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The post Part 5: Activating Your Audience appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The key is blending traditional advocacy communications with modern day channels to create a unified approach to your campaign. As you align your internal assets (e.g., lobbying efforts, activities being conducted by internal brand ambassadors, etc.) with your external allies, you are better prepared to deliver the results you need to move the needle.
Part 5: Activating Your Audience
1. Activate Stakeholders Where They Live
Today we are able to push information out to our audiences in a multitude of ways; this makes it critical that you not only reach your advocates through digital and traditional channels, but also relate to them on a local level. Members of Congress want to hear the personal stories of their constituents—how an issue will impact their family, their job, their community—not a form letter with standard messaging. Communications delivered organically from real advocate voices create the authenticity that resonates with decision-makers. Unique, personalized advocate letters that combine issue-specific content with personal stories via an online platform can influence legislators far more than form letters.
Advocacy websites or landing pages serve as central communication hubs for your campaign and are equipped with action functionality to generate emails to the Hill. New technology and social media platforms create unlimited ways to engage stakeholders and raise visibility of your issue in real time. Smart campaigns utilize Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and other social platforms to encourage message dissemination and engagement. A hashtag strategy can encourage organic growth of your campaign and allows policymakers to follow your perspective with ease.
Phone programs continue to play a crucial role in today's advocacy world. When you need to push your message over the finish line, phone programs can help you get there. Connecting personally with highly engaged advocates can empower them to reach out directly to their legislator. This high-touch type of outreach from a constituent could influence a policymaker as they are walking out the door to cast their vote on your issue.
2. Leverage Field Resources to Shape Your Campaign & Make Local Inroads
Many times the most effective way to move a policymaker on an issue is to influence their hometown constituents. On-the-ground field teams can provide authentic messaging that speaks directly to these audiences through local communications outlets. Recruiting local legislators and community leaders to champion your issue, building coalitions to raise awareness, gleaning local intelligence, and generating valuable insight all enhance your issue-based campaigns at a more regional level.
3. Tap Grasstops Advocates
Policymakers depend on community leaders to learn how an issue will impact constituents. Identifying issue-relevant influencers who can speak about the impact of legislation on their communities is crucial to having your message reach a policymaker. Key influentials can be mobilized in targeted districts and states to influence lawmakers and their senior staff in direct and indirect ways. These outreach actions can have far-reaching impacts on how an issue is viewed within a policymaker's home state or district.
4. Connect Advocates with Lawmakers In-Person Opportunities
In-person events generate in-person results. When paired with other tactics, personal interaction in public venues creates even more dynamic and successful campaigns. This type of engagement activity gives educated and dedicated advocates the opportunity to convey your message to a legislator face-to-face. Town halls, fly-ins, and events are all in-person ways to connect your organization to your advocates and ultimately to important policymakers.
Effective public affairs campaigns take a 360-degree view of the situation at hand while staying focused on the ultimate goal. Cultivating a two-way conversation and offering the right engagement opportunity builds trust, grows commitment, and inspires action from your advocates.
Combining the strategies we've discussed throughout this series can create a successful public affairs campaign. Isn't it time you get started on building a sustainable advocacy program to support your organization's issue priorities?
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The post Social Media Day: A Reminder To Celebrate All Year Long appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
Don't feel bad if you had no idea Social Media Day was upon us. Launched in 2010 by the digital publisher Mashable, the day marks social media's impact on global communication.
Any follow-up sentence to that previous line is obviously trite. The statistics attesting to social media's worldwide ubiquity are both numerous and mind-numbing to the point where, as with professional athlete salaries, the numbers eventually begin to lose meaning: Facebook now has 1.65 billion users? There are 6,000 tweets sent every second? A 25-year-old baseball player signed a $325 million contract? Sounds like a lot.
What it all really means is, if you're looking to make an impact, you need to be online—that's where all the people are, and they're all sharing and clicking and willing to read at least a few lines of nearly anything. And they have all made themselves reachable via social media.
Now before you set off to start a petition or set up a Snapchat for your organization, remember this: easy start-up doesn't make social media an easy game to master. Novice hikers should not attempt to summit difficult peaks, and the internet is littered with zero-follower accounts tweeting to themselves.
When done correctly, digital advocacy has the power to win legislative victories, build impactful grassroots coalitions, and influence policy.
So what about online activity and social media in particular can actually help achieve these significant goals? A strong understanding of who your audience is, what they like, and how to best reach them online is the first step. You need to monitor the online conversations surrounding your industry, your organization, and your issue priorities to understand the digital landscape and how these audiences react to it. At the same time, establishing an online rapport with your audiences will help strengthen your ability to shape a positive narrative in your favor to achieve objectives, influence key stakeholders, and respond quickly to any opposition. DDC's team of experts has managed and analyzed social platforms and online activity for a swath of industries touching a range of client-related issues. We offer social listening tools, complete platform management (from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram and even Snapchat), some of the most in-depth audience modeling and analytics to enhance online activity, and creative and interactive graphics to keep your site visitors interested in returning to your page. And we do it 365 days a year.
If you're trying to get your organization over the hump, no matter the size, DDC can be your guide. We've got the in-house teams to handle your social media platforms no matter the goal, the issue, or the community size…and we'll be at it many years from now, however the social media landscape looks then.
The post Social Media Day: A Reminder To Celebrate All Year Long appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The post Part 4: Engaging Your Audiences appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
Over the past several weeks, we've examined 12 different strategies needed to set up a successful public affairs campaign. Establishing objectives, defining your audience, and outlining paths of communication all help build a foundation for your campaign; sustained engagement is the key to making interested supporters effective advocates for your cause.
Most people don't live and breathe advocacy on a daily basis. The worlds of policymaking and issue marketing are foreign to them. Few of them really speak your language. Engagement helps people not only understand your issues, but also how to advocate—how to become active participants in the debate in ways that move your issues forward instead of just creating more noise. Engagement helps you fan interest and concern into real passion for an issue, and then channel that passion into meaningful action.
Part 4: Engaging Your Audiences
1. Substance Is Fundamental
People get involved in issue campaigns because they care about issues. They become the most effective as advocates when you provide them a foundation of knowledge to stand on. That doesn't mean they need to know all the minutia of the regulatory process or all the statistics that an industry expert would—but they do need to be able to discuss issues accurately in their own words. Give them interesting information in manageable chunks that makes them feel empowered to participate in a conversation, and they'll carry your messages far and wide.
2. Active Participation Is Essential
Someone sees an ad or responds to an email that motivates them, and they sign up because they're excited to engage with you. Maintaining that excitement is key to creating a successful, long-term advocacy campaign. Make sure your program follows through on the initial promise of recruitment by providing multiple, varied opportunities for advocates to participate. Establish participation as part of the culture of your campaign. Active involvement should be at its heart, and that involvement should extend beyond responding to action alerts. From social sharing to quizzes and surveys to petitions, letters, emails, calls, rallies, and meetings, a range of tactics can create a robust advocate experience that holds people's attention over time and moves your most ardent supporters up the engagement ladder to higher levels and more intensive kinds of advocacy.
3. Understanding and Recognition Lead to Loyalty
As your advocates engage with you, you'll gain a deeper understanding of who they are and what really motivates them. You should engage in return. Acknowledge advocates who consistently respond to your calls to action. Speak directly to what they tell you matters to them. Ask them to ask questions—and answer those questions clearly and authentically. Over time, you'll build real relationships with your advocates because they trust that you know them and recognize the value of their contributions to your program. The result will be a lasting connection between your advocates and your organization's goals. These relationships create the foundation of effective, agile, and lasting advocacy, providing a consistent return for both you and your stakeholders.
4. Your Champions Are the True Faces of Your Issues
Champions—advocates with compelling personal stories and a dedication to your issues—can add a powerful dimension to your advocacy efforts, putting real human faces and voices on the messages your campaign is trying to convey to decision-makers. Your champions are the individuals you know firmly believe in your cause and can be trusted to speak out publicly on your campaign's behalf. If you've been engaging your advocates effectively, you'll know who these people are because they will, essentially, self-identify. They can take part in a number of high-impact activities, including meeting with legislators, participating in ad campaigns, giving testimony or product endorsements, or joining in press conferences or fly-ins. Given the right support from you, a single champion can have greater, more targeted impact than a hundred form emails from regular advocates. A broad advocate base for volume spearheaded by a layer of highly engaged, articulate champions gives you a resource that can truly cut through the clutter and drive your message home.
Engagement is all about effective communication—it draws audiences to your cause and motivates them to take ownership of issues, creating a greater sense of responsibility for their outcomes. A calibrated strategic plan will enable you to engage your audiences successfully and keep them engaged over the long term.
No matter the size or scale of your campaign, building and sustaining relationships with the right audiences will ultimately generate higher-impact advocacy for your issues. And an engaged base of supporters provides a dependable resource as issues arise and you need advocates to move to action quickly.
Don't forget to tune in next Wednesday as we conclude our series by exploring what establishing your objectives, defining your audiences, staging your conversation, and engaging your advocates has all been leading up to: mobilizing advocates to take action when you need them. See you then!
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The post Part 3: Staging the Conversation appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
For a public affairs campaign to be successful, you need launch messaging platforms that will engage your target audiences where they naturally look for information with messaging that relates the issue to their everyday live. By launching appropriate platforms, your organization will collect more information on these groups and their distinct characteristics. From this information, you can plan the path of communication that touches on their preferences and predispositions, expanding your messaging avenues to reach audiences where and how they want—while tracking the success of these communication efforts.
Part 3: Staging Your Audience
1. Manage Audience and Engagement Data
Identifying your audience is only the first step in solidifying effective communication between your advocates and your campaign. Continuously collecting data provides you the visual needed to better understand what platforms provide your organization the most success. This type of data collection and analysis permits you to easily follow engagement levels and see exactly where the numbers correlate between potential advocates and communication tactics.
2. Build Strong Branding & Creative Properties
Just like any good retailer, ensuring that your organization or campaign is recognizable and visually represented only strengthens your reach among audiences. Effective branding will help connect these audiences to your overall goal, while promoting a united voice throughout all of your communications. The most effective advocacy campaigns leverage brand identities that have a distinct advocacy purpose, ensuring your advocates know exactly what they are rallying behind. Creative assets will then develop one cohesive brand that is simple, clear, and deepens your audience's connection to your issues.
3. Create Dynamic Campaign Websites
Creating a responsive website supports your campaign by maximizing audience reach and delivering easy and effective take-action capabilities to individuals with the convenience of a mouse click or a touch on their phone. Having an advocacy website that is mobile friendly, offers your organization a branded platform from which to base the campaign—providing an easy, singular location for potential advocates to find information on how to take action on causes or issues that they'd like to support, while also gathering educational materials, identifying legislative or regulatory bodies with oversight on the issue in focus, and providing support for key events. It's a central communications hub through which your communications can flow.
4. Launch Various Social Platforms
With an ever-increasing amount of time spent on social media platforms, determining which social outlets are most appropriate to engage your audiences will enable you to launch community-branded channels to encourage active audience participation. Recruitment through these channels is vital, as these tools can help keep your audience up to date and active in the conversation in a way that they are most likely to engage and participate. To aid in your success, strong content strategies, boosts, and promotions will foster an authentic and educated community.
With 20 years of experience developing these properties and more for organizations, we understand how important it is to remember that every audience has individual characteristics and communication preferences. Developing a range of outreach strategies allows your message to resonate with a diverse set of audiences, while providing a comprehensive list of communications properties for a cohesive and recognizable campaign. It's through these avenues that you're one step closer to engaging your audience, which we'll look at closer in Part 4 of our series. See you next Wednesday!
The post Part 3: Staging the Conversation appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The post Salt: The Latest Target appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The stakeholders impacted negatively by the FDA's sodium guidance are wide-ranging, from food retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers, to restaurant and food service providers, to consumers who prefer how their food currently tastes. Those favoring the guidelines are healthy living organizations and advocates, along with health-conscious consumers who want a greater selection of prepared food options without high levels of sodium.
For organizations on either side of this debate, ensuring like-minded stakeholders are active participants in the FDA's comment period surrounding these guidelines is critical, and the time to do so is now.
Why sodium? The average American consumes approximately 3,400 milligrams (mg) of sodium per day, which the government has long claimed is too much. The proposed guidelines outline both short- and long-term goals that aim to gradually reduce Americans' sodium intake to 2,300 mg per day in the name of consumer health.
Yet the science on sodium is in dispute.
A 2013 report by the Institute of Medicine concluded that "studies on health outcomes are inconsistent in quality and insufficient in quantity to determine that sodium intakes below 2,300 mg/day either increase or decrease the risk of heart disease, stroke, or all-cause mortality in the general U.S. population." And, more recently, a study by the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrates that there is a safe range of 3,000-6,000 mg per day of salt consumption. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, sums it up: "The science is uncertain. If you're in the general population, I can't support the widespread recommendation to reduce sodium intake without better science."
Advocates for the FDA's sodium guidelines argue that not taking action on salt only continues to exacerbate our country's healthcare epidemic, citing 70 million Americans living today with hyper tension and cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. Yet these guidelines will be costly for food manufacturers, restaurants, and food service operations to implement. While it's hard to know just how costly the sodium guidelines will be, the net costs estimated by industry groups to comply with the FDA's sugar reduction guidelines exceeded the FDA's cost implementation estimates by $140 million. As with sugar, these are costs that manufacturers and others may be forced to pass on to consumers, and that will be hard for consumers to swallow in addition to having to accept altered flavors and textures in their favorite foods.
In the months ahead, advocacy will play a critical role in determining the final outcome of this debate. The stakes are high—the potential impact of these proposed regulations makes it critical for advocates on both sides of the aisle to raise their voices during the FDA's next two comment periods. The central players shouldn't rely on a pinch of salt over their left shoulder when it comes to salt—an effective public affairs campaign will take luck out of the conversation and ensure your voice, and those of your supporters, are heard by the FDA in the next 90-150 days.
The post Salt: The Latest Target appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The post Part 2: Understanding Your Audience appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
With some baseline data provided through the audit of your current properties and engagement efforts to date, basic information regarding audience profiles can work as a starting point, but a deeper dive is needed to truly appreciate exactly who you are speaking to and even more importantly, how they want to hear from you. The question remains—where do you find that information?
Part 2: Understanding Your Audience
1. Audience Analysis
The first step in discerning what makes your audience tick is identifying their attributes. Deploying analytic tools provides vital information on the make-up of your audiences—everything from demographics and psychographics to voting habits and behaviors to media consumption patterns. This analysis can organize and categorize audiences and identify their relationship with your organization's causes and values, determining both core target audiences and even outlier audiences—those individuals you many not necessarily think of as potential advocates but do in fact share similar values and views.
2. Social Listening
Understanding the broader conversation about your issues in digital spaces is crucial if you plan to take control of the narrative. Using social media monitoring tools, you have the ability to track the scope of the online conversation, the volume of the discussion, the keywords used, the platforms where the conversations are taking place, and the sentiment associated with the discussion. This monitoring gives you a visual of both your opposition's tactics and communications, as well as how your audience reacts in these conversations, giving insight into what is and isn't working.
3. Digital Footprint
Before you can make an impact online, you need to understand your current status – as well as your oppositions. Social media measurement tools, as well as the native platforms of social networks, will quantify the reach and influence of your current campaign. They can tell you how many people see your content and more importantly, how they interact with the content. Constantly reviewing and understanding your digital footprint can provide quick results on tactics used and allow responsive changes, when needed. It can also keep tabs on your opponents.
4. Advanced Site Analytics
Site analytics, derived from a visitor's cookie profile, can give you a complete view of your web traffic. A tiny pixel in your site's code can tell you more than just the regular Google Analytics metrics, like demographic data, political data, and top issue areas. This data helps you validate that you are indeed reaching the right audiences and how to optimize your sites' content to better fit the values of your web traffic.
Organizations need to understand in great detail each audience that is interacting with their issue—either by visiting their campaign's online properties or through other, outside means—and how best to engage them. It's these strong digital solutions that will provide you with all of the tools needed to better know your audience and support the blueprint and foundation of your campaign. You've mapped out what needs to happen and built the infrastructure—now it's about putting that plan into place. Check back in with us next week as we tackle top strategies to reach your audience!
The post Part 2: Understanding Your Audience appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The post When It Comes to Building an Advocate Community, Don't Ignore the Outliers appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
Smart audience identification and targeting will help you move beyond speaking to those who already support your cause—and who are expected to support it. Certain outlier audiences could carry momentous impact for your efforts, if you know how and where to find them. These outliers are individuals whom you may not immediately think of as prospective advocates, but who actually align with your objectives when you really understand how your issues affect them.
So how do you identify these groups if they aren't part of your core audience? To start, taking a deeper dive into your core audience data can offer clues to identify the non-traditional allies you need to amplify your messages in new ways. By examining this data for shared values, you have the ability to detect additional allies who align with your message. By integrating demographic, psychographic, and geographic insights into your targeting methodology, you have the ability to develop models of the most productive targets among these outlier audiences. For example, you might not expect that there is a strong correlation between Do-It-Yourself enthusiasts and those who support domestic energy production.
When you start focusing on what advocates value, you can quickly recognize that outlier audiences span a range of demographic subsets. One community that is widely gaining more attention as a non-traditional audience on a wide range of business and political issues is America's Spanish-speaking demographic. The U.S. Census Bureau's latest data-set indicates that the Spanish-speaking community comprises roughly 17% of the total American population, meaning Spanish speakers could be one of the largest subsets of advocates for an organization's cause, if reached effectively.
From here, it is important to understand that not all people are active on the same channels, and reaching them where they are most active—whether through social media, traditional website traffic, via email, or even through offline means such as informational mailers or out-of-home advertising—can be a game-changer for your campaign.
When looking at engagement strategies, understanding the benefits of available tools like apps, SMS, and emails will change content delivery, frequency and timing of communications. Why is this important? Because even if you've determined who your audiences are, you may be missing entire networks of advocates who best respond to messaging platforms that are going under- or unused in your campaign. By studying quantitative behavioral and demographic data, you have the potential to gain deeper insights into who your audience actually is, what they care about, and how to reach them authentically.
Like all unique audiences, identifying the most effective engagement methods requires strategy, as traditional outreach messages and methods may fall short. Addressing Spanish-speaking audiences, for example, requires more than just translating your English-language messages into Spanish. You must foster a relatable connection to your audience, speaking to their culture and values as much as to their language. Spanish dialects from across the globe—from Spain to Cuba to Central and South America—vary greatly, each containing countless idioms that need to be accounted for. The same is true of cultural outlooks and values. The most effective campaigns take all of these aspects into account when developing engagement messaging and delivery methods.
By finding these audiences through data insights, your program can open untapped advocate reserves and identify the most effective ways for bringing these new advocates into the fold organically, assuring them a positive experience when they join your advocate community. These outliers could be the game changers your advocacy program needs to have a meaningful impact.
The post When It Comes to Building an Advocate Community, Don't Ignore the Outliers appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The post Part 1: Understanding Your Objective appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
To kick off this blog series, we begin where any good campaign begins—understanding your objective and the principles to keep in mind when defining goals. You can't measure the success of your efforts without first defining what counts as a win. The strongest, most effective advocacy campaigns hone in on what they're ultimately trying to achieve—which then informs their strategies and tactical execution. As you begin to set up a campaign, the following four components are essential to developing the foundation on which a strong advocacy program is built.
Part I: Understanding Your Objective
1. Determine Your Desired Outcome
Why are you building an advocacy campaign? When setting up a program, you have to know why it's needed. Whether it's to increase your influence on Capitol Hill or increase donations for your PAC, you must be able to demonstrate what lies at the end of the path for your program and why that path is important to your organization's broader goals.
Let's say you're working to pass new state legislation that supports your organization's business model; it's vital that you strategize how your public affairs campaign can support this goal and through what means you can best deliver your messages—not only to the policymakers, but also to the public at large.
2. Audit Your Current Properties and Resources
As an organization, you have existing resources, assets, and communications networks that can be leveraged in whole or in part to communicate your issue priorities. You likely have some that are significantly underutilized as well. As a foundational step to understanding how best to communicate your message, first take a look inward at your organization and understand your efforts to date.
Conducting an audit of your current political, advocacy, and economic assets, mapped against key political geographies, will enable you to understand your areas of strength—and equally important areas where you need to engage, but are currently lacking a foothold. Likewise, an audit of your existing communications and properties will allow you to recognize and catalog the resources you have versus what you may be missing, how you've been successful and with whom, and where you're falling short. With this knowledge, you can pinpoint effective strategies that maximize the reception of your campaign and its message.
3. Research Your Audience and Messaging Tactics
Designing a strategy and campaign firmly rooted in research is critical to your success. After a thorough audit of your assets and communications, more sophisticated research and analytics can identify high-value audiences (those most likely to align with your messaging and take action, including those you're not actively engaging). These audiences are identified based on their online and offline behaviors and values, including what motivates them to act. What's more, you can learn where they like to live online—the media they consume—and how you can effectively reach them.
By pinpointing the shared values that resonate with your audiences, you will inform your message playbook as well as your tactical execution—what recruitment strategies you will leverage to engage, educate, and convert them from supporters to genuine activists. Surveys, polling, focus groups, and other research methods can further shape the framework of your campaign and support your overarching goals. The more rooted in research and analytics your engagement strategies are, the more effective they will be in resonating with their intended audiences.
4. Create a Message Playbook
Once you've defined your goals, examined your existing properties, and conducted research on your audiences, you can set the foundation for your message playbook. This playbook helps you establish rules for both online and offline campaign messaging across platforms—from website content and advocate outreach communications, to media engagement and editorial content.
Depending on the nature of your campaign and the level of opposition you face, this playbook will also provide guideposts for developing both proactive and responsive messaging to keep your campaign platform on track. This tactical playbook then serves as a north star for the campaign, guiding all of your future communication efforts with ease and clarity.
Utilizing these tactics will allow for the continued steady and organic growth of your campaign. Home-builders do not build a house from the roof down but begin with a clear picture of the end goal so they can then lay the groundwork that supports the rest of the pieces. Define what success looks like for your organization. By understanding your objectives and existing advocacy infrastructure, you will be primed for the build-out of a successful and substantial public affairs campaign—which we'll cover more of in our next post in this series. Stay tuned!
The post Part 1: Understanding Your Objective appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The post It's Time to Modernize Alcohol Laws appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
In 1933, the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge commenced, the price for a gallon of gas was only 10 cents, Larry King was just a baby, and President Roosevelt uttered his famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." 1933 was also the year that the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, supposedly ending the Prohibition era.
The 21st Amendment handed the responsibilities of alcohol regulation over to states and localities, yet there are still countless outdated, Prohibition-era laws in place. Only 53 of Texas' 254 counties are "wet," happy hour is outlawed in Massachusetts, blue laws restricting Sunday sales still reign supreme in 12 states, and in a whopping 17 states the government has a monopoly on liquor sales.
Not only are these laws archaic, they have real implications for jobs, consumers, and the states as a whole. States, which were constitutionally delegated this power, need to understand that consumers have the right to make their own choices and it's with their buying power that tax revenue, jobs, and businesses are kept afloat.
The U.S. alcoholic beverage industry accounts for over 4.3 million jobs, is responsible for over $455.7 billion in economic activity, and generates almost $47 billion in state and local taxes. The distilled spirits industry alone accounted for $23 billion in supplier sales and over $20 billion in tax revenue for all levels of government in 2014, making the liquor business a huge driver for the consumer products market and U.S. jobs. State politicians should recognize the importance of the industry and know that by lifting blue laws and privatizing the industry where controls exist, they can create more jobs and economic growth in their districts.
With both genders in the workforce and more spending power seen from the millennial generation, shopping habits have changed since many of the liquor laws were enacted. Shoppers spend 21 percent more on Sundays than on any other day of the week and are more likely to make impulse purchases on this day—making Sundays more profitable than ever. Blue laws and dry counties do more than simply close a particular type of store on a particular day; they literally drive profits, jobs, and revenue to other towns, cities, and states across border lines. Control states are arguably even more problematic as these state-run monopolies limit the power of the free market; there is no competitive pricing, a limited choice and availability of product, and in many cases, little convenience to the consumer. When state politicians limit consumer choice, they limit their tax revenue, they limit the profitability of their small businesses, and they limit their economic growth.
Updating these laws may also do the states themselves some good. Washington State, for example, saw an increase of over 18 percent in revenue collected from liquor sales after they privatized this sector in 2012, and after Connecticut lifted restrictions on Sunday alcohol sales, they saw a $1.3 million surge in alcohol excise taxes. By letting go of the reigns and allowing the free market to play out, the states can be among the biggest benefactors of modernized liquor laws.
Across the country, state politicians need to modernize their approach to alcohol sales in order to cater to their voting consumers. The message for consumers, beverage companies and others to make to state capitols is clear: reduce state controls, reform blue laws, and repeal redundant prohibition era policies.
The year is 2016. Gas costs $2.23 per gallon, the Golden Gate Bridge has celebrated its 75th anniversary, and Larry King has retired from CNN's longest running program. It's time to retire those old blue state laws, too.
The post It's Time to Modernize Alcohol Laws appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
The post Busted M&A Deals Signal Need for Grassroots Advocacy appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>
Almost a decade ago, TheStreet.com summarized the failed Delta, U.S. Airways merger—valued at $10 billion—this way, "The proposed hostile takeover of Delta has won big on Wall Street, but it never gathered much backing on Main Street."
Main Street's influence has grown exponentially since then. Whether the goal is to promote or discourage a potential merger, identifying, engaging and mobilizing the audiences whose core beliefs and values intersect with your priorities is essential. These third-party voices help communicate the far-reaching support for your position, provide cover for contentious perspectives, and can neutralize opposition messages and those delivering them. As the issue advocacy arena has demonstrated time and again, the ability to execute on this front drives results that change outcomes.
Successful public affairs campaigns directly connect with those who stand with them on critical issues while providing the communication platforms where their voices can be heard. They foster those relationships in ways that educate and engage the most influential supporters. Once connected to the cause, these influencers communicate their passions inside of their own spheres of influence—a true force multiplier.
Much of this is made possible because social media has created a never-before-seen dynamic between consumer and brand. The ability for both to directly connect has never been easier, and expectations never higher. Properly leveraged, corporations have the ability to build tremendous momentum behind their most critical causes. Daily monitoring of the online conversations combined with a robust rapid-response apparatus ensures they can engage with the right people, at the right time, and in a manner that drives action.
The ease with which we communicate on a global stage today is certainly staggering. However, social media platforms alone are not enough. The ability to meaningfully engage locally is an equally essential component in driving desired outcomes.
Highly targeted, on-the-ground engagement can make or break a campaign's success. Applying direct pressure in legislative districts at the federal, state, or local levels creates an echo-chamber effect that, when properly executed, is heard on Wall Street and resonates in the ears of the regulators controlling the fate of any given M&A deal.
In the communication paradigm of today, it is important to remember the conversations surrounding your most critical issues are happening with or without you. Engage.
The post Busted M&A Deals Signal Need for Grassroots Advocacy appeared first on DDC Public Affairs.]]>


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› used in writing to represent "of" when the letter f is not pronounced:
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
(Definition of "o'" from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)
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Lawrence Bender (born October 17, 1957) is an American film producer. He rose to fame by producing Reservoir Dogs in 1992 and has since produced all of Quentin Tarantino's films with the exception of Death Proof, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eigh...t. He has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Picture.
Connect any celebrity with Lawrence Bender to see how closely they are linked... romantically!
he`s NOT dating molly sims!!! he`s going out with a model named linda taylor!!


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Parenting in 2016 is difficult. Coaching in 2016 is difficult. Being a kid in 2016 is difficult.
Making matters worse is an online environment in w...
Read Whole Story
When it comes to sports, sometimes players need perspective about what really matters in the grand scheme of the game. When it comes to kids' sports, ...
Are you guilty of coddling your young athlete? It might be time for a sports parent self-assessment. Here are 10 signs you should not ignore.
In Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison's household, no one gets a trophy just for showing up.
After the football star's two sons brought ho...
So there I was at the Baltimore airport on my way to my 4th of July weekend vacation. I look at my phone and there's a message from an area code that I wasn't used to seeing. So on my way to the baggage claim I decided out of curiosity to call the number. Oh how I wish I hadn't.
Perhaps these questions will help ensure that your child will have a positive experience in a league that meets their needs and interests, rather than a negative experience in a league that doesn't suit them.
A few years ago, I was asked by the ABC television news show 20/20 to be interviewed about issues involving safety in youth sports. They were doing a report on the heartbreaking story of a child who began playing baseball in the first grade.
I don't think that competition is either good or bad. It just is. Rather it is how we think about it and cope with it makes it good or bad. How much we stress the importance of competition that gives it a larger space in our lives than it deserves.
Sports for kids would be a great experience if parents could control their emotions, but that is like asking a person who has never been skiing before to just relax as they look straight down from the top of the mountain. Relaxing just isn't in the cards.
When a sport is transformed into a highly competitive, win-at-all-costs activity, with one's parents foaming at the mouth while yelling at refs, who wants to play anymore?
All too often these days, sports are not a positive, rewarding experience for our children. There are numerous kids for whom early sport specialization and inappropriate adult-centered environments lead not to elite athletic performance, but to physical and emotional scars that may last a lifetime.
When parents place their kids in organized sports early on, they start with the right reasons. They hope their kids become more physically fit. They often want their kids to meet friends or learn to be part of a team. But eventually their kids' participation in sports morphs into other motives.
We've been hearing for years that youth sports build character, persistence and teamwork. I'd like to get a bit deeper and explain nine very specific reasons why I am glad my three 20-something kids played sports from preschool through college.
Enjoy watching your children's joy in doing their sport, not in your children's achievement within it. Assess your circle of sports parent friends. Take care of yourself.
If parents keep reinforcing to their child that her pursuit of excellence in a sport is a sacrifice their child is making instead of a decision she is making, what effect is that likely to have on the child's attitude?
Kids like Johnny and Jenny are clearly devoted to their sports. But they are not the only ones who are committed: so are their parents.
As a whole, our youth sports system is broken. As the country's performance culture increasingly focuses on the development of elite athletes at the youth sports level, our kids are burning out emotionally at a greater clip and at an earlier age.
Of course, you need good results to be successful, but the question is how to go about getting those results and, ironically, the answer is not what parents, coaches, and athletes often think.
A Canadian youth league hockey coach who tripped a player in the handshake line got sent to the real-world penalty box: jail.
Martin Tremblay, who...
It is my hope as a parent that I am raising my children to enjoy both team sports and independent pursuits. I believe the glory of being on the field and off should not rely on my watching.
Lesson learned. Typical jugglers, which include working moms, could all probably benefit from enjoying moments of life that really don't require us to be in control.
I was asked recently by a sports parent, "What does it take to make a champion?" I thought for a moment and then responded with three words: "Genes, motivation, and support." So let's explore these three essential components to athletic success.
Get top stories and blog posts emailed to me each day. Newsletters may offer personalized content or advertisements. Learn more.


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Prince's new song, "FallinLove2Night" featuring Zooey Deschanel, will be released to digital retailers on March 17th.
The singer first debuted the song on Fox's New Girl after the Super Bowl.
The song will be Prince's first release in partnership with LA Reid and Sony. He's working on a new album, Plectrumelectrum, which will be released later this year.
Also On Majic 102.1:
Like Father, Like Son: 7 Times Denzel Washington's Son John David Stole Our Heart
10 photos Launch gallery


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Woodley only rushed the passer 4 times in the second half. Posted on Black n Gold radio. Don't shoot me shoot the messenger .
Woodley only rushed the passer 4 times in the second half. Posted on Black n Gold radio. Don't shoot me shoot the messenger .
In the 4th quarter, they had a 10 play TD drive featuring 7 passes and 3 runs, a 12 play FG drive featuring 3 passes, 8 runs, and the FG kick, and then the final Denver possession was in victory formation in which Manning kneeled down twice.
There aren't a lot of opportunities to rush the passer in the 2nd half when your opponent has a 2 play drive, one pass-heavy drive, one run-heavy drive, and a couple of kneel downs and that's it. Plus, every one of Peyton's passes in the 2nd half were classified as short passes (i.e. get it out of my hands quick to negate the pass rush). In fact, in the entire game Peyton only attempted 2 passes that were deemed to be deep throw (an incompletion in the first quarter on 3rd and 17, and a 20 yard completion to Thomas on 1st and 10 in the 2nd quarter. After getting sacked twice early on, it looks like Peyton was doing whatever he could to get the ball out of his hands quick.
1 CB Vernon Hargreaves Florida 5-10 204
2 DT Austin Johnson Penn State 6-4 314
3 SS Jeremy Cash Duke 6-0 212
4 LB Jaylon Smith Notre Dame 6-2 223
6 WR Moritz Boehringer Germany 6-4 227
7 OT Brandon Shell South Carolina 6-5 324
7 RB Tre Madden USC 6-0 223
DE David Onyemata, LB Ian Seau, FS Jordan Lomax, CB DeAndre Elliott,
QB Jeff Driskel, TE David Morgan, OG Spencer Drango, OC Mike Matthews
2015 MNF Executive Champion!
You need more ILB, CB or Safety blitzes to counter that. For whatever reason we have done less of those the past few seasons.
Since the 70s, how many Super Bowls have the Steelers been to without LeBeau calling the defense?
Even in XXX, it was LeBeau calling the D...
But, you're right...he's too predictable, teams have figured him out...the game has passed him by...
When both are back, I'd like to see some packages with both rushing from the same side, or even this week, with Woodley and Worilds on the same side.


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made in the U.S.A.
"In years past, if you bought an iPhone case from Fort Collins-based OtterBox, the nation's leading cellphone casemaker, it was a given that the product, like the gadget it protects, wasn't made in the U.S.A. That's starting to change.
'We've been able to reshore about 15 to 20 percent of our volume back to the U.S. from China over the last year," said Bill Lovell, OtterBox's global director of supply chain.'"
This article is an "I told you so" moment for us. For years, we were telling US manufacturers that it made business sense to improve their existing operations, only to hear executives say "We'll skip Lean and go straight to China."
In emerging economies, low wages are temporary, and they come with low productivity and quality, long lead times across oceans, and high logistics costs. As the work force learns manufacturing, wages rise along with performance, and the cost advantages vanish.


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(Sept. 30, 2010)--The UTSA Office of Financial Aid and Enrollment Services in partnership with Alamo Colleges, Trinity University, University of the Incarnate Word and Texas A&M University will host a scholarship workshop for students and parents from 8 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Oct. 2 in the Frio Street Building Sam Riklin Auditorium (1.406) at the UTSA Downtown Campus. Free and open to the public, the "Simply Scholarships" event will include workshops on scholarship essays and applying for financial aid.
The workshop topics include a hands-on scholarship "Essay Writing Tips" session. Students will leave with a scholarship application-ready essay and information from each participating institution on the scholarship application process. Parents and other relatives accompanying the potential students can attend financial aid sessions in English and Spanish.
"The goal is to teach students and their families how to maximize award packages by applying for scholarships and other forms of aid as early as possible," said Christopher Goldsberry, UTSA financial aid outreach specialist.
Because the workshop includes private and public universities and community colleges, students have the opportunity to determine the type of institution that fits them best.
"Every year, nationwide, millions of scholarship dollars go unapplied for," said Goldsberry. "We encourage students and parents to apply for this financial support that is available. Last year, the total institutional and private donor scholarships awarded for UTSA was more than $14 million."
For more information, contact Lara Crouch at 210-458-2803 or visit the UTSA Financial Aid website.
The UTSA Interactive Technology Experience Center camps are for curious youth who are interested in STEM and related topics. This week, campers will study environmental science, robotics and computer science.
UTSA Main Campus
In four sessions of this weeklong day camp for 9 to 13-year-olds, campers will participate in indoor and outdoor activities while exploring ancient technologies from around the world and the new technologies archaeologists are using to discover them.
UTSA Center for Archaeological Research, Main Campus
Campers will investigate how museums use artifacts, oral histories, and research to unravel stories about our past.
UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures
The exhibit "Girl's Eye View" was produced by students who documented life on San Antonio's East Side with photography, poetry and film.
UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures
Experience a very different summer camp! The UTSA East Asia Institute is teaching kids Japanese through language, culture, art, crafts, music, cooking and more. For kids age 6-12. For more details, email email@example.com.
Main Building (MB 1.126), Main Campus
7 to 12 year-olds will explore Mayan Culture in a three-day sessions, concluding at the Witte museum, where campers will have the chance to see the new "Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed" exhibit.
UTSA Center for Archaeological Research, Main Campus
Other Calendars
» UTSA Events | » Academic | » Institute of Texan Cultures
The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.


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According to reports, the launch of an unprecedented international solar alliance in Paris on the sidelines of the climate change summit shows India's leadership in clean energy, environmental experts here have said. "This unprecedented international solar collaboration sets an encouraging tone as country representatives gather today to reach a new global climate agreement. India's leading role in forming an International Solar Alliance anchors its own climate commitment to ramp up renewable energy," said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources ... Read More »
Category Archives: Finance
Solar rooftop systems subsidy will remain at 30%
According to reports, solar rooftop systems will continue to be subsidized by 30%, despite the Union ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE)'s June announcement of hacking it by half. Industry experts are not thrilled about the decision, citing state incompetency in doling out the subsidy on time, possibility of poor quality products from suppliers while leaving manufacturing costs unchanged. The recent announcement from the ministry mentions that the subsidy comes under the Central Financial Assistance (CFA) scheme and is ... Read More »
Indian firms line up for Welspun's green projects
According to reports, Hero Future Energies, ReNew Power and Reliance Cleangen are evaluating the renewable energy portfolio of Welspun Enterprises. Welspun Renewables, wholly-owned green energy arm of Welspun Enterprises, is selling equity stakes in its solar and wind power projects. SoftBank, earlier keen to pick up stakes in the projects, has dropped out. Welspun Renewables was raising capital through equity sales, said a person close to development. Persons in the know said domestic and foreign companies were in the fray ... Read More »
Sebi to make corporate, green bonds investor friendly
According to reports, the board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in its meet on Monday is expected to ease norms for trading in corporate bonds. The regulator is also likely to frame the guidelines to list the so-called green bonds on domestic exchanges. To make the bond market transparent and investor friendly, Sebi will address the issue of listing of such privately placed bonds on the exchange platform for secondary market transactions. Typically, a company issues ... Read More »
India, 19 other nations pledge to promote clean technologies
According to reports, twenty countries, including India, the US and China, will launch an initiative to double their clean energy research and development budget over the next five years as part of global efforts to tackle climate change. The total amount of money being committed by these 20 countries – under Mission Innovation — amount to USD 20 billion, about half of which would come from the US, White House officials said. A formal announcement of the initiative is expected ... Read More »
Welspun Group to sell its renewable energy business, appoints Barclays to look for a buyer
According to reports, the Welspun Group has put its renewable energy business on the block and has appointed British bank Barclays to look for a buyer, two people with direct knowledge of the plan said, as the pipe-to-textile maker seeks to trim debt amid concerns of a fall in solar power prices hurting its margin. "The process has just begun," said one of the people. "Some overseas strategic investors have shown preliminary interest." The $3 billion group, controlled by billionaire ... Read More »
India to launch $1-b equity fund for renewable energy
According to reports, India proposes to launch a $1-billion equity fund, with seed capital from public sector units, to support renewable energy companies. Addressing a 'Talkathon' ahead of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference or COP-21, Piyush Goyal Minister of State (Independent Charge) Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, said, "While we hope the Paris talks will help developed countries provide long-tenor low-cost funding, we are also preparing ourselves to see how we can finance our renewable energy thrust." "We ... Read More »


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Automation can significantly enhance substation reliability by speeding up service restoration. Although much research works has been done in reliability assessment of substation control systems, there are still several aspects that need to be considered in automated substation reliability evaluation. The impacts of automation system on substation reliability indices have not been comprehensively covered in the literature so far. This paper aims at presenting a comprehensive technique to quantitatively assess the reliability of the automated substations. The technique is based on the event tree methodology and the concepts of conditional probability technique. A step by step evaluation procedure is presented using a typical substation automation architecture known as simple star. The proposed technique is applied to some conventional substation configurations to examine the effectiveness of the technique and also to examine the level of reliability improvement achieved by automation. Furthermore, different sensitivity analyses have been carried out for both automatic switching action and a specific automated substation. The proposed strategy is easy to implement and suitable to analyze for an automated substation reliability with arbitrary automation architectures. Also, automated substation reliability assessment tools can be developed in detail, and can be catered to the specific needs of substation design.
A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.© Copyright 2016 IEEE - All rights reserved. Use of this web site signifies your agreement to the terms and conditions.


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Self-adjusting crimp pliers for crimping end sleeves (ferrules). Self adjusts to the correct size of the end sleeve which eliminates incorrect crimps.
22-17640 - Self-Adujusting Crimp Pliers for .08-10mm Square Crimping
22-17650 - Crimp Pliers for End Sleeve Connectors
Crimping pliers used for crimping end sleeves (ferrules) from 0.25~16mm. Provides crimping in marked half-round dies for reliable connections between the sleeve and the conductor.
MCM Electronics gave me terrific service and great prices. I will cheerfully shop with them again for my electronic needs.


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My sister in law is so creative. This weekend she hosted a Pearl and Pinwheels party. It was elegant and fun. It is a perfect party for a girl. She was celebrating both of my niece's birthdays and it was amazing. She said I could share these ideas with you. (She also did the brilliant Alice In Wonderland Party) Here are some Pearls and Pinwheel
21 Quotes About Home
I've been thinking about HOME lately. Where is home? What makes a home? There are many ideas about what means "home". Here are some great quotes about home and what it means to others. Home is not where you live but where they understand you. ~Christian Morgenstern Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in. ~Robert Frost, The Death
Where is Home?
home via Webster's Dictionary noun \ˈhōm\ : the place (such as a house or apartment) where a person lives : a family living together in one building, house, etc. : a place where something normally or naturally lives or is located But where is HOME? Since we moved, I have used this word a lot. The place we live is our home. The house we came
How To Have a Pop Star Party
I am so excited! The Voice returns.this week! "The Voice" returns with the strongest vocalists from across the country invited to compete in the blockbuster vocal competition show's sixth season. Celebrity musicians and coaches Adam Levine, Shakira, Usher and Blake Shelton return, while Carson Daly continues to serve as host. The show's innovative format features four stages of competition: the blind auditions, the battle rounds,


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Lake Station Jobs
Looking for jobs in Lake Station? Snagajob has great opportunities with the area's leading companies. And applying for Lake Station jobs has never been easier. Look at the job listings below, click on a job title that interests you and hit the "apply now" button. Part-time jobs, teen jobs, student jobs and summer jobs are now just a click away. Start your job search now.
Lake Station, IN Job Openings
Denny's1401 Ripley Rd.
Lake Station, IN
Wendy's3420 Central Avenue
Lake Station, IN
Wendy's3420 Central Avenue
Lake Station, IN
Family DollarLake Station, IN
Lake Station, IN
Pilot Flying J1401 Ripley Street
Lake Station, IN
TRAVELCENTERS of AmericaI-80/I-94, Exit 15 B
Lake Station, IN
Cities within 20 miles of Lake Station, IN
- Merrillville, IN (230 jobs)
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- Gary, IN (115 jobs)
- Hammond, IN (109 jobs)
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- Portage, IN (84 jobs)
- Chicago, IL (84 jobs)
- Chesterton, IN (78 jobs)
- Calumet City, IL (75 jobs)
- Munster, IN (52 jobs)


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Men's Tennis
Gonzaga vs. Northern Arizona
Sat., Feb 1
Tucson, AZ
Robson Tennis Center
Robson Tennis Center
Tucson, AZ
Watch Info
Not Available
Not Available
Not Available on App
Not Available on App
Not Available on App
More: Gonzaga vs. Northern Arizona - Men's Tennis
Maasland Wins Hansen Medal
Daan Maasland has been named one of Oregon's two Tom Hansen Conference Medal winners, the Pac-12 announced Tuesday.
Bricio and de Vroome Receive Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medals
USC seniors Max de Vroome and Samantha Bricio were each awarded 2015-16 Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medals as announced by the league on Tuesday, June 28.
Shields Hires Alex Emery as Assistant Coach
Head men's tennis coach Clancy Shields has hired Alex Emery to be his assistant coach for the upcoming 2016-17 season.
UCLA claims NCAA singles and doubles titles
Pac-12 tennis student-athletes swept the singles and doubles titles at the 2016 NCAA Tennis Championships. Mackenzie McDonald of UCLA won the men's singles crown and then paired with Martin Redlicki to take home the men's doubles championship. McDonald's singles title was the second in the last three years for UCLA after Marcos Giron won it in 2014 and is the Pac-12's 45th all-time. The duo claimed the Conferences' first men's doubles championship since USC in 2008 and the first for UCLA since 1996. The Pac-12 has now claimed 57 all-time NCAA doubles titles.
UCLA opens up Arthur Ashe Exhibit
UCLA recently opened up an Arthur Ashe exhibit, honoring the first African American men's tennis player on campus. (Courtesy of the Cronkite Sports Bureau)
McDonald to Turn Professional
Men's tennis player to forego his senior season of eligibility.


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RATINGS: 298 WEIGHTED AVG: 3.82/5 SEASONAL: Winter EST. CALORIES: 285 ABV: 9.5%
As the Colorado hop growers prove they can produce world class hops, we as a Colorado craft brewer want to showcase what our state can offer, not only with the ingredients used in crafting them. Mountain Standard Double Black IPA showcases the homegrown hops our brewers helped pick from farms along Colorados western slope. MST pours committingly dark with a light brown head and a slightly roasted hoppy nose. An ephemeral bitterness, the result of combining roasted malts with an assertive American hop profile, contributes to MSTs act of balance and harmony within nature or your glass. As the seasons darkness sets in why shouldnt your beer become darker as well?
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In other action
Published: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 11:40 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 11:52 a.m.
The following is a rundown of action taken by the Terrebonne Parish Council during its Budget and Finance Committee meeting Monday. All council members were in attendance. All decisions were unanimous.
Action: Bought $15,600 of electrical wire from Techline Inc., $12,600 worth from HD Supply Utilities and $43,309 worth from Stuart C. Irby Co.
Action: Signed the building lease between the parish government, the Terrebonne Council on Aging and Allstate Insurance Company.
Notes: The year-long lease allows the Council on Aging to have its office in the Allstate building on West Tunnel Boulevard. The rent is $1,750 per month, money paid by the parish government.
Action: Hired LaTech Security Solutions for $66,000 to provide equipment and install a security system, including cameras, for the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse.
Action: Approved Parish President Michel Claudet to extend a $28,250 contract with START Corporation from Dec. 31, 2007, to June 20, 2008.
Notes: The parish provided the money as startup costs for a mental-health resource and advocacy center. START is asking for more time to finish using $12,663 remaining in the contract.
Action: Encouraged the Terrebonnes legislative delegation to pursue increasing the severance-tax base currently capped under the states disbursement of oil-and-gas severance taxes.
Notes: The Parish Council is asking for the cap to be raised from $850,000 to $2.9 million. The cap is on parishes that collect in excess of $4.25 million in oil-and-gas severance taxes. For 2007, the parish collected $75 million within its boundaries.
Action: Proposed amending the 2008 budget to recognize money from a state community-assistance grant program. Called a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. March 26.
Notes: The grant will be split, with $35,000 going to a Terrebonne Council on Aging Van, $29,320 to JaDon Drive drainage improvements, money for lighting on the downtown twin spans, $13,000 for improvements at Veterans Park on La. 311 and $45,480 to purchase an Indian mound in Dulac.
Action: Proposed amending the 2008 budget and five-year capital improvements budget to put an additional $738,100 toward building a bridge across Little Bayou Black at La. 311 and Equity Boulevard.
Notes: The bridge was originally going to be two lanes, but Claudet wants to change it to four lanes to accommodate projected future traffic needs. The new budget for engineering and construction is roughly $1.29 million.
Action: Proposed transferring the parishs Pollution Control Division, currently under the Utilities Department. to the Public Works Department. Called a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. March 26.
Action: Proposed consolidating the parishs Risk Management and Human Resources departments, with one director overseeing both. Called a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. March 26.
Action: Proposed amending the 2008 budget to hire more staff in the Public Works Department.
The following is a rundown of action taken by the Terrebonne Parish Council during its Policy Procedure and Legal Committee meeting Monday. All council members were in attendance. All decisions were unanimous.
Action: Held for two weeks whether to accept casualty insurance renewals.
Notes: Information packets were given to the council a few hours before Mondays meeting started. Quotes for contractors pollution liability were not included.
Action: Held for two weeks whether to decrease Mardi Gras review stand permit fees.
Notes: Pat Gordon, parish planning-and-zoning director, said his staff reviewed permit fees and the expenses associated with Mardi Gras stand inspections and permit processing. He recommends the fee decrease from $100 to $50, and he plans to have a proposal ready in two weeks.
Action: Agreed with lawyers advice for handling a lawsuit against the parish.
Notes: Councilmen Clayton Voisin, Leland Robichaux, Joey Cehan, Billy Hebert and Johnny Pizzolatto voted for it. Councilwoman Arlanda Williams abstained. Council members Teri Cavalier, Pete Lambert and Alvin Tillman voted against the measure. The council met behind closed doors to discuss the lawsuit, which stems from the 2005 denial of a building permit for NDR Enterprises L.L.C, which had planned to build a truck-stop casino in Gray.
The following is a rundown of action taken by the Terrebonne Parish Council during its Public Services Committee meeting Monday. All council members were in attendance. All decisions were unanimous.
Action: Hired Volute Inc. for $681,000 to work on the fuel-containment systems for 17 parish-owned drainage-pump stations.
Action: Approved a reimbursement agreement with the state Transportation Department for dredging and weir removal on Bayou Terrebonne.
Notes: The state will reimburse the parish up to 90 percent of construction costs.
Action: Voted not to amend the parishs agreement with Volute Inc. for pump-station fuel-containment work by removing $70,500 from the $681,000 contract.
Notes: The parish-hired engineering company, GSE Associates, recommended that one pump station be eliminated from the list to keep costs down. Voisin said he believes all the pump stations need the work and, since costs likely wont decrease in the future, he wants the work done now.
Action: Notified the state Department of Environmental Quality that parish government reviewed its environmental audit and will implement the recommended actions.
Notes: The parishs wastewater-treatment plant on Clinton Street was audited by the state. The report says the parish must continue to locate and correct sources of inflow and infiltration, reduce sources of overflow and unpermitted discharges, monitor users and ensure they comply with laws.
Action: Hired Milford & Associates Inc. to provide professional engineering services to build a bridge over Bayou Little Black, across from Equity Boulevard and La. 311.
Action: Hired NALCO for $275,000 to perform chemical treatment for water boilers at the Houma Power Plant.
Action: Accepted completed work by Phylway Construction L.L.C. for work on the south Houma wastewater-treatment plant.
Action: Hired URS Corporation of New Orleans to perform technical review and guidance of Houma Power Plant operations and maintenance.
Action: Approved a memo of understanding with the state Transportation Department to construct turning lanes and required drainage at La. 20 and La. 648 and La. 648 and Audubon Drive.
Notes: The parish government is required to pay up to $330,000 of the cost.
Discussion: Talked about cleaning the bayous and the parish governments efforts to work with state and federal government agencies to remove fallen trees and sunken ships.
Action: Asked the state Transportation Department to determine whether a traffic signal should be installed at the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Corporate Drive.
Action: Asked the state Transportation Department to study whether the speed limit should be lowered to 40 mph on Martin Luther King Boulevard between Hollywood Road and the Holiday Inn.
Action: Asked parish staff to install no-littering signs along the south portion of Falgout Canal Road.
Action: Councilman Pete Lambert, with the councils approval, asked parish staff to study problems in canals that drain Klondyke Road and those that feed the upper Montegut, Smithridge and Aragon Road pump stations.
The following is a rundown of action taken by the Terrebonne Parish Council during its Community Development and Planning Committee meeting Monday. All council members were in attendance. All decisions were unanimous.
Action: Approved a $300,000 loan to the Terrebonne Council on Aging for apartments the agency plans to build behind the Shady Acres Senior Center in Bayou Cane.
Notes: The loan comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for state governments and nonprofits that build, buy or rehabilitate affordable housing for low-income people.
Action: Approved an intergovernmental agreement with the Houma-Terrebonne Housing Authority to purchase vandal shields for the street lights in Senator Circle, a public-housing neighborhood.
Action: Asked staff to implement a prescription-discount card program that helps under- and uninsured residents get discounts on medication.
Notes: The program was discovered while council members attended the National Association of Counties Convention in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. The program is free to taxpayers and citizens because the parish government is an association member
Discussion: Mike Ferdinand, Terrebonne Economic Development Authority executive director, gave a presentation of the groups annual report, as required under its agreement with the parish government.
Action: Proposed rezoning land along Alma Street from single-family residential to neighborhood commercial and called a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. April 9.
Notes: The landowner, B & T Leasing, wants to build a mini-storage business.
Action: Proposed rezoning land along Cottage Drive between Mystic Boulevard and Angelle Circle from multi-family residential to neighborhood commercial.
and called a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. April 9.
Action: Proposed rezoning the north part of Captains Court, a planned commercial development, from several types of land use to neighborhood commercial, and called a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. April 9.
Action: Proposed rezoning the south part of Captains Court from several types of land use to light commercial and called a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. April 9.
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$players = array(
new Player('psycketom'),
new Player('stackexchanger'),
new Player('max')
Usually, in order to get something out of every object within array, we have to use for / foreach.
foreach ($players as $player)
var_dump( $player->score );
But, since it's a repetitive task, is there a way to shortcut it to something along these imaginary lines(?):
var_dump( every( $players )->score );
every( $players )->score += 40;
Since I have not seen such a feature for php, is there a way to implement it?
I have asked the question using php as main language, but the language-agnostic and programming-languages stand for the second part of the question: what languages support such or at least similar shorthand?


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17 vehicles matched;
Now showing page 1 of 2. 10 results per page.
Listed by Champion Auto Sales
1948 Chevrolet 3200 pickup, upgraded motor to 235 six cyl. 4 speed transmission floor shift, some rust in front quarter
Listed by Private Seller
Camero Subframe, Brand new 350 Engine, Most of the parts are there to finish out, including air cond.
Listed by Legendary Motors LLC
1946 Chevrolet 3600 Pickup Truck; the Chevrolet Pickup trucks from 1941-1946 were considered trucks produced in the Art Deco truck
Listed by Classic Rides And Rods
1946 Chevrolet Pick up, 350 V 8, 400 Turbo Trans, 10 Bolt Rearend, Mustang 2 Front, Power Steering, Power Disk
Listed by Mecum Auctions (Auction)
This vehicle is being sold as Lot No. F205. - Less than 200 miles on new 301 CI engine - New transmission -
Listed by Street Dreams Texas
1946 Chevrolet Pickup Green 46-4077P Welcome to StreetDreamsTexas as we celebrate our 17th year in the classic and muscle car
Listed by Streetside Classics - Charlotte
It only gets better the digger you deep into this 1946 Chevrolet pickup. Beyond the cool blue exterior is
Listed by C & C Auto Sales
1947 Chevrolet 1 1/2 ton, dual rear wheel truck.... SOLID Cab and Chassis ...She is running and she stops .....
Listed by Old Town Automobile
Frame-off restoration using late model GM 1-ton chassis, 454 engine with turbo 400 automatic transmission with a Gear Vendors overdrive
Listed by Velvet Hammer Motorcars
1948 Chevrolet Stepside Pickup. This pickup is finished in beautiful Riverside Red paint accented by a Gray interior. It is


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The international oil shipping services provider, which paid Bretta Tanker Holdings $15.1 million in the second quarter of 2016, saw profits for the first half of 2016 slip 11.3 percent year-over-year to $153.7 million.
The Port of New York and New Jersey, which experienced the second busiest June ever for box volumes, was called by a 10,077-TEU containership at the GCT Bayonne Terminal.
The U.S. gross domestic product increased 1.2 percent in the second quarter of 2016, according to the "advance" estimate from the Department of Commerce, following a revised increase of just 0.8 percent in the first quarter.
Registration takes less than 1 minute.
Ocean carrier Hyundai Merchant Marine, which has been struggling to turn a profit in recent years, signed a memorandum of understanding with 2M Alliance members Maersk Line and MSC to join their major east-west vessel sharing agreement.
U.S. beef producers and exporters now have access to Saudi Arabian consumers after nearly four years of being shut out of the Middle Eastern market due to the detection of an "atypical" case of "mad cow" disease in 2012.
A ship carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States became the first LNG carrier to pass through the enlarged Panama Canal on Monday.


text: This is probably a simple task but I'm struggling and could use a hand. I've got a post category with several subcategories. Posts will not appear in the main category but will appear in the subcategories. I'd like to dynamically generate, on a page, the title of each sub category followed by the posts in that sub category. I don't know if I need to use get_the_category or wp_list_cats or something else. I'm also getting all twisted in my loop. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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Free personalized radio that
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Ste. Tropez
Features of This Tracksmooth jazz elements
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a melodic acoustic guitar solo
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strong melodies
a groove oriented approach
major tonality
These are just a few of the hundreds of attributes cataloged for this track by the Music Genome Project.show more
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Our friends over at Rough Cut – Woodworking with Tommy Mac have announced the More
Our friends over at Rough Cut – Woodworking with Tommy Mac have announced the More
By the title, one might think that this blog is about problems in woodworking. On the contrary, "Wood Frustrations" is about creating problem solving in woodworking. "Woodcrafted" puzzle solving that …More
Apollo HVLP-Woodcraft Partnership Includes Educational Focus
Understanding how a tool works is the key to ensuring its optimum performance. With that in mind, Apollo HVLP …
With a few months left in the United States Marine Corps, after serving our country in Iraq, Sgt. Guy Bucey is setting up shop on another goal. …More
This is Larry Bilderback of Dayton, Ohio with his side business, Bilderback Woodworks. He builds fine furniture by incorporating relief carvings into his 18th century designs. Below Larry …More
Michael Scott Morton or just "Morton" as he prefers to be called, has been designing and building furniture for over ten years. Located in Harvard, …More


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LOT #21883 |Sold for: Sign-in or Join (free & quick)
1858 P1C Indian Cent, Judd-208, Pollock-254, PR63 NGC. Snow-PT35, R.7. There are four notable subvarieties of Judd-208; the...Click the image to load the highest resolution version.
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Transitional 1858 Indian Cent Pattern Rare Pollock-254, Snow-PT35 Subvariety1858 P1C Indian Cent, Judd-208, Pollock-254, PR63 NGC. Snow-PT35, R.7. There are four notable subvarieties of Judd-208; these include each combination of narrow or broad bust point obverses paired with either five or six leaf cluster laurel wreath reverses. The present piece pairs the narrow bust point obverse with a six leaf clusters wreath reverse. Struck in copper-nickel with a plain edge. Snow states, "Rare and popular as the true transitional - The exact style of 1859." This well struck light golden-brown specimen is pleasing despite a few faint slide marks on the neck and cheekbone and a tiny spot within the C in CENT. (NGC ID# 29BP, PCGS# 11884)
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News and Notes
Jul 12, 2016
Heather Howard recently discussed the status of the Affordable Care Act and its impact in New Jersey on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show.
Jul 12, 2016
GHP News, Shared
The five-year, $500,000 award will fund research on his topic, "breaking species barriers of human hepatotropic pathogens."
Jul 6, 2016
A new article co-authored by James Trussell highlights the need to resolve Zika research funding disputes in order to address the public health threat.
Jun 30, 2016
Anne Case and Angus Deaton spoke about recent trends in mortality rates for middle-aged white Americans, and potential policy implications.
Jun 27, 2016
A new study co-authored by James Trussell finds that pregnant women in Latin American countries were more likely to seek an abortion after receiving health alerts about Zika virus.
Jun 17, 2016
Research co-authored by Janet Currie has been highlighted in a New York Times article on improvement in the health of American children.
Jun 15, 2016
Angus Deaton has written an article rethinking the philosophies guiding aid for international development.
Jun 3, 2016
A New York Times article quotes Professor Anne Case on life expectancy trends among white Americans.
Jun 1, 2016
At the Brown University Commencement ceremony, Professor Angus Deaton was presented with an honorary doctorate.
Jun 1, 2016
With a commentary in the Wall Street Journal, Professor Uwe Reinhardt honors veterans in recognition of Memorial Day.


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Kevin Seitzer hired as hitting coach of Blue Jays
Updated: October 31, 2013, 4:24 PM ETAssociated Press
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Champagne and two glasses by fireplace
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Champagne And Two Glasses By Fireplace Stock PhotoAlcohol,Armchair,Bottle,Celebration,Chair,Champagne,Champagne Flute,Colour Image,Dusk,Fire - Natural Phenomenon,Fireplace,Food and Drink,Glowing,Ice Bucket,Indoors,Light - Natural Phenomenon,Living Room,Night,No People,Photography,Romance,Side Table,VerticalPhotographer JRLCollection: Photolibrary © Jeremy Liebman


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"Ballard's enjoyable new book illuminates the missing gap in the story of the crucial Vicksburg Campaign in the Western Theater. A distinguished historian of Civil War Mississippi and Vicksburg, Ballard turns his expertise to a searching examination of the forty-seven-day siege that preceded the surrender of the 'Gibraltar of the Confederacy' from the perspective of Major General U. S. Grant. In this highly readable, superbly researched account, the reader learns of the challenges, pitfalls, and mistakes made by the Union commander directing the massive operation of June and July 1863. Grant at Vicksburg is an essential volume to add to any Civil War bookshelf."Joan Waugh, author of U.S. Grant, American Hero, American Myth
"No one knows more about the titanic struggle for Vicksburg than Ballard, and no one has ever penned a better account of U. S. Grant's role in that struggle. Perceptive, balanced, and thoroughly researched, this is a model 'campaign biography' of an emerging military leader."William L. Shea, coauthor of Vicksburg Is the Key


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Dogs for Sale in 30002(1 - 15 of 6,184)
$275 Beagle PuppiesBeagle · Atlanta, GATricolor 13 inch beagles 10 weeks oldStephan T. · 6 hours ago
$1,000 AKC German Shepherd PuppiesGerman Shepherd · Braselton, GABeautiful AKC pure white German Shepherd puppies being raised with a ton of love around adults and small children. They will come with 1s...Christine G. · 1 day ago
$600 MaltipooHampton, GA… male. White $600.00 Ready to go 8-12-16. Will come with shots and wormings. Will finish puppy shots for free if you bring him ba...Sky W. · 2 days ago
$25 Dogs varietyHampton, GAWe still have several dogs that need homes. County says they have to go. Please help if you can. Several long hair Dachshunds English cr...Sky W. · 3 days ago
$650 Miniature schnauzersMiniature Schnauzer · Bremen, GAAkc miniature schnauzers. They all have tails docked, dewclaws removed. Akc reg papers. Utd on shots. As of july 25 i have available 1 ma...Leigh F. · 5 days ago
$1,500 English Crème Golden Retriever PuppyGolden Retriever · Atlanta, GAI have a English Crème Golden Retriever puppy, 8 weeks old, Champion bloodline. Grandparents were imported and were registered with the ...Jiayue D. · 5 days ago
$699 Tiny WillowPomeranian · Atlanta, GABeautiful baby girl Willow. Parti white with beige. Charting around 4 pounds. Current on shots and wormings. Ready in 2 weeks.Karen W. · 5 days ago
$899 Tiny teacup ThumbelinaPomeranian · Atlanta, GABeautiful teacup tiny Thumbelina she is a loving precious puppy Sable color poem she has registration papers will be current on shots and...Karen W. · 6 days ago
$800 Adorable! Quality! Healthy! Dachshund puppies, Ready to go home now! 9 weeksDachshund · Athens, GABeautiful smooth shiny coats, very sweet with great personalities too. Born on 05/25/2016. 1 females and 4 males. Chocolate and tans..and...Dantzler's Dachshunds · 3 days ago
$800 German shepherd for stud service OFA Certified Hips and Elbow ReadGerman Shepherd · Atlanta, GAZamp grandson for stud. AKC registered. 100% West German ShowlineHe has excellent temperament, beautiful pigment and body movement. Produ...Hatem A. · 1 week ago
$400 Bruno the studPoodle · Griffin, GAThis is Bruno, when Bruno was a pup he was more of a sable color he had black in his ears white under his neck and his body was creme. No...Shae S. · 1 week ago
$500 black cocker spaniel boyCocker Spaniel · Griffin, GAGorgeous Ckc spaniel puppies. Born 4/26/16 currently 12weeks old. This baby is so beautifully and uniquely marked with black coat and whi...Shae S. · 1 week ago
$1,500 English Mastiff puppiesMastiff · Monticello, GABridget Cleopatra (145 lbs)and Clay(175lbs) have had 6 boys and 4 girls that will be ready for new homes the week of 9/20/16 .These pups ...Karen W. · 1 week ago
$600 Teacup Yorkie PupsToy Poodle · Ellenwood, GAEnergetic Yorkie pups available for re-homing These pups are socialized, current vaccinations / dewormed, and veterinarian health guarant...Amanda L. · 1 week ago
$700 Miniature Dachshund puppiesDachshund · Atlanta, GABeautiful CKC longhair Black Piebald male is looking for his forever home. He was born July 7, is up to date on shots and paper trained. ...Debbie N. ·1 listing · 2 weeks ago
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Sierra Leone Endures In the Grip of Civil War
Published: November 19, 2000
(Page 2 of 2)
Oluyemi Adeniji, the United Nations special envoy to Sierra Leone, said diplomatic progress had been made with the 30-day cease-fire, which should allow the peacekeepers to go anywhere, including Kono, the rebel-held diamond mining district in the eastern part of the country.
United Nations officials were also planning to meet with R.U.F. leaders ''once there is an understanding between the two parties that Unamsil is not a party to the fighting,'' Mr. Adeniji said, referring to the United Nations force here, despite pressures on the peacekeepers to become more aggressive militarily.
The government wants the United Nations force to deploy immediately in rebel-held areas, said Julius Spencer, the government spokesman. But Mr. Adeniji said the United Nations lacked the troops to do so, and the United Nations has made clear that it will enter rebel areas only once the cease-fire has taken hold.
Potential trouble for the United Nations force comes at a time when the war here has widened into a regional conflict. The three countries in this corner of West Africa -- Sierra Leone, Liberia to the south and Guinea to the north and east -- share porous borders; all have been involved in one another's conflicts.
Liberia's president, Charles Taylor, has long been regarded as the main backer of the R.U.F.; he has also supported rebels opposed to the government of Guinea. In turn, Guinea has harbored Liberian rebels opposed to Mr. Taylor, fueling a conflict along the border that has killed hundreds in the last two months.
Military officials in Freetown say Mr. Taylor has used the rebels here to attack Liberian dissidents in Guinea, which in turn has retaliated with assaults on Sierra Leoneans on either side of the border between Sierra Leone and Guinea. This fighting has brought yet another warring party to Sierra Leonean soil, which has already been carved up by militias with shifting alliances.
The Occra Hills, just north of the road leading into Masiaka, had become the sphere of the West Side Boys, many of whom are former soldiers and allies of the R.U.F. Masiaka, devastated several times in recent years, had been hit most recently in May during the R.U.F.'s failed attempt to seize Freetown.
But no sooner had residents installed new zinc roofs given to them by Catholic Relief Services than the West Side Boys attacked in July. Many seized the zinc roofs, which they were later seen selling in Freetown. Masiaka, normally home to several thousand people, was deserted by all but a couple hundred.
Still, the West Side Boys had begun to weaken. After visiting Colonel Rambo's family in August in Freetown, Colonel Alwedyan persuaded him to surrender.
''Yes, the Jordanians are my friends now,'' Colonel Rambo said. ''That's why I came here to talk to them before they leave. I want to go to Jordan with them.''
Mustapha Sankoh, 35, a Masiaka resident who lost two daughters during attacks in recent years, said he would be happy to see Colonel Rambo leave. ''Rambo is not a good man,'' he said. ''He's a bad man, who has done many wicked things in the bush. But he has come out, so we must accept him for now.''
The West Side Boys' reign turned in late August when they took 11 British soldiers hostage. After about 150 British soldiers freed the hostages in a raid on the West Side Boys' camp, militia members fled the area.
Nearly 3,000 residents then returned to Masiaka, finding freshly damaged houses, new destruction heaped atop the old. The Italian priest who used to come for Sunday Mass at Our Lady Queen of Peace parish has not been seen since December 1998; the Roman Catholics now improvise on Sundays.
The Jordanians have since helped residents rebuild their mosque. They added a new layer of concrete to the walls and erected a plywood barrier in the back, creating a separate space for women, a custom not normally observed here.
A street led to a deserted two-story, yellow building that had once served as Masiaka's community center. Two vultures resting on its roof flapped away together. ''No condition is permanent,'' read the bumper sticker on a broken-down truck several young men were pushing.
''When the Jordanians leave, we want other foreigners to come and occupy Masiaka,'' said Abubakar Bangura, 23, the brother of Amara Bangura. He added that, like most residents here, he did not want government soldiers in Masiaka. Many soldiers participated in an attack on Masiaka in January 1999 on their way to ravaging Freetown.
''They are our brothers,'' Abubakar Bangura said, ''but they have not been good to us.''
Photos: In Masiaka, 50 miles from Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital, Jordanian peacekeepers welcome the leader of the West Side Boys known as Colonel Rambo, who has agreed to join the government's soldiers in training.; Nearly 3,000 have returned to Masiaka since a rebel defeat this summer. (Photographs by Toru Morimoto for The New York Times) Map of Sierra Leone highlighting Masiaka: Masiaka has been patched up repeatedly over nine years of war.