text:
July 16, 2005
High school is too easy.
24 comments:
- Bruce Hayden said...
No surprise from my previous posts here, but I see this as a condemnation of the public education monopoly.
My daughter starts high school next month, but I seriously doubt if boredom and not being pushed is going to be a problem. She is slated to take her first AP course her sophomore year, and will probably be taking mostly AP by her senior year. The big fight with my ex is whether she will take calculus her junior or senior year (she can already do most derivatives - that isn't rocket science).
The difference - she attends private school.
The problem, as I see it, is that there is little pressure on the public schools to do more than be merely adequate. There is little pressure on them if they fail to send their kids to as good of colleges as the kids are capable of handling.
I have to admit that I attended public high school, and acted accordingly. I asked myself, why should I take any homework home (which I didn't for my junior and senior years) if I can make the honor roll without. Sure, if I worked four hours a day, I might have made it to the top of my class, and been able to attend a top tier college. But, as it was, with my SATs, I was able to get into a very good small liberal arts school.
So, instead of studying every night throughout high school, my brother and I rode our horses on the mesa you used to see in the background on Coors beer cans. Much more fun.
My point though is that we got away with it. My daughter isn't going to be able to. And that, as is obvious from my commitment to private education, I believe is important.
- Bruce Hayden said...
One adverse effect of this failure of public schools to adequately push many of their top kids is that the class structure in this country is solidifying again, after loosening up throughout much of the 20th century.
There was an article on this in the WSJ a month or so ago, and it pointed out that those with money, etc., and, in particular, those who attended top schools, are able to pass a lot more of it on to their kids, and one of the big reasons is that they often elect to send their kids to private schools to prep them for college.
Starting around the time that President Bush and John Kerry attended Yale, and Al Gore, Harvard, the elite schools in this country became a lot more egalitarian. Admission was much more based on merit. I seriously doubt if any of those three had the brainpower to compete at (or even get admitted to) their alma maters by the 1970s, and, in particular, since then.
But what has happened since then is that the better the undergraduate school you attend, the more likely you get into a good graduate school, and the better the graduate school and the more degrees you get, the more you make.
But then, all these people with all those degrees, and thus, in many cases, money, are spending the later buying private school educations for their kids, resulting in significantly higher chances of getting into the top schools, and repeating the cycle.
While not quite as bad as what Europe, including the U.K., had until recently, the type of aristocracy that we had up until WWII was really not, IMHO, a good thing for our type of democracy. My worry is that we are moving back in that direction, and a lot of the blame can be placed on the failure of the public school systems to get the most out of all of their students. As long as they don't, those who have the money and are willing to spend it on private school education, are going to continue to enjoy the best incomes, etc.
- Bruce Hayden said...
I am not sure if I would say the teachers are slacking. The public school systems are a mess. I think that if you asked the teachers in the high schools if they were slacking, most would say "no".
To some great extent, they are faced with classes that are probably too large, but, more importantly, have a wide range of students, ranging from those who find the subject matter trivial, to those who either struggle, or give up. Behavior problems are rampant because of this, and this disruption becomes significant, while in the private school context, it is essentially nonexistent.
But who is going to vote for more money for public schools so that classes can be made smaller, and probably more importantly in high school, can be better tailored to the aptitudes and interests of the students, when we all know where the bulk of the money that we appropriate is going to be wasted.
We have talked before here about how, because public schools are publically funded, etc., they become everything for everyone. So, you have sex ed, gay ed, multiculterism, etc. classes being taught, siphoning off precious resources from the teaching of the basics. And you have the public school systems spending huge amounts of their budgets on special education, again, detracting from preparing the bulk of the students for college.
Indeed, I find find it hard to justify spending more money on public education, knowing that in many school districts, much of that new money will be spent on more administrators, who, coincidentally make more than the teachers do (and, indeed, is seen by many teachers as career advancement over dealing with disruptive students).
So, no, I don't blame the teachers. Many, if not most, are highly motivated. They have to be. I blame the system they work in.
- Jim Gust said...
Great comments Bruce.
I agree that the public schools are being asked to solve too many non-education related problems, but there is no obvious way to go back.
In the 1960s, when my wife attended public high school in New Haven, all the Yale professors sent their kids to New Haven public high schools, many of those kids were her friends. There were some very rigorous academic programs offered to top performing students (such as my wife).
But at some point priorities changed, those courses fell away, and my understanding is that most of the Yale faculty now send their children into the well-developed private school system that we have here in Connecticut.
And that's a destructive, self-reinforceing cycle, because without high-achieving students in public schools, there's no point in offering challenging AP courses.
It's not about the money, our public schools get as much and more per pupil as most private schools. But they seem unable to accomplish much with it.
- Head of Royal Intelligence said...
Interesting story, although not exactly news. This has been evident to some people as far back as the 1960s. See, for example, http://www.simons-rock.edu/about/history.html , a college that lets students skip the last two years of high school and start college at 16. Full disclosure -- I attended this place, and hence I'm a bit personally invested in the topic. But I still think it's a great idea that should be available to more kids who are stuck in stultifying high schools--which is, apparently, most of them.
- Ann Althouse said...
Head: Skipping kids ahead is an old-style solution. My mother went to college when she was 16, back around 1940. The solution we should demand is better high schools. In my city, Madison, we have very challenging high schools, and you definitely would not see survey results like this.
- Bruce Hayden said...
The problem with starting college so young is that unless everyone does, many that young are not socially ready, esp. guys.
I knew some kids who started a couple of years early. At 18, 19, we were starting to shack up soon after starting college. These kids, at 15, 16, were just starting to date. And, there were few there to date - they pretty much had to go into the high schools for that.
So, maybe if you have a lot of kids like you appear to have had at your college, it might work, but in most colleges, it is not optimal.
That brings me to my erstwhile girlfriend. She is borderline AS (Asberger's), and didn't talk, at all, through elementary school. This got her put in special ed one year. She was stuck with a bunch of people with IQ's roughly half hers, and it drove her crazy. She figured out that she needed to talk some, and did, just enough to graduate two years early. Her local university (UNLV) didn't accept that young, so she spent the next year in floral design school here in Colorado, and started college only one year early.
So, any time I think that my public school K-12 education was not optimal, I just think of her and my ex wife's experiences in much less affluent school districts (later was dissuaded from even attending college due to her sex - today she has two master's degrees in CS).
- Adriana Bliss said...
I agree with Bruce Hayden's comment in which he says, "One adverse effect of this failure of public schools to adequately push many of their top kids is that the class structure in this country is solidifying again, after loosening up throughout much of the 20th century." I've seen this in action in my suburban city outside of Los Angeles. Because our valedictorians (AP classes, stellar SAT scores, broad extracurricular resumes) came from families of average means and came from schools in which the student population was generally of below-average means, the students were not able to get into top tier schools. The word across town is that we can pretty much forget Ivy League for our children. We don't make the cut. In my opinion, this is a direct result of the collapse of the middle class.
- Freeman Hunt said...
I agree with Bruce Hayden. Except that I don't quite let teachers off so easily. I think a great deal of blame can be placed on the teachers' union.
I would never vote for a tax increase to pay teachers more. Aside from the fact that they are actually overpaid where I live, I don't believe in giving people raises without holding them accountable. Where I live the teachers' union fights against anything that offers even a modicum of accountability.
Having not been out of school for even ten years, I have a very clear memory of what it was like. I think teachers are mythologized to a ridiculous degree. I am not impressed with most of them. (Obviously there are some exceptional ones but not many.)
I remember being called into the office for having 112 classroom absences during the first semester of my senior year. They told me that I couldn't miss like that, and that I needed to have a better attitude. I was in all honors and AP classes, and I had straight A's. I told them that if their honors and AP classes were so lame that someone could miss 112 classes and still have straight A's, the problem was theirs not mine.
And I went to what was considered to be a very good school district. (We had many people go to top colleges.)
The government education monopoly is a disaster. I'll be saving money to send my kids to private school.
- leeontheroad said...
and I hope Freeman that you as a parent will ensure your children at whatever school they attend learn that attending class is part of the requirment.
Where were your parents when you "earned" more than one hundred absences? and why did the school wait that long to haul your butt in?
Being brilliant doesn't excuse a lazy attitude. The ol'e inspiration vs. perspiration adage is precisely what brings changes-- from doing an experiement one more time, t runnign emd tests again, to piloting school reform itself.
So: about teachers-- why is it their salaries and not those of adminsitrators or other school officials that are at issue? I'm not thrilled with much of what I hear from (some) local teachers' unions. But I don't single them out for fault. That's an easy out for administrators, school boards, parents and other citizens.
- Bruce Hayden said...
You shouldn't single out the teachers. As I indicated above, for a lot of them, going into administration is considered a step up. Indeed, it is the administrators who make the really good money. But, of course, this is never disclosed when comparing teachers salaries, except, maybe the superindendant of a school district.
When was the last time that you hear about the difference in salaries between administrators of different school districts, or, indeed, how much they actually make.
You don't because if you did, you might start wondering where all the money is going.
In my daughter's private school, there is a headmaster, three principals, two secretaries, and, a couple of college guidance counselers. At least the middle school principal also teaches a couple of classes a day, in his case, English classes. All for a school of maybe 1,000 kids.
Compare this with the average public school system, some of which have almost as many administrators as teachers, and you start seeing a problem.
- Freeman Hunt said...
Being brilliant doesn't excuse a lazy attitude.
So you're saying that children who don't waste everyday sitting in easy classes are lazy? You sound like the teachers that I had. Why not just sit the children down in a basement holding room all day long? Instead of calling it school, we could call it lobby. That's often basically all it is.
Missing classes is not equivalent to laziness.
- Freeman Hunt said...
I don't single [teachers] out for fault. That's an easy out for administrators, school boards, parents and other citizens.
Often the administrators and school boards are fighting for accountability measures. At least they were where I lived. I don't know where the parents were. Hardly anyone ever showed up for school board meetings. Except once: Half the town showed up for a meeting where they demoted a principal who deserved it. (The people didn't want him demoted, but then again they didn't know what he did, and the board couldn't tell them because it was part of his confidential personnel file.) The times that the board and administrators met about curriculum, usually no one showed up at all. Kind of sad.
- Bruce Hayden said...
I am in the category of those who slacked through high school, and indeed, undergraduate school. Only in graduate school did I finally buckle down and perform like I am capable of performing - but that was after being out in the workforce. Why? I ask that of myself.
One basic problem is that the judgment functions in the brain are typically not fully matured and complete until your mid-20s. So, telling many kids that they are screwing up their lives by not working as hard as they can right now plainly just doesn't work.
I know my parents tried. We had five boys. The oldest two of us slid through high school, on the honor roll, but not much better, then got into a good liberal arts school based on our SAT scores. Third and fifth busted their asses, and got into top schools, including Dartmouth for the youngest. Fourth, if possible, worked even less than the first two.
And then you have families which end up motivating all of their four or five kids. I know of two with 4 or so Boetcher scholorships (full ride, any school in CO, public or private) per family.
The problem was, for us, that my mother had always been motivated. Top of her high school class. But, now, I suspect that it was to please her distant parents. In any case, the type of motivation that worked for her, and she tried on us, only really worked for the youngest. The middle, who also excelled, got motivated, I believe, to literally compensate for his two slacking older brothers. But it turns out that his metric is himself, as compared to my mother and my youngest brother. Thus, in college, he was suicidal at getting a 93 on a physics test, despite being the only student of 200 over 90, and 25 being passing.
So, where were my parents when we were screwing off? Mm mother was probably taking care of the rest of my brothers, and my father was working.
- Bruce Hayden said...
So, how do you motivate kids? The problem is that every one is different. As noted above, what worked for my mother and one of my brothers abjected failed for three of us.
For my daughter, it seems that my ex has managed to beat (not literally) good study habits into her, and then, she has built a lot of her self esteem from the successes that have come from being forced to apply herself.
So, my daughter and her friends are looked down on by the popular (and, often, very rich) girls for being geeks, and she and her friends look down on the popular girls for more than likely ending up in much lower tier schools, or, maybe even, heaven forbid, a state school like CU. As they start high school, they already know who is competitive for the Ivy League and who is not.
My gut instinct is that this wouldn't have worked for me. She is an awful lot like me - with one critical difference, her sex. On average, females are significantly more interested in getting approval than are males (Ann - normal bell curve thing here, of course).
In short, 37 years after high school graduation, I stil don't know how my parents could have motivated me. The only thing that might have worked would have been to send me to a school like my dauther attends. But when my parents looked at it some 40 years ago for me, they ended up keeping me in public school mostly because of the cost of sending my four younger brothers too, if they sent me there.
- Bruce Hayden said...
Jim Gust
I would suggest that the big reason that public schools don't work nearly as well, for the amount of money spent, as do private schools is accountability. In a private school, if the kids are neglected, the parents pull the kids, pronto, and the school loses the money.
No such bottom line accountability in public schools. They get their money pretty much regardless of how well the schools work, and, indeed, constantly use the fact that they aren't doing well to argue for more money.
Unfortunately, we have exhausted this subject in previous threads here, and so am not going to try the patience of Prof. Althouse persuing it further.
- Slac said...
School is not easy in the way that it is unchallenging, like it's easy for Lance Armstrong to bike a mile downhill. Nor is it easy by convenience, like it's easy to microwave a bowl of "Easy Mac" or something.
It's dumbingly easy. It's so easy that many have to actually sacrifice the valuable facets of their intelligence to get an "A." It stifles the creative instinct to take joy from learning, nay to take joy from life, and is akin to mass brainwashing.
Mandatory attendance in the kinds of schools that pervade today's educational system is a result of the first and highest form of prejudice that is committed, or the assumption that young people are inferior. Considering rates of suicide, mental illness, and violence. It's slavery, prison, murder, and more.
- Bruce Hayden said...
Slac has a good point. Public school for me was mind numbingly easy. Esp. the scientific and math based classes - which is where my expertise lies. My problem with the humanities and social sciences was that they all seemed too subjective (which I think is a male problem).
In any case, I was bored in class, and the homework was mind numbing. Why should I, for example, have to do all those silly math problems when I can Ace the test without?
I would suspect that this too is a problem with public schools trying to be everything for everyone. So, you probably end up with, in many cases, two or three different tracks of classes of a specific type. But that means that the middle track has to handle kids with, for example, IQs of between 100 and 125. Quite a big range. And, as a result, it really has to be taught at almost the lowest level - say 105 or so.
- Online Degree said...
"Trying to be everything for everyone" (Bruce).... definitely true. I believe that this is a definite source of many of the problems with public education.... however, can it really be any other way? I don't see an easy way to get around this. The alternative is private tutoring, so that a student can get the academic attention they need; but then they may not be getting the social attention they need. Perhaps this is one conundrum that may never be solved.
- ashley said...
i am 15 years old and currently a sophmore in high school. i went through middle school with consecutive 4.0's and never had to study or try very hard at all. When i started my freshman year, i found things to still be fairly simple, but realized that i needed to work to maintain my grades. Needless to say, I didn't do too well that year, and i'm still trying to recover. Now, I sit through my classes, so extremely bored that i've finished my bookwork for the next 3 chapters in my economics class and i've gone ahead in all my other classes as well. I find everything to be so excessively simple, that I've stopped trying so hard and find myself slacking off. I try to concentrate in class, but it's difficult when the material is incredibly uninteresting and I'm surpasing all the other students by such a large gap. I'm not sure what significance this comment will have for myself, or if i'll get any feedback at all, but i would really like an explanation for as to what i could possibly do to make things more challenging. Is there someone i could talk to? Or is there something i could do to make my classes more challenging? I guess i'm just asking if I actually have an option in what i can do, or if i'm stuck in these too easy classes for the rest of my high school career. I'm almost ready to give up it's gone that far. Something needs to be done and I have no idea what my options are.
- Ann Althouse said...
Ashley: I'm sorry to hear your high school is so easy. It's a drag to be stuck in a town that hasn't made its schools good enough. But you can't change everything from the position you're in now. If I were you, I'd get my work done quickly and put my energy into other things that are worthwhile. Read books that interest you, do some writing, get involved in activities in your community, or pursue some artistic endeavor. Try to find out what interests you and pursue that. College is not that far away. Concentrate on getting ready to go to a place that can get you into an area of work that will be valuable and rewarding. I'll bet if you talked to your favorite teacher, he or she would help you.
- Laura said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- Laura said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- Laura said...
Um, just going to private school is no guarantee of a challenge. With a similar level of effort, I went from a 4.1 in a well respected private hs to a 1.6 my first term in college. I did eventually learn to study by starting over and going to community college, but again - it's about the individual school - JC math was way way harder than my high school math - There are no guarantees.


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DOWNERS GROVE – American Legion Post 80 will host its parade and services commemorating Memorial Day on Monday in several locations across Downers Grove.
The day will begin at 8 a.m. with a memorial service in front of the post, 4000 Saratoga Ave.
From 8:30 to 9:45 a.m., the post's honor guard will visit six area cemeteries to salute fallen veterans.
The annual Memorial Day Parade will begin at Main Street and the railroad tracks at 10:45 a.m. and head south to Fishel Park. The Memorial Day Ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. in the park and features Mayor Martin Tully as one of the speakers.
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|2009-04-30, 21:07
|Link #2244
AYA★ >w<
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Classified.
Wow, this thread has been inactive for ten days... o_o This is my first post EVER on animesuki, because I've been taking images and stuff from this site so long I couldn't resist! <3 I'm a major Higurashi fan, and I know that I'm probably jumping in on the conversation a little late, but, might as well make my post worth while...
Self made icons ^^ Took me like, fifteen minutes, so no need to ask for permission, etc.
(Sorry, still figuring out how this whole thing works.) I will be willing to make stuff for you, but I don't see why anybody would want my assistance in anything with me being new and all... T_T It's really late so I didn't feel like doing anything too complicated, sorry, sorry. ._. My animator is broken, and I know most people prefer animated icons so, I'll try to fix it. Oh, and these all have white borders. -sigh- It's late... good night.
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|2009-05-18, 08:19
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At the end of this world
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Could a gentle soul make me a GIF avatar about Rika from episode 3 of Higurashi no naku koro ni rei? My attempts to do a relatively passable have been failed unfortunately...
Spoiler for higu rei ep3, don't read it unless you've seen it already.:
Thanks in advance!
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|2009-05-23, 12:48
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Could I possibly get a signature from "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eawPNQcLipI&feature=related at the 2:16 mark with Rena and Keiichi?
I can try making a render if it's needed.
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Keeping fit has become as American as apple pie. But keeping pie on your menu may keep you on the treadmill a little longer than you'd like. In this episode, we'll make some delicious pies that are healthy any way you slice 'em.
Visit the Website: www.christinacooks.com
Episode #924 / Length: 26 minutes


text:
Master these challenges with Deep Security
Watch this demo to see how easy it is
If you run IT in a midsize organization you probably work in a hectic environment with limited resources. And that's why you're on the cutting edge of virtualization—for the efficiencies of virtual machines. Even your mission-critical servers are virtualized, but challenges to manageability, business continuity, and IT security hold you back.
You can blame your legacy antivirus for the operational overhead, application outages, even exploits and data breaches—because it was designed for physical endpoints, not your virtual servers. And this mismatch causes problems.
In virtual environments, provisioning and maintaining legacy security agents increases operational overhead and take time away from other priority IT tasks. They consume additional system resources and slow down mission-critical business applications. And when it comes to sophisticated attacks, your legacy antivirus is outclassed. Malware infections and incidence response cause application outages. And there's no way to mitigate downtime for emergency patching of critical vulnerabilities.
But there's an agentless solution in use today by thousands of midsized companies like yours. Because when you are on the cutting edge of virtualization you can overcome each of these challenges with Trend Micro™ Deep Security, the industry's leading virtualization security.
Deep Security is specifically designed for virtual environments. Its agentless architecture minimizes operational complexity of security and allows organizations to accelerate virtualization and cloud adoption.
Deep Security protects physical, virtual, and cloud servers with multiple advanced technologies including anti-malware, web reputation, integrity monitoring, and intrusion prevention to thwart sophisticated attacks and data breaches. All these advanced technologies are available in your VMware environment in one single virtual appliance managed by one single dashboard.
Deep Security improves manageability by orders of magnitude because no agents are needed in your virtual machines and new virtual machines are automatically protected. Business continuity is protected from application outages and unplanned downtime from malware infections or emergency patching.
Read the VMware-Trend Micro Virtualization Security Solution Brief
Deep Security provides the industry's first agentless security solution for VMware. Thousands of organizations use it today for ease of use, to ensure business continuity and for protection from sophisticated attacks.
Trend Micro understands the challenges you face when it comes to deploying and managing complex applications. That's why we are offering midsize companies virtualization security software and services that fit your VMware environment.
Trend Micro™ Deep Security Acceleration Kits have everything you need to deploy virtualization security quickly, including expert remote deployment services to make it even easier for you to get started:
The result is that you will have an advanced virtualization security solution that will addresses your manageability and business continuity concerns while comprehensively protecting your VMware environment. Deep Security Acceleration Kits for midsize businesses (100-1000 employees) are available through Trend Micro channel partners nationwide.
Midsized businesses like yours are winning with agentless virtualization security. See what your peers have to say about Deep Security and download the complete case studies.
"Today, with Deep Security, threats are stopped and the bulk of the server is still viable and in use while the threat is managed. Hypervisor-level security really works. Deep Security has been a very good fit in our data center and provides excellent protection for our virtualized servers and desktops and our continually changing environment. I love it"
– Orinzal Williams, Executive Director
"I did the Deep Security deployment myself—it was less than a day for the roll out across 100 virtual machines. Overnight, I saw our memory resource utilization go down by 27%. Now with our virtual environment protected by Deep Security, I don't think I spend even one hour a week on maintenance. As I bring up new virtual desktops, they auto-register with Deep Security and the current security profile and definitions are automatically extended. I don't have to do anything."
– Nick Casagrande, Director of IT
"Through the concept of the agentless virtual appliance, Deep Security simplifies security processes considerably and allows for more efficient utilization of resources, especially when compared to conventional anti-malware solutions… With its centralized approach, Deep Security is the only way for us to offer our customers a truly secure environment that performs well."
- Holger Schmieder, CEO


text:
What more could you add to a SQL Server backup product? It seems that many software products, including Red Gate's SQL Backup Pro, have been able to handle the things most DBAs care about for some time: compression and encryption. Today my company has released a new version of SQL Backup, version 7, which does add a couple of very nice features.
One of the problems that exists in many database configuration is the lack of verification of the backups, and a lack of consistency checking for corruption. Both of these are fairly rare events, but when they do strike, they can propagate through backups for weeks, months, or even years at times. When a disaster does strike, this can result in a tremendous amount of lost data for an organization.
SQL Backup Pro 7 helps to ensure your backups can be verified and checked for issues with the addition of two great new features: scheduled restores and automated verification checks.
You can see a walkthrough of the features from my colleague, Grant Fritchey, on the Red Gate website. Grant shows how you can automate the restores, to another server, and run your DBCC checks.
Run these Checks
When corruption strikes, you may not be able to actually recover data. It could be too late, so it's important that you regularly run DBCC checks. However it can be a performance issue on your production server since DBCC is resource intensive. The solution is to offload these checks to another instance, but for many DBAs, the scripting required to ensure this runs every day is rather complicated. You can do it any number of ways (T-SQL, PowerShell, VBScript, etc), but it's important that you do it.
The addition of this feature to Backup Pro is something myself, Brad McGehee, Grant Fritchey, and others have been requesting for some time. The ease with which you can set this up means there is no reason not to run your DBCC on almost every backup file.
Filed under: Blog Tagged: Backup/Recovery, Red Gate, sql server, syndicated


text:
Mad Men Actress to Play Key Role in Lifetime's Flowers in the Attic Movie
And you thought Sally Draper was a messed-up little girl…
Mad Men's Kiernan Shipka has been cast as the young female lead in Lifetime's upcoming adaptation of V.C. Andrews' novel Flowers in the Attic, our sister site Deadline reports.
The eerie made-for-TV movie will tell the story of Corrine (played by Heather Graham, Scrubs), a recent widow who puts her four children into a pretty terrible situation at her parents' mansion after their father's death. A disturbing family secret causes the children's grandmother, Olivia (Ellen Burstyn, Political Animals) to lock the children in the attic, where the oldest boy and girl (Shipka) develop a really-not-OK bond.
RELATED | Lifetime Renews Devious Maids for a Second Season
Mason Dye (The Secret Diary of an American Cheerleader Web series) has been cast as Shipka's character's brother.
Shipka has played Don and Betty Draper's daughter Sally since the AMC series' first season, and she has appeared on Monk and Heroes. She also played herself in a 2012 episode of Don't Trust the B—- in Apartment 23.
Related stories
Lifetime's Flowers in the Attic Adds Orphan Black Star as Heather Graham's Hubby
Devious Maids Renewed for Season 2 By Lifetime
Devious Maids Exclusive Video: A Baby Gets Threatened, and Comedy Ensues!
Get more from TVLine.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter


text:
The Boy Scouts of America is considering lifting the national ban on participation by gays, possibly letting local councils reach their own decisions.
While the right of Scouting to bay gays from its ranks was upheld by the Supreme Court, we believe the time is well past when this ban should be lifted.
A growing number of Americans is realizing that a person's lifestyle and sexuality are a personal choice and none of our business.
We are in an era when the stigma of being gay is dimming. We all form long-term attachments, create families, adopt children, join the military. Putting labels on people is ignorant. We should rise about it.
All young people have challenges as they grow. One of the positive influences open to them is Scouting. Realizing that gay young people have been denied the joys of Scouting is truly sad. And it's discouraging to know that Scouting labels gays as undesirable, setting an example we should not want our children to follow.
Let's hope we can ascend to a higher plain where we look at a person's heart rather than his or her sexual orientation.
There are a great many more important things to think about and to work on. Our efforts will be that much stronger if we do it together, without discrimination of any kind.


text:
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 15th Nov 2010 23:37 UTC, submitted by comay
Today Oracle released its latest version of Solaris technology, the Oracle Solaris 11 Express 2010.11 release. It includes a large number of new features not found in either Oracle Solaris 10 or previous OpenSolaris releases including ZFS encryption and deduplication, network-based packaging and provisioning systems, network virtualization, optimized I/O for NUMA platforms and optimized platform support including support for Intel's latest Nehalem and SPARC T3. In addition, Oracle Solaris 10 support is available from within a container/zone so migration of existing systems is greatly simplified. The release is available under a variety of licenses including a supported commercial license on a wide variety of x86 and SPARC platforms.
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RE[3]: Unlike Sun
by Kebabbert on Wed 17th Nov 2010 10:25 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Unlike Sun"
"I trust more on an mature Enterprise Unix such as Solaris, than Linux. I would rather pay support for Solaris 11 than RedHat.
That's absolutely fabulous for you, but unfortunately there are a sizeable and significant number of people over the past ten years who don't and haven't agreed with you. Sun wheeled out the 'mature enterprise Unix' line many times and it didn't make any difference. That's why it's Oracle having a go now and not Sun. "
That is dumb argumentation you are using.
You are implying that Linux is better than Solaris, because more people are using Linux. Well, I guess you have just proved that Windows is better than Linux - because more people are using Windows.
Regarding Linux vs Solaris. Every serious sysadmin knows that Linux have severe problems with stability, scalability and what not. You want to see some links?
"The [linux source code] tree breaks every day, and it's becomming an extremely non-fun environment to work in.
We need to slow down the merging, we need to review things more, we need people to test their f--king changes!"
Linus Torvalds says Linux is bloated and huge:
"Citing an internal INTEL corp study that tracked kernel releases, Bottomley said Linux performance had dropped about two per centage points at every release, for a cumulative drop of about 12 per cent over the last ten releases. "Is this a problem?" he asked.
"We're getting bloated and huge. Yes, it's a problem," said Torvalds."
As Linux kernel Developer Andrew Morton says:
"I used to think [code quality] was in decline, and I think that I might think that it still is. I see so many regressions which we never fix.
it would help if people's patches were less buggy."
I have lots of links. You want to see them? I also have links that shows that Linux sucks as a file server.
"Go mkfs a 500 TB ext-3/4 or other Linux file system, fill it up with multiple streams of data, add/remove files for a few months with, say, 20 GB/sec of bandwidth from a single large SMP server and crash the system and fsck it and tell me how long it takes. Does the I/O performance stay consistent during that few months of adding and removing files? Does the file system perform well with 1 million files in a single directory and 100 million files in the file system?
My guess is the exercise would prove my point: Linux file systems have scaling issues that need to be addressed before 100 TB environments become commonplace. Addressing them now without rancor just might make Linux everything its proponents have hoped for."
Linux has scaling problems. Sure, Linux runs on super computers on Top500 (which are just a fast network with a bunch of PCs) or on a 1024 core machine from SGI Altix (which is just some blades on a fast switch) - but that is not the same thing as a running a large machine. Linux always runs on networks. Not on a single large computer.


text:
Writer Rick Edgerton talks #MHFBeanie Round, the harrowing statistics behind Brain Cancer - and what...
3 hours ago
The Saint George Illawarra Dragons have claimed a comfortable 32-10 win over an error-ridden Manly Sea Eagles in front of a crowd of 14,740 at Kogarah tonight.
After an arm-wrestle of a start, the Dragons opened the scoring in the 13th minute after Jamie Soward broke through a staggered defensive line and beat Roberston at fullback to score.
They increased their lead to 10-0 after Mark Gasnier was awarded a try that should never have been given. In twisting around to plant the ball, video replays showed the ball clearly lost contact with his hand and arm, but video referee Bill Harrigan saw fit to award a try through benefit of the doubt.
Manly were able to strike back just before half time. Michael Robertson caught a cross field bomb and threw a perfect offload to Tony Williams who picked the ball up off his bootlaces to beat some defenders to score for the 10-4 halftime score.
The Dragons pushed their lead up to 12 points just after halftime when Weyman was the beneficiary of a great Priddis offload.
The bad call ledger was evened up with Manly's second try after Kieran Foran scored off a clearly forward pass.
The Dragons 12 point lead was restored after Nathan Fien scored a fine try after throwing a dummy and stepping through the defensive line.
With Manly hot on attack, Anthony Watmough put in a kick with an overlap and after several rebounds it ended up with Beau Scott who ran over 80 metres to score against the run of play to effectively end the game as a contest.
With four minutes remaining, the Dragons signed off on an emphatic win as Soward put Morris over with a fantastic cut-out pass.
Match Details
St George Illawarra Dragons 32 defeated Manly Sea Eagles 10
National Rugby League - NRL - Round 23 - Monday August 16, 2010 7:00pm
Venue: WIN Jubilee Oval, Kogarah
Referee: Matt Cecchin and Shayne Hayne
Video Referee: Bill Harrigan
Touch Judges: Steve Carrall and Steve Chiddy
Crowd: 14,740
Halftime: St George Illawarra Dragons 10 Manly Sea Eagles 4
Leagueunlimited.com players of the match:
3 Points - Michael Weyman (1 Try)
2 Points - Jason Nightingale
1 Point - Jamie Soward (1 Try, 4 Conversions)
Tries: Mark Gasnier, Michael Weyman, Jamie Soward, Nathan Fien, Brett Morris, Beau Scott
Conversions: Jamie Soward (4/6)
Tries: Tony Williams, Kieran Foran
Conversions: Jamie Lyon (1/2)
LeagueUnlimited.com Live Commentary Team changes: For the Dragons, Hornby is out and is replaced by Fien. Emmett moves on to the bench ahead of Prior. Manly: Hopoate is out, replaced by Robertson who moves to fullback and Michael Oldfield moves onto the wing.
The Dragons won the Toyota Cup contest 46-14 after leading 28-0 at half time.
In their first clash this season, Manly claimed a convincing 24-6 over the Dragons.
1 min: The Dragons get us underway!
2 min: Oldfield nearly spills his first catch in first grade, but hold onto it nicely in the end.
5 min: Beau Scott ruled to have lost the ball coming out of his own end, replays indicated a strip.
7 min: Boyd does good work getting the ball out of his in-goal, Neville Costigan was injured attempting a tackle several plays earlier.
13 min: TRY
TRY St George Illawarra Dragons
The Dragons keep the ball alive, and it drifts out to Soward who steps through a broken defensive line and beats the cover defence to score under the posts. Conversion attempt by Jamie Soward successful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 6-0
15 min: It's been an interesting arm wrestle so far, both teams have been playing territory and safety first football so far. The Soward try was the only expansive piece of football played so far tonight.
17 min: Boyd finds Cooper on a kick return, and Many are forced to backpedal and give away a penalty to put the Dragons on attack.
18 min: VIDEO REF - For a Dragons try...
18 min: NO TRY - Beau Scott knocks on attempting to dive over to score.
20 min: Dragons hold out a Manly attacking raid.
22 min: Dean Young kicks out on the full and Manly will attack from halfway.
23 min: Nightingale makes a miracle escape from the in goal.
27 min: The Dragons go awfully close to scoring several times, then attempt a kick early in the count which is returned 30 metres by Manly.
28 min: Manly bomb a try, the bomb goes up for Williams who offloads it and Stewart keeps it alive for Robinson who puts it down with just two men to beat.
29 min: Oldfield lets a kick bounce and Soward nearly gets another kick to it, and Oldfield is questionably ruled to have knocked on, giving the Dragons another opportunity.
30 min: VIDEO REF - For a Dragons try...
32 min: TRY
TRY St George Illawarra Dragons
Criminal decision. Mark Gasnier clearly loses the ball attempting to ground it, but video referee Harrigan rules in favour of the Dragons Conversion attempt by Jamie Soward unsuccessful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 10-0
34 min: Dragons called back for a forward pass in their own half.
37 min: Oldfield makes a good kick return to put Manly on attack.
38 min: A penalty keeps Manly on attack.
40 min: TRY
TRY Manly Sea Eagles
Great try! Manly bomb to their right side, Robertson makes a great catch and offloads to Williams who makes a great catch himself and beats several tacklers to score in the corner. Conversion attempt by Jamie Lyon unsuccessful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 10-4
40 min: Half time in an interesting game. Manly should only be down by two points, but instead trail 10-4 at the break.
40 min: Back underway at Kogarah!
41 min: Tony Williams completely misjudges a bomb and ends up conceding a line drop out.
43 min: TRY
TRY St George Illawarra Dragons
Priddis goes from dummy half and throws an amazing offload to Weyman who crashes over to score. Conversion attempt by Jamie Soward successful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 16-4
45 min: Manly go for the short kickoff and retain possession.
46 min: Manly nearly score a repeat of their first try, but the Dragons defence scrambles well.
47 min: Manly look completely revitalised, and go close to scoring again.
49 min: TRY
TRY Manly Sea Eagles
Manly keep the ball alive and Kite throws a massively forward pass to Foran who scores under the posts. Conversion attempt by Jamie Lyon successful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 16-10
51 min: Watmough lets the restart bounce into touch and the Dragons will go back on attack 15 out.
53 min: Fien puts in a poor kick and Manly hold out.
54 min: Manly lose the ball coming out of their end.
55 min: TRY
TRY St George Illawarra Dragons
Fien gets the ball, dummies and steps through the defence to score a fantastic try. Conversion attempt by Jamie Soward successful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 22-10
56 min: Manly regather the short restart again.
58 min: Oldfield knocks on contesting an attacking bomb.
60 min: Manly go on attack off a penalty.
62 min: TRY
TRY St George Illawarra Dragons
Watmough makes an awful decision to kick with an overlap on, the ball rebounds off Soward and Matai knocks on, and it's picked up by Beau Scott who runs 85 metres to score. Conversion attempt by Jamie Soward unsuccessful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 26-10
67 min: Brett Morris makes a great try saving tackle.
70 min: Dragons throw a forward pass as the game begins to wind down.
71 min: This time Cooper makes a try saving tackle, and on the next play Manly knock on trying to keep it alive.
74 min: Jason King on report for a high tackle.
76 min: TRY
TRY St George Illawarra Dragons
Soward throws a great cut-out pass to Morris who beats Williams all ends up to score. Conversion attempt by Jamie Soward successful.
St George Illawarra Dragons 32-10
76 min: CROWD - 14,740
80 min: Soward chips over the top, regathers and then throws a forward pass to Nightingale who puts it down.


text:
Cold weather provides a good excuse to rethink the sandwich, that most versatile of meals. At this time of year, I like to serve them hot, stacked with ingredients to suit the season. Try roast vegetables, any cured meat, cheese or slow-roasted pork. To top it all off, add your choice of pickles and chutneys, aioli and mayonnaise.
Below are four of my favourite recipes at the moment. The mushroom burger is inspired by a similarly delicious dish at Melbourne's Market Lane cafe. The chicken souvlaki is a classic combination of juicy chicken with garlicky yoghurt sauce whipped with feta on soft, home-made pita. Or try my indulgent steak sandwich with thinly sliced steak and caramelised onions on toasty sourdough. Oh, and for good measure, a side serve of crunchy, spicy onion rings. Tuck in.
Quick steak sandwich
Use rump steak if you prefer, add mushrooms, or even a fried egg.
600g eye fillet steak
4 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for brushing
2 red onions, thinly sliced
8 thick slices sourdough bread
150g baby spinach leaves
Salt and pepper
Good-quality chutney or relish
Thinly slice steak into eight pieces. Set aside. Heat oil in a pan and cook onion until softened. Lower heat and continue to cook for about 10 minutes, until onion starts to colour and get crunchy around the edges.
Brush sourdough with a little oil and cook on a hot grill plate for a few minutes either side, or toast the bread. Wilt spinach for a few minutes in a small non-stick pan. Cook steak in a very hot pan with a little oil for about 30 seconds either side. Season with salt and pepper and set aside, keeping warm. Pile wilted spinach on a slice of toast, top with two slices of steak and lashings of onions. Dollop with good-quality chutney and top with a second slice of toast.
Serves 4
Fried onion rings
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp onion powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp Tabasco sauce
2 large brown onions, peeled and cut into 1cm-thick rings
1 cup plain flour
Vegetable oil, for frying
In a bowl, mix paprika, cayenne and onion powder. Set aside half the spice mix. Combine other half with buttermilk and Tabasco. Add onion rings and press to coat. Marinate for one hour. Heat a deep fryer to 180C. Combine flour with remaining spice mix. Dredge onions in seasoned flour, coating evenly. Shake off excess flour and dip back into buttermilk mixture. Recoat with spiced flour. Fry until golden brown, turning to cook evenly, about three minutes each batch. Drain on paper towel. Serve hot.
Mushroom burgers with haloumi
125g unsalted butter, softened
2 tbsp finely chopped herbs (parsley, thyme, basil, oregano)
1 anchovy fillet (optional)
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 tsp curry powder
1 lemon
4 large Portobello mushrooms
Sea salt and black pepper
1 cup good-quality mayonnaise
1 tbsp chipotle in adobo sauce*
4 slices haloumi
Plain flour for dusting
Fennel pickles to serve**
4 large crunchy burger buns, toasted on cut sides
Mix butter with herbs, anchovy, garlic, curry powder and a squeeze of lemon juice to make a spreadable consistency. Heat a grill pan or barbecue until hot, brush mushrooms with herb butter, season and grill for five minutes on each side, or until well cooked. Brush liberally with herb butter while cooking. Meanwhile, mix mayonnaise with chipotle sauce and set aside. Dust haloumi with flour, cook on grill on both sides until golden and place on top of mushroom. Squeeze over some lemon juice and dollop with spicy mayonnaise. Add pickles and serve on toasted buns immediately.
Serves 4
*Chipotle in adobo are spicy Mexican-style chillis sold in tins at selected supermarkets and specialty stores.
** Fennel pickles are sold at selected food stores, or substitute any pickles.
Tip Leftover herb butter can be kept refrigerated or frozen until next time.
Chicken souvlaki
Skip making the pitas if you are short on time but trust me, once you've made them, you won't look back.
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp castor sugar
450g plain flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup olive oil, plus extra for brushing
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh oregano
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
4 garlic cloves, minced
500g boneless chicken thighs
Tzatziki sauce
1/2 cup plain Greek-style yoghurt
125g Greek-style feta cheese
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Lebanese cucumber, seeded, coarsely grated and drained
For pita, mix water, yeast and sugar in a bowl and leave in a warm spot for 20 minutes until mixture foams. In the bowl of an electric mixer with a dough hook, mix flour and salt. Add olive oil and yeast mix and combine; mix until dough is smooth. Turn out on to a lightly floured bench, knead a few times then shape into a ball. Replace in bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for about 15 to 20 minutes.
To marinate chicken, combine lemon juice, oregano, oil, salt, garlic and chicken in a shallow bowl. Cover with cling wrap and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
For tzatziki sauce, put yoghurt and feta in a bowl and blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Add lemon juice, garlic and blitz again to mix. Add cucumber and stir through. Season with salt and pepper if required.
Preheat barbecue or grill plate to medium heat. Divide dough into 12 pieces and roll out into flat, thin discs about 16 centimetres across. Brush with olive oil and place on grill. Gently brush a little oil on top. Cook for 20 seconds or until bread puffs up, then turn over and cook for 20 seconds. Do not cook for too long or they will dry out and become crisp. When cooked, stack them on top of each other and wrap tightly in a clean tea towel to keep warm.
Remove chicken from bowl; discard marinade. Heat a grill pan to medium-high heat. Cook chicken for eight minutes or until done, turning once. Rest on plate, then shred into bite-size pieces. Place chicken in each pita bread, top with tzatziki and serve with salad.
Serves 4-6


text:
A.J. Celebrezze Federal Building
1240 E. Ninth Street
Cleveland, OH 44199
Map It!
(Federal Building)
Years Labeled (Rating):
2008 (81)
Facility Type:
Total Floor Space:
Year Constructed:
Building Owner:
General Services Administration
Property Manager:
General Services Administration
Please note: The building information in this profile was verified and submitted to EPA at the time of application. Building energy performance, operating
characteristics, and ownership/management may be subject to change over time.


text:
GENERAL HOSPITAL will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next week, and ET Online posted a first look of one of the show's surprises. For the April 1 and April 2 episodes, ABC will air a special version of the opening credits, which features an astonishing composite of past opens from the classic soap. Watch the clip for this astonishing walk through half a century of television history.
- SOAPnet's 50-Hour GENERAL HOSPITAL Marathon Kicks Off With Very First Episode
- Anthony Geary To Appear On THE VIEW On April 1 To Celebrate 50 Years Of GENERAL HOSPITAL
- GENERAL HOSPITAL's 50th Anniversary Extravaganza On KATIE April 4
- GENERAL HOSPITAL – THE REAL SOAP DISH Airs Saturday, April 6
- WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE Celebrates 50 Years Of GENERAL HOSPITAL
- New photo of the GENERAL HOSPITAL cast
- GENERAL HOSPITAL Classic Photo Of The Day (1983 Cast Sketch)
- ABC Partners With amfAR For Nurses' Ball
- GENERAL HOSPITAL Nurses Ball Photos [SPOILER ALERT]


text:
Hi folks,
I've got a general query as I'm in the process of collating information...
Does anyone else have issues with USB3 devices on USB3 ports in linux? By 'issues' I mean taking ages to be discovered, randomly disconnecting and reconnecting and the worst of all... data corruption on transfer and kernel panics.
I've seen this now on kernel 2.6.something-or-other (whatever the latest CentOS kernel is, I forget), kernel 3.2.0-xx (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) and 3.5.0-xx (Ubuntu 12.10). I've also given it a test with Archbang, kernel 3.6.8... all exhibit the same issues.
I ask because at first I thought the issues I was having were just a dodgy USB3 HDD or cable, but a second drive (different manufacturer) does it too... and a colleagues brand new office PC also exhibits the same issues with her USB3 HDD.
If the drives are plugged into a USB2 port, they are rock solid.
Any similar experience, thoughts or suggestions?


text:
Getting the colossal squid onto display isn't just a simple matter of building a tank and moving it into the gallery!
First of all we have to plan a few details – for example, because of the size of the tank and the amount of liquid it will contain, it will weigh over five tonnes, so the building engineers have to check that the floor loadings will cope.
Then we have to consider how to get the tank into the building once it is built – it may be too wide to fit through the door, so exhibition staff will have to decide if it can be lifted into the building through a window using a crane – fortunately the museum was designed with these issues in mind, so there are windows which can be removed relatively easily to do this (we're hoping that Wellington's balmy weather won't cause any delays).
Once the tank is in place we have to fill it with preservative. 5,000 litres of preservative will have to be mixed and pumped into the tank – that's about 25x 200 litre drums which will have to be transported into the gallery and mixed to the correct concentration in the tank – something which will have to be done when the museum is closed to the public.
In the event of an earthquake there is the risk of the tank rupturing, so to prevent a tidal wave of preservative cascading through the collections, the entire floor of the gallery has to be bunded to contain any spillage – this will involve a complete rebuild of the gallery floor!
As the gallery is a public space we cannot use the usual formalin or alcohol preservatives, but will be trialling a propylene-glycol mixture. (Glycol is used as anti-freeze and has been used previously to preserve specimens on a smaller scale, but we will need to design the tank so that we can take samples for testing on a regular basis to check the pH for acidity and any signs of deterioration of the specimen).
Placement of the specimen inside the tank will require the construction of some supports to keep it in place – because of the different density of parts of the specimen, some parts, such as the mantle, will float upwards, while others, such as the arms, will sink.
While preparations are underway to get the tank built, designers are working on how to light the specimen so that it can be seen: we are going to use an LED system which will enable lights to be placed inside the tank to avoid problems of reflection from the liquid surface. Then there's the supporting display with other specimens and photographs to be prepared and labels written, printed and installed.
Not to forget the squid itself! We are still planning on how to lift 495 kg of pickled squid out of its temporary fixing tank, into the display tank and move it from the laboratory building (about 1 kilometre away) to Cable Street. The preservation process has made the tissues much stronger and less jelly-like, but so far we haven't been able to even turn it over to see what condition it is in without the risk of tearing the mantle.
So far things are going to plan – we hope to have a date for the display before the end of the year.


text:
An elderly Doncaster man, who fell overboard from his yacht in the North Sea, has been rescued by a passing fishing boat.
The man, who has not yet been named, was sailing to Lindisfarne, Holy Island off the Northumbland Coast, when the incident occurred.
He was wearing a safety harness, and as a result was being dragged along by his boat towards Blyth.
The man, who is believed to be in his 60's, tried to get the attention of nearby boats for more than an hour before being rescued by people on board a passing fishing boat, called the Beverley Anne.
People on board the Beverley Anne notified the Coastguard, and the Cullercoats lifeboat was launched.and arrived on the scene along with paramedics.
Helmsman Peter Clark ascertained the welfare of the casualty and decided that because he had been in the water for so long and was feeling cold that he should be taken to the lifeboat station, where paramedics were waiting.
The incident took place on Thursday, August 7, and after being assessed, the Doncaster man was then taken to a waiting ambulance, and onwards to the North Tyneside General Hospital.
Peter Clark, Senior Helmsman Cullercoats RNLI said of the incident: 'The casualty had the common sense to wear a safety harness which meant that when he fell overboard he would always be near his yacht.
"Without it he would have drifted away and he would have been much more difficult to locate especially having been in the water an hour and the search area would then have been much wider"
The lifeboat then returned to the stricken yacht and towed it to Blyth Harbour where it was safely secured by members of the Royal Northumberland yacht club.
The Doncaster man is still believed to be receiving treatment at North Tyneside General Hospital.
The full extent of his injuries are not known.


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Happy State Bank holds groundbreaking
A groundbreaking for the new location of Happy State Bank was held Thursday afternoon.Mike Amos, president of the Borger market, and J. Pat Hickman, Chairman and CEO of Happy State Bank, made the announcement of the new location, which will be at 1431 West Wilson.Wiley Hicks Jr. Construction Inc. is the general contractor for the new building. The architecture was designed by D. Scott Stark Architect and is consistent with other Happy State Bank offices.It will be a full-service banking center offering four drive-up lanes as well as a drive-up 24-hour ATM and a community meeting room, "The Texas Room," which will be available for customer use.The building should be completed by the third quarter of 2013.Amos said he is excited about this new office being built in Borger."The location is ideal for convenient banking for our customers," he said. "We are proud to be a part of new development and growth in the City of Borger."The $1.8 billion Happy State Bank, which is celebrating 104 years in operation, has 29 full-service offices and 87 ATMs in 20 communities in the Texas panhandle, which include Happy, Amarillo, Borger, Canadian, Canyon, Dalhart, Dumas, Floydada, Hereford, Lockney, Lubbock, Higgins, Olton, Pampa, Panhandle, Plainview, Silverton, Stratford, Sunray, and Texline.Happy State Bank also owns a non-depository branch, Gold Star Trust Company, which is headquartered in Canyon.


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Skip to comments.Ill. Prison Locked Down After Guards Call in Sick
Posted on 01/06/2013 8:22:58 AM PST by redreno
Officials say they had to put one of Illinois' maximum-security prisons on lockdown not because of an inmate riot but because dozens of guards called in sick.
The movement of inmates was limited for most of Friday at the Stateville Correctional Center in suburban Chicago.
Nearly 60 employees failed to turn up to work, an occurrence that Illinois Department of Corrections spokeswoman Stacey Solano called "unusual."
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcchicago.com ...
fire them. If they aren't grateful to have a job in this environment, get rid of them.
Sounds like unionitis to me.
As usual the first people brought to their knees were those who work in crowded and unsanitary conditions.
It's far more likely the prison guards really are sick than that they are staying away for fun and games.
Supposedly the current flu vaccines are ineffective in dealing with this flu.
Its called the blue flu.
I can tell you right now there probably a 1000 applicants waiting for one of those jobs.
Its called the blue flu.
I can tell you right now there probably a 1000 applicants waiting for one of those jobs.
Sounds like you are unwilling to blame Obamugabe ~ it's his fault! He really does want us to die from flu and other plagues. The man hates America and Americans.
Who gives a crap if the inmates have to stay in their cells? They should be locked in 24 hours a day. No basketball, no weight lifting, no tv, no radio. Prison should be prison, not a fitness club.
IL: Union runs out of courtrooms in fight over prisons
By Ben Yount / December 13, 2012 /
By Benjamin Yount | Watchdog.org
SPRINGFIELD The states largest public employee union has run out of courtrooms to argue against Gov. Pat Quinns plan to close four state correctional facilities.
But the union, and some lawmakers, arent giving up.
Good heavens, what kind of society have we become where our prisons actually need to be locked down ?
Unions and gun control. What could go wrong?
This makes no sense, how will the guards get their bribes for smuggling in shivs and drugs? I can't imagine how obese these lazy union thugs are considering Chicago has the fattest cops in the nation.
Didn't these "professionals" allow a couple of hardened inmates to escape a couple of weeks back? Not the same prison, but the same friggin' guards (union)!
The last time NY State's Correctional Officers went on strike was in 1979. The National Guard was called up to work at the prisons. They were out a little over two weeks (April 19th-May 4th) before voting on a new contract.
I was hired as an officer the end of September, 1980. By that time, the fines for having violated the State's Taylor Law had started being garnisheed from striker's paychecks. The union was also heavily fined, and they were eventually voted out as the bargaining unit for officers. Each individual who had participated in the strike was charged two days pay, for every day of work they had been out. As well, before they could retire, they were required to work the extra time they had lost while on strike.
I never heard one officer say anything good about the strike. After all was said and done, it turns out they ended up with the same exact contract that the State had initially offered them before they'd gone out on strike. There was also a lot of animosity against local union officials that held office at the time of the strike, and they were voted out at the next elections. I spent 25 years in uniform. We worked without contracts several times over those years, but there was never any discussion about striking, and I never would have gone out if they'd voted for it. All of those heavy fines incurred previously, had served as a deterrent to any future strikes. Every time contract negotiations came around, the union would send out cards for us to write down our suggestions of what issues the union should pursue with the State. I always recommended "safer working conditions," because what good was making more money each year, if you weren't alive to spend it? I'm in my 10th year of retirement, and am glad I got out when I did. Health has gone downhill since then, and everytime I run into someone I used to work with, they've got nothing good to say about the job.
Yes, it is basically a battle between the unions and the governor of a bankrupt state. Look into how Tamms has 16 full-time "food service directors" at over $70,000 per year, each, with less than three hundred inmates, who are locked down 23 hours a day. The governor selected four prisons to be shuttered, and has received nothing but backlash from the unions. Spikes in incidents between the guards and inmates, many antagonized by the COs, just to justify staffing levels. It is a mess. Meanwhile, the IDOC is lax about having bills paid for food and other necessities, creating food shortages in some facilities. And don't even get me started on the poor quality of medical care in IDOC.
So, if all these criminals were to be allowed back onto the streets of Chicago...how would one tell the difference?
union contract flu
There's no strike
That's what the Obamugabe regime would like for you to believe ~ that there's a strike ~ to distract you from the fact he's begun murdering Americans on a large scale.
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Technical Problem With This Chapter?
Author: lenzlaw1
Story: As the Dust Falls
Part: 1: A New Day
Rating: Teens
Status: WIP
Reviews: 412
Words: 3,587
New Chapter Progress: [ 10% ]
Progress Notes: A/N: Due to my writing style, I write the chapters first for which the mood takes me. As a result, I have chapters 1 and 2 posted and 5, 6, and 7 written. Chapters 3 and 4 are coming, but unfortunately school commands a lot of my time. I will get them up as quickly as possible.
Updated: September 23, 2007, 6:26pm
1: A New Day
Harry walked over to where the Weasley family lay huddled over Fred's body, hastily at first and then slowing down, as if the quickness of his approach would prevent the family from grieving properly. He stopped several feet away behind Molly, Ginny and George Weasley. George was crouched to his mother's left, while Ginny was holding tightly onto her mother's right arm. As if alerted by his presence, Mrs. Weasley suddenly turned around, looking at Harry slowly from top to bottom, her tear-stained cheeks glistening in the sunlight issuing from the holes through the castle wall. Harry felt as though he and Mrs. Weasley would stare at each other for years before her face decided on one of the thousands of emotions she felt that moment. Stretching out her arms and crying harder than Harry had seen her cry in the six years that he had known her, Molly took Harry into her arms, hugging the young man so hard that Harry thought he would have permanent imprints of her hands on his shoulders.
Looking first at Fred's body, with his last joke etched across his face, Harry then turned his gaze to the rest of the Weasleys. Arthur was looking straight down, holding his son's lifeless hand in his. George was wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, his shiny cheeks betraying the tears he had shed over his twin. Percy had taken off his jacket and folded it neatly before placing it under his brother's head. Bill and Charlie sat on either side of their father, not saying anything, both keeping their hands firmly on Arthur's shoulders.
Ron had just entered the Great Hall with Hermione, their arms around each other's shoulders, a look of exhaustion with the not-so-faint hint of jubilation playing on their faces. Was it that they finally had each other now or the outcome of the early morning that made them so clearly happy? Whatever the reason was, what seemed definite was that there was finally time—time for so many things, for so many people, things that seemed so bleak and faraway before this morning.
And yet…
Stopping short several feet away from his family, Ron's smile faded when he saw his family huddled on the floor. Then he saw him—his brother's smiling, lifeless face. Ron had been there when Fred was killed, but had driven it from his mind temporarily as the battle progressed. The suddenness of this scene struck him as if he had fallen onto a Blast-Ended Skrewt in his sleep. As his eyes widened, he turned to Hermione, her eyes now full of tears.
"Oh, Ron," she managed to squeak out as the two of them hugged each other fiercely, sobbing unashamedly, Hermione into Ron's chest, and he into her hair.
Taking Harry's shoulders and pushing them gently away from her body, Molly Weasley had stopped her heaving sobs. "Come then," said Mrs. Weasley. "Let me have a look at you," she said, a small smile creeping unto her face.
Harry looked exhausted and a bit disheveled. Bits of hair all over his head were pointing in all directions. This was, of course, how his hair had always looked, but perhaps it was the backdrop of the surrounding mess and hullabaloo in the Great Hall that made it seem particularly untidy. Dried blood stained an uneven line from his temple where the hinge of his glasses had cut, not but an hour before. His robes were tattered and shredded in places; his knee was stained red with blood, a result of his fall from the air after Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse. Under his robes, his body was making a thousand promises of pain to come, once he'd settle down a bit and really let his pains wash over him. His friend and, as of the day before, the last remaining survivor of The Marauders, Remus Lupin, along with his wife, Nymphadora Tonks, were lying together several yards away, dead. And yet, with all of this, looking into Mrs. Weasley's face and knowing that she was safe—that Arthur and Bill and Charlie and Percy and George and Ron and… and Ginny were safe—that there were survivors, that the battle was won, and that there was a tremendous bit to be thankful for, Harry couldn't hide a grateful smile from the corners of his mouth and a watery look in his eyes.
Normally, had Molly Weasley seen Harry in this state, she would have fussed about him with the persnickety air of a parent who wanted nothing but her child to look his best, as always. But not now. Taking Harry's face in both her hands, Molly looked at the young man and said, "Well done, my dear. You were… Harry, you were wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!" This last bit was echoed with rebounding chants of "Hear, hear!" from everyone in close proximity. Arthur and the boys were nodding their heads approvingly, and Ginny was simply looking at him with detached eyes.
"Harry… Oh, my dear Harry!" cried Mrs. Weasley. "We all owe you so much!"
"NO!" bellowed Harry quickly, fiercely. "You all fought this fight! You all did your part, and a tremendous part at that," he said as he looked around, surveying the bodies of several dead Death Eaters and some unconscious others who were being bound with Binding Charms by Kingsley and Professors McGonagall and Flitwick. Behind him, students were conjuring stretchers, bringing the injured to one side of the Hall where Madam Pomfrey had set up a makeshift hospital ward, replete with beds and curtains. As the injured were moved from one side of the Hall to the other, Harry noticed the occasional strong kick aimed at the still bodies of Death Eaters splayed on the marble floor, the dead among them being pushed rather unceremoniously onto the front steps of the castle.
Molly didn't argue with him. She simply looked at Harry with a mixed expression of wonder and pride. Harry had felt like another son to her, ever since that early morning almost six years ago when the boys had returned to the Burrow in the flying Ford Anglia. Now, this 'extra son' of hers seemed so extraordinary, so special…
Moments went by with nobody saying anything. All that could be heard was the din of "He's gone! He's gone!" issuing from countless people all around the Great Hall. Cho Chang walked toward Harry, no doubt to congratulate him, but never made it after she caught a reproachful stare from Ginny. Harry caught this out of the corner of his eye, but pretended he didn't see anything. He only looked at Ginny with more intent than he had ever done. Sensing she was being watched, Ginny lifted her head; for a moment, their gazes locked, and Harry had the distinct feeling that everything in the universe—every answer to any question that he could ever want was locked behind those eyes. Every pang of emotion, every feeling of lust and longing flooded through Harry so quickly that he felt dizzy. Falling back a step from his kneeling position, Harry chocked it up to tiredness when everyone around him took notice, and seemed to jump to the conclusion that he had been severely hurt and needed medical attention.
"I'm fine, really. Just a bit tired," Harry said in an effort to quell Mrs. Weasley's insistence that he go straightaway to Madam Pomfrey.
"Harry, no more dawdling with us while you're battered and bruised. We're fine; you go take care of yourself for once, dear." She said the last part with such kindness that Harry was almost ready to obey blindly when he suddenly remembered just how tired he really was.
"Erm—I'll go to Madam Pomfrey, I promise, but—" Harry began.
"Oh, deary me," cried Mrs. Weasley. "What am I thinking?! You'll have to go to St. Mungo's right away! They should be able to heal you quickly, I hope! Oh dear, oh dear. George—Bill—Charlie, help bring Harry to the gate where he can Apparate to St. Mungo's. Wait! What am I thinking, Side-Along with him, will you dears? He needs all the strength he can—"
"Mrs. Weasley, really, I promise you I'm fine," cut in Harry. "Just a bit scraped is all. Please, all I need is a little sleep. I'd really just like to go up to Gryffindor Tower and find my bed—" Harry stopped suddenly. His bed. His four-poster in his bedroom—the room he'd shared for six years with Ron, Dean, Seamus and Neville—he'd been away from it for so long. He missed it, in a way, almost as he missed Hedwig. Hedwig.
"Oh, all right," said Mrs. Weasley. "But boys—go with Harry, won't you? Bill—Charlie—take Harry by each shoulder—and Ron, dear, stay with him? In case he needs anything." Harry knew there were some battles he just couldn't win.
"I was fighting too, Mum!" Ron said emphatically. "I could be hurt, too, but you're not ordering me off to St. Mungo's, 'cause I didn't fight with old Moldyshorts back there!"
The first bit of laughter in some time broke out among the group of redheads all huddled together.
"No, no, of course dear, I didn't mean to insinuate that you put up any less of a fight than— it's just that, well—"
Ron looked expectantly at his mother for an answer and then at Harry, who couldn't help but give a small smirk at the situation. Ron, who was not as pleased, frowned whole-heartedly.
"Well—" began Mrs. Weasley. "…Hermione, dear, won't you go with them both? See to it that they rest properly, and—and—" she trailed off.
"Of course, Mrs. Weasley," said Hermione. "I'll see to it that both of them get their rest." She looked at the two of them while saying this, the last word ringing with such a sense of urgency that both Ron and Harry straightened up and sauntered to her side at once, Ron's expression noticeably more impish at the prospect of Hermione putting him to bed.
The three of them began walking away, amidst cheers and claps to the back from fellow survivors. They caught a smile and an approving thumbs-up from Professor McGonagall between shouts of "Incarcerous!" from her and Kingsley and Flitwick. Neville passed them, carrying a hurt Parvati Patil on a stretcher.
"Neville! You were brilliant," said Parvati to a now-glowing Neville. He was turning pink. "He's gone! He's gone, he's gone, he's gone!" repeated Parvati.
"Yes, Miss Patil, Lord Voldemort is gone," said Madam Pomfrey, relishing the opportunity to speak Voldemort's name without fear. "But save your voice and lie down. Proper rest is of primary importance." Harry couldn't help but give a small laugh at this. Even after a year away from Hogwarts, some things, he knew, would never change.
They walked up one staircase, and then another, careful to jump one of the steps that was no longer there, having been blown apart during the battle. Going down one long hallway and then turning at the end, they reached the familiar portrait of the Fat Lady. She seemed inattentive, however, as she was engrossed in a conversation she was having with Sir Cadogan. At once, all three of them came to a sudden halt, all realising the same thing.
"None of us know the password," said Hermione.
"Bugger," said Ron. "I was right looking forward to seeing the common room again."
"I don't know about you two, but I could sleep right here in the hall," said Harry. "I think I'd sleep just fine."
"Deary me, Harry Potter!" said a voice. All three of them turned on the spot. The Fat Lady was looking at them, her hand clapped to her cheek, a dumbstruck look across her face. "I was wondering when I'd see you again."
"Us too, I can assure you," said Hermione. The Fat Lady beamed at her.
"I'm sorry," said Harry. "But... none of us knows the password to get in."
The Fat Lady chuckled.
"Oh, please, as if I would ask you to give the password, after all that you've done!"
"Um, excuse me," said Hermione, "but how do you know? I mean, you were all the way up here, weren't you?"
Another voice answered her. This time, it was the voice of Sir Cadogan.
"My dear witch, I daresay I was in the Great Hall when Mr. Potter here vanquished the worm. Put up a bloody good fight, he did—gave him a what-for if I ever did see one," said Sir Cadogan. "Good show, my dear sir, good show!"
"Um," said Harry. "Thanks."
With a hearty smile from the Fat Lady, the portrait frame swung open, revealing the short tunnel leading to the Gryffindor common room. The common room felt thoroughly deserted and devoid of human presence. A good portion of the Gryffindors had, after all, migrated to the Room of Requirement, heading the cause against Snape and the Carrows. Harry ran his hands longingly over the back of the squishy chair where he'd spent so many evenings staring into the fireplace or talking with his friends. Nostalgia for this place—his first true home—was flooding his senses. Ron collapsed on a sofa facing the window that looked out over the grounds. Harry took this cue to collapse into the squishy chair while Hermione remained standing. None of them said anything, soaking up the scene of this beloved place. Hermione walked over to the window and peered outside. Sunlight was now pouring over the grounds, illuminating the full and terrible extent of the damage caused by the battle. The grass was singed in places, where wayward spells and hexes missed their mark. Patches of red stained the ground and steps, a red that Hermione could only assume was blood. The stairs were crumbled in places, and there was a great hole in the front wall that Hermione couldn't see from her position in the room, but that she knew was there nonetheless. Witches and wizards, students, teachers, and parents alike were operating as a team, making repairs and separating the survivors from the dead, the good from the Death Eaters. From where she stood, Hermione could see Professor McGonagall leading the operation of piling the bodies of Death Eaters. She was giving orders to some students, pointing this way and that.
"Professor McGonagall is out there," said Hermione after a long silence. "I think she's leading a search party, looking for the other students and staff." At this Harry jerked his head up from his chest. He had begun to get woozy.
"Snape," he said. "His body is still in the Shrieking Shack. They have to know. They have to take him out." A tear had found its way from his eye and was marking a zigzag down his cheek. Thinking for a moment about how he could notify them about Snape, Harry got up from the chair and walked over to the window, taking out his wand as he walked. Pointing it down at McGonagall, Harry cast a Patronus. The stag ran in a circle around the Deputy Headmistress before raising its head and muttering something Ron and Hermione couldn't make out over the ruckus coming from below. Upon hearing the stag's message, McGonagall looked up at the common room and gave Harry a low nod. She then called for Kingsley and the two of them spoke briefly before Kingsley walked off toward the Whomping Willow. Before he got there, he looked up at Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and he too nodded.
"You told them where Snape was, didn't you," said Ron.
"Yeah," Harry choked out. It was about all he could say. He was overwhelmed with emotion at the thought of Snape's body in the Shrieking Shack—all alone now, even in death.
Harry stood by the window for a bit, taking in the sight of the morning for himself before Hermione made her presence known. "Come on, let's get to bed."
"Yeah," yawned Ron. "I'm going to fall asleep standing up if I don't go soon."
"We wouldn't want that, would we?" laughed Hermione. Ron began to give a frown, which quickly turned to a boyish grin when Hermione put her hand on his arm and started to pull him toward the staircase leading up to the boys' dormitory. "Are you coming, Harry?" asked Hermione, compassion in her voice.
"Yeah," he said. "I'll be up in a minute." Relishing the chance to be alone for a moment, Ron and Hermione put their arms around each other and headed merrily up towards the boys' dormitory. Harry wanted to sit in his favourite chair a minute more and take in the sight of this room with his sore eyes—and Merlin, they were sore. Sore. His whole body ached, and he was now fully aware of it with nothing to distract him from the pain that washed over his body. Essence of murtlap, Harry thought, and without thinking, he got up and trod the stairs leading up to the boys' dormitory to ask Hermione if she had any essence of murtlap in the sack she'd been carrying with them for their whole journey.
Harry found the door to his old room ajar and heard Ron and Hermione bickering. At least that was what it sounded like at first. Not wanting to intrude, he decided to stay put at the door.
"Ron, I will not sleep in your bed with you!" said Hermione, half laughing as she swatted Ron's outstretched arms. Ron was reclining on his bed, his back against the wall, his arms outstretched in Hermione's direction. Hermione was sitting on the edge of his bed, not far from him.
"Come on," pressed Ron. "I won't do anything, I promise. Let's just have a good lie in, shall we?"
"After everything we've been through, Ronald, I think I quite deserve a whole bed to myself, thank you very much. There are five beds in this room, I could have Dean's bed, or Seamus', or Neville's—"
"Or Ron's," said Ron, a wry smile on his face.
Hermione looked exasperated; Ron maintained his smile, not breaking eye contact with the bushy-haired girl sitting opposite him. Hermione rose, opening her mouth as if to say something then closing it again after a short moment. Ron looked at her intently, and was caught completely off guard when she reached over and placed a soft kiss on his half-open mouth. His eyes, wide at first, began to relax and then close as he took in the entirety of his fortunate situation with unrelenting attention. He ran his hands over Hermione's back as her body fell limp against his. Her hands found their way to his neck, and she was there, on top of him, kissing him hard.
What seemed like several long minutes went by before Hermione stood up, tearing herself away from the red-haired wizard lying beneath her. "Well," she said, "sleep well Ronald." Hermione then walked over to Neville's bed and sat down, beginning to take off her shoes whilst never taking her gaze away from Ron, lying several feet away, a look of horror and utter confusion on his face.
After staring at him a moment, Hermione got off Neville's bed and sauntered over to where Ron was lying. He was looking up at her with wide eyes and mouth agape, but he said nothing. "Oh, shove over, you silly sod," said Hermione, laughter in her voice. Ron moved himself over on the bed, but continued to look at her as if he'd been Confunded.
"You really are pathetic, Ronald," said Hermione, not bothering to hide the large smile firmly fixed on her face. Ron then smiled and let out a large sigh.
"I know," he said, his eyes twinkling.
With the two of them no longer 'bickering,' Harry took this as his cue to enter. "Ahem," he cleared his throat. Hermione jumped with a start, turning a deep shade of pink. "Uh, Hermione, do you have any essence of murtlap in your bag?"
Hermione looked positively flustered at first, but then after a moment, she got her bearings. "Murtlap—yes, of course," she said. Her pink hue had changed to a most lovely shade of lilac. She bent down and rummaged through her bag for a few seconds, looking for that tiny bottle. Harry took the opportunity to shoot a glance at Ron. He had his hands crossed behind his head and was staring up at the ceiling dreamily. Harry smiled to himself as Hermione pulled out a small bottle and a sponge. "Use this to dab your wounds with Harry," she said, emphasizing the sponge in her hand.
"Thanks a lot, Hermione." Fully aware he had walked in on something, Harry wanted to leave the room as soon as possible. With a quick nod, he was on his way back out of the room to sit on the squishy chair and anoint his wounds. He would fall asleep in the chair as soon as he finished.
Upstairs, Hermione walked slowly back to Ron's bed. Hesitant at first, she climbed in beside him, draping her arm over Ron's stomach. Turning to her, Ron took her hand and kissed it. Now it was Hermione who wore a goofy grin.
"Hi," said Ron, Hermione's face reflected in his twinkling eyes. He took her hands in his and stared at her as if she was the only thing in the world that could possibly command his attention.
"Hi," she said, still wearing her grin.
* * * ~*~ * * *
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Cappella Nova and Women's Chorus Spring Concert
Date: 3:00pm PDT April 21, 2013 Location: Evans Hall
Evans Hall
Music will include North African and North American music that draws upon dance rhythms as part of Cappella Nova's upcoming tour of Egypt. Katherine FitzGibbon and Margaret Green will conduct, and Stephanie Thompson will accompany.
Sunday, April 21 in Evans Auditorium, Evans Hall on the Lewis & Clark Undergraduate Campus. General Admission is $10. Admission for Students, Seniors and L&C Faculty/Staff is $5. Admission is FREE for L&C Students with ID.
Live Streaming: http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/lclarkadmin.portal?mode=link#


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*U.S. Soccer has scheduled an Aug. 15 exhibition game against Mexico at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the first friendly between the two nations south of the border since 1984.
"Mexico has proven to be one of the top teams in the world in the moment, so for us this is a huge opportunity," said U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann. "The U.S. and Mexico have a very special rivalry, and the chance to be challenged in an environment like Estadio Azteca in Mexico City will be another important experience for the development of our players."
The game is a designated FIFA fixture date, which means the U.S. should have its top players available in an effort to beat Mexico for the first time ever on its own soil. The U.S. record in Mexico: 0-23-1.
*In other local, yet internationally-oriented soccer news, Zachary DeVille, a sophomore forward from San Diego who made nine appearances for Cal State Northridge last season, is spending his summer with Team Guam in a series of international matches in the Philippines in preparation for the East Asian Football Championships in July.
*The new Pac-12 network means 58 live televised soccer games from the conference are on tap later this year, brinding unprecedented visibility to college soccer. The USC women's program, for instance, will have nine games on TV, five at home and four on the road.
"It's really exciting to see that our sport and our conference will be on TV for all to see this season," USC head coach Ali Khosroshahin. "It's an opportunity for our athletes to get exposure, so we can really show the strength of our programs and the Pac-12 as a whole."
The UCLA men's program will have a dozen games televised on the new channel.