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Congratulations to the 40 Regeneron Science Talent Search finalists!
Society for Science & the Public and Regeneron are proud to announce the 40 finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2018, the nation's oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. These finalists were selected from 300 scholars and more than 1,800 entrants based on the originality and creativity of their scientific research, as well as their achievement and leadership both inside and outside of the classroom. The finalists will travel to Washington, D.C., from March 8 to 14, where they will undergo a rigorous judging process and compete for more than $1.8 million in awards.
Sidhika Balachandar
Reese Caldwell
Maggie Shin-Young Chen
Andrew Fang
Benjamin J. Firester
Kyle Oscar Fridberg
Sarah Gao
Louis Golowich
Davey H. Huang
Ella Feiner
Charley Hutchison
Skyler Chloe Jones
Andrew Komo
Kavya Kopparapu
Chiu Fan Bowen Lo
Michael Yuanchao Ma
Rohan Mehrotra
Rajiv Movva
Chythanya Murali
Natalia Orlovsky
Nitya Parthasarathy
Mihir Vipul Patel
Advait Patil
Syamantak Payra
Dylan Pentland
Abilash Prabhakaran
Muhammad Shahir Rahman
Michael Ren
Shuvom Sadhuka
Raley Schweinfurth
Haniya Shareef
Isani Singh
Marissa Sumathipala
Grace Tian
Vinjai Vale
Teja Sai Veeramacheneni
Franklyn Hai Wang
David Xing Wu
Justin Long Xie
Alice Anran Zhang
Read more about the finalists at student.societyforscience.org/regeneron-sts.


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To listen to Mitt Romney tell it, President Obama is a job-killing, free-spending, big-government liberal who made the recession worse with his policies and endangered free-market capitalism. The president has spent tax dollars "at a pace without precedent in recent history," Mr. Romney says, and "added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined."
As Mr. Obama travels the country, he offers the opposite self-portrait, that of a job-creating, tightfisted, government-shrinking pragmatist who saved the country from another Great Depression. On his watch, "government employment has gone down," he says, and federal spending has increased "at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years."
With the presidential race largely focused on the economy and the budget, Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney are filling speeches with facts and figures designed to enhance their case and diminish the other guy's, in the process often making assertions fundamentally at odds with one another. Along the way, both candidates are at times stretching the truth, using statistics without context, exaggerating their own records and misrepresenting their opponent's.
Each side regularly accuses the other of lying, and in any campaign there is a temptation to write both sides off, as if every misleading statement were equivalent. In reality, some are more fundamental than others, more egregious, more central to the larger argument. Mr. Romney, for example, called his 2010 book laying out the rationale for his candidacy "No Apology" — charging, falsely in the eyes of many independent fact-checkers, that Mr. Obama had traveled the world apologizing for America.
But determining who is the worse dissembler can be a subjective exercise, even in an age when news organizations, blogs and partisan groups blitz out regular fact-checks. When PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-winning project of The Tampa Bay Times, evaluated the statements, it found that more of Mr. Romney's were misleading than Mr. Obama's. Glenn Kessler, who writes the Fact Checker column at The Washington Post, on the other hand, has awarded roughly the same average "Pinocchio scores" — his measure of falsity — to both men.Continue reading the main story
Sometimes the truth or dishonesty of an assertion depends on definitions or on when you start counting. When it comes to unemployment, for instance, Mr. Romney counts from the month when Mr. Obama took office and inherited an economy that was hemorrhaging jobs at historic rates. Mr. Obama prefers to count from 2010, when his policies arguably had started to take effect and the job picture had begun turning around, eschewing blame for the losses at the start of his term.
But one thing is clear: While they claim distance from typical Washington politics, both men have mastered the ancient Washington art of selective storytelling.
Job Creation
"Over 4 million jobs created in the last two years." — Mr. Obama
"He has not created jobs." — Mr. Romney
Nowhere is the veracity of the candidates' statements more central than on the economic issues at the heart of their contest. The question of job creation provides a quintessential case study. By counting from January 2009, Mr. Romney paints the bleak portrait of a country that despite a modest recovery still has fewer jobs than it did when Mr. Obama took office. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country has 552,000 fewer jobs now than when the president was inaugurated.
Mr. Obama starts his count in March 2010, after the money from his stimulus law was flowing and payrolls began growing again. And he generally cites private-sector employment, so that he can say 4.3 million jobs have been created. Counting government work forces, the job growth is actually lower, 3.8 million jobs, according to the bureau.
Is it reasonable to start counting in January 2009? The economy was already shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month, and none of Mr. Obama's policies would take effect for some time. Starting the count just one month later would show a small net increase in jobs for the president's tenure in office. Yet if he cannot be blamed for job losses in the early months of his term, can Mr. Obama be held responsible for not replacing the lost jobs more quickly?
Federal Debt
Mr. Obama has "added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined." — Mr. Romney
The total national debt now stands at $15.8 trillion, up from $10.6 trillion when Mr. Obama took office, an increase of nearly 50 percent. A commonly cited and more economically important subset, debt held by the public, has grown to $11 trillion from $6.3 trillion, a 75 percent increase — closer to Mr. Romney's claim, but still $1.7 trillion short of matching the accumulated public debt of the first 43 presidents. Adjusted for inflation, the debt Mr. Obama incurred is smaller relative to the combined prior debt.
Federal Spending
"Since President Obama assumed office...federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history." — Mr. Romney
"Since I've been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years." — Mr. Obama
Both men may be exaggerating in their own ways — and once again it depends in part on when you start counting. The president based his claim on a column in Market Watch, which calculated that government spending during the Obama years has grown 1.4 percent annually, the lowest since President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
But that column started counting with the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1, 2009, more than eight months after Mr. Obama took office, on the theory that that was the first full fiscal year Mr. Obama could shape. It held Mr. Obama responsible for $140 billion in additional spending from those first eight months stemming largely from his stimulus spending program. The calculation also gave Mr. Obama credit for automatic spending cuts scheduled for the next fiscal year, which the president opposes and which may not actually take effect.
Using different ways to calculate spending, The Washington Post found that spending has been going up 5.2 percent a year under Mr. Obama, while The Associated Press put the figure at 3 percent, excluding 2009. Either way, it is neither the "lowest pace in nearly 60 years," as Mr. Obama claimed, nor "at a pace without precedent in recent history," as Mr. Romney charged.
Going back to Eisenhower, federal spending has risen on average 7 percent a year, or 2.6 percent when adjusted for inflation. After the spending burst of 2009, Mr. Obama, constrained by Congress and aided by repayments of bank and auto bailouts, increased spending just 0.5 percent a year over the next three fiscal years when adjusted for inflation; only two other three-year periods since Eisenhower had lower spending growth.
Another way to judge spending is to look at what was anticipated based on the laws and policies at the time Mr. Obama took office versus what actually happened. In January 2009, days before he was inaugurated, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast spending in the 2011 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30, at $3.323 trillion. In reality, after the policies put in place by Mr. Obama and Congress, it turned out to be $3.603 trillion, 8.4 percent higher.
Yet another way to look at spending is as a share of the overall economy. For years up to and through most of George W. Bush's presidency, federal spending generally totaled about 20 percent or less of the nation's overall economic output. In Mr. Bush's final full fiscal year in office, ending Sept. 30, 2008, it rose to 20.8 percent.
The next fiscal year, in which Mr. Bush was president for four months and Mr. Obama for eight, it shot up to 25.2 percent, then dipped to 24.1 percent for each of the next two years, the highest levels since World War II. Of course one reason spending is a larger share of the economy is because the overall economy shrunk during the recession. But even if spending rose starkly during the economic crisis under the presidencies of both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, it has remained at the higher level since then under Mr. Obama.
Size of Government
"The only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me." — Mr. Obama
Again, it depends on how it is counted. Looking at the five months from Mr. Obama's inauguration to June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and including state and local governments, which are not under his direct control, government employment at all levels was virtually unchanged, from 22,576,000 in January 2009 to 22,570,000 in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Total government employment was 21,969,000 in May 2012, a reduction of about 600,000 jobs. But looking only at the federal work force under Mr. Obama's direct control, then government employment has actually gone up. He inherited a federal work force of 2,061,700, and it rose slightly through June 2009 to 2,109,700; by May of this year, it had grown further to 2,204,100, a 7 percent increase.
Mr. Obama is not correct in saying this was the "only time" government shrank during a recession. During the recession from July 1981 through November 1982, under President Ronald Reagan, and again during the recession from July 1990 through March 1991, under the elder President George Bush, government employment shrank slightly, both over all and in the federal work force specifically. The White House said he meant the recession and the 35 months after it.
Either way, while Mr. Obama has boasted of shrinking the public work force, he has advocated policies to prevent it from shrinking by helping state and local governments avoid laying off employees. In recent days, he has lamented that continuing economic troubles result in part from a decreasing public work force.
"We are only inches away from no longer being a free economy." — Mr. Romney
In attacking Mr. Obama's stewardship of the economy, Mr. Romney has engaged in hyperbole at times — as with this claim. He has also contended that Mr. Obama made the recession "worse" and "last longer" and said that the president's health care law would increase government spending to nearly half of the American economy.
There is plenty of debate over how effective Mr. Obama's economic policies have been, especially given the painfully slow recovery, but economists do not generally claim that Mr. Obama's policies worsened the recession or made it longer.
The 18-month recession officially ended in June 2009, five months into Mr. Obama's term, as measured by the National Bureau of Economic Research. And even critics who consider the president's stimulus package a missed opportunity — from liberals who say it was too small to conservatives who say it was wasteful and poorly targeted — tend to acknowledge what the Congressional Budget Office has found: it did save and create jobs, lower unemployment and help the economy grow in the short term.
Despite Mr. Romney's claim, the new health care law will not drive government spending up to half of the economy, unless all health care spending in the country is reclassified as government spending. Given that the new law still relies heavily on private insurance provided by employers, it is a stretch to treat all of that as if it were government expenditures.
Experts predict the new health care law will drive up health spending, as more people will be covered, but not by a huge share of the economy. The chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that with the new law, health care spending will rise to 21 percent of the economy in 2019. Without the new law, it estimated, it would have risen to 20.8 percent of the economy.
The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated what would happen to federal spending under a number of different situations, taking the new health care law into account. The projection showing the biggest jump found that assuming that a number of current tax cuts are extended and several budget cuts currently scheduled to take effect next year are averted, federal spending will rise to 29 percent of the economy in 2030 from 24 percent in 2011. But that rise is attributable in large part to rising interest payments required by ballooning debt.
And the idea that the United States has almost ceased to be a free-market economy was labeled "ridiculously false" by PolitiFact, which cited an economic freedom index from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, which ranks the United States the world's 10th freest economy of 179 judged.
Tax Cuts
"A record surplus was squandered on tax cuts for people who didn't need them and weren't even asking for them." — Mr. Obama
Mr. Obama makes it sound as if the surpluses projected at the end of President Bill Clinton's tenure disappeared entirely because of Mr. Bush's tax cuts. In fact, tax cuts for the wealthy were responsible for a small fraction of the disappearing surpluses.
An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office last year showed that of $5.6 trillion in surpluses projected over 10 years when Mr. Bush took office, $1.6 trillion went to the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, or 29 percent. The rest of the anticipated surpluses vanished because of increased spending and lower-than-expected revenues stemming from economic downturns.
Mr. Obama supports keeping the tax cuts for all but the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, or roughly 18 percent of the total cost. Extrapolated, that means the tax cuts "for people who didn't need them" would have accounted for just 5 percent of the disappearing surpluses.Continue reading the main story

subset: commoncrawl


text: Residency held 2-2 by Chivas March 17, 200812:00AM PDT Previous Next Vancouver Whitecaps FC Residency were held to a 2-2 draw by Mexican club Chivas Guadalajara in their second game at Dallas Cup XXIX on Monday.After an unfortunate 1-0 defeat to Portuguese giants Benfica in their opening Bracket C game on Sunday, Thomas Niendorf's side looked to be on their way to their first win after Randy Edwini-Bonsu had given the Whitecaps a 2-0 lead.However, two late goals by Chivas – including an injury-time equalizer - meant the Residency team had to settle for a share of the spoils on a very windy Monday afternoon at Dallas' Richland College.The opening 45 minutes saw Chivas have more of the ball possession, but the Whitecaps were able to withstand the pressure of the talented Mexican youngsters, with Residency goalkeeper Karm Shergill making a good save midway through the half.Though they were against the strong Texas winds to start the second half, Whitecaps Residency posed a threat to Chivas on the counter-attack. It was from such a sequence of play that Vancouver took the lead on 57 minutes, as Edwini-Bonsu converted Alex Semenets' cross for 1-0.The Whitecaps then doubled their lead eight minutes later, as Edwini-Bonsu scrambled home a rebound after the Chivas goalkeeper had stopped Gagandeep Dosanjh's initial shot.The Residency team looked to be in good shape heading into the final stages of Monday's contest, but Chivas made the wind at their backs count when they pulled a goal back with a header on 71 minutes.That did not stop the Whitecaps from creating more chances, with substitute Dever Orgill forcing two excellent saves from the Chivas goalkeeper after the Jamaican youth international had struck two powerful shots on target.Those saves proved pivotal to the outcome of the contest, as the Guadalajara club broke Whitecaps hearts with an injury-time headed equalizer for a 2-2 result."I though we put in an excellent effort today," Niendorf said of Monday's game to whitecapsfc.com. "It was definitely a step up from the game yesterday. Chivas are a very physical and mature team, with plenty of skill. Hopefully, we have taken another step in becoming more professional with our tactics and technique as a team. We were at both ends of the emotional spectrum today, as we felt the elation at being two goals in front, and then the disappointment of drawing the game in the end."With Benfica defeating Germany's Eintracht Frankfurt 4-2 in the other Bracket C game on Monday, the Whitecaps now sit third after two games played. Their final group game is against Eintracht Frankfurt at Richland College on Wednesday. Kickoff is 12pm Pacific Daylight Time.Whitecaps FC Residency - line-up v Chivas Guadalajara (Dallas Cup XXIX)Karm Shergill; Greg Smith, Adam Straith, Anthony DiNicolo, William Hyde; Alex Semenets (Antonio Rago), Devin Gunenc, Gagandeep Dosanjh (Philippe Davies), Navid Mashinchi (Kyle Porter); Marcus Johnstone (Dever Orgill), Randy Edwini-Bonsu (Drew Russell)Subs not used: Simon Thomas, Ethan GageTo view the latest news and features from the Whitecaps Residency's trip to Dallas Cup XXIX – including tournament blogs from defender Adam Straith - please CLICK HERE for our special Dallas Cup page. Previous Next


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Articles tagged with: DUBAI
Events »
Course Summary
This eight-day IFRS immersion workshop focuses on all significant IFRS requirements, with detailed explanations and examples presented by two specialist instructors. The program includes the latest pronouncements, and participants will be brought up-to-date on IFRS topics.
Through the use of case studies, exercises, and SIC & IFRIC Interpretations, the workshop covers:
Brief history of IFRSs
Format and content of statement of financial position
Statement of comprehensive income – presentation and specific disclosures (earnings per share, segment reporting, discontinued operations, related parties, accounting policies, discontinued operations)
Statement of cash flows
Statement of changes in equity
Interim financial …


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ANZAC connections run deep at Tinui
Tinui is a small farming community in the Wairarapa with deep Anzac Day connections.
The rural community of Tinui, a 40 minute drive east of Masterton, is full of settler stories, but it is also the first place in the world where an Anzac Day commemoration was held.
In 1916 the Rev. Basil Ashcroft held an Anzac ceremony at Tinui's Church of the Good Shepherd and then unveiled a cross, dramatically positioned on a rocky outcrop atop of Mount Maunsell, which overlooks the Tinui township and surrounding farmland. The reason the service was held so soon after Gallipoli, was out of respect for the many local young men involved in the Gallipoli campaign, and more specifically, to those who died. While the original wooden cross has been replaced, it is still in its original position
These days the area is recognised by the Historic Places Trust with a category 1 listing – the highest possible – and every year on Anzac Day hundreds take part to remember those who never returned home from the front. Commemorations include a morning service often attended by New Zealand dignitaries followed by a walk up to the cross.
Outside of Anzac Day, visitors to the village can also visit the Church, the cemetery and walk up to the cross (1st November – 25th April) on the Tinui Anzac Walkway. This walk is an opportunity to experience spectacular views, walk through native bush and exotic forestry and arrive at the Anzac memorial Cross. Note it can be steep in places so strong footwear is a must.
Afterwards they can enjoy fuel up at the Tinui Cafe & Bar in the village or continue their journey out towards the spectacular East Coast beaches of Castlepoint and Mataikona.
For more things to do while you're visiting the Wairarapa, a region only one hour's drive or train ride from Wellington, head to www.wairarapanz.com.
When you're here be sure to call into one of our i-SITE Visitor Information Centres for advice and trip suggestions.
Masterton i-SITE
Cnr Bruce and Dixon Streets
+64 6 370 0900
Martinborough i-SITE
18 Kitchener Street
+64 6 306 5010
Article by
Destination Wairarapa
Destination Wairarapa is the region's tourism organisation. Book accommodation and activities online. Find out about wineries, cycle trails, what's on and attractions.


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Fascist Dictator of the Heath Davis Appreciation Society
Supporting Petone's Finest since the very start - Iain O'Brien
Also Supporting the All Time #1 Batsman of All Time Ever - Jacques Kallis and the much maligned Peter Siddle.
Vimes tells it how it is:
Cricketweb Colts Captain
I'm a member of Club KerryOriginally Posted by Richard
I'm Green
The color of immortality, nature and envy - you are truly a unique person. While clearly the color of nature, you also symbolize rebirth, fertility and hope in the world. On the other side of the spectrum, a natural aptitude to money with green coming to signify money and possibly even *********!
The seeds keep on tumblin'
Roland Garros II - Men's Doubles
GRAND SLAM - Friday (Day Seven) - Paris, France - Clay (Red)
- Thirteenth seeds Rob Bowenburg and Jarkko Maxum are still alive in the men's doubles in Paris with a straight sets win over Argentina's Miguel Bertolotto and Mauro Santana. The South American pairing had started their week with a surprise first round win over Morton Blundell and Jason Bradley, and looked good against the CWLanders early as they led 3-0 in the first set. Bowenburg and Maxum powered back, though, and managed to take the first set in a tiebreaker as they created a number of free points from some smart serving that set up some easy volleys at the net. The second set was a plodding affair as Bowenburg and Maxum failed to get a break of serve despite a number of opportunities until the final game of the match as they secured a 7-6(4), 6-4 win.
- They expected to meet third seeds Hayden Onwye and Ross Onwye in the third round before the Moroccan brothers were ousted by Björn Donaldson and Brett Read in straight sets. Semifinalists in Season I, the Onwye brothers were stunned by the makeshift pairing in a tight contest as they failed to take advantage of key opportunities to take both sets. Donaldson and Read had a third of the break points that their opponents had, but made the most of their chances with consistently attractive tennis and smart work at the net. Ensuring at least one West CWLander will make the quarterfinals, they set up a Bowenburg/Maxum meeting with a stunning 6-4, 7-6(3) win after coming back from 0-40 at 5-6 in the second set.
- Nothing doing for Scotland Rivers and Ivan Genov as they fell to a very convincingly looking outing by eighth seeds Ion Andueza and Sanchez Emelio. Having cruised through their first round match, Rivers and Genov met a pairing who have grown up on clay and looked a street ahead of their opponents at times in terms of cohesiveness. Down a set and a double break, Genov and Rivers got a real run on to take the second set to a tiebreaker and after getting the minibreak immediately looked set to capitalise on their hot streak. Unfortunately they couldn't as Andueza and Emelio set up a third round meeting with Carlo Amato and Patrick Pascaul 6-3, 7-6(3).
- Seeded players out: Hayden Onwye & Ross Onwye; János Varga & Zoltán Varga.
One win at a time
Suck it Onwye bros
RIP Craig Walsh (Craig) 1985-2012
RIP Hughesy 1988-2014. 63* for eternity.
cbf uploading the draw Heef, so here's the order of play.
Court Philippe Chatrier
Javier Villaneuva (ESP) vs. [11] Illya Altman (UKR)
[23] Antonio Bachunelli (ITA) vs. [7] József Boros (HUN)
[18] Diego Hurtado (COL) vs. Jean-Christophe Genghini (FRA)
Felipe Menon/Roberto Santos (BRA) vs. [16] Mikel Fosdike/Christian Mary (FRA)
Court Suzanne Lenglen
Ivan Cesljar/Nilikar Midid (CRO) vs. [2] Heath Davis/Jojo Mustard (FRC)
[7] Carlos Machado/Denis Rodrigues (BRA) vs. [9] Mark Harmel/Yves Parmentier (BEL)
Ivars Emsis/Alexey Yarkin (LAT/RUS) vs. [5] Sandro Bachunelli/Hicham Hadir (ITA/MAR)
[27] Sanchez Emelio (ESP) vs. Brett Read (FRC)
Why do I get the horrible feeling we're going to come unstuck against these Wily Croats?
Roland Garros II - Men's Singles
GRAND SLAM - Saturday (Day Seven) - Paris, France - Clay (Red)
- Unseeded West CWLander Brett Read has advanced to his first Grand Slam quarter final with another five-set victory at Roland Garros - this time against 27th seed Sanchez Emelio. For the third time in a week Read was taken the distance before prevailing as the 28-year old showed why he has one of the best tanks on tour in his dynamic victory. Emelio was fresh off upsetting the fourth seed Sven Oxenstierna on Thursday, but started slowly to trail 2-5 in the opening set. He managed three games in a row to level the set at 5-5, but was immediately broken back by Read who went on to take the first set 7-5. But as has been the case a couple of times this week, Read suffered a complete blank as Emelio began to show the form that earned him a win over Oxenstierna in the third round. Punishing Read with his forehand, he took the second set 6-1 and charged to a 3-0 lead in the third.
Read, however, would not die and although he dropped the third set he was still creating chances as he bounded around the Court with some fantastic defensive tennis. Despite trailing by a break in the fourth, Read again charged back to deny Emelio the chance to serve for the match and taking the set to a tiebreaker. There he got the jump on the Spaniard and although there was a brief fightback closed out the tiebreaker 7-5 after a drawn out rally.
With it all on the line in the fifth, neither player seemed intent on taking the match by the scruff of its neck as a pretty cagey start saw the score level at 4-4. Then Read struck: breaking the shackles to bring up three break points with a thunderous backhand down the line. Emelio saved two, but the third was a bridge too far as he sent a slice wide to hand Read a 5-4 lead. With the match on the line, Read served extremely well with his kick serve out wide continuing to confound the Spaniard. Needing just one of his two match points, Read secured his quarter final place lobbing Emelio off his backhand side to complete a heroic 7-5, 1-6, 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-4 win.
- It will take an even more heroic effort on Monday if he's to make the semi finals with seventh seed József Boros his scheduled opponent. After starting the week slowly, the Hungarian looks primed to make a run at the title after tearing through 23rd seeded Italian Antonio Bachunelli in straight sets 6-2, 6-4, 6-0. Bachunelli had dropped just one set all week and was made to look like a novice by the Hungarian who is now the second favourite to claim his first Grand Slam title.
- In the first quarter final, eleventh seed Illya Altman will meet rampaging local Jean-Christophe Genghini. Altman came into Paris under a huge injury cloud but has quietly hit his straps to suggest his woes are behind him as he came from a set down to beat Javier Villaneuva 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-2. While Villaneuva and Emelio couldn't back up giant killing displays, World No. 77 Genghini kept the dream alive with his crowd pleasing style - upsetting eighteenth seed Diego Hurtado 7-6(5), 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(5). Genghini's tiebreak form proved the undoing of the Colombian as he continued the form of his life to be a real smokey to make the final.
Our first two quarterfinals:
- Seeded players out: Antonio Bachunelli; Sanchez Emelio; Diego Hurtado.
Altman (11) vs. Genghini (77)
Read (135) vs. Boros (7)
Last edited by SirBloody Idiot; 02-06-2011 at 10:07 AM.
Boros will be tough though.
Roland Garros II - Men's Doubles
GRAND SLAM - Saturday (Day Seven) - Paris, France - Clay (Red)
- Second seeds Heath Davis and Jojo Mustard have won through to the quarter finals of Roland Garros with a convincing straight sets win over Croatia's Ivan Čeljar and Nilikar Midid. Still untroubled this week, the West CWLanders continued their push to the World No. 1 spot with some dynamic tennis despite both players coming off a packed week of alternating singles and doubles action. The Croats lacked the firepower to match the Westerners as Davis continued to look absolutely top notch on serve as he took a whole heap of confidence from his big win over Radivoj Daneu yesterday. Mustard, meanwhile, is one of the best volleyers in the game and has people predicting big things at Wimbledon. The second seeds through with a 6-3, 6-2 win and meet ninth seeded Belgian pairing Mark Harmel and Yves Parmentier after they edged out Carlos Machado and Denis Rodrígues 7-6(3), 7-5.
- In the second quarter final, sixteenth seeds Mikel Fosdike and Christian Mary will meet unseeded East European duo Ivars Emsis and Alexey Yarkin. The French duo beat Felipe Menon and Roberto Santos 6-4, 6-3 while Emsis and Yarkin stunned rampaging fifth seeds Sandro Bachunelli and Hicham Hadir 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5).
- Seeded players out: Sandro Bachunelli & Hicham Hadir; Carlos Machado & Denis Rodrígues.
It has been an exhausting week that's for sure. Hopefully we can keep the momentum going.
Roland Garros II - Boys' Singles
GRAND SLAM - Monday (Day Nine) - Paris, France - Clay (Red)
- Top seed and junior Australian Open champion Marcuss Deane has made a winning start to his Roland Garros campaign, but did it tough as he ousted Spain's Miguel Alfonso in three sets. Deane had no trouble in the first set as he overwhelmed the Spaniard with power, but Alfonso kept at it by mixing it up and using the backhand slice to great effect as he continually caused Deane trouble. The big serving West CWLander struggled to create his own pace and found himself down a break in the third set. But with his serve struggling, Deane finally changed his tactics and came to the net more often against his less-fancied opponent to secure a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win. His next opponent is local wildcard Henri Arcouet who won his first match 7-6(5), 6-3.
- No such luck for Shri Ram as the East CWLander was edged out by Brazilian fourth seed Felipe Braga. Ram started poorly against the teenage South American as he unloaded with a torrent of unforced errors and bad language. After dropping the first set 2-6, he took advantage of a tiring Braga whose style really requires a better tank. However the Brazilian was clearly more comfortable on the surface and won through to the second round in a tiebreaker 6-2, 7-6(3).
- In the same section, Eastern youngster Tom McIntosh proved too much for Slovenia's Ilijaz Koceli in an impressive three-set victory. The Slovenian came from a break down to take the first set in a tiebreaker, but could not maintain a high enough quality of tennis as the slim American-born youngster proved too solid and cool under pressure in his 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-2 win. He now meets Bulgaria's Yuri Shankov after he upset fourteenth seed Santiago Manzo of Peru.
- In one of the day's more exciting performances, fifteenth seed Jay Ono cruised past Croatian qualifier Pribislav Matković. The Moroccan-born Ono recently accepted a scholarship with the prestigious (allegedly) East Robbham Junior Tennis Program and put a hurting on Matkovic with a talent on his forehand side well beyond his years. Even at this level he's got little on the backhand wing, but he proved too much for Matkovic in a 6-3, 6-2 win. He now meets Russia's Tomas Volkoff who came from a set down to beat Aussie John Standish 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-0.
- In the day's biggest upset, the unseeded Morgan Burridge ousted sixth seeded Fin Yrjö Kurri in three sets. Burridge, a highly rated youngster in the West, was an underdog against the consistent Fin but proved too good over the three sets in a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 victory. After the big win, he now meets Italy's Lucius Cremonesi.
Last edited by SirBloody Idiot; 24-06-2011 at 06:55 AM.
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About the Care Center
The Wildlife Care Center is the oldest and busiest wildlife rehabilitation facility in Oregon. Each year we treat about 3,000 wild animals for release back to the wild and respond to more than 10,000 wildlife-related inquiries. Our goal is to give injured, native wildlife a second chance at life in the wild and to reduce wildlife hazards in our community by educating people about urban wildlife.
The care center operates under permits issued by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We are an Oregon non-profit organization with IRS 501(c)(3) status and depend primarily on donations to support our operations.
Audubon first began rehabilitating wildlife in the 1930s (before the term "wildlife rehabilitation" even existed) when the Audubon Sanctuary caretakers began taking in injured wild animals. The current facility was built in 1987 and has capacity to treat more than 3,000 wild animals each year. The facility includes full wildlife veterinary and rehabilitation service, a wildlife diagnostics laboratory, indoor and outdoor flight cages, and housing for eight non-releasable educational birds and one non-releasable educational turtle. The care center is operated by three staff, including a wildlife veterinarian, and more than 100 volunteers.
Services include:
- Complete veterinary care and rehabilitation services for injured wildlife
- Wildlife field services and wildlife rescue
- Wildlife information, advice and consultation
- Live educational bird programs (on and off site)
- Wildlife research programs
Guests are welcome to stop in and visit the care center lobby and courtyard. Meet our non-releasable educational animals, watch wildlife surgeries through our observation windows, and check out the interpretive displays in our lobby.
Care Center Policies
Non-native animal policy: The Wildlife Care Center does not accept non-native, exotic or domestic animals for rehabilitation.
After-hours policy: The Wildlife Care Center does not accept after hours drop-offs.
Phone Number, Hours and Directions
Phone Number: Our Wildlife Care Center answers calls between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. seven days a week. You can reach the WCC at 503-292-0304.
Hours: 7 days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Address: 5151 NW Cornell Rd, Portland, OR 97210
Getting here (map):
From the intersection of NW Lovejoy and 23rd Ave, head west on Lovejoy (which turns into Cornell). You'll find us 1.5 miles west of this intersection, on your right hand side just past the second tunnel. Nestled in beautiful Forest Park, we encourage carpooling, bicycling, and hiking to Portland Audubon.
Alternative transportation options:
Take TriMet's #15 bus to 23rd/Lovejoy and walk 1.5 miles west on Lovejoy, which turns into Cornell. Or, take TriMet's #15 or #77 to Thurman and 27th, walk six blocks to Lower Macleay Trailhead and hike the trail through Balch Creek Canyon to Audubon. The hike takes about 45 minutes, depending on your pace. Bicycles are not allowed on the Lower MacLeay (Balch Creek) trail.
By car, coming from north/south/east:
1. Take the I-5 freeway to the Fremont Bridge exit.
2. Go over the Fremont Bridge, staying in the far right lane, and take the Vaughn Street exit.
3. Continue on Vaughn Street to the second stop light (NW 25th).
4. Turn left onto 25th and keep going until you come to NW Lovejoy (4 way stop).
5. Turn right onto Lovejoy and stay on it. It will veer right and take you up the hill.
6. Lovejoy will turn into Cornell Road and you will pass through two tunnels.
7. The Audubon Society of Portland is on the right approximately 1/4 mile past the second tunnel.
By car, coming from the west/southwest:
1. Head towards town on Highway 26.
2. Take the Barnes Road exit and turn right.
3. Go past St. Vincent's Hospital to Miller Road (approximately one mile).
4. Turn left onto Miller and stay on it until you come to Cornell Road.
5. Turn right onto Cornell. Continue past Skyline.
6. The Audubon Society of Portland is on the left about 1.5 miles past the Skyline / Cornell intersection.


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Hawke's Bay - Church Road Dining
Church Road Winery has re-introduced a la carte dining back into their restaurant.
I'm pleased to be able to tell you about something new from one of Hawke's Bay's oldest and best loved wineries. I'm talking about Church Road Winery, who after four long years has re-introduced a la carte dining back into their restaurant.
Previously you could always enjoy a lunch platter with your wine, however now they have partnered with Jenny Parton from Dish Catering to run the kitchen full time. Probably more well known for her catering cuisine at the Hawke's Bay Opera House and Great Late Long Lunch, Jenny is a seasoned culinary pro and has created an outstanding menu to enjoy at Church Road.
Open 7 days a week from 11am-3pm every day, the full kitchen service will operate during the summer months so you have until the end of March to get along for lunch.
Diners can choose from a selection of starters, sharing plates, sides, desserts, sweet treats and cheese plates with the much loved lunch platters still available. They also have a kids menu with options for gluten free and vegetarian diners.
I sat down with a fairly aggressive appetite so made a start with the Chorizo Polenta chips with a beetroot and roast garlic mayonnaise. Served on skewers, these were not like any chips I've ever tasted and confess to becoming that person who doesn't want to share.
There were two of us and for mains we selected two share plates each which were more than enough to satisfy our hunger. My top pick was the chicken schnitzel, roasted cauliflower and edamame salad with sesame dressing, mustard seed mayonnaise and radish watercress. We also tried the pork belly, calamari and soft shell crab which were all delicious and full of great fresh flavours. Each dish has a selected wine match to accompany it which I really like because it gives you a chance to taste some interesting varietals that you might not usually drink, without having to commit to a bottle.
You can dine inside or outside in the garden, and if you fancy whiling away the afternoon then there's a Petanque court and balls available to keep you amused.
Home to the only wine museum in the country, Church Road is also a big draw card for visitors from near and far. Well worth a look, the museum highlights over 100 years of NZ winemaking and is more of a living wine experience with artefacts and models depicting activity through the years. It is underground in old concrete wine vats and when you walk through you can actually see the tannin stains on the walls from where the wine used to be stored.
Their cellar door is open for tasting and sales every day 10am-5pm and tours of the working winery and museum run at 11am and 2pm. The tour includes a visit to the Tom McDonald Cellar which I think is one of the most beautiful venues we have in Hawke's Bay. Due to its size, style and great acoustics, the cellar is a great option for weddings, parties and conferences.
In other big news for Church Road, Chief Winemaker Chris Scott, has been voted 2013 New Zealand Winemaker of the Year with Winestate Magazine. It's great to see our regional talent awarded these accolades, and a great excuse to taste their wines!
For more info or to check out the events on offer at Church Road this summer go to www.churchroad.com


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>>> Full Poll
AUGUSTA, Ga. - Georgia College Women's Cross Country was selected to finish seventh in the Peach Belt Conference Preseason Coaches Poll released Wednesday afternoon.
The Bobcats came in the fifth in same poll last year and return all but one starter. Among those starters is the first All-Region runner in GC history Allison Lones, who helped theBobcats to a 13th place finish in the NCAA Southeast Regional and a seventh slot at the PBC Championship last year.
The University of Montevallo was picked first in the poll receiving 9 of 12 first place votes. Georgia College received a fifth place vote, six votes for sixth place, three votes to finish seventh, and a vote to finish eighth.
Women's cross country in the Peach Belt Conference expanded this year, with Young Harris College joining the conference and the University of North Georgia bringing their program back after a two-year hiatus.
The Bobcats will start their season Aug. 31 with the Bobcat Invitational. The team will compete in five total races before the PBC Championships in Montevallo, Ala. Oct. 20.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, two-time winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 11 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a DivisionII program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete,evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as wellas documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up atwww.twitter.com/BobcatSports and www.facebook.com/gcbobcats for up-to-the-minutereports, and visit www.GCBobcats.com for more information, and to nominate your favoriteformer Bobcats and Colonials to the GC Athletics Hall of Fame.


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FRW plantings continued at a furious pace in May. Six thousand (6,000) native trees, shrubs and wildflowers were added to the 18,000 planted in April. More than a dozen schools, two businesses, community groups and FRW staff and volunteers did their part.
May featured several major planting events involving over 1,000 volunteers from schools, community groups and corporations.
The Toyota planting attracted between 150 and 200 people. A total of 400 trees and 800 wildflowers were planted. In addition to a monetary donation, Toyota Canada President Mr. Yoichi Tomihara announced that a new Toyota Hybrid vehicle would be made available to FRW. City TV, CTV, and Global were all on hand to cover the event.
Sites in Bob Hunter Park, and in the Scarborough portion of Rouge Park (south of Steeles) were the focus of the planting activity including a large portion of the old Beare Landfill Restoration site. Both wetland and upland flower species were planted.
A few planting groups (including our new friends from Manitoba) were lucky enough to see the sometimes elusive coyotes that roam our restoration sites. Other exciting sightings made by students included a salamander in the Beare Wetland Restoration site (probably an Eastern Red-Backed), seven Common Merganser ducklings (with their parents) and six Wood duck ducklings (with their parents), Also, several students found freshly hatched painted turtles (each was about the size of a toonie).
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Glasses case with a troika, three horses hand-painted eyeglass carrying case Free worldwide Shipping
Glasses case with a troika, three horses, a case for glasses made of a thin sheet of metal and hand-painted with oil paints.
This case is covered with a double layer of a protective varnish. Case for glasses inside is decorated with black velvet paper. Case records closing with a magnet.
This case is a very unique combination of beauty, strength, elegance and conveniency. It is an original and beautiful handmade gift for the women, men, girls and collectors.
Dimensions: length is 16 cm., width is 6 cm., height is 3 cm.


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Double D Ranchwear Space Cowboy Top~ Black
$175.00 $250.00
- Size Guide
- Delivery
- Returns
- Contact Us
Since each designer and style will vary, Cowgirl Kim does not offer a standard size chart.
We always try to include the bust measurement of at least one size to reference, and then generally that will go up by 2" increments per size. Please feel free to call or email to ask for more detailed measurement for the item and size you are interested in.
We will be happy to provide as much information as you would like to help you select the best size for you.
Cowgirl Kim offers a variety of ways to ship your package. Both USPS & UPS are available and you, the customer, decide what works best for you!
We do not charge a handling fee so the rates are calculated directly from the shipping supplier and displayed at the time of check out for you to approve. If your order qualifies for FREE Shipping, we will select the most economical method for your package to be shipped.
If you are needing something shipped overnight, choose that option and the cost will be displayed. Please note ~ we ship once daily for each carrier so orders placed after 10:00 A.M. CST for USPS or 12:00 P.M. CST for UPS orders will be shipped the following business day. UPS Next Day pricing does NOT include for Saturday delivery but rather the next business day.
Feel free to give us a call if you need your order rushed and we'll do our best to help!
Call 281-703-5814. We do not ship packages on Saturday or Sunday as our office is closed. Keep this in mind when calculating your delivery time.
Items discounted 20% off or more are considered FINAL sales.
Please ask any questions you might have before you purchase sale merchandise. We are here to provide measurements and help!
We are in the office Monday – Friday 9-5 CST
Phone: 800.471.1227
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Address (For Returns Only):
905 E Main Street
Fredericksburg, TX 78624
United States
Store Location ~ The Mercantile
142 E Main Street
Fredericksburg, TX 78624
A cousin to the Rocket Man Shirt, the Space Cowboy Top is a fun, fringed addition to your collection. The tie front adds unexpected detail to the iconic western shirt, and the embroidered planets, stars, and cactus add to the classic Double D Ranch look.
- fit: slim
- long sleeve western shirt with tie front
- embroidery, fringe, contrast piping, pearl snaps
- 100% poly
|Bust Circumference
|36 1/2
|38 1/2
|40 1/2
|43 1/2
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|Sweep (straight across)
|37 1/2
|39 1/2
|41 1/2
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|Shoulder Width
|15 1/2
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Statistical Reasoning for the Behavioral Sciences
Allyn and Bacon, 1981 - Psychometrics - 673 pages
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The Role of Research in the Behavioral Sciences 4 Purposes of Empirical Research
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abscissa achievement altemative alternative hypothesis assumption average behavioral research belief scale cell central tendency Chapter class interval column Compute confidence interval constructed control group correlation coefficient critical value cumulative frequency degrees of freedom differences between means distribution of means equal estimate EXAMPLE PROBLEM expected frequencies experimental group factor Figure Formula frequency distribution frequency polygon grades graph hypothetical study independent variable inferential statistics internal validity interpretation measure median midpoint moral judgments negative normal distribution null and alternative null hypothesis number of subjects O O O O O observed one-tailed test Operation Example ordinate outcome percentile points population mean posttest scores predicted pretest random sample randomly assigned raw scores real limits regression reject H0 reject the null relationship represent sample data sample mean sampling distribution scatterplot score value scores fall standard deviation standard error statistical inference statistical test summarized in Procedure Suppose teacher expectancy theory two-tailed test variance zero


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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened as it spun toward the Dominican Republic and vulnerable Haiti on Friday, threatening to bring punishing rains but unlikely to gain enough steam to strike as a hurricane.
Forecasters now expect the storm to stay below hurricane force until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico, staying to the west of Tampa, Florida, where the Republican National Convention starts on Monday, though there is still an outside chance it could hit there.
Forecaster Eric Blake of the U.S. National Hurricane Center said it is "too early to know" the storm's exact course, though projections indicated the storm could make U.S. landfall near the Alabama-Mississippi border.
In Haiti, the government and international aid groups announced plans to evacuate several thousand people from one of the settlement camps that sprang up in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.
Isaac was expected to dump eight to 12 inches (20 to 30 centimeters) of rain on the island of Hispaniola that is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
"That kind of rain is going to cause some life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Hurricane Center in Miami.
Isaac was centered about 135 miles (215 kilometers) south-southeast of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, on Friday afternoon, and its maximum sustained winds had held steady at 60 mph (95 kph). It was moving west at 14 mph (22 kph), according to the Hurricane Center.
The center of the storm was expected to pass over Haiti Friday night.
Tropical force winds extend nearly 200 miles (321 kilometers) beyond the storm's center.
In flood-prone Haiti, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe urged people to avoid crossing rivers, to tape their windows, and to stay calm, saying "panic creates more problems."
Lamothe and other Haitian officials said the government had set aside about $50,000 in emergency funds and had buses and 32 boats on standby for evacuations.
But among many Haitians, the notion of disaster preparedness in a country where most people get by on about $2 a day was met with a shrug.
"We don't have houses that can bear a hurricane," said Jeanette Lauredan, who lives in a tent camp in the crowded Delmas district of Port-au-Prince.
About 400,000 people remain in settlement camps comprised of shacks and tarps in the wake of Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake.
In the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, people went to work as usual, but commercial banks closed at noon and some residents took precautions as the sky darkened, rain began and the wind picked up.
"Just in case this gets very bad — the sky is turning gray — I'm making sure we have enough food in the house," said 25-year-old Joanne Dorville as she carried home rice, sardines, black beans and cooking oil she had purchased in a street market.
Haitian authorities and aid workers from the International Organization for Migration and the Haitian Red Cross sought to evacuate as many as 8,000 people from a tent camp at the edge of the capital, but no one accepted Friday morning. Two school buses that were supposed to shuttle the people to temporary shelters drove away empty.
"If I leave for a shelter, by the time I come back, everything I have will be gone," said Charles Delizaire, a 39-year-old resident of the settlement named Marassa.
So far, Isaac itself had caused no reported injuries or deaths, but police in Puerto Rico said a 75-year-old woman died near the capital of San Juan on Wednesday when she fell off a balcony while filling a drum with water in preparation for the storm.
In the Dominican Republic, authorities began to evacuate people from low-lying areas but, as in Haiti, they encountered resistance.
"Nobody wants to leave their homes for fear they'll get burglarized," said Francisco Mateo, community leader of the impoverished La Cienaga neighborhood in Santo Domingo, the capital.
However, authorities said they have managed to evacuate nearly 2,900 people. The majority were transferred to the homes of relatives while about 300 were sent to government shelters.
Local forecasters said they expect the storm to dump up to 12 inches (31 centimeters) of rain through Saturday, causing possible flooding and landslides.
"That's a lot of water," said Juan Manuel Mendez, emergency operations director. "The worst is yet to come."
Two airports in Santo Domingo reopened, although the country's remaining seven airports remained closed, authorities said.
Blake, the U.S. forecaster, said that while Isaac hadn't strengthened much in the Caribbean, it could gain power as it moves away from Cuba. "When it moves back over water, it has a chance to restrengthen," he said.
Commercial airlines, including American Airlines, canceled flights to and from the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico.
Organizers of next week's Republican National Convention in Tampa said they were working closely with state and federal authorities on monitoring storm as they prepared for the arrival of 70,000 delegates, journalists and protesters, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott said there were no plans to cancel the convention.
Out in the eastern Atlantic, another tropical storm, Joyce, was downgraded to a tropical depression late Thursday, and posed no threat to land. The hurricane center in Miami said Joyce had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph) and that it was becoming disorganized.
Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; contributed to this report.


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WASHINGTON (AP) � The days of fixed-rate student loans could be coming to a close, with House Republicans on Thursday advancing a proposal that would link rates to financial markets. The GOP-led House...
WASHINGTON (AP) � The days of fixed-rate student loans could be coming to a close, with House Republicans on Thursday advancing a proposal that would link rates to financial markets.
The GOP-led House Education and the Workforce Committee sent to the full House a bill that would offer some students a better deal at first. Democratic critics warned that graduates would face steadily climbing rates and costs over the long haul if the markets change.
�Our families deserve better than this bait and switch,� said Rep. George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the committee, who led the opposition.
The Republican chairman of the panel, Rep. John Kline, said critics were giving too much credence to Congressional Budget Office figures that anticipate future interest rates and don�t accurately measure real costs for the program that helps 36 million students.
�We don�t know what these interest rates are going to be. No one actually knows what they will be,� Kline said. �Pick your score and make your best guess.�
Without Congress� action, interest rates for new subsidized Stafford student loans would double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1. Neither party wants that to happen, although there remain strong differences in the methods to dodge that.
Democrats attempted to hold the rates at 3.4 percent while Congress considers a long-term fix. Their proposal received no votes from Republicans who hold the majority on the panel.
�Student loan rates should not be subject to the whims of Congress,� said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. �Students� families and taxpayers deserve a long-term solution. � This legislation offers predictability and simplicity.�
Democrats were not swayed.
�I�ll tell you what�s predictable: they�ll be paying more,� said Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass.
Under the GOP proposal, student loans would be reset every year and based on 10-year Treasury notes, plus an added percentage. For instance, students who receive subsidized or unsubsidized Stafford student loans would pay the Treasury rate, plus 2.5 percentage points.
Using Congressional Budget Office projections, that would translate to a 5 percent interest rate on Stafford loans in 2014, but the rate would climb to 7.7 percent for loans in 2023. Stafford loan rates would be capped at 8.5 percent, while loans for parents and graduate students would have a 10.5 percent ceiling under the GOP proposal.
�These rates reset every year. Buyer, beware,� Courtney said.
Democrats on the panel objected to increasing the rates within a program that generates vast income for the federal government. The Congressional Budget Office this week revised its figures this week, reporting that federal loans will generate almost $51 billion this year. Over the last five years, that sum is almost $120 billion.
�That $51 billion is more than Exxon,� Miller said.
�It�s time we stop using federal student loans as a profit center,� added Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass.
In real dollars, the GOP plan would cost students and families heavily, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The office used the CBO projections for Treasury notes� interest rates each year.
Students who max out their subsidized Stafford loans over four years would pay $8,331 in interest payments under the Republican bill, and $3,450 if rates were kept at 3.4 percent. If rates were allowed to double in July, that amount would be $7,284 over the typical 10-year window to repay the maximum $19,000.
For students who borrow the maximum subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans, they would pay $12,374 in interest under the Republican bill. The interest charges would be $10,867 if subsidized loans were allowed to double in July, or $7,033 if rates stay the same. The maximum available in subsidized and unsubsidized amounts is $27,000 for four years of school.
Graduate students and parents, meanwhile, would see interest payments reach $27,680 for four years of college under the GOP plan. If Congress keeps the rates the same, their interest payments would be $21,654 on the original maxed-out $40,000 loan, according to the Congressional Research Service report.
Republicans, however, stood by the proposal as needed amid economic struggles. A two-year extension of the 3.4 percent rate for subsidized Stafford loans would cost taxpayers about $9 billion.
�I would love to have the rates at 2 percent. It�s just not realistic,� said Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn.
President Barack Obama�s budget outline included flexible rates for student loans, pegging the interest to markets, but did not have a cap. Republicans had long pushed for the flexible rates and Kline said he would go along with Obama on that principle while adding a cap that Democrats sought.
The White House, however, has not embraced Kline�s proposal and stressed there are serious differences between proposals.


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It was a scene right out of a Hollywood movie – an entire family gathered in the waiting room when suddenly a lullaby came wafting through the public address system for all to hear and cheer.
The sound of music at Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital meant another baby had been delivered and no one could have been prouder than members of the Salley family who travelled from Clemson and Columbia to celebrate the moment.
Right after the lullaby ended, the new father, Rotie Salley, appeared and announced to the group that Catherine had just delivered a baby girl named Emily Ann Salley and that mother and daughter were doing just fine.
With that news, Rotie's brother walked up to the new father and offered him, "a fine gas-station cigar," and everybody laughed and exhaled in the glow of good news.
Two-year Journey
But the good news doesn't end with the delivery of a baby at RSF Mount Pleasant Hospital. It actually begins with the implementation of a program called "Baby Friendly," an international initiative that promotes breast feeding and keeping moms and baby together.
"We're in the final stage of a two-year journey toward a culture change," said Happy Everette, clinical manager of the Women's, Infant and Children's Services. "Baby Friendly defines 10 steps to successful breast feeding. If all hospitals follow these steps they will have more well babies that leave the hospital."
Studies show that breast feeding reduces the future problems of obesity in babies as well as less ear infection, asthma and fewer allergies, which impacts the total dollar amount a community saves on each child.
In short, the program trains new mothers in breast feeding and encourages the practice of "rooming in," which allows mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day. And, no pacifiers are allowed.
Another First
This new initiative is all about "skin-to-skin" in the delivery room, meaning the child is immediately handed to the mother so the bonding can begin. And while scenes from old Hollywood movies showed babies swaddled and gawked over in a sterile nursery, the new trend is to keep the child in the mother's arms as much as possible.
"Not too long ago, we would take the babies straight to the nursery after delivery and it could be hours before the mother sees the child," Everette said. "Turns out, we were one of the only cultures on earth that did that. Our goal now is to initiate breast feeding within an hour of birth."
Achieving this kind of cultural shift does not happen overnight, Everette said. Not only are future parents educated in pre-natal classes, the staff at RSF Mount Pleasant Hospital, including physicians, have been reeducated in the importance of breast feeding and touch.
In July, RSF Mount Pleasant Hospital became the first hospital in Charleston to earn the Baby-Friendly designation.
And if you don't think that's a big deal, just ask Emily Ann.
Learn more about the Baby-Friendly designation.
By: Ken Burger, former Post and Courier sports columnist, blogger and local author


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It is indeed a pan/tilt setup I would like to control with my head (with the help of a headset).
I don't know why I tried servo's first but I am not sure if servo's can make precise angle reproduction... it follows your pots' movement very well but can you make it move 59,5 degrees if your turn your pot 59,5 degrees??
If you are looking for smooth .5 deg control resolution using your head, I doubt it will happen. I made a simple joystick control for my servo based webcam pan/tilt and learned a lot. You could get a pair of plastic safety glasses and attach a laser pointer to see how well you can make the laser dot stay on target. What do you do if you need to move your head without moving the cam? If you manage that, how do you get the cam and head controller back in sync? I'd do some simple proof of concept testing before starting to invest serious $$$.
If you are looking for fast .5 degree resolution control, servos arent what you need, you can find some good sized stepper motors that with a 2-1 gear ratio will give you incredibly fast speed and .5 degree or better resolution. these are what they use for CNC mills so you can be sure they're the best option.


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Q Happy New Year — not. Gas prices have risen around a dime in recent days. Is the break at the pump we've enjoyed for the past couple of months ending?
F. Yang.
San Jose
A Afraid so. Crude oil prices have passed the $100-a-barrel mark for the first time since Halloween, and crude inventories have fallen for the past four weeks. Gasbuddy.com predicts prices could hit $4-plus a gallon in California by March and $3.83 nationwide. But the average for the year could be a dime less than in 2013.
Q On ski trips these last few years, we've noticed gas prices in Arnold have been cheaper than in the South Bay. It was $3.49 at one station on Thursday. How can that be, what with transportation costs?
Stefan Frazier
San Jose
A I gave up trying to figure this out years ago.
Q I'm often entertained by your column. Your readers come up with all kinds of zany ideas, some good and some bad, to solve traffic woes in the Bay Area and beyond. The latest idea — to build double-decker freeways like in Hong Kong — really takes the cake.
Anthony Stegman
San Jose
A Why is that?
Q Comparing Hong Kong to the sprawling Bay Area is absurd. Walnut Creek and Clayton are far-flung suburbs, not densely populated urban areas. A better solution is for folks to make better choices as to where they live and work. If you work in San Francisco you should not be living in Clayton! If you choose to live in Clayton, don't complain about your arduous commute.
I can say the same thing to those living in Tracy and Manteca while working in Silicon Valley. Taxpayers ought not be required to subsidize your lifestyle choices by building more and more miles of freeways, double-decker or not!
Anthony Stegman
A It's not that simple, of course. Why would someone choose to live in Clayton and commute 90 minutes or more? Cheaper housing.
Q I have a new Fiat 500e and white carpool lane stickers. Instructions say to place the larger stickers on the sides of the car, behind the rear wheels. Therein lies the problem: The sticker is larger than the bodywork behind the rear wheel of a 500e.
I see several solutions, from carrying the side stickers in the glove box, to putting them above or in front of the rear wheel, or putting the small sticker on the side. I'm leaning toward placing them in front of the rear wheel.
What do you think?
Paul D.
San Jose
A Put them above the rear wheels.
Q I am hoping that time and good behavior on your part have helped your leg to heal. How about an update for all us appreciative readers?
Shirley Greenwood
A The medical verdict is still out. More tests may be done to determine if my leg and back problems are related. I'm still not driving, so a big thanks to Mrs. Roadshow, co-workers and friends who have chauffeured me around.
Look for Gary Richards at Facebook.com/mr.roadshow or contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com, at Twitter.com/mrroadshow or 408-920-5335.


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Incorporates a whole host of improvements in portrait enhancement.
It also incorporates the world's most advanced automatic face, hair and feature detector, making the most
powerful portrait software now also the fastest and easiest to use.
Simply open any photo and Portrait Professional 11 will automatically find any faces,
including the facial features and automatically give the face exactly the enhancements
you have defined. It is the only portrait software that offers the photographer both
full automation and full creative control over all aspects of the face, skin and hair.
Offers the highest performing face and feature finding
in the industry, it is also the first software to let you refine and slim the face by
interactively changing the markup, so you can see the effect changing the markup has on the end result in
real time. This means you can interactively adjust the mark-up points until the face looks
its best. This is a surprisingly easy and intuitive process, and offers the highest level of
face refinement possible.
New 3rd generation skin processor
that produces more natural and realistic skin enhancement.
Portrait Professional is the only portrait software actually capable of slimming and
refining the face.
The software can literally take off the weight 'that the camera puts on', making the
subject look as slim and beautiful as possible.
This is because Portrait Professional is trained in human beauty.
The software has analyzed thousands of photos to learn what makes people look
attractive - or unattractive - and uses this information to help the photographer improve
any aspect of the face.
There are some things that even a flattering camera angle and a well-chosen pose can't hide.
If you want to slim your subject, Portrait Professional 11 can take off a few pounds and really
bring out the person they would like to be - and often think they already are!
Research shows that people buy more photos if they like the way they look in them.
Portrait Professional 11 is the only software that allows you to slim and refine
faces in a natural way to make people as attractive as they can be.
You may have already used Portrait Professional to thicken and smooth hair,
but with Portrait Professional 11, you can also give your subject a new hair color.
Want to add a hint of red? Or highlights? You can even break out the bleach, if you want!
Add that bit of extra color to really bring your photos to life.
Portrait Professional has always allowed you to edit multiple faces in the same photograph.
Now that functionality has been greatly improved. The automatic mark-up will detect and
automatically mark-up the faces in your images. You simply select and enhance the faces,
tailoring each to their requirements.
Unlike older versions you do not have to save the improvements when you move to
another face. Each face remains editable in your session file and you can move between
the faces changing and balancing the enhancements at will.
Faces marked up and ready to be enhanced!
Unlike an ordinary paint brush the Clearskin™ brush actually looks for defects under
the cursor. When the Clearskin™ brush finds a wrinkle or a spot or a patch of shiny skin,
it replaces the defect with real skin texture, leaving the rest of the skin in its
natural state. The result is the most natural and realistic skin touch up.
The Clearskin™ brush also detects the edge of the skin and makes every effort not to
go over the edge, for instance into the eye. The result is that you can work
quickly and efficiently and do not have to be painstakingly accurate in order to
achieve great results.
Slider controls to instantly improve common problems. There are new sliders to automatically
reduce eye bags and reduce crow's feet, as well as controls for cheek enhancement and lip moistening.
Traditionally, software has been delivered in big new releases that happen every year or 18 months.
This long timescale means that users often have to wait over a year for new features that have
already been developed. It also makes it harder to incorporate the latest user feedback into the software.
We are changing all this. Portrait Professional has a large community of committed users whose feedback
is vital to us. From now on we are running continuous trials with our community of users of all the new
features in development, and as soon as a new feature has achieved community approval it will be immediately
So not only no more waiting a year or more for a big new release, but also all new features will have been
community tested and refined before release. The result is better software delivered to our community faster.
And given this new way of releasing software we already have some exciting new features planned for the
next few months, so keep watching this space! The best is about to get even better!
The plug-in edition, Portrait Professional Studio, integrates seamlessly with Photoshop, Lightroom,
Aperture and Photoshop Elements to provide all Portrait Professional 11's features without having to close your
program of choice. What's more, Portrait Professional Studio 64, the premier edition of the
software, is optimized for 64-bit computers and is capable of handling even the largest file sizes. Both
these studio editions of Portrait Professional 11 can handle RAW files.
All in all, Portrait Professional 11 provides a top-quality professional airbrushing tool for the professional photographer
and the enthusiastic amateur alike, allowing freelancers access to the methods that have been used
in the fashion and media industries for years.


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SAN DIEGO â From The Immortals film and the immortals of Twilight, to franchises and stars being reborn, this year's Comic-Con was all about renewal and life after death.
The annual pop-culture convention ended Sunday, which means it's time to hang up the spandex, masks and plastic broadswords for another year. But, once again, Comic-Con's web drew in the biggest pop-cultural events on the horizon â including an appearance by the world's most famous webslinger himself. We look at the top trends and talents at this year's convention, and tell you what you have to look forward to:
⢠New franchise faces: New Spidey Andrew Garfield was the toast of the convention, with his fanboy love and enthusiasm for a role he called "a childhood dream," and "the most defining experience of my life." Slated to open in the summer of 2012, the franchise reboot is expected to offer a darker, grittier Spider-Man more grounded in our own world. Meanwhile, new Superman, Henry Cavill, was promoting his upcoming film, Immortals â co-starring Mickey Rourke and to be released Nov. 11 â but could not escape questions about being the new Man of Steel. While closely guarded about the 2013 superhero revamp, which has now begun shooting in Chicago, Cavill told Access Hollywood: âIt's one of the best scripts I've ever read.â
⢠Fangs aplenty: The bloodsuckers were the dominant monster of Comic-Con â and the sole creature of the night that people seemed to want to welcome into their bedrooms.
Twilight kicked off Comic-Con with a bang Thursday, with their panel and a morning delight. Some cast members surprised fans waiting in line â some overnight â by serving them breakfast. (What nice, young vampires and werewolves some of them turned out to be!) The second-last film in the series, Breaking Dawn: Part 1, is coming to the big screen Nov. 18.
Then there's Colin Farrell's Fright Night (opening Aug. 19), where he literally plays the "vampire next door." The casts of Being Human, True Blood (now airing on HBO) and The Vampire Diaries (the new season bows Sept. 13) also bared their teeth for vamp-hungry fans.
⢠The Buffy factor: After almost a decade-long absence as a regular on network TV, Sarah Michelle Gellar is back in this fall's Ringer (premiering Sept. 13), a drama/crime noir in which she plays two twin sisters. On top of that, the new series Grimm, set to debut Oct. 21, borrows a page from the template of her iconic supernatural series. Written by writers executive producers Jim Kouf (Angel) and David Greenwalt (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the show follows a cop who learns he has inherited special abilities â and an ancient battle against legendary fairy-tale creatures that are all too real. Poor sucker. Just like Buffy, another average Joe learns he must protect humanity from hidden monsters that go bump in the night. Don't quit your day job.
⢠Fables are the new zombies? Vampires have been hot for years, and zombies seem like the âitâ monster of the moment â but, with two new fall TV series, in which fables and creatures of legend walk our streets, they may be the next prom king and queen at the monster mash. Once Upon a Time â starring Jennifer Morrison from House and the ever-reliable Robert Carlyle (Stargate: Universe) â and Grimm were both casting their spell at Comic-Con. Once, premiering Oct. 23, is a drama about fairy-tale characters cast out of their land and unknowingly living in our real world. Meanwhile, the creators of Grimm revealed that the legends they'd be bringing to the modern world with a twist included Goldilocks, The Three Pigs and Cinderella.
⢠Zombies are . . . the new zombies?
Perhaps no TV show is as hotly anticipated as The Walking Dead. Zombie fans dressed in homage to the show were a regular site and they did not come away disappointed. AMC announced the show's 13-episode 2nd season (over twice as long as the first) would bow Oct. 16.
⢠Steven Spielberg, the Comic-Con virgin: Who knew the master of movie magic had never been here before? Spielberg was on hand to receive the Inkpot Award, handed out annually to a top dog in comics and genre entertainment. But he was also on hand with Peter Jackson to promote The Adventures of Tintin, poised for release in December â his first directorial effort since 2008's Indiana Jones sequel. Tintin is based on the Belgian tales of a boy journalist and was filmed with motion-capture technology. But Spielberg's presence was felt on the small screen, as well, with a creative hand in two new TV series also showcasing at the convention, Fox's Terra Nova (premieres Sept. 26) and TNT's Falling Skies. Spielberg is also a producer for the pending summer blockbuster, Cowboys & Aliens, which opens wide Friday and had its world premiere in San Diego during the festivities.
⢠They'll be back, just not with Arnold: Two iconic Arnold Schwarzenegger films are being remade without their original star. Total Recall, starring Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston and Kate Beckinsale, will hit screens Aug. 3, 2012. Meanwhile, Conan the Barbarian star Jason Momoa cast a hulking shadow over the convention for two different barbaric performances. Momoa appeared with the cast of Game of Thrones, where he played the late Drogo on the show's first season. Momoa fills the large shoes left behind by Schwarzenegger when his revamp of Conan the Barbarian opens this Aug. 19. Arnold was never in the movie or the TV series, but the re-imagined Charlie's Angels also showed some sass â and plenty of leg â at the convention, through its new TV cast: Minka Kelly, Annie Ilonzeh and Rachael Taylor. The series premieres Sept. 22.
⢠Origin stories: Prometheus, a prequel to Ridley Scott's Aliens starring Charlize Theron, Noomi Pace and Michael Fassbender, got a lot of attention and is slated to hit screens in June of 2012. Meanwhile, the prequel, Rise of the Planet of Apes, brought in director Rupert Wyatt and lead âapeâ Andy Serkis to monkey around. James Franco also stars in the film set in the present about the simian who begins a revolution and will one day lead to new world order and the famous line, âTake your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" The film bows this summer on Aug. 5.
⢠Lost and found: The influence of the landmark series could be felt everywhere. While the cast and writers were once an annual superhero TV team at Comic-Con, many are now here with their own projects.
Michael Emerson has left the villainy of The Others' Ben behind him in the new fall series Person of Interest (premiering Sept. 22). But he retains his air of mystery as a man who built a secret, Big Brother-esque machine for the government that monitors humanity and can predict violent crime and catastrophic events. Jorge Garcia, Hurley from Lost, was in town to promote Alcatraz, his new, mid-season, mystery-riddled show from Lost writer Elizabeth Sarnoff, about prisoners who disappeared in the '60s re-appearing in present-day San Francisco. And Nestor Carbonell (Lost's enigmatic Richard) generated heat alongside Gellar for the new series, Ringer. Lost writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are also the creative conjurers behind Once Upon a Time.
Even Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof was on hand â and being his usual secretive self when it came to details on his script for Aliens' prequel Prometheus (though we can probably guarantee no Smoke Monster, hatch or magical island).


text:
Adventures of a bank inspector
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text:
T.O. a Raider?
Assuming he came at a reasonable price, there's only one pertinent question: How fast can he get here?
Even with the admittedly loose standards of Internet journalism, the Terrell Owens-could-be-a-Raider story is a flimsy one.
But Al Davis just loves picking up Hall of Famers en route to retirement. He also doesn't believe in chemistry, and even invoked Owens' initials once when making his point.
Davis said he'd seen his share of difficult players, citing the fiercely independent Art Powell and calling him "The T.O. of his time."
Here's why bringing in Owens, even at an advanced age (36) and with diminishing skills is a good idea:
— The Raiders need a veteran receiver to mix in with the kiddie corps of Chaz Schilens, Louis Murphy and Darrius Heyward-Bey.
Unlike Javon Walker, whose conditioning was in question the moment he arrived, Owens will arrive in shape. It would do Schilens, Murphy and Heyward-Bey good to see Owens in the locker room with his shirt off, up close and personal. They wouldn't think of taking a play off or cutting a weight room session short.
— It makes no sense to draft another wide receiver with a high draft pick, and Owens is the best receiver left in free agency. Derrick Mason (Ravens), Kevin Curtis (Texans) and Chris Chambers (Chiefs) all stayed where they were. Antonio Bryant would cost way too much money and he went to the Bengals. That leaves Laveranues Coles.
Owens caught 55 passes for 829 yards and five touchdowns last season. Those numbers, with a passing game in Buffalo that was almost as bad as the one in Oakland, would have led the Raiders in every category. Raiders wideouts caught 99 passes for 1,360 yards and seven touchdowns last season combined. Owens has had better years by himself.
— Owens made it through a difficult season in Buffalo without an eruption. The Raiders got great results at the tail end of Jerry Rice's career, and it's worth noting that the prickly Rice was actually pleasant and easy to deal in Oakland.
I remember how it was when Owens was with the 49ers, walking through the locker room a man apart from the team, without a friend in sight. Gradually, year-by-year, Owens has picked up some supporters in the locker room who said nice things about him after he left.
— If Owens signed with the Raiders and decided he didn't like what he saw in terms of commitment from JaMarcus Russell and decided to pop off about it, that would be a good thing, not a bad thing. There were too many diplomats on the Raiders last year, speaking in code and talking up Bruce Gradkowski as a way of emphasizing what was wrong with Russell.
— Assuming the money is right, and it doesn't look like a lot of teams are interested in Owens at this point, you can always cut him and move on if his skills are too far gone. Just like Donovin Darius and Lorenzo Neal. The Raiders dropped at least $14 million in two years on Walker. No way Owens could approach that as a bad investment.
Warren official
The Raiders confirmed the release of defensive tackle Gerard Warren by posting it as a transaction on their Web site.


text:
by: stefi
Two and a half years ago. It seems like such a short time. Yet, for all of this to have happened, it had to have been at least that long...I think. Sometimes, it just seems like my head is in such a fog and I just can't remember. But I told you that. Didn't I?
I'm sorry, hon. You keep staring. Do the boots bother you? Leroy said you wanted me in them.
I'll move them off your lap then. No? You like them there? Then stop your whimpering or I'll remove them. Yes you may caress them...if you can bend that far. But first, you just sit there while I go get my medication. But how silly of me. You wouldn't be moving anyway all trussed up like that in the stretch wrap.
Returning: Oh, my! I feel s-o-o-o much better! Let's see now; I believe when you could still talk you asked me how I ever got to be what I am today.
Well, to some degree I was always this way. I just didn't show it. In fact, I was married for 20 years to a woman, raised two children through college, and had a very successful career. I really kept this side of me hidden. Except occasionally when I was on the road.
Then, in short order, I was divorced, left my job, started a business from home and did something I swore I would never do again; fell in love with a woman and remarried. I told her up front what I was but she didn't care. In fact, she loved my displays of femininity. She also loved to fuck. And since my sexuality was so tied to my femininity, I was dressed almost all of the time we were home. And we made love five or six times per week.
But enough of this; Let me get to the grit. Here, let me adjust that vibrator for you my pet. Poor baby; you can't move your hands can you?
In time, our "fantasizing" during sex started taking over more and more. She knew what turned me on and she liked me turned on. We started going to gay bars with me dressed like a slut. She taught me how to flirt, to attract guys like flames to a candle. She always had me dress in the most outrageous outfits. In fairly short order, she started selecting guys for me. It usually took only a few glances, a little bend to show off my cleavage, a flirtatious pose, and I would have him buying drinks for us both as he clumsily attempted to find an excuse to touch me.
And I loved it. I loved the attention. I loved the thrill of the hunt.
Like I said, dear, I was almost always dressed at home where I worked (o-o-o-o-o, it's really starting to hit now...I feel s-o-o-o-o loose). Which I was when Leroy first saw me. I didn't really think he would. It was so bright outside and I had no lights on inside. What I failed to understand (I'm just a slut and not very bright--I only good for one thing) is that from inside the shaded cab of his UPS van, he could see right into my condo.
I didn't think anything about moving past the sliding door to adjust the volume on the stereo until I looked out and realized he was staring at me. I nearly fell off my heels scurrying past the door. He know me, knew my wife worked during the day, knew I worked from home, and knew--having delivered many packages to me--who I was.
Peeking around the edge of the door frame, I glanced back out only to come face to face with his eyes. He was standing on our patio. I nearly ripped the blinds off the wall as I pulled their closure string but it was too late. As they went shut, he was blowing me a kiss.
I was terrified. No one who knew me as Steve knew me as stefi. Just then, the security buzzer sounded. Someone was buzzing my condo. I hit the intercom and with my deepest voice said "Yes?"
"UPS delivery...Baby," is what he said. I didn't know what to do. I froze. "Com' on, Momma," he says, "I got something for you. It's all right. I already seed yo' bitch ass an I don' care. Let me in now, baby, so's I can give ya yo 'livery. If you don' be I gonna tell yo' wife!"
So I pressed the buzzer and let him in.
I had on a red vinyl mini dress, my best falsies, dark hose, and a long brunette wig. He took one look, cupped by "breasts" in his hands, placed his hand on the inside of my thigh, and roughly kissed me on the lips, his moustache scratching me as his lips slid over my painted and glossed lips.
Y'all my bitch now, he says, then he throws me down on the couch (he's so much bigger than me) and virtually rapes me. I asked him to please stop but he didn't. He told me that if I didn't do whatever he asked, he was going to tell my wife that I had tried to seduce him, and he was going to make sure my neighbors found out too. I was trapped and I knew it. But even as my male side revolted against being overpowered by a man, I found myself wanting him closer, and closer.
I stopped fighting him and pulled him closer to me. He was so large and firm and muscular. I loved the feeling of the muscles in his back as my dainty fingers pulled him closer to me.
Tha' be good bitch, he says. Yo'mine now. Y'all gon' do whatever I say. Suck me.
And I did. Real well. And I liked it.
I got work, he says. Have yo' white bitch ass ready fo' me ten clock tomorrow.
From that day on, he came at ten o'clock on his rounds. I'd be ready for him, dressed exactly as he had told me the day before, made up the way he liked. In short order we progressed from blowjobs me getting fucked in the ass daily. After just a few weeks, it no longer hurt. In fact, I liked it. In fact, I loved it so much I couldn't wait to be exactly what he wanted so I could turn him on so I could get him off. I adored my ability to do so. I even started plucking my eyebrows for him so they would look more like he desired.
My wife never knew. In fact, she knew only that I seemed to be hornier than ever and that she and I were making love more than ever before.
Then one day, he came in angry. I had done everything I could to be ready for him....hair, makeup, the high-waisted latex min and silk blouse he'd told me to wear, the thigh-high, spiked heel boots he liked. But it didn't matter. When I opened the door for him, I saw him come in for the first time not wearing his UPS uniform. He stepped in and slapped me full in the face, knocking me to the floor.
He started yelling that it was all my fault. I had no idea what he was talking about but I knew I was afraid for my life. Get up you fuckin' slut, he yelled. Fuckin' white bitch make me lose my job!
I guess the extra half hour a day or a neighbors complaint had quickly gotten back to his management.
Baby, I told him, I'm so sorry. What can I do, I asked him?
You and yo' fuckin' white as are gonna BE my job, he says. And he steps over to the sliding door, opens the vertical blinds, slides open the door and says, Rodney, get yo' ass in here.
I begged and pleaded with him that I didn't want anyone else to come in but he back-handed me, knocking me onto the couch. Take yo' fuckin' clothes off, he says. I kept pleading with him but when he raised his hand, I knew it was no use. I tediously wiggled out of my mini and submissively removed my blouse.
The bra too bitch, he tells me as Rodney entered. I took it off and started crying, looking at the floor as I didn't bear to look at Rodney in the face.
He tell Rodney something like, you gon' fuck this bitch, at which point I collapsed on the floor, groveling at his feet, kissing them and beggin him not to make me do it. He kicked me in the side of the head and told me to shut up and get up.
I did.
Look up, whore, he says and I raised my eyes to meet Rodney's. Her tit's too small, Rodney says. Who'd wan' some flat-chested bitch wit' no ass 'n skinny legs?
Bro' you gon' have her first then 'morrow we be bringin' the clients if we find any want' small tit bitch.
That's when I knew what Leroy had decided to do for a living. He was going to pimp and sell my ass.
I pleaded and begged. I'm not a whore, I told him. You can't make me do this.
Cunt, he says, I make you do anythin' I wan. I knows how make you do ANYTHING. Rodney, put that bitch on'a couch an' hold her. I started screaming no, no, but Leroy slapped me again and I shut up.
From inside his coat pocket, Leroy removed an injection vial, then a small plastic bag and a needle. I started to scream but Rodney grabbed my throat and told me if I said anything else, he'd rip out my trachea.
Leroy meandered into the kitchen, came back with a spoon or liquid, put the powder in it, held it over a lighter, then withdrew it into the needle. Inserting the partially filled hypo into the vial, he withdrew another 5 cc of liquid from it. Looking at the fear on my face, he laughed, found a vein on my arm and injected me.
Within two weeks, I was frantic if Leroy didn't show up daily by 10:00. I loved being humiliated and used by his "friends." So long as I received my daily medication, I really didn't care about anything.
I didn't care that my home business went bankrupt. It didn't matter. Besides, Leroy brought me a special clientele and they were willing to pay for my specialization. Leroy was nice enough to let me keep $50 dollars a day. He explained to me that he got $350 for each of the three or four clients I serviced daily. But I realized that if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have anything. My wife's salary alone couldn't pay for the condo.
You know, I did that five days a week for over a year before my wife found out? I'm sorry but I can't hear you through that gag. Oh, you want to know how she found out?
Well, dear, that medication--you remember that part don't you? Just nod. Very good. The medication was a little heroin high ball with a kicker of estrogen and progesterone.
Obviously, I thought, she knew something was going on what with the changes in my daily lifestyle and the failure of the business. But I told her I was picking up what little extra money I could free-lancing. But when our sex life started ending, her curiosity was really piqued.
It was pretty obvious to her, I'm sure, but I guess I was so caught up in the medication and my own little daytime fantasy world that I didn't realize how obvious it must have been to anyone else.
I simply had no desire to take or initiate sex. All I wanted was to please whomever Leroy brought me, please Leroy, and get the medication. I hadn't even noticed, or maybe I didn't care, that my penis had shrunk to about half the size of my thumb or that skin was so much smoother, that my breasts had swollen to a full almost a C-cup, that the extra weight I'd put on all seemed to accumulate in my thighs and butt and that my muscle definition was gone.
Oh, my! You've got an erection again. Good! That means you are predisposed.
Wuffff, did you say wuffff? Oh, wife! Yes we are still together. You see she still loves me. Besides, we've gotten used to this luxury--the boat, the plane, this house and all of that. Of course it's nothing compared to what Leroy has.
Let me explain it to you. Actually, we operate kind of like an amway-type company.
Here's how it happened.
When Leroy realized what a special market there was for people like me, he had me create a little web page. I started advertising for guys--just like you--who fantasize about being with a dominant, fetishy, she-male. You'd be surprised how many guys want us. But I did a little research and what I uncovered was that, even though the think of themselves as straight, their desire for girls like us is nothing but a vicarious thrill. They WANT to be us but won't admit it, even to themselves.
But, believe me baby, there's a LOT of them out there.
So here's what we did.
I started booking clients on the internet offering a $100, one-week stay, with a she-male (me) with whom they could fulfill every fantasy they'd ever imagined. If, after the first night, I didn't think they were the right raw material, I'd kick them out. If I thought they had potential, on the second day I'd persuade them to play bondage games with me so I could play dominatrix.
Every single one of them agreed.
Once they were physically immobilized, I start them on the same therapy that I took. By the time we finish the seventh day, they have been fully conditioned and fully hooked...there is no turning back even if they wanted to which they don't.
We give them the medication for free. It's got an addictive agent which we had perfected by a hired lab, which is unobtainable anywhere else or from any other drug.
Oh, I know what you're thinking. How do we make any money? Well, it's like this: when our recruits leave here, all they want is there shot and to be as feminine as possible. We provide both only if they agree to turn four tricks per month, just like I'm doing with you.
Last year, I turned 52 tricks. The second week of last year I had one girl "girl" working for me. The second week I had two. The third week I had four and so on and so on.
Each one gets 1/2 of the money they receive for those they personally recruit and sends our organization the other half. In turn, they receive 1/2 of the money taken in by their recruits of which 1/2 of that is sent to the organization.
No one has ever dropped out although a few have committed suicide. But, hey, that's capitalism.
You're shaking your head no...or at least trying to. Does that mean you don't believe it.
Honey, we've got almost a million "partners" out there right now. Don't believe it? Well where did you think all those "girls" on the internet suddenly came from? Or all of those recent movies? Or the Holiday Inn advertisement?
Or are you shaking your head no because you don't want to go any further? That's it isn't it. You're scared aren't you.
Aw, poor baby. That's ok. You won't be. In fact, someday you'll thank me.
Now stop your squirming and just sit there.
I've got to get your medication.