An animal welfare group that has used undercover videos to generate public outrage over the treatment of livestock said it now plans to use secret recordings to pressure large grocery chains to stop buying from farms that use practices it considers abusive.
The effort seemed to be working as several chains viewed the video and then either halted purchases from the targeted Iowa hog farm or expressed concern even before Chicago-based Mercy for Animals formally unveiled the recording at news conferences planned Wednesday in four cities.
Earlier this week, Mercy for Animals met with or sent letters to officials at Costco, Hy-Vee, Kroger and Safeway and provided links to its 2 1/2-minute video, then asked them to stop buying pork from Iowa Select Farms. The group said it secretly recorded its video between April and June at an Iowa Select Farms operation in the small town of Kamrar, about 50 miles north of Des Moines.
Nathan Runkle, Mercy for Animal's executive director, said his group and others have used secretly recorded videos to raise public awareness, but this was among the first major efforts to use such recordings to pressure retailers. The group previously used another video to convince Costco to change its policies dealing with veal obtained from an Ohio producer, he said.
Not every mad doctor lives in a castle surrounded by villagers with pitchforks. Sometimes they live in the trenches, where there's plenty of spare parts flying around and a pressing need to get inventive with them.
Justin Bieber to like the way you smell? Then buy his new scent “Someday!” Justin considers himself an expert on how ladies should smell, and shared his thoughts at Macy’s Hearld Square in NYC yesterday during his fan-packed fragrance launch extravaganza!
“I just think that what we decided to do — making the fragrance for females, not getting a cologne for males — I said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m more concerned about how girls smell because I’m a guy, and I know what smells good, and I know what I like, so girls should know, if [I like] it, then other guys are going to like it,” he told MTV news on the purple carpet at his launch.
OK! NEWS: JUSTIN BIEBER DOTES ON SELENA GOMEZ AT MONTE CARLO PREMIERE WITH KISSES & POPCORN
Throngs of fans waited outside the landmark Big Apple department store just to catch a glimpse of the 17-year-old teen dream.
And the dedication from the hundreds of Beliebers who swarmed the area did not go unnoticed.
“My fans are crazy,” he shared. “They wait out in the rain and anything, so they’re crazy, they’re awesome!”
What is the magic scent for women?
According to a very sure and confident Justin, a mix of “flowery and fruity.”
“There was a long process because they brought it out on the road and stuff,” Justin said of his perfume. “I picked out the bottle and designed everything.”
OK! NEWS: JUSTIN BIEBER “SLIGHTLY INJURED” & “SHAKEN UP” AFTER MAN ATTACKS HIM AT NYC FRAGRANCE EVENT
How about Justin’s signature scent?
“[I wear] a bunch of different stuff,” he divulged. “I switch it up all the time.”
X-Men: First Class," which premiered June 3, has been getting rave reviews. But the film can be confusing to anyone familiar with the characters because it's not THE X-Men origin, it's AN X-Men origin.
Specifically, it's the origin of the current X-Men-movie franchise, which consists of the three X-movies and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." "X-Men: First Class" is set in 1962, with "Wolverine"previously set in 1979 and the X-Men trilogy set in the present. But even that is complicated, as a teenage blonde named Emma who can transform into diamond appears in "Wolverine," and a twenty-something blonde named Emma who can transform into diamond appears 17 years earlier in "First Class." We just have to ignore that, or assume there are two blondes named Emma with the same mutant abilities.
(Raven "Mystique" Darkholme appears in both "First Class" and "X-Men," but you can forgive her for not aging, because she's a shape-changer — in the comics, she may be more than 100 years old. Now that's a superpower we can all get behind!)
Further muddying the water, Twentieth Century Fox has announced that the next Wolverine movie will distance itself from the X-franchise, which they want to reboot anyway. So this X-Men-origin story, as good as it is, may soon be orphaned.
And it certainly bears no resemblance to the comics. There are two good reasons for that: One, if "First Class" introduced the familiar X-Men in 1962, they'd have been too old for "X-Men," "X2" and "X-Men: The Last Stand." And two, that very trilogy makes the First Class of the comics impossible.
In the comics, the original team debuted in "The X-Men" No. 1 (1963) as Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman and Jean "Marvel Girl" Grey. But in the three X-isting X-movies, we saw Iceman and Angel join the team as teens long after the founding of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters — so they're out. "First Class" also excludes Cyclops and Jean, presumably to avoid having to explain why they didn't age much in the 38 years that pass between "First Class" and "X-Men." The Beast remains as a founding member, though, which might assuage disgruntled comics fans (and explain why he was essentially in superhero retirement at the beginning of "Last Stand").
The movie features Charles "Prof. X" Xavier and Erik "Magneto" Lehnsherr as young allies and friends, before their clashing ideologies lead them into the bloody conflict found in both comics and movies.
What would surprise most is that, despite both Xavier and Magneto being introduced in 1963, nothing of their past together was known for decades. It was only in the early 1980s that their shared past was invented, and then revealed over time. For the record, the comics say a guy named Erik Magnus befriended Charles Xavier in the newly created state of Israel in the late 1940s (1982), before we learned his real name was Erik Lehnsherr (1998), before we learned his real, real name was Max Eisenhardt (2008). And he had nothing to do with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But those aren't the only changes. The film has cherry-picked an eclectic cast from decades of X-Men comics.
In addition to Mystique and Beast, this class has Cyclops' brother Alex "Havok" Summers (introduced in 1969), who can fire cosmic energy from his hands. We also meet Sean "Banshee" Cassidy (1967), a mutant with sonic powers who joined the team in 1975. Also included is Armando "Darwin" Munoz (2006), who can adapt himself to new environments and circumstances. "First Class" establishes CIA agent Moira MacTaggert, who was a human geneticist in the comics (1976), the significant other of Banshee and Xavier at different times, a staunch X-Men ally and, unfortunately, now quite X-pired.
The Big Bad is Sebastian Shaw (1980), leader of the Hellfire Club, who can absorb and redirect kinetic energy. He's allied with the telepathic Emma Frost, who was the villain White Queen for many years, until a series of traumatic 1990s events set her (quite plausibly) on the road to redemption. (Frost gained her diamond powers in 2001, the result of a "secondary mutation,"and joined the X-Men soon after.)
"Megan developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women," LaBeouf told the Los Angeles Times. "Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It's summer. It's Michael's style. And I think [Fox] never got comfortable with it. This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America. And she had a hard time accepting it. When Mike would ask her to do specific things, there was no time for fluffy talk. We're on the run. And the one thing Mike lacks is tact. There's no time for [LaBeouf assumes a gentle voice] 'I would like you to just arch your back 70 degrees.'"
New York City when fake presidential candidate Donald Trump met up with semi-fake presidential candidate Sarah Palin to discuss whatever it is that wealthy pseudo-celebrities discuss when they're not out creating pseudo-events other than the one they're creating by meeting up in the first place.
And Trump really rolled out the red carpet for Palin, taking her and her family out for a slice of pizza at Famous Famiglia's in Times Square, whose fare has recently been described as "a slice that tastes like a manila folder with Ragu slathered all over it."
Stewart's audience loudly concurring, Stewart went on an extended rant in which he joked that Famiglia's could also be found at "terminal four of the Phoenix airport," offered up several more authentic pizza options, critcized Trump's slice stacking, finally reaching a height of apoplexy at the sight of Trump going at his pie with a fork, as if he were from outer space or something. Then Stewart moved on to a proper demonstration of both New York-style pizza-eating technique and New York City-style profanity, before concluding: "Based on how you eat pizza, Donald, I want to see your long form birth certificate. I don't think you were really born in New York."
One thing that Stewart didn't touch on was why Trump, who is ostensibly a rich and well-connected man, would drag Palin to Time Square to eat at a chain restaurant. Well, as Village Voice music editor Maura Johnston recalled on Wednesday, "Just FYI, Palin and Trump's visit to Famous Famiglia was also a little bit of synergy with The Celebrity Apprentice." Indeed, various Celebrity Apprentice "stars" were dispatched to Famiglia's 8th and Broadway location back in October, to promote the show.
13-year-old Syrian boy detained by government forces has been brutally killed, his wounds displayed in a shocking video. The boy, identified as Hamza al-Khateeb, was shot, burned, and had his penis cut off when his body was returned to his family.
"We will go out from every home, from every district to express our anger" over the killing, actvists wrote on their Facebook page which carries a picture of the boy, according to the AFP. "A month had passed by with his family not knowing where he is, or if or when will he be released. He was released to his family as a dead body. Upon examining his body, the signs of torture are very clear."
Update: I guess we wont be able to hear this song until the movie promo comes out as this is an unofficial leaked song that was available online. The song is currently blocked from hearing. Very rightly so.
But for those who gave the song a hear, the song will definetely be a rage.
This is Akon's song in SRK's Ra. One. This song is picturised on Kareena Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan. Read Akon's interview here where he talks about his first Hindi song Chammak Challo and also a news article about Kareena following a diet plan for Chammak Challo. So this seems to be the song for Ra One. Is choreographed by Ganesh Hedge.
The song is quite catchy. It reminds me a lot of Akon's hit Smack That. One thing is for sure, the song is going to rule the music charts for some time.
