Some things Never change like Fighting Politicians

What happens when our politicians do not agree? They debate for starters, then argue, then if no solution is found by either of the parties, they pull each other's hair out. Well, that's the sane part of it. For the insane, check out this gallery.

Pandemonium prevailed in the Orissa Assembly on December 14, 2010 as the Congress MLAs went on shouting anti-Government slogans and demanded Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's resignation on the Vedanta issue. They even tried to climb onto the Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat's podium to force an adjournment over the High Court verdict on Vedanta University land acquisition deal. Rajendra Kumar Chhatria, the Congress MLA from Kuchinda, managed to climb onto the podium after he along with two party members scuffled with the security staff in the assembly.

1) Deputies and paramedics carry an injured member of parliament after a scuffle in parliament in Kiev December 16, 2010. Opposition deputies brought proceedings to a halt inside the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday, when they staged an action to support former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who said on Wednesday she had been targeted in a criminal probe. REUTERS

2) Deputies scuffle during a session in the chamber of the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev December 16, 2010. Opposition deputies brought proceedings to a halt inside the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday, when they staged an action to support former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who said on Wednesday she had been targeted in a criminal probe. REUTERS

3) The 'new low' keeps going lower, but the point is that this is how democracy 'works' - not by discussing issues or raising points, but by tearing clothes, hurtling abuses and flower pots (not necessarily in this order), punching opposition members and using the Assembly as a 'living' in centre.

4)  On July 12, MLAs belonging to the Congress and the JD(S) made a tamasha of the Assembly by spending three nights in the House having biriyani, singing songs and sleeping on the floor. Their demand? Handing over the illegal mining scandal involving the Reddy brothers to the CBI. Congress and JD(S) MLAs, who do not share the same political ideology, were found sleeping together. Politics, after all, is a story of strange bedfellow.

 

5) On July 21, an MLA in Bihar threw a footwear at Speaker Uday Narain Choudhary when the latter suspended the 67 unruly members, mostly from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the Left parties.

6) Members of the ruling Grand National Party (L) scuffle with members of the main opposition Democratic Party who were blocking entry into the main conference hall of parliament, in Seoul December 8, 2010. Calling government members of parliament "lapdogs", opposition members from the Democratic Party blockaded parliament offices and the main hall for a second day and parliamentary guards were brought in to restore order. REUTERS

7) Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Kuo Wen-chen falls off the podium while scuffling with ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei July 8, 2010. Legislators kicked and punched each other, threw rubbish bins and splashed water during the fight in the Legislative Yuan in Taipei earlier today, with two members being sent to hospital. REUTERS

8) Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators scuffle with ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators (top) at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei July 8, 2010. Taiwan legislators threw objects, splashed water and kicked one another on Thursday, sending two to the hospital in a brawl over how fast to ratify a trade pact with China that is shaping up as a pivotal election issue. REUTERS

9) Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators scuffle with ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators (top) at the Legislative Yuan In Taipei July 8, 2010. The previous rumbles have centred on one law to open up university enrolment to students from the Chinese mainland, and legislation that would see local officials being appointed, rather than elected. REUTERS

10) Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators cover the mouth of Nationalist (KMT) legislator Chao Li-yun during a parliament session inside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei April 21, 2010. The session was held on Wednesday as part of a bill ammendment on whether students from mainland China will be allowed to attend Taiwan universities. REUTERS

11) Legislators from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Nationalist (KMT) Party (top) scuffle during a session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei January 18, 2010. REUTERS

12) A lawmaker (C) of the main opposition Democratic Party tries to block a vice speaker of the National Assembly from passing new bills as security guards and the ruling Grand National Party's lawmakers block him at the National Assembly main chamber in Seoul July 22, 2009. REUTERS

13) Taiwan legislators treat a colleague who was injured following a fight in parliament in Taipei May 8, 2007. The brawl in Taiwan's sharply divided parliament is by no means the island's first, with legislators throwing stones and lunchboxes in previous sessions after failing to see eye to eye on certain issues. REUTERS

14) South Korean lawmakers from Uri Party (top R, 2nd-L), who back President Roh Moo-hyun, scuffle with lawmakers from opposition the Grand National Party as the latter attempt to occupy the seat of the speaker at parliament in Seoul March 12, 2004. Opposition parliamentarians sought unsuccessfully to storm the occupied speaker's podium early Friday to try to ensure they could hold an unprecedented vote on impeaching South Korean President Roh, local media said. REUTERS

15) Parliament security guards fall during a scuffle with members of the main opposition Democratic Party at the National Assembly in Seoul January 3, 2009. Opposition Democratic Party lawmakers have been occupying the Chairman's seat in the plenary session hall since December 26, 2008 to block the ruling, conservative Grand National Party lawmakers who want to pass disputed bills which include a U.S. trade deal as well as easing rules on bank ownership, on tapping mobile phones and on broadcasting company ownership by conglomerates and conservative print media firms. REUTERS

16)  Communist deputies scuffle with members of parliament loyal to President Viktor Yushchenko before the president's annual "state of the nation" address to the chamber in Kiev February 9, 2006. Yushchenko proposed breaking a legal logjam with parliament by creating a commission to draft a new version of the constitution to be submitted to a referendum. REUTERS

17) Bolivian opposition congressman Fernando Rodriguez battles with an unidentified indigenous deputy of President Evo Morales' party during a congress session in La Paz, April 9, 2009. Morales went on a hunger strike on Thursday to demand Bolivia's Congress pass an electoral law that could make it easier for him to win control of the legislature in December's general election. REUTERS

Source:MSN

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The Green Scene at BCPL

The Broome County Public Library invites youth to participate in The Green Scene, a new monthly program centered around fun environmentally-friendly activities. On Thursday, January 27, 6:00pm, the activity will be Trash Origami—the group will be making wallets out of empty snack bags. Instead of throwing away your chip bag, bring it along and make something useful out of it! The suggested ages for this program are 10 years and older, and registration is requested. For more information, or to register, please call the Library’s Youth Services Department at 607-778-6456.

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Winter Story Time Schedule

The Broome County Public Library will begin its winter schedule of story times on Monday, January 17. Families with young children are invited to attend these fun and educational programs!

For children birth through age 3, Lapsit Story Time, with stories, rhymes, and playtime, will be held on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 10:00-11:00am. For children ages 4 to 6, Preschool Story Time, with fun stories and rhymes, will be held on alternate Fridays at 10:00am. Family Story Time, with stories for the whole family, will be held on Wednesday evenings, 6:00pm, for children of all ages.

More information about dates can be found on BCPL's online calendar.

This schedule will continue through February 18, and all story times will be held in the Youth Services Department of the Library (185 Court Street, Binghamton). For more information, please call Youth Services at 607-778-6456.

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Library Knitting Group Will Hold a Raffle!

Knitting enthusiasts are invited to join the Broome County Public Library’s Knitting Group, which will hold a raffle at its meeting on Wednesday, January 19, 6:00pm. All attendees will have up to four chances to win a copy of Head to Toe Knits by Bronwyn Lowenthal:

• Enter once for attending the January meeting
• Enter again if you donate an item to the Samaritan House
• Enter another time if you bring a friend with you that is new to the group
• Enter if you present your library card at the meeting

If you don’t have a library card, it’s easy to sign up for one, and it’s free if you live in Broome, Chenango, Delaware or Otsego County.

The Knitting Group meets the third Wednesday of each month at 6:00pm. The group is open to knitters of all skill levels, and participants should bring a project to work on. The group will be doing charity knitting for the Samaritan House, which is in need of hats, mittens, scarves for children, and baby blankets. Registration is not required. For more details, you may call the Library’s Information Desk at 607-778-6451.

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Kingfisher Calendar 2011

Six ravishing beauties make the most of exotic Mauritian locales in this year’s Kingfisher Calendar.

January: Kingfisher Calendar girl 2011 Angela Jonsson heralds a new beginning as the world steps into a New Year amidst the beautiful landscape of Mauritius.

February: Lisa Haydon welcomes the Sun in yogic style as the winter gets ready to say a goodbye. With the blue waters of Mauritius and a matching sky, the summer gets ready to make a perfect entry.

March: As summer steps in, a splash of water is a welcome relief, so says Anjali Lavania.

 

April: When the King of Fruits steps in, the summer peaks. Fiona Thomas lolls on the white stands in a mango-orange swimsuit.

May: Hot and sultry Lisa Haydon sizzles on sun-kissed Mauritius shores.

June: Cherlotte Lohmann waits for the monsoon with all eagerness.

July: Ahh.. the monsoon breeze is soothing. Kingfisher Calendar Girl 2011 Angela Jonsson ambles on the sands in an aquamarine blue bikini.

August: The end of monsoon makes the season an ideal time to wander. Cherlotte Lohmann saunters around with the big cats.

September: Amidst dunes, the month is ready for a fresh beginning. Anjali Lavania signals the arrival of September with a splash of colours.

October: A season when life springs to action. Lisa Haydon sets the ramp on fire.

November: Cherlotte Lohmann on a fast lane with a couple of Cheetahs as the world gets ready to welcome another year.

December: With the winter all set to come in, a bit of sunshine works magic on the body. Lisa Haydon says it in style.

Source: Lifestyle MSN

Image credits: Atul Kasbekar

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20 Best Comics of 2010

20. Afrodisiac
By Jim Rugg  Brian Maruc

Afrodisiac was one of the first comics I fell for this year, and as the months rolled on by, it ended up being a point of return again and again. A makeshift collection of faked comics history, centered around a satire whose target I had little personal knowledge of, Afrodisiac was that rare example of an in-joke the rest of us can fake our way through. I still couldn't explain blaxploitation without a working internet connection at hand, but I can guarantee you that Afrodisiac's rewards won't require it. Come in alone, like My Bloody Valentine: you won't be disappointed.


19. Wally Gropius
By Tim Hensley

In a more unstable world, Wally Gropius would end up shelved alongside the Harvey/Dell comics it's so visually reminiscent of, working like a diabolical physical delivery device for absurdism: Dick and Jane couldn't ask for better. For now, we'll have to rely on those who picked it up to pass along the word, one believer at a time.



18. Lose 2
By Michel Deforge

For artists, there's probably no moment as mutually terrifying as it is happy than the moment where their work leaves the realm of "has potential" to "is actually great". From there on out, the challenge remains the same: do what one has done well, again, hoping for a greater example? Or ditch one's past, to embark on the road of the new challenge? Deforge crossed that line with Lose 2, proving himself to be the lifer that his initial work had hinted at. If you're looking for that specific moment when the penny dropped, don't wrack your brain too hard: it was the maggots, son.


17. Batman  Robin 13
By Frazer Irving  Grant Morrison

The thing that great super-hero comics rely on more than anything else is their ability to instill a feeling of possibility, and none of them felt more alive to that sensation than this, the first chapter in the "Batman and Robin Must Die" story arc. While that story ended, as they all do, with an eventual win for the good guys (as well as the usual rearrangement of the status quo), the first chapter opened a door that seemed capable of going anywhere. How could Batman survive a bullet to the skull? How did Frazer Irving draw a picture that made its sound effects felt inside your brain? Had Grant Morrison actually started trying again? If you'd read more than three of these things, you knew that the answers would eventually come--but for that moment, it was like old home week.

16. Nana 21
By Ai Yazawa

Due to unfortunate illness, it's possible that this may be the last installment of Ai Yazawa's Nana that anyone will ever read. If so, Yazawa would have struggled to end the series with a firmer display of her talents. Volume 21 is a page-by-page rendition of raw emotion, the moment when a soap earns the opera modifier, and few cartoonists can match her ability to capture that moment when comprehension is experienced and grief--the kind that never truly heals--breaks you in half.


15. Grandville Mon Amour
By Bryan Talbot

Bryan Talbot's next chapter in Grandville may at first feel like an extension of the first book's final pages--our badger likes revenge, and he'd like some more--but if you look past the actual fangs of evil, it's a little more than that. It's one long argument for personal integrity, a character embracing the complexity of truth over the comfortable popularity of the lie. It just so happens that it's told by a muscle-bound animal with a ferocious temper, and that his best friend is a rat who uses British colloquialisms and isn't sure how many children he has.


14. Orc Stain
By James Stokoe

The best thing about Orc Stain wasn't the gigantic phalluses, its makes-sense-but-doesn't lingo or those excellent two-page spreads, it was what it didn't do at all: it wasn't a "fun romp". Instead of delivering the too-cool-for-school condescension that his skill would've let him get away with, James Stokoe took Orc Stain seriously (even when the crazy-for-castration types went gronch-chop-crazy) and came up with one of the most unusual exercises in genre mix up available. Nobody is doing anything else like this, and at this point, you have to wonder if anyone could.


13. Night Business 3
By Benjamin Marra

As great as his USAgent story in Strange Tales was (pretty great) and as trendsetting as that Maureen Dowd thing was (pretty trendsetting?), my heart will always belong to Night Business. A nakedly unrestrained id delivering a passionate meditation on all of the things that healthy boys love the most, Ben Marra's Night Business is a comic that's impossible to get tired of.

12. Le Dernier Des Mohicans
By Cromwell  Catmalou

A very free adaptation of the James Fenimore Cooper novel, Le Dernier Des Mohicans may be the most visually striking comic I've seen this year, and to be honest, I'm not totally sure how the damn thing was made. In what looks like oil paintings, Cromwell delivers a bad-guy focused take on the read-it-in-high-school book, and the result is unusually kinetic: they might hang in frames most of the time, but here, they slide, slam, and bleed. Sinewy braves equipped with slippery blades, their axes of death hungrily rain down on meaty British scalps, and there's never a second you aren't rooting for evil to triumph. Who knew that you'd have to go to France to experience such a resolutely American tale? (Besides French people, I mean.)


11. Powr Mastrs 3
By C.F.

Powr Mastrs is weird, but not in a bad way--it just isn't like anything else, except for all the comics that rip off its oddboy style. Comparisons abound--it's a fantasy story, it's a noiserock take on genre, it's what Matt Fraction would write if his guts matched his mouth--but the truth is that it's a vehicle, fast-moving and ramshackle, piloted by Picturebox's idea of what the best comics should be: an artist, doing their own thing, zero compromise and no interference. Almost all of the comics on this list share something in common, and Powr Mastrs 3 exemplified that thing on every page: singular vision, delivered without restraint.

10. Hellboy: The Storm
By Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo  Dave Stewart

Along with the BPRD series, 2010 was the year when the Mignola-verse made its biggest strides towards the story promise it had spent the decade building--it was the year when its worlds collapsed, its characters changed the most, when all those beasts lurking in corners invaded the main page. But even more than that, it was the year when Fegredo made Hellboy his own. A great artist who has long suffered the unfair criticism of just-not-being-Mike, Fegredo brought forth some of the most indelible moments in the series history--the pig's tears, the car split in half, the self-blinded man--and it become impossible to imagine it under any hands but his. This: worth waiting for.


9. King City
By Brandon Graham

Few serialized comics wore the monthly installment plan as well as King City, and the stands will suffer for its passing in the coming year--this was something to look forward too, and something to treasure upon arrival. The story of a boy who loves sandwiches, sexy girls and uses a cat to cut people in half, Brandon Graham's King City was the sort of comic that had people wanting to live inside its pages, even if they hated puns more than Nazis.


8. Prison Pit 2
By Johnny Ryan

While the first Prison Pit carried with it the startling impact concurrent with a talented artist breaking new ground, Prison Pit 2 delivered surety: that wasn't a one-off, Ryan said, and I'm definitely going somewhere with this. Beaten in the "this is what action looks like" department only by Darwyn Cooke, Ryan's nasty tech-mammal beatdown looked like baby's first cyberpunk Kamandi, and it ably maintained the promise of this comic's initial volume. This, as they should say, is what we all should be getting down with: pure comics.


7. "The Prisoner of Mars"
By Mike Mignola

 Lurking behind the reprinted pages of his one-off humor piece The Amazing Screw-On Head, "Prisoner of Mars" was Mignola at his non-Hellboy best, stretching an upper-class shaggy dog story of near-miss apocalypse into a bizarre library of the man's favorite things: pulp, mustaches and murder. The final line may carry with it a whiskered history most identified with the local VFW, but by the time you get there, you're more than ready to cackle along with them.


6. Pluto 7
By Naoki Urasawa

While the ending of Pluto stands on equal foundation with its beginning, it was Pluto 7 that hit me the hardest. Taking its least interesting character and plopping him in center front, Urasawa challenged himself more in this volume than in any others thus far, delivering a keenly felt piece of melodramatic sentiment so bald it should have failed, but didn't. Crowds of children laughing, those ratcheting sobs, hands, open and falling--this was one of the most bittersweet things I believe I'll ever read, but it was beautiful all the same.

5. It Was the War of the Trenches
By Jacques Tardi

Political comics, propaganda work, however you define them, they're almost always miserable trash, and the few exceptions are always found in the punchy one-shot of a good editorial page. Except: Tardi. Trenches was the angriest comic released this year, and while the specifics of its subject matter may be historical, its philosophy hasn't aged a day. War is a brutal, ugly thing, and while some may excel at depicting its horrors with excited doses of adrenaline, Tardi's tale never allows for a moment of escape. For him, political extermination destroys us all, and there's no reason why the bystander should be permitted to participate merely as casual audience.


4. The Outfit
By Darwyn Cooke

The simplest thing Darwyn Cooke could have done would have been to follow up his first Parker adaptation with the exact same thing, but louder. Instead, he went deeper--deeper into his own toolbox of reference, deeper into character, deeper into violence--and the result was a comic that stands alongside the best this field can offer. There's no wasted moments here, no sense of caution or indecision. Like its main character, The Outfit is a triumph of uncaged proficiency, and it's the kind of story that you never want to see end.


3. Weathercraft
By Jim Woodring

Weathercraft was probably one of the funniest comics released this year, which is no small feat for something that has no words at all. But beyond the inherent hilarity of watching the greedy suffer, it's the results of Weathercraft that form the foundation of its appeal. It's a comic that stays behind when it's closed, twisting in memory until you're not sure you caught what it said, a demanding experience that's unusual and unique. There's no other medium that could tell the kinds of stories that Woodring prefers; luckily, he's come back to stay.


2. Love and Rockets: New Stories 3
By Gilbert Jaimie Hernandez

An incomparable installment in their storied career, New Stories 3 saw Gilbert attacking his oldest obsessions with more humor than ever before, while Jaimie shocked a legion of fans with the most refined (and masterful) chapter in his Locas saga to date: "Brownville". The story, a plot-looks-predictable-on-paper study of tragic family history bookended by a twist-the-knife epilogue, it was one of the least flashy things that Jaimie could have picked to draw: and yet it didn't feel that way for a second. A studied, experienced line courses through the book, with tiny slits and flecks of black throwing one's attention along the panels, through those dark circles of sorrow and the shadows concealing horrors--all of it so intuitive, all of it so pregnant with meaning. Nothing broke hearts this year like "Brownville"; thankfully, few even tried.

1. Acme Novelty Library 20
By Chris Ware

For the most part, 2010 was a year where we saw more of what we knew was great already. There were some exceptions to that, and Acme 20 (or "Lint") was the best of the lot. Continuing to deliver with what seems to be an unlimited storage of ambition, Ware's latest installment in his Rusty Brown saga saw him peeling back the most popular topic in American contemporary fiction--our "normal" life--and breathing into it a level of attention that hasn't been seen since John Updike finished his Rabbit novels. Stained with all the hope, failure and passion that motivates the silent hordes, Ware's attention to detail never falters or compromises. There's little evidence of the human hand at work in Acme, it's a tour in engagement, an explosion in motion...and yet, as we pass through its shattering conclusion, we're not left broken on their other side, but redeemed. This is a life, the comic keeps saying--not yours, not Ware's. It has to pass, that's what they all do. But for a moment--maybe a few, maybe only while it's read--let it be experienced whole.

Source:- Comixology.com

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