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Bell: Cowboys survive gut-check in win vs. Eagles
PHILADELPHIA -- First place in the NFL's most mediocre division was at stake Sunday, and the sloppy game fell right in line.
Projections for some sweet, AFL-styled shootout were grossly exaggerated.
The Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles combined for 18 punts. The winning quarterback, Dallas' Tony Romo, had his lowest-rated game of the season. Eagles fill-in quarterback Nick Foles was much worse (11-for-29, 80 yards) before he left with a head injury.
Errant throws. Dropped passes. Missed blocks. All were in abundance.
And Dallas won, 17-3, despite committing 12 penalties.
This is NFC East football. For first place.
Just survive, baby.
"It's a division win on the road," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett told USA TODAY Sports after adding his name to a collection of autographs on a low ceiling overhang in a room adjacent to the visitor's locker room. "These are tough to come by, no matter what."
This was no signature performance. The Cowboys (4-3) seized the division lead, but being king of the East does not carry the cache of the past.
Entering Sunday, not a single team in the NFC East had a winning record.
Now there is one.
So while the Cowboys have a clear path to earn their first division title since 2009, after back-to-back 8-8 records, they are a long way from looking like a true contender.
Sure, they can win the NFC East. Then what?
Right now, the second-place San Francisco 49ers (NFC West) still seem to be a more formidable contender. And next weekend, when Dallas visits the second-place Detroit Lions (NFC North), they will be one slip-up from .500 again.
Still, Garrett, sees Sunday's victory as half-full. The Cowboys didn't have defensive end DeMarcus Ware, nursing a quadriceps injury that forced the team's best defensive player to miss the first game of his career.
But even without Ware, the defense came through to become the first unit to completely put the brakes on Chip Kelly's high-flying offense.
That's significant on at least a couple of levels. The Eagles amassed at least 400 yards in each of their first six games -- something that only three other teams in NFL history had accomplished. But with the Cowboys swarming around NFL rushing leader LeSean McCoy and sticking cornerback Brandon Carr on DeSean Jackson, the yards were tough to come by for Kelly's crew.
McCoy gained 55 yards on 18 carries. Jackson caught three passes for 21 yards. And the team managed all of 278 yards.
It was also notable that Cowboys defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin won the chess match against Kelly. When Kiffin ran his son Lane's defense at Southern Cal, his unit was no match for the offensive juggernaut Kelly assembled at Oregon.
Kiffin downplayed any lingering incentive, but it was apparent that his defense was prepared to address the key challenges of Kelly's offense.
"We practiced at a high tempo," linebacker Sean Lee told USA TODAY Sports.
Throughout the week, Kiffin had harped on the need to be prepared for the fast rhythm. They were. Rarely, if ever, did the Cowboys defense seem caught off guard for the quick snaps.
As Carr put it, they wanted to be sure that nothing chaotic happened.
It didn't. Not with Foles -- who looked so impressive in relieving the injured Michael Vick in the previous two games -- missing on a series of big throws when the game was tight that might have changed the course of the contest.
Yet the Cowboys had something to do with that, too. For example, Foles launched a deep pass to an open DeSean Jackson in the end zone a split-second too late -- but rookie safety J.J. Wilcox still had to get there, then leap to knock away the pass.
"We played well as a unit today," said Cowboys D-tackle Jason Hatcher. "Guys are just playing their butts off out there and playing for one another."
With back-to-back wins for the first time this season, the defense that was lit up two weeks earlier by Peyton Manning got another boost of confidence.
Then again, it was a gut-check all around.
Dez Bryant, who produced 110 yards on eight catches and drew an end zone DPI that set up a touchdown, said the gritty game tested the team's mental toughness.
"It's going to help big-time, since we didn't have a couple of our key guys in this game," said Bryant, mindful that in addition to Ware, running back DeMarco Murray is sidelined by a knee injury. "We just have to keep pushing."
They will get their chances to prove just how tough they are.
Garrett knows.
As he left the stadium, he was asked how it feels to be in first place.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "We've got a lot of stuff to clean up."


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The Big Picture: Is The Hobbit Too Long?
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Of course it's too long, jus like the other films it's just 3 hours of walking and talking.
Even the trees fucking walked.
I don't think it was too long. HOWEVER. I can see where some things needed to be cut. The giants needed to be cut, they were a little toooooooo goofy. Just... have a storm, it doesn't even last that long. The point is to get them into a cave, just have that happen because bad storm.
But I see more places where things needed to be added. I don't really get a good feel for the younger Bilbo. I know who OLD Bilbo is, but the young one not so much, and he doesn't come off as charming or likable as in the book. He's just... " so put out." Unlike the book, I still don't understand why he would go with them. He gives us no reason to.
But the biggest crime is Thorin. At first he's okay with Bilbo, then he's not, then he is, then he's not, and then he is, and it just keeps waffling. In the book he's just kindof a no nonsense single minded (somewhat nasty but ultimately good hearted) guy. He just uses Bilbo to get what he wants. He has issues with Bilbo sure, but he doesn't suddenly start going off on him for... I don't know, accidentally falling in a spot where anyone would fall. I just don't like the way they handled him in this movie.
Yeah, but its still irrelevant to the story. The story isn't about Sauron and his return, its about Bilbo and the Dwarfs going to the lonely mountain and kill a dragon (which someone else kills in a bit of poorly structured writing from Tolkien). Adding these scenes adds nothing to that central point of the movie. It's unrelated. We don't cut to the shire to check in on the sackville hobbits looking to loot Bag end while Bilbo is gone because although it is happening at the same time, it does not contribute anything to the plot. You could easily cut that section out and it would have little effect on main plot of the movie. That's a sign of extraneous material. As a general rule, anything that can be cut without affecting the plot should be cut.
in fact, in the book it's never even mentioned what Gandalf goes off to do, only that he had business elsewhere (and vague mentioning of a Necromancer in some sections without many specifics), and it doesn't change the plot of the book at all.
I think its far more sexist to feel that a woman needs to be inserted. "What women can only relate to other women?" That sounds moderately sexist. Maybe, maybe not.
Both this and the Lord of Rings were not ringing endorsement for female empowerment though, none of the fellowship or the party of dwarfs were female and none of the major characters of the Hobbit, and very few in the Lord of the Rings, were female. I'm not sure if trying to insert from feminism would fit the movie as they would have to dedicate more script to it and it would be an entirely movie produced addition (which caries its own possible negative and positive repercussions). It would have been interesting though if they made some of the dwarfs female though, but it would probably have made someone mad because "YOU MADE A ORIE A CHICK! HE WAS MY FAVORITE" (despite the fact that the dwarfs have maybe one bit one characteristic to them and are one dimensional as hell).
Also, Galadriel is probably not the best female to insert int eh story as she kind of does nothing but look pretty and manipulate others. (Both of which fit into two sexist notion of what women are).
They should not have been added to the movie for the same reason that the Lord of the Rings did not periodically cut back to the Shire to show us what the Gaffer is doing today, because its not relevant to the story being told. There was a lot of stuff that was added in that would have been fine in an extended cut but added nothing to the story being told.
Its a 75 year old book, that has been released in dozens of languages across the globe, next you'll be complaining that Shakespeare references need spoiler warnings.
Not surprised Bob didn't found it too long. Whenever I think "white", he says "black".
I didn't feel the film's length at all, even when I watched it a second time. It was actually rather refreshing to see a book adaptation that didn't feel the need to rush things and took its time (even though I never read The Hobbit).
Although I guess the necromancer side plot could have been easily cut out in theory (unless it's supposed to be somehow related to Bilbo's journey).
They could have completely cut out Radagast. We aren't supposed to be worrying about the bigger evil building up, the story is more about Bilbo. Adding the doom and gloom of the Necromancer just overshadows what's really going on. They probably could have cut out the intro that's starting right before Bilbo's party. I just don't see how that was needed at all and they probably could have trimmed down a bit of the exposition.
There. Not only have I fixed the dual personality problem of the movie (the main quest has a more upbeat and silly feel while the Necromancer stuff is more in line with the feeling of the LotR trilogy) but I have also shaved off at least half an hour.
Edit: I should probably mention that the only reason they added all of that stuff was so that they could make it into three movies. AT MOST they only needed 2. Now they've built up the Necromancer so much that they are obviously going to be spending extensive time investigating him.
You know who should have been left out? Radaghast. If you absolutely needed to put him in, then put him in the second film, when they actually get to Mirkwood.
I felt that the subplot about Dol Guldur could have been handled better. (In the book, Gandalf was already aware of the Necromancer's presence, and he even found Thorin's father in the fort's dungeon, where Thrain gave Gandalf the map and key)
I mean, Radaghast shows up not one scene after a flashback to Azanulzabar. It felt like a short story slapped into the plot.
"Hey Gandalf, got any other wizards?"
"Sure, let me tell you the story of Radaghast the Brown."
And then immediately cut away from the group. It was some real whiplash for me. We had about a minute back with the dwarves before cutting away to Mirkwood.
It's long, but I loved it! There wasn't a single part of the movie which felt like it was boring.
And he didn't ruin my favourite childhood book, so bonus.
This should have been one 3 hour long movie. I fell asleep. It digressed too much and foreshadows of upcoming matters made the movie darker than a kids' story should be. I don't know if I'll bother with part 2, but, what if Smaug does get his in that movie? I may have to watch it anyway.
I never really had a problem with the length either. Even the bit in the shire never particularly bothered me or felt like it went on too long because the intro was so interesting and had plenty of action to tide me over until things got back up to speed.
The "extra" stuff I think will actually be a benefit to it in the long run. For starters it makes Gandalf's absences in the story feel important and necessary rather than it feeling like he was distracted by passing butterflies for the sake of building tension. I feel in the end I will appreciate having the 3 films as just one would have felt really compact and highlighted a lot of the flaws with the original story and while it could probably be done in two if it done as well as this first installment was I feel they can pull it off.
Not to mention it is not like a lot of Tolkien's extra writing will likely ever be seen on screen if not incorporated into the story it expanded on.
My only issue with the hobbit was the lack of practical effects(though the majority of the CGI was great) for the goblins/orcs and Azog specifically.
Dude do you have any idea how old this book is? It's not a new story. Most of the fantasy people read these days is derived from it.
A great movie never finishes early or late. It finishes exactly when it means to.
Most of my feelings about the length of the Hobbit movie comes from what I know about the Tolkien books. I wasn't bored during any part of the of the movie, but I was often just waiting for something to happen that was actually in the book. I think this has in part to do with the limbo this movie is in between being a serious epic work like LotR and a movie that was more in the vein of the Hobbit book, a children's tale. There's a lot of stuff in there just to make the link between those two. It pads out the length, though not necessarily in a bad way. If the Hobbit had been made like the book was, a lot of people (including me) would have been a bit disappointed.
good ep and all that but ....
where's our 'Death and return of Superman' eps you promised back in 'Going Green'?
cause some of us wouldn't mind hearing about that mess in an easy to digest form (that, and I like the 'Comics, Are, Weird eps best)
At the end of the movie, i wanted to see more... SO to me, it isn't too long, it's not long enough! D:<
It did feel a bit long right there and then, with my butt hurting and my fingers lazily stroking the cigarette pack in my pocket. It's impossible to have that length without it becoming noticable.
However, the problem to me seem to be that the film is simply slightly overburdened. There's so many asides and the battle segments just can't get enough of themselves. That isn't to say that I dislike them, but I did ask myself if it was that necessary.
It was nowhere near as bad as the long, drawn out ending in The Return of the King, that's for sure. It was more like "This would be a good moment to bite off. No? A'ight, no immediate hurry", as opposed to "Just get in the boat and LEAVE already!!" that The Return of the Etc. envoked. When I think about it, I'm alright with the length. I never lost interest in the actual film, and I suppose that is what matters when you get down to it.
Oh, yes, I'm sure that's Peter's master plan to steal all the little moviegoer's money away. It's not like he even wants to make something good, he just wants our allowances.
(Well, alright, a little bit, but you -can- combine wanting to make something great with wanting to make some dough)
Yeah, the way they set it up we aren't really following Bilbo, except then we are, and the film can't make up it's mind for a little while. The absence of that sort of narration anywhere else makes that opening seem tacked-on and gives the impression that the film is afraid to linger too long on the quiet, almost uneventful portions necessary to buildup (compare it to the Fellowship of the Ring, which goes for a good while before the action starts and doesn't bring out a real battle until about two hours in).
I agree that the sense of mystery is important, but just as important to any good fantasy is the sense of initial normalcy which erodes gradually as the narrative progresses. I would try to justify that statement, but I couldn't possibly do it better than C.S. Lewis did when he explained why a book that ends with Merlin and a boxing bear fighting Big Brother, who is the cybernetic severed head of a French genius scientist and serial killer with a giant exposed brain like Mojo Jojo that is possessed by the devil, while a mansion full of faschists are eaten by tigers begins with two chapters about the internal politics of a small British college, so I will leave it at that.
Yes it is too long.
It is too long for a first movie. They set up so much stuff that doesn't really have any impact without a second movie. Now they are making a guaranteed second movie but it was too long. A shorter tighter movie could have really helped especially in the character department.
Honestly can you tell me any dwarf names outside of the leader guy and even his name eludes me as of this point. Chop off 30 minutes, extract some of the pointless additions and set up, push that towards the second movie, put in more character development even made up character development is fine, it's an adaptation after all, and now you have a long movie that isn't Too long.
Uh I hate to say it, but there are far more reasons that the industry standard for film was 80-130 minutes.
The real reason was not so arbitrary: the actual cost-of-goods. Up until last year, most films that were released were literally made of thousands of feet of polyester film. (Celluloid is banned by insurance companies in sane countries because it is a fire hazard.) The development and materials for these prints usually cost between $15 USD and $20 USD per minute, so a 100-minute film could cost a full $2,000 dollars. Then, once the print was finished, it needed to be shipped. Technicolor had a long-running contract with Airborne Express, while Deluxe used their own distribution network centered around major airports. When Airborne was bought out by DHL, eventually Technicolor had to switch to UPS, because DHL had no idea what they were doing.
Anyway, each print could weigh up to 60 pounds for a 130 minute film, so sometimes it cost hundreds of dollars to ship domestically, and thousands to ship overseas. Now, multiply those costs by however many thousands of screens that your film was opening in (barring the semi-rare practice of 'interlocking'), and the cost-of-goods can differ by tens of millions of dollars for a 90 minute film and a 120 minute film.
Thus, unless a film was being groomed for the academy awards, or unless you were Steven Spielberg or James Cameron, films more or less had to fall within the 80-130 minute guideline. While the number of showings in a given 13-14 hour period was important to Hollywood, it was never as important as the blank cost-of-goods.
I was actually surprised when I went to watch the Hobbit, when I started shifting in my seat and wondering how much was left I realised there were only about 20 minutes remaining, this from someone who has never been a big fan of fantasy in general or Lord of the Rings in particular. I guess for me it helps that The Hobbit actually gave the characters room to breathe instead of just linking action scenes together, although even less action would have been preferable, but then again I realise that is what most people want.
Great video, but I have to correct you on a mistake you've made twice now, Bob...
There are 13 dwarves, not 12.
Sorry for being such an annoying nerd. :/
Pretty much this.
I haven't seen the movie yet and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it, before it gets removed from the theatres.
Things that could have been cut.
Frodo and Bilbo at the beginning.
Honestly, the hobbit ended in right about the right place, it was either there or after Mirkwood, but that wouldn't have allowed the proper pacing for each movie.
2) It wasted the whole dwarven song, it would have been so easy to simply take some of the prologue, and simply have the dwarves sing their awesome song, this would have served the same purpose, but would have been so much better.
3) It was far longer than it needed to be, and made the entire movie feel like it was dragging at the end.
I liked the movie well enough, but man, I can't help but feel there was a missed opportunity to make the movie that much better.
My thoughts exactly! I saw Django and Hobbit during the same week, and Django felt much much shorter. I mean the whole Bilbo / Gollum scene took so long to play out, I was literally pulling out my hair waiting for it to end. The stone giant battle seemed tacked on, as was the old geezer rabbitsledding through the forest.
For me, acting is the key to any movie. A movie, expecially one that is north of 3 hours, has to have acting to back it up. Django has great performances by Foxx, Waltz, Jackson and DeCaprio. I care about those characters because they have depth, thus I care about what happens to them. The hobbit might as well as ripped off the same midgits from Snow White and the Huntsman, that's how little I care about them. Bilbo, Gollum and Gandalf are the only characters I care about, not due to great acting, but through familiarity.
Sorry Bob. It's too long.
Here's the thing: there's a golden rule with film making. If you can trim something without it negatively affecting the plot, trim it. Film is the most anaemic of all entertainment mediums. You need to trim as much excess fat off of it as possible, for one simple reason- other mediums, the audience can partake in at their leisure. A reader can dip into a book or a comic for as little or as long as they like. They can stop to make a cup of tea. They can go for a walk inbetween chapters. Same with games- you can pause, save and come back to games, and most people tend to play through games in chunks anyway, rather than blowing through everything in one massive go.
With film, you're asking your audience members to sit down and give their undivided, focused attention for a period of a couple of hours. When you're in the cinema, that's it. Once the film starts, you're locked in, and God help you if you need to go to the toiler. Therefore, if you're making that demand of your audience, you need to make sure that every minute of film can be justified. Every wasted minute is a minute that the audience could have spent doing something else, but you're demanding that they watch it.
Now yes, there are films which head for the three hour long mark and have lots of scenes of not a lot happening. What you failed to mention, Bob, is that films like Apocalypse Now and 2001 are atmosphere pieces. The reason why so little happens for such a long time is because the director is trying to convey an atmosphere, or a feeling in the audience, rather than eliciting a response to a specific, intricate story. Recent examples would be films like Drive, or Valhalla Rising. These are films which are light on plot details, and heavy on atmospherics, and in that regard, long drawn out sections of film are entirely appropriate.
The Hobbit is not an atmosphere piece. It is a dense, fast paced story. It is the breeziest of all Tolkien's works, and moves along at a fast pace in novel form. Therefore, when telling the story, Peter Jackson needed to be able to justify every single scene in the film, in terms of how they add to the overall bulk. And sadly, he simply failed to do so. The film is bloated. Monstrously so. Where a story-focused film should be sharp and to the point, this film is so flabby it has love handles poking over its waistband.
It's not just that they took a short story, and decided to turn it into a three film trilogy. It's not just that they scraped in every last bit of backstory, and made it frontstory to try and pad things out. It's that on top of that, they then went and made a load more stuff up, purely to pad out the films even more. The albino orc who keeps appearing in the film? He's already dead in the novel. He got resurrected for the film, purely to provide it with a bit more running time, and to allow WETA to show off more of their mo-cap technology. The whole 'discovering the Necromancer' thing that dragged on and on? In the novel, it was already done and dusted by the time the story kicked off. Gandalf already knew the Necromancer was back, and already knew that it was Sauron. Radaghast didn't go kicking round with Nazgul, and he sure as hell didn't ride around on a rabbit sleigh. In the novel, the Necromancer sidestory is the final act of a story that had already been in motion long before the Hobbit, and was kept to the side simply because it wasn't important to the story of Bilbo. Here, it gets transformed into this laborious "Ooh, we know it's Sauron, but we don't want to admit it's Sauron just yet, even though it's clear as daylight that it's Sauron" pseudo-detective story nonsense. And then we get action scenes that are just too long and drawn out, ruining whatever rhythm the film might have otherwise been able to cobble together.
And no, Bob, we didn't need to hear all the songs and backstory with the Dwarves at Bag End. That's lore. And here's the thing about lore: hardcore fantasy nerds love it. Everybody else hates it. When you're telling a fantasy story, you shouldn't get caught up in pages and pages of exposition retelling this historic event or that historic event. Even Tolkien, for the most part, managed to keep the lore relevant and manageable in the books. You should tell the audience exactly what they need to know, and then let the characters fucking move on. My time is precious, and I don't need to spend it learning about which Dwarf is descended from which noble line of Dwarven kings, and what they Drwafy home was like. They're Dwarves. They're not real.
Lastly, no Bob, centring a whole film around the Battle Of The Five Armies is not a good idea. Peter Jackson already managed to undermine the LOTR books enough by turning the films into one long action sequence. He already made Two Towers into Helm's Deep[ (and some related shit) and Return Of the King into The Battle Of Minas Tirith (and some other stuff). We don't need him making another fantasy film where the majority of the running length is composed of fantasy races carving each other up. Not when the actual fight itself takes up all of about one chapter in the book, and the main character is unconscious for most of it. I don't know if you're aware Bob, but Tolkien was quite anti-war, having fought in the Somme. Turning the third film into one giant action-setpiece filled war battle would just be the biggest undermining of the anti-war themes of the book imaginable. Remember, this film is supposed to be about a Hobbit getting caught up in a burglary attempt with some Dwarves, not dark lords rising and huge armies battling each other.
So yeah... bloated, unmanageable, and unwieldy. The thing is, it's as clear as day that even PJ himself only intended to make two films. All throughout the pre-production phase, all throughout the shooting phase, he and his co-writers were committed to the idea of two films. It was only in the middle of last year, with Warner executives just out of shot, that he announced he's suddenly changed his mind, and decided to make three. Despite having written and shot the thing as two. It's obvious to anyone that Warner pulld a fast one at the last minute, and demanded three films to maximise revenue. From the flabby nature of the story, to the fact they had to reuse unrelated music from the LOTR films to cover stuff that had been added in at the last minute.
Some folk are being concerned with spoilers, so I'll just say that they likely needed to introduce Galadriel here so that her appearance and actions in a later part of the trilogy don't come out of nowhere.
I think there's a lot of stuff in this first movie that we're going to look back on after having seen the whole trilogy and say to ourselves, 'oh, that's why they put that in'. Likely over half of this movie is setting up stuff that'll be important in the next movies. Radagast, Dol Guldur, the Spiders, the White Council, the Ring, Azog the Pale Orc, death of the Great Goblin, Erebor, the Dwarves, Bilbo's sword and its current namelessness, the dwarvish key and the prophecy about the side-door...
I think that's why this movie feels weird. Fellowship of the Ring's stuff mostly paid off during that movie - the Fellowship was created and ended, the relationships between the characters were all resolved (and then never changed for the next 2 movies) the Ring and Sauron's influence was felt from the beginning, Saruman was introduced and had an active role in events...
There's comparatively little payoff in Unexpected Journey, it's all being saved up for the next 2. That's why it feels too long to some.
Isn't the story yet to be finished? This (among other things) sort of renders Bobby's video kind of pointless...
Did anyone else immediately connect the stone giant battle with rock-em sock-em robots or was it just me?
I was bored to tears with the LoTR trilogy, but this felt alright to me.
Add to that, that I don't really like going to the cinema and that I absolutely hate the 3D effect (which the group I went with unfortunately chose), as well as the screwy framerate that I didn't like either, I still enjoyed myself.
So, I saw the original trilogy in a cinema I liked, under the best of circumstances and it was an excrutiating experience of boredom and being uncomfortable and I can still remember just how bad it felt.
I think it's safe to say that the length of the movie is not necessarily a bad thing, if it's good(or something that you enjoy).
First of all, i agree with everything you just wrote^^. But i´m not sure it´s entirely PJs fault, when the end credits rolled i noticed that there were around 4 screenwriters credited, one of them being Guillermo Del Toro. It seems like Peter Jackson has taken old work, maybe even a lot of old drafts and added more stuff on top of it, which might explain why the film is such a mess.
I've never read The Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. But having seen all 4 films in the cinema and being a big fan of the extended editions of the films I say the Hobbit was a good length.
I liked the references like the trolls turning to stone tale he tells the children at his 111th birthday and how Bilbo came across Sting and Gandalf gets Fellhammer (correct name?). I enjoyed the padding in Rivendell and the council and the back and forth with Golum. Action scenes were placed nicely to break up the exposition and you can never have enough Sylvester McCoy! I never had to look at my watch and was engaged all the way through.
Saw it in 2D though so can't speak for 3 hours of 3D
That's still not enough, considering how much of a minority they were and how much crap they took. It was never really an accepted trend and was aimed mostly at serious, dramatic movies. The fact that we can now see high fantasy movies that are like 3-4 hours long is definitely a change.
I am going to try and wait until the Hobbit screens at my local cinema that still has an intermission in longer movies. The last movie I saw there was Lawrence of Arabia. Having a break in some of the longer movies is very welcome such as Apocalypse Now Redux and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I even saw the restored version of Heaven's Gate there.
They also did a triple bill of the Lord of the Rings movies late last year, but had some problems with people talking and texting during the screening, leading to this
Seeing Watchmen and Inglorious Basterds at a regular cinema was a bit of a trial and I forgot to go the toilet beforehand so it was not pleasant towards the end.
When Joe Dante introduced The Movie Orgy at a local film festival, he told people it was designed so you could go out and get something to eat or go to the toilet and not really miss anything, which is good as it went for 4&1/2 hours. It started at midnight and let out close to 5am in the morning. Was the best thing I saw at the festival that year, don't crowd me!
There was a 401 minute version of War & Peace that screened at the Russian film festival last year, one of the battle scenes went for 40 minutes.
I saw the shorter version, but have heard the 5 hour version of Carlos is meant to be pretty good. It is meant to be screened as a miniseries on TV.
It comes down to how engaging the movie is, if you are into it you will not be checking your watch and nodding off. If it is good then you don't want to have to leave to go to the toilet so you can see how it ends.
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subset: commoncrawl


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A DeKalb man was sentenced Wednesday to 37 years in prison for murdering a college freshman in a plea deal that was criticized by the victim's family and a former prosecutor, but defended by the state's attorney as the right decision to protect the public.
William Curl, 36, agreed to plead guilty to the first-degree murder of Antinette "Toni" Keller, 18, a Northern Illinois University student from Plainfield whose burned remains were found in a DeKalb park in October 2010 after the art student told friends she was going there to do some sketching.
Although he pleaded guilty, Curl still maintains that he did not kill Keller, said his attorney, DeKalb County Public Defender Tom McCulloch.
The hearing before Judge Robbin Stuckert in Sycamore was interrupted almost immediately when a woman identified as a relative of Curl's shouted from the audience that Curl should not accept the plea deal.
"Billy, don't take it. They are railroading you," the woman blurted out. She continued to speak loudly as security officers removed her from the courtroom. Even after her removal, she could be heard shouting "He didn't do it" from the hall.
She was not the only critic of the outcome.
Keller's parents, Diane and Roger Keller, thought the sentence was too lenient, according to a family spokeswoman. They were not in court Wednesday.
"To be there would almost be a display of support (of the deal) in some respect," Toni Keller's cousin Mary Tarling said. "And Roger and Diane do not feel like they want to support the outcome of this.
"They're just very concerned that there's this release date" from prison for Curl, Tarling said, "that there's this window of light and hope" for him.
Curl must serve 100 percent of the sentence, minus about 21/2 years he spent in jail awaiting trial.
Had Curl been convicted on all counts, he faced a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison, according to prosecutors, who dropped charges of sexual assault and arson as part of the negotiated plea.
On a Facebook page dedicated to Toni Keller, a message was posted in which Diane Keller said she felt let down by the terms of the plea deal.
"My family is so tired of suffering. My baby girl is gone," the message read.
Although no family members attended the hearing, former DeKalb County State's Attorney Clay Campbell was in the audience. Afterward, he said the 37-year prison term was "outrageous" for someone who "raped, murdered and incinerated" Keller. Equally outrageous, Campbell said, was Curl maintaining his innocence.
"At a minimum, he should have been required to stand before the court and admit his guilt to this horrible crime," said Campbell, who said he met with Keller's parents many times during his two years as state's attorney.
McCulloch said Curl is legally allowed to agree to a plea deal and deny responsibility for the crime.
State's Attorney Richard Schmack, who defeated Campbell in last November's election, said there would have been challenges to a trial, which was scheduled for this month, including the possibility that a jury could acquit Curl.
"We think it's a just result," Schmack said at a news conference after the hearing. "We have served the public and served Toni by bringing her murderer to justice."
He did acknowledge, though, that there had been some gaps in communication in recent days with the Keller family caused by the holiday weekend and the fast-developing nature of the plea negotiations.
Schmack laid out some possible prosecution pitfalls, including the lack of an eyewitness, murder weapon, a time or cause of death, or a confession. In addition, Keller's body was so badly burned that authorities had limited forensic evidence, he said.
Keller left her dormitory Oct. 14, 2010, telling friends she planned to do some sketching in DeKalb's Prairie Park. Her charred remains were found days later, along with some of her possessions. Witnesses placed Curl at the park that day, and friends later told authorities they had seen deep scratches on Curl's chest. He reported getting them during a sexual encounter with a woman he met at the park.
Curl was interviewed by police in the days after the crime but failed to appear for a second interview. He was traced to Louisiana, where he was arrested. Curl initially told police he had never met Keller, then changed his story, saying he found her dead body in the park and burned it, Assistant State's Attorney Stephanie Klein said. He then told police that he and Keller were having sex in the park when she suffered a seizure, hit her head on a rock and died, Klein said.
Ward is a freelance reporter. Manchir is a Tribune staff reporter.


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Thomasville Singers announces new season, new director
The Thomasville Singers will begin rehearsals for its 2013-2014 season at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 9, in the Flowers Executive Classroom in the new Smith-Bonvillian Hall on the Main Campus of Thomas University.
"The new executive classroom is a kind of auditorium with comfortable, tiered seating that has been equipped with a grand piano and will make a great rehearsal space," said Dr. Karl Barton, Coordinator of Arts for the Community at Thomas University (ACTU).
Also new this season will be Raymond Hughes as director of the Thomasville Singers. Hughes is former Chorus Master for the Metropolitan Opera and current artistic director of the Thomasville Music and Drama Troupe.
"I had the opportunity to hear the Thomasville Singers perform Mozart's Requiem Mass under the direction of Paul Liljestrand and was very impressed," Hughes said. "I hope to continue the good work Paul started and lead the Thomasville Singers into a new era of recognition as the community treasure it already is."
The community choir has been a feature of the music department at Thomas University dating back to 1995 as the Thomas College Community Chorus under the direction of Ed Lyon. It began to operate in earnest as the Thomasville Singers in 2006 with Paul Liljestrand directing in conjunction with William Collins.
"The impetus to rekindle the community chorus in Thomasville began in 2003 and 2004 as part of a partnership with the Valdosta Symphony Chorus and came to full fruition when Paul moved to Thomasville the following year," Barton said.
The Thomasville Singers will rehearse every Monday from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Flowers Executive Classroom of the Smith-Bonvillian Hall. Membership is open to all with the ability to sing on pitch and a desire to improve singing skills.
"I would like to encourage everyone who has an interest in singing and making some great music together to join us Monday nights," Hughes continued. "It will give people the opportunity to perform selections from a wide range of musical styles and genres that a church choir can't provide."
Those interested in joining should enter the TU campus from Pinetree Boulevard, park in an available space in the lot. Smith-Bonvillian Hall is the building with large columns at the entrance. Once entering, the lobby, the Flowers Executive Classroom is immediately to the left. For additional information, call (229) 227-6964.


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Mezzanine Safety Gate - Benko Products Inc
Benko Products, Inc. announces that its Protect-O-Gate "Clear-Aisle" Mezzanine Safety Gate features a revolutionary design that requires only 10 inches of floor space when closed at the mezzanine ledge. The "Clear-Aisle" safety gate features a double-gate design and three-sided load access to ensure constant fall protection in the tightest spaces without sacrificing productivity.
The Protect-O-Gate "Clear-Aisle" Mezzanine Safety Gate reduces the potential for falls and other accidents associated with mezzanines and loading areas. These OSHA-compliant safety gates are counterbalanced for ergonomic, easy manual operation. Optional powered operation includes remote controls, safety features and simple installation. These units can be easily customized to accommodate various load and space restrictions. Shipped partially assembled for easy installation, standard single- and double-pallet models are painted safety-yellow and are also available in either a corrosion-resistant finish or stainless steel.
- double-gate design
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tampa bay buccaneers
2015 NFL Secondary Market Week 4 Recap
2015 NFL WEEK 4 SPARKS SOME RIVALRIES EXCEPT IN LONDON Week 4 of the 2015 NFL season looked pretty sharp, except that Jets-Dolphins "London" game was simply flat. Not only is different across The Pond with resale – only 511 SVG on the marketplace for "ticket touters" but there really
2015 NFL Secondary Market Week 3 Recap
2015 NFL WEEK 3 BECOMES A BEAR MARKET Week 3 of the 2015 NFL season offered up some interesting match-ups for brokers, but some of the more historical ones were flat, meaning resellers took a bath on the results. The Washington Redskins-New York Giants had a $143.09 ARP high in
2015 NFL Secondary Market Week 2 Recap
2015 NFL WEEK 2 IS ALL COWBOYS-EAGLES Week 2 of the 2015 NFL Season had a lot of strong performers, especially coming out of the NFC East, where people blindly will believe the Dallas Cowboys will win every time, even if there's no data to support it. Hitting a $376.08
2015 NFL Secondary Market Week 1 Recap
2015 NFL WEEK 1 SHOWCASES GREAT RESALE ACTION The 2015 NFL Week 1 Kickoff with some amazing resale action. Not only did the Pittsburgh-New England game go gang-busters and hit an amazing ARP amid NE Quarterback Tom Brady's reinstatement, but the Green Bay-Chicago meeting at Soldier Field followed with a


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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) Andy Murray finally beat Roger Federer at a Grand Slam.
The U.S. Open champion defeated 17-time major winner Federer 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-2 in the semifinals of the Australian Open, calling it a massive confidence boost as he attempts to win his second consecutive major.
Murray, who missed his chance to serve out the match at 6-5 in the fourth set, will play defending champion and top-seeded Novak Djokovic in Sunday's final. Djokovic, who lost to Murray in the U.S. Open final last September, cruised past David Ferrer in straight sets in just under 90 minutes - 2 1/2 hours less than Murray's semifinal.
While Murray came into the match against Federer with a 10-9 career advantage, he had never beaten the Swiss star in their three previous meetings at a major - the finals of the 2008 U.S. Open, 2010 Australian Open and last year at Wimbledon.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Lance Armstrong's lawyers say the cyclist will talk more about drug use in the sport, just likely not to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that led the effort to strip him of his Tour de France titles.
In a testy exchange of letters and statements revealing the gulf between the two sides, USADA urged Armstrong to testify under oath to help ``clean up cycling.''
Armstrong's attorneys responded that the cyclist would rather take his information where it could do more good - namely to cycling's governing body and World Anti-Doping Agency officials.
USADA's response to that: ``The time for excuses is over.''
LONDON (AP) - Cyclists will be offered a chance to confess to past doping offenses without fear of retribution in an attempt to uncover the full scale of the Lance Armstrong scandal and drug use in the sport.
The UCI agreed to introduce a ``truth and reconciliation'' commission with the World Anti-Doping Agency, cutting out the independent panel established to investigate the governing body's links to Armstrong.
UCI President Pat McQuaid said he wants to ensure cycling has ``drawn a line in the sand finally - and for the last time'' on doping scandals that have tarnished the credibility of the sport.
Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life from Olympic sports following a report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that portrayed him as a longtime user of performance-enhancing drugs. After years of denials, Armstrong admitted to doping in an interview last week with Oprah Winfrey.
SAN DIEGO (AP) - Tiger Woods made it look easy on a dreary day at Torrey Pines and wound up in a place he hasn't been in five years.
He had the 36-hole lead by himself at one of his favorite PGA Tour stops - the Farmers Insurance Open.
Woods didn't miss a shot during a four-hole stretch around the turn on the North Course that included a 5-iron to 5 feet for eagle and a wedge that one-hopped off the pin to set up birdie. It carried him to a 7-under 65 in the second round for an 11-under 133 total and a two-shot lead over Billy Horschel.
Horschel, who had to go back to Q-school to get his card last year, had a 69 on the South Course.
Brad Fritsch, a rookie from Canada, had a 67 on the South Course to lead the group of six players at 8-under 136. The others were Casey Wittenberg, Steve Marino, Jimmy Walker, Josh Teater and Erik Compton.
DOHA, Qatar (AP) - England's Chris Wood shot an 8-under 64 to take a three-stroke lead over New Zealand's Michael Campbell and two others after the third round of the Qatar Masters.
Wood had a 15-under 201 total. Campbell had a 68 to match England's Simon Khan (64) and Sweden's Alexander Noren (66) at 12 under. Spain's Sergio Garcia (70) and South Africa's Branden Grace (67) were 11 under.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Criminal charges won't be filed against 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree after an alleged sexual assault in a hotel after the team's playoff victory over the Green Bay Packers.
After examining information submitted by police, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon said his office determined that no charges would be filed ``at this time.''
Crabtree's attorney, Joshua Bentley, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
San Francisco police said Crabtree was never detained or arrested in the matter, and that he cooperated fully with their investigation.
The 49ers are preparing to meet the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl on Feb. 3 in New Orleans.
NEW YORK (AP) - Yankees general manager Brian Cashman says it's possible third baseman Alex Rodriguez could miss the entire season while recovering from hip surgery.
Cashman says ``there's no guarantees in this stuff'' that Rodriguez will be able to play this year.
The 37-year-old Rodriguez had surgery on his left hip last week. The team said the rehabilitation time was expected to be six months, which would sideline the star slugger until the All-Star break.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A solid effort by Jeremy Abbott looked downright spectacular after the splatfest the rest of the U.S. men put on.
With just about everyone else stumbling, bumbling or worse, Abbott's clean but conservative short program was more than enough to give him the lead at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The three-time champion finished with 84.10 points, three points ahead of Ross Miner. Joshua Farris, the silver medalist at last year's junior world championships, was third. The free skate is Sunday.
Out of the 20 men, only four managed to get through their program without a major error.


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Upon first glance, these In2uit Filo portable Bluetooth speakers might seem more style than substance. Nope. The svelte profile is a direct result of function. The Filo uses electrostatic speakers instead of fat, magnetic drivers.
The wee boombox is only 2.5 inches thick and just 1.5 pounds. Uncannily thin. Combine that with a 10-hour battery life, and you're ready to hit the backyard BBQ circuit. As far as sound quality goes, electrostatic speaker technology is more commonly found in more high-end applications so there's a good chance that this super model can sing too. (CNet said that the audio quality "seemed fine") The Filo hits store shelves next month for $250. [In2uit via CNet]


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Gomez learned how to play game 'right' from father
MILWAUKEE -- Father's Day will always conjure a particularly special memory for Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez, and the dad who bears the same name.
The holiday is celebrated in July in the Dominican Republic, and it marks an anniversary of sorts.
MILWAUKEE -- Father's Day will always conjure a particularly special memory for Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez, and the dad who bears the same name.
The holiday is celebrated in July in the Dominican Republic, and it marks an anniversary of sorts.
"It makes me feel emotional," Gomez said. "When I signed [with the Mets], I signed on Father's Day, and when I got the opportunity to come here to the States, he held my shoulder and told me, 'This is the opportunity I never had. Don't worry about us. Work, learn, have a good attitude every day you go to the job, no matter what you do. Have a smile on your face, and the day is going to start good.'
"That's what I do. As soon as that plane took off from the Dominican, I started crying. I was 16 years old, I'm going to miss my family. As soon as I got to the States, every time I looked in the mirror, I looked at myself and thought, 'Wow, I'm by myself now.' Every day, I work like my dad told me. That made me feel motivated to never give up."
Carlos Sr. was a fine player in the Dominican Republic, first as a second baseman and then -- "When he got old," his son says with a sliver of a smile -- a center fielder. Briefly, at the very end of his career in the Dominican Republic's top league, Carlos Jr. served as his father's backup. Dad ultimately moved to right field so his son could take over center.
"That's how everything started," Carlos Jr. said.
Said Carlos Sr. with pride, "I played the game the right way."
What Carlos Sr. lacked was size, a feature evident when he stands beside his son today. The younger Gomez, who is in his second season as a bona fide big league star -- is listed as 6-foot-3 and 218 pounds in the Brewers' media guide, yet runs so swiftly that he was long ago saddled with the nickname, El Potro -- The Colt.
This is no accident. The Brewers' Gomez told a great story during Spring Training about how his father, intent on producing a son who would grow big enough and strong enough to play in the Major Leagues, set out to "marry a big woman to have a big kid."
He wed Belgika, who gave him three children. Carlos Jr. is by far the biggest.
"When he was 8 years old, I told my friend, 'He's going to be a baseball player. A real baseball player,'" Carlos Sr. said during an interview with MLB.com, his son serving as translator. "I took him everywhere to see how to play baseball and learn and pick something [up] from everybody else … 'Every day, learn something new from me and from my friends.'"
Today, the younger Gomez looks back and realizes, "He's the guy I owe everything. He's an example to [get an] education, be a good father, respect -- and give everything I have right now. I remember the words they told me. 'If you're going to play ball, you're going to play right, or not play.'
"When I was 12, 14 years old, I was just playing around, not taking it seriously. When he told me those words, I took it seriously. [My father said,] 'You have special talent. You can be a superstar, so work hard and you'll see everything is going to come one day.' That's what I did, and now I see the result."
It took time. Gomez made his Major League debut as a 21-year-old with the Mets in 2007, and he then was traded to Minnesota in the Johan Santana deal. After two maddening seasons with the Twins, Gomez was traded again -- this time to Milwaukee for popular shortstop J.J. Hardy. He did not emerge as an everyday player until 2012, when he set career highs in home runs and on-base percentage.
The next spring, the Brewers gave Gomez a four-year contract and he delivered his finest season. He ranked ninth in National League MVP Award balloting, made the All-Star team for the first time and won the Brewers' first Gold Glove Award in 31 years.
"He reminds me of myself," Carlos Sr. said. "Every move he makes, I enjoy it because it's a dream. I used to be a baseball player, but I didn't have the opportunity [to play in the Majors]. Every time [his son] steps on the field, I feel like I do it. It's not one special moment. Every day I watch him play is special."
So, once and for all, who is the better ballplayer?
The son translates. The Dad smiles.
"When we were the same age, 16-21, I used to be better," Carlos Sr. said. "I used to be faster. I knew the game more than him. But I didn't have the same luck that [his son] had."
Carlos Jr. broke out of his role as translator and fired a comeback.
"It's not lucky," he said with a wide smile. "I have more tools, more ability to play. Every time we joke around, play around like that, 'Who's better? Who's better?' I say, 'I'm the one who has almost eight years in the big leagues!'"
They'll never settle it.
Maybe they don't want to.
"Every time I see my dad, it motivates me," Carlos Jr. said. "He's my best friend … I have my own family now, and I want to teach my son the right way like my dad did for me."
Adam McCalvy is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Brew Beat, and follow him on Twitter at @AdamMcCalvy.


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Public Policy Institute Releases New Poll: It shows Jerry Brown with a slight lead over Meg Whitman and a tight U.S. Senate race. [Political Blotter] [Calbuzz]
Fallout Over Bell Scandal: City managers plan to meet Thursday in Sacramento as more residents seek salary information about their municipal leaders. [LA Times]
Farmworker Overtime Bill Vetoed: The governor says it would overturn long-standing rules and burden California businesses. [Fresno Bee]
Winners and Losers: A look at why some departments are furlough-free. [Sacramento Bee]
What Your Phone Says About Your Politics: Researchers find some differences among iPhone and Blackberry users. [Capitol Weekly]


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Originally published May 3, 2014 at 9:10 PM | Page modified May 19, 2014 at 12:09 PM
China's coal solution has carbon downside across globe
Global carbon-dioxide emissions are climbing at rates that pose severe risks to the planet, and reversing that trend is heavily dependent on China making cuts in its emissions.
Seattle Times staff reporter
First of three parts
The struggle to reduce CO2
Reporter Hal Bernton brings you stories from the front lines of China's changing energy industry. Read more →
Related stories:
Hexigten Qi, China —
The new coal plant here is an industrial fortress of boilers, tanks and towers that stretches across a lonely plateau in Inner Mongolia.
All day long and through the night, it vents huge gray clouds of steam and emits an awful stench.
Though it may seem odd, this is part of China's campaign to combat the nation's notorious urban smog. The plant transforms low-grade coal into a cleaner-burning methane gas that can be piped to cities, replacing dirtier fuels that now are used to cook meals, heat homes and produce electricity.
The Chinese leadership has called for the accelerated development of these coal-to- gas plants, and more are under construction in areas distant from major urban centers.
But embracing this technology to fight air pollution involves a serious environmental trade off. The plants that produce this gas spew far more carbon emissions than those that burn coal to generate electricity.
"They're going to lock in emissions. China — and the world — will bear the consequences for decades," said Robert Jackson, professor of environment and energy at Stanford University.
A study published last year in Energy Policy found that producing, transporting and combusting this coal-generated gas results in up to 82 percent more carbon emissions than burning China's coal directly to generate electricity.
If all the plants with initial government approval are built, they could boost the nation's annual carbon emissions by more than 7 percent over 2012 levels, according to an analysis prepared for The Seattle Times by a co-author of that study.
Such large-scale development would be a significant blow to global efforts to curb CO2 emissions, which already are changing the planet's climate and causing the oceans to become more acidic.
Those emissions are climbing at rates that pose far more severe risks to the planet, and reversing that trend is heavily dependent on China making cuts in its carbon emissions.
The gas plants are part of a broader expansion of the Chinese coal industry in Inner Mongolia and other provinces in the north and west.
That development includes large electrical power plants, as well as refineries that turn coal into chemicals. These plants could help keep China's total coal consumption steady — or edging higher — even as the government cracks down on coal use in 12 populous provinces and dramatically expands reliance on zero carbon fuels such as nuclear energy, hydroelectric, wind and solar.
Chinese government officials acknowledge that carbon emissions are a serious long-term threat to the nation. Rising sea levels later in the century would threaten coastal cities and water shortages would intensify, according to a Chinese government report.
But dirty air is the front-burner environmental issue in China.
Air pollution is cutting an average of more than five years from the life expectancy of some 500 million northern Chinese people, according to an analysis published last year in The Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
In Beijing, people are so edgy that even on clear, blue-sky days, many residents don face masks to protect against soot particles. The China Daily newspaper chronicles the plight of pollution refugees who flee Beijing in search of cleaner air.
"We will declare war against pollution and fight it with the same determination we battled poverty," announced Li Keqiang, China's prime minister in a speech this year to the National People's Congress.
Behind on natural gas
Much of the urban smog comes from using coal to cook, heat homes, generate electricity and power industry. By contrast, methane — the prime component of natural gas — burns much cleaner then coal, helping to reduce smog and improve indoor-air quality fouled by coal-fired stoves.
But China's petroleum companies can't meet the demand for methane from traditional gas fields and lag far behind their U.S. counterparts in developing new reserves through fracking.
While China buys increasing amounts of gas from other nations, the government is wary of becoming too dependent on imports.
So China' leaders have embraced coal-to-gas plants as part of the nation's energy future.
Last September, facing a growing public outcry to ease smog, China's State Council, announced development of the coal-to-gas industry would be speeded up over the next decade. At least 18 plants have obtained initial approval from Chinese officials for construction, according to the World Resources Institute.
Developers are seeking to build several dozen additional plants.
It is uncertain how many will come on line, given the growing concerns about the massive carbon load and water demands that would result from so many new plants.
"A lot of people in the (Chinese) policy community oppose this," said William Chandler, research director of the U.S.-based Energy Transition Research Institute. "And they say that the decision (to expand the coal-to-gas industry) is not a done deal."
Support for this project
This series was supported by a Perry and Alicia O'Brien Fellowship at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The fellowship enabled reporter Hal Bernton to spend the academic year at Marquette reporting this project and working with students from the Diederich College of Communication. Graduate student Zhu Ye assisted in the China series.
But these plants have powerful support from the coal industry, which has been stung by China's economic slowdown and plunging prices. The plants also are promoted by regional governments, which often are involved in lucrative land-development deals and are eager to develop new jobs.
"The pressure is a real thing. There are tremendous financial incentives at the regional levels to build these plants," said Jackson, who last year co-wrote a commentary cautioning against the launch of the coal-to-gas industry.
A complicated process
Before the advent of electricity, there was a long history, both in China and the West, of turning coal into a crude "town gas" to light street lamps.
But turning coal into a more refined methane gas is a more complicated process and there have been some early stumbles in the development of this technology. To produce the methane at Hexigten Qi plant, the coal is fed into large pressurized vessels where it is combined with steam. The resulting gas then is sent through a series of purifying columns.
The Hexigten Qi plant is operated by Datang International, a state-owned power company that is investing more than $4 billion to bring it into full production. Datang's plant is one of two such facilities that opened in the last year.
The first phase of the plant began operating in December. It quickly shut down in January and did not start up again until this spring because of corrosion problems, according to Chinese news reports.
Datang officials did not respond to repeated requests from The Seattle Times for comment.
Zhu Ye / Special to The Seattle Times
At full capacity, the plant is supposed to produce some 4 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, according to Datang documents. That's equal to more than 40 percent of all the natural gas consumed in Beijing in 2012.
During a December visit, dark, gray clouds of emissions often obscured much of the plant. Gas flared from the tops of several towers and, at night, served as an eerie light on a ramshackle trailer camp for construction workers that sprung up behind the plant.
Despite efforts to shut it down, the trailer camp hangs on, sometimes engulfed in foul odors from the nearby plant. Small shops tucked inside the trailers offer groceries, boots and mittens to construction workers. Long-haul truckers who ferry supplies to the plant can find lodging, a lamb dinner and Baijiu — a fierce, clear grain alcohol. But flush toilets are scarce and mounds of trash pile up around the camp.
By contrast, workers on the Datang payroll are housed in new dormitories on a campus just inside the front gate. Meals are served by white-hatted chefs, and a recreational center offers badminton and Ping-Pong.
The plant is forecast to eventually provide some 1,500 jobs.
Shang, a 49-year-old coal miner, found temporary work at the plant as a janitor. He pronounced his job "fabulous," with wages and living conditions far better than anything he had ever experienced.
But these jobs carry risks. In case of toxic leaks, Datang has built an evacuation center for workers. In January, shortly after the plant opened, industrial "poisonings" killed two and hospitalized four others, according to Xinhua Inner Channel, a Chinese news service.
Zhu Ye / Special to The Seattle Times
Prosperity and tension
During the past decade, energy development has turned Inner Mongolia into China's largest coal-producing region, bringing new prosperity and stirring tension.
Xilinhot, a mining hub north of the Datang plant, has a huge sports center and six-lane boulevards framed by neon archways that light up at night like Las Vegas.
But some ethnic Mongolians have been pushed off grazing lands as mines, roads and industrial plants encroach on grasslands where herds of cattle, sheep and goats once roamed.
Mongolians are now a minority in a region of some 24 million people dominated by the Chinese Han. Yet, their heritage still defines the region, hearkening back to an earlier era when their armies conquered much of Asia. A statue of Genghis Khan, not Mao, rises in a downtown plaza of Xilinhot.
Among Mongolians, there is plenty of mistrust of the government and the coal boom it has encouraged.
Three years ago, a 35-year-old Mongolian herder named Mergen was killed by a coal truck as he joined with others to protest the impact of mining on their lands outside of Xilinhot. His death prompted thousands of herders, students and others ethnic Mongolians across the region to take to the streets in rare demonstrations that evolved from anger about Mergen's death to broader frustrations with the toll of mining on traditional lands.
"It (the protests) really got huge," said a man who was a high-school classmate of the trucker. "The protesters were so furious that they tried to drive to Beijing carrying the dead man's body. But the government blocked the road."
The trucker was eventually executed, as the Chinese government sought to calm the unrest.
The regional government has reached out to herders, both Han and ethnic Mongolian, with programs to improve worn-out pasture lands and compensate them for the loss of grazing rights to development.
"It used to be when the government wanted something — it would just take it," said one Inner Mongolian official. "But now there are payments. It is how the government shows its humanity."
For some, the cash payments don't make up for the potential risks of living near a coal-to-gas plant.
"Every time I smell it, my head just aches. And my mother — she pukes," said Yanan Zhang, who raises cattle, horses and sheep on nearby lands. "We aren't being compensated for that. Nobody really knows whether it might be harmful to us."
Others herders appear to favor the development.
On a bitterly cold day during the startup trials at Datang plant, Li Liansheng grazed his cows on a patch of land near the front entrance. "They only take a little of our land, and this is good for the economy," he said. "We used to have no electricity. Now we have electricity, and the transportation is much better."
Commitment to coal
In the months ahead, Datang's troubled start up will be monitored by Chinese government officials eager to learn more about the technology and economics of turning coal into gas.
China's environmentalists still hope the government will back away from greenlighting an industry that emits so much carbon.
The coal industry, however, is eager for new markets. Last year, the Datang plant began buying coal from a mine at the edge of Xilinhot that was struggling with the first downturn in sales in a decade.
Despite pollution, carbon emissions and climate change, Cheng Xiaoliang, the mine's vice general engineer, is confident about the future.
"I firmly believe that coal is going be the main generating source of energy at least for the next 50 years,'' he said. "No matter what, China still needs coal."
Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or email@example.com. Marquette University graduate student Zhu Ye assisted in the story.


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- Try to budget and additional 7-15% more on top of what our calculator gives out – I.e; difficult configurations, patterns, the additional complexity of your home will add to the Carriage Garage Doors costs.
- Visit every supply house that sell your particular brand of Carriage Garage Doors and try to negotiate a better price with each supplier – I save on average 20%.
- Remember, there are multiple styled homes in the U.S – from: Contemporary, colonial, cape-cod style, ranch, bungalow, Victorian, etc. So keep that in mind and try to budget a little more, before starting your Carriage Garage Doors project.


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Frequently Asked Questions about SmartMove
We're committed to helping you make smarter business decisions. Get answers to many frequently asked SmartMove questions below. And if your question isn't answered here, please contact one of our customer service representatives.
Top FAQ's
SmartMove is an online screening service for independent landlords and their rental applicants. It was designed to help smaller landlords make educated leasing decisions by giving them access to the same tools for renter screenings that larger property management companies use.
SmartMove is used when someone is interested in applying to rent a property. In order to begin the process, the potential renter MUST provide an email address to the landlord. Once the email address has been provided, the process generally goes as follows:
- Landlord initiates a renter screening request using the email address provided by the applicant. (If the landlord is new to SmartMove, he or she must create an account and add at least one property.)
- Renter is sent the application request via email and chooses to accept or decline the screening. (If the applicant is new to SmartMove, he or she must create an account in order to accept or decline the request.)
- By accepting the request, the applicant initiates the release of his or her credit and criminal record information to the landlord through SmartMove. By declining, he or she cancels the rental application. Either way, most personal identifying information such as a Social Security number is not released
- If the applicant accepts the request, the landlord receives credit and criminal history information and a SmartMove leasing recommendation to assist them in making a decision on whether to accept or decline the applicant.
- Renter is notified of the landlord's decision
Both the landlord and the renter will log into SmartMove throughout the screening process mentioned above. As a consumer-initiated service, SmartMove requires both members to play an active role in confirming the validity of the application process. This ensures the service remains secure.
Unlike other renter screening services, the consumer is the one who actually initiates the release of his or her credit and criminal data with SmartMove. This arrangement benefits both landlords and consumers. For landlords, it reduces the paperwork and long approval process required to initiate a credit inquiry on a consumer. For consumers, initiating the release of their own data results in a "soft inquiry," which does not impact their credit score.
To keep the process secure, SmartMove is an online service. Landlords and renters will need to have:
- Access to the Internet
- Individual email addresses
If either party does not have access to the Internet, they may wish to consult a local library or management office. If either party does not have an email address, they will first need to establish one, which can be accomplished by using one of many free online email services. If there is more than one renter on an application, each renter must have a separate email address. Each renter will then log in separately to confirm or decline the authorized release of their individual data to the landlord.
SmartMove provides instant results after the renter has confirmed their application and passed identity authentication online. The only delays are due to either party not completing one or more steps throughout the process.
SmartMove is online whereas larger property management firms have custom-built solutions that they host and maintain. By tapping into the powerful rental screening capabilities of TransUnion CreditRetriever, the expert screening service for larger management firms, you access the same credit data and decisioning tools, but it's online so you don't have the cost of hosting and upkeep.
Yes. SmartMove combines the powerful data and analytics of TransUnion to provide you with a quick and reliable tenant screening service. You get all the information you need to make more informed screening decisions in less time. And SmartMove enables you to screen effectively without compromising the privacy or security of the applicant's personal identifying information.
Only those landlords to whom the renter grants permission will have access to the renter's credit and criminal record information.
The advantages SmartMove offers make it a valuable tenant screening service for independent owners and smaller management groups that may not need daily, weekly, or even monthly access to their screening solution. SmartMove offers cost-effective, web-based access to the same data and analytics used by the largest property management firms resulting in quick and reliable leasing recommendations.
At this time, SmartMove only has the ability to process an application for renters who have a valid U.S. Social Security number.
You may call or email SmartMove if you have additional questions.
Phone: 866-775-0961
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Landlord FAQ's
Three factors separate SmartMove from anything else you might find out there.
- There is no lengthy enrollment process—landlords simply create an account and begin using SmartMove immediately.
- SmartMove enables the rental applicant to initiate the screening process by giving his or her consent in a secure, online environment. This makes it so the landlord doesn't have to go through onsite inspections in order to screen a potential tenant.
- Because the rental applicant initiates the screening, it posts to his or her credit file as a "soft inquiry" which does not affect his or her credit score.
SmartMove is a consumer-initiated service, meaning the consumer (renter) plays an active role in deciding when and to whom to release sensitive personal information. The process is conducted online, keeping this information secure. Other services that do not actively involve the renter require more of the landlord and often have less secure methods of obtaining and returning sensitive consumer information.
At this time, SmartMove only has the ability to process an application for renters who have a valid U.S. Social Security number.
At this time, SmartMove does not have the ability to report rental history on a consumer's credit report. We recommend contacting a collection agency or your local apartment association to inquire about how back rent may be reported on a consumer's credit file.
At this time, SmartMove does not verify employment and/or rental history for potential renters. Please contact your local apartment association for more information on verifying employment and/or rental history.
When renters set up an account with SmartMove, they are required to answer a series of personal questions to authenticate their identity and grant consent to screening before their credit and criminal information is made available to a landlord. If a potential renter has difficulty with this process, please have him or her contact SmartMove directly for further assistance.
If the renter has not completed the confirmation and authentication steps, the landlord can proceed to step 3 — Make Decision — and Decline the application to cancel the request. The landlord may wish to add comments indicating to the renter that there is no further need to respond or apply. An email will be issued to the rental applicant indicating that his or her application has been declined. Since the renter has not completed his or her confirmation or authentication at this point, no charge has been incurred.
If the renter has already completed the confirmation and authentication steps, the landlord can proceed to step 3 (Make Decision) and select a decision. This does not remove the charge or the results, however it does mark the application as complete and issue an email to the renter indicating a decision has been made. The renter can then log into his or her account to view the decision and the landlord's comments.
If the rental applicant has not yet received an email from SmartMove prompting him or her to create an account and/or to grant consent to the screening, he or she can still do so by going directly to the SmartMove site and clicking on any of the "Create an Account" buttons and creating a renter account (if the renter does not already have a SmartMove account). The renter must create an account using the email address that the landlord sends the request to. Once the renter sets up an account, he or she will see an option on the homepage to complete the authentication process.
If the landlord has entered the incorrect email address for the rental applicant, he or she can add that renter again with the correct email address and then delete the incorrect renter profile. To accomplish this, first the landlord must log in to their account and click on the Application History tab on the top of the page. Select the application with the incorrect email address. Click on the first tab, "Step 1. Edit Requested Information". At the bottom of the page, click on "Add Renter". Enter the correct email address and click "Add Renter". Once the landlord has added the correct email as a new renter profile, he or she should delete the prior renter profile reflecting the incorrect email address. The renter should then receive his or her request to consent to the screening.
ResidentScore FAQ's
ResidentScore was purpose built for tenant screening and is designed to provide a more accurate assessment of how likely an applicant is to perform well as a renter than a typical credit score.
- ResidentScore identifies 15% more evictions than other typical credit scores
- ResidentScore identifies 19% more skips than other typical credit scores
- Residentscore can return a score for 97% of applicants.
Applicants are scored on a range from 350 — 850, with 850 being the highest possible score.
*Based on TransUnion's internal analysis
Renter FAQ's
Landlords often request to view the credit history and criminal record history of an applicant to determine if there is a financial or safety risk before completing a lease agreement with a new renter. SmartMove allows landlords to request permission from the renter for such an apartment credit check. The renter will have the option to confirm or decline the request to proceed with the screening process.
No. This is one of the things that makes SmartMove such a valuable tenant screening service. Since the rental applicant initiates the release of his or her own data, the resulting inquiry is considered a "soft inquiry," which does not impact his or her credit score. On the other hand, when a landlord initiates a credit check on a rental applicant, it results in a "hard inquiry" on the applicant's credit report which can negatively impact his or her overall score depending on other variables. (This is similar to the process involved when a consumer applies for a loan or a credit card.)
SmartMove uses the email address entered by the landlord to send the rental applicant an email request. If the renter does not receive the email, either the landlord did not enter the email address correctly or the renter's email service may be blocking the email. Please check Spam folders or Junk Email folders to make sure that the email has not been filtered out. Note that the sender will appear as SiteAdmin. To ensure future emails continue to reach the Inbox, please add the email address firstname.lastname@example.com to an address book or safe sender list. If that doesn't fix the problem, either request that the landlord correct the email address he or she entered or go directly to www.mysmartmove.com and click on any of the "Create an Account" buttons if an account has not already been created. A renter account will need to be created using the email address to which the landlord sent the request. For renters who are unsure what address the landlord used, we recommend contacting him or her for confirmation. Once the renter creates an account, there will be an option to complete the process.
If the renter receives a request to be screened by a landlord and does not wish to proceed, there will be an option in SmartMove to either Confirm (proceed) or Decline (cancel) the screening process. No parties are charged if the application is cancelled by either party prior to the screening taking place.
At this time, SmartMove only has the ability to process an application for renters who have a valid U.S. Social Security number. Please contact the landlord to discuss how he or she wishes to proceed with the application process.
All renters who create SmartMove accounts are asked to verify their identity online to ensure the process is secure. This helps prevent fraudulent access to consumer data.
When a renter sets up a SmartMove account, he or she is required to answer a series of personal questions to authenticate identity before TransUnion can release the credit report and criminal record data to a landlord. If any difficulty transpires with this process, contact SmartMove for further assistance. We suggest renters obtaining a copy of their TransUnion credit report to verify all information before attempting any further authentication. A renter may obtain a copy at www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling TransUnion at 800-916-8800.
Other services may have a renter provide personal identifying information, like a Social Security number or account numbers, directly on a landlord's application. This means the renter can't control who has access to that information once provided. With SmartMove, however, the renter provides his or her information directly to TransUnion in a secure, online environment. It stays between the renter and TransUnion—a trusted credit reporting company that already maintains safe files for nearly 500 million people worldwide.
Only those landlords to whom the renter grants permission will have access to the renter's credit and criminal record information.
SmartMove provides landlords with a leasing recommendation based on factors related to a potential tenant's ability to fulfill lease obligations. In addition, SmartMove offers landlords the option to view a renter's credit and criminal background data. However, none of these services affect the renter's credit score and they do not include personal identifying information such as their Social Security number or account numbers.
After the renter provides approval for screening, the landlord only has access to their credit and criminal record information for 60 days.
No. SmartMove is only for tenant credit and background searches. This means that only a landlord can have access to reports, and only with the renter's permission.
Yes, SmartMove will disclose the contents of a criminal and/or credit report retained by SmartMove to an individual who requests a copy of their report. To verify your identity and obtain a copy of your report(s) or dispute any information within that report, please contact customer service at 866-775-0961.
Pricing & Payment FAQ's
Cost is only incurred when you use SmartMove for your online tenant screening needs. There are no monthly service charges, set-up fees, or other hidden costs. Simply create an account and use SmartMove only as often as you need to.
When a landlord begins a new application request, he or she chooses whether to pay for the service or whether he or she will request the renter to pay for the application. Based on who is chosen, credit card entry information will be displayed to that party at the time of the transaction.
No matter who is selected to pay for the transaction, the charge is incurred after the renter has completed the application request, entered their information and successfully passed their identity authentication online.
A charge is an electronic transaction whereby an amount of money is transferred from the purchaser's account as part of an online process.
With an authorization, the funds remain in the purchaser's account (they are only kept aside temporarily while the validity of the credit card and availability of funds are verified), whereas with a charge the funds are transferred out of the account as part of the purchase.
Some credit cards operate under the dual debit-credit system (that is, the same card can function as a debit card or credit card), which is why it is possible that an authorization may appear in the purchaser's online bank account summary, despite the fact that the amount hasn't been debited. SmartMove representatives do not have the ability to remove authorizations. The purchaser will need to wait until the bank removes them, which can take up to 7 business days.
SmartMove will issue the credit within 24 hours. The purchaser's bank may take up to seven business days to reflect the refund in the online summary of the credit card.
While it may appear that the credit card has been charged twice for a report request, the pending item the purchase may notice on a bank statement is actually an authorization. Authorizations are the initial communication between SmartMove's billing system and the bank's billing system. While the purchaser may see multiple pending listings in the account, only one charge will be deducted after the authorization is completed. When this final deduction occurs, the charge will be posted to the account as successful. SmartMove will not bill an account until we receive an approved authorization from the bank. Authorizations are processed each time a potential renter successfully passes authentication. When a purchaser checks his or her bank account, payment authorizations will often be listed as pending. These authorizations can remain on in the purchaser's account anywhere from 7 to 10 days, depending on the bank. The purchaser may contact his or her bank to confirm the charge for the report request with SmartMove or to check on the authorization status.
In most cases, an email is sent to the party paying (landlord or renter) the night of the transaction. Unfortunately, at this time, SmartMove does not issue formal receipts on the website or have the ability to generate a duplicate email receipt. Purchasers have the option to print the Payment Confirmation screen after entering credit card information to serve as a receipt if necessary.
Landlord Income Insights FAQ's
Income Insights can help you save time and effort manually verifying applicant income. Income Insights analyzes the applicant's spending and payment behavior from their credit report to estimate their income. The Income Insights report gives you:
- An estimate of whether or not the applicant's credit behavior aligns with their self-reported income.
- An estimated variance between the applicant's self-reported income and the Income Insights estimate.
- A recommendation of whether or not to request additional proof of income from an applicant.
Income Insights is based on a statistical model that analyzes the applicant's credit data, including their spending and payment behavior, to estimate the amount of income they likely make.
Income Insights provides an estimate of an individual's income based on their past spending and payment behavior on their credit report over time. To validate the model, we developed our Income Insights estimates using salary information reported to the IRS. However, it is important to remember this is an estimate and not an actual verification of an applicant's income. Income Insights does not access or directly view the applicant's actual income.
The Income Insights estimate changes as new credit information becomes available on the credit report. Because Income Insights uses historical credit data to estimate income, very recent significant income changes may not be immediately reflected.
Income Insights can be returned for anyone with at least one credit tradeline account on his or her credit report. Applicants with no or light credit information may not return an Income Insights result.
No, Income Insights analyzes the applicant's credit behavior to determine whether or not it aligns with the income they've self-reported in SmartMove. If the applicant's self-reported income does not align with the Income Insights estimate, Income Insights will recommend you request additional proof of income from the applicant.
No, Income Insights cannot be used by itself to deny an applicant and is not adverse actionable. It can only be used to determine whether to request additional proof of income from an applicant.
Income Insights is available as part of our SmartCheck Premium package for $40, and also comes with a credit report, criminal report, eviction report, ResidentScore, and leasing recommendation. Income Insights cannot be purchased as a stand-alone report.
Yes, Income Insights uses credit report behavior to estimate an applicant's total income. Therefore, non-work sources of income such as retirement distributions, pensions, social security, and alimony should be reflected in the results.
Renter Income Insights Faq's
Income Insights uses historical credit data to estimate income. Any significant and very recent income changes may not be immediately reflected.
You may dispute items within your credit report that are used as inputs by the model. You can follow the standard credit reporting dispute process if you feel items within your credit report are incorrect.
Income Insights relies on a statistical model that analyzes your credit data. Using credit report information about your spending and payment behavior, the model is able to estimate your annual income.
Yes, Income Insights uses behavior found in credit data to estimate your total income. Therefore, non-work sources of income such as retirement distributions, pensions, social security, and alimony should be reflected in the results.
We would be happy to provide you with a copy of the Income Insights report returned to the landlord. Please contact customer support for a copy of your reports at 1-866-775-0961.
Income Insights cannot be used as a reason for declining an applicant. It can only be used to determine whether or not the landlord requires additional proof of income.


text: World renowned since 1849, Wissotzky tea offers a tempting selection of 32 assorted teas. Each tea is made from a unique blend passed down from generation to generation. This unique set includes 4 delicious flavors, each individually packaged in it's own colorful tea bag and held in a beautiful wooden-hinged box.


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Two new Ferrari stores in Madrid
Maranello, 30 May – Two new Ferrari sales outlets will be opened in Madrid tomorrow: the first is at Calle Serrano 6, the city's main shopping thoroughfare and the second is located inside El Corte Inglأ¨s at Plaza Del Callao 2.
It is a double tribute to the spirit and history of the Maranello marque, within which the entire range of Prancing Horse products will be on show.
Official ambassadors for the inauguration of the Store in Calle Serrano will be the drivers Fernando Alonso and Marc Gene, who after cutting the ribbon will be on hand to greet and meet customers and Prancing Horse fans.
At the end of the ceremony, Marc Gene will also drive a Ferrari 458 Spider as a course car for a parade of 20 Ferrari cars and their owners which will travel from the Calle Serrano Store, across the city and on to the Plaza del Callao, for the official opening of the sales point inside El Corte Ingles.


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UV curing
Within SCHURTER we use the most secure way of curing materials (e.g. the printing ink, bonding and sealing materials). This method will provide you with benefits such as high reliability and reduction of process times. It is therefore a cost effective method.
Ultraviolet curing is a fast photochemical process in which high intensity ultraviolet light creates a photochemical reaction that instantly cures inks, adhesives and coatings. This UV curing technology is used in many applications and products, offering a wide range in automated printing and adhesive production processes.
Advantages of UV curing
The advantage of UV curing within printing- and adhesion processes lie in the speed at which the products can be ready for shipping. In addition to speeding up production, this also can reduce flaws and errors, as the amount of time that dust, flies or any airborne object has to settle upon the object is reduced. This leads decisively to a higher quality of the products.
The other obvious benefit is that manufacturers can devote less space to finishing items, since they don't have to wait for them to dry. This creates an efficiency that runs throughout the entire manufacturing process.
UV curing offers many benefits. Below you'll find additional information on some of the most significant ones.
• Inks and adhesives with highly improved physical properties.
• Faster production rate and therefore higher capacity
• Enhanced yield and reduced scrap
• Hugely reduced set-up/clean-up labour costs
• Reduction of Work-in-process
• Environmentally friendly – energy savings, no emissions controls
• Less floor space needed
SCHURTER applies the UV curing technology for reliable printing processes as well as for different adhesive- and bonding- processes which offer a fast and high quality production cycle.
Our other features
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According to information from the Humboldt County Public Information Office, dated Oct. 4, 2012:
The County of Humboldt is asking property owners to wait until they receive their corrected yellow tax bill to pay their taxes. Due to an error, property tax bills with incorrect information were sent out last week. Therefore, the corrected yellow versions will be mailed out by the end of this month. The original tax bills display incorrect rates for school bonds, and the new bills correct that error. The County anticipates that the difference between the two bills will be very small in the vast majority of these cases. But as required by law the County must ensure accuracy in all tax bills sent to property owners. These corrected bills satisfy that requirement.
Any payments already made toward your 2012-2013 year will be accepted. If you have already made both installment payments, and the corrected amount is less than what you have already paid, a refund will be mailed to you. If you have paid the first installment only, and the corrected amount is different than what you have already paid, your second installment will be adjusted accordingly. If you have not yet sent in any payments for this year, please wait until you receive your corrected tax bill to begin payment.
Due dates have not and will not change. They remain the same as previous years. The due date will continue to be Nov. 1, 2012 and payments received, or postmarked, after Dec. 10, 2012 will be considered delinquent. ŌĆ£We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused Humboldt County taxpayers. We are moving as quickly as possible to correct the situation and to ensure this does not happen again,ŌĆØ said Auditor-Controller Joe Mellett. ŌĆ£Customer service and being easy to do business with remain our top priorities.ŌĆØ


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DIAMOND BAR >> Residents of Southern California staying home tonight will have to celebrate New Year's Eve without a fire in their fireplace.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District prohibits residents in the metropolitan (i.e. smoggy) areas of the air basin from burning wood or manufactured fire logs until after midnight tonight.
The "no burn alert" is not expected to continue into Wednesday because atmospheric conditions that can trap wood smoke particles are improving, said Sam Atwood, SCAQMD spokesman.
But those conditions may change later in the week, he added.
When a no-burn alert is called, fireplace fires are disallowed. The prohibition does not apply to mountain communities above 3,000 feet in elevation, the Coachella Valley and the high desert. Also, households that rely on wood as a sole source of heat and are without natural gas service are exempt, according to the Diamond Bar-based anti-smog agency.
No-burn alerts are called from Nov. 1 to the end of February when meteorologists predict air quality will contain elevated levels of particulates, known as PM2.5, a pollutant linked to increased emergency room visits, heart attacks and even deaths.
To find out exactly what areas are prohibited from fireplace fires, enter your ZIP code into the air agency's website at www.aqmd.gov or call the 24-hour hotline at 866-966-3293.


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Convictions Surge for Illegal Immigrants Who Try to Return to U.S.
The Number Rose 28-fold in Two Decades, New Study Shows
Undocumented immigrants convicted of unlawfully re-entering the U.S. are driving growth in the number of people overall who are sentenced in federal court, a new study shows.
From 1992 through 2012, the number of unlawful re-entry convictions rose 28-fold, to 19,463 in 2012, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, the number of offenders of all sorts sentenced in federal courts more than doubled to 75,867 over those two decades....