#20' dry van in Hamburg

[lotuscontainers]

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[beansonbread2]

BEANSONBREAD AWARDS 2019 - BEST SONG

AWARD NO.6 - BEST SONG 

PAST WINNERS

2018 > Let’s Eat Grandma ‘It’s Not Just Me’ (see full list HERE)

2017 > Richard Dawson ‘Ogre’ (see full list HERE)

2016 > Solange ‘Cranes In the Sky’ (see full list HERE)

2015 > Kendrick Lamar ‘The Blacker The Berry’ (see full list HERE)

2014 > FKA Twigs ‘Two Weeks’ (see full list HERE)

2013 > Oliver Wilde ‘Perrett’s Brook’ (see full list HERE)

2010 > Untold ‘Stop What You’re Doing (James Blake Remix) (see full list HERE)

2009 > Joker - ‘Digidesign’ (see full list HERE)

2008 > Lil’ Wayne - ‘A Milli’ (see full list HERE)

2007 > Panda Bear - ‘Bros’ (see full list HERE)

2006 > Hot Chip - ‘Over And Over’ (see full list HERE)

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RULES - A maximum of THREE tracks from any one artist. Songs can be tied in the same position.

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*SPOTIFY PLAYLIST WITH (ALMOST) ALL THE TRACKS*

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THE RUNNERS UP (in alphabetical order)..

A. G. Cook ‘Lifeline’

Angel Olsen ‘All Mirrors’

Beak> ‘Life Goes On’

Big Thief ‘Jenni’

Billie Eilish ‘Bad Guy’

Black Midi ‘Speedway’

Bonnie Prince Billy ‘In Good Faith’

Caribou ‘Home’

Cate Le Bon ‘Daylight Matters’ / The Light’

CHAI ‘Wintime’

Clinic ‘Rubber Bullets’ 

Coucou Chloe ‘Gecko’

Daniel Lopatin ‘Fuck You Howard’

Deerhunter ‘Death In Midsommar’

Denzel Curry ‘Ricky’

Dorian Electra ‘Career Boy’ / ‘Flamboyant’

Dry Cleaning ‘Viking Hair’

Earl Sweatshirt ‘East’

EBU ‘Light Show’

Famous ‘Surf’s Up!’

Field Music ‘Only In A Man’s World’

Flying Lotus & Tierra Whack ‘Yellow Belly’

Giant Swan ‘Pandaemonium’

Girl Ray ‘Girl’ / ‘Show Me More’

Gruff Rhys ‘Pang!’ / ‘Ara Deg (ddaw’r awen)’

Injury Reserve ‘Jailbreak The Tesla’

Jai Paul ‘Do You Love Her Now’

The Jelas ‘Overthink And Never Stop’

Kano ‘Class Of Deja’

Katy J Pearson ‘Tonight’

Kero Kero Bonito ‘The River’

Kim Gordon ‘Air BnB’

Klein ‘For What Worth (feat. Matana Roberts)’

KOKOKO! ‘Buka Dansa’ / ‘Kitoko’

Lim Kim ‘Yellow’ / ‘Mong’

Lizzo ‘Tempo (feat. Missy Elliott)’ / ‘Truth Hurts’

Magdalena Bay ‘Oh Hell’

Missy Elliott ‘Throw It Back’

Mouse ‘Touch’

Neil Hamburger ‘Backwards Traveller’

Nilufer Yanya ‘In Your Head’  

Panda Bear ‘Playing The Long Game’

Pet Shimmers ‘Feels Hz’ / ‘Mortal Sport Argonaut’

Pictish Trail ‘Turning Back’

Purple Mountains ‘All My Happiness Is Gone’

Rosalia ‘A Pale’ / ‘Milionaria’

Rozi Plain ‘The Gap’

Silver Waves ‘My Face Is Held Together By 52 Screws’

Slagheap ‘Power Shower’ / ‘Horsey Girl’

Sleaford Mods ‘Kebab Spider’

Slowthai & Mura Masa ‘Doorman’

Slowthai & Denzel Curry ‘Psycho’

Solange ‘Binz’

Sorry ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’

Stealing Sheep ‘Show Love’ / ‘Jokin’ Me’

Stormzy ‘Sounds Of The Skeng’ / ‘Vossi Bop’

Sui Zhen ‘Natural Progression’

Thom Yorke ‘Dawn Chorus’

Tim Heidecker ‘When I Get Up’

Wharfwhit ‘I’d Say Croydon’

Wych Elm ‘Monkey Jaw’ / ‘School Shooter’

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TOP 80 SONGS OF 2019

80. 21 Savage ‘A Lot’

79. Lil Nas X ‘Old Town Road (remix feat Billy Ray Cyrus, Mason Ramsey & Young Thug)’

78. Dry Cleaning ‘Sit Down Meal’

77. Little Simz ‘101 FM’

76. MGMT ‘In The Afternoon’ 

75. Young Thug ‘Hot’

74. Rozi Plain ‘Symmetrical’ / ‘Swing Shut’ 

73. Rachael Dadd ‘Cut My Roots’

72. William Doyle ‘Nobody Else Will Tell You’

71. Jpegmafia ‘Free The Frail’

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70. Steve Lacy ‘Playground’ / ‘Love 2 Fast’

69. Nilufer Yanya ‘Melt’

68. Holly Herndon ‘Eternal’

67. Scalping ‘Chamber’

66. Jai Paul ‘He’

65. Tyler, The Creator ‘Earfquake’

64. Rosalia ‘Con Altura’

63. Giant Swan ‘55 Year Old Daughter’

62. The Orielles ‘Come Down On Jupiter’

61. These New Puritans ‘Infinity Vibraphones’

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60. Sharon Van Etten ‘Seventeen’

59. The Jelas ‘Interrupterruption’  

58. Danny Brown ‘Dirty Laundry’

57. Future ‘Crushed Up’

56. Cashmere Cat ‘For Your Eyes Only’ / ‘Emotions’

55. Podcasts ‘Dragging The Lake’

54. Lizzo ‘Juice’

53. 100 Gecs ‘Money Machine’ / ‘Stupid Horse’

52. Jockstrap ‘Charlotte (Taylor Skye remix)’ / ‘Hayley (Taylor Skye remix)’

51. Panda Bear ‘Dolphin’ / ‘Token’

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50. CHAI ‘Curly Adventure’

49. These New Puritans ‘Anti-Gravity’

48. James Yorkston ‘My Mouth Ain’t No Bible’

47. Vampire Weekend ‘Unbearably White’ / ‘Sunflower’

46. Lana Del Rey ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’

45. Fat White Family ‘Fringe Runner’ / ‘Rock Fishes’

44. Big Thief ‘Not’

43. Tyler, The Creator ‘Puppet’

42. Cashmere Cat ‘Watergirl’

41. Lana Del Rey ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’ 

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40. 100 Gecs ‘800db Cloud’

39. Aldous Harding ‘Fixture Picture’ / ‘Zoo Eyes’

38. William Doyle ‘Design Guide (feat. Brian Eno)’

37. Hannah Diamond ‘Part Of Me’ / ‘Love Goes On’

36. Charli XCX ‘Next Level Charli’ / ‘Click’

35. Sorry ‘Right Round The Clock’

34. FKA Twigs ‘Sad Day’ / ‘Holy Terrain’

33. Danny Brown ‘Best Life’

32. Jpegmafia ‘Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot’

31. Angel Olsen ‘Lark’

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30. Squid ‘The Cleaner’

29. Romeo Taylor 'The Kingdom Of Scotland'

28. Kero Kero Bonito ‘Battle Lines’

27. Cate Le Bon ‘Home To You’

26. HAIM ‘Summer Girl’

25. Fat White Family ‘Feet’

24. Weyes Blood ‘Something To Believe’

23. Caroline Polachek ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’

22. Hannah Diamond ‘Invisible’

21. Self Esteem ‘Girl Crush’

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THE TOP 20 SONGS OF 2019

20. Richard Dawson ‘Jogging’

19. Pozi ‘Engaged’ 

18. Jockstrap ‘I Want Another Affair (Taylor Skye remix)’

17. Charli XCX & Christine And The Queens ‘Gone’

16. FKA Twigs ‘Cellophane’

15. Aldous Harding ‘The Barrel’

14. Caroline Polachek ‘Door’

13. These New Puritans ‘Beyond Black Suns’

12. Black Midi ‘bmbmbm’

11. Black Country, New Road ‘Sunglasses’

10. Black Midi ‘Talking Heads’

9. Pozi ‘KCTMO’

8. Pet Shimmers ‘Persona Party’

7. Self Esteem ‘The Best’

6. Weyes Blood ‘A Lot’s Gonna Change’

5. Squid ‘Houseplants’

4. Kero Kero Bonito ‘When The Fires Come’

3. Self Esteem ‘Favourite Problem’

2. Vampire Weekend ‘Harmony Hall’

1. Weyes Blood ‘Andromeda’

[auskultu]

Special Report: The Canyon Scene

Jerry Hopkins, Rolling Stone, 22 June 1968

[From a larger article on the Los Angeles scene.]

It is the canyons—Laurel and Topanga, especially—that house the people who make the music. Laurel Canyon is a paisley gash that runs from Schwab’s on Sunset to the suburban San Fernando Valley, and Topanga Canyon is a dusty-woodsy pass leading from Malibu Beach to the same suburban sprawl. The environments in these canyons differ, but the people do not.

Van Dyke Parks calls Laurel Canyon “the seat of the beat” in his album Song Cycle, for it is here the music-makers create and rehearse, using the canyon walls as a natural baffle—and the neighbors don’t seem to mind so much.

Stand on the wood porch outside the Canyon Country Store halfway up the hill and watch the neighborhood file in for supplies. In a few days time you will have seen members of Clear Light and the Turtles, Neil Young and Richie Furay (former Buffalo), Lee Michaels, Bryan MacLean (Love), Joe Larson (Merry-Go-Round), Micky Dolenz, Joni Mitchell, A&M’s Michael Vosse, Elektra engineer John Haney, Phil Austin and Phil Proctor of the Firesign Theatre, Andy Wickham, Electra producer Barry Friedman (who shared a home in the canyon until recently with Paul Rothchild), Carol King (Goffin and King), and a dozen others of this musical, house-hopping fraternity. It is also in Laurel Canyon that Eric Burdon has a home, and Frank Zappa just bought the old Tom Mix house.

The attraction of the small store, with a cleaners and tiny restaurant nearby, is social as much as culinary. It is here where dates are made, new homes are found (on a bulletin board or through friends), grass might be scored, and where you usually get some sort of vague answer to the question, “What’s happening?"

Billy Of Ridpath Drive “If there were more mobility in this town,” says Billy James, a personal manager and music publisher who lives just up the hill from the store, “the Canyon store would look like MacDougal Street on Saturday night.”

Billy lives on Ridpath Drive, a steep twisting road that puffs to a dead-end after dividing 50 or 60 small frame houses slammed up against the mountainside. An afternoon stroll along his block reveals the essence of canyon existence.

At 8504 Ridpath, where Billy lives with his wife Judy and son Mark, is a mailbox with a typewritten list of the legitimate addresses for 8504; there are at least 20 companies, groups and individuals on the list. Inside the house this day, the dutiful wife is preparing a 1 p.m. breakfast of hamburgers for Billy and for Jackson Browne, a singer-songwriter Billy represents. Between phone calls, in a small dark “office” cluttered with albums, photographs, collages, tapes and acetates, Billy talks about the canyon.

“I lived in Beverly Hills my first two years here,” he said, “and then I moved into the clear air of the hills. It was either the hills or the ocean; both are here and it seemed silly not to live comfortably.

“I wasn’t the first to move into Laurel, but there weren’t too many here then—musicians and so on. Arthur Lee [Love] lived nearby—and that was about it. It’s all happened in the last year or so. I don't know why, really. If creative artists need to live apart from the community at large, they also have a desire to live among their own kind and so an artistic community develops.”

The Distant Drums As Billy talks, you hear someone in the near distance rehearsing. Billy explains it is the drummer for the International Submarine band. The drumming becomes louder as you pass the house and walk another few yards to 8524, Barry Friedman’s home. There you find Barry listening to tapes he has just produced for Elektra. Outside and on a different level from the house someone is cleaning the swimming pool and in another room of the sparsely furnished but rambling house a young Canadian songwriter named Rolf Kempf is picking and singing quietly.

Barry turns up the tapes for a visitor and begins to hype the group, the Holy Modal Rounders. You can see his lips move and barely hear him as an earthslide of sound fills the room from two huge studio speakers mounted near the ceiling. When the volume is cut, Rolf returns to his picking.

The following day Billy James is not home in the afternoon, but meeting with a record company. The house of the International Submarine Band is quiet as its members sleep. And Barry Friedman’s home is asprawl with musicians listening to albums and rapping—several of those present being the members of the Buffalo Springfield, wondering what’s next

Househopping Earthworms Laurel Canyon has been described by pop writer Richard Goldstein as a place where streets appear as if laid out by earthworms. And so it is. The earth is baked dry and verdant with semi-tropical growth by turns, and the drives and trails knot incredibly—linking a community of sound.

(A footnote regarding the househopping mode of living in LA., which can only be described as incestuous: before Barry Friedman and Paul Rothchild moved into what is now Barry’s home, the tenant was disc jockey B. Mitchell Reed … who, in turn, now lives in David Crosby’s house in Beverly Glen, while Crosby commutes to his boat in Florida … and Barry’s old house, in Hollywood, is now inhabited by Doug Weston, owner of the Troubadour.)

Topanga Canyon is a stranger and somehow gentler place, removed from Hollywood and the center of the scene by almost 20 miles. (But still in L.A.) Say “Topanga” to someone in L.A. and the first-word-you-think-of response is “hippie.” But Topanga carried Goldwater in 1960, and the American Legion post there is a powerful one. Still, it is where Linda Ronstadt and Bob Kimmel of the Stone Poneys lived when the world began to spin. It is where Barry McGuire went to collect himself and began getting back to nature and where, today, in small frame homes against clay hillsides live two songwriters named Alexander (Gordon and Gary), Chris Hillman and Kevin Kelly of the Byrds, and the old Buffalo Springfield’s Steve Stills.

Laurel Canyon is the sort of canyon where you’d expect to find (and will find) a lot of motorcycles. Topanga Canyon is the sort where you’d look for horses. Both these means of transportation are popular among the music-makers who live in these canyons: bikes in Laurel, horses in Topanga. (VW campers in both.)

Immediate Medical Attention Los Angeles is a strange town, seeming at times as if it were made in Japan and shipped here in small parts, then assembled by a committee of capricious drunks. But it has a pull, an attraction that may often (if not always) be related to—but somehow a little stronger than—the record company and the money it represents.

Frank Zappa, after living for 18 months in New York, returned to Los Angeles in May. “New York is a good city to make money in,” he said, “but I can’t write there. I have to be in L. A. There’s something very creative here.”

Roger McGuinn of the Byrds says the music scene suffers some from the city’s unusually beautiful climate, its “terribly relaxed attitude,” but Derek Taylor thinks those points make L. A. valuable. “This town makes no demands on you and it offers you everything good,” he said. “There seem to be 30 hours in every day and eight days in each week. There is a leisurely pace, but a pace of getting it done. It’s all here —the best facilities, the best climate. You don’t have to leave L.A. on business, you know, unless you like to travel on business; everyone you know or like wants to come here. Even the Beatles, who never go anywhere.”

There are others who feel Los Angeles is not yet the blossom Derek says it is. Michael Vosse feels the earth in Los Angeles is “in need of immediate medical attention.” “It's sick,” he said. “The business is sick and we have to keep attacking and working to make it well.”

While John Hartmann, manager of the Canned Heat and one of the Kaleidoscope owners, says, “The L. A. music scene is almost an unborn child. It’s a whole new thing today. The industry is generating product at an incredible pace, and new groups and new record companies are appearing hourly. I believe the LA. scene started with the Buffalo Springfield and I think the Doors really kicked off this new era. Now stand back and watch out!”

So as L.A. troops from club to club by night, from studio to studio by day, or hides out in a canyon to rehearse and write, the scene begins to unfold. The many scenes haze softly at the edges and begin to overlap.

[satansbratn]

Tagged by: the lovely @geissbock

Rules: answer all questions, add one question of your own and tag as many people as there are questions

1. coke or pepsi: Coke 2. disney or dreamworks: I love both 3. coffee or tea: Hm, I drink both. 4. books or movies: Both; depens on my mood 5. windows or mac: Windows 6. dc or marvel: Marvel 7. x-box or playstation: PCMasterRace Playstation 8. dragon age or mass effect: Dragon Age 9. night owl or early riser: uh, kinda both - not at the same time 10. Card or chess: Card                                                                        11. chocolate or vanilla: Both 12. vans or converse: None, I’m a Sketchers girl 13. Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash, or Adaar:  ... I have no idea what is asked here 14. fluff or angst: A bit of both 15. beach or forest: Forest 16. dogs or cats: Dogs, but cats are also nice if they aren’t assholes 17. clear skies or rain: Clear skies. I hate rain. ... Well, if I’m inside and dry rain is okay, I guess. 18. cooking or eating out: Hm, both? I love cooking with friends or my roommates. But I also enjoy a nice meal at the restaurant or a quick hot dog. 19. spicy food or mild food: spicy is great, as long as it’s not too spicy 20. halloween/samhain or solstice/yule/christmas: Christmas 21. would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot: uh ... I really can’t decide. I don’t like being cold nor being too hot. 22. if you could have a superpower, what would it be: I would like to change the past. 23. animation or live action: both 24. paragon or renegade: paragon 25. baths or showers: both 26. team cap or team ironman: Ironman 27. fantasy or sci-fi: Fantasy 28. do you have three or four favorite quotes, if so what are they:

“If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.“ - Mik Everrett

29. youtube or netflix: Netflix 30. harry potter or percy jackson: Harry Potter 31. when you feel accomplished: When I can do something good for ppl 32. star wars or star trek: I guess Star Trek for the Seasons with Patrick Steward, but I really don’t care for either of it 33. paperback books or hardback books: both 34. to live in a world without literature or without music?: Uh, I think I’d choose a world without music - can’t live without books 35. who was the last person to make you laugh?: My mom 36. which is better: sour or sweet candy?: sweet candy 37. do you believe in aliens?: Nope 38. dawn or dusk?: Dawn 39. piercings or tattoos?: Tattoos 40. girls? HOT?????: Well, there surely are some out there - not that I’d care 41: snow or fog?: Depends. Can I sit on my couch and watch from inside? ... No? Fog it is. 42: do you sleep facing the wall or the room?: Both. I move around in my sleep and my bed is kinda standing in the middle of the room. 43: TRC or AFTG?: Again with something I have no iead what it is. 44: horror or drama?: Drama. I’m not much of a chicken for horror. 45: ocarina of time or majora’s mask?: Both look nice, but haven’t played any of it. 46: would you rather live in an area of more nature or city?: City. Nature is nice and all but I’d rather just be able to do my shopping on foot instead of driving half an hour to get to the nearest mall. 47. what’s your obsession right now?: Kinda obsessed with the Witcher franchise (reading the books and playing the third game) at the moment. 48. what languages can you speak?: My mother tongue is German so I’m fluent in that one. I also learned English in school and like to think I’m kinda fluent in it. Uh, does counting to ten in Japanese count? I also learned Latin for two years, but I’ve forgotten most of it.  Ego sum. That’s about all I remember. 49. if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Uh, I like Hamburg. 50. if you could go back in time and relive a certain year of your life which year would it be and why?: I have no idea. Maybe my first year in college so I could actually get my sh*t together and be more social and study more? But I’m mostly contend with how I’ve lived my life so far. 51. Have you ever been betrayed by someone (a friend, a relative, a boyfriend/girlfriend…)? If yes, does this experience have affected you in some way and changed you? No.

52. What are the most important things in your life? My family and friends. They support me and help me not feel like I’m a failure all the time.

53. What kind of food would you like to try and why?

Tagging: @alice-senpai, @cinnamoncountess, @luxheroica

[dailykhaleej]

Roam close to dwelling: Europe’s tourists play safe in pandemic

On this Saturday, Might 16, 2020 photograph, tourists with suitcases stroll throughout the island of Spiekeroog, Germany. Germany’s states, which decide their very own coronavirus-related restrictions, have begun loosening lockdown guidelines to enable home tourists to return. (Sina Schuldt/dpa through AP) Picture Credit score: AP

BERLIN: Many a journey to far-flung corners of Europe begins in a dusty industrial yard in east Berlin, the place Felix Rascher rigorously tends to his small fleet of Volkswagen camper vans, a favorite amongst free-spirited travellers the world over.

However this spring, the pandemic threw a wrench in the works of the journey business, as international locations closed their borders and residents hunkered down to cease the unfold of the coronavirus.

Inns, airways, journey brokers, tour operators, eating places, native guides and automobile leases noticed revenue evaporate as lockdowns got here into power.

“Our business normally begins in mid-March,” Rascher, 37, stated. “The Easter rentals collapsed completely, of course.”

In accordance to Thierry Breton, the European Union’s inner market commissioner, some 27 million jobs throughout the EU are straight or not directly linked to tourism, accounting for 12 per cent of employment.

Some three million companies, most of them small firms like Rascher’s, profit from Europe’s usually wide-open borders, serving to make the continent the world’s high tourism vacation spot with half of all world arrivals.

Authorities help packages have stored many companies afloat, however mass unemployment in the tourism sector is probably going as soon as these funds run dry.

The dearth of tourists is especially painful for among the international locations whose residents and well being care techniques have suffered essentially the most in the course of the pandemic.

Spain, which will get 12 per cent of its GDP from tourism, recorded no lodge occupancies in April. Usually crowded journey sizzling spots comparable to Rome, Paris, Venice and Barcelona have at instances appeared abandoned in latest months.

Business representatives at the moment are urgent European governments to reopen borders in time for the summer season trip season.

Germany, with its 83 million inhabitants and beneficiant annual vacation guidelines, will likely be essential to the restoration of Europe’s tourism business — particularly whereas oversees guests from China and america stay locked out by journey bans.

German International Minister Heiko Maas has indicated that if situations are proper, he would quickly like to take away 31 European international locations from a journey warning issued in March.

However Maas has additionally made clear that he doesn’t need to repeat the logistical nightmare of repatriating 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 Germans that have been stranded overseas in the course of the first wave of the outbreak in March.

As talks amongst European officers drag on, some international locations are already vying for sun-starved travellers:

Portugal says travellers arriving by aircraft gained’t be quarantined, although there will likely be “minimal health controls” at airports.

Greece, the place 20 per cent of the economic system is predicated on tourism, plans to begin welcoming international guests once more beginning June 15. The nation says there is not going to be a required self-quarantine interval, solely random pattern exams. Shopper tax cuts to decrease the worth of ferry, aircraft and bus tickets _ in addition to of espresso _ will likely be supplied in the course of the vacationer season.

Cyprus is pledging to cowl all prices for anybody testing optimistic for the coronavirus whereas on vacation in the east Mediterranean island nation. Tourism straight accounts for 13 per cent of Cyprus’ economic system. The nation expects to lose this yr as a lot as 70 per cent of two.6-billion euros in tourism-generated income.

The mayor of Vienna switched on the Austrian capital’s large Ferris wheel on Friday to symbolise the restart of the tourism business. Some resorts in Austria have already launched promoting campaigns in Germany providing particular offers with the choice of short-notice cancellations to reassure these anxious about reserving journeys.

Nonetheless, it’s unclear if travellers will take the bait.

Involved a few potential second wave of viral infections, many Germans have set their sights on trip locations nearer to dwelling.

This week, officers alongside Germany’s chilly Baltic Coast rubbed their fingers as the primary gaggle of home tourists arrived for a style of sea air.

“Some landlords are telling me they’ve never seen such demand as now, because it’s difficult to book anything abroad,” stated Rene Roloff, the mayor of Prerow. The 130-year-old seaside resort with its 1,500 inhabitants relies upon virtually fully on tourism and usually has 1.2 million in a single day stays annually.

On this Tuesday, Might 26, 2020 photograph, Felix Rascher poses for a photograph between Volkswagen camper vans he hire to tourists in a yard in Berlin, Germany. Germany’s federal states are beginning to reopen the touristic hotspots after the lockdown due to the coronavirus disaster and hope that German tourists will come. (AP Picture/Markus Schreiber) Picture Credit score: AP

Roloff stated the encircling county’s low variety of Covid-19 circumstances was a promoting level, including that every one companies have been primed to implement distancing guidelines.

“If people stick to them, then I think the risk of anything happen is very low here,” he stated. Inns in the area have had the variety of rooms they will hire out capped at 60 per cent of regular capability.

Lothar Jaeschke, head of tourism in Prerow, went additional: “We expect that overall, if developments stay this way, it’s going to be a good season.”

Many lodges in northern Germany are already booked up for the Pentecost vacation weekend. The mayor of Cuxhaven, a preferred seaside resort two hours’ drive from Hamburg, is even pleading with day trippers to keep away and provides house to locals and long-term visitors.

Tourists with backpacks and suitcases arrives on the port of Kloster on the Baltic island Hiddensee in Vitte, Germany, Monday Might 25, 2020. In German state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, after the journey ban due to the coronavirus safety measures, holidaymakers from different federal states at the moment are allowed to journey to the island. ( Jens Buettner/dpa through AP) Picture Credit score: AP

Rascher stated bookings for his VW camper vans are slowly starting to decide up, too.

His purchasers, starting from college students to retirees and households with younger youngsters, usually have a little bit of journey in thoughts once they decide up one of many crimson or white vans, a few of which have greater than 500,000 kilometres on the odometer.

However with the danger of a second coronavirus wave and sudden lockdowns looming, Rascher stated travellers would possibly need to restrict their horizons.

Two man climb up to the highest of the very best German mountain ‘Zugspitze’ (2962 meters) close to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Friday, Might 29, 2020. Germany’s tourism is slowly restarting as the federal government is easing the coronavirus lockdown guidelines. The mountain railway will reopen tomorrow after the lockdown due to the coronavirus disaster. (AP Picture/Matthias Schrader) Picture Credit score: AP

“When we get a request now, I always ask the guests to consider whether they’d be happy with a tour of Germany,” stated Rascher. “I really see it as a chance to get to know the country better.”

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[golicit]

January in Northern Europe

Berlin Cathedral

The D&O Diary was on assignment in northern Europe last week, with stops in Berlin, Hamburg and Paris. I know from past experience that traveling in northern Europe in January can be a formidable experience. On this trip, however, mild and dry weather conditions generally prevailed, allowing for some really pretty enjoyable travel experiences.

  The primary purpose of the European visit was to attend the annual Euroforum Haftpflicht Konferenz in Hamburg. I have attended this event before, and it was a pleasure to be back and part of the event again this year. I delivered the Internationale Keynote address on the topic of “Key Developments in D&O Claims.” Fortunately, I was able to address the audience in English. I would like to thank Karin Hanten of Euroforum for inviting me to participate in this well-organized and well-attended event. It was a pleasure to be able to see many old friends and make new friends as well. It was also enjoyable to learn how many in the audience members follow The D&O Diary.

  When I look at this picture, taken during my presentation, all I can see is that somehow the cord for the microphone got looped outside of my suit jacket.

    With Sebastian Gemberg-Wiesike, Financial Lines Underwriter for Germany and Switzerland at Tokio Marine HCC. Sebastian spoke immediately after I did, discussing the liability risks for companies with American Depositary Receipts trading in the U.S.

  With Matthias Andres of Zurich Insurance

    With Markus Haefeli of Haefeli & Schroeder Financial Lines AG in Zurich, Switzerland

    With Sebastian Vogel of Airbus Aeroassurance.

    With Alexander Stampf of Tokio Marine HCC in Barcelona

  Before traveling to Hamburg for the conference, my wife and I traveled to Berlin for the weekend.  I have been to Berlin before, and every time I have visited I have made exactly the same mistake, which is that I fail to allow enough time to explore this vast and fascinating city. This trip was my wife’s first visit to Berlin and so of course we had to visit the city’s most famous landmarks, including the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and the Berlin Cathedral.

  In Pariser Platz, facing the formerly East Berlin side of the Brandenburg Gate

      In front of the Reichstag

  The Berlin Cathedral with the Fernsehturm in the background. We attended the worship service at the Cathedral on Sunday morning. We were very fortunate that the service featured the choral performance of a Bach cantata.

  There is so much history in Berlin, in some ways almost too much history. We spent a considerable amount of time exploring the remnants of the Berlin Wall and the other remaining vestiges of the city’s division between 1961 and 1989.

  A remaining section of the Berlin Wall, in the Berlin Wall memorial

  A preserved watch tower, in the Berlin Wall Memorial. Before the Wall came down, the Wall cut straight across the road on the right side of the picture.

  Checkpoint Charlie, the security control gate for the former American sector of Berlin. (Note the McDonald’s on the right side of the picture; things have changed a little bit since the Wall came down.)

  One thing we did this trip that we both enjoyed was exploring some of the city’s residential neighborhoods. We walked through the atmospheric streets of the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, a pleasant area full of shops, cafes, and restaurants that was inside former East Berlin. We came upon a lively street market, where we enjoyed a makeshift currywurst lunch. A little bit of unexpected sunshine during our stroll made for a very pleasant visit. We also visited the Kreuzburg neighborhood the next afternoon, which was also a very interesting place to visit.

  A street market on Kollwitzstraße in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin

  One tip for anyone planning a visit to Berlin anytime soon is to make sure to make time for a long visit to the Deutsches Historisches Museum, which is located right on Berlin’s most famous street, Unter den Linden. We spent three hours there and could have easily spent longer. The ground floor exhibits on Germany’s fraught and complicated 20th Century history were particularly well done. I would go back to Berlin just to spend some more time in the museum. Another tip, the Gemäldegalerie art museum, located near Potsdamer Platz,  has an excellent collection of northern European paintings, including works by Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, van der Weyden, van Eyck, and Vermeer.

  One particularly enjoyable thing we did while in Berlin was to attend a concert at the Konzerthaus Berlin. The concert hall was beautifully illuminated at the night we were there.

  From Berlin, we took one of the excellent Deutsche Bahn Inter-City Express (ICE) trains for a quick two hour trip to Hamburg. The mild weather followed us to Hamburg, which allowed us upon arrival to enjoy a quick walk around Hamburg’s two famous lakes, the Außenalster (Outer Alster) and the Binnenalster (Inner Alster). I actually walked around the Außenalster three times during our visit; the Fitbit that my children gave me for Christmas recorded that it is about 10,000 steps around the larger lake. (It is about 4.7 miles around.)

        We also attended a concert while we were in Hamburg, at the venerable Laiszhalle, in the Hamburg city center. There is a brand new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie, on the river. When we arrived at our seats for the concert hall, we discovered why the city might have felt the need to build the new hall.

  The column almost entirely blocked our view of the stage — I was able to see only the percussion section and two french horns. The sound was muffled as well. I could hear just enough of the music to get the feeling that we were missing a pretty good concert. We left at intermission.

  We left Hamburg to spend this past weekend Paris. It was chilly in Paris, but we continued to enjoy dry and pleasant weather.

  By a long standing tradition, my first stop in Paris is to visit the Jardin du Luxembourg. When I am there, I feel fully in Paris.

  Even deep in winter, the Jardin is still beautiful

  One of our other  important priorities in Paris was to stop by Notre Dame, to check in on the progress of the repair and restoration of the cathedral, after the April 2019 fire.

  Signs posted around the work site explained that the repair process at this point is still focused on trying the stabilize the structure

    Around the structure, they have inserted wooden braces to support the buttresses and columns. It is clear that this process is going to take a very long time.

  Our main objective on this visit to Paris was to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre. The exhibit had been sold out when I was in Paris in November, so this time I was sure to purchase timed-entry exhibits in advance, online. With the timed-entry requirement, there was a little bit of crowd control. Just the same, the exhibit was mobbed. It was, nevertheless, amazing. There are only 15 surviving paintings attributed in whole or in part to Leonardo; many of them had been gathered for this exhibit. The exhibit also featured extensive displays of Leonardo’s notebooks. The notebooks very convincingly showed Leonardo’s vast curiosity and brilliance. Even with the crowds, it was a really great exhibition.

      When we emerged from the museum, we found that while we had been in the exhibit, a massive protest march had developed along the river. The march was organized as part of national strike organized as a protest by the transportation unions about proposed French pension reform. The march was peaceful and had even something of a festive atmosphere. The relatively pleasant weather helped. The problem for us was that the march blocked our route back to the other side of the river and to  our hotel. So instead, and in the best Paris tradition, we found a cafe and enjoyed a late lunch. We had assumed that by the time we finished our lunch the marchers would finished filing into the Place de la Concorde. We underestimated the size of the march. The marchers paraded along for hours. We finally managed to made our way around the parade and found a river crossing so that we could make our way back to our hotel.

      A nice light lunch while we waited for the protest march to pass.

    Protesters fill the Place de la Concorde

  One of the highlights of our Paris sojourn was a return visit to the Le Christine restaurant in the 6e Arrondissement. We first dined at the much earlier version of the restaurant while we were in Paris on our honeymoon in 1983. We returned to the restaurant with our children in 2000, and again in 2005. Though the restaurant has changed over the years, it remains excellent. Once again, we enjoyed a wonderful meal there.

    In addition to many familiar sites in Paris, we also visited some new places. One of our more interesting discoveries on this visit was the Musée National Gustave Moreau, in the 9e Arrondissement. Moreau was one of the prominent members of the  Symbolist artistic school  in the 19th century. His unusual paintings are full of references to Greek mythology and Christian iconography. When Moreau died in the late 19th century, his home and studio were converted to a museum. The walls of the museum are covered with Moreau’s paintings, many of them unfinished. Many of his paintings are unusual and interesting.

    All in all, it was a great visit to Europe. You wouldn’t think that January would be a great time to visit, but it actually turned out to be a fine time to be there. Of course, I know we were very fortunate with the weather. (The only rain we had the entire trip was on the day of our departure from Paris.) But the cities themselves made the visit so enjoyable. As always, on the way back I found myself trying to figure out when I can go back again.

  More pictures of Paris:

  Here’s something you won’t see very often — the Jardin du Tuileries without any people. The Jardin was closed during the protest marches

  The Louis XIII statute in the Place des Voges

  Scenes of Montmartre

  January in Northern Europe published first on

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Feeding the future: Fixing the world's faulty food system

Feeding the future Fixing the world's faulty food system Feeding the future Fixing the world's faulty food system Nearly one billion of the world's population go hungry, while two billion eat too much, using up the planet's precious resources. Josh Wilson delves into the data exploring ways to solve the problem. This article has an estimated read time of seven minutes Fixing the world's "faulty food system" is increasingly being recognised as one of the key ways to fight climate change as well as tackle high rates of both malnutrition and obesity.  Each year 821 million people suffer from hunger – a figure that is rising despite an increase in global food production. And at the same time, around two billion people are eating too much of the wrong type of food.   The world is also facing an unprecedented climate emergency, with temperatures hurtling towards a dangerous tipping point.  Last week, a United Nations report concluded that eating less meat could help tackle the dual crisis of climate change and hunger. Switching to plant-based diets, the UN said, could both free up land and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  With the global population set to hit almost 10 billion by 2050, the pressure to find new approaches to feed the world is not going to disappear.  Almost half the current global crop production goes to feeding livestock, however on average just 15 per cent of these calories are then passed on to humans when we consume meat. Climate change also poses a major threat to food security as increasingly common extreme weather events devastate crop land. Simultaneously, agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. “At one level we don't need to grow any more, we should stop feeding our food to bloody livestock and then we've got all the calories we need,” Tim Benton, professor of population ecology at Leeds University, told The Telegraph.  “Food production, and especially livestock production, is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, water  and air quality degradation and soil degradation. We have to start actually recognising that we can’t carry on as we are,” Prof Benton added.  But is the solution to such complicated challenges really as simple as changing how we eat?  One in ten suffering from chronic hunger Hunger is a part of everyday life in certain parts of the world – 11 of the 15 most undernourished countries are in Africa, with the worst rates found in the Central African Republic where three in every five people suffer malnutrition. Globally over one in ten people suffer from chronic undernourishment In Yemen, some 85,000 children are thought to have died from extreme hunger between April 2015 and October 2018 as the country struggles with civil war and military intervention from Saudi Arabia. But many countries with high levels of hunger also produce plenty of food. Pakistan was the ninth biggest producer of beef in 2013 – yet more than one in five of their population suffer from chronic undernourishment. Experts have warned that future conflicts will increasingly focus on a struggle for dwindling resources, especially food and water, unless more urgent action is taken on a global scale. “The most potent resource for any national government is access to energy, water and food, and so as the world gets more complicated these sorts of things are going to matter more and more,” said Prof Benton. Insatiable appetites for meat The livestock industry is viewed by many experts as a serious threat to food security because of its size and unsustainability, as well as the negative effects on our health of a diet overly rich in meat. Every one and a half years, more animals are slaughtered than the total number of humans who ever lived.  As countries become wealthier their eating habits shift towards more meat-based diets, fuelling a massive expansion in livestock farming and contributing some 8.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2010. “By 2050 we're forecast to be consuming 60 per cent more meat and dairy, a staggering 1.2 trillion litres of dairy milk and 500 billion kilograms of meat per year,” said Joseph Poore, researcher at the University of Oxford, warning that such growth is unsustainable. Meat production has skyrocketed to keep up with population growth With half of global crop production already going to feed livestock such a scenario could have catastrophic consequences, warn scientists. In the UK each person consumes an average of 81.5 kg of meat each year, up from 69.2 kg in 1961, despite associated health risks such as obesity, diabetes and bowel cancer. Professor Benton said: “If you look at the UK, the amount of money that it’s costing us to make people better through the health service is around 37 per cent of all our tax revenue and that’s going up fast. “That’s partly because of an ageing population, but it’s also partly because of malnourishment in the form of obesity,” he said.  The majority of population growth will occur in less developed nations Drought causes over 80 per cent of agricultural damage Agriculture, especially livestock production, is a major driver of climate change, but it also one of the most sensitive industries to the effects of changes to weather. Extreme climate disasters such as floods, storms and droughts are on the rise, with an average of 213 such events occurring each year between 1990 and 2016. These events often devastate wide areas of delicate crop land. This harms agricultural yields, leading to food price hikes and loss of income, reducing access to food. This captures some of the complexity of the system and its highly integrated nature. It also highlights how the problem of feeding the population won't be solved by simply growing more food. There has been average of 213 extreme climate disasters per year Reports of crop damage due to climate change are becoming increasingly common, with farmers in Ghana, Tanzania and Nigeria recently describing delays to the start of the rainy season, abnormal mid-season heatwaves and high-intensity rainfall. These have all led to crop losses. Increasing water scarcity is also a serious concern as the agricultural industry accounts for 70 per cent of global water use. Groundwater has already been depleted worldwide for crop irrigation, and as these sources run dry it will increasingly limit where we can grow crops. Meanwhile, as the planet continues to warm, sea levels are predicted to rise, putting low-lying farms at considerable risk, while also restricting future expansion. Scientists have warned that any initiatives to ensure future food security must account for global climate change and seek to minimise agriculture’s contribution. Changing diets and tackling poverty key "In 20 years time we will have 10 billion people on the planet and we simply can’t sustain those numbers without changes in diet," says Simeon Van Der Molen, founder of Moving Mountains, a British manufacturer of plant-based burgers. “Cellular agriculture is the future.” Plant-based meat alternatives such as the 'Impossible Burger' have been touted as a viable and much more sustainable alternative to conventional meat. The Impossible Burger bleeds like real meat Some of these products have already started to get a run out on Britain's high streets. Greggs  achieved notable success with its vegan sausage roll and KFC recently announced it is to begin trialling a vegan Imposter Burger, featuring a bespoke Quorn fillet. Newer plant-based products such as the 'Impossible Burger' are now able to get much closer to the sensory profile and texture of meat, making it more appealing to many consumers. They have a similar nutritional profile to meat but require significantly less water and energy to produce. Insects have also been touted as a potential alternative to meat. They have the advantage of being high in protein and also have a much higher conversion rate of energy input to received calories. However, insect-based meat replacements remain a very niche consumer product and public acceptance in the West remains a long way off. But there is another major emerging food technology which has expanded rapidly in recent years and has drawn lots of interest and corporate investment, that of lab grown meat. This 'meat' is grown in special bioreactors from cells extracted harmlessly from livestock. The result is a product that is almost indistinguishable from conventionally produced meat. From petri dish to plate: how to grow a burger in a lab Leaders in the cultured meat industry are confident that their product has the edge over other meat alternatives because it has the same taste and texture profile as the real thing. “We’re pretty optimistic that as long as it really has the same taste, texture and smell, we think that most consumers will favour the product that doesn’t have all the guilt surrounding it in terms of animal welfare and environmental damage," said Sarah Lucas, head of operations at Mosa Meat, the company responsible for the first lab-grown hamburger. Lab-grown meat is still a few years from consumer availability and the technology still has some way to go - that first lab grown hamburger cost €250,000 to produce - but management consultant AT Kearney predicts that it will make up over a third of global meat supply by 2040. Meat consumption calculator However Prof Benton has warned that systemic changes to the whole agricultural system will be needed to achieve sustainable and nutritious food security. He says that tackling poverty will be key in this battle: “If people are too poor to buy a healthy diet, why does everybody leap to the conclusion that it’s the food price that’s the problem and not the poverty? “For me, the challenge of feeding 10 billion people is not how do we double agricultural production of the wrong things. It is how to do this systemic transformation so people can eat healthily in a way that doesn’t create a lot of waste and doesn’t create a lot of unsustainability.” Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security Global Health Bulletin REFERRAL article

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Feeding the future Fixing the world's faulty food system Feeding the future Fixing the world's faulty food system Nearly one billion of the world's population go hungry, while two billion eat too much, using up the planet's precious resources. Josh Wilson delves into the data exploring ways to solve the problem. This article has an estimated read time of seven minutes Fixing the world's "faulty food system" is increasingly being recognised as one of the key ways to fight climate change as well as tackle high rates of both malnutrition and obesity.  Each year 821 million people suffer from hunger – a figure that is rising despite an increase in global food production. And at the same time, around two billion people are eating too much of the wrong type of food.   The world is also facing an unprecedented climate emergency, with temperatures hurtling towards a dangerous tipping point.  Last week, a United Nations report concluded that eating less meat could help tackle the dual crisis of climate change and hunger. Switching to plant-based diets, the UN said, could both free up land and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  With the global population set to hit almost 10 billion by 2050, the pressure to find new approaches to feed the world is not going to disappear.  Almost half the current global crop production goes to feeding livestock, however on average just 15 per cent of these calories are then passed on to humans when we consume meat. Climate change also poses a major threat to food security as increasingly common extreme weather events devastate crop land. Simultaneously, agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. “At one level we don't need to grow any more, we should stop feeding our food to bloody livestock and then we've got all the calories we need,” Tim Benton, professor of population ecology at Leeds University, told The Telegraph.  “Food production, and especially livestock production, is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, water  and air quality degradation and soil degradation. We have to start actually recognising that we can’t carry on as we are,” Prof Benton added.  But is the solution to such complicated challenges really as simple as changing how we eat?  One in ten suffering from chronic hunger Hunger is a part of everyday life in certain parts of the world – 11 of the 15 most undernourished countries are in Africa, with the worst rates found in the Central African Republic where three in every five people suffer malnutrition. Globally over one in ten people suffer from chronic undernourishment In Yemen, some 85,000 children are thought to have died from extreme hunger between April 2015 and October 2018 as the country struggles with civil war and military intervention from Saudi Arabia. But many countries with high levels of hunger also produce plenty of food. Pakistan was the ninth biggest producer of beef in 2013 – yet more than one in five of their population suffer from chronic undernourishment. Experts have warned that future conflicts will increasingly focus on a struggle for dwindling resources, especially food and water, unless more urgent action is taken on a global scale. “The most potent resource for any national government is access to energy, water and food, and so as the world gets more complicated these sorts of things are going to matter more and more,” said Prof Benton. Insatiable appetites for meat The livestock industry is viewed by many experts as a serious threat to food security because of its size and unsustainability, as well as the negative effects on our health of a diet overly rich in meat. Every one and a half years, more animals are slaughtered than the total number of humans who ever lived.  As countries become wealthier their eating habits shift towards more meat-based diets, fuelling a massive expansion in livestock farming and contributing some 8.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2010. “By 2050 we're forecast to be consuming 60 per cent more meat and dairy, a staggering 1.2 trillion litres of dairy milk and 500 billion kilograms of meat per year,” said Joseph Poore, researcher at the University of Oxford, warning that such growth is unsustainable. Meat production has skyrocketed to keep up with population growth With half of global crop production already going to feed livestock such a scenario could have catastrophic consequences, warn scientists. In the UK each person consumes an average of 81.5 kg of meat each year, up from 69.2 kg in 1961, despite associated health risks such as obesity, diabetes and bowel cancer. Professor Benton said: “If you look at the UK, the amount of money that it’s costing us to make people better through the health service is around 37 per cent of all our tax revenue and that’s going up fast. “That’s partly because of an ageing population, but it’s also partly because of malnourishment in the form of obesity,” he said.  The majority of population growth will occur in less developed nations Drought causes over 80 per cent of agricultural damage Agriculture, especially livestock production, is a major driver of climate change, but it also one of the most sensitive industries to the effects of changes to weather. Extreme climate disasters such as floods, storms and droughts are on the rise, with an average of 213 such events occurring each year between 1990 and 2016. These events often devastate wide areas of delicate crop land. This harms agricultural yields, leading to food price hikes and loss of income, reducing access to food. This captures some of the complexity of the system and its highly integrated nature. It also highlights how the problem of feeding the population won't be solved by simply growing more food. There has been average of 213 extreme climate disasters per year Reports of crop damage due to climate change are becoming increasingly common, with farmers in Ghana, Tanzania and Nigeria recently describing delays to the start of the rainy season, abnormal mid-season heatwaves and high-intensity rainfall. These have all led to crop losses. Increasing water scarcity is also a serious concern as the agricultural industry accounts for 70 per cent of global water use. Groundwater has already been depleted worldwide for crop irrigation, and as these sources run dry it will increasingly limit where we can grow crops. Meanwhile, as the planet continues to warm, sea levels are predicted to rise, putting low-lying farms at considerable risk, while also restricting future expansion. Scientists have warned that any initiatives to ensure future food security must account for global climate change and seek to minimise agriculture’s contribution. Changing diets and tackling poverty key "In 20 years time we will have 10 billion people on the planet and we simply can’t sustain those numbers without changes in diet," says Simeon Van Der Molen, founder of Moving Mountains, a British manufacturer of plant-based burgers. “Cellular agriculture is the future.” Plant-based meat alternatives such as the 'Impossible Burger' have been touted as a viable and much more sustainable alternative to conventional meat. The Impossible Burger bleeds like real meat Some of these products have already started to get a run out on Britain's high streets. Greggs  achieved notable success with its vegan sausage roll and KFC recently announced it is to begin trialling a vegan Imposter Burger, featuring a bespoke Quorn fillet. Newer plant-based products such as the 'Impossible Burger' are now able to get much closer to the sensory profile and texture of meat, making it more appealing to many consumers. They have a similar nutritional profile to meat but require significantly less water and energy to produce. Insects have also been touted as a potential alternative to meat. They have the advantage of being high in protein and also have a much higher conversion rate of energy input to received calories. However, insect-based meat replacements remain a very niche consumer product and public acceptance in the West remains a long way off. But there is another major emerging food technology which has expanded rapidly in recent years and has drawn lots of interest and corporate investment, that of lab grown meat. This 'meat' is grown in special bioreactors from cells extracted harmlessly from livestock. The result is a product that is almost indistinguishable from conventionally produced meat. From petri dish to plate: how to grow a burger in a lab Leaders in the cultured meat industry are confident that their product has the edge over other meat alternatives because it has the same taste and texture profile as the real thing. “We’re pretty optimistic that as long as it really has the same taste, texture and smell, we think that most consumers will favour the product that doesn’t have all the guilt surrounding it in terms of animal welfare and environmental damage," said Sarah Lucas, head of operations at Mosa Meat, the company responsible for the first lab-grown hamburger. Lab-grown meat is still a few years from consumer availability and the technology still has some way to go - that first lab grown hamburger cost €250,000 to produce - but management consultant AT Kearney predicts that it will make up over a third of global meat supply by 2040. Meat consumption calculator However Prof Benton has warned that systemic changes to the whole agricultural system will be needed to achieve sustainable and nutritious food security. He says that tackling poverty will be key in this battle: “If people are too poor to buy a healthy diet, why does everybody leap to the conclusion that it’s the food price that’s the problem and not the poverty? “For me, the challenge of feeding 10 billion people is not how do we double agricultural production of the wrong things. It is how to do this systemic transformation so people can eat healthily in a way that doesn’t create a lot of waste and doesn’t create a lot of unsustainability.” Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security Global Health Bulletin REFERRAL article

August 19, 2019 at 10:22AM via IFTTT

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Project Bo: Saving lives in Sierra Leone with Solar, Batteries and Twitter

Authored by: Michael Liebreich

  In November 2017, browsing my Twitter timeline in the cab on the way to an industry dinner, I came across a Tweet that hit me like a punch in the guts:

“Three of our oxygen-dependent babies died last night when the power went off. Not good enough in 2017. Low-cost tech e.g. affordable solar power must be a priority for saving newborn lives.”

The Tweet was from Dr. Niall Conroy, Assistant Professor in Emergency Medical Science at University College Dublin, who had been shuttling between Ireland and Sierra Leone to set up a neonatal intensive care unit at the governmental hospital in Bo, the country’s third largest city, working with UNICEF and the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

Sierra Leone’s medical system was ravaged by the civil war which raged between 1991 and 2002. Then in 2014, the country was hit by Ebola, and for two years the country could focus only on mastering the outbreak, which claimed nearly 4,000 lives. In 2018, according to UNICEF data, Sierra Leone ranked second worst in the world for infant mortality, with 34 newborns dying for every thousand live births, and a further 48 dying before their fifth birthday.

For some context on the country’s energy landscape: In 2016, the World Bank reported that just over 20% of Sierra Leone’s population had access to electricity. Of that 20% with access, 46.9% live in urban areas, but only 2.5% live in the countryside. As of last year, the country’s 7.6 million population was served by just 170 MW of capacity. On average, Sierra Leoneans use just 61 kWh per person per year — just 1% of that used by the average EU resident, and 0.5% of the power used by the average American.

The neonatal unit at Bo Government Hospital is connected to the grid, but the grid is unreliable. The Bumbuna dam, completed in 2009 at a cost of $327 million, provides nearly half the country’s power. In the rainy season it delivers 50MW, but in the dry season the water level drops and it can manage only around 20MW, most of which is sent to the capital, Freetown. The rest of the country suffers frequent rolling power cuts, lasting as long as a week or more. Although there are plenty of plans and projects to increase generating capacity – including a $700 million 200 MW Phase II for Bumbuna, suppressed demand will easily mop up additional supply, and there is no chance that grid power in Sierra Leone is going to reach developed world levels of reliability in the foreseeable future.

From the point of view of a vulnerable baby in the neonatal unit at Bo Government Hospital, a 20 minute power cut can be tantamount to a death penalty. Infant-warmers, incubators and oxygen generators – which can be essential for survival – all require electricity: not huge amounts, but more than the average rooftop solar system serving just lights and phone chargers can supply, and it absolutely must be resilient.

It was hard to argue with the logic of Dr. Conroy’s tweet: It is indeed unacceptable that babies should be dying in this day and age because the local power supply is unreliable.

While others enjoyed the dinner, I reached out to Dr. Conroy. If he could handle the in-country side of things – permits from ministries, liaison with the hospital leadership – I committed to raising the money and managing the process of installing a reliable solar and battery system. I was lucky – because of my work with the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative I could draw on a network of experts. Richenda Van Leeuwen, former Executive Director, Energy and Climate, Energy Access at the UN Foundation immediately volunteered to co-lead what we were soon calling Project Bo. My wife pitched in to build a website. Sonali Mehta and Harry Boyle, two early employees of New Energy Finance, now married, offered to help with fundraising. Laura Stachel, founder of We Care Solar, a US charity which provides solar systems for birth units in Africa, was a fount of advice.

We quickly settled on Energy for Opportunity, a Canadian NGO with operations in Freetown, as our local partner to design and build the system. Simon Willans, Executive Director and experienced African solar project developer, immediately sent a crew to Bo to scope the system. Within weeks we had the spec for a $100,000 system – 25 kW of solar PV panels and 125 kWh of battery storage – that would operate off-grid if necessary. We added in $5,000 to provide a tap so that the nurses no longer had to traverse the hospital lugging buckets of water, added a contingency of £25,000 for training, maintenance and unexpected costs, rounded the total to £100,000 and started fundraising.

The batteries – 125kWh of Deka lead gel cells – at the heart of the Project Bo power supply, Government Hospital Neonatal ICU in Bo, Sierra Leone. Copyright Niall Conroy.

The response was extraordinary. Within weeks we had raised the first $25,000, enough to order the batteries – the longest-lead-time item which had to be custom-built and shipped from the U.S. (we went for proven lead-gel Deka batteries rather than take a risk with lithium-ion). By the time they landed in Freetown, we had raised enough funds to build the whole system, and by August we had raised the full £100,000.

I am incredibly grateful for the generosity of our donors. A few were wealthy philanthropists; two institutions, the Hamburger Klimaschutz-Fonds (HKF) and Eurelectric (the association of European Electricity Utilities), were early supporters; but the majority were individuals who simply responded to our crowdfunding efforts – again mainly publicised via Twitter – and supported us with open hearts. I thank them all.

Project Bo’s system went live in September 2018. Once he has collected a year’s worth of comparable data, Dr. Conroy is planning to publish a peer-reviewed study of its impact. However, even based on preliminary data, it’s clear that it is saving lives. Controlling for other variables, it looks like mortality in the unit has dropped from 18% to 7% due to the advent of reliable power, potentially saving around eight lives per month.

If these figures hold up over time, the cost per life saved, assuming a system lifetime of just seven years, would be $156. This compares incredibly favourably with the oft-quoted record-low figure of $3,340 to save a child’s life via insecticide-treated mosquito nets. And there is no reason the Project Bo system should last only seven years – the batteries will need to be replaced around that time, but by then a new set should cost only $20,000 and will give another seven to 10 years of life-saving service.

We are still sitting on around $20,000 of the contingency raised as part of the appeal. The Project Bo steering group decided to spend it on initiatives that support maternal and neonatal health in Bo, rather than sit on it and wait until new batteries were needed. We donated $6,000 to We Care Solar for units at two maternal health units in the region around Bo, in recognition of their help. For the remainder, Dr. Conroy is working with the hospital leadership to identify the best use of funds, and will shortly submit a proposal. Most likely it will be spent on a dormitory for the mothers, who have nowhere to sleep while waiting to breastfeed babies admitted to the neonatal unit. Currently, they are sleeping outdoors and risking malaria, and in some cases, taking their babies home too early.

If it sounds like Project Bo was plain sailing, that is not entirely correct, there were certainly some rocky moments. And there were many lessons learned, which I believe are very much worth sharing.

  First of all, here are five tips for anyone planning to undertake a project like Project Bo:

Go for it! Project Bo has proven that solar and battery-powered mini-grids can save lives. As described above, we don’t yet have definitive data, but it is clear that the system is producing results. When Dr. Conroy visited the unit shortly after the system went live he asked the head nurse if the electricity was saving lives. Her response was unequivocal: “Yes, yes, yes. Less babies are dying now” (read more of Dr Conroy’s impressions of his first visit to Bo after the system went live here). Yes, Richenda Van Leeuwen and I had the benefit of existing contacts to help us complete Project Bo, but with some determined networking, anyone could have done it.

Be ambitious but pragmatic. The first design Energy for Opportunity produced for the system was too small to run the equipment 24/7. The assumption was that right-sizing the system would make it too expensive. We insisted on a system that would solve the problem of intermittent power once and for all, and it was the right thing to do. However, we were also pragmatic: the system includes a small diesel generator, which can run the ward and charge the batteries in case of equipment failure. Given the choice between being 100% renewable or 100% resilient, when it comes to life-critical equipment, the choice is clear.

Focus on governance. I refused to kick off fundraising for Project Bo until Dr Conroy talked me through the leadership structure at the hospital and reassured me that equipment and facilities

Dr Conroy, Assistant Professor UCD Centre for Energency Medical Science, on the wards at the Government Hospital Neonatal ICU in Bo, Sierra Leone, which he helped to set up. Copyright Niall Conroy.

could be secured from theft. Even so, when the system was first installed, three unapproved air conditioners were immediately and mysteriously connected to it, causing unexpected power outages with potentially fatal consequences. Only after emergency intervention from Energy for Opportunity and training of the nurses could we feel confident the system would not be abused.

Budget for training and maintenance. This is something we insisted on from the start. We were determined to avoid the classic fate of the donor-funded mini-grid – it works fine when first installed, but no one is trained to use it, and there is no budget for maintenance. We set aside a contingency for regular visits by Energy for Opportunity to train the nurses and maintain the system, and financed a local store of spare parts (under lock and key). We are in the process of adding an internet connection so we can monitor system performance remotely.

Plan for suppressed demand. Prior to the installation of the Project Bo power supply, the neonatal unit was admitting up to 70 patients per month. Over the past six months, admissions have been up to 110. In part, this may be due to the improved treatment on offer – it is too early to tell. Whatever the reason, we did not think hard enough about future demand growth when identifying system requirements and developing the engineering design. I would feel more comfortable had we raised $25,000 more and installed a bigger system.

  Secondly, here are five messages for the NGO, multilateral agency, and donor community:

Make medical appliances energy efficient. The equipment which drives demand for power at Bo Government Hospital’s neonatal unit – baby warmers, incubators, and oxygen concentrators – was donated by UNICEF at a cost of around $10,000 to $15,000. The Project Bo power system we built cost up to 10 times as much as the equipment it supplies! As things stand, there are no more efficient models on the market than the ones in use in Bo. But I am willing to bet that with a bottom-up redesign, their power demand could be halved. Even if the equipment cost were to double (which I sincerely doubt), the overall cost to provide life-saving care would be reduced. Come on medical equipment suppliers, let’s have models designed around the realities of the power supply in the developing world!

Reduce mini-grid system costs. Although the cost per life saved by Project Bo looks set to be incredibly low, $100,000 is a huge amount of money for a single hospital ward’s power supply, in the context of a country where GDP per capita is just $510. There is a need for resilient power throughout the health system in the developing world, but there will not be many other use cases where so many lives can be saved with such a simple intervention as in an urban neonatal intensive care unit. By standardising designs and procuring in bulk, it should be possible to reduce the cost of this type of resilient power supply, so they can be deployed throughout developing country health systems.

Create a clear customs waiver programme. The biggest uncertainty we experienced in budgeting for Project Bo was whether or not our equipment would be subject to customs duties. In general, humanitarian supplies are given a waiver, but you can’t bank on it up front. To receive our waiver, Energy for Opportunity and the hospital to request it from the Health Ministry, who had to inform the Finance Ministry, who had to inform Customs and Excise. None of this could be initiated until we had a Bill of Lading, which means precious time was lost. The multilateral community must surely be able to set up a robust pre-approval process, or even a blanket waiver of customs duties on clean energy equipment, given how vital it is for health, education, and economic development.

Proactively capture health-related power data. All we knew when we started Project Bo was that babies were dying because of power cuts. We had no idea how frequent they were, or how long they lasted. To this day, I have no idea if this data exists for Sierra Leone, the city of Bo or the hospital. As a result, we had to design a system that could effectively operate off-grid. With a year’s worth of accurate data, we might have been able to design a cheaper system – one with a smaller battery, or perhaps even one with no solar panels, using just intermittent grid power. In the case of Project Bo, the humanitarian need was so pressing, we did not have the luxury of collecting data before designing the system. A massive data-logging exercise focused on power quality at health facilities in developing countries would be a very good use of aid money.

Get smart about energy and aid. Let me be blunt: there is little point donating baby warmers and oxygen concentrators to a neonatal unit if the power supply is intermittent. I don’t want to be too harsh on UNICEF because they are far from the exception: the developing world is full of donor-funded equipment, at best run from diesel generators with horrible environmental impacts and unacceptable power quality, and at worst sitting unused until it disappears. Donors and aid agencies need to think of the power supply as an integral part of their offering, whether in health, education, agriculture, or economic development; they need to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the best clean energy NGOs, and everyone must be measured by the same metrics.

  In summary, Project Bo has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that clean energy can help make dramatic, rapid improvements in health outcomes among some of the most vulnerable populations in the world. However, these improvements will not accrue automatically through generic improvements in energy access. In health care, power quality – especially reliability – matters as much as quantity.

We need to take the lessons from Project Bo and from an increasing number of other projects like it, and apply them at a programmatic scale. There may be no other single intervention that could deliver such substantial improvements in health outcomes for vulnerable patients in poorer developing countries.

Finally, Project Bo was one of the most humbling and gratifying initiatives I have ever led. I can only thank our donors, Richenda Van Leeuwen and the other members of the Project Bo steering group, and the ever-inspiring, selfless Dr. Niall Conroy, whose tweet back in November 2017 was the catalyst that launched Project Bo.

  Michael Liebreich is the Founder and CEO of Liebreich Associates. He founded and is now Senior Contributor to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Michael was a founding member of the High Level Advisory Group for the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative, and serves on a number of industry and governmental panels. The Liebreich Foundation is his family charity, funded mainly from the sale of New Energy Finance.

The post Project Bo: Saving lives in Sierra Leone with Solar, Batteries and Twitter appeared first on Powering Health Care.

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[airoasis]

Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/everything-wrong-with-captain-marvel-in-16-minutes-or-less/

Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

never much like the Stanley cameos and definitely don’t like logos but this is goddamn touching but while we’re on the subject of opening logos for movies let’s frame it this way imagine buying the new Taylor Swift album but before you can hear me you have to first listen to 20 seconds of a universal music group audio jingle it would probably be rocking and full of tight harmonies but it would still forever be 20 seconds of norway’s standing between you and your music that’s what opening studio logos do for movies place my hands so angry oh my god they give us the name of the city the description of that city’s importance and then a third line with an utterly incomprehensible series of letter and number characters do you know what time it is Jesus Marvel movies young Dumbledore young Pope Sherlock Holmes is there any beloved institution that Jude Law hasn’t infiltrated anything you know funny how I was thinking the same thing about this chatty friendly fight scene which happens in every movie there’s nothing dangerous warrior an emotion not even a nuclear weapon a landmine sharp sword sniper’s bullet jagged rocks meat from a plant that once had an e.coli outbreak control your impulses so easy miss start using this there’s so much goddamn pedantic mansplaining in the beginning of this movie that I fast forwarded to the end where Carol blasts the Balrog and watched it three times in a row future VR requires artificial tendrils that get to know you better than your spouse just because it looks kind of cool doesn’t make it practical so the burrito supreme searches your thoughts and becomes the person that you’re closest to before communicating I mean contact got murdered for doing that at the end of the movie so long the scrolls have invaded yet another border planet this time Topher already lost me dude if you think for one minute I’m getting all this down plus the three or four other names organizations planets he mentions in this briefing you sadly overestimate my ability to give it well marvel do you read me anybody copy as technologically advanced as they are at a Cree or apparently still reliant on 1990s cellphone reception this is some dusty furry dust things suspense I’m no expert but maybe if you spent less time screaming you’d be able to do more scrolling no one will be seated during the bunch of old portion of the movie some stuff is happening just try and keep track of the purple in the green they’re on different sides I think movie does a great job advertising the Air Force you don’t now the movie does pile on a bit heavy with this stuff about her constantly being told she’s not good enough I get that people are told that but in movie form maybe we don’t need to see it a dozen times to get the point okay fine we need some back story on why Carroll’s so driven to be the best but this exposition brain probe really feels more like a Nike commercial than an MCU film okay wait can you change the way the camera of your memory tilts so that you can pick up fine details let’s just like the zoom and enhance cliche but for your brain dr.

Wendy Lawson that’s her so Carol can hear the scrolls that are digging around in her memories and she in memory reacts to it you can’t change an event by remembering it right fright she got knocked out cold and captured on that planet with a single blast of one of these space Tasers now she’s impervious to them that’s not exactly full-sized so I guess we can call this a little helm scream in case you thought this movie’s 90s references we’re gonna be subtle she crashed lands into a king blockbuster huh movies playing this is a visual gag but was Carol seriously gonna immediately shoot any non-threatening presents in this environment what if this were the janitor doing a late-night cleaning this top shelf here goes hudsucker proxy hook something else that I’m pretty sure is hamburger hill then first night then jumping jack flash jr.

And just cause I worked at three different blockbusters in my lifetime and you could fire four there you have one job and I think half these movies on the Shelf star Sean Connery and Arnold Schwarzenegger how likely in 1995 is it that a blockbuster would be advertising babe with a giant poster and standee when that was only released in August of that year the church wasn’t coming out on video at this point honestly we take care of those dirty looks is quite simply the worst dry-cleaning advertising slogan I could even fathom why does a dry-cleaning service even need a slogan look at you be better off just writing your hours of operation talk about some nuclear yadda yadda how the hell does outdated 90s tech and a payphone and turn into a communicator with the ability to send signals to her people millions of miles away in space all did it book work sure she could make a space phone out of that but she couldn’t bypass Ma Bell in the ill communication once it’s real aliens find the earth to be way less than acceptable cliche okay if this call is urgent enough to use the sirens why not take the cops and shield until after daybreak to respond why was shield alerted at all it’s a broken window in a fucking blockbuster okay this d aging technology has officially gotten creepy as hell I’ll be honest Jana fired Sam Jackson looks pretty awesome here and I am terrified of how that technology will definitely be used in the future this is the most convenient Road near a train situation any city planner ever cooked up in pursuit and she should be easy to track considering she’ll be the only person in Los Angeles to take the train sure Stanley could have been reading Kevin Smith’s mole rat script in 1995 the movie came out on October 20th 1995 so this could be early in the year when it was about to get shot or something the problem is the record story just left Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness being advertised here is coming soon or already out came out October 23rd 1995 and while it’s insane that those two things were only three days apart Stan Lee would not have been reading the script in October unless he was just getting nostalgic about his cameo for the residents of LA to jump to an old lady’s needs and all but how is this even possible you’re telling me that after all the kicking Carol’s done three regular ask commuters could temporarily restrain her fight chase on top of a moving train I feel like I’ve never seen that before except always of course it is tunnels the only logical choice once you’ve opted for fight on top of a train what I’m still here at the blockbuster Coulson saw fury take off forever ago so why is he just calling it also look I think the young ending effect they’re using on Sam Jackson is amazing but they must have used all the resources on that because Clark Craig’s face makes Jeff Bridges and Tron Legacy look like fine art look movie no one in a major city subway terminal would look this hard and long and a girl in a weird costume subway terminals are beacons for folks in weird costumes I rode a train once with spider-man and Marilyn Monroe and a guy that look exactly like Richard Grieco only I don’t think that was a costume I think that was just Richard Grieco there you go now that no one can tell that’s an alien no one will ask questions about the body with a jacket thrown over its face inside the wrecked car ah cool the doohickey that the scroll dropped on the train gets inserted into the whatchamacallit and immediately displays plot convenient footage perfectly edited for maximum exposition alta vista internet cafes modems big computer monitors wasn’t 1995 hilarious but seriously how would carol have the first goddamn clue how to work this fad and sure the motorcycle guy was an asshole and probably deserved it but what did this vintage boutique ever do to anyone hey how’s your eye that’s a fine yeah they’re not gonna hem handedly try and shoehorn a reason for Fury’s eye patch into this movie I got word on a motorcycle thief that fits her description but instead of immediately following up on that lead I’m gonna waste valuable time at shield espousing this clunky dialogue might even drink a tear wine and stop by Sam Goody’s to pick up a jagged little pill CD before I act on any of this information toggling Scrolls can only some recent memories of their host bodies that is literally the definition of a stupid restriction to put on an ability just for plot or hero reasons why should they even be able to access any memories if all they’re doing is copycatting where are you born Huntsville Alabama does this do Carroll except to provide a little more backstory for fury is she able to verify this bolt in any way Ruth you’re not a scroll Carol is a dick – what if this is a jukebox from the 90s has to be 30% ac/dc CDs 40% Tom Petty CDs 29% journey CDs and 1% Van Morrison CD is that a communicator yeah state of the art – wig agent which would in no way and work in a bunker like this but I’m gonna keep making these nostalgic references as long as Marvel pays me to do so Oh how did this cat get into this official government covert facility and did they know he was a flirt come if so why is he out roaming the halls hey that’s exactly how Eminem writes his lyrics I’ll assume Lawson was writing the follow-up to Stan I want to question her along that sounds well evil and/or dirty all I know is we take them in to dead or alive dead or alive yeah agreed that’s excessive it makes no sense unless your bosses bosses a scroll poly these are the loudest lights I’ve ever heard can you imagine the constant jump scares you’d have to endure if you were collating these records the CGI cat is a king abomination and yes the actress is allergic and they had to do a CGI cat in some places but just take twenty thousand dollars of the money you’re spending on unifying Sam Jackson and put it into realistic in the cat god damn also they ran into that cat on level five in the storage room and somehow it ran several floors away from that position and got into the hangar and onto a prototype aircraft that they would eventually use Maria Rambo so how do we get to Louisiana I’m sorry but the amount of information they’ve gleaned from a few seconds of glancing through the records like Maria’s exact address is such bull that this movie is actively starting to stink what is Ronan looked like a character from mist here Carol appeared almost lifelike on the hologram earlier and even in full color his accuser tech still using dial-up or something she flashes little moments but I can’t tell what’s real I’ll tell you what’s real someone on this movie set design team thinks this single mother living alone with her daughter keeps a bowl on the table with 16 lemons in it that’s real that happened you’d better come take a look at this cliche that was all that survived the crash well that’s a lie you’re telling me a prototype aircraft crashed and every single piece of it disintegrated into dust including the rest of this dog tag but not this tiny corner of dog tag you know you really should be kinder to your neighbors you never know when you’re gonna need to borrow some sugar this is pretty hilarious but it’s also ridiculous to think that the scrolls stopped off at a fast-food joint to pick up some burgers and shakes on the way to Louisiana and how would you know about the sugar borrowing habits of earthly suburban Knights this soon into your stay on the planet that was before on you you uh before I knew what made you different from me honest Talos had to have gotten this information before the confrontation at the Pegasus base since that’s where he heard the recorder so if he knew that then why did he try to kill Furies ass he knew they were working together and now he’s all peaceful I actually really like this characters turn but given the sequence of events it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense what’s happening it’s loading windows 95 okay so Jude Law shot Lawson before she could blow up the ship but it takes like 15 seconds for him to show up at a distance in all this smoke plus their obstructed somewhat by the crash ship and they’re on the down slope of a hill how did he know where to aim Carol got her powers by being fantastic forward by the warp engine but the energy only hit her despite yon raw and about the same distance away she assumed his power she’s coming with us okay I’d maybe buy that this recording spurred Carol’s memory to recall the crash but she’s being unconscious here so how would she know this part quick question why did they leave the main house and all go to the one day from collapse cabin to listen to the audio it makes a nice shot but it makes no sense from a human being standpoint is this houses only computer out in the decrepit barn why does Talos still have Keller’s jacket on we’ve seen that when they morph into other humans they already have their clothes on but now that he’s turned back into his natural shape that jacket should be gone right she wanted you to help us find the core and why the hell didn’t she tell Carol about the reason for the mission in the first place I know it would have been weird to come out as an alien but they were already in top-secret mode this withholding of information both makes about as much sense as what happened to Poe in the last Jedi did you hear me man this depiction of the friendship between two strong independent women that is emotional but not corny is long overdue and it’s about goddamn time that Marvel showed it so I’m gonna take us in off because I’m totally a social justice warrior or virtue signal or whatever the latest term that’s complimentary but is being used to be derogatory take it off this moonlight shot makes no sense the pole at the bottom right of the shot shows a shadow that matches up with the moon’s location but then the spaceship thing that veers flew here has a shadow that suggests another even stronger light source off-screen to the right when they were handing out kids they gave up a toughest one lieutenant trouble so is everything cool now like KanCare remember everything about her life on earth black box recording was fucking magic what purpose does this function of the spacesuit serve like some cream was almost finished designing it and the supreme intelligence poked its head in and was like don’t forget to add the unnecessary color wheel why did they bring the can captivate this cat will lead her freak out on fury and cut his face but he doesn’t want to do it here in zero gravity which is baffling because I’ve owned a cat before a lawnmower can freak them out a clap of thunder can freak them out suspending in zero gravity but but have them clawing out the eyeballs of all the motherfuckers nearby until they were on solid footing the cloaking activated holy balls is there anything this magical wrist doohickey can’t do can it order takeout purchase ebooks access free porn ah Who am I kidding of course it can access free porn in her note she called us a tesseract you know I’m fine with the timeline of the tesseract the idea that Howard Stark helped found Pegasus in the 80s and handed it over to this project is totally okay I’m just tired of the fucking tesseract it shows up and seemingly every movie being on tesseract and stuff she’s a pinball wizard it’s gotta be a twist a pinball wizard has got such a supple wrist evil dude picked up the cat carried it all the way here and just tosses it casually and that is a ton of wasted effort what did you do to your uniform he got in her head just like we thought when Carol’s been calling with updates constantly since she’s been on earth and there’s no way they would know that the scroll to flipped his jacket it’s killer by the way does the supreme intelligence seriously have the bandwidth and the inclination for pithy one-liners species flirty threat hi so I’ll calmly place a cat’s eyes muzzle over its mouth and I just happen to be carrying on my person without us you’re only human flesh you may be you’re only human to me mistakes this montage of various Carol’s getting up after falling down is excessive and on the nose and over-the-top anjala you were reborn fierce because every sci-fi movie apparently needs an alien race to miss read something and call it something else like Star Trek with Vedra Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes with kolima this goes on for some time I will say this about the movie it waits until the perfect time to unveil Carol’s true powers and this is a goosebumps inducing moment so it absolutely deserves us in off having said that this reveals sets up the same issue as DC has with Superman Carol is all-powerful she hasn’t discovered everything she could do yet but she’s pretty much unkillable now and future movies and game mm we’ll have to do a ton of hand waving and marginalization for her to be included at all into the rest of the MCU okay let playing on just a girl during the climactic scene of this movie that’s more on the nose than anything ever literally the only more on the nose song you could have chosen is Meredith Brooks bitch or maybe Barbie girl or Cyndi Lauper’s well the movie never explains it or even suggests it but jaan raghav errantly has the ability to manipulate metal like magneto and I needs more backstory than anything in this movie that you actually gave a backstory fool god damn huh did that happen the movie is directly contradicting its own previous implications about the power differential here oh they’re dogfighting in the canyons just like an independent Sky Captain and the world of to marvel dude Carroll may be all-powerful but does she also have a GPS built into her headpiece how the hell did she know exactly where yawn Rhonda DUP she didn’t even see him crash poop to me you can beat me this is a great moment but it was also super fucking obvious that it was gonna go down like this this is basically Indy taking out the sword guy with the gun and Raiders of the Lost Ark motherf lurkin I’ll be back before you know it she will not for emergencies only okay and real emergencies too not like of an alien species is invading one of your most populous cities and your shadow government is about to nuke the god of it as a result and really it would take a giant stroke of some luck and some space gravity to avoid total annihilation you could totally handle that you think you can find others like her we found her and we weren’t even looking okay the logic here is stunning and yes they do end up finding more heroes but it’s not because they already existed Carol was a one-in-a-billion fluke banner still hasn’t tested gamma radiation yet Tony has to be kidnapped and build a suit in a cave black widow is just a human badass and Hawkeye is decent too okay with arrows just how amazing with this cat vomit scene be if we didn’t know where the tesseract went during the sequence on lawson’s lab it might have felt worth sitting through the 12 minutes of credits might have there I said it I like a cat ah I’m just a free we have Vincent yeah we happy your father and I were just discussing his day at work why don’t you tell our daughter about it honey Janie today I quit my job and then I told my boss to go himself and then i blackmailed them for almost $60,000 past nice pair your father seems to think this kind of behavior something to be proud of and your mother seems to prefer that I go through life like a king prisoner while she keeps my in a mason jar under the sink tell the supreme intelligence that I’m coming to end it you Tom I’m coming and hell’s coming with me before we get started does anyone want to get out you want to play blind man go walk with the shepherd me my eyes are wide just talk

[batterymonster2021]

Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/everything-wrong-with-captain-marvel-in-16-minutes-or-less/

Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

never much like the Stanley cameos and definitely don’t like logos but this is goddamn touching but while we’re on the subject of opening logos for movies let’s frame it this way imagine buying the new Taylor Swift album but before you can hear me you have to first listen to 20 seconds of a universal music group audio jingle it would probably be rocking and full of tight harmonies but it would still forever be 20 seconds of norway’s standing between you and your music that’s what opening studio logos do for movies place my hands so angry oh my god they give us the name of the city the description of that city’s importance and then a third line with an utterly incomprehensible series of letter and number characters do you know what time it is Jesus Marvel movies young Dumbledore young Pope Sherlock Holmes is there any beloved institution that Jude Law hasn’t infiltrated anything you know funny how I was thinking the same thing about this chatty friendly fight scene which happens in every movie there’s nothing dangerous warrior an emotion not even a nuclear weapon a landmine sharp sword sniper’s bullet jagged rocks meat from a plant that once had an e.coli outbreak control your impulses so easy miss start using this there’s so much goddamn pedantic mansplaining in the beginning of this movie that I fast forwarded to the end where Carol blasts the Balrog and watched it three times in a row future VR requires artificial tendrils that get to know you better than your spouse just because it looks kind of cool doesn’t make it practical so the burrito supreme searches your thoughts and becomes the person that you’re closest to before communicating I mean contact got murdered for doing that at the end of the movie so long the scrolls have invaded yet another border planet this time Topher already lost me dude if you think for one minute I’m getting all this down plus the three or four other names organizations planets he mentions in this briefing you sadly overestimate my ability to give it well marvel do you read me anybody copy as technologically advanced as they are at a Cree or apparently still reliant on 1990s cellphone reception this is some dusty furry dust things suspense I’m no expert but maybe if you spent less time screaming you’d be able to do more scrolling no one will be seated during the bunch of old portion of the movie some stuff is happening just try and keep track of the purple in the green they’re on different sides I think movie does a great job advertising the Air Force you don’t now the movie does pile on a bit heavy with this stuff about her constantly being told she’s not good enough I get that people are told that but in movie form maybe we don’t need to see it a dozen times to get the point okay fine we need some back story on why Carroll’s so driven to be the best but this exposition brain probe really feels more like a Nike commercial than an MCU film okay wait can you change the way the camera of your memory tilts so that you can pick up fine details let’s just like the zoom and enhance cliche but for your brain dr.

Wendy Lawson that’s her so Carol can hear the scrolls that are digging around in her memories and she in memory reacts to it you can’t change an event by remembering it right fright she got knocked out cold and captured on that planet with a single blast of one of these space Tasers now she’s impervious to them that’s not exactly full-sized so I guess we can call this a little helm scream in case you thought this movie’s 90s references we’re gonna be subtle she crashed lands into a king blockbuster huh movies playing this is a visual gag but was Carol seriously gonna immediately shoot any non-threatening presents in this environment what if this were the janitor doing a late-night cleaning this top shelf here goes hudsucker proxy hook something else that I’m pretty sure is hamburger hill then first night then jumping jack flash jr.

And just cause I worked at three different blockbusters in my lifetime and you could fire four there you have one job and I think half these movies on the Shelf star Sean Connery and Arnold Schwarzenegger how likely in 1995 is it that a blockbuster would be advertising babe with a giant poster and standee when that was only released in August of that year the church wasn’t coming out on video at this point honestly we take care of those dirty looks is quite simply the worst dry-cleaning advertising slogan I could even fathom why does a dry-cleaning service even need a slogan look at you be better off just writing your hours of operation talk about some nuclear yadda yadda how the hell does outdated 90s tech and a payphone and turn into a communicator with the ability to send signals to her people millions of miles away in space all did it book work sure she could make a space phone out of that but she couldn’t bypass Ma Bell in the ill communication once it’s real aliens find the earth to be way less than acceptable cliche okay if this call is urgent enough to use the sirens why not take the cops and shield until after daybreak to respond why was shield alerted at all it’s a broken window in a fucking blockbuster okay this d aging technology has officially gotten creepy as hell I’ll be honest Jana fired Sam Jackson looks pretty awesome here and I am terrified of how that technology will definitely be used in the future this is the most convenient Road near a train situation any city planner ever cooked up in pursuit and she should be easy to track considering she’ll be the only person in Los Angeles to take the train sure Stanley could have been reading Kevin Smith’s mole rat script in 1995 the movie came out on October 20th 1995 so this could be early in the year when it was about to get shot or something the problem is the record story just left Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness being advertised here is coming soon or already out came out October 23rd 1995 and while it’s insane that those two things were only three days apart Stan Lee would not have been reading the script in October unless he was just getting nostalgic about his cameo for the residents of LA to jump to an old lady’s needs and all but how is this even possible you’re telling me that after all the kicking Carol’s done three regular ask commuters could temporarily restrain her fight chase on top of a moving train I feel like I’ve never seen that before except always of course it is tunnels the only logical choice once you’ve opted for fight on top of a train what I’m still here at the blockbuster Coulson saw fury take off forever ago so why is he just calling it also look I think the young ending effect they’re using on Sam Jackson is amazing but they must have used all the resources on that because Clark Craig’s face makes Jeff Bridges and Tron Legacy look like fine art look movie no one in a major city subway terminal would look this hard and long and a girl in a weird costume subway terminals are beacons for folks in weird costumes I rode a train once with spider-man and Marilyn Monroe and a guy that look exactly like Richard Grieco only I don’t think that was a costume I think that was just Richard Grieco there you go now that no one can tell that’s an alien no one will ask questions about the body with a jacket thrown over its face inside the wrecked car ah cool the doohickey that the scroll dropped on the train gets inserted into the whatchamacallit and immediately displays plot convenient footage perfectly edited for maximum exposition alta vista internet cafes modems big computer monitors wasn’t 1995 hilarious but seriously how would carol have the first goddamn clue how to work this fad and sure the motorcycle guy was an asshole and probably deserved it but what did this vintage boutique ever do to anyone hey how’s your eye that’s a fine yeah they’re not gonna hem handedly try and shoehorn a reason for Fury’s eye patch into this movie I got word on a motorcycle thief that fits her description but instead of immediately following up on that lead I’m gonna waste valuable time at shield espousing this clunky dialogue might even drink a tear wine and stop by Sam Goody’s to pick up a jagged little pill CD before I act on any of this information toggling Scrolls can only some recent memories of their host bodies that is literally the definition of a stupid restriction to put on an ability just for plot or hero reasons why should they even be able to access any memories if all they’re doing is copycatting where are you born Huntsville Alabama does this do Carroll except to provide a little more backstory for fury is she able to verify this bolt in any way Ruth you’re not a scroll Carol is a dick – what if this is a jukebox from the 90s has to be 30% ac/dc CDs 40% Tom Petty CDs 29% journey CDs and 1% Van Morrison CD is that a communicator yeah state of the art – wig agent which would in no way and work in a bunker like this but I’m gonna keep making these nostalgic references as long as Marvel pays me to do so Oh how did this cat get into this official government covert facility and did they know he was a flirt come if so why is he out roaming the halls hey that’s exactly how Eminem writes his lyrics I’ll assume Lawson was writing the follow-up to Stan I want to question her along that sounds well evil and/or dirty all I know is we take them in to dead or alive dead or alive yeah agreed that’s excessive it makes no sense unless your bosses bosses a scroll poly these are the loudest lights I’ve ever heard can you imagine the constant jump scares you’d have to endure if you were collating these records the CGI cat is a king abomination and yes the actress is allergic and they had to do a CGI cat in some places but just take twenty thousand dollars of the money you’re spending on unifying Sam Jackson and put it into realistic in the cat god damn also they ran into that cat on level five in the storage room and somehow it ran several floors away from that position and got into the hangar and onto a prototype aircraft that they would eventually use Maria Rambo so how do we get to Louisiana I’m sorry but the amount of information they’ve gleaned from a few seconds of glancing through the records like Maria’s exact address is such bull that this movie is actively starting to stink what is Ronan looked like a character from mist here Carol appeared almost lifelike on the hologram earlier and even in full color his accuser tech still using dial-up or something she flashes little moments but I can’t tell what’s real I’ll tell you what’s real someone on this movie set design team thinks this single mother living alone with her daughter keeps a bowl on the table with 16 lemons in it that’s real that happened you’d better come take a look at this cliche that was all that survived the crash well that’s a lie you’re telling me a prototype aircraft crashed and every single piece of it disintegrated into dust including the rest of this dog tag but not this tiny corner of dog tag you know you really should be kinder to your neighbors you never know when you’re gonna need to borrow some sugar this is pretty hilarious but it’s also ridiculous to think that the scrolls stopped off at a fast-food joint to pick up some burgers and shakes on the way to Louisiana and how would you know about the sugar borrowing habits of earthly suburban Knights this soon into your stay on the planet that was before on you you uh before I knew what made you different from me honest Talos had to have gotten this information before the confrontation at the Pegasus base since that’s where he heard the recorder so if he knew that then why did he try to kill Furies ass he knew they were working together and now he’s all peaceful I actually really like this characters turn but given the sequence of events it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense what’s happening it’s loading windows 95 okay so Jude Law shot Lawson before she could blow up the ship but it takes like 15 seconds for him to show up at a distance in all this smoke plus their obstructed somewhat by the crash ship and they’re on the down slope of a hill how did he know where to aim Carol got her powers by being fantastic forward by the warp engine but the energy only hit her despite yon raw and about the same distance away she assumed his power she’s coming with us okay I’d maybe buy that this recording spurred Carol’s memory to recall the crash but she’s being unconscious here so how would she know this part quick question why did they leave the main house and all go to the one day from collapse cabin to listen to the audio it makes a nice shot but it makes no sense from a human being standpoint is this houses only computer out in the decrepit barn why does Talos still have Keller’s jacket on we’ve seen that when they morph into other humans they already have their clothes on but now that he’s turned back into his natural shape that jacket should be gone right she wanted you to help us find the core and why the hell didn’t she tell Carol about the reason for the mission in the first place I know it would have been weird to come out as an alien but they were already in top-secret mode this withholding of information both makes about as much sense as what happened to Poe in the last Jedi did you hear me man this depiction of the friendship between two strong independent women that is emotional but not corny is long overdue and it’s about goddamn time that Marvel showed it so I’m gonna take us in off because I’m totally a social justice warrior or virtue signal or whatever the latest term that’s complimentary but is being used to be derogatory take it off this moonlight shot makes no sense the pole at the bottom right of the shot shows a shadow that matches up with the moon’s location but then the spaceship thing that veers flew here has a shadow that suggests another even stronger light source off-screen to the right when they were handing out kids they gave up a toughest one lieutenant trouble so is everything cool now like KanCare remember everything about her life on earth black box recording was fucking magic what purpose does this function of the spacesuit serve like some cream was almost finished designing it and the supreme intelligence poked its head in and was like don’t forget to add the unnecessary color wheel why did they bring the can captivate this cat will lead her freak out on fury and cut his face but he doesn’t want to do it here in zero gravity which is baffling because I’ve owned a cat before a lawnmower can freak them out a clap of thunder can freak them out suspending in zero gravity but but have them clawing out the eyeballs of all the motherfuckers nearby until they were on solid footing the cloaking activated holy balls is there anything this magical wrist doohickey can’t do can it order takeout purchase ebooks access free porn ah Who am I kidding of course it can access free porn in her note she called us a tesseract you know I’m fine with the timeline of the tesseract the idea that Howard Stark helped found Pegasus in the 80s and handed it over to this project is totally okay I’m just tired of the fucking tesseract it shows up and seemingly every movie being on tesseract and stuff she’s a pinball wizard it’s gotta be a twist a pinball wizard has got such a supple wrist evil dude picked up the cat carried it all the way here and just tosses it casually and that is a ton of wasted effort what did you do to your uniform he got in her head just like we thought when Carol’s been calling with updates constantly since she’s been on earth and there’s no way they would know that the scroll to flipped his jacket it’s killer by the way does the supreme intelligence seriously have the bandwidth and the inclination for pithy one-liners species flirty threat hi so I’ll calmly place a cat’s eyes muzzle over its mouth and I just happen to be carrying on my person without us you’re only human flesh you may be you’re only human to me mistakes this montage of various Carol’s getting up after falling down is excessive and on the nose and over-the-top anjala you were reborn fierce because every sci-fi movie apparently needs an alien race to miss read something and call it something else like Star Trek with Vedra Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes with kolima this goes on for some time I will say this about the movie it waits until the perfect time to unveil Carol’s true powers and this is a goosebumps inducing moment so it absolutely deserves us in off having said that this reveals sets up the same issue as DC has with Superman Carol is all-powerful she hasn’t discovered everything she could do yet but she’s pretty much unkillable now and future movies and game mm we’ll have to do a ton of hand waving and marginalization for her to be included at all into the rest of the MCU okay let playing on just a girl during the climactic scene of this movie that’s more on the nose than anything ever literally the only more on the nose song you could have chosen is Meredith Brooks bitch or maybe Barbie girl or Cyndi Lauper’s well the movie never explains it or even suggests it but jaan raghav errantly has the ability to manipulate metal like magneto and I needs more backstory than anything in this movie that you actually gave a backstory fool god damn huh did that happen the movie is directly contradicting its own previous implications about the power differential here oh they’re dogfighting in the canyons just like an independent Sky Captain and the world of to marvel dude Carroll may be all-powerful but does she also have a GPS built into her headpiece how the hell did she know exactly where yawn Rhonda DUP she didn’t even see him crash poop to me you can beat me this is a great moment but it was also super fucking obvious that it was gonna go down like this this is basically Indy taking out the sword guy with the gun and Raiders of the Lost Ark motherf lurkin I’ll be back before you know it she will not for emergencies only okay and real emergencies too not like of an alien species is invading one of your most populous cities and your shadow government is about to nuke the god of it as a result and really it would take a giant stroke of some luck and some space gravity to avoid total annihilation you could totally handle that you think you can find others like her we found her and we weren’t even looking okay the logic here is stunning and yes they do end up finding more heroes but it’s not because they already existed Carol was a one-in-a-billion fluke banner still hasn’t tested gamma radiation yet Tony has to be kidnapped and build a suit in a cave black widow is just a human badass and Hawkeye is decent too okay with arrows just how amazing with this cat vomit scene be if we didn’t know where the tesseract went during the sequence on lawson’s lab it might have felt worth sitting through the 12 minutes of credits might have there I said it I like a cat ah I’m just a free we have Vincent yeah we happy your father and I were just discussing his day at work why don’t you tell our daughter about it honey Janie today I quit my job and then I told my boss to go himself and then i blackmailed them for almost $60,000 past nice pair your father seems to think this kind of behavior something to be proud of and your mother seems to prefer that I go through life like a king prisoner while she keeps my in a mason jar under the sink tell the supreme intelligence that I’m coming to end it you Tom I’m coming and hell’s coming with me before we get started does anyone want to get out you want to play blind man go walk with the shepherd me my eyes are wide just talk

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