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Transform your photos into one-of-a-kind, hand painted masterpieces!
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Our weekender tote bags are chic and perfect for a day out on the town, a staycation, or a weekend getaway. The tote is crafted with soft, spun poly-poplin fabric and features double-stitched seams for added durability. The 1" thick cotton handles are perfect for carrying the bag by hand or over your shoulder. This is a must-have for the summer.
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Spot clean or dry clean only.
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...nice, Richard, I wish I could be so complex....
Thanks Jay
Love it! Wonderful contrasts. Congratulations on your sale!
Thank you Carol
Congratulations on your sale!!! Incredible painting, Richard! love it!!!
Thak you Xueling
Average Rating (4.93 Stars):
Ann Blaine
April 5th, 2019
Welcome I am a 3rd generation artist, born in Duvernay, Laval, Quebec in 1958. My grandfather, Richard Wenzel Pranke was an art professor in Slovakia, and my father,a well known Quebec artist Walter W. Pranke, were my first motivators that inspired me at a very early age. My art education began at the age of 10 when I created a 32 sq ft mural for a school project. Because of my family's heritage in the love of arts, I studied numerous art literatures, volumes of artists work and other forms of media to develop my skills. Thanks to my father and my devotion to painting I continue to grow as an artist. Hope you enjoy my art !
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Pixels sells thousands of pieces of artwork each month - all with a 100% money-back guarantee. We take great pride in the fact that hundreds of thousands of artists have chosen Pixels to fulfill their orders, and we look forward to helping you select your next piece!
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BISD in chaos as federal officials storm sites of interest, take $56,000 from finance director
Investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were at the Beaumont Independent School District administration building and the homes of school district finance employees Devin McCraney and Sharika Allison the morning of Thursday, Nov. 7. Investigators had been to the home of BISD Superintendent Dr. Timothy Chargois earlier in the morning to inform him of the warrant service. The BISD administration building ejected visitors to the school district's main office while investigators from the federal agency swarmed the main office, saying that administrators would not be taking meetings from the general public. BISD employees working in the administration building were moved to the attached boardroom and cafeteria as FBI agents collected boxes of material to remove from the building.
FBI investigators stayed at BISD finance director McCraney's home until shortly after 9:30 a.m., spending more than an hour on the premises. McCraney paced outside on the phone while investigators rummaged through his new Denali with the license plate SPOYLD. Multiple FBI agents also searched the inside of his residence, removing more than three boxes of confiscated materials upon their departure. Investigators made a return trip to the BISD finance director's home later in the afternoon. According to sources close to the investigation, the second trip to McCraney's home was to seize $56,000 in cash and money orders McCraney withdrew from a bank account immediately after the FBI had paid him a visit earlier that morning.
BISD comptroller Sharika Allison also received a morning visit from the FBI at her home on Scantilly in the city's West End. Allison serves the district as the responsible party in charge of overseeing bond expenditures and student activities funds, and has access to the district's cash vaults and check printing area.
According to BISD Communications Specialist Nakisha Myles, "The district is working with the U.S. Attorney's Office regarding allegations that someone set up bogus accounts and diverted district funds. It is the district's intent to fully investigate and provide information to the FBI."
Myles advised that no further comment would be provided, but as the day drew to a close with FBI agents still scouring the contents of the school district's main office building, Chargois stood in front of the BISD administration building to deliver a message to the public. The superintendent was flanked by Board of Trustees president Gwen Ambres and the district's hired attorney, Melody Chappell, neither of whom said a word.
"Today has been a very difficult day for the staff of BISD," he said, asking for "professionalism" as the FBI investigation unfolds. "Misuse of funds … will not be tolerated. The district is fully solvent, and we will rise above this."
According to Chargois, although "this investigation is in (an) extremely preliminary stage," there are two known suspects who have been placed on administrative leave. Chargois then asked for the public's "continued confidence and trust" while under federal scrutiny, before retreating back into the building and refusing to answer questions from the media.

subset: commoncrawl


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Oil spill is only the latest crisis media have dubbed "Obama's Katrina"
Research ››› ››› MATT MCLAUGHLIN & TOM ALLISON
Media figures have absurdly declared that the Gulf Coast oil spill is "Obama's Katrina" and have compared President Obama's response to the spill with President Bush's botched response to Hurricane Katrina. But this is just the latest in a long line of ridiculous comparisons in which media figures have referred to current events as "Obama's Katrina."
A wide (and frequently bizarre) range of previous versions of "Obama's Katrina"
Gulf oil spill: "Obama's Katrina"
Numerous media figures dub Gulf oil spill "Obama's Katrina." Media conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, the Fox Nation, the Drudge Report and The Washington Times pushed the absurd claim that a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is "Obama's Katrina." This claim is undermined by a number of facts, including that British Petroleum reportedly led the Obama administration to believe that the spill was much less severe than it actually was.
H1N1 flu: "Obama's Katrina"
Numerous media figures suggested the H1N1 flu was "Obama's Katrina." On his November 3, 2009, radio show, Rush Limbaugh stated that the H1N1 vaccine shortage "ought to be Obama's Katrina," but won't because "they have to protect the little man-child." An August 25 op-ed by Martin Schram for the Scripps-Howard News Service was headlined, "Schram: Swine flu could be Obama's Katrina." Kansas City Star blogger Bill Dalton wrote an October 15, 2009, post under the headline, "H1N1: Obama's Katrina?" On the May 3, 2009 edition of Washington, D.C., television station WJLA's Inside Washington, host Gordon Peterson and Newsweek's Evan Thomas discussed whether the H1N1 flu was "Obama's Katrina. [accessed via Nexis]"
Fort Hood shootings: "Obama's Katrina"
Human Events' Wooley: "Fort Hood Could Be Obama's Katrina." In a November 11, 2009, Human Events post titled "Fort Hood Could Be Obama's Katrina," radio host Lynn Wooley wrote: "As Hurricane Katrina zeroed in on New Orleans in 2005, government at all levels was lethargic, seemed unprepared, and to some, even uncaring. In the wake of last week's massacre at Fort Hood, we are learning that the United States Army knew quite a bit about Major Nadal Malik Hasan -- but did not act on the information. Fort Hood could become Barack Obama's Katrina." Wooley concluded: "The attitude of our Commander-in-Chief and others sworn to protect us is frighteningly reminiscent of what happened with Katrina. All we need from Obama is a hearty, 'Gen. Casey, you're doing a heck of a job.'"
Kentucky Ice storms: "Obama's Katrina"
Confederate Yankee: "Obama's 'Katrina on Ice'" A February 1 Confederate Yankee post titled "Obama's 'Katrina on Ice'" asserted:
More than 700,000 homes are still without power in Kentucky due to a massive ice storm that struck the state six days ago, forcing Gov. Steve Beshear to mobilize his entire state's Army and Air National Guard, a total of 4,600 men and the largest call-out in Kentucky's history.
FEMA has apparently been a no-show.
Haiti earthquake: "Obama's Katrina"
WSJ op-ed: "Haiti: Obama's Katrina." In a January 25 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled "Hatiti: Obama's Katrina," Soumitra R. Eachempati, Dean Lorich, and David Helfet wrote: "Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the latest international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe."
Flopping Aces: "Does Obama Hate the People of Haiti?" In a January 17 post titled "Obama's Katrina," Flopping Aces mentioned the criticisms of Bush for his Katrina response and concluded: "Does Obama hate the people of Haiti?"
GM bankruptcy: "Obama's Katrina"
Politico: GOP hopes GM bailout is "Obama's Hurricane Katrina" A June 8 Politico article's headline read: "Republicans hope General Motors is President Obama's Hurricane Katrina."
Christmas Day Underwear Bomber: "Obama's Katrina"
Pajamas media: "Is the Undiebomber Obama's Katrina?" A December 29 Pajamas Media blog post titled "Is the Undiebomber Obama's Katrina?" asserted: "No doubt, Obama's poll numbers aren't going to be helped by this Jan-caused disaster. But I doubt if the fallout they'll face will be as severe as what the Bush administration went through due to Katrina, simply because the media will never gin up a news storm against the man they helped to elect that's anywhere near as powerful as the one they created to accompany Katrina."
Housing policies in Chicago: "Obama's Katrina"
Kaus: "Obama's Katrina." Slate blogger Mickey Kaus linked to a Boston Globe article about Obama's Chicago housing policies as a state senator, headlining his post "Obama's Katrina." Kaus later updated, concluding: After all, Obama's career has been unusually limited for a presidential contender. Housing and "community development" has been a big part of it. If the result has been a disaster in which Obama's friends made lots of money while his poor constituents lived in dangerous squalor, that seems like a big warning sign, no? At least an expectations-lowerer! George W. Bush, in contrast, hadn't dedicated a large chunk of his life to FEMA."
Congressional Committees criticized Bush's response to Katrina
Bush admininstration "failed to lead an effective response" to Katrina. The Senate report concluded that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "failed to lead an effective federal response to Hurricane Katrina" and listed specific steps that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff failed to take both before and after the storm. The Special Report stated: "Secretary Chertoff failed to make ready the full range of federal assets pursuant to DHS's responsibilities under the National Response Plan (NRP)" and "failed to appoint a Principal Federal Official (PFO), the official charged with overseeing the federal response under the NRP, until 36 hours after landfall."
Mike Brown was "hostile" to response plan. The Special Report further concluded that Michael Brown, the Principal Federal Officer that Chertoff eventually chose, "was hostile to the federal government's agreed-upon response plan and therefore was unlikely to perform effectively in accordance with its principles."
Suffering "continued longer than it should have" due to "the failure of government at all levels." The Senate report further stated that "the suffering that continued in the days and weeks after the storm passed did not happen in a vacuum; instead, it continued longer than it should have because of -- and was in some cases exacerbated by -- the failure of government at all levels to plan, prepare for, and respond aggressively to the storm. These failures were not just conspicuous; they were pervasive."
Bush admininstration "not prepared to respond" to disaster. The House's Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, which released its final report on February 15, 2006, found that "DHS was not prepared to respond to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina." The report also found that "critical elements of the National Response Plan," parts of which Chertoff was responsible for, "were executed late, ineffectively, or not at all," and that "[f]ederal agencies, including DHS, had varying degrees of unfamiliarity with their roles and responsibilities under the National Response Plan and National Incident Management System." The report concluded:
We are left scratching our heads at the range of inefficiency and ineffectiveness that characterized government behavior right before and after this storm. But passivity did the most damage. The failure of initiative cost lives, prolonged suffering, and left all Americans justifiably concerned our government is no better prepared to protect its people than it was before 9/11, even if we are.
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The great tragedy at the end of Ghostbusters is that all that delicious marshmallow goo went to waste. Sculptor Brad Hill reminds us just how tasty the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man would have been with his angry Stay Puft stuffed in a s'more.
Hill has made a number of other delightful pop culture sculptures, including Fozzie Bear as Willy Wokka, a Christmas-themed Audrey II, and the cutest little Daft Punk robots ever rendered in clay.
S'more Puft [Brad Hill via Hey Oscar Wilde]