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World leaders back tiger summit rhetoric with recovery plan, seed money
Hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, governments capped a year-long political process with about USD 127 million in new funding to support the plan, known as the Global Tiger Recovery Programme.
In addition, the World Bank has offered a USD 100 million loan package to three tiger range countries for conservation work, and the Global Environment Facility offered to provide up to USD 50 million in grant funding for tiger habitat conservation.
"Too often, conservation efforts languish for lack of political will," said WWF Director General Jim Leape. "At the Forum here in St. Petersburg we have seen political will at the highest level - heads of government committing themselves to saving the tiger, and laying out concrete plans to turn those commitments into action on the ground."
"We have never before seen this kind of political support to save a single species," Leape said. "We now have the strategy needed to double tiger numbers and real political momentum."
"Initial funding commitments offered here will help get action underway. Much more funding must be mobilized in the months ahead."
"I am confident that we will look back on this day as a turning point in the effort to save one of the world's best-loved animals," Leape said.
Most urgent priority
The 12-year-plan is an amalgamation of national tiger conservation actions and global targets costing an estimated USD 350 million during the next five years to halt the decline of tigers.
The USD 350 million is the remaining cost of the overall plan, not covered by countries holding wild tigers in their individual national plans.
There are as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild, putting the species on the brink of extinction.
New funding commitments made as a result of the summit process included:
- The U.S. will allocate an additional USD 9.2 million to tiger conservation to combat illegal poaching and trafficking
- Germany will allocate an additional USD 17.2 million for tiger landscape conservation in Russia, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam
- WWF has committed to spend USD 50 million over the next five years on tiger conservation, and set a goal of increasing that to USD 85 million
- Today Leonardo DiCaprio announced a donation of USD 1 million to WWF to support tiger conservation work across WWF's twelve priority landscapes
- The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) will spend a minimum of USD 50 million during the next 10 years on tiger conservation
- The Global Tiger Forum announced a grant of approximately USD 250,000 to support tiger conservation in Nepal
- The World Bank offered a USD 100 million loan package to Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh to support tiger conservation work
- Global Environment Facility offered to provide up to USD 50 million in grant funding for tiger habitat conservation
"We hope these historic commitments from world leaders will turn into immediate action on the ground for tigers," said Michael Baltzer, head of WWF's Tigers Alive initiative.
"What we really need is immediate action on the ground, meaning stepped up anti-poaching and anti-trafficking work, from the 13 tiger range countries. This must be matched by financial support from the international community."
"We hope rich countries will mirror our funding efforts, or ultimately we're going to keep losing tigers."
On Tuesday, world leaders also heard by video link from the WWF Youth Tiger Forum which took place simultaneously in Vladivostok.
Youth delegates from all 13 tiger range countries who participated in the forum presented a special appeal to the leaders to save wild tigers and support the recovery plan.
"What we wanted is for world leaders to hear from young people about the importance of saving tigers, and not from us or bureaucrats," said WWF-Russia CEO Igor Chestin. "This gave a voice to the public to lend their support to help save wild tigers."
The Global Tiger Recovery Programme was developed by countries that have tigers, which took more than a year to put together, and lays out a comprehensive set of actions to help tigers recover from decades of poaching and destruction of their forest homes.
The cost of the initial stage of the recovery programme, prepared by the tiger range countries with support from the Global Tiger Initiative of the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility and other tiger conservation partners including WWF, has been largely covered by the tiger range countries themselves, but USD 350 Million is needed from the international community.
Of this total, the most urgent and critical to the recovery is the need for USD 35 Million to fill the current funding gap required to protect and monitor the last remaining refuges of tigers, based a on recent study published in PLoS Biology.


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subset: commoncrawl


text: Conflict & Justice Undocumented immigrant caregiver tells story from inside invisible workforce PRI's The World May 16, 2013 Immigrants are often said to do the work Americans don't want to do. In the case of domestic workers, people who clean houses and care for the sick or elderly, that's certainly true, with most of those roles filled by immigrants. Now, with the process of a path to legalization, many domestic workers are looking for better conditions.


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Images tagged "boric-acid-sample-containers"
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The Kindorf Trap-Eze Connector can be installed above or to the side of an existing assembly, eliminating the need to disassemble and reassemble the trapeze. A view window provides the strut length safety zone for rough versus precision cuts, and a unique safety slot holds the bracket in position to prevent disengagement from the threaded rod.
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Take Action
Thousands of hardworking Marriott workers are on strike because many of its full-time employees aren't able to earn enough to make ends meet. They're taking on one of the world's most profitable and powerful companies. Stand with them.
Tell Congress to repeal the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations instead of cutting the vital programs that benefit nearly one-third of the U.S. population.


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A selection from Laurence Freeman OSB, "Spirit," JESUS THE TEACHER WITHIN (New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 186 87.
The joy of realizing the truth is the bliss of the Spirit. It erases the shame of all previous failures. Aware that this Spirit of truth is with us as a friend, we are better able to tolerate in others and in ourselves what has not yet reached fullness of being. . .Truth is tolerant because the Spirit is forgiving love.
It allows the untrue to survive for the time being as a loving parent allows a child to make mistakes. Truth embraces rather than excommunicates its enemies. It is made manifest after much distillation of experience. It is not an object or an answer to be stared at and preserved. [And] when there is no ego through which the truth has to pass, communication dilates into communion.
The Spirit is the egolessness, the boundless emptiness, of God. She therefore fills everything with her emptiness and contains "all the truth." Only emptiness can contain everything. Returning to us in the Spirit of truth, as friend and teacher, Jesus can therefore be both God and man, historical and cosmic, personal and universal. He is wave and particle, fully individuated, able to be his unique individual self and to be indivisible from everything. This makes his death, all death, meaningful and necessary.
In St John's gospel, the Resurrection and the sending of the Spirit are seen as a single event. On the evening of Easter Day Jesus came and stood among the disciples while they were huddled fearfully in a locked room. His first word to them was shalom. The rich Hebrew word for peace invoked the blessing of the harmony of all orders of being. Shalom flows directly from the Divine harmony which is the Spirit. To receive it is to share in that peace beyond all understanding. Jesus then breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.'
His breath, which carried his words into their minds and listening hearts, is a medium of the Spirit. Then he gave them the power to forgive sins. This power to forgive. . .is a charism of the Spirit because forgiveness removes the greatest of all obstacles to communication. It heals wounds, confesses the truth that sets us free, consoles pain, calms anger, dissolves resentment, achieves the reconciliation of enemies. Whoever knows the truth has the power to forgive. . .We learn through her effect on ourselves what the Spirit is: a friend who has no favorites and who liberates the power to love, to forgive endlessly. She is beyond observation but we recognize her by the traces of her silent, guiding, healing, consoling passage through our lives.
After meditation: a selection from Bede Griffiths OSB, THE NEW CREATION IN CHRIST: CHRISTIAN MEDITATION AND COMMUNITY (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1994), p. 77.
The resurrection does not consist merely of the appearances of Jesus to his disciples after his death. Many think that these appearances in Galilee and Jerusalem are the resurrection. But they are simply to confirm the faith of the disciples. The real resurrection is the passing beyond the world altogether. It is Jesus' passage from this world to the Father. It was not an event in space and time, but the passage beyond space and time to the eternal, to reality. Jesus passed into reality. That is our starting point. It is into that world that we are invited to enter by meditation. We do not have to wait for physical death, but we can enter now into that eternal world. We have to go beyond the outer appearances of the senses and beyond the concepts of the mind, and open ourselves to the reality of Christ within, the Christ of the resurrection.
Carla Cooper - email@example.com


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Gambling Insider
IGT Enters Electronic Bingo Market in Canada
International Game Technology PLC ("IGT") (NYSE: IGT) today announced that the Company recently launched first-of-its-kind electronic bingo content for the Canadian market
About Radu Eduard
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pittsoccer33 wrote:which of these should I purchase?
http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Classic- ... ds=n64+usb
http://www.amazon.com/Tomee-Controller- ... ds=n64+usb
If you actually have these controllers and a PS2 controller I'd recommend the USB controller port. It's super nice and really playing N64 games with the PS2 controller is pretty good but even if you wanted to play with the N64 controller you could just plug it in to the adapter.
Edit: It's the Komodo adaptor. I have it, works great.


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Discrimination against and harassment of school employees because of age, sex, race, creed, color, marital status, familial status, physical or mental disability, genetic information, national origin or sexual orientation are prohibited. Discrimination against and harassment of students because of sex, race, creed, color, age, marital status, familial status, physical or mental disability, national origin or sexual orientation are prohibited.
The District will require all persons, agencies, vendors, contractors, and other persons and organizations doing business with or performing services for the District to subscribe to all applicable federal and state laws pertaining to contract compliance.
Inquiries concerning the District's nondiscrimination and harassment policies may be directed to:
Garrison Elementary School -Beth Dunton, Principal -516-6735
Horne Street Elementary School -Mike McKenney, Principal -516-6757
Woodman Park Elementary School -Patrick Boodey, Principal - 516-6702
Dover Middle School -Kim Lyndes, Principal -516-7204
Dover High School -Peter Driscoll, Principal - 516-6920
SAU - Dr. Elaine M. Arbour, Ed.D.,Superintendent - 516-6802
The District has theattached procedures to address complaints of discrimination and/or harassment:
ACAB-R - Employee & Third Party Discrimination and Harassment Complaint Procedure
ACAA-R - Student Discrimination and Harassment Complaint Procedure


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Author Notes: This recipe came from a coworker's mom (who is an amazing cook and party planner) as kind of a "add a little of this, a little of that" which typically I'd stay away from in a cocktail because I'm not a natural mixologist. But it was my sister's engagement party last year and she really loved the ingredients so I had to take a leap of faith. We had about 40 for the party and I needed to make a large quantity that was easy for the bartender to serve. We served it individually, as requests came in, but this could easily thrown together and served in a beautiful punch bowl. It was truly a hit for my sister's party and I was pleased to have pushed my comfort level for her. —meganvt01
Food52 Review: Take a break from mimosas on New Year's Day, try this pretty, pink sparkler. Cranberry, lime and mint dance in the punch bowl with effervescent cava, making the drink tart, sweet, verdant and bright. Cava leads, though, so be careful–this stuff goes straight to the brain. —Lauren Utvich
Makes: 1 punch bowl (or 25 single drinks)
bottles cava (chilled)
bunches fresh mint
cup triple sec
cup freshly squeezed lime juice
cup cranberry juice
additional mint, lime or fresh cranberries for garnish
- The night or morning before your party mix together the triple sec, lime juice, and cranberry. Mash up (muddle) the mint and toss into the liquids. Let sit overnight and remove the mint.
- Add your cava to punch bowl first. Then add about 3/4 of your mixer (triple sec, lime, and cranberry). Taste - everyone has a preference on sweetness so you can stop here or add the rest. Serve chilled.
- If you wanted to serve a la carte rather than in a punch bowl, add about 1 oz of the mixer to the bottom of a champagne flute then fill with cava. Enjoy!!!
- This recipe is a Community Pick!
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Cocktail
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Punch
More Great Recipes:
Cocktail|Fruit|Lime Juice|Mint|Triple Sec|Christmas|Thanksgiving|Winter


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Your search for Sociology Game
SocietyCategory: Action Games
Tags: society, society game, society walkthrough, society hacked, indie game, independent game, flash strategy game, flash strategy games, 2d strategy games, 2d strategy game, secret society game, culture game, sociology game, community game
A society that doesn't grow is dead. A society that isn't moving forward is moving backwards. A good society will...


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This week I cooked up some great crunchy crab balls that could be served as a bite-size meal or an appetizer for guests.
This week I cooked up some great crunchy crab balls that could be served as a bite-size meal or an appetizer for guests. I picked up fresh local crab over at Coastal Propane and Seafood off N.C. 133 to make this great healthy recipe you're going to love. Living on the coast and having access to so many local seafood shops, everyone should be able to enjoy this fresh tasty treat.
16 ounces back fin or lump crabmeat
� red bell pepper
� green bell pepper
� Vidalia onion
2 tablespoons Miracle Whip
2 tablespoons stone ground mustard
1 egg
� cup Parmesan cheese
2 cups panko breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon old bay
Salt and pepper to taste
Finely chop peppers and onion, cook in a skillet with a little extra virgin olive oil until onions are clear and let cool. In a large bowl add crabmeat, egg, � cup of panko breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese and cooled vegetables mix together well. In a separate baking dish add panko breadcrumbs and seasoning. Form small balls with the crabmeat and roll in the panko mixture coating each well. Place on a baking sheet and spray each crab ball with a little oil and place in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees flipping each crab ball about halfway through the baking process serve hot. This should make 20 to 24 crab balls
2 tablespoons ground horseradish
1� tablespoons of ketchup
1� tablespoons of Miracle Whip
2 tablespoons of sweet relish pickles
Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.


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The Flat Earth Society, a group dedicated to the idea that the Earth is flat, was among the first to propose that the Moon landing was a
hoax. Over the years, when polled, a
whopping 6-28% of the people believe in this hoax. Many, if not all the arguments against the
moon landing have been refuted.
James Longuski, a professor of Aeronautics at Purdue University stated, "the size and complexity of the alleged conspiracy theory
scenarios make their veracity an impossibility. More than 400,000 people worked
on the Apollo project for nearly ten years, and a dozen men who walked on the
Moon returned to Earth to recount their experiences. Hundreds of thousands of
people, including astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, and skilled
laborers, would have had to keep the secret. Longuski also contends that it would have been
significantly easier to actually land on the Moon than to generate such a
massive conspiracy to fake such a landing."
I was curious if currently, any atheists here believe in the hoax? Or any one that you might know
of? Do they give any new and exciting arguments,
or do they just stick to the ones already proven wrong? While differences of religious beliefs tend
to get my blood boiling, nothing angers me more than someone who stands behind
the Moon hoax.
One thing I've noticed is people who can be definitively proven wrong, will still stick by their claims and suggest the information is
wrong or a fallacy. Even if God is
definitively proven wrong someday, people will still believe. It's really a battle that can never be won.
Views: 296
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. (AP) � A friend of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales testified Wednesday that he thought Bales seemed remorseful after being taken into custody following a massacre at two Afghan villages last March.
Defense witness 1st Sgt. Vernon Bigham testified by video from Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan as the third day of testimony began at a preliminary hearing for Bales.
The hearing, which is also expected to feature video testimony from Afghan villagers and soldiers on Friday and Saturday, will help determine whether Bales faces a court martial on 16 counts of premeditated murder.
Bales is accused of leaving Camp Belambay in Kandahar province last March to slaughter civilians during a pre-dawn attack on two nearby villages.
Bigham said he saw Bales at the air field following the killings and that he seemed to want to confess. But Bales had invoked his right to remain silent, and Bigham told him not to talk to him.
Bales had been stationed at the remote outpost at Belambay because he was considered tough enough to handle the assignment, Bigham testified.
Other soldiers have testified that Bales made a mid-massacre confession, asked for help bleaching his blood-stained clothing and deliberately destroyed his laptop computer.
Bales' statements and actions show he knew what he was doing the night 16 civilians were slaughtered, prosecutors say.
The remarks could pose a high hurdle for defense lawyers who have indicated that Bales' mental health will be a big part of their case.
Bales, a 39-year-old father of two from Lake Tapps, Wash., also faces six counts of attempted murder in the March 11 attack on the villages of Balandi and Alkozai, which counted nine children among its victims.
One of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the attack prompted the U.S. to halt combat operations for days in the face of protests, and military investigators couldn't reach the crime scenes for a month.
A prosecutor, Lt. Col. Jay Morse, has said Bales spent the evening before the massacre at his remote outpost of Camp Belambay with two other soldiers, watching a movie about revenge killings, sharing contraband whiskey from a plastic bottle and discussing an attack that cost one of their comrades his leg.
Within hours, a cape-wearing Bales slipped away from the post and embarked on a killing spree of his own, Morse said. He attacked one village then returned to Belambay, where he woke up a colleague and reported what he'd done, Morse said. The colleague testified that he didn't believe Bales and went back to sleep.
Bales headed out again, Morse said, and attacked the second village before returning once again in the pre-dawn darkness, bloody and incredulous that his comrades ordered him to surrender his weapons.
A medic, Sgt. 1st Class James Stillwell, said Tuesday he saw Bales covered in blood and knew from the pattern of the staining it wasn't his own. He asked where it came from and where he'd been.
Bales shrugged, Stillwell testified.
"If I tell you, you guys will have to testify against me," Stillwell quoted him as saying.
Soldiers also testified that after being taken into custody, Bales told them, "I thought I was doing the right thing."
And Stillwell said Bales told him that the soldiers at Camp Belambay would appreciate his actions once the fighting season ramped up: "You guys are going to thank me come June."
Bales was largely calm and compliant when he turned himself in following the massacre, several soldiers testified Tuesday.
But he also deliberately mangled his laptop, said two soldiers assigned to guard him as he gathered his things.
One of them, Sgt. Ross O'Rourke, testified that he removed the laptop from Bales' rucksack after the defendant told him he didn't want to take it with him. O'Rourke said Bales then grabbed the computer and folded the screen back, breaking it.
Bales has not entered a plea, and is not expected to testify. His attorneys, who did not give an opening statement, have not discussed the evidence, but say Bales has post-traumatic stress disorder and suffered a concussive head injury during a prior deployment to Iraq.
Bales has not participated in a medical evaluation known as a "sanity board," because his lawyers have objected to having him meet with Army doctors outside their presence.


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Ah Ha! by Jeff Mack
What can you do with just two letters? Using just "a" and "h", Jeff Mack does plenty. An amiable frog is relaxing on a rock on a hot, summer day, Aahh, when along comes a boy hoping to catch a frog - Aahh!
My son and I laughed through this book with a twinge of anxiety about this frog's fate. With the whole story told through just a few words, pre-readers will enjoy guessing which combination of "a" and "h" will accompany the illustration and early readers can sound out the words. Mack's illustrations are lively and the clever concept never loses steam.
Title: Ah Ha!
Author & Illustrator: Jeff Mack
Publisher: Chronicle Books (2013)
Age group: Toddler, preschool
Best for kids who: like to laugh
Find the book at your local library, independent bookstore, or Amazon: Ah Ha! by Jeff Mack
(Images: Carrie McBride)
Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf. However, the manufacturer did give us the product for testing and review purposes.


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Eli Young Band's Mike Eli and Wife Welcome Baby Girl
A baby girl has officially joined Eli Young Band's brood. Frontman Mike Eli and his wife, Kacey, welcomed Kline Olivia Diaz on Monday (July 30) in Dallas. The little girl, who is the first child for the couple, weighed in at 6 lbs. and 15 oz. She was expected to arrive in August.


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DUDLEY Kingswinford have appointed former London Welsh and Worcester coach Carl Douglas as the club's new director of rugby.
He will take up the role, which involves overseeing coaching, team performance and the long-term development of DK, from May 1.
Douglas has previously also held the positions of player development manager at both Gloucester and Leicester Tigers, head coach at Oxford University Blues XV for five seasons and head of rugby development at the Welsh Rugby Union.
The experienced Level 5 qualified coach will take over from current director of rugby, Gordan Bannatyne, and current head coach Shaun Perry, who also applied for the position.
DK have been searching for a new director of rugby following a disastrous campaign in National League Two North that has seen them relegated without picking up a single victory.
Gordon Bannatyne said: "The club have gone through a lengthy, thorough and diligent process through advertising, interviewing and selection to ensure we have the right candidate for the post. We believe Carl's background and experience will help lay the foundations as the club seek to establish its traditional routes to success. This will involve building and developing a playing structure based on players developed from within the club, supplemented by introducing some experience in key positions to help with the development of players who have come through the club's very successful youth section."
Douglas' remit will be to recruit new players as well as to develop the current squad with a view to returning to level four at the earliest opportunity.
The role will encompass the whole of the club and involve working with the youth section, 16-19 rugby as well as the senior teams. He will also spend time on other club duties beyond coaching and recruiting, such as team administration and building the club's sponsor base and funding.
Ed Parry, DKs first team captain added: "After what has been a long and tough season this year, the players are excited to welcome Carl to lead us towards success in the team's next chapter. Hopefully, with Carl's experience and expertise, we can build on the steep learning curve many of our young players have been on in National Two. We hope to be back at this level stronger and more prepared as a club, sooner rather than later. The players would also like to thank Shaun Perry for being head coach this year during difficult times."


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Welcome to the CRG Discussion Forum!Forum registration problems: Make sure you enter your email correctly and you check your spam box first. *Then* email KurtS2@gmail for help.Classified ads are not allowed on the forum.
You mention that the plate "Original owner apparently glued it down to one of the warranty documents" here and on your TC post. That was glued by GM and or the dealer when new. That's the way they all came. Just thought I would mention that in case you were thinking of detaching it.


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Welcome to Shapely Girl Fitness
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As a follow-up to Ol' Myrt's Day at the Archives here's a photo of some old General Land Office books Mr. Myrt and I picked up when visiting the Bureau of Land Management office in Springfield, Virginia recently. Seeing these large books with "fill-in-the-blank" pages makes it easier to understand why it was hard to find the records of an ancestor who may have received land from the US federal government via:
- 1820 Cash Act
- 1830s ~ 1840s Preemption
- 1850 Donation Land Act
- 1862 Homestead Act
- 1860s ~ 1870s Mineral Act
- 1873 Timber Act
- 1877 Desert Act
These acts of Congress were essentially designed to generate westward settlement and generate funds for the government. Another way to obtain land from the federal government was in exchange for military service. Many military bounty land records have been indexed, and are often mentioned in pension files, so finding them wasn't quite as difficult in the past.
The spines on the empty books above read:
- Miscellaneous Vol 104, Missouri Credit Vol 7, General Land Office
- Miscellaneous Vol. 97 Illinois Credit Vol 9, General Land Office
Prior to the scanning and indexing of General Land Office books by the Bureau of Land Management, you had to know the:
- Ancestor's state
- Land office within that state
- Type of transaction (each act necessitated a different set of books in each office)
- Legal description of the land
- Date of the transaction
- A document number (sorta like a page number or file number)
- Ancestor's name on the form
By golly, if you knew all that, you wouldn't be making your request of the land office, now would you?
But fast forward to 2011 and many completed (though not all) old General Land Office transactions have been indexed with patents scanned and posted online at the Bureau of Land Office Site located at:
This is a work in progress, so check back every month or so. Here you may click "LAND PATENTS" and search for an ancestor anywhere in the public land states by NAME OF ANCESTOR. This is an amazing breakthrough.
When you find a hit for an ancestor, you may click to view the image of the patent as they become available. Here is an example of My. Myrt's ancestor Arial W. Foye who in 1858 purchased land using a script transferred from military warant holder Isaac Dolph who obtained the original warrant in 1855 for his War of 1812 service.
By clicking "RELATED DOCUMENTS" you can determine who owned adjoining property. What self-respecting genealogist wouldn't want to know about the immediate six to ten neighbors of an ancestor at any given point in time?
Ol' Myrt here was happy to learn that the background paperwork for this completed patent is housed at the National Archives (US). One merely prints out the "Land Patent Details" summary page from the BLM website and heads to the Archives in person, hires a professional researcher to do the look-up or orders the file online through the NARA website.
This is the "Land Patent Details" summary from the BLM website for Mr. Myrt's ancestor. Note I've highlighted pertinent parts:
Since the paperwork is filed by state, land office and document number, you'll need this information to complete your NARA request. There are also distinctions between pre- and post-1908 patents "Please note that this includes only patented or completed land entries. Those case files that were canceled or relinquished will not be there, and may contain just as much useful information for the researcher. For this information, researchers will need to access the tract books." See: http://www.archives.gov/research/land
In the case of Mr. Myrt's ancestor's file, I went to the archives personally and requested the Foye/Dolph Military Warrant, State of Missouri, Land Office: Warsaw, Document Number 13667. The clerk at the National Archives explained this was Record Group 49.
The Hollinger box label explains this was filed by:
Military Bounty Land Warrants
Act of 1855
and then by patent numbers. (13806-13909 in this case.)
I was shocked to find the folded packets arranged in numeric order. It was the folding that totally surprised me, as these documents are fragile.
Your eyes are not deceiving you, this is very thin linen paper, perhaps thinner than tissue paper. The original 120 acre Military Bounty Land Warrant No 13667 was issued to Isaac Dolph, Private in Captain Watson's Company, New York Militia, War of 1812, highlighted in red below. (I didn't have the heart to use one of NARA's clear plastic screens to flatten the document.)
Turning the delicate page over, one can read where the warrant was assigned to Mr. Myrt's ancestor Ariel W. Foye of Black Hawk County, Iowa, who later used the script to purchase land in Hickory County, Missouri.
Just thought you'd like to get a peek at what ELSE is available when you find an ancestor's patent or warrant listed at the Bureau of Land Management website. And this clearly illustrates that our research should not be confined to the BLM website.
From: NARA - Land
"For land records in the remaining 20 states that were never part of the original public domain, check the State Archives for that particular state. This includes the original 13 colonies, plus Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia."
- Research in the Land Entry Files of the General Land Office (Record Group 49)
- Order copies of Land Entry Records, either through using Form NATF 84 or ordering online.
- View Selected Land Records online in the Archival Research Catalog
- Name Index to Cancelled, Rejected, and Relinquished Land Entry Files, Dodge City, Kansas and Topeka, Kansas Land Offices, ca. 1905-1937
- Farm Ownership Case Files for Region 7, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota 1937-1947
- Farm Ownership Case Files for Region 2, for Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, 1937-1946 (Record Group 96)
- Farm Ownership Case Files, Region 3, for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio, 1937-1946 (Record Group 96)
- Name Index to Rural Rehabilitation Loan Case Files for Region 7, (Record Group 96)
- John C. Frémont - Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1843, Eyewitness exhibit
- Laura Ingalls Wilder - A Journey from South Dakota to Missouri, 1894, Eyewitness exhibit
- See a Sample Homestead file (for Charles Ingalls)
Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt :)
Your friend in genealogy.


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Michael Jon Palmquist
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." –Albert Camus
The man who works a profitable but sedentary office job may decide one day to spend his evenings at a weight lifting gym, as many people in contemporary society are apt to do. And by doing so, this man admits through his actions that having a stronger body is at least in some way unnecessary with respect to his survival: if he required bulging musculature to survive in his workplace or in a cruel society, he would already have the physique of, say, a blacksmith without much unnecessary effort. So what then are his reasons? Health and longevity? A hobby? A way of releasing pent-up aggression? A recognition that he, and therefore society at large, cannot accept his current appearance? In any case, he requires of himself an enrichment (or in some cases, waste) of his life that life in turn did not apparently demand of him.
This brief train of thought must be urgently applied to that age-old question of god's existence, which has loudly resurfaced in European and American public debate in the wake of the 9/11 atrocities. For while this unanswerable question is certainly mentally stimulating in academic circles, we must ask ourselves whether its present public resurgence entails something more sinister than a simple and gratuitous appeal to the brain. For the following reason, if nothing else: anyone who needs to definitively answer this question in order to proceed with the task of living, hates life itself. Their hatred may be in fact born in light of true injustice to themselves or members of their society, or born of self-pity and self-victimization, but the simple fact remains.
The existentialist who cries out that life has no objective meaning ends by enforcing a subjective meaning on his fellow humans in the form of dictatorial law, while the man who cries out that life has no meaning without god begins by lavishly condemning himself in order to justify condemning the human race to theocracy. They are in the end the same person, and in this moment of recognition they despise each other with a blind energy that few other creatures can muster. They are the Left and the Right, biding their time under the banners of moderate democratic parties, and waiting patiently for the proper level of civil unrest in order to unfurl again their scythes and the swastikas.
Therefore that stereotypical brand of atheist who needs god to not exist in order for life to have meaning must be viewed with no less suspicion than the man who claims as certain fact that a given god is the originator of life's meaning. Life is quite apparently a finite series of revolts attempting an exhaustive chain of revolt against death (whether a given life form is consciously aware of it or not), and in turn human life is quite obviously a revolt against human death and misery. Any other interpretation forced upon human existence in this period of history is at best gratuitous and artistic, and at worst (and more commonly) a monstrous form of nihilism and hatred of life.
The human race at this moment cries out for a brand of citizen (I will call them atheists only for lack of the better term) who refuse to answer the question. Atheists who recognize the question of god's existence as a distraction and stumbling block to life. Atheists who do not give our existence a meaning it need not wear. Atheists, who in refusing totalitarian thought, refusing death at every turn (except in the immediate defence of human life), restore to human life the meaning it always and objectively bore. Atheists who confound traditional party lines by decrying both the death penalty and abortion insofar as it is gratuitous. Atheists who actively engage in restoring to humanity the common bonds of community and dignity and solidarity which have been too quickly abandoned as parishioners continue to pour out from the crumbling churches and temples of the gods.
The twenty-first century has too quickly forgotten the words of the twentieth century's greatest humanitarian writer, the French-Algerian Albert Camus, in great part because he despised that word that every new generation embraces: Revolution.
"Every revolution ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic", he wrote. And again, in his seminal L'homme révolté: "The rebel undoubtedly demands a certain degree of freedom for himself; but in no case, if he is consistent, does he demand the right to destroy the existence and the freedom of others. He humiliates no one. The freedom he claims, he claims for all; the freedom he refuses, he forbids everyone to enjoy. He is not only the slave against the master, but also man against the world of master and slave. Therefore, thanks to rebellion, there is something more in history than the relation between mastery and servitude. Unlimited power is not the only law. It is in the name of another value that the rebel affirms the impossibility of total freedom while he claims for himself the relative freedom necessary to recognize this impossibility."
The atheist of today must carry those words ringing in his ears as he lives in constant revolt against all extremes, allowing over and over again the ancient ideals of Greek democracy and solidarity to conquer the nihilistic extremes that threaten to tear our civilization apart. The atheist of today must despise revolution, which always at heart bears a hatred of this life. That begins by refusing to answer the question. For this new atheist, the god debate is simply irrelevant.
Michael Jon Palmquist is an American writer & ex-patriate living in Germany after serving 3 years in the US Army and 16 months in Afghanistan.
"The atheist of today must despise revolution, which always at heart bears a hatred of this life. That begins by refusing to answer the question. For this new atheist, the god debate is simply irrelevant."
It is irrelevant, but your aiming your literary gun at the wrong target. We can't/won't subjugate or kill believers, so we must convert. When your sanctity is threatened, and your freedoms slowly leeched, there must be a moment before death, or theocracy, when you act. To not do so is to be an utter pacifist, and to lose the most important fight in the progress of human thought; i.e. to continue thinking.
a war veteran is usually not a pacifist. i'm not an exception. if u want a better idea of my position, here's a draft of the first chapter of a book i'm writing…
Chapter 1: From Confusion to Revolt
One must love life before loving its meaning, says Dostoyevsky . . . yes, and when love of life disappears, no meaning can console us.
-Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942
It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism.
-Albert Camus
It is a fact that we are dying of nihilism. Never mind, for the moment, whether this has always been case. Human society today is a madhouse of petty wordplay. As we speak, theocratic citizens of United States wave that great symbol of atheistic Greek democracy, the American flag. Anti-theists masquerading under the guise of humanism the world round support the active abortion of unwanted fetuses as rule of law. Fascists in the Middle East declare Allah's wrath against society, and then, as ultimate proof of their own unbelief, take it upon themselves to enact the terror of a helpless god. Intellectuals defend these indiscriminate executioners as though terrorism stems from a legitimate cry of human despair. The list goes on, ad nauseum. We are victims of a general confusion that we are simultaneously defending. This is not an accusation but a statement of fact. The human race has become less important than its ideals. We have put the cart before horse, we are painting without a canvas. Again, it is nothing but a truth that we are dying of nihilism.
All life forms on this earth, from viruses to apes, declare life worth the effort by simply living. Conscious humans alone, it seems, are capable of sitting quietly by and simultaneously demanding a meaning for this life. Ironically, that intellectual demand is almost always preceded by either a hunger for power or a confused declaration of hatred for one's own life. Perhaps both together. One may indeed kill himself without the need to pass judgment on all of human life. But today this is not enough. Personal nihilism has exalted itself as a revolution, and like all revolution, it is poised to swallow its own children. The intent of this work is to pursue a train of thought that will allow us to speak clearly in human discourse, and therefore to revolt against this hideous wave of revolution. Not in pursuit of some intellectually satisfying philosophy, but instead welling from a love of human life itself. For how could a mother bring an infant into this life and hate life without also hating her offspring? There is no two ways around it. We are dying in a swamp of confusion that breeds countless strands of nihilism into our discourse and our lives. We must begin to think clearly.
In order to revolt against nihilism, we must first recognize its form. This has been accomplished many times throughout the history of philosophy, for better or worse, but it cannot not hurt to begin again. I will start by illustrating a case of nihilism in action through the following thought experiment:
Imagine, for the moment, that earth time as we know it is an objective reality. By this, I am asking you simply to imagine that the Greenwich time standard was not proposed by imperial Britain, but is instead as real and non-synthetic as a wildflower. Or as real as the fundamentalist Christian, Jew or Muslim assumes his respective god to be. Therefore, while the time in Honolulu will always of course be different than the time in Toronto or Istanbul, all of these times will stand in relation to an objective and unalterable standard proposed by the Greenwich standard (or Zulu Time, or Coordinated Universal Time, or whatever you wish to call it).
Now imagine further, on this fictional world, a young man in Munich who has recently finished business college and secured his first office job. The job consists of writing email correspondence at his post from the hours of 0800 to 1600 (Munich time, of course), Monday through Friday. The job is not especially demanding, except that the young man's boss is adamant that all employees begin exactly at 0800 and work to exactly to 1600 before retiring for the evening. Our young man, undisciplined in matters of punctuality (in part because his college professors excused his chronic tardiness), fails to meet the morning deadline for the entire first week. He arrives at work consistently at 0815, and is subsequently handed a dire warning: "If you are late once more, ever again, you will be fired without hesitation."
Our young employee has no other means of supporting himself than this job, and swiftly hatches a plan. He reverses his bedside alarm clock time one half hour from standard Munich time and, through this common act of self-deception, arrives to work on time. As the weeks and months progress, he is not only able to hold his job, but to move up in the ranks of his company and flourish. Alas, this is not enough for our young man. He is human, and feels the need to connect with all of humanity. "Everyone on earth can benefit from my philosophy of turning back the clock one half hour," he reasons to himself. "The world is full of unrest, and is hungry for my wisdom. I will write a book and spread my belief to every continent, to every human ear." In this imagined world, he is successful. A planet covered in social unrest is all too eager to listen. In fact every clock on the planet is reversed by one half hour. We can see the impending consequence from miles away.
He, on the other hand, has no such foresight. He is blinded by a belief that the whole world is populated by tardy people. The empathy he projects onto the human race is false, for it does not recognize a common objective standard outside himself. In fact, nothing on the planet is significantly altered except that the young man is promptly fired the following day for being late. He failed to switch his own clock back another half hour. The world has changed its objective time standard to his unalterable bedside alarm clock, and his own standard subsequently judges only him. He hates the Munich society that dumps him on the street, he hates his fellow men for listening to his message, he hates himself. Consequently, he hates every aspect of life. We will leave our young nihilist's impending self-destruction to the imagination.
The ridiculousness of this thought experiment is only elevated by its accuracy in painting the modern world. We can perhaps imagine a historical moment when only madmen and philosophers proclaimed that human freedom and dignity is intrinsically worth killing for. But today, we all claim a stake in this distorted belief. In fact, the man who honestly claims himself worthy of human solidarity makes his declaration of independence and then proceeds to kill those who will in fact kill him. It is not an abstract matter of morality, but of first necessity, of survival. He need not understand or respect his opposition's reasoning process. His life his threatened, his family is threatened, his society is threatened, and that is enough. His standard is life, not freedom. A small and recognizable freedom will naturally blossom from this standard, but it is not the standard itself.
So what, then, is nihilism? It must be, in human context, the simple denial that the unalterable standard of human life is anything other than human life itself. We may all be relative nihilists on this account. I may only see my own life as having meaning within the context of my wife and offspring. The Christian or Muslim may only find a reason to live by positing a Yahweh or an Allah, and may in fact commit suicide upon losing that belief. The anti-theist may only get out of bed each day precisely because (for him) a god does not exist. But this relative nihilism, when projected upon the world through false empathy or self-hatred, denies every standard, even the one it pretends to set for itself. The active nihilist will in the end become the god he declares his belief in, only to destroy that god by destroying himself. It is self-evident that he believes in nothing. We are left in this world with only one obvious standard in human life, and that is human life itself. If the nihilist's line of reasoning fails to alarm us all on a deeply human level, it should at least leave the intellect in a twisted knot.
I will pause here to establish definitions for two core phrases that will appear throughout this work: relative nihilism and active nihilism. Relative nihilism encompasses all actions and corresponding personal values that give an individual some purpose or direction in his life. I refrain here from borrowing Friedrich Nietzsche's term, passive nihilism, on the grounds that would be in this context self-contradictory; no subjective value is without action, and no action is passive (I include human inaction as a form of action on the grounds that conscientious pacifism is a value and corresponding action). Active nihilism, in turn, is the sum of all actions and their corresponding personal values, stemming from an individual who deems his personal values more important than human life itself. I borrow this Nietzschean term, out of context, on purely aesthetic grounds: active nihilism is actively killing us. Of course, one may kill without being an active nihilist, insofar as they are not killing in the name of a value…elaborate?
…Let us stop playing with words when discussing human politics in public discourse. The ancient Greeks believed that many gods existed, and they believed that these gods did not care much about human life. The Greeks eventually rejected these gods without necessarily caring to declare these gods dead. Life is still worth living, they said. Let us live without acknowledging them. This line of reasoning produced true atheism and therefore the first known form of democracy. The gods are ignored, not replaced. Human life is the standard. The chain holding life, atheism and democracy together is inseparable. But today the religious theocrat may wave a flag of symbolic democracy and command the attention of a confused following. Or the anti-theist may call declare his humanism while blindly extinguishing life.
It is here that we begin to define another critical term for our discussion: atheism. The atheist denies the ultimate importance of the gods in human life, but does not reject their existence. There is no immediate need to negate the gods. For the atheist, human life is the standard from which all other considerations stem. The atheist respects any religion that declares all human life sacred, and only when that religion contradicts itself through action does the atheist depart from religious tolerance. We have begun already to see that beliefs are not immediately important to the atheist. He makes the necessary leap of deciding to live, and from that point on, he declares that actions alone are worthy of consideration. He is not intent on policing the human conscience, as the theist and anti-theist have been historically inclined to do. He calls for the separation of church and state, and allows all forms of relative nihilism to reign under their respective steeples, domes and minarets. The atheist recognizes the power of relative nihilism to combat human despair. He is only concerned at the moment with revolting against active nihilism.
Why then is the term atheism so widely despised in contemporary democracies like the United States of America? Let us not leap to judgment too quickly. It is at least a matter of ignorance. The American revolt against Soviet theocracy ...
Anti-theists masquerading under the guise of humanism the world round support the active abortion of unwanted fetuses as rule of law.
Actually, anti-theists are as various in their views on abortion as any group of people. They do not, as a group, strive for the death of fetuses as though this would entail some great moral achievement. The argument in favor of abortion has a long list of underpinning arguments, all of which you have summarily discarded in a single sentence. We may one day have sufficient birth prevention technology to render abortion a non-issue, but given the state of our world, it remains a necessary reality, however ugly. There are good arguments against abortion, but you have not presented one of them.
The human race has become less important than its ideals.
Ideals have behavioral consequences. Bad ideals are in the majority, and I think most atheists would agree that "We must begin to think clearly." However, we must also encourage clear thinking in our neighbors.
You seem to have this idea that we can just live our lives out and ignore bad ideas, like the greeks ignored the gods. The problem, of course, is that while the greek gods do not exist, and consequently did not do much when ignored, the bad ideas surrounding us today are flying planes into buildings, killing people by the millions, and driving civilization towards an intellectual death in service of some deity. Inaction, by not pursuing an evolution of thought, is tantamount to attempting to avoiding an avalanche by sitting down in it's path.
I once again assert that you are "aiming your literary gun at the wrong target."
I am also a veteran, and likewise not a pacifist.
Good luck with the book, though
Anti-theists masquerading under the guise of humanism the world round support the active abortion of unwanted fetuses as rule of law.
Actually, anti-theists are as various in their views on abortion as any group of people. They do not, as a group, strive for the death of fetuses as though this would entail some great moral achievement. The argument in favor of abortion has a long list of underpinning arguments, all of which you have summarily discarded in a single sentence. We may one day have sufficient birth prevention technology to render abortion a non-issue, but given the state of our world, it remains a necessary reality, however ugly. There are good arguments against abortion, but you have not presented one of them.
The human race has become less important than its ideals.
Ideals have behavioral consequences. Bad ideals are in the majority, and I think most atheists would agree that "We must begin to think clearly." However, we must also encourage clear thinking in our neighbors.
You seem to have this idea that we can just live our lives out and ignore bad ideas, like the greeks ignored the gods. The problem, of course, is that while the greek gods do not exist, and consequently did not do much when ignored, the bad ideas surrounding us today are flying planes into buildings, killing people by the millions, and driving civilization towards an intellectual death in service of some deity. Inaction, by not pursuing an evolution of thought, is tantamount to attempting to avoiding an avalanche by sitting down in it's path.
I once again assert that you are "aiming your literary gun at the wrong target."
I am also a veteran, and likewise not a pacifist.
Good luck with the book, though
thanks! i don't come on here much. but again, you are preaching to the choir. i'm not writing a book to someone with your views, but to a rabidly christian America. and that was an early draft. i'll send you a free copy next year:-) fyi, i use anti-theist in a different context than, say, Christopher Hitchens. you are not an anti-theist in this context. Stalin is:-)
i'll send you a free copy next year
I would be honored. Happy writing!


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'Dark Knight' Cinematographer Wants Johnny Depp for His Feature Debut, 'Transcendence'
The feature debut for Christopher Nolan's longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight, Memento, Inception) is beginning to come together, and it's quickly shaping up to be quite the anticipated film. Deadline reports that Johnny Depp is now in negotiations to star in the movie, which will be called Transcendence. This is the first time the title of the film has been revealed, and while the plot is under wraps -- save for recent comments from Pfister saying it'll be a "present-day science-fiction film, a fairly big concept." -- THR's Borys Kit reveals it's being described as "2001 meets Inception," and that's it's about "a man who creates a computer that develops a malevolent awareness. Depp will play a husband who gets sucked into the computer." Word has it the story may change a bit as Pfister is still working on the script.
THR's story also adds that Noomi Rapace is being considered for the female lead, while James McAvoy and Tobey Maguire are "possibilities" for the other male lead. Christoph Waltz has also been offered a supporting role.
Traditionally transcendence means to travel beyond the state of oneself, and so the whole "sucked into a computer program" makes sense. Remember, this is the guy who shot Inception -- a close friend and associate of Christopher Nolan -- so we expect this to be a bit of a "thinker" and something that may attempt to mess with our heads.
What interests us is seeing Johnny Depp star in a movie that doesn't involve ridiculous amounts of makeup and/or Tim Burton. We'd very much like to see Depp take on some challenging adult content -- something that taps into his more dramatic capabilities instead of his whimsical or cartoonish side.
Expect Transcendence in 2014, and we'll definitely keep you up to speed on this one if we hear more.
Follow along on Twitter @ErikDavis and @Moviesdotcom.
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Go to Removal form
Power corrupts.
Power and money corrupt absolutely.
In Washington, Senator Landon Meyer—leading presidential candidate and pivotal voice in a divided senate—imposes his choices to fill two Supreme Court vacancies on the President. In San Francisco, Charlie Palmer—a specialist in burying the crimes of the political and financial elite—lies paralyzed by a gunshot. Linking the two is the senator's all-too-cunning brother—a federal judge secretly managing his campaign.
An hour before his death, Palmer reaches out to private investigator Graham Gage, a man he's both feared and admired, but his words remain choked in his throat. A funeral-day burglary of Palmer's office and a wife's plea for the truth about her husband's misdeeds plunge Gage into a morass of murder, corporate cover-ups, and corrupted justice that masks a political money-laundering scheme threatening to destroy not only our democracy, but all that is dear to Gage . . .


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The Films of Jon Favreau
Elf (November 4/03)
Elf casts Will Ferrell as Buddy, a human who's been raised as one of Santa's elves and actually believes himself to be an elf. After inevitably learning the obvious truth, Buddy embarks on a journey to meet his biological father (played by James Caan) in New York City - where fish-out-of-water wackiness ensues. Without question, Elf's success is due primarily to Ferrell's irresistibly open-hearted performance. The actor's always been a scene-stealer in movies like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Old School (not to mention his hilarious work on Saturday Night Live), but with Elf, Ferrell proves that he's got the charisma and presence to carry a movie on his shoulders and even manages to hold his own opposite experienced folks like Caan and Bob Newhart. As a director, Favreau has improved immeasurably over his debut outing, Made, with the filmmaker's reliance on jerky camerawork there more of an annoyance than anything else. Elf, on the other hand, has that fairy tale feeling that one expects from a movie of this ilk (although there's little doubt that the filmmaker's penchant for allowing the story to unfold deliberately is exacerbated by the presence of a few needless sequences). Though Ferrell's performance probably would have been enough to keep things enjoyable, Favreau has peppered the cast with talented supporting players. Caan, in a rare comedic role, is very good as the Scrooge-like character whose heart is melted by Buddy. And Zooey Deschanel, playing Buddy's love interest, does a nice job of playing a woman who has to go through an arc that essentially mirrors Caan's (and her character's eventual relationship with Buddy is genuinely touching). And then there's Peter Dinklage, who effortlessly steals all of his scenes as a temperamental children's writer. As expected, Elf's conclusion is heartwarming and sappy (but not overwhelmingly so), with all the characters learning the true meaning of Christmas. It's just about the perfect way to end the story, and pretty much cements Elf's place as a seasonal classic.
out of
If Zathura's premise sounds an awful lot like that of Jumanji's, that's because both films are based on books by the same author (Chris Van Allsburg, whose original novel is a direct sequel to Jumanji). The story revolves around a pair of bickering brothers (played by Jonah Bobo and Josh Hutcherson) who - after uncovering a space-themed board game called Zathura - find themselves literally thrust into orbit and forced to contend with various sinister forces (including a race of man-eating aliens known as Zorgons). Despite an overwhelmingly action-packed third act, Zathura is generally a fast-paced and energetic family film that's sure to appeal to both children and adults. Director Jon Favreau imbues the movie with a light and playful vibe, while stars Bobo and Hutcherson are effective as the squabbling siblings. And though Zathura isn't quite as thoroughly engaging as Jumanji, the movie's rarely dull and there are enough individual moments here to warrant a recommendation (a chase sequence involving a small boy and a huge robot is certainly a highlight).
Saddled with an absurdly overlong running time, Iron Man suffers from an uneven and increasingly oppressive structure that ultimately negates the film's few positive attributes (ie star Robert Downey Jr's expectedly fantastic performance). Director Jon Favreau - working from Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway's screenplay - has infused the proceedings with a refreshingly down-to-earth sensibility that admittedly suits the material quite well, yet there's little doubt that the continued emphasis on superfluous sequences ensures that the whole thing hardly moves at the brisk pace one justifiably might've anticipated. And while the movie - which follows billionaire playboy Tony Stark (Downey Jr) as he drops his narcissistic persona to become crime-fighting superhero Iron Man after a near-death experience at the hands of terrorists - is undoubtedly a cut above such egregiously underwhelming summer fare as Transformers and Live Free or Die Hard, it does become increasingly difficult to recall a more disappointing big-budget extravaganza given the effectiveness of the cast and premise. That the film primarily possesses the feel of a first cut surely stands out as its most glaring deficiency, as Favreau includes an almost unconscionable number of sequences in which Downey Jr works on (and tweaks) the his character's super-powered suit. There's only so much one can take before such moments start to become repetitive and (eventually) interminable, and it does seem clear that the movie would've benefited from some seriously judicious bouts of editing (ie the entire opening hour could've easily been compressed into a blisteringly-paced fifteen minutes). There are highlights, of course - including the uniformly strong performances and a marvelous sequence detailing Iron Man's initial foray as a global crime-stopper - but it's inevitably impossible to view Iron Man as anything more than a missed opportunity (and that final battle is as overblown and tedious as one might've feared).
A mild improvement over its lackluster predecessor, Iron Man 2 follows billionaire-playboy-turned-superhero Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) as he attempts to battle both a terrifying new adversary (Mickey Rourke's Whiplash) and a life-threatening defect in his artificial heart. Filmmaker Jon Favreau - working from Justin Theroux's screenplay - offers up a tremendously entertaining opening half hour that boasts a number of enthralling interludes, with Stark's hearing before an irate Senate committee and Iron Man's first encounter with Whiplash certainly standing out as highlights (and indeed, such moments are more engaging than anything contained within the original film). It's only as Theroux places an increasingly prominent emphasis on Stark's health issues that one's interest begins to dwindle, with the character's self-destructive streak - ie he picks a fight with his old friend James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) - ultimately serving no real purpose other than to pad out the running time (there's no law that says these movies have to be over two hours). The ensuing lack of momentum ensures that the film's midsection is often dull and surprisingly tedious, and it's not until the narrative charges into its action-packed third act that the viewer's waning interest is (mildly) resuscitated. Having said that, Iron Man 2's relentlessly uneven sensibilities can't quite diminish the strength of its positive attributes - with the movie's most hypnotic aspect undoubtedly Sam Rockwell's scene-stealing turn as Stark's goofy, megalomaniacal competitor Justin Hammer. The final result is an passable sequel that breathes new life into this less-than-impressive franchise, with the unexpectedly involving and exciting nature of the film's final few action sequences ensuring that the whole thing closes on an appreciatively positive note.
Based on a comic book, Cowboys & Aliens details the chaos that ensues after otherworldly creatures launch a vicious attack against the residents of an Old West community - with the film subsequently following several characters as they embark on a journey to find (and destroy) the aliens' subterranean base. There's little doubt that Cowboys & Aliens fares best in its opening half hour, as filmmaker Jon Favreau has assembled an impressively off-kilter cast and thrown them into what is essentially a prototypical Western. The affably familiar atmosphere, which is certainly perpetuated by the inclusion of genre staples like the saloon shootout and the mysterious gunfighter who rolls into town, persists right up until the bloodthirsty aliens arrive on the scene, after which point the survivors, including Daniel Craig's Jake, Harrison Ford's Woodrow, and Olivia Wilde's Ella, head out on their aforementioned expedition into the desert - with the decidedly unfocused nature of this stretch effectively wreaking havoc on the film's momentum. The pervasively erratic atmosphere ensures that Cowboys & Aliens' midsection ultimately feels padded out to an almost unreasonable degree, as Favreau and his five screenwriters emphasize the less-than-engrossing episodic exploits of the film's somewhat underdeveloped characters (eg the group encounters an upside-down steamboat, Jake meets up with his former gang, etc, etc). The likeable performances are, as a result, rendered moot in the build-up to the movie's larger-than-life climax (which, as it involves a lot of running and shooting and blowing things up, seems to have been designed to appeal solely to teenage boys), with the progressively dumbed-down atmosphere finally cementing Cowboys & Aliens' place as a distressingly underwhelming summer blockbuster.
Jon Favreau's best film since 2003's Elf, Chef follows Favreau's Carl Casper, the head chef at a high-powered restaurant, as he decides to return to basics by quitting his job and opening a Cuban-themed food truck. It's certainly not difficult to see the parallels between the movie's storyline and Favreau's own output behind the camera, as the one-time indie director has, of late, devoted himself to projects of a decidedly larger-than-life and over-the-top nature - with 2011's Cowboys & Aliens marking an obvious low point for the once promising actor-turned-filmmaker. Chef's comparatively low-key and freewheeling atmosphere proves effective at capturing the viewer's interest right from the get-go, as Favreau's confident directorial choices are heightened by an engaging storyline and a whole raft of compelling supporting characters. (It doesn't hurt, in terms of the latter, that Favreau has stacked the periphery cast with charismatic folks like Bobby Cannavale, John Leguizamo, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Downey Jr.) The pervasively affable vibe goes a long way towards compensating for Favreau's less-than-disciplined sensibilities, as it's ultimately clear that Chef, saddled with a running time of almost two hours, boasts a number of superfluous and padded-out interludes - with the repetitive nature of the movie's midsection certainly emblematic of Favreau's too-much-of-a-good-thing modus operandi. This is a minor complaint for a film that is, for the most part, an absolute pleasure to watch, with the refreshing lack of a third-act complication ultimately confirming Chef's place as a better-than-average piece of work.
Based on Rudyard Kipling's novel, The Jungle Book follows young Mowgli (Neel Sethi) as he's forced to flee his home after a vicious tiger (Idris Elba's Shere Khan) threatens his life. Filmmaker Jon Favreau's less-than-captivating take on the exceedingly, excessively familiar material is problematic and apparent right from the word go, as The Jungle Book kicks off with an almost shockingly tedious opening stretch that lays the groundwork for a film that is, for the most part, hopelessly uninvolving. The underwhelming vibe is compounded (and perpetuated) by Sethi's hopelessly one-dimensional turn as the movie's bland protagonist, while the assortment of generic, anthropomorphized, talking animals ensures that The Jungle Book suffers from a hopelessly dumbed down, kid-friendly vibe. It is, as such, not surprising to note that large swaths of the picture are utterly disposable and forgettable, although, by that same token, Favreau and scripter Justin Marks do manage to include a very small handful of compelling sequences that alleviate the otherwise humdrum atmosphere. (The best and most obvious example of this is everything involving Christopher Walken's delightful, lively King Louie.) The murky, almost indecipherable action sequence that closes the proceedings confirms The Jungle Book's place as a misbegotten adaptation, which is a shame, certainly, given the potential afforded by the overtly talented voice cast (which includes Ben Kingsley, Scarlett Johansson, and Bill Murray).
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The contractor who offered a kickback in exchange for getting the contract to build a new hospital in Crystal Lake has pleaded guilty in an amended deal.
Jacob Kiferbaum pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to attempted extortion for telling the administrator of a Naperville hospital that the state would not approve its plans for a new hospital unless his firm was awarded the construction contract.
Kiferbaum is the last defendant to be sentenced as part of Operation Board Games, the federal corruption investigation that resulted in the 2011 conviction of former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Kiferbaum could face slightly more than two years in prison when sentenced July 17.
He first pleaded guilty in 2005, but his sentencing had been been postponed over the years in the event that prosecutors needed him to testify against other defendants. He was never called to do so.
Janesville, Wis.-based Mercy Health System announced plans in 2003 to build a 70-bed hospital at Route 31 and Three Oaks Road in Crystal Lake. But the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, the agency in charge at the time of granting permission to build hospitals, voted 8-0 against the plan.
The board concluded the proposed facility was too small and too close to other hospitals.
Mercy went back in April 2004 before the board, which changed its mind about its previous intent to deny and approved the project by one vote. But that one vote sparked suspicions of corruption – one member had voted "present" before fellow board member Stuart Levine went up to him and whispered, "Tony wants this done today."
Federal prosecutors later detailed that "Tony" was former Blagojevich fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who planned to split a $1.5 million kickback from Kiferbaum with Levine.
Mercy officials were never charged with any wrongdoing, but a McHenry County judge threw out the planning board's approval of the project. Mercy has made subsequent attempts to build a hospital at the Crystal Lake location, which the successor authority, the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, has denied.
Blagojevich was one of 15 people convicted as part of Operation Board Games. He began serving his 14-year sentence in March 2012 at a low-security federal prison in Littleton, Colo.
Rezko was sentenced in 2011 to 10 1/2 years for corruption, minus almost four years for time served. A judge sentenced Levine last year to a reduced sentence of 5 1/2 years for his cooperation with prosecutors. While prosecutors never called Kiferbaum or Rezko to testify, Levine's testimony was essential to the convictions of Blagojevich, Rezko and several other Operation Board Games defendants.
The final conviction to come from the investigation was that of former Republican powerbroker William Cellini. He began serving his one-year sentence in January at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. – the same prison where former Republican Gov. George Ryan served 5 1/2 years for corruption.
Blagojevich was the seventh Illinois governor to be indicted, and the first to be impeached and removed from office.
• The Associated Press contributed to this article.


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News >> Browse Articles >> Fire & Rescue News
Ford Donates $75,000 for L.A. County Fire's Fallen Firefighter Families
Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Deputy John Tripp (third from right) accepts a check for $75,000 from Ford Motor Company to benefit the families of fallen Los Angeles County firefighters. The funds were raised during the L.A. Auto Show last Dece
Los Angeles County Fire Department
March 11, 2010
Los Angeles, Calif. – Ford Motor Company presented the Los Angeles County Fire Department with a $75,000 donation on Tuesday to honor the firefighters' Widows and Orphans Fund.
The donation stems from Ford's fundraising efforts at the Los Angeles Auto Show in December where Ford representatives and local firefighters were on hand to educate the public on fire safety and related LACOFD programs in order to raise money for the fund.
The Widows & Orphans Fund was set up by the Los Angeles County Firefighters Memorial Committee, Inc. in 2004 to provide immediate, one-time financial assistance to widows and orphans of firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty.
The Los Angeles County Firefighters Memorial Committee, Inc., a non-profit organization, was created on May 6, 1988 from the Family Support Group because the wives of fallen firefighters wanted to do something to honor their spouses.
The Los Angeles County firefighters and other county volunteers were on-site at the Ford booth throughout peak Auto Show hours to engage with show patrons, conduct Q&A sessions, discuss their daily jobs, and interact with attendees about the 2011 F-550 Super Duty First-Responder Fire Truck that was displayed.
"We commend Ford Motor Company for their continued support of the Los Angeles Country Fire Department and for their determination to keep the public engaged in fire safety," said Chief Deputy of Fire Operations and Chairman of the Los Angeles County Firefighters Memorial Committee, John Tripp. "It's great to see a company like Ford so committed to this important cause and we thank them for this generous donation."
Ford's fundraising program, which ran December 4-13, 2009, allowed Auto Show attendees to participate in test drives and product demos for which Ford Motor Company would donate a specified dollar amount toward the fund.
Show attendees were provided a "passport" to acquire stamps from various "checkpoints" within the Ford display. When all stamps were collected, attendees could redeem the passport with Ford representatives for a giveaway item and a $10 donation from Ford to the LACOFD Memorial Fund.
Attendees were encouraged to conduct a Park Assist demo or take a test drive on-site at one of two LA Convention Center locations. Once completed, Ford made a $20 donation to the Memorial Fund. Each show attendee had the opportunity to raise a total of $30 to the fund through their actions. In all, Ford raised $75,000.
"Ford has more first responder vehicles on the road than all other manufacturers combined, said Hal Dewsnap, Los Angeles Ford Lincoln Mercury Regional Manager. "We are proud to say that our vehicles are used by the brave men and women of the Los Angeles County Fire Department and many other first responders around the world, and it is with great pleasure that we present this donation to them today."
The $75,000 for the Los Angeles County Firefighters Widows and Orphans Fund was raised in honor of the families of Fire Captain Tedmund Hall and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo Quinones, who were killed in the line of duty fighting the Station Fire.


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Lisa Congdon's Artsy Vintage Kitchen
Artist and Rare Device store owner Lisa Congdon and her partner Clay Walsh have created a perfect balance in their San Francisco home: Lisa favors vibrant, vintage and collector items, while Clay goes for simple and modern. But as far as the kitchen is concerned, it looks like Lisa's sensibility won out!
Lisa tells Apartment Therapy that the plate wall in her kitchen "has caught the attention of a lot of people, and has been featured in two books, the local paper, a magazine and several design blogs." With so much charm and color, we can see why!
See the Full Tour: Lisa and Clay's Artsy and Calm Collaboration at Apartment Therapy
Related: Style Inspiration: Vintage Stoves
(Images: Phillip Maisel)


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Neoseeker : Videos : Walkthroughs : Pokemon Platinum Part 57: Calling upon Giratina!
Pokémon Platinum Version
- By Game Freak for DS
Pokemon Platinum Part 57: Calling upon Giratina!
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Trailer Info
|From: GiantGrotle
|Dec 29, 2013
|Category: Walkthroughs


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01 April 2007 08:30
hipermoderna.net @ cultura util & inutilby hipermoderna & 1 other
BEST blog about entertainment & pop culture. Usefull & useless stuff. Check it out!
1 (1 marks)
Founded in late 2003 and heartquartered in France, we are non-profit and independant.
We believe in the open web, think internet services should be sustainable, build for the long term.
While we are re-launching the service, we only accept new members through invitation.
last mark : 01/04/2007 08:34


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Flexagons can become fairly complicated. The ones based on triangles are most conveniently made from long strips of paper; a roll of adding machine or calculator tape is ideal for this purpose given its convenient width. Crooked strips can be gotten by gluing faces together, or just cutting out segments and then joining them together. Leaving one extra triangle in each segment for overlapping and later gluing leads to efficient constructions.
Coloring the triangles is another problem, which can be done with crayons or markers once it is known which colors ought to be used. Aside from copying an already existent design, this is best done by drawing the Tukey triangles and then lettering or numbering the triangles in the strip. That information is sufficient to fold up the strip, since pairs of consecutive numbers are to be hidden by folding them together. Painting can be done before folding by following a color code for the numbers, or after the folding is done, when the faces can be painted wholesale, or even embellished with designs.
Other flexagons, even the ones folded from ``straight'' strips, require a higher degree of preparation, although it is relatively easy to assemble a collection of primitive components which later can be glued together according to the necessities of the individual flexagon.


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She never had a chance.
If outmaneuvering a car in the dark is a skill you must learn to survive, then the young coyote I struck sometime after midnight last week never had a chance. In the instant that mattered more than any other, she was off by that split-second that separates life from death, and we collided there.
She leapt right into it but I had already arrived. And no matter how adept a driver I might have been, the nano-second I needed to react slipped away faster than my impulse to turn the steering wheel the small slice of its circumference that could have meant the lithe animal would have been spared.
I knew before I had even cleared her body she was dead, surely; she had turned into the grille at the very last moment. She had done her best to dodge the vast hurtling thing with bright eyes that roared out of the darkness just as she had spurned the shelter of the scrub in the median and meant to make her move into the tidal marsh.
Before our paths intersected, she made that swift back-and-forth dance step of a stressed animal trying to evade an impossibly powerful predator. She leapt into the road, stopped, felt the dread of the car coming, took one step forward and made the mortal mistake of turning back. She looked back but had not even enough time to lift her paw to turn. Her instinct to retreat was her final, fatal impulse.
And then it was over.
I heard that sickening second, in which circumstance unfolds in a way counter to the animal urge to survive, felt her bones and flesh tearing under the body of the SUV and recognized the inexorable consequences. I didn't have to check on her; I knew an animal that had achieved 35 or 40 pounds could not withstand the force of a fast-moving killer nearly 100 times her size and speed.
But I returned to the point of impact.
I pulled onto the shoulder, my tires thumping loudly in the deserted night air, my headlights lumination enough to locate myself and focus her stilled form in the dark. I wanted to get her off the road, take her for burial in the woods behind the house. I had all the necessary equipment for my sentimental intention — a snow shovel still stowed in the back; thick black compactor bags; a couple of towels and a heavy blanket to lift her out of her spilled, strewn life.
But I knew the ritual would be lengthy and messy and heart-breaking — dangerous, too, in the ashen light of the highway. I didn't want any more trouble, even in my sorrow, for myself or other unsuspecting travelers.
So I did the little that could be done. I got out of the car, and during one of the long stretches of quiet that reigns in the middle of the night on the interstate, I dashed across the lanes to the point from which she had risen and checked to be certain her suffering was over.
She was finished.
But even in the insubstantial glow of the headlights aimed away from her, I could see her thick, lush fur ruffle in the night breeze, the only movement her body was still capable of executing, now that nature, human nature, had swept her out of the equation of living.
I stared at her young, strong limbs, the taut appearance of her body, both revealing that the place death struck was the prime of her life, an attainment now meaningless and missing, except that it fell on my mind and bled into my mood, bringing a self-indulgent grieving that she was gone.
You don't forget it when you kill an animal, especially one from your own class, a mammal, whose physical form is not entirely foreign and whose ways seem oddly like your own — warm-blooded and wily, hunters and killers, living to mate and reproduce, rearing young and in time letting them go.
Thus, invariably, I met myself in the roadway and felt the human emotion that separates us from the canids — guilt, remorse, regret and marvel. It was an accident and poor timing that had made us both refugees of a terrible moment in the dark, the coyote and me. But it also had fueled the possibility — for me — of standing an arm's length away, in awe of an animal, typically bold, that is ordinarily too smart and stealthy to come so near, except to serve its own opportunistic ends.
For a lonely moment, I felt I had slaughtered one of my own.
But I had my own lair to reach, and another canine waiting, and the small details of my own existence to attend to in that part of life's median that I occupy till instinct or obligation makes me move. The admiration for a distant acquaintance and serving as instrument and witness to its end were the best I could do in my weary sadness at the far edge of the evening.
I went home.
The coyote was carried elsewhere, bound up in the natural rule of its ecosystem — carrion birds and bugs that would feed on it, maggots that would help strip it down further, to bone.
The body was still there the next day, but someone or something had dragged it out of the passing lane and left it at the boundary of wild briar and scrub from which it had tried to travel the night before.
What can you say to death except "life goes on"? And how is it that affirmation can so easily be turned on itself, a cruel sentence because of its cost?
I have run out of easy answers, one more attribute to wed my fate with the coyote that miscalculated and paid a precious price — a swift end.
The quick and the dead we are, here together, denying the mortality that brings the balance we require to endure. There is order more authoritative than human invention or the agility of a dominant animal. It is waiting in the dark just around the bend.
North Cairn can be contacted at 791-6325 or at:
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A Scam Email with the Subject "Your Urgent Respond Needed" was received in one of Scamdex's honeypot email accounts on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:42:20 -0700 and has been classified as a Advance Fee Fraud/419 Scam. The sender was "Mr.Kasimy Ricky" <email@example.com>, although it may have been spoofed.
Your Urgent Respond Needed
Dear Friend,
Good Day Please Read,
I am (Mr.Kasimy Ricky) The Director incharge of Auditing section of Africa Development Bank (ADB)in Ouagadougou,Burkina Faso.I know that this message will come as a surprise to you, since we donât know each other, but pay attention and understand my reason of contacting you through this via email,for the purpose of introduction,
I need your urgent assistance in transferring an abandoned sum of ($5.5 Million)dollars left by a deceased customer of my bank immediately to your account. we shall share in ratio of 40% for you and 60% for me.Finally, should you be interested to operate this project with me,reply urgently and i will give you the full details for us to move forward and The secret is bound between me and you.
Your earliest response to this letter will be appreciated and also Your Full Name And Phone Number is needed for Easy communication.+226-740 33 615.
Yours faithfully,
Mr.Kasimy Ricky


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Mascots come in all shapes and sizes
Here at the Malvern Daily Record office yesterday, Editor Mark Bivens and I began discussing the variety of strange mascots from around the country.
I have always had an affinity for unique mascots. I think that has to do with the colleges in this state having a higher percentage of one-of-a-kind nicknames.
For the full column, see Wednesday's Malvern Daily Record


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'Dazed' driver runs red light, triggers 3-car pile-up and sends 4 to hospital
FAIRFIELD -- Four people, including a 10-day-old infant, had to be extricated from a three-car crash and sent to the hospital for treatment after a taxi cab driver drove through a red traffic light Tuesday afternoon.
The cabbie, Joseph Schnell Jr., 53, was driving a van belonging to Yellow Taxi, and said, and later told officers he "went into a daze" when he drove through the red signal on Kings Highway Cutoff around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Schnell was traveling west on Kings Highway Cutoff, and slammed into a car that was southbound on New England Avenue and had the green light, according to the report. The impact spun the car across Kings Highway Cutoff's eastbound left lane, where it struck a third car that was stopped at the red light.
The force of that collision pushed the third car off onto the grassy strip off the roadway, while the second car continued back across the eastbound lanes, over the median divider, across the westbound lanes and into a stone wall at Ganim's Garden Center.
The driver of the second car had to be extricated, as did the three passengers in the third car. None of the injuries was believed to be serious, according to police.
Schnell was issued an infraction for failure to stop for a red light.


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Only (1) is 'correct', as a very casual idiomatic expression for 'what is the problem with the orders?', 'what is the status of the orders?' The subject is, I suppose, 'what', in this case-- and I know you can find the verb, since there is only one.
(Another member may have a different opinion re the subject.)