The Muppets unsettling Easter video. Bunnies yum-yum!

This is a really creepy new Muppets Happy Easter video. Watch as Big Mean Carl bashes a garland of baby bunnies with a hulk carrot, afterwards swallows them whole, whilst inexplicably singing, "Stand by Me." The devoured bunnies afterwards finish the carol from inside his dim stomach, holding a flashlight.The video might be PG-rated but The Dish Rag thinks this treads precariously close to psycho torpedo neighborhood.Just for kids? Who? Like small Jeffrey Dahmers?Follow Zap2its Dish Rag& on Twitter and Zap2it on Facebook for the ultimate celeb headlines and buzz.More Muppet dishElisabeth Hasselbeck to Rielle Hunter: Posing pantyless with Kermit is perverseHow most Muppets died for Zoe Saldanas Oscar dress? .

Haiti assist bid injured by delayed U.N. reply

Tom Brown PORT-AU-PRINCE Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:13pm EST Related News Haiti preserve puncture as sleet turns camps to mudThu, Feb eighteen 2010U.N. assist arch chides agencies on Haiti reliefThu, Feb eighteen 2010Sarkozy visits Haiti, unveils vital assist packageWed, Feb seventeen 2010Tarps, toilets are priorities for quake-hit Haiti: U.N.Mon, Feb fifteen 2010One month after quake, Haitians stick on to weep deadFri, Feb twelve 2010 < 1 / 7 >

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Clutching involuntary attack rifles, truckloads of U.N. infantry patrolled the streets of Haiti"s cracked collateral on the day after the trembler strike last month, clearly preoccupied to the wretchedness around them.

World&&&&Natural Disasters

Cries for assistance from people digging for survivors in collapsed buildings were drowned out by the bark of heavy-duty engines as the infantry plowed by Port-au-Prince but interlude to stick on rescue efforts, majority less lead them.

A usual steer since they were deployed in 2004, the U.N. infantry huddled in the shade of their canopied vehicles.

There were about 9,000 uniformed U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Haiti when the upheaval struck on Jan twelve and they were the judicious "first responders" to the mess in the bankrupt Caribbean country, whose notoriously diseased executive supervision was impressed by the scale of the tragedy.

Initially, however, nothing of the peacekeepers appeared to be concerned in hands-on charitable service in what puncture healing experts report as the vicious initial 72 hours after a harmful trembler strikes.

Their reply to the abominable pang was singular to you do security and seeking for looters after the bulk 7.0 upheaval intended majority of the collateral and took what Haitian President Rene Preval says could be as majority as 300,000 lives.

There was looting in the capital, but it paled in some-more aged with the astringency of the charitable crisis.

Horribly-injured patients flooded overstretched hospitals, forcing healing staff to confirm that patients to yield and that were already as well far left to try saving.

"Doctors played God," pronounced Tyler Marshall, a maestro former Los Angeles Times match operative with an general assist organisation that helped out in a tent city erected at the tallness of the destruction on the drift of Port-au-Prince"s University Hospital, the country"s largest.

Scores of U.N. crew died in the quake, together with Hedi Annabi, head of the U.N. mission that was set up in 2004. That helps insist what majority have criticized as a glacially delayed kickoff of service operations after one of history"s misfortune healthy disasters.

But in the days and weeks that followed it mostly seemed that lessons from alternative disasters were abandoned in Haiti as fears of rioting or anarchy overshadowed concerns about removing assist out quickly.

The U.N."s tip charitable assist official, John Holmes, is between those who have chided service agencies, together with the United Nations itself, for you do as well small to assistance Haiti.

"We cannot ... wait for for for the subsequent puncture for these lessons to be learned," Holmes wrote in a trusted email initial published on the website of the biography Foreign Policy.

"There is an obligatory need to progress significantly genius on the ground, to urge coordination, vital formulation and sustenance of aid," pronounced Holmes.

Edmond Mulet, behaving head of the U.N. mission, concurred in an talk that it played a singular charitable purpose in the initial couple of days after the trembler since the operations were effectively decapitated.

"At the unequivocally commencement it was unequivocally formidable since all the domicile was utterly broken and all the care of the mission was killed," Mulet told Reuters.

"CRIMINALS AND BANDITS"

Mulet gained prominence for wielding an iron fist during a prior army as head of the U.N. mission when he led mostly Brazilian "blue helmet" infantry in a successful crackdown on Haiti"s heavily armed gangs.

And he has finished no tip about sophistry the competing needs of service operations with law enforcement, in his bid to lane down the some-more than 3,000 inmates who took value of the trembler to shun from the main prison.

"We are here additionally to yield security," he pronounced when asked about the mess of convoys of rifle-wielding U.N. infantry to poke for people trapped in the rubble of the busted capital.

"I still have to patrol, I still have to go after all these criminals and bandits that transient from the inhabitant penitentiary, the squad leaders, the criminals, the killers, the kidnappers. I cannot unequivocally confuse myself from you do that."

The service mission shifted in to higher rigging after U.S. infantry deployed in large numbers and set up a supply sequence to get food and disinfectant in to areas great out for aid.

But there were still majority bottlenecks and setbacks, mostly involving U.N.-linked food distributions hobbled by unsound organization, reserve and throng control.

Unfortunately, U.N. infantry in Haiti have over the years gained a repute for toughness and abuse some-more than for easing pang in the lowest nation in the Americas.

"The usually time I"ve seen one of these U.N. infantry burst out of the behind of a lorry was to kick up on somebody or take a shot at them," pronounced a piece of the U.S. Army"s 82nd Airborne Division, as he worked security during a new assist handout.

"These guys have since all of us in unvaried a bad repute here," he said, asking not to be identified.

Haiti"s wrecked infrastructure and bad ride links finished it formidable to get assist out and keep it flowing, but that frequency finished the incident opposite from that in alternative new disasters around the globe.

"POOREST AND MOST VULNERABLE"

"The lowest and the majority exposed people lend towards to live in the regions that are strike the majority by healthy disasters," pronounced Solomon Kuah, an puncture healing medicine formed in New York who outlayed 4 weeks in Port-au-Prince after the quake.

There are no arguable estimates for the series of survivors who died from injuries due to unsound healing supplies.

But Henriette Chamouillet, the World Health Organization"s deputy in Haiti, pronounced all from staff shortages to bureaucracy and a miss of make-up lists embroiled the smoothness of containers full of medicines from Port-au-Prince"s airfield to doctors on the ground.

Port-au-Prince sits usually 700 miles off the seashore of Miami, that is home to a large Haitian-American community, and it seemed ludicrous that so couple of the U.S. infantry rushed there spoke French or were accompanied by translators.

One retaining picture of pell-mell food distributions came when U.S. helicopters offloaded boxes of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) at a site in the capital. Many Haitians non-stop them up usually to toss them afar in offend since no French or Creole-language instructions were enclosed with the assumingly invalid packets of dust, explaining that they indispensable to be churned with H2O as piece of their preparation.

Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, has touted the Haiti service mission as "the largest and majority successful general poke and rescue bid ever fabricated in history."

But some-more than 6 weeks after the upheaval hit, the mission is still mostly in an puncture reply mode. The U.N."s World Food Program is tying the food rations to 55-pound (25 kg) bags of rice and the Haitian supervision estimates that a million upheaval survivors are still vital in the streets in temporary encampments with no using H2O or toilets.

Doctors are roughly finished traffic with dire injuries but reconstruction for a little 40,000 amputees and rebuilding Haiti"s health infrastructure are between long-term challenges.

"This is unequivocally a mess of Biblical proportions," pronounced Lewis Lucke, who was the USAID executive in Iraq prior to entrance to Haiti as U.S. ambassador.

U.N. and alternative officials have pronounced the tellurian reply to Haiti"s upheaval was quicker and some-more in effect than in alternative new disasters, together with the Asian tsunami that killed 226,000 people in thirteen countries in Dec 2004.

But experts contend the United Nations has a lot to sense from smaller, some-more nimble healing groups similar to International Medical Corps, or IMC, and Paris-based Medicins Sans Frontieres, along with charities some-more experienced in distributing aid, such as CARE and Catholic Relief Services.

Kuah, who concurrent service efforts for IMC, a California-based organisation that had rarely learned doctors treating patients in Haiti twenty-three hours after the trembler struck, stressed the "need for speed" when it comes to saving lives.

"When you ask yourself if there were ways you could have prevented some-more mortalities or discontinued additional mortality, with earthquakes, in particular, it"s some-more timing than anything else," pronounced Kuah.

(Additional stating by Catherine Bremer, Jackie Frank, Patricia Zengerle, Mica Rosenberg and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kieran Murray)

World Natural Disasters

Many people benefit weight after knee deputy

Tue April 13, 2010 3:40pm EDT Related News Walking might ease a little burdens of menopauseTue, April thirteen 2010Radiation used inappropriately in depot cancerMon, April twelve 2010People get hungrier when they"re carnivorous for sleepFri, April 9 2010Obesity might progress pneumonia risk in menThu, April 8 2010Prostate cancer surgery some-more dear for portly menWed, April 7 2010

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People mostly pack on the pounds after undergoing a knee replacement, a new investigate hints, and this could put both their new and old knees -- and their altogether health -- at risk.

Health

It"s been the long-standing idea of doctors and patients that when corner pang is relieved after surgery, the barriers to practice will be ameliorated and weight loss can be achieved. "Our commentary do not await this notion," Joseph Zeni, Jr., and L. Snyder-Mackler of the University of Delaware in Newark report.

People typically bear knee deputy to provide serious osteoarthritis, they note. Due to pain, rigidity and flesh weakness, they add, people with exceedingly arthritic joints might turn sedentary, whilst one some-more weight in and of itself can worse osteoarthritis by stressing the joint.

Zeni and Snyder-Mackler investigated the long-term goods of knee deputy on physique weight. They followed 106 people who underwent a single-knee deputy and 31 people of identical ages who weren"t pang from knee pain.

Two years after the operation, the researchers found, two-thirds of patients had gained weight; on average, they put on about twelve pounds. The superfluous third lost an normal of about 4 pounds. However, there was no enlarge in physique weight in the carry out group.

The knee deputy patients who gained weight showed a weakening in their quadriceps or thigh muscles in between one and dual years after the operation, whilst there was no shift in quad strength seen in those who had lost weight. The carry out organisation additionally showed a little thigh flesh weakening, but less than was seen in the knee deputy patients who had gained weight.

Given the complicated one some-more bucket placed on the knees of people who benefit a poignant volume of weight after knee surgery -- as well as the actuality that people lend towards to put some-more weight on their non-operated knee after the procession -- weight benefit would expected speed up the course of arthritis in that knee, the researchers note.

The actuality that people who gained weight additionally had weaker quads, that is compared with worse functioning, could additionally enlarge their odds of wanting to have the alternative knee replaced, they add.

What"s more, being sedentary and gaining weight can additionally up people"s risk of heart attacks and alternative cardiovascular problems, the researchers point out.

Zeni and Snyder-Mackler suggest that doctors speak with their knee deputy patients prior to and after surgery about the significance of progressing a full of health weight.

If a chairman is still experiencing knee pang that creates sportive difficult, they add, they can try H2O aerobics, swimming, or top physique exercises to get the cardiovascular examination they need.

SOURCE: Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, 2010.

Health

In full: the minute on inhabitant word from 77 heading economists

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Dear Sir,

As expected, a key choosing issue concerns how most to cut supervision expenditure in 2010/11. The main antithesis celebration right away proposes to cut an extra 6 billion in 2010/11, on tip of the measures already programmed by the government. This cut is described as potency savings. But in macroeconomic conditions it is usually a cut by an additional name. It will lead without delay to pursuit waste and in a roundabout way to serve falls in spending by the standard multiplier process. At a time when liberation is delicate, it could even affect certainty to the grade that we are sloping behind in to retrogression with most incomparable pursuit consequences.

This is not the time for such a destabilising action. The liberation is still fragile. Firms and households are saving some-more to reconstruct their change sheets. This equates to that firms are investing less and households are spending less. Only when the liberation is well underway, will it be protected to have additional cuts in supervision expenditure.

The initial step is to have certain that expansion returns, and to illustrate that taxation profits recover. Rash movement right away could endanger not usually jobs but additionally the prospects for shortening the deficit.

Related LinksLeading economists behind Brown on taxTories 18bn black hole equates to some-more cutsMultimediaLIVE BLOG: blow-by-blow - Election 2010 GRAPHIC: your guide to the good debate

Lord Layard, Emeritus Professor of Economics, LSE; owner of the LSE Centre for Economic Performance

Lord Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, University of Warwick

Chris Allsopp, Reader in Economic Policy, University of Oxford; former part of of the MPC

Philip Arestis, Professor of Economics, University of Cambridge

Michael Ambrosi, Jean Monnet Professor for European Economic Policy, University of Trier, Germany

Mark Shaffer, Professor of Economics, Heriot-Watt University

David Blanchflower, Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College, USA, former part of the MPC

William Brown, Montague Burton Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Cambridge

Wendy Carlin, Professor of Economics, University College, London

Victoria Chick, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University College, London

Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics, University of Cambridge; former President, Royal Economic Society

Paul Davidson, Emeritus Holly Chair of Excellence in Political Economy, University of Tennessee, USA

Sheila Dow, Emeritus Professor in Economics, University of Stirling

Peter Elias, Professor of Economics, University of Warwick

Richard Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics, Harvard University, USA

Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge

Andrew Graham, Master of Balliol College, University of Oxford

Paul Gregg, Professor of Economics, University of Bristol

Peter Hammond, Marie Curie Professor, Department of Economics, University of Warwick

Colin Harbury, Emeritus Professor of Economics, City University London

Jeremy Hardie, Vice-President, Royal Economic Society

Shaun P. Hargreaves, Professor of Economics, University of East Anglia

P.E. Hart, Professor of Economics, University of Reading

Sir David Hendry, Professor of Economics, University of Oxford; former President, Royal Economic Society

Susan Himmelweit, Professor of Economics, Open University

Geoffrey M Hodgson, Research Professor Economics, University of Hertfordshire

George Irvin, Professor of Economics, SOAS

Mary Kaldor, Professor of Global Governance, LSE

Dr Prue Kerr, Cambridge

Heinz D. Kurz, Professor of Economics, University of Graz, Austria

Michael S. Lawlor, Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University, USA

Richard Lipsey, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Stephen Machin, Professor of Economics, University College London

Sir James Mirrlees, Nobel Laureate and Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, University of Cambridge; former President, Royal Economic Society

Marcus Miller, Professor of Economics, University of Warwick

Jonathan Michie, Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange, University of Oxford

Dr Lionel Page, Research Associate, Judge Business School University of Cambridge

Richard Parker, Professor of Economics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA

Lord Peston, Emeritus Professor of Economics, QML, London

Keith Pilbeam, Professor of Economics, City University, London

Rick outpost der Ploeg, Professor of Economics, University of Oxford

Richard Portes, Professor of Economics, London Business School; Vice-President, Royal Economic Society

Sergio Rossi, Chair of Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Malcolm Sawyer, Professor of Economics, Leeds University Business School

Ronald Schettkat, Professor of Economics, Schumpeter School University of Wppertal, Germany

Ekkehart Schlicht, Professor of Economics, University of Munich, Germany

Mark Setterfield, Professor of Economics, Trinity College, Hartford, USA

Aubrey Silberston, Vice-President, Royal Economic Society

David Soskice, Research Professor of Comparative Political Economy, University of Oxford

Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate and Emeritus Institute Professor of Economics, MIT, USA

Jim Taylor, Professor of Economics, Lancaster University

David Vines, Professor of Economics, University of Oxford

Simon Wren-Lewis, Professor of Economics, University of Oxford

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor Economics of Innovation, Open University

Angel Asensio, Associate Professor Economics, University Paris 13, France

Dr Santonu Basu, Senior Lecturer in Banking and Finance, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London

Brian Haines, Principal Lecturer in Economics, Westminster Business School

Dr Andy Denis, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Economics, City University London

Peter E. Earl, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia

Dr Jorge Garcia-Arias, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Leon, Spain

Marco Gundermann, Senior Lecturer in Economics, UWIC, Cardiff

Dr M G Hayes, Fellow in Economics, University of Cambridge

Dr Jerome De Henau, Lecturer in Economics, Open University

Robert Jones, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Nottingham Business School

Yiannis Kitromilides, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Westminster

Mogens Ove Madsen, Associate Professor Economics, Aalborg University, Denmark

Gary Mongiovi, Professor of Economics, St Johns University, Jamaica

Dr Sima Motamen-Samadian, Principal Lecturer in Economics, Westminster Business School

Jonathan Perraton, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Sheffield

Dr Iraj Seyf, Senior Lecturer Economics, Staffordshire University

Dr Kalim Siddiqui, Senior Lecturer Economics, University of Huddersfield

Andrew Tylecote, Professor of Economics, University of Sheffield

Philip B. Whyman, Professor of Economics, University of Central Lancashire

Dr Nicos Zafiris, Head of Department Economics and Quantitative Methods, Westminster Business School

Alex Bryson, Senior Research Fellow at NIESR and the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Geraint Johnes, Professor of Economics, University of Lancaster

Vijay Joshi, Fellow in Economics of St Johns College, Oxford

Rout takes feverishness off Carlo Ancelotti Premier League

Nick Szczepanik, James Ducker & ,}

The vigour ascent on Carlo Ancelotti was carried by a storm of goals last night as Chelsea flog Portsmouth 5-0 to move inside of a point of Manchester United at the tip of the Barclays Premier League.

Ancelotti, though, will feel a debt of thankfulness to David James, the England goalkeeper, and Lee Mason, the arbitrate at Fratton Park, for giving his side a assisting hand.

James blundered to present Chelsea the lead after 32 minutes, miskicking as he attempted to transparent and permitting Didier Drogba to score. Although the round appeared to take a bad bounce, it was the sort of howler that has stubborn James via his career and he will be relieved that Fabio Capello, the England manager, was elsewhere.

Mason showed Florent Malouda a yellow rather than a red label after his bend held Ricardo Rocha. The Portsmouth defender left the margin on a bracket with a suspected fractured cheekbone, whilst Malouda went on to measure twice as Chelsea ran afar with the second half, adding serve goals by Drogba and Frank Lampard.

Related LinksChelsea close opening after James"s gift Portsmouth given accede to offload playersCampbell creates point at ONeills expense

The result, however achieved, quells speak of a predicament at Stamford Bridge and equates to that, with a revisit to Old Trafford on Saturday week, Chelsea sojourn in carry out of their future in the pretension race.

After dropping dual points afar to Blackburn Rovers on Sunday and going out of the Champions League at the hands of Jos Mourinhos Inter Milan, it was a acquire lapse to winning ways for Ancelottis group but afterwards anything alternative than feat over the leagues bottom bar would have converted a play in to a crisis.

Portsmouth had taken a singular point from thirteen matches opposite Chelsea given reaching the tip moody in 2003 and their patrol were in the emporium window as a outcome of the Premier Leagues preference yesterday to concede them to sell players outward the send window.

James, however, would not have won any admirers when he came out to transparent Decos header and longed for his flog completely, permitting Drogba to run the round in to the dull net.

Portsmouth can right away spin their attentions to an FA Cup semi-final opposite Tottenham Hostpur guided by Harry Redknapp, their former physical education instructor on Apr 11.

Tottenham came from at the behind of last night to flog Fulham 3-1 in their sixth-round replay. Bobby Zamora put Fulham forward with his seventeenth idea of the season, but David Bentley equalised dual mins after entrance on as a half-time surrogate when his free flog from the left drifted in to the net. Roman Pavlyuchenko volleyed Spurs in to the lead on the hour and Eidur Gudjohnsen done it 3-1.

Tempers flared on the sidelines at the City of Manchester Stadium when Roberto Mancini and David Moyes were sent to the stands in the shutting mins as Everton flog Manchester City 2-0.

Mancini, the City manager, reacted furiously when Moyes held the round and unsuccessful to throw it behind immediately. The Italian barged in to his Everton counterpart, knocking the round out of his hands and call an indignant event in between the pair, who had to be distant by stewards.

The Football Association might take movement when it reviews footage of the situation today.

for acne Zits, pimples, bumps and blemishes are a young persons worst nightmare

General Growth creditors Simon conflict Ackman

Paritosh Bansal and Ilaina Jonas NEW YORK Tue March 2, 2010 3:22pm EST Related News General Growth 4th-quarter FFO turns negativeMon, March 1 2010UPDATE 2-General Growth 4th-quarter FFO turns negativeMon, March 1 2010For General Growth creditors: money vs stock?Tue, February twenty-three 2010Brookfield eyeing bid for General Growth stake-WSJMon, February twenty-two 2010US CREDIT-Simon Property debt might be pressured by GGP bidMon, February twenty-two 2010 Stocks & &

William Ackman, Hedge account physical education instructor and the owner of Pershing Square Capital, speaks during the Wall Street Journal Deals and Dealmakers conference, in New York, Jun 11, 2008.

Credit: Reuters/Chip East

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Growth Properties Inc"s GGWPQ.PK unsecured creditors and swain Simon Property Group (SPG.N) on Tuesday criticized William Ackman"s purpose in the mall owner"s restructuring plan, alleging conflicts of seductiveness since his on all sides as a executive and largest shareholder.

Deals

Ackman has corroborated a reorder plan that calls for his Pershing Square Capital Management sidestep account to suggest Brookfield Asset Management (BAMa.TO) certain protections in lapse for the Canadian organisation financing General Growth"s stand-alone exit from bankruptcy.

That suggest rivals a rounded off $10 billion takeover suggest by Simon, underneath that unsecured creditors, who hold about $7 billion of the debt, would get a full liberation of their claims in cash.

Under the Brookfield-backed plan, the form of their liberation -- money or batch -- is not certain as it depends on General Growth raising up to $5.8 billion more.

The central cabinet of General Growth"s unsecured creditors pronounced in a justice filing that the agreement in in in in between Pershing Square and Brookfield effectively restricts General Growth from deliberation pick exchange since it puts the association in to "an viewable dispute of seductiveness situation."

"The Debtors contingency select in in in in between the majority suitable interests of the estates and the mercantile interests of one of their majority active and outspoken directors," it added, referring to Ackman.

Simon, a General Growth creditor, additionally questioned the agreement in in in in between Brookfield and Ackman"s Pershing Square in a apart filing Tuesday.

Under General Growth"s plan, Brookfield would embrace seven-year warrants to squeeze 60 million shares at an practice cost of $15 per share. Until the warrants are authorized by the disaster court, Pershing Square will yield halt protection.

Moreover, if General Growth finished a contract with an one more celebration at some-more than $12.75 per share, Pershing Square would compensate Brookfield a piece of the increase from the own investment in General Growth.

Simon pronounced those warrants were value some-more than $300 million and these stairs constituted understanding protections for Brookfield and gave Ackman an seductiveness in creation certain that Brookfield"s suggest is selected over pick transactions.

"Ackman, therefore, right afar has a singular and personal seductiveness in creation certain that Brookfield is authorized as General Growth"s stalking horse," Simon said. "General Growth is gambling with creditor recoveries at the insistence of the majority risk-hungry shareholders."

Ackman, an romantic financier who controls a rounded off twenty-five percent seductiveness in the mall owner, has declined to criticism on the disaster conflict and was not rught afar accessible on Tuesday. General Growth was not accessible to comment.

The filings come as General Growth is set for a consequential discussion on Wednesday in disaster court, where it is looking a six-month prolongation of the duration when it has an disdainful right to record a reorder plan.

After a disaster justice discussion on Monday, a little parties came afar feeling that the decider is expected to magnify that period, nonetheless it was not transparent by how much, a source informed with the incident said, disappearing to be identified since these talks are not public.

The creditors" committee, whilst objecting to an extension, pronounced that should the decider confirm to do so, 45 days would be a some-more suitable period.

"The 45-day symbol is a healthy break-point for this justice and all stakeholders to consider either the routine the debtors introduce to run is indeed receiving place on a turn personification field," it said.

General Growth, that owns some-more than 200 malls, became the largest U.S. genuine estate disaster in story when it filed for disaster in Apr last year. Its properties embody such malls as Fashion Show in Las Vegas, Ala Moana Center in Hawaii and Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston.

Simon Property Chief Executive David Simon pronounced General Growth had not since his association any report notwithstanding their signing a nondisclosure agreement last week.

In the filing, Simon Property pronounced the exclusivity duration should be authorised to end "so that stakeholders can confirm for themselves in in in in between Simon"s entirely financed suggest and the intensity recapitalization upheld by Brookfield and Ackman."

The box is In re: General Growth Properties, Inc et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-11977.

(Reporting by Paritosh Bansal and Ilaina Jonas, one more stating by Dan Wilchins; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Deals

Duncan McCargo Compromise is indispensable in this polarised nation

Yesterdays much-anticipated outcome outlines the perfection of a prolonged routine that began with Thaksin Shinawatras ouster from energy some-more than 3 years ago.

The decorated former Manchester City owners worried and widely separated a Buddhist dominion some-more compared with opportunism, fudging and a revolving doorway of leaders. Judicialisation of governing body has been the vital reply of the royalist chosen to the Thaksin threat. But but a convention of legal activism, majority judges are ill rebuilt for and mostly nervous with their newly reserved mission. Constant chance to the courts has undermined state legitimacy and murderous Thaksins supporters.

Judges have abolished a series of Thaksin-aligned domestic parties, criminialized majority comparison Thaksinite politicians from open hold up for five-year terms, and even suspended budding apportion Samak Sundaravej for illegally hosting a radio cookery show.

Thailand is right away deeply polarised, organized around dual opposition networks: the pro-Thaksin forces contra the monarchists, that embody the palace, the benefaction Democrat government, and the military. As they quarrel over energy and spoils, Thailand has turn increasingly ungovernable. A domestic concede a big dodgy deal, in short is really bad needed.

Thaksin stays a rapist in Thailand, and there is no viewable highway open for his return; but returning around 40 per cent of his income is a poignant benefaction by the establishment. Thaksin and his Red Shirts have dual choices: to see the potion half-empty, or the potion half-full.

The bard is highbrow of South-East Asian governing body at the University of Leeds

Can we acknowledge quantum function in viruses?

A German-Spanish investigate group, separate in between the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching and the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), is utilizing the beliefs of an iconic quantum mechanics thought examination -- Schrödingersuperpositioned cat -- to exam for quantum properties in objects stoical of as most as one billion atoms, presumably together with the influenza virus.

New investigate published on Mar eleven in New Journal of Physics describes the building a whole of an examination to exam for superposition states in these incomparable objects.

Quantum optics is a margin well-rehearsed in the routine of detecting quantum properties in singular atoms and a little small molecules but the scale that these researchers instruct to work at is unprecedented.

When physicists try to fathom just how the minute voters of make a difference and appetite behave, treacherous patterns of their capability to do dual things at once (referred to as being in a superposition state), and of their "spooky" tie (referred to as entanglement) to their physically faraway sub-atomic brethren, emerge.

It is the capability of these little objects to do dual things at once that Oriol Romero-Isart and his co-workers are scheming to probe.

With this new technique, the researchers indicate that viruses are one sort of intent that could be probed. Albeit speculatively, the researchers goal that their technique competence suggest a track to experimentally residence questions such as the purpose of hold up and alertness in quantum mechanics.

In sequence to exam for superposition states, the examination involves finely tuning lasers to constraint incomparable objects such as viruses in an "optical cavity" (a really little space), an additional laser to delayed the intent down (and put it in to what quantum mechanics call a "ground state") and afterwards adding a photon (the simple component of light) in a specific quantum state to the laser to incite it in to a superposition

The researchers say, We goal that this system, detached from on condition that new quantum technology, will concede us to exam quantum mechanics at incomparable scales, by scheming perceivable superpositions of objects at the nano and micro scale. This could afterwards capacitate us to make use of some-more formidable microorganisms, and to illustrate exam the quantum superposition element with vital organisms by behaving quantum optics experiments with them.

Root or shoot



LA JOLLA, CA -- The initial sequence of commercial operation for any fledgling plant bud is to settle that finish grows the fire and that finish puts down roots. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute display the domain wars in in in between dual groups of repugnant genetic master switches that set up a plant"s frigid pivot with a base on one finish and a fire on the other.

"In what is arguably the majority vicious preference for a plant, sourroundings up the root/shoot axis, occurs during the early rudimentary stages," says the study"s lead writer Jeffrey A. Long, Ph.D., an partner highbrow in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory. "A firmly tranquil balancing action in in in between dual groups of transcriptions factors ensures that they stay where they go and don"t get in to each other"s way."

Plant embryogenesis establishes a really elementary have up that contains dual branch cell populations: the fire meristem, that will give climb to all the "above-ground" viscera such as the stem, the leaves and the flowers, and is the site of photosynthesis; and the base meristem, that gives climb to the base system, that lies next the belligerent and provides H2O and nutrients to the plant.

"Since plant branch cells in conclusion give climb to all succulent tools of plants bargain how their predestine and duty are regulated can be without delay practical to cgange the design of plants and to enlarge the yields of agriculturally vicious crops," says Long.

The Salk researchers" commentary are published in the Feb. 28, 2010 allege online book of the biography Nature.

"This work shows how genes correlate in formidable ways to settle viscera along the root-shoot axis," pronounced Susan Haynes, Ph.D., who oversees developmental biology grants at the NIH"s National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "The investigate reveals vicious parallels with the gene networks that coordinate organ arrangement in animal embryos, and helps us assimilate the vicious mechanisms that guide normal development."

While questioning because a poor TOPLESS gene messes with a plant"s simple design -- mutant embryos rise in to a seedling surfaced with a second base instead of a branch with leaves -- Long and his group detected organic TOPLESS codes for a repressor protein that inactivates genes that differently would means base growth in the fire area of the plant.

In the stream investigate Zachery R. Smith, a connoisseur tyro in Long"s laboratory, detected that these fate-transforming genes are essentially dual informed characters: the genes PLETHORA 1 and 2 had been well well well known to action as master regulators that settle the temperament of the base meristem.

"Without TOPLESS to keep them incited off, however, these dual transcription factors are free to levy their will on the tip half of the plant bud causing the growth of a second base instead of a shoot," explains Smith.

With the "below-ground" hierarchy worked out, the subject of how the temperament of the fire meristem is dynamic was still unanswered. Trying to unearth the blank master regulators of fire development, Smith searched tray tens of thousands of mutant plants, compartment he strike on a piece of of the CLASS III HD-ZIP transcription factors, well well well known as PHABULOSA, that fit the bill.

When the Salk researchers forcefully voiced members of the CLASS III HD-ZIP family in the normal domain of the PLETHORA duo, it remade the base in to a shoot, ensuing in a seedling with leaves on both ends. "Although it had been well well well known that HD-ZIPs are concerned in most aspects of plant polarity nobody had ever shown that they can renovate a base stick in to a fire pole," says Long. "This and alternative experiments showed that HD-ZIP III genes are master regulators of apical predestine in early embryogenesis."

Further studies suggested an repugnant attribute in in in between the PLETHORA and HD-ZIP III genes, both of that are underneath mixed modes of law that ensures correct spatial placement and apical-basal patterning.

The work was upheld in piece by the Ray Thomas Edwards Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, NIGMS.

About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is one of the world"s preeminent simple investigate institutions, where internationally eminent expertise examine elemental hold up scholarship questions in a unique, collaborative, and beautiful environment. Focused both on find and on mentoring destiny generations of researchers, Salk scientists have groundbreaking contributions to the bargain of cancer, aging, Alzheimer"s, diabetes and spreading diseases by study neuroscience, genetics, cell and plant biology, and associated disciplines.

Faculty achievements have been famous with countless honors, together with Nobel Prizes and memberships in the National Academy of Sciences. Founded in 1960 by polio vaccine colonize Jonas Salk, M.D., the Institute is an eccentric nonprofit classification and architectural landmark.

&

http://www.salk.edu

Bit Defender

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis: a man on a mission

By Robert Chesshyre 228PM GMT 25 Mar 2010

National Express in focus as Citys trainspotters watch recession steam ahead Lord Adonis no need to cut travel to save the planet, says Transport Secretary Lord Adonis warns 200mph rail upgrade should not be abandoned Lord Adonis high-speed rail would be end of domestic flights 142mph train makes first UK journey

Gordon Brown equally is near ecstatic. "Great day… long and glorious history of British railways… fantastic achievement… he tells a small knot of shivering journalists and rail executives gathered in the pre-dawn cold, before hurrying to the warmth of his car and Downing Street. But the man whose eyes shine and whose enthusiasm lights up the winter gloom is the slight man, Lord (Andrew) Adonis, the Secretary of State for Transport.

The transport supremo since June, Adonis is with the prospect of Labour being tossed from office a man with a mission and an eye on the clock. For him, the Kent line is but the start of a revolution. Two weeks ago he launched the next stage of his dream a White Paper with detailed proposals for the 15-18 billion London to Birmingham section of a high-speed line that Adonis hopes will, in the fullness of time, head north and link London to Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Adonis is intent on a legacy not only for the next generation but for the distant future. It is a bold ambition for a politician who has, in the words of the old political joke, risen without trace (his only elected office was as an Oxford city councillor when, as a post-graduate student, he represented the long-defunct Social Democrats). He clearly doesnt intend to disappear in the same manner.

Rarely for a Cabinet minister, Adonis, 47, is a round peg in a round hole, and almost equally rarely he is a doer, concerned with the practical rather than the ideological. He first became involved with the railways as a schoolboy when he campaigned to save his local line, accusing British Railways of "lying in order to justify closure. He went to the station and counted the passengers, thus refuting successfully BRs cooked figures that no one was using the trains.

In an era when many ministers rely on position papers, experts and lobbying, Adonis sees for himself. Last year he travelled the rail network; visited the worst train stations; drove much of the motorway network; and, armed with his camera to gather evidence, cycled around the bike sheds at Londons termini to count the number of secure spaces for commuters bicycles (not many).

Academic, would-be biographer (Roy Jenkins anointed him as his official chronicler, though Adonis had to pass due to work commitments), journalist (he wrote about public policy and industry for the Financial Times and the Observer), he came to office via the Downing Street policy unit. In the 1990s Adonis was a Blairite (Jenkins had persuaded him to quit the Lib Dems and join Labour, arguing that by then both parties were social democratic and a young man with ambitions should join the larger one). Adonis was invited to work at Number 10 by David Miliband, whom he succeeded in 2001 as head of the policy unit.

Adoniss first interest was schools he is the architect of the academy policy and in 2005 Blair made him schools minister and a peer (the Rt Hon Baron Adonis of Camden Town). As a fierce critic of many local education authorities, Adonis was not always popular and had dust-ups with teaching unions. When Blair quit, he expected Brown to say, "Thank you and goodbye, but instead the new PM moved him to transport and later promoted him to the Cabinet.

As a journalist, Adonis had been to France to write about the TGV network. He was an instant convert, and now among all the claims on a Transport Secretarys time he sees himself as the apostle of high-speed travel. He says (naturally) that he expects Labour to win in the summer, but his pressing purpose in what are probably his few remaining months in office is to lay down firm cross-party foundations for a north/south rail line that will speed travellers from London to Scotland at 250mph.

Adoniss father, Nicos, Greek Cypriot by origin, arrived in Britain in the late 1950s with six siblings. First a waiter and then a postman, Nicos married an English­woman, who bore him two children and then vanished. Nicos had no option ("he worked every hour God sent) but to place Andrew and his sister, Michelle, in care.

We converse aboard a Euston to Manchester Pendolino (Adonis would have travelled in the cab had it not been for me he is that sort of train nut). A child raised in care is more likely to wind up in court than sitting in Cabinet, and Adonis admits that it was "very tough. However, he adds, "You dont hear much about the successes, but all the agencies of the state, the failure of which is written about so much, worked for me. I had brilliant social workers, a fantastic childrens home and a most wonderful lady who ran it. (He stayed in touch until her recent death aged 90.)

"The state can do an excellent job bringing up children, he continues. "I was taught resilience and have no problem getting along with people of all backgrounds. His big stroke of luck was that Camden then sent suitable children to boarding schools. He went to Kingham Hill in the Cotswolds, a school founded in the late 19th century by a member of the Baring family for east London street children, who were taught the three "Rs, Christian belief and a trade before (often) being packed off to farms in Canada.

By Adoniss day (the early 1970s), the school had become more "normal. At 11 Adonis was "rather vulnerable, shy and retiring. He was not alone. "Lots of pupils had difficult backgrounds, he says. "For many, life was a struggle, often for reasons well beyond their control. He himself blossomed, leading fellow pupils to lobby the head; debating ("Ive always been able to say my piece); and, of course, campaigning to save the local railway line (now a highly successful route).

His English teacher had been to Keble College, Oxford, and persuaded Adonis to try. "He taught me to aim high, and said that there was no reason why I shouldnt achieve as well as anyone else, Adonis says. A first-class degree, a doctorate and a university teaching post more than confirmed his teachers judgment.

He joined the Social Democratic Party at its foundation by the Gang of Four, and Jenkins became his mentor and inspiration. "We would meet for lunch, Adonis says. "I would have half a glass of champagne and one of claret, which left a glass and a half of champagne and most of the claret bottle to Roy. Jenkins told him that he always worked better after lunchtime alcohol.

As might be guessed, Adonis is a workaholic. Does he switch off? He reads; walks (composing speeches as he strides around Highbury Fields near his home in Islington); cycles; swims occasionally; ferries around his children, Edmund, 12, and Alice, 10, who attend a Church of England academy.

He is a serious man but good company. His sole sustenance en route to Manchester is a banana and coffee, and it is not until mid-afternoon somewhere near Preston that he finally asks an aide for his "lunch a railway sandwich in cellophane, a biscuit and a soft drink. I suspect it is often thus.

We begin talking about his great passion high-speed rail. He rattles off the comparisons with Europe there, tens of thousands of track miles, many more thousands under construction or being planned; here, a paltry 68 miles from London to Folkestone and (until the White Paper earlier this month) no plans for more. "We should have started when the French did, he says. "What we did was privatise the railways and destroy British Rail instead of engaging in modernising, the Tory government embarked on an ideological flight of fancy. "Progressive and "modernising punctuate his conversation. But he refuses to justify present inaction (whether in education or transport) by blaming past mistakes. This, the day of the inauguration of the Kent service, he says, is the moment to push on. What about the recession? High-speed rail will not require "serious money for five years, he asserts, by which time recession will, he hopes, be a memory. Now is an ideal time for planning.

Even people who dont share his vision admire the way he gets on with things. But the goodwill began to evaporate the instant the White Paper revealing the preferred London-Birmingham route was published. The Conservatives want a different route to that proposed, one that includes Heathrow in order better to coordinate air and rail, while residents of the Chilterns, through which the line may pass, immediately voiced vehement opposition. Nimbyism is a potent political force. And many believe that the money could be spent to better effect on the existing network.

With his commitment to high-speed rail, roads and commuters are a less visible part of his agenda. The age of ambitious road-building is over. The countryside may be torn up for high-speed rail tracks, but further motorway improvements will be incremental, what critics might call make-and-mend. The experiment of using hard shoulders as traffic lanes (pioneered on the M42 around Birmingham) is accounted a success and more hard-shoulder conversions will happen. Congestion charges apart, road-pricing is (Adonis says for technical reasons) for a distant tomorrow, if ever. He is watching the Dutch the Netherlands have set 2015 as the earliest possible date.

Although he has given the go-ahead for Heathrows third runway (he believes that it can operate within the strict CO2 emission limits), Adonis describes himself as "green. His first act on appointment was to surrender his ministerial car, and he pops on and off the Tube like any other commuter. His goal is joined-up "door-to-door journeys, linked by necessary provision (his beloved bike sheds at stations, for example) and visible, clear-cut information.

Commuters seem to approve. The transport-users watchdog London TravelWatch said he is an excellent minister, who, because of his knowledge, is able and prepared to "challenge poor operational and customer service levels. It mentioned with approval his campaign for cycle facilities. He is not, it says, only interested in the "mega projects.

Adonis stresses that much that would help commuters (and other train passengers) costs little. He is an enthusiast for elected mayors they get things done and would like to see all major cities follow Londons example where both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson have, he says, improved the capitals transport out of recognition.

Another goal is extending rail electrification. His mission the day we travel north is to announce the electrification of lines that will feed into the shortly-to-be-electrified Manchester-Liverpool line (where it all started 180 years ago).

As a former journalist, he puts over the story succinctly. As a savvy operator, he knows that television programmes will use only 30 seconds, so he repeats his main point regardless of the question. His travelling PR purrs. "You can trust him on his own, he says. Between Bolton and Chorley Adonis finally gets his days wish he rides with the driver.

There is a rumour that, because he prefers "doing to ideology, Adonis would, if invited, join a Conservative government. This brings a vehement denial "I am a modernising social democrat and my party is the Labour Party. He recognises that his authority is diminished by being unelected, and his desire now is to be a member of an elected (rather than appointed) second chamber.

One Adonis supporter I spoke to, arguing that talent is scarce in the Labour Party, would like the solid, dependable peer to go to the Commons and lead the party (if the constitution were to allow it at the moment a life peer cant step down).

Adonis and I met again, before the White Paper, but after the transport world had been turned upside down. First Eurostar trains ground to ignominious halts under the Channel; next the snow and the salt/grit shortage hit the headlines; on Christmas Day a British-educated student tried to blow up a Detroit flight; and then British Airways cabin staff voted to strike. Adonis found himself in the hottest seat in politics. It was the first time he had faced a political dilemma of this kind. He eventually condemned the proposed strike, pleasing would-be travellers while angering Unite, the cabin-staff union, which is a major Labour Party backer and close to the Prime Minister. On television Adonis didnt look comfortable.

Before the crises, Adonis went skiing with his family when the snow came, he was assailed by the Sun newspaper for "sloping off on a luxury Alpine holiday… while Britons slid and shivered. It was a taste of the press unfairness that comes with office. He stayed put and dealt with the problems by phone. Rushing home, he felt, would be gesture politics, simply thrusting himself in front of the cameras. He is relaxed. "People think that I am personally responsible for the weather, but I have a fairly tough skin. The motorways and trunk routes, for which through the Highways Agency the Department for Transport is responsible, had stayed open.

The cold snap had been a one-year-in-29 "event, but none the less there is a debate to be had now, he says, about how prepared we should be for snow. Perversely, global warming could mean colder winters. Adonis, sipping his coffee in a station cafe, says, "What is needed is mature judgment, not kneejerk reaction. That could be his motto. He was severe on Eurostar (part-owned by the government), not for the technical failures but for the companys woeful reaction to them. "They behaved like the worst of the old-style nationalised industries, as if customers didnt matter and should just grin and bear it. That is not acceptable. It was a fiasco people were stuck in tunnels for 10 hours or more.

The high-speed "yes, but not here rumpus has begun, and the way ahead will be scarred with noisy debates. While he stays in office there will be no further Adonis family holidays on the ski slopes or elsewhere. Lord Adonis is a man in a hurry.

Somali pirates explain to have hijacked colourless boat

MOGADISHU Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:17pm EDT

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates said on Wednesday they had hijacked a boat carrying charcoal from the rebel-held south of the Horn of Africa nation to Dubai.

World

The government said this week that illegal charcoal exports to Gulf states were a big source of income for rebel groups such as al Shabaab that control parts of Somalia.

"We have hijacked a boat laden with charcoal shortly after it was seen off by armed al Shabaab from Kudha port," a pirate called Hassan told Reuters. "The boat was en route to Dubai where it initially came from."

Staff at the al Shabaab-controlled southern port of Kismayu further north from Kudha said the boat had been chartered by Somali traders and was seized in waters off Kismayu.

The staff, who declined to be named, said the boat had earlier brought food into Kismayu before picking up the charcoal at Kudha port.

Somali sea gangs have plagued the busy shipping lanes off Somalia for several years earning ransoms worth millions of dollars from most vessels captured.

Besides the ships held for ransom, pirates also hijack vessels to be used as so-called motherships which ferry the gunmen and their speedboats far out to sea to launch attacks.

(Reporting by Abdi Guled; Editing by David Clarke)

World

Hungary to hold talks on Kyoto equivalent sales

Sandor Peto and Nina Chestney BUDAPEST/LONDON Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:23pm EDT Related News Sale of used carbon offsets unlikely to hit pricesFri, Mar 19 2010EU blocks re-use of offsets, BluexNext to resumeThu, Mar 18 2010Hungary tracing CER sales as carbon trade stallsWed, Mar 17 2010

Leap Year: The eejits guide to Ireland

Leap Year (PG)

Verdict: Turkey doesn"t even begin to cover it

Rating: No stars and the shamrock of shame

Leap years come round every four years, but dispiriting romcoms appear with depressing inevitability at least four times every year, and this is one of the very worst.

Leap Year doesn"t quite seem to last 366 days, but it"s 2010"s equivalent of Bride Wars: a romantic comedy that makes you hate not only the central couple you"re meant to be rooting for, but everyone involved with the production.

Like The Ugly Truth, it"s about an uptight control freak of a career-woman who has to be humiliated, I mean seduced, by a scruffy, laid-back man.

Charmless: Leap Year starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode

The usually adorable Amy Adams has allowed herself to be cast in this offensive role, and the script gives her precisely one thing on her mind, which is to marry her boring dolt of a boyfriend.

He"s a rich, hard-working, good-looking cardiologist (Adam Scott), but he buys her diamond earrings instead of that all-important engagement ring.

So - encouraged by her father (John Lithgow, in a one-scene wonder of a bad performance) - she flies to his heart surgeon convention in Dublin, where she plans to propose to him on February 29, the one day when a woman is allowed to do so.

Just in case we"re too dumb to take in all this information the first time, Adams gets to restate it over and over again, including once on a plane to Dublin, when she prattles gaily to a Catholic priest, who falls asleep, possibly because he"s old enough to have seen pretty much the same plot in much better films including It Happened One Night and I Know Where I"m Going.

If you"re sensible, you"ll nod off, too, and miss the rest of the movie.

Turbulence causes the plane to land - a shade bizarrely - in Cardiff, and the sea is too rough for the ferry. So Amy hires a boat which takes her to Dingle, County Kerry.

This is wildly implausible, since Dingle is on the western side of Ireland, would take many hours by boat, and is about as far from Dublin as it"s possible to be.

But geography is the least of this movie"s problems.

Oirish accent: Matthew Goode as Declan in the film

In far-flung Dingle, Amy Adams patronises the colourful Oirish locals with her highfalutin" city ways and annoys the local publican, who doubles as the village taxi driver.

Since he"s the only good-looking man in the place, and not like the rest of the population a cliched, geriatric, drunken imbecile spouting Oirish whimsy - and he"s played by Matthew Goode, a tall, handsome Englishman with an atrocious accent (it"s not so much Irish as dirish) - we know they are destined to fall in love.

But not before Amy has undergone all the usual dreary, unfunny humiliations that U.S. city girls have to endure in inhospitable rural parts - fused the lights of the village by trying to plug in her BlackBerry, been impeded by a herd of cows, trodden in faeces, fallen over in mud, had to pose as married in order to stay at a bed-and-breakfast. You know the kind of thing.

More...From Paris With Love: Travolta"s Royale leaves a nasty taste

Just like Renee Zellweger in New In Town or Sandra Bullock in The Proposal, Amy wears inappropriate footwear every chance she gets. Stupidly, too, she wears very little clothing, especially for Ireland in February.

One of numerous disappointments is that she doesn"t die of pneumonia.

It"s clear that the screenwriters have never been to Ireland in February. Or any other time. The vision of Erin in this movie dates from around the potato famine, and hardly anyone seems to possess anything as newfangled as a motor car.

Director Anand Tucker has made decent movies in the past, including Hilary And Jackie and When Did You Last See Your Father; but Shopgirl suggested he has little flair for romantic comedy, and Leap Year confirms that hypothesis. He also stages the most pathetic bar-room brawl in screen history, so action isn"t his thing either.

Enlarge

The film has so many continuity errors that Mr Tucker seems to have directed most of it with his eyes shut, or maybe he, too, fell asleep on the plane to Ireland.

An apple being eaten by the leading man changes colour from one shot to the next, and carrots chopped by the leading lady are twice the size of ones she has been seen picking previously.

Leap Year was not filmed in February, or anything like it, since in several shots there are deciduous trees with all their leaves on.

In addition to being ineptly crafted, visually challenged and gratuitously insulting to the Irish, the film is astonishingly misogynistic. It makes the heroine look a nitwit from start to finish.

For example, she demolishes a hotel room in what is meant to be a scene of hilarious slapstick, but mistimed so tragically that she comes across as a nincompoop for not noticing what she is doing and stopping.

Numerous groan-worthy contrivances are needed in order to keep the battling couple together on the road. And the idea that she would fall for a man like the one portrayed by Goode stretches credulity well beyond breaking point, especially as he does little else but insult, mock and call her an "eejit".

What girl could resist such an uninteresting, charmless oaf, especially as he"s broke and runs an unsuccessful pub in the back end of nowhere? Just about anyone, I would have thought, including every woman in the audience.

Screenwriting this abominable doesn"t come along every week. U.S. writers Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan were also responsible for the abysmal The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas (2000), Surviving Christmas (2004) and Made Of Honor (2008).

Awarding a turkey seems inadequate under the circumstances. This being the awards season, I hereby present it with the plastic shamrock of shame.