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[MIKA27]

De Robertis, a New York Great, Bids Farewell

De Robertis, an East Village mainstay, closes tomorrow—a moment for nostalgia, but also pragmatism.

It is impossible not to feel nostalgic when visiting De Robertis, an Italian pasticceria and cafe in Manhattan’s East Village that has been serving coffee, cannoli, and various other powdered sugar-dusted pastries for 114 years.

Its charming, storied interior—hand-cut mosaic wall tiles and pressed-tin ceiling; a half-dollar from 1821 embedded in the patterned floor tiles—has remained untouched since the shop opened. Patrons eat their cannoli slowly and deliberately, dabbing the powdered sugar on their plates with licked fingers.

But they are relishing their pastries with heavy hearts this week, as De Robertis prepares to close its doors for good tomorrow. And with that news, nostalgia-prone New Yorkers are bemoaning the loss of yet another downtown institution that will surely be replaced by a Starbucks or a Duane Reade.

John De Robertis, whose grandfather Paolo de Robertis opened the shop, cited the economy, age, and health concerns in the family’s decision to sell the building fora reported $12 million.

“When people came in here, they knew the people working behind the counter. We felt a closeness,” De Robertis told Bedford + Bowery, an online publication run by New York magazine and NYU. (De Robertis declined to speak with the Daily Beast.) “That’s what I’m going to miss the most. You go into any of these chain coffee shops, you’re just a person and they’re robots...Here, I think people felt at home.”

Some 20 people are there when I visit, including a father with his young son, pointing to photographs of movie stars on the walls. (Spike Lee shot part of Malcolm X in the shop, which also makes a cameo in Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery, and the first episode of Sex and the City.)

It is one of those city relics New Yorkers gush about without ever darkening its door—or only go when they learn it’s shutting down. “I’ve passed this place a thousand times but never came in,” says Ranesh, who grew up in Staten Island and has lived in Park Slope for 20 years. “You take it for granted and think it will always be here.”

Bill Poznanski, who has lived in a rent-controlled apartment in the neighborhood since 1985 (his blue Cadillac is also something of East Village legend), says there are few authentic Italian pastry shops left in the city.

Around the corner from De Robertis is Veniero’s, which dates back to 1894 and bills itself as “America’s Oldest Pastry Shop,” but Poznanski says “there’s something about it that feels too pristine.” And as mom-and-pop businesses like De Robertis are pushed out by rapacious real estate conglomerates, Poznanski worries about the inevitable “disappearance or destruction of activity on the neighborhood and street level” in a city that is being hyper-gentrified and over-developed.

But gentrification isn’t all bad. New Yorkers may long for the grittier, seedier, more “authentic” East Village that was home to Patti Smith and CBGB’s, but they are less likely to be stabbed while walking through Tompkins Square Park today than in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, before Rudy Giuliani’s clean-up of the junkie-den neighborhood.

Indeed, it was crime that ultimately drove Virge Randall and her Italian, working-class family—all De Robertis devotees—out of the East Village, where they had lived since the ‘40s.

“It devolved from a very poor neighborhood to a very lawless one,” says Randall, who is refreshingly unsentimental. “We moved in 1976 after my father was knifed in the hallway of our building. That was standard operating procedure in the neighborhood at the time. My brothers were all stabbed, too. My father told people we were moving because he was tired of people stealing his car battery.”

Randall isn’t immune to nostalgia (she blogs for New York Natives under the tagline “Don't Get Me Started”); she just masks it with hard-nosed pragmatism. “All those memories and that piece of New York civic culture is just going to go with the building’s sale, because we need another CVS,” she says sarcastically. “The New York that draws people here doesn’t come out of a can. It comes from cultural heritage and civic pride embodied in its citizens but also in the city’s buildings.”

This is certainly true, though the herds of twentysomethings moving to New York after college, settling en masse in hip neighborhoods like Bushwick and Williamsburg, are more infatuated with New York as an artsy and worldly urban ideal than with the city’s old working-class enclaves.

They like artisanal coffee shops and restaurants with kale salads on the menu, but they don’t discriminate one from another. (If De Robertis does not become another frozen yogurt chain, it will be another “trendy” restaurant with white-tiled walls, filament light bulbs, and a mediocre—if familiar—menu.)

A few years later, these gentrifiers will lament gentrification in the recent past or imminent future, like the hipsters in Williamsburg whining that their favorite “old” music venue is being converted into Vice Media offices.

They care much more about the new wave of younger people—the bankers who are moving there because it’s “cool” —and rent hikes than they do about the Dominican population being pushed out of South Williamsburg.

Even Poznanski, who hates to see East Village relics like De Robertis go, recognizes that everyone—himself included—“plays a role in the gentrification process.”

“It’s almost a cliché: people move out of a neighborhood, it becomes run down, and then the artists and people living on the fringe move in, and then it’s designated as a cool place,” he says. “Then people with money come in. But some of these artists forget that there was a generation that preceded them.”

But there is always a preceding generation, or an idealized time in our personal histories. And it’s hard to resist indulging our instinct for nostalgia—to fantasize about “the good old days”, even when the good old days were not as good as our selective memories lead us to believe.

So while mourning the closing of De Robertis, consider that we might someday mourn the bankruptcy of whatever chain replaces it.

And think of the De Robertis family enjoying their hard-earned retirement.

[MIKA27]

UK Government Lab Accidentally Mailed Out Live Anthrax

The Centres for Disease Control has some dubious competition in the mishandling deadly pathogens business. A investigation by The Guardian reveals dozens of serious safety lapses in UK labs. In one case, a government lab shipped out live anthrax because someone had grabbed the wrong tubes.

The Guardian found 70 incidents in the past five years at UK government, university, and hospital labs handling deadly pathogens that were serious enough to warrant an investigation from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), roughly equivalent to the OSHA in the US. In many cases, the screw-ups were so bad, the lab had to be temporarily shut down.

The live anthrax mix-up is the worst out of the whole bunch. In May 2012, scientists at an Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) lab sent anthrax out to at least three other labs. Somehow, the tubes got mixed, so live anthrax were shipped out instead of inactivated examples. Normally, scientists only open live anthrax samples inside a specially ventilated hood and while wearing protective equipment. Thinking the anthrax was inactivated, one recipient opened the tubes right there on an open lab bench. Two people were exposed. Luckily, they had at least been vaccinated, so they did not become ill.

The anthrax episode was serious enough to warrant an immediate shutdown of the AHVLA lab. But the incident was buried inside a HSE report, and the details have only come to light with the Guardian‘s investigation. In all, the dozens of incidents reveal a scary pattern of poor safety culture in labs handling the deadliest pathogens.

After seeing the record of mistakes at animal disease labs especially, one biosafety expert who reviewed the incidents for The Guardian exclaimed, “Does British agriculture have a death wish?” We sure don’t. Goddammit scientists, be more careful.

[Habana Mike]

The Bizarre Rat Temple of India

The 600 year old Karni Mata temple, located in Deshnoke, Rajasthan, India, may seem from a distance to be similar to many other Indian temples and in fact is quite beautiful to behold.

Karni Mata Temple

Here, scurrying back and forth across the decorative, checkered floors and crawling under temple-goers’ legs and over feet are the temple’s estimated 20,000 rats that call this place home.

An event seen as particularly auspicious is the sighting of one of the temple’s rare white rats. Among the 20,000 or so brown rats are said to be around five albino white rats that are believed to be the incarnation of Karni Mata herself and her four sons, and so spotting one is said to be one of the greatest honors a temple visitor can receive. Anyone who catches a glimpse of a white rat is said to be bestowed with a prosperous life.

For anyone willing to make the journey, the temple is readily accessible by bus or taxi from the nearby town of Bikaner, in Rajasthan, which lies around 30km to the north. Although the rats are considered to be mostly safe, the floor tends to be rather filthy and some foreign visitors have recommended that, while it is required to remove one’s shoes at the gate, it is probably a good idea to wear socks.

It's true, Ripley, I visited last year while at a wedding in Bikaner.

The white rat on the gate

Tikka from the Temple

Was wearing sandals that day, so no socks. Needless to say the feet needed a good washing.

All in all, a quite impressive and impactful experience!

Thanks for the reminder Mika

[MIKA27]

It's true, Ripley, I visited last year while at a wedding in Bikaner.

The white rat on the gate

Tikka from the Temple

Was wearing sandals that day, so no socks. Needless to say the feet needed a good washing.

All in all, a quite impressive and impactful experience!

Thanks for the reminder Mika

That's brilliant - Thanks for sharing YOUR pics Mike

[MIKA27]

How The World's Top Assault Rifle Is Rebranding As A 'Weapon Of Peace'

Is there anything a snappy rebrand can’t fix? Including a gun’s reputation as the “the world’s favourite killing machine“?

At a press event this week, the weapons manufacturer Kalashnikov unveiled a $US380,000 rebranding that includes a new name, the Kalashnikov Concern, aka the Concern, as well as a new tagline: “Protecting Peace.” (RT says the Russian version translates as “Weapons of Peace” or “Weapons of the World”.) The overhaul gave the Concern’s three weapon lines a makeover, and introduced a new line of survival and outdoor gear. Even the AK-47 got a new logo, which will be stamped on every one of the new guns the weapon maker produces.

As plenty of critics have pointed out, the rebrand comes at a crucial moment for the company: Sanctions by the US and Canada have stopped shipments of hundreds of thousands of weapons, and the Concern is reportedly pivoting towards Asian markets in the face of the uncertainty. So what, exactly, can a new identity do for it?

As Recognisable As Apple?

According to Businessweek, the company’s officials said at the unveiling that it wants to become “as recognised and valuable” as Apple. The Apple of manufacturing and distributing hundreds of millions of weapons to regimes all over the world. The iPod of the assault rifle market. Shoot different!

But in one twisted sense, it’s not a completely absurd comparison. Both companies are unusual in the fact that they have built global empires on a short list of foundational products that don’t change very often. Both operate on a global scale, making name recognition and logo design all the more important.

The new AK-47 logo, for example, is a KC with an upper arm shaped by the curving magazine of the gun itself — a magazine that is probably the most familiar to consumers out of all modern weapons. Kalashnikov, for better or worse, wants that curving magazine to be its half-eaten Macintosh apple. Except that, you know, Apple’s products aren’t designed to kill anything.

The Magic of Words

Perhaps most shocking part of the overhaul is the marketing campaign that goes along with it, as The Guardian points out. The Concern released a series of brand videos that paint the AK-47 as the tool that played a major role in liberating the people from their colonial oppressors. “Freedom movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America could at last fight back against professional colonial armies,” a narrator says according to the paper. “This is a weapon which helped people defend their families and futures, and demand the right to a peaceful future.”

This is a vastly romanticised version of history, of course. The Kalashnikov is the most popular assault rifle in the world, and because there is so little oversight in its sale, both by Russia and plenty of other world powers, it is the main currency of complex illegal arms trafficking operations that funnel the weapons into conflict zones, feeding violence and repression.

“The gross misuse of these assault rifles by unaccountable and poorly trained combatants and fighters has been responsible for millions of direct and indirect deaths in Angola, Chad, DRC, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere,” says Oxfam.

Of course, Kalashnikov isn’t directly responsible for those deaths, but painting itself as a champion of the oppressed is an absurdity — though a necessary one. Because of the conflict in Ukraine, many of Kalashnikov’s partners aren’t buying its weapons anymore. So it’s looking for emerging markets in need of cheap, dependable, easily used gun. The Concern lays it out in plain terms:

Eighty per cent of all of Kalashnikov output is exported. One of Concern’s priorities is finding new and increasing its share of existing markets. This approach was used to pick 50 countries that have the most potential acquiring Kalashnikov military products. Concern already started new market penetration, mainly in the Asia-Pacific and African regions. The most promising markets for Kalashnikov are India and Egypt. Contracts with Thailand and Indonesia were signed recently, and Concern is in negotiations with South American countries.

With a poppy logo and a easy-to-understand message of struggle against the powers that be, Kalashnikov has itself a snappy new sales pitch to go with.

While Kalashnikov hired a Russian PR firm to carry out the job, Creative Review brings up the question of whether designers have an ethical responsibility to vet the work their clients do, asking “would you?” It’s a dilemma designers and architects have always faced — and are facing more and more often as they work in autocratic countries — and one with no clear answer.

[NJP]

Samuel Jackson has the best sales pitch for the AK47 " When you absolutely, positively got to kill every mother f..ker in the room. Accept no substitute"

[MIKA27]

You Can Finally Buy Those Beautiful Wooden Kitchen Knives

First revealed way back in January of last year, The Federal’s gorgeous set of wooden-clad kitchen knives were only objects to lust over, not actually buy. It was a tease, for sure, but enough people apparently said “want” that Warehouse has refined the design and put them into limited production.

The Canadian maple sheathing is now held in place with four rivets to ensure it’s always perfectly aligned on the knife’s stainless steel core, and since each blade is hand-made, it’s guaranteed that no two are exactly alike in terms of woodgrain and finish. Maybe that will make justifying their $US120 price tag a little easier. And if you’re the type who always eats out and never cooks, it’s a perfect match — since there’s no risk of that gorgeous wood finish getting stained.

[MIKA27]

The US Spent $7 Billion Developing This Helicopter It Never Built

The Kiowa Warrior is slated to retire in 2025, the Chinook in 2035, and both the Apache and Black Hawk will be gone by 2040. We thought we had a suitable replacement for all of these platforms in the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche. But then, this next-gen stealth chopper vanished in a puff of bureaucratic smoke.

The RAH-66 Comanche would have been awesome — a veritable 21st Century Air Wolf. Designed for armed reconnaissance and assault operations, the Comanche could have done the work of both the lighter OH-58D Kiowa Warrior and the older AH-1 Cobra, but in stealth. The RAH-66 ‘s body was constructed almost entirely of radar-absorbing composite materials and shaped to minimize the helicopter’s radar cross section. On radar, the Comanche appeared 360 times smaller than the equivalently-sized AH-64 Apache. And in real life, it would have looked badass. Its five-blade main and shrouded tail rotors were also constructed from composite materials in order to minimise their noise.

The 13m long, tandem two-seater would have been powered by a pair of 1563hp turboshaft engines which provided a top speed of 323km/h and a 278km combat radius. Its avionics and navigation systems were state of the art; using digital fly-by-wire and the Helmet-Integrated Display and Sight System (HIDSS) similar to what current Typhoon pilots enjoy. And, in addition to its retractable .50 cal belly gun, the RAH-66 could also carry six Hellfires or 12 Stinger missiles in its retractable weapons pylons.

In 1983, development on a replacement to the “Vietman Era” helicopters — specifically the OH-58D Kiowa and the AH-1 Cobra — which became the basis of the Light Helicopter Experimental program. Six years of internal planning later, the Army got around to issuing a Request for Proposals and just three years after that, in 1991, the Army awarded a development contract to Boeing-Sikorsky for the production of two prototypes.

Boeing-Sikorski spent the next nine years getting the RAH-66 off the drawing board. It wasn’t until the middle of 2000 that the engineering and manufacturing phase began. And over the next four years, the team was able to produce a whopping two — count ‘em, two — prototypes before the Army axed the project due to changing operational requirements.

The Army literally spent so long naval gazing at the platform that the RAH-66 became obsolete before it even got into the air. Boeing-Sikorsky was supposed to produce more than 1200 of the machines once mass production began in 2006. Nope, that’s not happening.

As Brig. Gen. Anthony Crutchfield told National Defence Magazine back in 2011,

the difficulties with new helicopter programs in the past have been that technology, as well as the needs of the service, evolve during a long, drawn-out process. Inserting new requirements in the middle of the development cycle has led to the failures.

The US Army’s R&D department wasn’t always this bogged down in red tape. The venerable UH-1 Iroquois (aka the “Huey”) helicopter took just eight years to go from drawing board to battlefield back int the ’50s. Hell, it took longer just for the RAH-66 dev team to settle on the name “Comanche.” And in the modern era, the Army’s new front line fab lab has already proved its worth pushing out vital replacement parts for forward operating bases in a matter of hours and days, not weeks and months. But that doesn’t make the loss of $US7 billion and nearly a quarter century of design work any less difficult to swallow.

[MIKA27]

Israeli jets 'strike near Damascus' - Syrian army

The Syrian military has accused Israel of carrying out two air strikes on Syria, near the capital Damascus.

Israeli planes bombed the area near Damascus international airport and the town of Dimas, the Syrian army said in a statement carried on state television.

No casualties were reported. There has been no confirmation of the air strikes from Israel.

Israel has conducted several air strikes on Syria since 2011.

"This afternoon, the Israeli enemy targeted two safe areas in Damascus province, namely the Dimas area and the Damascus International Airport," the military statement said.

It described the air strikes as "direct aggression" carried out to help the Syrian government's opponents.

Some installations had been damaged, it added, without elaborating on what had been hit.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict, said (in Arabic) that 10 explosions were heard near Dimas, which is located close to the Syria-Lebanon border.

The group also said that there had been eight air raids on areas in the town of Khan al-Sheeh, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, and that a warehouse near Damascus airport had been hit.

Responding to the Syrian accusation, Israel's military said it did not comment on "foreign reports".

'State of war'

The Israeli air force has conducted several air strikes on Syria since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011.

They appear to have been mainly aimed at preventing weapons transfers to Syria's allies in Lebanon, the militant Hezbollah movement, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Beirut.

Israel generally does not comment when it carries out attacks outside its borders, he says.

However, Israeli jets were seen constantly flying over parts of Lebanon on Sunday, about 30km (20 miles) from where the alleged attacks are said to have taken place, our correspondent adds.

The Israeli military has also bombed Syrian military sites in the past in retaliation for attacks on the occupied Golan Heights.

Israel seized the region from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Middle East War, and thwarted a Syrian attempt to retake it in 1973.

It unilaterally annexed the area in 1981, in a move not recognised internationally.

The two countries remain technically in a state of war, and UN observers are deployed to monitor a 70km-long (44-mile) demilitarised zone.

[MIKA27]

The Hobbit: How England inspired Tolkien's Middle-earth

JRR Tolkien (left) wrote The Hobbit during the 1930s when he was a professor at Oxford University

Small hairy feet will be back on screen again as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies marches into cinemas worldwide next week. While the film trilogy, along with the previous Lord of the Rings adaptation, were shot in New Zealand, the books' author JRR Tolkien drew inspiration mainly from the English landscape.

So which locations are behind the fictional Middle Earth?

The Shire

Tolkien described the area around Sarehole Mill, still in operation, as "a kind of lost paradise"

In a letter to his publishers, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien wrote that The Shire - home to the "little people" better known as hobbits - was "more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of [Queen Victoria's] Diamond Jubilee" in 1897.

Although born in South Africa in 1892, Tolkien moved to England at the age of four with his mother and brother after the death of his father. They lived in and around Birmingham, including at the village of Sarehole, which, like the fictional Hobbiton, had a corn-grinding mill by the water.

In a newspaper interview Tolkien fondly recalled the area, saying the Shire was "inspired by a few cherished square miles of actual countryside at Sarehole".

However, while the mill is still standing, the area is now surrounded by Birmingham's suburbs.

Hobbit holes and The Ring

Tolkien's vision of the hobbit holes was recreated for Peter Jackson's films but some say the author may have also been influenced by a Roman ring and the Lydney Park ruins

As for the hobbits' homes and their eye-catching round doors, some people claim they were based on ruins at Lydney Park, in Gloucestershire.

In 1929, Tolkien, then a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, visited an archaeological dig at the estate on the site of a Roman temple, known as Dwarf's Hill.

It is thought that he was then told about an inscribed gold ring found in a Hampshire field in 1785, also linked to a Roman curse tablet discovered at Dwarf's Hill. Tolkien is believed to have started writing The Hobbit, about a Halfling who finds a cursed ring, a year later.

"There's a lot of nice associations to it for Tolkien fans," says Mathew Lyons, author of There and Back Again: In the Footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien.

"There are these holes down there, which the local tradition says used to be lived in by little people [but] Tolkien didn't explicitly make that connection."

Rohan and Gondor

Tolkien compared parts of the Malvern Hills with the White Mountains between Rohan and Gondor

There is debate over whether the horse-riders of Rohan are based on the Anglo-Saxons. Tolkien wrote the characters did not resemble "the ancient English... except in a general way due to their circumstances; a simpler and more primitive people living in contact with a higher and more venerable culture".

Despite this, many academics link Rohan to one of the most powerful kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England - Mercia, which was based in the Midlands where Tolkien spent much of his youth. Some also say the riders' names are rooted in the Mercian dialect.

"Tolkien identified at quite an emotional level with Mercia, and West Mercia in particular, and the language, and he put a lot of that into Rohan," says Mr Lyons.

George Sayer, who wrote the biography of CS Lewis, remembered hiking with Tolkien in the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire.

The Lord of the Rings author "lived the book as we walked, sometimes comparing parts of the hills with, for instance, the White Mountains" that marked the border between Rohan and Gondor, he said.

Following an Italian holiday in 1955, Tolkien, somewhat light-heartedly, referred to Venice as Gondor. However, this was after he had written Lord of the Rings. He also wrote that Gondor's power to build "the gigantic and massive" resembled the ancient Egyptians.

The Two (and more) Towers

As a boy growing up in Birmingham, Tolkien would have been familiar with Edgbaston Waterworks, Perrott's Folly and the university clock tower

Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings as a single epic but, due to its length, his publishers printed it in three volumes, naming the second book The Two Towers - a title of which the author wrote he was "not at all happy".

He wrote that it could be linked to the tower of Orthanc [the home of the wizard Saruman] and the "Tower of Cirith Ungol" - a fortress of the dark lord Sauron - but said this was misleading as the story also prominently featured two other towers, Minas Tirith - the capital of Gondor - and the Dark Tower, Sauron's main base.

Many believe the towers were modelled on Perrott's Folly and the Waterworks Tower in the Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston, where Tolkien lived as a boy.

In addition, the illuminated clock tower at the University of Birmingham, visible across the city, has been suggested as the inspiration for the ever-watchful "Eye of Sauron".

Rivendell

Tolkien had his own adventures, including at Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Swiss Alps

In a letter to his son Michael, the author wrote that Bilbo Baggins' journey from the Elvish settlement of Rivendell to the Misty Mountains was based on a 1911 trip to Switzerland.

"We went on foot carrying great packs practically all the way from Interlaken, mainly by mountain paths, to Lauterbrunnen and so to Mürren and eventually to the head of Lauterbrunnenthal in a wilderness of morains," he recalled.

Barring the Elves' residence, Tolkien's drawing of Rivendell in the illustrated edition of The Hobbit is almost identical to a view of Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Dead Marshes

Tolkien arrived at the French battlefields of World War One in June 1916

Although Tolkien fought in World War One, he said the two world wars had not inspired the writing of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

However, he did admit the landscape of the Dead Marshes, where Frodo Baggins is transfixed by corpses lying in pools, and the approach to Mordor's Black Gate "owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme".

But, as Tolkien wrote in the foreword to the second edition of Lord of the Rings: "An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous."

[MIKA27]

Castle With a Ghost For Sale in Scotland

Yes, I know, what castle in Scotland doesn’t have a ghost? This one might be worth the asking price since the specter has been residing there for nearly seven centuries.

The property with a phantom is Bedlay Castle, located eight miles northeast of Glasgow. The land it’s on was granted to the Bishops of Glasgow in the 1100s and most likely had a residence for the bishops built on it. The property was given by Bishop James Boyd to his relative, Robert Boyd, 4th Lord Boyd, in 1580. Robert Boyd built the original two room tower house shortly after that. In 1642 it was sold to James Robertson, who later became Lord Bedlay and gave it the name Bedlay Castle. The building has been expanded a number of times. It has been lived in continuously and now has six bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room and other features. Like a ghost.

The Bedlay Castle grounds

The spirit-in-residence is believed to be Bishop Cameron. A large man, he was found face down and deceased in a nearby loch around the year 1350 AD. The bishop was believed to have been murdered and his ghost seems to have haunted the property ever since. Residents of Bedlay Castle have seen him pacing the halls and letting out a ghastly cry. An exorcism was performed in the late 1800s but the ghost was still being spotted in the 1970s. Ghosts were also seen around a mausoleum on the property before it was moved to a nearby cemetery. Adding to the mystery, there have also been sightings of a horse and carriage on a nearby street that was once an old carriage road. When it stops, a girl gets out and screams before the apparition disappears.

Still interested? Bedlay Castle can be yours for 500,000 pounds or 778,950 US dollars. Besides the ghost, the listing has some other things for potential buyers to consider.

The sale of Bedlay Castle makes owning a beautiful Scottish castle an affordable reality for many. However the scale of the restoration work required is fairly extensive but would be well worth the investment of time and finance.

Maybe the bishop just wants his own bathroom.

[MIKA27]

Hitler's Henchmen in Arabia

Nazi Alois Brunner’s confirmed death in Damascus reveals an uncomfortable truth: Egypt and Syria have long ties to Nazi Germany and long provided sanctuary to fugitive war criminals.

When most of us think of the premier retirement destination for unrepentant Nazis, our minds immediately turn to South America. We think of Josef Mengele hidden on a lonely estancia in Paraguay, or Adolf Eichmann ensconced in a two-bit suburb of Buenos Aires.

This perception was magnified by a slew of sensational books that were published in the early 1970s, many of which promoted a very iffy thesis that former Nazis were using the continent as a launchpad for a “Fourth Reich” that would, yes, take over the world.

This culminated in Ira Levin’s 1976 thriller, The Boys from Brazil, in which fiendish Nazis hatch a diabolical plot to unleash several cloned Hitlers onto the world. The book was made into a film in 1978, and starred no less than Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, who were presumably behind on the rent.

But as the recent declaration of the death of the former SS officer and Eichmann henchman Alois Brunner reveals, the boys didn’t just go to Brazil. For Brunner, like so many other Nazis, found the Middle East an equally hospitable location, and far less out-on-a-limb than a chalet in Patagonia, no matter how gemütlich.

Brunner, who sent an estimated 130,000 Jews to their deaths, made his home in Damascus, Syria, where he found the conditions much to his liking. Although there has been much guff peddled about Brunner’s postwar activities over the past few days—some of which may be true—there is no doubt that he worked in cahoots with the Assad regime, or at least certainly enjoyed its protection.

However, Brunner was not the only perpetrator of the Holocaust mooching around the streets of the Syrian capital. In terms of gruesome numbers, Franz Stangl, the former commandant of Treblinka extermination camp, had some 800,000 murders on what remained of his conscience, and he arrived in Damascus in September 1948 with the assistance of a Roman Catholic bishop.

Although Brunner is said to have variously worked as an intelligence agent, an arms dealer, and a security advisor, Stangl took more menial positions in textile firms. Life was somewhat frugal, but manageable. Unfortunately for Stangl, the local chief of police took a fancy to his 14-year-old daughter and wanted to add the child to his harem. Stangl didn’t tarry, and packed his bags and shepherded his entire family to—you guessed it—Brazil.

Stangl seems to have been one of the few Nazis who didn’t find the air pleasing in Syria. Most, such as Major-General Otto-Ernst Remer, prospered on Arab Street. Remer was, frankly, a real piece of work, and having founded the swiftly-banned Socialist Reich Party in West Germany in the early 1950s, decided that working as an arms dealer with the likes of Brunner more rewarding.

Unlike Brunner, Remer was itinerant, and spent much time in that other nest of postwar Nazis—Cairo. If anything, the Egyptian capital was even more appealing than Damascus, and had been playing host to Nazis immediately after the war, when King Farouk opened his arms to scores of former SS and Gestapo officers.

That hospitality continued even after Farouk was deposed by the Free Officers Movement in 1952, as Nasser regarded German scientific and intelligence expertise as being an essential component of his regime. No less a figure than Joachim Daumling, the former head of the Gestapo in Düsseldorf, was tasked with establishing Nasser’s secret service.

In fact, the list of some habitués of Cairo in the 1950s and the 1960s reads like a who’s who of Nazi Germany, featuring as it did the rescuer of Mussolini, Otto Skorzeny; the ace Stuka pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel; the leader of a notorious SS penal unit, Oskar Dirlewanger; and the particularly odious and violently anti-Semitic stooge of Goebbels, Johannes von Leers.

What made the relationship between these former Nazis and the Egyptians and Syrians so successful was that it was a genuinely two-way deal. The Arabs offered the Nazis a haven, as well as a market for all their nefarious dealings in arms and black market currency. The Nazis, meanwhile, were able to provide technical and military experts, as well as the knowhow of establishing the instruments of repression.

However, below the back scratching lay a deep and dark underpinning to the relationship between the crescent and the swastika. That was, of course, a hatred of the Jews, and in particular, a desire to see the eradication of Israel.

That shared exterminationist desire had been born during the war itself, when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni, had made his home in the luxurious Hotel Adlon in Berlin in 1941, and had impressed Hitler with his hatred of the Jews. The Mufti lobbied the Nazis hard to kick the British out of the Middle East, and he was instrumental in raising recruits for a largely Muslim unit of the SS called the 13th Armed Mountain Division of the SS Handschar.

In addition, throughout the war in North Africa, German intelligence had worked closely with the Egyptians, and the Mufti is thought to have been a key intermediary between King Farouk and Hitler himself. If further evidence were needed that the roots of the Nazi-Arab affair were required, then it is worth considering the fact that both Nasser and his successor, Anwar Sadat, had been wartime agents for the Germans.

Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, many old Nazis managed discreetly to trickle back to what they regarded as the Fatherland. However, others such as the former SS “doctor” in Mauthausen, Aribert Heim—and indeed Alois Brunner—would end their days in the Middle East, dying lonely deaths in obscure dusty back streets of Cairo and Damascus.

It is hard to feel sorry for such lonely demises, but in the end, those Nazis who escaped to the Middle East found permanent sanctuary. Remembering that may seem inflammatory when the West struggles with its relationship with that part of the planet, but it is nonetheless the awkward truth.

[MIKA27]

CIA Won’t Defend Its One-Time Torturers

When the long-awaited ‘Torture Report’ finally drops, don’t expect the CIA to stand up for its interrogation programs—or disavow those controversial efforts.

There may have been bourbon punch and festive lights at the CIA’s holiday party Friday night, but a frosty gloom hung in the air.

As everyone in the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters knew, the long-awaited “torture report” from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Democrats was set to drop early the next week, perhaps as soon as Monday morning. It seemed a rather awkward time for a party.

The CIA’s response to the report will be muted. The agency will neither defend the so-called rendition, detention, and interrogation programs. Nor will the CIA disavow those controversial efforts entirely. According to current and former officials familiar with the higher-ups’ thinking, CIA Director John Brennan is likely to keep his powder dry and essentially agree to disagree with the agency’s critics. Even though some CIA employees remain convinced that brutal interrogations of suspected terrorists, including waterboarding, produced useful information that helped prevent terrorist attacks, the agency’s leaders will take no position on whether that information could have been obtained through less coercive means.

Such a Jesuitical response will do absolutely nothing to satisfy critics of the program or its supporters—some of whom still go work at Langley every day. But it’s the result of the precarious political position that Brennan finds himself in now.

“There is a feeling in the hallways that Brennan is not pursuing their best interest,” said a former intelligence official who talks to friends at headquarters. “That, in fact, he’s pursuing the White House’s best interest. And they’re getting thrown under the bus. It goes back to the one basic thing: Whether they did right or they did wrong, they were told to do something, they did it, and they feel like they had the rug pulled out from underneath them. They feel sold down the river, and Brennan is part of the sale process.”

Those disgruntled analysts and spies will find more vocal defenders in a group of former officials who’ve read the findings, and who pledged not to discuss them until they were made public. These officials have penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, which will be published soon after the report is publicly released. In it, according to a source familiar with the contents, the formers will lay out their fierce rebuttal of the committee’s findings—nearly all of which have already been leaked—and blast what they see as a biased, five-year process that culminated in a flawed history of the rendition, detention, and interrogation efforts.

For pro-release activists, the dissemination of the report would be a holiday present, years in the making. And they’re already concerned about deflecting the impending pushback against the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings.

“What really needs to happen is rather than casting doubt on the report, the CIA needs to address the underlying misconduct,” said Melina Milazzo, senior policy counsel at the Center for Victims of Torture. “They’re trying to cast doubt on the report, because according to news reports, the CIA report will say that the program was more widespread, more brutal [than previously known], and that the CIA lied to the Justice Department and the White House.”

Brennan held a senior position in the agency when the interrogation program was in full swing, in the first term of the Bush administration. But then he became an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, who campaigned in 2008 against the CIA’s program and publicly acknowledged in July that the United States “tortured some folks,” using a verb that even the Senate report avoids.

Brennan cannot go against his president. But he also has to back up the CIA workforce, which still includes people who participated in the program and have since gone on to more senior jobs and are still taking part in counterterrorism operations today. Brennan is expected to address the CIA workforce at headquarters on Tuesday.

“If they don’t see some measure of support for them, they’re going to find it very disappointing,” said another former senior intelligence official who is familiar with the contents of the Senate report and thinks it unfairly portrays the agency as going rogue and trying to mislead Congress about how it illegally tortured detainees. “What signal does it send if employees do things that one administration says is legal, and the next administration attacks you for doing things that are contrary to American values? If the next administration has a different view, do I have to lawyer up?”

Adding to employees’ anxieties is the still-unanswered question of whether the published report will be sufficiently redacted to keep close readers from identifying individuals who took part in torture sessions. Brennan personally prevailed upon White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to engage in shuttle diplomacy between Capitol Hill and the CIA in an effort to keep names and identifications out of the report, one of the former officials said, arguing that if CIA officers’ names were known, their safety could be jeopardized.

Those in Congress seeking to release a redacted CIA “torture report” dismiss these concerns. Sen. Ron Wyden, an outspoken critic of the CIA and a fierce advocate for the release of the report, said Friday that every major inquiry into the national security establishment for the last 40 years used pseudonyms to indicate different actors.

“The important thing about the pseudonyms is that provides the opportunity to learn not just what happened, but why it happened,” Wyden said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “What I have been working for, for many months, really years now, is to make that this report doesn’t get buried.”

Even if McDonough’s efforts paid off, though, employees are also concerned that Sen. Mark Udall, one of the interrogation program’s harshest critics and a committee member, will read a classified version of the report into the record, names and all, the former official said.

Udall hasn’t said one way or another what he plans to do. But in an interview with Esquire magazine, the senator said, “When this report is declassified, people will abhor what they read. They’re gonna be disgusted.”

Even if Brennan and his lieutenants don’t take to the op-ed pages or the talk shows to defend torture, CIA employees can expect agency officials and their surrogates to take aim at the committee report itself, and particularly the way it was generated. (The CIA will also issue a written response to the report.) Chief among the agency’s complaints will be that Senate investigators failed to interview anyone who worked on the program, leaving them to base their findings solely on classified documents that, officials argue, couldn’t be fully understood without some elaboration and context.

Committee sources have already countered that a voluminous paper trail, which includes agency memos and internal communications, faithfully tells the tale of one of the darkest chapters in the CIA’s history. But certain dramatis personae will be conspicuously absent, most notably the former vice president, **** Cheney, and his right-hand man David Addington, who are among the senior Bush administration officials who bear the most responsibility for setting up the program. Their free pass isn’t sitting well with CIA employees, who insist they themselves were following the White House’s orders and had been given assurances their extreme actions were legal.

“[M]any Americans, when they see the torture report, will be very much disturbed,” Wyden told the The Daily Beast Friday. But when asked if it could compel a major legislative effort to permanently prohibit enhanced interrogation techniques, he focused on the singular importance of getting the report to light.

“One of the things that is important about this report is that people see not just what happened, but why it happened, to make it less likely that it will happen again,” he said.

Congress’ relationship with the CIA has no doubt been altered by the grueling, months-long fight over how to appropriately redact the Senate committee’s report. And even as the Senate shifts into Republican control in the New Year, lawmakers involved in the process will long remember the agency’s conduct in the matter.

As of Friday, just how the final publication would play out remained a mystery, like so many Christmas presents under the tree. That day, Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly called Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to ask her to “consider” the timing of the report’s release.

Not long after these reports circulated, Wyden released a fiery statement, urging the Senate to be willing to “act unilaterally” to ensure that the report sees “the light of day before Congress adjourns this year.”

So as CIA brass passed the punch and mini-pecan pies Friday evening, they wondered: would next week would bring sugarplum fairies, or lumps of coal?

[MIKA27]

Sydney's Friday Storm Clouds Looked Like A Giant Alien Spaceship

This nasty-looking storm (yes, that’s a storm, not some hostile extraterrestrial unleashing otherworldly armageddon) confirms what we’ve always known: Mother Nature can be truly terrifying.

This two-minute clip was captured by storm chaser Daniel Shaw on Friday, and is stunning visual evidence of the dangerous weather that’s been in Sydney this past week — causing several fires and leaving thousands without power, according to CityLab.

Yesterday’s storm was even more severe and wide-ranging; here’s hoping that they don’t get worse throughout Christmas and the rest of the summer. This video shows the power of a thunderstorm — equal parts frightening and awe-inspiring.

[MIKA27]

The Mercedes-AMG GT S Is Germany’s Next Sports Car

Laguna Seca Raceway’s undulating stretches and bends of tarmac sit undisturbed beneath an interminable blanket of gray clouds. The sun’s up there somewhere. Temperatures barely crest 50; even light winds are chilling. It’s the kind of day that normally leads to nonproductiveness, recreational drinking and afternoon naps. But there’s something else in store today.

We stand in the gravel just off Turn 6, and from the distance comes what sounds like the roaring Merlin engine of a WWII Spitfire. The roar builds quickly, the unseen source making its way up the long rise to the top of the curve. Then the Mercedes-AMG GT S hurtles over the curve, pummeling the apex so hard that it seems to push the track a few inches deeper into the earth. Its power is intoxicating: on a hillside at the edge of the track, twenty feet above the asphalt, a fan camped out in a tent whoops and hollers like a concert-goer begging for an encore.

What we’ve just witnessed is the culmination of years of AMG HQ’s most intense R&D since the spectacular gull-winged SLS. That AMG could build such a spectacular supercar as the SLS, one that could both perform on the track and wow on the boulevard, meant something significant. The SLS AMG Black Series, shockingly, was even better, bringing a bespoke scalpel to the track in stupefying fashion. The SLS’s followup had to be something earth-shattering. Through sheer dedication, AMG has built a scintillating track weapon with the AMG GT S, only the second car AMG has completely built in house.

Seeing is believing with Affalterbach’s new baby. The grille is large with twin crossbars, flanked by feline headlamps; all of this is accentuated with a grand touring-length creased hood. The greenhouse ends in a lean and near-perfectly executed tail with slender LED taillights and a simple retractable spoiler resting flush with the back end. According to Robert Lesnick, Director of Exterior Design at AMG, this was AMG’s (vastly successful) attempt at “a true sports car, not a supercar” like the SLS. Lesnick is emphatic that it’s a two-seater because a 2+2 would compromise its true intentions: sporting, not cruising. It needed the right proportions and the right size, hence the shorter wheelbase and shorter overall length as compared to its bigger brother. It also weighs 175 pounds less. All of this shows strongly in the GT S’s handling.

The interior is like an expertly tailored gun safe. Everything feels solid and rich; the flat-bottom, four-spoke steering wheel sports Alcantra in all the right places, and the firm seats are perfectly stitched and bolstered. Visibility over the beefy hood could be better, but it won’t impede a driver with simple point-and-shoot intentions. The sloping center console, especially in brushed aluminum, is a work of art with big, illuminated and angled controls — but the U.S. desired but not required cupholders unfortunately shove the gear selector too far back. For once, it’s a good thing the car isn’t a manual transmission — and the 7-speed dual clutch transmission rapid fires when it needs to, lending more focus to track driving than roping through the gears yourself.

That roaring motor under the hood is a 503-horsepower twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8. It benefits from “hot inside V”, which means the turbos aren’t mounted outside the cylinder banks but within the engine’s V-configuration. The engine is thereby smaller and set lower in the engine compartment; it also benefits from dry sump lubrication. The resulting lower center of gravity and improved weight distribution are a boon to the AMG GT S’s handling, making for some truly heroic turns on the track.

The only rivals to that V8’s ground-shaking roar would be the Jaguar F-Type R, the Ferrari V12 and the Challenger SRT Hellcat. (And none of that sound is synthetic; take note, Porsche.) The bite matches the bark. Steering is superbly responsive, and turn-in is right quick and accurate. Shifting modes from Sport+ to Race kicks out the back end enough to shift a layer or two of the Earth’s crust, yet the GT S offers complete control of this power; from the side window, it was clear that the GT S could follow each of Laguna Seca’s 11 turns brilliantly, hitting apexes near-perfectly, all while that animal in the engine compartment kept howling. AMG says the car will do 0-60 in 3.7 seconds and top out at 183 mph; it’s safe to say that this estimate is Tea Party conservative.

So, what about the other 90 percent of the time when you’re not driving like a bat out of hell? Well, lazily steering the AMG GT S around San Francisco proper and Monterey yielded zero disappointment. There was absolutely nothing jarring or upsetting; rather, the GT S was downright cosseting, especially in Comfort mode, in which throttle response and steering were still excellent but not rapier-like as in Sport+ and Race. For those who seek only sport-luxury, the GT S delivers, though its track teeth have a clear desire to shine through the elegance of city and country driving. It pleases both the high browed and the high revving.

AMG hasn’t offered up any pricing on the AMG GT S, but its sticker will likely be around two-thirds the cost of the SLS, putting it in the mid $100k range — right around Porsche 911 Turbo territory. Target locked. That 911 shape is respected but ubiquitous, so the AMG GT S sets itself apart with a bold new silhouette in the pricey sports car segment. It also makes a name for itself when the pace picks up and the turns beckon. An apples-to-apples comparison between front- and rear-engined sports cars would be tough, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that the AMG GT S certainly has no shortage of power and handling prowess. While the Porsche 911 is legendary, the AMG GT S has the building blocks to great, and the upcoming Black Series just might make good on that promise.

Affalterbach’s new baby has rejuvenated the SLS’s legacy. It’s rare to walk away so impressed by a newborn sports car both on and off the track, and the sound and fury of driving the GT S alone is beyond expectation for a high-end sports car. Get behind the wheel and you’ll take as many laps as you can, hit as many streets as time allows; every time you have to step away, you won’t be able to keep from looking back over your shoulder to witness beauty on four wheels.

[MIKA27]

‘Spectre’ Casts 50-Year-Old Bond Girl For 007 to Do Sex To

Bellucci. Monica Bellucci. Being a Bond girl means signing up for something inherently transitory; a one-shot job that, more often than not, is glamorously flimsy.

Earlier this week, noted genius Stephen Hawking told The Telegraph that his “ideal role would be a baddie in a James Bond film,” continuing that, “I think the wheelchair and the computer voice would fit the part.”

Unfortunately, Thursday’s 007 press conference squashed the physicist’s dreams of big screen fame and badassery, as Bond director Sam Mendes revealed the name of the next series installment, Spectre, and announced the cast: Daniel Craig and Christoph Waltz, a host of regulars from 2012’s Skyfall, and two new Bond girls, Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux.

While Hawking’s name was tragically missing from the Spectre lineup, it doesn’t take a legendary theoretical physicist to calculate the unprecedentedly small age gap between Monica Bellucci, 50, and Daniel Craig, 46. Bellucci is making history as the oldest Bond girl yet (seriously, isn’t it about time we start calling them Bond women?), a title that was formerly held by Honor Blackman, who was 39-years-old when she played ***** Galore.

While still relatively unknown stateside, Bellucci is a reigning vixen in France and her native Italy. She began her career as a model at the age of thirteen, modeling for Dolce & Gabbana and Dior. While she originally wanted to be a lawyer, she ended up turning to acting—she’s said that “to be a lawyer was too boring for me—for my personality.” The actress, who also speaks three languages, built a film career in movies like The Matrix Reloaded and the Passion of the Christ, where she played the OG seductress, Mary Magdalene. And did I mention she’s single?

While Bellucci’s casting, with its added implication that a 46-year-old action hero could actually be attracted to a woman his own age, is a great step forward, it’s important to put it in perspective. In a culture where women are often viewed as disposable objects for men to do sex to, the Bond series has actually cemented this backwards ideology with a pantheon of Bond girls that act as interchangeable, throwaway love interests.

The franchise is built around big name actors who are lauded for the ways in which they further develop and individualize the eternal spirit of James Bond. Being chosen to embody James Bond is a huge boon for any actor, and will continue to be a career-maker for many years and 007 eras to come.

Conversely, being a Bond girl means signing up for something inherently transitory; a one-shot job that, more often than not, is glamorously flimsy. A Bond girl has a handful of roles she might be asked to play—evil seductress, loyal helper, and dead girl are just a few of these classic tropes. The baddie Bond girl is sent to distract Bond; she’s also a welcome distraction for the imagined male viewer, who stereotypically enjoys some female body parts peppered throughout the shoot-outs and high stakes gambling scenes. Meanwhile, the loyal helper moons over 007 like a 1950s housewife—sweet and servile, always ready to cheer him up with a sex scene, a martini, or some helpful behind the scenes spy tips.

In 2012’s Skyfall, we see the best example of this Bond girl in Naomie Harris’s Eve—a field agent who, due to her incompetency, ends up taking a desk job as Bond’s glorified secretary-cum-booty call. While there’s no problem with working behind the scenes (especially when your work is high stakes international intrigue), Eve’s role as demoted agent turned devoted helper isn’t exactly a Lean In- approved take on the modern corporate world. Skyfall actually bravely uses two misogynistic tropes, also featuring a murdered woman whose death acts as impetus for Bond-style revenge.

Which is all to say, despite casting a 50-year-old woman, the Bond series still has a long ways to go if it wants a cookie for being feminist-friendly. Also, it’s one thing for a legendary, timeless franchise, which doubtlessly attracts a more mature audience, to cast a full-fledged woman. Tons of props to Spectre, but I doubt that this single casting decision will have lasting effects on cruder “manly” movies, where the 20-year-old women preening for the cameras often have the same number of lines as the tricked out cars.

[MIKA27]

Terrifying Images Of Massive Fire In Downtown Los Angeles

“A massive fire in downtown Los Angeles early today engulfed an apartment tower that was under construction, damaged two other buildings and left freeways and roads closed,” reports the LA Times. This image by Gautam Trivedi is confronting, almost like the aftermath of a nuclear mushroom.

This impressive image above by Eric Politzer looks terrifying too:

The Associated Press has video of the raging flames, which “destroyed a 7-storey apartment building under construction and damaged two others early Monday morning in downtown,” according to CBS.

[MIKA27]

Tons Of Albert Einstein Documents Are Now Online For Free

On Friday Digital Einstein went live, bringing with it a treasure trove of Einstein letters, correspondences, postcards, and notes detailing the life of one of the world’s greatest thinkers. As The New York Times reports, these are The Dead Sea Scrolls of physics and you can read them today for free.

Of course, many of these early letters leading up to 1923 were originally written in Einstein’s native German tongue, but Princeton’s archives allows users to toggle between English-translated versions and the original text. These letters also aren’t just a bunch of super dense chicken scratch that would go over your head unless you were armed with a physics doctorate (though that would help), these missives contain divorce files, personal letters, and one awesome note to Marie Curie denouncing science trolls, as detailed by Vox.

This invaluable look into the life of one of physics’ super geniuses is part of a totally excellent trend of amazing moments in science making their way to the web — for the low, low cost of free. In September, the California Institute of Technology published all of Richard Feynman’s iconic lectures online, for example.

The most exciting part of all of this is that these 5,000 documents only make up a fraction of Einstein’s written work. The archive is a digitized version of Caltech’s Einstein Papers Project, currently on its 13th volume of the series (there will eventually be 30). All digital version of these volumes will be published online two years after the print publication. So for years to come, this new digital archive of Einstein knowledge will only grow

[MIKA27]

Dutch and German Bikers Fighting ISIS?

Dutch and German motorcycle gangs got a lot of publicity saying they were fighting against the so-called Islamic State in Syria. But it seems nobody wants them there.

AMSTERDAM — At the height of fighting—and the publicity about the fighting—around the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria two months ago, word spread that Dutch and German biker gangs were rushing to the rescue. Guys with a few guns and a lot of tattoos gave interviews and not much information about themselves. They would fight against the so-called Islamic State (or ISIS, or ISIL, or Da’esh, depending on which acronym you use), and they would drive its militants back out of Kurdish territory.

Well, Kobani is still under siege, and some of the bikers may still be hanging around the battlefield, but the Kurds have a message for them: “Don’t come!”

And Dutch prosecutors, who were kind of vague about the legal implications of Dutch citizens taking up arms against terrorists (ISIS) to, um, defend members of another group labeled terrorist (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK), have finally, in the last few days, decided what they want to tell the bikers: “Don’t Go!”

And the German-Kurdish bikers trying to raise €1 million on a crowd-funding site with the tag FCKISIS have received a resounding FCKU from the public, which has left them, as of this writing, €999,636 short of their goal.

The story seemed a natural. So many lunatics from Europe, including from The Netherlands, have joined the head-choppers of ISIS, and here was a group of badasses on choppers out to kill those bastards. It was promoted on what might be called not-quite-mainstream or, indeed, axe-to-grind media. It cropped up on a Kurdish channel and on a local German channel. Then RT, Russian Television, fell in love with it. So did America’s right-wing Breitbart site. And the British tabloids. And a New York one. And the story just keeps rolling.

In one widely distributed video clip from October a biker named “Ron,” cradling an automatic rifle in his arms among a group of people dressed more or less in Kurdish fashion, presents himself as a member of the Dutch biker gang No Surrender. He claims he’s a “businessman with a military background who has been to several areas under similar circumstances,” whatever that means. Why is he fighting now? “The Kurds have been oppressed for a very long time" he says, "and the way the Yazidis are being murdered, you can’t just stay on your couch at home and do nothing.”

But No Surrender is not the most savory of biker clubs. About ten days before it started gaining fame for supposedly shooting at ISIS in Syria, members of a regional branch were involved in a shooting incident in The Netherlands. At least five guys took part, some of them in No Surrender leather, and Dutch police made public the footage from a security camera that caught the entire episode. It looks like the shoot-out at the OK Corral in a leafy Eindhoven suburb—but nobody seems to be a very good shot.

Is this really the kind of help that people in Syria and Iraq are waiting for?

“We are not proponents of Dutch citizens getting involved in the struggle,” says Bahoz Derik of the Dutch Kurdish FedKom network. “There are thousands of people ready to join the fighting over there but we are short on logistical support and weaponry.” The organization has turned away “around 40 to 50 ex-military men” who called Fedkom for information on how they could join the war. “We can’t help them,” says Derik. “They mainly ask us for a contacts on the ground, but we don’t have them.”

It is doubtful anyone in the Middle East is eagerly awaiting the arrival of yet another throng of armed foreigners coming to add to the confusion. Not to mention what happens when this medley of men comes back home.

But there was some ambiguity about the position of the Dutch Public Prosecutor on the subject, with several media outlets reporting that people joining the fight against ISIS would not be prosecuted in The Netherlands, as opposed to those who joined ISIS and who would be prosecuted.

[MIKA27]

Is Soccer Great Lionel Messi Corrupt?

The stench of corruption is settling over world soccer like a poisonous fog, and players are paying the price. Not so the organization that runs the sport around the world.

Let’s watch, for a moment, the soccer player many people believe is the greatest of all time:

The ball slides into his path in a pocket of space, eight yards outside his opponents’ box. He lets it roll and then pokes it between two defenders to a teammate, darting inside towards the top of the box. The ball comes back and he plays it to another with a second touch, then he ghosts into the box where he waits, patiently, until his teammate shoots. In a flash he deflects the shot, with the speed of instinct, right past the goalkeeper.

Lionel Messi has scored, and it was not just any goal. It was his 72nd in the Champions League, more than anyone else in the history of Europe’s premier soccer competition. By the end of last month, he’d made it 74, and set the record for Spain’s La Liga along the way.

Messi is a phenomenon of world sport, a 5-foot-7 soccer giant. At 27, he has already won the Ballon d’Or —for the world’s best player—four times, and he led Argentina to the World Cup Final this summer as the player of the tournament.

Yet just two months before Messi claimed these latest records, a Spanish judge ruled he must stand trial on charges of tax evasion. He had lost his final appeal and now a yearlong investigation into his financial dealings between 2007 and 2009 has culminated in a criminal case that, should he be found guilty, could land him in jail for up to six years.

It’s certainly a special time for soccer and for shady financial dealings. Increasingly, the two seem to go hand in hand. FIFA, the sport’s governing body that oversees the World Cup, has been mired in corruption allegations for years, but recently the organization’s patrician façade has really begun to crumble. This week the full extent of the organization’s tainted largesse was revealed, as it emerged that Michel Platini, president of Europe’s soccer federation (UEFA), was given a Picasso in return for his support for Russia’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. That’s some bribe, but it’s not the first to change hands in the upper echelons of soccer governance.

In 2011, the head of Asia’s football federation, Mohamed bin Hammam, was banned for life for bribing other representatives to vote for him in the upcoming FIFA elections. The delegates were given envelopes containing $40,000 during a meeting about grassroots soccer initiatives. That same official—a Qatari billionaire—received a second lifetime ban for bribing the presidents of 30 African soccer federations to vote for Qatar’s bid for the 2022 World Cup. The president of the North American federation, Jack Warner, was forced to resign after he was caught selling his World Cup bid vote to the highest bidder and colluding with bin Hammam.

The successful World Cup bids of both Russia and Qatar have come under relentless scrutiny that has ultimately changed little. An ethics report conducted by a former U.S. District Attorney was blocked at every turn and watered down by FIFA’s “ethics” panel. That investigator, Michael Garcia, attacked the published report as containing “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts.”

For all its flagrant indiscretions, though, FIFA has never run afoul of the law. Or, at least, the organization has never faced any semblance of criminal prosecution from anyone, anywhere. It’s easily conceivable that tens—and possibly hundreds—of millions of dollars have been embezzled, swindled, and defrauded by FIFA and its officials over the years, but the only penalties they’ve faced have been when sponsors, like Sony, dropped them. Yet their biggest star, a master practitioner of the sport, could face prison time for much less onerous financial crimes.

Something surely is amiss.

The allegations against Messi, an Argentine forward who plays for Spain’s FC Barcelona, first surfaced in June of last year. By September, he was flashing a thumbs-up to assembled fans as he walked into court in a Barcelona suburb. No agreement was reached that day, but eventually Messi and his father, Jorge, who doubles as his money manager (probably not the best idea in retrospect) agreed to pay $6 million in back taxes and interest. This was apparently in addition to a “preemptive” $12 million payment made during court proceedings in an attempt to settle the matter.

These sums are nothing to sniff at, but they represent small change to Messi in a way that only athletes and entertainers of his stature can understand. The little maestro who started his soccer career on the streets of lower-middle-class Rosario, Argentina, now rakes in $20 million every year in salary from Barcelona. Add on some lucrative sponsorship deals with Pepsi, Adidas, and Turkish Airlines, and he takes home about $65 million a year.

That said, the agreement reached between a Spanish prosecutor and the Messis more than covers the approximately $6 million in taxes they were accused of hiding in foreign tax havens from Spanish authorities. Leo and Jorge might reasonably have assumed that the matter had been put to bed. They were in for a rude awakening, then, when in late July a Spanish judge decided to push ahead with a criminal prosecution despite a recommendation from the public prosecutor that charges be dropped.

The move actually falls right in line with many of Spain’s judicial tax policies in the post-Great Recession period. In 2012, after consecutive years of unemployment rates over 20 percent and a budget deficit over 8 percent of GDP, the Spanish authorities sought to crack down on tax evasion. They stepped up their pursuit of evaders using offshore accounts, creating new, harsher penalties for failure to report foreign assets. Residents of Spain—anyone who spends 183 days or more a year there—are taxed on their worldwide income, much like their counterparts in the United States.

The taxmen targeted up to $10 billion in taxes on undeclared assets in 2012, and by the following year were exceeding that goal, collecting $12.5 billion for an 11 percent increase. To do this, the country’s tax collection agency received a funding boost and adopted some new methods. Some of these, like confiscating money from businesses’ cash registers during business hours, make their pursuit of Messi seem very civil indeed.

Part of the point, of course, is to make an example of a high-profile figure, and show that no one is above the law. The soccer star is hardly the only example. The tax collectors often target public figures and high-profile organizations in Catalonia, the would-be independent region of northeast Spain which has Barcelona as its capital. This year the region’s former president, Jordi Pujol, was investigated for and ultimately admitted to failing to pay tax on an inheritance. FC Barcelona, the club Messi represents, was charged by a Spanish court with committing tax fraud in a shady deal to bring Brazilian star Neymar to the club in the summer of 2013.

All of this contrasts markedly with pre-recession policies, especially what has come to be known as the “Beckham Law.” Passed in 2006 to accommodate the huge salary demands of superstar David Beckham, a signing for Real Madrid, the tax reform allowed foreign soccer players to pay most of their taxes abroad, thereby committing “legal tax evasion,” according to The Guardian. Messi probably could have used the weight of his global brand, as Beckham had, to get similar treatment even after the law was amended in 2010, but he did not. He also elected not to take advantage of a recent tax amnesty whereby he could have paid back just 10 percent of what he owed. He and his father allegedly sought, instead, to hide his identity through a web of shell corporations in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and various South American tax havens.

While FIFA is effectively beyond the jurisdiction of any government (PDF), Messi is still a resident of Spain, and he and his father seem to be in a lot more trouble there than they initially thought. Though the court has only so far decided that Lionel “could have known about and approved of” his father’s tax plans, the Barcelona forward could face real jail time if convicted. More likely, he’ll pay a very hefty fine. The real damage may be to Messi’s otherwise squeaky-clean image as a humble champion from humble beginnings.

If only he had worked for FIFA, he might have a Picasso by now. He certainly wouldn’t have a court date.

[MIKA27]

THE WORLD’S LARGEST STARBUCKS IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

The coffee giant we all know and love has returned to its hometown to build out the world’s largest Starbucks store to date, and it’s a thing of beauty.

Birthed at Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington back in 1971, Starbucks has since gone on to open up over 23,000 stores across the globe. With so many stores, one would think the brand had done everything there is to do in retail coffee, but one would be wrong. The brand recently opened up a new flagship store in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, and it’s more than your typical corner coffee shop. This location has two coffee bars, an in-house kitchen, a shop, a two-story library complete with 200 books to get some reading done, and even a roasting plant where the company produces its small batch Reserve beans. The space spans 15,000 square feet over three floors, is LEED-certified, and has been described by designer Liz Muller as being a “little bit like Willy Wonka.”

[MIKA27]

YOTAPHONE 2

YotaPhone 2 is the world’s first smartphone with two screens! The innovative Android phone is a breath of fresh air in the saturated market of mobile phones. Besides the typical LCD front screen, the YotaPhone 2 features an always-on e-ink back screen that displays important information and notifications without unlocking your phone. Battery life? this thing can run for 5 days of reading on a single charge and 2 days of basic smartphone functions!

[MIKA27]

DEL BEN PRIMITIVE KNIFE

Inspired by Stone Age flint tools, the Del Ben Primitive Knife is an eye-catching addition to your cooking arsenal. It's crafted from a single, petal-shaped piece of stainless steel, and features a contoured top ridge that serves as an integrated grip. It also features a matte finish, can be sharpened like any other kitchen knife, and includes a stainless steel stand that makes it as much a display piece as an actual tool.

[MIKA27]

BAMFORD ROLEX MILGAUSS AFTERSHOCK WATCH

Taking the antimagnetic, power plant-ready heritage of the Milgauss even further, the Bamford Rolex Milgauss Aftershock Watch features a unique dial with a three-dimensional concave design that depicts an actual shockwave.

In addition to the dial, this limited edition timepiece also features the signature lightning bolt second hand, a military-grade titanium coating on the 40mm case, a blackened steel strap, a Rolex 3130 Perpetual movement, and your choice of accent colors, including red, green, and Bamford's signature aqua blue.

[MIKA27]

These Are NASA's Coolest And Strangest Aeroplanes Of The Future

Most people don’t know this, but NASA doesn’t only work in exploring space. Its contribution to aeroplane technology — National Aeronautics and Space Administration — has been crucial to the development of safer, faster, more efficient travel. These are their coolest future concepts — some of which could enter service as soon as 2025.

These concepts have been developed working with private companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing:

This updated future aircraft design concept from NASA research partner Lockheed Martin shows a few changes from another concept seen eight images earlier in this gallery. It is a good example of how simulations and wind tunnel tests, conducted over time, generate data that tell researchers how to improve a design to achieve goals. The goals for a future supersonic aircraft are to produce a much lower-level sonic boom and to reduce emissions. The ultimate goal is to achieve a low enough boom that a current ruling prohibiting supersonic flight over land might be lifted.

This concept of an aircraft that could fly at supersonic speeds over land is being used by researchers, especially at NASA’s Langley Research Center, to continue to test ideas on ways to reduce the level of sonic booms. Its technologies — the F-100-like propulsion system, a tail blister, and the overall shape — are combined to achieve a lower target perceived decibel level.

This idea for a possible future aircraft is called a “hybrid wing body” or sometimes a blended wing body. In this design, the wing blends seamlessly into the body of the aircraft, which makes it extremely aerodynamic and holds great promise for dramatic reductions in fuel consumption, noise and emissions.

NASA develops concepts like these to test in computer simulations and as models in wind tunnels to prove whether the possible benefits would actually occur.

This NASA concept, called the “N3-X,” uses a number of superconducting electric motors to drive the distributed fans to lower the fuel burn, emissions, and noise. The power to drive these electric fans is generated by two wing-tip mounted gas-turbine-driven superconducting electric generators.

This computer-generated image shows a possible future “flying wing” aircraft, very efficiently and quietly in flight over populated areas. This kind of design, produced by Northrop Grumman, would most likely carry cargo at first and then also carry passengers.

Lockheed Martin’s advanced vehicle concept proposes a box wing design, which is now feasible thanks to modern lightweight composite (nonmetallic) materials, landing gear technologies and other advancements. Its Rolls Royce Liberty Works Ultra Fan Engine achieves a bypass ratio (flow of air around engine compared to through the engine) nearly five times greater than current engines, pushing the limits of turbofan technology to maximise efficiency.

Northrop Grumman’s concept is based on the extremely aerodynamic “flying wing” design. The four Rolls Royce engines are embedded in the upper surface of the wing to achieve maximum noise shielding. The company used its expertise in building military planes without a stabilizing tail to propose this design for the commercial aviation market.

Our ability to fly at supersonic speeds over land in civil aircraft depends on our ability to reduce the level of sonic booms. NASA has been exploring a variety of options for quieting the boom, starting with design concepts and moving through wind tunnel tests to flight tests of new technologies. This rendering of a possible future civil supersonic transport shows a vehicle that is shaped to reduce the sonic shockwave signature and also to reduce drag.

This artist’s concept shows a possible future subsonic aircraft using a boxed- or joined-wing configuration to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency. This design of an aircraft that could enter service in the 2020 timeframe is one of a number of designs being explored by NASA with teams of researchers from industry and universities.

This future aircraft design concept for supersonic flight over land comes from the team led by the Lockheed Martin Corporation.

The team used simulation tools to show it was possible to achieve over-land flight by dramatically lowering the level of sonic booms through the use of an “inverted-V” engine-under wing configuration. Other revolutionary technologies help achieve range, payload and environmental goals.

This concept is one of two designs presented in April 2010 to the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate for its NASA Research Announcement-funded studies into advanced supersonic cruise aircraft that could enter service in the 2030-2035 timeframe.

The “Icon-II” future aircraft design concept for supersonic flight over land comes from the team led by The Boeing Company.

A design that achieves fuel burn reduction and airport noise goals, it also achieves large reductions in sonic boom noise levels that will meet the target level required to make supersonic flight over land possible.

This concept is one of two designs presented in April 2010 to the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate for its NASA Research Announcement-funded studies into advanced supersonic cruise aircraft that could enter service in the 2030-2035 timeframe.