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Mall econ: Is downtown café space handed out fairly?
With spring just around the corner, it's time again for an annual tradition on the Downtown Mall: arguing about outdoor café space. City planners have proposed a revised ordinance to settle the issue, but some say it gives a handful of restaurants a competitive advantage.
Back in the 1970s and '80s, when the City was begging folks to open restaurants on the Downtown Mall, there was less at stake. But now that 30 downtown eateries have outdoor patios, size matters.
During the $7.5 million re-bricking project in 2009, city planners came up with what they thought would be a simple plan: reducing all café spaces to 800 square feet, a limit that had already been in place for several years.
At the time, Miller's, Sal's, Rapture, Hamilton's, and The Blue Light Grill had been operating with more than 800 square feet. The owners of Zocalo, too, managed to secure more square footage directly from former City Manager Gary O'Connell, who stepped in after the owners complained about getting less space than Blue Light.
It was time, planners explained, to create a more level playing field.
The reaction was immediate. In the midst of a recession, and with the Mall under construction, a thousand signatures were collected in a petition calling for a halt to the re-bricking project, and arguing that it was unfair to limit cafés and penalize restaurants that had pioneered outdoor dining on the Mall.
"You're talking about something that is going to hurt our business," complained a then-manager at the Blue Light Grill during a packed public meeting. "The priority should not be on fairness, but on making sure that restaurants thrive," said another manager.
So much for that simple plan. The push-back caused the the city to back down, and those restaurants with over-the-ordinance spaces were allowed to keep them.
Blue Light: 1,300
Zocalo: 1,200
Hamilton's: 1,000
Rapture: 1,000
Sal's: 1,070
Miller's: 1,350
However, the issue erupted again in November when several downtown building owners seeking café space were told there was none available.
Downtown property owner Joan Fenton sought space for a prospective tenant for her building at 114 West Main Street. Trouble was it's in the block where Cinema Taco, Ten, and the Blue Light Grill– all owned by music mogul Coran Capshaw– had taken all the space, a situation that Fenton calls unfair.
"Any restaurant with a café space has a huge economic advantage," she says. "And any restaurant that can't secure a café space will most likely fail."
The issue sparked debate during the February 22 City Council meeting where chief planner Jim Tolbert unveiled a revised café ordinance, created after input from downtown business owners. Again, the six over-sized cafés would be allowed to keep the terrain, but only until the businesses fail or get sold.
Mayor Dave Norris echoed Fenton's concerns, pointing out that some see this as a perceived monopoly of public space, especially around Central Place, where Zocalo and Petit Pois consume nearly all the area north of the fountain.
"Is there any relief for the tenant in that situation?" Norris asked planning director Jim Tolbert, who convened a study group.
"No, sir," responded Tolbert. "It was the consensus of the group– how to say this– that that's just the breaks you get."
"Allowing one restaurant to operate with a patio of more than 800 square feet while denying another the same opportunity is fundamentally unfair," says Maya restaurant owner Peter Castiglione. "The whole idea of grandfathering older businesses runs counter to a free market and fair trade."
However, not everyone sees it that way.
"Why hurt restaurants that are succeeding by taking away their café space?" asks Mike Rodi, manager of Rapture. "New restaurants often fail, but if you take away space from existing restaurants, you could have two places going out of business instead of one."
Councilor Satyendra Huja pointed out that there's really no competition on Central Place because one owner, Ludwig Kuttner's Monticello Associates, controls the property there. Just to the west, Capshaw controls the block. It would appear that O'Connell, when he stepped in for Zocalo, had been referee the dispute between the two titans.
As Fenton suggests, property owners have a great stake in the issue, as café space can mean the difference between leased space and an empty storefront. Interestingly, of the six oversized cafés, three pay rent to out-of-state property owners, and two are owned by well-known multi-millionaires. Sal's is the only café whose day-to-day operator also owns the building.
Suprisingly, it was Kuttner who made the sole public statement at Tuesday's Council meeting, bemoaning restrictions and reminding Councilors that such restrictions were absent when many of the Mall's restaurants were first launched.
Cafe leases seem to be a sweet deal, as the public space includes amenities like free lighting, tree trimming, and wi-fi. And although chilly weather renders cafés unusable for at least four months a year, the City's rent of just $3 per square foot plus a bi-annual fee of $125 is considerably less than restaurants pay indoors, which can run between $12 and $23 a square foot, according to advertised real estate listings.
Others argue that leveling the playing field runs counter to the idea of getting in early to stake a claim.
"Splitting the pie further doesn't make sense," says Mas chef/owner Tomas Rahal. "Long term, this would have the effect of erasing any competitive advantage those who got there first would have."
Indeed. What a conundrum.
21 comments
Mayor Dave Norris also discusses lessons we can learn and bring back to Charlottesville from our Sister Cities in France, Bulgaria, Italy, and Ghana, on the locally-produced cable talk show Politics Matters with host Jan Paynter: http://bit.ly/polmatters
Jim Tolbert would have Council believe that those restaurants with large areas were grandfathered in when the Mall was built. That is not true. The Hardware Restaurant (dead) and Miller's go all the way back. The rest are newcomers. In each block the restaurant space should be divided equally. However, the city likes to play favoritism. You support them and they will support you. It always depends upon who's asking. Joan Fenton is right. Rapture is wrong. That restaurant would have been deal long ago if Capshaw hadn't propped it up. The city should be attempting to be fair to all concerned. But Jim Tolbert knows nothing about that. Where is the new, expensive City Manager in all of this?
This may be sacrilegious, but what about using that old supply and demand theory? The cafes are essentially floor space, at insanely cheap rents compared to storefronts. Then to make things a bit nicer, the city actually supplies the lighting and cleans the floors.
Put the patio space in the hands of a rental agent with 5 year leases. Those with current spaces are grandfathered into current rates and spaces for the first cycle.
Easy solution: Break the available real estate into 400 sq. ft. chunks. Auction each one individually and let the demand determine the rent. On blocks with many restaurants the cost will be high, and on blocks with one or two restaurants the cost will be low. That's the way it works out there in the real world, folks. That IS a level playing field.
The way it is now, you have the city government and its functionaries picking the winners and losers. I can think of nothing worse. New establishments deserve the opportunity to compete in the marketplace, and the PRC is effectively shutting them out of the game.
And to reiterate what Cville Eye noted, where's the nice shiny, new, and expensive City Manager? Don't tell me he's unwilling to get his hands dirty in the face of irate business owners.
He's too busy scrubbing the monument to "free speech."
Seems like a lottery each year or every 2 years would do it. Who can yell about this one? Magnet schools always have a lottery. (But there IS a lot of complaining after the straws are drawn.) And, I think only the property owners should get a chance to draw.
Personally, I think Snooki needs to start selling sandwiches!!
We don't go to the Mall anymore ... it has lost its appeal! The beggars and druggies are annoying and most of the stores close way to early.
Have common tables were the individual who is using the table can decide were they want to eat. They have a button to push to the restaurant of choice, Menus are brought out and so on. There are huge places like this in Hong Kong. everyone is happy happy happy. What you think?
@Rick: "We don't go to the Mall anymore ... it has lost its appeal! The beggars and druggies are annoying and most of the stores close way to early."
Hooray! I can start going to the mall again now that that creep, Rick doesn't go there anymore.
Cafes should be obligated to let people sit at the tables if they are closed. Nothing more ridiculous that not having a place to sit when the palces are closed and the tables and chairs are chained up. We all pay taxes and should be able to enjoy the mall.
I believe the restaurants that have cafe space on the mall should be required to serve great food and great service.
Currently all of the restaurants that have cafe space on the mall serve a mediocre product!
Charlottesville dinners need to demand more from their restaurants. We live in a "foodie" town, but how can that be when menus have stayed the same for 10 years.
We the eater need to require a better product and if these restaurants can not deliver they need to give up and make space for those restaurants that are willing to put the guest first.
@roberto. Yeah that would work about as well as the public bikes. Chairs and tables would be wandering away...
For those who feel that restaurants with larger cafes should be downsized put yourself in their shoes. If for years you have a certain size cafe and then you are told that you will be losing however many square feet, the first thing you have to think about is how many tables you will lose. When you do the math, your restaurant will lose a lot of revenue on a daily basis. And after a few months you can't pay the rent, and you're out.
the real question where are people supopsed to park. city council & dbac still hasn't figured this one out. oh yeah, how about some more usless signs
Sal's has been on the downtown mall since before I was even born. He entered into the area when it wasn't the sprawling downtown space that it is now. He has been there throughout time and I believe that those early people that banked on the downtown mall being successful should be rewarded. Had some of those early businesses not chosen that area and became successful those that are now asking for a spot wouldn't even have the opportunity to be there. The early commitment of the pioneer businesses cleared the way for the opportunities that now exist for new businesses. I do agree though that the "grandfathering" of additional space should end when that particular business leaves or closes.
How about some objective reporting?
"You're talking about something that is going to hurt our business," complained a then-manager at the Blue Light Grill during a packed public meeting.
Sounds more like a statement then a complaint!
I wonder if Mr. Castiglione thought it was fundamentally unfair to have a larger patio when he was part owner of Zocalo? How about some opinions from more downtown business owners hook writers. This piece reads like an op-ed not objective journalism.
@Roberto, if the owners allowed people to sit in the outdoor cafe spaces, who's going to clean up after them? If they are not cleaned up by the end of the day eventually they will lose the privilege of renting the spaces. I think Music Lover has the best ideas. As far as those who has been there a long time, they have made a lot of money by the city's allowing them to rent more than 400 sq. ft. it think it's time for fairness to enter into the picture and everyone should have a chance for outdoor space as far as possible. Many restaurants or their owners have come and gone through the years and maybe the deciding factor is having the larger spaces. Besides it is not until late June that the restaurants downtown start to have customers inside and out so customers are not hard pressed to find seats in their favorite downtown restaurant most of the year especially Sunday through Thursday.


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|Thomas Samuel Hudson
Thomas Samuel Hudson and Elberta Pugh-Hudson, December 18, 1999. Interview K-0283.
A Religious Perspective on Hurricane Floyd: The Hudsons explain that although God used the Floyd flood to warn against materialism, He helped many escape the floodwaters and oversaw astonishing generosity afterward.
Interviewee: Thomas Samuel Hudson, Elberta Pugh-Hudson Interviewer: Charles Thompson, Charles Thompson
Duration: 01:21:07 Annotated Excerpts: Listen to and read all 15 excerpts.

subset: commoncrawl


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Date: Saturday, January 26, 2019
Cool Stuff Games Maitland
Maitland, Fl 32751
Store Number: 407-657-3882
Registration: 11:30-12:30 pm (you must arrive during this time to enter the event without a round 1 loss)
Event Starts: 12:45 pm
Entry: $25.00
Format: Sealed
Each player who is present at the end of the event (and who has played all 3 rounds) will receive an additional 3 booster packs
Main Event Sealed Format Information :
Each player at the beginning of the event will receive a deck box that contains a 22 card deck , a promo card and 4 booster packs of the new Pokémon TCG expansion to build a 40 card deck. Players then have thirty minutes to build a 40 card deck. Basic Energy Cards will be supplied for deck construction.
There are 4 different decks and promo cards it's random which one you will receive.
Tournament Structure:
Players will be separated into three age divisions
Junior Division born 2008 or later
Senior Division born 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007
Master Division born 2003 or earlier
All 3 rounds will be played Swiss style with the deck that you constructed. In the Swiss format, players are expected to keep playing each round, regardless if you win or lose. Players have 20 minutes plus 3 turns to complete each round, with each player putting out 4 prize cards. Players receive 1 point per game whether you win, lose or tie.
What to Bring and Know:
1.) Your Pokémon Player Number. If you don't have a Player Number, one will be given to you at the event. You must activate this online at www.pokemon.com after the event at your earliest convenience.
2.) A die and some damage counters
3.) Money for lunch
4.) Any player may participate in the event unless you have been suspended from Pokémon. All players must abide by the Pokémon floor rules.
I recommend you use www.mapquest.com for getting directions.
If you are running late or get lost the day of the tournament you may call Heidi at 863-604-8193.
If you need more information you may email Heidi at firstname.lastname@example.com or call 863-604-8193


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Communications strategies created by graduate students included products from a stop-action animation for children to a key-ring, board games and posters. From CEC member Hilary Macleod.
A team at The University of Queensland drew inspiration from IUCN's Love. Not Loss video to create an authentic assessment task for the second year undergraduate Environmental Management and Regional and Town Planning students. "We realised that sometime during their professional career many of our students would be asked to develop a strategy to promote conservation and we wanted to equip them with the knowledge, skills and the experience to do this during their course," said Dr Ann Peterson, Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management.
The impetus for the students was a guest lecture delivered by IUCN CEC member Ms Hilary Macleod, who introduced the students to the theoretical concepts and practice of communicating sustainability and conservation messages to formal and non-formal audiences. Ms Macleod illustrated the presentation with examples of successful communication strategies across a wide range of media. The subsequent course assessment task challenged the students to design a communication strategy for a chosen audience. As well as the final product, the students submitted a written rationale that integrated the theory and explained how they arrived at their chosen theme, message, target audience and intended behaviour change. The students had to demonstrate how their approach would work in the context they had chosen.
In a culminating activity the groups presented the communication strategy to their peers and to an "expert" panel in a marketing style 'pitch'. "We were inspired by the variety of approaches chosen by the students" said Paul Schmidt, PhD Candidate and Teaching Assistant. "The communication strategies ranged from posters and board games through to a complete energy conservation campaign for a local government department".
Recognising that the simplest innovations can be the most effective, one group incorporated a key-ring measuring tape into their campaign to raise awareness of sustainable fishing practices among international students. Whilst Climate Change – Act Now! featured a vox pop approach to sample students' thoughts on what they loved about Australia that could be lost through climate change.
So where do Bill, the Creek Rubbish Monster and the "sock eels" come into this? One group taught themselves the stop-motion animation technique to produce a video for primary school students that focused on stream conservation. Another humorous video, Eels, also addressed this issue with the help of their own socks! They may not be the most polished productions but the students were encouraged to take risks with new techniques or technologies.
Tracey Finnegan, one of the students who chose to develop a primary school reader about rubbish in the Pacific Ocean, reflected on the process, "One of the biggest drivers for cultural change is our children's access to education and internet communication tools. By simplifying the messages, we create equity of understanding across generations, both now and in the future. By giving us the opportunity to express a message within an open format, we have developed a diversity of options for positive change, in creative ways. This can only be of benefit to the environment in the long term!"
For more information, contact Ann Peterson (firstname.lastname@example.com)


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Happy Wednesday! I am so happy to share that the sun is back and the weather is warming up! Yay for sunshine! :> This morning marked the last of our weekly play groups (two a week) it's sad to be over but it means summer is it on it's way!
Today I am here with a baby card for the wonderful Jennifer McGuire's new sweet baby girl Lila Grace!
When I saw that crafty ladies were making cards for her I had to take part! I think highly of Jennifer she is as kind as you would think! And I am so delighted her and her family and her new baby! I know Jennifer loves babies and I bet she is loving every moment! I also love babies and am drooling over how sweet Lila is! :> Here's my card:
This card has been removed as it's going to be published!
I am entering this card into Simon Says Stamps challenge this week of Anything Goes, they used twine which I did too! :>
I have one cute story to share, today on our way home from school I was driving the speed limit (I promise) on the perimeter (so it's 100 km/h) and Ariel says to me "Mommy speeding is for race cars!" I laughed and told her that I was not speeding but yes driving fast here people drive faster. They must be teaching them in school about speeding!
Well I am off to get dinner on the table tonight Ariel has dance class! :>


text: How would you feel if you're the subject of scrutiny, embarrassment and humiliation in public? Darn, right? You see, in any humiliation, there are always two faces of the coin: a sad face and a happy face, i.e, there are always two opposing parties involved. Sure, you may already have an idea what I'm driving at, but if you decide to continue reading this, you will clearly understand the perspective from my side. I am not going to dwell on petty embarrassments like fashion blunders, farting in subways and in other public places; being insulted by a professor in school; … Continue reading Trial By Publicity: Its Joy and Agony!


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How long must you wait until you reply to your spouse on any controversial or emotionally charged topic? After you have been a good listener, when do you finally get a chance to be heard?
Whether conversation takes place in my office or in the couple's home, I always recommend a 24 hour waiting period before the listener is allowed to respond.
The waiting period of 24 hours does not need to be rigidly enforced with stopwatch precision. What really matters is that a full day has gone by and the couple has had the opportunity to sleep on the controversial or emotionally charged topic before the speaking and listening roles are reversed.
In case it sounds preposterous to wait for 24 hours before you rebut, challenge or correct your spouse, just listen to what Sam had to say about the "24 hour rule."
I was meeting with Sam and his wife, Nava, for our final session. I had just asked them to critique the work we had done.
Sam, the balding C.E.O. of a well known ladies' sportswear company, answered first. "I think that 24 hour rule of yours was the most helpful, at least for me," Sam eagerly volunteered. "Now we handle disagreements a lot better than we used to."
Just what was it about the 24 hour rule that Sam found so helpful, I probed.
"You know, Dr. Wikler, when we left your office after that first counseling session, I knew I would not be able to adhere to that rule. And as soon as we got into the car to drive home, I jumped on Nava for criticizing me the way she did in front of you. I told her she made me sound as if I were some kind of ogre.
"Then Nava stopped and repeated to me what you had said - that I was only allowed to comment on what Nava said in your office after a 24 hour waiting period. I was fuming. And I thought I would explode. But I kept the lid on until the next day.
"Over the next few months, it has been extremely difficult for me to wait 24 hours before I respond to something Nava says that I disagree with. But each time I do, I can see how brilliant it is.
"First of all, the rule helps me sort out the important from the trivial. Sometimes, for example, Nava will say something while she is the speaker that I feel is incorrect. In the past, I would have interrupted her right away to set the record straight. Now, very often after waiting, I realize that it was not that important at all, and had little to do with the main point of whatever it was that Nava was trying to tell me.
"Secondly, it really does help with the listening part. Since I know that I will not be able to answer back to anything Nava says to me during one of our communication sessions at home, I really can focus more on trying to understand what she is telling me.
"Last, but certainly not least, that 24 hour rule helped me to control my temper. If I got angry with Nava before we came to you, I would have blurted out whatever was on my mind. And many times, I was sorry later for what I had said. But with the 24 hour rule, I have to wait before speaking. Then, when my turn does come, I'm not nearly as upset as I was a day earlier."
Nava was nervously twirling her necklace and sitting impatiently as Sam was talking. She was clearly eager to share her own thoughts.
"The 24 hour rule was helpful for all of the reasons which you mentioned, Sam. But it was also beneficial to me because … it gave me hope."
Nava's eyes welled up with tears and she dabbed them with a tissue. Sam turned to her with sympathy all over his face and asked, "What is it, honey?"
"When we first came here, I was seriously considering divorce. We had been married for 29 years. All of our children had grown up and I just felt that I could not get through to you - that you did not listen or care to understand how I felt. I was so frustrated because even our rabbi could not get you to change. I said to myself, 'If he cannot understand why I get so upset with him all the time, then maybe we should just get divorced and be done with it.'
"But then we came here and started following that 24 hour rule. So whenever I spoke to you, you had to listen and think about what I had said for a full day before you could answer back. Just knowing that you were thinking about what I had said gave me hope that maybe, maybe things could improve in our marriage."
"I think the 24 hour rule helped you to control your temper, too, sweetheart," Sam teased. Then they both smiled, shyly, at each other.
The main objective of the rule is not that silence should prevail on any given topic for a day, but that spouses should consider each other's feelings for a full day before contradicting, rebutting or challenging.
Excerpted with permission of the author and publisher from, "Ten Minutes a Day to a Better Marriage: Getting Your Spouse to Understand You," by Dr. Meir Wikler (Artscroll/Mesorah Publications, 2003)


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You know when people ask you if there is 'one' bit of memorabilia of Paul's you could have, what would it be?. I've thought long and hard about this, mostly hard (tho lets not downplay the long) and there were quite a few contenders.
His undies he had to wear for nine days strait, during his jail time in Tokyo were up there, as was his suit he wore to court in Campbeltown to visit the judge (who was a great guy), the Hofner just so i could ritualistically burn it, and lets not leave out his Heringbone jacket he still wears since purchasing it in 1967.
But no, none of those item's even come close to my true desire, my true want. Linda's silver glam boots from 1973, THAT'S what i want in my Beatle display case, tho only when i'm not wearing them, prancing around my room naked, striking Betty Boop poses in the mirror.
Take a moment to visualise that, that is the image of a real fan.
Tags: 1973, 1974, Linda, Paul, Silver boots


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My favourite unit in the Local, Family and Applied History course was Oral History. For one of the assignments I interviewed my father. Here, in Dad's own words, is a description of the work done by his father (my grandfather, William Donald WEBSTER, son of James Campbell WEBSTER and Ellen BUTLER).
My father was born in New South Wales, but his family lived in the Cunnamulla area [Queensland] during the late 1880s and 1890s. At Stockyard Creek near Helidon, where the family lived for a while in the early 1900s, Dad worked for a man who used to break in horses, until he learnt how to do it himself. That was his first paid job.---
Later he worked for Cobb and Co. That's when he came out west again, working at different Cobb and Co. mail changes. They used to have horses out on the runs, in the paddocks, so that they'd have a change of horses for the mail coaches. His job was to break the horses in, and to keep the supply of horses at every mail change - broken in to harness, and for saddle use. There was a mail change at Barringun, and one halfway to Cunnamulla (at old 'Woggonora', over the river from what's known now as Job's Gate Turnoff), and then Cunnamulla. He would handle about six young horses at the same time, until they were right through to the riding stage.
The mail changes were just a good set of horse yards and a tin hut. They had wells put down for a water supply. In that stretch of the Warrego River there were no permanent water holes, and it was before the artesian bores. They had to have some permanent water, so they had wells for stock and drinking water. There weren't any pumps at first. They had buckets and ropes and pulleys to bring the water up. I remember him saying how there was nearly always a water boy whose job it was to have the tanks filled with water. It's a slow process, filling the tanks one bucket of water at a time! They had the tanks filled so that when the coaches came in, the horses would be given a drink immediately they were unharnessed.
Later my father worked at 'Burrenbilla', which was owned by Rutherford and Company. They had other stations down in New South Wales, and he used to go down to those properties and break in their station horses. After he was married he was manager on various properties. A local stock and station agent lent him the money to enter the ballot for land, and he drew 'Plain View'. [These recollections are continued in Outback Story.]
For last year's Australia Day challenge I wrote about my earliest document for an ancestor in Australia. I look forward to seeing what theme Shelley chooses for 2013.


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Spielberg's 'Lincoln': Profile in courage
After scenes of a gory battle, "Lincoln" opens with a recently re-elected Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) sitting humbly on a wooden chair back at a Union camp, speaking softly to the clearly awed soldiers. From the way the young men gaze up at him, stammering over their words and eagerly reciting the Gettysburg Address, we know he's already a living legend.
Under the gauze of 150 years of history, our 16th president's heroic legacy remains as fixed in our collective memory as his imposing marble statue at the head of the Washington Mall. "Lincoln" makes no bones about keeping him there, but director Steven Spielberg ("War Horse"), writer Tony Kushner ("Munich") and actor Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") coalesce their singular talents to bring the man — and the nuts and bolts of American democracy — to life in a way no statue, or history class, ever could.
Understand, "Lincoln" is no biopic. The film focuses predominantly on a one-month period in early 1865, during which the president dug in his heels and pushed through the 13th Amendment, which freed America's slaves. With the Civil War ravaging into a fourth year, the country was desperate for peace, and such drastic legislation was likely to delay it. Even members of Lincoln's own party and Cabinet, including Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn), were opposed to the action, but the righteous leader set a course for passage and refused to give in.
It feels almost strange to credit Day-Lewis for his performance because the actor simply, remarkably disappears into the role. His Lincoln is the antithesis of the modern-day, television-ready politician — a man who leads with his mind, not his image. He speaks in a raspy whisper, more Buddha-like than bombastic (though the man does love to tell his stories, as his colleagues lament). Lanky and crinkled, he moves quietly, slowly — almost ghostlike — through the dim winter light of the White House halls. His large hands fall heavy, with kindness, on young men's shoulders; his gait bears the weight of his many burdens: the war dead and the families they left behind, the unholy shame of slavery, grief over his child's death, an unraveling wife (Sally Field, feisty to form), a son's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) insistence on fighting in the war.
Rounding up just about every grizzly-faced actor in Hollywood, Spielberg assembles a spirited stable of supporting players to counterbalance the film's creakier, preachy tendencies. The irascible Tommy Lee Jones, as abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens, gets some hearty laughs while James Spader and John Hawkes lighten the mood during their unseemly exploits, at Lincoln's command, garnering votes in exchange for plum government jobs. Also making memorable appearances are Jared Harris as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Hal Holbrook as Lincoln adviser Preston Blair and David Costabile as the unassuming congressman who brings the historical amendment to the House floor.
The Washington, D.C., that Spielberg and production designer Rick Carter ("Avatar") create is just as convincing as Day-Lewis' transformation. Political dealings are tangible, with face-to-face meetings or ink-stained notes passed hand to hand. The White House isn't a showpiece but a lived-in home where doors slam and upholstery fades, where a husband and wife bicker while getting ready for bed, and young Tad Lincoln (Gulliver McGrath) plays by flickering candlelight.
Though the political maneuverings can get downright wonky, Kushner's script, based on a portion of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Team of Rivals," offers a blow-by-blow of the political process and the personalities that manipulate it, warts and all. But it's Kushner the playwright ("Angels in America") who moves "Lincoln" from uncanny historical re-enactment to near-mythic memorial. His intricately crafted, soul-baring speeches, perhaps more suited to a theater stage than the silver screen for their duration and frequency, are the window that lets us inside the mind and heart of a courageous, compassionate and reflective leader deserving of legendary status.


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Funds That Support Facilities and Gardens
Above: You can support on-campus living through the Housing Improvements Fund.
Make a Difference for the Facilities and Gardens that Enrich Students' Lives
- Art Acquisitions Fund
- Food Services Gift Fund
- Friendship Garden
- Housing Improvements Fund
- Landscape and Garden Fund
- Plaque and Memorial Fund
- Student Recreation Center
- Student Union Building Fund
- UHB Lobby Improvement Fund
Art Acquisitions Fund
This fund provides for the acquisition and careful maintenance of public art for the UIS campus.
Food Services Fund
This fund provides support for initiatives on behalf of Food Services at UIS.
Friendship Garden
Gifts are used to maintain the Women's Friendship Garden at UIS. This fund pays for the commemoration we place in the garden each year to honor the annual recipient of the Naomi B. Lynn Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Environment for Women at UIS. We also use this account for on-going perennial plantings. In Spring 2005 we planted a Yellow Bird Magnolia that will grow to 40 feet tall with a 25-foot span–a thing of beauty for our campus for years to come.
Housing Improvements Fund
This fund allows us to repair and improve campus housing facilities. We currently house over 1100 residents within one of the 32 apartment buildings and two residence halls—seven distinct residential communities. Residential Life fosters personal and academic growth in each resident, while providing diverse, progressive, and collaborative developmental environments which are integral to a premier, liberal arts education they receive at UIS. The residential life department provides intentional campus life experiences and inclusive traditions which complement, support, and enhance the residential living/learning communities. You can contribute & thereby support the provisionofquality facilities to UIS residents that is crucial to their retentionand eventual graduation.
Landscape and Garden Fund
Unrestricted support for landscaping on the UIS campus.
Plaque and Memorial Fund
Supports the funding of campus memorials which honor the memories of departed individuals who contributed greatly to the success of UIS.
Recreational Center Gift Fund
UIS' excellent recreation facility serves students in general by giving them a place for fitness, physical competition, and enjoyment. It also serves UIS' athletics teams that practice and compete in the Arena. This Fund supports equipment, supplies, upkeep, and more, helping to keep the facility up to date, safe, and effective.
UHB Lobby Improvement Fund
This fund provides for improvements in the University Hall Building Lobby. Since this is one of the first places that prospective students come on campus, we are committed to making it attractive and comfortable. Stop by, check it out, and then help us keep it nice by giving to this fund.
We welcome your inquiries. Please feel free to contact us.


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Temple of Apollo
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Fruity flavors mingle with broccoli, greens, and sprouts, in this luscious main dish salad, made with firm and chewy baked tofu. An easy chutney mayo dressing give it a nice twist. It's delicious with mango, but since it's not always available, pineapple is a good alternative.
Serves: 4 to 6
Chutney mayonnaise:
- 1/3 cup vegan mayonnaise
- 1/3 cup mango chutney, or other fruit chutney
- 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice, to taste
- 1 medium broccoli crown, cut into small florets
- 8-ounce package baked tofu, diced or cut into strips
- 1 medium mangos, peeled and diced (or 1 1/2 cups fresh
or drained canned pineapple chunks)
- 2 large celery stalks, sliced diagonally
- 1/4 cup dark or golden raisins
For serving:
- Mixed baby greens, as needed
- Green sprouts (sweet pea shoots, broccoli sprouts, or other), as desired, optional
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or sliced almonds, optional
Combine the mayonnaise, chutney, and lemon or lime juice in a small bowl and stir until smoothly blended. Set aside.
Steam the broccoli florets in a large saucepan until bright green and just tender-crisp. Transfer to a colander and rinse with cool water until the broccoli stops steaming.
Combine the broccoli with the tofu, mango, celery, and raisins in a mixing bowl. Stir together. You can pour the chutney mayo into the mixture and stir together or pass around for everyone to use on their individual servings.
To serve, line a platter with some baby greens, then mound the salad in the center, and top with the optional sprouts and/or nuts. Serve at once.
- Here are lots more easy tofu recipes.
- Explore more of VegKitchen's super savory salads.


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Serene and tranquil, Godwin Beach in the northern reaches of Deception Bay is one of the best vantage points to view the entire expanse of land forming its curved coastline.
This remarkable quietness also makes Godwin Beach an ideal spot for birdwatchers or wildlife photographers. Observe the abundant birdlife that flock to the surrounding mangrove and mudflat areas, particularly at low tide times, or head to the nearby Nature Reserve where kangaroos and other wildlife can be viewed in their natural habitat.
Being a little out-of-the-way also appeals to those who like to go fishing or crabbing. Plenty of bream, whiting and flathead are caught in the water around this area. You don't have to compete for water space and you might convince one of the regulars to reveal their secret fishing spot!
The scenic beauty of Bribie Island is only five minutes' drive away.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


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It wasn't that the chairs were uncomfortable. After shelling out for what had been billed as a "Premium Cinema Experience" they were practically four poster beds. The red velvet was new and plush, the back and headrest were at the ideal angle for viewing the screen and the armrests were sturdy enough to keep distance enough between strangers (and movable enough to close that distance for other purposes if and as required). Even the film itself was living up to expectations.
No, the problem wasn't the upholstery. The problem was the people. The people who brought in food in crinkly wrappers. The people who couldn't go more than three scenes without illuminating their phones, creating for the people behind them the galaxy's most transient and irritating constellations. The people who slurped. The people who rustled. The people who TALKED.
Some time thereafter a small, experimental screening series started at the cinema. They never played on the larger screens and maybe they never would be in the theatres with the hydraulic seats, but the "Silent Movies" sessions became a modest success. The rules were simple: you could laugh at something funny, gasp at something shocking or discretely cry at something sad, but otherwise you were silent. The premium ticket price went to paying the ushers who ejected those who preferred, shall we say, a more interactive cinematic experience.
Not everyone understood the appeal, but those who did went all the time.


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ACCELERATED CHEMICAL SHIFT ENCODED WATER-FAT IMAGING by Samir D. Sharma A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING) May 2012 Copyright 2012 Samir D. Sharma
Object Description
|Accelerated chemical shift encoded water-fat imaging
|Sharma, Samir D.
|Author email
|Doctor of Philosophy
|Document type
|Degree program
|Electrical Engineering
|Viterbi School of Engineering
|Date defended/completed
|Date submitted
|Date approved
|Restricted until
|Date published
|Advisor (committee chair)
|Nayak, Krishna S.
|Advisor (committee member)
Ortega, Antonio K.
Tjan, Bosco S.
|Water-fat imaging techniques are commonly used in the research and clinical setting to separate and/or quantitate the two species. Within this class of techniques, chemical shift encoded methods have recently gained significant interest because of their insensitivity to magnetic field inhomogeneity. ❧ The benefits of chemical shift encoding come at a cost of a long scan time because data must be acquired at multiple echo times. This cost increases the likelihood of image artifacts that result from patient motion during the scan while also reducing the overall level of patient comfort. The long scan time becomes especially problematic when imaging non-stationary regions of the body such as the abdomen. In these cases, a compromise with other parameters must be made. Most often, a sacrifice of the spatial resolution and/or volume coverage is required to avoid motion-related image artifacts. ❧ The objective of this dissertation is to present a new method for chemical shift encoded water-fat separation and quantitation from an accelerated data acquisition. In this context, accelerating the acquisition implies that a fewer number of measurements are acquired as compared to the requirements from the Nyquist Sampling Theorem. The resulting image recovery is an ill-posed inverse problem that requires the incorporation of additional knowledge to find the desired solution. A combined parallel imaging and compressed sensing approach for accelerated water-fat separation and quantitation is introduced. To enable this work, I developed a novel method for B0 field map estimation as an alternative to traditional region-growing and region-merging schemes. Uniform water-fat separation is demonstrated in a variety of anatomies from both retrospectively and prospectively undersampled acquisitions. In addition, accurate quantitation is presented in water-fat phantoms as well as in liver datasets acquired from seven subjects.
|water-fat MRI; chemical shift encoding; multiscale B-splines; compressed sensing; parallel imaging
|Part of collection
|University of Southern California dissertations and theses
|Publisher (of the original version)
|University of Southern California
|Place of publication (of the original version)
|Los Angeles, California
|Publisher (of the digital version)
|University of Southern California. Libraries
|Electronically uploaded by the author
|Legacy record ID
|Contributing entity
|University of Southern California
|Sharma, Samir D.
|Physical access
|The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.
|Repository name
|University of Southern California Digital Library
|Repository address
|USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA
|Repository email
|Archival file
|Page 1
|Contributing entity
|University of Southern California
|Repository email
|Full text
|ACCELERATED CHEMICAL SHIFT ENCODED WATER-FAT IMAGING by Samir D. Sharma A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING) May 2012 Copyright 2012 Samir D. Sharma


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Report: 'Flappy Bird' returning this August
Starting this summer, Flappy Bird will be airborne once again.
The creator of the hit mobile game, Dong Nguyen, confirmed in an interview with CNBC that Flappy Bird will return to mobile app stores this August. It will also boast a new feature: multiplayer.
Details of the interview were revealed by CNBC reporter Kelly Evans on Twitter:
Nguyen has said several times that he planned to bring back Flappy Bird, which he took down in February because he felt players were becoming too addicted. Prior to its removal, the game had surged to the top of the Google Play and Apple iTunes charts, prompting an onslaught of Flappy knockoffs.
"Flappy Bird has unexpected effects," said Nguyen in an interview with USA TODAY in February after he pulled the game. "It causes addiction (in) people. I think it is an unexpected problem ... and I have to remove it."
Since then, Nguyen appears to have experienced a change of heart. In a March interview with Rolling Stone, Nguyen hinted he would bring the game back. The game developer, based in Vietnam, told the magazine he was also working on other games, including a flying game called Kitty Jetpack.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @bam923.


text: StartWeek Team 2020 Our team of the StartWeek consists of the Project Management Team and the student team. StartWeek Project Management Team Prof. Dr. Roman Capaul is the Academic Director of the Assessment Year. As associate professor, he teaches Business Administration with focus on Business Education at the University of St.Gallen and is a member of the Directorate at the Institute of Business Education and Educational Management. He is the author of various textbooks. Dipl.- Soz.- Wiss. Miriam Mrisi is Project Manager of the StartWeek and has been involved in the StartWeek since 2011. She studied Social Sciences at the University of Duisburg in Germany and has lived in Switzerland since April 2009. In her free time, Miriam Mrisi spends time with her horse, Charly. Jay Binneweg M.A. HSG studied journalism and business administration in the USA and worked for several years for various newspapers before coming to St.Gallen to complete his SIM Master's degree at HSG. He has been working for the Assessment Year and the StartWeek since 2012. Daniel Fuchs B.A. HSG joined the StartWeek as a Project Assistant in December 2019, after having worked on the student team in 2017 and 2018. He completed his Bachelor's degree in Business Administration at the University of St.Gallen and is currently working toward a Master's degree in Business Innovation. Dr. rer. soc. HSG Maria Camilla Fuchs, dipl. Wipäd. has been working at the StartWeek since October 2019. She studied business administration and business education at the University of St.Gallen. Afterwards Maria Camilla Fuchs did her doctorate at the HSG in business ethics on the topic "Responsibility for structural injustice". Samuel Obrecht M.A. HSG, Dipl. Wipäd. is group leader for the Assessment Year and joined the StartWeek team in January 2019. After studying economics with additional training in business education at the University of St.Gallen, he taught for several years at the high school level in the Canton of St.Gallen. Student team of the StartWeek Pascale Amiet Jelena Miletić is in charge of recruiting, training, leading and supervising the Support Crew in the area of the StartWeek Café as well as for the associated sponsoring. She has been studying Business Administration at the University of St. Gallen since 2017 and served in the Support Crew during the StartWeek 2018. Alongside her studies, she is passionately involved in handball, both as a referee and in helping her favorite club, TSV Fortitudo Gossau, with various organizational tasks. Jelena has been part of the StartWeek team since February 2019. Andreas Oberholzer Silvan Zeller


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Attractions: Rochefort-du-Gard× Alcázar De Segovia× Bordeaux× San Sebastian× Carnac×
Duration: 13 Starts City:
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【13-Day】Deeply France and Spain Tour from Paris
☆ Recommended for seniors and individuals seeking tour flexibility!
☆ Special tours that adapt according to what you want to do during your stay in France and Spain!
☆ Explore Bordeaux, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is home to 362 historic monuments.
☆ Tour the Bay of Biscay, known for its luminous limestone facades that reflect the bright sunlight!
☆ Spend a whole free day exploring the beautiful city of Santander, Madrid!
☆ Daily breakfast and 3 dinners are included !
Tour Calender


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LivingSocial, the D.C.-based daily deals site, says more than 50 million customer accounts may have been compromised by a cyberattack.
Customers' names, email addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords stored on the company's servers may have been accessed, a company spokesman confirmed in an email to NBCWashington.
The first news of the hacking was reported by All Things Digital.
Credit card information was not accessed or affected, according to the company. Nor was merchants' financial or banking information.
LivingSocial suggests all customers change their passwords on their accounts. The company is in the process of emailing the customers who were affected to help them reset their passwords.
They are also working with law enforcement to investigate the breach.
"The security of our customer and merchant information is our priority," said LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy in the email to customers. "We always strive to ensure the security of our customer information, and we are redoubling efforts to prevent any issues in the future."
Here is the email that LivingSocial is sending to affected customers:
Subject: An important update on your LivingSocial.com account
LivingSocial recently experienced a cyber-attack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers. We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue.
The information accessed includes names, email addresses, date of birth for some users, and encrypted passwords -- technically 'hashed' and 'salted' passwords. We never store passwords in plain text.
The database that stores customer credit card information was not affected or accessed.
Although your LivingSocial password would be difficult to decode, we want to take every precaution to ensure that your account is secure, so we are expiring your old password and requesting that you create a new one.
For your security, please create a new password for your <<email_address>> account by following the instructions below.
1. Visit LivingSocial.com
2. Click on the "Create a New Password" button (top right corner of the homepage)
3. Follow the steps to finish
We also encourage you, for your own personal data security, to consider changing password(s) on any other sites on which you use the same or similar password(s).
The security of your information is our priority. We always strive to ensure the security of our customer information, and we are redoubling efforts to prevent any issues in the future.
Please note that LivingSocial will never ask you directly for personal or account information in an email. We will always direct you to the LivingSocial website – and require you to login – before making any changes to your account. Please disregard any emails claiming to be from LivingSocial that request such information or direct you to a different website that asks for such information.
If you have additional questions about this process, the "Create a New Password" button on LivingSocial.com will direct you to a page that has instructions on creating a new password and answers to frequently asked questions.
We are sorry this incident occurred, and we look forward to continuing to introduce you to new and exciting things to do in your community.
Tim O'Shaughnessy
CEO, LivingSocial


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Quentin Tarantino axes 'Hateful Eight' after leak
- Bang Showbiz
- 22 January 2014
Quentin Tarantino revealed 'Hateful Eight' will no longer be positioned as his next film after learning an unauthorised copy of the script was leaked
Quentin Tarantino has put 'Hateful Eight' on hold after the script leaked.
The Academy-Award winning director has expressed his fury in a foul mouthed rant after learning an unauthorised copy of the script was made public and insists he only lent it to a small group of actors.
Tarantino fumed to Deadline.com: "I'm very, very depressed, I finished a script, a first draft, and I didn't mean to shoot it until next winter, a year from now. I gave it to six people, and apparently it's gotten out today."
Fans who were hoping to see another Western from the 50-year-old filmmaker following the success of 'Django Unchained' last year, will also be left disappointed as the director will now publish the story as a book and move onto other projects.
Tarantino added: "I don't know how these f***ing agents work, but I'm not making this next. I'm going to publish it, and that's it for now. I give it out to six people, and if I can't trust them to that degree, then I have no desire to make it. I'll publish it. I'm done. I'll move on to the next thing. I've got 10 more where that came from."
He is keen to find out who leaked the scripts and admits he has possible suspects lined up including 'Reservoir Dogs' star Michael Madsen and 'Django Unchained' producer Reginald Hudlin, who he claims let his agent read the script.
Tarantino explained: "That's a betrayal, but not crippling because the agent didn't end up with the script. There is an ugly maliciousness to the rest of it. I gave it to three actors: Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth. The one I know didn't do this is Tim Roth. One of the others let their agent read it, and that agent has now passed it on to everyone in Hollywood."


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Professors Kemper, Danforth, and Carnegie; Associate Professor Eames (chair); Senior Lecturer Bourque; Lecturer Lindkvist
Anthropologists investigate culture and society, gender and ethnicity, human evolution and the concept of "race." Anthropology is a coherent and comprehensive discipline that offers students a broad, comparative, and essentially interdisciplinary approach to the study of human life in all its diversity.
Anthropologists are concerned with understanding human universals, on the one hand, and the uniqueness of individual cultures, on the other. At Bates the program includes archeological, biological, and sociocultural perspectives.
Anthropology attempts to make sense, in a non-ethnocentric manner, of everyday life in both familiar and "exotic" settings. In this way the discipline enables students to achieve cultural competence in the broadest sense of the term—the ability to function effectively in a multicultural environment, to analyze material from their own and other cultures, and to appreciate the value of the cultural diversity that exists in our world. Some recent graduates have pursued careers in public health, community organizing, environmental law, international development, teaching, and museum work; some have gone on to graduate work in anthropology and archeology.
Anthropology 101, 103, and 104 are designed as introductions to the discipline of anthropology and as preparation for more advanced courses. Other 100- and 200-level courses also admit first-year students, but more closely reflect a specific field within anthropology. The 300- and 400-level courses are open to all upperclass students, but the latter are especially designed for majors. More information on the anthropology department is available on the Web site (www.bates.edu/ANTH.xml).
Cross-listed CoursesNote that unless otherwise specified, when a department/program references a course or unit in the department/program, it includes courses and units cross-listed with the department/program.
Major RequirementsStudents majoring in anthropology study the discipline's history and methodology by taking two types of courses: those that focus on a particular cultural area (such as Africa, the Caribbean, native North America, Europe, or South Asia) and courses that focus on a specific theoretical concern. They also conduct individual ethnographic or archeological fieldwork and are encouraged to complement their work in anthropology with participation in a study-abroad program. Major requirements may include course work in other related departments (such as art, biology, geology, languages and literatures, politics, religion, and sociology) and programs (such as African American studies, American cultural studies, Asian studies, environmental studies, and women and gender studies).
Students majoring in anthropology must complete successfully Anthropology 101, 103 or 104, 333, 339, 441, 458, and Anthropology s10 or s32, which should be taken during the student's sophomore year; and at least four other courses in anthropology, not including 360. With departmental approval two of these elective courses in anthropology may be replaced by related courses from other departments or programs at Bates or from a junior semester or junior year abroad program.
Secondary ConcentrationA secondary concentration in anthropology allows students to develop a basic foundation in the discipline while complementing the perspectives offered in their major area of study. The department has established the following requirements for a secondary concentration in anthropology:
1) Anthropology 101 and 103 or 104.
2) Anthropology 333, 339, or 347.
3) Anthropology s10 or s32.
4) Any two other anthropology courses (including courses cross-listed in anthropology).


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Mel Gibson's recent outburst, where he called WGN TV reporter Dean Richards an "a**hole" after he was questioned about his 2006 DUI arrest, has followed him across the Atlantic.
During an appearance on French TV show "Le Grand Journal" on Wednesday, Mel was asked he if came armed with any "French curse words for French journalists."
"No," the 54-year-old actor said, appearing in good spirits. "It usually comes out in English if I'm angry. I have a short fuse. I'm trying to work on it."
As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, Richards asked Mel, "Do you think that the public will perceive you any differently after all that's been in the news about you?"
"What are you referring to specifically?" the actor, who was interviewed via video from a separate studio, responded with a laugh.
"Referring to the drinking problems, referring to the, what's been called, the anti-Semitic rant," the Chicago reporter continued.
"That was almost four years ago, dude. I've moved on, I guess you haven't," Mel fired back, adding that he felt the public had forgiven him for the incident. "I certainly hope so. It is awhile back. I've done all the necessary mea culpas, so let's move on, dude, come on."
After a sign-off from Richards, Mel – perhaps thinking the cameras were off – then said, "a**hole."
The star later tried to play down the profanity on Wednesday, sending a text to KTLA's Sam Rubin that claimed his publicist had been making faces at him off-camera.
"Edge of Darkness," currently in theaters, is Mel's first film in front of the cameras since the arrest. He spent the last several years in the director's chair – and largely out of the public eye. During the 2006 arrest, he made inflammatory remarks about Jews and women, stating, "f***ing Jews" and calling a female officer "sugar t**s." He later made several apologies for his behavior.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Celebrity Parents Gone Nuts
PLAY IT NOW: 'Edge Of Darkness' Premiere, Los Angeles
PLAY IT NOW: Mel Gibson On Newborn Baby & Tiger Woods
MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Mel Gibson - News - TV - Movies


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Watch The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) : Full Movie Online Free Aragorn is revealed as the heir to the ancient kings as he, Gandalf and the other members of the broken fellowship struggle to save Gondor from Sauron's forces. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam take the ring closer to the heart of Mordor, the dark lord's realm.
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|The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
|Release Date
|Dec 01, 2003
|Adventure, Fantasy, Action,
|Production Company
|New Line Cinema, WingNut Films, The Saul Zaentz Company
|Production Countries
|New Zealand, United States of America
|Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, David Wenham, Liv Tyler
|Plot Keywords
|elves, dwarf, orcs, hobbit, based on novel or book, suspicion, volcano, power, bravery, war, addiction, honor, royalty, troll, brutality, violence, ghost, wizard, quest, live action and animation, sword and sorcery,
Frodo BagginsElijah Wood
Gandalf the WhiteIan McKellen
AragornViggo Mortensen
Samwise "Sam" GamgeeSean Astin
LegolasOrlando Bloom
Gimli / Treebeard (voice)John Rhys-Davies
GollumAndy Serkis
Meriadoc "Merry" BrandybuckDominic Monaghan
Peregrin "Pippin" TookBilly Boyd
FaramirDavid Wenham
Arwen EvenstarLiv Tyler
ElrondHugo Weaving
GaladrielCate Blanchett
ÉomerKarl Urban
ThéodenBernard Hill
ÉowynMiranda Otto
Bilbo BagginsIan Holm
BoromirSean Bean
DenethorJohn Noble
CelebornMarton Csokas
King of the DeadPaul Norell
DéagolThomas Robins
Rosie CottonSarah McLeod
DamrodAlistair Browning
IrolasIan Hughes
MadrilJohn Bach
GamlingBruce Hopkins
IsildurHarry Sinclair
The Ring (voice) / Sauron (voice)Alan Howard
Murgash / SauronSala Baker
Gothmog / Witch-king of AngmarLawrence Makoare
GorbagStephen Ure
GuritzJoel Tobeck
Shagrat / Corsair of UmbarPeter Tait
Everard ProudfootNoel Appleby
Elanor GamgeeAli Astin
Frodo GamgeeMaisy McLeod-Riera
EldarionSadwyn Brophy
FigwitBret McKenzie
GrimboldBruce Phillips
Mûmakil MahûdShane Rangi
Harad LeaderTodd Rippon
Gondorian SoldierRichard Edge
Gondorian SoldierDavid Aston
UrukJason Fitch
OrcRobert Pollock
OrcRoss Duncan
OrcPete Smith
OrcJed Brophy
OrcLee Hartley
ChildBilly Jackson
ChildKatie Jackson
Saruman (extended edition)Christopher Lee
Gríma Wormtongue (extended edition)Brad Dourif
Mouth of Sauron (extended edition)Bruce Spence
Orc Commander (extended edition)Phil Grieve
Gothmog (voice) / Guritz (voice) (uncredited)Craig Parker
Diamond Took (uncredited)Emma Deakin
Golasgil (uncredited)Royd Tolkien
Círdan (uncredited)Michael Elsworth
Silindë (uncredited)Sam Kelly
Corsair of Umbar (uncredited)Gino Acevedo
Corsair of Umbar (uncredited)Andrew Lesnie
Corsair of Umbar (uncredited)Richard Taylor
Corsair of Umbar / Beacon Guard (uncredited)Rick Porras
Corsair of Umbar / Beacon Guard (uncredited)Christian Rivers
Corsair Bosun (uncredited)Peter Jackson
Drinking Rohan Soldier (uncredited)Michael Semanick
Drinking Rohan Soldier (uncredited)Howard Shore
Haradrim Warrior (uncredited)Clint Elvy
Coronation Elf (uncredited)Jane Abbott
Coronation Elf (uncredited)Jarl Benzon
Coronation Elf (uncredited)Sandro Kopp
Rivendell Elf (uncredited)Jørn Benzon
Pelennor Orc (uncredited)Henry Mortensen
Orc Helper (uncredited)Zo Hartley
Orc (uncredited)Joseph Mika-Hunt
Orc (uncredited)Aidan Bell
Orc (uncredited)Luke Burnyeat


text:
Items where Author is "Klein, W."
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Bacquet, P. and Levy, E. and McGuire, A. and McMurray, J. and Merot, J. L. and Paschen, B. and Remme, W. J. and Szucs, T. D. and Klein, W. and Brunhuber, W. and Préda, István and Csanády, Miklós and Cserhalmi, L. and Edes, I. and Gesztesi, T. and Karpati, P. and Simon, K. and Tarjan, J. (2001) Reduced costs with bisoprolol treatment for heart failure - An economic analysis of the second Cardiac Insufficiency Bisoprolol Study (CIBIS-II). European Heart Journal, 22 (12). pp. 1021-1031. ISSN 0195-668X (print), 1522-9645 (online)


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Items where Author is "Abbasi, Ehsan"
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Ferdowsi, Mohsen, Grau Unda, Iñaki, Karfopoulos, Evangelos, Papadopoulos, Panagiotis, Skarvelis-Kazakos, Spyros, Cipcigan, Liana, Raab, Andreas F., Dimeas, Aris, Abbasi, Ehsan and Strunz, Kai (2010) Controls and EV aggregation for virtual power plants. Project Report. MERGE.


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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882 / Portland, Maine)
» Click to list general statistics » OR, select a date :
The Song Of Hiawatha Vi: Hiawatha's Friends
Two good friends had Hiawatha,
Singled out from all the others,
Bound to him in closest union,
And to whom he gave the right hand
read more >>
- Hits: Number of visitors who read the poem on the given date.
- Posts: Number of visitors who posted the poem to a friend (via e-mail) on the given date.
- Dates that have "0" hits may not be shown on the list.
- Dates, poems and poets that have "0" hits may not be shown on the list. Statistics are generated daily.


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Badly injured in Vietnam, our one-armed burn victim (w/ electronic voice box) anti-hero plots to rob the local mob by inciting a RACE WAR ! Together with his ragtag band of hardened veterans, they take on the mob's gambling & drug trade disguised as black men. You see, these hardened veterans are hardened WHITE veterans - no one will expect THEM! Their disguise is so convincing that an all-together different (aka African-American) cast is used during those scenes. Will the mob figure out what's going on and what will happen when the local badass brothers discover the deception? With a shocking twist finale!
Media Home Entertainment M702


text:
As a primary matter, in order for the standard-of-review issue to arrive, a statute must be ambiguous. This Court recently indicated that "a provision of the law is ambiguous only if it 'irreconcilably conflict[s]' with another provision or when it is equally susceptible to more than a single meaning." Fluor Enter, Inc v Revenue Div, Dep't of Treasury, 477 Mich 170, 177 n. 3 (2007).
Where there is ambiguity, this Court has not clearly set forth a single standard of review. For instance in In re MCI Telecommunications Complaint, 460 Mich 396 (1999), this Court stated:
We acknowledge that our past case law has not been entirely consistent regarding the subject of the amount of deference to be given when an administrative agency with expertise in its field construes a statute governing the area regulated by the agency. The unique facts of this case, involving a protracted period of litigation, during which statutes were both enacted and repealed, makes [sic] this case poorly suited to resolve such inconsistencies. Accordingly, we express no view on such matters, leaving their resolution for another day.
Id. at 424 n. 4.
Since this Court's admission, there have been only three cases that have touched upon the matter of deference to an agency.
In her dissent in Fluor, a case involving a formal adjudication, Justice Kelly, joined by Justice Cavanagh and Justice Weaver, indicated that a provision of the Single Business Tax was ambiguous. She deferred to the agency's interpretation of the statute by giving the agency's interpretation "weight." Fluor, 477 Mich at 190 (Kelly, J., dissenting).
In Koontz v Ameritech Services, Inc, 466 Mich 304 (2002), Justice Corrigan, joined by Justice Weaver, Chief Justice Taylor, and Justice Young, indicated that "this Court generally accords due deference to an administrative agency charged with executing a particular statute." Id. at 323-24. But there was no discussion of what constitutes "due deference," since the statute was unambiguous.
In In re Brown, 461 Mich 1291 (1999), this Court remanded a case to the Judicial Tenure Commission (JTC) and ordered that body to create standards for judicial discipline. This Court indicated that the JTC "is entitled, on the basis of its expertise, to deference both with respect to its findings of fact and its recommendation of sanction." Id. at 1292. But that deference would occur only once "standards have been promulgated and reasonably followed." Id. What standard of review would then apply was not discussed.
Even if this Court were to consider allowing Chevron deference where a rule has been made through notice-and-comment rulemaking - which is not an issue in this case, since the proposed "rule" in question is from a formal adjudication - In re Brown would support a holding of not extending that deference to a formal adjudication. In re Brown evidences a concern about the arbitrary decisions that would be possible if this Court were to defer to agency ad-hoc rulemaking through litigation.
Just nine days prior to the MCI ruling mentioned earlier, this Court decided Consumers Power Co v Public Service Commission, 460 Mich 148 (1999), which involved a formal adjudication. Justice Corrigan wrote the majority opinion and stated that while "this Court ordinarily accords an agency's longstanding interpretation of a statute due deference," no deference was necessary, because the statute was unambiguous. Id. at 157 n. 8.
Justice Brickley, joined by Justice Cavanagh and Justice Kelly, dissented. Because he believed the statute was ambiguous, he addressed the standard of review. After noting that this Court's jurisprudence on this issue has not been a model of clarity, he recommended Chevron-type deference:
The Legislature's ability to delegate authority to an agency is bounded only by the constitution, and there is no allegation of unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority in this case. Therefore, given that the relevant statutory language is ambiguous, that there is no clear indication of the Legislature's intent, and that the PSC exercises some of the Legislature's policy-making authority in this area, this Court should avoid striking down the policy decision inherent in the PSC's permissible interpretation of the electric transmission act.
. . .
. . . [B]ecause of a lack of reliable guideposts in determining legislative intent in this case, I would adopt a rule that this Court defer to an agency's permissible, policy-based interpretation of the statutes that it administers.
Id. at 176-77 (citation omitted).
As noted above, however, differences between Michigan administrative law and federal administrative law should prevent the adoption of a Chevron-type standard here.


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Application of GNSS interferometric reflectometry for detecting storm surges. GPS Solutions. 23. 2019.
Holocene sea levels in Southeast Asia, Maldives, India and Sri Lanka: The SEAMIS database. Quaternary Science Reviews. 219:112-125.. 2019.
Prevalence of tool behaviour is associated with pelage phenotype in intraspecific hybrid long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea x M.f. fascicularis). Behaviour. 156(11):1083-1125.. 2019.
Spatiotemporal variations of extreme sea levels around the South China Sea: assessing the influence of tropical cyclones, monsoons and major climate modes. Natural Hazards. 98(3):969-1001.. 2019.
Tide Gauge Records Show That the 18.61‐Year Nodal Tidal Cycle Can Change High Water Levels by up to 30 cm. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 124:736-749.. 2019.
Can the risk of coastal hazards be better communicated? International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 27:439-450.. 2018.
Comparison of sea level reconstructions with glacio isostatic adjustment model predictions for Southeast Asia. IGCP Project 639, Taranto, Italy.. 2018.
Field survey of Typhoon Hato (2017) and a comparison with storm surge modeling in Macau. Natural Hazards and Earth System Science. 18(12):3167-3178.. 2018.
Holocene relative sea-level records from coral microatolls in Western Borneo, South China Sea. Holocene. 28(9):1431-1442.. 2018.
A modest 0.5-m rise in sea level will double the tsunami hazard in Macau. Science Advances. 4(8). 2018.
Surf beat-induced overwash during Typhoon Haiyan deposited two distinct sediment assemblages on the carbonate coast of Hernani, Samar, central Philippines. Marine Geology. 396(Special Issue):215-230.. 2018.
Climatic Influences on Southern Makassar Strait Salinity Over the Past Century. Geophysical Research Letters. 44(23):11967-11975.. 2017.
Elemental and mineralogical analysis of marine and coastal sediments from Phra Thong Island, Thailand: Insights into the provenance of coastal hazard deposits. Marine Geology. 385:274-282.. 2017.
Half-metre sea-level fluctuations on centennial timescales from mid-Holocene corals of Southeast Asia. Nature Communications. 8(14387). 2017.
High-frequency Coastal Overwash Deposits from Phra Thong Island, Thailand. Scientific Reports. 7. 2017.
Relative Sea Level Proxy Records From Fossil Coral Microatolls In Western Borneo, South China Sea: Sea-level Stability By 7 Ka And Possible Holocene Faulting.. Asia Oceania Geosciences Society 14th Annual Meeting.. 2017.
Typhoon Haiyan overwash sediments from Leyte Gulf coastlines show local spatial variations with hybrid storm and tsunami signatures. Sedimentary Geology. 358:121-138.. 2017.
A century long sedimentary record of anthropogenic lead (Pb), Pb isotopes and other trace metals in Singapore. Environmental Pollution. 213:446-459.. 2016.
How heterogeneous coseismic slip affects regional probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment: A case study in the South China Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 121(8):6250–6272.. 2016.
Lead in the western South China Sea: Evidence of atmospheric deposition and upwelling. Geophysical Research Letters. 43(9):4490-4499.. 2016.
Lead isotope exchange between dissolved and fluvial particulate matter: a laboratory study from the Johor River estuary. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences. 374(2081). 2016.
Micropaleontology of the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan deposit from the Leyte Gulf, Philippines.. Sedimentary Geology. 339:104-114.. 2016.
Repeat Storm Surge Disasters of Typhoon Haiyan and Its 1897 Predecessor in the Philippines. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 97(1):31-48.. 2016.


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by Robert Parry
Captured al-Qaeda operatives, facing the threat or reality of torture, appear to have fed the Bush administration's obsession about Iraq, buying Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders time to rebuild their organization inside nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Even now, as al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies expand their power ever closer to Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, ex-Bush administration officials continue to insist they protected U.S. security by repeatedly waterboarding the likes of 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and terrifying others, such as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, with "extraordinary renditions" to foreign countries known to torture.
However, the emerging evidence, including recently released Justice Department memos, suggests that the "high-value detainees" may have helped divert U.S. focus away from their al-Qaeda colleagues by providing tantalizing misinformation about Saddam Hussein's Iraq and dropping tidbits about Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who operated inside Iraq.
The May 30, 2005, memo by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, also appears to have exaggerated the value of intelligence extracted from detainee Abu Zubaydah through harsh interrogations - references that Bush administration defenders have cited as justification for abusive tactics, including the near-drowning of waterboarding.
The May 30 memo states: "Interrogations of Zubaydah - again, once enhanced techniques were employed - furnished detailed information regarding al Qaeda's 'organizational structure, key operatives, and modus operandi' and identified KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. ...
"You [CIA officials] have informed us that Zubaydah also 'provided significant information on two operatives, [including] Jose Padilla [,] who planned to build and detonate a 'dirty bomb' in Washington DC area."
However, that last claim conflicts with known evidence about Zubaydah's interrogations and with the time elements of Padilla's arrest. Zubaydah was captured on March 28, 2002, after a gunfight that left him wounded. Padilla, an American citizen who converted to Islam, was arrested on May 8, 2002.
Yet, Bush administration lawyers did not give clearance for the "enhanced interrogation techniques" until late July, verbally, and on Aug. 1, 2002, in writing.
In addition, Zubaydah's information about Padilla and KSM was provided to FBI interrogators who had employed rapport-building techniques with Zubaydah, not the harsh tactics that CIA interrogators insisted upon later, according to published accounts.
FBI Successes
For instance, author Jane Mayer in her book The Dark Side writes that the two FBI agents, Ali Soufan and Steve Gaudin, "sent back early cables describing Zubayda as revealing inside details of the [9/11] attacks on New York and Washington, including the nickname of its central planner, 'Mukhtar,' who was identified as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. ...
"During this period, Zubayda also described an Al Qaeda associate whose physical description matched that of Jose Padilla. The information led to the arrest of the slow-witted American gang member in May 2002, at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. ...
"Abu Zubayda disclosed Padilla's role accidentally, apparently. While making small talk, he described an Al Qaeda associate he said had just visited the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. That scrap was enough for authorities to find and arrest Padilla.
"These early revelations were greeted with excitement by [CIA Director George] Tenet, until he was told they were extracted not by his officers but by the rival team at the FBI."
Soon, a CIA team arrived at the secret CIA detention center in Thailand where Zubaydah was being held and took command, adopting more aggressive interrogations tactics. However, the Bush administration did not approve the full battery of harsh tactics, including waterboarding, until mid-summer 2002.
Mayer's account was backed up Thursday by one of the FBI agents, Ali Soufan, who broke his long silence on the topic in an op-ed in the New York Times, citing Zubaydah's cooperation in providing information about Padilla and KSM before the CIA began the harsh tactics.
"It is inaccurate ... to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative," Soufan wrote. "Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence." [NYT, April 23, 2009]
Nevertheless, Bush administration defenders cite the information wrested from Zubaydah -- who was waterboarded at least 83 times in August 2002.-- as justification for the interrogation tactics that have been widely denounced as torture. For instance, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen has credited the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques for the arrest of Padilla.
Thiessen also was given space in the Washington Post's neoconservative editorial section to cite a claim in the May 30 memo that "in particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques." (KSM was waterboarded 183 times after his capture in March 2003.)
Thiessen also said the harsh tactics extracted information from Zubaydah and KSM about Zarqawi's operation in Iraq that "helped our operations against al-Qaeda in that country."
However, the timetable again works against these assertions by the CIA and Bush apologists. Zubaydah was captured in March 2002 at a time when Zarqawi was an obscure terrorist holed up in a section of Iraq protected by the U.S.-British no-fly zone, which prevented Saddam Hussein's military from attacking Zarqawi's stronghold.
KSM was captured on March 1, 2003, 18 days before President Bush launched the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. It was not until after the invasion had given way to a U.S. occupation that Zarqawi tapped into a wellspring of anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East and began recruiting young jihadists from across the region to mount suicide and other attacks against U.S. forces.
Zarqawi also built alliances with disgruntled Sunnis as the insurgency grew.
Whatever information Zubaydah and KSM might have provided about Zarqawi would have been dated and - to the degree they built up his importance - could have played into President Bush's desire to view the Iraq War as "the central front in the war on terror."
False Intelligence
The problem of false intelligence had already been demonstrated by the handling of another al-Qaeda captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who had responded to threats of torture by claiming an operational link between Hussein's government and al-Qaeda. It was exactly the kind of information that the Bush administration had been seeking.
A June 2002 CIA report, which was dubbed the "Murky" paper, cited claims by al-Libi that Iraq had "provided" unspecified chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda operatives. Al-Libi's information also was inserted into a November 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.
In January 2003, another CIA paper expanded on al-Libi's claims of an Iraqi-al-Qaeda connection, saying that "Iraq - acting on the request of al-Qa'ida militant Abu Abdullah, who was Muhammad Atif's emissary - agreed to provide unspecified chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qa'ida associates beginning in December 2000."
By Feb. 11, 2003, as the countdown to the U.S. invasion progressed, CIA Director Tenet began treating al-Libi's assertions as fact. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Tenet said Iraq "has also provided training in poisons and gases to two al-Qa'ida associates. One of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful."
But the CIA's confidence about al-Libi's information went against the suspicions voiced by the Defense Intelligence Agency. "He lacks specific details" about the supposed training, the DIA observed. "It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers."
The DIA's doubts proved prescient. In January 2004, al-Libi recanted his statements and claimed that he had lied because of both actual and anticipated abuse, including threats that he would be sent to an intelligence service where he expected to be tortured.
Al-Libi said he fabricated "all information regarding al-Qa'ida's sending representatives to Iraq to try to obtain WMD assistance," according to a Feb. 4, 2004, CIA operational cable. "Once al-Libi started fabricating information, [he claimed] his treatment improved and he experienced no further physical pressures from the Americans."
Despite his cooperation, al-Libi said he was transferred to another country that subjected him to beatings and confinement in a "small box" for about 17 hours. He said he then made up another story about three al-Qaeda operatives going to Iraq "to learn about nuclear weapons." Afterwards, he said his treatment improved.
In September 2006, the Senate Intelligence Committee criticized the CIA for accepting al-Libi's claims as credible. "No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war," the committee report said.
The Senate Intelligence Committee skirted making a conclusion about how al-Libi's statements were extracted. But the al-Libi case demonstrated one of the practical risks of coercing a witness to talk. To avoid pain, people often make stuff up.
Buying Time
Though al-Libi's motivation appeared to be simply his desperation to avoid more pain, there is also the risk that al-Qaeda operatives intentionally "surrendered" intelligence that was designed to divert U.S. attentions away from the crucial terrorist base camps and safe houses along the Afghan-Pakistani border and toward Iraq.
In that sense, the interests of Bush's neocon foreign policy team and al-Qaeda were symbiotic. The Bush administration was determined to force regime change in Iraq while al-Qaeda was desperate for a respite from U.S. and NATO assaults in late 2001 and 2002. So, diverting U.S. military and intelligence resources toward Iraq bought al-Qaeda leaders valuable time.
As the U.S. military got bogged down in the Iraq War, al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies strengthened their safe havens inside Pakistan and began expanding their areas of control, threatening to destabilize the fragile government of Pakistan, the only Islamic country that has a nuclear bomb.
There has been other evidence that al-Qaeda's leaders understood the value of tying down the U.S. military in an open-ended war in Iraq, so they could reorganize and emerge as a more deadly threat in the future, especially if Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falls into their hands.
Osama bin Laden even intervened in Election 2004 by releasing a rare videotape on Oct. 29, 2004, railing against President Bush. Bush's supporters immediately dubbed the video tape "Osama's endorsement of John Kerry."
But inside the CIA, analysts concluded that the video was intended as a backdoor way to help Bush gain a second term, according to Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine, which draws heavily from CIA insiders.
According to Suskind's book, CIA analysts had spent years "parsing each expressed word of the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, [Ayman] Zawahiri. What they'd learned over nearly a decade is that bin Laden speaks only for strategic reasons. ...
"Their [the CIA's] assessments, at day's end, are a distillate of the kind of secret, internal conversations that the American public [was] not sanctioned to hear: strategic analysis. Today's conclusion: bin Laden's message was clearly designed to assist the President's reelection.
"At the five o'clock meeting, [Deputy CIA Director] John McLaughlin opened the issue with the consensus view: 'Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President.'"
McLaughlin's comment drew nods from CIA officers at the table. The CIA analysts felt that bin Laden might have recognized how Bush's policies - including the Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the endless bloodshed in Iraq - were serving al-Qaeda's strategic goals for recruiting a new generation of jihadists.
"Certainly," CIA's deputy associate director for intelligence Jami Miscik said, "he would want Bush to keep doing what he's doing for a few more years," according to Suskind's account.
As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts drifted into silence, troubled by the implications of their own conclusions. "An ocean of hard truths before them - such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin Laden would want Bush reelected - remained untouched," Suskind wrote.
One consequence of bin Laden breaking nearly a year of silence to issue the videotape the weekend before the U.S. presidential election was to give the Bush campaign a much needed boost. From a virtual dead heat, Bush opened up a six-point lead, according to one poll.
Bush himself said later he considered the bin Laden tape an important turning point in the election. [For details, see our book, Neck Deep.]
Prolonging the War
Al-Qaeda's strategic interest in bogging the United States down in Iraq also was disclosed in a late 2005 letter to Zarqawi from a top aide to bin Laden known as "Atiyah," who upbraided Zarqawi for his reckless, hasty actions inside Iraq.
The message from Atiyah, who is believed to be a Libyan named Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, emphasized the need for Zarqawi to operate more deliberately in order to build political strength and drag out the U.S. occupation. "Prolonging the war is in our interest," Atiyah told Zarqawi.
Besides the value that al-Qaeda saw in dragging out the Iraq War, the harsh interrogations also had severe consequences for American troops.
As former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora told the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008, "there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq - as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat - are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
Zarqawi was killed in June 2006, but only after a new team of military intelligence interrogators arrived in Iraq and rejected the brutal interrogation strategies that had survived the Abu Ghraib scandal two years earlier.
Instead, the team employed FBI-style "rapport-building" techniques and won the confidence of captured Sunni insurgents who gave up Zarqawi's location, which was destroyed by a U.S. aerial attack. [For details, see Washington Post, Nov. 30, 2008, or Consortiumnews.com's "Connecting CIA Torture to Abu Ghraib."]
So, the "enhanced interrogations techniques" may have had two deadly consequences: eliciting misinformation that helped lead the United States into the quicksand of Iraq (while al-Qaeda and its Islamic fundamentalist allies strengthened their position in nuclear-armed Pakistan) and contributing significantly to the deaths of more than 4,200 American soldiers in Iraq.
© 2009 Consortium News
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat. His two previous books are Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'.
Friday, April 24, 2009
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'I'd always wanted to set the text', recalls Bingham, who interprets the carol as a late fifteenth-century lament for the heavy loss of life unleashed by the Wars of the Roses. 'A knight, always bleeding, lies in a chapel, a young woman weeping at his side. The chapel is decked out in funereal colours and at the side of the knight are written the words Corpus Christi [the body of Christ], as if the crucifixion is being played out over and over again. The music is a series of canons which overlap—and the atmosphere of the music is like a sunny and fresh English landscape that gradually clouds over. More than anything I wanted to create an intensely atmospheric sound.' Wisps of Bingham's dark 'clouds' emerge early in the piece, suggested by the sighing melody of 'the falcon' and the soprano part's slow descending setting of 'Lulley, lulla'.
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