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Batchelder '15 Excels in Classroom, Poolby Joceyln Hopkinson '15 • October 18, 2012 Share:
Juggling school and sports is a difficult task for every student-athlete. Many freshmen are drowned by the tidal wave of homework. However, Swimmer Steve Batchelder has managed to keep his head above water. The sophomore has earned a 4.0 grade point average.
"I had some doubts in my abilities to handle coursework and balance other activities when I came here," Batchelder said. "I still have them."
The religion and creative writing double-major found the early success through disciplined study habits.
"I'm kind of a perfectionist," he said. "I'm organized, good at setting a timeline for myself, and setting priorities. I generally don't take Fridays off and I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of sleep."
Batchelder hopes this formula for success will make him a minister after he graduates. His motivation to lead a church comes from pastors and congregation members in his hometown.
"I wouldn't necessarily say I'm the most religious person in the world," he admitted. "But I care deeply about people and an occupation that allows me to serve in some sort of spiritual means is very rewarding."
He is from Orland, CA, a town roughly two hours north of San Francisco. He lived with his mom and two younger brothers on the west coast. Batchelder misses the comfort home provided.
"You always have someone else to worry about at home," he said. "When you lose that, you tend to focus on your own problems and you exaggerate their importance which can get to you and feel depressing."
Batchelder was an independent last year but has decided to pledge at Lambda Chi in his second year. He found a situation more like home and said "It has a sense of responsibility and pride that I missed last year."
Schoolwork has remained a success in his sophomore year and despite rushing Lambda, Batchelder has geared up for the upcoming swim season. He climbed out of the pool last season at the NCAC Conference meet with a seventh-place finish in the 200 meter breaststroke.
"I significantly improved all my times last year," Batchelder said. "I was a seasonal swimmer before I came to Wabash. The year-round training here helped me drop 10 seconds off my 200 (breaststroke) and reach the conference finals.
"That was the highlight of my season, personally. This year I'm hoping to place higher at conference and qualify for nationals in the 200 and possible a couple of relays."
Batchelder will use the same two components that helped him succeed in the classroom to achieve his goals - motivation and discipline.
"The biggest thing for me is to pay attention to the details," he explained. "The breaststroke is more finesse than any other stroke so technique is really important. I have to work on pool outs, break outs, and my turns at the wall."
There is also a lot of strategy involved in a swim race.
"I make sure I don't go out there and swim like it's a sprint," he said. "I'm pretty conservative on the front half and hold a consistent stroke count all the way through. This allows me to finish strong."
Batchelder's and the Little Giants' first chance to make a splash for the 2012/2013 season will come against some stiff competition. Wabash's first meet is noon Saturday at Purdue University.


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Brad Pitt: Legoland with Knox!
Brad Pitt treats his 3-year-old son Knox with a visit to Legoland on Wednesday (May 2) in Windsor, England.
Earlier in the week, the 48-year-old actor's fiancee, Angelina Jolie, took three of their kids to visit Russell Crowe on the Les Miserables set.
"Russell and Angelina caught up at the F Stage, where Les Mis is being shot," a source told Us Weekly, adding that Maddox, 10, Pax, 8, and Zahara, 7, were with their famous mama.
"The kids were all fitted with [protective] ear defenders because it's quite a loud sound stage," the source added. "It was really exciting for the children to see the movie being shot."
Bigger pic inside…

subset: commoncrawl


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SXSW Film - March 11-12 (US - )
Jonathan watches The Raid, 21 Jump Street, and John Dies at the End..
Oh man, where do I start? I'm a big fan of martial arts films. In high school I was the co-president of a Kung Fu movie club. I watch lots of the stuff, regardless of quality and critical reception. It's a genre I'm in love with, and every now and then a movie comes along that completely shatters my expectations and sets a new standard for every action film that will come after it. Welcome to the new standard. The Indonesian film is directed by Gareth Evans and stars Iko Uwais, both of whom worked together on an earlier film called Merantau. That film had some very impressive martial arts showcasing, but when there wasn't action occurring on screen it failed to engage. Their new movie, The Raid: Redemption (previously just The Raid), wastes no time at all. There is just enough character development right at the start to let you know what is at risk for the protagonist, and the movie rushes from there straight into the gritty setting where we spend the remainder of the runtime. Watching it, I felt much of the same excitement I had watching Ong-Bak for the first time, though The Raid: Redemption is a far more competently made film. It is what every action fan wants: non-stop mayhem where every scene is somehow cooler than the last.
(Caution: This red band trailer contains strong violence)
Stylistically I had one complaint with the film, which I'll get out of the way. The fights are filmed with excellent framing and precision, but there is some use of shaky handheld camera movements during the dialogue scenes that annoyed me slightly. The pace and tone of the movie already ramped up the intensity enough, and the unnecessary camera movement became distracting when it was just people talking in a room. I was admittedly skeptical of the original music from Mike Shinoda (of Linkin Park) and Joseph Trapanese. I'm pretty far from a Linkin Park fan, but the duo did an excellent job of complementing the action on screen without drawing too much attention to their sounds. Some scenes are filled with almost unbearable tension, like when protagonists are hiding in a wall space while a madman with a machete rapidly stabs along the outside hoping to hit them. The score went a long ways to help build up the suspense. Director Gareth Evans, who also edited the film, admitted during the Q&A afterwards that he likes to shoot everything to a rhythm. The number of hits, stabs or gunshots is all completely deliberate and set to a pattern that gives the action a contagious pulse. It's insanely cool. As the movie goes along, the action progressively becomes more raw and basic. It starts off with nothing but guns, but as bullets run out they move onto knives and clubs until finally in the end it is just raw hand-to-hand combat. And all of it works marvelously. Enormous credit to the sound department as well, who can make or break a movie like this. Every stab and punch hurt to watch, and their foley work really drove the impact home.
The audience at SXSW ate it up. There were rounds of applause throughout and an almost constant stream of "oooh!"s during the combat scenes. Composers Mike Shinoda and Joseph Trapanese came out afterwards with Writer/Director/Editor Gareth Evans and they blessed the audience with an awesome Q&A. Evans talked about the brutal shooting schedule. The movie took over 70 days to film, and about two weeks of that were spent on the final fight scene. There was also some discussion about accidents on set. Wooden knives can hurt really bad too. He revealed, much to the amusement of the audience, that one of the bug-eyed, machete wielding madmen in the movie is an architect in real life. Shinoda shared some words about the differences between writing music for an album and scoring a film; the key point being that when you score a film you are playing a supporting role in a collaboration.
The Raid: Redemption opens with a limited release on March 23, 2012, and will expand in the following weeks.
Here's a movie I was initially very skeptical of. Who wanted a 21 Jump Street reboot? And the previews didn't do very much to boost my interest. Then early reviews came in and were extremely positive, and I noticed the film had received an R-rating from the MPAA which seemed very fitting for the people involved. I felt my expectations mounting as the event was winding up. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum showed up, apparently seeing the final cut of this movie for the first time there at SXSW, and they were wearing their police uniforms. The directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, came out to give us a brief introduction.
One of 21 Jump Street's most charming aspects is that it is self-aware of what an unnecessary reboot it is. At one point early on when their police captain (Nick Offerman of Parks and Recreation) describes the program to the two leads, he jokes about how the guys upstairs are running out of good ideas. The self-referential humour can be a little smug at times, but it also helps to free the movie of any expectations regarding the original series, and allows the filmmakers to have fun putting their own twist on things. I'll confess to never really caring for Channing Tatum as an actor in the past, but in fairness I haven't seen most of the movies he is in aside from G.I. Joe, Haywire and Stop-Loss. He's hilarious in 21 Jump Street and made me laugh on multiple occasions, which was a pleasant surprise. Him and Jonah Hill have wonderful chemistry that helps to elevate the material above your standard buddy cop comedy. The supporting cast, including Rob Riggle, Ice Cube and Dave Franco all help to bring the clever script to realization. It pokes fun at action movies in the same way that the much-loved Hot Fuzz does, without being as energetic or referential along the way. This brand of comedy is more in line with something like Superbad, and I found some of the scenes that revolved around high school partying and drug induced hallucinations weren't as inventive as other sequences.
( Photo courtesy of Gabriel Rodriguez)
21 Jump Street was a blast in the moment, but I get the feeling it won't hold up nearly as well on repeat viewings with a non-SXSW crowd. It still remains an above-average comedy that exceeded my initial expectations by miles. After the film the directors came back out along with writer Michael Bacall and actors Dave Franco, Rob Riggle, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. While taking questions from the audience they talked about how much fun it was to work together. Jonah Hill admitted that he thought the idea of rebooting 21 Jump Street was really stupid at first. When asked what their favorite movie was they have worked on, Jonah Hill made sure to tease Dave Franco about being in Charlie St. Cloud. Channing Tatum refused to take his shirt off at the request of a female audience member because he has been eating "too much beer and salty food". Tatum was also asked what attracted him to working on this picture when he usually stars in romantic comedies. He defended his choice by saying this was a bromance movie. All in all it was very fun and laid back Q&A and you could tell just from watching the actors on stage together that they had a blast making this film.
21 Jump Street hits theaters March 16th, 2012.
First and foremost, I have not read the David Wong book of John Dies at the End, but I sure do want to now. From what I understand and what was asked during the Q&A, it seems the film has a lot of significant changes. The trailer looked very interesting and the inclusion of Paul Giamatti (acting and producing) with Don Coscarelli ( Phantasm, Bubba Ho-Tep) at the helm was enough to get me standing in line at the Alamo Drafthouse. Before the film Coscarelli came up front and said hello, and pointed out that Bubba Ho-tep himself (Bob Ivy) was sitting in the theater with us. He informed us that what we were about to see was the true premier of the film, and that it was the first showing with the effects and cuts made the way he wanted.
The movie gets off to a hilarious and stylish start with an anecdote about an axe and a corpse that won't stay dead. Before long we're introduced to Dave and John; two young men who have been exposed to a new drug called Soy Sauce. It's a living substance that allows it's users to experience time in a non-linear fashion and see bizarre creatures that look like they're from hell. The narrative is driven by a meeting between our protagonist, Dave, and Arnie (Paul Giamatti), a journalist interested in covering the drug. As the story unfolds we learn that there is another world invading Earth, and Dave and John are the unlikely heroes that must help stop it. The first half of the movie is a consistently hilarious dark comedy with just enough weirdness going on to keep you involved and interested in how the story is going to unfold. There are bizarre encounters like frozen meat slithering together to create a monster form, and a particularly violent mustache.
Chase Williamson, who plays Dave, is terrific as the lead. And from the look of it, this is his first feature-length film. I hope to see him in a lot more. John (Rob Mayes) is great too, but serves as more of a comedic sidekick. And maybe he dies at the end. Around the two-thirds mark I could feel myself losing interest in the world of John Dies at the End. The dark sense of humour remains perfectly intact throughout, but the drug-induced mystery story veers into some truly strange territory that didn't transition well with everything that came before it. The special effects become much more ambitious and what was previously charming in its self-aware, campy low budget presentation just felt too cartoonish and distracting. I don't like to criticize a movie for being ambitious with its small budget, but if I'm being completely honest it did remove me from what was happening on screen. Despite not being thrilled with the destination, John Dies at the End has such a fun journey that I still wholeheartedly recommend it to interested fans.
After the film Don Coscarelli and actress Fabianne Therese went on stage for a Q&A. They talked about working with a small budget and the process of adapting the book. Coscarelli said he would love to do a sequel. He strongly encouraged the audience members to read the book as well, and professed his love for David Wong's writing. Afterwards he stuck around in the theater lobby to say hello to festival goers. I complimented him on the film and asked, out of love and duty, if he knew of any plans for a Phantasm Blu-ray release. He didn't seem to know, but he promptly brought to my attention that Michael Baldwin (Mike from Phantasm) was there, and he introduced me to him. Awesome! I didn't see Angus anywhere though...
John Dies at the End currently has no North American release schedule.
Editorial by Jonathan Hogberg
David Blackwell Senior Member Join Date: February 2004 Location: United States Posts: 2,835
I want to see The Raid. Can't wait to see it. The trailers are awesome
moviewizguy Member Join Date: February 2006 Location: United States Posts: 224
You only went for 2 days? That's too bad. I stayed the entire week because I had Spring Break and got to see 25 films. My top 5 is Eden, Compliance, The Raid, Fat Kid Rules the World, and maybe Cabin in the Woods. And The Raid contains some of the best violent fighting sequences I've ever seen in my life.
hogaburger Contributor Join Date: April 2007 Location: United States Posts: 1,153
I went for 5 days, but only saw 6 movies. I wish I could've taken more advantage of it but I just got too exhausted and fed up with going downtown and finding parking. Next year the plan is to learn bus routes.
Cool to see someone else who was there on here. I'll have to look into Eden, Compliance and Fat Kid Rules the World. The Raid and Cabin in the Woods were some of the most fun I've had watching movies with an audience.
Cool to see someone else who was there on here. I'll have to look into Eden, Compliance and Fat Kid Rules the World. The Raid and Cabin in the Woods were some of the most fun I've had watching movies with an audience.
moviewizguy Member Join Date: February 2006 Location: United States Posts: 224
hogaburger wrote: I went for 5 days, but only saw 6 movies. I wish I could've taken more advantage of it but I just got too exhausted and fed up with going downtown and finding parking. Next year the plan is to learn bus routes.
Cool to see someone else who was there on here. I'll have to look into Eden, Compliance and Fat Kid Rules the World. The Raid and Cabin in the Woods were some of the most fun I've had watching movies with an audience.
Yeah, definitely learn the bus routes. I go to school in Austin, so it was easy going from one film venue to another and the film shuttles helped a lot too. It was great watching The Raid and Cabin in the Woods with an audience, especially with The Raid where people were shouting out "Ohhhhhhh!" every 5 seconds.
Cool to see someone else who was there on here. I'll have to look into Eden, Compliance and Fat Kid Rules the World. The Raid and Cabin in the Woods were some of the most fun I've had watching movies with an audience.
Yeah, definitely learn the bus routes. I go to school in Austin, so it was easy going from one film venue to another and the film shuttles helped a lot too. It was great watching The Raid and Cabin in the Woods with an audience, especially with The Raid where people were shouting out "Ohhhhhhh!" every 5 seconds.
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CALGARY — Any speedskater capable of dwarfing the towering figure of Jeremy Wotherspoon must be something special indeed.
"Actually," protests Kristina Groves, holding up an I'll-stop-you-right-there hand, "I don't know if that's true. When we did a mock-up of the picture I chose for the banner, my body was, well ... enormous. I mean, enormous. But that picture is being zoomed out, a bit, so it won't be quite as, uh, overpowering as we thought at first.
"But I still think it'll be a lot bigger than Jeremy's. I laughed out loud when I saw that. It just so happened that's the picture I chose and I'm going to be towering over Jeremy.
"I mean, he's only the winningest speedskater of all time. So it's kind of nice to A) be next to him; and B) to just be larger than him."
On Saturday, Groves joins a pretty exclusive group with the unveiling of her banner on the Olympic Oval Wall of Champions, in the lane right next to Wotherspoon.
"It doesn't feel weird to me. It's just such a great tradition they've started here,'' she said Thursday, on hand to promote the sixth Essent ISU stop of the World Cup season this weekend at the Oval, "with the Wall of Champions, with the banners. I remember when I was skating, you'd be on a lap around the rink, look up, and appreciate what all those people had accomplished. They inspire you.
"So, no, it doesn't seem weird. Not at all. It just seems ... wonderful."
Oddly enough, for unfurling an image sizable enough to shove the all-time World Cup wins leader into the shade, not being larger than life — being down to earth, being accessible, being Kristina — is what sets her apart in the first place.
"She didn't need to be on the front of a cereal box,'' says the Oval's Marcel Lacroix.
"She's real, you know? Here was someone who came to Calgary as a junior skater from Ottawa and worked her way up, step to step to step, at this facility, to be an Olympic medal-winner.
"So for the Oval, her career is a model. What it tells young people is that when you come here and you put in the time, stay patient, you can accomplish great things. Kristina Groves did, and looked what happened. It's not just a story you read in the papers. It's possible. It's truth. This is someone in the same building that you know, that maybe you've been training with, who became one of the best in the world, working toward that goal the way you are right now."
Kristina Groves parlayed late-blooming skill ("I was not an obvious talent as a young kid"), a fierce desire/determination and, most significantly, an endless capacity for work into a career that won her international acclaim, four Olympic medals, three silver and a bronze, as well as countless World Cup and World Single Distance podium placings.
She was, in essence, the ultimate self-made star.
"When you don't have good results as a kid," she says, "that's what you're left with: A capacity for work. That's all you have in your back pocket. If you don't, you're done. But I loved it so much and because I wasn't very good, I kept telling myself 'You've got to put in the work; You've got to push.' I was never satisfied."
Her longtime coach, Xiuli Wang, witnessed that inexhaustible drive to excel up close, from uncertain beginnings all the way to the glories of Turin and then Vancouver.
"We were a team. She listened. She was positive. She co-operated. She had patience. Great patience. She didn't have the perfect skater's body. She was skinny. There were a lot of people telling me they were surprised at the level she finally reached. But for 10 years with me, she worked hard. So hard. And that paid off."
For Canada's current skating star, Christine Nesbitt, Groves' stubbornness, her fearlessness in challenging authority when she felt it necessary, coupled with a rare honesty in deferring when others were proven correct in those debates, was a wonderful example of how to best turn true collaboration into success.
"I don't think Kristina ever got quite the stardom, the attention, that Cindy (Klassen) did, or Clara (Hughes) did. But she's right up there with them. She's someone who demonstrated to me what it takes to be a consistent athlete. You look at her results — when she started hitting the podium she was there all the time. Every race. That's a testament to her mental strength and how well she knew herself.
"It might've taken her years to get to that point but when she did she totally knocked it out of the park."
Out of the park and now, in retirement, up onto the Wall.
"No,'' says Kristina Groves matter-of-factly, "I don't have a hankering to come back here and skate again. Honestly. Sure the last year and half have sometimes been tough. I didn't quit speedskating because I had a plan. I quit because I didn't want to do it anymore. So there've been some stops and starts, some 'Oh my goodness, what am I going to do with my life?' moments.
"But I really like my life now. I can do whatever I want. I can go to bed after 10 p.m. and it doesn't matter. How great is that? When you know it's the right time and it actually is, you don't regret any of it. You don't miss it."
But when that (rather large) image is unfurled on Saturday afternoon, at roughly 2:45, as her banner takes its place in the lane right beside that of Jeremy Wotherspoon, a skater she so admires, mightn't there be a sharp a stab of nostalgia, a small, wistful shiver of regret for what once was and can be no more?
"Well, I am a reflector, I guess," Groves admits. "But, honestly, I won't have a lot of time (this weekend). I'm working right up until the last race (for CBC) and then sprinting down and do interviews.
"This doesn't mean I don't cherish my years skating. I do. But honestly, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what I did. Maybe earlier on because it was really the end. But now I'm going back to school in May, I'm working for CBC. I go skiing all the time. I have other things that keep me busy and fulfilled.
"When you move on, you move on. And I've moved on."
email@example.com George Johnson on Twitter at GeorgejohnsonCH


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Day Traders Electrify Tesla Stock
Day traders are piling into Tesla stock, showing they still have lots of muscle in driving stock prices higher and lower. Jonathan Cheng joins the News Hub with a look at whether investors should cheer the move. Photo: Getty Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the the ... of piling into Tesla Motors if you own the stock is like good news probably not ... tells about that ... the new Vranica hysteria about ... the electric car maker Tesla electric cars ... what's happening in the soul ... well we've seen the stock really take off over the last week or so ... aam the company went ... public in June of two thousand and ten but it hasn't really done all that much but ... in the past week or so it's just it's taken up like a rock and ... yet and that that someone sense of is the half to Rouse bigger issue should point out that REITs novel missing the podium go up which is what we've also seen just people just ... trading a lot what decide to to volatility in stock ... well what it does ... that the trades are right that ... we ... can show them as people sit in their living rooms with their computer screens on and it's a SA said today ... isn't the sort of people were talking bout of the many of them are are quite professional about it they fell in offices and they'll stay together ... aam ... what they do is when they find a stock they like they all tend to flock to the same ones we saw that happen with toxic price lined up on its other ... happen with sauce that Herbalife of green on coffee roasters Netflix or ... to pull a ... in the latest one is Tesla basically ... aam ... this is that they polarizing company you have ... a lot of people who want companies to succeed that you have a lot people who don't want the company ... to succeed is to succeed because of its reliance on ... Psalm tell us about visiting the city and no not gas leak ... Suntech is flying knows that when I mean with getting in and out of the stalk and in normal times in a submissive mind the markets up ... aam didn't sign when you can buy and sell and it does we can watch this awful when everybody's going in one direction and on and ... the name of the action in ... one direction ... the seats are moving along the Nehemiah can be really would be ... devastating to me who actually calls the stock looks up the site and we saw that again because last week ... the company reported its first ever quarterly profit that surprised ... it's a lot of skeptics on the Street analysts wickets on the business of making a bit of a profit or effect ... and what if you were betting against the stock you probably got hurt their seats on the stock to twenty four percent one day ... and then another twenty seven percent over the next two days for a total of fifty seven percent greater ... than the next day was up another ten percent in the morning but finished the day down five percent he's on the summit Federation's I'm talking about ... and this was a stock that can really move all that much and stayed within a band of about twenty five to thirty five dollars for ... the better part of ... three years and suddenly it's for the weekends ... and because of its quarterly profit because of the polarizing ... you that many have London ... the traders saw this as as a complete them from and to ... play around in ... a memoir is a cause of this destructive for the people are actually can laugh along so not just ... generally the most riveting what what the market is fussy about ... what to do my that there are those people after an effort to cause the stock still ... twice what was a week ago so ... I'm happy to


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We are still playing on Sat & Sun. Come join us.
Here's a free activity you may be interested to know about.
John Shook will speak Saturday, Jan. 7th, 2012 at the Wheaton Regional Library on "The Psychology of Religion, the Sociology of Theology, and the Humanist Strategic Response"
This is a free talk as part of the monthly The Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH) Maryland-DC (MDC) meetings. See http://www.wash.org/ for more on WASH and http://www.facebook.com/events/284235418285696/ for more on the event Saturday.
The behavioral and cognitive sciences are determining how religions originated tens of thousands of years ago and how they manipulate basic functions of the human brain. Since 1000 BCE, religions have added intellectual theologies to slowly adapt to philosophy, science, and social change. Modern theologies are well adapted to survive naturalistic challenges. Humanism must be carefully designed to strategically challenge religions and offer viable secular replacements.
Sean Faircloth, Director of Strategy and Policy at the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, is the WASH MSC speaker (May from 2-4) at the Wheaton library. It's free so please come.
The topic related to his general activism and arousing the sleeping secular giant in the context of his new book Attack of the Theocrats which has an extensive critical review of religious bias in American politics and the social arena. For example:
More than ten states allow federally funded, unlicensed religious child-care facilities. Depending on the state, this can mean that some of these religious child-care facilities are exempt from a broad range of health and safety laws. Others are offered fewer exemptions, but the real question is why would any exemption exist at all, particularly when the safety of children is at stake?
As Richard Dawkins notes in his not-to-be-missed Forward the Sean provides:
a sobering picture, but fortunately, as anyone who has heard his speeches knows, he also has an inspiring and invigorating vision to offer. . . . Readers will finish the book exercised, energized, and eager to join Faircloth in a bold rediscovery of the secular dream of the European Enlightenment and America's enlightened Fathers."
-- Richard Dawkins, from the foreword to Attack of the Theocrats!
Copies of the book will be available for purchase. See http://www.facebook.com/events/284638361619455/ for details.
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|Chinese Five Element Astrology
|Tell the Secret of Your Life
|This Chinese Five Element Astrology application tells something about yourself, which you never know. That's about your Five Elements, your Lucky Element, your lucky time and how to improve your luck for the rest of your life. This Free Chinese Astrology reveals your Rise and Fall Chart of your entire life. So you can see when are your best 10 years and you will have the idea to plan for your life. It will be very sorry to hear about that you missed those years.
|The birthday is from the western calendar
|The birth time is required
|The hour is standard time, not daylight saving
|The time zone is optional
Astrology of
2015 Chinese Zodiacs
Your Most Compatible Birthdays
|Chinese Astrology Smart Phone Apps


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Clue: Big oil supplier
We have 1 answer for the clue Big oil supplier. See the results below.
Possible Answers:
Related Clues:
- Ayatollah's land
- Country not in Rushdie's travel plans
- Imperial Guard's home
- Persia, today
- Site of a 70's revolution
- Neighbor of Turkmenistan
- Teheran's land
- Tabriz's land
- Side in a 1980's war
- Teheran's nation
Last Seen In:
- New York Times - December 06, 1998
Found an answer for the clue Big oil supplier that we don't have? Then please submit it to us so we can make the clue database even better!


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Greenwood Publishing Group Service to Young Adults Achievement Award
About the Greenwood Publishing Group Service to Young Adults Achievement Award
The grant recognizes a member who has demonstrated unique and sustained devotion to young adult services through substantial work in several initiatives.
2013 Winner(s)
Gretchen Kolderup
current blog manager of YALSA's blog, The Hub
Ms. Kolderup encourages those around her to renew their passion of libraries and information, achieve their goals, generate change and new ideas, and foster a workplace full of enthusiasm, teamwork and research," wrote Mary Sorhus in Kolderup's nomination. "She spends both her professional and personal hours promoting teens, young adult library services and the future and importance of libraries."


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/usr/bin, and all libraries to
/usr/lib and
If you want an even more succinct summary of the plan, it's 'move all to
/usr'. Or, more specifically, "instead of spreading RPM package content all over the place in the filesystem, and artificially separate
/bin from
/usr/bin and
/lib from
/usr/lib, move all content to
/usr and provide only symlinks in the root filesystem."
"For historic reasons, we split-off more and more tools from
/usr and put them in
/. But, advanced features in today's systems can not really bootup with an empty
/usr anymore. More and more fails in subtle ways in such setups," the proposal reads, "Instead of moving more tools to
/, we today already require
/usr to be mounted from inside the initramfs, to be available before the real 'init' starts. The split of the root filesystem an
/usr serves no purpose in Linux anymore and only complicates or prevents simple and more flexible setups."
All this is done in an effort to reduce complexity in an installed Linux system.
"Splitting things up complicates stuff. If you want to keep things separate you really need a good reason for that. We should always focus on simplifying things," Red Hat's Lennart Poettering wrote, "And merging things into /usr does just that: it drastically simplifies the complexities we have collected over 30+ years of Unix heritage."
Sooner rather than later, please. While this might go against the LSB and FHS, it sometimes takes a defiant nature to get things moving again. A simpler and cleaner file system structure can only be seen as a good thing.


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Arrange a viewing on the properties you love
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posted by Amjith Ramanujam on Sat 2nd Aug 2008 14:28 UTC
"Once upon a time there was a printer who lived in the woods. He was a lonely printer, because nobody knew how to configure him. He hoped and hoped for someone to play with." That is an excerpt from the Readme file for gnome-cups-manager. There are more snippets from different programs that might pique your interest.


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How Investing in a NYC Condo Stacks Up Against Other Investments
A look at how the commodities markets for hogs, crude oil, coffee and gold have performed when compared to returns on an investment in a New York City condo
When it comes to investing, some New York real estate is still producing solid returns—but hogs are just a hair behind.
Spread Sheet compared the 10-year performance of 100 of the best-known Manhattan condo buildings against the returns on some standard commodities—gold, crude oil, hogs and coffee. These are all traded on futures exchanges, in which people buy or sell the commodity for a specific price on a specific date in the future....


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We recently had some good one-on-one time with both the LG G Flex and Samsung Galaxy Note 3, but there are still several other prized phablets in the space that needs to get a proper comparison against the intriguing curve designed smartphone. Next up on the list is none other than the HTC One max, a supersized maximum version of HTC's flagship smartphone. Our hands are naturally itching to see how these two fare against one another, in order to see which of the two can rise above the other in being a practical smartphone that will adhere to our never ending quench for perfection.
The subtle curve of the LG G Flex is absolutely unique and uncanny at the same time, especially when we have not seen anything like it before. However, when it comes to class and premium, the HTC One max undeniably has more of it with its design thanks in part to its choice of employing a mostly brushed aluminum casing. Despite having the more luxurious construction, we cannot forget about the nearly indestructible nature of the LG G Flex, which is further made prominent by its ability to retain its figure even after being flattened out.
Even forgetting about the build quality issues and starting with a clean slate, it is hard to find much good to say about the HTC One Max's design. The One's singular, expertly crafted block of anodized aluminum has been replaced by an undignified white polycarbonate band that keeps the aluminum back and front sides of the phone joined together kind of like elastic holding up saggy underwear.
Who wins fight?
Additionally, the self-healing property of its casing is something that does wonders to mask superficial scratches. Basically, the cool factor goes to the LG G Flex.
Whereas the HTC One max has the premium element Having badgered HTC for the past two years to include microSD expansion, the company has finally given us what we want and this loss of build quality comes as a direct result.
It is amazing how the G Flex's 6-inch 720p (245 ppi) P-OLED display is resilient in being able to withstand some minor pressure making it shatterproof in the event the phone is dropped or flattened. For all of its sturdiness, that is basically the main drawing factor with its display.
Unfortunately, it is not as sharp or as visible outdoors like the HTC One max's 5.9-inch 1080p (373 ppi) S-LCD 3 panel. To top it off, there is this distracting banding look with the G Flex display when the brightness is set to the 50% or below mark. In contrast, the HTC One max's display maintains its high level of crispness.
Features of LG G flex
Powering the device is a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and a 450MHz Adreno 330 GPU for ultrasmooth gameplay. For shutterbugs, the phone is equipped with a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. It runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and is LTE-enabled. Other features include 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and NFC.
Ultra pixel technology in HTC one Max
If you have not already heard about HTC's "UltraPixel" technology, the rudiments of it are simple by crowding fewer pixels onto the sensor, it's possible to get superior performance in low light but at the expense of high-res images that can be cropped and zoomed. The addition of an f/2.0 lens and some low-strength optical image stabilization in the original One gave it competitive imaging
According to LG, the 3,500mAh battery uses patented technology that takes advantage of its unique shape to perform more reliably. The LG G Flex managed 9 and a half hours, which is impressive by any measure, but not the best.
In case of HTC one max one of the benefits of having a large phone is that there are plenty of space for a massive battery to be tucked inside. That is also the case with the HTC One max. It comes with a 3300mAh battery cell, which is rated for 25 hours of continuous talk time on 3G. Stand-by time is quoted as a bit over 24 days. Which means HTC One Max with a similarly sized battery and screen (though 1080p) managed to last over 2 hours more, but LCDs commonly beat OLED displays on this test. So HTC one Max compete LG G flex in terms of its battery life.
LG G flex weight is 177 grams. While HTC one max weighs 217 grams. Hence LG G flex is lighter than HTC one Max while holding in hands or keeping in pocket.
HTC one Max's Price is $650. And LG G flex is priced at 775 in USD. Both phone though has flexible features but it does not mean they have flexible price too. Both are expensive, now the choice is yours which one is to buy after reading our above review.


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Exports of U.S. meat and poultry continue to rise, helping to put money in U.S. soybean farmers' pockets.
U.S. livestock and poultry consume the majority of soybean meal utilized in the United States. This means that exports of U.S.-produced meat and poultry equate to indirect export of U.S. soybean meal.
In 2005, the soybean meal consumed by chickens destined for export represented 81 million bushels of soybeans, and turkeys represented nearly another 10 million bushels of soybeans.
"U.S. livestock and poultry represent the No. 1 market for U.S. soybean meal, so what's good for meat exports tends to be good for soybean farmers," says Phil Bradshaw, chair of the United Soybean Board's Animal Agriculture Initiative Leadership Team and a soybean farmer from Griggsville, Ill.
The soybean checkoff funded a study to look at the value of meat exports to the U.S. soybean industry. The study, "The Value of U.S. Meat and Poultry Exports to U.S. Soybean Producers through 2015," assessed different factors that could affect meat exports and indirect soybean meal exports.
The study confirmed that meat-based protein is one of the first additions people make to their lifestyle as they attain greater wealth. As the world population grows, more people with greater levels of disposable income are willing to spend their money on meat and protein to sustain their diets.
The U.S. livestock and poultry industries, and hence the U.S. soybean industry, have the opportunity to benefit from this worldwide demand. However, if the United States cannot provide a positive business climate for U.S. livestock and poultry producers, other countries will supply the world with protein.
Additionally, the study looked at how foreign animal diseases directly affect meat and poultry, and indirectly affect soybean exports. The study indicates that a potential highly pathogenic avian influenza case poses a major threat to the U.S. soybean industry, with a potential loss of 576,000 metric tons of indirect soybean meal exports. This translates into a 19 percent reduction and the equivalent of 26.9 million bushels of soybeans lost.
The study indicates that avian influenza remains a major threat and suggests the soybean industry should invest in disaster preparedness in case the United States becomes afflicted with this disease.
"It's important for soybean farmers to support the domestic poultry and livestock industries in every way we can," says Bradshaw. "That means helping to avoid diseases like avian influenza, but also showing support to our local poultry and livestock farmers, as they represent our No. 1 customer."
The soybean checkoff encourages soybean farmers to support their No. 1 customer: U.S. livestock and poultry producers. Through strong relationships with the United States Meat Export Federation and the United States of America Poultry and Egg Export Council, the soybean checkoff supports the promotion of meat and poultry exports.
The soybean checkoff contributes funds to both groups to ensure exports of U.S. meat and poultry remain strong, and soybean meal remains in high demand.
To view the entire study, please visit www.unitedsoybean.org.
USB is made up of 64 farmer-directors who oversee the investments of the soybean checkoff on behalf of all U.S. soybean farmers.
Checkoff funds are invested in the areas of animal utilization, human utilization, industrial utilization, industry relations, market access and supply.
As stipulated in the Soybean Promotion, Research and Customer Information Act, USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service has oversight responsibilities for USB and the soybean checkoff.


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As the 11th game in the series, Other M is a bizarre collaboration between the Metroid series co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto and Team Ninja of Ninja Gaiden fame. Indeed, "odd pairings" becomes the common thread throughout the game and its clashing dualities extend to the storyline, control scheme and onscreen action.
hmmmmmm well thats not good
Yeah...I'm quite surprised to be honest.
After listening to their review and complaints I can see why it wasn't a 5/5, but the 2/5 is a little harsh.
I think it's because this is such as huge franchise known for great games, and this has been the odd child. I'm going to rent it for myself, but it's safe to say that they need to rework the controls for this game.
The review sucks. They barely even said anything about the game itself. Just non-stop complaining that "ONOEZ SAMUS HAZ EMOTIONS NAO!!1". I really doubt that it's as bad as this review makes it out to be.
I bet Morgan from G4 deducted an entire star due to the fact that Samus isn't this harden heroine with no emotions or real internal struggles, as what Morgan imagined all these years.
Then what the hell is this:
Lets suppose it was reviewed by Abbie...same thing. Abbie couldn't stand that fact that Samus has real emotional weakness, instead of being a strong and tough heroine, which is why she probably deducted a star.
Morgan is a Nintendo hater and a open anti-Wii gamer. She had bad things to say about Kirby, Mickey, and Mario Galaxy 2. If she reviewed it I could believe the score, but most G4 reviewers are generally fair.
G4 has many reviewers but Adam and Morgan are usually the ones who read the reviews in video reviews cause they're the hosts. So even the she's reading the review doesn't mean it's her opinion.
That said, the review surprises me.
Personally I don't trust G4 reviews. They always seem to tear games apart but never really delve to deeply into why they did.
A good example is this is the Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII review. That game was pretty much universally praised as one of the best PSP games of the time. Yet G4 trashed it and after reading the review all I could walk away with is that the review was a jaded fanboy who dislikes Final Fantasy VII and didn't care for the game and thus gave it a lower score completely ignoring it's quality.
Something similar seems to be happening with Other M. Many of the early reviews are positive. Yet this review seems as if it's a fangirl who doesn't want to see change in the metroid series despite the massive change it has already been through(platformer to FPS). Maybe it's just me but I don't really trust the review at all.
I thought something similar but the review is not by Morgan Webb but Abbie Heppie but I would assume the reasoning you present is pretty spot on because everyone who complained before the games release basically said they didn't like seeing that Samus was gonna be a deeper and learn more of her they just wanted silent hero Samus which is stale in my opinion.
Ouch! The first Metroid game built from the ground up for the Wii and it bombs. Should've stuck with Retro Studios, now they know how to make a Metroid game.
Edit: NVM after reading other review scores "bomb" is a little harsh.
ahh it looks like shadow complex is the superior game and its cheaper with better graphics
I new it wouldn't reach its full potential with Team Ninja at the helm. The studio has made two very fun and pretty polished games: Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. The rest of their games seems to be shit. Especially that one about traps.
Edit: Although this probably is the first bad review I've seen but I haven't really been checking. Gameinformer gave it a good score and I typically agree with their reviews.
You know that the only games Team Ninja has ever made were DOA and Ninja Gaiden games right?
Any other game that comes out of Tecmo is not from Team Ninja they are a separate team inside of Tecmo that only worked on DOA and Ninja Gaiden.
Most of Tecmo's games do indeed suck but that has nothing to do with Team Ninja so saying what you did makes no sense.
One about traps??
You better not be talking about Deception because those games were bad ass!
I still remember the one scenario where a father enteres your castle to find a cure for his sick daughter and you end up killing him. A cut scene later shows his daughter crying for her dad and then dying.
oh this is getting ugly.
Oh my yes. I just can't believe it. This means I will never enjoy the game when it gets delivered to my doorstep, I will be so disappointed.
But what do I know, I only play games every day and base my opinions on what I play?
boy stop all that damn knowledge. when i rome do as the romans. So lets all act brain dead and stupid like them and let one review tell us what we like
Gamespot 8.5
Eurogamer 8/10
joystiq 4.5/5
famitsu 9/9/8/9
Manly webb and crew = WTF?
One thing is for sure: Nintendo will be back to making the next Metroid 100% in-house...lol. :)
Game Informer 6.5
Destructoid 6.5
Everyone has their own opinions, some sites don't like it. Read the review, then pass judgement.
Play the game for yourself, THEN pass judgment.
that is all.
I STILL love their TV ad tho
[email protected] game failing. Lololololololol.
Lol at wii games having the highest ratings out of all console games this generation.
Here is your "sauce. And also spend less time on 4chan.
Ahem, I hope you realize that was the lesser equivalent of me posting
Fail noob is fail.
If you go by Metacritic, GTA4>SMG2.
Edit: I don't think this comment is complete until I add another meme, so.
Fission mailed.
A harsh score but after checking out the review her points seem valid.
g4 also said "Controls don't add anything to the experience" for prime 3...
clearly their reviews are the last to be looked at.
I wished all along they had just stuck with the original 2-D formula..."if it aint broke, don't fix it".
But then reviewers will reap them a hole for not moving the series forward...lol
Glad I cancelled my preorder.
I cherish Metroid Prime Trilogy, and don't want to ruin the experience with bad stories.
If you cancelled your preorder based on a review, you're an idiot.
agreed; G4 is one of the very few sites that gave this game below 80%...Alot of what this bad review is based upon is the "feministic" views of this reviewer.....while I can see what she's saying and she has valid points, most reviews for this game have been positive.
That is the stupidest logic ever. I also know that you never pre-ordered it in the first place.
This game got broken with the poor decisions in the controls, and the story. Why would she decide not to use her weapons until a guy says so??
Hopefully Nintendo pulls a Hulk and forget this game never happens, and redeem themselves with the next game (whether for Wii or next gen console).
I am still want to try the game myself, to have better jugement of the game, but I am dissapinted to hear about all the poor choices Ninja Team made with metroid.
PS. Next time, give the game to Sony's Santamonica Studios, Naugthy Dog or Visceral Games (I know the first two are impossible)
you talk as if you've played it.
I agree but the metroid fans aren't used to criticism. I didn't see you say it a bad game just a a rough diamond that needed same more work.
He's taking as though he's already played the game. It just doesn't make sense and isn't fair
A huge Nintemdo franchise taking a hit ? Been a long time.
Next up, LOZ:Skyward Sword !
I trust these guys. They were one of the few that gave Crisis Core a well deserved score.
Anyways, I'm a little disappointed with the scores it's getting. It's not bad by any means (minus this one), it's just I've never seen a Metroid game dip below 90.
Also, this review made some good points; rental.
Crisis Core was not a 2 out of 5, it was a great game.
g4 hates jrpgs, and let their prejudices trinkle into their reviews, they are the fox news of gaming.
Yeah the score is too low, I expected higher scores overall but I can't trust this review because Crisis Core was a great game, they under-rated it imo, the story was awesome, graphics, sound and voice acting was great but the game-play had some flaws like a luck system but it was fine.
IGN and Gamepot gave it 8.5 and Eurogame gave it a 8, so that's good enough for me.
^Stopped reading there.
they really laid into the game hard, more a condemnation then a review.
it seems this game has serious flaws that are unavoidable even to fans.. i will still buy it, just because it 'looks' so good, but i am disappointed with the response it has evoked so far.
I read the review and I have to say, I have not played the game, so I can't really pass judgment on it. However, I can critique the review and reviewer. That entire review was angry and threw out an irritated vibe. This Abbie, has to take into consideration that: 1. They are telling the story of Samus in their vision of the story. It's not like they didn't work with the original creator of the concept. Nothing happens at Nintendo, without Nintendo's approval on their first party properties. 2. Not everything has to be about sexism, racism, or other isms. That sounds like a very big chip on someone's shoulder there. 3. It's fleshing out the character of Samus... Samus is a human being, with thoughts and emotions. Did she spring up from the ground and simply become the universe traveling killing machine she is now? Of course not. 4. Japanese/Asian sensibilities are somewhat different than Western ones. Granted we are all fundamentally the same, but they are much more emotionally driven in their games and other creative outlets than what you see in mainstream Western equivalents. They also seem to view women as something special and pure. Look at all the Goddess references in games from Japan. They see women as emotional and innocent for the most part.
It seems to me they took a very heavy topic and tried to express that innocents and vulnerability, along with her obvious strength and ability. Why follow the orders of some... man? Maybe she has something to prove to herself, more than some man. Sometimes, following someone's lead can be the hardest thing you can do, but it's something you must do.
It just seemed like the entire review was vitriolic and based not on the game, but on some kind of failed idea she had built up in her head about the main character. Hardly the fault of the designers.
Someone mentioned forgetting this like they forgot about the first Hulk movie... Ang Lee was had a vision of telling a story about why The Hulk was who he was. The world made The Hulk, The Hulk didn't make the world. There was a certain artistic and very human sensibility to that movie.
I think that she was angry at this idea for a reason. She see's this as horribly cliche. The one woman that she thought that she could count on to hold her own with Master Chief, Marcus Phoenix, and the damned terminator himself turns out to have these vulnerabilities and sensitivities that can be seen as weakness. Sure, nobody ever really said that Samus wasn't sensitive...it was just a given because she kicked so much ass. So, I agree that her prejudices and preconceived notions about Samus and who she was got in her way of her review somewhat. I also agree with your Ang Lee comment. He tried to bring some artistry and emotion to a comic book character that actually displayed that. But, the masses just wanted action.
It seems as if the people most upset about the game, are those who projected their escapist fantasies onto the mute heroine that is Samus Aran. Like, they were suppose to. The only flaw this game seems to have from a story-telling stand point seems to be making the character more human based on her canonical backstory as opposed to more recognizable one-dimensional bland characters that makes up most other games.
I'm very happy that you brought up the Western/Japanese emotional differences. I've been thinking this the entire time I've been reading the reviews.
+Bubbles up
Most reviews seem to be knocking the game because it has finally added a fleshed out story and because the way the developers presented Samus isn't the way they wanted her to be presented like they know whats better more so than the developers.
These reviewers sound pathetic to me I bet if the game had no story with a minimal single player mode and just offered mindless shooting with a online multiplayer mode the game would be getting all 90 percent scores and above.
Destructoid and Game Informer both provided their respective opinions and their points made sense at least. IGN and Gamespot pretty much found the combat decent compared to the other two reviews. This review however just seems very angry... almost too angry to the point that the review is based more upon Samus character setting back the feminist movement rather than the way the game is played. A good review is unbiased and looks at it from every angle. This review straight away says the game sucks which is bit far fetched compared to all the other reviews... 2/5... its really that bad huh? I'll find out this week.
Even then, that seems like the complete opposite of what Samus originally did. Samus was one of the the first positively portrayed female game characters, even designed so that under her suit, you could not tell her sex.
The idea of fleshing out a back story and giving her vulnerabilities and weaknesses isn't setting back any feminist movement or anything like that, in fact, I would imagine that it producing a stronger image for women in the medium considering she still kicks an extreme amount of ass, but is still a human being and in fact, is not the by-product of men's ideal woman.
I dunno know about the rest of you, but given the backstory presented in Metroid Prime (various lore and stuff) and just the way her eyes move in certain cutscenes throughout the Prime trilogy, the eternally cool and collected sexy space bounty hunter is never how I imagined Samus. She gets scared, and angry, and sad (oh God the ending to Prime 3) just like everyone else which is why she is one of my favorite game characters of all time.
^^ agree with your points.
Never really thought of Samus as anything apart from a woman in a suit. Was impressed it was a woman in the original metroid on the nes when you just escape motherbrain and her 8bit form turns into a woman. But since she never spoke, never really had a back story or anything I didn't read too much into it. Now she has all of that, and some people don't like it.
My main point is... just because preconceptions were dashed. Is it really fair to mark it down in points? I thought that was the job of fanboys and girls not a reviewers job(and that is me assuming the low score was partially due to this, if it wasn't then they really didn't explain in detail why the score was so low in the first place, why they said the word "suck"). But oh well.
It's pretty obvious she has purely damned the game for the story. I will say it is a little silly to search for cutscenes rather then hidden items. However i am not countinbg this game out... under all the hate on the game for what webb deemed sexism she also says the fighting and platforming works well.
It seems if you review this game for it's platforming, gameplay and action then it's a pretty good game. If you review it for it's storyline... and you are a girl sensitive to sexismn.... then it is not very good. Strangely she mentions that part of the storyline is good... so only half the story is sexist i guess.
I officially will have to rent this before i decide to buy it or not. I imagine as bad as the story could be... it still at least will make way more sense then heavy rain.
Gamers are fair weather friends. Any site that doesn't give the game they expect to be good a high score immediately becomes untrustworthy. Suddenly their opinion doesn't matter. G4 has always given Metroid games good scores before, so because they don't like it this time it means it's time to blacklist their reviews. If they gave it 5/5 you would be saying 'good review G4'
People also apparently have problems with how the review is written in terms of what it focused on.
Gamers are fair weather friends. Any site that doesn't give the game they expect to be good a high score immediately becomes untrustworthy. Suddenly their opinion doesn't matter. G4 has always given Metroid games good scores before, so because they don't like it this time it means it's time to blacklist their reviews. If they gave it 5/5 you would be saying 'good review G4' BTW Shnazzyone could you leave Heavy Rain out of this please
other m's "low" scores are being overblown,
GameFan Magazine - 9.5/10
Wired - 9/10
Joystiq - 4.5/5
Worth Playing - 9/10
Famitsu Magazine - 9/9/8/9 for a total of 35/40
Nintendo Power - 8.5/10
GameSpot - 8.5/10
Metroid-Database - 85%
Digital Chumps - 8.4/10
Eurogamer - 8/10
GiantBomb - 4/5
GamePro - 4/5
Kotaku - Text, no score, but very positive.
N-Sider - Text, no score, but very positive.
Games Radar - 7/10
Destructoid - 6.5/10
Game Informer - 6.25/10
from Alextended
Shocked to say the least, but after watching those awesome gameplay videos, I tell the game was a "must have" title for me(Pre-order it!).
I facking h8 them. Guys I just got the game by Walmart (street date broken)and the facking game is a perfect 10 I swear to god this game will blow your facking mind!. Right now I'm on the 3rd sector trying to find out who kill 1 of my comrade. Can't say more cause don't want to spoil it but if u guys believe G4 and don't buy this then u can't live your own life and have to depend on someone else to make choices for you. The gaming world would be more better and games would sell more if facking there were no one picking on them saying if its good or bad. I don't care what G4 gives this but I am facking so glad I bought this. L8r.


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product description
Related Products:
Kyocera Ceramics, Other
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Drew's Picks
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Business Horizons Nominations
(BH) is a one-of-a-kind, hands-on, action-oriented weeklong summer program for high school students who want to learn about the world of business and what the future holds for them.
Its mission is to promote the value of the free enterprise system through leadership, teamwork, entrepreneurial activities, and personal development opportunities. BH has enjoyed over 20 successful years of educating young people about economics, the free enterprise system, entrepreneurship, skills they need to be successful in today's workplace, and about opportunities available in the state of Iowa.
BH is a program of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry Foundation and partners include the Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa Bankers Association, Junior Achievement of Central Iowa, Central College and local Chambers of Commerce across Iowa.
Please click here to nominate a student to apply for Business Horizons.
Download a copy of the Business Horizons brochure, as well as the 2012 Business Horizons application.
Students from across Iowa have already sent in their applications from communities such as Missouri Valley, Atlantic, Iowa City, Des Moines, Monticello, Garner, Grinnell, Waukon, Emmetsburg, Osceola, Keokuk, Dubuque, Ames, Boone, Mason City, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Wapello, and many others (even students from Nebraska and Illinois have applied!).
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text:
Happy, sunny and cheerful track with ukulele, piano, acoustic guitars and acordion. A feel good song, full of summer shine and shiny happiness, lively rhythm and joyful tunes. Perfect for promotional videos, advertising, videogames and cartoons, but also for holidays or Christmas themed cheerful video productions. Lively and colorful, also good for casual games and feel good contents for kids! Uplifting, catchy and bouncing!
If you liked this item, you can check more music at my new Keensonic Music Marketplace!


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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – It all started with Devin McCourty.
When the New England Patriots drafted McCourty in 2010, thus began Bill Belichick's love for defensive players at Rutgers University.
Over the last three seasons, Belichick has often spoken about McCourty's intelligence, how he recognizes things on the field almost before they happen.
In 2012, the Patriots signed undrafted defensive tackle Justin Francis of Rutgers. He stuck with the club.
This year?
All the Patriots did was draft three former Scarlet Knights — cornerback Logan Ryan and safety Duron Harmon in the third round, linebacker Steve Beauharnais in the seventh — and sign another undrafted free agent from Rutgers, safety Brandon Jones.
Belichick says that having so many former Rutgers players is a coincidence. But maybe it isn't.
Before Greg Schiano left Rutgers to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the two became close. And Belichick said after the draft, "I'd say the players he recruits and the programs he runs is in a lot ways similar to what we do. So the fact that he's recruited those kids four to five years ahead of when they come into this league and they've been in a program that's, in a lot of ways, probably similar to ours, then it's probably not surprising that we would like some of the kids he's produced, both talent-wise and total makeup."
Belichick calls them all smart and instinctive, bright and unselfish, productive and hard-working — exactly the type of players he wants.
"Football is important to them," he said.
For whatever reasons Belichick picks them, the former Rutgers players are quite glad to be together. That was obvious Friday afternoon in talking to the four attending New England's rookie mini-camp.
For three days they were immersed in the Patriot Way, something which can be daunting to someone on their own in a new city.
"Obviously we have a lot of information to give them in every area, not just football, but the whole transition in becoming a professional athlete and in most cases for these guys, relocating to a part of the country they're not too familiar with," said Belichick.
The four Rutgers rookies seemed glad to have each other.
"We're all close," said Harmon, perhaps the surprise pick of the draft by the Pats. "You know going into a city where you don't know anybody can be hard. But we've all got each other and we're all close friends, best friends.
"We know this is going to be a long journey, a hard journey too. And to get through it you are going to need someone to lean on and we've got each other."
Harmon is an interesting kid. The Pats took him with the 91st pick , in the third round, well before he was projected to go. Heck, some draft analysts had him going undrafted.
But, as he said, that doesn't matter anymore.
"The draft is over, I'm here," he said. "Coach Belichick saw something in me. So the draft is over. I can't worry about the draft. All I can worry about is learning this playbook and communicating with my teammates and learning this defense and learning special teams and helping this team."
Harmon still has to take one more final exam before he can graduate with his degree in labor relations. He has a 3.47 GPA and was looking to apply to law school if football didn't work for him. Obviously he's a pretty smart kid, as are his Rutgers friends. He believes that is what makes them all so attractive to the Patriots.
"They know what type of players we are, we're hard-working players who love the football game and are very smart," he said. "Intelligent football players at the same time. That's exactly what he grooms here and takes from the draft and free agency and we feel we fit in quite well with his program."
Jones, the undrafted free agent, said the Rutgers guys all look out for each other, giving encouragement when needed, tips when asked. It helps, he added, to know that McCourty and Francis are here.
"It's good seeing familiar faces," he said. "When you go into a new place it's sometimes difficult because you don't know anybody, but coming here with Devin and Justin Francis and the guys I'm coming in with this year, it's definitely a blessing being in that situation."
Ryan agrees, but only to a point. He knows this is not going to be easy for any of them.
"It's new to all of us," he said. "We're all learning it, we all have questions, this new lifestyle, of being a professional, is brand new. We definitely can lean on each other a bit, but we're definitely wide-eyed a little bit."
Besides, he said, they're all part of something bigger now.
"I'm excited to contribute for the team and the Patriots," he said. "I've got a lot more teammates than just four now. I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of my Patriot teammates."
Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at:
Twitter: MikeLowePPH
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China arrests former Canadian diplomat


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Insurance Resources That You Better Get Familiar With!
- Insurance Information Institute: III.org is a US industry association with the mission to "improve the public understanding of insurance, what it does and how it works". The Insurance Information Institute was founded in 1959 and is based in New York City. To read more about the Insurance Information Institute click here
- Healthcare.gov: A United States federal government operated health insurance marketplace that allows people to compare health coverages that meet their needs and budgets. More about healthcare.gov here
- Medicare.gov: The official US government website for Medicare. Read more about Medicare here
- Insurance Research Council: IRC is an independent non-profit research organization that is backed by leading P&C companies and associations that provides research and analysis on issues that affect insurers, consumers and policy makers. Founded in 1977 and based in Malvern, Pennsylvania
- Law360: Insurance Legal News and Analysis: Legal news, research, analysis and information on carriers, brokers, agents and reinsurers
- The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety: IBHS is an independent nonprofit scientific research and communications organization that provides real-world solutions for home and business owners with a mission to identify and promote the most efficient and effective ways to strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natural disasters and other causes of loss, and by that create a world with more durable and resilient communities
- USA.gov: USA.gov is the official website of the United States federal government. It's an official online guide to all US Government Information and Services - a one resource for all US federal government resources - More about USA.gov here
- Small Business Administration: SBA.org is a US government organization that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses in order to empower and strengthen the nation's great economy - Read more about SBA.org
- Consumer.gov: A US Federal trade Commission website that is dedicated for the sole purpose of protecting America's Consumers by using money wisely, using credit and loans carefully and protecting identity
- Children's Health Insurance Program: CHIP provides low cost health insurance coverage to families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Each state offers CHIP coverage and works closely with its state Medicaid program. In some states, CHIP covers pregnant women too.
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- OpenSecrets.org: OpenSecrets is the website of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group located in Washington DC. It's the top resource in the US for unbiased information and allows users to track federal campaign contributions and lobbying by lobbying firms, individual lobbyists, industry, federal agency and bills. Other resources include the personal financial disclosures of all members of the US congress, the president and top members of the administration. OpenSecrets users can also search through ZIP codes to learn how their neighbours are allocating their political contributions.
- NAIC: The National Association of Insurance Commisssioners, or NAIC, is the US standard-setting and regulatory support organization created and governed by the chief insurance regulators from the 50 states, the District of Columbia and 5 US territories. More about NAIC here
- Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: IIHS is a US non profit organization funded by auto insurers, founded in 1959 and based in Arlongton, Virginia, that provides crash test ratings, news and more, to reduce the amount of auto accidents damages. More about IIHS here
- Find out the insurance plans that are accepted by the Cancer Treatment Center of America
- The National Flood Insurance Program: NFIP is a program created by the congress of the United States in 1968 through the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. More here.
- Learn more broadly about insurance here
- Learn specifically about insurance in the United States here
- Insurance Terms Glossary #1
- Insurance Terms Glossary #2
- Insurance Companies financial strength ratings: A.M. Best, Moody's, Standard & Poor's America, Standard & Poor's Global Ratings, Fitch Ratings, JD Power's Insurance Ratings, Kroll Bond Rating Agency, Weiss Ratings, BBB.ORG
- NAIC's Research: Insurance Companies Rating Agencies - Methods & Procedures
- Health Insurance Trends During Trump's Administration: Harvard University Analysis
- HHS.GOV - US Department of Health & Human Services: HHS's mission is to take care of your health and give assistance to those in need. HHS supports and protects American elderly, people with disablities, infants and children.
- FDIC: US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- HUD: The department of housing and urban development. Its mission is to increase home ownership in the US, encourage community development and maximize accessibility to affordable housing
- Healthfinder.gov: Healthfinder provides information from many trusted sources to help people remain healthy, understand health better, prevent diseases, understand diagnoses, get support and discover treatment options
- Social Security: The website of the federal old-age, survivors and disability insurance provides many healthcare services including social insurance, replacing MediCare card, changing your contact information, applying for social security retirement benefits and more. More about social security in the United States here
State Insurance Departments:
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I am Chris Christie.
Of course, I'm not the governor of New Jersey. Or even a Jersey resident. Instead, I'm a workaday journalist in New York. But I have one big thing in common with the man — literally.
I'm fat.
And I've paid a price for it — also literally. I'm talking about the thousands of dollars I've spent on a variety of weight-loss treatments, all of which never really proved effective — that is, until I finally found a more lasting solution in bariatric surgery. Is it any wonder that the weight-loss market is expected to hit $66 billion in 2013, according to Tampa-based research group Marketdata Enterprises — up from $58.5 billion six years ago?
But it goes beyond the financial aspect. I'm also talking the toll that obesity has taken on my physical (and mental) health. It's hard to imagine that Chris Christie hasn't paid a similar price.
So, it was interesting to hear the news today that Christie has sought out the same solution that I did a while back: gastric-band surgery (aka the Lap Band). As the governor told the New York Post: "I've struggled with this issue for 20 years. For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them."
I'll turn 50 next year, so I totally relate. Indeed, it takes a fat man to understand another fat man. That's because we inhabit a somewhat different world than fat women: They've arguably got a more difficult path, living in a society that demands a slim feminine look. A fat guy can settle into his skin, so to speak — laughing off his girth, letting strangers call him "big guy," eating those second (and third) helpings with a kind of macho abandon. And even if his corpulence becomes a matter of public debate — unlike Christie, I've never had to do battle with a former White House doctor — he can still tell everyone to mind their own business. Or in Christie's case, he can call the physician in question a "hack who wants five minutes on TV."
Also see: Christie weight-loss surgery sparks 2016 presidential talk
But all the while the fat man still lives with a hidden shame of who he is — and a fear of what will become of him health-wise. Come to think of it, that could be a lot worse than worrying if you'll ever fit into a size 4 dress.
Actually, it's not really a contest between fat men and fat women — we've both got a challenging lot in life and we both have our own individual stories to tell. So here's mine: I've been fat pretty much my entire 49 years on this planet — save for a period in adolescence through my early college years when a diet doctor got me to lose a chunk of weight and the loss somehow stuck. But by my senior year of college, the scale started tipping past 200 — about 20 lbs. above my ideal body weight. And as I began working and raising a family in my late 20s, I hit 250. By the time I was in my mid 40s and writing about food as my main gig (yes, I could eat for my job!), I reached an all-time high of 295 — well more than 100 lbs. over that ideal mark.
Did I try to diet? Of course I did. Which is why I also relate to Christie when he put it like this a few months ago: "If you talk to anybody who has struggled with their weight, what they will tell you is that every week, every month, every year, there is a plan." You see, we're not fat because we want to be. And please, don't bring up the "w" word. You don't get to be the governor of a major state — and a possible presidential candidate — without plenty of willpower. And I don't think I lack willpower, either.
But for some of us, the siren song of food is just too great. Maybe we're eating for psychological reasons. Or maybe we've simply got a more cultivated sense of taste. I don't know and I suspect the governor doesn't, either. We just like to eat. If you don't get it, good for you. But like Christie, I'm tired of people — even well-intentioned people — thinking we've somehow gone through life unaware of the problem.
But what about the plan? Well, it's always changing because a) there's no magic pill; and b) we're still hoping to find that magic pill. In my case, here's a short list of what I tried over the years before I got banded: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Slim-Fast, low-carb dieting, hi-carb dieting, Overeaters Anonymous, hypnotherapy, nutritional counseling and a few types of medications (though, thankfully, I somehow avoided Fen-Phen).
Of course, for all the weight-loss solutions available, truly effective ones are hard to come by. In my case, everything worked — for about 10-15 pounds worth of pounds shed. But ultimately, I couldn't shake the desire to eat. I get it, Chris Christie. I really do.
But these days, I weigh just around 230 — my lowest since my 20s — and I'm on a solid path to lose even more. And it's all because of the banding, a procedure that essentially limits the amount of food you can take in at a single time by tightening the opening of the stomach with an adjustable gastric band. Weight-loss surgery, which can easily run up to $30,000 (mine was fortunately covered by insurance), might seem like an option of last resort — it comes with potential for complications and, according to a 2012 study, a mortality risk of nearly 1% (meaning about 1 in 100 patients die from the procedure). But it's an option that around 200,000 Americans pursue each year, according to the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery. (In 2000, that figure was just 36,700.)
Even then, I was hardly a poster boy for bariatric surgery — for the first couple of years following my procedure, I lost very little weight largely because I resisted getting the band adjustments I was supposed to get. (Hey, it meant I couldn't eat those second and third helpings!) Naturally, this defeats the logic of having the surgery in the first place. But a fat man is going to do what a fat man is going to do.
So, what made me change course in this last year and start to drop some serious weight? The health thing. Meaning as I started looking ahead to my 50th birthday, I made a frank assessment of my situation: Both my cholesterol and blood pressure have been high, my knees have started to ache and my sleep has not always been so sound. The final straw came when I saw a cardiologist in 2012 for a quick evaluation in advance of some minor sinus surgery. He had no problems approving me for the surgery, but he told me almost exactly what former White House physician Dr. Connie Mariano told Christie: The weight is going to catch up with you and a heart attack could be in your near future.
Then again, it's not just the health thing. I'm also tired of being called "big guy" by every third stranger I meet. (And the "big guy" stuff is pretty mild — when you're fat, you're occasionally subject to a cruelty that's about on par with the worst sort of racism.) And I'm tired of being the butt of my own jokes. You see, that's what us fat men do: Just like Chris Christie went on Letterman with a donut in hand, I've learned to laugh at myself at every turn. If someone asked how I became a food writer, I'd say that when an opening for such a position came up at my last newspaper, my editors looked around the room and picked the fattest person they could find. (Rim shot, please.) The truth was that I was well-qualified for the job — I may be a glutton, but I'm also a gourmet — but like most fat men, I've mastered the art of self-deprecation.
Of course, it's one thing to be laughed at by the occasional stranger — or to laugh at yourself when you're among a few friends and colleagues. It's another to become something of our national fat man joke, as is the case with Christie. I still carry the stings of particularly nasty remarks made about my weight going back four decades. I can hardly imagine what it's like to hear such remarks a million times every day.
My guess is that Christie could deal with the remarks, but he couldn't ultimately deal with the toll his weight was taking on his body. I'm almost inclined to believe him when he says that the band surgery isn't about losing the pounds in advance of a presidential bid. (To quote his exact comments to the New York Post: "It's so much more important than that.") When I walk around these days in my 230-lb. body, I'm amazed at the literal burden that's been lifted — and how much more I'm able to accomplish. And I still have another 50 lbs. to lose!
But I also am careful not to preach: That's the other part of the fat man thing — once a fat man, always a fat man. It's not just that I know I can put the weight back on, even though the gastric band thankfully makes that a challenge. It's also that I know it's simply not easy — not for a governor, not for a food writer, not for, well, anyone with a weight problem. And guys may have their own particular struggle and may have to deal with the problem in an especially lonely way — you won't find many men at a Weight Watchers meeting — but the struggle is the struggle. The thin man will never understand the fat man.
And the fat man always wishes that he was thin.
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Helen J. Possinger, 90, of East Stroudsburg, passed away Tuesday evening, Nov. 20, 2012, at the White Stone Health Care Center, Stroudsburg.
Born in East Stroudsburg on Sept. 11, 1922, she was a daughter to the late Ralph and Lillie Jarred Edinger and graduated from East Stroudsburg High School in 1941. Helen was a lifelong resident of East Stroudsburg.
Helen worked for Hughes Printing Company, East Stroudsburg, and retired from Summer's Ribbon Mill in East Stroudsburg in 1985.
She was a member of East Stroudsburg United Methodist Church, Crystal Street, and the Monday card club. Helen enjoyed gardening and spending time traveling to local restaurants with her lady friends for lunch.
In addition to her parents, she is preceded in death by her husband, Forrest S. Possinger, who died in January 2003.
Surviving is her son, Theodore B. La Badie and his wife, Debby, of Levittown; grandchildren, Chirstopher La Badie and his wife, Melissa, of Penndel, Stacy Sloskey and her husband, Michael, of Langhorne, and April Dunn and her husband, Bill, of Bristol; great-grandchildren Hannah and Logan La Badie, Brandon and Ryan Sloskey, and Codi and Tanner Dunn; brother Warren Edinger and his wife, Anna, of Saylorsburg; sister-in-law and dear friend Shirley Possinger; and also a longtime neighbor and good friend, Cindy Benning; and nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27, in the Lanterman & Allen Funeral Home, 27 Washington St., East Stroudsburg, with the Rev. Dr. Edward C. Kimes, pastor of East Stroudsburg United Methodist Church, officiating. Interment will follow in Prospect Cemetery, Prospect Street, East Stroudsburg.
A public visitation will be held from 10 a.m. until the time of the service, Tuesday, Nov. 27, at the funeral home.
Lanterman & Allen Funeral Home
27 Washington St.,
East Stroudsburg
Helen J. Possinger
Helen J. Possinger, 90, of East Stroudsburg, passed away Tuesday evening, Nov. 20, 2012, at the White Stone Health Care Center, Stroudsburg.


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OLYMPIA State officials say 380,913 indigent residents statewide have signed up for Medicaid coverage.
According to figures released Tuesday by Washington Apple Health officials, those residents signed up under the Affordable Care Act, dubbed "Obamacare," between Oct. 1 and Jan. 9. Of those registrations, 183,138 residents were already receiving Medicaid benefits, but had to renew.
In Okanogan County, 3,373 people signed up for Medicaid, figures show. In Ferry County, 416 residents signed up.
State officials said in addition to Medicaid, only 73,098 state residents have obtained a qualified health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act between Oct. 1 and Jan. 9. A local breakdown of those numbers was not immediately available.
State officials have yet to release figures on how many residents have lost insurance since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – For the second time in her career, MIT field hockey head coach Cheryl Silva was voted the New England East Region Coach of the Year by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA). The award comes after leading the Engineers to their third NEWMAC Championship in four years and an appearance in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
A 2009 honoree, Silva has compiled a ledger of 223-163-1 in 22 seasons at MIT to go along with four conference titles and three trips to the NCAA Tournament. Under her tutelage, the Engineers have racked up 104 NFHCA Academic Squad, 67 Academic All-Conference, 43 NEWMAC All-Conference, 27 NFHCA New England Region, seven CoSIDA Academic All-America, and six NFHCA All-America honors.
The award also marks the second occasion in which the Cardinal and Gray claimed regional Coach and Player of the Year accolades during the same season. Senior midfielder Molly McShane (Lake Bluff, Ill.) helped MIT accomplish this feat in 2009 and again last month.