TOM HANKS – HANKS HASSLED IN CHURCH: “Hollywood star TOM HANKS has been hassled by a die-hard fan on the set of new film THE DA VINCI CODE – even though the chapel he was filming in was closed to the public.
The SAVING PRIVATE RYAN actor was shooting a scene with AMELIE beauty AUDREY TAUTOU when they were interrupted by an unwanted visitor.
A man was later charged with breach of the peace after forcing his way towards the star in a desperate bid to get the CASTAWAY star’s autograph.
The 39-year-old was carried away by police but the security breach at Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland is the latest in a long line of fan incidents which have plagued the movie adaptation of DAN BROWN’s best-selling novel.
Oscar-winning director RON HOWARD was even forced to disguise the name of the project in an attempt to minimise the crowd frenzy surrounding shoots.”
I’ll bet that really threw off the stalkers.
Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: Hedging China the wrong way: “I fear American foreign policy will be largely useless between now and January 2009. Again, the discounting is coming with a vengeance. Everyone is making their plans for what comes next. Thus, the irrelevancy of U.S. foreign policy will grow immeasurably in coming months.”
So we’re discounting 3 years ahead? Absurd thinking. Especially considering that Bush 43 has done more to demonstrate the power of the President in office than virtually any other President.
Wow. Secretary Jackson put his finger in the light socket.
On close reading the quote marks around ‘whiter’ look like an unjustified addition by craven subeditor at the Washington Times.
HUD chief foresees a ‘whiter’ Big Easy – Nation/Politics – The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper: “Bush Cabinet officer predicted this week that New Orleans likely will never again be a majority black city, and several black officials are outraged.
Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, during a visit with hurricane victims in Houston, said New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of ‘500,000 people for a long time,’ and ‘it’s not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.’
Rep. Danny K. Davis, Illinois Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, quickly took issue.
‘Anybody who can make that kind of projection with some degree of certainty or accuracy must have a crystal ball that I can’t see or maybe they are more prophetic than any of us can imagine,’ he said.
Other members of the caucus said the comments by Mr. Jackson, who is black, could be misconstrued as a goal, particularly considering his position of responsibility in the administration.
‘I would beg and hope that the secretary, if that is what he is saying, would re-evaluate the situation,’ said Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat.”
Publishers Marketplace: Recent Deals: “Robert A. Heinlein’s METHUSELAH’S CHILDREN, about a large group of long-lived Americans who leave Earth to escape persecution and encounter experiences with aliens somewhat reminiscent of episodes in Homer’s Odyssey, to James Baen at Baen Books, by Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency (NA).”
The book is a classic that I would gladly re-read … but I won’t be reading about those aliens [who are] somewhat reminiscent of episodes in Homer’s Odyssey! What, do they look like an episode?
What’s next, aliens somewhat reminiscent of episdodes in Gilligan’s Island? Now that’s scary…
Publishers Marketplace: Recent Deals: “Security expert and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Stephen E. Flynn’s, THE EDGE OF DISASTER, about all the ways in which America has become vulnerable to terror and catastrophe — both man-made and natural — the role of our own ongoing negligence in contributing to the danger, and what we can do to protect ourselves most effectively, to Susan Mercandetti at Random House, by Mort Janklow (world).”
I hope this won’t be a series of sober warnings …
Publishers Marketplace: The Latest Deals: “Tom Vanderbilt’s TRAFFIC SIGNALS, Maddening Mysteries of the Road & What Our Driving Says About Us, to Stefan McGrath and Will Goodlad at Penguin Press, in a major deal,”
Major deal according to Publishers Marketplace lexicon is $500,00 and up. US deal with Knopf was also for much $$$.
Puzzling: I haven’t been under impression that readers are clamoring for more books about traffic …
Tbis Guardian article sensationalizes.
Romersa book on Hitler’s atomic bomb programme
A book published in Italy today is set to reignite a smouldering controversy over how close the Nazis came to manufacturing a nuclear device in the closing stages of the second world war.
The 88 year-old author, Luigi Romersa, is the last known witness to what he and some historians believe was the experimental detonation of a rudimentary weapon on an island in the Baltic in 1944….
llied interrogators who questioned the German researchers concluded that there were vast gaps in their understanding of nuclear fission. In any case, the US had needed 125,000 people to develop the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, whereas Germany’s programme involved no more than a few dozen physicists, led by the Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg.
But documents published recently by Mr Karlsch and an American scholar, Mark Walker of Union College, Schenectady, have punctured this consensus. Russian archives have shown that one of the German scientists lodged a patent claim for a plutonium bomb as early as 1941 and, in June, the two historians published an article in the British monthly, Physics World, that included what they claimed was the first diagram of one of the bombs Hitler’s scientists were trying to build – a device that exploited both fission and fusion.
The true novelty of Mr Karlsch’s research, though, is to have turned the spotlight off Heisenberg and onto a competing project run by one Kurt Diebner. A Nazi since 1939, Diebner had his own group at Gottow near Berlin. Mr Karlsch found evidence to show that, sponsored by Walther Gerlach of the Reich Research Council, this group abandoned its quest for an A-bomb to concentrate on a weapon made of conventional high explosives packed around a nuclear core. “It was a tactical battlefield weapon they probably wanted to use against the approaching Soviet armies,” said Professor Walker.
Could Mr Romersa have seen the detonation of an early prototype? He is not the only person to have claimed to have witnessed similar explosions…
Your basic credible threat.
Israelis urge U.S. to stop Iran’s nuke goals – World – The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper: “The United States and its allies must act to stop Iran’s nuclear programs — by force if necessary — because conventional diplomacy will not work, three senior Israeli lawmakers from across the political spectrum warned yesterday.
As a last resort, they said, Israel itself would act unilaterally to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms.
Iran will not be deterred ‘by anything short of a threat of force,’ said Arieh Eldad, a member of Israel’s right-wing National Union Party, part of a delegation of Knesset members visiting Washington this week.
‘They won’t be stopped unless they are convinced their programs will be destroyed if they continue,’ he said.
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said the best hope was for the United States and other major powers to make it clear to Iranian leaders now there was ‘no chance they will ever see the fruits of a nuclear program.’
‘Threats of sanctions and isolation alone will not do it,’ said Mr. Steinitz.
Yosef Lapid, head of the centrist opposition Shinui Party in the Knesset, added that Israel ‘will not live under the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb.’
‘We feel we are obliged to warn our friends that Israel should not be pushed into a situation where we see no other solution but to act unilaterally’ against Iran, he said.
Mr. Steinitz, a member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ruling Likud Party, stopped just short of a direct threat to bomb suspect Iranian nuclear sites.
Mr. Steinitz said Israeli officials estimate that Tehran is only two to three years away from developing a nuclear bomb and that time was running out for the world to act.
‘We see an Iranian bomb as a devastating, existential threat to Israel, to the entire Middle East, to all Western interests in the region,’ he said.
‘Despite all the different circumstances, we see similarities to what happened in the 1930s, when people underestimated the real problem or focused on other dangers. For us, either the world will tackle Iran in advance or all of us will face the consequences.’”
eBay: NEW! Fantasy ARC~A FEAST FOR CROWS by GEORGE RR MARTIN (item 8337716735 end time Oct-03-05 15:46:12 PDT): “NEW! Fantasy ARC [advance reading copy]~A FEAST FOR CROWS by GEORGE RR MARTIN”
Current bid [as of Fri Sep 30 2005 09:43:51 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)] $295.00
eBay: NEW! Fantasy ARC~A FEAST FOR CROWS by GEORGE RR MARTIN (item 8337716735 end time Oct-03-05 15:46:12 PDT): “NEW! Fantasy ARC [advance reading copy]~A FEAST FOR CROWS by GEORGE RR MARTIN”
Current bid [as of Fri Sep 30 2005 09:43:51 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)] $295.00
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