Parks and Recreation

I know I'm a latecomer to Parks and Recreation http://www.nbc.com/parks-and-recreation, but I've just finished Season 2 and I'm looking forward to making inroads on the next few seasons over the coming winter.

Come on lots of dark, wet winter evenings so I can binge on Season 3. Top stuff from Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones and all the great actors that came together to make this fantastic show!

#ParksAndRec #amypoehler #rashidajones

Gentiloni named as Italy's new prime minister

Gentiloni named as Italy's new prime minister

Paolo Gentiloni has been named as Italy's new prime minister following Matteo Renzi's resignation in the wake of a referendum defeat.

Mr Gentiloni, who had been Mr Renzi's foreign minister, was asked by President Sergio Mattarella to form a new government that will guide Italy to elections due by February 2018, a presidency spokesman announced.

Mr Renzi resigned last week after losing a referendum on constitutional reform on which he had staked his job, plunging Italy into a government crisis.

The next moves for Mr Gentiloni, a former journalist and Renzi loyalist, are a familiar process in Italy, which has had 63 governments in the past 70 years.

After formally receiving the mandate from Mr Mattarella at the meeting, he will begin consultations with political forces to form a government.

Mr Renzi's Democratic Party (PD) has a majority in both houses of parliament but the PD itself is severely divided between Renzi backers, such as Mr Gentiloni, and opponents.

All major parties have called for elections as soon as possible.

But before any vote can take place, Italy needs a new electoral law to replace one that applies only to the lower house and could be declared illegitimate in January by the Constitutional Court.

The legislature is due to carry on until 2018, but early elections could be called at any time after parliament rewrites the electoral law.

Mr Gentiloni will report back to President Mattarella on his progress in rallying support and, if he cannot assemble political backing for a new government, Mr Mattarella could ask someone else to try.

If Mr Gentiloni is successful, a new government could be installed within days.

The next incumbent immediately faces a crisis in the banking sector, whose third-largest lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena may need state intervention to avoid collapse.

World's longest tunnel opens regular service in Switzerland

World's longest tunnel opens regular service in Switzerland

Regular rail service through the world's longest tunnel began this morning, carrying passengers deep under the Swiss Alps from Zurich to Lugano.

The famed Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) had a ceremonial opening in June, attracting European leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande for its maiden ride.

The Swiss national rail service had announced that today would mark the start of normal commercial traffic through the 57km GBT, which took 17 years to build, at a cost of over 12 billion Swiss francs (€11.2 billion).

The Swiss news agency ATS reported that the first regular passenger train to use the GBT pulled out of Zurich at 5.09am Irish time and arrived in Lugano around three hours later, with the tunnel passage shaving a full 30 minutes off the previous travel time for the same route.

The ambitious GBT project has won praise across Europe for its pioneering efforts to improve connectivity from Rotterdam to the Adriatic.

The Swiss-funded tunnel was largely made possible by technical advances in tunnel-boring machines, which replaced the costly and dangerous blast-and-drill method.

The GBT has surpassed Japan's 53.9km Seikan tunnel as the world's longest train tunnel.

The 50.5km Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France has been bumped into third place.

#SBB #Zurich #GotthardBaseTunnel #GBT #Switzerland

Santa Claus skis Verbier!

Great weekend in Verbier with 1200 other Santa Clauses.

A fantastic start to the Christmas season!

Ugo Bertolotto

Schiaparelli Mars probe's parachute 'jettisoned too early'

Schiaparelli Mars probe's parachute 'jettisoned too early'

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37715202

Europe's Schiaparelli lander did not behave as expected as it headed down to the surface of Mars on Wednesday.

Telemetry data recovered from the probe during its descent indicates that its parachute was jettisoned too early.

The rockets it was supposed to use to bring itself to a standstill just above the ground also appeared to fire for too short a time.

The European Space Agency (Esa) has not yet conceded that the lander crashed but the mood is not positive.

Experts will continue to analyse the data and they may also try to call out to Schiaparelli in the blind hope that it is actually sitting on the Red Planet intact.

#ESA #Marslander #Space #ExoMars #schiaparelli #Mars #marslanding

Ugo Bertolotto

Chris Wallace Receives Cease-And-Desist Letter From Trump Organization

Chris Wallace Receives Cease-And-Desist Letter From Trump Organization In Middle Of Questioning Candidate About Groping Allegations

http://www.theonion.com/article/chris-wallace-receives-cease-and-desist-letter-tru-54465

The Onions wonderful satire is once more bang on the button.

#hillaryclinton #imwithher #dnc #trump #nevertrump

Presidential Debate 3: Trump refuses to say he will respect election outcome

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/1020/825440-usdebate3/

Trump refuses to say he will respect election outcome

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has refused to say he will respect the result of the election no matter the outcome doubling down on his claims that the US election is rigged during the third and final debate.

"I'll look at it at the time," Mr Trump said. "What I've seen is so bad."

An angry Hillary Clinton responded with incredulity to the highly controversial charge, saying, "I, for one, am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of position."

His democratic rival stressed that citizens accept election outcomes in a democracy but called Mr Trump's reaction to say it is rigged was "funny and also really troubling".

Asked by the debate moderator whether he would concede if the results showed he lost to Mrs Clinton, Mr Trump again demurred. "I'll keep you in suspense, okay?"


"This is horrifying," Mrs Clinton said.

#hillaryclinton #imwithher #dnc #trump #nevertrump