text:
holding that "a legislature is presumed to have used no superfluous words"
Summary of this case from Stone ex Rel. Estate of Stone v. Frontier AirlinesOpinion
1. By the third section of the act of Congress approved July 1, 1862 ( 12 Stat. 489), incorporating the Union Pacific Railroad Company, lands were granted to the company "for the purpose of aiding in the construction of the railroad and telegraph line, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon," and it was enacted that all such lands "not sold or disposed of" by the company before the expiration of three years after the completion of the entire road should be subject to settlement and pre-emption, like other lands. Upon a consideration of this and other provisions of the act and of the amendatory act of July 2, 1864 (13 id. 356), — Held, 1. That these provisions should be so construed as to effect their primary object, which was to furnish aid in and during the construction of the road, and that it cannot be controlled or defeated by the secondary and subordinate purpose of opening to settlement and pre-emption such of the lands as should not be sold or disposed of within the designated period. 2. That the words "or disposed of" are not redundant, nor are they synonymous with "sold," but they contemplate a use of the lands granted different from the sale of them, and that a mortgage of them is such a use. 3. That the mortgage of them executed by the company April 16, 1867, for the purpose of raising money necessary to continue and complete the construction of the road, disposed of them within the meaning of the act, and was authorized thereby. 4. That the mortgage was an hypothecation of the fee, and not merely of an estate determinable at the expiration of three years from the completion of the road, and the debt it was given to secure not having matured, the lands are not subject to pre-emption. Sed quære, whether the remnants that may be unsold when the mortgage debt shall be paid will not then be subject to pre-emption. 2. In construing a statute, aid may be derived from attention to the state of things as it appeared to the legislature when the statute was enacted.
Mr. James Lowndes for the appellant.
The Attorney-General for the United States.
The controlling question is, Had the United States the right to sell, in accordance with the provisions of the pre-emption laws and at the minimum price, the tract of land involved in this controversy? In disposing of it, it is not important to determine at which of the dates alleged by the respective parties the road was completed, as, at the time of the appellant's entry, more than three years had elapsed from the date claimed by the company as that when the road was accepted.
No sale or disposition of the land within the meaning of the act has been made by the company. It may be that "dispose of" has not such an exact and universally accepted technical meaning as "sell," "exchange," "mortgage." It popularly signifies "to sell." Webster's definition is, "to exercise finally one's power of control over; to pass over into the control of some one else; to alienate; to bestow; to part with; to get rid of." Worcester's is, "put out of possession of."
Everyone of these definitions points to a transfer of title and ownership as the essential signification of the word. Its usual technical meaning is "to sell." A general devise with power to dispose of carries the fee. 2 Redf. Wills, 334, note. A devise with power of disposition gives power to convey the fee. Lyon v. Marsh, 116 Mass. 232; Ellston v. Schilling, 42 N.Y. 79.
It was not the effect nor the intent of the indenture to transfer the title or the ownership of the lands. Its effect must be determined by the law of the State where the lands are situated ( United States v. Crosby, 7 Cranch, 115; Clark v. Graham, 6 Wheat. 577; McGoon v. Scales, 9 Wall. 23); and in deciding upon it this court conforms to the decisions of the State court. Hinde v. Vattier, 5 Pet. 398.
The statutes of Nebraska enact that "in the absence of stipulations to the contrary the mortgagor of real estate retains the legal title and right of possession thereof" (Gen. Stat. 1873, sect. 55, p. 881); and not only her courts, but those of the respective States where the granted lands lie, hold that a mortgage conveys no title or right of possession. It merely creates a lien to be enforced by action. Kyger v. Ryley, 2 Neb. 20; Chick v. Willetts, 2 Kan. 384; Waterson v. Devoe, 18 id. 223; Drake v. Root, 2 Colo. 685; Hyman v. Kelly, 1 Nev. 179; Johnson v. Sherman, 15 Cal. 287; Goodnow v. Ewer, 16 id. 461; Dutton v. Warschauer, 21 id. 609.
The indenture, so far from stipulating that the legal title and right of possession shall not remain in the company, provides that the latter shall have the exclusive control of the lands, and full power and authority to make contracts for the sale of them at such prices as it and the trustees may agree upon. It thus appears that nothing but a lien on the lands was created, which is not a jus ad rem, but simply a charge upon them, binding them with no greater force and effect than an ordinary judgment, or an assessment against them for taxes. The company concedes the non-transfer of them. It alleges, in the action of ejectment, that it is the owner, seised in fee of the tract in question and entitled to the possession thereof.
In ascertaining the meaning of the act subjecting the lands to pre-emption, on the failure of the company to sell or dispose of them within a specific period, we may recur to the history of the times, to the surrounding circumstances, the preceding legislation touching the public domain, and to the apprehended mischief which Congress sought to avert. Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, 723; Maryland v. Railroad Company, 22 Wall. 105; United States v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 91 U.S. 72.
These have been considered by this court in Railway Company v. Prescott, 16 Wall. 609, and the case shows that the construction for which the company now contends would, if practically carried out, defeat the settled policy of the government, and exclude from pre-emption an immense body of lands, the settlement of which Congress designed to facilitate and expedite.
If creating the lien on the lands is disposing of them, then the company has complied with the requirement of Congress. The extinguishment of the lien by the payment of the debt would not render them subject to settlement under the pre-emption laws.
Counsel may insist that our construction does not give effect to "or." The word does not necessarily imply that the terms between which it is found are alternatives. Worcester remarks that there is no word in the language of more equivocal import. It is often used to connect equivalent expressions. Such is the case here.
The indenture, by providing that the provisions of the act in all that concerns the sale and disposal of the land shall be deemed and taken as a part of the instrument, stipulates, if our construction be correct, that the lands shall, at a given time, be subject to pre-emption at $1.25 per acre. This can work no hardship as the avails of the sales would be paid to the company, and the holders of the bonds purchased them with knowledge of the conditions of the grant.
Platt has met the requirements of the pre-emption laws, and has a complete equitable right to the land. Frisbie v. Whitney, 9 Wall. 187; Hutchings v. Low, 15 id. 77; Shepley et al. v. Cowan et al., 91 U.S. 330; Moore v. Robbins,
96 id. 530. He is, therefore, entitled to relief. The failure of the company to sell within the appointed time vested the legal title to the lands in the United States, or if this court holds that such title still abides in the company, then the latter holds it as the trustee of parties entitled to pre-emption under the acts of Congress, and those acts can be executed only by the officers of the government.
Mr. Sidney Bartlett and Mr. Samuel Shellabarger, contra.
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Nebraska.
This was a bill in equity filed Sept. 28, 1878, by William H. Platt, to enjoin the Union Pacific Railroad Company from prosecuting an action of ejectment which it brought against him the twenty-third day of that month, for the recovery of a certain quarter-section of land situate in the county of Hall and State of Nebraska, whereof he was in possession, claiming the equitable title thereto. The company answered. The case was heard upon the pleadings, and the bill dismissed. Platt appealed here.
Platt entered upon the land in the year 1874, and thereafter remained in possession. He made improvements thereon, and performed all the conditions which entitled him, as a qualified pre-emptor, to a preference right of purchase, if the land were subject to pre-emption. He duly filed, Sept. 21, 1878, his declaratory statement, made the requisite proofs before the proper officers, paid the receiver of the local land-office $200, being at the rate of $1.25 per acre, and took a receipt therefor.
The land is part of an odd-numbered section, situate within ten miles of the road of the company, and is included in the grant made by the act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, c., approved July 1, 1862 ( 12 Stat. 489), and the amendatory act of July 2, 1864 ( 13 Stat. 356). The company accepted the grant, located the route of its road and filed a map thereof within the requisite time, and, in order to raise the means necessary to continue and complete the work on its road which was then constructing, issued, April 16, 1867, its coupon bonds to the amount of $10,400,000, payable twenty days after the date thereof, with semi-annual interest. To secure the payment of them it executed and duly acknowledged a certain indenture of that same date, covering the granted lands, which it caused to be recorded in said Hall County before July 1, 1872. The United States issued a patent, bearing date March 26, 1875, to the company for the granted lands not theretofore conveyed to it.
The company refused to accept the money so paid by Platt to the receiver of the land-office.
The bill and answer set up different dates when the road was completed; the first alleging it to be before July, 1869, and the latter Nov. 14, 1874, when it was finally accepted by the government.
The act of 1862 provides as follows: —
"SECT. 3. And be it further enacted, that there be and is hereby granted to the said company, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of said railroad and telegraph line, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon, every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad, on the line thereof, and within the limits of ten miles on each side of said road, not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a pre-emption or homestead claim may not have attached, at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed: Provided, that all mineral lands shall be excepted from the operation of this act; but where the same shall contain timber, the timber thereon is hereby granted to said company. And all such lands so granted by this section which shall not be sold or disposed of by said company within three years after the entire road shall have been completed, shall be subject to settlement and pre-emption like other lands, at a price not exceeding $1.25 per acre to be paid to said company.
"SECT. 4. And be it further enacted, that whenever said company shall have completed forty consecutive miles of any portion of said railroad and telegraph line ready for the service contemplated by this act, and supplied with all necessary drains, culverts, viaducts, crossings, sidings, bridges, turnouts, watering-places, depots, equipments, furniture, and all other appurtenances of a first-class railroad, — the rails and all the other iron used in the construction and equipment of said road to be American manufacture of the best quality, — the President of the United States shall appoint three commissioners to examine the same and report to him in relation thereto; and if it shall appear to him that forty consecutive miles of said railroad and telegraph line have been completed and equipped in all respects as required by this act, then, upon certificate of said commissioners to that effect, patents shall issue conveying the right and title to said lands to said company, on each side of the road, as far as the same is completed, to the amount aforesaid; and patents shall in like manner issue as each forty miles of said railroad and telegraph line are completed upon certificate of said commissioners." . . .
The amendatory act changes the number of sections per mile granted by the third section of the original act from "five" to "ten," and the limits of the grant from "ten" to "twenty," miles on each side of the road; and declares the company to be entitled to patents, upon the construction and acceptance of each "twenty" consecutive miles of road.
The act of 1862 provides that upon the completion of forty consecutive miles (changed to twenty by the act of 1864) of said road, bonds of the United States of $1,000 each, bearing six per cent semi-annual interest, due at thirty years from date, shall be issued by the Secretary of the Treasury to the company, to the amount of sixteen bonds per mile (a larger amount per mile being allowed between certain designated points); and that "to secure the repayment to the United States, as hereinafter provided, of the amount of the said bonds so issued and delivered to said company, together with all interest thereon which shall have been paid by the United States, the issue of said bonds and delivery to the company shall ipso facto constitute a first mortgage on the whole line of the railroad and telegraph, together with the rolling-stock, fixtures, and property of every kind and description, and in consideration of which said bonds may be issued; and on the refusal or failure of said company to redeem said bonds or any part of them when required so to do by the Secretary of the Treasury, in accordance with the provisions of this act, the said road, with all the rights, functions, immunities, and appurtenances thereunto belonging, and also all lands granted to the said company by the United States which at the time of said default shall remain in the ownership of the said company, may be taken possession of by the Secretary of the Treasury for the use and benefit of the United States: Provided, this section shall not apply to that part of any road now constructed."
The tenth section of the act of 1864 provides that sect. 5 of the act of 1862 "be so modified and amended that the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and any other company authorized to participate in the construction of said road, may, on the completion of each section of said road, as provided in this act and the act to which this act is an amendment, issue their first-mortgage bonds on their respective railroad and telegraph lines to an amount not exceeding the amount of the bonds of the United States, and of even tenor and date, time of maturity, rate and character of interest, with the bonds authorized to be issued to said railroad companies respectively. And the lien of the United States bonds shall be subordinate to that of the bonds of any or either of said companies hereby authorized to be issued on their respective roads, property, and equipments, except as to the provisions of the sixth section of the act to which this act is an amendment, relating to the transmission of despatches and the transportation of mails, troops, munitions of war, supplies, and public stores for the government of the United States. And said section is further amended by striking out the word `forty' and inserting in lieu thereof the words `on each and every section of not less than twenty.'"
The indenture executed by the company to secure its bonds conveys in fee to trustees, upon certain trusts, terms, and conditions, the lands granted to it by the acts of Congress. One condition is, "that if the said party of the first part shall well and truly pay, or cause to be paid, to the holders of the said bonds, and every of them, the principal sums of money therein mentioned, according to the tenor thereof, with the interest thereon, at the times and in the manner hereinbefore provided, according to the true intent and meaning of these presents, then and from thenceforth this indenture and the estate hereby granted shall cease and determine, and all the right, title, and interest in any and all property hereby conveyed to the parties of the second part, not then disposed of under the powers hereby conferred, shall revert to and vest in the said party of the first part."
It further provides that the lands shall be under the management and control of the company, to be by it sold or contracted to be sold for such prices and on such terms of payment as shall be mutually agreed upon by the company and the trustees; that the trustees shall, upon payment of the purchase-money of the several tracts which may be sold, receive and apply the same, and the proceeds of all sales made by them of lands so conveyed to them, to the sole and exclusive purpose of the payment of the said coupon bonds, until the same and the whole thereof shall be fully paid and satisfied, and thereafter to reconvey to the company the residue of said lands remaining unsold; that in default of the payment of either the interest or principal of the said coupon bonds, according to the tenor and effect thereof, for the period of six months after demand at the place of payment, the trustees are authorized to enter into and take possession of the lands and foreclose the indenture; that in case of such default for the period of one year, then the principal sum of said bonds is to become due and payable, and the said trustees are authorized to take possession of the lands, foreclose said indenture by selling, at public auction in the city of Omaha or New York, the lands, or so much thereof as may be necessary to pay and discharge said coupon bonds, or so many thereof as are then outstanding and unpaid; and that in case of any sale upon any such foreclosure, or at any public auction, the trustees are empowered to make, execute, and deliver a conveyance of the lands so sold, which shall convey to the purchaser all the rights and privileges of the company in and to the property so sold, to the same extent as the company shall have previously enjoyed and held the same.
The indenture further declares "that all the provisions of said acts of Congress, so far as they are applicable, are hereby made, and shall be deemed and taken to be, a part of this instrument, and the said provisions in all that concerns the sale and disposal of the said lands hereby conveyed to the parties of the second part are to be observed and strictly and faithfully carried out and fulfilled."
The company has made no sale or disposition of the land in controversy otherwise than by said indenture, and bonds to the amount of $7,000,000 are still outstanding.
If it be conceded that the complainant has complied with all the conditions prescribed by the acts of Congress for the acquisition by a pre-emptioner of an equitable title to a portion of the public lands, the question still remains, whether the land which he claims was open to pre-emption when his settlement was made. It is confessedly a part of the lands which the United States granted to the Union Pacific Railroad Company by the act of July 1, 1862. 12 Stat. 489.
The third section of the act contains words of present grant, but the fourth section enacted that on the completion of each successive forty miles of the railroad and telegraph line, patents should be issued, "conveying the right and title to said lands to said company, on each side of the road, as far as the same is completed, to the amount aforesaid." The seventh section required the road and telegraph to be completed before the first day of July, 1874. The amending act of July 2, 1864 ( 13 Stat. 356), enlarged the grant, but made no change in its terms; and the Secretary of the Interior, as directed by the act, withdrew the lands within fifteen miles of the designated route of the road from pre-emption, private entry, and sale.
Supra, p. 49.
Such was the grant. The railroad and telegraph line were entirely completed before July 1, 1874 (if not in 1869), and patents for all the lands granted were directed to be issued to the company in November of that year. By force of the grant, however, and by the definite fixing of the route of the road, and the filing the map thereof in the Interior Department, as required by law, together with the completion of the road westward and beyond the tract claimed by the complainant, the title to that tract had become vested in the company before April 16, 1867. On that day the company, for the purpose of raising money necessary to continue and complete the construction of their road, issued their coupon bonds for the sum in the aggregate of $10,400,000, bearing seven per cent interest, and payable in twenty years from their date. On the same day, for the purpose of securing the payment of the bonds, the company executed a mortgage or deed of trust to trustees of all and several the several sections of land granted to them by the said acts of Congress, including the tract claimed by the complainant. The instrument, we think, though in form a deed of trust, was substantially a mortgage. It was delivered to the trustees, and duly recorded. The bonds were sold in different markets to bona fide purchasers, and they are now outstanding, about $7,000,000 still remaining unsatisfied. All this was before the entire road was completed, and before the first step was taken by the complainant to obtain his pre-emption right.
In view of these facts, we are to determine whether the mortgage was a disposition of the lands granted to the company within the meaning of the last clause of sect. 2 of the act of 1862. If it was, the tract of land claimed by the complainant was not open to settlement and pre-emption when he entered thereon, nor has it been at any time since. That clause declared that "all the lands granted by the section, which shall not be sold or disposed of by said company within three years after the entire road shall have been completed, shall be subject to settlement and pre-emption," c. Was the mortgage a sale or disposition of the lands as understood by Congress? That the company had power to mortgage the lands admits of no reasonable doubt. It may be conceded that a railroad company has not power either to sell or mortgage its franchise, or perhaps the road which it has been chartered to build, without express legislative authority, and this has in some cases been decided. The reason is that such a sale or mortgage tends to defeat the purposes the legislature had in view in the grant of the charter. The adventurers who obtain the charter and who accept it undertake to construct and maintain the public work. Their undertaking is the consideration of the grant, and without legislative consent they cannot throw off the obligation they have assumed. But the reason is inapplicable to a sale or mortgage of property which is not a part of the road and in no way connected with its use. Parting with such property or incumbering it in no degree interferes with the performance of the duties of the company to the public. Railroad companies are not usually empowered to hold lands other than those needed for roadway and stations, or water privileges. But when they are authorized to acquire and hold lands separate from their roads, the authority must include the ordinary incidents of ownership, — the right to sell or to mortgage. Especially is this so when, as in the present case, the lands have been granted to the company by the legislature that granted the charter, without any restriction of their use.
Assuming, therefore, as we must, and as has been tacitly conceded in the argument, that the company had the power to make the mortgage of 1867, we need not stop to inquire whether it was a sale or a partial sale. In some of the States, as well as in England, a mortgage is practically, as well as in form, a sale. It passes the legal title to the mortgagee. The more general modern doctrine in this country is, we admit, that it creates merely a lien, without any transmission of title. But if not a sale, was the mortgage made by the company defendant in this case not a disposition of the lands granted to it by Congress? This question is not to be answered by reference to definitions given in the dictionaries. What did Congress mean in the act of 1862? That something else than sale, either total or partial, was intended we are required by all the rules of construction to conclude. Congress is not to be presumed to have used words for no purpose. If it was intended that only lands which had been sold before three years had expired after the entire completion of the railroad should be exempted from pre-emption, the words "or disposed of" were entirely superfluous. But the admitted rules of statutory construction declare that a legislature is presumed to have used no superfluous words. Courts are to accord a meaning, if possible, to every word in a statute. In Commonwealth v. Alger (7 Cush. (Mass.) 53-89), it was said that in putting a construction upon any statute every part must be regarded, and it must be so expounded, if practicable, as to give some effect to every part of it. So, in People v. Burns ( 5 Mich. 114), it was held that some meaning, if possible, must be given to every word in a statute, and that where a given construction would make a word redundant, it was reason for rejecting it. To the same effect is Dearborn and Others v. Inhabitants of Brookline ( 97 Mass. 466); and in Gates v. Salmon ( 35 Cal. 576) it was ruled that no words are to be treated as surplusage or as repetition. The phrase "or disposed of" must, therefore, have some distinctive meaning, some meaning beyond the word "sold." What that is may be seen very plainly when the whole act of 1862 is examined. We are seeking for the intention of Congress, and to discover that we may look at the paramount object which Congress had in view, as well as the means by which it proposed to accomplish that object. Congress addressed itself to the work of securing a railroad from the Missouri River to the western boundary of the Territory of Nevada, and thence to the Pacific Ocean. The work was vast, beyond the reach of private capital or enterprise. It could be accomplished only by the bestowal upon a corporation of very large governmental aid. The proposed road ran over mountains and through what was known to be an uninhabited desert, for more than a thousand miles. The lands through which it must pass were supposed to be almost worthless, and quite unsalable, until they should be made, by the construction of a railroad, accessible to settlers and to Eastern markets. The construction of a railroad through such a region was most uninviting to private capitalists. To induce them to embark in the enterprise was the overshadowing motive that dictated the act of 1862. This is apparent in almost every line of the act. For this reason the grants of land were made, the rights of way and of taking materials were given, and the subsidy bonds were loaned, to be repaid only at the expiration of thirty years, with interest payable only at the expiration of that period. Even this was not enough. No association and no persons were found willing, with all this proffered assistance, to undertake the construction of the road. But so earnest was Congress to induce the corporators to attempt the work, that in 1864 additional aid was proffered, the grant of lands was doubled, and new privileges were conferred. We do not now attempt to portray the earnestness — the all-absorbing earnestness — with which Congress sought to secure the construction of the road by private enterprise. It was well exhibited in United States v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. ( 91 U.S. 72), to which we refer. Suffice it to say, the purpose of Congress, above all others, was to obtain the construction of the railroad by the corporation it created to undertake the work. For that alone the subsidy bonds were given. Only for that the grants of land were made. All was intended to give the utmost possible assistance to the stupendous and unparalleled enterprise. We do not say that other incidental considerations were not kept in mind, but what we do assert as plainly manifest in the legislation is, that the paramount intention of Congress was to give such assistance to the company as to induce them to build the road. Every other consideration was subordinate to that.
All will concede that in construing the act of 1862 we are to look at the state of things then existing, and in the light then appearing seek for the purposes and objects of Congress in using the language it did. And we are to give such construction to that language, if possible, as will carry out the congressional intentions. For what particular purpose, then, was the grant of lands made? The statute itself answers, "for the purpose of aiding in the construction of the railroad and telegraph line," and securing governmental transportation, c. The lands were granted to be used in furtherance of such construction. But Congress and the grantees must have known that, when granted, the lands were of little worth. They were then unsalable at any price. Their value was wholly prospective, dependent upon the construction of the road. Purchasers could not have been reasonably expected, certainly few, for immediate settlement. The obvious mode, therefore, of using the lands for the construction of the road (not for paying debts incurred in the construction, but for immediate need as the construction was progressing) was to hypothecate them as security for a loan. Many persons might be willing to advance money on the faith of the prospective value of the lands, if the railroad was built, who would not be willing to buy when it was doubtful whether the company would ever be able to raise the money necessary to build the road and thus render the lands salable. Congress must have been blind, indeed, if it did not foresee this, and intend to authorize the use of the lands to raise money by mortgage for the object it had so much at heart. This, we think, was what was intended by the phrase "or disposed of," as distinguished from "sold." Some of the lands might be sold as the work was progressing, and others could be used in aid of the construction only by pledging them to persons who might be willing to advance money on the faith of their prospective value. But whether sold or used as a security for money loaned to advance the construction of the road, they were equally employed for the purpose for which they were granted. The words "disposed of" are undeniably apt words to indicate a transfer by mortgage. If land be conveyed to A. to enable him to raise money for a particular purpose, nobody would doubt that a mortgage would be a disposition of the land for that purpose; and the grant made by the third section of the act of 1862 was obviously made, as we have suggested, with the intent of giving present assistance to the company in the construction of the road. It was not intended to be available only after the company had raised all the money necessary for the work. Then the time of need for the purpose mentioned would have gone by. The act declares it to have been "to aid in the construction of the road," not to reimburse expenditures made in the construction. Hence it must have been intended that the company might use or dispose of the land in some other way than by a sale. But in what other way? Not by gift; for that would not have been in aid of the construction, and the grant was intended for that. Nor by leases. They could have brought little money. And no other mode of disposition except by mortgage has been suggested which could furnish the requisite aid for building the road. No other is conceivable. The conclusion would seem, therefore, to be almost inevitable, that Congress, when speaking of a disposition of the lands other than a sale, contemplated making them available for the purposes of the grant by mortgage.
And if so, it is hard to believe that only a limited interest in the lands was allowed to be hypothecated. Twelve years were designated as the period within which the road was required to be completed, and lands not sold or disposed of within three years thereafter were to be open to pre-emption. Moreover, under the provisions of the act, the title to the lands could be perfected in the company only as the work of construction advanced; that is, as each section of forty miles was completed. The company might not become entitled to some until July 1, 1874. If, therefore, a mortgage could only bind the lands unsold until the expiration of three years after that date, it would have been an hypothecation for a term of years, and as to some of the lands, for a term of only three years. Was that the aid proffered by Congress to stimulate and render possible the completion of an enterprise in which it felt so deep an interest? If so, it was a barren gift. Looking at the character of the lands and their remoteness from settlements, it must have been evident enough that money could not have been raised on the credit of such a mortgage. The power of disposition given for the express purpose of enabling the company to raise money for the construction of the road, by such an interpretation of the act is made of no value. The interpretation, therefore, defeats the manifest intention of Congress, and for that reason it cannot be accepted.
If it be suggested, as it has been on behalf of the complainant, that the mortgage contains a provision that has some bearing upon the extent of its lien, it may be well here to notice that provision. The instrument purports to convey to the trustees a fee, and not a limited estate, and it requires in all sales that may be made under it the conveyance of a fee. It contains, however, the following clause: "It is hereby declared by the parties to this indenture that all the provisions of the said acts of Congress [referring to the acts of 1862 and 1864], so far as they are applicable, are hereby made and shall be deemed and taken to be a part of this instrument, and the said provisions in all that concerns the sale and disposal of the said lands hereby conveyed to the parties of the second part are to be observed and strictly and faithfully carried out and fulfilled."
What are thus stipulated to be observed and strictly and faithfully to be carried out and fulfilled are the provisions of the acts in all that concerns the sale and disposal of the lands. They are matters to be carried out and strictly fulfilled, — duties to be performed by the company, and duties which concern the sale or disposal of the lands. Carrying out and performing a provision implies action, and the provision must, therefore, be one relating to action. But the acts of Congress contain no provision respecting the sale or disposal of the lands that requires action, that is, something to be carried out and fulfilled, except the implied duty of devoting the proceeds of sales or dispositions strictly and faithfully to aid in the construction of the road.
The provision that at the expiration of three years from the completion of the road the unsold or undisposed-of lands should be open to pre-emption, was in its nature not one to be "strictly and faithfully carried out and fulfilled" by the company. The right to pre-emption of whatever might be left for pre-emption was a matter with which the company had nothing to do, — in relation to which they had no duties to perform, and only a right to the price paid by the pre-emptor. The clause of the mortgage referred to seems, therefore, to have been intended only as a stipulation on the part of the company that whatever money was raised on the mortgage should be strictly and faithfully applied in furtherance of the purpose for which the grant of the lands was made; namely, to aid in the construction of the railroad. Thus understod, it was a valuable stipulation for the mortgagees. It added to their security; for the value of the lands depended principally upon the application by the company of all its means to the completion of the work.
On the other hand, if an hypothecation of the lands in fee was within the power to "dispose of" them, as we have endeavored to show, and if the granting part of the mortgage made, standing by itself, did hypothecate a fee, it is hard to believe the parties intended by the stipulations referred to to restrict the exercise of the power to the grant of an estate for years, a limitation alike injurious to the mortgagors and the mortgagees. We think, therefore, nothing in the stipulation is repugnant to the granting part of the mortgage which purported an hypothecation of the entire fee.
There is always a tendency to construe statutes in the light in which they appear when the construction is given. It is easy to be wise after we see the results of experience. We may now think it quite possible the lands could all have been sold before July 1, 1877. The unforeseen success of the enterprise and the unprecedented rush of emigration along the line of the railroad have shed new light upon the value of the grants made to the company. But in endeavoring to ascertain what the Congress of 1862 intended, we must, as far as possible, place ourselves in the light that Congress enjoyed, look at things as they appeared to it, and discover its purpose from the language used in connection with the attending circumstances. Guided by this rule of construction, as well as by others universally recognized, we have been led unhesitatingly to the conclusion that the deed of trust or mortgage executed by this company in 1867 was a disposition of the lands granted by the third section of the act of 1862, within the meaning of that act.
We do not say that any mortgage, however small, or manifestly made to evade a bona fide execution of the purposes for which the grants were made, or made to defeat the policy of the government which encourages the sale of public lands to private settlers, and guards against the accumulation of large bodies in single hands, would be a disposal as understood by Congress. It may be conceded it would not be, for it would be in conflict with the avowed object of the grant. The present is no such case. By the pleadings it appears that the mortgage of 1867 was made "for the purpose of raising money necessary to continue and complete the construction of the railroad, in accordance with the act of Congress." Nor are we now called upon to decide whether the lands covered by the mortgage will not be open for pre-emption, if they shall remain unsold after the mortgage shall be extinguished. That question is not now before us.
The principal objection urged against the interpretation we have given to the words "sold or disposed of" is, that it is repugnant to the governmental policy of guarding against monopolies of public lands by large corporations or single individuals. It must be admitted that Congress had that policy in view when it declared that the lands not sold or disposed of within three years after the entire road should be completed should be subject to settlement and pre-emption, at a price not exceeding $1.25 per acre. But this policy was manifestly subordinated to the higher object of having the road constructed, and constructed with the aid of the land grant. No limitation was set to the quantity of land which the company might sell to single associations, or single persons. It was left at liberty to sell, if it could, to any land association or private purchaser, the entire body of the lands or any lesser quantity, regardless of the general legislative policy. It was allowed to sell or dispose of the grant at its pleasure, for the purpose of raising money to aid in the road construction, provided thus raising the money was done within the limited period. With that power no pre-emptor was authorized to interfere. Whatever contingent rights he had were postponed and subordinated to it. If, as we think it manifest, the leading primary policy of the act was to place the lands in the hands of the company, to be used for the completion of the road, as this work progressed, any secondary policy the government may also have had in view ought not to be allowed to embarrass or defeat that which was primary. It is evident Congress thought there might be remnants of the grant, not used in aid of the construction of the road, either because other resources of the company might prove sufficient, or because it might be found impossible to dispose of them in time to furnish such aid, and those remnants it undertook to open to settlement and pre-emption. This appears to us to have been what was intended, and all that was intended. The construction gives full effect alike to the paramount and the subordinate purposes of the act. Each has its own field of operation. The construction contended for by the appellant restricts the power of disposition, denies the authority of the company to utilize, except partially, for the purposes of the grant, the land granted, and might have impaired and possibly defeated the leading purpose of the grant. It subjects the paramount to the subordinate, and postpones the primary object to the secondary. On the other hand, utilizing the lands, by raising money upon them through a mortgage, or, in other words, disposing of them by mortgage, did not defeat the policy of opening the remnants not used to pre-emption.
Thus construing the last clause of the third section of the act, in connection with all the other provisions made by Congress, endeavoring to give effect to every part, and regarding the spirit as well as the letter, we are constrained to hold that the mortgage of 1867 was a disposition of the lands mortgaged within the meaning of the statute, and, consequently, that the tract of land claimed by the complainant was not open to pre-emption when he undertook to pre-empt it. He has, therefore, no equitable title to it.
Decree affirmed.
I dissent from the judgment of the court in this case. In the third section of the original charter, after granting to the company five alternate sections of public land on each side of its line of railroad, to aid in the construction thereof, it was provided that all lands so granted, which should not be sold or disposed of by the company within three years after the entire road should have been completed, should be subject to settlement and pre-emption, like other lands, at a price not exceeding $1.25 per acre, to be paid to the company. The appellant, after the three years had expired, settled upon the land in question and claimed pre-emption of the same; and offered to the company the price specified in the statute. The latter refused to receive the money or to recognize his right, alleging that it had disposed of the lands in 1867 by executing a mortgage for its entire land grant to secure a loan of $7,000,000. The question is, whether such mortgage is a sale or disposition of the lands within the meaning of the proviso of the third section. I think it is not. In my judgment, Congress had in view such a sale and disposition of the lands as would secure a settlement thereof. The object was to encourage a speedy settlement of the country along the line of the road; and hence it was provided, if the company did not so dispose of them, they should be open to settlers, at the usual prices, reserving to the company, however, the right to receive the purchase-money for the same. If the company, by one sweeping deed of trust, or mortgage, could cover the whole domain as with a blanket, and thus prevent a settlement thereon until the lands, by advance of prices, would be out of the reach of actual settlers desirous of occupying and improving them, it seems to me it would entirely defeat the objects of the act.
It is said, however, that if the company could not mortgage the lands they could not make use of them in aid of the construction of the road, the purpose for which they were expressly granted. I do not think this result would by any means follow. The fourth section provides for granting to the company patents for a proportionate part of the lands, for every forty miles of railroad which should be completed. As fast, therefore, as the successive forty-mile sections should be completed, it was contemplated by the act that the company should have control of the lands to that extent. This would constantly subject to their use large tracts, which, if disposed of, according to the intent of Congress, would have effected a rapid settlement of the adjacent country in all portions of the route which were adapted to cultivation.
The criticism that the words "sold or disposed of" mean something more than "sold," and can only mean a mortgage of the lands, I do not conceive to be just, but rather as sticking in the bark. Reading the whole act together, I think the only fair construction is that which is above suggested.
The objection that the right of pre-emption contended for would have prevented the company from giving a mortgage at all is not tenable. The mortgagees take the mortgage subject to the provisions of the act. It contains a proviso to this express effect. The lands were mortgaged cum onere, and the mortgagees, if so stipulated, would be entitled to the purchase-money receivable from settlers. This view of the subject would effectuate justice between all the parties, preserve the true construction of the act, and carry out the policy of Congress.
In view of these considerations, I think that the decree should be reversed, and that the appellant, the complainant below, should be declared to be equitably entitled to the land in question.


text:
That there was definitely a rouge et noir/red and black theme in her cuisine/kitchen.
French Girl responded,"Absolutement PAS!"
Never mind. I bought the little red and black Ladybug kitchen timer from PYLONES and added it to the shelf with the other red and black items.
Red and green mug sitting on the black cooker.
A hanging red & black light fixture.
Red curtains hang in the kitchen window.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Pep Talks Book Series is an introduction to a new way of interviewing and obtaining a job in today's competitive market. The Pep Talks Book Series is all about giving the reader an advantage over their competitors when working toward the goal of gaining more knowledge and understanding in this new job market. This new job market is all about unconventional ways of obtaining knowledge while gaining the desired employment.
The Pep Talks Book Series explains how the new Job market knowledge and understanding how to better improve the chances of being "individually recognized" as a professional are vital. The Pep Talks Book Series assists with building job confidence and self-esteem along with providing detailed examples for the reader to use for interviews. The Pep Talks Book Series are designed to assist the reader in planning, executing, and managing their own career and potential growth in their field of choice. Each section has an interactive "fill in the blank" area for guiding the reader with critical thinking activity examples to assist with brainstorming, and "Confidence Boosters" provide the reader with constant motivation for obtaining their "dream career." The Pep Talks Book Series can serve the newly looking or the long-term job seeker with methods that will assist with the career search and provide motivation for future endeavors.
Purchase Options


text:
- Home
- Community
- Resident Resources
- Parkway Tree Partnership Program
Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
The City of Chicago Heights has created a Parkway Tree Partnership Program to facilitate replanting along city streets where ash trees were removed.
The new program is based on a cooperative agreement between the City and the resident where the resident selects a tree from a recommended list of native and disease resistant trees, signs the Tree Maintenance Agreement, partners with the City on the cost of the tree, and the City plants the tree in the parkway in front of the resident's home. To participate, residents must own the home where they are requesting a parkway tree and their parkway must be deemed suitable for planting by both our forestry foreman and JULIE (Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators).
To view photo cards for each tree type listed on the Recommended List, click here.
For more information, please contact Jojo Doggett or Jessica Mancina at 708-755-3122. Thank You!


text:
Yes, sure. I think you are right, that it is actually important to stress that Kanban is nothing but a change method. So all you get is a set of principles that would help you change and optimize flow in your system over time. So as you said you do not get the practices, roles and stuff like that. We do however, have some emergent behaviors that I also deal with in the book, and we actually try to give people some easy steps to try to approach the Kanban method in a way where it is not just the abstracts principles but where we also have some emergent behaviors. And you can learn from what other teams have adopted in terms of practices, and ways to measuring flow and stuff like that.
I think most often it has to do with two things: like either you have a high level of specialization within the team that makes it very hard to act as a cross functional Scrum team. Or you might actually have people handling a lot of maintenance or operation. And third, actually we also deal with a lot of very, very mature Agile teams looking for some leverage in increasing their performance and their way of being Agile even further. So, it usually falls between one of those three groups.
I think that a lot of teams wanting to transfer to a more continuous delivery kind of approach to Agile see Kanban as an obvious fit because Kanban will actually make it possible for you to track your entire workflow. And I think that is one of the very great values of Kanban that you suddenly start to look at the entire software delivery system where people have tended in Agile to just focus a lot on just the development team. And one of the key principles of Kanban is that you are supposed to visualize your entire workflow. So, that means everything from a vaugue idea until it's actually released into production. From a bug is pointed out by some user until that bug is fixed and it's all the way there. So that is a key strategy in Kanban that you actually look at the entire delivery system. And that is why it's such good fit for things like continuous delivery where you really want the entire deployment pipeline to be fully integrated.
Yes, it actually doesn't take that much work. The good thing about Kanban is that it just says from the beginning change nothing. Try to visualize your flow, try to look at your system, and then you can start working in terms of optimizing it. But the first principle is just to visualize your workflow and get to understand how your current system is working. So there is a big tendency to people wanting to optimize everything in the very initial phase. And what we actually tend to recommend is that you look at your entire system and then from the knowledge you get from actually visualizing workflow, you proceed from there. So, you actually spend some time understanding how your current system is working before trying to optimize it.
What we found to be quite difficult though for some people is actually just visualizing their existing system without changing anything. Maybe they're dealing with things in a very complicated way but we've also seen teams that have actually been afraid wanting to actually understand their current flow simply because they know there are things in there that are really, really broken and they would rather not expose that to the outside world. And that is where you need to start. Like before even talking about Kanban you've got some things to fix before even going that far.
6. You talk about strategically aligned Agility. Can you kind of explain what that is?
Yes, the reason why I mentioned that, I think it's actually in my bio, is that I found that a lot of teams, organizations, individuals struggle with the fact that they haven't really gotten to the point where Agile is a language of the overall business strategy. So you'll find either top management not quite understanding the effect of Agile, you'll see people actually within the organization working against each other because they simply got different frameworks of how they understand the system.
And if you haven't managed to actually align Agile with your overall business strategy, if you haven't had the chance to get to coach management and maybe even top management as well, in understanding what these things actually mean then you'll find yourself having a hard time doing what I call "plug in Agile" - where you think Agile is something you can do at the execution level and then by some magic the rest of the organization will follow. It just doesn't happen that way. And we find that teams are able to improve much more and much faster if they are able to actually align Agile all the way with the organizational strategy.
If you look at it from a scientific point of view or at least a mathematic point of view, Little's Law states, your cycle time through the system is your current work in progress divided by the throughput in some unit of time. So obviously if you've got a lot of work in progress in there then actually your cycle time is going to be very low. And we see that just in a general transition from waterfall to Scrum or traditional Agile approaches that what you actually do there is that you limit your work in progress. Any Scrum team will start up by saying: "Ok, we will only work on this piece of the system during our sprint, we will deliver this piece of functionality within a two week sprint and then it's out the door". So actually what Scrum does initially is exactly the same thing. Scrum will state that you have to limit your work in progress to two weeks of work. And that's much the same as we do in a Kanban system.
There's nothing in Kanban stating that you cannot do Scrum. So Kanban is just a way of visualizing your value chain, getting it up there, having all work visible, and from there you start to approach actually minimizing work in progress. And that's where we have a different strategy because a regular Scrum team will limit their work in progress on a sprint level, where a Kanban team will actually limit their work in progress right down to the individual stages. And that gives you some huge benefits since you are very, very, clearly able to see where our bottle necks are starting to form. What is our current status on the individual items?
Are we actually just building up inventories someplace in the system because we can't get things out the door? So where Scrum tends to focus on a sprint level, a Kanban system will focus much more on the individual item flowing through the system.
I think that all teams would benefit from using a lot of the XP practices, and there certainly are a lot of Agile methods out there that you can use on the Kanban framework simply because Kanban does not state how you should work in your system. It just states how you should approach optimizing your system. And a lot of teams have found Scrum to be hugely beneficial in their initial Agile transition but that does not mean they cannot adopt Kanban principles at the same time. And maybe they will even start to see things that you would not see just using a traditional Scrum approach. Maybe you can even optimize your system even further, so once you've actually managed to get down to two or one week sprints maybe you'll start doing more continuous flow based approach, maybe you'll start focusing more on actually releasing the individual item and suddenly you'll find yourself doing actual continuous deployment where every single line of code is pushed into production.
I think no matter what approach you are using, if you are using pure waterfall, if you are using a Scrum based approach, if you are using XP, pretty much all seem to benefit from actually tracking their work in progress using a cumulative flow diagram - simply because a flow diagram will give you much more information. It will give you all the information of a traditional burn down plus you'll be able to actually see how work is progressing through the system on the individual status. So you will be able to see bottlenecks forming very easily and very clearly.
If you put your cumulative flow diagram right next to your Kanban board or whatever strategy you are using, it will be very clear to everybody how the system is performing right at this moment. And then you get the history part as well, where you will actually see: Are things arriving faster than we are able to process them? Where are we building bottlenecks in our system? What is our average cycle time? How much work in progress do we have at any point in time? And you'll be able to track over time: So, how is this system as a whole is performing? Are we performing in a reliable way? Is everything fluctuating a lot? What is really, really happening? And no matter what kind of approach you are using, I find that over time people come to appreciate these metrics a lot.
10. So are there any other metrics we should be gathering as we set this up?
As always, you should be very careful of not doing this context based, so of course this will depend on the individual team. If you have no clue where to start I always suggest that people choose two or three among the four I mentioned in the book which is: the cumulative flow diagram, of course, it's cycle time, it's defect rate, and it's blocked items. And actually, I find that blocked items are something that people usually either misunderstand or they do not track it at all. And actually, I've experienced firsthand that a team's ability to resolve blocked items quickly and effectively actually says a lot about the team's ability to perform in general. So if over time you can get to a point where fewer items are blocked, and items are blocked for a shorter period of time, and if you actually track that evolvement during the development phase, that's for a lot of teams a very very beneficial metric.
Yes. Actually a lot of people resolve the blocked items problem by just having some place on the board or in the room, where they will just place them. I usually actually tend to advice against that. I would like to see a blocked item sitting there actually blocking the flow to make it visible for everybody that you've got a problem here. And if you find yourself having to expend your work in progress limits, simply making them bigger because you've got a lot of blocked items in there, it will force you to make a conscious decision about that instead of having somewhere where it starts to pile up and you can kind of ignore them at all time until somebody comes in the room screaming that you promised to deliver this three weeks ago.
Actually, I have only given the one talk about Agile delivery, but I found two things that have been general for this conference that a lot of people are starting to discuss value suddenly. So are we actually producing value instead of just producing features? And the other is feedback. And that was a big part of my own presentation that I find myself focusing a lot more lately on the actual value production. So how quickly can we actually get real business value out there and how quickly can we integrate that feedback? And actually I have tried different strategies lately and so in organizations where I told them try to get to the point where you can deploy real software, with real business value, to real users and get the feedback immediately after that. And you can keep your traditional management structures if you think that's beneficial but if you can just start by focusing on this very point you are not going to be in such a bad place. And you've taken a big step on your journey to become a more Agile and Lean organization.
Yes, again context is an important word here and of course that differs a lot. I think I've found people in general to have become much more creative in obtaining feedback lately. Like back, just a few years ago, people would insist that you have to do this face-to-face, which made the transaction cost to user, a word from Lean, a lot higher. And suddenly you'll find teams knowing that since the business is on the other side of the country, if they have to get the business there every single time they want feedback they are not going to get it as often. And suddenly you've got people setting up communicators, sharing desktops, actually having real users sitting there, clinging on the same screen watching them actually use the system. And I also found another thing to be something that people are suddenly becoming aware of that you as a developer need to understand the business.
So we've had quite a big success getting developers actually out there watching users. And if I could I would insist that every single project kick off should start with all people from the development organization having to spend a day at the customer side, actually seeing real users try to use the software they are producing or similar software simply because it makes it a lot better and easier for them if they actually understand the situation there, developing software for.
Actually, I found that to be still one of my very best experiences implementing Kanban. We were working with two development teams on a particular project and we wanted to improve our Agile practices even more. And we wanted to try to see could we possibly gain more insight into the entire value chain on this project instead of focusing so much on the development part. Because already before adopting Kanban it was pretty clear that the problem was not only in IT, it was as much in the product owner team, integrating with the test team, actually getting things all the way out through the door. And one of the very first things we found was that when we set up that Kanban board, when we actually got the work there, we got the WIP limits in place, suddenly the team started owning the process much more than they ever had when we were working in a Scrum inspired manner. So suddenly you would see individual team members discussing with the product owner or with the tester the amount of work in progress they would allow in a specific state. Suddenly you had team members that have never been interested in Scrum and thought of it just like some kind of framework they were forced to use, suddenly they stood there and started using words like flow and how well we are approaching fixing blocked items.
And suddenly you would see a whole development organization changing to not just seeing themselves as a developer but seeing themselves as somebody who is responsible for actually getting work all the way through the system. Actually one of the very first things they ended up deciding was that each - rotating among developers they would spend time actually doing product owner work, because it turns out that one of the reasons why the product owners were not able to have stories ready for the team in appropriate detail to secure flow across the board, was that the product owner was stressed handling a lot of work that was not related to actually user stories specification and use case writing. So developers decided that each morning two developers in total would spend time helping the product owner team with whatever they could. Just to optimize flow across the board instead of having as they have done before just blaming the product owners for not being able to do things the way they expected them to. So, that was a big change for me.
15. Were there kind of measurable results coming out of that project?
Yes, definitely. We had some monitoring systems in place where we started seeing, first of all the amount of bugs in the system were quickly decreasing, simply because we were starting to visualize that in a much more clear manner. And it turned out pretty quickly that we could work with flow like we have never been able to do before when we were just using a Scrum based approach and suddenly things were actually being finished. And that's not to blame Scrum for being a bad process, because I love Scrum and I think it's a great way of starting with Agile development. But for these particular teams, they found out that they had a huge problem in actually getting things done. And suddenly they were starting to see the benefits of actually getting things through before staring new work. And they would start to prioritize, actually finishing work before starting new work. And be much less feature driven and much more value driven.
So that's a huge benefit as well. So, in general just the fact that they started to own the process, and the individual developer was suddenly interested in the amount of WIP limits and different stages of the board and being much more value driven, getting the big picture. Which I find to be extremely important that people actually take an interest in the entire value chain and stop seeing themselves as a development or a test, or on the product owner silo.
I think that one aspect to really focus on when you are talking Lean, when you are talking flow based systems, is that people not experienced with it tend to see it as a kind of a manufacturing approach in software. And it just turns out that it's not true. That is not in anyway how the individual in the system will perceive themself. Actually, they will perceive themselves as somebody that is operating the system. So actually the whole flow based approach makes people take much more interest in continuous improvement. Suddenly they become much more interested in the actual feedback loops because they can see the effect the feedback loops very very visually on the board. So I find that people arguing that it's more of a manufacturing approach seem to just be people that haven't experienced it first hand.


text:
Milk Choc base, topped with mini gingerbread / Star shortbread pieces. Perfect for topping your porridge.
If you have any allergies please contact us before placing an order.
- Contains dairy
Please note that some sweets may contain or have traces of nuts and nut oils or may have been made alongside other products containing nuts. Sweets and Treats by CNM can not be held responsible for any issues resulting from food allergies.
Customers should ensure that children are suitably supervised at all times to avoid the risk of choking.


text:
As you know, she's single again. Jason Trawick is no longer her boyfriend/conservator/business manager/baby-sitter. That position is now vacant. Which, I mean, it's sad, totally, on so many levels. Because anyone who falls in love with her -- if one can truly fall in love with Britney Spears through the haze of all her meds -- would have to assume not only the role of boyfriend/fiancé/husband, in quick succession, but also the responsibility of being her governor. And still, this woman who's not legally capable of... living independently... still they're actually thinking of putting her on stage, several times a week, in Vegas, for a long-term residency.
Is it Sad Smut?
It should be.
But is it?
Because they won't let it be Sad Smut!
They should have called it Sad Smut four years ago and let her retire in anonymity in Louisiana.
Instead, they're squeezing her dry, because Britney can still make money. A LOT of money.
I promise you baby, this is the last time. I promise you baby, just get through the next couple of years, and you'll never have to do this again.
Until that deal is signed though, and now that Jason Trawick is out of the business of Britney, well, there are the familiar signs. If you've followed Britney, there are several familiar warning signs.
1.She's driving herself
Nothing good comes from Britney booting around town behind the wheel.
Nothing good comes from frequent caffeine runs. If you recall, just before the really bad time, she was out for coffee constantly.
3.Shopping and changing
During the really bad time, Britney went shopping often. And...remember? Every time she shopped there would be several changes of clothing. Yesterday she went shopping. We started with a white button-down blouse. Somewhere along the way we ended up in a sleeveless top with an embellished peter pan collar.
4.Weight fluctuations
She'd go days without sleeping, Britney would. And in those four or five days, she'd drop a lot of weight. And then for whatever reason, a few days later she'd bloat out again. Since Jason left, a restless Britney has been going out more and more, and sleeping less and less.
5.The Mondrian
During the really bad time Britney would show up at the Mondrian alone and start undressing. Six years ago at the Mondrian, she approached two strangers and asked them if they would be her friend. Click here for a refresher. This weekend? This weekend Britney hit up the Mondrian. In a slip dress without a bra.
To be excited at the prospect of a new song, and jam up Twitter by trending her name if there's any hint of an upcoming album -- is this what it means to support, be a loyal fan? Especially when, even if there is new work to come, Britney, really, is only capable of contributing to, maybe, 5% of it?
What would it be like if we could all just let her go?
The challenge with Britney is that you can't completely let her go. They can't. They have to keep her reasonably busy so that she doesn't act out out of boredom. Boredom because she doesn't KNOW anything else. All she did when she was supposed to be finding interests and learning about herself was perform -- during those formative teen years, when most of us are allowed to figure out what we like and don't like and enjoy doing. The result? The result is that performing is all she knows. She doesn't know reading, she doesn't know hobbies, she doesn't care for travel, she doesn't know anything except being famous and performing. And falling in love. Being famous and performing and falling in love also almost killed her.


text:
Ronni Chasen Left Millions of Dollars in Her Will
TMZ has just obtained a copy of murdered publicist Ronni Chasen's will and other documents -- which estimate the value of her estate at $6.1 million ... and she intentionally stiffed one of her relatives.
In the document, dated June 10, 1994, Ronni left her playbill collection and other memorabilia to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, provided when it's publicly exhibited she gets credit -- "from the collection of Ronni Chasen."
Chasen was charitable, leaving $20,000 to Hole in the Wall Gang Fund, Inc., $10,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation International, $5,000 to Women's Cancer Research Foundation, $5,000 to the American Film Institute, $2,500 to the Gilda Radner Cancer Program and $5,000 to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
According to supporting documents, another will was prepared for Chasen in 2006, but it has not yet been located. Lawrence Cohen, Chasen's brother who is applying to be the special administrator, says he believes the will may be in a safe deposit box.
In the 1994 will, Chasen left 3/4 of her estate to her mother, but her mom since died. Given her mom's death, her niece, Melissa Cohen, gets a huge chunk of money and the charities listed above get a substantial amount of money as well.
And small amounts of money go to Big Sister Volunteers of Los Angeles, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Apparently Chasen did not like one of her nieces much -- she gives $10 to Jill Gatsby, stating, "I have intentionally and with full knowledge of the consequences omitted to provide for my niece, Jill Cohen, also known as Jill Gatsby, except for the gift of $10."


text:
New product
Color | Black |
Product Type | Floor Liners |
Fits | 2011-2017 Jeep Wrangler 4 Door, 2018 Jeep Wrangler JK 4 Door |
Floor Location | Second Row |
Drilling Required? | No |
Part Type | Floor Mats |
On Sale | No |
Misc Notes | Liner fits Wrangler 4-Door Unlimited models. |
Material | TPO - Thermoplastic Olefin |
No. of Lights | No |
Pack | 1 |
Series | Weatherbeater Series |
Warranty | Limited LIFETIME warranty on all WEATHERBEATER SERIES products. |
Prop 65 Warning | WARNING: This product may contain one or more chemicals known in the State of California to cause cancer and/or birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information, visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov |
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Racing of any form is extremely dangerous. Vehicles must be equipped with the most advanced safety equipment to try and reduce the chance of injury or death during an accident as much as possible. Helmets protect your head, fire retardant suits protect your skin, and harnesses restrain your body, but neck restraint is often overlooked by racers.
The HANS device (Head and Neck Support) was developed to prevent neck injuries and skull fractures by restraining your head from snapping forward in the event of an accident. The HANS device is a semi-hard collar made of carbon fiber and Kevlar. It is held onto the upper body by a harness worn by the driver. Two flexible tethers on the collar are attached to the helmet to prevent the head from snapping forward or to the side during a wreck.
The Hans device dissipates the force of the crash from your neck and distributes it to your shoulders and chest, reducing impact. The Hans Device has proven so effective it has been mandated by virtually all professional racing sanctioning bodies including NASCAR, NHRA, Formula 1, CART, the FIA, and even Monster Trucks.
WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm
Motorsport racing is a very dangerous sport. Back in the day, many race car drivers risk their lives just to step on top of the podium. Safety gears were not mandated or if there is one, it was not enough to keep many drivers safe. Eventually, things changed when a group of concerned enthusiasts searched for a way to make racing a safer environment. It was then that HANS was introduced.
The Hans company started back in 1981 when Dr Robert Hubbard and Jim Downin decided they needed to make racing safer for all the drivers. Hubbard is a Biomechanical Engineer and a designer of crash test dummy heads for GM. On the other hand, Downing is a seasoned professional driver who won five IMSA Championship. In addition to that, he is also an Engineer.
They realized the need for a safety restraint that supports the neck after their friend lost his life during a racing incident due to a Basilar Skull Fracture.
From conception to actual market release, it took them ten years before they were satisfied to release the first Hans product in the market. Several prototypes were initially tested and adjusted before they could finally find a design that is safe and effective. As they say, good things do not happen overnight.
Even up to this day, the profits from their sale are injected back to the research and design of Hans products. Race cars are getting faster year after year, and it is necessary that safety equipment must adapt to these changes.
All Hans safety equipment minimizes the risk of severe injuries during a crash. Since its introduction, it has saved numerous racing drivers' lives and prevented any fatality in major sporting events.
With over 30 years of product research and development, a total of 150,000 units have been sold to race car drivers worldwide. International motorsport events such as Indy, Formula One, and Nascar Racing all require their drivers to use The Hans.
Today, the majority of the motorsport industry has recognized the need for their products and has been included as part of the driver's required gear.
Safety should be everyone's number one priority. Hans has already proven itself that it can save lives and should be considered as the priority investment of any race car driver. Check out their product lineup, including their bestseller "The Hans Device." To know more about HANS and what they can offer, visit Vivid Racing and choose the right product for your need.


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Kupe and the Corals is the story of Kupe, a young boy who undertakes an amazing voyage of discovery to learn about corals and the importance of coral reefs to all of the many animals that depend upon them. One night while he is fishing with his father, Kupe observes an astonishing event, thousands and thousands of tiny "bubbles" rising to the surface of the waters in the lagoon near where he lives. Kupe is amazed by this sight and wants to learn more about the "strange pink bubbles" that he has captured in an old jam jar. Kupe visits with an elder from his village and a scientist from the nearby marine lab in an attempt to learn more about what he has seen.
During his conversations, Kupe learns that what he has captured are tiny coral larvae, baby corals that are produced in the millions over just a few nights each year by the adult corals living in the lagoon. Kupe then goes on to learn more about how corals grow and the importance of corals in building the reefs that provide homes for all of the other wonderful animals that he sees while snorkeling in the lagoon. Now, realizing how important the larvae he has captured are to the health of the coral reef, Kupe happily returns his larvae to the sea. Kupe and the Corals, is the sixth book in the Long Term Ecological Research Network Series.
Jacqueline L. Padilla-Gamino, PhD, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California Santa Barbara, whose graduate work focused on the ecophysiology of algae and reef-building corals.
In addition to illustrating many books, Marjorie Leggitt currently teaches botanical illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens School of Botanical Art and Illustration. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.


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For 2103, LG announced seven Google TV models in five screen sizes, including premium models featuring LG's popular CINEMA SCREEN design. The GA6400 series will be available in 42-, 47-, 50-, 55- and 60-inch class screen sizes (42.0-, 47.0-, 50.0-, 55.6- and 59.8-inch diagonals, respectively). LG applied its CINEMA SCREEN design to its 2013 premium GA7900 series (47- and 55-inch class screen sizes) to offer a sleek, modern look for discerning consumers who want the Google experience, but don't want to sacrifice on aesthetics. This design further minimizes width of the bezel, giving the TV a streamlined appearance while creating the impression of a borderless display. Along with the LG Google TV's unique stand design, it integrates perfectly with interior design of a living room.
Google's latest platform and LG's redesigned Magic Qwerty Remote work together to enhance the effectiveness of Voice Search and the PrimeTime quick guide. The updated Home Dashboard also adds to the user experience by offering convenient, streamlined access to premium video on-demand, such as HBO GO, content from YouTube and more apps. Discovering exciting new content from the rich pool of choices available on LG Google TV has never been easier. Additionally, the premium models will incorporate LG's advanced CINEMA SCREEN design for an undeniably sleek and modern finish.
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"LG is committed to providing diverse home entertainment options that offer the most satisfying user experience and the latest LG Smart TVs with Google TV do just that," said Havis Kwon , President and CEO of the LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company. "They deliver a stellar user experience by merging the latest Google TV platform with LG's proven Smart TV technology. The result is a comprehensive system that is groundbreaking in its simplicity."
LG Google TV aims to redefine the user experience. The new Home Dashboard offers varied types of "cards" that act as folders to display apps and other content. The new "My Interest" Card can even display useful information including real-time weather and customizable news.
The entire user interface can be navigated using the redesigned Magic Qwerty Remote, which combines a complete keyboard with the convenient benefits of the Magic Remote's point-and-click control. The enhanced natural language recognition incorporated in the revamped remote is a perfect match with Google's outstanding search functionality so that broadcast TV or Internet content can be found with only one vocal command. Consumers can use search terms like "romantic comedy" to get results. Consumers can also tell it to switch to a specific channel number, station or website with one voice command, eliminating extra scrolling and controller clicking. The overall voice-based capabilities multiply the effectiveness of the PrimeTime quick guide to provide an ultimate user experience and make browsing through the more than 100,000 available movies and TV episodes on LG Google TV a breeze.
The LG Smart TV with Google TV offers superb connectivity options and can connect to a variety of devices wirelessly. The latest YouTube app update for Android, smart phones and tablets can be automatically paired with Google TV over the same home network via Wi-Fi, making it easy to send videos from your device to your TV with just the touch of one button. Gamers will be pleased to know that LG Google TV will offer the OnLive app pre-installed, which transforms the TV into an incredible gaming platform without the need for a separate console. The app makes hundreds of high quality video games available instantly from the cloud.
The embedded dual core CPU enables easy menu navigation, fast Internet browsing and video streaming. The additional processor power allows the TruPicture XD Engine to process images more quickly and precisely, resulting in richer colors, deeper contrast and greater overall picture clarity. Also offering CINEMA 3D TV functionality, the LG Google TV employs FPR technology to give movie buffs and gamers a great 3D effect.
No word on pricing yet.
1 Comment
Waiting for LG 6400 60 inch TVs to show up at Best Buy.. right now as of 3/29/2013 they only seem to have the 47 inch. I tested it out and it's just a brilliant TV interface and voice search nailed everything I said.. and that keyboard is just brilliant too. This is worth upgrading for!


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Tate Britain (formerly "The Tate Gallery"), Millbank, London SW1. Designed by Sidney R. J. Smith. Built 1893-97; extension by Smith in 1899; several further extensions, 1926 onwards.
Photograph and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee, 2011. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL or cite it in a print one.]
Once described by Arthur Mee as "the stately home" of modern British art (Mee100), Tate Britain's grand front entrance is through a portico of Corinthian columns, with pavilions at either side, at the top of sweeping steps. Above the pediment stands a proud Britannia with her trident, and at either corner stand the heraldic emlems, the lion and the unicorn. Smith himself described the building as being "in a free classic style, with a Greek feeling in the mouldings and ornaments." According to the same source, "Upon the base of one of the columns is engraved the following: 'This gallery and sixty-five pictures were presented to the nation by Henry Tate for the encouragement and development of British art and as a thanks offering for a prosperous business career of sixty years'" (The Tate Gallery [The National Gallery of British Art]). Among the building's "ornaments" are fierce-looking winged lions and rather glamorous sphinxes on the outer wall, and two dramatic and powerful sculptures flanking the entrance — on one side Henry Fehr's Rescue of Andromeda (1893), and on the other, Sir Charles Bennett Lewes-Wittewronge's Death of Dirce (1906). Sir Thomas Brock's statue of Sir John Everett Millais (1904) has now been moved from the lawn in front of the gallery to the street at the rear.
Mee, Arthur. London: Heart of the Empire and Wonder of the World. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1937.
The Tate Gallery (The National Gallery of British Art). Boston: H. M. Caldwell, n.d. Internet Archive. Web. 5 March 2011.
Last modified 8 March 2011


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The Khuddaka Nikaya, or "Collection of Little Texts" (Pali khudda = "smaller; lesser"), the fifth division of the Sutta Pitaka, is a wide-ranging collection of fifteen books (eighteen in the Burmese Tipitaka) containing complete suttas, verses, and smaller fragments of Dhamma teachings. While many of these have been treasured and memorized by devout Buddhists around the world for centuries, others have never left the private domain of Pali scholars; some have yet to be translated into English.
An analysis of Abhidhamma concepts.
The Path of Discrimination (Patisambhidamagga) is the richest discourse by Arahant Sariputta Thera on the Buddha's Teachings in the questions-and-answers format. A.K. Warder succinctly described the most important feature of this great work by saying : "it expounds the way or path of 'discrimination' in its various aspects and tries to show exactly how understanding takes place in a practical sense, not simply in theory."
The book consists of thirty treatises. They span the various kinds of knowledges (associated with learning, virtue, concentration, dependent origination, comprehension, rise & fall of phenomena, dissolution, appearance of terror, equanimity about formations, and so on), views, breathing meditation, the five faculties, liberation, action (kamma), paths, truths, lovingkindness, powers, voidness, foundations of mindfulness, insight, and so on.
The following books are included only in the Burmese edition of the Tipitaka; in the Sinhala and Thai editions they are regarded as paracanonical.
The Milindapañha has long been revered by Theravada Buddhists around the world because it addresses many questions of Buddhist doctrine of the sort that often come up in the course of Dhamma study and meditation practice: "Are pleasant feelings skillful or unskillful?" "What is the difference between someone with attachment and someone without?" "Can an arahant ever break a Vinaya rule?" "Is it better to perform an unwholesome act knowingly or unknowingly?" "How far away is the Brahma-world?" "Why are some people healthy and others ill; some people attractive and others ugly; some rich, and others poor?" All told, the king asks some 237 questions[1] along these lines, making this one of the most comprehensive and useful Buddhist FAQs[2] in existence.
The books above marked with "[??]" are those of which I am completely ignorant. Comments for these books are drawn entirely from other sources:


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Ok so I have a problem thats slightly more complicated than the title suggests.
I have to write a method that randomly selects objects from one ArrayList and adds them to another ArrayList. The objects have an integer instance variable, "type" that is limited to 1-4. The second ArrayList should contain at least one element of each type. After that the objects can be selected at random until the second arraylist contains a number of objects determined by the user.
Can anyone suggest a relatively efficient way of doing this?
I cant think of any way that doesnt involve multiple additional arraylists.
P.S Sorry if I haven't phrased the problem particularly well, im a newbie to these forums


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The Rotary Youth Exchange program is the largest & least expensive exchange program in the world. With over 8,000 students currently doing exchanges in the world, our Youth Exchange program provides youth with the opportunity to live with people from other countries, allowing for them to experience new cultures and planting the seeds for a lifetime of international understanding.
Learn firsthand about all aspects of life in another country. As your concept of the world expands, you mature and develop a deeper understanding of who you are. Immersion in another country's educational system enhances academic and personal growth. Also, host clubs, families and the entire community are enriched by extended, friendly contact with someone from a different culture. Select from one of our three exchange opportunities.


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We at Loyola Campus Ministry welcome you as you begin your preparation for the celebration of your marriage. As you start planning for this most special event, please be aware of the guidelines and procedures outlined below.
The most important guideline to understand is that the Loyola Alumni Memorial Chapel is a Catholic church within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Therefore, if either the bride or groom is Catholic, the couple must follow all the wedding procedures of the Catholic Church. In order for a wedding to occur here we must ask approval from the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Without this approval the wedding cannot occur in our Chapel. Be sure to discuss all of the requirements with your priest and be sure you can meet them. In particular, if either party has been married before, this must be discussed with the priest before you confirm your reservation. The priest will advise you if your time frame is reasonable. We will be happy to work with you to find a later date, if necessary.
Throughout your preparation process, please do not hesitate to contact the Wedding Coordinator with any questions.
Mark Dushel Assistant Director for Faith Formation
Email: email@example.com


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Modern cowboys ride on the wild side
The Salt Lake TribuneThe bison had heard enough cracks of the whip and yaws coming from the annoying creatures on the backs of the horses.
In the blink of an eye, the cow turned from the herd and charged the closest target. The horse, or perhaps the rider, was expecting it to happen at some point and moved almost as fast — almost.
Light contact was made as the cow head-butted the back flank of the horse. No blood was drawn, and now content to have showed her disapproval, the bison trotted back to the herd, her tail high in the air.
Photo by Francisco Kjolseth
It is a called a roundup, but it doesn't take long to realize that the bison of Antelope Island actually just are tolerating being pushed in a direction they likely already had been considering.
"I didn't know the difference between bison and cattle," Christa Greenfader said after riding in the annual Antelope Island Bison Roundup in the fall of 2012. "Herding bison is apparently a lot like herding cats. They choose where they are going to go and you just follow them."
Greenfader had traveled from Venice, Calif., to ride in the bison roundup. It was a trip three years in the planning, and she got more than expected, watching a bison chase her husband's horse.
"That got the adrenaline going," she said. "We survived."
The public has been invited to help Utah State Parks officials collect the wild bison on the 28,000-acre island for nearly three decades. The roundup is more than an opportunity for people to ride horses and chase the mangy beasts; it is used to help keep the herd healthy and from growing too large.
"We have to sell the numbers down to what the island can support," said Jeremy Shaw, manager of Antelope Island State Park. "The roundup allows us to inoculate the animals we will keep and gather others for the auction."
Steve Bates, the Utah State Parks wildlife biologist in charge of the bison, determines what the island's population should be each year. He allows for more bison to be sold during years of poor range conditions.
There typically are between 700 and 750 on the island when the roundup starts, and the annual population goal is about 500.
People buy the bison at the auction for many reasons. Some are starting their own herd. Others arrange for the animals to be transported to a butcher to end up in the freezer. Some of the animals are purchased to help train cutting horses because bison are stronger, faster and more agile than cattle.
Bison are not known to be native to Antelope Island and were introduced to it in the 1890s when it was private. The state took over management of Antelope Island and the bison in 1981.
Helicopters and four-wheel-drive vehicles were used in addition to the horses during the roundup for many years, but park officials eventually decided just to let horse and riders do it.
"This is the most exciting ride of the year," Kendalyn Hill, of Bountiful, said. "The scenery just can't be beat. This is a special part of Utah's culture to be able to come to Antelope Island to see this herd."
There are plenty of stories of charging bison and antsy horses shared among the 400 or so riders who show up to spend a couple of nights camping and riding on the island, but not every rider is a hardcore cowboy or cowgirl.
Many riders form flanks on the sides of the herd as it is being pushed to the corrals and may never get closer than 100 yards or so from the beasts. The real drivers of the herd ride just behind the mass of grunting mammals and take turns making runs at the rear animals to keep them moving.
And you don't even need to have your own horse. People like the Greenfaders hire the horseback riding concessionaire on Antelope Island to provide a horse and someone to tag along with on the ride. Those reservations often are made a year in advance.
Photo by Francisco Kjolseth
It is possible to watch the roundup even if you don't ride. Many people pull over on the road heading to the Fielding Garr Ranch on the east side of the island to watch as the animals are pushed north toward the corrals. The 2012 roundup was an exception to this possibility because the bison were on the west side of the island with no vehicle access, but the majority of years the roundup is on the east side of the island.
People also can visit the corrals after the roundup to see people giving the bison a health checkup and culling them out for possible auction.
Animals not selected for the auction are released to be captured in images from tourists all over the world.
For Amanda Reylence, who originally is from England, the bison roundup was the draw to visit the biggest island on the Great Salt Lake. And while the ride greatly exceeded her expectations, it was other wonders of the adventure that especially pleased her.
"When we got near the bulls, they were fighting and getting aggressive," Reylence said. "They were so big and there was all this grunting and groaning. It was absolutely fantastic and breathtaking. The whole experience of looking at the bay and the mountains. People came from all over America. It was just lovely. I will do it again."
Experiences and responses like that are what got the bison roundup on The Utah Bucket List and why park officials will strive to keep it an active public event.
"This is one of the few things Utah State Parks does on its own," Shaw said. "Most times we are just a venue for somebody else to put on an event. We really love it and plan to keep it this way. We want to maintain that unique experience for the public to be able to come and be an active part of Antelope Island."