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The World Bank has committed itself to twin goals: eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity, measured as the income of the bottom 40 percent in any given country. This recently inspired a post by Nancy Birdsall arguing that median income would be a better measure of shared prosperity, and another post by Lant Pritchett arguing that the extreme poverty goal is too narrow, which sparked comments by Martin Ravallion and others.
My view on those intriguing issues is that the train has already left the station. The question of what the goals are has been settled, and the question we are now pondering within the World Bank is what it means to "operationalize the goals." We understand that projects should be prioritized in terms of how much they contribute to these goals. But how?
I see two ingredients to thinking through this question. First, what is the expected causal chain for how a particular project will contribute to the goals? Second, what is the evidence for the links on that chain?
In approaching these questions, it's useful to consider a typology of projects. Here is one simple possible typology, in terms of the causal chain of impact on the extreme poor or bottom 40 percent:
- Direct impact
- Growth impact
- Intermediate impact
For "direct impact" projects, the causal chain is short and it's clear the kind of evidence that could be brought to bear—studies based on household or individual surveys.
For "growth impact" projects, we can first ask what is the evidence that a particular project will boost economic growth. Next we can consider the evidence that growth will reduce extreme poverty or boost the bottom 40 percent, where the particular country's track record could be taken as a rough guide.
The thornier cases are those in the "intermediate impact" bin, for which the causal chain is often longer. For example, consider a highway project in a major city where few bottom 40 percenters live. The project can be expected to boost the city's growth, which will boost nationwide growth through many channels.
A concern I have heard repeatedly about trying to operationalize the goals is "you can tell a nice story about any project." This is exactly why it's crucial that the thinking be focused on evidence. Many possible kinds of evidence could be used across a range of rigor including studies based on experimental and quasi-experimental designs where feasible, cross-country growth regressions, case studies, synthetic controls, and even economic theory.
If the evidence is weak that a particular project will help achieve the goals, we should ask ourselves if the project really should be a priority for the World Bank. Certainly, we want to encourage innovative approaches—which will necessarily include those without firm evidence. But in those cases, the proposed project should include a plan to generate evidence on its impacts, so that we fully exploit the opportunity to learn.
All of this is very much an open question in the World Bank. What are your views on how the Bank should operationalize the goals?
- Tags:
- Poverty
- The World Region
Love the "Shared Prosperity"
Love the "Shared Prosperity" Concept !
You have to find people who
You have to find people who are willing to share and help. Not just talk about it do something about it.
indeed! Perhaps a labour
indeed! Perhaps a labour migration initiative is a classic example of a lot of people sharing. Sharing by destination and source countries stakeholders to the return on investment evidenced by the social and financial remittance to source countries by their diaspora.
What if there is a tradeoff
What if there is a tradeoff between reducing extreme poverty and boosting sahred prosperity. Is that out of the realm of possibilities? Growth impact projects may reduce extreme poverty through employment generation for the poor while at the same increase disproportionately the incomes of the top 40 percent who are better capable of taking advantage of opportunities created by growth impact projects.
Franciscka: I'm glad you like
Franciscka: I'm glad you like the concept the Bank has adopted.
Zahid: since the extreme poor are part of the bottom 40%, any policy or program which reduces extreme poverty will also necessarily boost the incomes of the bottom 40%. So it's difficult to see a case of an actual conflict between the two goals.
That said, it is easy to imagine cases where the situation of the bottom 40% might improve with little change in the circumstances of the extreme poor (in countries where the extreme poor are a relatively small portion of the population.)
One question faced by the Bank is the relative weights to place on the two goals. This will have to be decided country-by-country. I think in practice we will see an effort to ensure that a substantial portion of the Bank's funding goes to projects that will credibly help reduce extreme poverty (in countries that have extreme poverty.)
One way can be to provide
One way can be to provide venture capital firms with a corpus of funds to invest in the sectors generating income for the poor.
Second way can be to organize a competition amongst the firms generating income for the poor and fund them.
Third way can be the funding of Micro Credit.
Thanks for your comment. What you suggest broadly falls into the set of things the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank umbrella) does, and the IFC is currently trying to figure out how to orient its work to better fit the goals.
The bank should support pro
The bank should support pro-poor policies in the health and education sectors. Introduction of National health insurance schemes that promote financial protection from improvishment from medical costs at the time of illness ,ensure acess to effective quality healthcare and promote cross-subsides would lead to a healthier population which in turn leads to a more productive and prosperous nation. Secondly investments in education would boost human capital and provide opportunties to break the poverty cycle for many poor familes. Finally fair international trade as opposed to aid woulf have a dramatic impact in reducing poverty worldwide.
Dr. Mpuma,
Dr. Mpuma,
Thanks for your comment. You suggestions for programs in health, education, and trade are all good ones, and these are all areas where the World Bank is heavily involved--including analysis, technical advice, and financing. The Bank has devoted a large part of its financing in particular to health and education since the 1990s, and those areas are likely to receive emphasis in the more recent focus on "science of delivery."
The Bank should be looking
The Bank should be looking for ways to channel support direct to representative organizations of the urban poor through funds to which they can apply and whose spending is accountable to them - these also to encourage partnerships with local government. Getting development needs met and building local capacity. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Lq2T9OoFo and please drop the universal application of the dollar a day poverty line as we know that the costs of food and non food needs are much higher than this in most cities. Unless of course World Bank staff who live and work in cities can show how they can get their needs met on this amount.


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A defensive player was fined for a hit on a quarterback in Sunday's Rams-49ers tie, but it wasn't a hit on the quarterback who was knocked out of the game.
Rams linebacker Jo-Lonn Dunbar was not fined for his hit on 49ers quarterback Alex Smith. Although Dunbar did make helmet-to-helmet contact with Smith on the play, Smith was a runner and hadn't gone into a feet-first slide, which made the hit legal.
Smith said this week that he thinks the Dunbar hit contributed to his concussion, although he said it was a hit he took on a quarterback sneak after that when he really started to have the vision problems that caused him to leave the game.
San Francisco defensive lineman Ray McDonald was fined, however, for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Rams quarterback Sam Bradford. McDonald was flagged for roughing the passer on the play.

subset: commoncrawl


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I had a lasik consultation and was wondering if the cornea measurements are accurate if I had just removed my contact lenses 2 hours before the measurements were taken. And the tests were done in 20-30 minutes. It seems like it was too quick. All they did was: getting the prescript from my glasses, have me look at an image that gets blurry, then clear (or the opposite), the eye exam, and the cornea measurement. And they told me I was a great candidate for Lasik after that.
Does this sound normal? I was expecting more tests to be done.


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ST. LOUIS (AP) The St. Louis Rams have released fullback and special teams captain Brit Miller to make room for center Scott Wells.
Wells has been on injured reserve after breaking a bone in his left foot in the opener but was activated Tuesday. Coach Jeff Fisher said Monday he was hopeful Wells would start Sunday at Arizona.
The 26-year-old Miller had been with St. Louis since early in the 2010 season and started one game this year. He appeared in nine games and was not active for the first time last week in a loss to the Jets.
Fisher said Monday that because of the Jets defense he thought going with three tight ends was advisable and Cory Harkey was elevated from the practice squad to make his debut for St. Louis at that position.


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Max Payne is back. Trading his badge for what appears to be a cushy gig in Brazil guarding socialites, our titular character seems to spends much of the game working on a pretty steady cocktail of booze and pills.
In between the drunken hazes and flashbacks rests a gritty third-person shooter that tells a story unlike almost any other game out there. "Max Payne 3" is cinematic in the best ways possible, never wasting the player's time with a cutscene that doesn't mean something or keep the action moving. The gameplay and cinematic elements are so well-interwoven in fact, that in some ways one might feel as though they are being directed in a really excellent film or cable drama.
The change in scenery makes "Max Payne 3" not just good, but special. The contrast of the bright sun and glitzy evenings of Sao Paulo (which Max refers to as "Baghdad with g-strings") against the familiar film noir pacing makes for a truly memorable experience. The dichotomy between rich and poor, the immense beauty contrasted with the brutal violence all point to an aesthetic only achieved elsewhere in the brilliant film "City of God."
The mechanics of the shooter portion of the game are good but not mind-blowing. "Bullet time" feels more for flair than as a useful tool, and the shoot-dodge move adds even more theater to the firefight. That said, the novelty of getting out of a hairy situation by flying through the air guns blazing has not worn off yet.
Max looks phenomenal, withered and tough and sad, which makes up for the fact that the other characters don't always look to be pushing the limits of the technology with their rendering. The blurred line between where the actor portraying him (James McCaffery) ends and Max Payne begins would make the creators of "The Polar Express" blush with envy. Even if you're not very familiar with Max or his past, the strong visuals and fantastic voice over writing allow you to connect with and care about the character immediately.
"Max Payne 3" does a phenomenal job of telling a very specific story without being heavy-handed. There's a sequence of events that's supposed to happen, but the game allows them to develop organically, even peppering in some voiceover from Max when you're taking a while to clear an area. There is never the sense that the game is simply waiting for you to reach the next save point. On the first playthrough, it's unclear how wide the decision tree spans and how much of a "choose your own adventure" model really lies beneath. Even if the game were 100% linear, it would not detract from the experience one iota.
Perhaps the great storytelling is what drives the player through the modest shooter experience, and masks what is ultimately a fairly straightforward series of firefights with some cool stunts like shooting out tires or diving off a roof while firing. Once I dig more into the new multiplayer, I'll have a better sense of whether the nuts and bolts of the game can stand on their own without the narrative backing behind it.
I'll follow up with a full-on review once I've had more playing time, but if there was any doubt in your mind about whether "Max Payne 3" was worth a look, the debate should be put to rest.


text: Thanks Bill. This is really helpful. On Wed, 13 Dec 2006, Bill Broadley wrote: > What do you expect the I/O's to look like? Large file read/writes? Zillions > of small reads/writes? To one file or directory or maybe to a file or > directory per compute node? We are basing our specs on large file use. The cluster is used for many things so I'm sure there will be some cases where small file writes will be done. Most of the work I do deals with large file reads and writes and that is what we are basing our desired performance on. I don't think we can afford to try to get this type of bandwidth for multiple small file writes. > My approach so far as been to buy N dual opterons with 16 disks in each > (using the areca or 3ware controllers) and use NFS. Higher end 48 port > switches come with 2-4 10G uplinks. Numerous disk setups these days > can sustain 800MB/sec (Dell MD-1000 external array, Areca 1261ML, and the > 3ware 9650SE) all of which can be had in a 15/16 disk configuration for > $8-$14k depending on the size of your 16 disks (400-500GB towards the lower > end, 750GB towards the higher end). Do you have a system like this in place right now? > NFS would be easy, but any collection of clients (including all) would be > performance limited by a single server. This would be a problem, but... > PVFS2 or Lustre would allow you to use N of the above file servers and > get not too much less than N times the bandwidth (assuming large sequential > reads and writes). ... this sounds hopeful. How managable is this? Is it something that would take a FTE to keep going with 9 of these systems? I guess it depends on the systems themselves and how much fault tolerance there is. > In particular the Dell MD-1000 is interesting in that it allows for 2 12Gbit > connections (via SAS), the docs I've found show you can access all 15 > disks via a single connection or 7 disks on one, and 8 disks on the other. > I've yet to find out if you can access all 15 disks via both interfaces > to allow fallover in case one of your fileservers dies. As previously > mentioned both PVFS2 and Lustre can be configured to handle this situation. > > So you could buy a pair of dual opterons + SAS card (with 2 external > conenctions) then connect each port to each array (both servers to > both connections), then if a single server fails the other can take > over the other servers disks. > > A recent quote showed that for a config like this (2 servers 2 arrays) would > cost around $24k. Assuming one spare disk per chassis, and a 12+2 RAID6 array > and provide 12TB usable (not including 5% for filesystem overhead). Are the 1 TB drives out now? With 750 GB drives wouldn't it be 9 TB per array. We have a 13+2 RAID6 + hot spare array with 750 GB drives and with XFS file system we get 8.9 TiB. > So 9 of the above = $216k and 108TB usable, each of the arrays Dell claims > can manage 800MB/sec, things don't scale perfectly but I wouldn't be surprised > to see 3-4GB/sec using PVFS2 or Lustre. Actual data points appreciated, we > are interested in a 1.5-2.0GB/sec setup. Based on 8.9 TiB above for 16 drives, it looks like 8.2 TiB for 15 drives. so we'd want 12 of these to get about 98 TiB usable storage. I don't know what the overhead is in PVFS2 or Lustre compared to XFS but I'd doubt it would be any less so we might even need 13. So, 13 * $24K = $312K. Ah, what's another $100K. > Are any of the solutions you are considering cheaper than this? Any of the > dual opterons in a 16 disk chassis could manage the same bandwidth (both 3ware > and areca claim 800MB/sec or so), but could not survive a file server death. So far this is the best price for something that can theoretically give the desired performance. I say theoretically here because I'm not sure what parts of this you have in place. I'm trying to find real-world implementations that provide in the ballpark of 5 to 10 MB/sec at the nodes when on the order of a hundred nodes are writing/reading at the same time. Are you using PVFS2 or Lustre with your N Opteron servers? When you run a job with many nodes writing large files at the same time what kind of performance do you get per node? What is your value of N for the number of Opteron server/disk arrays you have implemented? Thanks again for all of this information. I hadn't been thinking seriously of PVFS2 or Lustre because I'd been thinking more in the lines of individual disks in nodes. Using RAID arrays would be much more manageable. Are there others who have this type of system implemented who can provide performance results as well as a view on how manageable it is? Thanks, Steve


text: Prentice Bisbal wrote: > The server is a Dell PowerEdge R815 with 4 8-Core AMD processors and 128 > GB of RAM. If the erroneous memory locations are moving around in memory without correlation to the DIMMs then the next most likely culprits are a marginal power supply, CPU, or motherboard, in pretty much that order. (OK, kind of a toss up for CPU vs. motherboard, but since you have 32 cores in the system I put it first.) If you have access to an oscilloscope look closely at the voltages on the two machines. No need to cut in anywhere, just measure +5 and +12V on an unused disk or fan connector. If the machine prone to memory errors is significantly noisier than the one that is not, that could be the problem. I have seen this exactly once - all PS testers said it was good, and a multimeter had it pegged at the right voltages, but there was a ton of high frequency noise coming out of the power supply. If you can disable CPUs through the BIOS on that machine, running for a while under each CPU alone might narrow the issue down to 1 of the 4. You wouldn't be done then though, because it could be the socket and not the CPU itself. Still, if you can get it down to 1 CPU then you could swap that with another and see if the issue moves with it. You probably already did this, but be sure both machines have the same BIOS release. Regards, David Mathog mathog at caltech.edu Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech


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David 'Wolfman' Williams Is More of a Wolf Than Taylor Lautner — Hunk of the Day [PICTURES]
Looking for a real-life werewolf to replace your fantasies of snagging Taylor Lautner, Joe Manganiello or Colton Haynes? Well, here he is, David Williams. He's the closest you're gonna get. Can you tell why they call him the "Wolfman?" Here's a hint — it has something to do with his beard… as in, there's a lot of it.
If you can't tell by his pink beard, the Aussie native is kind of a goof ball. Many of us fall for the "funny guys," but Williams is that funny guy-jock hybrid — the best kind. Rugby fans know it's commonplace for Williams to howl at the moon, dye and cut his beard in ridiculous fashions, and plank. Speaking of which, he's kind of the reason why planking is so popular — he performed it during a game in March 2011, and from there it received international recognition.
All this aside, the man certainly knows how to clean up nice. He had to shave off the beard for his Calvin Klein ads and the cover of the 2009 Gods of Football calendar, which has been called "the hottest collection of men" by Cosmo.
Check out the Wolfman below.


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Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Take a Dip in Cheese Sauce with Goldfish Mac and Cheese
Fans of the iconic Goldfish crackers manufactured by Pepperidge Farm Inc., Norwalk, Conn., since 1962, now have a whole new reason to smile. The popular grinning fish now comes in a pasta form that swims in four different cheese sauce varieties: Butter Parmesan, Cheddar, Cheesy Pizza and Nacho Cheese. The boxed product is initially being offered through Walmart stores nationwide.
"Just like mac and cheese, the Goldfish brand is adored by children and adults alike, so it made perfect sense for us to add the fun and wholesomeness of Goldfish to this favorite classic food," says Jared Konstanty, senior vice president-general manager snacks. "We're thrilled to be able to deliver even more smiles to our devoted fans with the launch of Goldfish Mac & Cheese."


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DIY Puffy Paint Non-Slip Socks
If you're a parent you know how valuable non-slip socks are for the little ones. Especially if you have hardwood in your home; those little gummy dots on the bottom are pretty much life savers. Unfortunately, not all socks are made like that, but that's okay because you can make them yourself! Tulip Dimensional Fabric Paint makes it easy to create one-of-a-kind socks that'll keep you from slipping up.


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Once Obscure Walk-On Tomasevicz Now a Gold Medal Favorite in Winter Olympics
Randy York's N-sider
To "Respond to Randy" click on the link below and choose "Randy York's N-Sider" under "Area of Interest" on the new screen. Please include your name and city/town/state and share your thoughts on Olympic Bobsledder Curtis Tomasevicz. Your comments may be published.
You know the kind we're talking about...a rags-to-riches, once-in-a-lifetime account that shows us all how passion and perseverance help a definitive longshot defy odds so high that it absolutely flabbergasts you.
Perhaps the tough-minded, hard-charging Makovicka brothers are your favorite walk-on story, just like they were for more than 1,100 Nebraska football fans who voted them No. 1 in a Huskers.com Fan Poll last summer.
At least part of Joel and Jeff Makovicka's popularity, no doubt, can be traced to their hitting it big despite their small-town roots in Brainard, Neb., population: 351.
About 30 miles from Brainard is Fullerton, Neb., population: 1,221, and home of Brian Schuster, another Nebraska walk-on fullback who lettered three years (1994-95-96). Schuster became a First-Team Academic All-Big 12 player before signing a free-agent contract with the Carolina Panthers.
Now, from the same East-Central Nebraska area as the Makovickas and Schuster (not to mention legendary scholarship fullback Cory Schlesinger from nearby Duncan, Neb), we introduce yet another walk-on fullback who is within weeks of writing one of the unique Husker success stories of all time.
The Pride and Joy of Shelby, Nebraska
Ladies and gentlemen, please reserve one of your best Husker Power cheers for Curtis Tomasevicz (pronounced Tom-eh-SEV-itch), a once obscure walk-on fullback who has become the pride and joy of Shelby, Neb.
The fame of Tomasevicz emerges from the back seat of the world's fastest and most consistent four-man bobsled team. The USA is a slight favorite to beat the Germans and the Canadians on their home track for the gold medal next month in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia.
Getting to that elite status has been Chapter 2 of an even more startling walk-on journey where Tomasevicz showed up, unrecruited and unannounced, and worked his way into the world's fastest sled. Check out his personal website where he chronicles and documents his journey. It's a nice primer to warm you up and help you count down to the Feb. 12 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies.
"To me, the Opening Ceremonies is the greatest honor any athlete can experience," Tomasevicz said in a telephone interview Monday night from Chicago after spending last week competing in Austria and then heading to San Diego for a week of rest, relaxation, sprint training and weightlifting.
From there, he will head to Park City, Utah, for another week of training and then on to Canada for the Winter Games - his second after competing in the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy.
One Billion Viewers for Opening Ceremonies
"I remember walking through the tunnel at the Opening Ceremonies four years ago, and one of the parade coordinators handed me a little American flag," Tomasevicz recalled. "She told me about a billion people would be watching on TV that night."
Tomasevicz couldn't help remembering all the hard work and sacrifices he made as a walk-on and how they prepared him for the worldwide stage.
"When we were about to come out of a tunnel in Italy similar to what we came out of for home football games at Nebraska, I thought I knew what to expect," Tomasevicz said. "But when I saw the Olympic Rings and actually thought about that many people watching us on TV, that's when it really hit me. I'd made it. This was the Olympics, and I was wearing a uniform with USA on my back. I was representing the whole country and the entire state of Nebraska. It's quite a trip, very humbling."
Tomasevicz, 29, learned long ago that when opportunity knocks, sometimes you wait years before you can open the door.
He, for instance, had an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, but when he broke his collarbone three days before he was to take his physical fitness test, Academy officials would not grant him an extension, and he was denied entrance.
He opted for an academic scholarship at Nebraska, but it was so late in the process that he missed any chance to walk on in football. NU Assistant Coach Dan Young told Tomasevicz that his only chance would be a tryout in January.
First-Team Academic All-Big 12 Honors
January 15th, 2000, was a big day in the life of Curtis Tomasevicz. One of 120 walk-ons who tried out that day, the Huskers kept only four, including him. Only two stuck it out to the end with Tomasevicz finishing his career with a flourish as a First-Team Academic All-Big 12 selection and a member of the Brook Berringer Citizenship Team.
His tryout to walk on was the Boyd Epley Physical Fitness Test consisting of a 40-yard dash, a 10-yard dash, the pro agility drill and the vertical jump, a performance that really caught the coaches' eyes. His 39-inch vertical jump that day set a record for Nebraska fullbacks.
Once he joined the team in the spring and became a Scout Team fullback-running back, "I found out a lot about myself those first two years," Tomasevicz said. "I just got the crap beat out of me every day by Blackshirts like Mike Brown, Carlos Polk and Kyle Vanden Bosch."
His last two years as a Husker were spent as a linebacker and special teams player, and his most memorable moment came when he nailed Colorado's Jeremy Bloom, who became an Olympic skier, on the game's opening kickoff at CU's 5-yard-line.
Tomasevicz likes to think that he helped set the tone for Frank Solich's last game as Nebraska's head coach - a 31-22 win over the Buffs.
"My dream was like everyone else growing up in Nebraska - to wear that N on the side of my helmet and to find a way to get on the playing field," Tomasevicz said. "The thing about playing at Nebraska as a walk-on is really pretty simple. We've all been fans of the program almost since birth. When you grow up with that kind of love in your heart, you can't help but bring that extra passion to the program."
That passion, of course, is now inside a bobsled where Tomasevicz is the brakeman, meaning he's the last guy on the sled. "I push for about five seconds as hard as I can, jump in the sled, then go for a one-minute ride," he said. "I love the adrenalin rush of going down the track."
Exploding, Then Becoming Part of the Sled
Bobsledding is a sport that "fits my body type - strong, but still fast," Tomasevicz said. "It's one big five-second burst of power, and that's it. It's all about explosion and power and then making sure you're low aerodynamically. You can't fight the pressure of the curve. You can't be tense and tight. You have to be loose and become part of the sled."
The sled can reach speeds up to 96 miles an hour. "Bobsledding is not very gentle on the body," Tomasevicz said. "I know it kind of looks like you're going for a smooth roller-coaster ride, but it's very violent because you get bounced off the hard ice and off the walls, so it can really jolt your body and your back. It wears you down."
Just like all those physical hits he absorbed on Nebraska's Scout Team wore him down. "Walking on at Nebraska really did prepare me for what I'm doing now," Tomasevicz said. "I wouldn't be where I am if I hadn't gone through what I did. It gave me the toughness and the resiliency to take on a whole different challenge. It's just like football. You give everything you have and try to hang in there and get better every day."
Interestingly, his tryout to become an Olympic bobsledder in Calgary was similar to his tryout to become a Nebraska walk-on. "It was about sprints, vertical jumps and power output kinds of drills," he said.
Chapter 2 of the Curtis Tomasevicz Walk-On Success Story worked out just as well as Chapter 1 did at Memorial Stadium. A month after his Olympic tryout, "they asked me to be on the World Cup team, and six years later, I'm still here," Tomasevicz said.
His teammates in the four-man sled are Steve Holcomb, Justin Olsen and Steve Mesler. Holcomb, Tomasevicz's partner and pilot in the two-man sled, is also the driver of the four-man sled, so most of the pressure is on him. Olsen played tight end at the Air Force Academy, and Mesler, the team's fastest athlete, was an All-Southeastern Conference decathlete at Florida.
"Our team is a great balance of speed and power," Tomasevicz said. "I'm the strongest guy on the team because I can squat (528 pounds) and clean a little more than the other guys. The other three are a little bit faster than I am. We all bring different strengths and characteristics to the table."
Traits of a Walk-On: Consistent, Healthy, Reliable
Bottom line, "I'm consistent, healthy and reliable. That's why they chose me for both the two-man and the four-man sled," said Tomasevicz, who will compete in the two-man Feb. 20-21 and the four-man Feb. 26-27.
Consistent, healthy, reliable ... sounds like the resume of a Nebraska football walk-on, doesn't it?
"Yes it does," Tomasevicz said. "We may get knocked down a lot, but we get right back up and keep going - every day."
Not surprisingly, his own quote matches up well with his favorite quote from legendary Coach Bear Bryant, who once said: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog".
Curtis Tomasevicz proved that as a Nebraska football walk-on, and he proved it again as an Olympic bobsledding walk-on.
In the past, the sport had welcomed such pro football players as Herschel Walker and Willie Gault and Olympic hurdler Edwin Moses.
Now it has one of Nebraska's most prized possessions - a walk-on.
"At Nebraska," Tomasevicz said, "I learned a lot about myself through hard work, determination and teamwork. They're life lessons that I will never forget."
Voices from Husker Nation
Living in Minnesota since 1968, a few things have changed. Started listening to Nebraska football games sitting in my dad's Rambler in the driveway hoping the AM station would be clear enough to hear the whole game. Now just pick up the phone to order any game not on national broadcast and watch in high-def in the comfort of the living room. Always stopping by Memorial Stadium and just walking right out on the field anytime we came back to see family. Remember parking my big rig right in front of the stadium to go to Big Red Shop to stock up on new clothing and souvenirs. Still wear almost exclusive Husker shirts though. Always get a strange look from others when they don't see me in a bright red shirt with Huskers strewn all over it. One thing that hasn't changed is the walk-on program (thank god for that). After reading the article about Curtis Tomasevicz, it struck me how fortunate we are and made me wonder what is it that makes these Huskers have such extraordinary determination? Perhaps a little in-depth investigation may reveal some common ground that puts all of these great Nebraskans at the top of anyone's list. GO BIG RED! Steve Hatcher, Stewartville, Minnesota
Great article on Curtis. We have been following his career after football. Our son (Kevin Guse) and Curtis are still close friends. Kevin was the other walk-on (#26 from that tryout of 120) that stuck it out until the end. Kevin still works and lives with his family in Lincoln. His wife, Alisha, was a gymnast at NU. Best of luck in Vancouver, Curtis. GBR & USA. Allan Guse, Longmont, Colorado
What an awesome story about Curtis Tomasevicz. Thanks for taking time to write this wonderful article. Yvonne Pence
Curt Tomasevicz Profile
Born: Sept. 17, 1980
Hometown: Shelby, Nebraska
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 225 lbs
Education: Bachelor's and Master's of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering with minor in Astronomy from University of Nebraska.
Football: Walked on at Nebraska and lettered as a linebacker/special teams player in 2003.
Husker highlight: Made a physical tackle of Colorado's Jeremy Bloom on CU's 5-yard-line after Bloom tried to run the ball out of the end zone on the opening kickoff of Frank Solich's last game as Nebraska's head coach. The tackle set the tone for the Huskers' 31-22 win over the Buffs.
After Nebraska: Walked on for an Olympic tryout and represented the USA as a member of its four-man bobsledding team that finished sixth in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy. Last March, Tomasevicz was the brakeman for the USA team that won the World Championship - its first in bobsledding in 50 years.
Current: Member of USA's four-man bobsledding team that last Sunday became the 2009-10 World Cup points champion and is a favorite to win the gold in next month's 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. It would be the USA's first Olympic gold medal in bobsledding in 62 years. Tomasevicz also will represent the USA in the two-man sled that is considered a possible medalist at the Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler beginning Feb. 12.
Local following: About 12 Nebraska friends and family members will make the trip to Vancouver to watch Tomasevicz compete.
Hobbies: Playing bass guitar, astronomy, reading.
Favorite tour stop: St. Moritz, Switzerland. "It's high in the Swiss Alps and located in a very beautiful spot. The track is the only completely natural track. There's no concrete or building material used. It's made of ice blocks stacked up and shaved down. It takes weeks to build and lots of maintenance work. It only lasts for a few weeks out of the year in January."
Favorite movie: "The Sandlot" (1993)
Favorite book: Anything by Michael Crichton
Favorite music: Pearl Jam, Candlebox, Collective Soul
Favorite team besides Nebraska: Chicago Cubs
Favorite athlete: Greg Maddux
Favorite snack: Crunchy peanut butter and chocolate milk


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Sun Fin wrote:I agree with all that Dong said.
I'm also wondering if following Hodgson and Cameron's resignations whether resigning from being English is an option?
I hear Germany is a nice place with a good football team?
Dong Zhou wrote:Hussam wrote:I hear Germany is a nice place with a good football team?
I thought it was possible. Iceland give chances away but we aren't clinical and weren't while Iceland are strong at setplays (our weakness) and when they counter-attack, they have three intelligent players so was a possibility there. What alarmed me more then the defeat is Hart's mentality and the way we mentally collapsed in the second half
Your man would be Sun Fin here.
I agree though, Germany seems like a nice place but I would have to cross the Mediterranean to get there
You mean the players kind of gave up in the second half ?


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HotPic – Georgia Salpa
HotPic Georgia Salpa has been a model for most of her life, making her some kind of super-ultra model and an S-class hottie. Let us pay tribute to her.
Georgia was born in Athens, land of myths and legends. The Greek-Irish model is somewhat of a legend herself, with her beauty capable of launching a thousand ships; or, at the very least, a thousand clicks.
Follow this beauty on Instagram and Twitter for more of her legendary good looks.


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Throughout history, humans beings have communicated with one another in ways other than the simple use of words. Saying a word in one of the thousands of languages in existence on planet Earth is one thing, but how we say our words can be more important. For example, we can say, "I love you," and mean that we truly care about the other person; but we can say the same words in a sarcastic tone of voice and really mean the opposite. We can scream our words, use sarcasm, say them sweetly, sensually, or in a sacred manner with.
Even more effective than words is our body language. We can tense up when touched, grit our teeth, pat someone on the back, give them a thumbs-up, or, to communicate our displeasure, we can give him or her a swift kick in the pants. Art, whether classical, impressionistic or simply a cartoon, carries a nonverbal message. These are all ways we communicate that go beyond the words we speak. So have you ever considered food as a language?
"Speaking" with food
What you serve to someone communicates a great deal. Imagine taking an attractive member of the opposite sex to dinner at, say, McDonald's as opposed to a five-star restaurant. What would an "Extra Value Meal" communicate to your date when compared to a meal you'd been saving for over a couple months? There's a reason why fancy restaurants are packed on Valentine's Day and other holidays.
What about inviting a group of people over and serving them week-old leftovers instead of ordering fresh pizza, making a salad and having a cooler full of ice-cold soda? "Taking guests to eat out has at last become widely acceptable. . . . The choice of restaurant also speaks volumes, wherever it may be," writes Reay Tannahill in Food in History. She goes on to say that while cultures may change, "the basic language of food does not: to offer too cheap or commonplace a meal is insulting; the opposite, ostentatious."
Changing traditions
Jesus was a master communicator, and He used food to teach one of the deepest and most meaningful lessons of His earthly career. The purpose of this meal was to commemorate a historical event and point toward a future one. On the eve of His trial and execution, Jesus gathered His followers to celebrate a Jewish feast called Passover, which commemorated the flight of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 12).
This meal makes use of two key elements—bread and wine. Jesus blessed both and then changed the traditional meal by infusing some new meaning into it. "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body'" (Matthew 26:26). Next He said, " 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of our sins (Matthew 26:28).
At first blush, this imagery smacks of cannibalism—and many non-Christians have interpreted it that way. In fact, some early Christian believers were accused of devouring human beings for this very reason. This, of course, was not true, for God would never condone such an act. He has an entirely different purpose for the symbolism of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper.
Looking back
To understand the meaning of the Lord's Supper, it's helpful to keep in mind the purpose of the Passover, from which it is derived. You will recall that God delivered the Israelites from Egypt with ten plagues. The final plague—the one that ushered in an era of freedom for the Israelites—involved the Lord slaying the firstborn child in each Egyptian family. Here's how Moses explained it to the people: "'This is what the Lord says: "About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well"'" (Exodus 11:4, 5). The only way the Israelites could avoid this horrible hue from happening to their own children was to kill a lamb and spread its blood over the door frame. God said, "'The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you [hence the word Passover]. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt'" (Exodus 12:13). The sacrifice of the lamb brought salvation and foreshadowed another deliverance from slavery that would occur 1,500 years later when Jesus died on the cross.
When Jesus appeared on earth, John the Baptist declared Him to be the " 'Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world'" (John 1:29). Additionally, Jesus likened our failure to do what is right and our tendency to be selfish—what we call "sin"—to slavery when He said, " 'I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin'" (John 8:34).
So Jesus, through the shedding of His blood on that wooden cross—hearkening back to the door frames of ancient Israel—illustrated His act of delivering us from the power and consequences of our failures and selfishness. Jesus' death removes us from the path of God's wrath and ushers us into a new life of freedom. Jesus' death on the cross is the ultimate realization of what the Old Testament lamb represented. The Lord's Supper represents this through the symbols of the broken bread and the red wine. Christians call this meal "the Lord's Supper." Every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, the emblems communicate to us what our God has done for us through the language of tradition, ritual, and food.
And there's more.
An act of cleansing
Before you and I eat a meal—and sometimes afterward, depending how much of a mess we've made as we ate—we wash our hands or clean them off with a napkin. There is an element to remember during the Lord's Supper that also involves cleaning. During the meal, Jesus "poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him" (John 13:5). The disciples' feet had real gunk caked on them. After all, they wore sandals and walked around in the hot desert. Proper etiquette required that the host send a servant to wash the feet of his guests. For anyone else to wash the guests' dirty feet would require a special kind of humility and love, which, of course, Jesus possessed. Peter became so appalled at seeing his Master perform this servile act that he asked to be excused, but Jesus reminded him that if he did not have his feet washed then, he couldn't be a part of what God wanted to do in his life (verses 6-10).
After Jesus finished this act of service, He said, "'Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you'" (verses 14, 15).
The idea contained in the practice of foot washing, which many still practice as Jesus explicitly told us to, is not simply to come to Him to receive deliverance but to turn around and serve others so that they, too, can be delivered from the selfishness we are all prone to.
We come to our Master's table to receive a feast of love, where God communicates His plan for us through food, and then challenges us to turn and sacrifice for others.
Ultimately, what God really wants us to learn from the Lord's Supper and footwashing is to bring the lessons of these rituals into our daily lives.
This article originally appeared in Signs of the Times magazine, January 2011.


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The Diaries of J.R.R. Tolkien
The Diaries of J.R.R. Tolkien refers to the unpublished diaries of J.R.R. Tolkien. Humphrey Carpenter was given access to the writings and quoted several passages in his work J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, noting that Tolkien used the diaries "chiefly as a record of sorrow and distress, and when ... his gloom dissipated he ceased to keep up the diary entries".[1]
- New Year's Day 1910: "Depressed and as much in dark as ever, [...] God help me. Feel weak and weary." [Entry in the first of Tolkien's preserved diaries][1]
- April 1910: [After seeing Peter Pan at a Birmingham theatre]: "Indescribable but shall never forget it as long as I live. Wish E. had been with me."[1]
- New Year's Day 1919: Tolkien starts a new diary, mainly written with the Alphabet of Rúmil.[1][2]
- [Unknown date, referring to his school years]: "Did a lot of private lang."[1]
- January 1922: "Eric Valentine Gordon has come [to Leeds University] and got firmly established and is my devoted friend and pal."[3]
- 1924: [Concerning the birth of Christoper: "Now I would not go without what God has sent."[1]
- 1926: [Carpenter notes that Tolkien wrote "his diary from 1926 to 1933" in the alphabet 'Quenyatic'/'Feanorian'][1]
- ?1930s: [On Christopher Tolkien:] "a nervy, irritable, cross-grained, self-tormenting, cheeky person. Yet there is something intensely lovable about him, to me at any rate, from the very similarity between us"[1]
- 1933: [On the occasion of driving his family to visit relatives in Birmingham:] "I pass over the pangs to me of passing through Hall Green - become a huge tram-ridden meaningless suburb, where I actually lost my way - and eventually down what is left of beloved lanes of childhood, and past the very gate of our cottage, now in the midst of a sea of new red-brick. The old mill still stands, and Mrs Hunt's still sticks out into the road as it turns uphill; but the crossing beyond the now fenced-in pool, where the bluebell lane ran down into the mill lane, is now a dangerous crossing alive with motors and red lights. The White Ogre's house (which the children were excited to see) is become a petrol station, and most of Short Avenue and the elms between it and the crossing have gone. How I envy those whose precious early scenery has not been exposed to such violent and peculiarly hideous change."[1]
- ?1920s-1930s: [On C.S. Lewis]: "Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual - a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher - and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord."[1]
- August 1955: [Notes on his visit to Italy with Priscilla:] : "Venice seemed incredibly, elvishly lovely"[1]; "contrary to legend and my belief, Italians ... dislike exaggeration, superlatives, and adjectives of excessive praise. But they seem to answer to colour and poetic expression, if justified."[4]
- Late 1963 or early 1964: [Carpenter notes that soon after C.S. Lewis's death, Tolkien "began to keep a diary, which was something he had not done for many years. In part it was an excuse for using another alphabet that he had invented; he called it his 'New English Alphabet'.]: "Life is grey and grim. I can get nothing done, between stateness and boredom (confined to quarters), and anxiety and distraction. What am I going to do? Be sucked down into residence in a hotel or old-people's home or club, without books or contacts or talk with men? God help me!"[1]
- 1968-1971: [Carpenter notes that Tolkien kept a diary "for a brief time during [the] Bournemouth years".][1]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography
- ↑ References on Amanye Tenceli (external link)
- ↑ Humphrey Carpenter (2000). J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York: Houghton Mifflin, page 111.
- ↑ Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Reader's Guide, p. 469


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Dude's signed to Konvict now … can't wait!
Hit the jump for his new tune w/ Akon "Keep on Calling".
Dude's signed to Konvict now … can't wait!
Hit the jump for his new tune w/ Akon "Keep on Calling".
Tags: Akon, Grime, Hip-hop, Konvict, London, Sway DaSoFo, UK
After my Armand Van Helden post, I really felt like I needed to show some love to my favorite junglist stereotype. Tons of laughs in this one, and Rhona Mitra is fucking hot! Keep it real! If you are familiar with Bruno and Borat, this is completely different because it is actually a scripted movie. […]
The homies Spencer and E really fucking killed this one. Congrats to them on breaking into Beatport's Top 10 Electro House releases yesterday!
With election season in full swing, the little thick Republican blogger that gave me wood has returned to cable television. Seeing her titties constrained in those conservative suits got me thinking about her Twitpic SNAFU and how those lovely melons looked. Damn this bitch has some titties. The she opens her mouth, and I remember […]
She was the $10 million madam. Anna Gristina's stable of 50 high-class hookers and the sexual appetites of her highflying clientele helped her reap millions of dollars — all of it cash, sources told the Daily News. "She accepted no credit cards," one source said of the upper East Side madam whose workers earned $2,000 […]
What would a trip down raver memory lane without Armand Van Helden? Classic 1992 house jams right here! I really should've just said "fuck it" and posted a picture of Ali G. Nevermind, I did. Sorry, no tracklist here. DOWNLOAD: Armand Van Helden – Untitled (Throwback Mix)


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Rodney Grubbs needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 94 designs submitted by 14 freelance designers.
Need sports related logo for up and coming sport called Pickleball.
Logo will be used on website and t-shirts.
Pickleball Rocks
Need a logo that can be used on the PickleballRocks.com website and will look good on t-shirts. We already have some simple designs on shirts, but want something to really capture people's attention. The sport is played like ping pong, only on a court that looks like a tennis court but half the size. You can get possible ideas from PickleballRocks.com or AllAboutPickleball.com
Open to looking at various color schemes.
- Item 1...
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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- Feather, beak and wattle templates (download our felt turkey template)
- Printer and plain white paper
- Scissors
- Fine-tip black marker
- 2 sheets tan felt (available at craft stores)
- Hot glue gun
- Pinking shears
- 1 sheet each red, orange, yellow and white felt
- 1 mini black pompom (available at craft stores)
- Cotton batting or tissue paper
- Download the turkey template; print and cut out.
- Use marker to trace your handprint on 1 piece of tan felt. Be sure to spread fingers and point thumb up.
- Cut out handprint, then place it on second piece of felt and trace around it. Cut out. Make a thin bead of glue along edge of 1 felt hand but not across the bottom. Put second felt hand on top. Press together and let dry.
- Use feather template to make a total of 7 feathers out of red, orange and yellow felt. Cut out with pinking shears. Trim one feather to make it slightly smaller than others, and use scissors to fringe edges. Glue feathers to felt handprint in slightly overlapping layers.
- Trace wattle template onto red felt and cut out. Trace beak template onto yellow felt and cut out. For turkey's eye, cut a small circle out of white felt and glue mini pom-pom to center. Glue each facial feature to thump of handprint.
- Gently stuff cotton or tissue paper into opening at bottom of handprint so turkey stands easily.


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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
More Loose Ends - Parker, Allen, Monroe
This past week I did census work re Francis A. Allen m. 1) Lydia Bratcher and 2) Margaret Jackson. I also found my old email correspondence with a descendant of Francis and Lydia. Took me over a week! I finally found it in my "Self" family folder. I should have looked there earlier as Lydia Bratcher is d/o David Bratcher and Lydia Self. And... as our twisty family goes - this means Isaac West who married 1) Phoebe Monroe and 2) Harriett (McChesney) Monroe is first cousin to Lydia Bratcher m. Francis A. Allen as Isaac's mother Eleanor and Lydia's mother Lydia were both daughters of Edward Self and Sarah Cottrell. All this aside - I still have a strong suspicion (the know in my heart but can't prove it kind) Francis Allen is a grandson of David Allen and Elizabeth Price and my gg-gmother Rebecca Allen's nephew. I would so love to prove this but with the records in Hart Co., KY burned and burned again I may never know. I have learned descendants of Francis kept contact with some of their Kentucky kin on the Bratcher side. The fact he and his second wife are in Rice Co., KS in 1880 census before moving to nearby Pratt Co. where he lives the rest of his life makes me think perhaps he knew his cousins who were related to him via his aunt Rebecca. Could that be why he went to Rice Co., KS? Maybe I'm just dreaming this all as I so much would like to identify Rebecca's siblings and their descendants. I know they are out there somewhere. How can I find them? I need help!
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Browse by Medical Category
Friday, May 28, 2010
REMARKABLE RECOVERY: From left, Richard and Barbara Collard, Rost and Rabinov
EVEN UNDER the most challenging odds, patients can make remarkable, unexpected recoveries. Barbara Collard is one such patient. In July 2008, she suffered a serious brain-stem stroke, a deadly condition affecting the blood supply to areas of the brain vital to basic life support functions. Despite a poor prognosis, Collard has made a complete recovery thanks to her perseverance, the support of family and the care she received.
Collard was rushed to the MGH after collapsing at work. An acute neurologic examination showed she was unresponsive to a variety of stimuli, and a CT angiogram revealed both a blockage of the left vertebral artery in her neck and a clot that had moved into the basilar artery, which supplies the brain stem.
"Embolic strokes in the posterior circulation are a life-threatening situation," says James Rabinov, MD, an interventional neuroradiologist in the MGH Vascular Center. "We talked with Barbara's husband and children about the range of possible outcomes. We were not sure if she would have much quality of life, but her situation was not hopeless so they chose to give her every chance possible."
Rabinov performed an endovascular procedure targeting the blood clot. He navigated a catheter through her blood vessels to the site of the clot and used a variety of techniques to restore blood flow. Natalia Rost, MD, a neurologist with the MGH Stroke Service, helped make treatment decisions, monitored indicators of Collard's future neurological health and kept the family updated about the team's progress.
After the procedure, Collard spent seven days in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit and 16 total days at the MGH. She was then transferred to a rehabilitation hospital where she continued her remarkable recovery.
"My whole right side was gone," Collard says. "I couldn't walk, talk or eat, but the next week I was on my feet moving around. I worked hard because I wanted to talk again. I have too many grandchildren to enjoy, and I'm too young to be stuck in a wheelchair."
Collard was at the rehabilitation hospital for two weeks before returning home to New Bedford. Within a year, she was walking without a cane and had no trouble with her speech.
"I didn't recognize her the first time she came to my clinic for a follow-up appointment," says Rost. "I was in the waiting room expecting someone in a wheelchair, and she was just standing there smiling at me. Moreover, she has continued to improve every time I have seen her since."
To help raise awareness of stroke, Collard was one of 75 survivors to gather at the Massachusetts State House May 11 to mark American Stroke Month. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reports that stroke is the third leading cause of death in the state.
"I'm amazed at how I came through it all, just amazed," says Collard. "I hope I can offer some hope that it is possible to survive a brain-stem stroke. It can be done."
Collard's case will be published in the Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery.
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The 2014 sailing season will be upon us before you know it, and this year, our local PHRF fleet needs your help. I will start to sound like a broken record, but I trust you still understand my meaning — local participation is at an all-time low. The next time you are going through one of the yacht clubs or West Marine, make sure you pick up the new Assn. of Orange Coast Yacht Clubs (AOCYC) racing calendar.
After you return to your workplace, open the calendar or look up AOCYC online and look for the Newport Harbor High Point Series. The first race is the Midwinter Regatta on Feb. 15 and 16 sailed out of the American Legion Yacht Club. Bill McNamara will be the principal race officer and has promised to set up proper windward leewards on Saturday and a random leg race on Sunday.
Call your crew or, better yet, call your skipper and tell them you want that Newport High Point burgee this year. Maybe, if we are really lucky, the AOCYC will present sailing vests to the winning crew.
So don't just let the crew of Amante, Tango or Pussy Cat wear those vests around town this time next year. Get on the phone and mark your calendar: Midwinter Regatta, ALYC, Feb. 15 and 16; 66 Series Race No. 1, Balboa Yacht Club, April 5; Ocean Racing Series No. 8, Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club, July 12; Ahmanson Cup Regatta, Newport Harbor Yacht Club, Sept. 20 and 21; and 14 Mile Bank Race, Newport Ocean Sailing Assn., Oct. 4.
I will be sailing the J 109 Linstar through the High Point Series and hope to see more of Marisol, Cirrus, Legacy, Campaign II, Harmony, Checkmate, Patriot, Heartbeat, TKO and Cursor, just to name a few.
If you are like me, you are just itching to get back out on the race course. The first event is the BCYC's Ocean Racing Series on Jan. 18. The way the weather has been, the odds are good it will be a real barn-burner. This event should give you a chance to get the crew out and do a few tacks and jibes. For you helmsmen, this will give you a chance to find those telltales again and remember all those things on your boat that you forgot to fix over the holidays.
For those of you who did not have a chance to sail in some of our harbor holiday races, you did not miss anything other than abnormally warm weather. The BYC Sunkist Series has almost been shut out with the breeze being absent the last two months. In October, we had enough breeze to reach the finish line and only a couple of boats finished in November. In A fleet, It's OK won the October race, and in B fleet, Doubletime was one of the few boats that stayed in the breeze to finish in November. Doubletime leads B fleet, followed by Marisol. In C fleet, Legacy and Berserk are tied for first and over in D fleet, Violetta has sailed well in the light breeze. In E fleet, Campaign has been doing well and keeping Madness and Little Crazy behind on corrected time.
The only breeze we have had over this holiday season has been in the bay. The BCYC Hot Rum Series has gotten in four races. In A fleet, Tim Harmon's blue-shirted crew aboard Cirrus has a commanding lead. John Szalay's Peterson 34 loves the light breeze and sailing in the harbor and has a good lead over second-place Maiden. In C fleet, Beverly Evans' rock-star crew aboard Harmony has been doing whatever it takes to keep Bob Wine's Carioca from correcting on them. The last race of this series is Jan. 12.
If you would like to learn all this sailing jargon I have been using and would like to learn more about racing sailboats, make sure you mark your calendars for 6:30 p.m. Jan. 23 at the BCYC. Fleet captain Paul DeCapua will provide "Sailboat Racing 101." This seminar is aimed toward first-time racers and will cover the basics…the rules of the road, starting, sailing the course and finishing. Simple explanations, combined with simple graphics, make the various aspects of racing easy to understand. Last time, we had more than 30 people attend and we already have 15 people signed up this time. We will also encourage some of our club skippers to attend and look for new crew members. The best part is, it's free! Just go to bcyc.org or call (949) 644-9530 to RSVP. I will be there, so make sure you say hello to the happy bald chubby guy with the Reyn Spooner on.
Sea ya.
LEN BOSE is an experienced boater, yacht broker and boating columnist.


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I have written about this trip in two parts on the Spoke magazine blog (one and two) so will now jump forward to slightly closer to the present and my final week in Belgium.
Returning to Belgium after the high of the trip to America - meeting so many great people and getting to be part of an amazing and historic event - was somewhat of an anti-climax, and although the snow had temporarily cleared it was still cold and a bit miserable. As I had decided to return to New Zealand some time previously it was all I could do not to think about the magnificent summer that everyone was raving about back home in Wellington. Up until this point I had been sufficiently distracted by all of the racing, living in a different country and the novelty of the Belgian fans and their reaction to my moustache so as to not get down about the summer I had swapped for the coldest winter I've ever experienced. But now, seeing the end of my season approaching I couldn't contain it any longer, I missed the warmth of the sun.
I decided to make my final race the penultimate Superprestige in Hoogstraten, on Feb 10. I was due to leave for NZ the following weekend, and had arranged to meet and visit some friends in Holland and Germany over the days between, so wanted to have a good last sprint around in the mud or ice with my extended cyclocross family before bidding farewell. In the end it didn't quite work out to be the best time - I couldn't find the GPS so although I was fine for heading to Hoogstraten, I had to track back and forth a fair bit when I got there as I looked for the arrows in the street pointing me in the right direction. Snow had fallen overnight and the temperature was hovering just above freezing, so it was an awful combination of wetness and sloppy mud with occasional patches of frosty terrain. Due to my problems of navigation and time management I didn't manage to fit in a pre-ride of the course. This is generally considered essential, as it is really the only way to work out what tyre selection and then tyre pressure you are going to use in the race. And it allows for practising tricky sections. Most of all it just makes sense to have some idea of what you are going to be racing on. I ended up relying on a combination of advice from other riders, my experience after a 6-month season, and my general relaxed demeanor to get me and my bike to the start line in a state of more-or-less appropriate readiness.
I had a good start, and for the first while was riding alongside a few riders who I am generally quite far behind. This didn't last long though, and the first moderately tricky section of ruts caught me out and spat me off to the side and into the barrier tape. By the time I had extricated myself and my handlebars from the tape I was at the back, and the subsequent discovery that my front brake was largely disconnected as I accelerated down into the next descent caused me some small amount of discomfort. Once I had that back together it wasn't long until I dropped my chain, twice in a short space of time, slipping off just like my hopes of a combative and successful final endeavour in the mud of Belgium. Although this was a bit disappointing, I could never forget how amazing the whole time has been and how every race has really been a new and great experience for me, with lessons to be learned in every case.
|Photo: Peter Schepens
Whether it goes well or not, it feels like a nice finale to book-end my time racing cyclocross in Europe and dovetail into the coming cyclocross season in NZ, due to start in about June.


text: On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, Gerry Creager wrote: > The CX1 looks like something I'd love next to my desk -- with Linux on it -- > to accomplish testing before I take something to the big iron. It might even > allow me to pre- and post-process my data for hurricane WRF runs. It's not > hefty enough to let me do those runs in the timeframe I require otherwise. Please don't! If you tuned that thing on, it would probably blow the breaker for my office as well. I'll bet we could put something together that is faster for less than half the price. -- Matt It's not what I know that counts. It's what I can remember in time to use.


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Do drone attacks comply with international law?
PolitiFact (Quotes: Mary Ellen O'Connell), July 1st, 2010
Mary Ellen O'Connell, a University of Notre Dame law professor, argues that "without a right to use military force on Pakistan's territory, we not only violate that state's rights under international law, we are violating the human rights of all victims, regardless of whether they are Taliban militants on a CIA hit list or bystanders. Some of the publicly acknowledged strikes in Pakistan have not been part of Pakistan's own armed conflict hostilities with Taliban. I know of no justification in international law for those." > Read Article


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In July 2010 the NEH sponsored a workshop for college professors at the East-West Center in Hawaii. The title of the conference was "History and Commemoration: The Legacies of the Pacific War." As one of the 25 American scholars chosen to attend the workshop, Professor Penelope Blake anticipated an opportunity to visit hallowed sites such as Pearl Harbor, the Arizona Memorial and the Punchbowl Cemetery and engage with scholars who share her interest in studying this often neglected part of World War II history. Instead, Professor Blake was treated to the most disturbing experience of her academic career, a conference which she found to be driven by an overt political bias and a blatant anti-American agenda.
Professor Blake expressed her eloquent indignation over the program in a letter to her congressman that we posted in "Investigate this," documenting examples of what transpired at the conference. Copies of the letter were also sent to members of the NEH Council and to Leach.
We followed up with a message from Professor Blake in "A word from Professor Blake." We then posted Professor Blake's damning response to the letter that she received from NEH Chairman Jim Leach in "Professor Blake replies."
These posts came to the attention of the American Legion's Mark Seavey, who dug into the story at the Legion's Burn Pit blog. We noted Seavey's post providing background on the conference here.
Last night the Hannity Show covered the story on Fox News in a good segment with Professor Blake and American Legion executive director Peter Gaytan (after a 30-second advertisement in the video below). Mr. Gaytan thanked the indomitable Professor Blake for standing up for America's greatest generation.
The NEH was apparently otherwise engaged; Hannity reported that the NEH had not responded to the show's calls as of air time. Was Chairman Leach off somewhere on his 50-state bloviation tour? Or were the offices closed in honor of Veterans Day?
In a series of posts on Chairman Leach, we have followed the descent of the NEH into politics and buffoonery. With the East-West Center program the NEH appears to have touched bottom.
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Science Friday® and SciFri® are registered service marks of Science Friday, Inc. Site design by Pentagram; engineering by Mediapolis.
|From stores to online radio stations, giving you suggestions for what you MIGHT like based on what you DO like is big business. Sometimes it's simple - people who bought the ElectroRobot 5000 toy also bought lots of batteries, for instance -- so stores know to recommend one with the purchase of the other. In more subjective fields, however, such as music and art, the calculations become more difficult. Video rental company Netflix is offering a prize for improvements to its recommendation algorithms. We'll talk with people behind two popular services, Netflix and Pandora, about how they try to crunch the numbers on your preferences.


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text:
Argh! Cut it out, Journey soundtrack! I'm trying to look cool here, and you keep giving me goosebumps and making me stare wistfully into the middle distance!
For a nice relaxing bit of listening at the start of tonight's Kotaku Melodic, I thought I'd share one of my favourite of composer Austin Wintory's pieces from the insanely beautiful new PS3 game Journey.
This is a game that I really, truly loved, and which I have come to admire more and more the farther I get from the first time I played it.
This track, apparently called "Apothesis," plays from… well, who cares where in the game it plays. It plays during the journey. Wintory himself is so cool that he actually went onto the YouTube page for each of the uploads of his song to thank people for sharing his music, and to assure them that the actual album would be available for purchase soon.
When it is, I'll be sure to let you know. Though I don't even know if I could sit around listening to this with my friends without getting all emotional and making a fool out of myself.
Okay, just listen to it.


text:
Year of publication
- 1997 (2) (remove)
Relating Rewriting Techniques on Monoids and Rings: Congruences on Monoids and Ideals in Monoid Rings (1997)
A first explicit connection between finitely presented commutative monoids and ideals in polynomial rings was used 1958 by Emelichev yielding a solution tothe word problem in commutative monoids by deciding the ideal membership problem. The aim of this paper is to show in a similar fashion how congruenceson monoids and groups can be characterized by ideals in respective monoid and group rings. These characterizations enable to transfer well known resultsfrom the theory of string rewriting systems for presenting monoids and groups to the algebraic setting of subalgebras and ideals in monoid respectively grouprings. Moreover, natural one-sided congruences defined by subgroups of a group are connected to one-sided ideals in the respective group ring and hencethe subgroup problem and the ideal membership problem are directly related. For several classes of finitely presented groups we show explicitly howGröbner basis methods are related to existing solutions of the subgroup problem by rewriting methods. For the case of general monoids and submonoidsweaker results are presented. In fact it becomes clear that string rewriting methods for monoids and groups can be lifted in a natural fashion to definereduction relations in monoid and group rings.
The concept of algebraic simplification is of great importance for the field of symbolic computation in computer algebra. In this paper we review somefundamental concepts concerning reduction rings in the spirit of Buchberger. The most important properties of reduction rings are presented. Thetechniques for presenting monoids or groups by string rewriting systems are used to define several types of reduction in monoid and group rings. Gröbnerbases in this setting arise naturally as generalizations of the corresponding known notions in the commutative and some non-commutative cases. Severalresults on the connection of the word problem and the congruence problem are proven. The concepts of saturation and completion are introduced formonoid rings having a finite convergent presentation by a semi-Thue system. For certain presentations, including free groups and context-free groups, theexistence of finite Gröbner bases for finitely generated right ideals is shown and a procedure to compute them is given.


text:
Nov. 16, 2012
Box Score Season Statistics Gallery
Veteran Michael Snaer paced the young Seminoles with 16 points and 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the year.
NEW YORK (AP) – Florida State had a game coaches dream about: the Seminoles shot the ball well and defended like their lives depended on it.
"I thought for a young team we displayed an ability to score even though we're in sync. We had some mishaps while trying to learn," Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said. "Defensively, that was one of our better nights."
The Seminoles shot 58 percent from the field and made 11 of 20 3-pointers in an 88-70 victory over BYU in the Coaches vs. Cancer semifinals on Friday night at the Barclays Center.
The defense Hamilton was so happy about held the Cougars to 33 percent shooting overall and 6 of 25 from 3-point range.
"Thirty-three percent from the field surprised our coaches and players," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "Florida State sped us up and we took some quick shots but besides that Florida State shoots 58 percent from the field. Our defense was slow. Our rotations were slow. They did a great job of finding the open man and made some great passes along the baseline."
Florida State (2-1) will play the winner of the game between No. 20 Notre Dame and Saint Joseph's in Saturday night's championship game.
Okaro White scored 17 points for the Seminoles, while Michael Snaer had 16 points and 10 rebounds and Ian Miller and Devon Bookert both added 15 points.
Hamilton said Snaer has more to do than score and rebound.
"Michael, being a senior on such a young team has at some points forced his will on this team," Hamilton said of Snaer who was the MVP of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament last season. "He wants all the dirty work, the toughest defensive assignment. He wants to take the big shot or be on the foul line at the end of the game. He led by example for the seven new players."
One of those seven, freshman point guard Devon Bookert, agreed with his coach.
"He's a guy who has been there and done that," said Bookert who was 5 for 7 from the field and had five assists as he took the over running the offense for long stretches. "He is cool all the time, but he's tough when he thinks he has to be."
The Seminoles came into the game shooting 38.5 percent from 3-point range but they made 11 of 20 as they led by as many as 27 points in the second half. They shot 58.0 percent (29 for 50) from the field overall while holding down a BYU offense that came in averaging 80.5 points per game.
Tyler Haws had 23 points, nine rebounds and five assists for the Cougars (2-1) who were within 50-43 with 17:30 to play.
The Seminoles went on a 13-0 run making all three of their 3-point attempts, two by Snaer.
Florida State went ahead 77-50 with 9:06 to play on a drive by Bookert. The Cougars closed within 14 points twice but got no closer.
Brandon Davies had 19 points for the Cougars despite playing just 21 minutes because of foul trouble.
Matt Carlino, a sophomore guard who averaged 12 points and shot 32.6 percent from 3-point range, missed all nine of his shots from field, including four 3-point attempts, and the Cougars were 6 of 25 from 3-point range and they shot 33 percent overall (25 of 75).
"Matt is a lot stronger and in better shape than last year but they seemed to rush him a little bit," Rose said. "The more he plays the more comfortable he will get. He took good shots but had a hard time making them. If we shoot 25 3s we better make more than six."
Rose made a reference to a game when a big deficit didn't deter the Cougars. BYU rallied from a huge deficit to beat Iona in the opening round of the NCAA tournament last season.
"We were down 25 in a game last year and we won it," he said, "so it can happen."
BYU came into the game shooting 53 percent from the field and 38 percent on 3s.
Haws, who entered the game averaging 22 points a game, scored BYU's first 11 points but the Cougars were down by nine points. Brock Zylstra's 3-pointer with 10:14 left in the first half were the first BYU points not scored by Haws.
Haws finished with 15 points in the half as the Seminoles took a 44-35 lead.
Florida State shot 60 percent (15 for 25) in the first half and forced BYU into eight turnovers that the Seminoles turned into 13 points.


text:
by Ron Petrou
Kathy Baxter, 81, author of the poem, "The Bottom Line" (see below), said she got a taste of social injustice at an early age when she visited her grandparents in a small town in southeastern Texas. "It was at the end of the 1930s, when everything was still segregated. My life has been shaped by the experiences I had during that visit, beginning with my awareness that no black person could come in the front door of my grandparents' house or sit at their dining room table.
"It went against everything I had learned about how people should behave toward one another. Suddenly it seemed that the world was broken in half, with white people on one side and black people on another. Worst of all was that no one would answer my questions. One of the things I learned that summer was that you were supposed to pretend that everything was all right.
"One day we went to see one of mother's aunts. I remember the trees dripping with Spanish moss, the circular drive and the white house. In the middle of the yard there was a gazebo, and inside there was a tall, dark-skinned woman. She was bent over her work; it looked like she was darning clothes. I asked my great-aunt who she was."
"Her? Oh, that's Lackey."
"What's she doing there?" I wanted to know.
Kathy was told that Lackey had been a servant for a long time, that she was now old and "not quite right in the head." Kathy started to ask another question, but her great-aunt interrupted and began talking about something else. The young girl was to get no more answers. The adults sat on the porch in rocking chairs and drank iced coffee, but "I knew with all my heart that what I saw was not right," recalls Kathy.
From time to time, over the years, Baxter dreamed about the gazebo. In her dreams, she saw herself as a child, looking at the old black woman who seemed to be in a cage, and wishing she could let her out. "The last dream I had of Lackey was later in my life when I understood that I could not be the liberator. In that dream, Lackey let herself out of the cage. We each picked up our own suitcase and ran off together, hand in hand as equals."
Kathy's concerns about racism led to active participation in the fair housing movement during the 1960s. During those years, she also began collecting children's books that portrayed black people in non-stereotyped ways. She created an exhibit of materials that elementary and middle school teachers could use to supplement their curricula. Her desire to do this grew out of her own teaching experience, "when it was only white people who were portrayed in the books I used. I wanted to find ways to give children a more honest view of American life." For 20 years Kathy took her exhibit to schools in and around Philadelphia.
She also wrote a social studies program that she called "I Want to Be Free," focusing on slavery at the time of the American Revolution. She got permission to test the program in a number of schools in Philadelphia, beginning with an elementary school in Kensington. "Kensington had the reputation of being the most racist community in the city, so I figured if I could teach my program there, I could teach it anywhere." It made school administrators nervous, but they gave her the go-ahead for Sheridan School where she met Laree Owens, one of the first African American teachers who had been assigned to all-white schools in Philadelphia in order to integrate the faculties.
Laree had been at Sheridan for eight years when Kathy got there. She had a class of fifth and sixth grade students who were labeled as "dummies and trouble-makers." But Laree was not going to let those students fail. She reviewed "I Want to Be Free" and thought it would be a good fit with her curriculum.
Kathy visited the class every week. "It was such an exciting experience," she said. "The kids loved the program. We started with the story of Elizabeth 'Mumbet' Freeman, a true story about a slave in Massachusetts. Her slave master was John Ashley, the leader of a group of men who wrote the constitution for the newly forming state."
Kathy said it was through Elizabeth Freeman that she learned the power of personal stories. "When I began to tell her story to school children, I had no idea of the impact it would have. I think there is tremendous power in learning about ordinary, everyday people. They are the ones that children can most easily relate to."
In order to take care of family needs, Kathy had to quit her work in the schools. Now, as she joins the Occupy Movement, she says it seems like a continuation of what she did before. "The setting is different, but the goals are the same. I am adding my voice to those who demand the right to a just and compassionate society."
Kathy Baxter, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration in Mt. Airy, lived in Mt. Airy from 1993-2001, the Stapeley retirement home from 2001-2009, and in Wyncote from 2009 to the present.
The Bottom Line
By Kathy Baxter
The sky was dark in
Corporations were uneasy.
People were demanding things
That made them feel
quite queasy.
Clean air, safe roads and bridges;
Those things sound very fine,
But folks in Corporateville
knew better.
It was bad for the bottom line.
They cried; they stamped their feet; they pouted.
It's not fair. Whatever can we do?
If people get to make the laws,
Then why can't we be
people, too?
We must help them,
said the judges;
Their voices nearly broke.
As tears streamed
down their faces,
They took pity on those
corporate folk.
It's really not too hard, they said,
To make your dream come true.
We'll simply make a decision
Granting personhood
to you.
We'll also say that
money is speech;
You can spend it without a care,
Spread it around as
much as you please,
And you don't have
to tell us where.
Help politicians pay for
their campaigns;
They'll be happy that you do.
No problem.
All they have to promise
Is to vote the way
you want them to.
Now there's
joy in Corporateville.
Once again the sun can shine.
The CEOs can buy elections
And protect the bottom line.
Jan. 20, 2012, marks the second anniversary of the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, which opened the floodgates to unlimited political donations from corporations. If you wish to make your voice heard, there is a gathering at Thomas Paine Plaza just north of City Hall at noon, Jan. 20. There will be a rally at City Hall, a march along Market Street and a rally on Independence Mall to support a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that: "A Corporation is not a Person, and Money is not Free Speech." More information is available at movetoamend.org


text: Hi, Am 13.04.2008 um 04:52 schrieb Lance S. Jacobsen: > I recently put together a small cluster of Xeons using CentOS 5.1 > x86_64. This cluster is my first real big experience with Linux > and administration. It took some learning and such to install NIS, > NFS, etc., but now the machines seem to be working well, and so I > am working on the next step: installing a que scheduler. I decided > on TORQUE 2.3.0 since its free and I don't know any better. I have > installed this and am having trouble getting it to detect my nodes. > > I think the problem is that I named them starting with numbers in > my /etc/hosts file: 1of12 , 2of12, ... 12of12. Instead of something > like node01, node02, ... > > After the installation, TORQUE did not create a file called 'nodes' > which it told me that I needed, and so after searching the web I > found the command to create it: > > # qmgr -c "create node 2of12" > > When I do this it gives me the following reply: > > qmgr: syntax error - checklist failed > create node 2of12 > /\ > > If I do this naming my node with a letter in front (n2of12) then it > seems to work and generate the nodes file. > > Now if I then go and do the "pbsnodes -a" command it tells me: > > n2of12 > > state = down > np =1 > ntype = cluster > > seems fine... should be down since there is no n2of12 in my hosts > file. > > Now if I then go and rename the node in the node file back to 2of12 > and type the following to kill and restart the server: > > # qterm > # pbs_server > > I get the following reply: > > PBS_Server: pbsd_init(setup_nodes), token "2of12" doesn't start > with alpha on line 1. > > PBS_Server: PBS_Server, pbsd_init failed > > Now I am reluctant to go and change all of my node names (IP > aliases) since everything else about my cluster is finally working > well and so I have been trying to find out why pbsd_init will not > accept host names that start with numbers. Also, I would hate to go > and change this if it is not the problem. > > Does anyone know if I might be able to edit the setup files > associated with pbsd_init to get this to work (or any other ways to > do this)? I wouldn't use in general a digit as first charcter, like it's outlined here: http://rfc.net/rfc1178.html page 4. Some programs might simply check the first character to decide whether it's a hostname or TCP/IP address. Thinking in long terms and additional software in your cluster (maybe even parallel apps), I would suggest to change the names of the machines. -- Reuti BTW: Torque has a list on its own at: http://www.clusterresources.com > Thanks, > > Lance > > -- > Lance S. Jacobsen, Ph.D. > President > GoHypersonic Incorporated > 714 E. Monument Ave., Suite 201 > Dayton, OH 45402-1382 > Tel: 937-531-6678 > Fax: 937-531-6679 > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf


text:
The future is here and you can drive it
It's exciting times for electric car company Tesla as it begins to roll out the new Model S to North America. We got a chance to hop in the sexy Model S today at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show and needless to say we were left smitten.
To say Tesla's Model S is impressive is an understatement. Not only is the Model S a sight to behold on the outside, with its sleek and rounded frame, but upon entering the vehicle you are treated to a cutting edge cabin that is both futuristic and cutting edge while maintaining a minimalistic elegance.
Innovative interface
Once inside, you quickly begin to realize that the Tesla Model S is a car unlike any other you've seen before. Besides the fact that it is, of course, a fully electric car, the Tesla Model S immediately immerses you with its bright lights and touch screen technology, which will be familiar to anyone with a smartphone. The onboard dash is completely touch screen, the middle console where a radio or familiar dials and buttons would be placed are nowhere to be found. In fact, all buttons and dials of any sort have been removed from the car's interior design, replaced instead with a huge and vivid touchscreen interface displaying standard information like speed and an energy consumption display to monitor your battery consumption.
Within that interface we were treated to a demonstration of virtually all the applications the Model S has to offer by Tesla Interactive Software Manager, Roy Goldman. Much like a glorified tablet or iPhone, the console inside the Tesla features navigation, internet browsing, internet radio via services such as Slacker, as well as smartphone integration.
The Model S smartphone integration was particular interesting. Demonstrated on an iPhone, drivers can download an app that can control various features such as onboard temperature and navigation. Goldman was to keen to inform us that Tesla has partnered with Google, allowing real-time viewing of your trip and that more integration and app capability was in the works.
Batteries included
But while it's great that the Model S features all sorts of impressive tech within, it's also worth mentioning some other noteworthy aspects of Tesla's all electric sedan. To begin, the Tesla Model S is offered in three battery options: a 40kWh that offers an estimated range of 160 miles, a 60 kWh version that will get you 230 miles, and finally an 85 kWh battery that will net an even more impressive 300 miles on a single charge. And those aren't the only impressive numbers, each battery variant offers up a top speed of 110, 120, and 125 mph.
While nothing has been officially announced or confirmed, Tesla representatives spoke of the car company's plans to place and implement proprietary "Super Charger" stations for Tesla owners across the country, which should add to the cars already impressive charging scheme.
Down the road
From a design perspective, the Tesla Model S seems to be much more than a car; it's an experience – a true leap towards what can be achieved in regards to automotive design and technology. Of course as is often the case with new technology pricing can be prohibitively high and that seems to be the case with the new Model S. All three versions of Tesla's Model S start north of 40 thousand, with the 40 kWh priced at $49,900, the 60 kWh at 59,900 , and the 85 kWh at 69,000. Incidentally the Model S Performance version is priced even higher at $79,900, although to be fair not many EV's on the market can hit 0 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds (85kWh battery option). Luckily for those of us with pockets a little less deep Tesla does plan to introduce a more economically priced versions down the line, but until then we'll just have to start saving our coppers.
Editors' Recommendations
- Tesla revamps pricing, naming system for Model S and Model X
- Electric luxury sedan face-off: Polestar 2 vs. Tesla Model 3
- Google and Volvo helped Polestar craft its answer to the Tesla Model 3
- Amazon plugs in with $700 million investment in electric pickup company Rivian
- Truck, yeah! Tesla is using its electric Semi to deliver cars in California


text:
A late goal from Luis Suarez proved enough to send Liverpool into the group stages of the Europa League.
The 88th minute winner was a get out of jail card for Suarez and Pepe Reina, who had earlier allowed a shot from David Templeton to squeeze under his body.
Brendan Rodgers' side dominated in all areas but a whole host of missed chances, in particular from Suarez, prevented the Reds from adding to their one goal win at Tynecastle.
Liverpool were forced to rally late as thirty minutes of extra-time loomed. Suarez made up for two earlier misses by scoring a fine leveller two minutes from time.
The Reds were deserved victors but the win was achieved with the exception of the club's most expensive player. At half-time it was confirmed that Andy Carroll had put pen to paper on a season long loan deal to West Ham.
18-year-old Adam Morgan started, whilst 17-year-old Raheem Sterling terrorised Hearts with his cutting runs from the left flank.
After being rested for the first leg in Edinburgh, Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez returned to the starting line up alongside Martin Skrtel, Reina and Jamie Carragher. Jordan Henderson was also recalled and Stewart Downing deployed at left back.
Hearts were unchanged from the first leg, as skipper Marius Zaliukas had recovered from a thigh injury to play.
John McGlynn's men were not intimidated by the reputation of their illustrious opponents and had a short spell of sustained play in the Reds half early. But, despite a lack of a cutting edge, Liverpool were dominant for most of the match and deservedly enter the draw for the next round.