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John Barry The Bond Composer Dies At 77

We lost the great composer John Barry yesterday. The British-born composer not only helped define the feel of the Bond films but crafted music that served as a 1960s soundtrack to a new kind of jet-setting lifestyle.

Though we all know his most famous works — and I appreciate both the journalist’s and poster’s mention  of Midnight Cowboy and Cry, the Beloved Country, respectively — relisten to Shirley Bassey’s Diamonds Are Forever for a classic pairing of composer and vocalist.

John Barry :      I always liked to have a song that one could develop and use throughout the score, rather than having a song stuck at the beginning of the movie that hadn‚Äôt any relationship really to the rest of the thematic material.

John Barry :      I was pleased with the Duran Duran, situation.  It was the first time I worked that way, with a group.

The music of John Barry distinguished many of the movie hits of the 60s, from the wide-screen action of Zulu to the critically acclaimed, now classic adaptation of James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter with Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn. English composer John Barry has composed many songs for film and television.

Best known for his work on fourteen Jams Bond movies, Barry has also composed other memorable songs for films such as Midnight Cowboy, Zulu, and Born Free.  And I will always be moved by his beautiful Dances with Wolves score which sustained me when I was deployed overseas and missed the birth of my youngest son.   His soundtrack ¬≠s are so beautiful and enjoyable, and add so much to films, really, they complete them.   British film composer John Barry, who won five Oscars and is best known for creating music for the James Bond movies, has died at age 77 and will be greatly missed.

Chile Earthquake 900 Times Stronger Than The Haiti Quake.

This Chile quake was 900 times stronger than the Haiti quake and so far way less than 100 people have died.  The latest Chile quake has already generated tsunami waves estimated to be anywhere from 1 meter to 1.  “But it’s difficult to predict the wave amplitudes of the tsunami” as it approaches shallower waters of distant coastlines, said Dr. Baptie

But in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, it was the Chile quake tsunami that shared the headlines.  A 9.1 earthquake caused one of history’s deadliest waves in 2004, so no one was taking chances with the aftereffects of an 8.8. Hawaii  The largest was a 9.5 magnitude event that struck Chile in 1960, causing 1,655 fatalities, leaving 2 million homeless, and triggering a tsunami that killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

Those details were placed on the NEIC’s Web site and also sent electronically to relief agencies, the United Nations and others.  Gross said actual observations of the length of the day are accurate to five-millionths of a second.  His estimate of the effect of the Chile quake is less than a quarter of that span.

An earthquake can make Earth rotate faster by nudging some of its mass closer to the planet’s axis, just as ice skaters can speed up their spins by pulling in their arms.  However, since Chile is a known earthquake region, its buildings are better constructed than those that collapsed in Haiti.  Haiti’s earthquake was shallower and closer to a major city, Port-au-Prince, than was the Chilean quake, which accounted for much of the devastation in Haiti.

While this earthquake was far stronger than the 7.0-magnitude one that ravaged Haiti six weeks ago, the damage and death toll in Chile are likely to be far less extensive, in part because of strict building codes put in place after devastating earthquakes.  The same may be true for the Chilean earthquake: About half of the country’s casualties have been attributed to the tsunami that crashed against the Chilean coast.

Jordan Tansey Signs Up With The Sydney Roosters

Jordan Tansey benefited from good work from Keith Senior, to go in at the corner for his second try of the night and then the replacement completed his hat trick in the final minute of the game, running from deep in his own half to go unopposed under the posts.  Hull have continued their rebuilding program for 2010 by signing Jordan Tansey, the former Leeds utility back currently playing in Australia with the Sydney Roosters.

The Hull pack were on top, Fitzgibbon performing head and shoulders above anyone else around him, Sean Long was running the show once again and Jordan Tansey continued to impress with an assured performance in the No.1 jersey.

Jordan Tansey got the first try of the second half after collecting a perfect grubber kick from Rob Burrow.  They have agreed a fee of ?30,000 with Leeds, who retained the 22-year-old’s British registration when he made a surprise move to Sydney last autumn.

Arguably their biggest coup is Australian loose forward Craig Fitzgibbon, capped at international and State of Origin level.  Long might be past his world class peak, but the cheeky 7 is as good as anyone on his day and Hull will look to link him and Richard Horne together at every opportunity.

If Leeds released him, chances are he would really struggle to find another club over here.  Any player who has played in the Leeds side in the last couple of years would have the smaller SL clubs lining up to sign him.

NASA Final Flight Set For June 2011

NASA has a final flight set for June 28 2011. Shuttle Atlantis will take supplies to the space station and return a faulty pump.  NASA sets official launch dates for each shuttle mission following agency Flight Readiness Reviews, which typically occur about two weeks prior to launches.  NASA uses robots for a wide array of space exploration activities.   NASA missions will gain technology for exploration, and the private firms will gain technology to develop for the private market.

NASA is seeking applications from graduate students for the agency’s new Space Technology Research Fellowships.  NASA spokesman Michael Curie told The Associated Press the agency is currently working on garnering support from the federal government to expand its budget, which the agency needs in order to launch another shuttle.

NASA has a final flight set for June 28.  Shuttle Atlantis will take supplies to the space station and return a faulty pump.

NASA has been contacted by media sources at Fox News regarding a possible 100 year mission to a planet that could inhabit life.  Until now NASA only had the innocuous name Crew Exploration Vehicle for the next generation of space craft.

New Horizons  is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the  dwarf planet   Pluto .  During much of the 1990s, NASA was faced with shrinking annual budgets due to congressional belt-tightening.  The Augustine commission wants NASA to extend the life of the space shuttle program and the International Space Station.  The Pioneer program is a series of NASA  unmanned space missions  that was designed for planetary exploration.  Although they were officially designated to study just  Jupiter  and  Saturn , the two probes were able to continue their mission into the  outer solar system.

Chelsea Clinton Ties The Knot to Marc Mezvinsky

Chelsea Clinton now is a 27-year-old single woman working in the financial sector in New York City.  Chelsea Clinton has kept a low profile since her mother joined the presidential field in January.  Chelsea often is spotted around New York with her boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, an investment banker and the son of former Democratic Reps.  Ed Mezvinsky of Iowa and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania.

For now Chelsea is busy with her work at Avenue Capital, a $12 billion New York-based hedge fund run by Marc Lasry, a longtime Clinton donor.  Congratulations to Chelsea, she’s turned out to be quite the classy lady.  Say what you want about the Clintons, they raised a wonderful daughter.

But honestly, no offense to Chelsea, she got a really bad rap and had to go through some awful media attention right during her puberty years.   He definitely married into an interesting family.  It is really nice to know, according to sfgate.com, Chelsea also invited butlers who had served in the White House when the Clintons were there.

It’s too bad that one of their friends clearly forwarded Chelsea and Marc’s email announcing their engagement to a reporter.  Since then, the excitement has quieted down.  While photos of Chelsea pop up from time to time in New York gossip columns, she largely has kept a low-key private life.  The Clintons reportedly named their daughter in honor of the  Joni Mitchell  tune “Chelsea Morning”.  When the Clintons first arrived in Washington in early 1993, they pleaded with reporters to leave Chelsea alone.

Christopher Plummer Plays Sherlock Holmes Next Film

Christopher Plummer scored a career triumph last year in his  Oscar-nominated performance as Leo Tolstoy  in “The Last Station,” with  Helen Mirren.  In 1996, Plummer won the Tony award for Best Performance in a play when he beautifully acted as John Barrymore.

Christopher Plummer has enjoyed 50 years as one of the most distinguished actors in English-language theatre and cinema.   He also provided voices for the hit animated films Up and 9 and starred with the late Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.  He made his  Broadway  debut in  1954  and has performed numerous roles at the  Stratford Festival of Canada  and  London ‘s  West End .

When you start off in films, you’re often cast as the young romantic leading man in movies, which are not the most interesting role.  I got bored very quickly and couldn’t wait until I hit 40, when I could call myself a character actor.

He acted in  Britain  with the National Theater under Sir  Laurence Olivier , with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in many award-winning West End productions.

Christopher Plummer plays Sherlock Holmes in this film about the search for the identity of London’s famed “Jack the Ripper.”

One of the world’s most distinguished classical stage and film stars, Christopher Plummer has also been hailed as the  finest Shakespearean actor to emerge from North America in the 20th Century .

Itunes Rules The Air Waves

With iTunes 10, the  library  has been improved with an extra view that adds album artwork where there‚Äôs room, instead of the traditional album title next to each song.  Nor is the program all that complex.  If you can use an iPhone, you can use iTunes.  And if you have nothing more than an iPod you can still use iTunes painlessly.   Playlists  and  iTunes DJ  are untouched, and managing your library is as easy as ever.

iTunes already let you pick and choose which apps to sync with your iPhone, but iTunes 9 makes doing so more user-friendly and more discoverable with its newly reorganized Applications tab.  With this option enabled, iTunes will move and rename files within the iTunes Media folder as necessary into sub-folders by media type, with music organized in an ARTISTALBUM subfolder structure and each file named by its track name from the iTunes library.

Users who have built their own file-system organization for their media content and want to preserve that layout will find the process of moving their content to be much more challenging without creating a whole new iTunes library and reimporting it.   Home Sharing  is a great way to keep your library across multiple computers at home; it is really easy to set up and means all your computers will automatically have up-to-date libraries.

So get into the iTunes store to “shop” for podcasts, select them and get routed to the special Podcast window in the iTunes software.  Improved syncing: iTunes gives you even better ways to sync your media from your computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod.

Apple also teamed up with AOL to offer one click purchasing using AOL screennames, added audiobooks to the store, and added the ‘Allowance’ feature.  Apple launched the  iTunes Music Store  in 2003 with 200,000 songs priced at 99 cents each.  But there were over 25 million song downloads by Dec 2003 and 500 million downloads by 2005.

Egyptian Goverment Battles First Day Of The Egyptian Revolution

The Egyptian government has three types of security forces it can employ against civil disturbances: the national police, the CSF, and the army.  What were seeing is quite incredible because this is the oldest society in the Arab world with a deep and sophisticated culture with an authentic middle class.  But steadily since December 2006 our country has been witnessing the biggest and most sustained waves of strike actions since 1946, triggered by textile strikes in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla, home of largest labour force in the Middle East with over 28,000 workers.

The Egyptian government has reportedly blocked‚ which protester used to coordinate movements‚ and shut down mobile phone and internet networks.   Whoever is in control, Cairo cannot afford to have an open door to Gaza because of fears that Palestinians will flood into Sinai, thereby making refugees an Egyptian burden and also increasing prospects of terrorism there.  Meanwhile,  layoffs  of Egyptian workers in the Suez industrial zone have been increasing of late, with international companies replacing these workers with foreign imported workers from India and Thailand, causing much resentment, and even supposed notice from the Egyptian government.

The purges of the Egyptian unions themselves were meant to limit the influence of not just the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist groups, but of radicals in the union movement.  “We have never seen anything like this before ‚ it is the first day of the Egyptian revolution,” said Karim Rizk, one of those who joined multiple rallies in the capital.  The call has been widely taken up, and many reports now link the uprising to unity with the workers, particularly in Suez, where the battle has been fought  most intensely  with state police.

Morgan Stanley Financial Global Model Portfolio

Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm providing a range of investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services.  Morgan Stanley and its affiliates do business that relates to companies/instruments covered in Morgan Stanley Research, including market making, providing liquidity and specialized trading, risk arbitrage and other proprietary trading, fund management, commercial banking, extension of credit, investment services and investment banking.

Such is the power of the Internet and the revolutionary trend of e-commerce. Morgan Stanley, The Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals from more than 1,300 offices in 42 countries.  The end of last year was kind to Morgan Stanley.  Earnings rose 60 percent in the last three months of 2010, propelled in part by the firm’s debt underwriting business.

However, when Claimant Bryant informed his Morgan Stanley registered representative, James Miller, of his conclusions about the market and his decision to re-position his account into cash, Miller purportedly downplayed the client’s concerns and advised him to remain in the market.

Morgan Stanley even offers one global model portfolio, its most conservative of eight portfolios designed for investors with less than $1 million in investable assets, that has no stocks in it, says Darst

Morgan Stanley is highly exposed to the enactment of the Volcker Rule (curbs on proprietary trading, hedge funds, and private equity for those who accept deposits) and the Lincoln Amendment (limits on derivatives trading).

“The Magic Flute” Was Mozart’s Last Opera

This was is an abbreviated version of the Magic Flute, performed without intermission, in English, which for the most part works pretty well, but in some instances, I have to admit I missed the original German phrasing.  Rolando Villazon, last seen leading the audience in a chorus of La Cucaracha at his Festival Hall Mexican evening, takes the title role in Massenet?

I have read books on Mozart‚ Masonic connection and theories purporting that he had betrayed the secrets of the Masons in The Magic Flute, and was subsequently assassinated by them.

People who don‚ love Mozart are either tone deaf or emotional cripples.  Previous screenings of San Francisco Opera Education‚ first opera movie, A study in Asian News International (ANI) showed that Mozart’s music even helped break down and clean up sewage.

The process is this way that a stereo sound system gives out sound waves of Mozart’s The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, together with oxygen, which boosts the activity of micro-organisms in breaking down bio-solids.  This tour also features exclusive lectures by expert Stan Engebretson and meetings with Spoleto Festival staff. The Magic Flute for Families , have been very well received and large crowds are expected once again for this free family presentation.

“The Magic Flute” was Mozart’s last opera, and the Jupiter was his final symphony.  As part of the‚ First Coast Opera Week‚ restaurants and shops in the St. Augustine area are offering discounts to opera ticket holders.

After acclaimed performances of Mozart’s   Magic Flute  as Queen of the Night  at both HGO, Metropolitan Opera,  Deutsche Oper am Rhein  and at the Bolshoi Opera, virtuoso coloratura soprano  Albina Shagimuratova , a Houston Grand Opera Studio alum, also joins the Houston Symphony’s concert stage.