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After the second unseasonably winter for quite some time in a row (at least so far), a lot of us probably have our guard down as far as driving in winter weather is concerned.
Rain in January? Who would have thought it. Unfortunately, with rain comes freezing rain and all sorts of other calamities.
And that means being careful about driving.
First of all, we need to allow extra time to get wherever we're going. Sheer ice can require a stopping distance several times that of dry pavement. So that means thinking ahead and preparing for the unexpected.
And how are those tires? If the tread is badly worn, that can add even more to the time it takes to stop your vehicle. An old rule of thumb is to insert a penny into the tread of your tires. If the penny doesn't reach at least as far as the top of Lincoln's head, your tires need to be replaced.
Also make sure your brakes are in good working order. If they're squeaking, you need to take your car in to have them checked out.
And don't forget to check those wipers too. Worn blades can streak your windows, blurring your vision. And also be sure to top off your windshield washer fluid so you have plenty of it the next time a semi passes you, splashing your windshield.
And speaking of wipers, make sure they're turned off when you get home at might. And double-check in the morning. So what's the reason for that? Well, if you've ever had to pay for fixing a broken wiper arm or burnt-out wiper motor, then you know.
And if there's been a recent snowfall, make sure you wipe off your headlights before you drive.
A little precaution now can go a long way toward preventing an accident later.
So happy winter driving!


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Still feeling embarrassed and dirty from viewing the Gal Gun PS3 DLC gallery we posted the other day? Well, prepare to dive right into the mud pit of shame. Alchemist has posted a new trailer, showing us a bit of gameplay, new costumes in action, and a whole lot of uncomfortable, for the upcoming PS3 content.
I'm going to warn you now: Being caught watching this video may have dire consequences. So, are you interested in the nurse set, china set, bunny set, apron set, or the good old bikini set? Each one will run you an easy ¥750 starting today, and includes multiple items to pump the moe action. Everyone have their "Ecstasy Shots" ready? Now go take a cold shower and forget this ever happened.
Gal Gun PS3 Download Content Video [Andriasang]
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subset: commoncrawl


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if the SEC is not in the championship mix this year.
Bowl Eligibility - Updated Conference Analysis
What a Saturday! The BCS is thrown into turmoil and we are faced with the possibility of the SEC being shutout of the title game. Thank you Texas A&M.
A recap of bowl affiliations by conference:
Big Ten – 8 affiliations
Rose, Heart of Dallas, Outback, Gator, Capital One, Buffalo Wild Wings, Meineke Car Care and Little Ceasars
ACC – 8 affiliations
Orange, Sun, Music City, Chik Fil A, Russell Athletic, Independence, Military and Belk
B12 – 7 affiliations
Fiesta, Cotton, Pinstripe, Buffalo Wild Wings, Alamo, Meineke Car Care and Holiday
Big East – 6 affiliations
BBVA Compass, Liberty*, Pin Stripe, Russell Athletic, Belk and Beef O'Brady's
Conference USA – 6 affiliations
Heart of Dallas, Liberty*, Armed Forces, Hawaii, New Orleans and Beef O'Brady's
MAC – 3 affiliations
Go Daddy, Little Caesars and Famous Idaho Potato
Mountain West – 5 affiliations
Armed Forces, Hawaii*, Las Vegas, Poinsettia and New Mexico
PAC 12 – 7 affiliations
Rose, Sun, Kraft Fight Hunger, Alamo, Holiday, Las Vegas and New Mexico
SEC – 10 affiliations
Sugar, BBVA Compass, Cotton, Outback, Gator, Capital One, Music City, Liberty*, Chik Fil A and Independence
Sun Belt – 2 affiliations
Go Daddy and New Orleans
WAC – 2 affiliations
Hawaii* and Famous Idaho Potato
At Large Bids – 5
BCS Championship, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange
Other Bids (Independent) – 3
Poinsettia (takes BYU eligible), Kraft Fight Hunger (takes Navy if eligible) and Military (takes Army if eligible)
* Liberty takes either CUSA or SEC team and Hawaii takes Mountain West or WAC team
In total, 35 bowl games meaning 70 slots that have to be filled by eligible teams. Let us see how each conference fairs in terms of eligible teams. The information below is broken down as follows: Eligible Teams (have 6 wins already), On the Cusp (5 wins) and Still Have a Shot (4 wins. I have also provided the remaining schedule beside each team listed under On the Cusp or Still Have a Shot.
Big Ten
Eligible Teams:
Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern and Wisconsin
On the Cusp:
Michigan State (Northwestern and Minnesota)
Still a Shot:
Iowa (Michigan and Nebraska)
Indiana (Penn State and Purdue)
Minnesota took care of business and becomes bowl eligible for the first time since 2009 and the first under Jerry Kill. Michigan stays in competition for the Rose bowl, but Nebraska's win over Penn State gives the Cornhuskers the advantage. Iowa and Indiana still have a shot, but they cannot afford to lose another game. Michigan State was idle, but still looks to be in good shape needing only one more win.
Eligible Teams:
Clemson, Duke, Florida State and NC State
On the Cusp:
Wake Forest (Notre Dame and Vanderbilt)
Miami (Fla.) (South Florida and Duke)
Georgia Tech (Duke and Georgia)
Still a Shot:
Maryland (Florida State and North Carolina)
Virginia Tech (Boston College and Virginia)
NC State took care of business against Wake Forest and becomes bowl eligible. Georgia Tech's win over North Carolina puts them in great shape this week against Duke. A victory will see them get that coveted sixth victory. VT still has a shot, but cannot lose either of its last two games while Maryland's chances are slime. Miami has two winnable games remaining and is still in good shape.
Big 12
Eligible Teams:
Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, TCU and Texas Tech
On the Cusp:
West Virginia (Oklahoma, Iowa State and Kansas)
Iowa State (Kansas and West Virginia)
Still a Shot:
Baylor (Kansas State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State)
West Virginia and Iowa State each lost this past weekend, but they play each other and Kansas, I expect both to become bowl eligible. Baylor is still in the hunt, but their schedule is daunting. I do not see them getting through that gauntlet with two wins.
Big East
Eligible Teams:
Cincinnati, Louisville and Rutgers
On the Cusp:
Syracuse (Missouri and Temple)
Still a Shot:
Pittsburgh (Rutgers and South Florida)
Syracuse's huge upset over Louisville now moves them into the driver's seat for reaching a bowl game. A win over Missouri or Temple will see them reach the postseason. The question now is whether the Big East can keep a team ranked high enough to reach a BCS game. It will be interesting to watch over the final two weeks – this league cannot afford any more loses by Louisville or Rutgers.
Conference USA
Eligible Teams:
UCF, East Carolina and Tulsa
On the Cusp:
SMU (Rice and Tulsa)
Still a Shot:
Houston (Marshall and Tulane)
Marshall (Houston and East Carolina)
Rice (SMU and UTEP)
Marshall really needed to beat UAB and their chances are now extremely slim. Houston is in a similar position. As they two schools play each other next week, only one will move forward with a change to get that needed sixth win. As expected, SMU took care of business and is now On the Cusp.
Eligible Teams:
BYU, Notre Dame and Navy
On the Cusp:
Still a Shot:
BYU got their sixth victory, which finalizes things for the independents. BYU and Navy know where they'll be playing already, while Notre Dame remains in the hunt for the BCS Championship.
Eligible Teams:
Ball State, Bowling Green, Kent State, Ohio, Northern Illinois and Toledo.
On the Cusp:
Still a Shot:
Miami (Ohio) (Central Michigan and Ball State)
Central Michigan (Miami (Ohio) and Massachusetts)
With Western Michigan's loss to Buffalo, only the winner of the Miami/Central Michigan game this weekend has a chance to reach a bowl game. I like Central Michigan's chances much better since their last game is against UMass.
Mountain West
Eligible Teams:
Fresno State, San Diego State, Boise State, Nevada
On the Cusp:
Air Force (Hawaii and Fresno State)
Still a Shot:
New Mexico (Nevada and Colorado State)
New Mexico lost to Wyoming leaving them little chance to reach six wins with a game against Nevada this weekend. Air Force should become eligible this weekend against Hawaii. A loss pits their chances in defeating Fresno State, who looked strong in their win over Nevada.
Eligible Teams:
Arizona, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC and Washington
On the Cusp:
Arizona State (Washington State and Arizona)
Still a Shot:
Utah (Arizona, Colorado)
Ah Colorado – giving bowl eligibility to schools everywhere. This week it was Arizona to receive the reward. Washington would have been next, but they beat Utah to get their sixth win, which means they'll likely finish the season with a winning record. Arizona State and Utah still have work to do. If Utah can pull off an upset against Arizona, they are likely assured a sixth win with Colorado on the schedule to close out the season.
Eligible Teams:
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt
On the Cusp:
Mississippi (LSU and Mississippi State)
Missouri (Syracuse and Texas A&M)
Still a Shot:
Tennessee (Vanderbilt and Kentucky)
Arkansas (Mississippi State and LSU)
Thank you Texas A&M for giving us the chance that the SEC might be shutout of the BCS Championship. Vanderbilt became eligible with their victory over Ole Miss while Missouri's 4 Overtime victory over Tennessee moved them to On the Cusp. Tennessee cannot lost another game while Arkansas will likely fall off this list this weekend.
Sun Belt
Eligible Teams:
Arkansas State, Louisiana-Monroe, Middle Tennessee State, Western Kentucky
On the Cusp:
Louisiana-Lafayette (Western Kentucky, South Alabama, FAU)
Troy (Arkansas State and Middle Tennessee State)
Still a Shot:
The Ragin' Cajuns came so close to defeating to Florida, but are still in great shape. Troy is also looking good after taking down Navy though their last two games are against the top teams in the Sun Belt.
Eligible Teams:
Utah State, Louisiana Tech, San Jose State
On the Cusp:
Still a Shot:
When it comes to bowl eligibility, the WAC is already set.
Final Analysis
Of the 70 slots available, 56 teams have already qualified. I have a further 14 teams listed as On the Cusp. There is still a good chance that there will be enough eligible teams available, though I bet bowl organizers would appreciate some of the Still a Shot schools to come through over the final two weeks. I predict the following schools will become bowl eligible this week:
Air Force
Arizona State
Georgia Tech
Iowa State
Miami (Fla.)
As requested, on Thursday I will give you a breakdown of bowl matchups based on my own analysis. Stay tuned!
[...] Maryland's chances are slime.
I enjoyed that typo.
Is on the cusp as much as Indiana. They have Illinois and then Indiana left on their schedule.
Purdue has a shot......
How is it that 9 of the 10 Big12 teams could be bowl eligible? How is it also possible for the SEC to have not only 12 teams bowl eligible, but most of them ranked? The SEC is ranked 4-5-6-7-8-and 9 right now. They do play each other, right? Most teams play more OOC opponents than cross-divisional opponenst within their own conference, now. The SEC East only has to play 2 SEC West opponents every year now because each division has 7 teams in it. Almost wish teams would do away with non-con games if they're gonna play non-AQ teams, and just play your entire conference like we all used to.
Hey, don't forget UVA. We're 4-6 too and I'd say we got a better shot at bowl eligibility than Maryland does.
I promise to add UVA if they beat North Carolina this week..
At that point it'd be silly if you didn't, since the UVA-VT game would be the Bowl Eligibility Bowl. But UVA's chances of beating both UNC and VT are better than Maryland's chances of beating FSU alone.
...can you enlighten me as to which of these bowls are new this year versus which have just changed name/sponsorship? And are there more/less bowls this year than last year? Which bowl will feature the least wins by its participants?
I will put that information in my predictions on Thursday.
This is one of the best diary series I've read in a long time. It's nice to know a bit about which teams we should expect to see in the bowls. Thanks Tauro!
Thanks ChopBlock! Happy to contribute something to a site I spend so much time on.


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I've got multiple instances of the html5 audio player on my page, and I use the jQuery fadeIn() fadeOut() to determine which song to play. When clicking a link to a different page, I have the current playing sound fade out volume, then stop, then reset progress to 0 seconds, then the page (along with the audio player) fades out and the new page fades in. I'm able to fade out the volume, but I can't reset the timer to 0 seconds for some reason:
For example:Code: .... .... page 1 page 2 page 3

 <audio controls class="sound"> <source src="music1.mp3"/> <source src="music1.ogg"/> </audio>

 <audio controls class="sound"> <source src="music2.mp3"/> <source src="music2.ogg"/> </audio>

 <audio controls class="sound"> <source src="music3.mp3"/> <source src="music3.ogg"/> </audio>

- I'm currently on page1, with music1.mp3 playing for 10 seconds
- I click the link to page2 without stopping music1.mp3, and music1.mp3 volume fades out along with with page1, and page2 fades in successfully along with the music player for music2.mp3
- After let's say 10 seconds I click link for page1 to go back to page1
- The player for music1.mp3 is still playing (progress is 20 seconds) and haven't stopped, but now with zero volume
I don't get why music1.mp3 is not resetting its timer to 0 seconds and stopping fully. Is it because ('audio').currentTime=0 is not working? Maybe ('audio').pause() is not working? I can't really tell.


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Submission + - Belgium Expands Blocks On The Pirate Bay (activepolitic.com) 1
bs0d3 writes: The Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (BAF), has been threatening ISPs into expanding their blockade of thepiratebay. Recently they have been sending threatening letters to various additional ISPs who were not involved with the original judgment to block thepiratebay. The letter "kindly requests" that all ISPs voluntarily block thepiratebay or BAF will bring legal action against them. The ISP "BASE" has succumb to these legal threats. Also many of the same Belgian ISPs have taken it one step further and also blocked the dns for depiraatbaai.be. depiraatbaai.be was setup by thepiratebay as an alternative domain which directs users to the piratebay's servers to circumvent dns type censorship. For those who can't wait for The Pirate Bay to set up new alternative domains, a full working mirror of the site still exists at malaysiabay.org, which was originally set up to circumvent the piratebay block in Malaysia.


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RENO, NV - Citing increased demand for more on line instruction, he University of Phoenix is closing its Reno campus along with 24 others.
According to school administrators the change is being driven by a change in the students themselves. The typical University of Phoenix student has a job and its easier to go home and log on than come here and sit in a classroom.
"Our students are demanding more and more on line availability and more and more on line classes," says Campus Director Dr. Bob Larkin. "So, we're providing that."
And there's little doubt today's student is more likely to be comfortable with the arrangement than their counterparts a decade ago.
"Our current environment is moving more toward social media," says Larkin. "Facebook, Twitter, where those relationships are well established. So this is just an extension of that."
Economics are also playing a role in the decision. The for profit school will cut its operating expenses by at least #300 million dollars by closing 115 locations including the Reno campus and 24 others.
The move means the layoff of support staff, though Larkin says all faculty is being retained.
Larkin says anyone enrolling today won't get the classroom experience, but present students will, if they want.
"We're going to be in northern Nevada with a physical location, physical presence until that last student who wants that classroom interchange has completed their program."
And, Larkin says speaking from his own experience from both sides of the question, the on line approach works well, even to the point of providing a personal relationship between student and teacher, even though they may never meet in person.


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Comparison between Holistic Museum Visitors and Utilitarian Museum Visitors
In marketing strategies, the consumer-focus approach reveals customer experience management as a differentiating tool for competitive advantage in increasing competitive environment. In recent years, museums compete with other leisure and educational institutions such as other museums, theatres, cinemas and amusement parks. Thus, customer experience management provides a competitive advantage for museums.
In this study, museum visitors are clustered according to their experiential appeals and the differences for their post experience dimensions (learning in museum, visitor satisfaction, visit intensification, revisit intention and word-of-mouth communication) are analyzed. In conclusion, as a support for customer experiences' competitive advantage, it's revealed that the results of these dimensions are significantly higher for holistic museum visitors than those for utilitarian museum visitors.
Full Text:PDF
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijms.v3n4p78
International Journal of Marketing Studies ISSN 1918-719X(Print) ISSN 1918-7203(Online)
Copyright © Canadian Center of Science and Education
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Navitas Naturals Mulberry Power products are certified organic, sun-dried and grown wild in Turkey. Mulberries are an excellent source of both iron and vitamin C. Resveratrol is a powerful antioxidant found in mature Mulberries and is also known to be present in red wine. Recent studies have shown that resveratrol has the potential to help promote a healthy heart. The Mulberry is a genus of 10-16 species of deciduous trees native to warm temperate and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa and North America, with the majority of the species native to Asia.
Mulberry Power uses only finest organic Mulberries from Turkey. The berries are dried to a moisture level of approximately 15% and can be easily re-hydrated. You can eat Mulberries right out of the bag; add them to cereals and granola, smoothies and shakes, salads, desserts and trail mix. They also taste great with just regular or soy milk.
- Antioxidants
- Vitamin C
- Dietary Fiber
- Resveratrol
- Iron
- Healthy Heart
Source and Processing
Navitas Naturals Mulberries are organically grown in the fertile plains of Turkey, where they have been sustainably harvested for thousands of years. In keeping with tradition, the fruit is shaken from the tree and premium berries are selected. Then, the berries are naturally sun-dried to an ideal moisture level below 15% to obtain perfect texture. Navitas Naturals offers whole white Turkish mulberries that are 100% organic, raw, kosher, gluten-free, vegan, and contain no preservatives.
Organically Sweet Turkish Gem
Turkish mulberries have been considered a precious fruit for thousands of years due to their incredible taste. A bit like a dried fig in flavor and chewy crunch, these sweet treats are an amazing snack on their own, and are also a special substitute for raisins in granola, pancakes, smoothies, and baked goods. Apart from their great taste, Navitas Naturals Mulberries offer an incredible display of nutrition as well: including high levels of iron, calcium, vitamin C, protein, and fiber. Plus, as one of the few natural foods containing Resveratrol (the "anti-aging" component in red wine grapes), mulberries serve as a true power food.
Ancient Turkish Delight
Mulberry trees originally came over on the Silk Road from China to Turkey thousands of years ago. As one of the precious goods for trade, their leaves served as food for silk worms, and their delicious berries enjoyed as an exotic and divine treat. Today, the fruit is still an important part of the Turkish cultural tapestry, and the berry's unique flavor is enjoyed by people around the world. Navitas Naturals offers the white Turkish variety of mulberry, which is shaken from the tree and sun-dried to optimize natural sweetness.
The Power of Mulberries
More than just a sweet treat, Navitas Naturals Mulberries are a true superfood. They are one of the few fruits to be considered a protein source -- boasting a respectable 3 grams of protein per ounce - and are an excellent source of iron, calcium, vitamin C, and fiber. Mulberries also contain a high concentration of Resveratrol, an antioxidant compound that combats free-radical damage. Recent studies have shown that regular consumption of this special antioxidant helps promote a healthy heart and longevity.
Superfruit Sweetness
Chewy and soft with a fig-like crunch, our whole, sun-dried, white mulberries are nature's version of candy. A delightful alternative to raisins, it's easy to take pleasure in eating mulberries straight from the bag. Alternatively, add this sweet superfood to oatmeal, pancakes, cookies, or smoothies.
About Navitas Naturals
The "Navitas" in their name is the Latin word for energy. And like their name implies, Navitas mission is to provide premium organic functional foods that increase energy and enhance health. Part of this effort is to continually search for the world's most beneficial natural foods. Navitas Naturals is a certified organic, green business headquartered in Marin County, California.
They specialize in organic and wild-crafted functional foods, and strive to lead the industry in this expanding market. Health conscious consumers choose their nutrient-rich products because they are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Navitas premium quality "superfoods" are always free of additives and trans fats; the absence of these elements speaking to the purity and effectiveness of the products.
Navitas company is committed to socially and environmentally responsible business practices. They source their premium functional foods through direct partnerships with farming communities around the world. An essential part of their mission is to create economic opportunities among indigenous people in developing countries, and their support of native agriculture helps expand development of global organic farming practices.
As Navitas partnerships evolve, they will continue to introduce more intriguing functional food products - helping you meet your nutritional needs deliciously, naturally, and simply. You can learn more about us on FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube. Click on thescertified organic, kosher, gluten-free, vegan, and raw.


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Story highlights
- Iraqi forces and tanks enter Baghdad neighborhoods
- The U.S. carries out a new round of airstrikes against ISIS targets
- Thousands of stranded Yazidi Iraqis are rescued and taken to Syria
A crisis so dire that families are fleeing to Syria. A militant threat so strong that U.S. forces are striking from the sky. And political strife so tense that it could derail hopes for government stability.
As Iraq's political and humanitarian crises escalate at the same time, foreign countries are getting more deeply involved. Here's where things stand:
Tension in Baghdad
Iraqi forces and tanks surged into some Baghdad neighborhoods Sunday as a wave of troops swarmed Baghdad's Green Zone -- the secure area where many government buildings, the military headquarters and the U.S. Embassy are located, two Iraqi police officials said.
Exactly what led to the surge remains unclear. But some believe the beefed up military presence is part of a power struggle between second-term Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and newly elected President Fuad Masum.
"You've got Nuri al-Maliki refusing to step down. Now he's mobilized not just security troops loyal to him, but now he's mobilized army units to put tanks in the streets,"said retired Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a CNN military analyst.
"Some of the bridges have been closed. It looks like he's trying to lock down the city in some sort of confrontation with the President, so this does not portend well."
Choosing a prime minister is a key next step for Iraq's leaders. Critics of al-Maliki have called for him to pull his name out of the running, but he's repeatedly refused.
Al-Maliki has accused Masum of violating the country's constitution by extending the deadline for Iraq's biggest political coalitions to nominate a candidate for prime minister.
But there could be another reason for more troops in the capital. Retired U.S. Marine Gen. James Williams said the stepped up security could be a response to advances by militants from ISIS, the Sunni Muslim extremist group that has now declared itself the Islamic State.
"It could be a show of force. If you're talking about protecting government buildings, there may be a sense that ISIS forces may be closer than everybody thinks at this point," Williams said.
"That could be a great sign for concern. But it may also be a concern that there's a coup afoot."
Airstrikes against ISIS
The threat of ISIS has been so strong that the U.S. military carried out a new wave of airstrikes Sunday against militant targets in Iraq.
American aircraft struck five targets within five hours Sunday, including armed vehicles and a mortar position, U.S. Central Command said.
Iraqi officials said U.S. airstrikes Saturday killed 16 ISIS fighters, and an Iraqi airstrike in Sinjar killed an additional 45 ISIS fighters, Iraq state media reported.
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized targeted attacks not only to protect Iraqi minorities from ISIS' killing rampage, but also Americans stationed in the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil.
Humanitarian nightmare
In their effort to create a caliphate across parts of Iraq and Syria, ISIS fighters have slaughtered civilians as they take over cities in both countries.
In Syria, the group put some of its victims' severed heads on poles. In another instance caught on camera, a man appears to be forced to his knees, surrounded by masked militants who identify themselves on video as ISIS members. They force the man at gunpoint to "convert" to Islam, then behead him.
In Iraq, one of the most dire humanitarian nightmares is unfolding on Mount Sinjar, where tens of thousands of Yazidis have been trapped.
Yazidis are part of one the world's oldest monotheistic religious minorities and have been targeted by ISIS. Their religion is considered a pre-Islamic sect that draws from Christianity, Judaism and the ancient monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism.
Dozens of people including 60 children, have died on the mountain, where the Yazidis are battling extreme temperatures, hunger and thirst. On Sunday, Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights spokesman Kamil Amin said it was possible that as many as 500 Yazidis had been killed. The ministry had also heard reports -- but had not confirmed -- that some had been buried alive.
"It's difficult to be accurate about these numbers, but initially we have reported 500 Iraqi Yazidis have died from either ISIS direct killings or from starvation and dehydration," Amin told CNN. "We have heard some reports from activists and local journalists that some families were buried alive."
CNN is unable to authenticate reports regarding the Yazidi death toll or the allegation that some were buried alive.
Amin said Kurdish forces were able to break the siege by ISIS and help thousands of stranded Yazidis board trucks, which drove them to the Syrian border town of Hasaka near Iraq. They were then driven north along the Syrian-Iraqi border to Dohuk, a region in northern Iraq's Kurdish region.
On Sunday night, the U.S. military made a fourth airdrop of food and water to Iraqis stranded on Mount Sinjar, according to U.S. Central Command. In total, U.S. military aircraft have delivered more than 74,000 meals and more than 15,000 gallons of fresh drinking water, Centcom said.
Britain and France have said they will join the United States in the airdrops. A British C-130 cargo plane delivered aid to Iraq on Sunday, a Ministry of Defense spokesman said.
Iraqi security forces have been able to airlift about 100 to 150 people a day off Sinjar Mountain, said Marzio Babille of UNICEF, the United Nations' children's agency. But time is running out for many who cannot reach airdropped supplies.


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Yes, you can look it up. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers did win the Super Bowl once, and it wasn't even that long ago.
TAMPA | Yes, you can look it up. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers did win the Super Bowl once, and it wasn't even that long ago.
Much of the joy of their 2002 championship has been obscured by the unraveling aftermath — back-to-back losing seasons that followed, the ugly departures of some of the stars, the failure of the offense ever to duplicate the level of play in its championship run, the failure of coach Jon Gruden ever to win another playoff game. Which made it all the more refreshing to see the team re-assembled Sunday and the players, dressed in their bright red game jerseys, taking some bows on a pristine December afternoon in a packed stadium.
We were reminded that there was just one moment in time when everything worked perfectly and the Bucs won it all. The '02 Bucs, a team that may have had five players who will wind up in the Pro Football of Fame, were reminded that they were once the undisputed champions of the NFL.
Warren Sapp, now a talking head on The NFL Netowork, got pretty charged up about the ovation he received while running out onto the field.
"That left knee never felt so good," Sapp said. "I thought I had a couple more rushes in me but nahhh! It's just special. It's just a special place."
And 2002 was a special year, culminating in the 48-21 rout of the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII on Jan. 26, 2003.
It was the climax of a long building process that started with Sapp, Mike Alstott, Warrick Dunn, Derrick Brooks, coach Tony Dungy and some others in 1996. The process included a lot of frustration and disappointment, including the dismissal of Dungy in January of 2002. But at that particular moment, the moment of Super Bowl triumph, it looked quite possible that the Bucs, who had assembled one of the great defensive teams of all-time, might be poised to win another Super Bowl or two.
Alas, it almost always looks that way when you're holding up the Lombardi Trophy.
"It's kind of weird," recalled Alstott. "I don't really remember the feeling of us saying: 'Wow, we're here.' It wasn't like that. It was more of a feeling of let's do it again."
They started the 2003 season with an impressive shutout at Philadelphia, and then cracks began to form. The cracks grew wider as players got older and injured, and things got tense in the locker room, and mistakes were made and fingers were pointed.
From the perspective of 10 years later, that championship run of December 2002/January 2003 was just a moment. It came and went so quickly, much like Sunday's ceremony that had to be squeezed into the NFL's 13-minute halftime.
"As tight as that team was then, it seems to be that tight right now," wide receiver Joe Jurevicius said. "I think it shows you how good a true team, full of camaraderie, can be. We were that, and we still are.
"I think everything happened for a reason, and I think what you saw were a bunch of guys with different talents come in and piece it all together."
Many of them, including Gruden and Jurevicius, were with the Bucs for the first time in 2002. That's why the team finished so much stronger than it started.
"After the first few games of the season, we learned to play with each other because we had a new head coach, we had a new running back (Michael Pittman), a couple new pieces at receiver with Keenan (McCardell) and myself," Jurevicius said. "There were some things we had to work on and we did, and I think things turned out pretty good."
Things have turned out pretty well for Gruden, who is more famous as an analyst on ESPN's Monday Night Football than he ever was a coach.
Gruden was peppered with the usual questions about a return to coaching, to which he responded with the stock: "I've got a great job; I'm just trying to hang on to that one."
He tries to hang onto some of that 2002 season, too.
"I'm staying in close contact with a lot of the guys, but some of them I couldn't keep in contact with when I was coaching them," he said. "To get them all in the same room again was emotional for me. It was really something."
One member of the championship team who didn't have such a good day was Ronde Barber, who is still playing and had to take part in the 23-21 loss that basically knocked the 2012 Bucs out of playoff contention.
"It was nice to see all those guys, but it had nothing to do with the product on the field," Barber said. "It's 2012 and that was 10 years ago. They celebrated rightfully, but it has nothing to do with this team."
Back to reality.


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The Art of Malice
Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV
In his Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV (originally published in French in 1997) Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie aspires, he says, to provide "a systematic and comprehensive interpretation of Saint-Simon's thought and work (but not of his writing or style)." The "work" referred to is the Duc de Saint-Simon's vast and posthumously published Memoirs, and Ladurie wants to insist (for reasons I shall come to later) that the man himself, chronicler of the court of the roi soleil and of the Regency, was an "archaic specimen," an "archaeological artifact in the most fundamental sense," "a ruin, ripe for excavation."
Can one, or ought one even to try to, separate Saint-Simon's "work" from his "writing or style"? Perhaps it would be possible with some authors, but it seems perilous to attempt with this remarkable work of historical art—one that is more alive for us than Suetonius or Tacitus and that, in important respects, helped to inspire Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. The "style" and the "work" would seem to be one.
But can one separate the "work" from the man? This sounds more hopeful, yet it runs into difficulties too. For one of the great originalities of Saint-Simon's work is the way in which—by dint of strict rules of relevance and a heroic frankness—he manages to persuade us of the meaningfulness (historical meaningfulness) of his own activities, as privileged observer, sporadic participant, and prophet of the nation's doom. He knows exactly what people think of him, as an irascible stickler for social rules and social rights, and can measure the limits of his (considerable) influence on the Regent. It is somehow not what one expects of an "archaic specimen" of merely archaeological interest.
The Duc de Saint-Simon joined the Versailles court in 1691, at the age of sixteen; he served briefly in the army, but soon, to the King's annoyance, resigned; and for the remaining years of Louis's reign, being offered no post, he lived at court, to all appearances in complete idleness. Appearances were deceptive, for he became a behind-the-scenes adviser to the young Duc de Bourgogne, the heir to the throne, as well as to his own childhood friend Philippe d'Orléans, the future regent. Nevertheless the idleness was real enough, and he filled it, fortunately for us, by a daily foraging for gossip and the developing of a gift, a genius, for observation. All his intellectual interest was in people; but, then, the history of France, insofar as it unfolded at Versailles, was essentially a matter of people, of family and family alliances, rather than of "political" groupings. As soon as Saint-Simon decided to write a history—and this seems to have occurred quite early on—his passion for gossip and grotesque anecdote became far from "idle."
He had, however, an obsession. This was that the true nobility of France, and its rightful governors, were the ducs-et-pairs (dukes who were also peers of France and entitled to sit in the Parlement), and that Louis XIV was deliberately aiming…
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ATLANTA (AP/WAOK) – A school board near Atlanta has received a long-awaited audit of the system's finances, but isn't sharing it with the public.
DeKalb County Schools spokesman Jeff Dickerson tells The Associated Press that board members want to digest the information so they can answer questions before they release it publicly.
In January, a report from a consultant concluded that taxpayers were paying for too many administrators and recommended cuts. The district has struggled with finances for several months.
Dickerson said the board received the audit late last week, and some members were out of town. He said the purpose of doing the audit was to provide transparency into the system's finances. He said Tuesday morning that he thinks it will eventually be made public, but wasn't certain when or how.


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ERIC BOEHLERT/media matters for america
In what is likely a first for a major political party, one of the themes for the GOP's nominating convention next week is built around a falsehood. When Republicans meet in Tampa on Tuesday, the banner will be "We Built It," which plays off the manufactured controversy this summer in which conservatives, led by Fox News, claimed President Obama insulted small businessmen and women by supposedly saying they hadn't built their own success.
Speaking to supporters for nearly an hour in Roanoke, VA. on July 13, the president touched on the topic of small business success and the collective forces that shape it, such as the U.S. infrastructure and teachers. Fox quickly claimed Obama insulted small business owners by telling them of their accomplishments, "you didn't build that." (He was referring to the "this unbelievable American system" which includes the "roads and bridges.")
Obama's opponents succeeded in concocting an uproar over a single sentence from an Obama campaign appearance by ripping it out of context. They were able to do that despite being debunked by fact-checker ("out of context"), after fact-checker ("taken wildly out of context") after fact-checker ("ignores the larger context of the president's meaning") after fact-checker ("that quote distorts the meaning of Obama's claim").
Nonetheless, through the sheer force of repetition, as well as taking advantage of a timid press corps that too often suggested the meaning of Obama's comment was somehow in dispute (or a press corps that didn't even care), "build that" has lived on and is now being revived in time for Tampa.
The question now is will the press allow Republicans to get away with it again? Or will the press do its job and point out that the party's "build that" attack revolves around a Fox-fueled falsehood?
Early indications are not encouraging.
Under the headline "Ryan Builds On Obama's Comment In Roanoke," CNN on Wednesday reported that leading up to next week's convention, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI) campaigned in the Virginia town where Obama made his "you didn't build that" comment; a comment that has been "seized upon by Republicans," according to CNN.
But CNN left out how the Republican claim that Obama's comment meant he disdained small business had been thoroughly debunked. Instead, CNN simply reported that the Obama and Romney campaigns "dispute each other's interpretation" of the "build that" remark.
Interpretation? That's being charitable to the GOP.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, USA Today reported on the Republicans' "We Built It" convention theme. After noting Mitt Romney "hammered President Obama" for weeks over the comment and that GOP campaign ads were created to tout it, USA Today reported, "Obama has said Romney's ads criticizing the line are "flat-out wrong" and take his words about the role of government out of context."
So Romney claimed the "build that" remark revealed Obama's contempt for business, while the president insisted the comment was taken out of context. Who's right? USA Today didn't bother trying to adjudicate the dispute.
And yesterday, The Hill reported Romney's nominating convention would incorporate Obama's "controversial remark." Unlike CNN and USA Today though, The Hill didn't even bother noting the Democrats' vocal objection to the use of "build that," or that the charge had been thoroughly debunked.
Assigning a convention theme that's built around a specific falsehood takes nerve. Are Republicans betting reporters will give them a pass in Tampa?


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If you're a Bills fan, the sunshine never comes.
It's been about a decade since the Bills made the playoffs, and 2008 will not see a return to the postseason.
Unless you're a new member of Bills Nation, you should be experienced at accepting yet another disappointing season. The Internet proves this out - I see evidence of this on the various message boards where the stages of grief are abundantly evident. Stage 1, denial, is almost non existent – there are but a few fans claiming the playoffs are still possible if only the Bills run the table and finish with a record of 11-5. The vast majority of fans have advanced to stage 2, anger – you'd think this was the French Revolution with the number of heads people want to see rolling. A few have jumped all the way to stage 5, acceptance and are making the best of the situation by focusing on who the Bills will draft in the spring.
As a grizzled vet of Buffalo let downs, I find myself at stage 4 – depression. Truth be told, I am very depressed about the current situation of the Bills. So depressed, in fact, that for the first time I can remember I honestly don't give a damn about this week's game against Kansas City or any games beyond that. Win by 50 points, lose by 50 points, I just don't care. The reality of the situation is that it doesn't mean anything. I can think of nothing that would make me feel much better about this team – Marshawn Lynch rushing for 200 yards, Trent Edwards throwing for 400+ yards, the defensive line putting up a 7 sack game – none of it is going to make any difference in regards to playing in January. On the flip side, nothing can make me feel much worse about the team – continued poor play across the board, continued instances of being outcoached, finishing on the wrong side of heartbreaking games – none of these matter, either.
My apathy should not be confused with abandonment of the Bills or Bills Nation. I will certainly pull for the team and wish them well, I'll just be doing it without much excitement. Meaningless games spurred on by meaningless cheers.
This season has shown me that the same old problems are still with us – suspect coaching, quarterback who may (but likely will not) be the guy for years to come, failure to make plays when needed, lack of tight end, poor offensive line play, etc. etc. etc. Simply put, these things aren't getting better. When we fail we like to think that these deficiencies might be addressed for "next season", but they never seem to go away. Buffalo is not one season, one coach, one quarterback or one tight end away from advancing ore even making the playoffs. To think that not only will these problems be addressed "next season" but that by solving them the Bills will be ready to take the next step is folly – the sad reality is that we are many changes and many years away from being one of the better teams in the league. Certainly some weaknesses will be addressed, but as time marches on other challenges will pop up. By the time we get a decent tight end will we still have a decent quarterback to throw to him? A decent secondary? I don't see a plan where everything comes together at the same time. Don't talk about "next season" – it's the day that never comes.
My apathy shocks and stuns me. I live for football, Bills football in particular. I count the days to the start of the season every summer (heck, I even count the days to the preseason or scrimmages). I carve out my time to make sure I see every game, including preseason games, no matter what – not an easy task when you have a job, a house, a wife and two small children. I work like crazy every week, tackling he almighty "honey do" list so I can block off 3 hours of uninterrupted time each weekend watching the beloved heroes in red white and blue as a reward.
I am far from alone in my experience. Fans just like me get as amped up as I do. They work hard so they can enjoy a few hours of football on the weekend. Some of them may feel just as tired and empty as I do today – victims of the day that never comes.
It takes quite a bit to hit this point. It's tough to negate that which gets your heart beating faster, that which you drives you to get through the week, that which you consider a reward for all the hassles of a busy life, but I feel like a broken man.
Perhaps it's the never ending cycle of hope, heartbreak and anticipation that next year will be better, but I've finally realized that "next season" is truly the day that never comes. Here's a recap of the merry go round from hell:
2008 (partial) – Promising start at 5-1 and a Brady-less Patriots – this is the Bills' year! Losses to 3 straight division rivals capped off by a horrific loss on national TV to the Cleveland Browns – season over.
2007 – Week 1 began with a last second field goal loss to Denver at home. Later, a 1 point loss to the Dallas Cowboys, at home, on Monday Night Football, wherein the Bills collapsed and fell victim to an onside kick and a 50+ yard field goal. No sunshine here.
2006 – In a loss to Tennessee, the Bills trail by a single point but do not attempt a 43 yard field goal into the wind, instead opting to throw an interception for a touchdown and taking the loss. The Bills also lost a game to New England by 2 points after giving up a safety, failing to capitalize on an interception and giving up a drive that eats the last 6 minutes of the game. Maybe next year.
2005 – Bills lose 5 "win-able" games, including a loss to Miami where they led 21-0 in the first quarter and led New England by 2 scores in the fourth quarter. No playoffs, no sunshine.
2004 – Bookends of misery in 2004. The season starts with a week 1 loss at home to Jacksonville on a last second touchdown catch, made possible by Nate Clements going for a meaningless interception instead of knocking the ball down, giving up a crucial 45 yard reception. The last game of the season is one the Bills need to win to make the playoffs, and they fail to beat Pittsburgh's 2nd and 3rd string players at home in Orchard Park. Possibly the most devastating loss in the last decade, and all you really need to know about the 2004 season. Opportunities squandered.
2003 – Bills start the season by thumping the Patriots 31-0 and lose their shot at the playoffs by failing to make a 2-point conversion against Tennessee. So much hope, but the day never came.
2002 – The Bills begin the season at home by taking the first game to overtime with a late touchdown and promptly surrender a kickoff return for a touchdown to the Jets on the first play of the extra period.
2001 – Bills lose games to 2 teams at the hands of ex-Bills (Doug Flutie in San Diego and Antowain Smith in New England). Bills lose a game in New England when they are not given a fumble recovery because the ball had been touched by an unconscious David Patten whose head is partially out of bounds. This only happens to the Bills, folks.
2000 – Bills lose overtime game to New England and don't make the playoffs. Ugly.
1999 – The Bills made the payoffs! Unfortunately, the first game is the infamous Homerun Throwback game against the Titans. I witnessed the rules of physics being rewritten (a forward pass the refs see traveling backwards) and a bar full of adult men and women crying. There's always next year.
So there you have it, the painful roadmap to my current state of mind. Maybe it's the depression, but I see nothing that makes me feel the future will be much brighter. I'm not buying into that "next year" crap again – after a decade I am at least smart enough to realize that the playoffs are the day that never comes.


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Leeds have been fined £12,500 after admitting a charge of failing to control their players during the recent home win over Burnley.
Players from both sides were involved in angry exchanges early in the second half following Clarets midfielder Chris McCann's high tackle on Leeds winger Max Gradel.
Referee Phil Crossley, who moved swiftly and effectively to diffuse the situation, booked Leeds pair Eric Lichaj and Neil Kilkenny, while McCann was also shown a yellow card.
Burnley admitted the similar charge of failing to ensure their players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion and/or refrained from provocative and/or violent behaviour and were fined £5,000, less than the one issued to Leeds because the Yorkshire club had recently been found guilty of a separate improper conduct charge following their clash at Nottingham Forest in August.
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Spring 2012
The winter issue of Being Alive's Newsletter presented a "top 10 list" of the most important HIV discoveries of 2011. One of these discoveries involved the connection between depleting the HIV virus of the cholesterol in the membrane surrounding the virus, and the resulting inability of the HIV virus to continue to be effective.
Ever since the first public reported HIV/AIDS case in 1981, research scientists within medical, biological, and biochemical fields have search for an effective treatment and vaccine against the virus. Unfortunately this virus sets itself apart from other viruses such as small pox and hepatitis B by having a "behavior" that makes a productive vaccine difficult to produce. One such difficulty is that an enzyme in the HIV virus that is responsible for making copies (and thus more virus's) of the core inside the virus, make mistakes in the reproduction process.
These mistakes lead to that the new copy don't look exactly the same as the old, which in turns leads to that there exists different "types" of the HIV virus, and therefore the drug that is engineered to kill off/suppress one specific type is ineffective on another. Furthermore, these new HIV types can combine and make additional secondary, tertiary, etc. types. Since the HIV virus in a human being is capable of replicate themselves to several billions in just one day, a multitude of HIV types can exist within one single human body.
The method to kill off and/or disarm the virus must then lay in how to damage the part of the virus that all HIV types have in common. Such a method is what Dr. Adriano Boasso of Imperial Collage in London, UK, together with a team of researchers from US, Italy and Austria, may have developed by stripping the virus of its cholesterol that is contained in the membrane surrounding the core, which plays an important role in the virus's ability to reproduce. This was done in a laboratory setting and the result was published in the acclaimed medical journal Blood -- Journal of the American Society of Hematology in their online version on September 19, 2011 and in the hardcopy on November 10, 2011.
Before explaining the procedure of the research and why this is viewed as a successful method that has strong potential to be developed further, let's take a look at the anatomy and reproduction process of the HIV virus from a layman's perspective, to gain a good understanding and knowledge of the discovery.
Any cell or virus always contain an outer layer called a membrane that regulates what enters the cell and what stays outside. For example, a healthy human cell on our skin can absorb the full spectrum of D vitamins from the sun, while blocking the harmful Ultra-Violet rays, however this process brakes down with overexposure. Each cell in all organisms (including viruses) also contain DNA and/or RNA, and proteins that are essential for them to live. An important factor to know is that while the DNA contain all the genetic instructions for the functioning and development of the organism, the RNA allows for the encoding of the genetic information.
There are many groups/families of viruses. One group of viruses exist that only contain and use RNA for its reproduction, the RNA virus. Another virus group, call retrovirus group, also consist of only RNA in its core but use its host cell's DNA when reproducing to make new copies of itself. This group that the HIV virus belongs to.
The HIV virus is slightly larger than most of the retroviruses, but still it only has a diameter of 120 nanometer (about 5 millionth of an inch). It can be hard to grasp the smallness of such a "particle." However if you can think about how small a wave is from light that we humans can see, ranging from red (largest) to violet (smallest), then the diameter of the HIV virus can compare the light wave next step over, the Ultra-Violet, which is impossible for humans to see.
Figure 1 shows a diagram of the HIV virus. The HIV virus has several interactive components that makes it being able to reproduce. The outer layer (the lipid membrane) consists of fatty molecules that was taken from the membrane of the human cell it infected. Complex proteins within the virus called Docking Glycoprotein and Transmembrane Glycoprotein helps to anchor the virus. The viral core are two single stranded HIV RNA and each of these contain a complete copy of the HIV virus. The enzymes responsible for copying and integrating the new copies are attached to the RNA.
Figure 1. Diagram of a HIV virus where its interactive components can be seen. Because "mistakes" are made in the copying process, different types of genetic code within the RNA exists. Cutting off the "communication" components, i.e., the function of the Docking proteins and Lipid membrane they are attached to will stop the reproduction process.
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Brown Calls on Court to Terminate Prison Receivership
SACRAMENTO – Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today called on the federal district court to terminate an "unaccountable prison receivership" and its extravagant $8 billion prison construction plan because both violate federal law.
"The court should terminate this unaccountable prison receivership and its $8 billion construction plan, restoring a dose of fiscal reality to the provision of inmate medical care in California," Attorney General Brown said. "The federal receivership has turned into its own autonomous government operating outside the normal checks and balances of state and federal law," Brown added.
The Receiver's $8 billion plan calls for adding 7 new prison health care facilities containing 10,000 new beds for prisoners -- that's 7 million square feet, or the size of 70 new Walmarts. The plan would also renovate space at each of the 33 existing state prisons.
A draft of the plan also includes yoga rooms, horticultural therapy, extensive landscaping to obscure prison fences, music and art therapy, regulation basketball courts, quiet rooms, an emphasis on natural light and high ceilings, and a so-called "treatment mall." A subsequent draft contains most of the same features without the graphic detail.
The construction of new facilities, as well as the upgrading of existing facilities, is estimated to cost $8 billion. In addition, it will cost $1.7 billion to $2.3 billion per year to operate these facilities. The projected operations cost per inmate is $170,000 to $230,000 per year. This extravagant plan comes at a time when California is facing a fiscal catastrophe and funding for school children is being slashed.
The Termination Motion
In a motion filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Attorney General urged the court to terminate the Receivership and his plan for the construction of prison healthcare facilities – because the Prison Litigation Reform Act prohibits judges from ordering the construction of state prison facilities and limits court-imposed remedies to the "least intrusive" possible.
In place of the $8 billion plan, the Attorney General called for returning the prison health care system to the State and the appointment of an interim Special Master to conduct hearings and make proposed findings of fact.
California is under Federal court order to provide health care that is not "deliberately indifferent" to the health needs of prisoners. The State of California is committed to providing such care.
The State – under the receivership – has taken significant steps to improve inmate health care. California has increased health care staffing and filled almost 90 percent of open physician positions, improved emergency response, professional standards, contracting systems, and health care screenings.
In total, California has increased per inmate health care spending from $7,601 per year in 2005-2006 to $13,778 in 2007-2008. By comparison, spending per inmate in federal prisons will be $4,413 per inmate in 2008-2009. The average cost of health care coverage for a single person in California in 2008 was $4,906.
Nevertheless, the Receiver continues to insist on a massive program that would lead to the construction of facilities and amenities that go well-beyond standards required by the Constitution and federal law. The Prison Litigation Reform Act, signed into law in 1996, forbids judges from ordering construction of state prison facilities, and requires that any plan that a court orders be "narrowly drawn, extend "no further than necessary" to correct the violation of the Federal right, and be the "least intrusive means necessary." (18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(1)(A))
On August 25, 2008, the Receiver filed a motion to hold the Governor and other State officials in contempt for failing to turn over to the Receiver $8 billion for his construction plans, and the district court ordered the state to make a down-payment of $250 million by November 5.
Subsequently, Brown appealed that decision to the Ninth Circuit, which stayed the district court order. The Ninth Circuit will hear oral argument in the case on February 12, 2009.
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The 2013 CTA Human Rights Award recipients. Front row: Jenny Chomori, CTA Secretary-Treasurer Mikki Cichocki-Semo, Vice President Eric Heins, President Dean Vogel, Katherine Jordan, Rebecca Harper (representing San Gorgonio Service Center Council). Second row: Christal Watts (representing Vallejo Education Association), Gary Leveque, Jorge Salas, Cliff Kusaba, Caroline Kris, Vanessa Perez, April Carmelo, Pat Sabo.
Inspiring. Honorable. Dedicated. That's how CTA President Dean E Vogel described CTA's 2013 Human Rights Award recipients. They were honored by some 400 colleagues during last month's Equity and Human Rights Conference for their efforts in fighting discrimination and championing respect for individual differences. Conference attendees also heard from national and state experts on issues ranging from countering campus bullying and developing cultural competency skills to exploring the effects of unconscious bias in social relationships.
Read more about the honorees at www.cta.org/2013hrawardswinners.
Go the extra mile. It's never crowded. Here are the CTA members who went the extra mile…
Jorge Salas, Travis Unified Teachers Association — César Chávez "Sí Se Puede" Award.
Salas developed his school's successful Latinos Unidos Club for Education (LUCE) and uses local role models, university tours and peer tutoring to foster academic excellence. Graduates return to mentor the 40 students taking part in the club.
April Carmelo, Shasta Secondary Education Association — Jim Clark American Indian/Alaska Native Award.
Carmelo, a member of the Greenville Rancheria Maidu tribe, and her son were threatened with a shotgun in August 2012 by white supremacists in Shasta Lake. When no charges were filed, she made presentations at city council meetings against hate crimes and racism. She is working to establish a human rights commission.
Vallejo Education Association (VEA) — CTA Chapter Human Rights Award.
VEA members donate and distribute school supplies for more than 2,000 students as part of their "Helping Hands" project, for which they've spent about $10,000 of their dues each of the last four years. VEA President Christal Watts and colleagues work with the public library to provide books for local families.
Caroline Kris, San Ramon Valley Education Association — Physically/Mentally Challenged Students' Issues Award.
Kris created materials and activities that connect general education and special education students using "people first" language, which teaches students to communicate with one another using words that reflect what they have in common, rather than labels that refer to their differences.
Gary Leveque, San Ramon Valley Education Association — CTA Member Human Rights Award.
Leveque started a video series called "Think Before You Speak," which gives students a voice to stand up to bullies and was highlighted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. He produced concerts that raised more nearly $20,000 for water purification in Sri Lanka, Kidcare International, and African literacy.
Jenny Chomori, United Teachers Los Angeles, and Cliff Kusaba, Teachers Association of Long Beach — Pacific Asian American Award.
Chomori and Kusaba spent two years developing educational tools for a successful conference, held at the WWII relocation camp, about the Manzanar experience. Attendees are using the tools and resources in their classrooms.
Kathleen Minck, Lucia Mar Unified Teachers Association — Peace and Justice Award.
Minck raises student awareness on issues of justice for children by partnering with international agencies to raise funds for childhood poverty in the Philippines and to build a school in Kenya, to name just two. Her fifth-graders raised $500 for postage to send boxes of surplus books to the school in Kenya.
Vanessa Perez, Hart District Teachers Association — Nancy Bailey Leadership in Lesbian and Gay Issues Award.
Perez is a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) adviser. Her students created a video about tolerance and acceptance, "I Want to Know What It's Like," which received national attention on YouTube and from the Huffington Post.
Pat Sabo, Healdsburg Area Teachers Association — Women's Issues Award.
For more than 30 years, Sabo has inspired local women and girls with her teaching and training in leadership skills, educational programs, women's history, and her greater political work. Her students recently raised funds to build two homes through Habitat for Humanity, and every June she takes eighth-graders on a field trip to Washington, D.C.
Katherine Jordan, Bakersfield Elementary Teachers Association — Lois Tinson Award.
Jordan has taught her very young students about Martin Luther King Jr., César Chávez and Abraham Lincoln for three decades. Her pre-K students take part in local parades celebrating black history, Cinco de Mayo and military veterans.
San Gorgonio Service Center Council — CTA Service Center Council Human Rights Award.
The Council, noted for outstanding human rights training and intensive ethnic minority leadership development programs, serves members in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Community partnerships in the region have increased because of the Council's advocacy.
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By Brendan Conway
It can be tough to know exactly what a mutual fund is doing with its money in between monthly or quarterly portfolio disclosures. That's where Markov Processes International tries to come in.
The firm's statistical models can make an educated guess where a fund has been putting its money based on price movements — harnessing some pretty powerful math in the process. This week, Markov attempted to figure out which managers have grown more defensive over the last three months. The firm did this by observing whose price moves appear to reflect bigger holdings of cash and bonds.
The result, assuming it's correct, could give a hint as to whom would do well in the event of a "fiscal cliff" selloff. Or who would suffer without one. (Mind you, Markov is the first to say its methods aren't infallible. It calls deviations between its findings and the actual portfolio holdings "expected" and "inherent.")
Among the name said to have headed most decisively in a defensive direction for the three months heading into Dec. 21 are the Matthew 25 Fund (MXXVX), Clipper Fund (CFIMX), Fidelity Advisor Capital Development O (FDETX), and the Federated Strategic Value Dividend A (SVAAX). On the opposite end of the spectrum — the apparent risk lovers — are the Yacktman Funds (YAFFX, YACKX).
See the firm's look at which funds benefited the most from QE3 here.


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Why would this surprise anyone? Establishment tends to protect itself by embracing change in limited ways while re-emphasizing why "it" is valuable. This is no different than a homeopathic doctor saying "While I respect alopathic medicine, I think their real value is in their diagnostic techniques. The real benefit that myself and the other doctors at my practice play is bringing our wealth of homeopathic understanding to each issue at patient bring in." Not to equate all teaches with homeopathic physicia
Does anyone really think teaching is that much different than any knowledge driven task?
I mean, programming tools certainly write better software, and search tools certainly provide a better coverage of a subject than individuals. Teaching someone is not about presenting the knowledge and reasons, not even if if it includes a rigorous explanation. Teaching is about taking someone from some lower level of understanding and knowledge and bringing them to a higher level of understanding and knowledge. There
Yes, it is. First off, you're not just dealing with the students, you're dealing with (sometimes) batshit-crazy parents, in addition to your own supervisory chain. You're dealing with 25 students in a room, 12 of which have IEPs or 504 documentation, and you may or may not have any in-room support for those kids, depending on the subject area and district. And you're having to deal with students who just won't do the work or are disruptive, you're likely to get little support from the school in terms of dis
I can't learn as well on TV. I can't concentrate on it like I can with a book or an interactive lesson on the computer. TV lessons go way too slow or too fast. It's the same with lectures.
Guided self study works the best - for me anyway. Which sucked for me in school because instructors demanded class participation.
Guided self study works the best - for me anyway.
More or less the same here. I've never really learned anything non-trivial "from a teacher", learned all on my own or out of a book.
Which sucked for me in school because instructors demanded class participation.
Keep ahead of the class... I knew how to integrate by parts long before I sat in the boring lecture, so answering questions wasn't much of a challenge. Learning how to sit quietly while bored is good training for the workforce, we call it "meetings".
More or less the same here. I've never really learned anything non-trivial "from a teacher", learned all on my own or out of a book.
Many people are like this, it doesn't mean teachers are useless. A good teacher has the knowledge and experience to help guide your self-study. A good teacher will recommend books or subjects or projects to enhance your learning. Reading is great and all, but sometimes you kind of flail in the dark on your own because you don't know what is important to your topic, and what isn't. You don't as a novice know what has already been done, and what is still unknown. A good teacher is there to bounce ideas off of
Many people are like this, it doesn't mean teachers are useless
Right on, I have little use for them personally, but a very similar analogy is I don't want to eliminate or de-fund eyeglasses, for example, just because they're not my thing. The main point was if you are teaching yourself, make sure to say ahead of the class and then class participation is a breeze, the claim that self teaching = no class participation is a false dilemma.
You mean we can't just point the technology at the kids and make them learn? It takes actual teachers actually teaching, and not being rigidly restricted to rote scripts?
Whoa....who'd a thunk it?
It depends on the student really. Some kids have the get up and go to do it themselves, others don't, for various reasons. I think their parents and family can play as much of or even a far more important role in encouraging learning. Really we need to ingrain a personal responsbility ethic into the education system, it would be beneficial in many ways. I could see teachers changing from knowledge dispensers to effective tutoring aides over time though.
Oh ya, not denying that. I just being sarcastic at the nothing that once again, the technology magic bullet isnt one, and, zomg!, letting teachers teach is what actually matters.
My wife is one, and she complains often about all the various requirements dont leave much time to go beyond "the script", and the rules even dont allow for it. teachers today arent really teachers or educators, they are isntructors. instructors are like what I had in tech school training for my MOS in the marines. "this is this and
"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library." - from Good Will Hunting
"The true university of these days is a collection of books." - Carlyle, Thomas
Wikipedia says the second one is:
"What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books."
Which is subtly, but IMO importantly, different.
Though perhaps he said or wrote both things separately.
A family member of mine quit high school a year ago when she was just beginning 11th grade. At that time, she didn't even understand fractions and could only do the most basic of basic math. Still, she got to grade 11 just by memorizing material, regurgitating it on a test, and then forgetting it. After she quit (she convinced her mother to let her learn math on her own), she started using Khan Academy. She's currently learning calculus and actually seems to understand the material (unlike many public school students). While Khan Academy may not be revolutionary or perfect, it's an extremely useful resource. You can't, however, just watch the videos passively and expect to learn. You have to actually think about the material, do things on your own, and attempt to understand it.
A family member of mine quit high school a year ago when she was just beginning 11th grade. At that time, she didn't even understand fractions and could only do the most basic of basic math. Still, she got to grade 11 just by memorizing material, regurgitating it on a test, and then forgetting it. After she quit (she convinced her mother to let her learn math on her own), she started using Khan Academy. She's currently learning calculus and actually seems to understand the material (unlike many public schoo
Absolutely right. This is an attempt to take billions of dollars and shift it to private industry. Romney referred to us as "Company" and not a "Country" the other day. We're at the point where I'm nostalgic for Bush II calling us "Consumers" instead of "Citizens". The middle class was created when wealth was redistributed down. Those at the top have spent the last 60 years working to reverse that, and they've nearly succeeded. Four years of Romney with a Republican congress will seal the deal.
The middle class was created when wealth was redistributed down
That would be amazing considering the middle class really began to emerge during the industrial revolution before there was even an income tax.
I have an uncle who thinks he's Napoleon. That doesn't mean I'm going to post anonymous astroturf forum comments asking people to enlist in his army.
What the hell are you talking about? I just shared a good experience that a family member had using Khan Academy.
Um, that's also how school works.
I explicitly called it a resource and said that it wasn't perfect. Like a book, it is only a resource. Some people can teach themselves and others can't. Teachers are not one-size-fits-all solutions, and I did not say that everyone could do this. You don't have to drop out of school to use it, either.
But I will say this: right now, it's a hell of a lot better than our inefficient, soul-crushing p
If you didn't actually quote the OP, I would have thought you replied to the wrong post by accident. What do corporations have to do with Khan Academy, which is a non-profit funded by donations?
I mean, I fully agree that the 'privatization' of certain government services is a bad thing, I just don't see how it's relevant. If anything, Khan Academy can save our education system from the abysmal failure it's been for years. Best of all, it's a solution that doesn't depend on charter schools, which is the whol
Not too surprisingly, when it comes to revolutionizing student learning, teachers are bullish on teachers.
Is the purpose of this to revolutionize student learning or augment it? It's important because I think some people are thinking that students will not have to go to school anymore and instead just log into Khan Academy whereas I think the appropriate spot is as an aid or augmenting tool for educators everywhere -- parents, teachers, professors, you name it.
Also in that blog article:
While we don't have official study results yet, great things are happening in our district for students and some of them are directly related to our use of Khan Academy. Teachers who have used Khan Academy as an instructional tool, have rethought their use of instructional time and are spending more time in math class on less traditional teaching methods effectively changing the student experience. Students are excited about the use of Khan Academy for several reasons: They get direct feedback when they are working a set of problems, they are able to visually see areas where they have excelled in math, and they are able to take some ownership of their own learning. Students are motivated in math and are excited to take on new challenges.
Which sounds pretty positive -- like the teachers are learning from the videos on how to more effectively teach math. They also say:
It is no secret that Khan Academy videos have come under fire in recent weeks. As educators in the Los Altos School District where Salman Khan's free product was initially piloted and implemented, we would like to share our experiences utilizing Khan Academy as an instructional tool in a blended learning environment. By sharing our experiences, we hope to provide accurate information on how Khan Academy can be effectively used, clear up a few misconceptions, and share some of the lessons we have learned on our journey thus far.
The whole blog posting sounds like a departure from what the summary lead me to believe. I don't think anyone would be shocked or surprised to hear that teachers are using this as an augmenting tool and as for them being "bullish" I don't really see it. They are cautiously optimistic about this pilot program and say that it has resulted in good things inside the classroom.
I am a middle aged self taught mathematician, philosopher, scientist, computer programmer, and cyberneticist. I've been using complex numbers and calculus since the schools only offered long division and number lines (~11.5 years old). I found that schooling supplied the very "ceiling" of which you speak. Ignoring my homework and instead advancing my development outside the class room (my Library, and other sources of knowledge: BBSs, and SIG groups at HAL-PC) I surpassed EVERYONE at my school, includin
While I would almost immediately agree that this report sounds like they are trivializing KA as just another tool to protect their jobs, there is some value to actually having a good teacher that engages your kid on an individual level. This is born out by smaller class sizes allowing for more individualized instruction, which in turn leads to less of a one-size-fits-all approach that is often derided for creating people who don't think, but just regurgitate information on demand.
Some good teachers can make
It also isn't nearly as good as a real teacher at inspiring students, and when a student doesn't get it, a video can't think of an alternate way to explain the same issue, or find an analogy the student understands.
This hatred of teachers becomes a downward spiral. We hate them, so we won't raise their pay, so fewer good people are inclined to take up the job -- who needs the hatred and the low pay? -- and so the quality gets worse, and down it goes.
Khan Academy is great, but it's only assistive technology, not a substitute for the real thing.
Khan Academy is great, but it's only assistive technology, not a substitute for the real thing.
I beg to differ. In some cases, people really do learn better when they're self-taught (and Khan Academy is just a resource). Everyone learns in different ways, and teachers aren't one-size-fits-all solutions.
but it can be better then big lecture classes where it's about the same with out the DVR control's.
Why was this marked +4 Interesting? The poster basically posted a random all-encompassing opinion with out any sources.
In North America? Have you traveled to parts outside of the Continental US to make that claim? I don't think Mexico & Canada would like to be put into the same bucket.
Least Respected? You said NA so I am guessing compared to the world. There are many countries out there where the senior students run the school and/or the teachers only show up to work on pay day.
Poorest Paid Professional? Google: http://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/ [teacherportal.com]
Average HOUSEHOLD income? Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Nuff Said (if you compare to most other countries, foreign teachers make less or about the same relative to other jobs there).
Longest hours? Google: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/survey-teachers-work-53-hours-per-week-on-average/2012/03/16/gIQAqGxYGS_blog.html [washingtonpost.com]
53?!? And 6-8 weeks of PTO? WOW. Talk to any IT Developer, 50-100 hours per week. Average, easily 60. I was in Accounting & Auditing and averaged 55 hours (60+ for month, quarter, & annual closes). In IT, averaged 55; 100+ for deadlines. As an IT PM, 50-70 hours. 15-20 days PTO + 10 holidays.
And no, that does not count the hours spent on further education, certifications, and air travel for clients. And in the consulting world, not seeing home Monday to Thursday. Yes, our salaries are higher, 50k starting and growing to 80k+ over 5+ years, but considering the hours, I think comparable to teachers.
BUT COME ON, "consistently one of the least respected, poorest paid professionals... longest hours of anyone"? BULL! Go see a few episodes of Dirty Jobs.
Seniority has nothing to do with teachers becoming "heroes". My teacher heroes can be counted on both hands and they were some of the least paid in the schools (except 2). I respect them to the Nth degree. But the worst teachers, although just 4, made some of the highest salaries (90k+). Every time this topic comes up, I remember those 4 and think how much of a handicap each generation that they touch start off with. All the other teachers were mediocre but I still thank them for their contribution to what I am today.
Longest hours? Google: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/survey-teachers-work-53-hours-per-week-on-average/2012/03/16/gIQAqGxYGS_blog.html [washingtonpost.com]
53?!? And 6-8 weeks of PTO? WOW. Talk to any IT Developer, 50-100 hours per week. Average, easily 60. I was in Accounting & Auditing and averaged 55 hours (60+ for month, quarter, & annual closes). In IT, averaged 55; 100+ for deadlines. As an IT PM, 50-70 hours. 15-20 days PTO + 10 holidays.
And no, that does not count the hours spent on further education, certifications, and air travel for clients. And in the consulting world, not seeing home Monday to Thursday. Yes, our salaries are higher, 50k starting and growing to 80k+ over 5+ years, but considering the hours, I think comparable to teachers.
Just because you personally and possibly your industry are overworked doesn't mean you should belittle how hard teachers work. Why are you putting in so many hours anyway? In a school the (good) teachers put in extra time out of the love of teaching and their desire to see their students succeed and the teachers are overworked because there's not enough money to hire extra teachers.
Is IT really an important enough job to be putting in 100 hours per week? That's 14 hours/day 7 days/week during crunch time!
Why is this modderated +4? Its sources are crap.
"Poorest Paid Professional? Google: http://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/ [teacherportal.com] [teacherportal.com]"
Yeah, here is a group I am going to trust. Who owns the site? Oh an ad company. What three colleges are on their site, oh, on-line for profits. Yeah, no bias there to drag the numbers up.
Heres one to try: MYTH: Teachers make just as much as other, comparable professions. [nea.org] It says:
"FACT: According to a recent study by the National Association o
It doesn't try to replace teachers, it's an attempt to change the role of teachers. Instead of being a lecturer - basically thrown in the spotlight in front of a large group of kids and trying to teach them all at once - a teacher can now work with individuals. The data Khan Academy provides them is phenomenal. They know who is working on what and how well they're doing. This allows the teachers to focus on the kids who need help while letting those who are ahead of the curve continue working at a faster pa
There's no way I'm getting on a plane where the pilot learned how to fly from Khan's academy.
There is no way that I am getting on a plane where the pilot learned to fly by sitting in a 30 person classroom with unruly 15 year olds while copying down notes that are written on a blackboard.
Classrooms provide very poor environments for social learning because children are learning from children who are equally immature. Human beings were not meant to be grouped by age and monitored in large groups by a single adult. We only do this for efficiency reasons, not because it is good for the childs social or cognitive development. The average public school is detrimental to a childs social skills. Kids can be downright abusive toward each other and not only do they create a culture where poor social
It's all explained here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7420278n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox [cbsnews.com]
Yes. My comment down thread touches on this, but this video really does highlight where things can go.
Teachers get the time to figure out the kids. Once they do that, they can mentor and build that kid into the great person they can be, well educated, capable.
I loathe watching videos. Hate hate hate. Videos are not effective for general learning. And I know, some people "have different learning styles", but everybody and their brother thinks that it's a good idea to make invariably-shitty videos about things that people want to learn. I want to read something with pictures. I don't want to watch a damn video.
I think it has to do with how you learned to learn. I don't want to watch videos either, unless they are very content-dense. But I grew up with a set of encylopedias in my room, and I'm a speed reader. For the average kid who grew up in front of a TV, videos are probably the most effective single method.
I want to read something with pictures. I don't want to watch a damn video.
Check khan's interactive transcripts.
Now you can read something with moving pictures.
Looking back on my own primary school education, which happened in the 70's and 80's, the best education I got was from those teachers who delivered the material well, often relating it to real life things, or concepts that I could understand, and those that took the time to understand who I was, even if I didn't yet. They were the mentors. They helped to change my life for the better. They teased out things they saw and developed them. They are the ones I did contact long after school to say, "thanks."
I can understand teachers -- educators in general getting a bit nervous over something like Kahn Academy. After all, who really needs teachers when kids can just plug in and get smart?
But the thing is, a vast majority of kids won't do that. Some of them can't. Others can, but won't be self-aware and self-directed enough to do that. For most kids, we need teachers at a minimum, and we really need mentors big. A short story:
In High School, I was exposed to Apple ][ computers. There is an Apple
Basically, the whole idea was to have the teacher shepard the students through the material, answering questions, etc... and most importantly, just make sure they do it. Anyone could do this, given a dry run or two, and some supplementary material to prep on. In fact, as a student, I did exactly that as part of some project.
That's what the teachers fear, and they are right about it too. The thing is, we've been fixated in the US, on test scores and other hard metrics to a point where we totally ignore the real education. Class time is planned down to small increments, test score stakes have been raised right along with requirements in such a way as to dictate what happens in the classroom, and this denies the educator the opportunity to actually educate!
Now, back to that story! These problems were not really manifesting themselves during my time. Some changes could be seen, but for the most part, my High School education was robust, as it happened before we really started the ugly changes. A few of us found out that we could type ctrl-c on the keyboard and break the flow of the BASIC program contained on the disks! Of course, it didn't take long to LIST the program, and then change it, saving it back onto the disk, which we did.
Back then, material would be contained on copied floppies with those floppies distributed each day from the stack. One never really got the same floppy, and students would sometimes carry their own data floppy too, depending on what they were doing. A group of four of us modified that program, with the goal of introducing some jokes in the hopes of the floppy shuffle putting them in the hands of other students! It worked great! The day after we did it, one of us got the modified disk, no fun, but three other students got them too, and the laughter triggered questions leading back to us!
Now, why do we need educators? How does mentoring play out in this digital age where we've got so much information available? This is why:
That teacher, who doubled as the geometry teacher, took us aside and talked about it. He could have disciplined us at that time, really impacting lives, but he didn't. Instead, we got assigned a different track. Our requirement for that year was to learn all we could. We had to decide to do something, state why, then actually do it. If we did that, we got the A grade. If we didn't, we were back in the planned track, just doing the rote exercises, and probably a B grade, because he knew better.
That year changed my life, and that of my four friends! We went from running games to cracking them. We learned binary math the hard way, having just the computer, some photocopied reference material a
A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson


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The wife and I were in Miami this past week. Watched the game in a Miami Tavern, yes wearing my Chiefs Shirt and ready to see a Smack Down. Well, we saw it alright. Just glad the game wasn't in Miami, because no doubt I would have been front and center. The fans there hardly care anymore, it was amazing! Oh we got teased pretty good when it was over, but they didn't say a thing until there was 2 minutes left in the game.
Not sure I can ever bring myself to go to an away game ever again.


text:
By ThinkGoat
Cincinnati, Ohio Maggots. One of my most favorite subjects, both medically and the gross out factor…and sometimes the intermingling of the two. Back in the 1920's, maggot therapy was first used as debridement and as much as I understand the usefulness of these white nasty wiggling baby flies, I'm not completely sure, even with facing losing a foot or something, I'd readily allow my doctor to fix me up a maggot dressing. Don't get me wrong, I can look at maggots crawling on people all day long with complete
amusement fascination, but the thought of those things hooking and devouring my flesh or infection is not worth entertaining. But they work. Well, the right kind work. They have to be of the "blow fly" (not to be confused with the botfly, another incredibly fascinating critter), and well, I imagine if you're having a little maggot therapy done, you'd really rather it be sterile and not so much "spontaneous". The good maggots devour the dead tissues and the bad maggots devour everything else. The good maggots will leave their host once the necrotic tissue is gone, the bad maggots have no sense of proportion, they munch on everything without stopping. "Can you feel them?" is most likely one of the common questions (answer is fuck yes) with a quick follow-up of "does it hurt?" (answer is 'sometimes') I've had the pleasure of being able to ask "controlled" questions of patients who've had the "spontaneous" maggot infestation. "Controlled" meaning: I was on duty and acting on a professional basis, not able to ask the questions that I would truly love to know. And that's why I chose the story of Jorene White to bring me out of this 20-day hiatus… (more…)


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Submission + - iPhone exposes emails in plaintext for Yahoo users 1
holdenkarau writes: "You may remember the recent Slashdot article about Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop exposing usernames & passwords. It turns out that more than just Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop is affected, although to a lesser degree. With Yahoo!'s desktop program, it transmitted the usernames & passwords in plaintext. Yahoo! is one of the lucky few default e-mail providers on the iPhone; sadly it looks like Apple didn't insist on encryption from Yahoo! On the iPhone, authentication is encrypted, but you can see all the messages sent and received in plaintext. Incoming messages are downloaded in plaintext over the standard imap port. Outgoing mail is a bit harder to find, it is apparently sent by an HTTP post request wrapped up inside a bundle of XML, but security through obscurity isn't very effective. If you have Yahoo! mail on your iPhone (and since its one of the default accounts, I'm assuming quite a few do), you might want to look at forwarding it somewhere else for the time being, and using that account instead."


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BATAVIA – Alice Gustafson Elementary School fifth-grader Tony Avila wanted facts to back up his argument that he and his fellow students should have a longer recess during the school day.
With an iPad in hand, Tony searched the Internet and found studies showing that kids don't get enough exercise, facts he planned to use in his classroom assignment. That's just one example of how the elementary school's students use iPads in their classrooms.
Batavia School District 101 launched an iPad pilot program in the fall at the elementary school. At the beginning of the year, each fifth-grader received a third-generation iPad to use during the school day.
The Batavia school board in April approved the $54,055 expense for the program. The district is among more than 2,300 K-12 school districts in the United States running iPad programs for students or faculty.
Angie Sutherland, the district's instructional technologist, said the pilot program is going better than she imagined.
"The kids are probably a little farther along than I thought they would be," Sutherland said.
"They embraced it more than I even hoped from the beginning."
Fifth-grader Rachel Sailer of Batavia said using the iPad has helped her with math assignments. And teachers are embracing the iPads, as well.
"It gives the students a sense of ownership of the lessons," fifth-grade teacher Larke Curnock said. "Every day they are learning something new and teaching me something new. I almost never see them getting bored anymore."
The school has enacted rules regarding the use of the iPads to prevent unsafe or inappropriate Web surfing. For example, the iPads can't leave the school and all Internet access on the school network is filtered and monitored to protect students.
In addition, students can't use Facebook at school. Students who violate the rules face the possibility of having iPads taken away from them temporarily. But officials say the school has not seen many offenses.
"They've surprised us with their level of engagement and responsibility with the iPads," fifth-grade teacher Kristy VanderLoon said.
IPads also are used by students and teachers at the other schools in the district, although not on an individual basis. The district has 439 tablets in use, said Tony Inglese, the district's chief information officer who heads the district's tech team.
For the 2011-12 school year, Batavia High School started using iPads as part of changes to its freshman intervention program for math. Other significant changes included creating a professional learning community for the teachers of the course and changing grading and teaching strategies.
"This was a course that typically had a 75 percent pass rate for the first half and a 60 percent pass rate for the second half," Inglese said. "Students are selected for this intervention when we predict that they are not on track to be college ready in math by their junior year."
After the students started using iPads and other changes were implemented, the program started seeing "astounding" results, he said.
"The first half had a 92 percent pass rate, with no failures, and 64.4 percent of the students moved back onto track to be college ready in math," Inglese said.
Inglese sees the use of iPads and other technology as the wave of the future for teachers.
"The classic mode of teaching is having one teacher to 30 students," he said. "But not everybody learns in the same way."
Some are not sold on iPads as a teaching tool, such as St. Charles School District 303 board candidate Ed McNally.
"I lot of these kids rely on technology to do the thinking for them," McNally said.
McNally teaches biology at Proviso West High School in Hillside, and he has been in the education field for 25 years. He said no amount of technology can replace a good teacher.
"What you need in a classroom is a competent teacher and engaged students," McNally said.
Michelle Fitzgerald, curriculum director for District 303, said iPads are engaging students.
"They allow kids to be engaged, and then teachers can give additional help," Fitzgerald said. "We see students are excited with the iPads, and can't imagine what life would be like without iPads."


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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Dwayne Wilmot has joined the Harvard University football coaching staff as a defensive line coach in an announcement from Tim Murphy, the Thomas Stephenson Family Head Coach for Harvard Football. Wilmot, who begins his duties with the Crimson on Feb. 8, will serve as the program's defensive line coach. Wilmot is responsible for recruiting in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado.
Wilmot came to Harvard after spending five seasons at the University of Maine as a defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator. He was responsible for the defense's run game scheme and opponent pass protections.
At Maine, Wilmot's 2006 defense led the nation in rushing defense and he coached a number of defensive stars including defensive end Jovan Belcher, who was a Colonial Athletic Association Defensive Player-of-the-Year, a finalist for the Buck Buchanan Award as the nation's best lineman and a first-team All-America selection in five different publications.
Among the other notable players under Wilmot's mentorship were DT Jonathan Pirruccello (NFF Hampshire Honor Society and ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District I first team), DT Matt King (Buck Buchanan finalist, first team All-American), DE Mike DeVito (first team All-CAA).
Wilmot has coached three players who have been signed as rookie free agents by NFL teams (Mike DeVito and Matt King in 2007 with the New York Jets; Jovan Belcher in 2009 with the Kansas City Chiefs).
Prior to his time at Maine, Wilmot spent three seasons as the recruiting coordinator and assistant defensive coach at Tennessee-Martin.
A 2001 graduate of Maine with a degree in broadcast journalism, Wilmot was a team captain as a senior and left the program among its top 10 players in receptions and receiving yards. He was signed by the Indianapolis Colts and later played in the Arena Football2 League with the Charleston Swamp Foxes, leading the team with 80 receptions, 1,100 yards and 20 touchdowns.


text: If the user we're speaking of has questions, he/she can email me. Otherwise, since you are not privy to all the facts regarding that situation, this thread better get constructive in a hurry if it's going to remain open. I'm not going to continue to debate something that's no one's business other than the poster in question.