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[I've got to run, but I don't want to delay publishing this by two or three hours. I'm therefore publishing as is. Please forgive the inevitable typos.]
I was reading an enjoyable book about the clash between good and evil. I commented to a friend that the only problem with the book was that too many good guys die. I like my books to end with the heroes still intact. He responded that "As to the deaths of good guys, when you're fighting ultimate evil, some casualties are to be expected, lest ultimate evil be trivialized."
His comment is correct as an artistic matter. It's also correct as a practical matter. When we are threatened by evil, it's the good guys who step and fight — and therefore die — first. The rest of us lurk in corners hoping the conflict will pass us by entirely. When the conflict finally ends, if there's still a society left to rebuild, too often the good guys are gone and the builders are the cowards, and the whiners, and the useless people.
On that cheerful note, let me dive into what may well be the mother of all round-ups.
As if to make my point, I got word today that my fellow Watcher's Council member, Tom White, who did yeoman's work helping David Brat's candidacy and who accurately predicted Brat's victory, is on the receiving end of threats from the former Chairman of the Republican 3rd District. Tom put himself out there in the best possible way, and now he's in the line of fire. Tom is more than capable of taking care of himself, but the whole thing is disgusting.
Okay, here's something cheerful: This story illustrates perfectly why an armed society is a civil society and why, to gun-banners' constant chagrin, when legally held arms increase in number, crime decreases in proportionate number.
We've all remarked here on the fact that the climate Nazis are remarkably flexible when it comes to attributing everything to anthropomorphic climate factors. Hot summers? Climate change. Cold winters? Climate change. Islamic aggression? Climate change. You know the drill.
It turns out that they're equally flexible when it comes to data. This flexibility goes beyond the hidden data, the "adjusted" temperatures, and the manufactured hockey sticks. It now includes turning back time.
Sometimes a writer phrases something in a way that makes you think "That's it! That's what I was trying to say." I had precisely that response to Stephen Hayward's article about the corruption of Civil Rights, something that he addresses specifically in the context of the way in which same-sex marriage advocates are targeting businesses and individuals who object to same-sex marriage. Some of you may recall that I long ago argued that the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education was good politics and a morally correct decision, but a legal disaster that led to the corruption of the relationship between individuals, on the one hand, and the law and the state, on the other hand.
A few useful and interesting posts about the deaths of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel. Along with all of you, I was horrified, although unsurprised, to learn that the three boys were dead. I'll say only that it was small consolation to learn that, because Hamas bungled the kidnapping, it killed them instantly rather than torturing them before killing them. As I said, it's small consolation.
American Jews shouldn't just weep, they should act. We Jews are always the first in the Islamic cross hairs and our own government has been exceptionally passive about rising Islamism, not to mention the Palestinian/Islamist nexus.
Just how bad was Obama's behavior? This bad.
Bret Stephens looks at Palestinian mothers, who delight in sending their own children off to murder other children. (It might be behind a pay wall.)
As for the Palestinians and their inveterate sympathizers in the West, perhaps they should note that a culture that too often openly celebrates martyrdom and murder is not fit for statehood, and that making excuses for that culture only makes it more unfit. Postwar Germany put itself through a process of moral rehabilitation that began with a recognition of what it had done. Palestinians who want a state should do the same, starting with the mothers.
These horrible mothers raise children such as these, whose raised three fingers show that they are celebrating the kidnapping and death of three Israeli children:
Mike McDaniel examines both the long, long list of illegal acts in the Obama administration and the power a president has to issue pardons. Adding these two things up leads to some very ugly conclusions.
With its despicable tactics to retain Thad Cochran in Congress, the once Grand Old Party betrayed its history and created what may be a very damaging schism in conservative ranks.
Of course, it didn't help at all that the best known Tea Party groups, to the extent they bothered to show up, used their money ineffectually. My sense about these groups is that they mostly send out lots of emails.
I first became aware of Dan Bongino in connection with his impassioned speeches against gun control efforts. He seems to be a very solid conservative, something affirmed by an Open Letter he wrote to America's political class, both Left and Right.
If you've been thinking that our federal government is increasingly looking like the government you'd see in a banana republic, here's fuel for your fire: Congress has quietly done away with rules requiring elected officials to disclose information about trips they take courtesy of lobbyists.
In part because the media refuses to play along (unlike its behavior during Watergate), it's perhaps inevitable that the House's efforts to go after the IRS are bogging down into a mediocre political spectacle. Fortunately, others are also going after the IRS, including Judicial Watch. The exciting news is that Judicial Watch drew an honest judge — Emmit Sullivan. Judge Sullivan will not countenance any corrupt behavior in a litigation. The IRS's "computer ate my emails" excuse should end in his courtroom.
And remember, even with the IRS, where there's life, there's laughter, this time courtesy of plaintiffs suing the IRS:
If you think our military is something special, you're right. This video, of a Marine flyer with broken landing gear nevertheless sticking a landing on an aircraft carrier is epic:
Surprisingly enough, on the subject of Hobby Lobby, a writer for The Atlantic tells the Left to cool the hysteria.
Sometimes, one persistent individual can make such a big difference. Miriam Noujaim, a Sacramento DMV employee who is a member of SEIU Local 1000, the largest state-employee union, wants to see what the heck the union has been doing to create annual travel expenses that have gone up to $5.21 million. The union doesn't want anyone to see its records, but Noujaim won't let go. I have nothing but applause for her pit bull tenacity.
Guns are good. Keeping guns away from kids is also good. And this is a clever, slightly risque ad to make that point:
William A. Jacobson is putting words to my worst nightmare: He thinks that Elizabeth Warren has the potential to be 2012's Barack Obama. I don't know that she would be worse than Obama, but it's doubtful she'll be any better. Safe in her million dollar Ivory Tower enclave, Warren is an angry limousine socialist who will aggressively ensure that the government takes over the lives of everyone but for her and her cronies.
I've mentioned many times the brilliant friend of mine who says that the real issue Islam has with the West is control over women. Muslim men have it and want to keep it. Everything else is ultimately subordinate to their desperate efforts to ensure that women are sexually available to them. Two stories out of Iraq, one about women fearful of rape attacks and the other about ISIS's demands that the women simply make themselves available for sex, lend credence to my friend's contention.
Oh, this is a good one: Now they're arguing that doctors should decide who can get a gun. Let me tell you something about the doctor's in my neck of the woods: If they're under 50, they're DemProgs who demand gun control. They're the last people who should be deciding who gets to exercise Second Amendment rights and who doesn't.
When I first saw this Slate article challenging San Francisco's housing policies, I thought it would be an intelligent article arguing against rent control. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, it's part-and-parcel of the administration press to grow urban areas (Democrat strongholds) and kill suburbs (the last gasp of conservative thinking). We've been fighting this fight in Marin, where the federal government is trying to turn Marin into part of a vast, urban conglomeration with centralized management taking direction from the feds. No, thank you!
Is the Fed heading for the horrible crash that inevitably follows the bubble?
Ever since I was slightly taller than knee high to a grasshopper, I've known that societies that are friendly to the Jews are also societies that enjoy enormous economic, social, and military success. Societies that try to destroy Jews inevitably fail, not just when it comes to destroying the Jews, but they also fail themselves. Now, I have support from a great video that examines the Israel litmus test:
(Thanks to Sadie, Earl, Caped Crusader, and Danny Lemieux, all of whom contributed in some way to this post.)


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Madoff-ravaged Mets enter into a stadium deal with ... Amway
Amid fresh reports that the Mets are still in debt, Amway has moved into a storefront at Citi Field.
The imagery isn't great for the Mets, to say the least. Amway, a business known for false promises of riches, was busy settling a class action lawsuit alleging the company is a pyramid scheme at the same time Mets' ownership group was fighting a lawsuit by the trustee for the Bernie Madoff victims over its role in Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
Story Continued Below
But the cash-strapped Mets, who only recently contemplated putting a casino next to their stadium, seem to have made the calculation that whatever money they're getting from the deal trumps any cosmetic problems that might stem from the association.
The Citi Field outpost is Amway's first storefront in America.
On Saturday, Amway staged a grand opening (or "grand opening": it got no coverage, as far as I can tell) with the Amway sign just a few feet away from a Mets ticket booth.
Amway is a multilevel marketing opportunity, to use the euphemism, or a pyramid scheme, to use the terminology of its critics. Individuals sign up as "Independent Business Owners", or I.B.O.s, to sell an array of Amway products, buying them up front while simultaneously recruiting others to join Amway as well.
The Federal Trade Commission differentiates between legitimate MLMs and pyramid schemes using a set of criteria that came into being in part because of complaints about Amway going back decades. The most basic requirement is that participants sell a reasonable percentage of the products to outsiders, meaning the company is not subsisting primarily on new backers buying in to pay the old backers.
When a class-action lawsuit against Amway's now-defunct North American distribution arm, Quixtar, asserted that products were almost always sold to the next level of distributors, that Amway participants were asked to pay exorbitant up-front costs, that well over 99 percent of Amway participants lost money and that any effort to recoup losses were only possible in an expensive arbitration process, a judge allowed the lawsuit to go forward, calling the Amway contract stipluations "a weapon to harass ... and ultimately bankrupt their opponents."
A year later, Amway settled the suit for $155 million.
Amway's troubles aren't over; there's been renewed focus on MLMs of late, with Herbalife, a company operating using Amway's business model, declared a pyramid scheme in a European court last year.
The company revealed that the Securities and Exchange Commission is now investigating it. The Federal Trade Commission recently shut down Fortune High-Tech Marketing, another MLM, in January.
Coincidentally, David Einhorn, the hedge-funder who came close to becoming a Mets owner, is helping to lead the fight against Herbalife here in the United States. He asked questions about Herbalife's business practices on a conference call last year that dropped the company stock from $70 per share to $56; today, it sells for just over $36 per share.
"These are bad signs for the MLM industry," Robert FitzPatrick, president of Pyramid Scheme Alert and expert witness in the class action suit against Amway, said in a telephone interview Monday. "There are about 500 MLMs. I've looked at many of them. Not one would have passed the [Federal Trade Commission legal] test. Obviously not Amway. It did not pass that test."
FitzPatrick said he didn't know why Amway would open a retail storefront, the first of its kind in the United States, other than to provide legitimacy for the brand by associating it with a known commodity like a Major League Baseball franchise.
(Several years ago, Amway also procured naming rights to the home arena of the N.B.A.'s Orlando Magic, whose owner is an Amway co-founder.)
Neither Amway nor the Mets provided any additional information about the storefront, including how much Amway is paying the Mets for the space.
A spokeswoman for Amway confirmed for me that the opening took place on Saturday.
The Mets have yet to respond to multiple calls and emails asking for comment.
At the website promoting the new storefront, Amway describes it this way: "The Amway™ Business Center at Citi Field is a dynamic, one-of-a-kind facility. It was created to provide all IBOs with a dedicated space to freely connect, learn new valuable insights, and share the exciting Amway opportunity with prospects. From reserving meeting rooms to learning about upcoming training events – everything you want to know about the Business Center can be found on this page. Just be sure to check back often for new and exciting announcements!"
Within the I.B.O. guidelines, there's this caveat: "Our lease with Citi Field states that no solicitation shall take place outside of the Business Center. Handing out samples, business cards and / or literature on Citi Field property is not allowed."
A Mets home schedule, complete with team logo, is prominently featured on the site's home page.
UPDATE: The Mets have sent over the following statement: "We designed the ballpark with approximately 40,000 square feet of retail along 126th Street and are pleased that Amway has joined McFaddens as a retail tenant at Citi Field."
UPDATE: Amway provided me with some details about the deal in an interview, which I wrote up here.

subset: commoncrawl


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A SIDELINE brawl involving almost every player on the field — and several from the interchange — threatens to derail the NRL title charges of Melbourne Storm and Manly Sea Eagles.
Manly's Glenn Stewart and Melbourne's Adam Blair were sent off for their part in the ugly first-half fight and face being charged with contrary conduct after scuffling as they were leaving the field of play, having both been sin-binned for an earlier incident.
After Blair and Stewart clashed, players from both sides became involved in the melee. Blair was swamped by five Manly players, including Stewart's brother Brett, while Storm interchange player Sisa Waqa, who was still wearing his Melbourne tracksuit top, became involved. He is likely to face some heavy scrutiny.
All in on the brawl: Sea Eagles and Storm players clash last night at Brookvale Oval. Manly won the main game 18-4. Photo: Steve Christo
On-field official Shayne Hayne placed the entire 25th-minute incident on report; the fight could result in numerous charges and Waqa, certainly, would face a heavy suspension if he is found to have escalated a fight from the interchange bench.
The match, which was won 18-4 by Manly, which remains in the hunt to take the minor premiership off the Storm, exploded after Manly forward Darcy Lussick and Melbourne's Ryan Hinchcliffe were involved in an exchange close to the Storm's try line. Hinchcliffe appeared to strike Lussick with his elbow as he tackled the Manly player. Lussick slapped Hinchcliffe and players from both sides joined the scuffle.
Stewart and Blair were sent to the bin, having run from a distance to throw punches. As Stewart walked off the field on the western touchline, Blair ran to catch up with him. The pair exchanged words and then began throwing punches, evoking memories of the sideline fight between Australia's Greg Dowling and New Zealand's Kevin Tamati in a 1985 Test match at Lang Park. Brett Stewart was first to the pair, while he was quickly joined by Lussick, Kieran Foran and Michael Robertson.
An NRL match has not been marred by a fight of this magnitude for more than a decade. In 2000, a brawl between North Queensland and the Warriors spilled onto the sidelines and into the Cowboys cheerleaders.
After last night's fight was broken up, Stewart and Blair quickly left the field but were called back by Hayne. "We want them both back on," Hayne called to the captains. He swiftly sent Stewart off. "You're gone," he said. He then said to Blair: "You've retaliated — away you go, too."
Both players may be referred straight to the NRL judiciary when the match review committee meets on Monday.
This was meant to be a grand final dress rehearsal — which would be a repeat of the 2007 and 2008 deciders — but this match may seriously dent the charge of both sides.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/storm-manly-brawl-erupts-20110827-1jeyg.html#ixzz1WBY2PDBB
"Cliffy is as good as any coach in the NRL"
Discussion in 'Other Teams' started by ManlyBacker, Sep 6, 2011.
Discussion in 'Other Teams' started by ManlyBacker, Sep 6, 2011.
XenPorta 2 PRO © Jason Axelrod from 8WAYRUN


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Hello: My husband and I are planning a getaway to San Diego. We have fished Silver Strand and Torrey Pines. Any other recommendations? Thank you
Originally Posted by Steves tiki hut
Originally Posted by tunamaster
You can dump the bead and swivel and tie a back to back uni to your leader with a carolina keeper to hold back the sinker, and keep your leader short 6 to 12 in
Can you flesh this out a bit for me? Back to back United? Carolina keeper?
Check out this website:
www.animatedknots.com and chose fishing knots.
Caught my first surf striped on a Monterey Bay beach at dawn right before low tide
Weighed 12 lbs and was 28 inches long
I used a Lamiglas x11 8 1/2 foot medium steelhead spinning rod with a
Penn Battle 2 2500 reel spooled with power pro 15 lb
I was using a saltwater fly rig on my spinning rod.
Caught 7/18/15
Perhaps this is old hat, but as I am new to this site, be aware of the chart, found at http://www.tides4fishing.com/us/california/los-angeles
This chart shows which days of the month have the greatest difference between low and high tides--and rates them at "no fish", "one fish", "two fishes", and "three fishes". I have found time and time again that this is very meaningful information. But it's not enough, check the general weather as well,
Hi guys, I'm new to surf fishing and headed to Crystal Cove with the fam this weekend. I would appreciate any advice and some info on a near by bait shop. I trout fish multiple times a year but the ocean will be a new experience. I like to throw lures but bought a 12' pole for lazy days.


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The greatest enjoyment I get from writing my blog is being able to share the recipes I've tried, how they turned out, what I think of them and what, if anything, I would suggest to make them better. It absolutely makes my day when someone tries a recipe I've blogged about and enjoyed it for themselves. It also absolutely distresses me when someone tells me they tried something but "it didn't turn out" like mine. For the longest time, I just didn't get it. I posted the exact same recipe I followed, I talked about what I did and, depending on the recipe, what mistakes I made that people shouldn't do so they can avoid the problems I had with something and make theirs better than mine.
In trying to do an autopsy, so to speak, on my friends' and relatives' baking mishaps, I started to ask more detailed questions to get to the root causes of the problems: What ingredients did you use? How long did you bake it? What did it look like when you took it out of the oven? What did your batter or dough look like? What pan did you use? Did you preheat the oven? The varying answers I got made something really clear to me: it's not just about the recipe, it's also about the technique. I've blogged before about some simple baking tips so I won't repeat those here. But I will add further to the list and, for this post, in the context of cookie making.
Some weeks ago, my friend Karen was baking batch after batch of cookies but was dissatisfied with her results as they weren't coming out the way she wanted them to. In making chocolate chip cookies, the different recipes she tried either weren't spreading like she wanted or they were too dry. The dryness was easy to remedy as I discovered she was baking them until the middles were done. Oh no. For chocolate chip cookies and anything of their texture, bake until the edges are done and the middles are just barely not doughy-looking anymore. They might puff during baking but you want the middles to sink when they cool. That'll give them their chewy and moist texture. If you bake until the middles are done, the cookies will be dry. So that solved the problem of the chocolate chip cookie. In Karen's own words, "oh the middles are supposed to sink!" Yep, that's right.
But bear in mind this doesn't hold true for all cookies because it really depends on what type of cookie you're making. Once Karen had conquered the chocolate chip cookie issue, she moved on to Snickerdoodles and was trying this recipe from Magnolia Bakery, a cookbook I have and a recipe I've also tried before. They weren't turning out like she had made them before at a friend's place: The cookies weren't spreading and they were coming out either too dry or too underdone. I couldn't diagnose the issue virtually so I went over to her house to watch her in action. The best way to help someone is to have them do it themselves and observe what's happening.
As near as I can tell, Karen was doing everything right: All her ingredients were at room temperature when she started, she mixed correctly according to the recipe, and she had chilled the dough before baking it. Yet something was still off. The only thing I corrected in her mixing of the dough was to teach her the dip and sweep method in measuring the flour. You never want to tamp the flour down in the measuring cup. You'll end up with too much flour, too stiff of a dough and dry cookies. Karen didn't make this mistake but in general, you also want to add the dry ingredients in 2-3 parts, not all at once, so that you can incorporate the dry ingredients well into the dough or batter and let the dough "come together".
We ended up taking out the cookies on the slight side of underdone to try and avoid the other cause of dryness besides too much flour: overbaking. The cookies were fine when we took them out of the oven but we left them on the hot cookie sheet while we focused on another batch of dough. I had forgotten one basic rule of cookie making: Cookies will continue to bake on a hot cookie sheet even after they're out of the oven. Subsequently, the first batch we had left on the cookie sheet baked up a little more than I would've recommended. Easy remedy to that is to leave them on the cookie sheet for only a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling.
The basic nature of a snickerdoodle is they tend to be more cakey and not have a chewy-dense-moist texture like a chocolate chip cookie. It's not to say they're automatically more dry than a chocolate chip cookie but you do have to factor in the type of cookie you're making as well in order to gauge its success. We ended up with a batch Karen was happy with and she was assured her cookie making skills were fine.
From "The Magnolia Bakery" by Jennifer Appel and Allysa Torey
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon for sprinkling
In a small bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla and beat well. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Wrap the dough tightly with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. (I recommend leaving extra room between these cookies because they spread more than most.) Sprinkle generously with the cinnamon sugar mixture. Bake for 12-14 minutes.
Cool the cookies on the sheets for 5 minutes, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Related post: Baking Tips


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More Thoughts On The New Film Festival Model/
"Blood Simple" was the first film I bought a ticket for at a film festival. It was screening at the NYFF and I soon came to recognize that the films accepted to that fest were of a exceedingly high quality. The curatorial taste behind that festival choices was something I had confidence in. They gained my trust precisely because they have never tried to be all things for all people, and for that I have always been willing to pay a premium for. The NYFF was, and is, a trusted filter. Too many festivals these days program too many films without revealing, or reveling in, their curatorial hands, diminishing the power of their brand in the process. If festivals are going to become the new curators, that will have to change. Festivals must emphasize their unique taste, if not overall, then within sidebars at the festival.
One of the reasons festivals once mattered so much to indie filmmakers was that acceptance in them was a virtual badge of quality for the filmmakers to display. As festivals proliferated and premieres became a matter of policy, the filter aspect of festivals vanished. Festivals seemed to open up the gates to anyone and anything. Where's Waldo? How do you spot the curatorial hand in swarm of over 100. The question then becomes how do festivals regain that curatorial stamp?
A return to less could be more. If less films were selected, it would mean more for the filmmaker, in terms of prestige and discovery. More for the audience, in terms of a filter and confidence. A common complaint heard in industry circles is that films "get lost" at such and such festival. I have always liked the idea of a festival within the festival, curators within the larger curation.
Another benefit of smaller selections could be that more festivals could develop distinctive flavors making them more of a required stop by the cineaste (particularly if they also transcended their geographic boundaries). Festivals need, just like movies, to sell their individuality. I was excited to stumble upon Saskia Wilson-Brown's post (at the indispensable Workbook Project) on the relevance of small festivals today (it is a good post and well worth your time). She articulates what festivals provide quite well:
Empowering a community and its artists through coherent promotion; leveraging the festival name to garner publicity and opportunity for its participants; facilitating radness in general– Art for art's sake, as it were. The efforts of the core team, then, were mostly spent on promoting and advocating for micro-communities through programming decisions, and fostering creativity and creative collaboration in our neighborhood and beyond.
Acceptance to a festival used to always mean a review by a major critic at a major publication because their was a major critic at every major newspaper. That itself was worth whatever other risk the festival brought with it (because they do bring risks). With the dismissal of the film critics from the US newspapers, there are a few such critics left -- and there is no way that they can cover all the films at all the major festivals. Movies get lost at festivals with a wide swath. Sure, the blogsphere's picked up a lot of the slack, but those reviews are hard to garner the same interest or generate the same want-to-see from audiences. How can web reviews be used to generate more interest? Can the different review sites team up and time review releases simultaneously or even post to a common site so that more traction can be generated with audiences? Where are the new ideas that can make festivals once again a value-added proposition? Festivals should be transparent with filmmakers upon acceptance as to how they will help market the movie to the festival's community (and beyond).
If the VOD model is going to work in these days of never-ending supply and availability, reviews are more than necessary. They need and are needed to get traction and facilitate action. Review aggregators should drive traffic to the VOD platform. We need widgets that link these two services seamlessly. Shouldn't we have all this stuff integrated by now? But alas, we don't. So what can we do in the interim, in this in-between-days sort of time?
In considering the joining of film festivals with a VOD extension, it is hard not to see the logic of the relationship. Festivals offer the overwhelmed consumer a filter -- the curatorial service. Festivals serve to generate the reviews that films need so much. If festivals can leverage their brand and marketing muscle to heighten awareness for the individual films, maybe a film has a chance of popping out of the crowded herd at the end of the dial. If a festival can help a filmmaker understand how to make the most of this opportunity, more power to them both.
But if the films that are offered by a festival on VOD don't arrive with that flavor and spice, the rhyme and reason of why they are in a festival in the first place, will anyone really pay attention, particularly after the novelty has worn off? Doesn't it precisely require more than just the brand of a festival but also the highly selective curation that festivals once promised? The potential of festivals to provide the allure of a red velvet rope and shining spot lights is there. Will we get to see what it looks like? It is going to need to be a lot more than public twitter boards. If the festival can not really add a lot of value in the marketing and positioning of their specific selections, aren't they taking advantage of the films they invite?
Festivals have always been a great place for the cineaste -- and not just because we get to see good movies. The important part of festivals has always been the conversation. What we expect from quality content is an even better social experience around it. Online users only spend 30% of their time looking at content; the rest is search and social -- discovery & discussion. For film festivals to successfully evolve into a cross-platform non-geographicly specific discovery tool, they have to offer not just the added value of promotion, but heightened level of conversation & appreciation.
I know festivals can provide a lot more than currently do. Particularly with a little help from their friends. There's a lot of good thought going on about this, but when you see that filmmakers are questioning the very value of a film festival attendance, we can all discern that festivals are not offering enough value for the films that participate in them. The answer is to offer more.
I have written about the need to utilize something like Festival Genius. I think expanding the festival beyond it's geographic confines is similarly key. A clear and understandable hand in the curating should be a given. Guided and memorable conversation that transfers leisure time into intellectual capital and social capital is of the essence. What more do you want?
Update Tuesday 4/20: There's a lot of good conversation on what ideal festivals would look like. Thom Powers recently held a breakfast discussing what a new Doc Fest in NYC would look like. Brian Newman contribute a thoughtful post encouraging community, embrace of new tools, a focus on conversations over panels, a de-emphasis on formats, an abandonment of the demand for premieres, and a true collaboration with filmmakers by sharing data, audiences, and the opportunity to sell. And yes, to pay filmmakers.
Festivals are going to change for both audiences and filmmakers. It is going to be exciting to see who really takes the lead.


text: I'm looking for info! Was just wondering if anyone knows anything about natural or evolutionary fitness. It may have other names, I'm not sure. I like the definitions of it here: http://tengeri.com.au/home/natural-fitness/ and here http://movnat.com/about-movnat/what-is-movnat-2/. I kind of find the idea of gyms and a lot of conventional exercise bit unnatural/sterile and I'm looking into alternatives. What are your thoughts on this type of exercise and do you know of any online, preferably free resources I could look at, or any books I could buy/borrow on the subject?


text: HKSS.com | Community > Discussion Forum > View topic - Movie: Human Lanterns Home Community Superstars Music | What's New | Help HKSS | Search* Discussions | HKE Chat | Reflections of Life | Virtual Cards | Member Galleries Please excuse our mess. HKSS is currently under re-construction and some links/sections don't work yet. What's New: Latest updates | Member Galleries | Music | HKE Chat | About HKSS.com Community Discussions HKE Chat Reflections of Life Member Galleries Virtual Cards* Play Music Superstars Profiles* Galleries* Reviews Gossip & News Other Privacy Policy Terms of Use Link to HKSS* HKSS.com What's New About Contact* Advertise* Help HKSS Links YesAsia yuenStudios Do you like HKSS? My Watched Topics | My Favorites | My Profile Private IMs Register Log in Help | Stats | Members | Groups Search Forum Movie: Human Lanterns HKSS.com Forum Index -> Reviews View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message ContraiFanJoined: 08 Oct 2003Posts: 57Location: greifswald, germany Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:09 am Post subject: Movie: Human Lanterns Film Director(s): Suen Chung Released: 1982 [Hong Kong] Genre: Horror Sub-Genre: Thriller Spooky Eastern, set in the well - known place of innumerable Shaw Brothers movies and combining this with really weird happenings, waft of mist and attacks in the darkness, what works quite well for the atmospehre. The title gives the Plot: Chun Fang [ Lo Lieh ], a former swordsman who was once defeated by Master Lung [ Anthony Lau Wing ] , is ordered by Lung to make a lantern for him, for the upcoming lantern festival. Still with hate and vengeance in his heart, he decides to use human skin from Lung's wife and mistress to craft the lantern. And he also makes use of the sister of Tan Fu [ Chen Kuan Tai ] , one of Lung's rivals. Tan Fu and Lung turn on one another, while Chun Fang continues his macabre work. Underlying normal Swordsplay - flick , but with some gruesomes additions , a savage- masked maniac with theatrical movements, the underground lantern workshop full of separated heads, stretched skin and bone crusher, all that leads to - somehow trashy - thrills. There are also excellent fight scenes , visual and aesthetic top notch shots and a quite abnormal Hero, the conceited and narcistic Master Lung. His rivals with Tan Fu is also rather ridiculous, they are fighting about a prostitue and the nicest lantern, but he still becomes the ( positive ) role model , the police is powerless. In the raving final all meet one another, where's a great slow motion shot of Chun Fang's collapsing house, with the cops still standing on the roof, filmed from above. Movie is pure cinematic trivial story, an unique mix of creepy horror and energetic swordplay action. 8/10 Buy the DVD here Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First HKSS.com Forum Index -> Reviews All times are GMT - 8 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Entertainment----------------All EntertainmentReviewsGossip and NewsIdol DiscussionsMusicMoviesTV Shows Non-Entertainment----------------General DiscussionsNew MembersFun and GamesReflections of LifeHobbies, TravelFood and CookingHelp!Websites HKSS.com----------------Announcements/ What's New?Help HKSS.comFeedback/ Contact HKSS.comWishlist You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum Back to top Copyright © 1996-2014 HKSS.com™. All Rights Reserved. About | Link to HKSS.com | Advertise | Contact | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use Information and images accessed from this site are protected by international copyright and/or other intellectual property rights. You may infringe these rights if you download, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, or exploit such content without the explicit consent of HKSS.com. > Site design by yuenStudios.com (2006)


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Or would it be more accurate to say these are the thoughts of Andy Serkis, the man behind Gollum in the The Lord of the Rings movies? You decide. Here's footage by wrst88 of Serkis going all Gollum on us when asked about the LotR movies, and one thing is for sure: there's conflict!
Andy Serkis on Gollum [wrst88 via The Mary Sue]


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Next tea party target: Trade agenda
Tea party Republicans insist they're in favor of free trade. They just don't want to place a key trade negotiating power in President Barack Obama's hands.
The deep suspicion of giving the president authority to fast-track trade pacts through Congress without amendments — which Republicans have traditionally supported — is just the latest rift between the Big Business-aligned mainstream GOP and the party's more populist tea party wing, which dislikes the legislative mechanisms that make trade deals work and is loath to hand Obama another victory.
Story Continued Below
Already, some of the movement's luminaries are spoiling for the fight.
"We don't have a lot of reason to trust this administration," said former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken tea party critics of Obama's trade agenda. "There's just a reason to wonder what is really going on behind the doors there, especially when there is no congressional oversight."
( Also on POLITICO: President Obama says Timothy Massad his pick to lead CFTC)
Similar rumbles are coming from members of Congress. GOP Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Walter Jones of North Carolina released a letter signed by 22 House Republicans on Tuesday condemning fast-track authority as a measure that allows Obama to "unilaterally write legislation making the pacts' terms U.S. federal law." Rep. Darrell Issa of California, meanwhile, has complained about the Obama administration's "secretive, closed-door negotiating process" on the deals that fast-track authority would prevent Congress from amending.
Outside Congress, tea party movement leaders are delivering a similar message. Judson Phillips, the head of Tea Party Nation, has railed against Obama's trade agenda. So have Bruce Fein, an adviser to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the conservative advocacy group Eagle Forum.
If Obama has fast-track authority, "the House cedes to the president its constitutional power to write legislation that regulates commerce with foreign nations," Schlafly said in a recent email to supporters. "We've never had a president who so arrogantly grabs and uses such unlawful power."
( Also on POLITICO: FTC wading into 'Internet of things')
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and his negotiating team are working to lock in blockbuster pan-Pacific and European trade deals. But the horse trading of negotiating with foreign governments might not be the hard part. The administration also needs Congress to guarantee that it won't later try to amend those deals by approving fast-track trade promotion authority — a tool widely considered essential to get other countries to make politically tough concessions when those negotiations reach their endgames.
The push to have Congress renew fast-track authority is always tricky. Liberal Democrats — the allies of labor unions — reliably oppose free-trade proposals. So does the isolationist wing of the Republican Party. That leaves moderate Democrats to band with more mainstream Republicans to move trade bills.
It's an alliance that in the past has been just strong enough to squeak by. When fast-track trade authority was last approved, the House vote was 215-212. That was 2002 — long before the tea party's rise. It would take less than a majority of House Republicans to gum up the process now. If just some Republicans link arms with liberal, pro-labor Democrats in opposition, that bloc of free-trade supporters could be shattered and fast-track authority doomed.
( Also on POLITICO: 'Patent trolls' launch a lobbying defense in D.C.)
Pro-trade businesses, in an effort to head off the tea party challenge, are already months into their lobbying efforts for a fast-track measure.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has pitched the merits of giving Obama fast-track authority to more than 350 members of Congress — including everyone elected since 2010, said Christopher Wenk, the Chamber's senior international policy director and lobbyist on trade issues on Capitol Hill.
"We are not taking it for granted — this is going to be a very challenging battle on [fast track] for a lot of reasons," Wenk said. "We understand that there are complexities to [fast track] versus a vote on a trade agreement with a country like South Korea or Panama — it is definitely a different kind of trade issue because it is very much a process issue."


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For Terror Suspects, Wheels of Justice Grind Slowly
Slow Prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Shines a Light on a Troubled System
Precisely 12 years ago, a man in Pakistan, with a video camera running to capture the act, drew a knife across the throat of our Wall Street Journal colleague Daniel Pearl and murdered him. Danny—gifted reporter, elegant writer, incurable idealist—was a victim of Islamic extremists who either thought he was an Israeli spy or simply liked the idea of killing an enterprising American journalist.
The identity of Danny's murderer isn't a mystery, nor is he at large. The Wall Street Journal first disclosed a decade ago that the...


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Lisa's Mum does enjoy dressing up for the occasion
I normally don't go for horoscopes. When I run out of paper to read, and there is only the Wizard of ID comic strip, the Vice Regal and the horoscopes left, SOMETIMES I read my horoscope. Mostly, it's because I don't like to be pigeon-holed (as in, 'OMG you are, like, SO Virgo!'). Also, I am a bit bored with the star signs we have. I consulted Lisa's Mum about this and she has presented me with her alternative horoscope for the day, based on what you do, not when you're born. Well done Mum.
If you work in an office: Tolerance and stamina are the words for this week as the mail room loses your PBK order. Jupiter's moons align in your barista's orbit to create you the perfect espresso at morning tea time. That annoying colleague who always talks about himself accidentally staples himself to his desk and doesn't show up to annoy you at yours. Opportunity comes in the form of a public holiday and a 4-day week. Your lower back starts to hurt.
If you are a student/athlete/general bum: Today is a brilliant day! Why? Because you don't have to go to work, you ninny. Go hang out at a cafe and talk about how poor you are.
If you are a born optimist: Today is a brilliant day! Why? Because you've read The Secret and you know that if you believe it it will be true. Go visualise a parking space at your local shopping centre. Venus entering into the new moon brings with it the promise of untold riches as you find $2 lying on the ground.
If you are a born pessimist: Today is a brilliant day! Why? Because you haven't been hit by a bus... yet. Pluto's patterns this month indicate that trouble is on the horizon. Could be related to that email you got last week, promising you $1m from that nice bloke in Nigeria. You have a headache. Could be a tumour.
OK, that's all from me today folks. Ride happy... I hope all your horoscope dreams come true.


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Real-world sunrises get more intense as we get closer to spring—but they pale next to what we can find in games. The lovely time-lapse moments you can see above, from Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto IV, among others, create living, breathing worlds that you just can't wait to dive into.
Video Game Sunrises [YouTube]


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Top Items:
Talking Points Memo:
NRA 'Disappointed' With Biden Meeting For Proposing Restrictions On Guns — The National Rifle Association issued a statement following a meeting on gun violence with Vice President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, saying it was "disappointed" with how much the conversation focused on limiting the Second Amendment.
Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Associated Press
Giffords gun control group wants $20 million for 2014 elections
Giffords gun control group wants $20 million for 2014 elections
Katie Glueck / Politico: NRA: 100K new members in 18 days
Arlette Saenz / ABCNEWS: Gun Violence: Biden Includes NRA, Wal-Mart at Meetings
Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice: Gabby Giffords' New Gun Control Group: A Countervailing Political Force to the NRA?
ZIP / Weasel Zippers: Gabrielle Giffords PAC Hopes To Raise $20 Million To Protect Candidates From NRA Attacks...
Jamelle Bouie / The Plum Line: Another blast in the gun wars
Philip Rucker / Washington Post: In campaign for tougher gun laws, Obama and allies work to tilt public opinion
Rachel Weiner / Post Politics: Gabrielle Giffords anti-gun violence group aims to raise $20 million for 2014
Nra-Ila / NRA-ILA News:
Statement From the National Rifle Association of America Regarding Today's White House Task Force Meeting
Statement From the National Rifle Association of America Regarding Today's White House Task Force Meeting
Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Mediaite
Reid J. Epstein / Politico:
White House and NRA: Gun gulf as wide as ever
White House and NRA: Gun gulf as wide as ever
Discussion: Alan Colmes'Alan Colmes' and CNN
Michael D. Shear / New York Times:
Biden Offers Glimpse of Gun Control Plan Coming in Days
Biden Offers Glimpse of Gun Control Plan Coming in Days
Discussion: Hit & Run, The Week and The Caucus
Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:
After Meeting, NRA Says White House Has 'Agenda to Attack the Second Amendment'
After Meeting, NRA Says White House Has 'Agenda to Attack the Second Amendment'
Discussion: Power Line, Business Insider and msnbc.com
John Hinderaker / Power Line: Well, That Didn't Go Well — The Obama administration claimed …
Brett LoGiurato / Business Insider: Obama Taps Jack Lew For Treasury Secretary And Jokes About His 'Illegible' Signature
Joshua Chaffee / msnbc.com: Va. Tech survivor: Fractures emerging within NRA ranks
Unhinged Tactical Response CEO Threatens to 'Start Killing People' Over Obama's Gun Control … Warning: Language NSFW. — The CEO of a Tennessee company that specializes in weapons and tactical training is threatening to "start killing people" if President Barack Obama moves forward with gun control measures.
Evan McMorris-Santoro / Talking Points Memo: Gun Training Company Declines To Respond To CEO's 'Killing' Comments
The Huffington Post: Tactical Response CEO Threatens To 'Start Killing People' Over Possible Obama Gun Measure (VIDEO)
Benner / Alan Colmes'Alan Colmes': Unhinged CEO Threatens To 'Start Killing People' Over Possible Obama Gun Measure
John Aravosis / AMERICAblog: "I'm gonna start killing people" if Obama issues exec order
Libby Spencer / The Impolitic: Not a well regulated militia — James Yeager, CEO …
David Nakamura / Post Politics: Biden vows White House action on gun control
Digby / Hullabaloo: "I'm not letting anybody take my guns! If it goes one inch further, I'm going to start killing people."
David Edwards / The Raw Story: Fox News guest: Obama's gun control plan is 'papers please like Nazi Germany'
The Atlantic Wire:
Don't Worry, NRA: Obama Can't Do Much on Guns by Himself
Don't Worry, NRA: Obama Can't Do Much on Guns by Himself
Discussion: The Raw Story, The Mahablog, Alan Colmes'Alan Colmes' and Politico
David Edwards / The Raw Story: CNN host urges Drudge to 'step back from the edge' over Obama-Hitler comparison
Maha / The Mahablog: Guns as Sacred Objects
Dave-Dr-Gonzo / Alan Colmes'Alan Colmes': NY Gov. Cuomo Pushes For Assault Weapons Ban
Brett Norman / Politico: Mayors: Do gun research right
Josh Israel / ThinkProgress:
Anti-Gay Pastor Removed From Inaugural Program … Louis Giglio, the anti-LGBT pastor who had been announced to perform the benediction at President Obama's second inauguration, has been removed from the program, ABC News's Jonathan Karl reported Thursday. — The move came after ThinkProgress …
Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Crooks and Liars, Towleroad News #gay, Salon, Hullabaloo, Washington Monthly, The Plum Line, Washington Blade, PostPartisan, Breaking News …, Religion Dispatches, Mediaite, msnbc.com, Balloon Juice, Joe. My. God., Guardian, Good As You, Pharyngula and The Democratic Daily
Kerry Eleveld / The Atlantic Online: Obama Finally Solves His Pastor Problem
Nicole Belle / Crooks and Liars: Obama Chooses Anti-Gay Pastor to Give Inaugural Benediction. Again.
Andy Towle / Towleroad News #gay: Pastor Louie Giglio Calls Homosexuality 'One of the Most Difficult [Issues] Our Nation Will Navigate'
Alex Seitz-Wald / Salon: Anti-gay pastor withdraws
Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly: Benediction and Outreach
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line: A swift end to an ugly mess
Chris Johnson / Washington Blade: Anti-gay pastor withdraws from inauguration
Jonathan Capehart / PostPartisan: Louie Giglio out from Inaugural: Good
Meenal Vamburkar / Mediaite: Pastor Withdraws From Obama Inauguration Due To Anti-Gay Remarks From Past Sermon
Aliyah Frumin / msnbc.com: Pastor bows out of Obama's inauguration over anti-gay sermons
Mistermix / Balloon Juice: Unicorn Search Continues
Jonathan Karl / ABCNEWS:
Pastor Backs Out of Obama Inauguration Over Previous Anti-Gay Comments
Pastor Backs Out of Obama Inauguration Over Previous Anti-Gay Comments
Discussion: Truthdig, BuzzFeed, AMERICAblog, Advocate, New York Times, The Hill, Alternet, First Read and The Hinterland Gazette
Truthdig: Pastor's Anti-Gay Remarks Stir Inauguration Controversy, Taibbi Blasts Government Lies, and More
Chris Geidner / BuzzFeed: Pastor Drops Out Of Obama Inauguration Over Criticism Of Gays And Lesbians
Lucas Grindley / Advocate: Antigay Pastor No Longer on Program for Inauguration
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times: Louie Giglio, Inaugural Pastor, Criticized for Antigay Sermon
Josh Israel / Alternet: Anti-Gay Preacher Tapped for Obama's Inaugural Benediction Withdraws After Firestorm of Public Outrage
NBC's Ali Weinberg / First Read: Pastor withdraws from inaugural ceremonies
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Minister Pulls Out of Inauguration After Outcry
Minister Pulls Out of Inauguration After Outcry
Discussion: National Review, Firedoglake, petitions.whitehouse.gov and Gawker
Nathaniel Botwinick / National Review: Giglio Gone, But Hagel Hangs Around
Teddy Partridge / Firedoglake: Anti-Gay Pastor No Longer on Inaugural Program
petitions.whitehouse.gov: Replace anti-gay Pastor Louie Giglio for the benediction at the inauguration with a pro-LGBT member of the clergy.
EndPlay / KERO-TV:
Report: At least two people shot at Taft High School — TAFT, Calif. - Officials have said that at least two people were shot at Taft High School. — The shooting happened at about 9 a.m., and reports indicate that at least two people were shot. — The shooter was taken into custody at about 9:20 a.m. officials said.
Steve M. / No More Mister Nice Blog: TWO SHOT AT CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL; NRA TO SAY, "THE SYSTEM WORKED"?
Jason Sattler / The National Memo: Biden Promises Gun Recommendations As Another School Shooting Is Reported
Rolandopujolwpix / PIX 11: California school shooting: Student shoots student with shotgun at Taft High School near Bakersfield
Susan Duclos / Wake up America: Two Injured, Suspect in Custody- Shooting At California High School Despite Strictest Guns Laws In U.S.
Robert Kessler / Gawker: Sixteen Year Old Critically Injured in California School Shooting, Student in Custody
David Ferguson / The Raw Story: Suspect in custody after student shot at California high school
Steve Hynd / The Agonist: Another School Shooting?
Janet Shan / The Moderate Voice: Two People Shot at Taft High School in CA, Suspected Gunman in Police Custody
Scott Wise / WTVR-TV: High school shooting; shots fired at Taft high school
Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:
Biden's Gun Violence Event Interrupted By News Of Another School Shooting
Biden's Gun Violence Event Interrupted By News Of Another School Shooting
Discussion: CNN, ABCNEWS, Firedoglake and L.A. NOW
Arlette Saenz / ABCNEWS: NRA Blasts Biden After Meeting on Guns
Pam Spaulding / Firedoglake: Another Shooting Near School During VP Biden's Gun Violence Event; While Another Gun Rights Advocate Threatens Violence
Obama signs bill, gets Secret Service protection for life — Washington (CNN) - With the stroke of a pen Thursday, President Barack Obama gave himself and his wife Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives. — The new law, which passed the House and Senate in December …
Discussion: Politico
Jennifer Epstein / Politico: Obama grants himself lifetime Secret Service protection
Zeke Miller / BuzzFeed:
Obama Signs Bill Giving Himself And George W. Bush Lifetime Secret Service Protection
Obama Signs Bill Giving Himself And George W. Bush Lifetime Secret Service Protection
Discussion: The Hinterland Gazette
Jeff Adelson / New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Gov. Bobby Jindal calls for elimination of all Louisiana income and corporate taxes — Gov. Bobby Jindal is proposing to eliminate Louisiana's income and corporate taxes and pay for those cuts with increased sales taxes, the governor's office confirmed Thursday. The governor's office has not yet provided the details of the plan.
Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Hot Air, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES and The Daily Caller
Mary Katharine Ham / Hot Air: Jindal calls for elimination of all Louisiana income and corporate taxes
Echidne / ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES: Wonderful Political Babble
Erik Wasson / The Hill:
Sessions: Lew must 'never' be Treasury secretary — The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee will oppose Jack Lew's nomination to be Treasury secretary. — Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has prepared a statement saying "Jack Lew must never be Secretary of Treasury."
Discussion: The Hill, Washington Monthly, Politico, The Plum Line, Daily Kos, NewsBusters.org and Outside the Beltway
Kelsey Snell / Politico: It's official: Obama gives Lew the Treasury nod
Jonathan Bernstein / The Plum Line: GOP spirals deeper and deeper into obstructionism
Joan McCarter / Daily Kos: Republican opposition to Obama nominees makes the case for filibuster reform
Matt Hadro / NewsBusters.org: CNN on Obama's Treasury Secretary Picks: 'Perfect' If Wall St. Hates Him, Good If Wall St. Likes Him
Doug Mataconis / Outside the Beltway: Obama Hit For Lack Of Diversity In Reshuffled Cabinet
Josh Eidelson / Salon:
Jack Lew's union-busting past
Jack Lew's union-busting past
Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money
Erik Loomis / Lawyers, Guns & Money: Jack Lew: Union-Buster
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Senate Republicans: Lew will have to answer for White House tactics
Senate Republicans: Lew will have to answer for White House tactics
Discussion: Bernie Sanders, OpenSecrets.org, Forbes, The Maddow Blog, Politico and PostPartisan
OpenSecrets.org: Capital Eye Opener, Jan. 10: Obama's Treasury Pick, the Uphill Battle at the NRCC and More!
Steve Benen / The Maddow Blog: Obama nominates Lew for Treasury
Jennifer Epstein / Politico: Obama jokes about Lew's messy signature
Jonathan Bernstein / PostPartisan: The most urgent need for Senate reform
First Read:
First Thoughts: The disorganized cabinet shuffle
First Thoughts: The disorganized cabinet shuffle
Discussion: Washington Post, Hot Air, BREITBART.COM, The Hill, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Ed Driscoll and Booman Tribune
Ruth Marcus / Washington Post: Obama needs some binders of women
Jonathan Easley / The Hill: Rangel: Lack of diversity in Cabinet 'embarrassing as hell'
Josh Feldman / Mediaite: The 'White Guy Cabinet': The First Pointless Controversy Of Obama's 2nd Term
Mollie Reilly / The Huffington Post: Mike Huckabee Slams Obama Cabinet's Lack Of Diversity
BooMan / Booman Tribune: This Diversity Charge is Bunk
Op Ed / Stanford Daily:
Cory Booker: "Pointing the finger at gays" — Cory Booker's column in the April 8, 1992 Stanford Daily. … I was in my tolerance stage or the "I don't give a damn if someone is gay, just as long as they don't bother me" stage. I was well trained in my tolerance. I stopped telling my gay jokes.
Discussion: Associated Press, Advocate, Joe. My. God. and Post Politics
Lucas Grindley / Advocate: Cory Booker's Evolution From Homophobe to Ally
Rachel Weiner / Post Politics: How Cory Booker overcame his hatred of gays
Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:
Cory Booker Wrestled With His Own Homophobia
Cory Booker Wrestled With His Own Homophobia
Discussion: Post Politics and Gothamist
Glenn Thrush / Politico:
Replacing David: Plouffe-by-committee? — Obama's right hand man in the West Wing and campaign consigliere, David Plouffe, has basically left the building, according to several White House sources who say they haven't seen him around much since the fiscal cliff deal.
Kevin Cirilli / Politico:
Charlie Rangel hits Obama on diversity
Charlie Rangel hits Obama on diversity
Discussion: The Daily Caller, Salon, Guardian, NewsBusters.org, Weasel Zippers and Michelle Malkin
Caroline May / The Daily Caller: National Organization for Women: 'President Obama, where are the Women? '
Joan Walsh / Salon: Does Obama have a diversity problem?
Ana Marie Cox / Guardian: Does Barack Obama have a women problem? | Ana Marie Cox
Clay Waters / NewsBusters.org: New York Times Goes After Obama White House From the Left: 'Inner Circle...Dominated by Men'
ZIP / Weasel Zippers: Dem Rep. Charlie Rangel Calls Obama's All White, Male Cabinet "Embarrassing As Hell"...
Doug Powers / Michelle Malkin: White House reacts to NYT's 'administration dominated by men' story with impressive speed
Ezra Klein / Bloomberg:
Loyal Joe Biden Is Presidential Contender
Loyal Joe Biden Is Presidential Contender
Discussion: CNN, Politico, Washington Post, Washington Monthly and The Reality-Based Community
Aaron Blake / Washington Post: Joe Biden and NRA have long history of antagonism
Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly: Ezra's Case for Biden '16
Keith Humphreys / The Reality-Based Community: Not Worth a Pitcher of Warm You-Know-What
Thomas F. Schaller / Sabato's Crystal Ball:
Democrats Dread 2014 Drop-Off — At first blush, Saxby Chambliss and the Michigan right-to-work episode seem completely unrelated. Most Republicans approve of both, of course, but there is a deeper connection. The Georgia senator and Michigan's effort to restrict organized labor's power …
Discussion: Washington Monthly, Politico and Democratic Strategist
Charles Mahtesian / Politico: The GOP's 2014 ace in the hole
Paul Krugman:
The Mostly Solved Deficit Problem — The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a graph: — The vertical axis measures the projected ratio of federal debt to GDP. The blue line at the top represents the projected path of that ratio as of early 2011 — that is, before recent agreements on spending cuts and tax increases.
Discussion: Mother Jones, Business Insider, Wonkblog and Eschaton
Kevin Drum / Mother Jones: We're Almost Done With Deficit Reduction!
Walter Hickey / Business Insider: PAUL KRUGMAN: The Deficit Is Basically Solved
Matthew Yglesias / Slate:
Fox News Doesn't Understand How Coins Work — Here's Fox News confusing the idea of a coin-shaped pile of platinum worth $1 trillion and a $1 trillion coin that happens to be made out of platinum and can be of any size. We saw earlier this week that the National Republican Campaign Committee …
Discussion: ABCNEWS, Daily Kos, Campaign for America's Future and Althouse
Z. Byron Wolf / ABCNEWS: PM Note: Biden's NRA Meeting Doesn't Go Well, Sessions Opposes Lew Already, Grandpa Rick Perry
Terrance Heath / Campaign for America's Future: Why Ronald Reagan Should Be on the $1 Trillion Platinum Coin
Kevin Liptak / CNN:
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's husband deploying to Afghanistan — (CNN) - The husband of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Michael, received a tearful goodbye from his family Thursday as he prepared for a year-long deployment in Afghanistan. — A captain in the South Carolina National Guard …
Discussion: Associated Press
Stephen Rodrick / New York Times:
Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie — Lindsay Lohan moves through the Chateau Marmont as if she owns the place, but in a debtor-prison kind of way. She'll soon owe the hotel $46,000. Heads turn subtly as she slinks toward a table to meet a young producer and an old director.
Discussion: Gawker, hollyscoop.com and TMZ.com
Rich Juzwiak / Gawker: 'Stripes After Jail, So Not a Good Idea!': What We Learned From NYT Magazine's De Facto Lindsay Lohan Profile
Madison Vanderberg / hollyscoop.com: NY Times Magazine Publishes Scandalous Lindsay Lohan Expose
Edward D. Kleinbard / New York Times:
The Debt Ceiling's Escape Hatch — THE fiscal cliff may have been avoided, but an even higher-stakes political standoff — this time, over the federal debt ceiling — is just around the bend. — Congressional Republicans have said they will demand immense cuts to popular government programs …
Discussion: JustOneMinute, NationalJournal.com, Wonkblog, Business Insider, National Review, Outside the Beltway, The Week, Forbes, Washington Monthly, Hot Air, Felix Salmon and Quartz
Niraj Chokshi / NationalJournal.com: The Latest Debt-Ceiling Proposal: Issue IOU's
Ezra Klein / Wonkblog: Mr. President, don't mint that platinum coin!
Joe Weisenthal / Business Insider: Today The Very Serious People Found Their Alternative To Minting A Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin
Patrick Brennan / National Review: NYT: Time to Start Looking to California for Solutions
Doug Mataconis / Outside the Beltway: The Latest Crazy Solution To the Debt Ceiling: IOU's
Abram Brown / Forbes: Experts Agree: U.S. May Become A 'Simpsons' Episode And Need Platinum Coins Or IOUs
Ryan Cooper / Washington Monthly: How The Platinum Coin Option Helps the President's Negotiating Position
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air: Latest serious idea for fiscal-crisis solution: IOUs
Meenal Vamburkar / Mediaite:
Joe Scarborough Goes Off On Mika Brzezinski After She Asserts He's 'Being Chauvinistic' — The Morning Joe family got heated and a bit awkward this morning during a discussion about the lack of diversity in President Obama's inner circle. As Joe Scarborough pointed to the lack of outrage …
Discussion: The Raw Story, TBogg, Los Angeles Times, Tea Party Patriots, The Daily Caller and Taylor Marsh
David Ferguson / The Raw Story: Joe and Mika have epic clash over lack of women in the Obama administration
Dustin Siggins / Tea Party Patriots: Scarborough calls out his own
Jeff Poor / The Daily Caller: Joe Scarborough slams Mika Brzezinski for defending president's all-male cabinet picks


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The game-winning goal came 1:56 into the second overtime period. Deep in the Babson end of the field, Russo took a long throw-in into the box. Ocel, at the near post, headed it across the goal mouth, hoping to find a teammate, but instead found the back of the net for his fourth goal of the season and his third game-winner. The team was swarmed on the field by the newly-christened Coven's Corner fans as they won their fourth-straight one-goal game. Ocel's goal was the 14th of his career and gave him 45 career points, the 28th player to reach that total at Brandeis.
Trailing 1-0 at halftime for the second time this season, the Judges had what 40th-year head coach Mike Coven called the team's strongest half of soccer of the year. They outshot the Beavers, 16-6, and finally got an equalizer in the 66th minute.
Babson junior goalkeeper Jackson Klein (Maplewood, N.J./Columbia), who had made a pair of saves on Russo and sophomore Tyler Savonen (Orleans, Mass./Nauset Regional) in the 58th minute, looked to stymie the Judges again eight minutes later. Klein first stoned Russo and then Ocel's initial rebound, but Russo buried his second attempt to knot the game, 1-1. It was Russo's team-leading eighth goal of the season and the 28th of his career, moving him into ninth place on Brandeis's career list. With three points tonight, he became the 13th 70-point scorer in school history.
The first half was a back-and-forth affair, with the Judges outshooting Babson, 6-4, but it was the Beavers who struck first in the 29th minute. Senior All-American Eric Anderson (Scituate, Mass./The Rivers School) victimized the Judges for the seventh time in his career. After junior Mike Fisher (Longmeadow, Mass./Longmeadow) made a nice service from the right flank, classmate Kevin Israel (Lafayette Hill, Pa./Germantown Acad.) redirected it to Anderson, who headed it home for his team-leading seventh goal of the season.
Klein kept the Beavers in the contest with 10 saves, including eight in the second half. Brandeis senior Blake Minchoff (Fiskdale, Mass./Tantasqua Regional) had two stops for the Judges.
With the win, Brandeis improves to 8-0 overall this season and has now won 13 in a row dating back to 2011. The Judges are off to their best start since 1985, when they won their first 15 in a row. They also snapped a three-match losing streak to their rivals. This was the 60th meeting between the two schools and the third straight that was decided in double overtime.
Babson, ranked seventh in New England drops its second-straight contest to fall to 5-2-1 on the campaign. The Beavers still lead the all-time series, 28-22-10.
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Ah, the EOI's. For those of you that don't know what they are let me bear the pleasure on informing you. The EOI's are a series of tests that my school takes over several courses that starting in my year everyone has to pass in order to graduate and be able to harbor a parking space in senior year.
So you can imagine the many freakouts in my school over these tests.
The EOI's are generally easy to say the least on the subject yet just the shear possibility that anyone could fail it if ill prepared scares the bejesus out my upper middle-middle class school. I personally can admit to contributing on this said "freakout". So in order to have high test scores and not have their students go through a meltdown my school holds classes after school in order to review for these notorious examines.
And of course because I'm just a natural goody goody that actually gives a crap about her being able to graduate (and being able to have a car space senior year) I attend these Review sessions. I usually pass these state examines but because I have a horrible teacher in Geometry I am forced to work extra hard in the Review class, especially considering the fact that even though for some the class is meant for as a review of what we have supposed to have already learned... it actually my first time really working on the material.
So you can imagine my intense (and very reasonable) fear of bombing my Geometry EOI and having to take it again next year!
But do you know the real actual reason why I thought my thoughts in this said subject were so vital I just needed to blog it?
It's the people that were in the classroom that the Review sessions were being held.
First let me tell you my school harbors a very vast large amount of students and there are a lot of people taking Geometry but only like close to 20 people attend each class. I only saw one guy from my own Geometry class attend which was kind of surprising because I had no idea this guy gave a crap about his grades but he is an athlete and I guess he just doesn't want to retake the test again next year.
And the Teacher that reviews the material with us is just superb, when I didn't know how to plug in a problem for a trigonometry question and she personally when through it step by step and made sure I understood completely I just about got on my knees and kissed her feet and cried, "Where have you been all my life?!?! I think I love you!!!"
I didn't, of course. Mainly because I don't want the woman to get a restraining order on me because (God, bless the woman!) she also teaches Algebra 2 and I am so going to request for her in junior year. I'm just a bit sad that I didn't have the luck to get her for a Geometry teacher sophomore year as well...
But still I know for a fact that there will be many people from my class that will not pass the EOI and are probably not going to get there senior parking spot.
I just think that it's just really sad to think that there are many teenagers that don't care and only think of the now and here instead of the future.
I guess that's just one of the many of things that separate myself from the average kids in my school.
Because I know that my future is bright and no matter what happens I will always contain the perseverance to not give up and keep charging on to my ultimate dream: of becoming a famous author and seeing the world.
I know I sound retarded but it's true and I just felt like letting it out.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The EOI's are coming! The EOI's are coming!
Ah, the EOI's. For those of you that don't know what they are let me bear the pleasure on informing you. The EOI's are a series of tests that my school takes over several courses that starting in my year everyone has to pass in order to graduate and be able to harbor a parking space in senior year.
Posted by missunderstood33 at 9:29 PM


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HARRISBURG - Gov. Tom Corbett is attacking opponents of legislation he supports to pare back public pension benefits, saying they're unable to stand up to public employee labor unions.
Corbett also Wednesday said it was disappointing that opponents used a procedural vote to stall the legislation and he demanded another vote on it.
Corbett's comments to reporters came as lawmakers wait to see whether he will sign a $29.1 billion budget bill on his desk.
Senate Democratic floor leader Jay Costa counters that the pension bill isn't fiscally responsible and it won't provide school districts any immediate savings.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Sam Smith, who supports the pension legislation, is ordering another vote to try to revive the pension bill. Democrats oppose the bill and accused Smith of ignoring House rules.


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Climate Business as Usual
The Bush administration has undertaken a quest for "sound science" as its basis for addressing climate change. But as evidenced by reports of the past year alone, the administration's "science" is driven more by politics than by the pursuit of truth.
As reported in The New York Times, the administration's Climate Action Report, originally released in May 2002, was later altered to include sections that emphasize the uncertainties of climate science, following an initial uproar from administration officials and industry lobbyists. Shortly thereafter, the Environmental Protection Agency released its annual report on U.S. pollution trends, excluding a discussion of CO2 and climate change for the first time in six years. The administration explained the omission by saying that CO2 does not directly threaten people or ecosystems. Still, leaders around the country aren't waiting for Bush to firm up his science before moving ahead: New Jersey's attorney general David Samson, for example, has warned that climate change "poses real and immediate dangers to New Jersey's environment and the health of our citizens."
In mid-November, the administration published its draft strategy for the Climate Change Science Program, outlining a multi-billion dollar plan to study issues most scientists believe have been settled, such as the share of warming since 1950 that is attributable to human activities. The plan ignores several previous studies, including one released in September 2002 by NASA which concludes that global temperature change in the past 50 years is due mainly to human releases of greenhouse gases. According to the NASA report, a continuation of "business as usual" will result in an accelerating rate of warming, raising global temperatures to levels that have not existed during the past several hundred thousand years.
The climate strategy that the Bush administration claims is "a serious, sensible, and science-based response to this global problem" is itself nothing more than business as usual. The administration admits that its plan would increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions a further 43 percent by 2020, while the IPCC-the global scientific body of experts on climate change-has warned that global CO2 emissions must be cut by at least 70 percent during this century to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Most of the world has accepted existing scientific evidence and recognized that climate change is already taking a severe toll in terms of economic and environmental costs and loss of human lives in both developed and developing nations. The European Union, Japan, China, India, and others are moving forward to find solutions, benefiting from investments in new technologies, new jobs, more secure energy systems, improved health, and cleaner air and water.
But the world won't get far in solving climate change without the United States, which is responsible for 25 percent of global emissions. It's high time for Bush science to get up to speed with the science now accepted by the rest of the world.
Janet L. Sawin, Research Associate


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Tow Rope
Tow ropes available in 2 or 3 tons. Rot resistant, poly braided 2 ton tow rope with heavy duty hooks and guards. We offer a maximum pull 3 ton tow rope which has a breaking strain of 5 tons. All ropes come with heavy duty hooks.
If you are unsure what tow rope best suits your requirements, get in contact with us today.
Displaying 1 to 3 (of 3 products)
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MERRY Hill shopping centre has kicked off a month-long Food Explorer campaign.
The initiative, celebrating the diverse array of food on offer at the Westfield mall, will be running until February 28.
Shoppers can enjoy free weekend samples, competitions, offers and food discounts offered in a free voucher booklet.
There will also be activities for kids including cooking workshops with presenter of CBEEBIES' 'I can cook', Katie Ashworth.
The shopping centre will also be hosting celebrations for Pancake Day (Tuesday February 12), Valentine's Day (Thursday February 14) and National Chip Week (February 18 to 24).
Kelly Reed, Merry Hill marketing manager, said: "We're very excited about our Food Explorer celebrations and hope our customers will take full advantage of all the activities, samples and delicious deals we will have on offer throughout the whole of February.
"January was all about cutting back but we think February is the time to have a tasty treat again.
"We have a fantastic food offering at Merry Hill with cuisines from all around the world, from Indian to Chinese and Italian to good old British grub."
Free voucher booklets - which include money-off deals for outlets including Nando's, Pizza Express and Krispy Kreme are available from concierge, promotional staff at the centre and Merry Hill's website - http://uk.westfield.com/merryhill


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Hill skeptical of Syria entanglement
Despite mounting evidence that President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his people, many members of Congress still don't see a role for the United States military in Syria.
A raft of Republican and Democratic lawmakers — including those directly involved in intelligence oversight — think the U.S. would be wise to take a pass on military intervention in the war-torn country.
Story Continued Below
Their line of thinking goes like this: Sending in U.S. troops now is too late, too dangerous, too pricey and not guaranteed to be successful. And a bombing campaign won't do enough. There's also the fear that the U.S. does not know who would lead Syria if Assad falls.
"Syria is too far gone to pick sides," said Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who taught at West Point. "The rebels are infiltrated with Al Qaeda. Assad has joined the ranks of history's most evil despots in what he's willing to do to stay in power. And Russia won't help us find a solution because relations [between Washington and Moscow] are as bad as they have been in 30 years. I don't see a way forward, but U.S. boots on the ground is out of the question in my opinion."
Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, the No. 2 Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said that the situation in Syria is "as complicated as it could be" but added that military intervention in Syria could "have unintended consequences that could, in fact, make the situation worse."
"We should take all necessary steps to support the United Nations inspection efforts and keep a close watch on who has access and who could have access to chemical weapons," Sanchez said in an emailed statement. "We need to make sure an attack of this nature cannot happen again. Going forward, Congress should be involved in any course of action that the Obama Administration takes."
The administration's options range widely — from sending in ground troops to deploying an air campaign to cripple Assad's resources to humanitarian aid. But at this point, members of Congress seem unconvinced.
Of course, thinking can evolve. Members of Congress return after Labor Day and are sure to hear more from the administration about its plans. And if the situation worsens, lawmakers' might change their positions.
( See POLITICO's full Syria coverage)
Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican on the Intelligence Committee, told POLITICO that he is against any intervention unless there is "some overwhelming evidence that the Assad regime has used weapons and only the Assad regime has used the weapons."
The Obama administration "waited too long, now you're playing catch-up," Nunes said. "I think they need to come to Congress to get approval to go in and present a plan. I don't know what their plan would be. Just to lob a few missiles in there? Unless you're trying to take out the dictator himself, I don't know what you're going to do with a few missiles."
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that "Absent an imminent threat to United States national security, the U.S. should not be engaged in military action without congressional approval."
( Also on POLITICO: Barack Obama, reluctant warrior)
The rhetoric opposing intervention could be just that. President Barack Obama can take some military action without declaring war against Syria.
"It has some risk, but I don't think [Obama will] get much backlash," said Leslie Gelb, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations who was an assistant secretary of state under Jimmy Carter. "If he did combine military action with diplomatic and humanitarian initiatives … then, I think that would tend to mute any criticism because it would be tied to using the limited air attacks to advancing the negotiations."
And of course not all lawmakers are opposed to an uptick in U.S. involvement. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have called for "limited military action" in Syria. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) on Monday called for bombing Syria, according to local media reports in Illinois. And Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey has been urging tougher action on Syria for months, teaming up with the likes of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to offer legislation aimed at boosting humanitarian aid to the region while attempting to further isolate the Assad regime.


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David Foster Wallace
News about David Foster Wallace, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. More
Feb. 21, 1962 - Sept. 12, 2008
David Foster Wallace used his prodigious gifts as a writer his manic, exuberant prose, his ferocious powers of observation, his ability to fuse avant-garde techniques with old-fashioned moral seriousness to create a series of strobe-lit portraits of a millennial America overdosing on the drugs of entertainment and self-gratification, and to capture, in the words of the musician Robert Plant, the myriad deep and meaningless facets of contemporary life.
A prose magician, Mr. Wallace was capable of writing in his fiction and nonfiction about subjects from tennis to politics to lobsters, from the horrors of drug withdrawal to the small terrors of life aboard a luxury cruise ship, with humor and fervor and verve. At his best he could write funny, write sad, write sardonic and write serious. He could map the infinite and infinitesimal, the mythic and mundane. He could conjure up an absurd future an America in which herds of feral hamsters roam the land while conveying the inroads the absurd has already made in a country where old television shows are a national touchstone and asinine advertisements wallpaper our lives. Michiko Kakutani


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As Y-12 continued to operate past the 1950s into the decades throughout the remainder of the Cold War, production continued at a rapid pace. All the nation's nuclear weapons have components from Y-12. The Cold War years were years of major expansion and ever increasing change. There was growth in machining expertise and measurement technology, which resulted in Y-12 becoming the most precise machine shop in the nation and likely in the world.
As Y-12 continued to operate past the 1950s into the decades throughout the remainder of the Cold War, production continued at a rapid pace. All the nation's nuclear weapons have components from Y-12. The Cold War years were years of major expansion and ever increasing change. There was growth in machining expertise and measurement technology, which resulted in Y-12 becoming the most precise machine shop in the nation and likely in the world.
All the while there continued to be increased emphasis on safety through the creation of staff organizations to help focus attention on specific actions and programs that would support and provide assistance to the line supervisor. With each lesson learned and each incident where there were near misses and where changes could be made to cause more emphasis on preventing accidents, new initiatives would be implemented.
While safety was very much in the cross hairs of managers and workers alike, the environment was not as much in consideration until regulatory agencies began to bring pressure to bear. There was not much thought given to the environmental impact of coal-fired steam plants constructed in 1945, 1946 and finally, Building 9104-3 constructed in 1955.
The 9104-3 steam plant operated until the last few years, when it was replaced by the present modern steam plant. A note to history, "Big Toot," the steam whistle was removed from the old steam plant and has been placed on the new one. Now if we can just get a policy and procedure to blow it on special occasions.
From an environmental perspective, Y-12's history includes many challenges that have been met during operations that often call for materials to be used that can be hazardous and harmful to the environment if not properly controlled and used. In the past, these materials have sometimes become issues only when adequate knowledge becomes available after years of use.
For example, asbestos is one such material. It was used extensively at Y-12 for years before changes in the way it was handled were made. The increased knowledge of the potential hazard of working around it when it could become airborne caused management and workers alike to become aware of the hazard of working with it and the wearing of proper protective equipment was implemented.
Additionally, Y-12 has very challenging physical features, such as the headwaters of two very low-flow streams, East Fork Poplar Creek and Bear Creek. The aging storm and sanitary sewer lines contribute to the concern for the environment, as well as leaks tend to seep into the groundwater.
Significant environmental legacies exist at Y-12, including considerable mercury lost to the environment (2 million pounds unaccounted for), prevalent uranium contamination and widespread legacy of PCBs. Extensive historical use of land-based disposal has resulted in groundwater contamination. There is also an accumulation of unneeded materials and chemicals that require proper disposal.
Since the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970 and subsequent requirements for permits and inclusion of environmental factors in decision making, Y-12 began to experience more issues from legacy use of potentially hazardous materials. The 1970s saw the frequent and strong interaction between government agencies as each group struggled with what requirements to apply and what requirements to exempt because of national security. Y-12 had been accustomed to meeting the mission of producing nuclear weapons components for all nuclear weapons in the nation's stockpile.
Y-12 went for years without missing a single shipping schedule. All the while, doing what was thought at the time to be the best methods to deal with the necessary use of hazardous materials and remain safe while protecting the environment as best they knew how at the time.
Remember that mercury was allowed to escape the site in the East Fork Poplar Creek while the COLEX (Column Exchange) process operated during 1955 to 1963. And it was not until 1983, when information about the mercury spills was declassified, that action was taken to return the contaminated soil to the site.
The first survey to sweep through the site that I recall was one for asbestos. It was in the early 1980s and the people who had been working with asbestos for years lamented the loss of such a good insulating material. The reality of the hazard began to sink in, however, especially when similar concerns for beryllium exposure began to be studied.
Increased emphasis was placed on the use of personal protective equipment that would provide protection from these airborne hazards. Areas began to be flagged off and buffer areas established.
Over the ensuing years the environment at the Y-12 site has been improved through many different strategies. Cleaning up contamination and shutting down facilities, as well as the reduction of airborne contamination have all contributed to improved environmental conditions.
As Y-12 has been transforming to a smaller, safer, more secure, and less expensive nuclear weapons complex, efforts have continued to maintain constant improvement. The scientific and technical capabilities that were present in the workforce have kept a constant vigilance. Each new project, program, and modification has been examined for health safety and environment issues.
Infrastructure reduction removed excess buildings and infrastructure. In addition to reducing costs, this resulted in improved environmental conditions.
In a recent internal news article, Donna Watson said, "Early on, Gordon Fee and Todd Butz of Y-12 and Bill Bibb of DOE Defense Programs laid the foundation for regulatory compliance at the site. Building on that groundwork were a number of engineers still here today — Clarence Hill, Lenny Vaughan, Terry Cothron, and Wayne McMahon, to name a few."
Watson continued, "Under the influence of these professionals, (all currently in Environment, Safety, and Health's Environmental Compliance organization), the environmental programs have matured, and notably at times, exceeded requirements."
It is through the leadership efforts of these type individuals, as well as the enhanced awareness of the entire workforce that has resulted in awards such as the Voluntary Protection Program being awarded Y-12 over the years.


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A local man was arrested on Wednesday, July 31 on an assortment of sexual assault charges.
, 20, of Southington, was charged with three counts of second degree sexual assault, fourth degree sexual assault and four counts of risk of injury/impairing the morals of a minor. Bond was set at $75,000 with an August 1 court date.
Details on the case were order sealed by the court system.


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Tiffany Snow & Ricardo Marsh Named Athletes of the Year
By ODU Athletics
April 29, 2003
NORFOLK, VA. -Field hockey senior Tiffany Snow (Escondindo, CA.), and men's basketball senior Ricardo Marsh (Mebane, NC.) were named Athletes of the Year by the Old Dominion University Alumni Association. Golfer Geoffrey Harris (Reading, Dengland), field hockey's Tara Herrmann (Perkasie, PA.) and women's tennis Julia Sotiriu (Wendelstien, Germany) were named the 2003 Jack Wilkins/James Howard Scholar Athletes of the Year at the annual Old Dominion University Athletic Honors Banquet and Hall of Fame induction which was held at the Ted Constant Convocation Center Tuesday night.
Snow became the sixth Old Dominion field hockey player to be named a Honda Award winner as the nation's top field hockey player after guiding the Lady Monarchs to a 21-4 record and to the NCAA semi-finals. This past season Snow was tied for second in the nation in points (75), second in the nation in goals scored with 30 and 11th nationally in assists with 15. Defensively she led ODU to six shutouts and a team best three defensive saves. Snow finished her career ranked sixth on the Old Dominion all-time goals list with 71 and 182 total points. Snow's list of honors and awards bestowed upon her this season include her second first team Dita/NFHCA All-America, and CAA Player of the Year, CAA Tournament MVP, and the prestigious Tom Scott Award.
Marsh led the Monarchs in scoring at 16.7 points, and in rebounds at 8.3 per game. He earned first team All-CAA, first team All-NABC District IV, and first team All-State honors this year. The two-time All-CAA selection ranked in the league's top five in three categories. He was fourth in scoring, third in rebounding and fifth in field goal percentage. Marsh performed the double-double five times, and led ODU in scoring 12 times. Marsh joined the 1,000 career point mark on Dec. 20 against the University of Dayton, and completed his career with 1,350 points which rank him 20th all-time at ODU. He also hauled in 690 career rebounds, which rank him 15th all-time as a Monarch.
The Jack Wilkins/James Howard Scholar Athletes of the year are presented to the male and female senior athletes with the highest grade point averages. Both Howard and Wilkins were instrumental in the formation of the Intercollegiate Foundation in 1965.
Geoffrey Harris captured this year's CAA Individual Golf Championship with a record setting score of 203 for 54 holes. He helped lead the Monarchs to a the school's first ever CAA team title and will compete in the NCAA Tournament, May 15-17. Harris won two tournaments this year and placed fourth or better six times this year. Harris, who represented Great Britain in last year's Palmer Cup against top US Collegians and a finalist for the prestigious Byron Nelson Award. He ranks in the nation's top 25 with a 71.55 scoring average and is a sports management major.
Julia Sotiriu helped the Lady Monarchs to a #72 national ranking and a semi-final appearane in the CAA Championships. Sotiriu won 16 matches this year. She also won the flight C doubles crown at the East Coast tennis championships. A native of Wendelstien, Germany, Sotiriu is majoring in international business.
Tara Herrmann is a two-time NFHCA Academic All-American. She scored 18 goals this season as the Lady Monarchs reached the NCAA national semi-finals. Herrmann earned second team All-CAA honors this year. The Perkasie, PA., native is a biology major.
Old Dominion University also inducted five former athletes into the school's Sports Hall of Fame. They included: Ericka Davidheiser (Lacrosse), Patrick Downey (Sailing), Kelli James (Field Hockey), Louis Morris (Tennis), and Jan Trombly (Women's Basketball).
In addition to the above awards, the Most Valuable Players from each sport were recognized. They are as follows:
Baseball: TBA Men's Basketball Ricardo Marsh Women's Basketball Okeisha Howard Men's Golf Geoffrey Harris Field Hockey Tiffany Snow Women's Lacrosse Suzanne Wosczyna Men's Sailing Jack Kerr Women's Sailing Corrie Clement Men's Soccer Brandon Baker Women's Soccer Sarah Raible Men's Swimming Martin Lundgren Women's Swimming Sarah Mooney Men's Tennis Zoltan Csanadi Women's Tennis Nataly Cahana Wrestling Ben Summerlin


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Find The Objects in Furniture Shop is a online finding game by 123peppy. Find the objects which are hidden inside with in 10 min. Click over the objects to get points. You will lose points for making mistakes. Good luck and have fun.
Welcome to free online hidden object games, no download. You can find the new unlimited and best secret things games on our site. At the right place for searching and finding hidden objects. Our site is updated frequently and adds the best games for fans of the lost items games. You can follow us on social media.