text:
You may have noticed that the Parameter Handling feature disappeared from the Site configuration > Settings section of Webmaster Tools. Fear not; you can now find it under its new name, URL Parameters! Along with renaming it, we refreshed and improved the feature. We hope you'll find it even more useful. Configuration of URL parameters made in the old version of the feature will be automatically visible in the new version. Before we reveal all the cool things you can do with URL parameters now, let us remind you (or introduce, if you are new to this feature) of the purpose of this feature and when it may come in handy.
When to use
URL Parameters helps you control which URLs on your site should be crawled by Googlebot, depending on the parameters that appear in these URLs. This functionality provides a simple way to prevent crawling duplicate content on your site. Now, your site can be crawled more effectively, reducing your bandwidth usage and likely allowing more unique content from your site to be indexed. If you suspect that Googlebot's crawl coverage of the content on your site could be improved, using this feature can be a good idea. But with great power comes great responsibility! You should only use this feature if you're sure about the behavior of URL parameters on your site. Otherwise you might mistakenly prevent some URLs from being crawled, making their content no longer accessible to Googlebot.
A lot more to do
Okay, let's talk about what's new and improved. To begin with, in addition to assigning a crawl action to an individual parameter, you can now also describe the behavior of the parameter. You start by telling us whether or not the parameter changes the content of the page. If the parameter doesn't affect the page's content then your work is done; Googlebot will choose URLs with a representative value of this parameter and will crawl the URLs with this value. Since the parameter doesn't change the content, any value chosen is equally good. However, if the parameter does change the content of a page, you can now assign one of four possible ways for Google to crawl URLs with this parameter:
- Let Googlebot decide
- Every URL
- Only crawl URLs with value=x
- No URLs
Of the four crawl options listed above, "No URLs" is new and deserves special attention. This option is the most restrictive and, for any given URL, takes precedence over settings of other parameters in that URL. This means that if the URL contains a parameter that is set to the "No URLs" option, this URL will never be crawled, even if other parameters in the URL are set to "Every URL." You should be careful when using this option. The second most restrictive setting is "Only URLs with value=x."
Feature in use
Now let's do something fun and exercise our brains on an example.
- - -Once upon a time there was an online store, fairyclothes.example.com. The store's website used parameters in its URLs, and the same content could be reached through multiple URLs. One day the store owner noticed, that too many redundant URLs could be preventing Googlebot from crawling the site thoroughly. So he sent his assistant CuriousQuestionAsker to The GreatWebWizard to get advice on using the URL parameters feature to reduce the duplicate content crawled by Googlebot. The Great WebWizard was famous for his wisdom. He looked at the URL parameters and proposed the following configuration:
|Parameter name
|Effect on content?
|What should Googlebot crawl?
|One representative URL
|Only URLs with value = 'lowToHigh'
|Only URLs with value = 'price'
|No URLs
|Every URL
|Every URL
The CuriousQuestionAsker couldn't avoid his nature and started asking questions:
CuriousQuestionAsker: You've instructed Googlebot to choose a representative URL for trackingId (value to be chosen by Googlebot). Why not select the Only URLs with value=x option and choose the value myself?
Great WebWizard: While crawling the web Googlebot encountered the following URLs that link to your site:
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?trackingId=aaa123
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?trackingId=aaa124
- fairyclothes.example.com/trousers/?trackingId=aaa125
CuriousQuestionAsker: What about the sortOrder parameter? I don't care if the items are listed in ascending or descending order. Why not let Google select a representative value?
Great WebWizard: As Googlebot continues to crawl it may find the following URLs:
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&sortBy=price&sortOrder='lowToHigh'
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&sortBy=price&sortOrder='highToLow'
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&sortBy=price&sortOrder='lowToHigh'
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&sortBy=price&sortOrder=' highToLow'
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&sortBy=price&sortOrder='lowToHigh'
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&sortBy=price&sortOrder=' highToLow'
CuriousQuestionAsker: How about the sortBy value?
Great WebWizard: This is very similar to the sortOrder attribute. You want the crawled URLs of your listing to be sorted consistently throughout all the pages, otherwise some of the items may not be visible to Googlebot. However, you should be careful which value you choose. If you sell books as well as shoes in your store, it would be better not to select the value 'title' since URLs pointing to shoes never contain 'sortBy=title', so they will not be crawled. Likewise setting 'sortBy=size' works well for crawling shoes, but not for crawling books. Keep in mind that parameters configuration has influence throughout the whole site.
CuriousQuestionAsker: Why not crawl URLs with parameter filterByColor?
Great WebWizard: Imagine that you have a three-page list of skirts. Some of the skirts are blue, some of them are red and others are green.
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=3
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&flterByColor=blue
- fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&flterByColor=blue
- - -
If your site has URL parameters that are potentially creating duplicate content issues then you should check out the new URL Parameters feature in Webmaster Tools. Let us know what you think or if you have any questions post them to the Webmaster Help Forum.


text:
Original URL: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/19/us_asks_wto_to_rule/
US asks WTO to rule on China's chip tax
We want level playing field
Posted in The Channel, 19th March 2004 11:03 GMT
The US government has filed an official complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) regarding the tax rebates China offers to its domestic chip makers
As reported yesterday, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick last week said of the tax rebates: "If they don't stop it, we're going to take action."
And that's just what the Bush administration has done. "US manufacturers of semiconductors and other products have a right to compete on a level playing field with Chinese firms," said Zoellick in an Associated Press report. "As a WTO member, China must live up to its WTO obligations."
In 2000, China imposed a 17 per cent sales tax on semiconductors. However, it permits local manufacturers to claim an 11 per cent rebate on the levy. If they design the chips as well as make them, they can claim a 14 per cent rebate. Neither tax break is open to overseas suppliers.
Such preferential treatment for local firms is a violation of WTO rules against discriminatory treatment, the US government claimed.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the trade body representing US chipmakers, yesterday welcomed the government's move. It has been calling for some time for the US government to take the case to the WTO.
With the complaint filed, China and US trade representatives now have 60 days to negotiate a settlement. If talks prove unsuccessful, the case will come before a WTO panel. ®
Related Stories
US tells China to drop chip sales tax - or else
US chip industry to take on Beijing
China tells Intel to calm down over Wi-Fi
Intel won't play by China's Wi-Fi rules
US chip biz tells China to ditch local WLAN standard
China unveils 'DVD killer' video disk format

subset: commoncrawl


text:
very interesting.
well not at all.
Well, if they (or some other service you care about) would shut it down without telling someone, you would be all over slashdot posting "WHY DIDN'T THEY TELL US?!? I LOST ALL MY STUFF"...
Props to them for at least telling in advance.
The fewer people who are writing blogs, the more people there are working out their issues the old-fashioned way at the Shrink's office.
So now all ask.com does is push shitty spyware toolbars?
There was a time I LOVED Bloglines, but not for a few years. They kept having issues with feeds from common sites and certain aspects of their site returned the same error all the time (such as the error message whenever I tried to go to recommendations).
I switched to Google Reader earlier this year, and really haven't looked back.
I had the same story, until Google started asking for my mobile phone number as verification to link to my Google account. IMO, this is over the edge, as in this country you have to use your real identity to get a mobile number.
Except search and maps, I self host everything (email, websites, Jabber, RSS reader, calendar, etc.) on a dedicated server. There's a small price to pay, but as an example, I have the same email address for the last 10 years. I have all my emails for the last 10 years. There's no worry about privacy. As a programmer, it's useful to run irssi from it under screen, host my own websites, pretty much run anything network oriented..
Dear mods,
The parent post is funny, not offtopic.
Dear mods,
The parent post is Insightful, not just Karma-Bonus Modified.
The Beta version of Bloglines was my favorite reader, especially its mobile version. There is no other online reader I can find that will show fill posts by default in the mobile version. I was willing to put up with a lot of bugs and issues because I couldn't find a good alternative. Eventually it became too much and I moved to Fever [feedafever.com] -- which sadly doesn't support full posts in the mobile client and the developer seems singularly uninterested in supporting that feature. But I was able to force it to give the desktop version when on a mobile device, which works surprisingly well.
Still it is a shame about bloglines. I will miss it...
The ASK blog talks about Twitter and Facebook. Who the hell reads their feeds via those two? Are people really hanging up on reading RSS feeds? I don't think so.
The problem I think was the fact that they just couldn't monetize it. When you're getting multiple Ask spams in just about every article, and then they switch to Google Adwords, then switch back. It's all about the Benjamins.
? Are people really hanging up on reading RSS feeds? I don't think so
Have RSS feeds ever really been popular?
I have no idea how one would track usage, but I've always assumed that they are primarily used by niche users group. Power users. Geeks. Etc.
> I have no idea how one would track usage
RSS runs over HTTP, so most ways of counting usage, updates, clickthroughs, etc. still apply. RSS aggregator sites can also do neat tricks to figure out demographics based on which feeds are read, which stories are clicked, search queries, cookies, etc.
Yeah, I could check my logs, but no sites I run have RSS...so...
I've always wondered what RSS is good for. Now that it is dead or dying, could someone enlighten me.
***I've always wondered what RSS is good for.***
I've always wondered that myself. Apparently if there were just one format and everyone used it, RSS would be usable for announcing and automatically downloading entities called 'podcasts' and 'blogs' which sort of resemble broadcasts and magazine articles respectively -- if there were just one format for those and everyone used it. However, since everyone makes up their own format for all this stuff and none of it works quite right, the principle purpose of
***I've always wondered what RSS is good for.***
One nice thing was to bookmark an RSS feed in Firefox. Instead of just a bookmark, you'd get a menu of all the site's RSS entries (stories), which periodically refreshed (or could do so when you commanded). So you could look at your favorite sites and see all their headlines and then go directly to stories that interested you.
I say "nice thing" in the sense that, yeah, that's kinda nice...but not exactly rock-your-world revolutionary. RSS does make it easy to include feeds from other sites...but 9 times o
If I wanted to read site X, I'd go to site X, without needing to see a list of headlines on another site.
What if site X doesn't have any new items? RSS allows you not to waste the time opening all the sites to check if they have new content. Besides, the content is already loaded, hence it's faster to browse.
For me, with 48 subscriptions, some which only update once a week or less, it's very useful.
An RSS reader aggregates and allows you to preview the content published to many different websites, all from one place
Like Slashdot?
I manage a craft forum and use an RSS plug in to retrieve craft related blog posts and post them in a special forum for the membership. It works pretty well and other members who might not know about the blogs get exposed to new content.
It's for announcing torrents in a machine readable format. Then your reader parses the XML, downloads torrents matching your criteria, and they appear in a network share ready to watch.
Anyone care to comment on the history or future of RSS? RSS seemed like a great idea: an open format that allowed users to scan sites (Blogs, news sites, web comics) for updates. Also the privacy issues were limited because the list of sites was only kept locally.
RSS seemed like a great idea but it seems it never reached mainstream popularity. Most (?) internet users have never heard of RSS. Instead people turned to third party aggregators and closed sites like Facebook. What happened?
Most (?) internet users have never heard of RSS. Instead people turned to third party aggregators and closed sites like Facebook. What happened?
Take podcasts.
As a podcaster, you can put up an RSS feed, or an iTunes link. Which do you think will get you more hits? Even people that hate Apple will use iTunes. Okay so you can put up both, but what does that get you that iTunes doesn't?
Now look at it from the point of view of a podcast consumer/user. You can use a different podcast app, and only get RSS feeds while missing out on some iTunes stuff, or you can just use iTunes and get 99% of the podcasts you want and a directory to boot with minimum fuss.
Tell me again why in either of the above cases you'd bother with RSS? So what happened? Real life and commercial interests. Companies like Apple are motivated to apply vendor lock in and make their apps as attractive as possible, effectively killing the open effort and corner the market. End users are motivated to use the most common and convenient solution.
As a podcaster, you can put up an RSS feed, or an iTunes link.
Unless you're thinking about writing the XML by hand, any decent feed generator (blog software or whatever) should be able to produce the two versions without any extra effort.
Most podcasts I've seen have both; but it may be because I only listen to technical ones.
Okay so you can put up both, but what does that get you that iTunes doesn't?
Maybe you should read the post again...
As a podcaster, you can put up an RSS feed, or an iTunes link.
Unless you're thinking about writing the XML by hand, any decent feed generator (blog software or whatever) should be able to produce the two versions without any extra effort.
Most podcasts I've seen have both; but it may be because I only listen to technical ones.
That's still one more file you have to manage, one more format you have to have hosted, one more link you must put up per episode, one more thing that can go wrong etc. If it gains you nothing, why do it?
If you use the web interface to create the item, the file is generated on demand or stored by the software.
And what link? The MP3/OGG/whatever file is the same. You only have to create an extra link once: on the main website to the RSS feed. Not per episode.
In total, using something like Wordpress you have to waste about two minutes once, to put the rss.gif file up and link it to the feed.
And I doubt it gains you nothing. I certainly won't use iTunes - and can you get iTunes podcasts for Linux, Android, Sym
and can you get iTunes podcasts for Linux, Android, Symbian, etc?
Linux on the desktop is not popular in the United States. Nor is Symbian. As for Android, it's fine on cell phones, but there really isn't yet an Android MP3 player that matches the capability of iPod touch. (Speculation is that this is Google's fault.)
As a podcaster, you can put up an RSS feed, or an iTunes link. Which do you think will get you more hits?
From Apple's iTunes podcast spec: "iTunes uses RSS 2.0 plus some additional tags." There is no iTunes or RSS option, they're the same option.
I think RSS was supposed to be a user generated, local, personal feed aggregator, a sort of "roll your own fark, digg, slashdot" - because face it, those sites really only pull highlighted stories from 10-25 other sites on a weekly basis.
RSS was really neat, and back in the heyday of online webcomics (what, 2001-2005?) RSS was a great tool for cartoonists trying to "spread the word".
Unfortunately, a) people are lazy, and few people want to collect, maintain, and prune their RSS feed list b) the internet can
A geek can cover 99% of their bases scanning boingboing, slashdot, digg, fark and google news in about 15 minutes,
If you're only scanning five news sites, you don't need an RSS aggregator. RSS readers are for power users who monitor dozens or hundreds of websites. You'd go mad trying to stay on top of that many sites yourself.
RSS readers are also very useful for getting news through firewalls. I can't read Fark or Digg from work, and I'm surprised they still allow Boingboing. Google reader allows me to get information that otherwise would be blocked off.
I used to have Bloglines, but for a while their site was broke
What happened?
Can't speak for all feeds, but one my favourite RSS feeds went empty one day. When I checked the website, the word "Censored" appeared.
They must be good...
I suppose Ask.com will stick around to some extent like how Excite.com is still an active website, but no one will ever give it a real look, it's just "there" with the other legacy sites on the web.
Funny you should mention Excite, since the domain is now owned by Ask.com.
I think that's a case where a once-valuable domain and brand will sit around for a long time because some accountant still thinks it's worth something, even though everyone who once used Excite has forgotten about it and moved on to Google.
aaah excite and altavista.digital.com
now *those* where the days (well... those and my toddler Gophering days
no other company has plagued me as much as Ask.com with uninvited, impossible to remove spyware and toolbars
From TFA : "Today RSS is the enabling technology – the infrastructure, the delivery system. RSS is a means to an end, not a consumer experience in and of itself. As a result, RSS aggregator usage has slowed significantly, and Bloglines isn't the only service to feel the impact.. The writing is on the wall."
Obviously these guys have not heard of Google Reader...
Twitter and Facebook and other "instant" crap isn't replacing RSS haha. And, YES, RSS is a "consumer experience" for intelligent consumers who can figure it out. RSS Aggregators are genius - one webpage you can go to that tracks and reprints stories from all the webpages you keep up with. Bloglines had virtually eliminated my use of bookmarks for anything but archival purposes. Everything I wanted to read was either at, or linked from, my
First, I had no idea Ask.com had anything to do with it - I just use the site to read my articles every day. I would have gladly paid a fee to use Bloglines (small fee, say $20/year) because I found it so helpful. Not only was it one single webpage I could go to and get all the news/articles I want, it was portable (I could continue/save reading at work or on my phone), and I loved that the interface just stayed the same. Bloglines I logged into in 2005 pretty much looks like it in 2010 - and that was A-OK with me.
What's irritating is how they dealt with this. They gave about 3-weeks notice, which granted, is adequate. They link on the main bloglines page to a "blog post" telling you about the closure - and that's where the asshat starts. Basically, they state that because "everyone" gets their news from Twitter and Facebook and "instant" services now, people don't need an aggregator. Uh, say what? I don't get my news from Facebook or Twitter - and anyone that does is really, really dumb.
Sure, I can get a few pithy links or quotes from them, but I have 100ish sites that I track on Bloglines that the content certainly isn't replicated there. Then they go on about what a wonderful thing Ask.com was and how asking questions is the future - but they fail because they don't realize that SURE I type questions into search engines all the time - GOOGLE. Why would I ever, ever go to Ask.com directly when I can ask the same question of Goggle, and get the Ask.com results, PLUS the results for the entire rest of the Internet? Back when it was "Askjeeves.com" I think I went there a few times, but I haven't even though of ask.com in probably the same half-decade I have been using Bloglines.
The kicker...they aren't approving ANY comments on the announcement. I submitted one three days ago and it never got moderated, and I find it impossible to believe that no one else has commented. They just want to brush it under the carpet and forget about it. Much like the rest of the world has forgotten about Ask.com.
So I moved everything over to Google Reader. It's OK, I actually like the "scrolling through marks it read" feature, but what I am not excited about is the relative instability of Google products - they are always tweaking, updating, etc. and I really just want something that works and stays that way, like Bloglines did.
Life will go on. But Ask.com just sent me over to their competitor - I'll be spending even more time at Google now. And now I've gone from neutral on ask.com, to negative on them. I'll think twice before clicking a link to them, and try to find the info elsewhere.
"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back to one." -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351


text:
Landon Donovan scored two goals in his return to the United States national team, and the Americans defeated Guatemala 6-0 Friday night in a friendly match preceding the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Playing his first match for the U.S. since Aug. 15, 2002, Donovan scored his 50th international goal, exteneding his American record, on a penalty kick in the 55th minute to put the Americans up 2-0.
His 51st came in the 74th minute on an assist from Stuart Holden.
The United States controlled possession throughout. Herculez Gomez opened the scoring with his sixth national-team goal in the 42nd minute, but the American attack took off in the latter period.
Chris Wondolowski, Clarence Goodson and Alejandro Bedoya also scored in the second half.


text: RC was my best section of the LSAT as well (only missed one). I think the fact that I just finished a masters program prior to taking the test really helped me a lot (at least 3-4 books required reading per week). I would suggest reading a wide variety of magazines, especially those dealing with the hard sciences and history (those topics seemed to be favorites of the test makers). There was a thread dealing with this topic in the past (I believe) and someone felt as though they were able to improve their RC score by reading the first sentence of each paragraph before reading the entire passage as a whole. I personally found the whole "trick" route rather time consuming and preferred to "freestyle" it. Good luck!!!


text:
The track had plans to pour $250 million into vast upgrades to the frontstretch grandstands, building five new gates and constructing 11 sprawling concourses.
DAYTONA BEACH — Four days after facing defeat in this year's legislative session with bills that would have helped cover costs of a major overhaul at Daytona International Speedway, the track's president said Tuesday the project's "timing, size and scope" will be re-examined.
"We are clearly disappointed by the outcome last week in the Florida Legislature," Speedway President Joie Chitwood III said in a statement released late Tuesday afternoon. "We made a very compelling case for what could have been a successful public/private partnership with the state of Florida to create jobs and generate real economic growth. We also had substantial local, regional and statewide support.
"However, given this setback to our project, we are forced to reassess the proposed redevelopment and closely examine a number of factors such as its timing, size and scope, before we decide on next steps."
Chitwood announced a few months ago that he'd like to pour $250 million into vast upgrades to the frontstretch grandstands, including adding a fourth level of seating, building five new gates and constructing 11 sprawling concourses.
Speedway officials said they'd also eventually like to add an array of new development around the track and across the street on International Speedway Corp. property including new hotels, shops, restaurants, movie theaters and possibly casinos if state law changes to allow that.
A couple of bills that would have helped the Speedway cover its costs on the grandstand project failed to come up for final votes during this year's session in Tallahassee, including one that could have given the Speedway more than $70 million in sales tax rebates over 30 years and another that could have tapped a state Department of Economic Opportunity fund and brought $90 million to the Speedway over three decades.
Even a state Capitol appearance by race car driver Jimmie Johnson the week before last couldn't save the measures.
Over the past year, the Speedway and ISC were able to get the zoning changes they needed for their proposed plans and they're nearing the finish line on the final site plan and building permit for the grandstand project. Chitwood has said he still needs approval from the ISC board of directors.
Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen said Tuesday he hopes the proposed Speedway project is only delayed, not significantly altered. With thousands of jobs and a huge burst of development at stake, Dinneen said, "We're very big supporters of this project.
"I'm hoping it becomes more of a timing issue than an issue that would derail it," Dinneen said. "Hopefully this is just a bump in the road and they'll stay on course. I'm assuming that they'll try again next session."
With the dust of the 2013 legislative session still settling, Speedway officials have not said if they'll pursue funding assistance through legislation again. If they decide not to, another source of financial help could come from the possible sale of International Speedway Corp.'s Staten Island track.
"As for Staten Island, ISC officials have said on prior earnings calls that they are currently in exclusive negotiations with an interested buyer for the Staten Island property," Daytona International Speedway spokesman Lenny Santiago said Tuesday.
Rep. David Santiago, R-Deltona, who's not related to Lenny Santiago, was the sponsor of the Speedway bill that sought the sales tax rebates and said he still thinks it was a good measure.
"I don't think we could have done much of anything differently," said Santiago, who was elected in November and experiencing his first session in Tallahassee but managed to get six other bills passed. "We gave it a good fight."
The Speedway's request was bolstered by its pledge to invest at least $250 million before it would have received the bulk of the more than $70 million in sales tax rebates, he said.
The bill filed by Santiago at the end of February sought to give the Speedway three different types of sales tax rebates that would have tallied more than $70 million over 30 years. Once the session got going, an amendment was added to his bill that aimed to help Jacksonville's EverBank Field secure $60 million for construction.
"I fought to the end to keep that amendment off the bill," he said.
During the session the Speedway also got pulled into a Senate bill that started out focused on helping the Miami Dolphins and turned into a measure that would have ranked several professional sports organizations in Florida seeking tax dollars for stadium projects.
That measure, which could have provided $90 million to the Speedway, passed in the Senate but never came up for a vote on the House floor. Santiago's bill and its Senate companion also never got final votes before the session ended Friday.
Santiago said it appears to him the Speedway suffered "collateral damage" from getting pulled into other professional sports proposals to receive tax dollars to help their projects that never got final votes.
Santiago said he'll meet with Speedway officials in a few weeks to start talking about where to go next.
If the Speedway wants to pursue public funding again, state Rep. Dwayne Taylor, D-Daytona Beach, suggests the racing giant put its efforts into a measure that more clearly shows it's a public-private partnership, and file a new bill as early as this summer.
City Commissioner Rob Gilliland, whose zone includes the Speedway, still sees plenty of hope for the Speedway project and its ability to get some taxpayer assistance.
"It wasn't voted down. It died," Gilliland said. "They still get the exposure of their proposal. It'll slow down the project, but it won't derail it."
Speedway officials have pointed out other professional sports organizations have enjoyed sales tax rebates of $2 million per year for the past 20 years or so, but motorsports have been specifically excluded.
The Speedway maintains creating the type of sports and entertainment complex it envisions would give the city, county and state governments more than $75 million in new sales tax dollars in the first 10 years, and more than $300 million over 30 years.
"I think the plan was good. We really had a good proposal," Santiago said. "It had a good return for the area."


text:
From minstrels to maidens to musicians, Zern's Farmer's Market at 1100 East Philadelphia Avenue in Gilbertsville was bustling with activity on Saturday, January 12 during the second annual Frozen Fantasy Fair and Craft Bazaar.
The yearly event was the brainchild of North Hampton resident Bryan Berkenstock, the proprietor of Captain B Pyrate Stock, who designed the festival to be a small scale Renaissance fair, complete with entertainers, vendors, and a medieval feel.
"I remember coming to Zern's when it was really crowded," Berkenstock explained. "I thought it would be great to hold a fair here to draw people back out, so that's the basis of this whole thing."
For the past three years, Berkenstock has been participating in Renaissance fairs, festivals, and the like selling pirate flags, flasks, jewelry, and novelties. While working at these events across Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, he made many contacts as well as friendships with the other vendors and performers, many of whom he invited to come to the Frozen Fantasy Fair.
"The circuit is really close knit. Almost everything being sold here is handcrafted. It's all made in America, and it's made by someone who lives not too far from you. Buying from these vendors helps support the local economy," said Berkenstock.
Vendors were selling everything from handcrafted fairy wings to uniquely styled jewelry and included Captain B Pyrate Stock, Dress Your Dreams, Elven Creations, Black Cat Red, Hann Crafted and Put Togethers, InFamous Welsh Cookie Company, M.F. Thomas Enterprises, Water Fae Reading, Jewels of a Find, and Happy Hooker Crochet.
One of the vendors who hails from Phillipsburg, New Jersey, Sara Billiard of Jewels of a Find was participating in the fair for the second year in a row. Following last year's event, she opened her own stall in Zern's and has been working there on weekends ever since.
"Everything is handmade by me, and some of the designs are even copyrighted" explained Billiard. "I've been doing this over 13 years. I started out making jewelry as something to do and quickly became addicted to it."
At the Dress Your Dreams stall, owner Susan Belloff displayed her complete line of hand-sewn costumes, clothes, and accessories for Renaissance fairs, weddings, and role playing games. Belloff has been sewing since she was a child and has been fashioning Renaissance wear since 1999.
According to the Manheim resident, "I work out of the house. I sew and it takes me all year long to make enough to have in my stores for the events. I have a shop at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair, and it's my main show because it runs 12 to 13 weekends. I need to sew enough to keep open for 13 weekends, and I make a lot of custom things as well."
Performers included fiddler Keith Engle; Suffiyah Nahila Elizar, the owner of Dancers Oasis, who performed a gypsy dance; Jack Mood and Brenda Landt who used guitars, flutes, recorders, and tambourines to create a unique blend of old English folk and Celtic music; and Frank Douglas who performed as Pokie-Poke the Jongleur and has an act that includes juggling, comedy, magic, and audience participation.
In between the performers' half-hour sets, music was provided by deejays from SoundTrax, and during the course of the afternoon, performers from Mad Dash Minstrels walked through the crowd sharing their blend of humor and performance art.
Berkenstock maintains the fair's website year-round (www.frozenfantasyfair.com) and will start planning next year's event this summer. He hopes that the Frozen Fantasy Fair and Craft Bazaar will continue to grow each year, including the addition of having more sponsorships to help defray costs for participants, especially the performers who this year showcased their talents gratis.
As Berkenstock explained on the event's website, "From jewelry to armor, there's something for everyone to admire and enjoy," and he encourages the community to learn more about these Renaissance fairs and festivals and to come out to the Frozen Fantasy Fair next January.
"To come to one of these events is really an adventure," said Berkenstock.
For more information about the Frozen Fantasy Fair and Craft Bazaar and the vendors and entertainers who performed, visit www.frozenfantasyfair.com or contact Bryan Berkenstock at (610) 440-1614.


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Video A Chat With USENIX Community Manager Rikki Endsley (Video) 40
Rikki Endsley has been Community Manager for USENIX since September, 2011. She also edits their magazine, ;login:, writes for publications ranging from Linux.com to Network World, and is a long-distance runner to boot. But this interview concentrates on USENIX, a worthy organization that does a great job of helping its members (and the entire Unix/Linux community) stay up to date technically and, with its job board, keep USENIX members employed. Toward the end of the conversation, Rikki mentions some of the intangible but valuable benefits people get when they attend USENIX events. (Remember: If you don't have time to watch the video, can't see the video or just don't like video, you can click on the "Show/Hide Transcript" link and read a text version of the video.)


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Waiting for Brad Marchand to re-sign with the Bruins as a restricted free agent this summer is starting to feel like the 39-year wait for Boston to capture the Stanley Cup.
Today Joe Haggerty of CSNNE.com spoke with the agent for Marchand, Wade Arnott, about the dealing between he and the Bruins over last year's Boston breakout rookie.
Haggerty writes:
It doesn't appear that there will be any grand announcement during Marchand's Cup Day parade in Halifax at the end of August. In fact, Arnott had an interesting response when asked if he was optimistic a deal will get done before Bruins training camp begins in earnest on Sept. 16.
"[I'm] hopeful, but it's no sure thing," said Arnott, casting the slightest shed of doubt that Marchand's signing is an automatic.
Now ignoring Haggerty's improper use of the idiom "in earnest," the quote from Arnott at least arouses the slightest bit of intrigue during a summer of mostly silence from both the agent and Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli on the Marchand matter. Arnott could've easily said "I'm hopeful." Instead he added the second clause which raises a sliver of doubt.
Arnott could be doing that to get everyone in a tizzy and shift a little pressure on the Bruins to concede a bit more in the talks. Or he might legitimately envision Marchand's deal not getting until maybe late September. Perhaps that wouldn't be the worse thing, especially if Marchand needs extra time to recover from a wild summer of celebrating.
Then there's the scenario the Bruins have been through before with an Arnott client — an impasse that leads to a deal. This is starting to have the feel of Bruins vs. Arnott Part II. Ultimately, both sides won Round One when Phil Kessel was dealt to Toronto, where he got his money and has become the team's marquee star. And the Bruins put the draft picks and cap space to good use. With that notch on their belt, the Bruins must feel as though they could turn this situation in their favor, regardless of the outcome.
It's tough to tell which side has the leverage — the popular second-year winger or the Cup champs — right now in the eyes of the fans. But it might be wise for observers to lean a little toward the man who built the team that ended the drought over the player that might be putting his own interests a little bit higher than those of that team. After all, selflessness might've been the Cup-champion Bruins' most important attribute last June.


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You found the friendliest gaming & tech geeks around. Say hello!
This is why Linux and OS X are starting to kill Windows on the desktop
What are the things listed on your drive?Moose wrote:After the question "Which windows installation would you like to log onto" I have tried 3 and 2 and get "Invalid selection." Whehn I try 1 and ENTER the computer freezes up and nothing follows. Help please!
PVB wrote:Got to recovery console.
Unfortunately every command:
"No matching files were found" OR
"The system cannot the file or directory specified".
I have cloned the drive in question and tried this process on the original and the clone with the same results.
Could somebody please help?
Icrontic — Home of the Big Beef Burrito since 8-8-2000, fool. A Short-Media community © 2003–2018. Powered with ill-gotten helium.


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What is old is new again...
Thanks to volunteer data miner/digitizer and AAVSO member Bob Stine of Newbury Park, California, the AAVSO International Database is richer by over 3,200 historical observations of Nova Per Nr. 2 (1901) = GK Per.
The improvement to the accessible light curve for this star is both dramatic and vital, as the data which Bob digitized covers the 18 months following the outburst--from February 18, 1901 to August 8, 1902--as can be seen in the light curve shown here.
You can view a close-up light curve of this 18-month time interval via the AAVSO Light Curve Generator.
The AAVSO is grateful to Bob Stine for his important contribution to the variable star record. Thanks Bob!
Submitted by M.Saladyga on Mon, 05/02/2011 - 11:20
- Log in to post comments


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Oil went to a record high today. Expect gas stations to respond as quick as they can.
Oil went to a record high today. Expect gas stations to respond as quick as they can.
"Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women." - Nora Ephron
NEW YORK Crude oil prices marched to new heights of close to $60 a barrel Monday as worries about a possible winter fuel crunch stoked buying and forced OPEC to consider releasing extra crude.
Light sweet crude (search) for July delivery hit a record $59.23 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (search), before paring gains to stand up 33 cents at $58.80 in midday trading. Brent futures for August traded in London climbed 24 cents to $58 a barrel, having hit a fresh peak of $58.58..
NYMEX contracts for delivery in the last four months of the year, when oil demand seasonally picks up in the northern hemisphere, all traded above $60.
"The main reasons for the continued momentum remain the same as they have been throughout the strong push up over the past month --- the perception of a tight balance for the back end of this year in a market with limited slack," said Kevin Norrish of Barclays Capital.
OPEC (search) President Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah said Monday that "if the prices continue to the end of this week at the same level, I will start consulting my colleagues to release the 500,000." Asked by reporters in Kuwait what he meant by the end of this week, the minister said Friday.
Last week the oil cartel agreed to raise its official production ceiling to 28 million barrels, but that failed to soothe traders because OPEC's output had already exceeded that level as producers seek to cash in on high prices. Including Iraq, which is not bound by the quota system, OPEC is pumping close to 30 million barrels a day, or about 35 percent of global demand.
"We have been expecting prices to come down for a while but this is clearly not the case. The rally is definitely sustained by gasoline demand in the United States, posting a 3 percent yearly growth, which is seen as extremely strong," said Deborah White, energy analyst with SG Securities in Paris.
"People are trying to push prices through $60," she added.
While Nymex oil futures are more than 50 percent higher than a year ago, they are still below the inflation-adjusted high above $90 a barrel set in 1980.
Analysts said unlike the record prices last year, which were driven largely by concern over geopolitical events in oil-producing countries such as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Venezuela, this year's trend has more to do with speculative buying, continued supply fears and limited excess production capacity.
ANZ Bank energy analyst Daniel Hynes said the rise in oil prices last week was partly a reaction to the kidnapping of two German and four Nigerian Shell subcontractors who had been seized by gunmen on Wednesday. They were released Saturday. Nigeria exports some 2.5 million barrels of oil daily, making it the world's seventh-leading exporter and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.
High Oil Prices Causing No Panic -- Yet
Monday, June 20, 2005
NEW YORK U.S. consumers and corporations can cope with higher oil prices as long as crude prices stay clear of volatility, market strategists say.
In inflation-adjusted terms, oil prices remain well-below the roughly $90-a-barrel peak hit in the 1980s, according to calculations by the International Energy Agency (search).
"Oil prices on a real basis are not as expensive. The economy is more energy efficient. Volatile is more problematic than just high oil prices," said Chip Dickson, chief U.S. strategist at Lehman Brothers (LEH), speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit.
Oil prices have risen more than 27 percent this year, hitting a record high of $58.28 a barrel on April 4. U.S. crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (search) on Friday hit a new record of $58.60 per barrel -- over the former record of $58.28 set on April.
"When energy prices rise, it is during that period (of rise) that we see a slowdown," said Abby Joseph Cohen, chief U.S. portfolio strategist at Goldman Sachs and Co (GS). "If energy prices stabilize at a certain level, the impact seems to abate a little bit as households and others adjust to that new level."
But Cohen said if prices jump dramatically above Goldman's near-term target range of $45 to $50, it could hurt consumers, particularly lower-income households, and that could hit the margins of discount retailers.
In March, Goldman Sachs said in a research report that oil markets have entered a "super-spike" period that could see 1970s-style price surges as high as $105 a barrel. Cohen said that is the level at which Goldman's analysts expect oil to be "totally disruptive."
Investors worry about the negative impact of oil prices on stocks but at least one market strategist said there's reason to relax.
"I don't think I would draw any kind of connection between equities in general and the oil market," said Rick Bensignor, executive director and chief technical strategist at Morgan Stanley.
While oil prices have risen about 70 percent over in the last year and a half, the S&P 500 index has also risen, although by a far lower 8.6 percent.
"Now you are talking longer term and clearly there is no correlation there. Crude, if anything, is stopping the stock market from being much higher," Bensignor said.
One of the main reasons high oil prices don't seem to send shockwaves through the U.S. stocks markets in recent years is the high services component in the U.S. economy and relatively efficient manufacturing processes, the strategists said. The services sector comprises about 80 percent of the U.S. economy.
"From a global standpoint we know that there are other countries more afflicted by higher energy prices than we are," Cohen of Goldman Sachs added. "I'd like to say that this is because the growth in our economy has come not from heavy duty, metal-bending manufacturing but from more sophisticated manufacturing that is not as energy intensive and also because a good deal of our growth has come from services."
Greenspan: Economy Will Weather Oil Prices
Friday, May 20, 2005
WASHINGTON The economy, which had hit a temporary soft patch from surging energy prices, probably will weather the situation well, Federal Reserve (search) Chairman Alan Greenspan (search) suggested Friday.
"The effect of the current surge in oil prices, though noticeable, is likely to prove less consequential to economic growth and inflation than in the 1970s," the Fed chief said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York (search).
A copy of his speech was distributed in Washington.
Greenspan, in a largely upbeat assessment, noted that oil and gas prices have calmed down a bit recently.
As he did in April, the Fed chief expressed hope that high energy prices would spur conservation by businesses and consumers and greater energy exploration by energy companies. That should also help moderate prices.
Oil prices skyrocketed into record territory in March and closed at a new peak of $57.27 a barrel at the beginning of April. Prices have since retreated and now are above $47 a barrel.
President Bush has called on Congress to produce a comprehensive energy bill by August. The House passed a bill last month, but its prospects in the Senate where energy legislation died two years ago remain uncertain.
Greenspan also repeated his interest in letting market forces help to stabilize prices. He said any response by policy-makers should not "distort or stifle the meaningful functioning of our markets," he said.
Buy gas? theres plenty of cars on my street with gas in them.
They already raised it here, up to $2.25/gallon for regular, up from $1.99 yesterday.
Filled up when it was 2.04. Drove by 'bout an hour later, 2.25. Score.
I hope it's never sunny in Philly again.
Only problem is you have to fill up at 3amOriginally Posted by CTA513
Go Gators!
Just don't try to use an electric vacuum while the car is running to get to it.Originally Posted by KronoRed
Last edited by RBA; 06-20-2005 at 04:34 PM.
Driving down the AA thru Wilder, it's 2.05 at Ameristop and up to 2.25 at the UDF. Guess which place had a line?
The seven most magic words in all the land...
"If, in the opinion of the referee,..."
Saw gas for $2.01 across from Tri-County Mall today (Kemper and 747). Anyone from Cincinnati that finds cheap gas sites should post the locations on here
As I was lamenting the fact that it took $26 to fill up my Civic this afternoon, the manager of a local UDF said he has been instructed to raise the price to $2.60 on Tuesday.
Hello, TANK??...
The seven most magic words in all the land...
"If, in the opinion of the referee,..."
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In Mark Twain's autobiography (which I haven't read but Adam at Roof Beam Reader quotes here) he mentions reading Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Bronte read those famous works as well as Emma.
She no more, with her mind's eye, beholds the heart of her race than each man, with bodily vision sees the heart in his heaving breast. Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete, and rather insensible ( not senseless) woman; if this is heresy- I cannot help it. - Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Bronte
With Sense and Sensibility I can imagine Bronte was irritated that Marianne married Colonel Brandon (many people still are). She probably thought Marianne simply feigned her passionate feelings or would have remained true to John Willoughby's memory even though he was so terrible to her. In Emma the slow and steady realization of her love for Mr. Knightley and Harriet's love for Mr. Martin, which yielded to Emma's matchmaking, was something else she couldn't understand. But what of Pride and Prejudice?
I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone. - Mark TwainReading Pride and Prejudice puts a frame of mind to be amused at people's foibles and quirks. It's certainly better to laugh off an rude moment instead of letting it get to you but I think it annoyed Twain and Bronte to look at characters in this light. Austen's genius is so great that its easy to dull the sharpness of her pen; It gave us that satirical tone we so admire. It certainly wouldn't be right to judge others with the same harsh scrutiny. Patronizing others with a smirk is certainly just as bad as patronizing in the manner of Lady Catherine?
She makes me detest all her people, without reserve. Is that her intention? It is not believable. Then is it her purpose to make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters? That could be. That would be high art. It would be worth while, too. Some day I will examine the other end of her books and see. - Mark TwainVictorians, while known for their society's hypocrisy, had many writers who tried to use their talents to improve society: Beecher Stowe, Gaskell, Eliot to name a few. Bronte created very independent heroines who didn't think of marriage the way the Bennet's do. They made their own living. Maybe this is another reason she held the novel in contempt. Mrs. Bennet may put on a show of 'her nerves' but instead of being annoyed or using them for sport as Mr. Bennet does why not help improve her character?-- Admittedly some may argue he may have already tried. But the same may be said of each 'stray' Bennet sister. Mary with her inability to be herself, she's always trying to be a distorted ideal of what she imagines is perfect, which she neither has the talent nor understanding to be, she's just as silly as the others. Why does no one tell her she doesn't sing well? Why doesn't anyone just tell these characters and try to help them?
"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" - Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
--Now, the story wouldn't be the same if they had but this lack of care for each other; of character fashioning like in Alcott's Little Women to all but Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Maybe that's another reason it irritated Bronte and Twain? To whom earnestness (and emotion in former's case) was living. Tongue-in-cheek and all in good fun, yet it's safe to say compassion towards humanity is not the first thought immediately associated with Austen. Biting wit? Most definitely. She recognizes her naughty self and warns against it in Emma:"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?" -George Eliot's Middlemarch
Emma could not resist. "Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to number -- only three at once."
Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush showed that it could pain her.
But here's the crucial turning point:While the characters in the novels suffer from this lack, readers who find traits of themselves in those characters one would rather not be, correct themselves. As Virginia Woolf said:
"[Austen was] a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears on the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there... And she educates her readers."Charlotte Bronte and Mark Twain missed something with Austen's novels. While they each deal with society and marriage, they have very different tones (Mansfield Park is my personal favorite). But it's her characters which are the life of the novel, some we know so well we could guess how they would react in different situations, which must be one of the reasons so many sequels and spin-offs are available. In many cases perhaps we look up to her heroines or the author herself? Novels help us understand ourselves, others, and make us try to become better people-- as well as amuse us. How many times while reading have you found yourself smile or laugh? or read a few more chapters when you really needed to stop and do such-and-such a duty?
If, dear reader, I leave you in any doubt as to my own feelings about Austen's works simply put: who else but a Janeite would bother writing such a post?


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I waited for one potentially boring Sunday when the Mr was studying and the preschooler was lolling around listlessly, angling to watch more TV to announce that it was cubby time and pulled out the surprisingly light package -- the house is made from a cotton blend and folds up smaller than a pillow -- and draped it over our dining room table. It was a hit.
I carefully sidestepped this challenged the next time we pulled out the house by suggesting it could be for kids only.
Shop for Tots are giving away one My Playhouse Adventures Domestic Adventures cubby valued at $189 AUD to one lucky baby space reader. Hoorah!
To enter simply:
1. Like Shop for Tots on Facebook.
2. Like, or already be a liker of baby space on Facebook, or a follower of baby space through Google Friend Connect.
3. Leave a comment on this post telling us who in your life would love this playhouse and why.
And PLEASE leave your email address with your comment or email it to firstname.lastname@example.com with your comment username so we can contact you if you are the winner. Good luck!
This giveaway is open internationally. Winner will be chosen by random generator on 15th May 2012. If the winner is not contactable within 24 hours the giveaway will be redrawn.
THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED. Congratulations Natalie from 'The Nappy Spot'!


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Sir, when I click on that Penny Arcade link, it damn well be the poop/twitter mashup.
I don't believe you.
And yet, it is also the strongest.
Curious, isn't it?
You might find twitter feeds from tech writers interesting, if you're into that.
Following a few select users has been fairly valuable for me in keeping up to date on the iOS jailbreak stuff and learning about new tweaks that hit the Cydia store. Otherwise speaking, most of the stuff on Twitter's rather annoying.
It's not just Twitter.
All social media outlets are heavily infested with marketers trying to spin their products or trash their competitors. As soon as a service becomes popular, they're all over it like flies on rotting garbage.
There was a brief few years when you could read Slashdot with the expectation that people expressing an opinion about a product actually held that opinion. Now it's more likely to come from a script or checklis
I'm shocked, SHOCKED! To find that astroturfing has been happening on Twitter!
Umm.. no. Not surprised at all.
It's worse then the epople who get elected, far worse. In most cases there not that bad at all. I suspect the regulation regarding disclosure are why.
It's the other groups that are the worst. The ones not directly affiliated with the politicians. Those people are the worst. A bunch of Zealots who think because things didn't got they way they want, the system is 'broken'.
Not only that, but they are openly stating that if they don't get their way, "Second ammendment remedies" may be the only option. Whoah. That is truly scary. Don't get our way? Start a violent revolution! After all, your political opponents are godless communist muslim monsters bent on destroying America, so revolution is justified. Or something.
And the government's SWAT teams and un-manned drones will wipe all four of your boxes off the face of the planet like so many rural Pakistanis.
Soap, ballot, jury, cartridge. In that order.
Ah, the Tyler Durden Option...
You know what they say about having "enough soap", right?
Soap, ballot, jury, cartridge. In that order.
Your predictable battleplan is your weakness. Mix it up a little the keep The Man on his toes.
If politicians are willing to sell out the citizens in exchange for campaign contributions as low as a few hundred or measly few thousand dollars, is there any possibly doubt they might just maybe engage in less than ideal campaign practices.
In reply to all the people who say that democracy is dead and we just have to live with this corrupt system, may I introduce you to the one (admittedly very difficult and long-term) alternative that actually has a chance of freeing us from politicians entirely?
Read: htt [metagovernment.org]
Metagovernment can't work, Google and most of the other search engines ignore metas these days.
Clearly we need government by robots.txt!
I personally welcome our new robots.txt overlords.
What about a jackbooted-thugs.txt?
If somebody's Roomba wants to vacuum my kitchen, I'm fine with that.
Lol, no. There are some things I cannot entrust to a piece of software, and the monopoly on legitimate violence is absolutely on that list.
Beyond that, anyone who claims that democracy is dead, that corruption and fraud have finally become so ingrained in the system that it simply doesn't work as intended, etc. needs to actually learn some basic history of electoral politics. Plain and simple, this shit has been happening since long before day 1. Hell, most of the guys who wrote the fracking Declaration of Independence weren't even elected, and many of the ones who wrote the Constitution were either effectively self-appointed or elected by a process that can only charitably be described as "deeply flawed"... not that it mattered much, since the only people actually allowed to vote were older white men with sufficient means to show up at whatever obscure building was chosen for polling in the middle of fall harvest, and when you've got an almost wholly agrarian, rural society possessing no faster transportation than horseback that's the sort of thing that seriously cramps voter turnout.
The fact of the matter is that, for all the dishonesty and shenanigans that happen every year, American politics are more open, transparent and free from tampering than they've ever been. Democracy is dead like nobody uses the internet.
On Twitter? Unpossible!
Actually, the only thing I'm surprised to learn is that there may, in fact, be some legitimate accounts on Twitter. 99.999% of it seems to be spam judging by my few visits to the site, although maybe calling it spam is unfair; after all, you have to sign up to the individual streams of advertising.
These types of services have been available for a very long time. Why would it surprise anyone that professional shill's would pick up newer comm methods like twitter?
Without doubt professional shills have accounts ready to go on just about any type of news site you can think of. Without question certain subjects bring up certain shills time after time on sites like Slashdot. Anymore this is just one more form of a perception management service to be offered by PR firms.
The best thing to do would be to have a law that would require disclosure of such shilling (similar to advertising shill regulation for places like amazon.com). It wont stop many of the shills, but the cost of discovery could be punitive enough to give pause to those that hire them.
"The result is the Twitter chatbot @AI_AGW. Its operation is fairly simple: Every five minutes, it searches twitter for several hundred set phrases that tend to correspond to any of the usual tired arguments about how global warming isn't happening or humans aren't responsible for it. It then spits back at the twitterer who made that argument a canned response culled from a database of hundreds."
Evil, no wait!
I would argue the findings don't matter a bit, because they didn't reach people not interested in seeing the messages sent.
So what if one holder generated twenty accounts in a second? The accounts exist in a void, and are only "truthy" if they trick people into following them. THEN I would say there was skullduggery at work, but they showed no proof of that.
On top of that, Twitter is a terrible outlet for spam because the first time you see someone you don't care about from someone you just unfollow them or never follow them to start. What good did it do? Again, the people actually following and receiving those messages WANTED to see them. I don't generally like or use twitter much myself but that is a huge benefit twitter has as a communications channel, in that it's immune from sent spam (now people who follow you just to spam you with presence, that's another matter but not under discussion).
On a side note I like how the only people they named explicitly were republicans and unnamed were some of the bigger supposed problem accounts. This was pretty obviously a kind of astroturfing, in and of itself... make up a problem where none exists and claim Republicans are at the heart of it, all on election day. Smooth.
I second that. Twitter is in principle spam-proof... if people would stop using auto-re-follow- and auto-retweet-apps. To get followers on twitter you have to provide some kind of interesting content, even if it is only retweets of news messages. Advertisers really have to invest some time and keep the spam-to-content ratio low or people just cut the link and unfollow them.
In other words: "I'm going to rationalize that it's ok because it's my guy that's doing it."
What good did it do? Again, the people actually following and receiving those messages WANTED to see them. I don't generally like or use twitter much myself but that is a huge benefit twitter has as a communications channel, in that it's immune from sent spam
I frequently see re-tweets of tweets that I'm not interested in seeing via people that I follow. So it's not exactly pub-sub -- messages can and do leak across explicit "follows".
I would argue the findings don't matter a bit, because they didn't reach people not interested in seeing the messages sent.
From the _summary_:
The fake accounts were probably controlled by a script that randomly picked a Twitter user to reply to...
You don't have to be followed/following to reply to someone else's tweets. And they'll still see it.
The fake accounts can give weight to a shill statement which is available in the search for aggregators and analysts.
On a side note I like how the only people they named explicitly were republicans and unnamed were some of the bigger supposed problem accounts. This was pretty obviously a kind of astroturfing, in and of itself... make up a problem where none exists and claim Republicans are at the heart of it, all on election day. Smooth.
Bloomington Indiana is a blue island in a red sea.
I for one welcome our new bot overlords
No wondering other non-western countries hold a very cautious and suspicious view of it. I bet during chaotic periods and time leading to it when tweet volume exploded, twitter wasn't so keen, quick or even willing to detect and shut down suspicious accounts and activities (read, CIA, NED, etc)
Was it as obvious as the "hot chick" named Tanya486 who follows you, is following 56000 other people, and has 2 followers?
Was it as obvious as the "hot chick" named Tanya486 who follows you, is following 56000 other people, and has 2 followers?
Or the 500,000 Facebook "users"?
Personally I'm outraged by this news!
Most politicians (and by that I mean Congress) waste enough time on my nickel (speaking as someone who would be a taxpayer if I made enough money for the federal government not to refund pretty much all of it
I'd also like a requirement that Pictures and Geotagging have to be included, not just to ensure against fraudulent Tweets, but also to be used in evidence in the next (and there will always be a next time) sexual misconduct charge! In fact, given the fact that anyone in public service should not have any expectation of privacy, let's include a requirement for an entry whenever a member of congress enters the restroom! This way we can clearly establish not just who took the last square of toilet paper and/or soap without reporting it to maintenance, but whether or not a congressman really is reaching for a paper left on the floor and not, in fact, asking for sexual favors from the man in stall next to him in a restroom!
If people are voting based on what Twitter tells them then we've got much bigger problems.
As opposed to people voting based on what TV or newspapers tell them?
That's right.
With web/tv/radio/print, it's possible to communicate complex ideas (even though most so-called journalists never make use of that capability). With Twitter, the medium actually makes it impossible to say anything that won't fit on a bumper sticker.
With web/tv/radio/print, it's possible to communicate complex ideas
It's possible, but it's the sharp, stingy and false single-liner slogans which are the most cost-effective way of affecting the voters regardless of the medium used to transmit them, so that's what is used. It has nothing to do with the laziness or inability of journalists to communicate more complex idea - it's just not needed (in fact, it is undesirable!).
...while I dust off my 'surprised' face...
0 0
there we go.
Instead of calling it AstroTurfing, lets call it:
Vote Early, Vote Often!
Air is water with holes in it.


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Bases-loaded walk lifts Royals over Rangers
Texas dropped a half-game behind the Indians for the second AL wild-card spot with the loss. Cleveland beat the Houston Astros 2-1 in rain-shortened game. The Royals were three games behind Tampa Bay. The leading Rays played Baltimore.
The Rangers and Royals scored matching runs in the second inning before two stingy pitching staffs started throwing up zeros.
The Royals finally broke through when Lorenzo Cain and Mike Moustakas hit consecutive two-out singles off the Rangers' Jason Frasor (4-3) in the eighth. Pinch-hitter David Lough drew a walk on a full-count pitch to load the bases, and Rangers manager Ron Washington brought in Feliz.
He promptly walked Escobar, a .238 hitter, on four pitches as a crowd of 30,000 roared. It was just the 19th walk that Escobar had earned in more than 600 plate appearances this season.
Luke Hochevar (5-2) earned the win in relief of Ervin Santana, who allowed one run on five hits in 7 1/3 innings. Greg Holland worked the ninth for his 44th save.
The Rangers jumped out to an early lead when Adrian Beltre, whose .374 average coming into the game was the best of any current player at Kauffman Stadium, roped a single to lead off the second. It was followed by a double by A.J. Pierzynski for a 1-0 lead.
The Royals answered in the bottom half when Salvador Perez led off with a double and Justin Maxwell, getting the start in right field, hit a two-out double to tie the game.
Kansas City kept wasting chances in the early innings, though.
Billy Butler grounded into a double play to end the first, Moustakas grounded into another in the second. The Royals worked back-to-back walks in the fourth before Escobar flied out to center field to end yet another scoring threat.
The most egregious mistake came in the sixth, when Maxwell walked and Escobar was hit by a pitch from Rangers starter Martin Perez. Maxwell suddenly took off for third base with Alex Gordon at the plate, and he was easily thrown out by catcher Geovany Soto to end the inning.
None of those jams was as tight as the one Santana worked out of in the fifth. After retiring the first two batters, David Murphy doubled, Leonys Martin singled and Ian Kinsler drew a walk to load the bases. Santana recovered to strike out Elvis Andrus and leave all three aboard.
The Rangers had another opportunity in the eighth, but Hochever got Andrus to fly out to left and Alex Rios to ground out to first to leave Kinsler standing on first base.
NOTES: RHP Matt Garza goes to the mound for the Rangers on Saturday night. The Royals counter with RHP Jeremy Guthrie. ... Soto gave Pierzynski a night off behind the plate. Washington said it had nothing to do with a bruised finger that Pierzynski had on his glove hand.


text:
DALLAS — A handful of history buffs and onlookers watched Monday as a bulldozer tore through the walls of a dilapidated apartment building where Lee Harvey Oswald lived a few months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The uninhabited 10-unit, two-story apartment complex built in 1925 was one of several remaining places tied to Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. Oswald lived at the building at 600 Elsbeth St. with his wife, Marina, and young daughter from November 1962 to March 1963.
The residence is mentioned in the Warren Commission report that investigated Kennedy's death and concluded Oswald acted alone.
The bulldozer started with the side where Oswald lived. Police blocked off Elsbeth Street and the sidewalk in front, but let onlookers grab bricks. Tom Sclar, a local resident and musician, put five bricks in a backpack as souvenirs and possibly sale items.
''People sell this crap for money,'' Sclar said.
''I'm doing it out of a weird, kitschy interest.''
Associated Press


text:
Sorry if it is not the right place but I cannot find "So, I can't play H!" in the app. Is it just not available on there because it's sensitive content or? Thanks.
Crunchyroll videos will not load on iPad 1 or iPad 2. Netflix and Hulu work fine.
App starts, select episode, goes to black screen with loading circle in the center, 2 seconds later, solid black screen, then back the the crunchy roll menu. Please fix it.
The video quality starts out bad, but then goes to standard quality, but keeps shifting between bad quality and good quality, even though I'm a Premium Member.
1. iPad 3
2. iOS 6.0
3. CR App Version 2.02
4. Video quality is unstable. Keeps changing from bad to standard quality over and over again in one video
5. Don't understand steps to reproduce the problem
It all starts with hello, so Hello!
Not sure if this is a strictly iOS Crunchyroll app related problem but the que seems to be not functioning at the moment. When I watch a video my que does not register it as watched and checking my history it isn't showing the video as watched as well. I am running the latest version of the app on my iPad 3 and iPhone 5 on iOS 6.
djskitzo24 wrote:
Not sure if this is a strictly iOS Crunchyroll app related problem but the que seems to be not functioning at the moment. When I watch a video my que does not register it as watched and checking my history it isn't showing the video as watched as well. I am running the latest version of the app on my iPad 3 and iPhone 5 on iOS 6.
I am also having this problem, I also noticed that my history and queue on the website are the same.
I'm running on iOS6 and iPhone 5 and CR is not streaming /air playing to my Apple TV. Why isn't it working?!
I'm running:
1) Device type - iPod Touch 4th Gen
2) OS version - 5.1.1
3) Crunchyroll App 2.02 version
4) When I start up any video it plays for about 1 minute then stops and the app closes up completely.
5) Just open up the app and pick any video and let it try to play.
I've tried about 8 videos from different anime and have the same problem over and over again. It's impossible to use like this.
It's Magic!
1) Device type - iPad 2
2) OS version - 6.0
3) Crunchyroll App version 2.02
4) Anime series Medaka Box and Moribito completely absent from catalogue whether I'm signed into my account or not. Have tried uninstalling and re-installing app to no avail.
5) The series are in my Queue from my Boxee (where they appear and play just fine) but when I try to access them from the Queue in iOS, they show up with blank posters and generate an "Error" error upon Play request.
New update for the iOS app does not properly airstream to Apple TV anymore. It only does audio and not fullscreen video.
Using an iPad 2 with latest iOS6 update.
Hi, I'm on my iTouch 4G with iOS 5.1.1 and CR 2.02. The video stream quality keeps changing from good to bad many times in one video, and just now Ive been trying to watch anime but these new ads are too damn intrusive. It used to be just one but now they pop up in the middle of my shows. They even make the app crash! The ad starts to play like normal and then the ad stream cuts to black, and then the app crashes.
Please fix, I need to catch up with Shippuden and I must keep up with the new Hayate!
Hayate is the best butler
So another thing that keeps happening on my iPad 3 and iPhone 5 on iOS 6 using the latest update is the animes will cut short at right about 20 minutes and I have to restart it to see the ending.
After the update I only get bad quality in my iPad.
iPad 2 (iOS 5.1.1)
The new version is a huge improvement.
iOS 5.1
So the only feature I miss on the original version is the auto-launch from the Crunchyroll website site from Safari Browser.
I find it a bit annoying that shows I watch on my iPad aren't reflected in my view history so my queue doesn't get updated.. Is there a way for me to manually go in and update it? I'm using ipad3 wifi premium subscription and the videos are streaming much better than when the app was recently updated. It starts at bad quality sometimes but quickly bumps itself up to high quality.


text: "Lovely Molly" is the latest movie from director Eduardo Sanchez of "The Blair Witch Project" and, like that film, relies heavily on found footage. With the fact that Sanchez co-directed "The Blair Witch Project" in mind, I felt another found-footage film was something of an odd choice. I would think having one's name so closely associated with the movie that sparked an avalanche of found-footage horror movies, one might want to step away from that style.


text:
(By Delegates Miley, Manchin, Ferro, Wells
and Skinner)
(Originating in the Committee on Finance)
[March 28, 2013]
A BILL to amend and reenact §11-16-9 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to sales of nonintoxicating beer; and removing the existing maximum quantities of beer that retailers can sell for off premises consumption.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §11-16-9 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
§11-16-9. Amount of license tax; Class A and Class B retail dealers; purchase and sale of nonintoxicating beer permitted; distributors; brewers; brewpubs.
There is hereby levied and imposed an annual license tax upon all dealers in and of nonintoxicating beer as defined by this article, which license period shall begin begins on July 1, of each year and end ends on June 30 of the following year, and, if granted for a less period, the same it shall be computed semiannually in proportion to the remainder of the fiscal year as follows:
(1) Retail dealers shall be divided into two classes, Class A and Class B. In the case of a Class A retail dealer the license fee shall be is $150 for each place of business; the license fee for social, fraternal or private clubs not operating for profit, and having been in continuous operation for two years or more immediately preceding the date of application, shall be is $150: Provided, That railroads operating in this state may dispense nonintoxicating beer upon payment of an annual license tax of $10 for each dining, club or buffet car in which the same beer is dispensed.
Class A licenses issued for railroad dining, club or buffet cars as herein provided, shall authorize the licensee to sell nonintoxicating beer at retail for consumption only on the licensed premises where sold. All other Class A licenses shall authorize the licensee to sell nonintoxicating beer at retail for consumption on or off the licensed premises.
In the case of a Class B retailer, the fee for a Class B license authorizing the sale of both chilled and unchilled beer shall be is $150 for each place of business. A Class B license shall authorize authorizes the licensee to sell nonintoxicating beer at retail in bottles, cans or other sealed containers only, and only for consumption off the licensed premises. Sales under this license to any person at any one time must be in less quantities than five gallons: Provided, That A Class B retailer may sell to a consumer, for personal use and not for resale, draught beer in quantities of one-eighth, one-fourth and one-half barrels in the original containers. Such
A Class B license may be issued only to the proprietor or owner of a grocery store. For the purpose of this article the term "grocery store" means and includes any retail establishment commonly known as a grocery store or delicatessen and caterer or party supply store, where food or food products are sold for consumption off the premises, and shall include and mean means a separate and segregated portion of any other retail store which is dedicated solely to the sale of food, food products and supplies for the table for consumption off the premises. The commissioner may promulgate propose for legislative approval legislative rules pursuant to chapter twenty-nine-a of this code necessary to carry this provision into effect. Caterers or party supply stores will be are required to purchase the appropriate licenses from the alcohol beverage control administration.
(2) In the case of distributors, the license fee shall be is $1,000 for each place of business.
(3) In the case of a brewer with its principal place of business located in this state, the license fee shall be is $1,500 for each place of manufacture.
(4) In the case of a brewpub, the license fee shall be is $1,000 for each place of manufacture.


text:
In 2012, Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive who has been widely credited as the father of the iPod, set out to fix a small device in your house that you probably haven't paid much attention to except on the hottest or coldest of days.
His Silicon Valley-based start-up released the Nest thermostat, which aimed to fix all the problems with the temperature-setting device -- the interface, the outdated design and the intelligence of it.
Now Fadell, 44, is looking to do it again and this time it's with a small device in your house that you only think about when it starts beeping -- the smoke and carbon monoxide detector on your ceilings and walls. Today, Fadell and Nest are introducing the Nest Protect, a $129 detector that is packed with wireless technology and new features to improve the frustrating experiences we've all had with the gadget hanging on the walls of our houses or apartments.
Replacing the Detector in Your House
"We re-invented the smoke and CO detector. We wanted something that didn't just beep at you," Fadell told ABC News in an interview. And it's with that beep that you start to see how different the Protect is from the other detectors on the market.
The white or black square-shaped device, which looks more like a mountable speaker than a typical circular smoke detector, combines beeps with a real, spoken voice. Instead of small chirps when the battery is low or when there is smoke, a female voice says, "Heads up: There's smoke in the living room" or "Emergency. There is smoke."
Research shows that children don't wake up from beeps, but rather from the sound of voices, Fadell said. And we certainly don't need research to tell us that it is confusing to tell the meaning between one beep or a series of beeps.
If one of those alerts is a response to say some burnt toast or a candle, where there is no real danger, just waving your hand at the device will silence it. An LED ring on the center of the detector also lights up at night to let you know the device is working. It also functions as a path light or a night light, illuminating when it senses motion.
""We wanted something that didn't just beep at you.
But Fadell stressed that the company didn't just go buy off-the-shelf components. Instead, a team of engineers "gutted" the typical detector and put in new sensors, including a photoelectric smoke sensor, CO sensor, heat sensor, light sensor, ultrasonic sensors and activity sensors. Protect will receive UL and Fire Marshall certification before it goes on sale in November.
Talking to Your Phone or Tablet
But it's the connectivity inside the Protect that further sets it apart from the other detectors on shelves at Home Depot. Inside each Protect is a wireless radio that allows the detectors to talk to your phone and the other Protects in the home.
If you have multiple Protects, they will talk to each other. For instance, if the Protect in the kitchen goes off but you are in the living room, the Protect in the living room will tell you, "There's smoke in the kitchen."
Then using the Nest Protect app on your iOS or Android device or through the website you can see the status of the detectors, when each of them was last tested and, yes, the battery life so you don't have to deal with the beeps or notifications at the last minute. You can also set the app to alert you via a push notification if there is smoke or CO detected.
Speaking of battery life, Fadell said that the AA-battery-powered Protect should last seven years before having to swap out the batteries. However, Nest cannot claim that officially yet since it needs to go through full certification. Additionally, the Nest Protect can wirelessly talk to the Nest thermostat if you have one. For example, if carbon monoxide is detected, the Nest thermostat will automatically turn off the gas furnace.
Safety in the Hands of a Start-Up?
It's a big bet on safety, but with safety comes risks. Yet Fadell said that he is not worried about the risks and the fact that he is now the maker of a gadget that can both save and end people's lives.
"It is about engineering process and removing risk. I'm not worried about that," he said when asked about the risks of the device. He added that in early 2014 versions of the Protect will work with home security system to alert fire and police departments.
""It's not about the Internet connected kettle...
The Protect will be available in November for $129 at Apple, Best Buy, Amazon and Home Depot. That's a lot more than the average $79 detector, but Fadell said it's worth it for the improvements that make the product easier and better.
"Nest is all about finding those unloved products in the home. It's not about a new category, like the Internet-connected kettle," he said. "We are trying to take the things we ignore every day and making them better."


text:
Full Episode
One man's trash can be an artist's treasure, and the works featured are made up of found materials either discarded or assigned for only certain purposes. Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo is a line of several old Cadillacs, all standing vertically, as half of the car is submerged underground. The cars are covered with paint and observers can add their own decorative touch.
Visit the Website: http://www.klru.org/artsincontext
Episode #103 / Length: 26 minutes


text:
Man held in shooting that killed teen, hurt two
This article was published February 1, 2013 at 9:43 a.m.
- Comments (4)
- aAFont Size
LITTLE ROCK Authorities have arrested a man in a shooting at a Little Rock business that left one teen dead and two others injured.
Justin Fletcher, 22, made an initial appearance Friday in Little Rock District Court on charges including first-degree murder, battery and aggravated assault. Innocent pleas were entered, and bail was set at $1 million.
Charles Robinson III, 23, and a 17-year-old whose name wasn't released are also being sought in the deadly shooting.
It happened shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday outside the Site Store at 4203 Asher Ave.
There, police found 17-year-old girls Jasmine Simone Young and Sydney Blocker suffering from gunshot wounds and learned that a third victim, 19-year-old Kyron Richardson, had already been taken to the hospital in a private vehicle.
Young was taken to UAMS Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead. The conditions of the other two victims were described only as non-life-threatening.
A fourth victim in the car was not hit.
Fletcher didn't speak during his brief video appearance in front of Judge Alice Lightle, but he appeared upset as he walked away just after she set the high bond.
Comments on: Man held in shooting that killed teen, hurt two
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 total comments
jetjohn says... February 1, 2013 at 1:28 p.m.
This is terrible. Innocent lives lost!!! When is the VIOLENCE going to stop????
( permalink | suggest removal )
jgbear says... February 1, 2013 at 5:38 p.m.
when folks start fighting back and blasting the criminals.
( permalink | suggest removal )
DontDrinkDatKoolAid says... February 1, 2013 at 7:45 p.m.
Yes we do inquire, yes we do.
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text:
Voters go the polls Tuesday in their respective school districts for the first time since a state law mandating a 2-percent cap on year-to-year tax levy increases has been in effect. As a result of tough cuts by school budget committees, this is a very different year as far as spending is concerned from those in recent memory.
The lessons of the Albany-ordered parsimony are many, but chief among them may be that double-digit annual budget increases are a thing of the past. It was not all that long ago that administrators and the board of education in one South Fork school district were patting themselves on the back for keeping a budget hike to 9 percent. Now all but one local district — Amagansett — will put budgets to the voters Tuesday while keeping under the cap. This shows that fiscal restraint can be achieved — apparently and unfortunately only when discipline is imposed from above.
One year does not a success make, however. Looking ahead a few more years, the 2-percent cap, which is not expected to keep pace with inflation or cope with increases in enrollment, may prove onerous. Voters, like those in Amagansett, would have to approve a budget by a two-thirds supermajority to go above the limit. That kind of support would be difficult for almost any district.
More leadership will be needed from Albany as schools begin to suffer from permanently diminished funding. Administrative consolidation, as well as shared purchasing consortiums, appears necessary. But there will have to be more in wage concessions, pension reform, and even program changes.
As important as education is to the future of this country, taxpayers can no longer afford any often unchecked bureaucracies. The fact that most of the state's districts kept within the 2-percent cap demonstrates that bare-knuckled reform is possible. The real test, however, will be doing so over the long term without academic implosion, which would put New York's public school students at a substantial disadvantage.


text:
ALGONQUIN – The Algonquin Area Public Library and the Lake in the Hills Historical Society are teaming up for a program, "Lake in the Hills Ford School History and Frontier School House."
From 2 to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 28, Bob and Arden Spooner of the Lake in the Hills Historical Society will speak at the Algonquin Area Public Library District's Eastgate Branch, 115 Eastgate Drive, Algonquin.
This program will be a learning experience for all ages. The Spooners will provide historical background of the area and the historical Ford School.
The program also will include a re-enactment of a one-room schoolhouse, including clothing, activities and artifacts demonstrated by Miss Alexa.
Attendees can see how students were taught using period textbooks, with lessons and excerpts from children's stories.
To learn about the Ford School, visit www.lithhistory.org/ford-school/.
Registration is required for this program online at www.aapld.org or at the library.
For information, call 847-458-6060.


text:
Writer Rick Edgerton talks #MHFBeanie Round, the harrowing statistics behind Brain Cancer - and what...
5 hours ago
The New Zealand Rugby League today announced an audited profit of $315,000 for the 2010 financial year, an increase on the $158,000 surplus reported in 2009.
Chairman Scott Carter said the result was particularly satisfying given increased investment into the sport at a number of levels, and the difficult economy.
"The challenge for any sport is to grow while living within its means," he said.
"The board has a firm belief in not spending what you don't have, and adopting conservative forecasts around less predictable income such as Test match revenue.
"However, the NZRL has been able to improve revenues from its commercial and media rights and then reinvested that money in growing the support structure for the clubs throughout the country."
Carter said funds continue to be set aside to build up cash reserves for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup year.
'In the past the RLIF (Rugby League International Federation) has retained World Cup commercial rights and profits," he said.
"Unless we can change that thinking, we will need to fund domestic operations in 2013 from reserves."
The 2010 result featured consolidated revenues of $5.91 million, up from $4.45 million in 2009.
Chief executive Jim Doyle advised income was generated primarily from the Anzac Test in Melbourne, the Four Nations tournament co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia, SKY Network TV broadcasting rights, TAB, SPARC funding, grants and commercial sponsorships.
Expenses also rose to $5.59 million compared to $4.29 million in 2009, with Doyle highlighting increased expenditure on game development and support personnel throughout the country, the new National Competition, community programmes and Four Nations win bonuses for the Kiwis.
He said the financial result rounded off a highly successful year on and off the field for the NZRL.


text:
How to Win Brunch for 6 with Mike Schmidt & Garry Maddox
The Youth Golf & Academics Program, a nonprofit organization founded by Garry Maddox, is sponsoring a raffle to win brunch for 6 with Garry & Mike Schmidt. The brunch will take place on August 11th at 10:30am, right before that afternoon's Stephen Starr-Garry Maddox Barbecue Challenge. Tickets are $10 apiece, and all proceeds benefit the Youth Golf & Academics Program.
Visit Garry's BBQ Challenge web site for details and a link to purchase tickets.
And in case you missed it (and be glad if you did), the Phillies got swept by the Braves today :O( No need to dwell on that right now, so go buy some tickets for a chance to meet Mike Schmidt & Garry Maddox instead! That is a much happier thought, don't you agree?
The Phillies are off tomorrow and then on to Washington on Tuesday. In the meantime, keep your ears open as the trade deadline looms…


text:
Skip to comments.The Real Aggressor in Bosnia
Posted on 01/31/2007 12:02:55 PM PST by eleni121
The comparisons of the destruction of Yugoslavia with the destruction of Israel are chilling and instructive.
(Excerpt) Read more at israpundit.com ...
Well I for one was not snookered & remember at the time trying to warn people about the propaganda coming from the mainstream news programs & papers.
HANNITY: Let me -- Hang on a second. Did you or did you not write articles alleging that NATO framed Slobodan Milosevic?
GIL-WHITE: Yes, I did. I have an article...
HANNITY: Hang on. I'm not here to dispute this. I want to -- I want to get your track record on the record. Did you or did you not try to convince your colleagues that the United States is the secret enemy of Israel, sir?
GIL-WHITE: Yes.
HANNITY: OK. They're saying that this has nothing to do with those opinions, but I want to address those opinions. You really say that there's an inside job that -- about 9/11? Explain your little theory here.
GIL-WHITE: Look, I'm not a 9/11 scholar. What you should do is get Jared Israel here. He's the chief editor of "Emperor's Clothes," www.tenc.net. He's probably the world's authority...
Way to go, eleni.
muslim "Bosnia" is a cancer on the whole world that should be abolished. Ditto "Palestine". And "Kosova" should not be allowed to come into existence!!!! All three are Muftist/Nazi entities that only serve the international jiahd and its NWO allies.
The Blue State area in which I live is LOUSY with non-muslim "Bosnian" apologist "human rightsers", including liberal protestants and Jews, cafeteria and "recovering" Catholics, and just plan secularists. They spare no effort to beat on O/orthodox Christians in any way they can, including backing "gays" and feminazis in addition to the very worst muslims. Of course, they specialize in Serb-bashing, followed closely by Israel-bashing.
Either America flushes the "human rightsers" down the toilet, or America goes down the toilet!!!!
He still ranks higher than a Dhimmi in kneepads.
The facts on Bosnia and the misguided disastrous US policy in the Balkans are what they are.
Your persistence in denying those facts leads one to the only conculsion possible: total and complete ignorance of the history of SE Europe.
Yup - all told by lying leftist/Serb nationalist scumbags who haven't figured out that the only folks still listening to them are too stupid to be worth the time and effort it takes to continue suckering them.
The "non-facts" established through evidence and research, on the other hand, which inform the rest of the world's opinion, well you just don't worry about them - that's for other folks to deal with.
You are babbling about findings from the international court of "Justice" --the same court that the Bush administration is actively opposing.
Oh I forgot you are Clintonista...
That would be John B. Bellinger, Secretary Rice's Legal Advisor, speaking in May of last year.
Feel free to continue demonstrating your ignorance and confusion.
He also continued by saying---
"...This does not mean that we think the Court will be the best forum for resolving every dispute that may arise between states. In this regard, it is well known that the United States withdrew from the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court in 1985."
NO kidding...duh...as a bastard child of the UN, the US holds a standing seat.
But don't be selective in your copy and pasting. There exist many areas of conflict between the US and the this court....one of which is its disgusting and immoral biased stance on Bosnia.
You just want to run your suck.
Oh geez, you got some Dhimmitude on your chin there, toothless one!
Clearly, you feel free to display the lengths of your Dhimmitude!
If you cared about being right, you wouldn't kneel before the mad moon-rock cult, Dhimmi.
Hoppie/helot---your dependence on corrupt ineffective socialist creations like the world Court indicates that you labor under a profound ignorance of Southeastern European history.
Labor away Helot.
Does that include the "evidence and research" that shows that Racak and Srebrenica were lies?
True, the Serbs were murdering bastards, but they only did in their own country.
9/11 showed us the Islamist Terrorists know no borders.
We need to be careful about terms.
Communists were murderous and they are/were not necessarily Serbs. There were many if not more Croats, Bosnians, Albanian Commies...no single ethnicity is responsible for the Marxist horrors unleashed on innocents over the years whether in the Balkans or in Asia.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


text:
SACRAMENTO (AP) — The agency that runs California's health insurance exchange is scrambling to correct a technical problem that left blank spaces in eligibility notices mailed to nearly 114,000 households, leading to consumer confusion just days ahead of the application deadline.
A Covered California spokeswoman said Wednesday that the botched notices were mailed between Nov. 22 and Dec. 7. They went to people who had signed up under the state's rollout of the federal Affordable Care Act and were deemed eligible for coverage.
In some cases, the notices said the applicant was eligible for coverage but not eligible for something else that was unspecified, with only a blank space at the end of the sentence.
The forms also omitted tax credit amounts and whether the person was eligible for Medicaid.
(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)