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Most of us have heard of leading and lagging indicators. Economists rely upon them.
Bond yields are a good example of a leading indicator because they frequently predict the trajectory of the stock market and the economy. Leading indicators point the way forward.
Lagging indicators, on the other hand, look backward. They serve to confirm conclusions about something that has occurred or is underway. The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator. If it's rising, we can be confident the economy is underperforming.
We can more easily penetrate the fog of the U.S. Supreme Court, its culture and its decisions by understanding that it is a lagging indicator. It inches forward by looking backward. It breaks new ground ever so slowly, constrained by its self-imposed necessity to reach decisions based upon the precedents established by prior decisions.
The high court prides itself in its belief that its decisions are based on the rule of law and not on popular opinion. Yet the snail-like pace it sets breaking with the precedents set in earlier court decisions too frequently imprisons the court and delays justice.
Let's look at one of the nation's most incendiary and corrosive issues, race, from this perspective. Racial prejudice was alive and well at the nation's birth. Shamefully, it is part of America's DNA. Not even the Civil War could defeat it. But it is also the case that enormous progress has been made over the past half-century in combating racial discrimination. Lamentably, no progress has been made in thwarting racism's evil twin — reverse racism.
Almost two generations after the Civil War ended, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 that state laws mandating racial segregation in public facilities were constitutional under the "separate but equal" doctrine. The vote was not close, 7-1.
It took another half-century for the court to overturn that doctrine. It took up Brown v. Board of Education in the spring of 1953 but could not reach a decision. The principal stumbling block was Chief Justice Fred Vinson. But in September 1953, Vinson died and was succeeded by Earl Warren.
In 1954, almost a century after the Civil War, the court ruled 9-0 that state laws establishing separate educational facilities for black and white children were unconstitutional. Such schools, the court reasoned, were inherently unequal.
It had taken the court nearly 100 years to stumble into the truth. Now that's a lagging indicator.
Last Tuesday, the court handed down its decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. By a vote of 6-2, it upheld the state of Michigan's approval of Proposal 2, which had been approved by 58 percent of the state's voters in 2006. Proposal 2 prohibited Michigan's public colleges and universities from granting preferential admissions treatment to individuals based upon race. The ruling may also apply to the awarding of public contracts and to hiring policies of state and local employees.
Although there were several concurring opinions, there is little doubt that the court has made clear that voters have the power and the authority to ban affirmative action.
But the controlling opinion of the court, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and joined by Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, is also important for what it did not do. Refusing to overturn prior precedents respecting race (1969, 1982 and 2003), Kennedy said, "The question here concerns not the permissibility of race-conscious admissions policies under the Constitution but whether, and in what manner, voters in the states may choose to prohibit the consideration of racial preferences in governmental decisions, in particular with respect to school admissions."
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas concurred with Kennedy's support for the ban approved by Michigan voters, but they would have gone further and overruled the prior precedents set by the court. Justice Stephen Breyer was the sixth vote to uphold the Michigan ban, but his reasoning was far narrower.
Kennedy's gambit of now you see it, Michigan's ban is constitutional, but now you don't, the previous precedents are unaffected, might have made sense if he had been able to do what Earl Warren did in 1954, unify the court. But he didn't.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote a blistering 58-page dissent that thundered "race matters" no less than 11 times. Her dissent would have had the court overturn the outcome of Michigan's approval of Proposal 2 because she believes the election outcome was influenced by racism.
Upon careful examination, her rationale is not only fallacious, it's frightening. Proposal 2 banned the use of race in college admissions. Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg turn Proposal 2 on its head and state that the courts have the authority to overturn the Michigan election because they know its outcome was racist. Their basis for that knowledge rests solely on the fact that a large majority, 58 percent, of the voters supported Proposal 2.
Their argument is reverse racism run wild. It goes like this: If you don't agree with me, you're a racist. Think of it this way: Had Mitt Romney won the election in 2012, and had Barack Obama gone to court and alleged that his defeat was the result of racism, Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg likely would have voted to nullify the presidential election because "race matters." It's madness!
The Supreme Court thinks of itself as a leader. In fact, it's a laggard.
LeRoy Goldman is a former Times-News columnist. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.
The Supreme Court: A lagging indicator
Most of us have heard of leading and lagging indicators. Economists rely upon them.


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Cryengine? Unreal? Reality, and it is going to stay out of reach for some time in this level of detail.
You are Krutor, a wild barbarian from the land of Morkroch. You have travelled a very long journey, across high mountains to the famous imperial city of Lhota, the capitol of the world and largest agglomeration in the known universe, whose fame touches the stars.
The city consists of precisely fifteen buildings (one of which is the imperial palace); the town is inhabited by 30 NPCs, including Emperor Lojza, Archmage Lotrando and all of the members of the guilds of thieves, mages and warriors.
You visit the emperor, who sits alone in the throne hall, and he assigns you with an quest. The land is terrorised by an evil dragon from hell and Lojza is powerless. He has sent an entire imperial army against it, but the monster has killed all five soldiers. Now, he needs a hero like you! You have to find and climb the mystical mountain, Lohen, on which no human has ever set foot, and behead the dragon.
You accept the quest and set out from the town gate. The mystic mountain Lohen is precisely 150 metres from the gate and is about 50 metres high. All of the inhabitants of the city are either retarded, blind or crippled if they have not managed to notice it for centuries. After an approximately 30-metre walk to the mountain, you come to 'no man's land' and are attacked by bandits. During another 120m walk to the peak, you also notice an ancient fortress Rumloch, a secret dungeon of doom and a bandit hideout. At the peak of the mountain, you kill a one-hundred-metre dragon by beating its foot with a rusty sword and drinking potions. Then, you rob the corpses of the imperial army (all five) and on the way back to the castle are killed by a wild boar.
Welcome to an average RPG.
Potato-Landscape Compression
You might have already figured out where I am headed with this. The design map of today's RPGs is useless, because everything is compressed so that every ten metres you could find something fantastic or at least could be attacked by a monster every ten seconds, because otherwise it would just be 'boring'...
This environment compression however negatively affects the graphics. In order to place a castle, cave or bandit camp every ten metres, you have to create a lunar landscape and hide the locations in nonsensical craters or beyond a hills that you must make as high as possible so that it would not be possible to see very far behind them. The result is an environment which is miles away from a real landscape, it is absolutely impossible to orientate within it without a map and in most cases looks bad. I call it a potato landscape, because the terrain surface is reminiscent of a potato's surface.
It is probably obvious to you that what I have just described is a path that we definitely do not want to set out on. We try to make a realistic game and we want to have a beautiful realistic landscape. If you however find it suspicious that all developers would be so 'stupid' and do it badly the whole time instead of simply taking a real map and copying it into the game, you are right – they are not, because that is not at all so simple, and using the example of landscape for our game I will try to explain to you why.
Our game is historical and takes place in entirely specific real places. While nobody can say how exactly these places looked a few hundred years ago, rivers still flow in the same streambeds, the paths still run more or less the same ways and the towns and villages are still in the same places. And because I am a bit of a perverse pedant, I want to have it right in our game. I would not be able to claim that our game takes place in Prague and then create some nonsensical village in a potato landscape.
The Chicken or the Egg?
In the design of the plot line for the game, I therefore proceeded backwards from what is normal. I knew what I wanted to tell, but before I began to invent the details, I sought the real places where it could take place. That means the places which in the course of the time when our game takes place were the sites of something that was connected with historical events and I could graft my story onto it. Moreover, the given place had to have as many interesting points on the smallest possible area so that we would not have to create absurd landscapes of a size of tens of square kilometres and the player would not have to trudge through empty forests for hours.
A look at the first test version of our landscape, with satellite height map and a very simple texture and trees for easier comprehension of scale. The are on the screenshot is ca 1x2 km.
Since the critical events of the story take place in several locations, separated from one another by tens or hundreds of kilometres, it was necessary to decide whether we take the route of fiction and slap next to one another completely unconnected places like Berlin and London on one map of 3x3 km or whether there will be some loading in the game and the player will move along the map between too distant places. I have decided for the second version. The game will therefore take place on several smaller maps, which will be realistic, instead of one nonsensical map. The reason was not the technical limitation of the engine but simply only an attempt at realism.
Subsequently, I began to select suitable places for each of these individual maps. I read several books dealing with the events of our story and wrote down the interesting places. Then, I opened the website hrady.cz, mapping almost all of the cultural monuments in the Czech Republic, and on the map there I started from the place where the crucial event of the first location of our game took place and I started to travel systematically the surroundings to find the places that are connected with the given event and could be interesting for the game.
I went through many dozens of castles, strongholds and small towns, and with each I studied its history. I ended up with about twenty places which looked promising and I began to investigate them in more depth. In the end, I selected two locations where events had taken place that almost surpassed my expectations, and to my great joy I discovered that they are mentioned in immediately two novels which take place in the same period as our story and in whose immediate vicinity there are many interesting places and beautiful wild nature. Besides that, the fates of the people who lived there directly offered themselves for inclusion in our story.
Unfortunately, those places were about twelve kilometres away as the crow flies from one another, which is really a lot. Such a large landscape is beyond our realisation possibilities and moreover it would be completely unentertaining to play. If we were to keep to reality, we would have to create tens of kilometres of empty forests. If we planted them with something that was not in them, we would negate the reason we are sticking to reality. The time had thus come to make compromises.
The Cutting Room
I had two possibilities – to locate both places on separate maps, which in this case however would make the playing of several quests somewhat unpleasant, or do something I do not like at all – compress the landscape and change it to serve the game. I decided for a compression within reasonable limits. I took the map, cut out one location, found the most suitable new place to paste it and stuck it there. The whole time, I heard in my mind the rebukes and the ideas of how all three inhabitants of the given place who would play our game would be angry that I had butchered their birthplace, but in the end I came to the opinion that our comrades would have to cope with it somehow :)
Section of the heigth map we used to generate the terrain for our first location.
We subsequently bought satellite elevation 3D maps of the given place, which have a precision of about 5m per pixel, got them working in Cryengine and reworked them based on my 2D map. As texture, we daubed on that a historical map from the 18th century (unfortunately nothing older exists) and began to run around it with a figure.
It is rather difficult to guess from running around an empty map where one does not have the opportunity to seize on anything that would offer one an estimation of scale, whether it will in the end be too small or big and if it will be entertaining. In any case, our map of a size of ca 4x4 kilometres seemed really enormously empty. Just for your information, all of Oblivion has a size of around 4x3km and WoW (after deleting the sea) approximately 13x10km.
Learning from the Mistakes of Others
It needs to be mentioned what I actually plan to do with the landscape and what do I intend to fill it with if the space overstuffed with events and locations bothers me. What is actually ideal? Some of the few game series that have decided for realism is Flashpoint and its successor Arma. Some of my colleagues at Warhorse have experience with the development of Arma, the original Flashpoint as well as its successor from Codemasters, and so we know very well that what seems at first sight to be a realistic landscape in the first Flashpoint in fact has a greatly reduced scale.
Island from Operation Flashpoint and its real-life precursor.
Friends from BIS took a map of the island of Tenerife and reduced it 20x. They thus obtained a nice 3D map of the surface, but they did everything else differently. Large cities have become villages, high mountains small hills. Even so, the player in the game has the feeling that he/she is overcoming enormous distances. There, however, arise the reasons that realism does not have to be exactly the best solution – because it is often quite boring, so a button for accelerating time comes in handy for the trip to pass more quickly.
In the sequel of Flashpoint, the guys from Codemasters unfortunately were apparently not even aware of the problem and decided to make a copy of the real island with a size of 277km2, which in the end proved to be absolutely unnecessary overkill, because the resultant game does not use 90% of the area of the island at all and the distances that are sometimes necessary to overcome are insane. On the other hand, however, it has sometimes been demonstrated that even a relatively long walk through the forest does not have to be boring if it raises the anticipation of what will come next.
The real island of Kiska that was used in Flashpoint Dragon Rising as is.
In my opinion, the world and the density of locations have been resolved in Red Dead Redemption. The distances between individual places are so great that it is almost unimaginable that you would go on foot, but at the same time just right for riding a horse. The individual locations are so far from one another that you do not stumble upon them at every step and from one place you cannot see the others, but at the same time the map does not seem empty even though the landscape is not glaringly large in any way and has roughly 3x2km. It is just very cleverly divided by natural barriers (cliffs, a river), so that you have to travel the same way as on a large map when you try to bypass them, but the graphic artists had less work while the result still seems very natural.
It is also terrific that you are not constantly bothered by monsters and enemies like in practically every other open world game. When you want to go from point A to point B, you simply go and you do not have to deal with bandits every one hundred metres. Surprisingly, nothing bad happens because of that, the game is not worse, more boring or even shorter like apparently all of the other developers are convinced. But if you only want to wander around, many things take place around you in which you can but do not have to get involved. That is the way it should be in my opinion and I would like to do that too.
The aim is for the distance between towns to be truly too great to walk on foot and, so great that when you are to look for something, you really have to look. It simultaneously solves a visual problem – when the landscape is naturally large, it can even look natural; you can show majestic panoramas, in the distance you can observe the silhouettes of the places where you may once arrive but you can feel their inaccessibility.
Reality vs. Practice
Comparing maps of several large open-world games. Our planned map is the green square next to the map of Oblivion.
It all sounds very nice. The problem is that in the end you still have to test how it works in your specific case and when we put a few boxes representing buildings in our map and in the places of forests in a flash planted trees, which goes very quickly in Cryengine, I discovered that two places which appear to be only a short distance from one another on the map are actually not even visible and a trip on foot between them takes ten minutes, despite the fact that our figure walks substantially more briskly than the average tourist.
Moreover, our realistic map suffers from one more lack – the interesting places are located on the margins and the centre is essentially empty, which is not entirely ideal, because if the most important locations are on the edges of the map, the player must entirely unnecessarily and too often undertake the same boring route across the entire map every time he/she sets out for anywhere. With a centrally placed location, there is no such problem, because you can go another direction every time. Unfortunately, if we want to maintain a real layout of the map, we will have to leave it like that, be aware of it when designing the quests and not rush the player from one corner to the other like a bloated goat.
In any case, it was obvious after a look at our landscape that we would have to compress even more than before. I did not want to set out on the path of a change of scale, so I took the map again, marked the areas that must remain untouched and began to cut off the strips in which there was nothing interesting. From a map of 4x4, I made a map of 3x3 where everything remained almost the same.
Then, I decided to visit once again the places where the game would take place and scour really all of the corners of the game area. In so doing, I discovered that the landscape is truly beautiful, but some of the distances that look bearable in our blackbox map take quite a long time to overcome even by car and furthermore an elevation that does not look drastic at all in the engine is in fact a gigantic hill!
What to Do?
It forced me to think again. Originally, we did not want to put any fast travel in the game within a single map, but this somewhat undermined me. Fast travel moreover is not a resolution but only a crutch which does not remove the error but only circumvents it. Had we however actually committed an error?
Will the player like it when he/she wants to go from town A to town B to travel a long time on a horseback? The travel speed of a horse is ca 25km/h, so it makes a kilometre in ca 2.5 minutes. If the towns are two kilometres distant as the crow flies and the horse travels a bit faster than in reality, such a journey will take the player more than five minutes. Five minutes is a long time in a game, especially if you travel through a landscape which is not lunar and you constantly see your destination in the distance on the horizon and approach it very slowly. And what if the player goes on foot across a meadow that is not a classically compressed place but a real one-hundred-metre meadow? Overcoming it takes ca 1 minute of walking, a sprint some 13 seconds. Is it a too much or little?
Travelling in Arma and Flashpoint had its charm, and if we always concentrate the quests around the locations and you do not have to travel to the other places too often, it could work. Yet, it is not only about the speed of travel. The larger the landscape, the more infrequent the placement of locations, the points of interest and the events. It is better in a game to have an enormous forest, which will be massive, because it is beautiful, a person can admire it and enjoy its atmosphere, but in the majority of its area nothing special happens, or a small forest where one immediately finds what one is looking for at the expense of atmosphere? We can easily end up in a situation where everyone says we have a beautiful landscape, but what is it good for when there is nothing to do in it… It will in its way be true. But does it not apply even here a bit that the journey is more important than the destination?
We will not know until we have the first larger piece of the landscape ready, which will be relatively soon. Then, either our theory on realism in games will be confirmed or we will compress like crazy as long as there is time.
Naturally, we are interested in what you say about it. What would you prefer:
- a compressed potato landscape where everything is close by?
- a realistic landscape in which you can wander for hours even if it is relatively empty?
- a smaller map that looks realistic but is reasonably compressed?
Write to us which route seems the best to you and if you like what we are doing and want to help us, share, tweet and like us! We are making the game for us and for you and we need your feedback and support. If you do not want to miss the next blog, which will come out again in roughly a month, keep an eye on us on Twitter @warhorsestudios, Facebook, or add us as an RSS feed.
Dan Vavra, Creative Director

subset: commoncrawl


text: Artificial Gravity 1 Report post Posted April 9, 2013 I was having an argument with a friend. They think I should buy a pugmill for recycling clay. A little research revealed that, with my needs, and the space available, I could get one of those little Peter Pugger mills, for, let's say, $3,500. Now with clay cost at around $0.35/lb. I could buy 10,000 lbs. of clay. I live eight miles from my supplier, so I don't pay for shipping. That five tons of clay would last me at least ten years. If I buy a mill, I will have to : 1. find a place for it. 2. Pay for the electricity it uses. 3. Maintain it Or, I can use that money to buy clay and make pots instead of reclaiming clay. Why do I ( or any small volume potter ) "need a pugmill"? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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According to a report over on AllThingsD, the departure of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is more sudden than what was portrayed by the company's announcement. Ballmer will be retiring within the next year in a planned transition with a replacement to be found. The board of directors will be working with executive recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles International to get the best name for the job.
The decision to retire would have been down to Ballmer, but interviews with folk both inside and outside Microsoft state that the CEO had not planned to leave at this point in time, especially so soon after the recent restructuring of the company, which Ballmer played a major part in. It's believed Ballmer, along with the board and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates all agreed that it would be best if he left sooner than later.
Bill Gates has been a big supporter of the current Microsoft CEO, previously rejecting suggestions from outside for Ballmer to be replaced. It's not all fun and games as AllThingsD's John Paczkowski wrote in an interesting piece last week: "Here's one metric by which Ballmer will be judged harshly. On the last day of 1999, the day before he took over as CEO, Microsoft's market capitalization was $600 billion. On the day before he announced his intention to retire, it was less than $270 billion."
While there's speculation in the AllThingsD report, it's certainly worth checking out for the full read. Whatever the reason may be for Ballmer stepping down, we're sure a fresh breathe of life at the top of the company can't be a bad thing. There are also reports surfacing on other publications that Ballmer had indeed planned retirement and all is going according to plan.
It'll be interesting to see how this story develops and who will be selected as the next CEO - possibly Stephen Elop? That said, reasoning doesn't particularly matter to consumers - Ballmer's still leaving Microsoft, regardless to what conclusion we come to.
Source: AllThingsD


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Sergey Buntman, Deputy Editor, Echo of Moscow radio
Date created : Latest update :
Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian gas giant, is moving to take control of the board of Russia's most famous independent radio station, Echo of Moscow. This comes as many fear tough times ahead for press freedom following the election of Vladimir Putin. Douglas Herbert meets Sergey Buntman, Echo of Moscow deputy editor, who explains why he has no plans to change his editorial stance.


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All eyes are currently on west Africa in terms of women's youth football on the continent as the region swept the three available places at the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup. Gambia were the surprise success story of the campaign,
and the Girl Scorpions will be debutants in Azerbaijan later this year alongside powerhouses Nigeria and Ghana.
Usually ahead of the continental curve in women's football at all levels, Nigeria and Ghana also reached the finals in 2008 and 2010, the only two previous versions of the tournament. Gambia had not entered a team in qualifying before, so their win over Tunisia was particularly notable.
Big two prove a point
Long the standard-bearers of women's football in Africa, Nigeria carry that distinction at the U-17 level as well. Not only have the Flamingoes reached the only two previous World Cups, but they are the only African team to make the knockout rounds of the finals once there, which they did at Trinidad & Tobago 2010 when they went out to eventual champions Korea Republic 6-5 after extra time in a thrilling back-and-forth quarter-final. Given their pedigree, neither Nigeria's 5-0 aggregate win over Kenya in the first round, or their 7-1 triumph over Zambia in two legs in the decisive tie, were much of a shock.
"It wasn't a surprise that we won by such wide margins because we worked hard for the results,†said Nigeria coach Peter Dedevbo after the 5-0 second leg win, which saw a brace from Chidinma Edeji as well as a second goal in the tie each from Patience Okaeme and Halimatu Ayinde. The no-nonsense boss admitted to being "elated†with the achievement and he also expressed his ambitions: "We are already thinking about World Cup preparations and building a team that will surpass the quarter-final from two years ago.â€Â
Ghana have won a match at each of the last two FIFA U-17 Women's World Cups, so they were also anxious to brush past their continental rivals en route to the larger stage, and the Black Maidens cruised past perennial challengers Cameroon 5-0 aggregate. Then they held their nerve in Johannesburg, claiming a scoreless draw against 2010 qualifiers South Africa in the opening leg of the final round. Buoyed by that away result, Ghana coach Dramani Mas-ud Didi had his side itching with momentum for the return, and they pounded the team that he called "a force in women's football†by the score of 5-1.
The result was all the sweeter given that the Maidens went behind nervously in the opening minutes to Mosili Makhoali's goal. However, Alberta Ahialey equalised almost immediately and then completed her hat-trick with a quick double late in the first half. Captain Priscilla Okyere added a brace of her own in the second period, including a long-range exclamation point in the later stages. South Africa coach Gregory Mashilo was impressed by the performance. "Ghana came at us very strongly,†he said before lamenting his team's reaction to the early goal. "We took our foot off the pedal and allowed them to dictate terms.â€Â
Girl Scorpions sting Tunisians
The Gambian success story got off to a good start in January when they won the first leg of their first tie against Sierra Leone 3-0, but a 3-1 reversal a fortnight later at Makeni in the away leg brought some questioners. However, in the final round as hosts of Tunisia at the Box Bar Stadium in Brikama, they had the best of the chances in the first leg, but it wasn't until the introduction of Fatou Darboe that the team really came together.
It was Darboe's cross that led to a penalty near the hour mark, and although Adama Tamba put the kick wide, Darboe completed the roll of heroine deep into second-half injury time with a dramatic winner.
Some sloppy defending from the exhausted Tunisians led to the vital breakthrough, but afterwards Gambia coach Buba Jallow praised his side's commitment to the cause after playing four qualifiers under three months. "We came back, trained, and proved ourselves ready for the match, which was a promise made from the girls,†he said proudly. Tunisian coach Rebailli Salah promised a more even match in the return at La Soukra in Tunis, but their defence was again a weak link as they surrendered a pair to go out a 3-1 aggregate loser. The coach of the North Africans praised the fitness and awareness of the happy qualifiers, who will join Nigeria, Ghana and 13 other teams at the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, which takes place in Azerbaijan from 22 September to 13 October.


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2013: Started all 12 games at wide receiver ... Led the team with 68 receptions for 1,020 yards and nine touchdowns ... His 68 receptions were the second most in a single-season by a receiver and he is just the second ODU receiver to record a 1,000 yard season ... He opened the year with eight receptions for 92 yards at East Carolina ... Hauled in seven passes for 96 yards at Maryland ... Pulled in three passes for 69 yards and two touchdowns versus Howard ... Had three catches for 88 yards and a TD in the win over The Citadel ... Notched five receptions for 80 yards and a TD and ran for 21 yards in the win over Albany ... Caught five passes for 98 yards in the come-from-behind win over Liberty ... Caught a career-high nine passes for 83 yards at Pittsburgh ... Corraled five passes for 54 yards and two scores in the victory at NSU ... Caught six balls for 70 yards and two TD's in the win over URI ... Recorded eight receptions for 86 yards in the first-ever FBS win at Idaho ... In the home finale, had six receptions for a career-best 156 yards and a touchdown ... Caught three passes for 48 yards at UNC ... His 160 career receptions is third most in school history and his 2,338 receiving yards is second only to Nick Mayers, who has 2,688 receiving yards.
2012: Had 55 receptions for 830 yards and seven touchdowns ... third on the team in receiving yards and tied for second in touchdowns ... Caught six passes for 76 yards in season-opening victory over Duquesne ... Caught six passes for career-best 96 yards in the win at Richmond ... Tied career-best with six catches for 92 yards and touchdown in 53-27 win at Georgia State ... Recorded four catches for 34 yards against W&M ... Had three receptions for 41 yards and a touchdown at No. 13 JMU ... Tied his career-best with six catches for a career-best 154 yards and three touchdowns in the second round playoff win over Coastal Carolina ... Had seven catches for 83 yards against No. 6 Georgia Southern.
2011: Appeared in all 13 games starting the final seven games of the season ... Was the fourth leading receiver ... Made 37 catches for 488 yards and a team-leading nine touchdowns ... Posted a season-high 94 yards and two touchdowns on six catches in the week nine over No. 9/10 James Madison, ODU's first win over a top-10 program ... Registered a pair of touchdowns on three catches for 64 yards in the week five victory over No. 20 UMass, the Monarchs' first-ever CAA victory ... Also had a pair of receiving touchdowns on both his receptions in the week six win at Rhode Island ... Made three catches for 56 yards and a touchdown in the first round of the FCS playoffs vs. Norfolk State ... Also had touchdown receptions against Richmond and No. 3/2 Georgia Southern in the second round of the FCS playoffs.
2010: Redshirted.
HIGH SCHOOL: Second Team All-Met ... All-District DCIAA East Offense ... Made 32 receptions to total 475 yards ... Also carried the ball 22 times for 317 yards ... Posted 16 touchdowns and the ran the ball into the end zone on PAT's on three occasions.
PERSONAL: Born February 25, 1992 ... Son of Larry Green and Michele Pinkard-Green ... Has two sisters, Lashelle and LaTonya, and two brothers Jacqua and Ayinde ... Majoring in sports management.


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God will see you through every storm of life.
A small train in the Midwest was once moving through a violent storm. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. Rain swept down in driving sheets against the windows. Water rose on the tracks. The cars lurched back and forth. Chaos reigned everywhere. People began shouting in frustration, some even cursing. Terror, confusion and fear gripped all the passengers. All, that is, but one little girl in pigtails. Calmly she sat in her seat, peaceful and happy, reading a favorite book. "Little girl, little girl, how can you be so calm in this terrible storm," shouted a very upset older man. "Aren't you afraid?" The little girl slowly looked up, smiled sweetly and said. "No sir, everything is going to be OK. You don't have to worry because my daddy is the engineer."
What storm are you facing this week in your life? What battles are you fighting? What's taken the wind out of your sails? When you are able to trust God, then you can rest in peace, just like the little girl whose dad was in control of the train. God is in full control of our lives. When we trust Him, no matter how difficult a challenge may be. God walks through that challenge with us, sustaining us by His strength. Never fear. Never fret. Never be dismayed. Never doubt. We are in the palms of His hands. We are His beloved, the apple of His eye. He is our rock, our fortress and our deliverer. Be encouraged, the storm is going to pass and you are going to be fine.
We need not despair over the difficulties in our lives. God has a very definite design and purpose in everything. He will see us through them all. Here is a verse to encourage you this week:
"Be strong and courageous for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9
– Jay Grant is pastor at The Little Church by the Sea


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He's just a bitter person after never winning his team(s) a championship.
He's just trying to keep his name out there IMO
Edit: I withdraw the above comment. Megalomaniac points out on page 2 here that LT was set up and the holMEs quote is taken totally out of context. Apologies to LT. Just another case of a sc*mbag reporter trying to make news. Thank you Megalomaniac.
LaDainian Tomlinson has openly criticized the New York Jets locker room he was a part of in 2011 after watching it fray at the end of the season.Could Jets WR Santonio Holmes again be a headache for QB Mark Sanchez (6)? Former New York RB LaDainian Tomlinson (21) thinks so.
By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
Now he's warning that Tim Tebow's arrival there could indirectly lead to more strife, specifically from WR Santonio Holmes, who's been singled out as a source of last year's fractious atmosphere.
"If (by) Week 6, if they haven't thrown the ball more than 15 times a game, and Santonio is not getting his catches, you may hear some things (with) him speaking out. I hope Santonio learned from what happened last year. You have to learn from your previous mistakes," Tomlinson, now retired, said on NFL Network's The Rich Eisen Podcast on Thursday.
Holmes had just 51 catches and a career-low 654 receiving yards in 2011 and vented frustration on and off the field.
However Tomlinson also opined that the moody wideout might buy into a dual quarterback system knowing Tebow's running ability might serve to open things up for the offense whether he's under center or perhaps putting the Jets in down-and-distance situations that allow Mark Sanchez to make more shots in the passing game.
"Mark's our quarterback," said L.T. "Tebow will be our Wildcat quarterback whenever we want to ground and pound. Santonio may be able to accept that a little bit more than playing musical chairs."
Tomlinson also touched on a few other topics:
- His assertion that he'd rather be a Hall of Famer than a Super Bowl champion in a ProFootballTalk interview: "Ever since I was kid, I wanted to leave a mark on the game. I wanted to be special. That's something I worked for. And I understand that it's a team game, and at the end of the day, I wanted to win a championship. It's not like I was saying I didn't want to win a championship -- I wanted so badly to win a championship, I sacrificed individually so much. But when it's all said and done, at the end of the day, I didn't win a championship but I think I've got a great chance of going to the Hall of Fame. ... You're going to get various opinions about the way I did things, the way I carried myself. ... But I didn't think I was a selfish person at all."
- Whether running backs are still cooked at the age of 30: "Running backs don't have the same workload as I had, or Marshall Faulk had, Emmitt Smith, guys like that who carried the ball 300-plus times a year every year. And so obviously it takes a toll on your body. But today's game, where you have two- and three-running back rotations, a running back can play a lot longer now."
Last edited by JetsNeedNewton; 07-14-2012 at 11:20 AM.
He's just a bitter person after never winning his team(s) a championship.
I think this is more stating the obvious than anything else. Holmes could definitely be a problem. There's a reason Pittsburgh let him go for practically nothing, and we saw why last season.
15 throws a game?"If (by) Week 6, if they haven't thrown the ball more than 15 times a game, and Santonio is not getting his catches, you may hear some things (with) him speaking out.
Sanchez averaged 24 attempts as a rookie, when the Jets had the #1 rushing offense and ran on over 60% of downs.
Santonio can get behind guys and he loves the long home run. He had the same thing in Pittsburgh. He wants to make plays. otoh I wouldn't ever call him a hero, either.
LT sounds pretty much matter -of-fact; imo the editors are drumming this into a negative story. There is nothing coming out of his mouth that says he's bitter, or highly doubtful of holmes.
He's just a bitter person after never winning his team(s) a championship.
Not for nothing but LT did not say anything that was out of line. Headline is a little misleading.
He referred to the Mark as "our" QB and to the Jets as "we". Interesting.
If Tebow becomes the starter, I'd be pretty mad about having him throw to me, too.
If that does happen the way LT things it will, then I wouldn't blame Holmes one bit.
LT really going out on a limb.
People Talking About LaDainian ?
Mission= Accomplished.
This douche is warren sapp 2, in training..
It's only a matter of time with LT before he proclaims,
a)I knew when I first met Tebow as a teammate of mine he was special! (Pay no attention to the never teammate factor)
B) I knew when the Jets traded for Tebow,That Mark would rise to the occassion and be the guy "him and I had talked about him being "
Just a matter of time !
LT is saying the same thing Cannizzaro said on JI radio about Holmes.
all i have to say is shut your face and get open


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Funk Rock
The word "funk" itself began to enter the R&B vocabulary with Dyke & the Blazers' R&B dance hit "Funky Broadway". Several theories and explanations of the orgins of the actual word "funk" have been offered, the most likely consensus being that, like rock & roll and jazz, it was a euphemism for sexual activity, though "funk" often stood for smelly, gritty, or earthly stuff within the African-American community. By the end of the 1960s, it had come to stand for the greasiest and earthiest variant of soul music.[1]
Dyke & Blazers and Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band (most famous for "Express Yourself") were among the style's earliest practitioners. After an apprenticeship with Eric Burdon, War stormed the charts in the early and mid-'70s with a series of hits that incorporated Latin rhythms, loose, jazz grooves, and vague social pontifications. The Meters took the sound of New Orleans R&B, already a bedrock of much post-1950 R7B, soul, and rock, into the funk era, largely on instrumentals (at least at first). Isaac Hayes took endless bubbling funk monologues onto both album and single charts, as his "Shaft" took the wah-wah guitar signatures often found in funk to their limot.[1]
- Richie Unterberger
1. "All Music Guide to Rock. The Definitive guide to Rock, Pop, and soul". Edited by Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas. 3rd Edition. Publisher: Backbeat Books, ISBN 0-87930-653-X. p. 1334Funk Rock bands starting with 'O': no records found
|Lee Oskar
|Patrick O'Hara
|Patrick Olive
© Boar 2011 - 2019


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We took most of our pack to the park: Miley, Jeffery, Lucy and Charlotte all were treated to a day of fun (Jane couldn't go, she gets car sick and does not like other dogs so was happy for the alone time).
With the exception of Lucy and Charlotte, who were a little freaked out at all of the dogs (there were ALOT of dogs), our puppy's had a great time exploring and making new friends:
This little Chinese Crested, a hairless breed was just adorable in it's pink bow, and even more so when its male owner carried it across the area to play. Daddy's do love their babies!
The one-acre park is fenced off from the rest of Veterans Park. Within the dog park, boundaries separate the off-leash areas for small dogs and large dogs. Each area features a splash-pad for playing in the water or cooling off. A "senior sanctuary" allows older pets the opportunity to sit and enjoy the outdoors, and covered seating features picnic-style tables and benches.
A mural of a beach is "for the humans", one human parkgoer stated. But the rest of the park is certainly , "For the dogs" !!! Nothing in the park is harmful to the dogs. The walking track is made of recycled rubber and the grass is a synthetic product. It's all about safety.
Jack and this little puppy enjoyed watching the action of the big dogs on the other side of the fence:
We watched him for what seemed forever in training his pitbull. I can certainly say, one of the most well behaved, most disciplined dogs I have ever seen. The dog listened and obeyed every word its owner said.
From, "Jump through that hoop" then just before dog was to jump he would say "Wait" and the dog would stop on a dime..
... to playing fetch and throw the ball and the dog would wait for the command to retrieve.
Speaking of home, we stayed until the sun was setting across the field and then called it a day.


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Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me start with a quote: "When we see that a Romani family is incapable of providing the kind of education, the kind of quality upbringing, that guarantees their child a future, then someone else has to do it." This was a recent statement made by the Slovak Prime Minister proposing what he termed "extreme measures" for improving the education of Roma children, namely that they be mandatorily educated at boarding schools. The Slovak Government Plenipotentiary for the Roma Community disagreed, and together with the Slovak Interior Ministry he is trying to reform education policies based on intensive work with Roma children starting at the age of three at nursery schools.
A few days ago, the Hungarian Minister of Human Resources recommended the immediate dismissal of a history teacher who spoke publicly in favour of corporal punishment for Roma children – and the minister did this although his decision is controversial in a political environment heavily influenced by anti-Roma rhetoric.
These are just two of the many examples that show the political upheavals generated by the intensified efforts to find ways of improving Roma inclusion, particularly in education, as EU governments gradually start implementing their national Roma inclusion strategies.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The exclusion of many Roma children from quality education is a key element in the vicious circle of poverty and marginalisation that affects Roma across the EU today. This can result from discriminatory practices, but also from parental choices.
Exclusion from education takes different forms: from blunt refusal to enrol Roma children under pressure from non-Roma parents to placement in 'special schools' or ethnically segregated classes.
Ethnic segregation is the result of a variety of factors, ranging from residential issues to anti-Roma prejudice. Residential segregation leads to schools with a high concentration of Roma children, if there are no provisions to transport these children to other schools. Mechanisms within the educational system can also push towards ethnic segregation. For example, in countries where parents are given a choice of public school for their children they can avoid enrolling them in schools with a high share of Roma pupils. This behaviour is referred to as 'white flight'.
On the other hand, there is some research evidence suggesting that a number of Roma parents may also prefer to place their children in predominantly Roma schools – because of fear that they might be discriminated against in mixed schools, or because the school is "less demanding". Whatever the reasons, however, from a human rights perspective clearly any ethnic segregation is unacceptable: in 2007 the European Court of Human Rights concluded in a landmark judgment that placing Roma children in special schools for pupils with 'mild mental disabilities' on the basis of their ethnic origin violated the European Human Rights Convention.
Last year, the Fundamental Rights Agency published the results of the largest survey to date on Roma, which was conducted in close collaboration with UNDP and the World Bank. More than 80,000 Roma and their non-Roma neighbours were surveyed in those 11 EU countries with the largest concentration of Roma, based on randomly selected household samples. The results are telling:
- on average, around 20% of Roma aged 16 and above could not read and write, in contrast to less than 1,5% of their non-Roma neighbours;
- only one out of two Roma children attended pre-school or kindergarten, compared to around three out of four of their non-Roma neighbours;
- in some countries up to 35% of Roma children aged 7-15 were not attending compulsory school;
- and only about 15% of young Roma had completed any form of upper-secondary general or vocational education, compared to around 64% of their non-Roma neighbours;
This is the type of hard statistical evidence that can provide vital assistance to governments in designing evidence-based policies. The data confirms that much still needs to be done to ensure that Roma are equally treated.
Ladies and gentlemen,
After the accession of 10 central and eastern European countries to the EU, a number of Roma from the south-east migrated to countries such as France, Italy, the UK and Finland in search of better life chances. However, their inability to find employment, mainly due to lack of education, and their poor living conditions led to reactions from some member states.
The best known case of this was in the summer of 2010, when the European Commission raised the issue of expulsions of Romanian Roma with the French government. The widespread publicity and mounting political pressure for a European solution to the persisting marginalisation and social exclusion of Roma led the European Commission in April 2011 to present an 'EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies up to 2020'. In fact, the EU went through a paradigm shift here, as this Framework links the issue of 'Roma' marginalisation and exclusion not only to the EU's 2020 'growth strategy', but situates it also firmly within a fundamental rights perspective.
In this context, the EU asked Member States to take action in the areas of employment, education, housing and health by putting in place concrete strategies that identify specific national, regional and local action plans with dedicated funding. The Fundamental Rights Agency was tasked with assisting these efforts by continuing to collect data systematically, by helping governments to establish effective monitoring mechanisms to measure progress made and by sharing promising practices.
The EU Framework on Roma Inclusion sets clear benchmarks to be reached in education as a key that can potentially unlock the vicious circle of social exclusion and marginalisation. I quote:
- "Member States should, as a minimum, ensure primary school completion.
- They should also widen access to quality early childhood education and care and reduce the number of early school leavers from secondary education pursuant to the Europe 2020 strategy.
- Roma youngsters should be strongly encouraged to participate also in secondary and tertiary education."
These are ambitious targets, not only in the context of the on-going economic crisis, but also because Roma inclusion efforts have to tackle long standing prejudice and emotionally charged tensions between Roma and non-Roma.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would now like to highlight three key areas, where our work shows how we can move forward:
Firstly – early childhood education and care must be improved.
Research shows that children who do not participate in pre-school education are disadvantaged from the beginning of their school career. Governments and local authorities should therefore make a systematic effort to engage with and convince Roma parents of the importance of early childhood education, providing them with the necessary practical support to allow their children to attend.
Secondly,– compulsory schooling in non-segregated settings is needed.
Systematic efforts should be made with local and school authorities and parents, both Roma and non-Roma, to ensure that all Roma children participate on an equal footing in compulsory education. Research from the Agency shows where Roma and non-Roma are actively engaged in finding solutions to the challenges, better results are obtained.
And then – gaining marketable skills is key.
In some EU countries, up to a quarter of the workforce entering the labour market will be Roma in a few years from now. Can we afford to ignore their potential contribution? No! It is therefore essential that educational authorities develop well-funded action plans to ensure that a rising proportion of Roma youngsters benefit from post-compulsory education and training. This must be linked to appropriate employment schemes.
In a time of economic crisis, we cannot afford NOT to promote equal treatment and social inclusion. Persisting discrimination and marginalisation can result in losing the skill and talent that could help bring us out of this crisis.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The problems faced by Roma are complex, and call for an integrated approach, in order to address low educational attainment, labour market barriers, segregation in education and in housing, and poor health outcomes simultaneously. Implementing such change is the responsibility of national, regional and, especially, local governments; but the EU also has an important role to play – improving legislation against discrimination, coordinating policy, setting common integration goals, and providing funding.
I would like to end on a positive note: today we have evidence of progress on Roma inclusion: To give just one example, from the area of education, our survey shows that the younger Roma are now far more likely to go to school than in the past. For example, in Spain only 1% of those aged 16-24 never attended school – compared with 43% for those older than 45 years.
So: We now have an EU Framework and national strategies in place; local action plans are being designed and implemented. But:
We will need sustained political will, efficient coordinated efforts, and effective monitoring and evaluation tools if we want to make a tangible difference to Roma people's lives.
Thank you very much.


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Asian countries have reacted strongly to the Pentagon's new "Defense Strategic Guidance" issued earlier this month. Arguing that the United States finds itself at a "strategic turning point" with the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the end of the defense buildup that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the report calls for rebalancing U.S. military capabilities by functional and geographic areas, including by "pivoting" U.S. national security efforts eastward toward Asia.
"U.S. economic and security interests are inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia," the Guidance affirms, "creating a mix of evolving challenges and opportunities" that will lead the U.S. military to "rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region."
More colorfully, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained during the briefing marking the Guidance's roll out: "All of the trends, demographic trends, geopolitical trends, economic trends and military trends are shifting toward the Pacific. So our strategic challenges in the future will largely emanate out of the Pacific region, but also the littorals of the Indian Ocean."Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.
The Guidance therefore advocates a lasting "strategic partnership" with India, reaffirms U.S. security commitments to Japan and South Korea, and declares U.S. intent to invest in the capabilities required to ensure U.S. access to the global commons and freedom of maritime movement despite efforts by some countries (i.e. China and Iran) to deny the United States access to these areas.
The Asian allies of the United States welcomed the Pentagon's new Guidance. At a Seoul news briefing, Kim Kwan-bin, South Korean Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy, said that "The U.S. defense ministry will put boosting economic and security benefit of the Asia-Pacific region as its first priority, and will recognize South Korea and other allies as the core nations for security in the Asia-Pacific region and strengthen security cooperation."
Chinese analysts received the new strategy less warmly. A commentary in the English-language Global Times said that the new Strategic Guidance indicated that China was "a firm strategic target of the U.S." and that Beijing's "efforts to improve Sino-US relations have proved incapable of offsetting U.S. worries over its rise."
A Xinhua commentary warned against U.S. "muscle flexing" in Asian regional disputes: "the United States is welcome to make more contribution to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, but it's possible militarism will cause a lot of ill will and meet with strong opposition in the world's most dynamic region." In elaborating, the commentary explained that "the United States has the greatest potential to secure world peace and stability, but it also has the greatest power to create chaos. With power comes responsibility, so the United States should exercise the utmost caution in the use of its military forces."
Asian readers of these texts need to bear certain facts in mind. These national security documents, issued regularly by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and other U.S. government agencies, have multiple audiences within the United States (government agencies, the Congress, and analysts) as well as abroad (foreign allies, partners, and adversaries). They serve both formal and informal functions. Within the United States, they offer official policy and program guidance as well as unofficial tools for bureaucratic infighting by providing documents from which actors can cite supporting statements in their speeches and other statements in budget battles with other agencies. Overseas, they communicate implicit messages to foreign audiences. When they appear in a presidential election year, like this one, you can be fairly certain that White House political advisers had some impact on its drafting as well.
In essence, the Guidance reflects three main developments: the U.S. defense budget is stabilizing due budgetary constraints; the major U.S. wars of the past decade, Afghanistan and Iraq, have or are winding down; and Asia is rising in relative importance in the world, and therefore for the United States, due to its growing share of global population, trade, GDP and other assets.


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Pooch Playdates
Name: Pooch Playdates
Date: June 16, 2019
Time: 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT
Website: http://www.thoseclevercanines.com
Event Description:
Bring your dog friendly dog on leash to play with us in a climated controlled 2000 sf environment with toys, games, treats and fun. $8 to stay as long as you lie between noon and 4 PM on Sundays (except for holidays). We'll even help you teach your dog a new trick or two. Pay for four sessions and get a fifth session free.


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Fort Mill Times
In strife-torn Ukraine, soccer is more than just a game
Sergey Sapsay showed up early at Olympic Stadium Sunday to hang a banner honoring the owner of the soccer club he supports, Oleg Babaev.
Babaev, also the mayor of a small town near his club of Vorskla Poltava was murdered this weekend, not long after a would-be assassin used a shoulder mounted rocket to try to kill the mayor of Lviv, in western Ukraine.
Newspaper and television reports note that the official suspicion is that the murder and attempted murder were moves by Russian-backed forces in this country to destabilize the center and west of a nation in which the east is at war and the south has been peeled away.
"There is no soccer without politics in this country," Sapsay noted just before his team took on Dynamo Kiev to open the new Ukrainian soccer season. "It would be nice to escape the reality of our lives these days, but that's not possible, not even for 90 minutes."
This is a country at war. The recent downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet by a missile over territory in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists underscored how the strife has had global security fallout. All 298 people aboard were killed.
Still, the temptation is to say, it's just soccer. But the reality is that two teams from Crimea are gone. Five teams from eastern Ukraine's Donbas region are officially homeless. And the rest of the nation senses the coming year is more about survival than success.
In fact, Ukraine's nation's shaky hold on normalcy _ as bitter clashes between the government and pro-Russian separatists continue _ might perhaps best be seen in its professional soccer league, which right now seems to be more about doubt than hope.
"Even in normal times, fans use soccer games to escape for a while from the harsh reality of their daily lives," said former Ukrainian national team assistant coach Vadym Anatolyovich Yevtushenko, 56. "Right now, Ukrainians need this escape. I'm not sure they will get it. Success might be as simple as finishing this season intact."
The top Ukrainian league, ranked as the seventh best in Europe, is not new to problems. In recent years, as the Ukrainian economy slumped (something many in in the west of the nation blamed on official corruption and an over-reliance on economic ties to Russia) teams struggled. That struggle escalated with the political instability that began in November.
That's when a group of Ukrainians began protesting against a decision by the previous president, Viktor Yanukovych, not to sign an agreement for closer economic ties to the European Union. Those protests continued to grow. Media reports noted that they were strengthened by so-called soccer "Ultras," the most die-hard of Ukrainian soccer fans. Russia portrayed some as fascist nationalists.
In February, after trying to break up the protests by ordering attacks, which killed as many as 100 demonstrators, Yanukovych fled the country and his government collapsed.
In the following days, as a new government was formed, Russia sent troops into the streets of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula on the southern edge of Ukraine. In March, after a vote that is now widely criticized for overstating Crimean support for seceding from Ukraine, Russia annexed the region.
In April, separatists in the industrial Donbas section along the Russian border took over government buildings and began advocating secession as well. That led to the fight that continues today, with much of the international community, including the United States, stating that the pro-Russian separatists were funded and supported by Russia.
But as all of this unfolded, Ukraine's soccer league tried to finish a season. Some games couldn't be played. Many others were in empty stadiums for security reasons. That season began with a 16-team league. This one begins with 14. One team, in a very insecure economy, went broke, and while another was promoted to replace that vacancy, two other teams, based in Crimea, now play in Russian leagues.
Last year's champions, the New York Yankees of Ukrainian soccer, Shakhtar Donetsk, and the owners of what is considered far and away the best stadium in the country, are one of five top teams based in Donbas. And those teams begin this season essentially homeless.
They are located in areas rife with fighting and shelling between Ukrainian security forces and Russian-armed and -backed pro-Russia separatists. Indeed, they are not far from where Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot out of the sky earlier this month. So the league has decided that the Donbas region teams will play their "home games" on the road.
Even then, there are still worries.
At the end of last season in May, games in Odessa, along the Black Sea coast, were played behind closed doors for fears that they might lead to violent clashes. Despite that, football fans were said to be among the leaders of a pro-Ukrainian protest that clashed with a pro-separatist counter protest, and ended with more than 40 deaths.
Last week, six of the top international players for Shakhtar, including the Brazilian national team player known as Fred, refused to return to the region for safety reasons. The team warned the players "would suffer" if they didn't honor their contracts, and promised they'd be safe, but the city is the center of a civil war.
And even here and in the more stable west, the future is so unsure that owners are reluctant to invest in their teams.
The fans remain passionate. In fact, Ultras _ those die-hard fans _ now meet before matches, but instead of preening and slugging it out for supremacy, they chant pro-Ukrainian slogans. And they sing "that" song, the now-famous Ukrainian soccer chant that describes Russian President Vladimir Putin as a male sexual organ.
Dynamo Kiev fan Leonid Kulinich, 38, and a long-time follower of the league, notes that soccer means more to Ukrainians now perhaps than in years past.
"Soccer unites us today," he said, not long after his team had scored to go ahead 1-0 against Vorskla on Sunday. "Sure, there are different clubs we support, but beyond the game, we're all really rooting for our nation these days."
Yevtushenko, who, before coaching the Ukrainian national team, played in the 1986 World Cup with the Soviet Union, says that the hope remains for fans that they can grab 90 minutes of happiness on the weekends.
"The season is a symbol," he said. "Every fan knows their team is starting over from scratch, just as we are as a nation. The level of play may not be the highest for a while, but we hope to get better with time."
Roberto Morales, a transplanted Ukrainian, is now a television soccer commentator here. From a pure soccer standpoint, he said that last season could have been better. And he notes that many of the nation's soccer fan clubs played important roles in the pro-European movement. But as for what's next?
"It's tough to predict what comes now," he said. "The ball is round; it can roll anywhere. That's soccer in a normal world. This is soccer in a time of war."


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HF002 – Horizontal Flow 002 – Rounded Ends
Flows are the most widely used design element/framework in presentations: steps, cause and effect, definition, process, progression, etc. Because flow applications are so broad, they need to developed in a tremendous number of variations in order to illustrate an exact message. Think carefully about the message you are attempting to convey and search for the PowerFramework that is best suited for the purpose.
Use this framework with other frameworks or on its own to show many items flowing as one effort or entity. The ends of this framework imply an encapsulated, self-contained flow.
Key search words: flow, sequence, functions, process, pieces of whole, horizontal, capsule
This image is provided to show one example of how you could use this framework in a presentation.
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When life is fair, people will no longer feel compelled to ask for divine intervention for our state Legislature at public meetings, because the Legislature will begin to tackle the two largest issues on their plate that they continue to ignore. Those issues are educational funding and comprehensive tax reform.
At a local council meeting last week, the person giving the invocation asked that God give guidance to the state legislators as they prepare to close out this year's session. Although I have always thought that God has better things to do with his time than counseling elected officials, perhaps prayer is worth a try since Columbia seems incapable of remotely solving these issues.
However, this being an election year for all of the House and large portion of the Senate, earthly endeavors to convince them to do something to resolve the inequality in school funding and misguided tax structure seem hopeless.
Our state method of funding school districts tends to punish students who live in districts that have high property values in some areas of the district by allocating school funds based on an assessor's evaluation of the relative worth of individual properties spawning something called the Index of Taxpayer's Ability. Overall, Beaufort County's ability to pay is deemed to be greater than almost all other counties under this formula but the value of property near the beach on Hilton Head is considerably different from the value of a property
40 miles away in, say Sheldon Township, and property values are volatile and arbitrary. Changing it to something such as average weekly wage base would seem more equitable.
However, our state method of raising revenues was forever thrown off kilter by the passage of Act 388 in 2006, exempting owner occupied homes from paying school operating taxes and supposedly making up the shortfall by increasing the most unreliable tax, the sale tax, by one percent. This act really should have been named the Law of Untended Consequences since that is the only thing it has consistently produced. They traded relative predictability and financial stability for short-term homeowner approval. It succeeded in scaring away potential second homebuyers and businesses thinking of relocating by increasing their tax load.
Now that sales tax collections have decreased almost every year since the law enactment, the Legislature scurries each session trying to replace a once stable funding source by implementing drastic budget cuts that probably would not have been necessary under the old system of taxing owner occupied properties. Nevertheless, they were re-elected, the most important thing on their plates it seems.
Even after a committee, they themselves authorized, the tax realignment commission recommended sweeping changes to the post 388 scenarios, the Legislature virtually ignored them.
Perhaps the best thing we can say is God help us.
In the meantime, you can contact Joe Croley at email@example.com.


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Now two weeks old, the Thompson Ridge Wildfire officially hit 24,000 acres in size Thursday, but crews working the blaze were aided by the weather to get containment to the 75 percent mark.
"The Friday morning update said, "Fire activity last night was minimal, allowing firefighters to address hotspots, patrol the perimeter of the fire, and mop-up further into the interior. Cleanup efforts will begin today with the removal of hoses, cutting of snags, and chipping of felled trees. Suppression rehabilitation efforts will also begin around South Mountain as we mitigate the impact of firefighter efforts to stop the fire." officials said in a statement.
Crews continued mop-up on South Mountain and chipping in the southeast section of the fire. The spot fire that occurred early this morning was reevaluated, and was calculated at 40 acres. Crews contained the spot fire by expanding the fireline utilizing bulldozers, digging handline, setting hose lays, and removing snags.
Portions of N.M. 4 will be reduced to one lane Friday for chipping and removal of vegetation that was cut to prepare the contingency line along that roadway.
Smoke, intense heat and rugged terrain, meanwhile, were making it difficult Thursday for fire managers in northern New Mexico to size up a blaze that was racing across thousands of acres of dead and downed trees deep in the Pecos Wilderness.
Officials had estimated that the Jaroso Fire had ballooned to 12 square miles on Wednesday. However, infrared mapping done overnight put the burned area at nearly 6 square miles.
Even though the lightning-sparked fire has charred fewer square miles, officials on Thursday described the behavior of the flames as unprecedented. Years of buildup within the forests have combined with dangerously dry conditions to make for extreme fire danger across New Mexico and many parts of the West.
"We've had several years of drought conditions and we're seeing overcrowded forests. The conditions are the same here as they are in other forests around the country," said Dorotea Martinez, a spokeswoman with the Carson National Forest.
Another wildfire in northern New Mexico has prompted approximately 100 Boy Scouts to relocate to another camping area within the Philmont Scout Ranch as a precaution.
State forestry officials say the White Peak's fire has charred an estimated 850 acres about 14 miles southwest of Cimarron.
The lightning-caused fire began Thursday morning.
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[Major Spoiler Warning!!!]
UPDATE: Now that the finale has aired, check out our Lost Series Finale Review and Spoilers and share your thoughts and opinions.
With the series finale Lost airing this Sunday, it's only appropriate to finish off our Lost spoiler posts with a fourth and final piece focused solely on the highly-anticipated series finale. Everyone involved with show has taken a vow of silence in regards to talking about any spoilers from the series finale – even the regular spoiler sources within production have gone quiet.
That being said, after scouring every corner of the Internet for the past six hours, I was able track down some amazing series finale spoilers.
Specifically I found six leaked pages from the script of Lost's series finale episode, entitled "The End". I also found a leaked call sheet that gives a look at what's going to happen, a slew of spoilers for the sideways timeline (David's mother revealed) and over 20 production photos from the series finale.
If those aren't enough spoilers to satisfy your Lost finale curiosity, you might want to take a look at some of our previous spoiler posts, as there may be a few more finale spoilers amongst the bunch.
- Lost: Final Season Spoiler Roundup
- More 'Lost' Season 6 Spoilers; Upcoming Scenes Revealed
- Insiders Talk 'Lost' Spoilers: Deaths, Answers & More
Without further ado, please enjoy the Lost series finale spoilers below.
Leaked Script Pages - End of Act One
Somehow, the Italian website Macchianera was able to get ahold of six pages from the series finale script. Five out of the six pages come from the end of act one (around 30 minutes into the episode) of the finale with the sixth being from an earlier scene with Ben reflecting on how he previously pushed Locke down the well.
Here's a breakdown of what happens:
(Scene 23)
- Sawyer tries to rescue Desmond from the bottom of the well, but the well is empty.
- Ben and UnLocke sneak up on Sawyer. Ben holds Sawyer at gunpoint.
- UnLocke reveals that he needs Desmond to destroy the island and all of Jacob's candidates. He also reveals that he has a boat waiting off-shore to escape.
- Sawyer reveals, to the surprise of UnLocke, that they are no longer candidates.
- Sawyer wrestles the gun away from Ben and gets away.
(Scene 25)
- Desmond wakes up in a really nice camp on the island.
- Rose and Bernard (along with Vincent, the dog) reveal that they not only have they been living on the island the entire time, but that they were the ones to rescue him from the well.
- Rose and Bernard tell Desmond that after he eats, he has to leave their camp because they have a "we do not get involved" rule in regards to what has been happening on the island, but that a man trapped in a well was an exception.
- Rose and Bernard are shocked as UnLocke steps out of the woods.
- UnLocke tells Desmond that unless he goes with him and does everything he wants, he's going to kill Rose and Bernard and "make it hurt."
- Desmond agrees to go with UnLocke.
If you're a fan of the series, I suggest that you read through the script pages yourself. Not only because I left out little pieces here and there, but because it's really interesting to see how the show is written and just how many times the creators use swear words to describe things.
You can read the script pages here: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6
Leaked Call Sheet:
Along with the script pages, a call sheet from day 25 of filming (out of 26) was also leaked. Call sheets - while giving the cast and crew the times that they'll need to be on set - also give a rundown of exactly what scenes will be filmed that day – which means, more spoilers.
Here's a breakdown of what the call sheet reveals: (keep in mind that scenes from the leaked script pages are scenes 23-25)
(Scene 35) – Inside cavern
- MIB (as MIB and not Locke) is inside a cave. He falls over the water's edge and into a sinkhole.
(Scenes 53, 60, 62, 102 & 143) – Inside an alcove on top of a waterfall
- Jack and Unlocke lower Desmond on a rope.
- Jack and Unlocke talk about the real John Locke as the rope goes slack.
- Jack and Unlocke react as the light goes out.
- Desmond is at the bottom of the waterfall and unties the rope – the waterfall stops.
- The ground rumbles and it's time to say goodbye as UnLocke walks out.
- Jack looks over the edge and pulls up the rope – no Desmond.
(At some point after Hurley and Ben show up)
- Hurley checks the height of water.
- Hurley and Ben lower Jack down as the ground rumbles.
(Scenes 143, 145 & 149 and 156 & 157) - Inside a cavern with steam and water
- Jack finds Desmond unconscious. He puts puts "the rock" over the hole.
- Jack is described as being "in Hell."
- The light returns and water starts to trickle.
- Ben and Hurley pull on the rope.
- Jack is in a pond as his nose starts to bleed while Desmond ascends.
- Ben and Hurley pull up Desmond – Hurley yells for Jack.
- Jack is consumed by the light and water.
For those interested, you can take a look at the call sheet here. While there aren't any other spoilers, you can find out some of the other things that occurred on that day of filming, such as filming for the DVD taking place and the announcement that set dressing has many boxes available for those needing them to pack.
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EU2000i Camo
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- Receptacles: 20A 125V Duplex
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- Starting System: Recoil
- Fuel Tank Capacity: .95 gal.
- Run Time per Tankful: 3.4hr @ rated load 8.1 hrs @ 1/4 load
- Dimensions (L x W x H): 20.2 in. x 11.4 in. x 16.7 in.
- Noise Level: 59 dB @ rated load 53dB @ 1/4 load
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Simmons an offensive force in time with Cards
Tim McCarver knew what was coming -- his teammates made sure of it.
As his first stint with the Cardinals was winding down, McCarver's St. Louis teammates, pitcher Bob Gibson among the worst offenders, made sure he was well aware of a young catcher making noise among the club's Minor League ranks.
Tim McCarver knew what was coming -- his teammates made sure of it.
As his first stint with the Cardinals was winding down, McCarver's St. Louis teammates, pitcher Bob Gibson among the worst offenders, made sure he was well aware of a young catcher making noise among the club's Minor League ranks.
"On that Cardinal team, we had a bunch of guys who would not allow you to rest one minute," said McCarver, a Cards catcher from 1959-69. "They would put articles about Ted Simmons in my locker all the time about him in the Minor Leagues, about him doing well."
Even without the playful reminders from his teammates, McCarver couldn't help but notice Simmons' potential.
"I was fully aware that Ted Simmons was not only capable, but in many ways, much more capable than me because of the way he swung the bat," McCarver said. "I knew that there was only one place for him to go in the Major Leagues and that was up."
And as he predicted, McCarver was out as the Cardinals catcher after 1969, and Simmons was in. Over the next 11 seasons, Simmons would go on to become one of the best hitting catchers in Cards history, earning eight All-Star nods, a Silver Slugger Award and, most recently, a nomination for the new Cardinals Hall of Fame.
From now until Tuesday, fans can go to cardinals.com/HOF to vote for up to two of the eight modern candidates -- Simmons, Joe Torre, Jim Edmonds, Willie McGee, Bob Forsch, Keith Hernandez, Mark McGwire or Matt Morris.
The two leading vote-getters will be enshrined during an Aug. 16 ceremony at Ballpark Village, joining the 22 Cardinals who received automatic induction because they are either already in the National Baseball Hall of Fame or have had their number retired by the club.
Simmons played 1,564 games with the Cards from 1968-80. He served in a platoon with Torre in 1970 before taking over full-time catching duties when the club moved Torre to third base in '71.
Simmons was selected to six All-Star teams over his 13 seasons in St. Louis. He also set the National League record for catchers with 188 hits in 1975 and won a Silver Slugger Award in 1980.
With his long hair and his fiery persona, Simmons could best be described as "different," Torre said with a chuckle.
"He was such a pure hitter, that's the one thing I admire," Torre said. "He was a little crude behind the plate, but he was such an aggressive, confident individual that you couldn't do anything but just admire his dedication."
When McCarver returned to St. Louis in 1973, the rate at which line drives fired off Simmons' bat left an immediate impression.
"I had never played with a player who hit more line drives, who hit more balls hard than any other year than in 1973 and watching Ted Simmons hit," McCarver said. "A guy with his power, you would think he'd have more [home runs], but he put the ball in play usually on the line and he didn't have a lot of lift to his swing. He was going to hit some home runs [248 in his career], but not as many home runs as his power dictated."
Although McCarver may have been the better defensive option behind the plate, the Cardinals opted for Simmons' prowess with the bat to boost their lineup in addition to the intangibles he brought to the club.
"You would have to go a long way to be as good as Timmy [McCarver] as far as calling a game from the plate," Torre said. "I think Teddy learned that as he went along, but he was a leader. He'd kick the pitcher on the rear end or pat him on back. He sort of had a sense of what that particular guy needed, but he was a bulldog. He just thrived on the competition."
Chad Thornburg is a reporter for MLB.com.


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Translation Disclaimer
Effective Date: April 14,2003
Berkeley Mental Health values your privacy and will protect mental health information about you or your child. The complete Notice of Privacy Practices tells you in detail about how we safeguard your mental health information. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
"Use" means the sharing and using of information by Berkeley Mental Health staff.
"Disclosure" is the release of information by us to others outside of Berkeley Mental Health.
"Authorization" is you giving us written permission to release your information to you or to other persons.
By law, you have the legal right to:
Berkeley Mental Health may release information needed for treatment, payment or our own business operations without your authorization.
The Notice of Privacy Practices will tell you:
Berkeley Mental Health pledges that we will follow the Notice of Privacy Practices. It will be posted at all mental health sites, and if any part of it changes, new notices will be available.
If you have any questions about your privacy rights, please contact your clinician.


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ISR News Story
REU in Miniature Robotics holds final project symposium
The class of 2013 REU students, with their UMD mentors.
The 2013 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in Miniature Robotics closing symposium was held on Friday, Aug. 9.
The 10-week program offers exciting research opportunities for undergraduate students across the country in miniature robotics. These small robots, with overall sizes between 1 mm and 100 mm, have the potential to significantly enable and enhance capabilities in manufacturing, medicine, reconnaissance, exploration, food safety, and search and rescue. Because of their size, miniature robotics offer a truly interdisciplinary systems research challenge that encompasses mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, materials science, and computer science among other topics.
Students develop research projects, attend technical tutorial seminars, visit local government labs involved in miniature robotics research, attend professional and academic development seminars, and tour Maryland's top-notch facilities supporting robotics research including the UMD FabLab and Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility. Coffee talk discussions provide an informal setting for students and mentors to discuss technical and non-technical topics. The program is headed by Assistant Professor Sarah Bergbreiter (ME/ISR).
The closing symposium program gives each student the chance to prepare and present a presentation on their summer research. In 2013 the following projects were presented at the symposium:
Developing new Wing Structures for the Robo Raven Platform
Developing an Autonomous Modular Miniature Robot for Dynamic Air-Ground Robotic Networks
TeRPinator 4.0: Swarmation
COC-CB Composites, Fabrication and Electrical Characterization
Integrating Flexible Solar Cells into Flapping Wing Miniature Air Vehicles
Development of a Lightweight and Small Underactuated Hand for Use on Quadrotors
Examining Vision Sensors for Small Robots
Multi-material legs for 3D-Printed Millibots
Fly Ear-Inspired Sensing: Virtual Coupling
Related Articles:
August 14, 2013
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As promised, it's Wednesday and I am giving away a children's book choice (up to $20 to spend on children's books on Amazon!) to two of my lucky readers. Each Wednesday through August, I'll be doing this giveaway. It's just my way of encouraging all of you to spend time each week reading with a child and sharing the love of books with them.
This week, I'm reading The Pizza That We Made and Pizza Pat to my kids. What I try to do with the books that we read is to match up a related activity to them throughout the week. So this week, we made some Pizza On A Stick. The kids had a blast! While we were waiting for our bread to toast, we read both of these books. I think it helped them enjoy making their own pizza even more. The The Pizza That We Made has a recipe for making your own homemade pizza in the back but we haven't tried it yet.
How This Giveaway Works
There will be two winners. Each winner gets to spend up to $20 on Amazon selecting children's books. The winners can pick more than one book, just as long as the total value is $20 or less. The items must be in stock and ship free with Amazon Prime. I thought it would be fun to let the winner's pick their own books than to choose a specific book to giveaway each week.
If this sounds like something you'd like to win, make sure you enter!
NOTE: Beneath this posting is the word "Comments." This is where you'll put your entries. Only entries on this posting will be counted.
1) To enter the giveaway, leave me a comment letting me know what book you are reading to your kids/ a child this week.
After that, here are other ways to enter: (Please, make sure that you submit extra comments if you do these.)
2) Subscribe to my email newsletter or RSS Feed and leave a separate comment letting me know you have done this. If you are already subscribed, thank you and make sure you leave a 2nd comment letting me know.
3) Follow me on Twitter and leave a separate comment letting me know you have done this. If you are already following, thank you and make sure you leave a 3rd comment letting me know.
4) Blog/Tweet about the giveaway. Make sure you come back and leave a separate extra comment letting me know that you've done this.
There are a total of 4 entries per person! (Please be sure to leave separate entries for each one.)
Entry is open to US residents only through 11:59PM CST on Saturday, June 19, 2010. Winners will be chosen using random.org and contacted by email. If you're the winner, you'll have only 48 hours to respond or an alternate will be chosen.