On November 30, 2013, End Stand Your Ground blogged on the case of Ronald Westbrook. We re-blogged it here.
Ronald Westbrook
72-year-old Ronald Westbrook suffered with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. He wandered away from his home and was shot four times and killed after ringing the doorbell and turning a doorknob at a home in Georgia.
Think Progress now reports that Joe Hendrix, who killed Westbrook, will not be charged. Walker County, GA District Attorney Herbert “Buzz” Franklin explained his decision saying, “In interviews immediately after the shooting, Hendrix claimed he acted in self-defense. In Georgia, the prosecution bears the burden of disproving a self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt. After looking at the facts from Hendrix’ perspective, it would be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hendrix did not reasonably act in self-defense.”
Words that will help you look within and find your own answers. A quiet meditation, a quiet journey …. go within. Get in touch with Spirit and find the essence of what we are, why we are here and how to find our purpose.
Plus updated guidance for international supporters…
By Cathy Kristofferson, March 3, 2014
This week there are two Global Days of Action set for standing in solidarity with African LGBT communities suffering severe anti-gay persecution. For Uganda the day is Wednesday (5th) and for Nigeria it’s on Friday (7th). OBLOGDEE knows of actions in the U.S. by Stop The Hate and Homophobia Coalition in Springfield, MA and by ACT UP in New York City for the Global Day of Action Against Uganda’s Anti-Gay Law. Coalition partners of Nigeria’s Solidarity Alliance have organized protests at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, DC and at the Consulate in New York City for the Global Day of Action In Support of Nigeria’s LGBT Community.
The Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), also known as the European, common or forest wolf, is a subspecies of gray wolf which has the largest range among wolf subspecies and is the most common in Europe and Asia, ranging through Mongolia, China, Russia, Scandinavia, Western Europe,Caucasus, the Himalayan Mountains and Balkans. Compared to their North American cousins, Eurasian wolves tend to have longer, more highly placed ears, narrower heads, more slender loins and coarser, tawnier coloured fur Compared to Indian wolves, Eurasian wolves are larger, and have longer, broader skulls. In Europe, wolves rarely form large packs like in North America, as their lives are more strongly influenced by human activities.Because of this, Eurasian wolves tend to be more adaptable than North American wolves in the face of human expansion.
There used to be a time when the European wolf roamed freely through my country. It…
Gravity is a 2013 British-produced British and American 3Dscience-fictionthriller and space drama film. It was directed, co-written, co-produced and co-edited by Alfonso Cuarón, and stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts involved in the mid-orbit destruction of a space shuttle and their attempt to return to Earth.
Cuarón wrote the screenplay with his son Jonás and attempted to develop the project at Universal Studios. The rights to the project were sold to Warner Bros. and the project later found traction there. David Heyman, who previously worked with Cuarón on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, produced the film with him. Gravity was made in the UK; British special effects company Framestore, spent more than three years creating most of the film’s visual effects which comprise over 80 minutes of its running time.
The film is set during fictitious space shuttle mission STS-157. Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first space shuttle mission aboard the space shuttle Explorer. She is accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), who is commanding his final expedition. During a spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Control in Houston warns the team about a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite, which has caused a chain reaction forming a cloud of debris in space. Mission Control orders that the mission be aborted and the shuttle begin re-entry immediately. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly after.
High-speed debris strikes the Explorer and Hubble, and detaches Stone from the shuttle, leaving her tumbling through space. Kowalski soon recovers Stone and they make their way back to the Space Shuttle. They discover that it has suffered catastrophic damage and the crew is dead. They use the thruster pack to make their way to the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit only about 900 mi (1,450 km) away. Kowalski estimates they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again.
En route to the ISS, the two discuss Stone’s home life and the death of her young daughter. As they approach the substantially damaged but still operational ISS, they see its crew has evacuated in one of its two Soyuz modules. The remaining Soyuz has suffered damage, causing its parachute to deploy and rendering it useless for returning to Earth.
Kowalski suggests it be used to travel to the nearby Chinese space stationTiangong, 100 mi (160 km) away and board one of its modules to return safely to Earth. Out of air and maneuvering power, the two try to grab onto the ISS as they fly by. Stone’s leg gets entangled in Soyuz’s parachute cords and she grabs a strap on Kowalski’s suit. Despite Stone’s protests, Kowalski detaches himself from the tether to save her from drifting away with him, and she is pulled back towards the ISS while Kowalski floats away.
Stone enters the ISS via an airlock. She cannot re-establish communication with Kowalski and concludes that she is the sole survivor. A fire breaks out, forcing her to hastily make her way to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers the capsule away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers prevent the Soyuz from separating from the station. She spacewalks to release the cables, succeeding just as the debris field completes its orbit and destroys the station. Stone aligns the Soyuz with Tiangong but discovers that its engine has no fuel.
After a brief radio communication with a Greenlandic Inuit fisherman, Stone resigns herself to being stranded and shuts down the cabin’s oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose consciousness, Kowalski enters the capsule. Scolding her for giving up, he tells her to rig the Soyuz’s landing rockets to propel the capsule toward Tiangong. Stone then realizes that Kowalski’s reappearance is not real, but has nonetheless given her the strength of will to carry on. She restores the flow of oxygen and uses the landing rockets to navigate toward Tiangong, which is rapidly deorbiting.
Unable to dock the Soyuz with the station, Stone ejects herself via explosive decompression and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel to Tiangong. Stone enters the Shenzhou capsule just as Tiangong starts to break up on the upper edge of the atmosphere. Stone declares that she is ready to head back to Earth, dead or alive. After re-entering the atmosphere, Stone hears Mission Control, which is tracking the capsule, over the radio.
The capsule lands in a lake, but dense smoke from an electrical fire inside the capsule forces Stone to evacuate immediately. She opens the capsule hatch, allowing water to enter and sink it, forcing Stone to swim ashore. She watches the remains of the Tiangong re-enter the atmosphere and takes her first shaky steps on land.
~~Cast~~
Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer and mission specialist who is on her first space mission.
George Clooney as Lieutenant Matt Kowalski; the commander of the team. Kowalski is a veteran astronaut planning to retire after the Explorer expedition. He enjoys telling stories about himself and joking with his team, and is determined to protect the lives of his fellow astronauts.
Ed Harris (voice) as Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
Orto Ignatiussen (voice) as Aningaaq, a Greenlandic Inuit fisherman who intercepts one of Stone’s transmissions. Aningaaq also appears in a self-titled short written and directed by Gravity co-writer Jonás Cuarón, which depicts the conversation between him and Stone from his perspective.
Phaldut Sharma (voice) as Shariff Dasari, the flight engineer on board the Explorer. Shariff has a wife and child and keeps a family photograph on his suit.
Amy Warren (voice) as the captain of Explorer.
Basher Savage (voice) as the captain of the International Space Station.
~~Gravity Trailer 2013~~
Published on Aug 5, 2013
~~Don’t Let Go~~
Gravity (2013), also known as Gravedad, is an upcoming Drama, Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) Film, about two astronauts that must cooperate to survive after a devastating accident leaves them stranded in space with their lives limited by time.
Medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone is on her first Space Shuttle mission accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky, who is commanding his final expedition. During a spacewalk, debris from a satellite crashes into the space shuttle Explorer, leaving it mostly destroyed, and stranding them in space with limited air. Without means of communication with Earth, they must cooperate to survive.
Ronald Westbrook 
This week there are two Global Days of Action set for standing in solidarity with African LGBT communities suffering severe anti-gay persecution. For Uganda the day is Wednesday (5th) and for Nigeria it’s on Friday (7th). OBLOGDEE knows of actions in the U.S. by Stop The Hate and Homophobia Coalition in Springfield, MA and by ACT UP in New York City for the Global Day of Action Against Uganda’s Anti-Gay Law. Coalition partners of Nigeria’s Solidarity Alliance have organized protests at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, DC and at the Consulate in New York City for the Global Day of Action In Support of Nigeria’s LGBT Community.
![By Malene Thyssen (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Skandinavisk_dyrepark.jpg "By Malene Thyssen (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons")
