Very beautiful.

Dish Network customers lost access to CNN, Turner Classic Movies, and a handful of other channels late Monday as the result of a contract dispute with Turner Broadcasting.

Turner Broadcasting, which licenses the channels for distribution to subscription services, pulled the channels from Dish's lineup upon the expiration of its current deal with the satellite service after the two companies were unable to negotiate renewed distribution terms. Other channels removed from Dish include Boomerang, Cartoon Network, CNN en Espanol, Headline News, and truTV.

link

You do realize that having to ingest "booze" before dating and/or sex is considered intimacy challenged right?

Never said I had to, but if that's where you want to go, OK, I am intimacy challenged, the good news is I am not alone as no other business flourishes on Friday and Saturday nights like the booze business.  Add in the billions in illegal drug trade and I am definitely in the company of a lot of intimacy challenged folks.

For someone who claims to have spent her youth partying, you really don't like it, from not wanting grown men in uniform to be able to drink outside the US, to making bold claims about others who like to do what you say you did in your youth.

"The new research shows that Caravaggio didn't just lash out after a game of tennis but that he was avenging his honour in a way that was utterly in keeping with the culture of the Rome of his day.
"One of the fascinating things is the discovery that particular wounds in Roman street fights meant particular things. If a man insulted another man's reputation he might have his face cut. If a man insulted a man's woman he would get his penis cut off."
The barber surgeon's report, made on the night that Tomassoni died, has also been re-examined by experts in the Italian art world. Monsignor Sandro Corradini, another historian who has combed the Vatican archives, said that the document showed that Tomassoni bled to death through the femoral artery in his groin, having been floored during the duel.

And I look around and the big news is about Ebola and some guy running across the White House lawn?

It's based on the true story about the rise and fall of Gary Webb, an investigative journalist for the San Jose Mercury-News who broke the story about how the CIA was turning a blind eye to drug dealers because the profits were being used to arm the Contras in Nicaragua -- and for his efforts, was destroyed both personally and professionally by the CIA and the east coast media elite.

Webb allegedly took his own life in 2004. I used the term "allegedly" because although his death was ruled a suicide by the coroner, it takes considerable skill to put two bullets inside your own skull.

Well, I suppose it could've happened that way and further, those closest to Webb cited his severe depression at the time, and they are strongly convinced that he committed suicide.

But I just find it interesting that a decade after Webb's death, the eastern establishment still fears the inherent power of his story. The Washington Post's Jeff Leen recently felt compelled to resume his paper's despicable smear campaign against Webb from 18 years ago. For his part, Esquire magazine's Charles Pierce was not amused by Leen's hit job on the deceased:

"It was Webb's contention that the import of Contra-peddled cocaine into Los Angeles helped kickstart the crack epidemic in that city. (It also, more or less, was the point at which many of the early attacks on Webb's work came.) This was a time when, to finance those same wars, the U.S. government was selling missiles to the Mullahs, so you will forgive me if I am not surprised that the Agency was paying for them by helping to mule dope into this country. With all due respect to Leen, I started listening to Bob Parry on this stuff 30 years ago, and I see no reason to stop now."

But I digress. Anyway, if Jeremy Renner doesn't receive at least an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, I'll be very surprised. Simply put, his ferocious performance as Webb is pure tour de force. I highly recommend "Kill the Messenger."

Former St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch believes more information will be leaked out to the media by a government source. Fitch says this strategy has been used before, "Assuming that the article is correct my belief is that there will be future articles written as probably from the same federal source that will let out a little information each time as it gets closer to the actual announcement of the verdict or charges or no charges."

Fitch believes the leaked information is an attempt to let some people down slowly, "It was an intentional release with someone familiar with the federal side of the investigation, in my opinion, for the sole purpose of preparing the community for what may be seen for many as bad news, that there's not going to be any federal charges." link

The other speculation is that McCulloch will delay announcing the GJ verdict until after the 11/5 election to reduce the verdicts impact on Steve Stenger's bid for St. Louis County Executive.

SURUC, Turkey (AP) -- In a significant shift, Turkey's top diplomat announced on Monday that his country is helping Iraqi Kurdish fighters cross into Syria to "give support" to fellow Kurds defending the border town of Kobani from Islamic State militants.

The remarks by Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, at a press conference in Ankara, followed the announcement by the U.S. military that it had for the first time airdropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq to the Kurdish forces in Kobani.

What Kurd's are saying:

"They have not given us any orders to move our units," said the spokesman, Halgurd Hekmat. "But we are waiting, and we are ready."

The Kurdish activists in Kobani said there was no sign of any peshmerga forces.
...
Iso, the journalist in Kobani, said by telephone that he had not seen any peshmerga -- he called out to a group of Kurdish fighters with him if they had seen any, and they could be heard answering "No!" over the line.

Echoing the views of many Kurds, who are deeply suspicious of Turkey, Iso said the foreign minister's statements had "nothing to do with reality."

Source

These may be the only Peshmerga the Kurds have seen:

Islamic State militants advanced on the Iraqi town of Qara Tappa on Monday disguised as Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Kurdish security sources said.

Jeralyn, interested in your thoughts on this new "epidemic" and the laws being passed on campuses to combat it.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98

Undergraduate enrollment increased 47 percent between 1970 and 1983, when it reached 10.8 million. Undergraduate enrollment dipped to 10.6 million in 1984 and 1985, but then increased each year from 1985 to 1992, rising 18 percent before stabilizing between 1992 and 1998. Between 2001 and 2011, undergraduate enrollment rose 32 percent, from 13.7 million to 18.1 million.

That's a rather convoluted presentation, but it would be a fair guess that there are roughly twice as many undergrads now as in the mid to late 70s.