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User Reviews
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1992 GMC Sierra 2500 2 Dr C2500 Extended Cab LBReview
Reviews From Other Years
2004 GMC Sierra 2500 Reviews
it is the bomb it is the best truck you could own it dosnt suck gas like most trucks it is very power full it cost only like 44,000 dollers it is the best to drive i would recommend it to every one in... Read More
2001 GMC Sierra 2500 Reviews
Best Vehicle Ever Owned Gets The Job Done
like the way it seemingly makes the ride seem slower than the speedometer says and the ease in which it accelerates when loaded.dislike how the engine doesnt seem to drink any less fuel when riding em... Read More
2000 GMC Sierra 2500 Reviews
not a bad truck at all, the 6.0 396 c.i. motor has plenty of power but loves to suck down the gas (11-14mpg best) fuel pump went at 110,590 miles but i guess thats common on these trucks. Read More
1999 GMC Sierra 2500 Reviews
1999 GMC Sierra K2500 Crew Cab SLT with grey leather. 4WD on the floor. 2002 GMC rims. Shortbox with foot holes. TX truck with 208000 miles on original engine. Have had no problems with it. Bought ... Read More
1998 GMC Sierra 2500 Reviews
I Was Very Impressed With This Vehicle It Is Very Reliable.
I liked the off road capabilities, the power, the size, durability, space, and appearance as well as the alpha presence on the road. the seating is also very nice with the back seat being able to fol... Read More
Its Awsome
I bought this truck because i wanted a nice truck with air conditioning and ya know power windows that stuff. also i needed a tow rigg for my camaro in case it breaks at the track it does pretty good ... Read More


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Alexandria Library Company - A Brief Historical Sketch
The Alexandria Library Company was founded on July 24, 1794, at John Wise's house. A week later the members met in Wise's long room -- upstairs in the smaller section of today's Gadsby's Tavern -- to elect officers. The Reverend James Muir was elected president, Samuel Craig, treasurer, and Edward Stabler, librarian. On January 9, 1799, the Alexandria Library Company was chartered by the General Assembly of Virginia.
The Company's first address is thought to have been Mr. Stabler's Apothecary Shop on Fairfax Street. Known subsequent locations included the second floor of the old City Hall, the Lyceum at 201 South Washington Street (now Alexandria's historical museum), Peabody Hall -- a girl's school on North Alfred Street and the Confederate Veterans' Lee Camp Hall at 806 Prince Street. The Company's first acquisition was the American Encyclopedia. Its rare book collection was begun in 1822 with Miller's The Gardener's Dictionary, which had been presented to Dr. Craik by General George Washington.
Through a century and a quarter, the Company flourished as a subscription library: annual fee, four dollars. Its successor today is the City's public library, with which the Company continues to maintain close ties. Three of its members are elected to serve on the seven member Alexandria Library Board. Three citizens and a member of the Alexandria City Council comprise the remainder of the Board. The Library's Local History/Special Collections division maintains the extant portion of the Company's collection of books. About one-fifth of the collection was lost during the Civil War.
In 1937, Dr. Robert South Barrett donated funds to erect a public library in memory of his mother, Dr. Kate Waller Barrett. The Society of Friends granted a 99-year lease for use of its old Quaker Burial Ground on Queen Street as a site for the new building. Also, the Company signed an agreement with the Alexandria City Council, turning over its collections to the city. The city agreed to include operating expenses for the public library in its budget.
Once a year, the Alexandria Library Company turns back the clock to a more tranquil time. During the days of the young America, lectures delivered by erudite men (and only men in those times) were a popular form of entertainment and enlightenment among Alexandrians. Records indicate such men as Benjamin Hallowell and John Quincy Adams as speakers. This pleasant tradition is carried on by the Alexandria Library Company. Its annual lecture, based always on some aspect of history, life or culture of the South, is presented by an outstanding scholar, historian or creative writer. The black tie event draws hundreds and is a highlight of the spring in Alexandria.
In 2008, Charles F. Bryan, Jr., President and CEO of The Virginia Historical Society, gave a lecture on the books that changed the course of American History. Click here for a list of the books recognized as those that changed America forever.
The Company Lecture Series and Records are indexed in Local History / Special Collections Archives. Here are two bibliographic titles on our online catalog:
- Lecture series : [transcripts of the audiotapes made of the scholars invited to speak at these annual lectures] / sponsored by the] Alexandria Library Company.
- Records : of the Alexandria Library Company, 1794-1990.
William Seale's full-color history book of the Alexandria Library Company is also available as a reference item or for purchase. Nearly 150 pages, it is a must for those interested in Alexandria history.
A bibliography is also available of over 3,000 titles that were a part of the original collection comprising the Alexandria Library under the Alexandria Library Company. You can view the list online by author (*=represents multiple authors) or by date.

subset: commoncrawl


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Works, with a sketch of his life and writings by Mangin, E. 19 vols. 1811.
Novels. In Ballantynes Novelists Library, with a life by Sir Walter Scott. 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1824.
Ed. Stephen, L., with a prefatory chapter of biographical criticism. 12 vols. 1883.
With introduction by McKenna, E. M. M. 20 vols. 1902.
Complete Novels. With life by Phelps, W. H. 18 vols. New York, 19013.
A Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions, and Reflections, contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison, digested under proper heads. 1755.
Pamela, or Virtue rewarded. In a series of familiar letters from a beautiful young damsel to her parents. 2 vols. 1740. 4 vols. 17412. 10th edn. 1771. Abridged 1817. Rptd. 1891. Transl. into French by Prévost d'Exiles, A. F. 4 vols. Amsterdam, 17423. Another version, 1771.
The following are the direct adaptations of Pamela for the French stage: Boissy, Louis de, Paméla en France, ou La Vertu mieux éprouvée, Paris, 1745. Voltaire, Nanine, Paris, 1749. Neufchâteau, François de, Paméla, Paris, 1795. Goldonis adaptations for the Italian stage, Pamela Fanciulla and Pamela Maritata, both appeared in 1750.
An Apology for the life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, in which the many notorious falsehoods and misrepresentations of a book called Pamela are exposed. By Conny Keyber. 1741.
As to Fieldings Joseph Andrews, see bibl. to Chap. II, post.
Pamela censured in a letter to the Editor, shewing that under the specious pretence of cultivating the principles of virtue
the most artful and alluring amorous ideas are conveyed
. 1741.
Pamelas conduct in high life. (Sequel to Richardsons novel.) 1741.
Povey, C. The Virgin in Eden. To which are added Pamelas Letters proved to be immodest romances. 1741.
Clarissa; or the History of a young Lady, comprehending the most important concerns of private life, and particularly shewing the distresses that may attend the misconduct both of parents and children in relation to marriage, published by the Editor of Pamela. 7 vols. 1748. 2nd edn., 8 vols., 174951; 7th edn., 8 vols., 1774. In Mrs. Barbaulds British Novelists, with prefaces biographical and critical. 1810. Abridged by Dallas, E. S. 1868. Rptd. 1890. Transl. into French by Le Tourneur, P. 10 vols. Geneva, 17856. Transl. into French by Prévost d'Exiles, A. F. 2 vols. Paris, 18456. Transl. into French by Janin, J. 2 vols. Brussels, 1846. Transl. into Italian. 5 vols. Venice, 17836. Transl. into Dutch by Stinstra, John. 8 vols. Harlingen, 17523. Stinstras correspondence with Richardson is printed in vol. V of Mrs. Barbaulds edition of Richardsons correspondence (see sec. III, post).
Remarks on Clarissa addressed to the author. 1749.
The History of Sir Charles Grandison in a series of Letters published from the originals by the Editor of Pamela and Clarissa. 7 vols. 1754. 2nd edn. to which is added a brief history of the treatment which the author has met with from certain booksellers and printers in Dublin, 1754; 3rd edn. 1755; 7th edn. 1776; 8th edn. 1796. In Mrs. Barbaulds British Novelists, with prefaces biographical and critical. 1810. New and abridged edition by Howitt, M. 1873.
Letters from Sir Charles Grandison. Selected with a biographical introduction and connecting notes by Saintsbury, G. 2 vols. 1895. Transl. into French by Prévost d'Exiles, A. F. 4 vols. Amsterdam, 1784. Imitated in German. Eisenach, 17602. Transl. into Italian. 4 vols. Venice, 17849. Transl. into Spanish. 6 vols. Madrid, 1798.
A candid examination of The History of Sir Charles Grandison. 1754.
Critical remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela, enquiring whether they have a tendency to corrupt or improve the public taste and morals. In a letter to the author by a Lover of Virtue. 1754.
For a list of plays in English, French, German and Italian, founded on Richardsons novels, see, also, the bibliography in Samuel Richardson, by Thomson, Miss C. L., mentioned under sec. V, post.
Correspondence, to which are prefixed a biographical account of the author, and observations on his writings, by Barbauld, A. L. 6 vols. 1804. Mrs. Barbaulds life transl. into French, 1808.
For an account of the Forster collection of Richardsons correspondence preserved in the South Kensington Museum, see the bibliography in Miss Thomsons work mentioned below.
The negociations with the Ottoman Porte from 1621 to 1628. By Sir Thomas Roe. Ed. by S. Richardson. 1740.
Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain. (By Defoe.) With considerable additions [by Richardson]. 4 vols. 1742. Other ends.: 1753, 1769; 8th edn., 1778; 9th edn., Dublin, 1779.
Boas, F. S. Richardsons novels and their influence. Essays and studies by members of the English Association. Vol. II. Oxford, 1911.
Cross, W. The Development of the English Novel. (Chap. II. The 18th century realists.) New York, 1899.
Dibelius, W. Englische Romankunst. Die Technik d. engl. Romans im 18. u. zu Angfang d. 19. Jahrh. Vol. I. Berlin, 1910.
Diderot, D. Éloge de Richardson. 1761. Rptd. in uvres complètes, vol. V. Paris, 1875.
Dobson, A. Richardson at home. Eighteenth Century Vignettes. 2nd series. 1894.
Richardson. (English Men of Letters.) 1902.
Donner, J. O. E. Richardson in der deutschen Romantik. Weimar [1896].
Hazlitt, W. On the English novelists. English Comic Writers, v. Works, edd. Glover, A., and Waller, A. R., vol. VIII. 1903.
Hettner, H. Litteraturgesch, d. 18. Jahrh.: I. Gesch. d. Engl. Literatur, 16601770. 2nd edn. Brunswick, 1865. (Bk. III, part II, chap. I, sec. I, Richardson u. der moralisirende Familienroman.)
Jeffrey, Francis, Lord. Samuel Richardson. Edinburgh Review. Oct., 1804. Rptd. 1853.
Jusserand, J. Le Roman Anglais. Origines et Formation des Grandes Écoles de Romanciers du 18me siècle. Paris, 1886.
Nichols, J. Samuel Richardson. Literary Anecdotes, IV, 578598. 1812.
Poetzsche, E. Samuel Richardsons Belesenheit. Kieler Studien zur englischen Philologie. Kiel, 1908.
Schmidt, E. Richardson, Rousseau, und Goethe. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Romans im 18. Jahrhundert. Jena, 1875.
Texte, J. Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme Littéraire. (Bk. II, chap. II: Popularité européenne du Roman Anglais; chap. III: L'uvre de Samuel Richardson; chap. IV: Rousseau et le Roman Anglais.) Paris, 1895. Eng. trans. by Matthews, J. W. 1899.
Thomson, C. L. Samuel Richardson: a biographical and critical study. 1900. [Contains a useful bibliography.]


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Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with your family and friends.
This year I hope to make a few changes – not so much "new years resolutions" because I feel like those don't ever stick and people feel obligated to make one with out the intention of keeping it. These will be more along the lines of continual adjustments. So I've decided on a few things to "work on" this year and they include: getting in better shape (working out, eating healthier, etc.), making more vegetable based dishes, creating a gluten-free flour blend, more recipe development, canning/preserving more with my dad, reducing the amount of refined sugar that we intake, and making more items at home (granola, muffins, bagels, and non food items such as bath salts, etc.)
A few weeks ago I taught my neighbor David how to make refrigerator and bread and butter pickles. I gave him a jar of each a few months ago, and what I didn't know was he is a huge pickle fanatic. I think both jars were gone in less than a week. So when we see each other he talks about them saying "these are the best I've ever had". Bryan headed to NJ for a few days so I figured I would have David over and we would make a batch of each. He was so excited. We had a great time. While we are making these I kept thinking…"I need to do more of this". I know my dad and I have plans to can a whole bunch of things, but I just get such great pleasure out of making something and being able to not only enjoy it myself but share it with others.
As I thought of other things I could make at home I came up with a list of items and one of them was homemade granola. I've made it in the past and even blogged about it. I don't know why I haven't made it in such a long time – it is so simple and delicious, but yesterday I decided to make a batch. A simple batch consisting of gluten-free oats, cinnamon, vanilla, and chopped pecans. You can add anything you wish to granola as long as you have the basic recipe down. Granola to me is a blank canvas – feel free to adjust this recipe to your specific tastes. I store my granola in a pint-sized mason jar (you can also store them in any air tight container).
Basic Granola Recipe
1/4 cup honey (you can substitute agave nectar or use 1/2 honey 1/2 agave)
1 1/2 cup gluten free rolled oats
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Prepare a sheet pan with either a silpat or lightly spray with cooking spray (make sure it is gluten-free) or you can line the pan with tinfoil (lightly spray with cooking spray)
- Heat honey (and/or agave) for 10 seconds to help loosen it up.
- In a medium-sized bowl all honey (and/or agave), and oats.
- Evenly spread oat mixture in a thin even layer.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes. Turning pan half way through.
- Let cool. Crumble into pieces and store in an airtight container.
Additions: If you wish to add any of the following ingredients add them in step 4 – mix well.
Nuts: Pecans, Walnuts, Macadamia, Almonds etc. (chopped, slivered, sliced) (1/2 cup)
Coconut: Fresh, Shredded (unsweetened) (1/2 cup)
Cranberries: Dried (re constitute them in a little bit of water for 10-15 minutes prior to adding them in) (1/2 cup)
Spices: All Spice (1tsp), Cinnamon (1tsp),Vanilla extract (1/2 – 1tsp)
Chia Seeds: (1/8 – 1/4 cup)
Puffed Rice Cereal: make sure this is gluten-free (1/2 cup)
Really – the options are endless.
Bryan eats his granola (I make his without any nuts) just as it is…not milk, yogurt, etc. I on the other hand love it over some vanilla yogurt (like Stonyfield Farms and Chobani).
This is only the start of homemade goodies for this year…stay tuned for more goodies.


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The U.S. government on Tuesday filed criminal charges against a clinic owner and six others at the center of a doping scandal involving suspended Major League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez and a number of other high-profile players.
The owner of a now defunct anti-aging clinic in Florida, Anthony Bosch, 50, faces one count of conspiracy to distribute testosterone, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to court records.
Among the other six charged is Yuri Sucart, a cousin of Rodriguez's, authorities said. Rodriguez, the New York Yankees slugger, is baseball's highest-paid player and has been suspended for the entire 2014 season.
The dozen or so...


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Mount Olive,
Chowan (1-0) broke away from a 3-3 tie as Lathan's dunk capped a 19-2 run and gave the Hawks a 22-5 lead with 12:07 left in the first half. Chowan built the lead to as many as 25 points in the half and led by double digits the remainder of the game. Mike Lowery hit a three-pointer for Coker with four seconds left, but still trailed Chowan 49-27 at halftime. Lathan had 18 points in the first half and was one of three Hawks in double figures before intermission.
Joe Brice's three-pointer helped Chowan extend its lead to 62-36 with 10:29 left in the game. Coker (0-1) put together a run as Ben Brim's three-pointer with 7:38 remaining pulled the Cobras within 67-49. But that would be as close as Coker would get as Chowan built the lead to as many as 25 points.
Marcus Artis finished with 17 points and a game-high nine rebounds for Chowan, while Brice added 15 points. Chris Kenon tallied 13 points and a game-high seven assists, while Lathan dished out six assists for the Hawks.
Jason Fullwood and Ryan Fullwood led Coker with 12 points apiece, while Brim finished with 11. Jason Fullwood and Lukas Varga dished out five assists apiece.
The consolation game tips off Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Kornegay Arena, followed by the championship game at 6:30 p.m.


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Music Industry Lawyer Complains Both That Musicians Don't Get Paid... And When They Do
from the i'm-confused dept
And, it should be noted, he's no fan of the record labels. From what I can tell, he's a lawyer who represents musicians and songwriters for the most part -- and seems to think that the business models that got them paid back when he was a child should somehow be forced by law into never changing and staying that way forever. But since he's so focused on getting musicians paid (and has been known to pat himself on the back when he wins lawsuits for certain musicians) you would think that reports showing new business models that work and help get musicians paid -- while doing so in ways that allow musicians to rely less on the hated labels would be a good thing.
But, no, apparently not. The only acceptable way for a musician to get paid is via copyright, I guess. He recently put up a a rant about the evils of musicians getting money from corporations in the form of sponsorship or advertising.
Why is it bad? Well, something about the purity of music the old way. You know, where instead of taking money from corporations to make commercial music they... took money from corporations (record labels) to make commercial music. Oh wait...
We've seen this argument before. A few months ago, someone insisted that Jimi Hendrix never would have chatted with fans on MySpace. In Castle's world, he sees something similar. Would Bob Dylan ever take sponsorship money, he wonders?
It doesn't take a lot of prescience to see where this leads. Ask yourself this--is an advertising-driven model likely to produce the next Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan? If presented with this reality, what would the next Bob Dylan do? Would he still be attracted to the music business or would he write it off as yet one more corporatization, more McMusic? Would popular music become like the jingles in Demolition Man? (Not to mention the cross-cultural issues.)Really? First of all... last I checked, Dylan himself had no problem with an ad driven model:
What this comes down to, in the end, is the absolutely worst kind of revisionist history. It's people who pretend that "back in the old days" the industry was about something other than money, and that anyone who talks about money now is creating a problem. And, then, at the same time, they'll turn around and bitch about how musicians won't make music any more because they won't get paid. Contradiction much?
If Mr. Castle really wants to move away from musicians scared away from music because of "more corporatization, more McMusic," you would think he would actually be a huge fan of many of the business models we've written about, because they allow those musicians to go direct to fans and make money in ways that get away from the corporatization -- including the exact corporatization of music that Dylan and Cohen needed back in their day -- but which musicians today no longer need if they want to avoid it.


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Guide to Hosting Thanksgiving on a Budget
Is it your turn to host the big holiday meal in your circle of friends and family this year? Or maybe you are the perennial host? Either way, while wonderful and worth it to host such a special gathering, it can get very expensive. We're pulled together a whole list of ideas on how to do it well in a wallet-friendly way.
Be prepared. Plan your menu and guest list early so you know exactly what your tabletop needs are and can look for deals. The earlier you start, the more likely you are to discover inexpensive alternatives. It gives you time to hit the thrift stores for extra glassware, platters etc., or if buying new, to look for sales.
Borrow. If there are items that you need, ask friends who are going out of town if you can borrow from them. If they are traveling, they won't be needing that roasting pan!
Substitute. Let go of what you think you absolutely "need" for the table. For example, if you are low on vases, substitute drinking glasses or bottles. Check out all of our ideas for How to Set a Party Table Without Buying Anything New.
Potluck. Do a partial potluck - you can do the "mains" and let your guests help out with the appetizers, sides and desserts.
Candlelight. Nothing is more festive and beautiful than a candlelit room. Simple tapers (that you've stored in the freezer to prolong their burn time) and lots of tealight votives create a holiday ambiance for a few dollars. Check out our full list of simple, fast and inexpensive decorating ideas.
Consider Carnations. They may be thought of as a "filler flower" from time to time due to their inexpenisve pricetag, but they can be used beautifully for holiday floral arrangements. For inspiration and ideas, check out our How-To post on making several great looking arrangements.
Keep the bar basic. Our list of just the necessities is right here.
Go reusuable. It may seem more expensive at first, but will save lots of money in the long run. We have a full list of party necessities that you'll use year after year, and they are all under $5.
Finally, if you'd really like to host friends and family on the day but just can't swing the expense of a full dinner this year, you can be the designated "after dinner" spot. Invite friends to stop at your place last, after the big meal. Board games, coffee and dessert are on you!
(Top image: Porter Table Linens by Unison)


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Decided to break into some of the king salmon that we caught in Alaska this summer. It's a strongly flavored fish and I was in the mood to a) use up some of the stuff in the refrigerator and b) make a nice sauce.
2 frozen alaska king salmon filets (probably about 3 lbs total)
leftover homemade chicken broth, relatively low salt
half a small jar capers
1 lonesome leek
1 lemon leftover from some other project. Zest the lemon and squeeze the juice.
1 can of water chestnuts (as above)
1 bottle white wine (in this case 2000 cour-cheverny Loire white) see WTN on the other side
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
Thaw the fish in the fridge, when almost thawed brush with EVOO, sea salt and fresh pepper and put back in the fridge for an hour or so.
Heat a skillet and throw in a splash of EVOO. Slice the leek and cook until soft. Sear the salmon ( non-skin side down) for about 2 minutes or so. Remove the fish to a clean dish and deglaze the pan with a splash (maybe 1/2 cup or so) of wine. Cook the wine down to almost a syrup. Add the fish back and add some leftover chicken broth so it comes up about 1/2 way on the fish. Cover and turn the heat way down to poach for about 20 minutes or so. Meantime, make a roux in a saucepan with the flour and butter. Cook for 5 minutes or so, don't be afraid to let a little color into the roux the fish will stand up to it.
When the fish is done ( cut into the thickest part to check) remove to a dish and keep warm by covering with foil. Add about 1/2 cup wine and 1/2 cup chicken broth and mix and bring to a boil. Strain this liquid into the roux, whisking all the while. Add the lemon juice, zest ,capers and water chestnuts ( I threw these in for the texture). Mix well, test for salt and pepper.
Put a couple of tablespoons of sauce on a plate and add a piece of salmon. I served this with peas ( nice color) and fresh homemade baguette. The strong salmon flavor blended beautifully with the lemon/caper/butter sauce. Very satisfying meal indeed. Oh, and the wine absolutely sang with the salmon and the sauce.


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U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron made the case for a free trade agreement between the United States and Europe in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, arguing in favor of the expansion of free trade as his country increasingly distances itself from the EU.
A day after he made a long-awaited speech on Europe in which he said his government was looking at how to repatriate more powers from Brussels, Cameron said the U.K. was not backing out of Europe, but wanted a more competitive bloc.
Cameron has made the establishment of a free trade agreement between the EU and the U.S. a key priority of the U.K.'s leadership of the G8.
"There's the beginning of negotiations on an EU-US treaty," Cameron said. "The EU and the U.S. together, we actually make up a third of all global trade. A deal between us could add over 50 billion pounds to the EU economy alone."
He called for a "massive boost" to free trade by "sweeping away bureaucracy" and said he wanted to use the G8 to drive a more serious debate on tax evasion and tax avoidance after "years of abuse". There was gathering political will to tackle the issue, he said.
"Europe is being outcompeted, out-invested, out-innovated. And it is time to make the European Union an engine for growth, not a source of cost for business, Cameron told delegates at the annual gathering in the Swiss ski resort.
"We need more free trade. We need fairer tax systems. We need more transparency on how governments and companies operate," he said. "When trade isn't free we all suffer."
In order to compete in the "global economic race" with other nations that are growing and changing fast, European countries needed to deal with their debt and cut business taxes, he said.
"This is not about turning our backs on Europe. Quite the opposite. This is about how we make the case for a more competitive, a more open, a more flexible Europe and how we secure the U.K.'s place within it."
He lamented the fact that some companies "navigate their way around tax systems and even low tax rates with an army of clever accountants" and called for greater transparency.


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Following is the complete text of Bob Woodward's commencement address given May, 20, 2007, at Bucknell University:
It's great to be here and what I would like to do because you've been sitting for a few minutes is, I think we ought to give a standing round of applause to the students and the parents who have financed your education.
President Mitchell and I were calculating this morning and, if I've got the numbers right, in the aggregate, your education for all 820 of you has cost $200 million.
So you have parents, friends, uncles, maybe even pawn shops that have financed what you've learned. Would you please all stand and give the students and the parents (applause). You may sit down now.
Best capital investment
Think about it – $200 million. The best capital investment that has ever been made. Your lives will go in a way with variety and with unexpected turns. And this is in all possible ways the departure point for you.
I'm going to be jumping around a lot today and I have 15 minutes to talk and there's a lot going on that I want to attempt to address.
I want to begin by talking about error and mistake. They're like teeth and hair. We all make mistakes and errors. One of the best stories about error has to do with the Catholic church. The monks were sitting around one day and they were talking to the cardinals and the cardinals were saying, "Maybe in Catholic doctrine there's a mistake, an error some place."
So they sent a team of monks down to look through 2,000 years of records to see if there was error any place. The monks were gone for weeks and finally the head cardinal went down. The team of monks were sitting around a table and they all had their heads down and they were crying, bawling.
The cardinal picked up the team leader and looked at him -- tears of genuine despair coming down his face – and said, "What's wrong? What have you found?
The monk looked at him and said, "The word was 'celebrate.'"
I'm from the Midwest and it took me about three minutes to get it.
Wrong lesson
In a sense, your four years have been like that; you've done some sifting, some copying, some distilling, some evaluating, and in that four years there is the possibility of learning the wrong lesson, of absorbing error. Maybe the word or idea was 'celebrate' and you did something else, something drastic, like celibacy.
I asked a graduate of Bucknell what's on the minds of these graduates, what are they grappling with and thinking. And he said, They're worried about the next steps, why the next step, why graduate school, why a year off, why this job. They're asking questions, you are asking questions: When should I take a chance? Can I pace myself? What really matters? You are in a sense like the monks, looking through the old document. Is there a mistake? What is true? What is authentic? What can I believe in? What can I truly count on? Who can I count on?
And if you're worried about these questions, you should be. Because you're wrestling with them now in one form or another, and you're going to be wrestling with them, believe it or not, for the rest of your life.
White House
I've been able to write about the CIA, the Supreme Court, Pentagon, Congress, the White House.
I recently told a young woman that I tried to write about and understand seven presidents in my professional lifetime. She said, "Gee, what was Grover Cleveland like?"
It's sobering – I'm not even that old.
There are two things I want to try to communicate and that is, what's at the center of what might be important to all of you, and what is the common element?
As I have spent 37 years writing and scratching my head about Washington life and politics, I kind of divide all people into two categories.
Find work you love
The people who are really blessed, the people who are really happy, are those who find work they love. There are people I know who have been screaming and kicking and maneuvering – changing jobs, pushing and pushing and pushing until they find work they love.
Getting up in the morning and having work you love is what makes life different for people. And if you get into a position where you really don't love what you're doing, get off it. It's easy to be on someone else's track or something that sounds like a safety play.
And then there are those who get on their own track, and don't make a safety play.
Who you work with
The second potential center for you is decide carefully who you are going to work with. It makes all the difference in the world and it's often impossible to make that judgment.
I want to go back to January 1973, when I was 29 years old, working at The Washington Post, and give you an example of who I worked for, and how that made all the difference:
In January 1973, 34 years ago at age 29, Carl Bernstein and I had written the major Watergate story saying there was a criminal conspiracy in the Nixon White House, that the highest level people were involved. The Washington Post had backed us, and quite frankly most people, including our colleagues at the Washington Post did not believe what we had written.
Katharine Graham
Katharine Graham, the owner and publisher of The Washington Post, invited me for lunch in her dining room. So I went up and I met with her. As I said, she backed what we did. I walked into the room and she had this look on her face of, "What have you boys been doing with my newspaper?"
People have wondered how can you get a look like that on your face. If you'd been there, you would have realized what it was.
Then we sat down and she started questioning me about Watergate and Nixon and his people and what it was about. I was blown away with what she knew. She was so conversant with the material. But she had a management style which I later would describe as mind-on, hands-off. Intellectually, totally engaged in what we were doing, but her hands were not on, telling us how to do it, never.
She went on and on, and talked about Henry Kissinger who she knew and who was the President's national security adviser. She even mentioned that she had read something about Watergate in the Chicago Tribune. I remember thinking, the Chicago Tribune? What is she reading the Chicago Tribune for, no one in Chicago does.
The killer question
But she did. And she threw this net around and she had questions and at the end, like the best CEO she had the killer question, and the killer question was, When are we going to find out the whole truth about Watergate? When will the full story come out?
At that moment we were not believed. The Washington Post's stock had gone public. We later learned one of the Nixon administration tactics was to get people to challenge the very valuable FCC television licenses that the Post had.
So the stock was in the toilet, the journalistic credibility was at least on the rim of the toilet and she said, "Okay, when's the whole story going to come out?"
I said Carl and I felt it was criminal conspiracy as we had written in the paper, that people had not told the truth, they were frightened, they compartmentalized information so the answer was "Never. We were never going to learn the full story."
Across the lunch table, I'll never forget this. She had this pained, stricken look on her face and she said precisely the following: "Never? Don't tell me never."
Motivated employee
I left the lunch a motivated employee.
But the "Never? Don't tell me never" was not a threat. It was a statement of purpose. What she was saying was: "Use your resources, the resources of this newspaper."
The stakes could not be higher. We have an obligation beyond ourselves to find out what happened here, and what it means.
That is a moment where I realized that I was working with somebody and for someone who knew precisely what the job was. That the job is to get to the bottom of things.
Bucknell bubble
It is said here at Bucknell in this beautiful setting that you are somewhat isolated. I think there is even occasionally a reference to the "Bucknell Bubble."
Three months after 9-11, I was interviewing President George Bush, and he told me in this interview and described himself as "I am one guy in a bubble." Think about it: you and President Bush, both in a bubble.
Set aside the arguments about the advantages and drawbacks of a president being in a bubble. And I'm not sure it's where to be. But you in a bubble for the four years, whatever you've been here, is fine, and I would argue, desirable. You've been educated. You have had fantastic exposure to all kinds of things.
Task ahead is not simple
The task ahead is not simple. Now all you have to do is figure out is how to live and how to work.
There is a story about writers more from your parents' generation – Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. Joseph Heller who wrote Catch-22, one of the great war novels of all times, maybe some of you have read it.
Vonnegut and Heller are at a party on Shelter Island off New York at some billionaire's house. Vonnegut says to Heller, "Hey, Joe. Look at this guy. He's a billionaire. He probably makes more in a week than you've made in your life."
Heller turns to him and says, "But I've got something he is never going to have."
Vonnegut says, "What?"
Heller says, "I know when I've got enough."
If I may say, that is one of the challenges in this era of excess. Learn and struggle and grapple with a point in your lives where you can realize that you have enough.
Different world after 9-11
To turn outside the bubble for a moment, which I want to. It's a different world after 9-11 and the terrorist attacks five-and-a-half years ago. But the reality is, we in this country have not changed our lives, in my view, enough to meet the challenge and the responsibilities of that new era.
The most important thing going on in the world right now is the Iraq war. It will define your future.
When the war, the invasion began in March 2003, The Washington Post gave me one year, an immense luxury in my business, to go find out, write articles for The Washington Post and a book, and try to find out why we went to war – what happened.
I worked my way up through the information chain: low-level people, White House, CIA, Pentagon, State Department, up through Cabinet secretaries, and kind of condensed what I had found down to a 21-page memo. Chronology, some questions, the key turning points and decision points for President Bush.
21-page memo
I sent a copy of that 21-page memo to President Bush. My colleagues at the Washington Post said, "You sent George W. Bush a 21-page memo? You're crazy. There's no evidence in all of Bush's years at Yale and Harvard Business School that he ever read anything that long."
But he did read it. Condi Rice, the national security adviser, called me in and said, "You're going to write this book about the decision to go to war in Iraq whether you talk to the President or not." I said, "Of course I am." She said, "He will see you tomorrow."
For two days, a total of three-and-a-half hours, I interviewed him. It was really an excavation of the process he went through over 16 months deciding to go to war.
Researchers at The Washington Post have checked and as best we can tell, it is the longest interview a sitting president ever gave, going back to George Washington.
In three-and-a-half hours, how many questions do you think I asked him? Somebody shout an answer.
Somebody said, "One!" That would be if it was Bill Clinton. Clinton could give a three-and-a-half hour answer. Maybe you wouldn't even have to ask one question.
500 questions
I asked George Bush 500 questions. He gives short, direct answers. I could summarize this but I want to go to one point that's really important. The question pulsing in the background in an interview like this is Why? Why did we go to war? What happened?
At one point, out of the blue, he just said, "I believe we have a duty to free people, to liberate people."
An incredible thing to say. It's not in the Constitution, and it's not in any law. I challenged him. I said, "Aren't lots of people going to think that's dangerously paternalistic?"
He jumps in his chair when he says this, and then he said, "No, no, you don't get it. People who are free depreciate it. You are an elitist."
Imagine being called an elitist by President George W. Bush. But he did.
A zeal to liberate
Then he went on to say, "Those of us who led our countries to war have a zeal … " – his word – " … to liberate people."
Duty – zeal – two of the biggest words in the English language for a President of the United States.
As we go into 2008, if you can get the candidates' definition of what they think duty and zeal are, you will go quite far in understanding who they are.
An idealism
At root for Bush is an idealism, the idea of freeing people, and bringing democracy. It accounts for his persistence in this war whether you like or don't like the war.
The last book I did was State of Denial. It examined what happened since the invasion. The simple fact demonstrated in the book is that the President and the administration for three-and-a-half years did not tell the truth about what was going on in the war. That the secret reports show escalation in violence to the point where last spring the level really was almost unheard of.
There were a hundred attacks on U.S. forces or Iraqi authorities every day. That's four an hour. Think about that, in a country one-15th the size of ours.
In the book I attempt to show exactly and I think it does show, how this war went on, it went downhill month after month, year after year. And we were not told the truth.
Evaluations of Bush's people
These are the evaluations of Bush's own people. Steve Hadley, the national security adviser for the first term, gives them a D-minus in private.
How many of you here ever got a D-minus in college? Parents? Okay there are only about five of us. I think there's a lot of denial out there.
For those of you who never got such a grade, it's a really low grade.
That's not some Democrat or some columnist, that is Steve Hadley.
The thing we have to worry about is secret government. Of all the problems in the world, secret government is what will do us in. Whoever said it got it right when they said that democracies die in darkness. And that's exactly what will happen.
Don't retreat into a bubble
Don't let the Iraq war teach you that the United States can't engage the world. Don't let it teach you desperation or cause you to retreat into a bubble.
Most importantly, don't let it teach you that our country cannot deal with conflict and cannot deal with evil like Saddam Hussein.
Because I think we can and we will.
A former colleague of mine in journalism, David Halberstam, who was killed tragically last month, gave lots of commencement speeches. I was looking at one. My thought is we're at a point of peril.
But David Halberstam in his commencement addresses would say, and I'm going to quote him a little bit.
'You'll be fine'
"You'll be fine. There is a determination, a resilience, and a spirit in this country that will not be snuffed out."
So we'll fix it but there is much for you now to fix outside the bubble.
Thank you very much.
Posted May 20, 2007


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October 9, 1940 December 27, 2012
Middletown, NY
Carole Smith, a resident of Middletown since 2004 and formerly of Monticello, NY, entered into rest on Thursday, December 27, 2012 at the Orange Regional Medical Center in the Town of Wallkill. She was 72 years of age.
Carole was born on October 9, 1940 in the Bronx, NY to the late Samuel and Anna Kalb.
She was a retired Financial Counselor for the Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris, NY.
Carole was a very devoted wife, mother and grandmother. She met her husband Harold when she was 15 years old and they have been devoted to each other ever since. Her greatest joy was spending time with her grandchildren. She will be in our hearts forever.
Carole is survived by her husband, Harold Smith at home in Middletown; her two daughters: Janice O'Brien of Greenwood Lake and Amy Hogan and her husband, Gregory of Middletown; her five grandchildren: Breanna, Brendan and Brigitte O'Brien and Spencer and Liam Hogan; her sister, Esther Werner of the Bronx; and two nieces. She was predeceased by her parents, and son-in-law, Desmond O'Brien.
Funeral Services will be held at 11 a.m. Sunday, December 30 at Temple Sinai, 75 Highland Ave., Middletown, NY. Rabbi Joel Schwab will officiate. Interment will be in the Temple Sinai Cemetery, Circleville, NY.
Arrangements have been entrusted to Cornelius, Dodd & Connell Funeral Home, Middletown, NY. For directions, or to send a condolence, please visit www.connellfuneralhome.com


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We have personally never seen anyone use a car cigarette lighter socket for lighting a cigarette, so it's baffling to us that cars still come with them for that purpose, and using it as a power source is less-than-easy when you have to have a different car charger for every device. But, thankfully someone has come up with a smart way to turn your car's cigarette lighter into a useful charging station. The Highway Pro by Just Mobile ($40) plugs into your car's cigarette lighter and turns it into a USB charging station for two devices. If only cars these days would come with a similar idea built-in, we'd all be a lot happier.
The small and discreet gadget plugs directly into your cigarette lighter socket and gives you one regular USB charging port and one 2.1 version for fast-charging your iPad. There is also a simpler version ($35) that only includes two regular USB ports. A built-in fuse protects the ports from power surges, and the device has a small green LED light to indicate power. The Highway Pro even comes with a spare charging cord for Apple devices.
If you don't spend much time in your car then the $40 might not be worth it, but we see this as a godsend for commuters, folks who love a good road trip, or people who spend a good portion of the work day driving around. We're adamantly against texting while driving, but charging while driving sounds like a good bet to us. Just don't leave your iPad sitting in the passenger seat while you run into Starbucks for a quick morning coffee.


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Campaign of the Month: June 2012
Crimson Skies
Ian Bradwarden
Archer and Mage
More detailed information may be found HERE.
Letter from Ian to his mother:
Konnichiwa, Mother -
My apologies for leading off with such a foreign word, but as you have doubtlessly guessed, it is a greeting. It is Kaidanese – well, a rough phonetic approximation thereof, as Kaidan is… misplaced, might be the most appropriate word. Its isles once sat far off in the East, but long ago it "magically" disappeared, as if cursed to exist only in another reality. Travel to and from is not entirely impossible, apparently, as there is a region in the sea wherein this alternate plane of existence intersects with our own.
As you have no doubt surmised, I have been tasked to travel to this land. I know this will be difficult for you, as Father was similarly tasked – indeed, being before The High King and hearing Father's legacy delivered with such grandeur was quite humbling. The High King professed that Redhurst had always had their eye on me, and claimed that Father had once been Aegis's favorite pupil, and Headmaster Andarlin had been Father's first teacher's assistant in his Honors Runes and Lore class when he was a novice. Such large shoes to fill…
Over the course of the evening, I was given Father's first staff. I know that the two of you spent a lot of time in the forests of the North, and so I shall be coming by within the next few days to deliver it to you. This new assignment was completely unexpected, and I'm told it is of utmost urgency, but fortunately I'm afforded a little time to gather my things, and prepare my mind for the journey ahead. I'm told that this may keep me on the road a while, and though I will miss you dearly, know that Professor Oscar Wylde will know how to contact me. Of everyone here, I will miss him the most. He has been a fabulous mentor, and I'll be certainly putting his language learning method, which he called the Rosetta Stone method, to use as I attempt to pick up Kaidanese in just under a week.
I'm also going to put in a little time practicing my archery. I feel that I've spent most of the last year neglecting the training that I was given, starting on the eve of my 21st birthday. Oh, how I hoped that the Academy was giving me that training to send me to find Father, but alas… I feel like so much of my "training" was done with some shadowy grand purpose in mind that even now I'm not privy to. However, I am more than prepared to take on all of the responsibility that being a Bradwarden entails. To be honest, I am overjoyed to be free of the Academy walls, and allowed to see the world – and apparently, see the unseen world as well!
Well, I will keep this letter short, as I will be by within the week, as promised. Say hello to my sweet sister Clara for me. Hopefully I will catch her before she returns to school.


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The White House on Sunday announced that President Obama's choice to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is Richard Cordray, the fledgling agency's enforcement chief and a former law professor who served as Ohio's attorney general during the housing foreclosure crisis.
Cordray "has spent his career advocating for middle-class families . . . and looking out for ordinary people in our financial system," Obama said.
Many in the consumer activist community had hoped Obama would press ahead with his original candidate, Harvard University professor Elizabeth Warren, the acting director of the nascent agency who has become a lightning rod among Republican critics.
So in an unusual pivot to address the politically messy situation, the president went on to say, "I also want to thank Elizabeth Warren not only for her extraordinary work standing up the new agency over the past year, but also for her many years of impassioned leadership and her fierce defense of a simple idea: Ordinary people deserve to be treated fairly and honestly in their financial dealings. This agency was Elizabeth's idea, and through sheer force of will, intelligence and a bottomless well of energy, she has made, and will continue to make, a profound and positive difference for our country."
Warren, in a yearlong effort to publicly articulate CFPB's mission, as recently as July 14 was telling a sometimes-tense House hearing, that she envisions a "data-driven" agency. "I believe in power of markets, but they don't work if people don't have good information," she said. "We're opposed to complicated forms and fine print. And we want to help Americans answer two questions, 'Can I afford this, and is this the best deal I can get? ' "
Warren, who is known inside the agency as "Professor Warren" but whose title has been assistant to the president and special adviser to the secretary of the Treasury on CFPB, will return to teaching at Harvard and ponder a possible Senate run.
It is she, and not Condray, who has garnered much media attention as de facto head. Recent profiles in Bloomberg Businessweek and Time have narrated her efforts -- without even a formal nomination -- to stand up an agency while Republican lawmakers and a well-financed Wall Street and banking lobbies maneuver to block her rise and slow-walk the output of new regulations. The bureau is charged in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law with oversight powers starting July 21 to police unfair, deceptive or abusive lending practices.
Largely out of the limelight, CFBP staff -- currently about 400 under the Treasury Department -- have been working overtime to meld operations from seven agencies under authority of 18 statutes. In two floors of a little-noticed office northwest of the White House (the long-term plan is to move to 300,000 square feet at a building being renovated at 1700 G Street N.W.) the agency has been hiring at a reported rate of 80 workers a month and, by one projection, will surpass 1,000 employees in offices nationwide.
Its lofty budget of $500 million comes not from Congress but from the Federal Reserve. Its second quarter spending totaled $36 million and included a $3 million human resources contract.
Achievements So Far
The bureau's notable early accomplishments, Warren told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, include setting up an Office of Service Member Affairs under Holly Petraeus (wife of the general who is now CIA director). It is working with the Defense Department's Judge Advocate General's Corps to make sure the families of deployed or returning service members do not lose their homes to foreclosure because of "broken credit markets."
She also touted the bureau's new plain English one-page mortgage disclosure form, presented under the slogan "Know Before You Owe." The public chose the final version of that form, determining via Web vote which of two side-by-side drafts was clearest.
Other bureau accomplishments include building relationships with independent bankers in all 50 states, an effort that began in January and was completed in April, three months ahead of schedule.
CFPB also has worked with credit card providers to simplify their documents so consumers can better understand fees. It has set up a hot line for consumer complaints on issues such as unfair practices by credit card firms, for example. And in June, it asked for public comment on six outlined nonbank areas that the bureau, still defining the scope of its work, could oversee, such as debt-collection firms and vendors of prepaid credit cards.
"We will stay in our lanes and not stray into insurance or investment products," Warren told the House hearing. "We have a real chance at the bureau to make markets work better."
Many in the financial industry agree. Dan Berger, executive vice president for government affairs at the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, which originally opposed creation of the bureau, said Warren's team has been "fantastic in reaching out to us, in being inclusive, and in getting our input as well as that of individual credit unions."
Warren has been "saying the right things for two years, but the devil is in the details," he added. "We're cautiously optimistic that they won't impose too much of a layer of regulatory burden."
Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit advocacy group the Center for Responsible Lending, said CFPB staff "is doing the best they can under siege, doing their jobs while the House tries to throw up roadblocks."
The July 21 turnover date "is a legal milestone and a psychological milestone as they rev up," Day said. It appears, she added, that they're working hard with long hours "not simply to create new bureaucracy but a new organization" that, in the Center for Responsible Lending's view, would be best served by having a strong leader rather than the five-member commission that some critics have proposed. "The industry that brought us the financial mess wants a commission so they can influence it in a classic tactic to make it ineffective," she said.
Republican Resistance
On Capitol Hill, Republicans have been categorical in opposing both Warren and the bureau, portraying it as a massive and unchecked intruder into free-market decision-making.
In May, 44 Republican senators sent a letter to President Obama stating they will not confirm any nominee, regardless of party affiliation, to be the director of CFBP "absent structural changes that will make the bureau accountable to the American people."
Also in May, the House Financial Services committee approved three bills that would alter the Dodd-Frank law's language on CFPB. One would replace the director slot with a commission, another would strengthen the powers of the body called the Financial Stability Oversight Council to set aside CFPB regulations, and a third would require a Senate-confirmed director to be in place by July 21 or else the bureau must continue to be run by the Treasury Department.
The bills won backing from such groups as the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said, "Despite the overheated rhetoric from opponents, none of these bills weakens consumer protection in any way, shape or form. In fact, these bills will help make sure the consumer protection rules issued by the CFPB are consistent, fair and do not endanger the safety and soundness of financial institutions. Endangering the safety and soundness of financial institutions is bad for our economy, and a bad economy is bad for consumers."
Bachus has consistently criticized the nascent CFPB, even mocking it on his website for fielding a softball team.
When the House passed an appropriations bill altering the way CFPB is funded, the White House on July 13 issued a veto threat. The legislation would "compromise the bureau's independence, as well as [place] limitations on the bureau's expenditures to levels that would severely undercut the agency's statutory responsibility to oversee consumer financial products such as mortgages and credit cards," the statement said. "Not only would the bill's funding limitation severely curtail hiring and startup investments that are already under way, but it would also impede supervision, limit the bureau's consumer response services, prevent the ramping up of citizen financial literacy improvements and delay the implementation of financial protection programs for older Americans."
Warren, working amid the Sturm und Drang with no job security, has proceeded to set priorities and assemble a team.
"Half of the budget and employees will be in supervision and enforcement," she told the House hearing. "A quarter will be in financial education and consumer complaints, and the remaining quarter will be in research and rule writing." She said she was committed to staff education, conducting frequent "lunch and learn" events and creating a "robust research team that can get something that really works for American families."
In hiring, Warren said, she valued management and financial industry experience, but acknowledges a perennial challenge for financial agencies. "We don't set our own salaries, that's done by statute," she told the House hearing. "And we've been blessed with people incredibly smart who could make more money somewhere else, but who value the opportunity to answer the call to public service. I worry how long we can keep them when the siren song of more money is heard. Every time we make someone smarter for the bureau and the American people, we also make them more attractive to employers."
Uncertain Future
If, as is likely, July 21 arrives and no director has been confirmed, then CFPB will continue under the nominal direction of Cordray and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner using guidance from the parent agency that doesn't necessarily address such a unique state of limbo. The staff is apt to pursue few new initiatives pending resolution of the political firestorm, observers say.
Staff members and outside backers were heartened in April when a key financial industry figure, Jamie Dimon, chairman of JPMorgan Chase, wrote approvingly of CFBP in a letter to shareholders: "We need to create a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is effective for both consumers and banks," he wrote. "It has been widely reported that we were against the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We were not -- we were against the creation of a stand-alone CFPB, operating separately and apart from whatever regulatory agency already had oversight authority over banks . . . However, we fully acknowledge that there were many good reasons that led to the creation of the CFPB and believe that if the CFPB does its job well, the agency will benefit American consumers and the system."
During two appearances on Capitol Hill, the de facto leader Warren was hit with a variety of brickbats from Republicans. Several criticized the fact that her agency's budget, like that of all financial regulators, did not come through Congress. Some tried to pin her down on whether she planned to use Dodd-Frank's authority to ban financial products deemed too risky (she declined to say).
Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs, blasted Warren over a scheduling conflict that cut short her first testimony. (Democrats, at the second hearing, apologized to her for that treatment.) And Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the full oversight committee, said Warren had interfered in discussions by state attorneys general about resolving a mortgage industry lawsuit involving improper foreclosure procedures. He said she had violated the Freedom of Information Act by releasing overly redacted documents.
He relied on the work of Judicial Watch, a conservative research group whose leader has said the bureau, "is being born in an atmosphere of secrecy and cover-up. And the fact that the CFPB has been unwilling to abide by FOIA law certainly makes it appear the agency has something to hide from the American people."
As the grueling session was ending, Warren said, "Last year, we fought hard to get this agency into law. I had thought the fight was behind us, but obviously I didn't understand the politics of the situation."


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This is street slang for the slang word sheezy. Because Sheezy is not hood enough for most people now, it must be hacked up and the last part of izzle be added to it. This is a doubble slang also known as a duce matoose. It originated in New Orleans 3rd Ward ProJacts. And was made popular by Lil Mayne.
Yo Fo Shellions yO! No Dogg I takes Dat Back I Means FO Sheizzle!!! Like a big old bizzle my squizzle tizzle rizzle fizzle pizzle dizzle! We OUT!
by N-Gizzle the original hotboi January 10, 2005
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text:
Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the arrest of Benjamin LaGuer in a case that has been before the public eye constantly since he was charged with beating, raping and tying up his 59-year-old Leominster neighbor in her home.
Mr. LaGuer, arrested three days after the attack, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
The victim was repeatedly raped over an eight-hour period beginning the night of July 12, 1983. She suffered a broken jaw, broken rib, multiple injuries to the face and at one point had a plastic bag held over her head, choking her until she passed out. The victim survived and died at age 75 in 1999.
The case has been before the courts ever since.
It has also been before the public eye, partly because Mr. LaGuer, 50, enlisted support or gained interest from a veritable who's who in academia, the media and the legal community.
The wide net cast by Mr. LaGuer's case has even involved Gov. Deval L. Patrick in the years preceding his run for office. In 1998 and 2000, Mr. Patrick sent letters in support of Mr. LaGuer's efforts to win parole. He also sent money to help out with the cost of DNA testing.
The letters became an issue in the 2006 governor's race between Mr. Patrick and former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella, who, as a police officer, was one of the first three officers responding to the scene, said when he learned of Mr. Patrick's support he tried to warn him of the complexity of the issue.
"It was sort of, 'Watch out what you are getting yourself into,' " Mr. Mazzarella said.
Mr. Mazzarella later met with the governor and was satisfied with what he was told. The governor has since said that he is no longer a supporter of Mr. LaGuer and said he would not grant Mr. LaGuer clemency. Still, Mr. LaGuer included the governor as one of his 27 potential witnesses in the latest bid for a new trial, which was rejected in February 2012. Mr. Patrick was not called to the stand during the appeal.
Among those listed on Mr. LaGuer's website as members of his committee are former WGBH television and radio host Christopher Lydon, MIT professor of linguistics and philosophy Noam Chomsky and Minister Don Mohammad.
He has also communicated with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, author William Styron, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates and Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree.
As recently as 2010, retired Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein, who became part of the defense team, indicated he would offer Mr. LaGuer a job if he were released.
Mr. LaGuer's support waned after DNA testing seemed to link him to the case, but he still has many supporters.
Since his conviction, Mr. LaGuer has maintained his innocence and continues to believe that the courts will eventually set him free.
"I am of absolute faith that I will be vindicated by the court," he said in a email last week from the North Central Correctional Institution in Gardner.
Mr. LaGuer began appeals almost immediately after his conviction. All his efforts to date have been rejected, but three decades later, Mr. LaGuer continues to fight his conviction. He has been rejected for a new trial nine times and has repeatedly been turned down for parole, mainly because he refuses to show remorse for the crime, which he maintains he did not do.
To date, Mr. LaGuer has been the only credible suspect in the case, according to authorities.
Mr. LaGuer said he could feel no greater pain over what happened to the victim, but says her identification of him was wrong. In his last effort at a new trial he hoped to offer testimony from a former Fitchburg social worker that the victim was on medications when she made the identification
On Feb. 28, 2012, in a 17-page ruling, Worcester Superior Court Judge Richard T. Tucker found that Mr. LaGuer demonstrated a pattern of behavior designed to perpetrate fraud on he court. He rejected Mr. LaGuer's appeal, which was based on the contention that post-conviction DNA testing that connected him to the case was flawed and that newly discovered evidence cast doubt on the validity of his conviction.
The judge found no proof was presented to support Mr. LaGuer's contention about the DNA testing, which was done at his request in 2002. The judge also ruled that the newly discovered evidence involving the social worker was not sufficiently strong for a new trial to be ordered.
Mr. LaGuer's efforts continue. He is seeking to appeal Judge Tucker's ruling and is keeping the case before the public through a website, www.benlaguer.org. The website contains volumes of information on his case, including news articles, court docket entries and background on the case. Another website is www.freebennow.org .
Mr. LaGuer is filing a new appeal, which will be based on what he says is the flawed nature of the DNA evidence used against him and the short time — two days — Judge Tucker allowed for him to call 27 witnesses he listed for the last effort to win a new trial.
Mr. Mazzarella said it may be time for Mr. LaGuer to give up the fight.
"It's been a long time," he said. "He would have been better off admitting his guilt, getting some help and moving somewhere and settle down."
Mr. Mazzarella said he believes that over the past 30 years Mr. LaGuer has convinced himself he is innocent.
The case was originally prosecuted by District Attorney John J. Conte, now retired, and now is in the hands of Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. Mr. Early declined to comment on the case because it is ongoing. In the latest attempt by Mr. LaGuer to win a new trial, his office argued that possibility of tainted DNA evidence was not applicable because it had not been entered in evidence and even if it was, Mr. LaGuer was the only person identified.in the testing. He also discounted evidence from a social worker, arguing that the defendant had not shown the evidence newly discovered, and could not have been discovered through a concerted effort by the defendant in 1983.
The possibility that Mr. LaGuer will win his freedom is still remote, but he has post-incarceration plans.
He said he grew up in a church that believes in missionary work and social justice. He said he has three sisters working in human services and a brother involved in similar work. He said he also did similar work before going to jail.
What he would like to do if he is exonerated is work for social justice, but only after taking some time off.
"I intend to sit under a tree for six months and read a list of 100 books I have collected," he said. "Then I will pick up and continue my work in social justice."
Contact George Barnes at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgebarnesTG


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04 October 2007 15:45
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The Houston Dynamo have overcome huge player absences in the past, but three missing pieces simply proved too much on Saturday night with a bid in the MLS Cup final on the line.
Without forward Will Bruin, defender Jermaine Taylor or holding midfielder Ricardo Clark, Houston failed to build on an early lead or hold Sporting Kansas City back in the second half of the second leg of the Eastern Conference Championship, eventually falling 2-1 to end their season.
And although head coach Dominic Kinnear stuck by the players he did have available in the loss, he was well aware his team wasn't at full strength when it counted.
"I'm not much of a talker about guys who aren't here," Kinnear said. "I'd rather concentrate on the guys that are here, but I know we're a better team with Will, Ricardo and Jermaine. There's no guarantee we would've won the game if they were starting, but I think our squad would be in better shape if they were here."
As the Dynamo struggled to combat a rejuvenated Benny Feilhaber and Graham Zusi in the Sporting Kansas City midfield, it was tough not to notice the missing bite that Clark typically brings. His ability to cover ground and kill possession would have come in handy on the night, but a left leg injury suffered during the series' first leg on Nov. 9 was too much to overcome.
"Everybody knows how important he is and has been to our team," Dynamo captain Brad Davis said. "Would we have liked to have him? Absolutely we would've liked to have him. He's a huge piece of our puzzle. It hurts to not have him out on the field with us, but honestly, it is what it is."
Bruin's ability and knack for scoring in the postseason – including six playoff goals in the last two seasons - could have helped on the night as well. His replacement Cam Weaver was active, and was necessary at times to match K.C.'s physical play. But his missed a costly sitter in the 30th minute that could have potentially put the Dynamo in the driver's seat headed into halftime.
Bruin, like Clark, suffered an injury during the first leg of the series two weeks ago and was unable to recover in time for the finale on Saturday night.
"They've been a big part of what we've done all season but I don't want to discredit what the guys who came into this team did," midfielder Giles Barnes said. "All you have to do is work hard and no one in this team will be disgruntled with you for that. That's our team ethos: Just work hard and the rest will follow. It's just unfortunate it ended today."
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.


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Liverpool are once again being linked with a move for Newcastle United striker Demba Ba.
The Sunday People claims Reds boss Brendan Rodgers is looking to get Stewart Downing out of the club in an effort to free-up funds for strikers in January.
Ba is one of the players on the Anfield transfer radar, according to the paper, along with Giuseppe Rossi, Wilfried Bony and Daniel Sturridge.
The Senegalese striker has been linked with a move to Liverpool on a number of occasions in the past, with The Daily Mail claiming last month that Rodgers was monitoring the player after being warned against a bid for South Korean international Son Heung-min.
A £7 million minimum fee release clause will once again be reactivated in the New Year, according to the Mail report last month, meaning Ba is certainly an affordable target for the Reds owners – should they wish to make a move.
Liverpool are short of senior options up-front, with Luis Suarez shouldering the burden alone this season on Merseyside following Andy Carroll's exit on loan.
Ba – who has eight goals for the Toon this season, joint-second behind Suarez in the race for the Premier League Golden Boot – would certainly add an extra attacking dimension to Liverpool if they could lure him to the club, giving the Reds the most productive strike-force in the division at this stage.


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Readings — From the July 2011 issue
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Readings — From the July 2011 issue
Article — From the May 2008 issue
Hell hath no limits
Article — From the August 2006 issue
Scenes from a liberal apocalypse
The easy chair — From the May 1978 issue
Exploiting the belief in perfidious Araby
The easy chair — From the July 1977 issue
Wraparound — From the September 1974 issue
On any given day last summer, the smoke-choked skies over Missoula, Montana, swarmed with an average of twenty-eight helicopters and eighteen fixed-wing craft, a blitz waged against Lolo Peak, Rice Ridge, and ninety-six other wildfires in the Lolo National Forest. On the ground, forty or fifty twenty-person handcrews were deployed, alongside hundreds of fire engines and bulldozers. In the battle against Rice Ridge alone, the Air Force, handcrews, loggers, dozers, parachutists, flacks, forecasters, and cooks amounted to some nine hundred people.
Rice Ridge was what is known as a mega-fire, a recently coined term for blazes that cover more than 100,000 acres. The West has always known forest fires, of course, but for much of the past century, they rarely got any bigger than 10,000 acres. No more. In 1988, a 250,000-acre anomaly, Canyon Creek, burned for months, roaring across a forty-mile stretch of Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness in a single night. A few decades on, that anomaly is becoming the norm. Rice Ridge, for its part, swept through 160,000 acres.
At this scale, the firefighting operation is run by an incident management team, a group of about thirty specialists drawn from a mix of state and federal agencies and trained in fields ranging from aviation to weather forecasting and accounting to public information. The management teams are ranked according to experience and ability, from type 3 (the least skilled) to type 1 (the most). The fiercest fires are assigned to type 1s. Teams take the name of their incident commander, the field general, and some of those names become recognizable, even illustrious, in the wildfire-fighting community. One such name is that of Greg Poncin, who is to fire commanders what Wyatt Earp was to federal marshals.
Donald Trump's presidency signals a profound but inchoate realignment of American politics. On the one hand, his administration may represent the consolidation of minority control by a Republican-dominated Senate under the leadership of a president who came to office after losing the popular vote by almost 3 million ballots. Such an imbalance of power could lead to a second civil war—indeed, the nation's first and only great fraternal conflagration was sparked off in part for precisely this reason. On the other hand, Trump's reign may be merely an interregnum, in which the old white power structure of the Republican Party is dying and a new oppositional coalition struggles to be born.
Over the past three years, the city of South Tucson, Arizona, a largely Latino enclave nestled inside metropolitan Tucson, came close to abolishing its fire and police departments. It did sell off the library and cut back fire-truck crews from four to three people—whereupon two thirds of the fire department quit—and slashed the police force to just sixteen employees. "We're a small city, just one square mile, surrounded by a larger city," the finance director, Lourdes Aguirre, explained to me. "We have small-town dollars and big-city problems."
When I saw Ted Cruz speak, in early August, it was at Underwood's Cafeteria in Brownwood. He was on a weeklong swing through rural central Texas, hitting small towns and military bases that ensured him friendly, if not always entirely enthusiastic, crowds. In Brownwood, some in the audience of two hundred were still nibbling on peach cobbler as Cruz began with an anecdote about his win in a charity basketball game against ABC's late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. They rewarded him with smug chuckles when he pointed out that "Hollywood celebrities" would be hurting over the defeat "for the next fifty years." His pitch for votes was still an off-the-rack Tea Party platform, complete with warnings about the menace of creeping progressivism, delivered at a slightly mechanical pace but with lots of punch. The woman next to me remarked, "This is the fire in the gut! Like he had the first time!" referring to Cruz's successful long-shot run in the 2011 Texas Republican Senate primary. And it's true—the speech was exactly like one Cruz would have delivered in 2011, right down to one specific detail: he never mentioned Donald Trump by name.
Cruz recited almost verbatim the same things Trump lists as the administration's accomplishments: the new tax legislation, reduced African-American unemployment, repeal of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, and Neil Gorsuch's appointment to the Supreme Court. But, in a mirror image of those in the #Resistance who refuse to ennoble Trump with the title "president," Cruz only called him that.
e is a nondescript man.
I'd never used that adjective about a client. Not until this one. My seventeenth. He'd requested an evening time and came Tuesdays at six-thirty. For months he didn't tell me what he did.
The first session I said what I often said to begin: How can I help you?
I still think of what I do as a helping profession. And I liked the way the phrase echoed down my years; in my first job I'd been a salesgirl at a department store counter.
I want to work on my marriage, he said. I'm the problem.
His complaint was familiar. But I preferred a self-critical patient to a blamer.
It's me, he said. My wife is a thoroughly good person.
Yawn, I thought, but said, Tell me more.
I don't feel what I should for her.
What do you feel?
Average life span, in years, of a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon:
Macy's (N.Y.C.)
Researchers in California succeeded in teaching genetically engineered E. coli bacteria to communicate using a new chemical "language"; the research aims at turning cells into tiny robots.
Theresa May's Brexit proposal was rejected; Trump suggested raking to prevent forest fires; Jair Bolsonaro insulted Cuban doctors working in Brazil
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"Nowadays, most states let just about anybody who wants a concealed-handgun permit have one; in seventeen states, you don't even have to be a resident. Nobody knows exactly how many Americans carry guns, because not all states release their numbers, and even if they did, not all permit holders carry all the time. But it's safe to assume that as many as 6 million Americans are walking around with firearms under their clothes."


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How To Become A Railroad Engineer in Arkansas
In order to qualify for Railroad Operations jobs in Arkansas, you should compare all available technical schools in your target area, as well as consider taking some of your railroad engineering courses online. Check with each engineering school below for assistance with certificate program requirements, degree prerequisites, and class registration. You may request information from several different schools below, without making a commitment.
To prepare for Railroad Operations careers in Arkansas, you need to complete a technical education in your specialty area, as well as consider taking part of your required courses online. Which college degrees give you the best chances of finding employment after graduation? As the entrance requirements for engineering programs vary, learn about the various specialization options available. Check with the railroad engineering department for course registration deadlines, and engineering program requirements.
Locomotive engineers drive freight or passenger trains between stations. They drive long-distance trains and commuter trains, but not subway trains. Most locomotive engineers drive diesel-electric engines, although some drive locomotives powered by battery or electricity. Engineers must be aware of their cargo because different types of freight require different styles of driving, based on the conditions of the rails. For example, a train carrying hazardous material through a snowstorm is driven differently than a train carrying coal through a mountain region.
Locomotive engineers must be certified by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). The certification, conducted by the railroad that employs them, involves a written knowledge test, a skills test, and a supervisor determining that the engineer understands all physical aspects of the particular route on which he or she will be operating. In addition, locomotive operators must be at least 21 years of age and pass a background test. Rail yard engineers, switch operators, and signal operators can advance to become conductors or yardmasters. Some conductors or yardmasters advance to become locomotive engineers after gaining several years of work experience. Beyond major requirements within the railroad engineering department, you may consider Georgia Regents University climate change as a complementary elective.


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If you knew Alison, please take a moment to write about it on this lovely site in her memory.
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Author: Jorah Lavin
I grew up in New England, moved to the Carolinas in '98 to start working at what was then a large regional bank and is now a really big nationwide bank. I work doing intranet content management and intranet site management for said bank. After work, I watch movies & eat. I've been studying Aikido since 2014, and I ride an old Honda Shadow. Someday I want to go skydiving. View all posts by Jorah Lavin


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Team Maggie Day +7 (Updated)
It's been 7 days since Maggie Rudnicki recieved her bone marrow transplant from her brother Lucas, and for the family, it has to feel like a life time.
According to her mom Lauren
Miss Maggie had another rough night. Fever of 102 all night and a lot of throwing up because of all the sores/mucus in her throat. She is such a trooper and even when she is tired and weak she fights the nurses which I am happy to see. You keep fighting Maggie! She is current getting another bag of platelets and maybe blood later. Can't believe today makes a week since her transplant and 3 weeks since we came to Boston!
So much has happened. Yesterday Maggie lost her hair and really, as expected hasn't been feeling well. Mom and Maggie were visited today by Patriot Joe Andruzzi, and Lauren was able to try on his Super Bowl Ring!
We have asked you to submit your picture of you, or your family holding up a sign, a message of support, to let Maggie know that we are all part of Team Maggie! We have had some great submissions! We're putting all the pictures up on the website. If you want to see all the pictures, or submit your own, CLICK HERE or you can just email me a photo at firstname.lastname@example.com
We have had so many people asking how they can help Maggie and her family with the medical expenses and travel. You can make a donation, and send it to People's United Bank Attention Diane Smith PO Box 925, Bangor ME 04402. Checks should be made out to Maggie Rudnicki. You can get all that information by CLICKING HERE
Thanks to Channels 5 and the CW and Fox 22 and Channel 7 for filming stories today on Team Maggie! I know Lauren, Andy and the entire extended Rudnicki family are heartened by your notes, pictures, donations and prayers.
And speaking of prayers, they work. Please continue to pray for Maggie, Mom, Dad, and the entire family that they have the strength to persevere, for healing, and for health in the future.
6 PM Update From Mom Lauren
Just have to share that Maggie is sitting up in bed talking to me, playing on her iPad and even giggled a few times! After the past few days I can't tell you how happy it makes me just to see her smiling and hear her laugh!


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I know he spent time with the stickies but did he ever have an involvement with their militant wing? And was Gilmore a defender of North Korea in the 80s? The Workers Party were rumoured to be in receipt of money from the People's Republic of North Korea although it was most likely lies from the bourgeoise media
Any help from the older posters would be appreciated


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What's Wrong With Doug Free?
Jonathan Bales
Heading into the 2011 season, the Cowboys had a lot to worry about concerning the interior of their offensive line, but no one could have anticipated left tackle Doug Free struggling as much as has been the case. Free played well in his first season at left tackle in 2010, receiving a C+ in run blocking and a B+ in pass protection in my 2010 Offensive Line Grades. Here is what I had to say about his play last year:
Run Blocking: C+
Others have commended Free on his run blocking in 2010, and while it wasn't horrific, I think people are simply pleased with average play due to low expectations. In reality, the Cowboys averaged just 3.97 yards-per-carry when running behind Free–much, much too low for an offensive tackle. In comparison, the Cowboys averaged 4.54 yards-per-rush when running behind Free in '09, and 4.98 behind Flozell Adams the same season.
The fact that 6.6 percent of runs behind Free went for 20+ yards is outstanding, but the 'Boys need more consistency from their left tackle. Garrett could aid Free by allowing him to get in space on counters and tosses.
Pass Protection: B+
I originally planned on giving Free an "A" for his pass protection, but the nine penalties killed him. There were times when Free was out of position, but I think it is obvious to anyone who watched the 'Boys that Free was generally doing his job in pass protection.
He yielded one-third as many sacks as Adams in 2009 and half the pressures. Allowing just three sacks when facing the opposition's top pass-rushers (especially in the NFC East–Trent Cole, Justin Tuck, Brian Orakpo) is quite impressive.
Below, you can see Free's pass protection numbers from 2010.
Although struggling with penalties, Free's three sacks yielded was awesome. The 19 pressures were less than half of right tackle Marc Colombo, even though Free's left tackle position is more difficult to play.
In 2011, though, something has changed in Free. Check out a few of his numbers thus far. . .
No matter how you slice it, Free is performing worse than in 2010. The yards-per-carry when running behind him is down 4.8% despite a far, far more efficient running game from Dallas this season as compared to last. Free's run blocking has actually been better than his pass protection, though, where he has yielded way too much pressure. A sack rate 2.57 times as high as last year. Nearly 1.5 times as many pressures. A penalty rate almost double that of 2010–a year in which it was already much too high.
So what's wrong with Free? One theory is that he injured his shoulder in Week 2 against the Niners and simply hasn't recovered. There is some credibility to that idea, as we wouldn't expect such a decline in production from Free, even if he outperformed his skill level in 2010.
But what about his false starts? Free committed three false starts last week alone, suggesting he isn't where he needs to be mentally, regardless of his physical condition. It's possible that Free's play is affecting his mindset, causing a lack of concentration.
Whatever the reason for Free's struggles, you can expect improvement. This is an athletic, talented left tackle who should excel on the types of plays Jason Garrett is calling in 2011–more counters, screens, and "finesse" plays which allow Free to get out into space where he can utilize his quickness.
My best guess is that Free was injured and the subsequent poor play got to his head, affecting his production. Eventually, though, you can bet that Free's effectiveness will "regress to the mean." In other words, the "true" Doug Free will shine through at some point, and I imagine the Real Free Shady is closer to the 2010 version than the one we are seeing in 2011.
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