Peter Gowland, fashion photographer, dead at 93

In the late 1950s, Gowland also invented the twin-lens Gowlandflex camera, which used 4-by-5 inch film for high-quality pictures and has since been used by photographers like Annie Leibovitz and and Yousuf Karsh.

SHOOT: Gowland was a pioneer of a fashion enterprise that today we take for granted.

clipped from news.yahoo.com LOS ANGELES – Peter Gowland, an innovative fashion photographer who invented elite cameras and equipment that he used to shoot pinups and magazine covers for six decades, has died. He was 93. Gowland's business partner and wife of 68 years, Alice, told the Los Angeles Times in a Sunday story that Gowland died March 17 at his Los Angeles home of complications from hip surgery. He was 93. Gowland shot more than 1,000 magazine covers, mostly glamour shots of female models but also portraits of celebrities like Rock Hudson and Robert Wagner. His covers included Rolling Stone, Playboy, See and Modern Photography. He met Alice Gowland when her boyfriend asked him to take her picture. The pair had their first date on the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and two weeks later were married in Las Vegas.

Pope turns the other cheek to scandals

The Vatican has rejected suggestions that celibacy caused the abuse and Benedict has reaffirmed it as a gift to God as recently as this month.

SHOOT: Turning a blind eye to facts is almost like insisting on living a faith-based life, of course it also conveniently allows someone to live a lie if that is what they insist on doing.

clipped from news.yahoo.com VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI opened Holy Week on Sunday amid one of the most serious crises facing the church in decades, with protesters in London demanding he resign and calls in Switzerland for a central registry for pedophile priests. Benedict made no direct mention of the scandal in his Palm Sunday homily. But one of the prayers, recited in Portuguese during Mass, was "for the young and for those charged with educating them and protecting them." Jesus Christ, Benedict said in his homily, guides the faithful "toward the courage that doesn't let us be intimidated by the chatting of dominant opinions, towards patience that supports others." In Austria, where several cases have come out in recent weeks, the archbishop of Vienna announced the creation of a church-funded but clergy-free and independent commission to look into Austrian abuse claims.

Creationists try to trick Richard Dawkins

SHOOT: And then they promote this - falsely - as evidence that he doesn't have an answer. So much for a stated dedication to the truth.

clipped from www.skeptics.com.au In September 1997, I allowed an Australian film crew into my house in Oxford without realising that their purpose was creationist propaganda. In the course of a suspiciously amateurish interview, they issued a truculent challenge to me to “give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome.” It is the kind of question only a creationist would ask in that way, and it was at this point I tumbled to the fact that I had been duped into granting an interview to creationists — a thing I normally don’t do, for good reasons. In my anger I refused to discuss the question further, and told them to stop the camera. However, I eventually withdrew my peremptory termination of the interview as a whole. This was solely because they pleaded with me that they had come all the way from Australia specifically in order to interview me.

Christopher Hitchens comments on the Pope

Extract from Chapter One of The Greatest Show on Earth

The entire world came into existence only just beyond living memory. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, Romansh: all these languages and their constituent dialects sprang spontaneously and separately into being, and owe nothing to any predecessor such as Latin.

SHOOT: Language evolved, like everything else... Great writing this.

clipped from www.richarddawkins.net Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world — for the elegiacs of Ovid and the odes of Horace, the sinewy economy of Latin grammar as exhibited in the oratory of Cicero, the strategic niceties of the Punic Wars, the generalship of Julius Caesar and the voluptuous excesses of the later emperors. That’s a big undertaking and it takes time, concentration, dedication. Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed. There never was a Roman Empire. The entire world came into existence only just beyond living memory.

EARTH HOUR

Chelsea humiliates Portsmouth

Portsmouth 0 - 1 Chelsea
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Cape Epic Stage 7

SHOOT: Pain and misery is almost over...

clipped from www.cape-epic.com Rainy weather conditions greeted the Absa Cape Epic enthusiasts for stage 7 in Oak Valley. Today’s stage was beautiful, but hard. Most riders are relieved that tomorrow will be the final stage of this year’s epic adventure and are looking forward to returning home with their finisher jerseys and medals, a treasured possession for all. Stage 7 took riders over 99km and 2 160 of climbing. The short sharp hills early on really burnt with five minutes up and 15 seconds down making riders work hard. After the descent past Houwhoek Inn riders passed Botriver onto some fast gravel roads through the farmland. Final stage of 2010 Absa Cape Epic The final stage (eight) will take riders over 65km and 1 640m of climbing from Oak Valley to their final destination, Lourensford Wine Estate. As is tradition, the last stage is always the shortest, but never easy.

Force is with the Bulls

SHOOT: They won 28-15 in Perth.

clipped from www.mg.co.za The Pretoria-based Bulls jumped to a five-point lead after seven rounds in the southern hemisphere tournament with a 28-15 victory over the winless Force in Perth on Saturday. It was the first match of the Bulls' four-match Australasian tour and the defending champions were made to fight all the way against the Force. Fellow South Africans Western Stormers and seven-time Super rugby champions Canterbury Crusaders had weekend byes and hold on to their second and third positions in the standings with seven rounds left to the play-offs. The Brumbies consigned last season's finalists Waikato Chiefs to their third straight defeat with a 30-23 win at home on Friday, while the Reds registered a convincing 31-10 win over the Central Cheetahs in Bloemfontein. New Zealand's Wellington Hurricanes slumped to eighth spot after their fourth straight defeat, this time going down 29-26 to the Coastal Sharks at home after a 50-metre penalty by Ruan Pienaar on full-time.

BULLS clinch win during Epic's Stage 6

SHOOT: The Germans are almost 11 minutes ahead of Stander's Songo Specialized team with MTN another 9 minutes back. With one stage remaining these are likely to be the final podium places - barring of course a huge upset or incident.

clipped from www.cape-epic.com Stage 6 took riders from Worcester to Oak Valley, a distance of 123km and 2 240m of climbing. After a neutral convoy out of Worcester, riders were soon hugging the shores of Brandvlei Dam. Then the ups and downs began; retracing some of the 2009 route in reverse. Climbs were short but some gradients reached up to 26%. A dead-straight chute took the field down to the canals, through the orchards, then into some singletrack and finally over the wall of the vast Theewaterskloof Dam. The race then took a short-cut through a hidden valley to Porcupine Hills before reaching the foot of another monument of the Absa Cape Epic, the Groenlandberg Cape Nature conservation area. Route designer “Dr Evil” found a new way for riders to conquer this beautiful beast.

Fire Burnin on the Dancefloor

Breaking Benjamin - The Diary of Jane

Billy Talent - Surrender

De La Rey

Ruan rescues Sharks from Hurricanes

SHOOT: I usually call him 'Ruin' Pienaar but seems this time he redeemed himself. Nice one.

clipped from www.sport24.co.za Wellington - Scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar slotted a 48-metre penalty as the fulltime hooter sounded to give the Sharks a 29-26 away victory over the Hurricanes in their Super 14 match on Saturday. Pienaar then slotted his fifth penalty, giving him 19 points, to condemn the Hurricanes to a fourth successive loss, all to South African sides, in this year's Super 14. "Pretty happy when a boy stands up like that to take the kick. I saw him leaning to the left (watching the flight of the ball) and nearly had a heart attack," Sharks captain John Smit said in a televised interview. "It was an exciting game. I suppose they are the ones that take years off you as a player and coach."

Africa Down Under