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Star Wars conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie had a hand in creating Boba, but the final Fett design is credited to "The Empire Strikes Back" art director Joe Johnston, who discusses the character in "Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays." |
"I painted Boba's outfit and tried to make it look like it was made of different pieces of armor," explains Johnston, who went on to direct his own feature films including "Jumanji" and "Jurassic Park III." "It was a symmetrical design, but I painted it in such a way that it looked like he had scavenged parts and had d... |
Whatever the attraction, Boba's popularity is undeniable. Proctor says he gets between 1,000 and 1,500 hits per day at www.bobafett.com, and receives regular contributions from Bulloch and Daniel Logan, who played Boba as a child in "Episode II -- Attack of the Clones." There are more than 70 pieces of "fan fiction" th... |
Among the Bobaphiles, there is still much anger surrounding the character's demise -- a slapstick moment during the fight on Jabba's barge during "Return of the Jedi." Near the end of the battle, a blind Han Solo accidentally sets off Boba's rocket backpack, and the character whizzes like a deflating balloon into the G... |
Notoriously unapologetic "Star Wars" creator Lucas -- who still owes the world an "I'm sorry" for Jar Jar Binks and "The Star Wars Holiday Special" -- has admitted he was wrong to let Boba die so unceremoniously, and contemplated adding a scene where Boba crawls out of the pit. |
"In the case of Boba Fett's death, had I known he was going to turn into such a popular character, I probably would have made it a little more exciting, " Lucas explains on the "Return of the Jedi" commentary track. "... For having such a small part he had a very large presence." |
Maury paternity test segments have racial and class dynamics that are very messed up. |
When you watch old favorites years later, sometimes you realize how much you used to overlook. In Pre-Woke Watching, viewers revisit their personal classics and evaluate how they look now. |
Back in the early 2000s, I’d rush home to watch the holy grail of daytime television: Maury. It was the perfect balance between the shamelessness of Jerry Springer and the dubious self-empowerment of Oprah. |
My biggest weaknesses were the paternity test narratives. You remember them: a woman with a young child believes a man to be the father of her child. The man denies it. They then confront one another—and we get a definitive answer. It was so satisfying. It was also deeply messed up. As explained in this episode, watchi... |
Previously: Everyone Compares My Life With Lesbian Moms to The Kids Are All Right. I Wish They Wouldn’t. |
For more conversations like this, check out the Represent podcast archives. |
Shirley Chan is a Slate assistant video producer. |
EIA: Shale Patch Production to Climb 113,000 Barrels a Day in August - 24/7 Wall St. |
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Monday released its July report on drilling productivity in seven key oil and gas producing regions of the U.S. Overall oil production is projected to rise by a whopping 113,000 barrels a day in August to 5.585 million barrels per day. Total production in July is fore... |
In May the number of drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells rose by 176 to a total of 5,946. The largest gain came in the Permian Basin with 125 new DUC wells. For the month of June, the EIA expects the DUC count to rise to 6,031. We looked at the Dallas Fed’s report on Permian production and DUCs earlier this morning. |
WTI crude oil for August delivery had been trading about flat at around $46.56 before the EIA report and sank to around $46.06, down about 1% from Friday’s closing price, following the report. |
No overall production declines are forecast either for July or August, but production from new wells is looking for a decline in production of 7 barrels per day per rig. The largest declines in new rig productivity come in the Eagle Ford shale and the Permian Basin, down 23 barrels per day per rig and 10 barrels per da... |
Natural gas production is expected to rise by a total of 837 million cubic feet per day with Permian Basin production up by 160 million cubic feet per day. Production in the Marcellus play is expected to rise by 201 million cubic feet in August. Utica shale gas production is forecast to rise by 104 million cubic feet p... |
WTI crude oil for August delivery settled Monday at $46.02 a barrel, down about 1.1% from Friday’s closing price of $46.54. Higher U.S. oil production in the shale patch is a serious weight on prices. |
Natural gas for August delivery settled up nearly 1.1% at $3.02 per million BTUs, down 8 cents from Friday’s closing price. |
Janet Yellen should, if she really wants to get a full picture of the US economy before deciding on Wednesday whether to raise interest rates, look at in-vitro fertilization rates in the US. |
That’s because the IVF process, at $10,000 to $15,000 a pop, may turn out to be as good an indicator of the nation’s economic health as any more-traditional measures. |
And since August, the number of IVF procedures in the US has dropped 30 percent — and doctors are scratching their heads and trying to figure out why. |
I agree that this falls into the “Who knew?” category. And, admittedly, IVF — a process in existence only since 1978 — is too new to produce the kind of scientific track record that academics like. |
But Dr. Norbert Gleicher, medical director and chief scientist at the Center for Human Reproduction in Manhattan, thinks the drop portends bad news for the US economy. |
Such a sharp drop-off is extremely odd in the IVF community. |
Gleicher says that, “in 2008, we saw a significant downturn three to four months before the recession officially started.” In 2008, the gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent. |
The IVF declines continued into 2009, when the total number of procedures for the year fell 1.1 percent, to 101,090, according to Gleicher. In 2009, the GDP was down 3.1 percent. |
“Until [August], 2015 was a spectacularly good year,” Gleicher said. |
To be sure, it is odd that IVF would be a leading economic indicator anyway, since the price puts it within reach of only a certain segment of the population. |
Most health insurers won’t cover test-tube babies. So the loss of a job and the insurance that goes with it shouldn’t really matter. |
Everyone already knows that the birth rate of children conceived the usual way fell off during hard economic times. |
According to the most recent data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, births in the US showed a 1 percent increase in 2014. |
This was the first rise since 2007. The so-called Great Recession began at the end of that year. |
That makes perfect sense. If you can’t feed the mouths you already have, why produce more? |
Gleicher can’t attribute reasons for the fall-off in test-tube baby procedures. But he says it was a good indicator of the last recession and he thinks the current IVF fall-off might be telling us another recession is coming. |
As you have probably heard, Yellen, the head of the Federal Reserve, this week will be considering the first interest rate hike in seven years. Her policy-making Federal Open Market Committee meets Tuesday and Wednesday. An announcement should come at 2 p.m. Wednesday. |
I hope it’s not too late for her to take into account the Test Tube Baby Indicator. |
Here’s a very logical macro-economic problem that the expected hike in interest rates will cause. |
Wall Street knows that its good fortune has been caused by low interest rates. Savers who can’t make ends meet on next-to-nothing yields on bank accounts and such were forced into the stock market. |
That caused stock prices to rise worldwide these past years. Even the thought of interest rate policy being reversed is already causing consternation on Wall Street, as you can see from the dip in stock prices in recent weeks. |
So here’s the problem. The quarter-percentage-point increase in rates expected from the Fed isn’t going to make savers feel any richer. Their wealth has been decimated by seven years of near-zero interest rates. |
But if the rate hike does hurt the stock market, those who were pushed into equities will definitely feel poorer. In fact, they probably already are feeling the effects. |
The Fed is walking a tricky line that could lead to a pullback in spending by stockholders and no improvement in spending by those with savings accounts. Something like that could lead to the next recession. |
In a July 30 column, I wrote that gasoline pump prices should have been 50 cents a gallon cheaper than they were at the time. |
That was based on the decline that had already occurred in oil prices. I argued that refiners were holding back the savings to consumers. |
Gasoline was at $2.89 a gallon back then, and oil coming from Texas was just under $52 a barrel. |
Since oil prices kept dropping and are now at around $35 a barrel, we got more than a 50-cent-a-gallon decline in gas. It’s now under $2 a gallon in most states. |
In other words, consumers are still being cheated. |
WESTPORT — The Westport Boys Basketball League winter tryouts will be held in the Middle School Gym at the following dates and times: Senior division (Grades 7 & 8) at 6 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 26; and Junior division (Grades 4,5 & 6) at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 28. |
If you missed earlier registration dates, you may register at these time. Rookie league (Grade 3) registrations can also be taken at this time. |
For more information, contact WBBL Media Relations Coordinator Tom Cummiskey at (508( 965-4717. |
May. 31, 2017, 11:35 a.m. |
With a state Senate vote possibly imminent on a single-payer health system for California, supporters Wednesday released a study estimating it would cut spending on healthcare in the state by 18% and cost tens of billions of dollars less than the state's estimate for the plan. |
Extra costs could be covered by tax increases, according to the analysis sponsored by the California Nurses Assn./National Nurses United, the leading supporter of legislation. |
A legislative analysis had estimated the cost of the proposed system to be $400 billion annually, but a study released by the nurses Wednesday estimates the yearly cost would be $331 billion as of 2017. |
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Motor Trend has chosen the Cadillac CTS as its 2008 Car of the Year, attributing the win to sharp styling, great driving dynamics and luxury value — pretty much, the car rocked every category. For the General, it marks the first time in ten years that the company has taken home MT's top award. The Corvette won the Gold... |
DETROIT - The editors at Motor Trend, one of the world's premiere automotive authorities, announced today that they have chosen the Cadillac CTS as the 2008 Motor Trend Car of the Year. |
"Cadillac is truly honored to receive one of the world's most coveted automotive awards," says Jim Taylor, Cadillac general manager. "This is a very meaningful reward for our team that created the all-new 2008 CTS, and a powerful statement to consumers everywhere about Cadillac's product renaissance." |
The Motor Trend Car of the Year honor highlights the wide acclaim the 2008 CTS sport sedan has earned around the world and with consumers since its launch earlier this fall. Luxury cars buyers are responding similarly, with CTS U.S. sales jumping 75% in October. |
The full report from Motor Trend appears in the January issue of the magazine (on newsstands in early-December) and online at www.motortrend.com. Cadillac was the first automaker ever to win Motor Trend Car of the Year in the magazine's inaugural year of 1949, and again in 1952 and 1992. |
Cadillac (www.cadillac.com) has been a leading luxury automotive brand since 1902. Cadillac's heritage of dramatic design and technical innovation has undergone a recent renaissance, returning it to the top-tier of luxury brands. Cadillac is a division of General Motors (NYSE: GM). Founded in 1908, GM manufactures its ... |
Emblazoned on every wheel of the most traditional brand of roquefort, France's "king of cheeses", is a logo of Little Red Riding Hood gazing enigmatically at a huge wolf. |
"My grandfather loved the fairy story and replaced the girl's cake in her basket with some roquefort," recalled Delphine Carles, director of Roquefort Carles, which caters to Michelin-starred restaurants. |
She remembers, aged four, descending into the dark limestone caves of Mont Combalou beneath the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, southern France, to see mould grown in huge loaves of bread and cheese ripen on oak shelves according to a 1,000-year old tradition. Only here can true roquefort be made. |
MECCA — Authorities Monday released the name of a woman whose charred remains were found in Mecca over the summer, near where a sheriff’s deputy fatally shot a man armed with an ax. |
The body of Brandy Kiehl, 38, of Mecca, was found June 3 near the southwest corner of Lincoln Street and Avenue 66, according to the county coroner’s office. |
Investigators discovered Kiehl’s remains more than 12 hours after responding to the area on a report of “a non-compliant subject armed with an ax,” according to sheriff’s Deputy Robyn Flores. |
David Ponce, 42, was shot by a deputy around 3:30 a.m. and died at a hospital. |
Around 5 p.m., county fire crews returned to the area where the shooting occurred “to extinguish smoldering debris at the scene of an earlier fire,” and found the woman’s remains among the debris, Flores said. |
Kiehl’s cause of death remains undetermined and it is unknown what connection, if any, exists between Ponce and Kiehl’s death. |
HARDWICK TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — A Pennsylvania hiker who went missing overnight in New Jersey’s Worthington State Forest has been found unharmed. |
Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Larry Hajna tells The Express-Times of Easton, Pa. that the 54-year-old Kresgeville man made a 911 call around 9 p.m. Saturday. He had been hiking through some trails in the forest earlier in the day, but got lost shortly after dusk. |
The man spent the night in the forest before he was found around 10:15 a.m. Sunday by state park police. He was taken to a hospital for an evaluation, but did not appear to be injured. |
His name was not released. |
The forest is within the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, just above the water gap in Hardwick Township. |
After nine goals in four women’s Olympic quarterfinal matches, two of the world’s top five teams have fallen, along with host nation Great Britain. As the remaining four teams shift focus towards Monday’s semifinals, let’s take a look back at how a marathon day of soccer shook down. |
Landon Donovan: A. He may not have the captain’s armband, but the US team clearly runs through Donovan, its best player. When the team needed someone to take over the match down 2-0 against Slovenia, Donovan obliged, scoring a wonder-goal early in the second half and then setting up the equalizer later with a perfect l... |
Bayou Beauty - Cute Cottage Home Plus Bayouside Included - Minutes Away From Great Fishing. Would be A Great Investment Property For a Camper. Other Area - Boat Shed on Bayouside. Original Home Built in 1930. Addition Added Around 1959. |
The “special place in hell” that EU Council President Donald Tusk says is reserved for Brexiteers is not that different to the one for those who devised the EU monetary union, ex-Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis believes. |
Replying to the controversial metaphor used by Tusk on Wednesday, the no-nonsense Greek economist turned it against the EU Council president by reminding him of the failings of the European monetary union. |
Probably very similar to the place reserved for those who designed a monetary union without a proper banking union and, once the banking crisis hit, transferred cynically the bankers' gigantic losses onto the shoulders of the weakest taxpayers. |
Critics have slammed the EU monetary union, of which the eurozone is a part, for forcing austerity-driven budgets on member states – and Varoufakis has had first-hand experience in this regard. As Greek finance minister in 2015, he tried to push back against a massive EU bailout plan, which was heralded as a lifeline f... |
While it stabilized the Greek economy, the bailout left it 25 percent smaller than when the crisis started, and it was staring at several decades of harsh austerity in order to repay its debts. Now, three-quarters of Greeks think the plan harmed their country. |
On Wednesday, Tusk’s “special place in hell” comment attacked “those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it safely” both in an address to reporters in Brussels and in a tweet. |
However, according to Varoufakis’ tongue-in-cheek take on the afterlife, Tusk’s own colleagues could end up roasting next to the Brexiteers, as the EU Council effectively signs off on members states’ budgets. |
A player's rating indicates his percentile rank in CAPS. Gtrinvestor is outperforming 90.94% of all CAPS players. A player's score is the total percentage return of all his picks subtracting out the S&P. A player's accuracy is how often that player has made correct predictions. |
Most of the time the secret is not in knowing when to buy... it's in knowing when to sell. |
One of the most photographed designs at the ongoing Light + Building 2018, in Frankfurt, is The Nest by artist and designer Vibhor Sogani. Thousands of stainless-steel balls come together to mimic the complex and intricate design of a weaver bird’s home. |
The Delhi-based artist and designer is displaying 14 pieces at the biennial show, which is the world’s leading trade fair in lighting and building services, with over 2,700 participants and over 210,000 visitors from around the world. “We are now the first Indian design brand to showcase in the high-end modern design l... |
In this exhibition, he has also tried to showcase his evolution over 25 years as a designer with several acclaimed installations to his name, including the famous Sprouts—India’s largest public art installation, spread over 6 acres of greens, near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences flyover in Delhi. |
The designer talks about the three bespoke collections—Fold, Casa and Palm—that he has created especially for the fair. While each presents a unique viewing experience, the underlying thread through the three is his belief in “less is more". “Sometimes simple can be beautiful. For instance, in Fold, one has tried to ac... |
The Palm line, with its prism-like surfaces, presents facets of origami to create visuals of sunny days, a warm breeze, and sunlight filtering through the palm leaves. There are three products within the Palm collection, including a wall and a floor piece. Casa too features three lines inspired by the fluid and elegant... |
Stepping in front of that Austin audience may not sound hard at first, but public speaking pros warn that being an engaging and helpful panelist takes planning. |
“Many people think they can just wing it — I’ve seen it a hundred times — but it’s important to do your homework,” said frequent panelist Nicole Williams, founder and CEO of the career website WORKS by Nicole Williams. |
South By Southwest organizer Christine Auten advised, “Look [the panelists] up on LinkedIn and see what groups and organizations they’re part of.” By reading up on interviews they’ve given in the past, you can glean clues as to what they’ll say again and how you can add to that perspective or counter it. |
J.J. Abrams is going to finish the "Star Wars" trilogy that he started. |
Abrams, who directed 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," is returning to direct "Star Wars: Episode IX," Disney's Lucasfilm announced Tuesday. |
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