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Updated Oct. 16, 2006
Mary and Robert Halsey
The courtroom testimony of twin 8-year-old boys – a concoction of fantasy and fear – led to a life sentence for Robert Halsey in 1993. In 2004 the National Center for Reason and Justice took up his case, but all of its appeals have been denied and the Massachusetts Supreme Court has denied Halsey's Application for Further Appellate Review. Now in his 70s and in failing health, the former bus driver will most likely die in prison, a victim of the child sexual-abuse hysteria that put him there.
by Lona Manning
Robert Halsey is in prison in Massachusetts. He's in his 70s, in poor health and he's been behind bars since 1993. Officially, he was convicted of sexual assault on children, but in another sense, he was convicted of being the bogeyman. His trial transcript makes for chilling reading -- and not for the reason you might expect. It raises the frightening possibility that an innocent person was accused and convicted of a childish concoction of fantasy and fear.
Halsey lived with his wife Mary in a modest house in the town of Lanesboro, in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. He was an uncomplicated man. When he was younger and in better shape he enjoyed hunting and fishing. But as he entered his 60s, he was more likely to settle down in front of the television after a day of driving the school bus. His wife was more likely to be bustling around in the evening as Halsey, like many men of his generation, neither cooked nor cleaned. Mary Halsey relates how one evening, when she was working late in her craft room, her husband brought her a bowl of fruit cocktail. She was amazed that her husband had managed to find the can opener -- and that it had even occurred to him to be so thoughtful. It wasn't that he was a selfish man, but he was a man of limited imagination.
The Halseys had a grown daughter, but no grandchildren. "Children were very precious beings to both of us," says Mrs. Halsey. Her husband talked about the kids on his bus route "all the time," she recalled. "He enjoyed the kids, we always talked about them -- the things they said, if they did something funny."
In the fall of 1990, Beverly Walker arranged for bus service for her twin sons, who were entering a half-day kindergarten program at the local elementary school. The family lived on a winding, steep, dirt road, where no regular school bus could go, so the bus company (after some reluctance), bought a four-wheel-drive passenger van. Robert Halsey was the children's bus driver. Although Halsey picked up other children who lived on the outskirts of town, for a portion of his route, the twins were his only passengers.
He grew particularly fond of them. When the gas station was giving away Matchbox cars with every fill up, Halsey saved them to give to the boys, Jason and Justin Walker (all children's names and other identifying details concerning them have been changed). The Walker twins are teenagers now, but when they were 8 years old, they played a key role in sending Robert Halsey to prison, where he will most probably die.
How did Robert Halsey become the bogeyman of Lanesboro?
The Arrest
Robert Halsey's ordeal started in February of 1992 when the parents of 5-year-old Monica Kelly complained that he had tickled their daughter. Halsey, who had grown up in an era when it was all right to tickle children, pinch their cheeks and give them candy, got a crash course in the sensibilities of modern child rearing. He was quietly taken off that bus route and only allowed to drive for the high school students. Halsey was worried and embarrassed and he missed the Walker twins. In the summer of 1992, he went to their house and brought them a present of some baseball bats. He asked Mrs. Walker to please not believe the rumors she had heard. (Later, Mr. Walker testified that he and his wife suspected Halsey might be a molester because he was taken off the bus route.)
In early 1993, when the twins were in first grade, their mother gave birth to her third child. Her husband brought Jason and Justin down to the hospital on Saturday afternoon and he also brought along some cigars.
It was the cigars that prompted something in little Justin's memory. Something about Mr. Halsey. All we know is that on Monday, the children's school counselor, Jane Satullo, interviewed the twins in the presence of the town's police chief.
Later, Police Chief Stan Misiuk took each child separately to Cheshire Lake, which was spanned by a causeway called Nobody's Road. The locals went fishing lake for bass, gill and pumpkinseed. Mr. Walker sometimes took the twins there.
It was here, the twins later testified, that Mr. Halsey frequently detoured on his way to school. He shot and stabbed fish, crayfish and turtles while they watched in fear. He made a house of cards, put crayfish in it and set fire to it. These strange goings-on continued all through the fall of 1990 while they were going to pre-kindergarten, although they didn't mention any of it to their parents. Then in the spring of 1991, Halsey began to molest them. He would drive uphill from the pond into some secluded fields and tie them up with rope and duct tape and take them, one after the other, off the bus and sodomize them. Then he ripped the duct tape off and dropped them off at school. These alleged tortures continued through the rest of the school year and resumed the following school year.
Until the day little Monica came home and complained to her parents that Mr. Halsey had tickled her. James Zarvis, the owner of the bus company, stepped in to drive the Walker boys. According to Zarvis' later testimony, Jason and Justin told Zarvis that they missed Mr. Halsey and wondered where he was. The criminal allegations against him would not come until almost a year later -- when they were at the hospital meeting the new baby.
The initial interview with the school counselor and the police chief was not recorded. In other cases of this sort, it's the interview transcripts or videotapes that have helped to set the defendant free. They have clearly shown adults coaching and coaxing young children into accusing their parents, their teachers, other people in the community, of sexually abusing them. In the infamous McMartin Daycare case in California, chief interrogator Kee MacFarlane dressed in a clown suit and interviewed children with puppets. A social worker in the Wee Care preschool case cajoled: "All the other friends I talked to told me everything that happened. Randy told me. Connie told me...And now it's your turn to tell. You don't want to be left out, do you?"
At trial, the counselor, Jane Satullo, would tell the jury that she didn't ask the twins any leading questions. But she is a therapist, and not a detective, as is made evident by her remark: "I try most of all to open the child's -- open the child -- really, in some ways, opening their heart, feeling safe, it's okay, they can talk, they can tell their story in their own words."
After the children were interviewed, the police chief sent several officers to search Halsey's house and arrest him. The police seized knives from the kitchen and tool shed, they seized rope, tackle boxes and fishing poles, they took his late father's .38, his pellet gun and a starter pistol. They took his penknife off his key chain. "They took my duct tape out of my craft room," said Mrs. Halsey. "It was my tape." In the bedroom, they found Mr. Halsey's stash of adult pornography, some magazines and videos. Police noticed that the house was filled with clutter, including cardboard boxes.
Halsey, unable to meet the $500,000 bail, waited in jail. The day after his arrest, all 350 children at Lanesboro Elementary were sent home early so the teachers and school officials could meet to discuss the shocking allegations. In the days that followed, parents jammed into the school for information meetings. Jane Satullo and the school principal, Thomas Gillooly, were both quoted extensively and both spoke as though the charges against Halsey did not merit any doubt, and both dispatched the presumption of innocence. "We all feel violated," the principal said. "This has rocked the entire community." He added that everyone had discovered "how unsafe our world can be." Satullo called the boys "heroes." A parent complained that the school "has been victimized by a predator."
Halsey had been driving the bus and tickling children, for over 20 years, but no grown victims came forward, even though the case was well publicized. On the other hand, nobody publicly came to his defense. One of his fellow bus drivers said the charges against Halsey, "Baffle me... He was a simple, uncomplicated guy. I can't even imagine this happening."
In the months before trial, the children were in therapy and they developed even more accusations. Halsey made them hold up targets while he shot at them. He sprayed them with a "sleepy spray." He made them eat urine, feces and vomit. He threw them in the lake, then took them to his house and stuffed them in cardboard boxes and made them watch adult pornographic videos.
Halsey's public defender, Richard LeBlanc, was skeptical about whether Halsey had time to do any of these things. In the second year, particularly, Halsey had 45 minutes to pick up all the morning kindergarten children and deliver them home, then pick up children attending the afternoon session, and deliver them to school. Halsey's only bus-driving peccadillo, which had gotten him into trouble in the past, was his income-supplementing practice of stopping to pick up bottles and cans he saw at the side of the road. Nobody had a record of the exact time Halsey's bus pulled into the school yard every day (although he had never been in trouble for being late), still, it was difficult to understand how Halsey would have time to detour down Nobody's Road, tie and tape the kids up, whip out the fishing pole, catch fish, kill the fish, drive up the hill to the cornfield, sexually assault the children, then rip the duct tape off their mouths, untie them, and still finish his route on time.
The Trial
Judge Daniel Ford, who had been the prosecuting attorney in the Bernard Baran (http://www.freebaran.org) case, would hear the case. Baran, a daycare worker in nearby Pittsfield, Mass., was the first person to be convicted of bizarre crimes of this type against children. Halsey's prosecutor, Timothy Shugrue, was a specialist in sexual-abuse cases who would go on to co-found the Kid's Place, an agency for screening and counseling abused children.
At trial, "the courtroom's high ceiling and adult-sized witness stand dwarfed the two boys," reported the Berkshire Eagle. Jason, the elder twin by five minutes, testified first. He claimed after Halsey had been driving them for about a week when he detoured one day to Nobody's Road, drove over some concrete barriers and took them into some secluded fields, and pulled out his .38. He made the children hold up targets, which he shot at.
But when Justin took the stand, Shugrue had trouble pulling the same story out of him. He introduced the target shooting testimony with, "Could you tell me, at some point in time did things become not okay with Bob?"
"Yes," answers Justin. "He started hitting us and pulling down our pants."
When Shugrue tries to clarify that he's asking for the first strange incident, which according to the other twin, was the target shooting incident, "the first time he did something that made you feel kind of uncomfortable," Justin responds: "He pulled down our pants and stuck his penis into our butt." Shugrue attempts to clarify by asking Justin:
Q. I want to ask you about the times you said he started to hit you and stuff... When did that start?"
A. The second day of school. He was hitting us and putting our heads in the pond.
Q. What happened at first?
A. First I hit him because he said something to me, and then he started hitting me, then dunked my head in the pond.
Shugrue then shifts gears and leads Justin through a discussion of how Halsey had tickled him and how Justin pushed his hand away. Justin is shown a map, and is asked to point out where the van went. After six pages of laborious coaching and looking at maps, Shugrue has placed Justin and Halsey past the lake and in the field, all ready to talk about the target- shooting incident.
Q. What happened once you pulled into that field?
A. He started hitting us and pulling our pants down.
Shugrue repeats, "I want to talk about the very first time that something happened." He suggests to Justin that he is a little uncomfortable and nervous and wants to say everything at once. Justin agrees. Okay. Shugrue asks again, what did he do?
A. Pulled down our pants.
Q. I'm talking about the first time you went in there." [Shugrue repeats, and adds a hint] "I'm talking about the first time you went in there. Did he ever use guns?
A. Yeah.
Q. What did he do with the guns?
A. He was putting guns to our heads and he was putting knives to our head.
After eight pages of effort, Shugrue throws in the towel, and asks directly, "Do you remember ever seeing any targets?"
The light finally dawns for Justin: "He used to make us hold them up and shoot at them."
Here, Justin is supposed to testify that Halsey unzipped his own pants, placed candy in his crotch, and invited the children to fish for it, but Shugrue is momentarily sidetracked by a new allegation;
Q. Where did he put the candy?
A. Up his butt.
Q. Did he tell you he put the candy up his butt?
A. Yeah.
Q. Did you actually see him do that?
A. Yeah.
Q. Tell us, when you were on the bus, did you see him do something with the candy?
A. He licked it.
Q. You started to tell me, and I interrupted you before, that he unzipped his pants?
Often, when the children said something particularly bizarre or impossible, Shugrue asked them if they were frightened. Mary Halsey says the children didn't appear frightened to her: "The one boy (Jason) was very much in control but the other twin (Justin) was sort of fidgety like, but he didn't appear to be frightened. They looked like they had been well rehearsed, which I imagine they were."
But even if the correct answer was not forthcoming, prosecutor Shugrue supplied it. Shugrue was convinced that Halsey kept his arsenal of guns, knives, baseball bats, ropes, tape, etc., hidden behind the last bench in the back of the van. But his star witnesses almost never said that. They testified that Halsey wore a knife on his hat and one attached to his boot. They said he wore a gun on his holster, even when he was picking them up or dropping them off. He also kept a gun in his pocket, baseball bats under the front seat, and filled the glove compartment with knives. Almost every time the twins were shown a gun or a knife in the courtroom, they said they had seen it "under the seat," "in his pocket" or "in the glove department." Almost every time, Shugrue would prompt them: Ever see them in the back as well?... Did you see a bunch of knives also in the back?... Do you remember ever seeing any guns in the back?... Did you see them in the back as well? Yes, the children would agree, yes, they also saw weapons in the back.
The concrete blocks on Nobody's Road.
The question of the concrete blocks demonstrated how quickly the Walker twins could accommodate their testimony to fit what the questioner was asking. Nobody's Road was blocked off by large dividers in the winter to prevent cars from using the unpaved portion past the causeway which spanned the lake. (The prosecution argued that there was enough room for Halsey to maneuver the Suburban around the blocks.)
Halsey's lawyer asked Jason: "(You said in direct examination) that the van just drove right over (the blocks), is that right?"
A. Yes.
Q. You went over the blocks, is that right?
A. Yeah.
The blocks in question are three feet tall and three feet wide. On redirect, Shugrue moved to repair the damage:
Q. Did you actually go over the blocks? Did you go around the blocks? Explain that to us.
A. We went around the blocks.
On re-cross, Jason adapted his story when Halsey's attorney persisted by asking him:
Q. Well now, did you go over them or did you go around them?
A. Around them. One wheel just hit on the blocks and went over them.
Shugrue also corrected 7-year-old Monica Kelly, who testified that "the first day" she saw the guns and knives on Halsey's bus, she told her parents at that time and they even had a conversation about it. She also claimed thatwhen her grandmother picked her up at the bus stop, she pointed the guns out to her grandmother. Shugrue repaired her credibility by telling her that what she really meant was that she told her parents "more recently," and that she was "still afraid" of Halsey. She agreed with him.
The remaining witnesses were sisters who had moved to Florida. According to the original allegations described to a grand jury by Mr. Walker, Justin said Halsey lined up the children on the school bus and sexually assaulted them one after the other. Justin and Jason named the other supposed victims, and these children were in turn questioned. Monica and the Carter sisters would eventually testify to seeing knives and guns on the bus, or to having their mouths taped, but none of them corroborated the sexual assaults. At trial, no child testified to seeing another child sexually assaulted.
Another child who had been named by twins as having been a victim denied, in spite of repeated questioning, that anything unusual had happened on Halsey's bus, and did not testify.
Halsey's lawyer was able to establish that like the other children, Carter sisters' testimony had changed and become more damaging to Halsey since their initial interviews with the police, but he was unable to do more than suggest contamination of their testimony, since the interviews were not recorded. The investigating officer's testimony clearly showed that she asked leading questions such as, "Did you see knives and guns on the bus?"
The children seemed to move from milder to wilder accusations when asked, what else? what else? Monica was the girl who initially said that Halsey had tickled her. By the time of the trial, she said that he had also waved a knife at her and choked her. In this excerpt, Jason recalls being forced to eat sushi, and after a "what else," comes up with more.
Q. What kinds of things would he have you do with the fish?
A. He said he made me eat it, he's going to make me eat it...
Q. Did he do anything else with the fish.
A. Shot them in the water, and he --
Q. Go ahead.
A. Made us eat them.
Q. Anything else?
A. He stuck them up our butts.
The prosecution called as its expert witness psychologist Jeffrey Fishman, who testified that children who have been molested, often, out of sense of shame, delay revealing all the details of what happened to them. Fishman also explained to the jury how sexually abused children behave -- the tummy aches, the trouble swallowing, the sudden modesty about being seen naked.
The twins' mother took the stand to describe how her children behaved from the time Mr. Halsey began driving them -- the tummy aches, the trouble swallowing, the sudden modesty about being seen naked. What the jury never heard was that Dr. Fishman was also the children's therapist and that he'd worked closely with the family, a collaboration that routinely involves discussing symptoms to look out for. And the defense never called an expert to counter Fishman's testimony and explain that cognitive psychologists had clearly shown how easy it was to influence children to say things that weren't true and that of course many children get tummy aches.
The defense did call the twin's teachers who testified that the children behaved normally at school, and were happy, alert and well dressed. The prosecution had an explanation for that, too: Traumatized children can appear to be happy, Dr. Fishman explained, because they are "dissociating" -- blocking out the terrible things that had just happened, to protect themselves psychologically.
And indeed, the children had trouble remembering some things that one might suppose were impossible to forget, such as in this exchange between Shugrue and Jason:
A. He stuck his finger into my butt.
Q. What did it feel like?
A. I don't remember.
Q. Hurt?
A. Yes.
A few minutes later, Shugrue takes no chances, and phrases the question differently:
Q. What did it feel like when he had it (his penis) inside you? Did it hurt?
A. Yes.
Words didn't fail Shugrue when he came to his closing argument. Speaking as though he were the abused boys, Shugrue told the jury what he thought the boys really meant to say: "And with that came (the words), 'he would insert his finger into my rectum as he made me get down on all four of my hands and knees, how he would 'wiggle his finger around in and out of my rectum because my pants were removed', and the words, 'I had to get on my hands and knees, and I felt him put something in my rectum, my bum and he moved it in and out until he peed on my back..." (In fact the children always described sodomy, whether penile or with an object, as a twirling, not a thrusting, sort of activity. The children always say, "he moved it around," and one even demonstrated a circular motion with his finger. Only Shugrue uses the term, "in and out.")
Perhaps the greatest blow to Halsey's case was the medical evidence. Pediatrician Matthew Sadof testified that both boys had scarring on their anuses. One boy in particular, had a "lack of rugae" (no puckering) on almost half of his anus. But if this anomaly was indeed a scar, how big was the wound? A wound that size -- half the anus ripped or scraped away, would leave a child screaming in pain and bleeding profusely. Their mother testified that she sat with her children while they had their bowel movements because they complained of constipation. She looked at their stools before flushing them, she wiped their bottoms. She mentioned the children were in the habit of bending over, spreading their cheeks, and saying, "look at my butthole," as part of their bath time play. (This exhibitionism was blamed on Halsey's influence, as was the excessive modesty their mother also complained of.) And obviously she laundered their clothes and underpants. Would wounds of any size escape this mother's detection?
This brief review of the medical evidence is not intended to be the final word on the subject, simply to suggest that Sadof's testimony is not beyond dispute and in fact it was disputed in the civil proceedings that followed the criminal trial. The expert for the insurance company questioned whether what the doctor saw were scars at all, but the normal lumps, bumps and ridges which are variations in human anatomy.
The defense argued that Halsey's bus schedule didn't allow for extensive molesting in the fields. But Shugrue's aggressive cross-examination of the bus company owner Zarvis, raised the specter of doubt. "You don't really know when and where people were picked up!" he accused Zarvis. "It was three years ago," Zarvis countered, complaining that because the prosecution had subpoenaed his company's records, he couldn't remember how many children Halsey picked up on each part of his route. "You don't have any firsthand knowledge of what Mr. Halsey did and where he went." Shugrue accused. "No," said Zarvis.
A key witness in the case also made a significant change to her testimony about the amount of time Halsey was alone with the children. Police Chief Misiuk's initial report says that Mrs. Walker told him the twins were "ready" to be picked up at 11:30 a.m. for the afternoon session. At trial, however, she changed her story: "And it was about 11 o'clock that they would have their lunch, and it was -- the latest he would ever pick them up would be quarter after or 20 after, the latest," she said.
This time change added at least 15 minutes to the time Halsey supposedly had alone with the children.
But even if he did have time to spare on his mid-morning run, he apparently squandered most of his opportunities. He wasted precious time catching fish, stabbing frogs and turtles, playing mumblety peg and setting fire to crayfish. Perhaps every perversion is explained with the all-purpose answer that he's a twisted child molester. Or perhaps this entire tragedy could have been avoided if just one of the adults involved in the investigation had said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute -- he did what with the crayfish?!"
Another major setback for Halsey was that his defense attorney did not put Halsey on the stand in his own defense. What else could he say, his lawyer felt, but "I didn't do it." Halsey could have spoken volumes. In giving his side of the story he could have put his simple, straightforward nature and his loving regard for the twins on public display. His attorney could have taken him through every accusation step by step and allowed him to refute them, each of them, in great detail. They never heard, for example, that Mrs. Halsey was saving the infamous cardboard boxes to cut up to make starter fuel for the wood stove. All the accusations about guns and knives in his bus could have been debunked. His 20 years of reliable, caring service could have been put on the record. With a life sentence in the balance, Halsey's jury needed to hear -- and no doubt expected to hear -- Halsey say he was not only totally innocent but totally incapable of committing such terrible crimes. Instead the jury only got to hear that Halsey would not take the stand in his own defense.
The jury deliberated for only three hours. What started with tickling ended with three life sentences, with the third life sentence to run concurrently with the second. Robert Halsey, who drove a generation of Lanesboro children to school, became the bogeyman.
After the trial, when it was too late, his lawyer told the court that there were people who knew a different Robert Halsey: "(Before trial) my office has gotten a number of anonymous telephone calls from different people... who said, 'You know, I just can't believe that this could be true of Mr. Halsey because he was the bus driver for my kid...' and it was story after story of, 'I can't believe this. He was so good to my kids. I never had any problems with him. He would do this, he would go out of his way to do that.'"
Mrs. Halsey said, "accusing him of hurting children was like accusing Santa Claus. He would never do anything like that."
After Halsey's trial, the Walker family sued the bus company and settled out of court.
Halsey's one publicly funded appeal, which centered mostly on the question of whether the prosecution should have used his adult pornography stash against him at trial, was turned down in 1996. Halsey's appeal lawyer did not raise the issues of suggestibility of children's testimony, nor did she question the medical evidence, nor the credentials of the "expert" therapist, who had held 11 different positions at 11 different facilities in the 10 years previous to his testifying, and had never done formal research or been published. Halsey is incarcerated at Bay State Correctional Center in Norfolk, Mass.
Shortly after the Halsey trial, Timothy Shugrue left the district attorney's office and went into private practice. (Shugrue did not respond to requests for an interview for this article, nor did the Walker parents.) One of Shugrue's first clients was a woman divorcing her husband, a project manager for a civil engineering firm named Bruce Clairmont. Clairmont was eventually accused of molesting the couple's youngest children. Clairmont maintains his complete innocence and refuses to enter a treatment program in prison.
Carol Clairmont Weissbrod, Bruce Clairmont's sister, has fought for her brother steadfastly ever since. "I thought the system worked," she explained. "I was raised to believe that if you didn't break the law, then everything would be fine and you wouldn't go to prison." She says that with her brother's case "I found out the hard way that that's not true."
When she learned about Robert Halsey, in particular the fact that Shugrue, Dr. Fishman and others who had been involved in her brother's case, had also worked on the Halsey, she contacted Mrs. Halsey to commiserate. Weissbrod discovered that after Mary Halsey's husband became the monster of Lanesboro, she stayed on in the same town, in the same house, too poor to move away. She is also too poor to phone or visit her husband more than once a month. In early 2002, Mary Halsey had a stroke and is now legally blind.
Because of Carol Weissbrod's efforts, Robert Halsey's case has been take up by the The National Center for Reason and Justice, an advocacy group for the wrongfully convicted. Tax-deductible donations may be sent to:
Boston MA 02123-0414
Update: October 2006
Thanks to the efforts of Robert Halsey's supporters at the National Center for Reason and Justice, http://www.ncrj.org/, Robert Halsey was assigned a public defender, attorney Charles K. Stephenson, in the early spring of 2004. When Stephenson investigated the case, he discovered startling revelations that are here disclosed publicly for the first time.
As bizarre and sensational as the accusations against Halsey at trial had been, it turned out that two of his young accusers, twin boys Jason and Justin Walker, told even wilder stories while continuing in therapy with Dr. Jeffrey Fishman after the trial. (It was Fishman who served as Berkshire County's "expert" on child abuse for Halsey's trial.)
According to Fishman's clinical notes, which Stephenson obtained, the therapist was convinced that the children had not told all there was to tell about their encounters with Halsey. Fishman encouraged the twins to confide in him by comparing secrets to fish swimming in an aquarium, waiting to jump out. "Rather than offer slight variations on similar stories," Fishman wrote, "the boys were directed to think about new varieties of sex things that hadn't been let out at all." Thus encouraged to come up with "new varieties of sex things," the twins poured out ever more grotesque accusations against Halsey in bi-weekly therapy sessions. At times, the sessions took on a flavor of a contest, as the twins "took turns…telling new stories of their abuse."
The Walker children (the confidentiality of the family is preserved throughout this article by the use of pseudonyms) catalogued a long list of perversions, mostly centering on feces, urine, fire, and small animals. Many of the alleged tortures had no sexual component, and many of the sexual accusations betrayed a typical child's ignorance of human anatomy. Attorney Stephenson wrote in his appeal brief that Fishman "extracted scores of preposterous claims of abuse…[and showed] himself to be distressingly gullible, praising the children for their courage in disclosing what was plainly impossible."
In addition to encouraging the boys to talk about perverted and grotesque activities, Fishman would occasionally remind the boys that their own parents had failed to protect them from Halsey. His notes – ironically called "progress notes" – blandly catalogue the inevitable results.
Justin and Jason became increasingly neurotic and unhappy, suffered from nightmares, had furious temper-tantrums, and even threatened suicide. They would not go to bed without "elaborate safety rituals and reassurances." One of the twins used disclosures as a bartering chip – in exchange for sleeping in his parents' bed, he would tell a "big secret." The parents, meanwhile, were drifting apart, each locked in his or her own private despair, wracked with guilt over what had happened, but also sick of having the trauma dominate their lives. (By September 1994, the parents were beginning to express doubts about the therapist's strategy of pressing the children for more revelations. Dr. Fishman acknowledged that his "treatment may in fact be exacerbating traumatic memories.")
While reviewing the therapy notes, Stephenson uncovered a bombshell revelation. Two months after the trial, the twins told Fishman that Halsey was not the only one who molested them on Nobody's Road. At first, they alleged another man, whom they called "Mister," rode on the bus and joined Halsey in abusing them. The following month, the accusations grew to include another man and a woman. "The parents," Fishman wrote, "were somewhat incredulous and unsure what was really true. They were clearly distraught over continued allegations that seemed unending."
No allegation of multiple offenders had been made during the trial, and according to the available records, none of the other children who were questioned mentioned an old man with a dark beard, or an old fat lady. The children's parents reported the accusations to the police, but there is no indication that the district attorney ever looked for these phantom attackers – or ever questioned the reliability of the original accusation against Halsey. If the district attorney believed that the accusations against Halsey were true, why were these later accusations ignored? And since the later accusations were obviously false, (for example, one boy claimed the female offender "stuck her vagina in my butt") then why do they continue to defend the case against Halsey?
Armed with this strong evidence that the children's accusations were the product of misguided therapy, Stephenson filed a motion for a new trial in March of 2004. He also argued that Halsey's trial lawyer had failed to mount a proper defense. (For example, Halsey's trial attorney, Richard LeBlanc, called no expert witness to challenge the testimony of the prosecution's "expert" witness Dr. Fishman and failed to challenge the medical evidence.) The appeal was heard in October by the original trial judge, Judge Daniel A. Ford, who once prosecuted a young daycare worker named Bernard Baran in similar circumstances (http://www.freebaran.org/#Short).
Judge Ford rejected Halsey's appeal. His February 2005 ruling argued that though the accusations made in therapy "may seem difficult to believe," they were similar to the "implausible claims" made at trial – and the jurors had "still believed the twins testimony." Even if the jury had heard these new revelations, he ruled, it would not have changed the outcome of the trial.
In September of 2005, Stephenson presented a powerfully written, carefully reasoned 54-page brief to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Appeals Court. The brief was supported by a 268-page appendix which laid out in detail the injustices and absurdities of the case:
[T]he claimed multi-victim orgies and torture could never have occurred within the time constraints of a school bus run… had Robert Halsey drugged several of the children, inserted drill bits into the complainants' penises, broken bones and … beaten them repeatedly… there would have been physical manifestations apparent to even the most myopic caregiver.
Stephenson was armed with an affidavit from one of the nation's most eminent experts on child memory and suggestibility, Dr. Melvin J. Guyer, who reported that the children's accusations "are characteristic of the bizarre and scatological stories told by impressionable children when they are interviewed by adults who have an obsession with abuse which blinds them to the ease with which children can fabricate…" Guyer noted that the children's stories centered around "poop" and "pee" "In most instances," when children start talking about poop and butts and killing animals, "responsible adults tell children to stop acting silly." But in the Halsey case, zealous and gullible counselors like Jane Sattullo and Dr. Fishman encouraged the children to elaborate on their bizarre stories. As a result, a man was sent to die in prison.
Stephenson and Mr. and Mrs. Halsey, as well as all his supporters, were hopeful that the appeals court would see the case against Halsey for the preposterous nonsense it is. But on May 31, 2006 the appeals court dismissed Halsey's appeal. The appeals court judges did not provide a written opinion, destroying in two short sentences Halsey's hopes for release.
Stephenson filed an Application for Further Appellate Review with the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which was denied in July of 2006. Stephenson was shocked and disappointed: "I thought this was the best case, the best argument, the most compelling appeal in my entire (25 year) career." Stephenson is convinced Halsey did not have a fair trial and hopes that further publicity about this case will bring more public support for Halsey.
Dr. Fishman continues to practice as a therapist in Massachusetts. In a telephone call from this reporter, Dr. Fishman declined to answer any questions about his role or his findings in this case. There is no indication that Mr. and Mrs. Walker have had second thoughts (they sued the bus company and were paid a handsome settlement), even though they doubted some of the wilder accusations their sons were making. The National Center for Reason and Justice http://www.ncrj.org/ continues to support Robert Halsey's claim of innocence and to accept donations on his behalf to finance further legal appeals on his behalf.
More information on the Halsey case
In 2002, Professor Ross Cheit of Brown University published a lengthy article about the Halsey case in which he argued that Halsey was guilty and the children's accusations were "credible." That article is rebutted at length here.
Update: September 2002
In response to this article and another scholarly paper written by Lona Manning, Ross Cheit has posted a website, www.ManningDebunked.org, in which he attempts to dispute Manning's research on the case and her critique of his article.
Manning has responded in turn with a page: http://members.shaw.ca/imaginarycrimes/Halseydebunked.htm.


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Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge passage of H.R. 5948, the Belarus Democracy Reauthorization Act of 2006, to provide sustained support for the promotion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the Republic of Belarus, as well as encourage the consolidation and strengthening of Belarus' sovereignty and independence. Mr. Speaker, I especially thank you for your commitment to bring this legislation before this Congress. Your deep personal interest in the cause of freedom in Belarus, as demonstrated by your recent meetings in Vilnius with the leaders of the democratic opposition, has been particularly appreciated by those struggling for the rule of law and basic human freedoms. This legislation enjoys bipartisan support, and I want to recognize and thank the tremendous collaboration of Rep. Tom Lantos, an original cosponsor of this bill.
As one who has followed developments in Belarus over many years through my work on the Helsinki Commission, I remain deeply concerned that the Belarusian people continue to be subjected to the arbitrary and self-serving whims of a corrupt and anti-democratic regime headed by Aleksandr Lukashenka. Since the blatantly fraudulent March 19 presidential elections, which the OSCE condemned as having failed to meet international democratic standards, the pattern of repression and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. While those who would dare oppose the regime are especially targeted, the reality is that all in Belarus outside Lukashenka's inner circle pay a price.
Recent news regarding Lukashenka's regime
Last week in Riga, President Bush pledged to help the people of Belarus in the face of the "cruel regime" led by President Lukashenka. "The existence of such oppression in our midst offends the conscience of Europe and the conscience of America," Bush said, adding that "we have a message for the people of Belarus: the vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace includes you, and we stand with you in your struggle for freedom." Mr. Speaker, this legislation would be a concrete expression of Congress' commitment to the Belarusian people and would show that we stand as one in supporting freedom for Belarus.
Just within the last few months, we have witnessed a series of patently political trials designed to further stifle peaceful, democratic opposition. In October, 60-year-old human rights activist Katerina Sadouskaya was sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Her "crime"? "Insulting the honor and dignity of the Belarusian leader." Mr. Speaker, if this isn't reminiscent of the Soviet Union, I don't know what is. And just a few weeks ago, in a closed trial, Belarusian youth activist Zmitser Dashkevich received a one-and-a-half year sentence for "activities on behalf of an unregistered organization."
A report mandated by the Belarus Democracy Act and finally issued this past March reveals Lukashenka's links with rogue regimes such as Iran, Sudan and Syria, and his cronies' corrupt activities. According to an October 9, 2006, International Herald Tribune op-ed: "Alarmingly, over the last six years, Belarus has intensified its illegal arms shipment activities to the point of becoming the leading supplier of lethal military equipment to Islamic state sponsors of terrorism."
I guess we shouldn't be all that surprised that in July, Lukashenka warmly welcomed to Minsk Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. In keeping with their bent, both pledged cooperation and denounced the West. More recently, Belarusian Foreign Minister Martynov traveled to Iran where President Ahmadinejad pledged further cooperation in the energy and defense industries. Not long ago, a member of Belarus' bogus parliament asserted on state-controlled radio that Belarus has the right to develop its own nuclear weapons. Mr. Speaker and Colleagues, Belarus is truly an anomaly in Europe, swimming against the rising tide of greater freedom, democracy and economic prosperity.
The Legislation
Three years ago, I introduced the Belarus Democracy Act which passed the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Bush in October 2004. At that time, the situation in Belarus with respect to democracy and human rights was already abysmal. The need for a sustained U.S. commitment to foster democracy and respect for human rights and to sanction Aleksandr Lukashenka and his cronies is clear from the intensified anti-democratic policies pursued by the current leadership in Minsk. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that countries throughout Europe have joined in a truly trans-Atlantic effort to bring the promise of freedom to the beleaguered people of Belarus. Prompt passage of the Belarus Democracy Reauthorization Act of 2006 will help maintain this momentum aimed at upholding the democratic aspirations of the Belarusian people. With the continuing decline on the ground in Belarus since the fraudulent March elections, this bill is needed now more than ever.
This reauthorization bill demonstrates the sustained U.S. support for Belarus' independence. We seek to encourage those struggling for democracy and respect for human rights in the face of the formidable pressures and personal risks from the anti-democratic regime. The bill authorizes such sums as may be necessary in assistance for each of fiscal years 2007 and 2008 for democracy-building activities such as support for non-governmental organizations, including youth groups, independent trade unions and entrepreneurs, human rights defenders, independent media, democratic political parties, and international exchanges.
The bill further authorizes monies for both radio and television broadcasting to the people of Belarus. While I am encouraged by the recent U.S. and EU initiatives with respect to radio broadcasting, much more needs to be done to penetrate Lukashenka's stifling information blockade. Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Administration will make this a priority.
In addition, H.R. 5948 calls for selective sanctions against the Lukashenka regime, and the denial of entry into the United States for senior officials of the regime – as well as those engaged in human rights and electoral abuses. In this context, I welcome the punitive sanctions imposed by both the Administration and the EU which are targeted against officials – including judges and prosecutors – involved in electoral fraud and other human rights abuses.
The bill expresses the sense of the Congress that strategic exports to the Government of Belarus should be prohibited, except for those intended for democracy building or humanitarian purposes, as well as U.S. Government financing and other foreign assistance. Of course, we would not want the exports to affect humanitarian goods and agricultural or medical products. The U.S. Executive Directors of the international financial institutions are encouraged to vote against financial assistance to the Government of Belarus except for loans and assistance that serve humanitarian needs. Furthermore, we would encourage the blocking of the assets (in the United States) of members of the Belarus Government as well as the senior leadership and their surrogates. To this end, I welcome the Treasury Department's April 10 advisory to U.S. financial institutions to guard against potential money laundering by Lukashenka and his cronies and strongly applaud President Bush's June 19 "Executive Order Blocking Property of Certain Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Belarus."
Mr. Speaker, I want to make it crystal clear that these sanctions are aimed not at the people of Belarus, but at a regime that displays contempt for the dignity and rights of its citizens even as the corrupt leadership moves to further enrich itself at the expense of all Belarusians.
Ongoing Anti-Democratic Behavior
To chronicle the full litany of repression over the course of Lukashenka's 12-year misrule would go well beyond the bounds of time available here. Let me cite several more recent illustrations of anti-democratic behavior which testify to the true nature of the regime.
Belarus' March 19 presidential elections can only be described as a farce, and were met with condemnation by the United States, the OSCE, the European Union and others. The Lukashenka regime's wholesale arrests of more than one thousand opposition activists and dozens of Belarusian and foreign journalists, before and after the elections, and violent suppression of peaceful post-election protests underscore the contempt of the Belarusian authorities toward their countrymen.
Illegitimate parliamentary elections in 2004 and the recently held presidential "elections" in Belarus brazenly flaunted democratic standards. As a result of these elections, Belarus has the distinction of lacking legitimate presidential and parliamentary leadership, which contributes to that country's self-imposed isolation. Albeit safely ensconced in power, Lukashenka has not let up on the democratic opposition. Almost daily repressions constitute a profound abuse of power by a regime that has blatantly manipulated the system to remain in power.
In the last few months, the regime continues to show its true colors, punishing those who would dare to challenge the tin-pot dictator. Former presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin was sentenced to a politically-motivated five-and-one-half-years' term of imprisonment for alleged "hooliganism" and disturbing the peace. His health is precarious as he is now well into his second month of a hunger strike.
In early August, authorities sentenced four activists of the non-partisan domestic election monitoring initiative "Partnerstva". In a patent attempt to discourage domestic observation of the fraudulent March 19 presidential elections, the four had been kept in custody since February 21. Two were released, having served their six month sentences. Two others, Tsimafei Dranchuk and Mikalay Astreyka, received stiffer sentences, although Astreyka has been released from a medium security colony and is now in "correctional labor". Other political prisoners, including Artur Finkevich, Mikalay Autukhovich, Andrey Klimau, Ivan Kruk, Yury Lyavonau, Mikalay Razumau, Pavel Sevyarynets, Mikalay Statkevich also continue to have their freedom denied, languishing in prison or in so-called correctional labor camps.
Administrative detentions of ten or fifteen days against democratic opposition activists are almost a daily occurrence. Moreover, the Lukashenka regime continued to stifle religious expression. It refuses to register churches, temporarily detains pastors, threatens to expel foreign clergy, and refuses religious groups the use of premises to hold services. Despite the repressions, Protestant and Catholic congregations have increasingly become more active in their pursuit of religious freedom. I am also concerned about the recent explosion at a Holocaust memorial in western Belarus, the sixth act of vandalism against the monument in 14 years. Unfortunately, the local authorities have reportedly refused to open a criminal investigation. Lukashenka's minions have closed down independent think tanks, further tightened the noose around what remains of the independent media, suspended the activities of a political party, shut down the prominent literary journal Arche, and evicted the Union of Belarusian Writers from its headquarters. Of course, Lukashenka's pattern of contempt for human rights is nothing new – it has merely intensified with the passage of time.
Moreover, we have seen no progress on the investigation of the disappearances of political opponents – perhaps not surprisingly, as credible evidence points at the involvement of the Lukashenka regime in their murders.
Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that the Belarus Democracy Reauthorization Act of 2006 will help end to the pattern of violations of OSCE human rights and democracy commitments by the Lukashenka regime and loosen its unhealthy monopoly on political and economic power. I hope our efforts here today will facilitate independent Belarus' integration into democratic Europe in which the principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law are respected. The beleaguered Belarusian people have suffered so much over the course of the last century and deserve better than to live under a regime frighteningly reminiscent of the Soviet Union. The struggle of the people of Belarus for dignity and freedom deserves our unyielding and consistent support.
This legislation is important and timely because Belarus, which now borders on NATO and the EU, continues to have the worst human rights and democracy record of any European state – bar none.

subset: commoncrawl


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Greece Extra 5
Greece Extra 5 Results Today
The Greece Extra 5 afternoon and evening draw on Wednesday 19 June 2024 at 14:00, and 18:00 produced the following winning numbers. The latest Greece Extra 5 Afternoon draw on Wednesday 19 June 2024 failed to produce a jackpot winner.
Greece Extra 5 Results Today; Wednesday 19 June 2024 | |
Evening | 1, 6, 18, 19, 21 |
Afternoon | 3, 9, 14, 18, 26 |
Greece Extra 5 Afternoon Payouts
The Greece Extra Afternoon draws on Wednesday 19 June 2024 at 14:00 failed to produce a winner in division one (five correct numbers). Had there been a winner, the lucky punter would have bagged an amount of €50 000.00 (R843 564.40). There were two winners in division two (four correct numbers), who walked away with a rather consolatory amount of €125.00 (R2 108.91) each. Division three (three correct numbers), produced 114 winners, who walked away with a rather consolatory amount of €5.00 (R84.36) each.
Next Greece Extra 5 Draw
The next Greece Extra 5 jackpot stands at the standard amount of €50 000.00 (R843 564.40) and the next draw will be held on tomorrow at 18:00.
How to Play Extra 5?
Step: 01 – Filling in the Playslip
OPAP's retail shops transmit the payslip data via terminals to the company's central data-processing centre. For instance, to participate in the draws for the game GREECE EXTRA 5, the following steps must be followed: – Single Columns – Full Systems (Full Development Systems) – Multiplier – Lucky Dip – Consecutive / Future draws
Step: 02 – Handing over the Completed Playslip and Checking the Participation Receipt
You hand over the completed play slip to the OPAP agent and, as soon as it is validated via the terminal, a receipt is printed out, as proof of your participation. Upon receipt of this Participation Receipt, you should check that it is valid and contains all the data corresponding to the specific participation. It is the player's responsibility to crosscheck his/her selections with the ones printed on the receipt, to make sure they coincide. In case there are any differences between the payslip and the receipt, you need to inform the agent.
Step: 3 – Checking out the play slip for Winnings
Upon completion of the EXTRA5 draw, you compare the winning column with your predictions, to check out if you are the holder of a winning playslip. It would be convenient for you to use the special "Ticket Checkers" installed in every OPAP retail shop or you could always ask an OPAP agent for assistance. Checking out the payslip can also be accomplished by entering the OPAP website and selecting the indication "Find Winnings". You can either use the company's application "Find winnings based on ticket prognostics", where you enter your predictions, or the application "Check Winnings", where you enter the data of your Participation Receipt, or even select the option "Autonomous Sorting Program", which is provided free of charge on our website.
You can be directly informed of the winnings corresponding to each EXTRA5 prize tier, using the table at the back side of the play slip, where the coefficients on winnings per prize tier and per type of game are indicated; alternatively, you can also be informed through the official announcements or at any OPAP agency.
STEP 4: Redeem Winnings
Winnings redeeming takes place upon production of the Participation Receipt to the authorized OPAP S.A. retail shops (agencies). Winnings payout, depending on the limit defined by OPAP S.A., takes place either at the retail shop, where a payment receipt is also printed out or at a cooperating bank upon production of a payment request printed out of the retailer's terminal. The proportional tax is directly withheld by OPAP S.A. upon payment of winnings, in accordance with the applicable law.
Prize Tiers for Greece Extra 5
1 | 5 | € 50.000 * |
2 | 4 | 125 |
3 | 3 | , 5 |
- In each draw, the total amount paid to the winners of the 1st prize tier may not exceed the amount of € 500,000.
- In case the winners of the 1st prize tier in a draw are more than 10, then the maximum amount of € 500,000 is distributed in shares, depending on the number of winners.


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People living in Burnaby and in the Burnaby area are fortunate to have fine Burnaby travel clinics to choose from to get their travel vaccinations. Wherever you live in Burnaby, chances are a Burnaby travel clinic will be nearby, with friendly, professional travel doctors and other travel health professionals such as travel vaccine specialists in your local pharmacy. These travel medicine health professionals will be at a Burnaby travel clinic near you, ready to dispense travel advice about travel alerts and travel vaccinations.
This page will show you some of the travel medical clinics in Burnaby, organized by proximity to the center of Burnaby. You can also type in your postal code in the box at the top right of every page to find the Burnaby travel clinic or Burnaby travel vaccination clinic that is closest to you, or by clicking here: Find Travel Clinics by Postal Code. This will provide you with a more personalized result, showing you the travel clinics in Burnaby or the travel vaccination centres near Burnaby which are the closest to you.
Being a very diversely-populated multi-cultural country, Canadians and many Burnaby travelers are likely to travel to diverse travel destinations not only for business or pleasure, but also to visit family and friends. As you'll read on the travel diseases pages on this site, you are at a higher risk of contracting some travel-related diseases when you are visiting family and friends, because living quarters are shared, kitchen utensils are shared, and you are more likely to be in close proximity with the family or friends that you are visiting. So it is important to learn about these travel health risks and be protected against the travel diseases by taking the necessary health precautions before you travel.
The best way to do this is to find a travel clinic in Burnaby and book a pre-travel consultation appointment with a travel medicine specialist there, who can advise you on all the travel risks from infectious diseases, the travel vaccinations available to protect you against these diseases, and the primary and secondary travel health precautions and travel health measures you can take to further prevent you from contracting any diseases.
This website is here to help you do just that. On these pages, you can find your nearest Burnaby travel medical clinic in Burnaby, and then can book a travel vaccination consultation appointment online with their travel health specialists before you leave for your travel destination. Whether you are looking for general medical travel health advice, or are looking for travel vaccinations against yellow fever, malaria, hepatitis, typhoid, cholera, polio, tetanus, meningitis, or other diseases, these Burnaby travel clinics have you covered.
The travel doctors practicing in each Burnaby vaccination centre and Burnaby travel clinic can advise you about communicable diseases, medical travel vaccines, travel vaccine dosages, travel vaccination and immunization schedules, and public health advice from governmental health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Public Health Agency of Canada. These Burnaby travel medicine professionals will also be able to provide health information and travel advice about travel vaccination requirements, global health issues, and travel advisories and warnings issued about travel to your destination from Burnaby.
In addition to finding your nearest travel vaccination clinic, don't forget to check the Travel Alerts and Travel Advisories page on this site to learn about any recent disease outbreaks or special travel health precautions which may need to be taken when traveling to your destination. You may also explore our sections on Travel Diseases and Travel Destinations, which outlines the major travel disease risks endemic to each travel destination.
Listed below for your convenience are some Burnaby Travel Clinics and their addresses with contact information. The clinics may be in Burnaby, or may be in the surrounding regions, and are presented in order of proximity to the center of Burnaby.
Next to each vaccination center listing, you may click the "View Map" link to view a map of the Burnaby Travel Health Clinic location. Once you are ready to proceed, you may book a pre-travel consultation appointment or a travel vaccination appointment with the Travel Vaccination Clinics in Burnaby which have a "Book Now" link in the far right "Appointment" column in the list below. This will take you to an online travel health clinic appointment booking system where you can schedule your appointment and indicate your travel destination so that the travel health professionals will be aware of your travel health requirements prior to seeing you in the pre-travel consultation appointment.
Booking a pre-travel vaccination consultation appointment at your nearest travel clinic in Burnaby ensures you have the latest professional medical advice to obtain the best available protection for you and your family while traveling to your travel destination from Burnaby. Booking an appointment with a Burnaby travel clinic will also allow you to ask your travel health doctor questions about any concerns you may have, and learn how to take medical precautions and employ preventative measures to ensure your family remains safe and healthy throughout your trip. These Burnaby-area travel clinics are your best single resource for travel health protection and travel safety information.
Happy Traveling!


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At Fellah Auto Group, we have a huge selection of inventory. We have a wide assortment of luxury cars in addition to vehicles that fit any/every budget. Each of our vehicles go through a thorough inspection to ensure they are top quality before they're offered for sale. That's why if you're looking for a used luxury car near Philadelphia PA, you need to visit Fellah Auto Group.
We offer financing for all types of credit as well. We have competitive interest rates for great credit, no credit and all credit in-between including bad credit.
Check out our entire inventory by clicking the link below.


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High quality, Unbreakable and flexible screen protector. It is thinner and stronger than tempered. Fully transparent with no impact on visual display, It does not break. Latest technology in phone screen protectors – impossible glass screen protection. This is not a tempered glass. Rather this is an improved glass sheet that is unbreakbale and thinner than tempered glass. Scratch Proof and gives 100% protection to your screen. Don't go by the thickness of this product.
GENERIC's 9H Impossible Screen protector compatible for Asus Zenfone Go Zb690Kg (not a tempered glass)
₹499.00 ₹120.00
In stock
Additional information
Weight | 150 g |
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Packaging & Shipping
Shipping Charges are 65 Rs /500 grams. And Packaging Charges are 10 Rs to 60 Rs as per product volumetric weight.


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Simply because one word won't do...
Home » Silver Bullet » Silver Bullet
Last updated:
Herb Miller lives in Rowlands Castle with his wife Susan, and sleek black and white cat, Sergeant Bramble. He's been collecting SBs for half his lifetime. If you ask him why he'll say Simply Because. His favourites to date are the short but sweet, palindromic sub bus, the sulphurous brewmasters Googlewhack and of course, seriously bonkers, simply brilliant and silly B. He fully expects his short booklet to become a shortlisted bestseller. Buy the book from herbmiller.me/shop


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Select a Language
If your iPhone 6s is acting strange, don't play guessing games with your favorite tech. Let us help you figure it out with a free and easy diagnostic. Your phone will be back to normal in no time.
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The repair price must be a regularly published price. This offer does not apply to competitor's specials, coupons or other discounts.


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Welcome.Thank you for your interest in the University of Washington's Professional Master's Program (PMP) in Computer Science & Engineering. The PMP is designed for fully-employed professionals whose primary interest is in continuing on their career paths while acquiring critical skills to move them into positions and projects of greater responsibility and impact. Admission is competitive; however, we are proud to have graduated over 700 software professionals since the program's inception in 1996.
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Your degree can be earned in two and one-half years by taking a total of 8 courses and obtaining 8 colloquium credits. Courses typically meet one evening per week and cover a broad range of computer science topics. You can choose courses that suit your interests and work schedules and supplement them by attending or viewing online topical colloquia to complete the forty required credits needed to earn your Master's in Computer Science and Engineering.
Now more than ever, staying current with the rapid rate of change in our field can make a significant difference in your job performance and career opportunities. Please use this site to learn more about investing in your technical future with our affordable and part-time Professional Master's Program. Best wishes for your graduate school and continued professional success.
Henry M. Levy
Chairman, UW Computer Science & Engineering


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Continental Grand Prix 5000 650B Tubeless
The Grand Prix 5000 is the best all-rounder in the field, brought to a whole new performance level. Ride faster, more comfortably, and with increased puncture protection. Its Active Comfort Technology absorbs vibrations and smooths your ride. Lazer Grip technology, designed to make you one with the road, features a lasered micro profile structure that expands over the tire's shoulder and provides outstanding cornering. The Vectran Breaker is lighter, more flexible and protects more effectively against cuts than comparable nylon. With incredible tear resistance at a very low weight, it possesses exactly the right properties to be a premium puncture protection insert, while not adversely affecting rolling resistance. The Grand Prix 5000 Tubeless—made to make you better.
With Continental's unique and legendary BlackChili tread compound, produced only in Germany, they have revolutionized the sport of cycling. This compound answers the eternal question of the best balance of grip and rolling resistance for cycling. Regular test wins confirm the measurable and noticeable advantages for cyclists, established in both the lab and on the road. The latest polymers, as well as specially developed carbon black particles and filler materials, guarantee ultimate performance.
Going tubeless allows you to run lower tire pressures without the added weight of a tube. Lower tire pressure has many benefits, including greater traction, lower rolling resistance over rough surfaces, and decreased risk of a puncture-related flat.
Tubeless-ready rims and tires are parts of a complete system that eliminate the need for tubes by creating an airtight chamber between the rim and tire. Liquid sealant is added to the chamber to fill small punctures and maintain air pressure while you ride.
UST (Universal Standard for Tubeless) is a specific type of tubeless system that dictates the shape of the rim and tire beads. UST rims should be paired with UST-specific tires for best results.
Part Numbers
Option | UPC | MPN | Store SKU |
Black / 650B x 28 | 04019238007930 | 01016270000 | 210000122620 |


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An Open Letter to Morgan Mayhem
Dear Morgan,It's your dear pals here at Team Awful, and we think you'd better listen up to what we have to type.What the s--t is wrong with you? Are you so high you think news of your latest antics doesn't travel back to gossip bloggers in Los Angeles? Think again. We've heard all about the ridiculous crap you're still pulling while out clubbing, and it's getting pathetic.We're not even bothering to make you a Blind Vice for the week; you aren't good enough for that anymore. Really, we are thisclose to just straight outing you right here in the blog thanks to your highly visible, most recent drug stunt...I mean, come, on: doing meth (again) in front of everyone at a recent party, having a freak-out moment and totally losing it while everyone watched and, yes, judged you.And the pathetically funny thing is: Your pals who you think are right there with ya are the ones worried for your life. Us, too. Girlfriend, you used to have the potential to be a big player in the H'wood game, but right now you should worry less about your failing career and more about how you plan to stay friggin' breathing. At this rate, it isn't going to be for that much longer.It's not even fun anymore to chronicle your sad pleas for attention. Would outing you once and for all be what it takes for your remarkably still-gorgeous ass to actually get help? We're considering it. Surely a rehab stint would follow, but maybe this time it would stick since the world would know you're into the painfully hard stuff, not just coke and booze anymore.Figure it out, or we will for you.XO,
Team Awful
Hmmm not surprising. Except for the part about her being "remarkable still gorgeous". Really? BTW, we know that Morgan Mayhem is Lindsay Lohan, for anyone not paying attention to Ted's blind vices over the past couple of years. See our labels on the right side of the screen to read more about LiLo's antics.


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Today slot machines are one of the cornerstones of the gambling industry and are one of the most profitable revenue streams for land based casinos. The history of slot machines and the history of gambling in the United States are intertwined and can be traced back to 1895, when the first ever slot machine was built ทดลองเล่นสล็อตพีจี.
Designed and built by Charles August Fey, the Liberty Bell slot machine was first available to the public in 1895. Named after the San Francisco saloon it was placed in, the Liberty Belle became an instant hit with gamblers. Recognizing that there was potential in this new untapped market, and buoyed by the huge publicity and success that his first invention had created, Charles August Fey decided to establish a new company that would focus solely on the design and manufacture of slot machines. The new company, aptly named 'Charles Fey and Company Inc' would go on to dominate the slots industry for the next 50 years.
The first half of the 20th century was a challenging one for the gambling industry as a whole and was characterized by legal regulation. In 1909 slots were made illegal in their home city of San Francisco, and by 1911 this had spread to the entire State of California. However, the small number of slot machine companies, led by Charles Fey became increasingly innovative in identifying loop holes within the law. In an effort to ensure their machines did not meet the legal classification of a 'gambling device' slot machine, manufacturers changed the symbols used on the machines from gambling themed cards to fruits and sweets.
While certainly creative, it was only a matter of time before the authorities recognized the inherent weaknesses in their legislation. The slots industry was dealt a further blow with the 'State v Ellis' case, which effectively outlawed all slot machines.
Despite the legal restrictions, the slots industry continued to grow and develop, primarily in Nevada where the gambling industry was free from the legal restrictions faced in other states. On the back of ever increasing demand, the Mills Novelty Company grew to become one of the major players in the industry on the back of producing cheaper slots in lighter wooden cabinets. In 1933 they produced the 'Castle Front' slot which came to symbolize the slots market at this time.
A further blow was dealt in 1951, when Congress passed the Transportation of Gambling Devices Act. Despite this, technological advances, initially electro-mechanical development in the 1960's by the Bally Corporation tool slot machines to new levels of functionality that provided players with more advanced features that added significantly to the entertainment levels experienced by players. Further advances in the 1970's saw the introduction of Video Slots. It was at this time that International Game Technology (IGT), one of the current giants within the slots industry was established.


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After the July 20 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., there were calls to focus as much or more on the victims and their stories as on the gunman.
The same sort of appeals are being made in the wake of Sunday's attack on a Sikh temple near Milwaukee, in which six people were killed and three were seriously wounded before police shot and killed the man they say was responsible.
"Now Is The Time To Remember The Victims," says the headline on the editorial page of Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel.
And the newspaper has done that with:
-- An interactive set of short profiles about each of the six people who were killed. Their names and ages: Prakash Singh, 39; Sita Singh, 41; Ranjit Singh, 49; Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65; Suveg Singh, 84; and Paramjit Kaur Toor, 41, the only woman who was killed.
-- A long, well-told story about "selfless heroism ... hanging on to the American dream ... striving for acceptance while still clinging to a unique heritage" and a Sikh community with "a quiet but enduring commitment to faith, family and friends."
Monday, we passed along one of the stories emerging about Satwant Singh Kaleka, who it's believed tried to stop the gunman and may have saved others' lives because of his actions. We'll watch for more stories about the victims.
On Morning Edition today, Wisconsin Public Radio's Chuck Quirmbach reported about the efforts of Sikhs in Wisconsin to both honor the victims and explain to others about their faith and community. At Milwaukee's TMJ4-TV, there's an account of the memorials and community vigils that have already been held.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Referred to as "no-line" bifocals or trifocals, progressive glasses are ideal for patients who have presbyopia —a vision condition marked by a decrease in the ability to focus sharply on nearby objects.
As we age naturally, our ability to see nearby objects and objects in the distance can decrease. Progressive lenses address separate visual needs in one lens—usually with a "distance viewing" field build into the upper portion of the lens, and a "near vision" field built into the lower portion.
Unlike traditional bifocals or trifocals, there are no visible lines separating the different fields of a progressive lens. Your eyes are seen clearly behind the progressive eyeglasses, you've got the same "look" as eyeglass wearers often half your age, and there are no "lens lines" to distract your vision.
Special thanks to the EyeGlass Guide, for informational material that aided in the creation of this website. Visit the EyeGlass Guide today!


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Lillian L. Brand's Legacy: The First 10 Years of the Brand Boeshaar Scholarship Program
Lillian L. Brand's Legacy: The First 10 Years of the Brand Boeshaar Scholarship Program
The exhibition Lillian L. Brand's Legacy: The First 10 Years of the The Brand Boeshaar Scholarship Program in the Mary Waterman Gildehaus Community Gallery honors Lillian L. Brand's philanthropic support of art education and highlights the successes of several scholarship recipients who are fulfilling their career dreams of working in art-related fields.
Davenport resident Lillian L. Brand established the Brand Boeshaar Scholarship in memory of her nephew, William Brand Boeshaar, an art student who attended St. Ambrose University. Four $12,000 scholarships are awarded each spring; each scholarship is named after one of Lillian L. Brand's family members. Graduating high school seniors in eastern Iowa and western Illinois are eligible to apply for the scholarship, and recipients may use the scholarship for any accredited college art program. Since the inception of the scholarship in 2000, the Brand Boeshaar Foundation has awarded 40 scholarships totaling $480,000.
For Rock Island's Lizzy Martinez, the scholarship made it possible for her to attend a private art school rather than a state university. "At Minneapolis College of Art and Design [MCAD], I was able to spend four years preparing for my life as an artist, rather than two years studying liberal arts and then two years in art-related courses, which is usually what a state school offers," Martinez said. After graduating from MCAD in 2006, Martinez earned an MFA in painting at Boston University. Today, she is teaching design and drawing at St. Louis Community College, and of course, working on her own career as a painter.
Learn more about other artists represented in this exhibition.
Although the scholarship is funded by the Brand Boeshaar Foundation and administered by the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend, the Figge's education department manages the program. For more information about the scholarship or other Figge programs for high school students, contact Ann Marie Hayes-Hawkinson, curator of education. The public is invited to an exhibition reception from 2-4 pm Saturday, June 19.
Read an article by Jonathan Turner about this exhibition which appeared recently in The Dispatch and The Rock Island Angus.


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Jalapeno Beer Cornbread – Holiday Recipe Club
3 ears grilled corn kernels, or 1 cup of canned corn
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup of your favorite beer
2 jalapeño peppers, seeded, membrane removed, and finely diced
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) butter
1/4. cup honey
1/4 cup of your favorite beer
Preheat oven to 425°F.
In a bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Set aside.
In a small bowl, stir together eggs, milk, beer, jalapeños, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Add 1 cup of corn and enough extra beer (if necessary) to moisten batter.
Melt butter and coat entire inside of pan. Pour in batter.
Place pan in oven for 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove cornbread from oven and let cool in pan for 10 to 15 minutes. Unmold cornbread from pan. Brush all over with glaze. Serve.
Printable Recipe


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WASHINGTON, D.C. — WASHINGTON (AP) Maneuvered into a political corner, House Republicans abandoned demands for changes in emergency legislation to prevent widespread tax increases and painful across-the-board spending cuts and cleared the way for a final, climactic New Year's night vote.The decision capped a day of intense political calculations for conservatives who control the House. They had to weigh their desire to cut spending against the fear that the Senate would refuse to consider any changes they made in the "fiscal cliff" bill, sending it into limbo and saddling Republicans with the blame for a whopping middle class tax increase.
Adding to the GOP discomfort, one Senate Democratic leadership aide said Majority Leader Harry Reid would "absolutely not take up the bill" if the House changed it. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a requirement to keep internal deliberations private.
The legislation cleared the Senate hours earlier on a lopsided pre-dawn vote of 89-8. Administration officials met at the White House to monitor its progress.
"I do not support the bill. We are looking, though, for the best path forward," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., declared after one meeting of the party's rank-and-file.
Despite Cantor's remarks, Speaker John Boehner took no public position on the bill as he sought to negotiate a conclusion to the final crisis of a two-year term full of them.
It wasn't the first time that the tea party-infused House Republican majority has rebelled against the party establishment since the GOP took control of the chamber 24 months ago. But with the two-year term set to end Thursday at noon, it was likely the last. And as was true in earlier cases of a threatened default and government shutdown, the brinkmanship came on a matter of economic urgency, leaving the party open to a public backlash if tax increases do take effect on tens of millions.
After intensive deliberations a pair of rank-and-file meetings sandwiched around a leadership session, the GOP high command had not yet settled on a course of action by early evening.
Instead, they canvassed Republicans to see if they wanted simply to vote on the Senate measure, or whether they wanted first to try and add spending cuts totaling about $300 billion over a decade. The cuts had passed the House twice earlier in the year but are opposed by most if not all Senate Democrats.
"We've gone as far as we can go," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "I think people are ready to bring this to a conclusion, and know we have a whole year ahead of us" for additional fights over spending.
The economic as well as political stakes were considerable.
Economists have warned that without action by Congress, the tax increases and spending cuts that technically took effect with the turn of the new year at midnight could send the economy into recession.
Even with enactment of the legislation, taxes are on the rise for millions.
A 2 percentage point temporary cut in the payroll tax, originally enacted two years ago to stimulate the economy, expired with the end of 2012. Neither Obama nor Republicans have made a significant effort to extend it.
The Senate-passed bill was designed to prevent that while providing for tax increases at upper incomes, as Obama campaigned for in his successful bid for a second term.
It would also prevent an expiration of extended unemployment benefits for an estimated two million jobless, block a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients, stop a $900 pay increase for lawmakers from taking effect in March and head off a threatened spike in milk prices.
At the same time, it would stop $24 billion in spending cuts set to take effect over the next two months, although only about half of that total would be offset with spending reductions elsewhere in the budget.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the measure would add nearly $4 trillion over a decade to federal deficits, a calculation that assumed taxes would otherwise have risen on taxpayers at all income levels. There was little or no evident concern among Republicans on that point, presumably because of their belief that tax cuts pay for themselves by expanding economic growth and do not cause deficits to rise.
The relative paucity of spending cuts was a sticking point with many House Republicans. Among other items, the extension of unemployment benefits costs $30 billion, and is not offset by savings elsewhere.
"I personally hate it," said Rep. John Campbell of California. "The speaker the day after the election said we would give on taxes and we have. But we wanted spending cuts. This bill has spending increases. Are you kidding me? So we get tax increases and spending increases? Come on."
Others said unhappiness over spending outweighed fears that the financial markets will plunge on Wednesday if the fiscal cliff hasn't been averted.
"There's a concern about the markets, but there's a bigger concern, which is getting this right, which is something we haven't been very good at over the past two years," said Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio.
House Democrats met privately with Biden for their review of the measure, and the party's leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, said afterward that Boehner should permit a vote.
"That is what we expect. That is what the American people deserve," she said.
For all the struggle involved in the legislation, even its passage would merely clear the way for another round of controversy almost as soon as the new Congress convenes.
With the Treasury expected to need an expansion in borrowing authority by early spring, and funding authority for most government programs set to expire in late March, Republicans have made it clear they intend to use those events as leverage with the administration to win savings from Medicare and other government benefit programs.
McConnell said as much moments before the 2 a.m. Tuesday vote in the Senate two hours after the advertised "cliff" deadline.
"We've taken care of the revenue side of this debate. Now it's time to get serious about reducing Washington's out-of-control spending," he said. "That's a debate the American people want. It's the debate we'll have next. And it's a debate Republicans are ready for."
The 89-8 vote in the Senate was unexpectedly lopsided.
Despite grumbling from liberals that Obama had given way too much in the bargaining, only three Democrats opposed the measure.
Among the Republican supporters were Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, an ardent opponent of tax increases, as well as Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, elected to his seat two years ago with tea party support.
It marked the first time in two decades that Republicans willingly supported higher taxes, in this case on incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. Taxes also would rise on estates greater than $5 million in size, and on capital gains and dividend income made by the wealthy.
Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Larry Margasak and Julie Pace contributed to this story.


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Here's what I'm thinking:
- Coats for fall! I know coats are an advanced project, but I hope that by providing some technical (and moral) support I can have you all tailoring like crazy. Please let me know if you think I'm out of my mind and that we should start with something easier.
- So, we should all probably use the same pattern, right? (I'm such a sew-along newb!) LOTS of peeps mentioned the Colette Patterns Lady Grey Coat on Facebook, and I think it could be the perfect choice. Besides being gorgeous, it's a fairly easy entree into the world of coats. One could even think of it as a jacket! The wrap design is easy to fit and isn't too complicated in terms of closures. Another plus is that for those in the Southern Hemisphere, this coat can be made in a lightweight spring fabric, like cotton twill.
- In order to give everyone plenty of prep time, we won't start until mid to late September.
- I'll go over each step of the planning, fitting, and construction, add some fancy (but totally do-able) tailoring techniques like pad-stitching, and provide videos for visual aids.
- I'd like to figure out a way to make this a community project, so that we can see pictures from participants and answer questions as we go along.
Can't wait to hear your thoughts!