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Softball Fundraising Scratch CardsPosted on 08/06/2006 by Howard Gottlieb
Why do we highly recomend Softball Team Scratch Off Fundraisers?
They are extremely profitable and simple to use. Here is how they work: Each player gets one scratch card containing 50 concealed dots. The scratch card is good for baseball or softball. Players get people to scratch off two of the dots and ask for the amount revealed as a donation to the softball team. In return for the donation, the player gives that person a sheet of valuable coupons from national sponsors as a thank you gift.
Each card raises $100. If you need to raise more money than that simply buy more than one card per player. The cost per card is as little as $10 each, giving you 90% profit. Shipping is free too!
How's that sound for your next softball fundraiser?
Top Scratch Card Fundraising Products
All Sport Scratch Cards
If you want an easy fundraising idea for sports, scratch card fundraisers are just what you are looking for. If you can not find your specific sport in our collection of scratch off graphics, All Sports Cards are your best option. Make up to 90% profit.
Baseball Scratch Cards
These scratch off cards are our most profitable baseball fundraiser. The card graphics with batter and catcher clearly let people know you are holding a baseball team scratch card fundraiser. We will imprint your team name just below the word Team on the cards at no additional cost. Make up to 90% profit.
Softball Scratch Cards
If your softball team is looking for a high profit softball fundraiser scratch off cards should be considered. Each of the fundraising scratch off cards will raise $100 each. That amount of money should go along way towards paying for tournament fees, uniforms and other items softball fundraisers are held for.
Basketball Scratch Cards
Before deciding on your next basketball fundraiser, consider fundraising scratch off cards with basketball graphics. Supporters will know they are supporting a basketball organization when they see the ball sliding through the net on the card front. This is a great basketball tournament fund raiser.
Football Scratch Cards
Football is a very expensive sport to play. That is why so many teams decide to hold a football fundraiser. Our scratch off program for football teams is an easy way for players to raise $100 each in a relatively short period of time. Whether you are raising money for a team or a league, scratch card fundraisers have worked well for all sized football groups.
Soccer Scratch Cards
Soccer is one of the most popular participant sports in the country. Players, teams and leagues needing to raise a lot of money turn to fundraising scratch cards. Each card raises $100. Your team or league name is imprinted free of charge on each card. It's a great soccer fundraiser idea.
Cheerleading Scratch Cards
Fundraising scratch cards are a great cheerleading fundraising idea. With their natural outgoing personalities, cheerleaders can easily get people to donate money to their team using our cheerleading scratch cards. Each card raises $100. Shipping is free. These cards allow cheerleaders to raise money quickly.
Wrestling Scratch Cards
Wrestling fundraising is quite often reflective of its sport and more of an individual project. But scratch off fundraising is a terrific way for either teams or individual wrestlers to meet their financial needs. Each scratch card raises $100 and can be imprinted with up to three lines of custom text to customize your card.
Golf Scratch Cards
Scratch card fundraisers are one of the best golf fundraising ideas. Whether you are fundraising for golf tournaments or to cover other expenses, scratch off cards provide a high profit donation program to help meet your needs. The graphics on these cards make them wonderful tennis fundraisers too!
Volleyball Scratch Cards
If you play volleyball, you will probably be involved with a volleyball tournament fund raiser. Tournaments are one of the largest expenses for volleyball teams. Scratch card fundraisers give each player the opportunity to raise $100 for the team by simply getting a single card filled in. Fund raising volleyball ideas do not get any easier than this.
Dance Scratch Cards
Children get started in dance and gymnastic programs at younger ages than ever before. The fundraising scratch cards are a great gymnastics fundraising idea and perfect for dance groups too. Scratch card fundraisers work well for individuals as well as for larger groups.
Hockey Scratch Cards
Parents tell us hockey is the most expensive sport for young children to participate in. The equipment costs alone can persuade parents to pursue different options. If you need hockey fundraising ideas or hockey team fundraisers, though, scratch off cards fundraisers are one of the highest, easily managed fundraisers available.
Band Scratch Cards
Virtually every school band depends on band fundraising for its very existence. More and more bands are opting to use scratch cards for their band fundraiser. Part of the reason is the amount of money that bands need to raise. Scratch card fundraisers offer a simple, easy to handle fundraising option perfect for bands.
High School Scratch Off Cards
Once students reach high school age fundraising becomes much more specific and determined. That?s why scratch off cards are perfect high school fundraising tools. The fundraising scratch cards raise a lot of money with a very small cost. The minimum order is only one card. And the cards are custom imprinted with high school group name at no additional charge.
Elementary School Scratch Cards
Virtually every student will experience an elementary school fundraiser before reaching the 6th grade. So much is paid for with elementary school fundraising efforts that are not covered by school budgets. If you need a high profit fundraiser, take a look at our scratch card fundraisers. Each participant can raise $100 using just one card.
Church Scratch Cards
If you are exploring church fundraiser ideas, scratch off cards might be your answer. Our faith based scratch card fundraising program is designed for churches, faith based schools and church youth groups. Supporters make donations based amounts revealed on the scratch cards and are given valuable coupons as thank you gifts.
Sorority Scratch Cards
There are many groups searching for fraternity and sorority fundraising ideas. Scratch card fundraisers are a great way to raise a lot of money very quickly. We can even work with your group to design a custom coupon sheet with merchants surrounding your school to make the program even more targeted to your supporters.
Patriotic Scratch Cards
There are a lot of groups that need to raise money and want a creative fundraising idea. The problem for many is they want something different for your group. Scratch card fundraisers with our Patriotic card are perfect for scouts, veteran groups or any other patriotic group looking for high profit, low risk unique fundraising ideas.
Money Scratch Cards
Scratch card fundraising is one of the highest profit fundraisers available to any group needing to raise money. Our Money Scratch Card is the top selling of our fundraising scratch cards because it clearly indicates you are raising money and can be used by any type of fundraising group. Each card raises $100.
Music Scratch Cards
We have designed scratch card fundraisers that work well for all groups involved with music. All fundraising companies design programs specifically for large school bands. The scratch card fundraising graphics on these cards work well for choirs, bands, singers and musicians involved with groups for raising money individually.
Helpful Pages to Consider


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The Groton Community TRIAD is a cooperative effort of the Groton Police Department, the Groton Fire Department, Groton Emergency Medical Services, the Groton Council on Aging, Nashoba Nursing Services, and Montachusett Health Care Corporation. TRIAD is a community policing initiative between seniors, law enforcement, and service providers to increase safety for seniors through education and crime prevention.
In the last few years, we've experienced some very severe weather which has left many without power, heat, prescriptions, food, etc. for days at a time. We have created an emergency preparedness form for Groton senior citizens. By filling out and returning this form, you will be put on a list and receive a phone wellness call or a home wellness visit (if we are not able to reach you by phone), to ensure that you are safe in the event of an emergency.
I urge any senior citizen to complete this form. If you would like a form, please call or stop by the Senior Center. Please be assured that any/all information that you include on the form will remain confidential/private within the Groton Community TRIAD. If you have any questions regarding this form, please don't hesitate to call me at 978-448-1170.
Outreach coordinator
Groton Council on Aging

subset: commoncrawl


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Chris Shiflett is a principal of OmniTI, where he leads the web application security practice.
Shiflett is a leader in the PHP community - a popular speaker at industry conferences worldwide, the founder of the PHP Security Consortium, a contributor to the Zend Framework, and an author of the Zend PHP Certification.
A prolific writer, Shiflett is the author of the critically-acclaimed Essential PHP Security (O'Reilly) and HTTP Developer's Handbook (Sams). His writing has also appeared in numerous articles for php|architect and PHP Magazine, as well as a number of other popular books including Programming PHP (O'Reilly) and PHP Cookbook (O'Reilly).


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You are booking places for the
Open National Three Peaks Challenge.
This event costs £329
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required to reserve each place. The full balance is due eight weeks before the event.
By proceeding to book, please acknowledge the following three points.
Past event
Start/meeting point: Fort William Railway Station, Fort William, PH33 6EN.


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Argus Leader: Vikings' New Home Takes Shape
Amid a relatively warm winter, Augustana fans have been seen poking their heads over the Elmen Center parking lot to get a glimpse of construction of Kirkeby-Over Stadium, the new on-campus football home for the Vikings, which will open its gates Sept. 5.
The facility - made possible by a $6.1 million gift from football equipment manager and booster Bob Hall - is materializing quickly. The synthetic playing surface is down, a large number of bleachers are in, and construction cranes are reaching high into the sky as the press box and luxury suites take shape.
By the time the entire facility is finished - and it will be fully completed by the time the football team takes the field - the total cost will exceed $10 million, and it will be able to seat more than 7,000 fans.
"As people drive by they can see it starting to take shape, and it's going to be a gorgeous facility," said Vikings athletic director Bill Gross. "We're just so excited to bring football back to campus."
The FieldTurf surface has about a week's worth of glue and trim work to go before it's permanently installed, but the bright green can be clearly seen from the parking lot. Plans for exactly what would be inside the stadium were a work in progress for some time, but they're finalized and being installed currently.
The west-side bleachers are already filling in. They'll be split into two levels, similar to USF's Bob Young Field, with eight rows on the lower level and 17 rows on the upper deck - which, in total, will hold about 3,600. A portion of seats on that side will be chair-backed.
The east side will have 15 rows of bleacher seating, with room for 2,100. There's room for another 1,000 or so fans on the grass berms that will sit six feet above the recessed field.
The press box is two levels, and work is currently ongoing to complete it, something the warm weather has allowed crews to get an early start with.
The elevated area holds 10 suites, plus a bonus-sized "presidential suite" that seats 24 people; nine rooms for working press and coaches/scouting; a scoreboard control room; and men's and women's restrooms on both levels.
There are a total of 144 actual seats in the two-tiered suites, which will sit just in front of the entirely glass wall that faces the field. Work on the HD-ready scoreboard should begin soon, as the four support beams for it were recently raised.
Gross acknowledged that, given the current state of the economy, the Vikings were extremely lucky to get their stadium plans finalized and funded when they did.
They're still raising money to complete some projects, including the new soccer, track and tennis complexes. But Gross gave no indication that any of them are in danger of being sidetracked.
For more information on this article, visit the Argus Leader.
Matt Zimmer
Argus Leader


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dAfter a 2009 season when FC Dallas failed to land a single player in the MLS All-Star Game, Schellas Hyndman's club has been rewarded for a strong 2010 campaign headed into the midseason break.
Midfielder David Ferreira and defender/midfielder Heath Pearce were both selected to their first All-Star game on Monday, picked by Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena to help round out the club's 23-man roster against Manchester United on July 28 in Houston.
Ferreira is one of three FCD players to start all 15 games this year. His four goals and four assists are among the leaders on the team, and he's been the catalyst for the FCD attack since coming over on loan from the club's South American partner Clube Atlético Paranense before the 2009 season.
"I'm very happy they have recognized all my work here with FC Dallas," he said through an interpreter on Tuesday. "I'm going to give my best. I'm very happy to be going there."
Pearce, a regular with the US National Team, joined FCD last September via the allocation process. He has played in 14 games this year, including 13 starts. He leads the team with five assists, including one in the team's 2-0 win over reigning MLS Cup champions Real Salt Lake on Saturday night at Pizza Hut Park.
"I'm really excited," Pearce said. "I think that it's not so much a result of my play but the team's play that's gotten me selected for the All-Star game. We've had a lot of guys who I think are good enough to be there this year. It's an honor to be selected."
The selections are also recognition of the work of Hyndman, who failed to land a player on the All-Star team during his debut season in 2009.
"I think it's fantastic," Hyndman said. "We've also got a group of players that could be on there like Kevin Hartman and Daniel Hernandez. I'm happy to have two. I think it's a statement for both of those players and FC Dallas. There are probably more that are being considered."
Both FCD fixtures are looking forward to taking in the event with one another.
"It means a lot not only just to play with Heath Pearce but also for Colombia and FC Dallas," Ferreira said. "I'm going to give my best if I play."
Pearce agrees.
"I think David's one of the best players in the league this year," he said. "He's our go-to guy on the attack and he's able to create a lot of chances out of nothing for us."


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Like the battery featured in an old television ad, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) "just keeps going and going and going."
Although operating fully for only about a year, the agency has already rolled out thousands of pages of new regulations and dispensed penalties totaling nearly $2 billion—and counting.
The regulations and penalties, mostly targeting mortgage lenders and credit card issuers, have made it clear that the CFPB is not walking softly, but is carrying a very large enforcement stick.
Mortgage lenders are struggling to understand and implement the consolidated real estate loan disclosure form and the Qualified Mortgage/ability-to-repay rules, which are fundamentally restructuring the way lenders originate loans and, to some extent, the loans they are offering.
Now the agency is turning its attention to real estate closings. Given CFPB's history to date, title agents should be, if not afraid, then certainly aware—very aware—of what the agency is doing in this area. While agents have undoubtedly felt some of the residual heat from the new mortgage rules, they will feel the burn directly if the CFPB points a blow-torch at the closing process. The agency has requested comments and agents should definitely provide them.
Looking for "Pain Points"
The request for comments explains that the CFPB wants to identify the "pain points" in the closing process in order to make it "more streamlined, efficient and educational." Anyone familiar with reg-speak in the mortgage finance arena (think Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and Truth-in-Lending) knows that "streamlined," "efficient," and "educational" invariably mean larger, more complicated and more expensive?for financial institutions and consumers alike. These code words also signal that the nation's forests are at risk. The CFPB produced more than 2,000 pages of text to explain and implement the QM regulations and the consolidated loan disclosure forms, alone. Streamlined? Their regulations are turning what had been two pages of consumer disclosures, into five.
Of course, it's not just the length of any closing rules the agency might adopt, but what these rules might require that should concern us. The questions posed in the request for comments hint at the issues the agency is likely to address. Regulators want to know, among other things:
- What parts of the closing process consumers find "confusing" or "overwhelming."
- How long the closing process takes.
- Common errors consumers and industry practitioners have identified
- How consumers seek advice during the closing.
- What documents consumers find "particularly confusing."
- Whether consumers feel "empowered" at closings.
"Errors." "Confusing." "Empowered." You don't need a crystal ball to predict where the agency might be heading: More disclosures for consumers, more compliance concerns (and more liability) for practitioners, and possibly sweeping changes in the closing process, requiring huge investments of time and money by settlement services providers.
An Oncoming Train
Although this looks and feels an awful lot like an oncoming train, it is not yet traveling at full speed. We have an opportunity to change its direction and possibly to affect its final destination.
There is no question that the CFPB has immense powers, the authority to levy fines of $25,000 per day not the least among them. There also is no question that the agency's priority is protecting consumers. That's why it was created.
But agency officials have demonstrated a willingness to consider industry concerns. They backed away from an initial QM proposal that would have included title insurance premiums in the APR calculation and they modified (although not as much as critics wanted) a policy interpretation that counts fees paid to lender affiliates—including title insurance premiums—toward the 3 percent Qualified Mortgage cap. (Under the revised interpretation, only the portion of the fee actually retained by an affiliate must be counted.) In these instances and others, agency officials have responded in some measure to evidence that their actions might have unintended adverse consequences.
CFPB's desire to improve the mortgage lending process and prevent abuses (real or perceived) that threaten consumers is unquestioned. Its theoretical understanding of the mortgage lending process is also clear. But the agency's practical understanding of how the industry operates and what is required for it to operate efficiently for consumers and effectively for lenders and service providers is imperfect, at best.
A Dangerous Gap
That comprehension gap can be dangerous for the health of title agents and other settlement services providers, who will have to cope with any unintended consequences of rules the CFPB imposes on the closing process. That's why it is essential for agents to reply to the agency's request for comments.
Your input can help regulators understand how the rules they create at their desks will play out in the real world. You should:
- Explain how the closing process works—what components and conditions are necessary for the process to function smoothly and cost-effectively.
- Identify any problems you perceive, but also emphasize the need for clarity and simplicity in any new regulations the agency adopts and remind regulators that increasing the information provided to consumers does not always increase their understanding (think RESPA again). Sometimes it has the opposite effect.
- Above all, urge regulators to be aware of the financial burden on the industry, and on small practitioners in particular, when software changes and technology upgrades are needed to implement new procedures and comply with new rules.
Comments are due by Feb. 7. They should be identified by Docket No. CFPB-2013-0036, and can be submitted either electronically (http://www.regulations.gov.) or by mail/hand delivery or courier to: Monica Jackson, Office of the Executive Secretary, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street NW., Washington, DC 20552.
There is no guarantee that your comments will influence what the agency does or doesn't do in the closing area, but you will have absolutely no hope of influencing the outcome if you don't comment.
Joe Drum is executive vice president in charge of agency operations for WFG National Title Insurance Co.


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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic creator Lauren Faust has stepped back from her pastel equines to work on other projects. One of those projects is Super Best Friends Forever, a shorts series for DC Nation, and this is her Supergirl.
As we've mentioned before, Super Best Friends Forever stars Supergirl, Batgirl, and Wonder Woman, who team up to fight crime. Faust, who also worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, is a great choice to handle these superheroines, and this first Supergirl image suggests that she's bringing her My Little Pony flair to DC's lady heroes.
Please let this turn into a 22-minute series. Please, please.
Lauren Faust's deviantART [via Bleeding Cool]
G/O Media may get a commission


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Frog Surname Ancestry Results
Our indexes 1000-1999 include entries for the spelling 'frog'. In the period you have requested, we have the following 3 records (displaying 1 to 3):
Try these...
frodsom frodsome frodyngham frodzam froe froebel froebelius froehlich froehling froelich froend froer froes froeschelen froeschlen froese froessner froessolecque froest froffett frogan frogart frogat frogate frogatt frogbroke frogbrook frogden froge frogelberg frogenale frogenhale frogenhales frogenhall froger froget frogett frogg froggart froggat
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"The Obama administration has supported the plan and even requested, and received from Congress, additional funds beyond what the Bush administration requested," noted expert Laura Carlsen, the director of the Americas Program for the Center for International Policy in Mexico City. "The [Obama] administration has given its full support to the failed drug war."
Under the Merida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico, the U.S. government provides hundreds of millions of dollars per year to Mexico and other Latin American nations supposedly for border security and to battle terrorism and, particularly, drugs. Approved in 2007 under George W. Bush, the program was originally supposed to unconstitutionally provide about $1.6 billion of "assistance" over three years.
So far, the consequences of the initiative have been disastrous. "In the three years since Calderon launched the war on drugs in Mexico with the support of the U.S. government, drug related violence has shot up to over 15,000 executions, and formal reports of violations of human rights have increased six-fold," said Carlsen. The U.S.-funded militarization of Mexico's drug war has caused a dramatic surge in homicides, along with "rape and abuse of women by soldiers in communities throughout the country," she added.
In addition to those atrocities, there are also frequent accusations that a lot of the resources provided by Washington are actually being used to target political dissidents. "There has been an increase in human rights violations by the armed forces," Carlsen said. "In some regions, dissident leaders have been targeted by the military." She also reports on the development of what rights groups in Mexico refer to as "the criminalization of protest," citing harassment of communities and the round ups of anti-NAFTA leaders and other protestors under the military's anti-drug campaigns.
"Militarization is not the way to deal with Mexico's political crisis," she said. "Providing exclusively security-focused equipment and training to Mexico is like pouring gas on a fire." And indeed, she is not alone in her conclusion.
Mexican human-rights organizations have even petitioned the United States to stop. "We respectfully request that the U.S. Congress and Department of State, in both the Merida Initiative as in other programs to support public security in Mexico, does not allocate funds or direct programs to the armed forces," read a petition from a coalition of 50 Mexican human-rights groups.
Other analysts have offered similarly damaging assertions, including Jorge Castañeda, a former Foreign Minister of Mexico. "The Mexican drug war is costly, unwinnable, and predicated on dangerous myths," he wrote in an analysis for the New America Foundation. He also points out that cartel-related violence has exploded since President Felipe Calderon decided to crank up the war and break out the military. "If the war is to continue, it will be as much Obama's as Calderón's, and it will continue to distract from far more important matters."
But the Obama administration has every intention of continuing to support the failed program. After a particularly horrible set of murders, Obama vowed to "stand firm" with Mexico's government "in our commitment for total cooperation and shared responsibility in this fight against a common enemy."
American Ambassador to Belize Vinai Thummalapally, when asked whether the $1.5 million the nation is set to receive under the Merida Initiative would be "adequate," explained to Belizean newspaper Guardian that "the funds to Belize can only increase."
The Merida plan also continues the integration of North America by furthering the notion of a so-called "common security perimeter" with Mexico. The Council on Foreign Relations' 2005 report entitled Building a North American Community actually called for the implementation of the common North American security perimeter by 2010. So the project appears to be mostly on track as integration based on NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership continues to deepen with Merida.
There are many reasons why Congress should end the Merida Initiative and countless other, similar programs. For one, they are not authorized by the Constitution. Second, the results are counterproductive and in this case, extremely deadly. What the people of Mexico need is not more military equipment and training. And what the American people need is not more unconstitutional spending, crushing debt, and cartel/drug war-related violence. Border enforcement and an end to unconstitutional policies should be the priorities of Congress, and the results would likly be far superior to the current path.
Obama Backs Mexico's Failed 'War on Drugs'Written by Alex Newman
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The Obama administration has continued the expansion of unconstitutional U.S.-government support for the military-led "War on Drugs" in Mexico under the Merida Initiative. He has provided more resources and personnel than even former President George W. Bush, despite the program's questionable use of resources and widespread reports of human-rights abuses.
"The Obama administration has supported the plan and even requested, and received from Congress, additional funds beyond what the Bush administration requested," noted expert Laura Carlsen, the director of the Americas Program for the Center for International Policy in Mexico City. "The [Obama] administration has given its full support to the failed drug war."


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No problem, here you can set up a new password.
When you click on 'Request Password', you'll be sent an email with instructions how to set up a new password.
If you have problems retrieving your new password, please contact us at email@example.com
You should receive an email from us in few moments. If you don't receive the email with your login information, please verify you are already registered at Eduard Online Store. If not, you can register during the shopping process. After registering, you should be able to login to Eduard Online Store using your email and password.
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If you feel you're using correct email address, but still have issues with registration or password contact us at: .


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Beautiful Power Couple: Will Smith & Jada Pinkett Smith Share Their Pride In Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize!
"Will and Jada Pinkett Smith talk to CNN's Dan Lothian to discuss Nobel Peace Prize recipient President Barack Obama." - CNN
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
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BellaLunaCoffin made this super-cool bracelet... and she makes so many unique, one-of-a-kind items! She also created some adorable cherry earrings, which Santa left in one of my pre-teen Monkey's stockings. Her customer service is impeccable, and all the extra goodies were above and beyond (and were also given to my teen Monkey!) Be sure to drop by her Etsy shop to see her latest creations, which include some adorable Valentine pendants!
I listed a new wallet today --
Another vintage western novel by Louis L'Amour.
I've been organizing and cleaning out my supply closet (and cabinet and shelves and.... and....) What a mess! But it is almost all organized now, and what I can't use is being donated to either the thrift store or listed on the EtsyRecycle group on Yahoo. (The EtsyRecycle group is awesome -- you give away (or can claim) unwanted crafting/art supplies, usually for the price of shipping! Check it out!)


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The midville Park District maintains five soccer teams as shown in the table. Design a program that accepts a player's team name. Modify the Midville Park District program so that after the last player has been entered the program displays a count of the number of players registered for each team.
Team Number Team Name
1 Goal Getters
2 The Force
3 Top Guns
4 Shooting Stars
5 Midfield Monsters
how do i do this using arrays i cant figure it out can someone do this for me so i can see how it is done. arrays confuse me.


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This weekend the DAR is dedicating a marker to Gen. Horatio Gates at Trinity Church in New York. Gates was buried somewhere in the churchyard, but the exact location of his grave has been forgotten.
These days Gates is most famous for two things: his plummet from the hero of Saratoga in 1777 to the laughingstock of Camden in 1780, and his association with the Conway Cabal's attempt to sabotage Washington's command. It only took a few years, a series of disastrous miscalculations, and a generous dose of narcissism to send his career into a tailspin. He's sort of like the M. Night Shyamalan of Rev War generals.


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OK, so I'm really behind on my posts. I've got a few posts hanging out in the draft section of my dashboard, just waiting for me to put the finishing touches on them. But, I had to put this post ahead of the rest, because … IT'S TEA TIME!
I don't know if the great minds at Knoshy actually read my blog. I hope they do. But, I've been mentioning in several box announcement posts about my desire for a tea time box. They've finally given me my heart's desire! The theme for this month's box is Tea Time!
So, the first thing that needs to be in a Tea Time box is tea, right? And what better company to select a tea from for this box than Steven Smith Teamaker? There's a full box of Lord Bergamot (one of my very favorite Earl Grey teas – in the top three – of all time!) and even though they're sachets – tea tastes better when it's loose leaf! – I won't ding 'em for going with the sachets. I understand … I get it … not a lot of people know what to do with loose leaf tea.
They also included a package of Amsterdam Wafel cookies from Rip Van Wafels. I've had these before, and they're totally yum. I'm glad they're in this box. There is also a package of my favorite shortbread cookie baker – Lark Fine Foods! These are Sweet and Savory Olive cookies. Interesting.
Finally, there's a jar of You're My Boy BLUE-berry Bourbon Jam from the Jam Stand. This sounds like a seriously yummy jam … it would be spectacular on scones. I might have to make some scones soon to try it out.
I'm thrilled with this month's box! Thank you, Knoshy!


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Flu decreasing in southeast, picking up in west
- CDC reports widespread flu in 48 states
- Deaths from pneumonia%2C flu at epidemic levels
- Tamiflu makers release medicine from reserves
Flu activity remained high in the United States through Jan. 13. It is decreasing in the southeast but picking up in the west, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Twenty-nine children have died as a result of the flu since the season's start.
National influenza rates dropped to 4.3% as of Jan. 13, down from 4.8% the week before, said Tom Frieden, director of the CDC. The nation is "in the middle of flu season, about halfway through and it's shaping up to be a worse than average season and a bad season particularly for the elderly," said Frieden.
Although there's no national reporting system for adult flu-related deaths, the CDC said that 8.3% of deaths reported in its 122 Cities Mortality Reporting System were due to pneumonia and influenza. That's above the epidemic threshold of 7.2%. The rate of deaths linked to pneumonia and flu the week before was 7.3%.
The rate of hospitalization for people 65 and older due to the flu increased sharply over the past week, up to 82 per 100,000 "which is quite high," said Frieden. "We expect to see the number and rate of hospitalizations rise further as the flu epidemic progresses."
Hospitalizations, complications and death come after people first get ill, so even if illnesses are dropping, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to increase, said Frieden. Although the nation may be halfway through the flu season, it's important to remember that the flu is unpredictable, he said.
Forty-eight states reported widespread geographic influenza activity, but the wave is beginning to wane in some areas, CDC said. However, cases are beginning to pick up in California. "Particularly for people out West, you probably have most of the flu season still to come," said Frieden.
He emphasized that it's still not too late to get vaccinated, and that if you do get the flu, seeking out treatment, especially anti-viral drugs, can be helpful in limiting the duration and severity of the illness.
In other flu news, the company that makes Tamiflu, an antiviral drug used to lessen the severity of flu in those exposed to the virus, has released reserve stocks to lessen shortages in some parts of the country.
"With the addition of these reserve supplies, we anticipate having sufficient supply of Tamiflu capsules to meet demand for this flu season," spokeswoman Tara Iannuccillo said.
The liquid form of the drug, given to children because they can't easily swallow pills, has been difficult to find. Genentech, of South San Francisco, has worked with the Food and Drug Administration to get more 75-milligram capsules of the drug on the market in the United States, Iannuccillo said. Pharmacists can mix the contents of the capsules with a sweet liquid to make a drug that children can easily take.
The company is also working to get new shipments of the liquid form of Tamiflu "to distributors as new supplies of this formulation become available," Iannuccillo said.
There have been localized shortages of flu vaccine as people scrambled to get vaccinated. The CDC anticipates there will be enough vaccine available for everyone who wants it but that they might have to try several providers to find someone with it in stock, spokesman Tom Skinner said.
Next year's flu season should bring more vaccine and more vaccine options. The FDA has approved two new flu vaccines that are grown in cells, rather than fertilized chicken eggs. One is called Flublok, and the other Flucelvax. The cell-culture technology "will improve the reliability and flexibility of supply for future seasons" said Flucelvax spokeswoman Sarah Coles. The technology is already being used to make other FDA-approved vaccines.
A vaccine grown on cells rather than in chicken eggs is not only faster but is accessible to the 600,000 Americans estimated to have egg allergies, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. The allergy is most common in children, and 70% of people outgrow the allergy by age 16.
It will also make the vaccine accessible to strict vegans who eat absolutely no animal products, including milk, eggs and honey.


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Apparently, Michigan sophomore starting forward Evan Smotrycz is fed up with UM that he wants to transfer to UM. Smotrycz (no idea how to pronounce his name) helped lead Michigan to the NCAA Tournament this year. He averaged 7.7ppg, shot 43% 3PT and nabbed 4.9rpg. He's narrowed his choices to Maryland, Providence, and Colorado.
At 6'9", Smotrycz will join a crowded frontcourt. He seems to be a Jake Layman type player because he can knock down the three. With Mychal Parker leaving, the Terps have the open scholarship, but I would think the Smotrycz would need to sit out a year in order to be eligible.
I saw a handful of Michigan games this year and I can't say that Smotrycz is an elite player that plugs an immediate hole for the Terps. He's a nice chess piece, but may be a bit redundant once Layman emerges.
I guess if Turgeon wants him then he can help us. We'll find out soon.
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Home > News & Events > Wayland Press Release Archives > 2005 News Releases > April 2005 > Wayland honors faculty, staff during luncheon
Wayland honors faculty, staff during luncheon
PLAINVIEW -- Wayland Baptist University celebrated a successful year with its employees during the annual Faculty and Staff Awards Luncheon, held Friday. The luncheon honors employees earning service anniversary awards as well as those voted by their peers for special recognition.
Faculty members were honored by their peers in four areas. Dr. Cindy McClenagan, associate professor of English, received the University Service award for service on committees, special projects and commitment. Dr. Yvonne LaMar, assistant professor of education, received the Community Service Award for her work in the Plainview community and beyond. Dr. Moumin Quazi, in his first year as associate professor of English and Joachim Chair in English, received the Contribution to Profession Award for participation in academic activities related to literature. Dr. Carolyn Ratcliffe, assistant professor of religion, received the Scholarship Award for her academic work.
Staff members also honored fellow employees for service to Wayland and beyond. Brenda Bass, auditor in the External Records office, received the University Service Award for her contributions. Teresa Young, director of communications, was presented with the Community Service Award for her involvement in Plainview service groups. Priscilla Edwards, a recruiter in the admissions office, received the Campus/Student Involvement Award for her work with international students. Josie Gomez, school nurse, received the Excellence Award.
The Association of Former Students presented several awards for distinguished service, including two to faculty members Tom Ray, associate professor of history, and Dr. Jeff Anderson, professor of religion and dean of the Anchorage, Alaska, campus. The association also honored Sheila Wood, coordinator of student financial accounts, with the staff award, and presented the Distinguished Lifetime Service Award to Dr. Don Cook, emeritus professor of English who retired in 2004 after 40 years at Wayland.
Also honored were faculty and staff members who completed anniversary years at Wayland, who were presented with pins and certificates. Donna Wiley and Pat Buchanan were honored for 25 years, while Brenda Bass and Dr. Fred Meeks were lauded for 20 years of service. Receiving pins for 15 years of service were Dr. Lloyd Cannedy and Dr. Georgia Flanagan, both of the Wichita Falls campus, Dr. Greg Feris, Steve Long, Dr. Paul Sadler and Sheila Wood.
Ten-year pins were presented to Dr. Chukuma Achebe, Pamela Lewis, Dr. Albert Long, Linda Muth and Hortencia Thompson, all of the San Antonio campus; Dr. Joseph Pineau of Wichita Falls campus; Marcia Million of the Anchorage campus; and Plainview employees Brad Bass, Tommie Flick, Dr. David Howle, Tim Kelley, Dr. Steven Michael, Penny Poole and Bertha Sistrunk.
The following individuals were honored for five years of service: Dr. Jeffrey Barnes of Sierra Vista campus; Jesse Cantu, Jr. of Clovis campus; Dr. John Bruce Copeland III and Trish Ward, both of Fairbanks campus; Dr. Jimmy Givens, Roma Haley, Joseph Marnell, Rasena Seagraves and Thomas Walker, all of the Lubbock campus; Marilyn Layne, Dr. Lewis Lee, Ben Moseley, Joyce Price and Patricia Tovar, all of San Antonio campus; Dr. Michael Sewell of Wichita Falls campus; Dr. Glenn Simmons of Phoenix campus; and Plainview employees Russell Almon, Dr. Gary Belshaw, Robert Black, Venita Butler, Jimmy Fikes, Dr. Scott Franklin, Josie Garcia, Brenda Gonzalez, Victor Heredia, Kevin Leggett, Clorene McDonald, Dr. Joshua Mora, Charlotte Schumacher, Nancy Simpson, Gay Snider and Teresa Young.
Amelia Cline, who has served as director of the Lifelong Learning Center, was honored upon her retirement this June. Cline has worked at Wayland since 1983, coming first as a secretary and administrative assistant before taking her current position.


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If you follow me on Facebook, you allready saw this fotos, that I made a long time ago, but I wasn´t had a lot of free time, to publish it here on my blog. So here they are.
Since I dont have product to make the prosthesis I try to make them with makeup, using white concealer and diferent shades of browns. Hope you like it.


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A's Bats Come Alive in Win
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Derek Norris and Coco Crisp hit early three-run homers to back a strong start by Jesse Chavez, and the Oakland Athletics beat the New York Yankees 10-5 on Sunday.
Carlos Beltran hit his first home run for the Yankees since coming off the disabled list. But the All-Star veteran also was called out on a strange play in the eighth inning when he seemed to lose track of the outs and wandered away from first base.
Norris homered in the first and Crisp connected in the second off Vidal Nuno (1-3).
The A's had been held to one run or fewer in four of their previous nine games before taking a 10-0 lead in four innings.
Yoenis Cespedes drove in two runs and Josh Donaldson snapped an 0-for-33 slump with an RBI single.
Chavez (6-4) carried a shutout into the sixth.


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"I wish I could disappear into a fine mist, but if I did, someone would probably choke on me." The day she uttered this statement in a casual conversation, Dimonique Boyd became fully aware that she…is…a poet.
A daughter of the Café Mahogany days, Dimonique experienced a rebirth in poetry when she became a regular at EchoVerse Poetry and Slam Series in 2007. She has had featured appearances at the Blushing Sky Honors Series, The Beat Café, Sweet Epiphany,and the Detroit Public Library, among many other venues and shows.
By popular demand, she self-published and released her first volume of poetry, "This is How I Feel: My Life in Verse." Her book chronicles her life's journey from ages fourteen to thirty. Though best known for her love and erotic poems, her writing delves into the socio-political, religious, and Hip-Hop realms. An admitted Confessional Poet, most of her poems are short glimpses into pieces of her life. She sees her poetry as both an outlet and an outreach. She is unafraid to give the most personal parts of herself to her audience because she feels that it's important to be a voice for who fear that they're alone or don't have the words to express how they feel. No matter the subject of her prose, the focus is always humanity. We love, we hurt, we cry, we lust, we sin, and she pours it all on the page and the stage to achieve oneness with her audience.
Her second volume of poetry, "Queen of Heart" follows the design of a deck of cards and is written in two parts-Court and Suites. From Ace to "Dimons," or God to Self, Dimonique offers the full range of her versatility as a writer.
Questions with Dimonique…
Describe what you believe is the purpose of your poetry?
My poetry is for personal self-expression and release, as well as for the expression and release of others. I write for myself, but I share as a means of giving others someone to relate to. I don't mind giving the most personal parts of myself because it's more important to me that someone who feels alone knows that they are not. I write to heal, change, save lives-even my own.
When you heard your first poem how did it make you feel?
I really can't remember hearing my first poem. I grew up as a fan of music and drama. I'd been exposed to poetry in elementary school. The first poem I learned was "Dreams" by Langston Hughes, which didn't mean anything to me until I got much older. I wrote poetry as class assignments through middle school, and I even wrote raps as a kid, but I really didn't get into and saved by poetry until high school.
Who are some of your favorite poets?
My first favorite poets were Khari Kimani Turner and LaShaun Phoenix Kotaran (then Moore). Some of my more current favorites are Jeff Nelson, Clarity, Rhonda Welsh, UNtitled, and my newest favorite is Andrea Daniel.
What inspires you to write poetry?
What is your favorite poem? (It could be one of your own or someone elses)
My favorite poem is probably still "1999" by Khari Kimani Turner. I wish more men and boys could be exposed to it today.
Dimonique's Favorite Poetry Quote: "I love you in melodies too heartbreaking to play…" This Is How I Feel: My Life in Verse, "I Love You in Hushed Tones"


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Tips to Qualify for a Car Loan at Carroll Credit Center near Bellingham 98225
Getting a new car can be an exciting time for you and your family, and there's nothing like being handed the keys to a brand-new vehicle. One of the aspects that can make this process stressful, however, is qualifying for a car loan. Talk to our experts in the Finance Department to see how you can qualify for loan Carroll Credit Center near Bellingham 98225.
Getting an auto loan is a long process, but you can make it much easier on yourself with financial planning right from your very own home on our intuitive, easy-to-use website. Take a look at our Payment Calculator that allows you to map out your buying power and potential monthly payments. You'll be able to quickly and easily see how affecting your down payment and interest rate will affect your payments, and plan accordingly. If you're exchanging your current vehicle and trading it in, the Value Trade-In tool can outline how much your car is worth to see if that will defray your costs.
When you're planning out your budget, it is important to remember to stay within your means. While everyone would love to have that shiny new sports car with all of the pricy accessories, it's not realistic for some people. Be sure to consider how long your loan terms are for. If you want to pay off your loan sooner, you can set up a 60-month loan, rather than a 72-month loan; however, it's important to remember that this will increase your monthly payments accordingly.
Another way you can make the process of qualifying for loan Carroll Credit Center near Bellingham 98225 much easier is by getting pre-approved for credit online. With our Finance Application, you'll have just a few short steps to fill out that will give us a better idea of your financial standing. No matter if you have good credit or bad credit, when we get all of the information up front, our experts in the Finance Department will work with you to create the best possible loan for you and your family. Once you're pre-approved, you can shop without the anxiety of having to qualify for a loan, which is a huge relief off your mind.
Qualifying for loan at Carroll Credit Center near Bellingham 98225 doesn't have to be a grueling process. At Carroll Credit Center, we'll help you through the entire process and make sure that you come out on the other side with a great loan and a reliable vehicle for you and your family to enjoy. Visit us today for more information!
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Hey, hey. Did you hear that Unscripted Sketches is a year old this weekend? We can't believe it's been a year already. To celebrate our Blog-iversary, we're doing a treasure hunt through the DT's blogs! The instructions are located here- the first person to find the treasure wins a prize!
Wow 1 year old already! What an awesome sketch this week..great for matching up some beautiful papers. Can't wait to see what you come up with. Be sure to head on over and see what the other DT members have cooked up…plus check out the top 3 this week!
Have a wonderful weekend!


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(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that's happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)
In this month's Redbook magazine, Kelly Clarkson opens up about who she opens up to. And it is Reba McEntire. "Reba, definitely," the American Idol says. "She's the only one who really understands what I'm going through. I'm close with my mom, but Reba is more like an older sister. She's been in the exact same situation. She's a godsend." It's a good thing Clarkson is so close with Reba, since their worlds seem to be forever intertwined. The new love in Clarkson's life is Brandon Blackstock, who is Reba's stepson and her pal Blake Shelton's manager. And to make the world even smaller, Brandon's father — Reba's husband Narvel Blackstock — is Clarkson's manager. When the two started dating, Clarkson said he told them, "Go for it. Y'all are both great." It sounds like Clarkson and Blackstock aren't getting too serious too soon. But if and when they do, at least she will already have won the in-laws over.


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This week, Ars reviewed the 21.5 inch iMac and iTunes 11, weighed in on a court filing saying that the jury foreman in the Apple v. Samsung case knew little to nothing about the details of the case before the trial, and dug in to NASA's Curiosity discoveries (which were disappointing for some, but very exciting for others.) If you missed any of these stories this week, check out our handy list below to get caught up!
- Review: 21.5-inch 2012 iMac takes two steps forward, one step back
The new iMac is attractive, but makes compromises in the pursuit of thinness.
- Portal's physics engine rebuilt in 25KB—on a graphing calculator
A student's years of coding work allows us all to calculate with portals.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook talks Forstall, privacy, and making Macs in the USA
Cook offers more insight into the inner workings of Apple.
- Wii U's restrictive DRM is a baffling throwback
Op-Ed: It's time for the Big N to catch up to other digital delivery companies.
- The State of Smartphones in 2012: Part I of our Ultimate Guide
We review the landscape and name the best in multiple categories. And it's just the beginning.
- New filing: Apple knew almost nothing about jury foreman in Samsung case
Samsung's allegations of juror misconduct look increasingly weak.
- iTunes 11 review: Simple is as simple does
"Dramatically simplified" UI has its perks, but lost features and bugs confound users.
- How Windows tech support scammers walked right into a trap set by the feds
Sometimes scammers are just as likely to fall for a good con as anyone else.
- How an all-star team put an end to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Had to navigate a no-man's land of uncertainty during crucial 24-hour period.
- Billion dollar verdict is a "slap on the wrist," says Apple lawyer
But at a key hearing, Apple v. Samsung judge ponders lower damages.
- No bug-eyed monsters: After hype, NASA finds carbon, chlorine on Mars
Team not yet ready to rule out contamination from Earth either.
- Web served, part 3: Bolting on PHP with PHP-FPM
After setting up server and security, we get to deliver some active content.


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The Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art's fall exhibition block explores portraiture and the figure in art. Two new exhibitions, Class Picturesand Figure Forward, approach figuration from different angles.
A Hundred Blossoms and the Sweetest Scent, Sonya Yong James' year-long solo exhibition on the ZMA stairwell project wall, also opens, with a free public reception Saturday, August 25, 2-4 pm. The fall exhibitions will be on view through December 21, 2018.
The museum will be closed when the Kennesaw State University campus is closed.


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Complimentary KuppingerCole Select Access
KuppingerCole Select Access provides you with free 30-day access to a great selection of KuppingerCole research materials and to live trainings.
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Getting a Grip on Your Big Data – Informatica Announces Acquisition of Compact Solutions
Informatica just announced that they agreed to acquire Compact Solutions, a vendor of Enterprise Metadata Management with engineering and professional services being based out of Krakow, Poland. Compact Solutions core product is MetaDex, which enables full end-to-end visibility of data flows, especially around some complex data sources, and thus helps organizations in understanding, tracking, managing, and protecting data flows and increasing efficiency in their broader data and analytics [...]
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AI for the Future of your Business: Effective, Safe, Secure & Ethical Everything we admire, love, need to survive, and that brings us further in creating a better future with a human face is and will be a result of intelligence. Synthesizing and amplifying our human intelligence have therefore the potential of leading us into a new era of prosperity like we have not seen before, if we succeed keeping AI Safe, Secure and Ethical. Since the very beginning of industrialization, and even before, we have been striving at structuring our work in a way that it becomes accessible for [...]


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FREE Oregon Ducks Conquer All Coloring Page!September 3, 2016 at 10:27 pm | Posted in 2016, Art, art journal, artist, arts & crafts, Beavers, Cartoon, Cheering, Color, coloring, coloring book, Ducks, Football Season, Free, go ducks, Huskies, Kristin Bell, Oregon, Oregon State University, rivalry, University of Oregon, University of Washington, Washington | Leave a comment
I had to make this, because my parents are big Oregon Ducks fans. They were watching the Ducks WIN today, so I thought I'd poke the Oregon State Beavers and the University of Washington Huskies with this comic. LOL. Feel free to download and print it off to color. It will fit on an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper. I recommend borderless printing if your printer can do that, but it isn't necessary. Enjoy! Go Ducks!
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PPenguinsFan66 wrote:Offsides? Nah, never.
dixonyy18 wrote:Niskanen playing his worst hockey
Rocco wrote:Was that Morrow who missed the tap-in there?
skullman80 wrote:Not an awful pp.
iWonTheCup87 wrote:PPenguinsFan66 wrote:Offsides? Nah, never.
feels like we go offsides so much
offsides wrote:skullman80 wrote:Not an awful pp.
I'd say, pretty good really. A few real nice chances.
dixonyy18 wrote:wow Despres, show the speed
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A landslide win in the Chicago mayoral election for Rahm Emanuel. With more than 88% of the precincts counted, the former White House Chief of Staff has 55 percent of the vote so far.
Former Board of Education President Gery Chico is in second place with 24 percent. City Clerk Miguel del Valle has 9 percent. Carol Moseley Braun, the former senator and veteran equality advocate, is in a distant fourth place with 8 percent.
The leading candidates needed at least a 50 percent showing to avoid a run-off. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners predicted a 50 percent turnout. It appears it will be in the mid-40 percent range, reports WLS, possibly due to snow and cold.


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From the sea to the shower, our stylish collection of Sea Life wash bags are inspired by our love of the ocean. Orca wash pouch is a conveniently sized toiletry bag that's big enough for the shampoo, yet small enough to fit in the suitcase. Stylish monochrome killer whales are printed on a pale grey background in a beautiful formation. Strikingly simple, effortlessly elegant, Orca wash pouch is the perfect travel buddy for short breaks and long holidays. And don't forget to check out the matching Sea Life bags and other toiletry bags.
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When most people think of mortgage fraud, they think of a clever borrower conning an unwitting banker into extending him a loan he cannot afford. But this isn't really how fraud usually works in the mortgage business. According to the FBI, 80% of mortgage fraud is committed by lenders.
There are two types of financial outrages: acts that are outrageously illegal, and acts that are, outrageously, legal. Yesterday's Senate hearing on the rise and fall of Washington Mutual was a rare examination of the former outrage, documenting the pervasive practice of fraud at every level of the now-defunct bank's business.
All of Washington Mutual's sketchy practices can be traced back to rampant fraud in its mortgage lending offices. The company repeatedly performed internal audits of its lending practices, and discovered multiple times that enormous proportions of the loans it was issuing were based on fraudulent documents. At some offices, the fraud rate was on new mortgages over 70%, and at yesterday's hearing, the company's former Chief Risk Officer James Vanasek described its mortgage fraud as "systemic."
When most people think of mortgage fraud, they think of a clever borrower conning an unwitting banker into extending him a loan he cannot afford.
But this isn't really how fraud usually works in the mortgage business.
According to the FBI, 80% of mortgage fraud is committed by the lender, so it shouldn't be surprising that WaMu's internal audits concluded that its widespread fraud was being "willfully" perpetrated by its own employees. The company also engaged in textbook predatory lending across all of its mortgage lending activities–issuing loans based on the value of the property, while ignoring the borrower's ability to repay the loan.
These findings alone are pretty bad stuff in the world of white-collar crime. For several years, WaMu was engaged in fraudulent lending, WaMu managers knew it was engaged in fraudulent lending, and didn't stop it. The company was setting up thousands, if not millions of borrowers for foreclosure, while booking illusory short-term profits and paying out giant bonuses for its employees and executives. During the housing boom, WaMu Chairman and CEO Kerry Killinger took home between $11 million and $20 million every single year, much of it "earned" on outright fraud.
But the WaMu scandal gets much worse. WaMu is routinely referred to as a pure mortgage lender, one whose simple business model can be contrasted with the complex wheelings and dealings of Wall Street titans like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. That characterization is grossly inaccurate. WaMu was very heavily engaged in the business of packaging mortgages into securities and marketing them to investors. This is a core investment banking function, something ordinary mortgage banks like WaMu were legally barred from engaging in until 1999, when Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a critical Depression-era reform.
Securitization is immensely profitable, and under the right circumstances, it allows banks to dump risky mortgages off their books at a profit. That's exactly what WaMu did. Even after internal audits flagged specific loans as fraudulent, WaMu's securitization shop still went ahead and packaged those exact same loans into securities, and sold them to investors. Knowingly peddling fraudulent securities is a straightforward act of securities fraud, one made all the more severe by the fact that WaMu never told its investors it had sold them securities full of fraudulent loans. The only question now is whether anyone will be personally held accountable for the act.
So far, we've got fraud on fraud– but wait!
The WaMu saga actually gets worse still.
When the mortgage market started falling apart, WaMu ordered a study on the likelihood that one if its riskiest mortgage products, the option-ARM loan, would begin defaulting en masse.
The report concluded that, indeed, option-ARMs were about to default like crazy, within a matter of months.
Option-ARMs feature a low introductory monthly payment for a few years, often so low that borrowers actually end up going deeper into debt, despite making their regular payments. After a few years, the monthly payment increases dramatically–sometimes by as much as 400 percent. Suddenly this cheap loan is outrageously unaffordable, and if home prices decline, borrowers are immediately headed for foreclosure.
Now, most would-be homeowners are not very interested in this kind of loan. It seems dangerous, because it is dangerous. So WaMu actively coached its loan officers to persuade skeptical borrowers into accepting this predatory garbage instead of an ordinary mortgage.
This assault on its own borrowers is only half of WaMu's option-ARM hustle.
For a while, Wall Street investors really liked option-ARMs. They were inherently risky, which meant they were much more profitable, if you ignored the risk that they might someday default, and Wall Street was all too happy to engage in this kind of creative accounting.
But when WaMu conducted its study on looming option-ARM defaults, the prospect of heavy, imminent losses did not convince the company to abandon the business. Instead, WaMu began issuing as many option-ARMs as it could. The idea was to jam as many of these loans into its securitization machine as it could before investors decided to stop buying option-ARM securities altogether.
That means WaMu was knowingly setting up both borrowers and investors for a fall. The company was actually trying to extend loans that it knew would be disastrous for its borrowers–and then selling them to investors that it knew would end up taking heavy losses. Whether or not this constitutes illegal fraud will depend on some technicalities, but it is clearly an act of outrageous deception.
When the securitization markets finally froze up, WaMu got stuck with billions in terrible, terrible loans it had issued, and the company failed spectacularly. One of the few good calls the U.S. government made during the financial crisis was the decision not to extend bailout funds to WaMu, not to save the jobs of its executives, and allow the company to fail. It was seized by the FDIC in late September 2008, and immediately sold to J.P. Morgan Chase, at no cost to taxpayers.
But WaMu's story is nevertheless rife with implications here for Wall Street reform.
First, regulation matters.
Everything WaMu did could have been stopped not only by an engaged regulator who worried about the company's bottom line, but by a regulator who cared about consumer protection in any degree whatsoever. WaMu's regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, didn't care about either, but it was particularly uninterested in consumer protection rules, because those often conflict with bank profitability.
If we establish a new regulator that is charged only with writing and enforcing consumer protection rules, it won't worry about how profitable consumer predation might be, it will simply crack down on it. In the process, it could actually protect the company's bottom line (Salon's Andrew Leonard has been emphasizing this point for some time).
Second, at yesterday's hearing, former WaMu Chief Risk Officer James Vanasek acknowledged that his bank would not have been able to wreak so much economic destruction without the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which barred any mixing between complex Wall Street securities dealings and ordinary, plain-vanilla banking. He even went so far as to offer a tepid endorsement for reinstating the law.
A lot of predatory mortgage firms didn't run their own securitization shops–they sold their loans directly to Wall Street firms, which handled the securitization on their own. So proponents of the Glass-Steagall repeal (most of them employed at one point or another by a major banking conglomerate) argue that the crisis would have occurred with our without the repeal. That argument is basically a distraction, as the WaMu case reveals. Over the course of just a few years, WaMu's entire mortgage banking operation transformed from a boring, profitable, plain-vanilla enterprise, into a feeding trough for its risky securitization activities. There is simply no way that transformation could have occurred without the lure of easy in-house securitization profits. It is possible to conceive of a mortgage crisis taking place without the repeal of Glass-Steagall, but it is utterly impossible to imagine a mortgage crisis as severe as the one we are still living through.
It will be very surprising if criminal charges are not soon filed against some of WaMu's former executives. But WaMu isn't the only bad actor from the financial crisis. This is basically how the entire U.S. mortgage market operated for at least five years. Dozens of lenders who are still active, many of them saved by generous taxpayer bailouts, were engaged in similar activities. There's only one way to churn out billions of dollars worth of lousy mortgages for several years, and it involves a prolonged campaign of fraud and deception.


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Josh Pence, who played one half of the Winklevosses in The Social Network (his face was digitally replaced by Arnie Hammer's) has just been cast in Chris Nolan's Dark Knight Rises. This hints at a lot of Batman spoilers.
According to THR Pence has been cast as a young Ra's Al Ghul, who was played by Liam Neeson in Batman Begins. Sources tell the trade that Pence will appear in scenes that will take place 30 years before the first film.
This seems to support the long running bat-rumor that Talia Al Ghul will also be in the new Bat picture. In fact, many people believe that the recent casting of Marion Cotillard was for the Talia role. So it would make sense that if Nolan was going to dig up a plot from his original film, he might as well sex it up with the woman who eventually had Batman's baby! There is still no word if Neeson will reprise the role of Ra's, but fingers crossed. This could be a great way to bookend the Nolan trilogy.


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(written from a Production point of view)
Robert "Bob" Kaimi Cummings (died 26 August 2016) was a Hollywood stuntman and actor who played the role of the first, unlucky Klingon gunner in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Cummings has made multiple appearances on the television series Fantasy Island, starring Khan Noonien Singh actor Ricardo Montalban. He also appeared in a 1982 episode of Matt Houston called "The Good Doctor" along with TOS guest actors Gary Lockwood and William Windom. In 1989, he appeared on an episode of Alien Nation called "Fifteen with Wanda". Besides series regulars Gary Graham, Eric Pierpoint, and Michele Scarabelli, the episode also featured Star Trek: Voyager guest actress Lori Petty.
In 1987, Cummings appeared in the science fiction film The Hidden, starring Michael Nouri and Larry Cedar. He was also seen in the 1994 sequel, The Hidden II, starring Raphael Sbarge. Cummings' other film acting credits consist of 1987's Nightforce (with Richard Lynch), 1988's Bulletproof (with Thalmus Rasulala), and 1990's Tripwire (starring David Warner and Meg Foster).
As a stuntman, he has performed in such films as Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Spaceballs (1987), Child's Play (1988), The Abyss (1989), Ghost (1990), and Predator 2 (1990).


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City of TorranceHome Menu
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Bona-fide Torrance-based, non-profit groups may submit events to be included in the Torrance citywide calendar pending approval. The City of Torrance Citywide Calendar System Administrator (Office of Cable and Community Relations) is responsible for determining which events are appropriate for posting and then approving a calendar entry. The administrator also has the capability to submit the event to other calendars so that your event may be posted on more than one calendar if appropriate. Events must occur within Torrance city limits to be considered for inclusion and submitted within the categories already identified within the calendar. Upon submission, the following information should be included: How To Submit
4th Annual Luau Party
- Date: 07/27/2019 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
- Location: Torrance Woman's Club
1422 Engracia Ave
Torrance, California 90501
- Submission Attachment: 4th Annual Luau Party.pdf
The Luau Party is a family friendly event that will feature fun-filled music, dance and food of the islands. By popular request the South Bay Strummers and their ukuleles will return to entertain us, and also joining us will be the lovely Akua Ohana O Hula group from Gardena Valley Baptist Church, who will have us swaying to the natural rhythms of the islands. At $50 for adults - $25 (Children 3 to 12) , you'll be served an amazing meal, planned special for the event. (Beer and Wine will be offered at a cost.) You'll also have lots of opportunities to go home with that something special.Return to full list >>
Proceeds will benefit the building of Torrance's Rose Float entry for this year's Rose Parade.
Proceeds will benefit the building of Torrance's Rose Float entry for this year's Rose Parade.


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Making all-twine knotted Rosaries is actually quite easy once you know how.
This video explains some of the "tricks of the trade" for making all-twine knotted Rosaries to freely give away to other people.
For higher-quality video instructions, as well as video instructions for making two-twine and ladder knotted Rosaries, be sure to order a copy of the Rosary Army Virtual Workshop DVD!
Want to print out instructions to share with others?
Used by thousands of Rosary makers around the world, learning to make an all-twine knotted Rosary is simple with the instructions below.


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Muhammad and the Jews of Banu Qurayza
Critics of Islam often ask me, "why did Muhammad (peace be upon him) kill the innocent Jews of the tribe of Banu Qurayza?"
First, they were not innocent. After his arrival in Medina, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) signed a Joint Defense Pact of Medina with the Jewish tribes. In which, they agreed to fight together against any army that attacks Medina and not to assist the enemy against one another. Soon after the Jewish power start fading away and the power of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Muslims kept increasing. This made the jews jealous of them and they secretly started inviting the enemy to attack the Muslims and promised the assistance. They also made attempts to murder the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Subsequently two these tribes, Banu Nadir and Banu Qaynuqa broke their treaties with the Muslims. They eventually had to surrender, when the Muslims besieged them. The Prophet showed mercy upon them and spared their lives. These two tribes were exiled from Medina.
Only the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza was left behind in Medina. When the pagans of Mecca with their confederates besieged Medina and the battle of the trench, Banu Qurayza broke their treaty with the Muslims and started preparations to attack the Muslims. When the Prophet came to know about it he sent Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) to remind Banu Qurayza of their treaty. Since Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) was the chief of Banu Qurayza's confederate, the Aws tribe. Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) tried to persuade the chief of Banu Qurayza not to break his treaty with the Muslims, but he wouldn't listen. One night a strong wind forced the padgan army to flee. Allah sent the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet, who told him to teach Banu Qurayza a lesson for their treachery during the war. The Muslims besieged be tribe of Banu Qurayza. After the siege of almost a month, Banu Qurayza surrendered only on the condition that Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) would be allowed to judge concerning them instead of the Prophet because they didn't trust the Prophet. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) accepted the condition and allowed Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) to judge concerning Banu Qurayza.
Second, the verdict against Banu Qurayza had been given by their own favorite, they had chosen themselves to judge concerning them. Banu Qurayza had chosen Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) because he was the chief of their confederate, the tribe of Aws and he had always protected them in the past. Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) agreed to be the judge only on the condition that his judgment would be the final verdict and no one would challenge it including the prophet. Everyone including the prophet agreed to it. Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) judge them according to their own Holy law, the Torah. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) could not challenge it as he had already promised.
Banu Qurayza suffered that fate only due to their own treachery and utter stupidity that they did not trust the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to judge concerning them. The Prophet, of whom God says in His final revelation, "And We have no sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds." (Al-Qur'an 21:107) Had they accepted him as the judge, Muhammad (peace be upon him) would definitely had shown mercy upon them, forgiven them and let them go alive as he had already forgiven and let go of the two previous Jewish tribes of Medina that had broken their treaties with him.
One may ask, why did Saad bin Muadh (may Allah be pleased with him) give such a harsh verdict, in fact the harshest in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)? The reasons for his so hard a verdict have been put together by Martin Lings as such,
"Some of his clansmen went to him, and mounting him on an ass they brought him to the camp. "Do well by thy confederates," they said to him on the way, "for the Messenger of God hath set thee in judgement upon them for no other purpose than that thou mayst treat them with indulgence." But Sa'd was a man of justice; like 'Umar he had been against sparing the prisoners at Badr, and their opinion had been confirmed by the Revelation. Many men of Quraysh who had been ransomed on that occasion had come out against them at Uhud and again at the trench; and in this last campaign the strength of the invaders had been largely due to the hostile activities of the exiled Jews of Bani Nadir, If these had been put to death instead of being allowed to go into exile, the invading army might have been halved, and Bani Qurayzah would no doubt have remained faithful to their pact with the Prophet. The arguments offered by past experience were not in favour of leniency, to say the least. Moreover, Sa'd had himself been one of the envoys to Qurayzah at the moment of crisis and had seen the ugliness of their treachery when they had thought that the defeat of the Muslims was certain. It was true that if he gave a severe judgement most of the men and women of Aws would blame him, but that consideration would not have weighed much with Sa'd at any time and now it weighed not at all, for he was convinced that he was dying."
(MUHAMMAD his life based on the earliest sources - Martin Lings, page 231)


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Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford envisions an automotive future much like the transportation system in the futuristic 2002 science-fiction movie "Minority Report."
In that dystopian vision of a computerized world where people are arrested for "precrime" before they can commit a crime, the best thing going are the sleek cars that drive and park themselves. The hero-cop played by Tom Cruise has a futuristic Lexus that glides up the side of a high-rise building and parks itself on the wall outside his apartment.
Ford says as the world's population grows from the current 7 billion to 9 billion the number of vehicles will quadruple from 1 billion to 4 billion and motoring will look very different to avoid "global gridlock."
"We have to change the way we think of our cars," Ford, 54, great-grandson of automobile industry pioneer Henry Ford, told the 2012 Mobile World Congress technology show in Barcelona, Spain. "We tend to think of cars as independent, individual devices. Now we have to look at them the same way we look at laptops, earphones, tablets -- as pieces of a much richer network."
Ford predicts future cars will drive themselves in "platoons" of vehicles electronically linked for efficiency. "We will take increasing advantage of cars as a rolling collection of sensors, eliminating traffic accidents at intersections."
Don't laugh. The ground is already being broken for vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems that can avert accidents.
By mid-century, Ford says pedestrians, bicycles and cars will be linked together into a single connected network and vehicles will be able to navigate on their own.
"You'll be able to plot and reserve a parking space before your trip, and your car will park itself when you drop it off, maximizing parking density."
Science-fiction is becoming science-fact in the near-term with wireless V2X technology being developed to allow vehicles to communicate with traffic lights, and work and school zones.
Consumer Reports, in its annual auto issue, describes how smarter cars will even be able to detect traffic patterns at intersections and warn a driver -- or slam on the brakes -- if a car is about to be plowed into from the side.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator David Strickland says V2X is "the next major safety breakthrough" and the federal agency estimates such a system could avoid or minimize 80 percent of accidents involving non-impaired drivers saving tens of thousands of lives.
In the mid-term 2017-25, Ford predicts the "auto-pilot" driving technology will allow a driver to take control if needed.
Beyond that it's anyone's guess.
Obama courts big labor, praises American workers
President Barack Obama, who doesn't want anyone to forget his administration's contributions to saving the U.S. auto industry, courted UAW leaders in Washington last week.
"Take a minute to think about what you and the workers and families you represent have fought through," Obama told the United Auto Workers Convention in Washington Tuesday.
"Just a few years ago, nearly one in five autoworkers were handed a pink slip. Four-hundred-thousand jobs across this industry vanished the year before I took office. And as the financial crisis hit with full fury, America faced a hard and once unimaginable reality: two of the Big Three -- GM and Chrysler -- were on the brink of failure.
Obama said with the economy in free fall, he made the right call by betting on U.S. manufacturing and the auto industry with $60 billion in taxpayer money. Former President George W. Bush had already invested $24 billion to keep GM and Chrysler from turning out the lights before he left office.
Three years later, the U.S. auto industry is roaring back posting near record profits and sales.
"The other option was to do nothing, and allow these companies to fail," the president said. "In fact, some politicians said we should. Some even said we should "let Detroit go bankrupt."
Obama chided his critics saying, "If we had turned our backs on you, if America had thrown in the towel, GM and Chrysler wouldn't exist today. The suppliers and distributors that get their business from those companies would have died off, too. Then even Ford could have gone down as well."
More than 1 million good-paying U.S. jobs would have disappeared in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, he said.
Obama said for many auto industry jobs are more than a paycheck; they're a source of pride and a path to a middle-class life.
"They make it possible to own a home, to raise kids and send them to college, to retire with some dignity and respect. These companies are worth more than just the cars they build," he said. "They're a symbol of American innovation, the sources of our manufacturing might. And if that's not worth fighting for, what is?"
Obama said he'd bet on the American worker every time.
He said he has visited Chrysler workers near Kokomo, Ind., GM workers in Spring Hill, Tenn., Ford workers building the new Explorer at the Chicago Assembly plant and those making the F-150 pickup -- the top-selling pickup -- in Kansas City.
The president said he sat in a brand-new Chevrolet Volt hybrid fresh off the line at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant in Michigan in 2010, and liked it.
"The Secret Service wouldn't let me drive it. But I liked sitting in it. It was nice. I'll bet it drives real good."
To chants of "Four more years," Obama said he would buy a Volt at the end of his second term.
"Five years from now, when I'm not president any more, I'll buy one and drive it myself."
Volts merging into the fast lane, hits brakes
Sales may be less than hoped for but the Chevrolet Volt is moving into the express lane in Southern California.
Drivers of the extended-range, gas-electric hybrid with the low-emissions package standard on California cars can use commuter car pool lanes, cutting total driving time by an average 36 minutes per day, the Detroit Free Press reported.
GM resumed producing the Volt in early February after stopping manufacture two days before Christmas to investigate a fire in a Volt that had been deliberately crash-tested.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conducted an investigation into two battery fires that occurred after Volt crash tests in November and concluded the vehicle was not dangerous.
GM is putting a tougher casing around the car's battery pack and adding sensors to detect battery fluid leaks.
On Friday, GM announced it was suspending Volt production for 5 weeks starting March 19 because of slow sales.
"We have to maintain the proper inventory levels," GM spokesman Chris Lee told the Detroit News.
Fewer than 8,000 Volts were sold last year, when Chevy had hoped to put 10,000 of the $41,000 hybrids on the road. Volt buyers in California qualify for an extra $1,500 rebate in addition to a $7,500 federal tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle. A no-emission all-electric vehicle qualifies for a $10,000 tax credit.
"The Volts with the low-emissions package are certain to be a strong draw for California commuters looking to travel the state's notoriously congested freeways in the carpool lane," Chris Perry, Chevy's vice president of marketing, told the Free Press.
CR picks more top cars
Consumer Reports, which rates new vehicles on a 100-point road test scale, gives the nod of best car to the 2012 Lexus LS 460L, which scored 99.
The BMW 135i was second with 97 points, followed by the Infinity G37 sedan (95), Toyota Camry Hybrid XLE (95), Audi A6 (3.0T) with 93 points, Infinity M37 (93), Nissan Altima 3.5 SR (93), Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (92), Hyundai Genesis 3.8 sedan (92), Toyota Camry XLE V6 (92), Audi A8 L (91), Lexus ES 350 (91) and Nissan Altima 2.5 S (91)
The Jeep Wrangler Limited had the lowest road test score of 20, followed by the Jeep Liberty (27), Smart fortwo (28) and Toyota F J Cruiser (36).
The CR road test incorporates more than 50 individual tests and evaluations on how a vehicle performs during acceleration, braking, fuel consumption, comfort and cargo space.
The top family car was the Toyota Camry Hybrid; the sporty car, Ford Mustang; small SUV, Toyota RAV4; affordable family sedan, Hyundai Sonata; family hauler, Toyota Sienna V6; sports sedan, Infinity G; green car, Toyota Prius; small car, Subaru Impreza; pickup, Chevrolet Avalanche, and family SUV, Toyota Highlander.