RSS

Newt Gingrich

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich (play /ˈnjt ˈɡɪŋɡrɪ/; born Newton Leroy McPherson; June 17, 1943) is an American politician, author, and political consultant. He represented Georgia's 6th congressional district as a Republican from 1979 until his resignation in 1999, and served as the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Gingrich is a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination.

In the 1970s, Gingrich taught history and geography at the University of West Georgia. During this period he ran twice (1974 and 1976)[3] for the United States House of Representatives before winning in November 1978. He served as House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995.

A co-author and architect of the "Contract with America", Gingrich was a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional election. In 1995, Time named him "Man of the Year" for "his role in ending the four-decades-long Democratic majority in the House".[4] While he was House speaker, the House enacted welfare reform, passed a capital gains tax cut in 1997, and in 1998 passed the first balanced budget since 1969. The poor showing by Republicans in the 1998 Congressional election and pressure from Republican colleagues caused Gingrich's resignation from the speakership on November 5, 1998, and then the House on January 3, 1999.

Since leaving the House, Gingrich has remained active in public policy debates and worked as a political consultant. He founded and chaired several policy think tanks, including American Solutions for Winning the Future and the Center for Health Transformation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[5] He has written or co-authored 27 books. In May 2011, he announced his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Gingrich converted to Roman Catholicism in 2009 with the help of Father C. John McCloskey[6], after being raised Lutheran and spending most of his adult life as a Southern Baptist. He has been married three times, with the first two marriages ending in divorce. He has two children from his first marriage and has been married to Callista (Bisek) Gingrich since 2000.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Doisneau's Les Halles: The Ever-Transforming Heart of Paris

by Nicole Smith, About.com Paris Travel Contributor

Flatten, build, deconstruct, bulldoze, build again and expand: there is, perhaps, no other place in Paris that has seen more sudden and drastic renovation than the former market area known as Les Halles. Napoleon III's desire to showcase Paris as the world's most beautiful city led to architect Victor Baltard's constructon of twelve cast iron market pavilions in 1870. In 1933, a 21 year-old French photographer named Robert Doisneau began using his Leica camera to capture the bustling central marketplace for the next 40 years. His 200 black and white photographs of the area are featured in the free exhibition "Doisneau: Paris Les Halles" currently running at the city hall (Hotel de Ville).

The exhibit is located in the hospitality room, a space which provides the intimacy that was felt during the 1950s and 1960s at Les Halles. Doisneau's genuine street scenes capture various guises of the famed marketplace which nearly never slept. At night, activity at Les Halles was at its peak, with merchandise arriving from all regions of France for traders to begin selling when the market bell rang at 1 a.m. Cafes and restaurants were open 24 hours a day, which not only offered a place for social gatherings, but also served as a venue for conducting transactions and lending a short repose for workers. More than 5,000 people worked at Les Halles: butchers, fishmongers, cheese makers, florists, etc. Every square meter of the quarter was used, thus making Les Halles a truly communal setting.

From smiling laborers at their posts on the street to butchers proudly displaying their meat underground, Doisneau excelled in taking portraits of the everyday life and festivities of the marketplace. He was also able to capture the mass numbers of people and products that cluttered the site through expansive field shots. Perhaps the most amusing sequence shows people from all walks of life who frequented the quarter, each hopping over the same garbage-ridden puddle.

The tone of the exhibit quickly changes, however, after 1969, when the government decided to move Les Halles outside of Paris to Rungis due to poor sanitary conditions. From there, the exhibit explores the rapid change of Les Halles from a busy marketplace to a bulldozed construction site. All of the Baltard pavilions were destroyed or moved in order to make way for an RER commuter train station and The Forum des Halles, a massive shopping center which is currently undergoing yet another massive and costly renovation.

Doisneau's pictures from the 1970's depict anxious spectators overlooking the construction until the opening of the Forum in 1979. The exhibit truly reflects just how quickly Les Halles has modernized and remodernized itself, from a marketplace to a mega-mall. Asked why he chose the middle of the 20th century to concentrate his lens on Les Halles, Doisneau replied, "I knew it was going to disappear. I absolutely wanted to keep [a] memory of it."

Exhibition: Doisneau: Paris Les Halles​
When: February 8th through April 28th, 2012
Location: Hotel de Ville (Metro Hotel de Ville)

Related: March Events in Paris

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Official: G-Power BMW M5 F10M

G-Power just released their package for the BMW M5 F10M, this G-Power BMW M5 F10M takes the luxury German saloon to the next level.

With an output of 640hp, 80hp more than the stock M5 F10, and 777Nm of Torque at 1,500rpm the G-Power M5 sprints from 0-100km/h in just 3.9 seconds. The top speed is electronically limited to 315km/h. Sadly G-Power is not present at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, but we will keep you informed about the first opportunity customers and fans can see the new G-Power in real life.

G-Power not only played with the M5′s ECU but also added a stainless steel rear muffler, coil-over suspension type GM5-RS and a ceramic braking system. The new black G-Power M5 sits on 21 inch forged G-Power Silverstone RS wheels. The white version in the photo gallery below comes with the 21 inch G-Power Silverstone Clubsport wheels.from http://www.gtspirit.com

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Megaupload Founder Kim Schmitz Car Collection in Antibes

You can’t fail to have heard of Kim Schmitz over the past week. Whether you know of him by the name Kim Dotcom or by the name Kim Tim Jim Vestor, his internet company, Megaupload has been frontpage news following his arrest last Thursday. One thing that immediately struck us was his vast car collection. We knew the former Gumball 3000 participant loved his Mercedes-Benz and he didn’t disappoint when the police finally released a list of the cars Kim had collected at his New Zealand mansion.

Autoblog.nl recently got hold of a picture gallery of the cars during a trip to Europe last year. The photos were taken in the French port of Antibes, between Cannes and Nice.The pictures show his Mercedes CL65 AMG (KIM.COM), Mercedes CL63 AMG (HACKER), Mercedes S65 AMG (CEO), Mercedes CLK DTM AMG (EVIL) and Rolls-Royce Phantom (GOD). The pictures reveal that the Mercedes CLK-DTM had been fitted with a NOS modification. During this trip Kim rented the whole of the Nurburgring for a day to test these cars to the limit!

As for Kim’s case, he was recently denied bail after the court found him to be a flight risk. The judge did think he had an arguable defense to the copyright claims and admitted that he could not access whether the United States had an arguable case or not. The circumstances of his arrest were made public too. The police flooded his house with 70 New Zealand police officers at the request of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. They had to cut Kim out of his safe room where they found him in a corner with a number of unlicensed firearms.

from http://www.gtspirit.com

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Volkswagen Unveils EA288 Diesel Engine Family

Volkswagen is introducing two highly innovative engine ranges this year, both of them comprised of four-cylinder units and some of which are potentially headed to the U.S.

One of these is a gasoline-powered four-cylinder engine family dubbed the EA211, which we previously reported would be the first four-cylinder engine on the market with cylinder deactivation technology.

The first EA211 engine will debut in the Volkswagen Polo range in Europe this summer before filtering across to other markets.

The other engine family Volkswagen is introducing is the new EA288 diesel range, which has already been previewed in concept form in the Cross Coupe TDI plug-in hybrid on show this week at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show.

Making up the EA288 family is a series of TDI turbodiesel engines ranging from 1.6 to 2.0 liters in displacement.

The latter is the unit that is most likely destined for U.S. sale, where it will appear in vehicles such as the Volkswagen Jetta TDI. It will develop upwards of 190 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque, a considerable rise over Volkswagen’s current 2.0-liter TDI mill, which delivers 140 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. However, it is also expected to be more fuel efficient.

Standout features shared by both the EA211 and EA288 engines includes a non-replacement timing belt, faster heating systems for cold-weather conditions, and a pair of counter-rotating balance shafts to improve refinement.from http://www.motorauthority.com

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

French car sales plummet 20%

New car sales in France plunged by an annualised 20.2 per cent in February, industry data showed this week, with the worst falls recorded by PSA Peugeot Citroen whose announced tie up with General Motors pushed PSA shares down.

Ratings agency Moody's downgraded the PSA group one notch to non-investment status, warning that similar alliances in the auto sector often failed to match expectations.

Moody's slapped Peugeot with a Ba3 rating and a negative outlook based on poor earnings while adding that previous mergers and alliances "have often not resulted in the anticipated competitive advantage and improved performance".

Sales in February by Peugeot plummeted by 29.2 percent while fellow French carmaker Renault saw its sale drop 28.5 percent.

The sharp drop is in large part explained by strong sales a year earlier fuelled by a French "cash-for-clunkers" scheme that subsidised new car purchases to boost the auto sector.

Sales in February by foreign automakers were stronger, falling only 7.3 percent overall with some companies, such as Japan's Nissan, German BMW of Germany and South Korea's Hyundai, showing growth.

But sales from General Motors fell by 25.7 percent to 7,819 cars. The drop in new car registrations should continue in March, CCFA warned and the committee has forecast a total market contraction of between 7 and 10 percent for this year.

On Wednesday GM and Peugeot - Europe's number two automaker - said they would form a global partnership with GM taking a seven-percent stake in the French firm through a reported one-billion-euro capital increase.

The two companies agreed to share vehicle platforms and create a joint venture to purchase commodities and other goods and services. They targeted $2 billion (1.5 billion euros) in annual savings within five years from the alliance.

Peugeot's share price sank by more than 5.0 percent on Thursday in a largely flat Paris market with traders focused on the capital increase caused by the venture instead of any potential synergies.

"The share price is suffering because of the capital increase that will dilute the shares and (traders) are ignoring the good news for the moment," Deutsche Bank analyst Gaeten Toulemonde said.

The automakers have struggled with flagging sales in Europe, where the eurozone debt crisis has brought on recession and a the sharp slowdown in demand for autos.

Thousands of workers at a Peugeot factory north of Paris were temporarily laid off this week as the company looks to avoid stockpiling as demand dwindles.

Hundreds of workers at a Renault factory west of Paris meanwhile marched and blocked traffic on Wednesday demanding salary increases, but Renault said its hands were tied by the deteriorating auto market.

Hot Searches:
Warragamba Dam (http://news.ninemsn.com)

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

US reporter's body to go home 'as soon as possible: embassy

The body of US journalist Marie Colvin, killed in Syria along with French photographer Remi Ochlik, is to be repatriated "as soon as possible" after arriving in Paris on Sunday, the US embassy said.

"I can confirm that her remains are here and will be repatriated to the US as soon as possible," US embassy spokeswoman Sophie Roy-Sultan told AFP.

The bodies of Colvin, 56, and Ochlik, 28, arrived in Paris from Damascus early on Sunday after they were killed in a rocket attack in the rebel Baba Amr neighbourhood of the besieged Syrian city Homs on February 22.

The bodies had been formally identified in Damascus on Friday by French and Polish diplomats. Colvin's employer, Britain's Sunday Times, said earlier that her body was expected to be flown to the United States on Monday or Tuesday.

French reporter Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro newspaper and British photographer Paul Conroy were wounded in the same attack that killed their colleagues.

The Syrian regime is facing international condemnation as it continues to block the Red Cross from delivering desperately needed aid to Baba Amr. from http://www.expatica.com

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

St. Patrick's Day in Paris

By Aedín Mac Devitt
Paris might lag behind Dublin or New York when it comes to St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, but March 17th is still an important date on the Parisian calendar. Expats and locals alike flock to the city's numerous Irish pubs to raise a toast to the man responsible for green Guinness and some of the world's liveliest street parades. Thanks to the city’s ever-increasing Irish community, St. Patrick’s Day in Paris is a fun event, free of the cliches and paddywhackery that characterized it in the past.

Whatever your taste, March 17th should not pass you by without some form of celebration, and Paris has plenty on offer to ensure you have a Lá Fhéile Phádraig (Happy St. Patrick's Day).

Irish Pubs in Paris

For many, March 17th is synonymous with Irish pub culture-- so it's not surprising that most of the St. Patrick's Day action is scheduled in Paris' impressive supply of Irish pubs, frequented by expats and those attracted by the laid-back, homey atmosphere often lacking in chic Parisian counterparts. Regular bars will also be jumping on the Paddy’s Day bandwagon, offering specials to pull the crowds, but are best avoided in favor of an Irish equivalent, where you will be guaranteed craic, sport agus spraoi (fun and games).

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Fashion is for fun at Kenzo in Paris

Hands on hips, the US model Karlie Kloss glided down an elevator, shaking her mini-skirt to a punchy soundtrack, at the start of Kenzo's autumn-winter runway show on Sunday, day five of Paris Fashion Week.

Showcased inside a 1960s Paris university, its walls coloured orange, pink and yellow, the latest look by Kenzo's design duo, the New Yorkers Carol Lim and Humberto Leon brightened up a wet, blustery day in the French capital.

Models slid down the elevators criss-crossing the interior courtyard, four-storeys high, walking round its corridors in patterned trenches, neon stiletto heels, animal-print sweaters or wool coats with colourful knit sleeves.

The design duo explained they used home decoration as the starting point for prints on raincoats and jackets, suggestive of a country interior like a grapevine motif set against black or white.

"We wanted this girl to know who she was," Lim told reporters of the bold palette of blues, reds, bright greens or magenta, after greeting a long line of well-wishers including the hip-hop icon Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. from http://www.expatica.com

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS