


















































































































































































![Notre-Dame de Reims is the Roman Catholic cathedral where the kings of France were crowned until 1825.[228] Notre-Dame de Reims is the Roman Catholic cathedral where the kings of France were crowned until 1825.[228]](http://cdn6.wn.com/pd/37/7a/fe954ef4c46fbac69f26629f822d_small.jpg)









2007 was designated as: International Heliophysical Year. International Polar Year. European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. Year of Rumi. Year of the Dolphin.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Gerald Celente |
|---|---|
| Birth date | November 29, 1946 |
| Birth place | The Bronx, New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Trend forecaster |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | White |
| Parents | }} |
In 2009 Celente predicted turmoil which he described as "Obamageddon" and he was a popular guest on conservative cable-TV shows such as ''Fox News Sunday'' and Glenn Beck's television program. In April 2009 Celente wrote, "Wall Street controls our financial lives; the media manipulates our minds. These systems cannot be changed from within. There is no alternative. Without a revolution, these institutions will bankrupt the country, keep fighting failed wars, start new ones, and hold us in perpetual intellectual subjugation." He appeared on the ''Glenn Beck'' show and criticized the U.S. stimulus plan of 2009, calling government controlled capitalism "fascism" and saying shopping malls in the U.S. would become "ghost malls." Celente has said, "smaller communities, the smaller groups, the smaller states, the more self-sustaining communities, will 'weather the crisis in style' as big cities and hypertrophic suburbias descend into misery and conflict," and forecasts "a downsizing of America."
Ghost malls have become a common sight across America. Especially hard-hit are big chain stores (Sears, Home Depot, etc.). (T.J. Summer 08, pg. 8)
While the Mayan and Hopi prophecies of global destruction do not come to pass, 2012 is indeed a watershed year that sees the death of an ailing and unsustainable global economic system and lifestyle and its replacement with something better. (T.J. Summer 08, pg. 2)
By 2012, Obama is viewed by most as a stale president who sold himself as a fresh, visionary candidate in 2008 and instead proved to be a servant of the big corporations and the military-industrial complex like his predecessors.(T.J. Summer 09, pg. 5) His economic policies only delayed disaster and in fact have made the situation worse: Expansionary monetary policy and the various government bailouts and stimulus programs create a "Bailout Bubble" that invariably bursts in a cataclysm for the U.S. and world economy.(T.J. Summer 09, pg. 11) Obama blames other factors for this and might have even tried to start a war by 2012 to distract attention from the domestic misery.(T.J. Summer 09, pg. 12) Obama's foreign policy has also failed to accomplish anything significant on the world stage, and Pakistan is a mess and the Afghan war continues to drag on without hope of conclusion.(T.J. Summer 09, pg. 12)
In the 2012 U.S. elections, online news sites, bloggers and independent journalists wield as much influence on voters as mainstream media outlets (TV, cable, magazines, newspapers) for the first time. This breaks the corporate and moneyed stranglehold on American politics and allows a third party to attain nation-level recognition. (T.J. Summer 08, pg. 5)
Government-run lotteries, on the other hand, will thrive. (T.J. Summer 08, pg. 9)
In America and to a lesser extent overseas, consumer spending habits will be motivated out of fear and escapism. Businesses that capitalize upon this will succeed. (T.J. Summer 09, pg. 24)
Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:American economics writers Category:Futurologists Category:People from the Bronx Category:People from New York City
de:Gerald Celente fr:Gerald Celente pl:Gerald Celente sv:Gerald CelenteThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| name | Ben Pridmore |
|---|---|
| occupation | Accountant, World Memory Champion |
| website | }} |
Ben Pridmore is a champion memory sport competitor and accountant.
He held the official world record for memorizing the order of a randomly shuffled 52-card deck, and has memorised a pack in a time of 24.68 seconds on television. This record was beaten in 2010 by German memory athlete and lawyer Simon Reinhard. He is ranked number one in the world ranking list for Memory Sports. Pridmore's victory at the 2009 World Championship was his eighth consecutive memory competition win since coming second at the 2007 World Championship.
Besides memory sports he is famous for his mental calculation skills and took part in the Mental Calculation World Cup in 2004, 2006 and 2010. He has also won several medals at the Mind Sports Olympiad including becoming the 2001 World Champion at the ten disciplined mind sport competition the decamentathlon.
Category:British mnemonists Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Games all-rounders Category:People educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Horncastle
de:Ben Pridmore es:Ben PridmoreThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| name | The Chaser |
|---|---|
| medium | Print, online, radio, television, stage & Christmas crackers |
| nationality | Australian |
| active | 1999–present |
| genre | Satire |
| subject | Politics |
| notable work | ''The Chaser'' (1999–2005) ''The Election Chaser'' (2001)''The Chaser Decides'' (2004 & 2007), ''CNNNN'' (2002–2003) ''Cirque du Chaser'' (2005) ''The Chaser's War on Everything'' (2006–2009) ''The Chaser's Age of Terror Variety Hour'' (2008) ''Yes We Canberra'' (2010) |
| website | |
| current members | Charles Firth Andrew Hansen Dominic Knight Chas Licciardello Julian Morrow Craig Reucassel Chris Taylor |
The Chaser are an Australian satirical comedian group, known for their television programmes on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation channel. The group take their name from their production of satirical newspaper, a publication known to challenge conventions of taste. The group's motto is "Striving for Mediocrity in a World of Excellence".
Charles Firth. Firth decided in 1999 that the founding members should produce a newspaper, in an attempt not to "grow up". Firth was the main person who got the project underway and was at the helm of the newspaper until its collapse in 2005. Firth appeared in The Chaser's television and radio productions until 2004. In 2005, Firth moved to the United States so his wife could finish her PhD. Firth, however, became The Chaser's American correspondent for the 2006 series of ''The Chaser's War on Everything'' and wrote a book titled ''American Hoax''. Firth did some final stunts in America for the 2007 series in late 2006 and early 2007, before returning to Australia and going solo. Firth then began his own satirical newspaper ''The Manic Times'' in 2007, which collapsed soon after and now exists online.
Julian Morrow. He became the executive producer of the television series after Andrew Denton left the role in 2004.
Chas Licciardello, who had attended Sydney Grammar School with Firth and Knight, started to work on ''The Chaser'' newspaper in 1999, but did not take any credit for his work. However when the newspaper started to go well, he was happy to put his name to his work. Licciardello refers to himself as a writer and not a performer, which is why he does the ‘edgier’ stunts in the television series. He states that he is not very talented and therefore does “lots of dodgy material”.
Chris Taylor had gone to the University of Sydney but never personally knew the four founding members. He moved to Melbourne under a cadetship with the ABC doing journalism. Taylor approached The Chaser, based in Sydney, and asked if they took contributions and The Chaser accepted them. Taylor spent two years emailing his articles to The Chaser, and then quit his job to do a television series based on the 2001 Australian federal election with The Chaser and became a member of The Chaser. Taylor was the anchor with Reucassel in their television productions ''CNNNN'', ''The Chaser Decides'' and ''The Chaser’s War on Everything'' and worked as the script editor for the television shows.
Andrew Hansen worked with some of The Chaser members at the University of Sydney while studying literature and history, performing in their early revues. Hansen started working with the online Chaser website in 2000 writing columns for his ''shITe'' section, which looked at the worst of the internet. After two years, he was considered for a part in the Chaser’s 2002 television series, for the content on ''shITe''. After ''The Election Chaser'' in 2001, The Chaser decided they needed a performer in the team. Hansen then joined in the group in 2002.
The newspaper, first published in 1999, was The Chaser team's first enterprise. ''The Chaser'' only had a limited fan base, with the average sales numbers per issue well under 30,000. When their newspaper was shown as a lead story in all major Australian news broadcasts, not only was the headline widely spread, the concept and the popularity of the newspaper leapt dramatically.
Founding contributors to the newspaper include Gregor Stronach, Johanna Featherstone, Sholto Macpherson, Matt Taylor, David Stewart, and Arion McNicoll. Later contributors include Kara Greiner, Richard Cooke, Shane Cubis, and Tim Brunero. Cartoonists Fiona Katauskas and Andrew Weldon drew for the newspaper from its early days.
''The Chaser'' and its writers had its first major controversy when their 21 February 2003 edition published Prime Minister John Howard’s private home number on its front page with the headline "Howard ignores the people. So call him at home on (02) 9922 6189". The release of the number comes after Howard’s attitude to half a million protesters recently marching for peace. Howard’s number was blocked by the afternoon after receiving many calls in the morning and federal police had been to The Chaser headquarters. The Chaser have stated they received the phone number via an SMS message in 2002.
The Chaser have released five annuals based on ''The Chaser'' newspaper:
After six years of publication The Chaser decided that, due to an inability to meet production costs and failing audiences, they would cease publication of the newspaper. The paper, which originally circulated fortnightly, was being released more sporadically and their 91st and final paper was released on 6 February 2005. The Chaser still planned to continue their writing online and to continue to write their annuals.
The Chaser has since released six annuals and a "best of" annual which compiled the best of the five preceding annuals:
Current writers online are Richard Cooke, Shane Cubis, Dominic Knight, Chas Licciardello, Julian Morrow, and Craig Reucassel with additional material provided by Scott Dooley, Lisa Pryor, David Stewart, Gregor Stronach, and Chris Taylor.
The Chaser team have gone on to create other television shows for ABC TV, including the Logie Award winning ''CNNNN'' in 2002-3 and ''The Chaser Decides'' in 2004. ''CNNNN'' was a satire of not only the popular American news networks CNN and Fox News, but also incorporated Australian and world current affairs into the programme. ''The Election Chaser'' inspired a similar programme covering the 2004 election, ''The Chaser Decides''. The coverage, as with all the Chaser productions, was satirical, but a different view on the way the election was covered by the local media.
''The Chaser Decides'' returned again in 2007 to cover the 24 November election. It purported to be broadcasting from Australian Electoral Commission's National Tally Room.
In 2004-5, Taylor and Reucassel hosted the Triple J radio drive programme ''Today Today''. In 2005 the rest of the team produced ''Chaser News Alert'' ''(CNA)'', aired on ABC2. Episodes of this series were only a few minutes long. Between July 2006 and January 2007 Taylor and Reucassel returned to Triple J to host ''Bloody Sunday'', filling the ''This Sporting Life'' time slot while Roy & HG were on leave from the station. Chas Licciardello and Knight also did a brief fill in show on Triple M called ''Chas and Dom from 'The Chaser'''.
In March 2005, The Chaser members, with the exception of Firth but with CNNNN collaborator Rebecca De Unamuno, wrote and performed a stage production for the Sydney Big Laugh Comedy Festival. ''Cirque du Chaser'', the name a parody of ''Cirque du Soleil'', was performed to eight sell-out audiences which performed stand up comedy, sketches, live music, and video satire. The Chaser then took the show on a national tour which was also sold out. ''Cirque du Chaser'' gave the team confidence to perform in front of a live audience in their new television show, which would be similar to the stage show. The Chaser filmed a pilot for ABC TV in mid 2005 under the working title ''Hey, Hey it’s the Chaser''.
The Chaser team signed a contract with the ABC to produce 27 half-hour episodes for 2006, which would be based on news reviews, studio monologues and confrontations with politicians, celebrities, and business leaders. The project would be performed in front of a live audience compared with their previous news format television productions and was named ''The Chaser's War on Everything''. The first season of ''The Chaser's War on Everything'' premiered on ABC TV on 17 February 2006 at . The series aired late on Friday evenings where it developed a cult following, getting an average national audience of between 591,000 and 821,000 viewers each episode. The last episode of the 2006 season was broadcast on 8 September 2006.
The first thirteen episodes of the first season were released on DVD on 17 August 2006. The release included commentary by The Chaser and the show's crew and included bonus features and unaired scenes. The second DVD for the first season contained the latter thirteen episodes. It was in the same format of the first DVD and was released on 1 November 2006.
''The Chaser's War on Everything'' returned for a second season on Wednesday, 28 March 2007 at 9pm, moving from their Friday night timeslot. It regularly attracted more than a million viewers per episode.
After 20 June episode of season two, the Chaser team suspended the series for ten weeks, so the usual production run time of twenty-six episodes per year did not conclude before the 2007 Australian Federal Election. The second season returned on 5 September 2007.
The Chaser then announced that ''The Chaser's War On Everything'' was on hold during 2008, with a new (ten episode) series in 2009 which began airing on Wednesday, 27 May 2009. In 2008, the team (without Chris Taylor, but plus writer Dominic Knight) toured Australia with a stage show, ''The Chaser's Age of Terror Variety Hour'', produced in conjunction with Laughing Stock.
On 29 July 2009, the final episode of ''The War'' was broadcast.
The new programme, entitled ''Yes We Canberra!'', was formally announced on 12 July. The ABC said that the series would air weekly during the election campaign, with a further episode after the election. It purports to be an audience warm-up for the ABC's flagship current affairs program ''Lateline'' (which does not actually have a studio audience). After the Election date was announced (21 August), it was revealed that the show will premiere on 28 July. A DVD was released 15 September 2010. The Chaser - Election Collection containing all the election shows was released 2 December 2010.
In April 2007, a 15 year old boy duped YouTube into deleting all clips posted from ''The Chaser's War On Everything'' by claiming to be a representative of the ABC. They were later reinstated.
At the 2007 Logie Awards some of the Chaser team were "manhandled" by Crown Casino security staff on the red carpet before being closely supervised for the rest of the evening.
During Dick Cheney's visit to Australia in 2007, members of The Chaser team were included on the official list of terrorists, anarchists, and protesters deemed to pose a threat to the US Vice-President.
The Chaser team gained notoriety and considerable media attention over "The Eulogy Song", written by Chris Taylor and performed by Andrew Hansen on the 17 October 2007 episode of ''The Chaser's War On Everything''. The song satirised the media's posthumous praise of deceased celebrities, regardless of their behaviour in life, and mentioned among others John Lennon, Peter Brock, Stan Zemanek, Princess Diana, Steve Irwin, Donald Bradman, and Kerry Packer. The song attracted comment from both the media and politicians including Kevin Rudd and John Howard, the latter of whom used reference to the song in remarks during a sketch later aired on the programme.
Morrow and Licciardello were arrested by NSW Police on 6 September 2007 outside the InterContinental Hotel after driving a fake motorcade through the Sydney central business district and breaching an APEC security zone. The Chaser crew entered a secure area by masquerading as the motorcade of the Canadian delegation to APEC. They were arrested by police after Licciardello emerged from the car dressed as Osama bin Laden, near the hotel where U.S. President George W. Bush was staying. They were subsequently detained, taken to Surry Hills Police Station for questioning and charged with "entering a restricted area without special justification" under the APEC Meeting (Police Powers) Act 2007. Licciardello, Morrow and the nine other production members were released on bail to appear in court on 4 October 2007. If found guilty, they were liable to serve a maximum 6 months imprisonment, or a maximum 2 years imprisonment if they also had possession or control of a prohibited item with no special justification. The Chaser team issued a statement on 6 September that they had been given permission by police officers to enter the restricted area. Under section 37(2)(b) of the legislation a person has special justification to be in an area if "the person is required, authorised or permitted to be in the area by the Commissioner or a police officer". Subsequently, the hearing was adjourned until 5 December 2007 at the request of ABC lawyers. The charges were dropped near the end of April 2008.
The day after the APEC stunt, police questioned Craig Reucassel, Chris Taylor and Dominic Knight and a film crew from the Chaser after they were involved in a second stunt in central Sydney. The three were released by police after being briefly questioned for carrying around black cardboard boxes dressed up as limousines.
The reaction to the sketch from media commentators was mostly negative. Then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stated that The Chaser team "should hang their heads in shame". He went on to say that "I didn't see that but it's been described to me...I actually don't mind The Chaser taking the mickey out of me or any other politician, at any time and any place....But having a go at kids with a terminal illness is really beyond the pale, absolutely beyond the pale." That morning, the Chaser team along with the ABC managing director, Mark Scott, apologised for airing the skit, with Scott stating that "We have unreservedly apologised for airing that skit,...It's very clear today from the reaction that it's caused considerable offence and distress, particularly to parents of children that are seriously ill....I've spoken to Julian Morrow from The Chaser and my understanding is that certainly wasn't the intention of the script, but that's the consequences of it." The ABC will now change their procedures for reviewing episode content which gets broadcast. Scott continued, "We're going to look at those processes ... I mean we all know that The Chaser push the edges and it's a tightrope that we walk, and I suppose there are many, many skits that they've put to air that have offended someone along the way - that's part of the nature of the satirical and black comedy that they do." The skit has also been cut from any further television airings. The ABC announced on Friday that The Chaser's War on Everything will be suspended for 2 weeks. This was relayed via a message by The Chaser on their website, who stated that whilst they disagree with the decision to suspend the show, they apologise for making the skit, acknowledging that it went too far.
ABC's Managing Director announced on 2009-06-10 that the ABC's Head of Comedy, Amanda Duthie, had been removed from her position after a review of the process which led to the skit being broadcast. He was quoted as saying, "The segment should not have been broadcast. We recognise that it caused unnecessary and unreasonable hurt and offence to our viewers and the broader community and we have apologised for this," adding, "This was an error of judgement." Ms Duthie will continue to be responsible for Arts and Entertainment programs.
In 24 June 2009 episode, the Chaser team acknowledged they had made a mistake by broadcasting the skit. Later on in the show, they recreated the skit, but instead of targeting sick kids, they make fun of Kevin Rudd's anger-management issues.
Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Pranksters Category:Satire Category:Performing groups established in 1999
fr:The Chaser ko:체이서 zh:追趕者This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.