things. Take an hour to learn more about the technology that touches every part of our lives."

Also this week, Code.org has lined up tech luminaries and celebrities -- from Bill Gates to Jessica Alba to Usher -- to participate in video chats on its YouTube channel with 100 classrooms across the US.

Apple is holding hour-long workshops -- think of them as a sort of Intro to Computer Science class -- Thursday at all 446 of Apple's retail locations. Other companies hosting Hour of Code events include Disney Interactive, Microsoft and Best Buy. Google, Target, Salesforce.com and about three dozen other companies are also encouraging staff to participate in Hour of Code employee programs.

Massive Los Angeles fire destroyed apartment building, snarled traffic on two freeways

More than 250 firefighters battled a massive building fire near downtown Los Angeles — a blaze that snarled traffic during the Monday morning commute and left some freeway lanes closed well into the day.

The fire began in an unoccupied multi-story building that took up almost an entire city block at around 1:20 a.m. There are so far no reports of injuries. The seven-story apartment complex, which was still under construction, was engulfed in flames that could be seen for miles.

One fire station was almost directly across the street from the building, and firefighters were on the scene almost immediately after the fire began, according to Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman David Ortiz. But by that time, the fire had already moved quickly through the structure because it was under construction. According to the Los Angeles Times, the fire engulfed two-thirds of the more than 1.3 million square foot structure.“This is a historic fire, what we as firefighters would call ‘a career fire,’” Ortiz told NBC News. “It’s huge. I really can’t remember a building fire this big, and I have been with the department for 13 years.”

The LAFD is conducting an arson investigation, which is standard procedure for a large fire. They are being assisted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Los Angeles County.

“All investigations are treated as if they are criminal until proven otherwise,” said LAFD spokeswoman Katherine Maine.

The building, planned as a luxury apartment complex which was set to open in 2015, was adjacent to the 110 Freeway at the intersection of Temple Street and Fremont Avenue. As they worked to battle the blaze, firefighters used the freeway as a staging ground, closing it in both directions at one point.Portions of the 110 have since re-opened, but three freeway lanes remain closed in the northbound direction due to concerns that burned scaffolding from the building may continue to fall on the roadway. The 101 Freeway has reopened but the interchange between the 110 and 101 freeways remains closed, California Highway Patrol said Monday evening

More than six hours after the fire began, firefighters continued to pour water on pockets of fire and heat, though the blaze was declared under control about two-and-a-half hours into the incident, Ortiz said.

Massive amounts of smoke and flames could be seen as drivers sat in slow traffic as the Monday morning commute began, according to eyewitness video.Two nearby buildings suffered some fire, heat and water damage, but firefighters were able to prevent the fire from spreading to 16-story office building, the Los Angeles Times reported. More than 160 windows shattered,

“Large windows gave under the amount of heat,” said LAFD spokesman Jaime Moore, according to the paper. “There was active fire on three floors.”The 16-story building, which according to the paper housed the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, sustained smoke, heat or water damage on nearly every floor.

“Our firefighters were able to get in there, knockdown this fire, contain it,” said LAFD Captain Jaime Moore, according to KTLA. “We do have 14 of those 16 floors with some significant form of damage, either through smoke, radiant heat or water damage.”

A second high rise building that according to KTLA, housed the Los Angeles County Health Services, sustained some fire damage but had no open flames.Employees in both buildings were told not to report to work in those buildings, according to the Times.

The apartment complex looked to be “completely lost,” Ortiz told NBC News. On its website, the apartment, the Da Vinci, now says that the building opening is “delayed” due to the fire.

About a quarter of the LAFD was engaged in firefighting activities at the downtown fire and others in the city, Ortiz said. And 38 companies were deployed to the apartment complex at the height of the fire.

CM Punk: Former WWE Champion announces he has joined UFC and will fight in 2015

CM Punk, birth name Phil Brooks, left the WWE back in January. He has never fought in professional mixed martial arts before.
UFC president Dana White said that CM Punk intends to fight at middleweight (185 pounds), but would be open to drop down to 170 pounds.
CM Punk made the announcement at UFC 181 last night.
"This is my new career, 100 percent," CM Punk said in a statement. "I'm going to go full steam ahead, all systems go after today, and it's going to be fun."CM Punk is not the first WWE superstar to try his luck in the Octagon. Brock Lesnar, who has since returned to the WWE, went 5-3 over his MMA career. Batista and Bobby Lashley also had brief MMA careers post-WWE.
"He wanted to fight here," White told ESPN.com. "He wanted to give it a shot, so we gave him an opportunity. It's not like Brock Lesnar. We're not going to throw the kitchen sink at him. Lesnar had a wrestling background. [CM Punk] is going to fight a guy who is 1-0, 1-1, 2-1 -- something like that."
CM Punk added: "My professional wrestling days are over, it's awesome to be here. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time.
"I felt like it was now or never. I have a limited window most fighters don't have. I'm either here to win or get my ass kicked."

The Librarians Will Fill That Warehouse 13-Sized Hole In Your Heart

On Sunday, we got the two-hour premiere of TNT's The Librarians, which is the series based on the made-for-TV movies starring Noah Wyle as a librarian protecting the world from magic artifacts. And, yes, it is based on that. It's also very Warehouse 13-y, but with much more John Larroquette.

About fifteen minutes into watching this, I said out-loud "This is exactly the kind of ridiculousness I want on my Sunday nights." The Librarians was a pile of fun, delivered with very little care about the fact that nothing in the plot was particularly surprising. Tropes aren't bad, after all. Predictability is forgivable, when you're entertained enough.

That's not to say there weren't faults — there were. Mostly in the execution of one particular character. But the pilot had to cover a lot of ground, and it was more fun than perfunctory. And do not worry if you haven't seen the movies this is based on, it's in no way necessary to watching the show. Everything important is explained.

Spoilers ...

The basic plot is that the evil Serpent Brotherhood is killing off Librarian candidates (because they are stupid and want a lot of attention on themselves, I guess.) They also employ some of the lowest-rent magical assassins ever, who are not that good at their job. One just tries to use a dagger on a guy in the middle of a museum. And then a bunch of guys in black and ski masks, like they decided dress in the cheapest possible ninja outfits, go after another in a bar. Anyway, the Metropolitan Library has a Librarian whose job it is to go out and get magic items back and store them safely away from human usage. The Serpent Brotherhood wants to release magic back into the world because ... magic is awesome, I guess. Noah Wyle's Flynn — who is the capital-L-Librarian — does explain that this is bad because people would go to war over magic and kill each other with it, but that's a little thin. Which matches the equally thin motivations of the Serpent Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Romijn plays Eve Baird, who does counter-terrorism for NATO and gets an invitation to come to the Library and be the Guardian to Flynn's Librarian. Flynn doesn't need a Guardian or anyone else. He's been doing fine for ten years.

However, they do seek out the other potential Guardians — Cassandra, a genius with synesthesia and a one-day lethal brain tumor; Jake, a genius who writes art history papers under a pseudonym while he goes to work on a oil rig; and Ezekiel, who is a thief. And, congratulations, that's everything we need to know about them. Part of the problem with the episode is that the emotional arc isn't them becoming a team, it's Flynn learning to accept their help and realizing that they are Librarians-in-Training. Which is a problem for the pilot, since he then leaves all these new people as our protagonists, when we've spent the whole time following his journey.

The really poorly-written part is that Cassandra betrays them to the Brotherhood because they promise to use magic to heal her brain tumor. Of course, being evil (and I will grant that that Matt Frewer's speech about not wanting her killed on his new carpet is funny), the Brotherhood does no such thing and puts her into a dungeon. Where the rest of the team finds, releases, and forgives her in literally minutes. Flynn's all "She had reasons," but she also betrayed them, letting the Brotherhood into the Library and forcing Bob Newhart's ghost (he's a dead Librarian) and Jane Curtin to hide the whole thing where it can't be found. (Which is a blessing in disguise, since the establishing shots of the Library in New York make it officially the most crowded library ever.) Flynn spends the whole episode traumatized by that — and also his gaping magical wound which cannot be healed — but he's the one who forgives in a single line.

The Librarians Will Fill That Warehouse 13-Sized Hole In Your Heart

I was more upset by the death of Excalibur — which is the key the Brotherhood need to open the lock of magic that is the stone of "the sword in the stone" — then I was her betrayal. I was really saddened to see the sword, Flynn's friend and one of the last things from the Library he has left, go.

The pilot ends with Flynn telling everyone else we've just met to go out there and find magical items for storage — which is even more important, since the Brotherhood did manage to release more magic into the world — and him leaving to go find the library. (As Wyle is a recurring actor on the show, not the main character, which the whole episode leads you to believe.) He leaves them in the hands of Baird and John Larroquette's Jenkins, a non-capitalized-librarian who has an annex which can pull books, but nothing else, from the hidden main Library. He's a researcher, who is going to be the reluctant Rupert Giles of this group.

So, while the pilot was fun, the ending, where the super-entertaining Wyle leaves the show in the hands of the barely-sketched out newbies, feels a bit weird. The main difference between this and Warehouse 13 is that they are cut-off from the house of wonders and can't use them. Which gives them an underdog feel from the beginning. Of the three Librarians-in-Training, Christian Kane as Jake Stone is probably the best. He has the advantage of having worked with the creative team behind the show for five years on Leverage, of course, and his character feels written for him in a way that will the take the show time to achieve for the other parts. Especially Ezekiel, whose only trait thus far is "I'm a thief!" Although, Cassandra's synesthesia episodes/betrayal arc were not particularly deftly handled.

All of this is stuff that I expect to be easily worked out through time, and the show is just a fun romp outside the character issues. There part where the team is trying to get to a magical artifact before the Serpent Brotherhood, where Cassandra, Jake, and Flynn figure out the puzzle while Baird and Ezekiel distract the bad guys is proof the show can sing. Flynn tells Baird "Take Ezekiel" and she just hauls him off by his jacket. The other three are a great team at unlocking the puzzle, and the whole thing ends with Flynn making a torch out of their picnic lunch.

And Flynn's fight against the main muscle for the Serpent Society is interrupted by Baird and Ezekiel running past him going "We want to leave now!" "You want to be anywhere else!" just as the helicopter explodes. It's the best part of the episode, mixing some tension with a fair amount of humor.

If any of this sounds like your cup of tea, I highly recommend using The Librarians to fill the void left Sundays by everything else going on hiatus for the winter.

Sony hacked again, this time the PlayStation Network

Sony has been hit by another hack -- the PlayStation Network and store has been targeted and taken offline.
Although the online store for games, films and TV shows seems to be back up and running once again, visitors to the site were brought to a halt on Sunday night with a message reading, "Page Not Found! It's not you. It's the Internet's fault." Gamers have also reported difficulties while trying to play online games.
Sony says only, "We are currently investigating the root cause for the issue."
An anonymous individual or group calling itself Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility with a tweet late on Sunday reading "PSN Login #offline #LizardSquad".
The latest hack comes less than a week after Sony celebrated the 20th birthday of the PlayStation games console. As well as building games consoles and selling games, Sony has a movie studio, which fell prey to hackers last month. A cache totalling more than 100 terabytes of internal Sony files and films was stolen in that attack.
The information included customer passwords, Sony employee's Social Security numbers, and contracts with celebrities. A number of forthcoming Sony movies including "Annie", "Mr. Turner" and "To Write Love On Her Arms" were also leaked.
Some had speculated that the North Korean government may have been motivated to hack Sony in retaliation for the forthcoming comedy film "The Interview", about a plot to assassinate the country's leader, Kim Jong-Un. The North Korean government on Sunday denied responsibility for the attack.

'Eaten Alive' viewers outraged man wasn't actually eaten alive

Apparently the only thing worse than promising a man will be eaten alive by an anaconda is for a man to not be eaten alive by an anaconda.
Many viewers felt Discovery had pledged adventurer Paul Rosolie would be utterly consumed by an anaconda on his special Sunday night. After all, the show was called Eaten Alive and its official programming guide description told viewers that a man “enters the belly of an anaconda.”
What viewers eventually saw during the two-hour special was a large anaconda attack Rosolie, coil around him, then start to eat his helmet. That’s when Rosolie had to call in his team to rescue him, saying his arm was being crushed. “I started to feel the blood drain out of my hand and I felt the bone flex, and when I got to the point where I felt like it was going to snap I had to tap out,” he said.
As we pointed out in our in-depth Q&A, Discovery had refused to say how much Rosolie was actually consumed. When we asked Rosolie how much he was “eaten,” he told us, “the story of this is an attempt. When you say Nik Wallenda is going to cross the Chicago skyline, they didn’t promise he was going to make it; they promised he would attempt it. So the show is called Eaten Alive and that’s what we worked as hard as we could to do. As for what happens, you’ll have to watch.” Rosolie also said he spent months recovering from the encounter.

49ers in state of disarray after loss to Raiders crushes playoff hopes

OAKLAND, Calif. -- He will coach three more games for this team, but Jim Harbaugh appears to be as good as gone. In truth, he was probably finished with the 49ers before Sunday’s stunning upset at the O.co Coliseum, where his team was outplayed in every phase of the game by a 1-11 squad coming off a 52-0 loss to another outfit with a losing record, the Rams.
Yet there was Harbaugh, with 28 seconds to play, still coaching, still grinding, dispensing instructions to the troubled Colin Kaepernick, despite the fact the Niners were trailing 24-13 and 85 yards from Oakland’s end zone. At the end of yet another tough day at the office, one that featured five sacks, two picks against just a single touchdown pass; a 54.4 rating, Kap made a decent play, finding tight end Vernon Davis for a 10-yard gain. But, and here was the story of the day -- no, the 2014 season -- the Niners had lined up in an illegal formation. Kap was sacked on the next snap, and the game, mercifully, ended.
• Catch up on everything you missed from NFL Week 14
Also drawing to a close, in that moment:
• Any realistic chance the Niners had at a playoff berth. Their record is now 7-6. Six teams in the NFC have better records by at least two games.
• The season of even pretending that Harbaugh will be back with this team next year. Let’s reflect for a moment on how remarkable that is. Regardless of how difficult he may be to get along with, of how strained his relations may be with GM Trent Baalke and owner Jed York, Harbaugh coached this club to the last three NFC title games. He’s won 43 of his 60 games in San Francisco. His winning percentage is .713 compared to Sean Payton's .624 in New Orleans. The Saints are 5-8 this season, and coming off a putrid 41-10 loss to Carolina. But no one’s talking seriously about the possibility of Payton getting run out of town.
But Harbaugh’s freshness date has expired. Asked after the Raiders loss, the nadir of a difficult, turbulent year, if he thought Baalke and York wanted him back, he refused to answer the question directly, choosing instead to list his “priorities” -- winning games, attending to the welfare of his players, coaches and staff, “and lastly,” his “personal professional future.”Asked if it was up to him -- if he wanted to return -- he replied: “My priorities are winning games.” Read: No.
How did it come to this? How did he go from “WHO’S GOT IT BETTER THAN US?” to “Whose checks will I be cashing next season?”
He invested heavily in a quarterback whose stock is now tanking. The emergence of Raiders rookie quarterback Derek Carr -- and Carr’s effortless poise in the pocket -- threw into sharp contrast the struggles of Kaepernick, who in his 42^nd NFL start was a hesitant, indecisive shadow of the player who took the league by storm in 2012.
Lending spice to Sunday’s Battle of the Bay was the fact that Oakland looms as a possible landing spot for Harbaugh, who was an assistant there in ’02 and ’03, and would surely relish the chance to restore the luster to this foundering franchise, while the Niners, presumably, backslide into the decade-long oblivion from which he rescued them.
One major draw: The aforementioned Carr, who performed a vivisection on the Niners, completing 22 of 28 passes for 254 yards and three touchdowns, against zero interceptions. His quarterback rating, 140.2, was 85.8 points higher than that of Kaepernick, who after taking that sack on the game’s last play was helped up by his teammates, then greeted by Carr. There was something almost surreal to this tableau: the quarterback who was throwing into the end zone in a failed attempt to win the Super Bowl two seasons ago was now being basically consoled by the quarterback of the two-win team.
They’re going in opposite directions. One play, late in the first half, best illustrated where Kap is in his stalled career. Trailing 10-7, he hit Anquan Boldin for 16 yards, then scrambled up the middle for 17, a play that came back after the 49ers were flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. He then found Boldin at the left sideline for 20 more yards.
On the next snap, he pulled the ball down to run, angling for the left sideline. There was a first down for the taking. Instead, Kap badly overthrew Davis, who wasn’t open to begin with. Here was his conundrum in a nutshell: defensive coordinators have largely figured him out. By “spying” and otherwise containing him, they’ve forced him to try to beat them with his arm, from the pocket. He seems to want to become that player -- as evidenced by that misbegotten throw to Davis -- but it’s not going well. He locks onto receivers, he doesn’t get far into his progression, he hasn’t been accurate. He is at once exceptionally mobile and the most-sacked quarterback in the league (43). Interpretation: he’s confused. He’s lost his mojo. And, when it suits him, his voice.Overheard in the press box Sunday: banter concerning the “over-under” on the word count from Kap’s postgame press conference, and whether it would exceed his churlish frosting (87 words in response to 32 questions) of the Niners beat writers three days earlier.
Following the loss that essentially extinguished their playoff hopes, Kaepernick indulged in a veritable filibuster, for him, enunciating 133 words -- on just 16 questions -- a much higher WPQ (words per query) than Thursday’s exercise in misanthropy.
One of those question asked him to explain his apparent stiff-arming of a photographer as the Niners headed into the tunnel at halftime. “If I put something real close to your face, you’re going to try move out of the way, too,” he said.
Regardless of whether the contact was justified, the point is that Kaepernick no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. Yes, he’s done a remarkable job building his brand as a smoldering, soft-spoken rebel. But that appeal doesn’t work as well when you can’t complete more than 55.2 percent of your passes, a mark Kaepernick has failed to surpass in five of his last six games. It doesn’t work when you direct the NFL’s worst red zone offense and when you are averaging 6.1 second-half points per game -- second-worst in the league. Then people don’t think you’re a rebel. Then they arrive at different conclusions.Afterward, some Niners refused to rule out the possibility that their playoff hopes were still alive. Frank Gore, the team’s soulful -- and truthful -- running back, was not among them. He’s too authentic. “If we beat the Raiders, we still had hope” to eke out a wild card spot, he said. Translation: they no longer have hope. “So this is the lowest point.”
Gore is 31, three games from the end of his 10^th NFL season. He sounded weary and sad, explaining that in this, the final year on his contract, “I wanted to … get a shot to be able to hold the trophy.”
There will be no Lombardi Trophy for the Niners. Not this season, not during the Harbaugh Era. The 49ers are not going to the postseason. Another way of saying it: 12 teams will have it better than them.

Sunday 7 December 2014

Ronnie O'Sullivan claims fifth UK Championship after thrilling victory over Judd Trump at the Barbican Centre

Ronnie O’Sullivan claimed a memorable fifth Coral UK Championship title last night – having played the tournament with a broken ankle.

The Rocket saw off natural heir apparent Judd Trump 10-9 in a thriller at York’ s Barbican Centre to pocket the £150,000 first prize.

He shrugged off a brilliant late fightback from his opponent, who made breaks of 120, 127 and 86 to close to force a tense decider from 9-4 adrift.

And there was even late anxiety for O’Sullivan over forgetting to pack enough pants – dashing into the city to stock up on underwear before the showpiece.

O’Sullivan had fractured his ankle bone on the eve of the event while out running in Epping Forest near his Essex home.

But the 39-year-old raced into a 5-1 lead at the tournament where it all started for him as a 17-year-old, setting for his first major trophy.

And despite a superb rally from the 25-year-old world No7 Trump, the 2011 UK winner, O’Sullivan closed out the match.

At one stage it had looked like Trump was about to pull off one of the most famous snooker comebacks, up there with Dennis Taylor against Steve Davis at the Crucible final in 1985

And there was even late anxiety for O’Sullivan over forgetting to pack enough pants – dashing into the city to stock up on underwear before the showpiece.

O’Sullivan had fractured his ankle bone on the eve of the event while out running in Epping Forest near his Essex home.

But the 39-year-old raced into a 5-1 lead at the tournament where it all started for him as a 17-year-old, setting for his first major trophy.

And despite a superb rally from the 25-year-old world No7 Trump, the 2011 UK winner, O’Sullivan closed out the match.

At one stage it had looked like Trump was about to pull off one of the most famous snooker comebacks, up there with Dennis Taylor against Steve Davis at the Crucible final in 1985

“I felt very relaxed out there and am just a bit annoyed I didn’t get a good chance in the decider, because I knew I had that form in me.”

Trump is often seen as the natural successor to O’Sullivan, a reputation helped along nicely when he became the youngest player to make a 147 maximum break in a competitive match at just 14.

A natural showman who thrived on atmosphere and big crowds, his initial progress on tour was hindered by qualifying matches played with neither present.

The breakthrough was inevitable though and came in 2011 with a first ranking title at the China Open, huge credit in defeat despite a world final loss to John Higgins in Sheffield, and success in the UK event with a 10-8 win over Mark Allen.

Trump managed a break of 50 to level at 1-1 – but then lost the next four frames with some nerves taking hold.

Trump had noted before the final that O’Sullivan had not been at his best last week despite a 13th career 147 break – but expected him to raise the bar for the showpiece.

And he was right, with the Rocket knocking in breaks of 82 and 81 – only for Trump to keep the contest alive by pocketing the last two frames of the afternoon.

The players emerged to a deafening reception in the evening, and O’Sullivan kept his foot on the gas by quickly extending his lead to 7-3. Trump clung on, but a magnificent break of 133, the 770th of O’Sullivan’s career, re-established his four-frame advantage.

From 9-4 down Trump rallied, and back to back centuries of 120, 127 and 86 left him at just 9-8 adrift. He got to 9-9 – but O’Sullivan closed it out.

Filmed-in-Portland 'The Librarians': A playful, hectic mix of comedy, fantasy and adventure

on December 07, 2014 at 9:02 AM, updated December 07, 2014 at 9:54 AM

Tuesday 30 December 2014

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Thursday 11 December 2014

Tuesday 9 December 2014

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