Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Halloween Cupcakes
Really enjoy cupcakes and Halloween so here are some mixed in one! Plus just some nice cake that i found from blogs.
Father lets 9 year old daughter drive!
This young girls father made her drive because he was so drunk. Not only did he let his 9 year old daughter drive his van but also bragged about it to the man working at the petrol station! I don't know how she would have possibly even reached the pedals. Here's the article and video clip can be found from 9 Year old Driving
A nine-year-old girl asked police why they pulled her over when she was "driving good" after her drunken father got her to drive his van in the middle of the night, US media reported on Tuesday.
The girl was sitting on a booster seat in the big red van, but somehow managed to reach the pedals and was even careful to use her turn signal.
"I parked!" she can be heard telling the clerk on a gas station's surveillance video.
Her father, Shawn Weimer, 39, of Brownstown Township, Michigan, bragged openly about his "designated driver" before dancing his way back to the van his daughter parked at a pump just before 3:00 am on October 8.
"Nine years old. Nine! Gas, brake, listen, we're leaving, and she's driving. I'm drunk," the man told the clerk, slurring his words and stumbling around in front of the counter.
A good Samaritan, who was disturbed by how the man was treating what he called his "little angel" called police and followed the van in his car to make sure police could pull them over as soon as possible, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The girl, who could be seen munching on a candy apple in the shop, had apparently driven before, police said.
"She was doing fine," Brownstown Township Police Detective Lt. Robert Grant told the Free Press.
"And, in fact, as heinous as this is, the little girl looks at the police officer and says, 'What did you stop me for? I was driving good.' Incredible. Obviously, the officer told her she was too young to drive."
The girl's parents are separated and she was spending the weekend with her father. He told police he was just taking her for a driving lesson and refused a breathalyzer test. She told police he'd been drinking whiskey all night.
The father faces charges of felony child abuse and being a habitual offender
Shia Labeouf Bashed.
Shia Labeouf has been in fights before but this one was caught on camera. There are a lot of instances when fights are caught on camera like this one but I don't understand why? When I see a fight my first thoughts is not to whip out my phone or camera and film it. Would you not a least try and stop it or get someone else to help? Nonetheless here is the article on Shia Lebaouf and the video that accompanied it from Labeouf's Fight:
The 25-year-old Transformers star was fighting with a shirtless man outside Cinema Public House in Vancouver on Saturday morning (AEDT).
An onlooker filmed the altercation and it was released by TMZ today.
The footage shows LeBeouf being knocked to the ground and beaten, before standing up and trying to hit back as his friends restrain him.
"You gotta lay low right now," one friend can be heard saying.
The two men, both described by witnesses as "intoxicated", reportedly began arguing inside the bar before they were thrown out by security.
The other man then reportedly ripped his shirt off and began attacking LaBeouf.
It is not the first bar fight for the actor — he was seen yelling at his girlfriend at a Hollywood bar in August and had to be restrained by police in February after a fight in an LA tavern.
LaBeouf is in Canada filming Robert Redford's film The Company You Keep.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Same Sex Relationships
I found this article on the Australian online newspaper. It is about same sex marriage and discriminating against same sex relationships. I thought the arguments the ex-navy officer was making was very important and I do believe she should receive the same benefits as those couples in a relationship with a person of the opposite sex. This is where i found the article The Australian
A DISABLED US Navy veteran is suing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to recognise her marriage to her long-time female partner - in what is believed to be the first time a former member of the armed services has sought recognition of same-sex marriage from the department.
A DISABLED US Navy veteran is suing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to recognise her marriage to her long-time female partner - in what is believed to be the first time a former member of the armed services has sought recognition of same-sex marriage from the department.
Eighteen-year naval veteran Carmen Cardona is filing an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims after the VA denied her and her wife spousal disability benefits last year.
"I'm proud that I served my country while in the Navy," Ms Cardona said, in comments reported today by FOX News.
"It is important to my wife and me that the Government respect my service by acknowledging our marriage, and that we be treated equally."
The 45-year-old - who maintained aircraft during her years of service - applied for and began receiving military-connected disability compensation from the VA for carpal tunnel syndrome, which she developed as a result of her duties, following her honourable discharge in 2000.
Ms Cardona married her partner in Norwich, Connecticut in 2010. She later applied to the VA for spousal benefits -- to which legally married disabled veterans are entitled - but officials denied the application pursuant to a VA statute that prevents the federal government from recognising same-sex marriages.
"We could use the help to pay our mortgage, but this is not only about the money," Ms Cardona said, "President Obama is right that [the Defense of Marriage Act] discriminates against gay and lesbian people. There are many other veterans out there just like me. I am standing up and asking to be treated equally in part to let others know they are not alone."
Officials at the VA declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.
The VA benefits law indicates that for purposes of veterans' benefits a spouse is defined as a "person of the opposite sex who is a wife or husband". The Board of Veterans Appeals relied upon this law rather than the Defense of Marriage Act in ruling that Cardona's same-sex partner could not be considered a spouse for benefits purposes.
Lecture 11: Investigative Journalism
Investigative Journalism
What is it?
- Isn’t all journalism meant involve questioning investigation of facts and opinions presented to us
- Hugo de Burgh – it is to discover the truste
- Lord Northcliffe – “what somebody somewhere wants to suppress, all the rest is just advertising”
Investigative
- Intelligent
o not just boring turn up and do story
o Well thought out, must know the context in which you are investigating
o Money, sex and power makes the world corrupt
- Informed
o Informes because you are going to inform other people so you need to know in the first place
- Intuitive
o Can either be born or develop it
o Having a knowing that something is just not right,
- Inside
o What’s the real story?
o Must get into the story that you are investigatins
- Intimate? Maybe?
o Sometimes have to get inside the person you are interviewing
- Invest
o You do have to invest a part of yourself
o Can call upon you emotional, spiritual self, You must know when to draw the line
Deeper definitions and Purpose
1. Critical and through journalism
2. Custodian of conscience
3. To proved a voice for those without one to hold
Critical and Thorough Journalism
- Critical = the journalist is an active participant
- “Active Intervention” – the key idea
- Thorough
o = Journalist makes a substantial effort
Custodian of Conscience
- Investigation takes society morals and norms and holds breaches up to public scrutiny; in other words they call ‘civic vice ‘ is exposed for society to repons
- “Exposure”- key idea
To provide a voice to those without on and to hold the powerful account
- Social justice – power to the powerless, voice to the voiceless
- “Public Interest” – key idea
o not about corporations
Fourth Estate/ Fourth branch of Governments/ “watchdog’
- Fourth Estate
o Journalist represent the interest of those without power to balance the power of government
- Fourth Branch of Govt.
o Journalist ensure free flows of information necessary for the functioning of democracy by interrogating the judiciary, executive and legislature
o One of the reasons we have had problem in Qld we had corruption in judiciary
- ‘Watchdog’
o Journalist make accountable public personalities and institution whose function impact social and political life
Summary
- Active Intervention
- Exposure
- Public Interest
- Fourth Estate/Watchdog
- Skeptical not Cynical
Cutting through the Agenda
- Hidden agenda of message and myths that surround its
- The abs cannot simply report must work in best traditions of investigative journalism
- Fitzgerald Report
Historical Investigations – Trailblazers
Number 2
- Started the Salvos (William Booth)
- Help the poor who had been affected by the industrial revolution
- Had huge agenda in social justice
- W.T. Stead heard about young girls 12 or younger being used for prostitution
- In his newspaper
Number 3
- Bob Woodward, Carl Bernsteing 1972-74
- ‘Watergate” about Nixon which led him to the get the flick
Number 4
- ‘The Moonlight State’
- Chris Masters, Phil Dickie, Shaun Hoyt
- Story about cops behaving badly and treating children violently
- For some reasons everyone just ignored because cops, politicians were involved but the Moonlight state changed everyhintg
Number 5
- Julian Assange from Cairns
- Sarah Palin says he should be hunted down like Osama
- May be shipped back to USA
- Is wikileaks Journalism?
o Its not because it just information you actually need journalist to go through the information
What do they have in Common?
- they all changed they world in their own different way
- Such as changing age of consent
Local Investigative Journalism
- Its all about telling their own stories
- Brooke Hardgraves – old journalism student
What do we investigate?
- If your mother says she loves you, check it out’
- Believe no one, assume nothing
- Expect whistleblowers to be crazy
- Types of Investigation Interaction
o Interviews
o Observations
o Documents
o Briefings
o Leaks
o Trespass
o Theft
- Investigating methods
o Interviewing
o Observing – investigation technical issues, scrutiny of government and business practices and their effect. Research into social and legal issue
o Analysing documents – law suits
Wikipedia/Google is not the on place to look
- Wikipedia is not reliable, anyone can change it
Threats to investigating Journalism
- Online news
o Less money = Less Journalism
Journalism Vs PR
- Propaganda by truth
o the selective use of ‘facts’ to present a persuasive case to the publis
- Journalism is verifying the facts to public interests
Growth in PR = shrinkage in Journalism
- PR
o Resistance to Exposure
o Dodging Questions
o Massaging ‘talent’
o Cleaning up stories
- Journalism
o No Intervention
o No shoe leather
o Lack of Depth
Future of Investigative Journalism
- YouTube is thinking of doing an investigating channel
Thailand Floods
I found the floods in Thailand pretty interesting to me because I am meant to be travelling there at the end of the year so hopefully by then everything clears up. This article I found in the New York times talks about all the other countries in Asia that have been affected by the typhoons and some of those countries I am also travelling to, so it may end up as very interesting trip. Here's the link Thailand Floods
BANGKOK — As some of Thailand’s worst flooding in half a century bears down on Bangkok — submerging cities, industrial parks and ancient temples as it comes — experts in water management are blaming human activity for turning an unusually heavy monsoon season into a disaster.
The main factors, they say, are deforestation, overbuilding in catchment areas, the damming and diversion of natural waterways, urban sprawl, and the filling-in of canals, combined with bad planning. Warnings to the authorities, they say, have been in vain.
“I have tried to inform them many times, but they tell me I am a crazy man,” said Smith Dharmasaroja, former director general of the Thai Meteorological Department, who is famous here for predicting a major tsunami years before the one that devastated coastal towns in 2004.
The monsoon season this year has brought disaster to Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam as well as Thailand, where 283 people are reported to have died.
Thousands of people have been displaced as typhoons have battered the Philippines, and the country’s steep rice terraces of Banaue are reported to have been damaged by mudslides.
Floods have spread through Cambodia, where the city of Siem Reap is reported to be knee-deep in water, with floodwaters reaching the nearby temples of Angkor.
Thai officials are warning that, in the next few days, Bangkok could be inundated by a combination of heavy floodwaters from the north, unusually high tides and monsoon rains. People in some of the most threatened neighborhoods are building sandbag barriers around their homes and emptying shops of food, drinking water, batteries and candles.
Preparations in Bangkok have become frantic. About 45 miles of sandbags have reportedly been laid to reinforce a dike along the Chao Phraya River, which flows through the city. New flood barriers and drainage canals are being built. People are being told to stay alert.
As the water flows south from the inundated cities of Nakhon Sawan and Ayutthaya, with its submerged brick temples, the local news media have reported that 150,000 sandbags are moving south too, as soldiers truck them from one hard-hit area to the next high-risk point.
As the government rushes to protect some urban or industrial areas by diverting water from them, local officials have faced off over whose towns will be saved and whose will be sacrificed.
In Ayutthaya, two groups of villagers are reported to have battled over a dike that protected one side and condemned the other. As the unlucky residents dug at the dike to send the water toward their neighbors, a gunfight broke out, wounding one of the villagers. In some places, according to news reports, troops have been deployed to protect the dikes.
Among those stranded by floodwaters were 15 elephants, which climbed to the top of a wall a week ago to escape fast-rising water in Ayutthaya. They include seven mothers and their babies and a nine-year-old elephant known internationally for his painting skills with his trunk, said Ewa Narkiewicz, communications director for a group called Elephantstay, a nonprofit agency that cares for retired elephants.
“If proper help does not come soon, the mothers and babies are in grave danger,” Ms. Narkiewicz said. Each animal consumes up to 440 pounds of food a day, but the boats that could be used to ferry bananas, pineapples and sugar cane to them are busy rescuing stranded residents, she said.
Mr. Smith, the meteorologist, said the flooding situation this year had been aggravated by bad water management.
“They miscalculated the water levels and did not discharge water from the dams early enough in the rainy season,” he said. “The dams are almost full now, so they discharge the water at the same time, and all the discharge water comes down to the low-lying areas.”
Those areas become obstacles to the free flow of water, he said, as developers continue to extend their activities.
“They build their estates in low-lying areas that are supposed to be reservoirs,” he said, “and they throw up a dam or a dike, and they block the flow where the water is supposed to go in rainy season.”
Once the floodwaters reach Bangkok, they will pour into a city that has lost its natural defenses: a huge network of canals that have been filled in — or clogged with garbage — as the city has become an overcrowded behemoth.
“Our city plan is inefficient,” Capt. Somsak Khaosuwan, director of the National Disaster Warning Center, said by telephone.
“The weather hasn’t changed that much,” he said. “We always have more water in the rainy season. But if we don’t have integrated water management, we will face this problem again next year.”
Man and nature are increasingly estranged, he said, and their coexistence is becoming a battle. “This is the sign that we should preserve the forest,” he said. “We’ve hurt nature for a long time, and right now it seems that nature wants to pay us back.”
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