Monster Hunter Freedom Unite | Pt. 76 [Finally, Some New Armor!] – Video

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Monster Hunter Freedom Unite | Pt. 76 [Finally, Some New Armor!]
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Monster Hunter Freedom Unite | Pt. 76 [Finally, Some New Armor!] - Video

Amazon.com: Freedom: Music

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The versatile musical dichotomy is always at the heart of each Akon album. It could be a metaphor for the man himself. On one hand there is an extrovert whose tireless devotion is entertaining crowds and fan interaction has caused both adorations and misunderstandings. On the other, a serious businessman who has quickly built an empire that includes a record label, fashion line and charity foundation. In short, an open artist who regrets nothing, but constantly is learning from past experiences.

"I'm a lot more conscious than on my first few albums," says the singer. "I have a lot of kids that follow me now, so I have to be responsible to those who listen to my music. On [my debut album] Trouble, that wasn't even a concern because it was about who I was and what I been through. Now I have fans that actually look up to me and follow me, so I'm really watching the content I put on my records."

What hasn't changed about Akon is his willingness to discuss his personality and past. "I always felt like people need to know who I am and what my history is," he says. "That's why I'm always wide open with everything that happened with me. As much as people support me, I want them to know who they're supporting."

There are two moments on the highly anticipated third album titled Freedom, from Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum artist Akon, that are strikingly different. On "Freedom," the titular track, African melodies and marching drums build up in a brooding anthem that is both glorious and exultant. The autobiographical track is arguably the singer's most powerful statement to date, as the song crescendos, church-like, to its rousing conclusion.

Elsewhere, "Keep you Much Longer" tells the story of a successful singer who gets the tables turned when his girlfriend embarks on a career of her own. An insistent rhythm with a merciless 4/4 beat, the dance floor filler seems destined to explode in clubs all over the world. As the singer, once again, displays his impressive vocal range, the track is an updated piece of classic house music.

The 13 tracks on Freedom show a marked growth in the singer/producer's career, exemplifying the more dance-friendly side of the artist. Not to be mistaken: Akon hasn't abandoned his hip-pop and R&B roots, as the album features guest spots by Lil Wayne, T-Pain, Young Jeezy, Kardinal Offishall, Ray Lavender and Wyclef Jean. But tracks like "Troublemaker" and "We Don't Care" are set to blow up dance floors, with the former a dance record made "purely for fun" and the latter riding a chugging, arpeggiated synth and disco groove that would make Giorgio Moroder proud.

"The key is to take it from the dark side and into the light," explains the singer of the album's vibe. "I'm not gonna be miserable, preachy and unhappy forever. Of course, when you first come out from doing time, you're excited about being free and want to teach everybody what you've learned. But it's like with the name Konvict Entertainment [Akon's record label]. "I always use the name as a reminder of where I don't want to be. It was always for a positive purpose, but some people were falsely translating my message. Just because you presume something a certain way doesn't mean it's necessarily that way. You gotta take the time and get fully educated about it, then judge for yourself. I know people have preconceived notions about me. I'm not who they think I am."

2009 is shaping up to be the biggest year of Akon's career. In addition to his own album, the Konvict CEO is prepping releases for T-Pain, Lady Gaga, Kardinal Offishal, Flipsyde Dolla and Colby O'Donis. His fashion line, Konvict and Aliaune Clothing, is set to launch in January. Finally, Konfidence Foundation, the charity Akon has personally funded for four years, has teamed up with songwriter/philanthropist Peter Buffett to launch IsThereSomethingICanDo.com, a Google of sorts for charitable foundations. (An elementary school in the singer's home country of Senegal has already been built, with a hospital being developed.)

It's easy to get complacent when you achieve the level of success Akon has. With worldwide sales of over 7 million albums, certified gold and platinum status in over 23 countries, hundreds of guest appearances (including a collaboration with Michael Jackson), and the record for the first artist to have the #1 and 2 songs simultaneously on the Billboard charts twice, you'd be forgiven for allowing Akon to lean back. But, to quote the singer himself, "The more successful I get, the harder I work to keep it."

This work ethic was ingrained in the singer at an early age by his father, famed percussionist Mor Thiam. While being raised in Senegal, Akon would take all the percussion lessons taught by his father while simultaneously studying the violin and keyboard. Upon moving back to the states and later settling in Atlanta, the producer opened up some recording studios as an investment, but quickly found an urge to create music of his own. After doing time, the singer used those experiences as the basis for Trouble, his 2004 debut album which would eventually sell over 2 million copies. 2006 saw the release of the follow-up Konvicted, which, with the help of now-ubiquitous songs "Smack That," "I Wanna Love You," and "Don't Matter" sold over 3 million copies.

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Amazon.com: Freedom: Music

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right

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Religious freedom is a fundamental human right of every person on earth. It has been recognized by international accords and by the Second Vatican Council. But religious liberty is under attack in many countries around the world.

The United States committed itself to the promotion of religious liberty through its foreign policy in the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The law provides that it will be the policy of the United Sates to condemn violations of religious freedom and to promote and assist other governments in the promotion of the fundamental right to freedom of religion.

Congress felt it was necessary to make this clear in the IRFA because it is easy to forget about religious freedom when policymakers are so focused on national security, economic issues and other human rights that religious freedom is forgotten.

Although much of the motivation for passage of this act was concern over the persecution of Christians, the law is generic -- it applies to all religions.

The IRFA provides for the creation of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), to which President Barack Obama recently appointed me. The purpose of the commission is to review annually the efforts of the U.S. government in implementing the IRFA.

The most recent USCIRF report, written before I was appointed, was released April 30. It is the 15th report issued by the commission and is divided into four parts, but in this column, I will focus on the first part: a discussion of the international standards for religious freedom.

What is religious freedom?

The first point to be made is that religious freedom is not just for believers. It also includes nonbelievers. Properly speaking, it is "freedom of religion or belief." It protects a person's right to hold or not hold any religion or belief. So religious freedom must also protect the atheist.

Nor is it only for religious minorities. It also applies to those of the majority who might want to debate or dissent from views within the majority religion.

One frequent mistake is to equate freedom of religion with freedom of worship. Even some American policymakers have spoken of freedom of worship rather than freedom of religion.

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Religious freedom is a fundamental human right

Special Event: Freedom Summer

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Freedom Summer premieres on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE on Tuesday, June 24, 2014 on PBS.

RSVP is required. Click here to register.

It was called Freedom Summer, a campaign organized by civil rights groups in 1964 to send hundreds of young people into the heart of Mississippi to register black voters.

The Newseum marks the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer with a special program featuring an extended preview of the new AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film Freedom Summer, produced, written and directed by Stanley Nelson. The film debuts on PBS on June 24 at 9pm.

The program also includes a conversation with Nelson, civil rights leader Bob Moses and Rita Schwerner Bender, whose husband, Michael Schwerner, was one of three Freedom Summer volunteers notoriously murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The discussion will be moderated by Gwen Ifill of "PBS NewsHour."

Mark Samels, executive producer of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, will also make remarks prior to the screening.

Freedom Summer tells the story of the 10 memorable weeks in 1964 when more than 700 student volunteers from around the country joined organizers and local civil rights leaders in a historic effort to shatter the foundations of white supremacy in Mississippi.

Exclusive corporate funding for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance. Major funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Major funding for Freedom Summer provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor. Additional funding provided by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations: Dedicated to Strengthening America's Future Through Education; the Yawkey Foundations, the Documentary Investment Group: Robert & Marjie Kargman and the Brian A. McCarthy Foundation; and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Public Television Viewers. American Experience is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston.

"1964: Civil Rights at 50" is a yearlong exhibit at the Newseum that chronicles the events of a dramatic year in the civil rights movement, including Freedom Summer, "Mississippi Burning" and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Contributing sponsorship support for "Civil Rights at 50" has been provided by Walmart and Altria Group.

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Special Event: Freedom Summer

Dont mess with (im) perfection

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Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Winston Churchill, House of Commons speech, 11 November 1947

The current Internet governance system may be messy, but it is better than any other alternative we can devise at present. Ismail Serageldin, Internet ICANN Strategy Panel, 30 January 2014

The phenomenal success of the Internet has prompted a number of voices to question how it is governed, and who makes the decisions and who benefits. Some see the US government pulling the strings behind a system that remains mostly dominated by American firms and whose most important installations have largely remained on US soil. Politics entered the argument, many simply saying that in this day and age of globalisation and multilateralism, and the relatively reduced economic power of the US in the global economy, others must have an equal say in how the Internet is run. The governance debate was on. It became a part of the central debates launched at the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) held in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. An Internet Governance Forum (IGF) ensued, meeting yearly in different parts of the world. Further fuelled by political controversies surrounding the US National Security Agency and US government snooping, the increasing invasion of privacy that is part of the rapidly changing contexts created by social media and even commercial services being provided through the Internet, more voices were raised demanding to break up the US monopoly on running the Internet. As we approach the 10-year mark for IGF 2015, a number of committees and panels have been convened to reflect on the substance of the issues and produce recommendations on the topic of how the Internet should be governed. This small note is one contribution to one of these distinguished panels, devoted to the future role of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

THE UNBELIEVABLE SUCCESS OF THE INTERNET: The Internet has been one of the most transformative inventions in human history. There is hardly any aspect of our lives that has not been touched and transformed by the Internet, from communications, to commerce, to science, to social networking, to making all the worlds information available at everyones fingertips. As the locus of interaction with the Internet shifts from desktop PCs to personalised hand-held devices, the magic of an ever-present service that makes all that possible is taken for granted by billions of human beings.

Yet, it is a unique achievement in terms of engineering and management. In engineering terms, with the possible exception of the mobile phone, there is no other case of an engineering design having been robust enough and flexible enough to be able to handle an expansion in scale of operations of more than one million fold. The Internet design, the TCP/IP system, has proved capable of handling a million times more machines, to manage a volume of information transfer that is more than a million times larger and at speeds faster than the original design handled. All those billions of machines and devices that make this possible have addresses unique to their point of attachment to the Internet, and the system allows anyone anywhere to be connected and to receive audio and visual information at the speed of light!

The fact that a largely self-appointed group of people have actually managed to create and launch this unique system and to guide it through its explosive growth may be almost unbelievable. But it did happen, and the Internet worked and still works, and is today among the most reliable means of communication we have.

Thus it behooves us to ask: 1) what are the key features of the Internet that we want to preserve, those features that serve humanity so well and that almost all of us are unwilling to see compromised; 2) how the current system has been able to guarantee them; and 3) to measure the desirability or appropriateness of any suggested change in the governance system against the extent to which it would protect current achievements or improve the efficiency of the operation without endangering this or that feature we value.

DESIRABLE FEATURES OF THE INTERNET SYSTEM: The Internets amazing performance is due to several key features, most notable among these is its unitary structure and the designed net neutrality, i.e. it is open to all traffic from anywhere to anywhere and will allow all types of information and content to be so transferred or accessed, sent to storage devices or retrieved there from.

That this was achieved largely from a base physically in the US is an accident of history that has not impeded fair development of the Internet involving many international partners or the provision of its services to one and all. Thus, while the initial project began with the ARPANET in 1968, the Internet project quickly involved non-US partners as early at 1972 when the International Network Working Group (INWG) was created and when a number of non-US research teams cooperated to implement the experimental TCP/IP protocols of the Internet. Notably, there were participants from Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany who were formally part of the programme while others participated in research in parallel with or through the INWG. Indeed the World Wide Web was developed in CERN in Switzerland and has rapidly become a fundamental component of the Internet and is administered by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which works with other parts of the governance of the Internet system through its multiple layers to preserve and protect the desirable features of the Internet system as billions of people have come to know it and to rely on it. All this may be imperfect, but it works well.

That the Internet has scaled up so incredibly despite its brief existence has inevitably meant that the system has confronted the frictions and tensions that come from increasing complexity. Many actors from all over the world are today involved in making the Internet work, and accommodating them all while ensuring the continuing effective management of the service has been a challenge. That challenge has been met by expanding the realm of the internet (e.g. the move to IPv6 expansion of the Top Level Domain space) and by systematically involving as many of the relevant stakeholders as possible in as transparent a way as possible in the decision-making that accompanied the huge expansion of the Internet.

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Dont mess with (im) perfection

Committee Member of the year for Children Cancer Center, Tampa Beaches & update on HAPPY TAMPA 2014 – Video

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Committee Member of the year for Children Cancer Center, Tampa Beaches update on HAPPY TAMPA 2014
You will laugh watching this... People impact our community in an amazing way! A special thank you to those close to me who contributed to the Children Cancer Center last year which resulted...

By: Stella Giudicelli

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Committee Member of the year for Children Cancer Center, Tampa Beaches & update on HAPPY TAMPA 2014 - Video