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About 10 juniors and seniors sit in Joyce Randolph's history class at Wendell Phillips Academy, a predominantly black high school on Chicago's south side, wrestling with a question they have focused on for weeks. Just how revolutionary was the American Revolution?
Ms. Randolph, an animated teacher who doesn't brook lethargy in her class, pushes the students to elaborate.
"Give it to me in your own words," she exhorts. At this point, she isn't looking for answers as much as wanting to make sure they understand what she's asking.
"How can we write an essay if we don't understand the question?"
Finally she gets a response from one young man: "Did the Revolution bring about significant change?"
"Awesome!" says Ms. Randolph, as she points to another student. "Curtis, what does 'significant' mean?"
She's met with a blank stare. Silence.
It's one of the dilemmas for many of the new teachers at Phillips, brought in a year ago to try to turn around this chronically failing high school. They are determined to do higher-level work with their students but often run up against basic vocabulary and reading-comprehension challenges. At the beginning of the year, 27 percent of the freshmen at Phillips read at a third grade level or lower.
What's going on in the classrooms of this inner-city high school is part of one of the toughest – and most important – experiments in American education today.
Across the country, a new movement is taking root, backed by the Obama administration, that is trying bold and controversial new methods – a kind of shock therapy – to fix the nation's worst schools. These are the bottom 5 percent, the roughly 5,000 public schools that chronically underperform and that, in many cases, society has given up on.
They are the schools that produce the worst test scores, suffer the worst dropout rates, yield some of the worst violence in the hallways.
Turning them around could help save successive generations of kids who quit and often end up jobless, mired in poverty, or worse. It could also dramatically improve the nation's educational performance.
Experts say that fixing even a fraction of these schools would lift the nation's test scores and education rankings, since the bottom-tier schools so depress overall performance.
Yet achieving this won't be easy. These schools have resisted the best intentions and ideas of educational gurus for decades. Now comes a new effort, led by President Obama's reform-minded secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who vows to turn around 1,000 of the schools over the next five years.
He's putting $4 billion of federal money into the quest, and the methods his department is backing aren't incremental. They range from revamping a school from scratch, with virtually all new teachers, to installing a new principal who will carry out major reforms.
It's an ambitious goal – and a risky one. The record on dramatically improving the worst-performing schools in the country that, like Phillips, seem mired in failure is dismal: One recent study put the success rate at about 1 percent.
It's also controversial. Teacher unions and those on the left worry about replacing most of a school's staff. Many on the right see it as a waste of taxpayer money for something that won't work anyway.
But advocates argue that there's no choice without giving up on the futures of a large chunk of the nation's students. And they claim that done right, turnarounds have a far better chance of succeeding than the record would indicate.
"It hasn't been done in this kind of thoughtful, comprehensive way in the past," says Mr. Duncan. "It's some of the hardest, most difficult work there is, but it's absolutely critical that we engage in this work. If we don't, we perpetuate failures."
* * *
Phillips Academy occupies an impressive building, with an ornate facade and marble columns, in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. It also has a substantial pedigree. Named after abolitionist Wendell Phillips, it became the first predominantly black high school in Chicago, in the 1920s, and boasts an alumni roster of notable African-Americans: among them, singers Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke, as well as poet Gwendolyn Brooks.
It once produced a skilled group of basketball players who formed the nucleus of what would later become the Harlem Globetrotters.
But for the past few decades, Phillips Academy has been more known in Chicago for something else: failure. Last year, the school was the second-worst performing high school in Illinois. Less than 5 percent of its students met state academic standards. It had an 49 percent dropout rate. Fights regularly broke out after school in the neighborhood, and parents did whatever they could to keep their children out of Phillips Academy.
So in mid 2010 the Chicago Public Schools, working with a local nonprofit group, the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL), got approval for federal funds to make Phillips a turnaround project. The Department of Education (ED) agreed to give the school roughly $5 million in grants over the next five years.
Under the DOE's School Improvement Grants (SIG) program, districts seeking federal money to revive a school must choose from four options: school closure (while ensuring that former students attend a better school nearby); restart, in which a school is usually taken over by a charter operator; "turnaround," in which the principal and at least half the staff is replaced; and "transformation," in which the principal is replaced and a number of major reforms implemented. Technically, Phillips is using the restart model.
For AUSL, the school represented a new challenge. The group had been turning around failing schools in Chicago for the past five years, some with striking success. Howe School of Excellence (a K-8 school), for instance, raised the percentage of students meeting state standards from 43 percent to 67 percent in just two years.
But most of AUSL's projects are elementary schools. Phillips was a high school, and, by all accounts, high schools are the toughest to change. Kids come in already many years behind in learning. Behaviors are entrenched. The schools are large, and communication is often lacking among teachers across subject areas and grades.
To oversee the school, AUSL brought in one of its most successful school-turnaround administrators, Terrance Little, as principal. A cool-headed manager who banters easily with staff and students, Mr. Little certainly knew the challenge he would be facing: He grew up on the gritty streets of Chicago and attended a poor high school himself that was shut down. To this day, he lives in the same neighborhood as most of his students.
"I thought I was an intelligent kid until I got to college," says Little, recalling what it was like to be challenged academically for the first time.
His approach in the hallways and from behind his desk is decidedly no-nonsense. Though not physically imposing, he is not the sort of person students question. At Phillips, Little's word is law.
As part of the transition to the new school, Chicago school officials dismissed all the Phillips teachers. Little hired back only two of the original faculty, both ROTC instructors. He also mandated the wearing of uniforms – navy blue pants for both boys and girls, and shirts color-coded by grade.
On top of that, he instituted a dress code – no shirt, for instance, could be untucked. Students had to wear visible ID tags, and carry clear backpacks so security guards could see what was inside them.
Little altered the schedule to keep freshmen at school an extra hour each day, and instituted a tougher grading scale. He enforced a zero-tolerance policy on discipline. He removed iron gates in the stairwells that he thought made the school feel like a prison. "If students come back, and it looks like it did when they left, then right there you've started off on the wrong foot," says Mr. Little.
His by-the-book approach was perhaps not surprising, given what Little saw when he visited Phillips last year. He describes it as a "zoo." Students were spending more time in hallways than in classrooms, and when they were in class, chaos reigned.
"There was food fighting in the cafeterias, and kids were always fighting in the hallways," recalls Eric Darko, a soft-spoken senior from Ghana, as he builds a complex tower after school for a Science Olympiad. "It was horrible bad. We didn't learn anything." This year, he says, things are better. "The teachers are always on time and on track."
AUSL puts its teachers through a yearlong residency program or offers other specialized training. As a result, all the teachers at Phillips have signed on to a certain curriculum and follow common practices in the classroom. A note on the wall or chalkboard of every class lists the agenda and objectives for the day.
"Do now" items get students busy as soon as they enter the room. Students get an "exit slip" on the way out, in which they are queried about how well they understood the material. The idea is to make sure students know some things will be the same, no matter what class they're in.
"The 'Do Nows,' the agendas, the exit slips – it's all a great format," says Pete Retsos, a sophomore history teacher who left a job at one of Chicago's most prestigious private schools to work at Phillips. He also likes the school's approach to discipline, in which teachers simply send students who break the rules to the dean. It frees up teachers to just teach. "In a conventional [Chicago public] school, the teacher has to deal with a lot of behavior problems," says Mr. Retsos. "Students rule the classroom in a lot of Chicago schools."
Instructors at Phillips are adamant about not teaching to low expectations. In her class, Randolph uses a "document-based questions" curriculum, which asks students to examine historical papers for evidence. Originally designed for Advanced Placement students, it is a rigorous program that she believes pushes them to think critically. On the other hand, she notes, her class is still on the American Revolution in February, and they've been working with the same question for weeks.
"They have severe deficiencies, but that doesn't mean you stop challenging them or asking them to do what high school students should do," she says. "I'm giving up the idea that they'll know US history really really well, but hoping they'll be critical thinkers and have reading comprehension."
* * *
Though turnarounds have been going on in some form for years, the idea first catapulted to national attention a year ago, when the school board in Central Falls, R.I., announced it was going to dismiss the entire faculty at the local high school as part of a plan to revive the failing school. Teachers and many others across the country were outraged, union members and students held rallies, and the district ultimately reversed its decision. It agreed to keep the teachers on staff in exchange for changes, including longer days, a new evaluation system, and targeted professional development.
While the board's capitulation on firings seemed to represent a public victory for teachers' unions, the turnaround movement has only accelerated since then. Some 850 schools received federal SIG money last year. Even though the majority (about 70 percent) have opted for the least restrictive "transformation" model, some 20 percent are going with the "turnaround" approach, in which most of the staff is replaced. The remaining 10 percent are restarts and closures.
None of the turnaround initiatives has caused the kind of furor that Central Falls did. In December, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union, even appeared with Duncan in support of a turnaround school in Prince George's County, Md., that was replacing much of its staff.
Still, Mr. Van Roekel emphasizes that the turnaround model in general is one he opposes as harmful to both students and teachers (in the case of the Maryland middle school, the district had worked with the local union in formulating the plan).
"I don't think the research shows that when you take adults out who are part of what gives these kids continuity in their lives – I don't think this works," he says. "Yes, the culture has to change, but I believe the way you change the culture in the building is by bringing the people together to say what is it that we want. Culture can't be shifted from the outside."
No issue involving turnaround schools is more divisive than what to do with the existing teachers. Many turnaround experts – and a number of principals – argue that without replacing the staff, it is impossible to achieve the radical change that's necessary, or to get the adults to embrace it.
Unions and others say such wholesale turnovers often do away with the people who know the kids best, including many who are outstanding teachers. They argue that outside the big urban districts, it's simply not possible or practical to change the teaching staff. Parents, in particular, are often outraged to see teachers they love lose their jobs. Besides, some schools have managed to improve without replacing staff.
Little knows all the arguments. He faced intense opposition from the parents of Phillips students, some of whom were particularly outraged that many of the teachers losing their jobs were African-American and many of their replacements weren't.
"People said, 'You're firing these people?' But it ain't about the adults. School is about the kids," says Little. "If you bring too many people back, then it's not a turnaround. It's very difficult when you have a big mess to sort through to find the star. And the time and energy you'll put into that, and then you make a wrong choice? It can be disastrous.... We already have to break the mentality of the students. It's difficult if I have to break the mentality of teachers and students."
Still, when teachers are moved out, the process can be complicated as well as controversial. In Chicago, tenured teachers let go at a turnaround school have one year to find another job – about 70 percent of them do so – but in some districts, they're just reassigned to other schools. (The lack of job protection is one reason turnarounds in general, and AUSL in particular, are highly unpopular with the local union in Chicago, even though teachers at Phillips are unionized.)
And if there's no pipeline to bring in outstanding new teachers and principals, any effort to do turnarounds on a large scale is likely to either drain good teachers from other schools or simply run up against a paucity of qualified people. A recent analysis by The New York Times found that among eight states that accounted for more than 300 of the federal turnaround schools this year, an average of 44 percent retained their principal from the previous year.
The SIG guidelines allow schools to keep principals if they were hired within the past three years, but the data seemed to suggest a lack of talent available, at least at the administrative level.
"Part of it has to be making the tide bigger and investing in the training of teachers," says Timothy Cawley, a senior manager at AUSL. "If you're just rearranging the chairs, it doesn't make sense."
Mr. Cawley believes the model that AUSL has created is ideal. Its teacher residency program benefits by ensuring that teachers go to high-needs schools, where they serve with other teachers who share their approach. They continue to work closely with AUSL coaches. The schools benefit because they don't need to recruit so many teachers, who in turn embrace what the principal is doing. "It gets off to a faster start," says Cawley.
More programs are springing up to train staff to handle troubled schools, including one at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, which helps experienced principals get the skills they're likely to need to run a turnaround project.
Another group, New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), headquartered in New York, is focused on building what is essentially a national bullpen of turnaround specialists. The group has trained 400 principals for high-poverty schools since 2006, but plans to develop some 2,000 leaders over the next four years, according to Jean Desravines, the NLNS director.
Some cities are looking for inventive ways to entice existing "stars" to work in failing schools. In 2008, Peter Gorman, superintendent of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., school district, held a competition to determine the most effective local principals. Then he offered the winners the chance to work at one of the worst schools in the district.
In exchange, the principals would get a raise, freedom from many district rules, and the ability to bring in eight people and transfer out five others. Every principal accepted his offer.
One school, Sterling Elementary, reported a 14-point jump in reading scores and a 24-point increase in math scores in the first year. Still, just two of the seven original schools targeted in the initiative have seen a significant impact on student achievement.
"He's the first superintendent I've worked under who has really cared about high-poverty schools," says Nancy Guzman, Sterling's principal.
* * *
At Phillips, the most persistent critics of the attempt to improve student learning are ... the students themselves. Many of them don't like the strict new rules – the uniforms, the dress code, the ban on gum, the restrictions on cellphone use.
"You can't be your own individual without your own clothes," complains Keyairra Lyda, wearing the powder-blue shirt that shows she's a sophomore.
"Some of this stuff is from grammar school," says Bruce Montgomery, a junior who particularly hates tucking his shirt in – right before he gets sent to the dean for being in the auditorium when he's supposed to be in class.
As far as Little is concerned, the students can complain all they want. "What they say and what they do are two different things," he says. "They can be upset, but when I see them acting differently, that's the most important part."
In the first two months of the school year, suspensions were way up, as students adjusted to a new zero-tolerance policy for such things as fighting and to the elimination of in-school suspensions (in which students were sent to a room as a disciplinary measure instead of being expelled, as they are now). But at 20 weeks into the school calendar, there were 135 suspensions, compared with 217 last year.
Students – and their parents – also complain heavily about the new grading scale, which they say is too hard. "I used to be an AP student on the honor roll, and now I've got an F," says Tyrice McClaren, who is eating an unappetizing looking chicken sandwich from the cafeteria.
But Little says when he saw students with a 3.7 GPA scoring 14 on the ACT (an abysmal score on the college entrance exam's 36-point scale), he knew that grades had little correlation with what students were learning. And while some students are vocal in their complaints, a number of others say they really do see a big difference – and are learning a lot more.
"It's too strict, but I like the education," says Ronald Kyle, a junior who's started playing the snare drum in the band. "If you don't understand, you ask the teachers a question. Last year, if you missed it, they wouldn't go over it again."
His friend Tyree Valentine, who says he was so angry initially that he wanted to transfer, agrees. "I'm learning," he says.
* * *
Between 1997 and 2009, Markham Middle School in Los Angeles went through a series of targeted efforts designed to turn around the school, first initiated by the State of California and later through the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
It changed curricula and teaching formats, hired new principals and teachers. Yet in 2009, at the end of all the reforms, just 3 percent of the students scored at the proficient level in math, and 11 percent in English.
"Changing that long-run history is really hard," says Robert Manwaring, a consultant who last year wrote a study on turnarounds that highlighted Markham for the think tank Education Sector .
Countless other examples exist across the country – evidence to critics that chronically poor schools rarely improve. While unions and others on the left attack the turnaround movement for laying off teachers and ignoring broader factors in poor achievement, like poverty, some on the right simply see it as throwing money after a lost cause.
Last year, a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute found that, of 2,000 bottom-tier schools it examined in 10 states over five years, only about 1 percent truly turned around (defined by the study as climbing from the bottom 10 percent to above the state's average). A few more schools – less than 10 percent – achieved modest improvement.
"The thinking is that we have to do something, so we'll throw some money and more requirements [at the schools] and see what happens, but I don't think we should be optimistic," says Michael Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at Fordham. "If we're honest, we'll say that nobody knows how to turn low-performing schools into high-performing schools [at a systematic level], and there is little reason to believe that this latest federal effort will change that equation."
The most typical answer to that argument is: OK, then what do we do? Just give up on failing schools and the students who attend them? Close them down? Closing schools isn't an option in many districts because no better ones exist for students to attend. Another possible solution – dispersing high-poverty, high-minority populations across the district – isn't easy either. While there's evidence it can help students academically, busing is a political and logistical nightmare.
"We're choosing between a bunch of bad options," acknowledges Mr. Petrilli.
Some argue the problem isn't that there aren't remedies for bad schools. It's that the remedies most people try aren't dramatic enough. "Many of these schools have really been focused on marginal change," says Mr. Manwaring. "As a result, they've gotten marginal changes in outcomes, if any."
To improve the chances of a turnaround, Mass Insight Education, a nonprofit group in Boston, says its research suggests several elements are important: picking the right moment to take over a school; making teachers and others connected with it reapply for their jobs; and freeing the staff from collective-bargaining agreements and restrictions on hiring, firing, and curriculum.
While those may be unpopular moves in some quarters, Justin Cohen, head of Mass Insight's School Turnaround Group, believes wholesale change offers the best chance of success. His biggest worry about the new federal push is that too many of the attempted turnarounds will fail – due in part to what he calls "light-touch" reforms.
Nor can schools be fixed by simply plugging in some magic formula. What works in one location doesn't necessarily translate to another. Experts say people are the key to success and that includes more than good administrators and teachers: It also means organizational support from the district or an outside group like AUSL.
Yet the benefits of doing it right can be huge. "I don't think there's any more powerful story for the potential of education change than school turnarounds," says Mr. Cohen.
* * *
Last fall at Phillips, Little was struggling with how to deal with a junior named Dimples. For the first two months, he estimates, she might have been in school four days. She'd come, curse at everyone, get sent home for a 10-day suspension, and then repeat the process all over again.
In November, he noticed she'd been in school for two straight weeks and called her in to talk, wondering what had happened. Dimples said she was starting a petition because she didn't like the way the school was being run under the new rules.
"Great!" he told her, finding her plan infinitely more productive than the earlier behavior. A few days later, when he asked how the petition was going, Dimples said she had thrown it away. After being in school for a few weeks, she decided she liked it. She hasn't been suspended since. She has participated in extracurricular activities for the first time and is now one of the school's best bowlers.
For Little, Dimples illustrates the struggles, but also the signs of success. "All it took was to get her engaged," he says. "She lost all that instructional time during the first two months of school, but now we've got her rolling, and she's running."
Phillips is about six months into its first year as a turnaround school – too soon to pronounce it a success or failure. But at least some signs are encouraging. In a variety of classes, students all appear attentive and engaged, no matter how much they may struggle with the lesson material. Few disruptions break out in the hallways between classes.
Attendance is up 15 percentage points from last year (though at 69 percent, it could certainly improve more). Students – drawn in by the freshmen, who now have to take part in after-school activities like band or sports for their physical education credit – are starting to participate again. The band played in three city parades this year, and Phillips fielded a debate team for the first time in a decade.
The results of the big annual tests and ACTs, which take place this month, won't be known for some time. But students seem to be learning. They took an exam at the beginning of the year and then again four months later, at Christmas, and, according to Little, had made nine months' progress.
The principal's tough new grading system, in which anything below 75 is an F, points to improvements, too. After the first five weeks, teachers had handed out a failing grade to all but 31 of the 650 students in the school. By the 20-week mark, 196 were without an F.
"We've affected a third of our population," says Little. "The goal is to get to two-thirds by the end of the year."
If the indefatigable Little and the teachers at Phillips can succeed, especially with a high school, they'll be defying academic gravity. Even the most optimistic turnaround advocates suggest that if all goes well with this latest federal initiative, a fraction of the schools might actually achieve their goal.
"It's the right mission for the country, both educationally and morally," says Timothy Knowles, director of the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute, who believes a 30 percent success rate would be a remarkable achievement. "But we need to temper our exuberance."


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subset: commoncrawl


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As warp-speed broadband becomes universal and old-media hurtles towards a messy digital apocalypse, few job titles seem less tenable than 'music journalist'. The reasons for this have flooded Twitter streams for months now, so let's put aside the active-consumerism filler about how even Grandad's got himself a wonkstep Tumblr and instead focus on Hercules & Love Affair's new video 'My House'.
This video, much like the accompanying music, provides a fresh way of negating the need for critical analysis by emulating MTV Grind circa 1992 so accurately that only a Simon Reynolds-level acid-anthropologist could tell the difference. It's certainly a remarkable feat, but as with the majority of Blue Songs it's so overtly referential that your enjoyment hinges precariously on just one question: do you have a tremendous predilection for full-body jackin' acid-squelching diva-house?
You see, Blue Songs does not share the same sumptuous, elegiac quality which propelled HLA's debut album and lead single 'Blind' to such swirling disco heights back in 2008. Indeed, Antony Hegarty is not involved at all this time round. Instead, Herc' main man Andy Butler adds to his Love Affair troupe (Kim Ann Foxman and Aerea Negrot – both mainstays of their live show) by roping in help from the likes of techno-whizz Patrick Pulsinger, fan-turned-contributor Shaun Wright and even * gasp * KELE OKEREKE. The result is a nostalgia-trip of a record which serves as a tribute to Butler's adolescent tastes rather than a signpost towards the future.
Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing if you were raised in Studio 54-era New York and possess an ear as finely-tuned as Andy Butler. Much like his ex-DFA colleagues (Maclean, Murphy et al) he's always shown an enormous ability to channel the glitterball-haze of discos gone by with every TR-909 beat. Accordingly then, this album is a faithful voyage through disco and house memories, largely bypassing the soulful warmth of songs like 'Hercules Theme' and 'Athene' in favour of a sound far more reminiscent of the synthetic bleeps n' glitches of late Eighties and early Nineties house.
'I Can't Wait', for example, takes a warped minimal groove detuned to the point of self-destruction and combines it with female vocals that stretch towards euphoria before being dragged back into a tangle of mutated-loops. It's fantastic, following a similar recipe to last album's 'Raise Me Up' in stirring together equal parts joy and melancholy to create a compelling cocktail of emotion. Similarly opener 'Painted Eyes' begins with familiar oc-tave oc-tave bassline and doleful vocals before pinning you to the dancefloor in a flurry of technicolour strings.
Blue Songs may indeed be celebratory and nostalgic, but you can't help but wonder if Butler is held back by his own self-imposed conventions. 'Visitor' for example may or not be simply incidental music cut directly from the 1993 Clothes Show. 'Falling' is as generic as its title suggests, whilst 'Step Up' could be pulled directly from an early Nineties acid-mixtape. Oh, except its got Kele Okereke singing on it. And you know, it's alright! His resonant, emotive voice is deployed to good effect here, perhaps he'll shake that 'I'm still Kele from the Bloc' tag after all eh?
In all, it's hard to have any real gripes with Butler's talent as a producer, DJ or songwriter. In a recent Guardian interview he states how he wrote the gently wistful 'Boy Blue' as a paean to Sinead O' Connor aged only 15. Thing is, with this level of ability you might yearn for his maverick talent to veer off in an altogether weirder direction than Blue Songs manages. I remember once reading an interview with James Murphy where he states his favourite heckle is to yell 'Oh I have this record too!' at the hapless band. You may find yourself playing a similar game of vinyl-bingo here, most obviously on closing song 'It's Alright', a toned-down and somewhat questionable version of an old Sterling Void 12-inch.
Ultimately, it's an enjoyable record, but one that's more likely to point you in the direction of their original influences than achieve notability in its own right. Failing that, you could always stick on 'Blind.'
7Hayden Woolley's Score


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This site is dedicated to crocheting and beginner crochet patterns. I have a great selection of easy crochet patterns - I do not believe in complicated stuff. You do not need to spend your time translating those complicated abbreviations into a human language - you'd better spend this time on your project. :) I use only the basic crochet stitches in my free crochet patterns: chain, slip stitch, single crochet stitch and double crochet stitch (sometimes I use treble crochet stitch). You can do so many wonderful things using only those basic crochet stitches! This is more than enough for a successful project and nothing is more complicated than beginner / intermediate level.
How To Make a Tutu - quick and easy no sew tutu DIY instructions!
Chicken Hat - Great for Easter, Halloween and just a cute beanie for both boys and girls!
Crochet Gift Basket - for Valentine Gifts and any other occasions!
Bunny Hat - great Easter project for a beginner/intermediate level!
Why my crochet patterns are easy? I included a lot of pictures of every step along with explanations in plain English, not just abbreviations - you should have no problems even if you are a total beginner trying out the intermediate stuff. :) Every step accompanied with a photo so you can always check what you are doing and if needed, correct yourself before it's too late. :)
Creating new crochet patterns is my passion and over the years i've created so many of them - i just need to share them :) I am posting my free crochet patterns for everything almost daily, and I am selling beginner crochet patterns as well: I have a successful ETSY shop for crochet patterns - you can find great deals and check my credentials and feedback there :)
It is so easy to crochet a hat! Much easier than to knit one! I have tons of free crochet hat patterns, most of them are for beginners, with a lot of pictures of every step. :)
I add new free crochet patterns regularly. :) Subscribe to my site to receive updates on my just-off-the-hook beginner crochet patterns (Orange button at the top left corner of this page).
Can't find the pattern for the hat you are looking for? Create your own one! Here is the beginner crochet tutorial: how to crochet any hat, in any of these styles, in any size you want - you will need only one measurement, the head circumference. It's simple and easy. You can make any hat using this tutorial!
How To Crochet A Hat - Any Style - Any Size
Need some decorations ? :) I have fun and easy free crochet patterns for applique and flowers.
Use your creativity! Unleash your imagination and create your own masterpiece! Have a fun decorating different styles of crochet hats and baby blankets with crochet flowers and appliques . Make a flower headbands and hairpins! Make crochet jewelry and accessories! I have tons of free crochet applique patterns and free crochet flower patterns.
Here is my prized and ever-growing collection of crochet flower patterns. I have so many of them, and I am constantly adding more and more. That's why I separated crochet flower patterns from other crochet applique patterns :) One-tier or flat crochet flowers, 3D or 3-dimencional crochet flowers - multilayered ones... Crochet flower patterns for baby headbands, for baby hats, for hair and clothes accessories, for brooches, for home decor - you can use them everywhere! :)
One layer crochet flower patterns:
Crochet Applique Patterns
Crochet applique is a great way to "beautify" any project and add a personal touch to it. Here you can find many crochet applique patterns for almost anything for every occasion: seasonal holidays, nature, ornaments. The new crochet patterns are being added constantly - keep checking this page! :)
Too busy to crochet and need baby shower gift or baby photo prop for the baby announcement pictures ASAP? Check this ETSY shop, Babies Bugs and Bees for cute and unique crocheted baby hats - here are some of the bestsellers!
Free Crochet BAGS AND PURSES Patterns
Beginner crochet patterns for bags, purses, clutches.
Free Crochet Jewelry Patterns:
Here is some basic info about the crocheting: all you need to know about crochet basic stitches, description with pictures just in case you need to learn or review them.
Basic crochet stitches tutorials inclides topics:
You also need to know how to increase stitches and decrease stitches. That's it and you wouldn't believe how far you can go with only these few simple stitches! :) Some advanced and complicated stuff you will master later J
Crochet Yarn and Crochet Hooks.
Get your crochet supplies together!
If you've already mastered your basic stitches and eager to start to crochet - you need to prepare the right supplies for your project. You probably have these questions in mind: (I remember how puzzled was i when i came in the yarn store first time: there was so much stuff i got lost instantly).
1. How to choose the right thickness of the yarn - yarn weight and the crochet hook? There are 6 weight categories of yarn in USA:
You can find a corresponding table of yarn weight, gauge and recommended crochet hook sizes here.
2. How to choose the right yarn content for your project? What are the pros and the contras for the acrylic, wool, cotton, bamboo and when to use them?
2. What is the gauge? How to use it? A simple and easy-to-make device will help you! I covered this topic here.
3. What is a stitch marker and how and when to use it?
And finally - on page I Recommend I shared my favorite online yarn and crochet supplies stores with reviews.


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There are approximately 440 species of Butterfly in Europe and North Africa. I have seen but a small part of them but hope eventually to come across most of them and perhaps include them in these pages, currently there are about 270 species included.
Limenitis reducta
Regional Information: Possible destinations within Europe for seeing butterflies. Now including checklists for all European countries.
UK Information: Detailed UK specific information, including flight times and 244 places to see wild butterflies.
Identification: A key for species identification, about half way through, an ongoing project, comments please!
Life-Cycle: Detailing the remarkable change from egg through to adult.
Photography: Some ideas on equipment and technique for capturing butterflies on film.
Survival: Butterfly predators, how butterflies elude capture and habitat preferences.
General Information: What makes a butterfly, classification, numbers of species, a glossary, species checklists and other areas of interest.
Tropical: Tropical species pictured during a trip to Venezuela and in UK butterfly farms.
Bibliography: A selection of field guides and other books on Butterfly related topics.
Links: Hand-picked butterfly and general nature links.
Comments/Contact: Suggest changes and improvements to the site.
News: What has been updated or added lately.
Search: Search the site, or the web.
Index: An systematic list of the species in these pages.
Site Map: A more detailed contents of the site.
Polygonia c-album
|I get a small commission for books sold through these links.
|David Attenborough DVDs from Amazon.co.uk (or .com)
|Est. January 1997
last updated :
Donnerstag September 30, 2010
Visitors since 31 August 1998


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Mark's Windows Internals Session at the Professional Developer's Conference, Part 1 Mark's Windows Internals Session at the Professional Developer's Conference, Part 2: Mark dives deep to cover Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 kernel changes in his top-rated session from PDC 2009. VMMap v2.5: This update to VMMap, a process memory analysis utility, now…
Year: 2009
Updates: Disk2vhd v1.3, Sigcheck v1.61, Process Monitor v2.8, LiveKd v3.12 and a new Mark's blog post
NewSID Retirement and the Machine SID Duplication Myth: Mark's latest blog post debunks the myth that having duplicate machine SIDs causes problems, explaining why the Sysinternals NewSID tool has been retired. Disk2vhd v1.3: This update to Disk2vhd makes more Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 VHDs bootable by updating their MBR and boot sectors…
Updates: Disk2vhd v1.21
Disk2vhd v1.21: The target volume size calculation is now based on the required size of the source volumes instead of the total size.
New Video: Windows 7 General Availability and Mark on Channel 9
Windows 7 General Availability and Mark on Channel 9: Check out Mark's latest Channel 9 interview on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 kernel changes, released today to coincide with Windows 7's general availability. He talks about memory management, process reflection and more, and shows a couple of demos on a 256-processor system.
Updates: Disk2vhd v1.2
Disk2vhd v1.2: This version fixes the space requirement calculation for the volume to which the VHD will be written.
Updates: Disk2vhd v1.1, ZoomIt v4.1, Coreinfo v2.0, VMMap v2.4
Disk2vhd v1.1: Disk2vhd now supports command-line options for automation and fixes a bug that could result in an "invalid user buffer" error during a conversion. ZoomIt v4.1: ZoomIt is a screen magnification and annotation utility that's useful for technical presentations. With this update, you can now easily switch between LiveZoom (supported on Vista and Windows…
Updates: Autoruns v9.56
Autoruns v9.56: This update enables Autoruns to view registry entries that have permissions only allowing the System account access and fixes a bug that caused some rundll32-hosted entries to not display correctly.
New Tool: Disk2vhd v1.0
Disk2vhd v1.0: We're excited to announce a new Sysinternals tool, Disk2vhd, that simplifies the migration of physical systems into virtual machines (p2v). Just run Disk2vhd on the system you want to migrate and specify the volumes for which you want data included, and Disk2vhd creates a consistent point-in-time volume snapshot followed by an export of…
Updates: LiveKd v3.1, BgInfo v4.16, ProcDump v1.6, Autoruns v9.55 | New Marks Blog Post: Pushing the Limits of Windows: Handles | New video: Mark Talks About Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 at Intel Developer Forum
Mark's Blog: Pushing the Limits of Windows: Handles: Mark's latest post in his Pushing the Limits of Windows series goes inside the limits that affect handle usage. He explains the role of handles, describes how the system manages them, and shows you how to identify and debug handle leaks. Mark Talks About Windows 7…
FileMon and Regmon Retired. NewSID End of Life
Filemon and Regmon Retired: As we forwarned, Filemon and Regmon have been retired from the site, since their functionality is subsumed by the much more powerful and scalable Process Monitor utility. NewSID End of Life: NewSID will be retired from Sysinternals on November 2, 2009.


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Stay ahead of the curve by taking the first step towards successfully preparing for the CISM certification exam.
join the CISM Exam Study community
Developed exclusively for CISM exam registrants, this vibrant community allows you to share ideas, experiences, questions and study resources with like-minded professionals.
The CISM study community was created as an additional resource to help exam registrants successfully prepare for the exam. In addition to CISM exam registrants, chapter certification coordinators have also been invited to respond to questions and share their study methods. Community leaders are past top exam scorers that will moderate, facilitate and drive discussion.
The primary focus of this community includes:
Please note, to protect the integrity of the exam, specific discussion about actual exam questions and concepts is not allowed and will be deleted from the site. In addition, the communities will be closed throughout the time the exam is being given.
ISACA certification is one of the toughest and most respected achievements in your field. You can now stand a little taller knowing you have taken the initial steps toward certification.
We invite you to participate and share your questions, study methods and tips and help respond to other community members. Not yet registered for the exam? Register now!


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Paul H. O'Neill
Paul O'Neill
|72nd United States Secretary of the Treasury
|In office
January 20, 2001 – December 31, 2002
|George W. Bush
|Preceded by
|Lawrence Summers
|Succeeded by
|John W. Snow
|Personal details
Paul Henry O'Neill
December 4, 1935
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
|Political party
|Nancy O'Neill
|California State University, Fresno (BA)
Claremont Graduate University
Indiana University Bloomington (MPA)
Paul Henry O'Neill (born December 4, 1935) served as the 72nd United States Secretary of the Treasury for part of President George W. Bush's first term, from January 2001 to December 2002.[1] He was fired in December 2002 for his public disagreement with the administration.[2] Prior to his term as Secretary of the Treasury, O'Neill was chairman and CEO of Pittsburgh-based industrial giant Alcoa and chairman of the RAND Corporation.
Early history[edit]
O'Neill was born in St. Louis, Missouri and currently resides in Pittsburgh. He met his wife at Anchorage High School in Anchorage, Alaska, from which they both graduated in 1954. He lived on the military base there with his parents. He received a bachelor's degree in Economics from California State University, Fresno, studied economics at Claremont Graduate University in 1961, and received a Master of Public Administration from Indiana University. O'Neill and his wife Nancy Jo have four children, 12 grandchildren, and 12 great grandchildren.
He began his public service as a computer systems analyst with the Veterans Administration, where he served from 1961 to 1966. He joined the United States Office of Management and Budget in 1967, and was deputy director of OMB from 1974 to 1977.
Private sector[edit]
After President Gerald Ford lost the 1976 election, O'Neill took an executive job at International Paper in New York City. He was vice president of the company from 1977 to 1985 and president from 1985 to 1987.
In 1989, he was approached by President George H. W. Bush to be Secretary of Defense. O'Neill declined, but recommended Dick Cheney for the position. Bush then pursued O'Neill to chair an advisory group on education that included Lamar Alexander, Bill Brock, and Richard Riley.
O'Neill was chairman and CEO of the Pittsburgh industrial giant Alcoa from 1987 to 1999, and retired as chairman at the end of 2000. At the beginning of his tenure O'Neill encountered significant resistance from the Board of Directors due to his stance on prioritizing worker safety. The company's market value increased from $3 billion in 1986 to $27.53 billion in 2000, while net income increased from $200 million to $1.484 billion.[3]
In 1995, O'Neill was made chairman of the RAND Corporation.
Community service career[edit]
In December 1997, O'Neill together with Karen Wolk Feinstein, President of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, founded the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI).[4] They assembled a wide-ranging coalition of healthcare interests to begin to address the problems of healthcare, as a region. PRHI adapted the principles of the Toyota Production System into the "Perfecting Patient Care" system.[5] O'Neill became a leader locally and nationally in addressing issues of patient safety and quality in healthcare.[6]
O'Neill was also co-leader of Pittsburgh's Riverlife Task Force, along with the editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the time, John G. Craig Jr.
O'Neill is also a member of Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College's Dean's Advisory Council.[7] In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.[8]
Bush Administration[edit]
Ron Suskind interviewed O'Neill extensively about his tenure in the Bush Administration. He was also given access to a large amount of documentation. In 2004 he produced the book The Price of Loyalty, detailing O'Neill's tenure in the Bush Administration.[9] The book describes many of the conflicts that O'Neill had with the Bush administration. The book also details O'Neill's criticisms of some of Bush's economic policies. O'Neill claims that Bush appeared somewhat unquestioning and uncurious, and that the war in Iraq was planned from the first National Security Council meeting, soon after the administration took office. At the first cabinet meeting of the new Bush administration, O'Neill observed that the debate was not "should we attack Iraq?" but rather "how do we go about attacking Iraq?" O'Neill viewed this as a violation of earlier guarantees that (then-presidential candidate) Bush would refrain from nation building endeavors during his time in office.[10][11]
Comments and views[edit]
In an October 16, 2007 Op Ed published in the New York Times, he wrote of the reluctance among politicians to address comprehensive reform in the U.S. health care system. In the opinion, he suggested that doctors and hospitals should be required to report medical errors within 24 hours, as well as moving malpractice suits out of the civil courts and into a new, independent body. He also felt that health care reform had to acknowledge all aspects of the problem, such as insurance coverage, medical costs, quality of care, and information technology.[12]
In April 2016, he was one of eight former Treasury secretaries who called on the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union ahead of the June 2016 Referendum.[13]
- ^ "Paul H. O'Neill (2001 - 2002)". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
- ^ Bush Sought 'Way' To Invade Iraq? Rebecca Leung, 60 Minutes, January 11, 2004
- ^ The Power of Habit: why we do what we do in life and business Charles Duhigg - Random House -(ISBN 978-0812981605) 2012
- ^ "History of Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative". Prhi.org. Retrieved 2016-01-13.
- ^ "Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative: A Systems Approach For Achieving Perfect Patient Care".
- ^ "Paul H. O'Neill - National Patient Safety Foundation".
- ^ "President's Global Advisory Council". Retrieved 2016-01-13.
- ^ "Board Members". Retrieved 2019-10-06.
- ^ The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill (ISBN 0-7432-5545-3) 2004
- ^ Ron Suskind, George W. Bush and the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB Alex Koppelman, Salon, June 20, 2006
- ^ Bush decided to remove Saddam 'on day one' Julian Borger, The Guardian, January 12, 2004
- ^ O'Neill, Paul (October 16, 2007). "OP-ED contributor; A Health Care Bargain". The New York Times.
- ^ "Staying in EU 'best hope' for UK's future say ex-US Treasury secretaries". BBC News. April 20, 2016.
External links[edit]
|Political offices
|Preceded by
Lawrence Summers
| U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Served under: George W. Bush
|Succeeded by
John W. Snow
- 1935 births
- American businesspeople
- George W. Bush administration cabinet members
- 21st-century American politicians
- Living people
- Politicians from St. Louis
- Politicians from Pittsburgh
- RAND Corporation people
- United States Secretaries of the Treasury
- Missouri Republicans
- International Paper
- Claremont Graduate University alumni
- Indiana University alumni
- California State University, Fresno alumni
- Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget


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Let's get serious. This 15-inch satchel is for those who want to carry more. The deeper gusset of this satchel will comfortably fit your standard 14-inch laptop books papers and documents. The front pocket provides more space while allowing you to keep your quick access items separately. This is the satchel for those who usually carry their life around.
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- We hold a rating of 9.8 on Trust Pilot closing in on 10.
Learn all the fine details in our technical specifications and read our complete description to get the full story.


text:
I have so much work backed up and I fear that I will not get everything uploaded that I need to. Let me start by submitting this lesson on "how to draw a cheesecake", step by step. This is going to be a very simple tutorial to follow and just to let you know, the idea to make a lesson based on cheesecake came from my sister. She was eating a slice and said, "You should do a tutorial on a piece of cheesecake", so I did. This is a very cute and fun lesson, so I hope that you will enjoy teaching yourself to make your very own cheesecake even if it's imaginary.
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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Rubes needed a new web page design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 84 designs submitted by 12 freelance designers.
Embody Health Homeopathy requires a web design to inform the public about homeopathic medicine and how it can be beneficial for their health.
I am requiring a Non-coded design... therefore the prize money is for the DESIGN PORTION ONLY.
Embody Health Homeopathy (http://www.embodyhealth.ca)
Embody Health Homeopathy requires a web design to inform patients about their services. This page should include a Bio about the homeopath, A description of what Homeopathy is, How it can help, What to expect, Testimonials, FAQ's, Resources and Links, Locations and Contact info, Consultation fees, and lastly a section on the History and Philosophy of Homeopathic Medicine.
My company services three different communities and thus has three different contacts/locations to serve the public.
The company employs only myself.
I would like this website to be designed to explain to the public what homeopathy is... and how it aims to restore the ENTIRE person to health.
- Item 1... I would like my logo to be present in the design. You can find a copy of the logo at http://senduit.com/9e75d4- I would like the website to be well organized, easy to follow, and eye catching.
- I would like a tag lines such as" Looking at your entire health" and "addressing your whole health" to be present on the site.
- I would like a photo of myself .. next to my bio
- I would like the website to entail a natural and healthy look. This may take the form of using natural images or natural colour schemes..
- BE CREATIVE.... Looking for a Really FRESH design...!!!!!
I WOULD LIKE the website to entail a professional, classy and Fresh look. I DO NOT want it to be tacky or boring.


text:
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Clarification about World of Tanks
First, just to make it clear, each player controls one tank. This is not an RTS so you're not in command of a tank squadron. Your "avatar" is your tank but you can own several tanks in your garage. You can only take one tank out at any one time.
Second, I like the way they implemented dying. After your tank is destroyed, you are out of the game. Here, you have two options. You can either stay in battle until the end and switch your view between the remaining allied tanks by clicking the mouse buttons. Or, you can choose to leave the battle. Leaving the battle is cool when you're not playing with friends because you don't have to waste time until the end. Don't worry though, you won't lose any experience or credits by doing so! The awesome thing is that you can go to your garage, pick another tank and join a new battle while the previous one is still in progress. When each battle is over you will get a summary of the outcome, plus your credit and XP earnings and any metals that you might have earned.
That's all I wanted to say.
18 comments:
Got some spare time to download it... so I'm just starting the install process. I've also started the download of Dungeon Siege III demo (Steam), let's see.
- June 17, 2011 at 5:28 PM
- Darth Solo said...
Gee, didn't know there was a demo out for DS3.
- June 17, 2011 at 6:03 PM
Oh well... it did not work as intended... I really did not like WoT at all. I guess It's not my genere :)
- June 18, 2011 at 2:13 AM
- Darth Solo said...
@Echo awwwww :( this makes me sad.
I really like the game, although some tanks frustrate me but oh well, can't argue with personal taste.
How far did you get? Did you at least earn a tier 2 tank? Tier 1 is very non-interesting but things really start to pick up at tier 2. I'm running a fully upgraded tier 2 German tank and it's more fun (and I get way more kills) than the fully upgraded tier 3 German tank that I also have.
BTW, the company who made WoT are also working on a game called World of Planes which is about WWII planes. That one should prove interesting.
- June 18, 2011 at 12:09 PM
I played 4 hours messing around. Fact is... the game did not catch my attention at all, it happens.
I'm too old I guess. I must feel the love as soon as I start a new game... else I wont keep trying :)
I tried DS3. It seems interesting but the camera system is just horrible (thanks to consoles, again) and very irritating. You move the visual with A and D and the auto-camera is a shi*t.
- June 18, 2011 at 2:32 PM
- Darth Solo said...
I have an aversion for PC games which have console counterparts. That's because I have an aversion for consoles in general. I'm a 100% PC gamer and likely to die that way, unless PC gaming becomes entirely obsolete.
About WoT, I'm not going to push you but I'm just curious what were the things which annoyed you the most. For me it is still fun but there's no denying that it's a grindy game, especially if you're not on a premium account or you don't buy gold.
What annoys me the most is that at certain tiers and with certain classes of vehicles it's hard to do anything before being blasted to pieces by more powerful vehicles. I'm having this problem with a tier 3 light tank which has paper thin armor but pretty soon I can move on to a tier 4 medium tank and hopefully my survival rate will improve. The funny thing is that I'm having loads more fun with a tier 2 light tank than with the tier 3 light tank.
- June 18, 2011 at 2:39 PM
You know what, Darth? I guess I still need swords and maces to have fun :) That's all.
Let me push you one again towards Age of Empires Online. Today is the last day to get your free beta copy (the game will officially launch on 16th of August).
I think you should try it because it's not the typical RTS. Fotget about Starcraft ot complicated stuff and think about a mixture of RTS and RPG with good cartoonesque graphics, items, experience, stuff.
If you got some spare time, test it. You wont be disappointed, really. I already see a Darth post telling people how fun is the game ;)
- June 19, 2011 at 4:04 AM
- Darth Solo said...
Haha I guess you can tie a mace to your turret and swing it around :)
Are you saying that you wouldn't like a SF game? You know, lasers and spaceships? I like both genres but I have to admit, I'm surprised I liked WoT so much, it definitely blindsided me.
I'll give AoEO a try today, although I'm busy with a lot of other stuff but if the free beta expires, I might as well do it now.
Thing is, I'm having too much fun with WoT, so much so that I'm even working on a tank comparison tool over on BankAlt.com. So, yeah, lol.
- June 19, 2011 at 12:24 PM
> you wouldn't like a SF game?
Well, so far EvE Online is the "top of the top" in that sense. And with Encarna incoming in 2 days it will be a blast. So if I ever decide to switch to SF theme, I'll go for the best (EvE) ;)
- June 19, 2011 at 1:35 PM
WoW patch 4.2 is tempting me a little (in a scale from 1 to 10 I'd say 4). New stuff, new areas to explore and hunters got some major changes too.
We'll see, summer is approaching and I'll have some spare time anyway.
Or not?
Or yes?
I hate Blizzard.
- June 20, 2011 at 2:15 AM
- Darth Solo said...
Not me. I'm at a point where I literally get nauseous when I imagine going back to WoW. Same ol', same ol'.
- June 20, 2011 at 7:22 PM
Yeah, I feel the pain. After watching two or three "new" screenshots and items I just puked on th keyboard. I can't believe they're offering the same stuff under a different skin yet-again.
- June 21, 2011 at 1:46 AM
- Darth Solo said...
I'm really wondering if I will ever go back to WoW? What will it take to bring me back? Hard to say. Maybe if they added some tank (panzer) combat haha.
- June 21, 2011 at 7:10 AM
A modern-revamped 3D engine would bring me back with a fresh toon, I am sure of this.
- June 22, 2011 at 1:23 AM
- Darth Solo said...
How about a completely revamped WoW with a new engine, all-new classes, completely reworked talent trees and skills, a game which doesn't change mechanics every couple of major patches? Perhaps ditch some of the cartoony look (though I like it), to cater to a maturing WoW audience.
- June 22, 2011 at 7:10 PM
I'm currently hooked with this one, spotted on Steam:
"Spiral Knights".
+ free to play
+ fun and collaborative (no griefers and stuff)
+ new rpg/actiomn mechanics
+ original world... yes, it's still possible!
+ good cartoonesque/FF-like graphics
+ no char leveling, you level... your gear.
+ addictive but you wont play hours due to mechanics
+ AH, mailbox, trading, etc..
Free on Steam. Ofc you can drop some cash and get stuff faster, as usual.
- June 24, 2011 at 9:11 AM
By "you wont play hours due to mechanics" I mean you cann0t play like 5 hours in a row because the game mechanics require you to spend energy to do things. If you do too much you get starved and need to regen (couple of hours).
Endless farming? No thanks.
- June 24, 2011 at 9:13 AM
- Darth Solo said...
I'll check it out but for now I'm hooked on WoT and not likely to get bored soon.
- June 24, 2011 at 6:48 PM


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Veterans Day: Historic Photos of Colorado Civil War Veterans
Veterans Day originally was called Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I. In 1954, Congress passed legislation designating Nov. 11 as Veterans Day. It became a day to honor veterans of all wars.
When going through our archives to find Veterans Day photos, these Colorado Civil War veterans turned up. All of these men were members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal order that fought for the Union.
The GAR was founded by Benjamin F. Stephenson in 1866. Only those who were honorably discharged and served between April 12, 1861 and April 9, 1865 could be members.


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Certificates of Deposit
Put your money to work earning more for you with a Certificate of Deposit. With competitive rates and a wide range of terms; it's an investment plan that suits your needs and your goals.
Account Features:
- Minimum deposit of $500
- Wide range of terms available - 91 days to 5 years
- Interest compounded daily and paid according to the CD you choose
- Automatic CD renewal*
- Option to withdraw funds at maturity†
View Deposit Agreement
* CD accounts will automatically renew at maturity. You will have 10 calendar days after the maturity date to withdraw funds without penalty. This account will not renew if you withdraw the funds on the maturity date or if we receive written notice from you on or before the maturity date of your intention not to renew.
† You will be notified at maturity; a penalty may be assessed for early withdrawal.


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Out of curiosity, is anyone looking at doing this ride? I'm thinking of signing up for CT if my weekend looks free.
Each year the lives of many of our fellow motorcycle riders and loved ones are cut short. In their memory, a group of the WorldÔÇÖs Toughest Riders will participate in a Saddle Sore 1000 on the same weekend, September 29-30, 2012. We hope to have riders participating in all 50 states, in all of the Canadian provinces, and in several countries around the world. This date was selected because the weather across North America is generally goodÔÇönot too hot and not too cold.
The IBA will issue a special certificate for this event.
To specially honor our fallen brethren, weÔÇÖre asking each you to find one of your motorcycle friends who is not an IBA member to ride the Saddle Sore with you. This will give you the opportunity to mentor the ÔÇÿnewbieÔÇÖ in the skill of route planning, navigation, hydration, and ATGATT before and during the ride. If the two of you ride the same route and submit your documentation together, special pricing will apply for the certificationÔÇöthere will be a $10 reduction for each of you in the normal fee!
The person for whom youÔÇÖre riding does not have to be a former IBA member, or even a former motorcycle rider. It can be anybody that is special to you; somebody that has had an impact on your life.
What better way to honor our departed friends than to bring new members into the sport we all love. This will be a fun event! IBA will issue special certificates for the mentor and the mentee, and a special patch for the event. A video of the event will be produced. A special website will list all the participants and for whom theyÔÇÖre riding. WeÔÇÖre working on other ideas to make this event special.
So reserve the weekend nowÔÇöSeptember 29-30, 2012. Recruit a mentee.
LetÔÇÖs ÔÇÿride the Memorial.ÔÇÖ
Send me an email signing up for the ride, with the name of the special person youÔÇÖre honoring, and a short paragraph of who they were and why youÔÇÖre riding for them.


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Moving more for less
Efficiency is a key ingredient for a successful mining operation and Liebherr combines the proven capabilities of previous models with new features to improve operational efficiency. As a result, Liebherr mining equipment enables customers to enjoy unrivalled performance while reducing everyday costs per tonne.
Advanced features allow the operator to properly match engine and drive system performance to improve fuel economy for the job at hand. Litronic Plus sensors located in all equipment systems enable precise control, to ensure proper power distribution within desired parameters and to maximize efficiency at every stage of the operational cycle.
As the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), Liebherr has full control over the design and quality of our products, which translates into higher output and reduced cost for our customers.


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By Chere Di Boscio
The Queen of Vintage Chanel and Hermes, Paris
"So few people truly understand what I do," sighs Catherine B whilst exhaling yet another cigarette. "This is not a consignment store. This is something different".
That 'something different' is an Aladdin's treasure cave packed with collectable Chanel and Hermes pieces, on which Catherine is an expert. She can tell a real piece from pirated one more so than many retail directors in the fashion houses themselves. "There are many things to watch for," she says. "And some fakes today are good…very good. But I know. I just know".
This savvy collector stocks the most elusive bags, jackets, scarves and shoes from the 30's to the 90's, but not beyond. She's not interested in being a depot for the unwanted bags of fickle rich girls; instead, she sees her shop as half museum, half retail store. "Some people can't understand why I am charging more for a 2.55 bag than the listed price in a Chanel boutique", she continues. "But it is because the 2.55 I am carrying is a one-of-a-kind piece designed by Mademoiselle Chanel herself, that cannot be found anywhere else in the world!"
Indeed, some of her stock is so rare, it isn't even for sale. Take her Chanel bicycle, for instance. One of about a hundred left on the planet, it features two sidesaddle 'handbags' and the signature Chanel quilting not only on the bags, but on the seat as well. She also owns the original Birkin bag from Hermes. It boasts the initials JB and is numbered 0–it being the first. It also features a strap created at Ms Birkin's request: "She wanted to be able to put it on her shoulder while she looked for things inside the bag," explains Catherine.
Her amicable husband assures me that there are many more treasures cached around the store. "She will only show them to people who are truly interested", he tells me. But when Catherine finds those people who share her enthusiasm and love for vintage Chanel and Hermes, it makes her day–even if there's no sale.
Catherine explains she would love to share her enthusiasm for these collectable designer pieces in a modern venue, like Harrods Department store, because she believes the English have a better appreciation for all things vintage than the French, who are more likely to use accessories that were passed down through the generations rather than buying vintage pieces themselves. 'It's all about heritage,' she says.
And we see her as a guardian of an important one: that of France's two biggest luxury designers.
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For thousands of years the San Rafael Swell was the home various groups of indians. In the San Rafael Swell you can pictographs left by the Barrier Canyon group that are dated around 8,000 years old. You can find the remains of pithouses and rock shelters that were lived in by the Fremont indians, and you can find petroglyphs left by Ute indians. Here are just a few of the indian structures used by the ancient indians.
Old fire pit with the remains of a rock wall shelter
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Apr 2012: OFFCAST S03E04 Roisin Conaty & Des O'Connor
Mar 2012: OFFCAST S03E03 Alex Horne & Lisa Goldman
Feb 2012: OFFCAST S03E02 Sir Arnold Wesker & Tim Crouch
Feb 2012: OFFCAST S03E01Offie Awards special
Dec 2011: OFFCAST S02E04Tim Minchin & Nick Kent
Nov 2011: OFFCAST S02E03Richard Herring & Nick Payne
Nov 2011: OFFCAST S02E02Che Walker & Ralf Little
Oct 2011: OFFCAST S02E01Simon Russell Beale & Timberlake Wertenbaker
Jul 2011: OFFCAST S01E03Mike Bartlett & Latitude Festival
Jul 2011: OFFCAST S01E02Mark Ravenhill & Lost Arts
Jun 2011: OFFCAST S01E01Simon Callow & Wilton's
Jan 2011:On The Fringe
Nov 2010:GALAXICABS
Jan 2010:DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI
Aug 2009:The Man In The Yellow Suit at The Old Red Lion Theatre
Jan 2009:The Man In The Yellow Suit at The Orange Tree Theatre
Nov 2008:The Man In The Yellow Suit at The Etcetera Theatre
May 2008: POST SHOW at THEATRE 503: "NATURAL SELECTION"
Sept 07: In the throes of one of the most hotly-debated performances this autumn, Paterson Joseph takes time out at the National to talk about power, politics and Ł10 seats for "The Emperor Jones" at the National Theatre (London, UK)
August 07: Paterson Joseph takes us behind the scenes during rehearsals for "The Emperor Jones" at the National Theatre (London, UK)
July 07: Paterson Joseph answers a few questions in frenzied interview after the first night of "Saint Joan"...
July 07: Paterson Joseph taking a break from rehearsal for a quiet chat about "Saint Joan" at the National
June 07: The King's Head Theatre's New Momentum series presents: CAT'S PAW
May 07: Around the table chat, reviews and the coming season at Theatre Royal Stratford East
April 07: interview with actor Paterson Joseph
March 07: featuring Greenwich Theatre
Feburary 07: featuring Theatre Royal Stratford East
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J. Cole
[Verse 1]
Got a young chick from the hood, south side
Pops never let her outside
Nigga knew the type of shit she was up against
Little did he know the shit was going to back fire
'Cause she act quiet, got baptized, sang in the choir
But the thing she desired was a
Older nigga show her how to be a freak
The young girl is in heat, it's deep
She sneaking out, off the leash
On the streets at night when the freaks is out
Butterfly tat on her back that she tried to hide
Until her father found her secret out
Now he flipping out, he kicked her out
She living on her own and it's vicious out
Years go by now I got her in my room
And I'm thinking of the best way to kick her out
'Cause all she ever talks about is Louie, Louie
All she ever talks about is Louis Vuitton
And nigga, I can't fuck with her no more
I mean Louie, Louie, all she ever talk about is Louie, Louie
All she ever talk about is Louis Vuitton
And nigga, I can't fuck with her no more
[Verse 2]
I told the bitch somebody stole my Rollie
She talking 'bout "me too"
I came through with the brand new Louis bag
She talking 'bout "me too"
LA on my next flight, you guess right, she said "me too"
Now everybody gonna Ms. Me Too
Goddamn, be you
And if that is you, you so shallow
You on a boat that won't travel
Won't float and won't paddle
If I go broke it won't matter
This stupid ass shit don't make me
I been poor, won't break me
You so caught up on material shit
We both know that you can't even get
I mean my window down
Let me roll my windows up
My plink went down
I just got my little cup
My freaks go down
Nigga I can't fuck with her no more
Ayo, ayo…
[Verse 3]
Dude got a rich bitch, though
She off the chain, ready to go
Baddest thing, head to toe
Fine line between a rock star and just a ho
But she walked that
Goddamn, girl, she walked that
Big money talk real loud
I mean I can barely talk back
But I, but I got good game, good game
Nothing like them lames you used to
I know the rules gon' use you
I just want the same shit that you do
Can you keep a secret?
Sometimes, man, your beeper leak it
Nigga told me she evil
I danced with the devil then, please believe it
Please believe it
She take my hip-hop, ayo
She don't want to fuck with me
Am I big snob? Ayo
Am I a big splotch? Ayo


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Harvard heads back out on the road looking to add two wins to its resume at Cornell and Columbia (Gil Talbot).
Story Line
The Harvard women's volleyball team will conclude its first rotation through the Ivy League this weekend when it heads out on the road to face Cornell and Columbia. The Crimson will first face the Big Red on Friday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. before tangling with the Lions Saturday, Oct. 13 at 5 p.m.
A live video stream and live stats for Friday's match will be available through CornellBigRed.com by clicking here. Columbia will provide live stats on Saturday through GoColumbiaLions.com by clicking here.
Last Time Out
Erin Cooney and Kathleen Wallace registered nine kills apiece, but the Harvard women's volleyball team fell to the two-time defending Ivy League champions Yale, 3-0, Saturday at the Malkin Athletic Center.
Freshmen Caroline Holte and Jennifer Shults and sophomore Caroline Walters each scored four kills for Harvard (5-11, 2-3 Ivy League), with Walters hitting a team-best .571. Beth Kinsella tallied 19 assists. Defensively, Taylor Docter and Hannah Schmidt led the Crimson with 10 digs, while Kristen Casey had nine.
Top Plays
Harvard recently released a new feature on GoCrimson, Top Plays of the Month. The first edition featured Kathleen Wallace at No. 7 for her 12 kill, .667 hitting percentage performance against Providence.
The Hitters
Harvard's offense has been bookended by experience, with senior captain Taylor Docter and freshman Kathleen Wallace leading the way. Docter owns a team-best 2.93 kps average, good for fifth in the Ivy League, while Wallace ranks ninth in the conference with a .292 hitting percentage and has notched 2.68 kps. Junior Erin Cooney is third on the squad with 2.10 kps and sophomore Caroline Walters (1.76 kps) boasts a team best .371 hitting percentage, the second highest in the Ancient Eight.
Harvard ranks second in the Ivy League as a group with a combined .218 hitting percentage, its highest mark since hitting .208 in 2008.
Setting it Up
Senior Beth Kinsella and freshman Hannah Schmidt have shared the setting duties as the team has shifted into a 6-2 offensive system. Kinsella has dished out 309 assists for an average of 5.52 per set, while Schmidt has tallied 262 assists for a 4.52 average.
On the Block
Middle blockers Teresa Skelly, Caroline Walters and Caroline Holte have helped Harvard average 2.27 bps, good for second in the Ivy League. Holte leads the team with 57 total blocks and a 0.97 bps average. Walters ranks a close second with 54 total blocks and an average of 0.92 bps with Skelly chipping in 21 total blocks and 0.88 bps in limited action.
Keep an Eye Out For…
Beth Kinsella, Taylor Docter and Teresa Skelly each have a chance to make their marks on the Harvard record books this season. Kinsella currently ranks sixth all-time with 1,546 assists and has averaged 7.19 aps for her career. Docter has moved into a tie with current assistant coach Christine Wu '12 for sixth place in career aces (93) while her career 2.60 kps are good for ninth. She is also just 50 kills shy of joining Harvard's all-time top 10 with 872. Skelly, meanwhile, is just six block assists (178) short of entering the program's top 10 and needs 35 total blocks (204) to join that list as well.
Scouting Cornell (5-11, 1-4 Ivy League)
Cornell picked up a 3-2 win over Binghamton on Tuesday to snap a two-match losing streak and move to 5-11 overall on the year, 1-4 in the Ivy League. Breanna Wong and Kelly Marble rank seventh and eighth in the conference with 2.89 kps and 2.85 kps, respectively, while Rachel D'Epagnier's .312 hitting percentage is good for eighth. Kelly Reinke boasts the second-highest assists per set average (8.92) with D'Epagnier's 1.08 bps placing her fourth.
Harvard was swept by Cornell in the season series a year ago despite having won four straight against the Big Red previously. Taylor Docter averaged 3.33 kps and 2.56 dps in the two matches last year, and connected for five aces. Kristen Casey and Erin Cooney, meanwhile, each notched 2.00 kps with Casey adding 2.33 dps and Cooney 1.50 bps.
Scouting Columbia (7-7, 2-3 Ivy League)
Yale opened the conference slate with a pair of wins over Cornell and Brown, but has since dropped three straight to fall to 7-7 overall and 2-3 in the Ancient Eight. The Lions lead the Ivy League with 2.86 bps as Heather Braunagel and Savannah Fletcher rank first and third, respectively, with 1.33 bps and 1.21 bps. Braunagel also boasts the conference's top hitting percentage at .379 with Fletcher ranking sixth with a .333 mark. Colleen Brennan has dished out 5.39 aps, the 10th-best average in the league, while Molly Winger ranks seventh with 3.96 dps.
Harvard leads the all-time series with Columbia, 35-12, but has split the season series each of the last two years. Kristen Casey was dominate in the two meetings last season, averaging 4.00 kps and 3.00 dps while hitting .261. Taylor Docter and Teresa Skelly each contributed 2.50 kps and Erin Cooney added 2.33 kps.
Holte of the Block
Freshman Caroline Holte turned in a stellar performance against Brown, recording a career-high eight block assists while adding six kills and hitting .625. Holte's eight blocks were the most in a three-set match for the Crimson since 2008, and the fifth most overall.
Harvard finished the match against Brown with a season-high 15 blocks, marking the highest total for the team since turning in 17 in a 3-2 win over Georgia State in 2011.
Double Trouble
Seniors Taylor Docter and Beth Kinsella and freshman Hannah Schmidt have combined for 14 double-doubles this season. Each recorded a double-double in back-to-back matches two weeks ago against Princeton and Penn, while Docter's streak of consecutive double-doubles reached five.
2012 Double-Doubles
Career Double-Doubles
Block Party
Harvard has recorded double-digit blocks in five matches this season, most recently turning in 15 in a 3-0 win over Brown. Harvard currently ranks second in the Ivy League with 2.27 bps, its highest average since 2003.
Career Night
Taylor Docter set a new career-high with 23 kills at Dartmouth and finished the evening hitting .284 on 67 attempts with just four errors. Docter's 23 kills are the second most for any Crimson student-athlete since 2008, with Kathryn McKinley's '09 total of 26 at Yale in 2008 topping the list.
Serving it Up
Taylor Docter matched her career-high with five aces at New Hampshire, marking the fourth time the senior has tallied five in a single match. Docter's five aces were also the second-highest total of any Crimson since 2008, with Katherine Kocurek's '10 six aces at Dartmouth in 2008 leading the way.
Hitting it Home
Harvard registered a .474 hitting percentage against Providence, by far the highest hitting percentage of the season recorded by an Ivy League school. The Crimson converted 40 kills against the Friars on 78 attempts while only committing three errors. Caroline Walters hit a match-high .750 (6-0-8) while Kathleen Wallace hit .667 (12-0-18), the third-highest individual hitting percentage with a minimum of 10 attempts in the Ancient Eight this season. Caroline Holte (7-1-10) and Jennifer Shults (4-0-7) also got in on the action, hitting .600 and .571, respectively.
Harvard last hit .400 for a match on Sept. 27, 2008, when the squad combined for a .456 hitting percentage (35-4-68) in a 3-0 win over St. Francis (Pa.).
Senior co-captain Taylor Docter was named to both the Hokie Invitational and Harvard Invitational all-tournament teams. She was joined on the Harvard Invitational All-Tournament Team by freshman Kathleen Wallace and sophomore Caroline Walters, while Kristen Casey was named to the New England Challenge All-Tournament Team, marking the first all-tourney honor of each of their careers.
Captain of the Ship
Senior Taylor Docter was voted by her teammates as the 59th captain of Harvard women's volleyball. Docter was an All-Ivy League second team and Academic All-Ivy honoree in 2011 after ranking eighth in the conference in kills per set (3.05), seventh in aces (0.27) and seventh in points per set (3.52). The Los Altos, Calif., native also averaged 1.72 dps on the defensive side of the net and finished her year with career-highs in kills, attempts, hitting percentage and digs.
"Taylor has been an impact player since her freshmen season," Head Coach Jen Weiss commented. "She came in this preseason in great shape and ready to work hard. As a second team All-Ivy outside hitter, she led our team in points scored and kills per set. She has a natural ability to lead and her peers respect her on and off the court. Taylor's composure on court has been tremendous this year and I look forward to her leading the team."
Platinum Anniversary
Head coach Jen Weiss is in her 20th season at the helm of the Crimson. Weiss owns a 246-289 record on the sidelines and guided Harvard to its only Ivy League championship in 2004. She has mentored 46 All-Ivy honorees, five Ivy League Rookie of the Year recipients and coached the program's first two-time Ivy League Player of the Year in Kaego Ogbechie '05.
Catch the Crimson in 2012
Harvard will host 11 home matches at the Malkin Athletic Center this season and each will be streamed live online through GoCrimson.com. Fans can also watch each match On Demand approximately two hours after completion. One-year subscriptions are available for $49.95 and allow access to every home event streamed by the Crimson, including football, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's hockey and men's soccer. For more information or to sign up today, click here.


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Search continues for missing man in national park
ESTES PARK – A search continues for a Texas man who is believed to be missing in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Troy Green of San Antonio had planned to attend a conference in Denver, about 65 miles southeast of the park. His wife notified police when she didn't hear from him Thursday.
The 39-year-old man didn't arrive at the conference as planned Friday, but park rangers found a vehicle that matched his rental car at the park's Bear Lake parking lot early Friday.
Rangers heard from two witnesses who said they spoke with Green on Thursday, but they did not see where he went. Witnesses said he seemed to be prepared for winter weather with snow pants, a down jacket, gloves and a face mask.
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.


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Part 3: Hacking the Trials
-Resident Evil 4 Trial Edition-
In Game Debug (Flag Edit: Debug)
The final option in the In Game debug menu is Flag Edit. Inside this option
is a series of pages which all contain 0 and 1 switches. Usually a 0 means the
command is off, and a 1 means the command is on. You can toggle between these
as you please. There are a total of 11 pages. They are Debug, Stop, Status,
System, Item_Set, Scenario, Key_Lock, Room, Room_Save, Config, and Disp. We
will be starting on DEBUG. This page follows in the same design as the game's
debug menu to help you better understand the page and effects. You can click
the zero's below and the appropriate page will load above.
Also take note that many of the features that are documented here have unknown
effects. If you can find out what the setting does and let me know, Ill update
the page and give you credit. Zero's with affects that are unknown will have
a strike through the center of them.