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Summary Meeting Notes: August 16, 2012 for the Community Involvement PEG
Summary Meeting Notes
Community Involvement Policy Expert Group
Date: August 16, 2012
Time: 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
PEG Attendees: Greg Greenway, Paul Leistner/ PEG co-lead, Linda Nettekoven, Sara Schooley, Marty Stockton/ PEG co-lead, Desiree Williams-Rajee, Robb Wolfson
Other Attendees: Courtney Duke/Portland Bureau of Transportation, Michelle Kunec/Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Emily Roth/Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation
Facilitator: Deb Meihoff
View the original agenda, including materials, for this meeting.
Key Points and Outcomes
- Clarified the types of projects and planning that are guided by the Comprehensive Plan, how the Comprehensive Plan is used in practice.
- Finalized the PEG survey for distribution through community networks.
- Outlined how the element of Transparency can and should be included in Comprehensive Plan policy.
- The group gave PEG Co-leads direction to draft policy language for critique, revision, and comment at the next meeting.
Welcome Introductions, and Announcements (5 minutes)
Presenter: Self-introductions.
Process updates (20 minutes)
Presenters: Paul Leistner, Office of Neighborhood Involvement and MartyStockton, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability / PEG Co-leads
Summary: Co-leads presented an overview of PIAC Comprehensive Plan Work Group progress in August, final draft PEG survey, and new PEG evaluation system
- The final PEG survey was updated with clarifications to project types and proper names; Co-leads reviewed the work of the PIAC work group to define the elements for inclusion in the survey; Co-leads are aiming to finalize and distribute the survey by Monday, August 20; distribution / notification will include the BPS newsletter, ONI neighborhood database, PEG webpage, Boards and Commissions distribution list, listserv's via PEG members, City facebook page.
- Co-leads introduced the new PEG evaluation system. The Planning and Sustainability Commission's citizen-based Community Involvement Committee continues to monitor the progress of the Comprehensive Plan process. In doing so they have requested an ongoing evaluation system for PEG meetings. Survey forms will be available at every meeting and it was requested that PEG members and guests fill out the forms at each meeting. The Community Involvement Committee will use the information collected from all the PEGs to determine participant satisfaction and to use that information for process improvement recommendations.
- Final Review Draft of the Community Involvement Survey
Review of updated CI PEG work plan (5 minutes)
Presenters: MartyStockton, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability / PEG Co-lead
Summary: PEG work plan has been revised to align with community involvement Elements, as defined and requested at July meeting.
Related Materials:
Presentation: Purview of the Comprehensive Plan on projects and processes (35 minutes)
Presenters: Courtney Duke/PortlandBureau of Transportation, Michelle Kunec/PortlandBureau of Planning and Sustainability, Emily Roth/PortlandBureau of Parks and Recreation
Summary: Each bureau present provided an overview of what types of projects and plans are defined and guided by the Comprehensive Plan.
- PBOT / Portland Bureau of Transportation - [note: Handout on How the Comprehensive Plan is Currently Used will be updated with the information provided by PBOT] - PBOT typically looks to Goals 6 Transportation and 11 Public Facilities for guidance about when and how to use the Comprehensive Plan in projects; they are required to comply with various regional and state transportation planning requirements in addition to the provisions of the Comprehensive Plan. Generally, PBOT uses the community involvement provisions of the Comprehensive Plan to set or amend the Transportation System Plan (including the project list) and for vacation of public rights of way. PBOT does not have a central community involvement program - for projects not guided by the Comprehensive Plan, it is up to each project manager to develop the involvement strategy. At this point in time project managers are typically using the PIAC-developed Public Involvement Principles to guide non-Comprehensive Plan projects, in addition to any provisions demanded by funding sources/grants, Title 6, etc. Beyond the Comprehensive Plan requirements, PBOT typically engages the community for project design /development and, to the extent appropriate, development review. The Maintenance Department is not likely to conduct community involvement in the course of maintaining and operating public property and assets - they are managed by a stewardship program with asset management guidelines. If all involvement policies of the Comprehensive Plan, including those contained in Goal 6, are consolidated into a single community involvement goal / chapter, PBOT would need check in with Metro regional government to make certain they could maintain compliance with the regional transportation plan. Functionally, PBOT staff would be most concerned that any new or different community involvement policies recognize issues of scale - different types and scales of projects require different levels of involvement - and recognize the roles of established advisory committees and use of community involvement from the past.
- PPR / Bureau of Parks and Recreation - The Comprehensive Plan is the guiding document for PPR projects. The bureau typically uses provisions of Goals 8 Environment and 11 Public Facilities. Trails are mapped on the Comprehensive Plan and Zoning maps. Project lists are developed and forwarded through the annual Capital Improvement Program (CIP), not listed within the Comprehensive Plan. PPR has a public involvement manager and program to coordinate all efforts of the bureau. They adhere to the PIAC-developed Public Involvement Principles and PPR's public involvement procedures manual. Every project must develop a public involvement plan determining the level of potential impacts and stakeholders, prior to starting a project. If there is a gap in time between a project being added to the CIP and being implemented, they will perform a start-up or check-in process with the community before proceeding to implementation (example: Westmoreland Master Plan). PPR also performs process evaluations of planning and capital improvement projects. PPR would like the new policies of the Comprehensive Plan to guide the way the City can attract and engage a more diverse audience - provide support and direction for authentic and impactful engagement. The more updated and relevant the Comprehensive Plan is the more staff will look to it for guidance. Its current obsolescence has led the bureau to develop and rely on its own procedures, as well as the PIAC principles.
- BPS / Bureau of Planning and Sustainability - The City regularly develops and updates a Public Facilities Plan project list (for water, sewer, stormwater, and transportation), which is then adopted into the Comprehensive Plan. Some pieces of the Facilities Plan can be changed without a Comprehensive Plan amendment, but to add a project or make major changes to the project list requires a complete Comprehensive Plan amendment and, therefore, meeting the community involvement policies and guidelines of Chapter 9 Citizen Involvement. The City is currently working on expanding the Public Facilities Plan to include Parks projects and facilities maintenance functions. Through the Comprehensive Plan update the public facilities bureaus are considering recommendations that will provide additional guidance as to how and when the facilities project list is updated - potentially a chapter on Comprehensive Plan Implementation.
PEG CI Element Discussion: Transparency (30 minutes)
Group Discussion
Summary: The group discussed the defining pieces of Transparency in community involvement and the different levels of decision-making and phases of a Comprehensive Plan project or process. In thinking about model practices, practical application of the Comprehensive Plan policies, and the existing policies, the group provided guidance to the co-leads in drafting new and revised policies:
- Defining Transparency: transparency to the community about what the process is; access to information; documentation and clear communication of the process and outcomes - how different community perspectives and input are considered through all stages of the process and decision-making
- Transparency applies to different stages of planning and project development -process planning, decision points, implementation. And to different levels of involvement -staff, advisory committees, other community involvement, and policy makers.
- Current Goal 9 Citizen Involvement addresses only one phase of community involvement - it is missing community as part of process planning and what follows decision-making / implementation. Should look to policy that develops collaborative system to design process.
- Consider new policy that requires planning projects and bureaus (like the public facilities bureaus) to develop community involvement plans.
Public Comment
- None
PEG Check-in (5 minutes)
- PEG members noted concern that not enough progress is being made on policies to influence what is included in the Comprehensive Plan Policy Discussion Draft, due in October. For the next meeting, they have requested staff work on draft policy language ('trial balloon') for PEG consideration - use the meeting to critique, revise, add to or omit draft policies.
Next Steps
- PEG Co-leads will outline existing Comprehensive Plan policies for the PEG to consider whether or not to keep and/or elevate for the Discussion Draft.
- Prior to the September meeting, PEG Co-leads will begin an email conversation with PEG members to determine which Elements of Good Public Involvement, identified in July, should be incorporated into the draft Comprehensive Plan policies.
- PEG Co-leads will develop, and send out ahead of the meeting, new draft policies for PEG consideration in September.
- September agenda to include review/discussion of above-noted policy drafts and a PEG discussion of how to fully incorporate Equity and Accessibility into the community involvement policies of the Comprehensive Plan, including provisions of Title 6.
- Co-leads will finalize and distribute the PEG's community survey.
- Co-leads and the PIAC's Comprehensive Plan work group will work to draft an overall community outreach strategy for the PEG with details on methods, timing, purpose, target audiences.


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A 22-year-old Eastpointe woman sustained a minor injury during a fight that began when a pretzel bakery customer received the wrong dipping sauce in Troy.
The woman, accompanied by a 19-year-old woman from Eastpointe, purchased a pretzel at Auntie Anne's, 412 W. 14 Mile Road, on Saturday evening.
After leaving the facility, one of the women realized they had been given the wrong dipping sauce. They returned, and an employee said the woman with the wrong dip would have to purchase another one because she had already consumed some of the sauce she initially received.
An argument ensued, and the women told police that an employee threw a sauce container at them. As a result of the throw, nacho cheese sauce hit one of the women and a security guard.
After the throw, the women climbed over the counter and a scuffle ensued, police said.
A machine was knocked over and broken during the fracas.
The Troy city attorney is reviewing the case and may authorize charges.

subset: commoncrawl


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And here's the larger pantry that I thought would be a good place to store small appliances, paper products, extra stuff. Not exactly how I envisioned it. Pretty sure the dangling cords are a safety hazard!
You're probably thinking, how much did you spend on containers?! Well I already had most of the plastic ones. And since I knew I wanted to organize the pantry, I'd been keeping my eyes out for some cheap ones. The glass containers w/the silver lids came from Dollar General. I found a set of 3 plastic containers at Wally World for $3.50 per set. The silver tins and glass jars on the door came from Goodwill. The tins had Christmas pictures on them so I just painted over them with some chalk paint. I already had the brown basket. I made the labels for the plastic containers on the computer and just taped them on. I'll probably have to use a stepstool to get anything off the top shelf, so I figured I'd just go ahead and stack the containers on top of each other. We did buy the door shelf at Home Depot & Steven hung it up for me.
This is pretty much how I envisioned this pantry. Steven & I have gotten in the habit of drinking instant coffee,(don't judge) so that's why the coffee pot is in there. Last summer we hosted a fish fry & Steven bought an abundance of peanut oil. Maybe by 2020, I'll have used it all up! Any suggestions on how/where to store the oversized grilling utensils would really be appreciated! Right now, they're hanging out on the second shelf. The tub holds napkins, plastic silverware, styrofoam cups, etc. I may end up moving my flour & sugar containers to this pantry, we'll see.


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Roberto Mancini happy after Manchester City battle to victory at Wigan
Boss Roberto Mancini was a "happy" man after Manchester City ground out a 2-0 win at Wigan
Last Updated: 29/11/12 8:51am
After a goalless first half strikes from Mario Balotelli and James Milner - with a thunderbolt - sealed the points for the champions.
Wigan gave City a real battle, mixing it in midfield and causing problems up front and Mancini made a tactical substitution in the second half which led to the Italian being jeered by the travelling fans.
He took off striker Sergio Aguero and put on left-back Aleksandar Kolarov which appeared a negative move, only for the visitors to break the deadlock moments later.
Mancini told Sky Sports: "Wigan play with three defenders and two in the channels. I wanted to put players in the same positions as them and when we changed it, we scored the first goal. After that, the match changed.
"I am happy. We didn't play very well in the first half, we know Wigan are a good team. They play good football. We knew this before the game.
"When we have played against Wigan it has been a difficult match because they play very well."
Substitute Milner's second settled the game before he limped off and Mancini confirmed that the England midfielder had suffered a hamstring injury, stating: "He was in good form. He's unlucky."
City are now unbeaten in their first 14 games of the season and the Italian expects another tight battle for the Premier League crown with rivals Manchester United.
He added: "It is important that we win. Sometimes it is better to lose one game, maybe, if you then to start to win after you have drawn two or three games in a row.
"The Premier League is difficult to be unbeaten for a year. For us it is important to stay on the top, we are very close to United and I think it will be a fantastic championship."


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Correction Appended
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war.
The warning is described in "State of Denial," scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush's top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq.
As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: "I don't want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don't think we are there yet."
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that "Rumsfeld doesn't have any credibility anymore" to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq.
The book, bought by a reporter for The New York Times at retail price in advance of its official release, is the third that Mr. Woodward has written chronicling the inner debates in the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent decision to invade Iraq. Like Mr. Woodward's previous works, the book includes lengthy verbatim quotations from conversations and describes what senior officials are thinking at various times, without identifying the sources for the information.Continue reading the main story
Mr. Woodward writes that his book is based on "interviews with President Bush's national security team, their deputies, and other senior and key players in the administration responsible for the military, the diplomacy, and the intelligence on Iraq." Some of those interviewed, including Mr. Rumsfeld, are identified by name, but neither Mr. Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to be interviewed, the book says.
Robert D. Blackwill, then the top Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, is said to have issued his warning about the need for more troops in a lengthy memorandum sent to Ms. Rice. The book says Mr. Blackwill's memorandum concluded that more ground troops, perhaps as many as 40,000, were desperately needed.
It says that Mr. Blackwill and L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American official in Iraq, later briefed Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, about the pressing need for more troops during a secure teleconference from Iraq. It says the White House did nothing in response.
The book describes a deep fissure between Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush's first secretary of state, and Mr. Rumsfeld: When Mr. Powell was eased out after the 2004 elections, he told Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, that "if I go, Don should go," referring to Mr. Rumsfeld.
Mr. Card then made a concerted effort to oust Mr. Rumsfeld at the end of 2005, according to the book, but was overruled by President Bush, who feared that it would disrupt the coming Iraqi elections and operations at the Pentagon.
Vice President Cheney is described as a man so determined to find proof that his claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was accurate that, in the summer of 2003, his aides were calling the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, with specific satellite coordinates as the sites of possible caches. None resulted in any finds.
Two members of Mr. Bush's inner circle, Mr. Powell and the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, are described as ambivalent about the decision to invade Iraq. When Mr. Powell assented, reluctantly, in January 2003, Mr. Bush told him in an Oval Office meeting that it was "time to put your war uniform on," a reference to his many years in the Army.
Mr. Tenet, the man who once told Mr. Bush that it was a "slam-dunk" that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq, apparently did not share his qualms about invading Iraq directly with Mr. Bush, according to Mr. Woodward's account.
Mr. Woodward's first two books about the Bush administration, "Bush at War" and "Plan of Attack," portrayed a president firmly in command and a loyal, well-run team responding to a surprise attack and the retaliation that followed. As its title indicates, "State of Denial" follows a very different storyline, of an administration that seemed to have only a foggy notion that early military success in Iraq had given way to resentment of the occupiers.
The 537-page book describes tensions among senior officials from the very beginning of the administration. Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda.
On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.
In the weeks before the Iraq war began, President Bush's parents did not share his confidence that the invasion of Iraq was the right step, the book recounts. Mr. Woodward writes about a private exchange in January 2003 between Mr. Bush's mother, Barbara Bush, the former first lady, and David L. Boren, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a Bush family friend.
The book says Mrs. Bush asked Mr. Boren whether it was right to be worried about a possible invasion of Iraq, and then to have confided that the president's father, former President George H. W. Bush, "is certainly worried and is losing sleep over it; he's up at night worried."
The book describes an exchange in early 2003 between Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the retired officer Mr. Bush appointed to administer postwar Iraq, and President Bush and others in the White House situation room. It describes senior war planners as having been thoroughly uninterested in the details of the postwar mission.
After General Garner finished his PowerPoint presentation — which included his plan to use up to 300,000 troops of the Iraqi Army to help secure postwar Iraq, the book says — there were no questions from anyone in the situation room, and the president gave him a rousing sendoff.
But it was General Garner who was soon removed, in favor of Mr. Bremer, whose actions in dismantling the Iraqi army and removing Baathists from office were eventually disparaged within the government.
The book suggests that senior intelligence officials were caught off guard in the opening days of the war when Iraqi civilian fighters engaged in suicide attacks against armored American forces, the first hint of the deadly insurgent attacks to come.
In a meeting with Mr. Tenet of the Central Intelligence Agency, several Pentagon officials talked about the attacks, the book says. It says that Mr. Tenet acknowledged that he did not know what to make of them.
Mr. Rumsfeld reached into political matters at the periphery of his responsibilities, according to the book. At one point, Mr. Bush traveled to Ohio, where the Abrams battle tank was manufactured. Mr. Rumsfeld phoned Mr. Card to complain that Mr. Bush should not have made the visit because Mr. Rumsfeld thought the heavy tank was incompatible with his vision of a light and fast military of the future. Mr. Woodward wrote that Mr. Card believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was "out of control."
The fruitless search for unconventional weapons caused tension between Vice President Cheney's office, the C.I.A. and officials in Iraq. Mr. Woodward wrote that Mr. Kay, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq, e-mailed top C.I.A. officials directly in the summer of 2003 with his most important early findings.
At one point, when Mr. Kay warned that it was possible the Iraqis might have had the capability to make such weapons but did not actually produce them, waiting instead until they were needed, the book says he was told by John McLaughlin, the C.I.A.'s deputy director: "Don't tell anyone this. This could be upsetting. Be very careful. We can't let this out until we're sure."
Mr. Cheney was involved in the details of the hunt for illicit weapons, the book says. One night, Mr. Woodward wrote, Mr. Kay was awakened at 3 a.m. by an aide who told him Mr. Cheney's office was on the phone. It says Mr. Kay was told that Mr. Cheney wanted to make sure he had read a highly classified communications intercept picked up from Syria indicating a possible location for chemical weapons.
Mr. Woodward and a colleague, Carl Bernstein, led The Post's reporting during Watergate, and Mr. Woodward has since written a string of best sellers about Washington. More recently, the identity of Mr. Woodward's Watergate source known as Deep Throat was disclosed as having been W. Mark Felt, a senior F.B.I. official.
In late 2005, Mr. Woodward was subpoenaed by the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case. He also apologized to The Post's executive editor for concealing for more than two years that he had been drawn into the scandal.Continue reading the main story


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Sheryl Sandberg and Anna Maria Chávez on 'Bossy,' the Other B-word
Confident girls are often called the other B-word, and it can keep them from reaching their full potential, write Sheryl Sandberg and Anna Maria Chávez
We were bossy little girls.
Sheryl: When my brother and sister describe our childhood, they will say that I never actually played as a child but instead just organized other kids' play. At my wedding, they stood up and introduced themselves by explaining, "Hi, we're Sheryl's younger brother and sister … but we're not really her younger brother and sister. We're her first employees—employee No. 1 and employee No. 2."...


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Lots of people are opposed to the kind of late-term abortion that preceded the death of a woman in Maryland last week. I understand that.
But everyone should be opposed to the blatantly illegal violation of her privacy and the exploitation of her death by protesters using it to make their point.
Her name and photo have appeared on protest signs, in blogs and in newspapers.
The intimate details of her medical records — probably leaked by someone with access to that information at the Germantown clinic where she got the abortion or the Rockville hospital where she died — should never have seen the light of day, let alone be broadcast at a rally the day after her death.
That pesky HIPAA privacy law, the one that forces you to fill out a bazillion forms whenever you go to the doctor, did absolutely nothing to stop this.
The story is heartbreaking from the very place it begins.
Last week, a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher from New York came to the Women's Reproductive Center in Germantown for a late-term abortion, performed by LeRoy Carhart.
She was 33 weeks pregnant, married and wanted very much to have a child. She had a name picked out, a baby registry halfway filled. Her Pinterest board features photos of pink-headed infants along with baby food recipes she hoped to make, the ideal nursery decorated in pink and gray, and baby-book projects.
She not only wanted this baby, she clearly yearned for her, dreamed of her. Imagine what awful news she must have received for her and her husband to terminate the pregnancy.
That is a tragedy all alone.
But on Feb. 6, after the abortion procedure, something went wrong, and the woman was taken to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, where she died the next morning. Her death is under investigation by Maryland authorities, including the chief medical examiner, the state Office of Health Care Quality and Montgomery County police.
The day after her death, protesters gathered outside the clinic with her name, big posters of her photo and grim details about her medical history and procedures.
"It was a perfectly healthy young woman that died," said Michael Martelli, executive director of the Maryland Coalition for Life, an antiabortion advocacy group.
And how would you know that, Mr. Martelli? Do you know her?
No, he doesn't, he told me.
So how on earth did protesters get all of her medical records? How did they get enough detail to make huge posters of her face, give details about her marriage and employment, and make claims about what went on inside her body?
"I can't reveal our sources. These are confidential and anonymous," Martelli said.
Relatives of the young woman didn't talk to them. They told me they have said "No comment" to anybody who has called.
Unless someone inside the clinic contacted the antiabortion groups, the only other possible source of such sensitive information is the hospital.
Of course, the hospital can't even confirm that she was there or that she died there.
"We maintain a fierce commitment to protecting the privacy of our patients and their care," said hospital spokeswoman Marissa Levine.
If there is a violation of HIPAA laws, hospital officials investigate and discipline. They have fired people for such violations. So are they investigating this one?
"I can tell you, whenever we see information in the public domain about patient care, we absolutely look into it, internally," she said.
The activists who target the Germantown clinic have had respectful, legal vigils outside of it year-round. They have even rented space across the street for a pregnancy counseling service. Nothing wrong with any of that.
But they have also bombarded the neighborhood of the landlord who leases space to the clinic, Todd Stave, with gory, Nazi-themed fliers. And they tracked down the school that Stave's children attend and picketed the back-to-school nights.
They harassed his in-laws at their home and stood outside his brother-in-law's dental office with gory abortion posters.
So it's not surprising that they seized on this poor woman's death last week. Martelli said that his group did not name her in their news conferences, news releases or rally and that whoever did that was acting on their own.
"We understand how horrible this situation is," Martelli said. "And really, we can't imagine what the family is going through. The family is in no way any type of target.
"We view the family and we view [the woman] as a victim," he said, using her name.
Give me a break.
The protesters are exploiting this woman's death and making other women think that their privacy is never truly protected when they seek an abortion.
This is not the way to reduce or end abortion. All it does is add to the suffering of a grieving family. And it is cruel.
Follow me on Twitter at @petulad. To read previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/dvorak.


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Seahawks Insider Blog
2013 NFL Calendar
Here's a list of important dates for the 2013 NFL calendar.
TODAY: East-West Shrine Game (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
SUN: Conference championships
Jan. 24-25 Regional combine, University of Hawaii (Honolulu)
Jan. 26 Senior Bowl (Mobile, Ala.)
Jan. 27 AFC-NFC Pro Bowl (Honolulu)
Feb. 2 Texas vs. Nation college All-Star game (Allen, Texas)
Feb. 3 Super Bowl XLVII (Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans)
Feb. 9-10 Regional combine, Oregon Coast College – Lebard Stadium (Los Angeles)
Feb. 16 Regional combine, Methodist training center (Houston)
Feb. 17 Regional combine, Cleveland Browns training facility (Cleveland)
Feb. 18 Franchise tag period begins (Ends March 4)
Feb. 20-26 NFL scouting combine (Indianapolis)
March 2-3 Regional combine, Atlantic Health Jets training facility (New York/New Jersey)
March 4 Deadline for using franchise tag
March 9 Regional combine, One Buccaneer Place (Tampa, Fla.)
March 10 Regional Combine, Halas Hall (Chicago)
March 9-11 Clubs are permitted to enter into contract negotiations with certified agents of players who will be unrestricted free agents at the end of the current league year.
Marc 12
* Prior to 4 p.m. ET, clubs must exercise options for 2013 on all players who have option clauses in their 2012 contracts.
* Prior to 4 p.m. ET, clubs must submit qualifying offers to their restricted free agents with expiring contracts and to whom they desire to retain a right of first refusal/compensation.
* All 2012 player contracts will expire at 4 p.m. ET
* Top-51 Begins. All clubs must be under the salary cap prior to 4 p.m. ET
* Trading period begins at 4 p.m. ET for 2013, after expiration of all 2012 contracts.
March 16-17 Regional combine, Atlanta Falcons training facility (Atlanta)
March 17-20 Annual league meeting, The Biltmore (Phoenix)
March 23-24 Regional combine, VMAC (Seattle)
April 7-8 Super regional combine, Cowboys Stadium (Dallas)
April 25-27 2013 NFL Draft (New York)
May 20-22 NFL Spring league meeting, Hyatt Harborside (Boston)
Sept. 5 NFL Kickoff 2013


text: Bouquet delivered by a courier service in 24h with our partner Chronopost or TNT in a special packaging to guarantee the best quality fresh flowers. Delivery in France Monday-Saturday from 8:00 to 13:00 ONLY, excluding Dom-Tom, Corsica & foreign countries. COURIER IS NOT ALLOWED TO CALL THE RECIPIENT BEFORE DELIVERY. If the recipient is not there, a message is left to invite him/her to contact the service.


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By the middle of this century, a large chunk of the United States' nuclear arsenal could be located on a doomsday subway system, where unmanned cars move back and forth on a single track, prepared to launch at a moment's notice.
Or a least that's one of several ideas that the Air Force is potentially mulling over as it prepares to replace its decades' old intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). To jumpstart those preparations, the Air Force earlier this month released an open call for proposals that would help the Air Force decide what the future land-based nuclear force would look like for the 50-year period starting in 2025.
At stake is a part of the nation's rapidly aging nuclear arsenal, which consists of the "triad" of land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched missiles, and bombers armed with nuclear weapons.
Supporters of this deterrent argue that, despite the end of the Cold War, it is still needed to deter a potential enemy from threatening the United States with nuclear weapons, or even other weapons of mass destruction. "The official reason is still one of flexibility, and survivability in the event of a nuclear attack," says Ivan Oelrich, a long-time defense analyst and expert on nuclear issues. "The real unspoken argument is bureaucratic inertia."
In recent years, some US Pentagon officials have questioned whether keeping all three elements of this costly triad is really needed, though no changes have yet been made. In the meantime, parts of the system are rapidly approaching their use by date. The current ICBM, the Minuteman III, is expected to reach the end of its life by 2030.
Of the five different ideas the Air Force is currently exploring, the underground tunnel concept would be one of the more dramatic changes from the current system, which has missiles located in fixed, underground silos spread out across three bases. The tunnels would in theory allow the missile to survive direct nuclear attacks, since an enemy wouldn't know precisely where the missile is located at any given time.
"The tunnel concept mode operates similar to a subway system but with only a single transporter/launcher and missile dedicated to a given tunnel," the Air Force says. "The vehicle moves at random down the length of the tunnel."
That, however, is not the only possible new system. Another concept involves putting the missiles above ground, perhaps on specialised vehicles called "transporter erector launchers." Those vehicles may have to venture on to public roads or lands, according to the Air Force, or even travel off road.
'Fancy ideas'
While the idea of off-road vehicles and underground trains transporting nukes may sound wild, the Air Force says it's also considering more basic options, such as simply keeping the current Minuteman III through until 2075, or undertaking modifications to the system. Yet another option would be building a new missile that would replace the Minuteman, but still use underground silos.
None of these proposals are right around the corner, cautions retired Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, who last served as the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the US ICBMs, as well as nuclear-armed bombers. "The purpose of sending out the request for concepts is to flesh out the ideas in greater detail so that at some point, they can be subjected to intense analysis as to the cost, feasibility, and operational effectiveness," says Klotz, who is now a senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations.
While any such proposal for underground tunnels or mobile ICBMs is likely far off in the future, he says that such options are not necessarily more expensive in the long run, since it would allow the Air Force to consolidate its operations. When the Minuteman missile was first deployed some 50 years ago, the concept was to disperse them to reduce their vulnerability to a Soviet attack. But maintaining and protecting missiles over such a large area, such as paying for vehicle fuel, can be burdensome.
Today, missile fields are spread out across three bases: the smallest, at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, covers some 22,000 sq km (8,500 sq mi). "That's roughly the size of the state of New Jersey," Klotz says.
Arms control experts agree that a mobile ICBM force is probably not around the corner. The recent Air Force announcement "is a preliminary first step to explore theoretical options for replacement of the Minuteman III ICBM force," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington DC-based Arms Control Association.
Kimball points out that the US has cut its nuclear arsenal in recent years - there are currently just 420 Minuteman IIIs, and to invest now in an entirely new system makes little sense. "The reality is that the current plans for modernising the strategic triad, which were developed years ago, is too costly given the current budget environment," he says.
The idea of putting a nuclear weapon on a moving vehicle is also too risky, according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. "This notion of rolling around on country roads and rural areas, with an increased risk of accidents, seems to be a step back in this day and age," he says.
But this is not the first time the Air Force has looked at mobile ICBMs, Kristensen notes. In the 1980s, the government debated putting the Peacekeeper missile on trains, or even "race tracks."
"At the end of the day, all these options were way too expensive and they ended up in silos," he says. "You can come up with fancy ideas, but the reality check at the end of the day is: what is needed, what is necessary, and how much can we afford?"
The mostly like outcome is that the United States will simply keep the Minuteman III, and refurbish it as it has done before. It just finished a multi-billion dollar refit, which involved updating everything from fuel to guidance parts, and the end result is a nearly "new" missile.
Repeating that refurbishment to keep the Minuteman III going until 2075 is the most likely path for the Air Force, according to Kristensen. "Mobile and tunnel systems, that's a pie in the sky," he says.
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James Harden buzzer-Rockets eke out win over Wizards
HOUSTON (AP) — James Harden believed his miscues were partially responsible for the Washington Wizards getting back into the game after the Rockets built a huge third-quarter lead on Wednesday night.
So with the game on the line late, Houston's star was determined to atone for his earlier mistakes.
"I had to figure a way to make it even," Harden said.
He did.
BOX SCORE:Rockets 113, Wizards 112
Harden scored 35 points and his layup with 0.7 seconds remaining lifted the Rockets to a 113-112 win over the Wizards, sending Houston into the All-Star break with a season-best seven-game winning streak.
John Wall gave Washington the lead with a pair of free throws with 4 seconds left. Trevor Ariza fouled out when he pushed Harden to the ground on the ensuing inbounds pass. It was ruled a foul away from the play, giving Houston one free throw and possession.
Harden, who was 16 for 16 at the line, made the free throw before grabbing a pass from Chandler Parsons and driving into the lane for the winning shot.Harden was asked to explain his work on the last play.
"Get to the rim and make the play," he said. "It's simple."
The Wizards had a chance to win at the end, but Kevin Seraphin's shot clanged off the rim.
Ariza had 11 rebounds and a season-high 32 points with a career-best and franchise-record 10 3-pointers to lead the Wizards.
"It's too bad, these guys deserved to win that game," Washington coach Randy Wittman said. "To have it taken from them like that, it's sad."
Houston won despite committing a season-high 26 turnovers that led to 24 points by the Wizards. The Rockets were helped by making 35 free throws while Washington hit only eight.
MORE:First half lessons from Durant, Kobe
MASCOT:See the Pierre the Pelican's new look
The Wizards trailed by 18 in the third quarter before a barrage of 3s from Ariza got his team back in the game. His 10 3-pointers were the most ever against the Rockets. Ariza was 7 for 7 on 3s in the third and made six in a 4-minute span late in the quarter, including three in an incredible 32-second stretch.
Five straight points, capped by a three-point play by Wall, put the Wizards up 110-108 with 2:21 remaining in the fourth. Houston had a shot-clock violation on the next possession, but Nene fouled out with an offensive foul on the other end. Harden made two free throws with 23.2 seconds left to tie it at 110.
Nene had 21 points, Bradley Beal scored 20 and Wall finished with 19 points, 14 assists and three steals.
Dwight Howard added 24 points with 16 rebounds for Houston, and Parsons scored 18.An 8-3 run by Washington cut Houston's lead to two midway through the fourth quarter. The Rockets scored the next five points to stretch the lead before five quick points by Washington got it back down to two with 4 minutes left.
A 3-point shot by Beal got Washington within five with about 9 minutes left in the third quarter. The Rockets scored 13 straight points after that to extend the lead to 83-65. Harden had five points in that stretch, and he and Howard brought the crowd to its feet when Harden found the big man for a monster alley-oop dunk.
MORE:Knicks get fewest foul calls in NBA history
The Wizards missed shot after shot and didn't score four more than 4 minutes while Houston built the lead. They missed from long-range, mid-range and even botched two layups.
Washington finally ended the scoring drought thanks to Ariza. He made his second 3-pointer of the quarter with less than 5 minutes left in the third. He made three more 3s on consecutive possessions a couple of minutes later to cut Houston's lead to 90-79.
But he wasn't done yet, and made two more on back-to-back trips down the court to make it 93-87 with a minute remaining in the quarter. Wall got in on the fun on the next possession, sinking a 3 of his own, to leave Houston clinging to a 93-90 lead entering the fourth quarter.
Ariza seemed unimpressed by his big night.
"I was open and there were good looks and I was just letting them fly," he said.
The Rockets used a 10-3 spurt to regain a 52-46 lead late in the second. Howard and Harden each made two free throws in the last 30 seconds of the half to extend Houston's advantage to 63-54 at the break.
NOTES: Patrick Beverley missed the game with an abdominal strain, and Jeremy Lin started in his place. ... Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon watched the game from a courtside seat. ... Ex-Rocket Clyde Drexler presented Harden and Howard with framed All-Star jerseys to celebrate their selection to this weekend's game. Harden is in the game for the second time and it's the eighth time Howard has received the nod.
PHOTOS: Weekly MVP and Rookie of the Year rankings


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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Penn State is making steady progress in implementing the requirements outlined by the NCAA following the sanctions for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell said Friday.
Mitchell, the independent athletics integrity monitor, also said in a statement Friday that the university is making progress in implementing recommendations from Louis Freeh following the former FBI director's internal investigation into the scandal. The school has said the recommendations were designed to strengthen governance, compliance and reporting.
"University administrators, staff, and trustees continued to demonstrate a good faith effort to fulfill their obligations and to implement improvements to Penn State's functionality and security," Mitchell wrote in the 30-page document. "My team and I have received continued, complete cooperation from the university."
The NCAA last summer named Mitchell independent monitor for the university after college sports' governing body levied strict sanctions including a four-year bowl ban, steep scholarship cuts and a $60 million fine.
Gov. Tom Corbett has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit seeking to get the penalties overturned, while the NCAA has responded by asking the case be dismissed.
Mitchell said following a trustees meeting in January that the litigation had no bearing on his review. His next report is due by the end of May.
In a separate statement, university president Rodney Erickson cited the latest findings as evidence of "Penn State's ongoing commitment to integrity, responsibility and ethical conduct."
"We still have more to do, but we're gratified that Sen. Mitchell and his team recognize all that we have done and that we are committed to continuing these efforts, in full compliance" with the NCAA agreement, Erickson said.
Mitchell highlighted that Penn State had met the deadline for actions required by the NCAA to be completed within four months of the sanctions, including the hiring of a new athletics integrity officer and the establishment of a formal code of conduct for athletics. About 1,800 people were certified, including 1,100 "covered persons" including players, coaches, administrators and the Board of Trustees.
Mitchell's report, though, said one trustee, Anthony Lubrano declined to sign because of opposition to the sanctions. Lubrano, an outspoken critic of the school's handling of the Freeh report and sanctions, joined the board eight months after coach Joe Paterno was fired in the days following Sandusky's arrest in November 2011.
Lubrano released a letter Friday night that he sent in January to Erickson in which he explained his unwillingness "to agree to a document merely to satisfy the so-called (NCAA) consent decree that was forced upon" Penn State. He said he believed the university had always subscribed to a "very high standard of ethics and integrity."
Penn State has said it has implemented the majority of the 119 recommendations outlined by Freeh. According to Mitchell, the NCAA and Big Ten have allowed Penn State to bypass five Freeh recommendations that primarily have to do with human resources, upon Mitchell's recommendation.
Sandusky, 69, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison last fall after being convicted on dozens of criminal counts of child sex abuse, including allegations on campus. He maintains his innocence.
Besides the recommendations, Freeh in his report accused the late Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and three former administrators of conspiring to cover up allegations against Sandusky. The NCAA cited Freeh's report in punishing Penn State.
Some alumni, students, staffers and other trustees remain angry about how the school handled Freeh's report and the sanctions. The former administrators have vehemently denied the allegations, and Paterno's family last month released a long-awaited response.
The critique commissioned by the family called Freeh's accusations inaccurate and unfounded, resulting in a "rush to injustice."
Lubrano has long been critical of Freeh's findings. This week, trustee Joel Myers also renewed opposition to how the NCAA decided on the unprecedented penalties, and its severity, in a mass email responding to inquiries over the past couple months; the email was also sent to other trustees.
"As I have previously stated on many occasions, I strongly hold that the NCAA should never have implemented sanctions against Penn State based on the Freeh report for many reasons and the report was not commissioned for this purpose," wrote Myers, who cited the questions raised in the Paterno family critique.


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used Chevrolet Dealership near Charleston
Explore our inventory of used 2017 Chevrolet Camaro vehicles for sale near Charleston, SC. As your North Charleston Chevrolet dealership, we offer an unbeatable selection of used vehicles at great prices. Whether you're seeking to buy or lease, the sales professional at Crews Chevrolet will work with you to help you get the best deal on a car, truck, or SUV in North Charleston. Questions about one of our used cars? Call us at (843) 480-0041 or contact us online, and we'll get back to you promptly. When you're ready to test drive a used 2017 Chevrolet Camaro vehicle at Crews Chevrolet, visit our Chevy dealership near Charleston, Summerville, and Goose Creek.
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Very satisfied with their fast and prompt service!
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Our sale rep Jon was amazing. The finance manager Michelle Stacks was the best I've ever had.
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The team at Crews are a family, they treat their customers like that, they listen to your concerns, needs and work very hard to make sure they meet yo...
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Service was quick and efficient!
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Lose It! Your Weight-Loss Type Revealed
In SELF's January issue, we graded the latest crop of diet books, and [Lose It!](http://www.rodalestore.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?cata logId=10002&storeId=10051&productId=237138&langId=-1&nav_wt=search) by Anahad O-Connor and Charles Teague, rose to the top. In the review, we said:
Based on a popular calorie counting app, this is less diet, more useful tips for sticking to a limit. It's hard to argue with success; 86 percent of online users said they did, um, lose it. Bonus: how-tos on social networking for support. Yay for friends!
According to Teague, the reason Lose It! is so successful is that it works with any diet --whether you're vegan, diabetic or just super-picky about what you eat.
"We let you lose weight your way," he says.
Free Stuff! Enter now to win a Lose It! T-shirt or an 8GB iPod Touch pre-loaded with the Lose It! app.
Because we were such fans of the book, over the next week, we're going to be posting tips from the Lose It! experts -- starting with this handy guide to determining your weight-loss "type" and how you can overcome bad diet habits to find your healthiest weight.
You're a Weekender If... You diligently track every morsel all week from Monday through Friday, but then, as soon as you punch out of the office and head to happy hour, you forget that those free chips are packed with costly calories.
Tip: Splurge, baby, splurge. If you manage to inject a little food-related fun into the weekdays, you'll be less likely to "reward" your good weekday deeds with major damage on the weekends. So consider working one splurge night into your week -- you can have whatever you want for dinner, whether that's a burger, lasagna, pepperoni pizza or French fries and a milkshake. Sure, it'll probably push you over your budget for the day, but it's better to have a single splurge than a three-day bender.
You're a Calorie Drinker If... You run out for a coffee and come back clutching a large milkshake with a shot of caffeine. Starbucks may call it a Peppermint White Mocha, but it's really a calorie bomb in coffee clothing: 470 calories, in fact. Or maybe soda is your downfall. According to the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, the average American consumes 50 gallons of soda a year -- the equivalent of one-and-a-half cans of soda each day. And let's not forget about all of those bottled teas and sugary sports drinks, many of which are stacked with sugar.
Tip: Swap sugary and high-calorie drinks for healthier low-cal options. Reach for flavored seltzer water when you're craving soda and try coffee with low-fat milk instead of half-and-half or those frozen high-cal drinks.
You're a Low-Hanging Food Grabber If... You can't resist food, glorious food. Like all animals, our instinct is to grab any source of calories that comes our way. These days, we're confronted with calories everywhere we go, from bagels in the conference room to king-sized chocolate bars in the checkout aisle (at the electronics store, no less!). In an environment with such an abundance of cheap, easy calories, temptation lurks at every corner. Sure, you can start off each morning with the right attitude, but soon you're faced with tempting options that chip away at your willpower. After all, how can you refuse that slice of cake at your boss's birthday party when it's literally handed to you?
Tip: Plan for the unexpected. If you know you're going to a party with a decadent spread, eat before you go so you're not standing by a pile of cookies while your stomach growls in protest. Then, use a small plate to taste a bite of the things you want the most. If you have your eye on the office party cake, find a colleague who's also trying to lose weight and ask her to split a slice with you.
You're a Stress Eater If... You get intense cravings. Inside all of us, there is a hormone that has the power to unleash our appetites the way a monkey wrench opens a fire hydrant. This hormone is cortisol, the so-called stress hormone that's secreted when your body responds to prolonged periods of stress. When cortisol floods your body, it can set off cravings for the most calorie-rich, fattening and carbohydrate-dense food to be found within a 5-mile radius. And chances are that once you have your hands on them, you'll pig out like you've never seen food before.
Tip: Take your stress to the gym. Hands down, one of the best stress-busters is exercise. Studies have repeatedly shown that adding a little movement to your life can improve mood, reduce anxiety and stress and keep your calories in check. One 2010 study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that regular exercise even acts as a buffer against stress on a cellular level, keeping cortisol from ravaging your DNA.
You're a Judger If: You fall victim to junk food in health food packaging. Food manufacturers are well-aware that Americans are looking to lose weight, but those manufacturers need to keep up their profits somehow. Slapping healthy buzzwords on a package of high-calorie processed junk is one way to do that.
Tip: Don't buy into marketing gimmicks. Read every nutrition label and decide for yourself whether or not something makes sense for your calorie budget. Click here for a list of SELF's picks for the healthiest snacks.
What's your Lose It! type?
Related Links:
Download the SELF workouts app
Love Your Body: Design The Ultimate Workout For Your Body Type


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Voyager Home Screen (vHome) is a free ware helps you customize your S60's home screen with big clock, start menu, weather, news ticker, Google, fav contact, smart dialing, etc.
Key features:
Features like Google, weather, news, Operator logo, big clock are pretty straight forward, if you do not like a certain feature, just press C to disable it. Press left/right on to-do bar and news bar could switch item.
Quick task switch:
we use the red end key to switch between running tasks, it's lot easier than pressing home key and then select, also you will never quit java apps like Opera Mini/Gmail by accidentally pressing Red key.
Smart dialing:
just type one number for one letter, to find any contact fast. Like 2455 for Bill. You can use this for apps, too. Like 46245 for Gmail. You might find phone's menu a bit useless when you can get to anything from home screen with smart dialing.
Start menu:
another way to organize your apps, you can locate an app using smart dialing, and place the app in start menu or home screen shortcut easily. And we support sub-folder in start menu.
we scan your call logs automatically and place the people you call/text most frequently in MyFav feature, on the home screen's right selection key (of course you can change this with any app you want). Press left/right key in this, you can see your most used apps, too.
yeah, we include a mini App store, the seventh shortcut. Not too many apps for now (tell us what you want to see here), we want to gather the best free apps here, all fit your phone model (we test and organize them by screen resolution, MR/FP1/FP2 etc., so you don't have to). Just one click to download, auto install to E:, dead simple. (the list is updated automatically, so check in once in a while).
New app popup:
after a new app is installed, you would see a popup asking if you would like to run it now. Save you time digging in to menu to find it.
Web directory:
Click web browser, you'll see our directory page. All most popular mobile sites (hopefully). If you don't like it, just turn it off in Start-Settings-More
Keypad Lock:
the system's settings would not work, please setup again in vHome. Lock is easy: Start-Lock, much better than old way. Press end key twice to unlock.
by default, vHome update weather/news each hour, 9:00-23:00 (no update if you disable news and weather), change this in Start-Settings-Connection to suit your needs.
What's new:
1. Optimized skin engine, now it running more smoothly.
2. Rewritten download options, now download working more stable.
Download :Voyager Home Screen (vHome) v4.20 EN by Tuanloc


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Search narrows for NFL players off Gulf Coast
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO
and MITCH STACY
Associated Press
The Coast Guard on Monday narrowed the search area for two NFL players and a third man missing since a weekend fishing trip off the Florida Gulf Coast after crews rescued a fourth man clinging to their capsized boat.
Survivor Nick Schuyler, a former University of South Florida player, told rescuers that the boat the four good friends were aboard was anchored when it flipped Saturday evening in rough seas, said Coast Guard Capt. Timothy M. Close. Schuyler, who was wearing a life vest, had been hanging onto the hull that a Coast Guard cutter discovered 35 miles off Clearwater.
The 21-foot boat belongs to Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper, who, along with free-agent defensive lineman Corey Smith and former South Florida player William Bleakley, were missing.
The Coast Guard wouldn't speculate on the men's chances of survival, but Petty Officer Robert Simpson said their size and good health were advantaged. Cooper, 26, is 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, and the 29-year-old Smith is 6-foot-2, 250 pounds. The 25-year-old Bleakley had played tight end.
"With all of these men being past, present football players, they do have a much larger physique than a lot of people," he said. "So their odds are going to be definitely in their favor."
Their families have said they had life vests and flares aboard.
Schuyler was conscious but appeared weak as he was being taken off a helicopter at Tampa General Hospital and placed on a stretcher. His father said his son was in serious but stable condition and that he "looks OK."
"He's got some cuts and bruises. He's dehydrated," said Stuart Schuyler.
Schuyler's mother, Marsha Schuyler, said her son told her that he survived by thinking about how he didn't want her to go to his funeral.
The family's joy at him being found alive was tempered by the search for his friends.
"We still have three men missing, and we're not going to talk too much until we find these guys," said his father, Stuart Schuyler. "We're all praying for them. These guys are all very close friends."
Searchers had previously covered 16,000 square miles of ocean but the area being searched was much smaller since they found Schuyler, Close said.
Smith's family planned to drive to Florida from Richmond, Va., Tuesday, after the snowy weather in the East made getting a flight impossible, said Yolanda Newbill, one of Smith's sisters. She said they have been in contact with the Coast Guard every few hours since the search began.
"We have never lost hope," Newbill said. "We have total faith that (he) will be coming home."
Ray Sanchez of Tampa, a cousin of Cooper, said the family was confident the Coast Guard would find them.
"My cousin's a powerful swimmer," he said.
James Allen, a marine safety consultant who once worked search and rescue operations with the Coast Guard, said the chances of finding survivors diminish after people have been in the water three days.
Survivors have been found who were floating for days, but he added "you just can't swim forever."
After 18 hours in 64-degree water, hypothermia will set in, Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class James Harless said.
The four men left Clearwater Pass early Saturday in calm weather, but heavy winds picked up through the day and the seas got heavy, with waves of 7 feet and higher, peaking at 15 feet on Sunday. A relative alerted the Coast Guard early Sunday after the men did not return as expected. The Coast Guard said it did not receive a distress signal.
The men were aboard an Everglades-manufactured boat, which is built with compressed foam encased in Fiberglas, making it difficult to sink. The weather had improved, with waves subsiding to 6 to 8 feet, National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Barron said.
However, Bob Zales, president of National Association of Charter Boat Operators, said waves that high can capsize a boat the size of Cooper's.
"A boat that size, personally, I wouldn't get out any farther than 20 or 30 miles offshore," Zales said. "But I see people all the time 40, 50 miles offshore."
Smith of Richmond, had 30 tackles, including three sacks, and an interception in 12 games last season for the Detroit Lions. He also played for the San Francisco 49ers and was a standout at North Carolina State.
Cooper, 26, played college ball at Washington, and has spent five seasons with five different teams, appearing in 26 games with the Buccaneers in 2004 and 2005. He's played sparingly since. He grew up in Gilbert, Ariz., and his father Bruce is a prominent sportscaster for KPNX-TV in Phoenix.
The Raiders and Lions said in separate statements that the teams hope the men will be rescued and that their thoughts and prayers go out to their families.


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The Matlacha Bridge Reef Project has secured one designated site for a portion of the old Matlacha Bridge to become an artificial reef - if the non-profit organization can raise enough money to make it happen.
Rod Mazzoli of Island Floors Inc. & Interiors said the permits are in place if the organization can raise enough money to put a portion of the Matlacha Bridge off of the Novac Reef, which is located at the northern pass of Gasparilla Island. He said the reef is three miles north of the Boca Grande inlet, sitting right off of Gasparilla pass.
"That site is secured. The reef association is willing to take the material," he said. "It's a done deal if we can raise the money." "
Mazzoli said the artificial reef is going to benefit all the local fisherman and divers - whether recreational or commercial people.
"I think it's nice to have the old bridge here forever," he said.
A meeting has been set with the Army Core of Engineers this week to see if they can secure another site Cayo Costa.
Fact Box
To go:
What: Matlacha Bridge Reef
Project Benefit
When: 3-6 p.m., Sept. 22
Where: Olde Fish House
Marina in Matlacha
Tickets: $10, which includes
fish fry
Information: Call 239-283-6070 or email matlachabridge-
reefproject @aol.com
"We are looking at Cayo Costa location," Mazzoli said.
He said the state and county are not going to do anything for them, so the money, which is needed to move some of the bridge to the destination, will have to come from contributions and the bridge builder. How much is needed is still being calculated.
"I don't understand why the county didn't do this, there were state funds set aside. All they had to do was apply for them," Mazzoli said.
To make the dream of turning a portion of the bridge into an artificial reef, the Matlacha Bridge Reef Project has scheduled its first benefit for next month.
Tina Bush, also of Island Floors Inc. & Interiors, said the first benefit, which is being held to promote the Matlacha Bridge Reef Project, will be held Sept. 22, from 3-6 p.m., at the Olde Fish House Marina in Matlacha.
"The locals are going nuts with this," she said. "I am so thrilled."
Tickets to attend the event are $10, which includes a fish fry. Those interested in attending can call 239-283-6070 to purchase their ticket.
The benefit will also feature a silent auction, live local music, a seafood raffle and a 50/50 raffle.
T-shirts and embroidered hats, which were designed by Mel Meo, will also be for sale.
"It is going to be a great event," Bush said. I am excited about it."
Mazzoli said they are looking into having a benefit in St. James City and Bokeelia for the Matlacha Bridge Reef Project as well.
The idea of turning the old Matlacha Bridge into an artificial reef came to fruition the first week of July and soon turned into a non-profit organization - the Matlacha Bridge Reef Project - because Mazzoli wanted to preserve a piece of the islands history.


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Sulpician Father Gerald Coleman doesn't dispute assertions made in retired Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book that cases of sexual abuse of children by priests were often mishandled by the Catholic Church. However, Father Coleman does take issue with the book blaming much of the problem on priestly celibacy.
Read Father Coleman's guest commentary in Catholic San Francisco.


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In every building on the College of Engineering campus, there are classrooms and lecture halls packed with students listening to lectures. Yet, increasingly, that very traditional way of learning is not the only way UW-Madison engineering students are learning.
"The 50-minute lecture is one of the most inefficient methods for human learning to occur," says John Booske, the Duane H. and Dorothy M. Bluemke professor of electrical and computer engineering. "Permanent memory is—for most of us—limitless, but it all has to go through working memory, which is a very limited cache process. We process knowledge best in chunks."
And the College of Engineering is paying attention, drawing on a suite of hands-on, collaborative, cultural and technological tools to meet the educational needs and expectations of today's students—the "digital natives." At the same time, it is preparing well-rounded engineers who can think innovatively and take the lead in solving some of the world's largest problems.
Driving forces
The demand for multidisciplinary, multi-mode learning continues to rise among today's students, and satisfying it while offering complementary world-class hands-on student experiences is a matter of staying globally competitive. "In order to prepare the next generation of engineers, we need to teach them in a way that represents the world they'll be living and working in," says College of Engineering Dean Paul Peercy.
The nature of that world is wired, mobile and immediate. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project reports, undergraduate student technology and Internet use is virtually ubiquitous: 98 percent of students use the Internet frequently, 93 percent have high-speed Internet connections, 92 percent connect wirelessly to the Internet, while 63 percent use their smartphone to connect to the Internet.
As to how all that connectivity figures into campus life, University of Washington researchers interviewed 560 students at 11 campus libraries and learned that technology is key in student learning habits. They use Facebook to arrange study groups, smartphones to capture lectures for repeated listening, and YouTube tutorials as references for solving difficult problem sets. Electronic course materials—both official and unofficial—factor heavily into their learning processes. "I am no longer bound by what the professor gives me in a class, and his perspective on something," said one student quoted in the study. "There are lots of engineering forums that I can just Google."
The College of Engineering is taking a more strategic approach to providing high-value electronic content. Here, this educational culture change has foundations in Engineering Beyond Boundaries, a college initiative begun in 2005 in large part to address factors—including technology acceleration and the fusion of disciplines, global competition in education, and shifts in funding for sustaining higher education—in our rapidly changing world. Its goal is to adopt approaches that move education and research beyond disciplinary, cultural and technological boundaries.
Under the initiative, the college has funded nearly 50 innovative projects—among them a course that combines biology and engineering, new tools for teaching statics, video lectures on the core principles of design, a certificate program in sustainability, and a certificate that blends engineering and the arts.
However, as effective as the projects were, their impact largely was limited to a single course here and there, says Steve Cramer, College of Engineering associate dean for academic affairs and a professor of civil and environmental engineering. "If we were really going to change how engineering is taught at Wisconsin, it couldn't just be in a brand new, 'one-off' elective course," he says. "It had to hit the core of our courses, and it had to be implemented in a sustainable way."
Thus, the college Academic Planning Council, with encouragement from the college Industrial Advisory Board, set a new strategic directive: moving 75 percent of engineering core courses to a new "blended learning" model that leverages video-captured lectures and web-based course management tools to enhance in-class instruction. It's an ambitious goal that aims to use college-wide technology-support services to help instructors replicate prior successes in technology-enhanced courses.
Time well spent
In the College of Engineering, Wendt Commons—a recent merger of the Engineering Learning Center, Wendt Library and Engineering Media Services—offers instructors not only pedagogical insight, but also technological expertise that ranges from video lecture capture services to support for web-based teaching software.
Greg Moses was among those who, early on, recognized the potential of blended learning approaches. "There's a pathological fear that student performance will worsen if you don't lecture to them," says Moses, the Harvey D. Spangler professor of engineering physics and a blended learning pioneer. "But there's no evidence of that."
In fact, online video lectures enable instructors to improve and increase their one-on-one time with students. It's a model Moses—who with researcher Mike Litzkow developed the eTEACH web multimedia delivery tool—has followed for more than a decade. On their own time and at their own pace, students can watch online lectures to learn basic facts, then come to class prepared to ask questions, discuss concepts, and participate in group problem-solving exercises.
Shifting lectures online also allows instructors to do more with fewer resources. Hussain Bahia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, used on-demand video lecture modules and lab tutorials to transform a high-demand civil and environmental engineering course without sacrificing student-instructor "face time." And Dan Klingenberg, a professor of chemical and biological engineering, and colleagues consolidated three distinct fluid mechanics courses into a single multidisciplinary course by breaking lectures into topics, rather than 50-minute chunks. Now, instead of lecturing each week, professors attend discussions in which students apply general concepts from lectures to their particular engineering discipline.
As in the fluid mechanics course, online lectures also afford instructors like Booske the flexibility to spend in-class time helping students apply course concepts. "I walk around the classroom as a coach," he says. "I keep them on task, using more of a Socratic method—rather than telling them the answers."
Hands-on connections
Technology-aided instruction isn't limited to web-based learning. Seeing an opportunity to improve the experience for his introductory lab courses, Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Faculty Associate Mark Allie moved his students from traditional lab work to Mobile Studio, a portable lab kit that originated in 2007 with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor and electrical and computer engineering alumnus Ken Connor. When paired with a laptop, Mobile Studio can simulate all the equipment Allie's students need for basic experiments with current, voltage and frequency. "Students can do everything with just the Mobile Studio board, with minor exceptions," he says. "We're reinforcing concepts from lecture, so we can easily cover the material with a USB-based device."
And, Mobile Studio lab kits are inexpensive and portable, giving students independent access to lab tools, encouraging them to learn at their own pace, and even allowing them to creatively experiment on their own time.
Rethinking the classroom
Housed jointly on the fourth floor of Wendt Commons and in space across campus in College Library, the Wisconsin Collaboratory for Enhanced Learning Center, or WisCEL, offers a more sophisticated suite of technological tools, including wall-mounted video monitors and circular clusters of workstations that hold laptops for each student. During the day, instructors use those spaces as flexible, collaborative classrooms that make teaching more spontaneous and personal than a traditional lecture hall.
Flexible spaces like WisCEL also allow instructors to rethink every aspect of conventional teaching—including something as basic as office hours—to offer students experiences that better suit their needs as developing engineers. Engineering Physics Associate Professor Robert Witt, who teaches statics—a course among the toughest undergrad engineering courses—began holding office hours in WisCEL. "Other students were always there, so we could help each other out or listen to the answer of another student's questions," says Melissa Markquart, a civil and environmental engineering senior who took Witt's spring 2012 course.
In fact, the students who traditionally would have lined up for help outside Witt's office often spontaneously morphed into a unique "breakout" study session. And the collaborative space also encouraged students to be inquisitive and engage with their instructor. "Asking questions during lecture can be intimidating," says Markquart. "Professor Witt's willingness to do his office hours this way signaled to me that he cared about the students and our learning."
Whether they occur in a flexible technology-rich study space, in a blended course or through other innovative teaching approaches, experiences like Markquart's enhance the relationship students have with their instructors, engage them in the material, and ultimately, better prepare them to thrive in a global economy. "Not only do technology-enhanced learning experiences enable us to use our limited resources more efficiently, but we also are able to reach students in a way that is meaningful to them," says Peercy. "By creatively adapting our educational delivery methods, we are demonstrating to students the emphasis we place on providing them a high-quality, high-value educational experience. And they will graduate from UW-Madison knowing they have the skills and knowledge to make a difference today—and in the future."
Mark Riechers


text:
SEOUL, South Korea – A North Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons was plying the waters off Shanghai on Tuesday en route to Myanmar, a news report said, as regional military officials and a U.S. destroyer kept a close eye on the vessel's movements.
Washington's top military commander in South Korea, meanwhile, warned that the communist regime is bolstering its guerrilla warfare capacity.
Gen. Walter Sharp, who commands the 28,500 U.S. troops positioned in South Korea, said the North could employ roadside bombs and other guerrilla tactics if war breaks out again on the Korean peninsula. The two Koreas technically remain at war because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953.
North Korea's 1.2 million-member army makes it one of the world's largest. Some 180,000 are special operation forces. North Korea is believed to have been boosting its urban, nighttime and special operation capabilities in the wake of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, South Korea's Defense Ministry said.
Tensions have been high in the wake of North Korea's defiant underground nuclear test May 25 in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
A new resolution was passed June 12 in a bid to stop North Korea from developing its nuclear and missile programs and selling its technology.
Last Wednesday, a North Korean-flagged vessel left the port of Nampo and was being trailed by a U.S. destroyer, a U.S. official said, making it the first ship monitored under the new U.N. sanctions.
The Kang Nam, accused of transporting illicit goods in the past, is believed to be carrying banned small arms to Myanmar, a South Korean intelligence official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.
However, analysts say a high seas interception — something North Korea has said it would consider an act of war — is unlikely.
The resolution calls on U.N. member states to inspect North Korean vessels if they have "reasonable grounds" to believe that its cargo contains banned weapons or materials. But it must first get the consent of the nation whose flag the ship is flying — in this case, North Korea.
North Korea, however, is unlikely to allow any inspection of its cargo, making interception unlikely, said Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul.
If North Korea refuses, authorities must direct the vessel to a port. U.N. members have been ordered not to provided suspected ships with services such as fuel.
Singapore, the world's busiest port and a top refueling center, said officials would "act appropriately" if asked to confront a North Korean ship believed to be carrying banned cargo.
"Singapore takes seriously the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, their means of delivery and related materials," a spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry said Tuesday on condition of anonymity according to ministry policy. "If the allegation is true, Singapore will act appropriately."
The South Korean broadcaster YTN said the ship was traveling in waters 230 miles southeast of Shanghai at a speed of about 11.5 miles per hour.
The Kang Nam is expected to dock at Myanmar's Thilawa port, some 20 miles south of Yangon, in the next few days, according to the Irrawaddy, an online magazine operated by independent exiled journalists from Myanmar.
The magazine cited an unidentified port official as saying North Korean ships have docked there in the past. The magazine's in-depth coverage of Myanmar is generally reliable.
North Korea is believed to have sold guns, artillery and other small weapons to Myanmar, said Kim Jin-moo, an analyst at Seoul's state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
A senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press last week that a Navy ship, the USS John S. McCain, is relatively close to the North Korean vessel but had no orders to intercept it. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
U.S. and Japanese military officials said they could not provide details about the whereabouts of either ship.
An armed skirmish is unlikely, analysts said, though the North Korean crew was likely armed with rifles.
"It's still a cargo ship. A cargo ship can't confront a warship," said Baek Seung-joo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.