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Top 14 - Game of the Week
Perpignan eye immediate revenge
August 11, 2010
Last season's Top 14 finalists Clermont and Perpignan face each other on the opening day of the new season on Friday © Getty Images
The scenes were memorable and lasting as Clermont Auvergne were finally crowned the champions of France back in late May. The huge outpouring of emotion provided a feel-good end to the Top 14 season.
Beating Perpignan in that match ended a 74-year wait, stretching across eleven finals, but now all those memories are pushed to one side as we're on the cusp of the new season and Perpignan have the chance to exact immediate revenge, not that Vern Cotter's Clermont side will budge an inch.
The sides meet on Friday at the Aime Giral in Perpignan where it's unlikely that Clermont will be caught napping. The weighty and unwieldy 'choker' tag has been removed from around their necks but the pressure is on as an opening round win is not to be sniffed at before all hell breaks loose in the rush to the play-offs in distant May. There is a lot at stake.
Both have been active in pre-season preparation, with Perpignan being shaded 29-30 by Racing Metro and Clermont beating Sale Sharks 26-8 this past weekend in their last fine-tuning exercise.
For Perpignan their main concern is at fly-half as Nicolas Laharrague has been ruled out for three months after being injured in pre-season. Steve Meyer left the club last season, already leaving them short in that department, meaning that centre Gavin Hume could well have been their only back-up stand-off. So they've had to turn to a familiar face in the former Bayonne and Wallabies fly-half Manny Edmonds, who signed a three month deal to cover for the injury, after previously joining the club as backline coach.
Up front the home side will be as grizzled as ever, led by the tough Nicolas Mas and the fiery Marius Tincu, so it's unlikely that they'll be pushed around on their home track by the visitors.
Clermont's squad will boast a hugely familiar look to it as the core of last season's champion side make their way to the coastal town for this clash. It's a game that could well see Les Jaunards come out on top - primarily because of class of their likely half-back pairing of Morgan Parra and Brock James but also the danger of their strike runners in Napolioni Nalaga, Marius Joubert and new face Sione Lauaki.
Perpignan rarely lose at home however and their fans will turn up the volume in order to ensure a running start. Can the Clermont feel-good factor silence the Aime Giral?
© Scrum.com
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OCEANSIDE — A North County taxpayer advocacy group has asked the San Diego district attorney's office to investigate whether the MiraCosta College Foundation violated election laws by donating $100,000 to the campaign for Proposition EE.
Foundation Executive Director Linda Fogerson said she doesn't think the complaint will get far because the nonprofit foundation was within the law to make the donation. The proposition — which failed in the Nov. 6 election — would have allowed the college district to raise $497 million for campus construction and renovation projects by selling bonds.
Steve Walker, a spokesman for the district attorney's office, confirmed Wednesday that the office had received the complaint, but could not say more about it because the person assigned to investigate it was out during the holidays.
Walker said campaign complaints sometimes are forwarded to the Fair Political Practices Commission.
FPPC spokeswoman Tara Stock said Wednesday that she was looking into whether a complaint had been received at her office but that, in general, nonprofits are not prohibited from making political contributions as long as reporting requirements are met.
Gary Gonsalves, co-founder of Stop Taxing Us, said his group filed the complaint with the district attorney's office because the foundation's $100,000 contribution appeared to violate the Internal Revenue Service's restrictions on contributions from tax-exempt groups.
"Our research indicates that the use of College Foundation money for campaigning is an illegal use of deductible charity dollars," he said in a Dec. 19 news release. "This is not just a misallocation — it is an apparent crime and we are asking the proper state and federal authorities to investigate our findings."
Gonsalves said the $100,000 contribution represents 18 percent of the foundation's $550,000 budget, which violates an I.R.S. provision against nontaxable groups spending a substantial part of their activities trying to influence legislation.
Fogerson said Gonsalves is wrong in his math and understanding of the law. His $550,000 figure was for fiscal year 2010-11, while the donation was made in the 2011-12 fiscal year, when the foundation's expense budget was $885,000.
But even if the donation had been made earlier, Fogerson said it still would have been legal because the amount was below what's allowed by the I.R.S., which restricts such donations to 20 percent of the of the first $500,000 of their budgets classified as exempt purpose expenditures.
Under that restriction, Forgerson said, the foundation could have legally donated up to $157,750 to the campaign.
Gonsalves said her explanation raises even more questions. Why did the foundation's budget jump more than $300,000 in one year, he asked, and were builders who would have benefited from Prop. EE among the donors?
Fogerson said the budget did not suddenly increase because builders started donating last year, but rather has steadily increased over the past seven years because the foundation hired a professional fundraiser,
She acknowledge some donations are from people in the building industry, but said it is wrong to infer the contributions were made specifically to promote Prop. EE.
Some builders have donated for years and some were new donors.
Gonsalves said the foundation should open its books to show its donors. Fogerson said she already has provided that information to one of his associates who had requested it.
Some names were not provided because donors had requested anonymity, she said, but most can be found on the foundation's annual report foundation's annual report .
Donations from the building industry include $5,000 from Seville Construction Services and $2,500 each from Alliance Engineering of California Inc., BN Builders Inc., Burkett & Wong Engineers and HMC Architects.
Donations of $1,000 came from Architects Mosher Drew, Davy Architecture, Echo Pacific Construction, Inc., Lusardi Construction Company and Vanir Construction Management.
While Gonsalves contends it is not right to use donations to a college foundation for a political cause, Fogerson said it fits in with the foundation's purpose. She posted her thoughts on the Stop Taxing Us blog site, blog.stoptaxingus.com .
"Had the bond passed, it would have been a tremendous benefit to students at the college by helping us to improve facilities and reduce the wait-lists for heavily impacted science and nursing classes," she wrote. "The foundation board voted unanimously to make this expenditure because the bond would have had such a far-reaching positive impact on our students and, by extension, our community."
Gonsalves, however, does not see raising taxes as helping the community and said that even if the donation didn't break any laws, it still wasn't right.
"The whole thing may be legal, but it still stinks," he said.

subset: commoncrawl


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Analysis: Weak Laws, Neglect Behind Greek Fires
ATHENS - Weak zoning laws, careless farmers and smoldering garbage dumps are the main reasons for the forest fires that have killed 63 and destroyed whole rural economies in Greece in recent days, Greenpeace said on Monday.
The fires, fanned by strong winds, have engulfed whole villages, forcing thousands to flee their homes, and burned millions of hectares of woods and farmland dried by summer heat.
Greece has declared a state of emergency and sought help from its EU partners. The prime minister, facing parliamentary elections on September 16, indicated arsonists might have been responsible and vowed to punish them.
"There are several well known 'arsonists' in Greece -- garbage dumps (burning spontaneously), farmers burning brush, animal farmers burning land to sprout fresh grass for grazing," said Nikos Charalambides, director of Greenpeace in Greece.
"But the biggest arsonist is the state, which has not clarified the use of land, leaving suburban forests vulnerable to rogue developers," he added in an interview with Reuters.
"The lack of a national land registry and national zoning laws leave room for doubt about the characterization of land, whether it is forest or not," Charalambides said.
Many forest fires, especially those close to urban centers, are believed to be started by developers burning down woods to make way for new construction.
It is illegal in Greece to burn forests in order to build houses on the land, but the laws are vague about the definition of protected land and developers are rarely prosecuted.
Concrete buildings are often seen rising amid the ashes of burnt-out woodland.
Police have charged three elderly people and two 11-year-old boys with setting fires, and the government has offered rewards of up to one million euros ($1.4 million) for information leading to the arrest of arsonists.
The Public Order Ministry said prosecutors would find out whether arson could be subjected to the same penalties as terrorism faces in the penal code.
Charalambides said the current spate of fires, the deadliest in recorded Greek history, have burned 2.5 million hectares so far this year, compared with 1.5 million hectares in 1981, previously the worst year on record.
"Not all fires are arson. Mediterranean forests burn and are reborn, provided they are left alone," Charalambides said.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.


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Tricked Out Treats: Your Favorite DJs In Costumes (PHOTOS)
Halloween weekend is officially over. Phew. Ease your hangover this Monday morning with a final dose of treats commemorating the weekend of costumed debauchery. Here's some tricked out costumes from your favorite DJs. You won't believe how far some of them will go. ->


text: A rustic lodge teen bedding collection in colors of black and grey, the Bone Collector Black and Grey bedding ensemble will transform your teens bedroom into a rustic cabin themed bedroom. This exciting and innovative new Bone Collector bedding ensemble features the popular signature Bone Collector logo by Michael Waddell. Complement the comforter set with the available sheet sets in Twin XL, Twin, Full, Queen, and King sizes featuring a flat sheet, fitted sheet and pillowcases (twin and twin XL include one pillowcase) embellished with the grey skull logo and the words "Bone Collector" on a light grey ground.


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A&P/Superfresh Coupon Match Ups 3/9 – 3/15
Here are some highlights at A&P & Superfresh this week.
How to Create Your Custom Shopping List:
- Click on the box next to the item you would like to buy at the store
- The item will be placed in your shopping list.
- The list will appear from the right bottom of this site
- Once you are done, click print.
- Look for the to find the best stockpile prices
Here are your match ups for the week. All coupons are shown doubled.
Full List of Deals: A&P Coupon Match Ups 3/9/12
[adsense channel="1393640680″]


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This WEB page comes from the busTRACE 8.0 User's Manual. (Table of Contents)
busTRACE 8.0 allows you a method to view the sense codes stored in our CDB database. For example, want to quickly find out what a sense code of 02 04 01 is? To gain access to our Sense viewer, simply run the busTRACE Start Menu and choose the View Device Sense Codes option.
The application itself is broken up into two sections: Properties, and the Sense Data.
In the left pane, you enter the Sense Key, Sense Code, and Sense Code Qualifier. The Device Sense Viewer will then update its Sense Data window to show you the description for the submitted sense code.
If you are only interested in sense descriptions that contain a certain string, you simply type it into the Filter edit box. For example, want to see only sense descriptions that contain "not ready" text. If so, you simply type in "not ready" into the edit box.
Sense Data
You can scroll through the Sense Data list to view the list of recognized sense codes. You can also right click on an entry and copy its contents to the clipboard.
See Also:


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There's An Ice Cream That Will Get You DrunkFinally, my wish has been answered.
Watch Nate Ruess' Marching Band Start a Dance Party in a 'Great Big Storm'It'll take more than deluge of water to suppress Ruess' enthusiasm, especially when a marching band is involved.
How Nate Ruess Became Pop's Most Unlikely Pop StarRuess is deeply terrestrial guy, with an incandescent voice, who really loves his mom. He is pop's most unlikely pop star.
Nate Ruess Previews Rock Hall Performance, Reveals Who Stole the ShowIn advance of the show's television premiere, Nate Ruess told us about his experience performing with Beck in tribute to post-humous inductee Lou Reed.
Lena Dunham Engaged? Not Until Gay Marriage Is Legal in Every StateLooks like church bells won't be ringing just yet for 'Girls' creator Lena Dunham and her boyfriend of 2-1/2 years, Jack Antonoff. Here's why.
Taylor Swift Says New Song 'Out of the Woods' Is About a 'Fragile' Relationship That Filled Her With 'Extreme Anxiety'Taylor Swift's new album, 1989 won't be out for another two weeks, but she's once again teasing her new pop sound by revealing why new song 'Out of the Woods" best represents her latest release.
Jack White, Jack Black, fun., More Contribute to Beck's 'Song Reader' Companion AlbumIn 2012, Beck pulled the very Beck-ian move of releasing his newest batch of songs, Song Reader, via a book of sheet music, as opposed to putting out actual recordings of the songs.
Global Citizen Festival Headliners: Jay Z, Tiësto, fun. Carrie Underwood and More to Play Central ParkThe third annual Global Citizen Festival will take place in New York City on Saturday, Sept. 27 and will feature a star-studded lineup featuring artists across several genres including hip-hop, rock, country and EDM.
Nate Ruess Talks fun.'s New Album: 'It's Moving'Spending much of his time off from music playing golf, the fun. frontman is ready to get back in the studio and record a new full-length.
Interview: Jack Antonoff Introduces New Solo Project BleachersHe told us he has been working with Vince Clarke, of early Depeche Mode and Yaz fame, as well as John Hill, who known for his work with Phantogram, Santigold and M.I.A.
Radio Feedback: The Hardcore Beginnings of fun.'s Jack AntonoffWith Antonoff accustomed to hearing himself on the airwaves, his earliest memory of hearing one of his own songs on the radio stretched all the way back to his teenage years.
Carson Daly Reviews Eminem's "Headlights"


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First there was the Motorola
Droid; and it was good. Then came the HTC
Droid Incredible, which brought a sleeker shape and ditched the
slide-out keyboard. This morning, we brought you news of the followup
to the original Motorola Droid: the Motorola
Droid 2.
Now, there is yet another smartphone
which is set to take on the "Droid" name and it should be
arriving shortly. Gadget University has laid
its hands upon the Motorola Droid Xtreme which has been
circulating around the web for the past few weeks.
The Droid Xtreme is said to feature a
750MHz Texas Instruments OMAP3630 processor, 4.3" display, hardware buttons, 8.0MP digital camera (with HD video recording capabilities), and
HDMI-out. Phandroid
offers up some additional information, stating that the display's
resolution is listed at 480x854. The site also notes that the phone
measures 2.5" x 5.01" and is 0.39" thick. Weight is
listed at 5.47 ounces.
According to both sources, the Droid
Xtreme is running Android 2.1 with Motoblur. It's quite disappointing
that these brand new smartphones like the HTC
EVO 4G, Droid 2, and Droid Xtreme aren't shipping with the
Android 2.2 operating system, but there always has to be a cutoff
point when adding new functionality for a production smartphone -- so
we'll have to cut these guys a little bit of slack on this point.
We can only hope that Motorola and HTC
won't make customers wait too long to get their Sense and
Motoblur-tinged copies of Android 2.2.


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Plane crashes in Hoosick Falls; pilot in critical condition
HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. -- A single engine Aeronica model airplane crashed at the western edge of the Hoosick Falls Country Club Sunday afternoon, approximately 100 yards from homes and people enjoying an afternoon of golf.
Hoosick Falls Police Chief Robert Ashe said the pilot of the craft, Stanton King, of Bunker Hill Road in Valley Falls, N.Y., suffered injuries to his head and neck and was taken to Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington by the Cambridge Valley Rescue Squad.
SVMC Spokesman Kevin Robinson said King was transferred from the hospital to another facility in critical condition. He could not say to which facility or how King was transported.
Ashe said that according to witnesses King was alert and talking when rescue personnel arrived. He said the cause of the crash is unknown but the Federal Aviation Administration has sent an investigator who was expected to be on scene late Sunday afternoon.
The crash was reported shortly before 1 p.m. Ashe said King had flown the airplane out of Cambridge.
James Smith, of Ashley Drive near where the airplane went down, witnessed the crash. "I was in the garage and I heard it," he said. "It caught my attention."
He saw the airplane circling low over the field. When it was about 50 yards in the air it suddenly went into a nose-dive and hit the ground. Smith said he and others went to the site of the crash where they found the pilot attempting to get out.
"He was conscious when we got there," Smith said. "He was complaining of neck pain."
King was encouraged to stay in the airplane and not move until rescue squads could arrive, Smith said.
Those living nearby as well as golfers who saw the airplane go down ran to the crash site.
"I watched the thing go squirrely," said Drew Haskell, who was playing golf during the incident. "I was right there on the third green. I said 'he's going down, this ain't right.'"
There was a loud boom and a snapping noise and between 12 and 14 people went running to the crash, Haskell said. "He nose-dived hard. He was completely vertical."
The airplane went down only a few dozen feet from Katy Lilac's back yard. Lilac lives on Rogers Avenue and said she did not see the crash or hear the airplane until it hit the ground.
"It's not very often you see a plane in your back yard," she said. "Thank God it didn't land in either the pool or in the house."
Lilac said she was initially worried for her and her family's safety but they did not have to evacuate.
"My daughter was inside and I wanted to get her out because I could smell gas," Lilac said.
There was no evidence of fire at the crash scene, which police encircled with yellow tape. Ashe said the Hoosick and North Hoosick fire departments were on scene, as was the Hoosick Ambulance Service.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.